And he was never going to do that by scraping mussels off rocks like a child. He was going to have to hunt, that was all. He was going to have to go out and bring home some big game — and he would have to do it alone, so he could prove to Agema and the rest that he was as strong, resourceful, and capable as any man.

The bulk of the people’s food came from hunting small creatures or just simple foraging, in the sea, the river, and the coastal strip of forest: straightforward, low-risk, unspectacular stuff. Hunting bigger prey was pretty much a male preserve, a risky game that gave men and boys the chance to show off their fitness, just as it always had. And this ancient game was what Jana was going to have to play now.

Of course he wasn’t foolish enough to take on anything too massive alone. The largest animals could be brought down only by a cooperative hunt. But there was one target that a solo hunter could bring home.

He kept walking, heading deeper into the forest.

At length he came to another clearing. And here he spotted what he wanted.

He had found a nest of roughly assembled foliage inside of which a dozen eggs had been carefully arranged. What made the nest extraordinary was its size — probably Jana himself could have laid down inside it — and some of those eggs were as big as Jana’s skull. Purga, if she could have seen this tremendous structure, might have believed that the dinosaurs had indeed returned.

Jana laid his trap with skill. He scouted around the clearing until he spotted the mother bird’s huge splay-footed tracks. He followed the tracks a little way into the forest. Then he strung ropes between the trees across the tracks, and he took his double-pointed spears and rammed them into the ground.

After that, it was time to set the fire.

It was quick work to gather bits of dry wood. To create a flame he used a tiny bow to rotate a stick of wood in a socket in a small log. He nursed the blaze with bits of kindling. When the fire had caught he thrust torches into the flames, and hurled them around the forest.

Everywhere the torches landed, flames blossomed like deadly flowers.

Birds rose with a shriek, fleeing the rising smoke, and ratty little kangaroos scurried at his feet, their eyes wide with alarm. By the time he had retreated to the clearing the flames were spreading, the separate pockets of fire joining up.

At last a huge bipedal form came screeching out of the forest. She bristled with dark feathers, her head held up on a long neck, and her muscular legs seemed to make the ground shake as she ran. She was a genyornis, a giant flightless bird twice the size of an emu. In fact she was one of the largest birds that would ever live. But she was terrified, Jana could see that: her eyes were wide; her startlingly small beak gaped.

And the bird’s great feet caught in his rope. She plummeted forward toward the ground. Her own momentum skewered her neatly on Jana’s spear. She did not die immediately. Trapped, the bloody spear protruding from her back, the genyornis flapped her feeble, useless wings. A deep part of her awareness experienced a kind of regret that her remote ancestors had given up the gift of the air. But now here was a capering, yelling hominid, and an ax that fell.

The flames were spreading. Jana was going to have to hurry his butchery and get out of here.

There had been fires in Australia before the arrival of humans, of course. They had come mostly in the monsoon season, when there were many lightning strikes. Some fire-resistant species of plants had developed in response. But they were not widespread or dominant.

But now things were changing. Everywhere they went the people burned, to encourage the growth of edible plants and to drive out game. The vegetation had already begun to adapt. Grasses, as hardy and prevalent as they were everywhere, were able to burn fiercely and yet survive. Candlebark eucalyptus trees had actually evolved to carry flame; bits of bark would break off and, borne by the wind, ignite new blazes tens of kilometers away. But for each winner there were many, many losers. The more fire-sensitive woody plants couldn’t compete in the new conditions. Cypress pines, which had once been prevalent, were becoming rare. Even some plants prized by the people as food sources, like some fruiting shrubs, were extinguished. And as their habitats were scorched, animal communities imploded.

From Ejan’s original pinprick landing site, people were diffusing out, generation by generation, along the coasts and river courses. It was as if a great wave of fire and smoke were spreading out from Australia’s northwestern fringe, working across the interior of this vast red land. And before this front of destruction, the old life succumbed. The loss of the giant mussels had been just the first of the extinctions.

As Jana left the forest the fire still blazed, spreading rapidly, and great pillars of smoke towered into the sky. Uninterested, he did not turn back.

He could not carry the whole bird home, of course. But then, bringing back food wasn’t really the point. And when Jana walked into his camp with the genyornis’s head mounted on a spear, he was gratified by the slaps of approval from Osu and the others — and by the shy acceptance of his gifts by Agema.

The bark canoe sat motionless on the lake’s murky water.

Jo’on and his wife, Leda, were fishing. Jo’on was standing up, holding his spear ready for the fish. The spear was tipped with wallaby bone, ground sharp and set in gum resin. Leda had made her line from pounded bark fiber, and had fitted it with a hook made from a bit of shell. But the hooks were brittle, the line weak, so Leda’s intention was to lead in a hooked fish as gently as possible, while Jo’on stood ready to spear it.

Jo’on was forty years old. He was scrawny, but his wrinkled face was good-humored, though lined by a lifetime of hard work. And he was proud of his boat.

The canoe had been made by cutting a long oval of bark from a eucalyptus and tying up its ends to make bow and stern. The gunwale was reinforced with a stick sewn on with vegetable fiber, and shorter sticks served as spreaders. The cracks and seams were caulked with clay and gum resin. The canoe was unstable, though; low in the water it flexed with every ripple and leaked enthusiastically. But, leaky or not, with a little skill you could handle this canoe even in rough water. And if it was crudely finished, its main beauty was its simplicity; Jo’on had knocked it together in a day.

Jo’on’s ancestors, starting with Ejan’s very first landing, had walked right across Australia, from the northwest to this southeast corner, right across the continent’s arid center. But they had never lost the knack for building a fine boat. Jo’on’s canoe even had a fire, burning on a slab of wet clay sitting on the bottom, so they could cook the crayfish they caught.

Or could have, if they had caught any.

Jo’on didn’t really care. He could have stood here in the seductive silence of his boat all day, whether the fish came to see him or not. Even the crocodiles that slid past, eyes glinting, failed to disturb his equilibrium. It was better than being back in the camp by the shore, where kids ran everywhere, men boasted, and women ground roots. Not to mention the yapping dingoes. In his opinion those half-wild dogs were more of a nuisance than they were worth, even if they did sometimes help flush out game.

Leda’s patience snapped. With a snort of disgust she hurled her line into the water. “Stupid fish.”

Jo’on sat down before her. “Now, Leda. The fish are just shy today. You shouldn’t have thrown away your line. We’ll have to—”

“And stupid, useless, leaking boat!” She kicked at the puddle of river water that lay in the flexing bottom of the boat, splashing him.