Without-Name took the creature from an unresisting Babo. She held it up by its head. Dangling, the hominid hooted and thrashed, scratching at Manekato’s arm with its legs and fists, but its motions; were slow and feeble.

With a single, harsh motion Without-Name crushed the hominid’s skull. The body shuddered once, and was limp. Without-Name let the body fall to the ground, its head a bloody pulp. A Worker scuttled close and swept up the tiny corpse.

Babo looked at Without-Name, his face empty of expression.

“Why did you do that?”

“There was no mind,” said Without-Name. “There was no utility. Therefore there was no right to life. I have been dispossessed by this Moon. I will not rest until I have made the Moon my possession in turn.”

Manekato suppressed her anger. “We did not come here to kill. We came to learn to learn and negotiate.”

Without-Name spat a gobbet of thick phlegm out onto the grass. “We all have our reasons to be here, Manekatopokanemahedo. You follow the foolish dreams of the Astrologers. I am a Farmer.”

“And,” Manekato said slowly, “is that your ambition here? To subdue a new world, to turn it all into your dominion?”

“What higher ambition could there be?”

“But we have yet to find those who moved this world. They were more powerful than these blades of grass, that wretched hominid. Remember that, Renemenagota, when you boast of what you will conquer.”

Now Manekato saw that two burly Workers had brought another hominid for their inspection. It was taller, heavier than the last, but it was scrawny, filthy, hollow-eyed.

Again Without-Name picked up the specimen by its skull and lifted it easily off the ground. The creature cried and struggled, clearly in distress, but its movements were still more sluggish than the first’s, and it made no attempt to injure Without-Name.

“Let it go,” Manekato said evenly.

Without-Name studied her. “You are not of my Lineage. You do not have authority over me.”

“Look at it, Renemenagota. It is wearing clothes.”

Babo breathed deeply. “Do it,” he said. “Or I will have the Workers stop you. I have the authority for that, nameless one, thanks to the Astrologers you despise.”

Without-Name growled her protest. But she released the hominid, which fell into a heap on the floor, and stalked away.

Manekato and Babo huddled over the hominid. It had curled into a foetal position; as gently as they could they turned it on its back and prised open its limbs.

“I think it is female,” Babo said. “Its head is badly bruised, as is its neck, and it struggles to breathe. Without-Name has damaged it.”

“Perhaps the Workers can repair it.”

The hominid coughed and struggled to sit up. Babo helped it with a lift from a powerful hand.

“My name,” the hominid said, “is Nemoto.”

Shadow:

The antelope had got separated from its herd. It was running awkwardly, perhaps hampered by age or injury.

With fluid grace, the lion leapt onto the antelope’s back, forcing it to the ground in a cloud of crimson dust. The antelope kicked and struggled, its back and haunches already horribly ripped. Then the lion inflicted a final, almost graceful bite to its throat. As its blood poured onto the dust of the savannah, Shadow saw surprise in the antelope’s eyes.

More lions came loping up to feed.

Shadow remained huddled behind her rock — exposed on the open savannah, but downwind of the kill. She kept her baby quiet by cradling its big, deformed head tightly against her stomach.

The lions pushed their faces into the fallen antelope’s carcass, digging into the entrails and the easily accessible meat of the fleshy areas. Soon their muzzles were crimson with blood, and their growls of contentment were loud. Shadow was overwhelmed by the iron stink of blood, and the sharp burning scent of the lion’s fur — and by hunger; her mouth pooled with saliva.

Her face itched, and she scratched it.

At last the lions” purring growls receded.

Already more scavengers were approaching the carcass. Hyenas loped hungrily towards it in a jostling pack, and overhead the first bats were wheeling, huge carrion-eating bats, their wings black stripes against the sky.

And, from the crater’s wooded rim, people emerged: Elf-folk like Shadow, men, women and infants, melting out of the green shelter of the woods, their black pelts stark against the green and crimson of the plain. They eyed the carcass hungrily, and they carried sticks and cobbles.

But the hyenas were hungry too, and in a moment they were on the antelope, burying their muzzles inside the great rips made by the lions” jaws, already fighting amongst-themselves. Their lithe bodies clustered over the carcass, tails high in the air, from a distance like maggots working a wound.

The people moved in, yelling and waving their sticks and throwing their stones. Some of the dogs were hit by hurled cobbles. One man, a squat, manic creature with one eye closed by a huge scar, got close enough to pound one animal with a fat branch, causing the dog to yelp and stumble. But the dogs did not back away. A few of them tore themselves away from the meat long enough to rush at the hominids, barking and snapping, before hurling themselves back into the feast. Most simply ignored the people, gouging out as much meat as they could before being forced away by a dog bigger and stronger.

So it went, a web of complex but unconscious calculations: each hyena’s dilemma over whether to attack the hominids, or whether to gamble that another dog would, leaving it free to take more meat; the hominids” estimation of the strength and determination of the hyenas versus their own hunger and the value of the meat.

This time, at least, the hyenas were too strong.

The Elf-folk troupe backed away sullenly. They found a place in the shade of the trees at the forest edge, staring with undisguised envy at the rich meat being devoured by the dogs.

At last the hyenas started to disperse. They had taken most of the meat, and the antelope was reduced to scattered bones and bits of flesh on a blood-stained patch of ground, as if it had exploded. Again the people came forward, and their stones and sticks drove away the last of the dogs.

There was little meat to be had. But there was still a rich resource here, which hominid tools could reach. The adults took the antelope’s bones and, with brisk, skilful strikes of their shaped stones, they cracked them open. Soon many of the people were sucking marrow greedily. Children fought over scraps of flesh and cartilage.

Huge bats flapped down, their leathery wings black, vulture-like. They pecked at outlying bits of the carcass, bloodying their fur. The people tolerated them. But if the bats came too close they would be greeted by a stick wielded by a hooting hominid.

Shadow came out from behind her rock.

A child came up to her, curious, a bit of gristle dangling from her chin. But as Shadow neared, the child wrinkled her nose and stared hard at Shadow’s face. Then she turned and ran for the security of her mother.

As Shadow approached the group, the people moved their children away from her, or growled, or even threw stones. But they did not try to drive her away.

Shadow saw a big older woman, the hair of her back oddly streaked with silver. This woman — Silverneck — was working assiduously at the remnant of a thigh bone. Shadow sat close to Silverneck, not asking for food, content not to be rejected.

The sun wheeled across the sky, and the people worked at the carcass.

At length Silverneck hurled away the last fragments of bone. She lay on her back, legs crossed, and crooked an arm behind her head. She belched, picked bits of marrow and bone from her teeth, and thrust a finger into one nostril with every sign of contentment.