The Days of Peleg (57 page)

“And what did he say when he held up his thumb and you both started laughing?”

Shem grinned. “Bernifal said, ‘Where the thumb goes, so goes the head.’”

He raised his own thumb.

“This is a phrase that Bernifal always taught his students during unarmed combat training. If you can gain control of your opponent’s thumb, whichever direction you twist it, your opponent will reflexively jump in that direction—headfirst. When Bernifal twisted that man’s thumb towards the sides of the corridor, the man obligingly drove his own head into the wall.”

Shem finished with a light laugh. Peleg joined him briefly, until he remembered he was still angry.

He took another sip from the skin, then hurriedly returned it to Shem while he tried to rekindle some of the bitterness he had felt upon first seeing him.

“How is it, that, no matter what happens, you can always rationalize with some version of ‘The
Creator
planned it’?” he asked in a voice much more snide than he had intended.

Shem just smiled and said, “The
Creator
knows the future, and plans accordingly.”

Peleg choked at the obvious inconsistency, but kept quiet.

They both walked towards the fire where Bernifal was slowly turning the spitted rabbits. They sat on the ground and were soon lost in individual thoughts as they stared into the fire. Peleg was glad his eyes no longer hurt from the light.

Suddenly a question burst into Peleg’s mind, and before he knew it, he verbalized it.

“Does this
Creator
have a name, or is he just called ‘
Creator
’?”

Shem shook himself out of his reverie and nodded slightly.

“Yes, He does,” he answered. “But we avoid its use for fear of familiarity.”

He smiled gently.

“But the name by which He calls Himself is
Yahweh
,” he said, finally. “It is generally reserved for personal use only.”

Peleg returned to staring into the fire. He was suddenly overcome by relief as it suddenly dawned on him that he was free. He had spent months belowground, all the while fearing he would spend the rest of his life there.
That
possibility had now vanished, but it was just at this moment, while staring into the fire, that the reality sank in. He now had a clear path towards home—and he should be ready to take advantage of this when the opportunity presented itself.

Another question came unbidden into his mind and tumbled out of his mouth.

“What exactly did you mean when you said, ‘We shall follow the lineage ourselves’?”

Shem turned quickly towards Peleg, a look of grave intensity on his face.

“Why, we are traveling to Uruk to find your son, Reu!” Shem flashed a huge smile that anticipated an identical response from Peleg—which did not come. “We must follow the lineage, and there is no better place to begin.”

He paused with a frown.

“Of course, it will be dangerous. In addition to Sargon’s patrols, there are also roaming thieves, and the occasional bands of
uncultured
.”

Peleg was surprised at that word. Apparently it was one that Alapar had taught Shem. Occasionally, groups of people would choose to live far from the cities, wanting nothing to do with the structure and safety that a strong, cultured city provided. It was, however, a very impolite term—almost an epithet. It certainly did
not
apply to the farmers, herdsmen, craftsmen, and traders who lived outside of the cities, whose constant interaction (rent and taxes) was deemed vital to the city’s prosperity. The
uncultured
were malcontents. However, people with manners simply referred to them as outsiders.

But his surprise was quickly replaced with excitement. They were going in the direction of his homeland! As long as his captors were traveling in the direction he wanted to go, there was no reason not to stay with them. In fact, traveling with this big, crazy man, and a combat expert like Bernifal probably increased his chances of arriving safely. He could choose some later date to break away and head for Ur.

A wave of contentedness settled over him as he watched the rabbits roast. Perhaps he could still return to the
Citadel
and resume his life. He would find Reu-Nathor and present him with a verbal report of their expedition. He would even find Inanna and let her glean what she could from his account.

He would be reunited with his wives and discover which of his children had been accepted into the
Citadel
. He could resume his teaching and studies, and he would surely be given a place of high honor as someone who had returned from the Great Discovery.

“
Unfair!
”

A terrifying flashback to the nightmare that had started this day interrupted his thoughts, making him jump. He took a breath and tried to calm his heart. He would
not
let that hallucination bother him now.

But he had to concede that one aspect of that event
did
disturb him somewhat.

It didn’t seem like his
own
imagination could have conjured up such a dream. However, if some form of visitation
had
actually happened, it meant that some of Shem’s beliefs might also be true.

“Wake up!”

Peleg twisted around to see Shem standing over him, reddish reflections flickering across his face from the lingering coals in the fireplace.

“We have a great deal of distance to cover today,” Shem said. “There is a place of refuge about eight days from here, and we must arrive there as quickly as possible.”

Peleg groaned silently. He had been enjoying the best sleep that he could remember since the demise of the
Urbat
. Probably because it was his first sleep with fresh air.

The delicious memory of roast rabbit lingered in his mind. In addition to being a close combat specialist, Bernifal was also an expert with herbs. Serug would have loved him.

He rose, shook his head, and collected his bearskin. Bernifal was stamping out the remainder of the fire while Shem stood in the center of the cave, holding his two bags.

Peleg started towards the opening, but Shem stopped him.

“This way,” he said, pointing to the back of the cave where Peleg had noticed the small archway, but had decided not to explore.

Bernifal finished with the fire and began arranging everything so that the cave appeared exactly as they had found it. He picked up a small spit, hefted it like a javelin, and then turned and grinned at them. Shem barked something impatient at him, and Bernifal stopped grinning and headed into the back hallway still carrying the spit. Shem followed and beckoned to Peleg, who went in after him.

It was a tight, winding corridor which was nothing like the walkways back in Haganah. It was humid and dirty, and Peleg could feel roots and pieces of hanging moss brush against his head and face.

Fortunately it didn’t last long. Soon some light could be seen, and within a few more paces, they emerged through some underbrush out onto a brilliant green hillside.

He brushed himself off as his eyes adjusted. The sun was just rising to their right, and it splashed light on a beautiful hill covered with wild flowers that loomed across from them. A small valley, covered in a fine fog (which masked a noisy brook) lay before them, and far in the distance to his left, he saw a large mountain range. He squinted slightly and saw that the tips were a bright white—a sharp contrast to the purplish green beneath. It reminded him of some of the first mountains he had seen on the polar continent.

He turned around to find they had just emerged from the base of a small cliff which jutted out from the side of a large mountain. He tipped his neck upward, but was unable to see the top from his current vantage point. He stepped back slightly, forgetting he was standing on a hillside, and would have fallen backwards on his head if Shem had not caught him.

He had not seen such a large open space since his fall from
Zini
, and it took him a moment to adjust his frame of reference to encompass the enormity of his view. He took a deep breath and found himself focusing on the wildflowers across from them—shimmering with light as the sun continued to rise. Brilliant yellows, deep blues, and fiery purples assailed his eyes which had seen virtually no color during his time underground. Strips of deep red twisted up the hillside, while tufts of green leaves pushed through in small patches. A crown of full evergreens topped the hill, and also defined where a larger, white-tipped mountain emerged from behind.

A nudge from Shem brought Peleg back to his immediate surroundings. He pointed towards Bernifal, who was scampering away from them along the hillside.

“We must move quickly,” he said. “Follow him.”

Peleg followed, with Shem behind him, as Bernifal maintained a straight, lateral path across the side of the mountain, which neither went up the hill nor down into the valley, forcing them to walk awkwardly. They continued at a brisk pace for several hours, straight into the sun as it continued to rise overhead.

Peleg’s legs began to ache. He had learned to walk on a heaving ship deck, up and down rocky mountains, and even maintain his balance while walking across a layer of slippery
šeg
. But walking sideways along a hillside where he wished one leg was longer than the other was becoming very uncomfortable.

Shem said nothing as they walked, seemingly deep in thought. Peleg suspected that it might have something to do with Shem losing the people he had led for so many years.

Bernifal stopped suddenly and pointed to a large bank of evergreen trees which created a large covered area just slightly uphill from where they were. He spoke something sharply to Shem, and then dashed directly downhill.

Shem pointed up to the trees and said, “We’ll rest under those trees for a while.”

Peleg nodded and he and Shem headed uphill towards the trees. Bernifal had long since disappeared into the foliage below. Peleg hoped that this stop would also include some food, since he hadn’t eaten anything since last night’s rabbit.

They sat down under the trees and Peleg ventured a conversation.

“You seem uncharacteristically quiet today,” he said with a slight grin, making sure he didn’t offend him.

Shem lifted his head slightly without looking into Peleg’s eyes and nodded with a shrug but said nothing.

A wave of genuine sympathy welled up in Peleg.

“I truly am sorry that your people turned on you like that,” he said. “It must be difficult to lose the community you’ve led and worked with for so long.”

Shem looked up, surprised.

“Difficult?” he said, his voice rising. “Difficult?” he repeated, staring into Peleg’s face. His arms flew up in the air. “I lost a whole world once! Losing the respect of a group of people who no longer want you is trivial.” His hands began to wave in exasperation. “Difficult? I’m better off …”

He stopped as Peleg’s concern registered. He also realized that his words weren’t entirely convincing.

“I appreciate your kindness,” he said, sincerely, then broke into a large smile—the first all day.

“But now I have
you
!” he said, eyes gleaming. “Nothing else matters, now!”

His huge grin brought the word ‘manic’ back to Peleg’s mind.

“I would probably have spent the rest of my life in those caverns,” Shem continued, “if the
Creator
had not brought you to me. I truly felt as though I had failed in my task and I was despairing.”

He quieted suddenly, moving closer to Peleg.

“I had told the
Creator
that I was giving up—and would do nothing else,” he said as if confessing something. “I told Him, ‘You must do something, because I am finished’.”

Shem leaned back and grinned again.

“As soon as I said this,
you
arrived.”

Peleg groaned inwardly. This man simply could not talk without mentioning the
Creator
.

But he did realize that ever since Shem had given him that ‘Shipbuilder builders’ analogy, he hadn’t been able to look at the world in the same way. Wherever he saw life, he could no longer dismiss it with the convenient label ‘
Lifeforce
’.
If
life obeyed the same laws of nature as everything else, then there must be some objective,
mechanical
means by which it grew and propagated. Simply put, mass didn’t increase on its own, yet plants and animals grew. Some mechanism must be in place to administer the growth and convert raw materials: food, water, and other basic necessities.

The question verbalized before he realized it.

“When you were speaking about the ‘ship-builders,” he began, “You said that there was ‘no way any
man-made
creation like that’ could exist. I’m sure you were implying that such a
Creator
-made object
did
exist.”

He paused and Shem nodded.

“What I would like to see is an actual example, preferably with an explanation of how it works.” Peleg finished a little too aggressively, and hoped it didn’t sound demanding.

Shem nodded again, and smiled, but it was a paternal smile that would have been condescending were it not for the genuine kindness in his eyes.

“There is no way I could explain such a thing to you,” he said, “other than the analogy I have already given you. You simply do not have the technological understanding for it.”

Peleg started to protest, but Shem quieted him with a finger and continued.

“However, I can give a simple demonstration.”

He stood and reached up into the branches above them and searched until he found a pinecone, which he extracted and brought down, returning to his seat on the ground. He pushed a large finger in between the barbs of the cone and twisted under one until he loosened the thin seed lodged inside. Pinching the seed in his fingers, he handed it to Peleg who simply stared at it.

“This seed contains all of the instructions necessary to build this tree behind me. The
quipu
threads, if you like,” Shem began. “It has instructions to tell the tree how to grow, what to look like, how to convert dirt and water into nourishment, how to transform sunlight into energy, and how to create the chemicals needed for life. Just like your ship needed blueprints before it was constructed, so this seed contains blueprints—but these blueprints are for constructing all of the devices needed to do everything I just mentioned. Also for making wood, bark, needles, and, most importantly…”