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Those instincts had served his ancestors well, in the days of warm rains and lush fertility, when food was to be had everywhere for the plucking. Now times had changed, and the inherited wisdom of the past had become folly. The man-apes must adapt, or they must die — like the greater beasts who had gone before them, and whose bones now lay sealed within the limestone hills.

So Moon-Watcher stared at the crystal monolith with unblinking eyes, while his brain lay open to its still uncertain manipulations. Often he felt nausea, but always he felt hunger; and from time to time his hands clenched unconsciously in the patterns that would determine his new way of life.

As the line of warthogs moved snuffling and grunting across the trail, Moon-Watcher came to a sudden halt. Pigs and man-apes had always ignored each other, for there was no conflict of interest between them. Like most animals that did not compete for the same food, they merely kept out of each other’s way.

Yet now Moon-Watcher stood looking at them, wavering back and forth uncertainly as he was buffeted by impulses which he could not understand. Then, as if in a dream, he started searching the ground — though for what, he could not have explained even if he had had the power of speech. He would recognize it when he saw it.

It was a heavy, pointed stone about six inches long, and though it did not fit his hand perfectly, it would do. As he swung his hand around, puzzled by its suddenly increased weight, he felt a pleasing sense of power and authority. He started to move toward the nearest pig.

It was a young and foolish animal, even by the undemanding standards of warthog intelligence. Though it observed him out of the corner of its eye, it did not take him seriously until much too late. Why should it suspect these harmless creatures of any evil intent? It went on rooting up the grass until Moon-Watcher’s stone hammer obliterated its dim consciousness. The remainder of the herd continued grazing unalarmed, for the murder had been swift and silent.

All the other man-apes in the group had stopped to watch, and now they crowded round Moon-Watcher and his victim with admiring wonder. Presently one of them picked up the blood-stained weapon, and began to pound the dead pig. Others joined in with any sticks and stones that they could gather, until their target began a messy disintegration.

Then they became bored; some wandered off, while others stood hesitantly around the unrecognizable corpse — the future of a world waiting upon their decision. It was a surprisingly long time before one of the nursing females began to lick the gory stone she was holding in her paws.

And it was longer still before Moon-Watcher, despite all that he had been shown, really understood that he need never be hungry again.

Chapter 4

The Leopard

The tools they had been programmed to use were simple enough, yet they could change this world and make the man-apes its masters. The most primitive was the hand-held stone, that multiplied manyfold the power of a blow. Then there was the bone club, that lengthened the reach and could provide a buffer against the fangs or claws of angry animals. With these weapons, the limitless food that roamed the savannas was theirs to take.

But they needed other aids, for their teeth and nails could not readily dismember anything larger than a rabbit. Luckily, Nature had provided the perfect tools, requiring only the wit to pick them up.

First there was a crude but very efficient knife or saw, of a model that would serve well for the next three million years. It was simply the lower jawbone of an antelope, with the teeth still in place; there would be no substantial improvement until the coming of steel. Then there was an awl or dagger in the form of a gazelle horn, and finally a scraping tool made from the complete jaw of almost any small animal.

The stone club, the toothed saw, the horn dagger, the bone scraper — these were the marvelous inventions which the man-apes needed in order to