Are You My Father? (Part 2)
My mother seemed to see this long journey as a chance to teach me.
"This root is edible."
She dug up a plant whose leaves were starting to yellow and dry, pulling out a thick, knobby root to show me. She brushed off the rough dirt, took a bite herself, then handed the rest to me. I put it in my mouth.
...Tastes like raw potato.
It wasn't particularly good. There was a faint sting on my tongue, like mild poison, along with a bit of nuttiness and sweetness. The kind of flavor you only seek out when you're starving. Still, I bet it'd taste better roasted.
And sure enough, as she tucked away a piece, my mother said, "Roast it in fire. Even better."
Taste. They valued it in my previous life too, but humans were especially obsessed. In truth, taste doesn't help much with survival. Sure, evolution made high-calorie foods like sweets and fats taste good, favoring survival. But humanity's fixation on flavor was on another level compared to other animals.
And it was the same for hominins like Homo erectus. They roasted food over fire and even steamed meat or plants wrapped in mud. That said, our most common dish was still skewers—probably because they were the simplest.
"Now, we move."
After gathering a few roots, my mother started walking again. Unless the sun was high in the sky, we kept going nonstop except for eating and sleeping. The road ahead was long, and dangers lurked everywhere—no helping it.
But the good news was that this body was already optimized for endurance walking. The thinning body hair and sweat glands all over helped cool me quickly, letting me travel while other animals hid from the heat. Of course, even I couldn't move at African noon.
"Rest here."
Oddly, she pointed to a rock hollowed out at the base. Judging by the rock's color and dead moss, it had been eroded underwater in the rainy season and exposed in the dry. It was just damp and cool enough to block the midday sun perfectly. And inside, there were faint signs of prior use—smoke stains and ash on the ceiling.
"Someone's been here. Probably Four Fingers."
"Four Fingers?"
"He exists. Tried catching a crocodile barehanded. Lost a finger."
"……"
I stared at my mother's face for a moment. Her expression was utterly calm, like stating a simple fact: "That tree is big" or "That fruit is bitter."
Barehanded... a crocodile? Well, okay. Living in this era, you might have to wrestle a beast someday. But a crocodile? In my past life, someone did bring back a croc once—but it was barely 50cm long.
"Good at fish. But stupid."
"Is Four Fingers there too?"
"Yes. All 'people' around here gather."
With that, she placed her pre-gathered tinder and firewood, added an ember, and skillfully coaxed the flames to life.
No matter how hot, fire was essential. Its smoke kept animals away, and even if you preserved embers as long as possible, they lasted half a day at best, two days at most. You had to relight periodically.
And for Homo erectus, raw meat was rare. We could eat it, but if we could roast, we always did—that was our way of life.
It wasn't just for taste. According to my mother, it was a kind of primitive religion.
"Always roast food in fire. Fire cleanses our bodies."
She wrapped the fresh root in mud and set it in the flames.
"Fire is dangerous but good. Fire cleanses food, cleanses our bodies. Roast meat, fire cleanses it, makes us stronger. Roast plants, fills us more. So, cook with fire."
Her words were, in a way, quite scientific. Roasting neutralized some poisons, killed parasites and bacteria. Tough meat softened; hard roots became edible. But they didn't know science or understand nature yet, so they explained it as religion.
Fire drives out bad things. Fire makes food safe. Fire fills the belly. All those experiences piled up into belief.
"Food that eats fire is good."
She pointed to the mud lump in the flames.
"But food that eats too much fire is bad. Don't eat black and dead. Hurts belly."
Spot on again. Charred food can't be good for you.
I gazed at the flames. In my previous life, fire was a monstrous thing, hard to handle. With all that fur, getting singed was constant, and unfamiliarity meant accidents lurked—so I was always cautious.
But after 500,000 years, they had embraced fire as part of themselves. They kindled it everywhere they lived, shaped tools with it, cooked with it. To them, fire was indispensable.
Soon, as the flames died down, my mother picked up two sticks. She poked into the fire a few times and deftly pulled out two hard-baked mud lumps.
Thud. Thud. They rolled on the ground. The outsides were dried solid, blackened in spots.
She let them cool a bit, grabbed a suitable stone, and cracked them.
Crack. The baked mud split. As the shell crumbled away, a yellowish root emerged inside. The mud had gripped and peeled the skin, leaving the flesh fairly clean.
Oh.
Better cooking method than I'd thought. Wrapping in mud protected the outside from burning while slowly cooking the inside. The root's moisture stayed in, far superior to direct fire.
Crude as cuisine, but excellent survival tech.
My mother inspected the cooked root and held it out to me.
"Eat."
I took it carefully. Still hot. Shifting it fingertip to fingertip, I managed a bite.
The taste was so-so. More fiber than starch, so it crunched even roasted. Mild sweet blandness and nuttiness, the kind of food you'd pass on in modern times.
But the fire had neutralized the poison—the tongue sting from raw was gone.
Better than starving.
I took another bite. My mother started on hers, chewing slowly while her eyes constantly scanned around. Even "resting" wasn't full rest. In this era, it just meant less movement in a less dangerous spot.
The shade under the rock was cool. But step outside, and the sun crushed the earth overhead. Distant air shimmered like heat haze; dry grass rustled with tiny bugs.
Gazing at the hazy savanna, I asked, "What is the Unfading Land (Athi) like?"
"...Place with much water. Cold water flows endless from mountain, makes lake. Even harshest dry season, water doesn't dry. Green grass, many animals gather."
Mount Kilimanjaro... no, Mount Kenya? Peaks that high physically snag clouds, supplying ground with moisture. Perennial snowmelt can sustain lakes too.
...Why do I remember this?
Oh, right—trailing Park Professor once, hunting new paleo sites. We roamed African savannas and jungles daily, checking old water spots. Found just a few stone tools and a stranded French team with a busted car.
Still, that got me onto the Fossil Cave dig.
Wait. If I hadn't helped those guys, maybe I wouldn't be in this mess...?
While I pondered, my mother continued.
"Rainy season, too much water—hard to live. Dry season, better and richer than elsewhere."
Sounded like classic floodplain. Rainy floods deposit nutrients; dry recedes, plants explode. Famous for abundant food, fertile soil drawing crowds of animals.
"Many kinds of 'people' and animals gather. Long ago, 'people' fought to claim it."
Swinging clubs, stabbing spears. Throwing stones, splitting skulls. Fertile land filled with blood and bodies. Beasts drawn by the scent devoured them.
Then one wise soul said: "If we fight each other, no one claims this land."
So they made three rules.
One: Unfading Land belongs to no group.
Two: No fighting in Unfading Land.
Three: All in Unfading Land shared by all.
No writing, barely proper speech—but they knew. Fight here, all die.
And to avoid all dying, all must keep the promise.
No word for "law" yet, but this was surely its ancestor.
"So no one fights there. Even bad-blood groups behave."
"What if fight?"
"Die. Break rules, no protection. Enemy of all."
Clear as day. Why follow rules? Break them, you die. Simple, any intelligence accepts it.
"And there is old fire."
My mother said in a low voice.
"Old fire?"
"Eternal Fire."
My ears perked up.
"Fire doesn't go out?"
"Yes. Fire rises endless from earth crack. Even big rain doesn't kill. Blue fire. This fire is child of that fire."
Eternal Fire... natural gas?
Unfading water, gathered tribes, eternal fire. Civilization seemed to emerge earlier than I'd thought.