Now there was only a uniform featureless glow in the great slab, so that it stood like a block of light superimposed oil the surrounding darkness. As if waking from a sleep, the man-apes shook their heads, and presently began to move along the trail to their place of shelter. They did not look back, or wonder at the strange light that was guiding them to their homes – and to a future unknown, as yet, even to the stars.
3 – Academy
Moon-Watcher and his companions had no recollection of what they had seen, after the crystal had ceased to cast its hypnotic spell over their minds and to experiment with their bodies. The next day, as they went out to forage, they passed it with scarcely a second thought; it was now part of the disregarded background of their lives. They could not eat it, and it could not eat them; therefore it was not important.
Down at the river, the Others made their usual ineffectual threats. Their leader, a one-eared man-ape of Moon-Watcher's size and age, but in poorer condition, even made a brief foray toward the tribe's territory, screaming loudly and waving his arms in an attempt to scare the opposition and to bolster his own courage.
The water of the stream was nowhere more than a foot deep, but the farther One-Ear moved out into it, the more uncertain and unhappy he became. Very soon he slowed to a halt, and then moved back, with exaggerated dignity, to join his companions.
Otherwise, there was no change in the normal routine. The tribe gathered just enough nourishment to survive for another day, and no one died.
And that night, the crystal slab was still waiting; surrounded by its pulsing aura of light and sound. The program it had contrived, however, was now subtly different.
Some, of the man-apes it ignored completely, as if it was concentrating on the most promising subjects.