I have always wondered how this was
done.'
Brushing over this last information, which none understood and which
they could always come back to, they asked several more questions about
the hill-people, until one of the younger men produced a greaseboard and
marker, and approached him.
'Your sign, the one that identifies you. Could you draw it?'
Kalus took the board, and after being shown how to use it, drew a
straight line, horizontal, then a long curving tooth like a saber at the
end of it, pointing downward.
'This represents the upper jaw of the hill-cat, one of the greatest
hunters of our world. My first father made it for me, hoping that I
would be as fierce and cunning. All our names our similar. When he was
killed by a bear. . .I drew it in anger on the ground, then with my foot
blurred away the sharp point, to show that I was no great predator, but
only a man. Like this.' He smeared the lower half of the tusk,
leaving only a squarish root. 'That has been my mark ever since.'
'The MANtooth,' said Sylviana suddenly, and much to her own
consternation. But half embarrassed, half proud in spite of herself,
she pushed on. 'The Machine called you the Mantooth.'
'Yes,' he said simply. 'And that is what I am.'
'This machine---' began another.
'No, no, we'll come back to that later,' said Rawlings.
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