The newcomers trotted their animals back and forth, and some sort of formal exchange was shouted between them. Lee saw her own band start off tense, ready for trouble, then generally relax. The body language was human-approximate enough for her to grasp broad strokes. Soon after, one of the stretch-hippos and its riders accompanied them to the village while the other galloped off in an alarmingly knock-kneed fashion. There would be guests at the fire tonight, Mal explained. This meant new products and new stories, and retellings of the old ones. When times were good, it seemed there was nothing the Birdmen liked more than throwing a party.

On the way back, Lee had plenty of time to think. She was still experiencing a honeymoon period in this world. Except that wasn’t life, was it? Life here would be a cold, hard graft, with no medicine, no mod cons, and there would be times when the game was scarce. Maybe she or Mal would get on the wrong side of the dinosaurs, whose customs even Mal didn’t really understand. And if all that worked out, there would still be age, infirmity, and no other humans, ever.

The cold wind that came off the river met its counterpart within her, telling her, It can’t work, and you will die a cold, lonely death here. But what choice did she have?

Then the wan sun brought at least a touch of warmth to her cheek, and all about her the energetic, noisy locals were gabbling at one another for the sheer pleasure of the banter—as far as she could make out. And if they weren’t human, they seemed close enough to permit anthropomorphization. Parallel evolution had produced something that could know joy and tell stories. These creatures could meet a thing as alien as a human on their home turf and be curious, not murderous.

Lee reached out and took Mal’s hand, feeling the callouses that four years in the saurian Stone Age had layered there.

It will do, she decided. I can work with this for as long as we have.

Interlude: The City-Builders

Excerpt from Other Edens: Speculative Evolution and Intelligence by Professor Ruth Emerson of the University of California