I am Earthman - страница 20

Here Eva paused, then continued;

– Fortunately, there were no more such bitter rains, only sometimes there are good rains, after which there are more worms and herbs. But, still, when it starts to rain, I am very afraid and quickly hide.

From her stories about bitter rains, he realized that it was about acid rain. It was obvious that remembering all this, Eva was very sad, but she held firm and did not cry. And he was also very surprised inwardly how, after so many years, the girl preserved her language and culture of communication at a very high level, because she lived and lives in the conditions of primitive man's life, for a long time, that is, from an early age, she did not communicate with anyone, lived and survived alone. Interrupting his thoughts, he asked;

–Who were your ancestors, how did they get here? Are there other people, tribes still nearby?

– The old men of our tribe told us that there is a mountain gorge behind these mountain ranges. A small river flows through the gorge. There, on the bank of the river, once lived a large tribe of people who once separated from our tribe and formed a separate settlement. It was said that they built houses out of trees on the river bank, hunted and lived there. But according to the stories of our hunters, they were often attacked and eaten by huge predatory animals, two or even three times taller than a person. They called them brown bears and said that they were so strong that it was useless to fight with them or even defend against them somehow, that it was impossible to kill them with a spear or an axe. According to the stories of the elders, these bears cannot cross the ridges of the mountains and therefore, when we are and live here in a cave, we are worried that they will come here, do not. That's why I've never seen these bears myself. I remember that the older ones still said that there was only one narrow path in the mountains, sometimes our hunters used it to go down and make their way into the gorge to hunt fish, and from there they also brought sticks for our axes and spears. According to their own stories, there are big trees growing there, there is always live food in the river, and for the same reason our tribe once divided. Whether any of those people remained alive, if even they remained, then whether they remained there, or moved somewhere later, where they now live, I do not know. At first, when I met you, I thought that you were one of those people. And who our ancestors were, I do not know, I have not heard stories about it, only once I was told that they lived for a long time in the depths of this cave and said that this is why they called themselves cave people. And I also know that there is a walled-up place in the cave, where, according to our people, the things of our distant ancestors who lived in the cave at that time are stored. The elders said that these things would someday tell us about our origin, and while we do not know how to handle these things, all of us were forbidden to go there. When I was left alone, I didn't even think about it and almost forgot about it.

Adam (in the future we will call man Adam) thought about how bears have survived to the present day, reached such a large size and became cannibal predators. But suddenly I remembered that the nuclear disaster on earth happened in November, when the Siberian bears were already in hibernation and it is quite possible that some of them could survive after hibernation and bring offspring by eating the corpses of other animals, people who died directly during the nuclear war and after, because of the consequences of the nuclear disaster. It is well known that after a nuclear disaster, a nuclear winter comes for a long time, and perhaps the corpses of animals, and people, did not decompose for a long time because of the long, strong frosts of a nuclear winter. The bears probably took advantage of this, although according to the stories they heard once in childhood, they do not eat corpses, however, it is quite possible that hunger forced them to do this. They could become dangerous cannibal predators due to lack of food, and in addition, he remembered that bears had been omnivorous predators before. But here the question arises: "If the bears survived the nuclear winter by eating corpses, how did the people of the Eve tribe here and other animals down in the gorge, in the river water, survive the nuclear winter that followed the nuclear war?". After all, the Earth's atmosphere after a nuclear disaster was covered with a thick ashy veil and because of this, the sun's rays could not reach the Earth's surface. For this reason, a long nuclear winter came on Earth and as a result, it froze for a long time. And in addition, the Earth's atmosphere was polluted with radiation. All living things on Earth after nuclear explosions must have been irradiated and had to get radiation sickness, and there was no effective treatment, as he remembered, for this disease. In addition, according to the theory, because of the long nuclear winter, all the plants on Earth should have died. And animals, and people, and in general all living things on Earth had to die from lack of food and heat. He studied all this himself, but he did not find any clear answer or explanation to this question. Suddenly he remembered his conversation with the alien about the territories on Earth that were less affected by nuclear explosions, volcanoes and flooding, and thought that the alien probably meant these places. Perhaps they probably had information about the survivors of the disaster, but they did not tell him about it, and perhaps this can explain their mysterious behavior before parting, as if they were hiding something. Turning over all this in his mind to calm himself mentally, he thought that now, all this no longer matters to him, the main thing is that life is being born again on his home planet. In continuation of his thoughts, he thought that if there are other surviving people on Earth, they will unite and although it will be very difficult now, they will gradually restore the former civilization of the Earth and people will no longer make such mistakes.