The Martian Pendant Read Online Free PDF Page B

lips. Their weapons were formidable but crude, the clubs and spears heavier than those of the newcomers. There was hardly a foot covering among them.   
    “Originally this early human strain had been an offshoot of a more primitive line, which had spread across the world from Africa a million years before. That migration reached as far as northern China and the island of Java, but avoided other northern climes at first. Later, as part of further migration, the Neanderthals settled as far north as Siberia, for a time flourishing in those frigid lands, hunting big game there, the Hairy Mammoth and the ox-like Auroch.
    “The Middle East was where they had first encountered the invaders, and later in what is now northern Europe, around the shores of the Mediterranean. By the time the slowly migrating descendants of the Martians had spread throughout that continent, the advance of the glaciers of the last ice age had driven the Neanderthals south again, their further retreat blocked by the Alps. As a people, they then settled into the limestone caves of southern France, Germany and Spain, where they again met the newcomers.
    “One year, late in the season, when they were pursuing reindeer, men of the two groups clashed. Because of a squabble over who had the right to a kill, the first human blood was spilled. The outcome proved earthshaking, not because of the killings, but due to a viral epidemic that followed, reducing the already-faltering Neanderthal population to unsustainability.
    “Two Martian descendants were trailing a party of native hunters following a reindeer herd through a long narrow valley. Whenever someone approached too closely, the skittish animals would retreat out of range of their spears, much to the hunters’ frustration. The stolid cave men blamed the newcomers, who in turn attributed the problem to the apparent dullness of the plodding natives. In this atmosphere of frustration, the first kill, instead of being a reason for celebration together, became a casus belli . While occasioned by only one bloody death, the incident indirectly became the beginning of the end for the entire race of Neanderthals.
    “It began when the Neanderthals cut out a lame, lagging old stag from its fellows, and were closing in for the kill, yet were still having difficulty of getting within range with their heavy spears. Seeing this, one of the Martian descendants brought the beast to its knees with his weapon, propelled by a throwing stick, striking the stag in its hindquarters. It was a lucky shot for him, weakened as he was with influenza. That act deprived the natives of the honor of the first blow, or coup , a strong tradition among warriors, proving to be an intolerable affront. When the migrant arrived to retrieve his weapon, he was quickly dispatched by a spear thrust to the back, followed by a skull-crushing blow with a heavy club.    
    “The Neanderthals dressed the reindeer, and triumphantly made their way back to their hungry families. But while much-needed food was being provided, the men carried an influenza virus with all the virulence of the strain that brought death to millions in the pandemic of 1918-1919. Combined with the inordinate cold of the last ice age, the resulting epidemic would ultimately lead to their extinction.
    “As the increase in the population from Mars brought them into the colder climes, competition with the native people resulted in the Neanderthals dwindling into ever-smaller groups, where they succumbed to the ravages of the alien virus and its complication, lobar pneumonia. After the last ice age ten thousand years later, and in some cases earlier, the newcomers became the occupants of the empty caves.
    “When they could, the Neanderthals had always buried their dead, or encrypted them, along with their weapons, but the invaders burned theirs, thriftily collecting their weapons and other effects for envisioned later use, at least for their first ten millennia in Europe.