Chapter three

The man woke up feverish and shaking. He didn’t remember much and just kept telling himself he had to get up, take a pill, and call a doctor. In the end, all he was able to do was to open his eyes…

He saw the crushed ice in the sand, the stormy sky above the unknown shore, and his clothes, worn and ragged by time. There seemed to be winter here, but the heat torturing him was unbearable. Unfamiliar boy and girl with skin as pale as marble, clothed in rags, watched him with shock. When they spoke to him, he couldn’t understand a single word.

His memory didn’t offer him much: just a few scenes from the last hike he had with his friends. And that glacier they visited together…

Chapter four

“So your tribe has accepted the man?” asked Rikter.

“Yes,” smiled Elie. “Everyone likes him”.

It was midsummer now. It brought a few warm days, and there were little flowers in the pale green grass. A joyous time!

“And you?” Rikter said, tight-lipped.

“Why are you so angry?” Elie recoiled when he tried to touch her. “He is funny when he tries to speak our language, but the stories he tells about his world… they are wonderful! He is a very good guy, really, Rik! Would you like to talk to him yourself?”

Rikter, who had been fuming just a moment ago, replied with an unexpectedly calm voice and even a smile:

“Oh, talk? Yes, I want to talk to him all right”.

Chapter five

His new name was Aimek which meant “iceman”. He learned to hunt seals and cook their meat on a campfire with young fir needles for a spice. He learned the alien language but couldn’t express his thoughts well in it yet. Sometimes he felt as helpless as a child and it made him angry.

Elie, the girl who found him on the shore and took him to live with her tribe, called on him often in his little cave at the side of the cliff. Sometimes, when Aimek came from his hunt empty-handed, she brought him food. And always asked for more stories. She was nice, and Aimek really liked her.

The guy, Rikter, she brought with her once was different. He wore patterns of another tribe on his clothes. The iceman recalled the guy’s face: he was with Elie when Aimek woke up from his long sleep, feverish, lost, and disconnected from the time he used to live in.

Rikter’s first phrase was:

“I want to study your language!”

He visited Aimek often since then and learned his alien language with that fervent, angry, self-destructive perseverance you might expect from a madman repeatedly bashing his head against a stone wall. Rik clenched his fists and repeated the words after Aimek, hundreds, thousands of times if needed, his eyes burning with a strange, uncanny fire on his pale face.

Rikter fought with the language and himself for a year and won. As to Aimek, he was glad to have another friend he could talk to.

Rikter’s appetite for stories was even bigger than Elie’s. He listened intently, catching up Aimek’s every word. The iceman didn’t quite understand the young savage’s keen interest in the things of the past but he came to trust him more and more and made good progress in learning the local “quacking” language as well.

“So you lived a long time ago when the Earth was different?” frowned Rikter.

“Yes,” Aimek smiled. “Your island was much more beautiful and warm than the rest of the world back then. There was summer all year round, in winter it rained instead of snowing, and the sea was so warm people swam in it like seals… Well, it seems your island remains the most pleasant place in the world even now. But now the icebergs melt here…”

“Do you know why they come?” Rikter frowned again. Aimek had always found the guy’s super serious attitude to everything rather funny.

“No,” the iceman replied. “But I’m going to find out. It’s worth knowing, even if I’m the last scientist on Earth”.

“It is impossible,” stated Rikter with calm confidence. “Sea is for seals. If people tried to swim in it they would freeze to death. You won’t get far”.

“I’m not going to swim all the way there,” Aimek laughed. “I’ll build a ship”.

“A ship?” Rikter brightened up suddenly. He didn’t know the word.

“Yes. It’s for travelling the sea without having to swim,” explained Aimek. “Your people don’t know such a thing… Listen, Rikter, I don’t think I’ll be able to build it alone. Will you help me?”

“Yes!” he answered, resolute and stubborn, as always. “I want to know how to build ships!”

Aimek had to hold a long, unpleasantly curious gaze Rikter gave him then. It felt like meeting the eyes of a predator and gave the iceman creeps. Again, he wondered: how much time had passed, and what had hardened people so, why were they so terse when they spoke, and why did their words remind him of seagull screams… Why the ice… well, maybe the answer was in the ice…

“Come tomorrow, Rikter,” Aimek drooped under the young man’s gaze. “We’ll start building a ship”.

The guy left without saying goodbye. People don’t say goodbye anymore. They don’t even have a word for it in their language. As well as for greeting…

“Hi, Aimek!” he heard a clear, sweet voice.

Elie. She had been learning his language as well, but, unlike Rikter, treated the process as a game instead of an ordeal. She still pronounced certain words wrong sometimes, but the iceman enjoyed every conversation with her nonetheless.

“Hi, Elie, my dear!” he replied with the sincerest joy and hugged her. “Did I tell you what your blue eyes remind me of? The sea…”

“The sea is grey where it’s shallow and black where it’s deep,” she shrugged doubtfully.

“Well, in my time it was blue…”

White as the coldest snow, slender and smart, with long hair often covered in frost, she was so beautiful to Aimek, so dear. She seemed to shine, against all the odds, in the middle of the crippled world of dark sea and cloudy sky.

“I am so happy… that… because… there is you,” was Aimek’s best attempt at expressing his feeling in her quacking seagull language.

Elie laughed, covering her mouth with her hand, then ruffled the iceman’s hair, a long unbraided mane spread over his broad shoulders.

“Tell me about the blue sea!” she demanded with child-like simplicity. Aimek obeyed.

He was shaking inside as he spoke. When did he become like this? He didn’t remember. It’s easier to recall the first moment of dawn than the birth of love. And of love he wanted to tell her so much! In Elie’s native seagull language, in a way that wouldn’t make her laugh.

Will he even dare to try? Here, he is an alien. What if he says or does something wrong? What if she rejects him? What then?

“...Rikter, tell me about your wedding rituals,” he asked his young friend once.

Rikter frowned, his black thick brows knitting into a scowl, and gave Aimek a suspicious look but didn’t answer.

They were working on the ship, and an awkward question was forgotten soon. Aimek was glad about that, because, obviously, he had asked something indecent.

Rikter could work hard for a long time showing no sign of fatigue, frail as he seemed to the man of the past. Aimek envied his friend’s tremendous willpower and endurance and wondered where the little guy took all his strength from. The iceman himself couldn’t stay long in the icy wind and had to take lots of breaks from work to retreat to his cave and get warm. And when he did, Rikter worked alone. Yes, the savage guy learned very fast.