Survival of the Fittest Read online

  SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

  Book 1 of the Crossroads Trilogy

  By Jacqui Murray

  From the Man vs. Nature Saga

  The journeys taken by the five tribes in Crossroads:

  “It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”

  ― undetermined

  Other books by Jacqui Murray

  In the Rowe-Delamagente Series

  To Hunt a Sub

  Twenty-four Days

  In the Dawn of Humanity trilogy

  Born in a Treacherous Time

  In the Crossroads trilogy

  Survival of the Fittest (Book 1)

  Journey Home (Book 2—coming Fall 2019)

  In the Footsteps of Giants (Book 3—coming Fall 2020)

  Non-fiction

  Building a Midshipman: How to Crack the USNA Application

  Education

  Over 100 non-fiction resources integrating technology into education available from Structured Learning LLC

  Praise for Jacqui Murray

  Born in a Treacherous Time, from the Man vs. Nature saga

  “Murray’s lean prose is steeped in the characters’ brutal worldview, which lends a delightful otherness to the narration …The book’s plot is similar in key ways to other works in the genre, particularly Jean M. Auel’s The Clan of the Cave Bear. However, Murray weaves a taut, compelling narrative, building her story on timeless human concerns of survival, acceptance, and fear of the unknown. Even if readers have a general sense of where the plot is going, they’ll still find the specific twists and revelations to be highly entertaining throughout. A well-executed tale of early man.” —Kirkus Reviews

  ***

  Move over Jean Auel (Clan of the Cave Bear) for Jacqui Murray. I went to bed right after dinner last night because I had to finish this book and would have stayed up all night to do it. What a fabulous read. – Amazon reader

  ***

  What a treat to read a fiction work that goes so far back into prehistory. I enjoy reading prehistoric fiction in general, but this is a rare gem. The author successfully combines facts with imagination to create a believable story about our ancient ancestors. We are given a peek into a distant mirror of a people who reflect our own hopes, emotions and fears. – Amazon reader

  ***

  Born in a Treacherous Time … follows the life of one, early hominid called Lucy. She is intelligent and curious, a healer amongst her people, but neither she nor they 'talk' the way we do. They do verbalize, but communication is a fluid blend of sounds, body language and signing. Although Jacqui Murray has gone to extraordinary lengths to re-create authentic hominids of the era, it is the personality and courage of Lucy that I remember most. She is a remarkable 'heroine' and a distant ancestor I'm proud to claim. – Amazon reader

  ***

  Born in a Treacherous Time is a brilliantly researched book with an interesting and realistic storyline. I have read all of Jean Auel’s books and enjoyed them but I found the first book, Clan of the Cave Bear, to be the best by far. Why you may ask? The answer to that question is because it was realistic. I appreciate that in a historical book of this nature. I loved this about Born in a Treacherous Time. The story line and interaction of the various group members with each other rang true to me. Jacqui Murray’s depiction of the group and their suspicion of anyone who has any progressive and different characteristics or qualities makes perfect sense. This type of attitude still prevails in many small towns and villages today. – Amazon reader

  ***

  I've never read prehistoric fiction and wasn't sure what to expect. … I was immediately pulled into Lucy's world, and though her goals and motivations are in sync with her time period of 1.8 million years ago, her desires are those of humankind today: shelter, food, protecting our children and loved ones, contentment. It's because of these basic desires that we relate to Lucy so easily and want to see her survive the harsh conditions of the time... That, combined with Murray's smooth prose and well-paced narrative, makes this book an enjoyable and original read. – Amazon reader

  ***

  Thanks to Murray's book Born in a Treacherous Time, I view the world and the creatures within it (including humans) with new eyes. The main character, Lucy, is one of our foremothers, long long ago. Murray uses intense research and just as intense imagination to envision what it was like during prehistoric times, when beings on two feet needed to survive a harsh yet hauntingly beautiful world. Murray's prose is fully detailed and imaginative as she shows the language development between beings, and the empathy and compassion that is there... I highly recommend this fascinating fictional look into prehistoric times. – Amazon reader

  ©2019 Structured Learning LLC.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Structured Learning LLC ([email protected]).

  Published by Structured Learning LLC

  Laguna Hills, Ca 92653

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents, are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Printed in the United States of America

  ISBN 978-1-942101-34-5

  Table of Contents

  Praise for Murray’s prehistoric fiction

  Characters

  Bibliography

  Author’s Non-fiction Introduction

  Introduction

  Part One: East Africa

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Part Two: South Africa

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Part Three: China and Java

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Part Four: Middle East

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Preview of Book 2 in the Crossroads trilogy

  Preview of Born in a Treacherous Time

  About the Author

  Other books by Jacqui Murray

  Reader’s Workshop Questions

  Characters

  Xhosa’s People

  Ant

  Asili

  Bone

  Cloud

  Ngili

  Nightshade

  Shadow

  Siri

  Snake

  Stone

  Xhosa

  Rainbow’s Splinter Gr
oup

  Bird

  Hecate

  Mbasa

  Rainbow

  Starlight

  Tor

  Pan-do’s People

  Lyta

  Pan-do

  Sa-mo-ke

  Wa-co

  Hawk’s People

  Clear River

  Dust

  Hawk

  Honey

  Talon

  Water Buffalo

  Big Heads

  Thunder

  Wind

  Author’s Non-fiction Introduction

  Homo erectus, the star of Crossroads, is a highly-intelligent prehistoric hunter-gatherer who outlasted every other species of man and spread throughout the Old World of Europe and Asia. He possessed a sophisticated ability to reshape stones into intelligent tools, cross waterways, solve new problems, and make complicated plans. He was smart enough to face-off with dangerous situations and adventurous enough to want to try.

  This stalwart predecessor to whom we are today survived in a myriad of environments, ate almost any food, made primitive spears to hunt, and used fire (or not, depending upon the expert you talk to—some of mine do because of their cold habitats). Their communication was robust and sophisticated but rarely verbal. Instead, they shared ideas, thoughts, directions, and more with a complicated collection of body movements, facial expressions, sounds, and hand gestures. This sort of ‘body language’ even today is responsible for about half of communication. In this story, I refer to it as ‘motioned’ but it’s synonymous with the dialog tag, ‘said’.

  Homo erectus individuals were more comfortable on two legs than in trees and adept at imagining what they couldn’t see. Their vast differences from earlier Homo species continues to fascinate paleoanthropologists. For example, their skulls are the thickest of any human species. They left a homeland they dominated and traveled to the far corners of Eurasia. They were a violent people, well-equipped to survive a treacherous world and eager to do so. While the first iteration of man, Homo habilis, was timid and shy, you’d never accuse their successor, Homo erectus, of that.

  To honor their dispersion to all corners of Eurasia, the trilogy Crossroads follows five tribes who eventually come together in the Levant 850,000 years ago. Xhosa and her People are from East Africa, Pan-do from South Africa, Hawk from Gesher Benot Ya'aqov in Northern Israel, Seeker from Indonesia, and Zvi from China. They all flee their homelands for various historically-accurate reasons, some because man’s next iteration, Homo sapiens, is determined to eradicate them. When thrown together by circumstances, they put aside differences, trade knowledge of skills and techniques, and are willing to compromise to achieve the greater goal of a new home.

  Survival of the Fittest is Book 1 in the Crossroads trilogy and covers how they come together. Book 2 follows their journey West when the combined group must flee what they had hoped would be a new home. Book 3 shares their new life in what we now know of as Gran Dolina, Spain.

  The references to Lucy in Xhosa’s dreams are from Born in a Treacherous Time, where Lucy and her small Homo habilis group are forced to leave their home to escape an invading tribe of Homo erectus. When Xhosa is threatened by an unbeatable enemy, Lucy helps her find a path to the future.

  Both the Crossroads and the Dawn of Humanity trilogies explore early man’s struggle to become who we are today. Together, they are part of the Man vs. Nature saga which chronicles how the family of man survives from inception to present day. The characters all share the particularly human drive to survive despite extreme adversity, well-equipped predators, and a violent natural environment that threw everything possible at them.

  Here are questions I often get from readers about the Crossroads trilogy:

  Why are some animals capitalized and others not?

  Not knowing any different, early man feels they are equals to animals— maybe inferior but definitely not superior. They believe animals are like themselves—able to plan, make tools, and evaluate circumstances—and respect them. Those they ‘know’ are capitalized. When they are faced with an unknown herd, I use small letters.

  Why are Others and Uprights capitalized?

  Others when capitalized refer to other Homo erectus not in one of the five groups. Uprights refer to all species in the genus Homo who walk upright on two legs. As with animals, this indicates Xhosa’s respect for them.

  I don’t understand the use of the term ‘People’ (or why it’s capitalized)

  'People' in this trilogy is the name applied to a group organized around a leader—like Xhosa’s People and the Hawk People. It identifies the community of shared common experiences, culture, and beliefs. It would be akin to the term ‘Americans’ or ‘French’ for people who live in those geopolitical territories. Since there were no nations 850,000 years ago, they are simply the People.

  Their speech is too sophisticated

  These early humans were highly intelligent for their day and possessed rich communication skills but rarely verbal. Most paleoanthropologists believe that the ‘speaking’ part of their brain wasn’t evolved enough for speech but there’s another reason: Talking is noisy as well as unnatural in nature which attracts attention. For these early humans, who were far from the alpha in the food chain, being noticed wasn’t good.

  What is ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ side

  Paleoscientists guess that even 850,000 ago, early man had a preference for right-handedness. That would make their right hand stronger than the left (though they didn’t identify ‘right’ and ‘left’) so they would see their right hand as the ‘strong side’ and left as the ‘weak side’.

  Why are these characters so violent?

  That answer is simple: If humans weren’t violent 850,000 years ago, we wouldn’t have survived. We weren’t the apex predator at that time. We had thin skin, short claws, and teeth that were useless for defense. What we did have that those who would prey on us didn’t was a thoughtful brain (well, the beginnings of one).

  I am not reading these books in order. Does it matter?

  Survival of the Fittest is the first in the Crossroads trilogy, which is the second trilogy in the Man vs. Nature saga. Each trilogy is a stand-alone story; each book also is a standalone story. They can be read out of order, but some find the reading experience enhanced if the three books in each trilogy are read consecutively.

  What is a ‘hand of Sun’s travel’?

  This is the amount of time it takes Sun to travel the distance of a hand held up to the sky. It’s about fifteen minutes for a finger or an hour for a hand (four fingers). This is one of the ways earliest People measured the passage of time.

  Introduction

  No one told the heroes in Survival of the Fittest—Xhosa, Pan-do, Hawk, Wind, Rainbow, Zvi, Seeker, and Spirit—that they were the leading edge of man’s dispersion across Eurasia. Their willingness to journey into the unknown marked man’s flexibility, adaptability, fungibility, and wanderlust—hallmarks of an evolutionary fitness that would challenge Nature for control of the world.

  As you read this book, keep in mind that these characters are 850,000 years old. They are pre-everything civilized. Their rudimentary culture fits some definitions of this complicated word because they share behaviors and interactions, cognitive constructs and understanding, but it doesn’t fit other more thorough attributes. Xhosa and those like her don’t wear clothes, don’t marry, and haven’t discovered religion, art, or music. They don’t bury their dead—why would they? Other animals don’t. They have no social norms, traditions, societal rules, or judgmental attitudes toward others. They wear no tattoos, jewelry, or adornments. They don’t count past two. They prefer descriptions to proper nouns.

  Everything in their lives revolves around two simple goals: survival and procreation. To accomplish these, they have become some of the smartest, cleverest animals in the kingdom. How else could they survive a violent world where an angry, disruptive creature like Nature ruled?

  PART ONE: EAST AFRICA


  850,000 years ago

  Chapter 1

  Her foot throbbed. Blood dripped from a deep gash in her leg. At some point, Xhosa had scraped her palms raw while sliding across gravel but didn’t remember when, nor did it matter. Arms pumping, heart thundering, she flew forward. When her breath went from pants to wheezing gasps, she lunged to a stop, hands pressed against her damp legs, waiting for her chest to stop heaving. She should rest but that was nothing but a passing thought, discarded as quickly as it arrived. Her mission was greater than exhaustion or pain or personal comfort.

  She started again, sprinting as though chased, aching fingers wrapped around her spear. The bellows of the imaginary enemy—Big Heads this time—filled the air like an acrid stench. She flung her spear over her shoulder, aiming from memory. A thunk and it hit the tree, a stand-in for the enemy. With a growl, she pivoted to defend her People.

  Which would never happen. Females weren’t warriors.

  Feet spread, mouth set in a tight line, she launched her last spear, skewering an imaginary assailant, and was off again, feet light, her abundance of ebony hair streaming behind her like smoke. A scorpion crunched beneath her hardened foot. Something moved in the corner of her vision and she hurled a throwing stone, smiling as a hare toppled over. Nightshade called her reactions those of Leopard.