There was to be no hunting today.
This wasn't just because two members of the tribe died yesterday,
And that their flesh would keep hunger away for those remaining until the next sunrise.
It was because Ada and Eva had given no instructions to their menfolk of when or where to hunt.
They knew today was a day for the group to stay together.
Such instructions were not verbal,
As hominids had yet to gain the power of speech.
Ada and Eva had developed an elaborate map of the territory around them.
The map was carved into a flat area in one of the larger branches of their treetop dwelling.
The edges of the map changed over the seasons,
So the menfolk could still go out just before daybreak and return before dusk.
Ada and Eva just knew the hunting territory intimately.
They could sense the movement of creatures,
And they knew when they would go down to the water to drink.
This was when they were easiest to kill.
Ada and Eva showed their menfolk where to go each day to find the weakest and safest prey.
The less time the menfolk left the protection of the canopy,
The better.
They remembered every single kill in the version of the map encoded inside their hippocampi.
They even knew when new life came along,
When it would be ready to kill,
And how to ensure pregnant mammals were spared.
This kept their food supply constant and the food chain intact.
After their menfolk returned,
Each evening Ada and Eva created an energy shield around their treetop home so that predators could not penetrate at night.
This included the smallest of venomous spiders and tree frogs,
The sneakiest of snakes,
And the most dangerous of the large cats.
They could not protect their menfolk when they were out hunting though.
That's why this evening's meal would be from their own kind,
As two of them got too close to a jaguar.
Nothing could be wasted,
As the margins between life and death were so slim.
While cannibalism sounds barbaric to humans who might be listening to this tale many millions of years after it unfolded,
It played a vital role in both survival and evolution back then.
The young that ate their elder tribe picked up on their experiences.
With no formal education system and short lifespans,
This meant ten-year-old males were ready to hunt,
And females of the same age ready to bear the next generation.
Ada and Eva didn't know it,
But they loved each other.
Their hearts had been entwined since they first separated at birth.
They didn't share thoughts,
As self-awareness had yet to come,
But they shared the same feelings and the same knowings.
The twins didn't share their menfolk,
But they did share one thing that was unique amongst early hominids.
They shared a mother who was still alive by the time their own children had reached puberty.
With an average longevity of only around twenty,
Not many children still had a granny when they reached their tenth summer.
The maternal instinct was strong in early hominids.
As granny provided the child care,
This created much time for the twins to wander and to wonder.
After feeding their young,
During the daytime they descended to the forest floor and communed with nature around them.
With a touch they knew what plants were safe to eat and which berries they could pick.
The trees told them where to tap their bark so they could extract healing poultices for cuts and abrasions on their tribe coat.
Both of them had the touch,
And even animals would come to them for healing,
Even those who might be hunted and killed by their menfolk only a few days later.
On this particular day,
Not only was there to be no hunting,
But the twins had a sense of foreboding,
And knew that any foraging was off the agenda too.
It was this innate wisdom of the twins that had attracted Trinity's attention.
The Council of the Light had given Councilor Three,
Who was known as Trinity when she inserted into the density,
Quite a weighty task,
With an unknown outcome.
Trinity was responsible for micromanaging the next phase of evolution for both cetacean and hominid consciousness.
She had made great strides forward with dolphins and whales,
But the land-based candidates were still some hundreds of thousands of years behind.
This is because undetected insertions were that much easier into the oceans than on land.
Her form was undetectable by sonar,
And invisible at night,
Or in the daytime more than thirty meters down.
Eva was unaware that Ada was called Ada,
And Ada was oblivious that Eva was called Eva.
These were names by which Trinity referred to them.
Proto-humanoids like the twins were the smartest of the smart primates.
Tewa's work had led them to possessing a unique bilateral consciousness in their two brain hemispheres.
One hemisphere knows this detail,
And the other the bigger picture.
It was now Councilor Three's turn to install the third aspect.
The twins would be the first.
On the day of Trinity's brief insertion,
What would constitute breakfast for the tribe consisted of nuts and berries.
As the sun came to the ascendancy that morning,
The forest went unexpectedly quiet.
No birds,
No animal calls.
Even the trees stopped talking.
Ada and Eva's mother had experienced this once before,
And got the whole tribe to huddle around the large central trunk of their abode.
All that is except Ada and Eva,
Who ignored their mother's shrieks.
They climbed to the highest point in the tree that would sustain their combined weight,
Just in time to see a bite being taken from the sun.
They were about to experience their first and last total eclipse.
When the light from the local star is removed from the front and back of a planet,
The veil between the void and the density becomes very thin.
At the very point of maximum occlusion,
The councilors can step in momentarily.
As the sun became totally consumed,
Ada and Eva were in awe and not scared.
They did not see the translucent ellipsoid form that spontaneously appeared and hovered behind them.
They also didn't see two ethereal wisps emerging from the dark patches at the top of the egg.
They did feel something strange though,
As the tendrils touched the tops of their heads.
They both shivered as the energy entered their crowns and enveloped their bodies.
They put the chill down to the lack of sunlight.
Beneath the surface of their cranium,
On the left and right hand sides,
Two new areas of neurons spontaneously grew.
The twins felt faint as the splendour of the eclipse was replaced by a kaleidoscope of coloured flashes.
Four million years later,
Earth's scientists would be able to peer into the brains of people while they were alive and see these language centres light up when they spoke.
Trinity withdrew from the density as the ring of the sun became visible again and Ada pointed at it and uttered the single word,
Sol.
She knew what she meant and pointed at Ada,
Saying Ada,
And Ada pointed back at her sibling and said Eva.
Trinity was pleased to announce to her fellow counsellors,
The word has been made flesh.
She knew she would only have to wait a few more years for the consumption of the flesh of the twins before their newfound ability was passed on to the others.
