Chapter 17

Near one million BC.

The beast came out of the river and forced its way through the bushes on the high embankment. Mack stumbled backward, then lodged the butt of the spear at his feet. Kneeling, he awaited the charge. The creature slunk slowly forward, the arrow barely visible protruding from its chest. Pain coursed through Mack as he forced his wounded arm around to help support the spear. The animal sprang, and Mack brought the spear tip up, tensing himself for the impact. As the beast impaled itself, kicking wildly, Mack was slammed to the ground, landing on his bad arm and shoulder. Pain seared through the wounds. He snapped awake to find himself lying on his throbbing shoulder, sweat covering his body. As he eased himself onto his back again, the pain subsided somewhat, but he was still shaken from the vividness of the dream.

He started to sit up, but had to brace himself with his good arm to manage it. When he did make it, dizziness almost forced him to lie back again. Just sitting up had left him breathless. He was still weak — very weak, but he had to think. Who were these people? They seemed okay, but what were they doing here?

My mind is so ... cloudy; my conversations with the two seem almost surreal. Are they time travelers like me? Am I really a time traveler? They said this was one million BC, but it seems as if I have traveled farther toward my own time than that. They did make a major effort toward healing my arm and shoulder, though. If they had wanted to do me harm, they need only have done nothing; the wound would have finished me in another few hours. Mack moved around a little until he could look out the tent flap. The young woman sat with her back to him while looking for something in a pack. She was beautiful — dulled senses or not, he was certain of that. And what was someone like her...?

Don’t stereotype people, dummy. It’s gotten you into trouble before.

Reluctantly, he moved his gaze from the woman and concentrated on the man. He was lying on his back, seemingly asleep, but it didn’t appear to be a deep sleep; his mouth wasn’t open, and his breathing seemed to be light. Mack was almost certain he was a warrior of some type. How many nights had he also slept like that, waiting for the cat to attack?

Watching these two wasn’t accomplishing anything, but the coffee had done its job, and he wasn’t sure he could walk without assistance.

“Kathy.” As she started to get up, Mack continued, “Would you wake your friend for me?”

Kathy hesitated for a moment, then apparently realized what he wanted, even as Thad’s eyes opened. “I’ll take care of it, Kathy. I think the man wants to get on his feet.” Then in hushed tones, “Looks like our friend is going to make it.”

Later, they all sat around the fire, or at least Thad and Kathy did. Mack lay back exhausted against a boulder, cushioned by a pillow, canteen and a cup beside him. Kathy had cut three large pieces of meat from Mack’s cache and was heating them over the fire. A beam of brilliant sunlight intermittently flashed across his eyes as the wind moved the foliage of the lone tree above him. He shifted to a more comfortable position and closed his eyes as the other two stared into the fire, lost in thought.

With Thad’s help, Mack made his trek to the bushes and back, only to find himself shaking from weakness as the result of the effort. As he lay listening to the aborted conversations between the two, his arm cradled in a sling Kathy had made for him, he strove to focus his mind. Unfortunately, he seemed to drift in and out no matter how he tried to concentrate. He assumed that the medication the medkit had given him was causing it, but he wasn’t sure. Mack heard Kathy start a sentence and stop. Were they having problems talking in front of him? He could sympathize with that. How could he tell them what had happened to him? For all he knew, he could be on a nut farm, having hallucinated everything. You didn’t just go around telling strangers that you could close your eyes, conjure up some colors, and spiral through time. Come to think of it, you wouldn’t tell that to your friends either.

Nuthouse or not, it’s too late to turn back now. The pain is certainly real enough; maybe the rest is too. You’re chewed up all over, not to mention the arm. That cat came within a hair of taking your head off. What you remember did happen. Those doctors experimented one time too many and made a walking time machine out of you — suck it up and go from there.

Mack took a deep breath and forced himself into a more upright sitting position. “Could you have that thing you put on my arm give me something to get me fully awake?” he asked quietly. “I need to talk to you two.”

Kathy and Thad passed a look before Thad said, “I could tell it to give you a stimulant, but I’d rather not do that.”

“Look, I’m groggy, and I can’t think straight...”

Thad started to say something else but caught the look in Mack’s eyes. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt; he’s coming back in a hurry. “All right, I’ll get the kit, but the grogginess is probably due to the pain medication. If the medkit offsets that, you might not like the result.”

As Thad started to stand, Kathy touched him with her hand. “Don’t you think it’s too soon for a stimulant?”

“Let’s let the kit decide. It won’t give him anything that will do him harm. It’s time his arm was checked, anyway.”

Thad got the medkit and held it against Mack’s arm until it attached itself. “The patient complains of grogginess and wants a clear mind for a while,” Thad told the medkit’s AI.

The medkit beeped, and Thad leaned over to read the tiny screen. “It said roughly the same thing I did; your wounds will be sensitive to pain until the stimulant wears off. Apparently, it doesn’t think the stimulant will harm you, though.” Thad touched a key and sat back down.

Mack looked at the medkit as he waited for the needle prick, but it never came. Just as he was about to comment on having felt no change, his body tingled all over, causing a flash of pain from his arm; he was suddenly aware of the smaller wounds on his back as well, but he realized that the cobwebs were gone. He accepted a piece of meat handed him by Kathy (on a plate yet), complete with a fork and small knife. It seemed like ages since he had seen real eating utensils. The cup of coffee she sat next to him made the meal seem fit for a king.

Unfortunately, cutting the meat required two hands to do it properly. When he winced, Kathy said, “Let me help,” and cut the meat into bite-sized pieces for him.

“Thanks.”

“No problem,” she responded before returning to where she had been sitting by Thad.

This woman is drop-dead gorgeous, but she acts as if she doesn’t know it.

After a moment of silence while they ate, Mack looked up to see two sets of eyes watching him. Once more, the fear of being thought insane crossed his mind, but he cast the thought aside. “I’m going to tell this the way I remember it. I know it sounds crazy ... maybe it is, but here goes.”

The unfamiliar trees, even the strange cries of the birds strengthened his will as he forced himself to remember his last ride in the car with Janie. “My wife and I had been visiting friends, and no, we had not been drinking,” came out barely above a whisper. Tears misted his eyes as he, determined, continued, “We were on the way home when this oncoming car suddenly swerved across the center line and into our lane. There was no time to react...”

Mack’s story outlasted the stimulant. Drowsy and weak, he fended off questions, managed to stagger to his feet, and waving aside their efforts to help him, took the couple of steps necessary to get back inside the tent and onto the blanket. They had acted as if they believed him — maybe that wasn’t a good sign. Were they humoring him? Then again, if they were time travelers too, why shouldn’t they accept what he had said? This was beginning to sound like circular reasoning, even to him.

Before he could worry anymore, the pain medication overcame his muddled thoughts, and he succumbed to sleep.

With Mack back on the blanket and apparently asleep, Kathy turned to Thad. “Do you believe him?” she asked quietly. “How can he just will himself through time when we have to use all that equipment — not to mention the power that’s required?”

“Do you?” he said.

“Do I, what?”

“Believe him?”

“I asked you first. You’re the expert. I’m just Mr. Kessler’s assistant. Remember?”

“Not anymore, you aren’t,” Thad snapped. “Do you actually think you can go back to sitting behind a desk or running errands for him when we get back?”

“Well, I’ve certainly been looking forward to it,” she asserted.

Thad grinned and said, “Kathy, lying isn’t your forté, and even you don’t believe what you just said. You’re hooked on being an Op. Now, fix me some coffee.”

“I’m not your slave,” she snapped back, miffed. “Fix it yourself.”

Thad leaned closer, deliberately invading her personal space while staring her eye to eye as he said, “You’re not some prissy bitch sitting behind a desk trying to show everyone how tough she is anymore, either. Now fix us some coffee, and let me hear what you think about this guy.”

How dare this uncouth, smart aleck... Kathy bit back a retort as her temper kindled. Had she really been a prissy bitch? Most certainly not! It was Thaddeus P. Sullivan who was always ... Well, maybe — sometimes. But he had deserved it. She resisted the urge to back away, just enough to get him out of her personal space — get away from that all-knowing grin dancing across his face. Suddenly, she realized her anger had left her. Thad’s grin was catching, and her lips twitched as she tried to keep her face straight. She met his gaze again and said “I like him. I think he’s telling the truth.”

Thad leaned back against a convenient rock and let the grin spread across his face. “I don’t think you will.”

“Will what?” she asked, exasperated.

“Go back to being Kessler’s fetch girl.”

“Fetch girl? I was, uh, am his assistant,” she said, indignantly.

“Whatever. I still don’t think you’ll go back.”

She poured water into the pot and hung it over the fire. Kessler’s assistant wouldn’t have done this, she thought. Maybe she wouldn’t take her old job back, but then again, she didn’t want to have a repeat of the animal attack, either. She knew that she would have to spend a year with an experienced Op doing things that she had only heard about and probably some things that she had no concept of if this trip were anywhere near the norm for what Ops did.

She tried to force away the ominous thoughts that had been gathering, but her mind kept drifting back to the subject. As she looked over at a grinning Thad, she quietly said, “Something is badly wrong at Temporal, isn’t it? Mr. Kessler used all the power he could get to push us down-time as fast as he could. Then, he moved us to intercept the Traveler. This trip took priority over everything. Now, nothing.”

Thad pulled a blade of grass and started to chew on its stem, refusing to look at her now. When the silence grew awkward, he said, “I just don’t know.”

“That’s what you were thinking about last night when you didn’t wake me on time, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he finally agreed. “Anything my mind comes up with that would have delayed the chamber this much isn’t good,” he admitted. “At least we have coffee and enough supplies to last us several weeks. That’s a lot more than I had last time I was back here. I wonder if I could get away with bringing a book to read?” he mused.

“Oh, Thad, one minute you’re so serious, and the next, you’re flippant. You know that you could never get a book past Mr. Kessler, but you could bring thousands in your PA.”

“I know it’s weird, but I enjoy reading from a real book sometimes. Besides, I managed to get the coffee and several other things past him. But we both know that I wouldn’t waste that much energy on something like a real book. Despite my occasionally having fun at Kessler’s expense, I’m not quite that juvenile.”

Thad finished his coffee while Kathy puttered around the camp. At length, he told her he was going to have a look around. He first checked the picket sensors to make sure they were all working. After finding all in good order, he decided to circle the camp about a quarter of a kilometer out. The going was rough with all the rocks and boulders that had apparently tumbled down off the hillside above them, and the more he struggled through the rough terrain, the more concerned he became. This stuff could conceal anything.