Chapter 3: Annoying Older Sisters

Siblings, when young, are known for continually bickering. Though when they mature, they form all new relationships, yet often, something happens, triggering those old conflicts and they›ll cease communicating forever.

Yet, when one sibling loses everything and is feeling lost with nowhere to turn, they can be a welcome relief, whatever baggage they bring with them.

News of their success spread swiftly. Whether friends telling friends in other villages, passing strangers smelling the enticing savory scents of freshly cooked meat. Either way, people gravitated to their village. Single men searching for adventure or fortune, a few families, mostly wives and husbands, seeking a home to raise children, many likely spreading word of their burgeoning growth.

After decades of persistently diminishing numbers to hunger, accidents, infections or more notorious causes, their tiny home grew. Though hardly overnight, instead they filtered in, in drips and drabs, one or two at a time. Few brought infants for obvious reasons, as most were infertile due to their near-starvation diets.

Somehow here though, there was always food for everyone and more importantly, the most succulent the newcomers ever tasted, and from what the inhabitants claimed, safer too! Adam was still unsatisfied, they needed more, yet was unsure precisely what.

“Adam!” a familiar voice yelled, running into the village. “Adam!”

Exiting his hut, Ty sought out the caller. A new girl, a friend of his girls and nearly as young but a year or two older.

“Yeah?” he answered, unsure what would provoke such a response, before recalling Tiss and Lor, who’d ventured out earlier.

“Come quick! Tiss called. Another one came, like you, from your home, wherever it be.”

“Hold on, I’ll grab my stuff and be there in a moment.” He turned, heading back into their humble home, which Toq helped build, his girls coming to an understanding.

“Pussy, Pussy, Pussy!” he called, grinning, hearing an responding yowl and padded feet approaching from the other side of their encampment. Snatching his crossbow Adam set out, Puss-puss easily accompanying him at a steady, unhurried pace.

His brow furrowed. “What am I doing? They’re not going anywhere, just as I’m not. There’s no need to rush.” He still ran, though not quite so swiftly. His crossbow likely a bit much, yet it never hurts being prepared—as he learned multiple times in the past he couldn’t recollect, remaining a foggy, fuzzy uncertain shifting fog, steadily swirling in his mind’s inconsistent, internal breezes.

The time since his arrival hadn’t settled a thing. Details were sketchy, sometimes partially clear, the next gone completely. He hoped they’d eventually return, yet each day, the chances further diminished. At least some clue would help, whatever it may be with his plentiful unsolvable questions.

Scattered voices, asking what was happening, drifted from behind him, the villagers curious after the many recent changes. No one knowing what to expect, their entire lives in flux, shifting too with the ever fluttering, wavering wind.

Passing the trees encompassing and camouflaging their village, noting the open field beyond, he saw the cluster of figures kneeling on the ground. Tiss and Tor, their bamboo—pardon, babfoo spears—sunk into the grass beside them, Beks nearby, peering over their shoulder and another unfamiliar figure. He couldn’t see them, yet flashes of pink—not purplish—flesh revealing they weren’t natives. He put an extra emphasis in his step, hungry to meet the new arrival, hoping for some shred of familiarity again.

Approaching, he slowed to an easier, leisurely pace, Puss-puss remained several paces back; unless someone had a treat, of course. The girls stood, helping the newcomer to their feet. When they did, he froze, his mouth dropping open, the words wedged in his gullet. He recognized her! Damn, he did, though couldn’t recall who she was. Familiar, though not much else.

She stared, her eyes dilating, recognizing him. “Ty? Is that you?”

“No, no,” Lor corrected. “We tell you, this Adam is.” When excited, she oft forgot the order of certain of their newer terms.

“No,” she stepped forward. “I’d recognize Ty anywhere,” she assured them.

“Pardon me,” he said, “I, I ... recognize you, yet can’t remember your name, nor anything more for that matter.”

“Ty, I’m ... damn it, I can’t remember either! I recall yours, yet not my own!” she grumbled, her voice much lower and gravelly than his girls, weighed heavily with his now fuzzy memories and experiences.

“Well, she swears like you,” Tiss observed, snickering.

“Anna!” he exclaimed, a single memory arising from the mist, lifting his mental fog revealing a distant light far beyond. “Anna Dean!” Well, two interrelated fragments of the same recollection.

She turned to the girls. “He’s my brother!”

Just then, Puss-puss brushed past him, sniffing and peering cautiously at Anna. Sensing the soft touch of fur, she glanced down, shrieked and leapt back, falling on her ass and cringing before his poor kitty.

“Holy Crap!” She unsuccessfully scrambled back, her hands slipping on the slick, dew-soaked grass. “Is that a lyn, lop, lox?” she struggled to recall, her eyes rising in frightful entreaty. “They’re dangerous!”

“Who, Puss-puss?” Lor knelt, scratching their communal, oversized kitty under her chin, generated a rasping purr, along with a watchful glare of the suspicious new arrival.

“What the hell is happening?”

“Yep, they’re definitely related,” Tiss smirked. “Does everyone curse in your time?”

“I ... I can’t remember,” he confessed. “It certainly seems like it.”

“Dammit, neither can I,” Anna answered, confirming her point.

Adam raised both hands, those familiar with him falling silent. “My name is Tie? Like in a race?”

“No,” insisted his supposed sibling, before her face clouded again. “It’s short for ... Tile ... Tylrr ... TYLER!” she exclaimed triumphantly. “Tyler Dean!”

“Holy crap! I know who I frigging am!” The others laughed even louder.

“There’s no doubt they’re kin, though I’d hate meeting their parents. The ones who first taught them to swear like that.” The two faced her, their expressions cloudy. “Never mind,” Beks said, refocusing. “Come, sit, talk,” she offered.

“What happened?” they both said simultaneously, engendering further hilarity.

“Yep, they think the same thoughts too. You can’t get closer than that. Tiss and I aren’t that close.”

“I have no idea. When I appeared here, as naked as you, I couldn’t recall a thing. My thinking was clear, so I assumed it was a con ... cocus—”

“Concussion!” Anna crowed. “Of course, that explains it.”

“Only, it doesn’t,” he countered. “After two weeks, I remember more each day, though the details remain sketchy, and I forget nearly as soon as I recall them.”

“Still,” Tiss’s eyes rolling skyward, “he knows more than anyone else. Breath. Let go and breath. It’s what he keeps saying. Slow down, breathe deeply and let the evil air out.” Even Anna sniggered at her awkward paraphrasing.

“Don’t encourage her,” Ty warned, enfolding Anne in his arms, as if she might vanish again.

“I guess our first human is gone, now the second has arrived. So Ty is?”

“A human/ro hybrid?” Tiss stated, proud of all she’d learned. “We’re Ros, he’s human, Puss-puss is just a pussy.”

Both Ty and his sister doubled over howling. “You taught them that shit? I can easily picture it, you were always obsessed with it when younger.”

“No, that’s her name,” Lor insisted. “Well, her name is Puss-puss, though ‘Pussy’ carries further when calling.”

“Yep, that’s certainly my brother’s humor, though it’s also accurate. So Ty,” her tone lowered, “is she a good little pussy?” her inflections emphasizing her intent.

“Not when soaked, then she’s fit to be ‘Ty’d’, a soggy, angry, hissing pussy!” he said and they lost it again, Puss-puss staring at them, unsure why everyone kept calling her with no one paying her any mind and offering no treats!

“I say we leave and maybe they talk sense when we return,” Beks suggested.

“So,” Ty stopped, pounding his chest and concentrating on his breath, “how did you find her? Did she appear in the same place?”

“Yeah,” Tiss held up a stray stay from his bolt belt which apparently detached when he first arrived, “I found this when we discovered her.”

“Yep, it’s mine all right,” he concurred. “Uh, did she bring anything with her?”

“You mean like another shooter thing?” Tor withdrawing the newest gift. “Nope, just this,” raising a black leather leg sheath he immediately recognized.

“Shit!” he again exclaimed. “A survival knife. It’s a welcome addition!”

“It came with me?” Anna glanced back. “I never noticed. You’d think it’d keep stabbing me in the side?”

“No, it was fastened to your leg,” Tiss clarified. “It came loose and fell off. You weren’t dressed when you arrived, just like ... Ty.” She rolled the name around, evaluating how it tasted. “Hmm, I like it, ‘Ty’.”

“So, how the hell have you been, you little bugger? The rough-neck Marine who couldn’t stand anyone in his room at night?”

“A lot has changed,” he assured her. “I recall the PT ... PTD, shit, my prior shell-shock. For whatever reason, it’s gone. What’s more, with so many to worry about, I no longer have time to obsess over myself. Being needed helped more than anything else.”

“Tell that to ... damn!” Anna pulled her hair, her frustration running rampant. “Why can’t I recall your damn girlfriend’s name?”

“Girlfriend?” the other three girls sang, an off-key Greek chorus.

“Oh, sorry. Should I not have said that?” Anna glanced at him sheepishly, unsuccessfully hiding her smirk. “Stepping on anyone’s toes, am I?”

“No,” Ty’s face colored, a flush sweeping across his face and spreading down his chest. “We’ve reached an ... understanding?” Each rolled their eyes.

“What?” she screeched. “You’re screwing them all?” His cheeks flushed, nearing the girl’s native complexion, glancing away.

“We wish, or rather, they do,” Beks said. “I would love to join them, but ... there’s little hope of that.”

“Don’t count yourself out,” Anna’s previous harsh tone softening. “I’ll talk some sense into him, once I figure out what’s going on.”

Ty leapt in. “In short, we’re on an alien world’s stone age. I apparently knew someone from here before, way, way back in the future, though I can’t recall—”

“Torrol-ro!” Anna exclaimed, her eyes glittering in recognition. “That’s the place. You were stationed there for years.” Her statement shocked everyone, their jaws dropping.

“Terro who?” Tiss said, after several moments.

“No, no,” Anna carefully enunciating the name.

“Well, they got the ‘Ro’ right,” Beks sighed.

“You’re a real font of information!” Ty said, hugging her again. “It’s more than I’ve figured out over weeks here.”

“It’s not me,” Anna objected. “You say something, triggering associated memories.”

“Just like I recalled yours, when you couldn’t,” he confirmed.

“Hold on, you terrible host,” Tiss lectured. “Anna, you need food? Something to drink? Somewhere to lay?”

“I ... I’m not sure. I’m exhausted, yet too excited to rest. I have no clue what’s happening, but I’m eager to learn whatever I can.” Her eyes glazed, as if concealed by an incoming fog of forgetfulness, invisible to anyone nearby. “I seem to recollect not seeing him for an extended time.”

Ty’s eyes dilated, leaning in, his voice softening. “I’ve only been here a couple weeks. Did something happen?”

“I’m ... It’s all a blur. I just have this ... sense there’s something lurking on the other side of my consciousness.”

“You best lay down, you now talking nonsense, inventing words,” Lor said, as she and her sister helped ease her back to the village, settling her in Ty’s hut, leaving him and his Pussy behind, wondering what just transpired.

“I must say,” Anna said, stumbling out and rubbing her eyes with both hands, “that was welcome. I fell asleep and slept as the tide of my consciousness receded.”

“It’s not as long as you think,” Ty said, setting his examination of the dull-matted Survival blade back into its leg sheath. It was constructed of the same, lightweight, largely impervious material as his crossbow. “The dual suns confuses everything.”

Anna, tilted her head, staring at him cockeyed at an angle. “Yeah, what the hell’s up with that?”

“It’s disconcerting. In later millennia, their orbits somewhat stabilized, though it’s maddening now. You can hardly sleep. One day, when they align at their aphelion point, no one will see a thing.”

“You don’t remember a thing, yet recall the duration of a ... millennium, whatever the frig ‘aphelion’ is, or the orbital frequency of planets, thousands of years in the future?”

“It’s when we’re the furthest from the sun—either one—and don’t confuse knowledge with memories,” he advised. “Believe it or not, the reason Puss-puss didn’t attack is she’s in the same situation we are. I suspect someone sent her back too, for some unfathomable reason. It doesn’t make any sense. Unless it’s all random, though in that case, your returning wouldn’t either.”

“Except,” Anna hesitated, contemplating it, “I seem to recall a lynx lurking around our home. No want wanted to call Animal ... whatever, fearing they’d put her down. We’d leave food out for her, which she always scarfed up by morning.”

“Damn, Sis, you just keep revealing one detail after another. I never would’ve guessed any of it.”

“Again, it’s not me, you say one thing, and...”

“Yeah, I understand. Still, the whole situation isn’t sensible. What are they afraid of us discovering, if they won’t tell us why we’re here?”

“That’s assuming there’s anyone there. We may have just been near ... the nexus point and got sucked in? Is that right?”

“Hell if I know, but it makes sense. So, all three of us being here is just a random event. A proverbial roll of the frigging dice? So why the weapons?”

“Oh, you missed it. While you slept, the girls and I searched the field again and found what Puss-puss dropped. Like you, it came loose as she appeared.”

“Yeah, when I first arrived, my crossbow was lying by my head when I appeared, though the dart belt was whole, including the clip.”

“Why not just call her what you wanted, Pussy, and be done with it? Your girls are already familiar with your particular sense of humor. Speaking of which, why are you torturing them? Are you involved with anybody else, cause you seem to depend on each other, however you label it.”

He shook his head. “No, it’s because they’re more open to new ideas, more adaptable at learning things. I could never teach the older folk to be warriors or hunters, as they were barely surviving on subsistence diets, hardly eating enough to manage anything. Hell, before I showed up, they dug pit traps to catch mice, as nothing larger was dumb enough to be so easily cornered.”

“Still, you don’t have anyone nearer your age to hook up with, so...” she prompted.

He shot her a hard stare. “Other than my girlfriend.”

“Damn, that’s true, isn’t it. I thought all three would have a stroke when I said it. Talk about foot-in-mouth disease!”

He chuckled at the familiar term he still couldn’t recall. “While I need and rely on them, they’re much too young for me.”

“Really, how many women your age are here? Those who aren’t hunched over or hobbled? This is a different age and chances are, you’ll never see, whatsherface again. From what little I recall, she didn’t live in the same vicinity, living near her job, whatever that was.”

“You may be right, yet now, you and Puss-Puss are here too,” he remined her.

“Either way, we’re here and she’s millennia away, and you, sir, have no faster-than-light spaceship nearby.”

“Speaking of which, do you recall anything concerning ... Torrol-ro? Did you ever visit me there, and why didn’t you freak out when seeing the girls? I certainly would have.”

“I don’t— They just seemed...”

“Familiar!” they both exclaimed. “Damn, we do think alike. It’s how I felt. I noted them, recognized they weren’t human and we’d never be able to reproduce, yet you speak their language as naturally as I.”

“We do? I never noticed.”

“Yes. It took a while before I noted it. I think in English, but speak in Rolese?” he guessed, triggering another chuckle.

“I’ll have to pay closer attention. They were all speaking at once, then immediately sent for you, so I never paid it any heed.”

“Trust me. I did.”

“Yeah, Mr. every-agenda-item-checked. It fits your personality to a ‘T’.”

“A ‘t’?”

“That’s the term, I’m pretty sure,” she hedged, her confidence rapidly evaporating under the dual suns, as did most of their fleeting memories. The only difference was, now he would remember, before she forgot! “You were always precise, well trained to perform your duties precisely. It’s something you’re unlikely to forget, despite you’re not recalling anything.

“Anyway, back to the girls. You’re here, yakking about pussy and have more in common with them than anyone else. So pick one and get over it! Or ... maybe plural marriages are acceptable for successful hunters, in which case, marry a few dozen! Each of you are providing for enough, so why not include more, learning the same lessons from them rather than only you?”

“Their father, Toq, was eager for me to marry them, not caring who, as long as I was tied to him in some way.”

Anna rolled her eyes. “He’s definitely a catch!”

“I saw through it right away, building our own hut, so now they can come over anytime they want, without any paternal interference.”

She grinned, tilting her head. “You have his blessing, so go ahead, jump into bed with them, asking about any others you’re eyeing. If you don’t ask, you’ll never know!”

He snickered. “You were always a pushy bitch, ya’ know? The guys in this world are in trouble!”

“Never having met any, I’m not expecting much. You’re a sure catch for a reason, hundreds of them in fact.”

“If you’re interested, get in line and ask,” he teased.

“You know, I just might.” She playfully nudged him, at least he hoped she was teasing, unless the transit affected more than her memories. He shivered, shoving the deeply disturbing thought aside. He still worried more about the girls than anything else! Hell, she was the only one his age, not to mention, the only fellow human. Yet the thought itself was more troubling than any other.

Heading out to gather his girls, for their morning hunt, he discovered they were now taking Beks too. They needed more hunters and chose her for some unspecified reason. She was young enough to train, while none of the men were, so...

Entering their hut, sharpened babfoo spears in hand, they all turned and pounced.

“So, did Anne set you straight?” Tiss demanded, loaded for bear, before freezing, thrown by his lack of facial hair, yet continued on unhindered moments later—a quick study, both thinking and rapidly adapting in the moment—rather than reflecting much later, when it was already too late. He’d spent the morning, performing an impromptu shave. Not willing to risk slicing his face with the extra sharp blade, instead pulling his whiskers out and cutting away from his face to trim them, creating a scraggily mess.

“Huh?” was his quick response, “And it’s Anna, not Anne.”

“She said she’d ‘talk’ with you about us,” Beks explained, more trepidatiously than the others. Apparently Anna was correcting their grammar too, just as she did with him, years or eons ago.

“We didn’t,” he playfully assured them. “She said I’m here and there’s no one else, before reminding me my girlfriend is still waiting for me.”

“Wait, what?” Tiss said, unsure what just transpired.

“She’s right,” he canted his head, glancing askew at them, “there’s no way either of us will ever return, though ... if they sent her, who’s the next logical choice?”