Chapter 40

I didn’t kill Gus in the morning. I did, however, have a long chat with the man.

Gus Richards was a twenty-four year old California born young man, who’d gone to college and he’d gained himself a degree in English Literature. He’d done well academically, but a general degree had meant nothing when it had been time to find work. He’d ended up having to work two jobs, both in the food services industry, just to make ends meet. Some time along the way between graduating college and working for Quantum, Gus had enrolled in the California National Guard. He’d served as a Corporal in an infantry company. He’d joined Quantum just before Jake had transited through the Gateway.

Gus wasn’t a big man. He was five-foot-six, and a hundred and seventy pounds. He was well muscled but he certainly didn’t look like a ‘jock’. He had dark, brush cut hair, a pale complexion, and dark coloured eyes. He also looked shy and he certainly wasn’t very intimidating to look at.

“I’m giving you a chance, Gus,” I told the man over a mug of tea the next morning. “I spoke to Carmen and she doesn’t want you dead. Personally, I feel otherwise about it, but for the sake of sparing myself grief with Carmen, who I do want as a friend, I’m going to let you live.

“That means you have two options open to you. You can leave right now and start walking southwest towards where Winslow has his base. I’ll give you your kit, a weapon, and some food. By my estimates, it should take you about a month to walk back. That is: if you get lucky, if you don’t get lost, and if you’re not eaten by a pack of hungry wolves.

“Your second option is to sign on with me. I’ll put it to you bluntly that life back here in the Stone Age isn’t easy. You’ll be expected to work for your keep, and I hate to tell you this, but you’re the low man on the totem pole. The plus side is that life back here isn’t as bad in my community, as it is elsewhere in the here and now. I’ve helped improve the standard of living in my community. Some of the things I’ve done were simple improvements over what the locals were already doing and some involved introducing captured advanced technology to my people.

“What you will have to understand, is that besides working for your keep, you’ll have to live by our rules. While they are few; breaking one, even accidentally, can get you killed. The big rule is: I’m the boss and everyone obeys me. Now I’ll admit to you that I’m not a dictator. I do have a council of advisors who help me govern the community; but when a decision needs to be made, I make it, and my people accept it. They actually expect me to do that. It is the way they’ve always been led.

“The other big rule deals with sex in our community. If you come along with me and join up with my community, you’ll quickly find out that there are more women than men. One of the reasons for that is the fact that bastards like you have a habit of shooting up the locals villages and then taking a few of the women back to your base as fuck toys. That means when I take out a group of you assholes, I end up with extra women. Unfortunately, most of those women can’t find a new husband. It’s a cultural hang up that I’ve been working on changing, but that’s a work in progress and it isn’t going to change anytime soon. My point to you is, that there are a lot of extra women in my community, all of whom are my responsibility.

“Nobody forces them to have sex if they don’t want it. In fact we had a young woman in our community who remained abstinent for three years ... at least with men, I never asked her if she was sleeping with women. In any case, this isn’t Winslow’s base, where you can grab a woman and fuck her. If you do, and the woman or one of my men doesn’t kill you, I will! I’ll assure you right now that your death will be painful. I don’t give a damn who you end up in bed with, but it had better be consensual, and the person had better be an adult. Do you understand that?”

Gus understood it. He chose to stay with me. I told him that he’d best make sure I never regretted letting him live. We left the discussion there for the moment.

I spoke to Helen after that. I’d already spoken to her the night before. She also decided that living with me was better than walking back to Winslow’s base. I had to bite my tongue when she told me that. I hadn’t told any of our ‘new’ recruits where my settlement was, or the fact that we’d be hoofing it all the way home. That piece of information would be announced after we were ready to go.

I then spoke to Carmen. She was still in the command post container under guard. This morning Durt was watching her while she ate some breakfast. She looked up questioningly once I walked in.

“I didn’t kill Gus, if that’s what you wanted to know,” I told her bluntly, before turning to Durt and speaking to him in the common tongue. I gave him some instructions, which he acknowledged before turning and leaving. Then I turned my gaze back at Carmen. She’d sat there quietly while Durt and I had spoken. Continuing, I told her that I had also warned Gus to be on his best behaviour from now on, because I didn’t give people second chances. That caused Carmen to pale.

“Thanks,” Carmen eventually murmured aloud, not looking up when she said it. “I didn’t want him to die; at least not because of me.”

“Well, he won’t,” I told her firmly, “but I have told him to behave from now on. I gave him an option of leaving and walking back to Winslow’s base or joining me. I’m here to offer you the same thing. If you want to leave, you can. No one will stop you.”

“What did he decide?” Carmen asked looking up at me anxiously. “Did you offer Helen the same thing?”

“I did,” I replied promptly, although in a thoughtful manner, “but for now I think I’ll keep their answers to myself. I don’t want their decisions to influence your choice. Like I told you, if you want to walk back to Winslow and his group of thugs, I won’t stop you from doing that; but the same applies if you decide to stay, and join my community. I won’t let anyone stop you from choosing that, either.”

Carmen frowned for a moment in response to my reply. Then she looked down at her almost empty bowl of food. She bit her lip absentmindedly for a second or two and then spoke up, though she still kept her head lowered.

“I’ve got nothing waiting for me back at Winslow’s base,” Carmen admitted, her voice edged with anger, “and I certainly don’t owe them anything!”

At that point Carmen told me her life story. She was Puerto Rican, born and bred on the island. She’d grown up living near Roosevelt Roads, the American Naval base on the island. Her family had done reasonably well working for the base. When she’d turned eighteen she’d gone to San Juan to stay with a matron aunt, while she studied to become an EMT. Regrettably, just before her last semester, both her parents lost their jobs. With no money to complete college, Carmen was forced to find a job. The problem with that was that most jobs in San Juan were geared towards the tourist trade, and a lot of them included women smiling prettily for rich men visiting the island. As far as Carmen was concerned, that was prostitution any which way you looked at it. By the time Carmen was desperate enough to even look in that direction, regardless of her stated sexual tastes, a friend had spotted an ad posted by Quantum looking for support staff. When Carmen contacted them, Quantum had offered to pay for her last semester of training, so long as Carmen was willing to sign on for the long ride, or in other words, a trip through the Gateway. They’d made it sound exciting and fun. Carmen had said ‘yes.’

“Now, I’m regretting it.” Carmen admitted to me once she was done weaving her story. “I found out the hard way that Winslow and his cronies were bastards, and any concept of individual rights went out the window the moment the Gateway closed behind us. Besides a couple of friends back there - who’d I love to go back and rescue - I’ve got no desire to see the place again. As far as I’m concerned, I quit working for them as of yesterday. I’ll go with you, if you’ll have me, and if what you’ve already promised me stands.”

“It does,” I told Carmen pointedly. “No one will touch you while you’re living in my community, unless you want them to touch you. No one will hurt you in my community unless you stop cooperating with me, or you betray me, or you hurt someone in my community. If you do that, you’ll end up dead. I explained that to Gus and Helen as well. I also explained that I’m the boss. So far, being the boss has worked for my people. They accept me of their own free will. They also know that if they disagree with me, they can walk. You won’t be a prisoner while you’re living in my community, but you will be expected to live by the rules.”

Carmen told me she could, and that she wanted to go with me when it was time to go. I told her we’d be leaving in an hour.

I’d sent Durt off to work with Burton, Bogdi, and Tonko to build travois. We’d need them to carry all the extra kit that we’d acquired, following the taking down of the helicopter and shooting up the rescue team. We actually had quite a lot, and in addition to that stuff we had our own kit to carry. It was going to be a lot of work to get it all home, especially since we were stuck with walking.

Well there wasn’t anything for it. I certainly couldn’t stand around griping about it since I was the one who’d given the order. I just sucked it up and put my people to work, while I tended to other business. I had Carmen strip out of her combat pants so I could check her wounds. She did it, hesitantly, but I didn’t have to ask twice. I took off the old dressing, looked at the two wounds that I’d stitched and at the cuts that I’d left to heal unbandaged. Then I let Carmen have a look. When she told me they were okay, I grabbed her medical pack and dug out some fresh dressing to bandage her leg again. Once I was done, I let the young woman get dressed. Once she was dressed, I sent her off to tend to Gus’ wounds.

“Alone?” Carmen asked looking at me with surprise etched across her face.

“Yeah, why not?” I told her with a dismissive shrug of my shoulders. “I do need to start trusting you, sometime. It might as well be now. Once you’re done with him, the two of you can meet me in the centre of the compound. We’ll be leaving shortly after that.”

Carmen nodded her head in acknowledgement and I got up to leave. As I did, Carmen reached out and touched my hand.

“Thanks,” the young woman murmured awkwardly when I paused and looked down at her. “I won’t let you down.”

I just nodded and left, heading off to talk with Burton. I found him in the courtyard with my hunters. They’d already assembled five man-sized travois. When I got there, Burton was supervising the distribution of loads. Helen was there as well, helping out.

“So I’m going to have to walk one way or another,” Helen pointed out as I joined them, though she was smiling as she said it.

“This time, anyway,” I replied apologetically, giving Helen a weak smile. “I guess I shouldn’t have destroyed your helicopter.”

“I guess not,” Helen chuckled in turn, “but then I don’t think you were expecting to have to haul all of this stuff back.”

“I hadn’t,” I told her honestly, “but that’s my fault for not planning ahead. In any case, we’ll deal with it, although you’re going to have to help out. I hope you’re in shape.”

Helen didn’t reply to that. She did look at the travois that Burton had built. I did the same, and while Helen had worry visible upon her face, I could tell that Burton had done a great job distributing the loads to match the capabilities of those pulling the travois. Naturally I was getting the heaviest load, being the tallest and fittest of the group. From the look of it, Helen would get the lightest.

We left a half hour later. I put Gort out on point. He was a good scout and one of my better hunters, even though he was still only twelve. I figured he could handle the job. I just told him not to get too far ahead of our group, and to keep an eye on our ‘new’ friends. He promised he would.

I took the lead, with Tonko behind me, then Durt and Bogdi. I left Helen to bring up the rear, hoping that she’d be able to keep up with us. I put Gus and Carmen behind her as I wasn’t expecting much out of either of them, but I did hope that if Helen got into trouble, that one of them would help out as best they could, given the nature of their wounds. Burton was on the end to make sure we didn’t lose anyone by accident.

The trek back proved long, hard, and tiring for everyone, including me. The first day saw us travelling from the compound through the forest towards the northeast until we hit the ruins of Ohba’s old village. We spent the night there, resting up as best we could, given the fact we were sleeping out in the cold. Then we moved on across the narrow valley, and into the forest that lay between the ruined village and the big valley that stood further to the north. That part took us four long days. By the time we hit the big valley, our entire group was exhausted.

The biggest hardship faced by all of us was the terrain. While the forest trails weren’t as deeply buried in snow as the open fields, there was enough there to hinder our progress. With the added fact that the land undulated between rises and gullies, and the track twisted and turned around trees and rock outcroppings, it made walking that much more difficult ... particularly for Carmen, who was left to limp near the rear of our party with only a walking stick to help her. By the time we made it to the big valley, her feet were covered in blisters.

She wasn’t the only one hurting. My people found out the price of riding a horse everywhere or driving a wheeled vehicle. We’d become soft. Not as soft as Helen, Carmen, or Gus, but soft compared to what we’d been when we hadn’t had horses. Even my feet were hurting.

The long trek did allow us to get to know Helen, Carmen, and Gus a little better. Some of what I learned seemed good, and some I learned simply pissed me off.

Gus was going to be a problem. His attitude showed clearly that he hadn’t learned a thing, even having faced the possibility of death, for what he’d done in the employ of Quantum. His worst offence on the trek had to do with my people and why didn’t they speak any English.

That had come up on the second night of the trek when we camped in the forest near the stream that could be crossed by walking on top of a fallen tree.

The fact was that I’d told my people to speak only in the common tongue at all times, and to ignore anything said in English. My thought was that if Helen, Carmen, and Gus did decide that they weren’t going to cooperate with me once they got to the settlement, any discussion they had about that would come more freely if they thought that my people didn’t understand them. I even made Burton speak it, even with me, so that anything we said wouldn’t be understood by the others, much like how Clara, Gabby, and I used to speak English together until I rudely found out that my people had picked it up. The plus side in this little piece of subterfuge was the fact that Burton was forced to immerse himself in the language. We saw, as time progressed, he quickly he picked it up.

The question raised first by Gus was if any of my people spoke English. That was an innocent query in itself; and, while I lied to him and the two women, I really hadn’t felt any offence at his asking. It was when Gus asked why not, and he pointed out that anyone captured by Quantum back at Winslow’s base had been forced to learn English, if they wanted to survive. To Gus it made perfect sense.

“Why does it make perfect sense?” I ended up asking him in a very terse manner, glowering at him from across the fire as I did. “These people outnumber us by a magnitude that is mindboggling. They’ve been getting along fine for thousands of years without the use of our language. Why should they have to learn a language they really have no need of, to survive?”

Gus couldn’t answer that question. He did realize his mistake though, particularly when he noted that not only I was glaring at him. The women were as well, as was Burton.

Helen ended up coming to his rescue in the discussion. She wanted to know if it would be better for them to start learning the local dialect now, on the trail, or to wait until we finally reached the safety of my community. I told her now would be the best. So she asked me to start teaching her, right then and there. For me that put Helen heads above everyone else.

By the time we did reach the big valley, I had introduced the trio to the basics of our common tongue, emphasizing some of the simpler words in the language like: hello, come, stop, go, left, right, stand, sit, and many more. I also introduced them to common phrases, like ‘where is... , when is... , and what is... ‘ Much to my pleasant surprise, all three of them picked up the basics with relative ease. To me that was a very good thing.

The bad thing was that by the time everyone reached the big valley, they were too exhausted to go on and/or too crippled up due to blistered feet. That wasn’t good because I knew full well that at our current pace we’d be still walking a week from that point, and we still wouldn’t have reached home. I needed an alternative plan.

“I think we need to reconsider our options,” I pointed out to my people over supper that night. “The way I see it, we’re not going to make it without help, which means that someone is going to have to go and get the help, while the rest of us plod on as best we can.”

“I’ll go,” Tonko volunteered without hesitation, speaking up before anyone else could.

“You can’t go off alone, and you know it,” Durt point out, interjecting his opinion next. “I’ll go with him. The two of us could make it to the settlement in four days. We can then send back help.”

I shook my head, ‘no.’

“I want Gort and Bogdi to go, and I don’t want any argument about it,” I told everyone. “The fact is that Carmen can’t really walk much further, which means I’m going to have to haul her behind me on a travois. That means that most of what I’m carrying is going to have to be redistributed amongst the rest of us. We’re going to have to keep the strongest and fittest people here, if we want to haul all of this stuff back to the settlement; and, personally, I don’t want to leave any of it behind.”

Naturally my choice of volunteers didn’t go over without some grumbling. Even Burton stepped into the fray by questioning Gort and Bogdi’s ages. Boy, did they give him a dirty look in response to that!

“They’ll be fine,” I reassured him, speaking up before anyone else decided to say anything. “Both of them are skilled trackers and hunters, and they’ve been through this valley many times in the pursuit of prey. They’ve also worked as a team together for the past three years. They’re not the type to take risks or do anything foolish. Trust me on this; they’ll be fine.”

In the morning we headed out as a group, straight across the valley floor and towards the other side. I figured it was the quickest route we could take, even though we still would have to find a way across the stream that ran down the centre of the valley. I was hoping it was frozen over.

The truth was that if we headed up the valley to the ford we usually used, in the deep snow covering the valley floor, it might take us two to three days of hard trekking. Then we’d have to turn about and come back down the valley until we found the trail we usually used to travel upward towards the slope that led to our valley. With luck we’d be across the valley in a day, going the way I intended.

It turned out that the snow lying on the valley floor was for the most part, hard packed. Once past the portion where our expedition had passed, churning up the snow in their travel, the going was relatively easy, especially since my men and I were all wearing snowshoes. We’d packed them with us when we’d left our settlement, and while for the most part we hadn’t used them much on the trek back, because of the forested terrain. We did, now. They made our passage easier. Of course not everything was perfect. Carmen, Helen and Gus didn’t have snowshoes. They followed us the best they could, each using a walking stick to help them through the waist deep snow. They were also forced to walk off to one side of us. While the snowshoes helped us move across the open snow, the trailing ends of the travois poles tore up the snow behind us, turning it into a mess and an impediment for the three. Their progress slowed us down.

It still took time to get to the stream and to check it out. There we got lucky as we found it frozen over and from the look, passable to human traffic. Of course it meant first checking it out, and once again, I decided I was going to do the job.

I did it for the most obvious reason and not because I didn’t want to risk one of my people going through the ice and getting wet. I did it because I was the heaviest person there, although Burton was close to my weight. I figured if the ice didn’t give under my bulk, then it wouldn’t give under anyone else’s. I did take precautions though. I tied a rope about my waist and I had Burton tie the other end of the rope around his. If I did break through, and the water was deep enough that I actually went under the ice, Burton weighed enough that he could easily pull me out. Also, I took one of the walking sticks and I used it to tap the ice in front of me and around me as I tested it. Thankfully nothing happened. The ice held, and we were able to cross.

From that point on I let Gort and Bogdi go, knowing full well that it would take even them a few days to get back to our settlement and rally some help. My real hope was that Dunbar or Rugar had patrols or hunting parties out and that the two young men would encounter them along the way, speeding up our rescue. We could only hope.

To speed them along I had both young men leave the bulk of their kit behind. I made certain that they had a day pack with water to drink, food to eat, a change of clothing, fire starting material, and their bedroll. These they carried slung over their backs. I also made certain that they went armed. Each had their carbine and plenty of ammunition.

“Take care,” I told both young men as I bid them fair well, “and remember to fire three shots when you reach the top of the slope. That’ll let me know you made it, and hopefully it’ll alert a hunting party to your presence. With any luck Dunbar or Rugar will be out some where in our valley and the shots will lead them to you.”