Chapter 15

Near one million BC but at a different location.

...”I was ... I was just looking at him,” Kathy said lamely.

“Oh, I agree,” Thad quipped, “You certainly were.”

“That’s not what I meant,” she responded, flustered. Then, before he could say anything else, she continued, “I know why he has all those abrasions or at least, I think I do.”

“Sure,” Thad interrupted, “his equipment dumped him while it still had some spatial movement relative to the earth.”

“But, if you knew,” she said, exasperated, “why didn’t you say so when we first discovered him?”

Thad knelt beside her. “I didn’t think of it then. How’s he doing?”

Kathy let out a sigh. “About the same, I suppose. When I checked him, the medkit said it hadn’t detected any spatial or temporal movement. That’s when I realized how he must have gotten hurt,” she admitted, indicating the prostrate figure beside her.

Thad chuckled. “No use in apologizing for not thinking about it sooner. The same thing is still on the screen. Guess where I got the idea?”

“Oh,” she said. Then smiling, she asked, “Do you really think he somehow fell out of his equipment?”

Thad abruptly sobered. “I don’t know. I don’t see how, but then he seemed to stop and start at will, as well as varying his speed when he went down-time. I can’t imagine why his equipment would materialize him while it was still moving, and if it did, he would be faced with the spin of the earth as it rotates on its axis in addition to the orbital speed of the planet — the total of both would be more than 100,000 kilometers per hour. A few cuts and bruises aren’t consistent with the velocities involved. If our equipment that keeps us stabilized over a point on the earth while we are in transit ever fails, we might well be splattered on the side of a mountain somewhere.

“Stabilizing the first chamber was a milestone, and with it came the ability to move about the face of the earth (a controlled movement) at will. We couldn’t have done it without breakthroughs in computer technology. Still, he went through the barrier going down-time and eventually returned, but something obviously happened. So where is his equipment? This just doesn’t make sense.”

They both looked at the unconscious man beside them, who seemed to mock them with his presence.

Thad changed the subject. After motioning to the Traveler, he said, “I don’t think we should move him until he’s better, so we’ll have to make our camp here. We’ll need more warning time since we no longer have a cave to enhance our security. The sensors all survived, and I moved them out to roughly three hundred meters which should give us ample time to react if something big comes visiting.”

“What if it rains? He doesn’t even have a shirt on.”

“I have an extra one in my pack, but I think we can forego that until he’s better. We shouldn’t be here long, anyway. We each have a blanket. We can make him as comfortable as possible with those and put the polymer up for a temporary shelter. Chances are we’ll get picked up before we get the polymer in position anyway.”

“Polymer?” Kathy asked while wrinkling her brow.

“Yeah. It’s part of the survival pack.”

“Oh, you mean the stuff we had to use at Op school?”

Thad laughed. “From the expression on your face, that must have been it.”

“I can’t believe anyone actually uses that stuff. Why didn’t you bring a lightweight tent?” she asked indignantly.

“Because I had rather have some heavyweight food,” he answered in a slightly mocking tone.

“But, how much weight...”

Thad interrupted. “Look, Kathy. A tent large enough for two people is bulky if it’s worth a crap. There’s little point in bringing one-person tents since we are both in all-weather suits, anyway. Just pull the hood up, put the gloves on, and forget it. A large tent would be convenient to sit inside while we cook and eat, particularly if the weather is bad, but it offers no protection from predators. Look how large our packs are now. Just imagine how bulky they would be with a tent.” Waving his hand, he continued, “This is something that Ops like to argue about when they get together. Everybody has their own special equipment for different eras. Clairvoyance would help, but barring that, you follow the checklist and add whatever you think you will need, always limited by weight and bulk. The last time I was stuck back here, I had very little food, thanks to your dear boss. This time I opted for food. If we get snatched back ten minutes from now, I’m going to look like an idiot with all these survival rations coming back with us, but if we don’t, we can eat for another week or so without more hunting — if you can stand the energy bars that long. Besides,” he added with a grin, “the polymer isn’t that bad — on a calm day.”

Thad pulled his blanket out of his pack and spread it on the ground next to the unconscious man. “Let’s move him onto the blanket, then we can put the shelter up around him.”

As they struggled to move the Traveler, Kathy said, “Wait, Thad. While we have him on his side, let’s clean his back.” A few minutes later, she had washed the Traveler’s back and sprayed the larger scrapes with pseudo-skin. As they turned him onto his back again, he mumbled something before succumbing to unconsciousness once more.

Thad cut poles and formed a framework for the film. After that, he used a rock for a hammer and drove sharpened stakes into the ground for anchors for the polymer. At last, he was ready to stretch the ultra-light material over the framework. Kathy remained sitting next to the Traveler, sponging him with a wet cloth as she had done the whole time Thad had worked on the framework. Finally, he said exasperatedly, “Come help me with this thing before it gets dark. You can’t do him any good holding his head in your lap. He’s either going to live, or he isn’t.”

“Thaddeus, I believe you’re jealous.”

“Jealous? Of what? With the wind gusts, I just can’t stretch this polymer over the framework without assistance,” he returned indignantly.

“For your information, I might have done some good,” she insisted. “His temperature is down a little more than a degree.”

Thad frowned and said, “The reduction in temperature is probably due to the medication the kit is giving him.”

Kathy persisted. “Haven’t you ever heard about bathing someone in cold water to help reduce a fever?” she asked.

“Sure I have, but I need some help with this thing. Every time I start to stretch it out, a gust of wind comes along and tangles everything up again.”

“What do you want me to do?”

Handing her one end of the polymer, Thad said, “Just hang onto this while I tie down this side.”

Thad stretched the polymer out, tying the tabs to the stakes he had previously driven near the framework. “The polymer is tough,” he said as he unsnarled a tangle of the film, “but it leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to using it.”

After attaching one side to the stakes, he came back and tied Kathy’s end before they moved to the opposite side. Kathy now helped to secure the tabs while they both stretched the film over the framework. She understood why he was in a grumpy mood. Each gust of wind threatened to undo everything they had done with the polymer. She should have offered to help long before he asked, but she had been so intent on reducing the Traveler’s fever that she had paid little attention to what Thad was doing. That’s not being much of a partner, she chided herself.

By the time they were finished, the light-sensitive material had darkened until it was a uniform gray. “When the sun goes down,” Thad remarked, “it’ll be transparent again.”

They sat outside the makeshift tent and shared a ration bar, washing it down with water from their canteens. “Aren’t you going to tag the Traveler so the chamber will bring him with us when we go back up-time?” Kathy asked.

Thad mumbled something as he hurriedly went to his pack for the instrument. He entered the tent and placed the device against the Traveler’s body for a moment. After checking the reading, he tagged the bow and arrows, repacked the apparatus, and returned to Kathy.

“It would be just like me to forget to tag the guy. Kessler would kill me if he brought us back up-time without the Traveler. Thanks, Kathy,” he said sheepishly.

Kathy laughed, then sobered and said, “I think he’ll live. Don’t you? If only he would regain consciousness, we could give him some water and maybe a little food.”

Thad frowned and cast a glance at Kathy. “It’s odd that Kessler hasn’t sent the chamber for us. Usually, there is a five-minute warning for us to either tag what we want to go with us, or we have to be touching the item or person.”

“He didn’t give us that much time when he moved us from the cave,” she remarked.

“I suppose he was desperate to put us in the Traveler’s time frame. At least we had everything tagged, so all our gear came with us.”

“Did Mr. Kessler say how long he would wait once we were with the Traveler?”

“No,” Thad responded while drawing out the word, “but we’re past the time where I would have thought Kessler would act.”

“Is there any way we could let him know that we have the traveler and we’re ready?”

“Nothing that has ever worked. You saw the result of the time techs’ latest attempt. That tingle is the only warning we’ll have, and it usually denotes five minutes before the chamber snatches us.”

Thad sat staring into the distance, obviously worried. Finally, “We should have had the warning before now. Something is wrong, or we would already be on our way back. Just in case, I suppose I had better get some wood and start preparing for a night in the open. We’re probably going to use a lot of it with us exposed the way we are. At least the sky is clear. All we need is a downpour to keep us from having a fire to, maybe, warn the predators off. At least the sensors seem to be working properly, so we’ll have a warning before an animal can get to us.”

Kathy again sat with the Traveler’s head in her lap as she continued applying a wet washcloth to his forehead, but she didn’t volunteer to help with the wood. Thad shrugged as he started toward some trees a hundred meters or so away. He was in luck and shortly found a downed tree. Soon, he was cutting off limbs and sectioning them into lengths that he could drag back to camp. He intended to build three separate fires all approximately equidistant and surrounding their shelter. After cutting a section of the tree, he removed the limbs and began rolling and dragging it back to their campsite. Kathy saw what he was doing and hurried over to help.

“Why so big?” she gasped when they finally had the log positioned where Thad wanted it.

“I hope the logs will catch and burn most of the night, but it’s going to take a lot of fire to get them started since I don’t have any way to split them.” When Kathy glanced at the Traveler, Thad noticed and said, “Go on with what you were doing. Once I have the next log ready, I’ll call you. When we have the logs positioned, I’ll concentrate on wood that I can drag by myself, then some still smaller to get everything going. Even with the logs, we’ll need a lot of wood to keep the fire blazing. We’re far too exposed out here, but I hope three large fires positioned around us will discourage the animals — at least to some extent,” he finished with a sigh.

An hour later, and with occasional help from Kathy, Thad had three of the relatively large logs, each roughly two meters in length, positioned around their camp with numerous smaller logs and piles of smaller wood to hopefully keep everything blazing until the logs were fully caught, plus a stack of wood to, hopefully, last the night.

Although he had been unable to split the bigger logs, Thad had chopped and pried up pieces along the top of the logs to facilitate their catching fire. He had found a spring not far from their campsite, and Kathy had refilled their canteens and their folding water jug.

The day was hot, and he doubted that it would cool off so much during the night that a blanket wouldn’t be sufficient. Without the natural draft that the cave possessed to take the smoke out, the fire would be more bother than not inside the tent. When not helping him drag the logs, Kathy had continued doing everything she could to reduce the Traveler’s temperature. She had already surprised Thad more than once on this trip. At times she seemed totally helpless, then resourceful; now, she showed a depth of compassion for a stranger beyond what Thad would have suspected her of having.

The work pants the Traveler wore reinforced Thad’s original theory that the Traveler could have come from the early twenty-third century, but why the handmade bow and arrows? If he had invented a time machine, where was it? Surely, he wouldn’t have gone down-time without a way back. No, that couldn’t be right; he had come back up-time through the barrier, so he had to have had the capability at that point. Why no shirt? Was that because of the wound, or had he lost the shirt along with his equipment? Thad’s wanderings were brought to an abrupt halt when a limb he was cutting snapped back, and he barely got out of the way in time. After surveying his woodpiles, he decided that he had enough to last the night, even if he had to start the fires shortly after dark.

When he had the wood stacked where he wanted it, including some for a cookfire near the shelter, Kathy started a small fire, and he rigged a spit above it. She hung one of the pots and put some water in it to heat for coffee, then sat next to him as he leaned back against a rock near the tent.

“How’s he doing?”

“About the same, I suppose. Possibly, his breathing is a little better.” Kathy abruptly changed the subject. “What are we going to do if an animal like the one at the cave comes tonight?” she asked, eyeing the sun, now low on the horizon.

“I’m hoping it won’t, of course. For one thing, we left our scent over a five-kilometer-long trail during our hike when we first arrived. That made it much easier for a predator to pick up our spore. Since we’ve stayed in one place this time, maybe we’ll be lucky and won’t be discovered. If we hear anything, or if the monitor picks up something coming in, I’ll set the bonfires.”

Kathy wasn’t reassured. “That didn’t do any good the night that ... thing attacked.”