Chapter 16

Near one million BC.

Kathy awoke with Thad shaking her shoulder. As she groggily sat up, he handed her a cup of coffee and said, “I hated to wake you, since you were sleeping so soundly, but I’m about comatose.”

“What time is it?” she mumbled, disoriented.

Thad glanced at the luminous dial of his watch. “It’s 4:00 in the afternoon at Temporal,” he said with a chuckle, “but considering you went to sleep shortly after dark, I suppose it’s two or three hours before dawn, local time.”

“You mean you let me sleep that long?” she exclaimed as she sat up. “I thought we were going to take turns.”

“I dozed some setting up, and I had a lot to think about, so I just let you sleep. Besides, you looked like you needed it.”

“Thad, that’s twice you did that, and it makes me feel guilty. You shouldn’t have let me sleep that long.” She sipped her coffee for a while, put it down, stood and stretched. “I slept like a rock. Did you check on our friend?” she asked through a yawn.

Thad sat on his mattress and pulled his boots off. “I hope ‘friend’ is the right word, but yes, I checked on him several times. His fever is almost gone, and his other vital signs are close to normal. I peeked under the medkit, and the wound looks good. From what I saw before, the wound is deep — maybe to the bone in places — and the cut is ragged, but with the pseudo-skin, the injury looks a lot better. The kit is still giving him antibiotics and tissue regeneration medication. I think it’s probably keeping him sedated too.”

Kathy cast a glance toward the Traveler. “What about the blood it said he needed so desperately?”

“Well, it probably gave him something to stimulate his body to make new blood, but that will take time, considering the shape he was in.”

As Thad stretched out on the mattress, Kathy got a ration bar and sat down to eat and finish her coffee. Thad handed her the rifle, showed her how to activate the night sight, then rolled over on his side and was asleep before she finished her food.

Drinking the coffee had made her feel much better. The outside of her suit was damp with dew, as was everything else she touched. Although her body was comfortable in the suit environment, she could feel cool air on her face. Surprised that the night had cooled off so much, she wondered if the blanket were enough to keep the Traveler warm. After taking her light out of her pack, she went back inside the tent. The fire near the entrance seems to have added sufficient warmth for the Traveler, she decided. After cupping her hand around her light, she turned it on but only opened her hand enough to allow a thin beam to show on the Traveler. His breathing was deep and regular as she knelt beside him, leaned over and keyed the medkit for an update. The kit beeped quietly and listed the patient’s vital signs, which seemed low to her. His pulse rate was fifty-four, and his blood pressure was ninety-eight over sixty-five, but the medkit had “Normal” indicated beside the readings. As she gently raised the side of the medkit for a peek at the wound, a hand clamped down hard on her right arm. She let out a startled squeak and dropped the light onto the man’s chest. The hand relaxed its crushing pressure but didn’t let her go as a deep voice asked, “What’re you doing?”

Well, say something, she thought as she struggled to find her voice. I knew he had to wake up eventually. Now, what am I going to tell him? At least the language blurp must have worked, she thought inanely, because I can understand him.

“I’m...” she started, then her temper flared, and she hissed out, “You scared me half to death. What’s the matter with you? Here I am trying to help you, and you try to mangle my arm.”

“Is she always this bitchy?”

From behind her, Thad’s voice answered, “No, she sleeps some of the time.”

The Traveler chuckled and let her arm go. As she fumbled to retrieve the light, he said, “I don’t know who you people are, but I sure could use some water.”

Kathy started to get up to get some, but Thad extended a cup toward her with the hand not holding the rifle. As she turned to the Traveler, he placed a shaking hand on the cup, causing some of it to spill. When he brought the cup closer to his mouth, the shaking increased, and Kathy assisted him in holding the cup to his lips. He gulped the water until she pulled it away, saying, “Maybe you had better wait a minute for the rest.”

The Traveler sighed and said, “That was good. I don’t think I’ve ever been this thirsty in my life.” Then directing himself to Thad, he added, “And by the way, if that thing in your hand is what I think it is, you don’t need it.”

“Maybe,” Thad said, but he leaned the rifle against the outside of the tent before stepping back inside.

“Could I have another sip of that water, please?” When Kathy handed him the cup, he managed this time by himself, draining the cup completely, obviously wanting more.

“Let’s see how your stomach reacts to that,” Thad said, “Then we’ll get you some more. You lost a lot of blood, and the kit gave you a blood regeneration accelerator. Get set to have that thirst for a while. You had a lot of infection in that wound too, enough that the medkit thought you might die. I’ve never seen that thing so cranky.”

“Medkit?”

“Yeah, the thing on your arm. You would have been dead by now without it.”

“I guess I owe more thanks than just for a drink of water, then,” Mack said as he scrutinized the odd instrument on his arm. To him, it looked a lot like a giant insect with spider-like legs that wrapped around his arm, holding its body over the wound the cat had inflicted. There was an odd glow coming from under the thing and a faint, not entirely unpleasant tingling that seemed to be associated with it. Mack wiggled his fingers to the accompaniment of agonizing pain from the wound. The thing on his arm beeped.

Thad sat down and leaned back against the framework of the tent. “No thanks necessary,” he said. “How do you feel?”

“Better than when I started out...” Mack commented but stopped before finishing the sentence.

Thad extended his hand. “Maybe we should introduce ourselves. I’m Thad Sullivan, and this is Kathy Anderson. We’ve just been calling you the Traveler. Does that fit?”

After a moment’s silence, Mack asked, “You know then? You know where I came from?”

“We know approximately where you came from,” Thad said, “but that’s about all. Care to tell us your name?”

Mack grinned. “Sorry, I guess I’m a little rattled. I’m Mack Tyler.”

“How did you get that wound on your arm, Mack?” Kathy asked.

“Well, it was ... done by an animal. Where are we?” he suddenly asked.

“You mean you don’t know?” Kathy asked.

“No, I ... oh, crap. I’m either crazy, or I’m a large number of years into prehistoric time,” he finished in a rush.

“Try a million,” Thad said, to Mack’s obvious relief.

“I was afraid to say it,” Mack returned with a sigh. “I thought I might have been having hallucinations from the infection.” As he struggled to sit up, the medkit started beeping.

Thad laughed. “Better take it easy, or ‘Mother Hen’ there will send you back to dreamland.” But the admonishment was too late; the Traveler’s eyes were already closing. As Kathy tucked the blanket back around his shoulders, Thad said, “I’m going to get some sleep.”

Just outside the makeshift tent, Kathy sat on her mattress as Thad got a drink of water. “I thought you would lecture me for going into the tent with my gun on. I guess it’s still possible that he could be dangerous to us or might even be one of the Others. When he grabbed my arm, I just knew you would say that he could have gotten my gun away from me. But you didn’t say a thing about it, yet you brought the rifle with you.”

Thad sat on his mattress. Having forgotten to explain to her fully about the holster, he was now reluctant to do so, knowing he would probably be stirring her temper up. “Kathy, I brought the rifle with me for effect. I just wanted to see how he would react. Besides, he couldn’t have gotten your gun,” he finished lamely.

As the firelight played across Kathy’s face, Thad could see a frown start across her perfect features. Before he could finish, she put her hand above her gun and slowly opened her fingers. The gun was suddenly nestled in her hand. She dropped the weapon back into the holster, then pulled on the gun. “I knew I wasn’t crazy. Thaddeus, I’m going to pay you back for that. Do you know how I felt when I realized this gun was in my hand the first time and every other time I took it out of the holster, for that matter?” Then indicating the holster, she asked, “Where did you get this thing?”

“Up-time,” he said uncomfortably. “From a friend of mine.”

“Well?” she said, and Thad hastily explained in detail about the holster.

She didn’t get as mad as Thad expected, but when he finished his explanations, she wanted to talk about the Traveler, but all Thad could think about was closing his eyes and sleeping.

“How can you sleep at a time like this? We just met another time traveler.”

“It’s really easy when you’re short on sleep,” he mumbled as his eyes closed.

Kathy, frustrated, turned her back on the sleeping Thad and watched the Traveler — Mack, she corrected herself mentally. She knew she should be suspicious of this man, a time traveler from many years before she was born, but he didn’t seem to be a threat, despite what she had just said to Thad. When he understands where we came from and why, will he be willing to go with us and share his secrets of time travel with us? He still has a long way to go on the recovery end of it too. The excitement and talking exhausted him, but I can vividly remember the crushing force in his grip, even in his weakened condition. He relaxed his grasp almost as soon as he had applied it, and maybe that, as much as anything else, had soothed her worries about him.