Chapter 35

I was as fond of preservation as anyone, especially since I'd come from a place where the last of the huntable animals were scarce because there were just too damned many people. Still, I was growing fond of the people around me in the here and now and having lions, cave bears, hyenas, and sabertooths roaming around was not healthy for my people. If the predators thought they had to stay here we were going to kill them all if we could.

In a way it was survival of the fitest. Of course we had some mechanical help in the fittest considerations, but we weren't going to give up our advantage simply because we hadn't come by it completely naturally. Besides, who was to say me and mine hadn't been put back here and now by a natural process. At any rate we didn't know how to do it, or undo it either for that matter.

We were here now and I was going to use everything I knew of or could dream up to keep us well fed, healthy, and happy. In that vein, as the sun was setting and supper was about to appear I wandered around talking to my women and let them know I thought a little more extermination needed to be done tomorrow.

We were all agreed before supper was over. Tomorrow we'd start a little earlier and take a larger group with us to help with skinning out and cutting up. My women had other things on their minds just now though and another round of my nightly duties got started almost right away.

We got up fairly early the next morning, but plans for a hunting and eliminating trip were over early. A hellaciouly dark storm cloud seemed to be boiling over in the direction of the large lake we'd dropped in on.

Of course our own clusterfuck there was the first thing I thought of, and the tragedy of Christy's ordeal came next. In real life we had no way to know if this was an oridinary big storm or another temporal event. No matter which, we stayed in the cave and waited for things to settle down.

When the storm was over and gone after only a few hours I decided chances were it was something else suspicious. I intended to at least do a flyover to check things out, and as I expected Chris, Mary, Reela, Sahnay, and Keela were coming along too.

The weather looked almost completely clear by noon and we fired up the PBY and took off. Ten minutes later we were over the lake and something new was there. Something new and not of this time either. Best I could tell from the air it looked like medical rescue helicopter of the Blackhawk persuasion.

After making sure they knew we were around I set down and then taxied back toward them. They had pontoons, but had landed on the lake's beach. I pulled the PBY up against the shore near them and shutdown. We were out and had it tied off in minutes.

Theree women got out of the Blackhawk. According to the way they were dressed I figured it to be a pilot, co-pilot, and a corpman, or maybe even a doctor. I was a little surprised when we approached since they all seemed to be scowling.

Scowling or not, when we approached the one I considered the pilot had a question at once - without any niceties such as an introduction.

"We seem to have lost our communication equipment during a storm. Could you tell us where we are?" she asked, looking in my general direction.

"I can tell you, but you won't believe me. You are somewhere in central Europe."

"That's impossible," she said.

"I told you so. Your Global Positioning system isn't working either. The information which will be most helpful to you is the time, or where we are in time. We are at least ten thousand years back."

She laughed at me this time, but I didn't blame her. Chris and Mary weren't helping any by snikering behind my back, but what the hell.

"If you don't want to help us it's your business, but there's no point on spewing pure bullshit."

"Speak to her in your language Reena."

She did it. She told them I had been telling the truth as best she knew, but in her own Cro-Magnon tongue. Of course it didn't prove anything and I guess I'd just been stalling for time.

"And just what language was that?" the probable pilot asked.

"Cro-Magnon. Would you like to hear it in Neanderthal? Go ahead Shanay, tell her in your language," I said, and Shanay did.

"So you're trying to make us believe we've made some type of trip through space and time and you're trying to convince us we're back with Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals? Pull my other finger," she said.

"Actually I'm trying to help you, but I realize you probably can't come to grips with it yet."

"Isn't it always the way it is. Some man is trying to shoot his mouth off and sell us a load of bullshit and thinks we'll believe it because we're women," the one I assumed was a corpman or a doctor said.

I knew I shouldn't, but I couldn't help myself. I burst out laughing and was followed right away by Chris and Mary. Reela, Keela, and Shanay didn't think it was so funny though.

"I am sorry for laughing at you and I know there's no way you can believe any of us so quickly. If you wise up in time you'll probably laugh it off sooner or later yourself. We can't hang around here all day though. If you'd care to follow us you'll get reassurance at our home. It's less than thirty minutes by air and we can refuel you there if you need it," I said.

"Why should we follow you anywhere?" the pilot asked.

"For one thing you probably don't have adequate shelter if a heavy snow blows in. For another, do you have adequate food for an extended stay. Even if you don't believe me you probably don't have enough fuel for a long flight, and believe me it will be a long one."

"I don't believe a word you're saying. Just tell us which way to head for the nearest civilization," the pilot asked.

"That's the point. There isn't any civilization here."

All three of them concentrated on giving me hard looks for a few seconds, but we were saved, sorta, by another smilodon appearance. Reela saw it first, over by the edge of the woods. She pointed it out.

Our visitors were stupefied as it approached. When the one I thought was a Doctor started screaming for us not to shoot it I was baffled for a second.

"Don't you realize what it is? They've been thought extinct for ten thousand years," she yelled.

"Very well, you go talk to it and tell it not to eat any of us."

That stumped her for a minute.

"Look at my necklace. They aren't so hard to come by here and now," I said, showing my necklace of saber teeth.

"My God. It's bad enough killing for furs, but did you actually shoot one already for a mere trophy?" the assumed doctor asked.

"Just because you don't believe what I tell you doesn't mean I'm going to let that sabertooth kill one of us because you don't know what your talking about. If it turns away we won't bother it. If you're so damned worried about it stand out in front of us and then tell us how close you want to let it get before we shoot," I said, and I'll admit I might not have been as polite as I could have been.