Chapter 4

Waking at sunrise the next morning John was the first to discover an untenable situation in their living arrangements. The fresh water flowing into the cave was fine for drinking, but it was entirely too cold for washing. Just try having a shower or bath in the runoff from a glacier. Fortunately John didn't even have to try it the first time. He radioed the ship and had them install an inline water heater in the stream and he also called for plumbing as long as he was at it.

Two hours later a large shower enclosure and a claw foot bathtub were in place and they both had faucets for hot and cold running water. The ship had provided and estimate of ten thousand years before the glacier melted enough to cause the water to stop flowing. Apparently there was one hell of a lot of ice on the other side of their mountain.

John was the first to brave the new shower, but he was joined by Bubbles, Mary, and then Prissy soon enough. Things nearly devolved into a porno-movie type shower scene but rumbling stomachs finally brought them to their senses and they made their exits, dried, dressed, and then the women started warming up food on the cooking fire John hastily assembled.

To show he had been anticipating their wants the captain of the overhead orbiting ship sent down a large supply of a pasty type concoction meant to be spread onto and worked into the skins from the wolves. He claimed it would greatly aid in the tanning of same and would make them much more wearable and comfortable to wear.

John was all for it, but after it was applied he called the girls together for a first exploration on the ground. They armed themselves, even carrying their bows and arrows, for looks mostly, and they set out to see what was shaking outside.

Their cave was really well suited for their occupation and use, what with a large open area just in front of the entrance. The 'front porch' as they called it would be shaded during the summer by the large trees around it and it was well drained for the winter furnishing a large 'front yard' for them to use during outdoor activities. It didn't take them long to completely explore this area and find next to nothing interesting.

They soon took to climbing around and exploring the several animal type trails leading off from their area and soon they came upon a small altercation. Apparently one of the nearby Cro-Magnon residents of the female persuasion was trying to escape capture by three of the males, apparently from her group. John was interested at once and not only because it was his duty to impregnate several of the resident females. This particular female resembled the fictional character named Ayla in one of their study text. Yes, "The Clan of the Cave Bear" stolen from their uptime observations of the planet had not only been required reading, it had been required study material and all this was from mere hope it would have something to do with the conditions they would face.

Those higher up in the planning for the mission hadn't really dared to hope the books in the series would show conditions as they actually were, they had only hoped studying them would make them a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. From the looks of things at the moment their wishes were well on the way to being fulfilled.

They gray eyed blonde girl in evidence was near enough to Ayla's looks to do nicely and she seemed to currently be being pursued by several examples of Cro-Magnon man. John wasn't about to let the males interfere with his mission. At once he knocked an arrow and sent it into the chest of the largest male present. The women with him were quick studies and they did the same. It was only a little bother that Prissy and Bubbles aimed for the same man and John quickly made up for the mistake with another fine shot.

The score was now Interstellar experimental group four, cave men zero. With two more males to be accounted for and Mary and Prissy soon accounted for them.

The female was thunderstruck and quickly looked around to try discovering where the perpetrators of this miracle were. She spotted them at once and quickly lowered herself to her knees in abject terror and surrender. John approached her at once.

"There there little one. Don't worry, we won't hurt you." he said, but even he noticed it wasn't what came out of his mouth.

There had been some discussion on the trip out over translation problems. The ship had contained much information about the current inhabitants including a complete translation of all the languages they were likely to encounter. Unknown to John and his companions the information had been 'given' to them during their sleep along with a sort of 'program' for speaking the new language that had been installed under hypnotic suggestion. It was only a temporary solution and it was hoped the explorers would soon come to speak the language naturally. For the nonce the translation 'program' seemed to be working much better than expected.

An exchange of names was next and John was surprised the girls name was actually Ayla, or at least she claimed it was and he couldn't feature her lying about such a thing. John was amazed he could actually converse with Ayla and all his companions were in the same shape.

Ayla told them she had been assigned to the first male John had killed as a mate and she hadn't wanted to be any such thing so she had run away. John told her she was welcome to stay with them as long as she liked and she took them up on it right away. She led them to the bodies and began stripping them of all their valuables at once.

"They may need these things in the next world, but we may need them now," Ayla said, and there was no doubt their pursuit of her went a long way toward coloroing her opinion of what they'd need in the afterlife. She collected the spears and flint shard knives from them. She was about to strip the bodies of clothing also and Bubbles, Mary, and Prissy helped her at once. After the bodies were stripped John asked her what they should do with them and Ayla explained the preferred method was a fire. They spent the next hour gathering squaw wood and piling it on the bodies and then Ayla set it alight by banging flint against a piece of iron pyrite to make a spark and get things going.

While the bodies were burning John asked Ayla about the hunting in the area and she told him she could lead them to a good place to watch for deer. He had her start out and then the rest followed. Twenty or so minutes later they were heading down a small hill toward a stream and Ayla froze and then pointed toward four deer drinking.

John and Prissy stalked closer to the game and fired their first arrows at the same time, striking and killing the largest two. The others didn't run away at once and so they did it again and ended up with four deer on their very first hunt.

Ayla was excited and wanted to run to the kills, but she waited for the others to accompany her. When she got there she began gutting them at once and the others soon helped, except for John. Ayla had been persuasive asking him to watch over them lest predators come and steal the kills. It turned out to be sage advice since John had to kill two hyenas and three foxes who seemed determined to horn in.