Time's Last Gift Read online

  They walked five miles before they came to the man’s home. The valley suddenly widened here, and the overhang which housed human beings was at the top of a steep slope. They could not see any women or children from this angle, but the twelve men would not have gathered in full sight on the edge of the hill unless they had something to defend.

  Gribardsun looked around before giving the order to ascend. It seemed likely that there would be other men out hunting, and he did not want to be surprised by men attacking from behind.

  The man they had first seen had scrambled up ahead of them to warn the others. Now he stood with the others, brandishing his spear and yelling at the invaders.

  Gribardsun activated the bullhorn device on his chest and then told the others to drop about a hundred feet behind him. He looked for large rocks on the lip of the hill. He was ready to jump if they rolled any down on them. But there did not seem to be any nor was there evidence at the foot of the hill that they had rolled any down in the past.

  He wondered what the natives were thinking. There were twelve warriors there, defending their home territory, and there were only three men and a woman boldly approaching them. Their appearance, of course, would be impressive. There would be something very alien about the invaders; the clothes, the weird-looking weapons, the clean-shaven faces. Most mystifying, and terrifying, would be the confidence with which the greatly outnumbered party approached.

  Gribardsun had had long experience with savages. He was much older than he looked and remembered when Africa and Asia still hid genuine preliterates with very little knowledge of civilization. It was this experience which gave him confidence, because he knew that these people did not really want to engage in combat with an unknown enemy. The others of his party had had little to do with genuine primitives; they had been born too late; the savages had died out or been citified; the few left on reservations were too well-educated to be ‘real’ primitives.

  Nevertheless, the natives were dangerous. They must have fought enemy humans and they must have hunted the dangerous mammoth, rhinoceros, cave bear, and cave lion.

  Gribardsun got well within range of the spears before he held up his hand for the others to stop. He advanced slowly then, speaking through the bullhorn. His voice, like a thunder god’s, bellowed at them. They stopped yelling and waving their weapons when the first words struck them. Even at this distance he could see their flushed skins turn pale.

  He stopped, too, and pulled out a Very gun and fired it straight up into the air. The parachute expanded from the stick, at two hundred feet, and as it fell it burned a bright green and then a bright scarlet and then exploded loudly at a fifty-foot altitude.

  The warriors became rigid and silent.

  They must have wanted to run, but that would have meant abandoning the women and children. And that they would not do.

  Gribardsun approved of this. Though they must have fell a terrible awe of this evil magician, yet they stood their ground.

  The Englishman held out both hands - his express rifle was still supported by a strap over his shoulder - and he advanced smiling.

  A tall heavily built man with dark red hair mingled with gray stepped out of the line and approached Gribardsun slowly. The brown-haired man whom the party had followed also came down the slope though he stayed a few feet behind the red-haired man. The chief held a big stone axe in his right hand and a thick-shafted spear in his left. He was about as tall as Gribardsun.

  The Englishman spoke through the bullhorn again. At the thundering speech, the chief and his companion stopped. But Gribardsun continued to smile, and then he turned the amplifier off, lowering his hand slowly so he would not alarm the two. After that, he raised his hand and spoke with his normal voice. The eyes of the two widened at this. However, they seemed to understand that the change in loudness was meant to signify friendliness.

  Gribardsun walked slowly upward until he was about ten feet from them. At this range, he could see that both were quivering. But it was the alienness of the intruders that was making them shake, not the prospect of combat.

  Gribardsun talked and at the same time made signs to reinforce the words. He used the sign language of the Kalahari bushmen, not because he expected the sign language of these people - if they had any - to coincide but because the signs would be additional reassurances of his peaceful intentions.

  He told them that the four came from a far place and that they brought gifts and that they were friends.

  The chief finally smiled and lowered his weapons, though he still kept his distance. The other man also smiled. The chief turned, still watching Gribardsun out of the corner of his eyes, and shouted at the warriors above. Then he beckoned Gribardsun to follow him, and he and the brown-haired man preceded the four. At the top they found themselves ringed by the warriors but these made no threatening gestures.

  The four could now see that there was a large camp under the immense limestone overhang. The north end was blocked by stones piled on top of each other and part of the eastern end was also blocked. There were about thirty ‘wigwams,’ tents of skin supported by wooden poles, near the rear of the overhang. Gribardsun counted thirty adult women, ten juvenile girls, six juvenile males, and thirty-eight children. Later, when hunters returned, the total adult male population would be twenty-four.

  There were small fires in every hearth and wooden spits over many, some of which held skinned and gutted rabbits, marmots, birds, and parts of a bear. In one corner was a wooden cage in which was a bear cub. Before one of the tents was a pole held up by a pile of rocks and dirt. Stuck on its end was a bear skull easily as large as the largest of the Kodiak bears of Gribardsun’s time. Gribardsun wondered if the skull and the cub meant that the tribe had a bear cult.

  Water would have to be brought up from the river. A number of skin bags on the dirt floor seemed to hold water.

  There were bones all over the place, and a strong odor from the north indicated that human excrement was dropped over the edge of the hill on the other side of the rude wall. The odor of the natives, and their matted hair and beards and dirty skins, showed that they cared little for personal cleanliness.

  Gribardsun walked over to the nearest tent and looked inside without objection from anybody. There were very low beds with wooden frames and furs piled on top. On one lay a boy of about ten. He stank of sickness.

  Gribardsun crawled into the tent after telling Rachel to hold the skin flap open for him. The boy looked at him with glazed eyes. He was too sick to be frightened by the stranger.

  A woman shouted something outside and then crawled in to watch the stranger. She was making sure that the mysterious man with the voice like thunder did not intend to harm her child.

  Gribardsun smiled at her but also made a gesture for her not to interfere.

  He put a reflector on his head and shone a light into the boy’s eyes and down his throat and into his ears. The boy submitted though he trembled with fear.

  Gribardsun had to decide whether or not to take samples of skin tissue, blood, saliva, and urine. So many of the preliterate societies he had known had objected to giving specimens. They feared that these would be used against them by evil magic. If this tribe had the same superstitions, it might react violently, no matter how awed they were at this moment.

  He considered. The flat instrument he had applied to the boy’s skin indicated a fever of 104° Fahrenheit. The skin was flushed and dry. The breath was foul. The heartbeat was eighty-five per minute. The breathing was rapid and shallow. These symptoms could mean a dozen different diseases. He needed specimens for a diagnosis.

  He could just back off and let nature, or whatever the local witch doctor might have in the way of efficacious medicine, do its work. He had been warned that he should not get involved with medical matters if he thought that his interference might backfire. After all, everybody he would meet was doomed to die, would have been dead for almost fourteen thousand years when he was born. But procedure was left to his discreti
on. If he thought he could cure a sick native, and thereby aid the goal of the project, he could proceed. But if he did not wish to endanger the project, he could just let the natives die.

  There was no question of concern about his interference changing the course of events. Whatever he was to do had been done, and events and lives had been determined before he was born even if he had helped determine them.

  Gribardsun’s back kept the mother from seeing what he was doing. She said something in a protesting tone, but he paid no attention. He stuck the tip of the instrument against the arm, twisted a little knob on its side, the syringe filled with blood. He drew off some saliva from lie boy’s open mouth. Getting urine would be difficult only if the mother objected. He secured another instrument at the proper place, and pressed a button plunger on the end of a flexible metal tube. If there was any urine available, it would come out without delay, and it did. He removed the instrument and packed it away. When he returned to the vessel, he would make his analyses. Rather, the small medical computer in the ship would. And tomorrow, if things went right here today, he would transport the computer-analyzer to this site.

  The mother protested some more, but she crawled out of the tent a moment later. Perhaps she was going to the chief and the medicine man. He took advantage of her absence to drop a pill into the boy’s mouth, raise his head, and pour ill-smelling water into his mouth from a skin bag.

  The pill was a general panacea - a redundancy in terms - which could slow down the development of a dozen diseases. It might not contain anything to help whatever was making the boy sick, but there was nothing in it to hurt him.

  Outside, the woman was talking rapidly and loudly and gesticulating to the chief and a short muscular man with a forehead covered with symbols painted with ocher. The symbols matched those on the skin of the tent. This man had just come in from the hunt. His woman was carrying off two rabbits and a large badger.

  Two more men climbed over the edge of the hill. One, a huge man with the massive muscles and the pot-belly of a gorilla, was carrying part of a large male reindeer over his shoulders. The other, shorter and less stout, was carrying a smaller portion over his shoulders and a marmot tied by the neck to his belt.

  The two stopped when they saw the strangers. The carcass dropped with a thump and a clash of antlers against a hearth, and the giant advanced toward them. The chief said something to him, and the giant stopped, scowling.

  The first thing to do was to establish ‘identities.’ Gribardsun got them to pronounce - or try to pronounce - their names. They did better with John than with his surname.

  The chief was Thammash. The brown-haired man was Shivkaet, the tribal artist. The painted man was Glamug, the witch doctor or shaman. The giant was Angrogrim. The sick boy was Abinal, son of Dubhab. Dubhab showed up during the name-learning. He was a short lean man with a wide friendly smile, and he seemed to be the most articulate of his people. He introduced others, including Laminak, his daughter, a pre-teenager, and Amaga, his wife.

  Gribardsun told his colleagues it was time to go back to the vessel. They would not stay too long today. Despite their violence-free reception, they were putting the natives to a strain. They would retreat and let the tribe discuss the strangers. Tomorrow they would return and stay a little longer. And the day after they would increase the length of their visit even more. In time, the natives would get used to them.

  Von Billmann said, ‘I can hardly wait to study their language. Did you catch that synchronic articulation of the nasal bilabial and the velar bilabial and the ejective consonants with simultaneous glottal stops?’

  ‘I caught them,’ Gribardsun said.

  Rachel rolled her large blue eyes and said, ‘I think I’m going to have trouble speaking their language anywhere near correctly. The sounds sound impossible.’

  Drummond said, ‘Robert, you look as excited as if you were about to make love.’

  ‘Which he is, in a way,’ Gribardsun said.

  They left, while the tribe gathered on the edge of the hill to watch them. Some of the small boys started down after them but were called back by their parents. The people stood together and watched them until they were out of sight.

  They were not very talkative on the way back. Von Billmann had stuck the speaker of his pocket recorder-player into his ear and was listening to the sound of the language over and over. Rachel and Drummond spoke infrequently and then softly to each other. Gribardsun seldom talked much unless the occasion demanded it.

  However, when they returned to the H. G. Wells I, their spirits rose. Perhaps it was because they were home. Even the grim gray torpedo shape was a haven and reminder of the world they had left.

  ‘We’ll sleep here tonight,’ Gribardsun said. ‘We can put up our domes later on. Obviously we can’t walk back and forth to the village every day, and we can’t move the vessel, so we’ll have to establish camp close to our subjects.’

  Rachel busied herself getting supper, though this took only two minutes to cook and open the prepared packages. She did pour out small glasses of wine to celebrate. Gribardsun ran the specimens through the analyzer while she was getting supper.

  ‘The boy, Abinal, has typhus,’ he said. ‘That can be caused by a rickettsia or body lice. I didn’t see anybody else sick, so I doubt that it was caused by body lice, though Abinal may just be the first. Whatever the cause, he can transmit it through his own body lice. I propose tomorrow to give Abinal an anti-typhus medicine and to give the others a preventative. Plus a medicine which will kill their body lice.’

  ‘How do you propose to get them to take the medicines?’ von Billmann said.

  ‘I don’t know yet.’

  ‘It might cause more trouble than it’s worth,’ Drummond said. ‘Not that I’m ignoring the human side of this,’ he added, seeing Rachel’s frown. ‘But, after all, we want to study them in their natural habitat and in their natural mode of life as much as possible. If we prevent diseases, how will we know how they react to them? I mean, what medicines and magical rituals they use, their burial ceremonies and so forth. You know they’re going to die anyway - in fact, they’ve been dead for a long time, actually. And what kind of resentments will you stir up if you interfere with the shaman’s profession or fail to cure a sick person? You might even get blamed for the death.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Gribardsun said. ‘But if the tribe is wiped out by typhus, or some other disease, then we have no tribe to study, no language to learn. And nobody to help us haul the vessel to the top of the hill. I’m taking what they used to call a calculated risk.’

  Rachel looked curiously at him and said, ‘Every once in a while you use an old-fashioned phrase. Not self-consciously but as if - well, I don’t know. You roll them out as if you were to the phrase born, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘I read a lot,’ he said. ‘And I have a tendency to repeat some of the good old phrases.’

  ‘I’m not deprecating it,’ she said. ‘I like to hear them. It’s just that they startle me. Anyway, supper’s on. Let’s have a little toast first. John, you’re our chief; you propose it.’

  He raised his glass and said, ‘Here’s to the world we love, whatever she may be.’

  They drank down the wine. Rachel said, ‘That’s a strange toast, John.’

  ‘John’s a strange man,’ Drummond said, and he laughed.

  Gribardsun smiled slightly. He knew that Silverstein resented his wife’s obvious admiration for him, but he did not think that the issue would be an irritating one, even if they were forced to be together for four years. The scientists in charge of the project had studied their compatibility charts and were well satisfied with them. Nobody on the expedition was psychologically unstable, as far as the tests could determine.

  If Drummond got out of line, he would have to be straightened out. He was a reasonable man, except where his wife was concerned. And even there he could be reassured. Gribardsun was sure of that. It was only in the last few weeks before the launching
of the H. G. Wells I that Drummond had started to show signs that he thought his wife admired Gribardsun more than she should. Even then he had expressed himself in only mild oblique remarks. Several mornings, he and Rachel had looked as if they had not slept well the night before. Gribardsun had thought of asking for their withdrawal before the day of launching got too close. But the two had not let whatever was bothering them interfere with their duties, and he knew how deeply they would be hurt if they were taken off the project. So he had said nothing to his superiors.

  ‘We’ll get up early,’ he said. ‘Seven o’clock, ship’s time. After breakfast we’ll tramp around and collect some more specimens. Then we’ll visit our natives. But I think we can establish even better relations if we take them some meat.’

  After eating, they went outside. The sun was just touching the horizon. The air was very cold. A herd of about thirty reindeer, a couple of huge rhinoceroses, twelve adult mammoths and three babies, and a dozen bison were by the river. At this distance they looked like small animated toys.

  The four were thrilled at their first sight of the rhinos and mammoths. There were still elephants in zoos and reservations in their world, but the mammoths with the hump of fat on their heads and shoulders and the curved tusks were quite different. And the rhinos were extinct in the twenty-first century.

  ‘There’re some wolves!’ Rachel said.

  She pointed, and they saw a dozen of the gray shapes floating out of the shadows of a hill. The reindeer raised their heads, and the faint trumpeting of the mammoths reached the four. But the wolves ignored them and trotted to a spot about sixty yards down from the herbivores. There they drank, and the herbivores continued to drink, though watching the wolves nervously.

  The sky above passed from pale blue to dark blue to sable. The stars came out. Drummond Silverstein made sightings, then set out his telescope and camera. Rachel stayed out with him. Von Billmann returned to the vessel to listen some more to the sounds of his new language. Gribardsun took his express rifle and walked back up the hill. By the time he reached the top, the half moon had appeared. It looked exactly like the moon he knew, except that he knew that no men were burrowed deep in its rock and no domes or spacecraft were on its surface.