Throwback

by Edward J. McFadden III

  “You’re from the ship in the sky? I’ve been looking for it every night, but it’s not always visible,” Enyo said.

  “You can see the space station from the ground?” Hawk asked. “I didn’t even think to look.”

  Enyo chuckled, his face twisting into a grin for the first time. “You can see it if you know where to look. And have lots of time.”

  “How did you get here?” Svet asked.

  Enyo looked hesitant, as if he still didn’t trust his captors. He said nothing, but his hands no longer shook and his face had shed its mask of defiance.

  “How did you find us?” Hawk asked. He’d learned that sometimes a question was too big and breaking it down into smaller pieces helped.

  At this question Enyo brightened. “I saw…” he stammered, his voice cracking. “I saw your fires across the sea. Thought I was going crazy.” His eyes strayed to the ground. “Crazier.”

  “You not crazy,” Svet said.

  Enyo smiled again, but said nothing.

  “She’s right,” Max said. “We’ve all been through an unparalleled hardship.”

  “I would go to the edge of the sea each night, expecting to not see the bright flames, but night after night they blazed, and with them brought hope that I wasn’t alone.” Enyo took a deep breath, like that many words strung together came with great effort. “I thought they were natural, at first, then…” His voice got steadier, his eyes less glassy. He was already on his way back to mankind.

  “Yes, we stayed at the edge of the inland sea for many nights. I was injured,” Max said.

  Pain cut across Enyo’s face. “Hurt?”

  “It’s OK. I’m fine now.”

  Enyo stared up at the tree canopy and rubbed his ankle where the snare had grabbed him. The excitement over, the jungle had returned to its state of constant chaos. An army of ants marched past, insects hummed, and the thunderous roar of a great fight not far off made the ground tremble.

  “So, it was you who shot the dinosaur on the plain and saved me? You who gathered our supplies in the flood by the sea? And you who provided the distraction when I was being attacked?” Hawk said.

  Enyo nodded.

  “Why you not show yourself?” Svet said.

  “Afraid,” he said. “I’d been alone for so long. And you… Hawk, are American.”

  The talk of shooting the dinosaur made Hawk think gun, and he visually searched Enyo for the weapon, but saw nothing.

  “Afraid of us? Why?” Svet said.

  Enyo shrugged.

  Hawk said, “Where is your gun?”

  “Camp.”

  “You don’t carry it with you?”

  “No. It is out of bullets. Used last one to help you.”

  “Thank you for that.”

  “My pleasure.” The man’s English was getting better.

  “And how did you come to be here?” Svet asked again.

  “I don’t know,” Enyo said.

  “You must know something,” Max said. “What were you doing when you arrived here? How did you arrive here?”

  “I came to Earth in my capsule. From orbit. Just like you.”

  “From orbit? When?”

  Enyo looked embarrassed, sighed and said, “What I tell you now is highly classified, though I can’t see how that matters any longer.”

  Hawk, Svet, and Max waited patiently, saying nothing.

  “My name is Enyo Liwei, and I am… I was, an astronaut on a mission for the China National Space Administration, who were partnering with the military.”

  “But how can that be?” Hawk said. “You were in orbit around Earth when the cloud passed?”

  “I was.”

  “And what happened?”

  “After the cloud passed everything on Earth was gone, and I lost all communications. I only had food for a few days, so I put the capsule in a decaying orbit and crash landed about fifty miles from here.”

  “Not possible,” Max said. “NASA and Roscosmos would have known about your mission.”

  “My capsule was equipped with a new stealth technology my country was testing. That was the main purpose of my mission. And to monitor the cloud like yourselves. Most of the higher ups in government didn’t even know I blasted off. I left from a secret location.”

  “I guess it worked,” Svet said.

  “Guess so,” Enyo said.

  The group sat in silence, the sounds of the jungle rising in a tumult. A fly landed on Hawk’s arm and he slapped it away, and Enyo jumped. A swarm of gnats blew through camp like a rain cloud, its dark outline shifting and expanding as the bugs changed direction.

  “You were in space at the same time as us, and got thrown back in time like us?” Svet didn’t appear to believe the man, despite his story making sense.

  “Indeed.”

  “What have you been doing down here all this time?” Hawk asked.

  “Living at the temple. Hunting. Looking for water. Same things as you I’d imagine,” Enyo said. “It was very hard at first, but one learns to live without certain… luxuries. If I hadn’t found the temple I don’t know what I would have done. I had my capsule, but it drew so much attention I covered it in palm fronds, but when I found the temple it made too much sense not to live there.”

  “The temple?” Max said.

  “I was wandering the jungle, staying clear of this time period’s larger inhabitants, when I came across a temple-like building covered in creepers, but built on a sturdy foundation. It was barely visible in the dense forest, but what I found therein is the true mystery.”

  Hawk and his friends waited patiently for him to continue, and when he didn’t Svet said, “Mystery?”

  “There are hieroglyphs all over the place, but I can’t figure out what they mean,” Enyo said.

  “Any signs of other people? Or, anything unlike people?” Max said.

  “I’m not sure, but many of the pictures show figures with seven fingers and tails.”

  “Have you found any markers in the jungle?” Hawk asked.

  “No.”

  “The markers are why we came this way. All the way from over the mountains in the east.” Enyo looked confused. It struck Hawk at that moment that perhaps the markers pointed at the temple, not the beacon. “You’ve never been across the inland sea?”

  “No. Why would I? I was fishing there when I saw your fires.” He paused, and his head tilted. “Where are you all going?”

  “To the beacon light,” Hawk said.

  Enyo looked perplexed. “The pictures in the temple…”

  “What? What do the hieroglyphs in the temple show?”

  “Something about a light, but it makes no sense.”

  “The beacon light! We saw the light from space and are trying to find it. Have you seen it? Do you have any idea what it is?” Max said.

  Enyo’s eyes glazed over and he looked like he had when they’d first caught him; a confused and scared child. “Beacon light? What beacon light?” he said.

  29

  “You didn’t see the bright light? From space?” Max said.

  Enyo rubbed his chin, and looked toward the jungle. His eyebrows knitted and he frowned, but he said nothing.

  “You didn’t see it?” Hawk said.

  Enyo ran his fingers through his hair and said, “No. There is a moonglow in the west on clear nights, but I never thought more of it than that. Now some of the hieroglyphs make more sense, though.”

  Hawk said, “When we were in orbit we saw a bright multi-colored pulsating light shining at the center of this continent. It didn’t appear natural.”

  “And from the mountains we saw a pillar of light, like a spotlight shooting into space, that appeared to blink in an odd rhythm,” Max said.

  Enyo looked more confused than ever. “What do you think it is?”

  “We believe it’s a beacon,” Hawk said.

  “Or a monitoring and recording device,” Max said.

  “What would it be recording?” Enyo asked.
/>   Hawk, Svet and Max exchanged glances.

  “Do you know what time we’re in?” Max said.

  Enyo chuckled. “Long, long time in the past judging by the inhabitants.”

  “We estimate the throwback sent us seventy-five million years into the past, give or take twenty million years,” Max said.

  Enyo shrugged, still not understanding.

  “The dinosaurs all died off around this time,” Hawk said.

  Enyo’s eyes widened as he recalled his high school science. “The extinction event?”

  “Exactly. We believe the beacon is in place to record the extinction event, and send the data off world,” Max said.

  “Off world?”

  “Da,” Svet said.

  “To who? Who placed the beacon?”

  Hawk and friends said nothing.

  The group sat in silence for a long time, the jungle erupting around them as though they weren’t there. Hawk got up, threw more wood on the fire, and gave Enyo more water.

  After a time, Enyo said, “What’s next? Where do we go from here?”

  Hawk sighed. “As we’ve told you, we’re on our way to the beacon, but now I think a detour to your temple is in order.”

  “Affirmative,” Max said in his Spock voice. “Those hieroglyphs might tell us something about the beacon.”

  “Da,” Svet said.

  “If there is any connection at all,” Enyo said.

  “What do you mean?” Svet said.

  “There must be a connection, no?” Max said.

  “Not necessarily,” Enyo said. He clasped his hands and placed them on his knee. He was growing more comfortable by the minute. His voice was recovering, and only cutting out every fifth word. “Perhaps the beacon was placed by one race, but discovered by another?”

  “Like us finding the pyramids centuries after they’d been constructed?” Max said.

  “Exactly. Some of the cave pictures appear to show a worship-like relationship with the light,” Enyo said.

  “Like praying to it?” Svet said.

  “He does call the place a temple,” Hawk said.

  The buzz of the jungle filled the silence, and in the distance the scree of a pterosaur made Hawk think of Smaug. Were they free of the beast for good?

  “Should we leave or camp here tonight?” Max asked.

  Hawk said, “Enyo, how far is the temple from here?”

  “Twenty miles. Maximum.”

  “How do you feel?”

  “Physically, fine, but…”

  Hawk understood. They were like a group of strangers riding the subway, all separate individuals, riding to work or school in the light, but not paying any attention to each other. Then the train loses power and the lights go out and suddenly all those people are together, until the lights come back on. “Must have been hard living alone for all that time.”

  Enyo nodded. “I’m used to being alone in space, but that’s different. I talk to ground control, get messages from my family, even though I know most of what I read is fake, it was still comforting.”

  “Fake?” Svet said.

  “My government is a bit… paranoid,” Enyo said.

  Hawk chuckled. “I don’t think you need to worry about that anymore.”

  “Ja,” Max said. “We’re here for you.”

  “Thank you,” Enyo said.

  None of them said what Hawk was thinking: and we’re stuck here together for the rest of our lives so we have to get along, no matter how we may feel.

  Max put his arm around Svet, and smiled at Enyo. He smiled back, message received.

  They busied themselves around camp, and decided to spend the night and strike out fresh in the morning. They ate, talked, and one by one drifted into sleep. Hawk stayed on watch the entire night. Enyo slept soundly and made no attempt to leave, or otherwise search the camp or their belongings. He’d been watching them for weeks, and probably knew what everyone carried better than Hawk.

  He felt at ease with the mystery solved. Of all the explanations they’d talked about, the Chinese having a stealth spacecraft wasn’t one of them. With that type of technology, China could control the world. Hawk chuckled to himself. No worries for him, it wasn’t his world anymore. His stomach tightened. But it was his world because that’s where everyone he loved lived. Maybe.

  Other than what might have happened to their families, Hawk and his friends hadn’t discussed future Earth much. What had the cloud done to those on the surface of Earth? Were they thrown back in time? Where? Had his family ended up in Ancient Rome? Or in the future? If so, he hoped they found a life wherever they were.

  What he hadn’t considered was the cloud causing destruction. That he couldn’t think about. Wouldn’t think about. He would never know, so worrying about it made no sense. He replayed his mental photo album, closed his eyes, and waited for morning.

  An hour past sunrise the party followed Enyo through the thick greenery. He appeared to know exactly where he was going, and trudged forward with a single-minded purpose. He asked for no water, and no food, and said they’d soon hit an animal path that would let them travel much faster.

  Hawk was strapped with the Viking and its single shot, and Svet held the Ash 12, which only had three bullets remaining. It was hot, and perspiration dripped down Hawk’s back and over his face into his eyes. The tree canopy provided shade, but the humidity was stifling. Hawk wiped his face with a rag, and took a pull of water.

  “Where you from?” Svet asked Enyo.

  “Originally from Henan Province, but I’ve spent most of my life in the military, so I was transferred around a lot. The last few years I lived in Beijing.”

  “I’ve been there. A beautiful city. So much history,” Max said.

  “Yes, not all of it good.”

  “What country is all good?” Hawk said.

  Enyo nodded acquiescence.

  “How did you end up in the space program?” Max said.

  “I volunteered and was chosen from a cohort of my colleagues.”

  “Did you choose to join the military?” Hawk said. He understood China was still a communist country, and choice had a different meaning there.

  “Yes and no. My aptitude evaluation said I was suited for science, and in China the best way to do science is through the military. They get all the money for the truly cutting-edge projects, but I got tired of working on weapon and spy tech research, and when the slot came available for the space agency I leapt at it.”

  “Current predicament aside, how’d that work out for you?” Hawk said.

  Enyo shrugged. “Same as military, but more fulfilling and exciting. At least I got to be an astronaut.”

  “At least,” Hawk said. “What of your family?”

  Enyo looked at the ground. “No wife or kids. I never had time, and felt it would be unfair to a woman to marry her and then abandon her.”

  It was Hawk’s turn to look at the ground.

  “Both my parents died young, and my work has been my life. Until now,” Enyo said.

  To that, nobody had anything to say, and they threaded quietly behind Enyo as he led them through the thick jungle. Everything was damp, and dew dripped from leaves, the scent of earth and decaying vegetation filling the forest. Hawk smelled smoke, but the sky was clear and there was no other sign of fire.

  The party walked most of the day before they reached the path Enyo told them about. Footprints of every size and shape decorated the dried mud, and Hawk said, “You run into traffic on this highway?”

  Enyo laughed. He’d relaxed during their trek, and as he got to know his new partners he smiled more, and appeared to have partially recovered from his isolation. “Most of the time, no. We’ll hear big guys coming, and the smaller beasts tend to shy away.”

  The weather turned sour on the second day, and the party holed up beneath a dense fern and waited for the deluge to end. The patter of the raindrops on leaves was maddening.

  “Would you like to see my capsule?” Enyo ask
ed.

  “Is it far out of the way?” Hawk said.

  “No,” Enyo said.

  “Sure,” Hawk said.

  They turned off the main thoroughfare, fighting their way through the thick jungle that seemed to go on forever. In Hawk’s time the rainforests were dying, and the great jungles suffered as well. In his day there was no spot left on the planet that humans hadn’t occupied, even the poles. In this past, animals ruled the world, and from what Hawk had seen so far they were much better stewards.

  The party broke free of the dense forest onto a trail lined with broken trees and squashed underbrush. It looked similar to the trail of destruction the Soyuz capsule had left when they’d crash landed. They hadn’t gone far up the blazed trail when they came upon Enyo’s space capsule.

  Unlike the Soyuz, it was intact and mostly undamaged. Stars on a red background adorned the front of the craft, and the hatch stood open. The vehicle was much smaller than the Soyuz, and could only accommodate one person.

  Hawk eased in slowly, wary of creatures that may have taken up residence in the capsule, but there was nothing. Hawk dropped into the capsule, and marveled at how old the equipment was.

  Max stuck his head through the hatch. “For a high-tech machine, it doesn’t look like it’s very current,” he said.

  Enyo’s head appeared over Max’s shoulder. “It is one of our older models. It was deemed expendable.”

  Hawk almost asked, are you expendable? But didn’t.

  They drank water and moved on. Enyo had already transported everything of use to the temple, so the capsule was useless to them. The day wore on, the sun started to go down, and the gray of dusk filled the land as they crested a hill overlooking a shallow valley.

  “We’re here,” Enyo said.

  “Where?” Svet said.

  Enyo pointed to the center of the depression.

  “I don’t see… Wait, that mound of green?” Hawk said.

  “Yes.” Enyo didn’t wait for any more questions. He started down the incline into the shallow bowl, not looking back. Hawk was on his turf, and Enyo knew it.

  “Can we make it before dark?” Max asked.

  “No.” Enyo stopped walking.

  “Da.” Svet dropped her bag of supplies and sat down next to it.