Time's Last Gift

by Philip José Farmer

  He interrupted the angry conference by bellowing through the bullhorn at them. Then he made signs that he would follow the robbers and indicated that he would like some of them to join him. The robbers could not be too far ahead, even if they had started to work immediately after he left the cave. They would be heavily burdened.

  The Silversteins were upset at the turn of events. Von Billmann appeared ready to do whatever Gribardsun wanted. The Englishman told the Silversteins to return to the campsite with the natives. He and the German, and some of the men, if they would agree, would track the robbers.

  ‘But we can’t get involved in the quarrels of these people!’ Drummond said. ‘We don’t want to get into the position of having to take sides! Maybe even having to kill their enemies!’

  ‘We’ll have to play favorites,’ Gribardsun said. ‘There’s no way of getting away from it. Moreover, the more deeply these people are in our debt, the sooner they’ll open up for us. We can’t stay neutral.’

  ‘You have no right to shoot those men!’ Drummond Silverstein said.

  ‘Who said I would shoot them?’ Gribardsun said, staring hard at Silverstein. ‘Why don’t you ask me what I intend to do instead of making your assumptions?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Silverstein said. ‘Perhaps I’m wrong. But I don’t see how you can attempt to take all that meat away from these savages without having to fight them.’

  ‘I have to re-establish our prestige,’ the Englishman said. ‘Otherwise we’ll never be able to know these people inside and out. I’ve said that twice. Once should be enough.’

  He turned away. ‘Come on, Robert.’

  Four of the tribesmen joined them, among them Thammash and the giant Angrogrim. They set out northward with the Englishman in the lead. He trotted along, looking to both sides for signs. After a mile he saw a track, and a little farther on where a man had spit. Then they entered a morass which held many prints. Gribardsun thought that the party was composed of fourteen men.

  They crossed a plain while going toward some hills about a hundred feet high on the horizon. In the distance, to both left and right, were herds of gray-brown mammoths and brownish reindeer. A pack of a dozen hyenas skulked along behind the reindeer. A brown-gray fox sped across the plain after a hare and presently caught it. And then Gribardsun saw their quarry far across the plain. They were all, except for six rearguard men, half covered with parts of the bears.

  Gribardsun slowed his pace to allow von Billmann to draw even with him. Von Billmann was panting, though he had gone through the rigorous yearlong physical training prior to the launching. The hunters trotted along, their breaths slightly steaming as the late afternoon turned even colder, the slush splashing over their bare legs. They did not seem in the least hard pressed.

  ‘The two tribes would have come into contact sooner or later anyway,’ Gribardsun said. ‘One of them probably has only recently moved into this territory. I intend to scare this one away so our subject-study will be left alone.’

  ‘But we want to study their war patterns, too,’ von Billmann said.

  ‘That can come later.’

  As he ran he was taking films of the men ahead, the area around, and of the men trotting along behind. He ran backward as swiftly as he ran forward while he filmed those behind. By the time they got across the plain, they had lost their quarry, vanished up a pass between two low hills. Here were dead winter grasses with lichen on the rocks and dwarf birches and pines and some beds of saxifrage. A black-and-white badger waddled away from them as they ran into the pass.

  Gribardsun supposed that the men they were following had seen them, so he halted his party after it had gone a few yards into the pass. Ahead, the hills grew taller and started to move closer. A brook about five feet wide followed the middle of the pass downward toward the plain, where it suddenly turned and followed the edge of the hills toward the west.

  Gribardsun in the lead, his express rifle ready, the party moved slowly up the pass. He expected an ambush, but they got through the pass without incident. They came out onto a small valley which had been formed by a small river. Across the river, up near the top of the hill opposite, was an overhang. This was walled on two sides with piles of stones, and in between were skin tents, tiny at this distance, and a blue haze of smoke under the projecting rock. The robbers were fording the river, and the rearguards were waving at those under the overhang. And, no doubt, they were shouting an alarm.

  By the time the invaders reached the bottom of the valley, they could hear the shrilling of bone whistles and flutes and the beat of skin-and-wood drums.

  The four tribesmen were looking at each other out of the corners of their eyes and muttering. They were glad to stop at the river when Gribardsun paused to take stock.

  ‘It’s not just a matter of a territorial imperative,’ von Billmann said. ‘We’re heavily outnumbered. I’m surprised they’ve gone this far with us.’

  ‘They know from my signs that I have killed two bears so they must have some faith in my skill, even if they don’t know how it was done,’ Gribardsun said. ‘But I wouldn’t be surprised if they ran anyway.’

  The ledge under the overhang was alive with men brandishing weapons. Other men, hunters returning, were hastening up the hill to join the defense. The defense, Gribardsun thought, which may soon become an offense. There are only six of us. However, the robbers must believe that one of the invaders had killed two bears with a loud noise. And that meant that the noisemaker was a powerful magician. He would have control over great and mysterious forces. And it was their fear of these forces that Gribardsun depended upon in his plan.

  The four natives, however, did not cross the ford. They stood on the bank and gazed apprehensively at the display of spears and dubs on the ledge. Gribardsun turned when he was across the river, shouted at them and made encouraging motions. But they would not follow.

  The Englishman took the small Very pistol from his sack, loaded it, and fired it into the air. The explosions and colors silenced the noisy mob on the ledge. Before the flare had parachuted to the ground, the four natives were across the river and standing by Gribardsun’s side. They looked pale and grim, but they had evidently decided that it would not be good to offend this witch doctor.

  The six advanced slowly up the hillside. Halfway up, they halted. The defenders were behind a row of large boulders along the rim of the ledge, undoubtedly only waiting to shove them over once the intruders were closer.

  Gribardsun emptied his express rifle and reloaded with five high-explosive bullets. He aimed at the center boulder on the ledge and fired the bullets, one after the other.

  The boulder was a heap of fragments.

  The warriors had disappeared.

  Gribardsun reloaded with explosive bullets and continued climbing. Before reaching the ledge, however, he stopped and shot three times into the overhang just underneath its edge. Several large pieces of rock fell off. Screams followed the explosions, and warriors, women, and children deserted the site. They fled in two streams down the sides of the ledge and on down the hillside, falling, leaping up again, yelling, shrilling mindlessly.

  ‘I hope they don’t hurt themselves,’ Gribardsun said.

  Their four natives were whooping with joy and slapping each other on the back or the thighs. Then Angrogrim started toward the refugees on their right. He held his spear high, shaking it, and screaming threats at them.

  Gribardsun called after him, but the giant continued to run toward the refugees. The Englishman fired into the air, and Angrogrim turned to see what he was doing. Gribardsun gestured fiercely at him to come back. Scowling, the giant obeyed. Gribardsun shook his finger at him and scolded him as if he were a child. Angrogrim looked down at him as if he thought he was very odd. But he did not protest, and when he saw the others continue their climb, he followed them.

  At the top, they looked around the deserted site. Von Billmann used his movie camera. Gribardsun looked cautiously through the tents and found an ol
d man and woman cowering in one and a sick five-year-old child in the other. He got the child to swallow a panacea and then ran the diagnoser over his body and took a sample of blood.

  The old couple were almost toothless, and the woman was blind. Both shook so violently that they could not answer when Thammash spoke to them. Finally, the woman replied, and Thammash raised his eyebrows, shrugged his shoulders, and turned his palms upward. It was evident that he did not understand the woman’s language.

  Von Billmann made signs that Thammash should continue to elicit speech from the couple. But Thammash was more interested in loot. He and the others were busy prowling around, inspecting and appropriating flint and bone spearheads, atlatls, bone fishhooks, and needles and bone and ivory figurines.

  Gribardsun watched them carefully, and when he saw Gullshab enter the tent of the sick child, he went after him. He was just in time to stop him from plunging his spear into the boy’s solar plexus. Gullshab was somewhat resentful, but he understood that the child was not to be harmed, and he passed the message along to the others.

  However, Angrogrim did not think that the restriction applied to the old couple. He picked up a club and started toward the oldsters’ tent but stopped when Gribardsun shouted at him. He threw the club down angrily and walked off.

  Gribardsun made signs that each should pick up a piece of bear and start back. It would be dusk within half an hour. It was evident that they would have to leave at least half of the bear meat behind, so several of the men started to foul it. Gribardsun ordered them to stop, and when they pretended they did not understand him, he made threatening signs. Reluctantly, they turned away and hoisted the meat they had chosen onto their shoulders.

  ‘I just wanted to scare the strangers away so we could recover some of the meat and thus impress both parties,’ Gribardsun said. ‘I see no reason why we can’t contact these people later and perhaps conduct studies of them, too.’

  Gribardsun hoisted a hind leg of cave bear upon his shoulder and led his band back down the hill. The refugees had halted their mad flight and the two groups were now standing near the bottom of the hill and watching the strangers. The six men proceeded slowly and carefully under their burdens, unhindered by the two groups. After they had crossed the river, they did hear threatening shouts but these were mere bravado. None of the shouters ran after them to throw spears.

  Darkness fell swiftly. The wind died down, but the air got even colder. A lion roared about half a mile to the west. A mammoth trumpeted shrilly. Something snorted deeply behind a hillock.

  The four natives talked to each other in low but happy voices and occasionally said something to Gribardsun or von Billmann. They did not expect to be understood, but they just wanted the two to know that they were not being excluded from the geniality.

  Gribardsun turned on his flashlight, causing the men to moan with awe. They dropped behind for a while as if they were afraid of the light. But when a lion coughed about a hundred yards in their rear, they crowded upon the Englishman’s heels.

  Their entrance to the campsite was a victorious one. The Silversteins turned their flashlights on them as they came up the hillside, and then torches flared as the people streamed down to shout with joy at the sight of the meat. Once on the ledge under the overhang, the four men recounted their adventures. The others looked with awe at Gribardsun. Gribardsun took advantage of his increased prestige to enter the tent where Abinal lay and give him another panacea. Abinal was sicker, and Gribardsun was not sure that the pill would do him much good. In fact, he would not have been surprised if the boy were dead by morning. He hoped not. Aside from his human concern, he didn’t want to be blamed for the boy’s death. He did not like the looks which Glamug, the shaman, gave him when he came out of the tent. If the boy lived, Glamug would try to take the credit. If the boy died, Glamug would put the responsibility on the stranger.

  The shaman had put on a headband of grouse feathers and, with a bag full of medicine-magic objects and a reindeer’s bladder filled with pebbles tied to the end of a stick, was dancing slowly around the tent. He chanted in a shrill voice while he danced. Amaga, the mother, stood by the flap of the tent with a pine torch and waved it around in circles. The father, Dubhab, had painted his forehead with a mixture of wood ash and some dark clay, but he took no part in the ceremony. He sat by a hearth and ate roast bear and seemed to be cracking jokes with some of his hearthmates.

  After a while Glamug, tired by the day’s hunting and the trek after the stolen meat, flopped down by the hearth. Rachel quit taking films of the ceremony. Drummond squatted by a hearth and chewed on a piece of bear meat while his black eyes moved from side to side. He looked tired and had already mentioned that he would like to go home. Robert von Billmann was recording a speech by Dubhab, who seemed to be telling of the raid.

  The villagers (Gribardsun was thinking of the place as a village) were occupied in having a good time, though some were busy with chores that could not be put off. Some young mothers were suckling their babies, which were wrapped up in furs. A middle-aged woman had stuffed herself with meat and now was chewing on a piece of skin to make it soft. An hour and a half passed, and most had crawled into their tents and tied down the flaps to keep out the wind. The fires in the hearths were covered with ashes; the coals would be revivified in the morning.

  Dubhab and Amaga and the girl, Laminak, had retired into the tent with the sick boy. Glamug danced again around the tent, chanting in a low voice, shaking his rattle, and occasionally making a sign at the four major points of the compass. He folded his thumb and two middle fingers together and extended his little finger and index finger. All four of the scientists noted the sign; it was indeed an ancient one.

  Glamug soon tired again. But he did not enter his tent, even though his wife had stuck her head out from time to time and looked at him as if she wished he would come home. Glamug got a huge bison fur and wrapped himself in it while he sat in front of the sick boy’s tent. His head was hidden in a great fold of the fur, but one hand was out in the cold, holding the reindeer bladder. Evidently he was on duty all night, guarding against the spirit of sickness and death.

  The scientists decided to call it a day. They started out on the cold and weary walk to the vessel. The village was quiet; there were no guards; even Glamug was snoring in the depths of his robe.

  The next morning they ate a good breakfast and rehashed the previous day’s events. Rachel and Gribardsun fed the bear cubs and played with them a little. Rachel seemed happier than the day before. Gribardsun wondered if it was because she was with him. She smiled much at him, laughed at almost everything he said, and reached out and put her hand on his arm or shoulder and once moved her fingertip along his jaw. He was aware that yesterday’s events had raised him even further in her esteem. Whatever was driving the Silversteins apart was carrying her toward him. He did not believe that he was the original force that had split them. But he might get blamed before they settled their troubles.

  He decided that he would have to talk seriously to her, perhaps to both of them, apart or together, and straighten them out. But he did not think that now was the time for it. He would put it off for a while. If he did so, then her interest in him might die away, or she might find means to sublimate it, or she and her husband might come to terms with their differences. He believed much in allowing time to effect cures.

  The next job was to move the building materials to the site chosen for their camp. Carrying large packs, they hiked to the ledge, where it took them only an hour to erect two beehive-shaped buildings. Since these were so light that a strong wind could carry them away, they were enclosed around the bases with piles of stones. And some small boulders were placed on the floor inside to secure them even further. The Silversteins moved into one building; the Englishman and German into the other.

  At noon they returned to the vessel and packed more materials. They carried these to the ‘village,’ where the women and children and a few men crowded around th
em in wonder. The people were amazed at the spraying and hardening of the foam. Only after some talk among themselves did they get courage enough to approach and touch the plastic. They watched as the four piled stones around these and placed some heavy ones inside. Gribardsun cut out the door and replaced it with hinges and a lock. This dome was to hold artifacts and records and specimens and to serve as a temporary home and workshop. Gribardsun walked around it twelve times chanting Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark and making meaningless gestures. He hoped by doing this to convince the villagers that magic was being invoked to protect the dome.

  After that, he went in Abinal’s tent and found the boy sitting up and eating meat from a bone. The boy, who had been laughing with his sister, fell silent as Gribardsun entered. But Laminak spoke a few words to him, and he relaxed somewhat. Gribardsun examined him, noticing that the boy shrank from the touch of his fingers. But his sister jollied him, and she even spoke to Gribardsun, though she knew he could not understand her.

  When the Englishman and the girl left the tent, he pointed at various people or objects and asked Laminak their names. She caught on and entered the game with enthusiasm. She was a pretty girl in spite of the dirt and the cumbersome fur she wore. Her hair was waist-length, wavy, and would, if washed, have been a rich chestnut color. Her face was broad but her nose was medium in size and well shaped. Her lips were full and grease-smeared, like those of her fellows, to avoid chapping. Her breasts were just beginning to swell. She had large dark eyes that looked merry most of the time. And she seemed to lack the fear for him that the others had.