Time's Last Gift

by Philip José Farmer

  ‘I get the same joy from seeing the vast herds of many different types of animals and the great predators that feed on them as Robert does when he finds a new language,’ he said to Rachel. ‘This is the way a world should be. Few human beings, many animals, plenty of water and grass. I would like this even better if there were many more trees, but I know that these do exist further south. The air is pure, and nature works unhindered by man.’

  ‘I long for the day when I can return home,’ she said. ‘But you sound as if you dread it.’

  ‘Far from it,’ he said. ‘I look forward with joy to the day that the vessel returns.’

  That was only one of the many puzzling statements he made. Rachel did not ask him what he meant. By now she knew that he just would not reply.

  After a month and a half at their Tunisian camp, Gribardsun gave the word to march again. They set off toward Sicily. The stealing of water by the great northern glaciers had not only resulted in a land bridge across what would be the Straits of Gibraltar. There was another, and far greater, land bridge between Italy, Sicily, Tunisia, and part of Libya. The Mediterranean was, at this time, two smaller seas separated by the extension of Italy.

  The tribes moved on the western coast of the bridge with the hills high on their right. And the sixth day out, Drummond found their first human fossil skull.

  Apparently, though he was still living in the age of twelve, he had not forgotten everything he had learned since then. He was out walking near the camp, accompanied by Laminak and a juvenile male for protection, when he saw a piece of the skull sticking out of a layer of limestone halfway up a hill.

  He told von Billmann of it. He would not speak to Rachel or John then - another indication that he was not entirely stuck at an early age. Robert verified the find and told the other two scientists. They spent a week delicately digging out the skull and some pieces of skeleton and looking for other fossils.

  The study of the stratum and the bones, and the gaseous content and decay of the rocks, indicated that the skull belonged to a young man who had lived about 200,000 B.C., during the Third Glacial. His massive features indicated a human intermediate between Heidelberg and Neanderthal man. No tools were found in conjunction with the fossil.

  The descendant of Homo heidelbergensis and the ancestor of Homo neanderthalensis was dubbed Homo Silverstein.

  Though every member of the tribe was alerted to evidence of fossils, and some fossil animals and plants were found, no more human fossils were seen.

  The land bridge was crossed and the safari was traveling on the west coast of Sicily, or, rather, on land that would be hundreds of feet below the twenty-first century Sicilian beaches. Occasionally, the scientists went to the mountains inland to make observations and collect specimens.

  The next bridge was between Sicily and Italy. When they arrived at the mouth of the Tiber, they went up the river valley to the site of Rome-to-be. A small tribe of particularly brutish people lived there. They were short and squat and had skeletal characteristics which indicated a mixing with Neanderthals at some time in the past. They wore no clothes and daubed themselves with mud to keep themselves warm in the winter. Their weapons and tools were far too primitive for even 12,000 B.C., and they practiced cannibalism.

  Farther north was another group which was a physical double of the pre-Romans. But these were far more advanced in technology and wore fur clothing skillfully sewn together and used fine stone, wood, and bone tools and weapons. Their language was related to that of the Tiber people.

  Gribardsun had a theory that was, he admitted, mystical to some extent, and a modification of Jung’s. He believed that each group of people had its own particular soul or collective psyche. The factors creating this soul were unconscious but deliberate. That is, the collective mind determined, in some as yet unanalyzable manner, to fashion itself into a mode belligerent or pacifist, lazy or busy, poetic or practical, progressive or static or regressive. Some collective souls yearned for a place by the gods; others, by swine.

  The two groups they had just left were examples of the difference of collective psyches in two similar groups. Both had picked up some Neanderthal genes, and isolation from Homo sapiens had enabled them to retain these genes. It was possible that the two had only recently been one, and that the split had taken place only a few generations before. But one seemed to be deliberately brutish; the other, quite human.

  ‘I don’t think your colleagues at the University of Greater Europe would accept that theory,’ von Billmann said.

  ‘I do not care. It’s only a theory, anyway, with no way to prove it, and I don’t intend to waste time trying to do so,’ Gribardsun said.

  By early spring, they had entered that prong of land which took in the islands of Elba, Corsica, and Sardinia. These comprised one land mass connected with Italy and covered with firs and pines and filled with game, including elephants, cave bear and lions. Some of the tribes had Negroid skeletal traits, but they were definitely Caucasoid. Their hair was curly, but only loosely so, and their lips, though full, were not overly everted. There was a small minority of blonds among them.

  By late April, the safari crossed the border-to-be between Italy and France. Gribardsun, having determined the border by astronomical and geodesic observations, was the first to walk across the imaginary line. Humming the Marseillaise, he strode along. His thick black hair was cut short straight across his forehead; the rest swinging shoulder-length. His face was shaven; he had not yet overcome his dislike of beards. He wore a yellow-brown lion-skin cape and a red deer loincloth and brown bearskin boots. The rifle was slung over his shoulder, and he carried a flint-tipped spear in one hand. His big steel hunting knife was in a sheath at his leopard-skin belt.

  Behind him came Glamug, holding high at the end of a wooden pole a cave-bear skull. His face and body were painted with bright symbols, and he was chanting a protective ritual. Behind him came the chiefs and chief warriors of both tribes in their pecking order and then the Wota’shaimg. Behind them was the standard bearer of the Shluwg, holding on a pole a wildcat skull, and after him his tribe. The drummers and fluters and whistlers of both tribes were playing their own ‘national’ anthems, and their people were singing, respectively, the Song of the Father Bear and the Song of the Great Wildcat Mother. The only ones whose musical sensibilities were offended were the time travelers.

  ‘Lafayette, we are here!’ shouted Gribardsun in French. He seemed to be unusually exuberant that day. They had covered over 3,600 miles in nine months by taking their time at some places and making long forced marches between others. Gribardsun would have liked to stop off for about two weeks to rest at their starting point, the overhang in the Vezere River valley. After their strength was restored, they could go northwestward across France and cross the land bridge into England, following the Thames, which ran across the bridge and into Europe.

  But when, at the end of their two-weeks’ rest, he suggested this plan, he found that the tribes refused to go. They had had enough of wandering. Now they wanted to settle down for the summer, hunt animals, pick berries, dig roots, tan skins, fish in the rivers for salmon, hold feasts, repair tents, and make new ones.

  The chiefs and the doctors looked apprehensive when they said no to Gribardsun. But he did not threaten or shoot off the thunderstick. He replied, smiling, that he understood how very weary they must be and that they had to prepare for the winter in the short time they had. He thanked them for the great endurance and forbearance they had shown in following him around the great waters. It was true that he had shown them many strange lands and peoples and thus broadened their outlook and their knowledge. And he had strengthened them by bringing about the fusion of the two tribes. Nevertheless, they had shown much courage and patience in this great task, and he thanked them.

  But he and his colleagues had their work, too. They would leave for a good part of the summer. But they would be back. And he would expect the tribes to be on their best behavior, as they were when
he was present. The two tribes must continue to submit any disputes to the council, composed of the elders of each tribe. And they must continue to improve their mutual language, Galush. And they must continue to cooperate in every respect. When he came back he would ask how well the two tribes had behaved toward each other and also among themselves.

  If, however, any individuals of either group wished to volunteer to go along with Gribardsun, then they must be allowed to go. He would overrule the tribal elders in this single matter. He needed carriers for the specimens that would be collected.

  A number of juveniles volunteered, but their fathers overruled them. They could not be spared. Their absence would impose great hardships on their families.

  Gribardsun had to admit that the fathers were right. In this primitive economy, every able hand must be used to its fullest ability.

  The juveniles were disappointed, since they would much rather be roaming around the country than working day and night at home under the strict supervision of father in particular and the tribe in general.

  ‘Very well,’ John Gribardsun said. I’ll make the trip by myself. I can do it three times as fast by myself. I’ll make a flying survey of England as far north as the edge of the glaciers. I think I can do it in four weeks.’

  Von Billmann said, ‘Are you running most of the way?’

  ‘Practically,’ Gribardsun said. ‘I’ll be carrying the rifle and ammunition and a camera and film and some recording balls. I’ll live off the country, eat only twice a day, and use every bit of daylight to travel.’

  ‘It’s about six hundred miles from here to the southern edge of the glacier in England as the crow flies,’ von Billmann said. ‘Twelve hundred miles round trip. And you’ll probably cover three hundred or so miles in England itself. To get back here in a month, you’ll have to average about fifty miles a day.’

  ‘I may take a little longer than a month,’ the Englishman said.

  ‘You won’t have any thick woods to slow you up,’ Rachel said. ‘But even so…’

  The night before he was to leave, the four sat around a fire in front of their huts. Most of the tribespeople had gone to bed, filled with meat and berries and boiled greens they had devoured during the feast to celebrate Gribardsun’s departure. Many had cried and embraced him, saying that they would miss him very much and hoping that evil spirits or bad animals would not get him. Their grief seemed genuine enough, but Gribardsun remarked later that a sense of relief underlay the sorrow. With him gone, they would be able to get back to a more normal - or at least a less tense - life. Having a demigod around was not conducive to relaxation or comfort.

  ‘I’ve said that I object to your going off on your own, and I protest again,’ Rachel said. ‘You’re the one who keeps everybody in line here. Our authority may not be up to keeping the peace between the two tribes. And what if one of us falls sick? You’re the doctor. You won’t be here to treat us. If something should happen to you - and you must admit that the chances are high - we would have no way of knowing where you are. We couldn’t even go looking for you; it would jeopardize the expedition itself. You aren’t even taking along a radio.’

  ‘As the head of this expedition, I make the decisions,’ John said. ‘Everything we do here is chancy. I believe that a survey of conditions in England will be a valuable addition to our data and so the trip is justified. Besides,’ he added with a smile, ‘I want to see what jolly old England looks like now. You can’t call it a tight little island, of course, since it’s just part of a huge land mass extending as far as Iceland. But I am curious to see what the Thames and the site of London-to-be look like. And what my ancestral estates in Derbyshire and Yorkshire look like.’

  At dawn, Gribardsun stepped out from his hut. He wore a wolf-skin vest and deerskin loincloth and his bearskin boots. He carried a pack on his back containing ammunition and his meager scientific and medical equipment, several containers of dehydrated fruit juice and concentrated protein, a suit and a tent of thermicron (though it was summer it would be cold near the ice fields of England), and a pair of binoculars. He was not even taking shaving equipment, though he could have shaved with the edge of his hunting knife. He was growing a beard on this trip.

  Laminak was wailing with the scientists. She threw her arms around him and wept, and he kissed her and told her not to grieve. Rachel looked sour. She had tried to overcome her irrational feelings of jealousy, but she could not endure the child. Gribardsun might seem amused by Laminak’s devotion, but she could not get rid of the idea that he was just waiting for her to become a little older. Gribardsun thought so much of her, her intelligence was very high, - she was sensitive, perceptive, and open-hearted, and showed signs of being a beauty. Before it would be time for the travelers to return, she would be fifteen, and Gribardsun might take her back with him. She believed this despite his protests that that could never happen.

  Drummond Silverstein said goodbye to Gribardsun and then burst into tears. He had become very much attached to the Englishman, partly because they spent an hour almost every day in therapy. Gribardsun was using a combination of drugs and hypnotism to break through the wall of time that Drummond had erected inside himself. But he had had little success. However, Drummond had become very dependent on him.

  ‘If I thought that my leaving would injure him, I might stay,’ Gribardsun said. ‘But the therapy has not been spectacularly successful, so it won’t be upset with my absence. But I want you two to watch him closely for signs of improvement or regression. You have my instructions concerning him.’

  Ten minutes later, he was out of sight. He left at a trot, which he said he could keep up all day. Except in the roughest terrain, he expected to average about fifty miles a day.

  The days passed. The summer was hot but short, and the work for both the scientists and the tribespeople was hard. Rachel trained Drummond to help her in her fields of botany, zoology, and genetics, but had to suppress an ever present irritation with him. She tended to regard him as mentally retarded, whereas he was actually a very bright twelve-year-old. He learned swiftly, but he did make mistakes, and she was sharp with him when these occurred. Nor did she feel sympathetic when he now and then called her ‘mother.’ She was, in fact, furious.

  Von Billmann showed signs of discontent. More and more he complained about the low chances of ever getting to Czechoslovakia.

  ‘The speakers of proto-Indo-Hittite must be located and their language recorded,’ he said. ‘And doing this will take time. We should be traveling there right now. But, instead, John Gribardsun is visiting that barren piece of land, England. I doubt that he’ll find a single human being there.’

  ‘That’s not what he’s looking for,’ she said. ‘You know he’s making a geological and meteorological survey.’

  ‘We should have brought along a small plane,’ he said peevishly. ‘We could have covered hundreds of miles, saved months of travel time. I could be in Czechoslovakia right now.’

  She had known von Billmann for many years before the expedition and had never once seen him in a bad humor. Perhaps he was being affected by temporal dislocation. Though he had been more resistant than she or her husband, he was succumbing now. And she, instead of getting better, was feeling less and less attached to reality. She and von Billmann were weakening, she was sure, because their pillar of stability was gone. As long as Gribardsun was around, reality seemed more solid. He radiated strength and assurance.

  * * *

  EIGHT

  A month passed. The hunters brought in hares, lemmings, marmots, voles, grouse, foxes, wolves, ibex, reindeer, horses, musk oxen, aurochs, bison, rhinoceroses, and mammoths. The fishermen brought in salmon and fresh-water mussels. The women brought in berries and tubers and greens of various kinds. Meat and fish were smoked and dried. Tubers were dried or ground into a powder. Skins were tanned, cut, and sewn. An old man (about sixty) died. Ten babies were born, four of whom died at birth. Three mothers died. A hunter came too close to a mammot
h which had fallen into a trap and was lifted up and dashed to death by the huge beast’s trunk. A youth fell off a cliff while hunting ibex, broke his back, and was eaten by cave hyenas before his companions could get to him. A man savagely beat his wife when he found her with another man behind a large boulder. She recovered but lost numerous teeth and an eye.

  Casualties were normally high among these people, but this month they were unusually high, frighteningly so to the tribespeople. They blamed Gribardsun’s absence for the evil things happening to them.

  When thirty days had passed, Rachel and von Billmann began to look for Gribardsun. Every day thereafter they expected, or at least hoped, to see his tall, long-legged, broad-shouldered figure and handsome face appear down the valley. But two weeks went by, and they started to worry. They knew that he was not conforming to a timetable, and that he might have run across many interesting phenomena to detain him. But he was a man of his word, and if he said he would be back in a month, he would try to keep reasonably close to that time.

  The day of the seventh week after his departure, Rachel was on a herpetological field trip, about five miles from the camp, with Drummond. She had taken films at long range of a field where vipers lived. Having been fortunate to photograph a viper in the act of swallowing a young lemming, she went into the area to catch the snake. She found the hole into which it had disappeared and she and Drummond began digging into it. After fifteen minutes of hard work with the shovel, she exposed the snake sleeping in the burrow with its middle swollen with the lemming. She lifted it and dropped it into a bag.