Time Storm

by Philip R Benge

  “Come we must leave here quickly and go to a place that is safer than this open track.”

  With that and nothing else, the two natives turned and made to head back along the trail. Tyler though stopped them from leaving the scene of the ambush and wanted to relieve the two fallen troopers of their weapons. Masters who had finally arrived down on the track was against taking anything with them.

  “Those two sophisticated weapons will be all too easily traced by the owners of them, they will probably have a tracer built into them, or the technology of the owners will probably be able to find them as soon as you turn them on.”

  Tyler decided that maybe Masters was correct, and he promptly threw the troopers equipment into the dense undergrowth alongside the track. The tall blond native spoke again. He obviously thought that he should take command of the situation now.

  “Come, we must leave now while we can.”

  Masters too was feeling a little anxious and wanted to be away from there as quickly as possible.

  “I think our friend here is right Tyler, let`s go while we can.” Tyler didn`t need long to think the matter over, and seeing that his new friends made sense, he agreed.

  “Ok friend which way do we go then?”

  Their two new friends took Tyler and Masters back along the track a hundred yards before turning off along what Tyler assumed was a game trail. Tyler looked across at Masters as they hurried along.

  “Well it looks as if we may have found some friends George.” Tyler then caught up with the tall native and introduced the two of them to their two new friends.

  “Hi, my name is Tyler and my friend here is George, I tell you it is good to find a friend so far from home.”

  Tyler put out his hand and the native knowing the ways of Earth quickly shook it and grinned at Tyler.

  “I am called Appolon; my friend is the Brave Tryon. We both thank you and your friend for saving us from those strangers. You are our friends for life Tyler, whatever you need, you will have.” Appolon then studied Tyler for a moment.

  “I have not seen you before amongst the other Earthmen, have you only just arrived here on Orion?” Appolon asked. Tyler looked sharply at Appolon before replying.

  “Appolon my friend, are you not from Earth, when we heard you speaking English we assumed that you were. How many earthmen are there and how long have they been here on this planet?” Appolon looked at Tyler, his face showing concern.

  “But Tyler, do you not know where you are?”

  Tyler`s troubled face answered Appolon`s question, for with all the dangers Masters and Tyler had endured since the nightmare journey had begun, Tyler could not keep them from showing plainly upon his face.

  “My friend and I only just arrived here yesterday. How we arrived here neither of us know, for only yesterday we were back on Earth, and yesterday there were no earthmen anywhere in the galaxy except for those on Earth. Appolon we were dragged away from our home by a storm that nightmares have nightmares about.”

  Tryon caught Appolon`s arm and stopped him.

  “Appolon, my friend, the ancient legend, remember what it says, that a stranger would enter our land from the dream world and save us in our time of need. Tyler says that he came from the dream world that hurled rocks upon Orion yesterday, it is he who is to restore Orion to its rightful owners.” Appolon was not as certain as Tryon about the destiny of Tyler.

  “If you arrived in the terrible storm of yesterday then you certainly came from the dream world mentioned in the stories by our old men, for it could have been nothing less than that, so terrible was it.” Appolon stopped here for a moment so as to choose his words carefully.

  “The legend talks of a warrior who is first amongst all others, and I hardly think that either of you fits that description.” Appolon said looking over at Tyler, obviously studying his slim build and lack of Herculean features and his creased clothes.

  “I am sorry Tyler, to disparage a proven friend, for the gods have obviously sent you here to Orion for some purpose of their own, but you don`t even know where you are, never mind what is happening here.” Appolon said apologetically.

  “That`s alright Appolon, because I have never thought of myself as a legend either.” Tyler looked at Masters with a smile upon his face and a laugh at last appearing in his eyes.

  “How about you George, are you a legend in someone else`s lifetime?”

  “No I don`t think so Tyler, but it is good to see you smile at me again, for I was worried you might be taking our recent disagreement, and all our other problems that have occurred on our trip, just a little too seriously.”

  Masters attempt at humour brought a laugh from everyone, and with this changed disposition amongst the four friends complete, they walked towards the village of the Orionist`s with lighter hearts and a smile upon their faces. Tryon was still not convinced, either by his chief`s argument, or by the earthmen`s banter.

  “This may well be my friends, but the gods don`t always make their wishes clear to those they pick; only the actions of their chosen ones tell of them.”

  This was the final remark about the reasons behind Tyler`s and Masters journey to Orion, and the four friends settled down to their journey to Tryon`s and Appolon`s village.

  Appolon was everything a warrior chief should be. He was six feet tall, blond and all muscle; he had been the leader of his village ever since the leader before him had been killed by a tigron, something resembling a tiger only bigger and fiercer. Appolon had piercing blue eyes set in a classic face, that wouldn`t have been out of place in ancient Greece or Rome. Tryon was two inches shorter than his leader and also blond, but he was stockier than Appolon, he also looked well capable of being able to take care of himself. The earthmen were a strange contrast to the two Orionists.

  When Masters pressed Appolon again about the whereabouts of other earthmen Appolon answered him.

  “They live mainly in the town of New Eden some forty miles away through the valley that divides the mountains.” Appolon replied. Tryon then entered the conversation again.

  “More of the earthmen live in the villages of the people of Orion, they teach at the schools they have built for us, and they provide us with the modern miracles that their machines make.”

  The four friends went on to talk of the coming of the men from Earth. Tyler asked whether or not it was a good thing that they came to Orion. Appolon answered this question.

  “Yes on the whole it has made the life of our people much better, but our land is small, and so the council of the people have decided to speak with the earthmen and ask them to reduce the number of people who still want to come to live on our planet. Orion should be mainly be for our sons and daughters, and only for a few of the people from other worlds.”

  “Do you have any family Appolon?” Tyler asked. His question was answered by Tryon.

  “Yes a brother,” Tryon burst out laughing and nothing would make them explain the joke to the two earthmen.

  “I also have a beautiful wife and two equally beautiful daughters my friend.” Appolon said answering Tyler`s question more fully.

  “And you Tryon, do you also have a wife?” George Masters asked.

  “Yes, she too is very beautiful, but she is always making me work, so I propose hunting trips to Appolon so that I can get away from such ideas.”

  “Tryon is a very brave warrior, but he is afraid of his small wife.” Appolon scoffed at his friend playfully.

  Masters went up in the native`s estimation when he spoke about his time in the Royal Air Force, and of the war in Iraq, for they now saw him as a warrior rather than just an elder. Tyler said he was a searcher after truth, for they would never have understood what a researcher was. After these revelations both of the Orionists` now saw them in a new light, somewhere between their ragged appearance and Tryon`s legend.

  After what seemed an eternity for our two foot weary ‘Legends’, there came floating through the evening air the sound of a rhythmic drumming and the sou
nds of human voices.

  The country about them changed from savannah to ploughed fields, fields full of some sort of wheat or corn, and then they caught sight of further signs of civilisation. Houses appeared amongst some trees to their right and then two barns; there was even a road of sorts, for it was only a narrow dirt track at best.

  In a field on the outskirts of the village, two of the village children looked up from watching what to Tyler looked awfully like sheep, to wave to them and call a greeting.

  The village that met the earthmen`s sight was composed of about one hundred small dwellings set on two sides of a river. The houses also followed some way along the narrow road that disappeared into the distance. The heart of the village was an open space that was between the road and the river. Houses followed the road on both of its sides until they came to the ‘village green’ and then the houses broke off for fifty metres on the side nearest the river before continuing on. There was a stone bridge over the river, and nearby the earthmen could see a water mill. The village green was currently filled by group of young women who were dancing to the rhythm of the drums that the four friends had heard on their approach to the village, The women`s bodies swayed rhythmically to the music, their complete attention was to every nuance of the tune, they were oblivious to everything else. Nearby a young athletic looking warrior sang a ballad to the rhythm of the music, about the deeds of a hero and his quest for the love of a woman, about him sat many such young women who appeared all to ready to return the warrior`s affection.

  The houses of the village were single storey flint homes built to a basic design, much as they had been since the natives of Orion had arrived at what was their Neolithic age, but with the help of the colonist`s they had improved them greatly. They now built the houses out of cob, a mixture of clay based subsoil, straw and water with some flint and sand mixed in to strengthen it. The roofs were of thatch made from the reeds of a nearby lake. Each home was composed of a large central room used by the family during the day, a bedroom, maybe two if the occupant could run to such luxury, and a new innovation for some in the village, a bathroom with water piped in from the small mountain range that was the backdrop to this Eden. There was also something that looked strangely out of place to Tyler, a large bank of solar panels that supplied the electricity to the village houses. This last item was supplied by the colonists to bring the native population out of the Stone Age. There was also a school house and a meeting hall which was used by the village council, but also used as a prayer house by the missionaries who lived in the village. The missionaries taught at the school, looked after the villager`s spiritual needs and supplied the villagers with some of the modern items that the villagers had come to rely on. There was also a local blacksmith, which told not only of the locals` prosperity but also of the size of the village, for the inhabitants of other smaller villages had to come here to be able to enjoy the use of a blacksmith.

  On entering into the village, children flocked all around them and asked many questions, such as what success Appolon and Tryon had had in the hunt and who were the two earthmen, all of course in the native language, the earthmen couldn`t understand any of it. At the sight of his new friends baffled faces Appolon requested that all the villagers speak English so that the two great warriors who had come to their village could understand what was being said.

  When the villagers had been told that the lives of their chief and his friend had been saved by the two strangers, the dancing stopped and the villagers crowded around demanding to hear their story. They wanted to be told exactly how they had accomplished it, where these enemy warriors had come from, and with Tryon reminding all who would listen to him of the legend, what great deeds their new friends were going to do.

  The villagers asked these questions of the two strangers, the same ones being asked repeatedly by the never ending stream of villagers, coming out of an endless number of doorways, until finally all were fully satisfied. Then Appolon came to Tyler and Masters rescue and took them away to the quiet of his home which lay opposite the ‘village green’ and where a room had been made available to them by moving the two young daughters of Appolon into the room where he and his wife slept.

  The house that Appolon lived in was similar to many of the other houses within the village; his one was slightly larger than some houses and slightly grander than some other houses. The houses were each within a fenced enclosure, and within the enclosures the women of the various houses had their vegetable gardens to supplement the diets of their families. Around the inside of the fence were pig sties, enclosures for some goats and of course chickens. Well, they were the local equivalent of each animal anyway. All of these different animals made for a variety of noises and smells that the two earthmen would have to get used to, if they were going to live on Orion for any length of time.

  One of the villagers was dressed in clothes similar to those wore by most of the other warriors of the village. That is in a jacket made from the hide of an animal that might have been a deer or some sort breed of cow, and a cotton shirt and trousers, but this warrior was slightly different from the other warriors. This villager also wore a straw hat as protection from the bright sun, and underneath the brim of the hat a pair of the bluest of eyes watched as the strangers entered the village with Appolon and Tryon, and also hidden beneath the hat were the golden locks of a fairy-tale princess. She had listened to Appolon and Tryon describe how they had been freed from the strange aliens to their land by the two earthmen. Of how the earthmen had been unarmed, but had still attacked the two heavily armed aliens to bravely rescue her brother and the brave Tryon. When Tyler entered into the house of her brother, she still watched as the door closed behind them, a little bewildered by the strange feelings that affected her body and mind, when she had first caught sight of the younger earthman. She then remembered the words of a mystic who spoke to her some years ago. ‘The spirit world will send a stranger to our land and he will save the life of not only your brother, but of all the people of your village. This stranger is the one destined to share your life.’ She turned away annoyed with herself, she hadn`t taken the mystics words seriously then, why should she now? She looked away from her brothers home and began working on her arrows again, but she found her mind constantly wandering from her arrows and over to the house of her brother.

  The two earthmen on entering into the home of Appolon were introduced to Fleur, Appolon`s wife. She was a beautiful young woman with long dark hair and large grey eyes. She had also heard the two earthmen`s story from the back of the crowd, but had waited to meet them in the quiet of her home so that she could thank them properly.

  “Thank you Tyler, thank you George, for rescuing my husband and our good friend Tryon from the two off-worlders, for this I will not be able to repay you sufficiently enough to show you my gratitude.” Fleur was dressed in the same clothes worn by the other women of the village, a linen frock, but each had put their own designs upon their own frock to show their individuality. Fleur had decorated hers with small coloured flowers embroidered onto the plain linen material of the frock.

  “The friendship that you and your friends have all shown us will more than repay us.” Tyler said. “For without it I don`t know what would have become of the two of us.”

  George nodded in agreement. “Yes what Tyler says is true, for we are two strangers who find themselves lost in this great universe, or maybe I should say shipwrecked upon your planet would be more correct, and so to be counted amongst your friends is more than sufficient payment.”

  George would have liked to carry on in this vein but Appolon`s daughters interrupted his flow when they appeared carrying food and drink for the two very hungry and very weary earthmen.

  The two girls were smaller copies of their mother, although with fairer skin and lighter hair. The older girl Jasmine was eight years old and the younger girl, Collette was aged six years. Both sets of eyes watched the two strangers to their house, and so as not to miss anything they sat quiet
ly in a corner, and out of the sight of both of their parents, or so they thought. As Tyler looked about the room he was reminded of a medieval house he had once been to in England, it had been a replica of course, built on the site of a now vanished village, and the inside was much like Appolon`s house. There was a long table with benches on either side of it, a large chest underneath the window, but with glass in the window unlike the medieval houses of England. There were also two large cupboards which were also not part of a Medieval house, and a concrete floor, although Tyler thought, some of the poorer houses he had seen as he entered the village could well have had floors of compacted earth, just like the Medieval houses back in Ye olde England. To finish off Appolon`s main room, there was a collection of chairs spaced around a brick fireplace which had a brick chimney to match, something that was also of the future for medieval Britain.

  After Tyler and Masters had finished their food, Masters asked whether they could borrow some shaving gear, so that that they could shave.

  “Of course I will go and get you some shaving gear.” Fleur said, and she turned and departed in search of some razors. Fleur soon returned with the promised gear saying.

  “These are a gift from friends of Appolon and Tryon; they ask that you accept these gifts as a token of their friendship too.” Fleur said smiling at her new friends.

  “Please thank them all for us.” Masters said and then the two earthmen were shown to their room so that they could rest a while after their exhausting day.

  The house they had found themselves in was a single storied building. The room they were to use as their sleeping quarters for the moment was a simple affair with whitewashed walls, two wooden beds, a large wooden wardrobe and a unit that combined as a chest of draws and a top to lay items on, as befitted the daughters of a tribal leader here on Orion. It had been emptied of some of the girl`s things while Tyler and Masters had fed. On the table was a bowl of water put there by Fleur before she had returned so promptly with the shaving gear, or maybe it had been put there by one of her daughters?

  Appolon and Tryon had left them here while they spoke to the warriors of the village, who had become concerned on hearing of the appearance of the new intruders who had accosted their chief. Now Tyler and Masters at last had time to rest, to talk, and to try and sort out some sort of plan for their future. Later as they were still talking Appolon came in and joined in the discussions.