Time's Last Gift Part 13

Another bullet cut off his speech; it came so close that it almost seemed to have severed the words issuing from his mouth. It threw up a spray of snow only an inch before him.

Gribardsun rolled to one side and then said, 'Very good shooting, or the man's very lucky. He couldn't have seen me behind the snow, I don't think. Get over behind that boulder!' Rachel crawled swiftly to the designated rock, and another bullet threw up snow a few inches from her foot. Gribardsun said, a moment later, 'I think he's about four hundred yards away, judging from the difference in time between the bullet striking and the time it takes the report to reach us.'

Rachel moaned. 'What reason could Drummond have? We've never done anything!'

'Reason?' Gribardsun said. He did not add anything, but she understood him. Human beings were far more motivated by irrationalities than by reason.

Gribardsun waited until another bullet had gone by and then rolled over to the boulder behind which Rachel crouched. He broke open his 365 rifle to make sure that the barrel was unclogged by snow, and then he told Rachel to stay where she was.

He jumped up and dived into the snow, rolled, and was behind a tree.

Rachel heard two more shots and then could not resist looking around the side of the boulder. She could see neither man. The top of the hill looked empty of life. Gribardsun must be fairly near, but he was behind a tree somewhere up the hill. She waited for an hour by her watch. Only one more shot was fired during that rime. She cried and wiped the tears away and then cried some more. She could not believe that her husband was really trying to kill her. Perhaps he had been shooting just at Gribardsun, but no, those first bullets had come too near her as well. He must not have cared whether he struck her or Gribardsun.

Presently she heard John's voice far away. Cautiously, she looked over the boulder. He was a tiny figure near the top of the mountain. He was waving at her to come up. A moment later he used his amplifier. His voice bellowed down at her, like G.o.d's telling His wors.h.i.+pper to ascend the Mount of Judgment.

It took her half an hour to get to him. The snow was deep most of the way, and the slope was steep. By the time she reached him, she was breathing as if she had asthma.

She did not want to see what he was pointing at, but she knew that she must sooner or later. And she was also aware that she did not want to show weakness before John. She dreaded his contempt, even though she had never experienced it.

Drummond was sitting in a hollow of snow. His face was between his mittened hands, and he was rocking back and forth. His hood was off, permitting her to see a b.l.o.o.d.y patch on the back of his head. His rifle was gone.

Gribardson pointed at tracks leading away from the hollow down over the other side of the ridge. 'Drummond was watching us,' he said. 'But he claims that he did not shoot us, and I believe him. Someone came up behind him while he was spying on us, hit him over the head, shot at us with his rifle, and then left with it before I could get close to him.'

'It couldn't be Robert!' she said.

'I doubt it very much,' John Gribardsun said. 'But if it was an aborigine, he'd have to be one of our tribesmen, since n.o.body else would have the faintest notion how to operate a rifle. The only one who's had any practice at all is Dubhab, and he's not had enough to be as good a shot as the man who was shooting at us.'

'Maybe -' Rachel looked up, and she stopped.

Drummond looked up from between his mittens at her. His eyes were large, bloodshot, and miserable.

'Maybe Drummond was shooting at us, and then the intruder knocked him over the head and took his rifle away,' Gribardsun finished for her.

'That's a lie!' Drummond said.

'It's only a speculation,' Gribardsun said. 'And don't imply I'm a liar any more. You're in no position to be calling names or accusing anybody of anything.'

'Are you all right, Drummond?' Rachel said. She sounded sympathetic, but she did not make any move toward him.

'My head feels as if I have a fracture.'

Gribardsun examined his scalp and then applied the sonic photo camera to the wound. Six seconds later, the film slid out of the tiny box. He looked at it through a magnifying gla.s.s and said, 'There's no fracture of the skull. But you do have a slight concussion.'

'Slight!' Drummond said.

'You're lucky to be alive,' Gribardsun said. 'You escaped killing twice.'

'Why don't you put me out of my misery?' Drummond said.

'Don't be an a.s.s,' the Englishman said, and he lifted Drummond to his feet. 'You saw us kissing, no doubt. That was entirely unpremeditated; it was brought about because of a peculiar concatenation of circ.u.mstances. Not that it might not happen again, if you continue to be such an utter nincomp.o.o.p.'

'A what?' Drummond said.

'An archaic word,' Gribardsun said. 'Another nail in the coffin of your absurd suspicions. You forget that I'm more than a doctor and physical anthropologist. I'm also a linguist.'

He turned Drummond over to Rachel, and she half supported him while Gribardsun led the way down the other side of the mountain. He followed the deep tracks of the intruder. Occasionally he halted and warned the others to get down in the snow while he reconnoitered. When the possibility of an ambush was cleared away, he motioned them to continue.

The tracks suddenly disappeared when they were within a quarter of a mile of the campsite. The man had taken to a pile of boulders and smaller rocks, the tops of which had been swept clean of snow by the wind. He had leaped from one bare spot to another. Since the rocks were widespread, and since there were many tracks from the tribespeople around the rocks, the man had effectively eluded them.

He would, however, have had to conceal the rifle and the box of ammunition he had stolen. This he could easily do by taking the rifle apart and concealing it under the heavy fur garments. But if he thought to hide it in his tent, he would soon be found out. There was very little privacy inside the camp and few places to hide anything inside a tent. He would have to conceal the rifle inside furs, and the first time one of his family b.u.mped into the bundle, the contents would be detected. It was probable that the rifle and ammunition had been hidden somewhere in the several acres of rock detritus near the camp.

Gribardsun put Drummond inside his plastic hut and made another examination. Then he went straight to the tent of Dubhab. Laminak greeted him with her usual joy and unconcealed wors.h.i.+p. Gribardsun gave no evidence that he was looking for her father. He chatted with her for a few minutes, then said that he mustn't be holding up her work, which was sewing a parka. Where was her father?

Laminak said that he was out hunting of course. She hoped he would bring home at least as much as Gribardsun had, she said, looking at the hares still slung over his shoulder.

Gribardsun saw nothing in her demeanor to indicate she was lying. Besides, he did not think that she would make the slightest effort to deceive him. She loved him more than anybody, even her father.

Gribardsun gave her a hare and left, though she was trying desperately to keep him by asking a string of questions. He said he would speak to her later, then stooped and went out through the exit. At that moment Dubhab left the woods nearby and approached the camp under the overhang of rock. He saw Gribardsun waiting for him but did not check his pace. He smiled when he got closer and loudly greeted him.

Gribardsun had decided by then that Dubhab had hidden the rifle - if he was the thief - and that it would be better not to let him know he was a suspect. He talked with him for a few minutes, inquired about his hunting, and was told that Dubhab had been very unlucky. Gribardsun mentioned that he had left a hare for his family, and walked away.

That evening, after everybody had eaten, he announced at the council fire that they would be moving on the next day. And their journey for many days would be hard. He wanted to get as far south as possible. Once they had reached a warmer land, they would stop. The next day, he watched Dubhab as closely as possible. But the man went about his normal business in a normal manner.

Five.

Drummond came out of his white cone several hours after dawn. He moved slowly as if he had aged considerably overnight or was in great pain. He reported only a slight headache, however. Again, he a.s.serted that he was innocent.

'Rachel and I have had our trouble, no denying that,' he said. 'And she is very much attracted to you. I don't know whether it's because she is on the bounce from me or if she would have fallen for you in any event. Even I can see what she means by your animal magnetism. And you've become doubly attractive in this world; you could well have been born in it, you fit in with it so well.

'And I don't deny I've been jealous. But, d.a.m.n it, I'm not a murderer! I'm a scientist! I didn't get my doctorate by lacking severe self-discipline. I have a tremendous amount of self-control. Too much, in fact. It's not my nature to kill, and even if it were, I have the strength to repress such an urge.'

Gribardsun waited until he was through. He said, 'All this talk means nothing. When I catch the man who took your rifle, I'll get his story from him, one way or another. Until then, let's drop the subject.'

'But I don't want you suspecting me!' Drummond said. 'You'll never trust me behind you again!'

'I don't trust anyone behind me,' Gribardsun said. 'Everyone is automatically suspect.'

He walked away. An hour later the tribe was ready, and it started down the mountains toward the great plains of Spain. These were not the semideserts that Gribardsun had known. They were well watered and covered with gra.s.s and there were many trees. They also had an abundance of animal life: great herds of bison, horses; the giant aurochs, and the infrequent mammoths and rhinoceroses. The lions of the plains were smaller than the cave lions; they resembled the African lion of the reservations of the twenty-first century.

Gribardsun said that even now he found it strange to see lions in snow. But then that was just because he had a.s.sociated the big cats with the tropics. After all, the Siberian tiger and the snow leopard of the twentieth century (both extinct in the twenty-first) had lived quite well in freezing climates.

He decided to camp for several weeks. The place chosen would be, in approximately 11,000 years or so, the city of Madrid. He ignored the protests of the tribesmen, who said that he was contradicting himself in stopping here when he had said that they would not pause until they reached a warm country. He told them that he wanted to study the hunting habits of lions in snow and ice. Moreover, there was a tribe about six miles away which could provide another language for von Billmann's recorders.

Lramg'bud, a juvenile, was blooded at this time. With an atlatl and two spears, a stone axe and a knife, he went after a male lion that was eating a freshly killed horse. The lion acted as if it could not believe the stupidity of the man. Surely no one would be unintelligent enough to attack it while it was dining. But Lramg'bud went on in, looking brave enough, though there was no telling what his feelings were. The lion at last decided that he would not put up with the fool dancing around and stabbing at him. He charged, and the youth slammed a spear through the big cat's shoulder with an atlatl. The lion got up on three legs, and Lramg'bud drove his second spear deep into its chest. Despite this, the lion got to him and knocked his axe away with a bat of his ma.s.sive paw. Lramg'bud seized the spear sticking from the chest and clung to it while the lion carried him backward. Suddenly, the beast collapsed; blood poured from its mouth; its eyes glazed. And Lramg'bud had a lion's head and lion's skin cloak to wear.

Everybody was happy, and the warriors feasted on lion meat that evening. Gribardsun ate his share raw. Lately he seldom ate cooked meat. Von Billmann had joked about this, and the Englishman had replied that he had always preferred raw meat. Von Billmann said that it was dangerous; raw meat was too likely to be infested with parasites. Gribardsun had merely smiled and continued chewing.