Rome

by Matthew Thayer

  I pop my head up every once in a while to see what’s happening. It’s a pretty typical Cro-Magnon feast. The men are either sitting around doing nothing, talking, eating, sleeping, fighting or fucking. That leaves the women to do the butchering, cooking and keeping watch over the children. Despite the numerous fires and presence of man, quite a few predators lurk near, including wild dogs, jackals, vultures and other opportunists capable of stealing a baby. The baboons would be the ones to worry me.

  Though I have no interest in stealing a child, the smell of roast has put larceny on my mind. When it gets dark, I’m going to swipe some meat and whatever else they’ve got cooking. It smells good.

  TRANSMISSION:

  Hunter: “F-f-f-fire.”

  Duarte: “Fire?”

  Hunter: “N-n-need energy. S-s-shoo those p-p-poxy devils away. F-f-f-fire.”

  Duarte: “Are you sure?”

  Hunter: “W-w-worked last time you tried to bloody m-m-murder me.”

  From the log of Maria Duarte

  Chief Botanist

  It appears Hunter’s spine is completely severed. Poor man can’t even move his head. At least he doesn’t feel pain. The systems of his belt and the nanos inside his body keep him alive, aiding respiration and pulmonary functions. His mind emerged unscathed, though his spirits are extremely low.

  I know these details because he told me so. Hunter regained consciousness a little before daybreak, just as the Cro-Magnons were approaching the crescendo of their all-night party. I didn’t see what they ate or drank, but magic mushrooms are my first guess. Most of the men and nearly half of the women are intoxicated. I observed them for several hours and listened all night. Apart from a few brawls between the men and catfights between the women, everyone seems happy. Laughter and songs circle the fires roaring beside the carcasses of the two giant bull aurochs.

  I heard an “ahem” over the com line and looked over to see Hunter staring at me.

  “You’ve been injured,” I said. “Blink your eyes if you can hear me.”

  He kept on staring.

  “Blink if you are able.”

  “W-w-why d-d-don’t I j-j-just say so?”

  “Yes, that would be better. How do you feel?”

  “Feel n-n-nothing.”

  Closing his eyes, he turned within himself and his systems to assess the damage. Surfacing an hour later, he stammered that things were bad, but not beyond hope. He complained of having no memory of what happened. I filled him in with my version before he could find a way to blame me. It all came down to bad luck, I said. The stampede was over and a lone bull chanced to land in exactly the wrong spot.

  Now that I think about it, however, if his field wasn’t expanded to protect me maybe it wouldn’t have collapsed, or maybe he wouldn’t have been distracted and dodged the bull. Maybe it is my fault. Even if it is, he knows as well as I do what’s done is done. I didn’t ask for his protection and I sure as hell didn’t ask to come on this trip.

  The Cro-Magnons were getting on his nerves, and mine as well, when he ordered me to either kill them or shoo them away. As I approached, however, I found the clan was already packing to leave. The green-eyed leader with the gorilla necklace was one of the few men not to have imbibed the mystery intoxicant. Issuing terse commands and swatting with the shaft of his spear, he showed no mercy to the wobbling laggards who partied all night and now wished to find a patch of shade and go to sleep.

  Warmed by the early morning sun, many carcasses had begun to bloat. The leader and sober members of his clan knew this gully was going to be no place for a nap. Vultures, crows, hyenas, wolves, cats and all the other eaters of carrion had begun arriving by the thousands. (The influx continued through the day, seemingly without stop.)

  Giving them time, I scaled the crumbling western bank to discover a savannah that looked startling normal. Grazing animals and waist-high yellow grasses stretched north and south forever, sandwiched between the mountains to the east and green horizon of the Nile River valley to the west. It’s like nothing happened.

  We had the misfortune of being at the epicenter of the carnage, the crux where the opposing stampedes collided. By rough estimate, I put the death toll at 21,500 larger mammals and an untold number of smaller animals. Carcass piles are worst along the banks where beasts spilling over the sides overwhelmed ones trying to climb out. What a colossal waste.

  Mr. Green Eyes and his gang didn’t harvest much more than a pair of aurochs’ tongues, testicles, loins and livers. I didn’t see them butcher another animal and there was prime meat all around. The women seemed content with small game, picking up flattened rabbits and ground squirrels on their way out of the gully.

  Watching how animated the men became as they recounted the hunt was like looking through a window into mankind’s future. They spent hours inspecting the damage they caused, looking for oddities like a row of five gazelles stuck in the ground horns-first. They delighted in dispatching lingering survivors in the most reckless ways.

  Sadly, I know how the story turns out, at least up to the 2230s. This hunt is a perfect metaphor for how man will exploit Earth’s resources over the next 32,000 years. Humans will always be looking for ways to make a bigger kill, a bigger bang. Green Eyes and his clan were very proud of what they accomplished with their firebrands. Their pride is a blueprint for all the Genghis Khans and Hitlers to come, as well as for all the men who will place power and personal profit over the health of the planet’s atmosphere and water supply.

  In today’s Africa, the death of 21,500 animals isn’t even a drop in a bucket. More beasts will be harvested by the region’s lions and cheetahs today. It is incredibly sobering to know that nearly every species of animal we see will be extinct when we make our jump. Giant gnu and the odd little camels with three humps will fade long before man thinks to draw or write about them. Sparrows and rats will make it through, but not many others.

  Many of Hunter’s dreams deal with the horrors of Martinellism and that cult’s “Thinning” of 85 percent of the planet’s population. In the last dream, I was Hunter climbing a plum tree as skinny soldiers scaled my wall and ran through the dust toward my mansion. Like all dreams it jumped around, but the end left me with the feeling that 85 percent losses became 90 percent and then 95. Will mankind cause its own extinction? Would that be a bad thing?

  Sacrilege? As one of the few people to have the opportunity to compare the endless bounty of Mother Earth as she is in 30,000 B.C. to the ruined husk of a planet it was in 2230, I’d say we probably deserve extinction. Man’s inexplicable desire to up the body count and to exploit the environment like there is no tomorrow make us lousy stewards of the land.

  Even now, as man is just beginning his love affair with technology, it’s already apparent the relationship will not bode well for the rest of the food chain.

  Hunter’s calling. He wants me to throw him in an oven and set it on high.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  TRANSMISSION:

  Kaikane: “Recreation Specialist Paul Kaikane requesting a response from Doctor Maria Duarte. Hunter if you’re listening, let me talk to her. I need to hear her voice, just one time. You son of a fucking bitch! Let Me Talk To MY WIFE!”

  From the log of Paul Kaikane

  Recreation Specialist

  About a month ago, Gray Beard was setting rabbit snares along a ridgeline in the hills east of camp when a flash of light way down in the gulch bottom caught his eye. He said there was no getting down the sheer walls and he didn’t have time to swing back to shore and hike up the dry gulch. He blew it off that day, but couldn’t forget it. He’s probably seen and done more then any other native on the planet. Something about that flash stuck in his craw.

  Last week, he tried the gulch alone and couldn’t get past a steep, dry waterfall. Soon as he got back to camp he started bugging me to help him make the climb.

  “With your ropes and magic knots it will be easy.”

  I told him I didn’t have ti
me to go mountain climbing.

  “For tools, you do. We find tools.”

  At first, he said the flash might have come off a bed of flint. Soon as I said I didn’t need any more flint, he switched it. “Flash wasn’t flint. Flash came from something else.”

  I’ll say it did.

  The climb up took almost all day. We’d walk the bends and turns of the dry streambed, steadily gain elevation, then hit a wall where there would be a waterfall if this was rainy season. Most of the ascents weren’t all that hard. The faces were solid and not too crumbly. Like scaling the hard blue-rock walls in Hawaii, there always seemed to be a good handhold.

  Gray Beard’s a tough dude, hard as a hickory nut and about the same dark color. Come to think of it, we’re both pretty much black with all the sun we get. He had no trouble keeping up with me on the easy parts and did what he was told when I had to rig him up. We only had to pull the ropes out of the pack three times where the cliffs were too vertical and sheer to do freehand. After the third and trickiest ascent, the gulch got wider and its bottom flattened out.

  We hit a few boulder patches where we had to jump from rock to rock, but most of it was hiking across dry washes of cinders and sand. As the canyon walls grew higher and higher, we finally stopped to take a break in the shade of a rock overhang and finish the second-to-last water gourd. Something about the look on Gray Beard’s face as he used a finger to catch drips of water rolling down his whiskers and carefully push them back toward his mouth told me he had no clue where the hell we were going.

  “This is the gulch, right?”

  He snapped back.

  “Yes, this valley! Keep owl eyes open, bitter mouth closed. Andiamo!”

  “Not yet,” I said, picking up a petrified shell that must have weighed 10 pounds. “This shell, wise Father, where do you think it came from?”

  Taking it, he studied the swirls of yellows, blues and purples, judged its weight, before handing it back.

  “The wind didn’t blow it here.”

  There must have been a dozen different kinds of old teeth and shells in the cinders. We’d been seeing all sorts of fossils and bones on the way up, even some stuff that looked like it could have come from dinosaurs. Unless it was something he could eat or squeeze water out of, the old man had no interest. He’s not big on picking useless stuff up and carrying it around.

  Me? It made me feel like even if we were a wild goose chase, at least we were doing it an interesting valley. It was pretty in a bleak, Zen sort of way. Not counting the birds, flies and spiders, we had it to ourselves. After the last climb we didn’t see one cat, rat, dog or bear. The only animal signs were the dried-out carcasses of goats, camels and zebra that fell and died. One scene that tickled Gray Beard was a pair of goats that must have been screwing when they fell. At least, that’s sure what it looked like when they landed.

  “That’s how I want to die,” he said.

  I had to give him some shit for that.

  “Tell me, wise Father, which do you mean? Would you like to die falling off a cliff? Die fucking a goat? Or both.”

  He gave a snort that said my joke was funny, but not that funny.

  “You know what I mean.”

  The farther up we went the more the cinders coming off the southern wall had a red tint and the ones off the north were gray. The colors met at the bottom of the wash in a winding blend that reminded me of Japanese gardens back in Lahaina. No gardener could have raked them any prettier than nature did.

  So, of course, we stomped our footprints right down the middle. A couple sweeping bends later, the gulch opened even wider as we dropped down into what had to be the bed of an ancient pond or small lake. I wouldn’t be surprised if the depression still holds water in the rainy season, maybe has for millions of years.

  We got to the deepest part of the dry pond just as the sun came out from behind a cloud. The place lit up like one of those mirror balls hanging from the ceiling of high school hover dances. Beams were shooting all over, so bright they blinded you for a second when they caught you square in the eye. Moving over to the same side as the sun, we found a spot where the reflections weren’t so bad.

  More times on this mission than I can count, Team members have busted my chops for exaggerating. Maybe exaggerating’s too strong a word. Let’s say I tend to get excited about things that are special and unique. I’ll say the stew we made was the best ever, or the colors of a sunset are the prettiest and they’ll get all over me, saying stuff like, “That’s what you said last time.”

  Maria, bless her heart, is good at that.

  Will they believe me when I say the puddle of diamonds and colored jewels was bigger than a badminton court and deeper than we bothered to dig? Is it possible for someone who didn’t see it to wrap their heads around two grown men kicking diamonds at each other and throwing double handfuls up into the air to let them pepper their straw hats like hail?

  Believe it or not, that’s what we did. Like two kids, we made snow angels in the colorful puddle. We sat and combed for the biggest and clearest jewels, letting the smaller ones fall through our fingers like sand at the beach. Even Gray Beard knew we had found something outstanding. This was just some wild shit.

  I don’t know my ass from my elbow when it comes to precious stones, but I reckoned the green ones were emeralds and the red ones rubies. There were also some pink, light blues and a ton of different shades of yellow. I’d say it was a half-half mix between clear diamonds and everything else. They came in all shapes and sizes, the biggest about the size of a baby’s fist and the smallest like powdery, glittering sand.

  Mixed in with the jewels and lining the sides of the pit was a bunch of wild looking teeth and horns. Some weren’t that old, but most were petrified. We had no idea how hard the horns were until I picked one up and challenged Gray Beard to a sword fight. Dude had no idea what “En garde!” meant, but caught on quick once I pressed a three-foot-long gemsbok horn into his hand and started whacking it with a curved ibex horn.

  He jabbed toward my nuts, as expected. Gray Beard fights dirty even when we’re just messing around. I brought my blade down to parry his thrust and that’s when something really cool happened. Instead of shattering, the stone-hard blades rang out like stainless steel. Quick as a cat, the storyteller tried a backhanded slash for my shoulder. Again I blocked his sword and again the horns held up.

  He looked at me, I looked at him, and neither one of us had to say a thing. We marched over to a big rock to see just how much abuse the things would take. The answer was a helluva lot. I’m sure the old man was thinking weapons. My mind was on all the different tools I could make.

  Looking back, if we had found the diamonds and horns in different places, I’m not sure I would have connected them like I did. What a shame that would have been. My diamond-tipped drills and saws are showing real potential. If I find the right glue, they could be real game changers.

  I’m getting ahead of myself.

  We crawled through the diamonds on our hands and knees, ignoring the stones as we searched for the best horns and antlers. Funny how we were sitting on 100 billion Norte Americanos’ worth of jewels and we’re stoked on the black, petrified horns. Some of the tough buggers were straight and pointy and others were flat with bumpy edges.

  We took our time, arranged all the ones that looked like they might be useful in mounds by shape and size. Like I said, he was still thinking spear points and stabbing knives while I was going for rasps, saws and drill bits. There was no rush. It was way too late to leave the gulch. We’d each known for hours, though neither had bothered to say anything about staying. Gray Beard likes his people to read his mind on the obvious stuff. Stupid questions tick him off.

  We made our piles of horns as the sun dropped below the canyon rim and the sheer walls turned black. When it got too dark to see what we were doing, we spread our meal on a leather tarp between us and watched the last of the sunset give way to the stars. Usually by full dark, it’s not a
bad idea to light a fire to let the cats and other night hunters know it’s man’s territory. If you’re lucky, maybe you’ll even have some food to cook. I didn’t bother asking Gray Beard if he wanted a fire. The question was too stupid to ask.

  No way was he going to mark our location to anybody who might be walking up on the rim or smell the smoke and follow it. We only had one way out. It would be too easy to gather a crew to meet us at the bottom. Strange how I didn’t give a rip if somebody spotted us the whole way up the valley. But as soon as we found a fortune in tools and jewels, we both spent the rest of the afternoon turning our heads every few minutes to make sure the rim was clear.

  Luckily, I had brought my big pack and we had a pair of light sleeping leathers to make into pouches. Dinner wasn’t bad–fish jerky, sweet seedpods and a few handfuls of green beetles the old man found on the way up. Moisture. We hadn’t seen any water coming up so there was no reason to expect any going down.

  Though we were both thirsty, the last water gourd was saved without discussion.

  TRANSMISSION:

  Kaikane: “You should have seen it, Maria. You would have really gotten off on the jewel pit. I bet you would have found some room for the prettiest and biggest instead of what we went for, the roughest and toughest. I don’t know if we’ll ever pass this way again, but I’d love to take you there. Come home to me, darling.”

  From the log of Paul Kaikane

  Recreation Specialist

  Gray Beard about pitched a fit when he saw how much I wanted to carry out. I guess he had been sorting the horns and antlers just to get down to the best. Hell, I wanted them all.