Skyra closed her eyes and, for the second time that day, asked the rhino and lion to give her strength. She opened her eyes and pulled her other khul from the sheath on her back. “I will run into the camp first,” she said to the strangers who were about to risk their lives to help her. “I will kill as many bolups as I can. You come behind me, shouting like you shouted at the men in the river.” She raised one of the khuls and went through a striking motion. “When you strike, hit the bolup’s head or neck. If you do not, you will have to stop to strike again, and maybe again. You will not have time to do that.”
“My God,” Virgil said again. He now looked even paler than when Skyra had first seen him.
“We appreciate the tips, Skyra,” said Lincoln, “but I think we’d better do this now while we still have the courage.”
Derek again made a small fire in his hand. He held the flame under the twisted bend of his weapon, attempting to light it. The man’s hands were now shaking. The flame died, and he moved his thumb, causing the fire to come back to life. Abruptly, he snorted. He dropped the weapon and fell to his knees. He snorted again. “Ah, shit!” he said, then he struck his own face with his fist. “Not now!”
Lincoln rushed to the man’s side and kneeled. “Look at me, Derek. Look at me!” He took Derek’s face in his hands and forced the man to look at him. “Look at me, Derek. Do you feel my hands? You feel that? Now you touch your face.”
“Aw, no, shit!” Derek moaned.
Lincoln grabbed Derek’s hand and placed it against the man’s own face. “You feel that? That’s you, Derek. That’s your nose, your eyes. It’s you. What kind of face do you have, Derek?”
Derek was now sucking in air like he couldn’t breathe. “I… yeah, I know. It’s mine. My nose. It’s human, isn’t it? It’s human.”
“That’s right, buddy.” Lincoln moved Derek’s hand. “Feel your ear? You know what that is, right? It’s your ear. It’s a man’s ear, isn’t it?”
“It is, it is,” Derek said. His breaths were now slowing down. “It is. It’s my ear, my face. I… I got this now. I got it.” His face relaxed and he looked at Lincoln. “I got it, man. Thanks.”
Lincoln got to his feet then helped Derek get up.
Derek’s chest heaved as he breathed in and out. “I got this, guys. I do.” He picked up his weapon, then he picked up the small black object he had used to make the fire in his hand.
Lincoln turned to Skyra. “He’s okay now. Sometimes he just has to work through some things.”
Skyra didn’t know what that meant, but now she was starting to wonder if these strange humans were going to be much help at all.
Jazzlyn and Virgil both spoke soft words to Derek. Obviously they had seen such a thing happen to him before.
Derek made fire in his hand again, and this time he was able to light his weapon. Lincoln, Jazzlyn, and Virgil held their own weapons over the flames. When all four weapons had caught fire, they moved them to the dry leaves of the nearest tree. The leaves quickly caught fire, and the humans moved on to another tree.
Skyra watched the fire spread, forcing her legs to overcome her instinct to run from the flames. Her tribe kept a campfire burning almost all the time, and they sometimes created grass fires to drive reindeer and other game to a cliff or into an ambush. This fire, though, was in a forest of dry scrub trees and might burn out of control.
She followed the humans as they lit one tree after another. Soon she heard voices from the camp, and she grabbed Lincoln’s arm. “The bolups have seen the fire. We must attack now while they are most frightened.”
He nodded and turned to his companions. “Everyone ready?”
“I will enter the camp just ahead of Skyra,” said Ripple. “I will do my best to startle the humans.” The creature then pulled up its legs and lifted off the ground to the height of Skyra’s face.
Lincoln stepped back from Ripple and lost his balance, falling onto his back and dropping his burning weapon. He stared at the hovering creature with wide eyes. “What the hell?”
Ripple let out a low hum that could barely be heard above the crackling flames in the trees and took off flying toward the camp.
“Get up!” Skyra shouted at Lincoln. “Remember, strike for the head or neck.” She turned and followed Ripple, gripping a khul in each hand. It was time to kill.
8
Conflict
47,659 years ago - Day 1
Lincoln stared in shock as Skyra ran toward the human camp, following the drone, which was flying at chest height. The drone was actually flying.
Derek and Jazzlyn grabbed Lincoln’s arms and pulled him to his feet, while Virgil snatched up the burning weapon Lincoln had dropped and handed it to him.
“We can’t let her go in there alone,” Derek said. He released Lincoln’s arm and ran after Skyra.
Lincoln subdued his confusion and glanced at Jazzlyn and Virgil. They both nodded, their eyes wide with terror. Without saying a word, Lincoln took off for the camp.
“This behavior is ill-advised,” Maddy said, apparently following behind.
Lincoln heard men shouting and a woman screaming among the trees ahead. Then a wailing siren rose above everything else, sounding like an old police car.
Lincoln charged forward, aware that he had no idea of the camp’s layout or even how many humans would be there. There was a good chance he would die within seconds of entering the camp.
Something was on the ground before him, and he was forced to swerve around it—a body. He glimpsed a face that had been almost split in half from the forehead to the chin.
The siren grew steadily louder as Lincoln skirted a tree and saw two low shelters, each less than a meter high and made of animal skin. He was already in the human camp. He skirted a second tree and came to a stop. Skyra and Derek were in front of him, their weapons held ready as they faced off with five fierce-looking men wearing skin clothing and armed with stone-bladed khuls. Behind the men were six women, with just as many small children in their arms or clinging to their legs. Another body lay on the ground at Skyra’s feet, blood oozing from its head onto the sand.
Lincoln could see the women were shouting, but their voices were drowned out by the siren blasting from Ripple’s speakers. Ripple was hovering in the air beside Skyra.
Jazzlyn and Virgil came to a stop beside Lincoln.
The tribesmen were frightened, that was obvious from their expressions. Lincoln was pretty sure they were about to turn and run, but then he saw something—a flick of the eyes and a slight tightening of arm and leg muscles. The man in the center was getting ready to attack.
Lincoln raised his now-smoking weapon and rushed forward.
Skyra must have seen the man’s intent also. Just as Lincoln was about to run past her, she lunged forward. She brought her left khul around in a wide swing as if aiming for the man’s abdomen. A split-second later she swung her right khul from above. The man avoided the low swing, but in doing so his upper body came under the second blade, which grazed the side of his head and chunked into his shoulder.
Lincoln slowed his approach, but then he sensed the four remaining men were now intent on fighting rather than running. They rushed Skyra from both sides just as Lincoln, Derek, Jazzlyn, and Virgil converged around her.
There was no standoff, no hesitation of any kind. The men attacked, and Lincoln’s world immediately became a nightmare of brutality unlike anything he had ever experienced. He had no time to read the expressions and movements of these savage men. He only had time to fight for his life. Arms and legs flailed wildly as primitive weapons struck each other and struck flesh and bone. Ripple’s siren abruptly stopped, and Lincoln heard only grunting and screaming. He could actually smell the men’s sweat and breath as he fought for his life.
Out of the corner of his eye, Lincoln saw one of Skyra’s khuls strike a man’s neck. Another khul swung toward Skyra’s head, and Lincoln thrust his own weapon out to intercept it. He managed to prevent the blow, but the at
tacker turned on him. Too close to swing his weapon, the man jabbed a fist into Lincoln’s forehead. Lincoln’s head snapped back, but he was able to wrap his free arm around the man’s neck and pull him even closer to prevent another blow. Something hit Lincoln’s legs. He collapsed, pulling his attacker down on top of him. The man pushed against Lincoln’s chest, tearing his neck free, and he raised his khul to strike.
Lincoln covered his face with his arms. A blur of motion caught his eye as yet another khul swung in from the side and struck the back of the tribesman’s head. The man blinked repeatedly, like he was confused. Blood began pouring from his nostrils. Skyra’s fur-clad foot shot in from the side and knocked him over into a heap beside Lincoln.
Lincoln sat up. The women and a few of the larger children were screaming words he couldn’t understand. They were inching forward, an enraged mass, their vehemence building with every passing second.
He glanced around. Smoke was now drifting across the small clearing. Virgil and Derek were still on their feet, but Jazzlyn was kneeling with both her hands on the right side of her head, apparently nursing a wound. Ripple, no longer flying, was standing beside Maddy. All five of the tribesmen, as well as one of the older children, were sprawled on the ground. The child and four of the men appeared to be dead. The fifth man was moaning and trying to crawl away.
“Aibul-khulo-tekne-té!” Skyra shouted, holding both khuls out with the blood-stained blades pointed toward the screaming women and children. She stepped over to the crawling man and slammed one of her khuls into the back of his skull. He went limp and remained still.
This brutal act only amplified the screaming. Lincoln now realized some of the cries were actually wails of anguish or fear—the women and children must have known their tribe had been decimated. All their men were now dead.
His eyes were drawn to one woman emerging from the trees behind the others. She was holding a longbow in one hand and was awkwardly trying to nock an arrow with the other. She finally got the arrow into place and started raising the bow and drawing back.
“No, stop her!” Lincoln cried as he scrambled to his feet.
Maddy stepped over one of the bodies and ran forward. The other women and children scattered as Maddy approached, but the woman with the bow stood her ground as she drew back her arrow.
Maddy spoke as she ran, apparently intending to ram the woman’s legs. “Please do not use that weapon. We only intended—”
The drone’s feminine voice was cut off with a loud crack, and she came to an abrupt stop.
The woman dropped the bow and ran.
Skyra shouted, “Veenah-Una-Loto!” When no reply came, she bolted and disappeared among the trees.
“I’ll go with her,” Derek said, and he took off after Skyra.
Lincoln rushed to Jazzlyn’s side. “Are you okay?”
Jazzlyn’s face was twisted into a pained grimace. “I don’t know. It hurt at first, but now it’s mostly numb.”
As Lincoln tried pulling her hands from the side of her head, he saw shreds of skin with pink muscle tissue embedded in the knuckles of her prosthetic hand. She wouldn’t allow him to uncover her ear.
“Jazzlyn, let me see it.”
She lowered her arms, and he inhaled sharply. Her ear was mangled, nearly chopped all the way off. The lobe was still intact, but the rest of the external ear was unrecognizable and hanging loose. He gritted his teeth, kneeled in front of her, and held her face in his hands. “Look at me, Jazzlyn. You know who’s a badass, right?”
She was still grimacing. “What does it look like? Is my ear gone?”
“You know who’s a badass,” he repeated.
Her eyes met his. “I am. I’m a goddamn badass.”
“Yes, you are. You just won a battle with cavemen. You took a minor hit, but you won. We just need to get you back to the T3 and the medical supplies. Then we’ll get you patched up. Understand?”
She nodded. “They’re not cavemen, Lincoln. No one uses that word anymore. You should refer to them as Upper Paleolithic Homo sapiens.”
He smiled. “Caveman is easier to say. You’re going to be fine.”
“Your drone appears to be malfunctioning,” Ripple said. Ripple was now standing beside Maddy.
Lincoln got to his feet again and followed Virgil to the two drones. Maddy was still standing in place, but her front legs were twitching as if her motility processor was firing incomplete commands. Then Lincoln noticed the tribeswoman’s arrow, embedded almost to its feather fletching in Maddy’s cracked vision lens. Lincoln and Virgil kneeled before the drone.
“We should have added a barrier behind the lens to protect the main processors,” Virgil said. “The lens is a vulnerable spot—I can’t believe we didn’t think of that.”
Lincoln pushed Maddy over onto her side. “Let’s get her rebooted and see what we’re dealing with.” Maddy’s main control screen was on her ventral side, behind a panel. The panel lock was simply mechanical—four knobs, each with six possible positions, making for 1,296 combinations. Lincoln turned each knob to its correct position and the panel opened. He powered on the ten-centimeter touchscreen and tapped in the reboot commands.
Rebooting took less than five seconds.
“I appear to be situated horizontally, but my optical stimuli are currently unreliable at best,” Maddy said. Her female-toned voice seemed intact. “Is anyone nearby who might provide assistance?”
“We’re here, Maddy,” Lincoln said. “Can you get to your feet?”
The drone’s legs kicked out and back in a sequence patterned after a dog’s motions of getting up from a prone position. Soon Maddy was standing on all four legs. “Getting to my feet required nineteen hundred milliseconds longer than my average, more than necessary even accounting for performing the act in a rough, sandy terrain.”
“Can you walk?”
Maddy took a single step. “Optical stimuli unreliable. Walking will be difficult.”
“Lincoln, I think the fire’s getting closer,” Jazzlyn said.
Lincoln turned. Jazzlyn, now on her feet, was only five meters away, but he could barely see her through the smoke.
Derek’s voice came from somewhere beyond the limit of visibility. “Hey, we need help over here!”
“You stay here, Maddy,” Lincoln said. By the time he got up again, Jazzlyn and Virgil had begun moving toward Derek’s voice, so he followed.
“Hurry, we’re over here.” Derek shouted.
They found Derek and Skyra on their knees at the base of a tree, furiously trying to free three figures apparently tied to the exposed roots. The smoke here was even thicker, and Lincoln could hear the roar of the fire, which was getting louder by the second.
Skyra spoke rapidly in her own language to one of the bound figures, presumably her sister Veenah. She was trying to use one of her stone knives to cut through a thick length of leather that had been used to cinch Veenah’s neck to the tree.
“Help us get them loose!” Derek cried.
Jazzlyn dropped to the ground to help Derek, while Lincoln and Virgil kneeled beside the third bound figure.
Skyra shoved her knife in front of Lincoln’s face. “Blade,” she said firmly. When he accepted it, she pulled out her other knife and went back to work on Veenah’s leather binding.
Lincoln glanced at the bound figure before him. He suspected it was a woman, although fur garments covered her breasts and groin, and her face was badly beaten, making it hard to tell. Her mouth was partially open, and something had been shoved inside, presumably to keep her quiet. She was staring back at him through swollen eyelids.
Lincoln rubbed his eyes, which were starting to burn from the smoke, and said, “Let’s get you out of here.” The strap around the woman’s neck was knotted so tight that he decided it would be faster to cut it. He began sawing. The fire’s roar continued to get louder, and Lincoln began to feel the heat. The smoke had become so thick, though, that he couldn’t see the approaching flames. He had no idea
how close they were.
Soon all three captives had been cut loose from the tree, although their hands were still bound behind their backs.
Lincoln and Virgil grabbed the woman they’d freed and pulled her to her feet. Lincoln turned her around, intending to free her hands, but she abruptly bolted and ran. Within seconds she vanished amidst the smoke.
“We must go,” Skyra shouted. Without taking time to free her sister’s hands, she began leading her away from the approaching fire.
The woman Jazzlyn and Derek had freed was unable to walk. Derek hoisted her by the waist until she was hanging loosely over one of his shoulders. “Let’s go,” he grunted.
Lincoln rubbed his burning eyes again then took Jazzlyn’s hand. He instructed the others to join hands with Derek at the end of the line. Lincoln took off after Skyra, pulling the others with him. He had no idea how to get back to the stream and the unforested hillside. Their only choice was to move directly away from the fire’s roar.
After walking for about a hundred meters, the smoke began to get thinner, and Lincoln became confident that his group was no longer in immediate danger. He released Jazzlyn’s hand.
“Help me put her down,” Derek grunted. With Virgil’s help, he laid the woman on the ground. “What the hell is this?” Derek said as he dug his fingers and thumb into the woman’s mouth. He pried open her jaw with his free hand, pulled an object out, and held it up. It was a rock, about the size of a lime, covered in blood and saliva.
“You gotta be kidding me,” Jazzlyn muttered.
The woman tried unsuccessfully to sit up.
Lincoln still had Skyra’s knife, so he rolled the woman to her side and sawed through the leather strap binding her wrists.
With her hands now free, the woman pushed herself to a sitting position and wiped her mouth with trembling fingers. She spoke several slurred, unrecognizable words.
Lincoln heard a low humming sound and turned to see Ripple flying at chest height out of the smoke. The drone spotted Lincoln’s team and came to a gradual stop. Its legs appeared from inside its ventral shell, and it settled onto the ground on all fours.
Obsolete Theorem Page 9