Six Bits

by Laurence Dahners

  Billy/Teba left the cave looking for fire supplies. It was a beautiful day outside with the sky a pale shade of blue. There weren’t any clouds. Some spots of snow that remained on the ground reflected light, making it very bright. Billy wished he had his sunglasses.

  The air was briskly cool though only vaguely stirred by wispy little breezes. The cave was in the wall of a high embankment overlooking a small river which was running fast with muddy snow runoff. Evergreens were scattered about, as well as many deciduous trees which were just beginning to bud new leaves. Billy wondered if he could teach the tribe to fish in the river. He ransacked Teba's memories for fishing lore and found no recollection that she’d ever even eaten a fish.

  He/she started down the trail toward the river. As they wandered about, Billy began to realize that nature supplied little in the way of straight sticks, at least in the area about the cave. In addition it appeared that almost everything was wet from the snowmelt. After some searching he/she found some small trees just sprouted and only a few feet tall. They had trunks which seemed fairly straight and only about as big around as his finger. They looked like they might be about right for a fire-drill. He grabbed one and tried to bend it sharply at the base in order to break it off. To his chagrin, it had an extremely tough springy trunk which he couldn’t even come close to breaking.

  Teba didn’t have a knife, but did have a small hand-axe that she mostly used for scraping. Billy/Teba got out the stone and started hacking at the base of the little tree. His/her hacking scraped away bark and fibrous strands of the small tree’s trunk, but more shredded than cut. After a moment of reflection, Billy realized that the stick he was producing would have a soft paintbrush like end which wouldn’t be suitable for starting a fire anyway. In addition, he realized that the green wood contained in the stick wouldn’t be dry enough for fire starting for weeks or months. With a grunt he/she set out to find something better.

  Billy/Teba continued walking slowly along the path. Billy thought to himself that he should be enjoying the beautiful day. The rotten tooth aching in his jaw interfered with his enjoyment, to say nothing of the gnawing hunger in his stomach. He/she looked about hoping to see a rabbit or other animal which might make a meal, but as Billy contemplated this he realized that he/she had little hope of killing a rabbit with the tools at hand.

  He/she picked up some stones to throw, but after a few practice throws, Billy got even more frustrated. Teba had never thrown a stone before and Billy's motor memories for throwing didn’t seem to work well with Teba's smaller female body habitus. Generally the stones struck pretty wide of the mark, but Billy resolved to keep throwing for the practice. The skittering stones were surely driving away any potential prey, but it didn’t seem like finding game would be useful until he/she had a chance of hitting something.

  As he/she walked along, Teba became more and more frightened and the nervousness she felt imparted itself to Billy. As he contemplated his/her stressed mood, he realized that Teba’s fears stemmed from being alone in the wilderness. Rummaging through her memories he realized that she’d seldom gone anywhere alone. In general, the women traveled in groups and, even then, they preferred to have a man with them for protection. For a moment, he gave her free reign to control their body. She immediately began turning her head about, looking for the large predator she felt sure must be creeping up on them.

  Realizing with some chagrin that humans of this day and age really did need to fear large predators, Billy decided that he needed at least some kind of spear or club with which he could defend himself. To his intense frustration, even finding something as simple as a staff turned out to be more difficult than expected. He’d visualized a sturdy pole about six feet or so in length and an inch or inch and a half in diameter, but nothing even close could be seen in the surrounding area.

  Cresting a small rise he saw some new growth trees to the left and made his way that direction. After looking for a bit, he found some small saplings which were close to what he’d been thinking of.

  Then Billy/Teba was confronted with the difficulty of cutting one of them down with Teba’s small hand axe…

  Billy sagged back against the bole of a small tree and tried not to sob. Teba definitely wanted to cry. She couldn’t understand why Billy was wasting time when they could be looking for food. To say nothing of straying far from the tribe where one of the big cats could make a meal of her. Cutting down the sapling with her little hand-axe had taken hundreds of blows. Surprisingly, it hadn’t been as difficult as the attempt to cut the fire drill even though its trunk was bigger. The stem of the springy little tree he’d chosen for a fire drill had bounced the hand-axe away, whereas the hand-axe did cut into this bigger, stiffer shaft.

  However, Teba’d never tried to cut more than twigs with her hand-axe. Only after he’d started on it had Billy realized he himself had never cut any wood with an edged tool. He’d seen axes, hatchets, and machetes used in movies and, from that, he felt like he knew how. Now he realized that even if he’d had a better tool than the hand axe, it would have been more work than he’d expected. Teba’s little hand-axe had a sharp edge, but it was small and required scores of accurate chops to produce a deep cut. Billy/Teba’s accuracy was poor and his/her fingers were bruised where they’d smashed against the sapling trying to cut in at an angle.

  The painful fingers put a damper on Billy/Teba’s spirit too.

  Once they’d gotten their emotions back in control, Billy started cutting the small branches off his new staff. Rather than cutting through the staff about six feet up as he had initially envisioned, he went to where it was quite small near the top and started scraping it to a point. In his mind he started calling it a “spear” instead of a staff. It was certainly easier to scrape the small end of it down to a point than it would have been to cut through it a ways farther back.

  Billy/Teba stood back up and put the hand-axe into the pouch at Teba’s waist. Billy had them practice lunging out to make stabbing motions with the pointed end, then swung the butt end to strike the trunks of several trees as if he were fighting with a staff. Feeling a little better about their safety, Billy started them back on their way.

  The difficult project completed, their empty stomach started Billy thinking about food again.

  Billy surveyed the landscape around him, thinking to see a rabbit or maybe even a deer. With nothing evident, he/she started walking. Billy swept the surrounding landscape with his eyes, hoping to see some prey animal. As they stepped around a rocky outcrop, Teba pulled their eyes to a fallen and moldering tree. Thinking that she might expect a rabbit or some other small animal to be hiding behind it, Billy turned that way, holding their spear at the ready. When they got to it, there were no animals present.

  Billy felt frustrated, then realized that Teba wanted him to roll the rotting trunk over. Trying to hold his spear ready in case a rabbit burst out from under the tree, Billy put Teba’s foot on the trunk and gave it a shove.

  The fallen tree rolled part way, then broke apart.

  No rabbit. Just a disgusting mess of insects and worms.

  To Billy’s horror, Teba strongly wanted to reach out, pluck up, and eat some of the crawlers that looked like termites. She especially wanted to eat the mealworms. Saliva rushed into his/her mouth with anticipation of the crunch a few of her particular favorites would produce as she bit into them.

  Teba started to crouch and her hand began to dart out toward a large bug she really wanted. Billy jerked it back, stood them back up and stepped away.

  Billy wanted to heave.

  Teba wanted to cry.

  He continued onward, trying to block out Teba’s disturbing thoughts.

  When a large bird burst out of the grasses about ten feet in front of Billy/Teba, buzzing away into the distance and scaring the crap out of him, Billy thought it was a fluke. Not more than 100 feet further on, a rabbit shot off to the side and skittered away. Billy threw his spear after its bobbing-darting tail, but didn’t come w
ithin five feet.

  Realizing just how weak his ability to detect game was, he trudged after the spear.

  The point he had carefully scraped onto the tip of his spear had broken. Now he had the staff he’d originally set out to make, though it was a little long.

  Hungry, tired, sore, and with his/her jaw aching, Billy’s vision blurred with tears. Frustration made him want to scream.

  At first he continued to ignore Teba’s gradually increasing anxiety, but when it became a full-fledged panic, he finally took note. Re-opening what he was thinking of as the “bridge” between her mind and his, he listened to her thoughts.

  His eyes jerked back to their trail.

  Wolves!

  There were five of them, large rangy animals. Heads down, they were trotting his/her way as they appeared to follow a scent trail. The one in front had just lifted his eyes to focus on Billy/Teba.

  Billy only considered fighting them for a moment before Teba’s terror washed over him and he turned to run. Rattled, he almost dropped his staff. Only a few steps into his flight, Teba’s loosely restrained breasts began to flop painfully. He remembered reading once that wolves thrived on running down fleeing prey. I’m doing exactly what they expect and hope for!

  He tried to reason, after all that was Homo sapiens’ great advantage. Climb! he thought. Wolves can’t climb! He scanned desperately for a tree that he/she might be able to climb.

  There! He/she swerved toward a dead tree which had stark limbs spaced a foot or two apart.

  A spike of fear from Teba warned him that one of the wolves had caught up.

  Billy pivoted, swinging his staff behind him. It smacked the animal in the side rather than the head as he had hoped.

  Nonetheless, the wolf spun away with a surprised yelp.

  Reluctantly, Billy dropped the staff and leapt for a branch. At first he was relieved that Teba’s body had jumped high enough to reach it, then he felt consternation. Her arms were weaker than the arms he’d known as a man. They lifted him in a pull-up motion, which he suddenly realized meant they were relatively stronger than the arms of many women he’d known. However, he couldn’t let go with one hand to grab at another limb.

  As he dithered, Teba took over, throwing her legs around the trunk of the tree. They got a good grip and now he/she was able to switch one, then the other hand to the next higher limb. He/she surged up upwards, and reached for the next one.

  Billy had already begun wondering how long they would have to huddle in the tree before the wolves would give up and leave.

  Then a limb broke, and Billy/Teba fell.

  Billy feared a broken leg, then death at the slashing teeth of the wolf pack, but Teba landed him/her like a cat, crouched, just in front of two startled wolves.

  In horror, Billy looked for the staff. His eyes found it lying beneath the two wolves. Three more wolves were approaching.

  Suddenly, he realized that he still had the broken tree limb in his hand. It had a satisfying heft, like a lightweight baseball bat. Gripping it like a bat, he swung it back like one.

  The wolves, having lurched away when Billy/Teba suddenly landed almost on top of them, now bared their teeth and started forward.

  Billy swung his bat like his team needed a home run.

  That swing felt better than any other in his life. Better than any homer he’d hit as a young man. The wolf saw it coming, but having had no experience with clubs, only began to draw away in the last few microseconds. The club smashed into its head, flipping the wolf end for end.

  Billy tried to hit the second wolf on his return swing, but missed. It dodged back, then darted forward toward Billy/Teba’s shins.

  Billy swung again.

  This time he connected with the wolf’s shoulder as Billy tried to get his/her own legs away from the wolf’s muzzle. The wolf went down with a squealing yelp. Billy looked up at the other three wolves. They’d stopped and were eyeing him warily. He looked down at the two he’d hit with his bat. The head of the first one he’d hit was deformed. It quivered in what looked like death throes.

  The other one backed away on three legs, then turned to guardedly eye its three compatriots. It limped slowly away and Billy watched with mixed horror and fascination as the remaining three healthy wolves eyed him for a minute, then turned to follow their injured pack mate. Their heads were low like they’d been when they were tracking Billy/Teba.

  Billy didn’t have the feeling that they were preparing to offer their injured pack mate support.

  They looked like they saw their next meal.

  Billy stood uncertainly for a while, worried about whether the four wolves might return.

  When they’d disappeared out of view, he looked around and began to worry a little about whether he could find the cave and the tribe again. Then he wondered if he wanted to? Billy really didn’t like Bant.

  Teba’s thoughts were bubbling, but Billy wasn’t very interested. He picked up his staff and the broken limb which had actually saved him, then turned to start back the way he’d come.

  Now, Teba’s thoughts exploded completely through into the forefront of his mind. Her consternation that he was leaving the dead wolf behind shattered his other thoughts. Their hunger surged back into his consciousness from where it had been submerged by his/her fight or flight reaction to the wolves. He realized with some surprise that he’d let his modern revulsion against eating carnivores stand between himself and a meal.

  Billy/Teba crouched, heaved the dead wolf over their shoulders and picked up their staff and club again. The wolf had to weigh close to 100 pounds, but Teba seemed undaunted. She’d carried heavy loads before.

  Teba started off with a purpose. Billy, who’d been dominating their partnership most of the time, receded into the background. He wanted to think. With all the knowledge he’d brought from the future, they should be King/Queen here. He only needed to figure out how to introduce some new weapon or technology for everyone in this primitive world to recognize him/her as their leader. The question was, which technology to introduce.

  Right now, the one he wanted to introduce the most was toilet paper! Even though Teba hadn’t had a real meal for a couple of days, she still defecated. Then she’d wiped herself with her own hand, wiping the hand clean on a handy rock. He’d been horrified by her first wipe, immediately stopping her hand from returning to her butt. He’d looked around for something to wipe with, finding nothing that looked suitable. Finally he settled for a handful of leaves from a nearby bush. To his dismay, their waxy surfaces did little to clean him. Staying in a squatting position he/she’d duck-walked around until they found some other leaves. Those cleaned better, but were painfully abrasive.

  He’d been left feeling unclean and itchy until he’d found some moss a little further on and used it to clean him/herself. Teba, he realized, had none of the modern person’s revulsion toward fecal matter so didn’t mind getting it on her fingers. She only wanted to be clean because otherwise she itched. When he searched her mind for better solutions he realized that, when she could, she defecated near a stream and washed herself in it. This despite the freezing temperature of the water at this time of year.

  Now Billy idly considered what he knew about paper making. It involved pulping wood somehow, he suspected with powerful machines. He knew that strong chemicals were involved, but had no idea which ones.

  He snorted to himself, making paper was far beyond his knowledge base and wouldn’t make him king anyway. What he needed to make was a weapon.

  In times of yore, swords had made men into kings. Back when he’d been a modern man in modern times, Billy had thought a sword to be a simple weapon.

  Now, Billy realized that a sword was as far beyond him as a starship. He searched Teba’s mind and found no recollection of anything that seemed like a metal of any type.

  He knew that copper was one of the first metals to be used. Copper and gold could both be found in relatively pure form out in nature, but only in small quantities. For
that matter, meteorites made of relatively pure nickel-iron could be found and were known to have been sources of iron in prehistory.

  But Billy wasn’t likely to find a metallic meteorite. Gold was pretty, but didn’t hold much of an edge. Even copper, if Billy could find it, wouldn’t make a great sword. He was pretty sure that copper ores were frequently greenish or bluish. He supposed that if he found rocks those colors, he could try heating them in the hopes of extracting copper, but he feared that the heat required was more than could be achieved with burning wood.

  Bronze was an alloy of copper, but Billy wasn’t sure what the other metal was. He thought it might be tin, but it really didn’t matter, he had no idea how to find tin.

  Billy’d be better off looking for iron ore. He felt pretty sure that at least some iron ores were reddish in color. However, he thought the heat required to smelt iron was much higher than the heat for smelting copper. Having watched a video once on the making of katanas, he knew that air needed to be forced through the fire and the iron ore to provide extra oxygen. He thought they burned charcoal to produce the heat although he’d always found it puzzling that the charcoal remaining after a wood fire could still be burned and would produce more heat than the wood fire itself.

  Still, though Billy knew something about extracting metals from the earth, and even though he suspected it was a lot more than most people, even in his home time knew, he was coming to the realization that he knew far too little. The knowledge of metallurgy that he did have, with years to experiment, would probably put him far ahead of anyone alive in this time, but it wouldn’t help him now.

  God damn Kim anyway! Billy didn’t want to be here. He didn’t want to be hungry. He didn’t want to have this aching tooth. He didn’t want to be scared and he didn’t want to worry about what was going to happen when he ran into Bant again!