A Long Time Until Now

by Michael Z. Williamson

  Indeed. Linen was also good for bandages, bedsheets, filtering wine and oils, and for bandages and sanitary necessities. Those improvised pads Caswell had to use wouldn’t last forever.

  She twitched awake from a micronap and rubbed her eyes. She really did need to rest. She was even medically authorized one, by Doc and the LT. But if everyone else ran all day, then she would, too. Then she’d sleep badly at night.

  Growling in frustration, she pulled up the spindle. It had dropped all the way down and the yarn had snarled. She knelt carefully, and started stretching it around the turret, as Ortiz watched, so she could fix that section.

  “Dozed off?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Caffeine help?” he offered some of the native leaf drink.

  “Not if it tastes like that. It’s bad enough to gag a maggot.”

  “Didn’t you eat maggots in SERE school?”

  “No, but I did eat other bugs, and they’re much tastier than that crap. I’ll be fine,” she insisted.

  Once the fiber was untangled, she decided she’d be safer on the ground, even if it meant shorter spins. She wrapped it carefully, climbed down the back and resumed her seat in her office.

  Sean Elliott noted the date in the log. September 17, local time, August 9 home time. The anniversary of their loss and arrival.

  Everyone knew the date was coming, but no one really wanted to make any preparations for it.

  They were all silent at breakfast, and Sean didn’t offer anything. The existing task list would do fine, and he’d offer counsel or duty to anyone who needed support, depending on what would motivate them better. Spencer had orders for the same thing. They ate warmed up dry goat and some mixed berries with goat milk.

  It was a beautiful partly-cloudy morning. Doc was all excited because the full moon had been followed by Jupiter, Mars and Spica rising in close proximity to the east before dawn.

  “There’s software that could tell us what date it was, if I had time to place star positions,” he said.

  “Is it on your phone?”

  “No, on my laptop back on base, which is probably sent home now, or will be, fuck if I know. It’s a great view, and I know I could back-calc, given time.”

  Sean wasn’t sure. That wouldn’t make it any easier. Whether it was thirteen thousand BC or thirteen million, they weren’t going home.

  A year. In some ways, it didn’t feel like it. In others, it felt like an eternity

  It was a significant day, a milestone. None of them knew how much longer they might have, but it would all be here.

  Oglesby was the first to speak.

  “It just occurred to me. I wonder how much of English and Latin is feeding into the Urushu language to become Proto-Indo-European?”

  Spencer said, “That depends on whether or not it has any effect. But if it does . . . yeah, we might be causing something here.”

  Sean asked, “Might? Why wouldn’t we be?”

  Spencer said, “Well, bronze working is still ten thousand years in the future, iron another thousand or more after that. Textiles are about the same time frame, aren’t they?”

  “No,” Alexander said. “There’s textiles as far back as a hundred thousand years, flax and cotton. They’re not as sophisticated, but the Urushu have nets, so they can weave or knot fabrics.”

  “Ah. I stand corrected. But the metal would be very useful. Knowing you can burn ochre to get metal is easy to remember.”

  Oglesby said, “Given the length of time, I doubt there’s much continuity of any language, especially without writing. ‘Ma,’ ‘dadad,’ ‘a!ka,’ and ‘mmm,’ seem to be about it so far, with some very vague syllables in Gadorth. But stuff could feed in, decay, evolve and become something else, if either group lasts that long and passes any terms onto others. Which is unlikely.”

  Sean pointed out what they all knew and said, “And where do those vehicles go? I doubt we can find a way to cut them up. It would take a huge fire to melt them. They’d almost certainly have shown up in some excavation or other.”

  “Unless there’s some secret government office hiding their existence.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “No, but given time travel exists, I can’t say it’s impossible.”

  There wasn’t much to say past that. They really had no way to tell.

  “So we’ll do the best we can,” Elliott said.

  Dalton said, “I have a small service I’ve put together, if anyone’s interested. A closure of the past.”

  “That’s the future,” Doc said. “I’d like to see it again.”

  Dalton said, “I’m fairly well adapted to here. It’s tough in some ways, but invigorating.”

  Spencer said, “Let’s keep it low key, guys. Everyone’s got their own thoughts. Thanks for the offer, Dalton. I’d encourage anyone to talk about it if they want to. But find privacy for any talks, don’t let them spill into a general activity.”

  “I’m available to talk if anyone needs to,” Sean said. “On with tasks.”

  It didn’t seem like a day to celebrate.

  Before everyone got to tasks, he pulled Oglesby aside.

  “Can you tell the guests we’re having a meditation day and not talking much?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The next day, Martin Spencer took a break from sorting iron and watched Barker turn another bowl. Typically, one cracked each week. As they got better seasoned wood, and now that they had nut oil for treating them, they’d last longer. Once he could forge a couple of turning chisels, it would go much faster, though Bob did a decent job using the tip of his machete to cut the inside, and the straight edge to turn the outside.

  He watched two shavings float down and land atop each other.

  “Ah, hell, we were stupid again,” he said.

  “Eh?”

  “That hot tub you want. We’ve been trying to figure out how to sluice cut or coop lumber into tight fits.”

  Barker looked up for a moment, then talked while he turned. “I figured we were going to do a lot of splitting and filing, until we can build a planer table of some kind.”

  “Or, we can split, shave and strake them together like planks on a Viking ship, and caulk them with pine pitch.”

  Barker stepped back from his work and lowered his machete.

  “Goddam, are we stupid or what?”

  “Well, it’ll still be a lot of work,” he admitted.

  “Sure. But it’s work we can do with what we have.”

  He said, “That just leaves a drain trough and petcock, which I’m pretty sure I can turn and carve.”

  “Good. A hot bath in winter will do a lot for morale, and smell.”

  Martin said, “I wonder how the Romans did theirs, and of course, we’re not going to go look.”

  “Still don’t trust them, eh?”

  “Why should we?”

  “I wasn’t disagreeing.”

  “Well, that gets us much closer. Let me check with Alexander on caulking.”

  The place was starting to look like an Iron Age village. It did remind him of re-enactments, and that was somewhat comforting. He liked those on weekends. The Regia Anglorum site in the UK was neat. This was even better, except for the fact he could never leave it. Be careful what you wish for. Except he’d never wished for anything like this. He knew better.

  His guts were steady with mild irritation, but he knew ultimately it would kill him. There were several ways it could catch up to him. It was just a case of which one was first.

  If it got painful enough, or his esophagus distressed itself closed, did he have the nerve to just end it with a bullet?

  It was a decision he might have to make sometime in the next decade.

  Life would be nasty, brutish and short.

  He walked over to Number Nine and leaned around the steps.

  “Yes?” she said, looking up from spinning and tapping keys in between spins. She looked baggy-eyed and tired.

  He asked, �
�Can you spin or twist thicker thread, almost rope, to use for caulking?”

  “We can twist several strands together. There’s a basic machine which I’ve seen. Otherwise, we can ask the Urushu for hair. Didn’t the Vikings do that?”

  “We could. I’d rather not impose if we don’t have to.” Besides, her hair wasn’t that long.

  “Are you building a boat?”

  “Caulking the hot tub.”

  “Oh,” she said. “That does make sense. But I better be high on the list.”

  “You will be.”

  “Let me know when. I’m still turning out blankets and hammocks.”

  Her crocheted blankets were much in demand as trade goods. She was basically off labor details, between managing information and turning out textiles.

  And with her health obviously failing first. She was perpetually exhausted, prone to sleep, forgetful, and losing muscle tone. He thought her hair might be thinning, too.

  Once they’d worked out the details on trade, they were advancing quickly, with lots of labor in exchange for goods. Without TV or other time sinks, the older cultures didn’t value labor time very much, and were quite willing to work long hours for luxury goods. He wondered how much that had to do with the development of slavery.

  Then there was the other item.

  “I don’t really know how to say this. I didn’t need to last time, but . . . would you consider marrying me?”

  She clenched her face and went tense all over. Crap. That wasn’t good.

  “As much as I’d like to, I have to refuse.”

  “I understand.” Damn. Well, there were always two possible answers . . .

  “I keep some faint hope we’ll someday get home. It wouldn’t be fair to give of myself to you, and have to snatch it back. It wouldn’t be fair to my husband, and it wouldn’t be fair to me.”

  “Yeah, I understood it from body language and context. I guess that comes from being so close for so long.”

  She said, “I am flattered. I guess I’ll inevitably change my mind, and if you’re still free, you’d be my choice. But please don’t wait for me.”

  That just made her that much more interesting.

  Crap.

  “No pressure. Thanks for being honest.”

  He left before it got awkward.

  He went to check on the embassies.

  The Urushu had two minor casualties, one with some sort of female problem, and one with a nasty, infected boil. Doc had fixed that, was working on the first one, and the escorts were helping haul firewood in between watching their charge.

  The Gadorth were waiting for blankets, and moving rock in the meantime. The outside bottom of the palisade was being faced with stone, and some maintenance was being done to the grounds. With slate sickles, they cut down the grass.

  That left technical work to the Americans.

  Elliott came over, with a tablet in hand. The ancients had gotten used to the Americans having strange devices, lights at night, and knives that seemed to never go dull. They accepted that these were magical devices that involved complicated wizardry and spirit intervention, which was about as readily as the processes could be explained to savages who didn’t really keep calendars, much less precise measurements of anything, and didn’t know what metal was other than occasional shiny bits of pyrite and gold.

  “I’m thinking ahead,” Elliott said.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Is there a way to dismount the AC from one of the vehicles to make a fridge, and could it be powered by a waterwheel?”

  He thought for a moment only. “I would say not, sir. The gas would leak out, and we’d need circulating fans. It would be some steampunk, or I guess stonepunk, bastard, and I’d love to see it, but I don’t see any point in trying to do it.”

  “I thought so. I was hoping you had some brilliant insight.”

  “Short term, enough nut oil and hemp oil means we can run the engines now and then.”

  “I was thinking of food preservation. Refrigeration. Any ideas?”

  Oh, of course.

  “That I do have. Pile up a bunch of snow in winter, pack it down, cover it in a tepee or even two. It will probably last all summer.”

  “That’s brute force and a lot of labor, but I guess that’s what we’ll have. Can we put drain tiles underneath?”

  “We’ll have to. Mortar as well. I don’t think we can do it before winter.”

  “I’ll add it to my project list anyway.”

  “Yeah, next year if not this year. It’s not like we’re going anywhere.”

  Nor was he getting a wife any time soon.

  Armand didn’t pull watch very often. He noticed the shortage and asked, and Elliott had had Alexander put him on a three-quarter schedule, since he often stayed up with patients. Even then, someone often took his watch so he could keep with his charges.

  He hated being here, though was gradually getting used to it, and having good people helped. But the influx of Urushu women reminded him that he needed to get laid. Then he needed someone to live and cuddle with. This Army community thing was okay, but it would be nice to ask for a meal of choice and not be stuck with whatever they turned out. Not that it would be better, just different.

  The dawn shift was always the chilliest and dampest. That wasn’t bad in July, except it then got hot and nasty. In October, though, it was shivery.

  He hoped they’d gotten the message through that pregnant women really shouldn’t be hauling water and rocks after the fifth month. The spirits didn’t like it, which was why those fistula formed. He hoped they wouldn’t just shrug and continue, or figure some native ritual would fix it.

  He was getting pretty good at minor GYN surgery, though. Professionally, he knew his way around a vagina.

  Socially . . .

  Dammit.

  Next to him, Ortiz said, “Okay, I’m down. You’ve got it until breakfast?”

  “Hooah.” It was light enough they didn’t need two. It was also misty and foggy as hell. He couldn’t see anything outside the wall anyway. NVG showed little, either.

  He was bored with his entertainment. He’d seen every movie everyone had, burned out on the ones he cared about, listened to all the music. He was losing connection with his own time, and sliding into the daily tedium of this place. The work was productive. He was glad to keep others alive and improve their well being. He wished he had more knowledge and a lot more tools. He was pretty sure that guy two weeks ago had an aneurysm, and there was nothing he could do. As far as the stroke victim, they already understood most of the basic field therapy. They weren’t stupid by any stretch.

  He needed something for him.

  A deep animal noise sounded to the northeast.

  It wasn’t a bison, nor a rhino. Whatever it was, it was nothing they’d heard before. It was deep, but shrill.

  “That almost reminds me of . . .” he muttered to himself, as Ortiz stopped at the door of his hooch and came running back.

  Through the rising mist he saw them.

  “Fucking mammoths.” He stared in shock.

  Ortiz said, “How? They don’t come this far south. They’re supposed to be almost extinct. We’ve never seen any, the Urushu have never seen any . . .”

  He wondered, “Did they get pulled through time, too?”

  “No way to know. They can’t tell us.”

  Elliott came up, then Barker, and shortly everyone was outside. He realized Caswell was wearing only panties and T-shirt, and that he was less interested in that than the pachyderms.

  Everyone clambered up the vehicles or the corner towers to stare at the huge beasts.

  “They move pretty lightly for big critters.”

  “They do.”

  The Romans would probably recognize elephants at least by reputation. Did the Ancients?

  They chattered amongst themselves. Oglesby talked to both the Urushu and the Gadorth at length, while pointing. Alexander came sprinting out again, her gear bouncing, and swung her c
amera into action.

  There were twenty-three of the huge beasts, though five were juveniles no larger than a compact car. Their tusks were long, curving, magnificent things.

  “Are they bigger than elephants?”

  “A bit, yes.”

  There was a thick, musty smell from them, not unpleasant, but notable, drifting across the landscape.

  They ambled downhill, and flowed to the north of the palisade, three of them feeling along it with their trunks, the rest footloose. Two others stopped to stare at the goat pen, then walked around it, as the goats baaed and muttered, hopping about and into their weather lean-to.

  “They’re heading north,” Ortiz said. “And they look skinny. They can’t eat down here, right?”

  Spencer said, “Not as well as up on the muskeg, no. This growth is too coarse and lean for them, I think. They need moss, lichen, shrubby subarctic stuff that’s nutrient dense.”

  “Poor things,” Caswell said. “I don’t think they can make it.”

  “They’re heading north. There’s water there and growth in the mountains that might work.”

  “I hope so,” she said.

  Armand only said, “Yeah.” They were awe-inspiring beasts, and glowed with intelligence. They’d understood the fences and human settlement.

  “How far back and forward do these ripples go?” Ortiz asked.

  Alexander said, “I still want to know if they’ll ever settle down and send us home.”

  Armand replied, “I wouldn’t think so, any more than a ripple dislodging a pebble in a stream. It never goes back.”

  She sighed. “You’d think we’d be used to it by now.”

  “Part of me hopes I never am. I never want to give up hope.”

  Dalton said, “I’m adapted. Here we are, because God wills it. So we accept it and learn from it.”

  Spencer shook his head. “There are times I wish I had your faith.”

  “You can.”

  “No, it’s not for me.” He sounded insistent.

  “You’ll be at peace.”

  Spencer was definitely getting annoyed as he said, “That’s not for me, either. I enjoy my anger and rage.”