Gibraltar

by Matthew Thayer

  30,000 B.C. CHRONICLES

  GIBRALTAR

  By Matthew Thayer

  U.S. Copyright: Matthew Thayer, Feb. 26, 2012

  Published as ebook, Nov. 14, 2013

  ISBN – 978-0-9883879-2-8

  Cover art and chapter sketches by Darko Tomic

  30000bc.com

  matthew@30000bc.com

  Copyright © 2012 by Matthew Thayer

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  DEDICATION

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ADDITIONAL BOOKS IN THIS SERIES

  CHAPTER ONE

  This third installment of the 30,000 B.C. Chronicles is a compilation of journal entries and voice transmissions created by four survivors of a scientific expedition sent back 32,371 years in time. Gibraltar picks up the narratives roughly 18 months after The Team’s stealth trimaran splashed down in the Paleolithic. As planned, Mission Control landed the timeship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean during a warm, moist pause in a glacial age.

  That was one of the last bits the controllers got right. Mass equipment failure, infiltrators, natural disasters–The Team faced overwhelming challenges even before it made landfall along the coast of what is now France. The highly trained crew of 97 was decimated to six within two weeks and whittled to four within a year. Cast headlong into a prehistoric world without support or modern tools and weapons, the survivors quickly ingratiated themselves with the local population of Early Modern Humans, Cro-Magnon.

  Though such fraternization broke every rule in The Team’s book, the four modern humans earned places of honor within the Green Turtle Clan. When the travelers finally returned to protocol and announced plans to leave the clan to fend for themselves, the great leader and storyteller Gray Beard forestalled their departure by grudgingly offering proof of his interactions with previous time explorers. His walrus tusk carving depicted a finished version of the Einstein IV, a new-generation timeship currently under construction at Buffalo Launchpad. The one-way transport is officially scheduled to jump a research squad to ancient Egypt late next year or in early 2241. The storyteller says it will end up beached high and dry on a gravel riverbank in the Paleolithic. He claims to have pounded the sides of the “big drum” when he was a young man–at least 35 years before the arrival of The Team.

  His tale has inspired a journey to the ice fields of the far north to investigate. To maximize data collection during the first leg of the trip, and keep peace within their adopted Green Turtle clan, the four Team members have split forces to travel by two very disparate routes. American Captain Juniper Jones and Italian Corporal Salvatore Bolzano are to trek overland with the clan on a route that will diagonally bisect France. Chief Botanist Maria Duarte and Recreation Specialist Paul Kaikane have committed to an ambitious sea voyage around the Iberian Peninsula. The American couple intends to sail 3,500 miles, from Provence to a rendezvous point on the Atlantic coast of Brittany.

  Each Team member tells the tale in their own voice and style. Their quotes are unaltered and true.

  TRANSMISSION:

  Bolzano: “This habitation site is every bit as impressive as you Americans led me to believe.”

  Jones: “What’re ya sayin? We make a habit of bullshittin’ ya?”

  Bolzano: “Everyone exaggerates, at least a little. Dr. Duarte was so keen on me traveling north with you and the clan, I could not help but speculate that her claims of this wondrous hot spring were inflated.”

  Jones: “Throw me another clump o’ moss.”

  Bolzano: “Catch. It feels divine against the skin, does it not?”

  Jones: “It’s all right. Back to the doc, she lie about this hot spring?”

  Bolzano: “No.”

  Jones: “She lie about the caves and tools?”

  Bolzano: “No.”

  Jones: “How about this valley and busted-up clan?”

  Bolzano: “Once again, her briefing was spot on.”

  Jones: “Roger that.”

  From the log of Salvatore Bolzano

  Firefighter II

  (English translation)

  A pall descends upon the native encampment as the young woman named Gertie enters her second day of labor.

  Following clan custom, the auburn-haired lass is laid upon a bed of furs outdoors near the central fire. Seated women form a fretful circle, keeping watch as they tend to their handicrafts. Shelling nuts, weaving rude fiber baskets, carving birch stoppers for gourd beakers, these people do keep busy. The women maintain a low chant that sounds a lot like schoolchildren running through the vowel sounds. “Ahhh-eeeee-uuuu-oooo, ahhhh-eeeee-uuuu-oooo, ahhh-eeeee-uuuu-oooo.” The dashes of yellow mud they dabbed across each other’s cheeks earlier in the day have long since dried to cracking, and now shed an ocher dusting onto the folds of their leather tunics and fur-covered laps.

  A handful of men, including the great storyteller Gray Beard, is stationed well away from the fire. The men speak occasionally in hushed tones. Though focused on the mournful tableau, their eyes habitually scan the trees and approaches. No doubt looking for something else to stick a spear into.

  The smell of death has attracted crow and other eaters of carrion to this end of the steep, narrow canyon. Everything, from phalanxes of red ants to a quartet of vultures with the audacity to land in the middle of camp, queues up for a meal we will never allow them to eat. Hot coals dissuade the ants, and after a brief melee, the ugly birds were slain with spear and stone. The rally to battle the scavengers with their wicked beaks and three-meter wingspans elevated the mood for a while. The natives showed no interest in eating the foul creatures. After much discussion and final approval from Gray Beard, they draped the corpses over bushes as a warning to the growing circle of interlopers above.

  Resting alongside Gertie is her loyal mate Tomon. Dripping tears, he strokes her hair and cradles her through contractions which wrack her slender body every few minutes. Yesterday’s keening has faded to weak sighs. Gertie’s strength wanes.

  Slender body, slender hips, narrow pelvis, she has been counseled since childhood to avoid conception. For years, she employed a type of powdered root to ensure infertility. When my former commander Lorenzo Martinelli, a madman out of place and time, marched her clan to the Italian peninsula, there was no root. And no comforts save a few intimate moments alone with her man. This pregnancy is an unhappy miscue I am determined to rectify.

  Nature has one more hour to take its course. If a baby does not issue forth by then, I will step well over a line I promised never to cross. Again. Oh, The Team and its high ideals. Rules, rules and more rules. I admit freely that many times and in many different ways, I promised to have no fraternization with native man. That was rule No. 1. No ripples across the breadth of time. Why, then, did The Team send us back with faulty equipment and a compromised crew?

  An ethical course of action is easy to plot while seated in comfortable chairs 32,000 years distant. Without these “lowly” natives, these Cro-Magnon, I would not be alive. They have guarded and car
ed for me, taught me how to walk and then run in this crazy environment. Or at least jog a bit. This world is chock-full of nasty behemoths intent on mayhem. Residing with the clans means protection and assures we will not spin in fruitless circles.

  We need them far more than they need us. So green were we at the start, they called us “harvettle,” their word for helpless chicks fallen from nests.

  In the final reckoning, what is more important to an Italian than family? I will do my best by my people. If The Team judges my actions suitably inappropriate to warrant sending a squad back to halt the proceedings, it better hurry. And do please bring chocolate croissants and caffè macchiatos when you come.

  I stopped dreaming of rescues and interventions the moment Gray Beard presented his scrimshaw of the shipwrecked Einstein IV. There are too many interesting times to explore for The Team to continue sending crews to crash and burn in 30,000 B.C. And to be honest, I doubt anyone will ever know or care what Salvatore Bolzano did anyway. Each time I stop to pour my thoughts into this computing device, I ask myself the same thing: Do I truly believe the machine and its cache of woolgatherings will survive 32,000 years? And then be found by The Team? If I were posting odds, I would list them at a zillion to one.

  There is no doubt, however, that when Dr. Maria Duarte and her Hawaiian waterman complete their ill-advised voyage around Spain, I must answer to the Chief Botanist. She will not be happy to learn I attempted modern surgery on a native. Succeed or fail, Duarte will probably knock me down to private. Or knock me in the privates. I can already see her dark eyes flash.

  My love for Gertie and Tomon far outweighs my fear of the unkind doctor’s wrath. Duarte may find some small consolation in the fact that I no longer plan to use the jumpsuit to keep my patient alive through the procedure. Jones threatens to break my neck if I try.

  “No way, ain’t gonna happen,” he interrupted defiantly as I outlined my strategy several nights ago. Later the same evening, he appeared from the darkness to take a seat beside my personal fire. “Sal, I care for these people too. Like it or not, we’re part of the clan. You’re worried you’ll fuck up. Good chance that’ll happen. Maybe not. I watched you dissect those two women from the river. Not stupid. Knew you were practicing.”

  “But–”

  “But nothing. I let you use that suit, Duarte’ll have both our asses. Team finds out, it’ll pull my family’s benefits. Not a big deal to a rich guy like you. Your people don’t need it. Mine do.”

  He gave me a slap on the back and stalked back into the night. Time has helped Jones recover from his physical injuries. Tree trunks for legs, V-shaped torso, tight curly hair that tops his wide head like the cap of a mushroom, the mocha-skinned soldier has returned to what he calls his “fighting weight” of 115 kilos. Prone to “blue moods” of depression, Jones rarely smiles. When he does, there is a pleasing gap in the middle of his large, white teeth.

  Dr. Duarte says our imposing U.S. Army captain is “steady,” and she is right. The funny part is, he says the same thing about her.

  Beautiful Dr. Maria Duarte, our leader, our conscience. Why do I waste so much time worrying how she will judge my actions? Has she replaced my parents in my lifelong quest for praise and appreciation? I write a report on unique fauna, really quite superior work and I know it, and yet I agonize over how it will be received by the great botanist. What data will she find lacking? What holes will she poke in my conclusions?

  Of course, mixed with those anxieties are fears that we will never see each other again. What a tragedy that would be! How I enjoy watching Duarte’s mind leap into action. I daydream often of the adventures she and her surfer will experience on their 6,000-kilometer voyage to Bretagne. I imagine they are currently enjoying the sun and warmth of the Mediterranean Sea. Perhaps they will experience hardships equal to the ones we must encounter on our overland trek to the north. Even so, I wish I could sit and watch the miles drift by while the wind does the work.

  TRANSMISSION:

  Bolzano: “Would you please tell me the story again?”

  Jones: “Twenty times is enough.”

  Bolzano: “Once more, please.”

  Jones: “No fucking way.”

  Bolzano: “Not from the beginning. Skip over your troubles in the watery north of Canada. The surgery, please detail the Cesarean section one more time.”

  Jones: “What’re ya gonna do for me?”

  Bolzano: “Please.”

  Jones: “Answer the question.”

  Bolzano: “I will…I will carry your gear on the next big hunt.”

  Jones: “And you drag home whatever we poke.”

  Bolzano: “All by myself. I promise.”

  Jones: “Ah, why not? Nothin’ better to do.”

  Bolzano: “Leave out not the smallest detail. Gertie’s life hangs in the balance.”

  Jones: “Ya think she’ll live?”

  Bolzano: “Her cries grow weaker. I wish you would allow me to put her in the suit. It would keep her alive!”

  Jones: “Not now, not ever, Sal. You wanna hear this?”

  Bolzano: “Yes indeed. Please continue. I fear our call to the stage draws near.”

  Jones: “As I’ve said before, my regiment was on loan to the Ontario Guards, a buncha part-time soldiers in way over their heads fighting determined Quebecers. The Frenchies were intent on blowing up every dam and bridge across the Abitibi River, and the Guards were having a hell of a time stopping ’em. There was this doctor….”

  From the log of Capt. Juniper Jones

  Security Detail II

  Been a long time since I thought about the medic named Pete. Until a month ago. Told his story so many times in the past few weeks, can’t get him out of my head.

  Always figured the guy must’ve been running away from something. A woman was my guess. Way too smart, too valuable a surgeon, to be wasted out in the boonies, stationed on a ragged front line with a thousand miles of swamp and lake and only one or two dry spots. Pete never hesitated charging into the middle of a firefight to secure the wounded. In his down time, he helped the locals.

  There were a lot of poor people in the north, out in the cattails, living off the land. So much money moving up from the dry south and flooded coastlands, outsiders buying all the prime land, and those locals not seeing a single Norte Americano of it. Squeezing them, squeezing them out.

  I was listening to some Icelandic jazz, filling out a transfer recommendation for a problem corporal, when Pete the medic charged into the duty room looking for an enlisted man he could boss. Everybody was on patrol, off hunting rats and dogs, or shacked up. I outranked him. Didn’t matter.

  “Jones, I need your help,” he says. “Grab your gear and let’s go.”

  A 12-year-old boy had paddled in by canoe to fetch the doc. Said his mother was in childbirth and something was wrong. His father sent him, he said. Sounded like a trap to me, but a commissary guy knew the kid, confirmed his mom was pregnant. I commandeered a hover-skiff and the boy guided us to his family’s place. Took us through so many twists and turns, narrow channels cut between lakes, I wasn’t sure we could find our way home. Wore my eyes out scanning for hostiles, expecting a las-cannon blast any moment. Turned out to be a quiet trip. Pete was no more interested in idle chatter than I was. Kept his blond head turned toward shore, scanning stunted forest for signs of wildlife. Wasn’t much. Compared to what we now see every day, that world was pretty much picked clean.

  Kid directed us to a tidy little shack on the edge of a black-water lake. Secluded. Nice setting. Clean and squared away. A smallmouth bass surfaced to take an afternoon mayfly as we coasted to the end of a creaky, T-shaped dock made from pine poles and cargo pallets. I hit the dock locked, loaded and ready for anything.

  The shack was like what a lot of the northern locals live in. Stone walls, recycled air car windshields for windows, a roof made from a mishmash of interwoven scraps, plastic, steel, board and whatever else, all sealed and bound with polymers. Unlike th
e places closer to the river, this home had no electricity. The doc seemed surprised to see no power lines. He asked the kid if they had juice and the boy shook his head no. So much hydro power up there, I guess he assumed everybody had the juice.

  Junior called to his old man on our way up from the lake and dad staggers outside drunk as hell. Said his wife was good as dead. Fool had started her wake while she’s still moaning in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor. Pete used his arm to sweep all the crap off the room’s only table, told me and the boy to lift her up.

  “I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die,” the woman’s wailing. “My baby, save my baby.” Over and over, until Pete fits a mask over her face and sends her off to la-la land.

  “I’m going to need your help here, soldier.”

  “Don’t know nothing about this shit, man.”

  “You don’t need to. Hold out your hands.”

  Pete sprayed my arms and hands with sanitizer, handed me a pair of rubber gloves.

  “Don’t lose those, I’m down to my last couple pairs. Are you familiar with the concept of retraction?”

  He shooed the boy and man outside, then spread his instruments on the counter. Pulling a rope from his canvas kit, he says, “Let’s strap her down. She looks like a biter to me.”

  I secured her loosely across the sternum, put a pillow under her head, as the medic pulled the bloody dress up to her chin.

  “Captain Jones, have you ever witnessed a C-section before?”

  “Can’t say I have.”

  “It’s not a very complicated procedure. If this woman had been admitted to my former clinic in Memphis, we most certainly would have given her a bikini cut, a horizontal incision right here below the waist. The scar’s a bit longer, takes longer to heal, but is more easily hidden than the one left by the operation we will be performing today. No, this woman needs to be up and around as fast as she can. Winter’s coming.”