Time spike

by Eric Flint

  She would know more once the swelling went down. He was bruised all over, even in the groin area. Some of the bruises were raised and hard. Most of them held a little heat. Neither of those were good signs. "Are you sure he isn't a prisoner?" she asked. But, deep down, she already knew the answer. Beneath the injuries, the man's physical appearance wasn't any different from that of any number of prisoners-or guards, for that matter. But he was wearing a necklace that no prisoner would have been allowed to keep in his possession. It was a wide, flat band with intricate carvings that wrapped around his neck much like a snake would wrap itself around the arm of its handler. An expensive-looking piece that appeared to be hand-tooled.

  He also wore the strangest silver earrings she had ever seen. They were attached at the top of his ears, rather than the lobes. Marie shook her head. "We're sure. And he's not a C.O., either. He doesn't belong to us." Jenny stopped; her scalpel shook, then steadied. "Not one of ours," she whispered, and went back to work. For the next twenty minutes the room was silent except for an occasional moan from the man on the examination table. Jenny hoped he would live. His injuries were extensive: broken ribs, broken jaw, probable concussion, multiple contusions and bruising with a lot of soft tissue damage. He was going to have to be luckier than he had been or he would be gone by morning. Rod Hulbert moved so he could get a look at the spent bullet Jenny dropped into a small metal pan that sat on the portable tray she used to hold her equipment. "We found him about an eight-hour hike from here. He was by himself curled up inside a small cave. The place was filled with primitive tools and weapons, and looked like quite a few people lived in it, but he was the only one around. And he doesn't speak English. All he would say was something that sounded like Ka-nun-da-cla-ga." Jenny gave a sigh. No English. The word-or words-didn't sound like anything she had dealt with. "We thought at first he was saying who did this to him, but we're not so sure now. He looks half starved, and like he had been through quite a bit even before he was beaten and shot. He might be part Indian, but we're not even sure of that." "Could he be from town?" Jenny asked. "I don't think so. It's a small community, and someone who dressed this outlandishly would be someone you'd notice, and remember. He could be a drifter, or maybe one of the tourists. We get a lot of people through here. They want to walk part of the Trail of Tears. And a lot of them are Indian. Or at least part Indian." Marie held up one of the man's shoes. "This is the weirdest looking footwear I've ever seen.

  There's no heel and no instep." She dropped the shoe to the floor and picked up the man's pants. "His pants button; they don't zip. And the material is thick and the weaving looks a little uneven. Look at the seams. These were hand sewn." Jenny had noticed the buttons when she stripped the man. They werereal buttons made out of shells, not plastic. She had also noticed the man wore no underwear. That wasn't unheard of. Even in this day and age, some men would go without them.

  But the buttons, that was a new one for her. She took off the hospital gown she was using to protect her clothes and tossed the latex gloves into the sink. They would be washed, and then reused. The rules were simple, one pair of gloves per patient. Later, when the gloves ran out, they would have to reexamine how things were done. She didn't look at the patient; instead, she stared at the three members of the staff who had brought him in. "I guess we've done about all we can.

  Now we just have to wait and see if the antibiotics can turn the corner for him." Hulbert was shaking his head slowly. He used a pencil to scoot the bullet around and around in the small metal container.

  "This damn thing is weirder than his pants or his shoes. A lot weirder. Huge caliber, for one thing. How did a bullet this big stay in his body? It should have blown right through him, unless…" He shrugged. "Low velocity, I guess." He sat the pan down and pulled his small camera phone from his shirt pocket. "But that's nothing compared to what else we've seen." Andy groaned, then glanced at the clock.

  He hadn't been asleep but two hours. "Yeah, give me a second. I'll be there!" he shouted at whoever was pounding on his door. He stumbled around the room trying to get dressed in the dim light filtering through the window. He slept with the curtains opened. The sun was his back-up alarm. But it wasn't up yet. All he had for light was the soft glow of the moon and a few thousand stars. "Who is it?" "Jenny." He opened the door. The two vertical worry lines situated between his eyebrows had deepened. "What's wrong?" "I'm sorry," Jenny said. She glanced down the empty hall toward the stairs that led to the prison's entry area. Andy slept in what had been the human resource office.

  "You have to come see this," she whispered. "You really do have to see this now."

  Chapter 15 "Okay, Rod." Andy slipped Hulbert's camera phone into his pocket. He would have Edelman take a look at the pictures and then maybe they'd know what they were up against. "We'll deal with Jurassic Park later. For now, let's see if we can figure out what happened to our mystery man. His injuries weren't caused by dinosaurs. Give it to me from the beginning. Don't leave anything out." "We weren't out more than six hours and had taken down two large animals." Rod looked at Jenny and smiled. "Marie got both of them. One buffalo or some sort, and something that's probably a giant sloth. Marie's amazing. The cooks are going to cuss her trying to figure out how to cook the stuff, but she's the best I've ever been out with. She has a real gift. That woman…" He shook his head, never losing his grin. Andy smiled absently. "Good. Then what happened?" "We were on our way back and ran across evidence of a battle, or an animal attack. We went to check it out. While we were gone, Marie found him." He motioned to the wounded man. "He was curled up inside a cave, moaning. Anyway, there he was, too weak to even stand. We got back just in time to stop an attack from some animal related to the cat family. I didn't get any pictures of it before we boned it out. We probably shouldn't have taken the hour a job like that takes, but I couldn't let any of the meat go to waste. Too many of our people could wind up going hungry if we don't have the right priorities. "Anyway, after we took care of the cat, we scoured the area looking for others, but didn't find anyone.

  We backtracked about a mile, following what we believe was this guy's trail. There were plenty of footprints-not his-but definitely human.

  After wasting what was left of daylight, we bedded down for the night, and then started home first thing this morning. With all the meat we were packing, and with him in such bad shape, the trip back took all day and part of the night. "You get a short distance from the prison and the world changes, Andy. It is nothing like home. And the plants and animals are nothing like home, although you do occasionally spot something familiar. We've got problems. And I don't mean the routine problems of finding enough to eat and ways to keep warm. That world out there is our biggest problem, and we had better get to know it pretty damn fast. We'll either know it, or it'll bite us in the ass.

  It'll kill us all." "Can you find the spot you found him in?" Andy asked. Hulbert nodded. "I can also show you where those creatures in the pictures were." "Is there anything else you can tell me?" Hulbert shrugged. "I don't know. There's probably too much for now. Once you get away from the prison, the forest floor in a lot of places is as clear and clean as a mall floor. When there is ground cover, it's usually ferns of one kind or another. There are animals out there with infants the size of an elephant. There are insects the size of toy airplanes. And man, don't even go near the water. I've seen some birds, a lot of reptiles, and a fair number of mammals. But the plants and animals don't seem to mesh. It's like everything has been tossed into a pot together, and the heat's been turned up. It's just sitting there. Simmering. Waiting." "Thanks." Andy Blacklock picked up the two-way sitting on the nurse's desk. It was about two in the morning, but this couldn't wait. Jeff Edelman had to be wakened and Lieutenant Joe Schuler needed to be relieved from duty so he could attend the meeting that was going to take place within the next hour. Andy silently cursed their bad luck. Brian Carmichael had been sent to the kitchen as soon as they arrived at the prison. He had shown up with three ex
otic animals and without a gag order. That meant the rumor mill would be in full swing by sunup. If they wanted to prevent a panic they needed to know what they were facing. They needed to know what Spielberg's monsters were, and they needed to know what and who their houseguest was. As for the other department heads, they would be told about another meeting, one that would take place about nine, right after breakfast. Andy stood next to the cot and watched the man struggling to get loose from the straps that held him to the table.

  Things werecompletely screwed up now. He had a prison full of felons he was trying to protect from themselves and from whatever it was outside the walls. He had around two hundred overworked, exhausted C.O.'s looking to him for answers. And now he had what? A war going on outside? Jenny was afraid the patient would try to pull the I.V. out of his arm so they had tied him down. The man's eyes were glazed and feverish. His dark skin managed to look pale and flushed even to Andy's untrained eye. The captain stared at the man's face. Here was someone who could tell them what was happening outside the walls. And the someone was in bad shape and apparently couldn't speak one word of English. "Is he going to make it?" the captain asked Jenny. "I don't know." "Ka-nun-da-cla-ga. Ka-nun-da-cla-ga," The man moaned. His voice was raspy and soft. almost inaudible. "Man, I wish I knew what he was saying." Jenny nodded. "When I moved into my apartment in town, the landlady made a point of telling me the area receives visitors from all over the world. If he is one of the tourists he could be talking just about any language. Whatever it is, it's not Spanish. I'm almost fluent in Portuguese and that's close enough that I'd recognize Spanish if I heard it." Andy shook his head. "No, you're right. I took four years of Spanish in high school. That's one I would recognize, even if I didn't understand the exact words." Jenny shrugged. "Well, what he's saying doesn't sound Arabic or Asian, either. That I would know. And I would bet he's not American." He looked at the man on the cot. "Why are you so sure he isn't American?" The nurse waved a hand at her patient. "He's somewhere around fifty, maybe older. And he was never given a smallpox vaccine. I checked his hips, arms and legs.

  Anyone that old, if they had been born in this country, would have been given the vaccination, unless their religion forbade it. Also, he's had no dental work done. And believe me, he needs it. Those teeth have got to cause a lot of pain now and then. From that and the fact he doesn't seem to speak English, I'd guess he was a new immigrant.

  And he had to come from a country that didn't have a comprehensive health program. He might even be an illegal alien." She raised a hand to stop Andy's complaints. "I know; that's not an accusation you want to make too readily, but look at him. He's starving. He's been beaten.

  But he's not an addict. The damage to his nose is from the beating; the interior is not drug damaged. He has no track marks. His liver isn't distended, and neither are his intestines." "How does being beaten and starved make you an illegal alien?" "Andy, if someone starved you, beat you within an inch of your life, shot you, then left you for dead, you would go to the hospital. And you would press charges. You wouldn't be hiding in a hole in the ground. The only people who don't go to the police are those who can't. And since most dealers are users, he probably had other reasons to steer clear of the authorities." Andy looked at the man on the cot. "I guess you're right. I would call the cops. But I don't think this guy had a chance.

  And I don't think it had anything to do with being afraid of the badge. My guess is, this happened after the Quiver." He handed Hulbert the pan with the spent bullet. "He was shot with a matchlock, you said." Hulbert nodded. "That's what I figure. I can't think of any other explanation for a bullet that big and that slow-moving. I'd bet he's Indian. Probably pretty close to full blood." Andy stared at Hulbert. "You're talking Native American, not an India Indian." He was wide-awake now. "Yeah, I am. And I'm thinking he'sextremely authentic.

  And I have a hunch he has enemies just as authentic as he is." The captain stared at Hulbert, then at the man strapped to the examination table. "We can't jump to any conclusions. That bullet could have come from a replica. Or maybe an antique." Hulbert was shaking his head. "I thought of that. But not too many reenactors play around with matchlocks. They're usually interested in later historical periods.

  Then you have the guy's clothes and all the things Jenny mentioned."

  Andy pulled the clothes from the biohazard container, careful not to touch the blood. He turned them over and over in his hands, checking the seams and the buttons. "If these are part of a reenactment costume, they cost the guy a pretty penny. They're the most authentic looking things I've ever seen." "He doesn't look rich enough to be into that type of fun," Jenny said. "He looks like one of the homeless I used to care for when I worked on the coast." Marie entered the room, carrying a tray of sandwiches. "And if that's not a reenactment costume, and if he wasn't shot with a replica, where is the guy who did it?" Marie shrugged and then answered her own question. "We don't know." Now it was Jenny's turn to look surprised. "Oh." She looked at the man on the table and then at Andy. "It doesn't matter if that stuff is real or fake. Does it? We have people out there. Real people.

  And they're armed and shooting." Hulbert shrugged. "Like I said, we've got problems. And if the animals are mixed up, jumbled up, the people are likely to be, too." Marie Keehn moved so she was standing next to Rod Hulbert. Her voice trembled slightly, "More than two thousand prisoners to feed and water, multiton dinosaurs to avoid, and to top it off, out of sync people using other out of sync people for punching bags and target practice. And we don't know why." Jenny hissed softly.

  The captain and the lieutenant both nodded, their faces grim. Jeff Edelman stared at the pictures on the camera phone for a while, and then shut the phone off. "I want the best artist in the prison to copy this onto paper. The same thing for the jewelry our visitor is wearing." He looked at Hulbert. "The camera phone is a great way to record what's going on in the field, at least until the batteries wear out." "You're right," said Joe Schuler. "We'll go through all the cars on the lot and through the lockers. We'll gather up all the picture phones and have them placed in the armory. That way when we send people out for whatever reason, they can take one of the cameras with them. When they get back we can have the pictures transcribed to paper. If Hulbert had one in his car when the Quiver hit, I'm betting we'll get a couple dozen of the things." Hulbert nodded. "Andy, we might want to do a technology check. See who has what, and if it could be useful put it under lock and key." "No, wedon't want to do that,"

  Andy said. "We don't want to confiscate anything. That includes the picture phones. Ask what's in everyone's lockers and lunch buckets.

  Ask if people will donate their stuff, or loan it. But I don't want anything commandeered." "Nothing?" Edelman asked. "Nothing. Now, what can you tell me about Spielberg's monsters?" Edelman frowned. "The nickname Jerry Bailey gave these animals is more appropriate than you realize. The two large birdlike creatures doing the attacking are called Utahraptors. They are the jumbo-sized relatives of the velociraptor. While the velociraptor weighs around fifty pounds, their larger cousins will tip the scales at eight hundred to a thousand pounds. An amateur, Bob Gaston, found the first of this species in 1992. This was the same year work was being done on Spielberg's film, Jurassic Park. Spielberg hadn't liked the idea of his meanest creature being such a lightweight, so he wanted to cheat and make them larger. The technicians working on the film, of course, did it Spielberg's way. Bigger was better. Anyway, with the discovery of the Utahraptor, you would think the raptors in the movie would get a name change. It didn't happen. They left the name of the beasts velociraptor, but gave them the size of their Utahraptor cousins."

  Hulbert shrugged. "Hollywood is not here. The animal killed by those things was not happy and neither were we. That was the scariest thing I ever saw in my life." "I bet." Jeff suppressed a yawn and then sighed. "Sorry, three hours a night, every night, it's not enough sleep for anyone." He yawned again, but this time didn't try to fight it. "You have to loo
k at the whole picture. That stegosaurus that used the prison wall for a scratching post a couple of nights back was from the Jurassic period. The Utahraptors on that picture phone were from one hundred and twenty million years back. The animal the raptors ate, the iguanodon, was from the early Cretaceous period, which was around one hundred and forty-five million years before the modern era. The T-rex in Spielberg's movie was from the late Cretaceous period, around seventy million years ago." "I thought you said the tyrannosaurus was from the Jurassic period," Jenny said. "No, the book and movie was calledJurassic Park because it sounded good. Most of the animals it depicted were actually from the Cretaceous period, the same timeframe we seem to be dealing with. Much of the plant life a few miles out from the prison is also from that time period, but not all of it. Too much of it is unfamiliar to me, and a lot of what I recognize, I can't name. I can't remember what it's called." "I don't care about the name," Joe said. "I just want to know what is happening. Are we going to be dealing with the animals from that movie? Velociraptors and Tyrannosaurus Rex?" "Well, Jurassic Park depicted a theme park populated with dinosaurs built from found DNA left over from the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. The plants and animals inside the park were basically from the same period, but that doesn't mean they coexisted. Very few species last eighty million years, which is the length of time the Cretaceous period lasted. Or even eight million years, for that matter. The only time we know for sure two species coexisted, is when we find them together. All else is guesses. Good guesses based on a lot of facts, but they are still guesses. Jeff walked over to the dry erase board and began sketching a time line.