What Could Possibly Go Wrong (The Chronicles of St Mary's Book 6)
Page 9
Before I could make my escape, Mrs Partridge appeared at my elbow and contemplated the scene before her.
She said nothing in a manner that conveyed volumes.
I said nothing in a manner that I hoped conveyed my complete innocence.
She said nothing in a manner that conveyed her disbelief in my complete innocence.
I said nothing in a manner that conveyed my hurt at this lack of trust in me.
She said nothing in a manner that effortlessly conveyed the message that Dr Bairstow wished to see me at his earliest convenience and to collect Dr Peterson while I was at it.
I said nothing in a manner that conveyed there was actually a very reasonable explanation for all this and she’d laugh when she heard it.
She just said nothing.
Chapter Six
The next day, we were assembled in the larger training room. With Messrs Markham, Bashford, and Roberts still off the active list – to say nothing of the still recovering Randall and Sands – a certain amount of people jiggling had been going on, but we’d assembled a crew in the end. I sat at the back where I could keep an eye on all of them.
Major Guthrie dropped into the seat alongside and grinned evilly. ‘Markham’s not fit for purpose, so you’ve got me.’
‘A dream come true,’ I said, just to annoy him, and indicated that they should begin.
Atherton opened the batting. He fumbled with his papers, dropping some to the floor. North tutted, but no one would catch her eye. Everyone sat quietly and waited patiently for him to sort himself out.
He began a little nervously and, as with everyone not accustomed to public speaking, had an air of astonishment at the sound of his own voice.
‘Good morning, everyone. As we are all aware, our next assignment is to the Pleistocene Period, some fifty thousand years ago. The Pleistocene is an age of severe climactic change. Ice advances down from the poles not once, but many times. There are many extinctions during this period, but we hope to catch a glimpse of sabre-tooth cats, woolly bears, woolly rhinos, and, of course, mammoths.’
He paused, took a deep, calming breath, and continued, still in an artificially high voice. ‘Also around at this time are, we very much hope, our cousins, the Neanderthals, whose fate has always been a bit of a mystery. There’s a great deal of controversy over whether they just dwindled away; whether they died out because they were unable to cope with the rapid changes in climate and living conditions; or whether our ancestors – Homo sapiens – hunted them to extinction. Nobody knows so let’s see what we can find out.’
He breathed again. ‘We’ve chosen this location because it’s a known site. The bones and hand tools found here have been dated to this time, so we know it was inhabited. Whether it’s been inhabited continually or only for seasonal hunting is something we hope to ascertain. And, of course, by whom it is inhabited.’
He was speaking more naturally now and without his notes. ‘At this time, summers are short, so the chances are that we’ll find ourselves in a winter tundra environment and will dress accordingly. Please report to Wardrobe to get yourselves kitted out.’
He paused and grinned, confident enough now for a small joke. ‘Normal footwear will be worn.’
There were faint cries of disappointment. I, however, was grateful that my boots would be based on the conventional design and not related, in even the smallest way, to anyone’s testicles. And there aren’t many jobs where you can make that statement.
He began to distribute files. ‘Here’s the brief, people. Professor Rapson has put together detailed information so make sure you read it. Miss Sykes is in charge of the assignment and she will now provide details of personal responsibilities.’
With relief, he sat down. He hadn’t enjoyed his presentation, but he hadn’t made a bad job of it. Best of all, he’d kept it short.
Sykes had no confidence problems at all. No nerves. No notes. And she kept her briefing even shorter than Atherton’s.
‘Right, everyone. Teams are as follows: Team One – Maxwell, Guthrie, and Atherton. Team Two – Hoyle, North, and Gallaccio, and Cox. Team Three – Sykes, Lingoss, Evans, and Keller.’
It was North who said, rather nastily, ‘No historians?’ knowing full well that Prentiss and Clerk were elsewhere, Sands was still limping, and that Bashford and Roberts were still on their backs in Sick Bay awaiting the return of their equilibrium. Personally, if I’d been their equilibrium I wouldn’t have bothered. It was only a matter of time before it was blown somewhere else. Probably even before it had had time to unpack and do its dirty washing.
It would take more than North, however, to throw Sykes off her stride.
‘We don’t need them.’ she said calmly. ‘The assignment is to record and document only. Positively no interaction. Didn’t you understand the brief? I can prepare you a simpler version if it’s easier for you.’
North opened her mouth but she swept on. ‘We’re taking TB2. As Atherton has said, Arctic gear will be worn. Here is a list of equipment to take. Please ensure it’s all fully functional before we jump. Any questions? Right – assemble in Hawking at 11.00 tomorrow morning. Thank you, everyone.’
My personal opinion was that with trainee historians, mammoths, cave bears, woolly rhinos, and sabre-toothed cats all gathered together in a small space, there weren’t enough security people in the whole world to cope with that little lot, but what did I know?
The next day I stood quietly in Hawking and watched them organise themselves. Sykes seemed to be making a reasonable job of things and even North was beginning to think twice about tangling with the tiny terror.
Dieter wandered past, wearing a tool belt and carrying the inevitable clipboard.
‘Now then, Max.’ He nodded towards my noisy charges. ‘Are they getting the hang of things?’
‘Of course not,’ I said, adopting the traditional trainer’s optimism. ‘We’re all going to be dead ten minutes into this assignment.’
He looked me up and down. ‘What the hell are you wearing?’
I looked down at my natty cold-weather gear, all in the colours of dirty snow. ‘Fifty shades of grey.’
‘What?’
‘Never mind.’
‘Bearing in mind your last little expedition, should I be issuing lifejackets as well?’
‘Look, I get enough grief from Leon. I don’t have to put up with it from you too, Mr Dieter. Shouldn’t you and your fellow techies be making sure the clockwork motor is fully wound-up, rather than insulting hard-working historians?
He grinned down at me. ‘Given your track record, I’m just saying.’
Dieter is the biggest man at St Mary’s. Possibly, even, the entire country. He blocks the light wherever he goes. Sometimes it’s like having a portable solar eclipse around the place. He fell heavily for Kalinda Black about twenty seconds after laying eyes on her. Typically, they’ve defied all the rules that say long-distance relationships don’t work. She’s at Thirsk – he’s at St Mary’s – and they meet regularly for weekends together, from which they both emerge dishevelled and grinning their heads off. Apparently, their stated ambition is to have head-banging sex in every room in every hotel, motel, and B&B in every county between there and here. According to Kal, if neither of them actually manages to kill the other, they’re well on target. Despite his enormous stature, his good nature was legendary, so I took full advantage, demanding to know why I was taking fashion tips from a man swathed in orange and accessorised with a Phillips screwdriver and a roll of gaffer tape.
‘Better than looking like a pile of perambulating slush. What happened to the infamous heated boots?’
‘We’re not sure. Left overnight, they were discovered the next morning, half-melted, in a corner of R&D. Rumour has it that Dr Dowson knows more than he’s letting on. However it happened, Dr Bairstow put his foot down – no pun intended – so thankfully, today we’re all in bog-standard footwear.’
He grinned suddenly. ‘Not Dr Dowson, no.’
I scowled at him and complied.
We had very little equipment for this jump. Portable recorders, torches, that sort of thing. This was record and document only.
‘Right,’ I said, seating myself at the console. ‘Everyone set?’
‘All present and correct,’ said Sykes, fizzing with excitement.
‘Stop that,’ I said.
She immediately adopted the world-weary stance of the historian who’s seen it all. I looked down at the console so I couldn’t see Major Guthrie grinning.
‘Computer, initiate jump.’
‘Jump initiated.’
The world went white.
We landed neatly and cleanly.
I gave everyone a moment to get themselves together while I checked the console. Everything looked normal, so I handed control to Miss Sykes and sat back while she organised herself and her teams. She confirmed the coordinates, checked the proximity alerts, made them carry out the com check, and harried the grinning security team. They let her do it, which was a point in her favour. She lined everyone up in their teams and waited. A host of expectant faces were looking at me.
I’d quietly verified everything as well and gave her the nod. We were good to go.
The ramp came down and we stared out at our first prehistoric landscape.
Bloody hell, it was cold.
And empty.
And desolate.
And lonely. Very, very lonely.
The very few people around at this time lived in small, isolated pockets scattered around this barren landscape. It was perfectly possible that they could be born, live their lives, and die, never once having seen anyone outside of their own small group. And if there were people here, who would we see? Homo sapiens or Neanderthals?
I stared around me. How had the human race managed to survive in this environment? It wasn’t just the temperature or the face-numbing wind; it was the sheer, awful emptiness of it all. Mile after mile after mile of colourless, tundra-like landscape stretching to the empty horizon. There were a few small trees – stunted, twisted, and bare. A slight covering of snow lay over the ground, through which coarse brown stalks of dead grass rustled in the wind. We circled slowly, the Security people herding us together for safety, all consulting their proximity alerts.
‘Nothing,’ reported Major Guthrie.
I indicated with my eyes that he should talk to Sykes.
‘In which direction do we proceed, Miss Sykes?’
I saw her start slightly and, if possible, grow an inch or so.
‘East.’
Evans pulled back his hood. ‘Is it just me or can anyone else hear water?’
We could. A small, deep, black rill wandered around tussocky humps of grass and the god of historians was in the office today, because it was flowing more or less in the right direction.
‘Follow the water.’
So we did, backs to the wind, following the bubbling stream. Guthrie was at the front; Evans and Gallaccio brought up the rear. We strode out briskly. The terrain was easy to navigate and we knew roughly where we were going. Archaeological records showed an ancient site some half mile to the east of us. If there was anyone there.
There was. Unbelievably, there was.
The camp was a little to the north of its estimated position. We could see their campfires, the only bright spots in this dull landscape on this dull day. A moment later and we could smell the smoke.
Sykes split us into our three teams and we made the rest of the journey separately, wriggling across the ice-cold landscape on our bellies. My team halted a couple of hundred yards away and sheltered by the occasional rock or dip in the ground, we broke out the equipment.
I let Atherton get on with it and attempted, with hands that trembled with both cold and anticipation, to focus my viewfinder. Because this was the burning question of the day. Homo sapiens? Or Neanderthals? Which would we see? Being St Mary’s, there was a great deal of money riding on this.
I rested on my elbows, took a few deep breaths, and focused. Here we go!
I could see dark shapes moving around the campfires. They were too far away to make out any details. I tried to slow my breathing and fumbled with my viewfinder. Who were they? What was I about to see?
Everything slowly swam into focus. I could see clearly and the answer was there before me.
Neanderthals.
Standing motionless by the fire, looking down at something I couldn’t see, stood a short, stocky figure, swathed from neck to knee in skins and furs, although his arms were bare. The low brow-ridge, together with the short arms and legs were unmistakeable. Even as I watched, he turned his head and held out a hand. Another figure approached, proffering what looked like a hand axe. They stood together, inspecting it carefully, turning it over in their hands, and seemingly weighing the balance.
‘Wow!’ said Atherton beside me, uttering the traditional historian exclamation of wonder and amazement and I could only agree. Because this second man was not a Neanderthal. He was a modern human. Homo sapiens. There could be no doubt about it. A good head taller, longer in the arms and legs – this was one of our ancestors.
I could hear Sykes and Lingoss, two hundred yards to my left, similarly wowing. There was silence from Hoyle and North, off to my right. Both of them were far too cool ever to wow. Because there it was. Proof at last. Incontrovertible proof. A Stone Age site, inhabited not by Neanderthals nor Homo sapiens, but a mixture of both. The two peoples co-existed. And not just co-existed. At this site at least, they co-habited. Peacefully. The implications were huge.
I tried to count heads, not easy, since they were moving continually, and clouds of smoke billowed across my line of sight, but I estimated about fifteen to twenty people that I could see, although there may have been many more in the shelters built in a semi-circle around the camp fires.
There were children, too. And this was interesting. From the small sample available, there seemed to be two sorts of children. Two different physical types. I’m not an expert – most of them looked like normal children to me. But two weren’t. They were very obviously Neanderthal and the most notable thing about them was their disproportionately large heads. They huddled together around the fire, performing some task I couldn’t make out. Everyone worked. There was no childhood here. Life was too short.
‘Can you see them?’ asked Atherton. ‘This is amazing.’
Fired-up historians were dictating at machine-gun speed. Atherton was describing the children. Lingoss was speculating on whether this was a permanent camp or simply a hunting group, following their prey across the frozen landscape. True, the site didn’t look particularly permanent, but it’s hard to make skin-draped structures look long lasting. North was focusing on the construction of the shelters and who had built them. Tradition says Neanderthal skills were limited – that they only dwelt in caves. Not so, here. There were no caves. I felt a pang of regret. I would have loved a glimpse of some cave art. There were no trees, either. On what had they draped the skins?
‘Mammoth bones,’ said Atherton beside me, unknowingly answering my query. ‘Look. Tusks and longbones, covered with skins and pelts. I wonder how they secured them.’ He began to fiddle with his equipment.
‘Yes,’ I said, trying to ignore the biting wind as I took off my gloves to adjust the recorder again. ‘But this opens up a whole new can of worms, doesn’t it? Is this a permanent site? Look – over there, planted in the ground. There’s a row of mammoth tusks and they’re decorated with something. Feathers, perhaps, or some kind of decorative stones? I can’t see … Maybe they’re religious offerings. Do they decorate the tusks to ensure future success? And if they do, is this a portable shrine that they carry with them to bring them su
ccess?’
‘Or maybe a tribe totem,’ he said, in excitement. ‘Wouldn’t that be great?’
Guthrie rolled his eyes.
‘And,’ said Sykes in my ear. ‘I don’t know if you can see from where you are, but they’re burning mammoth bones. Can’t you smell it?
‘Of course they would be,’ said North, loftily. ‘Use your brain. There’s no wood here. And the fat would give out a much greater heat.’
‘Take your word for that,’ said Sykes and the huffy silence rang loud and clear. North really was going to have to grow a sense of humour. And soon.
As far as I could see, the two species were completely integrated. Mixed groups of people sat around each fire. Tools were passed around and examined.
I focused on a Neanderthal man sitting cross-legged and working on something on his lap. As far as I could make out, he seemed to be making himself a hand axe. He seemed dexterous enough, using both hands impartially. I could hear the ringing sound of flint on flint. Chippings flew. Another man, hairy, but modern, leaned over to look. The two of them were communicating. This was extraordinary.
The most recent thinking is that Neanderthals weren’t anything like the shambling apes so often depicted in films and holos. Their brains were actually bigger than ours were, but functioned differently. Their larger eye sockets took up frontal lobe space, making them less able to adapt to changing circumstances. More importantly, it restricted their social thinking which meant they tended to live in smaller groups. Smaller groups meant a much lower survival rate in these harsh times. Was it possible that co-habiting benefited both species? Neanderthals were tough, strong, and excellent hunters – Homo sapiens were adaptable and more able to think their way through a problem. They all had communication skills. I could see them, if not talking, at least communicating. There may not be words, but a combination of sound and gesture was enough to convey meaning.
Thirsk were going to be ecstatic when they saw our footage. I couldn’t wait to get back and send this little lot off to them. This was sensational stuff, although I suspected Markham would be disappointed at the lack of fur bikinis.