Galway

by Matthew Thayer

  Paul had beached our boat in a sheltered cove about a half-mile south of the river mouth, choosing it not only for its quiet mooring site, but also due to the sweet water spring bubbling out of the ground not more than a minute’s walk from the beach. Gray Beard nodded his approval before his anxiousness forced him to break protocol.

  “There is no time for talking or proper welcoming behavior,” he said determinedly, kicking sand over our fire to snuff it out. “If we are to use the sea house, let us begin. The Hunter comes.”

  Against my better judgment, a key part of our plan involved using the sailboat to ferry the clan across the mouth of the Rhine. Team rules quite specifically forbid introducing the concepts of sailing and boatbuilding to our Cro-Magnon clan, but we did it anyway. It was the only way around the massive, muddy discharge.

  Despite their wide eyes and intense misgivings, we lost nary a Cro-Magnon or dog overboard during three, pleasingly uneventful round trips. The sea gods blessed our novice passengers with perfect sailing weather, semi-brisk winds and a relatively calm Atlantic. That night, once we were all safely on the northern banks of the river, the old man allowed the land crew its first fire in weeks. We feasted on lobster, turtle and seal, and were free to sing and dance to the sound of drums.

  The next day we sent our natives ahead to allow us “moderns” to disassemble the catamaran and bury its components in several safe places. Gray Beard allowed us only three days to complete our chores. Once the hard work was done, we savored every extra hour. Speaking English, watching movies together, discussing literature and the greatest sports stars of all time, we did everything we could to shed our native skins. On the fourth day, reunited with our clan mates, we began a generally eastward meander through the plains of the not-yet English Channel.

  All that traveling and togetherness added up to 47 days that Paul and I were unable to find an intimate moment alone. Though the clan camps and sleeps in a tight unit, other couples are not shy about moving to the edge of the firelight or behind bushes to find their marital beds. They wrap themselves in leather blankets to somewhat screen their activities or wait until the rest of us have ample time to drift off to sleep. Maybe I’m a prude, but putting on a show for others is not what turns me on–quite the opposite.

  When Paul and I finally got this cave to ourselves, it didn’t take long before we were in each other’s arms. He couldn’t hold me tightly enough, or long enough. Earlier in the evening he had put his life on the line to protect me and my honor. I have never considered myself an old-fashioned girl who needed a man to fight her battles–not even here in the Paleolithic. But resting in my man’s powerful arms, knowing he was fully recovered, filled me with the sweetest sense of contentment. I felt safe. Our lovemaking stretched for hours, neither one of us willing to let the night end. We finally drifted to sleep, spooned together, wasted and spent.

  The following three nights were repeats of the same flaming passion, complete with surprising twists as we explored new avenues to pleasure each other. Paul’s stamina matches his caring and tenderness. We made love so many times I grew sore, forcing us to find even newer ways to sate our desires. We did things I swore I would never try, and things I didn’t even know existed.

  Lying alone on the fur bed, counting my blessings, I began totaling the number of orgasms Paul and I had shared in the past four days. The memories triggered a warmth between my legs. Brushing fingertips across the folds of my leather skirt, jolts of electricity coursed up and down my spine. Pulling the leather up to my waist, I placed two fingers on opposite sides of the nub of my engorged clitoris. Masturbation is a common sight in this world. We witness it as often as we see natives screwing. Mitch’s hybrids are particularly fond of spanking their monkeys (what the boys call it) and are not overly concerned if someone sees them. But once again, that is not my style. I hadn’t pleasured myself in a very long time. Eyes closed, fueled by thoughts of my lover’s body, daydreaming of how he takes me to the tipping point, waits until I’ve gone over the edge, then joins me for a gallop to the finish line, I lost myself in the moment.

  Reaching up with my other hand, I undid the bone fasteners of my jacket to reach inside and tug at a rock-hard nipple, first softly and then pinching as I grew close. Rubbing faster as waves began to spasm outward from my abdomen, I must have cried out in ecstasy. The whole process could not have taken more than a minute, but when I opened my eyes there was Jones running into the cave with a bolt nocked in his atlatl.

  Averting his eyes as I fumbled to cover myself, he said, “Jesus, I’m sorry. Thought you were dying in here.”

  Oh brother.

  TRANSMISSION:

  Jones: “So, how’s your plumbing these days?”

  Kaikane: “Plumbing?”

  Jones: “You were messed up pretty bad. You OK now?”

  Kaikane: “Is this about you walking in on Maria?”

  Jones: “She told you about that, huh? I didn’t–”

  Kaikane: ‘”Yep, she told me.”

  Jones: “Look, I–”

  Kaikane: “Bro, you got nothing to apologize for. I appreciate you looking out for my woman. Could’ve been a mountain cat or something.”

  Jones: “Or something. We cool?”

  Kaikane: “Yeah man, we’re cool. And Bro, for the record book, my plumbing works just fine.”

  From the log of The Hunter

  (aka – Giovanni Bolzano, Dr. Mitchell Simmons)

  Ethics Specialist

  Perhaps it was fate that placed me in one of the few vantages with a clear view of the Martinellists as they emerged from a dead neighbor’s withered orchard with ropes and grappling hooks to quickly scale the brick perimeter wall of my estate. The camouflaged scouts were quite fast and efficient, though if they had been trained to look up, they might have captured me without resistance.

  I sat wide-eyed, watching the incursion from the upper limbs of a tall plum tree I had planted as a child more than 210 years earlier. The planting had been nothing more than childhood whim. Except to complain about the mess it made, I didn’t pay the tree one bit of attention for the first 208 years of its life, right up until the duties of growing and harvesting food became the primary focus of my life. Not until the family and staff all had the unkind grace to die, along with nearly everyone else in Europe, only then did I finally learn to appreciate the well-watered tree’s penchant for bearing fruit nearly year round.

  It became my habit to rise early to tend to chores before the onset of the heat. Daytime temperatures in the middle latitudes were continuing to rise as poor Earth wobbled toward the start of the 24th century. Working outdoors in the midday sun was unsafe, not only due to the temperatures, but also the high levels of radiation and ultraviolet rays streaming through the gossamer atmosphere.

  For some unfathomable reason, the plum was one of the few trees on the estate to thrive in the changing climate. As long as the water pipe flowed, it was happy. On this day, with all low-hanging fruit picked clean, I was forced to abandon the ladder and climb quite high through the limbs to acquire the basis of that day’s breakfast, lunch and dinner. The height alone saved me. It certainly was not my brains or foresight, not with my guns and Security-Stealth-Belt hanging on a kitchen hook 100 meters away. With company unexpected, the weapons and armor had been left in the kitchen of a small servant’s home I had appropriated two years earlier.

  When the last of my grandchildren died, the castle became far too cavernous and lonely. I found the cottage while conducting a futile search of the estate for hidden survivors who might keep me company. The well-shaded stone building had served as quarters for the many under-gardeners and their wives through the years. I buried the last couple outside the front door, unfortunately, in holes that turned out to not be deep enough. Replanting the gardener and his wife had been a gruesome lesson in doing a job properly the first time. It was one of many such lessons in my grim transformation from landed aristocrat to survivalist.

  By the time the un
der-gardener and his wife began to stink, I had grown quite fond of the stone cottage. The place had a slate roof and thick walls that remained cool until afternoon. Its solar electricity and plumbing still functioned–though the handles and fixtures were so old they were antiques. It reminded me of a museum diorama of rural 1990s Italy. The small but serviceable kitchen, with its diagonally paned windows, oaken dining set and chipped porcelain sink, was dominated by a wood block butcher’s table that must have weighed 300 kilos and was at least 700 years old. I prepared many a lonely meal atop that well-used block.

  Along with most of the other furnishings, the behemoth was most likely a castoff from the main residence. Shelves made from rough-hewn boards laid across the tops of terra cotta oil and balsamic urns were no doubt salvaged from the barns. In the glow of late afternoon light slanting through the dusty panes, the rooms reminded me of my favorite Caravaggio painting–the one hanging in the hallway of the main residence, a piece of art I always meant to bring down to my quaint new apartment but never did.

  If I had been puttering outside my cottage when the scouts arrived, I would have been easy pickings. But I wasn’t, and they did not scan high enough to register my heat signature or anything else their substandard visors might have detected in the tree. The men struck me as overconfident as they trotted uphill through the orchard, footsteps kicking up powdery dust backlit by morning sun. They did not wear stealth suits or take other protective measures, like stopping to search for mines. As the soldiers charged toward the property’s primary residence it was obvious they had not been fully briefed on whom they were assaulting.

  I prayed no second wave of Martinellists would appear as I dropped from the plum and hit the ground running. I had no way of confirming if the prying lenses of drones and satellites were scanning the property, but assumed something was. Martinellist commanders were quite selective in the technology they eschewed. Keeping to the shadows and under cover was second nature to me by this time. Halfway to the cottage, as I passed under the eaves of an empty horse barn, the staccato coughs of robotic security guns filled the air. The five-second barrage was followed by the howls and screams of dying men.

  My pulse slowed its hammering once I collected my weapons. Hidden and protected within the field of my one-of-a-kind belt, packing a fully charged pulsar and two conventional pistols, I jogged to the castle ready to take on an army, or at least elude one. Let their satellites and drones scan to their heart’s delight, none could detect me. Not unless I wanted them too.

  Passing three dead scouts as I climbed the marble stairs, I noted the bulbous-headed insignia stitched at their breasts. Was it a fist, a nuclear mushroom cloud or a raging hard-on serving as background for the infamous hand-scrawled M? In the beginning, nobody knew or cared. Martinellism’s dogmatic leader was nothing but an indigent Peruvian farmer, a short, skinny man with big ears. Even as his crusade began to spill out of South and Central America, Los Ramos was discounted as an overreaching yokel.

  World leaders did not anticipate the intensity of the public’s fascination with time traveler Lorenzo Martinelli. It was often debated whether Los Ramos was lucky or prescient, but either way the Peruvian seized upon the story and amplified it into a world-changing cult.

  Cults need symbols. The story goes that Los Ramos could not afford an artist to design his logo in the early days so he created one himself, a hand-drawn replica of a mammoth ivory tusk unearthed in Italy along with one of The Team’s white computers. He took the three words etched into the eroded tusk, “Lorenzo is God,” and made them the basis of his religion. At the tusk’s widest point was a single capital letter M. Los Ramos appropriated the M for his handmade logo. Team lawyers attempted to bring suit against him for the unlicensed breach of copyright. We had our first inkling of what we were up against the afternoon mobs of Martinellists attacked the attorneys’ offices, tearing the offending jurists limb from limb.

  I found the rest of the intruders sprawled across the courtyard, draped over railings and one dumb bastard still on his feet, bent forward with his face thrust into a dry birdbath dating back to the 12th century. Already, a pair of bold crows had landed to peck at his silver wedding ring. Each peck caused his arm to swing like a pendulum. With caws, they began working together to claim the prize. I considered kicking a stone to scare them away, but decided against it. Better to eat a fool’s finger than my precious plums.

  Several of the men had lost their helmets in the fusillade. Pausing to survey faces to see if I recognized anyone, I found that I did not. Dirty tan skin, missing teeth, oversized clothes hanging loose on thin bodies, nothing in their blank eyes said these boys were different than any other human being left on earth. There were no tattoos with the words “chosen few” or “fifteen-percenter” on their foreheads. They looked like my grandkids, so young and so dead.

  They had been a suicide squad, fodder to draw me out. Despite all the money and weapons I had poured into the cause of Martinellism, its leaders had decided it was my time to be “Thinned.”

  The hour it took me to prepare the charges and set the triggers felt akin to burying an old friend. Castello Milano was the only place I had ever really considered home. It was where my father was raised, as well as his father and grandfather before him. I would not surrender it without resistance. Never would it become a home base for my enemies.

  I assumed the main force would not arrive for hours. Nighttime raids with overwhelming force were the Martinellists’ trademark. Once my chores were completed, I said goodbye to the villa and refused to look back as I marched downhill to the estate’s front gate.

  Among the buildings standing outside the castle walls was a former Roman social hall that dated back to the year 442. With its weathered red brickwork and white marble columns, the near-ruin was once one of the most photographed buildings in our region of Northern Italy. Situated on property that was more-or-less public, the social hall’s accessibility wasn’t the only facet that made it a favorite with the artists. The building’s proportions were perfect, its craftsmanship so divine, so forgotten, it would be impossible to reproduce in the modern world. One famous painter who lodged with us occasionally said it was not the dimensions or workmanship that made the building special, but the afternoon light that danced across its front facade in a pleasing way. All I knew was this, artists from all over, some who traveled long distances, stopped to render it on canvas and paper–back when there were still such people in the world.

  Despite all the attention to its exterior, I always found it surprising how few people asked what was inside. That was just as well, for they were better off imagining grand furnishings and ancient marvels. The building was really little more than a barn. My family had been using it to store broken sofas, lamps and other detritus of forgotten repair projects for more than 400 years. It was to this building that I tromped, and where I was sitting well past midnight when the Martinellists’ ships began converging over the darkened expanse that was once the great city of Milano. Many of the city’s buildings still stood, the ones that had survived the fires, but the lights and people were long gone.

  Peering through a round window in the building’s darkened attic, I tracked the in-bound flights of air-tanks and personnel carriers like a cornered rat. In minutes, the gunships descended over my estate, bathing it in stark white light while three personnel carriers landed in the forecourt fronting the grand entryway. Before the security robots could fire a single shot, the entire building’s circuitry was neutralized by electronic stun weapons. I recognized the stunners’ distinctive crackling sounds. How could I not? It was my company that manufactured the unique armaments.

  In unison, speakers atop the tanks blared words that billions of people around the planet had learned to dread. “It is your time to be thinned!” Though expected, the phrase sent a tingle down my spine. It did not matter if you were on their side. Even if you agreed with the politics of Martinellism and thought its mission to trim the world’s population by 85 pe
rcent was the best way to save the planet, those words meant death. You were about to be thinned.

  My family and staff had been spared mass trials and executions only to be thinned by a global bio-plague release. Despite the ruinous amount of money I had donated to the cause, and my promises to help develop new technology to restore earth to its former beauty, we were gassed like all the rest. Nanos pulled me through and kept me sane, just barely.

  A booming concussion echoed through the night air and rattled the windows of the old social hall as the castle’s front shield doors were blasted open. Pulling my gaze from the lights and air-tanks, the troops storming through the ruins of my shattered, smoking vestibule, I turned to study a man-sized silver tube. Dim lights glowing green from its open hatch cast just enough illumination to show the device was sandwiched between a red velvet couch and a titanic pile of forgotten baby beds and prams. For nearly 40 years the machine had been my final bolthole, one I hoped never to use. It had taken me an hour to unearth it amid the squalor, but the effort was rewarded when I released the hatch and found the ship charged and in working order.

  Never more than a prototype, the small, single-man timeships had fizzled long before they ever entered commercial production. With a 59 percent failure rate, the losses to my company’s pool of test travelers had been disastrous. I saved the last prototype from the recycling heap as a monument to failed dreams–at least that is what I told the crew of engineers who delivered it to the social hall. The survivor in me knew a day like this was possible, and that even a bad plan is better than no plan at all.