A Long Time Until Now (31 page)

Once they were out, Sean climbed up alongside Ortiz to ensure they did head out of sight, over the ridge and away. He watched them retreat into the sunset, which was vivid in orange and violet.

He ordered, “Keep a close eye tonight. There’s always a chance they’ll come back.”

“Hooah.”

Back on the ground, he went to the fire and joined the others.

Spencer said, “Okay, sir, I’m guessing they’re from about six thousand BC, in what we call Doggerland.”

“Where’s that?”

“It’s now the North Sea. Back then, it was above water.”

Okay. “How sure are you?”

Spencer said, “That it was above water? They find fossilized and even rotten plant and animal residue, and occasional human tools. It’s only about forty feet deep in some places.”

“Okay. So it flooded after that?”

“About then. These guys report rising water and swamps, and flooding of low areas. And they have high ground west and south. The Baltic was a lake. The Irish Sea was already flooded, long since. So Doggerland it is. They were farther north than here.”

“How do they know that?”

“They don’t, I do. Longer summer days. Very short winter days. Lakes to the east, sea to the north.”

“Roger. So they’re from halfway between now and our time, from the far side of the continent.”

“Yup.”

“They could even walk back and be just in time to meet themselves,” he commented.

Spencer snickered. “Yeah, we made that joke amongst ourselves. Us, not them.”

“What else?”

Caswell said, “They arrived about a month before we did, and spent time building a village to the west. They’ve actually lamed a few aurochs to keep them nearby, and use the dogs to herd the goats. They’ve been harvesting fruit and know of some other tubers.”

She looked really angry as she said, “They conquered the Urushu. There’s about two hundred of them. They moved in, killed a few, enslaved the rest. Especially the women, the fuckers. They see it as a divine right. The gods removed them from bad land to better land and gave them superior tools.”

That was not good.

“That’s unfortunately logical. How do they view our tools?”

Oglesby said, “They don’t know what we have, but they seem astute enough to recognize the fabrication. We all have the same helmets and gear. We have the trucks, which they think of as huts. I said we can move them by touch. They didn’t seem convinced, but didn’t argue. I think we want to do something to impress them.”

“Hunting?”

“Or more chores. They saw us chopping brush. They recognized the machete as a cutting tool, and something they can’t make.”

“Yeah, we’ll want to make sure they know we can take them.”

Oglesby asked, “Can we? Two hundred of them?”

Spencer said, “Figure half of those are adult males, and yes, we can. Easily. As long as we know they’re coming.”

Caswell said, “They don’t have domestic crops, but they do weed around their preferred fruit trees, including apple. They trap fish and animals, and are proto-herders. They follow the herds around and use dogs to move them, and protect them from other predators. But if the time frame is correct, there was agriculture starting in the Middle East about the time they exist, and possibly in China. Actually, there may already be rice agriculture in China and Korea now. It would be interesting to know, but we can’t.”

It was all so fascinating, and he wished he knew more about it. “Okay. We’ll work on further relations with them. We’re going to build the east wall beyond the stream, and start on inside corner towers and a gate house. Well done, everyone. Let’s eat.”

Tonight’s smoked fish was a bit dry, but good. It made a change from red meat every day. The wild onions and salt had seasoned it nicely and added a fresh taste. The apple and pine smoke gave it a bite.

Around a hot mouthful, he mumbled, “You know, I think Caswell and Barker deserve a medal for emotionally supporting their soldiers and maintaining our nutrition. I miss a lot of things, but this food is delicious. It’s like being in a foreign country. Different, but great.”

“Thank you, sir.” “Thanks.”

He tossed a bit of skin with meat still attached to the bank. The cat wasn’t visible, but definitely lurking around. The creature understood that people offered food. He knew where to hang out to get it. He’d even come into camp a few times at night or early morning and picked around the woodpile for rodents and bugs. Sean wasn’t sure where he hid anymore. The leaves were getting sparse from fall, and the weeds along the bank were getting thin from being walked on.

They needed more fat, though. The marrow pot tasted good now, and he was seriously considering animal brains. Fauna around here was quite lean. They’d had rabbit, and rabbit could kill you from lack of fat, eventually. The birds were wiry and tough. They needed fatty fish, or something with a hump, like a yak or camel. Both passed through occasionally.

Sean said, “Tomorrow we’re back on the wall. Far side of the stream, about thirty feet out. We’ll work on closing it after, and on towers as we go. Any excavated dirt or rock goes into the corners,” he pointed. “And keep an eye out for any infiltrators. How are batteries holding up?”

Alexander said, “Double As are fine, sir, we just have to keep swapping them around.”

“Okay. As to response against intruders, we probably want to start with spotlighting them. What’s that big light you brought, Spencer?”

“Nitecore TM Thirty-Six. Eighteen hundred lumens on a four-inch reflector, sir. I could signal satellites in orbit. They’ll think they’re seeing a sunrise.”

Spencer jogged to the truck and came back with the light. He offered it for inspection.

Sean looked at it. It was machined black aluminum.

“Are those cooling vanes?”

“Yes, not decoration. The circuitry gets hot. It’ll throw a Broadway spotlight over them at a kilometer.”

That was hilarious. “Yeah, that first. And if you decide you need to shoot, don’t, unless you decide again. If you do shoot, shoot to kill. Not to try to scare. We’re not thunder and lightning. We’re death. Hooah?”

Several “Hooah” came back.

“Put me on watch at oh two hundred to oh four hundred. If they do try anything, that’s when it’ll be. I’ll take that shift the next three nights.”

Alexander said, “Got it, sir. I’ll adjust accordingly.”

“Cool. Thanks again for the great food and support, and the hot sponge bath. I’m for rack ops, as Sergeant Spencer calls it.”

Ramon Ortiz liked evening watch. It was dark, but not yet midnight. The air was still, crisp and clean. Having one other person was just enough company to make it tolerable, without feeling human presence. It was as alone as he cared for, and he found it refreshing.

It was even more so after a hot wash. A bitch bath with an ammo can of hot water wasn’t the same as a shower, but it was a fuck of a lot better than splashing in the stream. Every third day was enough to keep the stink and grime off, and it meant staying relatively warm while dressing afterward.

And God, he needed to bathe regularly. Milking goats. Brushing goats. Butchering animals. Then the meat had to be hung and aged, and the milk aged for butter. It was a lot of work, but damn, it was good to have butter and milk. Hopefully they’d have cheese next year. Caswell had ideas.

Caswell was in the other turret, and still inscrutable. She was educated, but didn’t want to talk. Some of it was political, except she talked to Dalton on occasion. Dalton was insanely religious in his opinion, but she was Lutheran, though not particularly observant, but she did pray. A vegetarian feminist Lutheran in a military police field. It took all types. Ortiz was Catholic, and he saw her on Sundays when he stood together with the others for prayer.

He wasn’t going to force her to talk. She wasn’t evasive or insubordinate. She just didn’t talk much. He was probably glad for that. She had made comments about “machismo” that she probably thought were egalitarian, but had a distinctly negative snark about Hispanic culture. She’d probably accuse him of “patriarchy” or some other crap, then criticize the same Lutheran church she claimed to belong to, and the Catholic Church, for supporting traditional values. So he enjoyed the silence, and figured it was mutual.

There were cicadas here, different from the U.S., and some sort of grasshopper buzzing away. The night was disrupted by winds soughing in rustling leaf and stem, cracking from tree limbs, chuckles from the stream, and occasional herbivore sounds punctuated by even rarer wolves or lions. He’d seen a bear once, too.

The stars were beautiful but cold. He’d once dreamed of being an astronaut. He was further from that than he’d ever been in his life. He’d be lucky to ever get fifty feet above the surface now. Or unlucky, rather.

Sometimes he wished they were closer to the river. Fish, plants and more timber were just down the slope. But the trees were dark enough to be creepy, and they didn’t know what the spring floods brought. Field of fire and high ground were good. Besides, they could always move again. They had nothing but time.

“What do you think, Caswell?” He spoke softly because they didn’t need much to be heard.

“I took a look through night vision. There’s a few antelope east. No predators tonight, probably because it’s waning quarter moon and cloudy.”

“Makes sense. Do you hear the wind?”

“Yes. Probably seasonal. I don’t see anything that would indicate a storm.”

“Getting chilly, though.”

“Maybe. I’m fine.”

“I’m a lizard. I actually liked Iraq.”

“What about A-stan?”

“I’ll never find out now, will I? I’d been in country about a month. Not as hot as Iraq, but good enough.”

She whispered, “Wait, I have movement.”

“Where?”

“Uphill, quiet.”

She turned very cautiously in the turret, and leaned up look over the side plate. He did, too.

She whispered, “Middle of the wall. The two scrub trees in the ditch. People.”

“Yeah, I see them. Those are Urushu.” He saw vague outlines. He could grab NVG, but she already had them, so he kept quiet and let her do it.

She said, “Or want us to think they are, but yes, robes and kilts with half leggings, not tunics.”

“Are they standing?”

She said, “I think they can hear us, and want to be seen.”

“Let me try something. I’ll flip my phone open for a bit of glow, outboard on this side.”

“Go ahead.”

He dug under his armor into his pants pocket, eased out the phone and flipped it. It wasn’t much light, but here, it had nothing to compete with.

“They see you,” she said.

“Response?”

“Arms out. They’re hoping we see them.”

“Am I justified in lighting them? As in, illumination?”

“I don’t know. They may have enemies.”

“Are there only three?”

She said, “Yes. Spears, small rolls. Hunting party at best. And none of the Urushu groups have offered anything but hospitality.”

“Try to wave them to the open side,” he advised. Ordered, he guessed, since he outranked her.

“Are we waking the rest?”

“Not yet. Gun is live, though,” he said, reaching to check by feel, with a careful unlatching of the top cover, then reclosing. That ammo would rip those bodies to bloody bits if he did fire.

She said, “Okay, they’re coming carefully around the wall. Moving quietly but hands visible and not hiding.”

“I see them.”

“They’re heading for the cooking fire.”

“Yup.” The embers were low, but gave enough light to see by with the almost complete darkness elsewhere. The three of them moved into the log circle, flipped open their hide rolls, and lay down.

“I think they want rest and shelter,” he said.

“Could be they’re being chased. The LT can decide what to do later.”

“Yeah. They’re down and quiet.”

He made sure to watch them regularly, and keep an eye out for movement. They didn’t seem to be fully asleep. Nervous about something, obviously, but was it the troops or the Neoliths? He also watched for any other elements outside the palisade, or animals. He found himself tracing patterns in the condensing dew atop the vehicle roof.

These did make a handy central redoubt and watch tower. He was fourteen feet up, and could look right over the wall in every direction, except where the tepee blocked it. He constantly imagined what it would have been like to be on foot patrol when the shift happened, or to be separated from others. What if it took a bunk room with four people? Or just a field shower with him alone?

There was constant shuffling in the tent, and from the hooch where the women slept. Only Alexander was down there now. She had been in okay shape when they arrived. She was hot now, and it wasn’t just the isolation. She had a wicked ass.

Caswell was muy hot, but she just wouldn’t do anything. He wasn’t sure if she was a lesbian, sexless, or just had some psychological thing going. She was distant. She had a terrible, pushy personality and all that crap with it. Despite that, he’d nail her, given the chance. Alexander was flaky, but would at least talk.

Goddam, he wanted some pussy. The year limit made sense. It was a deployment length. But after that, they needed some native chicas.

The shuffling sound changed. LT was coming out, and Oglesby.

LT came up underneath, and he ducked down.

“Sir, three of the Urushu appeared a while ago, south in the ditch. We used signs to direct them in to the fire circle. They’re sleeping there. We think they may be seeking refuge.”

Elliott sprung awake and ran his hand over his eyes.

“Damn. Okay. No trouble? And only three?”

“Three only, no sign of anyone else. Do you want to wake anyone?”

“No, we’ll talk in the morning, if they want to sleep.”