A Long Time Until Now (37 page)
Read A Long Time Until Now Online
Authors: Michael Z Williamson
Tags: #fiction, #science fiction, #time travel, #General, #Action & Adventure
“Yeah, go for it.” He turned his head.
Wet heat rushed through his arm to his head. Fuck. Doc was scrubbing and it felt like sandpaper.
My turn to growl
, he thought.
Then the scrubbing stopped, and the pain turned to a long, slow burn.
“It feels so good when you stop, Doc,” he said.
“Good. Wrapping it now.”
It ached and throbbed, but he figured it was nothing on a spear into the foot.
“That boot’s no good anymore, is it?” he asked.
Barker was up top now, too.
“Maybe,” he said. “We can try pine resin to seal it. Possibly a plug out of some of the leftover plastic.”
“I have another pair,” Alexander slurred groggily.
Barker said, “Only one pair. And now a spare left boot.”
Martin said, “Ah. And you all mocked me for insisting we keep everyfuckingthing.”
Barker shook his head. “I didn’t. You were right. If that doesn’t work, maybe we can melt it closed.”
He hoped one of those would work. Likely, though, that boot was shot. He knew how to make leather moccasins in theory. He’d never done it without a kit. Or a needle.
Ortiz said, “Sir, we have a lot of wounded down there.”
“Yeah, we’ll need to deal with that. What about the dead?”
Martin brought his brain back online.
“Burial practice is common, sir. We’d be insulting to just toss them out, which may be what you want to do. Or we wait and try to communicate that they can take them back. Or we toss them downstream and let scavengers take care of it.”
“Pile them outside for right now,” Elliott ordered. “I want a count of how much ammo we used, as much brass as we can recover, and a body count.”
“You heard the LT,” he said.
Barker dropped back down and got to work. Good man.
“I want to know why they didn’t stop. Hopped up on drugs?”
He replied, “Or religion, sir. Especially in Africa, some groups believe being naked, or dressed a certain way, or drinking certain things, makes you immune to death. If someone dies anyway, obviously he didn’t do it right.”
“They figure it out when enough die?”
“They figure they were doing it wrong. Then they try something else.”
“Christ. How many do we have to kill?”
Martin followed his gaze around the wreckage and wafting smoke from the stomped fire, at the squirming bodies. They were bleeding into the grass and looked macabre.
He said, “Until they figure nothing works, or believe we’re superior, or they get pissed off and hang their own boss man.”
“What a fucking waste.” Elliott looked angry, and a bit ill. He trembled.
“First major engagement, sir?” he guessed.
“Yeah. I wish I could say it’d feel different with modern insurgents, but I don’t guess it would.”
“No, sir. Everyone dies the same, and anyone behind the tech curve has no idea what they’re facing.”
Yeah,
I’m an expert
, Martin thought.
Two previous firefights. Yay, me.
But it was likely half of them here hadn’t actually exchanged fire before.
Elliott asked, “Doc, how do you want to triage them?”
“How much of my stuff are you willing to use, sir?”
“Not much.” Elliott shook his head and looked sad.
Doc shrugged and frowned. “Then anyone with a solid torso shot is likely to die. We can cauterize and hope it works. We can leave them to moan and scream. We can take care of them while they moan and scream. Or we can put them out of their misery.”
Martin had heard of people going ashen, but had never seen it until now. Elliott was that pale, that fast.
“Good Christ, I can’t kill them now they’re down.”
Devereaux said, “They’ll be in worse pain if you don’t, sir.”
“Sort them first.”
“Will do. Soap or just water for washing?”
Elliott clenched his jaw and sighed.
“Goddammit. Use soap. Do the best you can without using actual medical supplies.”
“Hooah, sir. I’ll need to rip their leather clothes into bandages.”
“Oh, keep weapons live, in case any are feeling heroically suicidal.”
Devereaux said, “If you can’t find a pulse, I can’t do anything here. Drag them and lay them out down by the latrine. Let me know on the rest.”
Since Barker was taking care of bodies near the base of the vehicles, Martin dropped down and started by the fire. The men there had been hit by 7.62mm from the M240B.
“These two are alive,” he said. Their eyes were open, and they were in absolute shock. One next to them, though . . . dead to the touch. And another had his torso ripped open. Dead.
The ones around the truck had fared better. One had a shattered shoulder and wasn’t likely to regain any use. One had been hit through the foot and would likely recover. Overall, there were twelve dead, four expectant, eight seriously wounded who Doc might be able to save, and thirteen limping and fixable but infection was always a possibility.
The attack had been fast, and they’d had no idea what the weapons could do, or at what range. The return fire had devastated them.
Devereaux looked over the three with gaping gut wounds and one lungshot.
“There is nothing I can do for them,” he said, looking frustrated. With modern gear and evac, most of them would survive. Here, nothing. “Gently as you can, place them on the flat ground over there.”
It was hard to be gentle with a man with ribs blown away. Barker took the legs, Martin folded the man’s arms across his chest and took the shoulders. With Barker leading, he just made sure the guy didn’t drag. A ruck or sleeping bag would make this easier, or a spare hide. They’d been converting hides to shelter as fast as they could scrape and smoke them. There weren’t any spares.
Devereaux said, “On the minor ones, start with washing and debriding. Two people per in case they struggle.”
Martin said, “Walking wounded first. We need to corral them, and make sure they understand it’s medicine.”
“Yeah.”
They found one guy with a crease through his arm, and washed and bound it. He was surprisingly lightly hurt, but clutched at his head. Inspection showed a contusion where he’d run into something.
Ortiz took care of most of the minor wounds, treating them apparently like livestock. That made sense. He scrubbed, washed, pulled, and wasn’t any too gentle, but didn’t seem to be trying to hurt them.
The one with the perforated foot seemed to grasp he was being treated, and clutched at himself as they rinsed the outside. His foot had already swollen and bruised. He wouldn’t be walking for days. The bullet might have broken bones, but had passed through. The whole instep was an angry purple mass and soft to the touch.
“Hey, Alexander, you got payback.”
She called back, “I’m thrilled. I’d rather have a working foot.”
“What about this shattered shoulder?” The bullet had destroyed the clavicle and the whole thing was a blood-drenched pile of hamburger.
Doc said, “I could attempt surgery, but I’d have to open it up a lot and he’d get infected. I’m going to jam the bones as close together as possible, and we strap him down. Maybe it’ll heal. Maybe he’ll be gimp. Maybe he gets infected and dies.”
It was scary. This could happen to any of them, with spears, hooves or a falling log. Doc’s resources were limited.
With two buddies gripping his patient’s other hand and legs, Devereaux ran fingers along the bones around the bullet wound, then massaged and pushed until they appeared mostly straight to Martin’s eye, though it was hard to tell with skin in the way. Then he slipped a do-rag under the arm and tied a figure eight, followed by strapping the arm down to the chest with gut. Shrugging, he held up the alcohol bottle.
“Will hurt, ow, ow.” He poured a splash into the wound and was rewarded with a pained, “NNarrrgh!”
That done, with Ortiz guarding the ones who were mostly functional, they turned to the tough part.
“Okay. Now those four expectant. We’ve got to do something.”
Elliott asked, “What ‘something’ can we do?”
Scratching his bushy hair, Devereaux said, “Either I use some of our painkiller, we cover them with blankets and wait for them to die, or we euthanize them. That’s all I can come up with.”
“How long do they have?”
He shrugged. “Minutes. Hours. Possibly days. If we give them water, they might last a week before infection and hunger do them in.”
They all stared uncomfortably at each other. Alexander was limp and on the truck. She was probably exempt.
“Draw straws?” Martin offered, feeling ill.
Ortiz said, “I can do it, I think. I’ll just have to close my eyes and think of cows.”
Elliott took a very deep breath.
“No. No one under my command is doing something that could be considered a war crime.” His voice was cold.
That sucked for the casualties, but he understood the logic. “Yes, sir.”
Still without emotion, Elliott said, “Give me the sharpest knife we have. Where do I cut?”
Devereaux said, “From here to here, sir,” and indicated on his throat.
Martin fumbled out his bowie. It was big, sharp, and perfectly balanced. He shook as he handed it over, hilt first.
Elliott took it, hefted it, turned and walked toward the four men.
They didn’t fight. They might have been in too much pain, or just accepting. One at a time, he pulled their heads up, placed the knife, and sliced. One of them twitched, one gurgled, the other two were probably close to death anyway. Pools of sticky blood soaked into the ground under their necks, and kept dripping from the deep cuts. It was almost black in the twilight.
The man came back looking completely stoned. He held the knife out at arm’s length, and Martin had to move around him to take it from the side.
Then Elliott slumped to his knees and burst out bawling.
Martin Spencer felt like crap, but with the LT down, and he wasn’t blaming the man, he took over.
“Okay, keep eyes on them. I need three volunteers, you with the light wounds there, there, there. Yes, you. Come with me.” He indicated with gestures.
He grabbed a shovel and took it along.
“Your dead friends. What do you want to do?” He pointed and shrugged.
He showed how to dig with it. Then offered it to them.
“Or the fire,” he said and pointed. “Oh. Crap. Barker, light a fire fast. Show them what we can do.”
“Hooah.”
Barker jogged to the truck, came back with a propane torch, and had flames in ten seconds.
“Burn?”
They looked back and forth, and one of them pantomimed piling stuff up.
“Ah. Mound burial. Makes sense in that terrain. Here? There?” he pointed at the ground and in the direction of their camp, then shrugged.
Hesitantly, one of them pointed back toward their camp.
“You can do that,” he nodded and indicated, or tried to. Point at body, wave arms toward camp.
They didn’t seem to grasp that they were free to go. They huddled together, obviously afraid of these superbeings who could call lightning down to rip holes and kill.
They weren’t going anywhere at present, it seemed, even if they had all been fit.
Did they wait for the Neolithics to go, send an envoy, bury them here, or drag them downstream for the wolves and scavengers? He hated to do the latter, but he didn’t want to put the effort into digging or mounding. They weren’t really up to it. Envoys would probably be poorly received. That left dragging the bodies farther downstream.
“Ortiz, Barker, I hate to ask, but we need those bodies away from camp unless and until the dweebs decide to do anything. Can you drag them down over the next lip?” He pointed into the shadowy dusk. Shit, it had been hours now.
Ortiz said, “I’m not keen to, but yes, that makes sense.”
“Thanks. Use a flashlight, too. My Fenix is three hundred lumens. Alexander, do you still have them covered?”
“The survivors aren’t giving me any hassle,” she said, sounding pained. “My foot, however, is killing me. I’ll be awake for hours.” She sat atop the turret with her foot out, and waved the M240B around from time to time.
This was a hell of a thing.
“Ortiz, after that, shoot them a goat. What they do with it is up to them. If they can’t get a fire started themselves, we’ll show them how awesome we are again.”
“Hooah.”
He was angry at the Neolithics for this. They’d been offered peace and rejected it, insisted on violence, and generally showed little restraint or forethought. Then they kept attacking even after they started dying from what were effectively magical weapons. The stupid tendency of humans to delude themselves into denying reality really pissed him off.
He hoped Caswell and company were doing better with the Urushu.
CHAPTER 19
Jenny Caswell was not enjoying the visit. The hosts were very hospitable, offering endless food, some of it palatable, and a comfortable hooch near the rock overhang. Their host was Ai!ee’s family, and she was overwhelmingly gracious since the surgery that gave her back her dignity and sex life. That was wonderful to see. Helping someone’s life was the greatest thing one could do for another human being.
Jenny had turned down three offers from men before they accepted, with Oglesby’s help, that her spirits didn’t allow mating.
“Your name and rank translates as ‘Jenny Leads Fighting,’” Oglesby said. “I told them your spirits require you to be celibate while you’re a sworn warrior. Though warrior isn’t a term they seem to have, either. If two people have a dispute, they sort of slap it out and move on. I think I’ve translated you as part shaman, part hunter, and part protector against predators.”
“Thank you. They’re so delightfully ignorant of some matters. It’s a shame they’re losing that.”
He said, “They are very friendly on the whole.”
“So how are you going to explain to your teenage girlfriend that you’re not available?”
He flushed.
On the one hand, she was glad he had sexual company that wasn’t her. All the men should be encouraged to do that. On another, she was near furious he’d exploited a recent rape survivor. Regardless of any approach, the girl had been vulnerable and seeking support, and he’d taken sex from it. The Urushu didn’t know different. He did.
Oglesby replied, “I said our spirits had not been unhappy, but told us it was a bad idea to become involved. I thanked her gratefully. She seemed a bit disappointed, but not badly hurt.”
“Good.” Actually, bad. But there wasn’t a good here. That would have to do.
The cave seemed to be where the elderly lived. She’d first thought the children should be there, for safety, but then realized it was a rocky climb, and while not that high up—maybe ten feet—it was very steep. It provided good shelter and they’d built hooches in it as well. It was perhaps fifteen feet deep, and ten feet tall at the open end. Lengthwise, it was fifty feet or so.
“Is Dalton behaving?” She pointed in his direction, over by one of the fire hearths under the cave lip. There were several younger women and a couple of men around him. The smoke rose, stained the rock and tumbled out. That seemed to help with bats and bugs as well. They were scarce.
“With my help, yes. He’s not been hitting on them, even though they’re interested in him.”
“Good.” She did another look around and headcount. If you knew how one group acted, you could usually spot the newcomers and outsiders.
“It looks like about three quarters of the men survived and are here or arriving, if I’m counting them right and your info is correct. So they lost about ten.”
“Yes. Some of the families and women managed to escape anyway. Both downstream and this way. The leader, Ashmi Wise, was killed.”
That first was a relief. It had been bad, but not destructive of the clan group.
“That’s sad. He was nice to us, hospitable. Can we do something in memorial for him?”
“They say we can smoke with them tonight.”
Ugh. That stuff. “We’ll try. Then we’ll leave in the morning, after assuring them they can visit. Now let’s talk to the elders again. Those late term pregnant women need to stop hauling things, or Doc will have more work.”
“Hooah.”
“Where’s their latrine?” she asked. She’d been holding it for hours, and . . . other issues.
He grimaced. “Yeah, about that. They go upstream, in the river. They get their drinking water down here. I have no idea why they think that’s a good idea.”
Ah. “I’ve heard of that.”
“Yeah?”
She explained, “It means a constant low-level of infection, which helps with immunity when other stuff comes downstream. It’ll be pretty dilute.”
“So we’re going to follow them?”
“No, we’ll fill a few meters upstream from the latrine area. Do they just squat in the water?” God, she wanted a real toilet.
“They seem to.”
This was not going to work well with her period. She would wrap the tampon in leaves and toss it in the fire just like in camp. A floater wouldn’t be a good thing.
And starting next month she’d be using cotton pads stitched out of T-shirts, stuffed with fluff and washed in cold water. It was the best she and Alexander had been able to devise, and Alexander was hand sewing them, or was supposed to. She should follow up. The older woman had memory issues with her thyroid problems.
Sanitation taken care of, with Dalton standing discreet guard as she squatted on rocks, she walked back into the village, rifle slung high across her chest where it was hard to mess with. The grabbiness never stopped, just varied between inquisitiveness and lust.
The place smelled of food, smoke, growth, river and sweaty people. They washed in the river, but only intimate areas. They seemed to occasionally wash hair or body if they got animal residue on themselves—they had a substantial processing industry set up. There were whole guts and cut strips smoking over a low fire. Hides were being tanned in a pit in a ground, and it stank fiercely when the breeze shifted. They scraped and carved wood and bone, and had lots of food being prepared for winter.
She found out what they did for diapers, or didn’t. Infants were in leather wraps with moss and grass. Once they were large enough to hold their heads up, the mothers seemed to know from minor sounds and motion when a baby was about to unload, and just carried them to the nearest bush or patch of grass. By the time they could walk, they knew what to do by themselves.
Dalton said, “If they just understood better hand washing and had an actual latrine, or even the river, they’d be pretty modern.”
“I suspect the smell helps deter animals. This place smells like rot, sweat and predator waste.”
“True.”
Ai!ee and her family had relocated here without harm, and were very gracious hosts. They had a late dinner ready, or a continuation of earlier dinner. They were around a fire in front of a new hooch, with more boughs and hides as an awning, with more food. It was roasted fish, and there were several seasonings. Besides salt, there were several oniony things and something almost like sage.
“What is this?” she asked through Oglesby, and they showed her leaves that did look a lot like sage.
“Where?”
All over, apparently. She’d need to look for that. While grain wasn’t yet possible, she might manage an herb and tuber garden. But she wished for some real carrots. These fibrous white things weren’t carrots, weren’t parsnips and weren’t much of anything, except filler. They even came out the other end about the same texture.
The family ate from skewers over the fire and stuff grilled on rocks, just as the troops did, with a carved wooden bowl for serving small bits they scooped out by hand. Right hand only.
After dinner, everyone gathered under the rock overhang, around a fire that was large enough for light and radiance. This was important to them.
She sniffed lightly as the weed bundle came by, but Oglesby took a huge, sucking puff. Dalton was fairly reserved, too.
There was drumming and singing and then the local matriarch gestured for her to stand.
“Oglesby, can you translate?” she asked.
“Mostly, if you keep it simple,” he said slowly. Yeah, he was stoned.
“No more weed for you.”
“Hooah.”
She stood and looked around.
“Thank you for your hospitality. You are all very gracious. We appreciate learning about your foods and ways, which we can use ourselves. We’re very glad the spirits could guide us to reunite your families. We hope there will be peace between all the groups soon.”
She left it at that, not wanting to overdo it, and sat down.
The matriarch threw the weed into the fire, then spat after it.
Oglesby said, “This is apparently a prayer to the spirits, and an appeal that they know these people. We’re supposed to spit, too.”
“Easy enough,” she said, worked up some saliva, and spit.
The drumming resumed. It was a simple beat, and the dancers tranced the way a lot of aboriginal peoples did. After the third couple excused themselves to find a corner, she tapped Oglesby on the shoulder. He was half nodding off from the smoking stuff. Hell, call it “drugs,” that’s what it was.
“Back down,” she said. They needed rest and they needed to find a secure place.
Down below, Ai!ee’s mate, Ktral, tried to insist they take the inside of the wickiup, while he, his mate, another woman and four kids moved out.
“Tell them they’re very gracious, but we thank them very much for hosting us. We will be very comfortable outside, and want them to enjoy their beds.”
Oglesby said, “I think I got across comfort. ‘Enjoy bed’ means something else.”
“Well, they can do that, too. Thanks for transliterating.”
“No problem.”
The troops split into three-hour watches, and she took first rotation. It sounded as if Ktral was enjoying the bed, with at least one of the women. Other tents and bricked rooms in the cave had similar sounds. It was like the first village. People’s hearths were private, and you didn’t mention it.
It was cold, but they were well dressed. When Dalton relieved her, she doffed boots, loosened them enough for night trips, and shimmied into her sleeping bag with the bivvy cover. That and the woven awning was enough shelter, now that they were used to the environment, and were in a village. They were adapting to this place, though sometimes things were still awkward.
No music or video. All their devices were powered down unless needed in an emergency. They were just three people with odd clothes.
The soldiers were left alone under the awning, and it was an uneventful night.
Which meant they’d done their job right. So why was she unhappy?
Dan Oglesby woke. Three hours and three hours rest, with three hours on watch in between, was rough.
Breakfast was some berries and parched acorn cake, and utterly delicious, crisp and sweet, hot off a rock. After that, they stuffed their bivvy bags, and started rucking.
A shout from the locals caught his attention.
Five hunters and two others planned to come with them.
Caswell asked, “What are they about?”
The lead man was named Ak!tash, and pointed into his mouth. Oglesby caught, “pain” and “broken.” Another raised a foot. “Stuck skin” was the explanation.
“One has a rotten tooth. One seems to have one of those warts on the sole.”
“Plantar wart.”
“Yes. They’re going to see Doc. The rest are escort, honor guard, sightseers, and general friends.”
She shrugged. “Okay, I guess we take them. Dalton, point for now. I’ll take rear. We’ll swap out at rest breaks.”
“Hooah. Onward.”
The seven Urushu took the middle, but milled around, covering the flanks and chattering away.
Ak!tash was tall, possibly over seven feet, with a lumpy head and jaw and big joints. Wasn’t that a symptom of giantism?
“Dan Who Speaks, do your spirits say we be friends now?”
“The spirits talk to the chief and Martin shaman. They decide. I hope we can be friends even if we don’t visit.”
“You are only ten,” he held up fingers. “You should come our camp. You would be very good to stay.”
“There is good and bad for staying, but your words are nice-nice and clever. Thank you.”
Those cakes were awesome. Acorn flour and rice. Not as good as real bread, but damn, they needed to make those in the meantime. He did have the recipe.
“You show how your thunderspears work.”
“Only the spirits and some shamans know that, Ak!tash.” It was true to a point. He had no idea about alloys, chemistry or mechanics. Barker and Spencer would talk about those, and lock time, pressure curves, and other stuff. All he gathered was they might make flintlocks in this life, but not modern rifles.
Five hours later he was on point and they were in sight of the COB. He wasn’t sure what to report to the LT over a couple of issues. He first wanted some modern food, as modern as their resources allowed, and a soak in the sweat lodge.
The east wall was started, covering about twenty feet. There were visibly fewer trees along the stream banks. That was reassuring.