Time's Last Gift Read Free

The remaining deer got away, except for a buck that slipped when he leaped across a brook. Before he could get up again, he found two wolves tearing at his legs. These were joined by others, and the wolves quit running.
    Gribardsun had been watching with keen interest. He put the binoculars down and said, ‘And to think that the only wolves in our time were in zoos or small reservations. These beasts have a whole world to roam in. And there must be millions of them.’
    ‘Sometimes I think you’re the zoologist,’ Rachel said.
    ‘I am a naturalist.’
    He turned and looked down the valley where they had seen the man. He had long ago hidden behind a rock and, though Gribardsun had stopped on the way up the hill to search for him with his binoculars, he had failed to find him. Now the man, having seen the four leave the vessel, was approaching it.
    ‘Curiosity kills more than a cat,’ Gribardsun said.
    The man’s home might be a little way off or many miles. The expedition had quite a few daylight hours left, so they might as well take advantage of it. There was much work to do.
    He allowed the others to collect their samples of soil, plants, and rocks and to take some more photographs. Then he said that they should return to the vessel, store their samples, pick up food and trinkets, and set out up the valley to look for a human habitation.
    They started back down the slope. The man was within a hundred yards of the great torpedo shape. Seeing the four coming down the hill, he ducked behind a boulder. He remained there until Gribardsun opened the port of the vessel. Then he rose and, bending over, ran to a more distant rock. Drummond Silverstein took some more films of him.
    They packed their bags and strapped them onto their backs. Gribardsun took the 500-caliber express rifle. Von Billmann and Drummond carried the rifles which shot anesthetic darts. Rachel carried a 30-caliber automatic rifle. Each had an automatic pistol in the holster at his belt, and they had explosive and gas grenades in their sacks.
    They started up the valley and presently came to a small stream which meandered down to the river below. They followed along the stream for a time. The man kept ahead of them by a quarter of a mile.
    At the end of two miles, they decided to climb up through the base of the cliffs. There were some overhangs that looked interesting. These turned out to have been inhabited by men, judging from the rude hearths of stone, the bones, flint, and chert fragments, and pieces of wood and fur. A half mile on, they found a narrow cave which stank as if hyenas had once lived there. Rachel said that she would study it later and determine what hyenas ate and so forth. She threw some rocks into the interior but got no result.
    They walked five miles before they came to the man’s home. The valley suddenly widened here, and the overhang which housed human beings was at the top of a steep slope. They could not see any women or children from this angle, but the twelve men would not have gathered in full sight on the edge of the hill unless they had something to defend.
    Gribardsun looked around before giving the order to ascend. It seemed likely that there would be other men out hunting, and he did not want to be surprised by men attacking from behind.
    The man they had first seen had scrambled up ahead of them to warn the others. Now he stood with the others, brandishing his spear and yelling at the invaders.
    Gribardsun activated the bullhorn device on his chest and then told the others to drop about a hundred feet behind him. He looked for large rocks on the lip of the hill. He was ready to jump if they rolled any down on them. But there did not seem to be any nor was there evidence at the foot of the hill that they had rolled any down in the past.
    He wondered what the natives were thinking. There were twelve warriors there, defending their home territory, and there were only three men and a woman boldly approaching them. Their