Time's Last Gift Read Free Page B

blocked by stones piled on top of each other and part of the eastern end was also blocked. There were about thirty ‘wigwams,’ tents of skin supported by wooden poles, near the rear of the overhang. Gribardsun counted thirty adult women, ten juvenile girls, six juvenile males, and thirty-eight children. Later, when hunters returned, the total adult male population would be twenty-four.
    There were small fires in every hearth and wooden spits over many, some of which held skinned and gutted rabbits, marmots, birds, and parts of a bear. In one corner was a wooden cage in which was a bear cub. Before one of the tents was a pole held up by a pile of rocks and dirt. Stuck on its end was a bear skull easily as large as the largest of the Kodiak bears of Gribardsun’s time. Gribardsun wondered if the skull and the cub meant that the tribe had a bear cult.
    Water would have to be brought up from the river. A number of skin bags on the dirt floor seemed to hold water.
    There were bones all over the place, and a strong odor from the north indicated that human excrement was dropped over the edge of the hill on the other side of the rude wall. The odor of the natives, and their matted hair and beards and dirty skins, showed that they cared little for personal cleanliness.
    Gribardsun walked over to the nearest tent and looked inside without objection from anybody. There were very low beds with wooden frames and furs piled on top. On one lay a boy of about ten. He stank of sickness.
    Gribardsun crawled into the tent after telling Rachel to hold the skin flap open for him. The boy looked at him with glazed eyes. He was too sick to be frightened by the stranger.
    A woman shouted something outside and then crawled in to watch the stranger. She was making sure that the mysterious man with the voice like thunder did not intend to harm her child.
    Gribardsun smiled at her but also made a gesture for her not to interfere.
    He put a reflector on his head and shone a light into the boy’s eyes and down his throat and into his ears. The boy submitted though he trembled with fear.
    Gribardsun had to decide whether or not to take samples of skin tissue, blood, saliva, and urine. So many of the preliterate societies he had known had objected to giving specimens. They feared that these would be used against them by evil magic. If this tribe had the same superstitions, it might react violently, no matter how awed they were at this moment.
    He considered. The flat instrument he had applied to the boy’s skin indicated a fever of 104° Fahrenheit. The skin was flushed and dry. The breath was foul. The heartbeat was eighty-five per minute. The breathing was rapid and shallow. These symptoms could mean a dozen different diseases. He needed specimens for a diagnosis.
    He could just back off and let nature, or whatever the local witch doctor might have in the way of efficacious medicine, do its work. He had been warned that he should not get involved with medical matters if he thought that his interference might backfire. After all, everybody he would meet was doomed to die, would have been dead for almost fourteen thousand years when he was born. But procedure was left to his discretion. If he thought he could cure a sick native, and thereby aid the goal of the project, he could proceed. But if he did not wish to endanger the project, he could just let the natives die.
    There was no question of concern about his interference changing the course of events. Whatever he was to do had been done, and events and lives had been determined before he was born even if he had helped determine them.
    Gribardsun’s back kept the mother from seeing what he was doing. She said something in a protesting tone, but he paid no attention. He stuck the tip of the instrument against the arm, twisted a little knob on its side, the syringe filled with blood. He drew off some saliva from lie boy’s open mouth. Getting urine would be difficult only if the mother objected. He