"Farmer, Philip Jose - Time's Last Gift (1972)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Farmer Phillip Jose)

Nevertheless, the natives were dangerous. They must have fought enemy humans and they must have hunted the dangerous mammoth, rhinoceros, cave bear, and cave lion.

Gribardsun got well within range of the spears before he held up his hand for the others to stop. He advanced slowly then, speaking through the bullhorn. His voice, like a thunder god's, bellowed at them. They stopped yelling and waving their weapons when the first words struck them. Even at this distance he could see their flushed skins turn pale.

He stopped, too, and pulled out a Very gun and fired it straight up into the air. The parachute expanded from the stick, at two hundred feet, and as it fell it burned a bright green and then a bright scarlet and then exploded loudly at a fifty-foot altitude.

The warriors became rigid and silent.

They must have wanted to run, but that would have meant abandoning the women and children. And that they would not do.

Gribardsun approved of this. Though they must have fell a terrible awe of this evil magician, yet they stood their ground.

The Englishman held out both hands - his express rifle was still supported by a strap over his shoulder - and he advanced smiling.

A tall heavily built man with dark red hair mingled with gray stepped out of the line and approached Gribardsun slowly. The brown-haired man whom the party had followed also came down the slope though he stayed a few feet behind the red-haired man. The chief held a big stone axe in his right hand and a thick-shafted spear in his left. He was about as tall as Gribardsun.

The Englishman spoke through the bullhorn again. At the thundering speech, the chief and his companion stopped. But Gribardsun continued to smile, and then he turned the amplifier off, lowering his hand slowly so he would not alarm the two. After that, he raised his hand and spoke with his normal voice. The eyes of the two widened at this. However, they seemed to understand that the change in loudness was meant to signify friendliness.

Gribardsun walked slowly upward until he was about ten feet from them. At this range, he could see that both were quivering. But it was the alienness of the intruders that was making them shake, not the prospect of combat.

Gribardsun talked and at the same time made signs to reinforce the words. He used the sign language of the Kalahari bushmen, not because he expected the sign language of these people - if they had any - to coincide but because the signs would be additional reassurances of his peaceful intentions.

He told them that the four came from a far place and that they brought gifts and that they were friends.

The chief finally smiled and lowered his weapons, though he still kept his distance. The other man also smiled. The chief turned, still watching Gribardsun out of the corner of his eyes, and shouted at the warriors above. Then he beckoned Gribardsun to follow him, and he and the brown-haired man preceded the four. At the top they found themselves ringed by the warriors but these made no threatening gestures.

The four could now see that there was a large camp under the immense limestone overhang. The north end was 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.