None of that mattered here. I needed these guys to be better shooters. I’d already used up a precious fifty lances having them practice. They were uniformly abysmal. They didn’t have the first idea how to aim or adjust for range.

  My first thought had been to take the Nine and teach them. I’d have them help me teach the rest later. I hadn’t wanted to think about trying to teach fifty Neanderthals all at once how to shoot.

  My days were endless outdoor work trying to train the Nine, trying to get them into shape as a military unit. They were tough. I didn’t want to fight Skarl again: partly because I had the feeling he’d absorbed some of my fighting tricks. It wouldn’t be as easy next time.

  Skarl came to me one evening after we finished our haunches of meat. He asked me to teach him my fighting technique. I thought about it, and agreed.

  Later, I showed him moves and we practiced. He practiced with some of the others on his own.

  I could feel the Nine growing more confident against me. They became cocky at times. I suspect they figured we know his tricks now. He can’t hurt us.

  They might think they knew, but one thing was certain, they were built differently from me and that gave me a few advantages using Marine methods.

  There was another problem. It wasn’t only that their bodies were different from mine. Their brains weren’t the same. I’m not saying I was superior. I’m saying their brains used different patterns, and that was critical. Their brains didn’t grok the idea of long-ranged fire. Nor were they particularly nimble. They were crafty in close-quarter fighting. I suspect they were devastating while taking down the huge animals of the tundra, of the Stone Age. They’d probably been apex predators for a long time on Earth until the Cro-Magnon men came along and showed them what’s what. You didn’t have to be all bulky muscle and an expert in close combat to win. You could be nimble. You could be clever. You could use your brain to lay traps.

  All right, I’ve been on a rant, and that was it.

  I tried to teach these guys. I continued with the rock throwing. They became a little more proficient than when we’d first begun. Then I went for it and tried to show them every trick, every pitching idea I could.

  Zog got a little better. Skarl wasn’t bad. Another two started to throw better, Drogar in particular. He was the skinniest of the Nine, the youngest, and that probably made a difference. The three and one other began to perceive there was a use for ranged stone throwing.

  “Think about it,” I said one day on the practice field. “Suppose you have a bag of rocks and you’re approaching an enemy like yourself. You pelt him several times with rocks from a distance so they hurt.”

  “This would just goad him,” said a bruiser named Grax, “into rushing me faster.”

  I clapped my hands and pointed at Grax. “You use that. As he’s rushing you, pelt him a couple more times, hit him hard. Hit him in the head so you stun him. Then grab your spear and run him through while he stands there dazed.”

  “Ah,” Skarl said, his brown eyes alight with understanding.

  Was this a breakthrough?

  We practiced more rock throwing.

  When a few started rubbing their sore shoulders, I called a break.

  I had them sit and paraded back and forth before them. “A few of you are beginning to see that ranged attacks have their use. I’m not saying that is better than fighting close. I’m just saying ranged attacks have their use. That’s why you have the lances. When a flying saucer comes to kill you, you target it, and fire enough to bring it down so it doesn’t kill all your buddies. When we attack the First Folk, that will allow the rest to get close enough to the mine that we can storm the entrance. Even if they have sharpshooters posted—”

  “What’s a sharpshooter?” Zog asked, interrupting.

  I explained, seeing a little bit of understanding in Skarl, Drogar and Zog’s eyes.

  “Listen,” I added. “That’s why the First Folk have kept you down for so long. They have nimble ideas. They use your strengths against you. Our plan will use their strengths against them.”

  “I thought we were using their low numbers against them,” Skarl said.

  “That too,” I said, deciding to give it a break.

  Later, we practiced firing the lances. As a group, the Nine were perceptibly better than before. Even so, I had small hope with these guys. I’d guess they’d have to fire twenty more lances each before they got the hang of it, never mind precision firing.

  Would that be enough, though? Twenty times seven was one hundred and forty shots each. I thought how many times I’d been on the firing range. One hundred and forty would hardly do squat.

  We’d have to use up lance after lance after lance. Right, there wasn’t going to be fifty shooters. These Nine, and me, would be it.

  I’d need my phasor and Colt. I’d be the Terminator then. The Nine would be my backup. We’d have to unleash the others into the mines.

  I thought about the mines—narrow corridors, junctions. A few First Folk with phasors could stop hordes of club-wielding Neanderthals down there. The Nine would die one by one taking out phasor strongpoints so the rest could keep charging.

  Could nine Neanderthals with ancient missile-launching lances change the fate of Garm? It had been one Marine in the Chaunt System doing that last journey, although I’d had backup in Philip and Livi.

  I didn’t want to think about Livi because I’d only been spending time with the guys. I missed Livi badly. I needed to forget about her, as these guys didn’t even have any beer to help drown my sorrow.

  Man, oh man, these Neanderthals were backward in so many ways. That didn’t make sense, either. How could Earth have advanced so far in these six or seven thousand years since the destruction of the Harmony? And these guys had hardly advanced at all.

  That was something I wanted to ask Gruum, as it might prove critical to what happened next.

  -23-

  After two weeks of training, I asked for an audience with Gruum.

  Ask and you shall receive.

  Once more, I went into his chamber deep in the cave.

  He sat on the same sofa, but his hands shook where last time they hadn’t. He looked even more withered and old than before.

  “The arms trainer,” he said in a raspy voice.

  I opened my mouth to reply.

  One-eyed Brakka with the brass tube practically snarled at me, ready to whack me at the first impropriety.

  I closed my mouth and bowed respectfully to Gruum.

  “You say nothing?” Gruum asked.

  “Sir, it is an honor to see you again. I hope you’re feeling well.”

  Gruum shook his head. He then convulsed and started coughing until he spat phlegm on the floor. That ended the coughing bout.

  “Perhaps I should leave,” I said.

  Gruum shook his head.

  “In that case, sir, may I speak to you privately?”

  “Privately?” Brakka asked. “Do you wish to kill our guiding light?” He raised his brass tube, no doubt to smack me good and hard.

  “No, no,” Gruum wheezed, “cease this.” He eyed me. “Why do you wish to speak privately? I do not understand.”

  “Because I may ask questions that’ll cause Brakka here to jump up and smack me in the back a few times. I’m only gonna allow it once or twice before I take the pole and shove it up his—”

  I barely stopped myself from saying what I’d planned to.

  Gruum coughed and spat out more phlegm.

  Brakka hurried near and gave him a cup of water. Clearly, back-whacking Brakka loved Gruum and worried about him. It was a redeeming feature, how about that.

  “Go over there,” Gruum whispered, “stand in earshot. If I shout, you may come. But you must let the arms instructor talk to me.”

  Gruum coughed again after Brakka departed.

  I sat on one of the folding chairs, waiting.

  Gruum dabbed at his lips with a rag and nodded for me to speak.

  “Sir, I appreciate this. I’m sorry to see you feeling off.”

  “It was the exertion the first day you came and later the fight. I knew I was pushing myself. I shouldn’t have done so much. Brakka tells me to rest, to take it easy, but I must see this done. Only I have the will and the insight to keep the others together so we may accomplish the great goal. Only I truly understand your worth, how important you are to us. You not only bring your wonderful knowledge and skills, but you think differently. Your mind is not like ours. We are different, you and I, are we not, Bayard?”

  “Yes, sir, we’re quite different. I’ve been pondering that. Whatever else, though, you Neanderthals are tough.”

  Gruum coughed and didn’t comment upon that.

  “Sir…I don’t understand your technological backwardness.”

  He looked at me, his eyes red and rheumy.

  “If you feel I’m insulting you, sir, I apologize. It wasn’t meant as an insult. I’m trying to understand.”

  “No, no,” Gruum said. “Speak, speak. You likely have penetrating insights. You’re a Traveler. I’ve thought about that, you see. You’ve gone to other worlds and seen many things, and you have likely integrated them. That perhaps is one of the powers of the First Folk.”

  “Undoubtedly,” I said. “Sir, our world is not as backward as yours. And yet the Harmony broke at the same time for both of us, likely in a matter of a few years.”

  “Yes, yes, I suppose that is true.”

  “What can you tell me about your world’s history?”

  Gruum shook his head. “I know little of our history. We have a few legends, but as to what happened in the intervening years, we know little. At some time in the past, the First Folk appeared. Sometime after that, we became slaves and servants, working in their mines. There used to be more mines. Now…” He shook his head and coughed, the wheeze in his throat making me wince.

  Old Gruum was much more feeble than I’d thought.

  I outlined some of my thoughts regarding shooters. “Sir, do you think these lances were used by Neanderthals in the distant past?”

  “Yes, yes, I certainly believe that. I point to the gauntlets as further evidence. They were made for hands such as ours, the helmets for heads such as ours, not for a head like yours. If you’ve noticed, our heads are shaped differently and sit differently upon our shoulders.”

  “That’s a good point,” I said. “I wonder if the lances were ceremonial weapons. They have function and certainly can do harm, but they don’t have an aiming apparatus. It strikes me as an odd weapon to arm warriors. Like I said, it seems ceremonial.”

  “Explain that,” he said.

  I told him about the Pope and his Swiss Guards, how the Swiss were armed with weapons from the Middle Ages, not modern combat weapons others would use.

  “I begin to perceive,” he said. “What is your point?”

  “I think Neanderthals on Garm have regressed in the use of ranged weapons. The Nine I can train into shooters. They’re beginning to climb that ladder, so to speak. But it’s gonna take a lot of missiles and a lot of lances to train them. Fifty shooters? I don’t know if another forty-one Neanderthals can learn with the amount of lances we would have left. I don’t know if they’ll have the time, either.”

  “Time? I don’t understand. Can we not take all the time we need?”

  “What if you die?”

  Gruum stared at me until a glimmer of understanding hit. “If I die, the entire enterprise might disintegrate.”

  “That’s right. Besides which, I think we have to strike sooner rather than later. If the First Folk get an idea about what we’re doing, maybe they can bring reinforcements from other worlds. What if they take others from a different planet and bring them here? What if they use a small group on many worlds? That means we should strike while we can and before reinforcements arrive on Garm.”

  Gruum stroked his scraggly beard.

  “That’s the other thing, sir. Do we have any mobile platforms to move equipment or warriors quickly?”

  “We have woolly mammoth riders.”

  “Nothing else?” I asked.

  Gruum shook his head.

  “How many phasors do you have?”

  “A few,” he said cryptically.

  “You should give them all to me.”

  Furrows deepened on his forehead. “Why is that?”

  “Because if we take woolly mammoths, I’m certain flying saucers will show up. The only thing that is going to take them down is if I’m wearing the special glasses and have a good supply of phasors. If I drop a few saucers fast, there’s a chance we can bring everything else close to the mines and deploy. I’m hoping to scare the rest of the saucers away.”

  “I see, I see. How soon would you be ready to strike?”

  “How soon can you collect your three hundred?” I asked.

  “They’re being collected even as we speak. In several more weeks, they should all be here.”

  “They’ve been ranging in the various valleys?”

  Gruum nodded. “That way, there is enough wild game to feed them all.”

  “That’s what I thought. In several weeks, we should go for it.”

  “I’ll return your Colt, I believe you call it. There are two magazines of bullets left. I’ll keep the phasors and your special glasses until we’re ready to leave. I have three by the way. Will that be enough?”

  “It’s gonna have to be enough. One last thing. You’d better get stronger, because you’re gonna have to come with us in order to keep everyone under control.”

  “Yes, yes, you have a point.”

  “Figure out the transport and how you’re gonna divide the different commands. I’ll get the Nine as ready as possible.”

  “Good, that is good to hear.” Gruum started coughing again, and this time he wouldn’t stop.

  “Hey, Brakka!” I shouted. “Get in here!”

  Brakka came running, dropping the brass tube so it clattered on the floor. He rushed to Gruum and ministered to him until finally the coughing stopped.

  Then Brakka picked up frail old Gruum and carried him to the bed, setting him in it and tucking him under the covers. Brakka then squatted like a savage on guard. No doubt, he’d stay there until Gruum got better or died.

  I took my leave, wondering about the low technological state of these Neanderthals. What had happened in those six thousand years—or seven thousand—since the shattering of the Harmony? I didn’t know that I was going to receive an answer any time soon.

  -24-

  It was funny, but I got an answer to the question three days later.

  I’d given the Nine more difficult assignments, and they practiced, using up a hundred more lances.

  That was a lot, but I was trying to get the Nine ready fast so they knew what to do. They were better than before, and they understood more.

  I’d started to develop in them the idea of firing as a unit and using over watch. One squad of three, I figured that was the easiest number, would stay still, providing covering fire. The other two squads would scramble forward until one dropped down to providing covering fire for the rest. The back squad then jumped up and started hurrying forward.

  They were beginning to grok the idea and the theories behind it.

  It was a crazy system in one way, but it was better than advancing with spears and flint-tipped axes. Maybe there was a chance we could do this. If we couldn’t, I didn’t think I was going anywhere else soon. I’d be stuck on Garm, having to live the rest of my days with these muscle-bound Neanderthals.

  They weren’t the worst company in the world, I have to admit, but they were starting to wear on me, especially with the idea that I’d have to spend the rest of my life with them. I wanted to see Livi. Oh, I wanted to see Livi. I wanted to know what was going on with her. I kept thinking about Bok and the others, too. It ate at me that I hadn’t done anything for Bok, anything to help my blood brother. That was going to change after this. I vowed it.

  On the third day after speaking with Gruum—

  I heard he was doing better. He’d had a fever, but it had passed. He was gaining strength again. I didn’t know if that was a PR snow job, but then again I didn’t know if the Neanderthals were clever enough to use propaganda.

  They were straight shooters in that sense, which was a strength. However, it made them meat for guys like the First Folk, and maybe for guys like me.

  In any case, I was strolling near a lake, watching fish jump and taking it easy while enjoying the idyllic scenery, the ease and comfort. Then I heard a voice I hadn’t heard in a while.

  “Hello, Jake Bayard.”

  I whirled around.

  Philip the Homo habilis stood before me. He was a hundred pound, chimpanzee hairy, five-foot-even dude, the size of a junior high geek. He wore clothes, and he stared at me, smiling.

  I didn’t understand how this could be happening.

  I drew my Colt, aimed at him, with a round already in the chamber. I couldn’t remember chambering it, but I knew the automatic was ready to fire. I was ready to put a bullet in his crafty hominid brain.

  “You can fire if you want,” Philip said, amused. “It won’t do you any good, though, as it won’t kill me.”

  “Did you want me to test that?”

  “If you desire.”

  I did desire.

  Philip shimmered before I could pull the trigger. He shimmered like bad TV reception.

  I frowned and scowled, finally understanding. “You’re not real.”

  “Oh, this is me, Jake. Believe it. I’m very real.”

  “You’re not flesh and blood, this projection in front of me.”

  “Oh. Well. This is a holographic projection, if that’s what you mean.”

  I looked up into the sky.

  “That’s good, Bayard. You’re not like these dull Neanderthals. You actually use your brain once in a while.”

  There had to be a flying saucer in the distance projecting the image, beaming it to this spot.

  “FYI,” Philip said. “The…vehicle in question can also launch missiles, so I hope you’ll pay attention. And I do hope you don’t force me to launch the missile and kill you.”