Episode 05 Huntsmen of Pangaea

  Bruised, aching, and bleeding, Preston Lost stood on the slope of the jungle-covered mountain shoulder and laughed. The horncalls of the huntsmen hounding him rang in his ears. Above him was a strange red sun and dark purple sky of the unknown, far-future ages.

  Around him was the deadly fauna and flora of primitive, prehistoric eons. How future and past were mingled, he did not know. The lay of the land and the dangers of these unknown beasts he did not know. The number, position, and resources of the huntsmen he did not know. Their reasons for hunting him he also did not know.

  But he knew the hunt. That he was, for once, the object of the hunt did not change that. He was on familiar turf. He knew what to do.

  Most prey flee directly away from the noisy beaters and trumpeters, and therefore into the arms of the silent huntsmen. That was assuming the hunt had time to prepare.

  In this case, however, Preston assumed his presence on this strange, latter-day earth was as much as surprise to his foes as it was to himself. In that case the horns were sounding off to allow the parties to identify their positions to each other. On the other hand, it meant parties were already in the field. Which meant what?

  He shimmied up a tall tree. The crown gave him a wide view of the surrounding landscape.

  This place was a mountain range whose slopes were overgrown with jungle. The lower slopes and the valleys between the peaks carried the lush trees and ferns typical of tropics. A different shade of green ruled the higher slopes: these were conifers. Above the treeline was snow.

  Preston stared in awe at the scene framed by a high and snowy peak to his left and a higher volcano cone looming to his right. For here was an unobstructed view of the great pass leading down and down into the world below.

  Below the mountains were tablelands. In shape, these were reminiscent of the North American southwest. In texture, these green mesas looked like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Jungle growth covered high, flat surfaces, and drooped from the bare, rocky sheer sides. It was as if the deserts of Nevada and Arizona had been recently overgrown and swamped by the jungles of Mexico and Panama.

  And far, far below, the canyons and lowlands were covered in a mist the weak red sunlight did not pierce. In his practiced eye, Preston judged this volcano-pocked mountain range to be taller than the Rockies or Andes, taller than the Himalayas, all of which he had tramped, at one time or another, for months.

  He felt giddy, sick with disorientation. What year could this be? It was far enough in the future that the sun and moon were changed. Far enough for new mountains to rise and landscapes to sink. Far enough for evolution to change man into little gray shapes with eyes like nocturnal beasts, or into strange giraffe-men with mottled skins.

  "Get a grip on yourself, man," he muttered aloud. "You are the elephant now; you are the wounded tiger. You are the one being hunted. No time for second thoughts. You went looking to find out where the flying saucers came from. Well, no complaints. You found them. Now how do you get the heck away from them?"

  For he looked up into the purple sky, and saw, bright as a shining dime, the disk of the flying machine. He squinted, but could not make out what the crewman was doing. Preston mentally reviewed the contents of the survival kit he had so carefully packed. To be sure, it had a signaling mirror, two whistles, a strobelight, and a bright orange weather blanket. All things mean to catch the attention of a search plane. But camouflage netting, or other gear to help him elude aerial pursuit, he did not have. And no binoculars.

  As it turned out, he needed none. The figure raised a horn and sounded a fanfare of notes. Then he flourished a flag and waved it in a pattern of circles and figure-eights. Semaphore.

  “Why do they have antigravity and powered flight, but they do not have radio?” Preston said aloud. “A time traveling flying saucer with no radio set. What gives?”

  He decided to shelve the question until another day. Now he scanned the peaks and forests of this mountainous jungle. He was looking for an encampment. He was imagining something like a prison or a castle, some fortified position which would maintain patrols around it.

  In two places, he saw smoke rising, which might have come from chimneys or cookfires, but then he saw three other places were smokes where rising from crevasses or ash cones. Those two might be the encampment he hypothesized. Or might not.

  “Who knows what the forts here look like? I could be staring right at one and not seeing it,” he muttered.

  He heard horn calls again.

  In the distance, but not as distant as he would have liked, he saw a large group of figures silhouetted against the purple sky as they came over the crest of a hill, a spot clear of trees. The figures were manlike, upright, but some were twice or thrice as tall as the others. It looked like a party of adults mixed with children or midgets. He counted over forty.

  He did not see the distinctive long necks and Mohawk haircuts of the motley men.

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  They were headed toward him. The flying disk must have seen his direction.

  Loping along with this group were shaggy, doglike shapes, low to the ground. That was bad.

  Preston clambered swiftly down the tree. He froze on a branch ten feet above ground. Sitting on his haunches, staring up at him meditatively, was the cat-faced ring-tailed primate he had dubbed Smiley. Or was it the same one?

  The simian smacked his lips, and gestured with a manlike forepaw. It was the same one.

  “No more food for you,” said Preston, sliding to the ground. “Great White Hunter need heap big grub to keep him much strong, Ug! You savvy?”

  Smiley drooped at the tone of voice, and made his eyes so big and round and sad with unspoken pleading, that Preston laughed.

  “You remind me of my favorite mutt I used to own. Or, actually, all of them. On second thought, once I run out of rations, I will need to find someone like you, someone with a digestive tract like mine, to tell me what is good around here to eat. But the immediate order of business is getting away from the hounds. If you can keep up, I can use the company. Which way?”

  Smiley looked up, eyes bright with hope, but made no reply.

  He found his ration bar, broke off a crumb, tossed it to the beast. “The other good thing is that when I talk to myself as I slowly go mad, it will look like I am talking to you. Why that makes sense, we can discuss some other time. Come on.”

  He checked his boots, tightened his laces with a fork, and set off uphill. He alternated jogging, running, walking.

  As they started off, he explained his plan to Smiley, who loped along sometimes beside, sometimes before him, sometimes trailing.

  “I figure it like this. We keep under the canopy, and avoid meadows. Make for higher ground, until we reach the conifers. The flying saucer does not seem to have any fancy gear like the Shooting Star — that is my crate, remind me to tell you about her sometime, because she is a beaut — so won’t be able to track us from the air.”

  On they ran. Once he stopped briefly to go to the bathroom, and to tend his wounds. He pulled out shards of glass from the back of his head as best he could by himself, using his signal mirror to guide his groping hand. He applied stinging antiseptic to his neck, and then sterile gauze. He removed his glove to wrap his burnt hand, hoping to minimize the blistering.

  Smiley watched, wide eyed.

  “Nope, the main problem is dogs. Assume those are like bloodhounds, because it is suicide not to assume the worst. You ever heard about tricks escaped prisoners can pull, such as crossing a lake or stream to throw off the scent? Don’t work. Little skin cells float to the water surface, leaving a scent trail, and all the hound has to do is circle the lake. Same for climbing trees. Scent sticks to the bark. And gimmicks like changing clothes, washing in scented soap, leaving a dead fish on the trail, running in circle or doubling back? Won’t fool a trained hound.”

  He took no particular pains to hide his footprints, but he did swerve when he could to go through briar patches, thick thorns, rough footing. He followed the path of greatest resistance.

  “You are probably wondering why I am just running, and picked the worst ground I can. Well, you cannot outsmart a bloodhound. Their sense of smell is too good. And you cannot really wear them down in the long run. The reason why the cavemen domesticated the dog was because dogs could keep up with the hunters running after wounded game. You see, persistence is our one advantage, we primates. So you and I are not betting on wearing out the hounds. We are betting on wearing out the houndskeepers.”

  The first time he pushed through the bed of a plant that seemed half cactus and half Venus flytrap, Smiley leaped on his back, startling Preston. Smiley was large for a monkey, but not too large, so Preston carried him through the stinging thorns.

  “You see, it take years to train hounds. So most trainers are not young men. Not that I am as young as I would like. But I am pretty darned fit. How do I do it? Glad you asked. I box, I wrestle, I fence. I ride. I wonder if I will ever see my horse again. His name is Tornado. I even turn into a monomaniac when it comes to things like ballroom dancing. I found this partner as fanatical as I was, and we practiced and trained until we won top-level trophies. Ah, what was her name again? Not Tornado. Some human name.”

  With trees overhead, he could not make any observation of the sun. His watch was still set to Atlantic Daylight Time: the dial showed him what hour it was back in the Bermuda Triangle. Rather, it showed what hour it would have been had he not fallen through countless eons. He did not even know if Earth still turned at her accustomed rate.

  Dark surprised him. Night fell suddenly when it came, making Preston wonder what latitude this was. He slowed to a walk, fished out his LED headlamp from his kit, put it on. He had a sixty-hour battery meant to power this, and a strobelight for signaling passing planes at night.

  Before he lit the lamp, he found his roll-up sunglasses and his duct tape, and taped the sunglasses over the lamp lens. This gave him enough light to see where to put his feet, but he hoped it was not enough to give his position away.

  On and on they went. He broke off part of the survival bar and chewed while he ran, fed and another crumb to Smiley. He washed it down with his second packet of sterile drinking water. What he would do after he ran out of ammo, of battery power, of safe water, of rations, of matches, and of toilet paper, he shelved for another day.

  He ran onward in the dark of night, always moving upslope. Then he noticed Smiley getting nervous: ears flatting, hackles raised. What was the animal sensing?

  “You know what bugs me? I have not heard any sign of pursuit, or seen any lights behind us,” said Preston. “That makes me a little nervous. You got the willies, too, don't you, little guy? Let's switch. I will follow you. You take point. Go around the danger.”

  Smiley seemed to understand. At least, he took off running. The little beast was weary, but not yet worn out. Preston ran after. He was not worn out yet either.

  The giant red sun came suddenly into the sky just as Preston, following Smiley, emerged from the trees and found himself atop a sheer cliff. There was a view of the valley below, and a view of the long slope behind.

  Behind, he saw movement at the wood’s edge to the south. Shapes that were certainly dogs and men were moving upslope, but keeping to the easier ground between cliff and forest. He turned his head. To the north he saw no one, but he heard the faint call of a horn. He was between them.

  Below him, to the east, was an extensive encampment, a township of tents and rude cabins, but with stone-walled buildings with peaked roofs midmost, and a round tower. The smokes from dozens of cookfires and campfires rose up. The whole was surrounded by a palisade of wooden palings. Watchtowers atop tripods of lashed beams stood atop the gates.

  Preston uttered a curse. This the fortress which no doubt had sent out the huntsmen. No wonder they had let him run all night. He had been heading directly where they wanted him to go.