ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

CHAPTER 6 ~ Life on the Frozen Plains

Laura gazed up at the tall face of the granite cliff that loomed more than 1,000 feet above her head, and she wondered if Jon-Max w,as crazy.

"Up there! You want me to climb up there!"

"No, of course not!" said Jon-Max, desperately trying to calm his friend down. "Well . . . .I mean, not all the way up," He was hoping to reassure Laura's fears about what they were about to do. "We just have to climb high enough to help the other guys a little. You know, like carry their weapons and . . . well, catch 'em if they fall."

Laura's mouth flew open and her eyes bulged from their sockets. She repeated Jon-Max's words in an angry voice, saying each one slowly and loudly.

"Catch–them–if–they–fall? Are you nuts? If one of those guys falls on us, we'll fall, too!"

"Okay, okay," Jon-Max said quickly. "Forget catching them. But we've got to help out somehow or we won't get anything to eat, tonight."

Laura took a deep breath and tried to calm down, but it didn't help much. "I'd just like to point out the fact that if we're dead tonight, we won’t have to worry about being hungry!"

Jon-Max chuckled nervously and said, "Hey, that's pretty funny. Heh, heh. Good joke." Then he tried to look very sincere and reassuring as he said, "But seriously, Laura, we've got nothing to worry about. All we have to do is climb up the cliff about a hundred feet and help these guys out a little. If we do that, we'll be able to share in the meal tonight." Jon-Max lowered his voice to make sure none of the Ice Age Indians nearby could hear him. "You know about the rule these guys have. If you don't help with the work, you don't get any of the food."

"I know, I know," Laura said irritably. "I just don’t know if I’m very good at climbing cliffs."

"Aw, come on, Laura, it'll be fun!" Jon-Max put a big smile on his face and slapped Laura on the back a few times. "And think about the great view you'll have up there!"

Laura took a deep breath and let it out noisily, sending a cloud of fog into the chilly air. After a few seconds she finally said, "Okay. I guess your right. We've got to help out a little."

Jon-Max smiled and said, "That's the spirit! Okay, let's go tell the chief.”

Jon-Max and Laura hurried over to where one of the tribal chiefs, Rashun, was standing in the snow as he gave his final instructions to the hunters who were about to scale the cliff. High up the side of the cliff, the two 5th graders could see the soaring shapes of the white birds whose nests were located on the rocky ledges. The eggs in those nests were safe there from every kind of predatory animal . . . except one. Humans.

Jon-Max told Rashun that he and Laura would help carry some of the stone tools and weapons the warriors would need as they climbed the cliffs to get to the nests. The eggs in those nests would be part of the evening meal which the tribe of Ice Age Indians would share around the fires that gave light and warmth to their village by the frozen lake.

Ashunda, the leader of the hunters, and another Indian walked up and helped the 5th graders tie a leather strap around their waists. Then they stuffed several animal skin sacks under the strap. The hunters would use these sacks to hold the eggs when they reached the bird nests, high up the cliff. The Indians also hung several braided leather ropes over their shoulders. They would use these during the hardest parts of the climb.

For the next twenty minutes Jon-Max and Laura followed the hunters as they climbed carefully up the stone face of the dark granite cliff. The granite was rough enough to offer plenty of handholds and footholds to the climbers, but the Indians were much faster than the two 5th graders. The lean and agile hunters seemed to scamper up the rocks with effortless ease. That made it hard for Laura and Jon-Max to keep up, especially with all the equipment they carried.





After climbing several hundred feet, the warriors finally took pity on the two young people below them. They stopped long enough to let the 5th graders catch up, then the Indians took the ropes and the animal skin sacks.

"Wait for us here," said Ashunda. "You can help us bring the eggs down. We'll be pretty tired after the long climb, but you two will be rested."

Jon-Max and Laura nodded. Ashunda and the other hunters continued up the face of the cliff.

"I wish we could go back down now," Jon-Max said. "It's kinda scary up here." But when he looked down at the distant snow-covered ground, his eyes grew wide for a moment, then he said in a strain voice, "On second thought, I think we're gonna need a little help getting back down."

Laura glanced down, and she immediately knew what Jon-Max meant. Climbing down would be even harder than climbing up, because they would have to feel around with their feet to find each foothold. Laura noticed a two-foot ledge a short distance to her left.

"Let's make our way over to that ledge so we can sit down on it. My hands are getting tired from holding on."

"Good idea."

Slowly, carefully, the two time-traveling 5th graders inched their way over to the rocky ledge and then sat down. The cold wind was blowing around their dangling legs, but Gidget and Gazmo were keeping them warm by creating force fields that held an envelope of warm air around their bodies and deflecting the cold blowing wind.

The time traveling 5th graders appeared to be dressed in the furs and tanned animal skins that the people of the Ice Age Indian tribes wore. But these were just holographic images that surrounded them, produced by their lifeguard units. Jon-Max was actually wearing his metallic-colored windsuit, and Laura was wearing the clothes she had been dressed in when Jon-Max had appeared in her room.

Sitting on the rocky ledge high above the snow-covered plain, Jon Max and Laura gazed down at an amazing sight.

Many miles away on the distant horizon the two young people could see the vague outline of a cone-shaped mountain. Gray smoke rose from the tip of the cone, forming a large cloud that trailed across the sky.

"What's that funny cloud above the mountain?" Laura said curiously.

Jon-Max shaded his eyes against the glare of the white snow that covered the land, then he said, "I think it's a volcano. My teacher told us there were a lot of volcanoes in this area. Back around 1960 there was a big earthquake in Alaska that shock up a big piece of the state. There's a major fault line under this region."

Laura tried not to let Jon-Max see the shudder that shook her shoulders for a moment at the thought an earthquake happening right now, when they were perched on a narrow rocky ledge a hundred feet off the ground.

A few miles away the two 5th graders could see a group of hunters from their tribe who were working their way towards a herd of giant bison — buffalo-like animals that were much larger than the buffalo that covered the American Midwest during the early 1800s.

Each of the hunters carried a spear which had a "Clovis point", the amazing stone tip which had a grove that allowed air to escape from an animal’s wound as the spear sank into the animal’s flesh.

Jon-Max and Laura had seen the Clovis point spears in action when they had fist arrived in the Ice Age time period. The hunters had killed a huge wooly mammoth in less than a minute, sinking dozens of spears into it. It had been an amazing sight, one that Laura would never forget!

Now, sitting on the stone ledge, it looked as if the two young people from the future would see those spears in action again – even though they were too far away to see the details of the dramatic kill the hunters were about to make.

"Gosh, I wish we were with that hunting party over there," Jon Max said to his friend.
"Yeah, me too. Those Ice Age bison are really big!"

Jon-Max's face suddenly lit up with a big smile. "Hey, I forgot! We can use Gidget or Gazmo to give us a close-up view of those hunters and the bison!" Jon-Max spoke to the lifeguard unit on his belt. "Gidget, show us those hunters down on the plain as if we were only 20 feet away."

Suddenly an image appeared in the air a few feet in front of the 5th graders – a big, square window that made it seem like the 5th graders were standing on the snow-covered plain about twenty feet from the hunters as they crawled on their bellies towards the large, hairy bison that were grazing on the sparse grass which poked up through the snow. The view was perfectly clear, and in 3-D. Laura was amazed.

"Wow! This is so cool! It's just like we're down there on the plain with the hunters."

Jon-Max just nodded, watching with fascination as the team of hunters crawled through the snow, getting closer and closer to the bison, waiting for the perfect moment to spring up and hurl their spears at the hairy animals.

Just for fun, Laura leaned to one side and tried to look around the floating telescopic window that Gidget was creating. As she did so, she noticed something going on in a region about a mile from where the hunters were.

"Hey, look over there!" Laura said excitedly. A mile to the left of the hunters was a group of rugged evergreen trees that stood tall amidst the white land. When Jon-Max saw what Laura was pointing at, he spoke a few words to Gidget, and the futuristic device swung its telescopic view to the left until the two 5th graders had a close-up of the area where the trees were located.

The view they got was shocking. It was like a scene from some Japanese monster movie. Standing against one of the trees was a huge sloth, a twelve-foot-high animal that reminded Laura of a giant rat. The sloth was eating the green needles of the evergreen tree, its long claws gripping the bark as it strained to lift its hungry mouth higher and higher.

"That thing is really big!" Jon-Max said in an awed voice.

"You can say that again," Laura replied, almost in a whisper. "Hmmmm . . . . " She said quietly, still gazing at the sloth. "I wonder if those things are good to eat."

Jon-Max turned and gave his friend a surprised look, smiling broadly. "Oh boy, have you changed," he said with a chuckle. “When we first got here, you didn't want to eat anything these people offered you. You said it all looked nasty to you. But now you're smackin' your lips at the thought of roasted sloth for dinner!"

Jon-Max and Laura laughed together for a moment, then they went back to gazing at the amazing view they could enjoy from their high perch on the ledge of the cliff. They watched the sloth as it munched on the trees for a while, then Jon-Max told Gidget to shift the view back to the hunters and the bison.

A puzzled look came over Laura face as she noticed something strange at the very edge of the telescopic view which Gidget was giving them of the hunters. Slowly she said, "Hey, uh . . . Jon-Max? What's that?"

Laura pointed at something on the left side of the image Gidget was projecting into the air. Several yards to the left of the crawling hunters was a dense patch of bushes. And inside this patch of bushes there was something moving – something large and brown. The crawling hunters couldn't see it because they were so low to the ground. But the two 5th graders had a better view because they were a hundred feet in the air.

It took Jon-Max and Laura a moment to realize what the brown shape was – and when they did recognize the shape, the hairs on both their necks stood straight up.

It was a saber-toothed tiger! The fifteen-foot cat was stalking the same herd of bison as the hunters. Jon-Max and Laura both realized that if the hunters got too close to this fearsome animal, it might attack the men.

"Oh, no!" exclaimed Laura. "What can we do?"

"Nothing," said Jon-Max. "We’re too far away to call out a warning to them. We can’t even yell to the people below, because they’re too far away to help them.”

“You’re right.” Laura was frantic with worry, knowing that the hunters were about to be killed. "We can't just sit here and watch them die!"

Jon-Max felt the same way. He was chewing nervously on the end of his thumb as he watched the hunters crawling through the snow, while the saber-toothed tiger in the bushes was getting closer and closer.

If only there was some way to warn them! Jon-Max thought to himself. Out of the corner of his eye, Jon-Max could see that Laura was watching him closely, desperately hoping that he would think of some miracle that would save the distant hunters.

The situation seemed hopeless – until an inspiration suddenly came to the 5th grader from the year 2058!

"Listen to me carefully!" Jon-Max said quickly. "I’ve got a plan, but you've got to do exactly as I tell you. If we blow it, we might end up inside the belly of a saber-toothed tiger. Are you willing to risk your life for those guys down there."

Laura didn't' hesitate for an instant. She nodded her head quickly.

"Good," Jon-Max said. "Okay, here's the plan."

Laura listened to Jon-Max's instructions for several seconds. And then, a moment later, the two 5th graders vanished from the ledge.

For the next sixty seconds, neither Laura nor Jon-Max existed in the Ice Age period of history. They "jumped over" that one minute of time by using the anywhen device.

Exactly one minute after Jon-Max and Laura disappeared from the ledge, they reappeared on the snow-covered plain near the patch of bushes. As usual, the appearance of the two time traveling 5th graders was accompanied by a bright flash of blue light and loud ZZZZZZ-ZAP!

Just a few feet away, the saber toothed tiger was crouched in the bushes, tensing its massive muscles for the charge that would send it hurtling towards one of the giant bison. The enormous Ice Age cat was blinded for a moment by the bright flash of light.

Just a few yards away, the crawling hunters who had been sneaking up on the bison were shocked when they suddenly realized that a saber toothed tiger was near them in the bushes!





The instant that Laura and Jon-Max flashed into existence on the white snow, they both went into action. Following the plan they had come up with before they'd left the ledge, they both reached down quickly and scooped up a double handful of the powdery snow. Then, acting together, they flung their handfuls of snow directly into the face of the blinded savage saber toothed tiger. As they did so, they both let out a loud scream.

"YAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

The affect of all this noise and light on the poor saber toothed tiger was startling. The savage beast was terrified. It split the frigid air with a deafening screech, and then it clawed the snowy ground with its massive paws as it scurried backwards through the bushes. After a few seconds, the big cat turned around just as fast as it could and crashed through the dense bushes in a panic-stricken attempt to escape from Laura and Jon-Max.

The saber toothed tiger sent a fountain of snow jetting up into the air behind it as it fled through the bushes and then dashed across the snow-covered plain at an amazing speed.

The herd of giant bison nearby was spooked by all the noise and commotion, and they started lumbering away from the area. The Ice Age hunters who had been concealed in the snow as they crawled toward the herd of bison rose up and came jogging towards Laura_ and Jon-Max. They gathered in a circle around the two 5th graders and started asking questions in excited voices. In fact, they asked so many questions that the two young people from the future were unable to understand what anybody was saying. Finally the leader of the hunting party, Undae-hu, held his hand up to signal the group to silence.

Speaking very slowly, as if he were choosing his words carefully, the leader asked them a question in a voice that was filled with wonder and awe.

"How did you . . . do that?"

Jon-Max glanced at Laura, a worried look on his face. The two 5th graders knew they couldn’t tell these primitive people that they had used a time machine to save the lives of the Ice Age hunters. There was just no way to explain to these people how they had suddenly appeared out of think air. Jon-Max took a deep breath and let it out slowly in a loud sigh. The eyes of the men in the hunting party were fixed him with total concentration. They were waiting on his answer.

Suddenly it occurred to Jon-Max that their might be an easy way to explain what happened – if he didn’t tell the complete truth about what happened.

"We're sorry we scared off the bison that you were hunting," Jon-Max said in a timid voice. "We just wanted to be great warriors like you guys, so we snuck around the other side of the bushes to join you." He pointed to the left side of the clump of bushes, away from the area where the hunters had been located.

"But how did you scare off the snow cat?" Undae-hu said, still looking amazed by what had just happened.

As Laura listen to Jon-Max, she figured out what she friend was doing. So, Laura took up the story from there.

"While we were crawling through the snow, we glanced over at the bushes and saw the saber toothed tig — I mean, the snow cat – so we moved around the bushes until we were in front of it. Then we jumped up, threw a bunch of snow into its face, and yelled to surprise it. We knew that even if it attacked us, you guys would be ready to defend yourselves.”

The faces of the hunters that surrounded Laura and Jon-Max had begun to light up with big smiles of pride as they realized that the daring actions of these two brave young people had saved their lives.

After a moment, Undae-hu closed his eyes and slowly held his right hand up in the air, the palm towards the two young people, a little above the heads of Laura and Jon-Max. As he did so, he began to make a low, chanting sound.

This gesture was an important symbol in his tribe. All of the hunters in the group knew what the leader meant by this symbol. It meant that from now on, Jon-Max and Laura would now be treated like full-fledged hunters and adults in the tribe. They would no longer be considered children. The other members of the hunting party bowed their heads in respect to the newest adult members of the tribe.

Neither Jon-Max nor Laura really understood what the solemn gesture meant. But Laura certainly knew what to do when somebody held their hand up the way Undae-hu was doing. She raised her own right hand high and slapped the open palm of the Ice Age hunter with a loud crack.

It was the first "high five" in history!

The smacking sound of Laura's hand slapping the leader's palm startled the other hunters, and they raised their bowed heads quickly. The leader looked shocked for a moment. He stared up at his hand, and then he glared at Laura. But after a few seconds, he surprised everyone by breaking into a big smile! Apparently the leader thought the high five was a great idea!

The leader turned to the hunter standing behind him and spoke a few words. The man behind the leader raised his hand up the way the leader had done, and the leader gave him a sharp high five! All the other members of the hunting party started raising their hands and giving each other high fives!

Laura and Jon-Max could barely keep themselves from busting out laughing as they watched these ancient people enjoying a new idea.

Undae-hu turned back to Jon-Max and Laura. "Tell me, little fearless ones, what are your names?"

"My name is Jon-Max. It means Hair Like Flame," said the 5th grader from 2058. He knew that the names of Ice Age people were always supposed to have a meaning, so he picked one that seem to fit him.

Undae-hu looked at Laura. "And what is your name?"

Laura remembered what Jon-Max had told the chief the first day they had arrived. "They call me Laura, which means Crazy Young One."

Undae-hu nodded and turned to the warriors behind him. "We must give these new hunters their adult names. What do you think they should be?"

The hunters talked quietly to each other for a few moments, then they made several suggestions to the Undae-hu. After hearing the suggested names, the Undae-hu turned back to Jon-Max and Laura. He put his hand on Jon-Max's shoulder and spoke solemnly.

"From this day forward you will be known as Nu-konee, which means Hunter of the Snow Cat.

Jon-Max just stared at the leader, his eyes big and round, his mouth hanging open. Obviously he was impressed by his new name.

The leader put his hand on Laura's shoulder and said, "And you shall be known as Sho-karee, which means Braver than the Beast."

Laura had to swallow several times before she said, "Thank you, sir." She was very impressed with her new name, too.

Jon-Max and Laura were both amazed by what was happening. They had both just been given cool Indian names by the leader of an Ice Age hunting party!

The hunters began talking noisily to each other about all the exciting things which had happened during the last fifteen minutes. As they did so, Jon-Max turned to Laura and whispered in an urgent voice.

"I hate to spoil the fun here, but we got a little problem on our hands."

"What?" said Laura. “A problem? No way! We just became adult members of an Ice Age Indian tribe. What could be better than that?"

"Sure, I know, this is great," Jon-Max said impatiently. "But we’re supposed to be on that cliff a few miles from here, waiting for the egg-gatherers to come back down.”

“Uh-oh!” said Laura. “I forgot about that.”

“That’s not the real problem, though,” said Jon-Max. “We can get back to the cliff the same way we got here. But tonight, in the village, those guys back at the cliff are going to start talking to these guys. And when they do, they're all going to wonder how we managed to be in two places at one time!"

"Oh, yeah!" said Laura quickly, seeing the problem. "I get it.”

Jon-Max glanced at the hunters, who were still talked excitedly. "These guys might be primitive, but they aren't stupid. The trick we pulled to get ourselves down here and save the hunters will make us seem really weird to them."

"They might even be scared of us when they find out that we did something that's supposed to be totally impossible!"

"Exactly," Jon-Max said solemnly, a worried look on his face. He glanced at the hunters nearby, who were still talking excitedly about what had happened.

"What are we going to do?" whispered Laura_.

Jon-Max wore a thoughtful look for a moment, glancing at the distance gray cliffs where the other hunting party was waiting for the egg gatherers to come back down. After a moment, a hopeful look came over the young man's face. He gave Laura a sly glance.

"Hey, wait a second," he whispered slowly, a smile spreading across his face. "I've got an idea. A good idea. Just let me do the talking, okay?"

Laura nodded, knowing that her clever friend from the future was the master at coming up with wild plans that got them both out of sticky situations.

Jon-Max tapped Undae-hu on the arm to get his attention. The leader of the hunters turned from a hunter he had been talking to. "Yes, Nu Konee. What do you want?" said Undae-hu.

Jon-Max felt a surge of pride at being called Nu-konee, his new Indian name.

"Well, sir . . . ummmm . . . we just remembered that we promised to help the other group of hunters who are climbing the cliffs to get eggs from the nests. With your permission, sir, we'll go see if they need our help over there."

The leader of the bison hunters looked extremely please by what Jon-Max had said. It meant that the two young people were willing to keep their promise to help with a hard job, even though they could have stayed with the bison hunters and listen to more praise about how brave they were.

"Well spoken, Nu-konee," the leader said. He placed his hands on the shoulders of both Laura and Jon-Max, and he looked them in the eye as he said, "By doing this, you and Sho-karee are showing us that you are willing to work for the good of the tribe. And that means we are right to treat you as adults."

Both Jon-Max and Laura beamed with pride as they heard these wonderful words from the leader of the hunters. They turned and started making their way through the deep snow towards the cliffs, several miles away. The hunters turned and heading off in search of the herd of giant bison which ran away when the saber toothed tiger had been frightened by Jon-Max and Laura.

The 5th graders from the future kept walking through the snow towards the cliffs until they were far enough from the hunters to be sure they wouldn't see them when the used the anywhen device. Jon-Max asked Gidget to program the anywhen device to take the two 5th graders one minute into the future, and also to move them back up to the rocky ledge.

Sixty seconds later, the two 5th grades were back on the cliff, looking down on the snow-covered plain, watching the tiny figures of the bison hunters as they hurried to catch up with the herd of giant bison.

“Okay,” said Laura with weary sigh. “So we're back up here on this scary ledge, again," Jon-Max nodded as he leaned forward to look down at the people waiting below. They appeared to be just milling around, chatting with each other. "Hopefully nobody was looking up at us when we vanished before, or when we came back just now.”

“I just hope we won’t have to explain how we made the trip so fast from the plain down there to the cliffs here.”

"We won't have to explain that," Jon-Max said, smiling as he relaxed and leaned back against the cliff to wait for the hunters to bring the eggs down. "Just think, for a second. These people don't have watches, because watches haven’t been invented yet. They have no idea what time it is."
"Sure, I know that. But how does that help us?”

"When the hunters come down with the eggs, we’ll go down with them, right?. Then we’ll ask Chief Rashun if we can go watch the bison hunters from a safe distance. If he says yes, we’ll leave this group and head off across the plain. Then we’ll just circle back to the village and wait for all the hunting parties to come home. Remember, these people don’t have watches or clocks, so none of them know what time we were with either the egg hunters or the bison hunters. They'll just think we joined the bison hunters after we left here. Get it?"

It took Laura a moment to figure it out, but then Laura said, "Oooooh, yeah! I get it! They'll think we scared off the saber tooth tiger after we finished helping the cliff hunters bring the eggs down."

"Right!" said Jon-Max, feeling proud of himself. He was wearing a big smile of satisfaction as he sat back on the ledge and enjoyed the spectacular view of the snow-covered plain below.

Laura felt very relaxed now, thinking about how clever Jon-Max was.

A few minutes later the two 5th graders heard noises from above them. When they looked up they saw the hunters climbing down the cliff towards them from the nests up above, carrying the sacks which were filled with eggs. These eggs would be boiled and served to the hungry villagers at the evening meal, along with grilled bison meat which the hunters from the plain would bring in. There would also be delicious fried fish which the fishermen had pulled from ice hole in the frozen lake. And there would be roasted wooly mammoth meat, which had been frozen in the snow since the first night Jon-Max and Laura had arrived.

Jon-Max and Laura sat on the rocky ledge and watched the hunters make there way carefully down the rough face of the granite cliff. The two 5th graders felt a growing hunger at the thought of the wonderful food which these clever and brave Ice Age Indians would be enjoying after their hard day of hunting.

The two young people also felt a tremendous sense of pride at the new Indian names which they had earned today — Nu-konee (Hunter of the Snow Cat), and Sho-karee (Braver than the Beast). They were no longer mere children – they were now adult hunters in a tribe of Ice Age Indians! What could be cooler than that?

Just before the hunters reached the two 5th graders as they came down the cliff, Laura had a disturbing thought. She turned to Jon-Max and spoke in a worried tone.

"Hey, uh . . . I just thought of something. What if the bison hunters happen to mention that we left them after we said we were coming to help the egg hunters? That wouldn't quite fit with our story about how we went to watch the bison hunters after we finished helping these guys."

Jon-Max wore a worried look. Then, after a moment of careful thought, he grinned and said, "Well, if that happens, I guess you and me will just have to . . . disappear in a flash of blue light!"

Laura just grinned. "Hey, that's a good plan. I guess they don't call you Nu-konee for nothing, huh?”

Next: Chapter 7 ~ Meeting the Makah
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)