Anthropologist

Anthropologist

The landscape shimmered in the heat of the late afternoon. The ruins of a once formidable city sat atop the gentle rise behind him. He sat on a broken pillar, knees drawn up and cradled in his arms. His floppy hat shaded his eyes from the sun which was sinking toward the horizon. Despite the foliage which had taken over the ruins the land seemed dead or dormant. No breeze disturbed the foliage. Birds did not call to each other in the dense woods which surrounded the ruins. Insects did not crawl, buzz or chirp in the secret shade created by the dense growth.
He sighed. Traveling among worlds was getting old. He had been traveling for so many years he hardly knew anyone that could remember back as far as he could. Even some of his exploits were legendary among the younger travelers.
His name was Dunia Bepergian. It was not his birth name. That name was discarded long ago when he became a Multiverse Anthropologist. He and a friend joined Adventravia, a private company with government funding, which touted multiverse travel. His friend Faro Duncan, became a Multiverse Enforcer. Basically his job was to see that the travelers followed protocol, and protect them as they ventured unknown realms.
All the Faro’s had to withstand rigorous physical training and then a complicated course on technology associated with their jobs, before they were allowed to become multiverse travelers.
All Adventravia recruits went through basic testing and training. As old as he was Bepergian never forgot his initial recruitment and the training he went through. Many in his class washed out. There were no second chances either. Adventravias credo included a simple passage, “You only get one chance at life. If you are unwilling to make the most of it, you will not fulfill your life’s journey.”
Bepergian took that to heart and excelled in his training. In time he became the leading multiverse anthropologist adventravia had.
Now, after thirty or more years, he sat on this dead looking world in the ruins of some ancient city, wondering if there was more to life. His Faro was off somewhere securing the perimeter of his “site”, so that the Dunia could begin his research.
Bepergian, closed his eyes to the scenery. He had seen many worlds that looked like this one. He felt he could do his investigation from his perch on the broken pillar with his eyes closed. The soil looked dead. The foliage looked dead. The ruins were certainly dead. He sighed. The sun had but moments before it sank below the horizon. Bepergian was ready to go home. He wondered if home was still there or if it too sat in ruins like this city.


Where was the Faro? Bepergian took his mini torch from a pocket in his vest. It was still dusk and light from the set sun still illuminated the ruins, however it would get dark quickly. A light breeze began to sweep through the ruins, alleviating some of the stuffiness of the day. Bepergian scanned the perimeter of the ruins looking for the hat the Faro wore. Most chose a uniform style attire, but this particular Faro preferred to blend with the scenery rather than stand out, so he wore drab earth color attire.
Dunia Bepergian had worked with this Faro for many years now, even so he still thought of his Faro new. His name was Garnach. Bepergian rarely used his name and simply called him Faro. In fact as detailed as he could be about a site, he couldn’t describe Faro Garnach because they never interacted much beyond the requirements of their jobs. Garnach was extremely silent. Bepergian could not recall a sentence from him longer than two words.
The Dunia slipped off his perch and carefully picked his way along ground littered with debris from the crumbling structure. He moved carefully to the insertion point. He inspected the portal where he and the Faro had entered from their base world. The portal had been set to hibernation mode and therefore remained invisible. The only way Bepergian knew it was there was the small electronic marker Garnach had planted into the ground. A few feet from the marker were the two rucksacks with their gear and equipment. The dusty ground was scuffed with their footprints. Bepergian located his tracks as they led up the slight incline to the pillar he was sitting on. Faro’s tracks led north from the marker.
Bepergian followed Faros tracks a short way and then had to turn on the small torch he had been carrying. As he followed the tracks he swept the light from side to side. The light flashed on something metallic off to the right of the path Faro had made.
He bent over to examine the object and discovered a small tool. He knew it was Faros as it had the company’s logo on it. The Dunia examined the tool. It appeared to be a manual tool. Most tools were electronic, but the Faro’s had all sorts of devices, therefore Bepergian did not wonder long on the use of the tool.
He placed the tool in his pocket and looked for the tracks. After a brief search of the vicinity, Bepergian realized the tracks ended where he found the tool. It was as if Garnach stepped through another portal.
Bepergian pulled the tool back out of his pocket. It was small and oval, flat like a coin but smooth on one side. It fit neatly into the cupped palm of his hand. He examined the small buttons. There were three. One was red, one green and one yellow. In the middle of the buttons was a small display screen. On the outer edge of the device was a small gray button. He could see a on/off symbol on that button. He switched the tool on. All three buttons lit up momentarily before giving way to the green button. The small screen displayed Adventravias logo and then disappeared. Next it displayed the user screen.
An eerie message blinked at Bepergian from the small screen. “Last destination: Earth 1099, England.”
Startled, he nearly dropped the tool. The green button began to pulse and a small beeping emanated from it. The display flashed a warning message:
“To cancel time travel mode please enter your security code.”
Bepergan clicked the grey button to turn the device off, but the screen again flashed another message. “Poweroff override disabled. Security code required.”
A digital countdown began to flash 59 ... 58 ... 57... Bepergian looked around at the world he was supposed to be studying. The dead ruins, the lifeless air. He looked back at the device 35 ... 34 ... 33. Well, he thought to himself, I did think life was getting dull.
The device began to flash red then yellow. The countdown was at 9 ... 8 ... 7 ... The device began to flash green and then ...

Bepergian opened his eyes. He felt as if someone had hit him in the head with a club. He was lying face down in grass. Tall grass. He turned his head to the left and then right, slowly as pain throbbed in his skull at each movement. He closed his eyes and listened for a moment. He heard a breeze sweep through the grass above his head. To his left he could hear running water, about the size of a creek. The only sound he could not immediately identify was a ticking sound next to him.

After lying quietly for a moment he realized the ticking was coming from the device he still held in the palm of his hand. He reopened his eyes. With a groan he rolled over on to his back. The throbbing in his head began to recede. He looked at the device in his hand. The red light was blinking and a message scrolled across the devices screen, “Error, time zone exceded ... Error, time zone exceded...”
Puzzled Bepergian tried again to turn the device off.
The screen flashed, “Warning! Device poweroff will reformat device. Please use reset command to reset device.” Bepergian was beginning to get irritated by the device. Without an instruction manual or anyone to tell him how to use the device it was increasingly difficult to determine what to do with it. He briefly imagined throwing it as far as he could, but he knew it was the only answer to his missing Faro and now to his location.
The throbbing in his head had receded to a dull ache. He sat up on his knees and peered over the tall grass he was in. He appeared to be in a savanna of some sort with a tree line off in the distance. He could hear insects buzzing around and he could still hear the trickle of running water. He did not see any signs of civilization nor any animals. Just in case he checked the utility belt around his waste and was relieved that it was intact down to the knife he wore.
Still looking warily around, he stood up and looked all around. The sun stood high in the sky, so he assumed it was about midday. That made determining direction difficult. So he looked for the closest stand of trees. That happened to be in the direction of the sound of the water.
He looked again at the device in his hand, then placed it in a pouch in his belt. He would try to figure it out later, after he got his bearings and found a safe place for shelter.
He started off toward the water and trees. He walked about fifty paces when he found the stream. It wasn't very wide. He could easily jump over it, but it was surprisingly deep. If he tried to wade through it he would be up to his knees. He crouched next to the water and watched to see if there were any signs of life. Sitting very still he was able to see some fish swimming in the depths of the creek. They would surface to snatch a flying insect that buzzed near the water. As far as he could tell the fish appeared to be typical fresh water fish of earth. Indeed from all that he could see, hear and smell. He was on an uninhabited area of Earth.
Taking a chance he scooped up some of the water in his hand to taste it. It tasted fresh and sweet. Realizing he was thirsty he went to scoop more water. As he did so one of the fish surfaced and went for his hand as if it were an insect. Startled Bepergian jumped back. The fish submerged again, but not before he got a look at the mouth full of sharp teeth the fish had.
Now he really wondered where he was and what year.
Bepergian peered into the depths of the stream. He saw the silver flickers of fish as they swam about. He wondered about the savagery of the land and decided that he needed to watch carefuly where he tread.
His training as a multiverse anthropologist required survival training in the most extreme environments and generally he did not travel to new worlds without his equipment. Fortunately he did have most of his gear with him when he jumped to this world. His backpack was loaded with his supplies. He was only missing his tent and sleeping roll. Fortunately his training included survival with only his bare hands. His biggest loss was his Faro and precisely the reason he was here ... wherever here was.

He scanned the sky which was clear blue with some light fluffy clouds in the distance. The humidty was minimal, but he could feel some dampness in the air and indeed the sandy soil was a bit damp to the touch, so he determined that it had rained not long before he arrived. He looked up and down the stream but the visibility was approximately a hundred yards in each direction due to the tall grass. He took off his pack and heaved it over the stream. He could have jumped it with the pack on, but after seeing the fish with teeth he decided that clearing the stream with room to spare would be prudent. After making sure his pack landed well away from the stream he backed up a ways to get a run at it. He ran as hard as he could and kicked off the bank as high as he could. As he landed on the other side three of the carnivorous fish lept snapping out of the water at his shadow. He shivered. Those teeth looked so menacing.
Keeping one eye on the stream, Bepergian gathered his pack and re strapped it to his back. He unclipped his floppy hat from the carabiner on his bag and settled it on his head. He looked back at the stream and then continued on toward the line of trees in front of him. He checked the position of the sun and was able to determine (based on the NSEW rules of his own world) that he was heading west.
As he walked toward the tree line in front of him he kept a wary watch on the ground and sky for any possible threat. The tall grasses stretched up to Bepergians waistline. He was a fairly tall man at nearly 2 meters tall. For him it was rather disconcerting to have the ground obscured by the grasses, but he was glad he was tall enough to see over the tops. He walked for what seemed a long time. The sun was hot on his head and shoulders. He was grateful for the hat he wore. As he neared the trees the sun had begun its slide down to the horizon toward late afternoon. He could see individual trees on the outer edge of the forest, but he knew it would take another fifteen minutes of walking to get there. The sun was a hand’s-breadth over the top of the trees, when he stopped to take a mouthful of water from his water pack. He readjusted the pack on his back and took only one step. The next he knew he was flat on his face after a heavy blow pushed him to the ground.
Startled, Bepergian lay very still. He hoped to see what had knocked him down. Before he even caught a glimpse of his attacker he heard a deep guttural noise that made the hair on his neck rise. Moving very slowly he reached for the knife strapped to his belt. He hadn’t even touched the knife when he felt something roughly nudge his shoulder and then snort hot breath on his neck. The stench of rotting flesh assaulted his nose and he had to fight the urge to gag.
He could not see what was pushing at him since his head was turned the opposite direction. Suddenly he was lifted off the ground by his pack. Whatever had picked him up had three toed feet with a dew claw in the place of a heel. They looked like enormous lizard feet. He didn’t get a much better look as the creature began to shake him like cat worries or places with a rodent. It tossed him into the air and he landed on his stomach about 3 meters away. The fall knocked the breath out of him and he couldn’t move.
He heard the creature utter a high pitched whine and then he heard it crashing through the grass toward him. He tried to move and felt as if he were swimming in mud. He managed to roll onto his back and get his knife out of its sheath by the time the creature found him.
The creature nearly stepped on him as it hopped into view. He finally got a good look at what it was and nearly dropped his knife. It was a dinosaur. It was bipedal dinosaur with small upper arms and a large body and head. The mouth was large and full of razor sharp teeth. It leaned toward him and sniffed at him. It dripped foul smelling saliva on him and he nearly retched with the stench of its breath. It reared up and called out as if to communicate to others that it had found something. Bepergian felt doomed. While its attention was away from him he started scooting away from the creature toward the cover of the tall grasses.
He nearly got away when it looked down and saw what he was doing. He scrambled faster and got to his feet to run. He ran two or three steps when it caught him and picked him up again. This time it was carrying him and he could see above the grasses. He could not see any other dinosaurs but he heard answering calls in the distance. The image of himself being torn to shreds between two or more of these creatures flashed through his mind.
He still had his knife in hand but he couldn’t reach the creature while it carried him. Reluctantly, as it loped along he decided to cut the straps on his pack. He hated to lose it and his gear but he hated the thought of being eaten more. Quickly he cut the shoulder straps on his pack and dropped three meters to the ground. This time he was prepared to fall and landed on his hands and knees. He scrambled for his knife and then ran as fast as he could for the cover of the trees. This time he ran about ten meters before it caught him again. This time, without the protection of his pack, he felt the teeth as they sank into him. The pain was blinding and he felt his consciousness fade.
Before he completely blacked out he felt the dinosaur tilt and saw the ground rush up to meet him.

Bepergian did not want to wake up. Just a little longer, he thought. He lay very still with his eyes closed. He could hear voices quietly murmuring around him. Through the fog in his mind he realized the voices were not familiar. Curious he moved toward wakefulness. With wakefulness came pain. Everything seemed to hurt at once. In fact, he felt so much pain he was afraid to open his eyes. He tried anyways and found he could only open one eye and was rewarded with … more pain. He gasped at the brutality of it and promptly closed his eye again.
At his gasp the sound of the voices changed. They drew nearer and were more urgent. The voices sounded feminine but the language didn’t even register for him. He did recognize inflections of concern. As he wondered where he was he began to remember his last thoughts before he lost consciousness. He remembered being mauled by a dinosaur. That thought was so ludicrous and if he did not feel like he had been mauled he would have chalked it up to dreaming. But the pain told him otherwise.
He remembered then how he had arrived here. The missing Faro, the time travel device (that seemed to malfunction and he still didn’t know how to use and at this point he may have lost), the fish with a mouthful of razor sharp teeth and the incredible meeting with the dinosaur.
Bepergian lay still and used his other senses. He did try to avoid paying much attention to his sense of feel. That one only registered pain at the moment. He concentrated for a moment on the smells that surrounded him. He could smell a variety of herbs so extremely pungent and bitter mixed with soothing smells. He could also smell smoke from a wood fire. Listening he could hear the crackle of the fire and the rustling of at least one other person if not two.
He felt some one lean over him and then move away. He decided to try opening his eye again. He cracked it open. He was lying on his back and could see in the flickering smoky light that he was in a shelter of some sort, possibly a crude hut. All manner of herbs and other things he could not identify hung from the ceiling. He slowly turned his head feeling pain and stiffness in his neck and was able to see who his caretakers were.
Again he gasped. This time with shock rather than pain.

Bepergian was first and foremost a scientist. As an anthropologist he had spent his entire adult life examining worlds and studying extinct lifeforms and cultures. Now before his eyes stood a living breathing, moving specimen of his studies. If escaping from a dinosaur wasn't fantastical enough, seeing a Neanderthal woman perform her life in front of him was mythical.
She heard his gasp and turned toward him. He was amazed. Certainly she showed evidence of a larger bone structure and cranial structure than the women of his time, but it did not detract from her appearance. She had light colored hair. Dark blond or light brown by the look of it. In the dim light of the hut, and the way she had it pulled back it was hard to tell. She was somewhat crouched in the hut so her size was not immediately discernible. He could not see the lines of age on her face so he imaged her to be fairly young adult.
She remained at the entrance of the hut and looked shyly at him. He had no idea how he looked after being mauled by the dinosaur, but he felt he probably looked more damaged than dangerous. Not having excavated many sites containing Neanderthal remains he was not real sure of their customs, but looking about the hut, it seemed to be a fairly permanent structure, therefore he assumed her group was not nomadic.
She continued to watch him so he decided it was time to assess his injuries and start thinking about what he would do next.
Bepergian figured that if he could at least move his head that he did not retain spinal damage. In fact, he probably should worry more about infection from the dinosaurs mouth. In fact, the memory of the smell nearly made him gag.
He mentally touched on his various body parts and the pains associated with them. When he concentrated on his sides he definitely felt the effects of being mauled. He wondered how much of his injuries were from bruising and how much from actual damage by teeth.
He glanced over at the woman, who was still warily watching him. He raised his left arm, which felt stiff and sore, to touch his sides. As he did so the woman made a small grunt and frowned at him. He slowly continued to move his arm to see what she would do. She continued to frown at him but did not move to stop him. He felt along his left side with the back of his hand. He was surprised to find that his light safari jacket was not shredded but he did feel that there were holes in it. He gingerly touched the area where the hole was and felt with two fingers down to where his skin should have been. He found that he was bound with some sort of leather. 'Hopefully clean leather and medicinal herbs,' he thought.
He lay his arm back down and decided to try his feet. He didn't feel any pain from that area. He tried to lift his leg and found the strain caused a wave of nauseating pain in both his sides. He lay gasping for a few minutes, his eyes squeezed shut. When the pain subsided to a dull throb, he opened his eyes and saw the woman standing over him. Her expression a mixture of a frown and an "I told you so" look of indignation. She bent over and examined his sides and the bandages. After a moment of fussing, she grunted with satisfaction that he had not messed up her work.
He looked at her with what he hoped she would interpret as gratitude for her kindness. She huffed at him a bit and then motioned for him to close his eyes. He shook his head. She again motioned for him to close his eyes and then mimicked snoring. She wanted him to rest or sleep. He nodded to her, not sure if she understood, but he closed his eyes and without much difficulty, Bepergian drifted off to sleep.
Bepergian drifted between sleep and semi-consciousness. He was never sure if it was the effect of his wounds or the liquids his caretaker was feeding him. He just hoped he survived the hallucinations and could eventually come back to a solid reality.
A beeping noise entered his dreams and he was annoyed that the alarm had gone off. He was not ready to wake up. Eventually the beeping stopped and he relaxed into sleep again. Suddenly, he felt someone nudging him and trying to get him to wake up. He grumbled. The nudging became more urgent. Finally he opened his eyes. Through the fuzzy blur he saw a strange sight. It seemed the face that looked down at him was not human, but was oddly ... human. While he tried to figure that out the beeping started again. The face contorted in a mixture of anger and fear. It took Bepergian a moment to recognize the beeping. It was his watch. He almost laughed. The fact, that his watch had survived and not been lost truly amazed him. He was even more amazed to realize that it was still on his right arm. He smiled, hoping it would ease the fears of the face, and came fully awake. Aside from some stiffness he felt pretty good.
He looked more fully at the face and realized that it was a male Neanderthal. He was huge. He seemed to fill the hut with his physical size as well as his commanding presence. The fact that he was wearing an amazingly intricate headdress and had painted his face with blue whorls and lines added to his charismatic presence. A little bit of fear clutched at Bepergian, but it was replaced quickly by anthropological fascination. He had ignored the beeping on his wrist in order to study the living history in front of him, but the shaman (as Bepergian thought of him) indicated that he wanted to know what was beeping and why.
Continuing to smile in a what he hoped was a sincere and non-threatening way, he stiffly pulled himself to an upright sitting position and dropped his long unused legs over the edge of his (cot?) to the floor. He felt the aches and stiffness of lying in the same position for several days. He wondered briefly where his pants were and kept his mind from wandering to how his bodily functions has been dealt with. He looked up at the shaman and indicated the watch on his wrist. The time was 1707. The date indicated Wednesday 20Aug, 2140. He chuckled briefly at the absurdity of a time piece when he clearly had no idea of where in time he actually was. He had set the alarm to go off on the 20th of each month to remind him to fill out his reports and transmit them to headquarters. They weren't due until the end of the month, but the reminder gave him the opportunity to get the reports done.
He looked at the Shaman and again thought of the total insignificance of his reports at the moment. He slowly reached over with his left hand and turned off the alarm. The shaman approached warily to examine the device on his arm. Bepergian wondered briefly if he should let him see it, since the technology would not be around for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years. He discarded his inhibition as the shaman fearfully touched his wrist near the watch. He wanted to touch it, that was clear. Bepergian unclasped the watch. The shaman looked at him with wonder. Then he held it out to the shaman who gingerly touched it. Finding it would not harm him he held it gently and examined it all over. He handed it back to Bepergian, but at the same time his expression said he was reluctant to do so as he wanted to examine it further. Bepergian thought of offering it to him again, but decided that knowledge might come in handy later on, so he simply placed the watch back on his wrist.
Now that he was awake, and able to move without debilitating pain, Bepergian was anxious to explore his surroundings and possibly locate the remnants of his gear, particularly the time travel device. As fascinated as he was with exploring history in this manner, he still preferred the comforts of his “home” era.
The Shaman, satisfied that the beeping device was not harmful, nodded to him and ducked out of the hut. Immediately entering was his caretaker. She frowned at him as if his device had caused her some sort of inconvenience. He smiled apologetically at her, hoping to win back some favor. She just nodded and looked aloof. She busied herself with her pots and herbs and ignored him, so he looked around. He sat on what he had thought was a cot, but was actually a rock slab covered in furs. It appeared the hut was built around the rock. He found that interesting and took note of that fact. Her hut was small but built into the walls were niches containing earthenware jars and pots, small figurines and bundles of dried herbs hung throughout.
Bepergian flexed his arms and legs and stretched. He could feel a small twinge in his sides but more from disuse rather than injury. He pulled up his shirt to inspect the wounds. There were three scars on each side. They weren't as big as he thought they would be and actually they weren't as jagged as he had imagined. He tried to remember exactly what happened. He remembered being picked up by the dinosaur and shaken. In fact he remembered being more scared than hurt. Then he remembered falling. His next memory was waking up in this hut.
From those events he assumed he was rescued by a group of Neanderthals. He wondered where his things were, in particular his pants.
The woman was still busying herself with a basket of herbs, but he had no doubt that she was paying attention to everything he did. He decided to try out his legs.
Bepergians first few days out of the hut were a blur. After many attempts he he was able to coax his legs into standing and walking. He lurched around a bit for a couple of days. His legs acted as if he hadn't used them for weeks. Then he looked at the date on his watch. The alarm had gone off on the 20th of August. His last memory of date was mid June! He had been out of it for several weeks. At this point he was certain the Neanderthals had give him some concoction of herbs that kept him in a stupor until he healed. He was grateful for not having to remember the pain, but he did not like being out of it for that long.
Language remained a barrier. The Neanderthals certainly spoke but they also had a complex language of gestures. It reminded him of animals, mostly dogs and cats as those were animals he was the most familiar with. He considered the dog he had as a boy. He had always been amazed that it seemed to respond to his moods. If he were sad the dog would seem to mope with him in a sympathetic way, giving him sad looks. If he were excited the dog too would get excited. He knew that the dog could understand his body language, and to some extent he understood the dogs too, but it seemed as far as language he never completely understood the barks ... or did he? He knew when the dog wanted out, or wanted to play, or was hungry, so in some sense it was reasonable to assume he could understand the dogs body language as well.
At the moment Bepergian was sitting on a log in front of the hut he had been in for weeks. He observed the daily activities of the group and decided that he was all wrong in his methods for understanding and communicating. He was trying too hard to find a common thread in the language alone. For these people language was communicated via expression, emotion and gesture.
He picked up the stick he had been using to walk and stood up. He looked at the hut. From the outside it was small and crude with mud and grasses pressed into the cracks to keep out the rain. It was situated at the rocky base of a hill, just on the outskirts of the forest. In fact, it was nearly inside a cave like structure. A slab of rock jutted 10 meters above the cluster of huts. A slight depression in the hill under the slab gave it any walls at all. Because of the slab, Climbing up the hill behind the village was impossible without skirting around the forest. It made the entrance into the village one way.
The village was in a clearing of the forest. The clearing had been created by the Neanderthals. Old tree stumps dotted the area. Most were used in some fashion as chairs and tables. One particularly large stump had been hollowed and lined with with rocks. This they used for the community fire pit. In a circle around the edge of the clearing the Neanderthals had placed a crude fence. It was made up of saplings and vines woven together and then tied to trees at the perimeter. It stood about 5 meters high. He wagered that it wouldn't keep a determined dinosaur out, but it would probably slow it down. The trees of the forest were giant deciduous trees with a dense canopy. The sounds of birds and other animals filtered down to the clearing.
The community had the feel of a clan. Everyone had a role. He had obviously been placed in the care of the healer. They all regarded him with shy curiosity. If he could talk he was sure they would be asking him all sorts of questions.
He went into the hut. After he regained the use of his legs he had started looking for his things. He quickly found them neatly piled on the floor at the end of the 'cot' he had been sleeping on. Aside from the cut straps, and a few teeth marks, his backpack otherwise intact. His pants were there as well and he wrestled them on to the amusement of his nurse. She laughed heartily at his struggle. Several times he cursed the ridiculousness of his reluctant legs.
*** *** ***
Bepergians recovery had been fairly quick. He had only been up and around for about four days now. His walking stick had been a gift from the shaman. He treasured it as it was very helpful in regaining the use of his legs, although he hoped to not need it much longer as he knew he either needed to keep moving or find a way to get back to his own time zone and continue looking for his missing Faro. At first he had worried about how long it was taking him until he realized he just needed to figure out the device and then he could essentially master time. If he could make the device work he could go back to where he started, and even possibly before his Faro went missing.
He did worry a bit about paradox but only briefly. Paradox was a lengthy course when he was in training as an Anthropologist. He never really bought into the hype associated with it as most of the course was theoretical.
Bepergian rummaged through his backpack and dug out the small time device. He went back outside into the light and sat on the rock outside of the hut. He studied the device from all sides looking for anything that might give him a clue on how to use it. The back was smooth and rounded so that it fit comfortably in the palm of his hand. He looked carefully at the on/off switch. To turn it on he had to push the button in. To turn it off was the same. On either side of the button there was an arrow pointing up and down. Curios, Bepergian toggled the the button and found that it moved like an up down switch as well as a push button. There were no other markings on the device, other than the logo of Adventravia. He examined the display screen, although since the device was off it didn't really offer any more insight than the rock on which he sat. He looked carefully at the red, yellow, and green buttons. There were no labels on those buttons. He assumed he would have to power it up to find out more. He wondered briefly what type of power supply made it run.
He looked around at the village. He wondered if he should be wearing his pack when he powered up the device just in case he did something wrong and wound up somewhere else. He looked at the device, slipped it into his pocket and stood up. He wasn't ready to leave yet.
He leaned a bit on his cane and ambled slowly toward the center of the village. The Shaman usually sat there surrounded by various groups as he spoke to them or taught them something. Bepergians, curiosity as an anthropologist made him spend time watching the Shaman and various other members of the group. The women tended to the children and the huts. They did some hunting and fishing, but mostly they remained near the village. The men went daily to secure the area around the village, keeping large predators at bay and hunting for the game that sustained the village. Some of the older members of the village taught the children various tasks such as cooking, creating utensils like bowls and pots, curing hides from various game that was brought in and telling them stories.
His first few trips around the village created a lot of excitement and he was crowded by everyone wanting to look at him, touch him and ask him questions. When they realized he didn't speak their language they soon tired of him and went back to their usual activities. Now he would basically sit and observe them. Some of them did not like it and indicated that he should move away, but most were indifferent and ignored him. So he listened as they spoke and watched as they gestured. He tried to pick up some sense of their language. He wanted to know what had happened to him when he had been rescued from the dinosaur and he wanted to know if his Faro had appeared in this time zone. Only language would help him at this point.
The Shaman had a group of young men sitting before him. The each in turn presented him with a weapon of some sort, a spear, a flint knife, axe and what appeared to be a small bow. Bepergian sat on the outer edge of the group, straining to see the objects and listening to the conversation. Each time the Shaman would take a proffered item from someone the person would say, “ung ba givid” then he would sit back and eagerly await the pronouncement from the Shaman. The Shaman would examine the item critically, turning over looking at it from all angles, testing it properties and then he would hold it in his lap, shut his eyes and chant for a few moments. Then he would he carefully hand the item back to its owner. The owner would then raise the item over his head and shout with joy.
Bepergian decided to risk a social faux pas. After the last youth received his item from the Shaman, Bepergian moved forward toward the Shaman and held out his walking stick and said “ung ba givid” hoping he pronounced it right. Startled, everyone looked at him. At first the Shaman looked affronted, but then he considered Bepergian for a moment. A wide grin broke through his frown and he laughed so hard tears came from his eyes. The youths, frightened at first to see their normally solemn Shaman laughing joined in the mirth.
Bepergian figured he had done something incredibly stupid or rude, but was not in the least worried. He felt that he had at least made known his desire to learn and communicate. He sat back and placed the walking stick across his lap. He and the Shaman exchanged a look in which they both at that moment understood each other.

*** **** *** ****
The Shaman looked at Bepergian with a look of amusement. For the first time Bepergian regarded the Shaman as a respected elder to learn from rather than an exciting archaeological find. The Shaman dismissed the youths and beckoned Bepergian to sit in front of him.
For a long moment the Shaman looked at Bepergian, as if to measure his intelligence and his abilities. Finally, satisfied with what he saw he looked directly into Bepergians eyes. He patted his chest and said, “Taargu”. Bepergian, shocked at the universal jester from this neolithic man just stared. The shaman repeated the name and patted his chest again. Closing his gaping mouth , Bepergian repeated the name “Tahrgu.” Taargu grinned and nodded. Next he pointed at Bepergian.
“Bepergian” said Bepergian. Taargu looked at him, so Bepergian patted his own chest and repeated his name. Taargu cocked his head and said “Beppergin?”
“Close enough” Bepergian said, which made Taargu look at him quizzically. Bepergian nodded and said “Bepergian”. Taargu was satisfied. Then he gave Bepergian a look that said “now we will begin your education.”
Taargu had Bepergian follow him around everyday. Showing him things and giving them names. Occasionally he would want to know Bepergians name for things.
As he learned, he also healed. As summer wore to fall, Bepergian learned to speak and learned how things worked in the village. The better his speech the more villagers would seek him out to learn of him.
Finally one day as he rummaged through his pack he came up on the time travel device. He had been enjoying his experience he had forgotten that he was there by accident and that he should be looking for his missing Faro.

*** *** *** ***

Guiltily Bepergian fingered the device. As far as he knew he was the only anthropologist to learn so much about Neanderthals and their culture. Their language was far more complex than ever reported by any anthropological study and he knew how to speak it! He had packed away his clothes and had started wearing clothing created by the Neanderthals. He had learned many things in addition to language. He had learned some rudimentary skills at flint knapping so he could create his own tools and weapons. He learned how to hunt with those tools. He had learned much about the flora and fauna and about the dinosaurs.
The dinosaurs completely contradicted everything he knew about geological history. He surmised that he was not on his own world, but back in the early stages of the world he had been on when he had gone back in time.
The dinosaur that had picked him up was called a Sugairi. He still had no idea what the modern word for it was. But he was told that a group of villagers had been out hunting when the pack of sugairi had been sighted. Normally the hunters would have made a wide berth around a pack of hunting sugairi, but then one of them spotted Bepergian trying to get away. Before the rest of the pack to catch up to the one attacking Bepergian they attacked it and killed it. As it fell to the ground they grabbed bepergian and his pack and fled the area. The other sugairi would find the one they killed and fall upon it like the carrion eaters they were. Also the sugairi stayed away from the trees. They would get tangled in the vegetation and could not move quickly or easily through it because of their size. Therefore living amongst the trees was relatively safe for the Neanderthals.
He continued to regard them as Neanderthal but as each day went by he would catch himself regarding them in their own language. They called themselves the Porpiti Ensa. It meant as closely as he could translate, ground children.
As all good researches do, Bepergian each evening by the fire added entries into his journal. He had considered taking pictures of the Neanderthals, but all of his electronics were out of power, except for the curious time device and his watch.
Bepergian had healed well. In fact the walking stick he had leaned on so heavily now sat idly in the hut next to his pack. The woman who had tended to him was Meeyor. She was in fact, very young. Bepergian had asked Taargu about her. He had tried to talk to Meeyor, but once he was healed she moved him out of her hut to the mens huts on the other side of the village. If he tried to talk to her again she would only ask him if he was injured. If he responded no then she would turn her back on him and ignore him.
Taargu said that the Healers only spoke to those who required their services. Otherwise they only kept council among themselves. Being a healer was a difficult life. It required a lifetime of learning herb lore, healing spells and rites. The healer dealt with all ailments of the people. They could not be distracted with daily problems as this could cause them to lose focus.
There were three healers in the village. Meeyor was considered the novice. Bepergian was given to her to heal as a test. Bepergian was grateful she passed the test. He had asked Taargu how he should repay her.
Taargu said that the village takes care of the healers. They provide them with everything so they can take care of the village. He said the best way was for Bepergian to make a gift of food for Meeyor. So he learned to hunt. He managed to bring back a pair of quail and the eggs. He presented these to Meeyor in the way that Taargu instructed.
Meeyor nodded her thanks, took the fowl and the eggs and disappeared into her hut. Later that day a small boy brought him a cooked quail leg from Meeyor. According to Taargu, that was her acknowledgment that his gift was good and proper. Bepergian was pleased.
But now as he held on to the time device, he knew it was time to say good by and continue his journey for his missing Faro. Taargu and a group of hunters would lead him back to the edge of the Savannah near where they found him. He felt he needed to be near where he had entered the time zone to get back close to where he started in his own time zone.
As they neared the edge of the forest, Taargu and the others fell silent. Taargu whispered that it was better to be quiet near the hunting grounds of the sugairi.
Bepergian thanked the Propiti Ensa for all that they had taught him and given him. To Taargu he presented his watch. He knew the Shaman coveted it and had even asked questions about it. Bepergian told him that it would eventually stop working because the life in it had not yet been created in Taargu's world. Taargu merely said, “It is the same with all things. Life starts and life ends. While it lives I will enjoy it. When it dies, I will honor its memory.”
Bepergian grinned. It was more than a watch could ever hope for!
He waved goodby to the Propiti Ensa and took one last look at the world he had found so much wonder in. He checked to make sure he had all of his things and then looked at the device.
He pressed the on button.
The small screen came to life. First the Adventravia logo flashed and then welcome screen came on. The buttons all lit up and blinked once or twice before flashing off. The device then flashed the message “self diagnostic in progress, please wait.” Bepergian sighed. Finally a message popped up, “Device ready. Where in time do you wish to go today?”
Puzzled, Bepergian wondered how to input that information. As if it read his mind the screen flashed, “please scroll through the menu using the gray button on the side.”
He then remembered the arrows next to the on/off button. He toggled the button and found himself scrolling through a menu of famous dates in history. He located one that said custom date. He selected that one(after punching all the buttons he realized the red button was the select button. He also briefly thought he should be writing all this down.)
He entered (with much difficulty and much cursing) the date he was supposed to be sitting at the ruins on the dead world. 15 July 2140.
It asked him where. He stared at the device. He had no idea the name of the dead world he had been on. As far as Adventravia was concerned the world and where he had been was a series of numbers and letters. So very scientific. He decided to put England. That was where he had jumped to the world from.
The device hummed as it accepted the data. The screen flashed “time travel initiated for 15 July 2140, England.”
It continued to flash messages. The last one was eerily familiar “Last destination: 1099 England.” Bepergian felt dizzy.
“Time travel jump will commence in 60 seconds 59, 58, 57 ...”
Bepergian wondered, not for the last time, if he would ever get home again.

*** *** *** ***

Bepergians head throbbed. It felt as if a thunderstorm was raging on his head. He opened his eyes and immediately shut them as a bright light stabbed his eyes. Slowly he opened them and realized he was lying on dusty dirt. He looked up and saw a cloud of roiling dust thundering toward him. At the top of the dust cloud were horses foaming and snorting. Before he could think he jumped to his feet and ran. He dived to the side and felt the passing wind of the horses as they stormed past him. Panting he watched as the last of the horses sped by. He looked wildly around, trying to see what made the horses stampede. As the drumbeat of their hooves quickly vanished into the distance a quiet calm settled around him, and only the thud of his adrenaline stoked heart could be heard.
Nothing appeared. His heart slowed to a more normal rhythm. Slowly he stood up and looked around. This definitely was not the dead world from which he began his journey. The dirt he had found himself on actually appeared to be a road.

*** *** *** *** *** ***
It was a wide road and somewhat manicured. It stretched straight off into the distance up a gentle rise before it disappeared over the hill. Tall smooth barked trees lined the road. They really didn't provide any shade as their leafy canopies were like small umbrellas at their tops. He turned and looked down the road in the direction the horses had gone. The road in that direction stretched off across a wide prairie filled with flowing yellow-green grasses. The trees continued to line the road in that direction as well. The road in the direction of the prairie went all the way to the horizon. Other than the trees lining the road there did not seem to be much in that direction. The other direction offered rolling hills. Bepergian decided he wold walk in that direction.
The sun was directly over head, so Bepergian assumed it was around midday. He looked at the time travel device in his hand. Again an error message flashed as it scrolled across the screen. “Error ... time zone exceeded ... Error ... time zone exceeded ...” Bepergian sighed. He wondered where he was now. He switched the device off and stowed it in his pocket. From a pouch at his belt he pulled out a piece of dried meat and started walking toward the hills.
About twenty minutes later, as sweat poured from his head in this sun filled land, Bepergian stood atop the rise and had answers to his question of why the horses stampeded. In a shallow valley between the top of the hill he stood on and the top of the hill across the valley lay a wasteland; a carnage of men and beasts. He had never witnessed such bloody brutality in all his life. The stench of fresh blood, burnt meat and other unidentifiable smells drifted to him on a light breeze. He could hear the wailing of the dying from the top of his hill. At first all he could do was stare. The sight was so unexpected that he was transfixed to the spot. Slowly it dawned on him that him that he was in terrible danger (again) and that standing in full view was beyond foolish. It was just plain stupid. Quickly he moved behind the nearest tree. He continued to watch the battle sight from there. So far in all the wreckage he could only see people moving about and assisting the wounded and dying. There were two large wagons on the road. It appeared that a band of soldiers was moving around the battlefield collecting weapons and armor and other items deemed valuable and loading them in the wagons. Another small group was clearing bodies and debris from the road. On one side bodies were being tossed into a heap.
From his spot atop the hill Bepergian could not make out any features on the bodies, but something was not quite right about them. He assumed that brutal death had something to do with that. He sat with his back against the tree and continued to watch what was happening. He was amazed at the speed in which the battlefield was cleared. By dusk there was a huge mound of bodies that had been turned into a pyre. The stench was awful. Bepergian had wrapped a cloth around his nose and mouth to hold off some of the smell. The last of the survivors had been removed and the wagons were trundling up the far hill with their loads of battle booty. It was dark enough now that Bepergian figured he could at least traverse the battle sight without much notice. Again he wondered where he was.
As he carefully trudged the road down the hill he thought about the time travel device and wondered if it was calibrated for a different universe. It would explain the errors. Perhaps he needed to find out the time line of this world in order to either recalibrate or at least enter the correct time coordinates for this world. At this point he had no idea how he would do this. He didn't even really have a time fix on when he entered the universe. That was determined by those who set up his assignments. His job was to study the area they sent him to. It was the Faro's job to make sure he was safe, secure and able to return to his home universe.

Anthropologist Cont'd

Anthropologist

The landscape shimmered in the heat of the late afternoon. The ruins of a once formidable city sat atop the gentle rise behind him. He sat on a broken pillar, knees drawn up and cradled in his arms. His floppy hat shaded his eyes from the sun which was sinking toward the horizon. Despite the foliage which had taken over the ruins the land seemed dead or dormant. No breeze disturbed the foliage. Birds did not call to each other in the dense woods which surrounded the ruins. Insects did not crawl, buzz or chirp in the secret shade created by the dense growth.
He sighed. Traveling among worlds was getting old. He had been traveling for so many years he hardly knew anyone that could remember back as far as he could. Even some of his exploits were legendary among the younger travelers.
His name was Dunia Bepergian. It was not his birth name. That name was discarded long ago when he became a Multiverse Anthropologist. He and a friend joined Adventravia, a private company with government funding, which touted multiverse travel. His friend Faro Duncan, became a Multiverse Enforcer. Basically his job was to see that the travelers followed protocol, and protect them as they ventured unknown realms.
All the Faro’s had to withstand rigorous physical training and then a complicated course on technology associated with their jobs, before they were allowed to become multiverse travelers.
All Adventravia recruits went through basic testing and training. As old as he was Bepergian never forgot his initial recruitment and the training he went through. Many in his class washed out. There were no second chances either. Adventravias credo included a simple passage, “You only get one chance at life. If you are unwilling to make the most of it, you will not fulfill your life’s journey.”
Bepergian took that to heart and excelled in his training. In time he became the leading multiverse anthropologist adventravia had.
Now, after thirty or more years, he sat on this dead looking world in the ruins of some ancient city, wondering if there was more to life. His Faro was off somewhere securing the perimeter of his “site”, so that the Dunia could begin his research.
Bepergian, closed his eyes to the scenery. He had seen many worlds that looked like this one. He felt he could do his investigation from his perch on the broken pillar with his eyes closed. The soil looked dead. The foliage looked dead. The ruins were certainly dead. He sighed. The sun had but moments before it sank below the horizon. Bepergian was ready to go home. He wondered if home was still there or if it too sat in ruins like this city.


Where was the Faro? Bepergian took his mini torch from a pocket in his vest. It was still dusk and light from the set sun still illuminated the ruins, however it would get dark quickly. A light breeze began to sweep through the ruins, alleviating some of the stuffiness of the day. Bepergian scanned the perimeter of the ruins looking for the hat the Faro wore. Most chose a uniform style attire, but this particular Faro preferred to blend with the scenery rather than stand out, so he wore drab earth color attire.
Dunia Bepergian had worked with this Faro for many years now, even so he still thought of his Faro new. His name was Garnach. Bepergian rarely used his name and simply called him Faro. In fact as detailed as he could be about a site, he couldn’t describe Faro Garnach because they never interacted much beyond the requirements of their jobs. Garnach was extremely silent. Bepergian could not recall a sentence from him longer than two words.
The Dunia slipped off his perch and carefully picked his way along ground littered with debris from the crumbling structure. He moved carefully to the insertion point. He inspected the portal where he and the Faro had entered from their base world. The portal had been set to hibernation mode and therefore remained invisible. The only way Bepergian knew it was there was the small electronic marker Garnach had planted into the ground. A few feet from the marker were the two rucksacks with their gear and equipment. The dusty ground was scuffed with their footprints. Bepergian located his tracks as they led up the slight incline to the pillar he was sitting on. Faro’s tracks led north from the marker.
Bepergian followed Faros tracks a short way and then had to turn on the small torch he had been carrying. As he followed the tracks he swept the light from side to side. The light flashed on something metallic off to the right of the path Faro had made.
He bent over to examine the object and discovered a small tool. He knew it was Faros as it had the company’s logo on it. The Dunia examined the tool. It appeared to be a manual tool. Most tools were electronic, but the Faro’s had all sorts of devices, therefore Bepergian did not wonder long on the use of the tool.
He placed the tool in his pocket and looked for the tracks. After a brief search of the vicinity, Bepergian realized the tracks ended where he found the tool. It was as if Garnach stepped through another portal.
Bepergian pulled the tool back out of his pocket. It was small and oval, flat like a coin but smooth on one side. It fit neatly into the cupped palm of his hand. He examined the small buttons. There were three. One was red, one green and one yellow. In the middle of the buttons was a small display screen. On the outer edge of the device was a small gray button. He could see a on/off symbol on that button. He switched the tool on. All three buttons lit up momentarily before giving way to the green button. The small screen displayed Adventravias logo and then disappeared. Next it displayed the user screen.
An eerie message blinked at Bepergian from the small screen. “Last destination: Earth 1099, England.”
Startled, he nearly dropped the tool. The green button began to pulse and a small beeping emanated from it. The display flashed a warning message:
“To cancel time travel mode please enter your security code.”
Bepergan clicked the grey button to turn the device off, but the screen again flashed another message. “Poweroff override disabled. Security code required.”
A digital countdown began to flash 59 ... 58 ... 57... Bepergian looked around at the world he was supposed to be studying. The dead ruins, the lifeless air. He looked back at the device 35 ... 34 ... 33. Well, he thought to himself, I did think life was getting dull.
The device began to flash red then yellow. The countdown was at 9 ... 8 ... 7 ... The device began to flash green and then ...

Bepergian opened his eyes. He felt as if someone had hit him in the head with a club. He was lying face down in grass. Tall grass. He turned his head to the left and then right, slowly as pain throbbed in his skull at each movement. He closed his eyes and listened for a moment. He heard a breeze sweep through the grass above his head. To his left he could hear running water, about the size of a creek. The only sound he could not immediately identify was a ticking sound next to him.

After lying quietly for a moment he realized the ticking was coming from the device he still held in the palm of his hand. He reopened his eyes. With a groan he rolled over on to his back. The throbbing in his head began to recede. He looked at the device in his hand. The red light was blinking and a message scrolled across the devices screen, “Error, time zone exceded ... Error, time zone exceded...”
Puzzled Bepergian tried again to turn the device off.
The screen flashed, “Warning! Device poweroff will reformat device. Please use reset command to reset device.” Bepergian was beginning to get irritated by the device. Without an instruction manual or anyone to tell him how to use the device it was increasingly difficult to determine what to do with it. He briefly imagined throwing it as far as he could, but he knew it was the only answer to his missing Faro and now to his location.
The throbbing in his head had receded to a dull ache. He sat up on his knees and peered over the tall grass he was in. He appeared to be in a savanna of some sort with a tree line off in the distance. He could hear insects buzzing around and he could still hear the trickle of running water. He did not see any signs of civilization nor any animals. Just in case he checked the utility belt around his waste and was relieved that it was intact down to the knife he wore.
Still looking warily around, he stood up and looked all around. The sun stood high in the sky, so he assumed it was about midday. That made determining direction difficult. So he looked for the closest stand of trees. That happened to be in the direction of the sound of the water.
He looked again at the device in his hand, then placed it in a pouch in his belt. He would try to figure it out later, after he got his bearings and found a safe place for shelter.
He started off toward the water and trees. He walked about fifty paces when he found the stream. It wasn't very wide. He could easily jump over it, but it was surprisingly deep. If he tried to wade through it he would be up to his knees. He crouched next to the water and watched to see if there were any signs of life. Sitting very still he was able to see some fish swimming in the depths of the creek. They would surface to snatch a flying insect that buzzed near the water. As far as he could tell the fish appeared to be typical fresh water fish of earth. Indeed from all that he could see, hear and smell. He was on an uninhabited area of Earth.
Taking a chance he scooped up some of the water in his hand to taste it. It tasted fresh and sweet. Realizing he was thirsty he went to scoop more water. As he did so one of the fish surfaced and went for his hand as if it were an insect. Startled Bepergian jumped back. The fish submerged again, but not before he got a look at the mouth full of sharp teeth the fish had.
Now he really wondered where he was and what year.
Bepergian peered into the depths of the stream. He saw the silver flickers of fish as they swam about. He wondered about the savagery of the land and decided that he needed to watch carefuly where he tread.
His training as a multiverse anthropologist required survival training in the most extreme environments and generally he did not travel to new worlds without his equipment. Fortunately he did have most of his gear with him when he jumped to this world. His backpack was loaded with his supplies. He was only missing his tent and sleeping roll. Fortunately his training included survival with only his bare hands. His biggest loss was his Faro and precisely the reason he was here ... wherever here was.

He scanned the sky which was clear blue with some light fluffy clouds in the distance. The humidty was minimal, but he could feel some dampness in the air and indeed the sandy soil was a bit damp to the touch, so he determined that it had rained not long before he arrived. He looked up and down the stream but the visibility was approximately a hundred yards in each direction due to the tall grass. He took off his pack and heaved it over the stream. He could have jumped it with the pack on, but after seeing the fish with teeth he decided that clearing the stream with room to spare would be prudent. After making sure his pack landed well away from the stream he backed up a ways to get a run at it. He ran as hard as he could and kicked off the bank as high as he could. As he landed on the other side three of the carnivorous fish lept snapping out of the water at his shadow. He shivered. Those teeth looked so menacing.
Keeping one eye on the stream, Bepergian gathered his pack and re strapped it to his back. He unclipped his floppy hat from the carabiner on his bag and settled it on his head. He looked back at the stream and then continued on toward the line of trees in front of him. He checked the position of the sun and was able to determine (based on the NSEW rules of his own world) that he was heading west.
As he walked toward the tree line in front of him he kept a wary watch on the ground and sky for any possible threat. The tall grasses stretched up to Bepergians waistline. He was a fairly tall man at nearly 2 meters tall. For him it was rather disconcerting to have the ground obscured by the grasses, but he was glad he was tall enough to see over the tops. He walked for what seemed a long time. The sun was hot on his head and shoulders. He was grateful for the hat he wore. As he neared the trees the sun had begun its slide down to the horizon toward late afternoon. He could see individual trees on the outer edge of the forest, but he knew it would take another fifteen minutes of walking to get there. The sun was a hand’s-breadth over the top of the trees, when he stopped to take a mouthful of water from his water pack. He readjusted the pack on his back and took only one step. The next he knew he was flat on his face after a heavy blow pushed him to the ground.
Startled, Bepergian lay very still. He hoped to see what had knocked him down. Before he even caught a glimpse of his attacker he heard a deep guttural noise that made the hair on his neck rise. Moving very slowly he reached for the knife strapped to his belt. He hadn’t even touched the knife when he felt something roughly nudge his shoulder and then snort hot breath on his neck. The stench of rotting flesh assaulted his nose and he had to fight the urge to gag.
He could not see what was pushing at him since his head was turned the opposite direction. Suddenly he was lifted off the ground by his pack. Whatever had picked him up had three toed feet with a dew claw in the place of a heel. They looked like enormous lizard feet. He didn’t get a much better look as the creature began to shake him like cat worries or places with a rodent. It tossed him into the air and he landed on his stomach about 3 meters away. The fall knocked the breath out of him and he couldn’t move.
He heard the creature utter a high pitched whine and then he heard it crashing through the grass toward him. He tried to move and felt as if he were swimming in mud. He managed to roll onto his back and get his knife out of its sheath by the time the creature found him.
The creature nearly stepped on him as it hopped into view. He finally got a good look at what it was and nearly dropped his knife. It was a dinosaur. It was bipedal dinosaur with small upper arms and a large body and head. The mouth was large and full of razor sharp teeth. It leaned toward him and sniffed at him. It dripped foul smelling saliva on him and he nearly retched with the stench of its breath. It reared up and called out as if to communicate to others that it had found something. Bepergian felt doomed. While its attention was away from him he started scooting away from the creature toward the cover of the tall grasses.
He nearly got away when it looked down and saw what he was doing. He scrambled faster and got to his feet to run. He ran two or three steps when it caught him and picked him up again. This time it was carrying him and he could see above the grasses. He could not see any other dinosaurs but he heard answering calls in the distance. The image of himself being torn to shreds between two or more of these creatures flashed through his mind.
He still had his knife in hand but he couldn’t reach the creature while it carried him. Reluctantly, as it loped along he decided to cut the straps on his pack. He hated to lose it and his gear but he hated the thought of being eaten more. Quickly he cut the shoulder straps on his pack and dropped three meters to the ground. This time he was prepared to fall and landed on his hands and knees. He scrambled for his knife and then ran as fast as he could for the cover of the trees. This time he ran about ten meters before it caught him again. This time, without the protection of his pack, he felt the teeth as they sank into him. The pain was blinding and he felt his consciousness fade.
Before he completely blacked out he felt the dinosaur tilt and saw the ground rush up to meet him.

Bepergian did not want to wake up. Just a little longer, he thought. He lay very still with his eyes closed. He could hear voices quietly murmuring around him. Through the fog in his mind he realized the voices were not familiar. Curious he moved toward wakefulness. With wakefulness came pain. Everything seemed to hurt at once. In fact, he felt so much pain he was afraid to open his eyes. He tried anyways and found he could only open one eye and was rewarded with … more pain. He gasped at the brutality of it and promptly closed his eye again.
At his gasp the sound of the voices changed. They drew nearer and were more urgent. The voices sounded feminine but the language didn’t even register for him. He did recognize inflections of concern. As he wondered where he was he began to remember his last thoughts before he lost consciousness. He remembered being mauled by a dinosaur. That thought was so ludicrous and if he did not feel like he had been mauled he would have chalked it up to dreaming. But the pain told him otherwise.
He remembered then how he had arrived here. The missing Faro, the time travel device (that seemed to malfunction and he still didn’t know how to use and at this point he may have lost), the fish with a mouthful of razor sharp teeth and the incredible meeting with the dinosaur.
Bepergian lay still and used his other senses. He did try to avoid paying much attention to his sense of feel. That one only registered pain at the moment. He concentrated for a moment on the smells that surrounded him. He could smell a variety of herbs so extremely pungent and bitter mixed with soothing smells. He could also smell smoke from a wood fire. Listening he could hear the crackle of the fire and the rustling of at least one other person if not two.
He felt some one lean over him and then move away. He decided to try opening his eye again. He cracked it open. He was lying on his back and could see in the flickering smoky light that he was in a shelter of some sort, possibly a crude hut. All manner of herbs and other things he could not identify hung from the ceiling. He slowly turned his head feeling pain and stiffness in his neck and was able to see who his caretakers were.
Again he gasped. This time with shock rather than pain.

Bepergian was first and foremost a scientist. As an anthropologist he had spent his entire adult life examining worlds and studying extinct lifeforms and cultures. Now before his eyes stood a living breathing, moving specimen of his studies. If escaping from a dinosaur wasn't fantastical enough, seeing a Neanderthal woman perform her life in front of him was mythical.
She heard his gasp and turned toward him. He was amazed. Certainly she showed evidence of a larger bone structure and cranial structure than the women of his time, but it did not detract from her appearance. She had light colored hair. Dark blond or light brown by the look of it. In the dim light of the hut, and the way she had it pulled back it was hard to tell. She was somewhat crouched in the hut so her size was not immediately discernible. He could not see the lines of age on her face so he imaged her to be fairly young adult.
She remained at the entrance of the hut and looked shyly at him. He had no idea how he looked after being mauled by the dinosaur, but he felt he probably looked more damaged than dangerous. Not having excavated many sites containing Neanderthal remains he was not real sure of their customs, but looking about the hut, it seemed to be a fairly permanent structure, therefore he assumed her group was not nomadic.
She continued to watch him so he decided it was time to assess his injuries and start thinking about what he would do next.
Bepergian figured that if he could at least move his head that he did not retain spinal damage. In fact, he probably should worry more about infection from the dinosaurs mouth. In fact, the memory of the smell nearly made him gag.
He mentally touched on his various body parts and the pains associated with them. When he concentrated on his sides he definitely felt the effects of being mauled. He wondered how much of his injuries were from bruising and how much from actual damage by teeth.
He glanced over at the woman, who was still warily watching him. He raised his left arm, which felt stiff and sore, to touch his sides. As he did so the woman made a small grunt and frowned at him. He slowly continued to move his arm to see what she would do. She continued to frown at him but did not move to stop him. He felt along his left side with the back of his hand. He was surprised to find that his light safari jacket was not shredded but he did feel that there were holes in it. He gingerly touched the area where the hole was and felt with two fingers down to where his skin should have been. He found that he was bound with some sort of leather. 'Hopefully clean leather and medicinal herbs,' he thought.
He lay his arm back down and decided to try his feet. He didn't feel any pain from that area. He tried to lift his leg and found the strain caused a wave of nauseating pain in both his sides. He lay gasping for a few minutes, his eyes squeezed shut. When the pain subsided to a dull throb, he opened his eyes and saw the woman standing over him. Her expression a mixture of a frown and an "I told you so" look of indignation. She bent over and examined his sides and the bandages. After a moment of fussing, she grunted with satisfaction that he had not messed up her work.
He looked at her with what he hoped she would interpret as gratitude for her kindness. She huffed at him a bit and then motioned for him to close his eyes. He shook his head. She again motioned for him to close his eyes and then mimicked snoring. She wanted him to rest or sleep. He nodded to her, not sure if she understood, but he closed his eyes and without much difficulty, Bepergian drifted off to sleep.
Bepergian drifted between sleep and semi-consciousness. He was never sure if it was the effect of his wounds or the liquids his caretaker was feeding him. He just hoped he survived the hallucinations and could eventually come back to a solid reality.
A beeping noise entered his dreams and he was annoyed that the alarm had gone off. He was not ready to wake up. Eventually the beeping stopped and he relaxed into sleep again. Suddenly, he felt someone nudging him and trying to get him to wake up. He grumbled. The nudging became more urgent. Finally he opened his eyes. Through the fuzzy blur he saw a strange sight. It seemed the face that looked down at him was not human, but was oddly ... human. While he tried to figure that out the beeping started again. The face contorted in a mixture of anger and fear. It took Bepergian a moment to recognize the beeping. It was his watch. He almost laughed. The fact, that his watch had survived and not been lost truly amazed him. He was even more amazed to realize that it was still on his right arm. He smiled, hoping it would ease the fears of the face, and came fully awake. Aside from some stiffness he felt pretty good.
He looked more fully at the face and realized that it was a male Neanderthal. He was huge. He seemed to fill the hut with his physical size as well as his commanding presence. The fact that he was wearing an amazingly intricate headdress and had painted his face with blue whorls and lines added to his charismatic presence. A little bit of fear clutched at Bepergian, but it was replaced quickly by anthropological fascination. He had ignored the beeping on his wrist in order to study the living history in front of him, but the shaman (as Bepergian thought of him) indicated that he wanted to know what was beeping and why.
Continuing to smile in a what he hoped was a sincere and non-threatening way, he stiffly pulled himself to an upright sitting position and dropped his long unused legs over the edge of his (cot?) to the floor. He felt the aches and stiffness of lying in the same position for several days. He wondered briefly where his pants were and kept his mind from wandering to how his bodily functions has been dealt with. He looked up at the shaman and indicated the watch on his wrist. The time was 1707. The date indicated Wednesday 20Aug, 2140. He chuckled briefly at the absurdity of a time piece when he clearly had no idea of where in time he actually was. He had set the alarm to go off on the 20th of each month to remind him to fill out his reports and transmit them to headquarters. They weren't due until the end of the month, but the reminder gave him the opportunity to get the reports done.
He looked at the Shaman and again thought of the total insignificance of his reports at the moment. He slowly reached over with his left hand and turned off the alarm. The shaman approached warily to examine the device on his arm. Bepergian wondered briefly if he should let him see it, since the technology would not be around for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years. He discarded his inhibition as the shaman fearfully touched his wrist near the watch. He wanted to touch it, that was clear. Bepergian unclasped the watch. The shaman looked at him with wonder. Then he held it out to the shaman who gingerly touched it. Finding it would not harm him he held it gently and examined it all over. He handed it back to Bepergian, but at the same time his expression said he was reluctant to do so as he wanted to examine it further. Bepergian thought of offering it to him again, but decided that knowledge might come in handy later on, so he simply placed the watch back on his wrist.
Now that he was awake, and able to move without debilitating pain, Bepergian was anxious to explore his surroundings and possibly locate the remnants of his gear, particularly the time travel device. As fascinated as he was with exploring history in this manner, he still preferred the comforts of his “home” era.
The Shaman, satisfied that the beeping device was not harmful, nodded to him and ducked out of the hut. Immediately entering was his caretaker. She frowned at him as if his device had caused her some sort of inconvenience. He smiled apologetically at her, hoping to win back some favor. She just nodded and looked aloof. She busied herself with her pots and herbs and ignored him, so he looked around. He sat on what he had thought was a cot, but was actually a rock slab covered in furs. It appeared the hut was built around the rock. He found that interesting and took note of that fact. Her hut was small but built into the walls were niches containing earthenware jars and pots, small figurines and bundles of dried herbs hung throughout.
Bepergian flexed his arms and legs and stretched. He could feel a small twinge in his sides but more from disuse rather than injury. He pulled up his shirt to inspect the wounds. There were three scars on each side. They weren't as big as he thought they would be and actually they weren't as jagged as he had imagined. He tried to remember exactly what happened. He remembered being picked up by the dinosaur and shaken. In fact he remembered being more scared than hurt. Then he remembered falling. His next memory was waking up in this hut.
From those events he assumed he was rescued by a group of Neanderthals. He wondered where his things were, in particular his pants.
The woman was still busying herself with a basket of herbs, but he had no doubt that she was paying attention to everything he did. He decided to try out his legs.
Bepergians first few days out of the hut were a blur. After many attempts he he was able to coax his legs into standing and walking. He lurched around a bit for a couple of days. His legs acted as if he hadn't used them for weeks. Then he looked at the date on his watch. The alarm had gone off on the 20th of August. His last memory of date was mid June! He had been out of it for several weeks. At this point he was certain the Neanderthals had give him some concoction of herbs that kept him in a stupor until he healed. He was grateful for not having to remember the pain, but he did not like being out of it for that long.
Language remained a barrier. The Neanderthals certainly spoke but they also had a complex language of gestures. It reminded him of animals, mostly dogs and cats as those were animals he was the most familiar with. He considered the dog he had as a boy. He had always been amazed that it seemed to respond to his moods. If he were sad the dog would seem to mope with him in a sympathetic way, giving him sad looks. If he were excited the dog too would get excited. He knew that the dog could understand his body language, and to some extent he understood the dogs too, but it seemed as far as language he never completely understood the barks ... or did he? He knew when the dog wanted out, or wanted to play, or was hungry, so in some sense it was reasonable to assume he could understand the dogs body language as well.
At the moment Bepergian was sitting on a log in front of the hut he had been in for weeks. He observed the daily activities of the group and decided that he was all wrong in his methods for understanding and communicating. He was trying too hard to find a common thread in the language alone. For these people language was communicated via expression, emotion and gesture.
He picked up the stick he had been using to walk and stood up. He looked at the hut. From the outside it was small and crude with mud and grasses pressed into the cracks to keep out the rain. It was situated at the rocky base of a hill, just on the outskirts of the forest. In fact, it was nearly inside a cave like structure. A slab of rock jutted 10 meters above the cluster of huts. A slight depression in the hill under the slab gave it any walls at all. Because of the slab, Climbing up the hill behind the village was impossible without skirting around the forest. It made the entrance into the village one way.
The village was in a clearing of the forest. The clearing had been created by the Neanderthals. Old tree stumps dotted the area. Most were used in some fashion as chairs and tables. One particularly large stump had been hollowed and lined with with rocks. This they used for the community fire pit. In a circle around the edge of the clearing the Neanderthals had placed a crude fence. It was made up of saplings and vines woven together and then tied to trees at the perimeter. It stood about 5 meters high. He wagered that it wouldn't keep a determined dinosaur out, but it would probably slow it down. The trees of the forest were giant deciduous trees with a dense canopy. The sounds of birds and other animals filtered down to the clearing.
The community had the feel of a clan. Everyone had a role. He had obviously been placed in the care of the healer. They all regarded him with shy curiosity. If he could talk he was sure they would be asking him all sorts of questions.
He went into the hut. After he regained the use of his legs he had started looking for his things. He quickly found them neatly piled on the floor at the end of the 'cot' he had been sleeping on. Aside from the cut straps, and a few teeth marks, his backpack otherwise intact. His pants were there as well and he wrestled them on to the amusement of his nurse. She laughed heartily at his struggle. Several times he cursed the ridiculousness of his reluctant legs.
*** *** ***
Bepergians recovery had been fairly quick. He had only been up and around for about four days now. His walking stick had been a gift from the shaman. He treasured it as it was very helpful in regaining the use of his legs, although he hoped to not need it much longer as he knew he either needed to keep moving or find a way to get back to his own time zone and continue looking for his missing Faro. At first he had worried about how long it was taking him until he realized he just needed to figure out the device and then he could essentially master time. If he could make the device work he could go back to where he started, and even possibly before his Faro went missing.
He did worry a bit about paradox but only briefly. Paradox was a lengthy course when he was in training as an Anthropologist. He never really bought into the hype associated with it as most of the course was theoretical.
Bepergian rummaged through his backpack and dug out the small time device. He went back outside into the light and sat on the rock outside of the hut. He studied the device from all sides looking for anything that might give him a clue on how to use it. The back was smooth and rounded so that it fit comfortably in the palm of his hand. He looked carefully at the on/off switch. To turn it on he had to push the button in. To turn it off was the same. On either side of the button there was an arrow pointing up and down. Curios, Bepergian toggled the the button and found that it moved like an up down switch as well as a push button. There were no other markings on the device, other than the logo of Adventravia. He examined the display screen, although since the device was off it didn't really offer any more insight than the rock on which he sat. He looked carefully at the red, yellow, and green buttons. There were no labels on those buttons. He assumed he would have to power it up to find out more. He wondered briefly what type of power supply made it run.
He looked around at the village. He wondered if he should be wearing his pack when he powered up the device just in case he did something wrong and wound up somewhere else. He looked at the device, slipped it into his pocket and stood up. He wasn't ready to leave yet.
He leaned a bit on his cane and ambled slowly toward the center of the village. The Shaman usually sat there surrounded by various groups as he spoke to them or taught them something. Bepergians, curiosity as an anthropologist made him spend time watching the Shaman and various other members of the group. The women tended to the children and the huts. They did some hunting and fishing, but mostly they remained near the village. The men went daily to secure the area around the village, keeping large predators at bay and hunting for the game that sustained the village. Some of the older members of the village taught the children various tasks such as cooking, creating utensils like bowls and pots, curing hides from various game that was brought in and telling them stories.
His first few trips around the village created a lot of excitement and he was crowded by everyone wanting to look at him, touch him and ask him questions. When they realized he didn't speak their language they soon tired of him and went back to their usual activities. Now he would basically sit and observe them. Some of them did not like it and indicated that he should move away, but most were indifferent and ignored him. So he listened as they spoke and watched as they gestured. He tried to pick up some sense of their language. He wanted to know what had happened to him when he had been rescued from the dinosaur and he wanted to know if his Faro had appeared in this time zone. Only language would help him at this point.
The Shaman had a group of young men sitting before him. The each in turn presented him with a weapon of some sort, a spear, a flint knife, axe and what appeared to be a small bow. Bepergian sat on the outer edge of the group, straining to see the objects and listening to the conversation. Each time the Shaman would take a proffered item from someone the person would say, “ung ba givid” then he would sit back and eagerly await the pronouncement from the Shaman. The Shaman would examine the item critically, turning over looking at it from all angles, testing it properties and then he would hold it in his lap, shut his eyes and chant for a few moments. Then he would he carefully hand the item back to its owner. The owner would then raise the item over his head and shout with joy.
Bepergian decided to risk a social faux pas. After the last youth received his item from the Shaman, Bepergian moved forward toward the Shaman and held out his walking stick and said “ung ba givid” hoping he pronounced it right. Startled, everyone looked at him. At first the Shaman looked affronted, but then he considered Bepergian for a moment. A wide grin broke through his frown and he laughed so hard tears came from his eyes. The youths, frightened at first to see their normally solemn Shaman laughing joined in the mirth.
Bepergian figured he had done something incredibly stupid or rude, but was not in the least worried. He felt that he had at least made known his desire to learn and communicate. He sat back and placed the walking stick across his lap. He and the Shaman exchanged a look in which they both at that moment understood each other.

*** **** *** ****
The Shaman looked at Bepergian with a look of amusement. For the first time Bepergian regarded the Shaman as a respected elder to learn from rather than an exciting archaeological find. The Shaman dismissed the youths and beckoned Bepergian to sit in front of him.
For a long moment the Shaman looked at Bepergian, as if to measure his intelligence and his abilities. Finally, satisfied with what he saw he looked directly into Bepergians eyes. He patted his chest and said, “Taargu”. Bepergian, shocked at the universal jester from this neolithic man just stared. The shaman repeated the name and patted his chest again. Closing his gaping mouth , Bepergian repeated the name “Tahrgu.” Taargu grinned and nodded. Next he pointed at Bepergian.
“Bepergian” said Bepergian. Taargu looked at him, so Bepergian patted his own chest and repeated his name. Taargu cocked his head and said “Beppergin?”
“Close enough” Bepergian said, which made Taargu look at him quizzically. Bepergian nodded and said “Bepergian”. Taargu was satisfied. Then he gave Bepergian a look that said “now we will begin your education.”
Taargu had Bepergian follow him around everyday. Showing him things and giving them names. Occasionally he would want to know Bepergians name for things.
As he learned, he also healed. As summer wore to fall, Bepergian learned to speak and learned how things worked in the village. The better his speech the more villagers would seek him out to learn of him.
Finally one day as he rummaged through his pack he came up on the time travel device. He had been enjoying his experience he had forgotten that he was there by accident and that he should be looking for his missing Faro.

*** *** *** ***

Guiltily Bepergian fingered the device. As far as he knew he was the only anthropologist to learn so much about Neanderthals and their culture. Their language was far more complex than ever reported by any anthropological study and he knew how to speak it! He had packed away his clothes and had started wearing clothing created by the Neanderthals. He had learned many things in addition to language. He had learned some rudimentary skills at flint knapping so he could create his own tools and weapons. He learned how to hunt with those tools. He had learned much about the flora and fauna and about the dinosaurs.
The dinosaurs completely contradicted everything he knew about geological history. He surmised that he was not on his own world, but back in the early stages of the world he had been on when he had gone back in time.
The dinosaur that had picked him up was called a Sugairi. He still had no idea what the modern word for it was. But he was told that a group of villagers had been out hunting when the pack of sugairi had been sighted. Normally the hunters would have made a wide berth around a pack of hunting sugairi, but then one of them spotted Bepergian trying to get away. Before the rest of the pack to catch up to the one attacking Bepergian they attacked it and killed it. As it fell to the ground they grabbed bepergian and his pack and fled the area. The other sugairi would find the one they killed and fall upon it like the carrion eaters they were. Also the sugairi stayed away from the trees. They would get tangled in the vegetation and could not move quickly or easily through it because of their size. Therefore living amongst the trees was relatively safe for the Neanderthals.
He continued to regard them as Neanderthal but as each day went by he would catch himself regarding them in their own language. They called themselves the Porpiti Ensa. It meant as closely as he could translate, ground children.
As all good researches do, Bepergian each evening by the fire added entries into his journal. He had considered taking pictures of the Neanderthals, but all of his electronics were out of power, except for the curious time device and his watch.
Bepergian had healed well. In fact the walking stick he had leaned on so heavily now sat idly in the hut next to his pack. The woman who had tended to him was Meeyor. She was in fact, very young. Bepergian had asked Taargu about her. He had tried to talk to Meeyor, but once he was healed she moved him out of her hut to the mens huts on the other side of the village. If he tried to talk to her again she would only ask him if he was injured. If he responded no then she would turn her back on him and ignore him.
Taargu said that the Healers only spoke to those who required their services. Otherwise they only kept council among themselves. Being a healer was a difficult life. It required a lifetime of learning herb lore, healing spells and rites. The healer dealt with all ailments of the people. They could not be distracted with daily problems as this could cause them to lose focus.
There were three healers in the village. Meeyor was considered the novice. Bepergian was given to her to heal as a test. Bepergian was grateful she passed the test. He had asked Taargu how he should repay her.
Taargu said that the village takes care of the healers. They provide them with everything so they can take care of the village. He said the best way was for Bepergian to make a gift of food for Meeyor. So he learned to hunt. He managed to bring back a pair of quail and the eggs. He presented these to Meeyor in the way that Taargu instructed.
Meeyor nodded her thanks, took the fowl and the eggs and disappeared into her hut. Later that day a small boy brought him a cooked quail leg from Meeyor. According to Taargu, that was her acknowledgment that his gift was good and proper. Bepergian was pleased.
But now as he held on to the time device, he knew it was time to say good by and continue his journey for his missing Faro. Taargu and a group of hunters would lead him back to the edge of the Savannah near where they found him. He felt he needed to be near where he had entered the time zone to get back close to where he started in his own time zone.
As they neared the edge of the forest, Taargu and the others fell silent. Taargu whispered that it was better to be quiet near the hunting grounds of the sugairi.
Bepergian thanked the Propiti Ensa for all that they had taught him and given him. To Taargu he presented his watch. He knew the Shaman coveted it and had even asked questions about it. Bepergian told him that it would eventually stop working because the life in it had not yet been created in Taargu's world. Taargu merely said, “It is the same with all things. Life starts and life ends. While it lives I will enjoy it. When it dies, I will honor its memory.”
Bepergian grinned. It was more than a watch could ever hope for!
He waved goodby to the Propiti Ensa and took one last look at the world he had found so much wonder in. He checked to make sure he had all of his things and then looked at the device.
He pressed the on button.
The small screen came to life. First the Adventravia logo flashed and then welcome screen came on. The buttons all lit up and blinked once or twice before flashing off. The device then flashed the message “self diagnostic in progress, please wait.” Bepergian sighed. Finally a message popped up, “Device ready. Where in time do you wish to go today?”
Puzzled, Bepergian wondered how to input that information. As if it read his mind the screen flashed, “please scroll through the menu using the gray button on the side.”
He then remembered the arrows next to the on/off button. He toggled the button and found himself scrolling through a menu of famous dates in history. He located one that said custom date. He selected that one(after punching all the buttons he realized the red button was the select button. He also briefly thought he should be writing all this down.)
He entered (with much difficulty and much cursing) the date he was supposed to be sitting at the ruins on the dead world. 15 July 2140.
It asked him where. He stared at the device. He had no idea the name of the dead world he had been on. As far as Adventravia was concerned the world and where he had been was a series of numbers and letters. So very scientific. He decided to put England. That was where he had jumped to the world from.
The device hummed as it accepted the data. The screen flashed “time travel initiated for 15 July 2140, England.”
It continued to flash messages. The last one was eerily familiar “Last destination: 1099 England.” Bepergian felt dizzy.
“Time travel jump will commence in 60 seconds 59, 58, 57 ...”
Bepergian wondered, not for the last time, if he would ever get home again.

*** *** *** ***

Bepergians head throbbed. It felt as if a thunderstorm was raging on his head. He opened his eyes and immediately shut them as a bright light stabbed his eyes. Slowly he opened them and realized he was lying on dusty dirt. He looked up and saw a cloud of roiling dust thundering toward him. At the top of the dust cloud were horses foaming and snorting. Before he could think he jumped to his feet and ran. He dived to the side and felt the passing wind of the horses as they stormed past him. Panting he watched as the last of the horses sped by. He looked wildly around, trying to see what made the horses stampede. As the drumbeat of their hooves quickly vanished into the distance a quiet calm settled around him, and only the thud of his adrenaline stoked heart could be heard.
Nothing appeared. His heart slowed to a more normal rhythm. Slowly he stood up and looked around. This definitely was not the dead world from which he began his journey. The dirt he had found himself on actually appeared to be a road.

Anthropologist ... cont'd

Anthropologist

The landscape shimmered in the heat of the late afternoon. The ruins of a once formidable city sat atop the gentle rise behind him. He sat on a broken pillar, knees drawn up and cradled in his arms. His floppy hat shaded his eyes from the sun which was sinking toward the horizon. Despite the foliage which had taken over the ruins the land seemed dead or dormant. No breeze disturbed the foliage. Birds did not call to each other in the dense woods which surrounded the ruins. Insects did not crawl, buzz or chirp in the secret shade created by the dense growth.
He sighed. Traveling among worlds was getting old. He had been traveling for so many years he hardly knew anyone that could remember back as far as he could. Even some of his exploits were legendary among the younger travelers.
His name was Dunia Bepergian. It was not his birth name. That name was discarded long ago when he became a Multiverse Anthropologist. He and a friend joined Adventravia, a private company with government funding, which touted multiverse travel. His friend Faro Duncan, became a Multiverse Enforcer. Basically his job was to see that the travelers followed protocol, and protect them as they ventured unknown realms.
All the Faro’s had to withstand rigorous physical training and then a complicated course on technology associated with their jobs, before they were allowed to become multiverse travelers.
All Adventravia recruits went through basic testing and training. As old as he was Bepergian never forgot his initial recruitment and the training he went through. Many in his class washed out. There were no second chances either. Adventravias credo included a simple passage, “You only get one chance at life. If you are unwilling to make the most of it, you will not fulfill your life’s journey.”
Bepergian took that to heart and excelled in his training. In time he became the leading multiverse anthropologist adventravia had.
Now, after thirty or more years, he sat on this dead looking world in the ruins of some ancient city, wondering if there was more to life. His Faro was off somewhere securing the perimeter of his “site”, so that the Dunia could begin his research.
Bepergian, closed his eyes to the scenery. He had seen many worlds that looked like this one. He felt he could do his investigation from his perch on the broken pillar with his eyes closed. The soil looked dead. The foliage looked dead. The ruins were certainly dead. He sighed. The sun had but moments before it sank below the horizon. Bepergian was ready to go home. He wondered if home was still there or if it too sat in ruins like this city.


Where was the Faro? Bepergian took his mini torch from a pocket in his vest. It was still dusk and light from the set sun still illuminated the ruins, however it would get dark quickly. A light breeze began to sweep through the ruins, alleviating some of the stuffiness of the day. Bepergian scanned the perimeter of the ruins looking for the hat the Faro wore. Most chose a uniform style attire, but this particular Faro preferred to blend with the scenery rather than stand out, so he wore drab earth color attire.
Dunia Bepergian had worked with this Faro for many years now, even so he still thought of his Faro new. His name was Garnach. Bepergian rarely used his name and simply called him Faro. In fact as detailed as he could be about a site, he couldn’t describe Faro Garnach because they never interacted much beyond the requirements of their jobs. Garnach was extremely silent. Bepergian could not recall a sentence from him longer than two words.
The Dunia slipped off his perch and carefully picked his way along ground littered with debris from the crumbling structure. He moved carefully to the insertion point. He inspected the portal where he and the Faro had entered from their base world. The portal had been set to hibernation mode and therefore remained invisible. The only way Bepergian knew it was there was the small electronic marker Garnach had planted into the ground. A few feet from the marker were the two rucksacks with their gear and equipment. The dusty ground was scuffed with their footprints. Bepergian located his tracks as they led up the slight incline to the pillar he was sitting on. Faro’s tracks led north from the marker.
Bepergian followed Faros tracks a short way and then had to turn on the small torch he had been carrying. As he followed the tracks he swept the light from side to side. The light flashed on something metallic off to the right of the path Faro had made.
He bent over to examine the object and discovered a small tool. He knew it was Faros as it had the company’s logo on it. The Dunia examined the tool. It appeared to be a manual tool. Most tools were electronic, but the Faro’s had all sorts of devices, therefore Bepergian did not wonder long on the use of the tool.
He placed the tool in his pocket and looked for the tracks. After a brief search of the vicinity, Bepergian realized the tracks ended where he found the tool. It was as if Garnach stepped through another portal.
Bepergian pulled the tool back out of his pocket. It was small and oval, flat like a coin but smooth on one side. It fit neatly into the cupped palm of his hand. He examined the small buttons. There were three. One was red, one green and one yellow. In the middle of the buttons was a small display screen. On the outer edge of the device was a small gray button. He could see a on/off symbol on that button. He switched the tool on. All three buttons lit up momentarily before giving way to the green button. The small screen displayed Adventravias logo and then disappeared. Next it displayed the user screen.
An eerie message blinked at Bepergian from the small screen. “Last destination: Earth 1099, England.”
Startled, he nearly dropped the tool. The green button began to pulse and a small beeping emanated from it. The display flashed a warning message:
“To cancel time travel mode please enter your security code.”
Bepergan clicked the grey button to turn the device off, but the screen again flashed another message. “Poweroff override disabled. Security code required.”
A digital countdown began to flash 59 ... 58 ... 57... Bepergian looked around at the world he was supposed to be studying. The dead ruins, the lifeless air. He looked back at the device 35 ... 34 ... 33. Well, he thought to himself, I did think life was getting dull.
The device began to flash red then yellow. The countdown was at 9 ... 8 ... 7 ... The device began to flash green and then ...

Bepergian opened his eyes. He felt as if someone had hit him in the head with a club. He was lying face down in grass. Tall grass. He turned his head to the left and then right, slowly as pain throbbed in his skull at each movement. He closed his eyes and listened for a moment. He heard a breeze sweep through the grass above his head. To his left he could hear running water, about the size of a creek. The only sound he could not immediately identify was a ticking sound next to him.

After lying quietly for a moment he realized the ticking was coming from the device he still held in the palm of his hand. He reopened his eyes. With a groan he rolled over on to his back. The throbbing in his head began to recede. He looked at the device in his hand. The red light was blinking and a message scrolled across the devices screen, “Error, time zone exceded ... Error, time zone exceded...”
Puzzled Bepergian tried again to turn the device off.
The screen flashed, “Warning! Device poweroff will reformat device. Please use reset command to reset device.” Bepergian was beginning to get irritated by the device. Without an instruction manual or anyone to tell him how to use the device it was increasingly difficult to determine what to do with it. He briefly imagined throwing it as far as he could, but he knew it was the only answer to his missing Faro and now to his location.
The throbbing in his head had receded to a dull ache. He sat up on his knees and peered over the tall grass he was in. He appeared to be in a savanna of some sort with a tree line off in the distance. He could hear insects buzzing around and he could still hear the trickle of running water. He did not see any signs of civilization nor any animals. Just in case he checked the utility belt around his waste and was relieved that it was intact down to the knife he wore.
Still looking warily around, he stood up and looked all around. The sun stood high in the sky, so he assumed it was about midday. That made determining direction difficult. So he looked for the closest stand of trees. That happened to be in the direction of the sound of the water.
He looked again at the device in his hand, then placed it in a pouch in his belt. He would try to figure it out later, after he got his bearings and found a safe place for shelter.
He started off toward the water and trees. He walked about fifty paces when he found the stream. It wasn't very wide. He could easily jump over it, but it was surprisingly deep. If he tried to wade through it he would be up to his knees. He crouched next to the water and watched to see if there were any signs of life. Sitting very still he was able to see some fish swimming in the depths of the creek. They would surface to snatch a flying insect that buzzed near the water. As far as he could tell the fish appeared to be typical fresh water fish of earth. Indeed from all that he could see, hear and smell. He was on an uninhabited area of Earth.
Taking a chance he scooped up some of the water in his hand to taste it. It tasted fresh and sweet. Realizing he was thirsty he went to scoop more water. As he did so one of the fish surfaced and went for his hand as if it were an insect. Startled Bepergian jumped back. The fish submerged again, but not before he got a look at the mouth full of sharp teeth the fish had.
Now he really wondered where he was and what year.
Bepergian peered into the depths of the stream. He saw the silver flickers of fish as they swam about. He wondered about the savagery of the land and decided that he needed to watch carefuly where he tread.
His training as a multiverse anthropologist required survival training in the most extreme environments and generally he did not travel to new worlds without his equipment. Fortunately he did have most of his gear with him when he jumped to this world. His backpack was loaded with his supplies. He was only missing his tent and sleeping roll. Fortunately his training included survival with only his bare hands. His biggest loss was his Faro and precisely the reason he was here ... wherever here was.

He scanned the sky which was clear blue with some light fluffy clouds in the distance. The humidty was minimal, but he could feel some dampness in the air and indeed the sandy soil was a bit damp to the touch, so he determined that it had rained not long before he arrived. He looked up and down the stream but the visibility was approximately a hundred yards in each direction due to the tall grass. He took off his pack and heaved it over the stream. He could have jumped it with the pack on, but after seeing the fish with teeth he decided that clearing the stream with room to spare would be prudent. After making sure his pack landed well away from the stream he backed up a ways to get a run at it. He ran as hard as he could and kicked off the bank as high as he could. As he landed on the other side three of the carnivorous fish lept snapping out of the water at his shadow. He shivered. Those teeth looked so menacing.
Keeping one eye on the stream, Bepergian gathered his pack and re strapped it to his back. He unclipped his floppy hat from the carabiner on his bag and settled it on his head. He looked back at the stream and then continued on toward the line of trees in front of him. He checked the position of the sun and was able to determine (based on the NSEW rules of his own world) that he was heading west.
As he walked toward the tree line in front of him he kept a wary watch on the ground and sky for any possible threat. The tall grasses stretched up to Bepergians waistline. He was a fairly tall man at nearly 2 meters tall. For him it was rather disconcerting to have the ground obscured by the grasses, but he was glad he was tall enough to see over the tops. He walked for what seemed a long time. The sun was hot on his head and shoulders. He was grateful for the hat he wore. As he neared the trees the sun had begun its slide down to the horizon toward late afternoon. He could see individual trees on the outer edge of the forest, but he knew it would take another fifteen minutes of walking to get there. The sun was a hand’s-breadth over the top of the trees, when he stopped to take a mouthful of water from his water pack. He readjusted the pack on his back and took only one step. The next he knew he was flat on his face after a heavy blow pushed him to the ground.
Startled, Bepergian lay very still. He hoped to see what had knocked him down. Before he even caught a glimpse of his attacker he heard a deep guttural noise that made the hair on his neck rise. Moving very slowly he reached for the knife strapped to his belt. He hadn’t even touched the knife when he felt something roughly nudge his shoulder and then snort hot breath on his neck. The stench of rotting flesh assaulted his nose and he had to fight the urge to gag.
He could not see what was pushing at him since his head was turned the opposite direction. Suddenly he was lifted off the ground by his pack. Whatever had picked him up had three toed feet with a dew claw in the place of a heel. They looked like enormous lizard feet. He didn’t get a much better look as the creature began to shake him like cat worries or places with a rodent. It tossed him into the air and he landed on his stomach about 3 meters away. The fall knocked the breath out of him and he couldn’t move.
He heard the creature utter a high pitched whine and then he heard it crashing through the grass toward him. He tried to move and felt as if he were swimming in mud. He managed to roll onto his back and get his knife out of its sheath by the time the creature found him.
The creature nearly stepped on him as it hopped into view. He finally got a good look at what it was and nearly dropped his knife. It was a dinosaur. It was bipedal dinosaur with small upper arms and a large body and head. The mouth was large and full of razor sharp teeth. It leaned toward him and sniffed at him. It dripped foul smelling saliva on him and he nearly retched with the stench of its breath. It reared up and called out as if to communicate to others that it had found something. Bepergian felt doomed. While its attention was away from him he started scooting away from the creature toward the cover of the tall grasses.
He nearly got away when it looked down and saw what he was doing. He scrambled faster and got to his feet to run. He ran two or three steps when it caught him and picked him up again. This time it was carrying him and he could see above the grasses. He could not see any other dinosaurs but he heard answering calls in the distance. The image of himself being torn to shreds between two or more of these creatures flashed through his mind.
He still had his knife in hand but he couldn’t reach the creature while it carried him. Reluctantly, as it loped along he decided to cut the straps on his pack. He hated to lose it and his gear but he hated the thought of being eaten more. Quickly he cut the shoulder straps on his pack and dropped three meters to the ground. This time he was prepared to fall and landed on his hands and knees. He scrambled for his knife and then ran as fast as he could for the cover of the trees. This time he ran about ten meters before it caught him again. This time, without the protection of his pack, he felt the teeth as they sank into him. The pain was blinding and he felt his consciousness fade.
Before he completely blacked out he felt the dinosaur tilt and saw the ground rush up to meet him.

Bepergian did not want to wake up. Just a little longer, he thought. He lay very still with his eyes closed. He could hear voices quietly murmuring around him. Through the fog in his mind he realized the voices were not familiar. Curious he moved toward wakefulness. With wakefulness came pain. Everything seemed to hurt at once. In fact, he felt so much pain he was afraid to open his eyes. He tried anyways and found he could only open one eye and was rewarded with … more pain. He gasped at the brutality of it and promptly closed his eye again.
At his gasp the sound of the voices changed. They drew nearer and were more urgent. The voices sounded feminine but the language didn’t even register for him. He did recognize inflections of concern. As he wondered where he was he began to remember his last thoughts before he lost consciousness. He remembered being mauled by a dinosaur. That thought was so ludicrous and if he did not feel like he had been mauled he would have chalked it up to dreaming. But the pain told him otherwise.
He remembered then how he had arrived here. The missing Faro, the time travel device (that seemed to malfunction and he still didn’t know how to use and at this point he may have lost), the fish with a mouthful of razor sharp teeth and the incredible meeting with the dinosaur.
Bepergian lay still and used his other senses. He did try to avoid paying much attention to his sense of feel. That one only registered pain at the moment. He concentrated for a moment on the smells that surrounded him. He could smell a variety of herbs so extremely pungent and bitter mixed with soothing smells. He could also smell smoke from a wood fire. Listening he could hear the crackle of the fire and the rustling of at least one other person if not two.
He felt some one lean over him and then move away. He decided to try opening his eye again. He cracked it open. He was lying on his back and could see in the flickering smoky light that he was in a shelter of some sort, possibly a crude hut. All manner of herbs and other things he could not identify hung from the ceiling. He slowly turned his head feeling pain and stiffness in his neck and was able to see who his caretakers were.
Again he gasped. This time with shock rather than pain.

Bepergian was first and foremost a scientist. As an anthropologist he had spent his entire adult life examining worlds and studying extinct lifeforms and cultures. Now before his eyes stood a living breathing, moving specimen of his studies. If escaping from a dinosaur wasn't fantastical enough, seeing a Neanderthal woman perform her life in front of him was mythical.
She heard his gasp and turned toward him. He was amazed. Certainly she showed evidence of a larger bone structure and cranial structure than the women of his time, but it did not detract from her appearance. She had light colored hair. Dark blond or light brown by the look of it. In the dim light of the hut, and the way she had it pulled back it was hard to tell. She was somewhat crouched in the hut so her size was not immediately discernible. He could not see the lines of age on her face so he imaged her to be fairly young adult.
She remained at the entrance of the hut and looked shyly at him. He had no idea how he looked after being mauled by the dinosaur, but he felt he probably looked more damaged than dangerous. Not having excavated many sites containing Neanderthal remains he was not real sure of their customs, but looking about the hut, it seemed to be a fairly permanent structure, therefore he assumed her group was not nomadic.
She continued to watch him so he decided it was time to assess his injuries and start thinking about what he would do next.
Bepergian figured that if he could at least move his head that he did not retain spinal damage. In fact, he probably should worry more about infection from the dinosaurs mouth. In fact, the memory of the smell nearly made him gag.
He mentally touched on his various body parts and the pains associated with them. When he concentrated on his sides he definitely felt the effects of being mauled. He wondered how much of his injuries were from bruising and how much from actual damage by teeth.
He glanced over at the woman, who was still warily watching him. He raised his left arm, which felt stiff and sore, to touch his sides. As he did so the woman made a small grunt and frowned at him. He slowly continued to move his arm to see what she would do. She continued to frown at him but did not move to stop him. He felt along his left side with the back of his hand. He was surprised to find that his light safari jacket was not shredded but he did feel that there were holes in it. He gingerly touched the area where the hole was and felt with two fingers down to where his skin should have been. He found that he was bound with some sort of leather. 'Hopefully clean leather and medicinal herbs,' he thought.
He lay his arm back down and decided to try his feet. He didn't feel any pain from that area. He tried to lift his leg and found the strain caused a wave of nauseating pain in both his sides. He lay gasping for a few minutes, his eyes squeezed shut. When the pain subsided to a dull throb, he opened his eyes and saw the woman standing over him. Her expression a mixture of a frown and an "I told you so" look of indignation. She bent over and examined his sides and the bandages. After a moment of fussing, she grunted with satisfaction that he had not messed up her work.
He looked at her with what he hoped she would interpret as gratitude for her kindness. She huffed at him a bit and then motioned for him to close his eyes. He shook his head. She again motioned for him to close his eyes and then mimicked snoring. She wanted him to rest or sleep. He nodded to her, not sure if she understood, but he closed his eyes and without much difficulty, Bepergian drifted off to sleep.
Bepergian drifted between sleep and semi-consciousness. He was never sure if it was the effect of his wounds or the liquids his caretaker was feeding him. He just hoped he survived the hallucinations and could eventually come back to a solid reality.
A beeping noise entered his dreams and he was annoyed that the alarm had gone off. He was not ready to wake up. Eventually the beeping stopped and he relaxed into sleep again. Suddenly, he felt someone nudging him and trying to get him to wake up. He grumbled. The nudging became more urgent. Finally he opened his eyes. Through the fuzzy blur he saw a strange sight. It seemed the face that looked down at him was not human, but was oddly ... human. While he tried to figure that out the beeping started again. The face contorted in a mixture of anger and fear. It took Bepergian a moment to recognize the beeping. It was his watch. He almost laughed. The fact, that his watch had survived and not been lost truly amazed him. He was even more amazed to realize that it was still on his right arm. He smiled, hoping it would ease the fears of the face, and came fully awake. Aside from some stiffness he felt pretty good.
He looked more fully at the face and realized that it was a male Neanderthal. He was huge. He seemed to fill the hut with his physical size as well as his commanding presence. The fact that he was wearing an amazingly intricate headdress and had painted his face with blue whorls and lines added to his charismatic presence. A little bit of fear clutched at Bepergian, but it was replaced quickly by anthropological fascination. He had ignored the beeping on his wrist in order to study the living history in front of him, but the shaman (as Bepergian thought of him) indicated that he wanted to know what was beeping and why.
Continuing to smile in a what he hoped was a sincere and non-threatening way, he stiffly pulled himself to an upright sitting position and dropped his long unused legs over the edge of his (cot?) to the floor. He felt the aches and stiffness of lying in the same position for several days. He wondered briefly where his pants were and kept his mind from wandering to how his bodily functions has been dealt with. He looked up at the shaman and indicated the watch on his wrist. The time was 1707. The date indicated Wednesday 20Aug, 2140. He chuckled briefly at the absurdity of a time piece when he clearly had no idea of where in time he actually was. He had set the alarm to go off on the 20th of each month to remind him to fill out his reports and transmit them to headquarters. They weren't due until the end of the month, but the reminder gave him the opportunity to get the reports done.
He looked at the Shaman and again thought of the total insignificance of his reports at the moment. He slowly reached over with his left hand and turned off the alarm. The shaman approached warily to examine the device on his arm. Bepergian wondered briefly if he should let him see it, since the technology would not be around for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years. He discarded his inhibition as the shaman fearfully touched his wrist near the watch. He wanted to touch it, that was clear. Bepergian unclasped the watch. The shaman looked at him with wonder. Then he held it out to the shaman who gingerly touched it. Finding it would not harm him he held it gently and examined it all over. He handed it back to Bepergian, but at the same time his expression said he was reluctant to do so as he wanted to examine it further. Bepergian thought of offering it to him again, but decided that knowledge might come in handy later on, so he simply placed the watch back on his wrist.
Now that he was awake, and able to move without debilitating pain, Bepergian was anxious to explore his surroundings and possibly locate the remnants of his gear, particularly the time travel device. As fascinated as he was with exploring history in this manner, he still preferred the comforts of his “home” era.
The Shaman, satisfied that the beeping device was not harmful, nodded to him and ducked out of the hut. Immediately entering was his caretaker. She frowned at him as if his device had caused her some sort of inconvenience. He smiled apologetically at her, hoping to win back some favor. She just nodded and looked aloof. She busied herself with her pots and herbs and ignored him, so he looked around. He sat on what he had thought was a cot, but was actually a rock slab covered in furs. It appeared the hut was built around the rock. He found that interesting and took note of that fact. Her hut was small but built into the walls were niches containing earthenware jars and pots, small figurines and bundles of dried herbs hung throughout.
Bepergian flexed his arms and legs and stretched. He could feel a small twinge in his sides but more from disuse rather than injury. He pulled up his shirt to inspect the wounds. There were three scars on each side. They weren't as big as he thought they would be and actually they weren't as jagged as he had imagined. He tried to remember exactly what happened. He remembered being picked up by the dinosaur and shaken. In fact he remembered being more scared than hurt. Then he remembered falling. His next memory was waking up in this hut.
From those events he assumed he was rescued by a group of Neanderthals. He wondered where his things were, in particular his pants.
The woman was still busying herself with a basket of herbs, but he had no doubt that she was paying attention to everything he did. He decided to try out his legs.
Bepergians first few days out of the hut were a blur. After many attempts he he was able to coax his legs into standing and walking. He lurched around a bit for a couple of days. His legs acted as if he hadn't used them for weeks. Then he looked at the date on his watch. The alarm had gone off on the 20th of August. His last memory of date was mid June! He had been out of it for several weeks. At this point he was certain the Neanderthals had give him some concoction of herbs that kept him in a stupor until he healed. He was grateful for not having to remember the pain, but he did not like being out of it for that long.
Language remained a barrier. The Neanderthals certainly spoke but they also had a complex language of gestures. It reminded him of animals, mostly dogs and cats as those were animals he was the most familiar with. He considered the dog he had as a boy. He had always been amazed that it seemed to respond to his moods. If he were sad the dog would seem to mope with him in a sympathetic way, giving him sad looks. If he were excited the dog too would get excited. He knew that the dog could understand his body language, and to some extent he understood the dogs too, but it seemed as far as language he never completely understood the barks ... or did he? He knew when the dog wanted out, or wanted to play, or was hungry, so in some sense it was reasonable to assume he could understand the dogs body language as well.
At the moment Bepergian was sitting on a log in front of the hut he had been in for weeks. He observed the daily activities of the group and decided that he was all wrong in his methods for understanding and communicating. He was trying too hard to find a common thread in the language alone. For these people language was communicated via expression, emotion and gesture.
He picked up the stick he had been using to walk and stood up. He looked at the hut. From the outside it was small and crude with mud and grasses pressed into the cracks to keep out the rain. It was situated at the rocky base of a hill, just on the outskirts of the forest. In fact, it was nearly inside a cave like structure. A slab of rock jutted 10 meters above the cluster of huts. A slight depression in the hill under the slab gave it any walls at all. Because of the slab, Climbing up the hill behind the village was impossible without skirting around the forest. It made the entrance into the village one way.
The village was in a clearing of the forest. The clearing had been created by the Neanderthals. Old tree stumps dotted the area. Most were used in some fashion as chairs and tables. One particularly large stump had been hollowed and lined with with rocks. This they used for the community fire pit. In a circle around the edge of the clearing the Neanderthals had placed a crude fence. It was made up of saplings and vines woven together and then tied to trees at the perimeter. It stood about 5 meters high. He wagered that it wouldn't keep a determined dinosaur out, but it would probably slow it down. The trees of the forest were giant deciduous trees with a dense canopy. The sounds of birds and other animals filtered down to the clearing.
The community had the feel of a clan. Everyone had a role. He had obviously been placed in the care of the healer. They all regarded him with shy curiosity. If he could talk he was sure they would be asking him all sorts of questions.
He went into the hut. After he regained the use of his legs he had started looking for his things. He quickly found them neatly piled on the floor at the end of the 'cot' he had been sleeping on. Aside from the cut straps, and a few teeth marks, his backpack otherwise intact. His pants were there as well and he wrestled them on to the amusement of his nurse. She laughed heartily at his struggle. Several times he cursed the ridiculousness of his reluctant legs.
*** *** ***
Bepergians recovery had been fairly quick. He had only been up and around for about four days now. His walking stick had been a gift from the shaman. He treasured it as it was very helpful in regaining the use of his legs, although he hoped to not need it much longer as he knew he either needed to keep moving or find a way to get back to his own time zone and continue looking for his missing Faro. At first he had worried about how long it was taking him until he realized he just needed to figure out the device and then he could essentially master time. If he could make the device work he could go back to where he started, and even possibly before his Faro went missing.
He did worry a bit about paradox but only briefly. Paradox was a lengthy course when he was in training as an Anthropologist. He never really bought into the hype associated with it as most of the course was theoretical.
Bepergian rummaged through his backpack and dug out the small time device. He went back outside into the light and sat on the rock outside of the hut. He studied the device from all sides looking for anything that might give him a clue on how to use it. The back was smooth and rounded so that it fit comfortably in the palm of his hand. He looked carefully at the on/off switch. To turn it on he had to push the button in. To turn it off was the same. On either side of the button there was an arrow pointing up and down. Curios, Bepergian toggled the the button and found that it moved like an up down switch as well as a push button. There were no other markings on the device, other than the logo of Adventravia. He examined the display screen, although since the device was off it didn't really offer any more insight than the rock on which he sat. He looked carefully at the red, yellow, and green buttons. There were no labels on those buttons. He assumed he would have to power it up to find out more. He wondered briefly what type of power supply made it run.
He looked around at the village. He wondered if he should be wearing his pack when he powered up the device just in case he did something wrong and wound up somewhere else. He looked at the device, slipped it into his pocket and stood up. He wasn't ready to leave yet.
He leaned a bit on his cane and ambled slowly toward the center of the village. The Shaman usually sat there surrounded by various groups as he spoke to them or taught them something. Bepergians, curiosity as an anthropologist made him spend time watching the Shaman and various other members of the group. The women tended to the children and the huts. They did some hunting and fishing, but mostly they remained near the village. The men went daily to secure the area around the village, keeping large predators at bay and hunting for the game that sustained the village. Some of the older members of the village taught the children various tasks such as cooking, creating utensils like bowls and pots, curing hides from various game that was brought in and telling them stories.
His first few trips around the village created a lot of excitement and he was crowded by everyone wanting to look at him, touch him and ask him questions. When they realized he didn't speak their language they soon tired of him and went back to their usual activities. Now he would basically sit and observe them. Some of them did not like it and indicated that he should move away, but most were indifferent and ignored him. So he listened as they spoke and watched as they gestured. He tried to pick up some sense of their language. He wanted to know what had happened to him when he had been rescued from the dinosaur and he wanted to know if his Faro had appeared in this time zone. Only language would help him at this point.
The Shaman had a group of young men sitting before him. The each in turn presented him with a weapon of some sort, a spear, a flint knife, axe and what appeared to be a small bow. Bepergian sat on the outer edge of the group, straining to see the objects and listening to the conversation. Each time the Shaman would take a proffered item from someone the person would say, “ung ba givid” then he would sit back and eagerly await the pronouncement from the Shaman. The Shaman would examine the item critically, turning over looking at it from all angles, testing it properties and then he would hold it in his lap, shut his eyes and chant for a few moments. Then he would he carefully hand the item back to its owner. The owner would then raise the item over his head and shout with joy.
Bepergian decided to risk a social faux pas. After the last youth received his item from the Shaman, Bepergian moved forward toward the Shaman and held out his walking stick and said “ung ba givid” hoping he pronounced it right. Startled, everyone looked at him. At first the Shaman looked affronted, but then he considered Bepergian for a moment. A wide grin broke through his frown and he laughed so hard tears came from his eyes. The youths, frightened at first to see their normally solemn Shaman laughing joined in the mirth.
Bepergian figured he had done something incredibly stupid or rude, but was not in the least worried. He felt that he had at least made known his desire to learn and communicate. He sat back and placed the walking stick across his lap. He and the Shaman exchanged a look in which they both at that moment understood each other.

*** **** *** ****
The Shaman looked at Bepergian with a look of amusement. For the first time Bepergian regarded the Shaman as a respected elder to learn from rather than an exciting archaeological find. The Shaman dismissed the youths and beckoned Bepergian to sit in front of him.
For a long moment the Shaman looked at Bepergian, as if to measure his intelligence and his abilities. Finally, satisfied with what he saw he looked directly into Bepergians eyes. He patted his chest and said, “Taargu”. Bepergian, shocked at the universal jester from this neolithic man just stared. The shaman repeated the name and patted his chest again. Closing his gaping mouth , Bepergian repeated the name “Tahrgu.” Taargu grinned and nodded. Next he pointed at Bepergian.
“Bepergian” said Bepergian. Taargu looked at him, so Bepergian patted his own chest and repeated his name. Taargu cocked his head and said “Beppergin?”
“Close enough” Bepergian said, which made Taargu look at him quizzically. Bepergian nodded and said “Bepergian”. Taargu was satisfied. Then he gave Bepergian a look that said “now we will begin your education.”
Taargu had Bepergian follow him around everyday. Showing him things and giving them names. Occasionally he would want to know Bepergians name for things.
As he learned, he also healed. As summer wore to fall, Bepergian learned to speak and learned how things worked in the village. The better his speech the more villagers would seek him out to learn of him.
Finally one day as he rummaged through his pack he came up on the time travel device. He had been enjoying his experience he had forgotten that he was there by accident and that he should be looking for his missing Faro.

*** *** *** ***

Guiltily Bepergian fingered the device. As far as he knew he was the only anthropologist to learn so much about Neanderthals and their culture. Their language was far more complex than ever reported by any anthropological study and he knew how to speak it! He had packed away his clothes and had started wearing clothing created by the Neanderthals. He had learned many things in addition to language. He had learned some rudimentary skills at flint knapping so he could create his own tools and weapons. He learned how to hunt with those tools. He had learned much about the flora and fauna and about the dinosaurs.
The dinosaurs completely contradicted everything he knew about geological history. He surmised that he was not on his own world, but back in the early stages of the world he had been on when he had gone back in time.
The dinosaur that had picked him up was called a Sugairi. He still had no idea what the modern word for it was. But he was told that a group of villagers had been out hunting when the pack of sugairi had been sighted. Normally the hunters would have made a wide berth around a pack of hunting sugairi, but then one of them spotted Bepergian trying to get away. Before the rest of the pack to catch up to the one attacking Bepergian they attacked it and killed it. As it fell to the ground they grabbed bepergian and his pack and fled the area. The other sugairi would find the one they killed and fall upon it like the carrion eaters they were. Also the sugairi stayed away from the trees. They would get tangled in the vegetation and could not move quickly or easily through it because of their size. Therefore living amongst the trees was relatively safe for the Neanderthals.
He continued to regard them as Neanderthal but as each day went by he would catch himself regarding them in their own language. They called themselves the Porpiti Ensa. It meant as closely as he could translate, ground children.
As all good researches do, Bepergian each evening by the fire added entries into his journal. He had considered taking pictures of the Neanderthals, but all of his electronics were out of power, except for the curious time device and his watch.
Bepergian had healed well. In fact the walking stick he had leaned on so heavily now sat idly in the hut next to his pack. The woman who had tended to him was Meeyor. She was in fact, very young. Bepergian had asked Taargu about her. He had tried to talk to Meeyor, but once he was healed she moved him out of her hut to the mens huts on the other side of the village. If he tried to talk to her again she would only ask him if he was injured. If he responded no then she would turn her back on him and ignore him.
Taargu said that the Healers only spoke to those who required their services. Otherwise they only kept council among themselves. Being a healer was a difficult life. It required a lifetime of learning herb lore, healing spells and rites. The healer dealt with all ailments of the people. They could not be distracted with daily problems as this could cause them to lose focus.
There were three healers in the village. Meeyor was considered the novice. Bepergian was given to her to heal as a test. Bepergian was grateful she passed the test. He had asked Taargu how he should repay her.
Taargu said that the village takes care of the healers. They provide them with everything so they can take care of the village. He said the best way was for Bepergian to make a gift of food for Meeyor. So he learned to hunt. He managed to bring back a pair of quail and the eggs. He presented these to Meeyor in the way that Taargu instructed.
Meeyor nodded her thanks, took the fowl and the eggs and disappeared into her hut. Later that day a small boy brought him a cooked quail leg from Meeyor. According to Taargu, that was her acknowledgment that his gift was good and proper. Bepergian was pleased.
But now as he held on to the time device, he knew it was time to say good by and continue his journey for his missing Faro. Taargu and a group of hunters would lead him back to the edge of the Savannah near where they found him. He felt he needed to be near where he had entered the time zone to get back close to where he started in his own time zone.
As they neared the edge of the forest, Taargu and the others fell silent. Taargu whispered that it was better to be quiet near the hunting grounds of the sugairi.
Bepergian thanked the Propiti Ensa for all that they had taught him and given him. To Taargu he presented his watch. He knew the Shaman coveted it and had even asked questions about it. Bepergian told him that it would eventually stop working because the life in it had not yet been created in Taargu's world. Taargu merely said, “It is the same with all things. Life starts and life ends. While it lives I will enjoy it. When it dies, I will honor its memory.”
Bepergian grinned. It was more than a watch could ever hope for!
He waved goodby to the Propiti Ensa and took one last look at the world he had found so much wonder in. He checked to make sure he had all of his things and then looked at the device.
He pressed the on button.
The small screen came to life. First the Adventravia logo flashed and then welcome screen came on. The buttons all lit up and blinked once or twice before flashing off. The device then flashed the message “self diagnostic in progress, please wait.” Bepergian sighed. Finally a message popped up, “Device ready. Where in time do you wish to go today?”
Puzzled, Bepergian wondered how to input that information. As if it read his mind the screen flashed, “please scroll through the menu using the gray button on the side.”
He then remembered the arrows next to the on/off button. He toggled the button and found himself scrolling through a menu of famous dates in history. He located one that said custom date. He selected that one(after punching all the buttons he realized the red button was the select button. He also briefly thought he should be writing all this down.)
He entered (with much difficulty and much cursing) the date he was supposed to be sitting at the ruins on the dead world. 15 July 2140.
It asked him where. He stared at the device. He had no idea the name of the dead world he had been on. As far as Adventravia was concerned the world and where he had been was a series of numbers and letters. So very scientific. He decided to put England. That was where he had jumped to the world from.
The device hummed as it accepted the data. The screen flashed “time travel initiated for 15 July 2140, England.”
It continued to flash messages. The last one was eerily familiar “Last destination: 1099 England.” Bepergian felt dizzy.
“Time travel jump will commence in 60 seconds 59, 58, 57 ...
Bepergian wondered, not for the last time, if he would ever get home again.