Time's Last Gift

Gribardsun did not reply. He withdrew his knife and wiped it clean and then walked over to Thammash and Glamug and spoke briefly to them. Angrogrim picked up Dubhab and carried him to his tent, where he stretched him out a few feet in front of the entrance. Amaga, Abinal, Laminak, and Neliska stared for a while, pale and tearless, at the body and then they went inside the tent and closed the flap.

By morning, Dubhab's body was frozen stiff. The funeral took all day, and he was buried under a pile of rocks in the midst of general mourning. That he had been a criminal and a traitor did not matter after he had died. He was then one of the tribe and to be treated with all the honors of any brave warrior and good hunter, which he had been most of his life.

Afterward, Gribardsun found what obligations he had taken upon himself by killing Dubhab. He was now responsible for Dubhab's family. It was up to him to provide for them.

Abinal's attitude toward the Englishman did not seem to have changed. But when he became a man, he would have to decide whether to forgive Gribardsun or kill him. He knew that; everybody knew that. For the time being, the matter would be put into abeyance.

Amaga did not care who took care of her. Gribardsun told her that he would protect her and hunt meat for her. But he was not her mate and did not intend to be. Amaga was indignant and justly so, since tribal custom decreed that Gribardsun should replace Dubhab in all his duties. He stated simply that he did not care to. Amaga then told all the tribe, but for the first time the tribe did not dare to punish a custom breaker. The woman sullenly accepted the reality of the situation, but a short time later she brightened. Perhaps Gribardsun preferred the beautiful and hard-working Neliska as his mate? Gribardsun said he was considering that. Rachel looked shocked.

Drummond smiled but did not say anything to her. Neliska looked happy. Laminak, weeping, ran away.

Rachel said, 'But you'll be leaving in a few years! Would you just walk out on her? Or were you thinking of taking her back with you as a specimen? That would be cruel; she could never adjust to the bewildering modern world. Anyway, she's a tribal creature, and she'd die if she were cut off from her people.'

'I said I was considering her as a mate,' Gribardsun said. 'I didn't say when I would come to a decision. I rather believe that by the time I'd be able to speak for her, she would be long married.'

Rachel later said to Drummond, 'I don't think I'll ever understand that man. His thought processes are too deep. Or maybe just too different. That's something not quite normal? - human, about him.'

'Time keeps a man human. But eternity would give him a nonhuman dimension,' Drummond said. 'Perhaps he isn't quite human. But I just can't go along with your theories about someone finding the elixir. I just can't believe in such a phenomenon as an elixir. Especially in the nineteenth century, which would be when Gribardsun was born, if you were right. That business about the first time machines and the limits of the 1870s indicates that something is rotten.'

At the time this conversation took place, they had just crossed the half-frozen Guadiana River. Four days later, after they had established a camp on the south side of a heavy brake of trees, Drummond attacked Gribardsun.

The assault was entirely verbal, although there was one moment when the tall thin physicist seemed on the point of attacking the Englishman with his fists.

Ever since the incident of the stolen rifle, Gribardsun had refused to let Drummond hunt with him. He went either with Rachel or von Billma

Drummond belligerently said that he intended to accompany them.

Fine,' Gribardsun said. 'If you leave your firearms here.'

'Why should I?' Drummond leaped up, his hands balled.

'I want to make sure there are no accidents.'

'Accidents, hell! You mean you want to make sure I don't shoot you in the back, is that it?' Drummond yelled.

'That is exactly it,' Gribardsun said coolly.

'Damn you, you have no right to suspect me of trying to kill you!' Drummond screamed. 'I admit I was watching you two, and I have every right to do so, and from what I saw, my suspicions were justified! But I did not shoot at you! It was Dubhab, and you know it!'

'I don't know any such thing,' Gribardsun said. 'As for your suspicions being valid, what did you see? Nothing really, because nothing happened. Nor will it, unless you bring it about with your psychotic jealousy. Frankly, Silverstein, I don't understand what's happened to you. I saw your psych ratings, and they indicated a stable character and a reasonably well-adjusted marriage. But all of a sudden you go ape.'

Gribardsun smiled when he said the last two words, and Drummond wondered why, but he did not ask.

'I think that the sudden thrust into a strange world, the temporal dislocation, caused an emotional imbalance. Let's hope that you regain your normal state of emotion before long. Otherwise, you may end up insane or dead.'

'Is that a threat?' Drummond shouted.

'I don't make veiled threats. I am merely stating likely alternatives.'

Gribardsun paused and then said, 'I am sorry that this happened, because an efficient scientific team needs as little friction and as much good will as possible among its members. We have a relatively short time to do much, and we shouldn't be wasting it with human pettiness. So...'

'Pettiness!' Drummond yelled. 'You call losing my wife a pettiness? Being accused of attempted murder is a pettiness?'

'You haven't lost your wife nor have Rachel and I done anything to deserve your condemnation. Nor have I accused you of attempted murder. But you are definitely under suspicion.'

Drummond lifted his open hands to the night sky and said, 'How long? How long? Do I have to go the rest of my life under suspicion? What charges will you bring when we get back? Would you wreck my career on the basis of nothing at all, circumstantial evidence and weak at that? What can I do to clear myself? Would you hold a trial?'

'There is no way of clearing you,' Gribardsun said. 'So I propose that we continued to work together and try to get along together as best we can. I just do not propose to put myself in a position where I will be at your mercy.'

'Look at her! Look at her!' Drummond said, pointing at Rachel. 'The devoted wife! The trusting spouse! My beautiful i

'Or her. Or both of us,' Gribardsun said.

'Drummond, you're sick,' Rachel said. 'I just can't believe that you would try to kill anybody. I've known you too long. And yet, I never knew you to be jealous, at least, not abnormally so. Something has happened to you, and it makes me sick, just simply sick in the pit of my soul. But...'

'Go to hell! Go to hell, both of you!' Drummond said. He looked at von Billma

'You can go to hell too!'

'What did I do to you?' von Billma

'You believe them, not me!' Drummond said, and stamped off into the darkness.

The others were silent. They had been sitting on inflatable cushions around a wood fire. Their huts were two white cones in the firelight. From thirty yards away came the sound of many voices as the tribesmen called back and forth and laughed at jokes. They were happy. Nobody was sick, and they had plenty of meat.