Lewis & Glark | Time Traders | Book One | Chapter 1

To anyone who glanced casually inside the sterile detention cell, the young man sitting there did not seem very formidable.

He might have been a little above average in height, but not enough to make him noticeable or appear threatening. His afro was spiky but cropped neat. His smooth face was typical, not one to be remembered⁠ — unless one was observant enough to note those unique light-gray eyes and catch a chilling, measured expression showing now and then for an instant in their depths.

Neatly and inconspicuously dressed, he looked like any former hustler turned corporate drone found at street-level of the city, twenty floors above the detention cell⁠ — to all outward appearances. But that other person camouflaged under the protective costume and demeanor, so carefully cultivated, could touch heights of encased and controlled fury which Lewis himself didn’t yet fully understand, that he was only just learning to use as a weapon against a world he had always found hostile.

He was aware, though he gave no sign of it, that a guard was watching him from near the door of the cell, had been there since he had been dragged in and pushed down into the chair. The guard was likely trained to counter various aggressive and violent reactions from detainees. But he was only going to get passive compliance from this prisoner.

The law had Lewis zipped up tight this time. Why didn’t they get about the business of shipping him off-world? Why had he had that afternoon session with the skull-thumper? Lewis had been on the defensive then, and he had hated it. He had given to the interrogator’s questions all the attention his shrewd mind could muster, but a faint, very faint, apprehension still clung to the memory of that meeting.

A hydraulic clank and the door of the detention cell opened. The man at the door nodded to the guard. Lewis didn’t turn his head, but the guard cleared his throat as if their hour of mutual silence in the cell had dried his vocal cords.

“On your feet, Freeman! The judge wants to see you,” the guard said.

Lewis rose smoothly, with every muscle under fluid control. Right now, it wouldn’t pay to talk back, to allow any sign of defiance to show. He would go through the motions as if he were a bad little boy who had realized his errors. It was a meek-and-mild act that had paid off more than once in Lewis’ sketch past. So he faced the robed man seated behind the raised desk in the adjudication block with an uncertain, diffident smile, standing with boyish awkwardness, respectfully waiting for the man to speak first.

Judge Orville Rawl. It was his lousy luck to pull old Shard Ass on his case. Well, he would simply have to take what gramps dished out. Not that he couldn’t get out of it later somehow.

“You have a bad record, son,” Rawl grumbled.

Lewis cringed inside at the word “son”. He had never been anyone’s son, and he wasn’t about to start now. He allowed his smile to fade, his shoulders to slump, himself to appear defeated and vulnerable. But under concealing lids, his grey eyes showed an instant of cold defiance.

“Yes, sir,” he agreed in a voice carefully cultivated to shake convincingly about the edges.

Then all Lewis’ pleasure in the skill of his deception faded. Judge Rawl was not alone at the desk. That meathead skull-thumper was sitting to the far right of Rawl, watching Lewis with the same keenness and intensity he had shown the other day.

“A very bad record for the few years you have had to make it,” Rawl uttered. “From what I see here, Mister Freeman, you should be turned over to State Rehabilitation Services⁠ . But…”

Lewis froze inside. Icy rumors of the SRS “treatment” had recently begun to spread throughout his network. Little Bash’s cousin Diego was caught in a raid last month and sent away for “treatment”. Despite appeals, his family hadn’t heard from him since. For the second time since he had entered the adjudication block, Lewis’ self-confidence was shaken. But he clung with a degree of hope to Rawl’s “but” which filled the block with silent anticipation.

“Instead, I have been authorized to offer you a choice, Freeman. One which I shall state⁠ — and on record⁠ — I do not in the least approve.”

Lewis’ twinge of fear faded. If the judge didn’t like it, there must be something in it to the advantage of Lewis Freeman. He’d grab any opportunity to avoid “treatment”.

“I know this sounds like a bad thriller stream, but… there is a government project in need of qualified volunteers,” Rawl huffed, the top of a yellow-edged document visible above his horizontal data screen. “It seems that you have been identified as a possible candidate for this assignment. If you agree and complete it, the law will consider your time spent as part of your sentence. Thus, you may offer some positive value to the country which you have heretofore disgraced⁠.”

Identified as a candidate? By who and for what, Lewis wondered. There were some pretty serious unanswered questions here. But sensing he was being backed into a corner, Lewis figured he might have to accept the offer, and work on getting his questions answered later.

“And if I refuse, I go to SRS rehabilitation. The “treatment”. Is that right, sir?” Lewis asked.

Rawl swiped through the documents in front of him. “Based on your record, I certainly consider you a fit candidate for rehabilitation. If that’s your choice, I hearby⁠…” he said hoping to push through a resolution before Lewis could object.

“I choose to volunteer for the project, sir. I accept!” Lewis exclaimed, replacing his glee at thwarting the judge with an outward mock sense of duty and seriousness.

Judge Rawl snorted. He roughly tapped a button on his data screen and all the documents, streams and data in front of him disappeared. He then turned his head and spoke to no one in particular. “Come get your volunteer, Major.”

Lewis contained his relief. He was over the first hump, avoiding the mysterious SRS “treatment”. Now he just had to find out what he was volunteering for, then find some way to get out of that.

The man Judge Rawl called “Major” emerged from a door near a large one-way mirror behind the judge’s desk. He was a Bulkon, a race of intelligent, massive bipeds from a nearby colony that the US outpost on Telaan Six had contacted and made treaties with over two centuries ago. Not without the typical challenges of racism, classism and xenophobia, the integration of Bulkons into Telaan Six life had been fairly successful, especially over the last few decades.

Bulkons were a little disconcerting to be around at first, for most humans. While they spoke English, wore clothes and appeared to be kind and civilized beings, they had horns protruding from their heads, huge incisors and hair covering their whole bodies. To the uninformed, they looked like creatures that could just as easily rip your arm off as they could invite you to afternoon tea.

Lewis had only been around a Bulkon once, on a school trip to a Bulkon colony on Telaan Peace Day. But he had never spoken directly to one. He knew they were harmless, but this uniformed “Major” looked all-business.

To face up to Judge Shard Ass was all part of the hustle. But somehow Lewis sensed he would be an idiot to play games with this Bulkon.

“Thank you, your honor,” said the Major in an impossibly deep voice. “We will be on our way at once. This weather is not very promising.”

Before he realized what was happening, Lewis found himself pushed and pulled roughly by the guard toward the Major and the door out of the adjudication block. He considered trying to give the Major the slip when they left the building, losing himself in a storm-darkened city. But the lift didn’t stop at ground-level. Instead, it rose all the way to the roof of the building.

They emerged from the lift onto a roof covered in snow. The Major flashed a torch-glove skyward, guiding them in a dark shadow which touched down before them. A transport shuttle was perched on the landing pad in front of them. It lights blinked and engines came to life, blowing snow in their faces. For the first time, Lewis began to doubt the wisdom of his choice.

“Good luck, Freeman!” the guard yelled from behind them. Lewis looked back over his shoulder to see the lift doors closing in front of the guard’s devious grin.

The door of the transport slid closed and Lewis was locked into one of four empty seats. The Major took a seat opposite him, reached into a small container strapped to his waist, withdrew what looked like a tar-covered arachnid and took a huge bite out of it. Lewis was hungry — but not that hungry. He tried to ignore his hunger and looked out the transport window behind the Major.

“Fly!” the Major yelled to the pilot, a uniformed Bulkon and the only other being on the transport. It was the only thing the Major uttered the entire trip.

Lewis was lifted over the city — whose streets and alleys he knew as well as he knew the lines on his own palm — into the unknown. Where were they going? What had he volunteered to do? Could he slip out of these wrist locks, overtake the Major, grab one of the parachute packs attached to the wall, open the transport door and jump out of the transport and somehow live? He slumped back into the seat. He would have to wait for a better opportunity to escape.

The dots and lines and details of lighted streets, skyscrapers and sky traffic below were first softened by the falling snow, then fell completely out of sight. Now only the outer traffic lanes of the city were visible. Lewis refused to ask any questions of the Major, who he couldn’t tell, due to his thick and heavy eyelids, was staring at him or sleeping.

Lewis could take this silent treatment. He had taken a lot of tougher things in the past.

The patches of light disappeared, and the country opened out to blackness. The transport banked left and upward. Lewis, with all the familiar landmarks of his world gone, could not have said if they were headed North or South. He only knew by the long incline that they would be going somewhere far away from the city he had never left in his whole life.

He awoke a long time later to discover he had a sore neck from falling asleep in a seated position, and that the major had at some point covered him with a quilted grey blanket. He was freezing and hungry, and hoped that this part of the journey was almost over.

“We are here!” the Major exclaimed about fifteen minutes later.

Out the transport window, even the thick curtain of falling snow couldn’t blot out the circular pattern of red lights on the ground, and the transport touched down.

The transport door slid open. The Major unlocked Lewis from the seat and dragged him by his arm off the transport onto the landing pad. Lewis stood shivering, engulfed in a miniature blizzard. His clothing, protection enough in the city, did little good against the push of the wind.

A large Bulkon hand that wasn’t the Major’s gripped his other arm, and he was drawn forward to a low building to the side of landing pad. A large door banged and Lewis and the Major came into a region of light and very welcome heat.

“Sit down⁠ — over there!” the uniformed Bulkon said.

Too tired and bewildered to resent orders, Lewis sat. There were other Bulkons and humans in the room. One human woman, wearing a tailored, padded suit covered with curious shimmers of color and currents, stood in the middle of a cylinder of floating text, images and streams. She looked to be in charge of the flow of beings in this room. Her hair was long but tied up, and she was pretty. Normally, Lewis would have asked her her name and chatted her up. But nothing about this situation was normal, so he thought it best to keep his mouth shut.

The Major crossed to speak to the woman and after they conferred for a moment, the Major beckoned Lewis with a bloated finger.

Lewis got up, and walked toward the Major. He mustered a subtle smile as he passed the woman that wasn’t returned. He trailed the Major down a hallway and into an inner room of the building lined with lockers.

The Major eyed Lewis, then pulled out a suit from a large locker full of them that looked like a high-tech pilot suit, complete with padding, zippers, buckles, pockets and display nodes. It looked kind of dope. There were worse things that he’d been asked to wear in his life.

“Climb into this!” the Major boomed. “We need to go.”

Lewis climbed out of his own clothes to his underwear and into the suit. It was a complicated, two-piece outfit that took a minute to get into. There was a pocket on the right hip that would be great for his com, but it had been taken hours ago, before he had been pushed into the city detention cell. It suddenly hit him hard. Not only did he not know where he was, no one, not even his sister Lena, could contact him or new where he was. He could die tomorrow, an operative of a secret government program, and no one would ever know what happened to him.

As soon as Lewis fastened the last zipper on the suit, the Major handed him a helmet.

A Bulkon dressed in a large version of the same pilot suit Lewis was now wearing opened the door and looked into the locker room.

“We’d better scramble, Kelthor, or we may be grounded for the duration!” the pilot said to the Major.

Lewis was feeling uncommonly spooked and lonely and vulnerable, and he didn’t like it. His feelings caused him to break character and his silence with the Major. He had learned a long time ago that if you open up to people, give them some personal info, it humanizes you. Makes them think about you differently and have empathy toward you. That tactic had gotten him out of a few volatile situations in the past.

“Kelthor,” Lewis said to the Major. “That your name?”

“Yes,” the Major said. “My last name.”

“What’s your first name?” Lewis asked. “I’m Lewis, but my Mom always called me Ghost when I was little. I would always ghost her and sneak out of the house and get into some trouble. You have a nickname?”

“No,” the Major replied. “We need to go now.”

“Where are we going? What am I doing here?” Lewis asked, a touch of genuine panic in his voice.

“Not my job to tell you that,” the Major said, grabbing Lewis by the shoulder. “You will find out soon enough.”

The Major escorted Lewis out of the locker room, and down a hallway directly back out to the landing zone. While the transport shuttle they had flown in on had been a typical and expected mode of travel, this new vessel crouched on the landing pad was something straight out of the future⁠ — a slim, low-res, angular ship poised on bent fins, its sharp nose pointing vertically into the white sky. It looked like it was meant to travel a long distance quickly, even into space.

Lewis had never seen anything like this ship, even in pictures or streams. The fact that he would be aboard it and in the next few minutes rocketing toward some even more remote destination filled him with fear.

Lewis, the major and the Bulkon pilot stepped onto a hover lift which instantly raised them up to the open door at the side of the vessel. The pilot climbed in first and maneuvered toward the pointy nose of the ship. The Major climbed in, squeezing himself into a seat barely large enough for his massive body. He looked back toward the open door to see Lewis standing there apprehensively, peering into the small space.

“Okay if I just walk?” Lewis joked.

Sensing there was no way out of the situation, Lewis climbed through the door, and wedged himself into the seat next to the Major. Lewis had never considered himself to be claustrophobic, but this was pushing the limits of his tolerance.

The whole side of his body pressed up against the Major’s arm. He looked up at the Major who was no distracted by some data hovering in front of him. Lewis thought about cracking another joke, or following up on the unanswered first name question — but he decided it best, once again, to keep quiet.

The large metal door of the vessel closed beside Lewis with a loud clank and hiss. Even worse — the door and sides of the interior had no windows. There would be nothing to see, no way to tell where he was or where he was going.

During his short lifetime Lewis had often been afraid, bitterly afraid. He had fought to toughen his mind and body against some great fears. But what he experienced now was no ordinary fear; it was panic so strong that it made him feel like he was going to puke. To be shut in this small place with the knowledge that he had no control over his immediate future brought him face to face with every terror he had ever known, all of them combined into one horrible whole.

How long does a nightmare last? A moment? An hour? Lewis could not time this one. But after at least ten minutes of anticipation, the engines roared and a great pressure pressed down on his chest, and he fought for breath until the world exploded about him.

He came back to consciousness slowly. For a second he thought he was blind. Then he began to sort out one shade of grayish light from another. Finally, the noise and pressure subsided, and was replaced with a steady vibration that coursed through his whole body.

Lewis Freeman had remained free and unrestrained as long as he had because he was able to analyze a situation quickly. Seldom in the past five years had he been at a loss to deal with any challenging person or action. Now he was aware that he was on the defensive and was literally a prisoner. He stared into the dark of the confined cabin and thought hard and furiously. He was convinced that everything that was happening to him this day was designed with only one end in view⁠ — to shake his self-confidence and make him pliable. Why?

Lewis had a strong belief in his own abilities, as well as a kind of shrewd understanding of the world seldom granted to someone so young. He also knew that while Ghost was important to Ghost, he was pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

He had a record⁠ — a record so bad that Judge Rawl might easily have thrown the book at him. But this was different in one important way; until now he had been able to beat most of the raps. Lewis believed this was largely because he had always worked alone and taken pains to plan the details of all his jobs and schemes and hustles in advance. That and he could often talk his way out of most volatile situations he found himself in.

But why now had Lewis Freeman become so important to someone that they would do all this to shake him? He was a volunteer⁠ — for what? To be a guinea pig for some operation the government couldn’t do legally or publicly?

They’d been in a big hurry to corral him down this path. Getting Shard Ass to let him out of the “treatment”. Keeping him in the dark about the operation he’d be volunteering for. Rushing him from detention in the city, to a transport shuttle, to a frozen outpost, to whatever this rocket ship is, now to who-knows-where. They were really working hard to keep him dazed and confused.

Fine. He’d give them a dazed boy all eager to volunteer and help his country. Only, was his act good enough to fool whoever he was going to meet next on this insane journey? He hoped it would be, long enough to somehow find his way out of this mess and back home.

They had been flying for hours now. Was it daytime outside? Was it still snowing? Were they in space? Lewis had no idea. He had fallen asleep for a while, but had been woken up by the Major’s snoring, which sounded like the jackhammers inside the empty plasma tanks he had heard when he was eleven and living with his Mom near the wasteyards in the far Northern part of the city. The fact the Major had fallen asleep without restraining Lewis in any way said there was no way for him to escape besides opening the door to the vessel and killing them all.

The Major stirred, wiped some drool from the hair on this chin, and went back to his snoring.

Lewis’ formal, public-school education was sketchy, but in his own fashion he had acquired a range of knowledge which would have surprised many of the authorities who had had to deal with him. All the wealth of a big city library had been his to explore, and he had spent a ton of time there during his high school years, soaking up facts in many subjects and disciplines. Facts were very useful things. On at least three occasions, assorted scraps of knowledge had preserved Lewis’ freedom.

Once, they even saved his life.

Now he tried to fit together the scattered facts he knew about his present situation into some pattern. He was inside some new type of unique vessel, so advanced in design that it wouldn’t have been used for anything that was not an important mission.

Which meant that Lewis Freeman had become necessary to someone, somewhere. Knowing that fact should give him a slight edge in the future, and he might well need such an edge. He’d just have to wait, play dumb, and use his eyes, ears and instincts, when the time was right.

At the rate they were moving, they ought to be out of the country hours ago. The government had diplomatic and research bases and outposts all over the world. They also had two active space stations and five lunar outposts. If he was actually in space, that might make escape a little more difficult. More logistics and risks. But he’d handle that situation when and if it arose.

Lewis suddenly felt the pressure on his chest and heard the loud engines he had felt and heard during takeoff. There was no sense of when they would touch down. The vessel slammed to a stop which snapped Lewis’ teeth together. From the metallic taste in his mouth, he was sure he had bitten his tongue on impact.

The door of the vessel slid open to reveal one human and one Bulkon soldier, both armed, standing on a hover platform. Behind them was visible a white, snowy landscape.

A gust of cold wind blew through the door into Lewis’ face. Great. It couldn’t be somewhere warm and tropical. It had to be more snow. At least they weren’t in space, Lewis consoled himself.

The major pushed Lewis out into the grasp of the two soldiers. Armed soldiers meant there was something worth protecting here. The Major and the pilot stepped out onto the hover platform, which then descended slowly toward the landing pad.

Other than a small building next to the landing pad, there was nothing but an expanse of open snow in all directions. It was still dark out and wasn’t snowing. But a sliver of light appeared on the distant horizon, which meant it was early morning now.

A few humans and Bulkons moved through the wind from the small building to meet them as the hover platform reached the ground. Their faces were covered, protected from the extreme cold. Their eyes scanned the new arrivals, but their gazes lingered on Lewis.

“Yup, the star volunteer has arrived. Now will somebody please tell me where we are and what the hell is going on!” Lewis thought to himself.

Lewis moved with the group through the wind toward the small building. He wasn’t sure how such a small space could accommodate sleeping quarters for this handful of humans and Bulkons, never mind whatever was needed for this big, secret project. But he sure hoped there was at least a decent meal and a bed for him in there. He was starving and exhausted. If the Major or anyone wanted to play mind games, or get him started on his volunteering, he hoped that such nonsense could wait until after he had eaten and slept.

In the meantime, he’d have to learn where “here” was. It looked like vast, endless expanses of snow for miles in all directions. So, he wasn’t going to escape this place on foot. He’d have to acclimate to his surroundings and figure out a plausible Plan B.

The Major guided Lewis toward the door that stood half-open, and was guarded by two armed Bulkons. As Lewis stepped inside, he understood. A bank of lifts and several sets of stairs flanked desk manned with even more armed guards. The small building visible above ground was the entrance to a massive facility that was completely underground.

That morning, Lewis was ushered into an elevator, down an unknown number of floors, down a few hallways and into a small room that had a bed and the door to a small, attached bathroom on one side, and a small dresser on the other. The space was minimal, but comfortable enough. As the door closed and locked behind him, the whole back wall of the illuminated with a bright warm light that made the space seem at least a little cozy.

His path from the entrance to the room hadn’t divulged much about the greater size or purpose of the facility. He would have to leave the start of the exploration and escape planning until some other time.

On the bed was some comfortable bed clothes, just his size, which he put on, then threw his own cold, wet clothes into a pile on the floor. On the nightstand next to the bed was a plate of food with steam coming off of it. It was chicken pot pie — his favorite meal that his mother had made him growing up. Curious that they would know that and have that for him here.

After wolfing down the pot pie and a glass of cold water, Lewis relived himself, stumbled to the bed, pulled the blanket over him, and fell into a deep sleep.

That was Lewis’ introduction to the base. And in the first couple of days after his arrival, his view of the facility was extremely limited. One day was spent undergoing the most intimate physical he had ever experienced. The next day, after a team of human and Bulkon doctors had poked and examined him again from every which way, he was faced with a series of endless cognitive, intelligence and personality tests, the purpose of which no one bothered to explain.

So far, Lewis hadn’t seen much more than the interiors of a few rooms, and been told exactly nothing about his purpose and future activities here. And so far he had asked no questions of the Major or of any of the other guards, officers and doctors he had come in contact with — stubbornly keeping up his end of what he believed to be a battle of wills.

At the moment, safely alone in his room, and lying flat on his bed, he imagined what everyone here was saying about him. He imagined himself to be a very unique and dangerous young man, one with indispensable talents who was both aloof and chill, but self-assured and ready for whatever mission they threw at him. But it was also possible that, to them, he was just another in a cattle-call of idiots, here against their will, to volunteer their typical abilities, time and even lives, toward the long-term success of whatever this mission was.

Lewis wasn’t sure which it was. But he was hoping he would find out soon. This keeping quiet and pretending not to care about what was going on was going to be hard to maintain more than a day or two more.

“Attention,” a voice transmitted into the room. The Major’s voice.

Lewis’ lips tightened. He had explored every inch of the walls and ceiling of the room and knew that there was no trace of any speakers or cameras. The sound of the Major’s voice had filled the room, but there was no apparent source of the sound.

“…to identify⁠⁠…” droned the voice. Lewis realized that he must have missed something the Major had said while he was scanning again for the source of his voice. Not that it mattered. Lewis was almost determined not to play along with these games any more.

A soft click seemed to indicate that the Major was done talking. But the normal silence of the room didn’t close in again. Instead, Lewis heard a clear, sweet trilling which he vaguely associated with a bird. His acquaintance with all feathered life was limited to city sparrows and plump park pigeons, neither of which raised their voices in song, but surely those sounds were bird notes. Still on the bed, Lewis glanced from the locked door, to the middle of the room, to the left beside him — and what he saw there made him sit up and spin, with the instant response of an alerted fighter.

The entire illuminated wall was no longer there.

Lewis stood up and stumbled backwards. Where the wall had been up until moments ago was now a sharp slope of ground cutting down away from him to a forest of dark green pine trees that extended to the base of snow-capped mountains far in the distance. Patches of snow clung to the earth in sheltered places. And the scent of pine and earth was in Lewis’ nostrils, as real as the wind touching him with its bitter chill.

He shivered as a howl sounded loudly and echoed through both the landscape and the room. It was an alien sound, like a wolf’s howl combined with a ticking buzz. Ross had never heard an animal make a sound like that before, in streams or lives. But as a human, he subconsciously recognized it for what it was⁠ — the sound of a predator that was hungry, determined and unafraid.

Gray shadows were now visible slinking about the nearest trees. Lewis’ hands balled into fists as he looked wildly about the room for something he could use as a weapon.

Three of the four walls of the room enclosed him like a cave. But one of the gray creatures had raised its head and was looking directly at him, with glowing orange eyes. Lewis ripped the quilted blanket off the bed with a half-formed idea of snapping it at the animal if it came closer and lunged at him.

The beast advanced from the shadows into the light, a guttural growl sounding deep in its throat. It looked like a horrific combination of a wolf and a spider. It had six legs, was covered in fur, had bulging black eyes, pointy muzzle and teeth, and bulbous hindquarters. It was a monster. Lewis had the blanket ready before he realized that the creature was not watching him after all, and that its attention was focused on a point out of his line of vision.

There was a buzzing pop, and the creature leaped into the air, fell back, and rolled on the ground, its may legs flailing around a shaft protruding from its underside. It howled again, and blood broke from its mouth.

Lewis was beyond surprise now. He pulled himself together and walked steadily toward the dying creature. And he wasn’t in the least amazed when his outstretched hands flattened against an unseen barrier. Slowly, he swept his hands right and left, sure that he was touching the wall of his cell. Yet his eyes told him he was on a mountain side, and every sight, sound, and smell was vivid and real.

Puzzled, he thought a moment and then, finding an explanation that satisfied him, he moved to the bed and sat down. This must be some superior form of 3D holographic projection that included odors, the illusion of wind, and other touches to make it so realistic that it was indistinguishable from reality. The total effect was so convincing that Lewis had to keep reminding himself that it was all just a technological illusion.

The creature was still now and appeared to be dead. Its pack mates had fled into the brush. But since the wall illusion remained, Lewis decided that the show wasn’t over yet. He heard some rustling off to one side, so he waited to see what would happen next.

But what was the purpose of all this? Who was showing him this elaborate scenario, and why?

A Bulkon male came into view, crossing in front of Lewis. He stooped to examine the dead creature, hoisting its hindquarters off the ground. Comparing the beast’s size with the Bulkon’s, Lewis saw that he had not been wrong in his estimation of the creature’s unusually large dimensions. The Bulkon shouted over his shoulder, his words distinct enough, but unintelligible.

The Bulkon was oddly dressed⁠ — too lightly dressed if one judged the climate by the snow patches, wind and biting cold. A strip of coarse cloth, extending from his armpit to about four inches above the knee, was wound about his body and pulled in at the waist by a belt. The belt, far more ornate than the cumbersome wrapping, was made of many small chains linking metal plates and supported a long dagger which hung straight in front. The Bulkon also wore a blue cloak that swept back over his shoulders to free his bare arms, and was fastened by a large, ornate pin under his chin. His footgear, which extended above his calves, was made of animal hide, still bearing patches of shaggy hair. His face was beardless, but unshaven. A fur cap concealed most of his dark-brown, shaggy hair.

The primitive clothing didn’t resemble any Bulkon apparel Lewis had ever seen. Yet, in spite of his appearance, the man had such an aura of authority, of self-confidence, and competence that it was clear he was a leader in whatever real or unreal world this was.

Another Bulkon, dressed much like the first, but with a rust-brown cloak, came into view, pulling behind him two walking transport droids; both had four legs, no head and a stiff-legged yet stable gait. Both had cargo packs lashed on their backs by ropes of twisted hide.

Where was this that the Bulkons looked so primitive, yet had robotic droids? Was this some real place, or some imaginary vision created by AI technology?

Lewis was so concerned with where this was, he didn’t even enter his mind to consider a more important question — when this was.

Another Bulkon appeared, with another duo of droids. Finally, a fourth Bulkon, wearing skins for covering and with a mat of beard on his cheeks and chin, appeared. His uncovered head, a bush of uncombed flaxen hair, shone whitish as he knelt beside the dead beast, a knife with a dull-gray blade in his hand, and set to work skinning the creature with appreciable skill. Three more pairs of droids, all heavily laden, were led past the scene before he finished his task.

Finally, the white-haired Bulkon rolled the bloody, steaming skin of the creature into a bundle and gave the flayed body a kick before he ran lightly after the disappearing train of transport droids.

Read Chapter 2 now…

© 2024 Zen Brazen — All rights reserved
Based on Andre Norton’s The Time Traders (public domain)