Darwin's World

Jack Knapp

Book 1, the Darwin’s World Series

Darwin’s World

An Epic of Survival

By Jack L Knapp

Darwin’s World

Cover Images from BigStockPhoto.com

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited.

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold or given away. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

Disclaimer: The persons and events depicted in this novel were created by the author’s imagination; no resemblance to actual persons or events is intended.

Product names, brands, and other trademarks referred to within this book are the property of the respective trademark holders. Unless otherwise specified, no association between the author and any trademark holder is expressed or implied. Nor does the use of such trademarks indicate an endorsement of the products, trademarks, or trademark holders unless so stated. Use of a term in this book should not be regarded as affecting the validity of any trademark, registered trademark, or service mark.

For Kevin

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-seven

Chapter Twenty-eight

Chapter Twenty-nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-one

Chapter Thirty-two

Chapter Thirty-three

Prologue

I waited, as patiently as possible considering the circumstances.

Life no longer interested me. Aged muscles and joints, pains, and memory with more holes than a termite-infested stump had seen to that. My close relatives and friends were dead, most of them long ago.

But something felt different when I woke up. The pains were gone! How could this be?

This room was different too, not the one the hospital the EMT’s had put me in. The walls here were white, not the pale beige I remembered. Where were the machines, the hanging intravenous drip, the wires connecting the machines to my body? Why had I been moved? Was it too much to ask, to allow an old man to die in peace?

My thoughts wouldn’t focus. I drifted, drowsy, half-awake, confused, but my bladder was insistent. There was an open door and I could make out bathroom fixtures in an adjoining room. Could I make it in time? Could I even walk? I felt no pain, so maybe...

Thoughts muzzy, but my body driven by the familiar morning urge, I pulled the coverlet aside and got up. I stumbled briefly, then braced my hands against the wall for a moment while I caught my balance. Recovered, I straightened my back while barely avoiding a muscle-memory flinch. If you’ve ever had serious back pains, you’ll understand what I mean! But there was no pain, so I walked carefully through the doorway and entered the bathroom.

I used the toilet—that part worked as well as it ever had—and I marveled for a moment at the difference, then cleaned myself, and flushed. I had no balance issues when I stood, another marvel. My muscles were waking up, becoming useful, but even after washing my hands and face I didn’t feel alert.

But for whatever reason, I felt none of the symptoms that had plagued my last few years. Mind-boggling! Walking into the bathroom had been easy, no distress, no pain and except for that brief stumble, my muscles had worked as they had when I was young. Even the ancient, worn cartilage, source of stabbing pains in my back and knees, had felt — resilient!

The bathroom was simple. The walls were also white, but not glaringly so. There was a toilet, a basin with a towel, and a shower enclosure with a larger towel on a rod. I decided to take advantage of the respite while I could. I stepped into the shower and slid the glass doors closed. As soon as I did this, warm water sprayed gently over my skin. A recessed shelf held soap and shampoo, so I washed my hair and bathed. But even this familiar process was different, strange. My hair was short and quite thick, my arms faintly hairy. The hairs were dark, as was the small patch on my upper chest. More strangeness! My hair had been sparse and gray.

Hadn’t it? Had that all been a dream? Or was I dreaming now?

I saw no controls for the shower, but when I slid the door open, the water flow stopped. I toweled myself dry, hung the towel over the shower enclosure, and returned to the room where I’d awakened.

How could I be walking? Paramedics had brought me in on a stretcher, terminal, suffering from a variety of age-related diseases. I knew I was dying, and I remembered feeling relieved that the process was almost over. I understood, without need for religion, that dead I’d be as I was before I was born, before awareness had come. No heaven, no hell, just no longer living. Living was uncomfortable, the process of dying a bit more so, but being dead didn’t bother me at all. In fact, I was ready for my uncomfortable no-future life to end. But now?

If I was dreaming, it was the best dream I'd had in years.

The bed had been made in my absence. Another marvel, one wall of the room now looked out on a tranquil forest scene. But then I froze; another change had taken place, one with more significance. A man stood by the wall, watching me.

There was now a chair by the bed, so I bent suddenly-rubbery knees and sat down.

“Your name is Matt,” the man said. His voice wasn’t particularly deep or high-pitched, and simply conversational. Not too loud, but I heard everything clearly. And no hearing aid, something I knew I needed but stubbornly refused to wear. “Do you remember?” he went on.

I did. That much hadn't changed, and I found the small familiarity comforting. But the questions kept coming, and he might have answers. “How did I get here? The last thing I remember was paramedics wheeling me in, but this doesn't look like any hospital I've ever seen!"

“It’s not,” the man said, ignoring my question.. “This facility specializes in the treatment of certain conditions, mostly age-related but occasionally we take trauma victims. You’ve been in a medically-induced coma for — well, a considerable time. Now it’s time for the next phase of your treatment, rehabilitation, while we complete your transformation. Don’t expect to understand everything immediately, but you will know more the next time we wake you.”

Rehabilitation? How could a dying old man be rehabilitated? "How did I get here? Why do I feel different?" I persisted.

“I will explain as much as I can,” the man said softly. “You will fall asleep shortly, a natural part of the process, so I have only a few minutes. The short answer is that I brought you here from the timeline you were born in. Your analysis of your former condition is correct, because in that timeline you would have died. Your body had already begun the final breakdown and death would have occurred shortly. We stabilized your condition and brought you here so that more advanced medical treatments could begin. As for why you’re here, I selected you because you appear suitable for my purpose.” I didn’t understand most of what he'd said, but I wasn’t worried. Strange; had he given me some sort of tranquilizer?

He continued, “You have been given appropriate medical care. I will now complete your transformation. This will take some time — it varies by individual, but you will not recall what happens. It’s best that way, because some of the procedures are painful. During the transformation, you will alternate naturally between sleep and wakefulness. During wakefulness, you will train your body and mind to accept the changes. You will also have more questions. I can answer some of them, but despite the changes you’ve undergone you lack the capability to understand all that is happening to you.”

“How long will I be asleep this time?” For some reason, that seemed important to me.

“As long as necessary,” he replied. Frustrating! I was drowsy, I wanted to ask another question, but he disappeared even as I drifted into sleep.

***

Waking up went faster, and this time there was no residual drowsiness. I now remembered a lot more about my previous life. Growing old, preparing to die, that had been no dream, but apparently I had a new lease on life. Or maybe, an entirely new life? I’d read fictional accounts of do-overs, a chance at a new life while retaining my old memories! I resolved to not repeat the mistakes I’d made the first time through!

I was eager to get started, so I got up and stretched, then bent down and touched my toes. Wonderful! Such a simple thing, so easy now, but I’d lost the ability to do that a long time ago. The bath worked as I remembered; I showered again, then returned to the bedroom. Clothing lay across the bed now — how did they do that? — so I got dressed. The underwear felt silky, yet soft and absorbent. The socks were the sort I remembered, a knitted fabric with a cushioned sole. They reminded me of my old Army boot socks! The boots were different though, made of soft leather or something resembling it. The shirt and trousers were familiar in cut, although like the underwear, the fabrics were unusual. They were lightweight and had a smooth finish, but the buttons, hook-and-loop closures, and zippers were familiar.

The man appeared as soon as I finished dressing, standing against the wall as he’d done before. How did he do that? I’d seen no door. He was just — there.

“This is your second waking period and much of the physical work on your body is complete,” he said. “There will continue to be mental changes, but physical changes will be so small now as to be undetectable. Starting today, you will begin to integrate your body’s muscles and nervous system through exercise. The transformations you’ve already experienced will add strength and coordination as your body and brain adjust to each other.”

“You mentioned that my body was breaking down in my previous life, that I would die. But I’m not about to die now, am I?”

“No. That body was unacceptable for our purposes, so we created a new one for you. We extracted your genetic code and recorded your memories before beginning the transformation. We retained most of those, because they hold the key to your personality. Some that I considered unimportant were excised and others were added. I then regrew your body, using your genetic code but modifying it to delete harmful mutations and genetic defects, before instilling your own memories. That starter set has been augmented by the other memories I implanted. This was necessary to prepare you for your new life.”

“You did all this yourself?” One patient, one doctor? No indeed, this facility was like no other hospital I’d ever heard of!

“I controlled the process,” he clarified. “I am one of several who are engaged in this activity, but most of what we do is carried out by machines. I emphasize, your memories are important for our purposes. Major changes in brain structure and growth of additional neurons would have left you without coherent memories. To prevent this, I provided what the machines recorded, along with the additional information I mentioned, to your new body as soon as the physical restructuring permitted.

“You’re physically equivalent now to what you were at age twenty. Mentally, I estimate that you will be approximately equal in cognitive ability to someone in his late thirties when the integration is complete. Your memories, however, will remain those of a man who lived a long time as your culture measured such things. The transformation is nearly finished now, needing only the final integration I mentioned. From this point on, the process depends on how much effort you put into it. The best advice I can give you is to work at it as if your life depended on how complete that integration is, because it does. When the process is complete you will be transplanted to a different timeline.

“You may die after being transplanted, but we cannot estimate when that will happen. It may be that you will live much longer than you expected, or you may die during the first day after transplanting. We cannot predict who will live, only that those who do will have the curiosity, determination, and will to survive that we seek. For our purposes, it does not matter who survives. Remember that you were terminal when we harvested you, so every day that you survive now is a day of life you would not have had.”

So much for this being a do-over! And talk about motivation! I would not skimp on whatever physical training they offered! “You said about age twenty as far as my physical development is concerned?” I asked.

“Just so,” he responded. “The concept has little meaning in your new life. It’s simply where I stopped development during your rehabilitation, at an age nearing the end of physical adolescence. In your time, such changes began at birth and continued until death. Early development made you larger and stronger as your body morphed from baby through toddler, child, and adolescent, before becoming adult. You are physically adult now, but barely so. Your age is optimal for further physical development. In your previous existence, you added experience and learning, but most physical changes were harmful. Your cells accumulated damage and some of the changes altered your genetic code. Your muscles weakened, joints became stiff, cartilage ripped, atrophied, and was resorbed. Over time the changes became so overwhelming that life was no longer sustainable. As a part of preparing your body to make you suitable for transplanting, I also removed the tendency of your cells for programmed death, but you should know that the changes cannot prevent future mutations. Radiation and chemical influences will be encountered after you leave here. I cannot predict those might be, or what will happen to you, except to repeat that your current DNA sequence contains no known weaknesses. Another way to state this is to tell you that you are less susceptible to genetic change, but less susceptible does not mean you are immune.

“It is no longer certain when you will die. Disease is unlikely to kill you in the near term, but we cannot be certain that a disease may not evolve in future which will end your life. The only assurance I can give you is that your own body will no longer kill you before an accumulation of damage cancels the work we’ve done. You can die from a multitude of other causes. Trauma, blood loss, drowning, a broken neck, those things can kill you. A knife or spear that pierces your heart, lungs, or brain will cause death. Given time, your body will heal from lesser injuries, but there’s no certainty that you will have the necessary time.

“Back to what happened to your previous body; physical changes within your brain caused later memories to fade, although your earlier memories remained nearly intact. I supplemented those memories with some that are generic, while others are highly specialized. It would not have been possible for you to acquire all the memories you now possess in a single lifetime.”

"Why me?" Not that I was ungrateful, but still!

"My analysis of your personality, gained initially from records but later by direct examination, persuaded me that you would be a suitable candidate. We have had to become more selective recently because so many early transplant efforts failed.”

I thought that over. “You say that you intend to ‘transplant’ me? Can you explain why you’re doing this?”

“Certainly,” he sighed. “I am from your future, a descendant of yours although the term is meaningless since so many generations have passed. You are one of hundreds among my direct ancestors. Do you understand the mathematics of this concept? You had two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents. Generations became longer as people waited to produce children, but even so, more than eighty thousand persons who lived during your time are ancestors of mine. Should I go back a few generations more, I am related to everyone in your world. I gained a suite of genes from the genetic pool, just as all humans do, so in that sense we are all related. Some are more closely related than others, meaning that recent mutations are more likely to be shared, but since harmful mutations have been excised from the human genetic suite differences between individuals are less pronounced.

He sighed again. “Our science is more advanced, but despite all we’ve done humanity is dying. It may be that science has done too much. We have conquered deaths from what your time called 'natural causes', yet people continue to die. We don’t die from age or disease, but we also no longer reproduce. Earth’s human population is perhaps a tenth of the peak numbers reached in the 21st Century. Diseases, climate change, loss of natural habitat, famine, war, all played a part, but the main reason was unwillingness to replace losses through natural reproduction. Numbers continue to decline, and if this continues as it has done for more than a century humanity on Earth Prime will go extinct.

“We explored the solar system in the 22nd Century, but found nothing of more than transient interest. In fact, there is nothing on other planets that we need. We transform ordinary matter as needed and we conserve and recycle what we cannot transform. We might have established viable colonies throughout the system, but simply put, we lost interest in doing so. We believe that this is related to the decline in births

“We never went beyond the boundaries of the home system. Einstein’s limit prevented that at first, and by the time we gained the ability to evade that limit and colonize planets beyond the home system, it no longer seemed important to do so. As things now stand, the Earth provides all that we need but our society has no future other than continuing decline.

“A few of us refuse to accept that inevitability, extinction. Simply put, we are attempting to change the future for our species. It would have been impossible except for a discovery, made late in the 23rd Century. Properly employed, that discovery may prevent extinction from happening.

"We now have the ability to harvest human specimens such as yourself from our past. Perhaps a thousand of us are engaged in this effort, and each of us accepts the responsibility for harvesting and preparing a subject for transplant. There are similarities in what we do, but also differences. The differences in method may be beneficial or they may be harmful; we cannot yet say which. That’s where you and the others like you come in. We place our transplants into a parallel timeline on an Earth where humans did not survive. We chose this because the Earth of that dimension is physically similar to our present world. Life there is hard, and there is danger. Survival will not be easy and we postulate that the unfit will not survive.

“For my part, I have prepared you to face known dangers and overcome hardships, but whether you do so is up to you. We believe that some of the transplants will succeed, but we accept that some, even among those we are transplanting now, will not. We cannot say which transplant has the qualities necessary for success. I have sent more than a thousand specimens to that dimension, my colleagues have sent as many, and some may have sent more. I have not yet begun harvesting the offspring of my transplants, but I will do so when I deem them ready. I will then prepare the selected individuals for transplanting here to my own world and time. We hope the harvested offspring will arrest the current decline, because realistically, it’s the only hope we have.

“We do not know what the eventual results of our experiment will be. The harvested and transplanted specimens may adapt to life here and become as the rest, content to live out their lives without ambition. We cannot say. Again, we hope they retain the drive and curiosity that we have lost. If we are fortunate, the transplants may even instill those qualities in our own highly-evolved population.

"We will continue the transplanting process and hope that it succeeds. It is worth noting that none of us who are engaged in harvesting or transplanting specimens have terminated our own lives. In the meantime, humans like you now live in a dimension where they did not naturally occur. They are as human as we are and they may survive, even if all humans on Earth Prime do not.

"Some of the dimensions we’ve explored have intelligent lifeforms that are different from what you are and what I am. We leave them to work out their destiny in their own way, and hope they feel the same once they develop the ability to cross dimensions. This, too, was a part of our reasoning when we decided to begin the transplant program. An aggressive population may resist attempts from cross-timeline invaders, where a passive population would not.

“We hope that your descendants will possess an enhanced sense of survival. There will also be other qualities that become emphasized by the environment you will find on the alternate version of Earth, and some of those qualities may not be advantageous. We will be as careful as possible regarding which specimens we harvest for re-transplanting to Earth Prime.”

“You’ve said that I could die from any number of violent processes. Will you help me avoid that?”

“No. We give you a healthy body, a mind that is well developed for your time and culture, and then we release you. We select a location where survival is possible, while avoiding extremes of weather or climate and places we suspect may be geologically unstable. You may choose to seek such places on your own, but that is a choice for you to make.

“You will be alone when I transplant you, but there are other humans within a reasonable distance. You may seek them out, or not; the choice is yours. Some will be male, some female. Some will have been there a considerable length of time, others may have been transplanted after you. I cannot say, because I do not know what the others engaged in this activity have done or what they will do in future.

“The time period on that alternate dimension is between glaciations. According to your reckoning, except for the lack of native humans, the conditions are similar to the late Pleistocene period on Earth Prime. Non-scientists call it the 'Ice Age'. Your knowledge of the past will be useful, but you should expect differences because some of the geological events there happened differently. Earthquakes here may not have happened there; volcanic eruptions there may not have happened here, and of course weather events such as hurricanes and tornadoes are unrelated. Our transplants have been, and will continue to be, transplanted to each of the major continents between 40º north and 40º south of the Equator. There are glaciers farther north and south of those latitudes.”

I was beginning to feel drowsy again. Then, with no further speech, he simply disappeared. I wondered if he was some sort of hologram or if his appearances were ‘in the flesh’, so to speak. I fell asleep while wondering.

***

I soon fell into a routine, much as I had when getting ready for summer drills with the Army Reserve. Wake up, use the bathroom, eat a light breakfast, then head into the well-equipped gym that opened off the bedroom through a door I hadn’t noticed before. I worked as much as I could during each session, took a break, had lunch, and worked again. Break for supper, shower and sleep, wake up, and do it again.

The days blended together, one like another except for variations between exercises and how much I could do. I worked machines, I ran, I exercised on a kind of ‘confidence course’, all solo. In fact, for all I could tell Earth Prime might be deserted. It didn’t matter; it was just me, the machines and obstacles, or a long run through gently rolling hills.

I was soon stronger and more agile than I’d ever been. After the first few — weeks? — I stopped gaining strength, but coordination, agility, and endurance continued to increase. There was no way to tell how long this went on, but it probably lasted months.

While I was wiping sweat off at the end of one of my workouts, the man I’d talked with before appeared and looked at me. After a moment, he disappeared again.

***

The next awakening found me in possession of more memories. Some might have been my own, but some I was certain were of things I’d never done. Still, they were there; I wondered how long it would take to integrate them into my own memories, the ones I’d acquired at the cost of joy, sorrow, and pain before the Futurist (as he styled himself and his colleagues) had found me.

My ‘bedroom’ now contained a table, and a knife and an axe lay on it. The knife had a blade that was a bit more than three-eighths of an inch at its thickest and was about ten inches long, two inches wide at the guard and tapering to a wickedly sharp point. It had riveted wooden grips for a hilt and a small cross-guard separated this from the blade. A heavy pommel balanced the knife’s blade, which had a clouded, mottled appearance. I concluded that the knife had been made by repeated forging and folding to produce a strong blade that would take and hold an edge, while still retaining some flexibility. It was both tool and weapon; I liked the feel of it in my hand, and the edge was razor sharp. I tried shaving my arm and it easily removed the hairs.

The axe was larger than a hatchet but smaller than a standard woodsman’s axe. I estimated the head would weigh about two and a half pounds, compared with four or five pounds for a full-sized felling axe. The haft was wood, about two and a half feet in length. The back of the axe-blade was flat, so it would be useful as a hammer. Call it a camp-axe, more useful than a hatchet, but not heavy enough to be as unwieldy as a full-size woodsman’s tool. Some of my memories had to do with knives and axes, and some of them clearly were of places I’d never been and people I’d never met. For whatever reason, the memories left me pleased with the appearance and apparent usefulness of the tools.

How would I use that axe and knife after being ‘transplanted’? Pioneers in North America had considered themselves adequately equipped if they had an axe, a knife, and a shovel. I had no shovel and the axe was relatively small, but the knife was superb. Most primitive societies had lacked metal shovels; they’d made do with sticks or carved branches and those had worked well enough. The axe and knife could be used to make a shovel substitute when I was ready. I thought about the tools, and realized that the people who’d had metal shoves and other tools also had ways to transport them. I hoped that the knife and axe would go with me when I was transplanted. I couldn't think of any other reason the Futurist had left them on the table. IF so, they were a minimal tool kit which I could easily carry with me. Sensible choices, I realized.

The two were fine weapons, but too valuable to risk unless there was no other choice. I would need weapons that could be risked, even used up during an encounter. Those would necessarily be things I’d made and could make again if they broke. A club, a spear, and eventually a bow and arrows would be needed. Maybe a thrusting spear with easily-replaced tips? A deep socket in the longer shaft, with several inserts? Stick an animal with one, pull back on the shaft leaving the insert behind, replace the insert — that would work, and I ‘remembered’ that a few primitive societies had something similar.

Meat or fish would provide protein. Vegetable protein would help, but I couldn’t count on finding it where the Futurist placed me. I would have to hunt or trap, and I would need to defend myself; opportunistic predators would relieve me of my catch if they could. I could do it, but it would not be easy! And maybe that was the point of all this.

The Futurist appeared as soon as I laid the knife and camp axe back on the table. “Our work with you is done,” he said. “It is now up to you to make your way as best you can when you are transplanted. This will happen after your next awakening, and the tools you see will go with you. I will also provide a sturdy costume of undergarments, shirt, trousers, a belt, socks, and boots. The items are similar to what you have been using, and both the shirt and trousers have pockets. I will provide a leather scabbard for each of your tools. You may carry them in your hands or wear them when you are transplanted; the choice is up to you.”

“How long before I’ll be released?” I was somewhere between nervous and excited, but glad that the preparation was over.

“You will sleep first,” he said, “and when you wake you will be provided food before you depart. Transplanting is quick, painless, and does not cause disorientation. You should consider what you will need to do immediately on arrival. While there will be no immediate danger, I caution you that it may not be far away so you should plan accordingly.”

I was getting drowsy again as he disappeared. So much for planning! I wondered how he did that disappearing act; I supposed that it was not important, but it would sure be a handy ability to have!

***

I woke up energetic and hungry. There was a meal ready, the same type I’d had before, and the clothes I’d been told about lay on the table. I ate the meal, whatever it was. I had never been able to identify the ingredients; the meals had been tasty and nourishing, and that’s all you could say for them. If one of the dishes was meat, I hadn’t recognized it as such. There were no obvious muscle striations or the connective tissue that separates individual muscles. Just…something vaguely meatlike.

I got dressed, hatchet on my left side, blade facing to the rear. The knife hung at my right hip. The tools felt comfortable hanging from my belt. Regardless of what the Futurist had said, I did not intend to take unnecessary chances. He had mentioned the Pleistocene epoch, and I knew from memory that the time featured apex predators such as dire wolves, giant bears, and saber-toothed cats. Even the huge bison, ground sloths, and mammoths were dangerous! As soon as I’d finished dressing, the man appeared.

“It is time. Come with me.” He walked toward a different part of the wall and another door opened. Beyond the door was a small chamber with no discernible features. It was simply blank; a floor, a ceiling, three walls, and a door that closed behind me as I walked through.

Another, larger, door immediately appeared where the opposite wall had been. Beyond it was tall grass, and three hundred yards or so away there were large trees. I stepped through the door, then glanced back, but there was nothing there.

I was alone. I had near-perfect freedom, I could live or die, I could prosper or fail. I was a very small entity surrounded by a very large and dangerous world and there was no way back, even if I had wanted to go.

Chapter One

I had never felt so alone.

I was on Earth, but that didn’t mean much; a planet is huge to a man on foot. Based on the vegetation I was seeing, I could be anywhere in the temperate-to-subtropical zones. The Futurist said he transplanted his ‘specimens’ to North America; that helped a little, but even so, that put me somewhere in a region measuring thousands of square miles.

I was not well equipped for survival, wherever I was. I had no shelter, no food, and I was wearing what the Futurist had provided. I also had a knife and an oversized hatchet. Other than that, I had a brain with real memories and some that had been implanted. I was young, healthy, and fit. It was enough; it would have to be.

The time appeared to be late morning, judging by the sun. The temperature was comfortably warm, the air humid, and the sky was partly cloudy. A faint breeze stirred the leaves. Sinking down until my head was just above the bushes, I examined my surroundings.

The small clearing surrounding me was surrounded by trees, mixed hardwoods mostly. Low bushes and berry vines grew near the edge of the clearing. Any feeling of safety gained from hiding in the bushes was an illusion.

Crouching to remain concealed, I moved upwind. Only faint forest sounds were detectable. Leaves rustled in the breeze. I picked out the faint sounds made by insects or birds, and something, far off, made a chattering noise. I stopped by a tree at the edge of the clearing long enough to gather whatever information was available, then moved farther into the forest.

None of the animals of this time had reason to be wary of humans. Darwin’s principle, survival of the fittest, controlled my life now. I was prey, not predator. Even rabbits were better equipped to survive, because they had better hearing, greater speed, more agility. I had a better brain, but at the moment that didn’t fill me with confidence.

My immediate needs were water, food, and shelter. As soon as those were satisfied, I would need fire and better weapons. Tools, another necessity, could wait, but providing for those needs required that I be cautious. I was no match for the bears, cats, or wolves that preyed on the giant animals of the late ice age. Carnivores included the huge short-faced bear, as well as the grizzly of my timeline, plus saber-toothed cats, lions and wolves. This truly was a world where only the fittest survived, Darwin's World. I grinned; the Futurist had called his planet Earth Prime, now my Earth had a name too.

Water would be found downhill, so I eased away from my concealed position and moved cautiously down the slight slope. Streams would be my water source here; springs, which probably provided better water with fewer parasites, were not commonly found in this type of southern lowland forest. Moving air would carry my scent, so I watched the breeze’s direction. If a predator was downwind, I could expect him to follow his nose toward me. For my food needs, I would be a scavenger when possible and a grazer on berries, nuts, and vegetation until I could make traps and weapons. To start with, I needed a club, a spear, and strings. The club could be a simple piece of thick, heavy wood and the spear would be crude because I needed something now and I couldn’t take the time to make a better one. The strings would be used for traps and snares. They could also be woven into bags for carrying things. With traps and a spear to kill what I caught, I would become hunter as well as hunted.

I couldn’t chance losing my knife or hatchet! I would reserve them for close-in use only and until I got better armament, my only options for avoiding danger were hiding, climbing, or running. The idea of hunting, of killing even a deer, was laughable; sneak up on him and chop him with my axe? Stick him with my knife? More likely, the critter would stomp me into a bloody paste! Some bears could climb trees, but I could climb higher and farther out onto limbs that wouldn’t support the animal’s weight. So trees were my immediate refuge if I encountered a predator.

I soon spotted a sapling, tall, straight, and a little thinner than my wrist. The axe made short work of cutting through the trunk and trimming the top to length. A few additional chops left a sharp point at the thicker end and I had my first spear. Unlike the knife or axe, I could use the spear while remaining out of the animal’s reach, yet still be able to inflict lethal wounds.

There was a small stream ahead, but water sources are dangerous; predators drink from them, and often remain nearby to ambush prey. Nervous, I drank quickly by scooping water in a cupped hand, and even while drinking I remained aware of trees I could climb in a hurry.

A large tree stood thirty yards ahead of me, smooth of bark and with low, spreading branches. Fruit hung high in the canopy, though there was none on the lower limbs. Had something eaten the low-hanging fruit? The lack meant that the upper ones were probably edible.

Climbing the tree was awkward, but I wasn’t going to leave my spear! Such a simple thing, but already I felt comforted by having it. If nothing else, I could use it to discourage any pursuit.

The fruits were some kind of fig, smaller than the ones I’d eaten during my previous life but they tasted better. Color told me which ones were ripe; green meant not-ripe, which also meant not tasty. My first attempt to eat an unripe fig left my lips puckered!

The tree divided into two main branches midway up the trunk. One of the two, about eighteen inches in diameter, had a smaller but substantial limb extending to the right, and another a few inches farther on that projected to the left. I chopped thinner limbs of the necessary length and wove them through the two branches, making a sturdy platform where I could sit while working. It would also serve for sleeping. The platform was not particularly comfortable, but at least nothing was going to approach unseen.

I sat down and began working on my spear. Trimming the shaft, I shaved away bark and some of the wood underneath, judging progress by eye. Half an hour later it was done; the finished spear was slightly longer than six feet, tapered, but less so than it had been when I cut the sapling. It was crude; there was no other word for that first spear, but it was still better than nothing.

The forest around me wasn’t true jungle, but the leaves of the plants beneath the main canopy were large. I could use them in a number of ways, including toilet wipes. Such would be necessary soon, because the figs had left me with an urgent need. I added the lesson to my memories; beware of eating too much fruit, and especially unripe fruit!

I climbed down, did what was necessary, and used some of the leaves to clean myself. I gathered handfuls of others before climbing back to my platform ‘home’. I used a chopped off branch for a hammer and another limb for a work surface, beating more-or-less gently on the leaves until the long fibers separated from the matrix. I extracted as many as possible, then dumped the remaining material on my platform, making it smoother and more comfortable for sleeping. I was already tired, but that would have to wait.

With enough fibers on hand, I began making string. The result was almost as thick as my little finger, fuzzy where I had spliced in fibers, yet strong.

***

I woke up hungry, but wary of eating more figs. They had not given me diarrhea, but I was certainly very loose! Still, the green figs had a kind of milky, sticky sap that I would use for sticking things together, so the experience wasn’t a total failure. I had a number of projects in mind and glue would be helpful.

Back at the tiny stream, I drank and examined the bottom carefully. A large rock near the edge looked promising, so I turned it over and grabbed a crayfish before he could scuttle backwards to deeper water. He managed to snap a pincer closed on my finger, but I repaid his impertinence by eating him raw. There were also insect nymphs in the leaf litter on the bottom and I ate those too. I was too hungry to be fussy.

Moving upstream, I crept around a small bend in the stream and found a small turtle sunning itself on a half-sunken tree trunk. The animal would provide a crude pot as well as a meal if I could catch it. His head projected from the shell and I could see no way of getting closer without him spotting me. I swung my spear shaft, knocking him onto the land, and grabbed him as he scrabbled to turn himself upright. A quick swipe with my knife ended that, and I tossed the head into the water. I wasn’t desperate enough—yet—to eat it myself, and leaving it where it was would attract a land predator. Water predators were welcome to it!

Raw, or cooked? I decided to cook the turtle, which meant I needed a fire. I knew the theory but had never practiced it; finely-crushed dry material, scraped from inside a piece of fallen bark made tinder and I selected two dry branches for my tools. I shaved the straightest of the dried branches for an upright piece, then carved a starter hollow and a channel in the larger one that led to my tinder. I was ready to begin, the turtle was waiting, and I was hungry. There are easier ways to make a fire, but they require things like flint and steel. I didn't have those, so I used what I had. Hold the stick upright with the point in the carved hollow, feet on the large stick to keep it stable. Palms on the sides of the upright near the top, then press downward hard while spinning the upright piece back-and-forth. My hands slipped down the stick, so I hurried to move them back to my starting point before the point and socket could cool. Slow, but I had no place to go. Eventually, I got a tiny spark in the tinder from the concentrated friction of the branch point rubbing inside the socket I’d carved. I raked the tinder around the tiny coal and blew carefully on the spark as the tinder smoldered. When the first tiny flame appeared, I carefully added small twigs. When they caught fire, I fed in larger pieces.

Humans love fire, other animals don’t. For the first time since I got here, I felt safe. My eyes smarted from the smoke as I prepared to cook my turtle, and no matter where I crouched, the smoke followed. I wasn’t yet prepared to drink the blood as a source of salt and additional nutrition; for now, I simply cleaned out the entrails. Turtles stink when the shell is opened, but I tolerated it just as I’d tolerated the smoke. I made a quick trip to the stream, dumped the entrails and washed the turtle thoroughly, then made a hasty retreat back to my fire.

The turtle was soon cooked, more or less, and I ate him. The bones were small, but I saved them. I would find a use for them at some point. I hardened the tip of my spear in the coals, then tied a sling on for easier carrying. Finally I scraped the live coals together and covered them with ashes, I hoped they would still be hot enough tomorrow morning to restart the fire.

I collected more birch-bark before climbing a tree to spend the night; the bark had long fibers. I extracted the fibers and made more string, smaller but equally strong. Now I had enough for a safety loop to make sure I didn’t roll off the platform in my sleep. The powdered bark remnants I scattered over the woven branches of my second platform home, then added a layer of green leaves on top for comfort. The trees offered concealment and a place to sleep in relative safety, plus a refuge from predators, but tomorrow, I would look for a better location where I could trap small animals and with luck, catch fish. I thought about how I would go about it and somewhere in there, I drifted off to sleep.

***

My first spear shaft had begun to dry overnight and it warped. Usable as a thrusting weapon, I thought, but throwing it was out. Chalk it up as a necessary quick expedient and a learning experience; the second one would be better.

The thin layer of mud I’d put inside the turtle shell had dried overnight, making a basin for carrying fire. I hoped to avoid making another fire from scratch, but I could if I needed to. Next time, I would use the string I’d made to make a fire drill, rather than depend on my still-tender palms. As for food, blackberries were in season and the ripe fruit proved tasty. This also told me that the season was sometime in early summer. It meant I could count on having at least four, maybe even six months before cold weather arrived, and finding food should be easy.

The oaks I’d seen included southern live oaks, easily identified by their wide spreading branches, and I’d seen magnolia trees too. In fact, the forest seemed familiar, the kind of country found in western Louisiana where I’d grown up. If so, the Gulf of Mexico should be to the south and I might have a better chance of surviving winter near the coast. The fruits and berries wouldn't last, but there would be clams, crabs, and fish along the shore, easily caught. Salt, another need, could be evaporated from seawater. I could head southwest, avoid the worst of the swamps, and maybe reach the Gulf within a few days; if that didn’t work, I decided I would go northwest. To the east lay hundreds of miles of thick forest, most of it like the area where I was, and offering no advantages. There were also huge rivers to the east, dangerous for a lone man to cross. East was out, then, at least for now. As for north, it was a possibility. But the continental ice cap might still cover everything, not to mention that I lacked any sort of cold-weather gear or practical experience surviving in the cold. I had ‘memories’, but only partial ones that had probably been implanted by the Futurists. I couldn’t afford to trust them.

Heavy forest, the kind where I now stood, was not my preferred habitat. Vision wasn’t particularly useful, because I could only see a few yards in any direction and a predator might be lurking just out of sight. Animals use scent and hearing more than sight in heavy forest, giving them an advantage. Many forest carnivores could climb at least as well as I could!

The only real advantage that dense forest offered was temporary summer foods like figs, persimmons, berries, and nuts. There was timber available for building shelter and making improved weaponry, but at the same time large game would be scarce. The forest didn't provide enough grass for grazing, and as for browsing animals like deer, there was too much cover to make hunting easy. I would also need to find other humans at some point, not easily done in heavy forest.

***

Routine took over. Travel, never remaining in one spot for more than a day, while looking for food. Sometime in late afternoon, find a safe place to sleep, then work on improving my equipment after I’d crafted a reasonably comfortable sleeping nest in a tree.

I made a net bag, using the cords I’d plaited. The first one was crude, with too-large spaces between the strings, but it would serve. Lining it with leaves helped. After spilling my ‘portable fire’, I learned to put my turtle shell with its live coals into the bag, tighten a drawstring around the top, then secure it to my belt before picking up my spear and heading southwest.

I had a better weapon now, the replacement for my early effort, and having it in my hand generated a lot more confidence than I’d had when I first arrived. The predators were out there—just because I hadn’t seen any so far meant I’d been lucky—so I was still wary. But depending on what found me, I had at least a chance of surviving. Depending on weather, I was also prepared to sleep on the ground now if I had to, and rely on my fire for protection. I hadn’t had a full night’s uninterrupted sleep since arriving on Darwin’s World, but early in my long-past military career, I’d attended the 7^th Army Noncommissioned Officer’s Academy in Bad Tolz, Germany. I’d learned that I could function with four hours of sleep a night, and I’d found the knowledge useful even after I got my commission.

My food was frequently the sort of thing I’d have rejected in my earlier life, but it was keeping me alive and well-fed. My muscles had firmed up and so far as I could tell, I hadn’t lost significant weight. The clothing I’d been given by the Futurist still fit me and was holding up well.

I still had much to learn, but I had adapted. Darwin’s World was home.

Chapter Two

A month had passed since my arrival on Darwin's World.

The trail of a deer led me to a muddy salt lick. A lot of tracks were around the site, some from animals I didn’t want to encounter. I could maybe scare off a bobcat or a coyote, but anything bigger? I was the one who’d be scared off, probably into the nearest tree!

The salt was poor quality, as much dirt as salt, but I could probably do something about that. Soaking the mix, pouring off the liquid, then evaporating the water; that would give me usable salt, but for now it was too much work for too little result. Still, it meant I could find salt without going all the way to the ocean.

The creeks I’d encountered hadn’t been a problem, so far; in fact, they’d been very useful. The river off to my west had been useful as a guide to keep me on course, although I had never thought about crossing it, but the tributary I encountered that afternoon looked dangerous. It was larger than any creek and if there was a way to go around it, I couldn’t think of one.

The water ran sluggish, murky, and at least a hundred yards wide. It looked too deep to wade and I had no idea what might lie under the surface. Was the bottom quicksand? There was no way to tell without wading in, and if I blundered into trouble it might be too late to turn back. Might there be alligators, even crocodiles? I hadn’t seen any yet, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there! For that matter, were there ice-age predators I didn’t know about?

Swimming would be equally dangerous, and if I suddenly had to swim my boots would be a hindrance. Swimming while pushing my weapons and boots across on a small raft might work, but if I lost the raft I would then be barefoot and unarmed. I had a momentary vision of scrambling back to the bank, a crocodile in pursuit, while my equipment floated away downstream. Nope, not doing that! Should I carry my spear, or dump it in favor of making a better one after I crossed? I rejected that idea, because I might have immediate need for the spear on the far bank. It would have to go with me.

Building a raft and cutting a push-pole would take at least a day, maybe two, and then I would have to simply abandon the raft after it had served its purpose. A lot of work for not much gain! And there would be other tributaries farther south, maybe even bigger ones. If I had to stop at each river long enough to build a raft, I might not make it to the sea before winter set in. Not to mention that some of the rivers might simply be too deep to cross using push-poles.

A dugout canoe would be better, in that I would have directional control, but making one would require a lot more labor and time to construct. That investment would only be worthwhile if I intended to keep on using the craft afterward. I had no memories of making a birch-bark canoe, not to mention that I hadn’t spotted any birch trees. I could travel farther by canoe, even go upstream, but even so I could go only where the river flowed. I would also have to take time away from paddling or poling to hunt and gather edible fruits or nuts. Maybe, after I found a long term place to live, I could take the time to experiment. But not now; I didn’t have the time!

By contrast, traveling on foot allowed me to forage along the way as well as choose my course. Wind direction was always a consideration, but adapting to it was automatic by now. So: I didn’t like it, but I would have to turn back. I could at least follow the river upstream and look for a safer crossing. Not the direction I had planned to go, but I didn’t have a realistic choice, and even this lesser-of-evils choice might have long-term consequences.

What if I couldn’t reach the seacoast before winter arrived? How bad would ice-age winters be in this forest, and without access to the fruits and nuts I currently relied on could I find enough another food source to replace them? There was no way to tell. My only chance was to try to make up the time I’d already lost. I couldn’t move faster, but I could take fewer breaks and not stop until just before twilight made travel too dangerous.

***

Starting about a week after I turned north, I began encountering low-growing palm-like plants that had leaves arranged in a fan shape. Each spear-like leaf had sharp edges and a wicked point, so I cut the stems and chopped off the sharp tips for ease in carrying. After stopping for the night, I removed the long, strong fibers from what I concluded were palmetto leaves. The fibers were much superior to what I’d harvested from other sources, so I decided that palmetto leaves would be the fiber of choice whenever I could find the plants. My strings and ropes were weapon, tool, and building material combined, and quality was important.

Leather or rawhide might be better than plant-fiber cords for some uses, but first I needed string in order to make the traps that would catch the animals.

Each night after that, I hung my newly-twisted cords from a heavy limb, then added another limb to stretch them while they dried. The coils of finished cords I collected each morning were easy to carry in my woven bag, created from cords I’d made earlier.

Now that I had a plentiful supply of cords, it was time to add more meat to my diet. Hunting only works if you’re there when the animal is present, meaning that trapping or snaring is much more efficient. Rabbits, squirrels, and large birds were common if I could only catch them. They’d found it easy to avoid me so far, but now I had the means to build efficient traps. I might even catch a raccoon. I had seen tracks near the streams, and if I smoked the meat it could feed me for three or four days.

My deadfall traps, no more than heavy tree trunks suspended over a trigger, hadn’t caught anything up to now and I was ready to give up on them. I already had enough cords to put out at least a dozen loop snares each afternoon, so hopefully my trapping success would improve. More traps and better traps should result in more catches. Picking good spots was easy, because there were many visible paths that small animals followed. Just pick one with an overhanging bush or branch, suspend a slip-knotted loop in the middle of the trail, and wait for a small animal to hang itself.

My life settled into routine. Get up each morning, take care of personal necessities, then drink water from a gourd I’d cleaned by swishing dry sand around the inside. Breakfast was whatever I’d caught during the night, augmented by leftover cooked meats from last night’s supper, plus edible roots, greens, and fruit. Check the wind direction, look around for danger, then move out to the northwest. My actual course was determined by the wind and the terrain, and the big river off to the west originated somewhere to the northwest, so I kept it off to my left whenever possible.

There were times when the river looped, and I ended up just striking out on my own. If I found myself going east, so be it. I hiked longer each day before stopping and still found time to set up camp and put out my snares. Weather had become more of an annoyance than a real problem. There were times when I huddled under a spreading canopy to wait the rain out, but given enough warning I built a tree shelter. Branches, arched, tied, and overlapped shingle-style with leaves, made a fast and easy roof, and adding a cover over my sleeping platform kept me mostly dry as well as safer.

If birds and small animals ate fruits, I figured that was safe enough to at least try them. Some I liked, some I tasted only once. The only things I refused to eat were mushrooms. Knowledge of which varieties were safe had accumulated as people got sick or died, and I wasn’t hungry enough to experiment.

The blackberries were gone now, most eaten by birds or small animals, but a bush huckleberry had ripened. They weren’t as large or as tasty as the blackberries, but they were easy to pick and the fruit provided a pleasant snack. I was eating well, in part because I couldn’t afford to be picky. Even grubs are protein; just pinch off the head, squeeze out the nasty innards, and swallow without chewing.

Among the tracks of large birds (turkey?), rabbit, squirrel, and raccoon, I saw a few large cat tracks. It might be a puma, and if so I wasn’t particularly worried. Pumas, sometimes called panthers, tend to be ambush predators and aren’t likely to attack a full-grown man. On the other hand, it might be a jaguar or some kind of cat I didn’t know about, and some of the big cats could climb trees. Even so, one would find it difficult to creep out onto the limbs where I slept without waking me.

Giant lions and saber-tooth cats lived in North America at the end of the Pleistocene, but supposedly they couldn’t climb trees. Face a saber-tooth on a tree limb with a wooden spear? No, thank you! A panther, though? Hold my spear in my left hand and poke him with the point, and if that didn’t discourage him the axe blade I held in my hand certainly would! Especially if he was distracted long enough for me to plant my axe blade in his skull!

***

A fist-sized rock, found near the stream, gave me an idea. Cutting a thick branch from an ash tree I spotted that day, I tied a cord to it and hung it over my shoulder. That evening, after I’d finished setting up camp, I carefully split the end and stopped further splitting by wrapping the shaft with strong cords. I worked the rock into the split, then strengthened the joint by wrapping it with more cords. As a final step, I coated the joint with milkweed-sap glue to make it stronger. Similar easy-to-make hafted stone clubs had been used by early humans, and they work a lot better than hand-axes or hammerstones.

By contrast, the point of my spear was relatively fragile. Useful, of course, but the club was almost equally so and it was certainly not fragile! Best of all, if either weapon broke I could make another. Cherts, flints, and similar rocks could be chipped to create an edge, assuming I found any. I hadn’t yet, but I recalled that they were more common farther north.

Armed with spear and club, I was now ready to try living on the ground. Trapping, cooking, and other activities took place on the ground anyway, so living where I worked made sense. Fire would be my primary protection, backed by my club and spear, but if I lost the fire I would be forced back into the trees.

My new traps were easy to construct. Straight sticks, laid crosswise in a hollow pyramid, were held together by tension. Strings, attached to each end of the bottom two sticks and stretched to the ends of a bow-stick across the top, provided the tension to hold the contraption together. Figure-four triggers, easily carved from three branches, supported one side of the trap, and tossing bits of bait around the trigger-stick finished the job. With practice, building and setting such a trap took only a few minutes work. Most days, the traps caught birds, but now and then they caught a squirrel who hadn’t had time to gnaw his way out.

Small birds I released, the larger pigeon-like birds I gutted and skinned. The legs and wings were too small to provide much nourishment, so I ended up keeping the breasts. Attach them to a skewer, suspend it over my fire, and within a few minutes I had a nice snack. Snares, set out each afternoon when I stopped, took even less time to make and they were reusable, so I usually set out twenty or more. As a result, rabbits soon formed the core of my diet.

Fish, crustaceans, rabbits, birds, raw shoots and roots, these things kept me alive, but I hungered for different foods. If you’ve ever eaten a cattail root, you’ll understand. It’s survival food. but certainly no gourmet treat! Dandelion leaves and thin green shoots from milkweed plants are edible too, but both are an acquired taste and one I intended to un-acquire as soon as possible!

***

Farther to the west, a chunky animal that looked to be a kind of cross between a bull moose and an Irish elk grazed.

The beast was huge, with a body colored dark brown, except for a faint dappling of lighter spots, and a cream-colored belly. Longer hair, so dark as to be almost black, covered the withers and extended down over the shoulders creating a kind of mane. Heavy, palmate antlers extended forward and to the side, and long tines extending from the flattened sections. A pair of main beams extended rearwards, while two beams with shorter and wider flats pointed forward. The elklike rear antlers protected the animal’s back from predators, while the forward palmations and prongs gave it offensive weapons.

A slim, leather-clad figure slipped silently through the trees, moving easily to avoid the underbrush. A slight movement of the hand cautioned two others who followed some ten yards behind the leader.

The animal fed on unaware as the lead figure brought up a crossbow and took careful aim. The buzz of the string was followed immediately by a solid thump as the bolt punched into the rib-cage behind the beast’s shoulder. It sprang forward, then stopped, head hanging. Finally, with a loud, rattling sigh, the animal collapsed. The two followers moved forward toward, only to be interrupted by a hissed command, “Stay back until I get this thing reloaded!”

Moments later, crossbow ready, the leader signaled the others forward. “Stay behind me,” she whispered. “Those things take a lot of killing!”

But the animal was dead, and the three stood looking down at the carcass. “I’ll keep watch while you dress it out,” the leader said. “Keep your eyes peeled and your ears open. I may not have much time to warn you if I see something heading our way.”

The other two, also women, nodded and set to work. Their butchering skills were on a par with their woodcraft, unpracticed. The leader looked at them with a kind of amused contempt. Well, she’d once been green herself, but at least she’d been raised on a farm. These two? You’d think they’d never seen an animal, much less had to prepare one for supper!

Chapter Three

The river off to the west had changed course. It now flowed more easterly, where before it had flowed southwest. It was also smaller, almost small enough to try a crossing. Another day or two, I decided. Just keep to my routine and enjoy the good weather while it lasted.

The forest had thinned somewhat, and the trees were mostly smaller. That was both good and bad; I could see farther, but if I had to climb a tree in a hurry I might have to sprint farther to reach one.

Start early, push ahead as long as possible, and find a place to stop late each afternoon. Clear a space for my fire, get one started using the shavings in one of my bags. Collect more wood, feed the fire, then build a shelter. Set out my traps before eating whatever I had saved from previous catches, supplemented with what I’d gathered during my day’s travels. Inspect my traps before settling in for the night. One of the pyramid traps had caught something large and aggressive. It had destroyed the trap, which was just as well; I probably wouldn’t have wanted to eat it anyway. I certainly wasn’t going hungry, and replacing the trap tomorrow would be simple.

A raccoon? No tracks, so maybe a bobcat or small coyote. But not a wolf, because this this wasn't their preferred habitat. Too many trees, too many briar thickets prey animals could shelter in.

Back to my camp with the rabbit I’d caught, start it cooking, then begin work on my latest project. Travelers need to carry stuff, but when you find something useful you have the problem of how to transport it. My hands had to be free for carrying my spear and only a few items would fit into my pockets. Another consideration; bulging pockets would hamper my movements, and that could be fatal.

Net bags turned out to be easy to make. I knotted the strings together fishnet-style, with the vertical and horizontal strands about an inch apart. Small objects tended to fall through, but carrying things in the bag was more comfortable than stuffing them in my pockets. Weaving additional fibers and long leaves between the knotted strands improved a bag’s ability to carry small objects. The resultant hybrid was stiffer, almost as much basket as bag. I figured that at some point I would need both, so I made another fishnet bag with extra strings woven through the mesh. This produced a kind of coarse ‘cloth’. A drawstring closed the bag’s top and also served to attach the bag to my belt.

Everything I carried had to pass a needs test. Can I carry this with me, perhaps for long distances and not be exhausted at the end of the day? Will it be helpful in the future, or more of a hindrance now? As a result of that winnowing examination, most things got left behind. Even so, a flexible basket-like container now hung over my left shoulder, along with the net bag I’d tied to my belt. I held a wooden spear with a fire-hardened point ready in my right hand and my club hung at my belt, as did my knife and axe. The system wasn’t comfortable, but it worked. I got used to the annoyance, because my chances for long-term survival improved with every tool or weapon I made.

I usually had a bundle of strings and loose fibers ready when I stopped for the day. After my other chores were done, I wove the fibers into string. When I had enough strings, I twisted some into three-strand rope. At some point, I intended to try trapping larger game.

***

My daily routine had changed. Now, I kindled a fire late each afternoon from the coals in my clay-lined turtle shell. As soon as it was burning well, I built a lean-to shelter that faced toward the fire. It would protect me, but more importantly, it would help protect my fire. After building the fire, building a shelter, and collecting enough fuel to keep it going during the night, it was time to set up a fish weir if a nearby stream was suitable. I built the weirs from hammered-in close-set sticks. A wide, enclosed end was upstream and a smaller mouth-opening faced downstream, with two short inner ‘fences’. Fish entered the weir easily, but were unable to find their way out. I tied crayfish inside for bait.

I also fished, using small, sharp-ended bones with carved grooves around the center for gorge-hooks. Thin cords tied around the grooves completed the assemblies, and I made the hook-and-line sets in advance, coiling the strings around the bone hooks for travel. Setting them out was easy; just tie the remaining string end to a tree or pole, then toss the baited hook as far toward midstream, and wait.

I captured crayfish using a pole with a tied crosspiece for a rake. Braces added between the main pole and each end of the crosspiece stabilized it, and an added piece, tied parallel under the crossbar, made the device even more effective. The tool wasn’t pretty, but it was easy to construct and use. The crossed end went into the stream as far out as my arm would reach, and I held the crosspiece against the bottom as I raked it to shore. I usually caught several large—and angry!—crayfish, the larger of which I boiled each evening in one of the my turtle shells. The others got used for bait.

Bamboo-like canes, if present, made superior fishing poles. Angled cuts on the ends of the poles made them easy to stick into the dirt, and the lightweight, flexible canes allowed me to toss the baited hooks farther toward midstream. The poles usually resisted the pull of even a large fish, but some mornings I found nothing.

Traps set, shelter built, bed of green leaves waiting under the rear of the lean-to, a fire burning for cooking and protection; so ended my days. After placing my weapons where I could reach them easily, I ate a cooked rabbit or smoked fish, fresh or from the previous day’s catch. Rainwater was my drink of choice, but spring-water if it was available. River water, when that was my only choice.

As the light faded to dimness I lay down, and slept as much as possible during the night.

***

Some two months or so had now passed. I hadn’t bothered to keep an accurate count, because I had nowhere to go and nowhere to be. Very liberating, in my opinion! Just get up in the mornings (or not, if the weather was bad!), eat breakfast, and get on with my day. Make a final round of my string-loop traps and carefully pack away any unsuccessful ones, skin out a rabbit or two if I had caught any, and head back for my temporary home. Partially cook my rabbits, put out the fire, then head out. Elapsed time, no more than an hour…not that I had a watch!

I’d been working and traveling each day since arriving on Darwin’s World. On good days, I might have made twenty miles. Most days, I made an estimated fifteen miles. When the rain and winds created a problem, I found whatever shelter was available and waited it out. If it looked like the rain was going to last past dark, I gathered as much dry wood as possible and set up a temporary camp.

My current location was pleasant, my traps and hooks were set, and decided that I’d made up for all the time I’d lost. Best guess, I was more than a hundred miles north of where I’d been dropped off and maybe as much as two hundred miles west. I decided this was a good place to rest for a day and think.

Somewhere out there were other humans. Some had come from my time period according to what the Futurist had said, while some might be more primitive or more advanced. Did all of them get the same equipment as I’d been given? It wouldn’t make sense to limit one person and give another more, because survival turns on such small differences, but would that matter to the other Futurists?

There was no way to tell, and it didn’t matter; ‘my’ Futurist had given me enough to survive. I had not only survived for at least two months, I had thrived. But was that an accident? Or had the Futurist made certain that the drop location was in a relatively-benign area? A place where food was easy to get, where the climate was mild for a world just recovering from an ice age, and where there were few if any giant animals and large predators? There was no way to tell, so I tried to put the thought out of my mind. It didn’t matter; I was here, I was learning how to survive, and I already had far more kit than I’d been given.

That thought led to another. What would the harvesters have sought among potential transplants? The primitives of Pleistocene Earth had required thousands of years to develop civilization and science. Would they have been chosen? I thought not; my Futurist had selected me, and probably others from my timeline. We had an evolved approach to thinking and we still had the ability to survive here. All we needed was a healthy body, some training, and the minimal kit that the Futurist had provided. It would be easier for us to survive without civilization than it would be to educate ice-age humans to fit into a modern civilization. Plus the people from my time had the curiosity and ambition that the Futurists sought.

As for me, in addition to what I’d had on arrival, I had the weapons and tools I’d made for myself. With them, I had gained confidence. I had not only survived, I was now doing very well for myself. In my own estimation, I had advanced from rabbit to at least the level of coyote on Darwin’s World. I was no longer easy prey, I was a predator in my own right, even though my ‘prey’ was limited to small game.

My spear, club, and net bag made a lot of difference, but the cords and the traps I’d crafted from them were at least as valuable as anything else I’d made. The traps kept me well-supplied with meat, such that I no longer depended on hunting and scavenging.

What solution had the Futurists found for transplanting women? The so-called ‘weaker sex’ historically lacked the strength or speed of men, but they might have equal or even more stamina. They also had other qualities, but if they’d been dropped alone and almost-weaponless as I had, they’d have had less of a chance to survive. As for being determined to survive at any cost, I had that, but a woman might be even more determined than I was. I had no standard of comparison.

Might women have been transplanted as part of a male-female pair, or had the other Futurists found some other arrangement?

As for me, I felt good about how much I’d accomplished. The war-club felt comfortable in my hand, the haft balancing the stone head well. The fire-hardened tip on my spear was less useful, but I intended to make a better one later with a stone point.

A light rain began falling, but it didn't concern me; I had shelter to keep the rain off and a comfortable bed of leaves. The fire provided comfort as well as protection. Meantime, a fish splashed in the stream as it struggled to escape one of my lines.

I hurried to the stream and grabbed the cane pole. I had already found that a heavy fish, if determined enough, might pull the pole out of the bank; it had happened before, and if it did my supper would be gone. I leaned over the stream and reached as far up the pole as I could to get a better grip, then pulled. The fish tugged back, hard, and I felt a sudden twinge in my lower back as something popped loose. So much for ‘doing well’!

The muscles of my lower back had begun to cramp by the time I finished cleaning the fish. I gimped my way back to camp, then gathered as much wood as I could.

The pain came in waves, leaving me gasping and sweating after each spasm. I didn’t dare lie down because I might not be able to get back up.

I cooked the buffalo-fish, a quick task and not well done, but good enough considering the pain I was experiencing. Finally I sat down under the oak tree and ate as much of the fish as I could choke down. Leaning back very carefully, I tried to give my lower back as much support as I could and the pain subsided, briefly, but every time I moved to put more wood on the fire a new spasm wrenched my back.

I knew I was in serious trouble, but there was nothing I could do about it and there was no one else who could help me.

Between recurring spasms, I dragged up more wood. The spear was now my crutch, and it was fortunate that I didn’t have to use it as a spear because I doubt I could have.

The cramps soon became almost-continuous waves of pain, each wrenching spasm followed by panting relief, then pain again. I held onto the tree during the attacks and waited them out.

Reaching for that buffalo-fish might well have killed me.

I would have laughed if I hadn’t been hurting so bad.

Chapter Four

Time was not on my side.

The pain would pass, eventually; but until then, the fire was my protection and regardless of how much it hurt, I had to keep it burning. If it went out, I might not be able to relight it, and climbing a tree? That takes two good arms and two functioning legs. The arms, maybe. The legs, no way.

Best I could figure, my spine had twisted when that fish jerked on my line. It might straighten out naturally, or it might not. If that happened, I would die.

Fuel was plentiful, but gathering it wouldn’t be easy. I couldn’t bend or lift any substantial weight, I couldn’t even drag the bigger pieces back to camp. And I had already picked up everything nearby. Even more pressing, I had only a little water and cooked food on hand. I couldn’t get more until my back recovered. Without food, I would soon begin to weaken.

Living a primitive, subsistence life is only fun when someone else is doing it.

During that night and the next day, I ate sparingly and drank rainwater that I captured in my turtle shells. I pissed near the lean-to; it might repel animals, and right now, lack of sanitation was the least of my worries.

Grasping a branch, I hung by my hands as long as I could to see if whatever had popped loose in my back would pop back in. Maybe it helped. Even so, that second day was pure agony. There’s no other word for it. The spasms left my back muscles sore, and still they continued to seize up. The pain began, the muscles would begin to cramp, and then they would lock up for long moments before finally relaxing. Each episode left me sweating and gasping.

There would be a short pause, perhaps a minute, sometimes as much as ten minutes, and then the cramps would start again. The soreness got worse, making the spasms even more painful.

I held onto my tree when I had to, hung from the branch when I could, and toughed it out the rest of the time. Between spasms, ignoring the pain as best I could, I put a little wood on the fire. When I could manage to suppress the pain even a little, I crabbed my way to a downed limb that I thought I could manage and dragged it back to camp. Parking it close to the fire’s heat helped to dry it, enough that it would start to smoke, then the first small blaze would appear. Before it was consumed, I repeated the process.

During the brief, chill showers, I let the cold rain drip onto my back. I was desperate enough to try anything. I learned what misery and pain were.

I endured.

***

The spasms lessened during the third day and the intervals between cramps was longer. I had slept for brief periods during the worst of the pain, but now I got more sleep as the pain lessened. I had been on my feet for the entire time, even while I drifted in and out of sleep, and I was exhausted. But I had survived.

Even while I was nearly helpless from the pain, still I had somehow kept the fire going, creeping out to drag in more fuel whenever the fire burned low. I could remember only a few times I’d done that, but I must have done others. The facts spoke for themselves; the fire was still burning.

It had been three days since the injury, three days I never want to relive. I survived not by cunning, stealth, and knowledge but by pure dumb luck and determination. The luck part was because the worst of the storm held off for two days, and by the time it finally arrived I’d begun to recover. On the fourth day, driven by thirst, I was able to use the spear as a crutch and stumble to the stream. The sky was still overcast and thunder grumbled in the distance.

Hanging onto the spear, I slowly crouched, bending my knees while favoring my sore back. Dipping up water with my turtle shell, I drank. I did it again, then once more. After drinking, I made my slow way back to camp. Rain was falling in earnest by the time I got there. I huddled under my lean-to just trying to stay warm, while listening to water drops hiss on my fire. I salvaged some of the charred sticks that hadn’t completely burned and brought them under the shelter. A turtle shell, placed upside down over the flames and propped up to let air in, added more protection.

My fire endured, just as I had. Damp wood steamed near the fire; by the time I added it to the flames, it was dry enough to burn.

The spasms had stopped by the morning of the fifth day, and the worst of the soreness left my back while I did such work as I could and sheltered from the storm. I was hungry, cold, damp, there was still some residual soreness, but those things would go away as soon as I could begin foraging. It occurred to me that the Futurist may not have done me a favor by putting me here!

There was no letup in the rain that day. Lightning flashed, thunder rumbled, and drops pattered around me where they dripped through the trees. I was reasonably cozy under my shelter despite the lingering pain and I was damp, but the fire warmed me. My shelter didn’t provide all that much of an advantage, but sometimes it doesn’t take much.

The rain stopped during the night. As soon as it was light enough, I sloshed and slipped down to the river, which now extended past its banks. The poles and gorge-hooks I’d set out before my injury were gone, washed away. My traps were gone too.

How much farther would the river rise? If the storm was the remnant of a hurricane, flooding would extend for miles inland. The dying storm might also spawn tornadoes, and I didn’t want to be anywhere near one of those.

The clouds hid the sun so that I no longer had a good idea of directions, but by heading upstream I would be moving north, more or less. Going downstream, south, would put me where all that water was going and maybe into more storms, so continuing upstream it would have to be.

My fire had finally gone out, drowned by the rain. But I still had the Futurist-provided weapons, plus the club, spear, and bags that I’d made. In the bag I had some small bones and several hanks of string, and there were three more turtle shells under the lean-to for cup and cooking pot. These were all that remained of the tool kit I’d assembled. Not much, but more than I'd had when I arrived here. I looked around, making sure I’d forgotten nothing, then headed upriver, glad to be away from that camp!

***

Despite the flooding, there were still a few huckleberries and other edible plants around. I ate some raw while I walked north. My back muscles loosened up more and the residual soreness went away. Muddy ground slowed me from time to time, but as long as I had enough light to see I kept moving; there was no other choice.

Until now, I hadn’t been seeking people. Just surviving from day to day had been my goal, but now I would keep going until I found them. Having companions to turn to in time of need was clearly a survival measure.

Two days later, still following the river, I changed course to due west. The skies cleared, the ground dried, the flood subsided. Three days after that I located a shallow ford and finally crossed the river. Each night, I wove strings to replace what I’d lost, then assembled them into thin ropes to replace my lost snares. New pyramid traps I assembled from materials I gathered each night.

Ground-level vegetation changed again and the forest became more open. I decided I was now in what would have been Texas on Earth Prime, west of where Arkansas and Louisiana bordered that state and possibly as far north as the border with Oklahoma. Memory, real or implanted, told me there were likely remnant glaciers farther to the north, bordered by wide permafrost expanses south of there. Ranges of steep mountains bordered the permafrost belt.

The Ouachita Mountains, lightly weathered in this time, would be a major barrier to any northward movement. There was nothing north of them that I wanted to get to anyway; people would likely be south of the mountains and west of the great forest belt that extended all the way to the Atlantic and down into what would be Mexico on Earth Prime.

***

I was now at least a hundred miles north of where I’d been transplanted, probably more. The river was behind me, so I was free to continue going due west. Traveling got easier and faster still as the forest thinned more. I was often able to jog now, something that had been impossible in the thick woods, but I still had to be cautious. Snakes were around. In fact, I’d eaten some, including poisonous varieties, but I avoided thick brush.

Something had screamed off in the distance one night, a cat most likely. Panthers, what farther west would be called a cougar, were known to be in this area, and hadn’t there been an American cheetah once? The animal wasn't really a cheetah according to what was in my memory, more of a cougar, but built along the cheetah’s long-legged body plan. Coyotes yipped daily and howled each night, but so far, I’d seen no sign of wolves.

More and more, I was certain that the Futurist had dropped me into relatively-safe territory so that I could adjust to my new life.

My net bag became a small backpack after I added shoulder straps. Not large, but I could make a replacement later. I was now making rope from tall grasses as well as from fibers extracted from leaves and bark. There were more berries, too. These were more reddish than the blackberries, but I ate them regularly and only the occasional bout of light diarrhea kept me from eating more. My strength had fully recovered and I had gained back the weight I'd lost during my period of fasting. I was eating two meals a day now and snacking while I walked.

I still stopped late every afternoon and built a fire using the coals I carried, then set up a lean-to and put out traps. I also set hooks and built fish weirs whenever possible. I ate what I caught or went hungry, but that rarely happened.

Even so, my dreams were often about what I’d lost. A thick, rare steak; I could almost taste it! Lobster, dripping with butter! Eggs larger than the ones I’d taken from nests, potatoes, and bacon, bread from a French or Italian loaf, German brotchens or Italian rolls, layered with cheese and cold cuts or spread with a thick layer of butter and jam...

I was more than ready to eat something bigger when I spotted the deer.

He, for the head had small nubbins of antler covered with velvet, had come to the stream to drink. His front hooves were in the fresh mud, the rear hooves on the dry area just off the stream’s bank, and that small circumstance cost him his life. Bad luck for him, good luck for me.

His head came up at some tiny sound, or possibly he spotted my movement, but his front hooves slipped as he tried to turn. That was when my hard-thrown spear took him just behind the ribs. The buck humped his back, floundered for a moment, then lunged for the bank. But too late; I was close enough by then and my stone club was in my hand. I swung as hard as I could for the area between the antler buds and above his eyes.

My aim was slightly off. My movement, the deer’s movement, it made no difference; that stone club-head crushed the deer’s skull. He dropped in his tracks, quivered slightly and kicked his hind legs twice.

Riches! In my situation, that’s what the deer represented, and my spear was undamaged when I removed it from the carcass. I set up camp a few yards from the deer, building the fire somewhat larger than I usually did. The lean-to could wait, and today I wouldn’t need to set out traps. Even with the fire for protection, the spear remained within my reach while I field-dressed the deer. The spear might be needed again.

Cutting carefully to avoid nicking the bladder or intestines, I opened the body cavity and soon had the entrails out. I saved the heart and liver, then dumped the rest in the stream; the guts would attract scavengers. The lower legs went into the stream too. There was little meat on them anyway, and the scent glands above the joint of the rear legs give venison an unpleasant taste. I split the breastbone and pelvis, then spread the carcass open to cool.

I left the butchering task long enough to put up my shelter and gather wood, then returned to the deer. I made a rough job of skinning the animal, starting from the cut I’d made to empty the body cavity, then rolling the carcass in order to cut away the skin over the backbone. He was smaller than I might have expected, roughly the size of a domestic goat, so handling the weight wasn’t a problem. I wasn’t slavering while I worked, not quite, but there was a suspicious amount of saliva in my mouth!

I left the meat piled on the skin and dragged that to my fire. A scavenger would now have to face the fire as well as a desperate human with a spear before he could steal my meat!

The flames soon died down, except for where a log burned on the other side of my fire, and a nice bed of coals formed while I butchered the carcass.

There are two long muscles along an animal’s backbone, the backstraps. They’re called filets or loin if the animal is a cow. Whatever they’re called, they’re tasty, and I craved the fresh meat. I soon had two skewered chunks of backstrap sizzling as the fat dripped over the coals.

While the meat cooked, I built a drying rack to preserve the rest before it spoiled. It was finished by the time my steaks were ready, and I stuffed myself; there’s just no other word for the appreciation I gave that slightly-charred-on-one-side venison. My stomach felt uncomfortably full, a sensation I’d not felt since the Futurist dropped me here.

The heart and liver, cut into manageable pieces, soon replaced the chunks of backstrap on my skewers. I let them cook while I sliced the remaining venison into thin strips, then laid them on the rack. The fire’s coals I raked apart to spread the heat evenly. Small hardwood twigs plus green chips hacked from an oak tree provided extra fuel and smoke. I saved the liver and heart, well cooked and wrapped in large oak leaves, for breakfast.

It would take a day for the deer meat to dry into jerky, but it would be a welcome addition to my load when I resumed traveling.

The landscape became thin forest with occasional large clumps of oak, beech, and hickory, so I was able to see farther. I felt safer and moved faster. The deer I’d bagged convinced me that I could find game and dine well in this new terrain. Watercourses became smaller and less numerous as I continued on, but small streams were found at the bottoms of most hills. I also started finding springs, a feature not found in the deep forest.

There was another reason I had been happy to see the deer. They require salt, so somewhere around would be a salt lick. I could also see numerous animal trails that marked preferred travel routes. In those well-traveled trails I would set snares.

I was sitting on a fallen tree, resting while eating some of my venison jerky, when I spotted a thin tendril of smoke rising from beyond a hilltop a few miles ahead.

***

A dozen men lounged in the shade of a huge oak tree. They wore breechclouts and moccasins of soft leather and one, somewhat better dressed than the others, wore a scarlet-died headband made of deerskin. He sat apart from the others, indicating that he was the leader or commander of the band.

They’d waited about half an hour when another man trotted up to the leader and took a moment to catch his breath. When he was ready, he reported. “No sign of alarm, Boss. They’re all working in the fields, except for two men building walls. I can’t tell how long this has been going on, but the walls aren’t very high. They won’t do more than slow us down.”

Darwin's World

Jack Knapp

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

That was a preview of Darwin's World. To read the rest purchase the book.

Add «Darwin's World» to Cart