Fire from the Sky

The harsh light intruding, first in my left eye then my right, was offensive. Behind the light lurked a voice, slow to make sense. "Dr. Cardinal, you're coming out of cold sleep. Do you know who I am?"

With the forth repetition of the question, I felt irritated enough to reply. "If you'd stop shining that damn light in my eyes, maybe I could see you well enough to take a guess." By then, I knew that the voice belonged to the ship's Medical Officer, a plump black man named Abdullah, but I was feeling testy, a side effect of cold sleep.

Abdullah appeared unperturbed. "Captain Bradshaw is waiting for you in the ship's mess. She'll update you on the current status of the mission."

My head still clearing, I stumbled to the mess trying to remember what mission Abdullah was talking about. As I entered I spied Captain Bradshaw who, in her shipboard casual shorts and sweatshirt, looked more like an aging gym teacher than a captain. Her steel grey hair enhanced the image. Handing me a steaming cup of strong coffee, she ordered, "Down this. It'll wake you up."

Dr. Lucia Marino, the other archaeologist on the ship, was seated at the table. Over her half-consumed coffee, Lucia nodded in my direction. Not for the first time, I noticed lustrous black hair and smooth olive skin. Lucia was a very attractive woman. Moreover, she was single and we were both twenty-five. Captain Bradshaw's clipped voice forced me to tear my gaze away from Lucia. "Dr. Cardinal, outline our mission as it pertains to you."

I knew that Captain Bradshaw was as familiar with my mission as I was, but her request was intended to verify that I had survived cold sleep without neurological damage.

I complied. "Because the time machine moves only on the time axis, we have been transported by space ship to where, relative to the background of stars, Earth was located in 194 A.D. Dr. Marino and I will board the time machine to be transported to that year. I will be dropped in the Ohio Valley where I will study the Hopewell People. Dr. Marino will go to Rome where she will investigate the fine points of Roman politics."

I could see by the sharp look in the captain's eyes that I needed to get back to my own mission. "Because I'm fluent in Iroquoian, Shawnee, and Miami, as well as having some knowledge of several other Amerindian languages, we hope that I will be able to communicate with the Hopewell. Since I'm a full-blooded Cree, my physical appearance shouldn't cause me to stand out." I made the mental reservation that my height of 198 centimetres in a society where the average male stood 168 centimetres would leave me far from invisible. "I'm to record my findings on my mini-computer so there'll be a written record."

Sotto voce, Lucia interjected, "Snitch alert. Beria."

Larry Beria, the ship's Political Observer, flounced into the mess. "Cap'n, this briefin' wasn't supposuh start without me bein' here. Waduya think yuh're doin'?"

Captain Bradshaw took in Beria's heavily braided, full dress uniform. While the corners of her eyes betrayed contemptuous amusement, her words were delivered in an even tone. "The briefing hasn't started. I'm still going through the verification protocols to determine whether our archaeologists have emerged undamaged from cold sleep."

I decided that I liked the captain.

Beria blustered, "They look all right tuh me."

The captain continued, "You can relax. No one here is plotting against President Abasi. Your revolution is secure. Democracy is dead."

I decided to deflect Beria's attention away from the captain. "I think both Dr. Marino and I have reawakened enough to be briefed on the final part of our voyage. Please carry on, Captain."

Beria appeared miffed but only grunted.

The captain turned from him. "In one hour, both of you will enter the time shuttlecraft. Once separated from the mother ship, your pilot will activate the time machine.

"When you are in the year 194 A.D., the pilot will close the final distance to Earth and enter the lower ionosphere. Since Dr. Marino will go first, the shuttle will take up a position above Italy. The shuttlecraft will not descend to the surface. Dr. Marino will complete the journey in an escape capsule which will be ejected to fall toward Earth. When there is enough atmosphere to make a difference, the capsule will deploy a drogue chute to stop it from tumbling. At 700 metres above the surface, the main chute will deploy.

"The second drop will be over Ohio. That will be you, Dr. Cardinal."

Always sensitive to weakness, Beria interrupted, "Cardinal, yuh've loss colour from yer face. Gotta prolum?"

The cause of my pallor was a secret I'd kept hidden through all preparations for this mission. I'm acrophobic. At five metres above the ground, I risk paralysis from terror. I intended to keep the truth hidden from the likes of Beria. "It's probably a delayed reaction to cold sleep. I'll be okay in a few minutes." In truth, I felt as though my coffee was in danger of ejection.

Beria continued to regard me with suspicion.

Acrophobia was the lesser of my two secrets. Determined that my life was going to count for something, I had five plastic vials hidden under my sweatshirt. The duct tape holding the vials in place was a minor discomfort.

Captain Bradshaw eyed me closely, shrugged, and continued. "In the capsules, there are backpacks. Following touchdown, get yourself and your backpack away from the capsule. Triggered by touchdown, a five-minute countdown will start. After that time, each capsule will self-incinerate. No trace will be left.

"Each pack contains a space suit and a hand-held computer. The computer runs a timer that starts at one year. It will show you know how much time remains before the energy expended to send you back in time runs out. When it does, you will pop back into the present, where this ship will be waiting for you. At that moment, you will want to be wearing your space suit because Earth will no longer be where you are. Breathing vacuum is not recommended.

"The computers are loaded with information which may or may not be of use to you. For example, your computer, Dr. Cardinal, identifies the exact time and duration of the 194 A.D. solar eclipse in Ohio.

"Dr. Marino, your pack contains a supply of counterfeit Roman coins. Dr. Cardinal, yours contains obsidian, copper, and silver that can be used for offerings or trade.

"Are there any questions?"

It wasn't until the drogue chute jerked me against my harness that my panic again surged to a level that threatened to overpower me. I forced myself to focus on my plastic vials. The sweat pouring from my panicked body was causing the tape holding the vials to come loose. With the drogue deployed, I now had enough weight to risk undoing my harness so I could transfer my vials, now hidden under my buckskins, to the small backpack. As the tape came away, I felt a stab of pain as one stubborn section tore away a small disk of skin. I directed my attention to the sting from this minor wound rather than my altitude above the too solid ground. Reminding myself that I should not be loose when the main chute deployed, I re-attached the harness. I had to prepare for a five-G jerk.

To distract myself from the muted scream of atmosphere tearing past the pod's hull, I forced my attention onto the moral question of my plastic vials. I had agonized over it often enough that I should have settled my doubts but, with the approach of action, uncertainty reasserted itself.

Each vial contained the viruses of a disease that was not supposed to arrive in the Ohio Valley for another 1500 years. I intended to dispense death in the form of smallpox, chicken pox, measles, mumps, and cholera. In the history I knew, the first ships which touched the shores of the 'New World' brought plagues of death. The European settlers, who arrived later, believed they were entering virgin lands. As Ronald Wright wrote in the late 20th Century: "America was not a virgin; she was a widow." My plan was to give the widow time to recover before the invaders arrived.

During any epidemic, many people die but not all. Some get sick but recover. Others are immune. The survivors produce progeny tending to share that resistance or immunity. In the 1500 years before the arrival of the Europeans, my plan would touch off successive epidemics, each one leaving a surviving population with greater resistance. Nor would this resistance be limited to the Ohio Valley. The Amerindian trading networks would spread infection throughout the 'New World'. The European invaders were going to be met by intact societies. My people were going to have a fighting chance. That is, if I could summon the courage to stick to my plan.

I popped the hatch on the capsule to protrude my head. The main chute was hung up in the lush green foliage of a maple. So, the swaying was real -- not just my panicked stomach. The capsule dangled six metres above the ground. After the terrifying half hour descent, this final insult robbed me of control over my stomach. Lurching forward, I threw up, fighting dry heaves for another minute.

Woozy, I gathered my remaining sliver of courage. I hung by my fingertips from the edge of the hatch to prepare for the drop to the ground.

I was still falling when the enormity of my mistake struck like a thunderclap. In the capsule, my backpack was left behind. My vials were gone. Without the spacesuit, I had one year to live.

In a lodge resembling a truncated Iroquois long house, I awoke on a sleeping platform. A sharp pain called attention to my right thigh. My leg was bound in ropes holding together a set of short straight sticks. The leg was broken, but someone had applied splints.

Pungent odours reminded me that I was no longer in the 23rd Century. Bathing wasn't a daily occurrence here.

Remembering my vials, I felt despair. A need for my life to have meaning was so great that, in my mind, the vials had more importance than the space suit. Death awaited me but the one thing that would've made my life matter was gone. Disgust overwhelmed me. I had allowed my acrophobia to submerge my goal.

A flash of agony when I tried to sit up caused me to groan. The face of a young woman appeared above me. She called to someone. The young face was replaced by an old one, also female. The old face spoke but at first I understood nothing. Penetrating the fog of strange accent, I began to recognize words similar to the Mohawk dialect of Iroquoian.

"We saw you fly down, but your wings burned and drifted away like dust. We are grateful for your return. Your trade goods are here." She pointed to my obsidian, copper, and silver stacked in a neat pile beside my sleeping platform. "Now you need to rest." With that she was gone leaving a question rattling in my head -- return?

The shaman of the small village, Gawa, was my next visitor. Unlike other men who passed through the lodge wearing their hair close-cropped, Gawa's hung in unruly gray tendrils to his mid-back. The two braids I had grown with the idea that they would make me appear less strange now appeared to be a mistake.

When I stood on my good leg to greet him, I perceived that Gawa was struggling not to show his displeasure with having to look up to me. Even straining to keep his bony old body fully erect, he was a full 40 centimetres shorter than me. Only when I eased myself into a sitting position on the edge of my sleeping platform did his discomfort seem to abate.

"We are pleased that you have returned, Rowtag." There was that return thing again. My new name, Rowtag, was a fresh clue; in Algonquin, it meant Fire. "The prophecy has been fulfilled. You have descended from the sky."

I was foolish enough to ask, "What will be expected of Rowtag?"

Gawa's enigmatic answer only heightened my anxiety. "The legend tells us that a shaman will help you discover why you have been sent. You and I will search for your purpose together." Even as he uttered these words, I could see that he was beginning to wonder if I really was Rowtag.

The old woman who had been the first to speak to me was named Oheo. She was an attentive nurse. In Iroquoian, her name meant beautiful, and she was. Her face, which age had converted to leathery wrinkles, was framed in shoulder length white hair emphasizing intelligent black eyes. In spite of her age, her body had retained much of the suppleness of youth. In her presence, other villagers, both male and female, showed respect.

I knew that a typical Hopewell village contained, at most, two or three extended families living in the same number of lodges. Because of this I was astonished at the number of visitors who came to see Rowtag. I had become a centre of local attraction. Anyone within walking distance was coming from other villages to see me.

One of my visitors, a blind old man, told me the version of my arrival that had become the official story. "You came out of the sky on white wings to alight in a tree. Then, in a searing flash of flame, you descended to the ground in a shower of trade goods. By misfortune, you took human form too soon so that you broke your leg in the fall."

The old man's rendition of my arrival reminded me of my plastic vials. A wave of despair swept over me. My face must have registered my emotions because Oheo, always nearby, became concerned. "Rowtag, what is it?"

I thought it unwise to explain that I was upset over my failure as a mass murderer. "Nothing, just frustrated because I can't walk."

Since the solar eclipse was a little under three weeks away, I pondered the idea that I might be able to take credit for bringing the Sun back to life. Unless I could find some purpose, Rowtag would disappoint the Hopewell. It struck me that Gawa would not take disappointment in good grace. My problem was that, without my computer, I could not pinpoint the exact time of the eclipse.

I made a mental note to stop thinking of these people as Hopewell, the designation given to them by archaeology. Oheo had said, "We are the Asgaya." A word that in Cherokee meant 'man'. This was the sort of information I was supposed to take back to my home century.

Late one evening, Oheo brought me a crutch. "Try this in the morning when you're more rested."

I struggled free of my despondency enough to say, "Thank you, Oheo, you're very kind."

In the darkness of predawn, my bladder woke me. Rather than use the ceramic pot, which had been my only option for the past two weeks, I hobbled out of the lodge on my crutch. On my return trip, I spied a skeletal figure atop an earthen mound in profile against the Milky Way. It took another few seconds for me to recognize Gawa. I worked my way over to the mound, struggled to the top, and paused to let my leg stop throbbing.

Ignoring me, the old shaman gazed at the thin crescent Moon sitting on the horizon. In sudden activity, he jammed two short pointed sticks into the mound. On his knees behind the second stick, he sighted across the tips of the two sticks toward the Moon. After adjusting the position of the second stick a couple of times, he grunted in satisfaction before returning to his previous standing position.

For what seemed like a couple of hours, we stood together without talking. Several times I was tempted to break the silence, but restrained myself.

As the edge of the Sun peeked over the horizon, an early morning mist lifted to reveal my location. In sudden recognition, I gasped. Gawa continued to ignore me.

This was the future site of Mound builders Country Club, a golf course in Newark, Ohio. The vast set of earthworks in front of me was a lunar observatory with twice the precision of Stonehenge. 20th Century archaeologists would dub the mound where we stood, Observatory Mound. Facing us was Observatory Circle, eight hectares in area. Beyond that lurked The Great Octagon enclosing 20 hectares. These earthworks would survive into my century because the golf course would prevent the city of Newark from engulfing them.

With increasing excitement, I noted that the Sun was rising in exact alignment with the main axis of the earthworks. Dropping to my good knee, I sighted along the tips of Gawa's sticks. The sticks confirmed that the Moon had risen on the same axis.

Having advanced to its most northerly standstill, the Moon stood ready to obscure the Sun. I had arrived at the time of a rare alignment. This most northerly Moonrise occurred only once in a generation. That it should occur at the same time as a solar eclipse was a unique event. At such a sacred moment, the Asgaya would be ready to accept unusual explanations. I hoisted my crutch to yell in English, "Yes!"

Gawa turned to give me the sort of look the pious reserve for miscreants who misbehave in church. In a tone teachers use for slow students, he explained, "The time when the Moonrise stands still can be a time of danger. The danger comes when the Sun and Moon rise close together at the edge of the world." Pointing to the horizon, he continued. "We are at such a time. Sometimes, not always, this means that the Sun will darken. At such times, we make offerings to the Spirits imploring them to restore the Sun. Is this why you have come?"

Feeling deflated, I gathered my thoughts. It had never occurred to me that the Asgaya might predict the possibility of a solar eclipse. My own prediction would prove less marvellous than I'd hoped. I scrambled to save my reputation. "Gawa, sometime in the next three days, the sun will darken. No matter what we do, half the Sun will be consumed. You have seen this before so you know that, with help from the Spirits, the Sun will grow back. So what is the danger of which you speak?"

"Rowtag, each time the Sun has darkened in the past, several people were blinded. Can you prevent that?" His tone suggested doubt.

I remembered the blind old man who had come to visit me. "Give me time to think about it. We must begin by making suitable offerings to the Spirits."

Under Oheo's supervision, my trade goods were buried in one side of Observatory Mound. Not to be outdone, Gawa rounded up an offering three times the size of mine, burying it in the opposite side of the mound.

It had taken me the better part of a day to prepare a demonstration. I called both Gawa and Oheo to me while the sun was still high enough in the sky for my purpose.

Scrutinizing the contraption I held, Gawa's eyes betrayed amusement -- not the reaction I sought. Oheo remained impassive. I held a closed cylindrical tube of birch bark, a bit more than a metre long. In the flat sheet closing one end, I'd drilled a small hole. At the other end, I'd taken care to face the white side of the bark into the tube. Two hand widths away from this white surface, I had cut a hole, four centimetres square, in the side of the cylinder. I held a pinhole camera.

Still dubious, Gawa allowed me to position the camera on his shoulder, while I manoeuvred him and it into line with the Sun behind him. I encouraged him to look into the square hole where a small image of the Sun was projected onto the white birch bark. His craggy face lit up in bemused delight.

I explained, "During the darkening, no one must look at the sun. Those who do may be blinded. Everyone can watch by doing what you are doing here."

Oheo looked at me as though she were seeing me for the first time. "Well done, Rowtag."

Gawa sent runners to other villages with the news. In our small village alone, I counted thirty pinhole cameras like my own. It was not a good time to be a birch tree.

Ever ready for a challenge, Gawa outdid us all. He sealed up one of the lodges to make it dark inside and opened part of the thatched roof for placement of a sheet of birch bark with a small hole. He installed a larger sheet on the floor for his screen under the sheet in the roof. On the day of the eclipse, three other shamans from surrounding villages were invited to sit with him. His lodge had become a giant pinhole camera.

To my great relief, the eclipse did arrive on time, in clear weather. It was late enough in the day that the last part of the sun's 'recovery' was not visible. Some tension hung on in the village until morning when it rose round and red. When it became obvious, that no one had been blinded, celebrations broke out.

While this was not the great righting of historical wrong that I had hoped for, it was something. I began to feel a little better about myself.

There followed three days of feasting and dancing. Not even a pouring rain on the second day dampened the enthusiasm of the Asgaya. I think I was the only one who got any sleep.

With Rowtag's place in the village secured, I had time to think about the future, including the fact that I'd be dead in eleven months. Without any clear plan in mind, I decided that I needed to produce some kind of record of my stay. To this end, I asked Oheo to get me some galena. I knew that the Asgaya traded for this mineral with people in what would be Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa.

Under her guidance, I ground the galena into a powder, adding oil from sunflower seeds grown in the village gardens, to produce a thin lead-based paint. Without asking why, Oheo also brought me a large turkey feather and a quantity of birch bark. She was becoming accustomed to my bizarre requests. Using a flint knife, I carved the feather into a quill pen. The outer surface of birch bark is white but too rough for writing. However, the inside, although pale orange, has a smooth surface. I began to write.

The arcane skill of writing by hand is rare in the 23rd Century. It is practiced by only a few archaeologists who wish to decipher ancient documents. I began to wonder how I could get my record of events to someone who could read it. Thinking further, I pondered how my record might have some effect on the future.

In my home time, there was a general who could have prevented the dictator Abasi's coup. The only reason he had not done so was that he had not been alerted to the danger until it was too late. Had he known even an hour earlier, the democratic world government could have been saved. I needed to find a way to get my message to that general. I might not be able to change the history of my own race, but perhaps I could change history for all humanity. My mind was aflame with purpose.

In hindsight, there were warning signs I should've noticed. For some weeks after the first snowfall, Gawa had been going out of his way to avoid me. Several people had inquired, in the most indirect and courteous manner possible, about the timing of my return to the sky.

Even the quick succession of events just before the crisis did not penetrate my awareness. Gawa's extended family had to seek other shelter for one night while five shamans from other villages had a private meeting with Gawa in his lodge. Several strangers, young men in their prime carrying atlatls, arrived at the edge of the village to take up a vigil.

Knowing me better than anyone else, Oheo was blunt enough to get my attention. "Rowtag, it's time for you to leave. The legend says that you must leave after fulfilling your purpose. If you stay, Gawa will have you killed so your spirit can return to the sky until we need you again. Why are you still here?"

I'm not sure how long I stood, my mouth hanging open, before I rallied. "I have one more thing I must do before leaving. Do you know how to find earthworks that look like this?" I was busy with a stick scratching the outline of Marietta Earthworks into the thin snow.

Oheo didn't miss a beat. "This sacred site is far from here. It's dangerous to travel at this season, but you must leave this village. I will send two young men with you. With their help, you may survive the journey to these Winter Sun Mounds."

A month later, I arrived at the future site of Marietta, Ohio. The two young men brought the dugout canoe to the shore of the Muskingum River. Closing the final distance to shore meant the canoe had to break through a thin layer of ice. The three of us stepped onto the graded pathway leading to the magnificent set of earthworks. The pathway, forty-five metres wide and more than two hundred metres long, was bounded by earthen walls six metres high, shrouded in snow. I knew that, like gun sights, the walls aligned the pathway with the winter solstice sunset. We followed it up from the river to the vast square which enclosed Quadranau and Capitoleum Mounds. The ascent took longer than it should have because I walked with a limp, a souvenir of my broken leg. From the square, we turned southeast, following earthen walls to Conus Mound. The earthworks, in their undamaged pristine condition, filled me with an unexpected sense of reverence.

Conus Mound was my last hope of giving my life meaning. Without my space suit I had eight months left to live. That I was going to finish my life breathing vacuum loomed large in my mind.

It would only be in July of 2237 that an archaeologist named Brad Romain would obtain permission to make the first ever excavation of this mound. Three months later, Abasi would overthrow the democratic world government to establish his dictatorship in a bloody coup.

Ten metres high, the mound loomed before me. I circumnavigated the it four times before I was sure I had found where Romain would begin his exploratory trench. Taking the sealed ceramic pot which contained my birch bark message from the younger of my two assistants, I told the two of them to return to the canoe to wait for me. What I was about to do would be sacrilege to them. I was going to dig into a sacred burial mound.

With the two young men out of sight, I found a suitable stick to begin the desecration. By good fortune, I was digging in the south-facing side of the mound so that only a thin crust of earth was frozen. After a half hour of effort, I judged the opening to be deep enough. I put my pot in place. It was faster work to fill the hole and replace the vegetation over it than it had been to dig. Just as I tamped the last clump of brown grass back into place, I became disoriented. Even though I was standing on solid ground, I had the sensation of falling. The digging stick dropped from my grasp. I looked at my hands. I could see through them yet, simultaneously, they were opaque. It was too early for my return to the 23rd Century, so what was happening?

Oblivion.

Awakening.

I am seated at my office desk at the university. When the room stops spinning, I find myself with two sets of memories. In one, an army of thugs overthrew the government in a bloody coup. In the other, the timely action of a loyal military commander prevented the coup. I am living in the latter world, but can remember both. Am I going mad?

A knock on my open office door. It's Lucia Marino. Although I've not yet met her, I know her from a space voyage I never made.

"Doctor Cardinal, my mentor was Dr. Brad Romain. When he passed away last month, I inherited his papers. This is a photocopy of a document written on very old birch bark." She hesitates, biting her lower lip. "Is this your handwriting?"

THE END

Bio: Mr. Drury writes in Stony Plain, Alberta, Canada. His mind roams the universe of space and time.  You are welcome to come along for the ride.

E-mail: R. J. Drury

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