The Girl Who Heard Dragons

A Flock of Geese

The time storm shifted and that resettlement was enough to rouse Chloe, attuned as she was to the distortion phenomenon. Awareness returned to her. She fumbled for light, uncertain in her sleepiness what she was reaching for until her hand found the slim metal cylinder. She had to focus her thoughts to remember how to flick on this sort of beam. Then she angled it to shine on her left wrist as her fingers sought the digital switch. The display informed her that the relative elapsed time of the latest shift was four days, four- teen hours, thirty-two minutes, and ten seconds. Time in Issaro's society had been exceedingly complex. In her natal eighteenth century, she had been accustomed to judging the relative time of day accurately by the sun's position. But the sun was no longer a reliable timepiece.

From the stone shelf above her pallet Chloe took the clip-board and the incredible pen that never needed to be dipped in ink. When she had added the elapsed time to the neat columns of figures of time-storm duration and intervals between the phenomena, no sudden insight revealed to her the secret of the records she had assiduously kept for the past three years elapsed time. Chloe sighed. If only she could discern the relationship between time storm and interval, she would be as much in control of her continued existence as she was of the cave and anyone who resided in it.

"Damnation take thee, Issaro," she said, ironically aware that Issaro probably had met damnation when he had been caught too far from the cave at the onset of that time storm. She hadn't meant to lose him until he had unlocked the rhythm of the shifts. If, indeed, there was one, as he had constantly averred. "Be that as it may," she added on a philosophical note.

At some future time, future at least in the sense of her own continuous occupation of the cave, she would probably encounter another man from Issaro's computer-oriented society and, with his help, delve the message of the columns.

Now she prudently turned off the light. It was a useful device, less dangerous than candles or sparks from flint and tinder, and brighter than any lantern. Judicious use would extend the beam's life. One day, when her records had divulged their secret configuration, she might know when she would touch again in or near the time that had produced the compact hand light.

The cold of the time storm was gone and Chloe was feeling distinctly warm under her layers of quilts, which she preferred to the lighter-weight blankets and thermal covers the others used. In the earliest days in this cave refuge, there had been freezes of such shocking intensity that her people had bundled together under every available covering to generate enough warmth to keep them alive. Determined never to suffer from such temperatures again, Chloe sewed one patchwork after another from whatever scraps came to hand. The cave had escaped such extremes of weather for a long time, and Chloe had a fleeting moment's anxiety that the balance for such clemency would soon fall due. She folded back her quilts carefully, catching a slight odor from the body-warmed fabric. If it was a good day, an airing would freshen them. Should the river be running clear, and the sun shining, she would have Dorcas launder one or two.

She rose from the thick air mattress. That, like Issaro's digital watch, had been an unexpected treasure, the remnant of camping paraphernalia found discarded by the river. She chided herself for coveting the elegancies when she could not, in all conscience, approve the societies that had produced them. In truth, the fripperies did make life more endurable in the cave. The disadvantage was that luxuries, such as the light beam or the stonecutters, inevitably lost their power. Then one had, perforce, to resume the more primitive ways of accomplishing the same tasks. The tedious if reliable methods caused her people to grumble and be dissatisfied, forcing her to be unnecessarily stern in order to achieve her desired ends.

Chloe let her eyes become accustomed to the stygian darkness of her little alcove. If the stonecutters had not depleted their power packs, it would have been a proper room, instead of a niche opposite the stores. She listened intently but heard nothing more than the muted breathing of the sleepers in the main room of the cavern. She inhaled deeply. The air was still good, though slightly tainted with the stench of fearful sweat. Chloe thought of those asleep there: Michael, Destry, elderly Edward, the Indian Fensu, moaning Rayda, the timorous Malenda, and stolid Dorcas. Pregnant Dorcas.

Chloe did not dwell on that problem. She pulled her skirts straight, the fine-textured and durable cloth a product of yet another culture. She had never been able to bring herself to wear the more practical but immodest unmentionables favored by many societies. The sweep of her skirts added a subtle authority to her slender, erect frame. To have pranced about in trousers would have been to demean herself. Chloe moved toward the front of the cave complex, one hand on the wall to steady herself, for the floor of the cavern was uneven. One day she would have paving stones placed in the worst dips. She knew the contours of her refuge well and lowered her head where the ceiling slanted downward. When she acquired more of the stonecutters, she would lop off the bumps. Then she was in the small entrance, an arm's length from the massive door.

With an involuntary supplication to a God she knew no longer existed, she hesitated before she put her hands flat against the wood. She could feel no vibration, pressure, or extreme of temperature through the wood. She inhaled, smelling neither the acridity of a foul atmosphere nor the dampness of rain or snow, aware only of the preservative in which the wood had been soaked. How well she recalled the jubilation following the discovery of the railroad ties. It had been the work of most of that interval to transport the bulky pieces of wood to the cave.

"They'll make the best door in the world and we've found bolts and iron enough to make a frame," Douglas had cried triumphantly. "No more cowering in the back of the cave, praying the elements won't devour us. Nothing in the world, any world, will get through that door when I've hung it!"

Douglas was long gone, but his door remained as a tribute to his ingenuity and workmanship. She had rather regretted his exigent departure, but those in the cave must owe their allegiance only to her, not to a jumped-up ne'er-do-well. She was the only person who could discern the ripples that preceded a time shift.

She felt for Douglas's bolts and eased them back in their well-oiled slots. She tilted the heavy safety bar and drew the latch. She paused once more, though she knew in her bones that this had been a good shift and terror did not lie on the other side. She braced herself to heave open the heavy door.

Spring again! Not a false spring with the mutated horrors growing on the strangely altered ground of three shifts ago. Midaftemoon, unless this time shift had changed the sun as well. The fragrances borne on the air were sweetly familiar. Chloe stepped out and turned as she always did, to look up at the mountains, to the everlasting hills. They were all right! The right shape. No help might be forthcoming from their crags and slopes, as the psalmist had once intimated, but their unchanging aspect formed the one constant from which Chloe could take any reassurance. She feasted her eyes now on their blessedly familiar outlines. Through all the foul and fair forms the land outside the cave assumed after time shifts, the outline of the hills endured.

"You chose well, good citizen," Douglas had told her his first night in the cave so many years ago. "This is basement rock, solid basalt." He had affectionately slapped the stony bulwarks beside him. "Part of the bones of this tormented earth, established millennia ago and not likely to change no matter how these time storms shift. Until old Earth bounces all the way back to the Archeozoic Age, these rocks will endure. Mark my words!"

She had, until Douglas had tried to turn the then residents against her, and gain dominion over her cave. Ruthlessly she had left him, and them, behind in the next shift. She had missed him sorely for his many skills and his logical solutions to the practical problems of their curious existence. She chose to believe that his theoretical assessments of their condition, such as the durability of the hills, were as accurate as his practical applications.

Once more the hills gave her comfort and assurance. Serenely now, she could turn to see what had transpired around her and in the valley. The rivers, seen through a thin or young forest, were in residence and their banks unmarred by buildings of any description. Those rivers had watered her father's prosperous holding, obtained from the governor of the colony, rich farmlands, coveted by his neighbors. Well, she was no longer chattel-goods, unable to guide her own destiny and manage her inheritance. She wondered how those gentlemen, her ardent suitors, had fared the night of the first time storm, when they had chased her into these hills. And fortuitously into the cave, which had proved the one sure shelter in this time-heaved world.

A faint breeze ruffled her hair, a breeze wet and clean of unfamiliar taints. She saw no stunted or exceptional trees. In this young forest, she recognized elm, birch, chestnut, oak, ash, and further down the hills, beeches and willows. A comforting undercurrent of noise drifted to her ears, the conversations of birds, animals, and insects. Into what era Earth had passed, Chloe could not guess, for the mountain forests of the American eastern coast had stood undisturbed for centuries before England had established her colonies there. This particular section had been alternately called Upper New York State, Lesser Metropolis, Eastern Sector, and Red Region and had been relatively unscathed by urban development, Douglas had said, until the late twenty-fifth century.

Twenty-five centuries seemed incredible to Chloe, a woman of the eighteenth. Yet, in some society future to the twenty-fifth, the fabric of time itself had been ruptured, causing the great distortion shift storms during which the planet was flung from one point to another along the fifth dimension. Or so Issaro had asserted. The storm-bedraggled Chloe of the eighteenth century might not have comprehended such a theory, but the Chloe who assessed this new period of relative stability could accept that interpretation after all the marvels she had seen during her twelve years of time-faring.

Chloe moved from the cave's overhang. This would be a welcome stop, though autumn would have been more beneficial in terms of replenishing supplies of herbs, grains, fruits, and nuts. Automatically she bunched her skirt in one hand and began to gather dead branches from the clearing. Firing was always in short supply in the cave, and she despised idleness in anyone above any other flaw and would not tolerate it in herself, either. It took her no time to gather the first load, which she took back to the cave, stacking it quietly and quickly in the bins. No one was disturbed by her slight noises. They were all exhausted by the rigors of the last shift, though it hadn't been a bad one, and they would sleep until she woke them. That was all to the good. Chloe valued this time of solitude to collect her thoughts and plan how best to use a new shift.

She went back to her alcove and gathered up her quilts. As she spread the patchworks on convenient branches, she hoped there would be game abroad this time. Meat was the most urgent requirement. She would have the able men set snares and hunt. The women could fish and look for spring berries. She had the feeling that they might be here for a goodly while. Time enough to explore and see what other benefits might be derived.

She took a pail from the supply shelves, noting that some of the precious implements had not been stored properly. She'd have a word with Rayda. Born in a high-technology society and loath to dirty her hands or stretch her muscles in honest labor, Rayda had few skills to recommend her to Chloe. She had been in the cave now for five shifts and could be sloughed off as unsuitable. Chloe did not believe in undue benevolence with respect to castaways. She exploited whatever talents they had and generally managed to retain the artifacts with which they came encumbered. Bitter experience had taught her to be ruthless in maintaining her authority and domination. Wisely she had remained silent on the score that she always experienced a warning of the onset of a time storm. With that unique faculty, she had been able to decide which of her companions of the moment passed the storm in the safety of the cave. Fortunately she had never touched in the same time twice, a mercy of which she was entirely sensible.

So, she would dispense with Rayda at the conclusion of this interval. A simple ruse at the appropriate time would suffice. The woman had no orientation skill at all.

Would it ever be possible to have a stable complement in the cave, Chloe wondered, each occupant possessing skills useful in their transitions and valuable in various of the civilizations in which the time storms deposited them? Harmonious personalities with no sudden inexplicable ambitions to usurp her prerogatives: a decent assembly of folk all dedicated to surviving decently in this one refuge on a planet utterly abandoned by time's order? The best of all possible worlds?

As Chloe wound her way through the trees in search of early berries, she smiled at her conceit. Issaro had suggested, on several occasions, that there had to be other refuges on the planet, other stable areas on the Earth's crust or under it. Chloe had scoffed at the notion of trying to contact other survivors, though occasionally the technological equipment to do so had been available to her. Speaking to people she had never met across vast leagues of continent or ocean seemed a futile effort to her. What value would such contact have? How could one possibly pit mere scores of men against this ultimate disaster? She could not envisage that the combined effort of even the most substantial numbers of folk could affect or alter the cataclysm that had over-taken the world. If, as Issaro had maintained, some future scientific experimentation had ruptured time, then all the efforts of the past could not mend that fracture. The wiser course was to endure the phenomenon in reasonable safety and comfort.

Chloe broke from the thin forest into a clearing. Goose-berries grew in profusion on the bushes. Chloe ate greedily of the yellow-green ovals, letting the juices moisten tissues dried by the uncertainties of the time shift.

She had nearly filled her pail when a sudden heavy rustling in the undergrowth alerted her to the presence of some animal. She crouched behind the screen of bushes, observing that she was upwind of the creature. For several fearful moments, she wondered what horrible denizen might emerge. Her relief was double as she recognized the distinctive snout and furry bulk of a bear - not a large one and, judging by the way it gobbled berries, recently awakened from its hibernation.

Any bear could be dangerous, so Chloe eased her way out of the bushes and walked swiftly back to the cave. Would she rouse the men to chase the bear? No, a thin one with winter-mangy fur would be of little value. And a large predator would provide Michael and Destry with an excuse to use firearms. Still, the presence of a bear augured the likelihood of other familiar, and useful, species. Again, she stifled the wish that the season were more advanced and the bear fat enough to be worth hunting. Perhaps they would remain here through the entire summer and be able to gamer the autumn's harvest.

The sunlight and fresh air streaming in through the open door had not roused the sleepers. She regarded them with a distaste bordering on contempt. The only really useful one was Fensu, and she could not countenance sharing the cave with the Iroquois, for only the presence of the other three men had inhibited his savage appetites,

Chloe set the pail on the stone floor, the slight grating noise disturbing no one. Michael slept next to Malenda but under separate coverings. Fensu was beyond them, rolled in his lynx furs. Rayda was curled closed to the pregnant Dorcas, while Edward and Destry, with some curious vestige of chivalry, lay across the entrance to the inner chamber.

Yes, thought Chloe coolly, she would dispense with the pack of them. She had long since gleaned from each what information and skill could be of use to her. She was bored with their tales and their long faces. Wasn't it enough to live through the time storms? With enough to eat and decent water to drink? Clothes to warm their hides? They had no courage, no real fortitude, no furnishings in their minds at all. She had sloughed off far better companions than these. Indeed, she wondered at her charity in sustaining such a collection of lazy louts.

"Wake up, you vagrants, you idlers," she cried, prodding indiscriminately at the sleeping bodies. "Wake up! Tis well past time to be about the business of the day. Fresh meat must be caught for I wish to eat a warm meal at supper. Michael, thee and Destry will help Fensu set traps and snares…"

"We can use the rifles?" Michael threw off sleep quickly in his excitement.

"What? And drive the game away with unnecessary noise? I do not have unlimited supplies of powder and shot…" She paused, seeing the tightening of his face muscles. "Ammo" was what Michael called powder and shot. "Snares and traps will be sufficient for our needs."

"Then we are lodged here for a time?" asked Edward, and silence fell for her answer.

"Long enough to profit more by industry and application than needless questions. Edward, the brook is in full spate. Fill the big kettle first, and then replenish the water butts." It amused Chloe to make a water boy out of learned man. "Dorcas, start the fire. A goodly blaze will rid this chamber of the chill of time… and fear." She glanced around to see if her jibe rankled. Edward and Destry looked quickly away and began to fold up their sleeping bags. "Nay, slovens. Take the bedding out to be aired. Faugh! Malenda! Rayda! There are ripe gooseberries a short step from here. Strip the bushes…"

"Then we may not be here long?" asked Michael, catching an inference she hadn't meant.

She gave him a long stare for his impertinent query.

"Why leave ripe berries for birds when they would sweeten our dry mouths?"

Michael shrugged and moved out of the cave with his sleeping roll.

"Come! I've given you your orders. Do not dally!"

Fensu glided past Chloe, brushing so close that she caught the musky smell of him. Yes, despite his woodcrafts, he was expendable. Rutting animals such as he had forced her from her father's fine farm and into this tenuous existence.

"Days in the dark, and no rest on cold stones…" Rayda's sulky voice rehearsed her litany of grievances. Destry caught her arm and gave her a shake to be silent as he pulled her out of the main cavern. Malenda, blankets bundled in her arms, scurried after them.

Perhaps, thought Chloe in malicious hope, the bear might still be in the gooseberries and hungry enough to take a few well-placed nibbles out of Rayda.

She heard the crackling of fire consuming dry wood and looked around approvingly as Dorcas set the kettle tripod in place over the hearth. Too bad the woman had got herself with child and Chloe had not known soon enough to remedy the condition. The docile Dorcas was an excellent, undemanding servant, but not exactly the sort of companion who wore well in the long run, especially if lumbered with an infant.

"I will fetch meal for johnnycake, Dorcas, and herbs while thee pares vegetables. Carrots and onions will probably suit whatever flesh the men snare."

Not a woman to waste breath with unnecessary words, Dorcas nodded acknowledgment and went to the sandbox where the root vegetables were stored.

As Chloe moved down the short corridor to the stores cave, she reached into her copious skirt pocket for the heavy keys.

"It's ridiculous to have locks and keys in this place," Douglas had protested to Chloe when she requested them of him.

"Thee has not yet been through sufficient time shifts to know how the privations can affect the weak in character. I deem it wisest to keep our stores close guarded."

"What would happen if you didn't make it back to the cave…"

"Ah, but, my dear Douglas, I always shall!"

Chloe had seen no point in explaining to a man of Douglas's time the true significance of the keys. She had received her first set from her father's hand at the age of fifteen and proved herself a careful chatelaine despite the inefficient, slovenly colonial indentured servants. How well that training had stood her through these parlous times.

She selected the heavy key that Douglas had scoffingly forged and slipped it into the heavy lock, hearing the tumblers snick. She supposed that Douglas was much in her thoughts because she was, as ever, grateful for his doors, bolts, locks, and keys. If only the man has been as honest in his dealings as he had been as an artisan.

Chloe turned on the diffuse-lamp, noting that its illumination was as bright as ever, and measured meal into the pannikin. She selected herbs from their bags, her fingers pausing over the satisfactory plumpness. Sufficient unto the day! Especially when the demands on her supplies would soon be reduced.

She turned off the lamp, closing and locking the grille behind her. Edward had returned from his first trip to the brook with the big kettle. One glance at Chloe and he made haste to get on with his chore. Dorcas had already set the sheet on the fire for the johnnycake, so Chloe handed her the supplies silently.

Dorcas was carefully mixing water into the meal under Chloe's watchful eye when they both heard the bubble-bubble of excited voices. Michael burst into view, Destry running close behind him.

"The rifle, Chloe! The rifle, quickly! A bear has treed Rayda!"

"A bear?"

"I'd've thought you'd've heard her yelling all the way up here," Michael gasped out. "The rifle!"

Chloe hesitated. The winter-thin bear and his mangy coat were really not worth the powder and shot.

"Or did you know there was a bear when you sent Rayda for berries?"

"I picked there myself a scant hour ago!" Chloe pointed contemptuously at the full pail.

"That tree ain't very big nor strong," Destry added, having caught enough breath to add his argument to Michael's.

Chloe saw Dorcas watching her, hands suspended over the meal bowl. She recognized the anger in Michael's eyes and the anxiety in Destry's. She mustn't seem as if she was eager to be rid of Rayda or she would experience difficulty in discarding any of them at the appropriate moment.

Chloe moved swiftly then, selecting the proper key as she made her way to the gun case. She handed Michael the heaviest of the rifles and two rounds of shot. He gestured impatiently for her to give him more.

"Let thy vaunted skill make the first shot count. The noise will likely frighten the creature away."

Michael gave her a searing look before he turned and pelted out of the cave, Destry behind him. Chloe followed more slowly to the entrance and saw the underbrush flipping back into place after their passage. She sighed with exasperation. That wretched bear! There'd be far too little work got out of any of them today. Perdition take Rayda! Chloe saw that she'd have to contrive cunningly to get the woman out of the cave at all after this "unnerving" experience. All the more reason to see the last of the overtimid Rayda.

Chloe retraced her steps, pausing to be sure Dorcas was busy, the only honest worker of the lot. Both women heard the resounding echo of a shot. Dorcas's hand quickened in the meal, anticipating meat for her stewpot.

"I shouldn't count too heavily on Michael's ability, Dorcas." And her skepticism was punctuated by the second shot.

As she waited to learn the outcome, Chloe turned all the sleeping bags, furs, and blankets on their branches. Malenda led the way, holding back branches as Michael staggered under the burden of a limp Rayda.

"She fainted," Michael said as he laid the unconscious woman down by the fire. "She managed to stay conscious and hang on to the branches until I shot the bear." His eyes met Chloe's in mutually felt contempt.

"Two shots?"

"It did take two. Tough old bugger," said Michael. "Fensu and Destry are dressing the carcass." He unslung the rifle and extended it to Chloe.

"The rifle must now be cleaned," Chloe said, gesturing Michael to that task as she bent to examine Rayda.

Dorcas was already beside the woman, sponging away blood. "Nothing deep. Nothing to swoon over," said Dorcas.

"She's had a terrible shock," murmured Malenda.

Dorcas made one of her noncommittal sounds.

"Thee surely sustained the same shock, I think," Chloe remarked dryly as she began to smooth comfrey paste into the scratches. Blood drops formed on the deeper punctures but most of the gore was due to shallow scratches where Rayda had scrambled through briars and up the tree.

"The bear didn't come straight at me," Malenda said in Rayda's defense.

"Did thee manage to pick any berries before this tragic occurrence?"

"Yes, we did," and then Malenda faltered, looking warily at Chloe.

"Then thee may return to that labor and be sure to return also with Rayda's pail as well. Full, if at all possible. There are several more hours of daylight."

"Oh, you're impossible, Chloe!"

"If I truly were, then all this," and Chloe's sweeping gesture included the cave, its shelter and supplies, "would have been unavailable in Rayda's hour of crisis." Rayda groaned. "It will take Fensu and Destry time to dress the bear carcass. You will have their company in the berry patch. Gooseberries will go well with bear stew. Away with thee now!"

In fact, the gooseberries and johnnycake were the better parts of the evening meal. The bear had broken its winter's fast on a diet of fish, and its stringy meat was so tainted by that flavor that even Dorcas's fine hand with seasoning could not disguise the taste. Rayda, her hands bandaged and her legs smeared with comfrey paste, moaned from her sleeping bag that she couldn't possibly eat the flesh of the beast that had nearly killed her. A solicitous Malenda fed her pieces of the johnnycake and ripe berries. Fensu was the only one who had eaten heartily of the stew, smacking his lips with a courtesy that Chloe would have preferred he did not practice. When the men set to scraping the bear hide, Chloe settled herself on her stool outside the cave with the latest patch-work. Sewing did much to tranquilize her after the day's frustrations. Nor did she relish sitting inside on such a bright evening, particularly if she had to listen to Rayda's moans and Malenda's compassionate chirpings.

The current quilt Chloe was working in the Flock of Geese pattern, its patches cut from garments of former occupants of the cave. She had noticed over the years that blues, grays, and browns were the predominant shades of the rural past, while the vivid lighter primaries and curious virulent pastels seemed rampant in most city-futures. Chloe began a new square; the last of Issaro's red tunic triangles and Douglas's plaid patterned shirt were offset by Fanel's gray shirt. The gray was the finer material, to be sure, but of a similar weight to Douglas's and Issaro's. She did have to take care to match textures. She would have preferred good stout linsey-woolsey or calicoes, for the artificial fabrics of the futures puckered and stretched, thus ruining the look of the finished quilt. Still, one had to make do with whatever was to hand. No one complained about the look of the patchworks when they warmed a body during the intense and bitter cold of time storms.

They had been so lucky these past five shifts, like the goose triangles, all headed in the same direction - spring. The gray intervals had alternated between intense heat and dreadful cold.

Chloe set the final stitch into the square, but now she stopped, looking intently at the pattern, remembering with a sudden clarity the people whose discarded garments had been set to this new purpose. And she discerned an astonishing order in that purpose. There was, in truth, a pattern to the time shifts that had nothing to do with the varying intervals of storm and lull: it had to do with having been at each point, of remembering when it had been in past or future. She didn't need Issaro's calculations: all she had ever needed was her own recollections, placed in an orderly fashion, like the patchwork pieces, to see the pattern of shifts.

Suppressing her internal excitement, Chloe began to sort through the completed squares, identifying the fabrics, the people who had worn them, the cultures that had produced them. Time was like an enormous circular well. The planet Earth was a plumb weight suspended from a long cord, jerked up and down the well, hitting first one side of the well and then another, jounced up and down by the irresponsible hand that had initiated the time fracture. She was mixing her similes and metaphors but she knew what she meant. And she knew where she was.

First light tomorrow, she could in all conscience send Michael, Destry, and Fensu on a trip down the south river. They would find, she was now certain, a small but not primitive settlement where the south river joined the mightier torrent that flowed southeast to the sea. She would give Michael sufficient ammunition to reassure him. He'd never know. In this time there were few animals left: that poor specimen of a bear proved that to her. There would, however, be those skilled in medical treatments and she could, in conscience, dispatch Rayda to them, once Michael and Destry had returned. She rather thought that Fensu would find this time to his liking and disappear. Savage the man was, but not without cunning and perception. Malenda would go with Rayda. That would seem eminently logical and not the least bit unnatural in Chloe. Michael and Destry could stay on if they behaved but she could forgo their company. Edward might stay on another shift or two. Physically he had limited usefulness but his mind was sharp and she had not yet learned all the wisdom he had spent so much time storing in his head. Dorcas could abide. The babe would not be born for another four months. Chloe smoothed the next patch with careful fingers. The next time shift would bring them closer to Dorcas's original time. The woman would be more content there and undoubtedly find another husband.

Well pleased with those dispositions, Chloe sorted through the patches in her basket, for colors that would combine well in the next Flock of Geese square!