I own nothing that has anything to do with Earth's Children and am in no way affiliated with Jean M. Auel. I've just been reading her books since I was a kid and enjoy writing in her world, so here's hoping she doesn't decide to sue me; I'm just a poor Soldier with a wife and four (soon to be five) kids, after all!

Well, I've been slowly working this story up on the web site for a few months now and figured I might as well mirror it over here. Hope you enjoy this and please take a moment to review if you like what you see (or if you don't; constructive criticism is always good!)

Future Imperfect

By SSG Michael B. Jackson

The young woman was in trouble, and she knew it. More than that, as little as she wanted to admit it, she knew that the predicament she was in was her own fault. If she'd had the good sense to winter over with the river folk as the rest of the trading party she'd been traveling with had done, not to mention begged her to do as well, she'd be warm and cozy now instead of slogging her way through ice and blowing snow in the middle of Duna-only-knew-where. More than likely, she thought ruefully, she'd be sitting beside a nice warm fire right now, swapping stories with old friends and new acquaintances and drinking some hot tea or maybe something a bit stronger. Yes, she thought to herself, it certainly sounded wonderful.

But rather than stay the winter as common sense would dictate, she'd decided to push on instead. It had only been early fall, she'd told herself, and with the sturdy jet-black mare who'd been her closest and most beloved companion for the past three years, she knew she could move much faster than she had with the trading party. She'd reasoned that she should be able to travel fast enough to reach her goal, a camp of the mammoth hunting people who lived beyond the end of the Great River, before hard winter set in.

It had seemed like a decent plan at the time, especially since the traders had no intention of going any further than the Sharamudoi settlement. No, she'd thought, if she wanted to meet the Mamutoi she'd heard so much about, then she had to push on by herself. Still, she realized now, it wouldn't have killed her to have stayed the winter with the hospitable river folk and continued on in the spring, whereas taking off as she had might very well end up doing just that.

She sighed as these bleak thoughts crossed her mind and, pulling the hood of her fur-lined parka just a bit lower over her forehead, leaned into the snow-choked headwind she'd been fighting for what seemed forever now. Behind her, head also bowed in apparent resignation, the black mare plodded along as well, tethered to the young woman by a short thong.

Normally the woman would've been astride her friend's back, but conditions had worsened to the point that riding was no longer possible. Not only that, but caught as they were out on the open steppes, with little shelter available and none visible through the driving snow, the pair had little choice but to continue moving. To stop now, without at least a semi-protected area to set up the traveling tent carried in one of the pack baskets on the mare's back would be worse than useless, the woman knew. If she tried to set it up in the open, the wind would most likely just snatch it away from her, and then where would she be? Well, she admitted to herself, probably not much worse off than she was right now.

Still, she thought, trying to be optimistic, the situation wasn't hopeless. There was at least a chance that she might happen across shelter of some kind; even on the open prairie there were occasional stands of stunted trees, streambeds and other natural features that might prove suitable to set up her tent in or around. And if she could manage that, she knew she could very quickly have a fire kindled with the precious firestone she carried. She had a few lumps of the burning stone in her emergency supplies, carried with her all the way from home for just such an emergency, and she was sure that it would last long enough for her to warm up and find more conventional fuel. Yes, if she could find shelter of any kind, she figured she'd be alright. But it was a big 'if' at best, she feared.

As she and the horse plodded along, the young woman kept a constant eye out for the shelter they sought. The visibility was near zero by then, but that only made it more imperative that she keep a sharp lookout; they could pass within a few feet of potential shelter in this weather and never see it if she didn't. It was because of that increased vigilance, then, that she noticed something out of place just off to the right of their path and slightly ahead.

Frowning, she considered for a moment, and almost passed whatever it was by; it wasn't as if she had the time to stop and investigate every odd thing they encountered just now. Still, there was something about this particular aberration, an uneven lump in the snow as near as she could tell through the driving whiteness, that gave her pause. Then, with a gasp of mixed surprise and horror, she realized why; a human body covered over with snow would look remarkably like the anomaly she saw before her.

Momentarily forgetting her own plight, the young woman hurried forward, pulling the horse with her. Dropping to her knees beside the lump in the snow, she began to brush at it furiously, fearing what she'd find underneath. Sure enough, within a few moments she began to see flesh under the snow, naked flesh no less, and it was with a sense of dread that she continued to uncover the person buried there, a young woman by the look of it. She was no Losaduna, but it didn't take one to realize that no one could survive conditions like these unclothed for more than a few minutes at most, and so she was sure that she was only exhuming a corpse. That being the case, the shriek of terror that escaped her lips when a hand suddenly shot up from the 'corpse's' side and grasped her wrist in a viselike grip was completely understandable.

The young woman backpedaled violently, yanking her wrist free of the other's grasp and falling on her backside in the snow in her haste. Heedless of the wet snow being forced into her trousers by the motion, she continued to push herself backwards for a few more feet, and behind her the dark mare neighed loudly in reaction to the woman's fright. To her front, the other woman, who should so obviously be dead, stirred slightly, trying to lift her head, and mumbled something that was completely lost to the wind.

The young woman sat stock still for a moment, frozen with fear, but the rational part of her mind soon took over. The woman in front of her didn't appear to be a spirit of any sort; she seemed solid enough. And since the young woman had never heard any tales of animate corpses or the like, it seemed only logical to assume that, somehow, this woman was still alive. 'Maybe', the young woman thought, 'I found her not long after she collapsed here. Though Duna only knows where she came from or how she got here.'

With that thought, the young woman regained her feet and hurried to her horse, realizing that even if the other woman was alive now, she probably wouldn't stay that way for long without help. And when it came to helping someone in need, the young woman had particularly strong feelings. There had been a time in her life when she'd needed help, and at first it hadn't been there. As a result, she'd suffered an ordeal that many young women would never have recovered from, and she was sure that if the help she'd needed hadn't come along when it did, she wouldn't have either. Consequently, it had become very important to her ever since to provide help to those in need whenever and however she could; so important, in fact, that she had seriously considered dedicating herself to the service of the Mother and had even trained as an acolyte for a time with the Losaduna of her Cave and his mate.

But eventually it had become apparent to all of them that while she had a certain amount of talent for healing and a definite gift with animals, her path lay in a different direction. She'd proved to be a fair student, but she was far too restless to assume the role of One Who Served. A part of her just wasn't content to stay there around the Cave, waiting for those who might need her help to come to her. She knew, as well as anyone else who lived in the harsh glacial lands of her world that disaster often struck far away from an established cave or camp and when it did, the results were often tragic. People who could have been saved if the right person had been there, a person who had the skills and abilities to help, often died or, like she herself had, suffered a fate that in some ways was even worse than death. All because that critical person might be a day's walk away, sitting at his or her hearth with no idea that he or she was needed elsewhere.

These thoughts had come to the young woman gradually, over the course of several years, and once they had she'd finally understood the source of her restlessness, the reason that the path of the Losaduna hadn't seemed right for her from the beginning; she wanted to be that person. She wanted to be the one who was there at the right time and place, with all the requisite skills to make a difference for others.

That was one of the reasons, she'd realized then, that in addition to her studies with the Losaduna and his mate, she'd felt driven over the years to spend as much time with Laduni and the hunters of the Cave of the Sacred Hot Springs as she could, much to the consternation of her mother.

Pushing her reminiscences aside for the moment, the young woman tore through one of the pack baskets hanging on the mare's left flank. Finally she found what she was looking for, her sleeping fur, and without wasting any more time jogged to the other woman's side. Kneeling, she draped the fur over the woman and, yelling to make herself heard over the wind said, "Here! Wrap this around yourself as best you can! It will have to keep you warm until I can find shelter for us!"

The young woman wasn't sure if the other understood her or not, but she did grasp the fur with her icy-cold but still surprisingly strong fingers and tuck it in around herself as tightly as possible.

'From bad to worse,' the young woman thought gloomily, moving back toward the horse once more. 'I was in enough trouble before when it was just Shadow and me. I don't even know how I'm going to save the two of us, much less a half-frozen stranger.' Then, frowning at her pessimism as she grasped the horse's lead and brought her forward, she thought, 'Still, I guess the only thing I can do now is try.'

She led the mare forward until she was a few feet past the prone woman, bringing the travois she dragged behind her just even with her. Then, kneeling beside the stranger once more and placing a hand lightly on the fur wrapped around her, she said, "I need to get you up onto the travois! It'll be a lot easier if you can help me, even a little!"

Again, she doubted that the other woman understood her, but at least she responded to the sound of her voice. Moving the fur slightly, the woman exposed her face, her pinched expression reflecting her discomfort at the cold, and turned to look at the young woman questioningly.

Sighing resignedly, the young woman pointed toward the travois and, speaking slowly, this time in the broken Mamutoi she'd managed to pick up from the Mamutoi woman, Tholie, in the week or so of her stay with the Sharmudoi, said, "I must… make you up on… thing there, behind horse! Can you I help?"

The puzzled and slightly dazed look on the other woman's face convinced the young woman that her words had been no more comprehensible in Mamutoi than they had been in Losadunai, but she'd also been gesticulating in an exaggerated manner to get her point across and the other seemed to catch the gist of what she wanted. At any rate, with a slight nod and a sigh of her own, the other woman pulled the fur a bit tighter around herself and, with the young woman's assistance, struggled at least partway to her feet.

From there, it was relatively simple to get her settled on the travois, but the effort seemed to take all of whatever strength the woman had. By the time the young woman had her positioned and the fur snugly tucked, the other woman's eyes were closed and she seemed to have either fallen asleep or lost consciousness, though a quick check revealed that her chest still rose and fell regularly, confirming that she still lived.

Satisfied that she'd done all that she could for now, the young woman moved forward and, taking hold of the mare's lead again, once more began to plod ahead. She tried to keep her spirits up as she moved out, but in her heart she knew how desperate her situation was and the insidious cold that was beginning to seep through the heavy, insulated layers of her outer-wear only served to confirm her fears. If she didn't find a refuge of some sort soon, her attempt to assist the strange woman would be for naught, and there would be three frozen carcasses left for someone to find instead of one.

A few minutes later, however, the young woman's black thoughts were abruptly dispelled as a most welcome sight slowly made itself apparent through the wall of blowing whiteness. Ahead of them, there was an abrupt change in the character of the land, a down-sloping that almost certainly led to a cut in the landscape, a stream bed most likely, or maybe even a small valley. Either way, it was just what they needed at that moment, and the young woman gave her unreserved thanks to Duna for her beneficence.

As the young woman carefully led the black mare over the edge and down the rather steep slope into what proved to be a fairly substantial frozen watercourse, she noticed something perhaps even more welcome and useful than the shelter itself; people! Not more than a few yards from where they'd entered the streambed, a small cluster of perhaps four or five traveling tents were set up, hugging the earthen wall of the watercourse and protected by it's slight overhang. Apparently, she thought, she hadn't been the only one caught out in the surprise blizzard.

Then, frowning slightly, the thought crossed her mind that she had no idea who these people were or how hospitable they might be to strangers, especially under the present circumstances. It wasn't like she hadn't had bad experiences with strangers in the past, after all. Still, she realized, she was here now, and there was no way she was leaving the streambed until the storm had blown itself out. That being the case, she was going to have to meet these people eventually, so she figured she might as well get it out of the way first thing. Having come to that decision, the young woman immediately turned to her left, heading for the nearest of the tents with the mare and her charge in tow behind her.