WARNING - THIS TALE IS UNFINISHED

This is a sort of Science Fiction tale. If you include Time Travel in that genre that is. Not that anyone actually travels through time in the story. Dear me no. Nevertheless it is the closest I can get to an accurate description. It's really about a young boy. And what he finds in the forest one day. And how it changed his life.

And your's too in a way. And mine. All our lives I suppose. In due time.

In this second chapter Ugmor'n3 and Er experience a stout Cortez moment. The fears that mingle with their wild surmise are forgotten as they gaze upon their new horizons. Until the awareness of a greater and more immediate threat strikes.

You haven't met Er yet but even my Muse approves of her. Indeed claims she was his idea. Complete codswallop!.

( Author's note :-

The discerning may, and the hypercritical assuredly will, find anomalies in some of the descriptions and thought processes recorded in the subsequent chapters when dealing with pre-historic times. They will argue that some of the descriptions, thought processes etc., are patently false as Ugmor'n3 and the rest of the Ug family, not possessing the necessary vocabulary, could not possibly have expressed some of the concepts, and described some of the things, that are here ascribed to them or with which they are credited.

The author confesses that accuracy has, from time to time, been sacrificed on the altar of expediency, but such is purely in the interest of the reader's convenience. Whilst a more literal translation from the various sources uncovered by the author's research would have been an interesting exercise and would have undeniably been appropriate in a more scholarly context, it was felt that the degree of circumlocution involved would have wearied the average reader, and have given rise to some harsh criticism from the less academically inclined. In mitigation it should also be be remembered that such sources dated from the later stages of the incident when some fluency in modern ideas and indeed objects had been acquired and perhaps subconsciously pre-dated. Briefly I have tried to strike a balance that could by the charitably inclined be categorised as happy.

A literal, and scrupulously accurate, version of these events is being prepared for the Royal Society at the request of the family of the late Professor Sir Hugh Dorrington-Gore. )

Chapter 2. 'The Door Opens.'

Numbness was beginning to spread up Ugmor'n3's right arm. There was the first twinge of incipient cramp in his left leg and he was aware of something with several pairs of legs edging its way up his back.

Time to move.

Slowly he eased his limbs, inch by inch straightening them. Slowly allowing time for the numbness to fade, for the cramp to recede. Cautiously he regained his feet, keeping close in the lee of the tree. Stood there undecided for more long minutes and then .... and then stepped out from behind the sheltering trunk and walked boldly towards .... whatever it was.

It seemed to watch him as he approached. Eyes it had a-plenty. Two huge ones at its centre and smaller ones towards one end and at the back. If they were eyes that is. They certainly seemed to reflect him and his approach. But they themselves showed no vital life spark, merely staring back passive and uninterested. As he drew closer he saw that they were indeed only a sort of protective shield through which its insides could be seen.

No movement there either. There seemed to be rows and rows of brightly coloured upright rectangular objects on the wall opposite. All seemed to be inanimate and unlikely to be actively hostile. He peered close through the clear side screen, swivelling his head one way and then another. The serried ranks of rectangular objects filled the interior, apart from at the front where the light streaming through the forward transparent shields there disclosed an outward facing seat and a large circular object behind a large box like structure on the surface of which were various strange objects outside his experience.

Emboldened by the stillness and lack of evident threat, he pressed his cheek harder against the shield to improve his angle of view, his hand, sliding down to balance his body angle pressed against a protuberance. 'Click.' The noise startled him and he jumped back. As he did so the panel swung silently open towards him and he was engulfed in a strange smell. A not unpleasant smell but rather one that soothed. Nothing acrid, or cloying, but dry, warm, and promising.

A smell, an atmosphere, that invited him to enter. As if by doing so he would in some strange way be coming home. Would be where he had always belonged. Where he was awaited.

And when he had stopped running .... when he was back behind the tree shrinking into the soft mossy ground between its roots, he was conscious only of the fear rising sick at the back of his throat, of a heartbeat that produced dark red pulses in the blackness behind his closed eyes. He lay there deathly still listening to the sounds of his own body, hearing the quiet of the forest around him, straining his ears for a noise that would tell him that it was moving, moving to seek, to follow, to find him.

A largish maroon and black beetle crawled over his hand. He studied it carefully, following its progress towards his little finger and then down and onto a blade of grass. It seemed completely unaware of either himself or of the thing on the other side of the tree. Unconcerned, unafraid, rapt in the intricacies of its own existence so that he envied it.

Time passed. His breathing returned to normal. Everything returned to, was, normal.

Except the thoughts that turned and tumbled inside his head. Intertwined with the fear was a crowd of ifs and whys. And creeping closer and closer to the surface was the question 'What next?' He could not stay there motionless for ever. Sooner or later he had to ....

"What are you doing?"

A simple question in a quiet clear voice. The voice of a young girl.

A young girl's voice that cut through his thoughts, his fear, like a knife so that he twisted and started upwards, his attempt at concealment betrayed by his body's reaction.

She was standing behind him, the sun a halo behind the tangle of hair that framed her head. A small slender figure, her face deep in shadow.

"I'm sorry if I startled you but I have been watching you for some time and ...."

His eyes adjusted to the light and he recognised the slim nut brown shape as Er, the waif who had attached herself to their family over a year ago and had existed on its fringes ever since.

"Down!" he hissed and reaching out roughly seized her arm and pulled her alongside him behind the sheltering tree.

Obediently she lay there. And then her face split into a mocking grin. "It's only some sort of shelter. It's not alive. It won't eat you you know."

"You don't know that", he whispered fiercely, "and even if it is, who is it sheltering?" And then a muttered "Girls!" and then, a little more lamely, "Better safe than sorry."

Er just smiled her secret smile and managed to look demure in a way that suggested she was anything but.

Where she came from no-one knew. Perhaps her people were dead or she had been lost or abandoned. No-one asked, she never said. She had just appeared one late evening at the very edge of the firelight, A feral creature, half starved, contesting with the dogs for scraps of food. She had been lucky. It was a time when food was plentiful. The season and hunting fortune meant that the family could afford to be liberal with their scraps, otherwise the dogs might have been less accommodating. Over the months that followed she had crept closer, insinuating herself further into the group, making herself useful in small ways. Contributing when contribution was required, seemingly invisible when it was not.

Finally she had gained a form of acceptance. No-one knew her real name, her before-them name. No one ever asked. The family hadn't given her a name either. Not consciously anyway, but over time she became known as Er. It came with the acceptance.

Now she lay there at his side, but slightly to his rear as befitted her place. She reached out and plucked a grass shoot and nibbled at its soft green core as if patiently accepting the overriding need to do nothing. It made Ugmor'n3 very uneasy; changed the 'What next?' into 'What now?'

Now that she had chanced upon him, joined him, he had little option.

"I'll go and take another look", he whispered. "In there. In that thing. Just to make sure it's all right. You stay here and ...."

"I'll come with you," said Er firmly, beginning to rise to her feet.

"No!" He was adamant. "It really might be dangerous and ...."

"Then it's best I see for myself so that if it does eat you I can tell the others how to avoid the same fate." She was already moving out from behind the tree and towards the van. Her left leg was sadly scarred and she had a slight limp and yet she moved quickly with a soundless grace so that by the time he caught up with her, she was already half way across the clearing.

Together they reached the still open door and peered in.

"It didn't eat you before so unless it's got very hungry in the past twenty minutes we should be all right." With that she slipped past him and into the van's interior.

Ugmor'n3 followed. The decision was no longer truly his.

Inside the same warm slightly perfumed atmosphere that had struck him the first time. The same sense of welcome. Er seemed to feel it too. That she was alive at all was testament to her finely honed sense of danger and yet she was already exploring the shelves, lost in the mysteries to be found, seemingly without care.

Perhaps it was simply the fact that there was two of them; perhaps it was because Er's confidence was infectious or because he wanted to show her that it was only caution and not fear that had made him hesitate before. Whatever the reason all terror subsided and he too was soon lost in the discovery of the alien, incomprehensible, marvels around him.

And marvels indeed there were. Strange things wondrous to their eyes. Later, in the weeks and months that followed, they would come to know and to understand what these objects were, would learn their names, become familiar with them, recognise their virtues, make use of them. But now on this first day .... now nothing that they had seen or experienced before in their lives had remotely prepared them for the sheer otherness of the contents of the van.

The brightly coloured rectangular objects which they would later know as books contained brightly coloured images inside. Some perfect natural representations of things, some just drawings. Most of such concerned children who seemed to exist in a world that related to their own only by the similarity of an occasional sky or forest view. Indeed the children, the people, themselves were barely recognisable, might well have been another species.

At the front of the van, backing on to the driver's seat, was the librarian's desk. On it and in its drawers were a mixture of items indispensable to a mobile librarian's job together with Patricia Armitage's private possessions. These latter included her laptop, currently open and humming softly to itself, and a couple of shopping bags containing the purchases made at the local M&S at the beginning of her day.

It was the laptop that first caught Ugmor'n3's eye. Miss Armitage had left it recharging from the roof mounted solar panels that a eco-conscious County Council had seen fit to install on the van's roof.

He poked at it cautiously with a tentative finger ....

'Je m'appelle Marie-Louise et j'habite dans une petite village á  la compagne, prá¨s de la ville de ....'

A woman's voice rang out clearly as Ugmor'n3 leapt backwards, all his newly acquired confidence fled. His back pressed against the side of the van, all his fears flooding back.

Ugmor'n3 felt a small hand creep into his. Er stood alongside him, seeking, giving comfort. The slow carefully articulated words meant nothing, but there could be no doubt as to what they were nor as to what they were coming from.

A box that spoke with the voice of a young woman.

Disk 1 of Miss Armitage's 'French for Beginners' that she was painstakingly studying in preparation for her long awaited trip to France continued the lesson.

'J'ai un petit chiot qui est tout a fait adorable. Il s'appelle .... '

Er took a sudden step forward and shut the lid. The voice ceased.

He felt her hand tighten its grip.

Then "It's only a voice." she said. "It can't hurt us."

"No it can't." Ugmor'n3 fought the terror that tried to strangle the voice in his throat. Then again. "No it can't." Louder, firmer.

"Look what I've found", Er, a quaver in her own voice, guided him away to safer ground; to printed pages which whilst themselves things of wonder were not possessed of human attributes. What she had found was a pile of magazines. Glossy publications crammed with photographs of the most elegant women modelling the most elegant clothes, Pages illustrating the latest fashions, the most expensive lingerie, the most seductive cosmetics and their application.

A world of unimaginable beauty, of femininity at its most beguiling, its most sensuous, its most powerful. A beauty, a concept of femininity, far, far beyond Ugmor'en3's and Er's reality. Beyond, far beyond, even their dreamings.

A femininity that whispered to them of another existence. A vision once seen that could not be forgotten, a vision that beckoned, that dared to suggest that you too .... you too could be of this world, could share its joys, know its delights, partake of its fruits.

Er slowly turned the pages. Slowly and in silence. Ugmor'n3 watched over her shoulder entranced. The terror of the speaking box erased in the wonder of this new world and its murmured promises of what could be.

The realisation that the box and its voice could be the catalyst, would perhaps provide the key to their nascent desires lay in the future. The now consisted of shiny pages and their glittering images.

Time passed. The light faded. Ugmor'n3 dragged himself back to their world.

"We must go. Must get back. It's getting dark and ...."

"Yes", replied Er. "We must. We can come back though. Now we know ...."

"Yes. Now we know."

"And the voice. It's only a voice." Ugnor'n3 paused. "It can't hurt us. We can keep it in its box. Whilst we look."

"We've hardly started. There are so many things to see."

They left the van, carefully shutting the door behind them. Went out as light fled before the lengthening shadows. Walking close one to the other their shared experience drawing them together, creating a bond. Both seeing in their mind's eye the images of this new world of wonders that was theirs to share. That was their secret.

That was their secret....

The thought struck them both simultaneously.

What if the others .... what if Ug finds out?

They turned to each other. The question unspoken but lying heavily between them.

"But he mustn't. It must be our secret. If he should find it .... if he should find out that we have found it and not told him .... if .... "

The enormity of the potential disaster swirled round them. Dreams of what might be splintered into fragments. Ug was unpredictable but violence and destruction were his two most likely reactions to anything that he regarded as a threat. And anything unknown would fall squarely into that category. He was possessed of brute courage in everyday situations but this was counterbalanced by a mortal dread of that which was beyond his understanding. If he thought that Ugmor'n3 and Er had dared that which he did not then his rage could turn on them ....

"But he mustn't ...." repeated Ugmor'n3 in desperation. "He just mustn't .... He ...."

"But he will", said Er in a small voice. "He will."

Ugmor'n3 nodded. She was right. He was bound to. He usually hunted in the other direction down towards the river where game was more plentiful but sometimes .... sometimes .... He would find it, perhaps them there, sooner or later. Probably sooner rather than later.

"Then we must stop him. We must. We must." Er's chin stuck out in fierce determination.

Ugmor'n3 looked at her small figure as if seeing her for the first time. There was something in her tone, in her, that he had been blind to before. As if all that she had survived in her short life had given her a steeliness above the norm. But more than that .... He saw her for a fleeting moment as if she were stepping out of the glossy pages.

"Yes. We must. But how...?"

"We will because we must."

And with that he had to be content as he followed her slight form down through the forest in the direction of the cave they both knew as home, his small spear trailing behind him.

Fleurie's Muse: I notice yer didn't bleedin' scrub the first bit as yer promised. All that crap about Professor Sir Hugh Dorrington-Gore and the Royal Society. Jesus won'tcher ever learn!

Fleurie: Sod off.

WARNING - THIS TALE IS UNFINISHED

This is a sort of Science Fiction tale. If you include Time Travel in that genre that is. Not that anyone actually travels through time in the story. Dear me no. Nevertheless it is the closest I can get to an accurate description. It's really about a young boy. And what he finds in the forest one day. And how it changed his life.

And your's too in a way. And mine. All our lives I suppose. In due time.

Chapter 1.

"Scoundrel!"

"Blackguard!"

"Bastard!"

"Er ...." A small professor at the rear of the Hall searched for words to adequately express his own disgust as he tried to peer over the shoulders of his colleagues in front.

"Er .... you unspeakable cad," he squeaked lamely and then, startled by his own temerity, glanced guiltily around lest any of his peers had witnessed his imprudence in leaping so aggressively to judgement.

He need not have worried. The other distinguished members of the Royal Society were far to engrossed in a world of such collective fury at the betrayal of that they, that the Royal Society itself, held sacred, to be aware of any individual.

The scandal was of such gigantic proportions, had so destroyed the very basis of their professional integrity, that all .... well all but one .... bayed for blood.

The exception was that internationally eminent palaeontologist Professor Sir Hugh
Dorrington-Gore, and it was his blood for which they bayed.

Alone he stood there. Normally a tall commanding figure of a man as befitted his renown. Now stooped, shrunken, visibly still shrinking, under the weight of sound that crushed him, welled but never died, around him; deafening him, reducing him to a cowering tremulous creature unable to utter a word in his own defence.

Not that any one would have listened, even if he had, even if they could have heard him over that cacophony of noise.

Not surprising really. After all they, through The Royal Society, had generously funded his expedition. Funded it and applauded its scholarship, collectively basked in the glory of its initial success. Sang with full hearts "For he's a jolly good fellow" at the initial 'Welcome Home' meeting.

Only for more detailed examination to reveal that they had been duped. Duped by a childish trick. Victims of a blatantly obvious fraud that a babe in arms would have spotted. Not only was the reputation of the Royal Society in tatters at their feet; not only had their generous funding been swallowed up by a hoax, but what was far worse; what caused them most pain, stoked their anger to incandescence was that they had collectively become a laughing stock. Exposed to cruel mocking gibes in the popular press.

********************

Fleurie's Muse: 'Ere 'old on a minit. This is a bleedin' dead end ain't it. Yer've painted yerself inter a corner. Wot do yer fink yer playin' at?

Fleurie: Shut up. I'm just giving the reader the background. Laying the foundations as it were.

Fleurie's Muse: Foundations my arse. What effin' foundations?

Fleurie: Well I was on the point of explaining about the Royal Society's expedition to the caves in Transylvania following on Dorrington-Gore's discovering that Roman manuscript in the monastery at Sarmizegetusa. The one that mentions the paintings and ....

Fleurie's Muse: You were makin' bleeding 'eavy weather of it. Wot makes yer fink yer readers wud be remotely interested anyhow?

Fleurie: Because it's relevant. They need to know about the finding of the cave paintings, and how they were hailed as the the most important discovery of the century making the ones at Lascaux look like the random scribbles of a child.

Fleurie's Muse: [suddenly showing interest] Yer were goin' to tell 'em abart the naughty ones? Readers like a bit of porn. Porn is popular, porn is. Look what it did for Pompeii.

Fleurie: No. There weren't any naughty ones. Just the usual bison and aurochs, the odd horse and woolly rhinoceros. And occasional mammoth. And of course the hunters. But what made these so special was the quality and the artistic creativity. Quite amazing and really exceptional. Hence the initial excitement.

Fleurie's Muse: Initial?

Fleurie: Well until they noticed the van. Tucked away in a corner. No mistaking it. Plain as a pikestaff. No excuse for not spotting it straight away really apart from the wealth and sheer volume of other objects.

Fleurie's Muse: And?

Fleurie: Well at first they thought that someone else had been there before them. Although that didn't make sense really. I mean a sense of humour is one thing but ....

Fleurie's Muse: Yer do wander don'tcher. It's 'ardly a seamless narratif. And it's still a bleedin' dead end. An effin' cul-de-sac.

Fleurie: It's interesting that the French themselves don't use cul-de-sac to ....

Fleurie's Muse: [disgustedly] Oh fer Christ's sake!

Fleurie: All right! Keep your hair on. Nothing much more to add apart from the fact that some bright spark had a chemical analysis and carbon dating done on it, on the van.

Fleurie's Muse: And?

Fleurie: And it matched. Not only matched the other paintings but was apparently about 30,000 years old. So it wasn't the work of an ordinary joker who had stumbled across the paintings. It was the work of an exceptionally skilled professional. Unbelievably skilled indeed.

Fleurie's Muse: And that's it? All this crap. And for what?

Fleurie: [indignantly] Well it threw the whole discovery into question. If someone could make a drawing of a van that passed as 30,000 years old, the whole caboodle could be a forgery. Most probably was a forgery .... must be a forgery because ....

Fleurie's Muse: Nobody cares! Jesus yer've no literary sense whatsoever. Why can't yer just write the story I gave yer instead of addin' some fancy tarradiddle of yer own. I don't know why I bovver!

Fleurie: I think it adds a touch of verisimilitude and ....

Fleurie's Muse: 'A touch of effin' verisimilitude'?! Jesus Christ! It just buggers the whole fing up more like. I've told yer before to start at the bleedin' beginnin' an' stagger on as best yer can from there.

Fleurie: [sulkily] I am not all that sure where the beginning is.

Fleurie's Muse: Well it ain't chuffin' 'ere wiv the Royal Society that's fer sure. That's more an endin'. Not even that I s'pose. Just a later stagin' post on the continuum as they say.

Fleurie: It's all very well for you. All you do is throw out vague and fanciful ideas with no regard to the practicalities. Completely unworkable most of them.

Fleurie's Muse: It's what a Muse does. If yer don't like it yer can piss orf. Yer not the only writer in the bleedin world. I don't know why I stay. I've got other offers yer know. I've a good mind to eff orf to the States where .... where at least writers can recognise a beginnin' when they fall over it.

Fleurie: It's not so simple with this crackpot idea you came up with. I don't know why I listened to you in the first place. I have the choice of 30,000 odd years ago or a week last Tuesday and ....

Fleurie's Muse: [mockingly] .... and yer not sure which came first?

Fleurie: Normally yes, but in this case .... no.

Fleurie's Muse: In that case, if I were you, I'd go for a week last Tuesday. It 'as the advantage that yer at least know more abart it. Easier to avoid anachronisms an' suchlike. Then yer can ease yerself back 30,000 years later on when yer've got inter the swing of fings. Most of yer readers will 'ave given up by then anyways and the rest'll be skippin' through so wiv a bit o' luck yer'll get away wiv yer mistakes. 'Specially as those few still sufferin' with you will prob'ly be as higorant as yerself.

Fleurie: You're probably right. Makes sense I suppose. A week last Tuesday it is then.

Fleurie's Muse: There's a lot of relativity traditionally associated wiv this sort of fing so yer don't need to worry too much abart the time business. Just do us both a favour though. Scrub the bit above an' get back on track. If yer don't the odds on anyone gettin' this far are slim. Just draw a line an' start again. From scratch.

Fleurie: [mendaciously] O.K.

********************

It was Mrs. Appleby who was the first to notice that there was something unusual in the air.

"Its getting very dark," she said. "And uncomfortably close," she added.

Mrs. Willoughby peered closely at the plot synopsis on the back cover of the Catherine Cookson novel in her hand. "I think I may have already seen it on the telly," she mused.

The third lady, Miss Armitage the librarian, glanced out of the window towards her mobile library van by the green. Its gaily decorated side, depicting children apparently rioting, seemed unnaturally white against the gathering gloom. "I don't think you can have Cynthia dear, it's her very latest. Only just out."

Miss Armitage was Mrs. Willoughby's niece and had profited from her weekly visit with the library van to the rather idyllic Peak District village of Brassburn to join the other two for a cup of tea and general discussion of literary and family matters. Her itinerary had been carefully arranged making Brassburn her last stop so that when the villagers' hunger for the latest in literary offerings had been sated she could steal a good half hour before returning to the county town.

Today, for an indefinable reason, she was overcome by a feeling of foreboding. Mrs. Appleby was right. There was something in the air. A sort of electricity. Dark too as if just before a thunderstorm, but .... there was something more. It didn't feel right. It felt as if something quite unusual, something unprecedented, something beyond her imaginings, was imminent.

She shivered which was odd as it was warm, suddenly far warmer than a normal September day.

"I think I ought to be getting back," she said swallowing the last of her tea, "it looks like it might be turning nasty and it's a tricky drive over the tops in the van at the best of times. Narrow lanes and dry stone walls are not ideally suited to something that size."

"You've got to be so careful dear," Mrs Willoughby laid aside the Catherine Cookson, "Especially with all these young tearaways driving around as if there was no tomorrow and with never a thought that someone might be coming the other way."

"Well if you must go Patricia," for such was Miss Armitage's Christian name, "Hang on a moment whilst I ferret out a pot of my plum jam and ....

But what Mrs Appleby had additionally in mind was never revealed because at that precise moment there was a sudden whitening glare that filled every nook and cranny of the room with a shadowless intensity of light. A sudden intense light that consumed for a moment all the familiar surrounding in a searing brightness. A light so vivid, so all pervasive that nothing else could exist with it.

Not sound, not smell, nor any other sense.

It was as if, blinded, they lived in a vacuum for a timeless moment.

And afterwards, afterwards when their lungs breathed air again, when bird song again filtered through the half open window of Mrs. Appleby's front room, when first grey shadows formed deeper grey silhouettes which in turn slowly took on colour and texture to resolve themselves into the commonplace, long loved, features of the little room, the three women looked at each other as if they could not believe that they were still there. Could not believe that they were still alive, could not believe until they touched each other, held on to each other, felt the warmth of each other. Drew mutual strength from each other.

Speech was a long time coming.

"What was it?"

"I don't know"

"Are you all right?"

"All right"

"All all right."

"Thank God."

And then silence again. Each a little world to herself, afraid to speak lest their survival might prove to be illusory. Lest any question might provoke a response that all was indeed not well. Might, God forbid, provoke no response at all.

It was Mrs Appleby who spoke first. "Perhaps if I put the kettle on ....? Another cup of tea would do us all good. Nothing like a good cup of tea when one has had a little shock and ...."

"Yes Mary dear that would be nice. You can't beat a good cup of tea when .... And I'm sure Patricia could stay a little longer in the .... in the circumstances .... well it would be safer to and ...."

But Miss Armitage was staring out of the little room's sash window looking out towards the green.

'"It's gone" she said.

"What's gone dear?"

"The library van. My van. It's gone."

"Don't be silly dear, it can't have. It must be there somewhere. It can't just disappear. Vans don't."

But Patricia Armitage was already outside the cottage, staring wildly up and down the road.

And she was right. The van had completely, indisputably, disappeared.

The other two ladies joined her and, with a commendable degree of organisational skills honed on her many charitable undertakings in the village, Miss Appleby dispatched the others to loop round past the pub and the old post office respectively whilst she herself hurried to the lane that lead down past the church to the dale beyond.

But in vain. Nowhere was the van to be seen.

"We must ring 999," said Mrs Willoughby. And so they did.

They also mobilised the village's formidable intelligence services which could normally be relied upon to record the fall of every sparrow within a fifteen mile radius. And we must presume that the police were equally as diligent in their enquiries but despite the best efforts of both the van was as if it had never existed.

In time life returned to normal. Miss Armitage was absolved of all blame by the County Library authorities and schedules re-arranged using existing vans and resources although sadly, due to budgetary constraints, Brassburn was only visited twice in every three weeks.

In the 'Queen Adelaide' of an evening there was some dark talk that hinged on the specific gravity of Mrs. Appleby's home made sloe gin. This indeed, had it have been true, could conceivably gone some way to explaining the brilliant flash of light but even the local sages could not explain the complete disappearance of the van.

And so the whole episode passed into folk lore. For the price of a pint visitors could obtain from accommodating locals the whole gripping story with some ingenious additions and suppositions which, with the passing of time, elevated the episode into a matter of some importance.

But no one ever found out the truth of the matter. About what really happened that Tuesday afternoon? Or who or what caused it? Or what were the mechanics of the phenomenon?

And I don't suppose anyone ever will.

But the fantasies spun in the snug, and in the lounge bar for that matter, about what happened to the van never, ever, soared high enough to even approach the truth.

Nor did those visitors who paid in good ale for the re-telling of the tale ever realise for one fleeting second just what an astounding, earth changing, life enhancing, event it really was.

********************

Author's note - The discerning may, and the hypercritical assuredly will, find anomalies in some of the descriptions and thought processes recorded in the subsequent chapters when dealing with pre-historic times. They will argue that some of the descriptions, thought processes etc., are patently false as Ugmor'n3 and the rest of the Ug family, not possessing the necessary vocabulary, could not possibly have expressed some of the concepts, and described some of the things, that are here ascribed to them or with which they are credited.

The author confesses that accuracy has, from time to time, been sacrificed on the altar of expediency, but such is purely in the interest of the reader's convenience. Whilst a more literal translation from the various sources uncovered by the author's research would have been an interesting exercise and would have undeniably been appropriate in a more scholarly context, it was felt that the degree of circumlocution involved would have wearied the average reader, and have given rise to some harsh criticism from the less academically inclined. In mitigation it should also be be remembered that such sources dated from the later stages of the incident when some fluency in modern ideas and indeed objects had been acquired and perhaps subconsciously pre-dated. Briefly I have tried to strike a balance that could by the charitably inclined be categorised as happy.

A literal, and scrupulously accurate, version of these events is being prepared for the Royal Society at the request of the family of the late Professor Sir Hugh Dorrington-Gore.

It was Ugmor'n3 who discovered it.

He had slipped away from the family cave for a little peace and quiet. Not far of course because things lurked that could harm, indeed eat, a small person. So not far but perhaps a little further than usual because he had with him a small spear that he had been given him by his father Ug who, although deficient in many parenting skills, had spent many hours in its fabrication, perfecting its balance and painstakingly chipping away at its flint head. And many more hours patiently schooling him in its use.

And so if he were careful and listened and observed and avoided places that could conceal something that lurked, he would hopefully be all right. If he were lucky.

When he first saw it, he thought that it might indeed conceal something that lurked, even if it weren't actually one itself, and so he ducked swiftly back behind a large tree and froze, hardly daring to breath. After a few minutes he relaxed and moving very slowly peeped out from the other side of the tree at a different height.

Nothing moved. Nothing had moved. It was still there. Perhaps sleeping or even dead. Unless it was something that someone had put there. And then forgotten about? Or perhaps was watching to see who it could lure into an indiscretion?

This last thought made him feel vulnerable and, his grip tight on his small spear and making use of available cover, always keeping close to climbable trees, he made his way back to his cave and the safety of his family.

And because he did not wish to incur Ug's wrath for having been reckless for having slipped away in the first place, or of having been cowardly in fleeing, or of being inconsiderate in not helping his mother Ugma, or of fantasising about things he had seen, or of ..... well .... Ugmor'n3's short life had already furnished him with many arguments in favour of silence in such circumstances.

But next morning he slipped away again. Because what he had seen was so unlike anything he had yet encountered, or heard tell of, that his curiosity would not let him rest. He had to see it whatever it was had wandered off again or still lay there dead or rocklike.

To the back of his mind he banished the thought that perhaps one of the many powers that shaped their destinies and who were notoriously volatile, not to mention inconsistent and quick to wrath, might have taken up residence in it. Gods after all rarely ate one as far as he knew. There were always more immediate dangers. Things that lurked .... hungry things that did eat one.

Quietly, cautiously, he retraced his steps. Found the tree again and paused. Paused fearful that the beating of his heart would betray his presence. Fearful that whatever it was would hear the noise it made. Five minutes he stood there his back pressed hard against the rough bark, looking back the way he had come and wondering whether it would not be best to go home. Go back to his family and the cave and familiar things.

It would be the best, the most sensible thing, to do.

His mother was always telling him to be careful, to be sensible. And he had promised after Ug2 had disappeared. When she had cried, he had promised to be careful, and sensible, because she said she did not want to lose him too. Not like the others.

Best to go back. Just let his heart return to normal. Then he would steal away and no body would ever know. Slowly he eased his back away from the tree, took a first step away. His heart was quieter now. Everything was quiet. Perhaps the thing had gone? Perhaps something had eaten it? Perhaps ....

Ugmor'n3 dropped down to the ground and with his head low to the ground, peered round the bole of the tree.

It was there. Just as he remembered it. As if it had never moved. Standing on a little grassy mound in the centre of the clearing as if waiting to be worshipped. Perhaps it was indeed a god. It was a sort of large whitish block about seven paces long and about a third of that high, standing on four roundish black objects, one near each corner. On the side facing him someone had drawn children. Children and a woman. Children like himself but not like himself. These children seemed to be covered in close fitting skins the like of which he had never seen. All were smiling happily.

That was worrying. Things were drawn for a purpose. Drawings didn't just happen. No-one suddenly thought "I will draw something today". There had to be a practical reason. Perhaps it was to help to remember some who had been lost? Or to attract some new ones to replace them? Or to thank the gods for providing them? Or a promise to the gods to sacrifice .... ?

It was worrying. Wise men were skilled in these things. And wise men were dangerous. Unless it hadn't anything to do with men. Which was a lot more worrying.

He lay there watching. Unmoving. His father had taught him well. Being still meant being invisible. Moving meant being seen.

Shadows shortened. The sun filtering through the branches warmed the glade. Nothing moved. No sound apart from the background chatter of birds and the occasional distant bark of a deer.

to be continued ....