A New Beginning

Rain loved peering into the microscope. She was fascinated by it. She enjoyed watching the bacteria and other microorganisms squiggle around on the glass slides. It was why she decided to become a tribal doctor.

Amazingly, the microscope still worked. Except for the stethoscope, it's about the only piece of modern technology that did still work. Although in order to see anything on the slides, it has to be used outside the infirmary area near the entrance of the cave, where there is plenty of light. The main reason these two instruments still worked was because Doc Yves emphasized the importance of always keeping them clean and protected in their cases when they were not in use.

Also, he never let anyone "play" with it except Rain, Joseph Jr. and Smiling Eyes. However, he did have all the children and grandchildren to peer into the lens to see what he called the "microbial dinosaurs." He did it at least twice for each generation. First, when they were about seven or eight, so that they would continue to bathe regularly and avoid eating rotten food. He did it again, when they reached puberty, so that they would not forget about microbes. His hope was that they would have a better understanding of germs and the harm they do.

Before he died, he instructed Rain to do the same, so that future generations could know of the existence of bacteria and other microorganisms.

Doc Yves always stressed the importance to everyone on the necessity of frequent bathing, keeping the cave clean and not eating unclean or putrid food. He had everyone chew the sap of a sweetgum tree to help keep their teeth clean. It is this manner that the tribe stayed relatively disease free and healthy.

While he was still alive, Doc used the microscope to show bacteria and other disease causing organisms to all the children, grandchildren and even some of the great grandchildren of the Sky People. He did this in order to teach them of the dangers of poor hygiene. He also demonstrated to all the children and grandchildren how to use the microscope to study what kills various bacteria and other microorganisms.

In order to simplify an explanation for the all these children, Doc Yves told them that these "invisible dinosaurs" could get inside their bodies, then multiply at a rapid rate and eat their bodies from the inside out. Now that he is gone, Smiling Eyes, Rain and Joseph Jr. have taken over his duties as tribal doctors; Zambia, the daughter of Josephine Jasmine is the tribe's dentist.

The dentist's duties consist mostly of knocking out a bad tooth with a wooden peg and a rock hammer after numbing the gum with crushed Drugberry. The doctor's duties mainly involve delivering babies and such things as giving advice on what plant to eat in order to relieve a particular pain or tying a strip of fig leaf over an injury. They nearly always have a child or two to care for in the area sectioned off near the mouth of the cave used as the infirmary.

If someone is has a bad cut and needs to be stitched up, Smiling Eyes usually does that. But if she isn't available, then Joseph Jr. will fill in for her. Doc Yves taught Rain how to set a broken bone. Thus far, that has never happened to anyone.

"How is she?" Turtle asked. This was the third time he approached Rain and asked her of his grandmother's condition.

Rain, the granddaughter of Victoria Rose, looked up from peering into the microscope. She has been culturing some bacteria and is watching one bacterium attack some primitive flagella. She discovered that this latter organism causes diarrhea in the babies. She is hoping that she can discover a natural cure for the sickness.

"Turtle, would you stop worrying about Mother Toni?" She answered him. "She'll be alright. She's a strong woman." Then Rain thought again about Turtle's question. "She's still sleeping. I'll let you know if there is any change."

"Thanks Rain. It's just that . . . well she's my grandmother and I'm concerned, that's all. At her age, she's lucky that she didn't hurt more than just an ankle, falling into the nursery pit like she did."

Turtle then returned to working on his new crossbow. Louis and Joshua and their sons, Louis Jr. and Joshua Jr. had taught him how to make weapons. Turtle is one of the best at making crossbows among all those of the tribe who made and repaired weapons. He is also good at making spears and crossbow bolts; they are all well balanced.

Antoinette Marie, first officer of the Spaceship James Cook, is the last of the James Cook's crewmembers still living. She is the only surviving link they have left to where their ancestors had come from. Mother Toni looked upon all the children, grandchildren and the great grandchildren as her own progeny.

As the children of her crewmembers grew older and began to have children themselves, she began to refer to her fellow space travelers as the "people from the Spaceship James Cook;" the rusting hulk they stop visiting years ago. Later, she shortened it to the James Cook's crewmembers. Mother Toni did this in order to help all the descendants of the original twenty crewmembers, nine men and eleven women, understand where they came from. But their grandchildren could barely comprehend this; some didn't even believe.

Most of the individuals of this second generation could not grasp time travel and coming from the future or how a rusted, giant birdlike thing could fly. The only thing they understood was the here and the now. They began calling their grandparents the Sky People, because they were told that they arrived in the flying machine that was wasting away a two and a half hour walk from the cave. They referred to themselves as the Cave Children.

But Mother Toni didn't want her grandchildren and great grandchildren, the third generation of children who were just now coming to an age of realization, to refer to her original crew as the Sky People. She was afraid that they would fall into believing in falsehoods about their origins. She thought that their descendants would never hear or know the truth about where they came from and that they would develop myths and fanciful stories about their origin.

So, every time Mother Toni heard one of them referring to her original crewmembers as the Sky People, she would gently correct them. She was never too strict or authoritarian with them. She would just tell them in a calm and kindly voice that she and their grandparents were the James Cook's crewmembers, not people from the sky.

She would try to tell them the story of their original mission to Jupiter's satellite Europa. She would describe the explosion aboard the spaceship that killed over half of the crew, including Captain Butler. She would explain to them how the explosion threw them into a time warp which caused them to go from the 22

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Century back in time 70 million years, back to the Cretaceous Period when dinosaurs ruled. She would explain to them about the world she came from.

They could not comprehend an explosion. When they asked her to describe an explosion, to tell them what is was; she would tell them it was like a bolt of lightning hitting a tree.

She would try to enlighten them about the world she came from, of spaceships and space stations, of huge cities with many modern conveniences, of electricity, electric cars, electric lights, televisions, telephones and computers. It was a world without gigantic dinosaurs.

But these innocent children couldn't grasp any of that. They lived in a cave. They had no knowledge of space flight, of technology or of any modern convenience. To them, there were the sun, the moon and the stars, no planets with their own satellites, and only birds and pterodactyls could fly. The stories Mother Toni told them were fairytales, meant to fantasize them as did stories of Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella and knights in shining armor.

Everything they had, they made, they grew themselves or they killed it for food. It was a simple world in which they lived, a world without war, without prejudice and hate, without technology or flying machines . . . it was a world with huge dinosaurs.

Almost all of their tools and weapons were made of bamboo, wood, stone and bone. There were only a few utensils of metal that they used for cooking, eating, hunting and repairing things - a few pots, pans, forks, spoons, knives of various types, hammers and one hand axe.

All the other tools from the Spaceship James Cook were broken, used up or had gotten lost. The center navigation table from the spaceship was still in good shape. But that's because Doc Yves took care of it. He used it as an examining table in the infirmary and it never received the abuse that the bamboo tables everyone ate off of received.

Years ago, they used the last of the ammunition for the .45 caliber pistol. It was now hanging on a peg outside the infirmary, rusting away. Completely useless, it hadn't been touched by anyone in several years. The Taser guns also stop working within a couple of years of the crew's landing back on Earth. The wires from them were used to bind stone points to spears and crossbow bolts. The guns have long since been lost.

The laptop computer also stopped working a long time ago, a few days after the solar panel stopped producing electricity. When the computer's batteries gave out, they lost use of it. Without the laptop, it was almost impossible to explain to the grandchildren and the great grandchildren what the future was like. Hence, unlike the first generation, who grew into adulthood using the computer to learn about life, the Cave Children could not comprehend time warps, flying spaceships, electricity or any other modern invention.

Joseph, the chief engineer, had tried to make a hand cranked generator from parts pirated from the spaceship. He succeeded - much to the surprise of everyone. But it didn't generate enough electricity to recharge the computer's batteries; it barely lit up a couple of lights in the infirmary. He ended up dismantling it and using the wire to attach stone arrow points to spears and crossbow bolts.

The laptop still rests behind the large screen monitor. The monitor even has a crack in its upper right corner. No one knows how it got there. Mother Toni believes one of the children or grandchildren hit it by mistake with something. But then no one cares, without electricity it doesn't work either.

Nor could the Cave Children understand satellites revolving around the planets. To them, the only things in the night sky were the moon, the stars and an occasional falling star. Although a few of the stars moved across the sky each night, albeit very slowly; the rest of them were there every night right where they were the night before. They only changed with the seasons.

So, when Mother Toni would tell her grandchildren and now her great grandchildren of the Spaceship James Cook and her mission to the planet Jupiter, they would sit and listen. They were like small children listening to a fairy tale and daydreaming of what spaceflight was like.

As for the rest of Mother Toni's original crewmembers, all nineteen had died. Much to Mother Toni's joy, none of the James Cook's crew had been eaten by a dinosaur. With the exception of Joshua, all of her crewmembers had died of natural causes. Joshua drowned in Lake Hope trying to save Niño Esperanza, the daughter of Regina Aurora and Juan. The girl had fallen out of a dugout pirogue that Akira Carissa, Leonard and Anthony had cut out of a log. The flight officer managed to get her back into the boat but then sank below the water himself.

At first, everyone thought that an alligator had eaten him, but his unscarred body washed up on the beach near the entrance to Hope Cave the next morning. He was the first to die. That was over thirty years ago. They cremated his body so that the dinosaurs wouldn't be able to dig it up and eat it. Then they put up a cross near the gate for the cave entrance that Anthony, Leonard and Thomas had built on the beach. The words Hope Cave that Anthony carved in the logs could still clearly be seen above the entrance.

Soon after that, it seemed that every two or three years another crewmember died. Of course, the deaths that affected Mother Toni the most were the deaths of Doc Yves, the father of her two children, and Chantelle Dawn, her lesbian lover; Mother Toni is bisexual. But she was thankful that she had been able to enter her golden years with both Chantelle and Yves at her side; Chantelle having died about five years ago and Doc three years ago.

Elizabeth Dee was the last to die, just two years ago. She was eating some Blackraptor soup that Falling Star had cooked up. Suddenly, Beth grimaced and grabbed her chest and said, "My heart." Then she fell over.

They cremated her on the beach just as they did all the others so that a dinosaur couldn't dig her up eat her body. They also put up a cross for her, just as they did for all of the other original crewmembers. Mother Toni didn't attend the service; she watched from the mouth of Hope Cave. She held the crucifix in her hand that Father Ray had given her.

Neither the first generation of children of the James Cook's crew nor the Cave Children would let Mother Toni leave the cave. Except to bathe in the lake she had not left the cave in several years. But most of the time she used the only remaining shower to bathe. Someone, usually Turtle, Rain or Juliet, one of Veronica Ann's twins, would fill the shower's aluminum water barrel with warm water for her. They still had several steal water cans that were kept by the fire near the cave's kitchen.

On those rare occasions she did go down to the beach below to bathe, someone always accompanied her, helping her up and down the cliff. Again, it was usually Turtle, Rain or Juliet. Whether she washed off in the shower or on the beach, she still bathed naked in front of everyone.

Everybody said that she was too old to go alone, to say nothing of the fact that the climb up and down the right side of the thirty meter high steep cliff was too dangerous for someone in her nineties to be doing all the time. Besides, she was too valuable; she is the only one alive who knows all the tribal history.

So, when Mother Toni fell into the nursery and twisted her ankle, everyone got worried about her health, especially Turtle her first grandchild, the son of Dawn Marie, her first child. Turtle was her favorite.

Not that she didn't love or care for the other children, grandchildren and great grandchildren; because she loved them all. According to her, they were all her family, her descendents. After over sixty years of living with dinosaurs, of the twenty original crewmembers who landed on earth, there were 29 children, 106 grandchildren and 18 great grandchildren; Jacqueline, the other twin of Veronica, had twins herself.

They made up quite a large tribe of humans living among the dinosaurs. Amazingly, Mother Toni knew everyone of them by name, all 153 of them. Not counting the officers, it was the same number of original crewmembers, construction laborers, and prostitutes onboard the spacecraft James Cook.

Mother Toni was in a lot of pain from the twisted ankle. So, Rain had given her some water with crushed Drugberry in it to help her sleep.

Drugberry is a plant whose berries cause the skin to temporarily go numb. It looks something like mistletoe but its little white berries are about the same size as a large pea. When crushed and mixed with water, the bitter tasting drink puts one to sleep. It was the first medicine that Doc Yves had discovered not long after they landed.

"I just heard about Mother Toni. Is she alright?" It was Little Thomas, the son of Josephine and Thomas. He had just returned from a food foraging and hunting party with his own son, Dark Cloud and four others, Flower Girl, Running Water, Song Bird and Chan Xing, the son of Akira.

As was his father, Little Thomas is one of the best hunters among the first generation of children. In fact, he is also one of the best hunters among their children, the Cave Children. His father had taught him well; he almost always returned with the carcass of some creature that he had killed.

But unlike his father, he had not yet killed a Marineosaurus or a Triceratops Rex, the largest of the carnivorous dinosaurs. There were none to be found within about a ten to fifteen kilometer radius of their cave. The original crewmembers killed all the large carnivores before the first child, Eve Marie, daughter of Laci Bianca and David, was born. Since then, no other large dinosaur wandered into the area.

It was as though they knew that they couldn't compete with the James Cook crewmembers or their children. So, the beasts stayed away from the area.

Rain again looked up from the microscope, "She's OK, Little Thomas. She just twisted her ankle. I gave her some Drugberry mixed in water. Right now she's in the infirmary sleeping. I'll let you know how she is as soon as she wakes up."

"Thanks, Rain. By then I'll probably be up top with Dark Cloud and the others skinning and cutting up the Green Spotted Lizards that my hunting party killed."

Twenty meters above the cave entrance is where most of the animals are skinned and prepared for cooking. What they don't use, they throw onto a trash pile that is kept constantly burning in order to keep the dinosaurs away. However, sometimes the animals are prepared on the beach; the leftover scraps are thrown beyond the area they fenced off for themselves in the lake for the alligators to eat.

"How many did you kill? Don't they have a large sail on their backs?"

"We killed five of them; one got away. But I wouldn't say that their sail is all that large. It only comes up to my knees," Little Thomas answered her. "My hunting party caught the lizards napping on a rock."

"Oh, I love the taste of their meat; it's so sweet," Rain respond to him. She liked his son and wanted to mate with him for her second child. Her comments were aimed at getting an invitation to eat with him and his family.

As one of the four tribal doctors, she didn't go out on food forages or hunting parties; she, Smiling Eyes, Joseph Jr. and Zambia stayed in the infirmary and took care of the sick and injured. Doc Yves and nurse Beth had taught them everything they needed to know.

Rain's strategy worked.

"Well, why don't you join us for supper this evening? I'm sure Dark Cloud would love to have you eat with us. He even said as much while we were coming back to the cave with the green lizards."

Rain blushed and cast her eyes down. "I didn't think he cared for me, Little Thomas."

When Rain blushed, it also caused her neck and breasts to turn red. It was one of her traits that Dark Cloud found attractive about her. Of course, he also liked watching her supple breasts bounce and her ass cheeks wiggle as she walked around the cave. She seldom wore any type of clothing, only some alligator slippers her grandfather Louis made for her.

In fact, except for shoes of dinosaur skin or sandals of tree bark, both tied onto their feet with strips of animal hide, nearly all the first generation of children did as their parents did and went naked while in the cave, wearing clothing only while on foraging and hunting parties.

It was the grandchildren of the James Cook's crew, who began to go naked almost all the time, only wearing something on their feet; although they too sometimes wore loincloths when leaving the cave. The great grandchildren were in the process of picking up on what their own parents were saying and doing - remaining naked all the time.

Mother Toni, Leonard, Juan, and Natalie Amiee had taught all the first generation of children how to tan hides. Making clothing from animal hide was not an easy task. But an even harder task was keeping all the children clothed while they were growing up. It seemed that no sooner would someone make an article of clothing for a child, when the he or she would outgrow it.