WHEN TIME ROLLED BACK
by ED EARL REPP
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Comet May 41.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Long before Rog found the mysterious, shining ball back in the mountains, he knew he was far different from the rest of his tribe that lived along the river. He knew it because he didn't think the same way they did, and because there was a difference even in their appearance.
Sarak, who was the Old Man of the tribe as well as his sire, and Monah, Rog's mother, were short and heavy and thickly covered with hair. Rog was taller and straighter, and endowed with much less hair. Too, his face was much broader through the cheekbones and less heavy-looking around the mouth. There was only one other in the tribe who seemed to be of the same physical cast as Rog, and that was Lo, a young woman who dwelt with her family in Sarak's cave.
Though the stalwart, blond young man took an active part in all the work of the tribe—hunting, skinning, tool-making—there were times when he would detach himself from the rest as though he were a creature of a higher world viewing a savage orgy.
Such a time was the delirious madness of eating after the lucky kill of a giant mammoth. All the able-bodied men of the tribe would aid in dragging the great, quiet animal into the clearing beside the river, and then, to the cries of men, women, and children, huge hunks of flesh would be torn off and devoured by all. The orgy did not cease until no one was able to stand without falling.
But Rog and Lo would stand back in the shadows and watch gravely, gnawing passively on smaller pieces of meat.
The others of the tribe realized that Rog and Lo were somehow different from them. And because of the young man's tremendous strength and because he was the son of the Old Man, he was not molested. But secretly the slow-thinking men and women classed him with Ta, the half-witted boy who sat all day playing with a stick.