The sun hadn't risen yet when Peter stepped out of his cave.
The air was cool, carrying the smell of damp earth and dying fires from the camp below. He sat on the flat stone at the entrance, legs hanging over the edge, and watched the first grey light touch the mountains.
Below, the women were already lighting new fires. Children ran between the huts. A dog barked somewhere, then went quiet.
Peter closed his eyes.
He wasn't thinking about anything. That was new for him. For weeks, he had been running circles in his own head — how to get back, where was the prototype, was Mira or Lorn still looking for him, or did a missing explorer eventually become an administrative note — filed, archived, forgotten. But right now, his mind was quiet.
Not empty. Quiet. Like something had finally accepted being here.
— Connection quality: Average. Energy prototype fragment detected within a 20 km radius. Estimated direction: northeast. Signal stable.
Twenty kilometers. Peter had been turning that information over since the storm — since that moment at the top of the tree when his interface had flickered to life. The events that followed had buried everything — the storm, the duel, the camp to rebuild. But now the days were calm, and what he had set aside was surfacing again.
A prototype had no business being here. Not in this era. Not twenty kilometers northeast of a prehistoric camp. Someone had brought it — or it had followed the explosion of its destruction. Either way, it wasn't a coincidence.
Malos. Without him, none of this would have happened. What was he doing right now? He had probably been caught by Vincent already.
Peter let the thoughts drift. He couldn't act on them yet. Not alone, not without equipment, not in this body. But letting them go entirely felt just as impossible. It was a permanent tension — like an ember you can neither blow out nor feed. Just watch.
"Chief."
He opened his eyes. Oudra was climbing toward him, a spear in hand.
"The hunt is leaving soon. Are you coming?"
Peter stood up.
"I'm coming."
They descended together into the waking camp.
---
The hunt lasted all morning.
They tracked a deer for hours, following the trail through the wet forest. Karg led from the front — silent, eyes fixed on the ground. He looked at no one. He did his work.
Peter walked behind him with Oudra and watched.
Since the duel, Karg had become something unexpected. Not a warm ally, not a friend. But a man who had looked a truth in the eye and decided to live with it. He hunted, he trained the young warriors, he put away his spear each evening without comment. That was his way. Peter had taken time to understand that in this era, most important things were said without words.
At one point, Karg stopped. He raised one hand. Everyone froze.
He turned to Peter.
"That way. It's close."
Peter nodded. Karg moved on without waiting.
The hunt was good. They brought the animal back to camp in the late afternoon, the warriors singing as they walked. Peter marched at the rear, meat on his shoulders, feet in the dust.
When they entered the camp, the women cheered. That was how things should have been from the start.
Peter set his share near the central fire. A child approached, eyes wide and bright. Peter gestured for him to take a piece. The child smiled and ran off.
Karg, a few steps away, was putting away his spear. He watched the scene. Nothing on his face. Then he turned and walked away.
Oudra sat down beside Peter.
"He still doesn't talk to you."
"He hunts beside me. That's already something."
"Is that enough for you?"
Peter looked at the fire.
"For now, yes."
---
Time passed, and with it came its changes.
Peter stopped counting days. He woke with the sun, hunted, ate, settled disputes when needed. The tribe had found its rhythm. Warriors came to speak with him without hesitation.
Karg was always there. Neither too close nor too far. He did what was expected of him — no more, no less.
One evening, Peter found him sitting alone by the fire, carving a spear point. He sat down across from him.
Karg glanced up for a second, then went back to his work.
"Good point," said Peter.
Karg said nothing.
"Who taught you?"
"My father."
"Was he a hunter?"
"Yes."
A silence settled between them. The wood scraped under the blade.
"He died," said Karg. "A long time ago. Because he wanted to prove his worth by hunting a mammoth alone."
"I didn't know that."
Karg looked at him with mild suspicion.
"How do you not know? We were young, but still."
Peter tried to recover but didn't have time.
"Doesn't matter," said Karg. "My father was an ambitious man. He wanted the chief's position at any cost. But the chief back then was always stronger and had no use for him. So he went to face a mammoth alone. I think you can guess the rest. After he died, my mother lost herself — and put all the pressure on me to fulfill his dream in his place. It shaped me. I know that. But I won't use those methods. I'm not telling you this for your sympathy, Oonak. I just thought it needed to be said. You deserve the position more than I do. I've made my peace with that."
Peter said nothing. He stayed there, watching the flames. Some presences are worth something even without words.
After a moment, Karg put his spear away.
"The tribe is doing well. That's all that matters now."
He stood and left.
Oudra, seated further away, had seen all of it. He made no comment. Some things didn't need one.
---
Peter often thought about going home.
The anxiety of the first weeks had worn something down in him. But in the evenings, when the camp was asleep and he wasn't, the thoughts returned on their own. Mira. Lorn's office. The smell of coffee. Small things, almost absurd, that represented an entire life at the other end of time.
Were they still looking for him? Had the extraction procedure been restarted? He didn't know. And not knowing was his most faithful companion on those nights.
What he did know was this — a prototype fragment, the only thing that still connected him to the future, was out there somewhere to the northeast. His interface confirmed it every morning with the mechanical regularity of something that doesn't care how much time has passed.