CREATION OF MAN

By Mike Gose

"Eureka," I've done it. Evelyn, I've got it. No doubt about it. Yowee."
"Well, now what do we do about it?"
"We use it, of course."
"But the risk?"
"Did Christopher Columbus worry about the risk? C'mon, let's go." "Mike, not yet. You don't just take off like that. I mean you don't even go see Aunt Marilyn without making more preparations than this, much less go back in time."
"No time to waste. I understand that Soviet scientist is working on a similar project and I refuse to be beaten now."
"Okay. I guess you know best."

It had started as a simple project. Mike was an Archaeologist-Anthropologist working on a project in Iran. He had stumbled on to some human bones. This in itself was not so unusual but carbon-14 dating had shown that these bones were a full 100,000 years older than man was thought to be. Mike was convinced that somehow, he had discovered the bones of the first man. It was pure speculation but somehow he was convinced that these were the bones of the first man. The first time he suggested this possibility to anyone at the Scientific meeting of NER Anthropologists he was scoffed at. No one would accept the fact that these bones were actually that old, much less that they could be the bones of the very first man. Mike wasn't the kind of person that could easily put up with being scoffed at. Determined to prove himself he hit on the wild notion of creating a time machine to go back to the precise time he had dated these bones and prove that his suspicions were true. That had been five long years ago. Five years spent, not knowing, often fearing that all of his efforts had been wasted. But now it was a reality, he had developed an honest to goodness time machine. As a kid he had always been fascinated by science fiction, but to think that he could have actually developed a time machine was almost incomprehensible.

Not only had his own individual project been a complete success, but a fellow scientist had just recently developed a molecule counter spectre that could determine the presence of life forms anywhere in the world. Human, animal, vegetable, this machine could focus on any given area in the world and tell the chemical consistency of the life forms. This information was easily transferable to what the life form actually was.
These two machines were all Mike Adamson needed to prove his theorem about the time of the creation of man. He had very precisely calculated the exact time man must have come into being and he was going to watch it happen. All he had to do was set his time machine at that precise time in history, go there, use his counter to determine the location of this new earth life form, and go to that location. Easy. He and Evelyn were going to make history. Into the time machine they went.

"Are you sure nothing can go wrong."
"Positive." The IBM system analysts went over it completely, safe to the 99.9 level of safety."
"Well, let's go before I change my mind."
"Would you believe, 5-4-3-2-1."
      There was a terrific jolt. An infernal whirring sound impinged upon their senses. It was like they were upside down, right side up and sideways all at the same time. It was like they were being torn apart and smashed together. Then it was over.
"Well, now that wasn't so bad was it?" Mike said it with a smile but from the tenseness of his face it was obvious that he was scared. He really wasn't sure what he was getting himself and Evelyn into. All he knew was that he had to prove himself. He was getting his change. "Are you okay?"
"I seem to be. Are we there?"
"It seems to be the case. Let's look."
      They crawled out of the machine. It looked so much like the movie versions that it seemed like they had only wandered onto a Universal City movie set by mistake. The heavy overgrowth, (Evelyn even recognized a trauntasoris), the swampy, hot muggy, florid, jungle conditions that hey had expected to find did exist.
Give me the counter. Let's figure out where this first man is and get the hell out of here. The spectre discovered a range of molecule combinations that did not fit on the spectre interpretation chart. Mostly plant combinations but some animals and no man. No man. The hot, nervous sweat of a man who has to finally face himself when confronted with the fact that he has been wrong, broke across his body. Evelyn was visually upset, but tried to comfort him. "More calculations and we can try again."
"No, no maybe I'm fooling around with something I have no business fooling around with."       They sudden realization that five long years had been spent on a project only to soothe his own hurt feelings over a rash theory he made on high strung evening and then had forced himself into defending. Now here he was, 500,000 years away from his home and unable to determine whether his rash hypothesis may have in fact been true. His time analysis had been wrong but now he had the tools to try again. But now he realized that maybe it was not really worth it. What difference did it make whether he witnessed the creation or not. Why did he insist on playing God. It was a frightening experience and he was ready to go back and settle down to being a plain old Archaeologist.
Evelyn and he got back into the machine. He turned the controls back to 2087 and prepared to return home. They fastened their belts and pulled the controls. Nothing happened He tried again and still nothing happened. The generator had gone out and here in this wilderness there was no way he could ever fix it. The anguish and frustration hit him simultaneously. He had blown it, it was his own fault and there was nothing he could do about it.
It was much later when he and Evelyn were fixing a shelter that it hit him. He hadn't miscalculated. No he hadn't blown it completely. His calculations had been exactly right. Man had been created at this instance in history and he had created himself. Evelyn and Mike Adamson had returned to the past to create a future for their species. Evelyn was the first woman. Adamson was the first man.