Traveller Probo
1. 11th Century New Zealand

The most irritating thing about the weather was how, despite every effort, the damned cold and rain caused the binocular lenses to fog. These were supposed to be anti-fog lenses but that did not seem to help today. Hami removed the rubber cushioned binoculars from his eyes and squinted in annoyance at the lenses’ opalescent hues before he rubbed each with his thumb and cursed the endless drizzle. Rain could affect the simplest action, even in their surveillance. Invisible in the dense undergrowth of the temperate rainforest of New Zealand, Hami attempted to brush a giant, cricket-like weta from his sleeve. The creature clung tenaciously, having hooked its clawed feet into the material of his camouflage suit. Carefully, he unhooked the insect and took great care to keep his movements to an absolute minimum to avoid detection from those they watched so carefully.

There were shuffled movements nearby. Right on schedule, the long beak and bright eyes of a kiwi appeared through the undergrowth, at which Hami had to smile. The kiwi, which he called Kit, was determined to visit him each morning. The curious creature stopped to peer short-sightedly with an expression of astonished curiosity before it snuffed and probed in the soil and wandering off, striding confidently with its powerful, supersized feet.

“Marilyn moving to the food barn,” a muttered voice, almost certainly that of Markus, was fed quietly into Hami’s ear-piece. He directed his binoculars to the cluster of rough log and fern huts that was the object of their surveillance. Hami watched with amusement as the almost naked form of a solidly-built woman shuffled to a small, raised hut to remove some item, most likely a fish, from the chosen place of storage. As she turned back to her shelter he caught sight of her face; blunt, brown-eyed and dark-skinned. Though estimated to be about 25 years in age, she looked much older, with her black hair an untidy frizz, and pendulous breasts that swung almost to her waist. Her broad shoulders and heavy build made her ideal to withstand the chilly New Zealand climate. She was also the perfect antithesis to her namesake, the fifties screen siren, Marilyn Munroe, so named by the wag, Sergeant Steve Elkington.

“I swear she’s getting hotter every time I see her”, muttered Elkington, with a quiet chuckle.

“I agree bro, her old man is probably priming himself for a day in the sack”, snickered Markus quietly.

“I can smell that good old fashioned Maori lovin’ from here,” whispered Hami, setting off a more quiet laughter, clearly audible through his earpiece.

“Gentleman please, let’s keep it tight, we don’t want to offend Elkington’s girlfriend, do we now?” muttered their squad-leader, Lieutenant Jonah Pokere. This was met with more quiet chuckles, especially from Elkington himself but the message was understood and radio activity once more settled into silence.

Mere shadows in the misty drizzle, the cluster of primitive huts was wreathed in smoke from a few struggling cooking fires, making the settlement impossible to miss. For three days the team had observed the village and named the habitants as directed by the chief researcher, Dr Neil Chow of New Zealand’s Auckland University. While they acted as eyes, ears and if required, protective muscle, Dr Chow coordinated what could be best described as a most unusual research project. The New Zealand native Maori subjects had been discovered where in theory, they should not have been. Or more correctly when they should not have been. Having won the coveted inaugural Helguard Scholarship for International Historical Research, Dr Chow had quite simply received the use of what had become known in media circles as the ‘Helguard Transporter’ for twenty days only - no more, no less.

For the Helguard Transporter, lauded by scientific journals and the popular media alike as the ‘Invention of the Century’, was quite simply best described as a Time Machine.

The Transporter had its limitations, for it could only send researchers or unmanned equipment back one thousand years from the present day. Why the time limitation existed was not understood but historical researchers now had access to the previously unimaginable opportunity to research, investigate, and learn of an era about which too little was known.

So as part of the New Zealand Historical Research Team, Hami sat, or crouched, each day, almost one thousand years before he was born, in 11th Century New Zealand. Stone Age humanity had established a tenuous foothold in the lush, rugged landscape and appeared to be prospering. Dr Chow described them as one of a few small settler groups that were likely to be blood-related. If the other groups were anything like this settlement, it meant that up to a thousand souls could live around the fifty extinct volcanic peaks that would one day become Auckland, modern New Zealand’s largest city.

With a perfect view of the western harbour with rich fishing and shellfish grounds, the pre-historic inhabitants were being carefully monitored and studied because they lived some four-hundred years earlier than most historians commonly accepted they should be.

When this project was first mooted, like many in his regiment, Hami volunteered to become part of a select New Zealand SAS squad to research his home nation. As proved in the Saxon Traveller project, the awesome skills of local Special Forces made them the most qualified when sending researchers one thousand years back in time. In the New Zealand Traveller team, all but Doctor Chow were of Maori descent. Hami had made what he considered to be the life of the military his own. Good looking, well-muscled and tall, he had served his country for seven years before being accepted into the elite New Zealand Special Air Service. Superbly trained, tough, and capable, the men were deservedly recognised as some of the world’s finest soldiers. So when the opportunity arose to serve as support for a local historical researcher, he had naturally jumped at it.

Like many missions, Hami and his fellow researchers soon found the Traveller project to be surprisingly mundane. Each day, the team of six was Transported to the destination time in the early dawn, and each day fortune favoured them as the weather was chill and drizzly, making their movements easier to disguise. All were dressed in full camouflage gear and, except for Dr Chow, were lightly armed with SAS special issue submachine pistols and other usual personal arms typical for a Special Forces surveillance mission. One of their first tasks had been to install a series of tiny digital cameras about the area. This meant that academics back in the 21st Century could act as silent witness to the activities of the surprisingly large community of eighteen men, twenty women, and an unknown number of skinny children. The men were described by Dr Chow as warriors, including an older man they dubbed as “Elvis”. He was a mostly toothless but still daunting senior whom the academic described as the alpha-male or ‘King’ of the group. Each of the men had the heavily tattooed face iconic of the Maori warrior, even the thinly bearded youth dubbed as ‘Junior’, who looked to be only seventeen.

The settlement included an assortment of women of various ages and children, most of whom ran about completely naked. A few scrawny black dogs completed the group. Dr Chow described them as the extinct kuri that occasionally were heard to give a yelp rather than a bark. The team had been concerned about their detection by the animals, believed to have been brought with the original human settlers from the Polynesian Islands. Thankfully that had not happened. The group eked a simple existence through harvesting the bountiful fishing grounds or trapping the numerous plump birds that ran and flew around the area. The villagers had also established a garden of sweet potatoes and yams that grew in the rich volcanic soil. Chow suggested that the villagers would also eat the occasional kuri when the desire took them.

Hami had especially enjoyed his ¬¬few days in New Zealand’s distant past. While engaged in his observations, he was in contact with a bewildering range of insects and flightless birds, most no longer living in modern New Zealand. While the discovery of people in New Zealand’s past met with significant media attention, there had also been intense public interest in tracking down extinct species, especially the Moa, a giant, flightless bird that was like an ostrich on steroids. Known only by bones and shell fragments, there had been calls from some in the scientific community to preserve or even revive extinct fauna, a goal considered of low priority by the researchers. While the men had collected quite a few insect and other fauna samples, their prime mission was of reconnaissance; to learn more about the original human inhabitants without interaction or harm.

Besides, they had seen no sign of a moa.

Time was short, with only one more day of observations possible. Hami knew that Dr Chow’s research team had already gathered enough data, because every image and sound had been collected by an automated data collection system at the Area of Convergence. Cleverly camouflaged to look like a rock, the system was collected twice each day. With additional personal observations collated from debriefings each evening, the mass of data was stored for future analysis. Dr Chow told the team that they already had enough data for a set of seminal academic works on the Maori settlement of Aotearoa, the traditional name of New Zealand and the last substantial land mass to be colonised by humans.

So the researchers crouched in the morning drizzle and watched the primitive settlement in its cycle of daily life. The Village looked different from the traditional Maori settlement as taught in New Zealand schools. The more familiar fortified fort or Pa would be a development for future centuries and would typify the warlike Maori the European settlers of the eighteenth century came to know.

Thankfully, there was no evidence that the villagers thought they were being watched, so their infamous warlike nature remained untested. Each day, the team was extracted by the end of their shift at precisely four p.m. During their observation time, they remained in constant contact via personal headsets, complete with a head-mounted camera. The threat of any personal danger was considered remote but like any recon mission there was no time to relax. To remain invisible and undetected was paramount.

The drizzle increased slightly as the sun struggled to penetrate the heavy grey cloud while a stiff breeze blew from the ocean only a kilometre away. Hami raised his face to the morning light and smiled to himself, enjoying the breeze on his camouflaged face. The villagers had been very still this morning and, as he resumed his watch, two children ran around the huts, their lithe, naked brown bodies seemingly unaffected by the cold. They hopped about, laughing together as they played with one of the scrawny kuri pups when one, a young boy, looked in Hami’s direction, as if he knew Hami was there. Hami knew the impression was ridiculous but he paused from his observations to cast a cautious glance about him, just in case. The ferns and undergrowth were undisturbed and he paused to listen a moment, feeling with all his senses alert.

He reminded himself to be more vigilant.

There was a short burst of static in his earpiece but no-one followed up with any comment.

After waiting a few seconds, he asked, “Did you hear that?”

“What?” asked Elkington.

“Squad Alpha request radio check,” muttered Hami quietly. Though he was not in command, the team members had worked and soldiered together enough to recognise the professional approach of each. If anyone suspected or feared a squad breach or technical error, they were free to take the initiative, their instincts respected.

“Pokere here,” muttered the squad leader. “You have something Hami?”

“Just checking boss,” muttered Hami as the team checked in.

“Elkington on line.”

“Neil Chow here.”

“Ngawa here,” muttered the squad junior Rewai Ngawa. Although two years younger than Hami, he was a veteran of action in the Solomon Islands and Afghanistan.

With the other members of the team, Hami had been ticking off the confirmations mentally and one, Markus, hadn’t responded. Because of their communications, weaponry and the passive nature of their mission it had been considered safe enough to split into individual monitoring stations about the village. Pokere was the only one who was not alone as he was personally responsible for the care of Dr Chow and therefore acted as the operational centre for orders and communications. However, each of the team were respected recon specialists and knew their bush skills. There was no way they would be caught unaware.

Pokere muttered, “Markus, we didn’t receive your verbal check. We’re assuming a technical error. Key your mike to confirm.” Keying the mike would permit a short burst of static, safest practice just in case locals were close-by and a spoken-word deemed unsafe. As Markus was the closest to the village, this could be possible.

There was silence.

Pokere spoke again. “Hami, you had best check on Markus’ position.”

Hami was a scant thirty metres to the right of Markus and best positioned to check on his squad-mate with the least disruption to the covert nature of their research. “Sure boss but it might compromise the operation,” he muttered.

“Understood,” was Pokere’s reply.

“Roger, moving now,” Hami responded. He sighed quietly as he packed the binoculars and made his weapon ready. The MP5 was loaded and locked. It was assumed that in the unlikely event that any of their weapons were fired, the noise of the unsilenced three-shot bursts would terrify any potential assailant into fleeing. There was no desire to kill anyone, especially an erstwhile ancestor.

Silently, he merged back into the forest and then, keeping to cover, crept in the direction of Markus’ position. He knew Markus had established this morning’s observation post close to a giant kauri tree to which a couple of miniaturised digital cameras had been attached. Like the others, Hami assumed the salt air had done what happens in most operations that involve either the sea air or desert sand, which was stuff up communications. He paused and knelt in the undergrowth by a large log near Markus’ kauri tree and watched. It took a moment to identify a tiny camera attached to the thick trunk but he could not see Markus, which was hardly surprising. Markus wouldn’t want to be found by any casual observer, especially his own squad mate. Hami sniffed the air and there was the usual musty smell of decomposing vegetation, and something else.

“On location, looking for Markus,” he muttered quietly.

“Roger,” responded Pokere.

Hami moved ghostlike through the vegetation, his camouflage making him virtually invisible. Noises from ground birds were an indication of safety and normality that surrounded them for most of the day. But here there was silence. The various calls and clucks were not to be heard, leaving a stillness that immediately made his nerves strum to the familiar tune of danger.

Something was very wrong.

Eyes wide, willing himself to see details, Hami controlled his growing disquiet with slow, deep, calming breaths as he carefully examined the area where Markus should be hiding. He finally noticed a slight scuff in the wet soil and realised with growing alarm that a patch on the ground looked to be a splash of blood that had soaked into the soil. As he scanned the surrounding vegetation, he spotted a daub of bright blood on a small clump of fern, then more splatters, almost black on the green ferns. His closer inspection identified a grey blob of what could only be brain-matter.

The village was silent. No inhabitants were to be seen.

His training took over. Hami crouched in a defensive position, using ferns as cover as he scanned the area for enemy while directing a burst of communication through his headset. “On location! There’s blood and brain matter. Markus may be down. None of his gear is here and there’s a drag mark through the undergrowth leading to the village. There are bare footprints.” He felt calm and alert. It looked as if Markus had been spotted and, as an outsider, attacked by the warriors. Hami recalled the stillness of the village and the glance from the children just moments ago.

“Boss, the mission has been compromised. They know we’re here and may have us all spotted,” he murmured quietly.

“Roger,” replied Pokere. There was a pause. “Travellers, form up at my location with Doctor Chow. Take defensive action as needed,” he ordered curtly.

Mission guidelines stressed the safety of each research team member. The risks taken by the now-infamous Saxon researchers were not to be duplicated. If compromised, they were to abort the mission and leave the final observations to the numerous, strategically placed, on-site cameras. With a knot in his stomach, Hami turned to head in Pokere’s direction when a sudden burst of gunfire tore through the forest. Not as loud as some weapons, the MP5 still sounded like a death-knell that was out of place in this ancient land. With the need for silence obviously unnecessary, Hami silently cursed and double-timed it carefully through the rainforest. The last thing they needed was for some fool to blunder into the fire of one of his mates, or slip and twist an ankle. Slippery mud and protruding roots made the footing treacherous, so care was vital. He was deeply concerned for Markus and his anxiety quickly turned into anger. Markus was a good mate and they had served together for two years. Damn if he was down. He hoped he was wrong but doubted it.

The gunfire sounded as if it was from Elkington’s observation post and he heard Pokere mutter, “Gunfire marked at Elkington’s position. Elkington are you good?” There was no reply.

The heavy rainforest suddenly seemed to close in about Hami. Where the ferns and ancient, moss-covered trees had been a snug location to hide, they suddenly transformed into a place where hidden eyes watched carefully, as if to strike him down. Hami paused and crouched and looked back the way he had come, knowing that any attacker would be armed with ancient clubs or a spear-like weapon called a Taiaha which was used like a hardwood sword. Hami now had no doubt that the villagers had identified their observers.

They obviously didn’t like to be watched.