At first our new encampment was crude: little more than a row of lean-tos lashed up out of windfall branches and palm fronds. But as we settled in, and as our supply of food and water became assured, a more vigorous program of construction was put underway. The first priority, it was agreed, was a communal Hall, large enough to house us all in the event of a storm or other disaster. The new colonists set to constructing this with a will. They followed the rough outlines I had intended for my own shelter: a wooden platform, set on stilt-like foundations; but its scale was rather more ambitious.

A field beside our river was cleared, so that Nebogipfel could direct the patient cultivation of what might one day become useful crops, bred out of the aboriginal flora. A first boat — a crude dug-out canoe — was constructed, so that the Sea could be fished.

We captured, after much effort, a small family of Diatryma, and contained them within a stockade. Although these bird-beasts broke out several times, causing havoc about the colony, we stuck at containing and taming the birds, for the meat and eggs available from a domesticated flock of Diatryma was a pleasant prospect, and there were even experiments in having the Diatryma draw ploughs.

From day to day, the colonists treated me with a certain polite deference, as befitted my age — I conceded! — and my greater experience of the Palaeocene. For my part, I found myself in the position of leader of some of our projects in their early days, thanks to my greater experience. But the inventiveness of the younger people, coupled with the jungle survival training they had received, allowed them quickly to surpass my limited understanding; and soon I detected a certain tolerant amusement in their dealings with me. I remained an enthusiastic participant in the colony’s burgeoning activities, however.

As for Nebogipfel, he remained, naturally enough, something of a recluse in that society of young humans.

Once the immediate medical problems were resolved, and the demands on his time grew less, Nebogipfel took to spending time away from the colony. He visited our old hut, which still stood some miles to the north-east along the beach; and he went for great explorations into the forest. He did not take me into his confidence as to the purpose of these trips. I remembered the Time-Car he had tried to construct, before the arrival of the Expeditionary Force, and I suspected he was returning to some such project; but I knew that the Plattnerite of the Force’s landcruisers had been destroyed in the Bombing, so I could see no purpose in his continuing with that scheme. Still, I did not press Nebogipfel on his activities, reasoning that, of all of us, he was the most isolated — the most removed from the company of his fellows — and so, perhaps, the most in need of tolerance.

Despite the grisly battering they had endured, the colonists were resilient young people, and they were capable of high spirits. Gradually — once we were finished with the Bombing radiation deaths, and — once it was clear that we should not immediately starve or get washed into the Sea — a certain good humor became more evident.

One evening, with the shadows of the dipterocarps stretching towards the ocean, Stubbins found me sitting, as usual, at the verge of the camp, looking back towards the glow of the Bomb pit. With a painful shyness he — to my astonishment — asked me if I would care to join in a game of football! My protests that I had never played a game in my life counted for nothing, and so I found thyself walking back along the beach with him, to where a rough pitch had been marked out in the sand, and posts — scrap timber from the construction of the Hall — had been set up to serve as goals. The “ball” was a palm-nut shell, emptied of its milk, and eight of us prepared to play out the game, a mixture of men and women.

I scarcely expect that dour battle to go down in the annals of sporting history. My own contribution was negligible, save only to expose that utter lack of physical coordination which had made my days at school such a trial. Stubbins was by far the most skilled of us. Only three of the players, including Stubbins, were fully fit and one of those was me, and I was completely done in within ten minutes of the start. The rest were a collection of strapped-up wounds and — comic, pathetic — missing or artificial limbs! But still, as the game wore on, and laughter and shouts of encouragement started to flourish, it seemed to me that my fellow players were really little more than children: battered and bewildered, and now stranded in this ancient Age — but children nevertheless.

What kind of species is it, I wondered, that inflicts such damage on its own offspring?

When the game was done, we retired from our pitch, laughing and exhausted. Stubbins thanked me for joining in.

“Not at all,” I said. “You’re a fair old player, Stubbins. Maybe you should have taken it up as a professional.”

“Aye, well, I did, as a matter of fact,” he said wistfully. “I signed on as an apprentice with Newcastle United… but that was in the early days of the War. Pretty soon that put a stop to the football. Oh, there’s been some competition since — regional leagues, and the League War Cups — but in the last five or six years, even that has been closed down.”

“Well, I think it’s a shame,” I said. “You’ve a talent there, Stubbins.”

He shrugged, his evident disappointment mingling with his natural modesty. “It wasn’t to be.”

“But now you’ve done something much more important,” I consoled him. “You’ve played in the first football match on the earth — and got a hat-trick of goals.” I slapped him on the back. “Now, that’s a feather fit for any cap, Albert!”

As time wore on, it became increasingly apparent — I mean, at that level of the spirit below the intellectual where true knowledge resides — that we should, truly, never return home. Slowly — inevitably, I suppose — partnerships and ties in the twentieth century became remote, and the colonists formed themselves into couples. This pairing off showed no respect for rank, class or race: sepoy, gurkha and English alike joined in new liaisons. Only Hilary Bond, with her residual air of command, remained aloof from it all.

I remarked to Hilary that she might use her rank as a vehicle for performing marriage ceremonies — much as a sea-captain will join passengers in wedlock. She greeted this suggestion with polite thanks, but I caught skepticism in her voice, and we did not pursue the matter.

A little pattern of dwellings spread along the coast and up the river valley from our sea-shore node. Hilary viewed all this with a liberal eye; her only rule was that — for now — no dwelling should be out of sight of at least one other, and none should be more than a mile’s distance from the site of the Hall. The colonists accepted these strictures with good grace.

Hilary’s wisdom regarding the business of marriage — and my converse folly — soon became obvious, for one day I saw Stubbins strolling along the beach with his arms around two young women. I greeted them all cheerfully but it was not until they had passed that I realized that I did not know which of the women was Stubbins’s “wife"!

I challenged Hilary, and I could tell she was suppressing amusement.

“But,” I protested, “I’ve seen Stubbins with Sarah at the barn dance — but then, when I called at his but that morning last week, there was the other girl—”

Now she laughed, and laid her scarred hands on my arms. “My dear friend,” she said, “you have sailed the seas of Space and Time — you have changed History many times; you are a genius beyond doubt — and yet, how little you know of people!”