In 500... (or less)

The Newest Exhibit

The creature wasn't like anything any of them had ever seen.

"What do you suppose that is?" asked one of them.

"Nothing I've ever seen before," answered Deglan. "I'll have to do a little research on it. How much did you want for it?"

"Hmm. Seems pretty unique. I was thinking a hundred thousand."

"A hundred thousand!" Hewran was beside himself. That would empty the museum's budget out for the year. "I can't see paying that for this thing. We don't even know what it is."

"Precisely. It's rare, and that ought to make it valuable." The scavenger wasn't going to be haggled into a lower price. 

Deglan studied the creature. It was quite odd. If it were native, it had to have been a species that died out ages ago. And yet, the specimen seemed well preserved.

"Where did you say you found it?" 

"I told your friend, in the caverns, beyond the crater." The scavenger was growing impatient, but didn't want to offend the curator. He couldn't think of anyone else who would take the beast.

"A hundred thousand it is." He offered the money to the scavenger, to the annoyance of Hewran.

The scavenger scurried from the room, leaving the curious beast laying in the crate.

"Look at this thing," Hewran griped. "A hundred thousand for this ugly, scrawny thing. Even if it is a curiosity, it will take us years to make our money back on it. And you just blew all the curation budget for the year."

"I can't put my finger on it," Deglan replied. "There's something about this thing. I have to know more about it. I've never seen anything like it."

"Doesn't seem like it's decomposed at all. It couldn't have died that long ago."

"Perhaps," Deglan said. "Who knows though? I mean, the conditions in the caverns could be perfect for keeping a specimen intact. We'll need to run some tests."

The pair wheeled the crate into the lab. It took hours to photograph it, to preserve every detail.

"All right, let's seal it up for the night," Deglan told Hewran.

"Wait a minute," Hewran said, looking at some of the analysis that was coming back from the computer. "That's odd."

"What is it?"

"You'd better have a look at this."

Deglan walked over to the monitor and began scanning the information on the screen.

"Impossible. Those were only myths, and at that extinct eons ago. This one looks like it died yesterday," he said.

"Scan the optic nerve. I want to see the last thing it saw."

The screen flickered as Hewran inserted the probe through what he believed was one of the creature's eyes.

The final moments of the creature's life showed on the screen. A flash from the scavenger's weapon, which paralyzed the beast.

"Damn! It was alive and he killed it!" Hewran shouted in disgust. "A live human!"

Neither could have guessed the truth. Before them lay Garrison, the first human to travel into the future.