High Tech And Low Tech II

There are two technology levels in 13,212 BC. The Beringians known to Wanda are naked fishers and gatherers. Suddenly, leather-clad, spear-carrying mammoth hunters with a sexual division of labor arrive from Siberia, Paleo-Indians. Wanda, in the field as a naturalist, must now be joined by an anthropologist.

Meanwhile, we learn more about Patrol technology. Wanda's voice-controlled computer plays music on request. A small instrument on a headband has recorded everything that she saw and heard while she was outside her shelter during the day. (Carl Farness in Gothland has small full sensory recorders.) Wanda inputs her recordings to a databox and also records an audiovisual report illustrated by extracts from the full recording of her experiences, then sends her report in a message capsule to the project office in the twentieth century United States. The office could send a response to arrive immediately but probably judge that she needs a meal and sleep first.

Previously, I have read this passage very quickly and instantly forgotten most of these details.