The alien nods yes and lectures, “What has been decided, is that we will furnish you with a steel knife.  The iron and the carbon are from a time strata of the correct age and location that the advanced tribe could have obtained such material, although they lacked the knowledge to make such a knife.  You will also be furnished with a wooden bow and stone tipped wooden arrows.  Again the stone tips are from the location of the advanced tribe and of the same strata from which they are thought to have obtained their stone spear tips.”

“I assume that the bow and arrow wood is of recent cutting and not seasoned wood.”

The alien says, “Right you are!  It was decided that still living wood would have a better chance of surviving the time travel.  The wood won't be harvested and shaped until just before you go time traveling.”

“Do I also get a quiver for the arrows?”

The alien says, “That is still to be decided.  The latest thought was to have two wooden loops attached to a stick long enough that the arrows would be contained at top and near bottom, with a wood plate at the bottom to keep the arrows from falling out.”

“That seems to take care of the arrows.  Do I have a way to carry the quiver?”

The alien lectures, “A way to carry the quiver needs to be reproducible by the advanced tribe.  There are two thoughts.  The safe way is to have a curved end at the top of the quiver stick, to fit over your shoulder.  That will work, but isn't too reliable.  The other way is to depend upon you finding vines that you can use to make a sling to carry the quiver.”

“Me dumb, you smart.  However, why not give me two quivers?  One with the curved top to the stick, one with vine holes, assuming that I can find vines that will work.  If I find vines, I burn the curved stick quiver in my campfire.  If I don't find vines, I burn the holey stick quiver.”

The alien nods yes, “You may not be as dumb as you think.  I will bring the matter up.”

“I do have one major worry.  I have never traveled back so far in time.  My clothing held up for a time trip of several centuries.  We now seem to be discussing a time trip of several thousand years.  That is quite a difference.”

The alien asks, “Are you worried about arriving naked?”

“Arriving naked doesn't bother me all that much, depending on the temperatures that I might encounter.  Arriving with no shoes, that worries me a great deal.”

The alien muses, “We can't really be sure exactly what season you might arrive, over that long a time travel period.  Arriving naked in a snowstorm could be a real problem.”

“Actually, a primitive tribe, here on Earth has solved the naked problem.  It might be that your people could provide me with the kind of thing that they use.”

The alien asks, “What kind of thing?”

“The primitive tribe lives in an area of constant rain, mostly light drizzle.  They lack the technology to make clothing that will protect them from the damp and cold wind.  Thus, they smear animal fat over their bodies.  It works, although they carry a lot of dirt and insects along with the animal fat.”

The alien says, “We can make you a stone jar, to carry some kind of insulating grease.  The grease might or might not survive the time trip.  I will have to discuss the matter with my people.”

“I take back a bow, strung with recently slaughtered animal gut or with recently sheared animal hair string.  The animal hair might also prove to be a solution to the clothing problem.”

The alien says, "Yes.  Again, something that I will have to discuss with my people."

"I arrive in an area close to where the advanced tribe lives, but not too close.  I figure out what I have and what I don't have.  I put together a local travel kit.  I then use landmarks to find the advanced tribe.  Then, comes the hard part.  I have to deliver the bow and arrows to the advanced tribe.  I don't speak a word of their language, if they have a language.  I have to find some way to leave them with a bow and arrows that they should be able to duplicate, more or less.  I then have to return to the point where I entered their world.  I need a second bow and a few arrows, to make sure that I can survive the trip back to the entry point."

The alien muses, "There obviously will need to be some thought put into exactly what you need to complete your time trip in good fashion.  We have people who are experts in wilderness exploration.  They can design a suite of equipment that you will need for a trip to a wilderness area.  Then, we can review the suite of equipment, considering the special needs of time travel.  I admit that we did not see the need for two bows, so that you might have protection on your way back to the recovery point."

I laugh, "One of the reasons that I survive my time travel trips is that I have learned to very carefully step through the entire process of a time trip, in my mind.  Since it's my survival, I am very careful to consider all of the possible factors."

The aliens muses, "The advanced tribe that we want to help will have a language.  Of course, no one knows what the language is.  You will be unable to converse with the people of the advanced tribe.  That will make things more difficult."

"What do the people of the advanced tribe eat?”

The alien thinks for a moment, "Those who study that kind of thing normally find that people of that age threw their garbage in piles, called middens, on the ground.  They can analyze the fossil remains and give you some idea."

"I am particularly interested in animal remains, bones most likely.  If I appear, dragging some sort of food beastie that I killed with my new weapon, I should have a very good introduction to the people that I need to furnish with bows and arrows."

The alien muses, "Yes, that should work.  I will get you an analysis of what the advanced tribe people eat."

"What if I encounter hostile members of another tribe?"

The alien snorts, "How can you tell one tribe from another?"

"I can tell if the tribesmen who menace me have stone tips on their spears.  That means advanced tribe.  However, I would not be surprised to find that not all of the advanced tribe men have stone tipped spears.  I would try to avoid trouble.  However, if I have to defend myself, I might well wind up killing some of the stone age men."

The alien muses, "The object is for the advanced tribe to survive.  However, you also want to survive.  It might be that there will have to be some compromises."

"One area where there doesn't need to be any compromises is in preparation for my time trip.  You need to have your primitive exploration people do a complete analysis.  Then, we need to run the output from that analysis through a time travel lens.  When I go deep into the past, I need to be as well prepared as I can be."

The aliens asks, "Then, you are willing to accept the assignment?"

"It's going to be a very difficult assignment.  It goes well beyond the bounds of my experience and well beyond the bounds of even your people's experience.  No one really knows much of anything for sure.  Even the experts are only guessing.  Since I have to go a very long way into the past, there is a large element of risk.  Since I have to deal with people that no living person has ever had any contact with, there is another large element of risk.  If you want me to try, I want three times what you paid me for the last time trip."

The alien says, "That's the limit of what pay I am allowed to offer you, but I can offer you what you ask."   

"That settles the pay.  I also want to make the final decisions on what equipment and what type of equipment that I take with me.  I am not trying to be unreasonable, but it is my life at stake."

The alien says, "Yes, I can see what you want.  My university team will support you in any sort of reasonable demand.  We want the advanced tribe people to survive.  If you don't survive the time trip, they probably don't survive."

(We agree, at least in principle.  I finally sign a contact and then it's off to wherever the aliens want me to go.  The trip is somewhat different from previous trips, in that there's a lot of communication back and forth with the aliens, as we travel.)

Once I arrive at the place where the aliens want me to start my time trip, I find that there's a shelter of some sort set up in an otherwise pretty barren landscape.  I get fitted out for my time trip.  I have pretty much what I would have for a camping trip back on Earth.  I have three items that prove to be very useful to me, during my time trip.  I have a fire starter, I have a very small derringer type firearm and I have a pack of dried, self cooking food.

Once I'm fitted out with what I should need, I go into the time machine, the alien technicians activate the device and I suddenly find myself in the dark, in the middle of what must be a very ancient night.  There's a tiny sliver of moon and lots of stars.  However, there's no artificial light at all and it's pitch dark on the ground.

I do have the clothing that I was fitted out with.  Everything seems to have survived the trip deep into the past.

I use the fire starter to provide a bit of light and I see that I'm at the edge of a large rock formation.  I'm near an overhang and I quickly gather some wood and rotting vegetation and I start a camp fire.  The camp fire will keep the beasties off me, but it may lead humans (so to speak) to my camp.  (You have to understand that beasties live in a deadly world.  if a beastie encounters something that it doesn't understand, it may well die if it gets too close.  Thus, beasties stay away from fire.)

I find that there are some vines that I can use to make a sling for my one quiver.  I decide to keep both quivers, so that I can give the curved end stick quiver to one of the cave men.