Alisaura
Blue Crack Supplier
My turn to post! 
As noted, this story is a collaborative effort from Diane and I, and was a lot of fun to write. Thanks for reading/commenting, we hope you enjoy it as much as we did!
It's all ludicrously untrue, of course.
To recap: The lads in their time-lemon have just narrowly avoided the jaws of a digruntled Tyrannosaurus rex.
(If you're looking for the earlier chapters, they're here:
http://www.u2interference.com/forums/f231/another-time-another-place-209133.html
http://www.u2interference.com/forums/f231/another-time-another-place-chapter-2-a-209184.html)
Chapter 3
Ding!
Adam was nearly hyperventilating again. "Is it gone? Are we back home?"
Edge shook his head. "We didn’t go far, only a few hundred years... I don’t know what’s out there, but it’s still the Cretaceous period."
Everyone looked at the screen, and saw a broad river valley stretching out before them. Distant hills rose to still more distant mountains, one of which was smoking gently. A placid-looking river wound gently over a floodplain, and a herd of large shapes ambled over it. Behind them, a forest of evergreens ascended a gentle slope.
"This is nice," Adam said, relaxing. They had all cautiously emerged from the lemon and sat around it, admiring the view.
"At least we can see stuff comin’ now," Larry added, eyeing the slow-moving herd in the distance. "What are they?"
Edge squinted. "Iguanodon, I think... some sort of hadrosaur, anyway. Herbivorous."
Larry was relieved. Edge was quickly becoming ever so impressed with himself again... He'd actually done it! Not only had he travelled through time to the distant past, but he'd gotten them away from that Tyrannosaurus. A sense of heady power and achievement rushed to his beanie, but it was punctured a moment later.
"So....when do we get to go home again?" Bono asked plaintively. "And how did we get here in the first place?"
"That would be your fault, short stuff," Larry snapped.
Bono shot him a glare. "No one asked you, Lardence..."
Adam muttered something about being hungry and tried to ignore the impending argument. He rummaged in his pockets and found some mixed nuts.
Edge was feeling the shaky after-effects of lots of adrenaline combined with god-like power. He pinned Bono with a furious glare.
"I told you not to press that button! Do you have any brain cells at all inside that skull?"
"I didn’t actually think it was real there, Edge!" Bono protested. "I just figured it wouldn’t do anything!"
Edge looked as if his head was about to explode. "You think I’d spend years of my life slaving away at something that WOULDN’T DO ANYTHING?! You're lucky you didn't get us all killed!"
Both had stood up, and they glared at one another before turning and storming off in opposite directions. Adam and Larry glanced at each other, and watched Bono and Edge disappear into different parts of the dim forest.
"Are they going to be all right?" Adam asked, munching on a cashew.
"I can't hear any giant man-eating dinosaurs," Larry said.
"I don't suppose dinosaurs have any idea what we taste like," Adam mused. "We might taste awful."
"I hope so," Larry said, eyeing the trees.
Ten minutes later, Edge and Bono came back to the lemon, a little calmer. Edge was carrying several plant specimens. Bono had a rash.
Edge just looked at him and sighed. "How did you get that?"
Bono looked like a guilty schoolboy. "I was walking and I saw this plant with three leaves that looked pretty, so I wanted to pick it and give it to you as a peace offering but it started to itch instead so I dropped it on the ground again and came back."
"Hold on a minute..." Edge went into the lemon and dug around in a cupboard that the others hadn't noticed before. He returned with a jar of calamine lotion, and handed it to Bono. "Here, put this on the rash, it'll stop the itching."
Bono took the jar dubiously. "But, it's pink..."
Edge rolled his eyes. "Just put it on and stop being such a wuss." Bono complied, while Edge examined the ginkgo and horsetail fronds he'd found.
"Amazing, hardly any angiosperms at all..."
Adam cleared his throat, heading off a botany lecture. "So ... how do we get home, Edge?"
Edge paused.
"Can’t you just punch in the date or whatever and just get us there?" Bono came over, pink ointment adorning his hands and arms and face.
"It's not that simple..."
"You got us here," Larry said. "Why can’t you just dial in our century and take us back?"
Edge was growing exasperated again. "Do you have any idea how hard it was making it so that we wouldn’t materialise in the middle of a mountain or in outer space or beneath the earth’s crust? I told you before, the button Bono pushed was the Random button. I haven't finished the DUMASS yet. I never meant to use it today, just show it to you. I haven't wired up the parts that will allow us to choose exactly where and when to go. I don't know how to get us home." Edge was sitting on the ground, and dropped his head into his hands, his elbows leaning on his knees.
There was silence around the lemon, as it gleamed redly in the setting sun.
"Are we really just stuck here?" Bono asked Edge.
"We're not exactly stuck," Edge said, eyeing the Mesozoic landscape. "We can go somewhere else, but we won't know where. Or when."
Adam's brow was furrowed. "I don't understand... You say we can't get home... but how did we get here?"
"Were you even listening when I explained it all earlier?" Edge said, knowing that they probably hadn't been. "I wired up the Random button before the rest of the controls. Which wouldn't have been a problem if Mr Compulsive-Button-Presser over there hadn't pressed it." The guitarist couldn't help shooting a glance at Bono.
The singer bristled. "How many time do you want me to say I'm sorry?" he said angrily.
"I don't know, however many times it takes to get home!" Edge shouted. He balled his fists up in an effort not to just lose it completely.
"Unless shouting can get us home," Adam put in, "maybe you shouldn't make so much noise. I don't want to attract any more wildlife, if you don't mind."
There was another brief silence.
"We're all listenin' now," Larry said, after checking the area carefully for any more dinosaurs. "I get that we can't go straight back, but there must be somethin' we can do. If we hit the Random button enough times, it could take us home, right?"
"The odds are astronomical..." Bono's eyes started to glaze, and Edge remembered to use small words. "It's very unlikely we can get home using the Random button," he said carefully. "Every time we hit it, we could end up at any point in time, at any point on the earth's surface, or even in a different dimension. The odds of randomly landing exactly back where we started are very very very very very very very very very," Edge took a quick breath, "very very very very VERY small. Practically zero, in fact."
"There must be a way," Larry insisted. He sure as hell wasn't going to accept that he would spend the rest of his life being terrorised by giant dinosaurs, or worse, crammed in a lemon with these three goons.
Bono was still trying to digest how very very very very (etc.) small their odds of getting home were. He whimpered and scooted closer to Adam. "Please think of something, Edge," he said in a small voice. "You're smart, if you can think of how to make the DUMASS, you can think of a way to get home."
"I'll have to finish the homing controls," Edge said, touched by Bono's plea despite still being mad at him for pushing the Random button in the first place. "And I can't do that here. We'll have to use the Random button until we end up somewhere that has the right equipment... and that will be dangerous. We could end up anywhere." He looked at the other three, meeting their eyes. "There will have to be Rules," he said.
Three mute faces nodded, scared.
"The first rule is, NOBODY PRESSES ANY MORE BUTTONS. Not unless I tell them to. Right?"
More nodding, Bono most of all.
"The second rule is, Don't Touch Anything, especially if we're in the past. We don't know what might affect the future, or our present. One dropped handkerchief at the wrong moment might derail history as we know it. Did you ever see that episode of Star Trek when Kirk went back before World War II? Edith Keeler?"
A glance at his band-mates showed that they hadn't seen it.
"Never mind. Just don't touch anything, or save anyone's life. Except for ours. And don't say anything about the future to people in the past, either."
They all nodded again.
"What if we end up in the future?" Adam asked. "Can we touch things then?"
"It might not affect us directly," Edge mused, "but it still wouldn't be a good idea to mess up that future's future..."
Bono piped up. "But what if in that future's future we were supposed to touch something, and if we don't then the future's future history will be messed up...?" Bono had just tied his brain in a knot, and nearly went cross-eyed.
"Don't think about it too much," Edge advised, having tied his own brain in knots many times before. "Just stick to not touching anything."
"Does that thing run on batteries, then?" Larry asked, not wanting to tackle metaphysics just then.
"Yes, and they can be recharged from the solar panels. It takes a couple of days to recharge them from empty, but there is still some power left in them at the moment..."
There was a sudden rumble, and the earth shook. All four of them were on their feet and panicking in milliseconds, huddling together in a fearful knot.
Bono tried to put Larry between the volcano and him, as if that would help. "What was that??"
"That was an earthquake, and quite possibly the volcano erupting," Edge said, peering at the volcano over Adam's head. A thick column of smoke was pouring from it, and more concussions continued to shake the ground. They all fell over in a heap, unable to keep their balance.
"Calm down!" Edge shouted, as the other three got to their feet again and tried to panic in three different directions. "We have to leave, get in the lemon!"
Lava was pouring from the volcano now, as well as smoke. The herd of dinosaurs beside the river was panicking too, and stampeding straight towards them.
"Is there enough battery left?" Larry asked as they ran. The rumble of three hundred terrified hadrosaurs began to drown out the volcano.
"Yes, but we might end up somewhere more dangerous than this..."
"I'll take my chances!" Larry yelped as clouds of steam went up from where the lava had met the river. The dinosaurs bawled and bellowed, only a few hundred metres behind them.
First Larry, then Edge, then Adam made it to the lemon's steps. Edge shoved Adam inside and waited. "Hurry, Bono!"
Bono, gasping, stumbling on the shaking ground, finally reached the steps, and Edge practically dragged him up into the lemon. Dinosaurs thundered past on all sides as the lemon closed and the steps retracted... they were lucky the dinosaurs hadn't collided with them yet. The valley was quickly filling with with smoke and ash and steam and molten rock, and the occasional unlucky, roasted dinosaur.
"Hurry up Edge, get us out of here!" Bono was staring at the view-screen, conveniently forgetting that he'd been lagging behind.
Edge made sure everything was closed and sealed, and hit the Random button again.
The panicked dinosaurs barely noticed when the strange object in their midst vanished in a flash of light.
***
Music blared as the screen showed another dazzling display of swirling lights, and it wasn't until they'd all caught their breath that Bono recognised it.
"Is that Led Zeppelin?"
"Yes... The Lemon Song," Edge admitted. He eyed his machine suspiciously. At least it hadn't played Lemon...
Five minutes later, as they were all wondering what Robert Plant had been on, the flashing lights slowed down and a descending whine drowned out the music. Finally all became still, and the screen showed clouds of smoke gradually thinning around the lemon. It cleared away to reveal... fog.
"Where are we?" Bono asked, trying to peer into the mist outside.
"Don't touch anything," Edge said automatically. "I'm checking the instruments. There's oxygen... Gravity is normal... Temperature 11 degrees Celsius... No toxins in the vicinity..."
They all looked at Adam.
"Don't look at me," Adam said, slightly miffed at his association with noxious fumes.
"There are life forms of some kind in the vicinity, a small group," Edge continued. "I don't know what sort, but by the lack of pollutants in the atmosphere, I'd say we've arrived somewhere well before human civilisation. We should be safe enough here while the batteries recharge." He pointed to a digital display, which showed a little battery icon blinking on and off.
"I'm hungry," Bono complained. "Is there any food in here?"
They all realised it had been some time since they'd eaten... about 70 million years, in fact. Adam had eaten all his nuts.
"Let me see if I can find something," Edge said, and opened a door in the inner wall of the lemon. He disappeared through and closed it after him.
Adam, Larry and Bono all looked at each other, perplexed.
Edge re-emerged a few minutes later with a collection of sandwiches and fruit, and handed them out. "Sorry Larry, they all had turkey except for one with egg."
Larry accepted his sandwich, still confused about where Edge had been.
"At least Adam doesn't have the egg sandwich," Bono smirked.
After they'd eaten, the silence in the lemon started to weigh on them all.
"Are we just going to sit here for two days, then?" Larry asked. "You got a pack of cards or something behind that door?"
Edge's face grew pensive. "I'm not sure," he said. "Maybe."
Before Larry could quiz him further on this, Bono's itchy feet got the better of him. "Can we go outside? I promise I won't touch any plants again..."
"It would be safer if we stayed in here..."
They all looked at Adam again. He rolled his eyes. "You're all safe enough for the time being," he muttered.
"Why did you build this thing, Edge?" Larry asked. "It wasn't so you could travel through time and space and just sit inside it and look at the past on television, was it? What's the point of travelling through time if you can't go outside?"
Edge sighed. "All right, but just be careful! We'll stay together this time, all right?"
They all went outside, and found themselves shivering in the cool, clammy air, looking at the lemon through the mist.
"It's a bit conspicuous, isn't it," Adam observed.
"I haven't finished the cloaking device, either," Edge said. "Come on, let's go for a walk if that's what you want."
The lemon had landed on a broad plain, dotted with small patches of trees. The ground became rocky to the west, rising to a few jagged hills.
The four men discovered that the trees tended to be grouped around small streams, and that there were animals there. After being growled at by something in the undergrowth in one thicket, they decided to leave the trees alone and stick to open country.
"D'you have any idea when we are, Edge?" Bono asked, looking around curiously. The air smelled very clean and fresh, if a bit cold. They were leaving a wide trail of flattened grass behind them. "Or where, for that matter..."
Edge considered. "From the plants I can see, and the readings I took before, I think we're in Ice Age Europe," he said at last.
"What, like mammoths and everything?" Adam asked, looking around again. He couldn't see any mammoths.
"Yes, mammoths and woolly rhinoceroses and cave bears and lions and wolves and everything," Edge said.
"Can we see a mammoth, Edge?" Bono asked, his eyes alight.
"Only if one comes close to the lemon. I'm not driving that thing around looking for mamm--"
Edge was cut short as a burly man wearing several furs stepped in front of them, levelling a spear at their chests. Two others were behind him. They were all bearded, their eyes shadowed by slight brow ridges.
"Help!" Larry leapt into Bono's arms. Adam stepped back from both of them, and the spear-carrying men. Edge found himself at the front, staring at the three representatives of Palaeolithic humanity. He was only just taller than them, and Bono and Larry were definitely shorter.
"Don't move," Edge whispered.
Bono groaned. "But..."
"Sshh!"
One of the cavemen said something in a guttural voice, gesturing with his stone-tipped spear. Edge stepped back, holding his hands up and trying to look harmless.
"Um, hi. We come in peace..."
Bono's arms finally gave way and Larry crashed to the ground. "Ow..." The bruised drummer started to get to his feet, but found a spear in front of his face. He froze. "Eep."
Bono was mouthing 'Sorry' to him, but Larry couldn't even turn and give him a proper death glare.
Through grunts and hand gestures they were led to the camp that was just over the next ridge. When they got there they saw some tent like structures and a fire pit in the middle. They were led to what they assumed was the leader. He was the biggest and hairiest one there.
Again, through hand gestures and grunts, they tried to get across that they were harmless. Somehow they were understood and were welcomed into the group.
After being led around in a kind of tour they were seated around the fire and were given food and water. Unfortunately, for Larry anyway, they were given deer meat. Larry was trying to figure out how to tell them that he was a vegetarian.
"Just eat it Larry," Edge whispered to him. "You don't want to offend them."
"But I can't!" Larry hissed back.
"Just pretend then! We really don't need to get on the bad side of pre-historic people with sharp instruments," Edge said back testily.
Larry somehow made it look like he was eating when in reality he was getting rather hungry. He spied some fruits and grabbed them before anyone noticed he wasn't eating the meat.
When the meal was apparently over, the women cleared the left-over food and dishes away. One of them was getting kind of friendly with Larry, patting his arm and grunting at him. Larry just looked at her with a nervous kind of smile.
"I think she likes you Lar," Bono said teasingly.
"Feck off B," he said back.
They saw the men getting what looked like drums out from one of the structures. Larry looked at them with increasing interest.
"That looks like a bodhran." Larry said excitedly. "I wonder if they'd let me play one."
Larry then gestured toward one of them with a questioning look on his face. The woman who was interested in him tried to figure out what he wanted.
"Can I play that?" Larry asked while pointing at it.
The woman then handed it to him.
"I didn't know this was as old as this. I thought it was invented a lot later on," Larry said to Edge.
"Well," said Edge, "The bodhran was apparently used in 1603 and that is as far back as anyone has dated it, but there is evidence that there was an earlier version of it that was used by the Celts and may date back farther than that."
"That was so much more than I needed to know," Larry said a bit sarcastically.
Some of the men started playing the drums and got into a rhythm. Larry started playing a counter part and was really getting into it. The others wished they could get their guitars but then remembered what Edge said about doing things in the past.
Edges hands started moving like he was playing and his gaze went far away. Bono's head started getting full of words and ideas, he was mumbling lyrics under his breath. Adam's hands were moving too.
Some of the women get up to dance around the fire. Two of them went over to Bono and Edge and pulled them up to dance. Adam had to try to not laugh when Bono was doing his impression of the dancing he did in the "I Will Follow" video. Some of the cavemen were looking at him a little weird.
Edge was doing his version of the funky chicken. More of the cavemen were laughing out loud at that.
The woman from before sat down next to Larry and was just staring at him. Larry was beginning to get very nervous.
"Hi," he said.
She just kept staring. Finally she got up and went over to the leader and was talking to him. She then went into a tent. They didn't see her for the rest of the night.
Finally, the drumming stopped and they were shown to an empty tent. There were blankets of fur and pallets of grass on the floor.
Since none of them could actually remember the last time they slept, they were very grateful for the opportunity. They laid down and after a few minutes all you could hear was Bono snoring.
****
As noted, this story is a collaborative effort from Diane and I, and was a lot of fun to write. Thanks for reading/commenting, we hope you enjoy it as much as we did!
It's all ludicrously untrue, of course.
To recap: The lads in their time-lemon have just narrowly avoided the jaws of a digruntled Tyrannosaurus rex.
(If you're looking for the earlier chapters, they're here:
http://www.u2interference.com/forums/f231/another-time-another-place-209133.html
http://www.u2interference.com/forums/f231/another-time-another-place-chapter-2-a-209184.html)
Chapter 3
Ding!
Adam was nearly hyperventilating again. "Is it gone? Are we back home?"
Edge shook his head. "We didn’t go far, only a few hundred years... I don’t know what’s out there, but it’s still the Cretaceous period."
Everyone looked at the screen, and saw a broad river valley stretching out before them. Distant hills rose to still more distant mountains, one of which was smoking gently. A placid-looking river wound gently over a floodplain, and a herd of large shapes ambled over it. Behind them, a forest of evergreens ascended a gentle slope.
"This is nice," Adam said, relaxing. They had all cautiously emerged from the lemon and sat around it, admiring the view.
"At least we can see stuff comin’ now," Larry added, eyeing the slow-moving herd in the distance. "What are they?"
Edge squinted. "Iguanodon, I think... some sort of hadrosaur, anyway. Herbivorous."
Larry was relieved. Edge was quickly becoming ever so impressed with himself again... He'd actually done it! Not only had he travelled through time to the distant past, but he'd gotten them away from that Tyrannosaurus. A sense of heady power and achievement rushed to his beanie, but it was punctured a moment later.
"So....when do we get to go home again?" Bono asked plaintively. "And how did we get here in the first place?"
"That would be your fault, short stuff," Larry snapped.
Bono shot him a glare. "No one asked you, Lardence..."
Adam muttered something about being hungry and tried to ignore the impending argument. He rummaged in his pockets and found some mixed nuts.
Edge was feeling the shaky after-effects of lots of adrenaline combined with god-like power. He pinned Bono with a furious glare.
"I told you not to press that button! Do you have any brain cells at all inside that skull?"
"I didn’t actually think it was real there, Edge!" Bono protested. "I just figured it wouldn’t do anything!"
Edge looked as if his head was about to explode. "You think I’d spend years of my life slaving away at something that WOULDN’T DO ANYTHING?! You're lucky you didn't get us all killed!"
Both had stood up, and they glared at one another before turning and storming off in opposite directions. Adam and Larry glanced at each other, and watched Bono and Edge disappear into different parts of the dim forest.
"Are they going to be all right?" Adam asked, munching on a cashew.
"I can't hear any giant man-eating dinosaurs," Larry said.
"I don't suppose dinosaurs have any idea what we taste like," Adam mused. "We might taste awful."
"I hope so," Larry said, eyeing the trees.
Ten minutes later, Edge and Bono came back to the lemon, a little calmer. Edge was carrying several plant specimens. Bono had a rash.
Edge just looked at him and sighed. "How did you get that?"
Bono looked like a guilty schoolboy. "I was walking and I saw this plant with three leaves that looked pretty, so I wanted to pick it and give it to you as a peace offering but it started to itch instead so I dropped it on the ground again and came back."
"Hold on a minute..." Edge went into the lemon and dug around in a cupboard that the others hadn't noticed before. He returned with a jar of calamine lotion, and handed it to Bono. "Here, put this on the rash, it'll stop the itching."
Bono took the jar dubiously. "But, it's pink..."
Edge rolled his eyes. "Just put it on and stop being such a wuss." Bono complied, while Edge examined the ginkgo and horsetail fronds he'd found.
"Amazing, hardly any angiosperms at all..."
Adam cleared his throat, heading off a botany lecture. "So ... how do we get home, Edge?"
Edge paused.
"Can’t you just punch in the date or whatever and just get us there?" Bono came over, pink ointment adorning his hands and arms and face.
"It's not that simple..."
"You got us here," Larry said. "Why can’t you just dial in our century and take us back?"
Edge was growing exasperated again. "Do you have any idea how hard it was making it so that we wouldn’t materialise in the middle of a mountain or in outer space or beneath the earth’s crust? I told you before, the button Bono pushed was the Random button. I haven't finished the DUMASS yet. I never meant to use it today, just show it to you. I haven't wired up the parts that will allow us to choose exactly where and when to go. I don't know how to get us home." Edge was sitting on the ground, and dropped his head into his hands, his elbows leaning on his knees.
There was silence around the lemon, as it gleamed redly in the setting sun.
"Are we really just stuck here?" Bono asked Edge.
"We're not exactly stuck," Edge said, eyeing the Mesozoic landscape. "We can go somewhere else, but we won't know where. Or when."
Adam's brow was furrowed. "I don't understand... You say we can't get home... but how did we get here?"
"Were you even listening when I explained it all earlier?" Edge said, knowing that they probably hadn't been. "I wired up the Random button before the rest of the controls. Which wouldn't have been a problem if Mr Compulsive-Button-Presser over there hadn't pressed it." The guitarist couldn't help shooting a glance at Bono.
The singer bristled. "How many time do you want me to say I'm sorry?" he said angrily.
"I don't know, however many times it takes to get home!" Edge shouted. He balled his fists up in an effort not to just lose it completely.
"Unless shouting can get us home," Adam put in, "maybe you shouldn't make so much noise. I don't want to attract any more wildlife, if you don't mind."
There was another brief silence.
"We're all listenin' now," Larry said, after checking the area carefully for any more dinosaurs. "I get that we can't go straight back, but there must be somethin' we can do. If we hit the Random button enough times, it could take us home, right?"
"The odds are astronomical..." Bono's eyes started to glaze, and Edge remembered to use small words. "It's very unlikely we can get home using the Random button," he said carefully. "Every time we hit it, we could end up at any point in time, at any point on the earth's surface, or even in a different dimension. The odds of randomly landing exactly back where we started are very very very very very very very very very," Edge took a quick breath, "very very very very VERY small. Practically zero, in fact."
"There must be a way," Larry insisted. He sure as hell wasn't going to accept that he would spend the rest of his life being terrorised by giant dinosaurs, or worse, crammed in a lemon with these three goons.
Bono was still trying to digest how very very very very (etc.) small their odds of getting home were. He whimpered and scooted closer to Adam. "Please think of something, Edge," he said in a small voice. "You're smart, if you can think of how to make the DUMASS, you can think of a way to get home."
"I'll have to finish the homing controls," Edge said, touched by Bono's plea despite still being mad at him for pushing the Random button in the first place. "And I can't do that here. We'll have to use the Random button until we end up somewhere that has the right equipment... and that will be dangerous. We could end up anywhere." He looked at the other three, meeting their eyes. "There will have to be Rules," he said.
Three mute faces nodded, scared.
"The first rule is, NOBODY PRESSES ANY MORE BUTTONS. Not unless I tell them to. Right?"
More nodding, Bono most of all.
"The second rule is, Don't Touch Anything, especially if we're in the past. We don't know what might affect the future, or our present. One dropped handkerchief at the wrong moment might derail history as we know it. Did you ever see that episode of Star Trek when Kirk went back before World War II? Edith Keeler?"
A glance at his band-mates showed that they hadn't seen it.
"Never mind. Just don't touch anything, or save anyone's life. Except for ours. And don't say anything about the future to people in the past, either."
They all nodded again.
"What if we end up in the future?" Adam asked. "Can we touch things then?"
"It might not affect us directly," Edge mused, "but it still wouldn't be a good idea to mess up that future's future..."
Bono piped up. "But what if in that future's future we were supposed to touch something, and if we don't then the future's future history will be messed up...?" Bono had just tied his brain in a knot, and nearly went cross-eyed.
"Don't think about it too much," Edge advised, having tied his own brain in knots many times before. "Just stick to not touching anything."
"Does that thing run on batteries, then?" Larry asked, not wanting to tackle metaphysics just then.
"Yes, and they can be recharged from the solar panels. It takes a couple of days to recharge them from empty, but there is still some power left in them at the moment..."
There was a sudden rumble, and the earth shook. All four of them were on their feet and panicking in milliseconds, huddling together in a fearful knot.
Bono tried to put Larry between the volcano and him, as if that would help. "What was that??"
"That was an earthquake, and quite possibly the volcano erupting," Edge said, peering at the volcano over Adam's head. A thick column of smoke was pouring from it, and more concussions continued to shake the ground. They all fell over in a heap, unable to keep their balance.
"Calm down!" Edge shouted, as the other three got to their feet again and tried to panic in three different directions. "We have to leave, get in the lemon!"
Lava was pouring from the volcano now, as well as smoke. The herd of dinosaurs beside the river was panicking too, and stampeding straight towards them.
"Is there enough battery left?" Larry asked as they ran. The rumble of three hundred terrified hadrosaurs began to drown out the volcano.
"Yes, but we might end up somewhere more dangerous than this..."
"I'll take my chances!" Larry yelped as clouds of steam went up from where the lava had met the river. The dinosaurs bawled and bellowed, only a few hundred metres behind them.
First Larry, then Edge, then Adam made it to the lemon's steps. Edge shoved Adam inside and waited. "Hurry, Bono!"
Bono, gasping, stumbling on the shaking ground, finally reached the steps, and Edge practically dragged him up into the lemon. Dinosaurs thundered past on all sides as the lemon closed and the steps retracted... they were lucky the dinosaurs hadn't collided with them yet. The valley was quickly filling with with smoke and ash and steam and molten rock, and the occasional unlucky, roasted dinosaur.
"Hurry up Edge, get us out of here!" Bono was staring at the view-screen, conveniently forgetting that he'd been lagging behind.
Edge made sure everything was closed and sealed, and hit the Random button again.
The panicked dinosaurs barely noticed when the strange object in their midst vanished in a flash of light.
***
Music blared as the screen showed another dazzling display of swirling lights, and it wasn't until they'd all caught their breath that Bono recognised it.
"Is that Led Zeppelin?"
"Yes... The Lemon Song," Edge admitted. He eyed his machine suspiciously. At least it hadn't played Lemon...
Five minutes later, as they were all wondering what Robert Plant had been on, the flashing lights slowed down and a descending whine drowned out the music. Finally all became still, and the screen showed clouds of smoke gradually thinning around the lemon. It cleared away to reveal... fog.
"Where are we?" Bono asked, trying to peer into the mist outside.
"Don't touch anything," Edge said automatically. "I'm checking the instruments. There's oxygen... Gravity is normal... Temperature 11 degrees Celsius... No toxins in the vicinity..."
They all looked at Adam.
"Don't look at me," Adam said, slightly miffed at his association with noxious fumes.
"There are life forms of some kind in the vicinity, a small group," Edge continued. "I don't know what sort, but by the lack of pollutants in the atmosphere, I'd say we've arrived somewhere well before human civilisation. We should be safe enough here while the batteries recharge." He pointed to a digital display, which showed a little battery icon blinking on and off.
"I'm hungry," Bono complained. "Is there any food in here?"
They all realised it had been some time since they'd eaten... about 70 million years, in fact. Adam had eaten all his nuts.
"Let me see if I can find something," Edge said, and opened a door in the inner wall of the lemon. He disappeared through and closed it after him.
Adam, Larry and Bono all looked at each other, perplexed.
Edge re-emerged a few minutes later with a collection of sandwiches and fruit, and handed them out. "Sorry Larry, they all had turkey except for one with egg."
Larry accepted his sandwich, still confused about where Edge had been.
"At least Adam doesn't have the egg sandwich," Bono smirked.
After they'd eaten, the silence in the lemon started to weigh on them all.
"Are we just going to sit here for two days, then?" Larry asked. "You got a pack of cards or something behind that door?"
Edge's face grew pensive. "I'm not sure," he said. "Maybe."
Before Larry could quiz him further on this, Bono's itchy feet got the better of him. "Can we go outside? I promise I won't touch any plants again..."
"It would be safer if we stayed in here..."
They all looked at Adam again. He rolled his eyes. "You're all safe enough for the time being," he muttered.
"Why did you build this thing, Edge?" Larry asked. "It wasn't so you could travel through time and space and just sit inside it and look at the past on television, was it? What's the point of travelling through time if you can't go outside?"
Edge sighed. "All right, but just be careful! We'll stay together this time, all right?"
They all went outside, and found themselves shivering in the cool, clammy air, looking at the lemon through the mist.
"It's a bit conspicuous, isn't it," Adam observed.
"I haven't finished the cloaking device, either," Edge said. "Come on, let's go for a walk if that's what you want."
The lemon had landed on a broad plain, dotted with small patches of trees. The ground became rocky to the west, rising to a few jagged hills.
The four men discovered that the trees tended to be grouped around small streams, and that there were animals there. After being growled at by something in the undergrowth in one thicket, they decided to leave the trees alone and stick to open country.
"D'you have any idea when we are, Edge?" Bono asked, looking around curiously. The air smelled very clean and fresh, if a bit cold. They were leaving a wide trail of flattened grass behind them. "Or where, for that matter..."
Edge considered. "From the plants I can see, and the readings I took before, I think we're in Ice Age Europe," he said at last.
"What, like mammoths and everything?" Adam asked, looking around again. He couldn't see any mammoths.
"Yes, mammoths and woolly rhinoceroses and cave bears and lions and wolves and everything," Edge said.
"Can we see a mammoth, Edge?" Bono asked, his eyes alight.
"Only if one comes close to the lemon. I'm not driving that thing around looking for mamm--"
Edge was cut short as a burly man wearing several furs stepped in front of them, levelling a spear at their chests. Two others were behind him. They were all bearded, their eyes shadowed by slight brow ridges.
"Help!" Larry leapt into Bono's arms. Adam stepped back from both of them, and the spear-carrying men. Edge found himself at the front, staring at the three representatives of Palaeolithic humanity. He was only just taller than them, and Bono and Larry were definitely shorter.
"Don't move," Edge whispered.
Bono groaned. "But..."
"Sshh!"
One of the cavemen said something in a guttural voice, gesturing with his stone-tipped spear. Edge stepped back, holding his hands up and trying to look harmless.
"Um, hi. We come in peace..."
Bono's arms finally gave way and Larry crashed to the ground. "Ow..." The bruised drummer started to get to his feet, but found a spear in front of his face. He froze. "Eep."
Bono was mouthing 'Sorry' to him, but Larry couldn't even turn and give him a proper death glare.
Through grunts and hand gestures they were led to the camp that was just over the next ridge. When they got there they saw some tent like structures and a fire pit in the middle. They were led to what they assumed was the leader. He was the biggest and hairiest one there.
Again, through hand gestures and grunts, they tried to get across that they were harmless. Somehow they were understood and were welcomed into the group.
After being led around in a kind of tour they were seated around the fire and were given food and water. Unfortunately, for Larry anyway, they were given deer meat. Larry was trying to figure out how to tell them that he was a vegetarian.
"Just eat it Larry," Edge whispered to him. "You don't want to offend them."
"But I can't!" Larry hissed back.
"Just pretend then! We really don't need to get on the bad side of pre-historic people with sharp instruments," Edge said back testily.
Larry somehow made it look like he was eating when in reality he was getting rather hungry. He spied some fruits and grabbed them before anyone noticed he wasn't eating the meat.
When the meal was apparently over, the women cleared the left-over food and dishes away. One of them was getting kind of friendly with Larry, patting his arm and grunting at him. Larry just looked at her with a nervous kind of smile.
"I think she likes you Lar," Bono said teasingly.
"Feck off B," he said back.
They saw the men getting what looked like drums out from one of the structures. Larry looked at them with increasing interest.
"That looks like a bodhran." Larry said excitedly. "I wonder if they'd let me play one."
Larry then gestured toward one of them with a questioning look on his face. The woman who was interested in him tried to figure out what he wanted.
"Can I play that?" Larry asked while pointing at it.
The woman then handed it to him.
"I didn't know this was as old as this. I thought it was invented a lot later on," Larry said to Edge.
"Well," said Edge, "The bodhran was apparently used in 1603 and that is as far back as anyone has dated it, but there is evidence that there was an earlier version of it that was used by the Celts and may date back farther than that."
"That was so much more than I needed to know," Larry said a bit sarcastically.
Some of the men started playing the drums and got into a rhythm. Larry started playing a counter part and was really getting into it. The others wished they could get their guitars but then remembered what Edge said about doing things in the past.
Edges hands started moving like he was playing and his gaze went far away. Bono's head started getting full of words and ideas, he was mumbling lyrics under his breath. Adam's hands were moving too.
Some of the women get up to dance around the fire. Two of them went over to Bono and Edge and pulled them up to dance. Adam had to try to not laugh when Bono was doing his impression of the dancing he did in the "I Will Follow" video. Some of the cavemen were looking at him a little weird.
Edge was doing his version of the funky chicken. More of the cavemen were laughing out loud at that.
The woman from before sat down next to Larry and was just staring at him. Larry was beginning to get very nervous.
"Hi," he said.
She just kept staring. Finally she got up and went over to the leader and was talking to him. She then went into a tent. They didn't see her for the rest of the night.
Finally, the drumming stopped and they were shown to an empty tent. There were blankets of fur and pallets of grass on the floor.
Since none of them could actually remember the last time they slept, they were very grateful for the opportunity. They laid down and after a few minutes all you could hear was Bono snoring.
****
