On the Rocks

by Peter Rhodan

  After a couple of repeats Oween got the idea, repeated the word for food and mouthed eating, then pointed up the mountain to the north of the lake. Arturo looked up the barren side of the massif, repeated the word and gesture then also pointed up the mountain. Oween nodded and smiled and then pointed repeatedly as if saying that is where we have to go.

  “Ok, ok.” Arturo responded, nodding, and then started collecting his things. He finished up attaching the second sword to his belt on his right hip, using Oween’s scabbard, much to that man’s obvious chagrin. After pulling down the ground sheet form where he had propped it up as a shelter in case it rained, he gave it to Oween to carry figuring he should do some of the work as well. Oween shrugged as he accepted the ground sheet then his eyes widened as felt the artificial material with his hands and rubbed it between his fingers. He fiddled with it and tried stretching it, all the while giving Arturo surreptitious looks and from his reaction Arturo had to conclude artificial materials were either scarce or non-existent in this part of the planet.

  They struggled up the mountain along some path that only Oween could see amongst the water carved gullies and channels. Rocky outcrops forced diversions and while parts were no worse that gradual series of steps others were steep enough to require two hands to be used in keeping him climbing. Whenever Arturo seemed to be lagging Oween would try and encourage him by waving his arms in a ‘come on’ fashion and by miming eating food and saying the word for food. In truth the way wasn’t as bad as it had seemed likely to be from the lake shore, but even so it was not long before Arturo’s spacer legs were aching besides the collection of bumps and scrapes he had collected as they climbed. Not to mention his back, hunched over as they climbed and his feet for that matter. If he never did this climb again it would not be too soon he thought to himself.

  After what seemed like kilometres but was probably less than a thousand metres, they came to a small stream or nant as Oween called it which he then proceeded up setting what Arturo was finding a killing pace. If anything the going was harder climbing upslope alongside the stream and Arturo was just about to call a halt when they came to junction with another even smaller stream coming down the slope from the west. Oween pointed up this new stream fully intending to head off that way so Arturo quickly put up his hand and sat on a convenient rock and feigned sleeping with his hands. Oween got the idea with a grin and found a suitable spot to park his behind and wait for Arturo to recover his breath enough to continue.

  Even while resting he kept up the language learning. Oween seemed ready enough to help and showed no real animosity towards his captor despite Arturo having killed his fellow brigand whose name Arturo had eventually discovered to have been Gwillam. Arturo got the impression Oween was not that happy with Gwillam and not all that sorry to see the end of him although his still limited language skills prevented him from finding out exactly where things had stood between the two men but there was certainly a lack of grief over the man’s demise that painted its’ own picture. Eventually he decided he was rested enough to continue climbing to wherever it was they were heading. The decision to resume climbing was one he found himself regretting within no more than five minutes of starting up the rugged slope once more as his aching leg muscles and lower back let him know in no uncertain terms.

  Fortunately for his legs and back they only had to climb another couple of hundred metres and they reached a sort of lean-to made of stone with a roof of what appeared to be sods of moss or something equally earthy to Arturo. The small dwelling or building, although calling it house Arturo felt was being over generous, only covered about three metres square and did not appear particularly inviting but Oween was acting like it was a mansion. There was a simple wooden door leading inside and despite the gloom in there Arturo could see the roof was actually composed of flat stones of some type held up with wooden beams. Why the sods were top was something he would have to enquire about in the future as he had no idea of their purpose or why you would go to all the trouble of sticking them on the roof and they certainly added an earthy aroma to the quite dank little building.

  Sticking his head inside revealed what could only be a small hearth on the left side of the room and two sleeping spots. Arturo refused to honour the clammy looking, grime covered things made of what appeared to be animal skins by giving them the title of bed. He thought wistfully of the brand new auto contour bed he and his wife shared at home which they had purchased just before he had headed out on this cruise and shook his head sadly. Thinking of home was a bad move and he found himself choking up on the memory of the last few days, the people who had died and the loss of his ship and the sense of being marooned here forever and he had great trouble mastering his emotions. Fortunately, Oween was too busy showing off his mansion to notice Arturo's near breakdown.

  Outside Arturo discovered there was a small annex on the far side of the building inside of which hung two rabbits. Not being one of the survivalist nuts Arturo had no idea of the purpose behind hanging them here but Oween grabbed one, taking it off the metal hook it hung from and bringing it out front where there were a couple of boulders conveniently placed to act as chairs. He sat and motioned for the knife Arturo had confiscated. After a moment's hesitation Arturo handed it over and the native began skinning the rabbit. He was not sure why the fellow now seemed only too happy to share things with Arturo after the attempted overnight mugging but Oween seemed to be happy to treat Arturo as his new partner as he was clearly Arturo’s best, and so far, only source for local information he supposed that sooner or later he would have to trust him.

  Arturo was a product of a technological civilization so while intellectually he was aware a lot food was sourced from animals he had never witnessed something like this before. The skinning was done quickly if rather messily with an obviously well practised Oween using the knife quite effectively and Arturo was surprised by how little time it took Oween to finish the task. He then collected some wood from a pile of small branches near the entrance to the hovel and indicating to Arturo to grab some as well went inside with his rabbit.

  Not entirely sure he wanted to sample this delicacy, even if cooked, he did as Oween had implied and grabbed some of the wood before following his new companion into the damp, smelly building. Oween already had the fire starting to pick up which surprised Arturo until he realised that there must have been still hot embers buried in the hearth from the previous use and then he watched fascinated as the fellow erected a small frame thing over the growing fire on which he hung the rabbit horizontally. Once happy it was cooking well he headed outside again with two wooden bowl like objects that were apparently used as cups. He returned momentarily with them full of water and poured this into a large earthenware pot he dragged out of a corner. This he proceeded to prop up near the fire under the lower end of the rabbit so that the juices from the slowly cooking animal would drip into the waiting pot.

  Instead of being revolted, Arturo found himself impressed with the easy competence of his new found companion plus the rather pleasant smell of the cooking rabbit was having an interesting effect on his senses, making him feel rather hungrier than he had noticed up to this point. Oween motioned him back outside, bringing the cups with him and once outdoors he went over to the stream and filled them, offering one to Arturo.

  Arturo looked at the water in the cup in his hand then looked around the camp site. He couldn’t see any obvious latrines so he mimed the appropriate actions and Oween nodded and pointed at a spot down the slope where there were a couple of rocks placed to form a platform. Wandering over Arturo could tell from the smell he had the right place. It was near enough to the stream for the water to be useful in getting rid of unwanted material while being clearly downstream from where Oween had procured the water and while he would have preferred to use the purifier he decided to rely on his natural defences and drank the water Oween had offered him once he returned from his errand.

  Oween stuck his head in the hut to check on the rabbit
then motioned Arturo to follow him up the slope to the west. It was only a short trip till they reached the ridge edge and Arturo whistled as he took in the view. Down below was the valley next to the lake where they had attacked him. To his left was the other lake where his shuttle was entombed and beyond that more mountains with the ground rising up from the lake in what looked to be a fairly rough pass through to the next valley. To his right through a gap in the surrounding mountains he could just make out green lowlands and just maybe the hint of an ocean beyond. It was really too hazy to be sure but that was the impression he got looking west. The wind was a good deal stronger at this exposed point, but the air smelled fresh and carried none of the stink of an industrial planet. The lowland vista was indistinct but hinted at farmed fields and apparently roads of some description from the straightness of some of the lines that appeared to cross the view. There were more wooded areas than farmlands but at least there was some signs of civilisation out there, possibly even a plume of smoke or two.

  After letting Arturo soak in the view for a few minutes Oween tapped him on the shoulder and indicated the hovel and together they headed indoors to check on the cooking rabbit. It was messy and not properly cooked but Arturo found it extremely tasty. Of course after several days on ration bars pretty much any natural food would have seemed tasty. That night Arturo mimed having his throat cut and pointed at Oween who immediately tried to make it clear that Arturo was safe and more besides. At least that was what Arturo interpreted the actions to mean. He thought about retrieving the knife but then decided he would have to trust the native sooner or later and although the man’s attitude puzzled him he decided that being on hostile ground alone left him little alternative but to go with the flow, so to speak.

  Arturo spent some time shoving the skins around on the pallet that Oween had indicated he use he tried as best he could to get comfortable and once he actually lay down, with the day’s exertions behind him, he fell asleep almost immediately. He awoke the next morning which meant his throat remained uncut and over the next few days he worked at learning the primary tongue of Oween, but also as much as he could of the other tongue the man spoke. Along the way he learnt something of rabbit trapping, bird trapping and about a couple of local wild plants that were edible and which presumably provided some of the missing elements in their otherwise steady diet of rabbit protein. He learnt about the currency, how Oween had a good deal more coins in his purse than Gwillam's had contained and reading between the lines Arturo got the impression Oween had been the brains of the outfit. The coins were still being used as currency but were disappearing rapidly as Oween explained later, saying that it was a combination of the withdrawal of the Rufanig garrisons and that people were either hoarding or melting them down. It was obvious that Oween had little understanding of economics except what he needed for practical living in a primitive society that was apparently rapidly descending from a simple currency based one to one based on barter for the exchange of goods and services.

  Arturo wondered if this was an ongoing decline, continuing since the collapse of the Empire had cut this planet off from the rest of the galaxy or just a local ebb and flow of the very low tech level civilisation the planet sported now. He tried to remember more of the ancient history he had done in Naval College which had been part of the background information taught in relation to making contact with colonies that had gone backwards technologically after the Empire's fall. His own world of Pellucidor had never lost civilisation but as it had been a low level resort planet under the Empire it had taken his people a long time to get back into space, and an even longer time to successfully counter the Empire defence batteries on the jump point. In fact they were just about to launch a final assault to clear the last battery when a Federation squadron had jumped through and finished the task for them. The victorious Federation squadron then ensured that Pellucidor was co-opted into the Federation, not entirely willingly at the time, although that was long ago and Pellucidor was one of the more important Federation worlds now.

  As the days passed he also learnt a good deal about his companion that he found rather surprising. For one Arturo had vastly superior night vision, which was odd because that had been a product of racial genetic tinkering way back in the early Empire days or possibly even pre-Empire as some historians claimed. That was before the backlash and later banning of human genetic tinkering which had followed an attempted coup led by genetically engineered military units and moles in the Imperial bureaucracy. The Federation had adopted large parts of the Imperial legal code on the way back up from the collapse of the Empire, including the provisions against genetic tinkering, although other parts had been ignored or significantly changed due to the different political structure of the Federation. Arturo assumed it still went on underground as Arturo knew of one fellow officer from a rich family who had somehow managed to have the aroma of his sweat changed because his partner hadn't like it. During several careful tests with Oween, Arturo discovered he was also quicker, stronger and faster and from things Oween said he would also live a great deal longer, even without access to cell regen treatments as such technology was completely unheard of here, indeed Oween looked at him very strangely when he tried to explain for the local’s benefit.

  Arturo was very vague about his own origins, which he could see annoyed Oween, but made up for it by showing the man some of his tech, including the purifier. Oween also showed an interest in how he had lost to a man with a pole and this turned into a regular sparring session, Arturo taking the opportunity to begin learning to use a sword as he figured it would be skill he might need on this backward planet. Oween picked up the basics of kendo much quicker than Arturo did the local sword fighting, much to his chagrin. He also decided rather rapidly that Oween was much a much better natural swordsman than he was and if they two brigands had tried to rob him in daylight he rather thought things may have gone very differently during the ambush, even though Arturo’s kendo fighting style was something completely new to Oween.

  The more Arturo learnt of what he dubbed Oween’s native tongue, the more puzzled he became. Over the centuries since the fall of the Empire on those planets that had lost their technology many local dialects had sprung up. On some of those planets the language had diverged quite a lot from the standard English that went back to Old Earth before the Empire. Yet even so it was still very obvious where they had developed their dialect from when studied closely. The language Oween was teaching him seemed to be something else entirely and this puzzled Arturo. Apart from words clearly borrowed from the enigmatic Rufanig he was still not sure about, their tongue seemed be completely unrelated to English or at least it appeared so to Arturo’s untrained observation. Even the Rufanig tongue which clearly did have ties to English was significantly different in many ways such as sharing a completely different sentence structure with the local tongue but at least there were similarities whereas the local tongue was a complete enigma. Some few words appeared to have the same root as the English word and others seemed to have the same root as the Rufanig word but in most ways that Arturo could nut out it was totally different. It’s mellifluous fluidity meant it sure sounded different!

  Arturo still wasn’t even sure if this tongue was just the tongue of the local Carveti people that Oween claimed to be a part of or spoken by all the natives of what was apparently an island which the Rufanig had largely occupied many generations earlier. Oween spoke of his people as if it included all the people of the island who were not Rufanig or barbarian Pechti from the north one minute and then next he seemed to be referring to only the people who lived in this part of the island and who comprised the tribe called the Carveti. It was very frustrating and Arturo was hoping that his inability to sort this out from context was in large part due to his slow uptake of the local language and with time it would be cleared up.

  After some lengthy struggles with local language one day he managed to persuade Oween they really needed to get some green food as Arturo’s limited
vocabulary phrased it. The rations he had salvaged from the shuttle were about exhausted despite being eked out with rabbit and such like which he didn’t fancy trying to survive for too long on nor on Oween’s strange plants. After some persuasion Oween agreed to see what could be obtained locally from the local area. Arturo had gleaned the information that there were several small villages or hamlets just beyond the mountains.

  “You still haven’t told me where you be from.” Oween complained has they headed downslope.

  Arturo pointed to the west. “What’s out there?”

  “The Scotti in Hibernia.”

  “And beyond that?” Arturo persisted.

  Oween scratched his head and paused. “Well nothing except ocean. Any fool knows that.”

  Arturo grinned. “Well I don’t know any of the lands around here nor to the east so I’m thinking I must be from the west. From beyond the ocean.” Arturo had told him he was a ship captain that had been driven ashore in a storm at night. This seemed a plausible account and was almost an accurate story although he kept the details as vague as possible.

  Oween grimaced at this as if to say something derogatory but finally nodded. “Makes sense. You being a ship captain and all from some barbaric place that don’t speak proper. What’s your home like?”

  Arturo decided to tell him a fairly truthful version so at least he would not have to remember his lies and proceeded to give Oween a somewhat edited description of where his home was and what the countryside was like, leaving out any mention of high tech stuff. He was glad his family had a house that was out on the city fringe, rather than in full on suburbia. This was probably the first time in his life that he was glad of where he had grown up because in his youth it had irked him no end to be so far out of things, even his school was a good twenty minutes away on the public transport. At least the public transport had reached as far as his outer suburb, one of his friends had lived even further out and his parents had had to drive him to and from school every day.