Tamer_King of Dinosaurs 3
Page 7
“Virtually everything else?” Liahpa asked, and Trel turned to her.
“The pipes will be a pain in the ass,” the black-eyed woman answered. “I will need to craft them out of fired clay to exact specifications. I’ll need to build molds out of sand or wood to ensure their dimensions, and then I’ll need something to join them together. It will be a complicated project.”
“Could you use bamboo?” Kacerie asked. “I recall seeing a grove of it near the lake when I went with Victor.”
“Hmmm,” Trel said as she tapped her mouth with her finger and looked at Kacerie with her black eyes. “That might actually work. Of course, it would be a temporary solution to the pipes. Even if we found a tar or other glue-like substance to join them, they would corrode, but bamboo on my world has been known to last a long time, even underwater. I’m hoping we are talking about the same type of tree.”
“The stalks kind of look like pipes?” Kacerie said.
“Yeah, that sounds like bamboo,” Trel agreed.
“If you make the pipes out of bamboo, won’t it be hard to make a ‘T’ intersection?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Trel admitted, “but I might not need them. Bamboo is somewhat flexible. We might not have a break. It would still be a nightmare to join them though. I’d have to find a piece that could fit inside each other and then glue to join them.”
“On my world, bamboo can grow very tall. You might not need many pieces.” Liahpa raised her hand over her head as she spoke, and the other women nodded.
“It is something to consider,” Trel said. “I should look at some of them and see if they will be suitable for the purpose.”
“We’ll all keep an eye out while we travel,” I said. “I don’t want to go back to the lake yet.”
“In the meantime, we must continue to get water from the river.” Trel pointed to the south as she spoke. “Pumping water is a long-term engineering endeavor, but we need clean water this instant. I can make two filtering systems with the clay I have, but I am not sure that the design is perfect. We need to get sand.”
“You’ve convinced me that we need clean water,” I said with a laugh. “I’ll go get some as soon as we get the trench dug up and the gates repaired.”
“Good, and I will go with you,” Trel said.
“I kind of need you here to work on the platforms and--”
“I will need to select the type of sand,” Trel huffed. “It is important, and the trip should not take us longer than a few hours. After I build the first platform, one of the others will figure out how to do it. It is a waste of my intelligence to do duplicate work.”
“Waste of your intelligence?” Liahpa asked with a raised silver eyebrow.
“You know what I mean,” Trel replied with a wiggle of her fingers.
“It sounds like you mean that your time is more valuable than ours,” the floating woman growled.
“The architect doesn’t lift the stones, and it seems that you are good at lifting stones.” Trel smirked after she spoke, and Liahpa’s red eyes narrowed.
“Let’s talk about sanitation and living conditions,” I said to shift the focus away from what was about to be a fight between Trel and Liahpa. I realized I was going to have to talk to Trel soon about the way she spoke to others. She was more than a bit prickly when she first met someone, and it wasn’t helping me get the group set to task. Maybe having her come with me to get sand would be a good idea since I’d be able to talk to her about leading our little tribe.
“This is my topic,” Kacerie said with a wide smile.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “You said you know how to make soap?”
“I know what goes into it,” she said, “but I have never made it before. It’s basically fat and lye. The lye comes from wood ash.”
“What do you need to start making some?” I asked.
“I’ll need a big clay bowl,” Kacerie said as she turned to the roasting venison. “Some of this should actually work. The meat was pretty lean, but I can cut some fat off, and use the ash of the fire Trel started in the ground once it burns out. I’ll need a bit of water too, I think. Ahhh, I’ll probably have to try a few dozen times before I get the mixture correct. Once that happens, I can put scents and stuff in it. Then we will all be clean and smell good.”
“Ahhh, you are about to be my second favorite person,” Trel sighed.
“Second favorite?” Kacerie asked as she rolled her eyes.
“Well, you aren’t Victor,” Trel scoffed. “But I will enjoy a bath very much.”
“We all will, Trel,” I said. “But we need to make a bathtub. Do you have any ideas around that? You said you would use clay, but we might not be able to get any soon.”
“If I can’t use clay, I can use wood,” she said. “We have trees big enough to make a tub by just hollowing out the middle of a trunk, but that will be time-consuming.”
“How would you get the water in?” Kacerie asked.
“We’d have to use buckets or jars to pour it in,” Trel said with a shrug.
“That doesn’t seem very Trel-like,” the pink-haired woman said with a teasing grin.
“It would let me filter the water first,” Trel said with a shrug. “It doesn’t help to develop plumbing inside of the fort if we don’t have water coming in. So, we’ll have to…” Trel’s voice trailed off, and she stopped talking with her mouth open.
“You okay?” I asked after we stared at her a moment.
“I think I figured out how to get the water from the river to here easier,” she said quickly. “I won’t need to ram the water through a pump. I can just use a siphon through bamboo tubes that will lead into a tub of water. It will use atmospheric pressure to push down on an inverted bucket that will sit over the downtube like a bell. The pressure will force the bucket down on the tube to cut off the flow, but then release when we use it here.” Her fingers moved to form a bell shape as she talked, and I saw her eyes blink to open her Eye-Q.
“I’m not sure I understand,” I said as I looked at the other women. They all shrugged and then glanced back to Trel.
“I’ll explain it when we are ready to do it,” she said as she smiled at me. “I think it will work. No, I’m confident it will work. We’ll have unlimited water coming into the fort. I’ll run it all into a tub that will filter through the sediment system I develop, and then we’ll have plenty for drinking, crops, your dinos, and bathing.”
“That’s great,” I said with relief.
“It will be a lot of work though,” Trel said. “If bamboo is the answer, we’ll need a bunch, and I’ll need some sort of glue or tar to hold it together. First step is carving a tub. It will be a lot of physical work with the adze. Who will do it?”
“I am capable of physical work,” Liahpa said with a nod. “I do not know what an adze is through.”
“It looks like an axe,” I said as I pulled my axe from my belt. “The blade sits perpendicularly to the handle so you can make cuts down into the wood. We only have one inside of the inner fort. We’ll probably need to make a few more for advanced carpentry work.”
“I’ll look for branches and stones when I am out,” Kacerie said, and I recalled that she had put together our first one. “But back to the bath. How will we heat up the water?”
“Hmmm,” Trel said. “I guess I could make some sort of clay base that we can light a fire under. That seems really complicated, and--”
“Just use river stones,” I said, and they all turned to me. “I’ll grab some from the river, we’ll throw them in the fire to heat them, and then use sticks to pinch them and put them in the tub.”
“Perfect!” Trel said. “Sometimes the low-tech solution is the best one.”
“Let’s talk about waste disposal,” I said. “Right now we are all shitting in a clay pot and dumping it out in the woods. I’m sure we can do a better job. Is an outhouse the answer?”
“Outhouse?” Galmine asked, and I could see the other women look at me with confusion.
“Your people use those?” Liahpa asked with disgust plain on her beautiful face. “It must stink after a few days of use, but then you keep it around for a year?”
“Yeah,” I said. “It isn’t the best solution, but it was what we used before we developed toilets with running water.”
“We have those,” Trel said.
“Same,” Sheela agreed.
“Yep,” Kacerie said.
“Yes,” Liahpa said. “We use water and a sewage system.
“My kind don’t,” Galmine said, and we turned to her. “We save our waste for the plants. It is mixed in with a compost pile where it is eaten by bugs and partially digested by helpful bacteria. We also combine plant waste and turn it into wonderful fertilizer.”
“That sounds like it would stink,” Kacerie said as she wrinkled her nose.
“Oh no. The helpful bacteria, bugs, and other plant matter eliminate most of the smell quickly.” Galmine smiled sweetly as she spoke, and I could see the others nod with her. The rock-skinned woman just had this wonderful voice that seemed to calm everyone around her.
“What if we do some sort of combination?” I asked. “Like an outhouse that could feed into a compost pile?”
Both Trel and Galmine seemed thoughtful for a few moments as they looked at each other.
“The compost pile would need to be stirred every day,” Galmine said. “It would also need open air and access to the sun so that the bacteria could grow.”
“I have an idea,” Trel said with a slow nod, “but I need to see how this composting process actually works. As a temporary solution, I think I can build something like what Victor wants. Maybe a small seat out of wood or bamboo that will more easily allow us to put our waste in a bucket that can be easily carried to a compost. Can you show me how to build this compost pile?”
“Of course!” Galmine exclaimed. “I’m so happy I get to show you something. You are so smart, I always learn so much from you. Now I feel as if I can pay you back.”
“You do not need to pay me back for anything,” Trel smiled carefully as Galmine stepped toward her with her arms held out for a hug. “No, uhhh. You don’t need to--”
“Come here,” Galmine interrupted as she wrapped her arms around Trel in an embrace. The onyx-haired woman opened her black eyes wide for half a moment, but then she gently patted Galmine’s back until the other woman let go.
“Uhhh…” Trel glanced around at the other women and then her eyes fixed on me. “What else can we build?”
“Another hut?” I asked as I turned to Kacerie.
“Yeah,” the pink haired woman agreed. “I know that the four of you… well… yeah.” She gestured to Galmine, Trel, Sheela, and I. “Well, you probably want your own place. Also, I’ve only been here a few days, how much rain do you get here? Will the hut be able to withstand a storm?”
“It will,” Trel said. “It is surprisingly durable. I agree with you about a few more huts though, and I should craft the roof out of clay tiles to make them last even longer.”
“We will also need paving stones or tiles to walk on,” I said.
“You mentioned this before,” Trel said. “Ugh. I wish we had some paper to write all these down. I’m a genius, but I am still forgetting most of it.”
“What are paving stones?” Liahpa asked. “For the ground?”
“Yeah,” I said as I gestured around us. “This is all grass, but it’s going to turn into dirt the more we walk over it. You can already see it starting inside the inner fort. That dirt will turn into mud as soon as it gets a little wet. Then that mud will get everywhere. It will get all over us and inside the hut. It will also be a breeding ground for bacteria. If we make tiles or get some sort of flat rocks to pave the area, it will be more sanitary.”
“Ahh,” the floating woman replied as she nodded at me. “I see. That is intelligent.”
“All that comes back to clay again,” Trel said. “We need more of it. Lots more. I also need a way to heat it faster. Galmine is good at making the jugs and pots, but I need to design some sort of oven to heat larger batches faster.”
“Hmm,” I said as I thought through her words. “Couldn’t you make one out of mud? I imagine that it doesn’t need to be as dense or hard as clay. We might be able to just stack a bunch of rocks like a chimney, light the fire at the bottom, and then let the heat rise up through a stack of tiles or logs.” I knew next to nothing about pottery, but I had seen plenty of pizza ovens, and I figured that an oven was an oven.
“That could work,” Trel said. “I could play around with the design. I think you are right about the mud. It doesn’t need to be durable, just thin and easy to craft. Ugh. I can’t believe I am going to be playing with mud. It’s peasant work.”
“But it is the most important work,” I said, and the beautiful woman nodded and reached back to the fire for more venison.
“Wait, hold up,” I said, and Trel froze.
“What?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.
“How did you figure out this fire?” I asked as I gestured to the holes in the ground.
“The wind is blowing in this direction,” she said as she pointed to where the holes in the ground were. “It is naturally passing over the holes and getting sucked down by the fire. This is creating more heat and less smoke.” Her eyes grew large as she finished speaking and then she turned back down to the fire as her eyes narrowed.
“Could you build a kiln underground?” I asked. “Is there a way we can create our own wind? On my world, we have these tools called ‘bellows’ that can suck and push air like artificial lungs. You just have to have someone manually open and close them.”
“Yes…” Trel said as she took a step back from the roasting meat so she could survey the set up better. “I have an idea. I can make a fan that will push air through tunnels, past a fire, and heat an oven.”
“Whoa,” I said. “You can build a fan? How?”
“I’ll show you as soon as you find me more clay. I’ll need the clay to make the fan.”
“Got it,” I said as I took a deep breath and looked at the women. “Is there anything else I am missing?”
“I wouldn’t have even thought of a tenth of the things you have already brought up,” Kacerie said with a shrug. Then the pink haired woman turned to Liahpa and Emerald. “I know this is confusing. When I first got here, I was angry and sad, and I was kind of a bitch. I still wish I was back home, but I’m not back home. I’m here, and I am grateful that Victor took me in. You might not think this way right now, but we are a good team here, and you are fortunate that we got you before those black feathered raptors did.”
Emerald nodded at Kacerie’s words and then fixed her strange white eyes on me, but Liahpa shook her head slightly and her pretty mouth twisted to the side.
“I’m beginning to get a feel for you all,” she said as she turned her red eyes to the rest of my friends. “I’m just having a slight problem adjusting to him.” She raised a finger to point at me. “There is no insult or disrespect intended, but I will need some time to grow used to his presence.”
“I get it,” I said. “No hard feelings. We have a lot of shit to do. Here is the plan for the rest of the day: We are all going to go out to our worksite. It’s at the edge of the forest about two hundred yards away from the wall. Then we will grab as many of the logs as we can and bring them back in through the gate. As soon as Trel says she has enough to fix the doors and start on the first few platforms, I am going to start taking the dinos to get drinks at the river. I’ll just take a few at a time, and leave the rest here for defense, but I don’t know if the trikes can really do more than just stand at the door and maybe attack anything that tries
to come through. I’ve never had them defend us while I wasn’t around.”
“We will be vulnerable when you are gone,” Sheela said with a frown.
“I will try to repair the gates first,” Trel said, “but this is how it will always be if Victor is absent. There is not much we can do about it.”
“Uhhh, maybe Victor should just not leave?” Kacerie said hesitantly. “Does he have to be the one that takes them all to get drinks? Seems like we can each ride them okay.”
“That is something we can test later in the day,” I said. “They need water soon, and if someone tries to take one far from me, and they lose control, it could mean that they get hurt or lose the dino. I’m still not a hundred percent sure how my power works or how far away you can take a dino away from me and still have it tamed.”
“Fair enough,” Kacerie said with a shrug.
“Alright,” I said as I set my plate on the ground. “Everyone eat enough?” They all nodded, and I turned to Galmine. “I’ll still need you to stay here.”
“That is fine, Victor,” she said with her happy smile. “I can clean the dishes and bring out the cord to you all. Where will you set up the workspace for the gates and the platforms?”
“Near the gate,” Trel said. “I want to get started on them as soon as possible.”
“Won’t that be dangerous?” Kacerie asked. “What if something comes when Victor is getting water? What if those big ones with the teeth come back?”
“He will be gone for ten minutes each time,” Trel said with a shrug. “It won’t matter if we are near the door or on the other side of the fort. If those things come back when Victor isn’t here, we’ll have to pray the trikes are smart enough to hold the door until he returns.”