Analog SFF, April 2009

by Dell Magazine Authors

  “I'm not climbing back up there,” Hannah said.

  “Me either.” He looked below. There were more trees off to their right. “Let's angle that way.”

  It was all he could do to hobble the fifty feet or so to the next copse of trees. Hannah went ahead and found a dry branch for him, and he smacked the end of it against a rock, breaking off little pieces until it was the right length to lean against. It had a fork to put under his arm and everything. He wadded up the blanket to pad his armpit and took a few experimental steps.

  “All right, now we're in business.”

  “Oh, sure. Miles from anywhere and you on a crutch; we're in great shape.”

  “We're in better shape than we were a minute ago.”

  There was no denying that, so she just turned away and led the way down toward the bottom of the canyon. They emerged into sunlight at about the same point where the vegetation grew thicker. Michael supposed that was no coincidence. Trouble was, the bushes were thick enough to get in the way, so he and Hannah had to push through their scratchy branches to make any progress downhill.

  Now that he was moving, the Sun provided more heat than he needed. The stick in his hand felt rough and knobby. His knee hurt even when he wasn't putting his weight on it. His feet were beginning to hurt, too. He had always thought of himself as an outdoors sort of guy, but he had never been this far from civilization.

  Every few minutes he tried his phone, but they were going deeper into the canyon rather than out of it.

  “You know,” he said after half an hour or so of bushwhacking, “I'm beginning to wonder how smart this is. We're getting farther from the car every minute, and we still haven't found a good landing site.”

  Hannah stopped. Her shirt was soaked with sweat. Her skin glistened in the open strips across her back. It was still pale, but it wouldn't be for long if they stayed in the Sun. “What do you suggest we do?” she said.

  “Find some shade, first off,” he said. “Rest a little. If a rescue car comes, they'll be able to see where to land and they can direct us there.”

  "If?"

  “When.”

  She took a deep breath, then nodded slowly. “All right. That sounds better than getting lost.”

  There was another copse of trees just a little way farther down. The rocky slope had given way to forest floor, so they had relatively smooth ground to lay the blanket on, once they tossed some pinecones and sticks aside, and a good view down the canyon, where rescue would presumably come from. It felt good to sit. Water would have been good. Michael considered opening the wine, but he would just as soon not be rescued with alcohol on his breath.

  It was a beautiful day. The sky was deep blue, with stark white puffs of cloud drifting lazily along. Birds flitted from tree to tree. A squirrel chattered at them from overhead.

  Hannah wasn't saying much.

  “Do you really hate me?” Michael asked.

  “Huh?”

  “When we crashed, you said, ‘I hate you.'”

  “I did?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Wow. I don't remember that.”

  “You've ... you've been acting pretty mad since then, too.”

  “I guess I have.” She turned to face him. “Look, I'm sorry. This isn't a whole lot of fun. I'm scared. What if nobody comes?”

  “Somebody will come.”

  But the afternoon wore on, and nobody did. Various animals came to check them out, including a fat brown marmot that shuffled past only a few feet away. Michael wondered if he could snatch it if he became hungry enough. It didn't seem to have any fear of him.

  Hunger wasn't the problem anyway. Thirst was. He and Hannah eventually cracked open the wine and drank a few swallows each, but that was little help. It didn't even taste all that good.

  “Maybe we should light a signal fire,” Hannah finally said.

  Michael slapped his forehead. “We should have thought of that hours ago.” Then he realized they had no way to light one.

  “How about the wine bottle?” Hannah asked.

  “The wine bottle?”

  “Use it as a lens to focus sunlight. The wine is almost clear; if we peel the label off and hold the bottle sideways it should act like a big magnifier.”

  He looked at her as if she had just explained the meaning of life. But when they gathered a bunch of twigs and held the bottle over them, the bright spot focused through its side never grew quite hot enough to ignite them. Not even dark leaves would burst into flame.

  Michael tried rubbing sticks together and smacking rocks together to make sparks. That didn't work either.

  “I think we're going to have to walk out of here,” Hannah said.

  Walk out? They had to be fifteen or twenty miles from Oakridge, and that was air miles. But they weren't on a regular flight route, and nobody had come for them all day, which pretty much meant that the emergency beacon wasn't working. Slowly, reluctantly, he said, “I think maybe you're right.”

  They both looked down the canyon. It was narrow and steep as far as they could see, eventually bending to the west about five miles or so away. Even so, it was better than going uphill. And they figured downhill had a better chance of leading them to civilization anyway.

  They were both stiff when they started out, but they soon loosened up. Michael's knee hurt about as much as before.

  When they made it to the bottom of the canyon they had their first bit of luck: There was a little stream trickling over the rocks. They drank their fill, and Michael washed the blood off his face, then they set off downstream. They kept the three-quarters-full wine bottle. It would be useful as a canteen even if they didn't want the wine.

  A mile or so down the canyon, they came across a road. At least it had been a road fifty years ago. Now it was overgrown with trees as big around as Michael, but there was definitely a flat shelf of ground that hugged the canyon wall a few hundred feet above the stream. It was much easier going than before.

  They had made maybe two miles by the time the Sun disappeared behind the western cliff. Within minutes, the temperature began to fall. They continued on, their exertion keeping them warm, until an hour or so later the light began to fail.

  “I think we'd better find a place to hole up for the night,” Michael said.

  “That sounds inviting,” Hannah said sarcastically, but there was a note of relief in her voice. This was probably farther than she had ever walked in a day, and certainly over the roughest terrain.

  There were plenty of places to choose from. Hollows beneath big boulders, mossy patches beside downed trees, sheltered bowers beneath standing ones. Neither Michael nor Hannah had any idea what would be best. They finally settled on a spot under a boulder because the rock was still warm from the heat it had soaked up during the day. They spread their blanket and sat on it, and that was camp.

  Neither one mentioned that they were hungry, but their growling stomachs announced it several times. Michael wished he'd paid more attention to the bushes they had passed during the day, but even if any of them had held berries, he wouldn't have known which ones were safe to eat. He remembered the marmot that had walked by only a few feet away that afternoon. He would definitely try to grab one of those now if it came by again.

  He had just about fallen asleep with his back to the rock when he heard a scrabbling sound in the pine needles off to his left. Without moving his head, he looked over and saw a big bird walking along in the shadows toward the stream. It was surprising how well he could see it in the twilight. Simple dark adaption in his eyes, or was some primitive hunting instinct kicking in? He hoped it was the latter. He tensed his muscles, waiting until the bird was right in front of him before he leaped.

  He only got a long, brown-and-black striped tailfeather. The bird squawked and leaped away, its wings roaring like sudden thunder in the silent forest. Hannah jerked awake with a scream.

  “It's all right,” Michael said. He put his arms around her. “It's okay. Just a big bird. I tried t
o catch it.”

  It took her a moment to make sense of what he said.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “To eat!”

  “Raw? Yuck.”

  He hadn't thought that part through. Was he hungry enough to eat a bird raw? Maybe not. Not yet. But they still had a long way to walk tomorrow, and he would be a lot hungrier in the morning.

  Hannah started to shiver. Her lightweight shirt was no good for warmth. Michael wrapped the blanket around her, then took her in his arms and wrapped himself around her as much as possible. It felt almost romantic, but if she thought so, she wasn't letting on.

  Cold, tired, hungry, lost, and if they ever did make it out of here, in deep trouble with their parents. Michael was finally beginning to understand the depth of the trouble he was in. It was time he did something to turn the tide.

  He took his phone out of his pocket and tapped on the display. Still no signal. Plenty of battery, though. He considered the irony of that. There was probably enough energy in his phone battery to run a heater most of the night, but no way to get to it.

  He shivered involuntarily. It was getting colder. Pretty soon he would have to ask if he could join Hannah inside the blanket. She would let him, of course, and it would be physically wonderful, but somehow he suspected that would be the end of their relationship. Huddling together for warmth because of his screwup was not how either of them had wanted to spend their first night together.

  He almost laughed at the knowledge of what he carried in his pocket. Just in case, if things had gone extremely well up on Diamond Peak, he had brought along a condom.

  The bird—a pheasant?—walked by again. He hadn't scared it much. It knew he was harmless. His kind could level cities if they wanted, yet two alone in the wilderness were as harmless as a couple of kittens.

  He needed a weapon. His crutch? He could knock the bird's head off with it if it would stand still long enough to give him a good swing. He picked up the stick as gently as he could, but the bird skittered away, just out of reach.

  The forked end that he had put under his arm all day would make a good slingshot if he had ... some rubber.

  He laughed out loud at the image.

  “What?” Hannah asked sleepily.

  “Nothing,” he said. “Go back to sleep.” He unwrapped his arms from around her and stood up.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I've got to pee.” That much was true. He did that behind a tree a few dozen feet away, then took the condom from his pocket and unrolled it. Guaranteed not to break under any circumstances. He wondered how extensively the manufacturer had tested that claim. He tied the ends to the forks of the stick and gave it an experimental tug. It stretched way more than he expected, and when he let go it flapped forward, but not with much force, so he untied it, doubled it, gave it a couple twists, and retied it. This time it took quite a bit of effort to pull, and it shot forward with a loud snap.

  “What was that?” Hannah called out.

  “Just me. It's okay.”

  He picked up a thumb-sized rock and put it in the middle of the condom sling, stretched it back, and let fly at a tree trunk. The rock hit it with a satisfying thunk.

  In the dim light of the dying day, he grinned like a wolf.

  The bird heard him coming and walked faster. Michael stopped, and so did it. Fifteen feet away. Could he hit it at that range? Only one way to know. He stretched the condom back as far as he could, aimed for the middle of the bird's body, figuring if he missed a little he would still hit something, and let fly.

  The rock whacked solidly into the bird's side. It squawked and leaped into the air, but when it flapped its wings, the one Michael had hit folded up and the bird fell to the ground again.

  He leaped forward and kicked out with his right foot. Pain lanced through his left leg, but he connected with the bird and lofted it another twenty feet, where it fell to the ground, stunned. Using the stick for balance, he rushed up to it and stepped squarely on its body, then smacked its head again and again with the stick until it was dead.

  “Michael!” Hannah shouted. “Michael, what are you doing?”

  “Catching dinner!” He picked up the bird by its still-twitching feet and carried it back to their hollow.

  She looked at him in open-mouthed astonishment. “You caught it!”

  “I did.” He couldn't keep from grinning, wouldn't have even if he could.

  “What's that on your crutch?”

  “I made a slingshot.”

  “Out of what?”

  “Um...” he tucked it under his arm, but she had already seen enough.

  “You brought a condom?”

  “Guilty.”

  “Did you really think—?”

  “I had hopes. Now I have a slingshot, and we have a pheasant for dinner.”

  “And no way to cook it.”

  “I'm not so sure about that. How's your phone charge?”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “We've got two phones. We can sacrifice one's battery to start a fire.”

  “How?”

  “Short circuit it.” He laid the pheasant on the ground and took his phone out of his pocket, along with what loose change he had. Three dollars and a quarter. More than enough.

  They gathered up a pile of dry leaves and small twigs, then he popped the battery out of his phone. There were two contacts about half an inch apart. He set the battery on the ground with the contacts facing up, then pressed a dollar into either contact. He tilted them toward one another, practicing, then had Hannah cover the whole works, his hands and all, with leaves.

  Then he brought the dollars together. There was a flash like a camera, and a loud pop, and a curl of smoke, but even though Michael blew on the leaves, they didn't burst into flame.

  He tried it again. Another flash, more smoke, yet no flame.

  “Okay,” he said, “We go for broke. Shove the leaves down against my hand and keep them there.”

  He brought the dollars together and held them while the battery sparked and smoked, and this time the extended arc touched off a tiny flame, which quickly spread.

  Hannah jumped back, waving her hands frantically. Michael forced himself to be gentle as he extricated his from beneath the burning leaves. He brought the battery and dollars out with him, although he was pretty sure all were useless now. He wanted them for souvenirs.

  They built up the fire with larger and larger sticks until it cast light and heat all through the hollow beneath the rock. Hannah laughed in delight at the crackling flames, turning herself around and around to toast herself front and back. It was amazing how quickly their spirits rose now that they had regained the basics of civilization. They wouldn't freeze or starve. Tomorrow they could walk the rest of the way to Oakridge, or they could just throw green branches on the fire and wait for searchers to see the smoke.

  The wine even tasted better now.

  Cleaning the bird was a messy, awful business, but their hunger drove them on, and when they skewered its body on a stick and held it over the fire, the aroma alone proved that the effort was worth it.

  They pulled pieces off as it cooked, feeding their hunger, then feeding one another. Michael licked Hannah's fingers when she fed him a piece, then leaned forward and licked her lips.

  The firelight glinted in her eyes. “So,” she said. “When we started out this morning, were you optimistic enough to bring a second condom?”

  Copyright © 2009 Jerry Oltion

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  Probability Zero: ARMCHAIR SCIENTIST

  by David Bartell

  Dear Fellow Armchair Scientist,

  Thank you for your submission to Armchair Scientist, the revolutionary alternative to the biased, elitist, so-called “leading” scientific journals. Unfortunately, we must pass on your paper at this time.

  Fully 93.057% of papers submitted to Armchair Scientist are turned down for one or more of
the reasons listed below. While we would like to provide you with a personal rejection, we're fairly certain that one of these top reasons applies to your paper.

  1. Interesting concept, but consider circularizing your logic a bit more. Readers prefer theories with at least a sense of closure.

  2. Your Grand Unification Theory (GUT) is too complicated to suspend disbelief. For example, you may have employed an excessive number of sub-atomic particles or spatial dimensions for our readership. We find it is best to avoid logical impossibilities such as non-determinism, wave-particle duality, and tachyon paradoxes.

  3. Your cover letter credits more than one person with the paper. Remember, the armchair scientist rides alone.

  4. Lack of maverick attitude in the writing. As a suggestion, coin yourself a provocative pseudonym like “GUTbuster” or “God's Dice,” and establish a contrarian online presence. Anonymously argue with as many “experts” as possible, even if you agree with them. Get in their faces. Then emulate the emotion of their rebuttals in your next submission to us.

  5. Your credentials are impeccable.

  6. Your theory does not challenge enough well-established scientific principles for our readership. Newton was wrong, Einstein was wrong, ergo it stands to reason that nearly everybody else is probably wrong too.

  7. Because you propose a testable theory, it too might be proven wrong in the future. The armchair, not a lab bench, is the true throne of science.

  8. Too much data and not enough speculation. Hint: try cleverly relating your theory to a seemingly unrelated discipline with which you are familiar. Published authors have successfully drawn analogies to such topics as Nirvana viruses in Zen computing, revisionist theopaleontology, and the topology of zipperless fly fishing waders.

  9. Too many references cited. This can undermine the perception of originality in an article.

  10. There is no clear science-fictional aspect “extrapolatable” from your idea. Never forget that like an armchair, science is the seat of dreamers.

  Copyright © 2009 David Bartell

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