by Brian King
Trel remained behind her curtain, but Galmine tended to the fish while we filled her in. When Sheela mentioned the volcano, I hoped our gray-skinned friend would volunteer her experience there, but she never took her eyes off the sizzling meat.
“These fish look delicious,” Galmine remarked as she poked them with the wooden spoon. “You two did great.”
“Sheela’s the fisherwoman, and I’m just the delivery boy,” I said as I bumped elbows with my feline warrior friend. The smoky smell of the filets stirred up good memories of fishing with my dad and then cooking our catch with my mom. Though, to be fair, I never had to work as hard as I did for these fish.
“Victor did an excellent job leading and carrying our supplies back home. If he hadn’t been there, I might have left our supplies when the big dinosaur attacked. Then I would have been forced to go back later and collect them.” Sheela poked a piece of firewood at the edge of the fire pit.
“Ha! I doubt that. I never had time to drop it off because I was trying to keep up with you.” It’s hard to say exactly what I thought when we were on the run from the mystery dinosaur, but a good part of my motivation was that Sheela said she liked strong men. My bravery was real, though, it couldn’t be faked in the unforgiving wilderness. It felt good to know she was impressed.
“You have both earned a tasty meal,” Galmine added. “That’s all I know.”
It did smell incredible. Even Jinx nosed around the edge of the fire, searching for ways to snatch a fish while we talked.
“Go hang out over there,” I ordered the little bird while pointing to the pile of wood near Trel’s curtain. After my verbal command, I tested a mental idea that he shouldn’t bother Trel this time. I hadn’t seen her since Sheela and I left earlier, and I wasn’t sure if her mood was better or worse. Better to play it safe.
I was convinced Jinx pouted at me before he turned and scrambled over to the small woodpile. He did not go under Trel’s curtain, which seemed to confirm that my mental instruction had worked. It was an interesting new aspect of my taming skill, and I needed time to explore how I could make it work for me. Researching Jinx was item 400 on my to-do list for the day.
“We have so much to get done,” I said. “We still need to get firewood. We need an axe so we can start cutting trees. We need a turnstile. We need cord--”
“Victor,” Galmine interrupted. “Don’t worry about that. My cord is already as tall as me.” She pointed to the woodpile. “Trel told me to put it back there, so it didn’t catch fire over here.”
I looked to Trel’s nook. She usually replied when her name was mentioned in passing, but this time she didn’t get involved. Even Jinx warily eyed her curtain as if he knew who was back there.
Sure enough, I saw a neat coil of the cord by the woodpile. I expected her to spend the whole time ripping the leaves because she was so slow twisting the strands into the cord. But somehow she’d ripped apart most of the leaves and made an impressive length of rope.
“How the heck did you get it all done?” I asked the green-eyed beauty. “I, uh, thought we were kind of unfair giving you that task.”
“You thought I was too slow,” she answered without any hostility. “I know. But Trel gave me some tips, so I went much faster.”
“I’m glad she was so helpful,” I said with all honesty. “I was sweating bullets while we were outside because of all the things we have to do today. This is a real relief.”
“Well, if Victor hadn’t allowed you to do it the wrong way, I wouldn’t need to correct it,” Trel commented as she slid the curtain aside.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I shot back in anger, totally ready to engage her in a verbal dogfight. “I didn’t show her how to do it; Sheela showed us both.” I’d been sick of her shit since before I left the cave the last time. I tried to be decent to her by using her full name, but apparently that didn’t count for squat.
“You failed to maximize her efficiency,” Trel added a dramatic sigh as she made her way to the fire. She walked on her alien spider legs, which made her sexy human body do its floaty trick a few inches off the ground. “After all your fancy talk about wanting to help us and make things better, you blame someone else when I call out your failure.”
I hated that she made me consider her nonsense, but something in her words made me unable to reply right then. I wasn’t blaming anyone for my mistakes. Sheela did teach us; that wasn’t a cop out. What was I missing? Was it the way she said it? Her tone?
“You think you’re so smart dreaming up new ways to do your silly little jobs and you want to get them done as fast as possible, right?” Trel continued before anyone could interrupt her. “Well, I like to see things done the right way even when I don’t actually care about them. I think of it as male quality control.” She laughed.
My silly jobs? What the fuck? That wasn’t right. But I remained bothered by something else she said, and it had nothing to do with my methods or her unreasonable accusations. It took a few more seconds before the answer caught up with me and it finally released my tongue.
“You called me Victor,” I blurted out with incredulity instead of anger.
“Of course I did, fool,” the spider-woman said as if it was super obvious. “You used my proper name before you departed earlier, and even though you are a worthless male, my refined sense of honor demands I also use your name.” Trel never looked at me as she spoke. It was probably a good thing because I’m sure my mouth hung open in disbelief.
“You are totally wrong about me, but thanks, Trel, for at least talking--” I started to say.
“Victor must call me Trel-Idil-Iria--”
I groaned because it was clear I’d gotten nowhere with her, but Sheela interrupted us both.
“Please, Trel, allow Victor to call you by your first name so we may address each other as efficiently as possible,” Sheela said as if in difficult negotiations. “You do not make me or Galmine address you by your full name.”
“But you are not males,” Trel replied with apparent frustration.
Sheela held Trel’s gaze and made no effort to say anything else or further justify herself. It was hard to say for sure given Trel’s all-black eyes, but I’m pretty certain I saw her roll them a couple of times before she exhaled heavily.
“Fine,” Trel declared, creating extra syllables of disappointment in the word. “Victor may call me Trel. At least until the rescue ship arrives. Then all of you must use my full name in front of my sisters.”
“Deal,” Sheela agreed.
“Okay, this is great,” I said, “but I want to be very clear, I don’t just want things done my way. We’re all on the same team, you know? I look for ideas from everyone, and we’ll do the ones that make the most sense. It’s not like I’m going to order Galmine to make cord the slow way,” I added with a laugh. “I want us to work together in the next few weeks, or we’re all going to die when those birds come and toss us out of our cave.”
“Dear Victor,” Trel said while sounding very bored, “using my name doesn’t make us friends. Call your methods whatever you’d like. You will most likely have poor judgment while doing everything with minimal efficiency. I happen to enjoy pointing out your shortcomings so that will be my new hobby.”
“I’ll show you how Trel helped me,” Galmine started to reach for some leaves. “It was really quite clever.”
“No,” Trel interjected. “For this, I would enjoy showing Victor where he failed.” She flashed her fangs like she’d caught me in her web and was about to take a bite. But instead of sinking those teeth into me, she dropped to her human feet and retracted her spider legs. I avoided looking at her spider parts until she was seated next to the fire over by Galmine.
“It is childishly simple,” Trel said while picking up some of the strands still lying in our original pile. Her voice was soothing and measured like she was a pre-school teacher. “All you need to do is this.”
She stretched her right leg flat on the ground, so it po
inted directly at me from the far side of the fire. Her flowing silk dress hiked up above her knee, and she made no effort to block my view beneath it. She used both of her hands to smooth the dress over her flexed upper thigh, so she had a flat workspace. I was convinced she’d positioned herself to give my insides a sexual tug, but then she lifted a couple of strands and laid them flat on her thigh.
“Galmine’s fingers aren’t meant for this kind of detail work. Any good leader can see that. But she is able to roll these together, like this.” Trel took two of the strands, put them side-by-side on her thigh, and began to roll them under her palms using her dress to keep them from sliding around. I was amazed to see her twist the two strands side-by-side and then form a spiral with both to make one stronger piece of cord. It was much faster than doing everything with fingers alone.
“That’s amazing” I admitted after watching her for a minute. “Thank you, Trel.”
The dark-haired woman looked up from her handiwork and searched my eyes for a moment before brushing the leaves off her dress. Her movement was rushed, as if the leaves on her lap had suddenly caught fire.
“This is all stupid, anyway,” Trel pouted as she pointed to the fish. “Let’s get this meal over and done with so I can go back to waiting for rescue.”
Galmine adjusted the flat cooking rock by pulling it toward her with her gray fingers.
“Doesn’t that hurt?” I asked as she touched the hot rock without flinching.
“Not at all,” the gray-skinned cheerleader said with a cute little laugh. “It takes something really hot to bother me. Though sometimes, my insides also get very hot and bothered.” She batted her eyelashes at me.
I felt my cheeks warm up with all the sexual energy swirling inside me. I was in danger of having my whole day derailed if I started thinking of what Galmine said to me last night, what Sheela said about sex while we were at the lake, or how Trel flaunted her body when she walked out of her nook. The spider-woman’s lean leg was still outstretched in a suggestive manner, so I got to my feet to combat my urges.
“Victor, you haven’t eaten,” Sheela said as if worried I was going to walk off without taking a bite. I was practically starving, so she had nothing to worry about on that point. However, I was an expert at eating fast food in my truck, and a working lunch was exactly what I needed.
“I’ll eat,” I replied. “Don’t worry about it. I just have to think about what we need to do afterward.” Having some of the cordage done took off a little of the pressure. It also felt good to know Galmine was more than capable of the task I’d given her. However, the anxiety of building a new camp would never go away; after lunch, I had many more choices to make.
I honestly didn’t care who came up with the ideas to help us survive the next few weeks, but someone needed to do it. Each of the women brought their own strengths and talents, but a lifetime of playing real-time strategy games gave me organizational knowledge they didn't seem to have. We were going to need to plan and execute if we wanted to live. It sucked that I was here in this shitty situation, but a spark of excitement burned deep inside me when I thought about what I had to do on this world. It was like empire-building, real-time strategy, and first-person survival all wrapped into one deadly package, and it all fell on my shoulders. I needed to use my expertise and figure out how to beat this.
One big problem, besides getting eaten by dinos, was time management. I didn’t know exactly how much time we had, nor did I know precisely how long it would take to build a shelter to complete our fort. There were a million other variables I couldn’t control and who knows how many waypoints we’d have to cross on our way to the goal. Sitting around staring at my sexy roommates would do nothing to help that long-term objective, so I needed to keep us moving forward. Even during meals.
After Galmine gave some fish to Trel, who had to be first, and then Sheela, she handed the rock with the rest to me.
“Don’t you want any?” I asked as I held the stone out to her.
“I don’t eat meat,” Galmine answered with a smile. “I will if there is nothing else to eat, but I still have plenty of berries. You can finish the rest of this, and I’ll cook more of the fish for dinner tonight.”
I looked to Sheela and Trel, wondering if either would need more to eat. Sheela shook her head and smiled. Trel kept silent and didn’t demand my portion like she did with the turtle soup.
“Thank you,” I said as I picked up the hot filet. It flaked in my hand and melted in my mouth as I shoveled it all in.
“Oh, my god,” I mumbled with a mouthful of fish as I stood in front of the three seated women.
“Galmine, that was seriously awesome. Thank you! Also, can you look at the clay we brought in? Think you can work on making another water pot this afternoon?” I considered keeping her on the cordage production, but clay would have to heat and dry for a long time. Better to get it started as soon as possible.
“You’re welcome, and yes,” Galmine replied with a glowing smile as she looked at the clay. “This is exactly what I need. I’m sure I have enough for one pot, but I might be able to get two.”
“Will it be ready for tomorrow’s water duties?” Sheela asked as she rose.
“Yes. I’ll fashion it this afternoon and sit here at our hearth, so I can watch as it bakes. It will be hardened and ready by tomorrow,” Galmine said.
“Doesn’t it take like a week to work with clay?” I inquired. I don’t know why I remembered it, but we fired clay flower pots in grade school. I also recall thinking it took a lot longer to dry than I thought.
“It helps to know about rocks,” Galmine said with a wink. She set the cooking stone by the fire and swished her silver hair away from her face as she continued to speak. “I guess it would take a lot longer if one of you made them, but I’m able to speed things up. Aren’t you glad you know me?”
“Oh, yeah. I am,” I laughed, and mentally shook my head at the awkward attempt to flirt back. I looked at Sheela to try and hide my embarrassment. “Sheela, are you ready to go cut down some trees while she does that? If we can get a few chopped and into position, we can get a sense for how long it will take to create the new camp.” In my head, I visualized any number of harvester or explorer units starting a new structure in the middle of nowhere. But in those games, the interface always told you how long it would be until it was ready. That helped plan defense or delay the bad guys until it was built. Erecting a small section of the fort would go a long way toward helping me figure out our timeline.
“We can use my cutting rock, but it will be difficult,” Sheela admitted.
“I’d like to see what we can do,” I said. “Eventually, we can use the axe blade Trel, uh, discarded, but it will take time to put together a handle. Maybe we can cut a few logs with your rock, just to get us started this afternoon?” I didn’t know how long it would take to craft a new axe, but we already had a basic one, so I wanted to see that in action first.
“And what about me?” Trel asked seriously. “What would you have me do?”
I looked at her, wondering if she’d come around to my way of thinking, but I picked up the subtle sarcasm in her words. Her crooked smirk also suggested she wasn’t asking out of any renewed sense of community service.
“Would you like to wait back there for rescue?” I said while pointing over her shoulder to her nook.
“Ah, we finally understand each other. Your decision-making skills are excellent, for once.” Trel got up and started back to her private space.
“But if you wanted to help Galmine make more cordage, we could really use you,” I added as I watched her and her alien “wings” stride away.
“Annnnnnnd you had to ruin it,” she said with a sigh. “Typical male behavior, after all.” She never turned around, but stopped just short of her curtain and shook her head in disappointment. After a short pause, she shut herself behind the partition.
Sheela picked up her cutting stone and directed me toward the entrance. We both grab
bed spears, and I trailed her outside and onto the ramp.
“Do you see a suitable place to construct your fort?” Sheela asked when we reached the bottom of the ramp.
“Our fort,” I corrected her. There were several patches of open ground in the grove of redwoods though picking one near the cave was going to be key. We wanted it far enough away from the birds, but close enough we could reach the cave if we had to retreat there during construction.
“Right below her,” I suggested as I pointed to the nearest sequoia thirty yards away. The pterodactyl sat on a branch a hundred feet up the trunk, but she wasn’t going to stop us. The open ground at the base of the redwood giant was perfect for laying out a square-ish fort.
“Can we use the big tree as one corner of our enclosure?” she suggested as she pointed to the redwood.
“Great idea,” I replied. “That will save us construction time, and we can climb the tree if we need another means of escape.” I stood there for a moment and relaxed my shoulders. I’d been tense; not only because we had so much to do, but also because of my run-in with Trel. However, I’d just proven the spider-woman wrong: I’d accepted Sheela’s suggestion in a heartbeat. What mattered were good ideas, not that those ideas were mine.
“So, all that’s left is to cut a few hundred trees down,” I joked as I tried to forget about Trel.
“This hand axe only works on very small trees,” Sheela continued while we stood in the hot afternoon sunshine. “You would be lucky to cut through a tree bigger than what you can grasp with both hands.” She made a circle with her cute furry fingers to show me a ring of maybe six inches in width.
“We only need to start with a few,” I said. “Just enough to see how this process is going to work. Like those trees over there.” I pointed along the hillside near the grazing triceratops.
“I see the one we need.” Sheela walked me to a dead tree with light-colored bark that had been scraped all the way around by an animal. Without the ring of bark, the oak-like tree had died. “This caught my eye because it is already dead. Without the leaves, you can see how straight it is.”
