by Brian King
A key piece of my time-management strategy was eliminating the midday and late-day water runs. Sheela had explained how it was safer to go out in the morning for water, but for that to happen, we needed to get all the water for the day on the first run.
My first grand idea was to make an aqueduct. We learned about those in school, and all it would take was some kind of hollow plant like bamboo to build one. Just lay them end to end with one dripping into the next, and you could get water from the stream to our new fort. Sure, it would be a quarter-mile long and probably be leaky as hell, but it would eliminate the dangerous journey completely. I imagined how cool it would be to have something like that, but in the end, I knew it was too ambitious. Even if we found the hollow bamboo we needed, it would take a week to cut them and lay them out across the forest.
My next idea was to create a bigger container, so we could hold more water for each trip. But when I started to think about how much water I could realistically carry, I knew bigger wasn’t necessarily better. I’d lifted enough half-empty fish tanks to remember how heavy water could get.
The idea I went with was much more realistic. I remembered seeing something on TV about moonshine jugs, which were basically fancier versions of the typical one-gallon milk jug. Looking at them inside the fire, I admired the small holes at the tops, so the water couldn’t slosh out. Galmine also added small handles which would allow us to hang them on opposite ends of my spear. That way I could carry both jugs over my shoulders like a barbell. If my estimates were correct, I could carry a total of two gallons on a single trip, instead of the half-gallon pot we’d been using. So, instead of getting a gallon and a half over the course of one day, we’d get two full gallons on just one run. It would for sure be a leap up on our tech tree.
Galmine continued to talk about the red clay and some technical details about how she managed to use her skills to harden and dry it, but I was sort of distracted by a piece of partially burned firewood that I’d noticed earlier. With all the stoking Sheela had been doing to the fire, her fanning blew some coals onto a flattened piece of unburned wood. Over the course of the evening, I’d noticed how the hot coals sort of sunk into the wood as they burned.
“Shaping the earth and manipulating rocks is part of how we get so much food to grow back on Telurite. As you can see, it also comes in handy for things like this.” Galmine pointed proudly to her clay creations in the fire.
“Awesome. I can’t wait to use them tomorrow,” I said with sincerity.
We dropped into another period of silence as the three of us got back to our respective tasks next to the fire. Even as I carved the axe, I had to continue to plan.
All through the day, when I wasn’t thinking about water, food, or sex, I thought about our shelter. My whole plan depended on getting the fort built before the birds arrived, but if today was any indication, it felt like the video game clock skipped ahead. I needed to be more like the Koreans, who were well-known for being masters of planning and execution in the gaming arena.
“I’ve been thinking about something all day,” I began. “We have to figure out how to stand up the logs of our fort so they won’t fall over if something pushes against them. In my head, I know how I want it to look, but I need ideas on how the hell we make it work.”
“I assume you have thought about digging under them?” Sheela asked while twisting one of the cords on her thigh. “I am sure we could use a large stone or branch to clear dirt and cut through soil.”
“I can work with the soil if you’ll let me. I helped on the farms back home,” Galmine said as she twisted cord on her thigh.
“You want to come out of the cave?” I asked.
“Of course. I came out of the cave today, or have you already forgotten our meeting?” Galmine taunted playfully.
“I do remember it. Nothing about you is forgettable, Galmine,” I replied. I really wanted a do-over for that encounter. I was about to learn if her lips were hard or soft, but we were interrupted by Jinx and his fight with the orange bird.
“Aww. You are so nice, Victor,” Galmine said before I could continue. Quietly, she added. “Some women love flattery.”
Galmine had a lot of things going for her, but speed wasn’t one of them. She had trouble with manual dexterity and typically did everything with great deliberation and care. I couldn’t even pull her up the ramp to get her to run when Jinx had his fight. That’s what made it so terrifying to imagine her outside for more than a few minutes.
“Uh, thanks. But as much as I want to see your smiling face in the sunshine, it is dangerous for you to be out of the cave. I would be worried sick about you.” I didn’t want to make her feel bad, but she was the one that seemed to need most of our protection. I tried to get my mind back into the tasks ahead.
There had to be a method we were overlooking. Ancient civilizations on earth made their forts and walls well before the industrial age. How the hell did they do it?
“Can we hammer the logs from above using a big rock?” I wondered aloud to end any thought of Galmine going outside.
“Maybe if we used our rope and hung a rock from a tree?” Sheela offered. “I admit I do not know if it would work, but we could try.”
I looked to Trel’s curtain, wondering if she’d grace us with any ideas. She loved to poke holes in my plans, so maybe she would point out the flaws in this one. She hadn’t come out for these ideas, so maybe we were on to something.
“Can you climb?” I replied to Sheela.
“My people often make camp in high trees for mutual protection,” the feline hunter said. “Climbing will not be a problem, though we will need thicker cord to hold our rock hammers.”
I thought about the branches of the redwoods and was fairly confident someone could hang above the fort walls while holding ropes. However, they would have to be really high up because the lowest branches of that type of tree were fifty feet off the ground.
“I don’t know,” I said, scratching my head. “It seems kind of dangerous. Back on Earth, we studied an ancient empire called Egypt. They made huge pyramids hundreds of feet tall without the help of any machinery at all. Our little fort empire is much smaller, so building the walls should be a lot easier. Climbing trees doesn’t sound easy or safe.”
“Perhaps we could link ropes from different trees and create a low bridge above the fort? My people used to make such bridges when staying in one place for a long period of time.” Sheela really had experience in similar forest environments, but it wasn’t quite what we needed. Just like my aqueduct idea, it would take months to make enough rope for a suspended bridge up in those giant trees.
“Maybe. How long did it take--” I started to say before Trel interrupted. She laughed as she came out of her private space.
“You seriously expect these women to hang from trees and throw around mud? It is completely below their station to conduct themselves in these ways.” Trel spoke as she walked up to the fire pit on her human feet. Her silk dress shimmered in all the right places as I watched.
“I’m going to be doing those things with them,” I replied with as little sarcasm as possible. “And on my planet, men and women are completely equal, so I don’t see it as work above or below any of us.”
“You think males and females are equal? Equal?” Trel replied in a deadly serious voice. “That is the most insulting thing you’ve said since you got here, especially since you also pretend we’re building your ‘empire.’ I bet you think of yourself as an emperor and us women as your hapless pyramid builders.”
I tried to interrupt, but she held up her claw-hand to indicate she wasn’t going to let me break her train of thought. My idea of empire had nothing to do with conquering lands in the real world. I’d done it hundreds of times in my video games, though, and I only called my fort an ‘empire’ because it helped me organize my plans the same way I did in my games. A strong foundation was a requirement for a simple fort or a galactic alliance. None of this would make sense to the spi
der woman.
“That’s wrong on every level possible,” Trel went on. “We aren’t your slaves, and you aren’t an emperor. You’re building a wooden stockade. Nothing more than a four-sided fence. Calling it an empire makes you look like a power-mad fool.” She looked at me sternly. “So please never use the words equality and empire again since you clearly have no idea what they mean.”
Trel seemed to take a deep breath so she could continue berating me.
“Your male ideas of equality will have to be addressed in depth another time, I’m afraid. As I’ve been saying all along, I want to keep Sheela and Galmine from wasting their time on unworthy pursuits, and that’s what you excel at planning. If you left them alone, I’d let you spend your time however you wanted.” Trel let out a malicious laugh.
“I’m not try--“ I began, but she interrupted me.
“Ladies, if you insist on this course, at least do it right,” Trel offered with fake sympathy. “Why let this male fool sock you with the labor of standing up each and every log when you could easily lay them down one on top of the other?”
“But we have to put them in the ground. That’s how the fort is built.” I held up both of my hands with all ten fingers lined up next to each other like vertical fence slats.
“Ugg. Male, you cannot be this stupid. I assure you, it would take something much bigger than rocks to hammer in those logs. But you can solve all your problems by doing this.” She flattened both of her hands then placed one above the other, so her digits formed a ten-rung ladder. “Then you only need two poles in the ground to support the walls, like this.” She rested one hand of horizontal fingers into the V-shape of two claw-fingers on her other hand to demonstrate her point.
She once again had a great idea. If we laid the logs one on top of the other, we didn’t have to worry about a bunch of digging, and there would be almost no hammering required. It was the perfect solution I really should have thought of on my own.
There was no denying she was super smart when it came to planning and construction. Her special skill was “Structure Building” not because it was arbitrarily assigned by aliens, but because she really was a genius at it. The problem with Trel was that she hated me, well, all men really. But her loathing gave me an idea: I could just play the dumb male forever and collect her good ideas when she belittled me. It would be a blow to my ego, but my ego wasn't going to matter if I was dead. I didn’t care if she hated me as long as I got her help.
Results were the only thing that mattered at this point. We’d die if these walls weren’t built.
I exchanged glances with Sheela and Galmine: both had put down their cords while Trel stood in front of us. It was up to me to convince her.
“Trel-Idil-Iria, I can honestly say with no bullshit or flattery that you have thought of an incredible idea for our fort. Driving in a few smaller stakes will be much easier than hammering in each of the larger logs. I wish I’d thought of it,” I said.
“I bet you do,” Trel replied as if unsure she liked how the conversation ended. She studied me for a long time before walking away from the light of the fire. I watched her go feeling a little like I’d taken advantage of her, but her sour attitude made me quickly ignore that.
“Thank you, Trel,” Galmine added as the spider woman left.
“Yes, you have helped immensely,” Sheela continued.
Sheela and Galmine got back to twisting cord while I resumed scraping out the hole in my axe handle. After a few minutes, I thought over the whole exchange with Trel and couldn’t shake the feeling she always knew exactly what she was doing. I gave her credit for being a genius about building, but maybe she was a genius in everything she did. I just couldn’t stop thinking about spider webs, and bugs getting ensnared in that web.
Perhaps I was the one being manipulated?
I shook my head while observing the crackling fire. The flat piece of wood I’d been watching all night now had a hole burned all the way through. The runaway charcoal took a while, but it sizzled through the wood like it was butter. I compared that to the half-carved hole in the axe handle and had my own flash of inspiration.
“That’s funny,” I said. “I’ve just realized how I can speed up making the notch for the axe blade. It’s been staring me in the face all night.”
I explained our second big technological leap of the evening: the easiest way to make a neat hole in my axe handle wasn’t with a blade. It was with fire.
A short time later I had everything I needed to test my theory. I used a couple of smaller pieces of wood like chopsticks to grab hot coals from deep inside the fire and transfer them into the hole I’d started on the axe handle. Once I packed them in and blew on the coals, it only took a handful of minutes to see the red-hot embers burrow down into the handle.
“Yes! This is going to work,” I said after seeing the proof of concept with the first coal. Over the next several minutes, I refined my process: I got better about dropping additional coals into the hole, and I figured out I needed something to keep the edges from burning. Galmine saw my problem and had a solution in moments. She gave me some bits of leftover clay to scrape around the rim of the hole to fireproof it.
“We use mud a lot in my world to keep fires from getting out of hand,” the rock woman explained. “Every home has a hearth for cooking and warmth. Mud and rock do the best job of keeping the fire from hopping into our living rooms.”
“Well, it was perfect for this,” I said after seeing it do its job. With the clay as protection, the coals only burned downward, not to the sides.
One problem was solved, so I moved to the next on my list: Maintaining the axe.
“Sheela, while these burn in the handle, do you mind showing me how you sharpen the stone blade?”
“I would love to,” the cat-woman said in a pleasant voice. She set down her cord project and pulled the flat cooking stone closer to her. “We’ll use the back side of this as our grinder,” she added. She also grabbed a couple smaller stones and pulled them next to her.
“Want to learn her technique?” I turned towards Galmine and gestured towards Sheela.
“Sure, I do know a thing or two about stonework, but I would love to study Sheela’s methods,” Galmine said with a bounce in her voice.
“First, we use a smaller rock to break off the waste. Thanks to Trel, we have very little of that.” Sheela pointed to the thinner side of the wedge-shaped rock and then used even taps of her smaller stone to strike chips from the axe edge. Each time she stopped to look at her work, it seemed to look more and more like a blade.
“Next, we must sharpen this edge by scraping it over this wet cooking rock.” She splashed some water on the cooking stone, then pushed and pulled the flat axe blade with both her hands. The constant grinding between the two rocks seemed like an incredible amount of labor, but she only stopped to inspect her progress every few minutes.
I had to check my axe handle and add coals a few times in the fifteen or twenty minutes she spent grinding the blade on the rock. She finally halted, checked her work one last time, then put the cooking stone back on the fire ring.
“The last step is to polish it, to lessen the chance of cracking. We need a little more water for this.” Sheela tipped over a small amount of liquid from our pot. She found a small rounded rock and rubbed it steadily against the larger blade giving the sharp edge a fine polishing. Finally, she put down her stone, rubbed the edge, and then set it next to me.
“Here you go, Victor. May it serve us well.” Sheela picked up her cord as if I had never interrupted her.
“Thank you, Sheela,” I said happily. The long process suggested we needed eight or ten axes so we would always have sharp ones on the job site. During the night, we could spend our time on blade upkeep.
“I bet your husband would never guess you’d be sharpening axe blades, huh?” I wanted to keep the talk light, but I was also very curious if I had to worry about a jealous husband tracking me down sometime in the future.
“No one on my planet could even imagine such a place as this,” Sheela replied. “We have dangerous forests and bleak lands, but most times we are never far from the safety of a village or royal keep. Only when we intentionally head off into the deep wilds can we encounter true danger, but even then, it’s nothing close to what is found here.”
“So, I guess you’d never seen a dinosaur until you arrived here?” I asked. I’d stumbled into an important question about Dinosaurland. Aside from ripping our eyes out and giving us a game-oriented computer screen, the most curious mystery was why the aliens chose dinosaurs from Earth for this place?
“No. We have legends about large beasts in the deep woods on my world, but I admit they mainly serve to keep the cubs from wandering out on their own before they are ready to hunt.” Sheela laughed a little.
“Do you have pictures of these beasts?” I asked.
“Yes,” Sheela replied. “They are two-legged monsters much larger than our people. They are often drawn with long, disgusting black fur, horrible claws, and red, glowing eyes. Sometimes they creep through villages on all fours, like animals.”
“So, kind of like bigger, uglier, versions of yourself,” I ventured. I couldn’t imagine an ugly version of the cat-like woman, but the comparison seemed appropriate.
“Yes,” Sheela admitted. “The stories are told so that cubs understand the threat. If I tried to describe the monsters I have seen on this planet, the children would have no frame of reference, and therefore would not be properly deterred.”
“That’s what I was thinking. Dinosaurs are alien to you,” I said after putting it all together.
“Very alien, yes,” Sheela answered as she twisted more cord.
“And Galmine, I’m betting you have nothing like dinosaurs on your world, either?” I turned in her direction. She took a moment longer than I expected to reply. Kind of like she had to think about it.
“Dinosaurs would rip my people apart,” the tough-skinned woman said. “We have no predators of any kind, at least none that I’m aware. I have not traveled outside the Valley of the Break, so I can’t say what’s beyond. However, travelers do pass through our lands, and they’ve never spoken of any such horrible beasts on their journeys.”