by Gian Bordin
He would have to learn how to make and use a bow and arrow. With that came the full realization that he might be stuck on this world for the rest of his life and that, initially, he would have to learn all he could about survival from this strange woman.
After a quick dinner of cold meat and bread, topped with some of the greens she had collected the day before the storm, Yuen-mong announced that she was taking a shower. It came again as a shock that she would undress in front of a stranger without inhibitions. On Palo only women who got paid did it. He could not help watching her, admiring her almost evenly tanned athletic body, her strong muscles, her well-shaped smallish breasts and completely flat stomach, the sensuous round buttocks. Never having seen a woman with body hair, he was intrigued by the triangle of black curls that hid her sex. So he had seen right when he had glimpsed her on the second morning. It looked natural, even attractive. He could not deny that she was a very desirable woman. Without her limp she would be rated highly on Palo.
Would she agree to have sex with him? Somehow, yesterday’s events had put her out of his reach. She must be still a virgin, he realized. He had never been with a virgin and was not sure he liked the idea.
When she had finished, he took a shower too, not wanting to be told again that he stank. He wondered what to do about shaving. His stubbles felt rather long and the skin itched, but what could he do without an electric shaver? He did not trust himself to shave with a sharp knife, as some old-fashioned barbers still offered the men on Palo for a special treat at exorbitant prices. He had little choice but to grow a beard.
* * *
After her shower, Yuen-mong told Atun that she wanted to spend the evening alone meditating. She climbed up to the top of her rock, taking her flute along. As she had feared the storm had ripped away or flattened most sweetberry bushes that grew from cracks and small earth patches, safe up there from the night scavengers. Had she stayed at the cave, she would have spent much of the morning harvesting the ripe berries before the storm, but it was little use regretting things that could have been and cannot be changed anymore. They would run out of this sweetener, unless they traveled way north, where she knew of a few other sheltered rock outcrops. Maybe the bushes there had survived. In half an Aros year, her own bushes would have regenerated. Nature recovered fast on her world.
On her favorite spot facing toward the offshore islands of the night hunters, she settled herself into a lotus position, the flute across her legs. She removed her loose top and let the gentle breeze caress her chest, shoulders, arms and face. She remained motionless, only allowing her eyes to roam over the gradually fading light on the ring’s eastern section. Then she closed them, listening to the softly changing murmur as day creatures yielded to night creatures. The only other presence she felt was that of Atun. It too seemed more steady, less searching. Have yesterday’s events opened his eyes, made him more reasonable? she mused, or have I only bought myself new trouble? She could still feel that stirring of desire in him while she had washed herself. It was different from the unbridled lust of the headman of the savages when his band had cornered her and he believed that she would be his, just before she sent an arrow through his throat. How is it to be with a man? But it was only a fleeting thought. She did not want more complications. Her sole effort at this point was to see whether her father’s idea of getting off planet could be realized, although she immediately became aware of her own ambivalence about leaving the only world she knew, the world she had grown to love.
She felt the approach of the night hunters before she could see them above the water and raised her flute to greet them with a tune full of sadness and longing for her parents, a melody that had slowly grown and become more intense with many variations as the years passed. It invariably drew the two night hunters to her rock. They circled above it several times, their haunting call answering her song, before they continued farther inland. She always thought of them as the souls of her parents, united with her own for only a passing moment.
5
Over the next few days, Yuen-mong was heartened by the apparent change in Atun’s behavior and attitude. He seemed to be eager to learn and willingly helped with the various tasks. He always wanted to know the whys and the hows, rarely questioning them. He wondered where the water supply in the cave came from, and she took him to the top of their rock, feeling a pang of regret to give away even that last refuge of her own.
It not only served as her place of contemplation and meditation, but also as her garden for various herbs that she added to the versatile timoru mash and it was her usual source for sweetberries. Its shape was that of a shallow irregular flat bowl that collected the rain water where it seeped into rock caverns that supplied the constant dripping in the shower. Since there was a short downpour most days an hour or so before dawn, she could not remember ever having run out of water.
They gathered food and fuel; they caught fish off the boulders near their rock using hook lines, ate some of them fresh, cooked others, and salted and dried the rest. Since there were few flying insects, fish could just be dried in the sun on top of the sun-warmed rock.
She showed him where she made salt along the rocky shore near the cave by filling a large shallow indentation on a huge boulder with sea water once a week and letting it evaporate. Once a crust an eighth of an inch thick had formed, she could scrape off the salt crystals.
Where mature broadleaf trees had been toppled by the storm, the first leafless shoots were pushing from the earth ‘like asparagus spears’, as her mother had told her. At that stage they were still easy to cut and by far her favorite vegetable. After boiling, the skin could be peeled off and the soft inside had a slightly sweet, but tart taste. For a while, they would have plenty of them.
Atun was eager to make himself a bow and arrows, and was disappointed when she told him that suitable flexible wood branches could only be found in the mountains, a day’s walk farther inland. She promised to take him there as soon as they could spare two days. In the meantime, she showed him how to fashion arrows from the thinner top branches of the thorntree. The density of that wood was such that scorching the tapered end produced a very hard point that readily penetrated even the tough skin of the craw.
"If this is so, why didn’t you kill the one that attacked us twice?"
"What for?"
"So that you don’t have to worry anymore about crossing that estuary."
"It is no trouble, in fact, it is a challenge to fool him."
"But if anything goes wrong, he’ll get you."
"True, that is why I killed his mate, so that I only have to contend with one.’
"You really did kill a craw?"
"Yes, all my clothing, this pack, and the craw decoy are made of its wing skin."
"How did you do it?"
"They are defenseless when they crash. Anyway, killing the other one is of little use. Within no time another mating pair will take its place and then I will have to deal with two again."
* * *
One late afternoon, a few days after their return from the shuttle, she was washing out several small sponges and strung them up for drying on a thin strand of a spear grass blade.
"What are those for?" he asked, touching one.
"I use them to catch the blood when I menstruate," she answered, matter-of-fact.
His hand shot back and he blushed.
She smiled and said: "You may touch them. They are not poisonous… That is the bane of being a woman. What do women do on Palo?"
"Many take injections that prevent menstruation."
"That cannot be healthy. And those who don’t?" She could see that he was embarrassed to talk about it, but she wanted to know and did not see why this should embarrass him.
"They wear sanitary napkins — thin pads that soak up the discharge."
"I think inserting a sponge into my vagina is more practical."
"That exists too. It’s called a tampon."
"That is probably where my mother
got the idea. She showed me shortly before she was killed." She closed her eyes as a wave of pain briefly coursed through her.
"Are you in pain?" he asked alarmed.
"Not physical pain. Thinking of my mother sometimes brings up that feeling of void."
"Were you very close?"
"Close? … Much more than that. When she died it felt like part of me departed with her. We knew each other’s thoughts without the need to talk."
"And your father?"
"That was different. I loved him very much, but he was separate from me. Tell me about your parents?"
"I never knew my father. My mother was artificially impregnated. All I know is that sperm donors are highly intelligent people and have no physical or psychological flaws. I remember little of my mother because I was sent to one of the prestige schools on Palo at the age of six and only saw her once each year for a few days. I never really knew her and I’ve not seen her these past five years. Shortly before I went on the mission to Aros, I received a message that she got married a fourth time."
"Would you have liked to know her better?"
"I don’t know… I guess it would have been nice."
"So who is the person in your life that you are … or were closest to?"
"I don’t really know… Probably Damien. We were together through all our school years. I even spent part of my school vacations with his family."
"Where is he now?"
"After finishing at the Academy of Science —"
"— that’s where my father taught for a while."
"Really? But that must have been before my time. Anyway, Damien joined one of the big firms on Andromatis."
"That is where my mother comes from."
"I guessed that from your accent."
"You did?"
He returned her smile. Both remained quiet. Yuen-mong’s thoughts returned to what he had revealed about himself. She had often asked herself how her life would have been, growing up in her mother’s home world. She had always imagined that she would have intimate contact with lots of people, not only within her extended family, but also with many friends, and now she had just learned that this man had grown up without a father, never really knew his mother and only had one single friend. He was even unsure about how close he had been to him. Was he an exception or did people living side-by-side with millions of others end up being more alone that she had been? In fact, while her parents had been alive, she had never felt alone. Even now, the memory of her parents was vivid and warm inside her, an important aspect of her life.
After a while she sensed an increased restlessness in him, a restlessness that periodically seemed to grab him. Has the talk upset him? Maybe in this state he might be receptive to her father’s idea of how to fly a shuttle without AI systems. "Am I right that your mind is often absorbed with getting off this world?"
"Is it that obvious?" He looked at her embarrassed.
"No, you show few visible signs, but I sense that it is often in the back of your mind."
He only nodded.
"Do you think that your mother ship is still waiting for your return?"
"No, if no communications are received for three standard days, the shuttle is presumed lost. They may search for it for another three days."
"It is now ten Aros days since you crashed. That is more than eight standard days. Do you think they have left or do they have another shuttle on board?"
"No, mine was the only one and without it they can’t really do much exploration. They expected me to extract various rock samples from the ring, and they can’t do this with the mother ship. I guess, they’ve left." He looked dejectedly at his hands.
"So even if you could get your shuttle working again, you would be stuck here."
"Yes. But how could I get it working without a functioning AI unit?"
"There are mechanical ways to control a shuttle."
"How?"
"My father told me that when they discovered flight on Old Earth in the 20th century, the machines they used — I think they called them aeroplanes — these machines were all controlled mechanically by the pilot."
"Yes, but these machines have blades to propel them and they need air to fly. There are still some in use on Palo for sports and amusements."
"He also told me that they later developed jet propulsion similar to your shuttle and the first ones were also mechanically controlled. He thought that it should be possible to get a shuttle into orbit by controlling the propulsion and steering thrusters mechanically."
Atun seemed to ponder this and then shook his head. "I doubt it. It would be the surest way to get killed."
"True, but then little on Aros is without risks." Survival depended on being able to cope with risks, in fact, being willing to take risks. She decided to drop the subject. She had planted the seed. All she could do right now was to hope that it would germinate.
"Let me have a look at your shoulder," she said.
He removed his top and she carefully inspected the scab formed by the root gum. The cut had closed completely. It was safe to peel it off. She lifted one end. It only revealed an angry pink scar. Slowly, she peeled it off, coming from both end. "Be careful you do not bump it for a few days."
* * *
Early one morning while there was still only a hint of dawn, they set off for the mountains to find rods suitable for making a bow for Atun. Although Yuen-mong could have made it there and back again by nightfall, Atun had not yet achieved the stamina to run for extended periods, therefore the need to allow for two days. He had in fact asked whether it was a two-day trip at her or his pace. Staying overnight meant taking extra gear along since they would have to climb sufficiently high to get above the habitat range of the night scavengers, and it cooled down quite a bit at those elevations. The other aspect that worried her was that they would have to cross through the territory claimed by one of the clans of savages. Any confrontation could delay them or force them to make a detour.
She was actually looking forward to getting into the mountains. It was a completely different world there, with different plant life and more variety, but also different birds and insects, and she loved the views over the forests with the blue sea at the horizon.
They made good progress. Her ability to sense the presence of other living beings allowed them to avoid any encounters with savages. Most of the time, they walked or ran in silence to conserve their strength. Twice they had to cross open craw hunting areas. The first time, she sensed a craw pair that was sailing silently above. She put her index on her mouth to tell Atun to be absolutely still. When she felt that they had passed overhead, she whispered: "They have extremely keen hearing. They are flying away now. Come see how majestic they are."
They carefully stepped outside the forest edge, still partially under its canopy and saw the two predators, wings completely stretched, float away a hundred meters above the ground.
"Impressive," he whispered. "What do we do now?"
"We run." And she was off, dashing into the opening. She felt Atun close behind her. When they were about halfway across, she heard the birds shrill screams. "Quick," she cried, briefly glancing over her shoulder, relieved to see Atun right behind her. By the time the birds had turned and were zeroing in on them, they were safely under cover again. The creatures vented their frustration with angry screams.
The second time, she chased a wader into the open, and the craw went after that prey, allowing them to get across at a trot.
By late afternoon they got above the tree line and the habitat of the night scavengers. Here the bushes grew that provided strong springy rods, suitable for bows. She selected half a dozen to make sure to get at least two good new bows. They also filled a woven container, the size of a hat, with the tart white berries of the bushes for a dessert that evening. Then they climbed higher into the rugged mountain chain to a point where they had a view in both directions. While their side was lush and green, the other side was completely barren, sloping away, bro
ken up, chaotic, mostly in variations of greys from almost white to almost black, with the occasional startling discoloration in rusty reds, steely blues, and dirty yellows, at one place dabbed into an oval like a painter’s palette. At the far horizon, deserts gleamed in the late afternoon sun.
"Aros is so beautiful," she exclaimed, joyously stretching her arms into the sky. "I love it."
"It’s very unusual," he replied.
"You will learn to love it too, if you stay long enough." She showered him with one of her rare, warm smiles and sensed that his heart started beating faster.
"It seems to me that I’ll stay here for the rest of my life."
"We will see," she answered enigmatically.
They found a place below an overhanging rock that offered shelter from the early morning rain, as well as protection from the wind. The ground was covered by fine grasses, where they could stretch out.
She cherished the stillness, with Atun’s emotions the only intrusion, and she felt that even those had become more subdued, steadier, calmer.
* * *
Yuen-mong woke him at dawn and they went back up to the ridge to watch the sun rise out of the barren eastern landscape. She shouted a high C, dropping down to an A, and the rock wall below them returned the call. She repeated it several times, laughing like a young girl. Then she called out "Atun’, singing the same notes, and said smiling "somebody is calling you," when the echo returned.
Her girlish behavior took him by surprise, but he answered, shouting "who’s there’, using the same notes.
"Yuen-mong," she replied, using the chord in reverse. She waited for the echo and then again smiled at him. "You think I am being silly."
