The Voyage of the Minotaur

by Wesley Allison

  “If I promised to return, would you wait for me?” he asked.

  “What do you mean?” Iolanthe asked, smiling.

  “I think you know what I mean. I could be out of the service in eight months. I had planned to stay in longer and I’d never thought about starting a life in a colony, but I would if I had someone truly outstanding to be a partner.”

  “It definitely bears thinking about,” said Iolanthe.

  He grabbed her shoulders in his strong hands and lifted her face to his, planting his lips on hers. She felt her body respond. She wrapped her arms around his neck and fiercely kissed him back. Later that evening, in her cabin, she sat looking at a calendar. Was her life passing her by? Of course she would wait for him, if he were really going to return. Wouldn’t she?

  The following day, work in the colony was expanded, both in quantity and in variety. With the wall essentially complete, there was no reason to bar anyone from coming ashore, or preventing most of the women and even some of the older children from working. Several dozen men worked to drive sharpened stakes into the rocky shore and even off into the surf at the end of the protective wall. Professor Calliere continued his examination of the area from balloon. Work continued on the dock. More trees were chopped down and converted to lumber. Five barracks were completed.

  Two large groups of hunters were sent out. Ever since their arrival in this new land, there had been speculation as to whether or not the strange creatures, now known to everyone by the name dinosaur were edible, or could be made so. Many also wondered whether at least some of them could be domesticated and raised either as food stock or as beasts of burden. The first group of hunters was given the relatively simple task of killing and butchering one of the beasts. The second group had the much more difficult proposition of capturing a beast, and seeing if they could return it to the encampment.

  It was just after noon when the first group returned. Each of the more than twenty men carried large slabs or huge joints of meat. They had shot and killed three iguanodons, though they had been chased away from one of those kills by a tyrannosaurus. This particular beast was smaller than the one that the soldiers had originally seen attacking the herd, which surprised Professor Calliere, who had previously expressed an opinion that the great predators must possess a tremendously large territory. The meat from only two kills though was enough to supply the entire complement of both the colonists and the crew of the Minotaur with a feast.

  As it turned out the meat was more than palatable. It seemed to have more in common with poultry than with beef, though a few were heard to insist that it most resembled pork. That evening, on board ship, it was sliced thick and served with gravy over rice. For those who were living in tents in the new colony, which was by this time a larger number than those who had stayed behind on the ship, the meat was cooked over campfires and served as steaks and roasts.

  The second group returned in late afternoon. They had captured a small ankylosaurus, one of the boney, armored dinosaurs that seemed to wander along with the iguanodon herds. The beast was thought to be an adolescent, about three feet tall and about fourteen feet from nose to the club at the end of its tale. Even so, it had been almost impossible to force back to the fortified area. By using a combination of shoving and coaxing with some local fruit, they had eventually guided it back. It seemed none too bright, but on the other hand, seemed to have no compunction against the company of these strange two-legged intruders.

  The following day, it was decided that hunting dinosaurs for food would wait for more important activities to be completed, though a small team was dispatched to find whatever local plants might be useful. The possibility of domesticating the huge beasts and using their great power for the benefit of the colonists was too important to wait however. The same team that had captured the ankylosaurus was sent out again, while others bent themselves to the task of building an enclosure to house it and similar pets. For its part the armored creature seemed perfectly happy to stay where he was, provided with a large pile of vegetation to eat.

  Things did not go as well for the group of hunters as it had the day before. Journeying some miles to the southeast, they had come upon a large group of the massive three horned dinosaurs known as triceratops. It was not simply a herd, but a large nesting area. Dozens of dinosaur nests covered the ground—great rings of rock and gravel arranged around the spot where piles of eggs had been deposited. Incubation had already occurred and the land was crawling with miniature triceratops, about the size of breadboxes, and already equipped with tiny frills and three little horns. The idea of capturing baby dinosaurs and raising them in the company of humans seemed an object worth some risk, so a plan was developed to lure the parents away from a nest and while they were occupied, to snatch away two or three of the offspring. Somewhere in the execution of this plan, something went wrong. No one who was not actually there ever found out exactly what happened, but when the group returned to camp they came with two baby triceratops and the bodies of three of the colonists and one sailor.

  Only a few men were needed to make finishing touches to the wall and as it turned out a few repairs where dinosaurs had damaged it, apparently by running into the unfamiliar structure inadvertently. Fewer men were needed for work on the dock, and it was completed that afternoon. With all the equipment that had been brought for the colony and the great masses of supplies, the Dechantagnes had not waited for the dock. Unloading by boat had been going on all day. The dock’s completion though allowed the Minotaur to maneuver up to it and for cargo to be offloaded directly.

  The lumber cutting teams and the sawmill operation continued at a full pace. More lumber was needed than ever as the number of colonists working on barracks was increased. By the evening of this sixth day in a new land, twelve of the temporary housing units had been completed and families had begun to move in. Equipment for both the kitchen and the laundry were installed in two of them. Iolanthe had even assigned eight of the older children the duty of raking the ground and forming pathways between the buildings.

  Professor Calliere took his balloon crew once more into the sky, but it seemed to Iolanthe that he was having entirely too much fun. What’s more, she thought that his abilities could be put to better use elsewhere. Miss Lusk for instance took a team to take measurements and survey the entire promontory. She had developed, she said, a program for the Result Mechanism, which once the measurements were fed in, would create the best possible settlement layout, taking into account considerations for travel routes, water distribution, and sewer facilities.

  Iolanthe, and truth be told, most everyone else, thought that much had been accomplished that day. All the milestones however were forgotten early that evening when Augustus Dechantagne returned with his eighty soldiers and a committee of fifty natives.

  Simply put, the natives were not human. They had more in common with the giant dinosaurs that wandered their land than with the newcomers from Greater Brechalon. They were reptiles, six to seven feet tall, with gray, green, or brown scaly skin. They had long snouts filled with pointed teeth, and though they walked more or less fully upright, they sported a tail behind them six to eight feet long. Up and down their backs, as in alligators, they had a row of bumpy ridges, while in front they had a large flap of skin or dewlap below their faces. Their hands, though possessing stumpy claw-tipped fingers did feature an opposable thumb. Despite the fact that they wore no real clothing, just belts, assorted tribal jewelry, and decorative paint, it was impossible to tell the difference between males and females of the species.

  Iolanthe, her brother Terrence, Captain Gurrman, Lieutenant Staff, Professor Calliere, Father Ian, and Wizard Kesi gathered to meet the returning mission and their guests. Quite a large crowd of colonists gathered around.

  “Ladies and Gentlemen,” said a haggard and dirty Augustus Dechantagne. “It is my privilege to present his majesty Chief Ssithtsutsu of the village of Tserich.”

  The chief was a remarkable specimen. He was fully
seven foot two and had to weigh in at more than three hundred fifty pounds. His green scales were mottled and he had a foot long scar across his face, passing through one eye. That eye was white and obviously blind. He wore an animal skull festooned with colorful feathers as a helmet, and had several belts that looked to be made of animal hair woven with bone beads, various sized teeth, and colorful stones. He stood and carefully sized up the crowd of humans. In his hand he held a sword made of a piece of highly polished black wood, cut flat like a cricket mallet, and inlaid all around its edge by what looked to be very sharp chips of obsidian. After a moment, he held out the sword, not in a threatening manner, but as if offering it up for a gift.

  A number of the group no doubt expected Captain Gurrman to accept the weapon, but he made no move. Instead, both Iolanthe and Terrence took a step at the same moment. They stopped and looked at one another. Terrence stepped back and Iolanthe took one more step forward, accepting the proffered sword in hand. As she lifted it above her head, Chief Ssithtsutsu opened his mouth exposing his many teeth. At that point it was unclear what the significance of the expression was for the lizardman, but it looked very much to all of the human beings in attendance like a smile. Iolanthe returned the look with her own fierce grin.

  Chapter Fifteen: The Result Mechanism

  Ssichutuu was probably not nearly as frightening as his chief. He did not for instance appear to be wearing any part of a skeleton as decoration. He also did not carry any obvious weapons, save a small stone knife with wooden handle. Nevertheless, Zeah Korlann found his new companion every bit as frightening as the tyrannosaurus that stalked the forests of the region. Ssichutuu was a little over six feet tall and looked more than a little like an upright alligator. His deep olive skin had few obvious scars or discolorations, marking him as a younger member of the fifty-strong group of visitors. He kept his dewlap for the most part tucked up against his neck. The truly unnerving thing was the fact that his yellow eyes never seemed to leave Zeah for long and they almost never blinked.

  Most of the natives had left the compound to go on a hunting expedition with Master Terrence, but ten had stayed to observe the lifestyles of the newcomers. Each of these temporary visitors had two colonists to look after them. Zeah and Saba Colbshallow were both escorting this particular lizardman or lizzie around. Saba had already nicknamed the creature Sichy. The aborigine took a keen interest in almost everything that they were doing. They walked along the shore and watched the finishing touches being put on the dock’s crane, which once finished began lifting the last of the heavy cargo from the battleship. They walked up the hill, now mostly denuded of trees, which was being spread with gravel to form a roadway. At the top of the hill, they watched the construction of the barracks. Ssichutuu seemed fascinated by the smoothness of the wood used so they walked back down the hill, just south of the dock to observe the power saw slicing logs into boards.

  At lunchtime, the lizardmen were brought together along with their hosts around a large table just inside the great protective wall. Two foot long log segments were turned on end to be used as chairs. This was functional enough for the colonists and even better for the natives than real chairs, which interfered with their thick tails. A kind of shish kabob, with pieces of meat, onions, and potatoes was served. The reptiles eschewed the vegetables but ate the meat happily enough. Zeah suspected that they would have preferred it raw, and maybe aged to the point of rotting.

  Afterwards the humans watched as the lizardmen gave a demonstration of their method of creating stone blades from the local flint and obsidian. They used large rocks to break off long slender flakes and then used pieces of bone to chip tiny bits off of these flakes and make them even sharper. When they were done, they attached the now very sharp stone blades to handles of wood. Ssichutuu presented his completed knife to Zeah and indicated by hand signals that he should keep it as a gift. The former butler marveled at the keen edge. He didn’t think that even the steel knives brought from Greater Brechalon could match them. The real advantage of manufactured tools would be their durability.

  Late in the afternoon, the hunting party returned, carrying massive amounts of dinosaur meat. Once again there was a great feast, with members of both races eating large amounts of the new world’s unusual meat. The natives seemed to have the ability to pack away gargantuan portions of food. Zeah overheard Saba remarking on this to Professor Calliere.

  “I believe it to be a function of their reptilian nature,” replied the professor. “They can eat great amounts of meat at one time and then go without for perhaps weeks. I’m sure that this will be of benefit to us once they begin fulfilling their purpose as our natural servants.”

  Zeah didn’t pay too much attention to the professor’s pronouncement—in truth, he seldom paid a great deal of attention to what Calliere said—but this time it was because of the presence of Egeria Lusk at Calliere’s side. She wore a teal brocaded dinner gown with large gold buttons from the neck to below the waist, and a straw boater with a teal ribbon around it.

  “You look lovely Egeria,” Zeah thought he probably sounded as though he was gushing, but he didn’t care.

  “Thank you, Zeah,” she said. “I must say you look ruggedly handsome.”

  Zeah looked down at himself. He had been wearing the same type of khaki safari clothing that the soldiers wore. In fact, he had requested a set of the clothing from the mercenary company supplies when he found that he would be spending the day playing tour guide to an oversized lizard. He had to admit that the color accentuated his tall, thin form. And he thought the stone knife blade worn at his belt made him look manly. He took her hand and led her away from the crowd.

  “I haven’t seen much of you the past two days,” he said.

  “Don’t expect to see much of me the next few days either,” she said. “The Result Mechanism is being brought ashore tomorrow and the professor will need help getting it up and running. After that I need to input the measurements from the survey.”

  After watching the look on his face for a moment, she burst out laughing. “You really are medicine for the ego! If you’re going to be all that broken up about not seeing me, you might as well come by and help me with the great machine.” She said the words “great machine” in an abnormally deep voice.

  Zeah perked right up.

  “I might just do that,” he said, guaranteeing himself in his own mind that he would.

  The next morning, most of the colonists were amazed to find that the lizardmen had all left. Only the sentries had seen them rise early in the morning, gather together their meager gear and the collection of food and manufactured goods that the humans had given them, and exit through the gate in the wall. They took nothing that did not rightfully belong to them, and they left no word with anyone that they were leaving—anyone being Master Augie, who was the only one fluent in their language.

  Zeah knew that Miss Dechantagne’s plans for the colony ultimately depended on the lizardmen. They would be needed extensively for manual labor. He also knew that Miss Dechantagne had negotiated well into the night with Chief Ssithtsutsu. He didn’t know what the outcome was. He had better things to do that listen to Master Augie’s back and forth translation. Better things being looking at and talking to Egeria. All the same, he was glad that the lizzies were gone. They were so very… well, reptilian.

  Zeah placed his khakis in the laundry and put on a grey suit. Without the lizardman at his side, it just didn’t seem right to be wearing jungle clothing, especially since they weren’t really in a jungle. Technically this was a rain forest, but the huge redwoods and spruce trees certainly did not constitute a jungle. Starting directly into his morning duties, as he always did, Zeah took his clipboard in hand and went to check on each of the individuals he was overseeing.

  The need of almost one thousand individuals for fresh food was great. A number of different plans for supplying those needs had been developed. Hunters were again being sent out to procure meat and if possible to captur
e more local animals for domestication. Another group of men and women would search once again for edible plants, this endeavor having proven fruitful (Zeah laughed to himself at the pun), and another group had been assigned the job of fishermen. They would do their fishing from the shore of the bay. Finally, with a mind to the long term, several areas around the hill where the barracks were located were tagged as locations for gardens, and forty colonists would prepare them for planting.

  Laird Luebking, a colonist who had been a mason back in Brechalon but who had attended two years at university studying engineering, had been given the task of planning and building an aqueduct system that would bring water from the river six miles away. Though there were several small streams that were closer and were already being used, the river which was named Manzanian on the map, but which most of the colonists had been calling the Minotaur in honor of the battleship which had brought them, seemed large enough to be the main source of water for an expanding colony for many years. Luebking had made a superficial determination that the water could be brought the entire way by cutting channels and building only three short stretches of raised aqueducts. Using a team of thirty men, he would plot out the course for the waterways and determine the manpower and equipment that would be needed in the coming weeks.

  Once Zeah had checked in with those who had been chosen to lead the efforts at food production and gathering, and had discussed plans with Luebking, as well as checking on those groups who were constructing the last of the barracks housing, unloading the ship, and assembling some of the equipment brought along from Greater Brechalon, he made his way to the shelter that had been erected to house the Result Mechanism.

  On the north side of the hill where the barracks were placed, about halfway up the slope, eight tall poles held up a pitched roof. Beneath was a machine about the size of a railroad car and looking something like a cross between a steam engine and the inside of a clock. There were pipes and pressure tanks, gauges and valves, but there were also thousands of gears and levers, pulleys and pendulums. On one side was a bank of controls, including a series of large buttons and a pair of levers. Standing beside the great machine was a petite redhead.