Marooned on Eden

by Robert L. Forward

  We began to succumb to weariness. The light, drenching rain makes little sound against the rough thatch of our overhead, or on the wet sand surrounding us. Our thin clothes, after steaming visibly in the warmth of the fire, are dry and comfortable, and we are feeling both exhausted and secure. The moaning wind only deepens the comfort of being under shelter, and the breathing of my sleeping companions is inaudible. I'm glad my watch is nearly over and I can stretch out for my share of oblivion!

  EATING

  Incredible though it seems, it has now been raining for more than a week. Occasionally there is a brief cessation of the drops, but the high gray clouds continue scudding steadily, obscuring any sight of the distant sky. We are growing accustomed to being so constantly damp, and it certainly keeps us from the unpleasantly grubby sensations of earthly camping trips, but we are more than ever grateful for the opportunity of an evening to dry out by our faithful little fire, and to sleep under cover. The roof of our lean-to is saturated, of course, but as long as we avoid touching it, it doesn't drip.

  We have tried to stay busy during this time, with some result. The last of the free-floating items have been salvaged by the flouwen, and Little Red made no secret of the fact that he was tired of the job.

  "Stuff! Too much stuff!" he shouted.

  Jinjur insisted: "C'mon, Little Red, look around a little more down there! Can you open the tool locker?"

  Little White was as definite as Little Red, though more reasonable. "We look, poke, tug. Nothing more loose, now." We were puzzled by the curious emphasis on the last word. Little Purple's explanation was not reassuring.

  "Time, tides, waves—shake things around, maybe more to find, then."

  Reluctantly, Jinjur dismissed the aliens. "Okay, start looking around. I want to know everything you find out about the plants, animals, rocks—whatever's down there!"

  Cinnamon and I started to speak at once, but Jinjur cut us off with a loud, "Please! And thank you for all you've done—we need your help very much! Happy hunting!"

  Cinnamon and I looked at each other in delight. Jinjur caught the look, and growled, "Can't very well confine 'em to quarters."

  While we systematically used up the deteriorating frozen food, we began to prepare for the eventuality of finding replacements for it. Carmen and Shirley set off together early one day, and returned late and very tired, carrying a large crate slung between them. It was full of shards of black, shiny, glass-like rock.

  "This obsidian is better quality than the stuff around home in Mexico," said Carmen. "I'm going to see if I can make a sharp edge or two." Some of the others joined her in the task, using a variety of techniques; pounding the edges with flat stones, grinding, heating in combination with all the other methods. However, Carmen seemed to catch the knack instantly. With glancing, short blows, she transformed one after another of the fragments of shiny material into crude-looking little tools with at least one wickedly sharp edge on each. They are not unpleasant to use just as they are, but we have decided they need handles.

  "Umph!" said Arielle, followed by something muttered in French as she sucked her bleeding thumb. "Which edge is blade and which is not?"

  We took to arranging the little knives with care, all the sharp edges facing in the same direction, and to protecting our hands with clumsily tied-on bits of bark or rags. (The smaller towels from the lander are rapidly disintegrating into very good rags, with the constant use we make of them!) Once again, it was necessary for each of us to be aware of the system, and follow it. I've never been camping with such a talky crew! But with ten of us busy about a variety of tasks, and no James to spare us from any of them, we learned very quickly to keep in communication.

  "I'm through with the Mech-All!" is a frequent shout, and someone is always eager to take it away, for it is a far more familiar and useful device than the best obsidian blade.

  "Still," as Carmen declared, "it's miraculous that there is obsidian available to us struggling survivors!"

  All of us continue to keep watch on the various fauna and flora, as we move about. The strange whistles that disturbed our first night are still sounding, although we hear them so constantly they are beginning to seem familiar. Unlike birdcalls, these are at the same time more varied, both in pitch and duration, and more uniform—like speech.

  "I wonder . . ." David speculated. It is apparent he has been aware of the sounds all the time, even when busy at something else. "There are tribes on earth who communicate with whistles, aren't there?"

  I remembered then. "Yes! Mostly tribes who live in very mountainous . . .one of the Canary Islands, I recall. It's easier, over their deep chasms, to get messages across by whistling." We all, I think, tried to pay more attention to the sounds, but forgot them again in the stress of daily duties. But David, obviously, didn't—or couldn't. It's the way he's made, to be aware of tone almost unconsciously, and occasionally he will interject suddenly a reference to the sounds which we have ignored.

  "Hear that? It's repeated that one bit for the last five minutes!"

  The rest of us also are gathering useful information. Shirley remarked, one evening, "I tried twisting one of those sapling-things, just at the length I wanted it, and it snapped right off! It was one of the pale-colored ones, and was surprisingly brittle." (Shirley, I suspect, is a born architect; she already wants to enlarge our crude shelter!)

  "Now, that will be useful to know," mused Jinjur. "It'd be a good idea, when anyone spots something like that during the day, to pass it along when we're all together. And Reiki!" she added. "Put that sort of thing into your recorder, with some sort of notation so we can find it again! I don't suppose you have an index?" She grinned.

  "I've not needed one before," I explained. "All I need to remember is the date I entered something."

  "What if it's a long time ago?" asked David.

  I shrugged. "I just remember. I don't have to work at it—it's just a sort of trick in my mind. No credit to me," I added hastily. "I've always done it." Shirley nodded understanding—her own memory is unique—and I was grateful, for the others were more skeptical, and I had to dredge up half a dozen old stories before they would believe me. Finally I offered, "I'll set up an ordinary file, for things we might all want access to, and show you how to find it." They were agreeable, and it was easy to teach them quickly. However, I later set up a password to guard the rest of the recorded accounts, having no wish to share quite everything with my friends!

  In spite of all our private and desperate worries, none of us can resist speculating on the strange aspects of life here. How do the plants manage to survive on the most barren-appearing soils? And why are they so arranged as to let no drop of water escape? It would seem there is plenty of water available as such, so perhaps there is something very precious in the rain. These, and other observations, are tantalizing to us in their alienness.

  "Be careful not to assume anything that exists here is similar to something we were familiar with on Earth," had been Jinjur's strong injunction before we crashed. Even as we struggle to survive, we are kept very much aware of our ignorance of the life-forms here.

  We have discovered, and made use o,f several ponds of fresh water, ranging from a wide, shallow pool with a clean sandy floor, to a deeper, steeply-sided bowl alive with quick-darting fish, but with most unpleasant-smelling water. We use the ponds as well as the lagoon for swimming; both are pleasant, and I particularly enjoy going dripping from one to the other. The buoyancy of the ocean and the pushing of the waves is exhilarating, but the clean warmth of the ponds is refreshing afterward. John stared thoughtfully into the surface of the deeper lake for quite a time one day, wading in the shallows and stooping over to look, like a meditative heron. That evening, as we relaxed, he pulled forth a length of slender vine, and two sticks, which he had apparently rubbed smooth in the sand—they had quite a polished look about them. He began to manipulate the vine along the sticks, and then looked up at our astonished faces with some pride.

&nbs
p; "My old granny taught me to knit," he explained. "Both of us hated to wait, and it helped to have something to do with our hands. We had to do a lot of waiting." He grimaced. "Politics."

  I know he never shared his famous family's fondness for the political arena—it must have been dreadfully boring for his young mind to watch.

  "I'm going to see if this stuff can work up into a net, of sorts," he went on. "Might be useful." It would indeed! I watched his hands move along the vine, slowly, but with rapidly increasing speed and sureness. To my admiration, a widening strip of mesh began to drop from the flying sticks! I was quick to praise this accomplishment—not only were the nets going to be practical, the creation of them put me in mind of my precious laces—perhaps I can learn a useful skill? I sincerely hope so, because, to my intense chagrin, I find myself a perfectly dreadful cook. One of the few fields in which I have never felt any interest whatsoever is that of culinary preparation. But, I reasoned, when it was my turn to tend the pot, what could be simpler? Simply a question of time and heat, was it not? Much to my dismay it turns out to be more complex than that. Covertly I began to study the others at the same job—even timed them!—and tasted and tasted, only to discover that my own efforts tasted as bad to me as they obviously did to the others. With outward resignation and secret shame, I excused myself all but the simplest cooking duties—not the least reason being that I simply could not manage the fire. Either I was overzealous and produced a conflagration that turned food to coal, or I forgot the thing entirely, and we were all reduced to raw dinners. It was humbling to see David, or even John, produce a meal we all relished, while my own best efforts were treated with the wicked ever-so-politeness that has such a sting. I found I even preferred Richard's roaring insults: "Wow! A good big drink of this . . .roast?—and I'm a new man!"

  However, today has produced a change. Last night we consumed the last of the thawed food that was remotely edible. In the interests of health and safety we simply incinerated the rest, and it smelled vile for a mercifully brief time, and then vanished.

  This morning, Jinjur made her pronouncement.

  "It's time," she began rather grimly. "I don't want to wait until we're hungry enough to be desperate, as we were for fresh water. We've got to find out if there's anything here we can eat, and we're going to do it systematically and safely. To begin with, we'll stay in pairs. Keep track of where you are and how far you've traveled, because we won't expect everyone back for . . ." a spasm of irritation crossed the brown face. None of us can keep accurate time, except me! " . . .several hours," she finished rather lamely. "And another thing; you must not taste anything—not once!—until we're all back. I'm not taking any more chances, and it'll be me who does the testing."

  This was disturbing. "But, Jinjur," protested John, "If you taste more than one item a day, and get sick . . .or something, we won't know which item was the culprit. And we ought to try things more rapidly than that. Let's divide them up."

  Cinnamon agreed, adding, "I'm quite sure we'll find at least ten very different things to try—I've been watching some fruits that seem to be ripening—and if we each sample one, we'll know pretty soon if any of them are toxic."

  "How about cooking everything? Isn't that safer? Carmen wanted to know.

  "Yes." Nels was definite. Some things may taste better raw—like oranges—but we must go slow trying that." Accordingly we split up, and set forth.

  With an eagerness that indicated they had been longing for just such an opportunity, David and Arielle headed for the tallest nearby trees, around which long vines are wrapped. There are vaguely globular objects half-hidden in the high branches, which we have seen, but none of them have fallen to the ground. I had forgotten how agile the two are, until I saw them leap upwards in the low gravity, David only fractionally behind the lithe woman, and they began to climb swiftly, testing the vines for support but using them mostly for balance.

  The skin on all of our hands has toughened with the rough work, and the two called cheerfully to each other as they climbed.

  "Did you bring knife, David? I forgot!"

  "Yup, got it in the last of my pockets—hope it doesn't cut through!"

  "Getting stuff down be tricky, maybe!"

  "Just shout, and drop 'em, if they're tough. If not, well . . ." The voices dimmed, and they disappeared from sight.

  With equal determination, Richard seized a pouch of stones from a private cache; obviously, carefully selected stones, gathered over several days' time—smooth and round, and uniformly sized.

  "C'mon, Cinnamon," he said. "Let's go hunting." Several times, overhead, we have spotted flying creatures. They seem to be curious about us, because they fly directly over, surveying us with an enormous dark eye, and then fly off on blue-green wings. I suspect they, as well as the little creatures who find our discarded food so interesting, are now considered Richard's prey.

  Jinjur determined otherwise, however. "I want to know more about these animals," she said as we prepared to move. "I'm going to set a few traps along those faint trails into the undergrowth. But anything we capture must not be harmed!" she added firmly, glaring at Richard. "We're not in any hurry to start eating the natives!"

  She and Shirley conferred briefly, before selecting a few of John's nets, and some other containers, and then moved quietly into the forest. I watched with approval. As a child, intrigued by stories of the American Wild West, I had practiced the art of moving silently over any terrain, and it had long since become a habit with me; I was glad to see Jinjur and Shirley could be reasonably quiet also.

  Carmen and John headed for the thickest parts of the forest. As we've moved around, looking for fuels among the vegetation, we have all been struck by the diversity to be found. When we were exploring by remote-controlled robots, the impression received by all of us (except David!) had been that the plant population was all very similar. Now that we can look more closely, we see infinite variations. There are a great many thorny bushes, some very large, and while they are apparently individual plants, as we can see their trunks growing into the soil, they tend to grow in dense thickets, and we get tantalizing glimpses of quite different plants in the centers of these hedges. Some of the inner ones are tall, with an upper canopy of rather pretty blue-green fronds. The thorns prevent us effectively from entering the interiors, but the views are enticing.

  It is peculiar how one's viewpoint changes! Up until now, I had regarded this landscape as alien and fascinating, when I didn't feel it to be bleak and hostile. Now, I found myself solely concerned with its edibility!

  Nels and I were preparing to head for the tidepools. There are several of them which contain quantities of some sort of large shellfish. However, we had barely outfitted ourselves with containers and some sturdy chunks of obsidian when we heard a triumphant shout from Richard, quite nearby, and moved quickly to see what had happened.

  He had caught one of the flying animals! He was holding it in a firm embrace, as it struggled. It put me in mind of an owl, because of the one large dark eye regarding us with silent astonishment. It seemed to have no legs at all! Cinnamon reached to assist Richard, and they spread out the strong bony wings between them, displaying the three skeletal supports in each. The little creature struggled even more frantically in their grasp, and then went suddenly limp. Although it's appearance didn't change, its whole attitude was lifeless. Nels took the animal in careful hands, and turned it about slowly. On the back of the little body, if the eye was on the front, was a small hole, an apparent sphincter. That, and the eye, were the total of its features!

  "Most incomplete animal I ever saw," muttered Nels. He made a tiny, tentative cut in the covering fuzz. There was no change in the flaccidity of the specimen, and he proceeded with a deft dissection. The creature was quite dead, and the simplicity of its structure was amazing.

  "It's like it's only part of an animal!" Nels was truly puzzled. "There is the large eye, and quite a large brain behind it. But see, no lower limbs, only a mi
nimal gut, and if that's a mouth in back of the eye, it has neither teeth nor tongue! What can the thing live on? I can't figure it out."

  Richard laid the little carcass gently on the stones near the fire. Although there seems little flesh to the animal, it will only be practical to consider its food value. I hoped fervently it would not fall to my lot!

  We left camp again, Nels and I retrieving our collecting tools and heading for the shore. I had been admiring, without attempting to touch, the clustered shells in the tidepools; the prettiest among them were deeply rounded inverted cups, vaguely hexagonal in outline, and in every possible variation of the color pink. There were wild designs of stripes and patches, dainty borders and neat plaids, all in tone on tone striations of palest pearl to deepest maroon, and gaudy others nearly scarlet. The tiniest ones were particularly lovely, making the floor of the pool look like a thickly flowering rosebush. Now, however, we were after the larger specimens so, selecting a fine neatly striped one, Nels inserted an obsidian blade beneath its rim and lifted, gently. To our amazement, the creature rose and fled from us at great speed on six pink legs.