Marooned on Eden

by Robert L. Forward

  The gatherers had then picked up the small isolated tentacle and were now stuffing the wriggling worm down into the crop of the jookeejook. Off in the distance, the cut end of the thread was now a large and dangerous tentacle, searching about blindly for something to grasp and crush, so it could drag it back to be fertilizer for the roots of the keekoo tree.

  I realized that since the jookeejook was coping with a large mouthful, it should be easy to hunt down. I sent my eye on ahead and stumped as rapidly as I could down the trail, my gatherers spread out before me in a hunting pattern. As I came around a bend in the trail, I could hear the whistles of my gatherers and the frustrated screams of a cornered jookeejook, all of its six eyes, out on their springy umbilical stalks, flapping their tiny wings as they tried to keep all my gatherers in view. My gatherers had surrounded the jookeejook. The jookeejook had its own gatherers out to protect it, but unlike my gatherers, who were free, the jookeejook gatherers were permanently tied to the jookeejook through the prehensile umbilical cords attached to the inside of the mouth.

  The knife-like claws of my gatherers made short work of the smaller gatherers of the jookeejook. One snip of the umbilical cord and they fell, mindlessly twitching about on the forest floor. Now wishing I had brought along my hunting spear, I raised my forelimb, drew my eating knife from its scabbard, and rocked forward, three-and-two, toward the wounded creature, while my well-trained gatherers kept nipping at the roots of its rearlimb every time the jookeejook attempted to raise the rearlimb in an attempt to escape. A few jabs of my knife-point to the trunk just below the fronds caused the jookeejook to topple, and it was all over. My gatherers cut the eyestalks and the jookeejook was blinded and helpless. Thanking the Rain God again for his gift of food, I pushed the point of my knife into the brainknob hidden behind the leafy fronds and put the poor animal out of its misery.

  Since the eyes don't stay fresh very long, they were the first thing my gatherers put in my crop. While my gizzard ground away on the deliciously soft and tasty morsels, my gatherers used their sharp claws to attack the joints on the six legs of the still twitching gatherers of the jookeejook. It didn't take long to turn them into crop-sized pieces, while I cut the main jookeejook trunk into steaks. I and my hardworking parts would eat well for the next few days. No groundworms or dried rations for us!

  By the time I had finished butchering the jookeejook and wrapping what the gatherers couldn't stuff down my crop, the Daylight God was high in the still cloudy sky. Filling my travel net with steaks, I continued down the trail to the south, stopping only to gather my eyes during the mid-day darkness when the closed eye of the Nightlight God hid the always open eye of the Daylight God, and the stars came out in the sky, although there were no stars this mid-day darkness, just more clouds. I took the time of rest to update my worldview.

  The tribe was secure in the compound. Tookee was gatherer to gatherer with Teeloot the teacher, while Peebeek listened attentively at one side. Beefoof and Haasee were still on their raft at Sulphur Lake, Beefoof poling the raft along the shores while Haasee pulled aboard and emptied the long net with its woven pouchtraps, each with at least one fish.

  To the south the view was even more disturbed than in previous worldviews. I was now more used to the rapidly-moving strangers and their effect on the landscape, however, and was not as confused as I had previously been by incompatible views of a scene seen from different directions. I updated my worldview, and secure in the knowledge that it gave me, started off down the trail in the mid-day darkness, with my eyes still feeding in their nests. The Daylight God soon came out from behind the Nightlight God and my eyes fluttered off on their assigned viewing routes.

  It was much later in the day that I finally came to the edge of the deep forest and entered the stretches of sand made salty from the incursions of the ocean during the high tides caused by the close approaches of Oceanriser and Groundshaker. Here only a few hardy grasses grew. As I stumped across the shifting sand dunes, I whistled to my eyes and had them give me their latest views. Keeping two eyes in their nests, and sending out the others on short trips high above my projected track, I was able to keep my worldview updated often enough that I could actually observe the activities of the strangers. One of them was resting on a rock not too far away. I could now see that its limbs had joints, somewhat like the forelimbs of my gatherers. The two lower limbs were crossed in an impossible fashion, but those two limbs and the bottom of the trunk portion gave it a relatively secure three-point stance on the surface of the rock.

  The creature was dressed in unpatterned but colored woven fabrics that covered part of its trunk and the upper portion of its four limbs. Around the constriction in its trunk was an intricate weaving in white thread. I had never seen anything like it before, and had one of my eyes make a permanent impression of its detailed weave. Perhaps it was the creatures' mouth-apron. If so, I would have to acknowledge that it and its fellow creatures were civilized beings.

  The upper two limbs of the creature were holding a thin tablet, but it was made of some reflective material rather than damp clay. The mouth of the creature was moving, and growling sounds emerged from its mouth. In the previous worldviews that I could remember, this growling activity had occurred only when two of the strangers were close to each other. Now, however, this stranger was growling at the tablet it held in its limbs. A most puzzling form of behavior, as if whistling at a pictotablet could make marks on it. Taking my time, and aware of the semi-savage behavior of these strange creatures, I approached in a slow walk, three-on-three, taking care to hold up and extend the roots of my three moving limbs at each step, so the stranger could see that I was carrying no weapons. As I approached, one of my gatherers whistled the Peace Greeting with each of my steps forward.

  "Welcome! I come in Peace. May your worldview never see strife."

  MEETING

  Well, I have been "forgiven," at this point, and the irksome magnanimity of charity is especially chafing since it turned out rather well. No credit to me, however, I must admit.

  Since none of us suffered the slightest repercussions from our peculiar meal of the night before—indeed, we all felt refreshed and well—we determined to collect more, and to try the rest of our samples. It's too soon to judge, but our hopes are a trifle brighter about the prospect of surviving in this strange place. Less like terrified castaways, and more like inquisitive investigators, we considered the hours of daylight ahead of us. Jinjur had insisted on our scrupulously recording time spent, so far, in every endeavor. This morning she added a further item to the file.

  "The tide rose, during the night, but I've no real idea how much. I think we'd better start keeping track."

  "Back on Prometheus, I only glanced at the tidal charts James had made," confessed Shirley. "If I had looked carefully at them once, I might now be able to recall them clearly, but I was counting on being able to ask my imp to bring them up in my helmet display any time I wanted to consult them . . ." A quick glance around brought no enlightenment: all of us had assumed we'd have the charts to hand when needed.

  David said, "All I do remember is that there were wide fluctuations in the height of the peak tides, depending on how accurately the moons and Barnard were lined up during the quadruple conjunctions, and that some of the tides are really big."

  "It doesn't help that most of the time the rainclouds keep us from seeing where Zouave and Zulu are," I added.

  "Nothing to do but start from scratch. Literally," said John, moving to arrange a line of stones down the slope of the beach and descending into the rippling shallows. A few minutes search brought a wide variety of colors in the stones, and Nels recorded the arrangement on the back of a smooth piece of bark with his precious pencil. The crude bark tide table was stowed safely, the first entry dutifully made. I stored a duplicate in my electronic journal and set a timing clock running so the time between this reading and the next would be recorded along with the height of the water. The length of the day here was abou
t thirty and a quarter hours, or almost exactly 108,800 seconds. I would later set the zero time for the tide table when the rainclouds parted and at some midnight hour I could see the shadow of the moon we were living on reach the center of the gargantuan planet that hung overhead. It seemed strange to be thinking once again about seconds and hours, for under the primitive conditions we had been living in, a fraction of a day had been sufficient accuracy for any planning activities.

  The tide markers set up and recorded, we sorted our various containers, and prepared to search for food. Before setting out, Carmen laid out a quantity of as-yet-untried beans she had found the day before. "There's lots of these," she remarked hopefully. "I hope they turn out tasty, because they're easy to get!"

  Cinnamon ran them thoughtfully through her hands, and sighed. "I wish I could try a few things, but I know it's safest to stick to the boiled routine." Richard was awaiting his hunting partner with his usual patience.

  "Hurry up, Cinnamon! I want to go down those cliffs today!" He is, apparently, fearless about heights, and I was glad she was willing to watch from a position of safety while he trotted lightly along sheer precipices. He attributes this nonchalance to his Mohawk heritage. Cordially invited to come along, several days ago, while he scouted the cliff-faces for animal dwellings, I had been petrified to see him jump carelessly from one crumbling rim to another, with a drop below of more than a hundred feet! I had sat down, with assumed fatigue, and looked resolutely out to sea until he clambered up to my side again, grinning and not even slightly out of breath. I suspect he is secretly enjoying our misadventure hugely; certainly he has taken to padding silently about the forests, and reporting the activities of some of the smaller native animals with a precision which indicates a great deal of careful observation.

  Cinnamon swung the bean pot towards me apologetically. "Will you get the water for me, please, Reiki? If you're going in that direction, that is?"

  I was indeed planning to return to the shallow tide pools—the little clams had looked good to us all, and we were anxious to share a taste—and my way passed our little freshwater spring. Cinnamon hurried into the woods, and I hefted the heavy pot thoughtfully. Then I carefully pushed all the beans into it, and set it handy to the glowing coals—I am all too apt to become distracted from a cooking chore, and if the pot was where I would notice it, it would be safer. I selected a large, but much lighter, container for the water, along with a net for my catches, and went quietly down the beach.

  My slippered feet made no sound on the soft wet sand, and when I saw one the little six-legged scurrying creatures busily exploring our collection of food, I stopped and watched it. It never looked in my direction, and when it finally picked up a fruit and trundled off I was certain it was unaware of my following presence. It moved rapidly and purposefully down a narrow, almost invisible trail, and seemed unaware of both the noisy rustling it caused among the bushes, and my own silent progress. I was concerned, as we were approaching some thorn thickets, but the little animal's speed never slackened. To my amazement, I saw the thorny branches divide before it! The animal hurried through without pausing, and I was able to follow before the aperture closed again. I noticed with some dismay that it did reclose, and the way behind me was as thick and thorny as ever, but my curiosity was growing with every step, and I postponed worry about my eventual return. In any case, our destination seemed to be so far ahead that we went into and out of many thorn thickets; my small guide was pursuing a beeline, and as long as I stayed quick and quiet behind it, I could follow, and then select my own way home. We traveled thus for nearly an hour, through dark forests, across a still-warm crusted tongue of lava from the nearby volcano, and we had penetrated a larger and thicker forest of thorns than I had yet seen when I suddenly saw a clearing ahead of us, and a spot of bright color.

  Thus warned, I hesitated, and stayed motionless as the little animal continued on, straight ahead, up to and into a hole in the trunk of the strangest tree I have ever seen. With instinctive caution in the presence of such a large and peculiar plant, I sank into the shadow of a convenient boulder and watched. The tree is at least four meters tall and very thick in diameter—about one meter, at an estimate. The leaves atop it form a dense canopy, of a softer shade of the ubiquitous blue-green. Suspended from these upper regions are six small structures, like hanging nests. One of the nests quivered from time to time, as though it contained a living occupant. The small animal I had pursued scampered up one of the large roots of the tree into a smoothly rounded hole and disappeared. I watched for its return to sight for many minutes, but nothing happened.

  All at once, I heard the whistling which has become so familiar to us, and ducked instinctively as one of the little "owls" fluttered into view and dove immediately into one of the flaccid nest-like structures. Once again I waited, watching, and noting how sturdy are the thick long roots which support the trunk—there were six of them, curved and long.

  The glimpse of color which had caught my eye was red, and shaped like a curious decoration, entangled in the leaves of the canopy. In addition, hanging above the little hole in the trunk is a fabric-like banner, creamy in color, and curiously patterned in red. The trunk is girdled with a series of pouches—I was not close enough to determine if they grew from the bark or were simply hung along the surface, but there were things inside them, of varying contours. I watched closely, but caution kept me from approaching nearer—I didn't want the little owl-things to spot me while I was so far off on my own.

  The thought of passing time startled me, and I realized I had better leave this fascinating tree, bedecked as it appeared to be for some celebration—by whom?—and report to the others. Accordingly, I turned back, and patiently fought the thorns in silence until I was free of that thicket and could run around the rest, back towards the beach.

  By the time I reached the little spring my steps had slowed considerably, and, when I trotted up, I saw with horror the water container I had dropped. Those wretched beans! In urgent haste I filled the jar and fled towards the fire, trying desperately to think how long I had been gone. I quailed when I saw all the others there, busily carrying wood, while Cinnamon bent sadly over the pot of now-roasted beans.

  "Reiki, I'm afraid you burned these even before you cooked them!" she said mildly. Comments from the others were less gentle.

  "Did you say there were lots of these, Carmen?" asked Jinjur. "So, maybe, we can try again with them when someone is willing to pay attention?"

  "Well, yes, there's plenty," Carmen sniffed. "But the branches are stiff and scratchy; someone else can go for the next batch!"

  "I don't suppose you had any extra time to collect clams, either, Reiki? Hope you're all willing to try boiled roots tonight, folks!" taunted Shirley.

  "Gack!" said Richard, with feeling.

  "Too late to do anything about that now. C'mon, Reiki, help us hustle for dry wood—haven't you noticed the sky?" David's importunate query caught my ear. Of course I hadn't noticed the sky, having been far too interested in my strange tree. Now I looked and saw that the rain had stopped, at least for a while, and the sky above was clearing. It was near noon, and the darkness was falling as Barnard slid behind Gargantua. Beautifully, magically, the elliptical light of Prometheus shone in the darkening heavens through the thinning clouds! My whole self ached with the glorious sight, so familiar and dear, and containing everything I knew of home!

  Hastily, I sloshed the useless water into the bean pot and hurried to help. We had, several days previously, formed a huge cross on the sand, as straight and true as possible with the naked eye, and built up a wide ridge of sand along the lines. This sand was quick to drain dry, and along the ridges we hastily and evenly piled our tinder, bringing it from the big supply we kept under shelter. We worked quickly in the fading light, for ominous clouds were gathering again. Then each of us took a portion of the burning coals, and at Jinjur's signal we bent to set our bonfire alight. Rapidly, the dry wood caught, and the flames spre
ad along the bisecting lines, even, straight, and burning brightly. It was a splendid fiery cross! We watched it burn, in silence, and willed our thoughts upwards with the sparks. For half an hour we kept it flaming, sending its clear signal of life and hope. Then, with planned precision, we snuffed it out, as close as we could do it all at one time. This too is part of the signal, indicating we are in some degree of control, at present. As we extinguished the last embers with sand, we were all quiet. We have done what we can, and just about all we can, to reestablish communication with our parent ship. The next move will be up to them. Pensively, wearily, we drifted slowly back towards our campfire as the next storm front moved in and it started to rain again.

  Suddenly, Carmen, in the lead, sniffed twice. "What's that I smell? It smells like . . .no . . .it can't be . . .coffee?"

  The scent coming on the rising little breeze was not coffee, really, but it was not unpleasant; it was toasty, and warm, with a definite character. Arielle broke into a run and hurried to my steaming bean pot. She and Cinnamon bent over it hopefully, and found spoons to taste.