Impact!

by Laurence Dahners

  “Yes!”

  “You should set this meteorite down and step back so that the fire coming out of its back end doesn’t burn you.”

  Dex did so, and with a screeching sound the meteorite shot back up into the air and moved away in the direction Dex thought led off the front of the ledge.

  At first Dex was astonished that the meteorite would fly off into the murky air. Dalins found it very frightening to fly when they couldn’t see, although they would occasionally do it for fun in clouds high up in the air. Flying down near the ground when you couldn’t see however—that could lead to terrible injuries if you hit something hidden in fog or darkness. All dalins had an inborn reluctance to fly when they couldn’t see.

  After hie gave it a little thought though, Dex realized that if the meteorite could tell himr where to go to find the zornits, it must be able to see despite the dust. After all, it had offered to try to find Qes, how could it possibly do that unless it could see? While hie pondered this, Dex reached up and rotated hies neck-cloth, as hie’d come to think of the air intake device the meteorite had given himr. It had been getting somewhat hard to pull air through it, but hie had found earlier that if hie rotated it to a fresh part of the cloth it made it easier to breathe again. Back in the cave hie’d taken it off and looked at it, finding a great deal of dust in the portion of the neck-cloth that had been right over hies air intake. Hie wondered what was going to happen when the entire neck-cloth was choked with dust.

  The meteorite shrieked back down and landed beside Dex. Speaking in its monotone it said, “I found Qes. It looks like hie fell over the lip of the ledge and was injured. Hie is still breathing so I don’t think the fall killed himr, but hie appears to be unconscious. If you’ll pick me up I can lead you to himr.”

  Once Dex picked up the meteorite, it had himr turn right instead of going in the direction from which it had come. At first hie was confused, then hie realized that the meteorite understood hie could only walk, not fly. It was taking himr to the end of the ledge and around and down. Since there wasn’t a good path that way Dex found himrself tripping quite a bit more than hie had on the trip up to the meadow. “How do you see in this dust?” hie asked the meteorite.

  “I can see with… with special eyes that see even more infrared than you do… Like you can see somewhat better with infrared light, I can see even better yet using… light that is even more infrared.”

  Dex thought, more infrared? To himr, infrared was just one of the colors hie saw and hie couldn’t understand this “more infrared” term. Hie wanted to ask more questions but thought that the answers probably wouldn’t be any easier to understand than the one hie’d just gotten.

  Eventually Dex and Malnot found themselves down on the ground beneath the ledge. Qes lay crumpled there. Hies breath still pumped through himr so hie must still be alive. Dex leaned down close and could see that Qes’ neck-cloth was quite dirty over hies air intake. Dex twisted it around to a cleaner portion, then looked Qes over as well as hie could in the dirty air. Hies eyes caught on a funny angle.

  Qes’ arm was broken!

  Malnot had been leaning in as well. Hie gasped and exclaimed, “Dyatso!”

  In its flat voice, the meteorite said, “Dyatso?”

  Dex said, “It means ‘walking dead.’ Someone who has injuries so severe that they can’t care for themselves or fly south for the winter. Someone who is alive for now, but will soon be dead. Dyatso is what Qes called Syrdian when Syrdian’s wings were ripped by the talor.”

  Malnot, sounding abashed, said, “I forgot that you healed Syrdian’s wings! I suppose you can do the same thing for Qes’ arm?”

  “No…! No, I repaired Syrdian’s wings like I do leather work. I have no idea how to fix a broken arm!”

  “Oh…” Malnot said in a disappointed tone.

  After a brief silence, the meteorite said, “We may be able to offer some suggestions for the care of hies broken arm. We don’t know if they will work in a dalin, but you could try them.”

  Dex’s hearts rose as Malnot exclaimed, “We should try it! It can’t make himr worse than dyatso!”

  Dex and Malnot picked Qes up, partly by hies wings and partly by hies harness and they shuffled slowly back up to the ledge with hies broken arm dangling in front of himr. They had to stop several times to rest as walking with a heavy burden while barely able to see proved surprisingly difficult. So that Dex wouldn’t have to carry it, the meteorite moved itself, flying a short distance ahead each time they caught up to it.

  When they reached the living area of the cave, carrying Qes whose head dangled limply in front of himr, it generated a good deal of consternation. Most of the questions were about what had happened to Qes, but as Dex had feared, a few implied that hie should’ve gone for Qes more quickly.

  Qes’ mate Fantais approached angrily, barking accusations. As Dex and Malnot set Qes down, Dex wearily considered pointing out that Fantais had not gone after Qes either. Instead, hie said calmly as hie could, “It looks like Qes fell off the ledge. He’s broken hies arm.”

  “Fell!” Fantais said, disbelievingly, “How could hie fall?! There’s nothing wrong with hies wings!”

  “I don’t think you’ve been outside yet, have you Fantais?” Dex asked, knowing that Fantais was quite timid for a relatively highly-ranked dalin. Dex said, “The dust is so thick that you cannot see your own feet. If you don’t know where you are walking it would be easy to accidentally step off the rim of the ledge and fall. I am sure that Qes’ got hies wings out in time to slow hies fall, but hie would’ve been reluctant to actually fly when hie couldn’t see. If hie was merely using hies wings to slow hies fall hie may still have landed hard enough to break hies arm. If hie did try to fly, hie might have flown into the cliff face and broken hies arm. We will probably never know because shock has rendered himr unconscious and hie probably won’t remember what happened right before hies injury.”

  “Or,” Fantais said with loathing, “perhaps someone just pushed himr off the ledge.”

  Dex stared at Fantais, trying to keep hies wings from lifting, but antipathy radiated from himr nonetheless. “Since everyone else was in the cave here, I assume you think that I pushed himr off? Malnot will tell you I didn’t, but then you will probably accuse Malnot and I of conspiring to push Qes off of the ledge together.” Hie stepped back away from Qes. “I expect that if that is the case, you don’t want me to try to help care for Qes so, instead, I will go and help with the butchering of the zornits.” Dex walked a few steps back out toward the side cave where the butchering was being done, but then stopped, turned, and said, “You might ask the meteorite for help in caring for Qes. It said it could make some suggestions for the treatment of hies broken arm.”

  Dex turned and continued toward the butchering room. Most of the adult and young adult dalins of the tribe were already there, but Dex had not been surprised to find that Fantais hadn’t been participating. Fantais had been born into a high status and seemed to believe that hie was above such things despite the fact that hies status in the tribe had dropped substantially.

  The butchering had turned into an assembly line process. Even though the tribe had never had this much meat at one time before, they all understood just how desperately they needed it all to be preserved. Some dalins were cutting the meat out, others were slicing it thinly and salting it. Another group were taking the meat into the smoking grotto or tending the fire in there. There was a cluster who were making sausage. Some of the sausage would become incredibly important if they couldn’t find plants to eat. Sausage made from some of the internal organs could keep you from getting sick from a lack of vegetables.

  Dex wondered whether the meteorite could help them find some of the important plants in the world of dust and destruction outside. Hie had never been an expert at gathering plants and worried that perhaps those who were plant experts might not be able to make drawings that the meteorite could understand. Maybe the meteorite could teach some of those dali
ns to see light that was “more infrared than infrared?”

  After a while Dex took a torch and went back and down in the cave system to where the deep river ran. Hie was musing about what a good thing it was that a river actually ran through the cave so that they had access to water without going outside. Then for the first time in hies life, hie wondered where the water came from that made up that river. What if that water became choked with dust as well?!

  When hie got to the river, hie found with great relief that the water was still clear, cold and pure. Hie drank and washed blood off of himrself. Hie had old Bultaken’s zornit stomach with himr and hie took the time to fill it with water to take back to the other dalins.

  As Dex climbed back up to the main caves where everyone was living hie heard Fantais’ voice saying, “Where is Dex?! Has hie deserted us?”

  “I’m right here Fantais,” Dex said tiredly, “I went for water.”

  Fantais’ wings rose in hostility. With what appeared to be a conscious effort hie brought them back down, but then said, “You’ve got to help us with Qes! Your stupid meteorite is making red lines on the wall, but no one understands them!”

  Dex blinked a few times, astonishment rising in himr. After a moment, hie quietly said, “You’re wrong. I don’t have to help you. I don’t like you and I have never liked Qes. You are constantly rude to me and I often hear about ugly things you say behind my back. Just a little while ago you implied that I was the one who hurt Qes. If you truly believe that, then you definitely should not want me to be taking care of himr. If you don’t believe it’s true, you should apologize.” Dex turned and started towards the butchering room, but turned to say back over hies shoulder, “And, if you want my help, you should ask for it—not demand it!” Even with hies back-eyes Dex could recognize Fantais’ astonished expression.

  Dex was again covered with blood from cutting the meat out of zornits by the time hie heard Fantais tentatively say behind himr, “Dex, I’m sorry. I… I know you had nothing to do with what happened to Qes. You’re… you are also the only one who might be able to heal hies arm. Otherwise hie will be dyatso. I couldn’t take care of himr and no one else will. Would you… would you please help us?”

  Dex stood from the zornit. Hie thought for a moment of all the other things hie needed to do to help the entire tribe survive. Could hie rightfully refuse to help hies old enemy on the grounds that it might bring harm to all the others? Then hie realized that that was exactly what old Bultaken would have done when hie had been leader of the Yetany tribe.

  And that had been one of the things Dex hated about Bultaken.

  “Okay,” Dex said after a minute, “let’s go see what the meteorite’s red lines are saying.”

  When they arrived at Qes’ side, Qes still lay unconscious. “Has hie been out like this the whole time?” Dex asked in astonishment.

  “Hie woke up once, but as soon as hie saw hies deformed arm, hie passed out again.”

  Dex knelt and studied Qes arm for a moment without touching it. Hie looked up at the meteorite, then over to where the meteorite had been displaying its drawings on the wall. Currently, the drawing showed a dalin whose arm looked odd. The portion of the arm near the hand, the same portion which was broken in Qes was enlarged so that it looked more like a bundle of sticks. “Meteorite,” Dex said, “I don’t understand the drawing. Usually you show one drawing after another so that we can see something happening. Can you do that here?”

  “Sorry,” the meteorite responded, “we didn’t realize the drawings had stopped cycling through.” Immediately, the drawing which had been on the wall disappeared and was replaced by one showing a dalin whose arm appeared to be broken. Or at least it was deformed like Qes. Another dalin appeared in the next three drawings and pushed the arm back into a straight position. The meteorite spoke, “We have one of our experts at caring for broken bones here with us. Hie says that, at least in us, it is most important that the arm be straightened and then held that way.”

  Subsequent drawings showed a dalin using a hand axe on a piece of wood, or at least Dex assumed it was a piece of wood. After a moment the meteorite confirmed this, saying, “We hope that one of your tribe members who works wood can shape pieces of wood to fit Qes arm. We call them ‘splints.’” The words the meteorite had uttered, “splints” was very bizarre, leaving Dex to wonder if this was what the meteorite’s home language sounded like. Dex had met a dalin from far away once. That dalin used some words that were very different from the words the Yetanys used, but the foreigner’s words weren’t nearly as different as this word “splint.”

  The meteorite continued, “This might be more easily done by shaping a splint to fit the arm of someone who is similar in size to Qes.” The next drawing showed Qes arm tied to the piece of wood with several pieces of small rope. Then the drawings showed another piece of wood being shaped similarly to fit on the other side of the arm. Finally, the first splint was untied, then both splints were tied into place, one on each side of the arm. “The idea is that the two pieces of wood would hold the arm straight until it heals. In beings like us this might take 40 to 80 days, but we do not know how long it would take in a dalin.”

  Dex studied the drawings as they cycled through the series of images again. It seemed an obvious enough way to treat a broken arm, though hie’d never heard of anyone doing such a thing. Hie glanced at Fantais, thinking to ask why hie hadn’t straightened Qes’ arm out himrself. Hie found Fantais’ eyes staring at himr. “Did you understand that?”

  “No!” was all that Fantais said.

  Dex turned back to Qes’ arm, grasped the two segments and bent them back straight in a single quick motion. Qes made a moaning sound and hies head rose. Hies eyes flashed open to stare at hies arm in Dex’s hands. Then hies head fell limply unconscious once more. Dex turned to Fantais and said, “Sit down here and hold Qes arm straight.”

  “I can’t!”

  “You can, and you will if you want hies arm to heal correctly. I can’t sit here and hold it, I’ve got to try to find someone to shape the splints to hold it.”

  “Can’t you get someone else to do it? I don’t know how!”

  “No one knows how!” Dex said exasperatedly. “We actually need everyone in the tribe to be working on preserving the meat from the zornits. Since you haven’t been helping with the meat, at the very least you could be useful by helping with Qes. I’m not going to ask someone who is working on the meat to stop preserving meat for the entire tribe and have them hold Qes arm straight instead, just because you don’t want to do it!”

  Wide-eyed, Fantais squatted down beside Qes and gently took hold of hies arm. “What do I do if it starts getting crooked again?”

  “Straighten it back out!” Dex said with evident frustration, letting go of Qes arm and standing up. “I’ll go see if anyone is willing to shape the splints.”

  Somewhat to Dex’s surprise, Malnot volunteered to shape the sticks for Qes’ splints. Dex had been expecting one of the dalins who shaped wood for spears and other tools to do it because they had more experience with woodworking, however, they all seemed to be quite uncertain about the prospect of shaping wood to fit an arm.

  Malnot had not volunteered immediately, apparently also expecting someone else to be better at it. Thinking about it as Dex went back to butchering zornits, hie realized that the spear shapers and other toolmakers tended to be dalins who had learned to do a particular task from someone else and then practiced until they became experts at it. Malnot, on the other hand, made many different things. Hie didn’t seem to be the best at making anything, but wasn’t at all afraid to try something new. In retrospect it seemed obvious that hie would be the best candidate for making something new like splints.

  Chapter Six

  Phil had demanded that they move his bed into the big room where the other colonists were trying to set things up for Phil to be ported back to earth. With a great deal of coaching from a surgeon back on earth, Mark Wilson, the doctor o
n their team, had put a pin through the end of Phil’s thigh bone. Despite Mark injecting a bunch of local anesthetic and giving him some meds IV before putting the pin in, it had been a thoroughly unpleasant experience.

  Next, an arrangement of pulleys and weights had been ported out from Earth and set up at the foot of Phil’s bed so that they could use the pin to apply traction to his leg. According to the x-rays Mark had shot, the “traction” was holding his broken hip in a much better position. The surgeon back on earth, however, had said that the position was not good enough to prevent arthritis so he still needed surgery. Apparently, the surgery would be even more difficult if the traction didn’t hold the bones in approximately the right place until he could get ported back home, so Phil would be in the traction until he got there.

  After a while, Phil noticed that his hip didn’t hurt as badly in the traction as it had before the traction had been applied.

  Phil had pictured the actual porting procedure as being fairly simple, but this proved not to be the case. First, a rolled up port had been sent out through the biggest port they had. This new port was oblong, and an even bigger oblong port was sent through the first one. Each port was bigger and sturdier and generated more heat when it was activated. The bigger ones had radiator fins that had to be attached to them before they could be used. Finally a very large, nearly round port came through the last oblong port. Even it wasn’t really big enough for his shoulders when his arms were down at his side but Phil’s body would be able to slide through if he kept his arms up over his head as if he were diving.

  The machinists back at D5R stayed busy making more and more equipment that they sent through to Mars. This included brackets and frames that had to be assembled to hold the colonists’ dining tables tilted up at a steep angle. Then the port was placed down at the bottom end of the dining table so that Phil could slide down off the table and through the port in a very brief period of time. Phil hadn’t considered this, but apparently there was significant concern about keeping the port open long enough for him to go through. The power draw required to open a port this big to Mars was enormous, about two megawatts or enough to power a small town. When it opened, the waste heat warmed the room quickly and left the port itself almost glowing after it had been open a few minutes.