Extreme Difference

by D. B. Reynolds-Moreton

  ‘We’ll sort that problem out if and when we come to it. Don’t forget, there’s much superstition attached to most stories in your history. Oh, and we’ll have to find some way of making light if we are going outside the range of the gas lamps, so start thinking about that.’ said Sandy, as they began assembling for the evening meal.

  Mop looked very pleased with herself when she came in with her steaming cauldron, and liberally splashed several members of the party as she dished out the foul smelling brew. Luckily, it tasted better than it smelt, as usual.

  With the meal over, the group slowly dispersed with the occasional ill concealed belch, leaving Ben, Sandy, and Nan still sitting at the table. Mop collected up the bowls and dumped them into the cauldron, wiped up the few remaining puddles of spilt stew, and giving Sandy a slight nudge as she passed by, swept out of the cavern with a look of triumph on her face.

  ‘That was the best meal she has produced yet.’ Nan said, picking a few vagrant particles from his beard and eating them. ‘I only hope she can keep up this new standard for a while.’ He sat back, leaning against the wall of the cavern, and looked expectantly at the other two.

  ‘Can I ask a few more questions about this place?’ asked Sandy hesitantly, knowing that Nan could easily be upset.

  He nodded, his face taking on a furrowed and serious look.

  ‘Tell me about the sands, and the creatures who live in them.’ Sandy began, aware that Ben was showing interest.

  ‘We’ve never seen them, only suffered from their attacks. They only come to the surface when it’s not too cold or too hot, so we are free to walk on the sands between these times.

  ‘Early morning and late evening, if your feet are well covered, are safe times, although that can’t be guaranteed. Whatever they are, they’re very quick, those caught by them just disappear into the sand, only having time to give a yell. Do you have something in mind?’ he asked.

  ‘Just thought they might be a source of meat, that’s if we can catch ’em. If we could, they would be a good trading material, but we would have to keep the whole thing to ourselves, or we’ll lose the trading value.’

  Nan looked surprised at the idea, and then asked what ‘meat’ was, as it was not on Mop’s menu as far as he knew, and he had forgotten the meaning of the word.

  Sandy did his best to explain that it was a high protein food, although he wasn’t quite sure what that meant, except that it was a desirable thing to have available, and then went on to elaborate on a possible and safe method of capture.

  ‘If we bait a long rope with something edible on the end, and throw it out onto the sands as they are warming up, whatever is down there should grab it, and then we can haul in the rope a little, and leave the sun’s heat to kill it.’

  Nan didn’t say anything for a while, but Ben was almost too keen to get on with the project. It was decided in the end to work out all the finer points of the capture, and then put it to the rest of the group to see how they felt about eating meat, and if they thought the risk was worth taking.

  It was obvious that Nan wanted to change the subject, so Sandy took the offered chance, and brought up the Great Lights for discussion. It was then even more obvious that Nan would have preferred to have stuck with the creatures of the sands until all were ready for bed.

  ‘Just what are these lights?’ asked Sandy, feigning innocence, as he thought this might be most productive.

  ‘They are the great providers, the creators of people like us. They visit us every now and again to bring new people, and materials for us to make use of. Without them, we would not exist, nor could we exist here, for there is nothing to sustain us without their help.’ Nan adopted the look of someone who had just delivered the final statement on a subject, and considered that subject to be at an end. He had not reckoned with the tenacity of purpose which drove Sandy to find out what had happened to him.

  ‘Why do you think they create us, and then dump us in this godforsaken place to struggle for a miserable existence which I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy?’

  ‘It is their will,’ said Nan, falteringly, ‘they have a purpose which is unknown to us.’

  ‘I bet they bloody have.’ Sandy muttered under his breath.

  ‘But what could that purpose be?’ Ben interjected, sensing a battle of wills was about to commence, and was enjoying the mental sparring which underlay it.

  ‘Do you consider them to be Gods, a higher type of being, an almighty power able to create whatever they want?’ Sandy was now getting into his stride, and sensing the confusion Nan was going through trying to rationalize his beliefs and explain them, he remorselessly pressed ahead.

  ‘If they could create anything they wished, why not create a pleasant world, with plenty of food and tolerable conditions, instead of this hell hole of heat and cold and its lack of the most basic comforts?’

  ‘It is their wish.’ Nan replied defiantly, looking more uncomfortable by the minute.

  ‘You keep saying, ‘It is their wish’, as if that answered everything. It answers nothing. Everything has a reason or purpose behind it, and I think there is a purpose behind our situation here. It’s nothing to do with a God or Gods creating us and a world for us to play in, while they look on for amusement. I think there is a more rational purpose behind it, and I mean to find out what it is, and turn it to our advantage.’ Sandy sat back to see what affect his statement had on the otherwise unflappable Nan, and was disappointed to see him disintegrate into a mere shadow of his former self.

  The man was clearly in mental turmoil, his old beliefs which had sustained him through many doubtful moments were now being systematically ripped apart, and no longer seemed to make sense when looked at rationally.

  Why had this disturbing stranger come among them?

  The silence dragged on, and eventually Nan gathered himself up for one last defence of his world, as he knew it.

  ‘What you are saying amounts to sacrilege.’ he began, drawing himself up to his full height as best he could while being seated. ‘If what you’re saying should ever get back to the Great Light, it would be the end of their gifts, and there would be no more people to replace those who die. Just think what that would mean to us, it would be the end of our world in a very short while. You are treading on dangerous ground, and I suggest you think twice before probing any deeper into things you don’t understand.’ He sat back, exhausted with the mental effort of overriding his suspicions of what might be true and trying to retain some degree of control over the situation.

  Sandy patiently waited a few moments for things to calm down, before delivering the final blow to what he considered to be a totally false and useless quasi religious regime.

  ‘Just think on this, you arrive here as fully grown adults, with no memory of your past, dumped into a harsh world where you have to continually fight for a miserable existence and no means of escape. People start life as children, and grow up into adults, but that memory has been denied you.

  ‘If you had to be put somewhere to live out your miserable lives, it could be somewhere more hospitable than this harsh hell hole, unless there was a reason for choosing this place. So what could be that reason?’ Sandy carried on before anyone could intervene and spoil his rapid train of thought.

  ‘If I wanted to prevent anyone from digging back into an occluded memory, I would place ’em in an environment where their every waking moment was taken up trying to survive, that way they wouldn’t have time to think about their past, let alone work out what had happened to them.’

  ‘That makes sense to me,’ Ben butted in, not wishing to be left out of the argument, ‘and it certainly explains a few things I’ve been thinking about.’ He turned to Sandy, willing him to continue.

  ‘Do you really think the Great Light has some sort of hearing aid tuned in to our conversation, to see if we are being ungrateful for it’s bountiful gifts, which I consider to be their discarded rubbish anyway, and, if so, are all the other groups being monitored
at the same time? Come on Nan, just think about it, it can’t possibly be true.’

  Nan’s eyes had gone out of focus, as Sandy’s heretical suggestions clashed with his own beliefs, the internal struggle manifesting itself as a series of shudders rippling through his body. Somewhere, deep in Nan’s partially occluded memories, connections were being made which had not existed for a very long time. Pictures of things he had not known in his present world were beginning to flash up, devaluing and displacing his present field of references.

  ‘Do you think he’s all right?’ asked an anxious Ben, as Nan struggled to break out of the trance induced by the mind conflict. ‘You don’t think he’s going to die, do you?’

  ‘No,’ Sandy replied confidently, ‘he’s just trying to adjust to a whole set of new ideas and reasons for being here. It must be like suddenly discovering you are someone else after thinking you are you, if you see what I mean.’

  ‘I think so.’ Ben sounded doubtful about the concept.

  Sandy gently reached across to touch Nan’s trembling arm.

  ‘Are you OK? Sorry to have shaken you up like that, Nan, but someone had to do it. We can’t go on living like this, it’s disgusting to say the least of it, and not much fun into the bargain. The only way to improve things is to find out the truth, and then turn it to our advantage.’

  With a final shudder, Nan wrenched himself back into present time, giving the other two a weak smile as he said, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t stop shaking. There must be something in what you say, because looking back it all seems a bit silly somehow. Can’t explain it, it’s just a feeling I have, a sort of numbness, difficulty in getting my thoughts together coherently. Please carry on with your questions, I’ll do my best to answer them as truthfully as possible.’

  ‘Are you sure you’re up to it?’ asked a concerned Sandy, thankful that the first hurdle in his quest for the truth had been cleared. Nan just nodded.

  ‘What do you know of the Great Lights? How do you know when they will come?’

  Nan slumped back against the wall, drew in a deep breath as if it would be his very last, and then relaxed out a little.

  ‘I just know when they will be here. Can’t explain it really, it’s just a feeling I get. When I go outside, it’s always just before dawn and the light is always there, like a big round sun, but there’s no heat. By the time I walk across the sands, the new body has been dropped, and anything else they wish to give us. I bring the new person back to our home, as I did you, and they join the group. That’s all there is to it.’

  Sandy nodded sagely, looking for clues in every word uttered by the now contrite Nan, but finding nothing new on the subject.

  ‘Have you ever seen anything above the light? For instance, when it is visiting another group?’

  ‘I’ve only seen it twice when it was for the others, as I don’t get the ‘I should be outside’ feeling then. All I ever see is the light, it’s so bright it blinds one to anything else, and it’s so big. There is no sound that I’m aware of, except a very faint whisper, like wind blowing through bare trees.’

  ‘And what are trees?’ asked Sandy innocently, hardly able to hide his smile.

  ‘I don’t know... yes I do, they’re tall growing things, with leaves like our plants, only bigger, and if you have a lot of them together, it’s call a wood! I didn’t know that just now, but when I looked, I did!’

  ‘Looks like Sandy was right when he said our memories have been hidden,’ Ben chipped in quickly, ‘I got a picture in my mind of a wood, and I’ve never had that before.’

  Sandy sat back with that smile on his face you only get when you have been proven right against all adversity, and someone else has done it for you.

  ‘What do you know of the other groups? How many are there, and are they all the same?’

  ‘There are hundreds of groups around the mountain walls, I would think. I’ve only had dealings with two or three, as the distance between them is something of a barrier. We trade with the ones each side of us, and one other, but the others have nothing to do with us. The group on our left speak the same language as us, but the others on the right have a language of their own, but one of them translates for us, so we are able to trade. You’ll be seeing them tomorrow. I’ve heard tell that most groups have their own language which others can’t understand, but I’ve never met them.’

  Nan was much more relaxed now, and seemed eager to talk to the other two. This was a relief to Ben, and encouraging to Sandy, a new question pouring out when the previous one had been answered. They talked long into the night, careful probing from Sandy producing the answers to fill the odd gaps in their history, until a detailed picture of their circumstances had been built, and the unbelievable truth was revealed at last.

  The three of them eventually went to their separate sleeping quarters, tired but wiser of what had befallen them, and just a little angry at having been made to suffer so unnecessarily.

  The night was very short, and it was a bleary eyed Sandy who was shaken awake next morning by a grinning Mop with a portion of ‘bread’, as she had been unable to find him the previous night. He was glad of the food, and was saved from the next course by the shuffling footsteps of Ben who appeared just in time. Mop left, giving Ben a filthy look in passing.

  ‘My, she’s got her eye on you all right.’ Ben croaked, hoarse from so much unaccustomed talking. ‘If she gets you into her cave, you’ll never get out!’

  ‘Perish the thought,’ Sandy groaned, as an involuntary picture of the dreaded amorous Mop in full cry flashed before his eyes, ‘I can only just stomach her stews.’

  ‘We’re due to pay our neighbours a visit this morning, and it’s almost light enough.’ Ben looked longingly at the bread, so Sandy broke it in half.

  The shuffling of their footsteps was augmented by their noisy munching on the hard and dry gift from Mop, as they made their way to the outside world.

  ‘You’ll have to wrap your feet in these.’ said Ben, handing Sandy two long dirty rags. ‘It’s to protect your feet from the frozen sands.’

  The first hint of daylight broke above the towering crater walls with a soft pink glow, as the pair set off at a jog to arrange a swap of goods for a few growing bins, and their contents. Bell had already checked her stock, and found that she could spare four of them without jeopardizing their own food supplies.

  They were greeted by the other group’s translator, being careful to keep up wind of him and dreading the moment when they would have to enter the cave system and experience the closer proximity of the reeking creature.

  ‘Weren't sure you’d turn up, ’cos we don’t ’ave much to trade wiv,’ he said, waving them into the entrance tunnel.

  By keeping well ahead of their smelly escort and following the directions he kept calling out, they managed to avoid most of his noxious odours, until they came to the cave where the scavenged cast off's of the Great Light were stored.

  ‘Don’t show too much interest in anything you think would be useful, as it will weaken our bargaining power.’ Sandy muttered to Ben, whose eyes had already lit up at the sight of so much metal.

  ‘We can only spare three boxes and their plants.’ Sandy offered, lightly treading on Ben’s foot as he opened his mouth to correct the quotation.

  The head of their clan had now joined the group, which brought them all into even closer proximity, and thereby intensified the aroma of long unwashed bodies.

  ‘What’s this?’ asked Sandy, pointing to a very large bale of fine cloth lying in a corner of the cave, partly covered by thin sheets of metal which had been randomly thrown down.

  ‘That’s metal from the Great Light,’ the translator said, ‘that other stuff we got from a group who didn’t wan’ it.’

  ‘What do you use that stuff for?’ enquired Sandy, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible.

  ‘We don’t,’ came the reply, ‘tident no use to us, it’s too soft ’an fine.’ Sandy marked it down mentally as an almost free gi
ft, if he played his cards right. They continued to rummage through the junk piles which had collected over the years, Sandy looking for metal tools and blades.

  ‘We’ll have to go soon,’ Ben straightened his back with a loud click, ‘the sun’ll be up over the top of the rim, and then we’ll have to stay here ’till evening.’

  The threat of staying for a full day was enough for Sandy, and he began to gather together the items he thought would be of most use to them. The actual bargaining took longer than they had anticipated, as everything had to be translated via the man with the strange accent to the chief, and back again, also the chief proved to be a little more canny than they had expected.

  In the end, they acquired a collection of flat pieces of metal, some wire of different thicknesses', various bits of plastic, and the huge roll of cloth was thrown in for good measure, as Sandy had predicted it would be.

  The main sticking point in the transaction was a metal cylinder, with what looked like a pump attached to it.

  In his eagerness to acquire it, he had been unable to disguise his interest in the piece of machinery, and so the ‘price’ went up. In the end, after much haggling, it was agreed that an extra growing bin would be exchanged for the cylinder and its attachments. Ben grinned to himself at Sandy’s astuteness and foresight.

  As the raided group would have to collect the growing bins from Nan’s caves, and would have to go over there anyway, it was agreed that they would help transport Sandy’s collection of materials as they went, and so the party set off, with the full sun just breaking the highest peaks.

  As they rounded a small peninsula of rock which jutted out into the sands, a piece of sheet metal fell out of the over filled arms of one of the men. Before he could readjust his load and stoop down to retrieve it, it disappeared in a flurry of sand, as something below sensed a meal.