Extreme Difference

by D. B. Reynolds-Moreton

  ‘Take meat for instance. I know I used to eat it, but can’t recall where it came from, or what to do with it, until I saw the sand creature, and then it all came flooding back. If we work at it, I think our memories can be recovered.’

  ‘I think you’re right on that point, I’ve noticed that I know more now than I did before you came here. Perhaps we help each other by talking about things, and trying to make sense of them. I wonder why Nan hasn’t noticed this also?’ Ben looked thoughtful for a moment, not sure if he had explained exactly what he meant.

  ‘He may well have, but hasn’t said anything. Don’t forget, Nan’s the leader of your group, and can’t reveal anything which would undermine his authority.’

  ‘You said ‘your group’, don’t you feel part of us?’ Ben sounded and looked hurt.

  ‘Well of course I’m part of the group, that was just a slip of the tongue. I’m the newest arrival here, so I’m bound to think of myself as being an outsider, and see things from an outsider’s point of view. That’s why I’m able to see the stupidity of Nan’s unquestioned belief in the Great Lights as the creator of all. It’s total clap trap, think about it.’

  ‘I never felt really happy about it,’ responded Ben, ‘it’s just what everyone else accepted, and it seemed reasonable at the time. But why do you think they dumped us here? There must be a reason.’

  ‘Sure there is, but I can only guess at it right now. I suspect it’s because we’ve done something somewhere, the recipients didn’t like. They felt uneasy about terminating our lives, and did the next best thing, plonked us down here.

  ‘Look at it from their point of view, if you place someone in a situation which makes life difficult, they’ll spend most of their time trying to survive, not thinking about where they came from, or how to get back. In this hole, you spend all your time trying to survive, no wonder you stagger along from day to day, just accepting whatever is offered, there’s little time or incentive to think, or bring about improvements.’

  ‘See what you mean, it does make sense when you think about it,’ mused Ben, not too sure if it did.

  ‘Anyway, I don’t intend to spend the rest of my life cooped up here, I think there’s something else on the other side of the crater, and I’m going to find it.’ Sandy added. ‘I’ll need some help, and I’m banking on you and a few others to join me. If Nan wants to stay here and mumble on about the Great Lights, that’s up to him, but I'm certainly not.’

  At that point, Ben found a small metal container with a screw lid, and thoughtfully turned it over in his hands.

  ‘This could make the basis of the lamp you’re on about,’ he said, offering it to Sandy, ‘all we need to do is fit a tube on the top to hold a wick, and some means of turning it up or down to adjust the flame.’

  ‘How did you know that, about the tube and the wick?’ asked Sandy, with a grin.

  ‘Don’t know, I just did,’ Ben replied, looking puzzled.

  ‘Just goes to prove my point, we all know a lot more than we think we do, it just needs a little push here, a reminder there, and it comes flooding back.’ Sandy had that self satisfied look on his face which had so annoyed Nan on earlier occasions.

  ‘We’ll need to protect the flame from being blown out by any drafts in the tunnels, and a piece of that reflective material you found would concentrate the light in a forward direction. All we need now is the oil, and I feel sure I can make that from the fat we saved.’

  At the midday meal, they told Nan about the lamp, but he only listened politely, showing very little real interest in the project. Sandy’s patience with the old leader reduced still further, and he resolved to waste no further time explaining his ideas to the unreceptive Nan, leader or not.

  ‘Take no notice of him,’ Ben said quietly, ‘he’ll come around when he sees what we’re up to.’

  The afternoon was spent setting up the last of the racks for storing the dried meat, helping Bell fill her new growing bins with compost from the digester, and then planting out the new seedlings in them.

  They were now able to produce more food than they really needed, and some plants which were suitable for drying were exposed to the sun for the last part of the afternoon.

  Unfortunately, those who took them out had to be completely covered in clothing from head to foot, and wear strange looking headgear with a semi-opaque eye piece to cut down the blaze of light in the crater.

  This had only become possible of late, as the semi-opaque material had been obtained on a recent exchange with one of the other groups.

  Sandy and Ben were waiting by the entrance for the sun to dip below the crater rim, so that they could see how the meat drying experiment had gone, when Nan came up to them. ‘I understand that you have given orders that we must not disclose to other groups how we obtained the meat strips, and processed them.’

  ‘That’s correct.’ Sandy replied, without looking at him.

  ‘By what right do you do this, may I ask?’

  ‘Makes sense,’ Sandy replied tersely. ‘If they know how we do it, then we lose the advantage of trading the meat.’

  ‘Would you not agree, that I, as your leader, should give the orders around here? You have only just arrived, so to speak.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you give them? You’ve had plenty of time to work out the economics of the situation, but as yet, you’ve shown no interest in the operation.’

  Sandy was still smarting from Nan’s dismissal of his ideas at the midday break, and would give him no quarter now.

  ‘I don’t see the need for all this trading anyway, we were doing all right before.’ Nan decided to try another tack.

  ‘Oh yes? How would you have handled the attack from that load of barbarians who wiped out one of our neighbouring groups, without the flame-thrower? They would have massacred the lot of you. You now have an ample water supply, instead of the pathetic dribble gathered before from condensation on the crater rocks.

  ‘We now have decent clothing, we are clean, and look more like human beings instead of the filthy smelly bunch of rock hermits of only a short while ago. Food has improved, and we can now eat our fill instead of grovelling for every dropped crumb. Most of these things have been brought about through using materials we either had in the stores which nobody bothered to utilize, or through trading for things we needed.’ Sandy paused for breath, filling his lungs.

  ‘Just how long do you think you would hold your post as so called leader if you returned the group to the former conditions you all enjoyed? I’d say ten minutes, and I’m being generous.’

  Nan looked stunned at the onslaught, going a deep red beneath his normally healthy brown tan.

  ‘The Great Light didn’t create us to become super beings, we are placed here to do the Great Light’s will, and make use of the gifts it so generously gives us from time to time, not to make strange devices with them. Anyway, I could have talked the raiders out of harming us, so there was no need to have used the flame-thrower so devastatingly.’

  It was now Sandy’s turn to look astonished, and all eyes turned to him to see what his response would be.

  Most of the group had now assembled in the tunnel to help with the collection of the dried meat strips, not expecting to be witness to the apparent power struggle which was now going on between Nan and the newcomer.

  Karry and Bell, followed by Kel, pushed their way to the front of the crowd, ready to take sides if it came to the crunch.

  In the tense silence which followed Nan’s last statement, grins were beginning to appear on the faces of those who held little credence for Nan’s theory of the Great Lights, his almost hysterical outpourings finally convincing them of which side they would choose to follow if it came to a choice.

  ‘I have nothing against you,’ Sandy began, carefully controlling his voice to a steady even pitch, ‘and as a person, I like you. But you know nothing, and understand even less. Look at the ridiculous statement you’ve just made, no one here believes such clap trap any m
ore, that’s if they ever did. I do not consider you fit to be leader of this, or any group. You are incapable of judging a situation on the facts present; preferring to abdicate responsibility to some higher force, which only exists in your warped imagination.

  ‘I am willing to accept you as group leader, issuing your orders as you wish, just so long as they do not clash or hamper those things I intend to do to improve our lot here. I do not want to call a vote to elect a new leader, but I will if I have to in order to secure the group’s survival. I think there are enough here who would back me in that.’

  A surprisingly loud chorus of affirmations echoed through the tunnel, and Nan seemed to crumple under the rising volume of ‘yers’. ‘I think we should get the meat in,’ Ben announced, looking at Sandy, ‘we can sort out this leader thing later on this evening, after we’ve eaten.’

  ‘Thank God for some common sense at last.’ Karry said, and they all trooped out onto the still warm sands and began climbing the rocks to retrieve the dried meat strips.

  A shout of surprise brought Sandy running to one group who were passing the strips down from a high ledge.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ he asked, having some difficulty in clambering up the smooth rock face.

  ‘Look at this, something’s taken some of the strips.’

  A neat row of some twenty meat strips lay along the ledge, with a gap in the middle which would have accommodated at least three.

  ‘I don’t like the look of this,’ said Sandy, ‘there’s a slight stain on the rock where the strips have been, so it looks as thought we’ve had a visitor who can stand a lot of daytime heat.’ He called down to Ben, ‘Pass the word to the other gatherers, see if there are any more missing strips.’

  Ben hurried off to do as he was bid, while Sandy looked for clues on the rock surface to see if he could determine who or what had raided their stocks.

  By the time the light began to fade, and the chill of evening warned of the freeze to come, the last of the meat strips had been gathered up, and hurried down to the storeroom.

  Sandy’s container of fat lumps had been reduced to a thick oil, with the fat matrix tissue still floating in it like a half seen ghost, and the added bonus of an unpleasant smell.

  Mop announced that the evening meal would be a little late due to the extra work she had done, but no one minded, as the exercise had been a great success, and all were amazed at the quantity of meat strips which now lay neatly stacked up for the future. Ben mentioned he was looking forward to trading some of the strips to top up his stores, not that there was much room left, even in the second chamber.

  This prompted a few witty remarks from those who had seen his collection of what the ‘Great Lights’ considered to be their unwanted rubbish.

  By the time everyone had cleaned up, and began to assemble in the main chamber for the evening meal, the atmospheric tension had begun to build up again.

  One of the group, whom Sandy hadn’t bothered to get to know by name, quietly came up to him and respectfully asked, ‘Why don’t you make an outright bid for total leadership, you’re bound to get it. We’re all fed up with Nan and his weird theories.’

  ‘I’m not really fussed whether I’m leader or not,’ Sandy replied, ‘I just get on with what I want to do. I don't think Nan will try to stop me, and if he does, I'll just ignore him, politely of course. Generally, he doesn’t do too bad a job as leader.’ The other man looked disappointed.

  ‘I think his wheels have got a bit loose. Just before you came, he tried to get some of us to go out, well wrapped up of course, and pray to the Greater Light. I told him what he could do with his prayer mat, and he hasn’t spoken directly to me since. I think we need a change, and you’re it.’

  ‘OK, OK, we’ll talk about it later. Look, Mop’s bringing the food in.’ Fortunately for Sandy, the attraction of food, after a hard days work, had greater pulling power than politics, and the matter was dropped for the time being.

  As Mop moved around the crude table, dishing out her brew, exclamations of delight and the rattle of spoons in their bowls followed her ample body, as it went from person to person.

  ‘Hey, this is great Mop, what did you put in it?’ was eventually asked by an over curious someone, although most would rather not have known it later transpired.

  ‘Can’t you guess?’ she asked brightly. ‘I put some of those meat strips in, that’s one reason I’m late, good isn’t it?’

  The silence which followed was only broken by the clatter of spoons being returned to their bowls, but before long, they were all chomping away again, she was right, it was very good.

  No more was said about the leadership battle, and Sandy was thankful for that. When the meal was finished, and perhaps with indecent haste, Sandy and his faithful companion disappeared down to the storeroom, which in effect was now becoming a workshop.

  ‘The oil has separated out quite well,’ Sandy said, as he hooked the remains of the fibrous tissue from the container.

  ‘Now we need to see if it will burn.’

  Ben had already been working on a simple lamp, and it was only a matter of adding oil to the base container and adjusting the wick, to see if it would give them the light they so badly needed.

  ‘I think we’ll have to run this oil through some charcoal, to get rid of the smell, it’s awful.’ Sandy commented, as he poured the thick odorous liquid into the lamp.

  ‘How did you know that would remove the smell? ... sorry, I needn't have asked.’ Ben added quickly.

  The lamp was taken over to the guttering gas flame on the wall, the oiled wick sputtered, and then burnt brightly, adding a considerable amount of light to the gloomy room.

  ‘Hey, that’s great,’ exclaimed Ben, with childlike enthusiasm, ‘would two wicks give twice as much light?’

  ‘Should do, why not try it? If you can find something in your store which is reflective and flexible, we can make a lamp where the beam can be concentrated to reach into the distance, or be used for general light.’

  They both worked on late into the night, experimenting with their lamps, and learning as they went along. When Sandy eventually went to his cave, Mop was already tucked up in the blankets, and he had quite a struggle to wrench some free to cover himself, without disturbing her. He was in no fit state for hi-jinks at this time of the morning.

  Dawn came all too quickly, and Mop had already gone to her kitchen to prepare the morning meal when Sandy awoke.

  He was the only one in the communal wash cave, the others having long since vacated it for the main cavern, and food.

  When he arrived, the general mutter of conversation stopped dead, and all heads turned to face him.

  The same man who had approached him the day before, now stood up, and clearing his throat nervously, he began,

  ‘We have had a good discussion of the matter raised yesterday with you, and the feeling is unanimous that you be elected our new leader. We like the things you have brought about, and feel that you have a much firmer grip on reality that poor old Nan, so how about it?’ He sat down hurriedly, as Nan was the only one not present, and might come in at any moment.

  ‘That’s up to you all. I’m not putting myself up for the job. I said more than I should have yesterday, and I have no wish to hurt Nan any further. I think if you leave things as they are for a while, they’ll sort themselves out, and a leader will emerge naturally. That way, we don’t cause any more upset.’

  The others reluctantly nodded, accepting Sandy’s ruling as if he had been their new leader, and the matter was forgotten when the food came in. ‘What are you making down in the storeroom?’ asked one man, between mouthfuls. ‘I’d like to be in on it, if you need any more help.’

  ‘You’ve no idea what we’re up to, it might be boring or dangerous. You should never volunteer for anything unless you know what you’re getting into.’ Sandy didn’t want half the group traipsing down to the workshop, cluttering the place up and asking stupid questions.

&nb
sp; ‘I’m fed up with sitting on my arse half the day, trying to find something useful to do, so I’ll take a chance on that,’ the man replied forcefully. ‘I noticed you had put some fat out, which turned to oil, and Ben has been bashing away with some tinplate. Oil and a container equals a lamp, so I assume you are going to explore some of the tunnels which have been out of bounds to us because there’s no gas lamps in them. If you are, and you need someone to carry anything, I’m your man.’

  Sandy liked the man’s forthright attitude, and tenacity.

  ‘All right, if we need you, we’ll let you know.’

  Turning aside to Ben a few moments later, Sandy asked,

  ‘What’s his name?

  ‘Greg,’ Ben replied, ‘and he’s a good sort, a bit quiet normally, but he gets things done with little or no fuss.’

  ‘OK, we’ll include him when we get going, but first I’d like to take a look at the tunnels which go down below the digester room.’

  ‘That’s one place we’re not supposed to go,’ Ben quietly said, ‘I’ve heard that someone went down there a long time ago, and they didn’t return.’

  ‘Well, let’s find out why, there may be something we should know about the place. I’m damned sure it’s not quite what it appears to be, by a long way.’

  The meal over, the two went down to the work room as they now referred to it, and lit two of their lamps, trimming the wicks so that they gave a clear flame and no smoke.

  ‘What do we do if the lamps get blown out?’ asked Ben, trying to foresee every possible eventuality.

  ‘Good point, but they should be all right with the transparent cover around them, but just to be on the safe side, we’d better get that covered.’

  They tried to set fire to some coarse cloth, using the sparks from the spark stone they had discovered earlier. It failed to work, so they settled for a length of smouldering string and some very fine dry plant fibres, obtained from Bell.