Extreme Difference

by D. B. Reynolds-Moreton

  After they had got over the shock, no one was too keen to touch any of the controls they had so nonchalantly tinkered with before.

  ‘How could they have shut off the power if they were killed in the crash?’ asked Greg, who liked things to be logical.

  ‘Probably an inertia switch,’ Sandy replied, ‘when the craft impacted, it automatically cut off the power, I guess.’

  ‘Well, what do we do now?’ asked Ben hesitantly, not so sure he wanted a ride in what might prove to be a coffin.

  Sandy sat down in the main seat in front of the control console, a determined look on his face, and a few beads of perspiration just beginning to form on his forehead.

  A small panel on the main control board had slid back, revealing two levers, and Sandy nervously rested a finger on the larger one. The others watched with bated breath.

  ‘Well, here goes,’ he said, and moved the lever the smallest amount possible towards him. The hum below them deepened, and with the screech of metal on rock, the craft edged slowly away from the cliff face and stopped as he released the lever.

  ‘Well, that wasn’t so bad,’ Sandy said, trembling, as were the others, ‘let’s try the other lever.’

  The craft lifted a metre or so from the crushed rock below, and using the larger control, Sandy eased it out from under the lava overhang, and out into the open air.

  Once the shaking had stopped, and a degree of calm restored, Sandy lowered the craft gently down to the ground, while they worked out what they would do next.

  ‘I’m surprised it’s so easy to handle,’ Ben remarked, ‘so how did they manage to crash it under the overhang?’

  ‘There might have been a thick mist at the time and they’d lost their way, who knows. What matters is, we have a viable means of transport for as long as the fuel lasts, and I suspect that might be some time.’

  They took the craft up again, turning it this way and that, and then headed out across the plain until the cliffs of the volcano were only a smudge on the horizon, the rest of the huge mountain of rock being shrouded in cloud.

  ‘Right, we’ll head back to the cliffs, and pick up the others,’ Sandy announced, feeling more confident now that he had got the feel of the controls.

  The huge craft slipped through the air effortlessly, and when the forested area came into view, he slowed down and carefully lowered it to the ground just short of the trees.

  ‘A couple of you go and see if you can find the others, tell ’em what we’ve done so they don’t get too much of a fright when they see the craft.’ he added with a chuckle.

  Getting the food collecting team to enter the ship with their collection of nuts proved easier said than done. Eventually, after much coaxing and not a little swearing, everyone was safely on board, and Sandy raised the craft slowly upwards and headed for their valley.

  ‘I reckon we could land in that grassy area,’ he said, gently easing the vessel downwards, ‘just hope it doesn’t wreck the grain harvest.’

  Seeing the huge silver shape approaching them, the rest of the group had fled to the safety of the caves, one brave soul peering out to see what would emerge from the craft.

  Once they were recognized, all hell broke loose as extreme fear gave way to relief and joy at the safe return of the explorers.

  Ben’s main concern, once the initial greetings were over, was that the craft might be spotted by other craft visiting the crater, but Sandy put his mind at rest by explaining the others only came during the time of darkness, and then only into the confines of the crater.

  Greg was the first to notice that several of the women had acquired rather large bulges in front, and this happened shortly after the last of the plants they had brought down from the crater had withered up and died.

  It took very little time for Sandy to add two and two together, come up with five, subtract one and arrive at a reasonable explanation for the phenomenon.

  ‘I think the plants we used up there must have been initially supplied by those who dumped us there, so that we couldn’t reproduce, the rotten sods.’

  There were mixed feelings about the forthcoming births, as no one knew what to do about it. ‘Leave it to nature’ was Sandy’s advice, and as they had no other option, they did.

  Over the next few days, Sandy took the craft out over the plains, looking for another home site, as their valley would be restrictive if their numbers grew to any extent, and he felt sure they would in time.

  They returned one evening with the glad news that an ideal area had been located. It was some distance away, but the flat grassy plain fringed a large lake, with a ridge of hills backed by a mountain range cutting them off from the plains below their present valley. To either side, there were vast forests, some of the trees even bigger than the ones found in the valley of nuts, as it was now referred to.

  Greg thought the lake might be a sea, as the water went right out to the horizon and probably beyond, but it was not salty, so they settled for a very large lake,

  A meeting was held to decide whether or not to move their homestead to the new site. Sandy was all for it, but some of the more conservative members of the group were quite happy to stay where they were, it not being real that in time their valley would not be big enough to support them all.

  With Ben’s backing, and some forceful persuading from Greg, the last of the dissenters gave way, and agreement was reached that they would begin preparing the new site next day. As there were plenty of trees available, a team was flown out to begin the felling, large saws having been made from some of the more robust metal strips brought down from the crater. Wooden huts would be constructed along the lake shore, and when they were ready for habitation, the rest of their possessions would be sent, ready for the general exodus which was to follow.

  The tree felling went ahead far better than Sandy had expected, the first hut being constructed within three days, and roofed over with turfs two days later.

  The principle for the first huts was to cut down small trees, notch the ends so that they could be stacked one upon the other so forming a self locking system of construction. They would be crude square rooms, but would give protection from the weather and the cool cycle, which they felt sure would come around again in time.

  Once they had made the necessary tools, and perfected the skills of converting the trees to planked wood, ‘real’ houses as Ben called them, could be constructed.

  The local forests provided plenty of food for the hut builders, and no dangerous animals had been encountered so far, much to the relief of all.

  The hut building was nearing completion when the next tumultuous event took place. It was late evening, the meal finished, and everyone was relaxing, when the ground trembled beneath them. A series of shudders ran through the cave system, rattling anything which was loose and adding to the fearful grinding noises coming from within the body of the volcano.

  Ben shouted ‘outside everyone’ but most were already heading for the open ground as he said it. The deep rumbling noises died down after a while, but no one felt like going back into the caves. As the temperature dropped, they made their way back in, one by one, but none slept that night as ears strained for the next sign of the awakening volcano.

  All was quiet for the next few days, and the horror of being buried alive faded as the building work on the huts neared completion. Next, Ben’s store of raw materials brought down from the crater were shipped out to the new site.

  After much trial, error, and nervous experimentation, they managed to coax the machine used for lowering bodies to the surface of the planet to work. Systematically, the dried out corpses of those intended for the crater were emptied out on the fringe of the forest in the ‘nut valley’, and the empty containers stacked in a pile on the new site for future use as raw materials.

  Just in case the alien flying machine should fail in flight, the group was split into four sections, and ferried out to the new homestead on the shores of the lake.

  It was with some sad
ness that Sandy oversaw the last group to leave the cave system. They had made a very comfortable home for themselves at the base of the volcano, and although there had been no rumbling for some time, it was thought that one day the sleeping fires below would come alive once more, and it would be a very unhealthy place to be in should that happen.

  As the alien silver craft touched down gently on the lake shore to disgorge its last cargo of settlers, Ben came running up to Sandy in great excitement.

  ‘You’d better hurry, Mop’s making one hell of a noise, I think she’s about to give birth, or blow up, or something.’

  They hurried over to the hut where a small group had gathered at the entrance, mainly composed of men, the women being inside consoling the loudly protesting Mop.

  Sandy pushed his way to the entrance to go inside, but a large red grim faced well muscled woman barred his way.

  ‘You can stay outside, this is woman’s work.’ she said, and slammed the hut door in his face. This at least cut down the volume of Mop’s screams as she struggled to expel the large lump she had been carrying around for so long. Ben and Greg took Sandy for a long walk along the lake shore.

  Over the next few weeks, more births occurred, but by now a small group of midwives had generated itself and took over on such occasions, making the whole process more dignified and very much safer.

  Mop took to motherhood as naturally as day follows night, her whole attitude to life changing to accommodate the new arrival into their lives. Two women bravely took over the cooking detail, but try as they might, it failed to come up to Mop’s standard, and all were looking forward to the day when Mop could be heard banging her pots around again.

  The lake produced an abundance of fish and everyone wanted to go fishing. That is, until the day when someone saw a very large bow wave caused by the mother of all fishes heading towards them, and they all raced for the shore, breaking two of their paddles in the panic driven process.

  Greg was in two minds as to whether the story was true, or whether it had been put about by those who really enjoyed fishing and could see their fishing time curtailed by the over exuberance of the others.

  He mentioned his thoughts to Sandy one day, who just grinned and said, ‘They’re getting more cunning by the day. Still, it’s good survival tactics, and it does little harm, while it preserves their job. And they are the best at it.’

  Crude tables and chairs were made by splitting logs into rough planks, and pinning them together with wooden studs. A scrape with a flat metal blade on the working surfaces gave a good smooth finish, and soon all huts were equipped with a set. Other pieces of furniture appeared as and when requested, the carpenter’s skills being stretched to the limit when Greg asked for a wheeled wagon to be made. It was.

  The question of whether they should invite some of the others still up in the crater to join them, came up again.

  A meeting was held early that evening around a large camp fire on the sandy shore of the lake, the group being mainly in favour of inviting a selected number of the others to join them, although how the choice was to be made, and who would do it, was still open to debate.

  The situation was taken completely out of their hands in one fell swoop some few minutes later, when the volcano became active again.

  The concussion wave hit them first, a push pull effect which rattled the huts and knocked over anything which was not stable. This was followed by a loud booming roar as countless millions of tonnes of sand were sent hurtling into the upper atmosphere as the volcano cleared its throat ready for the real business of the day.

  Within seconds, a dark cloud had formed in the sky to the north of them, lightning flashes ripped through the towering column as the fine rising particles generated a charge of electricity which from time to time they could no longer hold, discharging it in violent purple flashes of light.

  Small wavelets formed on the lake, growing in size by the minute as the shock waves travelled through the planet’s crust, bouncing back and forth from the harder ridges of rock strata below.

  ‘I’m taking the craft up to see what’s happening,’ Sandy shouted, ‘anyone want to come?’ Only six sprinted for the ship, Ben and Greg in the forefront with Sandy.

  They scrambled aboard, knocking shins and elbows as they raced for the main control room, the screen coming to life as Sandy hit the activating plate. Within seconds the huge craft was hurtling skywards, far faster than they had ever done before, and a couple were sick as a consequence of the violent surge upwards.

  Stabilizing the craft at two thousand metres, they watched open mouthed as the volcano spewed forth a massive river of glistening molten rock, running down its sides like thick red and orange treacle, streaked with yellow where the magma was at full temperature.

  A towering black thunder cloud had gathered over the erupting vent in the earth's crust, lightning sizzling between the rolling clouds of sand and ash, illuminating the landscape in harsh relief.

  ‘What about those poor devils in the crater?’ asked Greg.

  ‘I doubt if they even knew what happened,’ Sandy replied, ‘it was all so quick, nothing could have survived the initial blast, let alone the heat released once the lava began flowing.

  ‘I’m afraid there’s only us left now, and with the crater all but gone, they won’t be bringing any more people here.’

  They stood in the alien craft, watching through the huge viewing screen the destruction of what was once their home, the high pinnacles of the rim melting under the onslaught from the fires beneath, adding to the cascade of liquid rock which spilled out onto the plain below.

  It seemed as if the whole world was alight, the forested area where they got the nuts was blazing like a huge torch, sending writhing columns of black smoke high into the air along with showers of red hot sparks as the tree trunks exploded under the extreme heat.

  They returned the craft to the lake shore where the waves had grown into huge rollers. These threatened to swamp the huts, despite having built them on the raised ground bordering the turbulent waters.

  Although it was far from night, the light was fading steadily as increasing amounts of ash were hurled into the upper atmosphere, occluding the already weak sunlight.

  For the next twenty days they lived in a twilight zone before the ash clouds were scrubbed from the skies by horrendous rain storms. The area around their huts became a sea of mud, not that anyone wanted to go out much, but life had to go on and food needed to be gathered from the battered forest.

  The hours of daylight were only half what they used to be, and then it was more like dusk. The nights were correspondingly longer, and very dark.

  Their next concern was the dwindling oil supplies for lighting. The extra time the lamps needed to be lit due to the elongated evenings had taken its toll, despite being extra careful in their use. So far, they had failed to locate any of the black tar-like substance they had found back in their valley, and no one could think of a substitute.

  Strict rationing of the lamps was now called for, which meant going to bed a lot earlier than normal. This of course had the inevitable effect of increasing the birth rate, but this would not be apparent for some time to come.

  Some sixty days after the volcano had destroyed itself and the surrounding countryside, things were almost back to normal. They flew out to see if there was anything left of the old valley and the tar cave, but the whole area had been reduced to a vast flat lava field, no sign of the towering cliffs remaining, just a huge caldera where the volcano had been, a vast open smoking sore on the surface of the planet.

  The thirty strong members of the group had produced twelve children, three of the women remaining barren for some inexplicable reason, but some were pregnant again.

  Ben and Greg also became pilots of the alien craft, but the dreaded feeling that the fuel supply might run out in mid flight was never far from their minds.

  The oil problem solved itself one day. A team had marched through the forest to the east of
the settlement, and out the other side. Here the countryside was totally different, being mainly composed of rough tumbled rocks and gravel banks, a little fine sand appearing in pockets between the rock clusters.

  It was while one of the team was walking through one of these sand patches that he complained of some black sticky stuff adhering to his foot. Ben recognized it as ‘tar sand’, something which had been used on his home planet to produce oil.

  Samples were taken back to the settlement, and upon examination, Sandy concluded that it would be far more efficient to make a distillation plant close to the other side of the forest near the lake, and then bring the resultant oil back, as such a large quantity of sand would have to be put through the plant to extract only a small quantity of oil.

  The plant was constructed from Ben’s supply of metallic bits and pieces, and hauled out to the site on the new wheeled wagons. The forest supplied the large amounts of wood needed to provide heat to drive the more volatile constituents of the oil out of the sand, and the lake provided the cooling water for the condensing tubes.

  It took a few days to set up the plant, and it only produced a trickle of oil compared to that of the thick treacle like tar from the valley, but the tar sands seemed inexhaustible, and they had plenty of time.

  Once more sophisticated tools were made, the carpenters went to work not only on plank constructed houses, as opposed to one room huts they had originally made, but equipped them with elaborate furniture, their skills and designs improving with time and experience.

  Metallic ores were found one day while exploring the range of hills behind the grass plain of the settlement, and although no one knew how to smelt and refine them, the knowledge that it could be done spurred them on in their quest to be independent of Ben’s dwindling supply of metallic bits and pieces.

  A system of education was introduced for the young ones, passing on all the knowledge they could muster from their former lives, but it was some time before they were able to manufacture a reliable paper on which to write their history and the data for survival they were accumulating.