The Inosculation Syndrome

by D. B. Reynolds-Moreton

After another short pull, to see if they had got the bow shape correct, they checked the firebox, and the new fuel was glowing a clear bright yellow, confirming Kal’s thoughts about its quality for iron smelting.

  Five more dead trunks were pulled out from the clump, and dragged well clear in case the living clump wanted to ingest them before the crew could return to collect their new material.

  The first trunk was hitched up to the wagon again, and they began the long journey home.

  Kal rarely sat around letting his mind drift pointlessly on without purpose, so most of the uneventful part of the journey back was taken up with an idea he had to harvest the dead trees from the ‘clump’, and put a little back into the system. He reasoned that the dead trunks were probably due to the lack of nutriment in the surrounding area, and also perhaps a lack of water.

  Back at the compound they had plenty of waste organic matter, most of which contained nitrogen. The tree clump, like most plants here, were short of fixed nitrogen, hence the catching of animals instead of getting it from the ground.

  He thought that if they were to tank some of their waste over to the tree clump and pipe it into the middle and then fill the tank up again from the not too far distant lake and add that to the clump, it should promote healthy growth.

  If they then left the tree clump to fend for itself for a while, the outer trunks would die off again, and they could harvest them, and then give the clump another dose of that which it so badly needed, and so on, ad infinitum.

  If his theory worked, and they could possibly find another clump of trees, then their high density fuel problem would be solved for some time to come.

  As they wended their way back home, Kal put his idea to the crew, who after considerable thought and discussion on the matter, agreed it could be a good idea, if the trunk they were towing proved to be really useful.

  He hoped his theory of what the wood could be used for would turn out to be right, as he still didn’t like the idea of losing face with the little people, although he felt sure it didn’t matter one jot to them.

  They passed the dead sand lake shortly after the discussion about the tree trunks, and Kal thought while things were going his way, a slight diversion to the lake would provide them with a quartz and bone mix which might be useful for the ceramic engineers.

  The crew agreed, and they collected as large a sample as the wagon would take, leaving little room for anything else, should they find something of value.

  Somehow, the journey back to the compound didn’t seem to take as long as the outward trip, and Kal put this down to the time taken up with the business about the dead tree trunks and the scheme for harvesting them, plus a few other little ideas he had tried to convince the crew were vital to their existence.

  He had noticed that they were getting a little more self determined as time went by, but were usually right in their judgement, all the same. Perhaps he was not so important to them now, although they did go to great lengths to protect him unthinkingly when danger threatened.

  As they approached the compound, an excited little group came out to meet the wagon, which had slowed down a little to enable them to climb aboard. A sample of black shiny rock was presented to Kal by a beaming Tibs.

  Somehow he had joined the mining and mineral team, or they had thought it a nice gesture for him to take their find to Kal, reinforcing the bond between them.

  ‘They don’t miss a trick’ thought Kal, but maybe he was wrong.

  It certainly looked like iron ore, and had about the right weight for its size. But the surprise was where they had found it. After the wagon had been parked, and the firebox let out, an eager little team led Kal up into the pool rocks.

  Just above the place where he had built his shelter, there was a sign of rock breaking, and a pile of the dark ore. It transpired that a group of the little people had been tidying up Kal’s old shelter, almost as if it were a shrine, and the lookout had been positioned high above the site.

  He had found nothing to do really, as there was no likelihood of a large predator creeping up on them during daylight, so he had gone on an exploration tour of his own.

  Finding a small piece of the black ore, he remembered the description Kal had given the search team, and hurried back to the compound with it. One of the metalwork team confirmed his discovery, and a group went up into the rocks to see if there was any more to be found. And there was, lots.

  Kal suggested that the smelters try to extract the iron from the ore, but they were already ahead of him, and produced a sample of crude cast iron. It was not of very good quality, but if it was refined, it could produce quite good steel.

  They needed to cut up the dead tree they had brought back with them, and convert it to charcoal, as Kal was sure the extremely high density of the wood should produce the extra heat required to smelt the iron ore properly, and then refine the resulting pig iron to good quality steel.

  Evening was drawing in, and a small feast for the returned crew of the steam wagon was under way. Kal, as usual had the position of honour at the head of the table.

  The first surprise after the actual eating was that Tibs got up and told Kal he would do the interpreting for the little people, so enabling Kal to tell his own story of the journey to the assembly for the first time.

  The evening was a roaring success, and Kal felt part of the group again. Perhaps they did appreciate him a little more than he thought.

  They all slept very well that night, and first thing next morning Kal was up bright and early, eager to try cutting up the tree trunk they had brought back with them.

  The bronze saw wasn’t going to do the job by the look of things, and he conveyed this to the charcoal team, who promptly produced a large collection of the blade like teeth from the type of jaw bone he had found way back when he had first arrived, so long ago.

  By mid day, a new type of saw had been produced, consisting of a long thin bronze bar with the jaw teeth set in one edge, each alternate tooth slightly angled outwards, so cutting a narrow groove for the bar to follow in as it cut through the trunk. And it worked.

  Kal never ceased to be surprised by the understanding the little people had of engineering principles, and the setting of the saw teeth was no exception. The cutting up of the trunk into lengths which could be handled, was a tough job, but there were many willing hands to help, and relay teams of ‘trunk cutters’ were soon organized.

  Once the tree had been cut into suitable lengths, it proved relatively easy to split length wise with bronze wedges, and so the charcoal making could begin.

  It was while Kal was waiting for the charcoal stocks to build up, that one of the radio group came to him in a state of great excitement, and requested his presence in the workshop.

  He wasn’t quite ready for one of the biggest surprises so far, with regard to the little people. Upon entering the work shop, he was directed to the window which gave a good view of the distant pool rocks, and perched high up near the top was a little figure, desperately waving its arms to attract his attention.

  On the bench below the window was a small box with a hole in the front, and a thin metal rod sticking up from the top. One of the team squeaked into the box, and a second later, a reply of squeaks came back out.

  Kal assumed the facial expressions now exhibited by all present were grins of satisfaction, but he was never quite sure. The radio team had constructed a radio transmitter and receiver system which actually conveyed the spoken, or in this case, squeaked, voice.

  This was no mean achievement, considering the very basic equipment they had to work with, and he asked to see inside the incredible contraption.

  The box was opened, and inside were two basic circuits which Kal was able to recognize quite easily. The hole had a sprung diaphragm behind it, and stuck to the centre of the diaphragm was a small metal bead which impinged onto the end of one of the cylindrical crystals they had obtained for the giant maggot in the caves.

  Speaking into the diaphragm cause
d the little metal bead to tap in harmony on the end of the crystal, so producing an electrical signal from it, as in the earlier radio.

  Another crystal was made to vibrate at a high frequency, and some of the signal produced was taken off and amplified before being fed to the metal rod on top of the box, creating a carrier wave which radiated out into the atmosphere.

  The clever bit was that the speech signal was superimposed onto the carrier wave, and so a voice pattern was being broadcast for anyone with a suitable receiver to pick up.

  The receiver section was just the reverse of the transmission action. The transmitter on the pool rocks, when spoken into, sent the signal out, and the box in the workshop picked it up with its rod aerial.

  The speech signal was then stripped off the carrier wave, amplified a little and fed to a crystal which responded by vibrating and moving an attached diaphragm, so creating sound waves which could be clearly heard.

  Kal wondered how long his race would have taken to develop an efficient transceiver unit like this, with so little help, and paled at the thought. These were very bright people, and getting brighter all the time.

  The new radio units would certainly be very useful on future expeditions, that’s for sure, but he wouldn’t be able to use them, as there wasn’t another ‘him’ to receive the low frequencies his voice used, or was there? Tibs could possibly be the go between. He wondered how long it would be before they had vision transmission.

  The new extra hard charcoal stocks were inspected a few days later, and were nearly enough to start smelting the iron ore, but it would take a little extra skill to turn the iron so formed into really hard steel. Kal thought they would find a way, once they understood the principles behind it.

  Flight

  The next generation of crossbreeds began appearing shortly after the iron smelting began, and Kal was astonished at the number of the females who had opted for the program.

  Very soon, it would seem, Tibs would have his very own little clan, albeit a bit younger, but the same as himself, if nature ran true to form.

  Kal was sunning himself up on the pool rocks, which he did when he wanted to be alone with his thoughts, when something which had been hovering at the back of his mind, came to the fore. He had seen no flying creatures of any kind. No birds or flying insects, nothing with wings. A grin spread across his face as a new project sprang to life in his mind.

  Flying. What would they make of that?

  They had seen nothing to stimulate them into developing the idea, so why not raise their interest? A kite would be the simplest form of demonstrating the ‘lift’ principle, and that should be easy to do.

  The weavers had in the past produced some very fine fabrics, and he went to them to ask for the very finest and thinnest they could produce, with a very close weave. It was promised for next day.

  A small group had developed a form of paint from the juices of certain plants, adding ground up minerals to them to achieve a coloured finish. All he needed now was to be able to split the bamboo like poles into thin strips, get some glue, and he was ready for his kite making.

  There were no doors on the openings to the internal caves, so he dragged a table over to block the entry, and hung a piece of cloth above it to keep prying eyes out until he had finished his project. He wanted this to be a real surprise.

  Next day the kite was finished, the fabric having been given a thin coating of coloured varnish, and a tail added for stability. It turned out to be a little bigger than he had intended, and only just passed through the cave opening and along the passage to the open compound.

  It wasn’t long before a large crowd of onlookers were assembled, and were obviously trying to make out what the strange contraption was all about.

  A couple of the elders joined the group, and he was then ready for the demonstration. Instructing two of the little people to hold the kite, he payed out the line and waited for a steady increase in the gentle breeze which was blowing.

  At the right moment, he called for release and ran a few metres forward, the kite soaring up like a bird and pulling on the line like a live entity.

  Paying out more line, the kite went higher and higher, to the astonished gasps of all assembled. As he had attached two lines to the kite, he was able to make it swoop and turn, bringing it low over the crowd who scattered in all directions like frightened rabbits.

  The fear was soon replaced with awe, and then understanding began to form in some little minds. He had planted a seed, and would now wait patiently for it to grow, but into what he had no idea. It should be worth waiting for.

  The next few days brought forth the first of the steel makers’ samples. Using the new hard charcoal and forced air from a simple compressor powered from the water wheel, they had achieved the necessary high temperature in the smelter.

  It wasn’t long before they had found a way to burn out the impurities in the crude steel, and control the amount of carbon present. Kal knew that tools of much improved quality would soon follow, and he was right.

  The days rolled on as they do, and the first of the man carrying kites appeared. It was a box like construction with a sling to hold the passenger, the whole thing being winched up by a steam engine at the end of the compound.

  The volunteer flyer, at a given signal, ran along the ground as the winch powered up, and was soon airborne, climbing higher and higher as the winch pulled in the line.

  There was soon a little queue of people waiting to have their turn at the new contraption, and Kal knew that air travel would follow before very long.

  These were indeed exciting times, but Kal was hard put to think of anything new to add to the growing number of skills these people had achieved. A boat for the ocean perhaps?

  But first he would have to find out what else the sea held before venturing out on that idea.

  Tibs’s siblings were growing on apace, and he had already begun to teach them the ‘human’ speech. Kal wondered if the elders would let the original little people die out, replacing them with the new crossbred.

  If they did, he thought it would be a shame somehow, as they were unique as far as he knew. That however, was something for them to decide, and he had no doubt they would get it right, come what may.

  The smelting had been so successful that the charcoal burners had almost run out of the new fuel, despite the size of the giant trunk they had brought back, and asked if they could have some more.

  A meeting was held at which Kal’s idea of harvesting the clump trees was discussed. They had a job to fault his reasoning, although there was a hesitancy to have anything to do with the ‘clumps’. He couldn’t find out what it was that made them so wary, doubting if they even knew. It seemed to be a ‘hunch’ thing somehow.

  A large tank was to be built on a trailer, so that it could be towed behind the steam wagon. It would leave the compound filled with liquid waste from the drainage sump which served the whole community.

  Being rich in nitrogen and other compounds, he thought it should produce a rapid growth of the ‘clump’, and then the tank could be refilled with water from the lake, and that could be pumped into the middle as well.

  They would continue doing this until there was a substantial increase of growth, stop the feeding and then let the outer trees die off, harvest them, and then begin the cycle all over again. Someone suggested growing a clump nearby, so saving the long journey, but this was adamantly thrown out, which illustrated the deep fear most had for the ‘clumps’.

  There was something about the ‘clumps’ which struck deep into the subconscious minds of the little people, and Kal was more than a little intrigued about it. No amount of questioning brought any more light on the matter, and he thought either they didn’t want to tell him, or they genuinely didn’t know themselves.

  It looked as if Tibs had stopped growing, and the second batch was fast catching up. Kal wondered if they had all been told he was, in effect, their father, but when he approached the elders about this, they
were very evasive on the matter and even with Tibs doing the interpreting, he gleaned little information that was conclusive.

  At last the great tanker trailer was ready, and they set off early in the morning to cover as much ground as possible in the first day. Also there had been a few modifications to the steam wagon since the last long journey.

  A power winch had been fitted, safety screens were on all sides, and cross bows, capable of delivering a bronze tipped bolt were installed for the crew members to use, should the need arise. Also a giant cross bow, of huge proportions was mounted on gimbals just above the drivers head.

  This was a weapon of considerable destruction, if ever there was one. The bolt alone weighed in at ten kilos, while a small hand winch was used to load the very powerful bow. It looked as if the little people were expecting trouble, or were they just being careful?

  They made camp the first evening near an outcrop of rocks which, although they had been added to their maps, had not been explored, as they were just off the main course taken on the last visit to the region. As there was still a good amount of light left, two of the crew, heavily armed, decided to take a look at the outcrop for anything of interest.

  By early dusk they hadn’t returned, and a search party set out to find them. And didn’t. There was no sign of the two, or their weapons, not even a footprint. Lamps were fetched, but it was deemed too dangerous to proceed any further in the now approaching dark.

  The crew reasoned that their companions had met their end, and nothing more could be done until there was adequate light. The evening meal was a sombre affair, and no one slept very well by the bleary eyes next day.

  A quick meal was taken early next morning, and the rescue party, heavily armed, set off headed by Kal.

  They skirted the rock pile, just to make sure they wouldn’t be surprised by anything lurking around the corner, but it was just a jumble of black rocks, somewhat out of place in the middle of the flat sandy plane.

  Nothing grew here, and there were no footprints in the sand which would have indicated something hungry and on the prowl for a meal. There weren’t even any prints of the two explorers, and that caused a bit of concern.