Extreme Difference (23 page)

They moved on, skirting a dark section of forest where little light was able to penetrate, and possible danger lurked.

Occasionally, a clearing in the cloud cover enabled them to see the deep blue of the sky above and feel the heat of the naked sun, which, whilst hot, was far removed from the blazing heat experienced when up in the crater.

Bell had been unable to identify the fruits and berries brought back with them from their first visit, so as tempting as they looked, the party refrained from trying them.

As the supplies they had brought with them would not last for long, it was decided that on the way back to the group they would gather a few samples of fruit, and very carefully test them for edibility, although no one had figured out how this was to be done.

A movement in the bushes up ahead brought the party to a sudden halt. Sandy slipped his hand beneath his tunic, ready to produce the gun. With a loud snort, the grey creature with the long snout emerged, looked around, and then fixed its eyes on the tableau of frozen figures.

‘It’s my friend,’ whispered Ben, ‘or one like it.’

‘Keep still,’ muttered Sandy, ‘we can’t take any chances.’

Slowly the creature approached the group, its long nose swinging from side to side, trying to pick up the scent of the strange objects ahead. It must have recognized Ben’s body odour, for with a little grunt it hurried forward, and rubbed its snout up and down the now shaking Ben.

Satisfied that the strangers posed no threat, they were each in turn subjected to the snout inspection, Kel nervously reaching out to stroke its head.

Sandy explained what had happened on their first visit, when the creature had repelled another which could have killed them all, and that eased any remaining tension.

The creature followed them, as before, until they reached the lip of the valley, where it fell away steeply to the next level below.

‘It looks as though the underlying substructure has faulted and slid forward,’ Sandy announced, ‘resulting in a series of cascading plateau, right down to the intersection with the main continental plate below.’ It was Ben, in plain language, who explained to the other baffled members of the group what Sandy meant.

Pangs of hunger indicated that it was time for the midday meal, and the party began the long trek back to the caves, passing on the way a large area of high grass.

‘Hey, look at this,’ Kel pointed out, ‘these grass seeds look just like the stuff Mop grinds up for her gruel.’ Several stems of the reed like plant were gathered for Mop to compare with the grain she had obtained in an exchange with another group in the crater.

When they returned, and had ravenously demolished the meal Mop had prepared for them, they showed her the grass samples. The seeds looked the same, although they were a little plumper than those Mop had brought with her.

It was decided to grind some up, and try to make a bun with the resulting powder, baking it in-between the hot stones which encircled the cooking fire.

While they had been away, someone had discovered an area enclosed by rocks which would be protected from grazing animals, if any existed. With Sandy’s approval, quantities of earth were laboriously transported to the enclosure to form a growing bed for the herb seedlings which Bell had brought with her.

Slowly but surely, they were establishing a self sustaining community, in idyllic surroundings, and with little threat from outside forces. The memory of the heavily toothed creature was never far from their minds though, and Sandy toyed with the idea of hunting it down to eliminate any possible future dangers. Ben pointed out that there could be many of them wandering around, otherwise where did the one they saw come from? The hunt was postponed.

Lots were drawn for the bun tasting, Jez getting the short straw, and the bun. He pronounced it to be delicious, and there were no serious side effects, except for one.

Jez entertained, or horrified, depending on one’s view point, the rest of the group that evening with repeated and copious amounts of loudly vented wind. Mop commented that the ambience of the setting was not really enhanced or conducive to such musical accompaniments, only she expressed her opinion a little more succinctly.

Jez tried to blame the bun for his problems, but repeated trials of the bun on others failed to produce the same results.

As the new seed grains had proved edible, it was decided to keep a watchful eye on the crop, and harvest it when the majority of the grass grain was ripe and dry.

In the following days, the fishing project got under way. They had to make several lengths of woven hurdle for the trap to be efficient, and three of them had to go into the water to sweep the fish into the shallows.

The first problem was convincing the fishers that they were unlikely to drown, as the hurdles were quite buoyant and would help keep them afloat. Then someone wondered if there were bigger fish in the waters, like the sand creatures up in the crater. The three fishers, who by now had been coerced to go in up to their waists, left the water at a speed which was unbelievable, and refused to go back in.

In a show, which was more bravado than conviction, Sandy, Ben, and Greg plunged in, grabbed the hurdles which were about to float out of reach, and began the sweep.

They caught five large fish, more than enough to feed them all, the next problem was how to cook them. Because of their size, the outside would have been burnt before the inside was cooked, so they split them down the middle, and cooked them using hot stones.

After the meal, and because no one was eaten by an imagined lake monster, there was no shortage of fishers.

A small leat was built, diverting a portion of the stream so that it ran by Mop’s cooking area. This supplied water for Mop’s use, and a little further down, a washing facility, Sandy insisting that they all washed every day.

The long snouted grey creature was never far from the settlement, seeming to enjoy human company, and one day there were two. Both were equally friendly, which got Sandy thinking there might be some sort of telepathic link between them.

Augmenting their fast dwindling food supplies was of paramount importance, Kel reasoning that if the native life could eat it, then it should be safe for them. Sandy’s caution was based on the fact that they were alien to this planet, and therefore their body chemistry would be different, as would their reaction to anything eaten. This was not real to some, and caused a great deal of friction.

One by one, the fruits and berries were checked for edibility, very few proving unusable, and those that were had unpleasant tastes or were too tough to eat. Fortunately, only a few fruits and berries were actually toxic, and they were usually black or very dark in colour, making them easy to identify.

Two things put a stop to the fishing project. A big bow wave was seen far out in the lake, which could only have been caused by something considerably larger than the fishers; and the hurdles had become waterlogged, and would no longer float. Both problems were eventually solved by attaching log floats to the top of the screens, which could easily be replaced, and a crude sail of large leaves to take the whole contraption out into the lake when the wind was favourable. It was then only a matter of hauling in the attached ropes, and fish were back on the menu.

Over the following days, various members of the group coupled up. Ben suggested some sort of ceremony would be a good idea, as he had a vague recollection of something like it from the past. When put to the vote all agreed, and Sandy, as their leader, was asked to perform the ceremony.

‘What the hell do I do?’ he asked Ben, when they were alone. ‘It’s your idea, so you’d better come up with something.’ After much discussion, they arrived at a simple form of bonding, which as it turned out, proved acceptable to all.

Ben, and one of the new women seemed to have found soul mates in each other, and he volunteered to be the first to sample the new bonding ceremony. It was conducted after their evening meal, when everyone felt in a good mood, and appetites had been satiated.

‘Do you Ben, and you Kyle, agree to live together, supporting each other come what may, and stay true to each other until death or mutual agreement between you shall break the bond?’ They both enthusiastically answered ‘Yes’.

‘Then I do hereby declare that you are a bonded couple, and no one, for any reason whatsoever, shall try to break that bond on pain of expulsion from our group.’

A great cheer went up, and Kyle stepped forward to plant a wet kiss on Sandy’s cheek. Fortunately Mop missed the planting, as someone moved in front of her at the crucial moment.

As the days went by, there were many more bondings, until only Sandy and Mop remained ‘unbonded’.

After repeated hints and suggestions, which were carefully evaded by the ever wary Sandy, Ben’s help was enlisted by a frustrated Mop, and a scheme was hatched among the rest of the group to legalize the long standing relationship of their leader and head cook.

Sandy sensed that something was afoot that day, but was unable to find out what it was despite several trick questions and a lot of probing. By evening, he had given up, and was totally unaware of what was about to happen.

They had finished their meal, and Sandy had made his short report of the day’s happenings for the benefit of those who were not involved, when Jez arose and made his announcement,

‘I propose we have a change of leader, and I suggest that Ben be given the job. All in favour, raise a hand.’

A sea of hands went up, accompanied by several verbal comments about youth to be given a chance.

Sandy was dumb struck, and just sat there in disbelief.

‘As your new leader,’ Ben began, ‘it has been brought to my notice by various astute members of our group, that a long standing illegal relationship has been going on between our deposed leader and the plump one who does our cooking, and gives him a double portion when no one’s looking.

‘So, by the powers invested in me, I do now solemnly declare that these two aforementioned people shall be bonded in a lifelong partnership, whether they like it or not.

‘And I do further declare, that no one shall make any attempt to break the bond between the bossy one and the plump one, no matter what.’ The caves echoed with cheers and clapping hands for quite some time.

‘Due to extreme incompetence on my part, I now resign from the lofty post as your leader, and ask you to vote for the bossy one to be reinstated into that exalted position.’

Another round of cheers, and much back slapping of a shattered Sandy and a moist eyed Mop, concluded the evening’s entertainment.

That night, something tried to remove the frame barrier to the caves.

An icy river of fear ran through the group next morning when they found the frame barrier lying scattered around the entrance to their caves.

After a hasty meal, Ben and several others set about felling trees, which they later split into thick crude planks.

Using hard wooden pegs, a door of substantial proportions was constructed, and hung from a massive tree trunk they had now built into the wall surrounding the entrance to the caves.

The oil for their lamps was causing some concern as they had not found a means of replenishing it, when someone noticed a strange smell coming from one of the caves further up the valley, and a trickle of black sticky stuff seeping from a crack in the nearby rocks.

Armed with the laser gun and a lamp, Sandy and Ben with two others set off to see what it was, having an idea that it might be tar. The smell in the cave entrance was almost overpowering, and the lamp burnt with a red tinged flame, a warning that petroleum gas was present.

‘We’ll have to get rid of that gas,’ Sandy explained, ‘or we’ll blow ourselves to bits if it explodes.’

‘Why not lay a trail of dried grass into the cave as far as we can, and then light it?’ Ben suggested. ‘That should ignite the gas, and once it’s burnt off, we can go in.’

Eager hands gathered the necessary grass, and Ben laid it in a line from just outside the cave entrance to several metres into the tunnel like cave by holding his breath and running.

As he had done most of the hard work, Ben was invited to light the grass, which he did from a lamp.

A little ribbon of fire slowly crept into the cave and disappeared, a faint wisp of smoke curling up from the top of the cave’s entrance indicated that it was still burning.

Nothing much else happened for several minutes, and they thought the fire trail had gone out, when there was a deep throated roar from within the cliffs and a tongue of flame lanced out several metres, followed by billowing black smoke. Seconds later, there was another thunderous roar, smoke and flame gushed out of the rocks fifty metres above them, and a shower of rock fragments cascaded down all around.

Luckily, no one was severely hurt, although Ben sustained a bruised shoulder from a descending chunk of rock he failed to dodge. When all the smoke had cleared they went into the cave, and apart from the smell of burnt oil, the previous smell of petroleum gas or anything else was absent.

‘I think that last explosion blew a hole in the cliffs, and now any gas that’s left will be drawn upwards and out through the hole, so it should be safe to take our lamp in.’

They had gone in nearly fifteen metres, when the gentle glow from their lamp glistened on something black and shiny on the ground.

‘This looks like tar,’ Sandy explained, ‘I seem to remember a little about it. If you heat it, it will give off a vapour, which if cooled, turns into an oil, leaving behind thick black sticky stuff, like this.’

‘Surely that’s no good then,’ said Ben, ‘all the oil has gone.’

Sandy gave the shiny black surface a poke with one of the pointed rods they all carried. The crust on the pool broke, revealing a much more runny liquid beneath.

‘That’s what we want,’ he exclaimed, ‘that’ll give us all the oil we want, but we’ll have to process it first.’ A sample of the thinner tar oil was scooped into a container they had brought for that purpose, and they set off home.

The tar oil burnt quite readily, but with a smoky flame, making the need to refine it more than obvious. During the evening, Ben wanted to know how the tar got in the cave.