They took off their clothes so that they could treat each others' injuries. They broke a spear to make splints for Fornjot's leg, and cut up the clothes of the bandits to make bandages to tie them in place. The bandits were carrying medicine kits with needles and thread, and they used them to sew their cuts closed, after which they covered them with more bandages.
"We'll probably still die from infections," said Geirrod mournfully as his sister sewed shut the cut on his head.
"The weapons are dry," Daphnis replied. "And the bandits cleaned them after they last hunted with them. I'd say our chances are good. If we can avoid being eaten by the first predator that comes along, we've got a good chance of healing."
There was nothing they could do for Geirrod's hip or Tarvos's ribs. The two men would just have to endure the pain as best they could while the bones healed. "Can you move?" Daphnis asked Tarvos.
"The pain is getting greater with every minute that passes," Tarvos gasped back. "I can feel my muscles going into spasm. First Fathers, it hurts!"
"Your body is trying to keep you from moving so you can heal," Daphnis told him.
"But we have to move. In a few weeks, this whole place'll be nothing but sand dunes. No food, no water. If it was just one of us the others could carry them, but..." He turned his head to look Daphnis in the eyes. "You're probably going to have to leave us."
"Never!"
"You can find help and bring them back for us. A tribe travelling north..."
"I'm not leaving you. We'll build a fire. Make a big column of smoke. Someone will see it and come to investigate."
"You'll have a better chance on your own."
"I'll have a better chance with you. If a predator comes, it'll eat you instead of me. Out there alone, the predator only has me to eat."
There was a gleam of amusement in her eyes as she said it that told Tarvos the truth, that she would die defending them if a rex came. Her end would be gallant but quick, but he had to admit that her chances wouldn't be much greater out in the wilderness alone. He nodded therefore. "Build a fire then," he said. "Pile on as much vegetation as you can. We want a really big column of smoke."
"The biggest ever," Daphnis replied, and she began using her spear to dig down through the thin layer of sand to reach the dying spring plants below.
While she was doing it, Tarvos looked across at Skoll's body, lying a couple of dozen yards away. He tried to stand, but the pain defeated him and so he crawled instead, using his legs to push himself across the ground.
"What are you doing?" Daphnis asked him. "You should be resting."
"Got a promise to keep," Tarvos replied.
Reaching Skoll's body, he took the knife from his belt and cut two of the fingers from the corpse's right hand. One for himself and the other for Daphnis, without whose help he wouldn't have won. He flayed away the skin until the largest bone from each finger was bare, then crawled back to the others. "Start your own trophy necklace," he said, handing Daphnis one of the bones. "You've earned it."
"I thought women couldn't have trophy necklace," she said with a smile.
"When I'm Chief, I'll change the law so that you can. In the meantime, drill a hole through this and wear it."
"Thanks," said Daphnis as she took the trophy. "But if it was up to me it, wouldn't be his finger bone I was wearing around my neck."
"It doesn't have to be," replied Tarvos with a grin. "We only use finger bones because they're small and convenient. The mountain folk use ears, they say, but it can be any part of the body you like."
Daphnis looked at him for a moment. Then she took her own knife from her belt and walked across to the corpse.
☆☆☆
That evening, the fire was big and bright. Daphnis, her trophy dangling limply on a cord around her neck, piled on more dead leaves to make more smoke. Tarvos looked around at the surrounding landscape and sighed when he saw that the horizon was empty. Soon it would be too dark for the smoke to be seen. There would be no rescue tonight.
Daphnis had killed a gooth with a slingstone earlier and they cooked it over the fire. "Make the Storyteller speak again," said Geirrod. "I want to know what happened next."
Why not? Thought Tarvos and he pulled the device out from his tunic.
8.56pm Day 148 Janus year 45 Earth year 2364
I'm growing worried about Bill and Carol. They moved into one of the outbuildings, where they've thrown themselves into their work, studying the biochemistry of Janus life in more detail than ever before, and in the process they have become elusive and withdrawn, rarely interacting with anyone else. We're assuming that this is their way of coping with their grief and so we decided to give them their space for a while, but this has been going on for months now. They hardly ever come back to the main building, and when they do, or when one of us goes to visit them, they're quiet and reserved. Reluctant to talk. Samantha, who's a psychologist, tells us that this is normal under the circumstances, and that they just need more time to come to terms with their loss.
This doesn't sit right with me, though. I can't help feeling that the longer they remain isolated, the worse the damage will get. My instincts tell me that what they really need is people around them. A breath of normality. Hans says that we should listen to the doctor, though, and these days everyone tends to do what he tells them to do.
"James Cook is right," said Daphnis. "People in grief need people around them."
"These are the First Fathers we're talking about," said Fornjot. "Maybe they weren't like us."
"They were like us," said Daphnis, though, and she was frowning as Tarvos selected the next entry.
7.12pm Day 32 Janus year 46 Earth year 2365
News from the Sol system is getting disturbing. Diplomatic tensions between Earth and the rest of the solar system are becoming strained over the matter of genetic advancements. Mankind seems determined to improve itself in some artificial way, it seems. First the cyborgs, then this. I wouldn't be surprised if it ends the same way, with a bloodbath between the Improved and the Baseliners. I hope I'm wrong.
To my relief, Bill and Carol have returned to the main habitat building and seem to have recovered from their loss. They've begun spending a lot of time on the habitat mainframe, though, using up so much of its run time that the others have begun complaining that their own researches are being delayed. Hans is trying to be very diplomatic as he tries to reconcile the issue. On the one hand, the Malet's researches on Janus protein structures and genetic sequences seems to have brought them out of their fugue and he doesn't want to risk dropping them back into it, but on the other hand the others also have a right to an equal share of the computer's run time. He eventually persuaded the others to let them have almost exclusive use of the computer for a few weeks longer before asking the Malets to ease off a bit.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
7.21pm Day 55 Janus year 46 Earth year 2365
Another rover broke down today, leaving us with just three functioning rovers. Hans wants to build a couple more, which I would have no problem with. I didn't like the idea of a home made aircraft because a sudden failure might cause a fatal crash, but the failure of a rover just means a long walk home. Not surprisingly, Hans wants to modify the design a little so that they'll be able to drive faster...
The voice was lost among a series of squawk and clicks, and Tarvos tutted as he looked for the next entry that would play. "I think these corrupted entries are becoming more frequent," said Fornjot as he edged closer to the warmth of the fire. "I wonder if we're going to lose the end?"
"The spirits wouldn't be so cruel after letting us hear this much," said Geirrod.
"Maybe the spirits have their reasons for not letting us know too much," said Fornjot, though.
Then they fell silent, though, as the Storyteller began to speak again.
7.15pm Day 91 Janus year 50 Earth year 2368
It's been four Earth years since the Malet's lost their entire family back on Mars and we thought they had recovered from the shock, but this morning we woke up to find that they had stolen the Mistral and set off for the Eden outpost, taking with them a lot of irreplaceable equipment from the life sciences lab. They have not replied to any of our attempts to contact them. When Hans tried to set off in pursuit, he found that they had sabotaged the Blackbird, damaging the fusion core beyond repair. None of us have any idea why they would do this, but Hans is incandescent with fury, slamming doors and shouting at people. He nearly drove Mae to tears over some trivial matter regarding the hydroponic food supply and I was forced to intervene, attracting his anger to myself to spare the poor woman. He apologised later to both of us, though, much to everyone's relief.
Soon after, though, he began pressuring Charles to make another fusion core for his home made plane, something that took him more than a year the first time. Driving to the Eden outpost is out-of the question, of course. It's three thousand miles away on the other side of the continent, with a tall mountain range in between. Whatever the reason they suddenly wanted isolation, they've now got it, and whatever they're doing over there, there's nothing we can do about it.
"These planes," said Geirrod in sudden excitement. "Could that be their name for the metal quetzal we found back in the Spine?
"The rest of us figured that our days ago," said Daphnis with a grin.
7.21pm Day 105 Janus year 50 Earth year 2368
Relations are strained in the habitat. With the furthest outposts now out of reach, Maurice's study of the southern grasslands has been interrupted and, unless we can get the Blackbird flying again, he won't be able to witness the area's transition to desert when the long summer returns in two Janus years, something that won't happen again within our lifetimes. Even if we do get the plane flying again, I would have forbidden anyone to use it if I still had the authority. Having only one aircraft would mean that there would be no prospect of a rescue if it were forced to land out of reach of the rovers. Hans, of course, wants to solve this by building another aircraft, but I never liked the idea of people flying around in a home made aircraft and I like the idea of having two of them no better. I see them as nothing less than death traps, just waiting to crash and kill someone, but Hans stopped listening to me a long time ago.
If things are bad here, though, they're even worse back in the Sol system where acts of violence have begun breaking out between the Improved and the Baseliners. There's even a conspiracy theory that the explosion in New Paris which killed the Malet family might have been the result of deliverate sabotage to destroy a gene-splicing lab. Genetic manipulation was almost the Malet's family business, so the idea isn't that far fetched. It makes me wonder whether Bill and Carol are following the news from Earth and, if so, what they think of it.
6.53pm Day 88 Janus year 51 Earth year 2368
Charles finished his second fusion core and installed it in the Blackbird, but when Hans took it up for a rest flight under remote control the core burned out within ten minutes. Fortunately Hans was able to bring the aircraft back for a soft landing, but it means a delay of another year while Charles builds another in whatever time he can spare from the routine maintenance of the habitat and its systems.
Hans, meanwhile, is contemplating building another aircraft around an old style internal combustion engine. It would have the advantage of being much easier to build, since every part of it can be made in minutes from the fabricators, but it would be a lot slower and be limited in range by the amount of fuel it could carry. A return trip to the Eden outpost would be out of the question, but if the Mistral is still intact he could use that to come home in. That's the big question, though. There's no knowing what Bill and Carol might have done with it, and even if they've done nothing, there's no knowing whether it's still airworthy after eight months without any routine maintenance.
All our routine work continues, meanwhile. The ecosystems around us seem to be able to sense that the long winter is coming to an end. There are changes in plant growth and animal movements that we haven't seen before, and some species are beginning their courtship and mating rituals. I just wish we were in a better mood to appreciate it.
7.32pm Day 101 Janus year 51 Eatth year 2368
Today, at 5.21am, we lost contact with Earth. Probably just a technical issue back home. We checked our own equipment and found it to be working fine, and although there's no way to check the satellite transceiver directly, it's still picking up all the natural radio sources and so we have no reason to think it's developed a malfunction. We'll probably hear from them again as soon as they've fixed whatever's gone wrong. In the meantime, we're still sending our data back home as if nothing's happened, and when we know they're receiving again we'll resend all the 25 year old data that they missed.
Being without news from home is particularly frustrating right now because things were really hotting up back there as tensions continued to rise. The suggestion, made by Soichi, that their transmitter might have been deliberately destroyed as an act of sabotage was quickly discounted by everyone. We're not important enough to the folks back home to be worth the effort. We're just getting on with our work, therefore, while we wait for normal service to be restored.
The Six-tribesmen looked at each other in dawning horror. "Anyone else wondering why the people of Zol , the people of Earth, never came back to our lands?" asked Fornjot in a quiet voice.
"It's not because they're all dead," said Daphnis, staring at him with her eyes wide. "Right?"
"It would explain a great deal," said Fornjot, though. "With all the miracles they were capable of performing, maybe they were able to make war equally miraculously."
7.42pm Day 108 Janus year 51 Earth year 2368
It's been a week now and still no news from home. We've been trying to think of a technical problem that would take this long to fix, and we can't think of anything. Even if they had to build a completely new transmitter and put it into orbit, it wouldn't take this long. We can only assume that they have other priorities at the moment, therefore, which means things must be bad over there. Open war between Earth and Mars is one possibility, and if that's the case we can only hope that a diplomatic solution is found before things go too far. Both sides have 'dinosaur killer' weapons, after all. Weapons so terrible that the worse case scenario leaves nothing alive in the Sol system at all.
The very possibility is very disturbing for all of us. We all have children and other relatives back in the Sol system, and we're all worried about what might have happened to them. We mustn't get ahead of ourselves, though. Contact will very probably be restored before long, with a very good explanation for the delay. In the meantime, there are more mundane problems to occupy us, such as the damage caused to the Arcadia outpost by the landslide.
7.28pm Day 108 Janus year 52 Earth year 2369
Hans is again becoming irrational and unpredictable. The delay in getting the Blackbird airborne again is getting him increasingly frustrated, not just because we want to regain access to the most distant outposts in time to observe the return of summer. but because he's just as worried about Bill and Carol as the rest of us. We don't even know if they're still alive. A simple radio message would have been enough to reassure us that they're okay. We would have allowed them their isolation for as long as they needed it, but this not knowing is casting a pall across the whole community...
The voice suddenly stopped. Not in squawks and pops again, but a sudden silence that took them all by surprise. Tarvos looked at the number in the corner of the Storyteller and saw that it said zero. He'd become so engrossed in the unfolding story that he hadn't noticed the numbers going down.
"Guess we'll have to wait until tomorrow to hear the rest," he said, tucking it back into his tunic.
"But I want to know now," protested Geirrod. "What were Bill and Carol up to in, what was the name of the place? The Eden outpost?"
"There's only a few entries left," Tarvos replied, "and there's no way of knowing how many of them will speak. We'll find out tomorrow night."
"If we're still alive tomorrow night," said Fornjot, his voice tensed by the pain he was feeling. "Be unfortunate if we died before we found out how it all turned out."
"That was very probably James Cook himself in the metal quetzal," said Tarvos, though. "He may have died before learning what Bill and Carol were up to. If that's the case, we'll have to wait until we arrive in the spirit world to find out. Maybe James Cook himself will tell us."
"I'd rather hear it from the Storyteller," his clan mate replied.
No-one could disagree with that, and silence fell around the smoky campfire as they watched the sun going down.
