Pauline Ashwell - Boneheads

The colonists on Indication One would have been more than human, Craile thought, if they had not wondered why 88 lbs of mass capacity had been used to Displace him , when there was so much else they could have used. They were young and healthy. If there were any local diseases they could catch, which was unlikely, they had a plentiful supply of Unimycin in self-refrigerating capsules. They had all been trained in the handling of injuries; not just first aid, but nursing, physiotherapy, the lot. They had a thermometer and a stethoscope and knew how to use them, and they had put together a useful kit from local materials, including a steam sterilizer (pottery), a supply of clean absorbent moss, wooden splints, and strips of leather with which to tie them in place. He knew a great many procedures that they didn’t, of course, but few if any were safe outside a modern hospital. So what use would he be?

In the last few weeks Craile had wondered that more and more frequently.

As explained to him by Dr. Boatrace, he had two functions: firstly, to deal with any illness or accident that required more than first aid, so that nobody else need leave their own work for the purpose; and secondly, to act as a spare pair of hands as and when required.

The final objective of the colony on Indication One was to obtain a supply of the rarer metals; not by digging for them—so far as was yet known, the island contained no ores at all—but by extracting them from sea water. A series of tunnel sections were to be constructed, lined with a variety of silico-organatoid mixtures, each tailored to accumulate a different metal. The tunnels were to be sunk in the channel between Indication One and the mainland.

That done, the whole colony would be re-Displaced 5,000 years ahead, to a period when the bed of the channel would have been raised above sea-level. There they would shovel the metal-containing sludge into one of the many caves along the shore. In 2089 that tract of land belonged to Cretaceous Minerals, Inc., who would set to work ninety million years later to dig the stuff up.

The whole scheme struck Craile as a farcical gamble, with about one chance in a thousand of succeeding. However there was no doubt that everyone else on Indication One took it very seriously indeed.

They had ten years in which to bring it off. Every time one of the potters (who in the absence of metals were expected to make much of the equipment), the engineers, or the plastics team (whose job was to produce the silico-organatoids) had to put his/her specialized work on hold because somebody else was calling for unskilled but absolutely necessary assistance, the whole enterprise suffered.

Craile was perfectly willing to hump loads, support partly completed structures, pass tools, and help in any way that he could. The trouble was, after his early mistakes (plus one or two incidents that were none of his doing but unfortunately occurred when he was close by—as when the spout diverting a small waterfall into the pool where dishes and cooking pots were put to get clean, just happened to collapse a minute or two after he had been inspecting its supports) everyone else on Indication One practically had hysterics if he came anywhere near their constructions.

Maybe they were right. Maybe he was some kind of a Jonah. Take this stupid expedition, undertaken with some confused idea of showing that he could be useful, given a chance.

Food problems on Indication One were the reverse of those Craile was accustomed to. Protein was abundant; there were quantities of fish in the streams as well as in the sea, a wide variety of shellfish, and the eggs of several marine reptiles which came ashore to lay. One of the pines produced large nuts which, cautiously tested, had proved edible. The young shoots of two species of fern and of a broader-leafed relative of the ginkgo had featured in early meals, after careful testing; but seeds of several fast-growing vegetables had been brought along and these, to general relief, now replaced the local greens as suppliers of fiber and vitamin C.

The nutrient in short supply was starch. Until recently it had been obtained from a nameless but abundant plant which grew on the banks of the many streams. This had bulbous stems a couple of inches thick, from which starch could be extracted by a simple but laborious series of operations; drying, grinding, washing out, and drying again. Flapjacks and crackers made from it would have won no prizes in a baking competition, but they were edible and sustaining and one got used to the taste.

Then more or less overnight all the stems shot up to a height of four feet and sprouted large conical heads of stone-hard seeds. In a few days these were stripped bare—by what creatures nobody knew, but small primitive nocturnal mammals were the favorite guess. The remaining stems were about as edible as bamboo.

Supplies of starch were on the point of giving out.

It occurred to Craile that a week or so earlier, while trailing after the Plastics team—they had admitted that he could hardly do any damage by carrying bundles of vegetation for them, provided they chose it themselves—he had noticed a kind of fern with creeping stems, some of them swollen to about the size of a small potato. Wasn’t there a species of fern somewhere—New Zealand?—which produced starchy rhizomes that the locals ate?

Unfortunately he did not remember just where he had seen the plant. Somewhere to the north of the camp, and close to a trail; but there were trails all over the place, and he had had no reason at the time to make a note of the landmarks.

However, Craile was fairly sure he could recreate the course of his wanderings; and if he turned out to be wrong there would be no harm done. Not wanting to add to the list of his mistakes, he decided not to mention it to anyone unless and until he had something edible to show. The terrain was rough, but hell, he was experienced enough in bush walking to look where he put his feet. Anyway, if he announced his intentions somebody would feel bound to drop whatever they were supposed to be doing and come along to take care of him.

At first it seemed everything was going well. He found a small clump of ferns with creeping stems that had four swollen lumps on them—not much bigger than his thumb, but it was a start.

After that, nothing. He walked along a number of trails which looked pretty much like the one he remembered, but the big clump he was looking for failed to appear. Repeatedly he saw what seemed to be the right kind of leaves, and plunged off the trail to examine the plants, but none of them showed the kind of growth he was looking for.

Doggedly Craile pursued one meandering path after another; he was now well away from the area he had visited with the Plastics group, but the blasted plants must grow in other places as well. Probably the one he had found was an outlier, and the main habitat of the species was farther away…

Finally, and with reluctance, he had decided to turn back. Then at the very first fork in the trail he did not know which way to go.

Base lay south, he was sure of that. He looked up. The Sun was directly overhead.

Observatory Hill was the highest point on the island. Slowly and deliberately, Craile turned completely around. The view in every direction was blocked by trees. Where he stood, the ground was flat; but fifty yards away in either direction it sloped gently upwards. He couldn’t see which ridge was the higher—both summits disappeared among the trees.

Unbelievably, after all his experience, he had gotten himself lost.

Of course, for the last twenty years his experience had been mostly of being put down by helicopter as close as possible to his destination, and then conducted by a guide for the rest of the way. He had got out of the habit of noting landmarks and marking his trail. It had not occurred to him to use any part of his minute baggage allowance to bring a compass along… Wasn’t there something about the moss growing on the south side? He looked quickly at the nearest tree. No moss. Plenty of lichens, all the way around.