Adrift
Copyright© 2025 by Gina Marie Wylie
Chapter 17
In spite of learning that the birds were going to bring some food, Becky advised that the command group not announce it until the food was arriving. Commander Shumway and the gunny went to deal with that.
Harry went outside, found a nice rock, and started drawing. She’d been working for a half hour when Sandy appeared.
“Harry,” Harry’s sister said.
“Sandy,” Harry replied, trying hard to stifle a laugh.
“Harry, I said earlier you were going to get yourself killed. It’s clear I was wrong.”
Harry shrugged. “Sandy, I haven’t peed myself, but it was close a couple of times.”
“Mei Lei says you are doing your best to save all of us. So, she says, is she. So are others. I’m just barely pulling my own weight,” Sandy told her sister.
“Don’t be silly! You’ve been there a lot of times when we needed everyone! About a fifth of the people here can’t be bothered with anything beyond grunt work.”
“I’m not doing anything!”
“Sandy, you are learning to fiddle! You came up with the idea of reed mats!” Harry laughed. “We are using quite a few mats, and they keep a lot of the malcontents occupied.”
“And you, Harry?”
“Hey, I’m helping organize a dino steak barbecue -- and drawing more maps.”
“You’re sitting on your butt, Harry!”
“Telepathy has many benefits!” Harry told Sandy.
“You’re impossible!” Sandy said and flounced off.
A while later, Harry stood and waited for Becky to notice her. Becky Thatcher grinned and made a come-along gesture.
Harry handed Becky the map she had been working on. “The birds have a mental picture of the lake in their heads. They don’t do maps; they could, because they are visual, but they have no way to draw. I copied a young bird’s visualization of the lake. The tricky thing was the scale.”
“Let me get some of the others,” Becky told Harry.
It took a few minutes, but Commander Shumway was there: the gunny, Tim Riley, Mei Lei, Sandy, Sergeant Pierson, Griff, Owen, Alexis, and Roman.
“We are gathered here to listen to a report from Harry,” Commander Shumway told those assembled. “You all know why Lieutenant Pugh is not here. Sergeant Ridgeway has informed me that he wants a bust to buck sergeant. I told him that his status was unchanged until the military board has spoken.”
The gunny interrupted, “Stan Ridgeway is a good man, but lost.”
“That said, the people here in this room get results. They’ve been there when it counted. For sure, a lot of the people here are self-selected, something Marines try not to be. But we have a situation, and it’s not going to be resolved thinking inside the box by shrinking violets.”
He waved at Harry, “Miss Harry.”
“The Queen assigned one of her younger sons to help me with a map of the lake.”
“I had some trouble with units of measure. I only think I got them right.”
“This lake is shaped a lot like Lake Michigan on Earth. There is a Lake Superior equivalent as well, but it is south rather than north, but does run mostly east and west.”
“This lake is about sixteen hundred miles long and about a hundred and fifty miles wide. The ‘Lake Superior’ here is three hundred and fifty miles wide and about five hundred miles wide.”
“The birds were quite up front. When the moon was acquired, there were a lot of geologic disturbances. Their society’s nests are, more or less, immune from earthquakes, but nonetheless, the earthquakes were severe, and many birds and their young were killed. The fuzzies had cities of masonry and were sorely afflicted.”
“The birds only recently discovered this lake, recently as in the last twenty years. They have a range of about two hundred miles, which translates to barely effective at the end of their range. Unlike aircraft, birds tire.
“However, the lake’s eastern third has many islands. If Minnesota is the land of ten thousand lakes, the lake is the home of ten thousand islands. There is a mountain range on the other side similar to the Sierra Nevada Range in California, and those islands are isolated peaks.
“This gives the birds an advantage over the White Bands. They can fly over there and land on one of the islands and rest. The White Bands only just found this island now...”
Harry looked at the others. “If we can keep the White Bands from resting here, it will set them back quite a bit. Except we would have to fight to keep them off. I’m not stupid and I know the good guys will run out of ammunition for our guns ... and many people would likely be killed.
“We will have to make a choice. We can go west, to the mainland. We will have to keep going west at least five hundred miles to be halfway safe. Because if we can’t keep the White Bands off this island, the birds will be swamped. They are outnumbered by the White Bands by several hundred to one.
“The Queen wants us to think about this. They have rafts that could carry all of us to shore, relatively quickly. She also thinks that if the White Bands establish a foothold here they will be impossible to dislodge. I think that means ‘Decide quickly!’
“And, the first birds will be here shortly with the meat. Each of them can carry about a hundred pounds. Only the males can carry one of the fuzzies, who each weigh about ninety pounds. They’ll take the fuzzies back with them.”
Commander Shumway’s expression was hard for Harry to read. “I hereby declare the people here the executive committee for the survivors of Flight 1011. Your first assignment is to have a big barbecue tonight. Spend some time thinking about this and be ready to discuss it mid-morning tomorrow. I’m afraid that’s all the time we’ve got.
“If the birds can talk to us, we have to assume that Atief is going to tell the White Bands all she knows, over and above what the White Bands learn on their own. Go, have a good time. Sergeant Pierson and Sandy Fredericks are responsible for tonight’s entertainment. Gunny Howard, can you and your people organize the meal?”
“Grills? Anyone know what we can use for grills?” the gunny asked.
Roman nodded. “We can sacrifice some of the seats. There is a latticework of steel, supported by springs in the base of each. They are about two feet on a side and we’d need a mess of them.”
Jack Pierson stood with Harry, waiting for the first birds to arrive. Gunny had told him to organize the cooking and he had glanced at one of the seats before he’d come outside and agreed with Roman that the springs would make good substitutes for barbecue grills.
The birds landed and Harry communed with them. They seemed to have harnesses for meat. Jack had been concerned about how the meat would travel, but he had to chuckle when he saw what they had done.
The meat was wrapped in leaves a lot like NotTP. The hook side outside and the soft side against the meat. The hooks acted like Velcro. There were twenty birds in the first wave, with nearly a ton of meat. Jack set some of his people to carving up the meat into smaller chunks. The first load was pure meat, great huge slabs of steaks, all good red meat.
The fuzzies left with the first group of birds. Harry and Sandy sank to their knees to face the one wearing her blouse. Jack saw the lead bird signaling with a mirror, and the fuzzy responding.
Finally, Harry brushed the fuzzy’s hair, then the fuzzies left. “Her name is Musical Notes, A, A sharp, and G. I can’t reach the right octave. We still need to try your fiddle.
“She tells me that they had limited their planting of the tubers to their needs. They are willing to give us half, for the time being.
“The weather on the planet is seriously fucked up!”
Jack smiled at her. “I’m trying to clean up my language, Harry.”
“I plan to teach all our kids to cuss like sailors, then,” Harry retorted.
Jack laughed. “That hurt! Marines are famous for our salty language.”
“Back to the fucked up weather,” Harry got back on topic. “Seasons here are about eight months. We still have four months until autumn. She tells me we can get two more crops of tubers before it gets too cold for them to grow.
“Tubers don’t freeze worth a shit, but the ground protects them, so they don’t freeze if you leave them in the ground. She says you can get half a fuzzy’s weight -- forty-five pounds, I think, from each bush, and they plant 180 per acre, and they plant twenty acres. We go over all the units three or four different ways to be sure. Call it twenty times forty-five times one hundred and eighty times two. Call it about a third of a million pounds.”
“The food issue seems solved,” Jack said.
“Did I mention there are eight months of winter?” Harry told him. “That’s their months, about half again the hours of one of ours? Did I mention that as near as I can tell, the fuzzies and birds hibernate during the winter?”
“Harry, have I ever told you that you are a cross between a font of wisdom and a font of joy?”
“My father says that twin daughters is a heavy cross to bear.”
“It seems to me you’ve mentioned one of his favorite aphorisms is ‘You play the hand you’re dealt.’”
That reduced Harry to tears. “I was just coming to grips that the son of a bitch knew what he was talking about -- and now he’s there -- on the other side of the sky.”
“Harry, I understand. I sent my Ma half my paycheck. The government is going to declare us dead, and the next government check she gets will be my life insurance. And then she’ll have nothing.”
Griff came out, looking morose. “They call those things ‘Fast Runners?’”
Harry nodded. “Griff...”
“What, Harry?” He was trying to look so brave!
“The White Bands who carried them here are dead, Griff. They can fly here and back home -- only the males and only unburdened. The Fast Runners weigh as much as a fuzzy. That cuts the range in half. So the White Bands that drop the Fast Runners here die on the way back.”
Harry touched Griff’s hand. “The Queen tells me that they can see really well, and they scout the island when the fuzzies are going to be here. They were caught off guard, and the Queen is really sorry, and there are going to be patrols over the island three times a day now, if her people can fly.
“I was just mentioning to Jack that the weather on this planet is seriously fucked. At this time of the year, the storms go from east to west. Storm systems seem to start west of here and east of here. We didn’t see it, but a thousand miles west of here, the terrain turns to savannah, and after another five hundred miles, it turns to desert. Four thousand miles west of here is a mountain range like the Andes, then another thousand miles of forest like this before an ocean.”
Griff had been staring into the distance, and when Harry stopped talking, he turned to her. “I thought we would die here...” he sighed heavily.
“Harry, you are the hope for the future. If there is anyone in this godforsaken place who will do well, it’s you and Becky.”
Jack coughed ostentatiously.
Griff nodded. “Sorry, Sarge. But I call it like I see it.”
“You’re a little runt, Corporal. Us normal-sized fellers pay you no mind.”
Quite suddenly, Harry realized they were pulling her leg. “Griff, you understand, Becky says I should have your babies, too?”
Griff laughed. “Suddenly, I’m reminded that Bess has first dibs.”
“First,” Harry said smugly, “not last.”
Another wave of birds was coming, and Jack stood up. “Time to get the fires going.”
The three traded looks for a second, and then they all laughed.
Sandy sat next to Mei Lei. The two were now virtually inseparable these days. “Who would have thought? There are doggie bags on the other side of the sky,” Sandy told her friend.
“Doggie bags?” Mei Lei asked.
“Bags restaurants give for portions larger than you can eat,” Sandy said.
“Ah! Very practical ... if you live in a rich country where such things are possible.”
She was interrupted when Roman came over. “You have to tell them to hold off on the fires until the birds are gone,” the big man said.
“The people are hungry, starving,” Mei Lei said, sounding reasonable.
“Fires scare the pee out of the birds. The nestlings can’t fly for six or seven months. Nests are made of sticks and stuff, lined with feathers. A fire can destroy a nest ... the surviving birds lose hope and pretty much go off and die, like elephants did back on Earth.”
It took a few minutes to stop the fires -- Jack Pierson was still working on the first pit, measuring the size against the “grill.”
There were moans, but some of the meat was taken inside and broiled like wieners over the fires inside. Finally, the main grills were going, and the command group was once more standing watching the people. There was a lot of cheerful talk, bits and pieces of songs. A few people knew chunks of plays or poetry, and people provided attentive audiences.
Commander Shumway was depressed though. “I don’t think we can split the group in two, not if it means most of the people die.”
Again, it was Roman who cleared his throat. “Owen and I, we are SCA and Ren Faire fans. Owen only helped, but we made a trebuchet once. A real one, kind of, even if we only fired pumpkins and watermelons.”
“We don’t have either,” Commander Shumway said sourly. “Nor do I think as missiles they would be effective.”
Roman laughed. “We have a lot of water bottles, and the 747 still probably has some fuel.”
Becky spoke up. “The copilot said we have a thousand pounds or so left.”
“A couple of years ago, protesters in Ukraine made a make-shift trebuchet and fired Molotov cocktails at the hated riot police,” Roman told them. “I can’t begin to tell you how paranoid the birds are about fires. The fuzzies can’t build them within ten miles of a nest and then with a broad stream or river between it. The fuzzies were angling to be able to expand to this island to run their forges.
“I’m talking to the old male, husband of the Queen. He says if the White Bands come, throw fire on them from the top of the hill, when they gather to try to get into our caves. A bird burns like a torch; they are terrified of fire.
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