Chapter 8

My daughters came up with a theory that answered the question regarding the lack of wildlife that we'd been encountering. It was one that made sense to me and the rest of my family. After hearing it, I was still left with a feeling of uneasiness. My wife told me that it was normal. The rest of the family felt the same way. Unlike back home on Earth where the question of divine intervention was hotly debated, here we knew that our lives were being manipulated by unseen entities. It was a little disconcerting.

Sarah was the one who grabbed onto the issue first. She quickly recruited Lizzy and Karen to help her out. I'd learn later just how big of a job that the question became for them. Seeing that their days were being spent working at the building site, their research ended up taking up much of their free time and their evenings. Amazingly, they kept their efforts to themselves. They told us later that they wanted to surprise us. We were certainly surprised.

Of course, while they worked on the question, I kept up my job of exploring. I'll tell you right now that my trips were boring. There wasn't much to see in the vicinity of the settlement and what there was to see, looked the same no matter which direction I travelled in. Thankfully, I never went out alone.

So a week went past before Sarah and her sisters presented their theory. In that time I revisited the pool with Lizzy and explored past it. We had to travel on foot. The escarpment ran for miles parallel to the lake and our settlement and there was no ramp or pass that would allow us to take the ATV up to the top of it. What we found beyond the escarpment was a bit unsettling. The hills continued to climb upward, shifting from grassy knolls to sparse woodlands. After about five miles of trekking, those woodlands became dense. Eventually we weren't able to make any further progress through them and we were forced to turn back. Amazingly, the trees and the brush ended up growing right up to the rivers edge. The branches of the trees stretched out over the open water and interlinked with the branches coming from the far side. They formed an effective barrier for anything trying to use the river as a means of transport. It was one of the things that got Sarah working on her theory. Lizzy told her all about it when we got back to the camp that night.

The rest of the week was much the same. We found the head of the lake. This turned out to be another river that flowed down from the hills and the escarpment to the east. That river was broader and deeper and swifter than the first river that we'd found, but it was just as impassable. Amazingly, the land and the woods swallowed it up about five miles away from the edge of the escarpment. It was like someone didn't want us to travel beyond a certain point.

We did figure out the dimensions of our lake and its general shape. The mapping unit on my ATV had taken care of that. The lake was twenty-four miles long from its source to its outflow. It was widest at the top and narrowest at the bottom. The widest point was half a mile across, while the narrowest point was a measly fifty feet. That was down at the sandy beach that Carol and I had discovered. Overall, the lake looked a lot like a string bean. Its head started in the north-east and its body undulated about the curve of the land in a slight curve that ended at the beach and the stream that flowed out of it.

Besides the lake there wasn't much else to discover. The land to the north was a broad flat plain that was covered by tall prairie grass as was the land to the west. The tree line that we'd noticed when we'd originally arrived on this new world proved to be just as impassable as the woodlands to the south and to the east. The trees closest to us turned out to be coniferous. In fact the ones bordering the fields looked a lot like Christmas trees. None were taller than eight feet tall and they all had the classical pyramid shape. These gave way to taller trees after a few feet into the wooded area. The new trees were like Douglas firs. They gave off a pleasant aroma and we had an enjoyable trek under their bows. Unfortunately, as we progressed deeper and deeper into the woods, our path became clogged with underbrush. Eventually, we were forced back again.

Sarah presented her theory on the last day of week nine. We were all sitting about after eating supper, enjoying a brief rest before heading off to bed. It surprised everyone when Sarah cleared her throat and drew our attention to her.

"Everyone... !" Sarah said loudly, standing beside the kitchen island. "I'd like to talk to you."

As she spoke, Lizzy and Karen joined her. They had notebooks and writing tools in their hands and for a moment I wondered where they'd gotten them. Sarah was holding the tablet.

"What is it, honey?" my wife asked, speaking first.

"It's about the wildlife issue that ... Adam has been grumbling about." my eldest stated, pausing for a second as she forced herself not to call me 'Dad'

"What about it?" I asked interrupting her, my curiosity now peaked.

"Well, we've looked into it," Sarah stated, pointing to her sisters as she spoke, "and we've come up with a theory that we want to share with you."

"Yeah," interjected Lizzy, "it took a little bit of work, but ... we felt that we needed to do it. I mean, what ... Adam was moaning about got us thinking as well. It made no sense that there wasn't any kind of wildlife about."

"Okay..." my mother said impatiently, "what's your theory."

"We're in a safe zone." Sarah declared bluntly.

"A safe zone... ?" the remainder of us repeated with a hint of disbelief and question.

"Yeah," Karen chimed in enthusiastically. "Our 'benefactors' have placed us in a safe zone. It's an area about us that extends for about twenty miles in radius from the tent complex. We've mapped it all out."

"You have... ?" I asked aloud, my voice filled with surprise.

"Yes," replied Sarah, a big grin on her face. "Let us explain."

And they did.

Sarah explained who she and her sisters had sat down after my first trip of exploration to talk about the wildlife issue. Having grown up in the country it made no sense to them that there wasn't any birds or animals about. Being equally concerned, they decided to see if they could come up with an answer. Sarah had taken the lead in the project, although the other two girls had helped out a lot.

The first thing that Sarah tried to obtain was a map of the planet. Our 'benefactors' did not give her one. She then tried to get a map of the region. Again she didn't get one. Finally Karen suggested a map of the area around our settlement. That they got. To their surprise, it popped out of the printer slot that was built into the computer terminal. It didn't show much. That was when Lizzy had gotten a bright idea. She suggested checking it against the mapping unit on my ATV. It turned out that their map was a paper copy of the on-screen map. They verified this over the course of the week. Karen handed out a stack of seven eight-and-a half by eleven maps. These maps were of the area around our settlement. The map from day one showed our immediate area and the route that I had traveled south and east and that was that. The bulk of the area around our settlement was blank. However, with each day the maps had changed slightly and progressively. More and more of the area about us was filled in as I had gone exploring. We were all amazed by this.