Chapter 2

Not that I remember sleeping; it must have been like resting with my eyes shut. This is great! I awaken completely refreshed and ready to go. My favorite breakfast of eggs, ham, and coffee appear on the desk. I arise and eat quickly. As soon as I finish, the door opens as Kemon enters.

"We are on the planet of your new home. Your tools are ready. We will deliver the animals after one or two weeks' time. We assume you will use that time wisely to prepare for them," Kemon tells me.

"Good idea. I need to get a good look around and to settle in; then I will build some animal pens. Are there any native peoples close by?" I ask.

"There is a family group of Neanderthals living five miles east of you and across two valleys. The Cro-Magnons live 12 miles to your north. The Cro-Magnons refer to the Neanderthals as "Other People."

"I hope I don't meet any people right away. I want to get situated before I am ready for company."

"The other groups generally stay close to home except when hunting. There is plenty of game this year, so you should be fine for a while. Your tools and supplies will be brought to you soon in a large box which only you can open, so your tools will be safe."

"OK, let's roll." Well, I'm ready.

"Let's roll? I am not sure of your reference."

I don't feel like explaining this; I am too enervated to make any more small talk. "I mean that I am ready to go." I soon as I say that, I find myself standing on the ground of my new home planet. Talk about nervous! Scared! Excited! Whatever this experiment thing is, I don't want to mess up.

I am at the base of a steep hill, in a valley that's about a half mile long. Down the middle runsa gentle creek, at first glance the lower elevations appear to be mostly covered with nothing, except for the occasional bush for several hundred feet on either side of the creek. Looking up the sides of the valley, I see that the higher elevations have heavier tree growth.

In gazing around, I find a large shipping pod style box on the ground next to me, which appears to open from the top. Of course, knowing what's supposed to be in there gets me thinking about all my plans and how I need to choose a place to build.

The first order of the day is to reconnoiter the area. Tentatively at first, I head up the valley to get a good look around. At the end of the valley, I see that it's a steep climb to the top, so I decide to go no farther for now. I go back down to the other end of the valley, where I see that this valley tee connects into two other valleys. Each of these valleys has a large creek or small stream running through them.

You know, it kind of reminds me of Pittsburgh. I've been there several times when I was working for that software company. I remember what a pain it was to drive through those endless hills and valleys, and how no road seemed to go where I wanted to go. I really prefer the flatness of central Indiana, where a "geographical feature" doesn't require an hour's worth of climbing.

I head back towards the box, and figure this is a good a place as any. Running water, steep hills, and lots of woods make this place almost ideal. Now I see that the area around the box is better than I first thought: I happen to be standing in an area where the hill gains elevation much more quickly than it does in the rest of the valley. These rock formations are quite interesting. There must be a reason why I am in this exact spot.

Shit! Horrific thoughts pop into my head: What if I'm not safe here? I have just seen lots of small animals and signs of large game all over the place. So I need to get out my bow and quiver.

I lift the lid from the box, having no idea how it knows that it's me opening it, and I prop it open with the support provided. This pod is packed quite well, and the hunting stuff is next to the camping stuff. I pull out one of the bows and string it. I attach the two piece bow quiver to the bow and put six arrows in the quiver. I pull out an arrow and nock it and draw it back to see how well it handles.

My father's hunting lessons from when I was a teen in the 1960's all come rushing back to me. We used wood or fiberglass recurved bows back then. Composites and pulleys and all sort of new fangled ideas are invented later.

This bow draws like one of the new compound bows and only takes about 30 pounds to hold it, but it's a recurve bow. The tips are strange in the way they taper down to a point like an old English long bow. This should prove interesting.

The arrows look like birch arrows, but they feel cold; that's how I know that they are titanium rods. The fletchings are plain brown, simulating a feather. The tips make these arrows special. The Navigator is shaped like an advanced high speed bullet. It has break-away notches so that if a deer with an arrow in its side runs close by a tree, the shaft snaps off near the tip; then I can retrieve the shaft and use it again.

The broad head hunting tips are razor sharp and have three blades. They are packaged in protective plastic covers so I will not get accidentally sliced handling them. It looks like the plastic can be left on and will peel off like the sabot on some fancy bullets. I load the bow quiver with Navigators. They are easy to handle and the best bet for general use. There is a selection of other quivers in the box, but the bow quiver keeps an adequate supply right on the bow. One end of the bow quiver is a large cup-like affair. I insert the arrow tips in the cup, and press the shafts into the notches of the rubber mount at the other end. I shake it a few times and nothing falls out. Pretty good design.

There should be a small target with a portable stand in this box. I find it and set it up around 35 yards away. I shoot my first arrow for the first time in over 20 years. Oops! It's way too low. I nock another one and aim a little higher. This one is pretty close, but my left forearm is smarting from the string slapping it. I root around in the box again until I find a guard and I strap it on my forearm.

I continue to work with the bow for at least half an hour. I move back to about 50 yards and try it again. When I am sure I can hit things relatively close I am happy. I see some woodsy style camouflageg clothing in the box, so I guess they want me to do some hunting. I have too many things to do for a while to let hunting get in my way just yet.

While rooting in the box, I come across the Bowie knife and quite a number of standard 6-inch hunting knives. I open my belt and put the Bowie on the left and the hunting knife on the right. I can cross draw the Bowie almost like a sword. This is one wicked-looking blade!

I grab a meal pack and sit down to eat it. What is next? I do need shelter. I locate the summer weight tent and spend a half hour putting it up about 50 feet from the creek. I lay out an extra ground cloth first, and put the sleeping bag and some cooking hardware in the tent. It is a large tent and easily holds all the stuff I put into it.

I need to find a good place for my garden. It must be close to my shelter. It's got to be flat with no rocks. The problem is that I don't see any good loamy dirt around here. This topsoil is a fraction of an inch thick, as if a flood has pulled out the rich dirt a while back. That means there are two things I must do: I need to enrich the soil, and I need to protect the garden from flood waters. Sounds like a lot of work, to me.

I remember a recent TV show about the ancient Amazon basin. It seems that the indigenous people had burned charcoal to enrich the soil. They had used logs and a kiln made of sod or clay. They had been doing this a thousand years ago.

Based on what's available to me, I guess I have to at least try this method.

I head up the hill with an ax. I locate a couple of likely dead falls with wood that's not rotted out, and I trim the limbs and drag the logs down to the garden area. This pile will become my charcoal.

Now I need sod to make my kiln. If I can find a grassy area, the roots will hold the dirt together better. Fortunately, there's a dense grassy area nearby. With a square nose shovel, I mark off one-foot by two-foot sections of sod to be removed by cutting down a few inches and moving the shovel to the next area to be marked. I work under the sod with the shovel until the first rectangle of sod comes out. I continue with this until dark.