Chapter 368

The Prison Planet

Fuck, now back for the hide, and it will make coming up this hill even harder than the last trip, Morales thought as he and Lobo started down the steep slope in front of their cave. Tired or not, I'm going to have to push hard to get back to the tree and still have enough time to load the tiger skin and make the return trip before dark.

Two hours later, he struggled to load the heavy hide into the case, the skin filling it to overflowing. Shit, it's going to take me forever to scrape this thing, not to mention rubbing it down with the brain/piss solution. And ... I still need to work on that other cat hide, too, and ... stretch the other hides again. I guess I really should cut both of the tiger hides in half, but it seems a shame to do it to anything that beautiful. Funny how something so ferocious can be just as beautiful as it is terrifying.

After scooping the thing's brain into a big bucket, he snapped the lid on, pushed a section of the hide back and snuggled the bucket into a corner of the rolling case. Thinking about the Indian tribe he had read about that saved everything, he took his hammer and chisel to retrieve the saber-tooth's teeth and tusks. I already have teeth from the other saber-tooth and the gar, but I'll probably never kill another one of these things. There isn't anyone to be impressed that I have them, but who knows when I'll have access to teeth this large again. I'm sure I can make spear points and arrow points out of them – maybe other things as well. After thinking a moment, he removed the giant claws, too.

Eyeing the thing's balls, he sniggered while muttering to himself, "Well, that tribe used buffalo balls for rattles, but I think I'll pass on that. Still ... thinking about them dancing around shaking those rattles makes me miss music and my guitar. Of course, the strings would go eventually and there would be no replacement for them, but still..."

Shrugging, he scanned the area for danger as he was wont to do every minute or so, before looking at Lobo. "No use getting maudlin. Ah, well, if I never hear music again it isn't going to kill me, and I guess you've never heard any at all, huh, Boy? I damn sure don't have time to spend playing my guitar, anyway, but I guess that's sour grapes. I have skins to tan and food to gather and preserve if... I can find more of those potatoes, or maybe some other type of vegetable. I guess I need to dig into that database again. There must have been a shitload of those scientists, and they seemed to have recorded everything except how many times they farted – and even that might be in there somewhere," he said with a grin. "All my research problems are exacerbated – yep, learned a new word, Lobo – by my reading too fucking slow. To top it off, I have too much to do to spend the time reading through those thousands and thousands of pages of notes and articles about the whole planet, but those bastards were obviously all throughout this area as well, so no telling what all they wrote about things around here. I guess my best approach is to go back to that database and see if I can decipher more of their gibberish that's marked on the map about this area. If I could decipher the key, maybe I could figure out what's where. At least the salt was marked plainly as just 'salt.' Guess they didn't have to abbreviate that."

Grabbing the pull handle, he tilted the case into its balanced position. "Son-of-a-bitch. This thing is heavy," he told the wolf. Lobo sniffed and put his front feet on the case to smell the hide again. "And you still can't piss on it," he added. "Go piss on the carcass if you want to." Then the thought hit. "Oh, shit. I'm surely not going to eat the meat, but I know for a fact that you will eat it," he said as he let the case settle into its resting position again.

Shortly, he had added a big chunk of cat meat to the already heavy case.

Crossing the stream with a loaded case was fun, as always – not. Finally across, and wet to the waist, he sat on a rock to rest for a moment at the bottom of the hill. "Well, at least it didn't rain last night," he told the wolf, "so I won't have to contend with the mud." He almost decided to hook up the block and tackle and pull the case up the way he had done the resupply case, but that one didn't have wheels and this one did. And ... the block and tackle would be a hassle as well, because he would have to do the pull in stages. Spying a downed branch four or five inches in diameter, he cut off a section about four feet long and tossed it twenty feet or so farther up the hill.

Bracing his feet, he began to pull the case up the steep incline, inch by inch. When he got to the branch, he put it behind the wheels for a chock while he rested.

At the steepest part of the hill, he struggled, putting forth all the effort he had, but he just didn't have enough strength to pull the overloaded case over a small hump.

Taking a breath, he pulled again, unconsciously closing his eyes as he strained to the utmost. With a jerk, the case suddenly moved, causing him to stumble and almost fall on his ass. Lobo reared partway up, put his front feet against the case and pushed again. Morales was so startled he almost didn't pull when Lobo pushed, but quickly added his strength to the animal's effort. A couple of feet later, he could barely move the case again. Then Lobo reared up and shoved yet again.

"Yes. Way to go, Boy."

The effect of Lobo's shoves only lasted a couple of feet each time, but the animal was strong. With his help, Morales had the case the rest of the way up the hill in short order.

When the laden case was safely inside the cave, Morales knelt to hug the big wolf, thanking him profusely. Lobo licked his master's face, whined and looked toward the chunk of cat meat. Laughing, Morales cut a piece and offered it to the animal, but he whined again and looked toward the skillet sitting on a rock near the remains of the cooking fire.

"Oh, so we've gotten you spoiled now, huh?"

Lobo looked at Morales and grinned.

"All right, let me get the fire going and I'll cook your dinner, then mine. But I'm not going to eat any cat meat – unless I'm starving," he amended.

When it was done, Lobo didn't seem to mind that it was cat meat, but gulped it down and whined for more.

"I'll cook you another piece in a few minutes. I'm as hungry as you are and I'm going to surprise myself with some fish jerky to go with my mashed potatoes. When those are ready, I'll cook you another piece of Mr. Badass. Hell, you're probably eating the cat meat just to get back at him, hmmm?"

Lobo did his imitation of a grin again.

As night fell, Morales spread the hide on the floor of the cave and began scraping, this time taking his clothes off beforehand. I'll do the preliminary scraping with the hide on the floor like I did on the last one, then pull it over my pole to stretch it and do the second scraping. After that, I'll spread it out on the floor again before I rub the brain/piss mess into it, then roll it up and put it next to the other cat hide. Shit, this place is going to stink forever. No wonder the article said that tanneries of old were always well outside the towns. Otherwise, folks would be stringing the tanners up by their necks. Surely, I'll get used to the smell – eventually.

Then muttering to himself once again, "Hell, not much use in hiding my trail; probably anybody within a mile can smell this place."

After eating, he cleaned his cooking utensils and plate before spending the next several hours working on his hides.

Exhausted, but not yet sleepy, he booted the laptop and began searching the database. There was a key to the icons on the map, but much of the wording was couched in technical terms that Morales still did not understand. Dammit, I have nobody to blame but me, but it's fucking frustrating just the same. "I don't know shit about minerals, or archeology, or chemistry, or biology, or ... fucking anything. But there seems to be detailed studies on almost any subject I can think of. Can people educate themselves? Can I do it? There is tons of information on this computer, and it has a fucking gigantic drive on it with well over half the space used by the programs and data. They must have put a whole fucking library in there. There is enough reading in this laptop to last me a lifetime." He chuckled while thinking of his isolation from Earth, "Guess I don't have to worry about a virus on 2214, huh, Lobo?"

Lobo just looked up and grinned his ferocious grin as Morales went on, "Speaking of studying, how can I study when I have to spend so much of my time just trying to live? But then again," he said with a sick laugh, "I do have the rest of my life. If ... the saber-tooths, or panthers or bears don't eat me, or I get skewered or trampled to death by a buffalo or elk or something else, or starve or freeze to death this winter. Yep, I'll have the rest of my life to study – for however long that is, and for whatever good the studying will ever do me."

Looking at the wolf who was lying with his head on his paws listening to Morales rave, "But I do have one hell of a friend, don't I, Boy?"

Lobo raised his head a little and made a chuffing sound, before returning to his resting position.

"Was that a laugh, or something else? Dammit, if you can't speak human, I need to learn how you communicate in your language – however the hell you do it. Even with the little communication we do have, we've become a great team. No telling what we could accomplish if we could really understand each other. But ... I'll do without communication if you're into smelling asses – unless it's a good looking human female that is."

Lobo just tilted his head and looked back at Morales. After pouring a cup of coffee, he sat idly staring into the entrance fire. Absently, he put an arm around the wolf's back as he sipped the brew he loved so much, and thought.

The Retreat

... Charlotte walked out of the bathroom to face the music, her face freshly scrubbed.

"The dining room is this way," Jeff said, motioning while smiling warmly at her. "You hungry?"

His comment and question sounded so mundane she hardly knew how to answer. These people don't seem in the least bit rattled. I could have killed Mr. Hanes just like that man ordered me to. These men must know that I could have killed him, yet they're treating me like a guest. Of course, I didn't actually do anything other than hand Mr. Hanes the gun, but they just seemed like... Her mind was reluctant to process what she knew was impossible. But it just had to be. They were expecting it. I know they were. That's the only way this can make sense. But how...

"Hungry? he asked again." As a grin touched his lips, she wondered if there was some way he could know what she had been thinking.

"Uh, yes. I guess so," she managed.

"And by the way, we aren't formal here. I'm Jeff and he is Art. Of course, you might want to be a bit more formal with the General. But other than being a bit gruff from time to time, he won't bite – too much," he finished with a chuckle.

General? They have a General here? she wondered.

Jeff held the door for her while she was ushered in by the man she was supposed to kill, her mind in turmoil. What have I done? How did I get myself into this? What do I do about my mother? Why are these people acting this way?

Diana saw them and hurried over. "Hope you guys don't mind the hot bar for lunch. We couldn't decide what to fix, so we wound up with several things for you to choose from." Holding out her hand to Charlotte, "Hi. I'm Diana Matthews."

"Uh, I'm Charlotte Bankston."

"Welcome to our home, Charlotte. I hope you're hungry, because we prepared way too much food." Turning to Jeff, she continued, "Honey, would you introduce everyone?"

While Jeff did that, Diana chatted with the Sergeant and Lieutenant as she welcomed them and ushered them on ahead to begin serving themselves at the hot bar.

When the introductions were over, Whitney grabbed Charlotte's hand. "Come on; let's get you started at the bar. Don't worry about remembering all our names just yet, 'cause there are way too many of us for you to do that in one go, but we'll keep telling you our names from time to time as we have conversations with you. Before long, you'll know everyone."

Despite Charlotte's nervousness, she was forced to interact with the bubbly Whitney at the bar, or else have her plate stacked with so much food she would never be able to eat it all. I'm surely not into women, but she is absolutely beautiful – all the women are. I've never seen this many beautiful women in one room, and the men are... She blushed just thinking of them. I can hardly keep my eyes off them. Her thoughts continued as she glanced surreptitiously around her. Unless I miss my guess, all the women are braless – not that any of them appear to need one. And most of them seemed to be wearing wedding rings. There are only three other men here, other than Mr. Hanes and Mr. Matthews, uh Art and Jeff, and the Security guys, of course. Didn't one of the Security people call Jeff, Colonel? He holds himself erect like a military person – just like the two Security people do. And Jeff did mention a General. Hmmm.

There are at least twenty married women here, well other than the child, of course. But where are the other men? Are they at work? Do rich people even work? Crap. I'm out of my element. I expected to be grilled about the gun, but so far, they haven't asked me about it. And I don't even know what happened to it. I suppose the Security guys must have it, not that I care. I wish I had never seen it.