Chapter 377

The Prison Planet

Morales had continued shelling peas long into the night, but Lobo had lost interest when his master had turned the computer off.

Damn, my brain feels like mush, the human thought as he cleaned up his work area, throwing the pea hulls in a pile near the entrance. I still have a few more peas to shell, and all the beans. As he stood looking at the peas he had shelled, his mind continued to go over his immediate problems. I might just as well give up, saw out more lumber and build some boxes to store the dried beans and peas in. That valley is a big place and I've explored only a tiny portion of it. I still haven't found a list of what vegetables and fruit trees the scientists planted, but I suspect it must have been just about everything they thought would grow in this area.

He took the skins down from the bars since the hen was tied and couldn't get out, but stopped to stand looking out the passage. Well, at least it seems to have finally quit raining. I guess I should sack out so I can get an early start in the morning.

As he turned from the entrance, there was a rumble of thunder in the distance, then a minute or so later, a much nearer rumble. "No, dammit, that's enough rain,"

he said aloud. But nature, of course, didn't pay any attention to him. Before he had finished straightening up, he heard the familiar sound of rain pelting the ground and trees, yet again.

Oh, well, he thought as he turned the lantern off and settled into his bed, the sound of rain just helps me sleep.

"Bueeccckkkak."

"What the fuck," Morales mumbled as he bolted upright to see the hen standing ten feet or so away glaring at him, her body silhouetted by the first rays of the morning sunlight leaking through the cave entrance.

"What the fuck do you want?" he grumbled as he grabbed his pants and shirt before she could shit on them.

"Vwaack," she squawked.

Hurrying to put his clothes on as the hen continued to glare at him, "I should have gotten one of the other hens. You must be the fucking mother-in-law," he muttered as he finished buttoning the shirt, then grabbed his boots as the hen eyed them.

"Puck, puck, puck," she seemed to contentedly say as she scratched in the dirt and pecked at something, not backing up an inch as the human came a little nearer to sit on his favorite rock and pull on his boots.

"First you scream at me, then when I get up you scratch in the dirt and act contented. I should let your ass starve for shitting on me," he mumbled while Lobo chuffed in the background. Grabbing an ear of corn, he shelled off a handful of grains and tossed them on the ground near the chicken's water. She descended on the corn greedily while keeping a beady eye on Morales.

"Oh, so you pretend to be scared of me, but you sure aren't bashful about asking for breakfast. Did you lay an egg last night?" he asked as he walked toward her nest.

With the help of her wings, she beat him to the nest by a good margin, squawking at him as she passed. When she landed, she whirled to face him, fluttering her wings and raising the feathers on the back of her neck.

"You ungrateful bitch," he groused. "I just fed you and yet you act like you're going to attack me. You're fucking psychotic." Whether he liked it or not, it was obvious that her nest was off limits.

"Peeccckkkak. Peeccckkkak," she Squawked triumphantly as he walked away.

I am not going to wring her neck. I am not going to wring her neck, he told himself over and over. She's a source of eggs and future chicken dinners – if those eggs hatch – but keep on bitch, and one day I'll be eating you.

With another squawk, she flew back over to finish her meal, from time to time still raising her head to check on his whereabouts.

After a heavy breakfast, he worked his way down the muddy hillside to wash his pants and shirt in the now-roaring stream, then hung them on a bush by the cave to dry. After stomping the mud off his boots, he went back inside the cave to gather his equipment. "Let's go, Boy. I need to bring another section of the tree I cut down to the cave so I can saw out some planks without having to look over my shoulder while I'm doing it."

After cutting a section out of the already-downed tree, he tied a rope around the end, looping it over his shoulder. With a piece of hide for padding so the rope wouldn't cut into his skin, he dragged the section down the hill to the cave, the mud helping for a change. If he managed to hold the front of the log clear so it didn't dig into the ground, it slid fairly easily on the slick surface. Inside, maneuvering the log onto rocks to support it so he could cut out planks was a bitch, but with the help of a thick limb for a pry bar, he managed.

When the log was in position, he paused for a drink of cool water, the sweat pouring off his body because of the exertion, heat and humidity. Glancing at his now calloused hands, he realized that the work he had done this morning would have made blisters a few weeks ago, not to mention having exhausted him. This morning, he continued to have plenty of energy, but the sawing was still backbreaking work, tiring and tedious, as he endeavored to keep the saw to a straight line.

Late afternoon found him with three sections of tree cut into planks of varying widths. Those cut from the center of each log were wider, of course, while those near the edges were the narrowest. He had stripped the bark from the pine tree before he brought each section to the cave, but the resulting planks sawn out by the course-toothed saw were rough. He thought about smoothing them up a bit, but decided that his food would not know the difference. He would save the smoothing for his furniture, when, and if, he ever got around to building it. But damn, I sure would like to sit down at a table to eat my meals.

By midnight, when his body told him he was done for the day, he had the three sections sawn into planks and two boxes pegged together. They were rough, and any self-respecting carpenter would have cringed, but they would work for something to store his seeds in, and ... he still had a number of the rough planks left over.

He cleaned up the chicken shit, tossed it in the pile near the entrance, and as before, covered it with dirt. "One of the articles I read said that chicken manure was very high in nitrogen and made a great garden fertilizer. Well, I suppose I have one hell of a garden. Maybe all the chicken shit will come in handy one of these days."

Lobo snorted his disdain for chicken shit, fertilizer or not.

First thing the next morning, Morales finished with the pea shelling. With one of the boxes that measured approximately three feet square and a foot deep positioned in the side cave well away from anything else, he poured in his three buckets of peas, then transferred the other peas he had shelled earlier. "There is probably a couple of months of food right here," he told Lobo, "but it takes one hell of a long time to shell the things. And ... I still have all the beans to shell. Oh, well, those weeds and brambles in the valley are probably still wet, anyway."

After tying several of the onion plants together, he hung the resulting "rope" from a peg that he had driven into the cave wall well into the area where no light ever reached. It didn't take long to tie the rest of the onion plants and hang them in a similar manner.

Hefting a deeper box, he also put it into the perpetually dark area of the cave. Cutting the plants off an inch or so above the carrots, he alternated layers of straw that he had been accumulating and unwashed carrots, making sure none of the vegetables touched each other or the box he put them in. "One of the articles I read suggested storing the carrots by layering them in the same dirt they grew in. Another said to use rotted sawdust. Yet another said to just leave them in the garden. Well, there are plenty more in the valley, so it will be easy to test the last method. I don't have any rotted sawdust, so that's out. Who knows whether the straw will work or not, but I can always get some more carrots and try layering them in dirt. By next year, I'll know which method works best."

Lobo tilted his head slightly to the side as he listened attentively to his master, Morales wondering just how much the wolf understood.

The Retreat

Just before three in the morning, Ada, wearing her blue robe, knocked on Charlotte's bedroom door, entered and turned the lights on. When Charlotte sat up, "You hungry, Hon?"

"Well, I..." Charlotte sleepily began, but her expression changed in mid-sentence. "Oh, my. I guess I really am," she responded as she came fully awake. "Let me get dressed and we'll check out the kitchen."

Ada's face broke into a grin, "I'm going like I am. This," she stated, motioning to her sexy robe, "covers most everything, and what's a little nipple showing around here, anyway?"

Charlotte stood, but instead of putting on her robe, made a run for the bathroom. "Gotta pee." Then with a giggle, "I guess I shouldn't have drunk that second glass of tea."

A couple of minutes later, the two stepped into the dimly lit hallway, Ada hesitating.

"To the left," Charlotte said as she led the way.

Ada grabbed her daughter's hand. "I'm surely glad they didn't put us at the other end of the building. How do you suppose they got used to their home being so big? This place is like a hotel."

"Well, uh, didn't they say it was originally built by Mr. Wainwright for just that purpose?"

"Hmmm. I guess you're right, but I can't get over having to have a map of your home so your visitors won't get lost."

Charlotte tried to hold back a giggle, but she felt so good, it was hard to keep from doing it. "Well, in addition to it having been designed as a conference center, there are lots of people here. Jeff does have fourteen wives, after all, but I agree, it is odd to have to make sure your guests know where the map of your home is. But even with all the people we've met, they still use only a portion of that enormous dining room."

As they entered the kitchen and turned the lights on, Charlotte continued, "And this place is almost as big. Now where's that refrigerator..."

"There," her mother said, pointing, as they both hurried toward it.

When Ada opened the doors, they both stood and stared. "Look at all the steaks..."

"And all the other food," Charlotte added.

After Ada reached to take out a platter with two steaks and two baked potatoes, she continued to move things around as she inspected the other contents of the refrigerator. "This should do us, but look at all this cooked food. It's as if everything in here is just waiting for a late-night meal for several people."

"Well, they did make a point of saying that an increased appetite was something that would continue with the enhancement, even after the process is completed."

"I guess," Ada said absently as she put the platter in a built-in, monster microwave, stood looking at the intricate menu, gave up and chose "Warm."

"At least I know where the glasses are," Charlotte remarked, realizing that her voice reflected her perfect health and good mood. As she filled two glasses with crushed ice before adding tea, "Lemon?" When Ada nodded, Charlotte put a slice on the side of her mother's glass, then locked eyes with her. "Mom, what do you suppose is going to happen to us? We can't go back home until something is done to that terrible man who tried to kill us..."

Before Ada could answer, the kitchen door opened and two young women burst in giggling. "Oops, sorry," they said in perfect unison, then Kim continued. "We were just laughing about what our husband and sister-wife are probably doing out there right now."