Chapter 443

The Prison Planet

... A grin broke through the strain showing on Morales’ face as he and his best friend ever, struggled to pull the heavy case back to the cave before nightfall.

A little later, in a section of the forest with sparce undergrowth, Morales was looking for Lila without success when she suddenly came loping up from behind them. The female paused to touch muzzles with Lobo, then went on ahead. If the injured foot was bothering her, it wasn’t apparent.

“You taught her well, Lobo,” Morales said with pride in his partner. As the wolf chuffed back at him, up ahead, Lila swerved to the side to begin circling again.

The setting sun was almost hidden behind the mountains in the distance when Morales slid the door aside and he and Lobo pulled the heavy case the last few feet into the cave.

Lila drank thirstily as Morales freed Lobo of the harness, and he immediately hurried over to wait his turn at the wolves’ water bucket. Bushed, Morales refilled his canteen from the water he used to cook with, then sank down on his padded rock to quench his thirst and rest for a few minutes.

Having realized it would be dark before they got back if they didn’t really hurry, and being fully aware that several of the big predators hunted at night, Morales had put everything into moving the case as fast as he and Lobo could pull it. The three took breaks only when they absolutely had to, and while stopped, Morales shared the canteen’s water with the wolves by the simple expediency of pouring the liquid into a cupped hand. But none of the three had gotten as much as they really wanted.

Stupid, he chastised himself. I’ll take both canteens next time.

Although he frequently used the canteen to drink from, basically because it was convenient to do so, by now, he was certain that the filtering it offered wasn’t really necessary. During the hot days of summer, he had drunk directly from the spring many times rather than wait for the canteen to filter the water. Hell, the spring water is probably a damn site purer than the city water I used to drink, but the canteen is convenient.

As he came to his feet, Gertrude let out one of her squawks of displeasure. When he turned, he saw all the chickens following him, and grumbled back at Gertrude, “It’s a good thing you three lay eggs, otherwise I would have chicken for dinner,” but he couldn’t help but grin at his feathered friends. Then, with a sigh, he turned toward their food. “Okay. Okay. Come on. I’ll feed you so I can have some peace.”

By the time he had the chickens fed, he had decided that eating would be a good idea before beginning the arduous task of taking the meat to the ice cave, but first, he needed to pluck the turkey – something he had never done before.

It only took a moment before he knew something was wrong. The feathers, particularly the large feathers on the wings, would not pull off. “Dammit, I know this can be done. Well, back to the computer.”

With his biggest bucket full of not-quite-boiling water, he set about dunking one end of the turkey while holding its legs. When the feathers seemed to pull free similarly to the way they had with the turkey on the video, he upended the bird and soaked the other end while sloshing it up and down in the water.

As he jerked the feathers loose, he tossed them onto a hide scrap to dry. When he had enough – if he ever did – he would try to make a feather mattress.

With the turkey plucked and cleaned, he hung the carcass up and turned to the elk meat, muttering in disgust. “Shit, I dread carrying all this meat to the ice cave, but I don’t have any choice because there are boulders and other rough areas that won’t allow me to use the rolling case to do the job. Moving the boulders and smoothing out the path to the ice cave means more time-consuming work ahead of me – when I manage to find the time. At least going there is mostly downhill while I have the slabs of meat across my shoulders, but dammit, it sure would be nice if we could just pull the loaded case all the way down there. Even walking back is going to be a bitch tonight because I’m already tired. Oh, well. Smoothing out the path will just have to wait for winter when I’ll have more free time,” he finished as he began preparing their evening meal.

A while back, he had cut a short piece off a log some two feet in diameter. When set on end, the log made a convenient seat as he cooked. While cutting up potatoes, he glanced over at the wolves as they lay watching. “Our diet isn’t varied much,” he told them. “Basically our food is just meat, beans, peas and potatoes with a few other things now and then, but ... we never have to go hungry for any of the basics, and that includes the meat. My only real worry about the meat is what Mom used to call freezer burn, but so far, I haven’t noticed any change in the taste of anything taken from the ice cave.”

On Earth, he had enjoyed his meat rare, but one of the people he worked with had gotten sick from eating pork at a restaurant, winding up having his stomach pumped and spending several days in the hospital. Morales had always considered a well-cooked steak the destruction of a good piece of meat, but emergency rooms didn’t exist on 2214. Here, with no emergency room available, he had decided to stay away from rare meat in any form. If he got some type of food poisoning, chances were he would die from it. Having rare meat of any kind just wasn’t worth the risk. With that in mind, he made sure his meat was well cooked, and oddly enough, his taste had apparently changed, because the meat he ate here, although well done and no matter what kind, tasted far superior to anything he had ever eaten on Earth.

Besides, he thought, I haven’t been sick since they dumped my ass on this planet, and I’m going to do everything I can to keep being healthy. There are various antibiotics in the medical case, all labeled so even my dumb ass can understand the dosage and use, but I hope to never have to use any of them.

Thinking about what was in the medical case brought on more thoughts of the contents of the cases. Hmmm, the General’s people obviously put those arrows and bolts in the bottom of that other case. Maybe I need to go through all my things. Unconsciously shaking his head, he said aloud, “Ah, there’s no reason to think they would have given me anything else, so there’s no use getting my hopes up and spending time searching through everything. But, still...”

A little later, the food done and his mind focused on dividing the meal among the three of them, he put the useless search aside for later. With elk tenderloin, potatoes and a big piece of buttered bread all piled high on their plates, they dug in – Morales having cut the wolves’ steaks into bite-sized pieces so they wouldn’t have to put their feet on the meat to tear off a piece.

Before taking the first load of meat to the ice cave, Morales had set aside enough to make a sizeable amount of jerky. After starting a smoldering fire in the shallow ditch near his fire pit, he stretched his cord above the fire and started hanging thin strips of elk meat to begin the drying process. Although the tough jerky generally took a while to chew, it was convenient to have a pocketful to munch on while away from the cave. Should something happen to my frozen stash of meat, the wolves and I can get by on the jerky. It would damn sure beat starving, he thought.

With the first slices of meat drying, he grabbed a slab of meat from the rolling case. Throwing it and the turkey over his shoulders, he started the first trek of the evening to the ice cave.

A while back, he had devised a way to hang the lantern from a strap across his chest, and that freed up both hands. The lantern would break down so part of it could be used as a flashlight, but the farther toward the ice he went, the eerier the journey became, which translated into him wanting a lot more light than a flashlight would provide.

He had notched out shallow steps near where he kept his meat, but the steps only made the trip marginally safer on the long, icy slope, and that slope seemed to steepen drastically a little farther on. His imagination kept telling him there was a giant hole he would slide into if he went much farther down the passage. He intended exploring more of the ice cave later, but he would do it with ropes in case his imagination wasn’t wrong. Even if it was just an overactive imagination, the slope becoming steeper would make for very dangerous footing.

He had already bored out a number of holes in the ice walls and put in extra poles to hang the meat on, so he didn’t have to do that this trip, but he knew he would have to bore still more holes and put up more poles when he brought in the rest of the meat from the plains. At least, I thought to bring in extra poles when I came for meat for our meals, so all I have to do is drill more holes when I run out of hanging room for the meat.

Tired, he turned back toward his campsite at the mouth of the cave. I need to bring the rest of the meat from the case, and that’s going to take at least two more trips, but I want to start tomorrow morning off with an empty case.

By the time he had all the meat hanging in the ice cave and the case wiped clean, it was almost midnight. After adding more wood to the fire, he collapsed into his makeshift bed.

Awakening cold around four in the morning, Morales grumbled to himself while restarting the campfire as well as the fire under the drying meat. While warming himself, he debated going back to bed for a couple hours, but he knew that Gertrude would announce the day as soon as the first rays of the morning sun touched the cave. Hmmm. How in the hell does she realize it’s day with the door closed? Then answering his own question. Must be the firing port that lets in enough light to wake her. I need to put some type of cover over that to help keep in the warmth as well as keep the light out until I want to get up. Knowing my luck, though, she’ll wake up, and wake the rest of us no matter what I do to keep out the light. The chicken is psychic or something. She must be able to fucking smell daylight.

As he was standing there warming himself, Gertrude stumbled off her nest to stand madly flapping her wings. He supposed it was something like a human stretching in the mornings. When she was done with her routine, she squawked out, “Peeccckkkak. Peeccckkkak,” loudly enough to wake the dead.

“It’s not daylight yet, you feathered monster,” Morales groused. “Go back to bed, or nest, or whatever the fuck you call it. I had to get up because the fire had gone out and I was freezing my ass off. What’s your excuse?”

Gertrude, now joined by the other hens, looked at him, turning her head from side to side as she seemed to scrutinize what he had said before she and all the chickens started toward him.

“Ah, fuck it,” he grumbled, knowing that the chickens wouldn’t give up until he fed them. The day had started whether he liked it or not.

The Retreat

When Jeff tried to slip out of bed at 4:00 A.M. to go for his run, even though he had slept only slightly more than an hour, a hand reached to grab his arm. “Unh uh, Husband. You’re not done yet.”

“Baby, I,” he began before her mouth locked onto his. In moments, a group of giggling females was demanding their husband’s attention – yet again.

As the Prime staggered into the living room for his pre-breakfast coffee, General Whitworth closed his pad and looked over at Jeff. “A hard night there, Colonel? If I didn’t know better, I would accuse you of having a hangover.” Then with his deep chuckle to emphasize, “Hmmm, is there any such thing as a sex-over? Or would it be a sex-hangover?”