Chapter 555

The Prison Planet

...”Lobo’s teeth and intelligence have saved my life more than once,” Morales said as he hugged the big animal to him. Turning back to the girls, “Don’t insult them by asking them to shake hands with you. They’re not dogs and they don’t do tricks any more than we do.”

“It’s best to consider them as people in furry bodies,” Jasmine said. “And both of them are helping me with my research. If either of them ever tries to get you to do something, do it without question, because it just might save your life.”

“More a case of will rather than might,” Morales offered.

They had been sitting by the fire for a few minutes when Morales glanced toward the door. Although there was no window, enough light leaked through to at least tell whether it was daylight out or not. “It’s going to be full dark soon. I know there’s a big, covered pile that you ladies brought with you. Hopefully, there is something in there that we can turn into a bed for you two. If not, we’re going to have to make up some pallets until we can devise something else.”

Both Christine and Ashley chuckled, but Christine answered for them. “Diana sent a mattress and box springs that are supposed to be the duplicates of the ones you guys have,” she told them.

“And ... there’s a little secret to both the beds.”

Morales and Jasmine traded glances before turning back to the young women. “And?” he asked.

Ashley smiled at the man she loved, “Why don’t we bring the bed in and we’ll show you,” she said, mysteriously.

Now that it was full dark with a thick cloud cover, the lanterns would be necessary for more than just inside the outhouse. With rifles and lanterns in hand, Morales and Jasmine led the other two out to the canvas-covered pile that Ship had left for the girls. As they neared their objective, there was a loud “crack” nearby and a pronounced crash which resulted in the girls’ cut-off squeaks of startlement.

“Just an overloaded limb breaking off and crashing down,” Morales quickly told the girls.

Both young women were embarrassed since they had heard laden limbs break after a heavy snowfall before. The dark and the saber-tooth having been killed earlier, not to mention being on another planet, had their nerves on edge.

The girls trudged on over to the side and untied the canvas there. By the way they acted, Morales suspected that they had some way to tell which side of the big mound contained the bed. After a short conference, they lifted the canvas, and struggling a bit, drew it past what was obviously a box springs and mattress. Morales, curious, held his lantern high to see if what was under the canvas was sitting in the snow but realized there were wooden pallets under the pile. The view of the rest of the items was blocked by a big box and the box springs.

“If those are the same as the ones we have, they’re darn comfortable but heavy as hell,” he said as he hooked the lantern onto his belt, slid the sling for the rifle over his shoulder and reached for the front corner of the box springs.

They couldn’t slide the mattress and box springs through the snow without damaging them, so with everyone lifting, they had both items inside the cave a few minutes later.

“The sheets and blankets are in the big green box,” Ashley told Morales.

“I’ll get it,” he said. “Is there anything else we should bring in tonight?”

The two passed a glance before Christine replied. “I think we have everything we’ll need until tomorrow.” Then, “No, wait. Be careful with the box. Diana put a case of eggs in with the bedding.”

Jasmine just smiled.

Outside, Morales moved the box away from the mound, then tied the canvas back into place. After sliding it across the snow to the entrance, he dragged it inside.

A moment later, Christine stood looking at Jasmine’s bed. “Good planning,” she teased her new friend and soon to be sister-wife. “You already have your bed positioned, so the second one will go alongside it.”

“Of course, it might just have been that we chose the spot because it was a wide flat area,” Jasmine said while chuckling.

“That too,” Christine responded with a giggle.

Morales returned pulling the big box.

“Sorry, Love. I should have gone with you,” Jasmine said as she removed the top and found the case of eggs in the middle of the blankets and other bed linen.

When Morales saw the eggs, he smiled. “Maybe one of these days we’ll have enough chickens to produce the eggs we need,” he said, wistfully.

On Jasmine and Morales’ bed, Ashley moved the furs out of the way and pointed to four slots in the cover on the side of the box springs. “Ever wonder what those are for?” she teasingly asked. Then with a giggle, added, “Hmmm. There seems to be matching ones on our box springs. Isn’t that odd?” she finished with a knowing smile.

Morales dropped to his knees and reached through the first hole. A moment later, he pulled a thick, threaded metal rod out that clicked into position. Turning to the other box springs, he peered into the matching hole and saw a recessed coupling with female threads. There were four such rods and couplings spaced equally along the side of both box springs. On the opposite side of the box springs was the other end of the mechanism which enabled the two box springs to be forced together to form a rigid, larger one.

“The mattresses can ziplock together, and there’s a thin foam pad to fill in the slight groove between them to make them almost perfectly into one large mattress. The sheets that Diana sent zip together with a tab to cover the seams which makes their joining look almost like stripes. This bed is identical to the Matthews’, except theirs is composed of several more sections, which makes the resulting bed much larger, of course.”

“Our furs aren’t big enough...” Morales began but was interrupted by Jasmine.

“It won’t be particularly easy, but we can sew them together to make one big fur to cover the whole thing,” she offered.

“The cave bear fur will be big enough, but that thing is really heavy.”

Jasmine smiled at him. “We’ll save that for a particularly cold night, then.”

“Diana also sent blankets that zip together just like the sheets, but...” the girls passed a glance before Ashley went on, “we kinda like the idea of sleeping under those beautiful furs.”

“Then stitching a couple of saber-tooth tiger furs together will be our first sewing project,” Jasmine said with a smile. “I have the big needles and heavy thread that we’ll need. Now, let’s get the bed fully assembled so we can see what it looks like.”

After they had the bed assembled, they zipped the sheets together and the women made the bed, but the furs would have to be separate for the night.

“How do you wash your clothes? I mean, I know you do it by hand, but how?” Christine asked as she was thinking about an eventual wet spot on the bottom sheet when they were all married. “Uh, I mean ... As I remember, uh ... Morales comes a lot, doesn’t he?” she stammered out.

Jasmine understood and grinned at Christine. “I brought a couple of towels with me when I came, and I’ve put them to good use. Diana brought us several more. We’ll make sure to use them when we go to bed,” she managed to get out, also blushing. “As far as clothes washing is concerned, at the moment, we have a small tub, a washboard, and ... lye soap. It gets the dirt out fabulously, but ... to put it mildly, it’s a bit rough on our hands. Morales has made a milder version to use when we wash our hair, but I brought shampoo, and Diana being Diana, brought a case of the shampoo they use at home, so you have your choice. Morales just continues to use the milder lye soap, though. The sheets zip together, so we should be able to manage washing them easily enough.”

The girls passed a glance before Christine said, “We’ve been out of shampoo for months and had to use cheap dish detergent both to bathe with and to wash our hair. Our first shower at the Retreat was a marvel.”

“Well, if it were not for Diana, I would be using Morales’ milder version of his soap,” Jasmine remarked.

“My lye soap does a good job on my hair, so why fix something that isn’t broken?” Morales said, defending his soap.

Christine leaned over and kissed his cheek. “I think we’ll stick with Jasmine on this, my soon-to-be husband.”

“Hhump,” he mumbled, unable to think of anything to say at the moment.

Jasmine grinned at her husband, but went on, “Once Jeff runs power in here, I hope to purchase a washing machine, refrigerator, freezer and well ... just about everything I can. But we’re going to have to wait for spring to pipe water in, so I imagine the washing machine will have to wait until warm weather thaws everything for us.”

Again, the girls passed a glance. “We’re fast learners and we will gladly do anything you say if we can be with Morales.”

“Then we’ll get along fabulously,” Jasmine said as she hugged them yet again.

A few minutes later, Morales donned his coat, picked up his rifle and he and the wolves went outside to check on something, leaving the women to continue.

“Ladies,” Jasmine said, “I wouldn’t have brought you here unless I thought we could learn to share him. I know him, and it was obvious that he was still in love with you. Oh, he tried to hide it, but his voice always changed when he talked about you two.”

“Uh, Jasmine...”

“You can call me Jas or even Hey You, if you like,” Jasmine teased.

Ashley didn’t have the courage to call her “Hey You,” even in jest. “Uh, Jas, We were wondering,” Ashley said. “We, uh ... could go farther into the cave while you and Morales make love ... I mean, we can’t have penetration and you can, so...”

“You aren’t going anywhere,” Jasmine quickly responded. “I don’t know whether he made love to you with his mouth the way he does to me, but he’s darned good at it. I’m quite certain that an hour or so of that and both of you will be out of it and won’t care in the least what he’s doing to me.”

“He has done it with us, but we didn’t know if you...” Christine began, her face going red.

Before Jasmine could say anything, Ashley blurted. “Jasmine, we’re both ... scared half to death.”

“Why?” she gasped out. “You’ve known him longer than I have.” She fervently hoped they didn’t think she was implying anything about their having been prostitutes.

“Uh, it’s not Morales. To be truthful, we’re afraid that we’ll do or say something that will make you change your mind about us being here and marrying your man,” Ashley almost gasped out.

“Shit,” Jasmine mumbled. “I came across too strongly with my lecture about how we would do things, right?”

“No, no,” both young women said as one.

“Bull. Obviously, I did. Oh, crap. I don’t know what to say. What I wanted was for you two to realize that we’re all equal, but Morales has the final say, and well, I ... Oh, my. I don’t know what to say that won’t sound like I’m trying to be bossy. Look, I was accustomed to ‘roughing it’ on various planets before I came to twenty-two fourteen. Even then, I, at first, spent some time on this planet, but on another continent. I’ve lived next to a campfire for several years, on this planet and others, with a team that usually consisted mostly of men, but you two have spent your whole lives in big cities, right?”

Both girls nodded.

“You have to learn how to survive on 2214, or something will kill you. Suppose I asked you to take a bucket and go get some water. Assuming that you knew where the spring was, you just take the bucket, go fill it up and come back, right?”

Both girls started to nod but hesitated.

“You see my point, huh? You don’t go anywhere outside without Morales or me and the wolves to protect you. There are many other things a whole lot more subtle than that example, but you have to learn. One mistake – just one – could end your life. The cats would delight in killing and probably eating you. And there are other things as well. The hogs are truly enormous compared to their Earth cousins, and ten times faster than you would ever believe unless you have seen them move, and ... they’re scary smart. Of course, the deep snow slows them down, but it slows you down as well. You just can’t run as fast wearing snowshoes. But the snow doesn’t slow the big cats down that much, at least for short distances. If Morales and I hadn’t practiced our quick shooting, the saber-tooth might well have gotten to us. You two are going to practice ad nauseam with the rifles – just the way we have practiced. When you are proficient, we’ll start on the crossbow, and eventually, the compound bow.

“You’ve seen the video of the buffalo, but there are aurochs out there, too. Think gimongus cattle, and even that doesn’t do them justice. They became extinct on Earth sometime in the sixteen hundreds, but while they lived, they earned a reputation of being cantankerous, untamable and extremely dangerous. Morales has seen some on the plains.

“When he told me about his first day here, it scared the crap out of me. He was very, very lucky to have survived to find this cave. He was also lucky beyond his wildest dreams to have managed to befriend Lobo. But Morales had worked in construction and knew some things about basic survival.

“You need to face it, Ladies, the big city and the college environment has not prepared you, even in the slightest, for survival here. Please, don’t do anything outside without Morales or me being aware of what you intend. And... one of the first things on the agenda is teaching you two to shoot, and to shoot well and without hesitation while staying cool while you do it. Many times, you will get only one quick chance. There are many animals that you will come in contact with, and some of them are truly beautiful – and could be just as deadly. We haven’t been here long enough to see everything. Fortunately, neither of us have seen any snakes – yet. But I shudder to think how big and deadly they will be when and if we do find them.