Chapter 9

My other two wives had their babies in the late fall, so the two boys kept them entertained over the winter. Man, here I was, a multiple father with a regular harem of loving wives! How lucky could I get? At first, I was somewhat pissed at the ETs for getting me into this situation, but no more! I had all the love and sex that I could handle, and I was the boss of a growing, happy community. With Alice to back me up, I couldn't screw up unless I tried real hard. Life was good!

There were no more attacks on us for that year, so I had time to develop some ideas I was working on. I had been worried about depleting the supply of copper and tin, but I got a very pleasant surprise there. Alice reported that the ETs had been in such a hurry to shut down that they had failed to shut off what ever it was that had originally generated the deposits of ore. Therefore, though we could run out of ore in the short run if we took too much at one time, the mysterious machines would replace what we had taken over a period of a month or so. As a result, if we were not too greedy, we could have all of the bronze we needed.

I wanted to get a supply of lead as soon as possible, since I could see a lot of possibilities for solder, a tin-lead alloy. I knew I had to be careful with the lead, for health reasons, but I figured that we could get around that by taking the necessary precautions. Fortunately, lead ore was fairly common in France and northern Italy, so I hoped to find some people already extracting lead from the ore, since it was relatively easy to do. Failing that, Alice and I could teach the people how to do it, and we could trade bronze for lead. I wanted to get trade routes going as soon as I could to promote this sort of thing.

The prospect of commerce raised the question of roads and transportation in general. Two-wheeled carts were better than travois, but there was the question of making the wheels. We could use bronze for tires, even though steel was the traditional material, due to the cost of copper and tin; however, we had the metal to spare, so I decided to go that way. Alice and I worked up a design for a cart, and I asked some people to begin work on one during the winter when they were looking for ways to fight boredom.

We didn't have saws, yet, so planks were made by carefully splitting the wood with wedges. We could make a plane fairly easily, so the planks could be smoothed. I had wanted a spoked wheel to reduce the dead weight the horse had to pull, but that proved too much to try for on our first effort, so we went with the solid wheel. However, bronze bearings and animal fat lubricant made the wheels turn much more easily than I had expected. We would have our first cart by spring!

Speaking of "spring," that was something I insisted on. It was a sure thing that our cart was going to bounce around a lot without springs, since we did not have any established roads. Therefore, both for the comfort of the driver and the safety of the cargo, I wanted some sort of spring. Alice came up with a design combining leather straps and bronze leaf springs that turned out very well. No, it wasn't as smooth a ride as a 20th century car, but it sure as hell beat no springs at all!

In any case, once we had the bugs out of our 2-wheeler, I was going for a 4-wheel wagon with all the trimmings. A 2-wheeler was inherently limited in weight capacity, but a 4-wheeler could hold all that multiple horses could pull. One of these days, I was going to have a steam tractor, but I had to take one step at a time. Some people were frightened by the thought of a 2-wheel cart, so there was a limit on how fast I could progress, even if had all of the raw materials.

We desperately needed more people in our community. Counting the children, we had 67 people, more women than men. As soon as the cold weather broke, I wanted to start scouring the neighborhood for more people willing to join us. I had no intention of forcing people to join our community, but I was sure that the advantages we had to offer, more food, better shelter, safety from attack, would be all we needed to grow. I was banking on it.

Our cave was just about at capacity. Either we needed a larger cave or we had to start using wooden houses. I was torn with indecision on this one, and Alice couldn't help much. We could enlarge our existing cave by carving away with blasting powder, but ventilation would then become a problem. I decided to try sticking with cave living, but blasting out a new cave, rather than trying to enlarge our current cave. This way, an accident would not deprive the people of living space. Once we had a new cave, we could join them with a short tunnel (I hoped).

There was a small cave on the opposite side of the main cave from the small cave holding the foundry and forge where Ox and Stork lived with their child. Alice and I thought that we could start out by enlarging that cave. We lucked out! Alice tapped on the wall with a bronze chisel and heard a hollow sound. She guessed that this meant that there was an enclosed area behind a relatively thin wall that we could pierce and save ourselves a lot of work. We blasted out about 7 feet of wall and found a monster cavern inside our mountain. What's more, the air seemed to be reasonably fresh, and a steady breeze blew in from the outside opening of the small cave. This indicated plenty of ventilation, so we were in good shape there.

Alice had a built-in navigation system which meant that she could always retrace her steps, so we were not worried about getting lost as we explored the new cave. We gathered up several torches and started to explore. I lit a torch with my cigarette lighter and we were astounded at the expanse of this cavern. There was even a stream of running water passing through. We decided to follow the stream to see where it exited the cave. We walked nearly a mile before we came to a place where the stream disappeared through a small hole in the wall of the cavern.

The hole was large enough to pass Alice's body, but her head would be under water. Obviously, there was no way I could follow the stream any farther, but this was no barrier to Alice. She stepped into the water and ducked her head; she had no breath to hold. Alice disappeared for about 15 minutes before she reappeared and climbed from the stream. "The stream ends in a waterfall on the outside of the mountain. The waterfall is about 18 feet high, so there is no worry about someone gaining entrance that way. Furthermore, there is no way to breathe once you are in the tunnel. I doubt that there is anything that could attack us from that direction."

We walked around the periphery of the main cavern and found a multitude of small "rooms," all of them nearly ideal in size for a single-family dwelling. At the far end of the cavern, we found a "chimney" leading outside. We knew this because of the strong breeze we could feel and the way our torch was nearly blown out. I could find only two things which kept this cavern from being the perfect home, it was dark and there was no convenient waste disposal system. I was afraid that people would dump shit and piss into the stream, which should be used for drinking water. Alice told me not to worry, she could fix both problems. I had complete confidence in Alice, so I did stop worrying and left everything in her capable hands.

That night, while everybody else was sleeping, Alice scaled the wall of the cavern and used her bronze chisel to cut several holes through the wall to the outside. This let in a lot of light; a few more holes and we could get by without artificial light in the main chamber. She had also found a place she could dig a channel for a garderobe (the toilet facilities for a castle) with the capacity for 300 people. Alice thought that the cavern was large enough to handle that many people.

Alice also announced that her echo ranging suggested that there were more caverns in this mountain. She likened it to a monster Swiss cheese. Alice suggested that we limit ourselves to this cavern right now and wait until later to open up any more chambers. That sounded reasonable to me, particularly after she said that she had found a good place to connect this chamber with our current home. I admit it—I had visions of converting this mountain into a vast apartment complex.

That night, after supper, I called everybody together and lit a cigarette. After generating quite a few puffs of smoke, I told them about the new cavern. I told them that the gods would cut a new passage through the wall to give us easy access to the new living quarters. I told them that the gods had prepared a convenient water supply for us, and I explained about the garderobe and how to use it. I warned them that the gods would take it as a personal insult if anybody dumped piss or shit or any other waste into the water supply. I hated invoking the gods that way, but it was the only sure way of getting them to listen and obey the sanitation rules.

I told them that the gods didn't want the humans to see them at work, so they should spend the entire night in their beds if they didn't want to offend the gods. The people were told that the good ones would get a tour of the new place tomorrow; until then, they should stay out! The bad ones would shrivel up and die and never get to visit the promised land. Shit! I hated to talk like that!

Shortly thereafter, everybody went to bed, and Alice started her mining work. She cut a few more light ports and then cut the connecting tunnel which terminated in the stable. I knew that the horses wouldn't snitch on Alice. By morning, the job was finished and the loose rock had been cleared.

After breakfast (you will note that we always did these things after I had a good meal), we walked through the tunnel to reach the new cavern. Everybody was absolutely astounded at the new place, and all wanted to move, immediately. I told them that they could pick out their new apartment at any time. But I did tell them that I had already staked my claim and, the gods had put a mark over the door. Alice had chiseled my mark over the door of the best apartment; after all, it was equivalent to a "finder's fee," and rank had its privileges! They were dismissed, and everybody rushed to select an apartment.