Chapter 13

The money discussion met with a loud silence. Most people could not see the point. Doug could understand their confusion, but he felt that he had to get through the fog bank to show them the advantages of a monetary system. Then he tried a different approach. "Suppose Rabbit has three freshly killed rabbits to trade for a new pair of shoes, but nobody has any shoes that she wants to trade for rabbits. Rabbit is stuck with meat that his family can't use and will go to waste if he can't find somebody to trade with. For lack of anything better, he sells the rabbits to the town larder for 3 fingers.

Killed a Thieving Coyote has just made a pair of shoes that Rabbit would like, but she didn't want any rabbits right then. However, she would like to have some cloth for a new coat. She needs 3 fingers to pay for the cloth. So she could sell the shoes to Rabbit for the 3 fingers he was paid by the town's store. Rabbit now has his shoes and Killed a Thieving Coyote has 3 fingers that she can use to buy the cloth. Do you see now how money simplifies trading?"

There were some murmurs of understanding, so Doug presented some more examples. The people began to get the idea as he used their interests as examples; they had not paid much attention to abstract ideas, but got interested as soon as he mentioned something they wanted. Soon, the meeting broke up of its own accord as people talked among themselves about the idea of money instead of barter. The more they talked about money, the better the idea sounded. Within an hour of the end of the meeting, most people were willing to give money an honest trial to see how well it worked in real-world situations. There were a few holdouts, but there were always holdouts every time a new idea was floated. Overall, Doug was pleased with the way the meeting had gone.

Most of their food items were stored in pottery jars, but some spoilage occurred because of moisture seeping through the walls of the jars which were not fired hot enough to seal them. The plastic from milk was waterproof once it was properly cured, so Doug had some molds made. The resulting containers were completely waterproof when sealed with mixture of glue and camel hair. Fortunately, they had enough camels with young that they had a supply of milk, and a couple of girls were hired to collect the milk. The girls were very proud of the money they made this way—what teen aged girl is not happy with money to spend?

A little bit of experimenting demonstrated that they could line the inside of the pottery jars with the casein plastic. When the coating was heat cured, it was waterproof, and the temperature required for this was much lower than required for sealing the pottery, alone. This experiment was so successful that Doug saw another possible trade item. Not only did the white coating seal the jar, but the color made it much easier to see that the pot was clean.

Doug soon found out that he had made two mistakes in one stroke when he specified that the apartments did not need roofs. The noise level had become a problem as more people moved into the cavern, since the sound made in any apartment was reflected off the cavern roof and was easily heard all over town. The other problem was that the open roof made it impossible to maintain adequate warmth in the apartments. He had to come up with a solution.

Fortunately, they were now well supplied with cloth made from the camel hair, so the town was able to buy enough cloth to use as ceiling material. Ropes had been made of hair unsuitable for cloth, so they also had plenty of rope to string in a grid pattern over the apartments. The cloth was laid on this, and the covering went a long way toward reducing the problem with the noise and the loss of heat.

The cloth ceiling could be a safety hazard if somebody was stupid enough to build a fire in one of the apartments. Doug had held a demonstration of what could happen if a stray spark got to the cloth ceiling, but he couldn't be sure who he could trust among the new people. He was sure that the old members of the town were smart enough to follow instructions, but who could tell about the new arrivals. They had all promised to abide by the safety rules, but somebody could decide that the rules just didn't apply to him.

Doug had cheated a bit in the safety demonstration. Actually, the camel hair was not that flammable, but it would burn with enough encouragement. Apparently, its chemical structure was enough like wool to have the same kind of slow burning characteristics. Nevertheless, there was nothing to be gained by taking chances.

Cooking was being done in a communal kitchen in the old part of town, the same one that they had been using since they first moved in. The women seemed to like the opportunity to gather and gossip, so there was no popular pressure to go back to individual cooking in each home. This was one time when Doug was smart enough to leave a situation well enough alone.

They had done some more exploring and found several not-quite-so-large caverns that were reachable from the main living space. Doug decided to commandeer one of these to use as a storage chamber for the iron, copper, and tin that they were bringing in. He wanted to gather as much of each one as he could before the cold weather hit. Every once in a while, Doug cursed the fact that he had no idea when the asteroid impact was going to happen, so he had to operate as if it was going to happen tomorrow.

As often as he could, he sent trade "caravans" for more copper and tin. The people were happily taking low grade steel pick and ax heads in exchange for the raw copper and tin, but Doug had the worry that an expedition would be on the road when the impact happened. The same worry was in vogue for the people sent to gather the iron nodules from the meteor crater. It was a constant worry for Doug that some of his people would be trapped away from home when the impact happened and not be able to get back.

Finally, Doug just felt like he could not put it off any longer. He called a meeting and told the people that the "spirits" had sent him a vision. He said, "You know how the spirits will tell you something very important, but leave out things they want you to find out for yourself. Well, that has happened to me. I received a vision that the sky would turn dark and the Earth would get cold, as cold as it was when the big ice was here. None of you were born, yet, when the ice covered the world, but you have all heard the stories.

"Well, the ice is coming back, but it won't last as long as it did the last time. The spirits didn't tell me how long the cold would last. It may last for one year, it may last for 20 years, or it may last for 100 years. The longer it lasts, the more ice there will be. It is a test for us to be sure that we are worthy of the trust that the spirits are putting in us. We must endure so that we can prove to the spirits that we deserve to own the world. If we don't endure, our children will die out, and someone else will inherit the Earth.

"The spirits have visited me several times before and given me visions that always came true, so we must believe that this vision is also true. They have promised to visit me many more times to tell me what we must do. I have been told that I am to teach the children how to live after I am gone. There are many things that we must do, and gathering the metals is just one of them.

"We must unite all of the people we can reach into one group so that they will be able to act together when they are attacked by other people. We must unite them by making them want to join with us, not by forcing them to join us. That is very important, they must want to join with us to protect all of us, and they must have a say in the way we govern ourselves. I will talk more about that at another time. The important thing right now is to prepare for the return of the cold and the ice."