Chapter 30

"Crocodile Tooth, you owe us nothing for saving you; we consider it our duty to help people who are in trouble. All we ask is a chance to be your friends."

"Well, you certainly are our friends, now. Can you show us how to make and use those wonderful weapons you used to kill the slavers?"

"We can't do that very easily, but we can show you how to make a weapon almost as good. We call it an atlatl, and it allows you to launch a spear faster and farther than you can by throwing it by hand. Let me demonstrate; it will take only a minute to fetch one from our flying machine." Doug sent one of the soldiers to Enterprise to fetch an atlatl and three spears.

"I see that you people use stabbing spears; do you also use throwing spears?"

"No we don't. It is too difficult to hit anything with our spears if we throw it. Besides, if we throw our spear, then we are weaponless."

"A good point, but let me show you what we can do with an atlatl." In a very few minutes, the soldier returned with the atlatl and Doug prepared to demonstrate its use.

"As you can see, this spear is shorter than the normal stabbing spear by a little bit, but that is to improve its balance when it is launched. This is what happens when I throw the spear." Doug took one of the spears and threw it like a javelin. It traveled about 120 feet and would have made a serious wound at that distance. Crocodile Tooth was impressed, but Doug then launched a similar spear with the atlatl and it traveled 200 feet and hit a tree hard enough to stick in the trunk. The metal point did not break off the spear, so the demonstration was even more impressive.

"By all of the spirits, that is a magnificent weapon! Please show us how to make such a thing."

"Very well, we will show you, but the spear points that you make will not be as good as the ones we use. You will have to use flint or obsidian for your point, unless you obtain metal points from us. If you have something to trade, we have some metal points we can let you have. Of course, you can use hardened wood tips on the spears, but they will not be nearly as effective."

"Come look around and see if there is something we have that you would like for us to give you in exchange for metal spear points." Crocodile Tooth led Doug into the village and introduced him to the village elders. He explained his conversation with Doug and the wonders of the atlatl with a metal spear point.

Doug talked to the elders and explained that he was leading an expedition of northerners on a journey of exploration and trade development. They had no interest in conquest, instead, they wanted to be trading partners. He believed that there were fruits and vegetables here in the south that were not available in the north and he was interested in trading for them. If the elders would allow it, he would like to rest his people here and spend a few days discussing the various trade possibilities.

After about 30 minutes of conversation, Doug ordered all three airships to land and allowed everybody except the necessary skeleton crew to disembark and enjoy the freedom of walking around on the ground. Doug's wives were a big hit with the locals, though they had trouble understanding why such a young man would marry such old women. Nobody bothered trying to explain.

The soldiers were instructed to teach the locals how to make and use the atlatl, and 20 metal points were given to the elders. Doug also distributed 10 fire starters and agreed to accept pineapple in exchange. Pineapple was growing in the field that Doug had seen when they first landed and an agreement was reached for the Yorktown to stop on its return flight north to pick up a load of the fruit.

Four days later, the expedition resumed its journey south. Since they were now far enough south to be in totally unknown territory, Doug decided that he was ready to use the scouting capability of the Kitty Hawk carried under the gondola of the Enterprise. They rose to 5,000 feet and Doug climbed through the trap door and into the cockpit of the little airplane. They turned to face into the wind and Doug dropped away from the airship before igniting his jets. Once he was free of the "trapeze" holding him to the gondola, he flew a couple of circles around the airship before heading southeast where he hoped to find the shoreline fairly soon.

He only needed to travel about 50 miles before coming to a beautiful beach bordering a vast body of water. Doug was sure that this was the Gulf of Mexico. He returned along his previous route and spotted the airships with a minimum of trouble.

Doug made sure that the Enterprise knew of his presence and that he was ready to reattach. Doug extended his grappling device and made for the trapeze hanging from the bottom of the gondola. He had made this reconnection many times in practice, so he was not nervous in the least. He made his hookup and turned off his jets. Doug climbed back into the gondola where he was met by his wives who were much more nervous about the whole adventure than Doug had been. Even though they knew intellectually that Doug could not be injured, they still could not help a gut feeling of concern and Doug loved them even more for that feeling.

Once he was safely aboard, Doug had them turn toward the beach, since he was curious as to what the gulf was like in this era of low water. The oceans had progressed over the continental shelf by now, since about half of the glacial ice had melted, but there was still a lot of land exposed which would be covered by the time of Doug's old 21^st century.

The one thing Doug did expect was for worse ocean storms now than in the future, simply because shallow water was notorious for acting up in bad weather. However, without satellites and such, he had no way to predict hurricanes, so he didn't want to hang around too long. Like many gulf beaches, this one was long between the water and the trees, but Doug was somewhat disappointed that the beach really didn't look any different from the ones he had visited in the 21^st century. Nevertheless, the rest of the party were ecstatic over the novelty of the beach and could not resist playing in the water. Doug gave them the usual safety warning about rip current and jelly fish, but let them frolic at the beach for a day before they left.

For the fun of it, Doug did use the beach for a runway and took his plane aloft for a quick scan of the surroundings. About 10 miles farther south, he found what looked like crude fishing boats. He could not tell from the air if they were rafts or catamarans, but there were no people in evidence when he flew over so he didn't hang around. Quite possibly, the people had been frightened by the noise and shadow of the plane and had run back into the woods. However, this looked promising for trade of fish, once they they had a means of faster food transportation.

While he was flying around with nothing much to see but the tops of trees, Doug got to thinking about the problem of long distance transportation of food. The idea of using the heat pumps as cooling devices for refrigerators and freezers had come up when he build the first one, but there had not been any real need for them, since the weather was so cold, anyway. However, a large Zeppelin with a gondola purpose-built as a refrigerated transport might be the solution to their food transportation problem. Doug resolved to discuss the possibility with Charles when he got back to the radio. Now, this was something that both of them could get excited about.

Doug flew about 15 miles farther south and saw a village carved out of the trees close enough to the beach to be responsible for the boats he could see pulled up onto the sand. He was tempted to land on the beach and try to contact the locals, but wisely gave up on that idea when he remembered that, even though he could not be personally hurt, the locals could play hell with the airplane out of nothing more than curiosity or fear. Therefore, he put on a burst of speed and hurried back to organize a trip by the whole party to the recently discovered village.

They discussed the move and decided to wait until the next morning so that they would have a full span of daylight to make contact. That way they would not have to hurry the meeting and might make a more favorable impression on the people.