Chapter 14

The fight with the black ants had been something of a wakeup call. One of the machine guns had been mounted on the wagon at the extreme front, and a new one was under construction to take its place at home. Connie, a very talented mechanical engineer had worked with Jeff, Jr. to come up with a method of powering the machine gun with the power take-off from the steam engine. This doubled the rate of fire, and the only drawback that anybody could find was that it used up bolts twice as fast as before.

The trigger was a foot pedal so that both hands could be used to "horse" the weapon around. The gunner, Connie in most cases, sat on a little seat and was swiveled around by the loader. The swiveling moved the whole gun mount, but there was enough free motion in the gun itself that the gunner still had plenty of freedom in aiming. The machine gun was not a practical weapon for hunting. For one thing, it was not sufficiently portable, but also it was very difficult to fire just one shot. Nevertheless, it was their ultimate protection, so it was welcomed along on the hunting trips.

The trip for flint was an educational experience in that they learned that they needed a more powerful engine. The calculated 10 horsepower just was not enough to pull a fully loaded wagon. It appeared that they needed to go to about 25 horsepower to do everything they wanted, so Jeff set about building a new engine. This time, his manufacturing techniques were better honed, and he was able to turn out the required engine in only four weeks. Of course, he had a lot of help this time, so they were able to work on several phases of the job at the same time.

The boiler was enlarged and strengthened so that they were able to raise the steam pressure. This meant that the actual engine was not much larger than the earlier model, but it had considerably more power. In a fit of ingenuity, they worked out a way to capture the exhausted steam and feed it back into the boiler, so that they were able to reuse some of the heat and water from an earlier pass. Unfortunately, they couldn't come up with a way to cut back on the amount of fuel needed. Oh, well, nobody ever said that steam power was efficient.

Seemingly just in time, they found a source of lead ore. Sarah quickly came up with a refining process which produced a usable, if not very pure, form of lead for solder. She also worked on the process to extract the zinc, so that they could make "wet cell" batteries. The zinc was not very pure, but it did work well enough to produce about 1.25 volts per cell. They were interested in making lead-acid storage batteries once they found the sulfur for the sulfuric acid.

They were working up a list of materials they needed much faster than they were finding sources for those materials. Probably, they were going to have to mount a concerted exploration effort in the very near future. Jeff and Julie worried about the potential poisoning effect of lead and some of the other materials they were forced to work with, but they hoped that this new healing ability in their bodies would protect them from lead poisoning and other such ills.

Finally, they decided that a mineral exploration team would have to be sent out. There were just too many things that they needed and didn't have. Everybody seemed to mature mentally and emotionally long before Jeff and Julie were used to, but they learned to live with that and to make use of it. They decided to send a four-person search team out to explore specifically for minerals.

Henry was still pretty young, but he was the best of their candidates for the team geologist and driver. Connie was the best gunner they had, so she was selected to man the machine gun that Jeff would build for them to take. Alice was selected to be their chief hunter and team leader because of her age, and Shirley would go along as the gofer. Shirley didn't have a specialty, yet, but she was good with her hands, and she had a sharp wit, so she would nicely round out the crew. One man and three women would meet the requirements for the sexual balance, so that everybody could be reasonably happy along those lines while they were gone.

Over a period of about 12 weeks, they built another tractor-trailer combination using the original motor. This was smaller than the current configuration, but it was a special purpose rig. Jeff made up another machine gun for the trailer, and the people not otherwise occupied made up a large number of crossbow bolts. They were well practiced in making both styles of bolts by then, so they were able to crank out the bolts at an amazing rate. A total of 2,000 bolts were made for the machine gun, and 100 bolts were made for the hunter's weapon and the other personal crossbows.

The initial plan was to travel upstream along their stream as far as they could, hoping to reach the mountains they were sure were just out of sight. They would play it by ear from there. They planned to be gone for up to six months, in other words, three months out and three months back.

There was a big celebration the night before they left and everybody was very excited as the expedition left amid shouted goodbyes and good wishes. There was a road to the stream and upstream for about 15 miles. Beyond that, they would have to cut their own path.

About two miles beyond the end of the established road, they ran into a stand of trees that couldn't be bypassed or driven directly through. Everybody picked up an ax and started chopping. The tractor and trailer both had a high ground clearance, so it was not too difficult to clear a usable path. The biggest problem was in clearing the felled logs out of the way. This annoyance was solved by cutting the logs into appropriate sizes for the firebox.

They threaded their way through the tree stumps. On the far side of the trees, they found a stream that they needed to ford. This stream was not very wide, but it appeared to be fairly deep. The question was whether or not their wheels were large enough in diameter to get them through the stream. Alice had Henry stop long enough for her to cut a long pole so that she could probe for the bottom of the stream. Damn, that water was deep! They had no option—they had to build a bridge. Fortunately, they had plenty of trees left to work with, so they were able to construct the needed bridge by noon the next day. The bridge was not very comfortable to use, but it did work, so they were soon on their way.

There was a lot of marshy ground on the far side of the stream, and they were forced to pick their careful way among the pools of water and the quick sand. There was no telling what sort of monsters might be hiding in those pools. A few skeletons of the large reptile ancestors of dinosaurs could be seen near some of the pools, and this did not encourage swimming there.

The swamp was quite large and took two harrowing days to cross, but they finally exited onto a reasonably dry, but not arid, plain. Hardly had they got comfortably onto this plain when they were attacked by a bug they didn't recognize. It was sort of like a centipede, but it had the mandibles of a giant ant. The larger of the bugs seemed to be about four feet long, and they seemed to be all appetite, judging from the vigor and enthusiasm of their attack. As an attacker was killed, its companions would stop their charge long enough to eat the dead bug.

The centipede-like bugs lived in holes in the ground and popped out to attack from all sides at once. Henry drove through the mass of bugs as fast as he could at the urging of Alice. More of the bugs were killed by being run over than by being shot. They fired few bolts at the bugs because there was no way to recover them for reuse. They depended more on speed and crushing force to escape. The band of bugs stretched for almost three miles, and the humans were chased for another mile before the bugs gave up and returned home. The consensus was that they were going to find another route home—this route was just too dangerous!