Chapter 4: Discovery

He awoke in the morning to the pleasant sensation of something warm and soft pressed up against his body. He lay there for a few minutes half asleep, basking in the feeling. It was so calming and delightful that he didn't want to open his eyes for fear that it was just a part of his dreams and it would vanish once the waking world took over.

Then it moved, pulling him out of his slumber. Lance opened his eyes and stared up for a minute at the unfamiliar plain white ceiling above him, sleepiness still blurring his vision. For a moment he didn't know where he was, then he remembered what had happened.

He glanced down, and suddenly froze up with shock. His little sister Cammy lay half on top of him, her head on his chest and her hand clutching his shoulder. She wore a peaceful smile on her face. The pleasant sensation he had felt was her body pressed up against his. Now that he knew what it was, he was unsure of how to react. Should he wake her and take the chance of embarrassing her? Should he pretend to be asleep and hope that she rolled off him on her own?

He glanced over and saw Autumn staring at them, her eyes wide and face growing red. That did it; there was no way to pretend to be asleep. He nudge Cammy gently. She yawned and opened her eyes, glancing around. Upon seeing where she was, she immediately rolled over off of him, laughing.

"Oops," she said. "I slept between you two to make sure nothing happened in the night. I guess it wasn't Autumn I should have been worrying about, but myself."

Lance smiled. It was good that she could joke about it. That meant it hadn't bothered her as much as it could have, to wake up sleeping naked on top of her brother. The thought should have disgusted him, but for some reason it didn't. Her body had felt far too nice, in fact.

He was about to sit up, but Cammy suddenly crawled over half on top of him, then leaned down and gave him a quick kiss on the lips, catching him off his guard. "Thanks anyway," she smiled, then rolled over off of him again, leaving him shocked and confused. She probably hadn't meant anything by it, but it had felt so damn good! Sexy even. His own little sister was turning him on.

He shouldn't be having those thoughts, especially about his sister. Instead, he sat up and crawled out of the tent into the cool morning air.

It was a little chilly for not wearing any clothes, but he just couldn't bring himself to put the shorts on. As long as the girls were willing to run around naked, he wasn't going to do anything to stop them. He decided that that thought, at least, was harmless. Sure they had nice bodies, and he liked to look at them, but that didn't mean he was planning on doing anything. As long as he kept his fantasies to himself, there was no harm done.

The girls followed him out of the tent, huddling together for warmth. Lance tried not to stare as they momentarily brushed up against each other, their breasts touching. Neither of them made a big deal out of it, so he didn't either. But he kept an eye out to see if anything similar happened again.

Actually, he was glad for the cold. Between feeling Cammy's body, that kiss, and now seeing the incidental contact between the girls, only the chill kept him from growing erect.

The day would heat up soon enough, especially here on the sand. In fact, he was eager to get started with the morning's activities before it grew too hot.

He built a fire and they cooked some breadfruit. With some coconut to go with it, they at least kept their bellies full. But such a meager diet wouldn't support them for long. The animal trail that they had spotted yesterday indicated a potential source of meat, and he wanted to determine its identity so that they could plan their future menu. He also wanted to have a look around their new home.

He set aside some of the cooked breadfruit for later; he would need something to munch on during his excursion into the interior of the island. His headache remained, and although it had diminished to a mere background annoyance and he had no problem pushing it mostly out of conscious thought, he decided against venturing out to the yacht again for the time being. It would not do to black out when diving and leaving the two girls to fend completely for themselves.

"Today I'm going to explore the island," Lance announced. "I'm going to see if I can make it to the top of that hill. I'll be able to get a better idea of the size of the island, and hopefully spot signs of civilization."

"Can we come too?" asked Cammy.

"I wish you could," he told them. "But that hill looks kind of steep. I'm a pretty good mountain climber, so it doesn't bother me, but until you've had some practice, I don't think you should attempt it. Besides, I'm going to be traipsing through the jungle, and I only made one pair of moccasins. You'd better stay here."

"You get all the fun," Cammy teased him.

"Well, if you're looking for fun, you could always start work on a hut. That tent will work fine for now, but if we're going to be here a while, we'll be glad for something more permanent."

"But we don't know how to make a hut."

"It's just like we started doing earlier. Lash the sticks together with dry grass, and weave more dry grass in with the sticks to seal it up. Look for some bigger sticks though; the larger you make it, the more room we'll have inside."

"Okay, fine," Cammy agreed. "You go off adventuring and leave the women folk to do the housekeeping. Or the homemaking, I should say. In this case, it's literal." She kept a grin on her face as she said it, so he knew she wasn't actually angry.

After breakfast, Lance slipped on the shorts and moccasins, covered himself with sunscreen, filled the canteen with water from the lagoon, grabbed the machete, and headed off into the forest. He first climbed the hill overlooking the clearing, and waved down at the girls from the top of the waterfall. The stream headed more or less straight for the hill, so he decided to follow it. It would keep him from getting lost.

The undergrowth wasn't particularly thick; an island this size couldn't support a truly dense jungle. There were only a few places where he had to hack his way through the bushes. He made sure to keep looking back to reorient himself. There wasn't much danger of getting lost; in a worst-case scenario he could just head to the beach in any direction and follow the circumference of the island back to the camp. Still, he preferred to keep the most direct route in mind.

The ground was far from flat. There were numerous rises and gullies, and several times he had to travel a good distance out of his way to avoid having to climb steep slopes where the stream cascaded over abrupt cliff faces. Overall, the ground sloped upward toward the hill.

The temperature climbed as the day wore on, and Lance found himself sweating profusely. He was glad he had chosen to follow the stream; several times he refilled his canteen during the journey, drinking what seemed like gallons of water as he traveled.

Twice he came across animal paths, both roughly the same size as the one down by the camp. The animals that made the paths, though, remained elusive, and for good reason, considering that Lance intended to cook and eat them. He wasn't a cruel person, but survival dictated that he had to eventually find a source of meat. Coconuts and breadfruit couldn't sustain them forever.

There was always fish, of course. But he didn't have the equipment to make a proper net. That meant spearfishing, which he had never tried before and was therefore probably no good at, or a stick and a string, which would mean sitting out for long periods of time for each catch. He might try it sometimes just for variety, but he preferred land animals, that he could build a trap to catch.

He had no way to measure the time but by the progress of the sun across the sky. An hour went by, then two. On even ground without the forest in the way, Lance figured he could have reached at least the base of the hill within an hour; the island wasn't that big after all. However, he hadn't really expected to reach it until noon.

Despite his predicament, he really did enjoy the jungle. A thousand colors surrounded him, with many different shades of green dotted with brightly colored tropical flowers. He could spend all day staring at the amazing patterns of leaves, grass, and tree trunks. Each flower was an intricate masterpiece, a work of art with wondrous detail. Each tree had its own peculiar shape formed partly by its kind and partly by its long and mysterious history.

He wondered how the girls were doing. Cammy had faced their predicament with her usual never-ending cheerfulness, and Autumn had at least not complained once. He wasn't particularly concerned with them making progress on the hut; it was more important that they keep up their spirits. But was that cheerful acceptance of their fate just an act? Was Cammy putting on a good face so that he wouldn't worry about her? Maybe they were back at camp confessing their fears to each other right now.

No, he couldn't believe that. If they had any fault, it was in not taking their situation seriously enough. That was Lance's doing of course; he had tried to make it sound like they should treat this adventure as just another part of their vacation while they waited for the inevitable rescue. He knew the truth though; after the first twenty-four hours, rescue was anything but inevitable. It meant their emergency beacon had probably failed, and nobody knew they were missing. Eventually they would have to face the reality that they were likely here for a long time. Months at least. But until that became more obvious, he was happy to let them have their fun.

He remembered watching them splashing and playing in the lagoon, and how it had excited him to see their young, nubile bodies. That was another reason why he wanted to make this journey alone. He needed to sort out his thoughts. It was too easy for him to let his passions get out of control when he had a couple of gorgeous, naked girls around him. Knowing how Autumn felt about him added a further complication. Supposing he gave in to his passions, how far would she be willing to take things?

Those were dangerous thoughts. He couldn't afford to surrender to his instincts like that because he could end up doing something they would both regret. Here on an island thousands of miles from civilization, he had to be the source of his own civilization. The better question was, just what should his relationship with Autumn be?

He was no fool; despite the difference in their ages, a man and a woman trapped together on a deserted island were bound to form some kind of relationship, and her feelings for him were going to help define it. Even with Cammy there, he wasn't sure that Lance and Autumn could maintain a platonic friendship without it developing into something deeper.

Then he laughed aloud as he realized just how absurd that was. They had already spent two months together aboard a tiny boat, and nothing had come of it. In fact, that was an understatement. Autumn and Lance weren't even friends; he still hardly knew her. Why should he expect that things would change now that they were on an island instead of a boat?

He was obviously thinking with the wrong head. It was the sight of the girls' nude bodies that had done it. The only thing that had really changed was that they were now running around naked. So what? In time he would get used to it, and it would no longer arouse him as it did now. Then things would be just like they were back aboard the Siren's Song.

With that in mind, he could afford to let himself enjoy seeing the girls without their clothes on. There was nothing wrong with appreciating such beauty.

The sun was high overhead when he reached the base of the hill. He had been slowly ascending ever since leaving camp, but now he faced a rather steep slope. It wouldn't be a difficult climb; nothing compared to Everest of course. If he used the switchback method, he could still mostly just hike to the top.

The stream had thinned as he traveled until now it was little more than a trickle down the side of the hill. No doubt it would vanish completely before he had climbed very far. In fact, in places it disappeared beneath a covering of moss and foliage, and he could only tell its presence by its sound and the shimmering where sunlit running water peeked out through holes in the growth. He would have to make sure he filled his canteen before beginning the ascent.

Before starting up, he took time to cut open a coconut that he found on the ground. He drank as much of the juice as didn't spill when he cut it open, then ate his fill of the meat. He didn't have too much because he didn't want to risk cramps as he climbed the hill. The slope was too shallow to cause him to fall, but there would be no place to lie out flat until the cramps passed.

After eating and resting for about twenty minutes, he began his ascent. There were no trails to follow, but there wasn't much ground cover either so he was able to rather easily angle his way up, stopping and changing direction every so often. There were two drawbacks to climbing at an angle. First, it multiplied the distance. Second, with the trees in the way to prevent him from keeping focused on landmarks, it was too easy to lose his sense of direction. Still, he figured that once he reached the top he could reorient himself again. The way down would be easier because he could go straight, and as long as he pointed himself roughly in the right direction at the beginning, he could find the stream again at the bottom and follow it back to camp.

He rested frequently; there was no sense overexerting himself when there was no time limit. Besides, the less effort he put into it, the less he would sweat and the less water he would need. He sipped only lightly from the canteen now and then, not wanting to drink it all up and be stuck with nothing left before he reached the summit.

About halfway up the slope, a representative of his future dinner plans hopped out in front of him. He smiled as he saw it, realizing that there was no chance of them starving on this island. He already knew how to snare, skin, and cook a rabbit, having done so on a couple of survival camps in the past.

Toward the top of the hill, the incline shallowed out, so he abandoned his sideways method and scrambled the last fifty feet or so straight to the top. Finally he made it, and he sat down exhausted but victorious. The top of the hill was a rounded dome with a diameter of about twenty feet before it dropped away down the slope. There were a couple of trees growing right at the top, but nothing that could obscure his view. In the east, he could follow the line of the stream with his eyes right to the cliff overlooking the camp. Out beyond the breakers he could see a dark line submerged in the water indicating the reef. Even the hull of the Siren's Song was visible.