Chapter 7

On the wrong side of the river on an unknown planet.

It was still early dawn as the boy struggled to wake up. Ureeblay pushed himself out of his covering nest of grasses and into the cool misty morning air. His cooking fire was down to a bed of fine ashes and a few tiny coals. He pulled the skirt of his grass mat back from his meat rack and saw there was a hand of thick sticks of wood still smoldering. During the night, the sacred fire partially ate them to coals under the pork portions dangling down from the skewers. The aroma of pork and wood smoke made his mouth water and his heart rejoice.

He retied his long hair back into his accustomed tail to keep it out of his way. Then he used a length of stick from his remaining pile to move the smoldering lengths together over the center of the coals. He leaned closer and, with a directed puff of his own breath, small sacred flames jumped for joy upon the blackened butts of the restacked wood.

He put his last handful of coarse-sage leaves on the flames. Ureeblay watched the thick, white, fragrant smoke beginning to lift up around his skewers of pork and fill the inside of the woven grass matting. He dropped the skirt back in place and waited for the white smoke to come seeping out of some of the weaves and then curl up from the top of the wrapped matting. The fragrant smoke rose around the pig stomach that would be his water carrier. It was bulging with creek water from the night before.

Ureeblay moved away from his smoking and drying racks and put more wood on the coals in his cooking fire pit. He retrieved the two small kidneys from his thick woven meat carrier and stuck one on a small spit length and angled it over the new flames to re-heat.

Next, he went to his latrine area, and after the first real bowel moment he’d had in days, dropped into a big divot he’d pulled up in the grass, he wiped himself carefully on some handy soft, but sturdy sphagnum moss. Then the boy drained his bladder before he returned to retrieve his thoroughly smoked, dry breachclout. He wiped the soft inside leather through the damp grass several times and then put it back on his slim hips. He had always liked the smell of coarse-sage.

He washed his hands in the stream and then rubbed his hands carefully in the dewy grass before he drank. He could hear morning birdcalls in the air around him. Through the smells pervasive around his camp, he didn’t detect anything which might be a danger to him on the gentle breeze coming down from the fells to the Eve and drifting by him in the direction of the Morn.

He went back to his cooking fire and grabbed his kidney stick, taking a bite of the organ. It was not bad at all, he told himself. As he chewed, he started looking around the little streambed and this particular terrace on the descending downs.

Upstream he saw a pair of wrens drinking from the far bank in the rising mist. Then, as he scanned back toward his camp, on the other side of the flowing water, up at the top of the small rise, he saw a small honey-colored head and those blue eyes peeking at him over the grassy crest. Her pink wet tongue was sort of hanging out of the right side of her muzzle as she panted, almost as if she’d run from somewhere. The small wolf, crouched down behind the little hillock, followed his movements closely.

Without even giving it a thought, the boy reached down, picked up the other cold, cooked kidney and tossed it up at the small wolf’s head. The kidney sailed over the rise by a good bit and in a flash, the wolf was gone after the morsel of meat.

Now, that was something, Ureeblay thought. He was thrilled to have seen the young wolf again. He wondered what had brought her to be out on her own and away from her pack—although it certainly had been a good thing for him that she was. He had a feeling a grown wolf or a pack of them would have smelled the widow-vine and stayed clear of the terrible thing. He’d never heard campfire talk of a wild predator ever be caught in the plant’s snares. If he’d not seen the young wolf predicament, then in his excitement at finding the bog-apple bushes, it almost certainly would have been his body caught by the vine-of-passing and not the young wolf.

Thinking of those wonderful bushes, the boy picked up his second best spear. He moved over by the bushes and started clearing the severed widow-snare vines as he finished chewing the last of the break fast kidney. He dragged all the dead vines into a pile, away from their old killing ground and the bog apple bushes.

With that chore done, he cleaned off his second best spear in the creek before he went back to his fire pit. He put down his spear and searched through his remaining firewood. Happy with his choice, he put the end of his thickest remaining length of swamp-willow trunk into the hottest coals of his cooking fire. Satisfied with his plan, the boy grabbed another short sturdy stick for a digging tool and went to see what kind of a harvest he was to find under the bog apple bush nearest to the stream. Ureeblay was certain he would easily fill his largest woven grass-mat carrier, which he’d just finished before he’d crawled into his grass nest and gone to sleep.

The peat was firm but easy to dig once he stripped up clumps of sod. He bet he could have almost sliced through the resulting cleared peat with his knife. There seemed to be no stones or gravel in the peat at all. He knew that, once dried, the peat would make a good heating fuel. The smoke would even be somewhat pleasing to smell. And it made digging and gathering up the bog apple tubers easy.

By the time he’d followed only two of the main four-direction-roots out from the trunk of the bog apple bush closest to the stream and had dug down the length of his forearms into the peat, he’d already recovered a mind-boggling four double-hands plus two of the delicacies. Most were the size of his fist and some were what might be considered normal, which was half-a-fist. But there was a hand plus one of apples whose size was such that he had to cup both his hands together to hold even one of them. He realized this load of bog apples was all he could hope to pack away, so he refilled the hole he’d dug around the bush.

While he’d dug, dawn had become early morning as rising Father Sun cleared the mists from above the swale. Now early morning was becoming mid-morning as he filled the large grass woven carrier he’d constructed just for the apples. It was a large rectangle six of his hand lengths wide and nine high. The sides were three hand lengths deep. He had a long grass flap that would cover the top opening and fold down on the back of the carrier. Ureeblay had used a tight weave pattern, so the matting was highly water resistant, although he had not completely mastered the weaving of waterproof mats—that was another skill he promised himself he must develop. Part of his mind told him if he concentrated and took his time using the correct grass, he would be able to produce waterproof matting.

The boy started removing the thin hands of smoked meat from his drying racks, one skewer at a time. Placing the meat into his sturdy, woven meat carrier, he felt he’d need to continue smoking about half of his bounty, especially the cuts of the more fatty meat. A second overnight smoking some time soon would certainly finish the preserving process. Once he was happy with how his woven container held all of his cut hands-sized pieces of meat, he turned to his unwrapped smoking frames. He untied the loose rawhide cord he had used on the ends of the outside pieces of the cross rack and carefully pulled both drying frames up out of the peat.

As he looked at the frames on the ground and the large woven grass container of bog apples, the boy could see in his mind’s eye how he could use both of his flat meat smoking frames to help support the woven container and make carrying his load on his back easier.

First he took both racks to the small stream and washed them with handfuls of wet peat to remove the meat drippings and as much of the smell as possible. Ureeblay noticed how the rawhide ties had shrunk and tightened the joining points as he rubbed each length of wood with handfuls of grass.

With the frames clean, the boy returned to his remaining pile of building material, or firewood, as the case may be. He picked out lengths with the same thickness. Using his hand, Ureeblay measured and cut to size his choices using his utility flint. He told himself he would need to retouch the edge of his tool soon.

To do that he would need to find a properly shaped bone that was not too old or cut a section of antler tine to use to pressure off flakes. He also wanted to fashion an antler percussion hammer in hopes of finding suitable flint nodules to work, too. As he got closer to the Toolie and the gravel and stone deposits he knew were there, he would also be on the lookout for a proper hammer stone. Ureeblay was not surprised anymore when he discovered new things he had taken for granted before his unexpected river trip across the Toolie.

With his choices of wood cut to lengths, Ureeblay reinforced each of the frames with an X cross-brace of finger-thick swamp-willow going from the two top corners down to the opposite bottom corners of the frames. He lashed the bracings together with some of the remaining slippery rawhide pigskin thongs he’d cut last evening.

Then the boy began to pack his big woven grass carrier with his wealth of bog apples. He took care to place the largest in the bottom. Once the carrier was packed full to his liking, he still had five small apples left over. If anyone wanted to call bog apples half the size of his fist, small. He decided those would go in with his meat. Ureeblay had designed his woven bog apple container so he could tuck the back flap section down into the basket. Then the long front flap cinched down over the back, closing the top opening with a double thickness of matting to keep bog apples from falling out of basket when it was flat on the ground.

That done, Ureeblay placed the carrier on one of the smoke frames. The boy used his longest grass cordage to go twice around the woven basket from bottom to top on the wooden frame in an X wrap, going front and back for strength as he tied the carrier to the smoke rack he was now going to use as a pack frame.

His second longest piece of grass cordage went twice in a side-to-side wrap around the full bog apple basket and Ureeblay laced it through his new pack-frame. He tied that cordage into the X wrap at the back of the carrier. For carrying straps, he had quickly plaited two three-grass-cord straps, and he reinforced each of those with one of his remaining four leg-long rawhide cords from the dwindling supply in his travel pouch. He laced each rawhide length loosely through the weaves of the strap material. The rawhide would carry the weight of his backpack and the grass cordage would help keep the rawhide from cutting into his shoulders--Ureeblay hoped. He had never fabricated a pack frame before.

On the hunting trip that was the start of his present adventure, his two friends, Crosof and Achinay, and Ureeblay had been relegated to help pack some of the hunters’ supplies on their young backs. Ureeblay had watched Kalcut, one of the oldest hunters going on the trip, as the man had prepared the backpacks the day before their departure. Later, as they had hiked with their loads toward the hunting area the group leaders had decided upon, located near the banks of the Toolie, the boy had grilled Kalcut about not only how he had constructed the pack frames, but why he did as he’d done.

Kalcut had known the boy’s father well, so the man had seemed happy with all of Ureeblay’s questions, the boy thought. Ureeblay had gotten the feeling as they moved along with the group that the older hunter had actually enjoyed passing on to him construction tips for pack frames from his years’ of experience. The older hunter also told the boy about selecting wood, and what types of trees and saplings worked best for different purposes. He talked about types of lashings and knots. He described how to build and use other items to carry or move loads.

Ureeblay was very aware that Kalcut had three energetic daughters and no sons. The boy figured that was part of the man’s motivation to accept him, as Kalcut’s dead friend’s son, under his spear, as the clan would say, and pass on a little bit of the knowledge the man knew. In fact, Kalcut’s youngest daughter, who was just a season younger than Ureeblay, had been quite disappointed that she that would not be allowed to accompany the hunters and the three apprentices on the trip.

She had even approached the hunt leaders for her father’s group, Godsu and Pealar, asking to be considered as a cook for their journey. She had put forth that two of the other three hunting expeditions going out with apprentices would be taking a woman along to cook and keep camp.

Ureeblay had been there when she had asked. Godsu had been very well mannered and Pealar had tried not to smile. Godsu had told the girl that next spring, when she was a woman, she would be welcomed to cook and keep camp for his group of hunters. Pealar had then told her that her father boasted about the fish soup she made, and next year he hoped to try some on the bank of the Toolie.

Shaking his head at those memories, Ureeblay recalled some of the points Kalcut had shared with him about constructing pack frames. So, from that advice, at the center of the bottom cross-piece of the back frame, the boy looped the center of his reinforced strap material and brought both ends up through that loop. He tied these two strap ends to the outside of the second from the top cross-member of his new pack-frame to put his arms through and the rest over his shoulders.

Kalcut had said an old piece of fur or hide stuffed with dried grasses could be quickly sewn together, attached to one of the cross-members at your hips or the small of your back, and reduce the pressure of a heavy load. Ureeblay chuckled to himself. What he wouldn’t do for any piece of old fur or hide right now.

The boy went down to the grove of swamp-willows and hunted through them. He used his hand-held flint cutting-blade to harvest four lengths of living wood the thickness of his thumb and half the distance from his fingertip to his elbow. Then he took the time to cut two more similar pieces, which he had measured from his fingertip to his elbow. With that done, Ureeblay returned to his pack making.

Using the flint hand blade, he made a split a finger length into each of the ends of his green wood sections. Just below the bottom of his bog apple basket, the boy attached one of the smaller green wood sections to the bottom horizontal cross-member of his pack frame next to the vertical riser. He did so by opening the green split end and pushing the horizontal cross-member into the split end of wood. Then he bound a piece of fresh pig hide around the joint where the new wood joined the pack-frame.

He attached two other small lengths of green wood on the bottom horizontal crosspiece of his frame, almost against the bottom of the woven basket. Ureeblay divided the bottom width of the rack in thirds with the placement of the lengths of stripped swamp-willow. He used the last small greenwood section at the other end of the bottom cross-member. Ureeblay made sure all of his bindings were tight.

He bound the two longer lengths of green swamp-willow to the top cross-member of the pack-frame; one at each end. Then he attached his second drying rack to the five green pieces of swamp-willow, four across the bottom cross-member and the two longer sections to the top of the second frame. On the sides of his new pack-frames, he used two long pieces of dry swamp-willow as a diagonal brace running from the top of the front pack frame down to the bottom corner of the second drying rack.

Now he had his precious cargo of bog apples in the woven basket and protected. He lashed the rear of the basket to the pack-frame that would go on his back. The basket was also supported on the bottom by the four lengths of swamp-willow which served as stand-offs for the second rack that protected the other side of his bog apple basket. Because the second frame was angled and wider at the top, there was room for him to secure other items between the two frames.

As the rawhide dried, Ureeblay felt fairly certain the resulting joined pack frames would become the rigid open-framed pack device which Kalcut had describe to him as they had hiked together toward the Toolie. With his grass-woven bog apple carrier now secured inside the frame basket and the carrying straps attached, Ureeblay was ready to finish packing up his riches. He gathered all of his wood meat skewers, tied them together and put them down inside the basket to the side of the woven bog apple carrier.

In his mind’s eye, the boy saw him putting the smoke-dried meat, the drying intestines, and the remaining pigskin, which were now all in the smaller woven-grass carrier that would go over his neck and his shoulder on a leather cord. He would hang the meat carrier on his left side over his quiver. He would also tie the meat carrier to the rawhide quiver for stability. His right hand would then be free to hold his armed spear-caster.

The boy looked around his small grassy camp area and went to his fire where he took out the glowing-tipped length of swamp-willow he had earlier placed in the fire. He walked over to the raggedly cut-off exposed base of the widow-snare and slowly worked the live coal end of the three finger thick trunk—smoking, steaming and spitting—down deep into the damned thing. The smell coming up with the steamy smoke around the base of the pole wasn’t bad smelling at all; he had to conclude with surprise. It was faintly sweet smelling in a greenish sort of way.

But, he told himself, he hoped he would never, ever, smell that smell again. And, there was still a complete bush of coarse-sage left by his smoking fire that he had not stripped of leaves. Now Ureeblay stripped half of the leaves off the thin limbs and tossed several into the fire. He leaned into the smoke, almost as if he were cleansing himself. He breathed just a little of the white smoke into his lungs and exhaled. He felt calmer and realized dealing with the root of the widow-snare had gotten him on edge, and he hadn’t even realized it.

With the huge handful of coarse-sage left, the boy went to his travel pouch and got out an empty, plugged, small bamboo-like segment he’d used to hold earthworms before he’d cleaned it out. He crammed as much of the herb into the round tube as he could and put the plug back in. The rest of the small full bush of herbs he tied to the left side of his pack-frame.

Those earthworms he had gathered and put in the round wooden tube had been the cause of his entire dare-turned-deadly adventure. Ureeblay and his two friends, Crosof and Achinay, had thought to spend the day fishing while the group of clan hunters the boys had been entrusted to travel with and learn from went in search of flats-pigs. After easily catching enough fish from the Toolie for a good meal for themselves and the seven hunters, the boys had become bored. So when they saw the group of sturgis-fish moving through deep water close to the steep bank where the floating log was...

Putting the new herb-tube back in his travel pouch, the boy wondered again if his mother had given up on ever seeing him again. He felt sick at heart, as he thought about how his disappearance must have added to her pain. But if anyone in the clan believed he would make his way back home from his ride down the Toolie, it would be his mother.

How she would be surprised at all his gifts and tall tales. She might even forgive him his stupidity about his fishing stunt. He knew he would never rest until his eyes were looking at his sub-clan’s early summer camp again. But he had to hurry or he would be trailing the clan to this summer’s congregation. And this season’s site hadn’t been officially decided when he and his two best friends had left camp to go on their hunt-training journey.

Wishing help from the spirits to find his way across the Toolie, the boy retrieved the severed head of the flats-pig and stuck it down on the pike sticking up from the remains of the smoking widow-snare root with the head looking toward the valley of the Toolie.

The boy suddenly realized besides not being able to easily get to the brains, he’d completely overlooked the tongue, which was considered a delicacy by some people. Especially considering this flats-pig had been young. Oh, well, he thought shaking his head. At his age he couldn’t think of everything, he told himself, now could he. Then he silently told the spirits he would leave these two delicacies for them to enjoy so they might look favorably on him and further intervene on his behalf during this journey.

With that done, he went back to his firewood pile and the boy took two-hands of different thicknesses of elbow-to-finger length pieces of dry marsh-willow and tied a short piece of rawhide cord around each end of the bunch and tied that to the top of his basket pack. Now, he told himself, he would be assured of having some dry wood for his next sacred fire.

Then, he piled all his remaining firewood around the base of the pike holding the pig’s head up at the height of his young but growing chest. He considered lighting it on fire. Granted the swamp-willow wasn’t what he would necessarily consider a hard wood, but at least there would be ashes on top of the severed vine root. But it was ingrained in him to never leave a fire unattended. He knew the grasses covering the peat, and the damp nature of the peat in this terrace would keep a peat fire from starting.

In the end, he poured the water from the pig stomach on his cooking fire and stirred the ashes until he was satisfied it was out. Then, he refilled the stomach at the stream and did the same thing to the remains of his meat drying fire. Then he covered both with the grass from his sleeping nest.

He refilled the pig stomach for a third time and tied it off. Then the growing boy carefully got into all of his travel gear, picked up the small stomach full of water off the grass and put it over his neck by its leather cord. Ureeblay bounced up and down on his bare toes, feeling the weight of his pack on his back and through the straps over his bare shoulders. It seemed balanced to him.

Kalcut had warned the boy to always be assured that any load he ever carried on his back was as balanced as possible before starting out; it seemed to Ureeblay that his load of wealth was balanced. So with one last look around, he started down to the bend in the stream, pulling his long blue-black hair from where it was trapped between his back and then pack frame. He moved his tail of hair over his left should to hang down a bit on that side of his chest.

By the time he’d made it to the bend in the stream and hiked up over the crest of the little terrace valley, the boy had already rested his left hand on his second best light-weight spear in his quiver and pushed the feathered end forward and swung the raw-hide quiver out behind his side where his meat carrier dangled down from the quiver by his thigh. The shaft of that spear had quickly gotten annoying, sticking up in the air so close to his left shoulder. Pushed forward he had something to sort of rest his left hand against.

Looking around from the top of this small grassy summit on the edge of the terraced swale, the sight of the immense valley of the Toolie, all spread out below him, made his feet want to lope again. But he knew he couldn’t risk the speed with the load he was now packing on his back. It still seemed well balanced but he didn’t want to trust the plaited-grass rawhide-reinforced straps over his shoulders to not dig into his skin with the constant jarring of moving that fast. If he could move that fast and not risk falling down.

Now, Ureeblay realized if it came to a choice of speed or his food and the riches of bog apple, speed was only on his agenda in an emergency.

He became vigilant again to smells, sounds and sights as he moved down the gentle terraces toward the valley of the Toolie. With each downward step or momentary upward climb, he was getting acquainted with the particulars of his load. He was surprised at how well it was balanced, up and down, and right to left on his back and shoulders. The pack didn’t pull too badly at his shoulders, but he thought he might use some wide cuts of his pigskin to cushion the cordage where it met his shoulders, at some point. Maybe once he made it to the valley floor. The idea of hide strips under a pack strap was another helpful hint Kalcut had passed on to the boy.

Ureeblay knew if he had to defend himself with his spear-caster, he would have to take off his pack basket so he could develop the most leverage and accuracy with his cast. He hoped that wouldn’t be necessary, but he pictured in his mind the steps necessary to accomplish that goal.

He estimated he would be down in the valley of the Toolie by late afternoon if he could maintain a brisk hike all the way. Now, he didn’t have to forage for food or water.

When he topped the next small crest, before starting down again, he got the feeling he was being watched. He stopped and looked all around, but saw nothing of consequence. He could see further around his surroundings because the ground was starting to flatten out and the terracing was lessening. It was good to be leaving the terraced section behind, he told himself. On the other hand, he hadn’t seen or smelled the stream lately and found he sort of missed it as a traveling companion.

Third Mission, outbound aboard the Federation space vessel DSE Glenndeavor, 2401 CE

I got to my secure duty station on Two Deck with plenty of time to spare. Using my swipe card, I entered the compartment. As the lights came up I wished I knew how to use my Heavy to sweep for electronic surveillance bugs. With everything else going on in my life, I hadn’t gotten that far in the tutorial yet. Very un-geek-like of me, I realized. And then it dawned on me that I had taken the silver-bullet that had defeated every geek I’d ever known, or at least that had dulled their cutting geek-edge.

Actually I’d taken two silver bullets: Juliet and Anika. Especially the one named Anika. What was up with that sexy, hot, curly-haired young woman, I asked myself. Well, I was sure she would have interesting things to tell me about her work duty today.

Shaking my head at the silver-bullets thought and also that I really was a paranoid ass-wipe, worrying about bug in a secure work compartment, I looked around my new duty station. I didn’t see any evidence that anything had been ransacked or tampered with, but what did I know? I took off my uniform jacket because I was feeling overly warm from being around Anika and her new friend Beatrice and I moved to the lockers to hang it up.

Sitting down in my chair, I tapped the power button on my keyboard. The hi-def holographic display above my desk snapped to life as if it had never been turned off or disconnected from the network. I logged on to my secured, command-level workstation and got on ShipNet and found the Crew Forms menu. After navigating through the Crew Forms site until I found what I thought I would need, I downloaded Form AFLRCR-ExServ 2384.

The form was one of the applications for legal recognition of a commitment relationship for members of the Federation Exploration Service. I scanned the directions and realized there was also a Form AFLRCR-Fed-2386. The directions said the Fed 2386 form superseded Forms AFLRCR-ExServ 2384 and AFLRCR-Fleet 2384.

However, before the Fed 2386 form can be issued, the literature told me, the parties submitting their request were required to have successfully filed either the ExServ or Fleet AFLRCR 2384 forms. How, I asked myself, did that sequence of filings make the word superseded appropriate in the explanation of how to do what I wanted to do?

I shook my head and kept reading. I discovered that to be accepted for consideration, one of the two applicable 2384 forms must be filled out completely then submitted to the proper chain of command. The proper form needed to be signed by the necessary submitting parties’ commanding officers, Department Head(s) and the Base or Ship Psych Officer, with brief recommendations in referenced annotations showing all the parties submitting the 2386 form met the proper criteria to be issued the recognition of their relationship. Finally, after those parties demonstrated a successful, healthy, yearlong relationship, which required additional certifications by accompanying sign-offs and referenced annotations ... blah, blah, woof, woof.

But, once the supplicants named under Form AFLRCR-Fed-2386 managed to navigate successfully through all the official hoopla, their committed relationship would be officially recognized and registered in all of Federation Space, be they a couple, or a trine, or a quad, or ... whatever. And at that time, all possible permanent spousal protections under applicable Federal law were enforced, as well as the legal establishment of an incorporated entity encompassing the newly registered parties’ entire household and any and all material and economic holdings therein. Please see schedule LRCR-PSHELI-2398 for recording and registering the exact descriptions, valuations, and locations of all personal, spousal, and household equitable holdings, investments, shares, stocks, incomes, intellectual properties, pre-nuptial agreements, living wills, trusts, and powers of attorney, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.