The Last Man on Earth Club

by Paul R. Hardy

  “I don’t go in the country. I don’t know what this means!”

  “The map has a grid. Do you see?” Iokan traced lines across the chart. “The gridlines are numbered and you work out your grid reference from them.”

  “Uh. Okay.”

  “So if we’re here,” he tapped on the clearing they were in, “what’s our grid reference?”

  “Um…” she traced the lines across. “Sort of nearly three six across and a bit less than eight nine down?”

  “Okay, but it’s a six figure grid reference. The last two figures aren’t marked on the map. If they were, there’d be so many lines you wouldn’t be able to see the map itself. See?” He tapped a control and brought up the full grid, hatching over the map and making it difficult to read. He wiped it away. “So it’s best to just imagine them.”

  “That’s stupid,” pouted Liss.

  “I hope you never get lost for real…” muttered Olivia.

  “Perhaps you should lead us,” said Kwame to Iokan. “I take it you have some experience?”

  Iokan shrugged. “I was a military man. Once upon a time.”

  Kwame brightened. “Really? What kind of service did you do?”

  Iokan smiled. “The kind you don’t talk about.”

  Away from the table, Pew struggled to get a pack on his back. “Do we have to carry so much?”

  “The mass is negligible,” stated Katie.

  “For you it’s negligible,” he said, grunting as he lifted the pack. “I’m only Pu.”

  “That is unfortunate.”

  He looked up at her, shocked and angry. “What do you mean by that?”

  “The Pu species possesses only average human strength. This is unfortunate for the Pu species.”

  He realised there wasn’t a trace of malice on her face, or any other emotion. He swallowed back his own feelings. “Uh, right. Any chance you can help?”

  She lifted his pack with one hand and held it up so he could slip his arms in the straps. “Uh, thanks,” he said.

  “You are welcome,” she said, releasing the pack. He slumped under the weight.

  Iokan turned to the group. “All right everyone. Packs on backs, let’s get going before the sun goes down!”

  Some grumbled at the weight, though not Liss, who proclaimed it easy peasy to lift. Olivia told her if it was so easy she could take hers as well. Liss stuck out her tongue and went on without helping. Iokan was less vindictive. “You’ve got the straps too long…” he said. “Here, let me.” Olivia looked suspiciously at him as he adjusted the pack to let it sit more easily. “There, is that better?”

  “Yeh. Better. Thanks,” she said, reluctant to be indebted.

  “My pleasure. Let’s go,” he smiled, and struck out towards the trees, folding the map and trailing the others behind him.

  “I don’t get this…” said Liss, looking at her magnetic compass, a needle suspended in a clear plastic shell.

  Kwame sighed. “It is a compass. It works by aligning the needle to Hub’s magnetic field—”

  “I’m not stupid. I know what a compass is. I mean why are we using one of these things when we’ve got proper computer ones and satellite tracking and everything?”

  “Bloody good question,” muttered Olivia as she passed into the shade of the forest.

  2. Group

  A few days earlier, I’d gathered the group in the common room to tell them about the excursion.

  “As some of you know, the Refugee Service doesn’t just look after people while they’re waiting to go to a colony world. We also look after people who were injured too badly to be able to go straight away. So we have a lot of permanent facilities for them, including a few where we give people a holiday if they need it. And that’s where I’d like to take you all in a few days.”

  “What kind of holiday do you mean?” asked Kwame.

  “It’s an outdoor activity centre. So camping, hiking, woodland activities. That kind of thing”

  “We’re going camping!” squeaked Liss. “Can we have marshmallows on sticks?”

  “I’m sure we can,” I said.

  “We’ll be in the wilderness?” asked Kwame, concerned.

  “Not exactly. We’ll sleep indoors most nights but we’ll go camping as well. We’ll be out there for a week, and I promise you: no therapy while we’re there.”

  “What kind of things are we supposed to be doing?” asked Olivia, suspicious.

  “Walking, hiking, games, team-building… all kinds of things,” I said. Olivia rolled her eyes at the mention of ‘team-building’.

  “We’re not doing the thing with the stick, are we?” she asked.

  “What’s the thing with the stick?” asked Pew.

  “The helium stick. Or the anti-grav stick. Or whatever they’re calling it. They made me do this team-building rubbish before, they give a load of you a stick and you all have to balance it on your fingers and lower it to the ground. It’s childish,” said Olivia.

  “It’s about building trust and helping you work together,” I said.

  “It’s ridiculous. I’m not doing it.”

  I made a note to keep the anti-grav stick off the list of activities. “I’m sure we’ll find something for you to do,” I said.

  3. Trust-Building

  Pew cocked his head, troubled by a sound in the forest. He strained to listen, unable to see because of the blindfold across his eyes. “What was that?” he asked.

  “Branch fell off a tree,” said Olivia.

  “Right. Right,” he said, still nervous. She sighed.

  “I know it’s stupid, but you’ve only got to put one foot in front of the other.”

  “Okay…” he said, and tried it.

  “That’s it,” said Olivia. “And another.”

  He took another step. The ground remained firm. He waited.

  “Do I need to hold your hand?” she demanded.

  “Wasn’t that what we were supposed to do?”

  “All right, then…” she sighed and took his hand. He walked on with greater confidence. “Mind yourself,” she said. “Bloody great root there, you’re going to have to lift your feet.”

  He stepped up and onto the root. “Stop there,” said Olivia.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “See what you’ve done? I’m talking to you and I’m not paying attention to the ground,” she said, and scrambled over to get ahead of him. There was a hollow in the earth after the tree root. “Right. You’re going to have to jump down a bit. It’s about half a metre.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure! Now come on, get on with it!”

  Pew crouched, still nervous. But the jump was simple and he was soon safe again.

  “There. Easy enough,” she said.

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “Are there any more of those?”

  “No. Level ground from here. All right?”

  “Right.”

  “Let’s get on with it then,” she said, taking his hand once more.

  * * *

  Katie and Iokan, meanwhile, tackled the blindfolding task rather differently. Iokan wore the blindfold, and Katie had her own way of helping.

  “Nine paces forward,” she instructed.

  Iokan took nine paces as Katie watched, stopping just before a low hanging branch. “Crouch forty centimetres,” she said. He crouched, just far enough to get underneath. “Advance one metre.”

  “One metre it is,” he said, cheerfully, and shuffled forward under the branch.

  “You are ten centimetres short of the required distance,” she said.

  He took another small step forward. “Are you always this precise?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t think we’re here to be precise.”

  “We are here to accomplish a task.”

  “But you know the task isn’t really about walking in the woods with blindfolds?”

  “That is the task we have been given.”

  “We’re actua
lly meant to learn to trust each other.”

  “I do not require your trust. I only require you to follow my commands.”

  He nodded. “Hm. Well, can I stand up now?”

  “You may stand up now,” she said. He did so, just clear of the last leaf on the branch.

  “Is this how you did things in your universe?”

  “No. We were more efficient,” she replied. “Turn fifteen degrees left and advance sixteen paces.”

  “If you say so,” he said. She was right, of course; the path ahead was completely safe for exactly sixteen of his paces.

  * * *

  Elsewhere, Liss was supposed to be leading a blindfolded Kwame along the route. He could hear water rushing along a gully. “Were we supposed to be near a river?” he asked.

  “Um. Maybe,” she said.

  “Maybe?”

  “Well, we probably are…”

  “Liss, please tell me you know where we are.”

  “Oh, I think, um, I’m pretty sure we should be heading that way,” she said, pointing.

  “Which way?” he asked.

  “Whoops. Sorry,” she said.

  “What do you mean, ‘whoops’?”

  “Oh, I was pointing and you can’t see. It’s this way.” She pulled his arm, and tugged him along. The sound of the river grew as she led him through the forest.

  “I am certain we should not be near a river,” he said.

  “Um… is that what that is?” she asked.

  “I know what a river sounds like.”

  “I thought it sounded like a machine or something.”

  He looked towards her. “Have you been leading us that way?”

  “Well… I thought if there was a machine there, that would be where we would be going…”

  “Unbelievable,” he said. “They showed you the whole route when we started!”

  “Yeah, but when we went down that path I lost sight of it and I don’t know anything about the woods and—”

  He shook his arm free of her. “I have had enough of this,” he said.

  “Don’t you trust me?” she asked.

  He ripped the blindfold off. “No I do not!” He turned to go and immediately put his foot on the edge of a sheer drop. They had been walking alongside a hole in the landscape where the earth had slid away, revealing roots and soil leading down to the bottom of the depression. He tottered on the edge but could not keep his balance and tumbled over, flailing back at the lip of the precipice to save himself, but it was his withered left arm that grasped for purchase and he missed wildly, falling into the hollow.

  Liss grabbed his hand.

  He looked up, and saw her reaching over the edge, clutching his arm, hardly even seeming to strain at the weight.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “I’ve got you.”

  He looked down. The drop was just enough to be dangerous.

  “I’m pulling you up now. Watch out for the roots.”

  She dragged him up before he could say anything, and lifted him over the lip to safety. “There you go! No harm done!”

  He rested on the ground, heart still racing. “How did you… how can you be so strong…?”

  “Oh, um…” she said with a smile and a shrug. “Everyone on my world is. But you’re okay. That’s the main thing!” He nodded, amazed. “Um… don’t tell anyone, though,” she said.

  He looked up at her. “They are watching us. They already know.”

  She looked dismayed. “Oh…”

  He put up his hands to calm her. “It was my fault. I did not look where I was going. I’m sure they can see that.”

  “Oh,” she said, less panicked but still worried. “Well, thanks.”

  “No. Thank you,” he said, getting back to his feet. She twitched a little embarrassed smile back at him.

  4. Group

  “What about safety? And medical issues?” asked Kwame.

  “That’s a good question,” I said.

  “Yeh. What if I lose my medicine while we’re out there? And laughing boy here is still limping, how’s he going to manage it?” demanded Olivia.

  “I’ll be fine by then,” said Iokan. “Anyway, I’ve gone hiking with worse injuries.”

  “There will be a full medical team on site,” I said, “and if anyone gets into difficulties we can have them in a hospital within the hour. And we’ll have plenty of your medication, Olivia, so don’t worry about that. There are safety measures throughout the site, so you can’t do anything like fall off a cliff. Of course, we can’t eliminate every risk, but the chances of anything going wrong are minimal. So what do you think?”

  Kwame sighed. “If you’re sure everyone will be safe,” he said.

  “I’m sure,” I said. “Anyone else?”

  “I’ll go,” said Pew.

  “Me too. Absolutely,” said Iokan.

  I looked at Katie. “Will you be joining us, Katie?”

  “If you request my presence, I will join you.”

  “I do request your presence.”

  “Then I will join you.”

  “Oh and can we sing songs round the campfire as well?” asked Liss.

  Olivia groaned. “No. No chance. No way. Forget it. I’m staying here.”

  “Is there a problem, Olivia?” I asked.

  “It’s a stupid waste of time, that’s the problem! You think we’re all going to turn into best friends just because we go and sit in the woods for a few days? Rubbish.”

  “You’ll be doing a bit more than that,” I said.

  5. Problem-Solving

  Later in the week, we took the group to one of the more challenging activities the woodland centre had to offer, and some of the most spectacular scenery. They stood on one side of a gorge with no bridge, and no route down to the churning river below. But somehow, they had to cross.

  They quickly found ancient machinery housed in two stone buildings, one on either side of the path leading to the sheer drop, matched by two similar buildings on the far side of the gorge. Etched on the stone were strange markings their translation systems could not decipher. Inside, the machinery was found to be still functional, well oiled and ready to go — but none of the controls would work.

  “It’s a game,” said Liss. “I’ve seen people do this kinda thing. It’s like you press buttons and solve puzzles and then it all starts working.”

  “So how do we do this?” asked Iokan.

  Liss shrugged. “I dunno. I don’t play those kinda games.” Everyone looked back at the gorge.

  “Perhaps a bridge might extend,” said Kwame. “We have two buildings on this side and two on the other side, facing them…”

  “But where’s the bridge hiding?” mused Iokan.

  “Maybe it’s a rope bridge!” said Liss.

  “If it is a rope bridge, then where are the ropes?” said Kwame.

  “Maybe it isn’t a bridge at all,” said Pew. “Maybe there’s a glider or something.”

  Olivia downed a pill with a swig of water from her canteen. “Does anybody have any idea what this thing is?” No one ventured an opinion. “Bloody typical,” she said. “Right. I’m hungry, so we’re getting this thing working. Who knows machines? What am I talking about… Katie!”

  “Yes?”

  “Figure out how this works and tell us how to get across.”

  Katie took a look inside one of the stone buildings, then came back outside and peered down into the gorge. “It is a simple mechanism,” she said. “There are arbalests in each of the towers, connected to spools of high tensile cable. The arbalests shoot the cables across the ravine to the opposing towers, where they are hooked into pulleys and shot back to the towers here. The cables form a suspension system. Chains hang from the cables and are run out across the ravine. Electromagnets hang from the ends of the chains. The cables are slackened and the magnets are lowered so as to connect to the bridge. The cables are then drawn up to lift the bridge into place.”

  “And where is this bridge?” asked Kwame.


  “The other side of the ravine.”

  “I do not see it,” he said.

  “It is the other side of the ravine.”

  “I do not understand.”

  “I see it,” said Pew. “Look!” He pointed out metal plates ten metres down the opposite cliff face. And gradually the others saw the pattern of weathering and cracks on the cliff wall that concealed a slab which could be pulled up and out to create a bridge.

  “Right, then,” said Olivia. “Let’s get this bloody thing working.”

  They beat the average time by a considerable margin, due in no small part to their collective skills. Katie’s analysis was accurate, although the process was more complex than she initially described. The controls for the mechanism were all logic puzzles of one kind or another, which Pew and Iokan worked on together. Kwame’s electrical skills found a use in several mechanisms that deliberately required repairs. Liss lifted heavy gears into place, complaining about the grease that inevitably soiled her clothes. Finally, the last moment of raising the bridge required each of them to operate part of the mechanism in a carefully co-ordinated way, and Olivia made sure that happened with judicious shouting and swearing.

  Arbalests shot cables across the ravine, and then back again. Chains swung out along the cables; heavy electromagnets found the iron plates on the cliff wall; and slowly, the bridge of stone swivelled up on hinges set into the far side of the gorge. They cheered as it came up, and Olivia’s muttering about how they would finally get some dinner was met with laughter rather than the usual silence.

  6. Group

  I left Veofol with the others to answer their questions about the trip, and asked Olivia to join me outside the room.

  “I’m not bloody going,” she said, arms folded.

  “Of course,” I replied. “If you don’t want to go then you don’t have to. I can appreciate how it might be difficult.”

  “What do you mean, difficult?”

  “Well, I know you have a problem with open spaces. Especially at night.”

  “I don’t have a problem. I’m just careful.”