Anna slowly eased out of bed. She shut off the alarm to keep it from waking up Des. She put on her pack and headed out. She swung by and picked up the boxes from the gardens and carried them to Northwest 3. She got the ropes from Northwest 2.
Anna set about modifying ten carts and lining them up against the wall. On the bottom level of each cart, she totally blocked off the front and back with denua board. She cut up six nets. She glued a strip of netting to the bottom edge of denua board fitted halfway up the side of the bottom level and then she glued the net strips to the bottom of the cart. The net worked as a hinge allowing the denua board to swing up-and-down. She screwed a wing nut into each side support which twisted and held the denua board door closed. She glued more netting to the top of the denua board. She set hooks along the edges of the top-level shelf, making it possible to net the bottom level closed, plus, hang full nets all along the sides of the cart. Each cart top held two normal sized boxes. She ran and got some denua dye and a brush. Some people might find it easier to mark boxes than to use marked bags.
Anna pushed one of the modified carts out to the garden, turned off the field, pushed the cart up the ramp, and then turned the field back on. She started harvesting the denua with a vengeance. She wanted to clear a path to the rail by the time the crew arrived. She emptied her packs down the supply processor every run. By the time she made a cart wide path, thirty-six full boxes, a rounded stack of innumerable nets, and a full cart of denua resided in the processing room. The crew would start showing up in twenty minutes.
Anna ordered up six nets to replace the ones she’d cut up and a dozen more boxes. She started cramming denua down the processor. Next, she emptied the cart and eight boxes for the tops of the other carts. After that she started sorting, setting the denua fruit aside in boxes to be peeled, and the vines went down the processor hole.
The crew started to arrive. When everyone got there including the volunteers, Anna started explaining. “I’ve made some changes that allow these modified carts to be used on the second level. I’m reserving one of the carts for me, because I plan to go over the rail. Harvesters work out how you want to share the nine remaining carts. ”
“I paid an electrician to modify the electrical field. On the right hand side of the garden room wall resides a switch to turn it off. You need to turn the field off to push a cart across. You need to visually inspect the first level barrier, before turning the field off. A red light in the center of the right hand rail acts as a field indicator. If the light is on, so is the field. You always double-check and make sure of the light’s status before you cross. We placed another switch at the top of the ramp on the right hand side. You holler and make sure no one is crossing the field before you turn it on. I only cut one very narrow path so far. I expect you all to fill your bottom level with denua every run. Cutting more paths will increase your harvest and since using the carts saves you ten percent it makes cutting the denua worth your time and effort.”
“Volunteers are coming to peel denua, and process it, so we’ll lose no people to those jobs. They’ll also watch for me. Chief Sato and I designed a way to put up barriers on the tree trunks, making it impossible for a takosund of any size to climb that tree. I plan to measure the tree trunks today and order up the denua boards that I need for those barriers. I intend to assemble them tree by tree as I get the material. In between building tree barriers, I’ll harvest over the rail.”
“The barriers will use up a lot of second boil glue so Wolfe offers a work trade, one net of korftu pods for four nets of gesar. After the harvest and trading gets finished, I plan to make an offer to the processors.” Anyone who agreed to the gesar trade would in reality be giving up some of their free time. If they traded Anna sixteen nets of gesar picked during their required hours, they needed to pick sixteen nets of gesar from one of Anna’s gardens in their free time to replace the lost Satorae produce.
“Shalo, we should be able to keep you busy, if you want processor number six. Processors number seven and eight stay open, if anyone wants to process their own. Processors one through five get manned by the usual crew. I agree to the ten percent fee. I’ll put my harvest on the central station. Try to leave the korftu, and some overripe greal to make dyes. All right people, everybody sign in. Volunteer watchers you follow me. Volunteer denua workers, all those boxes and nets hold denua to keep you going until the crew brings you more. Try to empty the nets first. Let’s go everyone.”
Anna stopped beside the garden room field’s switch. “All right people, you can see the first level barrier from here. It looks tight and secure to me. If you ever look and see damage on the barrier, you leave your cart here and the field on. You run out halfway and holler and scream “takosund evacuate!” until the second level people come down that ramp. If anyone ever hears the call “takosund evacuate!” you repeat the call, leave your cart on second level and run, taking only your knife with you. Once we get going, someone will be in and out of here every ten or fifteen minutes. Takosund need to chew and rip their way through that barrier. They can’t do that in less than forty-five minutes, giving us plenty of time to notice and evacuate, if they ever try it.”
“Now, the light is on so the field is on. Flip the switch off, check the light. No light means we can cross.” Anna pushed her cart across and heard the rest follow her. “Okay is everybody up.” Everyone nodded. “Are you sure?” More nods. “Even if you feel sure always double-check.” She hollered down the ramp. “Field going on.” She held up her hands and ticked off her fingers one through ten. “Field going on.” She cupped her ear. She nodded and turned the field on. “If you ever hear “Field going on.” while you’re on it, you holler and scream “I’m on the field!” Before you turn on the field, you holler, you count to ten, you holler again, and you listen. I don’t want any accidents people. It only takes a little time to be safe and the carts more than make up for it. I checked and the way I modified these carts, allows them to haul twice as much as I carried when fully loaded. They will make it worth your time so use that time to remain safe.” Everyone nodded.
“Okay, watchers follow me.” Anna stationed the first one in the spot Desvren had held, one in Dasie’s spot, and two in the center spot. She told them what to watch for low movements on the ground near the tree trunks, shaking branches near the intersecting limbs. “I would much rather have a dozen false warnings, than not get one when it’s the real thing.” She said with a smile. “Okay, here I go.” She harvested the greal hard and fast. She wanted to get something to the processors, right now they sat idle and they hated that. She filled her packs back and front, grabbed a greal for each hand, then jumped back, dropped down, and unloaded into the cart. Two trips filled the cart; the third rounded it, the fourth she carried. She trotted off to the processing room.
Anna made four trips of just greal, to keep the processors busy, and then she started mixing it up. She discovered that korftu received no damage from getting thrown. The pods might crack, but you needed to crack them to get the nuts anyway. Her nets got filled with korftu and thrown over the rail. She wasn’t nearly as accurate with net throwing as with knifes, probably because Sato wasn‘t there to mind teach her. She hit the cart about half the time. She made it into the cart about a third of the time. It went real fast. Fill net, throw, fill net, throw. When no empty nets remained, she stuffed her pockets and packs, and cut some greal for the belly pack net and each hand. Jump the rail, cleanup the korftu minefield around the cart, and go.
Anna ordered up sixteen more nets from supply when she unloaded. The greal went to the processors. Half of the korftu nets she emptied into a box, the other half she stacked beside it. She grabbed all the nets from the supply processor. They had emptied about half of them. She grabbed the measuring tape and went back. The supply processor now held about half of the tough fiber she needed.
Anna ran back to the second level. When she jumped rail this time, she roped down her escape tree, till she got to the spot where the bot
tom of the barrier would go. She measured it, and then she went back to harvesting. Her shots at the cart slowly improved, leaving less for her to pick up and landing the missed shots closer to the cart.
Anna unloaded first this time, emptied the nets into boxes, and entered the tree measurement onto the design page. She transferred the measurements and quantities to the supply processor, and ordered them. She made three more runs hauling the denua boards back with her every time. The fourth run finished the first barrier so she loaded on the needed glue and ropes.
The second shift of volunteers came in as Anna left, and she asked the watchers to follow her. She showed them how to work the field switches and explained the safety procedures. She explained that she wanted to put up the barrier on the escape tree, now. She thanked the first crew of watchers and jumped rail.
Putting up the barrier ended up being very interesting. A couple of times, Anna almost glued herself to the tree. She used a lot of ropes, tying every piece in place, and going to the next, so she lost no time waiting for the glue to set, about half of the rugged, non-stretchable ropes were destined to be left as permanent supports. By the time she ran out of ropes, the first ones glue joints had totally solidified so around and around she went. It felt like it took forever but really only took thirty-five minutes.
Anna measured the next tree before going back to harvesting and carting. Five cartloads later the supply processor finished kicking out the second barrier. Even with its bigger size, this one only took her thirty minutes to set up. The volunteer shift change happened while she hung from a rope nearly upside down inside the barrier gluing on the braces.
Anna measured the third tree. By the time the shift finished, she had put up five barriers. The sixth waited on second level and the seventh had about half of its boards made.
At the end of the shift, Anna possessed thirty-two filled boxes of korftu pods, plus, a full cart and sixty-seven stuffed nets. Also, seventeen bunches of overripe greal to press sprawled in a heap on the counter. The trading began, Jatlo, Krea, and Shalo witnessed the harvest trades for three nets of korftu a piece. Anna ended up with two hundred and sixty-two net bags full of gesar. “Wolfe offers two trades to all. First trade, you weigh and package the korftu; you get ten percent of what you do. Second trade, you peel, dice, and tray the gesar so I can make flour and glue and every six nets of gesar, you prepare gets traded for two pounds of packaged korftu nuts.”
“Anyone interested grab an unmodified cart and load what you finish on it. Anyone not interested, thank you for the help. You all did a great job. Thank you for the trades, I needed that gesar. The crew meets here tomorrow at nine. May your blood stay strong.”
All of the processors stayed and worked on gesar. Dasie, Brema, Mapao, and Kesti stayed and worked on the korftu. Anna worked on that too. After observing how Mapao and Kesti worked, it became easier. Anna had the bad habit of crushing the nuts when she cracked the pod. Since, they tasted so good, she ate the damaged ones. She called the time at ten of twelve. She told everyone the offer stood, if they wanted to come early tomorrow. Everyone ended up witnessing each other’s trades.
Anna wheeled the prepared gesar to East 1 and put it in the boiling pots and drying ovens. It took six trips with a regular cart. She ended up getting home late and dreaded her punishment of greal.
Anna woke up early and tried to sneak out. Desvren caught her. She tried sidetracking him by seducing him. The seduction worked. Afterwards, he sat on the edge of the bed feeding her unripe greal with a devilish grin on his face.
It felt infuriating and hilarious at the same time. Finally, she got out of bed again and ran to Desvren’s cabin to take a shower. She looked forward to the day when they’d end up in a personal cabin, making it possible to shower at home.
Anna went to East 1, put the denua peels into steep, strained the gesar syrup, and set it to re-boil. She put the flour into pound. She ordered up a five gallon bucket from supply. She coated the sticky traps with glue, set out the overripe gesar in the usual spots, and surrounded them with the traps. She hadn’t put any food out in a day and a half, hopefully allowing the mewu to get hungry enough to go for the bait.
Anna ran to Heroes’ Hall and packaged the strained leka. It took three more runs to bring down the rest of it.
Anna decided to run the second level rail’s, from East 8 down to East 1, and see how they looked. East 8 could be saved because it possessed no big limbs crossing the rails just small branches grew that far. The trees stood a good distance apart and intersected very little.
East 7 with big limbs crossing the rails needed a lot of work. The trees also held a lot of intersecting limbs. But luckily, they bore no takosund sign.
East 6 looked like a dream come true even better than Northwest 3. It held no crossing limbs and three cutoff limbs spaced ideally for escape spots. If Anna ended up cutting any limbs off, she planned to do them just like these ones, jumping distance out from the rail. Seventeen trees bordered the three jump-out spots, clustered together with a clear spot beyond them. If she barricaded those trees, they would become completely safe with no cutting.
East 5 had some small limbs crossing and no sign. A little work could make it into a safe second level. But it held no good jump-out spots.
East 4 caused Anna to run back out as quickly as possible because it looked worse than Northwest 2. At the seventh big crossing limb, the fourth to have sign, she gave up and ran.
East 3 possessed four big crossing limbs, one with sign, making it too risky to salvage right now.
East 2 seemed to be safe with two jump-out spots and twelve trees surrounding them that intercrossed very little with outside trees.
At East 1, Anna strained the glue and set it to re-boil. She put the pounded flour back into the drying ovens. She went out into the garden planning on checking on the second level. But, she failed to make it that far. The sticky traps lay under a futilely struggling mass of mewu. The traps each had between ten and sixteen mewu stuck to them, considering the fact that the traps fit in a five gallon bucket that happened to be a lot of mewu.
With a sigh Anna went and filled the bucket with thirty-four degree water which the sink thermometer nearly refused to give her. After signing her palm print three times saying, she knew it to be an unsafe temperature, the sink finally relented. She didn’t really want to do this. Those little mewu looked kind of cute. Anna carried in the first trap with a sad step.
Poor little sucker’s! True, they damaged the gardens. But they couldn’t help it. They were just cute little, ignorant animals. As Anna watched them wiggling, she hesitated and realized no way existed to free them. She needed to put them out of their misery. Anna felt tears welling up in the back of her eyes when she lowered them into the pail.
Suddenly, Anna’s tears streaked down her face as she ran around the processing room swearing and waving her hand in the air. One of those little suckers had turned at the last second and latched onto her thumb. Why those slimy little earless, misnamed, rodents!
Anna headed up to healer central with her bleeding thumb wrapped in her T-shirt tail. The T-shirt soon turned into an ugly mess. Damn little, slimy, mewu! She just knew Desvren would make her eat more greal because of a puny, little mewu bite.
Anna walked into healer center and got waved over by Tava. “How can I help you, Phwolfe?”
Anna pointed to her left hand wrapped in the bloody T-shirt. “I think I need some stitches, healing, something.”
“Sit! Sit!” Tava pushed Anna into a chair. He signed furiously at the other healer who took off at a respectable run. “How did you injure yourself?”
Damn mewu! Anna thought in embarrassment. I take out three takosund without a scratch, and then end up needing stitches because of a mewu. Damn! Damn!
Tava working at unwrapping Anna’s hand caught what her mind said. Anna had to give him credit. He tried; he really tried, not to laugh. But it just happened to be too ridiculous. Anna was sitting there bleeding, smiling, tryi
ng not to laugh herself, when Desvren came rushing up.
A lot of fussing and huge amounts of laughter came out of the healers who Desvren insisted heal Anna. If she’d sustained a serious injury, he would have instinctively healed it. But since the injury happened to be very minor, he needed to inspect the injury. Once he saw the blood soaked T-shirt and the blood still seeping out of Anna’s thumb, Des lost all perspective as a healer and simply became an overwrought tai’twain. Tava laughed so hard, he barely remained capable of breathing, let alone healing. Liso tried, caught one image of a mewu from Anna and followed Tava’s example.
Finally, the Elder healer Creana came over, healed Anna’s thumb, and then asked what caused the injury. Anna told him. He very slowly turned around and walked out of the hall with a neutral look on his face. The door closed slowly. And then everyone heard the outburst of uncontrolled laughter all the way across the room.
“That is the conference room where they’re holding a meeting on the invalid’s recovery today.” Tava managed to choke out.
“I so hate mewu!” Anna exclaimed. She kissed a still shaky Desvren. “Honey, I’m fine. I’m going to go change and then finish with my traps.”
Desvren pulled Anna close. “You need to go rest. You lost blood.”
Anna smiled and kissed him. “I only lost a little. Plus, I really want to kill those mewu now. I’ll wear gloves to protect my fingers from the nasty buggers. Are they related to takosund? They sure seem mean enough to be related.”
Desvren sighed and then chuckled. “Okay love, I’ll catch you later.”
Anna went to Desvren’s cabin and threw the ruined T-shirt in to wash. She headed back to East 1; she had some mewu traps to clean up.
Anna ordered up some thick denua fiber gloves with the outside layer reinforced with the tough fibers. They felt extremely stiff, but no mewu could possibly bite through them. With her hands now sensibly protected Anna started seriously dipping traps. Dip the trap, pry off the comatose mewu and throw them down the processing hole, then set the trap aside to dry. Anna had made around twenty traps by the time she got done it felt like a hundred and fifty.
Phwolfe Song (Golsidan Revival Series Book 1) Page 23