“Things aren’t always as clear cut as you’d like to think, Sue. It might just be some sort of cultural thing.” Bruce scratched his nose. “Anyway, I reckon if I want to build myself a house out in the country and start off a bit of a farm, the Skidians will let me, even encourage me to go ahead.” It was more a hunch than a reasoned conclusion, but Bruce was sure he was right. It was what he thought he should be doing anyway.
“Tomorrow I’m going to look for a house site, maybe after visiting the research center again.” With that, Bruce went off in search of Leaf.
Left alone, Sue tried to work out if she figured in Bruce’s plans and considered her options if she were not. With a sob she curled up in the chair and hid her face in her hands, bemoaning her fate and trying to work out why life always seemed to be so unfair to her.
Eighteen
Much to her distress, Leaf was rudely awakened at the crack of dawn to provide what passed for breakfast on Skid and then prepared a lunch that she couldn’t believe the offworlders really wanted. Who had ever heard of taking food out into the wilderness, let alone eating out there?
Bruce had hoped they could be away before any of the Skidians turned up to annoy them, like Sideshow or Cyprus. However, the women conspired separately to delay him.
“C’mon, let’s get a wriggle on!” Bruce yelled at Sue, who was still half-asleep and dawdling. He presumed she wanted to come with him.
“Bloody typical!” Bruce cursed under his breath. “I’ll bugger off without you if you don’t hurry up.”
The dogs had started barking as soon as the house lights came on, sensing that an early start to the day meant something interesting was on. Mad with excitement they tore around the yard a few times after Bruce let them out of their kennels and then completed their morning ablutions on the wheels and the deck of the ute.
“You grubby bastards,” Bruce scolded them, to little effect, as he ripped a branch off the nearest shrub to wipe the deck clean. Then he walked back inside, picked up the hamper Leaf had packed and stuck it on the back of the ute, hoping it was dog-proof.
Sue finally deigned to make an appearance just as the sun peeped over the horizon. She had spent a fairly long time the night before debating just how one should prepare oneself for a foray into the unknown, collecting, with the help of her tablet, a pile of what it considered was essential for survival in the Skidian wilderness.
Contemplating the heap on her bedroom floor that had appeared out of nowhere she realized Bruce would not be impressed. She decided to live dangerously for once, copying his studied casualness, and skipped out doors with her tablet, wearing one of the Skidian robes over her shorts and T-shirt, for fear of offending any Skidians that might be about, and a hat to keep the sun off her.
The streets of Sietnuoc were empty at this time of the morning, and it was only as they left the city that an inquisitive head popped up from behind a hedge, betraying any sign of life.
A section of the dash morphed into a navman when Bruce asked for directions, and he followed the instructions of the electronic voice, driving slowly through the long grass once the road petered out at the city boundary, expecting to encounter rocks, logs or other hidden obstacles at any moment that would impede their progress.
After hitting nothing after half an hour’s travel, Bruce decided it was safe enough to increase speed through the bonnet-high grass that rolled away to the horizon and beyond.
Bruce imagined that the great plains of earth must have looked like the Skidian one they were rolling over until man ploughed them under, replacing the native grasses with more productive species and arable crops. Before the soil was blown away because of his mismanagement. Until man had slaughtered the animals that had once roamed free across them and built his fences and buildings, marring and changing the plains forever in his eternal quest for wealth, land and power.
Beside him Sue was almost silent on the outward journey. Bruce thought he must have offended her again so, being the sensitive chap that he was, he tried to be companionable.
“Does the wild west look a bit like this, Sue? You know, where the buffalo don’t roam and the skies are cloudy all day.”
Sue pondered the question for a moment. “Parts of it might, but I haven’t seen much of it, so I can’t really say. But it’s beautiful isn’t it?”
Like most things about Skid, Bruce didn’t really appreciate the view. As far as he was concerned, Skid compared unfavorably with what he was used to. Forest-clad hills, sheep-dotted paddocks, the influence of man and the raw beauty of the Kiwi countryside.
After a while they passed through the fringes of a vast ivop herd. Bruce yelled, tooted the horn, nudged them in the backside with the ute’s front bumper and slapped his hand on the door. Nevertheless, none of them bothered to move themselves. Only when he set the dogs on them did they reluctantly move enough to let the ute pass through.
“Piss poor bloody country really; there’s no hills for a start and it all looks the same,” Bruce muttered, as he eased through the gaps left by the ivops.
“Oh, I think it’s simply wonderful,” Sue gushed enthusiastically.
“Really?” Bruce raised his eyebrows in mock astonishment. “Bugger that!” he muttered as he stopped to let the dogs up. Punch scrambled up onto the bonnet and scratched his way over the windscreen and roof to the deck, leaving long claw marks on the paintwork. “Ya bloody idiot, Punch!” Bruce didn’t bother to get out and give him a whack over the head for scratching the paintwork. Despite his immense size, Punch was really only a pup and didn’t know any better. Besides the ute would get knocked about pretty quickly, it was only that first scratch or ding that hurt.
“The scenery can’t be up to much around your way then,” Bruce said derisively, forgetting that he was supposed to be nice to Sue, who responded by starting to sob again and turned her head away from him.
Suddenly, after breasting a low hill, they were looking down upon the resource center Bruce had been headed for. As they drew up, Yarad was waiting to greet them, as if he had been expecting their arrival. Was nothing secret here? Bruce wondered.
“Greetings, sir,” Yarad said, ignoring Sue completely. “It is a rare occasion that I receive visitors.”
“Gidday,” replied Bruce sympathetically, knowing what it was like to live in the middle of nowhere, supposedly too far out in the sticks for visitors. Although he was still expected to drive hours to go and visit someone lest he be castigated for becoming a hermit.
“How is it?”
Yarad shrugged his shoulders. “I make slow progress, I’m afraid. The relics and archives I have found here, while in good condition, are over five thousand years old as far as I can tell, so I have much difficulty in discerning their meaning and significance.” Yarad sighed as though he carried the weight of the planet’s woes firmly on his shoulders. Which in a way he did. “And of course there is little interest taken in my work by our leaders, so …” He sighed again, and blinked as if he might have said too much. “Nobody else is much interested in my work.”
“Maybe we can help you,” Sue suggested, feeling sorry for him.
“Any assistance you could provide would be most gratefully appreciated, sir.” In the face of this obvious snub, Sue looked like she might break down and cry again. The whole world seemed to be against her at the moment. She pushed past Yarad and went down the stairs and into the building.
“Yeah, no worries mate. Let’s have a look around.” Bruce made to follow Sue. “I’ll see what I can do for you later.” Yarad followed Bruce down the steps, chattering away as if he spent a lot of time by himself, but not saying much of substance.
“Unfortunately it will require greater understanding than I possess to unravel more than a few of the mysteries.” Yarad wrung his hands modestly, pleading for help or a little company with his eyes.
“Seems straightforward to me, mate,” said Bruce, prepared to answer a few questions if that would get Yarad off his back. Bruce picked up a small sach
et from a box someone, Yarad probably, had brought into the reception area. The sachet was still sealed and marked ‘peas’. Bruce ripped it open and tipped some of the seeds into his palm. The contents did indeed resemble pea seeds. Bruce dropped them back into the sachet and handed it to Yarad.
“Take these, mate. Push them into the soil, about this deep and this far apart,” Bruce suggested with his hands. “With each of these objects we call seeds place a marker so you know where they are. Okay?”
Yarad nodded, eyeing the sachet and seeds in his hand suspiciously. What sort of insanity was this? Was Bruce making a mockery of him?
“Each day sprinkle a few spoonfuls of water over each seed.”
Yarad nodded again, wondering what a spoonful was. Bruce grinned encouragingly. “Good, I’m sure that in time this little exercise will help you towards greater understanding.” Bruce was sure he had explained thoroughly how to plant the seeds. Yarad was now more confused than ever and was even more incredulous when Bruce said he would be able to eat the seeds at a later date.
“Do the offworlders think we’re stupid?” Yarad muttered, as Bruce walked away, leaving him holding the seeds. Yarad flung the sachet into a corner sending peas rolling across the floor like runaway ball bearings and stomped off towards his living quarters.
Bruce plodded around the storerooms poking, prodding and turning over vaguely familiar objects in his hands. He checked sharpened edges, hefted others for weight or balance, turned knobs and peered into large open spaces where an engine might normally be positioned.
He mentioned this to Sue, who had wandered in from wherever she had been scratching around. “Real frontier stuff,” she agreed, trying to sound intelligent.
“It must have been a tough existence on this planet in the old days.”
“Geez Wayne!” Bruce muttered pityingly. Sue wasn’t going to be much help to him at all. He wondered what her cooking was like.
“How are we going to get what equipment we need out of this place to where we want to use it?” Sue asked, attempting to sound interested and failing miserably.
“No worries. Leave that to me and my tablet.”
Exactly how the tablet would provide what he wanted was still a mystery to Bruce. Still it hadn’t failed him yet, the appearance of the ute and the clothes he stood in were proof of that. Even if the Skidians weren’t able or willing to help him directly, they’d certainly provided him, however unwittingly, with a tool that was quickly becoming indispensable.
“Seen enough?” Sue hinted, bored and impatient to leave.
“Yeah, I think so.” Bruce grudgingly replied. Next time he’d come by himself and spend all day pottering about. “Let’s buzz off, eh?”
“What?”
“Let’s go.”
Bruce and Sue found Yarad outside where he proudly showed off his efforts after retrieving the seeds from the floor where he’d earlier flung them in disgust. Despite his doubts about Bruce’s claim that the ‘seeds’ would grow into something he could eat, Yarad felt bound to investigate Bruce’s allegations. After all, he prided himself on being one of the few real researchers of any kind left on Skid.
“Where are the seeds, Yarad?”
“Underneath here,” Yarad showed off his handiwork, lifting one of the discs he had used as markers revealing a damp patch of soil.
“Don’t cover the seeds like that mate. They’ll need sunlight when they emerge from the soil.” Bruce supposed normal photosynthesis would occur here. Or something similar, Skidian vegetation was green after all. Bruce’s only worry was that the seeds might not germinate. Four or five thousand years stuffed in a plastic sachet was a long time for them to remain viable. “Let me know when the seedlings poke through the soil. Okay?”
Yarad cursed Bruce for his inadequate instructions, still not sure of the purpose of his efforts of the past hour, wondering if he would ever know.
Back at the ute Sue started to take the food box down and set out their picnic lunch.
“Let’s drive for a while before we eat, towards the river,” Bruce suggested.
Yarad would probably expect to be invited to share the meal with them and Bruce wasn’t keen on that idea. If they went off elsewhere that possibility wouldn’t arise.
“Okay,” Sue agreed brightly. “That sounds like a nice idea.”
“Yeah, just lovely,” Bruce grunted, suddenly desperate for a bit of personal space himself.
Bruce started driving towards the river that snaked off across the plain in the distance. He couldn’t really have cared less where they ate their lunch. As long as it was a place where some Skidian wouldn’t annoy him. Besides he’d need a supply of water close to where he built his house, and he reasoned that the best place to find an easily accessible supply of water was close to the river.
“Do you think it rains here? I like walking in the rain, jumping in puddles,” Sue asked inanely as if she needed to be reassured by the sound of her own voice for some reason and said the first thing that came into her head.
Bruce shook his head sadly as the best place to be when it rained was inside.
“Ask your tablet. How the hell should I know?” He regretted the moment of weakness that made him ask her along for the ride, she was getting on his nerves with her incessant chatter and dumb questions. Her very proximity in the cab was irritating him unreasonably. Once he’d found the right place to site a house and organized a roof over his head, he could make it plain that he wanted to be left to his own devices. He hoped.
“Alright,” she said, more than a little hurt at Bruce’s unwarranted outburst. She had only been trying to make conversation.
Bruce seemed to take every opportunity to put her down and be generally nasty. For the life of her she could not think why. After all, she had always considered herself reasonably popular with men and knew for a fact she looked okay. A strict diet and workouts three or four times a week in the gym saw to that. Maybe it was time she struck out on her own she thought regretfully. She did not really want to cut herself off from Bruce, to face life alone on this strange and sometimes frightening planet.
In the background the tablet informed them that the climate of Skid was controlled by a series of satellites and that rain was conveniently programmed to fall in the early morning, causing minor disruption to Skidian life.
“Not that I’m complaining at the moment, but that sort of weather might get a bit tedious after a while.”
“Yeah, I kind of like skiing the snow in wintertime. Have you ever been skiing?” Sue asked, in another effort to pre-empt the wall of silence that she knew would soon fall between them. Bruce did not seem to need to talk or have the company that she required in abundance. Her decision to break away from him had been made, but she did not want to withdraw completely.
“Nah. Never really been interested.”
“I’ll take you one day,” she promised rashly, wondering immediately why she had bothered.
“Don’t even think about it. Whether we like it or not, we’re stuck here forever,” Bruce snapped, more harshly than he had intended, not wanting to be reminded continuously of home and what he could be doing there. He racked his mind to think up something positive to say, something to console Sue with, regretting his outburst.
“I know it sounds a bit absurd, but look on the bright side. What a great experience we’re going to have here.” Bruce gave Sue a platonic pat on the knee but she started sobbing again and turned away. Bruce clamped his mouth shut, stung by her reaction. He had only been trying to help! Didn’t she realize he had his own problems to deal with?
Suddenly Bruce was overcome by a feeling of total helplessness. What was the point of doing anything? He wondered, suddenly nauseous with fear and worry. Why bother at all? It looked as if it would be quite easy to while away what time he had, drinking himself into oblivion and generally doing bugger all.
Snap out of it! he told himself, trying unsuccessfully to shut out Sue’s sobs and the sense of impending doom th
at seemed to have settled on them like a shroud.
“Nothing ever goes right for me,” Sue moaned inaudibly, clenching her fists and sniffing. Eventually the sobbing ceased and Bruce relaxed a little, but he didn’t say anything more for fear of starting her off again.
Sue for her part now stared steadfastly straight ahead, trying to ignore Bruce, loudly sniffing every few moments which grated on his nerves more than anything else she had done. Why couldn’t she use a handkerchief? he wondered unreasonably.
By the time they reached the top of a low ridge overlooking the river, Bruce was absolutely famished and was relieved when Sue pointed to a small grove of trees and suggested they stop. Obediently he drove down and pulled up under a large tree beside the riverbank. He switched off the engine and climbed out.
“Not a bad spot,” he decided, looking around. He lifted the tucker box off the deck of the ute and dropped it on the ground, grateful the dogs hadn’t managed to get into it.
“We didn’t bring a blanket to sit on,” Sue wailed. The prospect of having to sit on the ground did not appeal to her.
“Oh shit, woman, don’t worry about it. Nothing’s going to bite you.” Bruce got up, grabbed the robe he’d put into service as a rag from behind the ute’s seat, and thrust it at her. “You can sit on this.”
Punch jumped off the ute, lumbered in his puppyish uncoordinated fashion down to the river’s edge and lapped at the water. Cop and Can followed suit.
Bruce stood and watched them. The water looked invitingly cool and pleasant.
“What about a swim?
“Do you think it’s safe?” Sue asked dubiously.
Bruce picked Can up by the scruff of her neck and threw her into the water. She landed with an almighty whelp of fear, found her bearings, paddled back to the bank and hauled herself out of the water. Then she vigorously shook herself dry over Bruce and Sue as if to say; ‘it served Bruce right for throwing her in.’
“Looks okay to me,” he said pushing the wet dog away with his foot. “Whatever’s in there doesn’t like dogs anyway.”
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