Josh came back to his position, face a little pale. He looked around at us when a voice from the bank shouted out to hold up. Over the water of the cove, we could see Hamlin talking to Bernie, who didn’t seem too happy about what he was being told. Hamlin kept pointing at us, and finally, with a scowl, Bernie threw down his spear and walked down the path downstream until he was at the boundary of the still water. He eased into the water and carefully made his way toward Julie at the end of the line. He caught the loose end of the rope and tied it around his waist.
“King Hamlin decided that you guys didn’t have enough people, so he drafted me to take Gabe’s place,” he informed us sourly.
“Welcome to us dolphins. We work for fish,” Julie said, then made a dolphin-like squeal. Not really that funny, but we laughed anyway.
The folks on the bank started yelling at us, giving us directions to move, but we were pretty much ignoring them. Josh took over, instead.
“OK, let’s start moving in. But slowly! Put your hands in the water like this,” he said, but as we were ourselves standing chest deep or deeper, we couldn’t really see what exactly he was doing. “Then we move together, pushing the fish forward. Ready? Let’s go!”
We started moving toward the bank. It felt good to get away from the torrent at least, and each step forward felt another step safer.
“Hey, one just went past me. I could see it!” shouted Julie.
“Yea, some are going to do that, I think. We just have to keep most of them in front of us. And as we get closer to the shore, we’ll be closer together,” Josh shouted back.
It was hard moving, feeling our way along the rocky bottom. I could vaguely see some dark shadows darting in front of us, but how many were still there, I couldn’t tell.
“Alfhid, don’t go too fast. You’re getting ahead of us. We need to be all in a line,” Josh directed.
She waited while we caught up, then began her progress forward. In front of us the fishermen started to get ready, to poise for action. Yash suddenly went up on his toes and threw his spear again, this time skipping it on the surface of the water, the spear just missing impaling Bernie in the throat.
“Yash! Don’t throw them! I told you, we need to stab with them. Wait until they drive the fish closer,” shouted Hamlin, exasperation clear in his voice.
Yash looked chagrined. Bernie glared daggers at him. We continued to move forward. Lindadawn stumbled and went under, as I started to rush over in a panic. But we were in calm water, so she came up sputtering, her red hair streaming dark with the river water, but otherwise fine. As we tightened the noose, the fish became more agitated, bunching together. We were close enough to each other by now that there wasn’t much room between us through which the fish could slip. We bowed in our line along the edges, and those of us in the middle stopped a couple of meters from the rocky bank. A trout bumped against my legs, but it retreated back.
A fish came right up to the rocks, and October stabbed down. She hit the fish, and that knocked the spear out of her hands, but the spear didn’t stick into it, and it fell to float in the water.
“Put some muscle into it!” shouted Hamlin. He gave credence to his words by putting everything in back of a powerful downward thrust, but he came up empty. Then Paul, standing with his feet actually in the water, thrust his spear home. I couldn’t see his target from my angle, even if it was only two meters from me, but I could see he got a direct hit. He was struggling to keep a hold of the spear as something big pulled him further into the water. Hamlin dropped his spear to grab Paul’s shoulders, and with Yash’s help, he managed to pull Paul and a huge fish, still shaking on the spear, out of the water. Mostly dark, it had a yellowish cast and black spots. Its head was huge, at least as big as a person’s. The three of them managed to get the fish on the ground where Hamlin gave it the coup de grace, hitting it on the head repeatedly with a rock. Paul sat down, chest heaving for air. But he had a huge smile on his face. Our quietest cast member had gotten the first fish. October and Joda crowded around them to see the catch.
“You can admire it later. Get some more ‘cause we can’t hold them here forever.” Josh shouted up at them.
Hamlin nodded, then picked his spear back up and stood at the edge of the water. Within seconds, he spotted his prey and struck true. His huge biceps strained as he lifted maybe 25 kilos of thrashing fish out of the water. He admired it for a moment, posing for the cams I’m sure, before swinging it around to the path where Yash smashed its head.
Joda was beside herself in excitement. She kept pointing and stabbing, but as far as I could tell, she hadn’t hit anything. Still naked, she looked like a sexy elf bouncing around up there with her bobbed haircut, but with all the other flesh on display, I was finally inured to it. Well, maybe not 100%, but I could focus on other things.
Hamlin actually joined us in the water for a few moments, but it became obvious that from a perspective that low in the water, he couldn’t see well enough and couldn’t get a good enough angle to spear a fish, so he climbed back out. Yash, meanwhile, had walked down to where we dolphins had left our spears and picked up one. He was bound and determined to catch a fish, it seemed. He walked back and started scanning the by now not-so-calm water, both hands above his head clasping the spear. While others kept stabbing, he stood still, a heron waiting to strike. And finally, he did strike, bringing his hands down in a thrust. And he hit home.
He couldn’t hold on, though, and the fish started swimming, spear sticking out of it. As it came rushing toward me, I couldn’t get out of the way of the protruding spear which smacked me alongside the face, on the same side as I had been smacked by the falling rope. I’ve heard the expression “seeing stars” before, but this might have been the first time I actually experienced it. I wheeled in pain, and our nice little line started to fall apart as some of us tried to get out of the way of the rampaging fish and others tried to catch it. Josh made a dive for it, and he got hit perhaps harder than I’d been hit. With gaps opening in our line, I could sense more than see fish making a break for safety.
Something came flying through the air to land on the spear sticking out of the water. It was Ratt, of all people. She landed on the spear, then clung to it in a death grip. She went under the water several times, but came back up gasping for air. Others tried to grab her, but the fish under her was too strong and too quick. And weighing almost as much as Ratt, it had no problem shaking her like a terrier on a real rat, not just our Ratt.
But there were too many of us. As she careened into me, I was able to hold her small body until Josh and Alfhid got to me, then Hamlin and Mike. Alfhid reached down below Ratt to grab the spear, then leveraged the fish out of the water. Only then did Ratt let go and grab me to stay above water. She had a bloody nose and a gash on her forehead, and she looked scraped up where she had been bounced on the rocks, but her grin was a kilometer wide. I carried her ashore as the rest paraded the fish out of the water.
Looking at the three fish there, we felt a surge of relief. That was a lot of meat. Alfhid reached out and took Ratt’s hand, lifting it in like a fight winner. “And our winner by TKO, Pamonrat Yimsiri!”
I picked her up again and put her on my shoulder as everyone broke out in laughter and cheers. She was bloody, scale besmeared, and wet, but for the moment, she was our champion. I put her back down and she accepted high-fives and hugs as we started gathering our clothes and getting dressed.
Despite the loss of Gabriel, we were feeling pretty good right then. Part of it was our successful catch, and I don’t think any of us dolphins even resented being relegated to that now. Part of it was most certainly that with the producers getting their kill, we were probably safe from a dedicated attack now. Oh, we still had to be careful. A fall could still kill us, and some of the dangers in the reservation were natural, not constructs. But it was doubtful that there would be any programmed dangers.
We stuck our spears through the gills and mouths of the fish and started back dow
n the trail, each fish being carried by two of us, spears on our shoulders, like old-time safari porters. I was the back end of the second fish, and the spear was digging into my shoulder, but I didn’t care. We made it to our descent point and put the fish down. One of us was going to have to climb back up, and although Yash volunteered, we knew it had to be Josh. He tried to wipe the fish scales off his hands, then tied the rope around his waist and started his ascent. Moving quickly up the lower part of the cliff face, he was soon at the tricky part, where the cliff bent back out to the edge. Jamming his hand and feet into any available crack or irregularity, he started climbing essentially upside down until he was less than a meter from the edge. We could see him groping, but he couldn’t find a handhold. He looked down at us over his shoulder for a moment, then winked at us before turning around and thrusting himself up and forward, his feet coming off the cliff face. His right hand caught on something, his left flailing around and his feet dangling in open space. He caught a hold with his right hand, and then pulled himself up and over the edge, disappearing from sight for a moment before coming back and giving us a thumb’s up. Like his descent, this was pretty impressive, especially considering he was carrying the weight of the rope.
Yash insisted on being next. His clothes were still wet from the cove, and I wondered if that would weigh him down, but using the rope, he was able to climb up. When the cliff face bent back in, he wrapped his legs around the rope and shinnied up the last fifteen feet until Josh could reach down and pull him over the edge.
We had decided that the fish would go up next and be taken over the bridge into Haven. While we were probably safe from most attacks, any natural dangers wandering around might be drawn to the smell of the fish. We had knotted the rope through the gills of the first fish, and soon it was bouncing its way up the cliff. For the fish, the last fifteen feet were probably the easiest as it was not bumping against the rocks. It disappeared over the cliff edge, and shortly thereafter, the rope end came falling back down. I was prudently well out of the way for that. Yash was soon visible carefully walking over the bridge, fish on his shoulders. I hoped he wouldn’t drop it.
We tied the next fish on, and Josh hauled it up himself. By the time the rope end came crashing back down, Yash had returned to carry the next one over the bridge. We tied the third fish on the rope and got ready to make our own ascent.
The third fish made its way up the cliff face. A little below the last section, though, it seemed to get stuck. I couldn’t tell on what. We could see Josh’s head and arms as he tried to jerk the rope free, but it wasn’t budging. He eased out a little further and started swinging his arms, trying to loop the rope free. From my vantage point, it didn’t look like it was hung up on much. I thought I could climb to it and free it, then use the rope to climb up the rest of the way. I shouted to Josh that I was coming up.
I was barely a meter or so off the bottom when Josh pushed himself out just a little more and made another huge loop. That loop freed the rope and fish, but without the anchor of it as when it was caught, the free rope gave Josh nothing to brace on, and he slid off the top. I could see him keep his grasp on the rope as he fell, turning to use his feet to push off the wall, but he hit hard against the rocks and lost his grip. He fell straight down until his legs hit a rock, forcing his body to cartwheel the rest of the way down, coming right at me. I jumped off the wall just as he hit with a sickening thud, the fish landing at the end of its tether right beside him. While the fish tore through the rope and bounced into the river, Josh didn’t bounce at all. His body seemed to meld into the rock trail.
As with Gabriel, this was so sudden and unexpected. But unlike Gabriel, we had the body in front of us, and we didn’t need the telltale vibration to know that Josh was dead. One leg was folded up beneath his, his chest pointing up. But his head was at an impossible angle, neck obviously broken, and a bloody dimple caved in his temple.
We all stood there in silence looking at him. I barely noticed the St. Bernard come out of a hidden compartment near the cliff face and make its way down the cliff, articulated legs having no problem with the descent. We moved aside. According to our pre-show brief, we were supposed to ignore the St. Bernards. I couldn’t help but stare, though, as the white, box-like machine with the red cross painted on it approached Josh. The others had presumably seen the one which came for me, but being dead, I’d sort of missed it. And they never showed the St. Bernards on the holo. Oh, you could find a few surreptitious stills of them on various fan sites, but it was both sickening and fascinating at the same time to finally get a close-up view of one. A tube came out of the side of the machine and inserted itself into his throat, probably in his carotid. We couldn’t actually see the stabilizing fluid pump into him, but we knew that was what was happening. I shuddered, knowing that this had happened to me just a short time ago, probably from the same St. Bernard.
I heard a shout from above, then looked up to see Yash on the bridge, just now realizing what had happened. He was yelling down at us, but with the roar of the water, we couldn’t quite make out his words.
Technically, we should be moving on, but we just stood there. Yash started shouting again, looking toward Indian Territory and pointing down to us. I guessed the cavalry had arrived. Two modern ropes came over the side, just the right length to reach us on the bottom. Four people, completely covered from head to foot in green, came whipping down the ropes. As with the St. Bernards, we weren’t supposed to look at them, but in the constrained space, it was hard not to. The editors were going to have to do a lot of cutting and framing with their feeds.
Without a word, the four field team members reached down and rolled Josh onto a fabric hammock. The St. Bernard moved over to settle on top of him, then the team hooked the hammock onto the ropes. After they fastened their belts onto the hammock as well, one of them pushed a button on a small box, and the whole lot of them silently lifted up, using their legs to keep the hammock from bouncing off the rocks. The stopped right at the edge as two of them climbed over Josh and the hammock to reach the top, then guide Josh over. The whole evolution took probably less than two minutes.
“Well, now we move on.” Hamlin reached over to our rope, still hanging there. He climbed up, having only a little problem at the top where Yash helped him over the edge. I was next, tying the vine rope around my chest before going up. The rest followed without incident, even Julie. We made our way back over the bridge to Haven to await the results of the viewer voting.
Chapter 5
The trout steaks were comfortably in our bellies, and now Ratt, Lindadawn, and I were minding the smoking of the rest. Losing the one trout when Josh fell hurt, but we’d still brought back two fairly good sized fish.
During the premier episode of Darwin’s Quest, the contestants pretty much knew nothing about survival. But with so much money and fame at stake here, most follow-on contestants went through private crash-courses in survival training before arriving on the set. Building a fire from scratch was child’s play for most of us, and without refrigeration, smoking meat was another pretty valuable survival skill. We were the second shift, following Joda, Bernie, and Paul, and our job was to monitor the temperature and smoke production. Smoking fish was pretty easy, but a lapse in attention could ruin the catch.
Ratt and I were laughing and comparing battle scars. We had mirror image bruises on our faces, but overall, she won our little competition. Her small body was covered in bruises and scrapes. These would fade quickly as our nanos repaired the abused flesh, but they were then still badges of honor.
“Pretty good for a youngster,” I told her, taking her chin in one hand and turning her face so I could better see one of her bruises.
“Who’re you calling a youngster?” she asked with a smile.
“You, that’s who. And you should be respecting your elders, Lindadawn and me.”
“Speak for yourself there, grandpa,” Lindadawn added.
“Why, how old do you think I am?”
“Bagwan,” she said with a very broad smile. “I’m thirty-three.”
I looked at her in amazement. Thirty-three? She was basically my age.
“I told you what I do back in Bangkok, right?”
“Yes, you’re in personal management,” replied Lindadawn.
“Well, what I do is fire people.” She looked around for a moment as if trying to spot a cam. “I probably shouldn’t name the company here where it can be broadcasted, but let’s just say it is a major one, and I travel to our corporate offices throughout the ASEAN Compact to make sure we are streamlined. And that means I fire people. I’m young for that as it is. Do you think any multinational is going to give that job to a twenty-year old?” She seemed to think that idea was funny.
It was hard to picture this petite, laughing pixie bringing down the hammer on employees though. But I guess she had proven her mettle when she jumped on a fish weighing just about as much as her. Alfhid had started to call her “Super Ratt,” and I guess the name sort of fit. I liked Ratt, and even though we were about the same age, I still had a bit of the older brother feeling in wanting to look after her. I had to keep reminding myself, though, that I didn’t want her to get too popular with the viewers. This was still a competition, and what if the two of us were both up on the same repechage? Alfhid’s nickname for Ratt could only serve to endear her with the viewers, making her a serious threat.
Lindadawn moved the fish filets a little closer to the fire. Where Ratt was all cuteness, Lindadawn was all business. She was an attractive woman, if you looked at her closely. Her red hair, angular face, and well put-together body made for a pretty package, but her intense expression stole the attention and took away from the rest.
Darwin's Quest: The Search for the Ultimate Survivor Page 5