Diggory's World (Wayworld Book 1)

by T. Daniel Sheppeard

  I returned to my makeshift home and breakfasted on emergency rations, all the while watching the coming and going of the fauna. Many of the chimney-dactyls and other animals exited the field northwestward after their meals, so I decided my next water-hunt would take me that way.

  I left the augie and trod across the field the same way. The ground rose sharply on that end of the field and the scrubby bushes and ferns grew denser, but in very short time came to a ridge and began descending in a long, gradual slope. In the not-too-great distance, the plains were interrupted by a ribbon of low-lying teal-leafed trees, suggesting river to me.

  A little more travel brought me to denser brush and the distinct sound of flowing water. I pushed through the brush and trees until I was rewarded by the sight of a large creek. The banks were not particularly steep and consisted of reddish mud speckled by smooth brown rocks. A rocky outcropping jutted immediately opposite of me.

  I approached to see water was flowing gently by. I waded out into a shallow portion of the stream by a rocky bit and filled a newly emptied bottle with water that was only the tiniest bit murky. I hadn’t figured out how I would purify it yet, but I had water. I laughed. I might still starve, or die alone in solitary madness, or die of some alien infection or be eaten by a giant three-eyed kangaroo, but I wouldn’t die of thirst. I washed my face and hands in the cool water, inhaling its mossy smell.

  More animals congregated at the creek. Several chimney-dactyls flew off as I looked around, and several small clusters of the strange bat-winged birds flitted in to drink, then away again. I may have glimpsed a snake on the opposite bank—an idea I did not relish since snakes creep me out.

  A few of the quadrupeds from the field, which were about the same size and general build as a moose, stood ankle-deep in the creek, bending their freakishly long heads (two feet of narrow snout attached to the neck with little additional rounding for the skull) down to drink. Their apparently hairless skin was mottled shades of burnt orange and burgundy, and looked like it had a pebbly texture. They had small black eyes situated low on the sides of their heads, no visible ears, and two tiny conical horns topping their skulls. They walked about on long legs that terminated in large, three long-toed feet with strong bird-like claws on the end. Short, thick tails dangled alongside their powerfully built hind legs.

  My attention was snapped away by fish in the stream. Long, thin, sinuous fish, almost eels, with broad fan-shaped fins. Fish! Provided they weren’t poisonous to earthlings, I wouldn’t starve! Unlike my dad, I was never much of a hunter, but like Dad said: “Hunting takes skill, but any fool can catch a fish”—a fact I proved by consistently taking more fish than he did, prompting no end of laughing and backpedaling and explaining that he didn’t mean it like that. Of course, I had no fishing line, hooks, or bait, so… I still might starve.

  Purple-black water-weeds grew in deeper basins in the creek. Given its resemblance to seaweed, I determined to take some with me. Not wanting to wear wet clothes, I undressed and left my things on the rocks, waded out into the creek with my stone knife, and cut several stalks. I laid them on the rocks to dry and used my shirt as a towel for my feet, donned my boots and explored the creek bank some more. Some comical sight I was, no doubt: a naked man in boots balancing on rocks checking out plants, bugs, flowers, and stones.

  I picked some round yellow fruit, about the size of golf-balls and carried them back to my clothes. By now I was mostly dry, so I put on my flight suit, leaving my undershirt off to use as a bag for my creek weeds and fruit. I bundled everything up and started walking back to the field. My aim was entirely off. I had walked in what I’d thought was a straight line back toward the field, but in time I saw the field and augie a few hundred yards off to my right.

  However, my poor sense of direction had a small payoff: I came into the field looking at the augie from an angle I hadn’t bothered to examine before, allowing me to see that it had suffered a little damage. There was a small plate missing near the ejection thrusters and few bent and torn plates neighboring. After depositing my foragings I lay down next to the augie and inspected the hole. I saw wires and tubes within. I could identify only a little of what I saw, but it gave me two ideas.

  The first was to work on removing a bit of shattered ceramic plating on the edge of the hole. It took lots of prying and beating with a rock, but in time I had removed a couple of chunks about the size of my hand, each with a sharp edge. I also removed a jagged strip of metal about a foot long and an inch-and-a-half wide.

  The second was to dig out some wires from the augie. I carefully cut a wire and peeled back the insulation using the metal strip. I brushed the two wire ends together, but without result. I repeated the process until I found one that sparked. I smiled. I took out the medkit and shredded up a little gauze and opened a few alcohol swabs that I fastened to a stick poking out of the ground. I held the bare wires next to my kindling and brushed repeatedly. Sparks flickered and flickered. Holding my breath against discouragement, I kept flicking the wires. Until…

  The swabs caught fire. I had fire! Fire! I jumped up and shouted. I laughed. I crowed. I cackled. “Fire!” I shouted at the sky. “Fire! I am Prometheus!” Coming back to the moment, I stooped down and plucked up my improvised torch. Carefully shielding against any hint of wind, I carried it over to the spot where I had tried to start a fire the night before. I thrust the torch into the dried ferns and leaves and laughed as they caught fire.

  For the next hour I did nothing but tend my new fire. I added wood and kindling carefully building it up. I gathered rocks and brushed the ground and added the rocks in a ring around the fire, even building up the sides some to protect a little from wind. I wandered to the nearby woods and gathered more limbs. This time I also took my ceramic chunks and used them to cut a few fresh branches.

  Back at my landing site, I piled up my firewood and proceeded to shape my branches with stone, ceramic, and metal. I fastened my metal strip to one branch using tape from the first aid kit, and a ceramic piece to a shorter branch, fashioning a crude spear and axe. Silliness overtook me and I began dancing around the fire, waving my poorly made weapons.

  “Ugh! Me make fire! Me make pointy things! Uggah uggah!” After a moment, I wondered if maybe I should be eating something. I always got silly when I’m hungry.

  I finished off a protein bar and drank some water, then returned to my survival quest. Food. I couldn’t remember half of what Dad had taught me about finding edible plants, but I thought the first step was a skin test. I cut chunks off the creek weed and the yellow fruit with a thin skin like a tomato, and soft, pulpy flesh. I rubbed one chunk on the inside of each elbow, then pinched the piece in the same elbow for several minutes. There was no stinging, burning, or rashes.

  As I waited, I thought about water purification. I needed a way to hold water. Dad had boiled water once by dropping in hot rocks into a pan of water. I had no pan. I thought about the mylar emergency blanket, but was sure the heat would melt it. I had no container—yes I did! I had a helmet. If it was airtight, it was watertight, right?

  I clambered into augie and retrieved my helmet. The inside was padded with foam and cloth. I used my stone knife to dig out as much padding as I could, then used a burning stick from my fire to set the remaining padding alight. In a few minutes I had cleaned out most of the interior of the helmet, then spent about half-an-hour scraping it out as thoroughly as I could. It would never function as a helmet, again, but maybe it would suffice for a water pot. I turned it upside down, settled it on a few logs in the fire, and poured the water from the creek into it.

  While I waited for the water to boil, I proceeded to the next step in food testing. I held tiny pieces of each plant to my lips. Still no tingling, burning, or blistering. I waited a long time for my to boil. I guess the helmet was well insulated. But in time, it boiled a little. On earth, most bacteria and the like were killed by boiling. At least, I thought so. I let it boil a few minutes, then burned my fingers a little
trying to remove it from the fire, dropping the helmet, and spilling out at least half of the water. Blast. But still, progress was progress, if only a little.

  I still had no reactions to the plants, so I continued testing. I cut another piece of the fruit. It had a slightly sweet and acidic smell. Gingerly I placed the fruit in my mouth, and nearly vomited. It tasted that foul. I spat it out immediately. The taste was like ashes and sour milk. I couldn’t believe that flavor after that smell. Whether it was poisonous or not, I could not imagine I’d ever eat that.

  After rinsing my mouth with a bit of bottled water, I turned to the creek weed. The small amount I placed in my mouth had only a little flavor, faintly fishy and grassy. I chewed it for a while, being careful not to swallow any juices, spitting regularly. It tasted okay, but no matter how much a chewed it, the weed remained tough—I’d never be able to swallow it. I spat it out with a sigh.

  It was early afternoon. After making sure my fire was safe, I gathered up my spear, an axe, and my helmet to head back to the creek. I doubled back after only a few feet and also took a flaming branch from the fire, and stacked a little firewood in my helmet.

  Once back at the creek I piled up a little firewood and added the flaming branch, stoking it until I felt it would burn a while, then gathered a little more wood from the area. I filled the helmet from the creek and settled it on the fire. I removed my boots, took up my spear, and waded out into the stream to try my hand at spear fishing. I went to the spot where I had seen the eel-like fish before, but saw none in evidence. Perhaps they were morning feeders.

  I wandered up and down the stream for while, finding several small creatures: pale-colored fish things, numerous bugs, a large worm, but nothing to make a meal. I saw what I thought at first was a waterborne mushroom, but the cap flapped quickly, spurting the mushroom through the water. Something like patches of short, bluish grassy moss, and bits of reddish slimy clumps grew on rocks along the banks. I took a break and checked on my water, to find it was barely boiling. I rested a few minutes, then returned to my hunt.

  I returned later to my base with no fish, but a few more plants to try: a soft plump root and stem from the creek bank, a handful of purplish berries, and a leafy blue plant that smelled a little like dill and that I had seen spotted furry lizards nibbling. I had wanted to get back to base before nightfall, but that was approaching more slowly than I thought, giving me plenty of time to prepare before dark. I had no clock and therefore no way to measure time, but I had the impression that the day was longer on this world than on Earth.

  This world. I kept calling it this world, or this planet. It needed a name. Hmm. Lenaland? Nah. Augie World? Hmph. Lost-As-All-Get-Out? I shouted out, more to hear a human voice than anything else. “I hereby name you Diggory’s World!” No, this was not my world. I was a long way from home. Wayworld.

  The gravity on Wayworld seems greater than Earth’s.

  The day on Wayworld is slightly longer than Earth’s.

  I went through my food tests. The purple berries produced a rash on my arm, the others did not. The flesh of the root was soft and cut easily, revealing a grey-green interior with a subtle, sweet smell. I threw out the berries. I decided to cook the root/stem before further tests, but tried the blue leaf raw on the lip, then in the my mouth. It tasted faintly like dill with a trace of pepper. It chewed up fine, and I ventured to swallow a half-mouthful. The root/stem I placed on the edge of the fire. I ate some rations as I waited.

  As evening approached, a south wind kick up, making my fire flicker. I stacked up more rocks on that edge of the fire to shelter it. As the wind increased, it began flapping the parachutes of the augie.

  The parachutes! What a fool I’d been! I hadn’t even thought about them since I’d landed. I couldn’t believe they were lying there the entire time: huge swaths of cloth and long chord. They would come in handy for all kinds of things! I hurried about gathering up the two orange chutes and with a great deal of sawing with my makeshift knives, cut the chords off at the augie’s hull. I rolled up the chutes separately and tucked them under the edge of the augie.

  I turned myself back to the cooking root. I rolled it out of the fire, its grey skin charred, and let it cool. After several minutes I cut a piece off and tested it. After a little chewing the flavor was very unappetizing—not nauseating, but very unappealing: bittersweet with an strong grassy nature. I spat it out and tossed it aside. I might come back to it if I got desperate.

  I checked the augie’s comm for the fourth or fifth time. The panel showed that the beacon was still operative, but I had received no hails. I realized suddenly how foolish I had been to cut the wires I had, not knowing what they did, since I could have shut off the beacon or the coms. Luckily, I had cut neither.

  I was tired when night fell. I fortified my fire as best I could and bedded down in the augie. I’d felt less lonely today: I was busy and fascinated by Wayworld. Now I slowed down and had time to ponder. How many nights had I gone to sleep with no one to say goodnight to? How few times it had ever bothered me before. But now it was different. There was no one to talk at all; no one to call; no one to think about seeing the next day. This was loneliness.

  Night made it worse. I wished the sun would rise. It didn’t, of course, but the green moon did. I smiled sadly at the odd friend who had cheered me the night before. “Nice try”, I whispered. I fell asleep amidst lonely and lost thoughts, dreamed jumbled and troubled dreams, and awoke the next morning some time before dawn.

  I couldn’t see much of anything, and would have waited for light to rouse if not for my bladder. So I quietly and slowly moved out of the augie and took a glowing branch from the dwindled fire and made my way to my designated toilet. Relieving myself while holding a glowing ember proved to be a challenge.

  I came back to the augie and noticed the moon was low in the western sky, and that it was followed some way behind by a smaller, whiter moon, barely big enough that I was sure it was a moon. There was a little movement on the edge of the clearing, but nothing going on very close to the fire (such as it was). I built up the fire a bit and washed up using boiled creek water.

  Having had no adverse reaction to the pepper-dill plant, I washed up a couple of palm-sized leaves and ate them with my rations. The sun was rising and I could see the wildlife returning to my field: the long-legged quadrupeds with the funny heads, bat-birds, chimney-dactyls, fur-lizards.

  I saw a new addition: a dark-colored animal about the size of cocker spaniel, hairless, with wide-spread legs and a short tail, with two long tusks that sprouted from the corners of its wide mouth and curved inward. It rooted about with its tusks, munching on whatever it found. I made a point to keep my distance from anything with teeth that size.

  I loaded myself up and made another trip to the creek. I could get there quickly now, as I knew the way and had already worn a little bit of a trail of trampled ferns and broken twigs.

  I set up my base of operations and started wading. Again I saw the eel-like fish. I crept up slowly and hefted my spear. It struck rocks and mud as the fish wiggled away. A few more attempts and I was left with no eels in the area.

  I traveled upstream this time. I found no more shallows with the eels collecting in them, but more bugs and more animals eating plants. I made a note of what they were eating, to pick on my way back.

  On a shaded muddy bank I saw several creatures moving about. I approached carefully to find what looked like six-to-twelve inch long wood-lice with multiple long legs. My first reaction was disgust at giant bugs, but the wood-louse they resembled was a crustacean. I had no problem with crabs, shrimp, lobster, or the like. I guess no one ate the woodlouse, it was so tiny, but these would make a meal.

  Slowly I crept up, spear readied. The creek louse nearest me scurried away and plopped into the river, startling a few others. The closest was still five or six feet away. I lunged at it with my spear, missing the creature by mere inches and plunging across the muddy surface. The remaining animals
skittered away on crab-like legs and plunged into the creek.

  I picked myself up and retrieved the spear. I hunted about for more creek lice (I had to figure out a better name for them if I wound up eating them!) and found that one had hidden in a nook under some tree roots. It had nowhere to go. The tip of my spear hovered an inch over the water. I slid one foot in closer and stabbed down in a quick jab, striking just behind the head with a a crunch. The legs of the creature curled under it, but that was its sole response. I pulled it out with my spear and carried it to my fire. It was a just small enough to fit into my helmet, so I decided to boil it like a lobster.

  I returned to my hunting and soon found another school of the eel-like fish, but had no better luck spearing them than last time. The sun rose higher and more animals came to the river, mostly in the distance. I saw more bird-like creatures, all with either bat or pterodactyl wings, many with discernible beaks, but nothing like feathers. Some had naked leathery skin, some fur. I nearly stepped on a thick-bodied, four-foot-long snake or worm with a round, tooth-filled mouth and a flattened body, and a frill-like fringe down either side of its body. It quickly slithered into the creek and swam away.

  And then there were the bugs. Flitting and flittering about, landing on my face or arms. I brushed them away and swatted a few, but the smear one left behind stung my skin, so I washed it off with mud and water. After that, I refrained from swatting them.

  Soon I returned to my camp to find the water boiling steadily and the carapace of the creek louse turning a shade of reddish purple. How to tell when it was done? A lot of earth crustaceans turned red or pink, but what about this world? I waited a while and let my clothes dry while I searched for more plants. I found plenty of the pepper dill, but didn’t pick any.