by Brian King
“So, the dinosaurs are also alien to you?” I asked in my friendliest voice.
“Everything is so alien here,” Galmine started to say. “The trees that pierce the sky. The mountains and endless ocean. Even you, Victor. But, yes, the most alien things are those creatures who seek to devour us.”
“Thanks,” I said with my biggest smile. “I’m just trying to figure out why they chose monsters from my world.” It wasn’t an occasion for a smile, but I had to pretend otherwise.
“Anything for you,” Galmine said with a brightening face.
I didn’t have to ask Trel. If she had dinosaurs on her world, I was sure she would come out and brag about it, so her silence was her answer.
I’d learned something important: we were on a world designed like prehistoric earth. If this really was some kind of game, I figured the aliens in charge wanted the deadliest predators they could find. While part of me scoffed at the notion dinosaurs were the worst killers in the universe, I didn’t dismiss it out of hand. Why else would the aliens travel back 100 million years to get them?
We dropped back to our tasks as the conversation waned. With all my tweaks, I finished my axe about an hour later. When I was done, I held up the handle and looked at the lively fire through the long, thin hole. All I needed was a piece of wood to tap it in.
“Is it really this easy?” I said to both women.
“Yes, although you will want to fire the wood,” the feline warrior replied. “It will remove moisture and prevent breakage.”
It only took a couple of minutes over the hot flames before it was done. Sheela, as our resident weapons expert, let me know when it was perfect. After it cooled, I set the rock blade into the now-hardened slot and used a small piece of firewood to hammer it home.
“Right on!” I declared. “This thing is awesome.” The axe looked like something out of an exhibit for prehistoric man or mythical Dwarves. The blade was held in place by the pressure of being forced into the narrow crack. Every time the axe struck something, it would force it in a little tighter. I sat there beaming with pride and swung it a few times like I was chopping a tree.
“We need to make another one of these tomorrow,” I said to Sheela. “I bet we can make the second axe in less than an hour.” Finding another cutting rock would be the only challenge, but Trel found one without even looking. The whole hillside was strewn with similar stones.
“Agreed,” Sheela replied.
“But, I think we need to get some rest,” I said as if testing the idea. I wasn’t sure how long we’d been at it, but it felt like midnight at least. We needed to be up at dawn.
“I’m almost done, Victor,” Galmine answered, finally sounding like she’d lost some of her cheerleader spunk.
Both women worked through their last bits of leaves in the next few minutes. First Sheela and then Galmine put down their coils of cords after tying off the ends, so they didn’t come unraveled.
“We have a nice door now, but I think we need someone at the entrance while we are sleeping,” I said.
“Which shift do you want me to take?” Sheela asked, once again proving she was anxious to be told what to do. I was wrong about our whole back and forth earlier; there was nothing sexual about her request to get orders from me.
“Sheela, why don’t you take the first shift. I’ll take the middle. Galmine, will you take the last shift?” I suggested.
“You like it when we meet in the darkest of nighttime, don’t you?” Galmine tried to be sexy, but she also sounded exhausted. That’s why I gave her the last shift. It definitely wasn’t because I wanted to hear her whisper sweet things in my ear or finally give me a kiss.
“I look forward to it,” I said.
Chapter 10
The rest of the night flew by while we took turns keeping watch. On my shift, I could occasionally see the flashes of the giant fireflies in the grove, but that was outdone by an early morning lightning display from a powerful thunderstorm. It was the first rain I’d seen on the planet and made me realize we’d need some kind of shelter inside our fort to keep out the weather.
During the storm I couldn’t stop thinking of all we could do with rainwater. We could use some of those elephant ear-sized plant leaves to capture a downpour and guide the water into our pots. We’d need Galmine to make lots more pots, or just a giant one to store a larger quantity. Or, better yet, we could dig a hole and line it with clay so we’d have a full-on collection pond. Hell, if we did it right we’d probably never need to go to the stream again.
My to-do list and stress levels exploded while I planned each detail of our forthcoming rainwater project. There was too much to do, and not enough time to do it.
Water, and how to capture it, was still on my mind when Galmine nudged me.
“My turn, Victor,” she said in a delightful whisper.
“Oh, thank god,” I replied. I’d reached my limit guarding the door and was ready to fall over. I did get a couple of hours of rest before Sheela tapped me awake for this middle shift, but I figured out right away my body was desperate to get back to sleep. The thunder of the storm and planning for our water helped keep me awake, but that excitement had vaporized by the time Galmine nudged me.
“Get to sleep, Victor,” she said with a mischievous smile. “I can tell you are not in the mood for more.”
“I, uh, don’t know what I want. I can barely think,” I said with dreary eyes and slurred words. I’m sure my face must have been a confused mix of exhaustion and desire.
Her touch was magnetic on my arm as she led me to the fire and then guided me onto my back. Even though she crouched there with the appearance of being naked, I couldn’t keep my hundred-pound eyelids open.
“Maybe tomorrow night you’ll be on the last shift, and you can come and get me,” Galmine said in a lullaby-sweet voice.
“Maybe tomorrow night,” I repeated as if I was already dreaming.
“I will think about it all day while you are out there protecting us,” the sexy stone woman breathed into my ear. After a brief pause, she kissed my cheek.
I opened my eyes for a moment, hoping I could answer her, but she was already up and headed back toward the entrance. Her hourglass shape and soft curves glimmered in the firelight as she sauntered away. The way she walked revealed a cute little thigh gap between her legs, and I immediately fought against sleep like a drowning man in the water. I wanted to admire it for just a few more seconds, but it was no use. My eyes surrendered to sleep before she reached the gate.
“Victor, wake up,” Sheela said in a low voice.
“Well, shit,” I answered when I saw the daylight through the doorway. My bones, muscles, and joints were all in pain from spending so much time on the ground. It reminded me why I wanted to build a bed. I put that back into my job jar.
“I’m sorry, Sheela. It isn’t you,” I chuckled. “I swear the nights are shorter than home. It feels like I just laid down.” The pain was bad enough, but I also felt drained from a night of bad dreams. Rather than pleasant visions of Galmine’s body, I had terrible nightmares of being twisted and then rolled up and down one of Trel’s spider legs like I was a piece of cord.
I tried not to disturb Galmine as I sat up and put on my hat. The beautiful granite woman was curled up asleep right next to me, and I didn’t want to wake her. Jinx was also sleeping in her arms. It looked like she was snuggling with a blue-feathered teddy bear.
“I am waking you up, as you instructed me, but I am fine to go get water by myself.” She had the new jugs hooked onto opposite ends of a spear and balanced on her shoulders, just as I planned to do. I looked them over and then focused back on her. It was tempting to order her to do something safe, so I could take the greater risk and get the water, but that would start me down a dangerous path. I couldn’t afford to play favorites, and I had to put everyone where they could do the most good no matter how dangerous it was for them.
I wiped my eyes to clear them of the horrible night of sleep and
hopped up onto my feet.
“You’ve got a spear, so that’s good,” I said. “It’s a shame we can’t throw the original water pot on your back.” The jug-carrying spear would also serve as her weapon if she got into trouble, but I would hate to have her go out and leave the old pot behind.
“You will just have to think of a more efficient system than this,” the feline woman said as she gestured the contraption over her shoulders.
“Okay, we’ll use the little pot for something else,” I replied. “You be safe and get the water, then come back and collect firewood. I’ll work with the new axe until you return.”
“I will be safe,” she answered.
We walked to the tree-barrier we used as a door, and together we pushed it out of the entrance so we could step through. Though the axe was a kind of weapon, I figured a spear would be more useful defending against dinos, so I picked one up as soon as we exited.
“Your tree idea for this door really worked well, Victor,” Sheela said while she adjusted the spear on her back. “I slept better knowing it was there.”
I inhaled a deep breath of the cool morning air while we stood at the top of the ramp. The rocks and bushes near the entrance to the cave were damp from the overnight rain. It was a sign of how humid the day was going to be, and I guessed we were going to have to make an extra trip or two to get more water. The redwood grove looked fresh and new, but a lone roar from far away served as notice that the old threats were still out there.
I looked up to greet our pterodactyl friend but didn’t see her on her regular branch. She wasn’t perched on any of the other trees near us either, so I hoped the thunderstorm finally chased the dino-bird away.
“I know I keep saying this, but be extra careful. Our big bird is missing. She might be at the stream getting a fish,” I said to Sheela while pointing to the empty branch above us.
“I will be careful and quick,” Sheela said as she started down the ramp. Before she went more than a few paces, she stopped and turned back to me.
“Thank you for your concern about my husband last night, Victor.” She smiled a bit before she spun around and went into the redwood grove. The way she carried the jugs on the spear looked just like a barbell, and I could imagine her working out on Muscle Beach back home. I let myself get distracted watching her go, and she was well out of voice range before I thought to say, “You’re welcome.”
I felt uneasy when she became obscured by the bushes and ferns out in the grove. I watched as long as possible, but after a few minutes passed, I knew she was already well beyond the range of my help.
When she was gone, I added the bow and arrow to my to-do list. That would give me the ability to reach out and strike at things far away. Actually, what I needed was a 50 caliber BMG sniper rifle because every shooter game had something like it. With a huge telescopic scope and a perch up in a tree, I could probably protect Sheela all the way to the stream and back.
Before I let myself get needlessly worried, I took some more deep breaths. Every new item I added to my to-do list was another allocation of resources I needed to figure out. I also had to consider what order everything should be completed. We had spears, for now, so would bows and arrows get us that much more in the short term? Could we afford to delay other tasks to spend time on new weapons? At the moment, the most important task for me was proving the axe was going to do its job.
After walking down the ramp, I went to where Sheela and I had cut our first tree. Lots of the young growth pines and oaks were the correct size: about six inches across and maybe twenty to thirty feet tall. I walked up to one that looked relatively straight as I stretched the morning stiffness out of my shoulders.
There was a rustle of movement in the bushes beside the tree, and my heart leapt into my throat. I dropped my axe and then pointed my spear as my body flooded with adrenaline. Almost as soon as I prepared to defend myself, a small brown bird hopped out, squawked at me, and then took to the air. I let out a long sigh of relief and then bent down to pick up my axe.
I chuckled at being scared of what was basically a happy little robin while I gave the axe one last check. The wooden handle was three feet long with the flat rock wedged through the slot near the tip. The stone blade stuck out a little on the one side and had about five inches of cutting surface on the business side. I made a few practice swings in the air, and the axe's weight felt really good in my hand.
I lined up the first chop and mentally prepared myself for the same kind of pain I felt when I used the hand-axe rock. I also scanned the surrounding forest just to ensure nothing was going to jump out when I made some noise. After taking one last look at the trunk of my target, I made my first side-arm swing.
“Holy shit!” I yelled as quietly as I could. The pain wasn't nearly as severe as with the hand axe-rock, but my hands weren't recovered, so I set the axe down after a few swings to massage my aching fingers. After a few dozen seconds, I thought of Sheela's ability to ignore pain, and I picked the tool back up to continue my work.
I swung the axe again and blocked out any pain from my already-bruised hands. There was no question it was a ton better than holding a cutting stone like yesterday. It took about ten minutes, but the familiar cracks of the falling tree soon made me forget the pain.
“Hell yeah,” I said to myself as the tree fell over. An hour-long torture session was now a ten-minute walk in the woods.
There was no way to drag the tree to the construction site on my own, so I got to work on cutting the second one. Each chop came with a little pain, but it made all the difference to see those trees fall over after only eight or ten minutes of effort. The new tool was way more efficient.
I was dismayed that I owed a lot of our progress to Trel. Even though she claimed not to care, she somehow found the perfect rock to make this all possible. I would love to have her on our team, but her cooperation seemed less likely every time I spoke with her. The aliens must have brought me here to get challenged at every turn, even by my supposed allies.
I’d gotten through my fifth tree when I heard a distinctive dinosaur roar rip through the morning silence of the redwood grove.
“Time to go home,” I declared in a whisper. The roar was the same as the guttural trumpet we heard at the lake. I cocked my head to get a bearing on the source and then let out a gasp when another raging growl filled the forest.
The noise came from the direction Sheela went to get water.
I kept my axe and picked up my spear before running the twenty or thirty yards back to the ramp. I had an irrational fear something was coming up behind me, so I checked over my shoulder the whole way. I also mouthed the word “fuck” about a hundred times while I ran. Another roar lasted a full ten seconds, and it seemed a lot louder than before. That made me sprint even faster, and I nearly fell over when I tripped on the first part of the ramp’s slope. When I regained my wits and was sure nothing was going to grab me, I forced myself to stand there so I could keep an eye out for Sheela.
“Come on, Sheela, where the hell are you?” I said in a low voice as I waited for the redwood forest to cough up my friend. Sixty seconds later, she was still nowhere in sight, and I was losing my sanity.
Fuck. Why wasn’t she coming? If that roar didn’t get her to drop the water and sprint home, I didn’t think anything would. I had half a mind to run out into the grove after her, but the idea sped right past brave and into suicidal territory. Each passing second I didn’t see her, though, the idea seemed better and better.
Another primal bellow tore through the air from out where Sheela was supposed to be. Despite the risks, I was coming to terms with the crazy idea of going after her. My vision narrowed as I contemplated which way I was going to run.
While I stood there death-gripping both my weapons, Jinx hopped down the ramp behind me. He made an odd clicking sound with his beak, and I guessed he was trying to warn me of the giant fucking dinosaurs.
“Go back inside!” I commanded him, and the bird skidded
to a halt so that he could obey me. He ran back up the ramp toward the cave, and I turned back to wait impatiently for the warrior woman.
“Sheela!” I cried out, though not loud enough to be heard very far. I wanted to scream for her, but that was just as dumb as running toward the sounds of the terrible lizards.
“Fuck this. I’m going,” I said out loud. But I only took a couple steps when I caught sight of the feline woman fast approaching from my right. I could tell by the way she ran that the water containers were filled. She wasn’t sprinting, but her power walk was almost as fast as my run.
I ran a few more steps in her direction but stopped to let her come to me. She constantly looked over her shoulder, just as I had done a minute before, so I waved my axe to keep her focused on me.
Another roar shook the ground with a deep, gnarly rumble, and Sheela somehow sped up to a full run to cover the last fifty feet between us. A few heartbeats later a second howl replied from elsewhere in the forest.
“Hurry!” I said when Sheela was only ten feet away.
She remained grim-faced as she crossed the last few yards, but she smiled when she got next to me. Sweat soaked her body as if she’d finally found an activity that forced her to exert herself.
“Thank god you made it, let’s get inside,” I ordered when she was jogging by. I reversed my way to the ramp without turning my back toward the redwood grove. I was convinced the dinosaurs were closer than they sounded, but I still didn’t see anything.
Finally, I ran up the ramp after her. Galmine had been waiting at the gate, and the pair of women pulled it closed after I ran into the cave. Trel was also nearby and stood in “spider mode” using all of her legs, almost like she’d been in a defensive stance.
Without thinking about it, I wrapped my arms around Sheela in a tight bear hug. She was still breathing hard, so I quickly let her go. When we separated, I briefly saw that strange glow in her eyes once again.