We maintained a small store of footballs, tennis rackets, even cricket bats and related equipment for potential use in the future. It was hoped that these games would remain of some interest when we were able to leave our current home and return outside. When this occurred we would ensure that we had sufficient space to allow the playing of such physical games for the health benefits they provided.
At the end of the seventh month post impact the old man Alison Ramos died. He was assisted in his departure, at his request, with the agreement of his family and the administering doctor. He was, therefore, able to depart this life with his family around him. He was visibly content, even happy, to have been given the right to choose the time and date of his termination. It was his wish to leave this world without major discomfort. He enjoyed a comfortable and communal life while he was with us and was given a dignified departure which, though moving for his family, was satisfying to everyone.
It was a sad group that reverently carried old man Ramos out and temporarily buried him in a fine though, of necessity, simple coffin made by the carpenter. The funeral took place under the glow of many wind up torches. Because of the conditions and the frozen ground we had to inter him in a shallower grave than we would have liked at some distance from the shelter. This was partly so he would not contaminate our water supply but being buried at the highest edge of the shallow river basin, which had protected us during the deluge, he would have a fine view of the valley in the future. We would eventually build up the grave and provide a permanent headstone when the ground became less permanently frozen and we had managed to find a suitable stone for the monument.
We were now living solely on our internal resources and had, for the present, to be totally self sufficient in all things. Our security was maintained ever watchful, though at a much lower level than we would later consider necessary. We were aware that the risk of a dangerous encounter with an external enemy, while the external conditions were so horrendous, was low. It, however, remained necessary, for our safety, to be watchful at all times as we all accepted the maxim that the unexpected is sure to happen. In addition it was better for the watchers to build up an expertise and understanding of their systems during a period of lower risk than to allow over confidence.
The external temperature was known to be very cold though we made no effort to measure it. Knowledge of such data would bring no benefit either at that time or in the future. We were aware that there were periods of high wind and some snow but again we only knew of such events via observation through the periscope which, at best, was very limited.
I remained satisfied with our observational efforts as any external mammalian predators would be the bearer of some form of light and should be visible at a reasonable distance. During this period day and night outside our shelter were almost indistinguishable when viewed through our periscopes. For this reason the watching security personnel had to be regularly relieved to prevent boredom resulting in reduced concentration.
The shelter temperature remained comfortable on the animal floors though a little colder, but still acceptable if one was reasonably protected or exercising, on the habitation floor. We were, at this time, having two small, warm, meals a day and a twice daily hot drink, with sugar or sweetener for all who wanted it. We were determined to live as comfortably as possible while remaining within our agreed energy and material usages.
We had organized and separated the tin food storage on our food floor into both types and use-by dates that it could be taken as required and in the proper order. The hanging dry food, jamon etc., had been set up in a separate area and the long term bucket stored food was set up, again by type and date, within a relatively large area, allocated for this purpose, in a corner of the food store floor. By observation it appeared that we had an abundance of food but most of us were only too aware that we had to use it sparingly as it might have to last a long time; possibly even longer than expected. We certainly could not grow enough in our allocated agricultural space to feed us all.
When we had successfully survived the first eight months post impact the fish tanks were full of water from the early period, the salination level of the external water, at our height and slope, had rapidly returned to almost normal and was drinkable but was not yet being used for the fish; mainly as it was unnecessary. The fish had been fully distributed and the tanks were manually aerated, cleaned and filtered, always with great care, several times a day. This task fell to those who were non specialists in our required studies hence largely women during this early period though this changed radically later. We soon had more volunteers than required. Watching the fish grow provided an alternative attraction for us all but most especially for those volunteers and the children.
The agriculture space had been fully set up and our first produce, some lettuce, was appearing on our table as had some of our other attempts at high density cultivation. The grafted fruit trees (grafted on stock roots) had been planted in their tubs and we were hopeful that within a year we would see some results appearing on our tables. People, during their non work periods, were sitting and relaxing in the library area reading books and occasionally involved in casual conversations with their friends. Here, every day, we were able to watch a film or, sometimes, a requested documentary. The presentation was normally chosen by the librarians though everyone was able, even encouraged, to make requests to those responsible for the library.
In those early days the television and presentations proved a great attraction to fill in our relaxation periods. As time passed and the inmates became more relaxed other attractions such as conversation, music and poetry became of greater interest. It was, however, true that the visual presentations continued and remained well attended until we were able to leave the shelter. The ability to fully relax within a visual story, requiring no mental input, proved popular to the end. Fortunately, however, we had no artificial talk shows or soaps.
Work proceeded on our projects and most of us being, at least, content and comfortable if not always cheerful. The work rota was acceptable to all probably because everyone had been involved in its creation. Their being no-one in overall charge there were some divisions but these were nearly always resolved within the groups. I had become the accepted judge, by common consent, in any of the very few unresolved disputes we had at this time. Fortunately I, or my deputy, were at this time very rarely requested to become involved and when involved our adjudication was always accepted.
The problem of energy conservation, utilization and allocation were always problems. We had, nominally, only fourteen hours of about three kilowatts for normal use. This had to be distributed to battery charging, lighting and the air-pumps as priority. Then we had to allocate sufficient for cooking, enhanced short period lighting in the library (for psychological purposes), children’s play area lighting, showers (Since sustainable reasonably fresh water had become available from outside) for approximately 50% of the population each day. These showers took approximately two hours of six hundred and fifty watts. Some energy allocations for projects were made at the request of the project leaders. Any welding had to be performed using acetylene gas, on the upper extension floor, whenever possible but electric welding would be authorised as a last resort using batteries, not the main units, supported by a small second petrol generator. This was to ensure that the surging demand would not damage our main generators.
The main generator had to be continually monitored during its functioning period. This task was allocated to Mr. Sanchez who had been assigned, as an apprentice, the blacksmiths daughter, Sarah Thomas. This bright young lady had eagerly volunteered for the task. She learned her duties well and within a few months was watching the generators on a 60%/60% basis with her apprentice master. The time overlap was required as for some of the time it was necessary for them to work together to improve her practical education related to their charges. At other times they monitored their charges individually though when physical work was required they functioned as a pair fo
r safety reasons.
The two worked well together and the result was that we rarely had any unplanned outages. Their work arrangement allowed one of them to attend lectures at the schools and entertainments when these were available (film shows could only be presented, by design, while the generator was operating). Their meals were, at their request, brought to them at the power station that they would be eaten hot. Attending at mealtimes as individuals would not have allowed them both the luxury of a warm meal which we considered was psychologically important. For this reason their meals were uniquely delivered to their workplace.
The onerous duty of being an internal night guard fell to almost everyone. This was, in the early days, performed by four persons allocated to the task for a four night rota followed by a rest day. Almost everyone was listed for guard duty; the exception being those who were on call at any time such as the doctor or vets or those involved in continuous tasks such as the monitoring the generators or the battery. We tried to arrange that families would work together on this task wherever possible as it helped with their sleep routines. The alternative would be that the home was unavailable to the family while the night worker rested. This would have been an inconvenience for most families.
The primary task allotted to the night guard was the monitoring of the air quality and the maintaining of that air quality using hand pumps whenever, which was rare, the battery pumps proved insufficient. Manual support was rarely required and was very hard work for the small number on guard duty. Had it been required more often we would have had to increase the rota to the disadvantage of all.
Another task was to monitor the external observation systems. This, however, was not very useful in the early days except to look for the external lights that would be necessary for any external movement; later this task was allocated to a separate specialized group. Another task was to aerate the fish tanks three times a night as these fish were considered a potentially important source of protein. They were also required to regularly monitor the other animals to ensure their security. The night guard had instructions that if they encountered any abnormal event affecting our animals they were to immediately call the duty vet. It should be noted that some of these tasks were largely make work but we considered they were beneficial to the overall system.
The guards themselves would usually have considerable spare time during their allocated work period. For this reason they were allocated an area where light, sufficient for reading, was available to them in the library. Their duties meant that they had to attend their monitoring stations, in pairs, at defined times; much of this rota being partially designed to reduce the effects of boredom.
In the library there were two of our grandfather clocks (actually one was a grandmother clock) such that those on rota could monitor the time for their tasks. One of the rota’s tasks was the winding up and correcting these clocks at the start of their shift. The tasks, as they were ordained, were not arduous and in those early days we had no problems. Later when the external weather was less extreme the monitoring of external threats was allocated to a small team of dedicated personnel both day and night.
Those who were dedicated to night monitoring of the external threat were allocated a double banked rota of two persons relieving each other on a two hourly basis. The task was both stressful and boring but we considered it of sufficient importance to require constant vigilance justifying the use of scarce personnel not allocated to a project.
Chapter 10. Opening The Doors.
After about eleven months a pale watery sun reappeared in an obscure sky over a dreary and frozen world. We were all pleased to see it even if it brought an increased risk of potentially dangerous visitors. More beneficial to our morale, however, it suggested that we might, within a few years, return to some form of surface living. We might then be able to produce fresh food for us and possibly others at a time well within our most optimistic projections.
In the beginning of our saga, as we have described, we had had more time than the vast majority of people to prepare our shelter accommodation. Because of this we were able to build into our shelter a limited Faraday cage to reduce our shelter’s external electromagnetic transmissions. Others would probably not have had the knowledge, ability or time to achieve this and we hoped to find survivors by looking for their electronic emissions. We intended to limit our exposure to any large group until we had decided that our objectives were, at least, compatible with theirs.
We desired no confrontations, however limited, as this could become wasteful of human life. This was something so valuable to our future that it could potentially result in our society’s collapse or overthrow. This would be totally unacceptable and to prevent such a happening we would be prepared to use all our resources. We would not accept association with any form of dictatorship: Especially not a military one or one based on the old elitist political order that had done so much harm to our previous civilization and freedoms.
We would happily negotiate with any amongst whom we could associate for mutually benefit. We would even consider the possibility that we could support, if our means were sufficient, a suitable struggling group that would accept our assistance to facilitate their survival. We would never force anyone to accept our political philosophy, such as it was, but neither would we be prepared to join anyone proposing a philosophy unacceptable to us.
We had discussed the possibilities and a much favoured option, for us, would be that we could become associate members of a like minded group with whom we could achieve a state of mutual support and understanding. We would, however, only consider joining with a group that were operating on principles we could accept as truly democratic. The exact form of that democracy we would be prepared to discuss as long as it did not involve any other form of elitism. Plato’s republic would be an anathema to us. A person would be accepted on the basis of their input to society and never on the basis of their birth.
We decided to use the recently improved conditions to make a survey of the state of our immediate physical surroundings; including an electromagnetic survey to look for possible survivors. Any such group that we found, after analysis of their circumstances, could be offered the prospect of joining us for mutual or even unilateral, from our side, assistance if the could meet our target of suitability.
The shelter inmates proposed using the same group of adventurers as had been chosen for the previous adventures. It was considered that those who had participated previously had the necessary survival experience to meet the much improved external environment existing at that time. We, being the members of that adventuring group, certainly had no objections to this decision. In fact we very much welcomed it and looked forward to the possibility of further adventures. The only change we made for this adventure was the addition of another willing volunteer; Miguel Ramos. He was the second pharmacist and would be our medical support and hopefully be able to provide any necessary medical assistance to any survivors we might find. He was also available to act as an additional beast of burden which our previous experience had demonstrated was necessary for any longer distance adventures.
Our intention was to eventually make another visit to the rich mans shelter to provide a reasonably baseline for fixing the direction of any electromagnetic sources we might observe on our travels. This would allow, with measurements taken at other reference points, the calculation of the position and distance of any electromagnetic sources we so desperately wanted to observe.
We were authorized, on this trip, to examine the valley, or saddle, further up the mountain to examine the potential for a large scale collapse of another obstruction. If this was observed we should be able to investigate if such a movement constituted a potential danger to our shelter. We would also benefit from that visit by taking a directional fix on any observable electromagnetic sources. We were advised that we should not, unless it was essential (this became important later), use more than the minimum energy resources required for our mission.
We were als
o requested to look for any structures that might benefit the future investigation and use of our new world. These structures would include the previously observed bridge remains but additionally any roads and houses that might be restorable hence, by such works, allow us to travel round our domain with more comfort and less personnel risk. The possibility of finding any complete facility in the valley was considered unlikely but any surviving infrastructure, damaged or not, could be potentially useful. If we considered it possible we were also to look into potential survivor indications other than that perceived by the electromagnetic survey.
As planned our journey would take six days and we intended to use our sledge to transport supplies. These would now, due to improved light conditions, include a rifle with telescopic sights. We had no wish for violence but it was thought that a desperate group might consider our stores a valid reason to attempt an assault so we took this defensive weapon which could also be used as a visual aid. The quality of observation allowed visual references over a fair distance but regrettably remained far from perfect.
On this occasion we would be unable to use the GPS as it had become very unreliable; if it worked at all. This made planning and map reading, outside of our area, a problem as many of the landmarks, on our map, might no longer exist or would be beyond visual range. Still we had the immovable mountain peaks which should be sufficient for navigation; if we could see them with sufficient clarity.
We set out and after about two kilometres we took our first electromagnetic survey reading. We had climbed some distance above the level of our shelter but did not go to the top of the hill as this was not within our remit and would, therefore, be merely a waste of energy and time. Our survey was made looking towards the north taking careful reading over slightly more than 180 degrees; this being the unobstructed observable area available to us. The rise behind our shelter limiting our view to the south and to the east and west this was further limited, in the middle distance, by vaguely seen mountains. To the north the far distance was similarly obstructed; though visually we were unable to see to that distance. This provided a reasonable coverage of an area we hoped to be able to explore with our then means of transport; our feet.
Our asteroid survival: A fictitional history of the ten year survival of a large ELE asteroid impact by a small, pre advised, group Page 24