During this time we tried to keep our guests entertained. We interrogated them, in a friendly manner, as we hoped for further expertise to supplement what we had. We found we had a pair of musicians but no instruments (they were later able to use those instruments in our stores) and a professional magician and entertainer. In addition we had a high class shoemaker, an inventor, a repairer of household equipment and a geologist who was conversant with the local area to the south of our abode. Not a bad selection in the circumstances
The inventor proved capable of producing useful items with material from our stores. His most useful initial idea, from our point of view, was a modification to our manual washing machine that improved the productivity and reduced the manual energy required. The maker of high class shoes educated our current shoemakers enabling them to produce a superior product. He was welcomed into our cobbling group though the production of shoes was not up to the new shoemaker’s previous standard but with our limited facilities they were the best we could hope for in the medium term.
At the end of the quarantine period we re-entered the shelter which we found rather expansive after our long incarceration in such a limited space. During our time in the cellar further homes had been prepared for our new guests. Some of the new accommodation was more like dormitories but our guests were more than satisfied with what they received. Compared with their previous accommodation, together with their little friends now hopefully deceased, their current conditions were considered almost a paradise. In addition their immediate fears of death by starvation had been removed.
Though our initial impression, on our return, was one of space the shelter was becoming a little crowded and we decided we would try to transfer a few volunteers to the rich mans shelter as soon as possible. This would be a problem as we wished to be able to communicate between the two units to allow for mutual support; especially considering the small number of transferee’s and their related security. We considered several options but the best solution, meeting our communication requirements, was a copper link between the two shelters.
A reasonable signal over such a distance, without amplification, would require a low impedance connection. For this reason the cable would have to be either large diameter copper, and therefore heavy, or preferably many strands of lighter wire; it would have been unrealistic to have introduced an amplifier with battery and the required technical support. We decided that we would attempt to find sufficient copper cable, from a high voltage transmission system, for an earth return system. The next problem was to provide a link unaffected by the occasional breaking of the river restriction further up the valley. We decided that to provide this feature we would first have to build a supporting structure on both sides of the valley’s restriction and then pull a suitable cable across. This would be a difficult task but it was one we considered within our capabilities.
To introduce such a link the initial problem was to find sufficient lengths of suitable multiple core cable to form the transmission medium. There were several power transmission routes, mostly over ground, in our vicinity. Our closest power transmission link to the lake village had been largely destroyed by the recurring breaking of the valley restriction. We had, however, seen surviving cable supporting structures supplying the village when we visited the rich mans cave. We resolved to look there for suitable cable as a priority.
We left on our new adventure shortly after completing our last visit to the other side of the hill. Using our vehicle we went to the rich mans shelter and spent the night there in some comfort. We were very pleased to be allowed to continue our adventures as it must have been a little cheerless for those working in the shelter without having the alternative of our exciting visits to the outside world.
It did not take long to find what was required as many pylons were undamaged (A pylon consists of relatively thin strong material that tends to be submissive of a blast) and most could be examined at a distance with our binoculars. We found that we could obtain more than sufficient copper, multi core conductor, high voltage transmission cable. It was fortunate that none of the cables were aluminium as this would, due to oxidization problems related to aluminium, have presented problems when joining the cables whilst maintaining a satisfactory conductive path. It was also beneficial that the cable was insulated external as uninsulated could not have been used on the ground. In fact we found sufficient cable to be able to leave untouched the cable to the village past the rich mans shelter. This was left intact as we intended, in the future, to open this village for some of our, hopefully, excessive population which would then require a communication link.
The problem, however, was that the insulated three phase cable was very heavy in the quantities we required. Some of the cables near the villages were in cable ducts including three phases and a neutral in a polythene sheath hence if we could use it we could lay this on the ground except at the valley restriction where we would have to maintain the cable below a support structure. Other cable we found was simple overhead dual core power cable being much lighter than the three phase cable. Weight was a problem as we had no cable drums and even if we had we had no vehicle immediately available to carry them. Our problems seemed to multiply as we considered solutions.
We started by pulling the cables from the ducts in lengths we could safely pull with our vehicle without damaging the cable. We would have to find some means of jointing the cables and twist jointing the individual multi core conductors was unrealistic. We calculated that using the route from the rich mans shelter via the restriction to our shelter would require over ten kilometres of cable. The average cable length was approximately one hundred and twenty meter so we would need one hundred and four pieces of cable making a total length of slightly less than twelve and a half kilometres requiring two hundred and ten connectors to make use of all the continuous copper available. With over twelve kilometres we would have sufficient to take care of any inaccuracy in our direct map measurements that might occur due to the rise and fall of the land. Finding sufficient cable required examination of several heavily damaged villages but was not excessively arduous and most of the time, in the improving environment, was actually enjoyable.
Each connector would have to be fully insulated from both the ground and other connectors. In addition as we now decided to attempt a voice communication system, instead of the earth return telex type we had originally considered, we required two joints at each cable end; we did not, however, require the earth.
The first task was the building of the structures required on each side of the restriction to support the cable. For these we used material recovered from damaged pylons and on each trip we dragged the slightly more than a one hundred meter length of the dual core cable to the position and two, one hundred meters of support cables to the rich mans shelter side of the valley’s seventy five meter restriction. We only wanted a structure about two and a half meters high consisting of two vertical components about four meters high (At least one and a half meters in the ground) supporting a u shaped girder crosspiece welded and bolted to the vertical constituent of the mounting. Lastly we set up a buttress towards the restriction welded to the crosspiece (and of course dug into the ground) so the quantity of material required was not great but conversely the work element was considerable.
As the weight of unsupported dual core cable remained significant, though considerably less than the three phase cable, the digging of a base required a lot of work for our little group. The ground at this point was almost frozen permafrost down to several meters. Each side of the restriction took two days as there was a requirement for four holes; three for the structure and the other to insert the structure holding the supporting wire.
The wire supporting hole was dug about six meters behind the main structure and we used an auger to go down about two and a half meters at an angle of forty five degree directed away from the main structure itself. Into each of these holes, on each side of the valley restriction, we hammered four of the concrete poles
we had recovered from our defences against the inundation. Transporting these items to the site caused us considerable problems.
To get the supporting cable across the restriction we could have walked over the restricted material, however, this would have been extremely dangerous. Our method was to attach a long piece of carefully laid out string to a thin long rod of metal that we fired from a rifle, set at an angle of forty five degrees, having its butt pushed into the ground. This technique proved effective. We then attached a rope well over three times the length of the restriction gap. This rope was pulled over to the other side until the original side had reached the end of the rope (the far end had more than enough rope to reach across the restriction gap.
The rope, at the edge of the restriction, was now tied to the supporting cable which was pulled across over the structure and connected to supporting poles, using specially made clamps provided by our metal experts, at both ends. The rope was then pulled back and the procedure repeated for the second support cable. The tension of the support cables was then increased using a high gain pulley system followed by a specially made tensioner resulting in each supporting wire being tensioned similarly. Next the communication cable was pulled across with wire carriers loops round the cable and supporting wires.
We now had a cable safely across the restriction and jointing the cables between the rich mans shelter and ours using specially made clamps was a relatively simple process though requiring the use of much energy and a small but significant fraction of our solder. Each joint was clamped and heated and solder melted into the joint. Insulating each jointed element required care but was achieved using some amalgamating tape for the joint. This was clamped and overlaid with simple cloth bandages from our cloth supply then this was further overlaid with some of our plastic. Within three weeks we had a fifty volt communication system with isolation capacitors protecting the microphones and earpieces taken from the antique telephone equipment collection found at the two houses near our shelter. The combined microphones and earpieces were ancient carbon granule units which we were quite capable of manufacturing; hence the technology we used was sustainable. If anyone wanted to talk the phone was remove from its holder connecting the battery to the cable and an LED would light at the distant end. In principle this was better than a bell as the telephone was stored, for convenience, in a low light area. The distant end would lift the telephone, the light was disconnected, and conversation would continue.
On completion of the communication link we added another support cable forming a rather precarious bridge that could be walked over one person at a time. We had noted that the valley restriction blockage would, in all probability, collapse within a short period as the temperature continued to warm up. This would mean that physical contact between the two groups might be broken for a few weeks and the facility we had built would provide a somewhat dangerous, but passable, physical bridge between the two elements of our empire. With my fear of heights I would never have volunteered to cross that gap but, if necessary, even I could have performed the task. Fortunately such action was never required and I have not had to perform this feat up to the present time.
It was decided that we would then start immediately on a new project to produce an extended communications link to the nearby slightly damaged village we had previously visited such that everything would be ready for us to take over that resource when conditions improved sufficiently. This was a much easier task as most of the link existed and only a small amount of cable was required to repair damaged sections. We left the cables on the less damaged pylons as they were ceramically insulated from the pylon and the ground. Where the cables required splicing we incorporated more cable taken from a different part of the network where there were suitable sheathed insulated cables.
The new communication system was completed within a week. The volunteers were taken to the rich mans shelter and provided with two wind powered generators to reduce their use of our fossil energy reserves. They were fully aware that the wind generators might attract someone’s attention but it was considered that any such persons would be more likely to require assistance than present any risk.
We left repairing and populating the Martinez village to a later date as it was in a different region being too open to visits from potentially dangerous visitors and too far to be supported with sufficient rapidity. We visited the village several times to remove quantities of good quality clothing as this was required by our cloth manufacturers. We removed the small wind generators, the water heating solar panels and associated items such as regulators, modern deep cycle batteries and switch gear. These would be useful in the other village when we took over some of those houses.
Chapter 13. A New Continuum.
We continued our lives in the shelter with occasional external visits over our domain. For some time our visits had been to set up new and fix existing equipment. We spent much of our time repairing houses in preparation for our future return to life on the surface. Shelter life was acceptable but by the mid summer of our fourth year the external daytime temperature had reached a maximum of a little under ten degrees centigrade and it was getting gradually warmer. It had reached the stage where the sun felt distinctly warm on the skin of those of us who had become so used to much colder climes. It was considered that perhaps we could now return some volunteers to some semblance of normality above ground. In a small way this had already been achieved.
With our visits to the village we had restored several of the houses to habitability and installed some of our wind and solar power generation systems for the use of a few residents. We had restored three houses with some furniture to such a state that several inmates were happily living there with what they described as reasonable comfort. They had decided, in spite of the slight reduction in creature comfort available in the houses, to return to the natural world as they felt it was their future and would provide more options for their children. We had, by now, instigated a routine of twice daily telephonic reports between the elements of our domain such that we could be assured that no group was under any form of external threats.
Most pleasing to us was that some of the broken trees, surrounding the village into the distance, were now showing signs of life. Additionally some grass was visibly growing in the soil in a form of challenge to the earlier moss and lichens we had previously observed. At the edge of the forest considerable damage to the trees had occurred but further into the forest, protected by the external ring of trees and higher mountains, many were undamaged and appeared to be re-emerging into life.
The caves had brought no new inmates so it was decided to remove most of the remaining stores into the village. This supply movement simplified our occupation and we had modified another of the houses into a barn for some of our animals. We repaired the fencing around a football ground providing grazing land for some of our medium sized animals. Our cows were still too valuable to be risked at that time.
Having observed that grass was now recovering we planted some of our cold region grass seed and some of the preserved rubbish from our new inmates’ store, much as Robinson Crusoe had done, to see how it went. In a short time it appeared that we would obtain some return from this investment and we had put some of our original sheep and goats onto some of this land to graze during the day. Milking the animals was producing sufficient for the inmates of the houses and they were living in some comfort whilst, in the summer, using little of our fuel stocks. The newer lambs and kids we kept at our shelter so they could be watched over by the vets until they could become a valuable addition to our herd. Thanks to the additional supplies from the caves we had managed to increase our herds with little risk to their supplies.
Some of the village residents were allocated the task of caring for the animals. For this purpose they received a basic military training and were armed with both rifles and pistols. The communication system was operational so assistance could be called if they considered it necessary. Two motorcycles were stored in the ric
h mans shelter hence they would be able to provide some initial assistance to the village fairly rapidly; on trial this period was reduced to less than thirty minutes. The village also had two motorcycles so that they would be able to reciprocate by supporting the rich mans shelter in the same time-frame if this should be required.
We did not expect any large groups of visitors but having unexpectedly found twenty two survivors in a single group, though of low strategic capability, we decided to be careful. We discussed certain scenarios for dealing with uninvited visitors within our empire; these discussions were only beneficial at providing ideas. It was decided, having considered the size of our empire, that those having contact with visitors would advise our empire of the situation but would not inform any visitors of our true situation; especially regarding our personal, technology or weaponry.
Those meeting the visitors would attempt to discover related information and ascertain whether we could accept them as associates or full members of our group. Before any decision would be made all members of our empire would be advised of the situation and in this situation a sixty percent majority would be required to agree to any reaction. We certainly did not wish any visitors to know our true strength too early.
In the event of any perceived risk to any persons in contact with the visitors we would, on advice from the affected group, attempt to get personnel to the invaded region as rapidly as possible. This reaction force would not interfere with the situation unless such interference was requested, by a raised arm or scratching head of any member involved in direct discussions with those visitors, or it was seen, by the reaction force, that they were already in some form of negative activity with the visitors.
Our asteroid survival: A fictitional history of the ten year survival of a large ELE asteroid impact by a small, pre advised, group Page 33