The production of a stable carrier, using the components we had developed at that time, was a problem we would have to work on. Developing frequency modulated systems, we decided, would have to wait until our components were much improved. We had, several very high technology communication systems recovered from the pre impact period but how long would they work? We would eventually require a manufacturable system to secure our external workers against any dangers.
We had two functioning steam engines in our shelter capable of producing an acceptable amount of power. At that time we did not intend to use these to provide us with additional electrical energy as we considered this to be unnecessary having sufficient generation capacity both alternative and diesel. We did, however, develop plans to use the energy of a single steam engine to directly power our lathes and looms. This facility would allow us to produce, in reasonable quantity, many of the things that we needed. Here there was, however, a problem with transferring the energy to the machines.
One of the continuing problems requiring our personnel to work outside was the clearing of the dust from the roofs of the buildings. The weight of even a few centimetres of wet dust could pose a risk of a collapsing building. To remove this risk we originally arranged for the roofs to be cleaned every day. Fortunately within a week it was found that this level of work was not required and we reduced the cleaning task to an effort every fourth day.
This cleaning task was hard and potentially dangerous and for this reason was given to a group of ten persons, effectively the number of suitable goggles available; the crude masks not being a problem. The allocation of persons to this task was made, in rotation, by our civil service who were assigned the task of obtaining the acceptance of a task distribution from the personnel involved. At each rotation of the rota all would have been required to perform the cleaning task, however, within that limitation the civil service tried to be flexible.
Everybody, without any exception, except for reason of illness, was employed in clearing all the buildings. This work took about two hours of hard work to complete. In spite of the limited duration it was allowed to be considered as a full days work. Even the battery experts, doctors and the generator monitors worked on this task as we now had sufficient persons, with sufficient expertise, involved in their usual responsibilities.
One of my best memories, during this time, was my first bath in our new complex. I gratefully received this benediction after we had been re-incarcerated for about six months; in fact is was early in the New Year. I was one of the last to benefit in the first round of this blessing; which it really was. I sat in the warm water reading a book, having directed the limited bathroom light source onto the book. I did this for about half of my allocated hour, thinking of nothing but the pleasure of the moment. It was total relaxation and life felt so very good I almost forgot, for a short while, where I was.
The water cooled from moderately warm to cool and I decided it was time to get out. The room remained almost comfortably warm whilst I was in there as the Aga was, as planned, on the other side of the wall heating a small radiator in my bathroom so drying with a towel, warmed on that radiator, was a distinct pleasure. Leaving the area of the bathroom was, however, a return to reality as the rest of the house was somewhat cooler; in spite of anything else it was a very good and memorable day.
Life in the shelter was boring. Being together with so many persons within a very confined space strangely did not encourage conversation. Due to this situation we inevitably had some unfortunate interactions due to friction between so many different personalities. Sometimes this frustration was taken out against our few resident ex-political inmates as they were, for some unaccountable reason, considered responsible for our present condition. In addition some of our society, from the political shelter slave society, remembered how badly they had been treated by some of these persons and small acts of revenge would appear to have been an outlet for their general frustration.
In my opinion it was true that the politico’s early inaction in the development of their society had resulted in the virtual slavery of a group of people. Due to their lack of any emergency preparation they had required support from our shelter. However, we, of the original shelter, had hardly been better able to deal with the current situation though our group had been a team and we had been warned but an expert in a technological field. I believe that for this reason we had been able to react better and so much quicker than would have the politicos. In fact if they had still been in command they would probably have abandoned their servants which, I believe, would have inevitably resulted in the long term extinction of the politicos. Their extinction would have resulted from their inability to provide for themselves, on the recovery of nature, at the end of their original supplies. With us the politicos were given tasks, within the shelter, of limited benefit as they were technically and physically incapable of performing any necessary tasks without support.
Though I could understood the sentiment of those who had been so badly affected by the politicos I had not suffered at their hands so, from my point of view, the harm they had caused was limited. However, it was, and is, my opinion that if we were going to produce an effectively new society, made up of all our current personnel, we would have to eventually make use of all of the capabilities available to us and try to forget the past. I fully understand that for some this will be a difficult acceptance.
I was of the opinion that after the recent second catastrophe the number of survivors we had not yet contacted in our area was going to be very limited in number. The ex politicians would have to be integrated into our society and because of their limited capabilities, to meet our requirements, their future status would remain at quite a low order; this is excepting a few who had worked well within our agriculture system. Knowledge of history, classics or politics and family connexions was not going to assist them in a world that would have to be redeveloped as a meritocracy.
We were lucky to find several professional and amateur actors in our group of new friends who put on many fine shows. Two of the professional actors were given these productions as their principle tasks, as was our young, now adult, storyteller whose presentations maintained considerable audiences.
Our musicians and artists participated to enhance the productions and some of their scenic productions, both in sound and vision, were excellent examples of the art. These performances helped relieve the monotony of many; both those who participated and those that attended. We still had the almost daily film and/or documentary presentations but the alternatives were now of greater interest, when presented, and achieved larger audiences but, individually, they took far longer to produce.
Within our shelter the possibilities for exercise remained severely limited. We had only a few stationary bicycles and weight machines and these were always over subscribed. When we had only about one hundred inmates our facilities were sufficient but now with over three times our original personnel we had difficulty to fairly allocate such facilities; even via the civil service office.
The idea of walking backwards and forwards along a narrow path was considered but the number of and different speeds of individuals made this impractical in any space we had available. A few people were allowed, each day, to use the small swimming pool but again this facility was always oversubscribed and an allocation of a hour every four days to any individual was the best we could normally manage to avoid severe overcrowding. We were more interested in aerobic activity, this being considered the best overall exercise option for our group, and this was greatly encouraged. We were fortunate in having several exponent of the art, mostly women, and they were allocated the task of setting up aerobic exercise groups.
The normal individual participation in the aerobic classes was half an hour a day. This worked quite well for those people wishing to participate. Room was allocated for forty participants in the old food store and the one hundred and twenty odd personnel of a rest group could be put through the exercise cycle within a
little over an hour and a half when the area would then be returned to its original allocation. This proved acceptable to all and about sixty percent of our inmates initially participated and a year later over fifty percent of those were still active and the area allocation reduced to an hour. It was found that those who participated suffered less from depression and other psychological effects so the investment definitely proved its value.
We found that we had four restaurant cooks, six fast food cooks and one very good chef. The food available was not of the best nor very variable but we allocated our chef as consultant and head of meal production mostly using our original efficient cooker units but, when available, the use of the AGA allowed our chef to provide a much superior menu to the appreciative members of our society.
The cooks were allocated to watches with one spare personnel unit. The spare position was changed every week so everybody had that position. This did cause some family problems initially but goodwill resulted in no-one being overly put out. The chef, as head of our kitchen, was allowed to move between watches; initially this caused further home allocation problems but the education of his charges resulted in a considerable improvement in the product, over time, which benefited us all.
Our animals, at this stage, were incapable of providing sufficient material to produce enough cloth for our needs. Fortunately with the cloth we had brought into our shelter, before our second incarceration, we had sufficient recyclable material to start a factory producing new clothes. This new material, while the personnel were practicing, had some shortcomings but no-one complained.
Much of the recovery work was manual and required breathing protection as the original cloth had to be disassembled and then spun back into thread or a type of wool capable of being used by our looms. Both tasks were very labour intensive which proved beneficial in utilizing excess personnel though possibly, in spite of our best efforts, not their health. We intended to automate this recycling process, in the future, in order to release personnel to other tasks. First, however, we had to generate the expertise capable of designing such a system to take over from the manual process. In this process our experimental archaeologist team was much in demand.
To use the material available from the manual process we built two small mechanical looms, driven by one of our new steam engines that we had positioned in the house. These looms eventually produced a reasonable quality of cloth much prized by the recipients. With this material our tailors, two professional and four apprentices, were able to turn what they were given into acceptable clothes. Their output, while in the shelter, was insufficient but we were generating a future system potentially capable of providing for our needs. This capability had the proviso that we could provide the basic required material in the form of threads of different types.
After about six months into our second incarceration our fish produced another harvest which made a very welcome appearance on our table. The chef made a very special effort and although each persons ration was small it was greatly appreciated for its novelty. There was a wonderful sauce with the meal which used a small portion of our remaining cheese to good effect. The producers of this meal were roundly complimented as it greatly exceeded anything we had sampled for the previous six months, possibly for years, and succeeded in raising our morale considerably.
Some of our original stores were disappearing rapidly as our numbers had been increased rather more than we would have wished. Though we still had more than a year’s supply of female pads, if used very judiciously, afterwards we would have no more. This availability would be extended by very careful rationing, to the point of requiring reuse, and by other means suggested by the ladies themselves. Unfortunately, however, we would eventually have to provide an alternative material the design of which we left to the users.
Toilet paper was liable to be a problem as we had donated a small portion of our supply to the other shelter. Here again by careful rationing we had about four years remaining before alternative solutions would be required. The paper that remained was a little dry but was the best material available. We were, indeed, very lucky to have a sufficiency of water the lack of which would certainly have severely exacerbated our toiletry sanitation problems; not to mention our drinking requirements.
Our food stores were adequate and I still enjoyed my now much reduced weekly ration of cheese. For me this was a luxury and I looked forward to the time when our animals would be able to provide us with sufficient material to allow us to resuscitate fully such benefits. The small remnant of our dried fruit was also of concern as our tinned fruit had been used up long ago. Some of our long term storage fruit would soon have to be opened and I hoped the promises made by the manufacturers would prove to have some foundation.
In spite of all our difficulties about three months later in the spring, I suddenly came to the realization that we were going to make it past even this extension. We had become a group again and, in spite of everything, were working to a common cause; our survival. It appeared that having this goal had brought us all closer together in a manner that I have never understood. I had heard that soldiers who fought together developed a comradeship that could never be broken and I think this is what had happened. The arguments and disagreements continued but something incredible had happened. We were all working, even arguing, to achieve something that we all believed was worth the effort.
I think this insight started when I was cleaning the roof off one of the outhouses. I was suddenly aware that the sky was clearing and I could occasionally see the outline of the sun behind a blanket of some form of cloud. When I looked at the roof I was cleaning I noticed that there was now only a light sprinkling of dust that was hardly worth the effort of removing. The light wind still stirring the dust across the ground but little of this was now being lifted into the air. The rain of a few days before had turned the latest dust into mud which would solidify. What we were clearing was from the sky and would hopefully, within a few months, be finished as a dangerous atmospheric effect.
The dust would remain a potential danger to our lungs for some time but with reasonable precautions we would soon be able to go outside. The external air was still cold but we had previously been through a similar period. That period had passed leaving us with problems and similar environmental changes to what we were now facing. We had had experience and the improved environment would soon allow us to renter the external world.
Perhaps, we thought, in a short while we would be able to visit the other shelter. At that time instead of the current limited communication capability we would be able to revisit our distant companions in person. On that occasion we would be able to enjoy conversations and stories with our rejoining group of friends.
We would also see what damage had been done to the villages and hopefully we would be able to repair any detrimental effects. This would, with any luck, allow us to renter those villages as their rightful owners. We were excited as we would then be able to start living again in the real world, even if very different one from our original world, as free agents.
At this stage we decided that the embargo on babies should be cancelled. Two children had been born in our shelter during the last year, in spite of the embargo, but no thought of chastisement was ever considered; in fact the new entities were welcomed by us all. Two other young children of four and five years of age had been brought in as the sons of a politico and this had helped reactivate the pleasure of Christmas.
If it had not been for one of those politico’s children that particular family would have been removed with the others due to their treatment of the servants. Because of the children, however, humanity had allowed their protection within our group. It remained true that animosity remained within those they had been so in judicially assaulted. Other than these we had no child under eight years of age and it was decided that we could allow, even encourage, a new generation as they would provide a future for us to work towards.
Chapter 17. Free Again.
By the l
ate summer of the eighth year since the impact we were able to return to the outside with little risk or discomfort though we continued for some time to wear the masks when outside. It was at this time that we decided to visit the other shelter. This was then not seen as a high risk adventure but as an excuse to see the world as it now was.
We prepared the vehicle; loading everything we would need for the journey. The distant shelter was advised of our intention and enthusiastically endorsed our visit; they had been considering the idea themselves. They made no requests so we took along only four bottles of wine from our now limited reserves to celebrate our reunion; hoping to sample some of their superior stocks.
We were welcomed without reservations and immediately invited to enter their home. We saw that much internal work had been performed since our last visit and their overall living standard had been much improved by their efforts. They had converted areas of the shelter to homes that, though a little smaller than ours, were more comfortably arranged for individual families.
They had extended their sanitary arrangements which, though less in number than ours per individual, had proved sufficient. On examination we found that our food had been better and more variable than theirs but they had not suffered in any way as they had the original politico’s chef who had previously served as head of kitchens in some of the best hotels.
They had managed to reduce their use of fossil fuels by optimizing their use of the wind and latterly the solar power resources that were available to them. They were even studying ways of producing energy more efficiently including theoretical work, they had not the facilities or expertise for practical work, on the manufacture and use of steam turbines. Their ideas on this topic would later be discussed with our research group to mutual advantage. It even appeared, at that time, that we would be able to manufacture simple turbines within a year or so using our existing lathes.
Our asteroid survival: A fictitional history of the ten year survival of a large ELE asteroid impact by a small, pre advised, group Page 41