by Nate Johnson
Stopping at the open door, she peered into the darkness and found him.
Her breath hitched as she saw him bring a heavy hammer up over his head then slam it down onto a glowing bit of orange metal.
The man was an ancient god. Bare chested. Muscles rippling. A smudge of soot on his brow. A soft smile on his lips.
He is in heaven, she thought, as sparks erupted from his hammer strike. The place he belongs.
She stood there, frozen, watching him work. The implications of what he was doing didn’t register. The worries about corrupting the Eundai. None of it mattered. All she could think about was how he looked and how happy he seemed.
“Amanda,” he called out as he caught a glimpse of her from the corner of his eye. For a brief moment, his hammer hung in the air before he brought it down again with a mighty TANG.
“Come here,” he said, beckoning her to hurry. Like a little boy wanting to show her his Christmas morning train set.
“You won’t believe what I’ve learned. You’ve got to see this.”
She smiled to herself. All was right with the world again.
“Look,” he said, pointing to the large square chunk of iron he had been using for his anvil.
“Okay?” she said, confused as to the significance.
“It is different from our anvils, even our ancient ones.”
“If you say so,” she said with a smile.
“Look, no horn,” he said “The long, pointy, curved part that usually sticks out from an anvil. It's used to shape things into a curve.”
“Again, if you say so,” she replied, pleased to see how important this was to him.
“I couldn’t work out why not. Why hadn’t they developed the need to make curves? then I figured it out.”
She raised an eyebrow, waiting for an answer.
“Horseshoes,” he said. “They don’t make horseshoes.”
She nodded as she looked down at the anvil. “That makes sense.” Her heart jumped with happiness at the pride in his smile. He had figured that out himself. One more bit of data she could add to her reports.
He shook his head at her lack of surprise.
“Come here,” he said pulling her over to the forge where an older Eundai was pushing a long piece of iron into the red coals.
“Bellows, just like we developed. But they’ve only got Pig Iron. Or Ymand, as they call it. That is their word for metal. And they aren’t tempering or annealing, just heating this stuff up and bending it to the right shape. They don’t have any idea about how to reduce the carbon and make real steel.”
She looked at him confused. It was like he was talking a different language.
“This is Glander,” he said, introducing the Eundai smith who looked back at her with a long steady stare. “He says that they get the Pig Iron from the Scraggs. It comes in these long strips. He says that they trade with them. I get the impression they are from far away. I think you guys missed something on one of the outer islands.”
Amanda shook her head as she tried to take in all this new information.
“Anyway,” he continued as he led her to the side of the smith. “Look at this,” he said holding up a chunk of bent iron.
“What am I looking at,” Amanda asked with a frown.
“A plow,” Nick answered as he shook his head. “They break all the time, Glander said. That’s because they are so brittle, pure Pig Iron bent into shape.”
“Okay,” Amanda said, drawing the word out slowly as she tried to understand the significance.
“Don’t you see,” he said. “I could show them how to reduce the carbon, how to temper and form the metal into steel. Their plows would be stronger, more flexible. They could plow more fields faster, freeing up manpower for other tasks.”
What he was telling her began to sink in. He wanted to give them knowledge that had taken humans thousands of years to figure out. He wanted to push the Eundai up the evolutionary ladder.
“But we can’t,” she said to him, slowly shaking her head.
“Why not?” he asked. “They will discover it eventually. Hell, I bet these other Eundai, these Scraggs, know all about it already. This stuff is too uniform. Smelting Pig Iron is not easy, but they’re keeping the carbon content high so it can’t easily be turned into steel. Not without certain key knowledge.”
Amanda reached up and touched his shoulder. “We can’t,” she said. “It wouldn’t be right.”
He looked at her and slowly shook his head. “Tell that to the farmer who has to work sixteen hours a day because if he plows too hard or too fast it will break.”
She sighed, deep down she knew he might be right, But it was too big a jump for them to make.
Taking a deep breath, she nodded, “Let’s wait until the rescuers get here. Let’s leave this decision to the official contact party.”
Nick shook his head. “I’ll hold off for now. But I’m not promising I won’t change my mind.”
She sighed heavily. “If you do, let me know. Give me a chance to talk you out of it.”
He looked at her for a long moment, and she felt herself wanting to give in to his wishes and at the same time worried that he would ignore hers.
At last, he nodded. Making her insides relax.
“I’ll give you an opportunity.” He said as he frowned. “For now,” he added.
She watched as he went back to the forge and pulled a glowing piece of metal out of the fire, taking it to his square anvil he began pounding it into shape.
He is so different than the men she knew. A man of action she realized, who thought through his hands. A creator, a craftsman who preferred to build new things instead of standing around and talking about what it all meant.
She knew that they had not really settled anything. Just delayed the inevitable.
Maybe he is right. Maybe they should be helping the Eundai. But what if he was wrong.
Sighing, she turned to start home. Now that she knew where he was and what he was doing, she could relax. Stopping, she glanced over her shoulder for one last look at him, raising his hammer and slamming it into the hard metal.
He had found his place, she realized. Found the one place that made him feel at home. The others had done the same, she thought. Professor Robinson, sitting and listening to the language. Doctor Simpson running her chemical analysis on every substance she could find.
Each of them had a purpose. Something to keep them busy. Maybe it was time for her to find hers.
The memories of Grundal’s antiquated ideas about female and male roles in society pulled at her. Perhaps she should start discussions with some of the female Eundai. Enlighten them on how things should really be.
The thought made her smile. That would really corrupt the Eundai, she thought. Let Nick give them those technological advances. She’d give them societal advances that really changed their world.
Laughing to herself, she shook her head as she thought about how upset Grundal would be. Well, he was going to have to realize, if humans did help them, more than just his manufacturing processes were going to have to change.
In fact, if they coordinated things correctly. It would be the technological advances that enabled her to make societal changes.
Yes, Grundal was not going to completely like his new world.
“If,” she mumbled to herself, “if they helped.”
Chapter Sixteen
Nick glanced over his party. They seemed excited and worried at the same time. Grundal was absent again that morning. So Nick had decided it was time to explore outside the city.
All three of the other humans had jumped at the opportunity. Amanda, of course, was worried but excited. Worried that Grynd would use it as an excuse to denounce them.
Doctor Simpson was just pure excited. She couldn’t wait to test some of the plants they had missed in their initial observations.
Professor Robinson had simply nodded and said, “Yes, I agree, we should explore the fields.”
So, here t
hey were at the East Gate.
The two guards studied them as they approached, their piercing eyes taking in every detail, but neither made a move to stop them. They simply watched them walk out through the gate.
“It feels different out here,” Amanda said with a smile. “More open. Not as constricting.”
Nick could only nod. This was what planetside was supposed to feel like. A fresh breeze, distant horizons, a smell of freshly turned earth and animal waste.
“You said your father was a farmer?” Amanda asked as they slowly made their way up the East Road.
“Yes,” he answered as memories washed through him. “On New Kansas.”
“So, this should be familiar to you.”
Nick laughed. “Not exactly,” he said. “My job was to monitor the bots and fix them when they broke. My brothers and I would take shifts in the control room. Around the clock, almost every day of the year. I didn’t spend a lot of my time with my hands in the soil. More like inside the guts of an automated combine.”
She raised an eyebrow obviously surprised. “You spoke so passionately about having to plow a field. I thought ...”
He laughed. “We ran thirty-four square miles of fields. Wheat mostly, with some corn. A family of seven. It would have taken a thousand Eundai to farm the same amount of land without our technology and they would produce half as much off the same land.”
She looked up at him strangely for a moment.
“Let’s just say, I am ever thankful I wasn’t born a few hundred years ago.”
“Why did you leave?” she asked, her eyes burning with curiosity.
He shrugged his shoulders. “Why does any farm boy leave to join the Imperial Navy? To see the galaxy. To test himself and to get away from the mind-numbing drudgery of watching machines plow patterns into distant fields.”
She laughed. “Well, you’re seeing a different part of the galaxy that is for sure.”
He laughed, “What about you?” he asked. “Why xenobiology?”
Her eyes crinkled with a smile. “There was never going to be anything different for me. My mother used to say that I was born wondering why people did things the way they did. Constantly asking questions. Studying alien life was a way for me to better understand humans. If that makes any sense.”
He nodded. “Sure, I get it.”
“Of course, until now. It had been studying animal life. They have a hundred different social structures. But it’s not the same thing as studying an intelligent species. The dynamics are totally different.
He gave her a quick smile. She blushed slightly. “Forgive me. I tend to focus on my work.”
“No, That’s okay. I like hearing about your work. I like learning new things from you. It’s interesting. Makes me look at the universe a little different.
She studies the ground for a moment as if she’d forgotten what she was talking about.
“Will you go back to New Kansas at the end of your enlistment?” she asked with a curious tilt to her head. As if she was very interested in his response.
Nick laughed. “No way. Besides, I’m a lifer. Or at least I was before this fiasco. The Navy may want a divorce after all this. They are going to have to have someone to blame.”
She frowned but he wasn’t really sure if it was because he called their adventure a ‘fiasco’ or if it was the ‘Lifer’ comment.
“What about a family?” she asked.
“Sure,” he said, staring off into the distance. “We’re not gone all the time and mixing fleet duty and the occasional planet side assignment. Lots of guys do it.”
She nodded slowly as she processed his words.
“What about you?” Nick asked. “What university do you hope to teach at? I imagine that after all this, getting your Doctorate and a plum berth in the classroom won’t be an issue.”
Amanda laughed. “You’re probably right. But I’m more interested in research. I could spend the rest of my life studying the Eundai. There is so much to learn.”
Nick smiled as they turned off onto a beaten dirt path, following Doctor Simpson and Professor Robinson. A stone silo stood at the edge of the field. Eundai were standing in a line, passing leather bags of leaves up a wooden ladder to be dumped into the hole on top.
“Have you guys figured out what the leaves are used for?” he asked her.
Amanda shook her head. “Doctor Simpson has tested them repeatedly and can’t figure it out. They don’t have any real nutritional value. No medicinal purpose that we can see and they aren’t used as an intoxicant.”
“Has anyone asked?”
Amanda froze in place and stared at him for a long moment. “You’re right,” she said as she turned to walk into the field to their left.
“Where are you going?” he called after her.
“To ask someone,” she said over her shoulder as she slipped into the row of tall bushes.
Nick shrugged his shoulders and followed her in. The bushes were at least seven feet tall. Lined up in equally spaced rows like marching soldiers. Long, slim trunks with short branches branching off the central trunk. Each branch full of lushes green leaves.
They’d watched the farmers swarm over a field, strip the leaves, filling their bags, then move on to the next field. Rotating across the landscape until they returned three months later to once again strip the leaves.
It seemed to be as year round process but the scientists had never been able to discover why they put so much effort and resources into this crop.
“Hold up,” Nick called out after Amanda.
“I think he’s over here,” she called back as she pushed aside branches and stepped between bushes into the next row.
Nick caught up with her, as she searched for the farmer and smiled. She was like a little girl looking for her promised pony on Christmas morning, he thought.
Deep in the fields, under the shade of the tall bushes, the temperature dropped and a warm smell of orange liquorice enveloped them. Another alien smell that reminded him of just how far from home he really was.
The two of them twisted and turned, going ever deeper into the field.
A person could get lost in here, he thought as he smiled to himself. There were worse things than spending a glorious day, alone with a beautiful woman.
Amanda halted, her head shifting back and forth as she tried to get her bearings. Turning suddenly, she plowed back into Nick who had come up behind her.
His hands shot out, capturing her by her shoulders to stop her from falling.
“I’m sorry ...” she began to say as she looked up at him. Her eyes taking on a strange, faraway look.
She is so out of my league, he thought, as his heart raced. But when he looked down at her, he didn’t see the differences between them. Didn’t see the chasm separating them. All he could see was Amanda. Sweet, kind, beautiful Amanda.
“Nick,” she whispered.
That was all it took. Pulling her close, he kissed her. A soft, tender kiss that hinted of forever.
She sank into him, softly moaning, letting him know that she felt it too. This connectedness. Pulling her tighter, their kiss quickly grew into heat and a hint of pure fire.
There was no telling how far things might have gone. No telling what they might have done alone in that field.
But the universe is a cruel bitch at times.
A distant scream pulled at him. A distant, high pitched wail. The kind of cry that worked its way into a primitive brain and refused to let go. A sound he pushed away as he tried to get closer to the woman in his arms.
“Did you hear that?” Amanda asked, pulling away slightly. Her face was flushed and her rapid breathing let him know that she had been as impacted by the kiss as he had been.
“No,” he lied as he leaned in to finish what they had started.
Another scream followed the first. A soul shattering, fearful scream that worked its way into his backbone and refused to move.
Nick’s shoulders slumped. He could not den
y what they had both heard.
“Come on,” Amanda said, taking his hand and leading him from the field.
Stepping out from the tall bushes, they were greeted by controlled chaos. Eundai running up the dirt path towards the East Road. Their faces set in fearful determination.
The Eundai males on the ladder jumped to the ground. Mothers handed babies up into their father’s arms and scurried around to gather the rest of their charges. Eundai pushed and prodded to gain ground.
Nick stopped for a brief moment and assessed the situation. It was fear, he realized. Pure, determined fear.
“What’s going on?” he asked a passing male.
“The city,” the male said, pointing back towards the East Gate. “Go City,” he yelled over his shoulder without breaking stride
No crap, Nick thought. That was sort of obvious.
“We better hurry,” Amanda said, pointing towards the East Road, Doctor Simpson and Professor Robinson in their blanket serapes could be seen well ahead of them.
Nick nodded and started up the path, making sure Amanda was right there with him.
He had gone but a few yards when he had to jump out of the way to miss an older female bent at the waist, blocking the path.
Nick twisted past her and looked back to see Amanda stopping next to the female. Both of them bent over a very young female holding her ankle and silently crying.
“Great!” Nick cursed to himself as he rushed back, scooped the little girl up and started down the path. They didn’t have time to argue, not if the fear around him was real.
As he ran, Nick glanced over his shoulder to make sure Amanda was following. She had her arm wrapped around the older female, helping her along.
Shaking his head, he slowed down to make sure he stayed close.
When they hit the East Road, he turned towards the city, his bare feet making a heavy thud sound as every step brought them closer to the city.
The villagers were in just as much of a hurry as the farmers in the field. Carrying bundles of food and family treasures, they abandoned their homes and hurried towards the open gates awaiting them.
“Come on,” Nick called back to Amanda who continued to help the old female. The young one in his arms stared up at him with big, wide open eyes, obviously terrified at the idea of being held by a foreign alien.