CHAPTER 2 The Gopher and I Start a Road Trip Ummmm No Road
Light came to wake me; it was morning. No birds singing, just silent daylight. I discovered that food concentrates make a lousy breakfast. "Just like the Army. Some things never change." Now where the hell had that come from? My little fearball was looking for some breakfast too, and eating holes into the rational mind made excellent gopher food.
"Follow water downstream, and it will eventually lead you out." Somehow I knew that much. Out of what, out to where, I didn't know. To dwell on that was to feed the gopher. I packed up and started downstream. It led to a larger stream, which in turn led to a larger one.
Two days, five meals of processed food, a dozen streams of increasing size, and half a flask of brandy later, I found a river meandering slowly within a wide floodplain valley. I dumped my pack and sat down on the bank.
Gopher stuck his head up. He had begun doing that every time I stopped, even for a moment. Nibble, nibble. "No animals yet, huh? How about fish?" Chomp!
"No, no fish," I said. "No birds, no snakes, no lizards, not even insects. No gophers either, dammit! There's nothing here, so there's nothing to be afraid of; so how come you keep popping up?"
"Why don't you make me go?"
I tried. I really tried. I told myself that this gopher was probably the silliest thing I had ever known, and this conversation the most outrageous thing I'd ever participated in (not that I had any point of reference; I just couldn't imagine anything sillier). I had metaphorically visualized the fear at the back of my mind as a gopher. Then I had anthropomorphized that into a talking gopher, capable of actually arguing with me. Now I was holding conversations with it. Out loud. I was arguing with a smart-ass, sarcastic, mouth-off of a metaphor.
"To hell with it," I decided. "It's somebody to talk to, at least." It might be crazy, but just maybe it would keep me from going insane.
The truth was, I was afraid. There was no getting away from that. Maybe I could control it better this way.
"OK, Sport," I said, "stick around." He wasn't there. Perverse little devil.
Alone again, I settled down to do some serious thinking. I began by doing a little preliminary drinking. The sloshing of the half-empty flask directed my line of thought.
Inventory time again. Additional knowns:
I had started with what appeared to be a week's supply of provisions, if consumed as labeled, on a three meal a day basis.
I was sure I was not on the planet of my birth, which pretty effectively ruled out metabolisis of local edibles. It didn't matter, because I had identified nothing that looked even vaguely edible anyway.
The same rationale probably ruled out disease. The gopher had me boiling water just the same.
Conclusion: If I couldn't eat the local flora, and had only a week's supply of food, and I hadn't been born here, I couldn't have started from here. Ergo, there was a design somewhere behind all this. I was here for a reason.
Considering the limited food supply, and the lack of mode of egress, I could expect something to happen within a week, give or take a couple of days, or I was on my way to starving to death. But, it seemed that something had gone wrong. If I couldn't remember the plan, I couldn't very well act on it.
The gopher was eating again.
On the other hand, sitting on a riverbank in the middle of a forest wasn't going to accomplish much. I decided on a compromise (back in your hole pest); I would ration my remaining food by a third, and I would save energy by floating downriver on a raft.
I ate a lunch packet and picked up the machete. I walked into the edge of the forest and whacked at several different trees with it until I found one that was light and cut easily. Choosing trees of that species that were about six centimeters in girth, I built a two-layer raft by nightfall. It was about three meters to a side, roughly square. Long saplings, run through holes burned by the hand laser and pegged at the ends, tied each layer together. Vertical pegs through similar holes locked the two criss-cross layers into a single unit. I built a seat and tiller in the same fashion, and the craft was ready to go.
I was very tired.
I broke out my last ration of concentrate for the day, the brandy and my bedroll. The food was terrible again, but I was going to have to use the breakfast packets sometime, and the brandy would make it more palatable.
It was cooler here on this wider expanse of water, so tonight I built a fire. I sat on the unfolded duraplast with my boots off and my feet tucked into the bedroll. I leaned back against my pack and sipped the brandy. The fire was cheery, and the brandy was good. I was extremely proud of my handiwork. Tomorrow was another day.
"Are we going somewhere in particular, or just moving along?" Gopher broke into my lassitude.
"Knock it off, Sport," I grumbled, "I'm too tired for this. Tomorrow, I'm going rafting on this river. I'm looking for an open area... something other than this spooky forest. Maybe find some people."
"Nope." He took a sizeable bite out of my courage. "No chance. No animal life, equals no animal evolution, which sums to zero people. You're not going to get off this planet that way." That was a very large bite.
"We'll see when we get there," I snapped. "Right now I'm going to sleep."
Exhaustion and brandy combined to bring sleep quickly. Sleep brought dreams of gophers the size of elephants chasing me through endless, silent forest. On and on I ran into - rain? I was somewhat less than cheerful when I awoke to realize that I should have tented the duraplast. With this amount of vegetation, rain had been inevitable. Of course it would come in the night - just what I needed.
Things began to look up when I discovered that only my face and hair were wet. Both the sleeping bag and clothing were waterproof. I shook out and stowed my gear. The rain stopped. The sun came out, and a mist began to rise from the river. It was time to move. I unlooped the rope from its velcro fasteners, and using a slipknot, tied one end around a substantial tree about ten meters from the water's edge. I fastened the other end to the raft; no way was all that work going to float away without me. After fastening the tiller in its appointed place, I used one of the leftover saplings from the previous night's labor to lever my craft into the water. She spun downstream at the end of her tether, and bumped gently against the shore as it grew taut. I slipped and slid down the bank to examine her. She rode pretty high, but she looked fairly stable (funny, even on this unknown world, watercraft were still female to me).
It was time to go. I chucked my gear and a bundle of firewood aboard, and clambered up behind them. Using a length of rope I had cut before tying off the raft, I lashed both to the base of the tiller seat. Mounting the seat, I jerked the slipknot loose from the tree and reeled in my rope. My little craft swung out from the bank and started downriver - backward!
"Hoo-boy," I thought, laying over hard on the tiller, "this is going to be one fun trip." Had I ever navigated a watercraft before?
"You're going to drown." The gopher gnawed away vigorously at the edge of my courage.
"Back down your hole, Sport; she's coming around."
"Yup, and so's the first bend." Chomp!
"I'm trying dammit!" Let me alone and we'll make it."
"Sure." Just a sarcastic little nibble this time.
We grounded with a thump that dislodged me from my perch.
"Fool." The little bastard was actually gloating as I lay there on my grounded raft.
I waded up to the bank to cut a good sturdy pole. The inside of a meander is a sandbar. Good to know - for the next bend.
