CHAPTER 3: There's Something in the River
Boring... monotonous... depressing; that first day on the river was my worst so far. Once I learned to handle the raft and judge the bends in the river, I had virtually nothing to do but watch the forest go by.
It didn't... go by, that is. Any time I looked at it, it looked no different from the last. For a while I harbored some hope of seeing animals. Perhaps they had just been afraid of me because I was an alien. Or, perhaps the noise of my passing had kept them out of sight. But I soon knew better. No matter how silent and unobtrusive my river passage, there would be no animals coming down to drink. And none did. Being right did not cheer me up.
There also weren't flowers; just trees, bushes, and coarse-bladed ground hugging greenery which I chose to call grass. It figured, of course... no insects meant no insect pollination and no pollination meant no flowering plant evolution. I began to wish that damned gopher would show up. Even fear would be better than the depression I was building.
I hauled out the duraplast, and built a fire on it. It didn't help. In the first place, it was too hot and sticky for a fire. In the second place, the fact that I knew the duraplast was fireproof started me thinking about my amnesia again. There was something odd about it. It was just too damned selective. For instance, how in hell did I know the duro wouldn't burn? For double instance, how could I build a double-layered raft out of only the materials at hand, with no memory of having done it before, or even having seen or read of one? And the hand laser - I knew how to load and fire it with accuracy, and I could field strip and reassemble it too, I had no doubt. Yet I had no memory of having learned any of it. It all made no sense. The missing parts - who I was, where I was, why I was there - were all connected somehow. I was growing surer of it by the minute.
"Somebody did this to me!" I said it aloud in my surprise at the thought. Once I thought of it, I was sure of it. Nothing had gone wrong. I hadn't "forgotten" anything. Someone was playing with my mind.
"Yup," the gopher was back, "sure looks that way. Question is - why?"
"I'll never get home!" I practically screamed. "They've taken my freaking memory! I don't even know where home is!"
"Probably a test." He was really hungry this time.
"A test?" He had me approaching a panic. "What the hell kind of test could this be?"
"To see if you can find home." Gopher was still chuckling over that one as I shoved him back down his hole.
He had eaten a pretty sizeable void into my rational center. With what little was left I began trying to remember. The effort was a first class bust.
When I thought "Name," I got a dictionary definition. "House" called forth a montage of structures. "Forest" was equally disappointing. Any word or phrase evoked only highly stylized images, or useless definitions. After several more tries, I gave up. I wasn't going to add to my knowledge by thinking about it. I broke out another breakfast packet for my brunch, and ate it while steering by locking the tiller shaft under my armpit and rocking my body. I spent the rest of the afternoon cataloging my observations. Perhaps this would add to my list of knowns.
Time: Days and nights were of about the same length, one complete circuit of the indicators on my twenty-four unit timepiece, plus about three. Twenty-seven units. The number of units wasn't immediately important, but the equality of the light and dark periods indicated one of two conclusions. I was either in the equatorial zone, or this planet had no axial tilt. The trees looked deciduous; broad leaves affixed to small stems. That plus the forest floor humus suggested a winter season, or at least a dry season. This lent weight to the side of the no axial tilt theory. Perhaps a planet with no tilt, but a somewhat eccentric orbit?
Life was a pretty simple business here. Plant life was all there was. It had apparently evolved on this planet with only wind pollination. There was not, nor had there ever been, even the simplest form of animal life on this land.
"Well, you've proved it, we're all alone." Gopher dessert.
The rain came back long enough to put my fire out, then stopped again. It did not cool the air, nor did it lighten my depression. The afternoon passed - slow, hot and close. Finally I beached the raft and made camp. It was full dark by the time I got the duro spread and tented, and a fire going. I had four days worth of my two-a-day rations left, plus the one I opened now. I stuck the attached eating utensil into it and...
There was a loud splash from the river!
I was flat on my belly, laser out and braced, facing the river, with a speed and economy of motion that astounded me. As I waited for a repetition of the splash, I considered this previously unknown ability. I was obviously well prepared to use this weapon, although it was difficult to imagine forgetting all the training that must have occurred to create those abilities.
The splash was not repeated, and after a time I got up. I thought about setting up some sort of warning system, but couldn't see how. Finally I decided to hope the fire would deter any danger.
"Besides," I told myself, "it was in the river."
"Maybe it's amphibious," the gopher offered.
He wasn't getting to me that easily this time. "Why do you think I was considering a warning system?" I snapped. "It just doesn't seem plausible."
"OK. But you'll be on that river tomorrow," he said around a mouthful of my courage. "That thing sounded pretty big."
"Little fish can make a real big splash. I'll worry about it tomorrow (who the hell was Scarlett O'Hara?). Remember, Sport, you'll be on that river with me."
"Nope," he snickered, "I don't exist, remember?"
I laughed.
He was gone.
The moon rising while I made camp was the smaller one, and waning toward only the slightest of crescents, but still it gave substantial light. The larger moon was now trailing behind by a near moon-width margin.
The splash had canceled my plans for a moonlight bath before I turned in, so I decided to see what I was capable of. I had already unconsciously handled the laser well, so I started with it. I discovered that I could draw and fire it accurately with eye-popping speed (well, my eyes popped). I could throw both the knife and machete to strike and stick within a double hand's breadth at a distance of five meters. Not bad, I guessed. All of the motions seemed natural and spontaneous. I turned in, feeling comfortable about the fact that, should it become necessary, I could count on me to defend myself.
