CHAPTER 4: Indeed There's Something in that River - I Lose My Ride
The next morning I put off launching the raft while I tried to follow up on my train of thought from the previous evening. It was a slow train. The list of things I didn't know had certainly not been expanded a great deal by the passage of the monotonous terrain. Wel-l-l-l-l... there had been that splash. Gopher smirk.
Things I did know, on the other hand, were mounting up nicely. And there was the new list that had been created; things I didn't understand. That list was just a tad disconcerting. Everything on the two original lists, plus my entire situation, came under the new heading.
Nothing made any sense. My amnesia was most strangely selective. I had no sense of self, no sense of place, and no sense of time. Nothing was either familiar or unfamiliar. Attempts to "remember" life before the forest elicited only the most obviously stereotypical mental responses. Outside stimuli, however, resulted in automatic, and very complete, responses. And automatic response seemed to be something I was really, really good at.
I had moved at random until I found water. I had followed the smaller stream banks downstream until I came to the river. My decision to build a raft and float the river hadn't been a decision at all. I had considered no alternatives. Now that I thought about it, only the craft itself, and its construction, had demanded any consideration, and that choice had been culled from a series of possibilities. The word "displays" came to mind. I stared into the water and chewed at a thumbnail. Nothing seemed to... Then it hit me - triggers! I had been responding to triggers - buried commands in my mind. I had been programmed!
It seemed my unseen programmers meant me to survive a wide range of inimical situations and experiences. They had sent me to an unknown place alone, to move about the environment until something triggered a response. So far the response of intelligent problem solving didn't seem to have been required. I expected it would be before this was over. Otherwise I might as well be a robot.
Suddenly I wanted very much to know that I was not a robot. A splinter in my left index finger (damned crude tiller anyway) that was followed by blood when I pulled it out, reassured me on that point. I could think of no purpose for a bleeding robot.
Purpose... I was back to that. There had to be a purpose. No one set out fully provisioned for eight or nine days, into an unfamiliar forest with no trails, for no reason. Nor did a man go on a weeklong hunt, armed with a handgun with limited reloads in a forest with no animal life. And no one, absolutely no one, could enter deeply into a forest without leaving some trackable back trail.
First conclusion: I was right - I had been put here by someone, somehow, to accomplish something. As this little exercise dragged me along I would be triggered to act correctly... I hoped.
Second conclusion: my handler expected results within the next few days, so I had best keep alert. That seemed to be about as far as I could carry things at this point, but I felt better. Feeling better confused me.
"Dammit," I said, "I should feel used, or something." But I didn't. So-o-o..., I broke camp. Flinging the bedroll and backpack onto the raft with some irritation, I pushed off. As my craft floated free I hesitated ashore for some moments. The memory of last night's splash conjured up some fairly nasty imagery. My gopher was attempting to fill the void he had eaten in my rational mind with river dragons and mariners' leviathans of old. Old what, I had no idea.
"Scat, pest!" I finally waded out and climbed aboard, pulling my slipknot loose to cast off. One splash did not a river dragon make. Did it?
Hours passed. I spent them disposing of ever more outlandish visions of scaled destruction conjured up by my furry companion. At least it was a way to deal with the boredom. It also destroyed my concentration. I had not paid the least attention to the passing scenery for most of those hours. This, it turned out, was a poor way to navigate a river about which I knew nothing. Suddenly, I became aware that the forest had withdrawn from the river's edge, and rock-strewn, steeply graded banks had replaced the gentle slopes. The river was rapidly becoming narrower, deeper, and faster. My beautiful forested valley was fast becoming a narrow, high-walled gorge, filled with churning dangerous water, and I had daydreamed myself into a deadly situation.
"What I don't need, "I told Sport-the-gopher, "is to end up in an inescapable gorge full of rapids, so beat it down your hole and let me get us outa here."
There were still breaks in the walls of the gorge where the banks sloped somewhat, or where broken rocks replaced ever higher and steeper walls. I steered desperately for the nearest of these, but the swiftly running water caused me to misjudge, and I grounded on the last sandbar in sight.
Even that piece of luck was fleeting. I barely managed to ground the prow; the stern spun out of control downstream into the deeper water. In desperation I grabbed the rope and leapt into the churning waters, hauling with strength born of panic to save my raft and supplies. I couldn't pull her in. I stepped over the rope, throwing my hip into just holding it while I used my free hand to fling my supplies ashore. It wouldn't lighten the load much, but it might be enough. I stepped back, grabbed the rope with both hands, and hauled.
There was a sudden hand-numbing shock as something struck the raft from below the surface. I never got a glimpse of it, but my numbed hands gave me an indication of its size and strength. I lost my grip, and the damaged craft spun out into the current like a broken bird.
I turned without another thought and raced through the swirling, knee-deep water for the security of the broken boulders of the shoreline. Something lived on this planet.
I glared after the pieces of the destroyed raft as they swirled rapidly out of sight. I didn't need any 'trigger' to help me react to this (I also didn't need any paranoid gopher to manufacture fear.) The ride was over. I had no intention of going back on that river. Animals large and aggressive enough to smash that raft were not to be met in their own element. Nonetheless, it did cheer me somewhat to discover that something other than plants shared this planet with me... even if it was something large, invisible, aquatic and apparently inimical. Small fish and large splashes, my Aunt Fanny!
I considered briefly if it might be edible, but discarded the notion - alien biology wasn't likely to be my best bet for nutrition. I grabbed my stuff and headed for the top of the valley wall.
"Told you," the gopher smirked.
"Yeah, I know. Shut up."
"Well, you're really stuck now. You'll never walk out of here."
"Go to hell buddy." I kept climbing. He kept nibbling. Supplies, time constraints, life forms, and human limitations. He used them all.
"Maybe you're right; maybe I can't walk out of here. But I sure as hell can't sit my way out of here on that sandbar." He went away to think on that one for a while.
