Glyn came over to see what all the fuss was about, and gave Brendon the standard hard look which he was so good at doing.
‘I thought it might be you.’ he said, looking at the thorn.
‘Why do you always pick on me?’ wailed Brendon.
‘I’m not picking on you, but you’re always getting into trouble, usually through doing something stupid.’ The area around the thorn had gone a nasty deep purple colour.
‘We’d better get it out,’ said Glyn, ‘before his leg drops off.’ the look of horror on Brendon’s face almost made Glyn feel sorry for him, but not quite.
A gentle pull, and then a twist and pull achieved little other than to make Brendon scream even louder than before.
‘Oh do shut up,’ exclaimed an irritated Glyn, ‘don’t be such a damned coward.’
‘It’s not your leg,’ retorted Brendon indignantly, ‘so how would know how much it hurts?’
‘Arki, could you get me another thorn like this one?’
‘What are you going to do?’ asked Brendon, his eyes opening even wider.
‘Stick one in the other leg, and then you’ll have a matching pair.’ retorted Glyn, and then he relented,
‘I’m going to check the other thorn to see why this one doesn’t want to come out, OK?’
‘I suppose so.’ replied Brendon, resignedly.
Arki returned with an identical thorn, handing it to Glyn.
‘Be careful how you handle it, it’s got the nastiest set of claws on it you could imagine.’
‘Now that’s clever,’ said Glyn, ‘they’re very small, but set back at an angle, so any movement will pull the main thorn in still further. This implies that there must be something mobile around here to be attacked, apart from fatty here, as things like this don’t develop in nature without a purpose.’
‘That’s a nasty thought.’ said Arki, looking over his shoulder instinctively. ‘Anyway, back to the thorn. I don’t see how we can pull it out without taking half the leg muscle with it, so how about flexing the muscle over to one side and then pushing it straight through.’
Glyn pushed the calf muscle over to one side and looked at it for some moments.
‘Yes, I think you’re right, it’s the only way we can do it.’
Turning to Brendon he said, ‘Now this is going to hurt a bit, in fact quite a bit, but it is the only way we can get it out. If we leave it in you may lose your leg altogether as there seems to be some sort of poison involved here, so we are going to push it right through.’
Realizing they needed something to push the thorn with, Arki looked around for a small piece of stick about the same size as the thorn, and having found one, gave it to Glyn saying, ‘You’ll have to push it through to start with, and I’ll grab it when it comes out the other side.’
They both looked at Brendon to see how he was taking it, and were relieved to see he had fainted clean away.
‘Quick,’ said Arki, ‘now’s your chance.’ Glyn pulled the muscle over to one side, positioned the small stick on the end of the thorn and pushed.
It went in so easily that they were both surprised, but Arki failed to grab the sharp end as it emerged from Brendon’s leg. He then shed his jacket, and folding the arm in two so increasing the material thickness, frantically clutched at the protruding thorn, and pulled it clear.
Glyn quickly took a mouthful of water from his container, applied his mouth to the wound and blew with all his might.
At first just a small trickle of water came out, and then a great gush along with some grey slimy substance. After several more applications of the water blowing, just blood and water came through, and then they pinched the wounds closed.
‘It should clot fairly soon, and then it will take care of itself.’ said Arki, hoping he was right, and that all the grey stuff was out. Brendon opened his eyes and looked down at his leg.
‘It’s all over now, no more pain, just a little soreness for a while.’ Arki felt sorry for the wounded man, after all, he was one of nature’s sad accidents, walking around just waiting for something to happen, and usually it did.
‘Let that be an object lesson to all of you.’ Glyn said to the others as they grouped around the still suffering Brendon. ‘We don’t know what we’ll find here, so be on your guard all the time. Right, let’s get on with the journey.’
In single file, they walked at a brisk pace with Glyn and Arki taking it in turns to lead, always on the lookout for the unexpected.
Each time they went up a gentle rise and down the other side, the plants grew in ever increasing profusion, some of them sporting flowers, until Glyn called a halt as it was now getting very difficult to push through some of the bushes, also the possibility of more thorn plants couldn’t be ruled out, although none had been encountered so far.
‘How about we go along the ridge, looking for a thinner patch of growth in the depression below, and then cross over?’ Brendon had forgotten about his injured leg, and impressed them all with his logic.
‘Now that’s a very good idea, well done.’ said Glyn, most surprised of all, and actually smiled at him.
The idea worked, although it did add a little extra length to the journey, but as they were getting nearer to their goal, they didn’t seem to care too much about the extra steps taken. It was while they were crossing one of the depressions where there was a large gap in the plant growth and a little boggier, that the next surprise came. Glyn and Arki had gone across the soggy ground safely and turned to see if all was well with the others, when one of them almost sank out of sight, arms waving and yelling his head off.
They rushed to his aid, grabbing his arms as he began to sink out of sight. It took four of them to pull the unfortunate man up from the soggy mess of the bog, but what no one could understand at first was that they hadn’t sunk, despite the fact that were so close to him when pulling him out.
As he finally emerged, black and slimy, a long grey tentacle was still wrapped around his legs, and was doing its best to pull him back down.
The sheer pulling power as more of the group joined in saved him, the grey tentacle finally losing its grip. It remained waving about in the air, trying to find its meal for a few moments, and then it slithered back into its hole in the boggy ground.
‘Looks like we have a little more wildlife around here than we expected.’ Arki remarked, as they all regained the safety of dry ground.
There was little they could do for the man who almost became a meal for something very unpleasant, except scrape off as much of the mud as possible, and try and console him with a drink of water.
‘Whatever that thing was, it must have a large hole under the bog’s surface and will grab anything which moves nearby.’ Glyn stated the obvious as he couldn’t think of anything else to say.
‘Perhaps if we compromise, and cross any suspected area as close to large plants as possible instead of going for the clear patches.’ Arki made it almost sound like a question.
‘Well, it’s certainly worth a try, but let’s be extra careful.’ replied Glyn.
They skirted the soggy area of the bog, keeping as close as possible to the plant life which grew around its edges and made it safely to the other side.
At the top of the next slope an area of what looked like grass spread out into the far distance, but not grass as they knew it. It was very short, dark grey green in colour and somewhat like a close cropped curly crew-cut, each little blade twisting around its neighbour, thus forming a close knit mat so that no sign of the underlying earth was seen.
‘It’s very pleasant to walk on, but what is it hiding underneath it?’ someone asked of no one in particular.
Up until then, everyone had been enjoying the soft yielding springiness of the new terrain, but now a look of apprehension had overcome the group.
‘Walk in the footsteps of those in front, I doubt you’ll come to much harm.’ said Glyn, striding out confidently.
‘But what about you?’ said Brendon solicitously, ‘you’re taking the first steps.’
‘Goes with the job.’ Glyn replied over his shoulder.
Arki smiled at Brendon’s propitiatory attitude.
They marched on, and as nothing untoward had happened, Glyn increased the pace as he was anxious to reach the cover of the distant band of greenery. Being so exposed out in the open was beginning to make him feel a little uneasy, and he wanted to reach the cover of the trees before nightfall.
Travelling over terrain which all looks the same can be deceiving to the eye, as distances are difficult to judge accurately. And so it was for Glyn and his band of followers, the promised line of trees seemed to dance temptingly in the shimmering haze of the afternoon, but seemed no nearer, despite the forced pace of the march.
Glyn called a halt for a rest and a drink, carefully stamping on a circle of ground to make sure there were no surprises lurking underneath, and they all sat down, hot, weary and somewhat dispirited at their apparent lack of progress.
‘What do you think we’ll find when we get to the trees?’ asked Brendon, anxious to keep in Glyn’s good books after the praise he received from his suggestion earlier at the bog.
‘I don’t know really. I very much doubt if we’ll find much that is the same as the plants we used to grow on the Ship, as I suspect they were genetically modified to best suit our needs. More than likely, the radiation released here has also modified all life forms but in an uncontrolled manner, and probably destroyed many species in the process. The greatest threat could come from predatory creatures, like the giant worm thing in the bog. I think we should devise some form of weaponry for our protection, although I don’t know what we can make it from.’ Arki looked worried at his own thoughts on the matter.
Just then Mia, who was sitting next to Glyn, gave a little cry. ‘I felt it kick, do you think it’s trying to get out?’ she asked in a frightened voice.
‘No, not yet,’ said Glyn, ‘I expect its shifting around trying to get comfortable, it must be very constricting in there.’
Mia rubbed her stomach thoughtfully, her partner was usually right about things, but a second movement of the baby caused some doubt in her mind as to whether he knew much about things maternal.
Arki was first on his feet, the others quickly following and the march was underway again, with Glyn in the lead as usual.
The first sign of the coming evening was a cool breeze which limped across the open plain in a half hearted fashion as if it wasn’t sure which direction to take.
With the agreement of the others, Glyn increased the pace of their march, intending to reach the green belt of treelike growths before the light failed.
The short springy grass beneath their feet took on a different character as they progressed, the first change being the length of each blade and the lack of curl, more like the type of grass they were used to back in the ship.
Before long, the grass was almost up to their knees and impeding their progress. As well as the fact that it was beginning to take quite a fair amount of sheer physical effort just to push through it, Glyn was also being a little more careful about what might be hidden amongst it.
A few paces further on and the first flowers appeared. At this point they all stopped to admire the delicate blooms, the first show of real colour, apart from the dull green of what few plants they had seen and the equally uninspiring browns and greys of the arid landscape.
‘No sign of any berries yet,’ commented Arki wistfully, ‘I could surely do with a good helping of something fruity.’
They looked around, but only unfamiliar seed pods could been seen dotted among the flowers, and no one was going to risk eating them.
‘It looks as if there are some taller bush-like growths up ahead,’ said Glyn, ‘so we may be in luck after all.’
The first of the larger bushes they came to had no flowers or berries, just thin curled up leaves as if it was trying to conserve moisture by exposing as little of itself as possible.
Twenty metres further on and they were smiled upon by the Gods, a large bush of the black berry type they had raided a few days ago bore a large crop of juicy ripe fruits, and it wasn’t long before the bush was stripped bare of its efforts to procreate by the hungry band of travellers.
‘I would suggest no more than five or six berries each, remembering what happened last time.’ suggested Glyn, but no one was listening to good advice at the moment.
With their lips and fingers stained purple and satisfied smiles on their faces, the group lined up behind Glyn without a word being spoken, and the trek continued southwards, everyone looking out for more of the delicious berries as they forced their way through the ever increasing height of the tall grass-like plants.
As the first of the small trees or large bushes appeared, but it was hard to tell which they were from this distance, the general topic of conversation was naturally on food. If the wooded area had berries and fruit, then one of their most urgent problems would be solved.
How many might succumb to poisons contained in the unfamiliar offerings didn’t bear thinking about, so nobody did. If it hadn’t been for Glyn’s insistence that everything was checked out thoroughly, not many would have survived the first few days in their new home.
The undulations in the terrain grew steadily as the edge of the forested area approached, the final hump in the landscape revealed a deep gully with a ribbon of water trickling along it. If the water was drinkable, then that was another problem solved, and Glyn felt very pleased at the find.
‘I’ll go down first to check it out, the rest of you follow when I give the signal.’
He almost fell down the last few metres of the slope as it was covered in thin slate like debris on which a slippery mould had grown.
The water, when he reached it, was a smaller trickle than it had looked from above, and very shallow.
Looking up the gully, a series of large boulders lined the waterway, the meagre stream having cut its own path deep into the terrain in earlier times when rainfall had been much heavier.
‘I’m going to work my way up to those rocks, you go along the top of the ridge and I’ll call you down if there’s a good crossing over point.’