‘What’s that above your head?’ Arki asked, and Brendon raised his burning bundle of twigs as high as he could to reveal a small dark opening in the ceiling. The smoke was being drawn upwards and out of sight.
‘Where’s it going?’ asked Glyn, a puzzled look on his face, ‘there’s only the concrete roof and a covering of creepers above us.’
One of the men nearest the entrance went outside and down the new ramp they had constructed to see where the mysteriously disappearing smoke was coming out of the building.
‘No sign of it outside, at least none that I can see.’
‘Well, it’s got to go somewhere, perhaps we can trace it better tomorrow in daylight. At least it’s cleared the air of that damp mouldy smell.’ Arki added hurriedly, keen to get the evening meal underway.
Feeling he was on a roll, Brendon turned to Glyn saying,
‘Perhaps we could have the fire in here, so we can get all the warmth from it, as the smoke seems quite happy to go up there.’ pointing to the hole in the ceiling.
‘You really are in good form today.’ Glyn answered with a wide grin, and giving him another pat on the shoulder gave instruction for the firewood to be brought in, and a new fire to be lit in the corner of the underground room.
Someone had the sense to build a low stone wall around the burning sticks, so containing the fire and preventing the nearby bedding from joining the wood in its merry blaze.
The gathering clouds had completed their job of blotting out the lowering sun, and complete darkness soon followed, except for the concrete room and its occupants, bathed in the warm glow from the fire in the corner.
There was just enough light to enable the group around the fire to add the correct amount of water to their food concentrates, and the meal was finished with the most welcome fruit and berries gathered earlier.
Despite the hard work done during the day, no one seemed too keen to go to sleep, except the younger members, and the conversation went on long into the night, debating the reasons for their presence there and the possible outcome of moving on towards the equator, as the instructions had indicated they should do.
It was only when the main supply of wood had run low, and a small token fire kept going to keep the chill of night at bay, that everyone finally lay down to sleep.
In the early hours of the morning, a crackling explosion and a blinding flash of light woke everyone up. The moving storm which had been long brewing, finally found a suitable section of the landscape to vent its fury on, and did so.
The fire keeper immediately added a few small sticks to the glowing embers of the fire and blew on them, the tiny flames soon growing in size so that the walls were adorned by the ghostly dancing shadows of those moving around, trying to get their turn at the doorway to see the brilliant lightning display outside.
The rain must have been falling for some considerable time as the gentle trickle of water in the gully was now a raging torrent, tearing away at the banks, and it had already removed half the ramp which had been built yesterday from the debris of the sleeping chamber.
‘Don’t go onto the ramp,’ Glyn yelled out over the thunderous cacophony of the storm, ‘it won’t take a lot to set the rest of it moving.’ And with that the rest of the ramp gently slid down the slope to be swallowed up by the dirty crested thrashing waters which now nearly filled the gully, and if the rain kept up, would soon reach the doorway of their shelter.
The totally black sky was continuously riven by the snaking blue, white, and pink ribbons of lightning, streaking from cloud to cloud and from cloud to ground, one nearby strike throwing up a huge column of mud as it dissipated its energy into the earth in one furious millisecond.
Slowly the storm abated, but the rain continued to cascade down, filling the gully almost up to the entrance level of their shelter, and Glyn was beginning to get worried.
Should he move everyone out to higher ground and risk getting their supplies wet and ruined, or just sit the storm out and stand the chance of being washed away if the torrent in the gully suddenly surged and entered their chamber? Arki was just as undecided as he was, and so they stayed.
At last the rain eased to a gentle drizzle, and the noise of the storm seemed strangely distant and divorced from their surroundings, almost as if it were happening somewhere else and they were watching a visual recording of it.
Glyn and Arki, along with several others, were in the doorway of their shelter, when on the horizon a thin pale blue streamer of light leapt up from the ground and into the overhead clouds. Instantaneously, a massive purple tongue of lightning streaked downwards towards the ground, lighting up the surrounding land as if the sun had suddenly come out.
As the lightning strike died out, it was replaced by the biggest flash of light they had yet seen as a colossal yellow and red fireball headed skywards, the vivid fires within it twisting and churning as if they were alive.
‘Quick, inside and lie down!’ Glyn yelled out with an edge of panic in his voice.
As they threw themselves down onto the bedding, and the others followed suit, the pressure wave hit making their eardrums pop.
The blast of sound which followed left several of them who had been in direct line with it through the doorway, slightly deaf for a couple of days.
The ground heaved up and down several times, and the sound of the tormented earth trying to adjust to the massive pressures put upon it added a new sound and element of fear to that which had already overwhelmed them.
As the distant rumble of rock torn from the earth returning to its place of origin died away, the fire maker scraped together the glowing coals of his fire, added a few more sticks, blew on them nervously, and the chamber with its traumatized occupants was lit once more in a gentle glow.
‘What do you think that was?’ asked Glyn, not really expecting a sensible answer from anyone.
‘Well, I think it was an atomic explosion, the fireball and the concussion wave certainly fitted the description I once read about in one of the books, and I can’t think of anything else which would release that much energy in one go.’ Arki quietly said to Glyn.
‘But atomics haven’t been used here for hundreds or maybe thousands of years, if we are to believe what we read when we opened the survival packs.’ Glyn retorted, not at all convinced.
‘Maybe so, but if there was an underground atomic power station, or a secret dump of atomic missiles buried deep within the earth, that lightning strike could have been just powerful enough to have started a chain reaction, and boom, up she went.’ Arki spoke with such conviction that Glyn had little choice other than to believe him, especially as he couldn’t think of a better answer.
‘What about the radiation, do you think we got hit by that as well?’ asked Glyn, bearing in mind the damage it could do to the project.
‘I expect we got some, but the walls of this place are quite thick, and that must have stopped most of it.’
‘Well there’s nothing we can do about it now, but in future we must try and keep any exposure to radiation to the lowest amount possible, otherwise our genes, will be damaged, and the whole project will have been a huge waste of time and effort. I don’t quite understand how it works,’ Glyn added, ‘but that is the gist of it according to what I’ve read.’
Next morning the clouds rolled away, as a grey cold dawn broke it seemed as if the earth itself was feeling miserable.
When it was light enough, Glyn went outside to survey the damage the storm had done. The gully was now nearly a metre deeper, and the rock dam they had so carefully built together with the larger natural one downstream, had been swept away. The stream still ran, chuckling and gurgling over a new obstacle course of rocks uncovered by last night’s torrent, but not really fit for drinking as it still bore a considerable amount of silt.
‘I would think by midday the water will have cleared enough for us to use it, so you can all drink your fill from the water containers and we’ll refill them later.’ Glyn announced hopefully.
They had a little fruit left over from the night before, and this was shared out as evenly as possible, the children being given the major portions.
‘Do you think we should head south again?’ asked Arki, as they trooped outside into the rather thin sunshine which was still trying to break through the few remaining clouds.
‘Not just yet. We must replenish our water supplies first, and then it would be a good idea to see if we can find any more edible fruits in the forest so that we can recognize them more easily in the future. Also it’s about time we found out what else we have in our survival packs, there was some mention of tools, I think.’ Glyn was looking for a flat dry piece of ground on which to assemble his band of followers so that they could undo their backpacks, but the ground was still sodden after the night’s torrential downpour.
While the sun was left to evaporate the last of the rain, it was decided to check out the nearby forest for more fruits, and after much searching in the soggy woods behind the ridge where the apples had been found the previous day, they were able to add a nut to their meagre food supplies.
It was like no other nut which Glyn or Arki had ever seen before, either in the ship or the books they had read, but Arki had a gut feeling that it was edible, and after the usual tasting trial, pronounced it fit to eat.
It was nearly as big as the apples they had found yesterday, and once the outer husk had been removed, proved to be a good source of protein, although a little indigestible if eaten in large quantities, as they found out later.
By the afternoon, the ground had dried out, and Glyn called everyone out into the open to search through their survival packs for anything useful, other than the food concentrates.
Soon they discovered that they had two light making devices, which when the button was pressed on one end, a beam of light emerged from the other. A warning message stated that the light should only be used in an emergency, as the power source was of limited ability.
A series of knife blades, which folded into their handles for safety, were greeted with the kind of enthusiasm reserved for chefs’ special efforts, when it got it right, that is.
A pack of water purifying tablets, a flame provider for initiating fire, and a range of pills for various illnesses which none of them had ever heard of, let alone able to diagnose, made up the main itinerary of things which would help them stay alive in their new environment, or so thought the providers of the items.
One of the group found a large pack of something he couldn’t open, so tightly was it wrapped, and gave it to Glyn for his appraisal.
Using one of the new found knives, he managed to carefully remove the multi layered waterproof wrappers, revealing a small handgun and several ammunition packs, also individually wrapped against the atmosphere.
Glyn held up the instruction sheet which came with the pack, and read aloud to the assembled group.
‘This device is used to propel a metallic projectile at high velocity, the object being to kill or severely wound the target at which the device is pointed. You will not have had any knowledge of such a device before, so it is deemed expedient that the following directions be fully understood before the device is used,’ Glyn read on, mouthing the words to himself as he saw little point in reciting the whole thing to the others, who would probably have forgotten most of it long before the device was needed.
Several other little items of interest were found, a ball of very tough twine, a small pack of plastic sheets and a pen like device with which to write on them, and a ball of what looked like clear glass.
This last item brought forth many ribald comments from those who had perfected that art long ago on board the Ship at the Chefs expense, not that the Chef had cared one jot.
A stock of apples, several large handfuls of the black berries and copious amounts of the new nuts had been retrieved from the forest by nightfall, and the usual shared pack of concentrates were now split among three people, the native foods being used to fill up the otherwise nearly empty stomachs.
The firewood stocks had been doubled so that a good fire could be kept burning all night if need be, and the stream was beginning to clear as they all retired to the concrete chamber in the side of the ridge for the night.
The night was quiet and uneventful as far as the people in the shelter were concerned, and a good night’s sleep saw them fresh and eager to get on with the new day when it eventually dawned, bright and clear.
After their breakfast of fruit and nuts, Glyn suggested that they all washed their clothes and took a good bath in a pool formed by the storm.
Some stripped off without a care and ran down to the water’s edge, much to the embarrassment of those of a more delicate nature, who, after a time, were cajoled by Arki to join the others as they didn’t have anything to show which was different to those already in the water. Eventually, everyone had partaken of the waters, and clothes lay strewn about on sticks, rocks and anything else which would support them from the now dusty ground.
When everyone was dressed again, and the blushes had disappeared, Glyn suggested that they raid the forest once more for food stocks, as on the morrow they would be heading south again, as directed by the instruction sheet.
The strange disappearance of the smoke from their fire in the corner of the concrete chamber still held a fascination for Arki, who didn’t like insolvable mysteries. He had checked outside to see where the smoke was coming out, and it wasn’t. The top of the building was, as far as they could tell, just a solid block of concrete and there were no holes in it.
Not only that, it was covered in a thick layer of earth and a mat of creepers which over the years had interwoven to form an impenetrable barrier to smoke and man.
Arki reasoned there must be a draft which sucked the smoke to some outlet which they couldn’t find and had to leave it at that, much to his disappointment.
Early next morning the group set off along the top of the ridge, following the stream towards its possible source, thus maintaining a supply of drinking water while trying to locate the edge of the forest so that they could turn south again.