Extreme Difference (7 page)

‘This gives the perfect mixture for an explosion, so propelling the stone out when it’s fired. The wadding is to hold the stone in place, and the bung is put back to seal the barrel,’ and then Ben added as an after thought, ‘I would have thought you could have worked it out for yourself.’

‘Well, I had, sort of, but I wanted to make sure I had understood it properly.’ Sandy replied, when in reality he was checking to see if Ben understood the principles involved, giving him a measure of the man’s intelligence for future use. With the guns recharged, they both headed back to the entrance of the cave complex, to rearm the guards.

‘Looks like we got back just in time,’ said Sandy, handing over the gun he was carrying to what he thought was Kel, although the difference between Kel and Karry was hardly discernible despite the fact that she was a female, ‘we have another visitor on the way.’

Kel shielded his eyes against the glare coming off the shiny peaks above and stared into the distance indicated by Sandy.

‘You’ve got good eyes!’ he exclaimed, ‘damned if I would have spotted him so soon.  I think it’s one of the men from the group next to us, there’re all right, we trade with ’em quite a bit, that’s when they have anything to trade with.’

The distant figure quickly grew in size as it raced across the intervening sand, little spurts of silver dust like particles flying out behind him as he sped towards the waiting group.

Red faced and sweating profusely, the stranger blurted out the news between gasps of air to satisfy his bursting lungs.

‘We bin raided, most of our stock of plants ’ave bin taken, an’ three of our men be lying injured. One ran off into the sands, an’ somethin got ’im, couldn’t see what it was though, it gist grabbed ’is legs, an’ he went under.’

‘God, he smells worse than our lot,’ Sandy quietly said to Ben, who had moved up wind of the odorous visitor. ‘They must be
really
short of water.’

‘Do we smell as bad to you, as that man does to me?’ asked Ben, with an anxious look on his face.

‘If you want me to be honest, yes, but I’m getting used to it, I suppose. We could all do with a good wash, if the truth be known, and as for a hair cut, you’ll all have to get an estimate first.’

‘What do you mean, an estimate? asked a perplexed Ben.

‘It means...., Oh, forget it, just a little joke of mine.’ Sandy replied, moving a little further up wind of their visitor.

‘What do you want us to do about it?’ asked Kel, warily.

‘Git ’em back for us. We’s short of food anyway, an’ now we’s hardly got any,’ the visitor said miserably, ‘we could help you, that would out number ’em.’ he added as an afterthought.

‘Where were your guards?’ asked Karry, ‘you should have seen them coming and beaten them off, or at least got your growing boxes back inside.’

‘Don’t know. We just heard a noise, an’ when we went outside half the boxes was gone, an’ three of our men was lying on the ground, injured.’ He wobbled over to a rock and sat down, thoroughly dejected, the rest of the group moving over to one side to avoid the aroma which seemed to follow him like an invisible but pungent cloud.

‘We don’t even know who they are,’ Kel said defensively, ‘and even if we did, there’s little chance we could get the boxes back without heavy casualties. Sounds like they’re the same lot who paid us a visit earlier, but we saw them coming and fought them off with our gas guns.’

‘We don’t ’ave any gas guns, perhaps we could trade for some?’ the wretched creature suggested, but with little hope in his voice.

‘We only have two, and your lot probably couldn’t look after them properly, anyway.’ Kel wasn’t going to deplete his armoury at any price.

‘Could we trade for some growing boxes an’ plants?’ the odorous heap asked, this being the main purpose of his visit.

‘What do you have to trade with?’ asked Ben, thinking this would put an end to the request.

‘Don’t know. We’s got lots of bits an’ pieces you might find useful. Stuff the Great Light gave us.’ he added brightly, as if this would increase the value of their stock.

‘I very much doubt you’ll have anything of value to us,’ Kel said, ‘anyway, we don’t have any spare growing boxes at the moment, so I don’t see how we can trade.’

Sandy felt sorry for the emissary from the raided group, he had slumped down on his rock, all hope gone from his dejected face, and a trickle of tears threatened to dislodge some of the ingrained dirt from his grimy cheeks.

Sandy casually moved closer to Kel and said very quietly,

‘It might be worth a quick look to see what they’ve got, could be there’s something we could make use of.’

Kel hesitated for a moment, deep in thought, and replied, ‘OK, we’ll have to get Nan’s approval first, and if we do, we’ll go over first thing in the morning. You might be right, I don’t think even they know what they’ve got. They’re such an inept bunch, I’m surprised they are still in existence.’

‘He’s got a funny way of talking, too,’ Sandy said, nodding his head in the general direction of the pathetic bundle of rags, ‘I can only just understand him.’

Kel grinned, ‘You should hear the rest of ’em, they’ve got a different language to us, and he acts as translator for them. We’ve dealt a little with them in the past, and that’s when I found out that when he arrived here, he didn’t speak their language at all, so had to learn it. I suppose he’s lost a little of his own in the process, or it’s just a bit different to ours.’

Nan suddenly appeared on the scene, and Kel went over to explain what had happened. Agreement was reached on a possible trade the following day, and the odorous emissary was dispatched homewards, with copious warnings about the coming cold of evening, and the nasty things which lurked below the surface of the fast cooling sand. The others of the group had already begun to retrieve the growing bins, and soon the crater was devoid of all visible life.

On the way back to the main cavern, Sandy asked Nan about the black sticky stuff which held the fabric covering over the hole in the cave they now used to condense water.

He thought it came from a cave deep below the gas generating cavern, a long time ago, but no one had been there of late that he could recall.

‘Why are you interested in it?’ asked Nan, ‘do you have a use for some sticky stuff?’

‘It’s a raw material, and there may be some other undiscovered use for it.’ replied Sandy cautiously, not wishing to go into deep discussion of what he had in mind at the moment. Somehow the black goo around the hole reminded him of something, and he felt sure if he were to see it in its native state, he would be able to recall what it was.

By now, Ben had taken an interest in the proceedings, and as Nan moved away, disinterestedly, Ben moved in closer.

‘What are you up to now?’ he asked quietly, ‘perhaps I can help. I know my way around these caves quite well, and I’ve been in some that no one else seems to know about, deep below us. There is a limit, below which you die. I’ve not been that far, but someone did a long time ago, and never came back, or so the story goes.’

‘We’ll sort that problem out if and when we come to it. Don’t forget, there’s much superstition attached to most stories in your history. Oh, and we’ll have to find some way of making light if we are going outside the range of the gas lamps, so start thinking about that.’ said Sandy, as they began assembling for the evening meal.

Mop looked very pleased with herself when she came in with her steaming cauldron, and liberally splashed several members of the party as she dished out the foul smelling brew. Luckily, it tasted better than it smelt, as usual.

With the meal over, the group slowly dispersed with the occasional ill concealed belch, leaving Ben, Sandy, and Nan still sitting at the table. Mop collected up the bowls and dumped them into the cauldron, wiped up the few remaining puddles of spilt stew, and giving Sandy a slight nudge as she passed by, swept out of the cavern with a look of triumph on her face.

‘That was the best meal she has produced yet.’ Nan said, picking a few vagrant particles from his beard and eating them. ‘I only hope she can keep up this new standard for a while.’ He sat back, leaning against the wall of the cavern, and looked expectantly at the other two.

‘Can I ask a few more questions about this place?’ asked Sandy hesitantly, knowing that Nan could easily be upset.

He nodded, his face taking on a furrowed and serious look.

‘Tell me about the sands, and the creatures who live in them.’ Sandy began, aware that Ben was showing interest.

‘We’ve never seen them, only suffered from their attacks. They only come to the surface when it’s not too cold or too hot, so we are free to walk on the sands between these times.

‘Early morning and late evening, if your feet are well covered, are safe times, although that can’t be guaranteed. Whatever they are, they’re very quick, those caught by them just disappear into the sand, only having time to give a yell. Do you have something in mind?’ he asked.

‘Just thought they might be a source of meat, that’s if we can catch ’em. If we could, they would be a good trading material, but we would have to keep the whole thing to ourselves, or we’ll lose the trading value.’

Nan looked surprised at the idea, and then asked what ‘meat’ was, as it was not on Mop’s menu as far as he knew, and he had forgotten the meaning of the word.

Sandy did his best to explain that it was a high protein food, although he wasn’t quite sure what that meant, except that it was a desirable thing to have available, and then went on to elaborate on a possible and safe method of capture.

‘If we bait a long rope with something edible on the end, and throw it out onto the sands as they are warming up, whatever is down there should grab it, and then we can haul in the rope a little, and leave the sun’s heat to kill it.’

Nan didn’t say anything for a while, but Ben was almost too keen to get on with the project. It was decided in the end to work out all the finer points of the capture, and then put it to the rest of the group to see how they felt about eating meat, and if they thought the risk was worth taking.

It was obvious that Nan wanted to change the subject, so Sandy took the offered chance, and brought up the Great Lights for discussion. It was then even more obvious that Nan would have preferred to have stuck with the creatures of the sands until all were ready for bed.

‘Just what are these lights?’ asked Sandy, feigning innocence, as he thought this might be most productive.

‘They are the great providers, the creators of people like us. They visit us every now and again to bring new people, and materials for us to make use of. Without them, we would not exist, nor could we exist here, for there is nothing to sustain us without their help.’ Nan adopted the look of someone who had just delivered the final statement on a subject, and considered that subject to be at an end. He had not reckoned with the tenacity of purpose which drove Sandy to find out what had happened to him.

‘Why do you think they create us, and then dump us in this godforsaken place to struggle for a miserable existence which I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy?’

‘It is their will,’ said Nan, falteringly, ‘they have a purpose which is unknown to us.’

‘I bet they bloody have.’ Sandy muttered under his breath.

‘But what could that purpose be?’ Ben interjected, sensing a battle of wills was about to commence, and was enjoying the mental sparring which underlay it.

‘Do you consider them to be Gods, a higher type of being, an almighty power able to create whatever they want?’ Sandy was now getting into his stride, and sensing the confusion Nan was going through trying to rationalize his beliefs and explain them, he remorselessly pressed ahead.

‘If they could create anything they wished, why not create a pleasant world, with plenty of food and tolerable conditions, instead of this hell hole of heat and cold and its lack of the most basic comforts?’

‘It is their wish.’ Nan replied defiantly, looking more uncomfortable by the minute.

‘You keep saying, ‘It is their wish’, as if that answered everything. It answers nothing. Everything has a reason or purpose behind it, and I think there is a purpose behind our situation here. It’s nothing to do with a God or Gods creating us and a world for us to play in, while they look on for amusement. I think there is a more rational purpose behind it, and I mean to find out what it is, and turn it to our advantage.’ Sandy sat back to see what affect his statement had on the otherwise unflappable Nan, and was disappointed to see him disintegrate into a mere shadow of his former self.

The man was clearly in mental turmoil, his old beliefs which had sustained him through many doubtful moments were now being systematically ripped apart, and no longer seemed to make sense when looked at rationally.

Why had this disturbing stranger come among them?

The silence dragged on, and eventually Nan gathered himself up for one last defence of his world, as he knew it.

‘What you are saying amounts to sacrilege.’ he began, drawing himself up to his full height as best he could while being seated. ‘If what you’re saying should ever get back to the Great Light, it would be the end of their gifts, and there would be no more people to replace those who die. Just think what that would mean to us, it would be the end of our world in a very short while. You are treading on dangerous ground, and I suggest you think twice before probing any deeper into things you don’t understand.’ He sat back, exhausted with the mental effort of overriding his suspicions of what might be true and trying to retain some degree of control over the situation.

Sandy patiently waited a few moments for things to calm down, before delivering the final blow to what he considered to be a totally false and useless quasi religious regime.

‘Just think on this, you arrive here as fully grown adults, with no memory of your past, dumped into a harsh world where you have to continually fight for a miserable existence and no means of escape. People start life as children, and grow up into adults, but that memory has been denied you.

‘If you had to be put somewhere to live out your miserable lives, it could be somewhere more hospitable than this harsh hell hole, unless there was a reason for choosing this place. So what could be that reason?’ Sandy carried on before anyone could intervene and spoil his rapid train of thought.