Chapter 21 The Cave Life
After making their way through the back utility path maze to Geodon's house out near the other perimeter section of town, they did their spoon position check and generally chatted with each other, it seemed like they had not been altered. Maybe there really wasn't something to worry about after all.
The next morning they resumed making their craft items, she the measuring cup and he the basic knife-fork-spoon table eating utensils, since they only had a small remaining amount of the finely powdered material. When they were about to run out of the powder, Geodon had only one more spoon to finish to make another complete set of tableware. Then he thought, could one use a hammer and pound ordinary black sand into fine powder? Lots more work than having the satellite beam's thermal pounding do it; but for small quantities maybe he could do it enough to get the last spoon made.
However, he soon realized that in this town he had not seen a metal hammer, and he did not own one. On his former job there was always a metal hammer handy, so he was used to there being one around. Maybe he could make one using the ordinary sand casting process; would not be as smooth a surface as would be made using the fine powder, but maybe good enough for this purpose; and he was curious as to how strong the hammer would be, would it survive the kind of shocks that such a tool normally would endure. So they spent the rest of the day fashioning a mold for a hammer shape - they had no sample shape this time - by using the technique of having the interlocking adhesive go into the parts of sand filling a container, and plain sand going into where there would be a hollow for the two halves of a hammer shape. Then ultrasonic activation of the adhesive causing essentially a unitized crystalline matrix to form. Then dumping out the loose sand and wiping the hollows clean in the two halves of the mold, they put the two halves together and poured in sand-adhesive mix in through the top hole to fill the mold; another trigger by the ultrasonic generator and the tool was made. Opening the mold, out fell a hammer of sorts.
Realizing that there needed to be a durable restraining hollow in which to pound the sand, they made a block out of sand and activated sand once again, a rather large object and using lots of sand. Putting a few grains of sand in the hollow, Geodon tentatively tapped the sand in the cavity, the sand seemed unaffected and the hammer did not break. Soon he was pounding quite vigorously, the hammer still not breaking; but the sand grains were getting pulverized, although the fragments tended to fly off out of the container. Yet, with pounding, there was part of it getting to be the powdery type. It remained to be seen if the physical pounding produced fragments of the same quality as those made by the very brief concentrated solar blasts doing the thermal shocking, up at the little lake facility. And beating on it with a hammer was lots more tiring. But, the material did not have to be lugged down here in a pail.
Nevertheless, when that last spoon was cast, they resolved to make another trip up to the lake as soon as possible. The communicator had left a message from the town store that they wanted lots more of the kitchen utensils and measuring cups; would buy all that could be produced. Geodon suspected something like that had happened re the cabinets. Would spoons and tableware look sufficiently important and moneymaking to attract the same thing that had cost him the cabinetry business? How could they do it this time so that the lure of another easy ripoff of a lucrative business would not happen again?
Nansella suggested that they might use the mold and casting process to make a lot of low volume items, requiring a lot of hand craft work in making the molds and objects themselves. And prepare kits for making one's own molds and items at home, thus spreading the technology around. There would still be a market for the items bought in stores, such as spoons and cabinets, simply because it is quicker and easier to buy a pre-made item than make it yourself; but, if scarcity was happening, one could make things oneself.
Nevertheless, at the bottom of one of his pails of sand, Geodon carried one of the spoon molds along with them as they went up the pylon transportation system that afternoon. Nansella also carried several packages of food that could be stored for years, which they planned to be part of a stash of supplies to be saved up there. It was not much; enough for two days for two people; but it was some. They had a feeling of possible disaster of some kind, but of what type was unguessable, whether caused by man or nature. Or both; the designed planetary ecosystem was still far from being in a self-sustaining balance condition, and some biological subsystem might fail, causing collapse of the food system on which all people depended upon on this planet.
The little ecosystem which Geodon had prepared in his small lake area, was a small scale of that of the whole planet. He had bought reproducing samples of the small creatures that were thriving in other places on this planet, key to the food chain on which people were the top predators; yet also the nurturers of that food chain too, guardians of the ecosystem. Just as Geodon's lake area was, the whole planet had been utterly lifeless when PE landed here 40 years ago. Now, there were little pockets of life that seemed to be thriving. The biologists had done well in selecting species to bring here from Old Earth. But not all species could be transported and be expected to survive; nor could but a fraction be thought to be able to take hold here and thrive. So this planet had only a small fraction of the biodiversity of the home planet, and even the home planet's ecosystem was often in wild gyrations, mostly triggered by mankind's activities. So Geodon was also bringing up a small microanalyzer to be put into the lake, a small artificial life form, which was designed to wander about in the watery environment and on solid surfaces whether covered by air or water, and continuously analyze the chemistry of the air or water and mineral content, and observe the type and quantity of the lifeforms that were close to it. Its readings would be sent to Geodon's communicator, and its data would be stored there; and trends graphed, predictions made, and requests made for corrective items.
First, it would gather data as a baseline for comparison of changes and trends. So Geodon was also bringing up a data recorder and analyzer that would remain up at the lake and be continuously powered, so as to be able to accumulate the data from the little robot prowling the lake. At this point, Geodon was not sharing the data with PE; it was like a rather large personal aquarium, a place for pets. Geodon thought of this vacation lake place of his as a potential agricultural area, a place for food to be grown and that food shared with a few people, once there was enough of it thriving up there. Why do all that, he was not sure; it was a hobby, something for retired folks to do to entertain themselves, as far as PE management considered it all.
They arrived at the lake terminal pylon and brought their rather heavy pails and picnic basket, along with backpacks full of more goodies, down the elevator; and then they made their way across the trail Geodon had made. In a place where the route required crawling over a lava outcropping, Nansella asked Geodon why did he not set a satellite request to use thermal shock to blast through that outcropping, to clear the trail of its worst outcropping. He agreed that it was a doable thing, and resolved to put in the programming instructions to the satellite system, to be done only when it was dusk, as it was unlikely that anyone would be traversing the trail in the dark. But it would take a long time, since the satellites tended to be low altitude ones, and so would also be in the dark as shaded by the planet, so they would only be able to do their thermal shocking if they happened to be in the right place when it was dusk or dawn.
When they had gotten into the third cave facility, and had set their pails down, Nansella suddenly suggested that they go take their special stash items up to the area where the roof had collapsed in the lava tunnel, and spend the night there. Geodon thought that was not the most comfortable place after a long trip, but agreed; but first, he went out and set the lake monitor robot off into the water, watching it make its way slowly down out of sight in the water. He climbed up to the top of the lava fold which now housed the three artificially bored caves, and set the data monitor there, where it was in sight of nearly all of the lake and the patches of sand agricultural areas that Geodon had made and planted.
After climbing back down, he found Nansella had already prepared the items to take up to the survival supply stash area, leaving their main food goodies here. Geodon picked up their bedrolls, and they went out the back of the cave, into the lava tube, and began the long walk up the lava tube, using only one of their flashlights. They already were getting conditioned to stretch their supplies including of energy. They finally got to the Y and turned down the other arm of the Y, and soon were at the site of the roof collapse of the lava tube.
Setting the food supplies down in the back area of the tunnel, where they had marked their future site for a room to be built, Geodon then hiked up to the top of the collapse debris pile, and off a ways into the lava folds a few meters away from the hole, and carefully positioned a solar cell array to be able to catch solar energy generally at a maximum amount throughout the year. He carefully routed the wires unobtrusively along the folds and then down into the hole, and over to their hideout site, where he set up a small rechargeable battery and a charging outlet for a couple of flashlights, including a small one they would be leaving here, plugged into the solar charger. It would be a small amount of energy as compared to the power beamed down by the satellite system; but this was independent of that satellite system which was controlled by PE. Once charged, the little battery and flashlight would enable some light here, and the small flashlight be available for short excursions. Small conveniences; but gave them a sense of civilization even here in this rugged place.
Nansella got out her dinner meal for them, and they ate it while sitting in the evening light coming down through the hole in the tunnel roof. Back after the meal, they spread their bedroll out, set the flashlights nearby, and wearily prepared for their well earned rest. Their lights out, the light from dusk slowly faded the last of the light there as they snuggled for warmth as well as a sense of companionship more intense in this so isolated place, where they were the only life this spot had ever known. The tunnel floor was hard but smooth so the bedroll did not have to cushion too much, there being no rocks there. It was a strange feeling in that place, as the last detectable light from the hole had vanished. It was nice to be in touch with each other, and no interference from other people, PE or otherwise; this was all their own experience, and nobody could mess with it.