Chapter 26 A Place Nearer To Town

Arriving at the town's terminal pylon, they lugged their heavy supplies of powdered basalt around the back way to Geodon's house. Things in the house seemed undisturbed; the molds for the tableware were still in the workshop. The communicator had a message requesting to buy some of the powdered basalt; Geodon briefly wondered how they knew they were bringing back supplies of it; then remembered promising them some. Maybe if he provided them some voluntarily, his supplies at home might not vanish along with his memory of having it. But explaining how he gets the material might lead to losing exclusive rights to making it.

Not that he wanted exclusive rights to the powdered material. He did not want to be stuck with the job of lugging it back here for the rest of his life. Nansella then suggested that they might take a hike over to the nearest lava outcropping rearing up out of the black sand, take ownership of it, and set a request for satellite solar blasting of the face of the rock there. They could build a fence around it to prevent inadvertent intrusion at the wrong moment when it got frapped by a satellite. The problem would be the long hike back carrying the pails of sand; there were no powered vehicles available. Anyway, doing that would probably placate the local need for materials and curiosity about it; Geodon could then lug the more finely powdered stuff down from the lake area to mix with the locally produced fabrication material, and not need to lug more than a token amount of solar frapped material down from the lake anymore.

So after they had rested up, the next day they got on their backpacks and went to the edge of town near his house, and set out on foot toward the nearest black outcropping, about three kilometers away. There was no trail and most likely theirs were the first footprints ever made on the black sand pathway they were making as they trudged along. At first it seemed that they were not getting any closer but eventually the outcropping started looking closer. Then they were up to the base of the lava fold projecting up out of the black sand. A bit weary, they sat down in the shade of the outcropping, their backs to the lava towering over them. Nansella got the picnic lunch out of her backpack, and set it out for them on a cloth she had brought along, while Geodon set up his communicator and determined what direction would provide the most opportunities for the cluster of solar concentrator satellites in low orbit, to frap one of the faces of the outcropping. Getting up, he walked around and examined that face of the lava fold; nothing special about it. Going back to their shady spot, he activated the satellite sequence; it said the first application would be in 15 minutes.

They were starting their lunch munch when the first blast on the rock happened; and a second one had happened by the time they finished lunch. Verifying that the next one would not hit for the next half hour, they walked around to see how it was doing; there was a small pile of lava shards at the base of the rock projection. Back in their shaded spot again, Geodon used the communicator to file an ownership declaration of the lava projection and the surrounding 10 meters of black sand; and declared it a hazardous area too, not to be intruded upon without consent by him. that would put it on the map, and for now keep others away. He would need to buy some kind of fencing material in town and bring it here. along with notices to post. But for now, it was clear that they were the first living creatures to ever have been here, so there was little chance that others would wander here soon and be in exactly the wrong spot at the wrong time.. For starters, Geodon had brought along a supply of adhesive and a ultrasonic generator, so they spent a few hours making a half meter high barrier defining the active frap area, and made a start on a token wall a few centimeters high, marking the 10 meter perimeter, making it all out of black sand gathered on the spot, mixed with adhesive and activated with the ultrasonic beam.

They hollowed out the sand near their picnic spot enough to make it comfortable and they took a nap there, the temperature being perfect for relaxation. When they awoke, the sun was getting low on the horizon; Geodon checked for when next frap of the lava face would happen, they had half an hour, so they went around and gathered up the smaller lava shards and small particles, about 5 liters of it in their backpacks. Then they began their trudge back to town and into Geodon's workroom. They sifted out the larger shards and set them aside, and mixed up the rest with some of the very fine powder they had brought back from the lake area. This mixture was to be provided to the store for their own use in making the larger tableware from the molds Geodon and Nansella had provided to them earlier. waiting until the next afternoon, they put the powdered mixture on the conveyor belt system, addressing it to the store and asked for a price the store was willing to pay for this kind of material being provided as a sample. When the material had been received and evaluated, Geodon was surprised at the high price offered by the store; apparently they were getting a lot of money for the tableware. Nansella commented that she wondered if the store folks would be at risk of their items getting ripped off by PE too, but doubted it as they were too well integrated into the town's economy, too well known by others who would notice..

It looked like he and Nansella were going to get some good exercise in the coming days, hauling powdered lava back from their rock out in the desert. Eventually they would hire some people to help carry the stuff, but for now, it was theirs to do and have fun doing it.

Now that they had more material, they cast a few more measuring cups and knife-fork-spoons for the store. They worked late into the night making as many as they could. And were up early the next day, again making as many of the cast items as they could today. By that evening they had a dozen of the measuring cups and a pile of eating utensils, along with a few dinner plates and bowls. And by early next morning they had made a couple more measuring cups and dinner plates. This was enough for a shipment to the store. So the put them in a canister and marked it for receipt at the store and sent it off; half an hour later the communicator announced receipt of the items by the store and were giving a very good price for them, said they would be glad to buy as many as could be made, and for the same price.

But Geodon and Nansella were quite tired of making the castings; they had hurried these out so as to look like they had been working many days to make that many. And so it would be many days before the store could expect another shipment. They made one set of one item from each mold, and prepared for another trip to the lake. Picnic basket and backpack full of food and supplies, and Geodon with two buckets of black sand in hand, they headed down the back utility paths to the pylon. Moments later they were in a transfer pod and swinging down the row of pylons toward their little lake.

By the time they arrived at their cave number three, there was only time for a cold meal dinner, the sun too low to use the solar cooker. Exhausted, they turned in a bit early, secured behind the concealed door to the outside. Geodon said that he needed to make a door to the exit into the lava tube too, but that would have to be done another time. It was feeling a bit more spooky to them now, not only due to the mysterious thefts of some of their belongings along with concurrent memory erasure of ownership of the items, but also now that they realized that there were creatures from another planet who also were on the planet too, although most likely all asleep now. But with some here, who knows what else might be here too?

Next morning after a solar heated breakfast, Geodon was busy shoveling out the tunnel made by Rardat, that was to be cave number five. He was curious how far back it went. The fine powder quickly made a clay when mixed with water, and would set up fairly hard simply by drying. Nansella made a mold for interlocking bricks, and was making some of them for building walls; it would take awhile to have enough bricks to build much of anything, but it was a start. Most of the tunnel's powder was shoveled into the lake so as to make more agricultural area, putting only a couple centimeters of the black sand on top, he had carried up in the buckets. He dug just a walking path through the tunnel, leaving as much of the powder as he could to the sides of the tunnel; the main intent was to find where this bored tunnel went.

And a hundred meters into the lava ripples, the bored tunnel intersected a new lava tube, one they had not been to yet and id not know existed before. The bored tunnel also stopped there; Rardat must have known about the lave tube and assumed that was the goal of the cave asked of him to make. The new lava tube was far deeper than the other pair of them, thus probably much older , made before the volcano had heaped new layers above it. So, probably both ends of the new lava tube most likely would be blocked. Even so, the tube represented a possible place for storage, including of the very fine lava dust made by Rardat; so Geodon spent a few more hours shoveling dust into the lava tube to clear the tunnel access more, and be able to save the very high quality dust for fabrications of things in the molds.

It was the end of their first day back up at their lake, and they had accomplished a lot. Yet on their minds was the desire to go get their new friend Rardat, bring it - them - back here as companions or pets, not sure of the relationship type yet.