The pair of them settled into a routine of sorts over the next several days. Sam worked on the bathtub while the sun shone, planing the boards with the Japanese plane he’d built to hold the replacement iron he’d carried with him, and carving joints into the wood with his limited tools. It took him nearly a week. Early mornings and late afternoons, he worked on the cabin, as the work was far less finicky.
While there was considerable back and forth during the entirety of their days, evenings were given over exclusively to language lessons. At least until the tub was finished. They settled into a routine where he’d go through the primer and give her common phrases, which she’d correct and he’d repeat back.
With the necessity of hiding the tablet gone, Sam was picking up the dialect much more quickly. What surprised him was the efficacy with which Sings in Morning was picking up English. Apparently, he talked to himself as he worked.
As he’d predicted, she was looking at the tablet more and more closely as her English improved. There was going to be a point coming soon when she’d want to be the one at the keys, he knew.
Sings in Morning spent her days struggling to develop a routine that made sense to her. She was now doing the cooking, supplementing the dried meat with whatever she could scrounge from the surrounding countryside, which wasn’t much, washing her hands theatrically beforehand.
She brained a skunk with a thrown rock on the fourth day as she wandered the periphery of the camp looking for anything useful. It was an interesting meal, but fresh meat was fresh meat.
She spent some time weaving reeds from the stream into a couple of baskets, but the reeds weren’t in great condition, and the baskets showed it. In the evenings, she would cook the second and final meal of their day, after which she would ostentatiously brush her teeth.
It took Sam nearly a week to finish the tub and assemble the pieces. He was pretty proud of it, if he had to pat his own back about it. The outer frame was tongue and groove inch and a half by three, joined with the bottom and side slats using mortise and tenon joints. He used tongue in groove joints on the thinner slats that made up the sides and bottom.
The assembly was six kinds of a bitch without the legion of woodworking tools he had hanging in the garage back home, but with Sings in Morning’s help and a handmade wooden mallet, he managed to get everything together without having to explain more than a couple of dozen twenty-first century profanities to the curious girl.
He’d figured it would run about thirty-five gallons when he was planning it. In the event he wasn’t even close. He measured the finished tub by the simple expedient of filling the thing with the big pot. That is, trying to fill it. He gave up when he dumped the sixth potful in and it was less than half of where he wanted the water level to be.
Everything stopped for another day while he calculated and then carved out a couple of extra framing braces. This thing was going to hold north of fifty gallons, and that was a lot of pressure against those thin boards without something like iron bands holding everything together. Emptying it was going to be sporty as well.
In the event, he drilled out a three-quarter inch hole and fashioned a plug that would fit from the inside where the water pressure would hold it in place. Then he whittled out a series of drain troughs from three foot sections of a three inch pine trunk, split down the middle and hollowed out. It should work, in theory, to keep most of the dirty water off the floor of the cave, at least. Outside the bounds of the cabin, he could just dig a trough in the dirt leading down the hill and out into the trees. He sure didn’t want it draining into the stream.
All during the time he was constructing these modifications, he had to throttle the urge to expand on them. Deep in his brain was the surety that he was completely capable of building a fairly modern septic system, and even a flush toilet, if only he had a ready source of clay and a decent kiln. The Grand Council caught him building modern plumbing and a leach field, they were liable to send troops to get him moving.
Finally! He breathed a heavy sigh of relief as he stood back and watched the filled tub not leak very much. Not bad for using green wood, he thought to himself. And now he knew how to build one. The next one would go together much faster.
Sings in Morning, meanwhile, frowned thoughtfully as she watched. The tub looked very much like two people would fit comfortably inside.
The next day, Sam was back at the hardwoods. He figured he needed to be going at it hard to finish before he ended up working in the rain.
He set Sings in Morning to gathering moss for chinking. It turned out to be a mistake, because that’s how she found the clay deposit.
She knew what it was, obviously, and wasted no time in telling Sam about it and all of the things they needed it for. And now, he had to build something else that wasn’t a cabin. Well, it wasn’t like it was something he wasn’t going to build anyway at some point. Of course, now that he had the clay....
No. First he had to build a kiln. Damnit! He looked imploringly to the sky, holding his arms out to his sides beseechingly. The wristband began to beep.
* * *
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
The being... think of a blue-green walrus without tusks, resplendent in elaborate Haori and hakama, of sequined gold, silver, and bronze, a neon green fez perched atop its head at a rakish angle, an iridescent birdlike creature tethered to it in place of a tassel.
His, insofar as the species reckoned these things, name was Thoongna Elnitz Gorabongula, and he was a midlevel member of the Grand Council of the Game. He was currently glaring agitatedly across his vast desk of rare petrified oskam wood at the being sitting across from him, his elbows planted on its mirror polished surface.
“Why isn’t he moving, Gh-zant?” he demanded of the being. “He’s been back there for nearly four months local, and he hasn’t budged more than thirty kilostandards from where we dropped him!”
“Where you dropped him into the sea, you mean?” Bob asked casually.
The overstuffed chair he was perched in was scaled to Gorabongula’s people, and given they were easily three meters tall on average, neither did his back reach the backrest, nor did his feet touch the floor. Normally, a being of Bob’s height would be at a disadvantage, leaning forward, their feet dangling in the air well above the floor. Bob didn’t seem the least bit bothered, leaning casually against an armrest, one leg crossed over the other.
Thoongna’s shoulders hunched, his eyes squinting nearly closed, a grimace spreading across his blubbery face. The bird tethered to his fez took momentary flight at the ruckus. “Nevertheless, Gh-zant,” he leaned in.
“What did you expect, Thoongna?” Bob asked him mildly. “That he’d crawl up out of the ocean in the middle of the night, soaked to the bone in ice water, and immediately take off cross country? Dragging his equally soaked belongs behind? On a broken ankle?”
The hunch this time was less pronounced. “Fifty points—”
“Was wholly inadequate for inserting him seven standards out into and two-and-a-half in the air over the ocean, Thoongna.” Bob cut him off. “The ocean. Is that why I’m here? To discuss repercussions over your technicians' malfeasance nearly murdering my client? Because, believe you me, Thoongna my friend, I’m ready for that conversation.”
The councilor waved a hand, closing both eyes tightly shut as he gathered his wits. “It is not, Gh-zant. The topic remains the matter of why your client seems intent on setting up permanent residence in the starting zone of the game theater.”
Bob settled back a bit, giving the councilman an off kilter shrug. “He’s learning about his surroundings,” he told the being. “Making preparations. Tools he’ll need for the trip. He’s more interested in completing the journey than setting any speed records. Need I remind you, Thoongna, that not one of those you’ve sent before has made it more than halfway?”
“Which is why we allowed this one time to prepare and gave it some great sum of currency to prepare,” Thoongna growled. “And you see where that got us.”
“Hey, now,” Bob chuckled. “I saw the numbers for Stage Two. The residuals from the re-views alone are more than enough to justify his methods. Viewers are still sending him points for it.”
Thoongna shook his head angrily, flapping his cheek wattles and once more displacing the iridescent bird. “He’s taken a mate!” he huffed loudly.
Bob laughed out loud. “Do you even watch the game, Thoongna?” he asked.
“I watch the numbers,” Thoongna narrowed his eyes.
“She’s teaching him the language,” Bob placated. “That’s all. He needs to know how to speak to those people. Bad things happen when you’re all alone in a foreign land and don’t speak any of the local tongues.
“Get him moving, Gh-zant,” Thoongna warned. “I remind you, he’s subject to losing points if we deci—”
“He isn’t.”
Thoongna straightened abruptly in his chair. “What’s that?”
“You didn’t read the contract, either, did you?”
“Why? It’s the same contract we’ve been using for—”
“I’m afraid not, Thoongna,” Bob grinned disarmingly. "Not quite."
“What are you going on about, Gh-zant?” the angry councilor demanded.
“Section four-ninety-six,” Bob recited. “Clause five, subsection, ah... eight, I believe.”
“I’m aware of that clause, Gh-zant,” Thoongna growled. “And what it says.”
“Are you?” Bob laughed. “Read it again.” and now his eyes went cold. “As a favor to me.”
The councilor glared for a moment before activating a key field above his desk, bringing up the standard contract.
“Not that one,” Bob cautioned. “The one for my client specifically.”
Thoongna’s upper body was swelling beneath his haori as his anger built. “What are you trying to pull, Gh-zant?” he hissed.
Bob gave him a grin that didn’t extend past his lips. “Read it, Thoongna.”
A few keystrokes and a measure of poking at icons brought Sam’s specific contract to the fore. As he read the clause Bob had mentioned, the councilor's eyes grew wide, and he turned three shades greener. He was fuming when he turned back to his guest. “How can you believe you’ll possibly get away with this, Gh-zant?” he bellowed. “This is unheard of!”
Bob shrugged, the smile working its way up his face and to his eyes. “I got the idea from a bit of social media on Terra,” he said. “Fellow did it to a bank. They didn’t read that contract either. Just signed the thing like they’d grown used to doing. Price of always thinking you’re dealing with fools, I suppose.”
“We’ll fight it,” Thoongna assured him. “And we’ll win.”
“You might at that,” Bob replied. “What with owning the courts and all. But it’ll take time, my friend. Years, maybe. And by the time you’re done, Sam will have crossed the finish line, and the whole thing will be moot.”
“Or he’ll be dead.”
Bob shrugged. “Oh, he’ll make it,” he insisted. “I’ve got faith in him.”
“Get... out...”
“Oh, I’m going, I'm going,” Bob didn’t lose his smile. “Call me anytime, chum. I’m happy to talk. Maybe next time we can address your technicians and their aim.”
“OUT!” Thoongna stood abruptly, his arm shooting out to indicate the door.
The iridescent bird took flight again at the violent motion, this time flying off across the room with the fez dangling behind, landing on a high shelf where it turned to squawk angrily at the room's occupants.
The councilor had just flopped back into his seat when Bob stuck his head back through his office door. “Oh, Thoongna?” he asked with a light voice. “You ever run into a fellow named Ramzar Belgoss?”
Thoongna Gorabongula was on his feet in a shot, froth coming from his jowls, his eyes bugging out. “How DARE you, you filthy—”
“Just wondering,” Bob tossed a wave and vanished.
It would be some long time before High Councillor Thoongna Elnitz Gorabongula would manage to calm himself enough to think again. But when he did, the thoughts that came brought an even more volcanic frown to his face. He initiated a call to an associate outside the council.
Bob was frowning himself as he sauntered down the hallway leading away from Gorabongula’s office. That had gone about as well as he could have hoped, although not as well as he’d have liked. One thing he was sure of at this point, though. Thoongna wasn’t a part of it.