The following morning, a lot of the group members got an early start on the tasks they wanted to complete. Several people walked together along the river and found a place where the water moved slower. After a breakfast of more of Jal’s fish, they went to wash their clothes and bathe.
Jal knew it needed to do that too, but it had a lot of questions about the rock that it had cooked on. It filled a canteen, moved the rock out of the fire and poured water over it. The water hissed and the rock steamed. Jal went off to wash its dirty clothing too, and to bathe where the others were. When everyone was finished scrubbing and rinsing their clothing, they carried it back to camp and stretched the items over some nearby bushes.
Jal returned to the cooking rock. It was now cool to the touch, so Jal turned it over and over trying to figure out what kind of rock it was.
“It’s sedimentary,” Jal jumped at Morti’s voice. “It’s too bad Diya Tak died. She would have been fascinated by this.”
“Yes, she would have,” Jal agreed. “My question is, “What kind of elements are in it, and could it be reproduced?”
“I have no idea.”
“I laid in my tent last night thinking about this rock. If there are more like it, I would like to conduct some experiments. Are you doing experiments too?”
“I’ll be around here, taking cuttings from several of the trees.”
“How are you going to keep them alive while we’re on the trail?”
“I’ll wrap them in damp cloths inside plastic. Hopefully they’ll live until we get to the second Enclave. Then I’ll have them transported to a friend.”
“That’s a good idea. Have you arranged with your friend to do this?”
“I have.”
“I’ll be along the river here, looking for more rocks,” Jal told her. Jal returned to the place where he’d found the first one. There was still a mark in the dirt where it had been. Jal picked up the pebbles and small rocks around the bigger one and filled a small bag that it had brought along. It studied the ground as it went along. At the place where everyone had bathed and washed their clothes, Jal found clay. It dug big chunks out, and filled a large cloth bag with clay.
Along the water’s edge there were many large flat rocks, but they were different from the one Jal had found. It knelt and began to work the clay on one of them, wedging it to eliminate any air pockets and creating small balls. It made a small ball of clay, formed it into a bowl, and put a “C” on the bottom. When it had seven more balls lined up, Jal found a small rock and began to pound the pebbles it had found into powder. Jal took the first ball of clay, sprinkled it with a large handful of the powder, kneaded and pounded it, then formed it into a small bowl. It took the next ball, sprinkled it with about half as much powder, then formed another bowl. Jal subsequently took each ball, halving the amount of powder it used each time. When Jal finished, it flipped the bowls over and numbered them from one through seven.
By now, it was the noon hour, but Jal didn’t take the time to sit down and eat. It would do that later. Jal began to collect firewood and carried it to a different location, a short distance from the cooking fire. After digging a pit, Jal lined it with rocks and carefully placed the small bowls on the rocks. It started a fire in the center of the pit and built it up to a great blaze.
Sage Elvan and Dr. Gyasi had been looking at the map, trying to determine how close they were to the second enclave. When they saw the pyre, they came to see what Jal was doing. Jal told them what it had done and explained that a hot fire was necessary to cure the bowls.
“What is the theory that you are trying to prove or disprove?” Dr. Gyasi asked.
“I believe that this type of rock has an unknown quality that enables it to duplicate whatever is put in it. The bowl itself must be heated to activate this reaction. When sprinkled through clay, will it function the same way the large cooking stone did?”
“Today and tonight you’ll keep the fire going, then tomorrow you’ll cook in them?”
“Yes.”
“That’s a brilliant experiment, Jal!” Sage Elvan said.
“Do you see long-term implications of this material?” the scientist asked.
“I do. If people were struggling to find food, they could be given a bowl or kettle to cook in.”
“Is this the same material that the Genomos had their food in?” Sage Elvan wondered.
“I don’t know. If it is, there may be other places where this material naturally occurs on the planet. Perhaps near places where miners are working. The Genomos were obviously mining for something. The rubies were in the way of what they wanted and seemed worthless to them. Maybe this rock is similar to what they are using to make the kettles for the food."
***
Luminary Dev, Sage Elvan, Dr. Gyasi, Golsho and Zamani had gone along the river looking for the tallest tree. The two Maz each scaled a tree and tried to look over the canopy.
“Can you see the Enclave?” Dr. Gyasi called up to them.
“Yes! It’s about forty degrees southwest!” Zamani responded.
“It’s hard to say how far it is,” Golsho called down. “The canopy is very deceiving. Look, Zamani! There are big fruits on that tree. I wonder if they’re edible.”
They climbed down and scaled two other trees. “Here, catch!” They tossed down several fruit to the others. After they had collected a dozen fruits, Zamani loaded them into her pack.
As the group returned to the central campfire, they came to where Jal was keeping the fire burning high. “Zamani, why is your backpack buzzing?” it asked curiously. “What did you find?”
“We found fresh fruit for the evening meal.”
“Did you know that its buzzing?”
“Buzzing?”
“Did you cut any of it open to try it?” Jal asked. “What’s on the inside?”
“I don’t know. Let’s check it out.”
They went to a clean flat rock that Jal had set near the fire. Zalani placed the odd-shaped fruit on the rock and whacked it with her sword. Juice shot in all directions.
In only a few seconds, Zalani’s face was covered with bees. She screamed and waved her arms. “Help me get them off! Jal! Help me!”
Jal pulled on a pair of gloves he'd worn while he was digging and ran its hands down her cheeks. The bees flew in a circle around her, trying to land in the juice she was now covered with. When Jal tried to wave them away, they tried to land on its gloves. “Water! Bring some water?” She called out to Dr. Gyasi, Sage Elvan, and Golsho. Sage Elvan spotted a bowl by the firepit, ran to the river and filled it, then raced to Zalani. She ducked her face into the water and rubbed at it. The juice was now off her face, but the bees still flew angrily around her. “There’s juice on my shirt and gloves,” she realized, “and on my jeans.” She yanked her shoes and clothes off and dropped them on the ground, then ran through the camp to her tent. She returned a few minutes later, clad in clothes that were still damp from the morning washing.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
She looked around. Her boots lay where she had dropped them. “Where are my clothes?” She spotted Jal in the small cove. It was rinsing her shirt in the water. She was nearly there when he lifted her jeans. “Don’t get those wet yet, Jal! Please! I need to empty the pockets.”
Jal nodded and brushed at the bees that were still buzzing around it. It watched as Zalani pulled a wide collection of stuff out of the pockets and filled the ones she was wearing. “Thanks for helping me,” she said with a grin. “That was probably funny to see.”
“Not really,” Jal said. “More scary than funny. Some bee stings can kill.” As they walked back to the camp, Jal looked her over. “You have sting marks all over your face, and there are still bees here. I think you might have gotten juice in your hair.”
“I’ll have to go bathe again,” she laughed. “And then I’ll have to take that fruit and put it back under the trees.”
“Just leave your pack for now,” Jal told her. It built the fire up high and took off with her pack down the bank of the river. It wasn’t hard to find the trees where they had gathered the fruit. Jal laid them carefully on the ground in a big “X,” so that the others would know not to pick them.
***
That night, the group feasted on a roasted wild pig. Sidi Chikat loudly told the story of how he, Ladi, and Chetan had lassoed it, then killed it with their swords. Pari and Maya, the biologist and horticulturist, brought a shirt full of berries they had found. They had spotted hooved animals that looked similar to deer eating them, and concluded after eating a few, that they were edible.
Unfortunately, that conclusion was incorrect. An hour after the meal was over, the members of the expedition were groaning as they sat around the fire talking. “I’m not feeling so good,” Ladi Woer said to Golden
. She went off into the bushes and vomited.
“My stomach feels odd,” Maya said to Morti. “I wonder if Lallo has something for it.”
“Is it your bleeding time between reproductive cycles?”
“No.” Maya found Lallo tending to Pira, who was curled up in a fetal position in her tent. “What’s wrong with Pira?”
“Stomach cramps.”
“Is it your bleeding time, Pira?” When Pira looked at Maya curiously, Pira said, “I’m having cramps too. But it’s not my bleeding time. Lallo, I wondered if you had something I could take for my stomach.”
“I’ll get to you. You might want to get your toilet kit together. Six people have come to me tonight complaining of stomach aches, vomiting, and diarrhea. I suspect that it was those berries. It seems as though the people who ate the most are the sickest.”
“Pari ate a lot of them when we were picking them, too,” Maya said. “I didn’t really care for them, but I did help her pick. I’m sorry you’re sick, Pira. We did see the deer eating them, so we thought they were safe. I only had a few, so…put me at the bottom of your list of who’s not feeling well. Most people will likely be sicker than me.”
The two Maz were miserable; Ladi more than Golsho. She was in and out of her tent to vomit and use the toilet all night long. Fortunately, Lallo was an android, and she had not eaten any of the berries. She was up all night going from tent to tent, trying to help everyone. She had Jal help her fill several buckets with water which she dropped purifying tablets into. After an hour, she filled pans of hot water for tea and steeped peppermint and chamomile and took a pan of tea between the tents to fill people’s cups with tea.
Andi Bandro, Luk, and Elodi were in the worst shape. They couldn’t seem to hold any fluids down.
Jal hadn’t eaten much fruit, and as it spent the night by its fire, it dug a hole nearby where it would dash every so often to relieve itself. It fed wood into the blaze to keep the temperature high enough to cure the clay. When it wasn’t doing either of those things, Jal wrote in a journal that it had begun the day before the expedition left Haybuti.
In the hour or so before it became light and the birds began their incessant sound, Jal finally slept. Cirus and the Luminary found it asleep, then woke it, telling it to go to its tent and sleep. “Should we keep your fire burning, Jal?” Cirus asked.
“No. We can let it burn itself out. I’ll dig it up later and look it over. Do you know if Sage Elvan’s been ill too?”
“Not nearly as much as some of the others.”
Jal went off to sleep. Sage Elvan didn’t stir at all when Jal came in and was still sleeping when Jal woke several hours later. As Jal pulled its clothes on, it glanced over at Sage Elvan and became alarmed. Its face was covered with large welts that were turning white. “Jan! Jan! Are you okay? Talk to me, Jan!”
“Lallo! Lallo!” Jal ran through the camp searching for the magician.
“Jal! Lallo’s busy. How can I help?” Kir came running.
“It’s Jan! His face is covered in welts.”
Kir responded. “Let me take a look.” Kir and Jal tried to wake Sage Elvan and couldn’t. “His respiration rate is very low. Do you know how many of those berries he had?”
“Several handfuls, I think.”
“Do you know if he was up vomiting?”
“I don’t think so, at least not while I was in the tent.”
“Let me check with Lallo and see if she brought him tea.” Kir left and returned shortly. She had brought him tea only once. She said that he came out in his sleeping clothes. She checked on him another time and he seemed to be sleeping soundly, so she didn’t try to wake him.
“Can you tell by his eyes if he’s okay?”
Kir flashed a light into each eye. “I can’t tell, Jal.”
Lallo entered the tent. “What’s happening with Sage Elvan?”
Kir told her the sage’s breathing and heartrates. “He doesn’t appear to have a fever, and I can’t tell if his eyes are responsive to the light.”
“Jal let me look at your eyes first.” She flicked the light back and forth. “Let’s see here,” she flicked the lights over Sage Elvan’s eyes. “Hmm. Would you excuse me for a few minutes?” She went out the door and paced back and forth in front of it, went to her tent, and returned.
“Jal, this is a special elixir. I want you to give Sage Elvan a spoonful every fifteen minutes until it is gone. You’ll have to tip his head to the side and drip it in, like this.” She demonstrated. “Do you have a time-piece?”
“Yes.”
“If he wakes up, have him take a tiny sip of tea. I want you to talk to him as if he is awake. Be positive about how he’s doing. I’ll check in with you every hour or so.”
“How is everyone else doing?”
She motioned to Jal to come with her out of the tent. “Talk to him for a minute, Kir.” Once outside, she said to Jal, “The others are somewhat sick, but will recover in a day or two. I’ve not seen anyone with the reaction that Sage Elvan has. If he doesn’t improve within twenty-four hours, we’ll need to call for an emergency transport for him.”
Jal swallowed hard. “I understand.”
***
“It’s been twenty-four hours and Sage Elvan’s not even stirred,” Jal said worriedly. “I think we should transport him out for medical treatment.”
“I agree with Jal,” Dr. Gyasi said. “Who will go with him?”
“I will,” Jal said. “I’ll stay with him a few days, and meet you at the Enclave?”
“You’ll do no such thing!” Dr. Gyasi retorted. “You’ll return here. We aren’t going anywhere until everyone is healthy enough to travel. Even if we have to stay here a week, this group is not moving forward!”
A short time later, Jal stood outside their tent. Their backpacks were filled with things to transport with them. “Emergency transport to the hospital in Pejaru. Possible accidental poisoning.”
The two were transported into the hospital and Sage Elvan was lifted into a bed. It was immediately connected to various monitors, an intravenous line was placed in its arm, and a catheter so that fluids could be pushed through.
“Tell us what happened.”
“Our expedition ate some berries. Many of our party became ill. Sage Elvan was sleeping, and I didn’t see the marks on its face forming.”
“Did you bring some of the berries with you?” Jal gave the doctor a small bag. Another doctor took them to the laboratory to run tests on them.
Twenty-four hours passed. During that time, Sage Elvan was transferred to an acute care area, stripped, and bathed. It lay motionless, not responsive to anyone’s voice or testing various parts of its body for reflexes.
Jal slept in the waiting room and went in to sit with Sage Elvan when it was allowed to.
“You stink,” a medical person said to Jal on the second day. “Go take a shower and put some clean clothes on.”
“I don’t have clean clothes along. I’ll need to send things out for cleaning.” With the young man’s help, Jal soon had its clothes back. It found a room at a local inn, took a shower, and returned to Sage Elvan’s side.
“How’s it doing?” Jal asked the doctor when she came in.
“He’s stable. His vital signs are slowly improving. The tests came back; those berries were toxic. How many more people in your group became ill?”
“I think all of them, in varying degrees. I wish there were a way we could know that something is toxic. We’re not eating anything that we aren’t familiar with, which isn’t much.”
“What are you eating?”
“A lot of dehydrated foods. Meat jerkys, and stews that have been cooked at very high temperatures.”
“Where are you hiking at?”
“In the middle of Shifos.”
“You’re from the expedition that the Protectorates sent out? What’s your name?”
“We are,” Jal acknowledged. “I’m Jal Jomari.”
“You must be some crazy person! What you’re doing is dangerous!”
“It has been at times.”
“You’ve been in the news. People are on edge because of you,” the attendant said accusingly. “We don’t know whether we should believe anything that the Luminaries are saying.”
“Oh, about what?”
“About you being out there. That there are two enclaves that have been damaged and entered by unknown races. And that there are people living on the west side of the mountains.”
Jal looked at him silently. “I’m not interested in talking about this in front of my father while it’s trying to recover.”
“You’re just full of shit! This man can’t possibly be your father!”
“It is, too. I'm sure you've met adolescents who don't look like their fathers."
“I don’t believe you.”
“I’m not discussing this any further with you.”
As the doctor left the room, Jal realized that if Sage Elvan recovered, it might need some assistance for a while at home. What would Jal do then? Would it rejoin the expedition? Or ask someone else to stay with Sage Elvan? Who could it ask for help?