Chapter 12 - Goblin-Go-Round

I returned to the village with my egg to find several fires going, and Buzz looking quite pleased with himself. The fire carousel ended up being basically the reverse of a traditional fire drill. Instead of spinning a stick against a piece of wood on the ground, they’d put a pole in the ground, and several goblins clung to a wide piece of wood above it as they spun around in a dangerous-looking teeter-totter. They applied both momentum and pressure, and after watching for a few moments, the wide piece of wood lost a goblin and the whole thing toppled over.

By then, the tip of the pole had been ground down to a smoldering red ember, and the goblins quickly pulled it from the ground and touched it to a bed of tinder while two others puffed at it. Soon, they had a small flame. One thing I was beginning to realize is that any given task given to the goblins, the greatest metric of success was the number of goblins committed to it.

In the engineering world, it’s common knowledge that you can’t solve problems simply by throwing more bodies at them—though the government still tries to do just that. In fact, it generally slows progress down. Well, with goblins it seemed like it was just the opposite.

“Once we got a couple o’ us onner, we figured things out,” said Buzz, nodding along. “Though, truth told, Sally’s more fer tinkerin’ with gizmos.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said. “What would you rather be doing?”

“Partial to buildin’, meself. Village needs work, yeah?”

“I’ve got some projects in mind."

I watched the goblins working at their carousel. When I’d unlocked the goblin counterweight, I hadn’t expected it to be a technological prerequisite for starting a fire. Maybe they just didn’t have the weight or arm strength to tackle the problem the way a human would.

“I’m impressed,” I said to Buzz. I held the pilfered egg out to him. “Think we can get this bad-boy cooking?”

Buzz took the egg and dropped it whole onto the tinder bed. Well, I guess that was dinner sorted. Fish and eggs, not exactly an appetizing combo, but things were a bit austere.

I kicked around one of the older fires and found a small stick with a decent char at the end, then rooted around for a wide piece of bark. Then I sat down to sketch while I waited for the rest of the goblins to come back.

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Sally brought her team up to the village just before the sun slipped behind the moon. The fishermen returned shortly after that with a sticky-wicky full of small fish that were put on poles to lean over Buzz’ fire.

by the time dinner was ready, I had a decent—well, rough sketch of the parts I needed. I called Buzz and Sally over as I gnawed at a charred fish and showed them the drawing.

“Ideally these would be made from clay or ceramics. But do you think we can carve these parts out of wood?”

Buzz looked at Sally, then turned back to me. “Sally reckons she could get it done, boss.”

“Good,” I passed over the sheaf of bark drawings, which Sally took eagerly. I gave Buzz a look. “Can you understand the other goblins without speaking?”

“Of course, boss. Innit a bit weird you can’t?”

“This whole thing is a bit weird,” I admitted. I took a few minutes telling Sally how to interpret the drawings, and how the parts should be made. The goblin nodded along. Her eyes bugged wider with each drawing. I don’t know if her enthusiasm was for the opportunity to make some mechanical bits, or if it was based on no longer being on bomb-fruit detail. Either way, it was one more step toward walking on that moon.

One small step for goblin-kind.

The lethargy started to take me.

* * *

It was a net gain, since I’d only lost three goblins the previous day. Still, it seemed almost as though at least a few were bound to go the way of the dodo at the slightest breeze. It just went to highlight how vulnerable goblins were, and how royally screwed they would be if their reproductive method wasn’t as effective as it was mysterious. I pulled myself from the bottom of the pile of 12 or so goblins and stretched.

Buzz and Sally came to see me in the morning with another goblin in tow.

“This’n saw sommat come inner camp n’ drag off ‘is brother,” reported Buzz.

“I see,” I said. I considered. If we were going to grow, we couldn’t lose goblins to predation. I’d have to see to the villages defenses.

“Put five goblins on building a wall of poles on the shallow side. Hopefully that will keep out curious beasts. Pick fifteen to go hunt and fish, and the rest to processing some thicker poles.”

“Got it, boss,” said Buzz. He meandered off while Sally held up the drawings from the night before. I noticed that she’d tried to make a few of her own, mostly of things like birds and bugs, but one or two of spearheads, and one of a spear with a stone cross-bar with two stick-figure goblins holding it together.

“We’ll make an engineer of you, yet, Sally,” I said.

Sally beamed.

“Pick whoever is best with tools to help you make these parts. I’ll be working along-side you in the village today.”

Sally nodded enthusiastically and dashed off to collect her team of engineers, mostly by a combination of shouting, biting, and hitting them over the head with the designs. Perfect project manager material.