have stayed a little while. His presence had a calming effect on me. Even the jungle feels less threatening when he’s around.
But nothing can happen with him and me. I want to leave this planet as soon as possible, and that becomes just about impossible if I have a boyfriend here. And I’m not a huge fan of his grumpy manner. If he were only bossy sometimes, I could take it. But he seems to have the weight of the whole world resting on him, and that would probably get tiresome.
I turn and take in the huge pile of fronds. Now to turn that into the kind of ash I need.
- - -
We girls usually eat dinner together, while the guys sit around another fire nearby and eat theirs. Some of the girls hold their toddlers or babies on their laps, feeding them turkeypig stew or dino soup or little pieces of fruit. Those kids look like normal humans to me, but they are as alien as any caveman. They have never been on Earth, and for all I know, they may never go there.
I’ll go home, though.
One day.
Soon.
“So, the dragons,” I begin, munching on a grilled not-sheep cutlet. “What if we just give them a hoard each? Make it possible for them to change to dragon form and leave?”
“Dangerous,” Sophia says, trying to put a berry into her little daughter’s mouth. “Once a dragon can change to a full dragon, he might want to kill everyone first. Oooopen up! Mmm yummy yellow berry.”
“But if we do it one at a time? Carefully arranged, cavemen standing all around, ready to take the dragon out the moment he tries some mischief?”
“Probably still too risky. If the dragon decides to breathe fire, he could take out a whole lot of us in a few seconds. You don’t want sweet berry? Okay, mama eat it… yeah, I thought that would change your mind, you adorable little rascal.”
“The fire-breathing is the main problem,” Aurora says. “Too hard to defend against. The dragon gets his hoard, he changes to full dragon, takes off, does one quick swoop, and burns down the whole village and everyone in it before he leaves the planet. Nobody could stop it.”
Heidi tosses a bone on the fire. “Not even our own two dragons?”
“Dragons don’t work well together,” Mia says. “Not even Kyandros and Aragadon.”
“Right,” Eleanor agrees. “They can’t really help it. Notice how they avoid each other as much as they can. Much as I love my dragon, I wouldn’t trust him around other dragons. They hate each other.”
“But it is worth thinking about,” Delyah says. “Finding hoards for them would not be a problem. The spidermonkeys have diamonds that they don’t care much about. We can probably get enough of them to give one to each dragon. If anyone can think of a way to do it safely, then it’s worth a try.”
The girls come up with various suggestions, but none of them seem convincing.
“While we think about that,” Delyah says, “we need some plans for the future. Now that we are temporarily blocked from using the escape ship, we should behave as if we’re here for the long haul. We’re not, though, just so we all know. We’re not stuck here forever. But we might be stuck here for longer than we want. We always tried to make this a better tribe, to work as if we’re here for good. I think that working towards something is healthy for our minds. Look at Dolly and her soap! Such a small thing, but so important.”
The girls murmur agreement.
“What else can you make, Dolly?” Emilia asks.
I stroke some hair behind one ear. “I have been thinking about a few things. We could probably make rubber from the sap in certain trees. Making paper should be possible. Making various acids shouldn't be too difficult. If we had bronze, we could make mirrors. It's not really my field, but we have a pretty big creek running through the village. Especially now that it rains and snows more. If we had copper and magnets, we could do interesting things with it.”
“Very interesting things,” Delyah agrees.
Heidi takes a sip from her mug. “We're not in survival mode anymore. We have food, clean water, clothing, tools. We're thriving. And as it was pointed out not so long ago, we are probably the strongest group on the planet right now. We have a small army, a tiny air force, sophisticated objects, the Magic Space Gel for