injuries, allies among the tribes, and healthy children being born and growing fast. We're growing a lot of our food. We're about to domesticate not-sheep and turkeypigs. Remember in the beginning? We set out to be the best tribe on Xren. Well, mission accomplished.”
There’s a lot of nodding and smiling.
“Damn right,” Sophia says, cupping her pregnant belly and repositioning her little daughter on her lap. “I mean, darn right. Don’t listen to mama, little baby. We're there now. We've probably been there for a good while. Now we can afford to look towards the future. We passed through the Stone Age, skipped the Bronze Age, and went straight to the Iron Age. We're now on the brink of becoming a farming tribe. Now open up, baby. Heeere comes the airplane from Chicago, right into your mouth… okay, missed the runway that time.”
“That's fine,” Delyah says. “We need farming. We will always need to grow food. But I want us to spend as little time as possible as farmers. I want us to become an industrial tribe. In other words, I want to bring us into the nineteenth century on Earth. Technologically. As soon as possible. We have all the knowledge we need for that. Dolly’s soap is the start.”
The circle goes quiet as we all ponder these new vistas.
“We went from the Stone Age to the soap age in less than two years,” Heidi says. “Not bad.”
My head is swimming. I hadn't thought that far ahead when I started boiling stinky dino fat for the soap. But it makes sense. We're eighteen sophisticated girls from Earth. Between us, we know a lot.
My mind is racing. “We don't have much time. The things that we don't make here will never be made.”
Delyah nods. “Exactly. The next generation will not have our knowledge. Our kids will not know what we know. Sure, we can tell them about radios and televisions and cars and robots. But they will only half believe us. They will never be able to understand what those things really are. Or to make them. They've never seen them. An ordinary landline telephone from the 1920s will be a magical marvel to them. It will not cross their minds to make one unless we do it. When we're gone, all our sophisticated knowledge goes with us. Even if we try to teach the next generation. It simply isn't possible to teach them all of it.”
“A printing press,” Caroline suggests. “If we have paper, we can make books with everything we know.”
“Dam the creek,” Emilia says. “Get copper and magnets and build a small power station. We could actually have a telegraph, like in that book. The Mysterious Island. By… someone. I forget. No? Nobody reads the classics? It’s a scandal.”
“Wasn’t it Jules Verne?” Heidi suggests. “Yes, a telegraph could be useful for communicating between here and Bune, if we need to. We could make electric water pumps for watering the fields. Space heaters for when it snows. Light bulbs are probably beyond what we can do, though.”
“Okay,” Delyah agrees. “Now we have some visions. What do you say, Dolly? Can you find us some more fancy material that we can use?”
“I want to start with rubber,” I state. “I have a vague idea how to make it useful. I’ll need a special kind of sap. The runny kind.”
“Runny sap,” Delyah repeats. “Anyone know about that?”
Caroline raises her hand. “Um. I think I remember one tree. Actually, a lot of them. But they’re far away. Where Bune used to be. Where the tuna can was. One cluster of trees with runny, white sap. At the bottom of the hill. Anyone else remember that?”
“I think I do,” Heidi says. “Yeah. We tried to cut it for firewood, but it was just too sticky. Not sure it’s rubber, though.”
Delyah smiles at me. “What do you say, Dolly? Up for a little expedition to Old Bune? Not alone, of course.”
I look over at the smoking pile of burning fronds, encased in clay to make it burn cleanly. “I’m actually not too busy right now. It will be a couple of days before that heap is cold enough to handle. Sure, I’ll go check out those trees.”
“You can probably do it in one day,” Aurora says. “And if you’re not back by then, we’ll come look for you. Riding on dragons. Right?”
“Yep,” Mia says. “If you’re not back for dinner, Kyandros and I are coming for you. We’ve had enough of girls going missing. Give