he says, lying back. “Are all alien females like you, with one idea after the other?”
“I don’t know,” I confess, lying down partly on top of him. “I haven’t met them all.”
“Nor have I. Oh, sweet Fate. You are unbelievable.”
“Just like you.”
We stay there for a little while before Brank’ox gets up. “There is work to do. I’ll try to find the creek again. And I will make a weapon for you.”
I stretch. “Do I need a weapon?”
He looks down, doing up his loincloth. “It’s better to have one and not need it than to not have one and need it.”
“Can’t fault that. Actually, don’t. There’s something else I want you to make. From iron, if you can. Steel. Do we have some?”
“We have three ax heads and some small bars. I can only use one ax at a time, so two of them can be melted. Will that be enough?”
I consider it. “Just one of them will be plenty. Can you build a forge in here?”
“There already is one.” He points deeper into the structure. “The men laid the foundations for it, close to the bottom. Including an anvil and a hammer. I think there are tongs, too. Now I only need charcoal.”
“You guys really like your smithing, don’t you?”
He gives me a shy smile. “Many of us enjoy it. It’s a powerful feeling to forge steel. No man likes to be far from his forge.”
“All right. Well, I’ll check on my experiments, and you should probably check on yours.”
He looks into the small pot, still hanging over the fire. “It’s almost done.” He comes in close to me, embraces me, and takes me in from way up there. “Thank you for the boljolb. I have something similar in mind for you, too. Later.”
I place my palm on his flat, hard stomach. “I can’t wait.”
- - -
We keep busy with our various projects. My substances are drying fast, and it might be only a couple of days before I can do a real experiment with them.
I sit down on the top level and start carving out the block of hardwood, using my little knife. It’s not the most effective tool for this purpose, and the wood is really hard and difficult to carve. I can only take off one little sliver at a time, and soon I’ll have to ask Brank’ox to sharpen the blade. It’s totally fine, though. I have time.
Brank’ox comes and goes, keeping busy with all his various tasks. He seems to have made a door for the crack into this weird alien thing. Probably a good idea – it wouldn’t be much fun to get a surprise visit by some small or not so small curious creature.
The afternoon goes by really fast, and by the time the sun goes down I’ve only made the slightest little bit of a hollow in the block of wood. It’s only about the size of a brick, but it’s just about as hard, too. I have a little blister on my thumb where I have guided the blade, but that’s nothing compared to the many blisters I’ve had everywhere else since I came to Xren. It’s a tough planet, and you simply have to work to stay alive. If you’re idle, you die.
In a way, that can be good, I ponder. It kind of forces you to become better, to realize your potential. I hadn’t come close to that until the soap thing finally worked. And that triggered an avalanche of events that ended with me being here with Brank’ox. Weird how things can happen so suddenly, how you can go from desperately wanting to leave to just wanting to stay.
Do I want to stay now?
I don’t even know. Maybe. Just being here with Brank’ox for a couple of weeks is fine. After that… we’ll see. If my experiments go the way I want them to, we might be able to get into the escape ship pretty soon. I’ll have a decision to make when and if that happens.
But that’s not now.
Now, I can just enjoy my life.
A shadow falls on me. “Still busy?”
I put the wood and knife away, squinting up at the large figure towering over me. “Always busy, you know that. One way or the other.”
“Busy sleeping,” Brank’ox rumbles. “Busy resting. Busy working or cooking or thinking. Yes, we are all always busy, whatever we do. Now I think we should get busy doing something else.”
24
- Dolly -
“Cooking dinner?” I suggest innocently, unable to ignore the