“It’s you who give me that hope,” I accuse, pointing at him in mock consternation. “How dare you make me think good thoughts?”
He threads many pieces of meat and veggies onto wooden skewers. “It’s only fair. You do the same to me.”
I sniff. “Well, you started it.”
“No, you did.” He points the skewer at me.
“No, you did.”
“No, you did…”
- - -
A number of blissful days pass, one much like the next and still exhilarating. Work and experiments in the morning, then lunch and sometimes a pleasant bout of sex beside the fire on the upper level. Then more work, then dinner and an evening of just the purest sexual bliss before Brank’ox and I fall asleep in each other’s arms, exhausted and happy.
When it doesn’t rain we sleep under the stars, which is much more pleasant on Xren than on Earth. There doesn’t appear to be that many insects here, and the ones that do exist are the size of coffee tables and thankfully stay out in the jungle.
Brank’ox dries out his tasty herbal pills and gives me a big box with at least fifty of them. I go through them pretty fast, because they have a minty freshness that’s sorely lacking in most of the food here.
The charcoal burns out and cools down. Brank’ox brings it all into the factory, storing it in several large wooden bins with solid lids. There must be tons of the stuff, far more than we need. But on the other hand, we have a bottomless supply of saltpeter and hundreds of pounds of sulfur, so why not go crazy?
Brank’ox seems to go through a good amount of charcoal, too, using it to fuel his forge way down in the factory. His rhythmic, metallic bangs resonate up to me through the alien beams and girders. The noise makes me feel good – it must be the manliest sound in the world.
- - -
Then one day I’m ready to carry out the main experiment.
I have all three ingredients in as pure a form as I can get them: yellow sulfur in a fine powder, finely ground saltpeter crystals like confectioner’s sugar, and dusty black charcoal. I mix all three powders together in ten different proportions, each mix carefully wrapped in small packets of green leaf and tightly wound around with string made from tough tree fibers. Each is about the size of a hazelnut and has a wick dipped in dinosaur oil sticking out of it.
I line all the packs up on a plank and invite Brank’ox to come and look.
“This is why we’re here,” I explain as I fasten another wick at the end of a long, green twig, then set it alight with a large ember. My hands tremble with excitement. I’m pretty sure this will work.
I touch the calmly burning end of the twig to the wick of the first packet, then bravely sneak behind Brank’ox’s large bulk, peering out from behind his broad back.
The oil-saturated wick burns brightly, and the flame travels fast from the free end in towards the pack. It disappears, there’s a short pause and a little hiss, and then a flame breaks through the leaf covering. The whole pack burns calmly.
I step out from behind Brank’ox’s back. “It’s okay. That one was mostly charcoal. Totally expected. Now, this next one is sixty percent sulfur.”
I repeat the process, and the same thing happens, except the flames are smaller and go out quicker.
I try each pack, one by one, worrying more and more with each failed experiment. Some packs burn brighter and faster, some hiss angrily, some barely burn at all. Finally, I’m left with ten burned-out packs, a singed plank, and nothing else.
“Nice fires,” Brank’ox says. “But I must tell you that we already have fire on Xren. Indeed, I have shown it to you many times. It’s astonishing that you haven’t noticed.”
I scratch my head. “The proportions must be wrong. Or some of the substances aren’t pure enough.”
He puts a heavy hand on my shoulder. “Keep trying. In fact, would you show me how you prepared these packs?”
I trudge over to the workbench, which here in the factory is an actual wooden bench at the right height for me to work comfortably, perched on a high stool.
“I mixed these three powders together.”
“Show me.”
I take a small spoonful of each substance, ground extremely fine, and carefully mix them together in a tiny, wide-mouthed pot.
“They don’t mix well,” Brank’ox observes. “They’re still themselves. White, yellow and