Darwin's Quest: The Search for the Ultimate Survivor (5 page)

“Looks like we’re going to have to spear them.” Hamlin was back taking charge. He took off his pants, and clad only in his underwear, he started to lower himself slowly into the water. Despite it being clear, it was hard to tell how deep the water was. So we watched Hamlin as he got deeper until the water was chest deep on him. He stomped his feet a bit to get them set, then looked back up at us. “Come on in! The water’s fine.”

Alfhid shrugged and started to undress. We weren’t prudes on Monsanto, but neither did attractive women get naked in public. She didn’t stop at her underwear, but went down to skin. And pretty impressive skin it was. Josh, Bernie, Joda, and Julie also quickly stripped down to their skin or underwear, but I wasn’t paying as much attention to them as I watched Alfhid lower herself into the water, her prominent nipples on her prominent breasts puckering as her body became more immersed.

Next to me, Joda held out her hand. “Here, help lower me down.” I took her hand and only then noticed that Joda hadn’t stitch on, either. Although not our Valkryie, she was undeniably cute. I slowly lowered her into the water, which came up to her chin. She turned and started pushing her way through the water, shoulders swaying back and forth with each step.

Borlinga was also in the water now, but she still had on all her clothes. I wondered if they would weigh her down. Gabriel had moved down the path and was trying to steer Josh towards some trout. Yash had scrambled back up to the ledge and was feverishly trying to get another spear. I knew he couldn’t stand not being in on the action. Neither Lindadawn nor October was getting involved, though. Still dressed, they were conferring with each other, gesturing out over the small cove.

I looked at Ratt who smiled at me and shrugged. It was obvious that the water would be over her head, so she just stood there on the trail. I was tall enough, though, and here I was sitting like a lump on a log. I hurriedly pulled off my shirt and trousers. I wasn’t going to take off my underwear, though. Not on global holo.

Gabriel was getting more excited. “No, no, they are swimming away. Ever time you move, they go out into the rapids.” Josh looked up at him in confusion.

Not to be outdone, Yash started shouting at Hamlin, who had been pacing the cove, shading his eyes trying to spot a target. “Hamlin, they’re swimming away. You have to stay still!”

I had started to lower myself into the water, but I stopped and stood back up. I could see what they meant. The dark shadows darted out of the calm waters of the cove and into the rapids anytime someone came near. And with eager Joda thrashing around, most of the big trout were nowhere to be seen.

“Everybody, listen up.” Lindadawn stood over the water, shouting at everyone. “October here has a point. In her home country, she tells me, people have been catching fish the old fashioned way for 600 years. They use wild dolphins to herd the fish. The dolphins push the fish to the shore where the people catch them. Then the people share the catch with the dolphins. It works out for everyone. So I think we need to designate some of you as dolphins, some as fishermen. OK?”

October stood by her as they both watched the people in the water for a reaction. Joda kept thrashing around, but the others seemed to realize the futility of what they were doing so far.

“So what do you suggest?” asked Mike.

“Why doesn’t everyone get out of the water and let the fish come back. Then, let’s pick some dolphins who can close off the cove, then slowly walk in, driving the fish to the rest of us who can spear them.”

Mike shrugged, looked at Borlinga, then both of them started moving to the shore. The rest watched for a moment, then all of them, even Joda, started straggling in. Hamlin and Josh, no surprise, managed to easily pull themselves out of the water, as did Alfhid. The rest needed a hand. I reached down to pull Joda out, her wet, naked body clamoring for my attention. I refused to give any indication that I noticed.

We moved closer together to work this out. “Asshole to belly button” was a common phrase on Monsanto, and that is what we were. Only most of us were naked or almost so. Joda’s belly button against my ass as she crowded forward to hear what was being said was more than a little distracting.

“What October and I were thinking was that some of us use the rope as a safety line, then walk along the edge of the cove. That leaves some of the stronger arms to throw…”

“Josh, take Gabriel, Alfhid, Linda, Julie, um, Corter and Mike, and yea, take Borlinga, too. You guys get to be the dolphins,” Hamlin interrupted. “The rest of us, we’ll stay here and spear. How’s that?”

I could see Lindadawn start to say something, but she backed off and remained quiet. Josh, too, seemed to want to say something, but he just nodded instead. After a few moments of jostling around, we “dolphins” got together to move back up the narrow trail. Now I had Alfhid standing next to me, picking up part of the rope and handing it over. Together with Josh, we hauled it to the edge of the cove with the others following us.

“The fish are back,” shouted Hamlin at us. “You can start now!”

Lindadawn and Gabriel stopped to take off their clothes as well, Gabriel looking decidedly uncomfortable. I don’t know if that was cultural shyness or that he didn’t want the viewers to compare his bony build with that of Hamlin or Josh, or even me, for that matter. Lindadawn, on the other hand, looked unconcerned as she stripped, revealing a fit, healthy-looking physique, even if it was not quite so spectacular as Alfhid’s.

Josh gave Gabriel the end of the rope. “I don’t think we are going to need our spears, so let’s just leave them here. Gabe, why don’t you go first? Just stay in the calm water, and you will be closest to the shore on that side. OK?”

Gabriel looked nervous, but he nodded. Josh helped him step down into the water, a few feet from the rushing boundary of the rapids. Julie came next, then Alfhid, Josh, me, Lindadawn, Mike, and Borlinga. I was still a little worried about her. What if her clothes dragged her down, or got caught in the faster moving current? We slowly moved out, ringing the cove. At intervals in reverse order, we stopped to take our positions. Finally, only Julie and Gabriel were still moving, taking deliberate steps.

I was looking across the cove at the fishermen, getting ready with their spears when I heard a choked-off cry and a splash. Gabriel had tripped or misstepped, and now he had let go of the rope and was flailing around, trying to gain his footing while at the same time, trying to push the water out of his eyes. As he put his hands to his face, he started drifting out a bit.

“Shit,” shouted Josh, as he dived around Alfhid to try and get to him. His strong strokes seemed to shoot him forward, easily with enough time to grab Gabriel. But just before he reached him, a small eddy of the current, unwilling to relinquish its prize, caught a hold of the still sputtering Gabriel. That was enough to spin him out of Josh’s lunge and into the main torrent. Gabriel finally must have realized his peril--his shriek overcame the roar of the water as he was immediately pulled downstream.

Josh almost seemed ready to jump into the current as well, but Julie reached out and held him back. We stood there in shock. It all happened so quickly.

What the casual viewer of
Darwin’s Quest
doesn’t realize is that our telltales have a secondary function. Of course, we can’t see the same cardiac information on the holos that they can see, the ones which officially show not only our pulse, but when we flatline, the official show rules definition of death. But out telltales not only broadcast our own heart-rate, but there is a feedback function. When someone flatlines, there is a short burst of vibration, easily felt though the skin. That way, we know when someone dies as well.

We stood all stood there quietly, waiting. And less than a minute later, I felt the vibration emanating from my chest. Gabriel was dead.

“Well, that is that,” Alfhid said quietly. And she was right. Time to move on.

Josh came back to his position, face a little pale. He looked around at us when a voice from the bank shouted out to hold up. Over the water of the cove, we could see Hamlin talking to Bernie, who didn’t seem too happy about what he was being told. Hamlin kept pointing at us, and finally, with a scowl, Bernie threw down his spear and walked down the path downstream until he was at the boundary of the still water. He eased into the water and carefully made his way toward Julie at the end of the line. He caught the loose end of the rope and tied it around his waist.

“King Hamlin decided that you guys didn’t have enough people, so he drafted me to take Gabe’s place,” he informed us sourly.

“Welcome to us dolphins. We work for fish,” Julie said, then made a dolphin-like squeal. Not really that funny, but we laughed anyway.

The folks on the bank started yelling at us, giving us directions to move, but we were pretty much ignoring them. Josh took over, instead.

“OK, let’s start moving in. But slowly! Put your hands in the water like this,” he said, but as we were ourselves standing chest deep or deeper, we couldn’t really see what exactly he was doing. “Then we move together, pushing the fish forward. Ready? Let’s go!”

We started moving toward the bank. It felt good to get away from the torrent at least, and each step forward felt another step safer.

“Hey, one just went past me. I could see it!” shouted Julie.

“Yea, some are going to do that, I think. We just have to keep most of them in front of us. And as we get closer to the shore, we’ll be closer together,” Josh shouted back.

It was hard moving, feeling our way along the rocky bottom. I could vaguely see some dark shadows darting in front of us, but how many were still there, I couldn’t tell.

“Alfhid, don’t go too fast. You’re getting ahead of us. We need to be all in a line,” Josh directed.

She waited while we caught up, then began her progress forward. In front of us the fishermen started to get ready, to poise for action. Yash suddenly went up on his toes and threw his spear again, this time skipping it on the surface of the water, the spear just missing impaling Bernie in the throat.

“Yash! Don’t throw them! I told you, we need to stab with them. Wait until they drive the fish closer,” shouted Hamlin, exasperation clear in his voice.

Yash looked chagrined. Bernie glared daggers at him. We continued to move forward. Lindadawn stumbled and went under, as I started to rush over in a panic. But we were in calm water, so she came up sputtering, her red hair streaming dark with the river water, but otherwise fine. As we tightened the noose, the fish became more agitated, bunching together. We were close enough to each other by now that there wasn’t much room between us through which the fish could slip. We bowed in our line along the edges, and those of us in the middle stopped a couple of meters from the rocky bank. A trout bumped against my legs, but it retreated back.

A fish came right up to the rocks, and October stabbed down. She hit the fish, and that knocked the spear out of her hands, but the spear didn’t stick into it, and it fell to float in the water.

“Put some muscle into it!” shouted Hamlin. He gave credence to his words by putting everything in back of a powerful downward thrust, but he came up empty. Then Paul, standing with his feet actually in the water, thrust his spear home. I couldn’t see his target from my angle, even if it was only two meters from me, but I could see he got a direct hit. He was struggling to keep a hold of the spear as something big pulled him further into the water. Hamlin dropped his spear to grab Paul’s shoulders, and with Yash’s help, he managed to pull Paul and a huge fish, still shaking on the spear, out of the water. Mostly dark, it had a yellowish cast and black spots. Its head was huge, at least as big as a person’s. The three of them managed to get the fish on the ground where Hamlin gave it the coup de grace, hitting it on the head repeatedly with a rock. Paul sat down, chest heaving for air. But he had a huge smile on his face. Our quietest cast member had gotten the first fish. October and Joda crowded around them to see the catch.

“You can admire it later. Get some more ‘cause we can’t hold them here forever.” Josh shouted up at them.

Hamlin nodded, then picked his spear back up and stood at the edge of the water. Within seconds, he spotted his prey and struck true. His huge biceps strained as he lifted maybe 25 kilos of thrashing fish out of the water. He admired it for a moment, posing for the cams I’m sure, before swinging it around to the path where Yash smashed its head.