“Eh? Nothing to it. You tie a knife with rawhide to a thinner bamboo pole, then reach in and whittle. All it takes is patience. Waxie worked it out. But you haven’t seen anything yet. We’re going to have iron.
“Huh?”
“We’ve got ore; now we are experimenting. But I do wish we could locate a seam of coal. Say, you didn’t spot any, did you?”
Dinner was a feast, a luau, a celebration to make the weddings look pale. Rod was given a real plate to eat on unglazed, lopsided, ungraceful, but a plate. As he took out Colonel Bowie, Margery Chung Kinksi put a wooden spoon in his hand. “We don’t have enough to go around, but the guests of honor rate them tonight.” Rod looked at it curiously. It felt odd in his hand.
Dinner consisted of boiled greens, some root vegetables new to him, and a properly baked haunch served in thin slices. Roy and Rod were served little unleavened cakes like tortillas. No one else had them, but Rod decided that it was polite not to comment on that. Instead he made a fuss over eating bread again.
Margery dimpled. “We’ll have plenty of bread some day. Maybe next year.
There were tart little fruits for dessert, plus a bland, tasteless sort which resembled a dwarf banana with seeds. Rod ate too much.
Grant called them to order and announced that he was going to ask the travelers to tell what they had experienced. “Let them get it all told then they won’t have to tell it seventy times over. Come on, Rod. Let’s see your ugly face.”
“Aw, let Roy. He talks better than I do.”
“Take turns. When your voice wears out, Roy can take over.
Between them they told it all, interrupting and supplementing each other. The colonists were awed by the beach of a billion bones, still more interested in the ruins of the Dwellers. “Rod and I are still arguing,” Roy told them. “I say that it was a civilization. He says that it could be just instinct. He’s crazy with the heat; the Dwellers were people. Not humans, of course, but people.”
“Then where are they now?”
Roy shrugged. “Where are the Selenites, Dora? What became of the Mithrans?”
“Roy is a romanticist,” Rod objected. “But you’ll be able to form your own opinions when we get there.”
“That’s right, Rod,” Roy agreed.
“That covers everything,” Rod went on. “The rest was just waiting while Roy’s leg healed. But it brings up the main subject. How quickly can we move? Grant, is there any reason not to start at once? Shouldn’t we break camp tomorrow and start trekking? I’ve been studying it how to make the move, I mean and I would say to send out an advance party at daybreak. Roy or I can lead it. We go downstream an easy day’s journey, pick a spot, make a kill, and have fire and food ready when the rest arrive. We do it again the next day. I think we can be safe and snug in the caves in five days.”
“Dibs on the advance party!”
“Me, too!”
There were other shouts but Rod could not help but realize that the response was not what he had expected. Jimmy did not volunteer and Caroline merely looked thoughtful. The Baxters he could not see; they were in shadow.
He turned to Cowper. “Well, Grant? Do you have a better idea?”
“Rod,” Grant said slowly, “your plan is okay . . . but you’ve missed a point.”
“Why do you assume that we are going to move?”
“Huh? Why, that’s what we were sent for! To find a better place to live. We found it you could hold those caves against an army. What’s the hitch? Of course we move!”
Cowper examined his nails. “Rod, don’t get sore. I don’t see it and I doubt if other people do. I’m not saying the spot you and Roy found is not good. It may be better than here the way this place used to be. But we are doing all right here and we’ve got a lot of time and effort invested. Why move?”