Grantville Gazette 36

Chapter Twenty-Six: Ups and Downs

A while later, as Pam gathered supplies for their day trip, she found a rather depressed looking Pers carrying odds and ends from the sailor's longhouse down to the beach for transfer to the ship. He was still bruised from his encounter with the pirate captain, but had been deemed fit enough for light duty. Pam stopped him as he hurried by without so much as a greeting for her.

"Hey, Pers, are you all right?" Pam asked him, first checking to make sure they were out of earshot of his boss, the bosun.

"Oh, yes, Pam, I'm fine." The boy managed to give her a small smile but still didn't look fine. Pam figured he was just tired and feeling bad about losing two more comrades, as they all were. Pers was a real good kid and had been very brave, not to mention a good sport, dressing up for their friendly natives act and Pam wanted to do something to cheer him up.

"Well, maybe so, but you look like you could use some fun anyway. Gerbald and I are going to hike up to the mountain to get more coffee today. Would you like to join us? We could use your help carrying the beans back. That is, if you're up to it. You took a pretty good beating last night!"

Immediately Pers face lit up. "Oh yes, I feel a lot better this morning! I'd like to come with you very much!"

"Great! It will be a good chance for you to work on your English, and your German, too. We haven't had much time for your lessons lately. Let's go talk to the bosun."

Pam led Pers straight to the very busy gentlemen who was just about to board the pinnace to be rowed out to their gaudy new vessel.

"Herr Bosun, I wonder if you can spare me Pers for the day. Gerbald and I are going for a resupply of coffee and could use some help carrying it back."

The bosun smiled, having become an aficionado of the bitter drink himself. "We are likely going to be all day figuring out how that floating fancy is sailed and I think we can spare the lad." He turned to Pers, who was looking brighter by the minute, and told him "Now, you mind Frau Pam, young fellow, and stay out of trouble!"

"Yes, sir!" Pers looked like his usual happy-go-lucky self again.

"Thanks! We'll be back by sundown," Pam told the bosun. He gave her a salute and stepped into the pinnace which immediately pulled out into the gentle surf. Pam was sure it was the first time the bosun had ever used that particular gesture with her. and it made her feel a bit uncomfortable.

A few minutes later she, Gerbald and a much cheered-up Pers were heading down the beach to collect the flock of dodos that had decided to become their permanent neighbors. The problem was that their current humans were leaving and future visitors were not likely to be as gentle.

"I just can't leave them here on the beach," Pam said as they handed out treats to the now nearly tame animals. "The next people who land here might put them on the menu. We have to lead them back up into the forests where we found them and then throw them off our trail."

"No problem," Gerbald said confidently.

The dodos, having determined that these three humans were today's most promising food source, followed them as they left the shore for the interior, encouraged along the way by frequent treats.

"I have heard these dodos are supposed to be quite foolish," Pers mused. "But they don't really seem so to me. They always seem to know who has food and who is likely to give them some!" He chuckled as a dodo gingerly took the nut he offered with its massive beak, its yellow eyes bright with what Pam took for pleasure.

"We have made them into terrible beggars," Gerbald added. "I wonder if it was situations such as this that helped lead to their extinction back in that other world you came from, Pam. The dodos getting used to people and coming around for handouts until one day they find themselves in the stew pot."

"Well, based on what we have observed, it all fits. It was very selfish of me to give them food just so they would sit still for a portrait. No true wildlife scientist ever baits their subjects. I feel awful that here I am trying to save them and put this flock in more danger instead." Pam's face drew down in a deep frown.

"Now, now Pam, you mustn't think that way!" Gerbald told her, knowing that it would be best for them all if he could improve her mood quickly. "No one else on the planet cares about these creatures as much as you do and ultimately it will be you who prevent their loss in this world. I am confident in your abilities."

"As am I!" Pers chimed in "You will save the dodos Pam, it is your destiny!" Pers' exuberant sureness in her made Pam laugh, the frowns forgotten for now.

"Well, it feels like we're making progress again. Maybe we can still give the dodos their second chance."

"Come along you, second chance birds!" Pers called happily, starting to walk up the trail with the dodos in tow, waving a banana in his hand like a parade baton. Several of the larger birds crowded around in front of him, stretching their necks up after the banana and blocking his way up the path. Pers eventually had to push past them and scowled at the insistent birds. "Argh, you stupid creatures! I take back the nice things I said. You are too greedy!" Pam and Gerbald enjoyed a silent smirk at the youth's expense, they had both had the same thing happen to them after all.

Soon enough they were sorted out and on their way again. After conferring with their most experienced woodsman, Gerbald, they decided to lead the dodos to a similar, but different part of the forest than they had found them in. Hopefully the dodos would be disoriented by the purposefully convoluted journey. Better yet, if the same kind of foraging were available in the new territory, the ever-hungry birds would be distracted enough to make finding the beach again not worth the bother. Reaching the top of the first rise a couple of miles from camp, they looked back to see the junk sailing around in a tight circle out in the bay, the small forms of the sailors running about her decks like angry ants beneath the red sails.

"Shhhh, listen!" Pam told her companions as she leaned on her walking stick and pointed toward the obviously misbehaving ship. The wind was blowing inland and even at that distance it carried a faint stream of curses from the bosun. She put a hand over her mouth to stop from laughing.

"Sounds like they are having a wonderful time," Gerbald whispered, unable to keep from chuckling at the foul language. "The bosun could make a career of the opera. His voice certainly carries well."

Pers gazed at the humorous scene with a wistful expression on his face even though he chuckled along with Gerbald. Pam saw this and knew something was still eating the kid, she vowed to find out before the day was done.

****

The temperature grew uncomfortably hot as noon approached. The near-daily rains seemed to have spilled themselves dry for a spell but Pam suspected they would be back. Today it felt like high West Virginia summer here in the Tropic of Capricorn and they were grateful when they finally entered the moist depths of the forest. The shade of the great trees was a cooling balm. The dodos became excited, scuttling through the underbrush and squawking in what sounded like happy tones to Pam. She sighed despite the pleasure at escaping the too bright sun, remembering that back in her original century Mauritius had lost nearly all of its original vegetation through rampant logging and uncontrolled agriculture. Not this time,shevowed. The colonists agreed to follow the modern sustainability practices I researched. We can't let that happen again! then another darker possibility entered her mind. It will only work if my colonists are still alive. She pushed the thought away. She knew better than to start stacking up her cares too high; it just made her feel overwhelmed. One step at a time she reminded herself and breathed deeply to help keep herself calm.

To further distract herself from her endless list of cares, Pam set about identifying what trees that she could. While Grantville had by no means contained a plethora of information on such a remote place, Pam had found out quite a bit about the Mascarenes in her studies, surprisingly more than she had thought she would. She spoke aloud as she led them across the forest floor, sharing the knowledge with her companions.

"Let's see, what tree have we here! I think this is Foetidia mauritiana. It's named for the strong smell of its oil. Straight trunk, gray bark, a bit of red in the leaves. I'm pretty sure that's it. This fellow over here must be Diospyros tessellaria, one of the ebony trees. It's nearly twenty meters high, black bark, long glossy leaves. If we are careful and harvest its wood wisely, we can make a lot of money for the colony. It's perfect for piano keys and from what I've seen there's going to be a booming business in those things back in the USE."

"It's beautiful," Pers commented, gently running his fingers across the bark. "I've always hated cutting down trees, but I know we must sometimes."

Pam favored the youth with a beatific smile. "A necessary evil. If things go our way we will protect a great many trees, such as these here, and those that we do harvest, we will replace with new. That way we can have wood for generations to come instead of just lopping them all down and leaving nothing for later, as so many fools have. That's what happened in my other history, here and a lot of other places before people wised up to the concept of sustainability. Even once we knew better, far too many people continued clear cutting, only interested in what they could get for themselves, not about the future. It was awful. We made our world ugly and sick."

Gerbald nodded his solemn agreement. "There are many hunters in the Germanies such as myself who would see it done in your way. But every year the forests shrink. Unfortunately, greed usually wins and the trees come down. There will be no animals left to hunt if it continues."

"Well," Pam said with a sigh, "and I do hate to say this, it's probably already too late to save much of what's left of Germany's old growth forests. In an ideal world, the arrival of Grantville might have slowed things like uncontrolled logging down. But from what I see, most of us Americans are dancing around the fires of industry as if they were the Golden Calf. The people concerned with the ecological impact of our early-industrial revolution I can count on one hand, starting with me."

"Well, that's a start," Gerbald said. "If you add me, you will have six. As a hunter, I'd like to see the Thuringerwald preserved. Surely we can do better."

"And I seven!" Pers chimed in. "I don't believe that when God gave man dominion over the Earth He intended for us to destroy all in our path, yet I have seen such in every port. It is shameful."

Pam's eyebrows rose high on her forehead at such an erudite statement from their young Gilligan. Pers, though still in many ways a carefree youth, was paying attention to the world around him. Her fondness for the boy deepened and she allowed herself a bit of pride in knowing that she had played a significant role in his education. She gave them both a big smile as she sat down on a large round rock to take a breather.

"Well, looks like I've made two converts to the Pam Miller Tree Hugging Society. A good start indeed." After taking a quick look around to make sure the dodos weren't close by, she reached into her pocket to pull out the shaved coconut, dried fruit and nut gorp trail mix she had brought along and carefully unwrapped its banana leaf container so as not to spill it.

"Here, help yourselves!" she invited her companions, lifting her open hand up in offering. Pers and Gerbald both took a step forward but then stopped, eyes wide. Even though neither of them were anywhere near her palm she felt a pressure there and heard what could only be a chewing sound. Shifting her eyes to her hand she was stunned to see a very strange face; a wide beak of a nose shaped like a rounded ship's prow with two holes for nostrils beneath which a wide, lip-less mouth was chewing gorp. Dark, liquid eyes regarded her calmly from behind droopy lids set in thick, scaly gray skin. This startling visage was at the end of a very long neck that snaked down into a horn-like saddle.

To her credit Pam didn't panic, successfully conquering her first instinct to flee screaming. If she had been in any real danger Gerbald would have taken care of it by now anyway with his warrior's reflexes, long before she could react. The creature was obviously harmless.

"What is it?" Pers asked in a hushed tone.

"It must be a dinosaur!" Gerbald answered, laughing with delight.

Pam felt the large "rock" beneath her shift slightly as the long-necked creature took another gentle mouthful of trail mix. Looking down she could see that she sat on the smooth, green-gray plates of its wide shell.

"Gentlemen," she announced with some bravado, "meet the giant Mascarene tortoise. I remember reading about them and wondering why they weren't as well known as the Galapagos version. The answer was, of course, that they had become extinct along with the dodo, but the dodo got the starring role in the tragedy."

"The dodo is a most engaging creature," Gerbald said. "But this fellow has personality as well. I am a hunter by nature but I confess I wouldn't be able to kill such a soulful-eyed beast unless I was in great need of food."

"Yeah, he's pretty cute, huh?" Pam carefully slid off her living seat to kneel beside the placid creature, offering it more gorp which it took daintily from her palm with a wide, blueish-hued tongue. "Unfortunately a lot of hungry people who aren't as kind as you will end up here in the years to come, unless we get in control of things first." Pam gently stroked the tortoise's shell. "This must be the saddle-backed version. They were . . . or, I'm pleased to say . . . are inhabitants of the forests, adapted to stretch their necks up in search of leaves and fruit. There's another closely-related type with a shorter neck and rounder shell that live in the grasslands." Pam gave the tortoise the last of her gorp as she rubbed it gently on its scaly skull, which it seemed to like. Its heavy-lidded eyes half closed in delight.

After a long minute of deep thought, Pam stood up and looked at her friends. Her face was pale in the arboreal shadows and filled with cares.

"Ya know, guys, sometimes it just seems like too much. This island is so complex, we are barely scratching the surface of understanding how these ecologies work and now we are introducing human settlers even earlier than they came here in my other history. I hope I've made the right decisions. I hope I can make all this work. It's really a lot on my plate. Sometimes I just feel overwhelmed." Her shoulders were slumped and she looked at the tortoise with a helpless expression.

"Pam, you must not forget that we are with you in this. You do not face these burdens alone," Gerbald told her. "Can you not see that myself and Dore, this fine lad Pers, the bosun, and all the men of the Redbird support you? You carry too much on your shoulders. We lend you our strength. Please, take it."

Pam took a deep breath before speaking in a low, but controlled tone. "I know you do. I'm stupid for forgetting it. It's just that sometimes I get scared by my new life here. If you had seen me back up-time in Grantville you wouldn't have recognized me. I was a failure as a wife, as a mother . . . it seemed like no matter how hard I tried nothing worked. The only thing I ever got right was science, so I got some education and went to work, and that helped, but now I'm not a lab tech. I'm the lead scientist. I'm the one who has to make the big decisions and it's freaking me out! I feel like I hold the lives of all these living creatures, the lives of all these people who came here with me, in my hands. And so far I've sucked at it." She had started calmly but by the end of her words her voice was freighted with emotion.

Pers had a good grasp of up-time American English vernacular, thanks more to Gerbald's wise-cracks than Pam's lessons and knew what "sucked"' meant.

"Pam, you do not suck. I can assure you none of we Swedes think that. We admire you. We think of you as the brave lady, our wise woman, a warrior! You must not think of yourself in such a bad way, please. Listen to Herr Gerbald! We will all help you succeed!" There was no mistaking the deep concern and sincerity in Pers' young voice.

Pam visibly pulled herself together, rubbing her flushed face and clearing flyaway locks from her brow. She nodded, favored them each with a tiny but sweet smile, gave the giant tortoise a final pat on the head, then turned and started walking. Pers and Gerbald watched her go, giving her the time and space she had silently asked them for. After a minute Gerbald clapped a still worried Pers companionably on the back. "Well done, my boy."

Pers stood tall, feeling as if he had just been knighted.