“Just watch the replay. You will not believe this.”
The Deltan spear chucker pulled his pointy stick from the dead gorilloid and poked it a few times. Getting no reaction, he turned to his friends and grinned. Not literally, of course, but I was getting used to interpreting the Deltan expressions in human terms.
They all started talking at once, jabbing the carcass, and slapping and hugging each other. After a few minutes, they picked up the carcass and carried it back to camp.
“Well, fair’s fair,” Marvin observed.
I laughed. “Now that’s payback!”
The Deltans ate well for the next few days. And gorilloids could be converted into many useful items, from hide strips to bone tools.
The spear-chucking story was the hit of the campground. Deltans were just as prone as humans to act things out, and every retelling had a rapt audience. The spear chucker got the lion’s share of the gorilloid that he’d taken down, and an apparent large bump in status. He looked tired but very happy.
Archimedes was fascinated by the story as well. Any time he saw or heard a retelling, he would run over to join the audience. Like many of the Deltans, he began to experiment with this technological innovation. The Deltans already understood throwing, but it seemed they’d never considered applying it to anything other than rocks. It was getting quite dangerous around the camp, until some of the elders put their collective foot down. After much yelling and gesturing, the experimenters took their sticks outside the camp to practice.
Unfortunately, even very straight pointy sticks didn’t fly dependably true. The spear-chucker really had been lucky. Very few spears actually stuck into anything when thrown, and some of the Deltans had already given it up as a fad.
Archimedes wasn’t having any better luck with his spear-chucking, but unlike the others, he took his pointy stick, sat down, and stared at it.
I knew that look. I’d worn that look many times. He was working it out.
It only took a few hours for Archimedes to find a flake about the right size, split the end of the pointy stick, and tie the flake onto it. The difference in weight wasn’t much, but it moved the center of gravity forward of the grip point. That was all that was needed. The next time Archimedes threw the stick, it embedded itself in the ground in a most satisfactory manner. The other experimenters watched as Archimedes repeated the result twice more.
After the third toss, one of the adults grabbed the spear and examined it. This resulted in another raucous town hall meeting. After Archimedes got his spear back, there was some further discussion. Then Archimedes headed off toward his cache with half the encampment following him. By this point, I was grinning like a fool. You go, boy!
There was a lot more gabbling when Archimedes brought out his two remaining flint nodules. I think some people were angry with him for holding out. There was some pushing and shoving, and I readied the drone to bash some heads if necessary. We hadn’t deployed the buster drones yet, but I was quite prepared to sacrifice one of the light-duty units. I was certain that it would only take one to clear the room.
Fortunately, it wasn’t necessary. The Deltans that Archimedes had given the first, good pointy sticks to—the largest members of the tribe—were firmly on his side, and the others seemed understandably reluctant to challenge them.
One of the support group was a particularly impressive specimen that I had named Arnold. When Arnold leaned over an opponent and started yelling, there was generally very little further debate.
Arnold made a gesture and said something that included “get” and the name that the Deltans used for Moses. Several Deltans ran off, and a few minutes later, Moses was escorted over. It looked like he was being hustled along a bit more quickly than he really found comfortable. I could pick up a few words, and I’m pretty sure Moses compared the members of his escort to pigoid droppings. Smelly ones.
To the extent I was able to follow the discussion, it sounded like Archimedes would volunteer his nodules to make spear points for everyone, and in return he would get part of every kill from then on. Moses said something in an angry tone, and the agreement was amended to include him. I’m positive that I heard a comment to the effect that that wouldn’t be for long anyway. Moses looked offended but seemed otherwise satisfied. He and Archimedes set to work on the nodules, with half the camp watching.
Riker – September 2158 – Sol
I leaned back, my jaw dropping, as I watched the debate descend, yet again, into a yelling match. We now had forty-two distinct groups willing to maintain contact with us. Not all of them had bought into the emigration idea. Some were keeping their options open, and some just didn’t want to be left out of the loop.
But they all had two things in common—they didn’t trust each other, and they didn’t trust us.
At the moment, we were dealing with the Spitsbergen refuge. Technically they were part of the USE, but as they didn’t recognize Colonel Butterworth’s authority, that wasn’t getting us any mileage.
The issue at front and center right now was the Svalbard Global Trust. The existence of the vaults and their value for colonists had circulated quickly, probably thanks to the Spitsbergen group. Now Valter was playing his trump card. He was demanding to be at the top of the colonization list, or no one would be getting the contents of the vaults. But Butterworth’s group would fill both ships, and he was adamantly unwilling to give up all or part of a ship, or leave part of his group behind. We’d circled around several times, always returning to the same arguments and rebuttals, and I was seriously considering assigning Guppy to cover for me.
Some of the other groups were suggesting we just go in and take it by force, or just wait until the Spits died out. Colonel Butterworth looked like he approved, but I wasn’t prepared to go there.
Finally, I’d had enough. I leaned forward and said in a loud voice, “Mr. Valter.” Argument cut off and all heads turned to me. “I think we’ve established by now that your demand to be on the first ship out is not going to fly. You may think you can just dig in and wait for us to cave to your demands, but the other alternative is for us to just walk in and take what we want.” This got me a surprised look from the colonel, swiftly replaced by a very convincing poker face. The colonel knew that was a bluff.