Snatched by cmsix

Chapter 9

"I am Katia," she said, from my arms and to both of us.

"I am Shaeta."

"I am Carl."

"We will mate tomorrow," Katia told us.

"Nothing could make us happier," Shaeta told her, for both of us.

I could tell from the look on Katia's face that Shaeta had already told her about my reply the first time.

We spent the rest of the day together, much as Shaeta and I had spent our first day. I really didn't need all the information Katia doled out again but neither Shaeta nor I begrudged her the chance to give the spiel she'd no doubt been training for, just as Shaeta had.

Later, near sunset, she did the same as Shaeta had and left us to spend a last night in her mother's home.

Shaeta and I returned to our hut, undressed, and then held each other until we fell asleep. I knew damned well that Shaeta would be sore and I didn't even think of getting anything started.

We woke before sunrise the next morning and were dressed and outside just as the sun was peeking out. Caloe and Shaton were there to greet us and I thought it was a little odd that Caloe was here tending to business with Shaeta while Katia needed to get ready for her mating ceremony but I held my tongue. Shit, the women knew what they were supposed to be doing.

Shaton and I found a place in the creek to bathe but he didn't bother with much of the spiel that Caltort had given me. He did ask if I had any questions but I couldn't think of a one and he seemed just as glad about that. We returned to camp, grabbed a mouthful or two and then he left while I waited. Shaeta came back later too, and we waited together.

About an hour wait served this time too and then Katia made her entrance. Shaeta and I joined her in front of Zakat and Matatu and we looked respectful and answered when asked while they did their thing. The rest of the day went about the same as my mating with Shaeta. Katia filled all our bowls nearly to the brim with food and we sat together and ate, mostly feeding each other the tidbits.

She asked us pretty much the same questions that Shaeta had asked me, except for a few extra that concerned whether we were both willing to share her and share ourselves with her. Oddly those last seemed to touch me the most and I think they both noticed that I got a little misty eyed.

Shortly after we'd finished eating I got another round of introductions to all the women. We pretended this was the first time we'd met and the ceremony was a little odd in another way also. Katia introduced Shaeta to all the women too. Hey, it was jake with me. Being from earth I thought I understood all parts of how odd circumstances could bend normal occasions into surreal comedy, as long as you were taking a detached look.

When time for the drinking to begin came, I thought I knew what was coming but it turned out I didn't really. Katia could remember her recent big drunk just as well as Shaeta could. I only took one sip and I don't think they had that much. I was pleased with them and happy, until I saw Denac heading for the line up.

My mates were not amused when I told them we needed to intercept him, but I held their feet to the fire and they came with me.

"Congratulations Carl, you are the first man I've ever known who had two mates," Denac said, as we came up to him.

I thanked him and then introduced him to my mates. I knew I was on stable ground making introductions this way. Denac returned the favor informing both of them of his name, which of course, they already knew, but pretended not to.

"Denac, I don't want to tend to your business for you, but I feel that I must try to convince you not to drink any gajee today or tonight, or even for many more days, maybe as much as a month," I said, and even Katia and Shaeta seemed offended by my request.

"I'm sorry Carl, I didn't realize I wouldn't be welcome at your mating ceremony," he said, and I realized my mistake at once and knew I had to correct it.

"No one is more welcome at this ceremony, Denac. No one! If you were in good health I would hold up a bag and pour the gajee down your throat if you wanted me too. But you aren't in good health. You may not believe me, but I know what I am talking about. Your head was injured inside during our fight.

"It will take many more days for it to heal properly and the gajee will make it worse, not better. I'm sure you know how your head pounds the day after drinking very much gajee. Yours will hurt much worse and your vision will get blurry again," I said, and I knew I had hit a chord somewhere from the look on his face.

"But how did you know my vision was blurry, Carl, I told no one, not even the healing woman," he said, and he was truly surprised that I had known.

"The same hurt has been done to me before, Denac. I thought I told you that, the very same hurt. It took me weeks to get over it, and I might as well tell you now that it will always be easier for that type of hurt to happen to you again. That is just the way your head works inside. I am sorry that it happened but I can't take that back. All I can do is try to make you know what to do to get well and what not to do to make it worse.

"Please Denac, I will beg if it will help, please do not drink any gajee until I say you are well again," I said, and realized I meant it.

"Carl, no one has ever worried about me like this, or taken it on themselves to look out for my best interest. I am honored that you have. I will not drink the gajee ever again unless you say you don't mind, even after you've told me I'm well. I am honored," he said.

"May we come to your fire and visit a while then. My mates seem to be very familiar with the mating feelings lately and maybe some of it will rub off on you," I said, and to my surprise it made Denac blush crimson, but he smiled and led the way back to his hut.

Katia and Shaeta had both stiffened when I mentioned the mating feelings and they had good reason to. I had nearly let the name of Breezus slip off my tongue. I was thankful that I'd caught myself in time.

Denac's fire was banked when we got there and he only put a small amount of wood on. It was more than enough though because it wasn't cold at all, it was warm in fact and hell, the sun was up. Still it was normal to keep at least a small banked fire going most of the time.

For one thing, for most of them anyway, a fire was a fairly large pain in the ass to start. They knew about flint, but even with flint, starting a fire isn't all that damned easy. Of course it was no problem for me because I knew about Zippo, and I happened to have a quart of lighter fluid in my steamer. Even though it was warm and still light out I noticed that Denac did not have much firewood. I would fix that problem tomorrow.

Somehow the girls took to Denac in short order. I don't know whether it was because of the change in his attitude I thought I'd noticed or what, but we were all laughing and joking in a few minutes. They even started lightly teasing him over which of the unmated girls he liked best.

On earth this might not have been a welcome thing in some places and wouldn't have even been safe in others, but it was relatively benign here on Margata. Rape and abuse weren't unheard of here but they were very rare, and the girls didn't tease him overmuch.

We ended up spending the rest of the time until almost sunset talking with Denac. I could tell he was thoroughly enjoying himself and to tell the truth I was too. Before we left I told him that I would be gathering some firewood tomorrow and that I'd be sure to bring him some when I came back.

He tried to protest and say he would be able to get his own but I talked him out of it and encouraged him to rest and to tell me if he thought he needed anything. In fact I made him promise that he would.

I really didn't understand why I had taken to him so but I knew it wasn't that unusual. On earth it wasn't a bit strange for two men who had been in a fight to become friends afterward.

After all, it might not be the best of times but it was an intense and personal encounter they had shared. Besides, I think that the fight had changed Denac somehow. I had barely known he was in the Calak before it but his behavior since the fight did not coincide with what I'd heard about him before.

Not thirty steps away from his hut Shaeta told me the same thing I'd just been thinking.

"Before tonight, I never knew the Denac we were just talking to," she said.

"He has certainly changed since the fight," Katia said, agreeing.

"You must have hurt him more than you thought, or else you knocked some sense into him," Shaeta said, to me.

"It does seem that his attitude has changed since the knock on his noggin, at least from what I've heard about him since then. I never really knew him before. I've also heard that men often change in ways you wouldn't think of when they feel that they have been near death," I said.

"Do you think that he nearly died," Katia asked.

"The type of injury he had is unpredictable. Maybe he was near death and maybe he wasn't. What matters more though is if he thought he was near death. If he thought that he was it might make more difference than whether he really was near death or not," I said.

"You are right about that. Sometimes, when you believe something it can affect you whether what you believe is correct or not," Katia said.

"Well, he was almost always disagreeable before, at the least. If the fight and injury change that I think it was more than worthwhile, even for him.

"Before tonight the only thing I thought he was good for was finding bee trees and getting their honey," Shaeta said.

"Yes, he's always been able to do that, and though they sting him all over, it doesn't seem to cause him much trouble. Honey is always welcome," Katia said.

"What do you do with the honey comb?" I asked, knowing that I was making an abrupt change of subject, but realizing that they must not know about candles.

"We squeeze every bit of the honey out of it that we can, and then the healing woman uses a little bit of the comb for something. Not much of it though. Mostly it is thrown away," Shaeta said.

"Never let that happen again if you can possibly help it," I said.

"It won't be hard to keep all you want, but what can you do with it," Katia asked.

"It will be so much more fun if I show you, but believe me, when I do show it everyone in camp will be delighted," I said.

"If you say so, but now I'm anxious to know," Katia said.

"Then make up your minds together. I will tell you now if you want to know, or I will show you first if you want to wait. I think you will like seeing it better than you will like hearing about it though," I said.

They didn't even have to talk it over much, and they decided to wait until I could show them. I was thrilled because I'd already seen that all they had in the way of portable light was the little oil lamps that were fueled with fat. Candles would be a much better way.

The ceremony was still going on when we got back to the big central fire. Or maybe I should say that the drinking was still going on. It wasn't really so much drinking though.

The damned gajee was so strong that there wasn't a lot of actual drinking, just some drinking and then waiting around until you thought you could drink some more, sort of a getting up your nerve for another round type of thing. Hell, if they swilled it down like frat boys at a kegger they would all die of alcohol poisoning.

The three of us sat around and mostly watched. Some of the antics were funny and some just stupid. As the evening wore on the funny gave way to more and more stupid, and then almost at the same time most of the drunks just passed out. The main thing to take care of now was making sure no one passed out on a fire, or that they hadn't wandered away from camp and become unconscious out in the woods.

My mates and I left it to the ones who had been appointed as watchers and retired to our hut. I now knew that unlike earth, the mating night here was not for the traditional deflowering. Since the bride and groom were normally drunk as two dogs after the party, the first fucking was usually reserved for the second night of wedded bliss, at the earliest.

We were up at first light the next morning and I'll admit that we did a little laughing at the others as they woke, pissed and moaned about their heads pounding, and then got started cleaning off any vomit they had spread indiscriminately.

Many of them groaned again when breakfast was ready and barely a third of them could even get anything down. Apparently the youngsters were in on the fun too because they seemed to be especially loud during their playing today.

Standing around watching last night's drunks suffer wasn't on my agenda this morning though, and with no headaches or vomit misdeeds to worry about my two mates didn't seem to want my help as they put the finishing touches on our hut, brought Katia's things over, and no doubt rearranged everything in it twice. They even promised to keep an eye on the calf that I hadn't made any progress toward naming Buttercup, yet.

Since they didn't need any help from me I told them I'd go exploring, and they agreed it was probably a good time for me to get more familiar with our new surroundings.

That was exactly what I had in mind. I thought there were probably several simple things I could come up with to help us, and the whole Calak, with a little poking around. Like the candles I'd thought of earlier.

I had one precious asset that most of them didn't have much of. I had knowledge of later discoveries and materials from my previous life, not counting what my internal helper seemed willing to share when the spirit moved it.

It was as simple as taking a walk out into the woods and keeping at it. I took a different direction this morning and within twenty minutes I was heading up slightly, into some hills. They weren't very high ones, yet, but I could see that they kept climbing off into the distance.

After moving over two of them I spotted a wide slow-moving stream between me and the next hill. From my current elevation I could see that it headed here from the north and took a sort of bend back away from us along these hills and took off to the west for probably a mile or so, trending back southward at the limit of my view from here.

Making my way downhill and to it, I saw it was fifty to sixty feet wide and rather slow moving. It had obviously been here for hundreds of years and my own experience helped me out now.

Most of our eating and drinking was done from wooden bowls and cups. They served the purpose but must take a hell of a lot of work to make.

There was almost surely clay in this small river and clay meant pots, if it was suitable clay. That was about the extent of my knowledge though. I knew that the uses for clay pots and such were practically unlimited. I also knew that their utility was dependant on what type of clay you had to work with.

In the modern world things like that were already well understood, and you bought ceramic articles you needed in the ready to use state. Here it would be up to me to make them, or show others how to make them. Unfortunately I didn't know if this clay I might have found was suitable, and I didn't have any ideas about ways of finding out if it was or not, except by trying.

What I did know about making things from clay was threadbare at best. I knew you had to mix it up, do your best to get the air bubbles out of it, form what you wanted, let it dry for a few days and then fire it to make it mostly permanent. That was pretty much the drill, but I was sure there were specific ways to take care of the details and I didn't know any of them.

My new knowledge buddy was ominously silent right about now. I didn't know whether shutting it up earlier had offended it, it didn't know anything about clay and pottery, or it thought I needed to find out for myself. It didn't matter, because finding out for myself seemed best to me.

After a little thinking I decided that the best way to get started was to make something and see if it worked. If it did, I'd try to improve on the next item and if it didn't I'd try to figure out what went wrong. It sounded simple enough to start with.

Of course there was more to it than that. I had an entrenching tool that I could have used to try digging out some clay but it was back in my cart. What the hell, I wasn't going to make anything very big to start with. I took off my boots and pants and waded in, trying to make sure I didn't step on anything sharp.

After about thirty minutes of fucking around I located some mud I thought was suitable with my feet, and I stooped over and pulled out a wad with my hand. It wasn't much trouble to wash the ordinary dirt away and keep building on my ball of clay. Ten more minutes of playing in the water gave me a mostly round ball of clay about the size of a softball.

Out on dry ground again I mixed it around with my hands, flattening it out and folding it over time and time again until I thought it was mixed enough. How did I know? I didn't, it was just a guess.

The next step, as best I could remember, was smashing it repeatedly into a wall or something similar to get the air bubbles out, and I didn't have a fucking wall. It wasn't hard to find a large, mostly smooth, rock for this, and a little time spent throwing it onto the rock and then wadding it back up to repeat seemed like it did the trick

A strong wish for a rolling pin was my next trick but I didn't really expect one to appear. It didn't take long to figure out that it is harder to make a cup or bowl out of wet clay than you'd think, especially freehand. No, of course I didn't have a potter's wheel and I wasn't about to fuck around and try building one until I was sure I could make something useful with anything I formed on one.

So, I made three cups freehand, and it took damned near two hours. Then I ended up leaving them on the rock for a couple more hours to let them dry out enough to take back with me. While they were doing that I took off for more exploring.

Of course I had put my boots and pants back on when I came out of the river earlier so I had to take them back off, wade across it, and put them on again after I dried off a little myself. I could have settled for looking around on the camp's side of the river, but where's the adventure in that?

It didn't take me five minutes after I was dressed again to find something that made me glad I'd gone to the trouble of crossing the small river. I spotted hoof prints almost as soon as I had my clothes and boots back on.