I
feel very happy to see the girl reunited with her family, and that AI had
chosen to intervene. I was not happy that two of the raiders had escaped, even
blinded they may find their way back to their group, for I suspect they were a
scouting party, hopefully AI would make the same deduction, and send out orders
to purge. Nomadic cannibal raiders are something all bunker personnel fear for
the colonists, and for us, in sufficient numbers and weapons they could take
one of us out, if caught by surprise.
We
return to Laura's colony, and I start my census, the last census they had 55 in
number, 15 adult males, 20 adult women, 20 adolescents/babies, each one has a
name and sir name recorded in our book of life, this colony has increased by
ten, even with two deaths, and there are six more pregnancies noted. This is
good and bad, they need the numbers, but each child means more resources
needed, they will need more. shelters, fortifications, herds, and we are
supposed to let them figure it out, it's very frustrating. Kane is one of the stronger
intelligent men and has shown some leadership skills, they will one day settle
on an accepted leader, I hope. Someone with vision.
It
had been two days since our return, and I was about to leave when Kane came to
me to say his daughter is sick, again a request for help, but this was
concerning, our colonist where of the best stock and their immune systems
should as be good as mine. So, I decided to investigate. Kane bring your
daughter and a clean skin to me and leave her; I will do what I can. The girl
arrives and I spread the skin on a clean grassy area, and have the father lay
her on top of it, she is running a high fever. I tell Kane to take his son and
anyone she has been in contact with to the stream and bath, fearing the raiders
may have been infected. I then deploy the solar array into a bowl shape and push
the sharp end of the staff deep into the ground, clipping the bowl into place
on top of the shaft. I lower it until it covers both of us. The solar cells are
translucent allowing some light in, I then remove the back rack and the tunic,
removing my cotton shirt I rip of the sleeves and wet one with water from the
staff. Removing her skins I clean, dry and inspect her body, she is very warm
to the touch, and very muscular. As I moved down her body I spread her legs and
inspect her vaginal area, there is no tears and her hymen is in place, the
Raiders had been interrupted early enough, and surprising the boys in the
village must have some fear of Mr. Kane. Then I note a puncture wound deep in
her back side inner thigh, with very red angry flesh around it, this could be
the culprit. Looks like a jab with a spear, I take out the survival knife and
probe the wound, just as I thought, the burnt spear tip is still there, the
infection pops it up to the surface and I remove all that I see, squeeze the
wound until clear blood comes to the surface, in the process she awakes moaning
at the pain, I wipe the wound clean as I can, cauterize the wound with a laser and
tie the a cover over the wound with strips of the shirt. Laura sits up and
drinks a little water, I take of my hat, and remove one of my wafers from the
tube. She nibbles on the wafer, drinks more water then lays back to sleep
again, I cover her with my tunic and curl up beside her, the nights here are
chilly this time of year, I grab the edge of the skin, and pull it over us and
drift off to sleep.
I
awake to the feeling of warm lips pressed against mine, and a hand exploring my
body. Giggling she smiles at me, if she had only been a bunker girl, another no
no, we are not allowed to mix our Bunker DNA with theirs. I check her forehead and
note she has no fever; I pat her on the cheek gently and tell her to dress, in
a moment she had slipped back into the smelly skins. I elevated the canopy, flattened
out the panels and aim it at the morning sun, it will only take about an hour
to fully charge the suit, I slip on the sleeveless shirt to begin my journey.
Kane comes over to my campsite, thanks me for helping his daughter, and offers
me the skin. I politely declined, it was a nice skin but too much to add to my
pack, I do accept a gourd for additional water, and fill the staff in the
creek. Kane and Laura return to their home, and I complete my packing, the back
rack indicator says completely charged.m
I
begin my journey on foot, and I muse, it would be easy to call my aircraft, but
I hope I will stumble across either of the two blinded men, I would really like
to interrogate one of them, to access his groups size and location. I'm sure
that AI would want to either eradicate or steer their group away from our
colonies. And after that brief contact
with Laura, I will be happy to return to our Bunker and be with my favorite love
Sandra. We are not allowed to have just one mate AI requires us all to be
flexible, sometimes relationships develop, and I have feelings for one, but we
are all required to take breeding assignments, and all have mother and father
duties. Usually, the parents are unknown to a particular child, but it's obvious
in some cases due to physical similarities.