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51.
The days were getting a little shorter as the Earth moved far from the sun.
Alex worried about winter coming, or what would pass for winter in this semitropical place. He had no idea what that would bring, but if they were unprepared for cold, they’d die here. They had a half dozen ripper hides, which were fairly pliable and kept them warm. He supposed they could always move over to the island if need be.
Every morning, they’d begin their day by climbing up on the north face of his old cliff, and surveying the valley. He knew for sure that one of these days they’d see new rippers or even worse predators moving down into their domain.
They loved each other very deeply, and their sex was passionate and long. At first they hadn’t thought about pregnancy. Then they used condoms that he made from intestine from their cattle herd. Finally they realized after a few accidents that the infection had probably left her sterile—or perhaps they were both sterile from a genetic standpoint. They stopped worrying about it and enjoyed what time they might have. They relished every day. They worked and played hard, and talked often about the dimly remembered lives of young Alex Kirk and Maryan Shurey.
They built a wooden house around a central fireplace that they made of stone and mud. The autumn and winter, when they came, were not too severe. They had warm clothing (though no wool yet; they doubled hides and stuck straw between them). They had warm, waterproof (greased) boots with soles that he carved for them out of wood.
They built a boat and went fishing, using rodent gut for lines. They took their boat up and down the coast a mile or so, and finally located a flock of woolly animals similar to sheep. They brought several males and females home with them and left them on the cliff, where they could not escape. They used his old shelter at night, and pretty soon there were six or eight of them. They spent their days happily chewing on anything green, of which there was plenty, and in season they began to leave puffs of fur in the hedges as they moved about. They had only to gather armfuls of the material to spin into wool. He had not yet found any metals, but that would come. He did find a way to melt beach sand and pour a sheet of glass. You could not see through it, but he took several sheets up on the cliff to make improved nighttime water stills for the sheep. He captured a queen bee and soon had a thriving bee hive. He built a pottery wheel and threw any kind of vessel that Maryan or he needed. They brought in more fruit trees and planted them around their house. They had grapes, apples, pears, and various kinds of berries. The vines grew nicely around the house. He could take, say, a few handfuls of berries and a cup of water and boil them in a clay pot, stirring constantly with a wooden ladle, until a kind of hot jam was left. Then he could seal this in clay jar using beeswax to seal them. They could store these in their three-room cave storehouse.
They made more glass and created a refinery where they could evaporate seawater and obtain a respectable amount of salt—more than they could immediately use. They became experts at brining and smoking meats, using their excess salt and a smokehouse he built in a few days near their home. They had several racks of smoked meat in their store house, hanging from a wooden rafter to make it hard for scavengers to get to the meat. It was tough and salty, but it could tide them over in a pinch. Some days he’d go out and catch a dozen or so respectable sized fish, and they’d smoke some of those for storage.
After two years, they were doing very well. No rippers had yet settled in their valley, though they did hear what sounded like coyotes, wolves, and smaller cats prowling every night. They were looking for a good dog, but the dogs had long ago gone feral and back to pack life. They didn’t trust the wild animals to become reliable pets. Besides, there was no better watchdog than a group of geese. They might be cantankerous and dangerous animals, but they wouldn’t hesitate to attach a marauding fox and drive it from their hens.
It remained to find a few geese, but first, one day, their fate changed suddenly and completely.
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