Pathways - Jeri Taylor [54]
And so this survival test was supremely important to Harry, his opportunity to make Nimembeh look at him in a new light. So far he’d done everything by the book, and he intended to keep doing just that. Nimembeh wasn’t going to be able to fault him on anything.
Each cadet had been given one item of gear: together they had a cord saw, a knife, a small bucket, a flint and steel, a small shovel, and a sheet of plastic. Nimembeh had remarked that frankly, he thought these items gave them too much luxury. If ever they were in a true survival situation, who was to say they’d have any of those things? But most of the cadets, he informed them, had been raised taking twenty-fourth-century technology for granted, and without some implements, no matter how rudimentary, they probably wouldn’t make it out of the wilderness. It was the kind of challenging remark that intensified Harry’s desire to show the commander that he wasn’t just another soft cadet, but a tough and disciplined leader.
He saw O’Connell eyeing a piece of wood he’d driven into the ground, and walked over to him. The young man’s Irish eyes shone with pleasure as he reported to Harry. “I’ve established an east-west line using shadows,” he said, indicating a mark on the ground which designated the tip of the first shadow he’d charted.
A second tip was now marked as well, and O’Connell had drawn a line between the two to indicate the east-west trajectory. “I’ll have the north-south orientation in about half an hour,” he added. “I need a sighting after noon before I can determine it.”
Harry nodded. This was rudimentary navigation; anyone could have made these calculations. But O’Connell was fascinated by problem-solving, and Harry knew he would apply himself to this process with such diligence that they could probably map the area once they were done.
He heard sounds of activity within a stand of conifers, and found the Vulcan women hard at work fashioning a shelter. They had discovered a rocky outcropping that provided a natural roof, and were busy adding sides to it by laying long slender branches and thatching them with leafy boughs. They would no doubt add a heat reflector and perhaps even a floor of pine needles.
A glint of sunlight on something bright caught his eye and he followed it into a clearing. There Tagar had already constructed a solar still by digging a pit approximately three feet deep, placing the bucket in the bottom, stretching the plastic sheeting over the opening, and then weighting it with a rock so that the plastic formed a cove with the apex directly over the bucket. The sun’s heat would raise the temperature of the air and soil under the plastic, hastening vaporization of the water in the soil. When the air under the plastic became saturated, the vapor would condense in tiny drops on the undersurface of the plastic. The drops would run slowly down the sloping underside of the plastic and drip off into the bucket.
Harry was reasonably sure they would soon find a stream—streams were prevalent in these mountains—but admired Tagar’s thoroughness in insuring that they would have a water supply until a stream was located.
“I have already located several varieties of fungus,” the Klingon said without looking at him. “They should provide adequately for our nutritional needs. However, I plan to hunt and trap small game as well.”
Tagar was following survival training to the letter. Wild fungi, or mushrooms, were the first food one was taught to seek in the wilderness. They occupied a place in the food chain somewhere between meat and vegetables, providing protein, fat, and carbohydrates, all of which were necessary to sustain life. And they could be eaten raw, eliminating the need for a fire. It was