Stranded

Cara watched the water reach a boil in the animal skin bag over the open fire. She kept a close eye to ensure the flame never reached higher than the water. She’d crisped one bag that way already and wasn’t looking for a repeat.

When the water reached boiling, she removed the bag from the fire and poured it carefully into the hand-carved wooden mug, soaking the crushed dried leaves waiting there. She let it steep for a few minutes before taking a tentative sip.

Nodding her approval, Cara sipped at her “tea” until she reached the dregs at the bottom. I should figure out a way to make a strainer, she thought.

The last leftovers of the creature she’d eaten the previous few days constituted her breakfast. That, combined with the stimulant properties of the leaves gave her the energy to hunt. She’d named the creatures “piradeer” because they looked like a cross between a pig, a rabbit, and a deer.

They were not frightened by her presence, but she worried that as time went on, they would begin to fear her. For now, “hunting” involved picking a couple of the bitter berries (that made her sicker than she ever wanted to be) and finding a piradeer. Once spotted, she need only show the fruit to the animal and lead it back to the cave.

About the size of a medium dog and gentle, she found that she could calm them by scratching behind the long ears, and then a tight hug around their thin neck put them out. The butchering was bloody and difficult, but she’d gotten efficient during the months she’d been stranded.

Cara looked out on the area outside her cave. The area to her right was flat and mostly clear. If she was still here in thirty more days, she’d build a paddock and see if she couldn’t domesticate the piradeer. They didn’t move far, but they moved in loose herds to fresh grass.

It would require work on her part not just to build the paddock, but to collect fresh grass for them every day. She’d been so lost in her thoughts that she’d neglected to knock out the piradeer that was now sleeping calmly under her scratching fingers, its pig-like snout twitching with each breath.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and rendered it unconscious with a squeeze of its neck. A tear ran down her cheek. No matter how many times she did it, it never got easier. 

Aside from the bitter leaves she used for tea, every other plant she’d come across made her violently ill, even in tiny tastes. The pseudo-tea leaves, however, were far stronger than coffee or actual tea. She learned that two of the fingernail-sized leaves were the right amount to give her energy without the shakes.

The meat smoked over the fire, her food for the next few days. The meat was gamey and a bit grainy, but she’d grown used to it. Cara picked up a stick and charred the end in the fire, before adding another mark to the wall. She wasn’t sure how long the days were here, but they felt longer than twenty-four hours. Still, this was the two-hundred-twenty-sixth mark she’d made.

There had been many days before that, sitting first at the wreck, then moving out when her supplies dwindled. The cave was a lucky find. It was two days travel from the wreck, and Cara hadn’t been sure where she was going. The lower oxygen levels caused her to tire easily at first, and her thinking was often clouded. It also made starting the fire more difficult, or at least she rationalized the entire day spent getting it going that way. Cara hadn’t allowed it to go out since.

She’d acclimated over time, and guessed that now she could return to the wreck in a single day or less. The hide of the creature that now cooked in the smoke of the fire lay before her. She scraped the back with the knife that constituted her entire collection of useful modern tools. Muscle memory took over, allowing her mind to wander while she scraped.

Her emergency radio sat quiet in the corner of the cave, the green light indicating that it was listening, the slow blinking of the orange light indicating every time her ship in orbit sent a distress call. Folded neatly beneath the radio was her flight suit, a massive rip in the right leg. How she didn’t die in the crash was still beyond her.

She stopped scraping and rubbed the scar on her right calf which itched when she thought about it. Cara was glad for the warmth of the weather, as she hadn’t anything other than her undergarments to wear. She wondered if she should make a needle and try to sew some hide clothes.

The scraping finished, she hung the skin over a rock near the fire. She wasn’t ready to sleep yet, so she grabbed a bone from the pile and began carving with her knife. Making a needle would probably take a good deal of practice and now was as good a time as any.

Cara woke the next morning and stoked the fire, adding another log. After tea, her next chore was to find more dried wood. While her tea steeped, she saw movement in the underbrush outside the cave. The piradeer were moving to the clearing near the cave.

“Hey, guys,” she said.

A few of them stopped and looked her quizzically, their ears perking up. She sipped her tea and watched them go about their calm business. While they ate, they seemed to take turns coming to the mouth of the cave, sniffing at the fire and deciding it was not good or sniffing at her and showing a great deal of curiosity.

She scratched behind their ears as they came around, and soon she had a dozen of them lying around her, in a state somewhere between waking and sleep.

Cara finished her tea and rose to set her mug on the rock outcropping she thought of as her “shelf” when the radio crackled to life. “Exploratory Vessel Andrews, this is Rescue Vessel Sunrise, do you copy?”

She picked up the radio and responded. “RV Sunrise, EV Andrews, Dr. Cara Meeks. I’m on the planet’s surface. From the downed shuttle, look for the smoke of my fire.”

“Roger, Dr. Meeks, we’ll be there to pick you up in less than an hour.”

The curious piradeer had risen and were surrounding her and she found herself scratching them as they got close enough. “Thanks, Sunrise. Take your time, I’m in no hurry today.”