‘One mistake we made with Jaranisia,’ said Moon Jackal, ‘is we didn’t pay enough attention to pathmaking.’ He was walking along the stream with long strides and Sina found herself having to hurry to keep up. Behind her was the reassuring presence of Otso. Her animal companion never seemed to move at more than a leisurely walk, yet it kept up with them without effort.

The Otaxel suddenly sniffed the air, its strange, expressive tentacles swaying back and forth either side of its mouth, then the large creature gave out a rumbling growl.

Moon Jackal stopped too and his damaged face tipped up as he strained to listen. ‘Anything? See anything?’ he asked anxiously.

‘Nothing.’ Sina felt concerned too but no one was in view as far as the dunes to the east and the forest to the west. After a short while Otso ceased growling and looked around with placid indifference in his deep, black eyes.

‘As I was saying,’ Moon Jackal continued pacing. ‘We didn’t plan well enough and the journey from several of the workshops to the stockpile was a zig zag around some domestic units and the hospital. If you add on fifteen per cent to a route like that and multiply this extra time and effort in lifting by ­– I don’t know – a thousand journeys, you’ll come to appreciate proper planning.’

Unsure how to respond, Sina said nothing more than, ‘I see.’

Moon Jackal counted off his paces. ‘Ninety-nine; one hundred. Now my idea is that we start the stockade here and a square of a hundred by a hundred will be enough to contain our residences and also reach the stockpile in the north east corner. We will have the stream as a boundary along the south wall.

‘Our workshops should be outside the stockade, but close to the stockpile. And we should probably make a path to the other stockpile by the forest.’

As Moon Jackal was explaining his idea for the settlement, the Otaxel entered the cold water to take a drink. This made Sina realise she was thirsty. ‘I understand,’ she said and with one hand on the top of the bank to balance herself, jumped down to the water.

The bank was steeper where Moon Jackal stood and when he went to join them, he slipped and landed with a bump. If it hurt, he ignored the pain and simply said, ‘So if you’d like to set the task in the menu, we can begin.’

‘The stockade?’

‘Yes. You should be able to call up a green line from the construction options? Lay it out as a square, with the length I just paced out.’

‘I’ve a better idea,’ said Sina, suddenly excited. ‘I should have thought of this earlier. I’ll promote you to the upper level.’

‘Admin?’

‘Is that what it’s called? The top group on the people menu. The one with Marcus and I in it.’

Moon Jackal chuckled and rubbed his beard, the knuckles of his hand coming across in front of his mouth to hide his grin.

‘What?’ Sina asked, wondering what she was missing.

‘I’m not the admin type. It’s flattering of you to offer to make me an admin but I’m not the type.’

‘What’s the admin type?’ Now Sina was looking hard at Moon Jackal, whose face was as expressive as before his injury and seemed to be showing disdain.

‘Some people like bossing others around and some people don’t. I’m the live and let live kind.’

‘I’m not bossy.’

‘We’ll see.’

A flush of heat travelled through Sina. ‘You don’t know me at all. It’s rather presumptive of you to make that remark, in that tone of voice.’

With raised eyebrows and a step backwards, Moon Jackal flapped his hands placatingly. ‘It’s nothing personal; it’s the way this planet works. Grimworld gets to you. One task leads to another. You might say to us, “just this tailor’s workshop and we are all set”, but as soon as the tailor’s workshop is complete, you feel the pressure to begin your next task.

‘In time we all have dozens of tasks assigned to us, but we don’t want to work day and night and we start ignoring them. So you’ll give blueweed as a prize to those who complete their jobs and cut food down to a minimum to those who don’t.’ His humour was gone now, replaced by bitterness.

‘Blueweed?’

‘A drug, you inhale the smoke.’

‘It’s not going to be like that here.’

‘We’ll see.’

This time Sina just laughed. She did not approve of drugs, nor of punishing people with reduced food. Whatever society the Fins became, it would be one based on kindness.

***

It took a week of cutting young trees, stripping their trunks of branches and shaping points before the stockade was complete.

Stockade

With a barred gate and walkway.

This simple defensive wall will protect those inside from nearly all predatory attacks by land animals.

‘Good,’ Moon Jackal gave the sturdy wooden wall a pat. ‘Speaking for myself, I feel a lot safer. You might well say it won’t do us a lot of good against the slavers or the cannibals and you’d be right. But at night in that lean-to, I felt like I was a slab of meat waiting to be eaten. I would wake up in a sweat thinking I’d heard some monster creeping towards us.’

‘Oh, you are speaking for me too,’ Sina said earnestly. ‘When we crashed, the computer warned us there would be predators and our chance of survival was small. I haven’t slept well ever since.’

Moon Jackal gave an earnest nod. Abruptly, he walked away, fingers trailing the logs until he reached a step-ladder, ‘We need to bring rocks up to the walkway, to drop on anyone trying to smash a way in.’

‘And what about bows and arrows? Wouldn’t that be even better?’ As the stockade had neared completion, Sina had been thinking about what to do if they were attacked. No doubt the slavers would come again. And maybe soon. While Moon Jackal could hardly see and wouldn’t be a lot of help in long-range conflicts, Sina might be able to deter an attack by the use of archery.

‘Do you know how to make a bow?’ asked Moon Jackal.

‘Not really,’ Sina replied, ‘only the basics: a bendy staff of wood and a cord.’

‘Then we need to research bowmaking.’

‘How do I do that?’

It was a warm day and Moon Jackal wiped his brow, then sat in the shadow at the base of their newly completed wall. His broken face tipped up towards her and Sina recognising an invitation, sat beside him, hands around her knees, back to the rough bark of the logs.

‘First, you need to draw an industrial zone. Since we don’t have a lot of room inside the stockade, I suggest you do it outside. On it, you’re going to construct a tailor’s workshop, a smithy and so on. And one of the buildings we need early on is a research workshop, which is where you place a research table. I think you’ve got all the tools for a basic research table. Then one of us works on researching a technology we need, like bowmaking…’ Moon Jackal paused. ‘What’s your research skill?’

‘I don’t have one.’

‘Then I’m our researcher. Mine is four.’

‘How does it work though? I mean, how does the knowledge get into your thoughts?’

Moon Jackal shrugged. ‘After a while – and it can take days of sitting at that table trying things out – you get a “research complete” message from Grimworld and just know what to do. It’s there in your mind.’

‘Shall I start on the research hut then?’

Instead of answering, Moon Jackal reached across and patted her knee. ‘I’m surprised to be saying this, but I like being here. I’ve lost most of my sight. I’ve lost my possessions and I can no longer be sure I’ll have something to eat next week. But I’ve gained something that outweighs those.’

Politely, Sina waited, until she realised Moon Jackal could not see that her expression and body language meant she was inviting him continue. ‘Do go on.’

‘I feel free. You ask me what should be done and you listen to me. I hadn’t realised how sick I was of being a Jaranisian. There, the admins constantly bullied us to work harder. I was miserable. Most of us were miserable.’

‘Of course I listen to you. I’d be a fool not to. I know nothing about this world and how it works.’

‘There’s plenty of fools in the world,’ Moon Jackal laughed. ‘And I was one of them. Now, research is important, bows are important, but first of all we need places to sleep properly, under cover, or our stats gradually decline. Let’s build a hut for each of us and then decide what should come next.’

Under Moon Jackal’s direction, Sina made the southern half of the enclosed area a residential zone (which was as simple as placing her finger on a green dot and dragging it across the view in front of her) and set as their next task the construction of two basic huts.

While her body worked on building the huts, Sina could switch off from the physical work. During the week several new quests had appeared and she took the opportunity to read through them all again. Among the rather dull, construction quests there was one that had made her heart beat faster when it had appeared and it remained far more interesting than any other.

Quest: Find the Stash

Your Otaxel has picked up a strange scent. Someone has stashed food and other items nearby.

Requirements: pet with enhanced scent ability.

Reward: food and other items.

MAP

Opening the map showed that the stash was marked as a red dot in the forest, about half way to the crash site. When her body next passed near Moon Jackal, Sina interrupted her work to inform him of the quest. Her companion, however, was much less excited about it than she was.

‘I’ve been on a couple of stash quests. And both times the rewards were good. But both times too there were guards. The stash might even have been lure into an ambush.’

‘Ambush?’

‘Manhunters watching the stash to see who comes for it: manhunters of both the animal and human kind.’

This was disappointing. Most of the uplift she had felt on seeing the quest dissipated. Most, but not all: the thought of exploring for unknown treasure was exciting. ‘So do we ignore it?’

In a gesture that Sina now recognised as characteristic for Moon Jackal while he was thinking, her companion began to scratch at his beard. ‘Let’s go see. Your pet, Otso, might be able to drive off other predators. And the rewards can be very good. You can get artefacts from a stash quest.’

‘Artefacts?’

‘Extremely rare items. Lost technologies.’

Soon they were making their way north east of the stockade, each with a spear over their shoulder and Otso pacing alongside with – was she beginning to pick up on her pet’s feelings? ­– what seemed to Sina to be approval for the journey. Progress was slower than she’d like, because although Moon Jackal could see well enough to follow behind her, he was unsure about placing his feet.

The sun was low in the sky and the forest filled with shadows when they arrived at a glade, in which were the stone ruins of an abandoned rectangular stone cottage. There was no roof to the building and just two large windows, like empty eyes, either side of an open doorway. Sina checked the map again. Yes, this was the spot.

Beside her, Otso sat on his hind legs and gave a very low, quiet growl, eyes on the cottage, mouth tentacles undulating from side to side.

A heavy hand on her shoulder nearly made her jump. Moon Jackal had come close with surprising stealth. ‘Let's wait here for a while,’ he whispered, ‘and watch.’

Sure enough, it wasn’t too long before something moved over by the cottage. A spider? No, it was an insect and a giant one, but more like an ant, black and seemingly made of rectangular plates of metal. The insect was the size of a dog and Sina felt relieved when it disappeared into the interior without noticing her. The fur of the Otaxel had all stiffened and her pet carefully stretched out low to the ground.

‘What’s happening?’

Replying as quietly as she could, Sina described the glade and the cottage and then added, ‘There was a huge ant. Oh, I see another.’ Climbing over the left wall, another of the creatures scuttled down the cottage side and crossed the glade into the shadows of the forest.

‘Nisil,’ said Moonjackal. ‘They hunt in packs of about ten. The claws on their forelegs never lose their grip, even after you kill them. We can’t win a battle with them. Especially not with my poor vision.’

A heavy weight settled in her stomach. Sina realised she had begun to daydream about the possible rewards of the stash, raising her hopes, only to have them dashed now. What was it her father used to say? Don’t lick the fruit before it drops. Where was he now, her father, the king? And had he noticed his daughter had changed? Probably not. For him, Sina was a future queen of Finland, someone to be trained into the role, and not a daughter.

‘This does mean, though, that there are no humans around.’ Moon Jackal’s tone was musing. ‘And that’s good. Humans are tricky. Nisil are nasty but they won’t have set any traps.’

While Moon Jackal spoke, Sina leaned back towards him a little, but she never took her eyes off the cottage. There were two more of the ant-like insects moving across the far wall.

‘They are not so fast either. You could outrun them.’

Heart picking up speed, Sina felt hope again. ‘Do I try to lure them away?’

‘Maybe. We call it kiting. You run with an imaginary string back to the chasing monsters and you keep them away while I get the stash.’

‘Can you see the cottage?’

‘Vaguely. But if there were any nisil left inside, I wouldn't be able to see them.’

‘I’ll shout “clear” if they all come.’

‘It’s dangerous. We could easily get this wrong. You could stumble while kiting. I could be attacked while in the cottage.’

‘I won’t stumble,’ whispered Sina so confidently that she believed herself.

‘All right. But only call me in if you are completely certain there are none left. Keep running, don’t stop until you’ve lost them all. Then meet me back at the stockade.’

Was she really willing to risk her life for this quest? It seemed so. Sina tightened her grip on her spear. ‘Ready?’

‘Ready.’

As she stepped out from behind a tree into the glade, Sina felt a push. ‘What… ?’

Bounding past her Otso leaped right up to the door of the cottage and gave a huge roar that sent birds clapping into the evening sky from every direction. Several giant ants ran out of the cottage and others came from the trees.

Still roaring, Otso swept out with his vicious claws and then at the last moment leapt away from the onrushing nisil, whose efforts to grip him filled the glade with a clacking sound. Running, turning and lashing out, running again, Otso had the full pack of insects in his wake as he moved off into the trees.

Now was her chance. Shouting over her shoulder, Sina ran into the cottage. ‘Otso is leading them away. Stay where you are!’

Although it was in deep shadow, there were only two items standing on the rubble of a ruined floor that could be the stash: a large backpack and the rifle that was leaning against it.

A rifle!

Snatching up the weapon and hauling the heavy pack over her shoulders, Sina ran back to where Moon Jackal was straining to hear what was happening.

‘Come on Moon Jackal, let’s hurry away. I have the stash!’

A big grin appeared within her companion’s beard. ‘What’s in it?’

‘Whatever is in the backpack I’m wearing and this,’ Sina put the rifle into his hands.

‘A gun!’ Moon Jackal used the strap of the rifle to settle it across his back. ‘Well now. That changes everything.’