Sabredancing with the dead Ch 20

Tokonosu, April 19 20xx

Day 8.

0935

The party had gone on until the wee hours, with Capt. Nishizawa and his people heading back sometime after midnight. They had all asked Wolf as to what his plan was, but he'd put them off, telling everyone that he needed more time to work out the details.

"When I get it all figured out, you will be the first to know." He grinned as he carved into a chunk of Kobe beefsteak. Seated across from him, Kat was enjoying the fresh sushi, and sipping some of the "Oh, So expensive" sake. Everyone was having a good time, and for a while, the worries were in abeyance.

Mrs. Ukita wasn't at dinner, and Elaine was currently sitting with her aboard the boat she now lived on alone. Kat had walked down a packet with various items before she sat down herself, and was going to spell Elaine and stay with the widow overnight. Between herself, Elaine, and Fujiko, they had taken it upon themselves to see to it that the poor woman was looked after until she could come to grips with her husband's death.

He, Saburo and Shinji had sat up for a while longer, talking about their situation in general, each putting out ideas that might improve their ability to survive. None of them were really comfortable with their current location. While the tsunami wall and gates worked well to keep the critters out, and they had just about all the facilities they needed, none of them were entirely comfortable with being on this side of a wall meant to keep tidal waves at bay. With things as they were now, post EMP and the rise of the undead, the chances of getting a tsunami warning were just about zilch. They kicked around the idea of moving. The Island airport seemed to offer the best chance. The group broke up around 0130 or so, and everyone retired to their various boats.

Sunlight pouring through the portals woke Wolf. He was alone in the double bunk. For a moment he wondered where his lady was, but then remembered that she'd gone to stay with the widow. He lounged in bed for a while, listening to the waves gurgling against the hull, and the sound of seagulls squawking as they fought over fish or other food. He lay there, hands under his head, and thought some more about the water problem. Was there any point in risking lives for this mission if they were planning on moving? Then he considered the fact that everyone, everywhere, was in the same situation. He wondered how the JSDF people were making out with the water situation, and resolved to have Wally ask them about it.

As he lay there, he tried to organize the main issues. They needed food, water, and shelter to start with. These were the basic needs and impossible to do without. Then they needed some way to sustain those bare minimums and have enough resources of time, labor and materials left over at the end of the day to make improvements to those basic three and add additional things and services like medical, educational, engineering and support services. He added education in with this because there were a lot of things to be done, and the group skill sets needed to be shared around in case someone bought the farm. A good example of this was the training of several people to drive the APCs.

As he itemized the requirements he realized that even though they were in good shape here and now, things would only get tougher as the resources they pillaged became outdated and useless. Even canned food had a finite limit to how long it would remain edible. Safe maybe, but edible was a whole other story. He chuckled at the thought of some of the stuff he'd eaten as a college student. Their trips to scavenge would become more difficult as the fuel they burned ran out and they had to go further afield to scavenge that too. So, even if they risked the people to go and get those desalinaters, they would be faced even more severely with the fuel problem. Let's face it, he thought, this is going to end up the way every post-apocalyptic novel I've ever read ends up. They were all standing on the edge of a three or four HUNDRED year slide back towards the Stone Age. Add in the rise of the dead, they might even slip further.

With that cheery thought in mind, he got up and had a quick wash at the galley sink. Having dressed and checked the barometer, he climbed out of the cabin to the cockpit. He did a complete scan of the horizon, (old habit, hard to break even when in a secure harbor or anchorage. That done, he walked over to the rail gate, and stepped down into the dinghy. Rowing over to the seawall only took a couple of minutes and his mind just wouldn't stop going round and round as he tried to come up with a better plan. He entered the dining room as breakfast was being served and joined Shingi, Wally and Saburo at their table. As he sat down, Kat walked in, having been relieved of the watch on Mrs. Ukita.

"You look like your dog died. What's bothering you?" she asked as she sat down with a plate. She and the others waited for him to start talking. After a moment's thought, he started to explain.

"I've been thinking hard on how we are going to keep on going. Not only that, but how we are going to survive, and build up a new life and future. The more I think about it, the more I realize we are really screwed. Last night I thought getting those desalinaters would solve a huge problem for us, but instead of doing that it makes one of the other problems even worse. Last night we chowed down on fresh beef from the coolers, fresh sushi brought by our next door neighbors, bottled sake, and other things. We are living as scavengers on the corpse of the city. Eventually we will start running out of things and the longer we ignore that fact, the worse it will be for us. Everything we consume with the exception of the fish, has a finite lifespan. Even the fish will be a bitch to catch once the boats run out of diesel." That said, he looked down at his breakfast, and tried a few bites. His appetite wasn't there anymore. This mess they were in was worrying him that much.

Kat looked at him and recognized the look on his face. She'd seen him slip into a depression once before. She'd also seen him work his way out of it again. She wasn't wrong when she suspected that this time it was because of the almost insurmountable odds they faced to keep on surviving. All she could do was to help him flesh out the problems and solutions, by acting as a sounding board for him. Perhaps toss in some ideas he'd miss.

"OK, so do we have a game plan?" she asked.

"Right this minute, no. I'm still considering all the variables. I just mentioned a few but there are more of them… I need to get some paper and pencils." With that said, he pushed his plate aside, stood up and headed into the club to scrounge up the writing materials.

Capt. Sakai watched his departing form and turned to Kat. "He has the look of a man with an insurmountable problem to solve. Having gotten to know him better in the last few days, I would say he will not stop working on it until he solves it or he crashes into a massive depression because he cannot. What can we do to help him, Kat?"

"Saburo, all we can do is let him work out the parameters of the problem, and one by one come up with viable solutions."

"You sound as if you have done this before. The way you speak points in that direction." Shinji commented.

She sat for a moment, debating on whether to tell them about that incident but finally came to the decision that this was something they needed to know, to reassure them that Wolf was not about to break down or fail them as they all tried to stay alive.

"Back when we were in high school, Wolf went into a deep depression when he had to give up flying. We'd been going out for a year. He really wanted to change his career plans, and learn to fly helicopters. There was a school out in Alberta that he'd been corresponding with and he was all set to go. His father terminated that plan and basically told him to continue on to the school that he'd originally wanted or move out of the house."

"That the original idea was based in a completely inaccurate understanding of the job didn't matter to his father. That career was seen as a prestige thing in his father's eyes as it was in the old country, and he considered flying to be a menial job below his vision of what Wolf was capable of. Sort of like a somewhat more skilled taxi driver." She paused and took a sip of Sake.

"I watched him go through this then, and I see the same signs now. As for how I talk to you about it, well, wait and you'll see. Once he gets it sorted out in his head, he will lay it all out, in detail, using the same terminology. It's scary sometimes when he starts to analyze a problem. It's like he goes into machine mode and just grinds on it until it's done."

She sighed, and her face changed to one of sadness. "I suspect I know what he's about to say and I'm not happy about it. To solve these problems we need more information, information that we don't have. He's mentioned a visit to the library, either the main city one or the University library up in the hills on the north side of the city. There are so many things we need to know. Without it, we can't plan with any hope of success in keeping ourselves and our future alive for any length of time." She said quietly.

"Kat, I agree. I believe a mission to the library is inevitable. Wolf is right, we don't know enough. We will have to find a way with the least risk. I'm not sure how that can be done. The main city library is in the heart of the city, with untold numbers of "critters" to be run through or somehow neutralized. The University library is a fair distance away, especially if we take a long roundabout way to get there, so we miss the larger groups of critters. The APCs can handle it, but I have to wonder how we will handle securing the building, with its wide open lawns, parking lots and multiple entrances." Saburo said, looking off at the University which could be seen up on the row of hills to the northeast.

Wolf came back out of the clubhouse with a few pencils, and some lined paper from the office supplies. He waved at the group by the table and headed to the dinghy, cast off and rowed out to Sabre Dance. Saburo and Shinji looked at Kat, who just shrugged and got up to take the plates and bowls back to be washed.

No one saw hide nor hair of him 'til it was time for dinner. Even then, he just grabbed his meal, wolfed it down and went back to his boat. By the time the sun was down, he'd still not been seen and Kat was wondering if he would come and get her. As she sat with Wally, Elaine, Shinji and Saburo, he appeared on deck and dropped down into the dinghy. Casting off, he rowed over to the clubhouse dock and climbed out to join them.

"Sorry I've been avoiding everyone today." He said as he reached for a bottle of the "oh so expensive" Sake that was left over from the previous night. It wasn't cold, nor was it warm. But it certainly tasted good, that was for sure.

"You get anywhere with your analysis?" Kat asked as the other two looked on.

"Partly. I've roughed out some of it. Tomorrow I'm going to hit it again, from a different direction. See if I can come up with another approach to the problems. For every problem, I'm finding that what we'd normally consider as solutions won't work anymore. We are well and truly back in the middle ages. We have the knowledge to do a lot of things, but we don't have the technical abilities anymore. Those are likely gone for 25 years or more."

He paused, looking down at the table, gathering his thoughts. Then he looked up at the people with him and continued. "Every normal solution breaks down because the tech is now useless. It's back to basics for just about everything and it's going to be a cast iron bitch to make a go of it. For instance, electricity. To generate electricity, you can use chemical means, IE a battery or you can spin a coil in a magnetic field. So, we have to find chemicals and metals that will generate DC voltage. To make AC you have to make a set of coils and rotate them past a group of permanent magnets. I've seen wind generators built that way. But we need wire, magnets and material to put them together." He looked at the others to see if they were following his line of reasoning. Wally and Shinji both nodded for him to continue.

"Next, we need something to drive the machine. Again, wind power can work, driving the alternator via a gear drive taken of a car for instance. A water wheel will work too if we have a decent stream with enough head on it. If not, an undershot wheel might do it. It would depend on the stream."

He stopped to take a sip of the Sake before continuing. "No matter what, very little of what we can salvage will be of use as it was all designed to be powered by methods we no longer have. So we will have to design and build just about all of it. By hand." Another sip.

"Well, maybe not… Does anyone here know anything at all about steam engines?" He asked.

The others looked at each other and back to him. Saburo shrugged, Shinji shook his head.

"I figure if we want to stop the slide into the Middle Ages and hold somewhere in the early Industrial age, we will need to get that figured out. I doubt if there are any just sitting round for us to grab so building one might be one thing to explore. The same for wind mills and water wheels. Wind would work for sure, there is plenty of it here on the coast. Given basic materials we can build several of them to drive salvaged alternators, and some power tools if we can adapt them to belt or shaft drive. Water wheels depend on a good size stream, and again there isn't likely to be a water wheel lying about either." A pause and a sip.

"So there you have it my friends, this is what we face. We'll be fighting tooth and nail to keep what little we can. As I said, this is gonna be a cast iron bitch."

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Sincere apologies for taking so long to update. Life (as we all know) is a trickster, closely related to that fellow named Murphy.