I feel happy to see the girl reunited with her family, and that AI/GOD had chosen to intervene.
Nomadic cannibal raiders are something all bunker personnel fear, for the colonists, and for us, in sufficient numbers and weapons they could take one of us out, if caught by surprise.
We returned to Laura's colony, and I start my census, the last census they had 55 in number, 15 adult males, 20 adult women, 20
adolescents/babies, each one has a name and sir name recorded in our book of
life, this colony has increased by ten, even with two deaths, and there are six
more pregnancies noted. This is good and bad, they need the numbers, but each
child means more resources needed, they will need more. shelters, fortifications, herds, and we are supposed to let them figure it out, it is
very frustrating. Kane, Laura's father, is one of the stronger intelligent men and has shown leadership skills, they will one day settle on an accepted leader, I hope. Someone with vision.
It had been two days since our return, and I was about to leave when Kane came to me to say his daughter is sick, again a request for
help, but this was concerning, our colonist where of the best stock and their immune systems should as be good as mine. So, I decided to investigate. Kane bring your daughter and a clean skin to me and leave her; I will do what I can.
The girl arrives and I spread the skin on a clean grassy area, and have the
father lay her on top of it, she is running a high fever. I tell Kane to take
his son and anyone she has been in contact with to the stream and bath, fearing
the raiders may have been infected.
I then deploy the solar array of my aircraft over the top of girl on the skin. The solar cells are translucently allowing light in; I then
remove my tunic. After removing my
cotton shirt, I ripped off the long sleeves and wet one with water from the staff.
Removing her clothes I clean, dry and inspect her body, she is very warm to touch,
and very muscular. As I moved down her body, I spread her legs and inspect her
vaginal area, there is no tears and her hymen is in place, the Raiders had been
interrupted early enough, and surprising, the boys in the village must have some fear of Mr. Kane.
Then I noticed a puncture wound deep in her back side inner thigh, with very red angry flesh around it, this could be the culprit. Looks
like a jab with a spear, I take out the survival knife and I probe the wound, just as I thought, the burnt spear tip is still there, the infection pops it up to the surface and I remove all that I see, squeeze the wound until clear blood
comes to the surface, in the process she awakes moaning at the pain, I wipe the
wound clean as I can, cauterize the wound with a laser and tie the a cover over
the wound with strips of the shirt. Laura sits up and drinks a little water, I take of my hat, and remove one of my wafers from the tube at my belt, she nibbles on the wafer, drinks more water then lays back to sleep again, I cover
her with my tunic and curl up beside her, the nights here are chilly this time of year, I grab the edge of the skin, and pull it over us and drift off to sleep. I woke up to the feeling of warm lips pressed against mine, and a hand exploring my body. Giggling she smiles at me, if she had only been a bunker girl, another No, Bunker personnel are not allowed to mix our DNA with theirs. I checked her forehead and noticed she had no fever; I patted her on
the cheek gently and told her to dress, in a moment she had slipped back into
the smelly skins. I elevated the canopy, flattened out the panels and aimed at
the morning sun, it will only take about an hour to fully charge the craft, I
slip on the sleeveless shirt to begin my journey.
Kane comes over to my campsite, thanks me for helping his daughter, and offers me the skin. I politely declined; it was a nice skin but
too much to add to my pack, I do accept a gourd for additional water. Kane and Laura return to their home, and I completed
my packing, the aircraft's indicator says completely charged.
I'm sure that AI would want to either eradicate or steer their group away from our colonies. And after that brief contact with
Laura, I will be happy to return to our Bunker and be with my favorite love Sandra.
We Bunker people are not allowed to have just one mate, GOD requires us all to
be flexible, but sometimes relationships develop, and I have feelings for one,
but we are all required to take breeding assignments, and all have mother and
father duties. Usually, parents are unknown to a particular child, but it's obvious in some cases due to physical similarities.
Boarding my craft I head back to the camp area where I had left one alive.