'Well, we lost some canteens,' Tucker said. 'That's serious, for sure.'
'It's time to find some gourds. Some of the aborigines made water bags from kangaroo skin. And maybe we'll travel by night instead of day to conserve how fast we use water.'
'And we've got to hunt,' Tucker added.
'You and I are going to do that right now. Seriously. We need to learn in a hurry. Amaya and Ico can check out the plants around here. We've got to supplement the pack food we have left, starting immediately.'
'Who put you in charge, Dyson?' It was Ico, looking tired.
'The weather.'
They spent two days at the site of the flood. Relieved from having to cover distance, they began to notice more details of the country they were in. The desert seemed most alive at dusk and dawn, when day and night shifts of animals converged and the coolness encouraged browsing. The rain had brought an instant riot of new growth, and the nearby grassy plain was blooming with wildflowers that shimmered like a rainbow sea. Amaya found gourds to hold water and urged the others to look for brightly colored fruits that would indicate ripeness. They found wild orange, wild fig, bush tomato, and plum. The fruits were smaller and less sweet than what the adventurers were accustomed to, but edible. They ate them cautiously, nonetheless, so as not to cramp their stomachs.
Hunting success was slow. Twice more Daniel encountered kangaroos in the evening but was no more successful in getting close than before. He had more luck with the Outback's huge lizards, some three and four feet long, which could be found dozing in the sun. With a patient stalk, a sprint, and hard throw, he managed to spear two, clubbing the stunned animals before they could scuttle off. He gutted them with his knife, the blood staining the sand, and then swaggered back to camp, swinging his kill by their tails.
'Well I'll be,' Ico greeted. 'Dyson killed some dinosaurs.'
'It's a start,' Daniel said.
'You won't mind if I observe they look about as appetizing as toad shit.'
'You won't mind that I don't give you a share.'
'Ah.' Ico looked at the reptiles more closely. 'They do have a certain beauty, I now see.'
'Goddamned gorgeous if you're hungry enough.'
'Conceded.'
They built a fire and sampled the meat.
'A year's salary to eat lizard,' Daniel joked, secretly pleased at his success. Great white hunter.
'Ain't bad,' Tucker judged. 'Like chicken.'
'Everything tastes like chicken,' Ico reminded.
'Not this, I'll bet.' It was Amaya, slyly holding something up.
The men recoiled. 'What in the hell is that?'
She was holding up what looked like a white, writhing worm, or a huge naked caterpillar. It was longer and thicker than a man's thumb. 'It's a witchetty grub. I read about them. You dig at the base of a witchetty bush where the ground is cracked…'
'A what?'
'Those gray, ugly shrubs. The grubs live in the roots. You crack the root to get at them. I tried it. It's hard work.'
Ico laughed. 'You've got to be kidding. That's a big bug, right? It's got segments, spots…'
'It's supposed to be rich in protein and vitamins and very filling.'
'Filling enough that I'll bet no one ever eats two,' Daniel said.
'I'll bet she won't even eat one,' Ico said. He reached in his pocket and pulled something out. 'Here, I had this on me when the flood hit.' He slapped down a wrinkled hundred-dollar note. 'This says there's no way anybody is going to eat that.'
'The aborigines did.'
'I want to see you do it.'
She held up its writhing form. 'I'll share it with you, Ico.'
'I'd rather starve.'
'You haven't even been hungry yet.' Suddenly she tilted her head back, closed her eyes, and dropped the grub into her mouth, swallowing with an audible gulp without biting.
'Oh my God!' Tucker cried.
Ico was awed. 'More astonishing than Ursula Uvula on Sex-Net.'
Amaya looked straight ahead, fighting to keep it down. 'The trick,' she breathed tightly, 'is to swallow it head first so it can't crawl back out.' She shivered, then smiled. 'It's really not too bad. I can't feel it moving.' She snatched up the hundred dollars. 'I want more when I make an ant ball,' she said fiercely.
'It was worth a hundred bucks to see you do that,' said Ico. 'My God, Amaya, you are some woman. I'll have some fantasies about that one.'
She threw some sand at him.
'No, really,' he persisted. 'That was better than fishing us out of the drink.'
The foraging had restored some confidence and they set out east again. The loneliness of Australia was its preeminent characteristic: in the week since they'd arrived they'd seen no other human, encountered no other track, and discovered no road or evidence of past habitation. It was as if they were the last, or first, people on earth. The spangled night sky emphasized their feeling of smallness and Daniel realized what a distorted sense of reality it had been to spend most of his life in enclosed rooms.
Rooms were accomplishment enough to make their human builders feel important and small enough to make their occupants feel big. A room represented not just interior space but boundaries, enclosure, fortification, territory. The desert felt just the opposite. The flatness was so monotonous that there was little feeling of getting anywhere, and the sky so huge that Daniel felt like a microbe under the eye of the sun. Instead of being depressed by this perception, however, he decided to be encouraged by it. If he was not dominating his environment then he was becoming a part of it, woven into its web. It didn't make him smaller, it joined him to something bigger. Since he was made from chemicals first forged in exploding stars, he reasoned, he shouldn't be intimidated by the vastness of the sky but feel at home with it. Sister stars! For the first time in his life he didn't have to get out of his apartment, or workplace, or city, to get somewhere. There was no there, everything was here. He was always- no matter where he slept- home.
'So, are you finding what you were looking for?'
It was Amaya, dropping back to walk beside him.
'In part. I was just thinking I like the immensity of the place. It makes you feel less significant and more so at the same time, and somehow that feels right.'
'Really? I'm a little frightened by it. It's bigger than I imagined. That flood, the suddenness of it, scared me.'
'You didn't seem very scared. That was quick thinking to get the rope.'
'I wasn't thinking, I was reacting. What if you three had drowned?'
He glanced at her. 'It would have left the most resourceful of the four.'
'No. I would have died, very lonely and very afraid and very quickly. I know that. It's beautiful here but I don't have that feeling of rightness yet. I think women need something more.'
'People, I think you said.'
'A person.' Her look was both challenging and questioning.
Daniel was quiet, trying to decide how he wanted to respond. He liked this woman.
'You said you've found only part of what you're looking for,' she finally went on. 'What part are you still seeking?'
He took a breath. 'A person.'
'Oh.' She watched him, his face tan, his clothes red from dust. There was a new hardness to him, she realized. Less of the boy and more of the man. Now he was looking straight ahead, avoiding her implied question. 'We have that in common, I guess.'
He stopped then and turned to her. She stopped too. 'I joined Outback Adventure because I met a woman who told me about it,' he explained. 'I think she might have come here before me. I'm not really looking for her, but
