They had just panted their way up a grassy slope, and as they paused for a rest at the top, Moss pointed out the light reflecting from what he thought was a pool of water.
‘I don’t think it’s water.’ Kel remarked, not sure what it was. ‘It’s too shiny for that, let’s go and see what it is.’
They almost ran down the hill, not just because it was so steep, but because curiosity had got the better of them yet again.
Moss, being the one with the longer legs, arrived at the half buried stainless steel silo first, and stood in amazement at the tall shiny structure.
Raising his arm, he hit the smooth surface with his clenched fist, and jumped back startled at the dull hollow boom which followed.
‘What is it, and what is it made of? I’ve never seen anything like this before.’
‘I have.’ Jay joined in, ‘The hairless man who wanted our men to go into the forbidden lands had little pieces of shiny stuff like that, he called it meetel, I think. He said it was good, and he would give our men lots of good things if they get little bits of it for him.
‘When they come back, they get ill, and some go to the sky, and all lose their hair and look ugly.
‘Now they all gone, only females left. They leave the shiny bits in a hutt outside our group, but no one go there, and the hairless man not come back to take the shiny bits’.
Moss stood back from the silo, deep in thought, and said,
‘Somehow I don’t think it’s the meetel which causes the illness, because plants are growing all around this huge piece of it, and they are no different than those over there.’ he said, pointing up the long slope, ‘So it must be something else in the area where the little pieces of meetel are found which is so bad.’
Moss dug about in one of his equipment bags, and withdrew a small flint blade.
‘Let’s see if we can cut a little piece of this meetel off, it may be useful at some time.’ and with that he ran the blade across the surface of the silo. The screech of flint on hardened alloyed chrome steel made them all jump back, as though the silo had spoken to them.
‘It hardly left a scratch,’ remarked Kel, going up to the silo when his fear had subsided a little, ‘if we could get little pieces of this strange stuff, we could make some very good Cutting Knives from it.’
‘Perhaps that was why the hairless man wanted it, so there must be some way of making knives from the meetel pieces.’ Moss was quick to see the possibilities of such a material.
Try as they might, they were unable to obtain the metal they wanted, and eventually gave up the idea, Moss saying that they should keep an eye out for any little bits that might be lying around as they journeyed on.
‘As we are near the water, let’s fill up our water bags.’ Kel suggested, all agreed, and they set off for the beach.
On the way, they passed several stumpy remains of old buildings, only a small section of them still showing above ground as over the years, wind drift and the usual upheavals of nature had buried most of them from sight.
The soft golden sands of the beach stretched out for some considerable distance before they came to the water, and they approached it warily as they hadn’t seen waves of such a size before.
Moss was first into the water, and having gone in up to his knees, cupped his hands to scope up some water to drink.
‘Don’t drink this water!’ he exclaimed in disgust, spitting it out and rubbing his mouth. ‘it’s bad, and tastes awful, even worse than the river water after the floater broke up.’
‘Quick, come back to the sand! There’s something coming towards you and moving very fast.’ Kel screamed.
Moss needed no second warning, he turned and rapidly splashed his way back to the others just in time as the expected set of jaws snapped behind him, the creature thrashing about in the shallow water in frustration.
‘You really must be more careful,’ Kel chided, not wishing to lose his friend, ‘any new thing we come across should be studied first for possible dangers.’
The trio sat down on the soft sand, wondering why the plentiful supply of water was so bad to the taste, and more to the point, how they were going to cross it, as the Direction Pointer indicated that they should go straight out to sea.
‘We can’t make a floating log bot, or whatever the giants called it, as there are no trees near here.
‘Swimming would only provide food for the monsters which are no doubt out there, and if they didn’t get us, we couldn’t possibly swim such a great distance anyway.’
Kel had stated the obvious, which the others were thinking, and they had to agree with him.
‘The land curves away on both sides of us in the opposite direction to which we should go, so what shall we do?’ asked Moss, not really expecting an answer to the problem, as he had none either.
‘Do you think it would be worth while climbing that hill over there to see if the land does curve back towards the water again? And if it does, we would at least be going in the right direction.’ said Kel.
‘We can do that, but I don’t think it will get us much closer really. We need to go over the water, but without something to float on it, we can’t, so we must find something.’ Moss made it sound like an order rather than an opinion. All three turned away from the water, with little hope in their hearts.
They trudged back up the sandy beach with little enthusiasm, as their goal seemed to be blocked for the time being by the
