The Flint Knappers - Chronicles [Episode #1]

I've been gobsmacked by the fact that my friends all jumped in unexpectedly. Earlier today I had to sit down and catch my breath. I noticed my heart rate was unusually high but with no apparent cause. It's been two weeks already but I still feel anxious making sure they're ok.

I get a pit in my stomach when I think about how close we came to losing Vijay. Five minutes more and he would have been a Rakshasa's breakfast. That's just the one instance we know about for sure. There could have been others roaming about and I suspect there were. Something had them riled up before everyone arrived. It's almost as if they had advance notice somehow. They left their stench throughout most of the valley that day. Like rotting flesh, it took another whole day for it to pass.

Of course I'm overjoyed to see my old friends. I'm literally beyond words to express how happy I am to be with them again. Here I had settled into the thought that I would be the only human on the planet for the rest of my natural days. The sudden whiplash of realizing I wouldn't be alone created an emotional release I simply wasn't expecting. I'm physically exhausted tonight from all the subtle stress on my body.

I realized over dinner that the main source of my worries was having my carefully laid plans pulled right out from under me. Every calculation for survival since day one was made as a lone wolf. Now that there are four of us so much will change. One obvious question that comes to mind is the issue of procreation. There's not much mystery how that one will play out, if at all. Vijay has been a confirmed bachelor even before reaching his golden years. Katherine passed the fertile years some time ago as well. She sure managed to keep her looks intact but I'm pretty sure I recall her telling me that she decided 'no kids' many years back. I think she may have some regrets about it. Seems it was about her career and her dedication to our mission. Those two things had always gone hand-in-hand for her. At any rate, that only leaves Astrid and I. The reason we both held back before was because we realized perfectly that the mission was bigger than both of us. It sounds corny but in our case it was true. She was indispensable in her role back on Earth and I was on deck to jump. So, now having some kids is actually official mission protocol. How's that for a pickup line? I'll probably still manage to muck it up somehow but I've got the best chance a guy could ever ask for. Procreate or perish...no pressure or anything.

I think we're all still getting used to our new found freedom. Since they arrived there has been zero discussion of Earth outside of a basic explanation of their hasty getaway. It just doesn't matter. We've got to all pull together to make this work. The range of skills in play just increased dramatically. Between the four of us we have the knowledge to potentially advance our tech into an early steam age before reaching an age where we can no longer contribute. In the short term we are going to be able to advance with chemistry and metallurgy much faster than I could alone.

There's another big advantage to having more people that will help speed up my pet project. There's a little surprise I've been working on for the Rakshasa. By my estimate there are eighteen to twenty of them in our area tops. I would characterize our conflict as a tense stalemate. With four of us I can get enough potassium nitrate to take my experiment to the next level. A rather smelly process of leaching the saltpeter from human urine will provide the key ingredient to gunpowder. I don't need to be able to forge a barrel yet to make good use of this wonderful invention. A clay amphora filled with gunpowder and rocks will ruin a Rakshasa's day. I've perfected a flint method of igniting the charge by using a weighted pulley and trip wire. A few of these smartly positioned devices and we can focus our time here on more esoteric pursuits and less on not being eaten.

Tomorrow I'm going to spend all day getting more paper, ink and quills ready. Everyone has agreed to start writing their own versions of events as time goes on. Who knows if we will be able to establish a stable population base but if we do future generations might appreciate hearing a chronicle of how it all came to be.

To be continued...

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