Day 1 - The Clearing, just short of sundown:Paula Kennedy's recon' team had an easier go on the southwest side of the abandoned air strip than the that of the team led by
Desmond D'Vaughnt. The terrain here was mostly flat, and even the jungle was less cluttered with undergrowth, making the use of machetes almost unnecessary.
Because of this, they covered the full southwest side
and the northwest end of the old landing area by the time Paula thought they should turn back. She suddenly realized that she should have told Desmond to meet them here, at the most northern corner of the clearing.
The ease of the trek was the only good thing about their walk through the woods, though. They found no source of water, be it a creek or spring. Paula hoped that the other team might have better luck. If not, a second expedition farther north or east of the clearing was going to be necessary, and that would likely require an overnight stay in the woods.
Paula wasn't really interested in camping out in the jungle so early in their occupation of the island. There was simply too much unknown about their new and
hopefully temporary home. She wasn't an expert about the islands of the South Pacific, but when she'd been asked to join the Mission's Security Team, she'd downloaded dozens of internet files about the region to her phone and began perusing them whenever she could in an effort to learn about the potential dangers. Her greatest concerns were such things as ferocious animals, poison plants, and -- of course -- pirates.
She found that while there weren't any lions, tigers, and bears, oh my, there were indeed a significant number of poisonous and venomous things that could easily take a human's life. And while they weren't as common as she might think after having seen
Six Days, Seven Nights about thirty times in her life, pirates were, in fact, a possibility all across the South Pacific.
"Let's get back," she told her trekking partners once they'd searched the woods a bit north of the northeast corner of the strip. She pointed not the way they'd come but directly south toward the center of the clearing, comically ordering,
"That'a way, kiddies."As they traveled at a much quicker pace from one corner of the strip to its opposite in the south, Paula imagined the possibilities of the clearing that had once likely served small aircraft, possibly even smuggling planes. She was a realist -- always had been, always would be -- and while she hadn't said this to the others, she knew there was a possibility that the survivors of the C-130's crash could be here for a long,
long time.
As she walked, she imagined a vast farm growing the food necessary to keep the community fed. They did have, after all, bags upon bags and boxes of seeds, tubers, and saplings that had been intended to revitalize Tongalo's agricultural economy. And they had stock animals, too: chickens, ducks, hogs, and both dairy and meat goats. Some of the seeds they had were intended to be raised as stock feed.
Animals gotta eat, too, she reminded herself,
to make them big and fat so that we can eat them in turn.Paula and her travel mates arrived at the south corner of the strip where they rested and replenished until the other team arrived a good time later. She could see by their haggard appearance that they'd had a more difficult hike. She was quick to snatch up bottles of water and protein bars, telling them,
"Take a squat and rest before we head back."Before Paula could even ask if they'd been fortunate enough to find water, Desmond eagerly announced the good news. She told him with glee,
"Thank God. I was really getting concerned."As she listened to his report, Paula couldn't help but pick up on the younger trekker's body language and facial expressions. At first she thought maybe he was just exhausted, but as the man she knew to be his stepfather continued, Paula thought maybe she saw anger or disappointment in his eyes. And his clenched fists were all too conspicuous.
She wasn't about to ask anything about the young man's thoughts now, though, so once Desmond was finished, she told everyone to drink up and pack up, then off they went back to the camp.
(OOC: I'm going to write my response to the death scene and Peter/Autumn scene in separate replies.)
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