Of Men and Spiders

Scott was digging up a large rectangle of land as Charlotte watched while Alice worked on prepping some of the bulbs the way he'd shown her. It wasn't easy going, but he was making definite progress, and the plot was coming along nicely, though he could definitely see why plows had eventually been invented. Looking over at Charlotte, he could suddenly visualize an absurd image of a spider-drawn plow. That probably meant it was time to take another break...

Wiping his forehead, Scott grinned while nodding to Charlotte. "Go ahead, ask your question."

The spider woman tilted her head this way and that as she inspected the dirt. "If a garden is another structure, like your hut, but larger, that would explain you clearing the land, but why are you digging up the dirt like that? The only other time you've dug into the dirt was when you were preparing firepits, which were much smaller..."

Scott shook his head. "No, it's not a structure, at least not how I think of the word. A garden is a place to grow specific plants I want more of. In this case, some of the edible plants you helped me discover. We've got a couple of plants around here that would benefit from a little cultivation, hopefully leading to larger yields. Plus, with them all gathered into one place, I won't have to spend nearly as much time tromping around the forest looking for them!"

Charlotte nodded in understanding. "This makes sense. For a time, I had something similar. Large vats of fluid in which I grew very small plant and animal organisms in large quantities for food supplies. I was able to sustain most of my colony from those vats."

Scott leaned against his hoe and nodded. "Sounds like you were growing algae, plankton, or something similar. It was probably very efficient, but I imagine the taste left something to be desired."

Charlotte repeated her customary head tilt. "So long as it sustains the colony, taste is irrelevant. Most of my selves don't even possess taste as you know the word."

At that, Scott shook his head. "Taste is irrelevant? That might just be the most alien thing you've ever said! A surprising amount of human development happened as a result of our pursuit of better-tasting food!"

Of course, that only led to the next inevitable question for Charlotte to ask. "How is taste important?"

Scott sighed and went back to work, piling up the plants he'd dug up, then covering them with dirt to aid in decomposition that would also act as a fertilizer for the desired plants that were soon to come. "Well, initially, I think taste was mainly used for finding nutritious and digestible food. For example, if something is too bitter, that can be a sign that it's poisonous. However, in our home...land, we've long since learned what's safe to eat and what's not. Instead, we've focused on refining taste to the point that flavor is now more about pleasure than survival. Of course, that resulted in new problems that needed to be dealt with, but that's the nature of all progress. Two steps forward, one step back..."

Charlotte was quiet momentarily as Scott started mounding up the dirt where he'd plant the hopeful crops. Given the rain on this planet, he was more worried about the plants being overwatered during a stormy week and needed to ensure enough room for the excess water to run off so the plants wouldn't drown.

Scott frowned a little as he worked. He was reasonably confident he was on the right track, but as fussy as some plants were, he wasn't sure. "Man, I'd give anything to have access to some books on gardening right now!"

That pulled Charlotte out of whatever thoughts she was lost in. "What's a book?"

Scott sighed. Not that books were particularly hard to explain, but he had no doubt they would lead to a whole new series of questions. Still, it's not like he had anything better to talk about while he worked. "Books are where we record words using symbols that represent the sounds we make. For example, Basic, the language we use, is based on a slightly more primitive language called English, so it has twenty-seven symbols we call letters that can be combined into words. For example," he quickly scrawled out some letters in the dirt. "these symbols would be pronounced as my name, 'Scott.'"

Charlotte walked over and peered at the letters for a long time, tilting her head this way and that before speaking. "And using these twenty-seven symbols, you can make a visual representation of any word?"

Scott shrugged and got back to work. "For the most part, yes. At least if the words themselves are Basic words. There are a couple words from different languages that have sounds we don't use in basic, and to represent those sounds, you need different symbols, but even those can be roughly approximated using Basic."

Charlotte continued studying the words, and Scott was all but certain she was about to ask about other languages. He was already thinking up explanations when she took the conversation in an unexpected direction. "I've seen symbols like this before."

That stopped Scott cold. "You've seen these symbols before? Where? When?"

Charlotte looked up from the ground. "At your old hut. The one with the thin fibrous walls where we first met. Some of the tools you were using there had these symbols on them, though at the time, I didn't realize they were tools you'd created. I simply thought they were mineral oddities local to this region that you'd found and used."

That got Scott excited. "Did you... did you keep them?"

Charlotte looked up at Scott. "Some I kept to study, others I discarded because they didn't seem to serve any discernable purpose."

Somewhere between hopeful to the point of mania and frustrated he even had to ask, Scott asked the next obvious question. "Can I have everything you've still got back?"

Charlotte tilted her head as she examined Scott. "Of course. I can even see if the discarded pieces are still where I left them if you'd like."

Scott nodded eagerly. "Yes, please! Some of that stuff could be a real lifesaver!"

-

Charlotte brought forth a steady stream of hands, each carrying the various samples She'd taken from the tool user's first nest. Some of the supplies were met with various forms of disappointment or disapproval as Scott noted their condition or contents, but a few were met with exclamations of surprise and eagerness. Of particular note were the "axe" and "saw."

Then Charlotte brought out the odd metallic rectangles she'd found. She could tell it was at least somewhat hollow from the reverberations they'd made in her early testing. Before contacting Scott and Alice, She'd opened one up to find all sorts of odd chemicals and minerals contained within. Upon looking at the opened rectangle, Scott's expression became complex, though Charlotte recognized what appeared to be pain. She suspected this was a different kind of pain than when he'd "stubbed his toe." But when She brought out the other rectangle, his expression shifted from pain to joy as he held it up and spoke excitedly. "Yes, yes, yes! Mom's computer!"

-

Scott was certainly excited to have a few good tools back in his possession, though the sight of his computer broken and torn to pieces had definitely put a damper on the excitement. Then, one of Charlotte's spiders brought out his mom's computer, and he felt a sudden surge of hope again!

With slightly shaking hands, he opened up the screen. Not only was this one intact, but it started powering up! Scott could feel his grin stretching from ear to ear right up until the moment the first word appeared on the screen, but that one word was devastating. There, in small letters right in the middle of the screen, was the single cruelest joke of all time. The word "Password" sat there taunting him, under which was a field to type in. He was so close! And yet...

He could try some combinations later, but Scott closed the screen for now. This was something, at least. A sliver of hope. Of course, without a satellite antenna, he'd never be able to call for help, but there was a slight chance that someone passing close enough could pick up a signal from the computer if he could just figure out a way to log in. He could do a factory reset, but that would wipe the memory and any useful programs off the device... He'd hold off on that for now. But still, this meant he had options!

For the first time in a long time, Scott felt hope. Not just that he could survive for a while, but hope that he might be able to go home! Though, with both his parents gone and only Alice's dad in the mix, he wasn't sure he wanted to rush that either...

That was when another thought occurred to Scott. A rather disturbing thought. A question he didn't really want to know the answer to but felt compelled to ask anyway...

Turning to Charlotte, Scott tried to keep his emotions calm but couldn't help but feel a creeping dread as he opened his mouth and forced the words to come out in a whisper so Alice couldn't overhear. "Charlotte... When you were at our camp... Was there another human there? What...what happened to our mom?"