Sometimes real life just gets in the way of being a writer. I can’t when I am too tired. This is awkward because, well, I do a lot of tiring things – usually without meaning to, but because I’m kind of built that way. Our day started 5 with a pager going off, and hasn’t really eased up much since. So: here I am on Monday evening trying to write.

I’ve been battering my way through my space-Swiss-Family-Robinson or Lord of the Flies the way I would have written it. 38K so far, so should start hitting ‘downhill’ about 5K back… but it is still hiding from me. I am having my usual ‘everyone will hate this book ‘ self-doubt. It’s dancing between complex biology in simple terms and getting the language and interaction right between 4 boys of slightly different ages. Bodgies are the local bird equivalent.

Snippet first draft WIP:

He emerged, feeling pleased, and started the jog back.  There was a little sand gully with a trickle of water running down it, that Tal put his unwary foot into.  And nearly landed on his face, because something closed hard on his toes

Only the spear-end slamming into the sand saved his face.  He looked back and then he did yell for the others. It was a good thing he’d kept his boots through his swimming and other misadventures, because something in the wet little channel had a bite on his boot. Reaching back, he managed to undo the fasteners and drag his foot free of the boot.

The other two came running. “What?” demanded Mick.

“Careful!” Tal pointed to the thin, hard lips that were locked onto his boot toe.

The other two slowed their rush and looked.

“What is it?” asked the titch.

“I don’t know. All I can see is the lips. It’s got my boot!” said Tal.

“Are there any more boot-eaters?” asked Mick, approaching with the ice-axe.

Tal looked at the shallow gully and realized it was lined with wider open slit -like openings – all about five inches long. “Yeah, the gully is full of them.” He stood up, cautiously. His toes were bruised and sore, but he wriggled them experimentally. “I want my boot back.”

Mick grabbed it and hauled. He and the boot went head over heels together. So did the thin-lipped mouth, and what it was the mouth of. The thing was about the size of a football. It clamped even harder on the toe of the boot, dripping seawater.

At this point the second bodgie dropped in. It wasn’t a hasty, panicky descent, but more typical bodgie-curiosity. It chirruped at the other one, which again stuck its head out of the titch’s shirt, slithered over to the gully and drank from the water in the gully, before squirming back up into his shirt.

“They drink salt water!” exclaimed the titch.

“I guess there is more of it around,” said Tal. At least it was drinking.

Mick, who had sat up by this time, reached out with the ice-axe and tapped the thing that was still gripping the toe of Tal’s boot.  It sounded like rock. And not for anything could they get it to part with Tal’s boot. Mick had left the knife with Johnno, and the ice-axe wouldn’t quite fit. Pulling was a lost cause. So, there was nothing for it but for Tal to limp back with one boot on, and sore toes, carrying the football-size biting rock-thing. It was quite a heavy rock, too.

They arranged the trouser-adapted bags full of water, and Mick’s rock and the boot and its biter, and set off up the cliff.

Johnno was waiting. “What took you so long? I gave the last bit of water to that crewman. I… I think he’s slipping away.”

“We found fresh water. It just takes a while to collect,” said Mick, flopping down next to the distilling set-up. “Here. Have a bottle. Maybe we can give that poor fellow some more.”

Johnno took the bottle, eagerly, and chugged it. “Ah. You know, that was better than the best soda I ever had. Where did you get it? And what happened to Tal’s foot?”

“My boot got bitten by a rock,” said Tal, showing him.

“Looks like clam to me. You got lucky. Could fit your whole foot in there.”

Tal hadn’t thought of himself as lucky, limping back, but, right, it could be worse.

“How do I get it off my boot?” he asked.  “I was going to try the knife.”

“You might break the knife, at that size,” Johnno said, shaking his head. “We used to put clams on the fire, hinge down. They cook and open.”

“I don’t want to burn my boot!”

“Put it on the edge, I reckon.”

So, he did. After a few minutes the clam opened and Tal could pull his poor, dented boot free.

“Well,” he said, looking at it. “I mean, this world is a lovely place to walk around. Just lovely. If the tentacles don’t get you, you need to take a fire with you, to get your feet free of the clams.”

“It was just holding onto you for its friends the tentacles,” said the titch.

“Thanks,” said Tal raising an eyebrow. “And to think I bothered to bring a tentacle for your bodgie.”

“You did! Ah, thanks, Tal. Where is it, I’ll cook it. They like it more cooked.”

Tal pointed at spear. “Dangling there. Didn’t you notice?”

The kid got busy cooking it. Skewered it and held it over the coals as if he’d been doing it forever.  In some ways he was adapting to all this easier than them. Tal sighed. More than he’d done, with getting used to losing connectivity to the net. The kid came from New Earth, too. If people thought spacers were used to connectivity… Tal went to work on the getting the computer up again. Mick had gone to fiddle with his pieces of metal with his new stone. Johnno was persuading the delirious man to drink. Once he got the idea he was being given water, he too seemed to co-operate.

Tal went back to making connections. He was interrupted by the titch, saying: “She doesn’t want to eat. What am I going to do?” There was a thin edge of despair in his voice.

Mick left his bits of metal. “Give it to me,” he said with a sigh.

The titch handed over the skewer.

Mick pinched off a bit. “Ouch,” he said and blew on it. “It’s a bit hot still, kid.” He blew on it some more. Then he squeezed at the hinge of the bodgies jaw, and popped the tiny piece in the open mouth. The bodgie gave an affronted ‘skwark’ but did swallow it.  And then it lifted its beak and opened it again looking at the roasted tentacle. “Feed it little bits,” said Mick. “I reckon it’s been through what normally kills these things.”

Tal said, trying to soften blow. “It might not work, Titch.”

“Yeah,” said Mick. “Could be. But you may as well try, kid. Don’t give it too much.”

So, the kid did.

And a few minutes later Tal at least was rewarded with a flat computer voice: “System booting. Detecting peripherals. Peripherals not found. Activating primary. Primary found.”

***

It was amazing how they all gathered round the computer unit. Mick would have thought of all the things he’d left it was the thing he cared least about. But it was… sort of a key to the old world. And, he realized as Tal started to question the AI – which didn’t know very much, it was built to steer lifeboats, not be their teacher – a way to survive this one.

The question: “How long until we can expect rescue?” had been on all their minds.  It didn’t have an answer. But it was some use showing visuals of edible plants and then sea-life.

“Hey. That’s my shoe clam! Only not so big,” exclaimed Tal.

“Computer: show us edible clams,” said Johnno.

“Only five species have been tested. Four hundred and three forms of tri-valve shell-fish have been collected.  Convergent evolution has seen them take on a similar form to Earth Bivalves in many cases. All species tested have edible adductor and abductor muscles, and locomotory foot.”

“Locomotory foot. No wonder it wanted your shoe.”

“How did it know it was the right size?” said the titch.

“I should have let it try it on,” said Tal.

“Let’s try eating it instead,” said Johnno. “I’m hungry enough.”

“You’re always hungry enough,” said Mick, but he was starving too. Now they had enough water, his stomach told him it was its turn to demand attention.

“What’s ‘locomotory’?” ask the titch.

“Well ‘loco’ means mad,” said Mick. “And motory is kind of obvious. You get to eat a mad engine that eats shoes. It probably tastes like toe-jam.”

“What is toe-jam?” asked the eternally questioning kid.

“What’s your socks smell of by now,” Johnno informed him.

“It’s because my toes got jammed in it,” said Tal, ruefully, looking at his scarred boot. “I hope it is nice to eat, because it’s not a great way to catch them.”