Page 58 of Caveman Alien's Bride

“Very good,” he rumbles, making me shake and sending tingles down to my center. “Now let’s eat.”

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The next morning I’m up early, still sore from the night before. Both Korr’ax and I are insatiable, and we didn’t stop the lovemaking until well after midnight.

We eat together in the chief’s hut.

“I think the men still listening outside the hut at night,” I yawn.

“That would not surprise me,” Korr’ax says. “Do you want me to order them to stop?”

“It not bother me much,” I tell him. “Maybe better let them get bored than command.”

He chuckles. “They will never get bored of that. But soon we’re going back to the Borok tribe, and nobody will listen outside our cave.”

The workers are already working inside the log wall. The drawings I made of the project must make sense to them, because it’s all looking the way I was hoping.

The various parts to the main feature are all ready too. They are mostly wood, but also some small iron parts for strength.

A young wood carver called Terit’ax is helping me with this. I’m hoping he might make improvements to my design and make a bigger one. The other men are busy with the pipes.

I kneel down and place the parts in rows. “This is the ‘housing’,” I tell Terit’ax. “Inside it will place this ‘piston’.”

“Hosig,”Terit’ax tries the English words, looking very serious. “Pisn.”

I inspect two leather flaps. “These is ‘one-way valves’. Is the most important parts.”

“Wunay vals,”Terit’ax dutifully repeats.

“This is the ‘lever’ we will use to make work.”

“Livr.”

“And now what must do is put all together. Like this.” I tap the drawing with one finger.

It takes us hours, mostly because we have to remake several parts that are the wrong sizes. It’s also hard to get the leather flap valves to be the exact right stiffness. But Terit’ax is a good wood carver, and the final result is better than I would ever have hoped.

There’s no rubber, so we have to use leather for the seal around the piston. It has to fit snugly or the device won’t work. And because the water for the Lifegivers has to be clean, we can’t use grease to seal it better.

“It is finish,” I finally announce.

We wipe the sweat from our brows, and all the workers come to see.

Closing my eyes and hoping I haven’t wasted everyone’s time with this, I grab the handle and work it.

Nothing.

I give it another pull. Again nothing happens.

I try again and again until I’m close to defeat.

Then, on the twentieth try, the handle becomes harder to move. Two pulls later, a small trickle of water comes out of the spout and I know it’s worked.

Two pulls after that, we’re getting enough water to fill a bucket in ten seconds.

The workers laugh and chatter with excitement. There’s a lot of backslapping.

“This is a ‘pump’,” I tell them, so relieved I could cry. “Now never need to leave village again for water the Lifegivers.”

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