Page 72 of Cozy Prisons
“I don’t need to. There’s a small information square at the top of each bag that lists the contents.”
“That’s very organized," he murmured. “It’s going to take at least a rotation for the mover to get here. Should we camp in this spot or move back to the field?”
“The field,” she said. “Not because I sense danger or anything, but it’ll be easy to set stuff up if we are there instead of in the trees.”
“Then we should get started,” he said.
Without another word, he grabbed several bags and then started to backtrack. She grabbed one bag, slung it on her back, and followed.
It took several trips, but they got everything moved to the edge of the forest. By now, she was starving. Picking a bag at random, she opened it and pulled out the information square to see if it contained food.
It took three more tries, but she found the bag stuffed full of provisions. She didn’t need to touch the information square; the contents exploded out the moment she undid the top.
“I think I filled this one a little full,” she said with a laugh. There were packets all over the ground around her.
Daxus was using a broken branch with leaves at one end to sweep the area and prepare it for camping. He looked over and sounded a rumble of amusement. “If you were going to overpack one kind of item, that seems like a good one.”
She had to agree. Plopping down on the ground, she searched through the packs until she found one full of the black flat breadTalins ate with every meal. Ripping it open, she ate two full pieces before thinking to offer some to Daxus.
“Hungry?” she asked, holding up the open package.
Tossing the branch aside, he accepted the package and sat down next to her. “I’m not happy for the reason we’re here,” he commented between bites, “but it’s nice to have time together with no expectation of being interrupted."
“Back on Old Earth it was called camping,” she said with a little smile. “Or if you had a portable home to bring with you, it was called glamping.”
“Did you ever go camping?” he asked.
“Never,” she said, thinking back to her childhood. “We were too busy surviving. Even if we had the time, we didn’t have the credits to spend traveling anywhere. I can see why my ancestors liked it, though. No reminders are pinging. No one is contacting us to ask a question or request help. No tasks that need to get done quickly. It’s peaceful out here.”
“It is,” he agreed. “It makes me question having everyone gathered closely together as a traditional colony is organized. Perhaps a more distributed model would be better.”
She didn’t feel like thinking about the next colony. She wanted to focus on the immediate future, not that far off.
“Do you think we could have a fire?” she asked.
“Fire?”
“I saw a vid of humans camping, and they would create a circle with stones and put wood at the center to have a fire. We don’t need it to cook, like they did, but I’ve always wanted one because it looks so comforting and enjoyable.”
“Then let’s have a fire,” Daxus said without hesitation. “If you can find something to create the initial spark, I’ll make the spot and gather the wood.”
Joy exploded in Nataly’s chest. “I’ll figure it out!”
Chapter 23
Nataly
It turned out that everything she’d packed was designednotto catch fire. In most situations, that would be a desirable quality. This was a rare instance where catching fire was the point.
It was annoying that the one opportunity she had to experience fire in the Old Earth style, she couldn’t figure out a way to make it happen!
She ended up opening every bag and had piles of items all over their camp area by the time Daxus was done building a fire circle with stones and gathering wood. He joined her in trying to figure it out, but he was quickly stumped.
It took almost a mark before they figured out they could take an information square apart and short-circuit the power source while touching it to old, dry leaves and create fire.
They smothered the first fire by adding wood right away. After that, they built a bigger pile of dried leaves and gathered smallerpieces of wood. It took two information squares and a lot of cussing, but they were finally successful.
“We have fire!” Nataly said, dancing around the rock circle.
