Year 8 day 106

Blue QuailI’ve decided to map the northern shoreline of the tideless sea, as a first step toward exploring the continent to the north. I already know that there a a strait to the west connecting the tideless sea with the tidal ocean that surrounds this continent, so the logical place to start was the great river delta to the northeast. Besides, I wanted to see what Rainbow could do with the rare clones of sweet dates I have discovered.

I think part of her problem with her mate was that she is too intelligent. She is, for instance, one of the very few who has some fuzzy grasp of what a map means. She can’t quite get her mind around the idea of something as big as the continent we are on. But when I zoomed the computer map out until the local area was visible, and showed her where the landmarks we can see were located on the map, she was able to figure the direction to one she hadn’t seen. Compared with those who cannot understand a map I am not standing on, this is genius.

I get the impression, however, that she considers my mapping a harmless diversion that she is quite willing to put up with as long as it gets her food and skins. Especially dates. She has devised a way of stuffing a local bird I am fond of with those, and the result is almost enough to distract me from my mapping. She is thrilled to get the birds, a rather stupid type of ground-dweller that competes with us for plant food. I find them fairly easy to trap.

Jarn’s Journal is the story of a human-like alien who was stranded in Africa some 125,000 years ago. His story is part of the back story of the civilization in which my published science fiction is set.