“How many feet in a mile?” I asked, and I wondered if the translator technology that we all had would let Trel understand me. It seemed to work fine for feet and yards, but this was some different conversions.
“Five thousand two hundred and eighty,” she answered with a frown.
“So we need over three miles of cordage,” I groaned. “Fuck.”
“Well, we don’t need it all right now,” she said.
“We are going to have over thirty logs ready to go tomorrow, then probably eighty the day after. Then another forty-ish the day after that. We pretty much need it all right now. What about the sinew? Can we use some of that?” I pointed out of the hut to where Trel had hung the pieces of animal sinew against the walls to dry.
“No,” Trel said. “It will take them a while to dry, and it’s too valuable of a material to use on the wall. We need to save it for bows, saddles, and the support rope for my planned tree fort.”
“I just don’t see how we are going to be able to make three miles of cordage in three days,” I said.
“My original plan was for six weeks,” Trel said with a shrug. “That is only four hundred and ten feet a day, which would be challenging, but not impossible for Galmine, Kacerie, and I to do while you and Sheela cut down the trees.
“So we aren’t really saving any time now?” I asked. “If you think a person can make a hundred and forty feet a day, Sheela and I helping would only net us two hundred and eighty a day, so--”
“It would be around six-hundred and eighty-four feet a day,” she said. “So, it would take us twenty-five days instead of forty-two, but the math is a little fuzzy since it is hard to predict efficiencies or other conflicts. The dinosaurs digging out the trees is still a boon, but we aren’t going to be able to make enough cordage quick enough.”
“There has to be another way,” I said. “The hard part is getting down the trees and digging the trenches, and we’ve got that figured out. We need either a better way to make cordage, or we need a different way to join the logs together when we stack them vertically to form the wall.”
“Hmm,” Trel said as she tapped her lips with her finger. She’d taken a plate from Galmine, but hadn’t really started eating yet.
“Can we use clay to glue them together?” I asked.
“Not strong enough,” Trel said. “I need to use the cordage to hold the pieces together while I attach the next ones on the wall. It helps keep them vertical so that I can line them up in the circle and fill in the trench on either side of them. Just like we did with the smaller wall.
“But what if we don’t use any cordage?” I asked. “The logs in the wall can’t really fall inward because of the circle layout. They can’t be pulled forward because we’ll set them deep in the trench and the supporting dirt fill will make them strong.”
“I’m not sure that will work,” Trel said as she wiggled her lips.
“I made the trench around five feet deep. How long did you measure the logs?”
“Twenty feet,” Trel said, “but that is one of the issues, we need the cords wrapping them to help pull them together since the sides will be uneven. There will be gaps everywhere. Let’s say we don’t use the cordage to bind them to each other. The bases of the trees would…” Her words hung in the air and I leaned forward.
“Did you just figure it out?” I asked.
“Maybe,” she said with a smirk. “So, here is the problem: the trees you are cutting are rather uniform in diameter all the way up, but the base is wider at the bottom, so I was planning on using the cordage to ensure they are tightly held together. However, I could just flip every other tree upside down, and bury it thin end down so that the two sides mesh together in a more uniformed manner.”
“I think I get it,” I said. “You are stacking triangles but flipping every other one, so they mesh and fill in the gaps.”
“Hmmmm,” Trel said, and her voice was beginning to become excited. “It creates new challenges though. I will need to pair the trees together and then match the sides so that they have a closer fit. Ugh, it’s going to be really complicated, and it will become harder the more logs I stack. Victor, I think we are better off just focusing on making the cordage.”
“We need dowels or something,” I said. “Like a way to drive a piece of wood through each log pillar so they are connected.”
“Hmmmmm,” Trel mused as she tapped her finger on her lips. “That’s a good idea, but there are more challenges to that.”
“What kind of challenges?”
“I think it will work, but let me explain the issues. We can use the fire to burn a circular hole through each log. Then we can drive log dowels through holes to connect two logs together. That will join them with enough strength, especially when they are also in the circle formation. I’d need to burn four holes in each log though. Two at the top and two at the base.”
“Why two?” I asked.
“I won’t be able to bend the smaller logs I use as dowels. I would have to drive a single piece of wood through the width of both logs, so about twelve feet. There will need to be holes to connect each log to the log on either side of it. My measurements will have to be precise, and I’ll have to monitor the fire carefully, so it doesn’t burn the hole out too much or too little. I suppose that if it burns too wide, I can fill the inside with clay. That should make the bond strong enough, but if I did a perfect job, we would just hammer in a log dowel through each hole into the next log, and it would be a snug enough fit to keep them joined.”
“It seems like it would be an even snugger fit since we wouldn’t have to worry about the profile of the rope wrap we use pushing the adjacent logs away,” I said.
“Yes. Hmmmmm.” Trel looked deep in thought. “I think this will save us some time. It won’t hit your two-day time frame, but it should be faster than twenty-five days.”
“How long do you think?” I asked.
“Tomorrow you and Sheela will need to chop all the branches off the logs while the dinosaurs dig. Then I’ll need to pair up the logs so their profiles fit, then we’ll need to drag them into the fort. We can probably fit thirty in here if we leave Hope outside.”
“What if we leave her in?” I asked.
“Maybe only ten,” Trel said with a shrug. “I’d need them inside so I could burn the holes at night.”
“You can’t just burn them outside?” Kacerie asked.
“No,” Trel said. “We have to burn those logs out there now because they are too large to bring in here, and the burns we are making are just crude lines. I’ll need to be able to inspect the fire-drills every half of an hour. Ugh. How annoying. I will need my beauty sleep to begin incubating my brood. Five days of sleepless nights will exhaust me.”
“You can teach us how to do it so we can take over,” I said. “But you think it will take five nights?”
“To burn all the holes, yes,” Trel said. “But then we will need to gather the dowels and trim them, then raise the logs in the trenches and hammer the dowels through the holes. I think it will take seven days if we work efficiently.”
“That’s way better than twenty-five,” I said.
“We will need a lot of clay, and we will need it all at night. I’d say four baskets worth will be good, but five would be safer.”
“So we’ll need to make another three of the leaf baskets tonight,” I said. “We should be able to do it if we stop making cordage.”
“We’ll still need cordage,” Trel said. “I’ll have to use some to bind the pillars together while we hammer the dowels in, but we won’t need the baskets until dusk tomorrow, and we won’t need the cordage until the next day.”
“Okay, good, I’m liking this plan. Good job, Trel.”
“It was you and I together that came up with it, Victor,” she said as her eyes bore into me. “We will create beautiful things together. Speaking of that, everyone needs to leave so you and I can copulate.”