That leads me to my current predicament.
Mike wasn’t wrong. I’m not suited to this as much as I should be. I shouldn’t have tried to move camp so quickly. I shouldn’t have packed all our medication into a single pack which I then threw into the river.
It takes exactly three days for my world to fall apart, and by world to fall apart, I mean for cramps and a bloody avalanche to ensue. Thank god I kept some painkillers back, so I’m able to take the edge off a little. I’ll survive this planet, but these fucking periods, I have no idea if I will survive them.
2
My period wipes me out for the better part of a week, or, on this planet, about three days. I keep my activities to the bare minimum, keeping Strumpet’s hay and water topped up and watching reruns of ancient human television shows about a group of friends who like to drink coffee and are average, at best, at pursuing romantic relationships. It’s a timeless epic, one that has stayed with us over many hundreds of years. I watch it from beginning to end while lying cramped around a hot stone that’s supposed to help, and certainly makes things worse when it is removed.
Strumpet checks in on me from time to time, sticking her head in the dome door. Her pen adjoins the dome, so she’s part of my indoor/outdoor flow. The idea is I am able to keep an eye on her and vice versa. She does not seem concerned by my lack of activity. She’s too busy screaming her face off day and night, which does not help my mood at all. I resort to ear plugs in order to get some peace and quiet. That proves to be a mistake, and when the long Capricorn night ends, I make a horrible discovery.
Everything is quiet. Too quiet.
“Strumpet?”
She’s usually hungry for her grain treaties. Every morning she bangs her little hoof against the door frame and demands I feed her. It is our tradition. At first light, the world is silent.
I get up and look out the door. Strumpet is gone. The pen is just as it has always been, but she is not there as she always has been. It’s like she’s simply disappeared, evaporated into the great beyond.
I didn’t know how attached I was to her until this very moment. Her absence is a crushing blow. I feel a kind of aloneness that is not enjoyable, a big sucking void at the core of my being opening up. Am I still hormonal and slightly dramatic? Maybe? But they told us we would bond to our animal companions deeply, and they were right.
“STRUMPET!” I scream her name and fall silent, waiting to hear some mad answering shriek. There’s no shriek. No cry. There’s no sound at all besides the wind gently toying with blades of grass.
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” I swear to myself over and over again as I clamber into clothes for the reconnaissance mission. She can’t have disappeared. She must have jumped the fence.
I have to find her. Fortunately, the wet weather has provided some clues in the forms of little goat hoof prints that go off through the grass and back in the direction of the scary river that ate my birth control. I pack a second bag quickly, this time sure to take only what I might need, or rather, what I am prepared to lose.
I fed her last night, but with these long nights she could have been gone for almost an entire earth day. A goat can travel a long way in that time, or I could find her butchered remains consumed by some predatory animal. It’s a chilling possibility, but I can’t pretend it isn’t one.
Plunging into the forest, I have to look for different kinds of clues. The ground isn’t as wet here, but this is prime forage territory for her. Sure enough, within a few feet of the point of entry, I find a tuft of white fluff caught on a branch. I’m going the right way. I’d know Strumpet’s fur anywhere, and when I pluck it from the tree and put it to my nose, I draw in her scent. It feels familiar, like home.
“Strumpet!” I call her name, hoping to hear one of her dramatic bleats coming from the forest nearby. I hear nothing. I just have to keep moving. I have to keep hoping I’ll find her intact and alive. I tell myself that Strumpet is strong and smart. She’s a little tank, capable of taking down a legendary instructor. She’s not going to let herself be consumed by the wilderness. Strumpet is the one who consumes.
I encounter a series of bushy shrubs she must have found particularly tasty, as her fur is caught among their thorns. Strumpet doesn’t care if a plant really wants to be eaten or not. She’ll brave any kind of obstacle to get what she wants. She’s motivated, driven, an independent female who won’t let anything stop her. She’s a goddamn inspiration, that’s what she is. I brush a little tear away from my eye. I feel so guilty now for ever thinking she was a joke companion. The instructors might have thought they were playing a prank on me, but I wouldn’t change Strumpet for all the lions and wolves in the world.
“Strumpet!”
I keep calling intermittently, hoping for a response. I don’t hear anything, but I do continue to encounter little clues here and there. Bits of bark removed with goat-like precision. Bushes freshly stripped of leaves. It’s possible that I am seeing the signs of the presence of other creatures, but I feel as though I am on her trail. Also, there are Strumpet nuggets to track, little dark round spherical balls deposited at fairly equal intervals. She has left me a trail of, well, not quite breadcrumbs to follow but something almost as good.
I soon encounter the river and the slippery log of doom. This fallen tree haunts my dreams, but I can’t let it scare me off her trail. She needs me to find her, even if she thinks she doesn’t need anybody. I get on hands and knees and crawl across it as quickly as possible. Once on the other side, I straighten and prepare myself mentally for the next stage of the journey. I haven’t been further than this before. What lies beyond the thick trees is anybody’s guess. I put my hand on my holster, just to make myself feel better as I hunt around for signs of Strumpet moving through here. I find her spoor and push my way through the tight thicket she must have decided to wriggle through, cursing her all the way. I am being scratched by bushes and inconvenienced by insects. I can feel them dropping down from the branches above and wriggling over my clothes, using me as an impromptu road.
“Strumpet!” I call her name, not entirely sure why I continue to bother. She has her own agenda, and it does not include assuring me that she is safe. She’s supposed to be my bloody companion, but I feel as though I am hers. It feels like she is the one with the mission on the planet, and I am the one following her about, guarding her ineffectively.
Finally, after many hours of exploration and tracking, I hear a familiar:
Meheheheheh.
The relief that floods through me is a physical thing. She’s alive. And she sounds happy. I can hear her cheerful little bleats drifting to me on the wind as I make my way toward her with renewed vigor. This time, I’m putting her on a leash. You’re not allowed to tether goats. It’s cruel. But you can lead them.
I burst through the last barrier of bushes with a cry of triumph. “There you arhhhhhhhghh! Strumpet! No!”
What Strumpet is doing, or rather having done to her, is nothing short of lewd. She is not alone. She has found some company in the form of another goat. A male goat with big black stripes running over his body and what I am guessing is some kind of alien tracking device wrapped around one of his horns. I really need to fit Strumpet with one of those. I would have felt some trepidation at encountering an alien beast in the wild, but this goat is well occupied and hardly seems to notice I am there. He is too busy humping Strumpet.
The alien buck is having his way with her in short but vigorous bursts. For her part, Strumpet is standing there, alternating looking pleased with herself, and eating nonchalantly as if she was not engaged in intense alien debauchery.
“No!” I stamp my foot, which does precisely nothing to stop the proceedings.
“Hey! Cut it out!”