You sit on your bedroll against the concrete wall of the apartment, examining the plastic chips you recieved from Leon as payment for the week's work.
Each coin bears a colorful geometric design similar to the one on the badge you recieved when you first entered the city, and in addition to the fourteen intacts discs of varying sizes, there are also five wedges cut from other coins, like old-timey pieces of eight.
What these coins represent, exactly, is likely to remain a mystery for some time yet, but they definitely do work as currency, and you'd been able to exchange one of the wedges for a delicious fried something-or-other you couldn't identify, purchased from one of the food stands you'd passed on your way back here.
These plastic coins are rather light in your large hands though, and you're not really sure of their value. Probably the larger more-intricately-decorated ones are worth more, but even if so, how much more?
Probably first on your list is getting your own place. Sleeping on Morgan and Jerry's metaphorical couch (read: floor) is certainly better than sleeping in the street, but even if you'd had it all to yourself this tiny single room apartment would've been cramped. You can't really even stand up to your full height, and you've already hit your head on the doorframe several times.
At that moment, Morgan opens the door and walks in buck naked from the communal showers across the hall, toweling herself off and dripping everywhere as she walks over to the bag where she keeps her clothes and belongings.
Very little about their physiology is at all attractive to you, and given she's a completely different species there shouldn't be anything improper about it, but it still makes you feel uncomfortable. But with this as a daily occurence, you've just had to get used to it and do your best to ignore her.
Jerry for his part doesn't even seem to care when he's around for it, but he also isn't in the habit of walking across a public hallway fully naked, and usually makes at least an effort at modesty.
Dammit, you really need more space, and some privacy would certainly be nice, too.
But what can you even afford, on your wage? And for that matter, who did you go through to get a place? Did the city government own all these apartments? Would you need to find an individual landlord to rent from?
As you consider this, sitting against the wall of the tiny room, Morgan finishes dressing and comes over next to you.
"Is ... is there a problem?" she asks, abruptly, instantly putting you on the defensive for a second before you remember.
You sigh. This is meant as an actual question, not some kind of passive-aggressive remark. Both she and Jerry have managed to become quite proficient with English in the week since you first met them, but using the right stresses or intonation seems to be a spot of difficulty, although even there they'd gotten noticeably better in the last few days.
Honestly it would be weirder if this sort of misunderstanding didn't ever occur given that literally everything they knew about English they'd somehow just picked up talking to you over the last week, but still.
"Just, not sure how to proceed. I know I need to get a bigger place —" you gesticulate, indicating the small size of the apartment "— but I don't really know anything about how things work in this city.
"I don't even know what the different coins are worth, and even if I found the right person to ask about my own place, how do I know they won't be taking advantage of me and overcharging me?" You sigh again and let the fistful of plastic chips spill onto the floor in front of you.
"I guess, the other big problem, is how to get the rest of my stuff across the canyon from where I had to leave it. I've got a bunch of stuff I had to abandon when I crossed over the canyon to the east, and while I think I managed to hide it well enough that it's still there, I don't have any way of getting it from where I left it.
"And while I've got some ideas for how to physically get it across, I don't have any of the tools or equipment I'd need to do it, and even if I did, someone could easily show up and steal it all while I'm in the middle of moving it, and even if they don't they could still just rob me on my way back to town."
As you vent, she sits down on the floor and counts through the coins. "That's not very much," she admits after a moment. "But maybe? I know a bigger place, maybe I can make a deal for not very much. And you can sell your things if you need. I can help, get good deal."
"Yeah." You sigh again. "I suppose I'll have to sell some of my stuff, sooner or later."
Unfortunately, very little of what you have you can realistically afford to sell. You are able to get a few chips trading your watch, but everything else either has sentimental value, is something you actually need right now, or is something you will need long-term and aren't likely to be able to replace later. Your spare clothing, for instance, could probably be sold for a reasonable sum, but the odds of ever being able to purchase clothes that fit your large relative size are slim, so you're better off keeping what you have.
The one thing you do seriously consider trying to sell is your handgun, but unless you find a buyer interested in what would be in their eyes a massively oversized novelty weapon, you'll be unlikely to get a good price for it, so you just hold on to it for now.
True to her word, though, Morgan manages to find you a bigger place, one with ceilings high enough you didn't have to constantly worry about hitting your head, and, thank god, with a separate shower and bathroom instead of the single shared bathroom per floor in the old place. Showers are still cold, but there's even a table and chairs, and a small balcony.
There had been, though, apparently some mismatch in expectations, as you're now sharing this new larger place with not just Morgan and Jerry, but also the two other migrant-class halflings from the crew, Nydia and Eli (or so you've nicknamed them, anyway).
You guess it's not all bad though; By splitting the rent five ways you are able to get more square footage per dollar. Or whatever units these halflings use, although given how much of a mess the language is you're not sure you want to go opening that can of worms.
And while you still don't have much privacy, Morgan has seemed to accept your rationale of "not dripping water on the floor" as valid reason to finish drying off and dress in the bathroom rather than out in the common area, so at least that isn't a problem anymore.
In any case, over the next week — here, six days — you spend your days working in the fields harvesting tsussupkan during the day, while in the evening you being putting together a more concrete plan for how to get your rover and its cargo across the canyon.
The basic concept is fairly simple: stretch a thick steel cable across the canyon somewhere, then run some kind of pulley across it with a cargo basket or something suspended below.
You've seen the dome maintenance crews hauling large reels of wire rope for construction and repairs, so cable of the sort does seem to be available.
You run the numbers. A three-quarter inch steel wire rope (or the local nominal equivalent) should be able to support the weight of the rover's main chassis, with a reasonable safety factor. The wheels and cargo would have to be hauled over separately, but this should work.
In addition to the cable, your initial design calls for using wood beams to construct A-frame braces and anchors to support the cable at each end, but you quickly realize there's not really much in the way of "wood" available out here except as a luxury material. Some kind of light-gauge steel box section, then? You've seen steel structural tubing in use, so it should be possible to get hold of some yourself.
Rigging hardware and pulleys are another matter though, and you have no idea where to even begin, nor even what the local vocabulary for any of it might be.
If you're able to find someone who deals in that kind of equipment, you could probably just draw a diagram of the specific pulley blocks and anchors you need to explain, but even assuming they have all of the pieces and are willing to sell them to you, odds are they're be quite expensive.
For that matter, how much would all the other stuff cost you? It certainly won't be cheap either.
However, you do have one stroke of luck in the week, when Nydia approaches you and shows you a collection of survey maps that show parts of the canyon networks near the city, stating that she'd managed to acquire them the day before. This is a bit of a surprise to you — you haven't even talked with any of them about your plan; so she must've just seen your notes and decided to take the initiative. But you are certainly glad for the help, as this was a major breakthrough for you.
Up until this point you've just had to take it on faith that you'd be able to find a spot where the canyon narrows enough that you're able to span it, but using the map, you're able to identify a site only a couple days hike from the city where the canyon gets pinched between two large rocky outcrops and narrows to less than 150 feet.
(Apparently the map's creators had had similar thoughts to your own when they'd found the site, as it was marked as ideal spot for a hypothetical future bridge.)
So, now you at least have a solid idea of exactly where you'll need to lug the 300 pound spool of — hey wait, isn't gravity lower here than on Earth? You go back to your notes and run the numbers again.
Looks like half-inch steel cable will actually be enough, but even accounting for the thinner cable and reduced gravity, the spool of cable is still going to weight at least 80 pounds, and that's not counting any of the other equipment. And you still need to transport it all to the canyon's edge one way or another, itself still an unsolved problem.
The other big problem is operational. Normally, for something like this you have at least two people, one on each side, to handle setting up and tensioning the cable, and of course for attaching and detaching cargo on each side. Without a second person, you will need to hike across the canyon floor several times in order to set it up, and based on the map the nearest place where it's possible to cross the canyon is nearly a day's hike to the south, almost to where you'd left your rover.
You quickly work out how many times you'll need to go across. You'll have the rover on the far side at least, until you're forced to disassemble it, so that saves at least a bit of time...
You add up the travel time. Six crossings, 23 days. And that assumes everything goes smoothly, and none of the equipment you'll be forced to leave unattended at the canyon edge is stolen or damaged. You've yet to encounter bandits yourself, but it's not for no reason that nearly everyone who enters or leaves the city does so armed, and usually in groups.
At some point you find yourself talking over these problems with your roommates. Maybe one of them might have a better idea, or if nothing else you might be able to get one of them to loan you some cash to get equipment.
Probably not, but the answer's always no if you don't ask, right?
"Ok, well then, you can teach us how to set it up," Eli states, matter-of-factly. "That way you don't have to travel back and forth for every step."
"Wait, what?" It takes you a moment to process her statement. Not that you don't understand its meaning, but the way she stated it as if it's a foregone conclusion throws you a bit.
Before you can respond, Jerry breaks in. "Yeah, and I know a guy who works on the city domes who can cut me a deal, I'll get you a spool of cable."
"Woah woah woah hold up just a second there. I mean, sure, I'd appreciate the help" — honestly, you really would — "but you've only known me for what? Two weeks? Not even that."
"I ... I don't understand what you mean." Eli wore an expression you'd learned to interpret as puzzlement, shared to various degrees by the other three. "We're ... we're all here, so we help."
There's silence for an instant, enough for them to register your own puzzlement, before Nydia says something in an entirely unfamiliar dialect, as if it's some kind of specific saying. "Cu'fd mroy ic ischnir s'daemgs."
You don't understand a word of it, and from the looks of things you don't think Jerry or Eli understand that specific dialect either, for that matter, but one thing it does make clear is that there is some kind of massive cultural disconnect here.
You sigh. You really don't know what's going on, but at least they seem serious about helping you.
After another week, you're able to find an smaller gorge not too far from the city where you can practice setting up the line, and start working out a plan for how to train the four — now five halflings, actually — how to safely rig the cable and pulleys.
About that.
This newest addition to the party you've nicknamed "Coke", partially because the one syllable you've managed to catch of her real name sounds a bit like "cola", and partially because you couldn't be arsed to care when making it up. She just appeared one day, and is now apparently part of the "group". In any case, the name stuck, and it's not like any of them know the difference.
In other news, after the initial meeting where you'd outlined the issues and your basic plan, Jerry just went ahead and without further discussion just got a large spool of cable. You don't know how much it cost him in money or favors to get, or how he got it through the doorway into the apartment by himself, but one thing you do know is that it's far thinner than the nominal half-inch your design requires, and would be far too weak to bear the required load. Useable for practice, maybe, but not the real thing.
He doesn't seem fazed though when you explain this to him, and you're left with the impression that he's probably going to just show up tomorrow with another spool of cable.
These sorts of developments just seem to happen now, apparently.
Initially you try to resist, but your efforts are at best met with confusion, and although you're still not that great at reading their facial expressions, you think you may have accidently hurt Morgan's feelings at one point by trying.
You now realize that Morgan seems to have assumed some kind of "treasurer" role for the group.
You can't exactly fault her for trying to impose some sort of order on this chaos,
but this really hadn't been communicated to you.
Turns out that the actual rent and utilities on the apartment
were only part of the "rent" payment she'd been collecting,
due to a misunderstanding over what the word meant,
and the extra money was being used to pay for all kinds of general expenses for the five six of you.
Not that you have that many objections to the concept now that you understand what's going on — after all, you seem to be the one benefitting the most from the arrangement at the moment. But it does seem like the sort of thing that might eventually come back to bite you later, and in any case since then you've been especially careful to make sure none of your personal belongings get intermixed with theirs.
Just chill. Go with the flow. It seems headed your way anyway.
Fortunately, it's not to long before you manage to acquire everything you need, and you are able to being practicing in that unused area you found near the city. Hopefully you'll be able to leave before any more halflings randomly appear.
At last the rest of your arrangements are in place and you're able to leave with your party of halflings.
Seven of them, to be precise. Morgan, Jerry, Nydia, Eli, Coke, and two others you haven't given nicknames to yet, as you realize now that the others had taken the nicknames you'd given them as a sign of your approval. For now, until you come to terms with and decide to accept your fate, you do your best to mumble through the alien pronounciations, and hope they don't decide to take that as a nickname.
You've been on this planet for thirty-three days, nearly half a year on this planet, and by this point the small white dwarf star that orbits this planet's sun has advanced in the sky such that it's now visible for nearly the entire night, rising at sunset and setting at sunrise.
Rather than basing their year around this planet's miniscule axial tilt, this planet's inhabitants use a synodic calendar based on that tiny dot's position in the sky, dividing the planet's 79 day year into thirteen six-day weeks, with one extra day to mark the new year. When it reaches zenith tomorrow night, that will mark the halfway point for calendar year 4545.
4545 years, the equivalent of 922 years on Earth, since settlers first set foot on this barren rock, and thought to make it their home. 33 days since you first set foot here, and were forced to do the same.
You set out the morning of the second day, seventh week, year 4545.
The winter solstance for the southern hemisphere is in two weeks, and while this planet's seasons are mild, where you might once have worn thin jackets weeks before, you and your companions now wear thick coats.
Each also has their own travel gear and weapons: largely assorted pistols and pneumatic rifles, some with optics attached. Nydia in particular has an assault rifle very similar to those carried by the city guard, as well as her own armor plate carrier and cameoflage jumpsuit.
The steel cable and most of the equipment is carried in a small hand-cart that's traded off between you periodically, and you are able to make good time on the dirt roads extending away from the city. The hope is that, with your large, well-armed party, and the distant star illuminating the nights, you'll be able to avoid trouble altogether.
By dusk, you reach the point you've identified to turn off from the road, and strike camp just in time to escape the evening rains. You take third watch. All is silent under the cold gaze of the distant star.
Another day dawns. Third day, seventh week, year 4545.
Rolling the cart off-road over the rough terrain is slow going, but midday finds you at the canyon rim. This is the point at which you split up.
From here, Jerry, Eli, Nydia, and the older of the two others you're trying to avoid nicknaming, will proceed north with the cart to the site you've chosen, and set up camp to await your arrival on the other side.
You, Coke, Morgan, and the younger of the two others, will travel south along the rim to the point where you'd crossed before, and the following morning will descend the canyon and cross to the other side, carrying the bare minimum of equipment needed to set up on the far side.
As you proceed along the rim, conversation is sparse and muted. Aside from the distant rush of the water at the bottom of the canyon, the quiet jingle of your party's equipment, and the muffled thuds of your feet along the rough ground, there is only silence.
And you are being watched.
From where, by who, or what their intent is, you do not know, but given what you've heard, you're certain you'd rather not meet them.
Eventually, you reach the point opposite where you left the rover, where you plan to cross.
If you had a choice, you would keep moving to try to evade the watchers, but there are not enough hours left in the day to make it across the canyon before nightfall, and you're forced to strike camp early. The extra time does however give you time to select a defensible rocky outcrop to camp on, back against the canyon rim and with clear sightlines in all directions and plenty of cover to shoot from.
Whoever the watcher is, they seem to realize you're in a good position, and the feeling of being watched subsides about an hour before the rain begins again.
You awaken an break camp four hours before dawn, as soon as the sun's binary partner is high enough in the sky to see by. While the watcher doesn't appear to have returned, you'd rather put the canyon between you and them as soon as possible. In any case, you want to allow as much time as possible to make it across should something go wrong.
The descent goes smoothly, and you reach the canyon floor just as the sky begins to lighten, although you won't see sunlight this far down for several hours yet. The river at the bottom is more full than it was in summer when you crossed the first time, but you're able to find a route across, hopping between several large boulders the size of railcars that had come to rest there the night before.
The ascent proves more challenging. It's not a technically demanding climb, but even acclimatized as you are to the low oxygen atmosphere, you find yourself panting from exertion, and need to rest frequently.
The three halflings have much less trouble though, and take turns ascending ahead of you to anchor ropes to the rock, making the climb easier.
All things considered, your party makes it up the other side without incident, and with several hours of daylight remaining, you reach the spot were the rover was hopefully able to remain hidden.
You can only hope the other group's experiences were similarly uneventful.
As you peel back the sediment-encrusted tarp, you release the breath you didn't realize you were holding. It's still here.
"Wow," Coke commentd behind you as you start detaching the anchors holding it in place. "You weren't kidding."
The dashboard indicates the batteries still have around 60% charge, and you flash the headlights to make sure. A quick check of the throttle causes the tires to spin out and kick up a bit of dust.
"Alright, looks like it still works!" you declare.
It takes a bit of work re-arranging the cargo to make room for the three halflings, but you're eventually able to hang some of it off the side with ropes.
As you drive back to the chosen site, there's some kind of discussion, apparently about your rover, although there's some native terms you don't understand. Right now the driving demands most of your attention though, so for now you just listen.
"Is this even gas powered? There's no engine noise," Nydia says.
"I don't know what else it could be, I don't even know if building a jelnfya car would even be possible much less practical," Coke replies, using a term you think you might've heard once before but don't really know. "You'd need a crazy good hojelnfyen or something and it wouldn't even last long enough to be worth it. And if it did it'd be crazy expensive even if —"
Morgan cuts her off. "Kai can probably just tell us how it works; Kai how does this rover thing work?"
"Hold on a moment." There's another bump as one of your wheels hits a rock and you have to avoid spinning out, but after a moment you reach a relatively open stretch and can spare enough attention to answer. "It's electric. Although the term probably doesn't mean anything to you."
"Jelnfya," Nydia states, using that same term again, although saying it to nobody in particular.
"I dunno, maybe? Tell you what, I can show you what's under the hood when I break it down to get it across the canyon."
Eventually the discussion turns.
Coke apparently flunked out of some kind of schooling before she wound up out here, though not for lack of trying. She was supposedly quite adapt at the theory of whatever it was, and she'd flunked out due to some kind of "inability to perform" rather than any academic failing, although you weren't sure quite what it was she couldn't do.
Morgan, on the other hand, grew up in a clan farming kind of ocean-grown textile crop, and had basically gotten fed up and left that behind, just wandering to try to figure out what she actually wanted to do.
Nydia though... in some ways her story reminded you of your own, kinda. Not really, the similarities ended pretty quick. She'd grown up in an outlying settlement near what was apparently one of the largest cities on the planet, and had entered some kind of training program with an end goal of joining some sort of police force or perhaps militia.
But partway through, some kind of big civil war or coup had erupted and she'd been forced to flee, eventually winding up out here at what was apparely a fairly small settlement by her standards. She'd largely cooled off from that idea of joining a city militia altogether though, after experiencing the petty corruption and minor injustices common out here.
Eventually though, the discussion turns to you.
"How about you, Kai? Where are you from" Morgan asks.
Your thoughts turn back to Earth, and the friends and family you left behind.
You'd joined the military right out of high school, and had been on a deployment around Jupiter when you'd recieved orders to reposition your vessel. Where to didn't really matter at this point though; what mattered was that just as you were activating your hyperdrive, your vessel was knocked off-axis by some kind of debris, and by the time you'd realized it had been too late to abort, or to even correct your course quickly enough to avoid going interstellar.
Even if the hyperdrive hadn't been burned out by the correction you'd had to make to get this intercept, even if you somehow could have flown back, over fifty years would've elapsed on Earth, but for you the scars were barely half a year old.
You hadn't even had a chance to say goodbye. Relativity is a bitch.
You're really not ready to talk about it.
Fortunately, you soon arrive at the site, and you're able to brush off the question.
Jerry and Eli spot the cloud of dust kicked up by your vehicle, and by the time you come to a stop they're both waiting.
"Oooy!" Jerry calls across the canyon, his voice echoing back several times.
There's not enough daylight left to set up before nightfall, but it's good to see they too made it to their destination safely.
"Did you miss me?" you hollar back.
"Fat chance!" Eli calls, and that's that.
You strike camp on your side, and eventually the evening torrential rains cut off conversation. Tomorrow, you will find out whether this entire idea was worthwhile.
In the morning, you assemble the kite, and you assemble a crude kite from the winds are favorable, blowing across the canyon towards the other side, but fortunately the
You're not convo turns to you: canadian, military right out of high school, doing some kind of cross-training and was with a US unit, space force. deep space deployment around jupiter, some kind of engagement, recieve an order to intercept about to engage hyperdrive to meet them, but gets knocked, is unable to correct orientation fast enough to avoid going interstellar
able to transmit goodbyes but that was about it, and to make things worse he'd somehow fried the hyperdrive coming in
whatever the hit had been, offgassing something, slowly eventually going
rover/capsule meant for possible orbital drop to ground ops around titan or mars or somewhere able to scavenge what he could and load it in the pod
can you do magic things? c: {magic}
"Do the {word} in {word} even know how to make something like this, Coke?" asks Nydia.
All of the cargo you'd had on board appears to be intact
- halflings know it's some kind of vehicle
- still very impressed by it
- there's not much room
eyThe other members of the party seem duly impressed by it You need as much time as possible to cross the canyon floor to avoid being swept away,
and strike camp early at the rim, then as soon as there was enough light from the second sun to proc
The next morning comes, and this is the point where you're forced to split up. You transfer some of the equipment in the cart to your pack, and unload one of the A-frames to carry You unload one of the A-frames and some
and you unload one of the A-frames and some of the equipment from the cart.
From here, Morgan and Coke will pro . Morgan and Coke will carry will stay here
where you're planning to turn off from the Nightfall comes By nightfall, according to the map, the site you've chosen is
just gone ahead and aquired a large spool of cable — which was, fortunately, long enough —
You are able to Coke - so nicknamed because of the dark hair stripe and skin tone, and also because the one syllable of his real name you'd managed to catch sounded a bit like "cola".
He'd either paid for it himself without telling you or managed to get it for free
halfling clans communicate openly internally, foundation of teamwork how does the money work? there's a hanndful of cities that have facilities for launching exports to trade. coin is issued by export cities, given as an export token to be able to exchange for goods, which you can then use to buy various sorts of goods or equipment from them that the've imported in the past the tokens get used for general currency
- no way to drive it around the canyon
- vehicles are quite valuable
- outline your plan
- based on my photos there's a point where the canyon narrows
- can string a rope across
You spend the next several hours communicating the issue, and outlining your plan to retrieve your rover and its contents. Both of them seemed more than willing to help, or at least listen and comment.
With their help, you're able to procure a better map of the canyon network. You already have some photographs from orbit, but they don't show enough detail concrete plans around.
Fortunately, maps are available, and after some work you're able to find and purchase a suitable survey map of the canyon network. Odds are the canyon has eroded some since that survey, but it will work for your purposes.
Using the map, you identify a suitable point where the canyon narrows enough to make your concept feasible, and assemble a list of everything you'll need.
You pull yourself up over the canyon edge, and pant for a moment. You've acclimatized to the lower oxygen and were able to cross the canyon floor fairly quickly.
As the three other halflings reach the top, you start pulling up the rope attached to the steel A-frame.
Most of the heavy pieces of equipment — the steel cable, the transfer pulleys, etc. — are at the chosen site on the other side of the canyon, but there was but there was no avoiding the need to carry the A-frame and cable anchors across by hand. You'd left it there with Jerry and Eli; Jerry had seemed the most competent with the rigging when you'd practiced the procedure earlier on flat ground.
Unfortunately, there hadn't been anywhere near the chosen site that could be easily crossed. After dropping off the heavy cable and most of the equipment, it took two days to hike to the point where you'd crossed before after abandoning your rover.
Now though, you are across, with Morgan and Nydia, and — assuming it's still there — only about a hundred yards from the rover.
The rover is in nearly as good shape as when you left it, nearly a month ago, and with it you're able to make it back to the chosen site well before nightfall.
As you approach the rocky outcrop, you call across the canyon to the other half of your team. "Ahoy!" Your voice echoes back from the canyon wall, and you spot the A-frame on the other side where you'd anchored it in place.
After a moment, Jerry steps up next to it and hollars back. "Did you miss us?"
You strike camp for the night.
Morning comes, and the winds are favorable. You assemble a small kite from a thin wire, and after a few false starts Nydia manages to fly it far enough across for Eli to catch the string. The string is used to pull a larger rope, and then that rope is used to pull the steel cable.
The steel cable is strung across the top of both A-frames and anchored firmly into the rock on either side, and pulled tight on the far end using a manual winch. At last, it's in place, and you pull on a smaller thin rope. With it comes a large pulley, running on the steel cable, bearing a hook.
Over the next few hours you unload your rover and place the items into nets that you rig to the hook. The parcels are pulled across to the other side and detached, and the hook pulled back empty.
Eventually, you're left with just the rover. Rig it to the pulley, pull it across.
which are pulled across by the crew on the other side and unloaded.
and at last, you're able to pull on a
Your plan to fly a small kite across the canyon worked, and
You camp on the rocky outcrop, signaling to Jerry and Eli that you've made it with a small signal mirror. Four bright flashes back indicates they got your signal.
Half-inch steel wire rope, 250 feet. Or the next larger local size, anyway. Like the language, the units here are a mess, but you have spotted steel cable in use supporting the domes of the city, clearly it is available here.
Fortunately, steel wire rope is available here. You've run the numbers, and while something like nylon would have worked, you would have needed a rope over an inch and a half thick. Half-inch steel cable is much easier to
You'll still need around 250 feet of half-inch steel cable.
You've run the numbers for other materials, but even if nylon or polyester ropes were available
You'd traced out a more precise map
come up with a plan continue working this week
aquire a better map of the canyons
one-inch fiber rope, tensile strength what kind of rope or cable is available here?
kai's vehicle is a bit under 1 ton empty crossing with a 10:1 sag, cable load factor is about 2.5, a-frame load factor is about 1.5
there is steel cable available. 9/16 steel cable has safe load of 2.7 tons and weighs .53 lb/ft nylon rope is available. 1 3/4 nylon is 2.7 tons weighs 0.780 lb/ft
actually, gravity is 'slightly lighter than you're used to' so 0.9 or 0.8? gives us a bit more room.
rover weighs 0.8 tons, then we only need 2 ton (4000 lb) cable steel: 1/2 inch is 0.42 lbm/ft nylon: 1 1/2 inch is 0.57 lbm/ft
steel is lighter than nylon need 250 ft, that's 105 lbm weighing 84 lbs. kai will carry the cable
A frames neex to take 2400 lbf, based on calculator can use 3/4x1-1/2 16ga, 0.94 lbm/ft need 4x6 ft, that's 4x5.64 = 22.56 lbm, weighing 4x4.51 = 18 lbs.
plus winches and chains and the smaller pull cable, sand anchors
all in all about 500 lbs of stuff
procure a handcart to carry it all
all travel to the crossing point they'd identified with the heavy stuff
leave all but the necessary shovels, sand anchors, and a-frame with the team
note: this is planned to take 4 days, we'll leave cairns
kai and one other hike back to the point where it's possible to descend and ascend cross over to other side
have to search for a bit, eventually find the rover pull up the tarp, partially buried in wet sand
rover is intact, as are the goods
drive to point opposite the rest of the team, signal them
they launch the lead line, you grab it and pull the steel cable across dig in the sand anchor and set up the A-frame, and attach the steel cable.
signal ready. the line goes taut, they signal ready
pull the pulley up and across the canyon. hook is right there.
note: UV, sunscreen
unload the rover, rig up parcels and tow them across
finally time for the rover itself, hook it up, tow it across.
everything is across
final step: hike back and across?
plan is for everyone to cross the canyon, then test things out for real crossing the minor gorge beside
go upriver, to the point where the canyon narrows slightly enough to enable stringing the rope across
then part of team crosses back over to far side launch thin string across, tow steel cable across, set up the line, get everything across
not putting people across the line, no way
break down the hawser, far side reels it in, kai and nydia
kai, morgan, jerry; and also nydia, one of the othe two from the work crew
have aquired a better survey map of the canyon network marked the position of the buggy and also best guess for the pod since they asked go several miles upstream with the buggy to a point where the span is much shorter
how is stuff transported? pack animals? wagon? palanquin carried betwen two people?
practice how to do it, to make sure they knew what to do launch rope across the gorge, tow a bigger cable plus another small cable across both sides set up a-frame footer and dig a sand anchor signal mirror flash to launching side indicating it's anchored, ready to tension the main cable use small rope to pull payload attached to pulley across the canyon on the main cable
Similar principle to breeches buoy process. Reference reenactments on youtube.
Party of five: Kai, morgan, jerry, nydia, eli, coke