Scouting 1 - WfW 15/1 - 7th Part

Still using the Words for Wednesday from the 15th:
    Constipation          and / or         Snot
     Rivalry                                       Beluga
     Occupation                                Emergency
     Sneeze                                       Qualify  
     Wishy-washy                             Coffee
     Diatribe                                     Butt
For this installment I used none of them - I still have Snot left for tomorrow. And then  mostly the WfW are up somewhere around my dinner time Tuesday.
  We're still in the plane  with Allan and company.
 
Hank took the two 'police officers', who were not police officers at all, but actors, He also invited Father Paul, but he asked to be excused. He had sprained an ankle jumping down from the plane.
Allan asked Cordelia, who said yes at once; and then the burly man who had suggested snowy slopes as a landing place, he was grumpy, but willing to go on an expedition. 
  Henny invited a young couple who had been sitting in the front row, and a elderly, but sporty looking lady.
  Robert shyly asked for volunteers but had no takers until Granny T broke the ice by stating that she was going to follow this fine young man to the end of the world. Then a couple of women and a man volunteered to go with him.
  Granny T pulled out again, telling: "Well I only really suggested my going with him as a way of shaming out you young ones. I would not last very long on a scouting expedition. You got to travel fast, I with my rheumy hips would only be a liability."
"I guessed as much, Granny T," Robert said. "You take good care of the plane and our captain for us while we're gone. I bet you can brew one darned good cup of tea."
The captain fetched the plane's log - it was still and old-fashioned paper thing with stiff, orange cardboard binders.
"Group 1, going east, Hank Peterson, co-pilot in charge. Here's the compass. And could I please have the names of the rest of you?" 
"John Turnstile, actor," the tallest of the two said.
"James Thomson, also an actor," the other one said, matching the tone of John perfectly.
"Thomson and Thompson" Allan thought to himself, smiling.

"And group 2 going north," he said handing Allan the compass. "Allan what?"
"Allan Bandas, Geologist."
"Cordelia Smith, shop assistant," She said as the captain looked at her.
"Daniel Sutton, Butcher."

"Group 3 Southwards bound, led by Henny ... sorry I forgot your last name."
"Henny Taylor, captain Tom," she answered, "I also forgot yours." 
Smiling an almost boyish smile, Tom said "It's so easy it should be fun; Tom Jones, and no, I can't sing."
"Sarah and Fred Timberley, both medical students." Sarah answered for both of them, "and on our honeymoon flight."
"Eva Vernon, Ski instructor," the sporty woman said.

"And the last group. West. Led by ..."
"Robert Townsend, Mechanic."
"Allison Whale, Biologist."
"Mona Bright, farmer,"
"Matthew White, Painter, of houses, not paintings," he added with a sad smile.

The rest of the day was spent preparing for the expedition, backpack were borrowed, emptied and filled, luggage moved around. Henny brewed some tea by boiling water over a small fire but it did not taste good. "The air pressure is low," Allan explained. "The water will boil before it reaches 100 degrees C like on the top of a mountain. Coffee is OK with that, tea is not. Let's keep to coffee, as long as possible."
Eva cursed the ill fates that had made her decide to buy a new pair of skis when she returned home, ditching her old pair for their weight's worth of books and clothes. "Skis would have been much more useful now, than those crummy books, she agonized."
Allan examined the curious brown stuff covering the ground. together with Allison, the biologist from Robert's group, and the mother of the three children; she was called Ulla, and had studied chemistry before becoming a mom to the boy twins and their baby sister.
"For pity's sake, what is this stuff?" Daniel, the grumpy butcher in Allan's group, said.
"Do you know Leca?" Allan asked. Daniel nodded and Eva said: "Puffed clay balls?"
"Yes," Allan said. "We suspect this is puffed earth, and whatever else happened to be right here as the Wave passed.

***

 They set out after a hefty breakfast next morning; each of them carrying supplies and water for themselves, binoculars, pencils, paper and what else they seemed essential for the success of such an expedition.
Allan and his two party members started by going up a slope. It was hard work, the brown stuff was like very dense snow, they sank in, not much, but still it was taxing and they had to pull up their legs after each step. They heard Eva Vernon once more wishing loudly for her skis with a very un-ladylike expletive before they came out of hearing distance.
  They walked in a line, each taking turns trampling a path, changing when one of them became out of breath. This happened often in the thin, hot air. When they had to take a break, the plane was still clearly visible as a silver speck at the horizon, and their tracks made a shallow ditch-like indentation in the uniform brown desert.
  "We're still working our way up a slope,"  Allan remarked. "we've walked far enough for the plane to disappear even behind a small hill."
  "That's why it is so darned hard." Daniel said. "I sure needed a break."
  "Well, we can look forward to the journey home being downhill all the way, then," Cordelia said. "Let's continue."  
  She got up, and reluctantly Allan and Daniel got to their legs as well. Laboriously they walked on and on, still alternating the front position, still slightly uphill, still the same, brown fluffy stuff covering the ground.
  "Phew. Do you think we landed in the ocean, and we're walking on the bottom of what was the sea, day before yesterday?" Daniel asked, as he passed Allan to go in the back after leading.
  "Could be, We could also just be on the southern slopes of the land. I don't know how we'll ever find out where we are. It looks just the same everywhere," Allan said.
  Cordelia turned round to face them: "We cant see the plane any more. But our trace is clear. What would we do if a wind started blowing or rain begin to fall?"
"Rain," Allan said, making that simple word sound like an expletive. "You said the word! All the water is up there somewhere. Don't you see how fuzzy the sunlight is, and how hot and uncomfortable we feel, even walking this slow."
  "Slow?" Daniel asked.
  "Yes," Allan explained. "We've walked for a bit more than two hours, as far as I can judge from the sun." Daniel nodded. "And the plane was visible a short while ago when I fell back, That gives us a distance of approximately 8 kilometers in 2 hours. Not impressing."
  "Absolutely right." Cordelia agreed. "But let's press on for a bit longer. The sun's still not at its zenith."
   "The rain," Daniel said, "what about the rain?"
  "Well all the water is not going to stay up there. It will have to come down as the earth cools off again. It'l be one hell of a shower, I do not care to guess what will happen to all this puffball earth. And do you notice how we tend to forget what we were talking about?" Daniel and Cordelia nodded, looking surprised. "Mild hypoxia does this, Let's turn back." 
  "Let's go on just a bit more, Maybe we'll reach the top of this rise and be able to see further away," Cordelia said.
  They did as she suggested, and actually only a short time later, they scaled a steeper incline and stood on the top of a small hill gently sloping away from them back front and to the left, right or east of them, the dunes looked to be the same as the one they were standing on. But still the only thing they could see, even with the help of binoculars, were more dune-like hills of brown stuff in front of them.
"I can't recognize anything at all," Daniel said. "I lived on this coast, or at least what I suspect is this coast all my life, and still I can't ..."
"Yes we had high hopes," Allan said.
"Do you think the whole world looks like this?" Cordelia   asked, as they sat down.
"Yes," Allan said. "There's nothing but brown fluff all over. But I noticed that the layer is becoming thinner here. Not that I have any idea of why, but it is. Let's walk just a little bit further. I 'd like to see if it grows in thickness downhill again or something else caused this difference."
"I'd like to stay here," Daniel said. "It's very hard for me to walk and you'll be coming this way back again."
"Yes, and we won't stray far, Allan said, "We should be able to see or at least hear one another all the time." Daniel leant against his pack, while Cordelia and Allan set out further north. The brown layer kept to its new depth even when they had scaled and gone down two more small hills.
"Time to turn back," Cordelia said.
"Yes. We won't learn any more unless we keep on for days, and that was not what we agreed on."
Upon returning they found Daniel sleeping where they had left him.
 They woke him up and returned to the plane. It was an easy trek, downhill, following their own steps, but still they were winded and exhausted as they arrived at the plane. Daniel was ordered inside to get some more oxygen, Allan and Cordelia just sat down on some of the crates from the storage.
Henny's group came back, carrying Eva, the ski instructor between them. Her leg nicely bandaged. "Not a big thing," she said, "I stumbled into a hole. And the two youngsters there tell me nothing's broken."
"Well you choose the right group with two medical students, at least" Tom said
"We did not get that far, Henny said, But it looks the same everywhere, low hills cowered in this brown stuff."

... to be continued