Titans of Chaos

Did I mention that none of us were Boy Scouts? We had never been camping. We had never beenanywhere on our own. So: take four young Titans and a young Phaeacian princess, set them in themiddle of dark tropic scrub at night, and have them try to find a campsite. It was midnight, sothose of us who get tired (everyone but Victor) were tired, and it was dark and tangled underfoot,so those of us who get cross (everyone but Victor) were cross. Everything we stumbled intoseemed to have thorns and every patch that did not have thicket was flinty and hard, a rubble ofrocks no sleeping bag could sit on. The ground was furthermore cut in places with some sort ofdrainage ditches or furrows, which threatened to stub toes, twist ankles, or break legs in the dark,and more than once we stepped in slime that Victor told us calmly was guano.

"At least," he said, "I assume it's guano. I can detect oxalic, uric, carbonic, and phosphoric acids,as well as earth salts and impurities."

"What's guano?" asked Colin.

"Bat crap," said Victor.

"Bat crap!" yodeled Colin, as loud as if he were helping Vanity check to see if anyone was inearshot. By some dull throb of feminine intuition, I was sure the phrase would turn into Colin'scurse of choice over the next few days, and we'd be hearing a lot of it.

"Hold up, troops," I said in an exhausted voice. "Let's head toward the sound of the shore. Maybewe can find some nice, soft, sandy beach to make a tent."

"Pitch a tent," Vanity said. "You make a bed."

I was carrying all the gear, of course, in a large fold of my fourth-dimensional energy-wings, withthe gravity world-lines all bent away, so that, for me, it was feather-light. When we found thesand, there was a shimmer of reddish light as I pulled the knapsacks and newly bought tents,tarps, and bedrolls into this three-space. I had it blue-side red at first, so all the lettering ortrademarks on the fabric were mirror-reversed. I guess I was tired. I rotated the mass of it out ofthe hyperplane and back into it, and carefully flattened out the crinkles, so that everything wasoriented right.

Well, we could not pound tent stakes into the sand, so I made the executive decision that we couldsleep under the stars on a warm night just in our sleeping bags.

How soft the sand was. I nodded off, congratulating myself on my decision.