The bulky teenager looked Frodo directly in the eye and spoke with confidence.
"The mountain spirits of the blizzard steal our eyes and our voices," Silas began, "So, we do not use them. We use our hands, and we use the trees."
Silas pointed a finger down the path leading to the valley. "I suggest we braid a long lifeline out of mammoth hair and tough sinew. We string this line tightly between the trunks of the dead pines all the way down the gorge. When the whiteout hits, the scout at the lake doesn’t need to see the ridge. He only needs to find the rope in the dark. He pulls it hard. Three sharp tugs. At the other end of the rope, hanging right here in the cave, we tie a bundle of hollow bones."
Silas crossed his arms. "The wind can blow as hard as it wants, but if the rope is thick enough, the tension will carry the movement. The bones rattle in the cave. We know the enemy is coming, even if the world is blind."
Frodo felt a genuine surge of excitement. He was immensely pleased with Silas’s suggestion.
It wasn’t as elegant or as fast as Orin’s optical semaphore relay, but it was infinitely more reliable.
Most importantly, Silas recognized that a system was only as good as its failsafe. While Orin had provided the brilliant innovation, Silas had provided the execution.
Frodo nodded. "Very well, Silas. I hereby appoint you as the Head Scout of the Reconnaissance team. I trust you will fulfill the duty of keeping our people alive."
Silas was stunned.
In the hierarchy of the tribe, a teenager who had not yet killed a predator was considered little more than a child, relegated to fetching water and scraping hides.
The sudden elevation in his social standing hit him like a blow.
Everything had happened so fast that his brain struggled to process the sudden weight of command.
He looked down at his hands, speechless. Then, as if to confirm he wasn’t freezing to death and hallucinating, he pinched his own forearm hard.
Feeling the sting, Silas didn’t wince. Instead, a grin broke across his face.
He let out a joyous whoop, jumping up and slamming his fist against his chest.
Orin, on the other hand, felt a crushing weight settle in his stomach.
He was unreconciled with how the result had turned out, knowing his optical relay idea was brilliant.
Yet, he had no one to blame but himself; he had frozen under pressure and failed to answer the question about the blizzard.
With his shoulders slumped and his gaze fixed on the snow, Orin turned away, preparing to walk back to the gloomy corners of the cavern where the unblooded youths spent their days.
"Orin, stop," Frodo’s voice cut through the wind.
Orin froze in his tracks, looking back over his shoulder.
"You are hereby appointed as the Master of Signals," Frodo declared. "It is my opinion that your deep understanding of the environment and your visionary idea for the optical chain make you the ideal candidate to assist Silas."
That was all Orin needed to hear...
His gloomy posture vanished, and he quickly dropped to one knee, pressing his fist to the ice in gratitude.
Frodo was incredibly satisfied with his two selections.
In Frodo’s experience, an engineer made a much better commanding officer on the front lines than a scientist.
But the two of them together, balancing their respective strengths, would build the central nervous system of his new civilization.
"Do well, both of you," Frodo said, stepping forward and placing a hand on both of their shoulders. "If I get satisfactory results, you will sit at the elders’ fire before the next moon."
Both teenagers looked at him with wide eyes.
But Frodo knew his work with them was not yet finished. He gestured for both of them to follow him deep into the cavern, away from the howling wind, toward a flat stone near his alcove.
In his past life, the engineers and tacticians he worked with had spent decades in universities and military academies, inheriting thousands of years of accumulated human logic.
Silas and Orin were undeniably brilliant, but they were ultimately Paleolithic children.
Their heritage and their worldview were severely limited by an oppressive world where survival instinct trumped logic.
Frodo picked up a piece of charcoal from the fire pit.
"Sit," Frodo commanded.
The two teenagers sat cross-legged on the dirt, watching him intently.
Frodo drew a single, short line on the stone. Next to it, he drew a long dash.
"What you two have designed today is a way to send a warning," Frodo explained. "A flash of ice, or a tug on a rope. But a single warning is not enough. I am going to teach you how to make the ropes and the flashes speak actual words."
Orin tilted his head, his brow furrowing in confusion. "Speak words, Frodo? The ice has no voice."
"It does if we give it one," Frodo said, tapping the short line and the long dash. "Everything in the world can be broken down into two things. A short pulse, and a long pulse. A small flash, and a long flash."
"If you give one short tug on the rope, it means ’enemy’," Frodo explained, drawing the symbols. "If you give two short tugs, it means ’wolves’. If you give one short tug, followed by a long tug, it means ’they are many’. Do you understand?"
Silas and Orin stared at the charcoal marks.
A sudden spark of comprehension ignited in Orin’s eyes as he realized they could send infinite messages using just two simple actions!