What Exactly Is Reality?

by D.P. Allen

  I would also suggest that all weapons positions be covered so that they are not visible from either side of the walls in case we have “envoys” arrive from other cities. We don’t need to advertise exactly what we have where. They only need to know that we are prepared.

  With that, the captured Spanish cannons were incorporated into the city’s defenses and the firing ports of the walls and the firing positions on the hills all disappeared into structures of the building material sheeting. From the approaches to the city, closed firing ports were the only visible clue to the existence of something nasty and from the sides and rear of each firing position only buildings with closed entrance doors were visible.

  An interesting addition to each building was a small, enclosed tower on each buildings roof to give each weapon commander a better view of the area in front of his weapon. From one of these, a battery commander could also orchestrate the operations of his entire battery.

  Chapter 31

  The Trojan horse was really Greek!

  The quiet lasted almost 2 weeks this time before the large bell rang announcing the arrival of a boat. From the hilltop, Mike scanned the boat and saw that it mounted no ballista on the fore deck. Looking closely at the crew, it was obvious that even though the boat was coming from the north, there were no Spaniards visible.

  On the rudder deck were three people in the silver and burgundy reserved for management if the other cities used the same color coding for class as Tif’n had when Mike first arrived.

  The boat turned towards the harbor and came to a full stop just short of the cables, but well within range of the cliff batteries. The crew stood on deck with empty hands raised to show that they were unarmed. Mike sent two of the harbor defense boats to board and inspect the craft before escorting it to a dock in the harbor.

  The harbor boat’s commander waved an OK from the northern boat after checking the cabin and cargo hold to make sure there weren’t any surprises hidden there. Then the boat was escorted to the docks and some of the Elders who waited with a platoon of Watchers as a welcoming committee.

  Mike stayed away to allow the city government to do its job. This was a diplomatic moment and not a military one, although Mike, the Protectors and an amazing number of Watchers and Defenders seemed to be about in full armament.

  They all did basically the same thing by staying out of sight, but close enough to help if anything untoward should occur. As the three well-dressed visitors were escorted to the government center, they blatantly stared at everything as if memorizing every detail that they could see. Mike watching through his binoculars noticed the special attention paid to the boats in the harbor with their new outer layers of armor.

  Mike hadn’t been to the harbor in a while and was a little surprised to notice that even his steel motor sailor had a layer of armor and box shaped enclosures fore and aft that could only be ballistas. It was probably the most heavily armored vessel in this part of the world and now even had a sting.

  If needed, he could probably now go toe to toe with the galleon and win. The only thing he’d want to do first would be remove his rigging and use the motors for propulsion as the sails, masts and rigging were the only vulnerable to cannon shot parts left on the boat.

  The thin steel plating of his hull and superstructure had been proof against a ballista with a soft iron tip at long range and a soft lead musket ball at a hundred yards. Both had left dents and scratches as they bounced off. Part of the reason for their deflection was more the rounded hull shape than the thickness of the steel.

  If the plating had been hit straight on, it would have taken much more damage. A close range shot with a steel tipped crossbow bolt would probably have punctured it and even if a Spanish cannonball didn’t knock a hole right through, it would dent it severely and probably pop the welds all around the impacted steel panel. He felt much better protected with the new outer layer of sheet armor that didn’t add much weight, nor more drag to its movement through the water.

  The visitors were not very low-keyed spies, but it didn’t matter, as everyone knew they were spies anyway and they were only seeing what the city wanted them to see. Happy, well-fed people about their daily business passed them with friendly greetings. A Watcher platoon enroute to relieve their comrades outside the city gate “accidentally” passed by the visitors in perfect step and fully armed. People watching the Watchers smiled and waved at them to show the visitors that this wasn’t a feared, oppressing military like those found in deus controlled cities.

  The rest of the crew was quartered in one of the warehouses that had had one end converted to dormitories for just such an occasion. The pedalers below deck were released and housed with the deck crew, which some of the crew members found objectionable.

  All were offered a chance for baths, clean clothing and a good meal, so soon there were no further complaints. While they were being housed and fed, a crew of guildsmen went aboard and removed the chains from the pedal benches. There wouldn’t be any chained crew on the voyage home.

  It was a thought that Mike decided he shouldn’t voice to offer sanctuary to the enslaved crew. It was tempting, but would cause more problems in the long run for the rest of the enslaved population and any family back home belonging to the released men. Perhaps the northern cities would get tired of losing valuable chains every time a boat sailed to Tif’n and stop the policy at least on voyages to this city.

  The visitors were quartered in a section of the government center where they could be observed at all times, but in a way that appeared to be normal building security. Meetings were planned for the following morning so that all would be well rested.

  In the morning, the meetings began on a sour note when the visitors refused to deal with “lackeys” and insisted that the deus who controlled the city preside over the meetings himself.

  Mike and some of the Protectors had taken a tour of the hill defenses so that Mike would be plausibly employed at his job away from the politics. Several hours later, a message arrived in which the Elders requested his presence at the government center. As their military commander’s advisor, he was under their command. When he reported to the council chamber, he marched straight to the Elders and standing at attention saluted them.

  He announced that he was reporting as ordered by his superiors. You could almost hear the mouths of the visitors drop open. Everyone else in the chamber gritted their teeth so as not to let the laughter escape. Erman had to turn away for a moment and a muffled cough was heard from him before he turned back around, eyes slightly moist and glittering.

  The leader of the visitors turned to Mike and made his speech with his back to the Elders. He brought greetings from his deus to their brother deus in the city of Tif’n. Mike cut him short by saying that 1. He was not a deus and 2. He would never admit to being of the same race as the Spaniards, never mind their brother. He then told the speaker that he was an advisor to the commander of the military for this city and as such had no say in trade or politics.

  He asked the Elders for permission to return to his duties and to please notify him if the rulers of the city wished these lackeys of the Spaniards escorted out of the city. Permission was granted and Mike gave a formal salute did an about face and marched from the room. Now let the little bastards from up north see if they could climb out of the hole they had dug with those who they now were beginning to realize were the superiors here.

  The meetings lasted for two tension filled days with the visitors blustering and trying to convince the Elders that they must pay a tithe to ‘Acon to insure peace and that trade might be established once Tif’n had reclaimed its subordinate place again. The Elders listened and made a counter offer to be relayed to the Spaniards. Trading would commence as equal trading partners or ‘Acon could learn to live without any of the goods available from Tif’n.

  If the Spaniards didn’t like those arrangements, they could send another army and or fleet and watch them destroyed like the previous ones. Then the force
s of Tif’n would bring the war to them and make all cities bereft of any living Spaniards and (heavy emphasis was placed on this point, which caused the visitors to blanch, proving that they did understand how things really stood) Spaniard collaborators.

  Very quiet envoys and crew embarked in their boat and after Erman offered a prayer for their safe voyage and for a peaceful settlement to the present situation were escorted beyond the cables to catch the morning tide.

  Chapter 32

  Let them eat cake?

  Except for the presence of groups of armed men, one would think that Tif’n was Eden. The quiet broken only by the bustle of a working metropolis interspersed with the laughter of children. The elders and the guildsmen who managed the food supply had a couple of meetings during which the guildsmen made proposals for expanding the usable land area for crops and herds.

  Mike was invited to attend, as the workers would need heavy security to protect them from the denizens of the marshes as they tore down old walls, filled in marsh areas and erected new walls.

  A suggestion was made to provide Mike and the workers with some form of armor to help protect them, but the workers and Mike said they couldn’t work while so encumbered, so a compromise was made. A small raised platform on wheels was erected at the point where the wall would be taken down to give Mike a clear view and shot if needed at any approaching predators.

  The platform could be moved to any area where the crew worked. Two taller wheeled platforms were raised that housed Watchers. They would be a long range, early warning system with extra eyes to help Mike.

  The workers moved an interesting manually operated conveyor belt into position that angled over the wall. The system used pulleys and gears that were driven by two of the “guinea pigs” in harness, walking in a circle like Mike had seen done in the movies to power old time grist mills.

  Dirt and mud dredged by a hand operated crane that extended over the wall at another section was loaded onto carts and brought to the construction site where it was dumped on the conveyor belt and fed over the wall. The end of the conveyor belt had a point able spout so that an operator sitting at the end could direct the flow in an arc across a 10’ wide area. There was soon a 10’ wide area of high and dry ground extending out from the opening.

  Mike watched in fascination as the building guildsman painted a vertical line of clear liquid on the wall at the furthest corner away from the city, moved about 10 ‘ to the right and repeated the process. Then the workers threw a hook on the end of a rope over the top of the wall and pulled. The section of wall between the 2 lines tore cleanly away and was removed. There was now a 10’ breach in the wall.

  This thought Mike was the dangerous time. Mike figured that the dangers would be two fold. First, the areas to be reclaimed had to be cleared of brush and filled to raise them above the marsh. This would upset any marsh dwellers within the area to be reclaimed and second, the noise of construction was bound to attract hungry predators from miles around.

  While he watched for anything nasty, Mike’s mind added another dirty trick to his arsenal. If it became necessary in a trade to include some of the impenetrable building sheets, the city could trade the high quality material, but maintain the secret for dissolving it.

  A ballista carrying some of the liquid instead of flaming pitch would neutralize the wall anywhere it struck, making it worthless as a defensive wall. Imagine the surprise that would give an enemy sitting “safely” behind their invulnerable defenses. This was a secret that could never be shared or Tif’n’s defenses would also be useless, but the sheets were probably the one thing that the Spaniards would want the most.

  Especially when their “spies” informed them that all of Tif’n’s boats were now sheathed in it. It wouldn’t take a military genius to decide that the Spaniards’ fleet was now virtually useless.

  Then a building on rollers was brought up that consisted of four walls enclosing a platform and lower deck about 15’ by 10’ and entered by a short ladder that could be retracted by the workers in the box.

  The 20 or so workers in the “box” were self-propelled, using a pedal system like that used on the boats through gears to turn the rollers. The lower deck was the propulsion deck while the upper was the wall setting deck. They inched through the opening and began putting up sheets of the material at a right angle to the opening.

  Before setting a panel, they sprayed another liquid that was supplied from a tank on the platform. Mike was told that this made the dirt harden around the bottom of the sheets as they were installed. In this manner they began extending the west wall. These were “glued” with the liquid that Mike had seen used for the earlier wall repair work when the gat had been killed.

  The panels were stuck down into the marsh so that the bottom imbedded itself in the hardening dirt just as a wall builder might set posts into cement. Wider rollers on the rear of the box flattened and packed the soil of the new fields while pressing it tightly against the inside base of the new wall panels.

  They also put up panels on the east side of the box, but didn’t set them into “concrete”. This wall would be removed and used again as they walled in the 200’ field extension in 10’ wide swaths. Mike was told the procedure was simple. The box would slowly extend forward building walls to either side with itself acting as the plug in the front of the wall.

  The conveyor would follow, extending over the front of the box and filling in forward of the box. When the box had extended out the 200’, the workers would erect a section of wall in front of the box, making a walled area 10’ wide by 200’ long. The box would withdraw from the newly reclaimed area and after being repositioned, to the right, repeat the procedures.

  The temporary wall which would now be on the left side of the box would be moved to the right as the box moved forward on its new path. This would be repeated until the entire required area was reclaimed and the last pass would see the temporary wall made into the new permanent east wall. As each day’s work was completed, the box would act as a plug in the open area of the wall while the crew exited via their ladder and walked on the new farmland back to the city.

  This was a very inventive system that appeared to keep everyone safe and Mike wondered why they needed him at all.

  It didn’t take long before he found out. As the box moved forward not 15’ from the north wall, the soil it had just packed exploded as a large snake fought its way to the surface. It must have been buried alive in its burrow or perhaps in the brush by the conveyor belt and the rollers had only angered it.

  Mike used his .357 because of the short range and after a single shot caused it to jump and roll for a while, it lay dead. The .357 magnum had removed most of its head, but it was still obvious that it was a 6 and 1/2’ long water moccasin.

  Mike noticed that although swarms of insects were lifting out of the marshes as the box moved forward, no insects came his way. Come to think of it, he hadn’t seen an insect anywhere around in the city. He asked one of the guildsmen and was informed that there was another ingredient added to the wall materials that didn’t allow insects to pass anywhere near it.

  All clothing also included the chemical in case someone needed to leave the city such as the sailors who might travel. The chemical was not included in the sheets made for elsewhere. Any sheets ordered by other cities were cut and formed to their specifications so that all they needed was the bonding agent.

  The proposed new addition to the fields was to extend the west wall about 200’ to the north of the north wall and then make a right angle turn, continuing back east parallel to the north wall. Then another right angle would enclose an area about 200’ by 3000’. The new wall would become the new north wall, while the east and west walls would become 200’ longer. This was a very simple and hopefully safe way to expand the usable land little by little.

  There were miles of marsh to the north and northwest that could be reclaimed in this manner, bordered on the east by the north road and on the west by the gradual
deepening of the marshes to the river’s edge. The road offered a natural and easily defended choke point against invaders so no building would occur near it. Extending the fields along the roadway would extend the areas needing defense and weaken the natural defenses.

  Mike had suggested and the guildsmen had agreed that the fields should never be closer than several hundred yards to the road at any point north of the northern most gate. That would leave plenty of marsh between the fields’ walls and the roadway maintaining the marshes as a natural defense against attackers.

  On the river side, it was decided that the limit would be just short of where spring flooding produced a current through the marsh. That would eliminate the chances of flood currents eroding the under sides of the walls.

  The same thing could be done on the opposite side of the harbor between the southern hills and the river, but that would involve serious logistics problems as the only access to that area was by boat. If the city grew that much, it could be done, but with the need for a causeway crossing the marshes and river to be constructed to make it feasible. Mike had no doubt that these industrious and creative people could do it if needed, but that was a long time away.

  The work progressed at a generally fast rate considering the amount of manual labor involved and Mike had to kill two more snakes and a small gat before the first day was through. The box had also bumped several large gats that left reluctantly after they found the box was not edible.

  Numerous creatures of unknown varieties left movements of bushes and ripples in pools as they retreated from the box’s approach. It appeared that the workers could set about 20’ to 40’ per hour of wall including the land filling, which actually was slowing them down. Mike wished he had access to a steam shovel and dump truck. This job could be done in days rather than weeks with proper heavy equipment.