Ministry Protocol: Thrilling Tales of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences

by Tee Morris

  *****

  Barry Ferguson had long since given up on the prospect of making small talk with the Maori warriors guarding over him. He worked quickly and carefully, resting tools and pipes and valves and bolts and gaskets on the metal wheels and running boards as he went, careful not to let his equipment get too dirty. The rain had eased but the mud would be an issue for days.

  Too much weight and not enough torque was the problem. Barry didn’t have the machinery on hand to rebuild the burnt-out gearbox, but he hoped he knew enough about basic physics to get around the pesky mechanics of gravity and friction. It was, he reflected, rather fortunate that those army boys insisted on hauling so much useless junk about the place with them in the lockers at the back of the tractor.

  Redistributing the gas lines would be easy enough, but he was not looking forward to stitching all that tent canvas together. He hated sewing.