Through Fiery Trials

by David Weber

  In truth, though, it had been more a matter of expanding the Book of Hastings than rewriting it. Langhorne and Bédard hadn’t worried too much about molten metallic planetary cores or anything that went on deeper into the planet than its mantle, since only a civilization which had already broken free of the Strictures could have dug deep enough to learn much about those areas. But they’d been careful to avoid anything that would conflict with observational data, which meant most of Hastings was completely accurate … however far it went.

  For geology near the surface, and bearing in mind the strata which had been revealed by little things like the Holy Langhorne Canal’s deep mountain cuts, there was a lot of information. That information had proved very useful for coal miners, iron mines, water drilling, etc., and it proffered even a rudimentary theory of tectonics, but it was strangely silent about things like oil sands and oil shale. Nothing in the Writ said those things couldn’t exist; it simply didn’t discuss them the same way it did aquifers and the sorts of methane pockets coal mines could turn up.

  Actually, it did discuss oil sands in passing, at least as the pathway by which petroleum leaked to the surface, which had offered the window into the Strictures Southland D&R needed once Doctor Wyllys cracked the secret of petroleum distillation. The people of Safehold had known about petroleum—only it was called black gum on their planet—since the Creation. Thanks to the Book of Pasquale, petroleum had featured in topical preparations in Safeholdian pharmacology, and Safeholdians had made limited use of it for things like natural asphalt. Its potential as fuel, however, had been overshadowed by oil tree, oil vine, and kraken oil. Despite the poisonous nature of oil vine’s products, both it and oil tree pods grew almost everywhere on Safehold, whereas black gum was available only in those areas where it oozed to the surface. Oil tree oil also burned far more cleanly than black gum, although even it produced more smoke than—and burned more dimly than—kraken oil … which actually came from doomwhales, not krakens, these days.

  Long before he was ever recruited for the inner circle, however, Zhansyn Wyllys had been intrigued by petroleum. Initially because his family’s fortune had been made in doomwhaling and he’d come to the conclusion that the doomwhaling industry would never be able to provide the sheer quantity of oil Charisian manufactories, especially, would require. Partly because demand for oil was climbing so steeply, on an ever-sharpening curve, and partly because both oil tree and oil vine were scarcer in Old Charis than on the Mainland, which reduced those options’ ability to meet that demand. And as a student at the Royal College, he’d been introduced to—and become fascinated by—the techniques of distillation and refining. What would happen, he’d asked himself, if he applied those techniques to black gum?

  There wasn’t a lot of black gum in Old Charis. There’d been more than enough for his experiments, yet far too little for any sort of volume production. But the Barony of Southland in the Princedom of Emerald was a different story. Black gum seeps were fairly common in Southland, although they were concentrated in only a few areas, mostly along the foot of the Slywkyl Hills, which formed the heart of the barony. The most productive of those in western Southland were found outside the appropriately named town of Black Sand, one of Southland’s larger towns, where the hills disappeared into the coastal flat twenty miles inland. But the most spectacular seeps were located in Oil Springs Valley. The valley, which ran deep into the hills from the east, above Sheryls Port, the barony’s major harbor, had literally dozens of seeps. In fact, they’d given their name to one of the two modest rivers—the Black Gum—which flowed into Sheryl Bay through the port.

  Despite the Archangel Hastings’ book, no one had ever realized that the reason the Oil Springs Valley seeps were so spectacular and widespread was that the valley sat directly on top of a deep strata of oil sands trapped between two layers of shale. The upper layer was fractured in several locations, and there was sufficient pressure to force the oil to the surface.

  Wyllys had found his way to Oil Springs Valley well before his recruitment by the inner circle, and vastly to the irritation of his father. Styvyn Wyllys was of the opinion that his son should have been concentrating on better ways to refine and use kraken oil, not looking for new approaches which would inevitably challenge Wyllys & Sons’ thriving and lucrative sales. He’d turned a deaf ear to Zhansyn’s pleas that this was an opportunity for Wyllys & Sons to expand into a totally new market, and the furious row which had ensued—in the course of which Styvyn had cut his errant son off without a hundredth-mark for his “disloyalty”—was a major reason Zhansyn was no longer invited to celebrate God’s Day of Thanksgiving with the rest of the Wyllys family.

  His success in distilling “black gum” into a number of more useful compounds, especially the one he’d dubbed “white oil,” and which had been called “kerosene” on a planet called Earth, had pretty much finished off that relationship. His father’s fury had grown only greater as “white oil” began nibbling into the kraken oil market, especially in Old Charis, where the traditional Safeholdian aversion to innovation had turned into fascination with anything new. And, unfortunately for Styvyn Wyllys, he’d been able to tell himself that while white oil might steal some of his sales, black gum seeps were far too limited to pose a significant challenge. He’d been unable to see the writing upon the wall and had rejected his son’s last-ditch effort to repair their relationship by offering him a partnership in petroleum development.

  Because of that, Southland Drilling and Refining—Styvyn had apparently missed the “drilling” implications of that name—had been capitalized by Delthak Enterprises, the Ahrmahk dynasty, and Prince Nahrmahn Garyet of Emerald, instead. Wyllys retained fifty-one percent of the voting stock. He’d been a little surprised by that generosity on Duke Delthak’s part at the time SD&R was chartered, but that was because he hadn’t yet known about the inner circle, the Terran Federation, or the truth of the Church of God Awaiting. Archbishop Maikel had taken an interest in the project, as well, and had formally assigned Makfadyn to assist Doctor Wyllys’ efforts.

  With funding in hand, over the next couple of years Wyllys had scaled up his initial refinery into something much larger, capable of handling far more crude than he’d been able to collect and transport from the surface seeps. No doubt his father had taken that as yet more evidence that his lunatic son was chasing the white fox-lizard, but Zhansyn hadn’t minded. He’d had his eye on bigger game, and Southland had begun drilling just over two five-days ago, using the new and vastly improved rig Delthak Enterprises had developed from existing water drilling technology.

  The drilling industry had already begun adopting steam engines instead of the dragons which had been used to power the drills before, but Delthak had made a lot of other improvements, including significantly stronger and more durable gantries and a much more sophisticated system for casing the drill bore as the well proceeded. Now—

  “Excuse me, Father.”

  Makfadyn and Wyllys turned as a tall, brown-haired man approached them. His expression was a curious blend of apprehension and anticipation.

  “Yes, Zhoelsyn?”

  “Father, there’s a lot more black gum showing in the cuttings, and the pipe’s starting to shake.”

  “Excellent!” Makfadyn said.

  “I’m a little anxious about that vibration, Father.”

  Zhoelsyn Abykrahmbi was SD&R’s chief engineer. He had quite a lot of experience in drilling for water, and he’d brought in more than one artesian well in his career. One or two of them had been spectacular.

  “I’m sure we’re in good hands, my son,” Makfadyn said benignly. He signed Langhorne’s Scepter and smiled at the engineer. “And in addition to faith in God, I have every confidence in your preparations.”

  “Thank you, Father.” Abykrahmbi sounded more than a bit dubious, but he nodded and headed back to his drilling crew, and Wyllys shook his head at the priest.

  “I think he wanted just a little more reassurance th
an that, Ahmbrohs,” he said.

  “I do have confidence in him,” Makfadyn replied in a mild tone. “Or as much as I can have, at the current stage of our technology.”

  And that, Merlin reflected, was a good point. Safeholdians had been drilling for water for a long time, although with only dragon-powered drills, their power budget had been limited, to say the least. They’d developed some fairly sophisticated techniques even before steam—and Delthak Enterprises—had gotten involved. As usually happened when Ehdwyrd Howsmyn was anywhere near, those existing capabilities had been adapted and improved upon in some truly novel ways, which meant Southland Drilling’s beginning point was decades in advance of anything James Miller Williams or Edwin Drake had possessed back on Old Terra.

  On the other hand, they were notably deficient in things like blowout preventers and the other esoteric safety technologies the petroleum industry had developed on humankind’s birth planet. Still, Makfadyn had raised another sound point earlier in the conversation. Owl and his remotes had indeed surreptitiously sampled the Oil Springs Valley geology, and there was little chance of Abykrahmbi’s rig hitting one of the gas pockets which usually propelled oil gushers … and provided the deadly explosive component which often accompanied them. So—

  “Yes!”

  A single shout went up from the wellhead, echoed a moment later by the entire drilling crew, as a thick tide of what would have been called “light sweet crude” by an Old Terran oilman welled up out of the casing around the central drilling pipe. It surged several feet above the casing lip in a squat, brown-black fountain that spilled down into the preventive levee which had been built around the gantry to channel it away from the wellhead and keep it out of the nearby river.

  “Get the drill out!” Abykrahmbi shouted, and the bit stopped turning immediately.

  One of the many reasons Oil Springs Valley had been selected for the first drilled oil well in Safeholdian history was that the target strata of sand was barely six hundred feet down. That was still a lot of drill shaft, though, and the oil continued to bubble up, waist high or better on a tall man, as the shaft was extracted, section by section. It took quite a while, but finally the drill head itself came up, and the oil fountain danced even more strongly now that the flow path was no longer obstructed.

  But even as the drill head was swung out of the way, another snorting, steam-powered crane lowered the valve assembly into place. It was big enough and heavy enough to settle onto the waiting collar at the top of the casing despite the slow, powerful upward current of oil, and brawny roughnecks with huge wrenches began tightening the bolts to hold it in place. The assembly was almost eight feet tall, and all of the valves were open, providing a path for the oil as the assembly sank into place. The internal piping was narrower than the drill pipe had been, however, which increased the stream’s pressure significantly. A geyser of oil spurted out its top, pounding down from above even as more forced its way in a circular fan through the gap between collar and casing, battering their legs and lower torsos as they worked. But as the bolts tightened, the horizontal flow gradually eased until, finally, it ceased. Oil continued to gush from the top of the valve assembly for several more minutes before the valves were cautiously tightened and the flow stopped completely.

  Silence lingered for a moment as the panting, battered, oil-coated work crew stood calf-deep in a broad pond of crude around the valve, watching the last trickles run down the outside of the assembly.

  Then the cheers began.

  “I told you it wouldn’t be a gusher!” Makfadyn told Wyllys … and all of their distant audience. “See? Next time maybe you’ll trust me!”

  “And maybe we would have trusted you more this time if you’d had more of a track record,” Duke Delthak replied in a deflating tone. “I seem to recall someone who kept leaving qualifiers strewn about just in case.”

  “I have no idea who you could be talking about,” Makfadyn said severely. “In fact, I’m sure—”

  He broke off as Zhoelsyn Abykrahmbi charged back up to his employer. Wyllys had always known the engineer believed in being hands-on, and Abykrahmbi was coated in oil from head to toe, his teeth an almost shocking flash of white as he beamed triumphantly.

  “I told you I was confident about your preparations!” Makfadyn greeted him, and Abykrahmbi’s smile turned still wider.

  “Yes, Father, you did!” he said. Then he looked at Wyllys. “Timed the flow through the central valve before we closed it down, too, sir. Assuming the flow rate holds steady, looks like about four hundred to four hundred fifty barrels a day!”

  “Outstanding!” Wyllys said, punching the engineer on an oil-soaked shoulder, and Merlin nodded.

  The official “barrel” used by the petroleum industry back on Old Earth had been just under a hundred and sixty liters, courtesy of Richard III of England who had set the size of a tierce of wine at forty-two gallons. No one had ever changed it, and when Old Terra’s early oil industry had needed a standard measure—not to mention leak-proof barrels in which to ship product—they’d turned to the most readily supplied size of wine barrel. It had also happened to weigh about a hundred and forty kilos when filled, which was about the largest size a workman could wrestle around unassisted.

  The equivalent Safeholdian wine barrel was only forty gallons, and Safeholdian oil producers had adopted it as their standard measure for much the same reason it had been adopted back on Old Earth. So if Abykrahmbi’s numbers were accurate, the well would be producing somewhere around sixteen to seventeen thousand gallons a day. As the pressure dropped, so would the production rate, but that was a very respectable initial flow. Indeed, it was seven times the rate Williams had gotten out of his first Canadian well fifteen hundred Standard Years ago. Of course, they’d started with a lot of advantages he hadn’t had … including Pei Shan-wei’s meticulous geological surveys.

  “We’ll have the well connected to the pipeline by day after tomorrow,” Abykrahmbi continued, and Wyllys nodded.

  He’d built his refinery just outside Sheryls Port to take advantage of the harbor. It was close enough to the black gum seeps which had supplied his initial oil flow, although only at the rate of a hundred barrels or so a day, for him to freight it to the port by dragon-drawn wagons. Shipping it, barrel by barrel, over the roads between the seeps and his facility was a pain in the arse, however, given the nature of Emeraldian roads in general. That was why the new Southland Drilling Railroad would finish laying track between the port and the valley in the next month or two. But Wyllys had taken it a step farther in anticipation that the well would succeed. Sairahston was less than twenty miles from Sheryls Port, and he’d constructed a pipeline to connect the new oil fields directly to the refinery. For the present, even with Well Number One’s highly satisfactory production rate, that pipeline would be hugely underutilized. But—

  “That’s wonderful news, Zhoelsyn,” he said now. “And since you seem to have done reasonably well with Number One,” he grinned hugely, “I suppose you should go ahead and get started on the rest of them now, don’t you?”

  “Just as soon as Duke Delthak’s people can get the rigs shipped to us, sir!” Abykrahmbi promised, still grinning hugely. “If we come in at the same depth, and assuming no dry holes, I’ll have four more wells producing for you by the middle of next month!”

  AUGUST YEAR OF GOD 905

  .I.

  Lake City, Tarikah Province, Republic of Siddarmark.

  “You be careful out there, Rychyrd.”

  Rychyrd Tohmys paused in the act of picking up his latest purchase and looked up in apparent surprise.

  “Careful, Master Hahraimahn?” The young man looked over his shoulder and out the shop window. The sun had set and the sky was cloudy, heavy with the promise of rain, but while the streetlights were few and far between, it wasn’t exactly stygian. “It’s only four blocks, and it hasn’t even started sprinkling yet. If it does—” he grinned suddenly “—I promise I’ll keep them nice and
dry inside my tunic!”

  “I’m not talking about the books, boy.” Stywyrt Hahraimahn’s tone was sharper than it had been, and Rychyrd’s smile disappeared. “I know you’re one who takes care of his books,” the bookseller continued, “but the mood out there’s not what I’d call warm and gentle right now.”

  Rychyrd glanced back out at the dimly lit street then turned back to Hahraimahn.

  “You really think something might … happen?” The thought clearly troubled him. Hahraimahn only wished he felt confident that it troubled the youngster for the right reason.

  “I think plenty of ‘somethings’ have already happened,” he said grimly. “And I think your family’re known Temple Loyalists. You think what happened last five-day doesn’t have the idiots’ tempers running high?”

  Rychyrd frowned. He couldn’t pretend he didn’t know what Hahraimahn was talking about, and the incident had been ugly. But still—

  “I’m not saying Feldyrmyn wasn’t completely justified,” the shop owner said. “I happen to think he was, and it doesn’t matter whose army he served in, either. Langhorne only knows what would’ve happened to his wife and that girl of his if he hadn’t done it! But two of them are still in the hospital, and their pride hasn’t taken it well, either. Thugs like that, they’re likely to think they need to ‘square accounts,’ and they won’t give a single damn who they use to do it. So you be careful!”

  “I will,” Rychyrd promised. “But, like I say, it’s only four blocks.”

  “Four long blocks,” Hahraimahn pointed out.

  “I’ll be careful,” Rychyrd said more soberly. “I promise.”

  “Good. I’d just as soon not be scraping you up off the sidewalk. You spend too much money in here for that!”