by Guy Antibes
“I know. I, uh, spent a lot of time around a metalworking facility when I was a girl. I grew up in Pent.”
“I thought I picked up a Pentish accent, Miss…?”
“Baltac. But you can call me Lorna.” She smiled at the man.
“Not connected to Baltac Metalworks?”
Lorna just smiled. “Let’s just say I can appreciate what you are doing here. I’ll start in two days, but I have to be just like a regular worker.”
The manager scribbled on a piece of paper. “Buy your workclothes here and wash them a few times. Come in just before daybreak and report to the personnel office and tell them I sent you.”
She felt a little breathless with anticipation as she walked out of the factory to the team standing outside. “I start as a polisher in two days,” she said with enthusiasm. “I haven’t done any metalwork since I was a girl.”
They all walked to a restaurant, closer to the center of Mella, and took a small private room in the back. They ordered and all of them concentrated on their lunch.
“Any suggestions on what to do?” Panix said. Lorna saw a hopeful look on his face. He fidgeted with his hands, a nervous sign.
“We need to inspect all of the engines,” Harlan said.
“Not all of the engines have failed, but we should inspect the few engines that have made it into the field as well,” Lorna said. “The factory manager is convinced the sabotage is happening right after the final testing. That’s why I’ll be a polisher. I can show up anywhere after basic assembly.”
All the men nodded. Lorna finally felt like a member of the team for once. She noticed that Panix’s fidgeting had stopped.
“What if Harlan and I do a covert inspection? That will stop any damage to the engines once they’ve left the factory. Tellus and Moshin can inspect the machines in the field.”
“But I don’t know how to manipulate materials like you,” Tellus said.
“I can do all of the repair work. All you have to do is identify if the machine has been tampered with. If it has, it stops being used. We need to go over each engine and it’s faster if we split up. Harlan and I can teach you two what you need to know.” Panix looked at Moshin. Lorna noted a little nod from Panix’s former mentor.
“Let’s get back to work. I’ll return to the factory and get a listing of where the engines were sent and when we can get a look at them,” Panix said. He got out of his chair, “Let’s go, Harlan.”
Lorna watched them walk out. Sovad rose. “I’m going to take the afternoon to move my digs. See you later.”
Moshin finished up his meal and began to rise when Lorna put her hand on his arm. “Do you have a minute?”
“Sure.” Moshin finished the last morsel on his plate. “What’s on your mind?”
“Do I have any real reason to be here?” she asked.
“Panix thinks you do. Is that why you volunteered for placing yourself in the factory?” Moshin pushed away from the table and moved his chair to face her.
“Yes it is. All of you have experience in magic, technology, or in spycraft. All I’ve been is someone to follow Panix, or you, around.”
“But you’ve contributed. Every team needs someone who thinks differently than the others. That’s where you come in.”
“It’s not enough. Not for me, anyway.” She took a sip of her drink. “First my father, then the Marquessa, now Panix.”
“It’s not ‘now Panix’, Lorna. He hasn’t rejected you or your contribution.”
“He doesn’t show it, but—” Lorna folded her arms, thinking of how he had ignored her since they came to Mella.
“Oh,” Moshin said. He looked out the open door to the private dining room. “This has as much to do about your reassignment to our team as it does with Panix. You’re projecting your father’s rejection and the Marquessa’s assigning you as a secretary on him.”
Lorna thought about it and nodded her head. “I’ve been fighting this.” She looked up, trying to control her tears. “He seemed to have lost interest in me the minute I arrived.” She wasn’t thrilled about having to bare her feelings to Moshin, but she couldn’t turn to anyone else.
“Panix has been trying to figure out how to run this rummy outfit. He’s got two old men who have decades in the trenches and two young team members that don’t quite know how to blow their noses in front of authority. On top of it, you drop in with an attitude. I do believe he is still finding his way.”
“But does that mean he wasn’t interested in me, as a person?” Lorna couldn’t help keeping her eyes from becoming moist and she didn’t want to hear bad news about her relationship with Panix.
“No. You’ve got it reversed. I’ve known Panix for some time. Even with his experience in your father’s factory, he is still trying to figure out how this team is supposed to work. The boy has a lot to learn to lead because his talent isn’t what makes the team successful. Plus, he’s dealing with some pretty big demons of his own. He’s absolutely obsessed about his father’s murder. Give him a little more room.”
“Is there still some hope? Do I have any chance to have him respect me?” Lorna felt like a fool having to ask, but Panix had become impenetrable.
“Of course there is. But you’ll have to separate him from your father. Have you talked to him about how you feel?”
Lorna didn’t want to admit that she hadn’t. She merely shook her head, keeping her head down.
Moshin lifted her chin up, “Focus on your job for the next few days, then after your time in the factory is over, talk to him. Be assertive and let him know how you feel. I think you’ll find out that he isn’t like your father at all and he’s not lost to you.”
~
Tellus stood on the floater that held a shiny brass engine.
“What do you see?” Panix asked, standing on the ground. He knew what the answer was, but it was time to find out if Tellus could see the sabotage.
“The coil has been tampered with.”
“Can you see where?”
“I just can’t see it. The coil feels wrong.”
Panix stepped up on the floater. He looked at the coil and pointed. “Can you see a difference between these two points?” This reminded Panix of teaching new magicians at Baltac’s works ages ago. His life had been turned upside down in the last year. He felt different and this lesson for Tellus meant more to Panix than teaching anyone about his alloy.
“Yeah,” Tellus said. “I can see a difference in the sheen with my eyes and I can see a disturbance in the material. Is that where the material has been weakened?” Panix nodded.
“All right. Let’s look at the valve.”
Tellus took it in his hand and worked it. “It’s easy to feel how the valve is stuck.” He grasped the valve and twisted it to a spot on the valve body.
Tellus had the right spot. Panix felt a flush of relief. “Good job. Now how do we protect these from contamination?”
“How about a magical shield?” Tellus said.
“What kind are you thinking of?” Panix was encouraged by Tellus’s idea.
“Something that cancels out their magic. Like that air barrier you showed me at the mansion.”
Panix pressed his lips together. “Let me try it.” He concentrated. Opening his eyes he said, “Try to stick the valve again.”
Tellus grasped the valve. “You’ve done something here. The resistance is gone.” He opened his eyes. “That did it. Your magic is like honey on the valve.”
“Call it thick magic. Most magicians won’t be able to break through it. It doesn’t touch the brass. First I smoothed out the ‘disturbance’ as you called it, and then I laid a resistive coating of energy on the works. I put a layer of something that I thought of as air bearings on top, but thinking of it as honey will do.” Panix swayed and nearly fell off the float. “It takes a lot of my energy, but it will be easier to take a sledgehammer to the engine than work through that.”
“Let me rest a minute then let’s get these engines pro
tected and do it for the others.”
Panix showed Tellus how to put the protective coating on the machine. Panix, again, swayed after he performed his work. Tellus jumped off the float and helped Panix down.
“I see how you do that, but I never could have figured that out on my own.”
Panix initially wondered about Tellus, but now that he saw him in action, the boy had more than enough talent for his team, but more importantly, he brought a lot of enthusiasm.
“I need to rest for a few more minutes.” His question prompted thoughts of finding his father’s murderer. Panix shook his head. He had to find the answer if he was to put all of his attention to his new job.
~
Kevox Mirrok looked in the mirror, trimming his nose hairs with tiny scissors. He was tall and blond with a ramrod stiff back and a nervous disposition. He wasn’t a handsome man at all and his hair was in full retreat on his forehead; yet vanity ruled him and he didn’t suffer fools, at all. “I received a report from an informant that there were some strangers poking around the engine works yesterday. What do you know of it?”
Aston Gavid lay on Mirrok’s couch, looking at the ceiling. He had the brown hair and the large brown eyes of his mother. Where Corlee and Panix were thin, almost ascetic in their features, Aston body began soften up and take on some weight. “Some government group looking into the failures. I honestly don’t know what they’ll find. How could anyone suspect magical failures?”
“Oh, but they must. A couple of them went to one of the factories making tractors. They were observed touching a pressure coil and the valve assembly. Now why would they do that if they weren’t magicians? A normal engineer wouldn’t touch anything, they’d remove the parts.”
Aston sat up, alarmed. “But that isn’t possible. The police generally don’t use magicians in their work.”
“They did this time, Aston. I want your men to take care of any magicians poking around the engines. No failures or your political career is over.”
Aston growled. Why did his mother ever get him mixed up with these people? He’d even taken Rennis Gavid’s last name to get ahead politically and here he sat, depending on this Murgontian. Was the extra money worth it? He bit his lip and admitted it was. The pair had sailed through his stepfather’s legacy and then some. Politics only paid if you sold your soul, yet he’d done it often enough with nothing to show for it.
“Any luck finding this Sovad fellow?” Aston was desperate to change the subject.
“No. He lived in Korvanna about five years ago. I haven’t seen him in nearly that time, myself. One of the reasons for his success is that he looks so average unless you get up close and see the fire in his eyes.
“I don’t have any more time to waste on you. Vigilance, Gavid.” Kevox narrowed his eyes and said, “Keep an eye out for any new employees.” Kevox threw a packet of Korvannan currency in Aston’s lap. “Now get out.”
~~~
Chapter 31
“This won’t take long,” Panix said. He cooked breakfast for Harlan and anyone else who wanted some in the mansions huge kitchen. “I’m not sure Lorna’s going to find anything, but we can at least protect the engines going out. What happens to them after that is anybody’s guess. At the very least, I can train magicians to protect the engines and even throw in some protection from the elements. It will raise the costs of the engines, though.”
“Willa Crosend—” Moshin walked in from the conference room, opening up the message.
“Who?” Tellus said as he walked into the room.
“The head of the KII, that’s who,” Moshin continued after he perused the letter, “is putting together a list of unsolved situations for us to investigate, but it’s going to take some time. We might have a bit of a breather if we wrap this up quickly.”
“I know the unsolved situation I want solved,” Panix said as he tossed fried potatoes in a cast iron skillet. The potatoes sizzled in the pan, although it sat on a cold stove.
“Right after this,” Moshin said.
“Can you promise me that we can at least get started on my project? It was my condition to work on the team.” Panix felt that it would be easy for Willa to bury his group in make-work so he couldn’t have the time to find out who killed his Father. He didn’t trust the bureaucracy.
Lorna walked in and twirled around wearing a work dress and apron.
“Ready for the ball, eh?” Moshin said with a grin on his face.
Lorna pursed her mouth and then smiled. “I even have the right kind of shoes.” They all looked down at her feet. The shoes were thick-soled work boots.
Panix laughed. “Perfect. Just the thing our ladies wore back at the works. I can’t say we had a working woman as pretty as you.”
They all laughed at Panix’s remark, but he could see a light flicker in her eyes as he said it. Their relationship was something else that needed fixing.
“Your first day of work.” Tellus said. “Real work.”
Panix came to Lorna’s defense. “She worked a number of shifts for her father. Right on the production line when I first got to Pent with Merra.” His expression darkened at the memory of his now-dead wife. He blinked the thought away. “Breakfast is ready.” Panix started putting food on the table.
“Feel free to join us,” Moshin said. “Panix is quite a cook.”
“I know, I’ve had the pleasure before.” She sat down and ate quickly so she could get to work on time.
~
When Lorna exited the personnel office, the factory manager passed her in the hall. He hadn’t recognized her. Good, she thought. She reported to the maintenance supervisor who gave her a bucket containing a jug of solvent made by magicians and a pile of rags.
Lorna followed the supervisor to the assembly floor. “Start from the back and move forward. I don’t want to see a speck of tarnish on any of these parts.”
She did as instructed and began to wipe down the surfaces as they were assembled.
The first week passed and Lorna received the first pay packet of her life. The factory manager called her into his office.
“You’ve done well, Lorna. The supervisor says that your work is as good as it can be. Have you found anything?”
Lorna shook her head. “No and I haven’t heard anything about the sabotage, although I am learning much too much about your employees’ personal lives.” She smiled. “Can I work tonight?”
“It’s not normally done, but I’ll have the supervisor ask you to come in and give the two engines due out tomorrow a final rubdown.”
Lorna left the manager’s office and noticed three men looking her over as she passed them walking down the hall. They just looked and muttered and that disturbed her.
Just before she left for the day, the supervisor asked her to come back that evening and work. One of the three men she noticed before happened to be in earshot and seemed to be listening in. Lorna departed for her dinner break and took a carriage to the headquarters.
Harlan was the only one there, munching on a chicken leg. “There’s some left,” he said with his mouth full.
Lorna saw the half of a big chicken sitting on the table and sliced off some white meat. She buttered some bread and began to eat.
“Will Panix or Moshin be back soon?” She said as she began to eat.
“I don’t know. They are at KII headquarters talking to the head lady. Why?”
Lorna swallowed. “There are three men at the factory. I don’t like the looks of them. They know I’ll be there tonight. I’d like someone to check on me every so often.”
“I think we can arrange that,” Tellus said as he walked in and tore off the other leg. “This is something Sovad’s had me working on.” He held out a coin with a clip attached to the back. “Messaging coins open up a conduit from one to the other. Sovad wondered if that conduit remained open that perhaps we could hear what was said on the other side. So, I sat down with Panix and Sovad. We decided to solve the problem by creating an open pipe betw
een the messaging units. You wear this on your clothes and we can listen in on the other side. The sound is faint, but if we put the coin to our ear, we can hear what you’re doing.”
“This sounds like an invasion of my privacy,” Lorna said with half a smile.
“Just watch where you leave this and you’ll be private enough. We can set the pipe so the sound only goes one way from your side to us.”
Lorna took the coin and clipped it to her dress. She decided she needed to walk to the factory. It would make her a little late, but the activity might work out some of the anxiety she felt. She looked up into the deep blue of twilight and remembered that as a girl she thought that the stars were pinpricks in the dark fabric of the sky, letting their tiny light shine through. She wrapped her arms about her, as the temperature continued to drop.
She signed in, grabbed her bucket with cleaning supplies, and went to the testing floor to begin her work. This was the same room where the team had inspected the broken parts. She turned up the big gaslights. These all had large mirrored reflectors. Glass fronts were faceted to throw light out in different directions. The brass engines threw back the light, brightening up the place.
She got to work. An hour later three men walked into the room. They were the same men who looked at her suspiciously earlier in the day. Lorna’s heart beat a little faster, as she continued to rub harder on the metal. “Do you want me to leave so you can do your work? I can take an early break,” she said. She could hear the nervousness in her own voice.
“What are you doing here, tonight and in this specific room of the factory?” one of them said.
“I don’t know what you mean. The supervisor asked me to polish these up.” She stopped rubbing and jumped off the float that held the engine up. She moved towards the door.
One of the men grabbed her. “She isn’t a magician, but she is new, just like he said.”
“Of course I’m no magician. My parents are from Pent.” She struggled with the man. “Let me go. What are you doing here, anyway?”
