The first order of business was to secure the ships. I discussed it with Lisa. She was still providing food and berthing for the hydroponics crew, so I couldn't simply lock her down. I arranged for her to provide robot-controlled transportation between the ships for food and people, and made certain she understood that Ollie, Turlow and the hydroponics crew were the only locals permitted aboard, or, indeed permitted to enter the shuttle lander. Any local wandering from the few authorized areas were to be sleep-gassed and Ollie informed.
Lisa and I also worked out a series of orders for me to give to Ellie and even to Lisa herself. Since the special orders were accompanied by thumbprints, neither of the comps would be able to modify or disobey them.
I had been in space for almost three months, now, though robot-piloted shuttles were making regular flights with supplies and people. We'd ordered the specially-formulated nutrients for the hydroponics deck, and that alone had stimulated interest in hydroponics. Until then, hydroponics had been simply a laboratory curiosity. But once people learned that large-scale hydroponics was possible, research blossomed all over Haven.
President Runtz called me personally to request information on large-scale hydroponics. Due to its mountainous terrain and northern location, Cellia's farmlands were limited. Runtz had used information from his tablet to press research into terraced fields and something called "hothouses", but he thought large-scale hydroponics might help alleviate Cellia's permanent food shortage.
I had Ellie transmit the information to his tablet, of course, while also offering the same information to the representatives the others had appointed to deal with the new knowledge from space. It would not do to give information to one country that I didn't give to another. Of course, our supplier lost no time offering nutrient mix to all the nations, closely followed by all the other chemical companies on Haven.
At any rate, though there had been steady traffic between the International Zone and the ships, I hadn't been on-planet in months. Even my "assistants" seemed to have relaxed their vigilance somewhat. Oh I talked regularly with Heidi via our comm bracelets, whenever she was able to make certain she wasn't overheard. Heidi had her own frequency on the bracelets now, so I could be sure our conversations remained private. She had come up several times, to undergo hypnogogue training and VR weapons practice aboard Adventurer, so it was easy for her to arrange to bring me some Haven civilian clothing and make transportation arrangements without being conspicuous.
I went down on a robot-piloted workboat scheduled to pick up hydroponics supplies. There were several of the hydroponics crew on the workboat, going down for their weekly off-days. I was worried that I'd be recognized, but I was wearing a padded oversized shipsuit over my civilian clothes, and an apparatus called "eyeglasses". These are those strange things I'd first seen on two of my "assistants"; a prosthetic for those with vision problems. Large frames hooked over my ears and rested on my nose. The frames held shaped lenses made of real glass, which worried me. What if the glass shattered? I'd heard that glass did that. The frames of these "eyeglasses" were quite large and thick, and looked like plas, though Heidi assured me they were a natural substance, some sort of shell. The lenses were shaped to provide magnification. I understand that there are hundreds of possible magnifications available, depending on the patient's needs. Mine were simply clear glass.
Heidi had explained the reason for the "eyeglasses". It seems that few people really look at others' faces unless they spot a distinctive or unusual feature. If a person has a distinctive characteristic, say a scar, or facial hair, or eyeglasses, the vast majority of people will focus on the characteristic, and pay little attention to the face bearing it. It seemed she was right, but those damned eyeglasses were irritating. And they kept sliding down my nose.
I grabbed a seat in the back corner of the workboat and pretended to prepare to sleep. Since it was ship's 'night', I wasn't the only one curled up and ignoring everyone. It was also night at the International Zone, and the supply airship was preparing to lift. It had been waiting for the shuttle's passengers, to provide transportation to Cogan Town in New Home, the nearest town with both an airship port and a railroad station. We hurried toward the airship in a group and crowded aboard. Heidi was already in Cogan Town, waiting for me. She hadn't liked that, but I insisted that I would be safe in the shuttle and the Zone; that I needed her watching for nosies at the airship port.
As soon as we arrived, I headed for the 'fresher. Well, on Haven it's called a 'Rest Room' for some reason I couldn't figure out; I certainly didn't see anyone resting there. The 'Rest Room' contained a line of small stalls, each of which contained a ceramic appliance. I examined one of them. It featured what was apparently a seat, with a large hole in the middle. Beneath the seat was a puddle of water! To a spacer, it's always a jarring experience to see how free planet-dwellers are with water. In this case, it was even worse. It appeared that the water was simply held in a pipe. A pull handle released even more water from a reservoir above, which was used to simply wash the waste into pipes. No effort appeared to be made to salvage either the waste or the water. I shook my head in wonder.
But I had no time to analyze Haven's wasteful ways. I stripped off my shipsuit, depositing it in a waste disposal container near the exit. Well, at least they salvaged and recycled something! (Later, Heidi told me I was wrong. Apparently even the contents of the waste container were simply discarded in a place called 'the dump'. Incredible!)
Heidi was waiting for me outside the 'fresher … er … "rest room", with airship tickets to Cellia City, formerly Lenopolis.
I'd seen airships before, of course, but this was my first chance to examine one from the inside. My actual first ride in one was from the Zone to here; but I'd been playing a role and trying to be inconspicuous. Gawking about at everything would have been far too obvious. Besides, that was a cargo airship, with only about a dozen spindly seats lining the walls.
This one, though, was huge! It was much larger than even my largest workboat. But Heidi reminded me that most of what I was seeing was bags of hydrogen gas, used to create lift, in a framework of some light, flexible wood. Forward movement was created by four of those "propeller" things Jess had shown me. I'd have liked to examine those and the 'engines' that powered them, but we were herded into a boat-shaped hull slung beneath the massive gas bag.
The cabin was surprisingly comfortable, with a carpeted floor and well-padded seats. Since ours was a long-range flight, the seats were centered in fours and sixes around spindly tables with sheet-metal tops. The seat and table legs were made of thin cast metal, obviously to save weight. I had plenty of time to examine them closely. I was surprised when Heidi told me they were of cast iron. That gave me an idea, and I made a mental note to myself. There was even a small food-service area of sorts, with food and drink available for purchase. None of the food was hot, of course. One doesn't light fires in the presence of thousands of cubic meters of hydrogen! The hull was lined with windows, so I would be able to see those "propeller" things at work.
With everyone aboard, the engines began to roar louder and louder, and the "propellers" quickly spun up to near invisibility. The lift-off was gentle, but the loud, incessant roaring of the engines and the constant vibration quickly became irritating. We floated upward in a leisurely climb. It was very like using gravs, though with that loud, annoying roar overwhelming speech, and the vibration making things uncomfortable.
When we finally reached flight altitude, which I guessed to be about a thousand meters, we leveled off and the vibration and the roar of the engines finally subsided a bit. Finally, Heidi and I could discuss our plans. There was certainly plenty of time for it; the flight was to take almost twenty hours at the magnificent speed of 80 kilometers per hour.
But the long-haul flight was equipped for that, too. Along the cabin walls front and back were fabric cots folded up against the wall. For passengers able to afford it, these could be rented. They would be folded down and a fabric cu
rtain drawn for privacy. A light blanket was provided. Heidi was well acquainted with these amenities, and she had reserved a cot for each of us.
To my surprise, the incessant roar of the engines finally seemed to fade. Oh, when I thought about it, it was as loud as ever; but otherwise I was only dimly aware of it, and it proved possible to get a few hours' sleep.
I was awakened by the renewed roar of the engines as they powered us toward something called a "mooring mast"; a tall pole to which the nose of the airship was grappled. Men swarmed beneath us on the ground, pulling frantically on ropes which they then tied off to hand-cranked winches, slowly pulling the airship to ground. It was an interesting ride, but I couldn't help knowing that it had taken us over twenty hours to cover 1500 kilometers, a distance the gig could have covered in a bit over two hours. But this was my planet now, and I would have to get used to its much slower pace. I clamped down on my impatience. The temperature here was also about twenty degrees colder than at the International Zone.
Heidi hustled me through the airship port to one of the horse-drawn cabs near its entrance. Horses are common beasts of burden on low-tech planets throughout man-settled space. These seemed rather short, though wide and heavily-muscled. They each also had a horn protruding from their forehead, though most of these had apparently been sawn off on the cab horses. The reason seemed obvious.
I seemed to be sneezing a lot, and my eyes were watering from the ever-present pall of smoke blackening and partially obscuring everything. Still, I got to see quite a bit of Cellia City. As far as I could tell, the buildings were substantial and occasionally even decorative beneath their coat of grimy soot.
Heidi told the cabbie "The station," and we set off. The cab was sprung, unlike a lot of the freight wagons we passed, but the street was of closely-laid stones, and the ride was quite rough. Heidi caught me shivering, and had the cabbie stop at something called a "haberdashery". This turned out to be a clothing store, and Heidi bought us each a medium-weight coat. She told me they were made from an animal fur called "wool".
After about thirty minutes, we arrived. The train station was even smokier than the rest of the town, with half-a-dozen smoke-belching locomotives pulled up to various long docks while their lines of cars filled.
Breathing here was definitely a chore. Nearly all of the passengers, including me, held a handkerchief over their noses and mouths, and watery eyes and incessant coughing seemed to be the order of the day. Heidi guided me to a railroad carriage, though how she could tell it was the right one, I have no idea. It wasn't quite as bad inside the carriage. At least the closed windows kept most of the smoke and soot outside.
After what seemed an eternity, a harrowing screech was followed by an incredibly loud hissing sound, which was itself followed by equally loud chuff!s, and mercifully, we began moving. I looked at Heidi and chuckled. That beautiful face was dark with soot. She heard me and smiled. "Oh? Obviously you haven't seen your own face!" she began dabbing at her face while staring into a mirror. It helped, but I wondered if it wasn't a losing battle. Once clear of the station the smoke diminished somewhat, and continued to do so as we moved toward the edge of Cellia City. Still, whenever the wind blew from the wrong direction, another cloud of black smoke enveloped us.
We left Cellia City, and when we weren't buried in smoke clouds, the clean, crisp air was heavenly. About an hour later we began to slow as we passed a sign saying "Gorn Creek". We stopped in front of a small, simple station, and thankfully, we got off that misbegotten smoke monster. "Go clean up a bit," Heidi said with a smile. "Don't worry," she added, "We're almost there."
I had tried to use my handkerchief to keep most of the soot off my face, but as soon as I entered the "Rest Room" and saw my face in the mirror, I realized it had been wasted effort. I used the hand pump to pump a bucket of water, and began repairs. It was nearly fifteen minutes later that I decided I was nearly presentable. Aside from my sooty, smelly clothes, of course.
Heidi had done a better job of cleaning up than I had. She hailed a cab, evidently the only one in town, and said, "The old Arbed place." The cabbie just nodded and snapped his whip above his horse’s head. We left the village, or small town, and set off down a rutted dirt road. A short, ten-minute cab ride brought us to a rather dilapidated wood gate. No house was obvious, nor was the gate attached to a fence; it seemed to be simply a separator for fields that stretched to each side. We went through the gate and down an even smaller dirt road for about a kilometer before we came to a small, neat cottage set in the middle of a small grove of trees.
I opened my mouth to ask Heidi what was going on, but she shook her head and merely paid the cabbie, who immediately set off back to town.
Heidi took a large key from her bag, and opened the cottage's door. The cottage was fully furnished; I almost expected a plump farm wife in a print dress to come bustling out of the back. A woman would have called it "charming". I called it "homey".
I collapsed into a large chair upholstered with a pattern of large flowers with a sigh and a grin. "Finally!" I sighed. "Please tell me this is as far as we're going."
Heidi's smile was blinding, as usual. "All right," she agreed, "This is as far as we're going. At least for today."
At that last clause, I groaned. "Okay, you've been mysterious throughout this whole thing. Tell me about it."
The blinding smile flashed again. "Welcome to your hideout," she said. "This is your first refuge on Haven. The previous owners died while I was in Cellia City. I heard about it, and I had a trusted friend buy the place for me. Well, actually for you. You own it, all twenty hectares."
I looked around at the clean, neat little house. I smiled. "Really?" I said. "Did I get a good deal?"
She nodded. "You got a very good deal. The couple's only son owns the store in town. He wasn't interested in keeping a place 'way out here. There's a barn in very good repair, easily large enough to house one of your 'lifeboats'. Your nearest neighbor lives just over a kilometer away, which means you should be able to sneak in here at night in one of your landers, and he's already asked about leasing your fields, which means no one wondering why such good farmland is lying fallow.
"And, of course," she continued, "we're less than two hours from Cellia City. Oh!" she continued, "I almost forgot. You also have a steam carriage in a shed out back, in case you decide you'd rather drive to Gorn Creek or Cellia City. You couldn't keep a horse; you'd need someone to take care of it."
Chapter 10
I suppressed a shudder. "I hear those things blow up."
She grinned. "Not often. When it does happen it's usually because some fool wants to set a speed record, and drives his boiler pressure too high. Or someone is too lazy to maintain his carriage. At any rate, it's there, and I can show you how to drive it, if you'd like."
I waved it off. "Maybe later. Right now, I'm more interested in a hot shower, and an explanation from you of exactly why we're here."
The grin faded. "First, there's no such thing as a 'shower' here. Some of the five-star hotels in the capitol cities have them; but even there it usually amounts to a kid climbing a ladder and pouring hot water into a tank. You'll have to settle for a bath, and if you want one of those, you'll have to go out and cut some wood so I can light off the stove and heat a few buckets of water."
I felt my eyes widen and my jaw drop. Of course, I'd known that Haven had regressed. I guess I just didn't realize what that really meant on a day-to-day basis.
Heidi saw it, and nodded. "You see, Jerd," she said, "This is my world. Your world, the International Zone, with its constant electricity and hot showers and autochefs, well, that's the fantasy." It was the first time she ever called me "Jerd" instead of "Messer Carver" or "sire". I liked it.
"Oh, if you really wanted a shower," she continued, "I suppose you could rig up an overhead tank with a pump to get water up to it. But unless you want to cut the wood to light the stove to heat the water, it will be a cold shower. Getting a meal here doesn't mean
dialing something on the autochef in a few minutes. It means going out and killing a chicken, or buying some meat and vegetables, cutting some more wood, and being a good judge of cooking temperatures. In other words, a single good, big meal can take hours of hard work and preparation. My mother spent most of nearly every day in the kitchen. And often as not, she was the one cutting the wood.
"And there are no daily showers, or baths, for that matter. Mostly, we make do with a bucket of cold water and a washcloth, except perhaps once a week, when we can do the whole bathtub and hot water routine. You do have a bathtub, by the way; the previous owners were very up-to-date."
Her smile blossomed again. "Of course, you can get your hot meal and hot shower. Just wait until after dark, and have one of your landers sneak in on gravs. Then you can just lift out to orbit or even to the Zone and have all the comforts."
Actually, of course, I did no such thing. I had to know what Heidi had planned for me. I'd confided in her that I planned to become an entrepreneur, or maybe several entrepreneurs, and her only reply was "It's about time!" Then she had said she knew just what to do, and to let her handle it. Even on that incredibly boring airship flight, I hadn't been able to get her to go into detail, although we'd talked about various profit opportunities.
I do not recommend the bucket-and-washcloth routine. It's cold! And I still had to chop wood, so we'd have heat through the night. And we'd be getting up very early. The previous owners might have been very up-to-date, but they didn't have a telephone. So our only way to the train station was by foot or steam buggy; and it takes some time to get one of those things going.
I don't even want to discuss the "outhouse" in the back yard. Suffice it to say that terminal rest room was heaven compared to it.
Still, we did make our appointment. Heidi had set us up with a friend, a lawyer. Res Vont was, well, immature, I guess. He was the first man I ever met who had red hair. He attacked everything like a litiger attacking prey, and seemed to bubble with enthusiasm at the idea of building a "Hidden Empire", as he put it, and the chance to find legal ways to achieve illegal ends. He was going to create and register several corporations, real, and what he called 'dummy', so my name could be kept quiet. I'd read about it often, but this was the first time I actually saw a man rub his hands together in enthusiasm.
Stranded on Haven Page 20
