by Holly Barbo
“I think I saved your building for tonight, at least. I’m known as being a fair man,” he glanced over his shoulder at M’nacht, “who is employed by a respected man of the people. You’ve helped many people over the years and have never played the games some of the wealthy have, which has brought on much of this hardship. The crowd out there is frustrated that no one is listening. They’ve gone through the peaceful routes to be heard: written letters, offered to testify or at least meet their representative to the Council of Elders to discuss the worsening situation.” He gestured at the crowd moving down the street as the steam car pulled out of the alley and turned the other direction. “They aren’t a mob yet, but could be within an hour. It’s that close. Theo’s son was badly burned at the steam plant. He died this morning. Three of the young people lost their father to the illness. Their mother died last winter. They’ve been working two shifts each to pay the doctors and the debt to the bank. Yesterday, a sign was nailed to their door that their home will be sold. There are similar stories throughout that restless group. The hope is gone! They’re frustrated and angry and don’t feel there is anything more to lose. They’re not mad at you. They didn’t know this building was yours. It was simply a convenient target off the square. They’re moving deeper into the Four Corners now. May the Goddess help us all when their restraint breaks… and it will. It will be a firestorm.”
The steam car hissed and chuffed its way through the outskirts of Therad and into the factory district. Buildings were looking a little seedy and rough, with the exception of a few mercantile outlets for the manufacturers. Without warning, broken glass sprayed out into the street and pinged against the car’s chassis. With a roar, one company store belonging to the textile factory burst into flames. In a few minutes, the area would be crawling with the fire teams, security forces and potentially hundreds of curious citizens. This was the last place to be for two men in hiding for their own protection! Jordan swore and opened the throttle on the steam car, causing it to shoot through the intersection. M’nacht and Quin looked through the back window at the scene. Shadowed figures were silhouetted against the firelight as people darted into the broken windows only to emerge with their arms full and dash away into the night. Alarm bells clanged in the distance as the fire was spotted and the steam-powered mill’s whistles picked up the clamor. Just as Jordan steered the steam car around the final corner and out of sight, Quin saw a shadowed shape grab a burning stick and throw it into another building.
As Jordan drove away from the aether lamps of the city, he relayed the information he’d received about the financial syndicate policies. “This may be just the start of the violence,” he said with a grim tone. “With those alarms audible for miles and the fire lighting up the night sky, the crowd in the Four Corners and other areas may take advantage of the distraction and start some of their own.”
M’nacht shook his head. “What you told me about the financial policies… those were not decisions of the board, but it does explain much of what I’ve seen and corroborates other information you’ve given me. All of this could have been prevented. It wasn’t necessary. All for the focus of compiling wealth.” He ruminated in silence for several miles.
Jordan stopped at a house and went inside. When he came back, he had several large bags of food that he packed around his passengers’ feet. He slid behind the wheel and, easing the release of steam pressure, put the car in gear. They traveled for hours into remote areas where the road was just an overgrown track.
At last they saw the dark shape of a low domed building emerging from the horizon. M’nacht had been fitfully dozing, but awakened when the rhythm of the steam car altered. Jordan drove the vehicle under the branches of a large tree.
“I don’t think there are any dirigibles that fly in this area, but it serves to be cautious. I assume you know the code to open the door.”
M’nacht nodded and eased himself onto his feet. Quin and Jordan kept an eye on him as he made his way to the door. The wind was kicking up, and they could see a squall line blowing in from the ocean. They were going to get drenched if the lock code had been changed.
With complete confidence, M’nacht selected the numbered cubes and dropped them into the slots. The latch clicked and Jordan stepped forward to turn the wheel and pull open the door against the force of the wind.
Racing the storm, the two agile men emptied the steam car of their bundled belongings and bags of supplies. The driving rain pelted them as they made their last trip and secured the door behind them. Quin turned up the aether lamps as he tightly shuttered the windows and found a chair for M’nacht.
As the injured man settled, he idly watched as Quin and Jordan began dealing with the unloaded cargo. “There is a kitchen down that way,” he pointed, “and a bed connected through the office in there. Though my legs weren’t injured, I don’t know if I want to tackle going up and down the spiral staircase with my healing arm, shoulder and rib injuries.” His smile was rueful as he looked at his right side swathed in bandages. “I’ll take that bed. There are other sleeping quarters below. I don’t think anyone else will come here as it is the storm season for this part of the coast, but if it would make you feel better, the latch wheel can be locked from the inside with that bar in the corner.”
Quin nodded and disappeared into the kitchen.
Jordan, having moved all of the food bags down the hall, began sorting out the rest of the baggage.
“Wait a minute! Bring that scuffed leather backpack here!” M’nacht abruptly said.
Jordan’s hand stilled in his task at the tone in the injured man’s voice and he laid down what he was holding. He picked up the bag indicated and placed it on M’nacht’s lap.
With fingers that quivered in hopeful excitement, the old man opened the flap and examined the contents. Looking up into Jordan’s concerned face, he grinned. “Help me stand.”
Once on his feet, he turned to the office doorway, the strap to the leather pack clutched in his left hand. Jordan followed, unsure what was going on but not wanting anything to happen to the great man.
M’nacht walked through the office to the balcony overlooking the observatory floor below. He paused as he scanned the lower space, then, with care for his hurt ribs, filled his lungs and called, “Kes, my boy! Come up and say hello! Didn’t Quin and I teach you to not leave your backpack just lying around?”
Sickening Results
Mitch arrived back at his office two days before the holiday. He promptly went to the science lab and, locking the door behind him, turned to his top technicians. “I need you to run a series of tests. We have worked on some secret stuff in the last couple of months. The medicines we’ve developed are phenomenal. Somehow, we will get them approved. This is secret in a different way. I’ve run some preliminary tests with my mobile lab. I need a complete work up, and it has to be quick. I need a breakdown of the chemical analysis and your best educated guess to the ramifications of this being in our water supply. Lock away your results in our secure vault and talk to no one about it. Give me your report as soon as you have it.”
The technicians nodded and put everything else aside. They knew that Mitch was doing all he could for the medicinal compounds they had developed. The loyalty went both ways. They would do whatever they could to help him, too.
The next morning, the head researcher walked into Mitch’s office and, as the department head had done the day before, closed and locked the door behind her. Twenty minutes later, the door opened and the solemn woman left, her lab coat billowing as she returned to her domain.
It was with a grim face that Mitch signed out of the office and walked down the street. As he traveled the brief distance to Dylan’s office, he studied the people protesting and those in the queue at the company outlets. The riot of a few nights before hadn’t defused the situation at all. To the contrary, there seemed to be more idle citizens milling about. Many had the threadbare vests or corsets of their trade; some with little bots sticking out of th
eir pockets. Scruffy top hats or newsy caps, frayed arm garters and gloves abounded. There was a worried or sullen expression on many features, and a few looked ill, with pale, sweaty faces and red-rimmed eyes. Mitch could feel the tension in the air, and his lips thinned with his sour thoughts.
The Petal Day holiday was tomorrow. All over Myrn, the people were gathering for the traditional day to honor those passed and to celebrate life on the little moon. Beaches were groomed. Boats would go out and citizens would scatter petals upon the ocean waves as a tribute to the creation legend and the Goddess Navora. Family heritage alcoves would be polished, and the navorites would be festooned with the fragrant and delicate pale gold shara garlands and rhamats. Feasts were planned for late afternoon, and as soon as it got dark there would be fireworks that would last for hours. As children dropped off to sleep in exhaustion, the adults would visit far into the night. It was a time to get caught up on the news, to evaluate the events of the previous year and plan for the next.
The holiday had something for everybody. Several of the wealthy syndicate families, who did business together, would take the holiday as an opportunity to have a “family only” board meeting to discuss projects. It allowed them to organize how they planned their corporations to grow and to map out the direction they wanted non-family board members to vote on for key motions.
Mitch took one last look at the people on the street. He wasn’t a betting man, but if he were, he’d wager a year’s salary that these folks milling around would not be celebrating the holiday at all. He shook his head and opened the door to the building that housed M’nacht’s research team. As he strode into Dylan’s domain, Mitch could see the activity at the desks had picked up and assumed the researchers wanted to get home early so they could prepare for the festivities.
Dylan saw him approaching the office door and waved him in as he stepped out to the desks of his research team and gathered a few papers from each one before returning. Once the door was closed and secured, he sat down and studied the scientist. His voice was low when he spoke. “You don’t look so good. What did you learn?”
“I took the equipment to the Okamak and was unloading it and swimming it down to the habitat when a dirigible flew over.”
Dylan nodded. “The designer water project. Kes told M’nacht about it and he thought it peculiar. We’ve been trying to track down that project but haven’t any luck.”
“You won’t, either. They aren’t siphoning water from the Okamak. They’re dumping there. I was in the shadow of the keel as I had just come up from the habitat. They came into the caldera with full bladders and left with them empty. They might have seen my boat, but it was attached to the habitat’s buoy and I wasn’t aboard. Everyone knows we have an underwater research station there.”
“What? Dumping? What was put into the water?” Dylan had turned pale as the possible scenarios whirled in his thoughts.
“That’s what I wanted to know. So when the airship’s engines could no longer be heard, I motored in the direction they went. I started picking up a smell and went to where it was strongest. I scooped up a bunch of samples from the surface. I wasn’t sure I wanted to dive into the water. If I had checked that spot twelve hours later, I wouldn’t have been able to tell where they had dumped. The current is that strong in the caldera and they timed the dump for when the tide was set to change so the stuff would mix and start to flush into the ocean. I took the samples back to the habitat and ran some preliminary tests. Kes had seen some anomalies but hadn’t the proper equipment to get results. I had come prepared, and even my equipment couldn’t completely do the job. It was enough though.
“Yesterday, I brought the samples to my lab team before I even stopped home to clean up. They’ve been working overtime getting the results to me. The chemicals are not natural in their combination. We’re looking at a designer pathogen. It’s what caused the mutations and malformations that Kes saw. This polluting stuff has been making its way into our drinking water and food chain. I suspect that it’s the source of the illness that is beginning to affect our people. My team guessed some individuals would react with greater sensitivity, depending upon the predisposed inherent weaknesses of the person ingesting it. Then you have how much and what strength of the contaminant, and you’ve just set up a range of symptoms. As far as my lab people can tell, malnutrition and a weakened immune system can make the individual more susceptible and symptoms more severe. And speaking of symptoms, as far as we can ascertain, this chemical cocktail would affect the respiratory system and produce a fever. Because it’s a foreign substance in the body, it might attack the kidneys as well.”
Dylan sat stunned for several seconds. When he spoke, it was barely above a whisper. “This is crazy! Why would anyone do this?”
Mitch closed his eyes and shook his head. “I don’t know. The best that I can come up with is that they are trying to dispose of toxic waste and figure it would dilute in the water where the currents are extremely active, which is the case in the Okamak. The other point to dumping there is that the currents are so dangerous that it isn’t a place where there are a lot of visitors. No one would see them. The problem with thinking that it’s just a disposal site is that this dumping has been going on for some time. If it were a one-time mistake that they are trying to get rid of, it could have been handled in probably one dump.
“Those bladders are huge. My guess is there was a team of engineers specially designing both the dirigible and the bladders to compensate for maximum cargo weight. It was riding low when it came in full, and the engines were straining.”
Dylan held up his hand in excitement. “What were the markings on the bladders or airship? All need to be registered to fly!” His enthusiasm wilted as he studied the scientist’s face. “It didn’t have any company name of registration numbers, did it?”
Mitch shook his head. “The thing was black and unmarked.”
Dylan ran his hands through his bushy hair as if he could pull answers out of his brain. “Everybody will sicken. No one is immune. Not the chemical makers, the dirigible flyers or any of us! This is madness! We need to report it!”
Mitch’s bleak expression didn’t change. “Who do we report it to, with the newspapers printing articles everyday about the scientific community hyping up imaginary situations so we can get more funding? I don’t know where they are getting these baseless stories, but it means anything we say will not be believed. Even if it is the truth, our credibility is shot.”
“Well, we could tell…” Dylan’s eyes met those of the scientist and the hope dissolved out of his expression. “Oh, right. There is the other part of this that M’nacht was having us looking into. We don’t know who hasn’t been bought off, and if we chose wrong, all of us could meet with lethal accidents. M’nacht was trying to learn which members of the Council and the newspapers had received money and favors, and from whom. It’s okay to donate, but he was concerned that if a big amount was from one entity it could be influencing what the Council does or what the newspapers print. That information has been very difficult to track down. Oh, we know the amounts of the contributions. That’s public record, but finding out who gave the amounts is tougher, as they are buried in a maze of tax shelters and subsidiary holdings. Say the contribution was given by a company that has inconsequential influence, but if you can dig deep enough you’ll find that it is owned by another company that has just been purchased by a third company. When you look into the ownership of the third company, you’d find that it owed a lot of money to a bigger company and some of that debt was forgiven when the contribution was made.” He shook his head. “But it didn’t stop there. That bigger company was recently taken over by the younger son of one of our powerful family empires and who was on the board of the head company. That’s six degrees of separation between who instigated the contribution and who actually gave it. By looking at each donation and painstakingly tracing it back, we are getting a picture of influence buying that isn’t healthy.”
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nbsp; Dylan sat back in his chair and rubbed his tired eyes. “We haven’t been able to trace all of the contributions, but of the ones we have, it looks like seventy-two percent of all of the money is coming from five benefactors.”
He got up and started to pace. “So what do we do? Even if we notify the doctors of the contagion chemical, we’ve exposed our information, and our staff and families are in danger.”
Mitch shook his head. “I could say to risk it for the good of the people of Myrn, but I’m not sure it would do any good. I fear this is just part of the picture, and there is more we don’t see. What I’ve done, though, is to have my lab people start working with the samples I brought back. Perhaps they will get lucky and come up with a neutralizing compound or maybe an antidote.”
The scientist got up as if he’d aged twenty years in the last half hour. “I’m worried about Kes and M’nacht. I’d feel a whole lot better if I knew they were safe.”
Petals on the Water
For the families of the Chemedco Corporation, this year the festivities were being held on a bluff overlooking the Western Bay, near Therad. It was Dan’l’s family home. The mansion had a breathtaking view of the bay and the ocean beyond, so the petal boat flotillas could be admired and enjoyed. Each watercraft was decorated with buntings and garlands in the gold, orange, rust and deep turquoise colors of the Goddess and Myrn. At night, candles were floated on the water, symbolizing the life and light of their world. Family members brought their telescopes to set up on the edges of the extensive lawns. That way they wouldn’t miss any of the beautiful ceremony with the colorfully festooned boats. The children of the extended family had converged to play on the upper lawns until it was time to eat and later watch the fireworks. The squeals and laughter could be heard in the study as the family corporation board met.
