How firm a foundation s-5

by David Weber

  “According to the manifest, your ‘missing’ gunpowder came out of Magazine Six,” he said, looking up over the tops of his glasses. His color was a little better, but his expression remained drawn. “Assuming it’s a clerical error and the additional forty-five tons was never loaded, that’s where it should still be. I assume Baron Seamount would like me to go see whether or not it’s still there?”

  He managed a wan smile, and Mahndrayn chuckled.

  “Actually, I haven’t discussed it with the Baron yet,” he said. “To be honest, I’m almost certain it really is a simple error-we’d certainly only requested five tons, not fifty! -but I figured this was the sort of thing I should make sure about. And since I was going to be headed up this way, it seemed simplest to discuss it with you personally. Assuming it is an error, you’re the one in the best position to straighten it out. And on the off chance that it isn’t an error, that somebody’s playing clever-buggers with our powder shipments, the less attention we draw to it until we’ve figured out what’s going on, the better.”

  “Langhorne, Urvyn-you didn’t even mention this to Baron Seamount?” Sahlavahn took off his glasses and shook his head at his cousin. “If someone’s ‘playing clever-buggers’ with something like this, we need to get him and Baron Wave Thunder informed as quickly as possible! That’s a lot of gunpowder!”

  “I know. I just wanted to make sure it really was missing before I started running around screaming,” Mahndrayn said. “I mean, clerical error’s far and away the most likely answer, and I didn’t want the Baron- either of the Barons, now that I think about it-to think I was getting hysterical over nothing.”

  “Well, I suppose I can understand that.”

  Sahlavahn closed the ledger and stood, resting one hand on its cover for a moment while he frowned down at it, his eyes anxious. His face remained pale and drawn, and he seemed to be thinking hard, Mahndrayn noticed, and it was hard to blame him. As he’d said, forty-five tons was a lot of gunpowder-enough for almost ten thousand full-charge shots from a long thirty-pounder-and the notion that he might have lost track of that much explosives had to be a sobering reflection. Then the captain drew a deep breath and crossed the office to take his swordbelt from the wall rack. He buckled it and settled it methodically into place, took down his hat from the same rack, and turned to his cousin.

  “Come on. The simplest way to see whether it’s there or not is to go take a look. Care for a walk?”

  ***

  “Stop,” Captain Sahlavahn said as he and Mahndrayn reached a heavily timbered, locked door set into a grassy hillside.

  A small, green-painted storage shed stood beside the door, and the captain opened its door.

  “Here.” He took a pair of felt slippers from a pigeonholed shelf with two dozen compartments and handed them across. “These should fit, if I remember your boot size. Speaking of which-boots, I mean-they get left here.”

  He pointed into the shed, and Mahndrayn nodded. Both of them removed their Navy boots, setting them under the shelving, then pulled on the slippers. Despite every precaution, the possibility of loose grains of powder on the magazine floor was very real, and a spark from an iron shoe nail or even the friction between a leather sole and the floor could have unpleasant consequences.

  Sahlavahn waited until Mahndrayn had his slippers on, then unlocked the magazine door.

  “Follow me,” he said, and led the way into a brick-walled passageway.

  There was another heavy, locked door at its end, and a lighter door set into the passageway’s side. Sahlavahn opened the unlocked door into a long, narrow room. Its right wall, the one paralleling the surface of the hillside into which the magazine had been built, was solid brick, but its left wall was a series of barred glass windows, and a half-dozen large lanterns hung from hooks in its ceiling. Sahlavahn drew one of the new Shan-wei’s candles from his pocket, struck it on the brick wall, and lit two of the lanterns from its sputtering, hissing flame.

  “That should be enough for now,” he said. He waved out the Shan-wei’s candle, moistened his fingertips and pinched them together on the spent stem to be sure it was fully extinguished, then stepped back out into the passageway and closed the side door behind him.

  He made sure it was securely shut before he unlocked the inner door, and Mahndrayn heartily approved of his caution. The last thing anyone wanted inside a powder magazine was a live flame, which was the reason for the lantern room; the light spilling through its carefully sealed windows would provide them with illumination without actually carrying a lamp into the magazine itself. At the same time, the possibility of powder dust drifting out of the opened magazine and into the lantern room was something to be avoided. It was far less likely to happen now than it would have been just three or four years ago, of course. The new grained powder didn’t separate into its constituent ingredients the way the old-fashioned meal powder had, which meant it didn’t produce the explosive fog powder shipments had all too often trailed behind them. But as someone who worked regularly with explosives, Mahndrayn was in favor of taking every possible precaution where this much gunpowder was concerned.

  Sahlavahn opened the inner door-this one fitted with felted gaskets-and the two of them entered the magazine proper. Barrels of powder were stacked neatly, separated by convenient avenues to facilitate handling them with all the caution they deserved. It was cool and dry, just the way it was supposed to be, and Mahndrayn stood for a moment, allowing his eyes to adjust fully to the relatively dim illumination coming from the lantern room.

  “It looks pretty nearly full,” he said. “How are we going to tell if-?”

  His voice cut off abruptly as the point of his cousin’s sword drove into the back of his neck, severing his spinal cord and killing him almost instantly.

  ***

  “Captain Sahlavahn!” the shift supervisor said in surprise. “I didn’t expect you this afternoon, Sir!”

  “I know.” The captain looked a little distracted-possibly even a little pale-the supervisor thought, but he spoke with his usual courtesy. “I just thought I’d drop by.” The supervisor’s expression must have given him away, because Sahlavahn shook his head with a chuckle which might have sounded just a bit forced if someone had been listening for it. “Not because I think anything’s wrong! I just like to look things over once in a while.”

  “Of course, Sir. Let me-oh, I see you already have slippers.”

  “Yes.” Sahlavahn looked down at the felt slippers on his feet. They were a little dirty and tattered-looking, the supervisor thought. “I thought it would be simpler to leave my boots in my office, since I had these lying around in one of my desk drawers,” the captain explained, and the supervisor nodded.

  “Of course, Sir. Do you want an escort?”

  “I believe I’m adequately familiar with the facility,” Sahlavahn said dryly.

  “Of course! I didn’t mean-”

  “Don’t worry about it, Lieutenant.” Sahlavahn patted him lightly on the arm. “I didn’t think you did.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  The supervisor stood respectfully to escort Sahlavahn out of his office. He accompanied the captain into the anteroom and waited until Sahlavahn had left, then turned to one of his clerks. Like everyone who worked in the powder mill proper, the clerk was already in slippers, and the supervisor twitched his head after the vanished captain.

  “Quick, Pahrkyr! Nip around the side and warn Lieutenant Mahrstahn Captain Sahlavahn’s on his way!”

  “Yes, Sir!”

  The clerk dashed out of the anteroom, and the supervisor returned to his own office wondering what bee had gotten into the Old Man’s bonnet. It wasn’t like the perpetually efficient, always well-organized Captain Sahlavahn to just drop by this way.

  The supervisor was just settling into his chair once again when he, his clerks, Captain Sahlavahn, and the one hundred and three other men currently working in Powder Mill #3 all died in a monstrous blast of fire and fury. A chain of explosio
ns rolled through the powder mill like Langhorne’s own Rakurai, rattling every window in Hairatha. Debris vomited into the sky, much of it on fire, trailing smoke in obscenely graceful arcs as it soared outward, then came crashing down in fresh fire and ruin. It shattered barracks and administrative buildings like an artillery bombardment, setting more fires, maiming and killing. Voices screamed and stunned men wheeled towards the disaster in disbelief. Then alarm bells began a frenzied clangor and the men who’d frozen in shock ran frantically into the fire and chaos and the devastation looking for lives to save.

  Eleven minutes later magazines Six, Seven, and Eight exploded, as well.

  ***

  “It’s not looking any better, is it?” Cayleb Ahrmahk’s voice was flat and hard, and Prince Nahrmahn shook his head.

  The two of them sat in a private sitting room located off the room which had been Cayleb’s grandfather’s library. That library-added to generously by King Haarahld-had long since outgrown the chamber and been moved to larger quarters, and Cayleb had had the old library converted into a working office near the imperial suite. Now he and Nahrmahn sat looking out the windows which faced north, out across the waterfront and the blue expanse of Howell Bay in the general direction of Big Tirian Island. They didn’t actually see the bay, however. Big Tirian was almost six hundred miles from where they sat, but both of them were gazing at the imagery relayed from Owl’s SNARCs.

  “I don’t think it is going to look any better,” Nahrmahn said quietly, looking at the shattered, smoking hole and the demolished buildings around it which had been one of the Empire’s largest and most important powder mills, and shook his head sadly. “I think all we can do is bury the dead and rebuild from scratch.”

  “I know.” It was obvious the financial cost of rebuilding was the least of Cayleb’s concerns at this moment. “I just-” He shook his own head, the movement choppier and angrier than Nahrmahn’s headshake had been. “We’ve been so lucky about avoiding this kind of accident. I just can’t believe we’ve let something like this happen.”

  “We didn’t,” Nahrmahn said, and Cayleb looked at him sharply as he heard the iron in the Emeraldian prince’s voice.

  “What do you mean?” the emperor asked sharply.

  “I mean this didn’t just ‘happen,’ Your Majesty. And it wasn’t an accident, either.” Nahrmahn met his gaze, his normally mild brown eyes hard. “It was deliberate. An act of sabotage.”

  “You’re not serious!”

  “Indeed I am, Your Majesty.” Nahrmahn’s voice was grim. “We may never be able to prove it, but I’m positive in my own mind.”

  Cayleb pushed back in his armchair and regarded his imperial councilor for intelligence narrowly. No one else in Tellesberg, aside from the other members of the ‘inner circle,’ knew anything about the disaster at Hairatha, and no one would until sometime the next day. That rather restricted the number of people with whom they could discuss it, but Maikel Staynair, his younger brother, Ehdwyrd Howsmyn, and Bynzhamyn Raice were all listening in over their coms.

  “Bynzhamyn?” the emperor said now.

  “I’m not certain, Your Majesty,” Baron Wave Thunder replied. “I think I see what Prince Nahrmahn is getting at, though.”

  “Which is?” Cayleb prompted.

  “It’s the delay in the magazine explosions, isn’t it, Your Highness?” Wave Thunder said by way of reply.

  “That’s exactly what I’m thinking about,” Nahrmahn agreed grimly. He looked at Cayleb. “Nobody, not even Owl, was watching when this happened. Perhaps that’s an oversight we’d like to rectify in the future, although I realize we’re already taxing even his capabilities with the number of SNARCs we’ve got deployed. Because we weren’t watching, we’ll never be able to reconstruct the events leading up to it-not accurately, and not anything like completely. But there was a significant delay between the main explosion in the powder mill itself and the explosions in the magazines. I’m no expert on the way powder’s handled and stored in the mills or what their standard safety measures may be, but I’d be surprised if it was easy for an explosion in one magazine to touch off an explosion in another one. And if that’s true, it should certainly have been difficult for an explosion in the mill to cause any of the magazines to explode, far less three of them. Yet that’s exactly what happened, and it didn’t happen simultaneously, which is what I would have expected if it had been a sympathetic detonation. And all of that suggests to me that the explosions were deliberately arranged with some sort of timer.”

  “Owl?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty?” the distant AI said politely.

  “I know you weren’t watching Big Tirian or Hairatha, but did any of your SNARCs pick up the explosions, and if so, how close together did they come?”

  “In answer to your first question, Your Majesty, yes, the com relay above The Cauldron did detect the explosions. In answer to your second question, the powder production facility itself was destroyed by seven distinct explosions occurring over a period of approximately eleven seconds. Each magazine was destroyed by a single primary explosion followed by a chain of secondary detonations. The first magazine was destroyed approximately eleven minutes and seventeen seconds after the first detonation in the powder production facility. The second magazine was destroyed thirty-seven seconds after that. The third was destroyed three minutes and nine seconds after the second one.”

  Cayleb and Nahrmahn looked at one another and Domynyk Staynair swore softly over the com.

  “I think Nahrmahn’s right, Your Majesty,” Howsmyn said quietly. “It had to be some kind of timing mechanism, at least in the magazines. I don’t know what kind of timer-it could have been something as simple as a lit candle shoved into a powder cask and allowed to burn down-but I think that’s the only explanation for how they could have come that long after the main explosion but still have been sequenced that closely.”

  “Damn.” Cayleb shoved up out of his chair and crossed to the window, folding his arms across his chest while he stared out towards the invisible island and the pall of smoke still hanging above it. “How did they get in?”

  “We’ll probably never know, Your Majesty,” Nahrmahn told him heavily. “Obviously, our security measures weren’t stringent enough after all, though.”

  “I don’t see how we could make them much tighter, Your Highness,” Wave Thunder objected. “We’ve always recognized the powder mills would be a priority target for any Temple Loyalist intent on seriously damaging us. We’ve got round-the-clock Marine sentries on the gates and every building, and the magazines themselves are kept locked except when powder’s actually being transferred. Keys to the locks are held only by the mill’s commanding officer and the current officer of the watch. When powder transfers are ordered, they’re always overseen by a commissioned officer with a Marine security and safety detachment, and additional keys have to be signed out individually by that officer, who’s also responsible for their return. And when any of the magazines are opened for transfers, we have sentries on all the other magazines, as well. Beyond that, nobody’s allowed into the facility unless he actually works there or has clear, verified authorization for his visit. Any visitor’s accompanied at all times by someone assigned to the mill, and regular and random patrols sweep the perimeter fence.”

  “My comment wasn’t a criticism, Bynzhamyn,” Nahrmahn said, “simply an observation. Whether we can make them tighter or not, they obviously weren’t sufficiently tight to prevent what just happened. I do think it would be a good idea to assign at least a couple of remotes to each of our remaining powder mills, though. We might not’ve been able to do anything quickly enough to prevent what happened at Hairatha even if Owl had been watching and realized something was amiss before the explosions, but at least we’d be in a much better position after the fact to figure out what actually did happen and who was responsible for it. And that might put us in a better position to keep it from happening again.”

  “You think it’s part o
f an organized operation?” Cayleb asked. “That they may attempt to blow up our other powder mills, as well?”

  “I don’t know.” Nahrmahn shook his head, eyes intent as he considered the question. “All it would really take would be one truly convinced Temple Loyalist in the wrong place. For all we know, that’s what happened here-the fact that some sort of timer was used may indicate we’re looking at the work of a single individual or a small number of individuals. Or it may not indicate anything of the sort; perhaps it was a larger group that used timers for all four of the primary explosions so its members could get out again. If it was a larger group, that would seem to up the chances of additional, similar attempts. We just don’t know. But I don’t see where keeping a closer eye on the remaining mills could hurt anything, and it might just help quite a lot.”

  “Agreed.” Cayleb nodded. “Owl, please implement Prince Nahrmahn’s suggestion and assign sufficient remotes to keep all of our remaining powder mills under observation.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “Thank you,” Cayleb said, and Howsmyn sighed heavily over the link.

  “What is it, Ehdwyrd?”

  “I was just thinking that, terrible as this is from every perspective, it gets even worse when I think about Urvyn’s having walked into the middle of it, Your Majesty,” the ironmaster said heavily. “It’s going to devastate Ahlfryd when he finds out. For that matter, it’s hitting me damned hard. But that’s from a purely personal, selfish viewpoint. We needed him, needed him pushing the envelope and constantly coming up with new ideas, like that breech-loading rifle of his.”

  “I know,” Cayleb sighed. “I know.” He shook his head. “And speaking of personal viewpoints, think about his family. They didn’t lose just him, but his cousin, too.” He shook his head again, his expression hard. “I want the people responsible for planning this. I want them badly.”