Heavier Than a Mountain (Destiny's Crucible Book 3)

by Olan Thorensen

  After evening meal, Rabia sent the two children, son Morzak and daughter Lufta, to their rooms to finish their studies before an hour of family time. Rabia also dismissed their serving girl, so she could speak openly with her husband.

  “How did the civilian administrators receive the change in focus, Okan? I assume they must have known some of this was coming and Tuzere had prepared them,” said Rabia.

  “Well enough,” he replied. “While you’re right that they must have suspected some of it, the scope shocked a few of them. I tried to reassure them that many of the measures were only to provide for unlikely eventualities. I think most of them believed me.”

  “Do you believe you?” probed Rabia. She knew her husband.

  “I want to. By Great Narth, I want to. Still . . . some instinct is jabbing me in the spine that we’ve accidently stirred a greater morthan’s nest.” The Narthani admired the beautiful Anyarian insect-like flying creature for its iridescent mating swarms and feared its mass stingings whenever anyone disturbed a normally docile nest.

  “Do you really think the clans would unite enough to attack us here? It seems so impossible, given everything I’ve heard you say since we came to Caedellium.”

  “Logically, the answer is no. However, logically, they should not have turned Zulfa back at Moreland City. That result can only have emboldened them. Enough to unite and come after us directly? I doubt it, unless another factor comes into play.”

  “Like what?”

  “I suspect many of the clans are content to think we’re confined to these three provinces, and as long as we stay here, they’ll be willing to let us be, especially the clans farthest away. But what if the High Command sends twenty or thirty thousand reinforcements? Any delusion the islanders had about our intentions would disappear, and they might feel they had no choice but to launch an all-out attack. In that case, we would see thirty to forty thousand of our troops engaged against fifty thousand islanders fighting to the death. What might happen? We would likely prevail, but who knows?”

  Rabia reached across the table and laid a hand over her husband’s, neither of them saying anything for several minutes before she spoke again.

  “I met with several officers’ wives today. We had mid-day meal and several bottles of wine. They probed whether I had any insight into what was happening and if they should be worried. I tried to be encouraging, but was I right? Could we be in serious danger?”

  “My professional side says no. Another part of me is not so sure. I’ve been thinking of something I’d like you to take on for me. It needs to be only between the two of us for now, since I hesitate to bring it up with Tuzere and Hizer. There are questions I’d like you to think about. What if we had to get as many children off Caedellium as fast as possible? If not in an emergency, what about gradually moving families back to Narthon? What would such moves do to military and civilian morale? There’s no timetable for this. Just consider it, and we can talk when you want.”

  For the first time, Rabia fully understood how serious her husband considered the recent events.

  CHAPTER 8: THUNDERSTRUCK

  Abersford

  Yozef had doled out to Diera the medical knowledge he thought the culture could handle, although he constantly agonized over what he had transferred and what he could already have given the Caedelli and all of the peoples of Anyar. Unfortunately, if he pushed too hard, he had no way to predict the consequences. Even after he’d established his current position and reputation, he still feared pushing too hard could lead to total rejection or his demonization.

  There was also practicality. He had no reason to attempt to introduce knowledge that people couldn’t utilize. That didn’t mean he ignored new possibilities, such as one triggered by a comment of Hulyun Linwyr, the Gwillamese trader who had helped Yozef start kerosene production and had taken over operations as a partner, becoming wealthy in his own right.

  Yozef had only casually listened until Linwyr said, “Too bad Watmer lost his arm at Moreland City. I hate losing one of my better drivers.”

  It took several moments for the comment to edge into Yozef’s consciousness. Vynin Watmer, an Abersford man, drove tanker wagons filled with crude oil from the seeps in the Gwillamer Province border to the kerosene distillation facility growing ever larger near Abersford. Watmer was also one of the swivel gun crewmen who had suffered a wound at the battle.

  Linwyr had continued talking, though about what, Yozef had no idea.

  “Watmer,” said Yozef, interrupting Linwyr. “He lost his arm? I saw him at Moreland City and then when we arrived back in Abersford. His arm was bandaged, but he acted like it wasn’t that serious.”

  “It didn’t seem to be, but it festered, and the medicants couldn’t save the arm. Now, he can’t drive a wagon anymore. The Keelan Clan is providing some coin to the men whose injuries stop them from their previous trade, but he makes less coin than when he worked for me. I’m trying to find him some other task he can do, so if you have any ideas, let me know.”

  “Yes, yes, we’ll have to take care of him. I’ll think about all my other shops. Maybe we can find something more for him.”

  Though Yozef was sincere, his mind had moved on. Christ! At least, we have the ether now! He remembered the elderly man with the badly shattered leg from an accident at the Snarling Graeko. Yozef and Carnigan had helped transport the man to the abbey hospital. There, Yozef learned no painkillers were available, and the man later died during the amputation.

  The event had triggered Yozef into realizing he could produce ether. Success, with monetary help and the prestige of Abbot Sistian, had laid the foundation for all of his other enterprises.

  Now, a similar stimulus compelled him to seek out Diera, the abbey’s chief medicant, who had overseen his care when he was cast by the Watchers onto a Keelan beach. She had developed into a friend.

  St. Sidryn’s Abbey

  Diera Beynom looked up from the piles of papers scattered in front of her and around the edges of her desk. In the month since she’d returned from helping attend to the wounded at the Battle of Moreland City, she only seemed to get further behind with paperwork: issues delayed for the two sixdays she was absent from the abbey; updates on the wounded; reports to Hetman Keelan and other medicants throughout Caedellium on her observations during and after the battle and recommendations for future action; correspondence with influential medicants, once again throughout the island, on changes in medicant knowledge and treatments resulting from interactions with Yozef Kolsko; and the never-ending flow of ongoing issues involving the operation of St. Sidryn’s abbey’s hospital, overseeing the medicants, and acting as the district training center for new medicants.

  Thus, she felt both a sense of anticipation and a sinking feeling when a knock on her door presented her with the same Yozef Kolsko. He entered her office with an expression she recognized as accompanying some new idea he was about to share with her.

  “Hello, Yozef. Please come in.”

  “Thank you, Diera. Sorry to bother you, but I’ve had this new idea.”

  She laid down her quill and sat back, sighing at the realization of her hopes and fears.

  “Excuse me, Yozef, but I wonder if you’ll ever run out of new ideas.”

  Not if I can stay alive, thought Yozef.

  “And so soon after you were wounded.”

  “Takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin’,” he mumbled before he could stop the words from spilling out of his mouth.

  Diera’s puzzled look brought him back to alertness. “Sorry, Yozef, what did you say?”

  “Oh, nothing, just some children’s rhyme. I can’t remember how it all goes.” Well, hell, the Timex watch commercial is sort of like a nursery rhyme.

  “Anyway,” he hurried on, before she could ask for more explanation, “I talked with Hulyun Linwyr, the Gwillamese who runs the kerosene production. He mentioned that one of his drivers, Vynin Watmer, had his arm amputated when the wound he got at Moreland City festered.
”

  “Yes, too bad,” said Diera. “We thought it was healing, but a sixday after he returned, he came to the hospital complaining about increased pain and fever. When Brother Bolwyn examined the wound, he could see festering had set in. We tried all the treatments we knew of, but it spread, and we were forced to remove the arm. Thank Merciful God once again for the ether you’ve given us, so at least Watmer remained unconscious during the operation.

  “Festering doesn’t always happen with open wounds, but this one was deep. Your comments about microorganisms have helped explain how the festering occurs, and we’re taking more precautions, as you’ve suggested. Unfortunately, it didn’t help Watmer.”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, festering. My people know of treatments that can provide additional prevention and can help once an infection has started. It involves using substances called antibiotics.”

  Diera sighed again. Another new word. Another treatment she’d never heard of. Another case where she wanted to ask, scream at times, why Yozef hadn’t mentioned this one earlier. Usually, he said it just occurred to him, which fed into the rumors that this stranger who had appeared on the nearby shore might be a Septarsh, one to whom God spoke. Lore had it that often the person was not even aware of the source of inspiration, but simply that God “whispered” into his or her ear.

  At moments like this, Diera was tempted to asked Yozef whether he heard voices. Instead, she merely asked her usual question. “What is this antibiotics and how does it work?”

  Yozef launched into a description of how some microorganisms excrete antibiotics to suppress competing organisms. He didn’t go into injections yet, since he had no idea how long it would take to work out a method of purification sufficient to risk introducing crude extracts into the body. However, he remembered that the filtrate of antibiotic-producing fungi and bacteria had been successfully used to saturate cloth applied to open wounds.

  It took only a minute for Diera to decide she had heard more details than she had time or understanding to appreciate.

  “Let’s go talk to Brother Willwin about this,” said Diera, and they walked to one of the abbey complex’s workshops used by the resident biologist. They found Willwin Wallington in his work area, today worrying over another flat of pea seedlings, the same type of peas Yozef had used to demonstrate genetic inheritance to the naturalist scholastic.

  “Willwin,” said Diera, “Yozef has another of his ideas he’d like to explain. Do you have time to listen?”

  “For Yozef? Always,” said Wallington, smiling and setting aside the plants. “What is it this time?”

  “He says his people have a treatment to prevent or help with wound festering. He started explaining to me, but I thought we’d let you listen, since it involves the microorganisms you’re studying.”

  “Well, right now my main focus is the peas,” said Wallington. “I have too much to do with the ‘genetics’ Yozef explained. However, one of the new scholastic trainees is concentrating on the microorganisms, although I work with him whenever I can.”

  “Best fetch him over, then,” said Diera. Wallington walked toward the far side of the room where two young men and a woman huddled over something.

  “Trainees?” queried Yozef.

  “That’s right. I don’t think you’ve visited Brother Willwin since you returned. His communications with other scholastics around Keelan and other provinces created quite a stir, as seems to be usual when you’re around. Three abbeys have sent students interested in becoming scholastics here to St. Sidryn’s to work and study with Willwin.”

  Diera shook her head. “This seems to be only the beginning. Willwin tells me that six scholastic brothers and sisters around Caedellium have asked to join the university you and Maera are planning. What with others voicing interest in doing the same, Willwin says he needs to discuss with Maera whether they should limit the number in the beginning.”

  “But we hardly have any of the new buildings started yet,” Yozef protested.

  “That’s what I advised Willwin,” said Diera. “His work area here is already overflowing, and now with the three students, the clutter is even worse, which I was surprised could happen. It’s the same problem in the hospital. We have requests for more student medicants to come here than we can either house or train. Plus, there’s all the knowledge that relates to treating patients. We also have eight visiting medicants from other abbeys in Keelan and have had to postpone visits from abbeys in other provinces—which doesn’t make St. Sidryn’s very popular.”

  At least, it shows the ideas in medicine and biology I’ve introduced are spreading, mused Yozef.

  Willwin returned with one of the students, the other two trailing behind.

  Without preamble, Yozef addressed Wallington. “As I told Sister Diera, there are microorganisms that naturally produce substances poisonous to other microorganisms. Think of it as similar to herd animals with horns for defense or predator animals with fangs, a characteristic that aids in the organism’s survival. In the example I’m speaking of, a microorganism secretes a substance to prevent itself from being attacked or having to compete for space with other microorganisms.”

  “So, these ones that produce the poison—do you know which ones?” asked Wallington.

  Yozef spent the next half hour answering questions, mainly from the scholastic, but an increasing number from the students and Diera. It was a discouraged Wallington who summarized.

  “Please correct me if I’ve misheard, Yozef, but this sounds like an enormous task with uncertain chances of success. This antibiotic you speak of, you call it penicillin, comes from only a specific mold—a fungus. You can’t identify which one, only that you think the fungus is green when growing on food. From what I’ve learned and from your information, there are thousands of different molds, many of them green. We would have to try each one to hope to find at least one producing this penicillin.

  “Then, to test each one, we’d have to grow it in a plate containing a growth medium. We’ve been experimenting with this ‘agar’ you told us comes from seaweed. We had seaweed shipped to us from the port of Salford, east along the coast. It took time for a man we paid to collect different types of seaweed and ship it to us quickly enough before it rotted. We’ve only recently had some promising results, but I think it will be many months before we’re ready to try growing microorganisms on top of a solidified bed of agar.

  “We’ve also been experimenting with liquids containing nutrients that allow the creatures to grow, but the only liquids that show promise are acid-treated cattle blood and milk with the fat removed. You weren’t able to tell us why the acid treatment was necessary, but so far all we get is incredibly foul-smelling slop, although I’ll admit microorganisms grow readily on it. Too readily, in fact.”

  Yozef stared, mentally stepping back and assessing the scope of what he’d proposed. He swallowed. It was too much. He had carefully avoided suggesting projects that involved too many steps, especially those requiring materials that needed to be made, each of which required other materials, and on and on. In his enthusiasm for antibiotics, he’d broken his own rule. It would be years before anything useful resulted, if at all.

  Based on the little he knew of how to recognize specific strains, because his enhanced memory didn’t work for subjects he hadn’t studied, they would have to test thousands of samples, and only after working out growth and maintenance conditions. The latter facet hadn’t occurred to him until now—how to keep cultures alive without refrigeration. He knew that deep cellars kept food and drinks cold, but were the conditions constant enough to store long-term cultures? As for the common practice on Earth of freezing such cultures, he could forget it until reliable sub-zero refrigeration became practical.

  Wallington had continued pointing out problems, while Yozef went through his own list. He felt discouraged and chagrined.

  What was I thinking of? I know I need to consider the probability of success, yet here I go blabbin
g this all out to Diera and Willwin with hardly a thought to practicality. Shit.

  “Sorry, Yozef,” said Diera, “It doesn’t sound as if this is one of your better ideas, not until much more work has been done in preparation. However, I’ll ask Brother Willwin to write up the idea and let him circulate it to other scholastics. Who knows? Maybe some of them will have ideas that might help.”

  “I don’t know what I was thinking of,” admitted Yozef, dejected. “Everything Willwin says is true, and I’m embarrassed I missed the obvious problems.”

  “Nothing to be embarrassed about,” said Diera, laying a hand on Yozef’s shoulder. “With all your other positive ideas, when you have an occasional bad one, it’s somehow reassuring to me.”

  Diera gasped and jerked her hand way. Yozef looked at her, surprised to see that her face was red.

  Is Diera embarrassed about something?

  “I . . . uh . . . what I meant to say was that no one has good ideas every time.”

  “True,” said Wallington. “I often have wonderful thoughts when I wake in the morning, only to realize the absurdity later in the day.”

  Wallington and the three students laughed, but Diera occupied herself with looking at her hands as she rubbed them together.

  “Well, this was all interesting,” she said, “even if not immediately useful. However, I need to get back to a desk covered in paperwork. Willwin, as long as Yozef is here, maybe he’d like to see how your work is progressing and what the students are doing, since he hasn’t even met them yet.”

  “Of course,” Wallington said enthusiastically. “The latest genetics results with the peas are fascinating, then the categorization of protozoans, along with lovely pictures Erwilina here is making . . . oh, and just so much else.”

  “In that case, I’ll leave you all alone.” With those words, Diera spun and left.

  She’s flustered. Yozef realized.. Maybe it pleased her to know I could make mistakes and it embarrassed her.