“We’re waiting on you, governor,” Turan said simply.
“You can’t just steal peoples’ vehicles, Doctor Turan!” the official protested, puffing up a bit.
“No one is stealing anything, Governor,” the Guura assured him. “We’re just getting the supplies and the personnel where we need them. We have every intention of bringing the vehicles back. And in any case, the owners of the vehicles can simply make their way to the hospital to reclaim them.”
“Well…” the man stammered.
“Excellent,” Turan said, paying him no more mind. “Let’s go!” he said, standing on the footplate on the side of one of the trucks, which already had two of his sick berth attendants inside, one of whom seemed quite competent in the operation of the vehicle. He threw the vehicle in gear, hit the accelerator pedal and the truck roared out of the parking lot and onto the street. Turan clung to the handholds with all his strength. “I’d like to get there in one piece, Mitchell, and without losing all the supplies in the process.”
“No sweat, Doc!” the man cried, a maniacal grin on his face. “Don’t you worry. I got this!” The young man was a decent sick berth attendant, one of the crewmen they’d picked up at Instow, so very long ago. He’d been one of the ones who had picked up living on a spaceship fairly quickly. A few had taken some time to adapt, but Mitchell acclimated to shipboard life almost as though he’d been living on one his whole life. “Used to have something similar to this back home. My mama’s Model-F500. Man, I miss that truck.” He was weaving in an out of the stalled traffic now, since most of the cars weren’t going anywhere. A lot of them were abandoned, but a few still had people in them, trying to negotiate the treacherous streets. Mitchell lay on the horn at one point, until a terrified young woman pulled over to the side. “Sorry, ma’am! Doctors coming through!”
Turan just sighed and tried not to think about the trip, staring pointedly into the cab of the pickup. “Please, slow down, Mitchell!” he squeaked, not caring how undignified he must sound. “I’m not secured to the seat. In fact, I’m not even in a seat!”
The young man managed to look abashed. “Sorry, Doc,” he said, and the vehicle gently slowed down, though the weaving through traffic did not slow at all.
“Turan, talk to me,” Vincent Eamonn said. It had been nearly half a day since the shuttles had flown down to the planet. He’d been getting regular reports from the pilots, all of whom reported that their cargoes of people and supplies had been offloaded and transported via ground vehicle to the nearest hospital. He’d ordered the shuttles to return to the ship, and the security contingent went with Turan to the hospital.
“Well, things are pretty bad, Captain,” the Guura replied. He sounded tired. “I’ve just gotten out of surgery and sadly, the medical facilities here are not as good as those on the ship.”
“Should we bring people up?”
“I don’t think so, Captain. Not just yet. Oh, I’d love to have access to my own hospital again, but there is only so much room up there and I’ve cleaned out all but one of my sick berth attendants and nurses.”
“Yes, I’ve noticed.”
“What I’m saying is, I’d have to truck a good number of my people back up to the ship in order to really utilize the facilities in my sickbay, so I could save five or six lives up there, or potentially more down here. I think down here is where I and my people can do the most good.”
“Understood. I’ve got Quesh and his teams working on coming down. They’re gearing up, but I’m not sure who I’m supposed to talk to about that.”
“I have the comm code for a man who says he’s the acting governor, an Acheron Vall,” Turan said.
“Says he’s the acting governor?”
“I got the impression, Captain, that this man wasn’t actually part of the governing body of the city when things went bad,” the Guura explained. “Oh, he might have worked for the government, but he strikes me more as middle management than he does someone who’s in the line of succession.”
Vincent sighed. “Well, considering what’s been happening here, I can’t really have expected much more than that. But how did someone in middle management happen to wind up as acting governor?”
“I suppose he could have lied to me and my people,” Turan mused. “But everyone he spoke to called him by that title. Maybe he was put in by popular vote simply because he was the highest ranking member of government left?”
“Yeah, but the whole city wasn’t destroyed. Hell, government house is to the south of the blast site. There should be bureaucrats crawling out from all over trying to talk with us, or at least stay in charge of the whole situation.”
“True enough, Captain. I’m sending you his comm code now,” Turan said, and a second later the wardroom computer beeped, acknowledging the receipt of transmission. “I’m sorry, but I have to go. I’m going back into surgery.”
“Good luck, Turan. You contact me right away if there are any changes or problems.”
“I will. Thank you, Captain. Turan out.”
Vincent sat for a moment and thought, but was interrupted by Stella. “So are you going to call him, Captain?”
He frowned at her. “Of course I’m going to call him, Stella,” he said. “I’m just trying to figure out how to word what I’m going to say. I was hoping to come here originally to sell these people some more of Quesh’s blue goop, and that reactor we’ve got in the hold. But now, with all this… I mean, I want to help them, but there’s only so much goodwill I’m willing to dish out. I feel for these people, I really do, but we can’t just give away our services, Stella. If we do that often enough then FP will go out of business.”
“That makes sense, Captain,” Stella replied. “But by sending down medical teams and supplies, you’re also building up a great store of goodwill with these people,” she pointed out. “Perhaps there’s something here worth our while but that the locals have no need for at the moment that they’d be willing to trade for that reactor. Right now, they’re running on emergency generators and such, none of which will last forever. If we can get the big power plant up and running, that would solve a few problems for them and help to bring things back to a degree of normalcy.”
He nodded. “That’s a good thought. All right, let’s give this acting governor a call and see if he’s actually a mover and a shaker like he seems to think he is.” He entered in the comm code and opened a channel. It took a few moments, but finally a harassed looking man answered.
“Yes, this is Acting Governor Vall, who is this?”
“Good afternoon, sir. This is Vincent Eamonn on the Grania Estelle. I believe you’ve worked with my doctor, Turan?” And seeing the confusion, he added, “And the rest of my medical contingent?”
“Oh, yes, yes of course!” the man gushed. “Captain… Eamonn, was it? It is so good to hear from you. The stars alone knew what we would have done had you and your ship not shown up here in the system.” The relief pouring out of him was almost painful to watch. “Your doctors have been a godsend, as well as all of those medical supplies. Your people are saving a lot of our citizens’ lives today, Captain. I don’t know how I can ever thank you.”
“I’m glad to help, Governor,” he said and he meant it. “Now, I’m sure you’re a busy man, but do you have a few minutes to talk? I’d like to get an idea of what happened here.”
The man shook his head. “I’m afraid I’m quite swamped at the moment, Captain. The whole city government was there at the explosion. Myself and a handful of others have been trying to hold things together, but there’s just so much to do and not enough people in positions, or with the training, to do it.”
“I quite understand, Governor. We’ll be in orbit for a while yet. In fact, I brought with me everything needed to build that helium 3 reactor I had discussed with your predecessors. It would be more than enough to power your whole city.”
Vall gaped at him over the screen. “You… you really do? You brought a reactor with you?”
Vall just stared at him. “Wait, how long would it take to have it up and running?”
“Well, it’s about a month’s worth of work, Governor,” Eamonn explained. “But we’d need a lot of help, including your city engineers and just laborers. There are a lot of things to move and set up. It’s going to be a huge project. Then of course we need a place to actually put the thing; it’s a power plant, after all. And then connecting it up to the power grid.”
Vall put a hand to his head. “So much. I can’t believe you’d do this for us.”
Vincent grimaced. “Governor, you need to understand. The medical help I’m giving out of pocket and out of the goodness of my heart. I truly feel for your people and I don’t want them to suffer. But the power plant is another matter entirely. The whole purpose of my trip here was to sell this reactor to your government. I can’t just give it away.”
“You’re here to take from desperate people, Captain?” Vall asked, his face going white.
“No, Governor, I already told you,” Vincent said, keeping his tone calm and friendly. “I can’t give away the reactor. But I’m more than willing to negotiate with you. Surely there are things here in Vanoria that you no longer have any use for that might be worth something.”
“I can check with our commerce people,” he said dubiously. “But I still think this is robbery, Captain. Showing up in our time of greatest need and then demanding our life’s blood.”
“Let’s not exaggerate, Governor. We’re both reasonable men. I’m not trying to cheat you or rob your people. But I have to make a few credits on my end as well, or else I won’t be able to continue making runs. I have bills to pay too, Governor.”
“Very well, Captain,” the man said, looking slightly less pale. “I will speak with my commerce people on this matter. You’re right. We do need that reactor. We’re running everything on emergency generators and since the explosion, there have been entire sections of the city without power and rolling blackouts in many of the places where the generators are located.”
“One last thing before you go, Governor,” Vincent said. “When did all this happen?”
Vall sighed. “Three days ago. The engineers were performing initial power up tests and several of the members of the government were there to witness it. Good press, as I understand it. But there was something wrong, something about the plasma ribbon getting out of sync, there was a harmonic… something. And they tried to shut it down, but it just cascaded, it hit the fuel tanks and…” He broke off, choked up and clearly not able to continue.
Vincent nodded slowly. “I understand, Governor. And I would like you to know that you and your people have my deepest sympathies. I’m sure it was terrible.”
Vall nodded. “So much death,” he said, his voice little more than a croak. “In less than five seconds, all that section of the city was gone. Just blasted apart. And then the fires. We lost almost as many people in the fires that came after as we did from the initial explosion. We’d just gotten the fires under control when you came.” He looked up at Vincent, tears in his eyes. “I know what I just said about you a moment ago, Captain, but I really am grateful at your arrival and your generosity with your medical staff and supplies. Truly, I am.”
Vincent only nodded. What else could he say to that? “I’ll be in touch, Governor. Please call me on this frequency at any time to speak with me, day or night.”
“Thank you, Captain.” He looked as though he was going to say something else, but then closed his mouth and cut the connection.
Vincent sat and stared at the empty display for a long moment before hitting the internal comms to summon the ship’s cargo specialist. “Mister Marven, please report to the wardroom at your earliest convenience. You and I need to have a discussion about payments.”
“I’m on my way, Captain,” Ardeth replied.
“Well, Captain, their communications are pretty spotty,” the cargo specialist was saying. He and Stella were with the Captain in the wardroom, both of them looking for ways to make up the huge amount of capital invested in this power plant project. It had seemed so simple and straightforward back in Seylonique. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with some of the contacts we made the last time we were here.”
“Not much luck on that front, I’m guessing,” Vincent replied sourly.
“Unfortunately, no, Captain,” Ardeth said. “I’ve managed to get in touch with two people but they were distraught over what happened, and weren’t in the mood to be talking to a cargo specialist about trading goods to another system. One of them screamed at me and the other just hung up.” He chuckled. “Been a while since I’ve felt this unpopular.”
“It isn’t your fault, Ardeth.”
He nodded. “Oh, I know. But I do feel a little guilty about it. Apparently, they took our plans for the He3 power plant and moved forward with them either without a real clear idea of what to do, or they did a rush job and cut corners. Either way, a lot of people died for that mistake. And I can’t help but feel a small bit of responsibility for it. We got rid of their nuclear plant and told them that this reactor is going to solve all their problems.”
“Hey,” Vincent said, leaning forward. “We did nothing wrong. We don’t even know if they did something wrong. I mean, they probably did, what with the explosion happening, but we don’t know.”
Ardeth sighed. “But getting back to it, so far I haven’t found really anyone willing to work with us on trades. It’ll probably be at least a few weeks. We’d need to get things stabilized here before we’re back to commerce as usual.”
Vincent shook his head. “I don’t believe that. We have things that they’re going to need, even if it’s just medical supplies and helping them get their power grid sorted out.”
“Yes, Captain, I agree. But the problem isn’t what they need, it’s what they can pay us. Their monetary system is different from ours if you remember from our last stop here.”
“They use paper money,” the captain replied, frowning, stroking his chin.
“Yes, sir. And it doesn’t convert well to the credit system we use, and no one outside this system will honor it.”
Vincent sighed. “I remember. So we go for minerals then. With their nuclear plant offline, there’s got to be a decent sized stockpile of refined plutonium we could take.”
Ardeth blinked in surprise. “I’m sure there is, Captain. But plutonium? What would we want with that?”
“Tamara was commenting to me before we left that we hadn’t come across a decent source of uranium for her… oh what did she call them? Throat-ripper missiles? Yes. That’s it. I guess the warhead on them is nuclear.”
“That’s terrible!” he said. “It would irradiate the target! Why isn’t she using fusion warheads?”
“I think she might, now having seen Xar’s bombs.” He grimaced. “I’m still angry at him about that.”
“Well,” Ardeth said, changing the subject. “The plutonium might be good if we run into another fission powered society. We could trade it to them.” Then he brightened. “What about gold, Captain?”
Vincent’s right eyebrow shot up. “What about gold?”
“Well, according to this,” he said, showing him a report on his datapad, “There’s been a concern that the value of gold has been dropping, especially as the need for other metals like platinum has increased. It’s also the demand for it has lowered as well.”
Vincent was nodding. “I think we might have found something we can work with. Of course, it also depends on how much of the stuff they have on hand. That reactor is expensive. Can’t just sell it for a box of gold.”
“No, Captain, we can’t. I’d have to see the minerals, how much they’re talking about. But we’d inten
ded on trading the reactor for minerals and foodstuffs anyway.”
“I know. I want to make our stations a bit less dependent on Seylonique for food in case the admin council decides they want to find other ways to get cute. I’m just concerned now with the disaster here, they aren’t going to want to give up as much food as they originally intended.”
“Well they can’t possibly use it all,” Ardeth agreed. “And the farmers that are producing it don’t live in the city, so it isn’t like they are going to be losing a lot of their labor pool in this disaster.”
Vincent nodded. “Good. You’re right on that. I think we might still get what we need on this trip.”
“All right, then, Captain,” the cargo specialist said. “I think I need to start making a few calls.” He smiled. “I think there’s a profit to be had here after all.”
Several hours later, Vincent and Ardeth sat in a room with acting Governor Vall, working to iron out the specifics of their contract. The room was actually an upstairs parlor in one of the nicer houses on the west side of the city, which had been temporarily vacated by the family so that the government could use it. The room they were in was well-furnished with overstuffed chairs and a long sofa, with hardwood tables and luxurious woven rugs.
“I have to say, Governor, this house is rather impressive,” Vincent commented. He rubbed the arm of the sofa he was sitting on. “I really like this couch.”
Vall nodded. “We were very lucky that the owners were willing to allow us to use it. Government house was destroyed in the fires, and we need a place to set up.”
Vincent couldn’t help but smile. “Well, luckily you wouldn’t have to rough it anymore.”
The governor looked at him and couldn’t stop the smile on his own lips. “No, I don’t suppose we will.” He looked over at the other two. “So, gentlemen, what is it going to take to get that reactor down here and set up? We have a lot of desperate people sitting in the dark right now and I need to show them that the government, even an interim one, is working hard to get them the essential services that they need.” He sighed. “Also, it’s going to hit winter in two months. We don’t have time to sit around and dicker about prices.”
First Principles: Samair in Argos: Book 3 Page 18