Project Columbus: Omnibus

by J. C. Rainier

  Three soft, yellow lights winked in and out as trees momentarily eclipsed their view. The settlement that had sprung up near the bog ore deposits slowly came into view. Dark, square hulks loomed ahead of them as they approached, only recognizable as log cabins once in range of their weak light source. One particularly large building looked as if someone inside was still awake; its open windows were the source of the light, which danced and flickered.

  “See? Told you,” Jake chided as he dropped to the ground.

  A few hitching posts stood in the dirt street in front of the building. They tied up their animals and Cal knocked on the front door. It swung open after a few seconds, and they were invited inside by a gargantuan, muscular, bearded man who seemed to have forgotten his shirt. Or possibly torn out of it. He wiped his meaty hands on his dingy blue jeans before offering one to Jake as a greeting.

  “You must be the governor’s negotiator,” the man said. His speaking voice seemed to be as big as he was.

  Jake winced slightly under the crushing grip on his hand. “Uh, no. That’s him,” he said, pointing to Cal. “I’m just along for the ride.”

  Cal stepped up and introduced himself, though the man’s eyebrows arched quizzically.

  “You?” he asked. “Governor Owens sent a kid to negotiate?”

  So much for your plan to use my so-called fame, Governor.

  Cal shrugged off the slight, though he did feel a little disappointed that his name apparently counted for nothing. The man showed them to their seats around a long, stout table hewn from rough planks. It was easily fifteen feet long and five feet wide, though the room easily swallowed it. A stone hearth jutted out from the wall behind the table, just about at the middle of the table. Neatly split logs sat to the side as others hissed and crackled in the lively fire. Tools of the wilderness trades neatly lined the near wall. The building was clearly some sort of gathering hall, though a dark opening in the wall at the far end of the table hinted that there was a small dwelling attached, possibly belonging to their host.

  “Well, kid,” the man started. “You’re here, so you might as well get your part over with.”

  Cal’s disappointment shifted to resentment. This man had requested a negotiator other than Darius, but then showed no respect toward the chosen emissary. He decided instead to stir the pot and play the same game.

  “Alright, brick. Where would you like me to start?”

  The man’s eyes widened in shock for a moment, then narrowed as a sneer crossed his lips. “What did you just say?”

  “Where would you like me to start, brick?” Cal said it as casually as he could, trying to suppress his satisfaction with the reaction.

  The man’s muscles rippled as he slowly stood up, leaning on the table with his knuckles. “You think this is a joke, son? Does Owens take me for an idiot, sending you here?”

  “No, but you’re sure acting like one.”

  “Cal, what are you doing?” Jake whispered, grabbing his arm.

  Cal waved him off with a flick of his wrist. He rose, drawing the motion out to be even slower and more dramatic than his host’s. “I’m serious in my intent to present Governor Owens’s conditions, but you’re not serious about listening. You called for me, not Owens, whether you like it or not. I have a name, and it’s not ‘kid’. You have a name, and I’m willing to bet it’s not ‘brick’ either. But since you don’t seem to want to give me your name or your full attention, it looks like I need to take the kid gloves off with you. No pun intended.”

  Hard, brown eyes stared back at him. Just as Cal was sure that his host would lunge across the table and mete out punishment for his insolence, the man gave a hearty belly laugh, and shrank back into his seat. “Now that’s the Cal McLaughlin I’ve heard so many stories about. Fearless. Honest.”

  Unsure of what just happened, Cal took his seat with a measure of trepidation. “It’s more reckless and idiotic. Not that anyone’s counting anymore.”

  “Sometimes the only difference between the two is luck. My name’s Norris. Welcome to Rust Creek, in all its glory.”

  “Thanks,” he smiled weakly. “Where should we begin?”

  “Your choice,” Norris replied, gesturing his deferral with an upturned palm.

  Cal cleared his throat and took a second to prepare before he launched into the reasoned responses to the demands that the tiny community had made. He explained in detail why their request for a localized smelter was rejected due to environmental concerns, particularly those of possible arsenic contamination that could flow downstream to poison the city’s water supply. He laid out the reasoning why a market could not be built at this time, mostly due to the population of the settlement being far too low to support such a venture. He projected a timetable for electrification of Rust Creek, the only demand which Governor Owens agreed to. All the while, Cal watched Norris’s expression slowly sour until an indelible frown distorted his beard.

  “I can see how this ends, Cal,” Norris finally said after three excruciating minutes of silence. “We don’t agree to your terms. The workers in town get what they want. We keep up our embargo of timber and iron to try to force the issue. Maybe you find a new source of timber, maybe not. But you then cut off our food supply to try to force our hand. Guess I should have my people out picking berries tomorrow, huh?”

  Cal shook his head. “The townsfolk are only getting one of their demands met right away. We can’t meet any other terms at this time. Besides, whatever you think of Governor Owens, he’s not callous or vindictive. I don’t think it ever crossed his mind to cut off any supplies from the town.”

  “But he will, sooner or later.”

  “He won’t.”

  “I wish I could believe you, Cal. I really do.”

  “Believe it. Even if he goes insane and tries to cut you off, I promise I won’t let it happen.”

  Norris shrugged. “I appreciate the sentiment. Doesn’t change a thing for us, though.” He stifled a yawn and stretched, his fingers nearly touching the rafters as he did so. “Better get some sleep, guys. You’ve got a long road ahead of you tomorrow.”

  “But we’re not done here,” Cal protested. “We don’t have an agreement.”

  “You’re right, but I wouldn’t want to waste your time. Or mine. You can use my room in the back for the night. I’ll see to your horses and gear,” he said as he stepped out into the night.

  Jake shot Cal an irritated look. “Well, that was worth the ride.”

  Cal knew that the mission was unlikely to be a success. That didn’t make the disappointment of his failure any less bitter, or ease his racing mind as he bedded down for the night.

  * * *

  Calvin McLaughlin

  The next morning, 06:17

  Cal yawned as he listlessly pushed the bland, gray mush that passed for cereal around the sides of his bowl. He formed it into tasteless mounds, then flattened them one by one with the back of his spoon.

  “You’re not supposed to play with your food, you know. Bad manners,” Jake mocked.

  “It’s supposed to be bad manners to starve your guests,” he fired back.

  Jake shrugged. He made a sour face as another spoonful of gruel slid its way down his throat. “It might just be all they have for us. They don’t have the luxuries that we have back home, like eggs or a neighborhood bakery.” Jake proved his point by dropping his stale slice of bread, which shed large crumbs in every direction on impact.

  Cal choked down the rest of his meal in silence. He wished for just a few leaves of rosemary or a wild onion to give the gray ooze at least some flavor. The bread was staler than what was left of the loaf he had brought from Concordia, going down his throat like tiny jagged rocks.

  If this is all they’ve got, I don’t blame them for striking. He sighed. I just don’t know what they’re expecting to get. Darius is giving him the only thing he can.

  Norris burst through the door, though Cal supposed that a man of that size probably couldn’t enter a room
any other way. He had at least chosen to wear a thin jacket this morning, sparing Cal the sight of his barrel chest.

  “Your horses are ready,” he announced. “You can be on your way now.”

  Cal nodded, though his attention was still elsewhere. He kept going back and forth between the stale bread and his own provisions. It suddenly dawned on Cal that anything made in Concordia would not be fresh by the time it made it to Rust Creek. Bread was only the beginning. Fresh fish was an impossibility since none of the crawlers had refrigeration, so whatever they ate had to either be smoked or caught from the creek itself. Greens and other fragile vegetables might not survive the journey either.

  Is that why they want a market? Do they want us to come to them? Was that just a power grab, or did they honestly think it would help their situation?

  “What were you hoping to get at the market?” Cal blurted. The two other men looked at him in confusion. “If we built a market for you here, what kind of goods did you expect to be able to trade for there?”

  Norris slowly walked to the chair next to Cal. The chair let out a soft creak as he straddled it and leaned on the back. “I don’t know. Fruit. Vegetables. Household goods when they’re available. I’ve been down to the city a couple times this summer and really admired the market square that you’ve built down there. I know we’re just a tiny speck up here, but I thought maybe we could have a store that had it all.”

  Cal smiled warmly. “Did you stop at Devereaux’s butcher shop?”

  Norris laughed heartily, the same deep rumble that Cal heard the previous night. Norris broke into a story about how Devereaux wanted to know the personal business of everyone in Rust Creek. At one point Norris jokingly accused Devereaux of being a “horrible gossip”, but was impressed by the man, his goods, and his fairness in dealings. Norris had walked out of town with a hen and rooster from one of the farms, and a sack full of Demeter pears. It turned out that Devereaux needed firewood, and Norris delivered. At the end of their dealings, Devereaux still owed Norris twenty favors.

  “I’m not really sure what that means for us,” Norris chuckled, “but it’s got to be good, right?”

  Cal laughed along with him, and Jake followed suit. “I bet you could buy a feast for the town for that much.” The laughter died out and an uneasy silence followed. “So what happened to the chickens?”

  Norris shrugged. “They didn’t last long up here. The rooster flew the coop a few days after I came home and a reaper got it. The hen got freaked and wouldn’t lay eggs, so she became dinner.”

  So the luxury he worked for before is already gone.

  “You don’t need a market,” Cal added. “Without power and refrigeration you can’t support a market like Concordia’s. But what if we could give you something more useful in exchange?”

  Norris’s smile disappeared, but he nodded slightly. “I’m listening.”

  Cal leaned back, thinking about how he would word the proposal. Without warning, Jake spoke up. “Me. My family.”

  “What?” Cal gasped, sitting bolt upright.

  “You?” Norris snorted. “You’re worth a whole building?”

  “By myself? No. But my family’s worth a lot to you. Maybe I could convince some others to come with us.”

  “We don’t exactly have space for you,” the lumberjack pointed out.

  “Just hear me out.” Jake paused to make sure he wasn’t going to be interrupted. “My wife is a hell of a cook. I’ve been working in the mills. Now I know you don’t have any up here, but I’m not afraid of hard work. Anything you can think of around town that someone’s doing right now, I can take over. Or you can send me to the mines if you need me there.” He snapped his fingers and he smiled. Whatever idea was working its way through his brain had to be giving him pleasure. “I’ve got it! Chickens and fresh veggies. Maybe some herbs, too. I can make a little garden up here. I bet with that spring so close by, it’ll be a snap.”

  “Now hold on, son,” Norris butted in. “You’re talking a mile a minute here. This isn’t at all what we asked for.”

  “Maybe not, but it’ll have the same effect,” Cal added.

  “Oh? How do you figure?” Norris’s arms crossed, and he regarded his guests skeptically.

  Cal proceeded, undeterred. “Think about it. You were impressed by the market, and one of the things you came home with was a pair of chickens. That didn’t last long the first time, but if you had someone tending a flock the whole time, maybe the results would be different. And imagine having fresh bread to go with your eggs, not the stuff that’s stale by the time it makes it up here from Concordia. And trust me; I’ve eaten Cora’s food. She’s a better cook than my wife, and that’s saying a lot.”

  “Alright, so what if he can tend chickens and his wife can cook. You’re still not offering a lot. Besides, we take care of each other up here. Not sure the others would be keen on taking in a strange family. Not like this.”

  “Then you don’t know how much a hen is worth,” Cal retorted, laughing nervously.

  Jake’s reaction was the opposite; his expression hardened, and his tone took on a sincerity that Cal had never heard before. “We take care of each other, too. To the end, no matter what.”

  Norris locked his gaze on Jake. “Then how did so many people down there die last year when we didn’t lose a single one?”

  “Sacrifice.” The response was immediate and unwavering. “We sacrificed for each other. When we were starving and cold, we sacrificed our own supplies for our neighbors.” Then his words turned bitter and accusatory. “Did we miss sending a single ration shipment to your village?”

  Norris shrunk away, knowing the answer already. “No.”

  “Then don’t think for a second we’re any more callous than you.” Jake looked at Cal and nodded once. “That we’d leave our neighbors to suffer.”

  In that instant, Cal understood the real meaning of Jake’s outburst. It wasn’t anger at Norris for demeaning his offer. It was gratitude for Cal’s selfless act the winter before. An act that had nearly raised the death toll to sixteen, with how close Cal had come to death’s door.

  The silence that followed was brief, but in its own way, it spoke volumes. Even before Norris confirmed his acceptance of the new conditions, Cal knew that his neighbor had turned the negotiations around. His neighbor had sacrificed his life in Concordia, cast his die to live in an even smaller town, and saved the settlement from a protracted strike. But even this struck Cal as bittersweet; Lexi was about to lose her best friend.

  Principium Novus

  Chief James Vandemark

  3 August, 2 yal, early morning

  Camp Eight

  Any minute now, he thought, anxious about how his decision would be received. Having to come to the decision without involving Troy in the process was not something that James relished. Charlotte Bryant had been known to be a tenacious champion for her students, a quality that had become less of a boon and more of a liability in recent days, and her husband was still an esteemed member of the village council, the only remnant of Haruka’s original staff other than himself.

  James sat on one of the empty aluminum crates that served as chairs for the makeshift classroom within the Palm Palace. He wrung his hands together and ran the speech he had prepared through his head several times, paying keen attention to points that he would emphasize. He knew the exercise was futile; Charlotte would probably start tearing into him after the third or fourth sentence. It was solely for his sake, a small bit of habitual order he carried with him from Earth. The preparation ritual did its job, and he felt the edge of his nervousness dull somewhat.

  Charlotte arrived exactly at the expected time. She kept her back straight as an arrow, keeping her tiny daughter from spilling out of the makeshift sling that carried her. Charlotte stopped in her tracks as soon as her eyes adjusted to the room’s darkness. She looked around in confusion, perhaps trying to find out if the children were playing a trick on her.

  “Where�
��s the class?” she asked.

  “Reassigned,” he said, casting his speech aside entirely. His preparations meant nothing in the face of her anger, which was immediately apparent from her deeply furrowed brow.

  “What do you mean by reassigned?”

  “I mean we need them to grow up a little quicker than we’d like. With how few adults are left breathing and able-bodied, we don’t really have a choice.”

  “You can’t be serious,” she grumbled. “I can see maybe letting Karina and Kris…”

  “I’ve given each child their assignment,” he continued, ignoring her protest, but taking the time to stand and meet her condemning stare. “They will apprentice with an adult to learn useful skills…”

  The agitation in Charlotte’s voice was growing stronger, and she continued to talk over him. “Useful skills? They’re just children. We can’t have them running around the village or the forest like lumberjacks or…”

  “… That I feel are best suited to their personality and knowledge base,” his voice escalated over hers. The volume of their argument was making it difficult to make himself heard without shouting or letting his temper slip.

  “Jesus, how can we build a future if we don’t let our children learn what…”

  “What skills are useful?” he finally snapped, bellowing over her voice. “In case you hadn’t noticed, we need people that can keep food on our plates and roofs over our heads. It’s a grand notion that you want to give them the kind of education that you or I could get on Earth, but it’s just not realistic.”

  Her nostrils flared wildly, and he could tell that her teeth were clenched. Daphne stirred at the escalation in noise, and began to whimper from inside the sling.

  “I’m reassigning all children who are at least seven. You can stay on to teach the younger children, and to prepare them for the apprenticeships they will eventually receive. Otherwise you can pick up a saw or a shovel and get to work.”