"This is a tenth piece," Nick said, holding up a small piece of what looked like steel. "The cost is a tenth and so I owe you nine tenths. But this is a half," he continued, holding up a small bit of the reddish metal. "It's made of copper like the chits but it's smaller and it's got a half inscribed on it. Another way of thinking of it is fifty hundredths. And this," he said, holding one of the pieces of wood, "is a hundredth. They're going to start making them of something else, but for now it's wood. The wood's no good, though, cause it cracks and you get in a fight and you end up with a pocket full of useless splinters. So that's nine tenths. I'd pay that rascal outside in the wood if I were you. Please pee before getting in the bath, not after."
Herzer took his clothes outside and dubiously handed them over to Darius then went back in and followed Nick's directions up the steps and into the first room. The walls were wood logs and the floor was made of sanded wood, logs that had been spit with their flat sides up. There were openings between the logs, apparently to let water through, and the surface was covered with a thin pattern of sand. On the left were pegs to hang their bath sheets and on the right there was a trough set well above head height. There were holes cut in the bottom of the trough, and steady streams of water flowed out of them. Under one of the streams June Lasker was already turning in place and rubbing a piece of the yellow soap between her hands.
"Don't rub the soap on your body," she said, stepping out from under the stream. "It will strip your skin right off."
Herzer noted in passing that her skin hadn't started to get the dry look that many older women's skin had and that she was pretty well set up. The thought triggered a memory of Bast bathing and he quickly turned away and willed himself to think about something, anything, else.
"This is one of the reasons that it's almost more embarrassing for men to take these communal showers than women," June noted with a chuckle. "That's what's called an involuntary vascular reaction."
"Well, Herzer's got nothing to be embarrassed about," Courtney said with a chuckle.
"Neither does Mike," June replied.
"Hey!" Mike growled.
"Mine," Courtney said, giving him a pat on the rump and getting under the water. "Yow! This is cold!"
"I can tell," Herzer replied, maliciously. Like Bast, Courtney had pink nipples but they were about twice the size. Or at least it appeared they normally would be; they currently were drawn up tight.
"Mine," Mike chuckled, but there was an edge to it.
"I'm putting my eyes back in my head," Herzer said. He stepped across the room and under one of the streams of water and gasped. It was as cold as any of the streams he and Bast had bathed in and after the warm afternoon it felt even more frigid.
"Well that took care of his involuntary vascular reaction." Courtney chuckled, picked up the soap and rubbed it in her hands. "Ow!"
"Rough, isn't it?" June sighed. She had soaped all over and now stepped back under the water to rinse off. "It's lye soap. Be careful in your private parts."
"What did you do when the. you know, the curse was hitting?" Courtney asked.
"Stayed home and washed as well as I could with a bucket," June admitted as she rinsed off.
Herzer soaped and rinsed without comment, hoping that the women would keep that line of conversation to a minimum.
"It was bad out in the woods but at least you could get some privacy to wash," was all the further comment Courtney made.
The far end of the shower room had a doorway covered with a leather flap. Stepping through it Herzer stopped and shook his head.
There was a catwalk down the middle, made of logs again, and on either side of it were six vats, three on the left and three on the right. Each of them was about two meters across and looked to be a meter and a half deep. And each was filled with steaming water.
"Down below there's an arrangement that lets hot air run through them in pipes," June said, lowering herself gingerly into the third tub along. "And they are very hot."
"Oh, this is wonderful," Courtney said, lowering herself into the tub next to the older woman. "Oh."
Herzer had to agree. The hot water immediately caused muscles he hadn't even noticed start to loosen. It also made him need to pee, badly.
"Uhmm." Courtney said, before he could open his mouth.
"Far end, dear, left for the ladies, right for the gentlemen," June said, leaning back in the seat.
All three of the apprentices got out of the bath almost simultaneously, which caused a chuckle from Mike.
The latrine turned out to be a rather clean four seater and Herzer quickly dumped his bladder, heading back to the bath. He noticed as he did that the room was not particularly steamy, then saw that there were openings in the wall at the top and bottom.
"Whose idea was this? Nick's?"
"No," June said. "And he doesn't own it, although sometimes he acts like it. It was Edmund's idea and the town built it and maintains it. The construction up the hill is where we're building a larger one, more ornate. We need to get rid of the logs and get some tile in; people keep slipping on the wood."
"It's very nice," Courtney said, easing into the water as Mike walked back. "Whose idea did you say it was?"
"Mine," Edmund said, pushing aside the flap. "Hello, June, mind if I join you?"
"Not at all, Edmund, plenty of room."
All three of the apprentices were wide-eyed as the mayor lowered himself into the water. They were amazed to see the already semilegendary leader simply joining people in the bath.
Herzer was covert in his study but he had heard so much about Edmund Talbot that he knew he had a case of hero worship going. The smith's body was unusually hirsute; most people inhibited hair growth to a much greater degree. It also was immensely muscular, not like a bodybuilder but like a person who used a wide variety of his muscles every day for hard physical labor. He also had a full beard and mustache, which was unusual. Herzer had had all the hair on his face and most of his body inhibited except for a straggling mustache and he knew very few people who even had one of those.
"I'm surprised to see you," June said.
"Think I'm too good to hang out in the bath?" Edmund chuckled.
"Not that. I just thought you'd be too busy," June replied.
"I've got a couple of hours between meetings and for a wonder nothing was coming apart. So I thought I'd catch a quick bath. I can't stay long though."
"Sir, can I ask a question?" Herzer said.
"Ask away, I won't promise to answer," Edmund said, sliding down in the water and closing his eyes. "We haven't met by the way."
"I'm Herzer Herrick and this is Mike Boehlke and Courtney Deadwiler, sir."
"Herrick?" Talbot said, opening his eyes back up and peering at the boy. Herzer felt as if his brain was being probed but he just nodded.
"Heard a bit about you. Sorry, we had met before, hadn't we? Thanks for helping Daneh and Rachel on the trail."
"I. yes, sir," Herzer said in reply.
"Hmmm." Edmund said and Herzer could tell that his evasive answer had been noted. "What was the question?"
"Err. is this a Roman bath? I was thinking about you being in here, too. It was said that the Roman senators would take the public baths because that way it proved that they did not think that they were not one of the people."
"You've studied history," Edmund replied after a long pause, staring at the boy again.
"More like dabbled in it, sir," Herzer replied. "Mostly military history but the Romans were such a major factor in preindustrial military thought that paying more attention to them than, say, the Egyptians just made sense."
"It's sort of a Roman bath," Edmund said after another pause. "Some aspects of Japanese also. The Romans would wipe their bodies with bent pieces of metal or wood and then take steam. Then they would swim or bathe in cooler water in the frigidarium. When the new baths are done we'll probably have a steam room as well as a sauna. But the hot soaking bath is a Japanese item as much as anyone's.
And I prefer it to steam so I thought that would be the way to go."
"Some softer soap would be nice," June said acerbically.
"Working on it," Edmund said. "As soon as someone comes up with an industry making softer soap, we'll buy it. In the meantime, the apprentices are making lye soap and lye soap only."
"Because that way someone will start making better, sir?" Herzer asked, cautiously.
"Got it in one," Edmund said with a nod, lifting himself out of the water. "The town will keep people reasonably healthy and alive. As long as they work at it and as long as we can support them. But if I had my way all the town food would be nothing but gruel, and thin gruel at that."
"So people would find other work to get better food?" Courtney asked.
"Well, right now there's not much better than what people have been getting," Edmund admitted, drying himself off sketchily. "But there will be. And I don't want anyone permanently dependent upon the town. In a democracy that leads to bread and circuses and eventually to despotism. In a despotism it leads to bond labor. I won't have even the beginnings of either one as long as I'm mayor." He nodded at them and walked back out of the room.
"Wow," Courtney said.
"He's intense," June said with a nod.
"Actually, I think the term I was considering was 'charismatic,' " Courtney replied.
"Oh, that too," June chuckled. "Very charismatic. The one thing nobody has ever seemed to find a gene for."
* * *
When Edmund got back to his house it was nearing midnight, but as he entered the main hall he could see Daneh sitting by the fire, staring into it pensively.
"You're up late," he noted, walking over to the matching chair and sitting down in front of the fire. "And, frankly, you should be getting all the sleep you can."
"I've got a lot on my mind," Daneh replied. She stood up and bent over to poke the fire. "I guess I dimly realized how much I depended upon technology to do my job. But it's really gotten driven in lately. I've got a couple of cases. I don't think they're all going to live, Edmund."
He thought about getting up and giving her a hug but since. the encounter with Dionys she had never touched him. And he wasn't going to press her about it.
"Anything I can do?"
"Not unless you can cure gangrene," she sighed. "Or figure out how to repair an internal bleed with no dissolving sutures, no anesthetic and no sterile conditions to open somebody up."
Since he didn't have any of those things he kept his peace. But he knew that wasn't all that was on her mind. He had known her for a long time and her body language told him that there was more. Not what, but more.
"Anything else?" he finally asked.
"Yes," she said after a long pause. There was another as she poked at the fire again, this time with more vehemence. She finally set the poker down and sat back in the chair, still looking at the fire. "I haven't started bleeding."
He waited for more revelation than that, then shrugged. "Don't they. skip?" he asked.
"Sometimes, but almost all the women in the town have had the 'curse.' " She paused and then closed her eyes and her face worked. "I asked some of the ones who didn't and they'd all. been engaged in sexual activity between the time of the Fall and now. Every. Single. One."
"Oh," Edmund said then thought for a moment. "Shit. Is there anything that we can do?" he asked.
"Like get rid of it?" she smiled, wanly. "Perhaps. But I'm not sure that I want to. Edmund, this will be the first child born of a woman's body in millennia. Surely such a wonderful miracle should be considered carefully before we decide to end it?"
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
"What is it now, Celine?" Chansa said, impatiently. He had given up running multiple avatars and had instead transferred to the lab.
"I thought you should see my newest toy," Celine said with a smile. "It's. right up your alley."
She led him down a corridor, then through a series of security screens until they were looking down into a metal-lined pit. Inside was a bipedal beast. It was nearly three meters in height, stoop shouldered and long of leg with massive biceps and thighs. The fingers were long and strong with hooked claws. The face was bestial but it looked up at them with a surprising degree of intelligence and Chansa could see it sizing up the walls trying to determine if it could reach the top. The eyes also burned with fury and it finally leapt into the air, striking a punitive force screen that threw it back to the floor. It screamed in pain and rage.
"Interesting," Chansa agreed. "This is, indeed, worth my time. If, of course, these things are controllable. And how hard are they to produce?"
"Well, this one is a prototype," Celine said with a feral grin. "Look closer. Do you see anything different?"
Chansa looked more closely and shrugged in irritation. "Don't play games with me, Celine. It's a Change."
"But not a human Change," Celine said with a laugh.
Chansa looked closer at the face and body and then blanched. "Elf?" he snapped. "Are you mad? If you bring the elves in on the Freedom side."
"They don't know that I have him," Celine said imperturbably. "And now that I'm done he can be eliminated. But capturing elves and then converting them is so. intensive. Follow me."
She led him deeper into the complex and down a series of stairs deep under the lab. As they went downward the composition of the walls changed from the smooth plastic of the majority of the lab to rough masonry and then natural rock.
"This facility is old," she said, waving around. "It was a castle in the depths of time but later it was a military stronghold and research center. This portion is ancient, so old it predates the known history. One wonders what mysteries were plumbed since its construction."
There was cold breeze upon the stair that carried from the depths a whiff of corruption, at first faint but then stronger until they reached a stair above a large, deep cavern, apparently natural.
The passageway above had been lit by the cool, omnidirectional light of glowpaint but the cavern was lit only by torches placed at great distances. They gave off a faint, flickering light that barely relieved the gloom and weirdly lit the eldritch scene. For the vast room was packed with life.
In the center was a pit filled with a black, nameless goo that roiled with movement. Surrounding the pit were low masses of nameless purple fungi that extended delicate pseudpods to its edge and apparently drew sustenance from it. Extending outward from these, others seem to draw from them in turn until the entire room was packed with strange growths, colored in noisome purple and leprous green. The growths reached all the way to the walls and there pods appeared, some still small but others the size of Chansa's torso. The fungi were not still, but seemed to pulse in the odd light, many of them shimmering with colors and giving off a faint glow of their own. The overall impression was of a gigantic organism driven to some malign purpose.
"Okay," he choked out after a moment, trying to conceal how disgusted he was, "this is pretty. horrible."
"Oh, it is far more than that," Celine laughed lightly and led him down the stairs and to one of the pods against the wall.
"Here, look here," Celine said, excitedly, kneeling down to rub the noisome black liquid off of the pouch. "Look."
Chansa, fighting his gorge, squatted down opposite her and looked at the sack, moving the torch around to try to see through the translucent material of which it was made. As he moved the torch to the side and leaned forward for a better look, the sack gave a lurch from within and a face out of nightmare turned up to look at him.
It was the face of an elven child, perfect and pure, and it twisted and struggled against the enwrapping material, seeming to scream from within the liquid. It had an expression of absolute pain and total horror and its eyes were open and unseeing. After a brief, merciful, moment its writhings took it out of sight if not mind.
Chansa rocked back and looked across at the woman who had created this monstrosity.
"My God, Celine, even for you. !"
&
nbsp; "It is perfect, no?" she replied, her eyes bright and her mouth moist in the torchlight. "Do you know the story of the elves?" she asked, snatching back the torch and standing up.
"No, I do not," Chansa said, considering translating out right now. For whatever reason they were brought to the conspiracy, this. infernal pit was beyond anything that could be allowed to exist.
"They were created by the North American Union as the perfect soldier," she said walking over to the main portion of the pit and turning to look at him with the pit as her backdrop. "But the spineless leaders of that weak and puling land wanted soldiers that could be trusted to bring as little harm as possible to the people that they fought. That. idiot society thought that they could take the sting, the horror, from war."
John Ringo - Council Wars 01 - There Will Be Dragons Page 34