Using one of our maps we found that by using a path over the mountain the distance from their retreat to the rich mans shelter was less than twelve kilometres; or a hard day’s walk in the improving conditions. It was immediately decided that the following day we would take, in our vehicle, some of the children to the restored village. Their parents would, led by the Fabio, walk to the rich mans shelter.
In total eighteen adults and four children were removed from the group leaving eighty in their shelter. This reduced the demand on their reserves and the additional personnel would be very useful in the village. We agreed that we would return, possibly the next day or the day after, with some additional stores, including vitamins and requested medicines, from our reserves. We would then be able to advise them of the safe arrival of their eighteen companions.
During Fabio’s travel over the mountain he had studied the area with a view of adding the new group into our communication network. It was not a great surprise that he was able to find that much of the distance could be covered from existing cable going to the nearby village on the road that directed us to our new friends. The existence of this cable route would allow the rapid extension of our communication network to this new and welcome part of our empire.
The route would be set up between this new cave village and the rich mans shelter along the route taken by Fabio’s group. The missing cable elements could easily be covered by cables available nearby to fill any gaps. Fabio had concluded, from what he had observed, that it would take only a short time to splice the new group into our network.
Rather late the next morning we drove home and in the late afternoon arrived at our original village. We then passed the children into the care of the inhabitants; explaining the influx of personnel that would be coming so that they could prepare. The information of our success was passed to the original shelter and we drove to the rich mans shelter to await Fabio’s arrival with his followers.
On his arrival Fabio advised the shelter of the possibility of including the new group into our communication system and the task was set in hand immediately. We, including Fabio, then drove to the main shelter having requested that some equipment (phones, capacitors etc, food, medicines and vitamins be left out so that we could pick them up, without physical contact with anyone in the shelter. We then returned to the rich mans shelter for the night. The next day we left, with the parents of the children, to the village. This completed our part of the bargain and we then left for the new cave group. There we requested their assistance with the completion of the communication link; this request being eagerly accepted.
The following day, at the cave, we discussed several things related to their stores and were again advised that they had a fairly large store of petrol, in two separate caves; having no petrol vehicle this material was almost useless to them. They had also put aside a lot off grease and different motor oils and, in addition, they even had a considerable quantity of antifreeze and tools as two of their people had been professional motor engineers. Their store of diesel was sufficient for the present and we promised to provide them with some wind generation equipment and one of our manufactured steam generators to minimize their dependence on the irreplaceable diesel.
On revisiting their accommodation we found that rather than caves their accommodation was actually some old mine workings. This had allowed them to live fairly comfortably much deeper in the mountain than would have been normal for a cave. Their work, over the last few years, had been directed at improving their comfort. Part of this work had involved increasing their living space by connecting into nearby workings.
Earlier, like us, they had cooked their meal with electricity but had only been able to afford one cooked meal a day. Recently because they considered their security had improved they had taken to cooking their meals on wood fires outside the tunnels; using some of the local trees and the broken, unusable, wood from the few nearby severely damaged houses. However they had left the repairable and undamaged homes for their reoccupation later.
We were very pleased to meet two young people who were originally from a nearby village; one male and one female. These were survivors from one of the government shelters in a nearby large town. They described how several hundred people had been left in an underground car park with strong shutter doors fitted into the entrances. When the blast arrived one of the doors had been damaged severely incommoding many in the shelter. Several people, including the two survivors, had been sleeping on the stairs to get away from the noise of the crowd. They had been partially protected from the atmospheric pressure changes that had damaged the ears of some of the less protected members.
Many in the open area of the car park received, in addition to the damage to their ears, some effects to their lungs. Those affected were, from that time, in some distress. When the inundation came the damaged door leaked and a considerable quantity of water entered the shelter resulting in the drowning of many inmates. One could image the scene; there only the strong survived. The two survivors we were talking to would not talk about this aspect. The memory was very distressing for them and we learned no more of what had happened at that time. Later when the power had failed they were in darkness having only the torches they had been told to bring with them. The government had not made any realistic attempt to assist the survival of those people. They had, effectively, been dumped in an impossible position and having had personnel experience of the environment they were then living in I was surprised that any had survived past that point.
Some of the tinned food had floated up to the then thirty survivors; none were under nineteen or over fifty. After a few days in extremely uncomfortable accommodation the survivors decided to attempt to return to areas they had come from. For the two we met this had been a journey of about forty kilometres. They had known that some of the villagers had set up a group in the mining tunnels and decided that they might, if they were accepted by those people, have a chance of survival there. The travel groups recovered all the food they could find from their shelter and set out to walk through the deteriorating conditions using eight available torches to light their way. The journey took twelve days and only the two we met had survived.
We did not ask how their companions had died and the two who had survived did not enunciate further on this information. They did tell us that the shelter had been insufficient as long term accommodation for the hundreds of people that had been placed there. They told us that, in their opinion, there had probably been only two months worth of food for the number of people that had been placed in that position.
Over the next few days we assisted the group set up the rich mans shelter link thereby connecting them to our empire. This link extended our information radius and nearly doubled our personnel. We assisted them in restoring a petrol vehicle, from the Martinez village, that they could better use their resources of that material. The vehicle was an old pre electronic classic car with a simple iron engine and carburettors. This low efficiency vehicle was simple to maintain and we hoped that soon we would be able to distil sufficient alcohol for our motoring needs thus extending the useful life of this vehicle beyond their petrol store.
The vehicle had been well restored prior to the impact and required little work to get it going again using their petrol and antifreeze stocks. Cleaning the plugs and putting a little oil in the cylinders and it started almost immediately. Now this new group was mobile and they agreed to look for additional personnel to the north but told us that they had little hope of finding anyone as, as far as they knew, everyone else had left for the government shelters or, in the case of one family, to friends in France.
Chapter 14. We Have An Enemy.
We returned to the quarantine shelter and I left to see my family who had two rooms in one of the houses in the Martinez village. In this village we, perversely, did not require quarantine so I joined my family immediately. Our accommodation was pleasant and we even had some glass in one of the windows.
Two days after I
arrived at the village we were, to say the least, extremely surprised and unprepared to receive a visit from a previously unknown group consisting entirely of men; notably including four armed men on horses. The rest of the group consisted of twelve men carrying provisions and items for a journey while the horsemen carried only their weapons. The twelve walking men appeared to be acting as the servants of the horsemen.
I went out to speak to them; leaving armed personal unseen at the upper windows. The empire was immediately advised of the situation but our friends were informed that we believed we could deal with the situation. Our friends decided, however, that in the morning a small group would be sent to support us by monitoring the situation from a distance. In the current circumstances I was feeling a little nervous about such a large group of visitors; even if only four carried weapons.
On closer inspection the horsemen were comparatively well dressed but the walkers were in rags. This did not auger well for a pleasant conversation but I invited them to join us for a drink. The horsemen accepted my offer but ordered the remainder of the party to stay were they were; this was, for us, a further discouragement.
I was preparing to speak when a short fat man, who appeared to be their leader, announced that he was a representative of the legal government of the region and welcomed our village to the recovered state of Spain. He stated that our little group would be reorganized to produce food for the residents of Spain and we would be advised of what we had to do by managers who would help us in the future. He then demanded to see our food and technology reserves.
At this point in the proceeding I advised him politely that we did not recognize any government but that he and his group were welcome as our guests. At this he signed to the horsemen who prepared their weapons. Seeing this I indicated the windows of the houses which immediately appeared to bristle with weapons. At one hundred meters this was the impression that was given and the attitude of their leader calmed down a little. I suggested that they should leave their weapons where they were and enter the village as our guests.
I took him and his three supporters to one of the houses where we had set up the room for such occasions. Here they could not see our numbers or our technology as from where they were they could only see a single wind generator. In the room there were merely some comfortable chairs and a large table. Their servants were taken to a point that could not be seen from that house. The little fat man raised objections but I advised him that they would be safe with our people who would feed and entertain them. He, fortunately, had the sense to recognize his position and accepted the situation with bad grace.
The village prepared food and drink for the servants while I, and two other volunteers, spoke with their leaders. The servants, perhaps slaves would have been more accurate, had their food taken to them and, as arranged for such a scenario, our people talked to them. Obviously we were interested in their situation and many leading questions were asked that we might assess the situation.
Personally I was amazed at the leader’s arrogance when he told us to stop our people talking to theirs. If they represented the government, who had abandoned their people to protect themselves, we wanted no part of them. I advised them that all our people were free to talk with whomsoever they wished and that, as guests, they should act accordingly.
I advised them that while they were with us they would all be treated as guests and we hoped they would respect that situation. They were also advised, rather pointedly, that whenever they wished they could continue on their way to anywhere they wished. We tried to elucidate some information from these “leaders” regarding their group but, as expected, we obtained very little that was useful.
I made an excuse and left the leadership group to talk with my two companions. I went to talk with the others of our group who were looking after the servants. I was given an outline of the situation as understood from their conversation with those “servants”. As expected the servants were not happy with their situation being, in all respects, slaves for their leaders. Their group consisted, in total, of about two hundred and seventy persons. Of this about sixty could be considered within the leadership group of which twenty five to thirty were soldiers who controlled the workers (servants).
We were advised that the leaders had been senior government and civil service personnel. The workers served and worked for these persons in exchange for a limited quantity of food and little else. The workers were currently attempting to produce food in their fields and were required to care of the animals: ten cows and two bulls, thirty sheep, ten pigs and, unbelievably, thirty horses. Some of the horses were being used to plough a large plot of land and others for transport. This land was intended to be used, next year, for the production of food. Unfortunately none of the workers knew how to plough with horses and the learning process had not been going well. The master group were not content with the progress and punishments for lack of achievement were severe.
There was no encouragement, by the masters, at developing or even recovering technology though it appeared that the leader’s shelter had some form of power generation. We were told that their guards had radios, probably short range as they had not used them for two days, with which they communicated with their shelter. Their shelter was three or four days hard walking from our current position.
The workers accommodation was crude; being simple huts that the workers had to construct for themselves near the leaders’ shelter. The accommodation area had been arranged such that the servants could be better guarded. With respect to any escape; where could they have gone?
Three of our visitors made a request to stay with us but the others had families in the main group which they thought might be at risk if they did not return. They warned us that if the requesters were allowed to stay we might be at risk of attack once our guests had returned to their base. I had realised, at the time, that the masters were not going to be satisfied with our independence as we then presented an alternative solution for their slaves. In my opinion problems from this political group could now be assumed as inevitable.
We decided that our guests asylum applications and other information should be passed to the empire and we would await their decision. Further we would not demonstrate any of our technology and would only use the batteries to provide a little light in the houses as our invitees had, unavoidably, seen the wind generator. I left and returned to the leadership group feeling not only a little nervous but angry. The proposed state, as described to us, was very contrary to our ideas. We wanted freedom they demanded subservience.
We asked the leaders how they had survived and whether they had any problems. The only information we received was that they had some potential problems with food but they were cultivating some land so this was not considered a long term difficulty. The fat man repeated his invitation to join their group which he reiterated was the legal government. I, to delay matters while we waited the decision on the three asylum seekers, stated that I would discuss this with our group.
We invited the leadership to stay for the night which they readily agreed to as it was very probable that our accommodation, such as it was, was far better than any other available to them on the road. We provided them with a few candles for supplementary lighting, some blankets and excused ourselves and returned to our group. We arranged that the servants would be at least as comfortable as their leaders and gave them candles so even they would not be aware of the true level of our technology.
In the morning we provided all our guests with a good breakfast and awaited results. We had discussed the situation with our empire, using our telephone link, and it was decided that we would accept the three requesting asylum. It was considered that whether or not we accepted the asylum seekers the possibility of invasion, by this new group, would be unchanged. By accepting the three we would probably be able to obtain further information as to the true situation of our guests.
The information, as to their acceptance, was passed to the servants but not immediately to
the leaders. Our new colleagues were very satisfied and made arrangements to stay whilst saying goodbye to their friends.
Later that morning the visitors decided to leave. To say that the leaders were displeased with our offer of asylum would be understating the situation. They resorted to threats of retaliation for “kidnapping” or “stealing” their servants but we had made our decision and there was no way the little man was going to have his way.
We had all decided that we were safer with the asylum seekers as they could be debriefed as to the capabilities of this new group. We already knew that the servant class were not enamoured with their situation so they, as a group, would probably not be supporters of their current regime. In our opinion we had little to fear from his bluster; either now or in the future. Eventually the unloved visitors, with their remaining servants, left our domain minus three of their original group. Immediately our guests had left the empire’s relief force, which had been standing by, entered our village.
If it had to come to an attempted invasion it would not, in our opinion, have been preventable. If the little man wanted to take over our group it was inevitably that he would bring his forces to our village in order to press his argument. He had only seen twelve light weapons and twelve persons so would probably have felt quite confident as to his ability to achieve his objective.
Our asteroid survival: A fictitional history of the ten year survival of a large ELE asteroid impact by a small, pre advised, group Page 35