A Succession of Bad Days

by Graydon Saunders

  Which is just what we do.

  The tries go off with more of a snap than a bang. You can still feel it through the rock, crouched down two hundred and fifty metres away. Not a lot, but it’s there, like a door being knocked on once.

  Finding mine, the one I’d carefully touched with two fingers — “if I knew why one didn’t work I’d be famous,” Blossom said — was easy, like finding the fork next to your plate. Setting it off wasn’t any harder than breathing out.

  Going back to look, the metre-fifty scorch marks are disturbing. Some sad forb, getting less sad with the rain, hadn’t died in fire, but it had died.

  The main shot to break rock was a dull boom and a rumble. It had taken a couple hours of mixing up tamping mud, from magically collected bits of dirt and equally magically collected rain, lugging the mud from the considerable safe distance to the drill holes in an actual, full-weight bucket, of figuring out how many of the larger wool twists to use, and then figuring out how you tip a bendy thing you’re holding in a sodden hankie down a just-large enough hole in the rock.

  The actual tamping had been pretty easy, as a thing; thinking about what I was doing had made it harder. You don’t lean over the hole, you use the wooden stick in one hand, you don’t drop the stick, it’s always pushing lightly. The things we’re using don’t go off from pressure, but bad habits kill you. Blossom said that just as cheerfully as everything else.

  Grouping together, so all the explosions would go off at once, was harder.

  That’s the ‘I’m not sure we really managed it at all’ kind of ‘harder’; everybody has colours, I have to think about it to not see those, from what Blossom said about linking up I’m pretty sure that’s expected. There’s somebody in Westcreek who looks like they’re covered in snakes, lines of writhing green scales.

  Everybody has a texture, too; I don’t know how to describe Dove’s, it’s cool and inflexible but I don’t know what, Zora feels like having a cat step over your leg, Chloris is like a good deep hardwood clonk sound, only you feel it instead of hear it, and Kynefrid’s like open dirt. This is all much more apparent than our first joint working with Wake.

  We don’t mesh well. It worked with Wake, but that might have been Wake. It might be sheer concern for how big a boom we’re headed at. It might just be the second time being harder, because you think more. But I’m not sure it worked, we never really manage to get one whole stable thing, even if at some point Blossom says “Go!” and there’s a rumble in the rocks.

  And now we’re standing next to what would be a pit, if all these broken rocks weren’t in it. It’s still raining, not as hard.

  Blossom left the boxes with the other bits of wool and copper over the ridge. “Umbrellas back up if you want them.”

  Everybody wants them. Everybody but Blossom, who really doesn’t seem to mind being rained on.

  Blossom stands up from having one hand on the broken rock, smiles, actually smiles, it’s not a grin. “Not bad for a first try.”

  “What do we do with the rubble?” Chloris sounds like someone estimating wheelbarrow loads, just like I’m doing. Though I think the answer means we’re not doing this with a shovel; we’d be the whole winter in that tent.

  “Fill, somewhere. Or maybe a pond dam, the mass doesn’t have to be impermeable, just the face.” Blossom points downhill, a sweep of arm from north to east. “Where do you expect to walk?”

  Dove lets go of an obvious slow breath, and orange lines crawl over the landscape. It takes me a second to realize the cross-hatched spaces are ponds.

  “It’s in my head!” Zora sounds gleeful. Chloris sounds appalled.

  Blossom extends a hand, palm up, at Dove, who makes a reaching motion back. I didn’t see anything at all change hands, but the perception of orange goes away and the same lines come back in green and gold, right straight up out of the actual landscape.

  Kynefrid says something, I don’t catch it, Kyenfrid’s facing the other way. We’ve all got green shadows, dark as daylight, rain or no rain.

  “Better?” says Blossom.

  Zora claps once and bounces once. Chloris nods, wide-eyed.

  “Are we going to be able to do that?” Kynefrid, most of the way to gobsmacked.

  Steam is not deferential. Kynefrid may have taken what I think is deference to Blossom as unconcern for the fate of students. Or maybe it was not paying attention.

  “Study hard.” Blossom waves, wiggles fingers at the shining lines. “This particular thing is more knack than skill, transecting lights, but the lights themselves are a skill.”

  “But not this year.” Zora clearly wishes to make this a question.

  “Basic lights are next month some time, this kind of light is next spring. Photons are pretty easy.” Blossom has this tiny flash of looking fond through the basic steady grin; Zora looks happy, and Chloris’ eyes roll.

  “Unlike all this rock.” I figure I had better say something, before I get asked.

  “Unlike all this rock.” Don’t think I fooled Blossom.

  “So, students, where ought the rock to go?” Nope, didn’t fool Blossom at all.

  Kynefrid and Dove are sketching, or trying to sketch, on the dirt; it’s wet, it’s rough, there really isn’t much actual dirt.

  Zora’s face screws up in concentration, I hope it’s concentration, if it’s pain it’s severe, as Zora stands on tiptoes and makes a throwing motion. A mauve ball of light a metre in diameter bounces, bounces again, rolls, sometimes uphill, and sits, spinning, where the dam for Dove’s choice of second pond would have to go.

  “That’s further away.” Chloris does not approve of further away.

  “It’ll be enough, though.” Zora’s big ball of purple light rolls uphill, dips through where the first dam will have to go, forward and back. “That’s going to take more fill than we’ve got.” The combination of the purple and green light is really indescribable. Zora’s light-ball scintillates.

  It also rolls back to the second dam location.

  “It’d be a start.” Dove sounds mostly convinced. “We’re going to have to move all the dirt, order doesn’t really matter so long as we don’t have to move anything twice.”

  That was a rule for the lumber rack, back in the collective, but I’ll take it for dirt, too.

  Kynefrid is nodding. “Two steps? If there isn’t any water down there, we want to leave the rubble in place, right?”

  Blossom’s head tips from side to side. “Or maybe drill deeper and build a windmill. You’re right that any deeper doesn’t work for plain gravity.”

  “So we need to move, what, it can’t be less than five hundred tonnes? Today?” Kynefrid doesn’t have any trouble believing in making a dam, or ponds, or even the whole creating-a-creek part. The idea of being able to do it that fast is the problem.

  Well, mine, too.

  Can’t actually see the sun. I’m not damp or miserable, and my feet are dry, which is enough right there to like this having talent thing a whole lot more, but I have no real idea what time it is.

  “Lunch first?” I figure it’s worth a try. Eyes light up, and Blossom nods.

  “Can’t have you collapsing in heaps halfway through.” Blossom’s still smiling. “Not under piles of rubble.”

  I’m getting used to the joy-beet stuff. Easier to feel happy with dry feet.

  Lunch goes quick; it’s leek and potato stew, I guess; bit too thick, and too much actual mutton, to be soup. Nothing complicated, no trying to figure out what individual thing to eat next. It’s even hot, warming things up is very easy. Hot food is cheering enough that Blossom’s “Point it away,” injunction, in case we warm the food excessively, doesn’t take anything much away from the cheer.

  Can’t ever remember being this hungry, it’s been three days, I can’t say ‘all the time’, it feels like all the time. Not even after a couple décades digging post-holes when I was sixteen.

  Though, five hundred tonnes. I can get my head around that, it’s not swapping
millions and millions of tonnes of dirt and rock with another world, I can believe it. It’d take me décades with a wheelbarrow, but it’s an imaginable amount.

  The dip’s different. The hill, well, it’s got a dip, but I shouldn’t call it that, the ridge line’s this huge thing, have to reach out into the high notes to see it clearly. But the rubble’s got its own mess of dips, now, all jumbled up like the chalk line got chucked into a bag loose and then rattled for a year.

  Don’t have to pick it apart, though, I don’t need one specific bit of the rubble. It’s more like combing your hands though unwelcome garden plants to see what roots the hoe has cut already by which plants come up in your hands.

  If I twirl those together, there, it’s all one thing, and it’s not really a sock, more like a bag, but I can imagine that the bag has a single dip, and roll that down.

  Somewhere a long way away, Kynefrid says “Dictates of Law,” in reverent tones. I’m not paying attention, the sock’s fighting back, it’s like trying to roll up a strip of sod, just too heavy.

  A hand comes down on my shoulder, and it’s like another hand on the lever. I don’t think about that very much, it’s enough that the sock will roll, and it does.

  “No farther, Edgar.” Blossom isn’t smiling, it’s a set, intent expression, but there’s nothing but approval in Blossom’s tone of voice.

  “Do I want to turn around?”

  The hand on my shoulder shakes a bit, right in time with Dove’s giggle. Thought so.

  “You might want to stand up, too.” Blossom doesn’t giggle, but is certainly amused, it’s like there’s a magic sun grinning at me on the eyelids this set of perceptions don’t have.

  I take a firm grip on the sock-dip, make eye contact with Dove, and stand. Dove’s green hair is a lot more noticeable up close.

  I was facing east; facing back west, to see the place we blasted, shows me the rubble, floating. All the rubble, dust to boulders.

  Closing my eyes and opening them again doesn’t change it.

  “Nobody tell me how heavy that is.” It doesn’t matter, once it’s rolled the sock stays rolled almost on its own, I just don’t want to have to fight off the gibbering.

  “Not today,” says Blossom. It’ll have to do.

  “Can you move it down the hill?” Chloris sounds a bit stunned.

  “No.” Blossom says it like a law of nature. “Suitable practice mass for gradient sliding is about fifty grammes.”

  “Edgar, Dove, stay linked up like that, you’re going to have to adjust the float. Edgar’s got executive.” Blossom says this like I know what it means, and I suppose if I think about it I do.

  “Chloris, Kynefrid, Zora, you’re going to tow the rubble.”

  “With good intentions?” Chloris is looking around a bit frantically.

  “If good intentions are what you want to use.” Blossom sounds utterly composed.

  It’d be funny if my head was anywhere social. It’s all breathe, breathe, will the rolled sock to be stable, which is getting so it’s a reliable destination for my head. It’s a lot like how you can’t think about what you’re making when you’re doing individual cuts on a lathe; you make the cut, that’s the whole of what you’re doing or you’re going to flub it. Using a hammer is like that, too, hit the right thing with the right force this one time. There’s going to be a next time but you can’t fix your misses with next time. Same with anything, really. Dove’s right there, that other hand on the lever. All I get is that inflexible cool texture and the fire made out of trumpet music. No nervousness, no worry, and I know it works, because there’s the huge floating pile of rubble. The bottom of the rubble is way over my head, maybe three metres higher than the old grade level.

  This is really kinda relaxing. I’m holding up way more than five hundred tonnes of rock fragments, it might be a couple thousand, holding hands with a fellow student I know just about enough about to be sure I don’t know them at all, waiting for my other three fellow students to invent something that will haul all these rock bits hundreds of metres. Going to think about all of that later. Not going to lean my head on Dove’s shoulder, either.

  “Is there water down there?” Kynefrid, clearly unwilling to stand under the rubble to look. That’s only sense.

  Zora says “Lots!” and points at the bottom of the rubble; the bottom metre, metre-fifty, is wet, all of it dark with water. The top’s wet, it’s still raining, but the sides down, where there’s a slope in, they’re not wet very deep, maybe half a metre. You can see where water there followed the breaks downward.

  Kynefrid produces one decisive nod. “We want the whole way. If it were a barge, we’d want a tow and a rudder, but we don’t have anything for the rudder to push against.”

  “Tow lines out to left and right, drag line for steering.” Zora sounds utterly convinced.

  Chloris and Kynefrid look at Zora. “Just because it’s not a barge for cheese doesn’t mean that won’t work, the collective I was apprenticed to did that every fall, winching barges out of a tight basin into a loading slip.”

  There are nods, and none of them notice Blossom’s sudden smirk. This really isn’t going to catch on as a means of delivering cheese.

  A little while later, there’s a braided thing a bit like a ward Wake made right around the rubble, a metre down from the top. Zora’s strand is the drag line; Chloris is ahead left, Kynefrid is ahead right. They’re all hanging on to nothing with their hands; they can feel it, I can see it, but not with my eyes. There’s a bit of wobble in the rolled-up rubble-dip when tension comes on the immaterial lines, and I stick up the hand that’s not holding on to Dove.

  These are little wobbles, but it will be very embarrassing if the whole thing flips over.

  I pull the rolled bit of sock wider, instead of trying to push against any of the wobbles, and the wobbles damp out. Hurm. Can’t turn the sock upside down, to get the wide bit lower, but I can cinch the middle bit in a little.

  Dove just helps, there isn’t any explaining step. Maybe Dove’s getting my intent directly, no idea if that’s possible or likely.

  Still won’t work, it’s still tippy. The Power doesn’t grab the whole shape, just the rolled part.

  We end up with the rolled-bit stretched down, so instead of being a thick round rim on the top of a bowl it’s more like a wide-bottomed, thick-walled bucket that’s been crunched in like a pulley wheel. The braided willed lines go in the narrowest bit, where they can’t slip, and the centre of mass is below them; they can pull the whole thing down, they can pull it forward, but they can’t pull it over.

  Lathes teach you a lot about centre of mass, sometimes by hitting you in the face-shield with the doorknob blank you chucked in wrong.

  I take my hand down. Blossom’s making an ‘on your head be it’ motion with both hands.

  I think it goes pretty well; there’s some yelling between Kynefrid and Chloris on the tow lines, Dove and I almost fall once each, it’s tough to walk on rough ground when most of your mind has been stuffed into, it happened in steps, and it’s complicated, I think I have to call it a spell. Whatever it is, almost all of my head is in it.

  We get all the rubble over to the second dam site. Doesn’t take enormously much longer than it would take to just walk that far, maybe twice as long as a slow walk would. Even that might be a bit fast, you don’t want to get a heavy thing going too quick. We can’t possibly miss the dam site, Blossom’s lighted transect sits on it still blazing at the sky.

  Chloris, Kynefrid and Zora let go of their lines, let go of the tow spell, unravelling it neatly, go through a careful clean-off to be sure they’re not still connected. Blossom beams approval at them. They trot right back to the excavation, and I can, faintly, hear Zora asking if they should be on the other side of the hill.

  Blossom’s head shakes.

  The voice coming down the hill to me is gentle, much more gentle in tone than I could possibly hear Blossom. “Do not damage yourselves. If you can not damage y
ourselves and get the rubble in free contact with the ground, great. If you get baffled, stop.” An absolute command.

  I nod, I can feel Dove saying something like ‘yes’.

  “My teachers would present you with casks of wine, the way you’re outrunning the syllabus.” I think there was real affection in that.

  Beats demon dissection. Dove, it’s obviously Dove, but I can see that Dove’s mouth didn’t move.

  Fair point, comes back from Blossom, with a sense of grin.

  Dove? I’m trying not to fluster.

  The shoulder would have been fine. So is this. How are we going to set it down?

  There’s a half-second when my brain drifts toward locking up, and then there’s that voice that says ‘the machine is running’. I’m the machine. I’m running. Right.

  Across the spot we want dammed?

  It hasn’t been a sock since we made it a pinched bucket, but if it can be a pinched bucket it can be a trough. I move the shape out, it doesn’t want to take square corners, well, I suppose, sharp corners concentrate stress, there’s got to be a material limit in there somewhere, but I can get it looking like a drilled mortise. Dove gives the rubble pile quick, sharp, sideways shakes as the containing shape changes; there’s a place where I have to stop shifting while Dove gives it what’s closer to three swift kicks than a shake, to get the big broken boulders around the edges to shift.

  The whole thing, well, you know how it feels, the first time you get to kiss somebody you’ve been interested in for awhile, and going from being relatively sure they wouldn’t be interested at all to, well, here you are and they’re being enthusiastic back? It’s like that feeling was a texture, a quality of the air, and I’m breathing it.

  It’s glorious.

  I get one corner of the trough shape, Dove gets the other, it doesn’t take asking or even waving at the corner I mean, it’s like we’ve been doing exactly this forever, and it turns smoothly to match the shining terrain. There’s a couple more rattles to get the downhill end to be a little thicker, then a tip or a squish so the upstream face will be closer to vertical.