by Pam Uphoff
"Thirteen days," Question warned. "We can't stay any longer."
"Right." Never looked around as their unofficial guide from the day before joined them. "Mani, can we buy and sell things? Where?"
"Uh Huu! Brit some trade goods, eh? Yu lemme show yu where de traders be. Tonight, avta dinner."
Before dinner there were classes in math and 'living' which was mostly instructions on how the locals lived, and their machinery. It started with an overview of the jobs available to natives.
Hard hand labor and servant type jobs. They weren't training 'natives' for the upper positions. One could be an assistant to a doctor, or lawyer, or cook. But they weren't training even cooks. It seemed quite odd—people always had to treat wounds and illnesses and grow, catch or find food and then cook it. She supposed the laws were different for each world, so not training lawyers made a bit of sense.
Question flagged down the instructor. "What is yur medicine like? What do you do fer women's priblims?"
"If you are interested in medicine, we can get you some specific classes that will answer those questions for you."
Never concealed a smirk. In other words, you don't know anything about medicine.
He made a few notes on a thing in his hand, aimed it at Question's eye dee. One of their electronic things, that they used instead of paper notes. "And you, Miss, do you have a preference?"
"Hiztory and law are very interesting, but cooking I can do already."
He aimed his thing at her eye dee and tapped more as he walked on to other students.
Finally he circulated back with new assignments for everyone. She and Question were in advanced language, history and advanced math every morning, and in the afternoon Question would have medical aid training while Never had kitchen assistant training.
Question giggled. "Kitchen assistant? You get to peel potatoes and chop carrots."
"That part will be all right. It's the lessons in how to wash a pan that will be . . . tedious. Unless they do it with some electronic thing."
The traders were a line of irregular buildings just inside the back entrance of the village. The man in the wooden shack Mani took them to eyed their orange one-pieces and looked unenthusiastic. Question produced a single gold wafer, and he perked right up. He assayed it right on the spot, and bought it, paying by doing something to her Eye Dee. "Wid dat you can buy durn neer anyding here," he waved around the store. "If it ain't here. Benny Altman can find it and get it for you."
Never found a small stack of normal paper books and looked through them.
"You like books? Fun stories, eh?"
"History?" she asked. "Math? Gates?"
"Hu, you gotta regular smart one here." He looked calculating. "I can get some, but they're expensive. You got any more gold?"
"Yes. When can you get more books?" Never pulled out a wafer, then tucked it away. The man was practically drooling.
"I'll be going into town tomorrow, come by tomorrow night." His eyes followed the gold, hungrily, rose and stopped about Never's breast level. "I'll bring by any I can find."
One of the books, Mysteries of the Past, might have some history in it. She handed it to Question and kept looking. She wondered if a book that called itself a historical romance might be useful. Question took it from her.
"They're cheap."
That was all they bought from Benny Altman. The other traders had clothing, fancy belts, a few machines. Question bought a game machine to practice on. No books. There were guards at the end of the row. Never eyed them. There had been guards on the front gate, too. Who attacked these people with all of their powerful machines? Or are they there to keep us in?
They walked back into the compound proper.
"Dey don let you go any vurther." Mani said. "Til you got a job." He fingered his Eye Dee. "I been here a month, gon to m'vurst job vair tomorrow. Never gon gho home and starve again."
Question rubbed the ache in her side, and nodded. "That's good. I guess that's why most people come here."
"Yup," he grinned up at them, an inch shorter than Question, barely reaching Never's shoulder. "Lots uv vood where yu bug straping lasses cum vrom, I bet."
"Yes, but there are other problems," Never said. "How these guys treat you? On your world? Polite-like?"
Mani wheezed with laughter. "Hill noo. All noses un the air and telling us whut to do. Yu hirt one o dem, yu in bug truble. De kill someone, dey hustles hem away, and say dat de punished him, but we don see it huppen." He spat. "Worse other places, places that ghot stuff worth taking," His eyes slid toward the pocket Never had slipped the gold wafer into. "Dey send the harmy, den. Take ut all."
They wished him a good night and walked across to their barracks.
"Hey, cutie!" a dark masculine shadow reached out and grabbed Never's elbow.
She pulled power from him, until he collapsed. The two that had bracketed Question were down, one yelling. Never tossed a stun spell on him to shut him up. She checked to make sure they were all breathing, and they left them where they were.
Question giggled. "Wonder what they'll think in the morning?"
"Do we care?" Never kicked off a shoe to touch the ground and channel the rest of the energy. Mmmm, that had felt good and made her horny as hell. She really was going to have to do something about Dydit, soon. She toed the shoe back on. "Twelve more days of classes, and then we'd best get back to the gate and wait till it opens up to the right place."
"Good plan," Question rubbed her side. "With books."
The lights were still on in the barracks, and they started reading. Question was snickering within minutes. "Oh, Never, if this is real history, I mean if the background of the story is factual . . . the clothing!"
Never read over her shoulder, then retreated, snickering, to read about famous missing ships, a semi-human creature called a Yeti, strange aliens from outer space and the genocide of millions of genetically engineered people who had psychic powers. On that last, the book went into a fair amount of detail with genetic engineering starting with repairing deadly mutations, then diverting onto now-forbidden ground, adding animal genes, and artificial genes. Then the deliberate creation of "super soldiers" who escaped control and went on killing sprees. Apparently the many theories for the death of all the "mutants" were enabled by the destruction of their home place by "possibly a nuclear bomb." The range of possible fates included genocide, mass suicide . . . exile through an early dimensional gate.
Never sat up and reread that whole section. All other countries had destroyed their super soldiers and ceased genetic experimentation. The business that made the last of the genetically engineered people was also the company that made the first dimensional gates, although the first commercial gates were hundreds of years in the future. At the time when the legislation to destroy all the genetically engineered people in the world was passed, the basic theories were known, but power and computational abilities were still too primitive. Tall tales that they'd actually had working gates and colonies was generally dismissed as unfounded. But the theory of an "Early Diaspora" persisted. The place where the genetically engineered test people lived out their lives, to which all the other genetically engineered people were brought was destroyed by a huge explosion.
Well. I know four Gods who are going to hear about this!
She was in the middle of reading about the mysterious fate of the first Martian Colony when the lights dimmed.
The next day in her history class, she skimmed ahead in her history book searching for the time period, for confirmation, and received a reprimand. The math, once she'd gotten over the weird numbers, was Nil and Dydit's Scooner algebra, geometry and calculus. She found herself assigned to help the other students.
The cooking classes, in the afternoon were just pathetic. Because the ingredients were all canned and preserved, or already cooked and just needing to be opened and heated. They were being trained to do the simple part of what went on in a large commercial kitchen. Open the can and heat the
vegetables.
"They hardly need to worry about training for this! Do they think other people eat raw meat?" Never wrinkled her nose at the soggy vegetables.
The thin woman beside her giggled. "I tink the problem is that they don eat raw food. Tey get so much of ter food from machines tey tink dealing with plants an meat is hard.
The teacher looked down his nose at them. "And what, pray tell, would you make of, oh, say, these raw ingredients?" He poked at his machine and the wall disgorged a bunch of food, that, if not raw and natural, at least had potential.
Never looked them over. "No eggs? I don't suppose you have pots and pans? Oil for frying?"
He curled a lip and poked his machine. A dozen eggs and a quart of oil. "The pots and pans are down there."
Never mixed up the pasta dough and rolled it out and let it dry for a bit. She breaded and fried thin strings of the 'spam' meat, stir fried the veggies, sliced the noodles and boiled them, then added them to the frying pan. The overly salty soy sauce was good enough with the garlic and ginger for the sauce and the crispy strings of fried spam went on top.
Her neighbor had made flat bread and chopped the spam with onion and celery for a crunchy filling.
The class sampled everything, and the instructor took notes. "I can have the machines make most of that, soon enough." Never wondered how the machines would get the meat crispy.
And they did have machines to wash the dishes.
The next day the official instruction was brief, then they got to really cook again. The whole class got into it this time, and everyone tried for favorite dishes.
"Haven't you ever turned people loose to cook before?" Never asked the bemused instructor.
"No, I always had trouble getting them to just open the cans and heat according to directions." He poked her veggies uncertainly. "Bacon and onion and fry the canned green beans?"
"It's bettah when the beans are fresh and crunchy, but in winter canned is all there is."
"You have canneries? I hadn't realized your civilization was advanced enough to can food."
"I hate to tell you this, but we can them ourselves, in t'kitchen. Aftah we pick them in t'garden."
He looked at her in horror. "Do you have the faintest idea what botulism is? How many of your people drop dead after eating canned goods?"
"I've heard that can happen if you don't get t'heat high enough when you can. Don't worry, we all do pressure canning, at higher temps than unpressurized boiling." She checked a few more of the spices and added some to the spinach.
"Sprinkle in a touch of cumin? Good Heavens! The last group I taught had lived all their lives on a mixture of cow's blood and milk."
Never studied him, but saw no sign that he was joking. "I suppose you do get some odd cultures to deal with."
"Well, you medieval types are obviously going to be easier."
And to give the man credit, possibly a third of the women in the class had only the most basic of ideas about what was possible in a kitchen. The instructor reshuffled his lessons, and the third day they started on breakfast preparation. From the machines and by hand they covered the staples of the Earthers' morning diet.
History continued to be fascinating, even though the strict one page at a time instruction was guaranteed to drive her to chewing her finger nails, she did slowly learn Earth history.
In math she explained logarithms to the teacher and tried her hand at trigonometry.
"We aren't actually behind these people by much." Never told Question. "We don't have the power gadgets, just a few steam engine driven factories in Karista. And Ash has magic. A good push at education and a slow spread of power factories, maybe electricity and gyps and we'd be their equals."
"I wonder how they treat people who are almost their equals? Do they see potential trading partners, allies? Or competition and enemies?" Question sighed. "Their medical treatment splits three ways. Drugs, surgery and huge expensive machines. We in Ash have the equivalent or better than their drugs, and we can stick injuries back together with magic. I need to find out what the machines do."
"Bet we can do better. Look at the Wine of the Gods."
Question snickered. "Yes, that could be really popular here, from what I hear."
The next day her side was worse. Never looked at her severely. Then thoughtfully. "I can end it, but why don't we see what these people's medicine can do?" They skipped breakfast to find the Huspitale and then they waited. And waited. Question sent the worried Never off to classes. She poked and prodded the game machine. She could do all sorts of things without touching it. Could recharge the chemical power source. But all things considered, she'd rather play real cards with real human opponents. She slipped the game into a pocket and waited. Worried. Finally a girl from one of the laborer worlds led her through a series of hallways to a small room where she performed some odd tasks. Weight, height, listen to heart, fine, but what was the bladder they wrapped around her arm and filled with air until it cut her circulation off for? What did they need her blood and urine for?
Finally a local man walked in. Looked at everything written down, barely glanced at her. "You're pregnant. Congratulations."
Question shut her eyes in pain. "I have troubles. Tubal pregnancies. Twice."
That got his attention. "Lay down." He felt her tummy. Said something absolutely incomprehensible to the young woman, and she was led off again, into a small room that shook and rose and opened to another floor. This time she had to lay still in a tunnel, then she was told to sit and wait.
A woman in white, carrying a flat box walked up to her. "Christian Ash? Good, come with me."
She sat down behind a desk and gestured Question to a chair. "Well, you are quite a mess inside. There's a lot of abdominal scaring. The fallopian tubes are pretty much non-functional," she frowned. "Do you speak enough Merican to understand?"
"Yes. I was very badly hurt, playing with lightning."
"Err, I think that didn't translate . . . Well, your uterus looks fine. We can terminate the pregnancy easily. There is an option, you've come to us early enough that we can transplant it to the upper part of your uterus. It might work, might not. Probably need an early delivery by caesarian so you don't tear those scars."
Question only understood one part of that. "Transplant . . . I can have a baby?"
"Yes, dear. Now, this is a bit of an emergency, so we'll admit you now, and do the procedure . . . did you eat this morning? No? Excellent. I'll see about scheduling surgery." She pushed a button on the desk and another labor girl popped in. "Take her to admitting, Jissi."
***
Face-to-face meetings with the Board were scheduled only for very good and very bad news. The faces turned toward Lon were fairly blank, braced for bad news, not wanting to look too eager for good news. New Carolina hadn't bought into this world, so they didn't have a representative handy. So they can't send in Jefferson. Thank god.
Gerald McCamey was babbling a bit, about the potential of all five worlds being what counted. Lon loaded the screens he needed, and on the Director's nod, stood up to address the whole table.
"There are three things you need to be made immediately aware of about Twelve fifty-three.
"First, a comet hit the planet a thousand years ago. This is the analysis of the first sample from the crater bottom." Side-by-side, the aerial view of the crater and the stark list of elements. Every person in the room stirred. "We'll need an engineering assessment of the crater lake, how best to drain it, for mining.
"Second, the impact killed most, but not all of the Native population." A picture of the horse drawn wagon, and Lefty and Dydit talking with Nelson Manrique. The board members shifted a bit. The aerial photographs of the city on the bay had them sitting up and taking notice.
"Third, there are some unusual phenomenon, possibly dangerous. There are a large number of visual comets. Three, at the moment. We need to assess the danger of more impacts. Then there are some very odd gravitational fluctuations. We need to
find out what the cause of these are. The possibility exists that they are caused by dangerous tectonic activity."
Clinton Thronson snorted faintly. "Something to do with this recent—geologically speaking—impact, perhaps."
"We're hoping it's just an odd groundwater system, possibly geothermal, with periodic fluid movement.
Simon Meese leaned back, eyes narrowed. "We're going to have to take a good look at it, in any case. Otherwise we'll have the Safety Board all over us. The comets as well. And natives. We'll have to contact the Department of Native Affairs. What's their population look like?"
Lon hesitated, then plunged in. "The two men we've spoken to say the region was depopulated by 'the comet fall' as they refer to it. They are just now starting to explore the area again. There are no settlements at all around the crater, our aerial surveys will no doubt find out how close any actual settlements are. We may be able to carry on our operations without regard to the natives. We'll need an approved treaty, but that may be the limit of our interactions."
McCamey leaned his elbows on the table. "All right. I think our first move is going to have to be to get the Department of Native Affairs involved."
"If we do, will we be able to get them uninvolved again?" Thronson drummed his fingers and then nodded. "We have to. Might as well do it before we invest more money, and before anyone learns about the crater. It will simplify everything enormously if no one realizes how much this world is worth while we're negotiating."
Meese looked around the table. "Are we in agreement? Notify the government that we have found natives? Keep the mineral potential in house for now? Do I have a motion? Thank you Michael. Seconded by Olgilve. All in favor? Passed unanimously. Dr. Hackathorn, we'll contact the government, and no doubt they'll want further details from you."
Lon removed himself from the meeting.
McCamey followed him out. "Thank God you had basically good news. Jefferson is having some terrain problems on Seventeen. He hadn't even started unloading as of the supposed return gate. The Driver's Union is pissed. Temporary drivers don't bring stuff along for sleeping in their trucks for two months. And the Gyp driver who brought the report says he won't go back. He doesn't know what's worse, the idiot in charge or the bugs, but since that world has both, he's not going back."