“Ah, Ms. Carver, you are aware that my educational track is agro-engineering, not industrial,” she began, trying to fend the woman off.
Caver waved a manicured, smooth hand. “Engineering is engineering. Don’t worry, Ms. Washington, the credits you’ve earned out here will transfer no matter what track you resume, be it chemical, electrical, heavy industrial, or astrogation. In fact, if you signed up for space engineering, you get an additional two years to earn out your indenture.”
Translation: it costs so much and so few women make the cut that they lower the standards and extend the service time to keep them in. I know of one woman in all my classes who could do space engineering. Hellfires, only three of the men could handle it! Basil tried again. “When I came here, as the records should show, I could not find any work in either my primary or secondary fields. I trust you see why I am a bit reluctant to shift out of my current employment and take on an indenture extension without a written guarantee that I will have a position. A paid position.” Basil leaned on the word. Everyone knew about the non-paying apprenticeships problem.
“Tut, tut, Ms. Washington, have some faith in the Company.” Ms. Carver ran a hand through her pink-tipped, spiky, dark-brown hair, fluffing the points. Tildie made a sound that could have been either a critique or a muffled cough. “There’s an engineering refresher program starting at ColLandPlat in two weeks that has some spaces available.”
“What about my children? I have one age three and a four-month-old, both of whom will need care while I am in class.”
Carver’s eyes popped open, then returned to their usual size. “Oh, if you can’t leave them here, the Company has a list of households that would be glad to take them on, provided their genetics meet the minimum standard for out-crossing.”
Now it was Karina’s turn to make a choking sound, and Basil began to see red—literally. A pink haze clouded her vision and she wanted to claw Carver’s smirk off her face. Right. You want me to abandon my family and go deeper into debt so the Company managers can point to me as the ‘woman from the sub-sett.’ No. She took a deep breath, then another, to make certain her voice didn’t wobble or sound weak.
“Thank you for the offer and information, Ms. Carver. However, I am sorry to inform you but I believe another portion of your files is not up-to-date. You see, this morning I began a veterinary-science degree track with a focus on mammalian and avian genetics and obstetrics. The program ties in well with my previous training, and I already have sufficient experience to bypass half the laboratory hour requirements. Andrew McIlroy, the regional veterinary supervisor, signed off on my track this morning.” She kept her voice smooth and apologetic, trying to pretend that she really was sorry.
“Did your employer require you to do this? If so, I’ll file a blocking motion and shift your indenture to the chemistry department immediately.” Carver began calling up pages on her tablet.
“No, Ms. Carver. I’d been considering it for some time, and my, ahem, ‘employer’ has granted me additional study hours in order to pursue my educational goals. The local veterinary support staff strongly encouraged my interest, because of the Company’s need for primary animal-care specialists, both in this district and at the Agricultural Heritage Center in the next district east.” And because the vet techs hate getting up at midnight to rotate a breech lamb out in the pasture, but that’s beside the point.
Ms. Carver looked crushed, but entered the appropriate data. “When you finish, contact the district employment manager about genetics research positions, Ms. Washington. Veterinary science is an excellent initial step toward employment in the commercial genetic development programs.”
“I’ll be sure to do that.”
A light hand tapped on the door, and it opened a touch. “Mom Baa, James finished his bottle and I can’t find the spare. And Mom Tildie, Gomer says she needs you to confirm the grocery order for the guesthouse.”
“If you will excuse me,” Tildie said, getting up and easing to the door. “I’ll just look at her order file and I’ll be right back.”
“There is no spare bottle. Bring him here, please.” Bethany handed James, his carrier, and a modesty shawl into the room. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. We’ve got power so I’m doing a diaper and whites load.” With that she rushed off before anyone could suggest a different chore.
Ms. Carver watched with wide-eyed fascination as Basil opened her blouse, got James settled, and draped him so he could nurse under cover. “You don’t use a crèche or synth-milk?”
Karina answered for Basil. “No, Ms. Carver. We’re a considerable distance away from the closest full crèche, and you may not have heard, but the last two major impurity recalls were for synth-milk. Susannah, Tildie, and I take infant health very seriously, and we’re reluctant to use synth-milk until there are more consistent, high-quality supplies.”
Ms. Carver scrolled through her files again. “Ah, speaking of standards, I need to look at the guesthouse and restaurant, in case my colleague has missed something.”
Karina stood up. “Certainly, Ms. Carver. I’ll show you the way, since Susannah is otherwise occupied.”
The inspector nodded and packed up most of her digital boxes and documents. “Remember, Ms. Washington, contact the employment representative as soon as you finish your certification track, so we can slot you into the genetic engineering department training program.”
“Yes, Ms. Carver. Thank you.” The rabbi’s wife will serve pork chops in cream sauce at the next bar mitzva before that happens.
The next day she and Kos re-sent the marriage forms, along with a tart note from their rabbi about the company’s failure to honor the rights of religious minorities as per its charter from the Planetary Union, down to the sub-paragraph. “Since all rabbis study the Law, most of them also learn other laws,” Kos explained. “Plus he has to know all the forms for the marriage and burial paperwork.” Acknowledgment of their legal relationship arrived the next day, nullifying Ms. Carver’s threat.
The “lazy days of summer” flew by for Basil and her family. With only half the machines in full working order, and another quarter partly functional at best, everyone worked harder than ever to get less done, or so it seemed. Basil studied, spun, watched the children, and traveled to other farms and met neighboring animal owners with the veterinarian and his visiting aids, learning how to spot problems and how to treat minor ills before they became major. She decided that she liked delivering babies and hated giving pills to pigs. “I don’t understand,” she complained one evening on the way back to Crownpoint. “They can and do eat anything, but they insist on spitting out the tiniest pill. How can they tell?” And why not just give the nasty beasts a shot or use a liquid drench? Oh, she knew the medical reason why, but it seemed silly. We’ve been reworking animal genetics for hundreds of years, and yet we can’t breed a horse that doesn’t colic or a pig that’s parasite proof. But attempts to do so had removed the essence of horse-ness and pig-ness, ending the experiments. Although Basil thought a more sheep-like pig held a lot of appeal. I’m so glad Kos doesn’t raise pigs, even if they are recyclers and we could sell them as long as we don’t eat them ourselves. Pigs know too much. And no one has ever been eaten by his own sheep, either: trampled, kicked, and butted, but never eaten.
By the fall and the passing of the High Holy Days, Basil and her family also knew more than they wanted to. The company sent out a full security bulletin on all channels after a second round of massive riots burned through Delhi II and the agricultural settlements surrounding the city proper. “The labor managers bought thousands of people from the same back-water, filthy, non-functional places, dropped them here, expecting them to become happy factory shift workers and farm laborers in a week or two. And then the managers and administrators are surprised when the newcomers get mad,” Kos said, shaking his head as he read the bulletin. “Especially if you have ideology differences as great as these seem to be. The Company should have k
nown better.”
“That sounds strange, Kos,” Basil ventured, rocking from foot to foot and trying to get James to burp. His colic made her days interesting and her nights short. “Unless there’s an environmental event of some kind, the company’s not supposed to relocate people out of their traditional life-ways.”
He shrugged. “Apparently they did, and the results are ugly. You can read the details for yourself, Baa. Most of the bulletin is about industrial indentures and labor conditions, so it doesn’t apply to us.”
Basil read it and stared at the screen when she finished. Delhi II had suffered the worst riots, but to the west of the Triangle Mountains, the sector of Franklin also experienced uprisings and urban destruction. In response, the lead administrator of Franklin, Raymond Marcel, with the support of François De Champ from the Company, had turned guns on rioting sub-sett residents without trying non-harmful pacification tools first. Real guns, using lethal force, something Basil could not recall ever happening unless an actual invasion was underway. “I don’t like this,” she whispered.
Neither did Tildie, as it turned out. The day before her final certification exam, Basil helped Tildie in the restaurant kitchen, making bread. Rather than using the kneading machine, Tildie dragged out the heavy bread board and set to work with a will, punching, flipping, turning, and beating the large batch of dough into a soft, rounded mass. Basil couldn’t miss the ferocity Tildie turned on the bread. “Is there a problem?”
“Yes.” Whump, turn, fold, whump, the older woman walloped the creamy tan dough. “You read the security bulletin?”
“Yes. Just the egg whites, or do you want the whole egg blended?”
“Whole egg. Using lethal force without trying other things first is a bad precedent. Others will use it as an excuse to be stupid.”
Basil thought about it as she watched the eggs beat. At Tildie’s signal she carried the loaf pans over and after Tildie shaped the loaves, Basil brushed egg over the top to give them a nice color. Part of her wanted to argue with Tildie, but another part of her remembered the security people in their gray and silver masks marching through her slum on Deepak’s Planet.
“Are you ready for the test?” Tildie asked as they put the first loaves into the oven.
“I don’t feel ready, but everyone and the computer says that I am.”
Tildie smiled and hugged Basils’ shoulders. “Then you’re ready. If you feel like you know it all,” she made a whistling sound and mimicked something falling off a cliff. “Surprise! Splat.”
Two days before the harvest push began, Basil passed her tests with almost perfect marks and a glowing recommendation from the district veterinarian.
Ann Montoya shook hear head, then turned to look at the display behind her, giving Pete Babenburg a glimpse of gray in her black hair as she did. “How many this time?” she asked her deputy, Tui Nguen.
“Only two residence blocks, but that’s because the ones on either side burned out last time. Helped contain the damage,” the wiry security officer said. “That makes, ah, twelve in the past year, starting from last October.”
Pete scrubbed his cheeks, feeling stubble. I need to de-whisker. It’s been, what? Two days? Feels like two weeks. Ann looks like hell, Arturo’s not much better, and the only person who seems to be doing at all well is crazy Martin Starhemberg, the mad professor.
Martin, called in because of his “past life experiences” as he called them, radiated enthusiasm and energy that, to Pete, bordered on obscene. It’s not fair—how can he be so energetic? He’s at least twice my age. The white-haired former academic gave Pete a pitying look. “A good breakfast does wonders for the outcome of the day, young man.”
“What is this ‘breakfast’ of which you speak?” Arturo pointed to the time display beside the city map. It read nine p.m. They’d been working since six that morning, when the first hints of another riot had begun bubbling out of the sub-sett. The new fence and armed guards standing across the remains of the area separating the sub-sett from the main city had helped confine the day’s mischief, but not as well as Ann Montoya and the others had hoped. Thus the meeting and plans.
“What’s Harding Korso going to do, do you suppose, when his largest voting block discovers that it must grow-up or learn to swim?” Martin asked, chewing on the end of an unlit pipe.
“Not much, since he’s still recovering from manual surgery on a perforated bowel. Which, as much as I detest his policies, I would not wish on anyone.” Pete didn’t like thinking about how much pain Korso must have been in by the time he got to the medical center. His assistant said he’d mentioned some problems but had waved off her suggestions that he get medical help, until he collapsed after turning green and vomiting blood. The nerve-blocker at the emergency center closest to the municipal center had failed and not been replaced, leaving medicines the only option. But until they knew what was wrong, the medics refused to give Korso anything that might throw the scanner off. Lord be with him, Pete prayed.
“Right,” Martin stated, drawing everyone’s attention to the map. He had a stick of some kind in his hand and used it to point to the eastern side of the city. “The remaining residents of the sub-sett refuse to abide by the law. They continue rioting, destroying sanitation and energy infrastructure and their own production units as fast as our workers can get them repaired. We and ‘our’ being the municipal administration and its employees and associates,” he specified. “The regional administratrix, in turn, insists that providing more goods and services will solve the problem. It has failed to do so thus far. And the security problem has reached the level that it endangers the rest of the city and the farmers around it.”
Gerald White, just sliding into the room, protested. “Easy there, Prof, that’s going a little far. ‘Endangers the rest of the city’ is a bit much.”
Ann and Pete both shook their heads, and Martin gave Gerald a stern look, blue eyes dark. He tapped the map with his stick. “Someone tried to rip out the debris gates and back-flow gates on the sewage system, apparently to gain access to the outflow tunnels for reasons thus far unknown. And they’ve been harassing the livestock at the Heritage Center, as well as trying to steal things, mostly vehicles, building material, and small tools.”
“I suspect those last two are people trying to patch their dwelling units without attracting notice from company workers or from their neighbors,” Ann explained. “I don’t entirely blame them, given some of the trouble and threats I’ve heard about.”
Martin tapped the map again. “This new layout is not optimal, but should work. My understanding is that these areas are too badly damaged to rebuild, correct?”
Gerald peered at the blocks in question, a group that paralleled the line of the unfinished wall. “Correct. I’ve looked at them, and my test engineers agree—the material’s been heated and quenched too often to be stable. The first good storm, or another fire, or even a heavy vehicle going past and ‘whomf’ down the walls will come. Synth-stone’s like real stone until you bake it four or five times and pour cold water on it every time. Then the bonding matrix fails.”
Martin tapped the projection again. “So we raze what’s left, after the current inhabitants leave, and finish the wall.”
“What about the wall’s foundations?” Pete asked. “You go deep enough and you’ll cut off the water and sanitation for the entire sub-sett.”
Ann unfolded her arms and pointed. “Nguen, how much of the sub-sett remains habitable and defensible?”
The small man skimmed through some files. “Forty percent at most, ma’am. September’s high water removed five percent of the outlying area, and most of the active settlers either left then or are in the process of sneaking out, getting indentures, or even signing farm labor agreements down south, on that new venture Ildefonso Destefani’s part of.”
“The one centered on that old volcanic thing?”
“Yes, ma’am. The organizer, Dominic deTour, is calling it Starheart since he won the mining
rights from the leaseholder at high-stakes starheart.”
Pete and Gerald started laughing. Maybe I should see if Sheila wants to go into gambling for leases? She’d probably own everything east of the Triangle Range by the end of the year. Pete waved a hand. “Inside joke. Sorry.”
Nguen continued after glaring at the two engineers, “Officially it’s a mining property, but deTour intends for it to be as self-sufficient in food as possible.”
Gerald studied the wall until his snorts subsided. “So which sixty percent of the sub-sett is unusable?” Martin ran his hand over the main roads and the section closest to the unbuilt wall. “And the river flats?”
“Yes.” Arturo folded his arms. “And don’t look for any assistance from Administratrix Monsiérvo.”
Everyone in the room shrugged. She and Harding, and her assistant Raymond Young, had made that perfectly clear. “Speaking of which,” Gerald sighed. “I need moral support and hard-data backup tomorrow. I’m going to meet with her about the bridge.”
“Not me,” Pete reminded his friend. “I’m out of sight, out of mind. Plus I need to go inspect the work at the head of the aqueduct. Now that everything’s surveyed, property questions answered, and equipment scheduled, we need to get as much done as we can while we have everything here.”
“And I’m going with him,” Arturo said.
Martin walked away from the map. “I’ll come along for moral support if nothing else. I’m harmless, after all. Just a retired academic with strange notions about toponyms.”
“Yeah. He wants to call the city by the obscure name of some ancient city on Old Earth,” Ann muttered, mock-glaring at the older man. “But it would beat ‘Here’ which is what we’ll be stuck with at the rate things are being approved.”
Fountains of Mercy Page 10