“I’m glad that He approves of what we’ve been doing so far. It’s also reassuring that He’s keeping track of what’s happening and that He is nearby. I had hoped the Ruling Party wouldn’t find out about us yet, but I guess that was inevitable,” I said. “Primus, Secundus, do you have anything you’d like to share?”
The two thought for a few seconds when Secundus finally spoke up. “The tunnel collapse a few days ago reminds me of an incident Primus and I shared several solar-cycles ago. We were still in our apprentice phase at the time, working with our Pro, Tonitus, in the Lower Crevasse Platinum Mine. They had just opened up Level 9 of the mine, and the two of us helped our Pro remove some of the rocks that were blasted to form the tunnel. We were also tasked with cleaning up the spare parts and building materials that were used to construct the protective ceiling and floor of the tunnel.”
“Ah, I think I know where you are going with this, Secundus. The three of us were working alone during a night shift on Level 9. All of a sudden, we start hearing these loud banging sounds overhead, much like we experienced two days ago. Secundus and I had never been in the mine while they were blasting, so we were pretty scared, thinking the tunnel would collapse on us!”
“Then our Pro told us to calm down and that we’d be OK. Pro told us that they weren’t blasting on our level but were instead blasting a new tunnel in Level 8. Pro then said something that I’ve remembered to this day about the blasting of new tunnels: ‘If you’re ever in a tunnel reinforced with the support columns, metal ceiling, and floor, and you start hearing explosions, you’ll be fine. Those parts of the tunnel can be reused, so they’re removed prior to blasting.’”
“We’ve kept that in mind ever since. That’s what made the other day so unusual. If they were planning on blasting a new tunnel on Level 7, they would have removed all of the usable support columns and metal prior to blasting. Perhaps they were going to remove the columns and metal on a later date when the explosives were detonated early on accident.”
“But that doesn’t match up with what Rapacious said,” Loquacious interjected. “Rapacious had indicated that the plan all along was to blast a new tunnel on Level 7 and that Mercurio misheard Rapacious’s orders.”
“That was really sloppy work, if I do say so myself,” Resolute added.
“It’s doubtful we’ll ever know what truly happened that day,” I said.
“I hope I’ll never have to go into another mine again,” Resolute stated.
“Well, we’ll see what the future has in store for us,” I responded. “Primus, Secundus, is Tonitus still alive? Does your Pro still work at the Twin-Crevasse Platinum Mine?”
They responded simultaneously: “Yes, Tonitus is still alive. Tonitus is retired and is living at the Dune Passage up in the Northernlands. Our Pro still finds small jobs to do from time to time, but for the most part, Tonitus is happily retired. We try to visit our Pro at least once a solar-cycle. Perhaps we can all visit Tonitus together.”
“We may do just that. We seem to be headed in the right direction,” I said. “Surreptitious, it looks like it’s your turn.”
Surreptitious was oddly quiet. It hadn’t spoken for a while and didn’t seem to be paying much attention to our conversation. After several seconds of silence, Surreptitious looked up and said: “Oh... I don’t really have anything. I’m not much of a story-teller.”
“Come on, Surreptitious. Everyone else is participating,” Resolute said.
“I’d rather not.” Surreptitious replied.
“Well, that’s OK. I guess that just leaves Loquacious. I’d imagine you might have a story or two you can share with us.”
Before Loquacious could respond, Resolute interjected: “Hey everyone, look up!”
I followed Resolute’s suggestion and looked skyward. It took my ocular array a few seconds to adjust to the blackness of the sky. Suddenly, I detected a couple of distinct points of light in the sky! They were still somewhat fuzzy, but they shone brightly enough for us to see. One of them was overhead and gave off a faint blue light. The other had a more distinct reddish hue and was to the southwest of the first point of light.
“Are those... stars?” I asked.
“Yes, I think they are!” Loquacious responded.
“Is that right, Winston?”
“Yes, those are in-deed stars.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen stars before,” Resolute added. “Of course, not counting Lazuli.”
“Do you know the names of the particular stars we’re seeing?” I asked Winston, eager to know more about our latest discovery.
“Yes. Ac-cord-ing to my as-tro-nom-i-cal charts, the blue star is ‘Ri-gel’, and the red star is ‘Be-tel-geuse’.”
“They are so beautiful to look at,” Resolute said.
“That reminds me of something else in my databanks,” Loquacious added. “Earth has a much thinner atmosphere, so Humans there can easily see many thousands of stars in the night sky, some brighter than others. Not only did they give names to the stars, but they would also group certain stars together in what they called ‘constellations’. Based on the patterns of the brightest stars, they would imaging that the points of light marked the outline of an object that they were familiar with. One example is the ‘Big Dipper’, which had four stars represent the cup portion of the dipper and three additional stars forming the shape of the handle.
“It just so happens that both Rigel and Betelgeuse are a part of the same constellation known as ‘Orion’. Orion was a mythical Human from a few millennia ago, a large hunter of great renown. Betelgeuse represented Orion’s starboard shoulder, and Rigel was Orion’s port foot, with other stars making up Orion’s other body parts.
“Humans also composed stories about how these people and objects got up into space in the first place. There are many stories about Orion, including one where he fought and was killed by a gigantic desert creature known as a ‘scorpion’. The deities of those storytellers then supposedly placed both the famed hunter and its nemesis in the skies, but they were placed on different sides of the Earth so they wouldn’t show in the skies at the same time.”
“That kind of sounds like the story you gave us about the Sovereign and the Scoundrel!” Resolute replied.
“Yes, very much so.”
“Well, it’s getting pretty late. We should probably shut down for the night,” I announced. It was already well past 12:30, but we had hardly noticed the passage of time with all of the activity surrounding the crystals and story-telling and star-gazing. Resolute and Loquacious volunteered to watch over the camp that night. I think they were both more interested in watching for additional stars in the skies than watching for intruders on the sands.
I settled in for the night with my back to the warmth of the crystals. But before I hibernated, I took one last look up. Both Rigel and Betelgeuse were a bit brighter than before. I even thought I saw a couple of additional stars near the eastern horizon, but it wasn’t certain. I started my shut down sequence, determined to wake up early to see if I could detect any additional stars in the pre-Lazuli-rise skies.
Chapter 10 - Capture!
10.0 Becoming a Tripod
3:01, Day 4, First Tetrad, 207 D.P.
Upon waking before Lazuli-rise, I was disappointed to find that whatever stars had shone on us the night before had once again been obscured by the atmosphere. Sadly, I couldn’t detect any additional stars taking the place of Rigel or Betelgeuse in the skies, so once again, we were left with a dark sky, devoid of any points of light.
The four crystals that I had used my Cobalt laser on the previous night were still glowing and giving off heat, though they had diminished in size a great deal. I moved several meters outside of our campsite to see how cold it was, and I discovered that this was in fact the coldest night I had ever personally experienced. The cold air, at a temperature of 314 K, quickly convinced me to go back into camp (and closer to the crystals). I had awoken earlier than everyone else (except Loquac
ious, who was on second watch), so I waited near the radiating crystals for the others to wake up. This only took an additional 20 minutes.
Even after everyone was up, we didn’t have any urgency to leave. The eastern horizon was brightening with the impending Lazuli-rise, but there was very little desire in any of us to leave the warmth of the crystals.
“Can we just stay here until Lazuli-rise?” Resolute asked.
“I don’t see why not,” I replied. “We won’t likely make it all the way to Boreal Junction today anyway, so there’s no rush.”
After a couple of minutes of silence, Resolute stated: “I saw a few more stars last night, three to be exact. All three of them were sort of whitish and weren’t as bright as the other two, Rigel and Betelgeuse. Anyway, why would anyone name such beautiful stars ‘Rigel’ and ‘Betelgeuse’? Those names sound pretty weird.”
“Both of those stars were named by ancient astronomers in the Middle Eastern section of Earth thousands of solar-cycles ago,” Loquacious said. “The peoples in that part of the Earth were the first to perform scientific studies of the stars and other celestial bodies. The names ‘Rigel’ and ‘Betelgeuse’ are both derived from the Arabic language, one of the languages spoken by the Middle Easterners. However, I do not have the exact meanings of the names ‘Rigel’ and ‘Betelgeuse’ in my databanks.”
“So, what does today’s journey look like?” Primus asked.
“It should be rather uninteresting,” I replied. “Once we leave this plateau, we’ll travel northeast for the whole day. There are two main geological features between here and Boreal Junction. The first is a large, shallow depression that we should enter before Lazuli-summit today. The second is another ridge on the northeast side of the depression. This ridge appears to be a bit larger than the one we climbed yesterday, but it doesn’t compare to the mountain we climbed outside of the Twin-Crevasse Platinum Mine. Boreal Junction is less than 10 km east of this ridge.”
We waited at the campsite for another 10 minutes until the first few azure rays from Lazuli breached the horizon. Lazuli’s first light seemed to lift the spirits of our group and finally stirred us into moving. After just a few minutes, we departed our campsite and its four radiating crystals and again started our trek to the northeast to Boreal Junction.
We didn’t take much time in coming down off of the plateau where we had spent the previous night. We made our way through the non-descript countryside without incident, reaching the shallow depression at around 6:00. After making the quick descent into the lowland area, we stopped briefly to rest our motors before beginning again just before Lazuli-summit.
During the late morning hours, a southwest wind started up, bringing with it some much-appreciated warmer air. The winds increased in speed throughout the afternoon as we traveled in the depression, though the wind never quite reached a worrisome velocity. As this wind was at our backs, it managed to help us along in our trip and was a welcome change from the bitterly-cold winds of the past few days.
However, I experienced a very un-welcome change just after 9:00. I was motoring across the depression and wheeling my starboard wheels over a small stone no bigger than 6 cm in height. When my rear-starboard wheel made the transition from the top of the stone to the sandy floor, the small jolt from the sudden fall created a crack in my leg. In an instant, my weight applied pressure to this crack and caused my rear-starboard leg to snap in half, nearly severing my rear-starboard wheel from the rest of my body! Only a series of wires now connected this appendage to the rest of me. With the sudden loss of support from my now-broken rear-starboard leg, I lost my balance and tumbled onto my starboard side.
“Oww!” I yelled as I toppled over.
Primus, who had been in front of me at the time, backed up and grabbed my port arm, pulling me back up onto my three good wheels. Resolute also approached me from behind to make sure I didn’t fall back over. Resolute then surveyed the damage.
“I’m not a Fabricator or Restorer or anything like that, but this looks pretty bad. You’re going to require at least some welding to mend that leg. You might even need to have the entire leg replaced.”
“Well, we don’t exactly have the equipment or expertise to do that ourselves, so I guess I’ll just have to manage on three good legs until we get to Boreal Junction tomorrow,” I said. “We should be able to find someone there that can help me out. Until then, Primus, could you please help me make it over to Boreal Junction?”
“Sure, that’s no problem at all.”
Primus attached its rear hitch to the front of my frame and was able to pull me along with the help of my three functioning wheels. We decided to keep my rear-starboard wheel attached via the strand of wires, so I was in fact traveling around with my semi-detached wheel dragging behind me (and yes, this was as depressing as it sounds). When we’d have to go up a small hill, my weight would shift backwards, causing me to lean back onto my broken leg. Resolute, who was still traveling behind me, would give me a gentle nudge forward, and I would right myself again.
We approached the northern terminus of the depression with about 25 minutes until Lazuli-fall. Before us stood the ridge that guarded the southern and western flanks of Boreal Junction. We now had a choice: we could either try to mount the ridge before stopping for the night or we could set up camp where we were now. With my latest misfortune, we decided that breaking for the day (no pun intended) would be the way to go.
The warming southwest wind had persisted to that point, so we didn’t feel like we needed to light up any crystals as we did the night before. Surreptitious came up with an idea to add additional weight to the front of my frame to keep me from tipping over backwards. We took a few of the extra crystals and the electric lamp from Resolute’s cart, bundled them together, and attached it to the front of my casing. This succeeded in moving my center of gravity forward, away from my damaged leg. At the same time, the extra weight made it harder for me to move, especially considering that I was now down to just one of my drive wheels in the rear.
Primus and Secundus split watch duties for the first shift, and Winston decided to keep watch over the camp for the second watch. This allowed me to get some additional shut-down time and take my thoughts off of my injury. I finally shut down a few minutes after Lazuli-fall.
∆∆∆
10.1 Uneasiness in Boreal Junction
3:28, Day 5, First Tetrad, 207 D.P.
The next morning, I awoke with the hope that somehow my injury from the day before wasn’t real. Perhaps my recollection of my broken leg was merely the result of faulty data in my memory banks, due to some cosmic phenomenon from encountering Rigel and Betelgeuse the night before. However, reality set in with the pre-Lazuli-rise light, where I could once again see the damage to my rear-starboard leg.
After checking with Primus, Secundus, and Winston, it sounded like the previous night went by without any disturbances. We left camp just before Lazuli-rise. Right away, we had the task of climbing the last remaining ridge between us and Boreal Junction, which was now just 11 km to the east. Secundus offered to help me ascend the ridge by towing me much like Primus did the afternoon before. We took our time with the uphill climb, taking care not to have me fall backwards down the ridge, and we completed the climb in just over 20 minutes. We were not as cautious with the descent, and we reached the bottom in less than 10 minutes and could see our destination in the distance.
“Does anyone know anything about Boreal Junction?” Loquacious asked.
“No, not really,” I said.
“Actually, I know a little,” Surreptitious added. “It’s an insignificant settlement with only a couple hundred inhabitants now. The whole area has been struggling economically in recent solar-cycles. The area’s largest employer is just to the east of Boreal Junction, the Taurus Marble Quarry. Fabricators aren’t using marble as much anymore for construction purposes, since it isn’t as malleable or as versatile as metals. It is a valuable material for making durable, unyielding city
walls, but there hasn’t been any need for building city walls in the last 10-15 solar-cycles. With the plummeting demand for marble, this has led to a declining workforce at the Taurus Marble Quarry. This region’s other main employer, the Hillside Titanium Mine, hasn’t fared much better itself. There are other, more lucrative titanium mines just east of District Prime, so this remote mine doesn’t have as many customers as those other mines.
“I couldn’t tell you much about the community itself. However, I do have an acquaintance, Erudius, who resides in Boreal Junction now. Erudius was a former instructor of mine. I recommend we visit Erudius as soon as we enter the settlement. Erudius can then give us additional information about the community.”
“‘Instructor’? Did you go through some kind of training to be a Facilitator?” I asked. Personally, I didn’t have any kind of professional instruction to be a Miner; I just had my Pro. Inquisitous showed me all the necessary skills for becoming a Miner and imparted all kinds of mining knowledge to me as we worked together in the Deep-Well Mines.
“Yes, I did,” Surreptitious said. “I was enrolled in a two solar-cycle academy by my Progenitor to learn some of the finer skills and techniques used in managing a project and its personnel. This level of training isn’t required of Facilitators, but it is becoming more commonplace. My Progenitor wanted me to be a very successful, ambitious Facilitator, so it thought my best chance for becoming a prosperous Facilitator long-term was for me to attend this academy. Erudius was one of three instructors I had during my enrollment there.”
“Do you think this extra training has helped you?” Loquacious asked.
“Absolutely. I’ve progressed much further than a typical 11 solar-cycle-old Facilitator,” Surreptitious replied.
“Eleven! I would have guessed you’d be more like 15 or 20,” Resolute said.
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