The work was contracted out to Assegai Weapons, the Joint venture between the Boers and the Zulus. The contract was regarding the creation of a syringe that could administer morphine via injection. It was easier than forcing the wounded to ingest it orally if they were unable to swallow.
The problem was that they won’t be able to reproduce the modern syringe due to the lack of plastics, which made him think of procuring oil so he builds up a fractional distillation plant to filter out the various hydrocarbons.
So, they substituted it with glass, which was incredibly fragile. They made it thicker, so it wouldn’t break on drop. They could have the container out of metal, but they wouldn’t be able to see the contents since the metal was opaque. The needle? Metal, and it can only be used once. He didn’t want bouts of HIV and AIDs spreading among the locals. Another illness of colonialism.
Assegai weapons were the most experienced in metalworking, after all, they made the safes in the local Central Bank of the town. A small needle shouldn’t be too hard.
It was a simple design, fill up the syringe with the liquid, and add a piston at the back to force the liquid out. Without the needle, it would be a typical syringe. Add a needle, and it would become a medical syringe.
The Bengali had already prepared some morphine, extracted from opium procured from merchants whilst they cultivated theirs back in his estate.
Jan picked up the prototype created by the cultivator and pulled back the piston, absorbing the morphine into the syringe. Once it was full, he added a needle in the front. And with that was the creation of South Elfrica’s Pharmaceutical Industries. As he held the needle, he wondered what exactly he should do with it. Should he try it out? Not on himself of course. But he needed a test subject. It might kill someone with the dose he held in his hands, so he was hesitant about injecting it into someone. Mentally scolding himself for not diluting it beforehand, he placed the needle back down and looked towards the men and women looking at him.
“Any small animals to test it out on? Don’t want to accidentally kill someone.”
They shook their head.
“Alright then, I would like it if we could purchase some mice from the local merchants. I heard they cultivated lots of them as pets in China and Japan. We will begin breeding our mice for any future tests.”
While waiting, he was thinking of capturing a primate and shooting it up with morphine. It was animal cruelty, but why wasn’t it cruel to test them on mice? Is it because their whole purpose to be bred is to be tested? He decided not to become a crazy Victorian scientist with ludicrous unscientific experiments and decided to do it the proper way. He didn’t want to create a situation like Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
As the Chinese merchant explained when asked about procuring mice for breeding, “Most mice mature at around 4-7 weeks. The younger they are, the fewer mice babies they make. Thus, mating is best at around 6-8 weeks.”
He was advised to keep the genders together because if he isolated them, they would not breed until after 6-8 months. Jan was also advised to train any young mice to consume other foods other than their mother’s milk, to make rearing them much easier. Grains, fruits, and seeds are some examples of decent food.
Jan decoupled the syringe-making division away from Assegai Weapons and had it spun off into a separate company. However, he didn’t want the Zulus involved in Pharmaceuticals. Like how Pharmaceutical Companies kept their secrets close, he didn’t want to share the profits. Plus, it won’t be exactly a pure pharmaceutical company, it may be involved in weapons manufacturing, of the chemical kind.
There they began their own mice breeding programs. But he was impatient and bought a mouse from the merchant. Looking at the mice squeaking in his hands, he carefully hovered the needle against its skin and wondered if he should do this. At this kind of dose, it was likely fatal.
He began diluting the morphine mixture even further and told himself mentally that he was going to shove the needle a little bit. But no matter what he did, he couldn’t push the needle against the mice.
“Fok it!” He pierced the needle against the mice as the mice squealed. With a little push, he injected some morphine into the mice. He then slowly pulled the needle away.
Like the nurses who injected the COVID-19 vaccine, he grabs a piece of fabric and presses against the wound, trying to suppress the bleeding. All this while the mice squealed. But its squeals became softer and softer. The mice began dazing away, and he thought he could see the mice seeming to smile.
Welp, he created an addict, he wondered how the withdrawal would work. He had the men isolate the mice away from others, not wanting this tainted breed to mix with the breeding stock.
There in isolation, he pretended to be a scientist and jotted down the various observations.
“It’s as if you’re a cultivator. Do you need a pill or two to cultivate your knowledge?” A cultivator came up to him while he was jotting down his observations. He shook his head, and the cultivator left him be.
He did this for about a week, injecting doses into the mice once a day while observing the creature. Day by day, the mice began eating less and chose to lie on the ground, deciding to not move. It barely reacted to his prods, and he wondered if it was dead.
The next week, he stopped the doses. This time, the mice began reacting. Every time he came to observe the mice, it would look up at him and squeal energetically. It always looked at the empty needle, as if begging him for a dose or two.
But he decided not to give it to carefully watch the mice. A couple of days later, the mice expired, and he had to clean up the body. At some point, the mice stopped eating. The mice stopped moving. Every time he raised the empty syringe, it started moving.
He left it alone and it perished.
Jan decided to try to see what happened if he tried to overdose the mice. Asking one of the men of Boer Pharm, they gave him a mouse. This time, he was a little sad about wasting all this pure morphine on a good mouse. It would fetch a decent market price, but he was curious.
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Most of the scientists, or cultivators, of this time, experimented with their own bodies. He wondered if he was one of the few that experimented using animals.
Shoving the needle, he sent an overdose into the mice. The mice quickly became unconscious. Its squeals were slurred, and it began to sleep. It began spasming at the same time. And he looked at the mice while jotting down observations, it seemed the creature was in bliss. It lost consciousness. He let the men manage the rest.
The next day, Jan came over to observe the mice. It was still unconscious, but it was still breathing.
He came again the next day, and it was still unconscious. Jan hypothesised the mice was in a coma, effectively dead. He doubted the creature would wake up.
A few days later, like its addicted brethren, it perished in its eternal sleep.
At some point, an idea came into his head. What was he doing trying to figure out the right dose? Shouldn’t he just copy the doses that German companies producing morphine were using? Then he wouldn’t have to slowly experiment one by one. Because, clinical trials were needed, and he didn’t want to get one of his men addicted. Or one of the elves addicted, God knows what will happen if he got an Elfrican Chief addicted. He was sure their relatives would come to him to purify her using their Boer witchcraft, and all he could do was shrug his shoulders.
He didn’t bother to wait for the opium of his estate to finish growing. With the ongoing Opium War, opium was cheap, so he bought them in bulk and had Boer Pharm turn them into morphine. Even if they didn’t need this much morphine, European governments would stockpile them for military applications. There was also the domestic front, where people will use it to treat their pain.
He also set aside more fields to cultivate opium. Seeds were also cheap since many farmers were rotating their crops to other crops due to the decreased prices of opium, so he bought them in bulk. This was all in preparation for the end of the Opium war which should be around 1842. Then he can dump them in China for money. Convert them to morphine and dump them in Europe for money as well.
‘This was how it feels to be a drug lord heh?’ He thought to himself. Funnily enough, if he did it back in the old world, he would be hanged. Because drugs destroy lives, it destroys stable families. It creates an addicted population that is wholly unproductive. Yet, Westerners expect other countries to be merciful to drug traffickers. Let’s see how merciful they’ll be when their relatives all become drug addicts.
No matter how much the Boer leader could stall, Captain Smith grew ever more suspicious. Everywhere he went he wondered how the Boers could supply themselves. Even if they traded amongst themselves, from Pietermaritzburg to Potchefstroom, they won’t be able to be entirely self-sufficient. It does not explain the lack of trade between Port Natal and the Natalia Republic. It further enflamed his curiosity.
If trade was so prevalent amongst themselves, why haven’t they also prevalently traded with foreigners? Trade wouldn’t be so vigorous or bustling if they were isolationists. He asked an English merchant to the chagrin of Andries Pretorius and got his answer. The Boers created a small port by St Lucia Bay.
It was a free trade port where no taxes are to be paid, and trade can be carried out freely. It was rather small, that it was hidden away.
As the merchant elaborated, “I thought it was some smuggler’s den where I would rough up. But even if the men carried their arms with them, law and order were somehow maintained. Men and women are patrolling the streets keeping order. And the order was very harshly maintained. A fine was levied if one’s cattle were unable to keep in it and released its excrement on the ground.”
“What is the fine?” Captain Smith asked, amused with this little port.
“I believe it is about a pence for locals. But for foreigners, it’s about two pence. I would complain about the discriminatory practices, but I don’t trade in cattle.”
Smith’s eyebrows raised. Fining others for being unable to keep their cattle in check was rather harsh. But then again, he supposed it was better than accidentally stepping in excrement if he didn’t watch his step.
“How is the Boer even able to enforce this?”
“I believed most of the local police force were either conscripts or volunteers. Most particular of all were that most of them were women and every one of them had a gun! So scary!” The English merchant exaggerated.
“Can the women even fight?” Smith asked.
The merchant looked around, before whispering in his ear, “I’ve seen them get into a gunfight with those who tried to flee. But the offenders were quickly outnumbered as they were flanked from all sides. They got shot to pieces. I heard one of them couldn’t walk due to a bullet in the spine.”
Smith gulped. That was a rather detailed account.
“Captain Smith, I believe that the next town would catch your eye,” Pretorius interrupted but the captain brushed his words.
“I believe I know where I must go next. It was a delightful tour of your little Republic, Mr Pretorius. I’ll be writing a favourable report to the governor. Rest assured I will fight the case for your Republic’s independence to the best of my ability,” Captain Smith ditched the Boer leader and gathered his men.
They rode off with the Khoikhoi Cape Mounted Riflemen, who behaved themselves appropriately, even if every Boer watched the Khoikhoi with suspicion.
As for whether he’ll support the Republic’s independence, well, he was waiting for another war. It was hard to climb up the British military hierarchy without battles to prove oneself. A little war in the Cape where he’ll be able to prove himself through the annexation of the Republic would surely lead to his promotion. He just needed to find an entry point to create a justification for war that the home government as well as the Cape governor would find acceptable. They will surely be back home by Christmas against these undisciplined Boers!
They took a stop by the town of St Lucia to replenish their supplies and gather more information about the port by the bay.
The town council greeted the captain and greatly enlightened him.
“We used to trade whatever we need at Port Natal. But with the port nearby, we do most of our business there,” One of them spoke up.
“Any hostile, or aggressive actions the Boers have conducted against you? Do let me know, and I will report it immediately to the governor!”
They raised their hands as if to calm the captain.
“They have not done anything hostile. They once came over to our town and camped outside. We thought they were invading us, but they soon packed their bags and left us alone. A man was screaming though. He screamed both in English in Elfrikaans. His English was so poor!”
“Englishman, eh? Tell me, anyone went missing from your port recently? Could it be that the Boers kidnapped a British citizen?”
“Most of the people moved to the port. If I remember correctly, it’s called Port Mpande. I probably butchered that. The local Zulus will be able to pronounce it better. So yes, a lot of the inhabitants that used to live here are gone. They packed their bags and moved North.”
Smith tapped his fingers on the table in frustration. He thought he almost had a justification for war that he could justify to the governor, but it was now out of his hands again. Grumbling, he wondered how he could twist the information to portray the Boers as absolute villains to justify a British invasion.
Boer kidnapping of English citizens? No, won’t do, the governor would call for witnesses, and unless he bribed every man in St Lucia, he doubted they would back this claim.
He left with replenished supplies and headed for a short distance to the mythical Port Mpande where he heard from a lot of people.
The town also known as Port Mpande was divided into two districts. Zulu and Boer. A fence demarcated the two regions. According to many eyewitnesses, it was easy to tell which district they were in based on the architecture. There was a distinct lack of Zulu huts in the Boer districts, but you could find one or two commonly in the Zulu districts.
The population was mostly segregated, but there has been some intermingling between the two. Rumours of Zulu and Boer marriages took place, but the witnesses only said they were rumours since they were never invited to one. There were even Xhosas who went there to trade, but they were an extremely small minority.
The witnesses shared a tale where many Xhosa beggars were evicted which caused a steep decline in the number of Xhosa settlers, but most of them began trading in the institution known as the Natalia Securities Exchange (NSE). It was more of a conglomerate though, that served the financial needs of the local populace.
“Are you sure it was a Boer who did this? A farmer would not create a securities exchange or even an insurance company. I am heavily doubting your words, sir.”
“Of course, I’m not lying. Their insurance packages are decent. The health one is good, with plenty of options. One could receive treatment with British doctors, Boer doctors, Zulu sangomas or Xhosa War doctors.”
“Sounds good.”
“Of course, take a look at this policy, it’s a decent price right, would you like to take on this policy to keep you safe in South Elfrica?”
Captain Smith crumpled the paper and flung it back at the stupid insurance salesperson.