GRANDMOTHER

“When Kai’s hand is healed, we’ll head back to the Speedwell for the maintenance cycle,” Grandmother told the group. They were gathered at Grandmother’s table in preparation for the trip south to Seagrass. They were planning on leaving late that night. They were trying to time the trip to arrive at the south gallery at first light. “Make sure you tell your contacts it may be three months until we return.” Harry joined them along with his second youngest daughter Muriel.

“What are the plans for next season?” Ellen asked. “I want to spend more time with Do-Fa-Ti if possible.”

“I want to tour selkie settlements,” Grandmother responded, “and get a measure of the toughness of the coliseum and its rewards. So I see us splitting time between Home Square and selkie lands. Along with your commitment of time for Do-Fa-Ti, Companion and Sarah still need to teach Enchanter our language and transcribe her enchantments, so we will be spending more time in Seagrass as well.

“Which reminds me, Sarah, how are you and Companion doing on learning written Selkie?”

“Companion is much better at it than I,” Sarah admitted. “Being a fluent speaker helps. I’ve copied everything Enchanter has shown us. I think with Companion’s help we can program the computers on the Speedwell to read it.”

“Excellent, although it makes me think I should have outfitted you with a camera. Really all of us should probably have one. I’ll put that on my list,” Grandmother commented.

“Kai,” Grandmother said to the crafter who was doing his best to disappear behind the bulk of Companion, “what are your plans after your hand heals? Do you want to stay here or head back to Peking?” The poor man looked shell shocked. Only two days had passed since their return from Chicago but a lot had happened to him. Todd and Alex dragged him out onto scavenging runs in the mornings, telling him it would distract him from the itching.

Ellen set him up with a little workshop area in her shop's largely empty back room. In the afternoons while Sarah watched the shop, she talked him into crafting one of everything he knew while she watched and took notes. When he mentioned needing a tool Ellen dug through the piles of loose crafting tools in one corner to find it. Slightly offended at the disorganization, he spent the evenings sorting out the items and making a count. He was surprised to find out all the tools belonged to Grandmother and were being sold on consignment.

“Peking?” Kai echoed. “No, no, I won't be heading back to Peking. I will be staying here,” he said with a finality that indicated a deeper rift between the man and his Home Square than he admitted to.

“You are welcome to stay here in Home Square, but I know Joe is actively looking for crafters for the odd square. Since it is still mostly empty there is plenty of opportunity there,” Grandmother commented.

“Has Joe named his square yet?” Todd asked Harry. “If we keep on calling it the odd square that will be its name soon. That or Joe’s place.”

“No he hasn’t, but I warned him,” Harry responded.

“You named this square Home Square,” Alex responded, “but you warned him?”

“I didn’t name this square anything,” Harry countered. “I left that for Grandmother to do when she returned.”

“So I named it Home?” Grandmother asked.

“Yep,” Harry responded. Grandmother just shook her head, as if she couldn’t believe this nonsense.

“What do you think Kai?” she asked the crafter.

“Odd square seems like a perfectly valid name to me,” Kai replied. Everyone laughed. “I haven’t actually thought about it,” Kai admitted. He was NOT itching his stump, while hovering his hand over it. “Could I go out to the Speedwell with you? My grandfather told stories and I would like to see it at least once in my life.”

“Huh?” Grandmother murmured. “No one’s ever wanted to go before.” She thought about it. The eastern villages were all almost completely self-sufficient at feeding themselves. They still relied on the Speedwell for the production of some materials and health care. The villagers wouldn’t approach the ship when they weren’t there. Part of the maintenance cycle was visiting each village and transporting those that needed treatment to the Speedwell and back. The villagers were all nanobot free, so taking them down to the structure entrance and casting healing spells on them didn’t work.

One more person at the ship wouldn't cause a noticeable increase in the load on its systems. As it was now most of the harvest ended up as compost three years later and was automatically spread on the fields. The windmills were only running at a quarter capacity most of the time. Low use and steady maintenance kept them in prime condition. There was housing on the Speedwell for ten thousand in flight. It would be easy enough to open more of it up. Grandmother thought for years that they should at least spread out across the floor they were on, instead of all bundling together into a single unit. The data, power, water, and sewer systems could not be cut back to supply just a single unit, the smallest shut off point was at the floor level. Using the rest of the housing units on the floor was as easy as rekeying the doors.

“I’d like to go too,” Muriel said. “Todd asked me to help transport his plants to your upgraded rest and see about taking the cutting from the composting plant. I’d really like a chance to see both the Speedwell’s automated fields and the subsistence gardens in the eastern villages.”

“Sure,” Grandmother said. “I can’t think of any reason why not. We will be traveling fast, and you’ll have to keep up. I will warn you that the transition out of the structure's area of influence can be tough on the first timer.”

“She warns them,” Ellen said to Todd in a stage whisper.

“She must like them more than us,” Todd whispered back.

“It isn’t a vacation, we will be doing maintenance on the ship. You will be expected to do your part, even if it is just carrying stuff and handing someone else tools.”

“I still want to go,” Muriel said stubbornly. Kai thought about it more.

“Will there be time to learn some Earth history?” Kai asked.

“Yes,” Grandmother responded. “I will consider successfully completing courses through the ship’s educational system equivalent to doing maintenance work.”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Yeah, I want to go,” he said.

“Do you want to go with us to Seagrass or to the Speedwell after, Harry?” Grandmother asked. She knew he would come up with some excuse to stay. Harry didn’t like leaving his square behind. He saw it as his duty to keep its people safe.

“No,” Harry responded. “Me-So-Ray keeps sending gourmets through to taste the Stout. Someone has to be here to push them back or we will soon be overflowing with them.”

“Really?” Grandmother asked. “That is an expensive trip for a beer.” At Harry’s serious assurance that it was true, Grandmother considered. “Are there any more tier fours in the square? Have any of your lieutenants broken through?”

“None of my people, no, but I have three I think are close. There are six crafters and one woman who calls herself a hunter,” Harry reported. Warriors were people who went out, gathered resources and fought animals with mostly imbued magic. Hunters were people who did the same without magic. Which made it entirely impossible to be a tier four hunter, unless of course the woman's definition of hunter was different.

“Well it is a little late, but let's try to gather them up today and see if they are interested in helping out with the transportation system management. I guess eventually we’ll need a full time watcher, like the selkie have. If they are interested, I’ll take them with me to the south gallery and activate the system for them. That means we will need to leave a little earlier than I planned.” Harry agreed to get them together as soon as he could. He warned her the hunter was probably already out in the green so he might not find her until late. Grandmother looked around at everyone.

“Am I forgetting anything?” she asked. “Are we ready to go?”

“We need you to pack the workbench for Enchanter,” Alex reminded her. “It is in the back of my shop.”

“I will swing by before departure,” Grandmother promised. “Since Kai wants to come with us, let's move up our departure to the Speedwell.”

Soon after everyone departed to make last minute checks for the trip not just to Seagrass but for their rest upgrade experiment. Grandmother remained sitting at her table sipping her tea from the glass mug Kai gifted her. It was the sample Ellen talked him into making. Grandmother thought Ellen convinced Kai to give it to Grandmother because she thought it would be great advertising for the product. The only problem Grandmother could see with it was that it turned violet if she held it too long.

The outer door opened and an entire group of crafters came in following Harry. There were four women and two men. Four of them wore green and two were in blue.

“Here they are,” Harry announced. “They were all in their shops, so it was easy to find them.” Grandmother was a little taken aback. She meant for Harry to ask them if they wanted to help with the transportation room. She expected only the ones who were willing to show up tonight for the transit. Looking at them all, she realized she hadn’t really talked to any of them before. She patronized their shops and sold them raw materials, but she didn’t know them as individuals. She always worked through Joe to understand the needs of the crafting community. She needed to replace him.

“Thanks Harry,” Grandmother said. “Everyone take a seat. Harry, I'd like you to sit in with us if you have the time. I have a couple things to discuss with everyone.”

“Sure,” Harry said, sitting down in his usual seat.

“Now that Joe has decided to move to the new square I want to make sure all of you know you can talk to me anytime. If I’ve done something that you don’t agree with or it hurts the crafting community, I want you to come forward and tell me. If I wasn’t just being stupid for no real reason, I will tell you why I did it, and I will listen to your suggested alternatives,” Grandmother told them. Everyone in the group was younger than Joe. Joe was thirty five, he was second generation, or the first generation born in the structure. Todd, Alex, Ellen and Sarah were all third generation. Grandmother thought one or two of this group might be second generation, but four of them were solidly third.

“Any of us?” one of the women asked. Grandmother realized she was the woman who ran the meat shop. Grandmother never considered butchering a craft. She thought of it as a skill like Todd’s cooking. If the woman was tier four however there was something there she was missing. She would ask Sarah to go over and interview the butcher later.

“Yes, of course,” Grandmother replied. “If there is something you want that you can’t get without my help, feel free to ask me. Just remember my help isn’t free, just like the products in your shops aren’t free.”

Crafters are the heart of any settlement. Just like the scavengers and hunters were a settlement's gathering hands. Both parts were needed for a square to work. The vendor supplied a kind of bare minimum replacement for each half, but the quality of the citizens' lives suffered when you depended on it too much.

“I want to say a couple things about order. The guard is in charge of policing. If there is any crime; theft, assault, murder he is responsible for finding the culprit. In the past for more serious crimes, Harry and Joe would work together to decide the offender’s punishment, with me giving a final approval. I want something similar to work in the future, only Harry’s vote, as head of the guards will be worth the same as all of yours. It might be easier just to elect a single representative from among yourselves to work with Harry, but I will leave that to you to decide,” Grandmother explained.

She always thought of Harry as head of the guards as the representative of the scavengers and hunters. His organization provided fighting training to those who wanted to brave the wilds. Working as a guard was a part time position, supplemented with scavenging, hunting or gathering in the green. Harry’s mention of the tier four hunter as a separate entity from the guards made Grandmother wonder if she was missing input from a portion of their society. She would have to think about that.

“Now do any of you have any questions for me?” Grandmother asked them. She answered questions from around the table. Most of them were about if she planned to put taxes in place. She didn’t. They wanted to know if there would be more trade with the selkie. Grandmother said she hoped so but she didn’t control the selkie. Would there be war with Londontown? She hoped not, but she didn’t control them either. Would she stop people from moving to the new square? No, she couldn’t control where people chose to live. She hoped some of the crafters would go. The new square’s different geography would result in a different set of goods and services. Those differences would encourage trade between the two squares and profits for all.

They didn’t ask about the coliseum and she wondered if these crafters were even aware of it. She thought in time people might travel to the square to challenge the arena. This square would become heavy in armor and weapon production. A team of level three healers could make a tidy profit regrowing limbs. The odd square with its access to above might become mainly food production and woodcraft. Especially if Muriel was successful with her farming.

“There is one other thing. Harry is the only one here who can run the transportation system when Todd and I are away. I don’t like that. The selkie are accustomed to sending tier three and lower through the system and expecting someone on the other end to catch them and send them back. In an effort to encourage trade between our peoples I want to set up a rotation for the duty. If you are willing to accept responsibility for a rotation I will unlock the system for you. If enough of you agree it shouldn’t be too much of an inconvenience to any of us. If there gets to be enough traffic, we can name a transportation room watcher. I believe the selkie pay a fee to have a tier four push them through. I will allow the watcher to charge the same amount they do.”

“How much is the fee?” One of the men asked.

“It is scaled by tier,” Harry said. “The tier three’s pay me a silver, the two pay eighteen iron. I have never had a tier one come through. Following the pattern it would be nine iron for them. I don’t know if they charge for children at all or if it is free.” The crafters all looked at each other. It wouldn’t take many travelers to make good money for a lot less work. Grandmother wondered if any of them might change professions.

They all agreed to take part in a rotation. They would meet in the back hall of the square at about midnight for the trip south. Grandmother could see in their faces that some of them were already working on how to get invited to Seagrass itself. She decided that was fine. Joe looked around Seagrass, so it was only fair these other master crafters got the chance too. The more the two groups mixed, the less the chance of war.