Chapter 4
Erin told Chun he had lain in bed for three weeks. Ronal said that she had kept him alive by dripping water into his mouth while he slept. Even General Archibald had cared enough to help, though Chun doubted it was for humanitarian reasons.
His fit of depression had set him back almost to the beginning. Worse, deciding to fight the depression didn’t get rid of it. For that he did the only things he knew how to do--he matched his schedule to Erin and Ronal’s, so he would have company, he exercised, and he found ways to stay busy.
Staying busy turned out to be difficult. They wanted his help studying artifacts. He pointed out parts looted from great machines, and where he could he explained what the parts did. For him this was tedious busy-work. What he needed was problems to solve.
He had freedom to move around the vault and research facility, and he could go to the officer’s dining room whenever he liked. If he tried to stray out of those areas Archibald ranted and raved about security and how dangerous some of the things on the base were.
It started small, but pranks turned out to be his salvation. A prank was a problem that required a unique solution. In order to successfully prank someone, you had to be able to infiltrate their security and defeat it.
It started with a surly guard.
“Get the fuck back where you belong. I’m not going to tell you again.”
Breaking the boy was his first instinct, but Erin had been rather upset with him for breaking Archibald. Instead, Chun spent two days learning where the guard slept, then another day collecting spiders. After midnight he slipped across the base, using his breath to feel his way along without tripping or blundering into anyone.
He slipped into the barracks, found the right room, and eased inside. The guard was sound asleep. Chun spun out a thread of breath and made a small tweak in the man’s breath to make sure he stayed asleep. Then he dumped two hundred spiders out on his bunk.
Spiders were not team players, and it took a good deal of Chun’s concentration to keep them on task, but when he left the guard was cocooned. He took the spiders back outside and let them go, then slipped back to his bunk and went to sleep.
Archibald ranted and raved for ten minutes. Erin and Ronal were wide eyed and kept their distance from him for several days. He never saw the man again.
* * *
“Come in, sit down,” Archibald said. He motioned Chun to a chair.
The general’s office had white walls, brown carpet, an old wooden desk that had been quality at one time, but not maintained. The bookshelves had items on military doctrine, rules, history, philosophy, and negotiation. The section on negotiation caught Chun’s attention. He hadn’t seen any evidence of skill in that area during their personal interactions.
The spines were pristine. The edges of the paper were bright. No pages appeared to be wrinkled or bent.
Ah. These books are all new. He wants to look educated, but he does not read.
“Care for a drink?”
Chun nodded.
Archibald put two glasses on his desktop and poured clear liquid into them from a tall bottle. The smell of mint wafted across the room. He pushed one glass toward Chun then held his own up.
“Cheers.”
Chun lifted his glass, nodded to the general, then sipped. The mint flavor was strong, but clean. The alcohol was very pure, no bite at all. He focused heat on the glass and found that the drink held a flame. Archibald watched him drink from the flaming cup, shrugged, and sipped his own.
“There’s a war coming.”
“There is always a war coming,” Chun said.
Archibald’s grip tightened on his glass, then relaxed. “It’s more real when you know who, and approximately when.”
“What do you want from me?”
“Whatever you can give me. Hopefully you can build me a super-weapon of some kind that can end the war as soon as it begins,” Archibald said.
Chun drained his glass, savoring the heat of the fire and cool of the mint. “That was quite good. Thank you.”
“About the war?”
“I may not be able to help you,” Chun said. “You wish me to make weapons, but I am not an artisan.”
“What are you?”
Chun thought through possible answers and settled on one that he could fake well enough to be persuasive. “I am a medic. Not a healer, but a medic. Perhaps I don’t know the right words yet. If you are injured, I can keep you alive until a real healer can help you.”
“Those are the right words,” Archibald said. “Combat medic, it sounds like. Have you fought much?”
Chun gave him a flat look. “The scars I carry are mostly from battlefields.”
“You seem to know your way around pretty well in the vault. The doctors tell me you can identify everything in there.”
Chun tried to think of a metaphor the general would appreciate. “Most of your collection is machine parts. If I took parts from the machines of your time and showed them to you, you would be able to name many of them. ‘That one is from a plane. That one is from a tank.’ This would not indicate that you know how to build a plane or a tank from dirt.”
“What do you mean, from dirt?”
“I am alone here. Erin and Ronal say there are no other real wizards, just weak shadows of the past. I cannot consult with experts. I cannot hire assistants. I do not know where to obtain ingredients. What do you call all of the things that allow you to build a plane?”
“I don’t understand the question.”
Chun chewed his lip and thought. “To make a plane, we first need to mine metal. Then we need to purify it, then shape it. We have the same problem with tires, windows, and paint. What do you call all of the various businesses and professionals who make the parts, make the tools?”
“Industry. Infrastructure. You can’t go out in the woods and build a bomber. You need factories, engineers, and workers.”
Chun snapped his fingers. “Yes. I need those things. Without them, there are many limits.”
“I don’t like to think in terms of can’t. What can you do?”
“I can tame spiders,” Chun said with a grin.
Archibald frowned. “Does that have any practical value?”
“Probably not. But it is funny.”
Archibald slapped his desktop. “Look, I don’t want to come down on everybody every time they’re having fun, but if we don’t get ready, we will all die. Or worse.”
“Who is going to kill us?”
“The Corinans. They’re building up their army and navy. They’re operating secretly on Solomon. They’re hoarding tahlis, which makes me think they’re going to do something with magic, and we don’t have a way to fight back.”
Chun rubbed his chin. “What would you do to stop them?”
“Anything.”
That is precisely the kind of war we should not have.
Chun stood up. “I do not know what to do to help you, General. However, we may be able to think of something. I do not like you, but I will help if I can.”
Archibald stood and offered his hand. “I don’t like you either, but we work with the people who are here, not the people we wish were here.”
Chun shook his hand and walked back to his room, then knelt at his bunk.
“Father Above, I do not often pray, but I have come from unending war and do not wish to begin another.”
* * *
“Archibald believes that war with Corina is coming,” Chun said. He was seated on the couch in Ronal’s office. Erin sat in the guest chair in front of the desk.
Stolen story; please report.
“And?” Ronal didn’t look up from his work.
Chun frowned. “You do not believe him?”
“It’s less that we don’t believe him and more that we believe he’s a general,” Erin said.
Chun turned his frown to her. “That does not help me understand.”
Erin pondered for a moment, then snapped her fingers. “Have you heard the expression, ‘To a man with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail’?”
Chun smiled. “I have a ruder version. ‘To a sailor, everyone looks like a woman.’”
“Why sailors?” Ronal looked up.
“Because I am from the army,” Chun said.
They looked at each other. Erin shrugged. Ronal shrugged back.
“When you are in an armed service, it is normal to question the intelligence and morals of other services.”
“I suppose we knew that about our boys,” Ronal said, “we didn’t know it applied to every other nation. They even did that in Fu Tan?”
Chun chuckled. “The only thing more deviant and idiotic than another branch is the enemy.”
“That sounds really unhealthy,” Erin said.
“It can be. More importantly, it always exists. Stupid commanders ignore it. The very worst encourage it. Good commanders manage it.”
Ronal shook his head. “I will never understand violent men.”
“That is alright,” Chun said, “but pray you are never forced to go to war without us.”
“Well,” Erin said, “Archibald always thinks we’re about to go to war. Personally, I don’t see it. We had a large conflict on Corind about twenty-five years ago. Mankind learned what happens when you try to rush a machine gun with massed troops. There are still people alive who remember that. We won’t have another war like that until the veterans are dead and forgotten.”
* * *
That night Chun slipped off of the base. The most difficult part was getting out of the research area, but they’d given him keys, and even without them it would have been easy.
The run to town took about an hour. Raggleston was not what Chun expected. In retrospect, this was his first visit to a town since his awakening, so he should not have had expectations. Nevertheless, it was far from a grand example of Solomon culture.
The town was split into quarters by a highway that bisected it north-south, and a rail line that bisected it east-west. To Chun’s eye it looked like each quarter was trying to out-do the others, but no one knew what the competition was. He passed people dancing around a flaming garbage can and saw a whorehouse. Fu Tan had brothels, but Chun wasn’t sure what the sign that read ‘live girls’ was advertising. Surely every whore was alive when she plied her trade.
That must be an idiom I don’t understand yet.
Near the edge of town, he found a bar that was playing soft music. Inside a few patrons sat on bar stools or at tables around the dance floor. One couple was making a slow circuit of the floor. Chun wondered why they were there--both of them looked ready to fall asleep and topple over.
“Evening,” said the barkeep.
“Good evening,” Chun said. “I am new in town, and don’t know how to order. What should I do?”
The barkeep looked him up and down. “How new?”
“This is my first bar.”
“The hell you say. Do you have money?”
Chun frowned. “No.”
The barkeep frowned back. “You’re going to need some. The rest of the process sort of falls apart without it.”
“Thank you,” Chun said. “I will go get some.”
He went outside and looked around. It didn’t look like there would be many opportunities for him to get a job in the middle of the night, but if a town had whorehouses, it had pimps. Chun went hunting.
* * *
He was accustomed to pimps who dressed like royalty. He hoped that wasn’t the case here, because it would not say anything good about the fashion sense of Solomon royals.
The pimp was tall, thin, and had a gravelly voice. Despite the heat he wore a full-length fur coat. His boots were polished, his gloves were white, and he wore a tall, shiny, black hat. If he hadn’t been brow-beating a prostitute, Chun might have mistaken him for a traveling fool.
Chun walked up behind the pimp and grabbed him by the neck. Three seconds later the asshole was asleep.
“Take the rest of the evening off,” Chun said to the girl. She nodded, a quick vibration of the head, then ran into the darkness. Chun searched his target and found a fat roll of money in one of his inside coat pockets. There was a smaller roll of money in his pants pocket, and a hundred-dollar bill in each boot. The other popular place to hide cash was in your unders, but Chun looked at what he had and decided the pimp could keep anything that had touched his balls.
It took him a few minutes to jog back to the bar. The barkeep nodded to him, but when Chun produced his money, the guy took a step back.
“You’re not bringing that kind of trouble in here,” he said.
“No trouble,” Chun said. “Just money.”
The barkeep pointed north, then east, then south. “Did you get that there, there, or there?”
Chun pointed north.
“That would be Pool. Messing with Pool is a good way to get your throat cut.”
“My name is Chun, and I live in a secret basement at Fort Battering. Tell Mr. Pool to ask General Archibald for me. I will meet him in combat at his convenience.”
The barkeep’s eyebrows went up. “You don’t look like no soldier to me.”
“I’m not a soldier. I just live in the basement. Can you please finish teaching me how to order a drink?”
Their beer was thin and pitiful. Fortunately, they had something called rum. It tasted like car exhaust smelled, but it was strong.
* * *
“He’s in here, ma’am.”
Chun opened his eyes and sat up. The rum had worn off. That was no good. Erin stalked into the bar.
“Chun, go get in the car.”
“What do you know? His name really is Chun,” the barkeep said.
Chun stood up. “I’m hungry. Can I buy a bottle of that rum?”
“No, you may not,” Erin said.
“Can I buy two bottles?”
She stamped her foot. “I said to go get in the car. Do you have any idea what kind a mood the general is in?”
Chun yawned. “If I were betting, I would say angry, because he’s always angry. But you don’t seem like you want to play games right now, so I’m going to say…livid. I think that’s a real word.”
He tipped the barkeep a twenty, then shoved his roll of cash into his pocket and walked out to the car. It was another one of those army things with no top. That was nice. He felt like he needed some fresh air after the haze of cigarette smoke in the bar.
* * *
Archibald met them in front of the office building. “What the fuck were you thinking?”
“I am not in the mood,” Chun said.
“Fuck you and your moods. You get your ass up to my office, or I’ll have you thrown in the stockade.”
Chun looked around. They had a tank parked in front of the building. It looked like an ornament, rather than part of their arsenal. Chun walked over to it, put his hand on it, and ran threads of breath through the ley in the metal. When he was ready, he pulled. Hard.
The tank sagged, like it was made of honey. Paint cracked. The barrel drooped until it lay in the gravel. Chun took his hand away and walked back to Archibald.
“Do you remember the problem we discussed yesterday?”
“Fuck me,” Archibald said.
“I may have thought of a way to help,” Chun said, “but not if you scream at me. I’m going to bed.”