By his fifth day in Elseth, Nedric was almost glad to be going back to work. It wasn’t that he wanted the job, more that he needed a distraction. He walked over to the site with a rapid stride and arrived as the rest of the workers were entering.
He met trouble trying to go through the gate. The guard wasn’t going to let him through without the appropriate documents. Nedric had documents signed by Bethel but he couldn’t persuade the guard to accept them or to talk to the Over-engineer to get permission for him to enter. He was on the point of giving up when he saw some of his colleagues walking his way.
The group of impressors greeted him and also tried to get into the site. Apparently they didn’t have the appropriate documents either as the guard wasn’t going to let anyone through. Fortunately one of the group had the good fortune to spot a friend inside the gates and called him over.
The friend was persuaded to head over to the Over-engineer’s office to get permission for the group. He returned a few minutes later to report that the secretary claimed that they knew nothing about any impressors due to arrive and Tarim was not in his office.
At this point Nedric got angry. He had had enough of the petty bureaucracy of the guard and with more than a dozen people with him; one person was not going to stop him. He marched through the gate, followed by the others. The guard tried to stop them and Nedric pushed him in the stomach. Others in the group gave him gentle kicks as he fell to the floor.
They marched over to the Over-engineer’s office. As they approached, it they could see faint curls of smoke coming out of the place. They sped up. When Nedric opened the door he could see that there were piles of papers everywhere and half of them were alight.
Without thinking, Nedric went into the office and started to stamp on the fire. Others followed and the flames were quickly put out. As the smoke cleared it became apparent that the fire had been started fairly recently and had done little damage to the office apart from to the papers.
There was someone coughing in the back office. When they tried to open the door, they found it locked. Fortunately it was not a strong lock and sprung open when Nedric forcefully kicked it with the base of his foot. They found Over-engineer Tarim struggling to sit up and fighting the effects of smoke inhalation.
“Are you all right sir?” asked Nedric with some alarm.
Tarim nodded, then sat down heavily on a chair. He took some time getting enough breath to speak.
“Is Rhianna anywhere around?”
“I haven’t seen her sir.” Nedric replied.
“She locked me in the office and then set fire to the place. Go get the guard and make sure he closes the gate.”
Nedric shuffled on his feet uncomfortably. “I’m not sure that the guard is in any condition to help at the moment. Last time I saw him he was lying on the floor.”
“Why was he doing that?”
“Because I pushed him. Sorry about that but he was stopping us from coming through the gate.”
Tarim gave him a rather bleary look. “What are you lot doing here anyway? Aren’t you supposed to be in Esteril?”
“You should have been informed that all the impressors had been ordered back to Setherland by Captain Bethel to further the war effort.”
“I haven’t been told a thing. How does he have the authority? What is going on?” His voice went from bewilderment to questioning, rising in volume as he spoke.
Nedric could tell that some things needed to be sorted out quickly and that having a group of impressors standing around wasn’t going to help. He quickly organised the group to begin working. Fortunately some of them knew the site fairly well and could find the workmen they needed to get started. Nedric stayed with the Over-engineer.
“What do you know about Elsebeth’s capture sir?”
“What capture?”
There was a picture beginning to emerge. Tarim seemed to be totally unaware of all the recent activity and kept looking at Nedric as if he was talking nonsense. The fact that there had been the group of impressors seemed to be the only reason that he believed Nedric at all.
When Nedric questioned Tarim as to the role Rhianna played in the office then Tarim reached some understanding of events.
“She handles the paperwork and sees to it that I get all the relevant papers without having to handle all the unnecessary stuff that would otherwise waste my time.”
“And who decides what is relevant?”
“She does.”
It wasn’t immediately clear to Nedric why Rhianna would want to hide information from Tarim, until the conversation he had with Captain Tolbeck came to haunt him.
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“What could Rhianna have learnt if she were a spy for Nothering?”
“Anything she wanted, all the plans go through this office, all the costs are listed here, any authorisations that have to be made, any changes that need to be made. If she wanted to know anything about the company she could find it here.”
With a growing realisation he started to sort through the half-burnt papers. His movements became more and more agitated as he searched. Eventually he blurted out.
“She’s taken the latest set of plans.”
“What could Nothering do with them?”
“Build a boardway as developed as ours, without the years we took to learn how to do it. All they need is normal workmen and some impressors. Fortunately all the impressors are now in Setherland and they won’t be able train any themselves without somebody who knows what they are doing.”
A stab went through Nedric’s brain. “They’ve got Elsebeth!”
It was as he was contemplating these events that Captain Kranc walked into sight. Nedric knew immediately that the Captain was there to speak to him. He wasn’t expecting to hear good news.
“What happened to this office?” The captain queried, looking around the place with evident surprise.
“It looks like there has been a Nothering spy working here and she has just decided to run.”
“That sadly makes a lot of sense. We have had news of the raid, they’ve recovered almost all the hostages, unfortunately Elsebeth wasn’t amongst them.”
“What can the army do to capture the spy?”
“We can get her description to every post by tonight. If she leaves the country by any monitored route we should capture her. Who is she?”
“Rhianna, daughter of the merchant Blekann.”
“That’s weird.”
“What’s weird?”
“Blekann is one of the other people captured and he wasn’t rescued either.”
Nedric wasn’t sure whether to assume that Rhianna had been spying because her father was in danger or because he was also a spy. It really didn’t matter. He really wanted to get Elsebeth back and it looked like the only way to do this was to capture Rhianna. The problem was that he couldn’t just race off, he had responsibilities at the site and he was just going to have to rely on others.
He made sure that Kranc started moving fairly rapidly. He didn’t want Rhianna slipping past the guards before the message could be sent. The captain seemed reluctant to go, being more interested in finding out what sort of things Rhianna had done. Eventually Nedric had to walk with him to the front gate, talking all the time.
As he made his leave of Kranc, the guard who was standing to one side and giving him an evil look caught Nedric’s eye. He decided that he should confront the man now rather than let the antagonism fester. It helped that he had a good line of attack.
“Thanks to you messing us around earlier the Over-engineer nearly died. If it isn’t bad enough you’ve let a spy escape from the site with the latest plans. What sort of guard do you call yourself?”
“I was just doing my job.”
“Rather you were boosting your own sense of power by being obstructive. I reckon you’re likely to lose your job.”
The guard’s whole manner changed. From being defensive but belligerent he seemed to shrink and become worried. Nedric felt like a bully. It was fine for him to be angry with the guard but it wasn’t fair to be suggesting that the man lose his livelihood for doing what he was meant to be doing, albeit in a most unhelpful manner.
“I’ll see whether I can gloss over your part in this when I speak to him in a moment.”
The guard was almost obscenely grateful. Nedric felt even worse. He was deceiving the man into thinking that he Nedric was powerful enough to decide who worked and who didn’t. In truth he had only the authority to best arrange the work of the impressors. He couldn’t even fire one of them without a supervisor’s permission.
As he walked back through the site he reflected on the morning and what he had done. He had been issuing orders as if he was one of the bosses and nobody had argued. Perhaps it was just the shock of the moment or perhaps it was because most of the people around had been those he was used to directing. Either way he decided that it would be better for him to be doing his proper job rather than giving any more orders. People might start to resent him.
Before he could go over to the sheds he felt the need to check on Tarim. Whilst the Over-engineer had appeared to be recovering his strength he had looked fairly frail when they had first broken down the door and he wasn’t sure how badly the smoke had affected him.
He opened the door to the outer office and was greeted by the sight of Tarim sitting at Rhianna’s desk and methodically sorting through the paperwork. The man looked up as Nedric entered and invited him in.
“Nedric, I’m glad you’re back again. I need to know what exactly is going on and what I might have missed out on. You seem to know more than most as to what is happening so tell me what you can.”
Taking a seat, without being asked, Nedric started to explain events as they had affected him. He told what had happened to Elsebeth and him and how he had come to Elseth when it looked like nothing was likely to be done to help. He explained that her father had authorised the raid to free the captives and the further preparations he was putting in place in the event of war. He glossed lightly over the incident at the gate and instead explained what the impressors were doing at the moment.
After arranging with Tarim for accommodation to be provided for the impressors and for documents to be available for them and any more that arrived he made his way over to the sheds. The time had come for him to be candid with his techniques. There was going to be an even greater need for the boardway to be ready as soon as possible if Rhianna was likely to let the Nothering command know about this new defence.
It was the work of more than a few minutes to arrange a meeting of all the impressors. There were the ones he knew and had worked with in Esteril and there were the ones who had been in Elseth all the time and knew little about him. It had taken quite a lot of persuasion to convince their section leader to help collect the others.
When they were gathered in an empty shed Nedric knew that he was going to have one of the toughest jobs in his life. Although he was of an age or older than most of the ones who had been with him in Esteril, the other group were all older and more experienced. He could see them thinking dismissive thoughts as he told them they had been going about things wrongly for the last few years.
He decided that if he were going to manage this task he was going to do it by getting their co-operation rather than antagonism. He cleared his throat.
“Good afternoon. You are probably wondering why I’ve asked to have you all gathered, after all you all know your job and can get on with it without needing to know where your work is being used. I thought it might be useful to know the reasons why our job is going to get much harder.
You will be aware that people have been disappearing, captured by Nothering and held in a place not too far from the border. Some of you will know that one person captured is an impressor.”
There was an almost collective nod from the Esteril group, a questioning mumble from the others. It was clear that the general mood was that no one liked having one of their number taken. Nedric continued.
“A few days ago the army conducted a raid on the mansion where the captives were held. Most were released. Unhappily there will be bad consequences. It seems likely that Nothering will declare war very shortly.
Because of this the army wants a boardway built to help protect the northern borders of the country and the problem is that they want it done quickly. They need two hundred miles constructed in two months.”
“That’s impossible.”
Nedric had no idea who had called out. In essence it didn’t matter because it was the sentiment that they all felt. It was time for him to ease their worries.
“I was speaking to a senior member of the army today and he seemed to think that it was possible to get all the impressors in the country here and that will almost double our numbers.”
“That’s still not enough.”
Again he was grateful for the caller. It meant that his words were going to be seen as a solution rather than a disruption.
“As it happens I have learnt about a new technique for processing the boards. It almost doubles the numbers that an impressor can do a day. It doesn’t require much extra training and as we are paid by the board it should mean that our wages are nearly doubled.”
He had them. Patriotism might be all well and good but the prospect of extra wages for no more work was a bigger incentive. Already there were calls for him to explain this technique. When he had told them how he operated the simplicity of it seemed to be astounding to them. “Why didn’t I think of that?” was a phrase he overheard more than once. It gave him a warm glow until he thought that he would now have to work harder than ever.