The Valet of Anize, Chapter Nine
Dec. 6th, 2009 11:09 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
copperbadge.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
originalsam_backupCHAPTER NINE
They took us down into the mines that afternoon, into deep cool places utterly without sunlight. The shafts were narrow little hallways barely high enough to walk in without ducking, and I discovered I was not entirely at home with the concept of venturing so far underground. Dr. Anizin didn't seem to mind, and I'm sure they showed us many interesting things, but what I recall most is that when we came back up, the air turned suddenly moist and full of the smell of plants and trees, despite the mine-mouth's proximity to the foundry. One of the miners caught me inhaling deeply and laughed.
"No pollen down in the mines," she said, elbowing me. I staggered. "You come up and smell the world again. Takes some getting used to."
"You seem very cheerful, for people who spend all your time in the dark," I said, as Dr. Anizin thanked the guides who had taken us down.
"Work pays well, got a lot of pride in it, and -- well, it's worth it to come up, isn't it?" she said.
"The return is worth the descent?" I asked.
"Something like that."
"Carry!" Dr. Anizin called.
"Thank you," I said to her. "This has been...educational."
That evening, after we'd dined with the mayor, Dr. Anizin plugged her All-In-One into the console in her room and brought up the satellite photograph again, plus a second one I hadn't seen earlier.
"What did you think of the mines, Carry?" she asked.
"A little cramped," I answered, picking up her boots and taking a tin of polish out of my pocket.
"Well, yes. That wasn't quite what I meant. Did it seem like the Chief Officer was lying to us?"
I swabbed a rag in some polish and set about shining her left boot. "I suppose they have their secrets, like all places do."
"Hmm. And nobody tells everything to guests, right?"
"I suspect that's so."
"When I asked him about whether they'd found anything down in the mines, he looked nervous," she said, tapping a finger against her lips. "I think they know something."
"I doubt it's a dinosaur or a dragon. They'd have no reason to keep that secret," I replied.
"True. So what do you suppose it is?"
"I don't know, Dr. Anizin. Diamonds, maybe."
"Diamonds?" she asked, looking at me with a startled expression. "I didn't think of that. Is it possible?"
"Diamonds are basic products of carbon, heat, and pressure; if the impact was sufficient, I'd think so," I said. She looked almost disappointed, as if the discovery of a diamond mine in her native prefecture wouldn't be the most economically astounding thing to happen to Anize since it was established.
"What I wonder about is this," she said, and I looked up to find her pointing at the second photograph. "Here's the impact ridge -- remember, he showed us that this afternoon?"
I nodded.
"The rest is supposedly rockfalls and glacier deposits...and I'm no geologist, but then there's this," she said, indicating a dark shape in one corner, near something I recognised as the foundry, only half-built. The second satellite photo was more recent, then, and probably taken at the request of Government House. "That's a hill. On a plain. How did that get there?"
I looked at her, wondering if she actually wanted an answer, but she was still studying the images.
"And why is it cropped from the original?" she added. I leaned forward and saw she was correct -- the photo that the Izza Mining Cooperative had provided was oddly shaped, narrower than the other, and the dark splotch from Dr. Anizin's satellite photo would have been right in the area that was cropped out.
"I suppose," I said slowly, "it might be impertinent to suggest that it's simply a hill?"
She smiled. "Pragmatic, Carry."
"It's a natural inclination."
"Probably just as well."
"There would be no advantage in hiding a diamond mine from you, really," I said. "It's not as though the Senate could annex Izza. Economically it could be an end-run so the market doesn't flood, but the market's starving. Industrial diamonds are in high demand, let alone jewelers' diamonds."
She raised an eyebrow at me, and I backpedaled quickly.
"I'm sorry. It's not my place to speak on it."
"No, I think it's exactly your place to speak on it. I was just surprised. Not many people have a firm grasp on the intercontinental economy. Anyway, nevermind," she said, turning back to the images and clearing them off the screen decisively. "What's on the agenda for tomorrow? More luncheons?"
"It being an off-work day, I thought not," I said, setting down one nicely-polished boot and turning to the other one. "The mayor's wife, Andrea, suggested you might enjoy some sight-seeing. Are you aware of this place, the White City?"
"Oh -- yes! We are near that, aren't we? Over on the border."
"It's a short journey, and the kitchen will be packing us a lunch. If you like we can attend the market after we return."
"Good to be seen out, huh?"
"Perhaps, but I was thinking more that you might enjoy the local culture," I said, scrubbing at the heel of the boot. "An understanding of Izza would contribute to your eventual final plan for the city, wouldn't it?"
"Are you familiar with the Machiavelli Fragments, Carry?" she asked. I looked up, confused.
"Yes. They're part of the curriculum at the Academy."
"Conquest through integration. To rule a conquered city, become a part of the population. Machiavelli suggested marrying off soldiers to the local inhabitants."
"That's the general idea," I agreed, checking her boot for scuffs.
"I can see why valets would appreciate that," she said, and before I could reply, she'd turned around. "Those look fine, Carry. You're free for the evening."
"Thank you, Dr. Anizin," I said, covering my surprise. I rose, set the boots neatly near the door, gave the room a final once-over before I was satisfied, and left.
Dr. Anizin, as I already knew, was more perceptive than most employers I could be expected to serve. Still, I hadn't expected she would be familiar with the reconstructed fragments that were all that remained of of Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince after the Silence. Many old books were nothing more than the small parts of them that other, more contemporary books had quoted, but The Prince was dear to the hearts of valets, touching -- as we surmised it must have -- on comportment and court etiquette. The fact that most of the quotes were regarding war and conquest was merely a sign of what interested most people; valets in the past century and a half had found solace and instruction in them regardless.
***
The next morning, I was surprised to see Markus, the town-child, standing with Andrea in the reception room when we entered. He was holding a large picnic basket and looked a little queasy.
"Good morning, Dr. Anizin!" Andrea said. "Ready for your expedition?"
"Looking forward to it," Dr. Anizin answered. "Carry, the basket?"
"Of course," I said, stepping forward.
"This is Markus, he's Izza's town child," Andrea said, affectionately ruffling his hair. "He's our responsibility for a while, and I thought it would be educational to take him along."
"Hello, Markus," Dr. Anizin said. "I'm Leigh. This is my valet, Carry."
"Pleasure to meet you," I added, giving him a nod. He smiled tentatively. I winked as I took the basket from his hands, and the smile widened fractionally. Message understood: my discretion was a reality, not a convenient lie I'd told him when I thought we wouldn't meet again.
"Are you aware of the White City?" Andrea asked Dr. Anizin, as we climbed into the waiting carriage outside. I stood aside for Markus to go first, then gave him a slight boost when the step proved rather high.
"Oh yes," Dr. Anizin answered, looking unusually excited. "I heard stories about it as a child, but we could never take the time for much touristing when my mother traveled."
"It's certainly a...different sort of place," Andrea said. "Carry didn't seem to know anything about it."
"I understand it's a local curiosity?" I said. "I wasn't raised in Anize."
"It's a ghost town," Markus said eagerly.
"Well, more of a ruin, really," Dr. Anizin said. "Anything useable was taken away decades ago to be recycled. Most of the steel in the capital comes from it -- a lot of the plastics in the Funlan capital, too."
"A few small structures remain," Andrea supplied.
"What was it?" I asked, because Dr. Anizin was obviously bursting to tell someone.
"It was a resort -- shopping, hotels, leisure. According to the records, a lot of people coming from Funlan...well, Fun Land...would stop there before leaving. There was a port nearby for orbital launch and descent, and it was supposedly a little more serene than Fun Land. Look," Dr. Anizin said, and held out her All-In-One.
On the screen was a photograph of a young man standing with his arm around someone in some sort of costume. The person in the costume was dressed like a giant jack-nare, waving, the face of the costume molded into a slightly sinister-looking grin. In the background was one of the "rollercoasters" Fun Land had once boasted. I glanced at her for permission and then took the All-In-One out of her hand, scrolling through a series of photographs. People on rollercoasters, rows of shops, odd chutes that people were emerging from on a rushing stream of water. Mechanical-looking animals. Perfectly-manicured gardens. And, in the last few, an enormous series of gently-rounded structures, pristine white and gleaming in the sunlight. Most of the images were watermarked property of the Retrolan Museum for Historical Preservation, Funlan Prefecture.
"And it's haunted?" I asked, not looking up from the images.
"A ton of people died there," Markus said. He sounded rather enthusiastic about it.
"When the Silence fell, Izza didn't yet exist," Andrea added, and I looked up in time to see her glance at Markus reprovingly. "The White City was considered Fun Land's responsibility. There was some kind of electrical malfunction -- it was totally automated -- and every door in the complex locked."
"Theories are that the artificial intelligence that ran the White City went off its rails when it was cut off from the extraplanetary servers," Dr. Anizin supplied. "It locked people in their rooms -- locked some of them in the bathrooms, in restaurants, wherever they happened to be. People outside couldn't get in, people inside couldn't get out. It had its own police force and they did what they could, but everything was automated. There wasn't much heavy equipment. The water pumps shut down. Automated food service too. The fire systems went offline."
"Oh, no," I murmured, grasping the significance.
"They don't have a precise body count -- the register of guests was one of the first things lost -- but they rescued a few hundred people, and lost a few hundred more. Some people broke out on their own. Those in the hotel sometimes jumped to their deaths," Andrea said, her voice hushed.
"When they were dismantling it, the workers swore there were ghosts everywhere," Dr. Anizin said.
"The sad lady, the twins, the one-legged man..." Markus ticked them off on his fingers.
"A one-legged ghost?" I asked, passing the All-In-One back. "That seems illogical."
"Well, they are ghosts," Andrea reminded me. "Logic doesn't come into it."
"The one-legged man lost a leg when one of the buildings caught fire," Dr. Anizin said. "He bandaged it up and went back in using some rebar as a crutch. He hauled ten more people out of the fire. They say he kept doing it even after he died, out of habit."
I felt a frission of horror pass over me, probably much intended. That was the point of such stories, after all. If it were a history lesson, the ghosts would have real names.
"I guess those stories don't make it as far as New Breton," Andrea said. "But you've probably got ones too."
The response that died in my throat was that New Breton had too many dealings with tragedy to think much of ghost stories, but instead I kept my mouth shut and nodded. Dr. Anizin looked as if she suspected my response, but she didn't reproach me.
"Do valets have ghost stories?" Markus asked, breaking the silence.
"We have legends," I told him, "and later I might tell you one. Today we're going to the White City; that's what you should study."
"I know all those stories," Markus scowled.
"Then tell us one," Dr. Anizin suggested, and Marcus launched into a complicated story about the twins, who were ghosts who wandered the White City's streets looking for their mother, and how a personal friend of a friend of his mother had seen them once. I sat back and watched the landscape unfold, listening idly. I found myself looking for ridges like the one the Chief Officer had pointed out to us, something to signify another meteorite strike.
"There it is!" Markus called, leaning out the window of the carriage. I craned my neck to see, but my view was blocked by Dr. Anizin, who turned and thrust her own head out of the other window eagerly. I sighed and followed suit, ducking below her to try and get a glimpse of this ghost town.
What I saw was a large stone arch, much-defaced and definitely abandoned, probably deemed worth less as building material than it would take to haul it away. A sign hung on a fragment of stone wall to one side read:
RUINS - SIGHTSEERS WALK WITH CARE
DO NOT REMOVE OBJECTS OR MATERIAL FROM THIS SITE
RETROLAN MUSEUM FOR HISTORICAL PRESERVATION
EST. 82 A.S.
Eighty-two years after the Silence fell. Obviously anything of value had long been stripped away.
The carriage left us at the gate, on the other side of which was a water cistern and a small shelter for horses and presumably weary travelers. Our driver unlatched the horses from their harness and led them to drink, while Dr. Anizin and Andrea wandered over a crack-riddled paved road to a placard. Markus ran ahead, leaping onto the crumbling foundation wall of what looked to have been a magnificent building, once.
"All the stone is native Arrival quarry," Dr. Anizin said, gazing out on the field before us. There were several paved roads, snaking this way and that, circling foundations marked with stone or empty spaces with placards in front of them. I lingered back with the picnic basket, keeping one eye on Dr. Anizin and the other on Markus, who was pacing out the length of the building slowly.
"There's a quarry about three miles that way," Andrea said, pointing northeast. "One thing Anize doesn't lack is rock."
"Soon we won't lack for steel, either," Dr. Anizin said, giving her a winning smile. "Thanks to Izza."
"It's our pleasure," Andrea replied. "Come along, I'll give you the full tour."
The settlement of the city wasn't large. I could see, across the flat plain, another gate on the far side of it. Once, I supposed, the gate would be blocked by the enormous, curving white buildings, and by trees and gardens -- a few trees still grew here and there, and grass ran riot in many of the foundations, but it was nothing like the photographs had shown.
We passed the remains of a hotel and a spa, according to the signs, with a cement indoor bathing pool now open to the elements and filled with murky water, creeper fronds floating on the surface. I could see where stone footpaths had been laid between the spa and what must have been a garden. A bird was perched on the crumbled remains of a statue there. Next to the statue someone had placed an impromptu monument, and I recognised the image, the nine-pointed flower -- it was a Santhemum, grown in the Ghala Prefecture on Tropika, an entirely different continent.
Someone's ancestor had died here. A man or a woman had come to Arrival with their children for a holiday and had died here, and the child had lived and joined the thousands of suddenly penniless refugees, trapped in a place they didn't belong. The child might have gone to Ghala because there was free land there, or been sent by a well-meaning bureaucrat redistributing the orphans of the Silence. A child of theirs had returned to honour the fallen.
I don't think of myself as mournful, or even especially sad, but in the White City I finally felt at home in Anize. There were no scars in the capital city beyond what every city possessed, and Izza hadn't even existed when the Silence fell. This place, on the Anize border, carried the kinds of scars that New Breton had, that some in New Breton cherished like a badge of honour. I understood Anize, in the White City.
We stopped to eat lunch under one of the trees, across the decaying road from a shopping mall -- or what was left of it. Wall-markers, not much more than deep trenches dug and filled with cheap cement, showed row on row of small shops, fronting onto a central aisle that was nothing more than dust. I served Andrea and Dr. Anizin, called Markus back from his explorations to give him a sandwich, and then settled in the grass with my own meal, a cup of fruit and odd soft Izzan cheese.
"Someone must care for the place," Dr. Anizin said, sipping from a water flask.
"Once a year about half of Izza troops out to do a little cleaning," Andrea said. "It's something of a festival. Retrolan has interns at their history museum, they have to come out every few weeks as part of their duties."
"Imagine what it must have been like," Dr. Anizin continued. "A whole city devoted to pleasure. A whole planet devoted to pleasure."
"It doesn't seem like a very worthwhile life," Andrea replied.
"Oh?"
"Well. When you're done bringing in a crop, you can see and feel what you've accomplished. You must understand, you make buildings."
"I don't build them myself," Dr. Anizin laughed.
"But you have a hand in it. Even musicians or artists know when they've given pleasure. The sort of people who have to come from another planet just to chase pleasure -- do you think they found it?"
"Some must have. Otherwise Arrival wouldn't have lasted three hundred years before the Silence. The books say we were a very wealthy planet."
"In credit kept on servers somewhere else," Andrea said.
"There is that. Anyway. I appreciate Izza's work ethic. Your miners seem to share your view; they're proud of the work they're doing."
"Patriotic boys and girls," Andrea murmured.
"Do you ever have problems with any of them?"
"The Chief Officer would know more than I would, but I don't think there's been many. Maybe one or two who feel they aren't making as much as the company is, but someone's always going to want a raise."
"They feel safe with the company? Down in the shafts?"
"Yes. The company's very proud of its record. We didn't know anything about mining, you know, but the foremen found some books and sent a few e-mails and before you knew it they were practically experts. We've had a few accidents, but nothing fatal."
"So your miners have every reason to be loyal to you," Dr. Anizin said. I could hear, though the others couldn't, that this was leading somewhere. Dr. Anizin was good at diplomatic conversation, good at making people feel at home. A legacy of her mother, I assumed.
"Well, I don't think there's any need for loyalty," Andrea replied. "Loyal against whom? Nobody wants to steal their labour, and it's not as though smelting ore is exactly a secret process."
"I don't know. All places have their secrets, I'm sure the mine is no exception," she said. I looked at Markus, sitting near my elbow, and found that his attention was divided between their discussion and my refusal to react to it. He looked confused; I could tell that he, too, saw that this wasn't idle conversation, and that we had been forgotten. I gave him a very slight nod.
"Well, they don't tell politicians' wives, I guess," Andrea said. "But you've seen it too, haven't you?"
Dr. Anizin gave her a searching look. "Seen what, exactly?"
"The way they talk around some things. The parts of the mine they haven't excavated yet, except that the labour in the mines they have excavated is a little thinner than it should be, and there's one mine-entrance far off from the others. One of the first things the miners learned was don't dig in the dark."
"It's...always dark in the mines," Dr. Anizin said, confused.
"No, what it means is -- there's a time and place for every revelation, and if something comes out too soon, people go a little crazy. If you dig in the dark, they wonder what you're up to, and they all come out and look."
"Ah," Dr. Anizin nodded. "What do you think they've found?"
"Maybe another seam. Maybe some kind of ruin, or one of those treasure-caches people supposedly buried when they thought the Silence would only last a few years. But I tend to think it's a ruin. If it were anything else they'd have emptied it out or announced it by now."
"Do you think simply asking would work?" Dr. Anizin asked.
"It's refreshingly direct," Andrea replied, laughing. "But if they are hiding something they're not going to answer, and if they aren't they might be a little offended. Anyway, I'm sure we'll know soon enough. After lunch, I thought you'd like to see the preserved mosaic floors in the art gallery ruins..."
The conversation turned back to the White City. I stopped listening as closely, aware that whatever Dr. Anizin had been angling at, she'd just barely brushed up against it this time. Markus saw me relax, I think, and leaned over to whisper to me.
"They forgot we're here, didn't they?" he asked.
"No," I replied. "I am Dr. Anizin's valet. I have her confidence. You, maybe, they forgot about, but they probably thought you weren't listening."
"People do that," he said.
"I imagine so," I agreed.
***
"What did you think of the White City, Carry?" Dr. Anizin asked me, that afternoon. I shifted one of the neatly-tied bundles from my right hand to balance it atop another on my left and dug in my pocket for cash to pay for the food with. Dr. Anizin lifted it, gave me a shake of her head when I protested, and tucked it under her own arm. I passed her the plate of food that was slid across the counter.
"It was extremely edifying," I replied, accepting my own plate of food and pushing through the crowd around the counter to one of the rustic wooden tables set up nearby. Dr. Anizin dropped down across from me and set the bundle on the table, while I carefully unloaded the three I was carrying.
"You were quiet," she said, untying one of the bundles. She pulled out a beautiful sweater, knitted from locally-grown Izza wool, and pulled it over her head.
"I suppose it befits such a place."
She smiled. "You didn't disapprove of Andrea and me talking there, did you?"
"My place isn't to make moral judgements on my employer."
"So, you did."
I shook my head as she began to eat. "Not at all. We contemplate mortality in our own way."
"Mortality!" she exclaimed, mouth full.
"If nothing else, it's a monument to those who died there. Symbolically, a monument to all who died in the Silence. Bringing joy and noise to such a place is no less reverent than silent contemplation."
"Sometimes I think you're depressive," she said. "Eat your curry."
"Yes, Dr. Anizin," I answered, bending to my food, but she caught the slight sarcasm in my voice and laughed again.
"All right, maybe not. You know, Andrea was right about the market, anyway. I'm going to ship some of this home, Tamara will love the flatware I got her -- she's needed some, hers is cheap and falling apart. And I got Brighton something for his hair. Did you see the scarf I bought for my mother?"
"Exquisite," I agreed, while Dr. Anizin poked the other bundles. The off-work market was bigger than I'd expected, given Izza's isolation, and I was surprised to find that the town boasted excellent knifework, though perhaps some of the artisans were recent immigrants drawn by the lure of inexpensive, immediately available metal. I was considering trading in my second-best knife (Plena still had my best one) for an Izzan model, but I was waiting to return to the stall in the hopes the price would drop slightly as the market began to close up.
"What do you hear from the capital?" she continued, and I offered her a handkerchief before she wiped her mouth on her pristine new sleeve. "I had a long e-mail from Mom this morning, but she talked around the attack. I think she thinks it's upsetting or something."
"Bart and Stick tell me there's no more news on who he was, and now people suspect the gun was mine," I said. She looked horrified.
"But I saw it! He had the gun, he definitely had the gun."
"I'm not especially worried; you know how gossips will talk," I assured her.
"Carry, I won't have people blaming you for someone trying to shoot my mother. One, someone who was stabbed defending her doesn't deserve that. Two, it makes me look like I hired a psychopath."
"That's not necessarily a bad thing," I pointed out. "People are much less likely to bother you if they think I'm on a hair-trigger."
"Don't you care?"
I shrugged. "Not especially."
"Why not?"
"You're my employer. What you think of me is all that matters."
"You put a lot of trust in me not to be an asshole."
"Well, you've done a marvelous job so far," I promised her.
"That was sass!" she exclaimed. "You just sassed me. Good for you, Carry."
"I'll try to keep it a surprise when I'm planning further sass," I said solmenly.
"So no further news, then," she said, returning to her meal.
"Not that I've been able to find, but I'm following the feeds. I'll make sure any new accurate information is routed to you, if you like," I told her.
"Just...let me know if they find anything, no routing required," she replied. "I'm setting up an office on Monday to start layout and quoting for the build. You'll have a lot of free time during the day. What will you do?"
"Offer my services to the household, and of course run errands for you as needed. I could stand guard at your door, if necessary," I added.
"Again with the teasing," she said. "What if I had a special mission for you?"
"Such as?" I asked.
"I'd like you to get to know the mines," she replied, leaning forward and speaking low. "When the shifts change, who works where, when the foundry operates. Make friends."
"Spy," I said.
"Oooh, was that a moral judgement?"
"Not in the least. There's nothing illegal about it, and of course the knowledge is useful to an engineer designing a modern city centre for a mining town," I said. "And it's likely to keep me out of mischief."
"Then you have your marching orders," she said, leaning back. "This is convenient, really. I wasn't exactly in love with the idea of a valet when you showed up, you know."
"Some people aren't. Valets appreciate a challenge."
"Hm. Well. In that case, I challenge you to re-pack all this," she said, pointing to the much rummaged-in bundles. I set my plate aside, pulled the nearest one towards me, and began efficiently re-tying it.
***
Dr. Anizin had commandeered a small empty office in Izza proper, only accessible by passing through a butcher's shop below. The smell was not ideal, to my mind, but I felt she was reasonably secure, her path guarded by a woman with extremely sharp knives and heavy blunt instruments to hand.
On Monday I left Dr. Anizin there, happily disordering the room, and went to carry out a few tasks that the mayor had put to me when I'd offered my services to the household. Simple things, couriering a business contract to be witnessed and picking up butter and a sack of flour for the kitchen, and neither took up even a morning's worth of time.
After returning to the mayor's house with my spoils and stealing a pasty (still hot) from the kitchen, I walked out to the stables that the mayor shared with the farmer whose land bordered his. They were all reasonably healthy animals, though smaller and more docile than the large, well-fed horses that the Anizins kept. I chose a grey mare who looked restless in her stall, offered her my hands to snuff at so she'd know me, and took her out for a ride.
The northern part of Anize Prefecture is beautiful, wide and flat and windswept. From the outside the trees clung low to the ground, and so did the buildings of Izza. Strong country, with strong people rooted there, for whatever reason they came and stayed after the Silence fell. Izza was young, in relative terms; the oldest cities on Arrival are four hundred years old and more, from the original colonisation. If the mines kept producing, Izza would be a big city -- but still young.
By the time I pulled the grey mare back in to a walk we were far outside of town to the north, where the road abruptly ended and split into little meandering paths, probably leading to outflung farms at the distant edge of the prefecture. Beyond those boundaries was dead land, owned by no government, before the chilly coastline disappeared into one of the northern seas. My business was nowhere near here, but it was good to see the mines from the outside. I hoped, in a little time, to see them from a very intimate inside again.
I turned and began the ride back to civilisation, such as it was, and to the Izza Mining Company.
That first day, all I did was watch. I stopped the grey mare in the shadow of a tree and ate my own meal while I observed one shift emerge for lunch, then a second, on a staggered plan that very efficiently allowed everyone the time to eat without forcing anyone to wait too long in line at the food carts. Most of the miners bought their food, though some had clearly packed small meals or were brought baskets by outsiders -- spouses or parents, in some cases children. School did not seem to be rigorously compulsory in Izza.
The miners were probably, mainly, farmers, natives of the area. They formed little groups as they ate, talking easily with one another, stretching sore muscles, laughing and arguing. None of them noticed me beyond the food carts. Or, if they did, they didn't pay much attention.
On the edges of this, at the fringe of the break-yard or lingering near the mine-entrances, different groups formed. Darker-faced men and women eating quietly, some exhausted, some sullen, pushed to the fringe for one reason or another. I watched them more closely, and I noted their faces, the way their bodies moved and the way they spoke, when they did speak.
By the time the second lunch shift had returned to work in the mines or in the foundry, I had an inkling of what I should do, and how I should do it. I rode back to the mayor's house with a head full of thoughts, fed and curried the grey mare, and washed quickly before attending to the household at dinner.
"You look pleased with yourself," Dr. Anizin said, leaning in the kitchen doorway as I washed the dishes from dinner. "Productive day?"
"In a manner of speaking," I replied. "Much as you do, Dr. Anizin, I've been drawing up plans. I intend to break ground tomorrow."
"Do you, now. On our pet project?"
"Indeed."
"Well, I'll leave you to it, then," she said, and I smiled over the suds and good china as she walked away.
They took us down into the mines that afternoon, into deep cool places utterly without sunlight. The shafts were narrow little hallways barely high enough to walk in without ducking, and I discovered I was not entirely at home with the concept of venturing so far underground. Dr. Anizin didn't seem to mind, and I'm sure they showed us many interesting things, but what I recall most is that when we came back up, the air turned suddenly moist and full of the smell of plants and trees, despite the mine-mouth's proximity to the foundry. One of the miners caught me inhaling deeply and laughed.
"No pollen down in the mines," she said, elbowing me. I staggered. "You come up and smell the world again. Takes some getting used to."
"You seem very cheerful, for people who spend all your time in the dark," I said, as Dr. Anizin thanked the guides who had taken us down.
"Work pays well, got a lot of pride in it, and -- well, it's worth it to come up, isn't it?" she said.
"The return is worth the descent?" I asked.
"Something like that."
"Carry!" Dr. Anizin called.
"Thank you," I said to her. "This has been...educational."
That evening, after we'd dined with the mayor, Dr. Anizin plugged her All-In-One into the console in her room and brought up the satellite photograph again, plus a second one I hadn't seen earlier.
"What did you think of the mines, Carry?" she asked.
"A little cramped," I answered, picking up her boots and taking a tin of polish out of my pocket.
"Well, yes. That wasn't quite what I meant. Did it seem like the Chief Officer was lying to us?"
I swabbed a rag in some polish and set about shining her left boot. "I suppose they have their secrets, like all places do."
"Hmm. And nobody tells everything to guests, right?"
"I suspect that's so."
"When I asked him about whether they'd found anything down in the mines, he looked nervous," she said, tapping a finger against her lips. "I think they know something."
"I doubt it's a dinosaur or a dragon. They'd have no reason to keep that secret," I replied.
"True. So what do you suppose it is?"
"I don't know, Dr. Anizin. Diamonds, maybe."
"Diamonds?" she asked, looking at me with a startled expression. "I didn't think of that. Is it possible?"
"Diamonds are basic products of carbon, heat, and pressure; if the impact was sufficient, I'd think so," I said. She looked almost disappointed, as if the discovery of a diamond mine in her native prefecture wouldn't be the most economically astounding thing to happen to Anize since it was established.
"What I wonder about is this," she said, and I looked up to find her pointing at the second photograph. "Here's the impact ridge -- remember, he showed us that this afternoon?"
I nodded.
"The rest is supposedly rockfalls and glacier deposits...and I'm no geologist, but then there's this," she said, indicating a dark shape in one corner, near something I recognised as the foundry, only half-built. The second satellite photo was more recent, then, and probably taken at the request of Government House. "That's a hill. On a plain. How did that get there?"
I looked at her, wondering if she actually wanted an answer, but she was still studying the images.
"And why is it cropped from the original?" she added. I leaned forward and saw she was correct -- the photo that the Izza Mining Cooperative had provided was oddly shaped, narrower than the other, and the dark splotch from Dr. Anizin's satellite photo would have been right in the area that was cropped out.
"I suppose," I said slowly, "it might be impertinent to suggest that it's simply a hill?"
She smiled. "Pragmatic, Carry."
"It's a natural inclination."
"Probably just as well."
"There would be no advantage in hiding a diamond mine from you, really," I said. "It's not as though the Senate could annex Izza. Economically it could be an end-run so the market doesn't flood, but the market's starving. Industrial diamonds are in high demand, let alone jewelers' diamonds."
She raised an eyebrow at me, and I backpedaled quickly.
"I'm sorry. It's not my place to speak on it."
"No, I think it's exactly your place to speak on it. I was just surprised. Not many people have a firm grasp on the intercontinental economy. Anyway, nevermind," she said, turning back to the images and clearing them off the screen decisively. "What's on the agenda for tomorrow? More luncheons?"
"It being an off-work day, I thought not," I said, setting down one nicely-polished boot and turning to the other one. "The mayor's wife, Andrea, suggested you might enjoy some sight-seeing. Are you aware of this place, the White City?"
"Oh -- yes! We are near that, aren't we? Over on the border."
"It's a short journey, and the kitchen will be packing us a lunch. If you like we can attend the market after we return."
"Good to be seen out, huh?"
"Perhaps, but I was thinking more that you might enjoy the local culture," I said, scrubbing at the heel of the boot. "An understanding of Izza would contribute to your eventual final plan for the city, wouldn't it?"
"Are you familiar with the Machiavelli Fragments, Carry?" she asked. I looked up, confused.
"Yes. They're part of the curriculum at the Academy."
"Conquest through integration. To rule a conquered city, become a part of the population. Machiavelli suggested marrying off soldiers to the local inhabitants."
"That's the general idea," I agreed, checking her boot for scuffs.
"I can see why valets would appreciate that," she said, and before I could reply, she'd turned around. "Those look fine, Carry. You're free for the evening."
"Thank you, Dr. Anizin," I said, covering my surprise. I rose, set the boots neatly near the door, gave the room a final once-over before I was satisfied, and left.
Dr. Anizin, as I already knew, was more perceptive than most employers I could be expected to serve. Still, I hadn't expected she would be familiar with the reconstructed fragments that were all that remained of of Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince after the Silence. Many old books were nothing more than the small parts of them that other, more contemporary books had quoted, but The Prince was dear to the hearts of valets, touching -- as we surmised it must have -- on comportment and court etiquette. The fact that most of the quotes were regarding war and conquest was merely a sign of what interested most people; valets in the past century and a half had found solace and instruction in them regardless.
***
The next morning, I was surprised to see Markus, the town-child, standing with Andrea in the reception room when we entered. He was holding a large picnic basket and looked a little queasy.
"Good morning, Dr. Anizin!" Andrea said. "Ready for your expedition?"
"Looking forward to it," Dr. Anizin answered. "Carry, the basket?"
"Of course," I said, stepping forward.
"This is Markus, he's Izza's town child," Andrea said, affectionately ruffling his hair. "He's our responsibility for a while, and I thought it would be educational to take him along."
"Hello, Markus," Dr. Anizin said. "I'm Leigh. This is my valet, Carry."
"Pleasure to meet you," I added, giving him a nod. He smiled tentatively. I winked as I took the basket from his hands, and the smile widened fractionally. Message understood: my discretion was a reality, not a convenient lie I'd told him when I thought we wouldn't meet again.
"Are you aware of the White City?" Andrea asked Dr. Anizin, as we climbed into the waiting carriage outside. I stood aside for Markus to go first, then gave him a slight boost when the step proved rather high.
"Oh yes," Dr. Anizin answered, looking unusually excited. "I heard stories about it as a child, but we could never take the time for much touristing when my mother traveled."
"It's certainly a...different sort of place," Andrea said. "Carry didn't seem to know anything about it."
"I understand it's a local curiosity?" I said. "I wasn't raised in Anize."
"It's a ghost town," Markus said eagerly.
"Well, more of a ruin, really," Dr. Anizin said. "Anything useable was taken away decades ago to be recycled. Most of the steel in the capital comes from it -- a lot of the plastics in the Funlan capital, too."
"A few small structures remain," Andrea supplied.
"What was it?" I asked, because Dr. Anizin was obviously bursting to tell someone.
"It was a resort -- shopping, hotels, leisure. According to the records, a lot of people coming from Funlan...well, Fun Land...would stop there before leaving. There was a port nearby for orbital launch and descent, and it was supposedly a little more serene than Fun Land. Look," Dr. Anizin said, and held out her All-In-One.
On the screen was a photograph of a young man standing with his arm around someone in some sort of costume. The person in the costume was dressed like a giant jack-nare, waving, the face of the costume molded into a slightly sinister-looking grin. In the background was one of the "rollercoasters" Fun Land had once boasted. I glanced at her for permission and then took the All-In-One out of her hand, scrolling through a series of photographs. People on rollercoasters, rows of shops, odd chutes that people were emerging from on a rushing stream of water. Mechanical-looking animals. Perfectly-manicured gardens. And, in the last few, an enormous series of gently-rounded structures, pristine white and gleaming in the sunlight. Most of the images were watermarked property of the Retrolan Museum for Historical Preservation, Funlan Prefecture.
"And it's haunted?" I asked, not looking up from the images.
"A ton of people died there," Markus said. He sounded rather enthusiastic about it.
"When the Silence fell, Izza didn't yet exist," Andrea added, and I looked up in time to see her glance at Markus reprovingly. "The White City was considered Fun Land's responsibility. There was some kind of electrical malfunction -- it was totally automated -- and every door in the complex locked."
"Theories are that the artificial intelligence that ran the White City went off its rails when it was cut off from the extraplanetary servers," Dr. Anizin supplied. "It locked people in their rooms -- locked some of them in the bathrooms, in restaurants, wherever they happened to be. People outside couldn't get in, people inside couldn't get out. It had its own police force and they did what they could, but everything was automated. There wasn't much heavy equipment. The water pumps shut down. Automated food service too. The fire systems went offline."
"Oh, no," I murmured, grasping the significance.
"They don't have a precise body count -- the register of guests was one of the first things lost -- but they rescued a few hundred people, and lost a few hundred more. Some people broke out on their own. Those in the hotel sometimes jumped to their deaths," Andrea said, her voice hushed.
"When they were dismantling it, the workers swore there were ghosts everywhere," Dr. Anizin said.
"The sad lady, the twins, the one-legged man..." Markus ticked them off on his fingers.
"A one-legged ghost?" I asked, passing the All-In-One back. "That seems illogical."
"Well, they are ghosts," Andrea reminded me. "Logic doesn't come into it."
"The one-legged man lost a leg when one of the buildings caught fire," Dr. Anizin said. "He bandaged it up and went back in using some rebar as a crutch. He hauled ten more people out of the fire. They say he kept doing it even after he died, out of habit."
I felt a frission of horror pass over me, probably much intended. That was the point of such stories, after all. If it were a history lesson, the ghosts would have real names.
"I guess those stories don't make it as far as New Breton," Andrea said. "But you've probably got ones too."
The response that died in my throat was that New Breton had too many dealings with tragedy to think much of ghost stories, but instead I kept my mouth shut and nodded. Dr. Anizin looked as if she suspected my response, but she didn't reproach me.
"Do valets have ghost stories?" Markus asked, breaking the silence.
"We have legends," I told him, "and later I might tell you one. Today we're going to the White City; that's what you should study."
"I know all those stories," Markus scowled.
"Then tell us one," Dr. Anizin suggested, and Marcus launched into a complicated story about the twins, who were ghosts who wandered the White City's streets looking for their mother, and how a personal friend of a friend of his mother had seen them once. I sat back and watched the landscape unfold, listening idly. I found myself looking for ridges like the one the Chief Officer had pointed out to us, something to signify another meteorite strike.
"There it is!" Markus called, leaning out the window of the carriage. I craned my neck to see, but my view was blocked by Dr. Anizin, who turned and thrust her own head out of the other window eagerly. I sighed and followed suit, ducking below her to try and get a glimpse of this ghost town.
What I saw was a large stone arch, much-defaced and definitely abandoned, probably deemed worth less as building material than it would take to haul it away. A sign hung on a fragment of stone wall to one side read:
RUINS - SIGHTSEERS WALK WITH CARE
DO NOT REMOVE OBJECTS OR MATERIAL FROM THIS SITE
RETROLAN MUSEUM FOR HISTORICAL PRESERVATION
EST. 82 A.S.
Eighty-two years after the Silence fell. Obviously anything of value had long been stripped away.
The carriage left us at the gate, on the other side of which was a water cistern and a small shelter for horses and presumably weary travelers. Our driver unlatched the horses from their harness and led them to drink, while Dr. Anizin and Andrea wandered over a crack-riddled paved road to a placard. Markus ran ahead, leaping onto the crumbling foundation wall of what looked to have been a magnificent building, once.
"All the stone is native Arrival quarry," Dr. Anizin said, gazing out on the field before us. There were several paved roads, snaking this way and that, circling foundations marked with stone or empty spaces with placards in front of them. I lingered back with the picnic basket, keeping one eye on Dr. Anizin and the other on Markus, who was pacing out the length of the building slowly.
"There's a quarry about three miles that way," Andrea said, pointing northeast. "One thing Anize doesn't lack is rock."
"Soon we won't lack for steel, either," Dr. Anizin said, giving her a winning smile. "Thanks to Izza."
"It's our pleasure," Andrea replied. "Come along, I'll give you the full tour."
The settlement of the city wasn't large. I could see, across the flat plain, another gate on the far side of it. Once, I supposed, the gate would be blocked by the enormous, curving white buildings, and by trees and gardens -- a few trees still grew here and there, and grass ran riot in many of the foundations, but it was nothing like the photographs had shown.
We passed the remains of a hotel and a spa, according to the signs, with a cement indoor bathing pool now open to the elements and filled with murky water, creeper fronds floating on the surface. I could see where stone footpaths had been laid between the spa and what must have been a garden. A bird was perched on the crumbled remains of a statue there. Next to the statue someone had placed an impromptu monument, and I recognised the image, the nine-pointed flower -- it was a Santhemum, grown in the Ghala Prefecture on Tropika, an entirely different continent.
Someone's ancestor had died here. A man or a woman had come to Arrival with their children for a holiday and had died here, and the child had lived and joined the thousands of suddenly penniless refugees, trapped in a place they didn't belong. The child might have gone to Ghala because there was free land there, or been sent by a well-meaning bureaucrat redistributing the orphans of the Silence. A child of theirs had returned to honour the fallen.
I don't think of myself as mournful, or even especially sad, but in the White City I finally felt at home in Anize. There were no scars in the capital city beyond what every city possessed, and Izza hadn't even existed when the Silence fell. This place, on the Anize border, carried the kinds of scars that New Breton had, that some in New Breton cherished like a badge of honour. I understood Anize, in the White City.
We stopped to eat lunch under one of the trees, across the decaying road from a shopping mall -- or what was left of it. Wall-markers, not much more than deep trenches dug and filled with cheap cement, showed row on row of small shops, fronting onto a central aisle that was nothing more than dust. I served Andrea and Dr. Anizin, called Markus back from his explorations to give him a sandwich, and then settled in the grass with my own meal, a cup of fruit and odd soft Izzan cheese.
"Someone must care for the place," Dr. Anizin said, sipping from a water flask.
"Once a year about half of Izza troops out to do a little cleaning," Andrea said. "It's something of a festival. Retrolan has interns at their history museum, they have to come out every few weeks as part of their duties."
"Imagine what it must have been like," Dr. Anizin continued. "A whole city devoted to pleasure. A whole planet devoted to pleasure."
"It doesn't seem like a very worthwhile life," Andrea replied.
"Oh?"
"Well. When you're done bringing in a crop, you can see and feel what you've accomplished. You must understand, you make buildings."
"I don't build them myself," Dr. Anizin laughed.
"But you have a hand in it. Even musicians or artists know when they've given pleasure. The sort of people who have to come from another planet just to chase pleasure -- do you think they found it?"
"Some must have. Otherwise Arrival wouldn't have lasted three hundred years before the Silence. The books say we were a very wealthy planet."
"In credit kept on servers somewhere else," Andrea said.
"There is that. Anyway. I appreciate Izza's work ethic. Your miners seem to share your view; they're proud of the work they're doing."
"Patriotic boys and girls," Andrea murmured.
"Do you ever have problems with any of them?"
"The Chief Officer would know more than I would, but I don't think there's been many. Maybe one or two who feel they aren't making as much as the company is, but someone's always going to want a raise."
"They feel safe with the company? Down in the shafts?"
"Yes. The company's very proud of its record. We didn't know anything about mining, you know, but the foremen found some books and sent a few e-mails and before you knew it they were practically experts. We've had a few accidents, but nothing fatal."
"So your miners have every reason to be loyal to you," Dr. Anizin said. I could hear, though the others couldn't, that this was leading somewhere. Dr. Anizin was good at diplomatic conversation, good at making people feel at home. A legacy of her mother, I assumed.
"Well, I don't think there's any need for loyalty," Andrea replied. "Loyal against whom? Nobody wants to steal their labour, and it's not as though smelting ore is exactly a secret process."
"I don't know. All places have their secrets, I'm sure the mine is no exception," she said. I looked at Markus, sitting near my elbow, and found that his attention was divided between their discussion and my refusal to react to it. He looked confused; I could tell that he, too, saw that this wasn't idle conversation, and that we had been forgotten. I gave him a very slight nod.
"Well, they don't tell politicians' wives, I guess," Andrea said. "But you've seen it too, haven't you?"
Dr. Anizin gave her a searching look. "Seen what, exactly?"
"The way they talk around some things. The parts of the mine they haven't excavated yet, except that the labour in the mines they have excavated is a little thinner than it should be, and there's one mine-entrance far off from the others. One of the first things the miners learned was don't dig in the dark."
"It's...always dark in the mines," Dr. Anizin said, confused.
"No, what it means is -- there's a time and place for every revelation, and if something comes out too soon, people go a little crazy. If you dig in the dark, they wonder what you're up to, and they all come out and look."
"Ah," Dr. Anizin nodded. "What do you think they've found?"
"Maybe another seam. Maybe some kind of ruin, or one of those treasure-caches people supposedly buried when they thought the Silence would only last a few years. But I tend to think it's a ruin. If it were anything else they'd have emptied it out or announced it by now."
"Do you think simply asking would work?" Dr. Anizin asked.
"It's refreshingly direct," Andrea replied, laughing. "But if they are hiding something they're not going to answer, and if they aren't they might be a little offended. Anyway, I'm sure we'll know soon enough. After lunch, I thought you'd like to see the preserved mosaic floors in the art gallery ruins..."
The conversation turned back to the White City. I stopped listening as closely, aware that whatever Dr. Anizin had been angling at, she'd just barely brushed up against it this time. Markus saw me relax, I think, and leaned over to whisper to me.
"They forgot we're here, didn't they?" he asked.
"No," I replied. "I am Dr. Anizin's valet. I have her confidence. You, maybe, they forgot about, but they probably thought you weren't listening."
"People do that," he said.
"I imagine so," I agreed.
***
"What did you think of the White City, Carry?" Dr. Anizin asked me, that afternoon. I shifted one of the neatly-tied bundles from my right hand to balance it atop another on my left and dug in my pocket for cash to pay for the food with. Dr. Anizin lifted it, gave me a shake of her head when I protested, and tucked it under her own arm. I passed her the plate of food that was slid across the counter.
"It was extremely edifying," I replied, accepting my own plate of food and pushing through the crowd around the counter to one of the rustic wooden tables set up nearby. Dr. Anizin dropped down across from me and set the bundle on the table, while I carefully unloaded the three I was carrying.
"You were quiet," she said, untying one of the bundles. She pulled out a beautiful sweater, knitted from locally-grown Izza wool, and pulled it over her head.
"I suppose it befits such a place."
She smiled. "You didn't disapprove of Andrea and me talking there, did you?"
"My place isn't to make moral judgements on my employer."
"So, you did."
I shook my head as she began to eat. "Not at all. We contemplate mortality in our own way."
"Mortality!" she exclaimed, mouth full.
"If nothing else, it's a monument to those who died there. Symbolically, a monument to all who died in the Silence. Bringing joy and noise to such a place is no less reverent than silent contemplation."
"Sometimes I think you're depressive," she said. "Eat your curry."
"Yes, Dr. Anizin," I answered, bending to my food, but she caught the slight sarcasm in my voice and laughed again.
"All right, maybe not. You know, Andrea was right about the market, anyway. I'm going to ship some of this home, Tamara will love the flatware I got her -- she's needed some, hers is cheap and falling apart. And I got Brighton something for his hair. Did you see the scarf I bought for my mother?"
"Exquisite," I agreed, while Dr. Anizin poked the other bundles. The off-work market was bigger than I'd expected, given Izza's isolation, and I was surprised to find that the town boasted excellent knifework, though perhaps some of the artisans were recent immigrants drawn by the lure of inexpensive, immediately available metal. I was considering trading in my second-best knife (Plena still had my best one) for an Izzan model, but I was waiting to return to the stall in the hopes the price would drop slightly as the market began to close up.
"What do you hear from the capital?" she continued, and I offered her a handkerchief before she wiped her mouth on her pristine new sleeve. "I had a long e-mail from Mom this morning, but she talked around the attack. I think she thinks it's upsetting or something."
"Bart and Stick tell me there's no more news on who he was, and now people suspect the gun was mine," I said. She looked horrified.
"But I saw it! He had the gun, he definitely had the gun."
"I'm not especially worried; you know how gossips will talk," I assured her.
"Carry, I won't have people blaming you for someone trying to shoot my mother. One, someone who was stabbed defending her doesn't deserve that. Two, it makes me look like I hired a psychopath."
"That's not necessarily a bad thing," I pointed out. "People are much less likely to bother you if they think I'm on a hair-trigger."
"Don't you care?"
I shrugged. "Not especially."
"Why not?"
"You're my employer. What you think of me is all that matters."
"You put a lot of trust in me not to be an asshole."
"Well, you've done a marvelous job so far," I promised her.
"That was sass!" she exclaimed. "You just sassed me. Good for you, Carry."
"I'll try to keep it a surprise when I'm planning further sass," I said solmenly.
"So no further news, then," she said, returning to her meal.
"Not that I've been able to find, but I'm following the feeds. I'll make sure any new accurate information is routed to you, if you like," I told her.
"Just...let me know if they find anything, no routing required," she replied. "I'm setting up an office on Monday to start layout and quoting for the build. You'll have a lot of free time during the day. What will you do?"
"Offer my services to the household, and of course run errands for you as needed. I could stand guard at your door, if necessary," I added.
"Again with the teasing," she said. "What if I had a special mission for you?"
"Such as?" I asked.
"I'd like you to get to know the mines," she replied, leaning forward and speaking low. "When the shifts change, who works where, when the foundry operates. Make friends."
"Spy," I said.
"Oooh, was that a moral judgement?"
"Not in the least. There's nothing illegal about it, and of course the knowledge is useful to an engineer designing a modern city centre for a mining town," I said. "And it's likely to keep me out of mischief."
"Then you have your marching orders," she said, leaning back. "This is convenient, really. I wasn't exactly in love with the idea of a valet when you showed up, you know."
"Some people aren't. Valets appreciate a challenge."
"Hm. Well. In that case, I challenge you to re-pack all this," she said, pointing to the much rummaged-in bundles. I set my plate aside, pulled the nearest one towards me, and began efficiently re-tying it.
***
Dr. Anizin had commandeered a small empty office in Izza proper, only accessible by passing through a butcher's shop below. The smell was not ideal, to my mind, but I felt she was reasonably secure, her path guarded by a woman with extremely sharp knives and heavy blunt instruments to hand.
On Monday I left Dr. Anizin there, happily disordering the room, and went to carry out a few tasks that the mayor had put to me when I'd offered my services to the household. Simple things, couriering a business contract to be witnessed and picking up butter and a sack of flour for the kitchen, and neither took up even a morning's worth of time.
After returning to the mayor's house with my spoils and stealing a pasty (still hot) from the kitchen, I walked out to the stables that the mayor shared with the farmer whose land bordered his. They were all reasonably healthy animals, though smaller and more docile than the large, well-fed horses that the Anizins kept. I chose a grey mare who looked restless in her stall, offered her my hands to snuff at so she'd know me, and took her out for a ride.
The northern part of Anize Prefecture is beautiful, wide and flat and windswept. From the outside the trees clung low to the ground, and so did the buildings of Izza. Strong country, with strong people rooted there, for whatever reason they came and stayed after the Silence fell. Izza was young, in relative terms; the oldest cities on Arrival are four hundred years old and more, from the original colonisation. If the mines kept producing, Izza would be a big city -- but still young.
By the time I pulled the grey mare back in to a walk we were far outside of town to the north, where the road abruptly ended and split into little meandering paths, probably leading to outflung farms at the distant edge of the prefecture. Beyond those boundaries was dead land, owned by no government, before the chilly coastline disappeared into one of the northern seas. My business was nowhere near here, but it was good to see the mines from the outside. I hoped, in a little time, to see them from a very intimate inside again.
I turned and began the ride back to civilisation, such as it was, and to the Izza Mining Company.
That first day, all I did was watch. I stopped the grey mare in the shadow of a tree and ate my own meal while I observed one shift emerge for lunch, then a second, on a staggered plan that very efficiently allowed everyone the time to eat without forcing anyone to wait too long in line at the food carts. Most of the miners bought their food, though some had clearly packed small meals or were brought baskets by outsiders -- spouses or parents, in some cases children. School did not seem to be rigorously compulsory in Izza.
The miners were probably, mainly, farmers, natives of the area. They formed little groups as they ate, talking easily with one another, stretching sore muscles, laughing and arguing. None of them noticed me beyond the food carts. Or, if they did, they didn't pay much attention.
On the edges of this, at the fringe of the break-yard or lingering near the mine-entrances, different groups formed. Darker-faced men and women eating quietly, some exhausted, some sullen, pushed to the fringe for one reason or another. I watched them more closely, and I noted their faces, the way their bodies moved and the way they spoke, when they did speak.
By the time the second lunch shift had returned to work in the mines or in the foundry, I had an inkling of what I should do, and how I should do it. I rode back to the mayor's house with a head full of thoughts, fed and curried the grey mare, and washed quickly before attending to the household at dinner.
"You look pleased with yourself," Dr. Anizin said, leaning in the kitchen doorway as I washed the dishes from dinner. "Productive day?"
"In a manner of speaking," I replied. "Much as you do, Dr. Anizin, I've been drawing up plans. I intend to break ground tomorrow."
"Do you, now. On our pet project?"
"Indeed."
"Well, I'll leave you to it, then," she said, and I smiled over the suds and good china as she walked away.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}