Legend
Chapter 06
Charles W Bird
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Astronomers have discovered that the incredible gravitational strength of supermassive black holes can tear planets away from their star systems and hurl them through space at incredible speeds—as fast as 30 million mph.
This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The story is protected by copyright and may not be reproduced by any means without the express, written permission of the author.
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From Chapter 5; It had been a successful voyage by any measure, but the one item they withheld from auction was the steam engine. That, they presented to the farmers living near Globe. With a machine that could pump water, the farmers who had fed The People and all those who had struggled with them to keep the spark of humanity alive after the Cosmic Wave had sent civilization backwards untold generations, could rest easier and again thrive.
FARMS AND FORGES
Captain Hay was a worried man, they had been expending resources at an alarming rate. A new source of metals had been made available to them, the Traders from a half a world away had recently brought a large sailing ship to their shores loaded with iron, copper and brass. His crew had made contact with the Traders and more ships would soon be making the voyage.
Many other minerals were in short supply, some were found locally and some had not yet been discovered. Their most critical material was thorium. Thorium was the basis for their energy, the flyers, the great ship itself, with its generators, and their many handheld devices depended upon thorium. In a pinch, uranium could be used, according to the Engineers, but whatever they were going to use, they had better find some soon, otherwise the flyers would stop flying and the generators would stop producing electric power.
Small amounts of uranium had been detected in the barren lands to the east of them and a mixed group of prospectors, comprised of The People and the New Humans, were preparing to leave on a prospecting trip. They had several slow moving hover craft in the hold of the ship and two of them had been retrofitted to be used as scanning mineral detectors. Each had a tiny laboratory on board, as well as powered borers and samplers to obtain samples for testing.
Joint leadership was given to Bols, a member of The People and Terry, a New Human. Both had mind-speak and had been close friends since childhood. Each would command a hovercraft and would search out likely areas for the needed minerals. Each leader chose a crew of four that included a geologist, a chemist and a miner. The fourth person was a caregiver.
Captain Hay impressed on everyone that the need was urgent as they had fuel supplies for less than another year at the current rate of expenditure.
The two teams headed out in different directions and agreed to remain in contact with each other.
They started off with the detectors turned up to maximum, Terry and his crew headed east from the Great Ship, while Bols and his crew headed south along the new Inland Sea and then they would follow the coast of the Southern Sea.
Terry’s group began getting minor hits on the detectors almost immediately and, by the time they reached the high desert, the needles on the detectors were pegged.
He told the Flyer Pilot to set down and they would take samples. The borer probe was down twice the height of a man when the alarm began to sound, telling them the radioactivity had reached a dangerous level. The automatic analyzer showed a mixture of radioactive materials, uranium, thorium and minute amounts of plutonium.
Terry had the pilot circle around in ever widening circles with the detectors running to try and determine the extent of the ore body. At two miles, the edge of the ore body was found. It was a huge find and they mind-sent to Captain Hay their discovery.
Before they could repack the test bore machinery, there were two large flyers with mining machinery enroute to their location. As soon as the miners arrived and sent down their power augers, ore began to cross the dirt screens and filling the ore hoppers on the flyers.
They mapped out the ore body hits for the miners and returned to their survey.
They continued to get hits and they spent the next three weeks mapping and assaying their finds. The ore had to be transported back to the Great Ship for processing and diffusing before it could be stored in the Great Ship’s fuel bunkers.
Slowly, they began to gain over the rate of consumption and the bunkers began to fill.
Meanwhile, Bols’ crew found only small amounts of usable ore until they reached a small town on the southern coast, the locals called, El Paseo. There, their detector meters swung off-scale!
In the lightly forested mountains nearby, they discovered a large deposit that tested rich in uranium and thorium. Again, mining machinery was sent and the ore recovered.
The local people of El Paseo were in desperate straits, they had little water and their only spring was drying up. When Bols discovered their plight, he ordered the detectors to be reset and they surveyed the area for freshwater. A large underground stream was detected running down the mountains towards the nearby sea.
They bored a well for the people and showed them how to build a wind powered pumping system.
While the pumping system was being constructed, Healer Dar toured the small community with the local caregiver. Dar was troubled, the village was plagued by a sickness that affected the young children and the children who survived it were frequently brain damaged, deaf or blind.
Many had multiple afflictions caused by the illness. The locals called the disease the Mease.
He ran tests and communicated with the Caregivers back on The Great Ship at Globe. Two days later, four flyers came screeching in, their thruster emitters glowing red hot in overload, they had run the entire distance from The Great Ship at maximum overload and landed beside the survey flyer.
They brought medicines and a prevention vaccination for all the folk of the village. They instructed the local Caregiver in recognizing the illness and its treatment and assisted him in vaccinating the entire population against the illness.
The Village Caregiver was very old and infirm, although he worked very hard, he could not keep up with the demands of his villagers. Caregiver Rom volunteered to remain in the village and assist the elderly Caregiver.
A young teen girl, Amala, followed Caregiver Rom as he treated the villagers. As she became more confident, Amala asked if she could be trained to treat those of her village. The girl already had some mind speak and she was eagerly soaking up everything Rom taught her. The girl was like a hungry sponge and soaked up knowledge as fast Rom could speak.
Rom contacted the Chief Caregiver back at The Great Ship and, when the Flyers returned to Globe, young Amala was onboard. She would return to her people as a fully trained Caregiver in a few short years.
She already had dreams of opening a hospital in El Paseo that would serve all the people of the region.
As the survey team was packing up to return to their primary mission, the survey for fuels to power the needs of The Great Ship, the town’s emergency bell began to ring.
Curious, Bols walked into the small town to determine what the emergency was. The sentry pointed out to the nearby sea, sailing craft were rapidly approaching. The sentry said the one word most likely to energize Bols to immediate action, “RAIDERS!”
He mind-called his team and they launched their three flyers with weapons energized. The Raiders had no defense against the flyers and their weapons, the survivors had to swim ashore or drown.
After the danger had passed, Bols asked the Village Headman about the Raiders and what it was they wanted, The Headman shook his head sadly and replied, “Our Children, they take our children to be slaves.”
Barely containing his anger, Bols sent the flyers in search of the place the Raiders had come with orders to level it!
Several hours later, heavily laden flyers began returning, in overload with rescued children. Many of the children had been tortured and maimed, all of them were frightened and showed signs of starvation.
None had sufficient clothing to cover their bodies and it was obvious they had been molested. Rage was running through Rom’s crew of Caregivers, had one from that city of fiends suddenly appeared, that person would survive only seconds.
Rom was working frantically treating the injured children when he heard a faint mind-speech, “Help me, please help me with the little ones!”
He looked around in an attempt to identify who was calling for help. He spotted a teen boy struggling to carry a number of infants and toddlers and Rom went running to the boy as he sent, “Are you who mind-called for assistance?”
The teen stumbled and nearly fell as he replied, “yu, yo, you hhheard me?”
Rom quickly picked up the infants and cradled them in his arms. He looked at the teen and sent, “Yes, I heard you, how is it you thought I would not?”
The boy returned, “I have never been able to contact anyone before and I was desperate, these children are so sick, so fragile, I feared they would die before I could get someone to help me with them.”
Rom learned the boy’s name was Maceo and he had been secretly caring for the babies born of rape, fathered by the raiders.
THE FREE CLINIC
That was all Rom could handle, he decided that he would remain permanently and would construct Amala’s hospital right away.
They constructed the Children’s Clinic first and the first patients admitted were Maceo’s children. Maceo hung around Rom, watching everything he did and asked questions. He told Rom that he wanted to be a Caregiver to children and, whenever there was a vacant bed in the Children’s Clinic, Maceo found a child to fill it.
He became proficient in the use of The People’s instruments and medicines and was frequently found down in the poor section of the town, treating children and young adults on his own.
Grateful parents and people who could not afford to bring their children to the Town’s Caregiver, saw to it that Maceo had a place to sleep and food for his meals.
The men of the slum area built him a small clinic and Maceo named it The Children’s Free Clinic. Rom would come down to the Free Clinic regularly to assist Maceo and to teach him methods of healing. He always brought medicines and diagnostic devices that he conveniently forgot to take with him when he left.
The Free Clinic was nearly as well stocked and the main clinic in the town. The folk of surrounding villages began bringing their children to Maceo’s clinic for treatment, even those children who should not be moved due to their illness, Maceo would go to them as soon as he heard about them.
Maceo began traveling to one village one day a week, rather than have to children be carried to him. In the small, dusty village of Blanc, he was treating numerous children who had been injured or were sick when a teen about his own age came to him and offered to help, “Tell me what to do and I will assist you.”
Maceo was stunned, that teen was doing “something” to him. He reached out with his mind and asked, “Whhoo who are you?”
The new teen replied in the same manner, “I am Teo and I have been watching you. I feel a connection to you.” Their connection became stronger by the day and, soon, the two young men were working together treating the poor folk in the small villages and in the Free Clinic in the slums of El Paseo.
Before long, Maceo asked Teo, “Will you be my partner?”
Teo laughed, “But Maceo, I already am.”
Maco replied, “No, Teo, I mean in my life.”
So it was the two young men began their lives together, reaching out further and further to the small villages of the region, treating the children and their parents. At the same time, they were exploring their new relationship and discovering pleasure in each other, even if it was merely sitting beside each other, holding hands.
They purchased a wagon and two horses to travel between the villages. The wagon was filled with medicines and diagnostic tools supplied by Rom and he frequently traveled with the two young men as they went from village to village. Rom watched as the two young men developed their healing skills as well as their relationship with each other.
Most villages built small clinics for the Caregivers to treat their children in. Local teens, usually boys, volunteered to man the clinics when the two Caregivers were not there. Many of the boys had or were developing mind-speak and could contact them whenever a major problem occurred.
As important, they could call for assistance whenever the Raiders were spotted. They formed a relay system among themselves to give warning and to call for help whenever the Raiders appeared on their beaches.
Rom had arranged for a small detachment of Flyers and their Pilots to be stationed at El Paseo and they were kept in readiness to combat the Raiders wherever they showed up.
Maceo and Teo were far down the coast of the Southern Sea, at the small village of Van. They discovered children there who had strange burns on their skin and a sickness they had never seen before. Nothing in their knowledge of the medicines in their wagon seemed to help the children. They mind-spoke with Rom back in El Paseo; pleading with him to come and help them treat the children.
Rom arrived the next day and was horrified; the children were suffering from radiation burns! Rom immediately mind-called Bols, who was off hunting for ore along the coast of the Great Inland Sea.
Bols arrived several hours later and questioned the children closely about where they had been playing. They told him they had been playing in the hills to the north of Van. Bols had never surveyed that area as it did not seem to the type area that would contain the ores he was desperately searching for.
He sent two of his survey flyers to make a survey pass over the hills where the children had been playing. The flyers, almost immediately, began detecting intense radiation and they called Bols for assistance in finding the extent of the suspected ore body. With all four flyers ranging the ore body, it took them three days to properly map the area. The ore body was huge, the first test bore brought up a rich quantity of uranium and a plentiful mixture of thorium.
It was what they were looking for, Bols called back to The Great ship, Captain Hay was excited.
In the meantime, the Caregivers on the ship combined a gruesome mixture of chelating agents to draw the radioactive particles from the children’s bodies. It tasted foul and nothing the Caregivers could mixt with it could hide the awful taste. The children bravely drank it down and the deaths stopped almost immediately.
The fuel bunkers were filling far too slowly, despite their attempts at conservation. He sent all the available mining flyers and almost as soon as the borers bit into the stony surface, uranium and thorium were crossing the dirt screens. The discovery was sufficiently rich that he committed one of their two classification diffusers and sent it to Van.
Soon, there was a steady stream of robotic transporters delivering the precious thorium to their fuel bunkers. In less than a month, the fuel reserves on The Great Ship had been completely filled and they had hardly touched the massive ore body, their fuel supplies were assured for the foreseeable future!
Maceo’s and Teo’s concern for the children saved their lives, the children all recovered and soon, the two young men were able to construct their hospital because local employment had increased, all the villagers had jobs.
Small amounts of iron and copper were also discovered and both metals began to be produced locally, although, their greatest need was fresh, clean water that was safe to drink. Much of the local surface water was contaminated with salts and poisonous metals, most of which were also radio-active.
Bols was asked to help in finding a source of good water. Many miles to the north, Bols’ team discovered a major aquifer of good water, but the villagers had no way to transport the water from the source to Van.
It took Bols’ technicians less than a week to figure out how to modify the mining machinery to create an aqueduct and only two months to dig the aqueduct from the aquifer to Van. The technicians fused the sand and stone that lined the aqueduct into a tough glass that was nearly unbreakable and sealed the aqueduct from leakage.
SOUTH COAST RENAISSANCE
With the arrival of a steady supply of water, farming and ranching that had been struggling to survive suddenly bloomed. Ranches and farms that had been just bare subsistence began to thrive, starvation became history and the population started to grow. Grains and meats were their major export and wealth began to flow into the town.
Van became the center and largest town east of El Paseo, unfortunately, it also became a target for the Raiders. It was during the confusion of a recent raid that Traders Zel and Tol sailed their ships into the harbor. Their newest ships were clad with sheets of irn and were protected with fire cannons and irn ball throwers.
The father and son team believed that a safe people was good for trade and they went in search of the home of the raiders. They found a group of islands to the southwest of Van, inhabited by a fierce people who called themselves the M‘cans.
There was no negotiating with the M’cans and some of them were found to be cannibals! It was something that turned the stomachs of both Zel and Tol. Their horror was compounded when they were offered human meat to supply their ship!
The crew threatened rebellion if they were not allowed to wipe out the nest of cannibals.
Both Zel and Tok saw a profit to be made trading with the people of Van and surrounding communities as well as it being the “right” thing to do. They called more of their fleet of trading ships to come assist in subduing the fierce M’cans.
Twelve modern, armed trader ships responded to the call, each ship equipped with fire cannons and irn ball throwers. They were all clad with irn sheets to protect their hulls and their crews were trained to work the weapons. All of their ships were protected with irn beaks on the bow, they could sing any ship they rammed.
Several times they chased the M’cans away, but they would always return, hoping to catch the people of Van unawares. Zel volunteered to lead a group of ships to the home islands of the M’cans and put a stop to their raids.
He led six of their largest ships across the sea to the islands. The islands were clearly the tops of mountains of a sunken land, in fact, they were hardly more than piles of stones sticking out of the water.
When they reached the first of the islands, Zel went ashore to try and reason with the M’cans, he barely escaped with his life! He ordered the island flamed with the fire cannons, he feared this was going to need doing throughout the region.
It was and it took them a year to wipe out the Raiders. The few Raider ship that escaped were rammed by the fleet’s ships and sunk, none escaped.
When peace was finally established along the south coast, trade flourished and heavily laden ships began regular service to the area. A few adventuresome traders attempted to navigate wagon trains cross country, but the land was so rugged, the enterprise soon foundered.
Several enterprising farmers saw potential in the wild cattle that roamed the region and began rounding them up. With proper feed in sufficient quantities, fresh meat and dairy products began showing up in the weekly community markets.
Other farmers diverted some of the water from the aqueduct and began raising vegetables and other row crops, orchards and groves popped up wherever the water could be accessed. Farming, on a scale not seen since before the terrible cosmic wave had hit them, was well on its way.
Schools and hospitals were built to care for the increased population. Maceo and Teo were well pleased, their Free Children’s Clinics were in every village and town and they began to see the need for places of refuge for children who were not wanted or had lost their parents.
This was a problem not found among The People, but they had experienced some of the same thing at their home in Globe.
Crew members from The Great Ship came and assisted the two men in building Children’s Refuge Houses throughout the area, where children were safe and could receive an education. Local Caregivers were trained to tend the needs of the children who were living in a local refuge.
It was from these Refuges that the next generations of community leaders were to rise. As civilization was rebuilt, the need for Caregivers, Teachers, Mechanics and Scientists increased, Maceo and Teo were raising the people in the Free Children’s Refuges who would fill these jobs.
It was not an easy effort, there remained a few M’cans who tried their hand at raiding and not a few ranchers and farmers resented the folk from the Refuges who could read and write and had skills that they did not.
It would take a plague to unite the two groups.
PLAGUE
It began like a simple cold, people’s noses would start to run and the generally felt terrible. Maceo and Teo were called to lend their assistance, nothing they could do or medicine they could give would relieve even the symptoms of the illness.
The patients continued to decline and a few began to die. The deaths triggered Maceo to mind-speak with Rom about the situation, Rom said that he was “on his way”!
Rom flew in the same afternoon, his flyer loaded with diagnostic instruments and cases of medicines. Rom was not able to identify the sickness, but by then, most of the town was down sick and both Maceo and Teo were showing the symptoms. It was a return of the deadly Mease coming back in a new and revitalized form.
Rom made contact with the Chief Caregiver at the Great Ship and he had no advice for them, he had never heard of a disease with those symptoms that was fatal. Rom asked him for assistance and he told Rom that the flyers were being packed as they were speaking.
Two hours later, twenty flyers, loaded down with medicines, a complete medical laboratory and fifty Caregivers were enroute to El Paseo. By now, the sickness had spread to the surrounding villages and the local Caregivers were in panic.
Senior Caregiver Ghan sent a flyer and two Caregivers to each of the nearby villages and the Laboratory Technicians began running tests and collecting cultures in a frantic effort to identify the disease. They worked day and night around the clock trying to isolate the cause.
All the while, more and more people came down with the sickness. The older adults and the very young children seemed to suffer the most and were dying.
Senior Caregiver Ghan had been a young Caregiver when a similar illness had swept through the Humans in the old city of Globe, he called back and asked to have the records checked of that time in hopes there might be a clue.
Two days later, the Head Librarian of The Great Ship mind-spoke with Ghan, she said, “I think is must be similar to a disease they called INFLUENZA!” She then read off what the Caregivers of that time had treated the disease with.
Ghan replied, “I do not have anything like those medicines!”
The Librarian said, “Captain Hay is sending ten Fast Flyers with 50 thousand doses of the medicine, they are about to take off right now.”
In less than an hour, Ghan heard the shriek of laboring Flyers as they began their descent to the field next to the Hospital.
Caregivers Maceo and Teo were now patients in their own Hospital, but they insisted that others get the medicines first, especially the small children.
In a few days, the illness began to loosen its hold on the people and they began to improve. The next flight of Flyers brought additional medicines and cases of immunizations against the disease for those not yet sick from it.
They began an immunization campaign from the Bay of Dal, all the way along the coast of the Southern Sea to the Cliffs of Ben in the west. Every man, woman and child was immunized against the terrible sickness that they believed had found refuge in the swamps that bordered the seacoast.
Maceo and Teo recovered slowly as did all those who had contracted the influenza. Teo’s hearing was affected and, for the remainder of his life, he would be “hard of hearing”.
It did not slow the two down however, as they continued to build Free Clinics for the Children all along the southern coast. With assistance from Rom and a bit later, Amala, they trained hundreds of Emergency Caregivers to man the Clinics that were in every town and village, some of the larger ranches also built Clinics that the two had manned until there was no place along the Southern Coast that was more than an hour’s travel to reach a Free Clinic.
Maceo’s and Teo’s own personal family grew as they took in boys whose parents had died from the plague; they were supporting ten boys from infant to fourteen years old. They had settled in the town of Van and had built a large house with enough bedrooms that every boy could have his own room if he wished.
Few did, it was not uncommon for Maceo or Teo to peek in a room and see a bed more like a nest! No brother ever needed comforting; his brothers were already there for him.
The first son to reach the magic age of fifteen years was Mor and he already knew what he wanted to do, on the morning he turned fifteen, he marched up to his Pappas and said, “I am fifteen years old now, almost a man. I wish to be a Caregiver like my Pappas, may I be sent to The Great Ship for training? Please.”
Maceo hugged the boy and said, “Mor, you will always be our little boy, but yes, it has already been arranged. When the next Supply Flyers arrive, you are scheduled to go to The Great Ship in Globe for your training. You will be gone from us 4 years and we will miss you dearly.”
The boy knew it was a four year course, but his Pappa brought it home to him, he sniffed back his tears and went to pack his bags. Teo put his arms around Maceo and told him that Mor was but the first.
The sons of Maceo and Teo would eventually include six Caregivers and four Surgeons.
Farming was making great strides in coming back around Van, fields of corn and grains were planted and dairy herds sprung up almost overnight. The Commercial Flyers began regularly scheduled flights to Van, bringing news, goods, mail and supplies. They carried back fresh meat and dairy products, along with school boys like Mor.
For the first time since the Cosmic Wave, the population of the villages along the South Coast began to climb; not only were people moving into the area, births outnumbered deaths.
The Elementary school in Van had reopened all of its classrooms and was now faced with building additional space for more students.
Businesses along the single main street of Van were busy and new businesses were looking for places to open up.
The small Clinic founded by Maceo and Teo was in the process of building additional treatment rooms and adding an Adult Ward to go along with an enlarged Children’s Ward.
The harbor was becoming a regular Port of Call for the small trading ships that plied the Southern Ocean some even went as far as the Islands of Yuc, where they loaded tropical fruits, hardwoods and exotic spices that brought premium prices in the markets in Van and surrounding villages.
Several enterprising young men acquired a freight wagon and two horses. They began peddling the tropical fruits and spices all along the South Coast, as far west as El Paseo. In less than a year, they had six wagons and a firm schedule. They were so reliable that housewives could depend on their arrival in time for a dinner party that same night!
The Trading Firm of Zel and Tok began marketing a machine that made blocks of ice, it was run by a small steam engine and manufactured by a company in Manga lor that they had licensed to build their steam engines. The machine was a wonder and the boys, who were no longer just boys and who had started the distribution company bought one of the machines and set it up in Van. They had to place the new machine away from homes, as the gases inside the machine were rank smelling and burned one’s eyes. It was something the engineers called “ammonia”.
They also renamed their small company, Van Traders, each of their wagons had a large VT painted on the side in red. They iced down the tropical fruits and began carrying fresh meats.
Small boys would wait along the road when their wagons were due and would shout, “THE VT IS HERE!” They would hold their hands out for pieces of ice that had been cooling the fruit.
Sometimes a Trader would slip a couple of the boys a small tropical fruit. The traders believed that a boy would ask his parents to purchase more of the fruit. Even if they did not, they loved the look in a small boy’s eyes as he first tasted a slice of pineapple or a wedge of papaya.
They were right however, the children brought home stories of wonderful fruits and begged their parents to buy some more. The demand for tropical fruits soon outpaced the supply.
TRADER’S ROAD
Mor finally graduated and returned to Van as a fully trained Caregiver. He joined with his Pappas in the care of the people of Van and surrounding communities. He brought many of his books home with him and let the local school use them to teach the children.
One book showed a wagon that moved itself, it had some kind of engine on it and it drove the wheels through a wide leather belt. It could even pull other wagons and was steered by a long lever that moved the front wheels on a swivel.
The more the high school boys looked that picture, the more they drooled. Cal, a young teen boy that Teo had found abandoned alongside the road, had attached himself to Maceo and Teo, not as a son, but as a trusted friend, was among those boys drooling over a project they had begun discussing.
Cal ran errands, maintained their yard and assisted in tending patients when the Clinic was jammed up. He had no interest in being a caregiver, but he was skilled as a mechanic and could repair almost anything around the clinic that had been broken.
On a slow day, Cal was looking through the books that Mor had brought back with him and he spotted the wagon that moved without horses.
He got a piece of paper and a charcoal stick and began to draw. He moved the steering lever from the floor and connected it to a rotator the wagon master could turn in the direction he wanted to go, rather than the opposite direction using the original steering lever.
He shortened up the bed of the wagon, so that it held only the driver, the fuel, a water supply tank and the steam engine. Everything else was towed in wagons hooked to the engine wagon.
He showed his drawing to Teo, who immediately saw the advantages the teen had incorporated in his drawing. He said to Cal, “The next Zel and Tok Traders Ship to come here, let us show the Captain what you have done.”
Several weeks later, the Lookout sounded the alarm, there was a Trader ship coming into the harbor. Cal hoped it would be a Captain who would like his drawing.
It was Captain Zel himself on his flagship, The Jinda Son II.
Cal could hardly contain himself, he ran to the Clinic and dragged his mentor, Teo, down to the Landing. Teo had met Captain Zel a couple of times, enough to recognize him and he hoped the Captain remembered him.
When Captain Zel came down the gangplank and stood on the pier, Teo stepped up to him and started to introduce himself to the Captain, Zel hugged him and said, “My good friend, Caregiver Teo. Did you think I had forgotten you? Come on board and have a meal with me.”
Teo replied, “Captain, may I bring my young friend with us, he has something to show you?”
The Captain ushered his guests into his cabin and rang for his steward, telling him to bring some cool juices and fruit for their midday meal. After they had eaten, Captain Zel said, “Now son, what is it you would like to show me?”
Cal unrolled his drawing and spread it out on the Captain’s table. Captain Zel saw immediately what the teen had created. He said, “It is like a tugger boat, except on dry land!”
The Captain sat in his chair for a bit and then said, “What is your name, son? I cannot go around calling my new business partner, SON!”
Had Cal been a little bit shorter, his jaw would have hit the table top, “BbbBb Bis…..ness partner?
Captain Zel replied, “Sure, I will bring you an engine and you build the tugger. I am headed to Bangalor as soon as we depart here, I should be back in four months. Can you have your tugger and a couple of wagons ready by then?”
Cal practically screamed, “YESSIR!” Cal and Teo left the ship, Cal was in a daze and was muttering to himself about wheels and levers and tuggers.
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TBC
Coming in Chapter 07: The South Coast is now open and trade is beginning to flourish. The next step is to see the “TUGGERS” hauling goods and freight as they visit the lands and villages inland, where there are mines and great cattle ranches that will supply a growing population with the metals needed to rebuild and the food to feed the people doing the rebuilding.
We will leave the South Coast for a while and check in with those who have remained near Globe and the Great Ship. Times there are also changing and great events are nearing.
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Astronomers have discovered that the incredible gravitational strength of supermassive black holes can tear planets away from their star systems and hurl them through space at incredible speeds—as fast as 30 million mph.
This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The story is protected by copyright and may not be reproduced by any means without the express, written permission of the author.
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From Chapter 5; It had been a successful voyage by any measure, but the one item they withheld from auction was the steam engine. That, they presented to the farmers living near Globe. With a machine that could pump water, the farmers who had fed The People and all those who had struggled with them to keep the spark of humanity alive after the Cosmic Wave had sent civilization backwards untold generations, could rest easier and again thrive.
FARMS AND FORGES
Captain Hay was a worried man, they had been expending resources at an alarming rate. A new source of metals had been made available to them, the Traders from a half a world away had recently brought a large sailing ship to their shores loaded with iron, copper and brass. His crew had made contact with the Traders and more ships would soon be making the voyage.
Many other minerals were in short supply, some were found locally and some had not yet been discovered. Their most critical material was thorium. Thorium was the basis for their energy, the flyers, the great ship itself, with its generators, and their many handheld devices depended upon thorium. In a pinch, uranium could be used, according to the Engineers, but whatever they were going to use, they had better find some soon, otherwise the flyers would stop flying and the generators would stop producing electric power.
Small amounts of uranium had been detected in the barren lands to the east of them and a mixed group of prospectors, comprised of The People and the New Humans, were preparing to leave on a prospecting trip. They had several slow moving hover craft in the hold of the ship and two of them had been retrofitted to be used as scanning mineral detectors. Each had a tiny laboratory on board, as well as powered borers and samplers to obtain samples for testing.
Joint leadership was given to Bols, a member of The People and Terry, a New Human. Both had mind-speak and had been close friends since childhood. Each would command a hovercraft and would search out likely areas for the needed minerals. Each leader chose a crew of four that included a geologist, a chemist and a miner. The fourth person was a caregiver.
Captain Hay impressed on everyone that the need was urgent as they had fuel supplies for less than another year at the current rate of expenditure.
The two teams headed out in different directions and agreed to remain in contact with each other.
They started off with the detectors turned up to maximum, Terry and his crew headed east from the Great Ship, while Bols and his crew headed south along the new Inland Sea and then they would follow the coast of the Southern Sea.
Terry’s group began getting minor hits on the detectors almost immediately and, by the time they reached the high desert, the needles on the detectors were pegged.
He told the Flyer Pilot to set down and they would take samples. The borer probe was down twice the height of a man when the alarm began to sound, telling them the radioactivity had reached a dangerous level. The automatic analyzer showed a mixture of radioactive materials, uranium, thorium and minute amounts of plutonium.
Terry had the pilot circle around in ever widening circles with the detectors running to try and determine the extent of the ore body. At two miles, the edge of the ore body was found. It was a huge find and they mind-sent to Captain Hay their discovery.
Before they could repack the test bore machinery, there were two large flyers with mining machinery enroute to their location. As soon as the miners arrived and sent down their power augers, ore began to cross the dirt screens and filling the ore hoppers on the flyers.
They mapped out the ore body hits for the miners and returned to their survey.
They continued to get hits and they spent the next three weeks mapping and assaying their finds. The ore had to be transported back to the Great Ship for processing and diffusing before it could be stored in the Great Ship’s fuel bunkers.
Slowly, they began to gain over the rate of consumption and the bunkers began to fill.
Meanwhile, Bols’ crew found only small amounts of usable ore until they reached a small town on the southern coast, the locals called, El Paseo. There, their detector meters swung off-scale!
In the lightly forested mountains nearby, they discovered a large deposit that tested rich in uranium and thorium. Again, mining machinery was sent and the ore recovered.
The local people of El Paseo were in desperate straits, they had little water and their only spring was drying up. When Bols discovered their plight, he ordered the detectors to be reset and they surveyed the area for freshwater. A large underground stream was detected running down the mountains towards the nearby sea.
They bored a well for the people and showed them how to build a wind powered pumping system.
While the pumping system was being constructed, Healer Dar toured the small community with the local caregiver. Dar was troubled, the village was plagued by a sickness that affected the young children and the children who survived it were frequently brain damaged, deaf or blind.
Many had multiple afflictions caused by the illness. The locals called the disease the Mease.
He ran tests and communicated with the Caregivers back on The Great Ship at Globe. Two days later, four flyers came screeching in, their thruster emitters glowing red hot in overload, they had run the entire distance from The Great Ship at maximum overload and landed beside the survey flyer.
They brought medicines and a prevention vaccination for all the folk of the village. They instructed the local Caregiver in recognizing the illness and its treatment and assisted him in vaccinating the entire population against the illness.
The Village Caregiver was very old and infirm, although he worked very hard, he could not keep up with the demands of his villagers. Caregiver Rom volunteered to remain in the village and assist the elderly Caregiver.
A young teen girl, Amala, followed Caregiver Rom as he treated the villagers. As she became more confident, Amala asked if she could be trained to treat those of her village. The girl already had some mind speak and she was eagerly soaking up everything Rom taught her. The girl was like a hungry sponge and soaked up knowledge as fast Rom could speak.
Rom contacted the Chief Caregiver back at The Great Ship and, when the Flyers returned to Globe, young Amala was onboard. She would return to her people as a fully trained Caregiver in a few short years.
She already had dreams of opening a hospital in El Paseo that would serve all the people of the region.
As the survey team was packing up to return to their primary mission, the survey for fuels to power the needs of The Great Ship, the town’s emergency bell began to ring.
Curious, Bols walked into the small town to determine what the emergency was. The sentry pointed out to the nearby sea, sailing craft were rapidly approaching. The sentry said the one word most likely to energize Bols to immediate action, “RAIDERS!”
He mind-called his team and they launched their three flyers with weapons energized. The Raiders had no defense against the flyers and their weapons, the survivors had to swim ashore or drown.
After the danger had passed, Bols asked the Village Headman about the Raiders and what it was they wanted, The Headman shook his head sadly and replied, “Our Children, they take our children to be slaves.”
Barely containing his anger, Bols sent the flyers in search of the place the Raiders had come with orders to level it!
Several hours later, heavily laden flyers began returning, in overload with rescued children. Many of the children had been tortured and maimed, all of them were frightened and showed signs of starvation.
None had sufficient clothing to cover their bodies and it was obvious they had been molested. Rage was running through Rom’s crew of Caregivers, had one from that city of fiends suddenly appeared, that person would survive only seconds.
Rom was working frantically treating the injured children when he heard a faint mind-speech, “Help me, please help me with the little ones!”
He looked around in an attempt to identify who was calling for help. He spotted a teen boy struggling to carry a number of infants and toddlers and Rom went running to the boy as he sent, “Are you who mind-called for assistance?”
The teen stumbled and nearly fell as he replied, “yu, yo, you hhheard me?”
Rom quickly picked up the infants and cradled them in his arms. He looked at the teen and sent, “Yes, I heard you, how is it you thought I would not?”
The boy returned, “I have never been able to contact anyone before and I was desperate, these children are so sick, so fragile, I feared they would die before I could get someone to help me with them.”
Rom learned the boy’s name was Maceo and he had been secretly caring for the babies born of rape, fathered by the raiders.
THE FREE CLINIC
That was all Rom could handle, he decided that he would remain permanently and would construct Amala’s hospital right away.
They constructed the Children’s Clinic first and the first patients admitted were Maceo’s children. Maceo hung around Rom, watching everything he did and asked questions. He told Rom that he wanted to be a Caregiver to children and, whenever there was a vacant bed in the Children’s Clinic, Maceo found a child to fill it.
He became proficient in the use of The People’s instruments and medicines and was frequently found down in the poor section of the town, treating children and young adults on his own.
Grateful parents and people who could not afford to bring their children to the Town’s Caregiver, saw to it that Maceo had a place to sleep and food for his meals.
The men of the slum area built him a small clinic and Maceo named it The Children’s Free Clinic. Rom would come down to the Free Clinic regularly to assist Maceo and to teach him methods of healing. He always brought medicines and diagnostic devices that he conveniently forgot to take with him when he left.
The Free Clinic was nearly as well stocked and the main clinic in the town. The folk of surrounding villages began bringing their children to Maceo’s clinic for treatment, even those children who should not be moved due to their illness, Maceo would go to them as soon as he heard about them.
Maceo began traveling to one village one day a week, rather than have to children be carried to him. In the small, dusty village of Blanc, he was treating numerous children who had been injured or were sick when a teen about his own age came to him and offered to help, “Tell me what to do and I will assist you.”
Maceo was stunned, that teen was doing “something” to him. He reached out with his mind and asked, “Whhoo who are you?”
The new teen replied in the same manner, “I am Teo and I have been watching you. I feel a connection to you.” Their connection became stronger by the day and, soon, the two young men were working together treating the poor folk in the small villages and in the Free Clinic in the slums of El Paseo.
Before long, Maceo asked Teo, “Will you be my partner?”
Teo laughed, “But Maceo, I already am.”
Maco replied, “No, Teo, I mean in my life.”
So it was the two young men began their lives together, reaching out further and further to the small villages of the region, treating the children and their parents. At the same time, they were exploring their new relationship and discovering pleasure in each other, even if it was merely sitting beside each other, holding hands.
They purchased a wagon and two horses to travel between the villages. The wagon was filled with medicines and diagnostic tools supplied by Rom and he frequently traveled with the two young men as they went from village to village. Rom watched as the two young men developed their healing skills as well as their relationship with each other.
Most villages built small clinics for the Caregivers to treat their children in. Local teens, usually boys, volunteered to man the clinics when the two Caregivers were not there. Many of the boys had or were developing mind-speak and could contact them whenever a major problem occurred.
As important, they could call for assistance whenever the Raiders were spotted. They formed a relay system among themselves to give warning and to call for help whenever the Raiders appeared on their beaches.
Rom had arranged for a small detachment of Flyers and their Pilots to be stationed at El Paseo and they were kept in readiness to combat the Raiders wherever they showed up.
Maceo and Teo were far down the coast of the Southern Sea, at the small village of Van. They discovered children there who had strange burns on their skin and a sickness they had never seen before. Nothing in their knowledge of the medicines in their wagon seemed to help the children. They mind-spoke with Rom back in El Paseo; pleading with him to come and help them treat the children.
Rom arrived the next day and was horrified; the children were suffering from radiation burns! Rom immediately mind-called Bols, who was off hunting for ore along the coast of the Great Inland Sea.
Bols arrived several hours later and questioned the children closely about where they had been playing. They told him they had been playing in the hills to the north of Van. Bols had never surveyed that area as it did not seem to the type area that would contain the ores he was desperately searching for.
He sent two of his survey flyers to make a survey pass over the hills where the children had been playing. The flyers, almost immediately, began detecting intense radiation and they called Bols for assistance in finding the extent of the suspected ore body. With all four flyers ranging the ore body, it took them three days to properly map the area. The ore body was huge, the first test bore brought up a rich quantity of uranium and a plentiful mixture of thorium.
It was what they were looking for, Bols called back to The Great ship, Captain Hay was excited.
In the meantime, the Caregivers on the ship combined a gruesome mixture of chelating agents to draw the radioactive particles from the children’s bodies. It tasted foul and nothing the Caregivers could mixt with it could hide the awful taste. The children bravely drank it down and the deaths stopped almost immediately.
The fuel bunkers were filling far too slowly, despite their attempts at conservation. He sent all the available mining flyers and almost as soon as the borers bit into the stony surface, uranium and thorium were crossing the dirt screens. The discovery was sufficiently rich that he committed one of their two classification diffusers and sent it to Van.
Soon, there was a steady stream of robotic transporters delivering the precious thorium to their fuel bunkers. In less than a month, the fuel reserves on The Great Ship had been completely filled and they had hardly touched the massive ore body, their fuel supplies were assured for the foreseeable future!
Maceo’s and Teo’s concern for the children saved their lives, the children all recovered and soon, the two young men were able to construct their hospital because local employment had increased, all the villagers had jobs.
Small amounts of iron and copper were also discovered and both metals began to be produced locally, although, their greatest need was fresh, clean water that was safe to drink. Much of the local surface water was contaminated with salts and poisonous metals, most of which were also radio-active.
Bols was asked to help in finding a source of good water. Many miles to the north, Bols’ team discovered a major aquifer of good water, but the villagers had no way to transport the water from the source to Van.
It took Bols’ technicians less than a week to figure out how to modify the mining machinery to create an aqueduct and only two months to dig the aqueduct from the aquifer to Van. The technicians fused the sand and stone that lined the aqueduct into a tough glass that was nearly unbreakable and sealed the aqueduct from leakage.
SOUTH COAST RENAISSANCE
With the arrival of a steady supply of water, farming and ranching that had been struggling to survive suddenly bloomed. Ranches and farms that had been just bare subsistence began to thrive, starvation became history and the population started to grow. Grains and meats were their major export and wealth began to flow into the town.
Van became the center and largest town east of El Paseo, unfortunately, it also became a target for the Raiders. It was during the confusion of a recent raid that Traders Zel and Tol sailed their ships into the harbor. Their newest ships were clad with sheets of irn and were protected with fire cannons and irn ball throwers.
The father and son team believed that a safe people was good for trade and they went in search of the home of the raiders. They found a group of islands to the southwest of Van, inhabited by a fierce people who called themselves the M‘cans.
There was no negotiating with the M’cans and some of them were found to be cannibals! It was something that turned the stomachs of both Zel and Tol. Their horror was compounded when they were offered human meat to supply their ship!
The crew threatened rebellion if they were not allowed to wipe out the nest of cannibals.
Both Zel and Tok saw a profit to be made trading with the people of Van and surrounding communities as well as it being the “right” thing to do. They called more of their fleet of trading ships to come assist in subduing the fierce M’cans.
Twelve modern, armed trader ships responded to the call, each ship equipped with fire cannons and irn ball throwers. They were all clad with irn sheets to protect their hulls and their crews were trained to work the weapons. All of their ships were protected with irn beaks on the bow, they could sing any ship they rammed.
Several times they chased the M’cans away, but they would always return, hoping to catch the people of Van unawares. Zel volunteered to lead a group of ships to the home islands of the M’cans and put a stop to their raids.
He led six of their largest ships across the sea to the islands. The islands were clearly the tops of mountains of a sunken land, in fact, they were hardly more than piles of stones sticking out of the water.
When they reached the first of the islands, Zel went ashore to try and reason with the M’cans, he barely escaped with his life! He ordered the island flamed with the fire cannons, he feared this was going to need doing throughout the region.
It was and it took them a year to wipe out the Raiders. The few Raider ship that escaped were rammed by the fleet’s ships and sunk, none escaped.
When peace was finally established along the south coast, trade flourished and heavily laden ships began regular service to the area. A few adventuresome traders attempted to navigate wagon trains cross country, but the land was so rugged, the enterprise soon foundered.
Several enterprising farmers saw potential in the wild cattle that roamed the region and began rounding them up. With proper feed in sufficient quantities, fresh meat and dairy products began showing up in the weekly community markets.
Other farmers diverted some of the water from the aqueduct and began raising vegetables and other row crops, orchards and groves popped up wherever the water could be accessed. Farming, on a scale not seen since before the terrible cosmic wave had hit them, was well on its way.
Schools and hospitals were built to care for the increased population. Maceo and Teo were well pleased, their Free Children’s Clinics were in every village and town and they began to see the need for places of refuge for children who were not wanted or had lost their parents.
This was a problem not found among The People, but they had experienced some of the same thing at their home in Globe.
Crew members from The Great Ship came and assisted the two men in building Children’s Refuge Houses throughout the area, where children were safe and could receive an education. Local Caregivers were trained to tend the needs of the children who were living in a local refuge.
It was from these Refuges that the next generations of community leaders were to rise. As civilization was rebuilt, the need for Caregivers, Teachers, Mechanics and Scientists increased, Maceo and Teo were raising the people in the Free Children’s Refuges who would fill these jobs.
It was not an easy effort, there remained a few M’cans who tried their hand at raiding and not a few ranchers and farmers resented the folk from the Refuges who could read and write and had skills that they did not.
It would take a plague to unite the two groups.
PLAGUE
It began like a simple cold, people’s noses would start to run and the generally felt terrible. Maceo and Teo were called to lend their assistance, nothing they could do or medicine they could give would relieve even the symptoms of the illness.
The patients continued to decline and a few began to die. The deaths triggered Maceo to mind-speak with Rom about the situation, Rom said that he was “on his way”!
Rom flew in the same afternoon, his flyer loaded with diagnostic instruments and cases of medicines. Rom was not able to identify the sickness, but by then, most of the town was down sick and both Maceo and Teo were showing the symptoms. It was a return of the deadly Mease coming back in a new and revitalized form.
Rom made contact with the Chief Caregiver at the Great Ship and he had no advice for them, he had never heard of a disease with those symptoms that was fatal. Rom asked him for assistance and he told Rom that the flyers were being packed as they were speaking.
Two hours later, twenty flyers, loaded down with medicines, a complete medical laboratory and fifty Caregivers were enroute to El Paseo. By now, the sickness had spread to the surrounding villages and the local Caregivers were in panic.
Senior Caregiver Ghan sent a flyer and two Caregivers to each of the nearby villages and the Laboratory Technicians began running tests and collecting cultures in a frantic effort to identify the disease. They worked day and night around the clock trying to isolate the cause.
All the while, more and more people came down with the sickness. The older adults and the very young children seemed to suffer the most and were dying.
Senior Caregiver Ghan had been a young Caregiver when a similar illness had swept through the Humans in the old city of Globe, he called back and asked to have the records checked of that time in hopes there might be a clue.
Two days later, the Head Librarian of The Great Ship mind-spoke with Ghan, she said, “I think is must be similar to a disease they called INFLUENZA!” She then read off what the Caregivers of that time had treated the disease with.
Ghan replied, “I do not have anything like those medicines!”
The Librarian said, “Captain Hay is sending ten Fast Flyers with 50 thousand doses of the medicine, they are about to take off right now.”
In less than an hour, Ghan heard the shriek of laboring Flyers as they began their descent to the field next to the Hospital.
Caregivers Maceo and Teo were now patients in their own Hospital, but they insisted that others get the medicines first, especially the small children.
In a few days, the illness began to loosen its hold on the people and they began to improve. The next flight of Flyers brought additional medicines and cases of immunizations against the disease for those not yet sick from it.
They began an immunization campaign from the Bay of Dal, all the way along the coast of the Southern Sea to the Cliffs of Ben in the west. Every man, woman and child was immunized against the terrible sickness that they believed had found refuge in the swamps that bordered the seacoast.
Maceo and Teo recovered slowly as did all those who had contracted the influenza. Teo’s hearing was affected and, for the remainder of his life, he would be “hard of hearing”.
It did not slow the two down however, as they continued to build Free Clinics for the Children all along the southern coast. With assistance from Rom and a bit later, Amala, they trained hundreds of Emergency Caregivers to man the Clinics that were in every town and village, some of the larger ranches also built Clinics that the two had manned until there was no place along the Southern Coast that was more than an hour’s travel to reach a Free Clinic.
Maceo’s and Teo’s own personal family grew as they took in boys whose parents had died from the plague; they were supporting ten boys from infant to fourteen years old. They had settled in the town of Van and had built a large house with enough bedrooms that every boy could have his own room if he wished.
Few did, it was not uncommon for Maceo or Teo to peek in a room and see a bed more like a nest! No brother ever needed comforting; his brothers were already there for him.
The first son to reach the magic age of fifteen years was Mor and he already knew what he wanted to do, on the morning he turned fifteen, he marched up to his Pappas and said, “I am fifteen years old now, almost a man. I wish to be a Caregiver like my Pappas, may I be sent to The Great Ship for training? Please.”
Maceo hugged the boy and said, “Mor, you will always be our little boy, but yes, it has already been arranged. When the next Supply Flyers arrive, you are scheduled to go to The Great Ship in Globe for your training. You will be gone from us 4 years and we will miss you dearly.”
The boy knew it was a four year course, but his Pappa brought it home to him, he sniffed back his tears and went to pack his bags. Teo put his arms around Maceo and told him that Mor was but the first.
The sons of Maceo and Teo would eventually include six Caregivers and four Surgeons.
Farming was making great strides in coming back around Van, fields of corn and grains were planted and dairy herds sprung up almost overnight. The Commercial Flyers began regularly scheduled flights to Van, bringing news, goods, mail and supplies. They carried back fresh meat and dairy products, along with school boys like Mor.
For the first time since the Cosmic Wave, the population of the villages along the South Coast began to climb; not only were people moving into the area, births outnumbered deaths.
The Elementary school in Van had reopened all of its classrooms and was now faced with building additional space for more students.
Businesses along the single main street of Van were busy and new businesses were looking for places to open up.
The small Clinic founded by Maceo and Teo was in the process of building additional treatment rooms and adding an Adult Ward to go along with an enlarged Children’s Ward.
The harbor was becoming a regular Port of Call for the small trading ships that plied the Southern Ocean some even went as far as the Islands of Yuc, where they loaded tropical fruits, hardwoods and exotic spices that brought premium prices in the markets in Van and surrounding villages.
Several enterprising young men acquired a freight wagon and two horses. They began peddling the tropical fruits and spices all along the South Coast, as far west as El Paseo. In less than a year, they had six wagons and a firm schedule. They were so reliable that housewives could depend on their arrival in time for a dinner party that same night!
The Trading Firm of Zel and Tok began marketing a machine that made blocks of ice, it was run by a small steam engine and manufactured by a company in Manga lor that they had licensed to build their steam engines. The machine was a wonder and the boys, who were no longer just boys and who had started the distribution company bought one of the machines and set it up in Van. They had to place the new machine away from homes, as the gases inside the machine were rank smelling and burned one’s eyes. It was something the engineers called “ammonia”.
They also renamed their small company, Van Traders, each of their wagons had a large VT painted on the side in red. They iced down the tropical fruits and began carrying fresh meats.
Small boys would wait along the road when their wagons were due and would shout, “THE VT IS HERE!” They would hold their hands out for pieces of ice that had been cooling the fruit.
Sometimes a Trader would slip a couple of the boys a small tropical fruit. The traders believed that a boy would ask his parents to purchase more of the fruit. Even if they did not, they loved the look in a small boy’s eyes as he first tasted a slice of pineapple or a wedge of papaya.
They were right however, the children brought home stories of wonderful fruits and begged their parents to buy some more. The demand for tropical fruits soon outpaced the supply.
TRADER’S ROAD
Mor finally graduated and returned to Van as a fully trained Caregiver. He joined with his Pappas in the care of the people of Van and surrounding communities. He brought many of his books home with him and let the local school use them to teach the children.
One book showed a wagon that moved itself, it had some kind of engine on it and it drove the wheels through a wide leather belt. It could even pull other wagons and was steered by a long lever that moved the front wheels on a swivel.
The more the high school boys looked that picture, the more they drooled. Cal, a young teen boy that Teo had found abandoned alongside the road, had attached himself to Maceo and Teo, not as a son, but as a trusted friend, was among those boys drooling over a project they had begun discussing.
Cal ran errands, maintained their yard and assisted in tending patients when the Clinic was jammed up. He had no interest in being a caregiver, but he was skilled as a mechanic and could repair almost anything around the clinic that had been broken.
On a slow day, Cal was looking through the books that Mor had brought back with him and he spotted the wagon that moved without horses.
He got a piece of paper and a charcoal stick and began to draw. He moved the steering lever from the floor and connected it to a rotator the wagon master could turn in the direction he wanted to go, rather than the opposite direction using the original steering lever.
He shortened up the bed of the wagon, so that it held only the driver, the fuel, a water supply tank and the steam engine. Everything else was towed in wagons hooked to the engine wagon.
He showed his drawing to Teo, who immediately saw the advantages the teen had incorporated in his drawing. He said to Cal, “The next Zel and Tok Traders Ship to come here, let us show the Captain what you have done.”
Several weeks later, the Lookout sounded the alarm, there was a Trader ship coming into the harbor. Cal hoped it would be a Captain who would like his drawing.
It was Captain Zel himself on his flagship, The Jinda Son II.
Cal could hardly contain himself, he ran to the Clinic and dragged his mentor, Teo, down to the Landing. Teo had met Captain Zel a couple of times, enough to recognize him and he hoped the Captain remembered him.
When Captain Zel came down the gangplank and stood on the pier, Teo stepped up to him and started to introduce himself to the Captain, Zel hugged him and said, “My good friend, Caregiver Teo. Did you think I had forgotten you? Come on board and have a meal with me.”
Teo replied, “Captain, may I bring my young friend with us, he has something to show you?”
The Captain ushered his guests into his cabin and rang for his steward, telling him to bring some cool juices and fruit for their midday meal. After they had eaten, Captain Zel said, “Now son, what is it you would like to show me?”
Cal unrolled his drawing and spread it out on the Captain’s table. Captain Zel saw immediately what the teen had created. He said, “It is like a tugger boat, except on dry land!”
The Captain sat in his chair for a bit and then said, “What is your name, son? I cannot go around calling my new business partner, SON!”
Had Cal been a little bit shorter, his jaw would have hit the table top, “BbbBb Bis…..ness partner?
Captain Zel replied, “Sure, I will bring you an engine and you build the tugger. I am headed to Bangalor as soon as we depart here, I should be back in four months. Can you have your tugger and a couple of wagons ready by then?”
Cal practically screamed, “YESSIR!” Cal and Teo left the ship, Cal was in a daze and was muttering to himself about wheels and levers and tuggers.
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TBC
Coming in Chapter 07: The South Coast is now open and trade is beginning to flourish. The next step is to see the “TUGGERS” hauling goods and freight as they visit the lands and villages inland, where there are mines and great cattle ranches that will supply a growing population with the metals needed to rebuild and the food to feed the people doing the rebuilding.
We will leave the South Coast for a while and check in with those who have remained near Globe and the Great Ship. Times there are also changing and great events are nearing.