The reports I’d sent back had been pretty basic: just identifying people, trends and so on. I had little time for in-depth analysis, but I did note that both sides seemed to have enough people for a decent shooting war. In my latest report I noted that unless Bernard was able to activate the Basalt Militia, the edge in military strength would go to Emblyn. The losses sustained at the Palace coupled with Alba’s disappearance put Bernard at a severe disadvantage. I would have liked a company of Lament on planet to use to curb him when, not if, push came to shove.
I put that into my last report. I had no idea if any of my reports had even made it off Basalt.
I left the Grand Germayne and made some basic checks to see if I was being followed. I didn’t think I was, but aborted my run to the dead-drop. Something didn’t feel right, and I wasn’t certain if it was external or internal.
Instead of doing my ghostly business, I headed to one of the Basalt Foundation relief centers. It would have been easy to talk myself into believing I was going there to get a feel for the social impact of LIT, but I knew that was a lie. I was playing puppetmaster, and things were going along too well. I didn’t have a connection to the people being hurt. It could have been a residual effect of reading Quam’s stories, but whatever the cause I did want to see what was going on at the center.
And I wanted to see, firsthand, how Bianca handled the enormous pressure she was under.
I asked for Bianca and was directed to the large commercial kitchen where meals were being prepared for later in the day. The dining hall could seat five hundred at a time, and a schedule on the wall showed they had four seatings spaced forty-five minutes apart. People had already lined up for the first seating, and they looked to be a mix from all cultures and almost all social classes.
As foretold, Bianca was in the kitchen and so was Quam. Even Snookums was there, sitting on a stainless-steel table. He had a little chef’s mushroom-cap on his head and growled when he saw me. Quam, who was chopping black mushrooms with a nimble facility flicked a sliver of fungus to the dog, which it snapped out of the air and quieted down.
Bianca smiled. “Sam, what brings you here? Do I see the last of a bruise on your face? What happened?”
I smiled and brushed my fingertips over my cheek. “Walked into a wall.” I refrained from opening my shirt, where my chest was still a mess, because I didn’t think she’d believe that the wall had retaliated by walking all over me. “They’re keeping you very busy, aren’t they?”
Quam laughed. “And we thought you capable of seeing more than the obvious, Sam. Aprons are over there, gloves next. Mix these mushrooms into that stuffing, then fill those game hens.”
“Yes, Commander.” I complied with his order and began to work. Bianca wandered in and out, not so much giving orders as just encouraging people to work together. Quam explained that half the staff were volunteers like me, drawn from the clientele, and the others, who handled most of the cooking, were students at a local culinary school, or apprentices with some of the restaurants that had been put out of business.
I frowned. “If the attacks on IceKing put those places out of business, how is it that the shelter here has food?”
Quam smiled. “Fine restaurants will not serve food that has survived a bomb blast. It still eats fine, but be careful. If you feel any shrapnel in the stuffing, set it aside.”
I thought he was kidding, then I noticed a couple of pieces of jagged metal in a small pile on the table. They looked like pieces of nails, which would be in keeping with nail bombs. While such devices were fairly easy to make and therefore quite common, the nails generally indicated something that was meant as an antipersonnel weapon.
Bernard, while using my game plan, was improvising on the means of execution.
“What’s the reaction been to your pieces about the FfW hits?”
“They vary from sympathetic outrage, to those who want to know why I’m covering that instead of puking their press release about some new food product into my reports.” He glanced up. “You read them. What did you think?”
“Pretty brave.” I pointed to the nails. “No telling when someone on the other side might take umbrage and make you a target.”
“True, but how can I let that stop me? My job is to write about food and life on Basalt. These strikes are affecting both. Moreover, so many people here are willing to turn a blind eye to things, and yet that is not what our parents and grandparents did in establishing The Republic. If I don’t stand up against tyranny the way they did, am I a worthy heir to this life?”
“You clearly think the answer is, ‘no.’”
“And you don’t?” He brandished the knife. “You can say you don’t, but you do, Sam. You’d not have given money to the Foundation if you didn’t. You’d not be here helping.”
“I gave money because that was our deal, Quam. I’m helping because you have a knife.” I shrugged. “And even if you’re right, I don’t know that it’s worth my life.”
“I know it’s worth mine, but mine is not in jeopardy.” The fat man smiled ruefully. “I am Quam. Hard to forget, but easy to dismiss. When the Journal decides that with no nightlife there need be no Quam, I will fade. Even though my words should be taken seriously, they aren’t and won’t be.”
“You don’t think so?”
He laughed and his jowls quivered. “In this madhouse world? No. The government has made people angry, and likewise Emblyn has made them angry. Now, are the angry people a part of the government striking at enemies, or angry people striking at enemies, or hunks of both? The latter has to be true, because while angry people might protest and even riot, not many can field BattleMechs.”
“That’s a point the press seems to have missed.”
“No, it’s a point that the Constabulary has asked the media to back away from. They don’t want to start a panic.” He waved the knife toward the dining area. “Two weeks ago, two sittings would be almost full. Now we turn people away. There already is a panic.”
“More astute observations.”
“I’ll give you one more to mull while you stuff those birds, Sam. This is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. The ’Mechs that attacked the Palace aren’t the last we’ll see on Basalt. When the real shooting starts, it will be bad. Instead of feeding people, this place will be turned into a charnel house. And if that doesn’t make you lose your appetite, nothing ever will.”
34
That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
Or it just leaves us weaker for the next thing that wants to kill us. And the next thing. And the next thing.
Manville, Capital District
Basalt
Prefecture IV, Republic of the Sphere
22 February 3133
I stuck around and helped serve the meals I’d prepared. I guess, in part, it was because I was feeling guilty over the trouble I’d instigated. The people who came in were grateful for the food, and many were the offers to help clean up. In fact, the last seating helped clean the room, stacked chairs, and there was no segregation. A cynic might have noted that trouble makes brothers of us all, but I tended to think that some people were able to put aside petty and benign differences to help each other. That was what I would have expected from reading about Basalt, and here I saw it. Bernard might be pushing divisive ideas, but his sister was unifying people.