“Why are you here?” Tinker switched back to Elvish. Olivia wished they could continue in English. It was taxing to verbally spar with the domi while translating. It was probable, though, that none of the elves in the room knew English well enough to follow the conversation. Tinker wanted her people to know the reason for Olivia’s visit.
“The Wyverns said that I should talk to the Viceroy’s domi.” Olivia swung the phrase around like a sledgehammer. It was her only weapon; it had already gotten her in the door. “I’ve scoured the city for seeds. I haven’t been able to find any.”
“Seeds?” Tinker echoed in confusion.
“So I can grow food,” Olivia said.
“We’re in September already. We’ll get a hard frost…” Tinker domi started to repeat the lines that Olivia already heard over and over.
“I’ve taken over the Phipps Conservatory!” Olivia was surprised that Tinker domi didn’t know but then again, the girl had disappeared while Olivia was finding a place to live. Considering all the people coming and going from the enclave, it was only a matter of time before Tinker was up to speed. “It has a huge greenhouse that’s fully operational.”
“That glass palace?” Tinker said.
It frustrated Olivia that no one had been willing to help her find a place to live but everyone seemed quite willing to criticize her choice. She defended her pick. “There’s a fortifiable stone building that will function as our main living area. I have plans on building walls.” She needed materials and bricklayers but she could only tackle one thing at a time. Starting the plants growing seemed to be the most pressing need.
“The oni might attack at any time,” Tinker plowed on. “The Phipps is way over on the other side of Oakland. Maybe you can move to Sacred—”
“No,” the female sekasha in black stated coldly. “I will not allow it.”
Tinker squinted at a short male elf who looked much like her. He must be her cousin with the improbable name. What was it again? Oilslick? No. Oilstain? Oilpan? Oilcan? Wait — was he an elf now too?
“I took the kids in,” Tinker’s cousin whispered in English, “because Thorne didn’t want them to be in the same household as Forest Moss.”
Olivia glared at the female in black. What a bitch! Forest Moss had lost his eye and everyone he loved when he’d been captured by the oni. After he escaped, he couldn’t find anyone who would take him in. He’d spent centuries isolated. The sheer loneliness of it had driven him mad.
Tinker glanced to the shortest, darkest male sekasha to her immediate left for advice. “Pony?”
“If the Wyverns sent her here,” the male said, “then the Wyverns have seen her set up and approved of it. They would not allow Forest Moss to be exposed to danger.”
Olivia winced as that cut close to the bone. She had learned that the Wyverns had debated killing Forest Moss as he ran amok after Ginger Wine’s enclave had been leveled. The slaughter of Jewel Tear’s sekasha had been too close to his own horrific loss. The only value the Wyverns saw in Olivia was her ability to keep Forest Moss calm and rational. That was why she only had royal marines as guards instead of Wyverns. Not that she minded; she didn’t want any guards at all. In her own mind, they made her more of a target.
“Who might have some seeds?” Tinker bounced in place as if hopping up and down would jar loose ideas. “The stores only stock them at the end of spring because most people order online from places on Earth. Pittsburghers like the Burpee brand because they’re based in Pennsylvania, which is as close as you’re going to get to Pittsburgh’s growing season. People order seeds in January. They’re delivered during the February Shutdown. Most of the greenhouses are unheated, cobbled together from windows torn out of abandoned houses. Not a lot of people have the money to do a sophisticated automated system like what the Phipps has. Doing it all by hand takes a lot of time and knowledge and some way to keep the greenhouse warm all winter.”
“You know what kind of system the Phipps has?” Olivia asked in surprise. She had gotten the impression that the place had been abandoned for decades. It certainly looked it. Most of the plants were still alive, though, thanks to an automatic watering system.
“Lain took me there a couple of times to fix some of its automated systems. She’s been in Pittsburgh since the first Startup. She had wanted to set up her operation at the Phipps, but at the time the city wouldn’t allow her to take it over. By the time they closed down, she had her own greenhouses designed to deal with Elfhome’s ecosystem. She’s been trying to work through the EIA to set up an Earth-based trust to take over the building. It hasn’t been going well, probably because of all the oni moles within the EIA. Lain didn’t want the plants to die off, so she’s been keeping an eye on the buildings since they closed the Conservatory. It’s solar powered but I think she covers the water bills. She has it set up so the university heats it in the winter via the Oakland steam tunnel system.”
The Conservatory didn’t sound as abandoned as Olivia had been led to believe. It explained how so many of the plants were still alive. Olivia hoped that this “Lain” wouldn’t fight her for possession of the Phipps if the woman had her own greenhouses elsewhere.
“Does this Lain have seeds?” Olivia asked.
Tinker winced. “She planted all her keva beans and is guarding them with a big gun. A very big gun. She is a xenobiologist; she studies the ‘alien’ life of Elfhome. She collects things like strangle vines and black willows, not your run-of-the-mill garden plants. Her florae are the ‘it eats you’ type, not the ‘you eat it’ kind. She planted her beans earlier this summer.” Tinker cocked her head as if something new occurred to her. “Huh. It probably does not bode well that Lain thinks that she will need the crop to get through winter. We should probably do something about getting more food shipped in from the Easternlands.”
“Yes, domi.” Pony took the comment as a command. He lifted a hand to summon a female laedin warrior to him.
Tinker continued, seemingly unaware that she had triggered action. “The shelf life for most seeds is between two to five years, if they’re stored in a cool, dry place. It’s possible that people have seeds leftover from the spring planting. If anyone has seeds, though, they’re probably not going to give them up, especially after the train derailment. I had the keva shipment passed out early for free so that anyone with a greenhouse could start growing food immediately. Yes, we’ll have a hard frost in a month or so, but with an unheated greenhouse cobbled together from recycled windows, the plants should be safe into December. I thought it would go far to calm people.”
It had been the keva-bean handout that had made Olivia realize Tinker domi had catapulted from hoverbike racer to something more than just a trophy wife. Tinker’s position as Windwolf’s “consort” carried a great deal of influence. Olivia hadn’t realized all the implications when she tracked Forest Moss down in a bid for similar power. Obviously, she still had much to learn.
Tinker had paused to think. “Did I remember to do anything with those DIY greenhouse plans I drew up?”
The vicereine asked the room at large. All of the tengu in the room nodded and looked to Riki to be their voice.
“I had our people set up a website,” Riki said. Forest Moss had told Olivia that the entire tengu Flock was now beholden to Tinker. It hadn’t dawned on Olivia until this moment that it gave Tinker a work force of twenty thousand individuals. “Anyone that needs the information can download your plans. We also added some information on soil preparation, planting, watering, and the like. KDKA, WQED and WESA have been broadcasting public service announcements that give the URL. The website has had several thousand hits since the PSAs started.”