The Far Side (72 page)

“They’re fucking thieves.  This is a surprise, how?”

“Did you understand what they were trying to do?”

“Never made much sense to me.  Sounded like science fiction.”

“Well, Hank, you agree to come and work for me, and it’s going to be on a planet where gold is as common as copper is here, and copper more rare than gold.  They love copper jewelry, you understand?”

“Another planet?”

Linda chuckled.  “He’s smarter than most, Andie.”

“Yeah, I already figured that.  Hank, the kerfluffle was about me and two of my friends going to another planet and exploring.  All the bad things that have happened to the President and Congress since -- that’s Linda here and Kris Boyle’s father -- Kris is one of my two friends that Linda saved.  After Linda, and actually before her, Kris is my best friend.

“I have found a way to travel to other planets.  It sure sounds like science fiction, but it’s true.  The place where our door opens is about four hundred miles from the nearest local city.  The geography is what I call high desert.  A little scrub, drier than Hades, mostly.  But temperate, a rather mild climate.

“There are flying critters that are taller than you and that have mouths two feet long, filled with sharp teeth, designed to nip off arms, legs -- and heads.   That’s so they can carry away the bits and pieces to be eaten at leisure at home.

“There are hostile natives -- they look almost like us.  I realize North Carolina once belonged to the Confederacy, but I hope you are somewhat enlightened about race.”

“Somewhat,” he said dryly.

“Yeah, well the local whites are the good guys and the local blacks keep white slaves and want to kill or enslave the whites.”

“You’re shitting me?  And this hasn’t been on the news?”  He stopped and put his hand over his mouth.  “Hush my mouf!” he added laughing.  “Over only a lot of die-hard lefties’ bodies!”

“Yeah, well right now the President is still calling the shots, although the calls for him to resign are rising every day.  The only reason he hasn’t been impeached is that, if we tried, too many of the House and Senate would have to recuse themselves to get a quorum.

“One of the things that we have to deal with right now is that if you go there, you have to spend a month in quarantine when you get back,” Andie explained.  “We have scientists -- recognized scientists, not in our pocket, who say that should be dropped to two weeks, but it isn’t likely to happen soon.  So, casual visits are out -- I was there for three months.  Linda for just a few weeks -- she spent more time in quarantine than she did there.

“It means we have to do a lot of careful planning and have all our ducks in a row before we go over.

“I won’t lie to you, Hank.  On the Far Side they think I’m some sort of genius.  I’m teaching them math, science, weapons... all sorts of things.  I even built them a sailing ship that can sail against the wind.  We know that’s no big, but they thought that was technically impossible.

“This is something I never imagined was possible for me to do.  All those people like me because of what I’m doing for them, not making jokes because I’m short.  The one guy who made a joke about it -- he’s dead.  Not me, but you don’t get far commanding soldiers to dump on someone my size.

“I need sources of materials -- track, ties, switches, rolling stock.  I need someone who can build this railroad, if it’s not going to be you.  I need someone to operate the railroad, once it’s up and running.  I need lots of things, Hank.  So -- are you in or out?”

“It won’t be around here?”

“No.”

“I was born and grew up in this house.  I got married in this house.  My son was born and got married in this house; my wife died in it.  My grandson was born in the kitchen, and was pronounced dead on that very same kitchen table.  Gimme half a chance and I’m going to burn the fucker to the ground!”

He wiped tears from his eyes.  “I won’t drink at all, if what you say is true.  Dick, he won’t either.  Let me go give him a call and we can go talk to him.  If there’s anyone who can build your railroad, it’s Dick.”

Hank made the call and then they got in the rental and Linda followed Hank’s directions to another place pretty much like Hank’s.  As soon as they arrived, Hank was out of the car like a shot.

“Dick!  Buddy!” he said to a man sitting on the front porch, just like he’d been.

“Go fuck yourself!”

“I brought someone you want to hear from,” Hank told his friend.

“No, I don’t think so.”  He gestured at Linda Walsh.  “You have no idea who you’re dealing with.  I do.  She and her friend will get you killed, Hank.”

“I’m Andie Schulz, sir.  I’d like to talk to you about railroads,” Andie interjected, hoping to derail comments about Linda.

Linda stood silent, watching the man, letting Andie speak, a small smile on her face.

He looked at Linda, then at Andie.  “If she’s Linda Walsh, that makes this one Andie Schulz, right?” he said, speaking to Linda.

“Linda isn’t here to talk to you,” Andie said patiently, “I am, and yes, I’m Andie Schulz, live and in the flesh.

“I need a real live, working, railroad.  I’ll do whatever it takes to get one up and running in the least time possible.  As I told your friend, Hank, here, I’ll pay a pound of gold a month if you’ll do it.  That’s to start.”

“You know these two, Dick?” Hank asked his friend.

“I’ve worked with Linda Walsh -- that was that thing I did a few weeks ago in Charlotte.”

Hank looked at him and spat on the ground.  “I told you messing with politics would see some of it rub off on you.”

“She fucked me over, Hank.  I said I’d help with the protest, but that was all.  I surely do protest those stuffed shirts in Raleigh and in DC.  She wants me to run for Congress.”

“Davy Crockett did it,” Hank allowed.

“And he was just so happy that after one term he went and got himself killed as far away from Washington as he could get... and Hank, Andie Schulz will do the same thing to you.”

“She doesn’t want me to run for anything, just run a railroad.  Dick, I don’t know squat about the engineering part of the job.  I can’t lay track, build bridges or any of that shit.”

“Did she tell you exactly where you’d be?”

Hank smiled.  “As matter of fact, she was a little vague on that, but it sure sounded out of this world!”

He waved at his friend.  “Dick, you and I both know why you went to Charlotte.  You don’t care if you live or die anymore, just like me.  You went there certain some storm trooper cop was going to beat your head in and save you the trouble of doing it yourself.

“This is something we can do.  It’s not like we’re the only ones -- there are a hundred or more guys who could do it.  It’s something to do, old buddy, besides sit on the porch and swill beer.”

“I am not a libertine like you, Hank,” Dick said, drawing himself up.  “I wait until it’s noon first, before I get drunk.”

The two men started laughing, while Andie and Linda watched in silence.

Dick turned to Andie.  “Are you willing to honestly tell us what to expect, before we sign on the dotted line?”

“I haven’t had much luck with the Non Disclosure Agreements, although it’s almost certainly true that we will prevail.  But the cost has been -- shall we say -- steep.  Of the two people who violated theirs, one is dead and the other is serving twenty to life.”

“I don’t understand why you’re keeping it secret,” Dick told her.  “The tale should be told from sea to shining sea.”

“Oh, the government allowed us access to the media.  They came, they saw, they heard, they were revolted and ran away, terrified that their little tiny PC heads were going to spin around on their necks.  They can’t quite get past their prejudices, which is sad and ironic, hilariously funny, and wickedly cruel all at once.”

“Well, they might not want to hear it, but I do,” Hank told her.  “I admit to being really curious what it’s like out there.”

“Well for one thing, I hope you don’t suffer from claustrophobia.  One of the Federal guys that came through did, and they had to sedate the poor bugger.  They thought taking him outside the cave the Far Side door was in would help him, but when the Big Moon came up, he literally had a seizure, and they knocked him out and brought him back.”

“And, because of circumstances beyond our control, if either of you gentlemen was African American, the conversation would never have started.  It’s too dangerous for blacks on the other side of the door.”

“How’s that?” Dick asked.

“That’s some of the funny, sick irony.  Our friends are what most people call white, although their skin-color is more akin to that of the southern Italians.  Their enemies, and I do mean racial enemies, are black.  They’ve been fighting for about fifteen hundred years, their time; call it almost eighteen hundred years of ours.  In that world it’s the blacks who hold white people as slaves.  The whites where we are kill the blacks on sight, while the blacks give you a choice -- a slave collar or they kill you too.

“Lucky us, we got there just as an ancient war started back up.  Moreover, our friends are going through a bit of political trouble as well, having just stuck a sword through their then-King and then picked a new one.  And there were other troubles as well.  In theory, things are calmer now, but that’s today.  Tomorrow?  Who knows?

“The Tengri, the black slavers, have been kicked off the mainland, but they are about a hundred miles away, on an island.  They have cannons and muskets; I showed our friends how to make crossbows, because before that, all they had were longbows.  The Tengri have ships the equivalent of those around 1800; I recently introduced our friends to the concept of tacking in a sailing ship.  They are in the process of converting their existing large ships to keeled vessels, but it’s going to take a while, and new construction is a year or more away.

“I’ve shown them how to make gunpowder the equal of what the Tengri have, and pouring cannon is exciting, but relatively straight-forward.  I’m looking for someone who is familiar with smelting and processing iron ore to steel -- whoever that is, they will be rich beyond avarice in no time, because they are going to need tons of the stuff.”

“Raw materials?”

“Most of the continent they are on is jungle, but there are still some mountain ranges that make the ones here on Earth look like pikers, or so I’m told.  They have reserves of timber and minerals that have to be seen to be believed.  Coal, ditto.  I haven’t heard anything about oil, but considering the amount of coal, there’s bound to be a lot of that around as well.

“Plus, their mineral abundances aren’t the same as on Earth.  There are some amusing differences.”

“Amusing how?” Dick asked.

Hank laughed.  “You’ll like this!”

“Basically, the most important one is that the relative abundance of gold is greater than copper is here -- and copper there is less abundant than gold is here.  They use copper for money and in jewelry like we use platinum.  Gold is used for children’s trinkets.  They treat it like we treat pot metal.”

Dick swallowed.  “So, paying us in gold...”

“They’ve offered to trade me straight across, gold, silver and platinum for all the copper I can give them.  They think they’re cheating me and feel bad about it.  I’ve tried to tell them that they don’t need to feel bad, because I’m making a huge fucking profit -- and so are they.  What’s wrong with that?”

Dick laughed.  “In college economics they make the point that trade is not a zero sum game.  When I give you something and you give me something in exchange, we don’t end up with zero -- we each end up with something we each wanted more than what we held.  We make a profit, at least in our terms of relative worth.  A farmer sells a miller a bushel of wheat and gets money he can use for seed and tools.  The miller adds value to that bushel of wheat, grinding it up.  He sells the flour for a profit as well, and you end up with bread on your table, a full stomach, and you think the bargain was well made.  You’ve profited, the miller has profited, and the farmer profits.  Everyone has more than he started with.”

“Exactly,” Andie told him.  “And multiply that with abundant natural resources and you have a solid base.  Their planet isn’t like ours.  They have no seasons; they are in a region with weather a lot like you’ve got here in the summertime -- except it’s year-around.  Their farmers get four or five crops a year.  They have far more people available for extra labor than we would have.

“They have built some humongous walls, like Hadrian’s in England and the Great Wall of China.  It was an effort, but the farmers could keep the people fed well enough.  Now, once again, they have another series of great projects, with leaders who have guts and gumption to get the job done.  I tell you true -- I like these people.  They are rational, hard working, and at least as honorable as the average American.”

Dick was silent for a moment.  “Five hundred miles of track -- I can get you a deal on that.  How are these folks for saw mill technology?”

“I never saw one,” Andie said, suppressing a giggle.

“What sort of wagons do they have?”

“They carry a ton or so; gravity there is a smidge less than it is here.  They use a draft animal roughly equivalent to a camel-tempered ox.”