Main / 1105-004-Drinax

Calendar

1105-003 -- 1105-004 -- 1105-005?

Timing of events
05:00 - Rasha Ulna Wakes
07:00 - Rasha arrives at the Wire Mill Facility
08:00 - Rasha starts 'investigating''
??:?? - ???

05:00 - Drinax Surface - Roslier Valley - Tuaal Tribe Area - Home of Gunna and Rasha Ulna

[Rasha Ulna] Sleep was fitful for Rasha. He didn't normally have trouble sleeping, but the past twenty-four hours were . . . bothersome. Maeve could have called
him on the radio. He could have been there when the shuttle arrived from the palace, or soon after. Roslier Valley wasn't that big. Why didn't she?

06:00 - Drinax Surface - Roslier Valley - Tuaal Tribe Area

Rasha's respirator breathed loudly as he made the trek from the house he shared with his older brother. He would need to tinker with it. It probably just needed a fresh filter. He could have easily taken one of the new ones yesterday, but nothing about that felt right. Why would someone from the palace simply give away tens of thousands of credits worth of new respirators just out of manufacturing. A tonne of wire? E-grade? It wasn't a fair price. It just didn't make sense.

He looked up at the looming sun. With Drinax so close in orbit, it took up much of the sky. Drinax was always brown, a reddish-brown, the colour of old rust. Where vegetation grew, in the destroyed landscape, they made gardens with lean-tos and greenhouses to protect the fragile growth. These became their food sources, but there food was mostly tasteless grains and tubers growing in the hard glassed grounds. Not everything was destroyed by the Aslan bombing two-hundred-years ago. If it was, Rasha wouldn't be here.

The nobility protected themselves in their floating palace. On the ground, they had run for cover into caves and deep into valleys. Those became their homes for the next hundred years. Parents had children and those children had children and each generation adapted better than the last to Drinax's destroyed ecology. The herds they had used for food were decimated leaving only the small groups that had been sheltered when the bombing came. Those groups too had grown, but with animals' food and water sources destroyed or poisoned, they grew weaker and smaller.

As the populations grew, the caves and tunnels and valley refuges had to grow. The Vespexers were workers when the bombings happened. They remained workers after the smoke cleared even as their world around them turned from a garden to a hellworld. The city remnants were their basic materials. The villages grew, some visible from above, some not, warrens built deeper into cave patterns and underground. Slowly over generations, the Vespexers rebuilt their civilization under the watchful gaze of the palace, all the while serving their floating overlords.

Drinaxians, the people on the floating palace, the useless nobility, insisted that they were Drinaxian. Those below were Vespexers. The Drinaxians kept the Vespexers supplied with just enough to keep them growing, at a controlled rate. Rasha doubted that this was the intent. that would've taken forethought, planning, even simple intelligence.

When the Hierate destroyed the planet, they destroyed the empire. The palace was just as bad off as the planet. Suddenly, their primary source of food and materials was destroyed. They were forced to scramble for their food and shelter just as the Vespexers were forced to scramble into their caves and valleys. But, the Drinaxians had nowhere to scramble to on the floating palace. Their navies were overpowered. Their armies destroyed planetside. The Hierate ended the conflict effectively and concisely.

07:00 - Drinax Surface - Roslier Valley Wire Mill Facility

Most of the workers had not arrived yet. It would be another hour before they started to appear, though a few often made it in the before the whistle. Ore was mined from the quarries and mines not too far off. The ore went to a smelter at the far end of the facility to melt down and purify. Some ores were left pur-ish while others were mixed with other metals to produce alloys. This particular facility spun wire. Other made products of different types: tools, metal sheets, pipes, construction beams, materials necessary for keeping a palace floating.

08:00 - Drinax Surface - Roslier Valley Wire Mill Facility

Rasha made his way through the facility to the great scales at the end of the wire lines. On some lines, the wires were laid out in straight lines to cool. On others, where the wire was a thinner gage or might be coated for use in electronics, they were rolled around a reel or drum. E-grade wire was such a product, but of the lowest quality. It was only good for minor stationary electronics that weren't meant for even moderate use. Bend it or twist is more than a half dozen times and it would break needing replacement. A Vespexer would simply solder it together. A Drinaxian would lack the skill for such a simple process.

The wire wasn't placed on the scales until it cooled or was wound on the reel. There was a setting for when a reel was on the scale and a setting for when it wasn't. Forgetting to make that change would not explain the difference Rasha needed to simulate and it needed to be something small and easily explainable. No one would check on a regular basis unless there was a complaint, so he didn't really need to worry, but still, Maeve was involved and he wanted to protect her.

When Rasha arrived at the scales, four large round pressure scales awaited him at the end of four lines of wire production lines. Maeve and Gunna were also present. He walked up to the pair who were already deep in conversation. They looked startled when he spoke. "If you did what to explain it?"

“Rash, you’re in early.” Maeve moved to embrace her friend.

“I told you he was coming.” Gunna said looking at his younger brother.

Rasha hugged Maeve as he wondered why he hadn’t given in to her desire for a more romantic relationship. “Good morning to you too.”

As Rasha disengaged himself, he looked to his brother. “You said ‘If we did this, it would explain it.’ What do you mean? If you did what?”

Gunna made a motion for Rasha to follow him as he walked over to one of the huge scales. The scale was a round, metal plate, six metres in diameter. It worked on a spring pressure system where it measured the weight of the wire—or anything placed on top of it—through the compression of the springs. “Last night, you were saying you thought the scales were measuring light. You didn’t say which ones, or if it was all of them, but when I mentioned it to Maeve this morning, she said you meant the ones for the e-grade wires.”

Rasha looked back to Maeve who had followed them, but stood a few feet back from the brothers. He wondered what she was doing here this early. Her shift didn’t start until mid-morning, two hours off.

Gunna continued as he knelt down to the scale platform.'' “Well, I was thinking about it last night. Several things could make the scales measure light. Only a couple would make it weigh heavy, and they would almost have to be intentional. But weighing light could be almost anything.”

Gunna pointed to the inch-wide gap around the perimeter of the plate as he continued, “If something got lodged here, it could cause the plate not to register as heavy. Or if the springs got rusty underneath, they might not compress as tightly. Either would cause the scale to weigh light. But that would mean the weight would be light, and the spool would actually be heavier than expected.”

“Exactly. Nothing new. We expect those the springs and make sure the scale is free of debris.” Rasha couldn’t see where his brother was going with his basic explanation. “What about weighing heavy?”

Maeve walked over to stand on the scale, but it was Gunna who spoke. “Obviously someone standing on the scale would add a few kilos.”

“But that would be noticed. I mean if someone was looking . . .”

“Which none of us really do.” Maeve interrupted Rasha with a smile.

“Why would we? If you’re not expecting fraud . . .”

“And who would?” This time it was Gunna who interrupted. “I mean, why would anyone want to risk the Palace making an inspection visit?”

Rasha ran his hand through his hair. All of this was academic. Supervisors, like his brother, made routine inspections of the scales, watched over the measuring of spools for exactly these reasons. Not because anyone would try to cheat the Palace, but because mechanical and accidents happened.

But Rasha wasn’t looking for an explanation. Not really. He wanted to be able to explain the missing tonne Maeve had given for the respirators. If they had come through the normal process, through the weekly shipments, and the wire had gone out the same way, then no explanation would be needed. Maeve should have refused the respirators. Everything would be so much easier if she had.

“What’s this all about, Gunna?” He stopped and drew his brother’s attention. “I told you I was going to look into it. You’re not on for another hour. Maeve has two hours before she’s on. Why are you both here?”

[Gunna] "I'm a supervisor. It's my job. I ran into Maeve at the market this morning. I figured you had told her so I asked if she had noticed anything. She hadn't, but was interested, so I invited her in early."

Rasha looked at Maeve her nodded her agreement to the stated events. Something didn't feel right. Something felt off. But what? He couldn't put his finger on it.

[Gunna] "Anyway, we're going to look over the scales. The three of us together. That way, there can be no question of their accuracy."