Main / 1105-003-Drinax

Calendar

1105-002 -- 1105-003 -- 1105-004

Timing of events
14:00 - Rasha Ulna meeting with Maeve
20:00 - Rasha Ulna dinner with his brother
??:?? - ???

14:00 - Drinax Surface - Roslier Valley Landing Area- Tuaal Tribe Area

[Rasha Ulna] “Have you checked them?”

[Maeve (NPC)] “Yes.”

“And they function?”

“Yes.”

Rasha Ulna looked at the respirator he held in his hand. It was manufactured for the bio-storm ruin that was his world. And yet the woman in front of him, Maeve, said it came through her contact from the Floating Palace. The overlords of Drinax did not make mistakes like this. “How much?”

“Just trade.”

“How much?” Rasha emphasized the question seeing Maeve did not want to provide an answer.

“Just a ton of e-grade wire.”

“Just one?”

Maeve nodded her head. Rasha looked at the respirator again turning it over and around as if it would fall apart with each movement.

“Only one ton?” He could not believe what she was telling him.

“He said it was a mistake. They hadn’t been ordered and they had no use for them on the Floating Palace, so he brought them here.”

Rasha placed the respirator with all the others lying in the small cargo case and shook his head in disbelief. “It doesn’t make sense. Why not withhold them until the next scheduled shipment.” Rasha stopped and looked at Maeve trying to measure her. Could she be lying to him? Was this part of a con? She never had before. There was no reason to believe she’d start now. “And he didn’t make any demands? No promises? No suggestion of something more?”

Maeve returned Rasha’s gaze. He knew she understood his skepticism. “No Rasha, nothing. Rash, take it for what it is, a boon from someone that has a conscience. We know that not everyone on the Palace agrees with the overall consensus that we Vespexers are disposable. Common sense proves that.”

Rasha exhaled quickly through his nose as his eyes and head rolled to the side. Common sense was a myth.

“They have to provide adequate gear and education. Otherwise, we wouldn’t survive and they’d have to either come down here themselves or go somewhere else for goods and materials. They don’t have the skills to mine and they aren’t about to lower themselves to actually work. They have to keep us alive and if not thriving, at least maintaining.”

Rasha threw up his hands in front of him. “Alright, alright, al-right, Maeve. You’ve made your point. They need us. But I assure you, this is no gift. He’ll come back wanting something. Probably with another offering trying to buy our trust, and compliance. And if we don’t give it, he’ll just move onto one of the other tribes.” Rasha paused as a thought occurred to him. “Does anyone else know about this?”

“No,” Maeve answered.

“Let’s keep it that way. If word got out, spread to the other tribes . . . there could be trouble.”

“That’s why I came to you.” Rasha nodded his approval of her decision. Maeve looked up at him with dark brown-green eyes. He knew she wanted more than the relationship he had limited her to, but involvement meant complication and responsibility and he was not ready for either one.

“Let’s just rotate them into the current stock. Maybe rough them up a bit . . . dirty them so no one notices . . . and keep this between ourselves. I don’t want anyone asking questions.” He hesitated before turning away. “And Maeve, next time this benefactor calls to make an unscheduled meet, I want to be there.”

Maeve nodded.

Rasha turned and left. Gifts from above were never gifts even if they did cost a mere ton of wire. Maeve had been the one on duty when the call came in and there had been no time to rouse anyone. She said her contact called on approach and said it was urgent. She had met him herself, something Rasha told her never to do again. If anything happened to her . . . he didn’t want to think about what he might do. But if this benefactor did return, she wouldn’t be alone. Rasha had to figure out how to make sure Maeve got the call if the benefactor did call again . . . and how to explain a ton of missing wire.



20:00 - Drinax Surface - Roslier Valley - Tuaal Tribe Area - Home of Gunna and Rasha Ulna

[Rasha Ulna] “Gunna, I’m going to look at the scales on number three tomorrow. I think it’s been weighing heavy. We don’t need the Palace thinking we are shorting them.”

[Gunna Ulna (NPC)] Rasha’s brother looked at him and smiled. “Little brother, you worry too much. Everything is fine.”

Rasha nodded his head to the side with a slight smile. “Still, I want to look at them, make sure everything’s working right.”

“Have at it.” Gunna sat down on the sofa, a once nice looking pattern now so faded that the pattern was indistinct from the background colour, which too had faded to make the sofa appear almost completely light brown, maybe taupe. “You always have been too attentive to detail.”

Rasha went to the kitchen, grabbed a bowl and helped himself to vegetable noodle soup. He could see his brother eating the same out of his bowl. The two of them had been breaking rock, as they called it, in the Drinaxian Quarry, Roslier Valley #2, ever since Rasha had mustered out of the Drinaxian army three years ago. Gunna had been working there longer and had worked his way up to shift supervisor. Rasha thought he should be more concerned with a potential variance in the equipment, but he wasn’t. At least not that it showed. He sat eating his vege-nood watching some feed from the Palace he’d managed to pick up on his cobbled together vid-set. Where he got the parts for it Rahsa was uncertain, but like his brother, didn’t seem to care enough about it to look any further.

“Hey, when’s the next scheduled transfer?” Rasha dropped down into the couch beside Gunna almost spilling his vege-nood.

“Three, no four days. Why?” Gunna didn’t turn away from the feed. It was of the race ran a couple of days earlier up on the Palace.

“Just want to make sure all the numbers are right.”

“They don’t check it. Haven’t for years. You’re just wasting time.”

Rasha stuck a fork into his noodles and twirled it to wrap the noodles in the tines before lifting just enough to stab a steamed root-green floret. “My time to waste.”

“That it is, little brother.”

“I think I’ll go out tonight and have a look,” Rasha said around the floret.

“I thought you were going to do it tomorrow?” Gunna leant back into the sofa finally turning to look at Rasha.

“The longer I let it go, the less sleep I’m going to get.”

Gunna looked at his brother, eyes slightly narrowed in a visage of concern. “You’re wound tight. What’s bothering you?” He put his cooling bowl on the coffee table in front of them.

“Just a feeling. I like things to make sense and for things to do what they are supposed to do.” Rasha shoved another noodle wound fork into his mouth.

“And today that means the scales. You know if you’d been this attentive when you were up on the palace, you might have actually made it into them hawk-guards instead of returning here to pound rock. Look, leave it ‘til tomorrow and I’ll look over them with you. But tonight, I’m wiped out. And I’m not sure about he weather. Report said storms might be headed this way.”

Rasha pushed his bowl onto the table beside his brother’s. “I’ll keep my head down. If it looks too bad, I’ve got the suit and respirator.”

“Suit yourself. You never could let anything go. But I’ll look over the scales in the morning anyway. Make it official. That’ll keep accounting honest.”

Rasha looked at his brother. At eight years older, he had raised Rasha as much as their parents had. And since they were gone, he was the only family Rasha had. He was also Rasha’s personal hero.