"It's going to be difficult working with a crew this small after all the casualties and filling up these boxes." The captain patted the back of the crewman waiting to enter the last box.
"Of course I realize the difficulties, Captain," Latulla replied, resting the now quiescent censer on the deck. "That is why I have decided to make my own sacrifice to the common good." She rested the shaft of her cane on Haddad's shoulder with a gentle tap.
"My last personal slave will rest in one of these boxes till we reach Keld to give you another able seaman." Her words were expansive and generous sounding, but the metal figurehead on the cane's end rested against Haddad's Adam's apple. She drew him upright and close to the box. The denial and fear in his eyes didn't surprise Latulla, and she twisted the metal head of the cane under his jaw, forcing his head back to administer the sleeping draft. She pushed him into the last box, and his skull rang off of the bottom. He opened his mouth to yell, and the second drink was poured down his throat. Latulla was standing over him and watching his sputters and tremors of fear with a smile. Had she discovered his plans for escape or was this payback for his perceived lack of respect? He saw the enjoyment in her eyes as his limbs grew heavy. She enjoyed the fear he radiated as his entombment continued. His eyes were only starting to close as the smoke from the censer obscured his vision. He could feel the heavy vapor settling over his clothing and coating his face as he heard the lid swing shut and the latches close.
Chapter 8
When Teferi sent Barrin to the blimp hangar construction site on the eastern frontier, the wizard considered himself fortunate. Barrin's task was to learn all he could about the systems supporting Teferi's military and to perhaps adapt what he had learned to Urza's forces. The building of a new hangar complex gave him that chance.
Teferi was kind enough to 'walk Barrin to his ornithopter-in mid-flight. Yarbo started as Barrin appeared with the planeswalker, and then Teferi vanished back to his blimp.
"Fly us to the new airbase," the wizard ordered, and the pilot turned the craft. Soon the coastline appeared, and Barrin compared it to the maps he had received. Yarbo winged inland, arriving over the growing base in minutes. He put the machine down on a landing pad. People converged on Barrin as he exited his craft.
"Tell me you are here to take over this madhouse," a man said as he rushed to the landing craft.
"I am just an observer, here with Teferi's approval," Barrin replied.
"Another little job for me to handle!" the man shouted, and he began stomping around the ornithopter, cursing. Several other members of the construction team hurried up and began unloading the baggage and gear. Barrin noticed several tubes of plans being unloaded and turned to his pilot Yarbo for an explanation.
"Since I was flying to pick you up, I was asked to bring a set of plans to Willum, the master builder." Yarbo looked at the apparent madman still stomping around in a circle. "That must be the man you are supposed to observe and copy." At Barrin's look of ire, the pilot quickly grabbed his personal bag and ran after the withdrawing construction workers. Willum orbited back to Barrin, and the wizard quickly schooled his face into its usual serious mien.
The man was short and his skin red from recent exposure to the sun. He was heavy and in the rough work clothes of a skilled construction worker. His limbs were thick with muscle but lacked the definition of an athlete. His expression was angry but seemed directed at the world at large, not at Barrin standing before him.
"Willum is the name. I manage the circus you've come to see." He extended his hand as he spoke, and Barrin gripped it. The wizard could feel the calluses and the strength behind them.
"I am Barrin, and there is no need to dance attendance on me. I am here to see how things are done. I'll just follow along or perhaps you can gift a junior with me if you are busy." Barrin wanted a smooth working relationship with the people he observed, and the impromptu war dance suggested he might spend more time fighting with Willum than learning from him.
"If you want to learn about the whole operation then you better stay with me," Willum answered, turning and beginning to walk to the construction site in the distance. "I am tasked with putting this together and am the best authority you could hope to find here. Besides, maybe you can help me." Barrin walked quickly to catch up. "I've yelled long enough," Willum continued, "it's time I took a break." He chuckled, and Barrin realized that Willum's temper was a tool as carefully wielded as any other in finishing the job.
"Okay," Barrin said. "Then perhaps you can answer a question for me. Why is a base for naval patrols so far from the sea?" They were almost twelve miles inland, and a range of low hills blocked easy access to the ocean.
"We're an airbase, and while we work in conjunction with surface units, none are based here." Willum walked the site perimeter. "We have sea access and shipping from a river about a mile north of here." He pointed to a graded and graveled road that entered a screen of trees. "Remember that the former eastern airbase was burned by raiders. It's rugged country if they come from the coast, and the river adds miles to the trip inland. That's if they get past the fort we placed at the mouth." Willum spoke with pride as he considered the defensive arrangements. He stood on a low berm and gestured in all directions. "This is the best point to see everything," he said.
Barrin stood beside him and looked to the road that carried cargo from the river. A collection of tanks and piping sat in a depression. Barrin noticed the fresh sod and the regularity of the slope and realized that massive amounts of dirt must have been moved to create the dip.
"Why did you lower the ground there?" Barrin asked. The works served no obvious defensive purpose, and while the strange construction was hidden from a distance, aesthetics was an unlikely reason for so much labor.
"That is where we will be breaking down and refining the tufa," Willum replied as he looked on the workers connecting pipes and digging additional pits for storage. "The stuff it throws off is pretty volatile, and I decided that lowering the works would help protect the rest of the site in case of accident. Also, some of the vapors can be dangerous even if they don't burn, and the geometry of the digging sends the fumes out toward the trees instead of the hangars. The biggest trouble was making sure we had year-round drainage." Willum kicked at the turf that his men cut and laid down after they finished building the rise. "The ground can turn to quicksand in rain, and during part of the year there's a lot of standing water in this country. I didn't want a part-time lake interfering with refinery operations.