“Oh.” Daneh thought about that for a moment and nodded. “No, I don’t, but Myron does, and so do his sons.”
“If you think I’m going to marry Tom or Charlie and settle down as a farm girl you’re out of your mind, Mom,” Rachel chuckled. “I’m going to be a…” Her eyes widened as she realized how much had been lost. “I was going to be a doctor, Mom. What in the hell can you do under these circumstances? There’s no nannites!”
“Uhmm…” Daneh said, her eyes widening. “Oh… damn. You’re right. Not only that, no… medicines. Those were chemicals that were used prior to nano-insertion techniques. No medicines, no tools.” She shook her head. “I don’t even know how you… I think the term is ‘suture’ a person, that is sew them up.”
“Sew?”
“It’s how they used to close wounds,” Daneh explained. “But if this is going to go on for some time, we need to get ready to leave. There’s not much food in the house. We… we need to get to Raven’s Mill.”
“How, there’s no porting!” Rachel said then shook her head. “You’re not thinking of walking are you? We don’t even have horses.”
“Yeah, I wish now we hadn’t gotten rid of Buck,” Daneh said. “Well, we might as well get used to it. We need to go find some of the Faire stuff. There’s… sacks and things. I think I’ve got some traveling food around…”
“Mom, it would take weeks to walk to the Mill!” Rachel practically shouted.
“Would you rather stay here and starve?” Daneh asked, grabbing her by the arm and shaking her. “Do you think that Sheida is going to just give up? How about Bowman? If they don’t, Nothing Will Work. No food. No water unless we dip it out of the river! We have to get to the Mill and we have to get there before our food runs out! And you’d better hope that the weather holds.”
Overhead, in the clear sky, thunder started to rumble.
“This is too complex,” Sheida said, shaking her head as she arose from Dream. “An elf couldn’t keep up!”
“We need to break it down in such a way as it is legs complex,” Ungphakorn said, spreading his wings. “We have control of generators but we are throwing groups into them willy-nilly. We need to form teams…”
“We need to be able to concentrate on one particular area,” Aikawa said. “We are starting to break out into regions again by taking the generators and controlling the power locally. We should start thinking about that.”
“Are you saying form regional blocks?” Ishtar said, irritably. “To what purpose?”
“We need to start thinking of the world again,” Aikawa said. “We’re going to have to help people rebuild. And we need to consolidate our power base. If humans are to survive this, they are going to have to learn to rebuild. We need to encourage that. And that is a regional function.”
“This is a battle between factions of the Council,” Ishtar said. “Not between nations.”
“Now, it is,” Aikawa said. “Don’t ask me about tomorrow.”
“We have to make plans!”
“I don’t have much food in my house, where are we going to get food?”
“People are going to be coming here, we need to get ready to take them in!”
“Take them in? We don’t have enough for ourselves!”
As if by pre-formed agreement, the permanent residents of Raven’s Mill had made their way to the pub, despite the sudden and unexpected thunderstorm. The temperature outside was dropping and the wind rattled the solid doors and shutters of the inn. What it was like inside was well-nigh indescribable.
“OYEZ!” Edmund yelled after a few minutes of shouted debate. John Glass and Tom Raeburn looked like they were about to start beating on each other. “This is out of control. We’re going to have order here or I’ll start cracking heads.”
“And I’ll help,” Myron said. “I’ve got food in my storehouses. I’ll not be selling it in penny packets to madmen so we’ve that. The planting season is nearly here. As long as the weather clears we’ll be fine.”
“But not if we start taking in every person who comes here!” Glass shouted.
“ORDER! We will have order here!”
“I nominate Edmund as Speaker, hell, mayor,” Tom Raeburn said. Myron’s bullnecked son had his jaw set hard, but he was managing to keep his temper. “We haven’t needed one before but we do now.”
“Second,” Myron snapped. “There’s going to have to be decisions made.”
“Mayor, okay,” Glass said. “But not lord. We’re to have a say. And I say that, whatever Sheida says, we’re to turn away refugees. We’ve problems enough of our own!”
“The vote at hand is whether to elect Edmund mayor,” Bethan Raeburn said, standing up. “We should keep this simple and straightforward for now. Any other nominations?”
“Me, I’ll nominate myself,” Glass said. “I like Edmund, but I don’t think that he’ll have the interests of Raven’s Mill in mind.”
“And what are the interests of Raven’s Mill?” Edmund asked. “I’m not sure I want to be mayor, or earl or lord or any other damned thing. But you’d best understand what I think are the interests of Raven’s Mill. We’re not some damn island. There are about a billion people on this earth. Maybe, maybe a couple of thousand outside of Anarchia have any ability to survive without technology. We are going to have refugees. And we’re going to have to integrate them into the society. We’re going to have to expand. And in case you didn’t understand the messages we got from the Council, there’s a war on. I was already asked to come to Sheida’s headquarters to help them. I refused because I’m thinking about the world. We’re going to have to rebuild it. And Raven’s Mill is going to be a part, perhaps a large part, of that rebuilding.
“We’re going to have to take those refugees in and teach them how to not only survive but prosper. Teach them the skills that we know. Myron farming, John glassmaking, coopering, smithing, all the things you have to have if you don’t have replicators or even factories. The first of them will be trickling in maybe as soon as tomorrow. We’re going to have to prepare for that. That is what I think, where I stand. And one more thing…” He paused and looked around the room at the sea of now thoughtful faces.
“There’s a war going on. I side with Sheida. I understand, in a way that I don’t think that even Bowman does, what his program would mean. Maybe, maybe, simply letting him take over would be for the best. But that’s only because the downside of a war in our situation is the death of up to ninety percent of the remaining population world-wide.”
“What?” Charlie Raeburn was the first to speak. “How many?”
“There’s no food. And right now there’s no way to get what food there is distributed. Where will food come from? The farms in the central plains supply the world. There’s no way to move it. The weather that just broke is probably because the weather controls broke down. What is the true weather of the world? Will we even be able to plant this year?”
“We’ll be able to get something done,” Myron interjected. “Even with weather like this. Won’t be easy, but the seeds we’ve got these days aren’t bulgur wheat. It’ll grow in a hurricane. And the output on it… well let’s just say that even with rotten farmers we shouldn’t be facing starvation after the first harvest.”