“So we can plant and grow some. But if the only people left alive are in Raven’s Mill, what good does that do the world? And as I said, I side with Sheida. The way things look, that might mean we have to fight. Hell, probably we will have to fight if no other group than bandits that want our food. This is not going to be easy.
“But I’m not going to throw a wall around the town and say ‘no, go away and starve.’ Now, the people coming in are going to think we owe them a handout. That’s not true either. But I want you all to understand that I’m committed to saving every human being that we can. For our species, for the world, for the cause of freedom that Sheida represents. And if you don’t want that than, well, I think you should vote for John. Although if everyone’s dead, I don’t know who he’s going to sell his little glass figurines to.”
“Edmund, can we do that?” Lisbet McGregor asked. The wife of the innkeeper looked troubled. “It’s hard enough supplying the Faire with everyone wanting period foods. I… we’ve got Elsie to worry about. Maybe other children in time. I’m willing to… to try to help out others. But not at the expense of our own children.”
“I don’t know,” Edmund admitted. “If we threw a wall up around the town, difficult with it just being us, mind, and turned everyone away and if we didn’t have our crops burned by the bandits that produced and if the refugees didn’t decide to just overrun us and take all our food and goods, then we might be able to survive. And it might be easier than trying to save people. But… I’d have to live with that for the rest of my life.
“Again,” he added. “The refugees coming to us will have to be shown the reality of life now. Nobody gives you anything but a smidgen of charity. After that you’re on your own. They’re going to have to learn to work. And in a way, so will we. When we tire of a project or a hobby, we go on to something different. Well, you’re not going to be pulling food from the Net either. Right now, the most powerful man in this town is Myron. He’s got all the food.” Edmund looked over and saw the shocked look on Myron’s face. “Hah! Hadn’t thought of that, had you? But if you want your thresher fixed, you’d best be willing to give some up to me. And I need a half dozen barrels and you need even more, so Donald’s sitting pretty. I don’t think any of us wants the tavern to go away so McGregor has a job. Hmmm…” He looked over at Robert and Maria McGibbon and frowned.
“Falcons hunt food,” Robert said. “Which we’ll need. And I haven’t done bowyery in sixty or so years, but that’s because I got bored when there wasn’t anything else to learn. Call me Huntsman Bob.”
“Game,” Edmund said. “The hell with sending one fellow out with a bow; the woods are teaming with game. Deer, bison, turkey, feral cattle, goats, horses and sheep. Send a hundred refugees out as beaters and drive the damned things off a cliff. This is about gathering food, not sport.”
“Save the domestics,” Myron interjected. “We can redomesticate them. The big cattle bulls we can deball and use as oxen. We’re going to need draft animals. There’s wild horses and even donkeys as well. And the horseflesh on some of them is first rate. Emu, bison, wapiti, all of them can be adequately domesticated. We can rebuild stocks out of the ferals.”
“There’s not much leather around,” Donald Healey said. The cooper used it in various ways and tended to go through a lot. “We’re going to need the skins.”
“Meat’s not all you get,” McGibbon interjected. “Bone, horn, hair, all of it is useful.”
“We can do this,” Lisbet said. “You’re right.”
“Won’t be easy,” Edmund replied. “Easy just ended. But we can do it and we will do it, so help me God.”
“Okay, okay,” Glass said, raising his hands. “I see which way this is going and I’ll even say I agree.”
“We need a vote,” Myron said. “Any other nominations? Edmund, do you accept?”
The smith looked at the ground and to the others. A weight appeared to settle on his shoulders and something old and hard seemed to be in his countenance. But when he looked up his face was clear.
“I do.”
“Any other nominations? No. All in favor say aye.”
“Aye!”
“Opposed?” There was silence. “Passed by acclamation, Mayor Edmund.”
“But no handouts!”
“Well, a bit,” Edmund said, stroking his beard in deep thought. “The refugees that come in are going to be in shock. We can probably last one season with them still in shock but we have to get fields planted, material made. They’ll need to get on their feet and learn skills. But which skills and how? Say we… hmmm…”
“Yah,” McGibbon said. “A training program?”
“But, they don’t have any idea, most of them, how much work all of this is,” Bethan said in exasperation. “And most of them have never worked a day in their lives! It’s hard running a farm, from either side of the kitchen! I mean, just the washing!”
“And we’ll need tools, seed,” Myron shook his head. “We’ll need farmers, Edmund, lots of farmers. And that’s not just sticking seed in the ground.”
“We’ll handle it,” Edmund said definitely. “In this room is probably a thousand years of accumulated experience in how to live in preindustrial conditions. There are people in this room who know things about their skill areas that masters of any other age wouldn’t have dreamed about learning. We’ll feed the new people and teach them until they’re more or less ready to go out on their own.”
“Training program, hmmm…” Tarmac said. The innkeeper looked around in thought. “Break them down in groups, run them through a few days to a week of each of the things that we’ve got skilled craftsmen to teach.”
“Yeah,” Myron replied after a moment. “Have them do the stuff that apprentices would do. Give them at taste of the job.”
“Work them hard but slowly,” Tom Raeburn said. “Build them up to it.”
“And, remember, many of the refugees who come here are going to be Faire goers,” Edmund said with a nod. “Yeah, most of them don’t know a whipple tree from an apple-tree, but they’ve got some experience of living rough. And there are others, guys like Geral Thorson and Suwisa, makers and dealers mostly, who have really useable skills. I don’t know who is going to make it, I don’t know where anyone on Earth was when the power turned off. But some of them are bound to make it. And when they do, we’ll be as ready for them as possible.”
Edmund glanced up as a figure glistened into visibility by his shoulder.
“Edmund, I need some time,” Sheida said, looking around at the crowd. “Myron, Bethan,” she said, nodding.
“Sheida, what’s going on?!” Maria McGibbon shouted.
“Please,” the avatar said, raising her hands. “Please, I don’t have time. I’m… even now we’re fighting and it’s… it’s like fencing mind to mind. They think of a way to attack us, we think of a way to attack them. They’re dropping… rocks, satellites, things like that on Eagle Home at the moment. We’re deflecting them but that’s taking power and that means we can’t attack back.”
“When is the power going to come back?” Myron asked.