Port Flon was a tawdry chaotic gold-rush town in a tawdry chaotic world. Its streets were crowded with sailors and miners and prostitutes and shopkeepers and beasts of burden and vehicles and robots.
The mansions of the newly-rich, still smelling of fresh paint and sawdust, rubbed shoulders with the canvas tents of the glitter-eyed newbies just off the ships–ships which, as often as not, were abandoned by their crews as soon as they reached port. The docks surged with shouting and cursing as touts and provisioners and scammers sized up the new arrivals, and the new arrivals tried to make sense of things and find their local connections, if they had any. Everywhere people and animals and machines made their way around bales and trunks and barrels and crates.
And in that chaos I had to defuse a donkey.
[spoiler]Let me back up a bit. There was a long-running controversy among the miners about the best way to get up-country to the mines. Some miners used aircraft, but these required landing areas and expensive spare parts that had to be shipped in from home. Some miners chose ground vehicles, but wheeled vehicles could not go far outside of the settlements, tracked vehicles were slow, and legged vehicles difficult to repair. And all vehicles needed spare parts. Lastly, some miners brought pack animals, but most such animals could not subsist on the native vegetation, and food and supplies then had to be packed in for the animals as well as for the miners.
My money was on the animals in the short term, at least until spare parts for machines became more available. But many miners, fresh from the robot-filled cities of home, were completely-unfamiliar with handling pack animals. The services of experienced animal wranglers, such as myself, fetched a high price, but many would-be miners looked at that price–paid in advance–and set out on their own. After all, they had pets back home; how hard could it be?
This brings me to Murray.
Murray was a miner who chose to use pack animals. But he also chose to put his supplies on a two-wheeled cart pulled by a single animal, rather than in panniers on multiple animals’ backs. Even accounting for spare animals, this reduced the number of animals needed, but the cart could potentially prove awkward. As I soon found out.
I was in the front room at Selfridge’s, sucking back a cola and absentmindedly eyeing the women upstairs across the street, when there was a commotion outside. Someone ran in, calling my name. There was a situation outside.
And what a situation. A two-wheeled cart, overloaded, had tipped backwards onto the ground. An unfortunate donkey was suspended helplessly in mid-air between the shafts of the cart, which now pointed diagonally into the air. Most of the cart’s load was still strapped to the cart, but several boxes and containers were scattered about. And there was a familiar smell that meant trouble.
I walked up to a bulky bearded man who was staring at the cart with a baffled “what do I do now?” expression. “What’s happened?”
He replied, “I’m Murray Johnson. There seems to be a slight problem with my load…”
“You’ve got more than a slight problem. Let me guess. You’re a new miner, and you bought illarium primer for your explosives?”
“Yes…”
“And the container’s broken?”
“Yes… it was on top, and flew off, and the donkey must have kicked it…”
“Well, by the smell, I’d say that it’s all over the place. It’s likely to go up if it gets the right kind of spark or impact. Where are your explosives?”
“On the cart…”
I raised my voice. “Clear the area!”
I pointed at several bystanders. “You, you, and you! Keep everyone away from the cart!”
I turned back to the hapless would-be miner. “We definitely have a problem. Your animal needs to be removed immediately. Without struggle. If it kicks any of the illarium… boom!”
Murray paled, and glanced nervously at the cart. The donkey was twitching.
It looked like I was going to have to take command. “We can wash the illarium from the donkey. Better to leave him up there for the moment, where he can’t kick anything on the ground.” I sent one of the bystanders to ask for the fire pump and its water wagon.
A few minutes later, the fire pump and water wagon arrived. Evidently the words “illarium”, “explosives” and “dilute” had worked wonders. We hooked up, and soaked the donkey first, then the ground under it, then the cart.
We organized a group to lift and chock the rear of the wagon. Slowly it returned to horizontal. Murray unhitched and led the now-shivering donkey away to the side. He returned and partially unloaded the cart until it was balanced.
“Now, Murray, you are going to be billed for this: blocking the road, using town equipment, hiring helpers… have we learned anything here?”
Murray shuffled his feet and muttered something into his beard. “I guess so.” He left to retrieve his donkey and hitch him back up to the now-balanced cart. It was time for him to be on his way.
I was feeling rather testy. Fighting fires is one thing, but this was just plain stupidity, that could have turned tragic. Back home, they always said, “Drive safe. Arrive alive.” I just hoped we’d learn that without wrecking the town.
I returned to Selfridge’s to pay my tab, and then headed for home.[/spoiler]
Sunspace