Part 12 (1/2)

”Gig...”

”All right right.” Gignomai sighed tragically and sat up, wincing as his head tw.a.n.ged. ”This colony,” he said, ”it is a disaster.”

”I wouldn't say that,” Furio said mildly. ”It's not bad here. There's worse places.”

”How the h.e.l.l would you know?”

”From what people say,” Furio replied, pouring water into a cup. Gignomai waved it away; Furio drank it himself. ”Men off the s.h.i.+ps.”

”You've talked to them?”

”They talk to people in the town; I hear it from them. Come on, it's not evidence in court, but I get the general idea. Compared to a lot of places, it's not so bad here. Specially for us,” he added, with a slight grimace. ”Running the store, I mean. We're pretty much top of the heap.”

”Heap's about right,” Gignomai said. ”This is a terrible place. n.o.body's here because he wants to be. You know that, don't you.”

Furio looked at him. ”I want to be here,” he said.

”You were born here. So was your uncle. Ask him why his father came here.”

”I know about that,” Furio said. ”He got into debt back Home, it was prison or the colony. I think he chose quite well, in the event.”

”Better than prison, yes. But he didn't choose to come here, he was sent sent. That's why he stayed, and that's why you can't go Home. Even when your uncle sells the sword and makes his fortune, he's stuck here.”

Furio grinned. ”I don't know about that,” he said. ”He reckons a few thousand could buy us all out of here, and then we'll be-”

But Gignomai shook his head. ”He's dreaming,” he said. ”You think that if money could buy you out of this s.h.i.+thole, my family'd still be here? We've tried all that.”

”You haven't got any-”

”We've got friends at Home who have. Well, we used to have friends. It's been so long. I know Father's still trying, I read some of his letters, but the people who used to be our allies have forgotten about us. Understandably.”

Furio sighed. ”All right,” he said, ”it's a dump. So what?”

”It needn't be,” Gignomai said (and either his headache had suddenly gone or he was too engaged to notice it). ”It could be anything we like.”

For a moment or so, Furio didn't understand, and Gignomai began to wonder if he'd overestimated his friend's intelligence. Then Furio said, ”That's just plain stupid.”

”Is it?”

”You can't just take over a whole-”

Gignomai shook his head. ”Who said anything about taking over? I'm talking about...” He hesitated. There was a word, but he wasn't quite sure it was what he meant. ”Independence.”

”Oh, come on on!”

”Think about it.” He hadn't meant to shout, but as it turned out, it had the desired effect. Furio closed his mouth and looked straight at him. ”What's wrong with this place? Not the land, not the climate, not the savages. It's this stupid, useless weight you've got to carry around with you all the d.a.m.n time. Indentures, monopolies, tariffs, the Company practically owning everything. You've got seventy farms raising beef that n.o.body here gets to eat, and you aren't allowed to make so much as a spoon; you're forced to buy it all from Home at extortionate prices. You're all stuck here, by law, but a bunch of people you've never met five hundred miles away dictate how you all live. You can't have weapons, so you have to put up with my appalling family beating you up and stealing your chickens.” He paused, and made himself say the next bit. ”You don't think the people back Home couldn't have put down the met'Oc fifty years ago, if they'd wanted to? No, they left them there to keep you you people down. To give you someone on your own doorstep to hate, so you wouldn't think about who's the real cause of all your troubles. They're s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g you lot into the ground, and you're all so dead you just let them do it. That's why it's a dump, Furio. That's what's wrong with it.” people down. To give you someone on your own doorstep to hate, so you wouldn't think about who's the real cause of all your troubles. They're s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g you lot into the ground, and you're all so dead you just let them do it. That's why it's a dump, Furio. That's what's wrong with it.”

He could see Furio keeping his temper like a calm stockman restraining an unruly steer. ”So what do you want?” Furio asked quietly. ”Revolution? Fighting in the streets?”

Gignomai laughed; he couldn't help it. ”Don't be b.l.o.o.d.y stupid,” he said. ”There's n.o.body to fight. That's what's so pathetic. It's so simple, don't you see? You don't need a civil war. What you need-”

”Well?” Furio snapped.

”A factory,” Gignomai said, and Furio just stared at him. ”Just a big shed, basically, next to a river, for choice, so you can have a waterwheel for your motive power. Forges, a lumber mill. Make the stuff people here need so they don't have to buy it from Home. That's it. That's all it'd take.”

”But it's against the-”

”Law, yes. So f.u.c.king what? Furio, people here don't want much, but what they do want, they need need. Tools, household stuff, clothes. Things you can't live without, just things things. But the trouble is, things matter, things make all the difference in the world. I learned that,” he added, ”going back for the sword. Or take those eyegla.s.ses I stole for your uncle. They make the difference between him being half blind and being able to read. Just two gla.s.s discs and a bit of wire, and it's changed his life. Things Things are the only difference between us and animals, Furio, and we can are the only difference between us and animals, Furio, and we can make make them, out of trees and plants and bits of brown stone you can pick up in the marshes. And we can turn this dump into a good place to live, and n.o.body'll have to fight anybody else.” them, out of trees and plants and bits of brown stone you can pick up in the marshes. And we can turn this dump into a good place to live, and n.o.body'll have to fight anybody else.”

Furio just looked at him, till Gignomai was tempted to say something just to break the silence. But then Furio said, ”Home won't let us. It's against the law.”

”Ah.” Gignomai grinned. ”That's the whole point-it isn't. Not if we don't do it here. Not if we do it Outside, where Home's got no authority.”

”That's rubbish,” Furio said. ”If people buy the stuff, they're breaking the law too.”

”Difference of scale,” Gignomai replied calmly. ”You can send fifty men to close down a factory, but you'd have a real job on your hands going round every farmhouse in the colony confiscating illegal spoons. No, all that'll happen is the farmers won't send quite so much beef to the docks. Result? The Company won't send us trade goods, a.s.suming that'll bring us to our senses. But it won't, of course, because we won't need their stuff any more. Eventually, the Company'll decide this operation isn't cost effective and they'll get their beef somewhere else. And then we'll be left alone-exactly what we want.”

”They'll find out,” Furio said, ”about the factory.”

”In time, I guess they will,” Gignomai said.

”And then they'll send soldiers.”

”Not if the factory's under the protection of the savages.” Gignomai waited for an objection, but none came; Furio was too stunned to say anything. ”A war with the savages is exactly what Home doesn't want. They'd have to send a regular army, hundreds of men, horses, supply chains. Ruinously expensive, and always the risk of a disaster if their army got wiped out. A government could fall because of something like that. They don't know anything about the savages. They wouldn't want to get into a situation that could go really bad on them.”

”But what makes you think...?”

”Easy.” Gignomai smiled. ”We pay rent. We make stuff the savages want and give it to them, and all they've got to do is let us sit on a tiny corner of their land. Come on, Furio, it's perfect. The colony gets rid of Home, everybody gets the stuff they need-even the savages, so they're doing well out of it. Everybody gains, n.o.body gets hurt. What could be better than that?”

Furio was still looking at him, which made his hands itch. He wanted to smack the absence of convinced admiration off Furio's face. ”n.o.body here knows the first thing about making things.”

”Wrong.” Gignomai pointed at the table. ”See those books there? Everything you need to know. Including scale diagrams and lists of materials.”

Furio looked at the table. ”Just three books.”

”Yes.” Gignomai grinned. ”You can add them to the list of things that make all the difference. Give me those books and five men who can saw a straight line and we can build a factory.”

He could see Furio didn't believe that, not entirely. But instead, Furio said, ”Fine. So why the h.e.l.l would you want to do all this?”

That question. He gave the only answer he had. ”I'm a met'Oc,” he said. ”We do big stuff. Or we used to,” he added, ”before we got stuck here. And this is the only big stuff to be done in this place, unless you're Luso and you equate achievement with a row of heads stuck on pikes. So, I want to do it.”

”All right,” Furio said with a sigh. ”Don't tell me.” He got up to leave the room, but Gignomai called him back. ”Furio.”

”What?”

”If the world is a book, are you the hero, or just a walk-on part?”

Furio opened his mouth, then closed it again. ”You've read a lot more books than me,” he said.

”All right, not a book, a story. Is it about you, or are you just in it?”