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“I see you’ve read our tourism brochures,” he said, lifting an eyebrow. “Anyway, there’s a town I worry about. It’s a little behind the times. Have you heard of Pirn?”
She shook her head.
“I’m not surprised,” he said. “It’s a small imanium mining town, pretty far west of the capital. They don’t have a hush rail out that way, and the people mostly keep to themselves.”
“You want to run the hush line to Pirn?” she asked.
“Among other things,” he told her. “What initially got my attention was a public health report on lax mutations. That little town had nearly seventeen percent of all the cosmic lax mutations on Ulfgard.”
“Wow,” Yasmine breathed.
“So, I looked back a year,” he said. “Same thing - way too many lax mutations for a population that size. It went back almost a decade.”
“No more records before that?” Yasmine guessed.
“The mines changed hands about fifteen years before that,” he said.
She cocked her head quizzically.
“The latency period of imanium is fifteen to twenty years,” he explained. “The new owners of the mine clearly cut safety procedures, but it took fifteen years to start showing up in the population. And it just so happens they were a major contributor to the Ruler in power at the time.”
“That’s horrible,” Yasmine breathed. “Are the people going after the new owners?”
Kreed shook his head, his lips a thin line of anger.
“Why not?” she asked.
“They don’t blame the mines,” he said. “They blame the government of Ulfgard.”
“Why?” she asked.
“By coincidence, just about ten years ago, Ulfgard piped public water out to Pirn when the mining started to foul the local groundwater,” he said wearily. “It improved health and hygiene and made people’s lives easier, too. But it happened to coincide with the uptick in lax mutations.”
“They think the water is causing it,” she realized out loud.
“And the owners of the mine have every reason to fan that flame,” he said, nodding. “I’ve seen all the studies. Imanium mining in that location is just not sustainable anymore. We have to close down the mine and clean up the town before even more people get sick. But it’s an uphill battle, every step.”
“So, what happened today?” she asked, remembering how upset he’d been. It made a lot more sense to her now. It was an upsetting situation.
“We sent a team of surveyors to the town,” he said. “We need full scans of the space and topography, so we can begin making plans to remediate and rebuild. But protesters took to the streets and stopped them from doing their work. It’s a huge setback, and it will cost the taxpayers the survey firm’s daily rate until it’s cleared up. I don’t know what to do.”
“You said rebuild,” Yasmine said. “What did you mean by that?”
“Remediating properly will mean taking down a lot of commercial property and probably some residential too,” he said. “When we’re done, the mine will be completely sealed off. And to be honest, it should have happened years ago. Cheap imanium is available to ship in from Han-2 these days. The plan is to build a nice downtown area with pleasant office and shopping spaces. When the hush rail serves the town, new industry will quickly move in to take the place of the mine. And in the interim, we’ll hire all the displaced workers to assist in the development of the new spaces and pay for their training to do whatever they want to do next. I’ve adjusted the budget so that not one worker will go one day without pay.”
It hit her suddenly that this was the real reason he was paying for the construction of the palace from his own funds. He was moved by the plight of Pirn and wanted to help. So he freed up the budget by replacing the palace construction with the reconstruction of the entire town.
And he looked so delighted, like he had just solved a puzzle. She could understand now why he wanted to be ruler. This was a man who actually cared.
But there was a lot he didn’t understand about the people he was trying to rule.
“What?” he asked. “Can’t you picture it?”
She bit her lip, not wanting to question her employer’s plans. After all, he was a global leader and she was just a nanny, and not even really qualified for that.
But he leaned forward, studying her as if she was about to share the sector lotto numbers the night before the big drawing.
“I doubt it will mean much,” she said, smoothing down her skirt. “But the town you’re describing sounds a little like my home back on Terra-17. We’re small, and off the beaten path, even for a Terra. The average person where I come from definitely hasn’t done much traveling.”
