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Stories from the Verse
In Version
Chapter 85: Kondor 241
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Beam 181
In the aftermath of the war, with their house destroyed, Kondor and Zeke had decided it made more sense for them to use the existing houses than insist on trying to rebuild theirs. Kondor took Derek’s, because he particularly liked the conference room. Zeke said he would move into the Slade’s place, because he liked the oversized bed. They called a meeting in Derek’s conference room, with a few of the professors including the acting dean and a few government officials including the local mayor, and a representative of the railroad. Joe outlined their intention to travel to the coast and try to provide some disaster relief, and also his hope that the birds unharmed by this would begin shipping food, water, clothing, medical and hygiene supplies, and other obvious supplies to meet the needs.
An engineering professor objected. “Shouldn’t you be here, helping repair the flying saucers that are being brought here, and back-engineering them so that we can build more?”
“Professor,” he replied, “in my ethic, lives are more important than machines. There’s a good chance we will survive, save a few lives and help people rebuild homes and communities, and return to continue whatever work we can do here. Meanwhile, there is almost no chance that anyone will build a gravity engine in your lifetime, and a delay of a few months, even if it goes to a few years, is not going to impact that significantly. Someone has to go out there and start helping, and Zeke and I are both the first volunteers and the example which should inspire others to do the same.”
It was soon agreed that the school and the city would begin relief efforts, which would be shipped by rail at a discounted rate. Kondor was a bit unhappy that the railroad company would be charging anything at all to deliver disaster relief, but he reminded himself that they undoubtedly had to repair tracks and terminals at the far end and would need money to do that–the steel companies weren’t likely to contribute metal for the job. The government would also begin contacting others around the world via the shortwave, and try to get them organizing similar efforts where possible. The two versers would meet with government officials when they reached the end of the rail line and try to organize distribution efforts there; telegraph lines were still functioning to within ten miles of the water, so hopefully they would be expected and received hospitably.
It would all begin in the morning.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with ten other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #491: Verser Ventures. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
