Under Two Moons - Chapter 32
Chapter 32.
After dinner, I asked Inga and Kerr, “Where are your packs?”
“The Steward said they'd be taken to our dorms,” she said. So we showed her the way, while the men took Kerr to the men's dormitory. When we arrived she said, “This is very much like the dorms at the factory.”
Her packs were sitting near the door. While she put things away in the empty cabinet next to the bed she'd picked, the other women brought out dresses for us to select for the party. They were all pretty and very different from what we all wore everyday.
“I'm wearing this,” Rani said, taking out a slim dress in a shiny fabric with a lot of embroidered flowers and birds all over it. She held it against her slim frame. The red color looked great against her brown skin and made her dark eyes shine even more than they usually did.
“That's gorgeous!” Morna exclaimed.
“I only wear it for special occasions,” Rani said. “It was my mother's,” she added in a respectful voice.
She mentioned her parents only rarely. I knew her mother was the one who taught her to sew and that her father had come to the Stronghold as a scientist. But I'd never met them, and didn't even know if they were still alive. Now I realized her mother wasn't.
Katya, Talia, Gudrin, and Helga showed us what they were going to wear. But when we asked Ana, she said, “I'm not going to the party.”
“Why not?” Morna asked. “It's going to be so much fun!”
“I...I don't like parties,” she said.
I was sure there was more to it than that, but my sister wouldn't let it alone. “But we'll all be there, and it won't be the same if you don't come.”
Eva hadn't said anything, but now she turned on Morna, “Give it a rest, will you?”
Morna pulled back as if she'd been slapped.
“If Ana doesn't want to go to the party, that's her decision and you should respect it,” Eva said. “It's no skin off of your nose, is it?”
Morna nodded and told Ana, “I'm sorry. Eva's right. I sometimes forget that some people don't like the same things I do.”
“That's OK, Morna,” Ava said. “I understand.”
“So, Morna, which one would you like to wear,” Katya said, to break the tension.
“Oh! I love this one,” she said, pointing to a frilly pink dress. I think it was Helga's although it didn't look like her style, but then again, how was I to know what her style was when all I'd ever seen her in was a green coverall and a nightgown?
I picked a blue dress, fairly simple, in a soft fabric that I'd never seen before. “What is this made from?” I asked Katya. It was her dress.
“It's woven from the fur of an animal that is sometimes found nearby called a coorchin. They're smallish animals that burrow underground and only come out to seek water and food.”
“Oh, I think Gita has a couple of those!” Morna said. “They're very cute, and they only eat vegetables and plants.”
Carys liked the gray dress Eva had in mind for her. The shade wouldn't look good on everyone, but when Carys held it against herself, it was perfect.
By the time we'd decided on which dresses we liked, Inga had finished putting her things away and came over to see what we were doing.
“Would you like to borrow one of these?” Katya asked.
“Could I? I do have a dress or two, but nothing as beautiful as these.”
“We wouldn't have offered if we didn't want you to,” Gudrin said.
“I think she'd look great in this one,” Morna said, indicating a lavender dress. “How did they make this color?”
No one seemed to know, but we all agreed the dress would be lovely on Inga.
I promised again that I'd alter coveralls for all of our generous friends. “You don't have to do that,” Rani said.
“I think I do.”
“Well, I said I'd help, and I will,” she told me.
But it was time to get ready for bed. It had been a busy day, and I expected the next one would be even busier with all I still had to do.
Inga was already settling in, probably because the Stronghold was so much like the factory. She washed and changed in the bathing room, amazed that the facilities weren't any different than she was used to.
I expected that everything I had on my mind would keep me awake for a while when I lay down on my bed, but that wasn't the case. Still, morning came too soon. I woke not quite ready to face the day ahead. The only thing I was looking forward to was finding out more about the upcoming expedition.
During the night, someone had left two green coveralls for Inga, so when we all dressed, she matched the rest of us. We walked together to the refectory.
“I still don't know my assignment,” she said.
“Don't worry, you'll be told at breakfast,” Katya told her.
“I wonder if the party from the other factory arrived during the night,” Carys said.
When we joined Donal sitting alone at the table we usually used, he told us excitedly, “Blane, Holt and Kerr went with the rescue party for the people from the other factory!”
“Rescue party?”
“They never arrived last night, so Col and Raj went to track them. They'd fallen into a ravine northwest of here,” Donal said. “But that's all anyone said when they came to get Blane and Holt before dawn.”
“And Kerr went with them?” I asked.
“He volunteered,” Donal said. “I was surprised, but everything he's said and done since he arrived has surprised me.”
“I think I know the ravine you mean,” Gudrin said. “The paths through there are quite treacherous. But what were they doing there? I thought they were coming from Standia.”
“What direction is that?” I had no idea where Standia was, only that Col and Gita, and perhaps Rani and her family, came from there.
“It's far to the north and a little ways east of here,” Rani said. “Could they have had to detour around Trenchen?”
I needed a map of this part of the world. So many places I'd never heard of, and probably would never see, but now it seemed they were important.
“Why? What's in Trenchen?” Carys asked.
“It's the main base of a group of marauders, not too far north of here. We've been watching for them very carefully,” said Eva. “But, luckily, they haven't discovered the Stronghold, and for some reason they've stayed out of Osterbruk.”
We all selected some food and sat down at our table. The anxiety in the room was intense. Everyone seemed to have heard about the factory party and the attempt to rescue them. No one would relax until they appeared.
There wasn't much talk at our table that morning. Our eyes returned to the doorway of the refectory time and time again, but there was no sign of either the rescuers or the factory people.
At one point Steward Peterson appeared to announce the assignments for the four who'd come from the Grenska factory. Inga would be working with Donal on finding uses for the machines they'd brought, Kerr was assigned to one of the laboratories making more machines, Dreas would join the hunters and gatherers, once he recovered from his injuries, and Mikal would return to his duties as one of the scientists.
Inga seemed pleased with her assignment, especially after Donal assured her that they had a great team and Ana, who worked with several different teams doing similar experiments, agreed it was the best of them.
We'd already finished eating what we could under the circumstances when Blane and Kerr finally arrived.
“Holt went with Col to take the survivors to the infirmary,” Blane reported. “It was a terrible fall, each one pulling the next in line down with him.”
“How...how many were killed?” Morna asked, her face a picture of horror.
“Only one, and one of the horses,” Kerr said.
“Oh!” my sister cried as tears filled her big blue eyes.
“And two of the machines they were bringing were smashed to bits by the fall,” Blane added.
“Were they able to tell you why they were so far west?” Eva asked.
“Marauders chased them all the way from Baal, they said. I'm not sure where that is, but it was a long way,” Kerr said
“Baal is northeast of Trenchen,” Rani said.
“There were no signs of the marauders when we arrived, but Col is certain they weren't far away, so we took a circuitous route back here,” Blane told us.
That sounded ominous, but there was nothing more to say. We did inform Kerr of his assignment. He grinned.
He and Blane got some food. They were ravenous from their early morning exertions. We left them to their well-deserved breakfasts and went off to our assignments.
I walked slowly to the yellow sewing room, deep in thought about the events of the morning. They couldn't help but influence the mood in the Stronghold, but work had to go on.
I put the finishing touches on Eva's garment and had just started on the ones for Neelo and Baca when Wert entered the room. “Nissa, you will come with me. And bring one of the completed coveralls.”
I knew I couldn't refused, so I put down what I was working on, took one of the coveralls I'd altered for Blane, and followed him out the door and down the corridor. We took several turns and, though I tried to remember, I was sure I'd never find my way back alone.
Eventually we turned into a green corridor. I knew I'd never been this deep into the Stronghold before, and I remembered that Gita told me these corridors led to the laboratories. At the end of one, we turned into a vast room with rough walls, washed completely clean. The woman I'd seen with Niko and his daughters sat on a stool at a table working on what looked like a large round bowl turned upside down. You could see through it to the empty interior.
She looked up at our approach and smiled, displaying bright white teeth in an almost black face. “You're Nissa, aren't you?” she asked in excellent Learic.
“Yes,” I said, returning her smile.
“So, let me see what we have here.” She reached out a hand and took the coverall, looking mainly at the neckline. She lined it up with the open end of the bowl, nodding slightly. “This will work well.”
“What...what is that?” I asked.
“It's a diving helmet,” she explained. “It's secured to the coverall by these,” she added, indicating something around that open end. “So that water can't get in.”
“Zara, she doesn't need to know the details,” Wert insisted.
“Nonsense. It can only help her help us to complete the assembly if she understands how it will all work,” she told him, then smiled at me again.
“So that 'bowl' goes over the swimmer's head?” I asked.
She nodded. “We've constructed a device that can be used to feed oxygen to the diver wearing this. It separates the water around him into it's components, hydrogen and oxygen, and then collects the oxygen in these tubes that are connected to a breathing device.”
I decided to take her work for it, but it seemed strange to me. Then again, all of the machines and inventions they were working with at the Stronghold seemed strange. “Would it help if I made any further adjustments to the neckline of the coveralls?” I asked.
“No, but we'll need a method to attach some small devices to the back and waist, out of the way so they don't interfere with their diving and swimming,” she said.
“Do you mean like loops and pouches? Belts? Pockets maybe? How large and heavy are the devices?”
She smiled again. “Maybe pouches, I think, or closed pockets. You are very good at this! No wonder my daughters talk about you all the time.”
I didn't know what to say. That was quite a compliment.
“So, do you know what you have to do?” Wert asked impatiently.
“Yes, I think so,” I replied. “Zara, could I come back after I finish and show you what I've done on one before I start on the others?”
“Of course,” she said. “Do you know the way?”
I grimaced. “Not exactly. I tried to remember as Wert led me here, but there were too many turns.”
She nodded. “OK, let's take it from where you turn right from the corridor where your sewing room is. It's two right turns, two left, another right, and two more lefts. Got it?”
“Two rights, two lefts, one right and two lefts,” I repeated and she nodded. I took back Blane's coverall. “I should be back here sometime this afternoon,” I told her, then followed Wert back through the labyrinth of the Stronghold. In addition to the directions Zara gave me, I tried to pay attention to the corridor colors. I noted that there was a yellow in there along with the green laboratory corridor walls and the white workroom ones.
After dinner, I asked Inga and Kerr, “Where are your packs?”
“The Steward said they'd be taken to our dorms,” she said. So we showed her the way, while the men took Kerr to the men's dormitory. When we arrived she said, “This is very much like the dorms at the factory.”
Her packs were sitting near the door. While she put things away in the empty cabinet next to the bed she'd picked, the other women brought out dresses for us to select for the party. They were all pretty and very different from what we all wore everyday.
“I'm wearing this,” Rani said, taking out a slim dress in a shiny fabric with a lot of embroidered flowers and birds all over it. She held it against her slim frame. The red color looked great against her brown skin and made her dark eyes shine even more than they usually did.
“That's gorgeous!” Morna exclaimed.
“I only wear it for special occasions,” Rani said. “It was my mother's,” she added in a respectful voice.
She mentioned her parents only rarely. I knew her mother was the one who taught her to sew and that her father had come to the Stronghold as a scientist. But I'd never met them, and didn't even know if they were still alive. Now I realized her mother wasn't.
Katya, Talia, Gudrin, and Helga showed us what they were going to wear. But when we asked Ana, she said, “I'm not going to the party.”
“Why not?” Morna asked. “It's going to be so much fun!”
“I...I don't like parties,” she said.
I was sure there was more to it than that, but my sister wouldn't let it alone. “But we'll all be there, and it won't be the same if you don't come.”
Eva hadn't said anything, but now she turned on Morna, “Give it a rest, will you?”
Morna pulled back as if she'd been slapped.
“If Ana doesn't want to go to the party, that's her decision and you should respect it,” Eva said. “It's no skin off of your nose, is it?”
Morna nodded and told Ana, “I'm sorry. Eva's right. I sometimes forget that some people don't like the same things I do.”
“That's OK, Morna,” Ava said. “I understand.”
“So, Morna, which one would you like to wear,” Katya said, to break the tension.
“Oh! I love this one,” she said, pointing to a frilly pink dress. I think it was Helga's although it didn't look like her style, but then again, how was I to know what her style was when all I'd ever seen her in was a green coverall and a nightgown?
I picked a blue dress, fairly simple, in a soft fabric that I'd never seen before. “What is this made from?” I asked Katya. It was her dress.
“It's woven from the fur of an animal that is sometimes found nearby called a coorchin. They're smallish animals that burrow underground and only come out to seek water and food.”
“Oh, I think Gita has a couple of those!” Morna said. “They're very cute, and they only eat vegetables and plants.”
Carys liked the gray dress Eva had in mind for her. The shade wouldn't look good on everyone, but when Carys held it against herself, it was perfect.
By the time we'd decided on which dresses we liked, Inga had finished putting her things away and came over to see what we were doing.
“Would you like to borrow one of these?” Katya asked.
“Could I? I do have a dress or two, but nothing as beautiful as these.”
“We wouldn't have offered if we didn't want you to,” Gudrin said.
“I think she'd look great in this one,” Morna said, indicating a lavender dress. “How did they make this color?”
No one seemed to know, but we all agreed the dress would be lovely on Inga.
I promised again that I'd alter coveralls for all of our generous friends. “You don't have to do that,” Rani said.
“I think I do.”
“Well, I said I'd help, and I will,” she told me.
But it was time to get ready for bed. It had been a busy day, and I expected the next one would be even busier with all I still had to do.
Inga was already settling in, probably because the Stronghold was so much like the factory. She washed and changed in the bathing room, amazed that the facilities weren't any different than she was used to.
I expected that everything I had on my mind would keep me awake for a while when I lay down on my bed, but that wasn't the case. Still, morning came too soon. I woke not quite ready to face the day ahead. The only thing I was looking forward to was finding out more about the upcoming expedition.
During the night, someone had left two green coveralls for Inga, so when we all dressed, she matched the rest of us. We walked together to the refectory.
“I still don't know my assignment,” she said.
“Don't worry, you'll be told at breakfast,” Katya told her.
“I wonder if the party from the other factory arrived during the night,” Carys said.
When we joined Donal sitting alone at the table we usually used, he told us excitedly, “Blane, Holt and Kerr went with the rescue party for the people from the other factory!”
“Rescue party?”
“They never arrived last night, so Col and Raj went to track them. They'd fallen into a ravine northwest of here,” Donal said. “But that's all anyone said when they came to get Blane and Holt before dawn.”
“And Kerr went with them?” I asked.
“He volunteered,” Donal said. “I was surprised, but everything he's said and done since he arrived has surprised me.”
“I think I know the ravine you mean,” Gudrin said. “The paths through there are quite treacherous. But what were they doing there? I thought they were coming from Standia.”
“What direction is that?” I had no idea where Standia was, only that Col and Gita, and perhaps Rani and her family, came from there.
“It's far to the north and a little ways east of here,” Rani said. “Could they have had to detour around Trenchen?”
I needed a map of this part of the world. So many places I'd never heard of, and probably would never see, but now it seemed they were important.
“Why? What's in Trenchen?” Carys asked.
“It's the main base of a group of marauders, not too far north of here. We've been watching for them very carefully,” said Eva. “But, luckily, they haven't discovered the Stronghold, and for some reason they've stayed out of Osterbruk.”
We all selected some food and sat down at our table. The anxiety in the room was intense. Everyone seemed to have heard about the factory party and the attempt to rescue them. No one would relax until they appeared.
There wasn't much talk at our table that morning. Our eyes returned to the doorway of the refectory time and time again, but there was no sign of either the rescuers or the factory people.
At one point Steward Peterson appeared to announce the assignments for the four who'd come from the Grenska factory. Inga would be working with Donal on finding uses for the machines they'd brought, Kerr was assigned to one of the laboratories making more machines, Dreas would join the hunters and gatherers, once he recovered from his injuries, and Mikal would return to his duties as one of the scientists.
Inga seemed pleased with her assignment, especially after Donal assured her that they had a great team and Ana, who worked with several different teams doing similar experiments, agreed it was the best of them.
We'd already finished eating what we could under the circumstances when Blane and Kerr finally arrived.
“Holt went with Col to take the survivors to the infirmary,” Blane reported. “It was a terrible fall, each one pulling the next in line down with him.”
“How...how many were killed?” Morna asked, her face a picture of horror.
“Only one, and one of the horses,” Kerr said.
“Oh!” my sister cried as tears filled her big blue eyes.
“And two of the machines they were bringing were smashed to bits by the fall,” Blane added.
“Were they able to tell you why they were so far west?” Eva asked.
“Marauders chased them all the way from Baal, they said. I'm not sure where that is, but it was a long way,” Kerr said
“Baal is northeast of Trenchen,” Rani said.
“There were no signs of the marauders when we arrived, but Col is certain they weren't far away, so we took a circuitous route back here,” Blane told us.
That sounded ominous, but there was nothing more to say. We did inform Kerr of his assignment. He grinned.
He and Blane got some food. They were ravenous from their early morning exertions. We left them to their well-deserved breakfasts and went off to our assignments.
I walked slowly to the yellow sewing room, deep in thought about the events of the morning. They couldn't help but influence the mood in the Stronghold, but work had to go on.
I put the finishing touches on Eva's garment and had just started on the ones for Neelo and Baca when Wert entered the room. “Nissa, you will come with me. And bring one of the completed coveralls.”
I knew I couldn't refused, so I put down what I was working on, took one of the coveralls I'd altered for Blane, and followed him out the door and down the corridor. We took several turns and, though I tried to remember, I was sure I'd never find my way back alone.
Eventually we turned into a green corridor. I knew I'd never been this deep into the Stronghold before, and I remembered that Gita told me these corridors led to the laboratories. At the end of one, we turned into a vast room with rough walls, washed completely clean. The woman I'd seen with Niko and his daughters sat on a stool at a table working on what looked like a large round bowl turned upside down. You could see through it to the empty interior.
She looked up at our approach and smiled, displaying bright white teeth in an almost black face. “You're Nissa, aren't you?” she asked in excellent Learic.
“Yes,” I said, returning her smile.
“So, let me see what we have here.” She reached out a hand and took the coverall, looking mainly at the neckline. She lined it up with the open end of the bowl, nodding slightly. “This will work well.”
“What...what is that?” I asked.
“It's a diving helmet,” she explained. “It's secured to the coverall by these,” she added, indicating something around that open end. “So that water can't get in.”
“Zara, she doesn't need to know the details,” Wert insisted.
“Nonsense. It can only help her help us to complete the assembly if she understands how it will all work,” she told him, then smiled at me again.
“So that 'bowl' goes over the swimmer's head?” I asked.
She nodded. “We've constructed a device that can be used to feed oxygen to the diver wearing this. It separates the water around him into it's components, hydrogen and oxygen, and then collects the oxygen in these tubes that are connected to a breathing device.”
I decided to take her work for it, but it seemed strange to me. Then again, all of the machines and inventions they were working with at the Stronghold seemed strange. “Would it help if I made any further adjustments to the neckline of the coveralls?” I asked.
“No, but we'll need a method to attach some small devices to the back and waist, out of the way so they don't interfere with their diving and swimming,” she said.
“Do you mean like loops and pouches? Belts? Pockets maybe? How large and heavy are the devices?”
She smiled again. “Maybe pouches, I think, or closed pockets. You are very good at this! No wonder my daughters talk about you all the time.”
I didn't know what to say. That was quite a compliment.
“So, do you know what you have to do?” Wert asked impatiently.
“Yes, I think so,” I replied. “Zara, could I come back after I finish and show you what I've done on one before I start on the others?”
“Of course,” she said. “Do you know the way?”
I grimaced. “Not exactly. I tried to remember as Wert led me here, but there were too many turns.”
She nodded. “OK, let's take it from where you turn right from the corridor where your sewing room is. It's two right turns, two left, another right, and two more lefts. Got it?”
“Two rights, two lefts, one right and two lefts,” I repeated and she nodded. I took back Blane's coverall. “I should be back here sometime this afternoon,” I told her, then followed Wert back through the labyrinth of the Stronghold. In addition to the directions Zara gave me, I tried to pay attention to the corridor colors. I noted that there was a yellow in there along with the green laboratory corridor walls and the white workroom ones.