World of Fire (Dev Harmer 01) (16 page)

“Always a revelation. You Alighierians have some weird kinks.”

“Well, if you can tear yourself away from your anthropological studies, the rail network is back up and running, and we have places to be.”

“Excellent. Where?”

“The heliumface. The Anoshkin Energiya Conglomerate mine, to be precise.”

“What’s happening there?”

“Nothing much. Just the entire workforce coming out on strike.”

“Sounds like police business to me,” said Dev. “Irate miners. Picket lines. Crowd control measures. Do you really need me along?”

“Normally I’d say no. But in this instance your attendance is required. In fact, you’ve been asked for specifically.”

“By name?”

“No. The exact wording was ‘that nosy bastard who had a bunch of innocent people detained against their will last night.’ Ring any bells?”

“Sounds like that union leader guy. What’s his name? Thorne. Ben Thorne.”

“Bingo,” said Kahlo. “I knew this one was going to come round and bite us on the backside. I should never have listened to you.”

“What does he want with me?”

“Beats me. But you’ve ticked him off badly, if he’s prepared to stage an all-out stoppage just so’s he can get your attention.”

“He probably fancies a nice little chinwag, that’s all. Maybe he felt he and I had a connection in the interview room. He’d like to get to know me better.”

“If you believe that, you’re even stupider than you look.”

18

T
HE
A
NOSHKIN
E
NERGIYA
Conglomerate mine lay an hour west of Calder’s Edge.

It was one of the largest mines on Alighieri, its workings extending for hundreds of kilomtres. Its highest shaft rose to within a few thousand feet of the planet’s surface, where the concentrations of helium-3 were at their densest.

The entrance lay in a manmade cavern, a carved-out cubic gallery so large you couldn’t quite see its edges from the centre. The floorspace was occupied by a tangle of maglev tracks that overlapped and criss-crossed like coils of spaghetti. Some of these were used by commuter trains that brought personnel to and from the mine. Others were used by transporter wagons to ferry the raw rock to the pulverisation plant, after which it was transferred by massive lifters to the converter units at the surface, where the five-hundred-degree daytime temperatures did the job of separating out the He-3 in its gaseous form, ready to be condensed for storage. The heat up there was so fierce that the average work shift lasted no longer than two hours, with the workers who supervised the conversion process clad in ceramic protective suits – shieldsuits – that were cryo-cooled by a liquid suspension of silver nanorods.

Around the main access tunnel opening, the transporter wagons sat in stationary rows, driver cabs unoccupied, flatbeds bare. The dual-door rooftop hatches on each gaped like the beaks of hungry baby birds begging for food. Nearby, cranes stood idle, their booms drooping.

It was the middle of the morning; the place ought to have been a frenzy of industry. The general stillness was notable and a little bit eerie.

Kahlo, with Dev in tow, approached a knot of people gathered outside the access tunnel. There were surly miners dressed in thin cotton underalls that had the Anoshkin Energiya logo printed on them: two electrons orbiting a nucleus consisting of a pair of protons and a neutron. There were also a pair of harassed-looking executives with the same logo embroidered on their breast pockets in gold braid.

“This is completely illegal,” one of the executives was saying. “Your contracts clearly state that strike action cannot be called without management being notified and consulted beforehand. Nobody warned any of us that this was in the offing.”

“What’s that?” said one of the miners, cupping an ear. It was none other than Ben Thorne, head of the Fair Dues Collective. “Sorry, I can’t hear you over the deafening noise of all this machinery. Oh, no, wait. There isn’t any machinery going, because we’re
on strike
.”

“I could have your jobs for this. Click of the fingers, and you’d all be welfare fodder.”

“Oh, yeah? And where are you going to get anyone to replace us? Anoshkin Energiya’s going to magic up another eighteen hundred fully-trained employees just like that?”

The other miners growled and jeered.

“For your information,” Thorne continued, “this strike is
not
illegal. We’ve called it for health and safety reasons. You may not be aware, but clause twenty-eight, subsection two of our contracts stipulates that should workers’ wellbeing be in any way endangered or compromised, we are within our rights to walk out without giving prior notice.”

“That means literally walk out of the mine, as in finding refuge elsewhere,” said the executive.

“We choose it to mean walk out as in down tools and go on strike.”

“A specious interpretation.”

“Use big words all you like, but it’s simple enough. Can you guarantee our safety right now? All these earthquakes – can you be sure that not one of us is going to suffer injury or lose his or her life because of them? There’ve been deaths over at Heinkel-Junger Erzbirgbau, and at the X-O-Geo Corporation mine. Maybe we’re next.”

“Anoshkin provides every conceivable measure of –”

“Can you tell us this mine is absolutely, one-hundred-per-cent quake-proof?”

“We abide by all the TerCon regulations concerning –”

“Put it this way,” said Thorne. “Would you yourself, Mr Konstantinov, be willing to go into that mine behind me during a tremor?”

The executive, Konstantinov, blustered.

“Or you, Mr Savin?”

The other executive took refuge in purse-lipped silence.

Thorne said, “Thought as much. Therefore I and my brethren and sistren are legitimately calling a halt to drilling and excavation activities until such time as we have a cast-iron reassurance from you that we are no longer in jeopardy.”

“I shall have to contact head office about this,” said Konstantinov. “There are protocols I have to follow.”

“You do that, Yuri old pal. Take your time. We’re not going anywhere.” Thorne turned. “And who’s this? Captain Kahlo and friend. Thank you for coming. Much appreciated.”

“Thorne,” said Kahlo. “Rabble-rousing as usual.”

“Merely fulfilling my remit as democratically-anointed leader of the FDC to look out for my members’ interests. Yes, goodbye,” Thorne called out to the departing Konstantinov and Savin. “Let me know what head office come back with. If it involves a pay rise of, ooh, about five per cent, tell them I’ll consider it. Only consider, mind.”

“So, money,” said Kahlo. “That’s what this is about.”

“When is it ever not about money?” replied Thorne. “But it never hurts to exercise one’s right to protest, either. Every once in a while, management needs to be reminded who’s in charge. And you can’t deny that these earthquakes are putting us pit folk at risk. It’s high time somebody made a fuss about it, somebody decided to stand up and let their feelings be known.”

“What a surprise that it would be you.”

“You and I, captain, we don’t have a disagreement,” said Thorne. “I’m aggrieved about last night, but I realise now that
force majeure
was in play. For that I’m prepared to overlook your part in it.”

“We’re all right as long as you and your members keep the strike law-abiding and peaceful,” Kahlo said.

“I do have a bone to pick with him, though.” Thorne pointed at Dev.

Dev looked over his shoulder, then back at Thorne. He touched a finger to his own chest, with an expression of feigned innocence. “Me?”

“Yup. You, Mr ISS Man. That’s what you are, isn’t it? I should have worked it out sooner. What else could you be, with all that Plusser talk? You messed up my evening good and proper yesterday. I’d like to return the favour.”

“Yeah, about that,” said Dev. “I’d be happy to apologise. In fact, I’m going to. Any minute now, an apology is coming. Hang on. I’m sure it’s due. Any... minute...”

Thorne shook his head sourly. “Oh, you’re so funny.”

“Please. If you’ll just be patient. Apology loading. Buffering.”

“Listen, dipshit. You don’t fuck with me, understand? Fuck with me and you fuck with the whole of the Fair Dues Collective. That’s one of the most powerful organisations around. We have majority union control at this mine and eleven others. I really want to cause trouble, I can make a couple of calls and have half this planet’s industrial base on its knees within the hour.”

“And that matters to me why exactly? I’m not in mining. I’m not even an Alighierian.”

“My members get upset, they start to break things – expensive things. Those things get broken, management call in the riot cops. The riot cops weigh in, people get hurt, maybe even killed. Once it starts, it’s an inevitable progression.”

“Again, no skin off my nose.”

“Harmer,” said Kahlo. “He’s serious. Don’t antagonise him.”

“I’m not antagonising him,” said Dev. “He’s letting himself be antagonised. There’s a distinction.”

“I
am
serious,” said Thorne. “And you’d better start being serious too. I won’t be treated the way I was last night. Not by some jumped-up jackbooted ISS bullyboy who thinks he can just wander in and boss people around, accuse them of being Plussers, break any number of laws to get his own way.”

“So I offended your fine sensibilities, Thorne,” said Dev. “So what? Suck it up and get over it. It was for the greater good. There’s more at stake here than your ego, ridiculously inflated though that is. What do you want me to do instead? Put your interests ahead of the interests of everyone else on Alighieri?”

“I can make this all go away, whoosh, like it never was. No strike. Happy workers toiling away at the heliumface like before.”

“In return for...?”

“You. Humbled.”

“Huh?”

“Put in your place.”

“You’re joking. You mean if I kiss your behind, the strike’s off?”

“Not quite like that, but close.”

“Are you hearing this, the rest of you?” Dev said, addressing the miners assembled behind Thorne. “Does it make any sense? What kind of leader is it who claims he represents you when all he’s out for is petty payback? Is that someone you want to follow?”

“We’re okay with it,” said one of the miners. “Ben’s never steered us wrong in the past.”

“Not much love for the likes of ISS here,” said another. “Corporate security firm. Private sector. Capitalist tool of government.”

“Interstellar
Schutzstaffel
,” said a third, the tallest in the group, with a shock of ginger hair.

“Wow, a Nazi Germany reference,” said Dev. “That’s not reaching far back at all.”

“Smug bastard,” said Thorne. “I’m giving you an opportunity to make amends. All you have to do is accept a challenge, and honour will be satisfied. We go back to work. End of story.”

Dev looked at Kahlo. She, not very helpfully, just shrugged.

“A challenge,” he said. “Like eating a whole box of doughnuts or something?”

Thorne’s grin was sly. “Or something.”