Could he? He’d never tried.
At school they’d said ten was tops so Tor had just accepted that, and made it his standard. Well after he slept, he’d give it a go. What was the worst that happened? He failed and looked retuleous, wasting a bunch of metal? Really though, as long as he remade the same field on it, even a botched device copy wouldn’t hurt anything. All he could really lose was a little time then. The chance of success was worth the risk of a few hours of wasted time.
In the morning he tried a batch of fifty before breakfast. It definitely took longer, sitting in place on the covers of his bed, the frame solid and unmoving but the mattress filled with something halfway soft, instead of straw, which had a tendency to poke through while you slept no matter how thick the covering material was. You got used to it, but it was never all that comfortable.
He dropped low and deep, like when he’d tried to cut that dark paving stone with a hastily built field over and over again. That kind of focus. Then he drove into the glassy blackness inside his mind, until even that went away, leaving only the idea. The field. From memory he transferred it over and held it in place until it locked onto each bit of metal in front of him.
An hour and twenty minutes. Good enough, if the devices actually worked. It took longer to test them all, shield devices as they were, than to build them. Two full hours. They seemed strong enough and the field didn’t fade at all. Good sign.
Now he had to wait at least six hours all told, so another four at least. If it held then, it could be a new and much faster way of getting things done. If not, well, back to regular methods. Tor ate breakfast with everyone else, eggs, bacon and a sweet roll that had been half butchered. It tasted fine, but whoever cut it hadn’t had a clue what they were doing at all. Sorlee should have caught that, but maybe she didn’t want to say anything for some reason? The girl may be selling sex for a living, but she could still get oddly shy at times with strange things, like giving giant men orders.
Since he was just waiting anyway and everyone else had other things to do in the morning, Tor decided to go and see what was up in the kitchen. Sara, of course, worked, supporting the war effort with her deliveries. Ursala took correspondence from her County and then checked on the girls of the station, since that was her job now too and she took it very seriously. Rolph had to go and check in at the palace since he was only supposed to be gone to help Tor write the letter to Trice. He got to wait all alone today, so he might as well be useful.
When he got to the dining room he saw what the problem was pretty quickly. For some reason the kitchen staff that he was used to seeing was gone. The people in the room were a mix of confused looking military men that he’d seen in the bath house, and girls that he’d seen, well, most of them not at all, honestly. If they’d met he’d probably had his eyes closed at the time. They seemed to recognize him instantly as he started making small corrections and occasionally barking orders at the men, most of whom responded better to it than not. After a few minutes they all started to get the idea, do what the little bearded man said. Good.
Sorlee looked ready to pull her hair out.
“I have no clue what’s going on Master Tor sir! I showed up to bake, but no one else came at all, so I grabbed people I recognized and put them to work, was… that right?”
Smiling, Tor asked one of the women to fold the scrambled eggs, not stir them. That way they’d hold together a bit better. She worked with a focus stone baking pan with high edges that sat on the metal on the griddle, but it seemed to be working, so he didn’t correct that. Why bother her if she was doing well enough? She had dark hair shot with gray, long, in a single braid down her back. She didn’t look pretty, but her smile was kind and she didn’t take offense at the correction. That this was one of the “girls” kind of surprised him, but hey, she did the job, and if people frequented her, why shouldn’t she help out at Wilderness Station?
As he looked around he saw a girl trying to cut a tray of rolls with a spatula instead of a knife. They were obviously still warm, which meant that trying to use the dull paddle just squished the poor things instead of separating them.
“Alright… You with the spatula at the rolls, stop please… Oh Gods please stop killing them like that. I beg you. Pretty please?” The girl looked familiar from the back. The dark curly hair kind of gave her away, along with the fact that she was the tallest woman in the room by far. Six-four at a guess. Tor got a sharp knife from the rack and approached her efficiently, and pushed in along side of her, causing her to stiffen as he bumped into her side, his arm accidentally touching her breast. Then when she realized who it was she started to step back. Shocked. Possibly scared.
Tor could see that.
“No, you do it, but use a good sharp knife on them, all right? Then use the spatula to lift them onto the plates as they come by. Don’t worry you’re doing fine, it just takes a little practice and the right tools. Like most things in life.” He kept his voice soft and relaxed, worried that she might panic or try to run away, seeing him there suddenly like that.
Then he moved to the next station and tried not to even think about the girl at the rolls. They got through the meal, but no one came to explain why the kitchen had been emptied. He didn’t really have time to run a kitchen himself right now, but he would if that’s what was needed. No matter what else was going on everyone needed to be fed, right?
Tor found Godfrey and Kolb yelling at each other in back of one of the furniture shops. The bald man looked ready to hit the military leader and neither was backing down from whatever the situation was. Tor walked over quietly and spoke gently. Neither of them seemed to hear him, but there was no battle aura, just anger and loud words. Finally he spoke a little louder. When that didn’t work he screamed at them as loud as he could.
“Situation Report!” He’d seen it work before at least, though Rolph had been shouting it then. He just didn’t have a spare Prince hanging around today, so he’d have to do it himself. Tor felt incredibly awkward the instant the words left his mouth, but didn’t let it show on his face.
Kolb turned to him and spoke a single word, his voice coming out as a low half hiss.
“Thieves.”
Chapter seventeen
Looking from one man to the other Tor tilted his head quizzically. Why would they be yelling, and almost fighting, over thieves? Surely neither one of them was the thief. After a few seconds Tor decided this was simply a fact. If that were the case then they wouldn’t be yelling at each other, they’d have fought physically, and Godfrey would be dead already, no matter which side of the matter he was on, right or wrong.
So it wasn’t that.
Holding up his right hand a little Tor spoke softly, trying not to trigger either man into violence. Neither was going into combat rage, but that didn’t mean no one would get hurt if they got into it. Probably him when he got between them. Luckily his shield was on, just in case that happened.
“What was stolen, do we know who took it, and why?”
He really didn’t want to make too big of a deal over people lifting something or another if he could help it. At Wilderness Station there was an awful lot of expensive gear just lying around for instance. What would someone like Sorlee have done if she thought the family farm was going to be lost and didn’t have a convenient Tor to step in for them? Or more to the point, if someone didn’t realize they had him to help them out? Anyone could have asked and he’d do what he could, but did they know that? They might be tempted to say, lift a water heater or maybe take a compressor unit and sell it. Who could blame them?
Well… the military could. They publicly beat people for that kind of thing, Tor had heard, though so far no one had been at his house yet. He kind of wanted to keep it that way.
“They stole our cooks! Also fifty good men with building gear and four of our transports! It was the military!” Kolb didn’t shout, but the tone was aggressive and directed at Godfrey who clenched his jaw and right fist so hard it turned red and white.
“Ah! Well, Kolb… the cooks and all, and the military men, those are kind of their people. It’s inconvenient for us, true, but that’s not really theft. Now the transports are ours, or more to the point they belong personally to me and Godfrey as co-owners, not the military at all, so I’m sure those were only borrowed and whoever did it fully intends to return them. It would have been nice if they’d asked first. Unless… Did they Godfrey? Perfectly fine for
