Networks | Glowfic Constellation

"I can help people learn the local languages and laws if you want to move in! I charge very reasonable rates!"

"I'm, er, not sure we have much money. We mostly haven't been using money since the great frost."

"I may be able to figure something out for that," Katherine says, "And even if not, there's work to be had, and there's time. Everything is going to work out."

"There's such a thing as a contract to pay in a year when you've got your feet under you again." Shrug. "Or not, I have other things to do."

"Those would be ill-advised given Har's criminal penalties. Yes, I think we're going to handle acclimatization ourselves. Languages, perhaps, but later. Let's go see the mayor, Nimo?"

Mayorward!

They pass through improvised living spaces made of scrap and curtains, and loud thumping rusty machinery that Katherine looks slightly suspicious of, and what looks like a bathhouse/laundry combo, and a workshop, and a big room with lots of children running around being loud watched over by two beleaguered-looking women, all of it slightly a tangled improvised maze, and finally to a large room with raggedy flags and other signs of pomp that have been scrounged up.

Katherine walks straight up to the group discussing things in low voices at the head of the room and interrupts them loudly, "I have good news! The door for evacuation is once again open! Mayor, I need to discuss the opportunities now available to you as soon as possible."

The mayor blusters a bit and sends someone to verify that Milliways exists. "Good news, good news, of course, but you can't just barge in here, really..."

"My apologies but this is of significant overriding importance. I can make an appointment if you prefer? Come back later, after you try to make do with what you have here for a while longer?"

"Er. We're doing alright all told. But that won't be necessary."

"Good. There's a lot to discuss - Milliways, Har, New Dover. I trust you have an accurate census and bill of resources, to help with our planning?"

"It might take a while to gather up that sort of information..."

Katherine sighs, slightly disappointed. "Well, we can discuss things in general terms for now, but really, having an orderly document to work with would have been welcome."

"Oi, we haven't exactly been sipping tea in a park, here."

"Nevermind, let's just move on. This is Nimo, a knowledge mage. Nimo, this is the Mayor, who I think is performing as best he can given his talents."

"I can count people and resources from here with my eyes closed if that's what you need before you can figure out what to do next."

"I would be much appreciative if you would. By my guess there are somewhere between several hundred and a thousand here. Twenty four rings to count people and sort them - men, women, children, adults, elderly, sick and injured in each category?"

"Sure, but how old is elderly for humans?"

"Let's go with, if they seem like they'd have a hard time with physical labor or their hair is mostly grey, they're old. It doesn't need to be totally accurate, this is to get us something to start planning with."

And while Nimo does that, Katherine explains Milliways and Har to the local administration, talking smoothly and competently and making an effort so that New Dover sounds very convincing.

She gives the totals for each category. She's interpreted them as overlapping - she counts male and female humans, then humans under seventeen, then humans over seventeen, then humans with white hair or signs of muscle wasting, then humans who don't meet her quick lazy definition of human health. And she gives the total number of humans in the area.

"...But those counts might be off. If there are frail non-elderly I might've counted them as elderly. And a full medical exam would've taken a long time, someone who seems healthy might secretly have some really rare inherited disease or something. I think some people in the injured group might be able to do physical work, I counted everyone with any missing pieces as injured."

Katherine pauses her discussion with the Mayor to say, "This is sufficient for planning, thank you. A full census can wait."

"Thank you, both of you, for being here," The mayor interjects. "Miss Nimo, is there anything you would like to have or do as long as you're here?"

"I wouldn't even know what you have. And it seems like Katherine's paying me for my work anyway."

"We have food. Some technology, clocks, engines, the like. There's probably a few artisans around somewhere? As I said, we haven't been using any money lately..."

"If anyone still has paper money or coins, you can redeem them in Milliways for their original value."

"Oh, right. That one-armed scout mentioned that. Then I suppose we probably do have some money around somewhere."

"Money is going on the list of resources I want you to make up. I may be able to lead a salvage expedition to a few places of business I know. Possibly Cambridge, too. That will have to wait on the map that Nimo is commissioned to make me, however."

"Who's in charge in this 'Har' place anyway?"

"The Empire of Har is a national government that enforces national laws. Think Parliament. Though they only elect a couple of positions. Then there is Ira Sani, the state. The current governor is a young man named Valanda who we will want to speak to. He's in Milliways, thankfully. Think, oh, Oxfordshire or something. Regional government. And then there's New Dover, run by us, and for that just think of the local town council."

"I can get started on maps if you have something for me to draw on."

Katherine opens a messenger bag and brings out a big paper map of the whole world, and another one of England and the Arctic. "Got these from Bar. Very good variety available there."

"I'm still not sure I understand what this... Milliways and Bar... Are about?"

Katherine resumes walking the Mayor through the wonders of the multiverse.

Nimo orients herself relative to the map and starts marking places where there are people.

The retrospective weather report is that it was cold everywhere she checks at every time she checks.

"I've never actually met Liane, how can I recognize her?"

And it was astonishingly, almost impossibly cold for a couple of weeks. It looks like some kind of ice-storm pattern that moved slowly across the map. Now, it's still cold everywhere, but at least there is liquid water near the equator.

"Oh- Hmm. Well, she was here on-" She names a date. "She flew an airship with Valanda and has a metal arm and a loud voice."

She checks times when Valanda was in this world in the air with other humans, finds Liane and marks her current location.

"Your world's weather is really bad, you know that?"

"Yes." Katherine's tone turns a bit icy. "I'm well aware. It was an unprecedented disaster and a tragedy of the grandest scale - more than a billion dead. If you check what it was like a year ago, you can see just how bad the recent turn for the worse has been."

She checks.

She counts the population before and after.

"Wow. Yeah. It really has been."

"Such is life. This is much of why we want to rebuild."

She looks over the map of surviving populations. "Survivors... Mostly in the arctic, where we sent everyone we could evacuate, and in regions that were already cold. It doesn't look like the Siberians have suffered at all. But the equatorial regions..."

There are Hari-continent-sized regions totally bare of human life.

"You could get a force mage to anywhere here in a day, just need to get one through the door. We could get everyone to the door."

"I'm tempted to try something like that, yes. It'll - not everyone will want to come through. And it looks as if the weather is improving again. It'll take weeks to get everyone through the door to Milliways, and through to New Dover again. However many of them want to come with. It looks like there are almost a hundred thousand survivors, all told... I'll have to demolish my tea room wall. But I think we really ought to do that, and also find a heat mage to make more magical heat sources. Liane has the right attitude, but failed to think long-term enough, I think. Who knows if this opportunity will come again?"