Previously: The exile Ianno Starling and the mysterious AI Glimmer set out for wealth and glory. Their coordination is less than admirable. Reunited, they strike out down a dirt road, and are offered a ride by a friendly prospector.
Part 001 - Starling and the Unknown Zone
Part 007 - Glimmer and Starling and Taking Stock
The prospector turned the lock on the cab's rear window and rapped for Starling to open it. "Where are you headed?" he shouted.
"Venture, I hope," said Starling. He wanted to show he was savvy and experienced to keep from being taken advantage of, but he wanted to get as much information as he could while he did that.
"Get him talking about himself," said Glimmer. Starling sighed. It was what he was trying to do, but now it would look like it was her idea.
"Venture? You have family there?"
"No sir, just heading down the road."
"Ask about his family," said Glimmer. Starling bit his lip.
"Let me take you to Mausoleum," shouted the prospector. "Sorry I put you in the back." He thumped the shoulder of the large man sitting next to me. "My son was digging till sunrise and he's not too sociable while he's asleep."
The prospector shoved a beefy hand through the window. "By the way, my name's Blessed Ridges. My son here is Yoggie." He waved his hand up and down, and Starling shook it.
"Ianno Starling."
"My wife's staying in the city till we make it," said Ridges. "There's another two back there, a daughter and a son."
"Make it? You're prospectors, right?"
The big man laughed. "You are bad at traveling. It's pearls. They're everywhere out here, and a lot of men made it big finding a good claim and working it."
"Pearls..." Starling fumbled in his pocket. "Like this?"
He handed one of the objects he'd found in the tunnel to Ridges, who held it close and peered at it, somehow keeping the truck straight on the road. "We should have looked harder for a camera," moaned Glimmer.
"Like this, yeah. Where'd you find it?"
"Where do you find yours?"
Ridges laughed. "You catch on quick. If you can pick up a bucketload of these, you could buy a condo in the city. With servants. And a chef." He sighed and handed it back. "We're getting there. Well, we're not getting farther, I guess I should say. We can wire home enough to pay the bills and keep the kids in school."
"That's noble."
"We'll hit a big nest soon enough." Ridges' smile was strained.
A sad, dusty little town passed by on the left. "That's Venture," said Ridges. "Not much of one, right?"
Starling could spot furtive eyes glancing from windows. Nobody was on the streets. He shuddered. "Mausoleum's got a mausoleum, though," Ridges continued. "A big one. You sound educated, right? There's a team of archeologists from Soter there. Maybe you could find work with them."
"How much will my pearls get me?"
"In Mausoleum? A few nights, maybe a week, at the hotel, some food, some clothes, get you back on your feet. You'll have to walk or hitch back to your claim, though."
"That's fine. What about this?" He handed over one of Glimmer's marbles.
"Pretty. What is it?"
"What is it..." He tapped the earpiece. "What is it..."
"Oh! It's..." Glimmer's voice faded. "A pretty..."
"I found it near the other claim," said Starling. "Lots of them. I'm not sure what it is either."
Ridges handed it back. "Manzer might be able to help you," he said. "He's the postmaster, the guy you sell pearls to. We're headed there first thing when we get into town."
Starling nodded absently. "Keep him talking," he thought he heard Glimmer say, but his head was heavy and his vision dim. He drifted in and out of sleep until the truck came to a stop.
Mausoleum was a goodly town of wood-frame buildings. Ridges had parked on a side street leading to a busy central square. The green in the middle was covered with vendor's stalls, and the buildings around it were clean and well-kept. Beyond the square rose a maze of ramshackle buildings, some three stories high.
Ridges patted Starling's shoulder. "We're heading to our town kip for a shower first. You should probably see Manzer first if you don't have money." He pointed to a building on the square with a line coming out of it.
Ridges' son stepped out of the truck, shouldered a duffel bag, and waved at Starling through a yawn. "See ya," he said, and they disappeared into the boom town.
Starling shifted Glimmer's casing. "You should get me a satchel," she said.
"I'll just put it in my... my pack." He groaned. "My pack's still in the tunnel. I think I thought I wanted a light step. Something symbolic."
He joined the line in front of the post office. The man in front of him was intrigued by his clothes and accent, and Starling told him with as little detail as possible that he was from way, way out there, that he had tried prospecting to the south but had had terrible luck, and that he was looking for work and information.
His new friend introduced himself as Trabel, and Starling learned that the ghost town near Glimmer's house was called Proclamation, that the southern claims were mostly mined out and you had to be stubborn or desperate to keep working them, and that Trabel's claim to the east had the potential to be the biggest find since the one at Zarn's house. Zarn seemed to be the local magistrate, who had kicked off the boom by finding pearls at his golf course. Golf was a kind of leisurely sport, some kind of long-distance tennis.
The inside of the post office stunk of dirt and sweat, though the prospectors formed an orderly line down the middle of the room. The sides were occupied by chairs, with only a pair of weary old women sitting down, and a pamphlet spinner. The front of the room had one barred window.
A map on the wall showed Mausoleum to be on the east side of a mountain range, part of a frontier territory that butted up against a vaguely drawn approximation of the Unknown Zone. A star around the town of Holywater could have meant it was a territorial capital. The west side had a few towns Mausoleum's size and larger, and the green shading could have indicated farming zones. One big highway or railroad drove straight west from the mountain range, with an arrow pointing off the left side of the map:
SIO
SOTER
EMINENCE
961
The man behind Starling piped in to contest Trabel's claim, and asserted that his, Gnoman's, find was in fact the greatest patch of wealth since Zarn hit a hole-in-one right into a pearl cave. For the length of the line, it was fast-moving, and Starling wasn't able to learn anything more through the argument that erupted and Glimmer's giggling.
He finally reached the front of the line to meet a compact man with a visor and a cigarette, eyeing him suspiciously. "New in town."
"Yes sir. Had a bad time starting out." He dropped his pearls on the counter.
Manzer rolled his eyes. "Hardly worth the effort," he mumbled, and replaced them with a handful of coppery coins.
"Uh, also, I was hoping you might know what to do with these." Starling put a marble on the counter.
Manzer muttered under his breath and held it up to his face. His expression shifted. "Marvelous..."
He caught himself, and the marble disappeared with a snap of his wrist. "I've never seen it before. It looks pretty, and I might find a buyer, but I don't want to screw you if it's worth a lot or me if it isn't." He slammed a small stack of wide coins on the counter and pointedly eyed the line. "Come back to me in a week."
"And the coins, sir, they're..."
Manzer sighed. "Zarn." He tapped the largest coin. "Half-zarn. Centizarn. Go on now."
Starling asked around the square and found a soup stall that seemed to be the cheapest place to eat. "He named the currency after himself?" said Glimmer.
"Could be a prick," said Starling. "The town's doing all right, though. Do you want to try to get closer to the city?" The soup was thin and too spicy, but he sipped it gratefully.
"We should stay close to Dolphin Cottage for now," said Glimmer. "Right now in a pinch you could still walk there in a few days, right?"
The thought was unappealing. The sights and sounds of the town had lifted Starling's spirits, and he could swear he could smell an opportunity.
A half-zarn got him two nights at the hotel on the square, in a shared room. The bathwater was hot, though, and his roommates were out. He snuggled into the bathrobe in his locker, gave his clothes and three centizarns to housekeeping (with six millizarns in change), tucked Glimmer into the locker with a "good night," and passed out.