Welcome to another chapter of King Of The Planet. This time you’ll learn a lot more about what life is like on a mining colony on a moon in another Dimension (in case you didn’t know.) And you will learn the value of ethics in corporate poltics!! Chapter Twelve Hydroxygen production was the sole reason for the moon colonies. In less than three days I had already seen plenty about Walden needing change, but first I had to understand Walden’s economy and people, and to solve the growing mystery of Hydroxygen itself. The best way to start was seeing for myself the mines and processing plants, and the cities built to serve them. How did the people there handle Hydroxygen, being far more likely to be exposed to it? Not only did today have no meetings I could not easily delay (although three negatives in one sentence should have told me something), but handily built into my schedule were ceremonial visits to Walden’s fourteen other cities. All I had to do was push up the schedule to visit the closest city and let them know we were coming. And that was why my royal shuttle now steadily rose, beginning our journey to the closest Hydroxygen mine, processing plant and city: Flint’s Pond. I brought company. Tasha sat next to Jonez, me with Brenda. Tasha was with us mostly because Jonez was going, and she asked. I relied on Jonez for medical advice, especially because she was already concerned about Hydroxygen. I thought I could trust her. And it never hurt to have security along. As for Brenda, yesterday she impressed me by volunteering to taste my dinner after her sister had poisoned my lunch. I needed to spend more time with her and her sister, perhaps with no food involved. Target would have been there but Tasha told me as the shuttle rose from the Palace landing pad that he was busy interviewing “replacement aides and others. He’s solidifying his position. It’s been worse. The body count is low and none,” she added pointedly, “are Guards.” “And this is based on his suspicions?” “William altered the figures. But as for anyone else, there is no evidence, no. William sought to embarrass him, not eliminate him. Although in the Palace elimination usually comes after embarrassment.” Palace politics sounded a lot like going to the bathroom. I turned to Brenda. She was my Advisor on Ethics. “As far as I can see, Target is killing to protect his career. Is it okay for Target to kill in self-interest?” “Is there any other reason?” she replied. It was a beautiful morning. We rose through the artificial pink clouds over the capital city. The buildings and streets looked even grayer than usual. We cleared the valley and, staying about thirty feet over the surface, began speeding towards Flint’s Pond. It would take a less than an hour. There was nothing in our way, no buildings or even tall trees or hills. The only mountains were far in the distance. I saw a lot of uncolonized and unused land, covered with brownish grass. There was no water on the surface. Periodically, there were large blackened patches of Earth. “Dragon fire,” Tasha said. “The first colonists found the moon in rough shape, with large areas scorched. Dragons on the hunt can burn a whole herd of Zenobras.” “I keep hearing about Dragons. Are any still around?” She smiled. “Want to speak to one?” I sat up. “Really? They talk?” “In their way. They expect you will contact them sooner or later. Every other King has. The dragons refuse, so don’t be disappointed.” “What if a King insists?” She shook her head, glancing at Jonez. “I’ll guess you never tried telling a Dragon what to do.” I got that same look when I asked why the artificial clouds were pink and not the universal gray, especially given some clouds actually are gray. It reminded me of last night, when Phyllis told me I was being sweet for worrying so much about Target forcing an aide to eat poison in front of me. Phyllis was not being callous, just trying to comfort me. Why did everyone accept the unacceptable? There were so few exceptions, and outside the Palace I’d only met one: Tyrian. If they could, all but Tyrian would have patted me on the head at my apparently ongoing naïve attitude. Possibly him also. After another ten minutes I saw a far larger blackened patch, this one laced with orange splashes. Dragon patches were a hundred yards wide at most (unless the Dragon had bad aim.) This patch blackened kilometres. And was fenced. I asked the pilot to slow down but she said it was against regulations. “That doesn’t look like Dragons,” I said, staring out the window. “Hydroxygen explosion, nineteen years ago,” Jonez told me. “It was in a small boulder, the size of an end table. The extraction process went south.” “And it’s still like that?” “The half-life of exploded Hydroxygen is three hundred years. The patches the Dragons burn grow back in a few years. Not this. Disturbing Hydroxygen requires a lot of expertise. Moving it alone can cause an explosion.” There were some small animals grazing outside the fenced area. “It’s quarantined,” Jonez said. “Just walking on it is enough. Within twenty-four hours, the animals are too sick to move by themselves. A day after that, they’re dead. Anything that eats the carcass also dies. Regular crews tour these areas to prevent contamination spreading. We get people in the infirmary who are contaminated. I don’t know about the animals.” Flint’s Pond was impressive from the air, although one could also say it was an alien blot on the landscape. The city was virtually identical to the look and layout of the capital, complete with gray buildings on a grid pattern in a valley. I was told the small city had over 5,000 people. All the valleys were created. Half a kilometre away was a smaller valley, filled with a large monolithic building, the processing plant. In scattered areas around both valleys were the mines—strip mines, so the surface was scarred with large ovals. The pits were all filled with scummy looking water. I got blank looks from my Ethics Advisor when I asked about restoring the environment to its original condition, and what impact the exposed Hydroxygen might have to the people working with it. A welcoming committee waited at the landing pad. As we slowly came to rest, they came out to form a small group, a handsome tall man taking the lead. His skin was a deep coral. He did not look healthy, nor did most of the men and women behind him--they appeared underweight with dark shadows under their eyes. Their skins were also coral, although in lighter shades. He was the alpha male manager. When our docking doors opened and we walked down the ramp, me of course in the lead, this other lead guy, obviously the King of his own world, bowed. The others, behind him, followed suit. I nodded in acknowledgement. “Your Majesty,” he said, straightening. “Welcome to the Pond.” The little group applauded. “I am the CEO of Flint’s Pond HU Limited LSMFT. We call it the Pond for short. I myself, the CEO as I said, am John Galt Postal.” He held out a hand, and a glad hand it was. I took it. His skin was cool, his grip weak. All the others respectfully watched from a respectful distance. “You have heard of me, perhaps?” he asked. I had taken my dog for outside to pee instead of reading the book, but yes I’d heard of John Galt and had a built-in suspicion of anyone named after him. “I have. And the Mayor of Flint’s Pond. Is the Mayor here?” “Mayor?” He had another of those patronizing smiles I’d lately encountered so frequently. “If I understand you correctly, sire, that is yours truly. As CEO I am responsible for the entire facility, including its workers and all subcontractors.” “But you were not elected?” “No, sire. I was promoted.” He introduced me (briefly, he was the star) to each member of the group, all of whom turned out to be HULLS managers. An eager group they were, although they appeared to have to work hard to generate any energy. Galt then pointed the way to a large gray building next to the landing pad. “We have arranged a tour, if it pleases you. I thought it best to start with Corporate Headquarters.” I’m not sure why he thought five floors of endless rows of cubicles would be a great way to start, but I had never been a manager. The ceilings were low and there were no windows. In these administrative areas, it was all workers on computers or telephones, typing or talking. They were isolated from each other by the low cubicle walls. It did not look like much of a life. I hope it paid well, and when asked was told it paid extremely well, to entice workers here from their homes and families on Murdoch. It was like living in a hive eight hours a day (actually, Galt told me it was ten, with no overtime), workers scurrying around us. No wait. That is not quite the right analogy. It is too fast for what I saw. Bees in a hive zip along, busy, anxious to get on with it. The workers I saw, no one was in a rush. They also seemed to have little energy. As we went through the final floor, listening to more of Galt’s endless rattling, I almost walked into Tyrian. He stood in a cubicle, waiting for us, his posture like the other day before he threw himself under my Royal Carriage. This time, he stepped out into the walkway in front of me and gave me much the same look he had when I saw him after he was arrested for asking to see me. “Tyrian? What are you doing here?” I asked, surprised. “You work in Walden, you told me.” He bowed. “Your Majesty. I did. I was contacted by my employer the moment I stepped off the Palace grounds yesterday and was transferred here last night. I was not given much time to pack.” He frowned, not bothering to fake a smile like everyone else. “As for why I am here, I only have my guesses.” I looked at Galt. “Why was this man transferred here?” He shrugged. “He was brought in late yesterday. I was instructed to put him to work in quality control. I gather there was a problem with a routine rotation.” I was certain he knew a lot more but there was no way I would pry it out of him. Either Tyrian had been seen as a protestor who might embarrass the company, or possibly he was seen as an employee who had an unapproved and uncontrolled connection with the new King. Or perhaps it was something else, Walden politics being what it was. Whatever the reason was, I did not like it. “Do you want to return to the capital, Tyrian?” I asked. He glanced at Galt and nodded. “Then pack your things and meet us at the shuttle after we finish the tour. You’re returning with us.” I looked at Galt. “From now on, this man is one of my Palace advisors, and is to be treated accordingly.” “Of course.” Galt bowed. A senior bureaucrat, he obviously knew better than to question the King. At least, to the King’s face. Tyrian smiled with at what I hoped was gratitude as we walked away, but then I saw him sigh when he thought I wasn’t looking. Poor guy. He must feel even more of a cog now than he did before. He wasn’t getting much of a say in anything affecting his life. If what had happened was what I’d suspected, I owed him something. He had only been transferred because of me. We continued the tour, finishing the administrative section and then into the processing plant, taking a brief shuttle ride to the huge gray building. Not only were there no windows, the building was armoured. I noticed the thickness of the walls. “It makes the workers feel more secure, your Highness,” Galt told me. “From an Hydroxygen explosion? Can you tell me about that? It seems so important.” He took a little breath but did not miss a step. “Of course, your Highness, we prefer not to talk about those dangers. Here on Walden, we have been fortunate. I have been in charge of the Pond for seven years and we have flourished. That is what we should think of. The Hydroxygen we produce and ship to our home company. “We try to avoid any danger. If there was a problem, we would all be exposed. That includes myself. The plant’s walls are protection for minor problems but should something go horribly wrong and there was a major explosion, all of this would be gone. The processing plant and the city itself.” He sounded quite calm about it. “We have extensive safety protocols.” The plant was a series of machines and vats and tubes and dials on machines I did not understand. He led me through a process, where the raw Hydroxygen, which was orange, was fed into something that then did something to it so something else could do something. And so on. There were a lot of somethings. The plant was big and complex. The final processed product came out in small squares and was still coloured orange, but a blood orange. We left the processing plant and returned to the shuttle to fly over the mines. Initially, Hydroxygen was plentiful and had been found on or near the surface. Strip mining had left large barren open pits, now filled with scummy water. “We still find Hydroxygen on the surface, but it is increasingly difficult, of course,” Galt explained as we stopped over a pit. “Several years ago we found large deposits of Hydroxygen underground. Through a process called fracking, we inject water and chemicals into the earth. It frees up the Hydroxygen, which carries it back to the surface, into these former pits. We then extract the mineral from the water. It is more expensive and difficult than simple mining, but does fill our production quotas.” “And the environment? Isn’t the Hydroxygen dangerous, in these ponds? And doesn’t fracking do something to your water supply?” He clasped his hands together, cocking his head a little. “Your Highness, Walden is a mining colony. There was nothing here before except animals. Walden exists only to be exploited. As for any pollution issue, we import drinking water from the capital. Despite the rumours, the air is perfectly safe. Look at me, I breathe it myself, don’t I?” Galt slapped his chest. “After we leave, the animals can have what is left.” He waited for questions, but his attitude answered them. Then he began to cough. He smiled, waving his hand, but could not stop coughing. He doubled over. Jonez went to him, opening the medical bag slung over her shoulder, already reaching into it. The coughing grew deeper. Brenda pulled up a chair that he slumped into as he reached into a pocket. As he pulled out a small bottle of pills Jonez took out a small silver gadget. “This is faster,” she told him. She pressed it against Galt’s bare arm and I heard a whoosh. A moment later, the coughing slowed, then stopped. She gave him a drink of water. “Are you all right?” I asked after he caught his breath. “Yes, sire. I am so sorry. There appears to be a virus going around.” Jonez shook her head. “You have the first stages of Hydroxygen poisoning. So do a lot of the people I’ve seen.” “It is company policy,” he replied, “that we don’t.” “I would have to conduct some tests but if it isn’t from showering in water from here, it’s from breathing the air. These ponds are full of Hydroxygen. A good wind can pull particles of it into the air.” “The research is not conclusive.” “You are not conducting any research.” “Because it is not necessary. None of us will be exposed long enough to be seriously impaired.” “Without the research how do you know?” “Company guidelines.” He stood, gathering himself. “My apologies for that moment, your Highness. They do happen. We call it our Flint’s Pond moment. No problem at all.” He motioned to the pilot and we sped away from the open pit filled with contaminated water. On the way back, Galt leaned towards me. “Your Highness, during our tour I have spoken by phone with the HULLS CEO in the capital. He requests that we retain here that worker you mentioned, Tyrian Postal.” “Why?” “He said it was company business, sire. I’m sure it has something to do with production.” “No. We’ll explain it to the CEO when we return,” was all I said. The rest of the journey to Flint’s Pod was quiet. As we walked out of the shuttle, I saw Tyrian waiting, a pair of suitcases and some boxes at his side. He joined us as I said good-bye to Galt. When we were inside the shuttle and gaining altitude, I asked Brenda what she thought about most of Flint’s Pond apparently being sick from Hydroxygen pollution. “It was in the contracts they signed,” my Ethics Advisor replied.
Posted on: Fri, 26 Sep 2014 01:32:28 +0000
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