Functionaries

“Really, Goody Jamund, I would have expected this to be evident to you!”

Chief Engineer Mikal, recently elected to this post governing all of the Obokedan Port, opened a golden box and extracted a disk wrapped in paper. She unwrapped the paper and placed a compressed cake of tea on the table. With a very small tea needle, Mikal began prying up segments of tea leaves.

With a segment extracted, Mikal separated the tea leaves into her vast palm. She inspected the pile, sniffed it, and delicately removed any twiglets she found.

Goody Jamund sat knees together, clutching her hat in two hands. She bounced her knees up and down and tried to hide her unquashable desire to look everywhere all at once. The people of this island, she noticed—with Mikal herself being a prime example—were of a solid and sturdy build. Jamund was amused at that contradiction with their great works. Everything about Obokeda suggested height and light, not least of which were the miraculous aerial gyroscopes, which Jamund had the pleasure of viewing from this office.

But who knew? The Obokedans were a bit unpredictable. Perhaps they selected their Chief Engineers for their ability to intimidate in negotiations. Mikal did not even glance at the whirling metal beyond the windows of her office. It was a honed skill, Jamund guessed. As long as you can inure yourself to visual splendor, you can maintain power over your audience.

Satisfied with the tea, Mikal poured the rest into a strainer, and set it into a pot of boiling water. “Truly, we have not been secretive about this one bit! There is one rule, Goody Jamund, and that is that the rule of openness to all.”

Jamund turned back to Mikal at this. “What about—”

“As long as people are willing to pay the necessary fees,” Mikal interrupted, without the slightest trace of concern, “and as long as people abide by the very few restrictions we place on their liberty, we take all comers.” She handed a cup of tea to Jamund. It warmed her hands in the crisp air. Mikal continued. “That includes scientists, diplomats, and even city planners like you. We are in the business of efficiency, Goody Jamund! Efficiency! It is to our benefit if more transports are manufactured to specifications that can handle the ‘scopes.”

Jamund felt a slight sneer threatening to make its way onto her face, and she banished it with a thought. She put on a wan smile instead. “However, Chief Engineer Mikal, this is mostly sensible for your people, because as yet, the world knows but one way to construct the magnificent material that powers the ‘scopes.”

“This is an insidious argument,” Mikal shot back. “We learned how to make the ‘scopes of our own ingenuity. And yes, we had access to some resources in the sea. But there is no evidence to suggest you may not have the same options in your lands. Your own home of Birkivior sits on a fjord. Yes, it’s not open ocean, like we have around us, but the geographic potential is there. Why don’t you just try to find the rhenium you require? And while you do, how can you impugn us for using what we do have?”

“Rhenium is one of the rarest metals in the world, Chief Engineer Mikal,” Jamund retored. “You know that it is highly unlikely that a source as vast as yours might be found anywhere else.”

Mikal sat back and crossed her arms. “How is this my problem? I am simply offering you ideas.”

Jamund felt the anger flare up in her, so she stepped up and walked over to the glass walls of the office to breathe. Mikal stayed where she was, sipping her tea and watching her.

The ‘scopes looked like enormous rings, each orbiting inside another. They were so large that they played tricks on the mind. They stretched the diameter of the central zone of the city. Each ring was of that characteristic quicksilver rhenium color. Each one was marked with regularly spaced protrusions, each protrusion representing a far-off container being held along vast and powerful magnetic strips. The ‘scopes would rotate and pitch and yaw with tremendous speed, before depositing its packages onto prearranged tracks. The movement of the ‘scope would be so fast, and their size was so large, that it was almost as if an item was instantaneously transported from one side of the city to another.

With multiple ‘scopes, inside each other at just the right angle, and with open segments of the circumference just so to avoid areas with permanent buildings or human inhabitants, the complexity of the movement was more than one could grasp. It was beautiful. An intricate dance of metal.

The movements were so particular and intentional that it perturbed Jamund. Even if Birkivior could get the rhenium, it was a whole other project to design the ‘scope movements themselves. She sighed. How could any city hope to catch up with Obokeda? They were so far ahead. Birkivior just needed a little help. A small opportunity to catch up.

Jamund turned back to Mikal, who was busy pouring herself another tea. “We don’t impugn you for anything, Chief Minister Mikal.”

Mikal chuckled. “Your people certainly seem to, if what I read in the news is correct. Why is it that when a city fails to do as well as another city, their recourse is not to question themselves, but to blame others? I’ll never understand it.”

Jamund squeezed her fists. Could she do it? It had to be done. She had to do it. “Chief Engineer Mikal, it’s true that we have a lot of work to do to catch up. Birkivior is up to the task. I came here out of that same openness you referred to earlier. Although the business between our cities has… dwindled in past decades, I do think the core of amity is still there. I do feel—” She paused here, consciously stopping her teeth from gritting. “—that with your help, we could grow to be natural partners.”

Mikal stayed seated, with a bemused look on her face. “Well, excellent!” she said wryly. “You didn’t have to come all the way here for that. We’d happily take on the transport of your goods around the ocean, if you would wish.”

Jamund nodded. “And we would love to begin an exchange of scientists and miners, to help us seek out what we need.” That, at least, was in the script she had been given.

Mikal clasped her hands together. “Well, this is better than I had expected! This is good. There is no reason for us to be enemies, when we can both grow more together than apart.”

Jamund walked slowly back to her chair from the window. The final moment. She could leave things as they were, allow Birkivior to play second fiddle to Obokeda for decades to come. That was the right way to do things.

But it wasn’t the most efficient way.

“One more thing, Chief Minister Mikal,” Jamund said.

“Yes?”

“I brought a gift for you. I hope it is to your liking.”

“Oh? What is it?”

“I had heard of your special appreciation of the finest teas. You are famous as a great connoisseuse of team. Then you must have heard of our greatest and most secret mountain tea.”

Mikal froze, and her eyes opened wide. “Yes, of course I have!”

Jamund continued, undaunted. “We know that your new post may make it difficult for you to leave Obokeda for some time.”

“Yes, yes??”

“I myself have never tried this tea. The few sanctioned teasmiths who work with this produt have been doing so for centuries, and we have strict restrictions on its availability. It is certainly never permitted to be taken beyond our borders. However—” Jamund glanced briefly at Mikal.

Mikal was shaking in excitement.

“However, I spoke to my council before coming to see you. I have been permitted to bring one serving to you, given the importance of our cities’ relationship in the future. Please accept it as a gesture of goodwill from Birkivior to Obokeda, and as a gesture of friendship from me to you.”

Jamund could see Mikal’s eyes tracking Jamund’s hands as she reached into her bag and pulled out an elegant birchwood box.

“With our very best wishes,” said Jamund, handing over the box carefully with two hands. Mikal rose for the first time in their meeting and accepted the box.

“I have—” Mikal began, then started afresh. “I have been hoping to taste this my whole life. This is a gift that means more than you may ever know. Thank you, Goody Jamund. Thank you.”

Jamund bowed. “It is of no concern. I look forward to the future partnership between our two cities.”

Mikal didn’t respond. She was just staring at the box in her hands.

Jamund gathered her bag. As she turned to go, Jamund glanced back. Mikal had placed the box on her desk, and was very slowly unlatching it, her hands still shaking. She had forgotten all about Jamund.

Jamund grinned and looked up at the magnificent view of the great gyroscopes. She saved that image in her mind as she strode out of the office and back into the city of Obokeda.

Mikal’s death would put Obokeda in disarray. And who’d be left to pick up the pieces? Why, the friendly, non-threatening city of Birkivior. And then, negotiating for the purchase of metal and the construction of Birkivior’s own gyroscopes would be a different matter entirely.

Jamund left the great port city of Obokeda, and began the journey home.