Day 16 - The Farmer, The Fighter and the Adept

  Tiller’s eyes widened and instantly he said, “No way!”

  Cutter was dismayed. “Pal, come on! It’s the fairest way to do this. I’m going to pump my money into this place to get the ball rolling. I want to be able to booze and… maybe some other stuff…”

  Tiller said, “You have a wife. You’re disgusting.”

  Cutter shook his head. “Dream, remember?”

  Tiller folded his arms, “That’s very convenient. I need to remember that the next time Lisa’s out of town.”

  Cutter pointed a finger at him, “I would never cheat on Lisa! But this is a goddamned dream. And if I want to dip my w—”

  Reader shouted, red-faced. “Stop!”

  They turned to look at him.

  Reader said, “That’s two different conversations. Let’s talk about salaries now and deal with Cutter’s lack of morals and willingness to cheat on his version of our wife later.”

  Cutter mumbled, “Dreaming isn’t cheating…”

  Tiller said, “Fine. No salaries. It wastes capital.”

  Cutter said, “You want to incentivize me to hold some back, is that it? We’re like the exec officers of a company. Executives get paid.”

  Tiller said, “It’s going to waste money we could use for growth.”

  Timidly, Reader said, “Um… actually, I agree with Cutter…”

  Tiller turned on him, “You can’t be serious!”

  Reader stammered, “Well, hear me out, hear me out. I’m comfortable using the collected money on resources if I think that will let me develop tools or build tools that will help the enterprise… but, Tiller, we’re going to be here for a long time. Cutter’s right, if we don’t have some outlet—no, I’m not talking about banging prostitutes!—then we’re going to need some discretionary spending.”

  Tiller sagged. Minutes after agreeing to rule by committee he could feel himself being ganged up on. He had the thought that it wasn’t too late to end this whole arrangement, nobody had seriously invested yet.

  Cutter’s eyes went wide. “Is the narrator fucking with me? You’re thinking about bailing the first time you lose some control?”

  Tiller’s hands flew up. “No! No I wasn’t! Well… the thought flashed through me, but it’s natural. We need to come up with some rules about how we deal with this bastard describing our thoughts, by the way. Fine, so it looks like we’re doing salaries. What are we talking about here? A coin a day?”

  Cutter blew a raspberry through his lips. “Seven coins a week? Slow down. A session at Spinner’s costs… hmmm… a good one would be five coins, I guess, with a little chow at the end. I want to be able to do that at least a couple times a week.”

  Reader murmured, “A nice meal at Dave’s would cost a few coins.”

  Cutter said, “How about… 5 coins a day.”

  Tiller’s eyes went wide. “FIVE! A DAY! That’s 35 coins each a week, 105 coins between the three of us. That’s a huge chunk of what the farm generates!”

  Reader was calm, “Right now, maybe. But Cutter’s going to bank fifty or a hundred every day he goes out. And the farm is going to start making thousands eventually. As long as there’s enough money to keep the plots full of plants the farm shouldn’t care.”

  Cutter said, “This is what I’m talking about, pal. You’re thinking big, which is great, but you’re being short-sighted.”

  “I am not being short-sighted.”

  Cutter folded his massive arms. “If we drew a hundred bucks between us for a year, what would that add up to?”

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  Tiller didn’t answer.

  Cutter said, “Five grand. You’re planning on making that weekly in a year’s time, maybe more than that!”

  Tiller frowned and pursed his lips. He looked from one of them to the other. “I’m going to lose this if it goes to a vote, amn’t I?”

  Cutter said, “Hell you are!”

  Reader said, “I suppose…”

  Tiller sagged. “Fine. Five coins a day. But if I don’t want mine, I can leave them in the main kitty.”

  Cutter said, “Pal, I don’t care what you do with them, as long as I’ve got cash to spend. Right, so with that sorted, I’m going to go and actually earn us all some of the money we’re arguing about.”

  Reader trotted over to Lita and soon the two were buzzing away across the landscape.

  The ensuing silence was a little awkward. Reader and Tiller had never been alone together, and suddenly they lacked Cutter’s boisterous energy.

  Tiller stammered, “I’m not awkward. I don’t know what he’s talking about.”

  Reader agreed, “Completely. This is fine.”

  The silence lingered a little longer. Tiller absently toed the earth with his boot.

  Reader suddenly, fairly urgently, said, “I have an idea about transport.”

  Tiller, seizing the lifeline, said, “Really? That would be the biggest help. We’re going to need to move goods to Medley faster, but also further afield.”

  Reader said, “Well… I can already make levitation weaves. That means frictionless motion, which is a good thing, right? And it means you can build carts without needing complicated stuff like wheels and axles—those things wear as well, by the way. Like, a lot.”

  Tiller said, “That’s fantastic!”

  Reader held up a hand. “Hang on. There are a few catches. I’m not sure how long I can get a weave to hang around before it, you know, goes out. I have learned how to make attached weaves that turn them on and off, but the permanence thing is going to take a lot of practice.”

  Tiller said, voice high and excited, “Well get practicing!”

  Reader grimaced. “I also haven’t figured out how to… you know, make it go. Like forward. Or turn for that matter. I told you guys I was just starting to figure this out.”

  Tiller stopped and thought for a moment. “Okay. Well, you’ve only been here for basically two weeks, right?”

  Reader said, “Right.”

  Tiller said, “And how long did it take you to learn your first weave.”

  Reader said, “Oh, like five or six days, and it sucked. Nearly got me killed.”

  Tiller said, “How many do you know how to do now?”

  Reader said, “Three. Three pretty well anyhow. I’ve been messing around with a few more.”

  Tiller nodded, his enthusiasm evident, “Exactly. So the better you get at it the faster you can learn new weaves. Go start experimenting. I mean, that’s basically your job in all of this. I need to water the plants and then I’m really serious about cutting down more trees to get a real roof and clear some land. You get to working on those weaves.”

  Reader said, “Okay.”

  Reader didn’t move.

  Tiller said, “Um… was there something else?”

  Reader smiled apologetically, “I… uh… need something to practice on…”

  Tiller said, “Like one of those logs?”

  Reader said, “That would be great.”

  Ten minutes later, Tiller sweating and panting, another log lay on the earth. Tiller looked around. The supply was far from endless. He tried to eye things up. He imagined there were probably enough trees to supply the logs for a roof, but that would probably be it. If they wanted other buildings, or materials for Reader’s cart project, they’d need more wood. He contemplated going to another island for trees but was stopped by the issue of transporting them back. He thought about asking Reader to work on a sawmill project instead of the carts so they could get more out of the lumber they had.

  Before Tiller could speak, Reader said. “You’re right. We do need to do something about the narrator speaking all our thoughts out loud.”

  Tiller shrugged, tired. “Eh, maybe it will keep us honest and open.”

  Reader said, “Anyway, I feel like a sawmill might be pretty complicated. On the other hand, the weaving would overlap a lot with the cart making. I could levitate a blade, and find a way to anchor it one place. If I can get the carts to move, then I can probably get the saw blade to spin.”

  Tiller said, “So what you’re saying is you can solve both problems with the same research?”

  Reader shrugged, “A portion of them anyway. One will help the other. But I definitely can’t do it fast. You’re right, we’re going to need to go elsewhere for lumber. If I can get the carts to work that will make transporting it easier. And, in the meantime, I bet someone in Medley would sell some planks.”

  Tiller said, “And deliver?”

  Reader said, “Probably. For a price.”

  Tiller deflated, “Everything has a price.”

  Reader said, “Same as back home.”

  Silence again. More comfortable this time, the two men already coming to know each other, which was pretty strange as they had only come to the conclusion the night before that they were the same person and therefore should already know each other.

  Reader said, “We’re all so different as well, though.”

  Tiller nodded, his mind busy with thoughts of carts, lumber, and delivery fees.

  When the silence had stretched on a while, Reader turned to the other man. He looked at him, strained and occupied, too distracted to even hear the narration describing his look of anxious contemplation.

  Reader said, “Hey, Tiller.”

  Tiller shook his head, leaving his distraction, to look at Reader.

  He said, “Yeah, Reader?”

  Reader said, “I’ve been thinking…”

  The adept turned his head and looked at the awkwardly shaped mound that composed Bonk’s grave. Tiller had blended it as best he could, but the body within was simply so bulky that it was impossible to miss without wasting a huge amount of earth that could otherwise be put to work growing crops.

  Reader said, “I’m really worried about the ogres.”

  Tiller nodded, wincing as another concern added to the others that stacked in his mind. He too looked at the mound.

  Quietly, Tiller said, “Yeah. Me too. I can’t stop thinking about it. We really need to get that composter.”