The Treatise of Pall, C2

Chapter Two

The Treatise of Pall

“It was the bomb”

“there is no fear of God before their eyes.”

Romans, 3:18 – Darby

Eaglestown was always abuzz on Saturdays.

Oh, through the week you’d have the boys of the village sitting along the wall at the corner fillin’ station – the usual activity practically every night of the week (except Sundays, of course).

Cars would do burnouts at the corner, and girls would cheer their favorite team down at the ballfields on Thursday eve.

But Saturday’s were special.

Saturdays, it seems in memory anyway, were always full of blue skies.

This was the day of a great gathering.

At the corner market, all the local farmers would gather before daylight to load the public bins with the fruit of their hard work.

Everyone in the village would gather at the corner.  Hickory Cane and Silver Queen Corn, Fat Boy and Bigger Boy tomatoes, and of course, okra and half-runners.

It was all there.  Real bounty, for this sleepy little town.

Some of the boys would get together with their fiddles and banjos and entertain through the day.

Yup…Eaglestown was the place to be on Saturdays.

Of course, things had changed over the years.  What went from some still coming into town in horse and buggy (even though cars by then had long been the norm) – most of that had faded by now, save for the occasional bunch from down Friendsway (a community named after the “Friends” church…something similar, I’m told, to the Shakiers in the Western territories of Ariance).

Buggies gave way to cars, and where kids once played age-old games like kick the can and flashlight tag, now they played with robotic cars in the parking lot of Ott’s filin’ station.

Somehow, things were still similar though. Boys were reckless, as always.

It used to drive old man Harmon stark-raving mad when they’d venture over and across East Broadway and into the village market.  He’d turn every shade of purple “Darned, fool machines. Darn fool kids.  Their parents should have their darned rears kicked up over their shoulders, they should.  Have to talk out of the back of their heads, they would.  What kind of parent allows their kid to get away with this kind of murder, I ask, what kind?”.

Harmon was known as the local cankor on the community’s left hip. Nobody could sit straight after he finished chewing on you.

All about there was activity.

Little Timmy Timmons was over to the South end of the lot, peddling his latest recordings, or software he’d pinched from the skein.

The skein, or gathering, was the new name for what had previously been called the chain.  Before that, I’ve heard, it was the net, and perhaps something  at once called “the web” – which would make sense given the new context of the skein.

It was more than simple networking between nodes…between average men and average women.

Now it had become much more likened to the marketplace at Eaglestown…it was a compendium of the “diamond” of knowledge, of all facets, all walks of life.  One knows when he’s ventured into the wrong part of the skein when not a single syllable makes any sense. Kinda like the part the stonesmen would inhabit (that bunch had all kinds of weird talk).  Time to look for another connection, when you were lost.

Little Timmy was known as a “skeiner”.  He knew more about computers and electronics than anyone in the village.  Everyone figured he was probably welcome anywhere he ventured on the skein (and everyone would be afraid to inter-relate if Timmy feared to tread that corner of it).

There was an unusual amount of activity o’ert Ott’s this particular Saturday.

There was a wind blowing from the South, as often was the case.  If you stood just right, and held your head just so, you could smell the beach. The gulf was six hundred mile to their South, but by-jimins, you really could smell the seaweed and sawgrass.  It was a clean smell, not peaty, like the Mountains, but salty, like the coast.

It was such a day today.  Everyone was full of life. Full of activity.  It was a thing of beauty, until it happened.

There had been an influx of new kids down at Ott’s.  Over the years, the community had experienced its share of transients.

When I was a kid, I remember the Yipsies coming through town.  The scuttlebut would be from every Mother’s lip “hide the kids, they’ll steal them and turn them into pick-pockets”.

Most of the fellas of the village had become accustomed to them.  Yipsies and Macheecans  would always come through town at harvest. Some of the best workers you’d ever find. They could outpick the local boys three-to-one (and nobody cared what the coaches of the ball teams said).

Most of the fellas figured they were just some of the itinerants kids, just here for the season.  No one thought to ask where they came up with the money for the fancy robots.

Last Saturday was still vivid in everyone’s memory.  Harvey Panske got into a scrap with one of the kids.

“He’s a cursed Waba,” came the cry from Harvey Panske “he’s here to do some evil business, he gave me the stink eye, and it was evil”  and with that, Harvey socked the boy in the eye.

Some of the fellas crossed the busy intersection at E. Broadway and Eagletop Road and ran to Ott’s to break up the boys.

“Now Harvey,” scolded Rosey Krantz, “that boy ain’t nuthin’ but a Masheekin…don’t hold that agin him.  He’s a good boy.  Daddy works down on my farm as a foreman.  You leave him be.”

Rosey was a local celebrity.  He was a machinist, by trade.  Came a long line, too.  His daddy was a blacksmith, and they say old Rosey could make just about anything.  His cheeks were always red, some said because of the pipe eternally hanging from his lip, but most agreed, Rosey was red top, the very best.

This event, more than any other, probably set the stage for what transpired this particular Saturday, the “doomsday” of Eaglestown.

One of the kid’s hypersled bots (a term to describe one that was souped up…fly like a streak of lightning, they would), it had gone errant, something the Timmons boy said would happen in crossed frequencies, some times.

It made a bee line through the intersection, flying at full bore.

Nobody had noticed, but there were a great number of sacks stacked under, and just behind the corn bin that day.

It wasn’t unusual, but the contents were.

Normally sacks such as this would be stuffed brim full of taters or string beans, but today, today it was fertilizer.  Ammonium Nitrate, and lots of it.

They were stacked right against the wall of Wilson’s Market.  Old man Wilson figured he could stand the competition on one day of the week.  Sure, it took away from his sales of produce, but he made up for it in sodas, ice cream, salt and much from his butcher counter. “Besides,” he say “I sell the very same produce inside through the week”.

The store, as always, was packed.

The little robot was screeching now.

“Hey, look at that,” yelled Timmy Timmons as it careened toward the corn bin.

Timmy had been talking to Lawrence Mohab (from Mohab cut, of course) about some problems he was having with his connection to the skein.

When the tiny robot with its lance pointed straight ahead charged under the corn bin, it nicked Alice Tucker’s left ankle.  Forensically, it would prove of some import later in the month.

The little bot spun around a couple of times, and then, again, charged forward, spinning through the crowd twice more, building momentum again and then righting its bearing for the target, intended.

It made its way laterally up under the bin and then turned a hard right, directly toward the sacks.

There was already panic in the crowd, and Timmons tried desperately to  run down the bot, but to no avail.

He would take the brunt of the blast.

It was said that it was a God-send that Old Man Wilson had his ice machines packed full, and saddled across the front wall of the store.  It acted as a sort of buffer between the blast and his clients inside, sending most of its fury straight up in the air.

The explosion was like an earthquake and they felt it up town in city hall.

Once the robot’s lance made contact with the sacks of fertilizer, it triggered a fuse inside the bot.  Home-made clay explosives (it was later learned) acted as the initial blast that caused the Ammonium Nitrate to “go critical”.

Timmy Timmons shot out from under the corn bin like a cannon ball.

They found pieces of him all over Ott’s garage, and most of the kids there assembled.

Lawrence Mohab had shielded his face with some tin.  He caught some shrapnel, and was burned pretty bad, but the doctors think he’s gonna make it.

All told, thirty-five of Eaglestown’s finest were ripped to shreds in the blast. The marketplace, once full of the lusty colors of harvest, were now bathed in crimson.

Denise Olivetti was cut in twain.  They found parts of her both North and South.

Molly Bonavita had her knee shattered and caught a great deal of shrapnel in her face.  She kept her eyes, and the docs think the scarring to her face won’t be too bad.

Farmers were hit the hardest.

“Larin McGillicuddy grew the best corn anywhere around.  That boy of his ain’t gonna do nothin’ but check out skanks on the skein,” Old Man Harmon later said.  He was checking out the okra over near the road when the bomb went off…he liked the okra.  Pity.

But it was true.  There were many boys in the village who’d have to grow up quick now.

Bess Fidelia, a teacher from the school, lamented “I simply have no idea what ever we will do. The children have come so far in the last year.  It would be a pity for them all to drop out to work the farms”.

I worried more about the older boys and girls myself.  This was the first taste of the war the homefront had seen since the bombing in Baden.

I’m certain that the great Nation-state of Ariance will look to commit more of it youth to the efforts to stop this veiled menace coming, no doubt, from the Waba.

“I’ve got him for certain, this time,” came the cry from Ott’s.

Harvey Panske was certain this time that he had his ‘man’.