Daughter of the Merciful Deep by Leslye Penelope

Author:Leslye Penelope [PENELOPE, LESLYE]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2024-06-04T00:00:00+00:00

24

No Panacea

A roaring lion kills no game.

We’d better get back,” Moses said, eyeing the two Baden who were still chatting, but now it seemed as though their attention had snagged on us.

He extended an elbow to Grace, who looked at it but declined. Then he did the same to me, but I needed my hands free.

“Will getting the seed be difficult?” I asked.

“I’ve been trained for it,” he answered with confidence. “Though few Faden have actually been called to help create an ark. I thought my mission would be more conventional. Go and study at a university, bring back some new discovery, and drop hints of innovations to receptive scientific minds or something.”

“That’s what Faden do?” I asked.

“Though sometimes what they bring back isn’t embraced wholeheartedly. One of my predecessors returned from researching with a prominent scientist and brought home two-hundred fifty-two ways to use peanuts… I don’t think he found many takers for the idea.”

I did a double take. “Are you saying a Faden worked with George Washington Carver?”

“And then there was that business with the metal chairs that fold up and can be stacked,” he said absently, his attention captured by a commotion inside a store we were passing.

A loud whistle pierced the air, and voices carried through the open doorway of a grocer’s shop. Just in front of the neatly organized rows of produce, a sturdy brown-skinned man wearing an apron over his protruding belly had caught the arm of a wiry younger man in an orange jumpsuit. The younger man writhed and struggled to get away.

“I wasn’t stealing anything!” he shouted.

The proprietor blew his whistle again, and racing footsteps thundered behind us. We stepped out of the way of the two Baden who would have run us over.

“What seems to be the problem here?” one of the Baden asked. His mask was one of grief.

“This Senecite came in here trying to steal handfuls of herbs.” Spittle flew from the grocer’s mouth; his face was contorted with indignation.

“I wasn’t trying to steal, I’m here to buy or barter,” the man in orange pleaded. “I was just smelling them.”

The grocer turned up his nose. “We don’t take Seneca City coin here, young man. And what could you possibly have that I would be in need of?”

“If you will release me, I’ve brought the plans of a new style of refrigerated case. One which allows shoppers to see inside. We’ve done trade with Maroonland and—”

“Maroonland? Is that supposed to recommend your contraptions? That’s an ark full of lawless degenerates, and everyone knows it.”

I bristled at the man’s callousness.

“Sir, we have need of large amounts of goldenseal for medicinal purposes. An illness is spreading among the children, and we don’t have enough of the herb for the tonic.”

“That’s what comes of messing about with Maroonlanders.” The grocer finally released the young man, who shook out his arm. “I have no need for see-through refrigerated cases. And it seems to me that if Senecites spent more time cultivating useful plants like medicinal herbs, you’d be a lot better off.

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