Free-Wrench, no. 1 Read Online Free

“Oh, but listen to me. No sense
talking like that. We look to the future in this family. I can
still teach, eh? Off with you. Get some rest. Don’t listen to your
silly old mother.”
    Nita lingered for a moment more, looking
thoughtfully at the unfinished figurine, then placed it on the
mantle and left her mother to rest.

Chapter 2
    That evening, as the sun
was setting, Nita arrived at the steamworks for her shift. The
events of the morning were still heavy on her mind, but she tried
to push them aside and focus on the task at hand. The day shift had
removed the broken section of pipe and the jammed valve, but
daylight had run out before the replacement could be installed,
leaving it for Nita and her partner to do. Tonight that partner
happened to be Drew.
    “Blast it,” he muttered to himself. “I must
have left my five-sixteenths in the locker. Do you have yours?”
    Nita slipped a wrench from her tool sash.
“You really ought to take better care of your tools.”
    “Yeah, yeah. Give me a break; I’ve got other
things on my mind today.”
    “Oh, that’s right. Your picture device. You
know, trading with the outsiders is strictly enforced and very
limited. I don’t think we’ve had a legitimate shipment in three
years. How exactly do you plan to get away with using this device
if you manage to buy one?”
    “I’ll just say I found it in a curio shop
from the old days before we closed the borders. For all anyone
knows, the cam-er-a is an ancient invention out there. Heaven knows
they come up with some remarkable gadgets. And fine spirits,
too. We make better wine, but the whiskey from out there? Hits you
like a hammer .”
    Nita raised the new valve into place and
steadied it while Drew began to tighten the bolts.
    “Do they have anything besides pointless toys
and things to feed your vices?”
    “Possibly. Once they pulled out the liquor I
stopped paying attention to anything else.”
    Nita narrowed her eyes.
    “Relax, Nita. I kid. They have all sorts of
things. They make excellent optics. My best telescope came from
them. They’re always eager to show off their firearms as well, but
even I’m not foolish enough to be caught with one of those.
There are rare delicacies, exotic fabrics and pelts, tinctures,
ointments…”
    “They sell medicines?”
    “Well, I wouldn’t call them medicines .
One was to regrow hair. Another was to, er, restore vigor.”
    “Oh. Well, do they work?”
    “What are you implying?” he asked, nervously
running his fingers through his hair and checking his reflection in
the fresh pipe section.
    “You know what I mean.”
    “If you’re so interested, why don’t you come
along? We’ll take my brother’s boat up to Moor Spires. They’re due
to dock there in a few hours. They’ll be leaving just before
morning, so hopefully this replacement doesn’t take all night, and
we can skip out a bit early.”
    “Well… no. I didn’t bring any money.”
    “No need. They don’t have any use for our
currency. Why would they? Fortunately for us, it is just as
difficult for them to get Calderan goods as it is for us to get
theirs. Sea salt, jewelry, anything we make is worth more than gold
to them. If you really want to get in their good graces,
bring them something made of trith.”
    “Trith? The stuff they make the coils
from?”
    He nodded. “They can’t make it out there.
They’ll trade just about anything to get some.”
    Another gift from the volcano, trith was
first created centuries before by some of the very first settlers
on the islands. An alloy made of half a dozen metals and a special
mineral found only in the volcanic stone of the mountains, it had
properties that no other metal could match. Paper-thin ribbons of
the stuff could be made into coil springs that could store ten
times the energy of a steel one, seemingly without fatigue. Thin
bars of the stuff were stronger than several inches of iron, and
once forged not even the heart of Tellahn’s volcano