“Mel, I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s going on between you and the hobbs, but right now I think you’re safest here. We were hit by a suicide bomber, and the gobbs took the opportunity to try and rob the place. Dunno if they’ve all been cleaned up yet,” I said. I joined her on the balcony, looking up into the afternoon sky.

She nodded, staring over the park with her arms crossed. “Is the battle over? Are we safe?”

I considered her words and the context of them. The place we’d been a week ago was so different than the place we were at now. Were we safe? Hell no. But had we ever really been safe? Or had that old world been a fantasy?

“It’s over. At least for us. There are probably a few hold outs being dealt with by the hob — by our military,” I said, amending the last to emphasize the fact that we were in this together. It seemed like something I should do as often as possible given the disparate nature of my affiliated community. “Done enough that I’m here taking a breather with you, making sure you are okay. Are you okay, Mel?”

She paused and in that pause there sounded an explosion followed by several pods zipping up and out through the sky. I sighed. What timing. A moment later I got a buzz on MortMobile with the message, “No worry boss. We almost finish.” It was from Rayna.

“I hate it here,” Mel said. Her voice was little more than a whisper, but I heard her clearly and laughed.

“Ha! Yeah, me too. Hope to have someplace a lot better one day,” I said, still chuckling. She stared at me, eyes fixed like stone, and I stopped after a second. “Look, I don’t want anybody to be unhappy, but you’ve got to think about all of the BS that we’ve been through. All of us here. We’ve survived. Not only that, we also have running water. Hot showers. Food. This isn’t hell. Hell would be a lot hotter.”

Mel's face reddened for a moment, her mouth pursed and very much looking as if it were straining against an unwise tantrum. But then she let out a loud sigh. “I am grateful, Tyson. I really am. I’d be dead without this place. We’d all be.”

I nodded. “We’ve got a good place here and we’ve had a lot of luck. But that doesn’t mean I want you to just shut up and do what you're told. What’s on your mind, Mel? Is there something I can do? I can talk to Rayna about it again.”

Mel kicked at the rooftop idly. “No, it's not her,” she said. The girl stared at her shoes, continuing in a smaller voice, “she’s actually really nice. I just don’t want to babysit an alien electricity monster. Or clean up murder wasp corpses. Or fight murder wasps!”

“But I said everybody has to help out somehow, so the hobbs are making you work whatever jobs come up,” I finished.

She nodded emphatically. “Every time!”

“I’ll talk to ‘em,” I said, quietly. “Is there anything you would be okay with doing around here?”

A crackling blast sounded from Phyllis’ site, and three gobbs ran screaming in the distance, an oversized, stubble-covered Malamute barking happily as he chased after them.

I sighed and shook my head. “Look, think about how you can help to keep the hobbs happy. I’ve gotta wrap this goblins thing up, you stay safe here.”

Hord was lurking in the bedroom behind us, listening but staying out of the way. He still held Cube in his arms. The little box moved its lips into a sneer.

“Hord, good work. Stay here, defend Mel and Cube. You’re doing great!” I shouted as I leapt off the unfinished balcony. Less seemed like more with Hord at that time.

By the time I made it to Phyllis’ lot, the gobbs were long gone. Her plasma cannon had made one of them into a scorch mark on the gravel, and the rest scattered to avoid a similar fate. I could still hear Doofus having a blast chasing them. He loved chasing small things.

There were no gobbs running loose that I could see, so I took a breath and pulled out my phone. We were going to need a doctor.

Dr. Miles answered on the first ring, his face unshaved and overcoat rumpled. He was staring ahead at his desktop computer, glaring at whatever was on the screen. “Dr. Miles, how can I help you?”

“Hey doc, Silken Sands again,” I said with a small sigh.

Dr. Miles looked over at me and narrowed his eyes. “Hey, good, I’ve been meaning to talk to you, and things are a madhouse here,” he said. “How did my team and I get back last time? None of us have any memory of transporting.”

“Oh, uhhh,” I started, trying to think fast. It wasn’t exactly my strong suit, but I gave it my best effort. “There was an attack, you and your team were knocked unconscious by some kind of energy weapon. My team and I recalled you,” I finished with a shrug.

Dr. Miles stared at his computer screen, tapped a few keys, and then shook his head to turn and stare at me. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Look doc, I don’t really understand it myself. You guys were fine and talking one second, on the floor and snoring the next. We were still under attack, so we just recalled you and went to deal with the attack.”

“Ah yes, the delves. That turn out in your favor?” He asked, one eyebrow raised.

I blinked, grateful for the helmet. “We came to an agreement,” I said, thinking specifically of Dro’erja and hoping the doc bought it.

He gave an exaggerated frown and snorted. “Right, with delves. Look, I stay out of noble house fights, don’t worry about me gabbing. But you’re standing, so they’re not. What do you need this time?”

I shook my head and remembered the chaos I had just been through. “Our affiliate was attacked, first bugs than gobbs. We have hurt people, and need a doctor.”

Dr. Miles’ eyes narrowed, and he nodded slowly. “Right. Yeah, I can come help with that, but I have a suggestion.”

It was my turn to raise an eyebrow, and I nodded for him to continue.

“My tenure here is up, it seems. Dearth is scaling back, hard. Nu-Earth didn’t pan out as well as they had hoped, and they’re recalling most of their deployed resources, which means freelancers like me,” he started, leaning back in his chair. “If you can provide me with a security escort, and an office to work from, I’ll come live on site and be your resident doctor.”

I hesitated, unsure that was his entire offer. “For free?”

“No, of course not for free. My salary is four hundred thousand morties per week, to start. You would also need to pay for any supplies I needed to replace, so I would require access to an operational fund,” he said. “I am merely willing to relocate to your affiliate, if you want me as your doctor. For the standard package, housing and food, plus my usual salary.”

I nodded. “Ah, okay. Yeah, we could swing that,” I said, thinking of the treasure stash we still had from the delves. “I gotta say though, we’re like . . . fighting against Dearth. Aren’t you worried about your personal safety?”

The doctor shook his head. He had begun to gather up small items from his desk and deposit them into a box he placed in his lap. “Not any more than I would be working for Dearth. Honestly, the bigger affiliates all start to blend together once you work for ‘em. I also have a bug-out apartment in Storage, so I can leave with a BuyMort beam at any time.”

“A bug-out apartment?” I asked, cocking my head to the side.

Dr. Miles glanced up from his packing again. “I always forget how green new-worlders are. Storage lets anybody port there for free through BuyMort, it only costs morties to port out. I have an apartment I pay locals to keep open for me, in case I need to bug out of an affiliate during an attack. It’s pretty standard for doctors operating in the field, like I do.”

I swallowed hard. “Cheeze, that sounds like a lot of work just to be safe. Why do you want to come live on Nu-Earth anyway? It sounds like you just don’t want to leave with your Dearth assignment.”

Dr. Miles chewed on his lip and stared at me for a moment before nodding. “I’m studying Nu-Earth humans. They’re not like the other humans in BuyMort, and I need to understand why. Also, my family is from Arizona, on my Earth. I wanted to touch those roots, in what way I can.”

I scowled deeply, and was again grateful for the helmet. “Yeah doc, we need you. Get here, and get healing. We’ll sort the rest of it out later.”

He nodded and reached for the device. “I’ll be there shortly.”

“Hey, port in on my security chief’s second, her name is Tollya. She’s a hobb who lives here, she’ll point you to the injured.”

“Got it,” Dr. Miles said, before he closed his phone.

I sighed and pocketed my own, sharing a quick glance with the psychic deity trapped inside. Nothing had bothered me during my phone call, so I assumed the gobb attack was officially over and I scanned the air to assess our situation.

There were no more pods rising up from the camp. All about I saw patrols of hobb soldiers and human settlers marching together, probing the various residences.

On the main path came BlueCleave, our tribe of hobbs, drawn from Storage. They all wore big smiles and carried AR-15s from our militia-supplied armor, yet wore dirty scraps of clothing and carried nothing on their backs. Each of them was quite thin . . . something I wouldn’t have realized before if it hadn’t been for my close work with Rayna and her soldiers.

It was nothing a few yarsp barbeques couldn’t cure. I’d get them into new clothes, good residences, and into the community in no time.

“Boss! Good, you okay,” she said as she approached.

“Are these our new hobbs?” I leaned out to look down the line. There were at least three hundred hobbs in my campground, most of them lined up down our main road.

“Yes, all of them. We should have enough security for anything we need now,” she answered.

“Good. Find Tollya, Axle, and Jada. Tell them I want a meeting, as soon as the gobbs are cleaned up.” I turned on my heel and walked away to go find Lee and check on the new people. “Staff meeting! Gobbs first. Staff meeting right after!” I shouted to no one.

I walked the long corridor between the campground and Mr Sada’s old lot. When I arrived at the second gate, I only had to wait a moment before a Hobb hauled it open.

Lee and his people had been insulated from the BuyMort bugs and the gobb uprising, but most of them had watched it from the walls. Suzanne was at the gate to greet me, her arms opening wide the instant she saw my face.

“Oh Tyson! Welcome back, I’ve been hoping to see you. Is everything alright on that side of the fence?” She hugged me close and mussed with my hair somewhat before releasing me fully. It was nice, I missed having someone to fuss over me, and Suzanne seemed like she might be qualified to do it professionally.

“It is now, Suzanne, thanks for asking. We got a significant new group of hobbs in, a few hundred this time. They’re mopping up the gobbs now.” I answered.

Lee approached behind her, followed by a handful of his people and some of my hobbs. “Ho there, Tyson! Was hoping to grab your ear and talk about a couple of things, now that we’ve had a few hours sleep. This place doesn’t slow down much, does it?”

“No. No it does not Lee. That’s part of what I want to talk to you about, can you join camp leadership for a quick meeting?” I asked.

“Of course, as long as it’s below, I need out of this sun. I can either make do with four hours of sleep, or stand around in the desert all day, but not both,” he said with a chuckle.

“Fair enough, you can show me around the new grow facility, we can talk about your plans there,” I replied. I turned to find a hobb, and relayed where we would be, and to please pass the information along to Rayna when she came looking for me.

The hobb stared, blank-eyed, but he nodded when I had finished and saluted me with a fist to his chest, so I assumed it would happen as intended. When I turned back to rejoin Lee, he was already inside the entrance to the underground area. I trotted over to join him, and we started the long walk to the old medical wing.

Immediately I noticed a difference. The lights that we had hung throughout medical earlier in the day showed gear in stacks, all along the curved walls of the two main open areas. As we moved further in, Lee showed me the new growing racks.

Great silver racks filled the hallways from floor to ceiling and left a double-file space between them to walk and manage the growing sprouts. Each shelf was equipped with its own lighting and irrigation, and in most of the racks, thick pads of leafy greens were already growing.

“These are the sprout racks we managed to save and get up and running again,” Lee explained. “Mustard greens, watercress, spinach, and of course, as many bean sprouts as I could get. We can harvest from some of these pretty much right away, they’re mid-grow. This is the best we got, though.”

The older man finished with a customary twitch of his mustache that I took to mean consternation. I looked both ways down the large, curving main hallway, now filled with racks of growing greens.

“This looks great to me, Lee,” I said. “This plus the yarsp might get us all fed. I’ll need more than this, and quickly too, if we’re going to be able to continue trade with it.”

“Plus that army of new hobbs I saw marching in. That’s a lot of new mouths to feed,” he added.

“And an army runs on its stomach, I know,” I sighed. “We have enough yarsp to last tonight, and I expect the attack tomorrow will be just as big as this morning. This time we’ll be better set to defend against it.”

He nodded, his mustaches swaying. “A-yup, I see the value in that, given how close a thing it was last time.”

An image flashed through my head, seated in front of the gate, with no control over my shredded limbs, watching helplessly as a yarsp’s gaping mandibles lunged in toward my face.

“Anyway,” Lee said, breaking me out of my trance. “I have more solutions than problems today.” He turned and beckoned over his shoulder for me.

“I’m a fan of these facilities, the environment is very easy to control down here. Your giant dog-man, Axle? He was very helpful this morning. We have the entire place running on a central environment control module, tucked away in the back.” Lee spoke casually as he led me into a larger, circular room, filled with drains in the floors. “Spending a goodly portion of our fortune on this grow.”

“In here, for example,” he started, reaching to flick on a light switch.

Four large pyramidal structures sat in the room, one at each corner. Bright red tomato vines grew on one, a blue equivalent on another. On the other side, glass shelves showed potatoes growing beneath large plumes of greenery, with green versions in the other hydroponic pyramid.

I ran a quick search through BuyMort and a moment later an item display appeared over top of them.

ALL YEAR ROUND GROWING - PROVEN TO WITHSTAND PESTS, BALLISTICS AND MULTIPLE VARIETIES OF EXPLOSIVE PROJECTILES. THE STRONGEST, WARMEST, BEST-PROVIDED FOR CROWDS IN EXISTENCE . . . FAST GROWTH, FAST FOOD, FAST CONSUMPTION. FAST IS GUARANTEED WITH FASTREAD AFFILIATED FOOD. 10,000 morties. 4.3 stars.

“Spent some of our early windfall on some new items. Axle helped us find them. Tomatoes on this side. Something your man assured me was much the same, tomahtoes there on the other side in blue.” Lee waved a dismissive hand at the alien crops.

I narrowed my eyes at the name.

“Oh you noticed that? I think your friend is playing a prank on us,” he said, pointing at the other side of the room. “Potatoes,” he said, pointing at the brown tubers. “And potahtoes.” He pointed at the green tubers.

I nodded, slowly. Axle had a strange sense of humor. “I assume they’re at least edible?”

“For humans and hobbs anyway.” He flicked the overhead lights off, and we walked down the greenery-filled hallway to the next room.

It was filled with incomplete machinery, rows of large plastic racks, and masses of pipes and wiring to go with programmable LED lighting. “From here back we haven’t really gotten anything up and running yet, but it’s all in progress. We managed to save a mango tree and two banana trees, they’re topside in containment units I rented,” he droned.

“Which makes you eager to talk about getting some land parsed out for them,” I chipped in.

He nodded, waggling his mustache at me. “It does indeed, the rental fee is hourly. You want to talk turkey now?”

“Sure, why not? As an opening offer, how about all the land inside the former Sada compound. If you’re growing food on it, or using it in any way to help feed the affiliate, I’d call that good use and hand it over.” I said.

Lee blinked and frowned. “Huh. Thought I’d at least have to ask. I was going to plant some wheat. Try and get the bakery back up and running,” he muttered. “Aside from the trees. Yeah, I’d be happy to take that plot of land.”

“The hobbs'll still guard you guys, and we may need to use the entrance to the underground from time to time, but otherwise I can’t think of a better use for it than Sundew,” I said with a shrug. “We need that food, and I can see you’re spending your own morties to get this up and running, so I consider us square. You ain't gotta pay me a damned thing, we’re in this together.”

Lee stared up at me for a moment, twitching his mustaches. Finally, he extended a hand, and we shook. “Done,” he said.

We started heading back to the entrance of the medical section, passing more artificial grow racks and hydroponic bays of various complexity, in various states of disassembly. As we entered the main hallway again, the rest of my senior staff arrived.

Lee waved a hand at me, turning to a side room. Rayna, Tollya, Axle, Jada, and I followed him in.

The room was an office Lee had whipped together in a hurry. A nice desk was pushed up against one wall, with a tall-backed chair behind it, which Lee immediately took. There were no other chairs, but stacks of books were piled behind the desk.

“I don’t do well on less than my eight hours, you all understand,” Lee said, leaning back in clear relaxation.

I nodded and leaned against the doorframe. Axle and Jada slid down to sit on the plain concrete, side by side. Rayna stood beside the door on the other side, arms crossed as Tollya sauntered over and sat on the edge of Lee’s desk.

The former CIA operatives’ mustache twitched, but he didn’t say anything.

I clapped my hands. “Okay, thank you for coming everyone, I’ll make this brief. Only important shit that couldn’t go in an email, right?”

It was time for Silken Sands first staff meeting.