The Brave New World - 150 The Magical Properties of Potatoes

Their victory had a downside: it left them with plenty of baggage. They talked about making a crude sled. One man would pull and another push, and they’d both lift the sled as necessary to pass over obstacles.

But making a sled involved staying where they were for the night and part of the next day. In the end, Sven said:

“We can leave some of the stuff here, and retrieve it later. That, or we turn into fucking camels and carry it all. I’m ready to turn into a camel.”

If Sven was, so were his men – Lasse and Henrik knew the rules. They agreed grumpily, and the three of them moved off shortly thereafter, trying not to stagger. Everyone was carrying a heavy satchel, two sets of leather clothes, and a sack slung over the shoulder. They were all wearing armor and carrying shields and weapons and what remained of the food they’d taken with them.

On top of that, they were tired. It had been a very productive but very tiring day. They were all secretly glad when it got too dark to continue their journey.

This time around, Sven took the first watch. It was a clear night, and the full moon made keeping watch more difficult, not easier: the moonlight cast shadows that moved with the moon’s passage, altering shapes.

Sven had taken the first watch because he wanted to think things over before waking up on his farm. But his thoughts were constantly interrupted: did that crack mean someone was approaching, or was it just one of the sounds made by a living forest? Was there someone moving behind those trees? As a result, when he staggered out of the bedroom of his country home, simultaneously pulling on his leather jacket, he didn’t have a plan.

That was very quickly fixed by Olaf Berg. He was waiting for Sven in the main room, his ass perched on the corner of Sven’s desk. When he saw Sven he let out a whoop of joy and said:

“I was about to commit a grave sin, and go and wake you up. We have a problem.”

“Just one?” asked Sven.

“Just one that’s new. But it’s a big one.”

“What is it?”

“The guys working in the mint have been stealing coins.”

“Let me make myself some coffee,” Sven said. He did, and in the process found out there was just one half-kilo pack of coffee left.

“This is reserved for our personal use,” he told Olaf. “No one else gets to drink coffee, just you and me.”

“Thank you,” said Olaf, visibly moved by that great honor. “I’ve sent out a couple of teams to look for supplies. I gave each ten crowns in silver and one in copper. I hope this meets with your approval.”

“They’ll need transport if they manage to buy goods worth ten crowns,” said Sven.

Sven drank his coffee in silence for a while, frowning heavily. Eventually he said:

“So what’s the story with the minters?”

“Two of them have been stealing coins. Small denomination, they didn’t touch the gold or the silver.”

“They didn’t steal a lot, then.”

“Around half a krona each. Forty eight and fifty one ore, respectively.”

“Who found them out, and how?”

“I did,” Olaf said proudly. “I look into the mint every couple of hours to collect coinage, and take a quick inventory. You know, to make sure they send what we need from the New World. Two hours equals almost a full day over there, and it takes two days for ore to reach Svenborg.”

“They must have been remarkably stupid to try and steal something with you around,” said Sven. Olaf beamed.

“I don’t make any notes while I’m there,” he explained. “I write everything down once I’m back in the office you set up in the study.”

“Christ, Olaf,” said Sven. “You have a mind like a steel trap.”

He glanced at the kitchen window and added:

“Is it warm outside? It doesn’t look good.”

“It’s cloudy, but there’s no wind. It’s really warm if you keep moving.”

“So let’s get moving,” Sven said, and they both went to the mint.

The six minters present in the mint were working with great gusto, maybe because it was nearing the end of their shift. Olaf ordered them to stop, and assemble in front of Sven who stood silent, looking at each man in turn. Olaf had told him who the thieves were on the way to the mint. They were the two best minters he had. They’d been recruited precisely for their metal-working skills. He couldn’t afford to lose them.

When the six minters had assembled in a line abreast Sven said, very careful not to look at anyone in particular:

“Some of you have been stealing from the mint. I want everything taken to be placed on that table.”

He pointed to the table on his right, and waited. He didn’t have to wait long. The two thieves stepped out of the line, walked up to the table, and began digging small copper coins out of their pockets. They were so eager to cooperate that they arranged them in small piles of five for easy counting.

“Anyone else?” asked Sven, staring just a little bit over the heads of the remaining four minters. One of them bit his lip and lowered his head and broke the line to walk up to the table and deposit a single small coin.

“That’s a brass twenty-ore piece!” exploded Olaf. “You weren’t supposed to make those yet. We are very short of zinc.”

“It’s a prototype,” said the minter. “You said you wanted a prototype made so that you could examine and approve it.”

“What? When did I say that?”

“The very first day, when we started operations. I was to show it to you on your next inspection. This inspection,” he corrected himself.

Olaf turned and looked at Sven. Everyone was looking at Sven. They were all awaiting his judgment and sentence.

It was going to be a lenient sentence, because Sven was pleased. The way things went meant they were all scared shitless of him. When Sven spoke, everyone listened and did what they were told to do.

And anyway, he couldn’t afford to lose three minters, two of which were the best ones he had. He took a couple of steps towards the three repentant thieves standing by the table, and said:

“Why did you take those coins? What did you need them for? You’ve got a place to stay and you’ve got food, all free of charge. And on top of that you’re getting a monthly payout, based on the profit we make.”

He was answered by silence, a deeply ashamed silence. Finally, one of the men said:

“There is a rumor there’ll be no payout this month, or the next. Maybe never.”

Sven raised his eyebrows, looking at Olaf. Olaf coughed and glanced sideways and said:

“There was a pair of chicks spreading gossip like that. They came with the last batch. Newcomers. I think they expected to get paid the moment they showed their faces. I’ve already dealt with them.”

“How?”

“Sent them ice-fishing. They can bitch all they like to each other out there.”

“We might have to kick them out,” said Sven. He looked at the three thieves. He said:

“You thought I’d cheat you, so you decided to cheat me first.”

“I really didn’t intend to keep that coin,” said the minter who had made the brass piece. “I put it in my pocket to show it to Olaf on his next inspection.”

“Shut up,” said Sven. He pointed at the two minters that stole copper coins, and said:

“You two must be punished. You will each pay ten times the amount you stole. It will be subtracted from your payout. The next time you steal, the next time anyone tries to steal anything, it’s going to get much, much worse. You’ll find it very painful and you’ll wish you never met me, maybe you’ll even wish you were never born at all. Do you understand?”

They did. They were trembling and shuffling their feet and looking at the ground.

“You,” said Sven, pointing at the brass coin minter, “I’ll give you the benefit of doubt. And ask Olaf first, next time you want to make a prototype of a new coin. Okay, back to work. Move your asses.”

“That was very generous of you,” Olaf said in a wondering tone as they walked back to the farm. Behind their backs, the mint clanged and clinked with great vigor. Everyone was working with new enthusiasm.

“I’ve got some very good news,” Sven said. And he told Olaf about all the latest developments in the New World.

“So, in summary, we’ll be capturing another settlement soon,” he ended.

“We can’t afford to lose any more people from Svenborg or any other settlement,” Olaf said sternly. “It’s going to really fuck things up.”

“Then we need to recruit more people here. We need to get plenty of new people anyway. I’ve told you Sonberg refused to sell me more licenses. But he cannot refuse someone new, someone who wants to buy an implant kit – what he calls a colonist’s license. I want new people, our people at his office every day getting their promised kits.”

“And where are you going to put them? This place is bursting at the seams!”

“I’m going to talk to the owners of the camping ground. They’ve got cabins for rent, enough to accommodate at least sixty people And they definitely won’t be seeing any tourists this year.”

“And how are you going to feed them?”

“We’ll only communicate in the New World?”

“A fucking telegram.”

“Yes. We’ve been set back a century, in some respects.”

“And a couple of millennia over there.”

“We’ll be making progress fast. We’re going to have telegraph and firearms within the next few months. Earth time, or course.”

“Telegraph! But that requires electricity!”

“Yes. Did you know you can produce electric current from a potato?”

“You’re joking.”

“No. A potato contains mineral salts that can be ionized. All you need to do is stick a copper nail in one end and a zinc or galvanized iron nail in the other, and run a wire between them. It makes a very weak battery and it’s a pretty weak current, but you can connect a whole row of potatoes to produce something that is usable.”

“We don’t have any potatoes there.”

“We’ll start growing them next spring. We just need to grow and implant some seedlings here.”

“Sven, you’re a genius.”

“I know,” said Sven. He didn’t believe in false modesty.

Like before, they took the roundabout route between the spinney where the mint was located, and the farmhouse. Walking through the yard meant wading through a sea of slush and mud and sheep shit and petitioners begging Sven for a moment of attention.

He looked down at the tracks they’d left when they were walking the other way, and saw that their footprints had already filled with water. It really was warm for this time of the year.

They’d reached the road and were about to turn to walk the last hundred steps to the front entrance of Sven’s house when Olaf said:

“Look. It seems we may have visitors coming.”

Sven followed Olaf’s pointing finger. Atop the hump of the hill that hid the town from view, a beetle-sized shape was moving, growing larger. He could already hear the buzzing of a faraway engine. He recognized that sound.

“It’s an army car,” he said. “We’d better get home quickly.”

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