Chapter 72: Transporter Life

Talca wasn’t kidding about how much energy Arthur’s body had stealthily spent to keep him steady as they rode. As soon as his head hit the pillow, he knew he wouldn’t have any trouble sleeping, hard ground or no. And almost as soon as he was asleep, he dreamed.

Arthur’s memories of Earth had been getting dimmer and dimmer as he got more and more used to the Demon World, which was expected. The nice man in the in-between-afterlife place had warned him about that via the contract he had agreed to. The wording of the contract had indicated Arthur would mostly keep the memories, just that they’d get a little less vibrant and important as the Demon World grew on him. But recently, he found that loss of importance was starting to be expressed by the memories themselves getting a little fuzzy around the edges. He still retained all the flavor of them. He could remember something like a hug or a day at the park in every way that mattered. He knew how they had felt. But details were starting to get hard to recall.

He wasn’t mad about that. It was just the way it was. He remembered his family loved him. He remembered the good times. And he didn’t regret coming here, all things considered, even when he accessed Earth memories. Losing the sharp detail-based edges wasn’t a big deal.

But this dream was different. It was almost like he was back there, seeing everything in glorious technicolor.

—

“Damn shock is leaking again,” Arthur’s dad said.

Arthur reached out his hand and touched the large spring behind the tire. “Is it? It seems pretty solid.”

“That’s not the shock. That’s the spring.” Arthur’s dad reached in and guided his son’s hand to the right, through the loops of the spring to a post in the center. “That’s the shock. The whole thing is the strut assembly.”

Arthur could feel some oily moisture around where the post entered a slightly larger canister. He didn’t know a single thing about fixing cars outside of what his dad had shown him, so whether this was sort of bad or a catastrophe wasn’t something he could guess at.

“Can you replace it before practice?” Arthur asked. “I could ride my bike there instead.”

“No, but we can still drive on it. It’s not great, but it’s works. The ride might be a little rougher. It’s probably not dangerous. Shocks mostly just… even things out. They eat little bumps that the springs don’t get.”

“What if you didn’t have them at all?”

“I dunno. I’m not a mechanic. A rougher ride, for sure. Nowhere for all that energy to go except back into the car. Maybe it would break something eventually or mess up the handling. Anyway, it’s not the kind of thing I’d fix myself. I’ll get the shop to do it.”

“You did the brakes.” Arthur’s dad did a lot of the work on the family cars himself, though he mostly stayed in the minor problem realm. There were lines of difficulty he wouldn’t cross. “This is harder than that?”

“Maybe, maybe not. But I also have plenty of work right now.” His dad picked up a can of soda and took a swig. “That’s something you have to remember. If you have extra time and extra energy, you can put it into something. Save a little money here, have some fun there, it’s all good. But unless you’re a mechanic, there’s usually something better to put your time into. I’ll make more finishing up my commissions than I would save by fixing the shocks myself. That’s the point. Sometimes saving money costs you money. And you need to avoid that.”

The dream went on for a little while after that. Arthur’s dad walked around the car, doing a basic inspection of all the things he knew how to inspect and explaining them to Arthur. In retrospect, Arthur could see that that was how his dad had always tried to teach him things. By the time he had gone off on his own, he could hang a shelf and unclog a toilet with the best of the amateurs, and it was entirely his dad’s doing.

He basked in the memory as long as he could. It was a warm one, his dad was exactly as he remembered. And then, just like that, it was over.

—

“Wake up, buddy.” Milo was shaking Arthur shoulder. “Time to get going. Pack up your tent.”

Arthur silently stowed his gear back in the wagon and helped put out the last remnants of the fire. Besides some chirps from various flying beasts he couldn’t see in the dim pre-dawn light, it was quiet and still. He brewed some tea in the back of the wagon, pepping the living hell out of it as he did without bothering to see if the others wanted it that strong. He could make more later if they didn’t want so much pep, but he felt like he needed it right now.

And then they were on their way, anyone who wasn’t awake before was now fully alert thanks to the motion of the road, the rising light, and the strong stimulant effect of the tea.

“Three hours or so from here, there’s a village. We’ll stop and eat there. There’s a man who runs a sort of inn there who does a good breakfast.”

“Sounds great.” Arthur stretched a bit on the bench, wondering again if there wasn’t a better way to smooth out the ride before the memories of his dream hit him all at once. “Spiky, can I borrow a notebook and a pencil?”

“Sure.” Spiky reached into his bag and handed the items over. “You can keep those if you want. I brought a bunch.”

Arthur took the pencil and started the long process of getting the hang of drawing stuff in a moving wagon. It took some doing. He’d be almost through sketching a straight line when a malicious pebble in the road would ruin it. Spiky mercifully gave him an eraser, and he worked again and again on getting the shock in his dream on paper before he forgot it again.

“What is that? Some kind of club?”

“No. I think it’s a shock absorber. I had a dream last night, sort of a memory of my dad. This is what they looked like.”

“Can’t be solid, right?” Milo looked at the object closely. “A solid rod there would just stop the spring from working.”

“No, this thinner part here goes into it. Somehow. And there’s liquid in there. It felt like oil,” Arthur said.

“Well, that’s weird,” Milo said.

“Not as weird as you’d think.” Spiky had glanced at Arthur’s sketch and began one of his own. “Look here. Say that rod was a piston, suspended in oil. Sealed. And…” He drew a channel from one side of the object to the other, a sort of pipe connecting the two halves of the larger section of pipe. “See? Now the piston has to pump the liquid from one side to the other. The size of the pipe acts as a valve. That would work, Milo.”

“I’m already lost.” Arthur really was. He figured most people from Earth would be. But the crafter and the academic were prepared to go on without him.

“No worries. I think I get it. Spiky, even if I could build this… the size of the object, the amount of liquid, the size of the valve channel. That’s all math I can’t do.”

“And who do you think you are dealing with, here? Some simple non-academic?” Spiky pounded his chest once with his fist. “I’ve got enough math in here to choke a physicist.”

Both of them bent over the sketch, talking about material choice and the difficulty of sealing a high-pressure tube well enough that it wouldn’t leak under the kind of abuse that Talca was likely to put it through. After a few minutes, Arthur tried to draw the conversation away from the shock unsuccessfully. They were fully engrossed.

“Hey. Arthur. They aren’t gonna stop. I’ve seen crafters get like this on trips before. You’ll be lucky if they stop to eat.” Tasca patted the empty space on the driver’s seat next to him. “You can come up here if you want, so long as you bring some of that tea.”

“You want it pepped, or extra warming?”

“You know what? Warming.”

Arthur dumped some Majicka in the drink and brought it forward with him. Talca took a big swig and made a satisfied “ahh” sound before he went in for another.

“You love tea, don’t you? Most of my customers are there for the boba, at least mostly. You love tea. You can tell.”

“Oh, I think all transporters do. You get up early, sometimes you go to bed late on top of that. I’m pretty good at making it, myself, but nothing like a class can do,” Talca said.

“Well, I’m glad to be able to help,” Arthur said. “So how long have you been doing this?”

“Half my life. More than that now. Just out on the road with Littal.”

“What’s his story? He’s massive, although I’m guessing all Hings are.”

“Not that big. Littal’s story is mostly the same as mine. We met in the woods, way back. Before I had a class. Most Hings are smaller, but most Hings are also domesticated. He’s wild.”

“You tamed him?”

Littal snorted loud and shook his head, like he was offended.

“Careful. He can understand a little of what you say through me. And nobody could tame Littal. He’s a wild beast. He’s just also a wild beast with a job. And a friend.”

Littal snorted, this time softer and more affectionately.

“That’s right, you old man. I get you.” Talca reached down and patted his haunches. “I’ve known him a long time. I don’t have a single skill that controls him, or keeps him calm. Just skills that let me talk to him a little better.”

“And the two of you work really well together.”

“Damn right we do. It helps to have a close friend in your work. I don’t think a lot of people get someone like that.”

“I know what you mean. Although my friend can talk.”

“Wife? Girlfriend?”

“No. My girlfriend helps me, just not like that. She has her own work that fits her better. Mine is a little owl girl. Doesn’t even have a class. But as soon as I got mine, she was there. I can’t do what I do without her.”

“Well, there you go. See, he does get it, Littal. Told you he was alright.”

Littal landed heavily and pushed off the ground forcefully enough that a wave rippled through his powerful muscles.

“Gods. He really is strong, isn’t he? What do you feed him?”

“Littal? He feeds himself. I buy him treats when he asks for them, but mostly he finds his own food. I’ve seen him eat the bark right off a tree.”

“I believe it.” Arthur got a feeling the conversation was hitting a natural lull, and was proved right when they sat for ten or fifteen minutes without a word spoken between them. Arthur was becoming an expert in companionable silences lately. He just enjoyed the ride.

Talca started the conversation back up again. “We’re making good time, for what it’s worth. Littal’s been pulling hard all day. Keep an eye out in the distance. You should be seeing trees in the next hour or so.”

“I thought we were thinking midday for those.”

“Well, we were. But Littal has good days.”

“Me too. Good days where I can do anything, and then I can’t do anything on bad days.”

Another angered snort filled the air.

“Littal doesn’t have bad days. He’s against them, as a general rule.”

“Understood.” Arthur would have humored the animal even if he wasn’t legitimately terrified of it. “So you two really live out here? No home?”

“Oh, I have a couple of places. Small ones I rent out for cheap. Extra rooms off to the side of people’s houses, that kind of thing. And some family scattered around. But most of it’s just places to sleep between jobs. The life’s out here, on the road,” Talca said. “A transporter life’s not for everyone, hard on relationships and personal stuff. But at some point, you get used to it and can’t imagine any other life.”

It was almost weird to encounter someone who lived his life alone in this world. Not completely alone, since he obviously had at least one friend to keep him company. But everyone else Arthur knew had a web of dozens of people keeping them going. It was almost unsettling to encounter someone who was at peace in a different way, who had a different flavor of happy driving them. And there was no question that the man was happy. He sat in his driver’s seat like he was born there and looked over the road like he owned it.

Out here, this was his place.