“Your Excellency, behind me!” screamed Lord Knight Ronel as he entered the dining room to Lan-xing Ulen, his trained eyes spotting the green light of a laser spear preparing to fire from across the room. Touching a button his belt, a protective force field expanded off his wrist right wrist as he drew his laser épée from the scabbard also holding his heritage broad sword. With an intensifying low hum, the triangular-pyramid-shaped tip laser spear discharged a green-blue plasma bolt at Lady Abbess Cara, barely missing her with a barrage of sparks as she ducked beneath her table and crawled towards and behind Ronel’s force field shield. Undaunted, the attacker crept behind the cover of the hot-breakfast bread bar before aiming again. With lightning reflexes created by a lifetime of rigorous training Ronel deflected the second plasma bolt off his sword, the bolt ricocheting into the finely tiled floor, charring it.
With Cara still crouched behind him, Ronel charged towards the attacker, his left arm slashing towards him with his épée against every rule taught to the knight by his mentors. The attacker cried out in pain as the épée hit his right forearm with a gush of blood. Ronel, now close enough to see into the attacker’s face, noticed brown flecks in what appeared to be a young man’s eyes. Turning off his laser épée for the xiao-shir, he wrestled the laser spear away from him with precise blows to the arm and wrist. The spear rolled away harmlessly, its tip fading out harmlessly. Anger flashed in Ronel’s eyes as he subdued the attacker, “Why! Why are you trying to kill us?”
“Our jobs. She would close the mine. My wife, my children – without jobs from the mines, we will all starve to death! Please! My life is not important – but my babies scream with hunger!” wept the miner.
“She built the healing center to help you – why do you not see it?” cried Ronel.
“What good is a healer if you die of hunger? We do not need more healers. We need food. The food grown around here is no good no more. Is poison to my babies.”
“He’s right,” answered Lady Healer Gwyneth, her tablet computer in hand along with a pouch containing the samples Cara collected the previous beinor. “The crude refining at the mine has released such toxic levels of argene into the air and soil that locally grown food is no longer safe to eat. Proper refining from a better and more expensive facility could do much – but not nearly as much as re-growing the forests themselves.
“What ‘er ye sayin’?” asked the miner.
“The strip mining is giving you work, yes, but the way house Ana conducts the mine is poisoning everything within a four hundred li radius – including, I fear, coastal marine life.”
“But we are more than three hundred li from the ocean!” protested the miner.
“Yes, yes we are. Yet food is brought in from the Amba Mederi Ocean. From the raks and fish served on the table to the sea vegetation that is normally so nourishing – nothing grown here is safe to eat,” explained Gwyneth. “We are all dying from argene radiation poisoning.”
“Poison or not, food is food and we a’nt got none to ‘at.”
“I fear that is on purpose, my lord.”
“I ai’ no lord – just a bloke who canna bear the sounds of my children hungry.”
Convinced her life was no longer in danger, Lady Abbess Cara rose, “There is more going on than just irresponsible mining practices. Come with us – bring your family – we will take you to the capital city in Dong-Bei where you can find work doing something safer than this and where your family will never go hungry again. I swear to it as abbess of Ten-Ar.”
“His Majesty will see you now,” hovered JDP5, King Gareth’s personal droid.
Dressed in her most formal Ten-Arian crimson gown, Lady Abbess Cara bowed her head respectfully towards the droid before entering the king’s private office. Inside, King Gareth fixed his grey eyes onto a series of reports flashing across his tablet computer. Cara bowed deeply to him, “Thank you for seeing me this beinor, Your Majesty!”
Gareth’s eyes met her, catching his breath for a moment, “You are … most welcome. Excuse me, you are?”
“Lady Abbess Cara of house Ten-Ar. We have not met, Your Majesty, unless perhaps you personally attend sessions of the Great Council. I have – created many enemies there.”
“You are the Ten-Arian healer advocating for safer conditions for the poor and disadvantaged, are you not?”
“Your Majesty, the health and well-being of all Beinarians is at risk. When I received reports on my desk beginning in BE 5493, I dedicated myself to better understanding and helping people sickened by the strip mine near Nan-li City. I petitioned for and you granted permission for houses Ten-Ar and Gurun to jointly build Nan-li Central Healing Center with its state-of-the-art research facilities and laboratories. Now, after many yen-ars of research and the hard work of healers across both our houses, the data is conclusive.”
“Is this the data in front of me now showing a strong link between de-forestation and both atmospheric bilast and argene levels?” asked King Gareth.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“I see here a recommendation for the re-planting of the nara forests along with other complimentary species designed to reclaim soil displaced by mining operations, is that correct?”
“My liege, if I may be so candid: it is my contention not only that the mines are creating this new, sight-taking disease called ‘brown-eye syndrome,’ but these irresponsible mining practices are behind much of the latent misery in the region, including widespread hunger. If we simply switched these practices for slightly more expensive, but many times more ecologically responsible and efficient measures, we most likely will be able to not only stop brown-eye syndrome before it creates multi-generational mutations and damage to our helices, but reverse the obvious poisoning of the local population. I have, in fact, one with me whom I beg you to take into your personal service so that he and his family may leave Nan-li forever,” petitioned Cara.
“This is the one who attacked you with a laser spear?”
“Yes.”
“You do not begrudge him?”
“He is poor; he thought killing me was the only way to feed his children. Please, Sire, have mercy on him!”
King Gareth rose, eying her, “I will on one condition.”
“Name it.”
“You join me for dinner.”
“And after dinner?” suggested Cara shrewdly.
“Go or stay as you prefer. I hope you will choose to stay tonight – or at least return that I may know you better,” suggested King Gareth, his mind already undressing the abbess.
Lady Abbess Cara curtsied, “As you wish.”