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DUN CRASHED THROUGH the door of the office, so it banged against the wall and sat himself down. The meeting in the office abruptly ended.
“Hello?” Bel said.
“I said I was going to think,” Dun said.
“Okay,” Bel said.
“I’ve thought,” Dun said. “First I’ve got some more questions.”
“Okay,” Bel said.
“Myrch,” he said.
“Yeeess?” she said.
“He traded me with you?”
“Kind of...” she said.
“You’re holding his mate... wife?” Dun said.
“No,” Bel said, on the back foot now. “Wait. Right, folks meeting adjourned,” she said to the others in the room.
As they filed out, she said, “Tam, not you.”
“Okay,” he said.
“Right,” Dun said. “So you haven’t got Myrch’s wife?”
“No...” Bel said.
“Did he know that?”
“Not exactly...”
“Wow, you really are a piece of work, aren’t you?”
“Hey!”
“You know he died trying to get me to you?”
“No... I’m sorry.”
“Not though, are you?”
“I liked him,” she said.
“Gods help the poor folk you don’t like,” Dun said. “Who’s got her: his wife, I mean?”
“The Duchy.”
“Okay. Right, if you want me to help you, I want you to help me first.”
“What?” Bel said. “I don’t make deals.”
“Sure you do,” Dun said. “You owe Myrch, you owe me.”
“I don’t owe you anything. We busted you out of prison,” Bel said.
“Where I wouldn’t have been if you hadn’t used your crazy mind-machine on me. I’d rather you’d left me there. At least I knew what the torturers were up to. You want me, you trade.”
“Trade what?”
“A mission,” Dun said.
“I don’t understand.”
“Yeah you do, you do this stuff all the time. Sabotage, hit and run, all that kind of stuff.”
“I’m listening,” Bel said.
“There’s a control gate on the water out of the Duchy. Control of that water is starving my people. I want that gate gone.”
“Gone how?” Bel said.
“I don’t know. You’re bright folks. You work it out. It’s my price. Do that and I’ll serve you in the best way I can for a cycle.”
“Hmm,” Bel said.
“We could,” Tam said, “I mean, it’s possible.”
“Okay, let’s meet up and vote on it,” Bel said.
She left the room, muttering.
“I thought she took that rather well,” Tam said.
They heard clanging and Bel’s shouted tones echoing up and down the corridors announcing the meeting in the landing bay.
“We’d better go down there since you called the meeting!” Tam said.
“I guess we better had,” Dun said.
***
THEY COULD HEAR THE crowd before they got there. The bustle sounded like fifty percent excitement at the gathering, thirty percent disgruntlement at being interrupted, and the remainder, grumpy apathy. Stef met them at the door.
“This your plan then, Dun?” Stef said.
“Yeah, kind of,” Dun said.
“Nice.” She laughed. “This should be interesting.”
Once everyone was in, the clanging noise started again, from over by the dock doors.
“Order, friends, order!” Bel shouted over the din.
The din slowly died down to a murmur. Bel waited but that was as quiet as it was ever going to get. She cleared her throat.
Bel spoke, “Okay, friends, Community-folks. Here’s what we need to decide. Young Dun here has a crazy fool plan that he wants us all to join in on.”
“Point of order, Chair!” someone shouted from the crowd.
“Yes,” Bel said tiredly. “What is it, Dory?”
“With respect, you’re condemning his plan before we’ve heard it,” Dory said.
“Hear hear!” another voice shouted.
“And,” Dory went on, “we’re behaving in a rather unconstitutional manner. Surely the motion should be proposed and so on before we discuss it and vote on it?”
“Right.”
Murmurs from the crowd rose up. Bel sighed and carried on. “All right, Order! Who’s going to propose this motion?”
“Me?” Dun said.
“No,” Bel said, “You can’t, you’re not Community.”
“I will!” came Stef’s voice from out of the crowd.
“Okay. Seconder?”
There was a slightly longer silence.
Tam spoke, “I’ll second him.”
Bel hissed breath out.
“Let him speak!” Dory shouted.
“Okay,” Bel said. “Take the stand.”
The stand turned out to be an upturned packing crate wedged in front of the door. Dun clambered up onto it and turned toward the expectant murmur.
“Err... Hi, I’m Dun. Thank you for hearing me. I’m a long way from home. My people, I guess, the Under-folk you call them, live a long way away from you. In real walking distance but also in culture. But we are relations, cousins even. You called me here with your projector machine, and I came. Now I’m here, I need your help.”
“How?” someone yelled out.
“The Duchy have control of the water that goes to my people. They have been reducing the flow slowly and are starting to cut it off. If that happens, no fish. No fish, no food. I want you to help me get that valve turned back on again.”
“What’s in it for us?” a new voice from the back.
“Honestly?” Dun said. “Not much, except the gratitude of the Bridge-folk. And I guess everyone else who uses the river.”
“And the chance to strike a blow to the Duchy!” a woman shouted below where Dun stood.
“Yes, Dasha!” someone else nearby said.
“It sounds dangerous to me,” Dory said.
“I think it will be,” Dun said.
“Make it all volunteers only then,” Stef said. “I’m in.”
A few more murmurs of agreement.
“Okay,” Bel said, “so the proposal is that we let Dun, who is not Community, help arrange a mission to strike at the water outlet from the Duchy and that it should be volunteers only? Is that correct.”
“Yes,”
“Let’s move to a vote then,” she said. “All those in favor shout yes.”
A loud shout rang out.
“All those against shout no.”
One or two shouts.
“Motion carried. Volunteers for the mission in the briefing room straight away,” Bel said.
She turned to Dun. “Well little, Dun. You have your wish. I hope it goes how you plan it, and I hope you plan it well. We can’t afford to lose anyone.”
“Aren’t you coming?” he asked.
