[h1]New Auslassia[/h1]
[h2]Milbury[/h2]

	Echoes sounded in the marble hall as the magistrate walked ahead, his expression gaunt and stoney-eyed. Tucked under his arm was his tablet, the other arm swung free to the timing of his steps. His gray, striped suit was immaculately pressed and it moved without showing any sign of crease or fold. The warm afternoon sun shone through high windows.

	It was not a terribly long walk, only a few feet to where he was going from whence he came in the prime minister's estate on the outskirts of the capital. Veering from his straight course he walked to the side to a plain set of doors and opened them without ceremony, letting them close behind him.

	“Good day.” the magistrate said in a low voice as he walked into the room. A wall of windows dominated the other side, allowing an unhindered view into the palm strewn garden below the office and the distant city of Milbury beyond it. The man of the hour sat leaning in a swiveling chair, his feet resting against an ottoman pulled up to the window. In the man's hand a glass of liquor hung delicately from thick meaty fingers.

	“Oh?” the man in the seat said, turning stiffly about, “Oh it's you Erwin. How's the biters?” he asked conversationally.

	“Matilda's taken them to the beach. Kimberly is at home with the nan, she's feeling a little under the rains.”

	“Oh, what a shame.” the prime minister said with a sigh. He lowered his legs and rose from his seat, pressing the breast of his suit with a liver-spotted hand. He left the glass of liquor down on the arm of the chair and hobbled around to Magistrate Erwin.

	Prime Minister Martin Handlehorn was not a particularly grand man. He had hardly been one when he assumed the office of prime minister. He was awkwardly built, with a face that suggested he be kept at a distance from the cameras with a fat double chin and large elephantine ears. He was a boarish man to look at, made all the more worse for him by small narrow-set eyes and a bulbous upturned nose. Even in those days his nickname was The Boar, and in the intervening years he had taken the nickname closer to heart and had not only grown a graying beard but become fatter and far less coordinated on his feet than any normal man. He had come to prefer sitting over standing, and resting his hand on the large black wood desk at the center of the office he leaned against it, taking the strain of his girth against his ankles off a little.

	“Well than chap, what's the gossip?” Martin Handlehorn asked in his gruff voice, “Is it about that mine?”

	“Yes, preliminary information has come out after the initial news of the disaster came up.” Erwin began, taking his tablet out of the pit of his arm and turning it on. Leaning against the desk he let himself sit as the handheld computer booted up, “Before you ask, the Ministry of the Interior sent orders to immediately deploy a risk assessment team to see how bad it is.”

	“Good, good. Splendid good.” said Martin. He sounded happy, but there was an underlying sense of subdued fear and concern at the incident that had happened in Central Auslassia.

	With a ring the tablet was fully booted after a minute and Erwin moved ahead with calling up the early assessment files.

	“So the good news is that any wide-spread threat posed by the mining accident is restrained to the immediate.” Erwin said in a conciliatory tone, “It's trapped almost a mile down under rock, and none of the miners are reporting radiation at ground level or even half way down to it. But for safety they haven't gone back into the mine.” he explained.

	“Good, splendid good.” Martin repeated.

	“We're not in clear water though, quarterly extraction reports from the mine have the South Emmil mine as being the third highest producing facility for essential industrial materials in the country, and the initial news of the disaster has set off investors like a hive of wasps.” Erwin continued, swiping with his fingers from digitized paperwork to economic forecasts, “Market shares in the holding company have dropped like a dingo's pup and not into a soft bed. Already, forecasted energy prices in the fusion field are predicted to raise by 13% as a result of new unrefined walzidium for export or domestic use; we are not expected to see the effects of this for the next six months however, but long term prospects are not looking good.”

	“Bloody hell.” said Martin.

	“Exactly.” Erwin replied, “We're in crock shit. To make matters worse the National Union of Mine Workers is pressing the government to assist many of the families with funerary costs. One-hundred fifty eight miners died as direct exposure to an unknown level of radiation and there's concern that some four-hundred more may have been exposed to an unknown level of low-level radiation from the initial blast.”

	“That's not our responsibility.” Martin said dismissively, “If those back breakers didn't have a life insurance plan set up, then it's not in our department to intervene. I'm not going to drown this government in charity, not like the last administration. Fucking bleeding hearts. What else, what's next?”

	“Nothing much, not until the assessment teams get there.” Erwin acknowledged, “A public statement is of course expected. I've had to deflect early requests from early pencil shanks probing for some material, an official statement from the government: something.”

	“I'll get on that then. It won't be too terribly heard.”

	“You going to script, Martin?”

	Martin nodded, “We are deeply saddened.” he began in a dramatic wavering falsetto voice, “Of the incident we have witnessed today in South Emmil. Our administration will work tirelessly to determine the nature of what transpired, and forth-rightly repair the lives and damages that has occurred as a result. We are a nation of strong leaders, and incidents such as these do not diminish our resolve.”

	He stopped, and held out his arms. “That's it.”

	“Care if I give that to them now?” asked Erwin.

	“If you think it works, then please do.” Martin replied, “I don't need to be pricked with too many questions about it. Give them what they need to go away and don't offer anything else. Not until we have answers. The appropriate office then will handle it from there.”

	“Understood. By the way, will you be available for crocket tomorrow evening?”

	“I don't play sports, you know that.”

	“There'll be barbie and beer.”

	“I'll be there.”