Rene shoved against one of the concrete beams as three other men hauled on a makeshift pulley line. There was grinding of stone on stone as the friction broke and the great block of stone began to rise, showering grit wich Rene did his best to keep from his eyes with a raised hand. There was a curious flash of dejavu as he remembered how he and Bowie had helped the farmer on New Concordia free his oxen from the rice paddy. That act of charity had saved Rene’s life now that he thought about it. What could have driven the beast into the water in the first place? He would certainly never know, nor, he supposed did it much matter. A small void opened as the beam rose revealing a sniveling young woman and a child of perhaps four years of age. Both were so coated with mud and grit that they appeared almost alien to Rene’s eyes.

“Your safe,” he declared, “can you climb through?” Above him the beam began to slowly rotate seeking the neutral point on its new found fulcrum. The woman looked up at him, her face was caked with dirt save for thin lines that tears had drawn through the grime. Unsteadily she came to her feet and passed the child through to Rene, who took the boy and passed him up to other waiting hands. The woman reached out and took his hand and began to climb through when there was a sudden shout of alarm and a twanging of parting wires. Someone shouted a warning but Rene jerked the woman free with a strength that might have dislocated her arms. She screamed in pain but cleared the area a second before the cable gave out completely and several hundred kilos crashed down. Rene spun, putting his back to the shower of concrete chips that lashed him and jumped as far clear as he was able.

“Rene?! You ok?” Tychon yelled and strong hands seized him and the girl hauling them out of the ruined house by main force.

“Yeah, yes, I’m fine,” Rene assured the coral gatherer as he was unceremoniously dumped on the grass beside the ruined house. A wet cloth was shoved into his hands and he gratefully wiped his face clean. Dirt and mud caked his body and, though the temperature was moderate, he was sweating from his exertions. It was nearly mid day and the rain had stopped, though not enough for the sun to be any more than a bright spot in the grey cloud coverage.

“Here, Drink.” Tychon commanded, thrusting a canteen full of water into his hands. Rene drank greedily, allowing the cool clear filtered water to run down over his chin and onto his chest. The fifteen men who formed the ‘crew’ that Tychon was leading all looked exhausted, though Rene doubted that even a marine platoon could have worked harder than they had this morning. With the aid of the goggles they had pulled a half dozen survivors from the ruined houses using little more than the strength of their hands and a few old winches. 

“That's everyone accounted for on this street,” Tychon said with a somber note in his voice. Most of the men working here were friends and associates of his, and these houses had been their homes. More than one man was morning the loss of a family member, though like Tychon had done when Damaris had been among those presumed lost they buried the pain and worry in the work. At Tycon’s suggestion Rene had given his goggles to one of the younger men so that he could scan other houses. The device was a fairly simple one and there were others aboard the Bonaventure, but they might well save lives here. 

“So where next?” Rene asked. Tychon shook his head and lay a restraining hand on Rene’s shoulder as he tried to rise.

“That's it for now, you push yourself too hard and you will break, it is the wisdom of the sea,” Tychon said. They had been at if for several hours and as he looked around Rene could see that the men were mostly played out. Even he, blessed with genetic augmentation and a history of brutal physical training couldn’t go on like this indefinitely. 

“Let’s go clean up, then we can see about your fluorine,” Tychon suggested, clasping Rene’s forearm and helping him to his feet.

“The seas know you have earned it.”

The seaward section of San Roayo was, paradoxically, in better condition than the more inland ares Rene had seen. The buildings here were constructed large of concrete and prefab industrial polymers that had withstood the surge of the sea better than the flimsier structures had dealt with the wind. The structures, mostly one or two story workshops or warehouses, were scuffed and battered by debris but Rene doubted they had been much to look at before the storm either. The streets were littered with seaweed and stank of rotting fish, many of which were visible among the detritus, buzzing with flies. The fish life here appeared to be four eyed with four sets of fins spaced around the body, though Rene was no naturalist to judge such things. There were people around, but few of them were on the streets, mostly they seemed to be proprietors or workers who were in the process of cleaning up the damage to their businesses, or perhaps merely preventing looters from helping themselves. 

The building they were looking for was only a block back from the waterfront. Masses of barges had been driven onto the numerous docks and jetties and formed a barrier of debris and shattered timbers. Rene supposed that the boats would be refloated once the more immediate rescue work had finished. Perhaps by then help would arrive from the planetary authorities, or perhaps, with the Eastern Cross in rebellion, they people would be left to fend for themselves. Even if the Duke’s rebellion were put down tomorrow resentments like this would linger for years or decades. It irritated Rene, who, despite everything, remained a child of the aristocracy, that even an Imperial victory wouldn’t be complete.

AV-GAS, proclaimed by a large sign suspended above the doorway, was a shabby looking place. A small office was appended to a large warehouse building that seemed mostly devoted to housing a mass of pipes and tanks that were visible through tears in the metalized sheeting that served the place for walls. A large loading dock shelted what appeared to be a forklift and a pair of large trucks, both clearly damaged by the floodwater. Large portable cylinders for gas transport were scattered around in haphazard piles which Rene hoped where the result of after the fact scavenging rather than any normal habit of stowage.

The interior of the office was grimy and dark. Several chemical luminators had been stuck to the wall and an unpleasant looking bald man with tattoos on his arms brooded behind a large metal counter. The walls were covered with pornography which had been pinned up wherever calendars and tide charts didn’t already occupy. It ranged from the obscene to the unbelievable but Rene imagined that it had long ago lost its shock value for anyone who came here regularly. An ashtray filled the room with smoke for the remains of a half dozen cigarettes of a type Rene couldn’t identify. There was an automated dispensing machine, covered in bright advertising slogans, in one corner, though without power its many lights were out and it looked dead and lifeless. The proprietary was watching a broadcast on a portable screen about a meter wide that he had wired up to a portable power source. It was similar to what Julia had been using to monitor the missing persons lists when Solae and Rene had first met her, though it was of better quality and clearly less well cared for.

“Tychon,” the tattooed man grunted in a tone without much warmth. His beady eyes flicked suspiciously to Rene but he made no comment about the presence of the stranger.

“Heard your daughter had been swept out to sea,” the fellow said, placing his arms on the counter and leaning forward. Tychon smilled, unaware or simply to relieved at Damaris’ safe return to notice the cruelty with which the comment was delivered.

“Safe and sound praise the seas Vitger!”  Tychon told him with a broad smile.

“But that isn’t what we are here about, we need to buy some fluorine,” Tychon explained, pointing to Rene to make the ‘we’ clear. Vitger narrowed his eyes at this pronouncement.

“I got some in the tanks, but what do you need it for? Surely you don’t have coral you need to treat?” he asked shrewdly. Rene shrugged his shoulders as if the matter was of little consequence. He drew forth a few Imperial credit chips each worth several dozen Soldaei. Rene didn’t know what the daily wage was on Panopontus but he was willing to bet that the credit chips represented a fortune. The greedy glitter in Vitgers eyes told him he was correct.

“I need about 250 litres, with a 6h or 7h delivery system,” Rene explained. Vitger nodded, picking up the chip and examining it between thumb and forefinger.

“We can work with that, how are you planning on moving it?” the merchant asked. His eyes ficked between the pair of men and his view screen and Rene frowned. Something about this was starting to make him uncomfortable.

“Thaddeus has a barge he will loan me,” Tychon said, referring to one of the men they had helped dig out of the ruins earlier in the day.

“He had his barge out for maintenance when this all happened,” Tychon explained, as though the matter were any clear to Rene. Vitger nodded though it appeared to Rene that he wasn’t really listening.

“Ok head out back and grab the dolly will you?” he directed Tychon. The boatman nodded and turned to head through a door sectioned off by hanging strips of plastic sheeting. Rene was very fast his hand went for the gun he had in his hip pocket but Vitger had been ready. WIth a yell of fear he pulled a needle stunner from behind the desk and fired a half dozen rounds in the space of a heart beat. Even so, only two of them hit Rene, one in the breast and one in the upper thigh. The crystalline metallic darts pulsed reversing polarity with the speed of a strobe light. Powerful electrical currents ripped through Rene body sending him sprawling to the floor in spastic contractions. Pure luck stopped him from biting his own tongue. Tychon spun in the doorway just in time to catch his own spray of needles and be sent twitching to the floor. Rene flooped nervelessly on the ground as the grinning Vitger came out from behind the counter. In one hand he held the stunner and in the other the vid screen. Rene had just enough time to make out a picture of himself and Solae with the words: Dangerous Rebels, Reward Offered, before Vitgers boot crashed into his head, and he knew only blackness.