The little tubes were withdrawn and carefully opened by the greensmith. The gentle hiss of the pressure release valves felt more like a sigh, as though the canister was relieved to be done with it’s long duty. The seeds were laid out on a white cloth and carefully examined. An incredibly precise ruler was taken out by the grain merchant, along with a scale. Next to the scale was a well padded box filled with increasingly fine and terribly accurate weights. Each seed was lifted with padded tweezers, measured, weighed and recorded, then checked against records of existing seeds. Cereals in one corner, fruit, vegetables, plants whose purpose was still unknown, and that ancient friend of humanity- legumes. All divided and sent to their respective niches on the cloth. There were even a few bits of root stock, rhizomes, which had the greensmith and the grain merchant ready to tear out their hair in frustration.

It looked like a brown twig. About as long and wide as an index finger. Mazelton could understand their feelings.

After an hour of sorting, the grain merchant and greensmith shared a long look and started shaking their heads in helplessness.

“Good news and bad- the good news is that whoever prepared the cache did an excellent job. The seeds aren’t quite as good as new, but I would say that they are about fifty percent viable. Some less, some more, I’m generalizing here. I have no idea about the rhizomes, but based on the weight, they should still retain a good bit of water, so.. That is something. I don’t know what.” The greensmith shook her head.

“The bad news is that, unidentified rhizomes aside, most of these are grains and vegetables we already have. Hard to say for absolutely certain without destroying them or growing them, but we can say for sure that… for example, this is a wheat seed, and it appears to be Hard Red Winter Wheat. Which is 99% similar to every other sort of wheat- about sixty centimeters tall, hardy, with a fairly thick stock holding up a huge head of seeds.”

“But nothing about it suggests it is a super-wheat seed that will have double the seed count and cure scrofula at the same time.” Madam Lettie concluded.

“Again, basically impossible to know for sure without growing it, but… yes. When you get right down to it, the Third Empire was, what? A thousand years ago? Something like that.” The greensmith nodded.

“Not so long, as these things go.” Mazelton agreed.

“Right. And any difference the seeds have are likely to be related to pest management. You know, mildly poisonous to some insects, smells bad to birds, resistant to the chained demons the Empire used to kill earth spirits, that kind of thing.” The grain merchant continued, missing the greensmith’s pained wince.

“So they are worthless?” Mendiluze asked.

“Oh no, far from it. Worth a small heap of rads. It’s really useful to have reference strains like these, so we can check and see what directions our own crops have drifted off into. And we don’t know for sure what these are, but they sure look like oil seeds to us, and that could be huge. Not a whole lot of oil producing seeds grown in this part of the world, not in a long, long while.” The grain merchant smiled.

“Which leads to the question of divvying up the profits.” Madam Lettie concluded.

“Which are completely speculative and unrealized at this time, and as a practical matter, won't be realized for a year or more.” Mazelton replied with a toothy smile.

This caused everyone not named Mazelton to remember an old saying- “If the polisher is smiling, they are hungry.”

“Not a “now” problem, not an “us” problem.” The grain merchant immediately started packing away the grains in their little tubes.

“I wish I was that lucky.” Mendiluze muttered.

Polyclitus had lied. It was in no way easy to catch up to the wagons, it was a damn haul. It was even worse for the teamsters, as there was simply no hurrying aurochs. Mazelton didn’t hang around with them, and neither did anyone else. Mendiluze set a brisk pace, not quite jogging, and with precisely calculated rest times. Mazelton decided that he wasn’t suited for army life. They missed dinner too. Mazelton decisively went to his tent and to sleep.

Mazelton woke sore and starving, but comforted by the knowledge that others would be suffering as they tried to figure out how to divide the benefits from the seeds. He smiled and stretched his hands to the sky, greeting the sun with an unusual degree of enthusiasm. The spread legged pose was quite convenient for the universe, as it was just winding up to kick him in the fork.

It went like this- The Caravan, organized under the auspices of the Nimu Caravan Company, had a charter, a constitution of sorts, which laid out the rules and problem solving process for the caravan. Each “Caravan” was a distinct entity, so each “Caravan” voted on and agreed to the charter before it set out. Of course, since it was being formed under the Nimu Caravan Company, you could agree to their charter, or make your way on your own. Mazelton was an “employee” of the Nimu Caravan Company in the general meaning of the word but under the charter he was simply another member of the “Caravan,” not part of the Nimu Caravan Company. He was an independent contractor providing services in lieu of money for transport.

As a member of the caravan, the charter said that he was entitled to any remnants he acquired during the course of the journey, subject to two pages of qualifiers, definitions and references to a long, long codicil. This, in turn led to the huge argument that blew up in the middle of the night- Who, exactly, recovered the seed vault?

Was it the person who discovered the hole? Mazelton alone? The team that went to actually get the seeds out of the hole and back to the caravan? What, in fact, was a “recovery?”

The wisdom of the Caravan’s factions was swiftly revealed when they all agreed that, since they all contributed to the actual collection of the seeds, they were all entitled to a share. The agreement was reached while Mazelton was asleep.

This led to the next problem- Mazelton’s faction. He was sort of an employee of The Nimu Caravan company, but mostly not. He was a Dusty… but he didn’t travel with them. He was, calculated another way, one of the independents, except nobody thought of him that way, least of all himself. But since whichever faction claimed him was also likely to get the biggest piece of the value of the grains, it turned out that he was suddenly everyone’s best friend and closest cousin. The Collective not included, because there simply weren't enough Rads in the world to make them want to welcome an unshriven polisher into their midst.

They weren’t willing to wait for him to eat breakfast before choosing a side.

“Not just a feather, but the Ring of Anenio, huh?” Mazelton grunted at the convened faction heads.

“‘Fraid so.” Humble Bissette didn’t look remotely apologetic.

“Before we get to that, how exactly is anybody getting paid on this?” Mazelton asked.

“Charter actually covers that.” Said Polyclitus. “Under “Residuals, residue, royalties and rents.””

Mazelton shivered a bit at the sound of that.

“Basically we jointly form an interest, a sort of limited company, if you like, and appoint a manager to run it. We then divide the profits based on our degree of ownership in the company. Of course, someone can increase your interest in the company by providing investment so it can run, but you also get a share for recovering the seeds.” Polyclitus continued. Mazelton was vividly reminded of when his mother would “helpfully explain” the terms of contracts to the clan’s “valued partners.”

“Right. I can see that, makes sense. But I still don’t have an answer to my question- how does anyone get paid on this? Because we are scattering over who knows how many square kilometers, and given the fact that some of us will be living up on mountains, we might as well talk in terms of cubic kilometers. Someone might be in a position to supervise the manager, but not all of us. And if the manager decides to cheat one or all of us, just takes the money and runs, how exactly do we recover? Or if there is a dispute between us, who is the arbiter? Who can we ask to enforce a decision?”

In Old Radler, the answer was simple- cheat us and die. Same policy every clan had. And clans had lots and lots of members, all of whom needed jobs. Jobs like supervising outside businesses and contracts. Which would be enforced under a set of punishments and rewards so detailed, the index was two inches thick. Because “Rules Enforcer” was a great job for talented, and connected, clansfolk, and you wanted to make sure they had something to do.

“Out of all our factions, Nimu has the broadest network of contacts and probably is best able to put a bounty out on someone, but the only entity with an actual judicial system is the Collective. And the Collective, and please correct me if I am wrong here, is willing to acknowledge private contracts, sign them if it makes other people feel better, but refuses to be bound by them.” Mazelton continued.

“It’s a bit more complicated than that, but essentially, yes.” Mendiluze looked worn. “We have been arguing around that exact point for a while.”

“Such fun.”

“Oh yes.” Humble Bissette dryly agreed. Maybe it was his bad mood, but she didn’t look well. Deep shadows under her eyes, wrinkles deepening too.

“How are the other independents handling things?”

“They are “considering their options, while reserving all rights.” Polyclitus said.

Mazelton sneered. Then thought a bit, tapping his lip. “Could you bring out your map? I want to check something.”

Polyclitus shrugged and rolled it out on a camp table. Mazelton traced their route west. Looks like their road was about to bend down a bit before starting a long, winding curve north, before plunging south again, then crossing the mountains at a sharp northern angle, then shooting the valleys back towards the south east. It never stopped looking weird, but he got the logic. Marked along the route was water and campsites. Get the two of them, and you are probably going to live. A flatter, more southern route would take you into the vast grassland deserts in the middle of the continent.

Just at the eastern foot of the mountains, there was a mark for a small, permanent settlement. Mazelton tapped it.

“Who holds this? The Laginalopo?”

“Cold Garden?” Polyclitus’ face went weird for a moment. “No, the tribes are nomadic, no permanent settlements. Cold Garden is the Cathedral CIty of the Joyful Throng. Better known as the cult of the Still Earth.”

Everyone’s faces went a bit weird at that. The cult’s reputation was… peculiar. Not bad, exactly, but…

“Why does our road go through those freaks?” Mendiluze asked.

“Because freaks or not, they have almost no city tax, safe inns and are the last serious opportunity to resupply before tackling the mountains. And we will need to resupply, you can count on that.” Polyclitus said.

“Do any of the Great Clans have branches there?” Mazelton asked, which got him some hard looks.

“Wouldn’t you know?” BIssette asked with tart humor.

“The various branches of the Ma clan don’t always keep in touch. Also, I wasn’t thinking about the Ma, but the Xia. They are bankers, including investment banking, and are big on assigning family members to manage businesses under their umbrella.”

“You want to turn over our profits to the Xia?” Bissette asked curiously.

“What profits? We have seeds. The Xia might be able to turn them into profits, will give a reasonably honest accounting, and are close enough to the Disputed Territory that if anyone wants to check over the books, they can. Long, dangerous journey, but doable. Also they believe in contracts the way I believe in gravity, and are notorious for hiring entire mercenary armies to go after people who cross them.”

This had everybody thinking. Mediluze visibly disliked the idea, but the rest of the group seemed open to it, at least. Polyclitus looked up at the sun, measuring its distance from the horizon.

“Past time this caravan got rolling. Long past time. Best idea we’ve had yet, but nothing we decide right now will matter a fart if we don’t get to where we’re going.” Polyclitus lurched to his feet, stretched, and walked over towards the drum. “Everyone, go back to your people and talk it over. Let's discuss again in a few days, see where everyone is at.”

Mazelton beelined for the chuck wagon before Polyclitus beat the drum to advance.