Free The Dream Compass [Book 1 of The Merquan Chronicle] by Jeff Bredenberg Page A

to be able to cover his nakedness than to ward off the chill.
    Faiging began with a slow but impatient air, as if addressing dull schoolchildren. “I want to make a test of something,” the inventor said, “and mayhap you will see my point. Now, Gregory, answer me this: Who is the Monitor?”
    The young man glanced to Webb, his brow wrinkling. “Who? The Monitor?”
    Faiging was steadfast in his patience. “Just say what you truly believe,” Faiging said flatly. “Tell me like I was just born—who is the Monitor, what does he do, where is he, and what does he look like?”
    “Aww, nobody gots the whole of it, so what’s the point?”
    The old man put a foot on the lowest rung of Gregory’s stool. “If you made your best guess, then,” Faiging pressed on. “If you had to say the likest thing, what would it be?”
    “I’d say the obvious, what ain’t left to speculation….”
    “Which is?”
    “Which is…” Gregory sighed. “The Monitor runs the Government, which is based in New Chicago. The Monitor probably lives there himself, by reason, and things operate rather smoothly—you’re housed, get a roof and work and all—until one day you’re informed by some pig-poking Lunch Minister or some such that cod guts are a delicacy and will be eaten raw at midday until supplies run out….”
    “The Monitor?”
    “The Monitor,” Gregory repeated, willing to be led back to the subject, away from his tirade. “He is a large, old mutated man. Secretive. The schoolchild tale is that he has three heads, heads like a dog or a bull, and lives in a hole in the ground, afraid of the light. Grew up in a science library, or some such.”
    Faiging held up a hand, signaling for Gregory to stop. He motioned to Webb, saying, “Your turn. The Monitor—whatever you truly believe.”
    Webb’s eyes darted to the window. Despite the storm, he clearly wanted to leave and be on the road. “This is stupid,” Webb said. “So little is really known about the Monitor and what’s to be had is probably more myth than fact. But for my part, I don’t believe the Monitor’s in New Chicago—haven’t thought that for years—and he’s not an individual, but a consortium of bungholes holed up far from the city. Three separate, normal individuals maybe, thus the three-headed tale.”
    Faiging leaned contentedly into his workbench. “Yes,” he said, “the point is that all those with the true gut-ball information are either in power or dead. The Monitor could be anything from a three-headed monster in New Chicago to a paranoid committee that relocates itself every few months in the countryside.”
    “I was asking you about Pec-Pec,” said Webb.
    “And I was illustrating just that,” replied Faiging. “No one knows anything about Pec-Pec just like no one knows anything about the Monitor. The Monitor runs a government that has precise rules, and those who do not obey die or disappear. Pec-Pec—he cannot be found either. He cannot be described accurately, and his existence is just a matter of faith. He is known as a gentleman, a statesman, a magician, and a thief. Probably there are four or five Pec-Pecs as well. The one I introduced you to, I just cannot be responsible for. Gully? If he leads you to disaster with one of his fantasies, don’t come bombing my compound in revenge. I just introduced you once. Now, I’ve tried to warn ya away.”
    “We wouldn’t bomb you, Mr. Faiging,” Gregory said innocently. “The committee’s ordered a peaceful mission—no bangers. It wouldn’t have let us come, otherwise.”
    Faiging’s smile twisted, and he held up the order sheet Kim had passed to him. “Then ya haven’t seen your boss’s supply list, have ya, boy?”
    [Back to Table of Contents]

 

    15
    Rutherford Cross
    There was not much about old Rutherford Cross that his neighbors agreed on. But this much no one would dispute: He owned eighty acres of land on the outskirts of Kingstree in the Sector that was called