Free A Succession of Bad Days by Graydon Saunders

And the walk probably does loosen some muscles and help a bit.
    Being grinned at by Blossom doesn’t help at all.
    There’s no waggon today, just a couple boxes, proper ones with latches and hinged lids, and a handful of sticks like extra-length broom handles.
    Blossom’s wearing outright gauntlets, can’t call them gloves. Serious gauntlets; whatever they’re for is dangerous. They don’t look like metal or I’d say they were from fighting armour. Odd colours, too, I think it’s stains of some kind.
    “Good morning!” Blossom says it sincerely, hard cold rain and all. We’re two, three hundred metres from the actual trees, just outside the ward-loop around allthe novel terrain, and I can feel the ward but the overwhelming thing is the way the rain roars on the leaves.
    “Now that we’ve got those holes drilled, we can break the rock up in a controlled way. We want controlled so no one gets their skull crushed by flying rocks, first, and second, we want controlled so we’ve got a good idea how big the hole will be before we start.”
    There’s something aboutthe way Blossom says ‘skull crushed’. It’s not any least kind of approval, but it’s not like there’s going to be any kind of surprise, either. Right. This is actually dangerous.
    Blossom’s head comes up a bit, looking at each of us instead of looking at all of us. “Do any of you remember why steam’s impractical?”
    There’s an abrupt quirk to Blossom’s lips. “Water vapour, steam, not the IndependentSteam.”
    Kynefrid speaks doubtfully into the extended pause. “Something about adding heat the second time.”
    Blossom nods. “Thermodynamic cycles. If there’s a Null available to keep the Power away, you can get work out of heat mechanically. But then you have to add heat again. It’s the cyclical nature that does it, the Power objects and you get serious mischief. If there’s no Null, anything thatworks by moving heat explodes. Using high-pressure steam to cook food faster will eventually explode, less immediately but certainly.”
    Everybody’s nodding. Being careful with kettles, it doesn’t matter if you’re making soup or dyeing wool, everybody knows about being careful with kettles. A lid mustn’t fit too tightly.
    “An explosion is just stuff flying apart, stored energy becoming kinetic energyall at once. You can get that by storing energy in the structure of the stuff with heat or with chemistry. Enough Power in a continuous application of will can keep the mischief out until you remove your will from the working.”
    Hard to tell in the rain, but this is a locked stillness, not just silence. I don’t think any of us think we can do that. I really hope Blossom doesn’t.
    “Since on-site,as-needed high-energy chemistry is more work than we need to do today, we’re going with something simple.” Blossom’s grin has edges. I’m feeling my spine ache at me as my back tenses up solid.
This isn’t safe,
echoes through my head in a voice I don’t recognize.
    Dove grins back at Blossom. Kynefrid looks totally bored. Chloris and Zora have nearly identical fixed looks. I don’t suppose respectableyoung Creeks blow stuff up very often. Nobody did in the part of the Commonweal, First Commonweal, I was from, there were lots of rocks but not much outcrop.
    “Time to turn the umbrellas off,” Blossom says, and obviously starts getting damp. You can hear the rain rattling off our hats, the tone off Blossom’s hat is different, harder, more like a roof than fabric. “You never have any kind of actualPower working going on when you’re blasting. That’s rule one. Rule zero is you don’t even consider it if you’re drunk, hungover, unwell, or are otherwise not able to supply your full attention.”
    Rain’s still cold.
    “Rule two; have some place to hide when the boom happens.”
    We all look around; it’s pretty much locally flat.
    “Over the ridge line?” Zora sounds doubtful; that’s a couple hundred