Traveller Vignette 038

“Brother James met me in the mission's carefully tended vegetable garden. He looked thin, overworked and oddly content. The Iskandrian church had been working on this low-tech backwater world for three generations now, running clinics and schools, and their work was slowly paying off – literacy and life expectancy were up by a measurable amount, and child mortality was down. From what I understood, there was actually a waiting list of people back on Iskander willing to spend two years training then another five years here, working for nothing but their keep and the belief that they'd be rewarded in some future life.

They didn't particularly try to proselytize, because their church taught that the best argument was a good example, but they got converts anyway and I'd not met anybody on world who had anything but praise for the brothers.

“The mission seems to be doing well, Brother” I said.

“Pretty good” he said modestly “But you know how it is – if God helps those who help themselves, how much more will she help those who help others? But come inside, and I'll explain what we need”


(Author's note - We met the Iskandrian faith briefly in vignette 25. The help they need might be protection from Vargr raiders or difficult-to-obtain supplies to pay off an old debt owed by one of the characters. Alternatively, it might be a side issue serving only to pull the characters into the church community where the real scenario - perhaps a murder mystery - takes place. Finally, the Iskandrian community might simply serve as a "safe place" the characters can hole up if they need it.)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
Tracklink Article -  The Laird Centaur (This article first appeared in Issue 107 (Autumn 2020) of Tracklink, the magazine of the Tank Museum.  The photos used in the original article belong to the Tank Museum, so I have used public domain photos here) Half-tracks were popular as military vehicles during the Second World War, since they offered a good compromise between the low cost and low maintenance burden of a wheeled vehicle and the better cross country mobility of a fully tracked vehicle.  However, they generally disappeared in the post war years, as 4WD vehicles became increasingly capable. It was therefore something of a surprise when Laird Engineering of Anglesey launched a new half-track military vehicle in 1978, based on Landrover and CVR (T) Scorpion light tank components. The first 6 Centaur prototypes used the front half of a Series 3 109in LWB Landrover, with a new rear chassis incorporating a shortened set of rubber padded CVR (T) tracks and drive sprocket,...
Read more
Image
 Henrician Breach Loading Gun Being a trustee of the Royal Armouries has occasional odd perks. This is a breach-loading gun made for Henry VIII in 1537. The breach flips up for a pre-loaded chamber containing powder and ball to be inserted; it's potentially the first breach loading gun made in England, probably from initials on the weapon by William Hunt, Keeper of the King's Handguns. It was probably originally made as a wheel lock, but later converted to a matchlock. I got to handle it, but carefully - damaging royal treasures is frowned on, even if you are a trustee
Read more
Traveller Vignette 051 Four clusterbombs dropped free of my fighter, scattering anti-personnel submunitions, and the Saruthi field hospital disappeared in a crackling wave of explosions behind me. It'd been clearly marked with red crosses, showing how little the Saruthi understood what was coming. We'd all seen the pictures of Saruthi executing whole hospitals of our wounded during the invasion, to clear space for their own casualties. Besides, given that we planned to kill every Saruthi soldier on the planet, waiting for wounded ones to heal before executing them seemed both inefficient and hypocritical. I saw the flash of multiple SAM launches, as Saruthi launch controllers let their anger get the better of their judgement, and my threat warning receivers all went off together. I pointed the interface fighter straight up, hit the afterburners, and it climbed for altitude like a homesick angel. I couldn't outrun the missiles, but I didn't have to. The sky fli...
Read more