Forever Young

Chapter Thirty-two. The Darmyr.

Chapter Thirty-two 

The Darmyr 

The reported demise of the M.R.P. swayed the vote of the Alliance Council. Not only did they agree to release Erika, who had refrained from choosing a mate, but they also supplied a couple of scouts to guide them back to the camp near Engelsbay. 

**** 

Reunited with Lars, the team hastily packed their equipment, and continued the planned journey to Timus. Valuable time had been lost in their unscheduled detour to Wyland, and winter would soon be upon them. They also wanted to travel on to the capital, Ruanda, the military and scientific centre of the Myrian Republic. Some Myrians might have survived there. 

The road from Engelsbay to Timus wound through a landscape of lakes and pine forests. It was in the same sorry, pothole-pocked state as the roads around Drylan. Many of the bridges they crossed looked in imminent danger of collapse. At regular intervals, just as before, they passed through small deserted settlements, each housing at least one of the familiar conical structures. 

A ring of rounded hills surrounded the town of Timus. The treeless slopes bore the obscene gashes of extensive mine workings. Miners had blasted away large sections of the hillsides revealing an underbelly of gleaming white rock. White dust from these mine workings coated everything.  

Timus was no Engelsbay. No battle here. All the buildings were still intact, but suffering the consequences of eight years of neglect. Industrious spiders, and wild life in search of dens and nesting sites, had taken over. Tattered, faded Myrian flags, atop almost every building, flapped in the evening breeze. Unlocked screen doors of stores, still brimming with goods, squealed open and clattered shut in the gusting wind. An influx of people, a thorough cleaning, and life here could quickly return to normal, thought Leitus. 

The main street led directly towards the cupola topped building characteristic of all Myrian towns. Leitus squirmed at the thought. He knew what lay inside. He sent the others to confirm. Meanwhile, he went in search of 9B Somerset Drive. 

Two hundred years ago Walt and Hilda had vacated the premises, so he didn't know what to expect. The address was easy to find as Somerset Drive intersected Main Street. It was mainly a residential street, with a few commercial buildings. Many wooden homes, topped with solar panelling had survived. As he drove along the street, he noticed the house numbers decreasing, starting at 4500 at Main. Eventually he found the 100 block on the edge of town, close to the entrance to the mines. 9B no longer existed. 

The city planners must have ordered the demolition of all the miners' cottages on this block and their replacement with an unimaginative one-storey structure. Inside, Leitus found a swimming pool filled with foul smelling fungi. Several recliners, and an array of body length tubes that he could still rotate manually, surrounded the pool. He had seen all this before. However, in one corner of the large room, situated in front of a mirror and a hand basin, he spotted an ancient barber chair and beside it a large bird cage supported on a now green copper base. 

***** 

Exploration of the town revealed no new insights, but they had more luck at the mines. There, they discovered conveyer belts once used to feed ore from the face to a monstrous central crusher. Alongside the crusher, they found several of the huge floaters .Galgov had mentioned the Myr used them mainly for military purposes and for transportation of heavy goods. Maybe they used the solar powered vehicles to transport the crushed ore to a smelter of some kind, thought Leitus. They found no such smelter in Timus or its environs. Time to move on to Ruanda.