Chapter 19

“Not really, but if it was mine I might go for Farm Pharmacy, for the fun of the alliteration, plus it is an easy name to remember. There are a lot of farms outside the city and there will be many more later.” “I might just use that, dear.” Charles answered his phone and found he had news from The Personalia.

“Charles Robson, we have amended the search pattern of the drone metal detector, to enable it to scan the area beyond your farm boundaries. As soon as it is fully charged, it will be ready to start scanning.” “Thank you,” responded Charles. “I will attend to that shortly. Goodbye.” Reginald had at this point left Charles, to go and speak with Jemima. He found her swilling her father’s Laphroaig whisky in her mouth round her jaw for a second time. He sat down beside her and clasped her gently on the shoulder. She appreciated being hugged with love.

“Putting up with the pain, Jemima?” Reg asked her.

“To some extent, Reg. The paracetamol has dulled it somewhat, enough that I was able to put pressure on the spot to push out some of the pus or whatever it is that is causing the pain. Then the whisky has been working as an antiseptic to kill off any bacteria within my mouth where the abscess is. My jaw is still sore, but I can put up with it. Frances says that an antibiotic is on the way.” Reginald asked in curiosity, “Did you spit out the whisky or swallow it, Jemima?” “Spat it out, of course. I don’t like the taste of whisky: too sharp and strong for me.” “What a shame. Good whiskies the single malts usually have very nice flavours and aromas, but they are an acquired taste, and some folk simply can’t abide them. You must be like that. Your dad will be disappointed that his good malt is being spat out. It is not wasted, though, as it is doing another job on this occasion; killing off your infection and stopping it from spreading. The antibiotic will tackle it at source later.

Solid food is going to be a problem, for now. Ask for things like oatmeal porridge, and eggs and things that you don’t have to chew. I wouldn’t recommend eating cake or any type of jams or jellies, due to the high sugar content. You don’t want sugar near your abscess, as that may make it worse.” An hour later the delivery man arrived at the Robson farm, and he was surprised to find all the Robertson family present. Frances explained the family link to the Robsons. He asked about the parcel he was to collect for the bank, and Charles brought it to him.

“I’ve sealed it and written the bank account code on top, so that it is clear where this stuff is headed.” “Right, sir. I don’t need to say anything about delivering on your behalf?” “No, the bank is expecting this delivery, so it is simple. I assumed your standard charge for the delivery. Is my assumption correct?” “It is, sir. Having deliveries in both directions makes things easier for me as well, so I would not ask for anything beyond the standard fee.” Fiona came to speak with him.

“Mr Holmes, I may be setting up a pharmacy business in the city. Most clients not in a hurry will collect their own medicinal wants, but if someone is unwell or in need of swift attention, they may require a prescription medicine delivered. Might you and I arrange a reduced delivery charge if you get several deliveries to make in the same general vicinity?” He looked her in the face speculatively as he thought about this proposition.

“Could be, Mrs Robertson. There may be factors such as speed of delivery in an emergency; the distance difference in a day ës locations, and so on. Ideally one batch of deliveries should be for one side of the city and another for the opposite side, but I may need to have an assistant so that deliveries to both rural sides of the city can be done in one day, and that will increase my costs. Phone me to discuss it, in an evening, please.” Fiona nodded her approval.

Charles brought the wrapped parcel to Mr Holmes, and it was soon packed away for the trip back to the city. Angus Holmes first hefted the parcel in his cupped hands, surprised at the weight of the package.

“Something heavy there, sir. Gold nuggets?” Charles replied carefully, “Could be. Something that we dug up. Might be gold in it, but until it is checked, you never know. In part, it might be lead. The bank will have the expertise to deal with it and see what kind of ore it is.” “True enough,” said Angus. “I hope you find more, so that I get more deliveries to make to the bank.” Mr Robson chuckled. “So do I, Mr Holmes; so do I.” Angus delivered the package to the bank and got his digital receipt, which he emailed to Mr Robson. The bank phoned two days later to tell Charles Robson that the material was on average 70 per cent gold, with some silver alloyed with the gold and the total value had been credited to his account, minus a ësmall’ charge for the assay.

Charles knew the bank’s idea of ësmall’ was larger than his own, but that was life.

This deposit encouraged him to be optimistic about the survey of the next tract of land, even though most of the finds would be credited to the Colony’s account.

It took several days for the drone to scan the whole area, and even then there were patches missed due to obstructions like dense bushes and large rocks. He called Reginald over to examine the pattern of missed patches with him. The gaps caused by bushes were all random, but the patches of rock, combined with the prevalence of hits not far from the rocks, suggested a riverine flow around the rocks.

Reginald commented, “I’ll bet that there is more gold close to the rocks, where the drone could not venture with its detector, with the rotor blades protruding out. Someone needs to get close to the side of the boulders with a regular metal detector, and find what if anything is lurking there.” At Reg’s suggestion, Charles checked the Colony’s business index, looking for metal detectors, and found that one shop in the second city sold hand-held detectors on an extensible pole for swinging over the ground. The prices appeared a bit high for second-hand detectors, but a lot less than buying one new from Earth, so Charles ordered one, with Holmes Delivery Service specified as the delivery method to the farm, after Reg pointed out, “With thousands of dollars in gold going to the bank, you can afford a small extravagance, Charles.” The hand-held metal detector arrived within two days, and Reginald was called over to use it to check the locations beside large boulders in the large additional tract of land. This meant most of a day’s work, so his ladies made a trip to visit the Georgeson family, where Gladys’ baby Harold was growing fast and Letitia’s pregnancy was showing in its own way. She seemed to glow with the new life within her.

Charles decided to accompany Reginald on the gold hunt of the blank areas of the digital map, and they took a packed lunch with them, for getting to the first site was well over an hour’s trek from the Robson farm.

Their initial response was disappointing, as there was no indication of gold at all. Reg tried every side of the large boulder, but nothing appeared. They moved to the next spot, a clump of four large rocks with one in front and the other three clustered behind it.

Almost at once, there was a small beep, signalling a hit. Reg stuck in a marker pin from the collection he had in his jacket pocket. He moved along towards the side, and a few centimetres on, he got another hit. This one was louder, indicating a stronger signal, but this could mean a speck near the surface, or a larger nugget at greater depth. He marked it and continued. This cluster of boulders revealed seven or eight more hits, and when they were marked, Reg and Charles moved to the next spot, a woody bush with a canopy of a spreading nature, hanging to near the ground. While these whippy branches were an obstacle to the drone’s rotors, they were no bother for the manual detector.

Reg was able to push the detector pad under the branches and around the base of the plant. The detector went wild, showing either a batch of nuggets in close proximity to each other, or a large nugget.

“What do you think, Charles? Mark it or dig it up?” Charles looked around at how many more sites were to be checked, then looked at the time.

“I think we could dig this up, and then break for our picnic lunch, Reginald.” “Good thinking: I am getting peckish too,” Reg responded and reached over his back for the ex-army folding spade he had slung there. Carrying it on his back made it easier to take the weight on a long walk.

Charles had a pair of secateurs in his own jacket, so made a start of trimming back the thin branches to make space for digging. Once there was enough room, Reginald started shovelling, pulling out a spadeful and dumping it on the ground. Charles then checked that spadeful with the detector, and waved with his hand a zero find, so Reg dug out the next spadeful, and so on. He was down almost half a metre before his spade sounded a clunk as it hit something hard, like a stone. Reg stopped, and tried to lever the stone out of the way. It was heavier than expected, but it moved fairly readily. He reached in and dragged it all the way out of his excavation.

Charles let out an exclamation and pulled the object to one side, then ran the detector over it again. It responded with wild activity.

“Reginald? I think this is mostly gold.” “What, the whole thing?” “Yes, or at least the detector seems to think so. The lump is partly gold at any rate; possibly other metals in with it. The detector doesn’t tell me.” “How heavy, do you think?” “Dunno, possibly several pounds.” He paused to clarify, “I still think in the old measures. What’s that in kilos?” “Uh, a kilo is a little over two pounds Imperial weight. Do we need to knock off as much soil as we can before we think of carrying it home?” “Let’s do that anyway,” said Charles. “We will see better what we have. Is there anything more in that hole?” He handed back the detector to Reginald, who stuck it into the hole. It beeped again.

“Oh, yes. I’d best keep digging, Charles.” He continued, and discovered another heavy lump below where the first one had been. Digging around it, this proved to be bulkier than the first, and it took a lot of heaving between them to pull it out of the ground. The detector fell silent in the hole now, but was active over the new lump.

“Two at one blow, Charles! This is great fun. Carrying these back is going to be hard work. Once we have eaten and had a drink, how about we carry these back to your house and call it a day?” Charles looked back at how far they had come, and swiftly agreed.

“Yes, lunch, then we head back. The weight of these, including the soil and any impurities, will be a heavy load for us to carry. I could have done with a sack, so that if we each held a corner we could drag the nuggets inside the sack and make life easier for us.” Reginald offered, “Next time, Charles, we carry a bag or sack with our tools and lunch, and that will make returning with finds easier. You are remembering this is simply the spots the aerial drone couldn’t reach?” Charles was not really listening as his eye had been caught by a movement. He squinted as he looked into the valley below, far beyond where they had been digging.

“Is that a man over there, Reginald?” Reg took a look, then pulled out a small telescopic monocular from his pocket. It had been a long time since he last used it, but he swiftly focused on the form in the distance. It was indeed a man, and he was carrying a metal detector.

He passed this information to Charles, adding, “Charles, I reckon this is your invader, moving on to do his searching here. He can’t have permission to do so, or we would have been told about it when we asked to search this tract of land. Fancy bracing him with his searching without permission?” “Damn, yes. Dump these nuggets back in the hole, and we can pick them up later.” Now unencumbered, they strode down to the valley bottom, directly towards the intruder.

Eventually they were spotted, and the man stopped detecting and waited for them to arrive. As they came close, he declared, “You can’t complain about me detecting here, Robson, as this is not your land.” Charles nodded, but told him, “True, but it is land belonging to the Colony, and anything found on this land belongs to the Colony, not to the finder. Did you know that? Anything you pick up belongs to the Colony, and if you walk off with it, you will be charged with theft.” “Rubbish! If that was the case, you wouldn’t be here with your own detector.” “Wrong. We did this the legal way. I asked the Colony Admin for permission to search here, and got approval as well as the information about ownership. As I was given approval, I was told I can get a small percentage of what I find as a reward. If you have no official approval, you get nothing. Either you dump what you have picked up so far, or I report you to the Colony people for stealing what belongs to the Colony.” “You don’t know my name, so you can’t report me.” “You mean your name is not on the ownership documents for the farm below mine?” “Ah, but it is in the name of a relative, and I work the farm for her.” Reg had his phone out as the others spoke, and he speed dialled The Personalia.

“Reginald Robertson here. Can you see the man facing me and Mr Robson, enough to identify his face?” “Sorry, Reginald Robertson, but the visual definition from orbit is not good enough to identify faces. We can though immediately identify him from his credit card as Richard Wright.” “You can? How?” “By arrangement between us and the Governor, all credit cards contain a tiny transmitter that continuously sends the card owner’s identity number, allowing us to at once say who owns this card. It is small enough that it is powered by a tiny radioactive particle supplied by us. In rural areas, the signal is easy to detect; in urban areas, detection is much slower, but still works through an algorithm.

The system was set up at the request of the Governor, to assist in finding missing persons. This is why the Bank permits credit cards for children as soon as they are old enough to read; it is for their protection.” “Thank you. I like it.” He closed the call and faced the aggressive man, saying, “Mr Wright, I have just had your identity confirmed by The Personalia as Richard Wright, so you are back to either dumping what you have picked up on this land, or be charged with theft by the Colony security staff. Which do you want to go for?” “You what?” He was dumbfounded.

Reg reiterated, “You have been identified as Richard Wright and so theft charges can be proceeded with, unless you empty your pockets of any finds you have picked up. It is your decision. In case you wish to challenge this, I must tell you that this entire discussion has been recorded on my phone as evidence, and GPS tells where we are standing.” Wright’s face flamed with anger as he realised he was stuck between a rock and hard place, but slowly made his decision. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a plastic bank containing nuggets and emptied it on the ground.

“There! That’s all I have. I’ll be forced to find another land section to search, and I will make sure I have permission so that you can’t interfere next time.” He still regarded Charles Robson’s challenge as spoiling his right as an individual to do his own searching and getting rich with it. Legal niceties to him were just barriers to his own enterprise.

Despite his feelings, he recognised he was stymied as regards gold prospecting on this piece of land. He resolved to discover another unspoiled patch possibly a few miles on, where he could find his fortune.

He stumped off towards the edge of the land, his metal detector over his shoulder like a soldier marching with his rifle. To Wright’s mind, the detector was his rifle in this conflict.

As the man slowly disappeared into the distance, Charles said to Reg, “That man is trouble with a capital T. He sees the world in terms of what he can get out of it, and to hell with everyone else. I think we should report his behaviour, in case anything more happens.” Reginald responded, “I am afraid you are right, Charles. Let me do this, as I am not directly part of your dispute.” Reginald phoned Colony Administration.