Haven Days
(September 2020)
18-Autumnal
1
Jeff had once told Dipper that Gnome families were not close, except when a cousin had come into the possession of mushrooms or precious gems. "Then, oh, boy," Jeff had said. "Relatives fall out of the trees. Literally!"
However, families also drew a little closer on special occasions. Jeff's father had passed away, but his mother took his place and sat Jeff down for a serious talk about marriage and how to behave himself. No birds or bees were involved. No, the talk for Gnomes was more about being absolutely certain of the partner's lineage, food-gathering talents, and possible fertility. "You can tell if she's ready to have children," Mom had wound up, "if she doesn't have any trace of beard left—without shaving, mind you! Without shaving!"
"Gemula's chin is as smooth as polished carnelian," Jeff assured her. "And she's, you know, equipped to feed a baby. And no, she doesn't need booberry jam! She's naturally equipped."
"Have you seen them?" his mother asked with deep suspicion.
"Of course I have!"
"Bare?"
"Mom, I'm not a baby. Yes, I have. They're well-formed and attractive."
"Good," his mother said, relaxing a little. "I know girls who can fool people with a couple of peaches!"
Anyhow, Jeff survived the tutelage, and later Mom even confided to her friends that she really liked Gemula. "A real hard worker, you can tell," she said. "And she knows how to tell a poisoned rat from a good one, and she has twenty-three different recipes for roadkill raccoon!"
When Jeff had first met Gemula, who was about forty years younger than he, she had the silkiest blond beard he had ever seen. Gnomes live a long time and mature slowly, and much happened in the time between their first meeting and Jeff's proposal of marriage: The Civilized Gnomes had established a home above ground, safe from the mole men. One Queen had died, another had taken her place, and gradually Jeff came to be her chief advisor. Then the queen had died tragically but heroically, saving her people from a badger.
Then, against all odds, and splitting the Gnomes into factions who approved or disapproved, Jeff had tamed the badger and had made her the next Queen. Alas, badgers are not as long-lived as Gnomes, and when she passed away, no one could agree on who should next inherit the throne.
Until they did away with the monarchy and decided to become a democratic republic instead. And Jeff got elected by acclamation to the position of Prime Minister. For a while things were shaky, but then the Gnomes had developed friendships among the humans (overcoming a sticky bit in which they had tried to kidnap Mabel Pines as their next Queen) and had found a place in Gravity Falls.
Now they fit right in. People didn't blink at the sight of a Gnome. They worked with Gnomes, joked with Gnomes, and played with Gnomes, who had rapidly come to understand poker and other human games. More and more the feral Gnomes, prey to tunnel flooding and raids by mole men, came up to the surface to join the Civilized Gnomes.
Years passed during all this. And one day Jeff had sat with Gemula, had glanced at her, gave her a second glance, and had said, "Why, you—you're sturdy!"
She tilted her head and smiled at him. "Yes. Yes, I am. And you're smart."
"Your face," he said. "May I touch it?"
She turned a blushing cheek. "Be gentle."
"Gemula," Jeff said, trembling as his fingers glided over her soft, soft cheek. "You've grown up."
"I couldn't help it," she said.
"So I guess you have lots of boys interested in, you know?"
"No," she said. "I've always been a little shy."
Jeff gulped. "Uh. Then—you want to do it?"
"When?" she asked.
"A year and a half to two years?"
"Yes," she said.
And so they were engaged. Then they got to know each other. That is how the Gnomes do.
Though for many, many generations, all Gnomes had been subterranean, somehow they paced their year to the seasons up on the surface. Traditionally, the autumn equinox, right around September 21, was an auspicious day for new beginnings and was the most popular time for Gnome weddings.
That day was coming fast.
Gnomes loved traditions, and they were always changing and improving them. Once the Gnomes exchanged the secret of where each family stored its winter food. Now they didn't need that—on the surface they worked and earned food all year around—and so they had adopted the human tradition of pretty rings. Gemula's favorite stone was green, and in the months before the pandemic, Jeff had managed to trade with some Gnomes from the eastern United States for a perfect emerald. It had cost a tidy sum in gold nuggets and sunstones—six of them—but it was worth it.
Shaped and cut into a faceted round gem, mounted in a gold circlet, the emerald looked exotic to everyGnome (emeralds are not found in the Pacific Northwest) and at the pledging ceremony, held in Gemula's parents' home, the families oohed and aahed when Jeff produced the ring and put it on Gemula's finger.
And then all the Gnomes, all thousand of them (an old-fashioned way of counting now that more and more Gnomes were becoming educated—actually nearly five thousand turned up), trooped to Pleasant Valley, formerly Gnome Man's Land, an ancient Gnome holding that had been taken from them by the Sentivore, an alien beast that had denned in a cave—long story. Short version, Mabel, Dipper, and Wendy had freed the Gnomes from the beast, and they had reclaimed the land.
Dipper, Wendy, Mabel, Teek, Stan, Sheila, Ford, and Lorena had prepared a feast there. The humans had one long picnic table, and Soos had carpentered up about five hundred for the Gnomes, like toddler-sized. "You can have the wood after the celebration's over," Soos had told Jeff.
That had deeply touched the Gnome. His people were expert builders, but used only hand tools and things went slowly. With all those planks—well, who knew what they'd turn out?
The humans very properly raised their arms, palms upward, and nodded to the couple. The crowd murmured with approval. Some of the recently-arrived former Ferals reluctantly agreed that sometimes humans had manners, after all.
Mabel made a little speech: "Gemula and Jeff, on this turning day of the year we greet you and wish you a long and happy marriage with lots and lots of children. We have prepared much Jam of Rejoicing. May your lives be as sweet as the jam!"
The words weren't quite right, but close enough for ceremonial purposes. The jam, in traditional earthenware pots, was blackberry—but it tasted different. In fact, it tasted better than the traditional jam. The Gnomes dug in.
"What is this?" asked Gemula. She had, as tradition dictated, fed Jeff the first spoonful and he had fed her the second. "It's very good!"
"Marionberry jam," Stan said. "The Valley produces a lot of it, but this year because of the plague farmers can't ship it out. So this is specially for you guys!"
"The marionberry," Ford explained, "is a hybrid of two different varieties of blackberry—"
"Later, dear," Lorena said with a smile.
The Gnomes danced (a Gnome dance is very similar to a Gnome battle, but with more music). Everybody toasted everybody else in a clover-honey wine, a sort of mead, and the married couple slipped away without being caught and tossed in blankets (Dipper and Wendy helped cover the getaway), and then everyGnome went home with a small basket of mushrooms.
The next day garbage pickups and pest exterminations were missed on account of hangovers, but the day after that the Gnomes buckled down and made up for that and nobody was the worse for it.
No one knew where the honeymooners were. By tradition, they would not reappear until October first, when the next full moon would rise. In the meantime, the Gnome Council would govern in Jeff's stead, though at the moment the governing took a back seat to food storage for the coming winter.
As for Jeff and Gemula, they had a penthouse apartment. Two nice round windows, a bed, plentiful food and drink, and who needed more?
"How did you find this wonderful place?" Gemula asked.
"Stanley offered it," Jeff told her, nuzzling her affectionately.
"It's wonderful."
"Soos did the work," Jeff told her.
They had a view of the Mystery Shack. And every day Jeff went down the spiral stairs and brought up the food and drink.
Soos was pleased. "It wasn't that much work," he told Dipper. "I mean, I had to hollow it out some. And cut the head off. But it worked like a charm."
"And you can rent it out to other Gnome couples," Dipper pointed out.
"Yeah, but dude, you know what? I think I'll leave it open for Jeff."
They looked at the totem pole. At the very top, Kolus, brother of the Thunderbird, gazed out at the world. And inside the head was the smallest honeymoon boudoir in Gravity Falls.
Quite an exhibit, man. Maybe when the pandemic ended . . ..
2
The tests had gone well. "I believe we done done it, Ford," Fiddleford said. "This here vaccine is self-limitin' and laser-focused. It'll wipe out the COVERT-19 virus, an' then it'll jest fade itself away."
"We'll need to ramp up production immediately," Ford said. "The number of hospitalizations has been declining—"
"But," Fiddleford finished for him, "we're a-goin' to hit another surge next month. All the signs point to it. And this'un's gonna be the worst yet." He sighed. "Ford, I been tryin' to line up production facilities. None o' the big companies wanna touch it. Too new, the tech is too different. An' they give me estimates that it'll cost near-about ten thousand dollars per dose. I think we gotta be like a squirrel an' climb up the hidden side of the tree."
"Manufacture it ourselves?" Ford shook his head. "If we only could. But we'd need facilities."
"Yep," Fiddleford agreed. "Now, then—let me fetch my calculator—let me see. Raw materials, well, that's real cheap, 'bout five dollars for a long ton, plus the reagent an' th' catalyst . . . now the big hump is mass-producin' a critical volume that'll operate on self-replication, then all we need's a great big medical factory. I reckon the kickoff will take about two million dollars if we control costs. Then jest the ingredients, say maybe another five hundred thousand, so . . . that works out to . . . " Fiddleford looked up and grinned. "Bet you're there already. What do you git per dose?"
"Twenty-nine cents," Ford said. "Given the volume we'll have to make. Am I right?"
"Nope," Fiddleford told him solemnly. "I figger it out to twenty-eight point eight cents each."
"I rounded up," Ford said.
"Well . . . two and a half million ain't peanuts. I reckon I might could cough it up myself—"
"No," Ford said. "I'd tap the Agency reserves, but I want to hold off because—"
"We're a-gonna need some source of funding," Fiddleford said.
As though he had been waiting a long time to use the line, Ford said, "I think I know a guy."
Preston Northwest, who still had not regained all the weight he had lost in the hospital, said, "You're sure the vaccine will work?"
"Yep," Fiddleford said. "If we'd had this when you were just starting to get sick, you'd never have got into such bad shape."
"And the government isn't interested?"
Ford looked grim. "They say they're pursuing more traditional medicines. They couldn't begin production on any of those before January at the earliest. We could start tomorrow, but to produce three hundred and thirty million units . . . we need a secure location, a staff of about a hundred, and an initial outlay of two point five million dollars."
Preston coughed. He was mobile again, and slowly gaining a little weight, but the pesky cough hung on. "Excuse me. And this would prevent Priscilla and Pacifica from falling ill?"
"Yes," Ford and Fiddleford said in unison.
"I'll write a check," Preston said.
He did, but before he would let them go, he asked, "How big a manufacturing facility do you need?"
"About a hundred thousand square feet floor space," Fiddleford said. "And I reckon we can recruit about half the staff from people—" he glanced at Ford—"already on the payroll, so to speak."
"How about the old ThreeBee Brewery in Hirschville?" Preston asked. "It's somewhat larger than you need, I own it, it's standing empty, and it's close enough to Gravity Falls to give you quick access."
"Wait a minute," Fiddleford said. "You useta produce Belchin' Bear Beer? That was my favorite! Can't get it no more."
"It wasn't profitable," Preston said. "But I can get the formula for you from the old brew master. Now, what will have to be done to make the facility useful to you?"
"We need to do any needed repairs, of course, insure a constant source of treated water, install storage facilities, and of course refit it for negative air pressure," Ford said. "We'll also need commercial-sized fermentation tanks—though the process involves a different reaction, the fermentation tanks would do fine—"
Preston opened a leather-bound notebook and reached for a pen. "Capacity of the tanks?"
Fiddleford spoke up: "Need at least one, at 200,000 liters capacity."
"The closest would be 55,000 gallon fermentation tanks," Ford said helpfully. "That would permit us to produce, what—" he glanced at Fiddleford. "About a million doses once every three days?"
"I'd say three million a week, constant," Fiddleford said. "If we could get three more vats the same size, we might could get three hundred million doses in, lemme see—"
"By Christmas, anyway," Ford said.
"Vats, 55,000 capacity." Preston wrote that down and then tapped the pad with the pen. "You know, I believe there are two already installed," Preston said. "They'd have to have any needed maintenance and have to be sterilized, of course, but they might do for a start. I'll have to get in touch with the old manager to find a good source of supply."
"Hot dangity," Fiddleford said. "I knowed you was a good man deep, deep, down!" He spat on his hand and stuck it out. "Shake, partner!"
Preston pulled a bottle of hand sanitizer from his desk drawer, squirted a palmful into his right hand and—with a little shudder, true—
He shook hands with the hillbilly.