Primoday, Sarnat 14th 067.M42
The light grows brighter! The workload has decreased enough for us to have our work day downshifted from twenty hours to eighteen! For some of the adepts who live in the closer precincts such as fourteenth through sixteenth, it's allowing enough time for them to go home, to wash and sleep in their own beds. For those who live further out it's still not quite enough, so here we remain. But with less people camping out in the office, less queues for the ablutions block and the meals in the canteen, it's making life a lot more bearable for the rest of us.
Well. Bearable is relative. We're wearing the same few sets of clothes days on end, washing in a shared bathroom, sharing sleeping quarters and eating quarters. It's just marginally more comfortable with fewer of us here.
Those who've been able to go home have been helping where they can. Some have been taking laundry to wash for us, others are bringing in supplies when they come back - we have recaf, sauces and salt and pepper for the starch rations, and some wondrous souls brought in some chocolate. There was barely enough for a fraction of a bar each, but Throne. It was the sweetest thing I'd tasted in a while.
I'm honestly proud of how we've managed to pull through this. Yes, it's been a little under a month, but it's been a hard month. Not a one of us has had a break in that time. We've been working through our relief days, working past the twenty hours where we are in the middle of files at the time the work bell chimes. Fingers are numb from typing continuously, eyes are strained and nerves are shot. But despite the squabbles, there has been no actual violence. Despite the short tempers, when it comes to matters of work we've all been pulling together and sharing what we can, those finishing early were taking work from those who had fallen behind.
We're hoping that the step-down will continue apace, that each few days we might lose another hour or two until we're back down to the point where we can all go back to our normal hours. Or at least to the point where we can start going home again. I want to see my family. I'm sure I'm not the only one. Malik hasn't seen his fiancée since this started. Ilya had only just come back to work after having her baby - she says her parents are taking care of him while she and her husband are here. Scribe-Master Warders says her wife has begun asking when she'll get to see her again. Maddy misses her brothers. We all miss someone.
There's been a bit of an upset with the antilium vein. Everyone expected the Hadrigan Cartel to get the fifteen percent off-world shipping contract. They're the largest merchant Cartel on Asphodel, they have trading houses in all of the hives, including Nyx, Styx and Achlys, they have ancestral agreements with Throne knows how many Rogue Traders and Chartist Captains. They're by far the best-placed merchants on this world, if not the entire system. But somehow, and don't ask me how, I haven't seen all of the reports and the records, the Kai-Ten Conglomerate managed to undercut them and sneak in to get the contract. The Hadrigan representatives are livid from what I've seen in the transcripts. But it was a near-unanimous vote by the council that Governor Fei set up, in Kai-Ten's favour.
I don't think that the Hadrigan Cartel will take any action that will have serious ramifications for Asphodel as a whole. Their business is too closely entwined with the world. To pull out all of their concerns - which admittedly, if it wouldn't shatter the planet's economy it would most assuredly dent it - would set their business back significantly as well. Honestly it's a bit of a mutually assured destruction scenario. So I can't see them trying to gain their revenge on the council by shutting up shop… But they're not happy with the situation at all. Kai-Ten knows what happened to House Chrydis, the last corporation who fronted up and upset the Hadrigans. And that was over an ore find as well.
Honestly though, I would like to know just how they secured this. It's an amazing coup. It may be for the better. Breaking the near monopoly that the Hadrigan Cartel has over Asphodel should be a good thing, shouldn't it?
Thought for the Day: Any problem can be solved with the tactical expenditure of life.
