[Day 5 - FMR] Dirty Jobs

[Kannon]

"Three years. Splintered Rock before Chin Rock. Some raddled equipment has been taken away for parts and scrap recently, new replacement delivered."

[Dorian Drake]

"So your from Splintered Rock, a veteran. I heard the men that transferred here got tossed over the cliffs. How did you survive?"

[Kannon]

"I came here a year ago and didn't advocate anything. Kept my mouth shut, played an idiot and a drunk." He paused. "In the end, however, until today I've been just lucking out. They've cleared most of the old crew here and brought in new people."

[Dorian Drake]

"We left Splintered Rock two days back. They were barely keeping their harvesters running, cannibalizing old equipment to keep things running, was it like that before you came here? Is the spice here that much better than Splintered Rock to justify leaving it to rot while Chin Rock gets new equipment for inexperienced rookies to use?"

[Kannon]

"There have always been problems, but if you're not exaggerating, it hasn't been this bad." A pause. "The spice here is better. Shield Wall has infrastructure, but the deserts around it are too scoured. The Fremen are more aggressive there as well." He shrugged. "Whether it justifies equipping rookies here is not for me to judge. I haven't lived so long on this damn planet by being opinionated."

[Dorian Drake]

More spice and less Fremen threat, plausible enough to justify hedging their operations here. The Harkonnens weren't going to be too obvious with their misdeeds. Then Dorian remembered what Rima had said before he left and went out on a limb, "I don't imagine this is much of a tourist site, have you seen any other offworlders visiting before us?"

[Kannon]

"Are you kidding me? All these rookies are what, a few weeks in? Dross, Pliesse, what have you. I haven't even heard about some of those planets before."

[Dorian Drake]

"I don't mean new miners coming in from offworld, I mean people coming by other than the miners?"

[Kannon]

"Some trigger-happy Griffs from Giedi Prime or Lankiveil aside, I don't think so." He pased. "That guy from Nebiros came once, but he isn't really that offworldy any more."

[Dorian Drake]

"Tell me more about this man from Nebiros." Dorian said, intrigued.

[Kannon]

"Nebiros as in House Nebiro. They run a few things in the basins, being Harkonnen lackeys in general. Provisions mostly. That guy who works for them is... Ixian? Richesian? A techie of some kind. He does some job for the Griffs at Wind Pass, came over to check on the equipment. Maybe a servicing contractor? I don't know his name. It's not like I am friends with him."

[Dorian Drake]

"Well, who would know more about him, any of the other miners or mechanics? About how many times has he visited? What kind of equipment was he looking over?" Dorian rattled off a few questions.

[Kannon]

"Here? Only the Harkonnen. Like you already know, they 'exchanged' senior personnel over the past week. I saw him only once, dark-skinned guy, impatient. Learned what I told you through gossip. Think he checked on all kinds of spice mining equipment. Spent maybe half an hour tinkering with my carryall, I was told to stay away. But if you're so interested in him, why don't you go to the Nebiros in Carthag, or straight to Wind Pass? You have this frigate to drift around."

[Dorian Drake]

"Is that carryall still around, or did it get aged out and replaced with a new one?"

Dorian listened to the man for a moment while he thought about what other useful information he might have. This was more Edwell's forte, his was dueling. If this were a duel and his opponent wasn't showing any weakness, he would look for what his opponent wasn't showing.

"Let me ask you something, are there any areas around here that aren't mined for spice? Somewhere that is avoided or not deemed profitable enough to mine?"

[Kannon]

"It got replaced." The miner confirmed. "The new one ain't better though. Just newer."

On the latter question, he rubbed his stubble.

"Generally, anywhere in the deep desert. You go too far south, the risks scale up immediately. At similar latitudes where we are, we avoid the depression in the southwest. Heat there is bad for people and equipment, and salt is very corrosive."

[Dorian Drake]

"I've heard the Cielago Depression is a hellish place, only someone not right in their mind would go there."

His suspicions were partially confirmed, the equipment this stranger from House Nebiro 'checked' was then phased out, probably taken away to the secret spice harvesting facility he and the others suspected. If only they could somehow track it down.

"When the old equipment is decommissioned, what happens to it? Does someone come to pick it up or is it taken away by crews here?"

[Kannon]

"Depends. It's usually taken to one of the maintenance centres: Carthag, Arrakeen, Splintered Rock, Wind Pass. Waste not want not." He shrugged. "Little is repaired or broken down here. No right facilities."

[Dorian Drake]

"You mentioned I could find this Nebiros man in Wind Pass, and now you bring it up again. Are there a lot of repairs done there?"

[Kannon]

"The Harkonnen have located some industries there, away from the cities, those that don't need cheap labour, so mostly high-tech? Some special zone. Avionics for sure, probably weapons. A place where they fix complicated gizmos rather than the big parts of anything. Think they import some Ixian stuff into there." He shrugged. Ixians had a reputation to be dancing on the edge of what the precepts of Butlerian Jihad found acceptable, so removing any such dealings from public view made sense. "Mining is not run from there, so I don't know much."