ToxicHaven by Gabriella Bradley Page B

their homes.
    When they’d reached the first house, Josias banged on the wooden door several times. It opened, finally. A man in his late forties greeted them, his face displaying surprise.
    “Visitors! We haven’t had any visitors on Anat since I was a child! Welcome, strangers. Come in!”
    He spoke with an accent. A woman sat at a crude wooden table. The man spoke to her in French. Haven understood, but didn’t let on. He turned back to his visitors. “I’m sorry for speaking in my native language. I asked my wife to make soup for you. You must be cold. Please, come close to the fire. My name is Pierre Blanchet, my wife’s is Danielle.” He held his hand out to Josias, then to Isan and Haven and they introduced themselves.
    “I wonder if you have dry clothing we can borrow? Isan fell in the lake and the walk across the bridge was long. He is very cold,” Haven told Pierre.
    “You walked on that bridge? It’s very dangerous.”
    “We noticed,” Josias said.
    Pierre took Isan under his wing. “I will help Isan and fetch clothing for you. Please, sit near the fire.”
    It was deliciously warm inside the house. Danielle had disappeared through a door, probably gone to the kitchen to do as her husband had asked. Pierre returned, clothing hanging over his arm.
    “Isan is enjoying a hot bath at the moment. Please, make use of these. I will ask Danielle to take care of your wet clothing, though it is hardly suitable for this environment.”
    “Do you mind terribly if we bathe, too, after our friend is finished? Do you have enough water?” Josias asked.
    “We have plenty. Our water comes from an underground spring.”
    “How do you heat the water? You seem to have no electricity,” Haven said, glancing at the oil lamps and candles.
    “The fire is kept burning day and night. One of our engineers devised a system that allows it to heat our water. Where is your ship? Are you the only crew members or an explore party?”
    Haven hesitated. She sent a look to Josias who nodded. “We are escaped prisoners from the Dahkhar Mining Corporation. We came on a freighter, a slag ship. We managed to escape by hiding in the cargo hold with the slag. When they dumped the slag, we got dumped, too. That’s how Isan ended up in the lake.”
    “Ah, that explains it,” he said and chuckled. “The smell. I did not want to be rude, but you all stink very bad. You were not followed?”
    “We don’t know. By now, the authorities will know which ship we used to escape and its destination. I hope we’re not important enough for them to send their fleet to capture us and take us back. It would mean the death penalty or permanent banishment to the deepest mines,” Josias told him.
    “I wish they’d stop dumping their toxic waste here under the pretense it’s fertilizer for our crops. It’s good we are so far away or I’m sure they’d punish us for not using it. It’s highly toxic, contaminated. Eventually, it’ll mix with the hard soil and loosen it and maybe one day in the distant future, we can till a field and during the warmer months, grow crops outside.”
    Haven noticed his face take on a more serious expression and understood why when he continued.
    “My father was a scientist. He was one of the first to become very ill. He spent the remainder of his life looking for answers and teaching and training several young men. We have three scientists among our people now, thanks to my father’s teachings. Just before he died, he discovered it was the slag causing the diseases, which at that time we were using in our greenhouses. He cultivated a serum for those who could still be saved and he discovered how to detoxify the slag.”
    He stopped, for a moment, emotion at the memory of his father getting the better of him.
    “They don’t dump that often anymore because our planet isn’t suitable to cultivate what they want mostly, the cannabis sativa, more commonly known as marijuana. A single, healthy plant is worth much