Iron Seas 03 - Riveted

the chickens for almost an hour, accompanied by a gramophone. He cranked the device now, and despite his query, they had no choice but to play the same song again. Paolo only owned one wax cylinder recording, a lively arrangement of flutes and drums. David had never heard it before this morning; now he could whistle it in his sleep.
    But it didn’t distract him from work—he had only himself to blame for his poor performance that morning…and his memories of Annika, crying out as he thrust against her.
    God. He was doing it again.
    “That song is fine, yes,” he agreed.
    Smiling and cranking, Paolo nodded. A few moments later, he muttered while walking away from the gramophone, without having started the recording.
    Easily distracted, too. David was in good company.
    He studied the map again, the shape of the topography. What had he been thinking of before he’d lost himself to the luscious memory of Annika’s wetness against his bare shaft?
    He’d been thinking of Katla, the witch.
    “Paolo.” He carried the map to the drafting table, where Paolo sat absently eating a biscuit. Källa hadn’t brought in any food tohim this morning, but David didn’t ask where he’d found it. “When Katla erupts, there will likely be a large volume of meltwater as the volcano heats the ice.”
    “And steam. Which is what we need.”
    “Yes. But look at the elevation, the probable drainage route—and Vik is here.” He pointed. The town hadn’t been marked on the map. “It will drain in other directions, too, but the primary flow will probably take this path.”
    “Yes, I see. What is Vik?”
    “A town.”
    “No, no.” He was smiling again. “I specifically asked Lorenzo. There are no settlements on that side.”
    “I was there, not a few days ago.”
    “No. There cannot be.” Suddenly agitated, he stabbed his finger at the map. “Smoke Cove is here. There is the camp. Why is your Vik not here? If there was a town, there would be a record of it. But it is not here. It is not on any of these maps.”
    Paper crinkled and ripped as he shoved the map away.
    “It is there,” David said softly.
    “You were turned about. There is nothing there. I would not harm another town.”
    David would hate for him to harm one, too. “That is why—”
    “You’re mistaken!” Paolo roared. Face red, tendons standing out on his neck—then suddenly quieting, sitting back again. In a tremulous voice, he repeated, “You’re mistaken. It’s not there. Lorenzo looked.”
    And he apparently needed to believe his son as much as Lorenzo needed to push every problem out of Paolo’s path—even if that problem might be Vik. Goddamn it.
    All right. He wouldn’t convince Paolo that the town was there. So he’d have to find another way. David returned to his table, refocused on the map, studied the location of the explosive charges.Could he give Paolo reason to relocate those, alter the pattern of the ice melting? No. That might change how the ice collapsed but couldn’t change the surrounding land or the flow of water.
    There had to be something else. He had to think of something else.
    “Oh, is it over so quickly?”
    David glanced up. Paolo was looking toward the gramophone with his brows high—surprised by the silence, but he’d never restarted the music.
    Perhaps that would be an option. Maybe they didn’t need to stop this project or attempt the impossible task of redirecting a flood. He just needed Paolo to focus in another direction, to make another project more important. Determined to help his father, Lorenzo would follow.
    What would interest him? “Lorenzo told me that you had plans to utilize the thermal activity on the peninsula south of Smoke Cove—to provide the town with heat so they didn’t have to rely on coal.”
    “Yes.” Paolo didn’t look up from the suit. “It was just a fleeting thought I had.”
    “Lorenzo said that you’d hoped to electrify the town, too.”
    “I have made many plans, and never made anything of them. It is the way of it.”
    “It’s a pity. My father once mentioned something similar when he heard of the geysers in the Yellow Rock Mountains—or using the natural steam to power the turbines instead of relying upon furnaces.” His father would forgive him this lie. “He’d always hoped to see it come to fruition.”
    “Did he?” Paolo looked up, interest lighting his expression.
    “Yes.” When in truth, David was making most of this up based on what Lorenzo had