Unaware that a 'rescue mission' was coming his way, Milo continued his studies. The upper libraries were strange and not designed for meat creatures. The air was dense with spores, and the quality was poor. Along with that came the presence of the Collective. He was actually inside one of them, and he suspected close to what passed as a brain for them. It was giving him good practice at holding one of his minds as a shield for the others, and his resistance to Nature and Disease was slowly increasing.

  The books in these sections used different symbols that took time to initially decipher. And also, these were the writings of a non-human, non-animal species that existed as individuals and sometimes as part of a hive mind. There were common concepts that were foreign to him and permeated their society. He searched for a book similar to 'It takes a Hollow to make the Cheese,' but if there was a primer on Myconian society, he never found it. But with entire libraries available to him, he was slowly gaining a good understanding of their society and their history. Most of which had some connection to mulch.

  It was a favorite topic in many books, their love of mulch. He was beginning to understand it after a dozen books. All creatures had a desire for better food. For the Myconians, it went deeper. They grew to maturity in the substrate below the mulch layer, tasting the nutrients as they filtered down to them. Their need for better or tastier mulch was as intense as a ratkin's need for cheese, or a dwarve's need for beer and rum.

  While the majority of his time was spent in study, he didn't neglect Ursula. Her brain-barrel had been recovered from the melted and broken shell, and Amarella had assisted him in refilling her bear juice. He'd taken apart her optical sensors and rebuilt them, installing them in a pivoting cradle on top of her barrel. Likewise, her audio sensors and voicebox. As soon as it was all hooked up, Ursala let out a low rumble that sounded happy. The Bee Girl seemed to understand.

  "She says thank you. She doesn't like the dark. I stay and talk to her whenever I can, until the dwarves shoo me away. The only one of them worth half a sandwich is Ziggy. He did most of the repair work on her, but he didn't have enough parts or oil, and the other dwarves spent all the money on rum."

  "Hmm, I think I should talk to Ziggy. She's going to need a total rebuild of her chassis, and having someone with experience working on the old build would help."

  He'd left the bear with Amarella, the two talking continuously as she caught Ursula up on all the local gossip she'd picked up. The dwarves were at their mechanics stall, doing nothing but drinking. With their rent paid off and bounties collected for the snails they'd killed, they saw no reason not to celebrate. They weren't happy to see Milo.

  "Ah, here he comes, the big-time Engineer who burned down our awning and wrecked our bear. Pull up a stool and have a cup of rum. We were just discussing the best way to sell off what's left of the bear for salvage. Know anyone who needs a couple of tons of scrap metal?"

  Milo accepted the mug, took a small sip, and endured the flavor. He was certain dwarves only drank stuff like this to increase their Toughness and Poison Resistance. "That will depend on the price. The Myconians don't seem to do any metal smithing. I might be able to find a buyer, but if I do, I'm keeping twenty percent as my commission."

  The dwarves began to argue, and from the conversation, Milo gathered that most of them wanted to leave for greener pastures now that their debts were paid off. Two wanted to leave now, but Dagmar wanted to stay and sell the shop and bear for scrap. Finally, after half an hour, they turned back to Milo, who had long since poured his rum out on the ground. "Well, there may be some good stuff under all the melted slag. If we can get a hundred pieces of gold for it all, we'd be happy. That gives you a commission of ten gold for your troubles."

  Milo considered, then shook on the deal. "A generous offer. Tell you what, I'll give you the ninety gold right now, and take possession. I think I have a buyer up in Cracked Rock that I can sell it to once I get it all up there in a month or two. But I'd like to keep Ziggy here to help me with the job. You can pick him up next time you come through, assuming he doesn't mind working for me."

  Ziggy's hair nearly stood on end. "I'm good with that!"

  Dagmar held up a hand, "Hold on now, Ziggy. I promised your folks I'd take you on as an apprentice, and you've got two years left on the contract, and we need to work a lot on your attitude about things like proper drinking etiquette."

  "Bullshit, Dag. Been following you for nine years. I only owed seven."

  "Not my fault that you learn slowly. I only put you at the five-year mark. Of course, if you want to buy out your contract for the 11 gold you have hidden in your boot, I might let you go. But your new boss has to see to it that you finish your learning before you head home."

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  Milo nodded, "I'll rectify his deficiencies, no matter how long it takes."

  Ziggy said something rude in gutter dwarvish, took off his boot, and pulled a few coins from it. "Take it then. That's a bargain."

  With gold in hand, the drunken mechanics left immediately to buy another cask of rum and join a caravan leading out of town. Milo turned to Ziggy.

  "Let's pile all this scrap and crap in a corner and put a tarp over it, just so it looks tidy. Then you and I need to talk about your future, and what we're going to do on Project: Better Bear."

  It turned out that Ziggy had a solid understanding of mechanics, metallurgy, and blacksmithing. But he lacked the advanced knowledge of engineering, mathematics, and chemistry needed by a junior Engineer. He'd learned the Trigonometry and Algebra he needed for figuring cannon trajectories, but nothing about fluid pressure or dynamic motion theory. Calculus, he'd heard of, but it scared him. Something about a misapplied integral causing an explosion at the steelworks in his home cavern. As for the branch of arcane Engineering that Milo loved, he had barely heard of magi-tech, assuming it was something taught only to Dwarven Battle Wizards. Delving deeper into his upbringing in his clan's fortress, Milo slowly put together an idea of a different type of Dwarven society from what he was used to with either the Scavengers or Engineers. Ziggy's world, while growing up, was filled with mining, blacksmithing, and tending to the giant ore smelters that produced the vast amounts of iron and steel that the clans used to build their fortresses in huge caverns. Being a Mechanic was a prestigious job, and he assured Milo that few were as lackluster in their approach as his cousins.

  "I think they liked being able to strut around in their coveralls and pack a torque wrench on their belts, but didn't like to do the actual work. When they got the chance to take a few years and expand the Clan's trade routes, Dagmar grabbed the people he thought would knuckle under to him. When Dagmar offered to take me on, my folks hoped that it would all work out. They wanted another Mechanic in the family and saw being a Smelter or Smith as a step down. I hate to disappoint them, but I'm sick of wandering from one place to another and barely learning anything from Dagmar. If I hadn't had Ursula to take care of, I'd have barely touched a piece of machinery in months. I'm glad to help get her working again and help keep her running for a couple of years. I'll figure things out after that. Being a Smith is a traditional skill, no matter what my folks think."

  "I agree. Any profession can be something you can be proud of if you do your best. I have friends who cook, forage for the Hollow, and teach the young whelps. Everyone contributes. Do you still want to be a Mechanic?"

  "I do. I love working with machinery. There's just something about it...when all the parts are clean and aligned and things start humming along, each piece in its place and doing its job. Usula was amazing to watch when Grandaddy Hack let me help with calibrating her cables and cogs. He'd be so disappointed in me to see what she looked like now."

  That was enough for Milo. "I have some people coming to help Ursala. Their part of the Deeprock Engineering Clan. What would you say to working with them?"

  Ziggy was suddenly terrified, "OH, I don't know about that. I'm just a Mechanic's Apprentice. I'd be so afraid of disappointing them. What if I grabbed the wrong wrench or didn't grease a cog correctly? I'd be so embarrassed."

  "Hmm, I think you may have met a different type of Engineer than I work with. I know of at least one that will be thrilled with your artillery skills. But for now, you can consider yourself my apprentice in Mechanics. Now that we have Ursula safe, Dagmar paid off, and this mess cleaned up, it's time to get to work on the rest of the bear. I want to take the chassis apart and make complete notes. You'll be a big help with that, since it took so much damage. Then we can see about modifying the plans to improve her. There isn't anything anyone's ever built that can't be made better. How does that sound?"

  Ziggy stood up and straightened his spine. "That sounds great. I'm not afraid of hard work, and I'm willing to learn more."

  Milo smiled at him, and suddenly Ziggy was nervous again. "Good to hear, because while we work on the bear, I'm going to begin your education in some of the things Dagmar neglected. We'll start with the mathematics of fluid flow. When Professor Boom gets here, you can learn the equations that determine how much pressure a cannon barrel can take before it explodes. And I know a few people who will help you with 'Proper Dwarven Drinking Etiquette'. It's a much-discussed and practiced subject.