“Call it inherited wealth, if you want to. It’s still wealth.”
“Boss, they got volcanic featherrock, they got a little clay, and that’s all the minerals they got. Any wood they got was raised like in a nursery. They got no coal, no oil, and no ores of any kind. What’s worse, they got no trade to anyplace else to make up for what they ain’t got here. I call that poor.”
“I guess I’ve been asking the wrong questions. So their lack of technology is due to their lack of materials to use it on.”
“Yeah. Only don’t sneeze at all of their technology, boss. In some ways, they’re way ahead of us. Have you taken a good look at the clothes they wear?”
“Well, it’s beautifully embroidered, but I’d hardly call that high tech.”
“You would if you realized that half the clothes here are more than a hundred years old! These people got the growing, the processing, and weaving of plant fibers down pat. They do it way better that we do back in America. Their stuff lasts almost forever. That’s why they can afford to spend so much time on the embroidery. Anything they make, they’ll give to their grandkids someday!”
“Incredible.”
“Believe it anyway. Maybe they know about technology and maybe they don’t. It wouldn’t make any difference here, ’cause except for plants, there’s nothing here to make a machine with.”
“It could be you’re right. Perhaps they really are poor. Adam, they made me promise to not tire you out, but there’s one thing that has really been bugging me. Have you noticed the way the sun seems to rise and set anyplace it feels like?”
“Forty days and you ain’t got that figured out yet, boss? You must have been hit harder on the head than I thought. You’re asking seriously, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I’m serious, damn it!”
“You’ll be embarrassed you didn’t figure it out yourself. This ain’t an island, no matter what they call it. Islands stay in one spot. This place floats!”
“We’re on a stone boat?”
“More like a stone raft. The other place you get featherrock is in Hawaii. It comes out of this volcano they got there. Sometimes it runs all the way to the ocean, and when it does, the rock just floats away. The specific gravity is way below one. It’s so light it floats.”
“Huh. That’s going to take some thinking. But like I said, I promised not to tire you out.”
“I’m not tired, and our ladies are the sort who’ll throw you politely out on your ass when they think I’ve had enough. But before they do, there’s something I got to ask you about.”
“So ask. Since when did you need to ask permission to ask about anything, Adam?”
“Okay. You remember all those times you asked me to be your partner instead of an employee?”
“Sure, although we’re both glad now that you never took me up on it. If you had, you would have gone bankrupt the same time that I did, and then where would your gold and silver coin collection be now? Or The Brick Royal, for that matter?”
“Yeah, well, I want to take you up on it now. We go partners, Even Steven, sixty-sixty on everything but the ladies. The boat, the gold, the whole shot.”
“Adam, that’s crazy. The boat is a wreck, and its salvage value probably won’t cover the costs of our medical bills, and whatever they’ll charge us for pulling the stuff out and storing it. You’d be taking the short end of the stick.”
“No, I wouldn’t. There’s a lot of metal on that boat, and any kind of metal is worth a fortune here. But that’s not why I want the partnership. The real reason is, well, social.”
“Social? I don’t follow you.”
“Look. In America, I could take your paycheck and still meet you after work for a beer. Things don’t work like that here. On the Western Isles, the word for employee is the same as the word for servant. And being a servant here is like being a third-class person. Once I’m out of these casts, the fine ladies who have been taking care of me won’t have nothing to do with me if I’m only a servant. It’ll be like I’m tainted. If they knew, they’d even be embarrassed about having taken care of me.”
“Oh. I can see your problem. But why worry? The fact is that you have not been my employee since the company went belly up.”
“Boss, the way they look at it, if I’d ever been a servant, the best I could be afterwards would be something like a freed slave. Once I got the lay of the land, I told them that we was partners, and now I need you to back me up on that.”
“I see. Well, don’t worry. As of this moment, I hereby decree us to be the sole members of an undissolvable partnership, retroactive back to the beginning of time. Good enough?”
“Great, boss. I knew I could count on you.”
“And I’ll count on you to give me twenty-three pounds of gold for your enlargement to the ranks of free and noble men.”
“The gold, you’ve got, and your share of the silver might be worth even more here, since they use silver for money, but gold only for jewelry. A tiny silver coin, smaller than a dime and as thin as paper is worth . . . well, it’s worth a lot. Another thing. They take that `noble’ stuff pretty serious around here. You really think we should try and fake it that way?”
“Maybe we’d better not. It would be too easy to slip up somewhere, and that could mean big trouble. If we need the status later, we can always claim to be members of the Knights of Columbus, or something.”
“Which I happen to be, but which you ain’t qualified for. Oh, yeah. They take religion real serious around here, too. Keep that Atheism shit of yours under your hat, too.”
“Now, do I rag you about your religion? Out loud, I mean, and in public. And is that any way to speak to your new partner?” I laughed as the ladies came back.
TWELVE
“Felix, the Right Honorable Earl of Godelia, Lord of Privy Information,” the guard beyond the door announced.
The earl entered, bowed, and then locked the door behind him out of sheer habit.
Duke Guilhem Alberigo XXI turned from his spacious desk. “Ah, Uncle Felix. I’m so glad that you could get here so quickly.”
“My services are always instantly available to the crown, Your Grace, especially when your note said that all you wanted was my advice,” he said, pausing to blow his stuffed-up nose. The earl’s eyes were watering and his sinuses were throbbing as well. For a nobleman accustomed to long years of vigorous health, the head cold was particularly vexing.
“I see that you’ve got it, too. I’d be more sympathetic except that I was one of the first to be stricken with the damnable disease. We can only hope that the benefits we gain will be worth the price we’re all paying. Naturally, what I wanted to discuss with you is the newcomers.”
“I’m at your service, but I’m not sure what I can contribute, just yet. I haven’t seen either of them, of course, but my men have carefully recorded every word they’ve said in either Westronese or English. What we’ve learned so far, which isn’t very much, is that they are very probably exactly what they at first seemed to be, simply two men with a largish pleasure boat that had the bad luck to be caught in the worst storm we’ve seen in fifty years.
“The larger of the two might have been, at some time in the past, the servant of the smaller, but the relationship seems to have been more like a journeyman’s service to a master, which isn’t servitude in the ordinary sense of the word. They have since declared themselves to be partners, and I think that we should acknowledge them to be such. The larger also claims to be a `Knight of Columbus,’ and thus is perhaps a chevalier, but I’m not sure that we should consider him as such under our law.”
“Their precise legal status can be deferred for the time being, Uncle. The real question is, are they our enemies?”
“It is most unlikely that they are the covert representatives of any outsider government. They seem to be genuinely surprised that we are here, so if our existence is known to their government, it is keeping us a secret.”
“I see. Was there any difficulty in placing your listening devices in the homes of the ladies tending them?”
“None at all. There was easy access through the utility tunnels in both cases, so it was never necessary to inform the ladies of our actions.”