“A heathen like you might put it that way,” Adam said in English. “I think that they are worried about more spiritual matters.”
“Whatever. So the church as a whole takes no great joy at our arrival here.”
“I didn’t say that,” Adam said, switching the conversation back to Westronese. “I said that there was a faction that was worried about us. There’s another faction that looks forward to going out and converting the godless, so-called Christians in the rest of the world back to what Christ had in mind in the first place.”
I said, “Doesn’t sound like there’s much we can or should do about it.”
“True. Getting messed up in somebody else’s politics is dumb. Our best shot is to try to prove to them that we’re really very nice guys.”
“So I trust that you don’t object to my giving our SCUBA stuff to the warlock?”
“Not when they need it as bad as they do. What’s more, we got to start thinking about some kind of submarine, to really give the bottom a good scrape, and maybe rig some kind of additional flotation devices down there as well, some kind of big air bags or something.”
“Makes sense. We also ought to think about donating some of our duplicate electronics stuff to them. All they know about the outside world, they’re getting from some old AM and shortwave radios, and they can only keep them working about a quarter of the time,” I said.
“I’ve been thinking about that, too. We don’t really need the satellite stuff, or the solar cells, or the genset, for that matter. The televisions can go, as well as the VCR, the tapes, and the CD library. See, eventually, the Western Isles will have to be integrated in with the rest of the world. The archbishop doesn’t like the idea, but I don’t see how anybody can stop it from happening. And when it does happen, the Westronese had better know a lot more about the outside world than they do now. Some serious preparations are going to have to be made, and all the legal angles figured out. And it wouldn’t hurt a bit if the people here all learned to speak English. I mean, it’s the closest thing to a world language there is.”
“You’re figuring on making a pretty big commitment to these people?” I said.
“Hey, Treet. We fell into something really big here, you know? I mean, most people spend most of their lives doing their jobs and trying to be decent and all, but never getting a chance to do anything really significant. Here, we’ve got a shot at doing something absolutely earthshaking. Something that can really make a difference in the world. I say we go for it! Anyway, you got anything better to do?”
I thought about it for a while, and you know, I really didn’t have anything better to do. I leaned over to his couch so that I could shake his hand. “Adam, you’re right! Let’s do the job, full bore and balls out!”
I leaned back, feeling good. I had a job to do, and a company to run again! The old Treet was back!
The ladies weren’t exactly sure of what had just happened, but they picked up on the way Adam and I were happy and confident, so they were happy, too.
Roxanna and I didn’t say much to each other through supper, and later, as we all had a few drinks, we just sort of held hands for a bit. Then, when it was time for bed, we went to her room as though it was the most natural thing in the world, as if we were an old, married couple who had done this a thousand times before. The night was calm, wondrous, and lovely, and when I awoke the next morning, I found that I was thinking of myself as a married man again. For the first time in years, I felt a lovely, warm, confident glow. The dark, empty depression that had plagued me for over a year was totally, absolutely gone and buried.
“Roxanna, let’s get married.”
“My lord. You pick the strangest times to say things!”
“What? I mean, you don’t want to?”
“I didn’t say that. It’s just that you must learn to do things properly, and proposing matrimony while lying naked in a lady’s bed is not the way it is done!”
“All right, all right. Forgive my ignorance, but it’s all your fault. You are supposed to be my instructor, after all, and if I wasn’t told something that I should have known, it’s not my doing. In my country, the typical lady would have at least kissed me for the biggest compliment that a man can give to a woman, even if she was going to turn him down.”
She kissed me, and lingered at it.
“There. I trust that your customs are now satisfied. Now then, to satisfy mine, you must first approach me when we both are fully dressed, and before witnesses. You must go down on one knee, you must accurately describe both your affections and your financial situation, and you must ask my permission to speak to my father. If I give it, and if you then talk to him, and if he gives you his formal permission, then you may put your proposal to me, but not before. End of lesson.”
“I didn’t even know you had a father. You’ve never mentioned him. Is there anything I should know or do before I look up this man I’ve never met and ask him for a daughter?”
“Yes. You should spend a lot more time thinking the whole matter out. Talk it over with your good friend, Adam. I think that he might be wiser than you.”
I should have been smart enough to keep my mouth shut at this point, but I wasn’t.
“You think that Adam is smarter than I am?” I asked. “That his IQ is higher than mine?”
That put Roxanna off on another one of her long lectures.
“Again, that’s not what I said. From what you’ve told me, your people seem to measure mental abilities along a single dimension. Here, we use three dimensions, and after testing, we place an individual’s mental abilities within a three dimensional solid, rather than along a straight line, as is your people’s custom.
“The horizontal X-axis is graduated to display education, with ignorance at the left and learnedness at the right. Education is what can be taught in school. One’s position on that axis indicates how much one has actually learned.
“The vertical Y-axis is for innate problem solving ability, with stupidity at the bottom and intelligence at the top. This faculty is controlled by one’s genetics, although severe environmental factors can sometimes degrade it. It cannot be taught.
“The Z-axis is used to display the ability to make appropriate actions at the appropriate time, with foolishness at the far side of the cube, and wisdom towards the viewer. The nature of wisdom is much debated among our educators, since it above all else is what we humans strive for in the mundane world.
“Suffice it to say that each of these three is independent of the others. People exist with every possible combination of these attributes. There are no blank places in the cube. It is quite possible, for example, to be wise while also being stupid and ignorant. The traditional old peasant was often like that. The teachers of higher education are sometimes intelligent and learned while still being foolish.”
“Remarkable,” I said.
The whole situation had gotten about as unromantic as it could get, and I found myself thinking that maybe she was right, maybe I was rushing things. And maybe I was getting myself involved with a rather cold fish. Only there had been nothing frigid about her the night before!
I think that I must have dozed off for a bit, because when I woke up again, I was alone. When I got to the balcony that we used for breakfast, the maid told me that Adam and his ladies had already eaten. He and his bearers were at the boat, and Maria and Agnes were out looking for an apartment closer to the warehouse than their home was.
Roxanna didn’t show up, and I ate alone.
TWENTY-TWO
Arriving at the warehouse where our ship was stored, I found Adam directing his workers in further disassembling the ship. They were laboriously chipping out the plastic that had been poured around the ship’s batteries, down next to the keel. Adam felt that if we were going to give the warlock the solar cells, we’d better give him most of the batteries as well.
“What with these casts still on, I can’t get in there to see what they’re doing. I’ve told them the difference between what a battery looks like and the stuff we encapsulated them in, but they’ve never seen a battery before. Maybe you’d better get in there and give it a look.”