He then went ahead and proved his statements. There were two flocks of chickens in the complex of caves, one for eggs and one for early eating, just as is the practice in the rest of the world. The difference was that the eating chickens were full grown in three weeks flat, compared with the outside record of five weeks. Also, they managed this without using growth hormones, and without feeding the birds anything more than what amounted to being hay. The egg layers were averaging four eggs per day per hen, and again, doing it on waste vegetable matter. Compare that with the grain-fed chickens back home that put out one egg a day.
There were rabbits that grew about as fast as the eating chickens, but whether that was superlative or not, we didn’t know. They had just one single mature sow and her sixteen offspring. Being omnivores, just like people, pigs have a diet that competes with ours. The small herd was fed on the table scraps collected from all over the island, and ate them all. Pork was in short supply, and sold for astoundingly high prices. Perhaps this accounted for the popularity of Spam. Or perhaps it was the scarcity of fats in their diet. Chickens, rabbits and fish are fairly fat free. In any event, I saw us importing a lot of canned ham. Then came the real surprise.
“That is the strangest looking creature I’ve ever seen,” I said.
“I think it’s a cow,” Adam said. “But I wouldn’t bet serious money on it.”
It was standing upright, but those spindly limbs couldn’t possibly have moved it very far. Judging from its legs and neck, the animal looked to be in the final stages of death by starvation. Yet there was a full manger of greens in front of it and a tub of water nearby, so it wasn’t being maltreated. It was only when we stepped back and saw it from the side that we realized that the animal was mostly udder. The huge milk gland ran from just behind the forelegs and all the way back to the tail. It was wider than the rest of the beast, and the teats actually hung down into a hole in the floor dug to accommodate them. They milked the critter from the floor below!
“We milk her every two hours, day and night,” Master d’Este said. “She produces some four hundred of your gallons of milk a day, and her three sisters each do about as well.”
“Unbelievable,” I said.
“You don’t believe me? You call me a liar?”
“No! Please! I’m sorry. My command of your language is still poor. You must forgive me.”
“Well, I suppose, if I must.”
“I meant to say that I couldn’t believe my own eyes. Your accomplishment is astounding, an amazing scientific achievement.”
“Oh. Well, that’s different. Thank you.”
“How large is your total herd?” Adam asked.
“Two. Plus the other two on the other islands. Or six, if you want to count the new heifer and the bull as well. We generally have him rented out for plowing and suchlike work.”
“And four cows produce enough milk to satisfy twelve thousand people?”
“We make all we can sell, and even have some left over for making butter and cheese.”
We bid Master d’Este good-bye, and started back.
“They satisfy the dairy needs of twelve thousand people with only four cows. Adam, there’s a fortune to be made here.”
“How? I don’t see any way to do it. No matter how productive each cow is, we can’t feed them here on imported grain and ship fresh milk back to the world outside. If we take something as strange-looking as that animal back to the States, she’s going to be noticed in no time flat, and if she is as valuable as we both know she is, somebody is going to steal her. Or kill her just to prevent the competition.”
“You’re right, I suppose. Anyway, it would be a very long-term project. As slow as cows reproduce, it would take thirty years to build a big herd. What’s more, most of your arguments apply to the rest of these animals, too.”
“I’m not so sure. I think something could be done with chicken eggs, but we won’t have time for it on the first trip,” he said.
“Yeah. Maybe, someday, we can sell some of these animals to breeders back in the States for good prices, but that’s not going to be for a long while. It’s a pity. Well, it’s getting late and I’m getting hungry. The girls won’t be expecting us for a while, so let’s go find a restaurant with a good bar.”
“Moved, seconded, and passed by general acclaim,” Adam said.
Our guide, Judah, told us of a small, unpretentious men’s club deep in the bowels of the island. We’d been following his lead all day long, and we saw no good reason to stop now.
Oil lamps were few in the tunnels getting there, and Adam had to light our way with the penlight he always carried. For a while, the way was so long and dark that I thought that Judah was pulling our leg, but when we finally got there, the place was as advertised. It was a quiet, all-male sort of establishment, except for the help, who were mostly attractive young ladies, and naked at that. A single dancer undulated on a small stage, to the music of a drum and a single flute. The decor, except for the women, was nonexistent, and our waitress started out by offering us a menu, a beer and wine list, and herself.
We took the first two, and said that we wouldn’t be needing any additional company. She acted only politely disappointed, and the service remained good throughout our stay there. It was a vast improvement on the only other brothel I’d ever been taken to, years before. I suppose that prostitution was unavoidable on the islands. There was no venereal disease, and they had an effective birth control method. With easygoing morals and a percentage of the population facing mandatory permanent sterilization if they had to spend too many generations being poor, perhaps it was inevitable. But like everything else around here, when these people did a thing, they did it right.
There’s something very relaxing about having a surplus of naked ladies about. It tends to eliminate a certain sexual tension that nags you from back in your subconscious and gets in the way of your thinking. Or perhaps it’s that it gives the sexual part of your mind full reign, so that your libido in turn lets the rest of you get on with what you really wanted to do. In any event, I liked the establishment, and I didn’t hear Adam making any complaints, either. The food was good and the beer outstanding, even though, like all the beer on the island, it was flat. With Judah’s help, we started outlining just what would go into our first cargo back to the real world.
The real world. I’d actually gotten to thinking about it that way. These islands, and to a certain extent the yearlong trip getting here, had sort of a dreamy quality to them that was pleasant enough, but was somehow unreal. A part of me was ready to go back to Bay City, and open up a new machinery factory. But that wouldn’t happen for a while. If ever. Anyway, we had an important job to do right here.
After a half dozen beers, each, we had our supper digesting and the program worked out. It was time to go. Our ladies would be waiting for us back home, and we called for the check. Fumbling for our money, we found that neither Adam nor I had anything smaller than a silver quarter, which was a huge sum on these islands.
“My lords.” The waitress stared at the coin in her hand and flushed, and being naked, she did it with a ripple that started from her forehead and went all the way on down to her toes. “This is a hundred times too much. I can’t make change for such a coin. There isn’t that much money in the whole place!”
In truth, it was the first time that either of us had actually been asked to pay for anything since we had been shipwrecked, the custom being for the women to take care of that sort of thing when they were around. Our guide offered to pick up the tab, but we refused him. After all, we were far more wealthy than he was, and he had spent the entire day doing us a favor.
“Adam, it’s only a quarter,” I said, turning to the waitress. “Miss, please take this anyway. Pay the bill, give yourself a tip of equal size, and have the manager put the rest on a tab for Adam and me. I think that we’ll become regular customers here, in time.”