5wn29m76

1Chapter Twenty-One
2From the Journal of Josip Sobieski
3WRITTEN JANUARY 15, 1250, CONCERNINGJUNE 3, 1249
4THAT EVENING, when the last of the petty details had beenhandled, I was still in Lord
5Conrad's tent, because no one hadthought to dismiss me. He was sitting on a camp
6chair,slumped over and looking very tired.
7I asked him if he knew that Maude could give a most re-freshing back rub.
8"That is an excellent idea, Josip. A truly wonderful idea.Yes. Maude, would you please
9oblige me?"
10He was soon stretched out on his back on the carpet, en-joying Maude's calm
11ministrations. Maude had removed herskirt as soon as the last visitor had left, and I
12wondered at thisstrange preoccupation of hers. Still, it improved the view.
13"Sir Josip, tell me, what are your thoughts on this day'sevents? Was I too brutal?"
14Lord Conrad wanted my thoughts? I said that I was mostlyimpressed with the new
15armaments, especially those subma-chine guns. I had heard that in ten years' time every
16man in the army would be paired with a Big Person, and when thathappened, we would
17be truly invincible. No one would dareto bother us.
18"It's actually more like five years from now, not ten," he said. When he saw my surprised
19expression, he continued,"Just now, there are almost five thousand Big People. Most
20ofthem are involved with civilian occupations. More than fourthousand of them are used
21to carry the mails, throughoutPoland, Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ruthenias. We have
22aschool with a post office in almost every village in the Fed-eration, and almost every
23one of them is visited by a BigPerson five times a week. King Henryk has four dozen Big
24People for his entourage, so Prince Daniel, King Bella, andTzar Ivan all have to have the
25same, or they pout.
26"Very few Big People are involved with the military. Toofew, as it turns out, but I never
27thought that the margravewould pull a stunt like this. There are about two thousandnew 
28Big People coming on line in the next few months, andthey will all go to the Wolves, or
29similar groups.
30"In a few years we'll be invincible, all right. That's whatan army is really for, Josip. To
31be so big and so strong that itnever has to hurt anyone. What happened today was an
32aber-ration. One noble fool, who didn't believe what people hadtold him about us, and
33was too proud to visit us peacefully, decided to attack us without warning. You see, I've
34often in-vited the margrave to visit us, to see what we've got, and hewouldn't do it. But I
35asked you about the brutality."
36I said that once the attack had started, I didn't see how hecould possibly have called it
37off. And if we killed all of them,well, wasn't it their idea to kill all of us? Wasn't that why
38the Germans crossed our borders in the first place?
39"True. The attack went better than I expected. But I was re-ferring to what I did later, to
40the margrave himself and his staff."
41I said that I was a commoner. My knighthood notwith-standing, I was still just a baker's
42son. It always troubled me that the rich and the powerful people in this world could
43dounpleasant things to the likes of me and not be held respon-sible for it. They were not
44punished for the crimes they committed, if they were committed on some peasant. I said
45that I was glad at what he did to those fat old men! And that I'd be even gladder when I
46saw them all hung up by their necks onthe scaffold.
47I was just as glad when I found that our troops hadn't hurt those people on the baggage
48train. And I said I was gladderyet that he was going to let the noncombatants all go free,
49thenext day. I said I would have done just the same things hehad, if I had been in charge,
50and if I'd been smart enough tothink fast on my feet, the way he always does.
51"Thank you. You've relieved my mind, a bit. So tell me,what will you be doing next,
52Josip?"
53I was surprised, and said that it was up to him, or maybe some assignment clerk
54somewhere. I guessed that I'd spendsome time at the Explorer's School, and then go out
55with mylance to some strange new place or other.
56"Where would you like to go?" He closed his eyes andsmiled as Maude worked her
57magic on his body.
58I said that I didn't really know, but that when we were spending last winter near the
59Arctic Circle, my lance madeitself—well, I couldn't call it a vow, but a promise. We
60wantedour next job to be somewhere where it was warm! And afterthat, we wanted it to
61be a place where a man could find a drinkand a willing young lady on occasion!
62Lord Conrad laughed and rolled over so Maude could dohis back. "Josip, you are truly
63the salt of the earth. But yes,there is just such an assignment in the offing. I don't know if you'll like the native brew, but I don't object to your bringingin your own supply, within
64reason, of course. I guarantee thatthe climate will be warm, maybe too warm, and while I
65can't make any promises about the quality of the ladies you'll findthere, I will warrant that
66they do exist in quantity. And, as a bonus, none of them wear any more clothes than our
67lovelyMaude, here."
68I said, "Then in the name of Sir Odon's lance, sir, wehereby volunteer for duty."
69"You'll get the assignment, especially since you all arevery experienced with riverboats.
70I'm going to send CaptainOdon up the biggest river in the world. Along with
71KnightBanner Josip, and certain others. But you'll hear more about it once all the plans
72are solidified. For now, well, I noticedthat you were taking a certain interest in Maude,
73here."
74Maude continued at her work as though nothing had beensaid about her.
75I said that it was more than just that. I said that I loved her.
76Which, of course, is a hell of a thing to say right in front ofa woman, when you haven't
77ever said it to her in private uptill then. But it just sort of blurted itself out! And Maude
78stillshowed no reaction!
79"I thought so. You have all the symptoms. First off, I wantto say that whatever the two of
80you want to do, it's fine by me. But. And it's a very bigbut. I want you both to go as
81slowly aspossible on this. There is a lot that you both don't know abouteach other, and if
82you get your emotions too involved beforeyour heads are properly in gear, you will cause
83each other alot of agony. I'm going to get some of those things out in theopen right now,
84hopefully, to save you both a lot of future confusion and pain."
85He sat up on the carpet and gestured for me to sit in thechair. Taking the only chair while
86he was on the floor seemedimproper, but not as improper as disobeying a direct order.
87Maude kneeled down to form a circle with us, and waitedsilently.
88"Maude, as you have no doubt noticed by now, this cultureis far more complicated than
89the one that you are used to. I heard the two of you talking about religion yesterday, and
90that's good, but religion is actually one of the simpler things that you will be learning
91about. Where you were before, allyou had to do was to obey one man, and everything
92would beall right. Here, you have to run your own life, and while that can be very
93rewarding, it can also be very complicated, con-fusing, and even frightening.
94"There, much of the time, you were treated as though youwere a simple machine. Here,
95we have many convolutedinterrelationships with each other. Some of them are
96awkward.Some of them are very warm, very close, and very wonderful.
97"Josip here is saying that he wishes to explore having such a relationship with you. He
98thinks perhaps that he would liketo bond with you. That's something that I think you 
99might not know anything about, but it could involve his living with youfor the rest of his
100life, if you were willing. Sharing his wholelife with you. It's very important, so take your
101time with it."
102Maude nodded.
103He turned to me.
104"Your turn. The big shock for you, Josip, is that Maude here is not human. Her species is
105a bioengineered creation,much like Anna and her children. She looks like a human
106andtalks like a human, but her mental processes are a lot likeAnna's. Honest, noble, and
107trustworthy to the extreme inmany ways, but astoundingly strange to us in others.
108"Accordingly, she is stronger and faster than any merehuman like you can ever hope to
109be. Will that hurt your mas-culine pride? Think about it.
110"Then there is the fact that she is essentially immortal. Sheis so different from us that
111there aren't any diseases that can bother her. Her wounds heal quickly, and she can even
112regrow a severed limb, in time.
113"Oh, if someone could tie her down and spend enoughtime on her with an axe, she'd die,
114but it would take a lot tokill her.
115"Aside from something like that, she'll likely live forever.If you're looking for someone
116to grow old with, this is not thegirl for you. If what you want is someone who will
117stayyoung and sexy, hang in there, but think it out first.
118"Another thing is that this pretty girl cannot give you chil-dren. She has children just like
119Anna does, four at a time, andidentical twins of their mother. They'll all be girls. In
120fouryears they'll be adults and remember everything she knows.
121"They won't remember much about their childhood, andwhether you give them loving
122care or ignore them com-pletely won't make any difference. But they won't
123beyourchildren, not biologically. Worse, I worry that they might seem to you to be less
124like daughters, and more like yourwife's twin sisters, which could cause you a whole bale
125ofemotional troubles.
126"Add all that to the fact that you are dealing with someone who still has no idea of what
127human love is all about.
128"She does know about sex. I don't actually know, since mysexual contact with Maude
129has been limited to scratching herbehind the ear, but I suspect that she knows more about
130eroticenjoyment than both of us put together. Just remember thatsex with her isonly for
131enjoyment.
132"So. It's getting late, and I hope that I've scared the both ofyou to the point that you will 
133take things very, very slowly.Good night. Go away, both of you, and try to get at least
134somesleep tonight, Josip. Maude doesn't need any. Ever."
135Outside, I disrobed completely and crawled into the smalltent with Maude. Lord
136Conrad's extensive advice had left my head spinning, but I thought that if we would have
137to spend alot of time getting to know one another, and if this nuditything was so
138important to her, well, then I should go as far as Icould to meet her halfway.
139Without saying a word, she started rubbing me down,since this day had been, if
140anything, more taxing than the day before.
141I asked Maude what she thought about what Lord Conradhad said to us.
142"I don't know. On one small point, Lord Conrad was incor-rect. My daughters will not
143look exactly like me. There arealways small variations in the color of the eyes, the hair,
144andthe skin, and in the shape of facial features. As to the rest, Ihave insufficient
145information to know what to think. What doyou think?"
146That was the first time that I had ever heard her ask meabout anything personal. I
147considered it a good omen.
148I said that the fact that she was not human didn't bother mein the least. Lord Conrad's
149first mount, Anna, was a goodfriend of mine when I was a child. She had always
150seemedperfectly human to me, for all that she looked like a horse. Ifanything, I had
151always thought of her as being a better personthan most of the normal human people I
152have known.
153As to children, I said I'd had so many strange difficulties with my father that I didn't
154think I really wanted to start afamily, or to have any children of my own, anyway.
155If I ever felt different, or if she ever wanted human kids, Isupposed that we could always
156adopt children, or, with her per-mission, as an army knight, I could always get a second
157wife.
158As to the fact that she was stronger and faster than I was, Isaid I couldn't see that it
159would bother me. After all, it's not as though I'd gotten any weaker. I was stronger than
160mostmen, and if I had any immodest pride, it's of the way I couldusually think fast and
161talk myself out of trouble, withoutneeding physical strength.
162As to growing old, I said I thought it was going to be aproblem for her to decide on, not
163me. Old married men that Iknew had told me that their wives had changed so slowly over
164the years that they had never noticed it happening. Ifthey didn't see somebody changing,
165why should I worry aboutnot seeing somebody not changing? Then I asked her if I was
166making any sense.
167"I understand much of what you say, but I don't knowenough to understand it all."
168I asked her to tell me this much, please. Did she like beingaround me? Was there
169anywhere else that she would wantto be?
170"Yes. No. You want me to say more. It is very pleasant tobe around you, Josip. I feel
171very secure, being with you. Iknow that you will always know what to do. You are very
172po-lite. Your face and body are very well constructed."
173I said, thank you. I guessed that that would have to do forthe time being. I told her I
174loved her, and that I thought shewas very beautiful.
175"What is love? What is beauty?"
176I said, oh my. I said that I would take a stab at beauty...
177Which got us into another long, one-sided conversation.Nice, though.
178One decision we did come up with was that since sex nowexisted only for enjoyment, we
179might as well enjoy our-selves. And yes, she was a garden of wondrous delights whofar
180surpassed all others!
181Chapter Twenty-Two
182From the Journal of Josip Sobieski
183WRITTEN JANUARY 16, 1250, CONCERNINGJUNE 4, 1249
184THE NEXTday, I watched a crowd of some three thousandteamsters, cooks, prostitutes,
185leather workers, soldier's wives,armorers, noblemen's girlfriends, servants,
186blacksmiths,washerwomen, gamblers, craftsmen of all kinds, merchantsof all types, and
187children of all of the above. All of the extrapeople these conventional armies felt
188obligated to bringalong with them to war.
189All of them but the smallest children had been strippednaked, each of them was
190clutching a week's supply of food,and every one of them was loudly bemoaning his or her
191lot inlife, mostly in German, but also in something that was closeto Polish.
192Had they been defeated by almost anyone else but Lord Conrad, all of them would likely 
193be dead, but none of themseemed to have considered that. Escorted by a company ofour
194infantry, they walked slowly back to the Holy RomanEmpire.
195Some twenty-six of them who spoke passable Polish had come to us and asked
196permission to settle here, rather than togo back to the empire. Most of them were allowed
197to do so.After the others left, they were given back their clothing, allof their property, and
198even some of the army's money to helpget them started.
199Eighty-six of the children were found to have no living rela-tives and were being sent to
200Okoitz for eventual adoption. A list of them was given to a responsible-looking German
201mer-chant, in case any of the children's relatives turned up later.
202Some two hundred fifty-one German soldiers were still alive, at last count, and were
203being given the best possiblemedical care.
204When I asked about all this generosity, after the cold bru-tality of battle, Lord Conrad
205told me that to be successful inwar and politics, you must be either very, very cruel, or
206very,very generous. He said that attempting any middle path wasalways disastrous. I've
207thought long on this piece of wisdom.
208Someone had tried to skin some of the dead warhorses, butgave up on it since the hides
209were too badly damaged.Anyway, the army warehouses still held half the leather wegot
210from the hides we took off those Mongol ponies, thosemany years ago.
211By late afternoon we were back in Lubusz, attending anoutdoor trial. It was attended by
212a few thousand people,mostly civilians who were curious but who didn't want to get
213involved.
214Lord Conrad acted as both judge and prosecuting attorney,which wasn't proper in any
215legal system I'd ever heard of,but there weren't any suitable volunteers for either of the
216po-sitions, since no one but his grace would dare to kill the mar-grave and offend the
217emperor. Nor was there a defenseattorney, since no one wanted to offend Lord Conrad,
218either.
219His grace simply announced that he was going to try theoffenders for a long list of
220crimes, which he read. He thencalled up nine witnesses to the atrocities that the German
221sol- diers had committed and publicly questioned them, one at atime. When they were
222finished, the list of crimes had grownto nineteen capital offenses. He found all the
223defendants guilty of all crimes, and condemned them all to death. He also fined the
224margrave anamount equal to the value of all of his possessions, which henow claimed for
225the Christian Army.
226He had all the defendants hung by the neck until they weredead, and then left them
227hanging up there, naked and unburied.
228It wasn't really a trial at all. It was simply a statement thatcertain kinds of behavior 
229would no longer be tolerated.
230During the trial, Lord Conrad's regular herald, a man who spoke eleven languages,
231returned from leave and took overhis regular duties. I was offered the option of returning
232to theExplorer's School, but since my leave still had months to run,they couldn't be
233expecting me, and there wouldn't be muchfor me to do there. I had no desire to go home
234and see my fa-ther again, and anyway, Maude would be staying with Lord Conrad, who
235would be needing a bodyguard more than ever, after this day's work became known.
236I stayed with Lord Conrad and was made a messenger, aninteresting job, since it let me
237meet all sorts of people and stillspend my nights with Maude. It also had me in
238attendance when King Henryk arrived on the night of the trial.
239The king burst into Lord Conrad's presence before theherald had half enough time to
240announce him. His majestybriskly strode in and stepped right up on top of Lord Conrad's
241table so he could point his finger and glare down at his grace.
242"Damn you, Conrad, this time you've gone too damn far!Our agreement was that you
243should take care of the military and technical side of things, and that I should have
244completecharge of all things judicial and political. Trying and hangingthe Margrave of
245Brandenburg was obviously both judicialand political, as well as being boneheadedly
246stupid! You havemanaged to turn a minor border incident into what will likelysoon
247become a full-fledged war with the entire Holy RomanEmpire! What possible excuse can
248you have for this fit ofmadness? Did you receive a head wound in the openingstages of
249the battle? Or has your swinish swiving of everyunderaged slut in sight finally rotted out
250your brains? Well? Speak up, or has the same foul disease that has turned yourmind to
251sludge also corrupted your tongue?"
252Lord Conrad looked up and was silent for a bit, and then said, mildly, "Good evening,
253your majesty. I trust that youhad a pleasant trip here. Would you care for a glass of wine?
254The local mead has quite a lot to recommend it."
255"Damn you, Conrad, I said answer me!"
256"As you wish, Henryk. I received no wounds in battle, andI am suffering from no disease
257that I am aware of, but thank you for inquiring after my condition. With regards to
258health,though, may I express concern for yours? The camp table thatyou are standing on
259folds up nicely, but it isn't all that sturdy.You would ease my anxieties considerably if
260you steppeddown from it."
261"Step down? I'm half minded to step down! Right downfrom my throne! But I'll see you
262banished first, dammit! I tellyou, Conrad, one of us has to go, and I'm not minded that it
263should be me!"
264This last pronouncement was accompanied by a particu-larly violent gesture, and the
265table took the opportunity tocollapse. It seemed a natural occurrence to me, but later 
266thatnight Maude said she'd seen Lord Conrad kick out a leg sup-port. To his credit, the
267king rode it down standing up, but theaccident seemed to have a certain calming effect on
268him.
269"Maude, would you get us another table, please, and achair for his majesty?" Lord
270Conrad said. "Sir Josip, clear thewreckage."
271The camp furniture was collapsible, but still quite substan-tially made, and I had to bend
272my knees to lift the brokentabletop without straining my back. My love was back in
273mo-ments with a new, larger table and chair before I was through.She had a chair in one
274hand and was supporting a longtable—level with the floor—with the other hand
275grippingonly one short edge!
276His majesty noticed this.
277Sir Conrad said, "You see, your majesty, things are not al-ways precisely as they appear.
278Now please sit down andrelax. Have some of this mead. Now, personally, I don't
279con-sider an invasion by nine thousand people to be a 'minorborder incident.' It was an
280attempt to invade us, and to permanently conquer territory. I did not conduct a formal
281trialfor the margrave. I merely publicly explained why I wasgoing to kill him. The
282emperor is not stupid enough to attackus. I am not going to resign and neither are you.
283You aredoing too good a job, and anyway, youlike being a king. Wasthere anything else
284that seemed to trouble your majesty?"
285"Killing the margrave was a major diplomatic blunder. Heis very influential in the
286empire."
287"Wasvery influential, perhaps. Now, well, in the firstplace, he's dead, and in the second,
288he has been shown to be adamned fool. I expect that whatever political faction he
289con-trolled is already rapidly dispersing."
290"Perhaps so, Conrad, but I wish you wouldn't do thingslike this."
291"I was only doing my job. I am responsible for the safety of the realm. When we were
292attacked, I had to respond asquickly as possible, since they were killing some of
293ourpeople every minute. I admit that the battle was more de-structive than it should have
294been. I had originally intendedonly to attack their van, to slow them down, but we
295weretrying out some new weapons and tactics, and they proved tobe remarkably
296effective. A single company of our troops tookout their entire army without stopping.
297Except for the civil-ians in the baggage train, of course."
298The king looked astounded. "All that was done by a singlecompany?"
299"Yes, your majesty, less than three hundred men. So yousee why we have nothing to fear
300from the empire. That com-pany was a newly formed unit. The Wolves. It's composed
301entirely of scions of the old nobility. It is about the only strictly military organization in 
302our army, since those guyswould never stoop to doing the kind of manual labor
303thateverybody else in the army does."
304"I see. My vassals will be proud to learn of their sons' ac-complishments. But tell me,
305what is the story about thisstrong, if somewhat underdressed, young lady here."
306"Your majesty, let me introduce Maude. She's my newbodyguard."
307Maude did an amazingly graceful curtsy, such as I hadnever seen done by a woman
308before, even by one wearing agreat flowing gown. It made me want to see her dance.
309Lord Conrad said, "Maude is not the underaged swinish slut that you almost called her.
310But she is not an ordinary human being, either. In fact, she has a lot in common
311withAnna's children, that you and your men have been riding foryears. She was sent to
312me by my cousin when he heard about that attempted assassination."
313"I hope that she's as good at guarding you as she is at car-rying around furniture. You're
314going to need her services, es-pecially after this last foolish stunt of yours. If the
315Germanscan't get rid of you by ordinary military means, you knowthey will try all of the
316other possibilities. Do you have a food taster? You should, you know."
317"When I'm in the field, I eat from the same pots that mymen do, and I never stand first in
318line. At home, what meals Idon't eat in the cafeterias are cooked for me by the ladies of
319my own household, and they're always tasting things whilethey're cooking. So far, there
320hasn't been a problem, Henryk."
321"I shall pray to God that it stays that way. For your part,you might want to put on a few
322good food inspectors. Thepeople who hate us aren't above poisoning a few
323thousandpeople if it means killing you with them. The Big People havea remarkable
324sense of smell, you know. It might be worth-while having one of them sniff over all the
325foodstuffs comingin, as well as all that is set on your table. It's what I do."
326"An excellent suggestion, Henryk. I'll act on it. Betterstill, Maude, what is your sense of
327smell like? Is it as good asthat of the Big People?"
328"Yes, your grace."
329"Can you tell if food has been poisoned?"
330"Yes. All ordinary poisons. The only really dangerous poisons commonly known in
331Europe come from certainmushrooms."
332"Interesting. Thank you. From now on, part of your jobwill be to smell my food, any
333food that is put on the table, for that matter, before I eat it. And when we get back, tell the
334ac-countants to raise your pay to eight pence a day."
335"Yes."
336"Conrad, are we going to be seeing thousands of these at-tractive creatures growing up
337around your estates?" Henrykasked.
338"I really don't know. I haven't thought it out yet, but I thinkperhaps not. It doesn't feel
339right, somehow, but I'm not quitesure why."
340"Let me know when you decide. Remember that my fatherwas killed by one of his own
341guards. I think that I'd ratherlike to have a few like her guarding my back, if she's
342ashonest as a Big Person and as trustworthy."
343"I'm sure she is, Henryk, but still, I hesitate. I think per-haps that her sort are actually
344better people than we humans are. What is our moral position if we are giving orders to
345our moral superiors?"
346"What, indeed?"
347"The problem isn't as obvious with the Big People, be-cause they look like horses, and
348you constantly have to re-mind yourself that they're not animals. Maude looks like a
349woman, and I can't help thinking about her as though she wasa human woman. For
350example, I knew intellectually that shewas far tougher than I was, and thus was actually
351much safer, but I was nonetheless as nervous as a mouse during the battle,thinking about
352her being in danger, right behind me.
353"Should there be more like her? If there were, should webe giving them orders?Would
354we be giving them orders? Ormight they decide that we humans are so degenerate that
355theyshould take charge for our own good?"
356"I see what is bothering you, and I'm glad that I don't haveto make the decision. Ponder
357long before you do anything,Conrad. Concerning more pressing matters, what am I to
358dowhen the emperor complains about this last little affair ofyours?"
359"Simple. You tell him that it was unfortunate that one ofhis subordinates was so foolish
360as to attack one of your sub- ordinates, but since you are in a forgiving mood, you
361won'tbe demanding further reparations. You may also tell him that the score on the
362battlefield was six thousand for you and zerofor him. And tell him that he can come and
363have another romp with us, whenever he's inclined. He won't take you upon it."
364"At this point, I suppose that it is the only tactic that couldwork. You know, when I
365heard that the margrave was still hanging naked outside the town, I sent men to have him
366cut down. They returned to say that the corpse had already done that for itself. It seems
367that he was so fat that his body actu-ally pulled loose from his head, like a pinch of bread
368doughbeing pulled off. I'm having coffins made for those sevenmen. Would you have
369their clothes sent to my camp? I want to send their bodies back to their families in the
370best shape possible."
371"I'll see to it, Henryk."
372"Thank you. Now, the last order of business is this counter-invasion that you have
373planned. Do you really think this iswise?"
374"I think that it is necessary. When a puppy makes a messon the floor, you have to rub his
375nose in it so he knows what he did wrong, and then you have to swat him, to punish
376him,or he'll do it again. Without the swat, he might even get toliking shit on his nose!
377Anyway, the margrave's lands have been in Slavic hands since time immemorial. The
378people on the land are not exactly Polish, but they are closer to us than to anyone else
379around. They have been under the German's thumb for about a hundred years now. They
380deserve theirfreedom."
381"Conrad, when you start using words like 'freedom,' thereis no reasoning with you. Any
382further conversation on the sub-ject would simply be a waste of the breath God gave us.
383Dowhat you will, and I'll try to sweep up your mess, politically."
384"You know that you enjoy it. What say that you and yourpeople come with me and my
385forces as we take possession ofour new province? That way, you could see to it that
386every-thing was done to your satisfaction."
387"Yes, that would be for the best, Conrad. Let us knowwhen you'll be leaving."
388"With pleasure. Good night, your majesty."
389Later that night, sitting around a small fire, I got out myrecorder and played a few simple
390tunes for Maude. She wasvery surprised. She said that she had never seen people
391makemusic before. She had often heard music, but it had alwaysbeen made by a machine.
392I was mystified, and wonderedwhat sort of machine could play a recorder. I could
393imagine amachine beating a drum, but not, say, a violin, or a trumpet.But I let it pass and
394played some more for my love.
395She said she liked it, and soon was standing and swaying,naked as always, in time with
396the music. After a while, seeingthat I was watching her with pleasure, she slowly began
397todance, with a beautiful, flowing sort of motion I had neverseen a person use before.
398Some of the knights from theWolves camp nearby were as fascinated as I was and
399cameover to watch. Most people play some sort of musical instru-ment, and a few of the
400watchers brought drums, strings, andwoodwinds to contribute what they could. Still
401others usedwhatever was available to tap and keep the strong beat.
402Someone started playing a violin to a slightly faster beat,and I turned and recognized him
403to be Komander Wladyclaw.The drums picked it up, and the rest of us quickly joined in.
404Maude's dancing sped up as well, and she began to add graceful skips and spins to her
405dance. Seeing that her poiseand prowess were up to something fast, the violinist made
406thesong beat faster yet, and what had begun as a simple shep-herd's tune was becoming
407something that might be heardfrom a Gypsy camp!
408Again Maude's dance stayed with the increased tempo,whirling around the campfire,
409adding leaps and flying spins that seemed too fast to be real! She would leap into the
410air,and seem almost to hover there for a time while spinning. She was at once as free as a
411forest butterfly, as pure as a child, and as erotic as is possible for a woman to be.
412More of our troops were coming to the fire to see what washappening, and staying once
413they did. There must have beensix dozen of them by then.
414The komander took the beat faster yet, and still Maudekept up with it, leaping higher
415than any of her audiencewould have thought possible, with her feet higher than a
416tallman's head, and her head far above that. Yet she gave no signthat this was some
417athletic thing she was doing, but rather an artistic one, for it was not the feat itself, but the
418beauty of the thing that was important.
419Komander Wladyclaw glanced at me, asking if we daredto take it faster, and I gave him
420a quick shake of my head. Noone could possibly dance like this for long, and I was
421beginning to worry about my darling love. We did a few bars to bring things to an
422ending, and Maude went into an elaboratespin and bow.
423The crowd exploded with applause, a wild shout that washeard for miles and went on
424forever while Maude scamperedback to my side. I was surprised to see that she wasn't
425evenbreathing heavily.
426The komander stood and formally bowed to Maude, some-thing I'd never seen a
427nobleman do for a girl around a camp-fire before. The feeling was unanimous, for every
428single manthere, your narrator included, well over a gross of us, stoodand bowed to her as
429well.
430Maude at first nodded acceptance of this praise, but then,deciding that something more
431was required, she stood andmade an elaborate curtsy and bow back.
432The komander asked, "My gracious lady, could we begyou for a repeat performance?"
433Maude looked up at me, and I said that she had not dancedfor a long while, but that
434perhaps we could hope for anothershow tomorrow.
435The truth was, her dance was erotic, and I was so aroused that my strongest—only—
436desire was to get Maude alone inthe tent with me.
437If the other knights were disappointed, they were alsounderstanding.
438Much later, Maude said, "They trained me to be an enter-tainer, but Tom was never
439interested in watching me. Did mydance please you?"
440My first thought was that this Tom must be an incredible ass, but I didn't say it.
441I told her that it was the most unbelievably beautiful thing Ihad ever seen, that she was
442now the darling of the Wolves,and probably the rest of the army as well. If she ever
443wantedto cease being a bodyguard, there was a career waiting for herin dancing.
444"I could quit being a bodyguard?"
445I said that of course she could. There was no slavery inPoland. This was the land of the
446free. She was a free person,and she could do whatever she wanted to do.
447She took a while to consider this, and then said, "No. I willcontinue as I am."
448I said that this was good and held her close to me.Watching all of the other men looking
449at her with admirationand even open lust in their eyes, I realized that she couldeasily have
450almost any man she wanted. It chilled me to thinkhow easily I could lose her.Chapter Twenty-Three
451From the Journal of Josip Sobieski
452WRITTEN JANUARY 17, 1250, CONCERNINGJUNE 5, 1249
453IN THEmorning, after mass and the recitation of our ArmyOath, Maude and I
454breakfasted, and I armed myself. Since Ifelt there was no possibility of any fighting
455taking place, I leftoff my leg armor. The combination of wearing infantry armorand
456riding in a saddle for two days had left parts of my poste-rior blistered where it wasn't
457bleeding.
458Lord Conrad noticed my less-than-complete uniform andasked me why I was breaking
459general combat orders duringwhat was still, officially, an alert. When I explained, he
460or-dered that I see the battalion's armorers and get fitted for a set of the new cavalry
461armor.
462I found the armorers with nothing much to do that day, ex-cept to sort out battered, 
463bloody enemy armor and decidewhat should be scrapped, what repaired, and what saved
464assouvenirs. Given the chance to do honest work, they alljumped at it, and soon I had a
465dozen of them working in mycause.
466They never let me leave their camp for more than a fewminutes, as they took a set of
467standard heavy stampings from their storage boxes and cut, filed, and fitted them to my
468body.
469Three seamstresses were soon at work, taking the partiallyfinished sections of a summer
470gambezon from storage. Theywere cut oversized, with only half the seams sewn. Soon
471theywere trimming and sewing them into a new garment for me, to suit the armor. Small
472pieces of chain mail were sewn on,covering the armpits, the insides of the elbows, and
473the backs of the knees, where the armor plates could not protect me.
474I was surprised that I had no protection for my lower but-tocks and my privy members
475below the belt, but I was told thatwhen mounted, the saddle would keep those parts
476protected.
477I said that my Big Person had not come with a saddle withthat high of a cantle. Their
478response was to issue me a chitthat got me a new, Wolves-style saddle, with built-in
479holstersfor two submachine guns and a rifle.
480Nonetheless, I resolved that someday soon I would getmyself an armored skirt to wear in
481case I had to fight on foot.If I had to, I'd pay for it myself!
482Most helmets have one piece that protects the top, back,and sides of the head, and a
483separate visor to protect the face. My new helm was just the opposite. The front, top, and
484sides were of a piece, and the back hinged up to let you in.
485By late afternoon, an astoundingly short period of time, I was gloriously arrayed in the
486latest style of personal protec-tion. They even found time to polish the plates, giving
487themthe mirror finish so prized by the old nobility.
488I lacked only the panache of gray plumes worn by theWolves to look like one of their
489number, and I found myselfwondering where I might possibly buy some plumes of
490someother color. Perhaps red.
491I strutted proudly back to our tent, thinking that Maudemight be impressed, but I was
492disappointed. She thought of wearing anything but one's own skin as being silly,
493smelly,and scratchy. Ah, well. You can't please everybody. I wasn'tbothered. In all
494events,I thought that I looked beautiful.
495* * *
496One night I asked Maude how, just before the battle, shehad managed to get from my lap
497to Silver's rump without my seeing her get there.
498"I jumped."
499I asked why I hadn't seen her move.
500"I jumped quickly, when you blinked. It's how you movein combat. You wait until
501people blink, or look in another di-rection, then you move quickly."
502I said that I was amazed.
503"Would you like me to demonstrate it for you?"
504I said that she could do it later. For now, it wasn't worthgetting out of bed for.
505Looking at Maude, admiring the lovely curve of her hip,and flank, and breast, I
506mumbled something to myself aboutthe Lilies of the Field. She heard me, and asked what
507I wastalking about.
508I said, " 'And why take ye thought for raiment? Considerthe lilies of the field, how they
509grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say to you, That even Solomon in all
510hisglory was not arrayed like one of these.' " I told her that it wasfrom Jesus Christ's
511Sermon on the Mount.
512I'm not a Bible scholar, but that one has always stuck inmy head. And how could any
513young man resist the chance toimpress his love?
514"Yes. That is exactly right. Christ would always knowwhat is best. We should not care
515about our raiment," she said, and continued in her nudity.
516Maude had a perfect memory, and after that she wouldquote those verses of Matthew
517whenever anyone objected toher lack of coverings. When I said that she had to look
518atthese words in context, she wouldn't consider it. Christ hadspoken, He could not
519possibly be mistaken, and that was that.
520I began to understand the saying about how a little knowl-edge was a dangerous thing,
521and why the Church does not en-courage laymen to read the Bible.
522When I asked her to please not argue with the bishop about religion, she asked what a
523bishop was, and we were promptlyinto another long, one-sided conversation.
524From the Diary of Conrad Stargard
525JUNE 5, 1249
526I spent the day preparing to invade a major part of the HolyRoman Empire. Ordering up
527six more battalions of infantrywas the easy part. Harder was the fact that our infantry
528couldnot move efficiently without a railroad going where theywanted to go. You see, our
529equipment and tactics had all beendesigned withdefending the country in mind. Until
530recently, very little work or thought had gone into offense.
531Units like the Wolves could go anywhere fast, as muchas four gross miles a day, but we
532only had a single companyof them.
533A platoon of men could pull their war cart six dozen milesa day when they were rolling
534on steel rails. With some menpulling and some men sleeping, they could go around
535theclock. Averaged out, they were much faster than the enemy'sconventional cavalry.
536Put the same platoon on a good conventional road, and thebest they could do was about
537two dozen miles, since it took all of them, pulling hard, to move the heavy thing on a
538dirtsurface. There was no possibility of rolling around the clock.
539The existing roads from Lubusz to Brandenburg were notvery good, and in some
540sections it was doubtful if a singleplatoon could make a war cart move at all!
541We had to get our infantry into Brandenburg, and oncethere, we needed to give them
542some mobility.
543Then, we not only had to take and to occupy Brandenburg—an area of about six
544thousand square miles—we had tobring it into our system, and fast!
545If the conversion went quickly and smoothly, the bulk ofthe Slavic-speaking population
546would be eagerly on our side,and the former conquerors would be dispirited.
547If we let the German-speaking minority have time to organize itself, we could see
548factional fighting and guerrilla warfare for many years.
549Worse yet, in my old time line, Brandenburg had joined with Prussia to form the state
550that was the political basis of modern Germany and the cultural basis of the Nazi party.
551These were the people with the strutting jackboots, and thefirm belief that all other
552peoples were subhuman,untermensch.I wanted to make sure that the thing didn't happen
553inthis time line.
554Making Brandenburg a part of Poland meant bringing inour schools, with their general
555stores and their post offices. Itmeant bringing in our farming methods, our seeds, and 
556ourfarm machinery. It meant bringing in our uniform measure-ment system, our
557monetary system, and our judicial system.
558All of which involved a lot of travel and transport.
559There was nothing for it but to build railroads. Lots of rail-roads. Quickly.
560What I was planning was to be one of the fastest construc-tion projects in army history.
561Everything else in the entirenation would be made subordinate to this single
562project.Every bit of materials and manpower, anything that could beof use, would be
563rushed to Lubusz. No matter what projecthad to be put on hold, no matter where else the
564materials wereneeded, no matter what the men would rather be doing, thenew rail line to
565Brandenburg came first.
566Our existing rail lines were placed defensively, on the east bank of the Odra. A pontoon
567bridge would be thrown acrossthe river at Lubusz, which would stay in business until a
568real,masonry bridge could be finished, or until the thaw nextspring took it out.
569Surveyors were to be out in droves, preparing the way for hundreds of crews of
570construction workers. A forest of trees would be felled to clear the right-of-way, and were
571to be justas quickly ripsawed into railroad ties, bridge trusses, and siding platforms.
572Demolition teams would be blowing out tree stumps wholesale with gunpowder,
573followed by thou-sands of men who would be out with picks, shovels, and wheelbarrows,
574leveling the roadbed.
575Every horse and wagon we had taken from the invaderswould be in use, as well as every
576additional bit of equipmentwe could get our hands on.
577While all this intensive work was going on, the Eagleswould keep their planes high
578above us, searching for any hos-tile move, and the Wolves would be patrolling our
579borders,sniffing out any enemy action.
580We figured to lay three miles of track in the first week, andten more miles of it on the
581day after. Once we got rolling, wehoped to be in Brandenburg in ten days, and two
582months laterwe would have a perimeter defensive road around the entire province.
583Experienced Polish farmers who wanted more land wouldbe recruited to move into every
584town and large village in Brandenburg, mostly on land once owned by the soldierswho
585had just tried to invade us. We would equip them withthe best seeds, the newest
586machinery, and the new fertilizers.Once the locals" saw the kind of crops they brought in,
587they'dbe lining up to get with our system.
588A construction platoon would get to town, and in two days aschoolhouse would be
589completed. It would have a windmillthat pumped water from a new tube well up to a
590cistern on theroof, indoor plumbing with hot water, and a septic system.This technology
591was far ahead of what the people in Branden-burg had ever seen, and it should impress 
592them considerably.
593Each of our schools had a general store that sold a widevariety of our products, at better
594prices than could be foundlocally, and a catalogue sales arrangement that could get you
595just about anything at half the price people were used to. Ofcourse, everything was
596bought and sold with our own uniform currency, and in terms of our uniform
597measurementsystem.
598Each school had a post office, something nobody in Ger-many ever saw before.
599These commercial operations supported the school system,so much so that we
600sometimes had to work not to make aprofit!
601Since this would be army territory, taxes would be com-pletely eliminated, except for
602those levied by the local gov-ernment. The Christian Army supported itself by its
603ownefforts, the schools were self-supporting, and the Churchtook care of itself.
604Once we were completely set up, the only people the localswould have to deal with
605would be someone speaking some-thing close to their own native language, and not in the
606for-eign German tongue.
607That was the program, anyway. We were pretty confident itwould work. Especially since
608King Henryk had agreed tohandle the political problems for us.
609Six companies of infantry had left for Brandenburg themorning after the battle. They
610were marching with twoweeks' worth of dried food on their backs, without their pikesor
611war carts, but they had been equipped with the new rifles,even if they weren't perfectly
612trained with them.
613The king and I would head out in the morning with theWolves. We figured to get to
614Brandenburg before noon.Chapter Twenty-Four
615From the Journal of Josip Sobieski
616WRITTEN JANUARY 18, 1250, CONCERNINGSEPTEMBER 18, 1249
617IARRIVEDat the Explorer's School at the last possible minute before my leave was up,
618an hour later than the rest of them.
619Sir Odon checked me in and said, "Someday, Josip, you are going to be late, and then I
620will have to be very rude to you."
621I said in that event, he could wait to hear my news untilafter all of the rest of the men in
622our lance had told me the sto-ries of what had happened to them during their vacations.
623Icalled him "Captain Odon," which certainly got his attention,and I swore not to talk until
624last. All of my friends were dyingof curiosity, but I just grinned at them and said that they
625hadto buy all of the beer, as well, in payment for my news.
626Since it was almost quitting time, we walked to the local Pink Dragon Inn, where I again
627insisted on not breaking myvow of silence until I heard their news.
628A bare-breasted waitress brought us a round of beers, waspaid, and then was ignored.
629We all felt wonderful, being backwith our friends.
630Kiejstut eagerly started our informal debriefing. He hadbeen grandly welcomed into his
631home village, and treated asa returning hero by all of his old friends and relatives. He
632hadbeen feasted and feted for almost every day of the first two weeks, until he had to beg
633people to let him get some rest.Everyone had to hear about every event in his long and
634illus-trious army career.
635His entire village had been converted to Christianityduring the eight years he was away,
636and they cheered when they heard that he, too, was a convert.
637He had given the bride away at his niece's wedding, andhad been the godfather at no less
638than five christenings.
639All the girls he had known before were married, with toomany children, but there was a
640whole new crop of fine youngmaidens, eager to welcome home the conquering hero!
641"It was like having two months in Okoitz, but all the girlswere even prettier and spoke
642Lithuanian!"
643He ended by saying that when he came back, it was in the company of eleven good
644Lithuanian boys who had come to the Warrior's School to join the Christian Army.
645We all cheered at this new addition to our ranks, for thearmy was growing again. The
646massive construction projectsof the last eight years had resulted in more than enough
647apart-ments, factories, and farms to provide homes and work for all of us. More growth
648meant, among other things, morepromotions.
649Taurus had a less happy story to tell, since a few monthsbefore he returned to the family
650farm near Kiev, his uncle haddied. Two of his cousins still lived and were struggling 
651tofeed themselves and their families. They were working withworn-out tools and poorquality seeds, and in an area that hadstill not fully recovered from the Mongol onslaught.
652By their standards, Taurus was fabulously wealthy, and intruth, he was able to help them
653a lot. He bought seeds and fer-tilizers for them, and then he and Nadja, the Big Person,
654hadhelped them get all of their land plowed and planted. He bought them a new, modern
655steel plow, and a pair of goodoxen to pull it with, along with dozens of new farm
656toolsfrom the store at the new school in the next village.
657He bought household goods that they badly needed—dishes, pots, and pans—and gave
658them to his only relatives. He bought their wives bolts of cloth to make clothing,
659bed-ding, and curtains with, and gave everyone, even the chil-dren, a new pair of boots.
660After that, he spent the rest of his vacation time helping them build a new barn, with
661materialsthat he paid for.
662"But you know, somehow, everything I did, it just wasn'tenough. I wish that I had never
663brought my full dress uniform along with all the gold on it. I told them that I couldn't
664pos-sibly sell my decorations, but they thought I was holding outon them. They never
665believed that the Big Person I hadridden in on wasn't my property, that Nadja wasn't even
666ahorse, but a person who could not be bought or sold. One night, one of their wives even
667suggested that I sell some ofmy weapons and give the money to them, since I was so rich!
668"I tell you that I was glad to leave those people. I've neverseen people that greedy, or that
669ungrateful, before. I don'tthink I will ever go back there again."
670Sir Odon said that everyone at home was glad to see him,but then he saw his relatives
671every few months, normally,since they lived nearby, in Wroclaw. Mostly, he spent the
672time helping out in his father's carpentry shop until the invasionhappened. Then he had
673been called up to operate a steamboaton the Odra.
674Father John had a similar story. After reporting to hisbishop, he went to Cracow, and
675spent the time at his father'snew butcher shop until the invasion. Then he was sent to
676asnowflake fort on the Vistula. The priest there had gone with the men to Brandenburg,
677and he was to see to the women andchildren left behind.
678After Taurus, Fritz, and I left them, Lezek and Zbigniewenjoyed themselves at home
679until they were called up, towork on an oil tanker on the Vistula. They were not
680overlypleased.
681Fritz's story was almost identical to Kiejstut's, eventhough he came from Germany
682instead of Lithuania. He was treated like a hero by all and sundry, the local boy who
683wentaway and made good. On top of that, the local nobility treatedhim like an equal,
684inviting him to supper and taking himalong on a stag hunt. The son of a baron had begun
685politely calling on Fritz's little sister, to her great delight.
686A total of fourteen healthy German farm boys, three of themhis cousins, came back with 
687Fritz to join the Christian Army.
688"Still and all, I'm glad that I was out of touch when Bran-denburg invaded us. I would
689have followed orders, youunderstand, and fought them if it came to that, but, you
690know,I'm glad that itdidn't come to that."
691Since they had all now faithfully told their stories, theyturned and looked expectantly at
692me.
693Just to have some more fun with them, I said that these were all wonderful stories, and
694that they had wanned myheart, but that it was getting late and we had a busy day ahead of
695us tomorrow.
696I got up from the table and made it halfway to the door be-fore I was tackled and brought
697to the ground. They picked meup, carried me back to the table, and sat me back down.
698Then they took away my beer, as punishment, they said, for my at-tempted desertion.
699So I told them the whole story, taking my time, starting with the night Fritz and I spent at
700the Pink Dragon. I spentsome time describing each of the girls in detail.
701Sir Odon said, "Hurry it up, or I will be forced to hurt you."I passed lightly over my
702problems with my father, andsoon had myself riding out to war at Lord Conrad's side,
703sit-ting astride one of Anna's children with the Battle Flag ofPoland in my hand, and the
704most beautiful woman in theworld sitting naked on my lap.
705My friends gave me a loudwhoop! Fritz gave me backmy beer. Even Father John was
706laughing. At their urging, Icontinued with the story. I told them of the battle, of the
707exe-cution of the margrave, and of King Henryk's amazing chas-tisement of Lord
708Conrad. I got to the point where we wereabout to invade Brandenburg when I finished
709my beer.
710I'd had my fun with my friends, but enough was enough,and it was time that I bought a
711round of beer, which I ordered.
712"But what happened then?" Zbigniew said. "Tell us aboutthe counterinvasion!"
713I had to tell them that from then on in, the story becameless interesting, even boring,
714except for my relationship withMaude, of course. Everything was so well planned,
715andeveryone in our army performed so well, that everythingwent smoothly.
716Before the enemy had time to think, we had more than sev-enty thousand troops in
717Brandenburg. That was ten times thefighting men they'd had even before the invasion!
718The fewGerman soldiers who were left were so shocked that they juststood around like
719sheep and did what they were told. Before my vacation was over, the bulk of the building
720program wascompleted, there were railroads everywhere, and schoolswere in every
721village!
722Already, most of our troops had gone home, but the Ger-mans knew we could be back
723there in a hurry if they ever got rude with us.
724Even Lord Conrad was back at Okoitz, and so was my newlove. I knew, because I rode
725all the way back at his side, with Maude again on my lap!
726Sir Odon said, "A marvelous story, Josip! But tell me, whatwas all that about calling me
727a captain?"
728With great casualness, I said that I must have forgotten thatpart, but Lord Conrad had
729seen fit to tell me about our nextmission. It seemed that they needed some explorers with
730ex-perience in riverboats to explore the biggest river system inthe world.
731I enjoyed their rapt attention. On a small stage not three yards away, a scantily clad
732dancer undulated suggestively, but all eyes at our table were on me. After two months
733ofbeing little more than a wall decoration in Lord Conrad'stent, it felt very good to be
734important!
735I told about how we would be bringing in six collapsiblesteamboats and assembling them
736on-site. Many details werestill not settled, but his grace had promised me that the cli-mate
737would be warm, all year around, that there was plenty ofwine and beer, or something like
738it, available locally, but thatwe were also welcome to bring in our own supply,
739withinreason. Further, we were assured that there were many youngladies available, and
740all of them naked, since the local cus-toms forbade them to wear clothing.
741My friends were all looking at me with expressions thatmixed delight with incredulity,
742so I continued.
743I said that Lord Conrad was vastly pleased with us forfinding the iron mine on our last
744mission, and that he consid-ered himself to be in our debt.
745Promotions had been promised to us all, and incidentally, Ihad taken the liberty to
746volunteer our lance for the above mis-sion. And whose turn was it to buy the next round
747of beer?
748"I will buy the next round, in honor of your very creative fantasy," Sir Odon said. "But
749what you are saying cannotpossibly be true. Even if you are not lying, you must be
750exag-gerating shamelessly, but it is such a pleasant lie that I thinkwe would all like to
751wallow in it for the rest of the night, at least."
752I said he could believe whatever he chose, it made no difference, since we would
753probably be briefed on it in themorning.
754Father John wanted to know about the people to be foundon this river, and I said that
755they were primitive along theriver, but there was a rich civilization at its headwaters, in 
756themountains. And none of them had ever heard of Christ.
757You could see the good father's eyes glow.
758As the evening went on, my friends decided that they al-most believed me about the
759mission, but on calm reflectionthey insisted that for the most beautiful woman in the
760worldto be in love with a person abjectly lacking inany social skills, and with such a
761deplorable level of personal hygiene,was simply absurd.
762They said that I had obviously fallen off Margarete andlanded on my head, since I was
763patently delusional. I sat thereand acted smug.
764The high point of the evening came when Maude walkedinto the inn, wearing her usual
765outfit and easily outshiningall of the waitresses and dancers there. She sat down next
766tome, put her arm around my waist and her head against myshoulder.
767She said, "I missed you. Let's go to bed."
768Fritz muttered, as if to himself, "She doesn't like clothesbecause nothing looks good on
769her. Unbelievably good, for afact."
770My other friends couldn't speak, since all of their mouthswere locked open.
771I told Maude that I would like that, but first she must meetmy friends. I introduced them
772to her, but she had already heard much about each of them, and they were still toostunned
773by her beauty to say very much, so I was soon able tobreak away from them and take
774Maude back to my room in the barracks.
775Having her there was perhaps discouraged by certain armyregulations, but they were not
776well-enforced regulations ifyou didn't bother anybody.
777I asked her how she had gotten to the school from Okoitz."Iran."
778A distance of eighteen miles, and she ran the whole way. Itmade sense, somehow.Chapter Twenty-Five
779From the Journal of Josip Sobieski
780WRITTEN MARCH 6, 1251, CONCERNINGJANUARY 19, 1250
781IFINDmyself laid up in the base hospital with an unimportantinfection in a small scratch
782on my foot, and again, withnothing better to do, I have resolved to bring my personal
783his-tory up to date.
784I stood at the rail of theAtlantic Challenger, hoping for asight of one of the flying fishes
785that Lord Conrad had writtenabout. After weeks at sea, my love for it was still growing.
786Itsawesome size, its constantly changing colors, its infinitepeace. Together they made it
787for me one of the greatest works of God.
788We had been at sea for four weeks, and out of radio contactfor the last fifteen days. The
789new radios were an improve-ment, but were far from perfect. I could no longer send
790mes-sages to my love.
791I missed Maude, more than everything else.
792Through the months of preparation for this voyage, sheand I had been together every
793possible moment. I spent myweekends at Okoitz with her, and she arranged to have
794everyWednesday and Thursday off to spend at the school. In thismanner, we had six
795nights a week together.
796Transportation was provided by the Big People, whoseemed to take a special pleasure in
797watching our love affair.Once Maude got Lord Conrad to teach her a few words in
798En-glish, we often rode Silver back and forth, since that lady or-dinarily didn't get
799enough exercise.
800There was no longer even the slightest doubt in either of usthat ours was a love that
801would last forever. She promisedthat she would wait for me to return, and that when I
802did, wewould be married.
803At Okoitz, where she was still guarding Lord Conrad, shespent her time in constant
804reading, to learn everything she could about this strange new world she had been sent
805into. She took formal religious instruction, and was baptized aChristian, which removed
806any possible impediment to ourmarriage.
807She even submitted to wearing clothing in public, to fore-stall any criticism. It was very
808light clothing, loose, and madeof the softest Bulgarian cotton, but it was clothing for allof
809that.
810I was sorely tempted to transfer to some other branch ofthe army so I would not have to
811leave her. Maude thought se-riously of leaving Lord Conrad's employment and
812stowingaway on the ship, but in the end calmer, more practicalthoughts had prevailed.
813I wanted to set up a proper household for her, and I thoughtit likely that if this voyage 
814proved to be as successful as thelast, my promotion to captain was assured. Thirty-two
815pence a day, plus her salary, if she wanted to remain working, pluswhatever royalties I
816got for my share of the mine, whenadded to my savings would let us live a very
817comfortable life.
818Standing with me on the docks, just before I left, she had aconfession to make.
819Unbeknownst to everyone, Maude hadhad four children.
820It seems that children of her species are born very small, nobigger than mice, which
821explained why no one had noticedher pregnancy. They require no more care than a safe
822place tolive and a supply of food, any food that a human could eat.
823She was paying the widow of a yeoman farmer, who livedin the woods not far from
824Okoitz, to care for them and keepthem hidden.
825This was the first truly independent action I had ever seenher make, and naturally I was
826curious about it. She said she felt a responsibility to Lord Conrad, and that by herself,
827shecould not give him the security he deserved and still have anylife of her own. Her four
828daughters, in time, could see to itthat he was guarded around the clock, and still have
829plenty offree time for themselves.
830Also, with the four of them on duty, Maude would feel freeto go anywhere with me.
831When I asked if this had been done with Lord Conrad's permission, she said no. But he
832never had anything to sayabout whether any human woman should have children ornot,
833and she was as free as they were, wasn't she?
834I had to agree with her, but secretly I was glad I hadn'tbeen asked about it before the
835deed was done.
836When I returned, in a year or so, it would be not only to awife, but to a family, of sorts,
837as well.
838As I pondered all of this, Knight Banner Taurus came overfrom the fishing net crane. He
839didn't have to do the samplingpersonally. Like me, he now had a forty-two-man
840platoonworking under him, most of them belted knights. I think he was doing it himself
841simply because he was bored with ourshipboard inactivity.
842"Another empty net. These equatorial oceans are not asrich as our northern seas."
843I said that our sampling was still far too small for us todraw any solid conclusions.
844"True, and anyway, I was getting sick of the cook'sabortive attempts at trying to make
845five new kinds of fish a day edible. I wonder if we'll ever find out if it's a matter of bad
846fish or bad cooking. Can you believe that lately I havebeen developing a craving for some
847fresh venison, you know,from those northern deer?"
848I said I could not believe it, but that I had heard there wassome trade starting in what
849they were calling reindeer meat, preserved by the new canning process.
850"Reindeer. That must be because they put reins on theanimal when they use it to pull
851their sleds. Reasonable. Say,how well do you know Baron Tados? This is the third time
852he has captained the ship we were on, and I still don't know any-thing about him."
853I said that the first time was at the Battle for the Vistula,when we were just out of grunt
854school. The last thing we'dwanted was an interview with a baron! On the Baltic, we
855onlysaw him a few times, and the one time we'd met socially,everybody was too polite to
856actually talk. And on this trip, hehad thus far stayed on the bridge, where our presence
857wasn'twelcome. So I was as ignorant as Taurus was. I asked why he wanted to know
858about the man.
859"I don't know. Maybe it's just my imagination, but sometension is building, something
860seems strange. Have youheard that the North Star is almost under the horizon? We'llbe
861turning west in a few hours."
862I said we were almost on the equator, and that I had expected it would be hotter. A
863summer afternoon in Polandwould often get as warm as it was on the ship.
864"I think the water cools us. Before long, we will arrive at the land of Brazyl, if all goes
865well and Lord Conrad is right. Still, I have a very bad feeling that something is going to
866govery wrong."
867I said that his grace was rarely mistaken. We might be onthe river within the week. I
868reminded him that no Christian inall of recorded history had ever traveled this far before!
869Acertain amount of anxiety was only normal. I told Taurus thatmaybe it was just the
870anticipation that was upsetting him.
871I was wrong.
872Captain Odon was red in the face and gesticulating vigor-ously at the ship's captain,
873Baron Tados, who was groping fora weapon, and had not drawn one only because he
874couldn'tseem to decide between his sword, his pistol, or the hugeMongol bow hanging on
875the wall. The baron's face waswhite, and I was unsure which color was the worse
876dangersignal.
877Both of their jaws were moving up and down, their lipswere moving, and their faces
878were going through the most re-markable contortions, but they were up on the bridge,
879andwhat with the noise and the wind of our travel, those of usbelow on the main deck
880could not hear a word of what wasbeing shouted.
881Suddenly, Captain Odon raised both fists into the air, turnedaround, and stormed down
882the staircase toward the two dozenor so officers who were watching them. The baron
883hesitatedfor a moment or two, then charged after the explorer.
884"It seems that our sublime leaders have concluded theirlearned consultations," Zbigniew
885said. "Perhaps at last weshall be enlightened as to their cause for concern."
886I said that his florid language suggested he had beenreading too many diplomatic papers
887in theNews Magazine, and stressed the prudence of being prepared to disarm themboth, if
888necessary.
889"Stop running away, you insubordinate bastard! I gave youan order!" the baron said,
890grabbing our captain's arm.
891"Insubordinate, hell! I am your co-komander on this mis-sion! And I tell you that you are
892a bloody madman! We are in the middle of the ocean! We have not sighted land for
893weeks! An idiot child could tell that we are not on a fornicating river! Use your eyes, you
894senile old fool!" Captain Odon said, shaking loose his arm.
895"And I tell you that I have my written orders, you mutinousbastard! Fuel consumption
896has been much higher than ex-pected, and if we have headwinds, in addition to the
897contrarycurrents that you know damn well we can expect, this shipwill have a hard time
898getting back to Gdansk!" the baron said.
899"You still have more than half of your fuel left, and if thereis any question of it running
900out, when we find land, we cancut you enough cordwood to get you to China! But right
901nowwe are on the ocean! We are not on a river! And trying to as-semble the riverboats
902down in those waves is suicide for anyman who goes down there, and murder for you to
903order themto do it!"
904"Lord Conrad's notes clearly say that the Amazon River isso wide that in some places
905you cannot see the banks from themiddle! And you tasted the last bucket of water we
906broughtup from the side! There wasn't one bit of salt in it! It was river water! We are on a
907river, you bloody idiot!"
908"I don't give a damn if it tastes like pure white lightning!The Baltic Sea is damn low on
909salt, and nobody saw you putting a riverboat on it! Those waves down there are twoyards
910high, and any attempt to assemble a riverboat over theside will result in disaster! And
911evenif we were on a river, itmakes no sense to take a fragile, short-ranged riverboat who
912knows how damned far to land when you still have miles ofwater below your ship's keel!
913If this is a river, it is too big forthe boats we brought, and the only thing to do is take the
914shipup it until it gets shallow enough and narrow enough to jus-tify putting a small
915riverboat on it!" Captain Odon shouted.
916"This ship is needed elsewhere, and we have a schedule to keep! Now get your cowardly
917ass in gear and do your job!"
918"That's an illegal order and you damn well know it! Sched-ules? Now the filthy truth
919finally comes out! You are willing to kill a whole company of men just so you can make
920your paper-work look neat! My men are not going to get butchered just tosatisfy your
921stupid brand of pigheadedness!"
922"Captain, if you won't follow orders, then your men will!Get on with your job, because if
923you don't, this ship is turningback!" the baron said.
924"You will do no such thing. You will not kill my men, andyou will not abort this
925mission. It is too important to LordConrad for us to turn back now, when there isn't any
926goodreason for it. The reason why you will not do anything stupidis that I have three
927times as many men as you do, and my menare much better armed! Now just continue
928steaming in the di-rection that we're going, and we'll find land eventually!"
929And with that Captain Odon turned around and marched back to his cabin. The baron
930stood there, breathing hard, andthen suddenly realized that there were two dozen men
931staringat him. He opened his mouth to shout something, and thenthought better of it. He
932turned and strutted briskly back to hisown cabin.
933"With any luck, they'll both get drunk alone in theircabins, and the rest of us can do
934something sensible and savethe mission," First Officer Seweryn Goszczynski said.
935"That is a noble thought," Zbigniew said. "Does anybodyhave any idea what set them
936off?"
937"It was a matter of the baron making a poorly thought-outsuggestion—certainly, it
938wasn't an order at first—and yourcaptain rather abruptly calling it stupid. You must
939understand that the baron has been around boats and ships for forty years now, and he
940was not pleased that a man less than half his agewas made co-komander on this mission,"
941a ship's radio op-erator said.
942I said that the whole idea of having co-komanders was stupid, but since we were stuck
943with it, we junior officersought to come up with a plan as to what to do if our
944superiorsgot into this same argument again, especially if they startedgiving the men
945strange and contradictory orders.
946The first officer said, "If that happens, we must be preparedto disobey all illegal orders,
947which would mean turning thisship back for home, aborting the mission, and enduring
948ourown courts-martial. Those of us that weren't hung wouldhave our careers irretrievably
949damaged. If we didn't disobeythem, and anybody got killed, as your captain is
950convincedwould happen, we'd be up on charges anyway, for conveyingan illegal order.
951We are all in an absolutely no-win situation,and that is probably what will save us. Both
952of our superiorshave been acting like bloody idiots, but neither one of them isastupid
953bloody idiot. They know what would happen as well.as we do, and they both know that
954their best chance of gettingout of this unscathed is to pretend that it didn't happen. I doubt 
955if either of them will stick his head out of his cabinuntil we are ready to part company.
956For the time being, wewill follow my standing orders and continue to sail west,until such
957time as we can find a sane place in which to as-semble your riverboats."
958"An excellent suggestion, sir, and one that the Explorer's Corps will endorse. We will
959also station as high-ranking aman as possible near our captain's door, to waylay him if
960hecomes out to do something stupid. I suggest that your people perform the same service
961for the baron," Zbigniew said.
962"You may count on it, sir. I further suggest that if our supe-riors wisely decide to pretend
963that all of this never happened,we would all be well-advised to contract a case of
964massamnesia."
965I said that he could count onthat.Chapter Twenty- Six
966From the Journal of Josip Sobieski
967WRITTEN MARCH7, 1251,CONCERNINGJANUARY 21, 1250
968THINGS WENTpretty much as First Officer Goszczynski saidthey would. Our superiors
969both declared themselves to besick, and had their meals sent to their rooms. Slowly, the
970ten-sion on board relaxed.
971It was two days before we sighted land to starboard, andanother day more until we had
972land to port. A further half daytook us upriver to a point where we were no longer
973bothered by big ocean waves.
974A council of officers decided we were at a position that both of our superiors could live
975with, had they been suffi-ciently well to attend the meeting. We were on the equator,and
976we were definitely on an absolutely huge river. The cur-rent was strong, the water was
977fresh, and we had banks onboth side of us.
978We dropped anchor, broke out the the premade floats that would be the bottoms of the
979riverboats, and started lowering them down to the water level. We soon had assembly
980crewsworking under the wings on both sides of the ship.
981The floats were the same size as our standard containersso they could fit into the ship's
982storage conveyors. Each floathad a removable top, and most of them already contained
983thecargo that the riverboats would be carrying. They bolted to-gether easily.
984The steam engines were another matter, since they wereheavy, and had to be mounted
985mostly behind and on top of thefloats. Assembling them was not as simple as the
986designers had hoped, what with the motion of the boats, the ship, andthe water. We
987encountered several bothersome manufacturing defects, and as always, we were up
988against the innateperversity of inanimate objects.
989Persevering, it was almost sunset when we had one boatassembled, another close to
990done, and a third boat started. Anamazing thing was sighted then.
991A lookout up in the crow's nest was the first to spot it, but Iwas taking a break on the rear
992deck at the time, so I saw thewhole terrible affair.
993There was a white line to the east, on the ocean horizon,going from shore to shore. I
994soon noticed that it was gettingbigger, and thicker, somehow, but I had no idea what it
995was. Neither did any of the ship's officers to whom I shouted.
996Still, when strange things happen, it is best to act cau-tiously and get the men out of
997danger, even if it might slowdown the job at hand.
998I ran to the port side of the ship, under the wing, andshouted at the men working down
999there to get back up intothe ship, and to do it quickly. Then I ran to the starboard sideand
1000repeated my message.
1001When I got back to the rear railing, the strange phenome-non had grown to the point
1002where it was obviously coming atus, and at a pretty fair speed. I ran around in a triangle
1003againand told everybody to hurry up, no shit, this was serious.Some fool made a joke
1004about how a dragon was coming, andif I hadn't been worrying about saving his life, I
1005would haveshot him!
1006Some of the men that I'd trained myself, the men from myown platoon, scrambled up the
1007netting we had hung over bothsides, and those men lived. The ones who were waiting
1008forthe lift to come back down to get them got into trouble.
1009It was moving so fast that by the time the men below sawthe huge wave, it was almost
1010too late to do anything about it.
1011It was just one, single huge wave, with no big waves in front of it, or behind, either. But
1012it was more than ten yardshigh, and it stretched from bank to rocky bank across the river!
1013It hit the stern of the ship, and she bucked up so fast that Iwas knocked down flat to the
1014deck, on my stomach. I wentdown so hard that the wind was knocked out of me and
1015Icould neither move nor breathe.
1016Then a vast sheet of greenish-white water came down ontop of me, flattening me even
1017more. The fact that I couldn't breathe became unimportant, since I was underwater,
1018any-way. Worse, I saw that I was about to be washed off the deckand into the river. To
1019this day, I don't know how I managed tograb one of the stanchions that supported the
1020railing.
1021I think it must have been the work of my guardian angel.
1022At that, I was hard-pressed to hold on, at first because ofthe thousands of tons of water
1023streaming by me, and then because the ship was still vigorously bouncing up and
1024down.Even so, I was one of the first men on my feet. I staggered forward to try to assess
1025the damage and see where I could beof help.
1026There were dozens and dozens of men lying about, manyof them badly injured, from
1027skinned knees to broken legs,and even one broken neck. Blood ran from the wet deck, out
1028the scuppers and into the water. It hurt to pass by my friendswithout helping, but in spite
1029of their obvious wounds, if thosemen were still alive, they were likely to stay alive a few
1030more minutes.
1031That might not be true of the men down on the water.When I got under the wing of the
1032bridge, I leaned over therailing and looked down. Of the two boats that had been inthe
1033water on that side, the completed one was gone without atrace. Only the half-finished
1034boat, where they hadn't started mounting the engine, was still afloat, and it was
1035severelydamaged.
1036Men were down in the water, and the current was sweepingthem away! Ignoring the
1037broken and bleeding men aroundme, I threw every life ring I could find overboard, and
1038helpeda few uninjured men get three of the ship's barges into thewater.
1039We cut two of the barges free, and hoped that the menoverboard would be able to help
1040each other into them. Wekept the third boat tethered, and a seaman slid down to it tosee
1041what he could do down there to help.
1042I ran to the port side of the ship, only to find Lezek doingthe same job there that I had
1043just done on the starboard. Here,too, the nearly finished boat was simply gone.
1044Kiejstut came up from below and shouted that the boilers were out, flooded with water.
1045We could not get the enginesgoing to pick up our lost men. Together, we made it to
1046theship's steam launches, only to find them both smashed.
1047He looked at me desperately.
1048"The anchor," he said.
1049Without another word, we both ran to the bow.
1050I would have expected that the wave that did so muchdamage would have pulled loose
1051our anchor, or broken thecable, but no, it was still holding us in one place while the
1052fastcurrent was taking our men farther away every minute.
1053The release mechanism was jammed, but a few vigorousswings with an axe freed it up,
1054permanently. As the cable waswhirling away, Kiejstut took a life ring with a long rope
1055tiedto it, passed the rope around the fast-moving cable, and made a slipknot at the end of
1056it. Just before the last of the cable was gone, he had the end of it tied to a float.
1057I complimented his good thinking.
1058"I thought we might need the anchor again, and now weshould be able to find it," he
1059said. "Anyway, it looked expen-sive, and the baron might have made us pay for it!"
1060I looked about. With the ship now drifting with the river, itwas at least getting no farther
1061away from the men in thewater. There didn't seem to be anything more that we coulddo
1062for those men, so we went aft to help with the wounded.
1063Our captain and the baron both had miraculous recoveries when the disaster occurred, as
1064was only to be expected, andafter a few moments of confusion, the two of them
1065cooper-ated remarkably well in getting things back together.
1066Within the hour we had a current list of the dead, thewounded, and the missing. There
1067were over ten dozen mensomewhere in the dark, fast-moving water. Zbigniew,
1068Taurus,and Fritz were among them.
1069The mechanics were six long army hours getting the en-gine room pumped out, the
1070boilers repaired and refired, andthe ship under way. By then it was dawn, and we went
1071insearch of our missing men.
1072Out of the ship's crew of ninety-one, six men were dead,eighteen were too seriously
1073injured to work, and fourteenwere still missing.
1074Of the two hundred sixty-two explorers, nine were dead, thirty-three were severely
1075injured, and eighty-five were stillmissing. Most of the men doing the riverboat assembly
1076work were explorers.
1077During the night, twenty-six men had managed to swimback to the ship and were taken
1078aboard. That wouldn't havehappened if Kiejstut and I hadn't let loose the anchor.
1079Thebaron noticed this, too, and made a note of it in our records.He also noted that if a
1080storm had come up during the night,without engines or anchor, the ship could possibly
1081have gone down to the bottom. He told us this verbally, and quite forcefully, but did not
1082put it down in our records. A decent man, thebaron.
1083One of the men who swam back that night was Fritz.
1084Overnight, the steam launches had been repaired, and withthem a half mile to either side
1085of us, we spent days sweepingback and forth across the river, and eventually out into
1086theocean. Lezek and I had set seven barges adrift, and in the endwe recovered only four
1087of them, with twenty-nine menaboard. Another eleven people were found alive in the
1088warmriver water.
1089Zbigniew and Taurus were still among the missing.
1090After a week of searching the river, the sea, and the sur-rounding shores for our missing
1091comrades, we regretfullycalled off the search. The barges each contained a
1092smallemergency kit, but with even a few men on board, by thistime the supplies would be
1093long exhausted.
1094We had recovered a total of twenty-two floating corpses.The last dead man we pulled
1095aboard was Taurus.
1096Baron Tados called an officers' meeting, to sum up whathad happened.
1097This was the first maritime disaster suffered by the Chris-tian Army, and we were all
1098painfully aware of our ignoranceand our inexperience. Careful notes were written up
1099byeveryone on board, to be delivered to the Maritime DesignBoard at Gdansk. Hopefully,
1100some of our stupider mistakeswould not be repeated the next time disaster struck. We
1101allknew that someday, somewhere, it would happen again.
1102The baron thought that the disaster might have beencaused by a tidal bore. The Baltic
1103Sea doesn't have tides, anymore than the Mediterranean Sea does, so we Poles werefairly
1104ignorant of such things. Baron Tados had heard of onlyone other river in the world that
1105had such a wave, the SevernRiver, in England, although he had never been there. It
1106wassaid that they were caused by the mouth of a river having afunnel shape, and a big,
1107incoming tide getting somehow fo-cused, and made larger, as it rushed up the river.
1108I understood very little of it. I had heard Lord Conrad's lec-ture on the causes of tides,
1109but I had never actually seen one, until that disastrous time on the Amazon River.
1110I didn't want to see any more of them.
1111Fritz had an interesting report. He said, "I think that I nowknow why our fuel
1112consumption has been so high. I was in the water when the big wave lifted the ship up,
1113and I got agood look at our bottom. We have an underwater forest growing down there!
1114Some of the weeds looked to be two yards long!"
1115"There has been some growth below the waterline before,in the northern seas, but
1116nothing that bad," the baron said. "Itmust be all this warm water we've been steaming
1117through.Does anybody have any ideas on how to get rid of it without adry dock? No?
1118Then we'll just have to live with it for now."
1119Only one of the ship's crew was still missing, mostly be-cause the crew wore bright red
1120work clothing and so wereeasier to find in the water. The dark green explorer
1121uniformsdid us a great disservice that week.
1122Zbigniew had not been found.
1123As the meeting was about to break up, Captain Odon an-nounced that he was having a
1124barrel of whiskey broken outand set up in the mess. He said it was time to mourn our
1125dead.
1126In a few minutes I found myself at a table with what was left of our old lance. Captain
1127Odon. Fritz. Lezek. Kiejstut.Me. The captain poured us each a big glass from the
1128pitcher,and we held up our glasses, as if in a toast. Only nobodycould think of anything
1129appropriate to say, and we just drankin silence.
1130"I never expected Taurus to die an old man in bed,"Kiejstut said. "He was just too crazy,
1131underneath, for that.But I always imagined him going out swinging his axe at hisenemies,
1132the way he did during that fight against the Mon-gols, on the bank of the river. He must
1133have killed dozens ofthem, running and screaming like a madman."
1134"I think that he truly was a madman then, so soon after hisfamily had all been killed,"
1135Fritz said. "He even took a swipeat me before Sir Odon took his axe away from him."
1136I reminded them that a few of his people were still alive,although after his last leave, he
1137hadn't liked them very much.
1138"I suppose they'll think better of him now," Lezek said. "Bytheir standards, Taurus died
1139rich, what with his gold, his sav-ings, and his shares in the iron mine. They'll inherit all
1140that, won't they?"
1141"I suppose so, unless he left a will, and I never heard ofone," Captain Odon said. "I think
1142that after this, I will go andhave one written up for myself. The rest of you might want
1143todo the same. The ship's purser knows something about thelaw."
1144"Inside, somehow, I was beginning to think that we wereall immortal," Kiejstut said.
1145"We were always so lucky. I mean,we all lived through the Battle for the Vistula. Only
1146about oneman in three did that, out of the more than nine thousand menwho fought in it,
1147and every one of us came through it aliveand healthy. What were the odds against that
1148happening?"
1149"Who knows?" the captain said. "Who knows what the odds are of Zbigniew still being 
1150alive? Or if he is, will weever see him again? We all knew that we were engaged in a
1151dangerous occupation, but whoever thought we would losemen this way? Those were two
1152of the finest fighting men I'veever had the privilege of knowing. Who would have
1153expected them dying, not in combat, but in what was, in the end, just anaccident brought
1154on by our own ignorance? Well, we stillhave our duties to the younger men. I'll talk to
1155Taurus's pla-toon, and Zbigniew's as well. Gentlemen, men have died in every one of
1156your platoons. You should go and comfort the living. Maybe later tonight we'll meet back
1157here."
1158We left to talk to our knights and squires, but much later we were all sitting around the
1159same table again, quietlydrinking.
1160In the morning we said a special Mass for the Dead, recitedour Army Oath, and then we
1161went back to our duties.
1162We steamed back up the mighty river, and by luck one ofthe lookouts spotted the life
1163ring that Kiejstut had attachedto the anchor cable. An hour's hard labor got us back
1164ouranchor.
1165We anchored upstream of a wooded, uninhabited island, on the theory that if another
1166tidal bore happened, the islandwould break its force. We started assembling riverboats
1167again, while others went to the island and began choppingfirewood, which was needed
1168both to ensure that the ship got home and as fuel for our four remaining riverboats.
1169The disaster had cost us, in dead, missing, and seriously in-jured, almost two complete
1170platoons of explorers, includingtwo platoon leaders. Since we were also missing two
1171boats,well, with some reshuffling of personnel, it worked out.
1172The baron was shorthanded by twenty-one men, and askedif we could help out, but
1173Captain Odon said there were stillthirty-four men on the sick list, and many of them
1174would becapable of doing at least some work within a few days.
1175I could see that the baron wanted to say that taking care ofthe injured took up a lot of
1176badly needed manpower, but Ithink he was still a little afraid of our captain, and kept
1177silent.
1178A tall, straight tree on the west end of the island had beenstripped of its branches. The
1179base had been girdled so theycouldn't grow back, and a big flag was nailed at the top, as a
1180marker. It was agreed that the ship and the riverboats wouldmeet back at this place in
1181exactly three hundred sixty-five days.
1182It was decided that the captain would go with Father Johnand a platoon of men, and try
1183to get to the headwaters ofthe Amazon, where there was supposed to be a goldrichcivilization.
1184I was to take my boat and search out the north side of theriver, and Lezek was to take the 
1185south. Kiejstut and Fritz were to accompany the captain farther west and would be
1186assigned tosearch and map some tributary.
1187We were to be friendly to the natives, to show them our products and see what they
1188might have that would be of in-terest to us, but mostly we were to search for a rubber
1189tree. This was described as having a white, sticky sap that, whendried, was stretchy, like
1190raw pigskin.
1191Those men who had been logging on the island were ap-prehensive about finding a
1192single kind of tree in that strangeforest.
1193"God was feeling very creative when He made this place!"Fritz said. His hands were
1194covered by a rash that he picked upon the island. "We must have cut down three or four
1195hundredtrees on that island, and I don't think that any two of them were of the same
1196species. I tell you that every single tree,every single plant, was different from every other
1197plantaround it! These are not like the forests back home, wherethere might be only five
1198kinds of trees and six kinds of bushesin ten miles of forest. We might have to search for
1199years, andcut into thousands of trees before we find this rubber tree.And when we do,
1200there won't be very many of them."
1201There was no way to answer that, so no one did.
1202Besides the rubber trees, we were each to try to set up fiveor six trading stations along
1203the banks of the river. The nativeswould want our knives, we were told, if nothing else,
1204and wewould always be needing firewood for our steamboats.
1205We all began to realize that this would not be an easy mis-sion to accomplish.Chapter Twenty-Seven
1206From the Journal of Josip Sobieski
1207WRITTEN MARCH 8, 1251, CONCERNINGFEBRUARY 6, 1250
1208THE RIVERwe were on was called the Amazon, which meant,in Ancient Greek,
1209"without a breast." It was named after a tribe of vaguely Greek warrior women. The story
1210was thatthey were archers, and to keep their right breasts from inter-fering with their
1211shooting, they cut them off. Or some saidthat they burned them off.
1212It was a gruesome story, that young women would so muti-late themselves, and a stupid
1213one besides. My mother and sis-ters are all good archers, and the women in my family
1214havealways been very well-endowed. None of them have ever no-ticed any difficulties
1215with their breasts interfering with theirshooting, and getting a nipple twanged by a
1216bowstring wouldcertainly be a noticeable event!
1217So why the biggest river in the world should be namedafter something that probably
1218never happened, or shouldn'thave happened if it did, was one of life's little mysteries,
1219untilthe afternoon came for me to go out alone and try to meet
1220some natives.
1221* * *
1222We soon found that it was hotter on the river than it hadbeen at sea, but it wasn't
1223impossibly hot. The only problemwas that it was hot all the time, without a break, which
1224some-times made it hard to fall asleep. The air had so much water init that if anything got
1225wet, it never seemed to get dry again,and we all had to learn to survive while being damp.
1226We soon discovered that on this river, humans did not al-ways hold their normal, exalted
1227position at the top of the foodchain. A vast horde of disrespectful creatures were
1228alwaysout to displace us!
1229There were some huge reptiles, five and six yards long,some of them, which seemed to
1230be half mouth, that the menpromptly dubbed "dragons." There were snakes that got
1231evenlonger, but we saw no large land mammals at all, or at leastnone bigger than a man.
1232There was a leech that was half the length of a man's arm,and after I burned one off the
1233leg of a screaming squire, webothhad nightmares about it for a week.
1234There were insects about in annoyingly prodigious num-bers. Some of them were
1235beautiful, some were horrible, somewere huge, and some were all three. But when it
1236came tobeing bitten, it actually wasn't nearly as bad as it was in thesummer north of the
1237Arctic Circle.
1238I was sitting beneath a tree having lunch with Sir Tomaz, mysenior lance leader, when a
1239leaf, which had fallen from the treeonto his cheese, got up on six legs and calmly walked
1240away!
1241He said, "You know, Sir Josip, we're not in Poland anymore."
1242There was always something new crawling out of a crack in the boards, or out from
1243under a rotting log. Some of themwere beautiful, but the manual said that the creatures
1244with thebrightest colors were usually those that didn't have to hide.Likely, there was
1245something about them that was deadly. Es-pecially the snakes.
1246My riverboat, which I promptly named theMagnificentMaude,was small by the standards
1247of those on the Vistula. Itheld a platoon of men in about the same comfort as the
1248oldMuddling Throughhad held an entire company. Thirty yardslong and eight wide, it
1249was only a single story tall, exceptwhere the bridge was built above the engine room.
1250Cargo was kept below the main floor, and most of the boat was one hugescreened-in
1251room, to let the breezes in and keep the bugs out.There were lightweight wooden blinds
1252that could be rolleddown in inclement weather, but it wasn't armed or armored, in the
1253traditional sense. The only weapons we had were our usual personal rifles, swords, and
1254sidearms.
1255By our standards, this was an obviously nonthreateningvehicle. However, standards
1256vary, and soon it was very ob-vious that it scared the natives silly.
1257The first eleven times we approached a native village, thepeople started screaming and
1258shouting as soon as we cameinto view. Sometimes they shot arrows, or threw spears at
1259us, or used a thing that was like a big peashooter (the child's toy, not the steam-powered
1260weapon) that they used to shoot a sort of needle.
1261They must put some sort of poison on those needles, or atleast they did on the one that
1262hit Sir Tomaz on the inside ofthe elbow. When he screamed with pain, I told him to act
1263likea man, that it was only a tiny needle.
1264He insisted that it was poisoned, so we stripped off hisarmor, and I treated the small
1265wound just like it was asnakebite, lancing it open and sucking the blood and poisons out.
1266It was fortunate that I listened to him, because even withsuch treatment, his arm swelled
1267up to be as big as his leg, and the area around the pinprick turned black. I think that
1268withoutsuch treatment, he might have died.
1269But whether the villagers were aggressive or not, by the timewe got there, the village
1270would be completely empty. Whenwe sat back and waited for them to return, they didn't.
1271When wefollowed them into those incredibly tangled forests, either theyshot at us some
1272more, or we got completely lost, or, most often,both.
1273In the last two villages our program had been to take a fewsmall things, foodstuffs,
1274mostly, and leave in payment asmall knife, and one of those machete swords that
1275LordConrad was convinced would be so much in demand, hopingthey would get the idea
1276that we wanted to trade.
1277Maybe when we returned, in a few weeks, we would bemore socially acceptable.
1278I resolved to try the twelfth village alone. We made a vi-sual reconnaissance from over a
1279mile away, and then I left theMaudeout of sight around the bend so as not to frighten
1280thevillagers. I took a folding canvas boat in alone, but since the realMaude wouldn't want
1281to marry an absolute fool, or a deadone, I wore my infantry armor, with the metal plates
1282inside ofclean, white coveralls. My cavalry armor had been left backin Poland.
1283I had a bag of steel tools, glass bead necklaces, salt tablets,dried fruit, and my recorder. I
1284also carried a small camp chair,reasoning that a man looks less threatening sitting down
1285thanstanding up.
1286When I came within sight of the village, I sat down andstudied the place. It was subtly
1287different from the other vil-lages we had visited. The buildings were arranged
1288differently,and the thatched roofs on the huts were much steeper.
1289The people were the big change, however. At the other vil-lages, the people were a
1290medium brown in color, like Gyp-sies, only a little darker. They all had dark eyes and
1291straightblack hair. The men did not grow beards, and neither sex had much in the way of
1292body hair.
1293They tended to be short and thin-boned, and as in everyplace else in the world that I had
1294ever heard of, the womenwere shorter than the men. As Lord Conrad had promised,
1295noone wore clothing, although they did wear decorations, andsome of those covered a lot.
1296The men looked to be fairly fit, and the young girls wereoften very attractive, but almost
1297without exception, as soonas the women had children, they all became extremely fat.
1298Ifound myself wishing that some of them would wear clothes.
1299These new people were much different. The men, or per-haps I should just say the
1300"males," were short and brown, andthey tended to be chubby. They seemed to be mainly
1301in-volved with gardening when they weren't taking care of the children.
1302The women were larger than the males, or at least taller andbetter muscled. They carried
1303bows and spears the way themales did in the other villages. While the males all had black
1304hair, the women wore theirs bright red. It did not look to be anatural color, and I
1305suspected it was a dye. Their nipples andprivate areas were also colored bright red.
1306And the women were white. Not flesh-colored, the way Iam, butwhite. The color of a
1307new sheet of paper. Not evenLord Conrad had ever talked about such a thing.
1308But one can sit and be amazed for only so long. It was timeto attract some attention. I
1309displayed my trade goods on theground a few yards in front of me.
1310I got out my recorder, flipped up my visor, and startedto play a simple shepherd's tune.
1311Something I hoped wouldbe interesting, calming, and proof that I wasn't out to
1312hurtanyone.
1313I did not get the desired reaction.
1314Some children noticed me first. They ran home screaming,not to get Daddy, but for
1315Mommy to come. Or at least, it wasMommy who came. Six mommies. They reminded
1316me of, well, I never learned if there was a polite name for them, butthe kind of women 
1317who don't like men but want to be just likethem. It occurred to me that these might be the
1318warriorwomen that the river was named after. I wondered if "without a breast" might be
1319another way of saying "not very feminine."
1320I continued playing the same tune, to give them time to getused to it, and I continued
1321smiling resolutely.
1322They stopped a few dozen yards from me and discussedme among themselves. Then one
1323of them calmly notched anarrow and shot me.
1324Now, my suit was proof against Mongol arrows with steelheads. This woman's weapon
1325might have had a quarter of thepull of a good Mongol recurved bow, and the arrow point
1326wasonly flame-hardened wood, from the look of it. I didn't even stop playing, and the
1327arrow bounced off my breastplate. Ismiled.
1328Within seconds they launched an additional two spears,eight arrows, and two of those
1329peashooter needles. Most ofthem hit me, but only the needles stood a chance of doing
1330anyharm. They might possibly get through because they werenarrower than the rings in
1331the chain mail that covered thecracks in my armor. I took my chances and continued
1332playing"The Lonely Shepherdess." An arrow and both needles stuckin my coveralls, and
1333playing with one hand, still smiling, Iplucked them out.
1334One of the women, the best looking of the bunch, if youlike that sort, screamed and ran
1335at me with a long, thin clubheld over her head. I stopped playing and stood up. She hitme
1336on the head as hard as she could, but I was wearing one ofthe old-style, ring-around-thecollar war helmets, and whileit was extremely loud, I barely felt her blow.
1337I was getting very irritated at these people's behavior, butorders are orders, and we were
1338told to make nice to the na-tives. I gesticulated to the trade goods that she had trampledin
1339getting to me. I stooped over, picked up a necklace, and of-fered it to her. I was doing a
1340serious job of turning the othercheek, and that's right where she hit me next.
1341She spat on me! She knocked my hand and gift away, andspat right in my face! I was
1342furious. I have never struck awoman in my life, and I don't ever intend to, but Ido
1343punishnaughty children when it is obviously for their own good!
1344I grabbed her by the arm, sat down, and turned her over myknee! I pinned her left arm
1345behind her back, immobilized herlegs with my right leg, and swatted her bare buttocks as
1346hardas I could with my open hand until my right arm got tired.
1347During this time, there were a lot of rude sounds being made, and her friends tried to do
1348various sorts of damage tomy person. I simply ignored them, and the ladies didn't
1349quitemanage to knock me over. I then decided that this particular attempt at international
1350trade was a wasted effort. I stood up,dumping the increasingly loud lady on the ground,
1351picked up my recorder, and walked back to my canvas boat.
1352A half dozen or so more weapons hit me in the back as Imade my exit, but I didn't care.
1353One arrow put a hole in myboat, but I ignored it, keeping with the image. As a
1354conse-quence, I almost sank in my armor before I got back to theMaude.
1355Mostly, I was thinking about how wonderful it was that Ihad brought an entire barrel of
1356Lord Conrad's Seven-Year-Old Aged Whiskey along for my own personal use. Well,
1357Ihad let the platoon buy shares on it once we'd gotten here, butthere was still plenty to be
1358had for me!
1359As soon as I got back to theMaude, I drew myself a pitcherof whiskey, and sat down
1360alone to drink it.
1361Somehow, when you arereally mad, you just can't getdrunk, no matter how much you
1362drink. It just burns out of youbefore it can do you any good.
1363The last few weeks had cost me two of my best friends, and now I was separated from
1364not only the woman that Iloved, but from the rest of the old lance as well. Oh, my
1365pla-toon was made up of some very fine men, but it just wasn'tthe same!
1366And after enduring two weeks of having people I wastrying to help turn and run away
1367from me, a most annoyingperverted woman had spat in my face!
1368It was late, and except for a pair of sentries, both of whom were up on the bridge,
1369everyone else was asleep. We were atanchor, a hundred yards from the shore. It was dark,
1370exceptfor a single, small kerosene anchor light. I was in my "cabin,"a small screened-in
1371porch at the front of the boat. My white armored coveralls were hanging in one
1372assembled piece onthe other side of the room, in the vague hope that they woulddry out
1373from the soaking they had gotten that afternoon. I wassitting naked in my chair, trying to
1374cool off enough to sleep.Only I couldn't sleep. I couldn't even get drunk.
1375I heard a sound in the water that wasn't quite right. I wassure it wasn't one of those huge
1376green lizards that lived in theriver, that the men persisted in calling dragons. I didn't think
1377that it was one of the big, savage-looking otters, either.
1378I slowly drew my sword from its place near my bed andwaited. In a few minutes my
1379patience was rewarded. I saw the outline of a hand come up onto the foredeck,
1380followedsmoothly by the rest of a solidly built female form. I sworeunder my breath and
1381slowly laid my sword down on the deck.No son of my mother could deliberately kill a
1382woman, noteven when she was attacking me in the dark with some sort ofknife in her
1383hand.
1384I was sure now that she was the same one I had spanked.She stealthily pushed through
1385the screen door into my room,but she must not have seen me sitting in the dark, since
1386shebegan to stalk my white coveralls. When she had her back tome, I ripped the sheet off
1387my bed and threw it over her in onesmooth motion. I thought this would confuse her,
1388since thenative bedding didn't run to bedsheets. If she didn't know what a sheet was, she 
1389probably wouldn't know what to doabout one. I followed the sheet by a half a second, and
1390the sheet, the woman, and I rolled around the floor, grappling,groping, and making rude
1391noises.
1392When the sentries got there, I was on her back, with herlegs gripped between mine, and
1393her arms and torso wrappedin my arms.
1394"Excuse me, sir, but was this a situation with which youwanted help?" Tomaz said.
1395I said that of course I wanted help! I was subduing anintruder! How could he possibly
1396imagine that I wouldn'twant help?
1397"Well, sir, when you see a naked man and a naked womanrolling around on the floor
1398with a bedsheet, I have learnedthat it is only prudent to ask, before joining in."
1399Still struggling with the violent woman, I told him that Iwas not inviting him to join in
1400on an orgy. I wanted him to getsome rope and some more help, and to get her
1401immobilized.
1402In the end, it took five of us to get her properly trussed up. Iexplained to them that she
1403had entered without permission, atnight, and with a weapon in her hand. This was not
1404ordinarilyconsidered to be a friendly act, and therefore we would keepher tied up until
1405further notice. I told the second lance thatthey would have the rewarding task of teaching
1406her to speakPidgin, and to have the job done within the week.
1407They carried her away, and eventually I got to sleep.Chapter Twenty-Seven
1408From the Journal of Josip Sobieski
1409WRITTEN MARCH 9, 1251, CONCERNINGFEBRUARY 26, 1250
1410OVER THEnext few days, four other men tried their luck atgetting friendly with the
1411natives, each with as little success asI'd had. They'd all used different approaches, but
1412because ofthe universal aggressiveness of the natives, I'd insisted thatthey wear armor,
1413and nobody objected.
1414To make matters worse, Fritz was doing just fine on the southside of the river. On the
1415radio, he said that the natives were fas-cinated with steel tools and were making good
1416progress atlearning Pidgin. Neither Captain Odon nor Kiejstut could offerus any useful
1417advice, either.
1418It was our captive who eventually solved the problem.
1419The first morning after her capture, someone found a set of manacles and leg irons in our
1420supplies. They were apparentlyput there in anticipation of one of our people going crazy,
1421ashad happened once near the Arctic Circle, but they worked just fine on a supposedly
1422sane native woman who merely wanted to kill me. They were safer, since she couldn't
1423chewherself loose, and more humane, with no chance of cuttingoff her blood supply.
1424We soon discovered that her skin coloration was as artifi-cial as that of her hair. She was
1425actually covered from head tofoot with white paint, which was now wearing off. Under
1426it,her skin was the same color as all the rest of the nativepeople, but considerably lighter.
1427We speculated that the whitepaint stopped her from getting a suntan.
1428The first day, she resisted all attempts at teaching herPidgin, until they decided they had
1429to use the same methodsone uses to train a dog. By giving her small bits of food, oreven
1430better, salt, along with lavish praise, whenever she didanything right, and a scolding
1431when she did things wrong, they eventually got through to her. I would have forbidden
1432the use of any actual abuse, of course, but no one ever sug-gested that they use it.
1433The second lance kept at least two men on her at all times,from dawn until quite late, and
1434in a week they had her in ameaningful conversation.
1435She refused to tell us her name, since if we knew it, shesaid, we could work magic and
1436witchcraft against her. We stillneeded to call her something, so after trying out the
1437"CaptivePrincess," a particularly unsuitable name, we simply settledon calling her Jane.
1438She said that at first she and her people thought I was aghost! It seems that the local
1439ghosts are all big, bulky thingsthat are pure white in color. She now agreed I was not a
1440ghost,but she felt that it was a perfectly reasonable mistake.
1441When I pointed out that she, too, was colored white, Janesaid that her people did that to
1442scare their enemies, andanyway, she could not be confused with a ghost because her
1443nipples were painted red. Everyone knew that ghosts did not paint their nipples red, so
1444she was safe from any mistake.
1445I said this was obviously true, since Christian ghosts didnot paint their nipples red,
1446either. In fact, I had never heard ofa ghost painting anything any color at all. It was all I
1447couldthink of to say about a subject so weird.
1448She was gratified to hear this.I told her that our ghosts were not white, and that ourcoveralls were white because that
1449was the natural color of cotton. I asked, if we painted them a different color, wouldshe
1450still think we looked like ghosts?
1451She said, of course not. If we were not white, we could not be ghosts.
1452We lacked a supply of clothing dye on board, but with herhelp, we found a tree with a
1453dark brown sap that did a decentjob of coloring our armored coveralls to a dark tan.
1454Westeamed back to the first village we had stopped at, andpeople came out to see what
1455we had to offer.
1456Their reaction to our tools was remarkable. It took me awhile to realize that, except for
1457the bones and teeth of certainfish and animals, these people had nothing they could
1458cutwith. They not only lacked flint for toolmaking, they lackedany sort of stone at all.
1459These were not a Stone Age people.They hadn't gotten that far along!
1460I'd put a good edge on one of the machetes, and let the na-tives see me slicing up some
1461shrubbery.
1462Bear in mind that these people had spent their lives livingin the most tangled forest
1463imaginable. Every day of their liveshad been spent crawling under plants, stepping over
1464them,walking around them, and getting swatted in the face bythem. And up until the
1465moment they had a good knife, there hadn't been anything they could do about it.
1466One fellow in particular was fascinated, staring and grin-ning as I easily chopped the
1467branches from a strange-lookingbush. I grinned back at him and handed him the machete
1468He took it and gave the bush a tentative chop. Leaves andbranches fell to the ground. He
1469screamed in triumph! He took off at a dead run, laughing and shouting, slashing away at
1470theunderbrush. We heard him making all manner of noises out inthe forest for well over
1471an hour before he finally came back, dripping with sweat and tree sap.
1472The look on his face was like that of a young man who hadfinally attained sexual relief!
1473We explorers attained sexual relief of a more substantialsort from the young ladies of the
1474village.
1475It all started with the elders inviting us over for a drink, andI think there must have been
1476something in that brew that en-couraged sexual license. Soon, I was handed a very
1477attractiveyoung woman who turned out to be the chief's favorite newwife. I was required
1478to have sex with heras a proof of myfriendship with the chief!
1479The young women of the tribe were all very appreciativeof the small gifts my men gave
1480to them, and the elders of the tribe were seen to be actively encouraging their daughters
1481toplease us.
1482I would be most embarrassed if my mother ever heardabout the mass sexual orgy that
1483ensued. While I had made nopromises to Maude concerning my own chastity, it had been
1484my firm intention to stay sexually true to her. This proved to be impossible in the induced
1485madness that enveloped us.
1486Perhaps I am merely making excuses for my own conduct,but in later conversations with
1487my men, I learned that themost subdued of them copulated with at least seven of the
1488na-tives, and I have mental images of literally dozens of dif-ferent young ladies under
1489me. We could not possibly havebeen that virile without some sort of external stimulation!
1490That drink would make a very profitable product if soldin Europe, but I don't think the
1491Church would approve ofits sale!
1492All this fornication was accompanied by equally heavy drinking by everyone in the
1493village. I thought that my own people drank too much, but we were but children
1494compared to these native villagers. They continued on with the party long after we were
1495comatose. At least, when I awoke in the night to relieve myself, the dancing and drinking
1496were stillgoing strong, with not an explorer in sight near the campfire.
1497It was the following afternoon before most of us departedthat village.
1498We left a lance of men behind, confident that they wouldget along well with the natives.
1499That evening, we thanked Jane, the warrior woman, for herhelp. We gave her a knife, a
1500machete, and an axe, along withsome necklaces she liked, a sharpening stone, and a bag
1501ofsalt tablets that all of the natives craved. We then offered totake her back to her home
1502village.
1503Jane refused to go. It seems that by spanking her for spit-ting on me, I had permanently
1504dishonored her somehow inthe eyes of her tribe. She said that when she swam out to our
1505boat and tried to kill me, she had done it because she had al-ready been drummed out of
1506her tribe. She had come expectingus to kill her.
1507It was rather like what they say a Musselman does when hecan no longer stand the pain
1508of being alive. He puts on hisbest clothes, prepares his best weapons, mounts his
1509besthorse, and charges into his enemies, trying to kill as many ofthem as possible before
1510they kill him. The custom is called"Running Amok."
1511Further conversation with our former captive convinced us that if we simply ejected her
1512from the boat, without friends toguard her back, she would soon die in the forest. She
1513hadbeen useful to us thus far, and while we all found her mascu-line mannerisms in
1514combination with her feminine body tobe offensive, after consultation with my knights, I
1515decided tolet her stay aboard.
1516Over the next few weeks, we established three more tradingstations and survived three
1517more orgies, which the locals in-sisted on. When we tried to back out, they became 
1518extremely insulted, and it was only with great difficulty that we repairedthe breach.
1519A number of changes came over Jane. As her body paint began to wear away, she looked
1520like she was dying of somehorrible skin disease. She made no attempt at replacing it,and
1521in a few weeks the color was gone. The dye in her hairwas growing out more slowly, but
1522whatever dye she had usedto stain her nipples and privy members seemed to be
1523perma-nent. When someone questioned her about it, the painfulprocess she described
1524seemed to be something like tattooing.
1525When I asked her about her body paint, she said that she nolonger had the right to wear
1526her tribe's colors.
1527One of my men noticed her smearing herself with a cleartree sap and asked her about it.
1528She said that it kept the insectsfrom biting.
1529Now, this was a wonderful thing to hear, since we wereconstantly plagued by the little
1530bastards. As things were, youhad your choice of wearing a complete set of clothes, and
1531suf-focating, or you could strip down and be eaten by the mos-quitoes. Naturally, he tried
1532the stuff out.
1533It turned out that it did not exactly repel the bugs, but rather, it made your skin so sticky
1534that they stuck to you but could notbite through the glue, so you did not get bitten. You
1535had to learn to ignore the insects buzzing on your skin, and if youwere going to wear the
1536stuff at all, you had to go completelynaked. It had the habit of gluing your clothes to your
1537body.
1538At first we thought we had a salable product here, but onlater thought, we decided that
1539its limitations were too greatfor it to have a market in Europe. In time, however, we all
1540gotto using the stuff regularly, washing it off and replacing ittwice daily.
1541But a bigger change in Jane was in her bearing, or maybe itwas in her self-image.
1542Perhaps it had something to do withbeing around heterosexual people, and noticing the
1543way mymen and I reacted to pretty native girls. Tomaz noticed it first.
1544He said, "Is it just me needing a woman, sir, or is Janestarting to act feminine?"
1545I said that maybe she was starting to pick up on our cus-toms. I suggested that if he was
1546thinking of getting physical with her, it was up to them, but I followed the lead of Lord
1547Conrad and recommended he take it slow. If anything everdeveloped between the two, I
1548never heard of it.
1549It had been raining nonstop for weeks, and joking reportsfrom the lookouts contained
1550sightings of Noah's Ark. I let itgo and even laughed about it. Anything that raised the
1551men'sspirits was good.
1552At about this time, the radio died for good. The wet, thefunguses, and the insects did 
1553electronic components no goodat all. With the old style spark-gap transmitters and
1554coherer-type receivers, you could putter with the things and com-pletely rebuild them
1555when you had to, and in time it wouldwork again, after a fashion. With these modern
1556things, well,once a tube burned out, it was useless, and no amount of fid-dling, hard
1557work, or prayer did you any good at all. We were out of tubes, and everything else was
1558rusting vigorously.
1559Other things on board were wearing out and rotting muchfaster than usual. I was finding
1560mushrooms growing in mylocker, and any food that was not sealed in a glass jar or one of
1561the new metal cans was rotten. It was good that we had mostlystopped wearing clothes,
1562because our supply of uniformswouldn't have lasted out the season, let alone a whole
1563year.
1564The wood that our boat was made out of was starting to rot,as well. It was brand-new,
1565first-quality oak, most of it, and itwas rotting! Before long I had three men navigating the
1566boat,and eleven more working to keep it repaired!
1567With the four trading posts we had set up—with a lance ofmen at each—I had only two
1568lances left on board. The planwas to go another gross miles upstream, map the river,
1569andset up a fifth post if we found a suitable site. Then we wouldgo back and visit the
1570other posts. I hoped that at least one ofthem still had a working radio.
1571We rounded a bend in the huge river and found ourselves steaming across a huge lake.
1572At least two other boats shouldhave been ahead of us, but when we had a radio, neither
1573ofthem had mentioned the lake to us. Still, they could not pos-sibly have missed it.
1574Besides being very large, the lake had other peculiaritiesas well. There were trees
1575growing right out of the water, andin some areas they grew so thick they blocked out the
1576sun.The trees back home would drown if their roots were flooded,but there were
1577thousands of kinds of strange trees in thisforest, and most of them seemed to be healthy.
1578Jane could offer no advice, since her home was a grossmiles away. Being a primitive,
1579she was much like a peasant innever before having been far away from home. The lake
1580was as new to her as it was to us.
1581We steamed on, keeping the north bank in sight in accor-dance with my instructions. We
1582were surprised to find thatsome of the huge trees in their watery meadows had
1583peopleliving in them. I would have investigated further, but otherproblems surfaced.
1584Two men acquired painful infections in their privy members, with a white pus dripping
1585out. I had never seen the like of it, and there was no mention of it in the medical
1586manual.The salves we had were ineffective, and there was nothingfor it but to wait and
1587see if it went away.
1588The next day, eight of the sixteen people we had on boardcame down with a severe
1589fever. Often delirious, they could dolittle but lie in their beds and either shiver or sweat 
1590profusely.
1591Again, none of our medications did these men any good, and their temperatures grew
1592alarmingly high.
1593The day after, four more people were down with the fever.There were no longer enough
1594of us to manage the boat, takecare of the sick, and map the shoreline. When I felt
1595myselfgetting light-headed, I had the boat tied up to one of the treesin the middle of the
1596lake. There was nothing left that we coulddo but go to bed and see whether or not we
1597would survive.
1598The fever came and went for many days. Most of the time,you were flat on your back,
1599unable to move. Occasionally,you felt almost normal, for a while, and then you could get
1600upand help out with those who were more badly off.
1601Only Jane stayed healthy, and I think that without her weall would have died.
1602I don't know how long we stayed tied to that tree. I lost allsense of time, and often there
1603was no one awake enough tokeep the logbook up to date. Jane by this time was speaking
1604a mixture of Polish and Pidgin, but no one had even begun to teach her to read or write.
1605As it was, she did yeoman servicekeeping us in water and food.Chapter Twenty-Nine
1606From the Journal of Josip Sobieski
1607WRITTEN MARCH 10, 1251, CONCERNINGDATE UNKNOWN, 1250
1608AFTERI don't know how many weeks or months, I awokefeeling almost healthy and
1609certainly hungry. I called out, but no one answered. The room was dark, more so than the
1610low-ered blinds could account for. The bed wasn't level. As Ilooked around in the gloom,
1611it seemed the floor had an undulating quality about it, and that the walls were no
1612longerstraight.
1613Sure that I was still delirious, I closed my eyes again andslept.
1614When I awoke once more, the room was somewhat lighter,but all else was the same. The
1615floor really was bumpy andbent, the screened walls were far from straight, and theceiling 
1616sagged. There were strange forest sounds about me,and I was sure the boat was no longer
1617afloat.
1618I went to remove the sheet that covered me, and for the firsttime noticed my hand. It
1619looked ancient and wrinkled, and my fingernails were incredibly long, longer than they
1620hadever been, longer even than those that some European high-born ladies cultivate to
1621prove they never have to work.
1622I fumbled for my bayonet, on the nightstand, to trim my nails with. When I pulled it
1623from the sheath, it was rusty. Idropped it, and it knocked a deep dent in the floor.
1624Had months gone by? Years?
1625I touched my face, my beard, and found it to be very long,longer than my fingers. Before
1626I fell sick, I had been clean-shaven.
1627I called out again, and again, no one answered.
1628Was I truly alone? Could all the others be dead? Surelythey would never abandon me!
1629With great effort, I sat up in the bed and twisted so my feetwere on the floor. I marveled
1630at how thin my thighs had become. I felt my chest, and could feel every rib under
1631myfingers.
1632I stood, shaking, and slowly made my way to the kitchen,expecting to see the remains of
1633bodies scattered around. Itwas not as bad as I feared. Most of the beds in the
1634commonroom were gone. There were four beds left, and they showedsigns of use.
1635The kitchen was untidy, the breakfast dishes unwashed, butthe scraps on them were no
1636more than a few hours old. Therewas cold food left in a pot. I found a spoon, sat down,
1637and ate.I drank a canteen filled with water, and then stumbled to thedoor to relieve myself
1638in the latrine at the stern. The forest came right up to the doorway. There was no signof
1639the lake that we steamed in on. TheMagnificent Maudewas sitting on the forest floor, her
1640formerly straight lines allbent and slumped, and she was in the process of rotting
1641away.Ants swarmed over the hull.
1642I fought my way through the thick bushes to the latrine, only to find vegetation growing
1643up through the toilet seat. Iripped the leaves away and sat down.
1644None of this made any sense at all.
1645My ears hummed with bird sounds, insect sounds, andwhat might be the distant scream
1646of a monkey. Then, in the far background, I heard what had to be the regular thumping of
1647an axe. It was a man, swinging an axe. Some of my crewwere still alive, they were out
1648there somewhere, doing something important.
1649Exhausted, but greatly relieved, I went slowly back to mybed and fell asleep.
1650I awoke to find Tomaz standing above me. He was dirty, bearded, and except for a silver
1651cross hanging around his neck, he was completely naked. He had lost a third of hisbody
1652weight since I had seen him last, but despite everything, I could see that he was healthy,
1653or at least getting that way.
1654"Are you feeling better, sir?"
1655I said that I thought so, and asked how long I had been away.
1656"We are not sure, sir. For a while there, there was no one mobile and sane enough to
1657keep up the log. Several months,at least."
1658I asked how many of us were still alive.
1659He sat down on the edge of my bed.
1660"There are five of us left, sir. You, me, Jane, Gregor, and Antoni. The other eleven are
1661dead. They weren't even buriedproperly. The two priests were the first to die, so none of
1662themwere given extreme unction. Jane was alone through theworst of it, and there wasn't
1663anything she could do but throw the bodies overboard. That was before the water went
1664away."
1665Seeing the quizzical expression on my face, he continued.
1666"We weren't sailing across a lake, sir. We were going overa flooded forest. In a few
1667months, once the rains stopped, thewater all drained away and the forest became dry land
1668again.It was just as well, because by then the boat was sinking, just rotting away.
1669Something in this land doesn't like our northernlumber. Even the handles on our knives
1670and axes have had to be replaced. Some of the local timber is pretty good, though.Jane
1671has been a big help, there, since the trees around here area lot like those around her
1672home."
1673I asked about the chopping I'd heard earlier.
1674"There is a fair-sized river about a mile from here. Jane is showing us how to make a
1675dugoutcanoe, a boat of the sorther people use. You probably heard us working on that.
1676Wehave been trying to spend half our time on it. The rest isneeded to find food. Most of
1677our stores rotted, of course. Allthe dried peas and beans, all the grains. Only the canned
1678and bottled things are left, and not much of them. When she wastaking care of us all
1679alone, Jane didn't have much time to go hunting, and in her tribe, it's the men who do the
1680gathering.Luckily, she knew enough about what to look for to show uswhat to do."
1681I said that he made it sound like she was in charge.
1682"I suppose she is, sir, in a way. She knows this country, andwe don't. She hasn't been
1683giving orders, exactly, but whenshe makes a suggestion, we usually follow it."
1684I said that despite all that, she was still an outsider, and wewere regular army. I supposed
1685that I would have to do some-thing about our command structure.
1686"Sir, you are not going to do anything about anything, not for a week at least. That's how
1687long it took each of the rest ofus to get to the point of doing useful work. That's all you
1688haveto do for now. Get well. Once you are up on your feet, I will relinquish my command
1689to you, but not until then."
1690I asked him if he had taken command.
1691"To the extent that five naked, starving people constitute acommand, yes. I had to. I am
1692senior lance leader, after all, andthe only knight you have left. Until recently, you have
1693been out of your head, when you weren't comatose. Just relax, sir.In a week, you'll likely
1694be up and around."
1695Five days later I was able to hobble all the way down to thesite where they were building
1696the new boat. Jane had selecteda huge tree as being suitable, and it had been chopped
1697down.Although her methods called for burning it down, the mendid it their way, but on
1698later reflection they weren't surewhich would have been faster. Certainly, burning would
1699havebeen less work. The bark was removed, and with fire and axethey made the outside
1700look like a double-ended boat.
1701Fires were started on the top of the log, while the outside of the boat was kept wet. By
1702judicious burning and scraping, thething was being hollowed out. Jane estimated that in
1703twoweeks they would be ready to leave.
1704It seemed to me they had built on a grander scale than nec-essary to carry five people.
1705They said they planned to take allof the remaining trade goods with them, to trade with
1706the other tribes along the way. Also, there had been six of uswhen they started the boat.
1707Yashoo had died a week before Iregained consciousness.
1708Moving the completed boat on rollers proved to be impos-sible without a block and
1709tackle, and those aboard theMaudehad all either rotted or been eaten by the ants. Again,
1710the na-tive way worked. We dug trenches under the boat and slidlogs under it, which
1711supported the thing as we dug a pit underthe whole boat. Then we extended the pit into a
1712canal all the way to the river. Water filled the canal, we dug out the sup-porting logs, and
1713floated the boat out.
1714I found it remarkable that the native people had workedout whole technologies to get
1715around their lack of a good cut-ting edge.
1716As we were loading the canoe with everything we wouldbe taking with us, we came
1717across the only item made ofnorthern wood that had not rotted to uselessness.
1718Thewhiskey barrel. It was completely sound, as were its con-tents. This was a pleasant
1719surprise, for Lord Conrad had men tioned that a small amount of whiskey would purify
1720waterwithout the need to boil it. We toasted the oldMaude, as well as our lost comrades,
1721and then rolled the half-empty barreldown to the canoe.
1722We pushed off at dawn.
1723The dragons had always avoided us when we traveled intheMaude. I suppose that we
1724frightened them. But they hadseen a lot of native canoes, and they weren't afraid of
1725smallerboats. We had to shoot dozens of them when they came too close, but dragons
1726have a slow learning curve, and we had tothin them out everywhere we went. Their tails
1727were goodeating.
1728We made good progress downstream for the first few days,but there hadn't been any rain
1729for some time, and the level ofthe water was dropping alarmingly. What had been a
1730deepriver became a sluggish creek. We often had to get out of thecanoe and pull it
1731through the shallow, muddy water. This wasrequired more and more often as the long
1732days wore on.
1733Eventually, we were reduced to unloading the boat in orderto drag it farther. It soon
1734became obvious that we wouldeither have to stop our journey, until such time as the
1735water level rose, or to abandon most of our weapons and suppliesand try to make it back
1736on foot with only what we could carryon our none too strong backs.
1737In this jungle, without our supplies, I did not think wecould have survived a week.
1738On the other hand, finding enough food was no longer a problem. What little water was
1739left in the river bottom wasfilled with fishes. Our food stocks were never very good, and
1740while the fish were available, we set out to smoke as many ofthem as possible, for future
1741use.
1742The water eventually got so low and the fish got so thickthat you could just wade into the
1743mud and grab them withyour hands. We were doing that when Antoni started
1744shakinguncontrollably and screaming. He had a fish in both of hishands and he couldn't
1745let go of it! Gregor went to help him,and then suddenly Gregor couldn't let go of Antoni!
1746I'd seen something like that once when a man touched thewires on a big electrical
1747generator. I knew that this couldn'tbe the same thing, but I didn't know what else to do.
1748You canstop anything electrical by opening the circuit, so I got outmy machete, which we
1749all carried now in lieu of a sword, andchopped the fish in two.
1750Both men immediately fell into the muddy water. When Igot to Antoni, I found that he
1751wasn't breathing and didn'thave a heartbeat. I dragged him to shore and
1752administeredCPR, while Tomaz went after Gregor.
1753Gregor's life signs were missing as well, and we workedon both men for almost half an
1754hour. Eventually, Tomaz was successful with Gregor, and he lived. I failed to bring
1755Antoniaround.
1756There wasn't a mark on either of the men, and fromGregor's description of what
1757happened to him, it didn't seemto be a poison. It looked like death by electrocution, but
1758howcould a fish electrocute anybody?
1759We buried Antoni in the sand by the dying river.
1760That evening, we were sitting around the campfire, de-pressed by the loss of yet another
1761of our number. Conversa-tion had waned, and I was starting to think about going to sleep,
1762when two tiny men walked up to our fire, as bold as you please! They sat down and
1763shared out between them afish that we had baked but nobody had wanted to eat. Thenthey
1764ate it, smiling and nodding at us!
1765We were stunned. These people looked like something outof a children's fairy tale! They
1766were perfectly formed, well-proportioned, and even quite handsome, but neither of them
1767came as high as my waist! I doubted if either of them could have weighed forty pounds.
1768Yet these were adult men, well-muscled, and with underarm and genital hair.
1769When they had finished their meal, with gestures we offered to cook some more for
1770them, but they declined. Nor were they interested in any smoked fish. They did
1771acceptsome water from us, lightly laced as it was with whiskey, andappeared to enjoy it
1772considerably.
1773I took out a small belt knife and began to whittle on a pieceof wood. This got their
1774attention! I gave the knife to one ofthem, and he was delighted with it. I think he was
1775moreamazed with the knife than we were with him. Tomaz gave asimilar knife to the
1776second little man, then got out a macheteand showed them how to chop up a nearby bush.
1777We now had them sufficiently interested that I didn't think they would run away on us. It
1778was time to teach them how to speak Pidgin!
1779The first lessons hadn't gone very far when the bushesaround us parted and a dozen or so
1780additional people came out and sat around our campfire. They weren't all little men.Some
1781of them were little women.
1782These new people were greeted by the two we had alreadymade friends with, and it was
1783obvious to us that they hadstayed in the bushes to see what sort of reception we
1784wouldgive their friends.
1785Since the newcomers were well-armed with spears, bows,and peashooters, they had been
1786prepared to come to therescue, if we turned out to be the bad guys.
1787We were trying hard to be the good guys, and we weresoon passing out smoked fish and
1788very watered whiskey, andputting more fish on the fire to cook. I went to the canoe
1789andcame back with knives enough for everybody in the party,and things soon got very
1790pleasant.
1791We were going to have to spend some time in this area, atleast until the dry spell ended,
1792and we were glad that wecould now spend it with friends, albeit small ones.Chapter Thirty
1793From the Journal of Josip Sobieski
1794WRITTEN MARCH 11, 1251, CONCERNING DATE UNKNOWN, 1250
1795JUST BEFOREwe went to sleep, our guests went back into theforest. Even with a fire,
1796and with a sentry awake, they did notfeel comfortable out in the open. They couldn't have
1797gonefar, though, because they were back again at first light.
1798They waited respectfully as the three of us recited ourmorning oath. Later, once they
1799learned Pidgin, they had ustranslate it for them, and many of them started reciting it
1800withus, as did, eventually, Jane.
1801They called themselves the Yaminana, and they said thatthe land for miles around owned
1802them. They really thoughtthat way. They did not own the land. It owned them.
1803Anothercuriosity was that they did not consider themselves to be"real." We, the big
1804people, were the real people. They werejust the Yaminana. To their minds, they were
1805something be-tween the animals and the real people, but not members ofeither group.
1806The women were mostly gatherers, collecting more thanhalf the food the tribe ate. They
1807took care of the children anddid the cooking. As with the other tribes we had seen, these
1808roles were maintained with great strictness. A woman of theYaminana would no more go
1809hunting than a European would fornicate with his mother!
1810The men were primarily hunters, waiting silently for hoursuntil a bird, a snake, or a 
1811monkey came within the relativelyshort range of their weapons before shooting. They
1812liked fish,but disliked being on the ground in the open, which fishinggenerally required.
1813Thus, they were pleased when we broughtin all the fish that everybody could carry,
1814before we made thetrip to their village.
1815They were experts with poisons and with traps. The onlybig predator, aside from the
1816dragons and some of the snakes,was a big spotted cat. It was quite capable of killing a
1817full-sized human, but the Yaminana did not fear it. Rather, itfeared them, their poisoned
1818arrows, and their traps. Usually,the big cat avoided the little people.
1819I know that we could never have survived had we stumbledunsuspectingly onto their
1820village. They had to point out to useach of the deadly tricks that awaited the unwary. The
1821worst,or at least the most common, were pointed sticks steeped inpoison, which were
1822stuck in the dirt along the trail. Step onone, and you were laid up for a month, if you were
1823lucky. Ifnot, you were dead.
1824Their village was largely built up in the trees. Indeed, itmight have been them that I had
1825spotted, months ago, just be-fore the fevers hit my platoon. It made sense, given the
1826smallsize of the people and the fact that the forest around hereregularly flooded.
1827Their community was made up of perhaps four hundredpeople. Well over half of their
1828population consisted of chil-dren, and we saw only a few really old people among them.
1829They were much lighter-skinned than the natives we had seen earlier, perhaps because of
1830their habit of staying in thedense forest, out of the sun. Their hair was not as black as the
1831others', either, but often shaded into a dark brown. They were tiny, with the adults
1832averaging about a yard tall, yet their pro-portions were approximately those of normal
1833people, exceptfor the eyes, which were about the same size as my own.Placed in a tiny
1834head, they seemed huge. All told, they wereas attractive a people as I have ever seen.
1835They went about completely naked, avoiding all jewelry,decorations, clothing, and body
1836paint, save for the ubiquitousinsect sap.
1837If they needed something with them, such as their weapons,they carried them in their
1838hands and never slung them over ashoulder, even while climbing trees. They didn't wear
1839belts,baldrics, or anything like a backpack or pouch. We wonderedif the reason was that,
1840being small, if danger threatened, they wanted to be able to drop everything, to run, and
1841to hide.
1842My men and I had long been reduced to wearing loin-cloths, a piece of old bedsheet
1843going from the back of the belt to the front. The native chief objected to them, on the
1844groundsof sanitation! He felt it was unhealthy to thus hold the body'snatural dirt against
1845it. We demurred, but a few days later ourloincloths disappeared in the night.
1846The other tribes that we had met had insisted we indulge inan orgy with them. The
1847attitude seemed to be that if we werenot going to be their enemies, we must be their best 
1848friends.No middle ground was possible. The little people had thesame attitude, only more
1849so.
1850When we were introduced to their elders, everyone was allsmiles and nods since we
1851couldn't speak with them yet. Igave the chief a knife, an axe, and a machete. He gave me
1852hisfavorite new wife!
1853Not just to use, but to keep. Forever. This bothered me, forwhile I was sure that my love,
1854Maude, would forgive my sexualindiscretions—once I told her of the peculiar
1855circumstances—how could I possibly explain bringing home another woman?
1856I couldn't pronounce her name, since it contained twoclicks and a whistle that were used
1857in the local tongue as wellas the usual vowels and consonants. I never learned to
1858managethese strange sounds. The locals actually laughed at me everytime I tried to
1859pronounce them. But her name ended with"Booboo," and she didn't seem to mind me
1860calling her that.
1861My problems were increased by the fact that I was attractedto her. She was a pretty little
1862thing. She was perfectly, deliciously formed, and had all of her dimensions been doubled,
1863Iwould have recommended her to any good friend.
1864But despite her full, pointed breasts, her slender waist, andher flaring hips, I could not
1865quite convince myself that anyonethat tiny could be an adult. And even if she was old
1866enough,there was the physical problem of our relative sizes.
1867How could I possibly copulate with someone so tiny withoutdoing her serious damage?
1868The chief made it very clear that this was the way thingswere done, and if I were to be so
1869crass as to insult both himand his former wife, then we had best get out of his
1870territorynow, before he was forced to kill us.
1871Leaving then would have involved abandoning our supplies,and after seeing the defenses
1872around the village, I shudderedat the prospect of trying to make our way overland, past
1873other, doubtless equally well-protected villages.
1874With this incentive, I went through a native wedding cere-mony, with Tomaz and Gregor
1875at my side. My objections tomarriage had made the elders suspicious, and they now felt
1876that we should all become their relatives. Gregor was of theopinion that the natives
1877simply had a surplus of young women to feed.
1878With the Yaminana, marriage had a lot to do with mutual care, making sure the other
1879was well-fed, taking care of chil-dren, and love, in the true sense of the word. It had very
1880little to do with sex. Anytime anyone wanted to have sex with an-other person, they
1881simply asked, and the favor was generallygranted on the spot. Except for reasons like
1882illness, the factthat you were a man who had already done it once today,or that you had
1883prior commitments, to fail to have sex with aperson of the opposite sex who asked you 
1884politely was a se-rious, even deadly insult. With this situation, the best tactic wasto ask
1885any lady who caught your eye early in the day, so youcould turn down the dogs later
1886without fear of repercussions.
1887Heterosexual sex was enjoyed out in the open, and at alltimes of the day or night.
1888Homosexuality and lesbianismwere unknown. Strangely, the Yaminana had no clear idea
1889ofthere being a connection between sex and children. They saidthat a woman had to have
1890sex at least once in order to "openthe path" for children, but after that, sex was just for
1891fun, andchildren happened when they wanted to.
1892Sex proved to be quite possible with our new wives, andall the rest of the women in the
1893tribe, for that matter, despite their small proportions. I always insisted that my partners
1894beon top, however, for fear of hurting them.
1895Jane confused the Yaminana, so they ignored her. They didnot like the idea of a woman
1896hunting, although they grudg-ingly admired her abilities with a bow. To my knowledge,
1897sheneither asked nor was asked to have sex during her entire staythere.
1898They were vastly impressed with our guns. When a big,long-nosed sort of wild pig, with
1899three toes, came into the vil-lage, I got the chief's permission to shoot it. One shot put
1900itdown, and I was later told that it would have taken the Yami-nana hours to kill so big a
1901beast, with the likely injury of sev-eral villagers.
1902The chief immediately insisted that I give him a gun, butfortunately he was too small to
1903shoot one. At his first attemptwith one, it knocked him flat on his back and badly
1904bruisedhis arm. I was happy when he gave up on the idea. As mercu-rial as these people
1905were, I didn't really want to see them withmodern weapons.
1906Jane had long considered firearms to be instruments of thedevil and refused to touch
1907them.
1908The Yaminana didn't make pottery, and were noticeably more primitive than the other
1909tribes we'd met. They seemedto be less intelligent, and even childlike in most things.
1910Theywere charming, though, and brought out our paternal feel-ings. Their children were
1911particularly endearing, and even Jane couldn't help but feel maternal around them,
1912althoughshe was ashamed to admit it.
1913Still, we wondered if the small size of their heads and brains had something to do with
1914their lack of intellectualdepth.
1915In the course of time, everyone in the tribe was speaking aversion of Pidgin, and
1916eventually they seemed to like it somuch that they were abandoning their old language.
1917Theywere a simple people, and they liked a simple language.
1918For the next six months we and our adopted tribe ate well.Generally, they would find the
1919game, and we would kill it.They did most of the gathering and the hunting and snaring 
1920ofsmall game, but our addition of wild pigs, dragons, and big snakes, one of which was
1921fully nine yards long, more thanpaid our way.
1922We helped out in another way when the Yaminana were at-tacked by a neighboring tribe
1923of full-sized people. This wasafter we had stayed with them for over three months, and
1924weEuropeans had regained much of our original strength. Somethirty warriors attacked
1925us, but they didn't have army training,and they didn't have guns.
1926We killed eleven of them, nine by gunshot and two in hand-to-hand fighting without
1927serious injury to ourselves.The Yaminana accounted for three more, with a loss of
1928sevenof their own number, all of them adult men. The womenneither hunted nor fought,
1929which was probably why they out-numbered the men.
1930After the battle we were horrified to watch our little friendsgleefully butcher their fallen
1931foes, and then cook them up for dinner!
1932The chief told me they had to eat their enemies, becausethe big people who had attacked
1933in the first place wanted tocapture some of the Yaminana in order to eat them.
1934When a Yaminana was eaten by an outsider, his soul was lost to the tribe. Eating their
1935enemies was the only way to re-turn the souls of their lost tribesmen to their families.
1936Andanyway, he told us, they were delicious!
1937Fortunately, he was not greatly offended when we refusedto participate in the feast. It
1938was enough that we had providedthe main course.
1939After I had seen my little wife daintily nibbling off the lastshreds of flesh clinging to a
1940human femur, it was weeks be-fore I could kiss her again.
1941I was also shocked when I saw Jane happily eating hershare of the cannibal feast! She
1942said that to her people, humanflesh was just another kind of meat. On questioning her
1943later,I found out why she had not eaten our own dead on theMaude;since those men had
1944died of a sickness, the meat wastainted. As to Antoni, she had simply assumed we
1945preferredfish, as she did.
1946The next day, with great ceremony, the Yaminana ate the bodies of their own tribesmen
1947who had fallen in battle.
1948All of this cannibalism troubled me. I had not been able tomake any progress at
1949converting the Yaminana to Chris-tianity and had even given up trying, until I could
1950bring apriest back to do the job properly. Seeing these tiny people eating human flesh told
1951me just how remiss I had been indoing my Christian duty toward them. I renewed my
1952effortsto bring them to Christ, but again it was to no avail. I gave up and worked instead
1953on my equipment. The stock of my riflehad rotted so badly that I was obliged to carve
1954myself a newone, out of a native wood that Jane recommended.
1955The most important event during our stay with the Yaminana, from the army's
1956viewpoint, happened during our firstmonth with them.
1957Several of their very tiny children were playing a gamewith a ball, when it rolled into a
1958stream. I waded in to get itfor them and was surprised to find the ball shedded water like
1959wax, but it was soft, like flesh. I gave the ball back to the chil-dren and went to talk about
1960it with some of the adults.
1961I was told that the toy was made from the sap of a certaintree, which they were very
1962happy to take me to. At last I hadfound the almost mythical rubber tree! In fact, there
1963werequite a few of them out there.
1964I got Tomaz and Gregor and showed them my find. After that, we worked out an
1965efficient way to bleed the trees with-out killing them, and collected as much of the sap as
1966wecould. Over the months, we turned some of it into balls, in thenative fashion, and
1967stored the rest in empty glass food jars.We also collected samples of the tree's bark and
1968its leaves, toaid others in finding them.
1969After more than six months of only occasional rain, the great downpours returned in
1970earnest, and the river began to fill. Our canoe had not rotted as our riverboat had, and
1971wesoon had all in order for our departure.
1972We tried to persuade our wives to stay behind, for weweren't at all sure what we would
1973do with them back in Poland, or whether they would like it there. But our tinyladies were
1974adamant about going with us. We had told toomany stories about what it was like in
1975Europe, I suppose.Also, the elders insisted that we take them with us, and theircontinued
1976goodwill would be important when we returned to establish a trading post here, to bring
1977in the rubber.
1978We shoved off in much better physical shape than we hadarrived in, and with our
1979company now increased to seven.The trip back was long and arduous, but relatively
1980unevent-ful. At least nobody died.
1981When we at last put in at the fourth trading post we had es-tablished, we found it
1982deserted, as was the native village ithad been built next to. A day's searching through the
1983ruins of both gained us no enlightenment. There was no evidence of violence. The post
1984and the village had not been burned, butsimply abandoned. Near what must have been the
1985church, wefound more than two dozen graves, with wooden crosses over them, but no
1986indications as to who was buried there.Profoundly disturbed, we went on east, to the next
1987post.
1988The story was the same at the third post and at the second.My men were gone, the
1989villagers were gone, and there wasnothing to show why this had happened. It was not as
1990thoughsome other tribes had supplanted the ones we had befriended.The countryside
1991seemed to be devoid of all human life.
1992At the first post, I found Sir Caspar, the lance leader I hadleft there a year before. The
1993village behind him looked tohave about a third of its former inhabitants left.
1994He was nearly as naked as we were, sporting little butsome pants with the legs cut off,
1995and a pair of native sandals, yet he saluted me in proper army fashion, and it seemed
1996onlyproper to salute back, even though I stood before him naked and barefoot. In military
1997fashion, I asked him to report.
1998"It was sickness, more than anything else, sir," he said. "Ilost one man to a dragon, and
1999three more to fevers. The people in the village were sick, too, but of some other dis-ease,
2000like the worst cold you ever saw. Nothing we tried didany good, and the native doctors
2001couldn't do any better, ontheir people or on mine. I got word from the other posts thatthey
2002were in trouble, but we didn't have any help to send to them. I was bedridden and my
2003men were either dead or shaking with fevers. I haven't heard from the other posts insix
2004months."
2005I asked him about any other riverboats, and he said theyhadn't seen one since I left him
2006there, a year ago.
2007We went into his native-style hut, and Gregor broughtsome whiskey up from the canoe.
2008While the women went outin search of supper, I filled Sir Caspar and his men in on
2009allthat had happened to us since I had last seen him.
2010"My God. Then we six are all that are left of a platoon offorty-three men? What a
2011disaster!" he said. "And whyhaven't the other three platoons come looking for us?
2012Couldthey be in worse shape than we are?"
2013I said that I didn't know, but I intended to leave in themorning for the rendezvous point,
2014at the island with the flag. Iasked him if he wanted to join us.
2015"No, sir, I don't see how I can. Father David has beenmaking progress here in converting
2016those villagers who sur-vived the plague. He wouldn't even consider leaving
2017withoutorders from his superiors in Poland. Ronald and I couldn'tpossibly abandon him."
2018I saw his point, and promised to return, no matter what Ifound out. Before leaving, I
2019asked if they had any clothes to spare. Sir Caspar offered me the shorts he was wearing.
2020Thatwas all he had. Even their bedding was gone. I, of course, declined his
2021offer.
2022Later that night we took advantage of Father David's pres-ence to go to confession.
2023In the morning, after we recited our Army Oath, we sang aproper mass, with
2024Communion, for the first time in entirelytoo long. Then we left, heading east.Chapter Thirty-One
2025From the Journal of Josip Sobieski
2026WRITTEN MARCH 12, 1251, CONCERNING FEBRUARY 10, 1251
2027As we came in sight of the island, I could barely believe myeyes! The entire island had
2028been logged over, and a dozen new buildings, all made of concrete—army fashion—were
2029either completed or under construction! At least a full com-pany of men were busily
2030working. Above it all was a huge,multi-element yagi radio antenna.
2031As we tied our canoe up to one of the docks, a sentrylooked at us with his mouth open,
2032then ran to get his superior.He was wearing a clean, summer-weight class B uniform,and
2033for the first time in half a year I was seriously consciousof my own nakedness.
2034I suddenly realized I was coming back a dismal failure. I had been sent out with a steampowered riverboat, tons of supplies, and a platoon of forty-two healthy, welleducatedyoung men. Now the boat was a rotten mound in the jungle,the supplies were
2035gone, with almost nothing to show forthem, and all the men were dead except for the two
2036nakedsurvivors next to me, plus three more, left behind at a tradingpost—out in the
2037bush—with nothing to trade.
2038I had lost an incredible thirty-seven out of forty-two of the army's finest young men. If
2039ever a platoon leader deserved to be shot, it was me.
2040I wasn't sure what their feelings would be about the fourwomen with me. Jane, at least,
2041had certainly earned the right to be one of us, and the others were our wives. I didn't
2042knowwhat army policy was toward non-Christian, native wives.But there was nothing to
2043do but to brazen it out.
2044As we were unloading the canoe onto the dock, a group ofclean, groomed, and
2045uniformed men came out to us, and Iwas suddenly glad we had left the whiskey barrel
2046back at the trading post. With it, I could see them adding drunkenness to the list of
2047charges against me. Leading the group was BaronSiemomysl himself, the commander of
2048the entire Explorer'sCorps.
2049He was smiling!
2050He completely ignored military formality and said, "Sir Josip! My God, but it's good to
2051see you alive! We were allworried about you! Welcome to Brazylport! Come, introduce
2052me to your party."
2053I introduced the men and women of my group to my baron,and told him a bit about each
2054of them. He seemed delightedwith them, but he winced when he noticed the handcarvedstock on my rifle.
2055"Excellent! I see that you have brought back samples ofrubber, besides. But for now,
2056unless you have something ur-gent to tell me, rooms are being made ready for you, and
2057I'm sure you would like a chance to freshen up."
2058Which was as polite a way as he could manage of sayingthat I probably didn't want to
2059report in officially while I wasbuck naked.
2060The baron personally led us back to the married housing area, and gestured to the tree
2061stumps and the soil denuded ofvegetation.
2062"We had to clear the entire area in order to clean out all ofthe nastier plants and animals.
2063We'll be replanting it soon,with safe, useful local plants. Perhaps some of your ladiescan
2064advise us on that."
2065When we got to the married housing area, some troopswere just carrying a new set of
2066furniture into a new building.Four women in Explorer uniforms greeted our ladies
2067andwhisked them away. I was glad to see that someone hadtalked Lord Conrad out of his
2068silly "men only" policy for thecorps.
2069The baron left, saying, "Come and see me as soon as youare ready."
2070We men were shown the way to the showers. An hour later,scrubbed, shaved, and with
2071my hair properly cut, I walked tothe commander's office in a new class A uniform, with
2072mytattered logbooks and journals under my arm.
2073The baron returned my salute and politely asked me tosit down.
2074"Well, now. The short of it is that as soon as we realized themistake we'd made, we got
2075another expedition together asquickly as possible. Launching the first expedition
2076withoutany experienced men was an unavoidable necessity, butsending your company
2077out with riverboats that rotted apart ina few months, with radios that ceased to function in
2078weeks, and with food supplies that went bad even quicker, wasdownright criminal. The
2079army owes you and your men a se-rious apology, son.
2080"We've been here for four months now, and with the buildings mostly up, we've started
2081doing what we came here to do.Namely, to get your people the kind of equipment you
2082need,and to test it on-site. Our first ferrocrete riverboat will becoming down the ways in a
2083few weeks, and then we can start exploring properly! We started testing special paints
2084andpreservatives the day we got here, and work is already being done on a radio that
2085works in this humidity. But enough ofthat. Pour yourself a drink and tell me what has
2086happened toyou this past year." 
2087I told him the whole story, and filled my glass several timesin the telling. The short
2088twilight of the tropics had started be-fore I was through.
2089"That was quite a story, Captain Sobieski. Yes, you'vebeen promoted, and your men
2090have just been promoted along with you. We'll come up with something for your native
2091warrior woman, as well. You all deserve it, and there is a lot ofwork around here that
2092needs doing. We'll be working together for a long time to come. The rubber you brought
2093inwasn't the first, but a third source of supply will be very valuable, and your discovery
2094will certainly be exploited. Those Yaminana people of yours sound fascinating, and I
2095look forward to talking to your pretty little Booboo as soon aspossible."
2096I thanked the baron, but said that I was looking forward toa trip home to Poland before
2097long. I had a young lady therewho was waiting to be my bride.
2098"That brings me to a very painful topic, Captain. I got amessage from Lord Conrad three
2099days ago, and, well, you can't go home. None of us can. It was only a few weeks agothat
2100enough men like you made it back to impress on us themagnitude of the disease problem.
2101It now appears that at leasthalf, and possibly as many as three-quarters, of your
2102oldcompany have died of disease. Furthermore, they died of dis-eases unknown in
2103Europe.
2104"In order to replace you, if you went home, we would haveto bring in at least two and
2105perhaps as many as four othermen, and then watch as one, or two, or three of them died
2106ofdisease in the first year. And that's not the worst of it.
2107"If you went back home, you could be a carrier of any or all of the deadly diseases that
2108have afflicted your company.You could start a plague that could wipe out half the
2109popula-tion of Christendom! And the problem gets still worse.
2110"We have already started plagues among the native people sof this continent! Diseases
2111that don't seriously bother us are deadly to them. Out of ignorance, we may have
2112committed one of the worst crimes in history! Whole villages have already been
2113obliterated. In the end, by simply coming here, we may have caused more deaths than the
2114Mongols did with all their armies, swords, and arrows! So you see, we can't possibly let
2115any of our people go home until this problem i ssolved.
2116"Furthermore, we have another company of volunteers forming up in Poland, medical
2117people who are going to come out here to try to find a cure for the plagues we've
2118started.They are coming here knowing that most of them will be dead within the year. The
2119survivors of that company won't be going home, either."
2120I sat back, stunned. It was too much, too big. This day I had been raised to the heights on
2121seeing the new base, when I had feared to find nothing but an empty island. Then I
2122was cast down at the thought of my own dismal failure, then lifted back up at the baron's
2123pleasant welcome, and then cast down again by this horrible news.
2124I sat there, numb, unable to absorb it all.
2125After a while the baron said, "Is there anything else you want to know?"
2126I nodded yes, and asked about the others in my company, Captain Odon and the other
2127platoon leaders.
2128"Captain Fritz came in a few weeks ago. He's on recuperative leave, but you'll find him
2129around here somewhere. Sir Taurus, of course, was killed before you set out on your
2130mission. Sir Kiejstut is dead. He died six months ago of some disease he picked up. They
2131say that his ending was quick. Sir Lezek was reported to have been alive as of a few
2132months ago, several hundred miles upriver. Of the others, we have no definite news."
2133So. I still had Fritz and probably Lezek. Maybe Captain Odon, maybe Father John.
2134Maybe even Zbigniew, althought hat seemed remote. I was twenty-six years of age, and I
2135fel told. Very, very old.
2136As I left, the baron's secretary passed me a note, saying that my men and the ladies were
2137waiting for me at the mess hall, after which they would be at the inn. I had news for them,
2138but I went to the radio room first.
2139I composed a message for my mother, and a much longer one for Maude, trying to tell
2140her that I was well, but that I couldn't come home to her. I wrote and rewrote that
2141message,but it never said exactly what I felt. No matter how I worded it, it still wasn't
2142right. Finally, I just gave my first draft to the operator and asked him to get it out when he
2143could.
2144I was told that the airwaves had been fairly clean for the last few days, and my messages
2145would probably go through sometime tonight to the relay station in Portugal, and
2146from there to Poland.
2147It was late when I got to the almost empty mess hall, butthe cook scrounged me up some
2148food. I barely noticed the en-tree, but the bread and the beer were so wonderful they
2149almost cheered me up.
2150I found my party at the inn. I was surprised that the army would build an inn at so remote
2151a site, but Lord Conrad was always concerned about the happiness of his men. It was just
2152like every other Pink Dragon Inn, except the carved sign over the door showed one of the
2153local dragons, painted pink, instead of the classical one.
2154I found my people scrubbed clean, pleasantly drunk, and comparatively well-dressed. The
2155men at least were in proper uniform, and the ladies had been prevailed upon to wear
2156short cotton skirts, at least.
2157When I asked, I found that they had heard of the orders for-bidding return to Europe, so I
2158wasn't forced to break that news to them. I told the men that the Christian Army 
2159was pleased with us, and congratulated them on their promotions, calling them Sir Gregor
2160and Knight Banner Tomaz. After we drank to that, I explained that they could now refer
2161to me as Captain Sobieski, if they did so respectfully, and with suit-able bowing and
2162groveling. They laughed, and we drank to that as well.
2163I told them that Jane was accepted as an army civilian scout, with the status of an army
2164knight. The pay consisted of room, board, and equipment, plus eight pence a day,
2165retro-active for a year. She didn't understand what most of this meant and was soon
2166talking intensely with Knight Banner Tomaz.
2167Our wives had no clear idea why we were so happy abou tour promotions. Our increased
2168pay had no meaning for them,since they didn't know what money was. Our
2169increased status also meant little to them, because in the society they grew up in, small
2170differences in status had little meaning. You were either the chief or you weren't. But at
2171the inn, they were delighted with the music, the dancing, and the ambience of the place,
2172and they were happy because everybody else was happy.
2173Looking at them, I was reminded that they were really very limited creatures, and a life
2174with Booboo would be much different from the one I had long dreamed of with Maude.
2175It seemed rude to even think it, but we three were permanently bonded with creatures that
2176were, at best, pretty, amusing littl epuppy dogs. And at worst? I couldn't even imagine, but
2177I was sure that it could become very bad indeed.
2178I knew that life must go on, but I wasn't at all sure that I wanted to go on with it.
2179Before my thoughts got too morose, Captain Fritz came in,bringing with him the eight
2180men of his platoon who had survived the year. After introductions were made, our
2181ladies were all surrounded by eager admirers. Fritz and I found ourselves at one end of the
2182table, deep in conversation, discussing our year apart. It was almost like being home.
2183Slowly, my mood revived.
2184I told my story to Fritz, and he nodded and shook his head in all the right places. He
2185understood what I was saying be-cause his life's experiences were so very like my own.
2186As a good friend will, he let me tell the whole story almost without interruptions, before
2187he started in on his own.
2188Fritz had found the natives on the south bank friendly from the start. They had
2189immediately seen the value of our products, and were familiar with the concept of trade.
2190If they believed in ghosts, they never talked about it. He thought that the huge width of
2191the river must separate two very different nations.
2192The people he found did some hunting and gathering, but they were primarily
2193agriculturalists. The dozens of plants they cultivated were completely unknown in Europe,
2194and he saw rich possibilities in trade with them.
2195There was a kind of pea in which the pods grew at first aboveground, but then went 
2196underground as they matured, actually planting themselves! Dug up, roasted, and
2197heavily salted, Fritz said they were wonderful with beer.
2198They had dozens of fruits he had never seen before, and most of them were delicious.
2199One of them, which looked like a big hand grenade growing in a display of swords, was
2200particularly good.
2201"On the other hand, nobody ever insisted that we participate in a mass orgy. I think I'll
2202always envy you that one!"
2203Apparently, the native girls were not extremely interested in Fritz and his men. They
2204were generally available, but only after you negotiated the size of the gift that was to be
2205given to them in advance.
2206"The price was mud cheap, but it still smacked too much of prostitution for me to greatly
2207enjoy it. I scratched the itch once a week or so, but it was mere gratification, and not love."
2208The only trouble that he encountered in the first few weeks happened when one of his
2209men was urinating over the side of their riverboat.
2210"Sir Ian started screaming, and clutched his privy member. He bounced around for a bit,
2211and then fell over onto his back,shouting the most blasphemous of oaths! I was the
2212closest thing to a surgeon we had on board, so I had a half-dozen men hold him down
2213while I examined him. I couldn't see a thin gout of the ordinary, so I had him released.
2214"None of our medications had any beneficial effect, and we didn't yet have a native who
2215could speak Pidgin well enough to question what passes for a doctor among them.
2216Ian remained in great pain for three days, during which time he never urinated, and I began
2217to fear that his bladder wouldburst. After consulting with the others, it seemed that the
2218only thing to do was to cut the member open, to see what was causing the problem.
2219"We couldn't even get poor Ian drunk, since that would only have generated more urine.
2220With six men holding the screaming knight down, I took a sharp, clean scalpel and sliced
2221along the last half of the length of his penis. Pints of blood and a gallon of urine squirted
2222out, but can you guess what else was in there?"
2223I shook my head, and Fritz continued.
2224"There was a tinyfish, stuck in the urine vessel! It had three little barbs, like a catfish, that
2225had stuck into Ian's flesh, and that was what was blocking his pipe!
2226"All that we can imagine is that as he was relieving him-self, the fish must have swum
2227upstream, right up his urine and into his privy member! There seems to be no other way
2228it could have happened. As you can imagine, we all used a bucket after that.
2229"Well, I sewed the man up, and he managed to live. That is,he lived until he came down 
2230with a fever, three months later."
2231The rest of his sad story was a matter of surviving a fever much as I had and then
2232building a boat and getting back to the rendezvous. Lacking native advice, since those
2233natives who had not died of their own plague had run away, it took him much longer than
2234it did us to build a suitable boat.
2235"I managed to get more of my men back than you did, but I must admire the ladies you
2236brought to replace some of those you lost. I've often had fantasies of having a girl so small
2237that I could carry her along in my pouch, and your new wife comes close to that. If there
2238are more like her where she comes from, I'm minded to go along with you when you
2239re-turn. But for tonight, what is the story on the warrior woman you brought back? I
2240mean, is she really the sort who prefers other women?"
2241I said I honestly didn't know about the lady's sexual preferences. Her tribe was
2242heterosexual, of course, with women marrying men, but from there on, the usual roles
2243were re-versed. She had fit into my team as one of the troops. None of us males had seen
2244fit to make any advances toward her, as far as I knew, and she had made none toward us. I
2245said that if Fritz wanted to try, he was free to do so, but I advised tha the move with great
2246caution, and that at no time should hedare to offend the woman. She could be quite
2247deadly if she wanted to.
2248Fritz went over and talked to Jane, and in time their conversation became more and
2249more animated, with both of them smiling hugely. Eventually, they walked out of the
2250innarm in arm. I wished them both well.
2251After a bit I noticed that my wife was either asleep from too much excitement or had
2252passed out from too much to drink, and that in any event it was getting late. I bid the
2253others good-bye, picked her up in my arms, and carried my little bride home.
2254Someone had mentioned that in the course of giving her a medical examination today,
2255they had weighed her in at thirty-four and a half pounds. Cuddled up in my arms, she
2256reminde dme of a sleeping kitten. She was very pretty, very precious,but somehow
2257something less than a real human being. I began to believe that her tribe's evaluation of
2258themselves,that they were above the animals but below the true men, was essentially true.
2259By no stretch of the imagination could I imagine her be-coming my true life partner. The
2260pretty lady I had married in apagan ceremony was in truth but a house pet.
2261Chapter Thirty-Two
2262From the Diary of Conrad Stargard
2263FEBRUARY 26, 1251
2264I SAT at my desk with my head in my arms. Father Ignacy was in Rome. He was a
2265cardinal bishop now, and he was voting on who would be the next pope. Many said he
2266himself woul dwin the office. I suppose I was happy for him, but the truth was that I
2267needed my confessor, more than at any time before in my life. I had sinned. Oh God, how
2268I had sinned!
2269I had sent a company of my best men out on an ill-thought-out mission, and because of
2270me, most of them were dead. Far worse still, I had been responsible for introducing all of
2271the diseases of Europe into the New World, and native Ameri-cans were dying by the
2272whole villageful!
2273Killing in time of war has never bothered me, but this horrible thing I had done was
2274something far worse than that! It is one thing to kill fighting men who invade your
2275country, and quite another to go to someone else's land and sicken everyman, woman, and
2276child there with deadly diseases!
2277It was undoubtedly still going on. The damage was still being done. People were still
2278dying. We had no way to stop those diseases from spreading throughout half the world.
2279Maude came into my office and stood in front of my desk.She wasn't smiling.
2280"Josip sent me a message. He says he cannot come home.He says that if he did, he might
2281spread diseases here in Europe."
2282"Yes, Maude. That, too, is another of my sins."
2283"You must not sit there and cry. You must talk to your cousin Tom. Tom knows about
2284diseases. Tom knows all about living systems. If you ask him, he will help you. He will
2285help Josip. You must talk to Tom."
2286"Tom has helped me out several times before, but I have never asked for help before," I
2287said.
2288"You must talk to Tom. He will help you."
2289"You are right, of course. People are dying as we speak.This is no time for stupid pride."
2290I looked up at the ceiling and said,"Tom! Help me, Tom! I need your help! If this dis-ease
2291problem isn't solved quickly, I am going to have to stop the entire exploration program!
2292You will never see a world-wide culture! I won't be the cause of making things worse than 
2293they already are! I won't be responsible for bringing plagues and the Black Death all
2294across the globe! If I have to,I'll build a ten-story concrete wall all around Europe, I swear
2295I will!"
2296A door that hadn't been there before opened up in the wall behind me, and my cousin
2297Tom, dressed in T-shirt, shorts,and tennis shoes, walked into the room. He had a
2298handwritten Polish manuscript in one hand and three test tubes in th eother.
2299"All right! All right! You don't have to start making threats!" He surprised me by
2300speaking in Polish. I'd never heard him do that before. Thinking about it, I had called
2301to him in Polish.
2302He set the manuscript on my desk, turned to me, and held up one of the test tubes.
2303"Okay. This is part one. What it does is mark every cell in the body as being human. It
2304must be given at least twelve hours before the next part is administered. That's six of
2305your hours. We call it the butter, because that's what it looks like and tastes like. You can
2306take it as often as you like, and for your regular troops, we recommend a pat of it every
2307morning.That way, the treatment can be started immediately in the event of illness. Also,
2308it doesn't spoil, and it's cheaper than real butter. You can make it even with your primitive
2309technology. You just mix a sample of it with any fresh mammalian milk, and let it set
2310for a day. That's also how you make the other two parts of this system.
2311"This second part is called the cheese, for obvious reasons.The dosage is nine grams per
2312hundred kilograms of body weight, plus or minus twenty percent. It's a deadly poison,and
2313will kill anything alive except for human cells that have been, protected by part one, the
2314butter. The person treated is poisonous to all other life-forms for the next six of your hours.
2315Keep the patient away from plants and pets during that time period. That includes
2316neo horses, wenches, and all the other bioengineered critters.
2317"The third part, the oil; replaces all of the body's symbionts that were killed off by part
2318two. You drink a few grams of it the day after you take the cheese and rub about twice
2319that amount on the skin.
2320"Now, nothing is perfect. When you use this system, all of your stomach flora are killed
2321and you are in for a serious case of the runs. There are a few rare types of brain tumors
2322that this system can't cure. The worst problem is that in the case of very large tumors, the
2323tumor is killed, but sometimes having a big, dead mass in your body overloads the
2324body's cleanup system, and that can kill the patient. The best way to be sure this doesn't
2325happen is to go through the treatment every half year. That way, really big tumors don't
2326have time to grow. Also, life spans and general health are increased with regular use.
2327"In the case of communicable diseases, the system will cure the patient, but then
2328sometimes the patient will contract the same disease again. In that case, just repeat the
2329cure.Eventually, given enough time, the body will develop a natural immunity to that
2330particular disease.
2331"Any other questions you might have are answered in the manual I brought. You ought to
2332read it thoroughly before you try using this stuff."
2333"Tom, thank you. This stuff sounds like magic!"
2334"By your standards, I suppose it is. One man's magic is an-other man's technology. This
2335project consumed over ninemillion high-quality man-hours, which is good, since
2336they needed something interesting to do. Anything else you need,ask for it. Within reason,
2337of course, and as long as you don'task me to violate causality. Well, hang in there."
2338"Thanks again, Tom."
2339He left my office by the same doorway that he came through, after which the door
2340disappeared. Maude never left the room, and Tom never acknowledged her existence,
2341which was typical of him.
2342I glanced at the other, normal door into my office and saw Baron Piotr and my secretary
2343looking in with their mouths open.
2344"Your grace, you have some very strange relatives!"Piotr said.
2345"How long have you two been standing there?" I asked.
2346"Ever since we heard you shouting at the ceiling," Zenya said. "You called for help."
2347"Huh. I suppose I did. Well, don't talk about all this, all right? But for now, we've got
2348work to do. Piotr, get this manuscript down to the print shop. I want six thousand copies
2349runoff by yesterday. This takes precedence over everything, including sleep. Got it? Then
2350move!
2351"Zenya, get a radiogram off to the Atlantic Challenger and tell them to stay in port until
2352they get a special shipment. If they've already left, tell them to turn around! I'll be down in
2353the kitchen whipping up a few hundred gallons of these medicines. Move, girl!"Chapter Thirty-Three
2354From the Journal of Josip Sobieski
2355WRITTEN MARCH 1, 1255, CONCERNING MARCH 1251 TO APRIL 1254
2356I HAVE a few days of idle time before the next semester starts,so I might as well bring
2357my autobiography up to date.
2358As I was lying in the hospital at Brazylport in 1251, the surgeons were saying they would
2359probably have to amputate my infected left foot, when the Atlantic Challenger steamed in
2360with a company of volunteers, two dozen milk cows, and the Cure. I was eating breakfast
2361when a new doctor, fresh off the boat, came to see me.
2362"Don't worry about a thing," he said. "This won't be nearly as bad as what you've heard
2363about."
2364I said I hadn't heard anything at all about the new medicine, but his last statement had
2365indeed started me worrying.
2366"Really, there's nothing much to it. I went through it my-self a week ago, when we
2367crossed the sector line." When he saw the quizzical expression on my face, he
2368continued."They have divided the world up into thirty-three sectors, to contain
2369communicable diseases. Every passenger and crew member on every ship that passes
2370between two sectors has to take the Cure, all at the same time, to stop the spread of
2371dis-eases between areas. Then they fumigate the whole ship, just to be on the safe side. It's
2372a bother, but considering the number of deaths that were caused on both sides when your
2373crew came to Brazyl, you have to admit that it will be worth it."
2374I agreed with him, and told him I was ready to start.
2375"You already have. The butter on the toast you just ate was the first part of it. I'll be back
2376this evening to administer the second part, a piece of cheese. Good day."
2377I grumbled a bit about being medicated without my per-mission. Certainly,I had never
2378done such a thing back when I was a corpsman. Still, I observed no noticeable change
2379in myself, except for the way my foot was continuing to painfully rot away.
2380That evening, the doctor had me stripped naked and propped upright on a toilet by a
2381beefy male nurse who had also taken some of the magical butter in the morning.
2382Five other seriously ill patients were already sitting on the other toilets in the latrine.
2383Armed guards at the doors kept any unauthorized personnel strictly out, since we were
2384shortly to become very poisonous individuals.
2385The doctor then placed a carefully weighed slice of cheese on each of our tongues with a
2386pair of tongs. It looked and tasted very ordinary, but he was treating it like the host, so
2387I took it seriously as well.
2388In about a quarter hour I started itching. We were told that this was caused by the death 
2389of all the tiny animals that had previously taken up residence on our skins, and that shortly
2390it would no longer concern us.
2391This turned out to be perfectly true, since I was soon vomiting and shitting great spews
2392of unmentionable fluids from both ends of my person with such rapidity that I was
2393usually unable to decide which end I should point at the toilet, and with such force that
2394such of it as was reasonably aimed generally overshot the toilet and splattered on the
2395wall behind. I managed all this while hopping around on my right foot, the left one being
2396still blackened, rotten, and painful.
2397True to the doctor's promise, I hardly noticed any itching during this phase of my cure.
2398The worst of it was over by midnight. Sitting weakly on the toilet, I noticed a mosquito
2399that landed on my hand, but I was too exhausted to shoo him away. It started to sting
2400me,then stopped and fell over. Dead.
2401After a bit, my fellow patients and I were taken to theshowers and washed, while another
2402crew hosed down the la-trine to ready it for the next batch of victims.
2403My left foot, which was, after all, the object of this exercise, looked worse than ever
2404when they finally took me back to my room.
2405I felt much better in the morning, and even better yet after an attractive female nurse
2406gave me the last part of the Cure,which included an all-over body massage with a special
2407oil. I was walking again in three days, and my foot was completely healed in another
2408week.
2409Amazing stuff, the Cure.
2410I was promptly put on the planning committee that was working on a program to stamp
2411out the plagues we had started among the Brazylians. The areas we had stopped at
2412were fairly well-mapped, and we knew the dates when each place was visited. We had to
2413make some very uneducated guesses as to how fast the diseases would spread among the
2414native populations. We then drew circles on the map with their centers at the points of
2415contact and their radiuses proportional to the time the diseases had had to spread. These
2416overlapping circles covered a depressingly large area.
2417We then set up two teams of workers. The A team was tocontain the diseases, and stop
2418them from spreading across the continent. They would surround the contaminated areas
2419by making contact with all the native tribes on the periphery,convincing them of the
2420seriousness of the threat, and giving the entire tribe the Cure. We would then give the
2421Cure to the native doctors, teaching them how to use it and how to make more. The lack of
2422milk animals among the natives was not a serious problem, since our tests had proven that
2423mother's milk worked as well as any animal milk, and there was always a lactating
2424woman about.
2425Once the contaminated areas were completely surrounded, the A team would start
2426moving inward until they met up with members of the B team.
2427The B team would start at the points of contact and work outward, following the diseases
2428through the jungle until the newly introduced diseases were wiped out. Actually, we would
2429be eradicating most of the local diseases as well, sowe would be partially compensating
2430the natives for the dam-age we had caused them.
2431Time was of the absolute essence, since the longer it took to do the job, the farther the
2432diseases would spread and the more people would die. Large numbers of people would
2433be needed if we were to accomplish our objectives quickly, if a tall. Army personnel
2434would be coming as fast as we could transport them to Brazyl. Every ship that could
2435possibly be spared from other tasks was called upon, but they could not begin to bring
2436over enough people to do the job.
2437A major point of our plan was to enlist as many natives in to the program as possible.
2438Without their help, the job could take decades, and the death toll could be in the millions.
2439It took us three years to finish. For most of it, I ran the B team, while Fritz handled the A
2440team. We each delegated most of the administrative duties and spent most of our time in
2441the jungle, keeping in touch daily with the new radios.
2442Before we were through, over a quarter of the continent had been explored. Thirteen
2443gross tribes were contacted, with people speaking over seven gross different languages,
2444most of which we still haven't had time to properly record. Pidgin is rapidly becoming the
2445universal second language in the en-tire continent.
2446At the end of the first year, one of our native teams found Zbigniew! He had lost a foot
2447to some sort of jungle rot, but had found himself a place in a tribe living near the
2448oceans hore as a shaman, storyteller, and toolmaker. He had a wif eand a son when he was
2449found, and he brought them both back with him to Brazyl port. We put Captain Zbigniew
2450on administrative work until the emergency was over, and now he serves with me on the
2451faculty of the Explorer's School. He and his family have the house next to mine on faculty
2452row.
2453Lezek was picked up from the trading station he was running despite impossible
2454problems, and put to work as Fritz's deputy in his own area. Komander Lezek is currently
2455on his way with a company of Explorers to see what India has to offer.
2456Halfway through the second year of the campaign, Captain Odon and Father John came
2457into one of our advanced posts in native canoes. They had found their native, gold-rich
2458civilization, high in the western mountains. They found five separate nations up there,
2459and none of them called themselves the Incas, but they had still made a major discovery.
2460Baron Odon is back in his beloved mountains again, as Ambassador to Hy Brazyl, and
2461with him is Father John, now Archbishop of Hy Brazyl.
2462Komander Fritz ended up marrying Jane, and a few months later, with Jane's permission,
2463he married a pretty little Yaminana girl as well. They are both with him and his new, half native, both-sexes company, exploring yet another tributary of the Amazon, the greatest
2464river system in the world.
2465The Yaminana are now carefully protected from their bigger neighbors, and, without
2466losses due to either diseases or to warfare, their numbers are increasing rapidly. This
2467despite the fact that many Yaminana maidens have elected to marry Europeans. It seems
2468that we have a reputation among them for being very good husbands.
2469To date, there have been more than six dozen of these Yaminana-European marriages,
2470and curiously, they have not resulted in a single child. We are all mystified as to the
2471reason for this. Since the little people's full-sized neighbors were only interested in eating
2472them, there had been no earlier marriages with other full-sized people, as far as anyone
2473knew.
2474Also, while every other native tribe caught deadly diseases even from apparently healthy
2475Europeans, the Yaminana had remained disease free around us, even before the Cure
2476was introduced. Some of us have begun wondering if they really are a separate species, as
2477their own folklore insists.
2478On the other hand, the Cure works on them, and it is only supposed to work on humans.
2479Another of life's mysteries.
2480Once the foreign diseases had been wiped out in Brazyl,the army establishment at
2481Brazyl port was reduced to a group sufficient to maintain communications and support for
2482trade,the missionaries, and exploration. Anna's children, the Big People, have been
2483introduced in large numbers to assist the army's humans. Where the natives have
2484requested it, we have started building and staffing our combination schools, stores, post
2485offices, and churches.
2486Most important, from my viewpoint, those of us who wanted to go home were finally
2487permitted to do so. In the company of Baron Siemomysl, Captain Zbigniew, over a gross
2488of other army personnel, and all of their families, we boarded anew Express-class ship for
2489home. These were half again as fast and had three times the capacity of the Challenger class ships that had once so impressed me. They operated only between large, well established, deepwater ports.
2490I, of course, brought Booboo with me. As I had discovered years before, her lack of
2491intellectual capability made her something of a house pet, but the truth is that it can be
2492very nice,having a good house pet. She was cuddly, pretty, and always anxious to please.
2493With patient training, she had learned to keep our apartment or cabin neat and clean, and
2494in time I learned to love her for what she was.
2495Maude was waiting for me on the crowded dock as ourship, theBrazylport Express,
2496pulled into Gdansk. Lord Conrad was with her, as were Maude's four children, Molly,
2497Megan,Mary, and Melinda.
2498Lord Conrad was very polite to me, but soon begged off to speak with Baron Siemomysl.
2499Maude greeted me warmly, and introduced me to her daughters, whose greeting
2500kisses were almost improperly sexual. I introduced them to Booboo,and I could see in an
2501instant that she and Maude would like each other. They hit it off perfectly, and each
2502seemed to intuitively understand the other. I was much relieved. If they had hated each
2503other, I don't know what I would have done.
2504The custom was now that each family in the army should have at least one Big Person
2505attached to it. Margarete had asked to be in our family, and Maude accepted her in my
2506name.
2507It was late in the day and arrangements had been made at anew hotel on the Vistula
2508Lagoon, run by a company with a snowflake fort a few miles south. When I mounted
2509Margarete, Maude climbed up on my lap, just like old times.Booboo joined Molly, to get
2510better acquainted. As we went slowly to the hotel, I mentioned the passion her
2511daughters had put into their kisses.
2512"I know. They all love you as much as I do. They awoke loving you. I did not know that
2513this would happen. In Tom's world, we did not have feelings. Here, I learned about
2514my emotions. Now my daughters have my love along with my memories."
2515I was surprised about all this, and asked what we should do.
2516"You must love them as you love me. Then you must find them good men of their own."
2517I said that with thought, I could probably find four goodmen in the army.
2518"Four men to start. In time, we will need sixteen more."
2519Startled, I asked her to explain.
2520"It takes four like me to guard one man properly. If Lord Conrad had four guards, King
2521Henryk would want two of them to guard himself. If King Henryk had such guards,Prince
2522Daniel of the Ruthenias would want some, too. Sowould King Bela of Hungary. So
2523would Tzar Ivan of Bulgaria. Then each leader would have only one guard. One guard is
2524not enough. Also, I would have to guard Lord Conrad. There would be no one else. I could
2525not spend all of my time with you. Thus, I had four children for Lord Conrad. I had
2526fourmore for King Henryk. Also for King Bela, and for Prince Daniel, and for Tzar Ivan.
2527It takes four years for my children to awaken. Before that time is up, the Federation of
2528Christendom will expand. More kings will need to be guarded. So I have made more
2529children now."
2530So I was now the head of a household with two wives, a Big Person, and twenty
2531children! I certainly hoped that the Explorer's School was providing me with a big house!
2532I saidas much to Maude.
2533"There will never be more than twenty of my daughters there. They will awaken and
2534leave as fast as I have young ones. We will soon have two more Big People. There will
2535beas many Big People as there are adults in the household. The house provided to you is
2536very large. Your household also will need at least three servants. There will be much work
2537to do."
2538I had been thinking of a long, quiet time alone with Maude and Booboo. Apparently such
2539was not to be!
2540The hotel was a remarkable building, done in a style I had never seen before. It was a
2541squarish, boxy structure, with no thought at all taken for defense, having neither
2542battlements,nor machicolations, nor even thick masonry walls. Except for the large
2543windows, it was completely covered with large,porcelain plates, each a yard square.
2544These plates were em-bossed with bright, polychromed designs and heraldic symbols.
2545I asked if people actually lived in that thing.
2546"It is the new style," Maude said. "It is very comfortable.The outer plates cover thick
2547mats made of glass fibers. It is very warm in the winter. It is cool in the summer. Your
2548new house is made the same way."
2549I said I was sure that Baron Piotr would love it, and hoped that our home would have
2550fewer colors.
2551"I told them to use red and white. You will like it,"Maude said.
2552I grunted. I didn't want to appear an old stick-in-the-mud,but I've always felt more
2553comfortable in a building that looked defensible. Well-a-day. I was soon to be a
2554properly married man, and my days of relative freedom would be gone forever.
2555I was married sooner than I thought, for the great hall of the hotel was all set up for my
2556wedding. Everybody seemed to know about it except me! My family was there, Zbigniew
2557was set to be my best man, and he had three wedding rings ready, for Maude, Booboo,
2558and me. Lord Conrad acted as father of the bride for Maude, and Baron Siemomysl did
2559the same for Booboo.
2560I had no objections to these proceedings, but I felt they should have given me some
2561warning. I mean, it was only by good luck I was still in a State of Grace, so I could take
2562Communion at the mass that followed.
2563No sooner was my short double marriage ceremony completed, with Maude as my first
2564wife and Booboo as my second, than the whole thing was repeated for Captain Zbigniew, 
2565since he had not yet had proper Christian wedding ceremonies with either of his wives.
2566This time,I was his best man.
2567After mass, there was a feast with all of the usual fooling around that is traditional at such
2568events, and then the two trios of young newlyweds were whisked off to our respective
2569rooms.
2570My whole family was there, including my in-laws and my father. Everything was so
2571rushed that I didn't get a chance to talk with any of them, but in the reception line my
2572father shook my hand!
2573That night in bed I made love with Maude first, and then Booboo. While I was patting
2574myself on the back and telling myself that at thirty I still wasn't over the hill, that I
2575could still make love with two women in less than an hour, Megan came into the room and
2576said that she wanted to love me. Maude and Booboo took this as a perfectly reasonable
2577re-quest and made room for her in the oversized bed. And what's a man to do?
2578Maude had said that her daughters would look different from her, but except for hair
2579color, I could hardly tell them apart. Had one of them come to me first, on the dock that
2580afternoon, rather than staying a bit behind their mother, I could easily have embraced her
2581rather than Maude. They hadall looked at me wistfully as we were introduced, and the
2582way they kissed, well, it wasn't what the usual girl will do with a stepfather.
2583So I made love with the girl. As she was leaving, Molly came in, to be followed in turn
2584by Mary and then Melinda. It was long after midnight before I could get to sleep.
2585I think that the Cure must do other wonderful things for a man besides wiping out his
2586germs.
2587The next morning, my father came up to my table in the hotel's restaurant and said, "Son,
2588I have given this matter much thought, and I forgive you."
2589I looked at him calmly and said, "Father, I, too, have given this matter much thought. For
2590fifteen years you have done everything in your power to make my life as unpleasant
2591a spossible. When I was a young boy of fifteen, I loved you and I needed you. Your
2592senseless rejection of me hurt me very badly, when I had done nothing to harm you or
2593yours, except to try to live my own life. I still don't understand why you were so angry
2594with me, but I do know this:
2595"Now I am a man, and I say that any man who would so hurt someone who loved him,
2596and who continued hurting that person for so many years for no other reason than
2597stupid pride, I say that such a man is an unspeakable asshole, andone with whom I will not
2598associate.
2599"Father, I do not forgive you!"
2600And with that, I collected up my wives and daughters, we mounted our Big People, and
2601we rode home.
2602I never spoke to my father again.