CONRADS QUEST FOR RUBBER - Leo Frankowski

It took me a while to get up my courage, but a few days later I confronted my father. I actually stood in his path and wouldn't let him past without talking to me. I asked him just what he expected of me, and he said nothing. I begged to know just what great crime I had committed, that he should treat me this way for so many years, and he wouldn't talk!

I had to hold him by both arms to keep him in front of me, but still he would not say a single word to me. Finally, he tried to break away. I spun him around to face me again, and when he still wouldn't say a word, I hit him.

Just once, but in the mouth and as hard as I could.

He just stood there, bleeding and looking at me, and still he would not speak to me! Even looking into his eyes, I could not fathom what he was thinking.

I left Okoitz the next morning with the intention of reporting in early to the Explorer's School. There simply wasn't anything else I wanted to do.

I never saw Lezek's foster sister again, but sometimes I think that I should have.

Chapter Eighteen

From the Diary of Conrad Stargard

JUNE 2, 1249

ONCE AGAIN I sat in my office, planning the next expedition of the Explorer's Corps.

The Baltic had been mapped and a number of commercial possibilities examined. The fishing grounds were rich, much better than they had been in the twentieth century. Plans for six motorized fishing boats and a fish-processing plant built into a Challenger-sizedhull were under way.

There were good trading possibilities in the fur trade, in amber, and in timber. The army's commercial products, from window glass to padlocks, had all been very well received.

But most important was the discovery of the vast iron ore deposit in what would someday be northern Sweden, in my old time line. I thought (and hoped) that this was the deposit that made Swedish steel so famous! Coming as it did, just when our seam of magnetite at Three Walls was running out, it reaffirmed my conviction that God was truly on my side! Plans to exploit the wonderful discovery were going ahead at full speed.

Exploration continued as well, with two ships and six dozen explorer lances currently out on the shores of the Kattegat, the Skagerrak, and the North Sea, from the English Channel to the Orkney Islands.

Now it was time to take a big bite.

We needed rubber, or at least some sort of durable, flexible, insulating material, and our chemical industry wasn't anywhere near advanced enough to produce decent plastics.

The only place I knew of where rubber trees could be found was in South America, or Brazyl, as I had named it on my maps.

What we needed was in the Amazon Rain Forest, a place I had heard a lot of mixed messages about. On one hand, there were dozens of horror stories about schools of man-eating piranhas, evil natives with blowguns, and vast clouds of carnivorous insects, not to mention leeches a half a yard long that sucked only warm blood. The place apparently abounded with poisonous darts, poisonous trees, poisonous fishes, poisonous frogs, and poisonous everything else.

On the other hand, I had seen travelogues that made it all look very attractive, with a balmy climate, friendly natives, and good swimming, since the alligators and piranhas were overrated bogeymen.

The truth, as always, was probably somewhere in the middle, but I doubt if it was anything our men couldn't handle. So far, the Explorer's Corps had done an admirable job, with only two fatalities, and those were caused by insanity, probably brought on by a case of cabin fever. Other companies had lost more men than that while engaged in farming!

The Amazon River should be easy enough to find, since it's right on the equator. Just head south until the North Star touches the horizon, and then turn right, and straight on till morning. There's no way they could miss it.

Once on the river, every third lance would be equipped with a riverboat, since land transportation in those swamps would be difficult.

Coming up with a riverboat that could be knocked down and packed in containers for shipment wasn't a problem. I'd put engineering on it a month ago, and a prototype would be ready within the week.

Besides finding rubber, and convincing the natives to collect it for us in return for steel knives, salt, and whatever else they wanted, our explorers would try to get to the headwaters of the Amazon. There, in the Andes Mountains, is a civilized area, inhabited by the Incas. These Indians have lots of gold and silver, but no iron or steel. Such a country could make a wonderful trading partner!

As I was pondering these pleasant thoughts, a very attractive and very naked young lady walked into my office, and my first thought was, Oh my God! Not again!

In the thirteenth century, in northern Europe, a naked lady had much in common with a woman of the twentieth century wearing a bikini bathing suit. On the one hand, it was neither immoral nor illegal, but on the other hand, it was not exactly always appropriate!

But she just stood there, with huge blue eyes and blond hair, wearing nothing but a slightly vacant smile. Not even pubic hair. I realized that I knew her, or rather that I had met her.

In partial payment for stranding me in the thirteenth century, my time-traveling cousin Tom had given me a vacation once in his apartment, which was located in what he called a "temporal bubble." It seemed to be able to exist in any time, and in any place, or even without a time or a place.

This girl had been the cook, the maid, and the whatever-else-you-needed there. She was not human, but was rather a bioengineered creation with a lot in common with the Big People, like my first mount, Anna.

"Well, hello there, Maude," I said in English, which had been the only language she had been able to speak. "What can I do for you?"

She just looked at me, confused, and then said, "I'm sorry, sir, but I don't understand you," in Polish.

"You speak Polish now, but not English?" I said in Polish.

"Yes, sir."

"So they reprogrammed you for a new language?"

"Yes, sir."

"If they did that, my cousin Tom must intend for you to stay here."

"Yes, sir."

Except for the fact that she could speak and looked human instead of like a horse, she was just like Anna. They both had absolutely literal minds. If you didn't ask exactly the right question, you wouldn't get the right answer.

That, and they were both so totally nice that they would never let you know you had hurt their feelings, so you had to work hard at not hurting them in the first place.

"If my cousin gave you a message for me, please tell it to me."

"Yes, sir. Tom said that you needed a bodyguard. He said that you had already ruined me as a servant. He said that you might as well have me stand guard over you."

She said that in her pleasant voice, with the same, unvarying plastic smile on her face, like a characterless automaton. Yet I knew that deep inside she was no such thing, any more than Anna was.

"He said that I had 'ruined' you? Was it because you slipped me that Handbook of Chemistry and Physics?"

"Yes, sir. Yes."

She had to answer both questions, but she wouldn't expand on her answers unless you asked her to. Sometimes, you got used to it after a while.

"Do you feel that I have ruined you?"

"No, sir."

"That's good, because I want to be your friend. I want you to like it here. You're not sorry that you came, are you?"

"No, sir."

"Good, because this can be a very nice place. Now then. My cousin sent you here to be a bodyguard. Do you know anything about that job? I mean, do you know how to fight?"

"Yes, sir. Yes."

"With what sort of weapons? Or do you fight empty-handed?"

"I fight with any weapons, sir. Yes."

"Hmm. I know that you are a lot stronger than you look. Let's go through a few judo throws, slowly, without hurting each other. You can do that, can't you?"

"Yes, sir."

I got up from behind my desk and walked around it toward her. Small and slender, she couldn't have weighed ninety pounds, while I am large. Slowly, with exaggerated motions, I pretended to swing a fist at her. And just as slowly, and a good deal more gracefully, she put me into a hip throw, had me completely airborne, and just as gently set me down on my back on the floor. At one point, there, she was supporting my entire weight with one hand around my belt.

"Yes. That was very good, Maude. You certainly know that part of your job. Can you handle a sword?"

"Yes, sir."

"A knife? Our pistols, and other firearms?"

"Yes, sir. Yes."

''Very good. Later on we'll go down to the armory and you can pick out whatever you want," I said. "Now then, up until now, you worked for Tom. He wanted you to be a perfect personal servant, and that's how you act. Now you work for me. I don't want you to act like a servant. Around here, even the servants don't act like servants. I want you to act like a human being. I want you to be a human being, for all practical purposes. Do you understand that?"

"No, sir"

"Well, first off, one 'sir' per conversation is sufficient, or better yet, call me 'your grace,' since that's my proper title. But only once per conversation. Clear?"

"Yes, your grace."

"Good. From now on I want you to answer not only with I what I specifically ask for, but also with any further information that you think I might need, or want to know."

"Yes… But how do I know what you already know? How do I know what you want to know?"

"You have to guess. Watch the other people around here, and listen to them. Try to imitate their word patterns. If and when you talk too much, or too little, I'll let you know. Just remember that I like you a lot, and just because I correct you, it doesn't mean that I don't like you."

"Yes," she said, with the same vacant smile.

On the one hand, it is difficult to become angry with something that looks like a pretty, naked blond girl who is being absolutely agreeable. But on the other hand, her literal mindset was driving me right up the wall! Deep down inside, she really did have feelings, and I wanted her to develop that side of herself. I didn't dare scream at her for fear of crushing her. All I could do was keep on prattling at her as though she was an idiot, which she certainly wasn't.

"Good. Next, I want to talk about facial expressions. You have been smiling all of the time, because that is what you were taught to do. Real people use their facial expressions to convey their emotions. When they're happy, they smile, when they're sad, they frown, or they cry. When they're angry, well, they look like they're angry. Understand?"

"Yes, but most of the time I don't feel anything."

"I think you have more feelings than you realize. If you let them out more often, I think they will grow, in time. In fact, you might want to practice your facial expressions in front of a mirror, until you get them right. Sometimes it can work backward. Smiling can make you happy, just as being happy can make you smile."

"Yes, I will do that when I can."

"That was very good! One last item, before I take you out and introduce you around. Clothing. Tom didn't see any need for your sort of person to wear clothing, but now you have to do that. People here wear clothing, most of the time when they're not alone. We'll have to get you fixed up with a suitable wardrobe."

For the first time, I saw her frown.

"But I don't like clothes. They're scratchy and uncomfortable. Do I have to wear them?"

"Your language and facial expressions are showing a lot of improvement. But as to clothing, yes, it will be necessary. It gets cold around here, after all."

"I am comfortable at any temperature between minus ten and plus fifty degrees Celsius. I am not comfortable in clothing."

"That's quite a range. Incidentally, remind me later to give you a set of conversion tables between the metric system that you are used to and the army system we use around here. But on clothing, well, there will be some times when clothing will be necessary. You can't go to church naked, for example. We'll find you some things that aren't uncomfortable. Something loose fitting and made of soft linen or silk, perhaps. On the other hand, behind closed doors, well, around here you can dispense with clothing if you have to."

"Yes."

"Good. Now, is there anything else we need to talk about right now?"

"Yes. Reproduction. Do you want me to start producing children?"

"Uh, no. Not for a while, at least."

"But you are producing neohorses at a maximum rate."

"True, but that's not quite the same thing. They look like horses and you look exactly like a human being."

"But I'm stronger than humans are. I'm faster. I'm more honest. I have a perfect memory. There are many things that my daughters could do for you better than ordinary people could. Why should appearance be so important?"

I told myself to stand and take it. I'd asked her to act like a human, after all, and she was trying her best to do it. Also, her questions were good, and I didn't have any good answers for them.

"Maude, I haven't thought this thing through. Give me some time. For now, do not reproduce. Let's leave it at that for a while."

"Yes."

"Sometimes, you can just nod your head for 'yes.' "

I pressed the buzzer that called my secretary, Zenya, into my office. When she came in, she tried hard not to stare at or to even notice the naked girl in the office until I introduced them.

"Maude, this is Zenya. She is a good friend of mine, and you can trust her. Pay close attention to what she tells you."

Maude nodded yes.

"Zenya, this is Maude. She will be my bodyguard from now on. Put her on the payroll at four pence a day, and with a drawing account for as much as she needs. Then I want you to see about getting her some clothes, enough so that she is ready for any occasion, including church. She is not used to wearing clothing, so I want you to make sure that they are as comfortable as possible. You will have to show her how to wear them, as well. Fix her up with a room in my household's chambers, and get her settled in. Make sure that she has everything she needs. Then, when you've done that, take her down to the armory, and let her have anything she wants."

"Yes, sir," Zenya said. "Will there be anything else?"

"Yes. Over the next few weeks, I want you to spend a lot of time with Maude. She's not used to our ways yet. Try to be her big sister. Help her out whenever she needs it. And one other thing. Find out how she got into my office, past the guards at the gate, past all the people in the outer office, and past your desk. Or, try to find out, anyway."

The girls left together, talking quietly.

And I sat down to have another think session. I knew that Tom's professional Peeping Toms — the people he calls the Historical Corps — have everything in the world, throughout all of history, completely bugged. They say that they are writing the definitive history of mankind, but I have some doubts about them. Be that as it may, I knew Tom would be told everything I said out loud concerning him.