Cast Under an Alien Sun (Destiny's Crucible)

by Olan Thorensen

  Filtin looked surprised. “The wife divorcing the husband? That rarely ever happens.”

  “Except for cases like you saw in the justice session,” Cadwulf chimed in. “You must understand that in a divorce, unless there are extenuating circumstances, the children and the property of the couple go with the father and his family, if the father demands it. This means that if there are legitimate children, the wife might only ask for divorce if the husband didn’t want the children or any property that once belonged to her. Otherwise, she’d have to go back to her family with no children and no possessions, except her clothing.”

  “And you don’t see this system as putting more burden on the woman than on the man?” queried a disgusted Yozef.

  Filtin raised an eyebrow. Though he didn’t say anything, Yozef interpreted the expression as, “What are you talking about?” Cadwulf seemed to consider this a novel idea, although he simply said this was the custom.

  By now, they’d made almost a complete circuit of the fair and stopped, as they considered what to do next. A stocky woman walked by, nodded to the two Caedelli, and bestowed a longer smile and look at Yozef. He found his gaze lingering as she walked away. Did her hips swing a little more than necessary or was it his imagination? And she wasn’t so much stocky as sturdy, with well-shaped calves and arms. She looked about thirty, with brownish hair somewhat bleached looking, he assumed from the sun, since her face showed weathering with only the beginnings of lines that would deepen with age.

  Filtin elbowed Yozef back to attention. “Well, I see you’re not totally oblivious to women. Actually, that one might be a good candidate for you.”

  Cadwulf frowned reproachfully at the other man but grudgingly agreed.

  “She looks familiar,” said Yozef. “Who is she, and why would she be a candidate, if I was so interested?”

  “Her name is Bronwyn Linton,” said Cadwulf. “She sat on the opposite end of our pew during the justice proceedings last week. I mentioned her to you. She owns a good-sized farm north of Abersford.”

  “And she’s a widow,” Filtin piped up.

  “Her husband died about two years ago in an accident on their farm.”

  “And she’s a widow,” repeated Filtin, “who hasn’t bedded a man in those two years, if the rumors are true.”

  “She’s attractive enough, and if she owns a good farm, I’d expect there’d be many men interested in her,” said Yozef.

  “Remember our talking about the shortage of men,” countered Cadwulf. “She’s a strong woman with good common sense, and there aren’t that many possibilities for her once you rule out married men. I’m not surprised she gave you a good look. The one exception to a woman’s property transferring to a new husband is if they register that agreement. She almost certainly knows who you are, the mysterious stranger who is becoming wealthy and is unmarried. Therefore, she knows there’s more chance she could keep ownership of the farm if you married.”

  At that moment, Filtin’s wife with two children in tow interrupted the lesson in Caedellium mating customs. With his free time expired, the family went off to find a midday meal at the food shops. Cadwulf also excused himself as having something he needed do, and Yozef found himself alone again and thinking.

  Is This Home?

  Yozef walked back to his house as the sun set. It had been a good day.

  Maybe it was time he admitted this was home. Here and now. Not Berkeley, the United States, or even Earth. Here. Anyar. Caedellium. Abersford. It wasn’t the life he would have chosen, and he’d always miss what he’d lost, but here he made a difference. He had friends better than any he’d ever had on Earth. He was changing the trajectory of Anyar’s future by the knowledge he introduced, even if no one here realized it now or perhaps ever would in his lifetime.

  He could see the lights from his house. Elian would have evening meal ready. She had relaxed around him enough to mother him, and even Brak was almost jovial—at times. He would sleep solidly this night, then rise in the morning to fill his day with interesting projects. It was a good life.

  Chapter 24: A World beyond Abersford

  Yozef accepted himself as introspective. Not that he didn’t enjoy fellowship, but there were always times he needed solitude to settle his mind and emotions. His time on Anyar had focused on the abbey complex, then expanded to Abersford and its immediate surroundings, including his cottage. When he felt the urge for more isolation, he walked the coast and country west of Abersford.

  The territory was unpopulated, he assumed due to the rough terrain and lack of roads. At first, he would hike a few miles or more along the coast and inland. During his initial wanderings, he found a cove with a picturesque beach a hundred yards wide. At lower tides, the rocks at the opening of the cove absorbed most of the waves’ power, but during high tides, major surf broke onshore. The combination of gentle low and the more vigorous high tides resulted in the sand being kept within the cove, but every day the beach had at different contour. Rising from the shore, a gentle grassy slope ended two hundred yards at a tree line of mixed Anyar and Earth species.

  The first time he stood at the high-tide mark, Yozef decided it was perfect. He guessed the distance at about three miles from Abersford and the abbey; otherwise, he’d have wanted a house right there up against the trees, close enough to hear the surf, but not too close to the sound or spray. While hiking back to Abersford, he decided to investigate how to purchase the land and build a small retreat house.

  He frequently returned to the same cove, though as he explored more, he rode a horse. His horse. Carnigan had selected a small gray gelding, assured Yozef a child could ride it, and gave him rudimentary riding lessons—enough to keep Yozef on the horse’s back most of the time.

  “Why did you name the horse Seabiscuit?” Carnigan asked the first time Yozef cursed the unoffending animal after falling off.

  “It’s the name of a famous horse back where I came from,” Yozef groused.

  Even Yozef had to admit Carnigan was right. Seabiscuit was probably the mellowest horse on the island, making him just within Yozef’s ability to ride. The first few trips from the house to and from the abbey or village were major adventures, and only later did he ride Seabiscuit to venture farther afield during his wanderings west of Abersford.

  Inland, he discovered the charm and mystery of a multitude of small valleys, dales, ravines with widely varying terrain, rock formations, and flora. It was farther along the coast where he stumbled on the resources for his next enterprise.

  Two sixdays after the Harvest Festival, Yozef extended his wanderings along the beaches and cliffs beyond his cove and came upon what he ended up calling Birdshit Bay. In retrospect, it wasn’t a bay at all, maybe an inlet or a fiord, except the enclosing hills were lower than his vision of a real fiord. Whatever it was called, a mile-long finger of water intruded from the coast inland. Rocky cliffs framed the quarter-mile-wide and deep central channel, and at the mouth of the inlet and out to sea sat rock formations up to a hundred yards across. At first glance, the flat surfaces of the cliff tops and offshore formations appeared chalk-like. Only after closer examination did he realize the whitish rock was guano. A cursory survey suggested that twenty- to forty-foot-deep solidified guano covered the offshore formations, while those on the cliff tops were up to eight feet thick.

  The source of the guano was no mystery; the rocks and the skies teemed with a menagerie of flying creatures, birds from Earth and Anyarian murvors. The murvors appeared to be birds from a distance, but up close, they had more reptilian-like heads and longer, thinner feathers. Both features indicated a separate evolutionary history to the same niches as Earth’s birds.

  Wherever they evolved, the flying creatures seem to get along with one another. Obviously, they all contributed to the guano, but most of the deposits must be from the murvors, assuming he was right that birds and humans had arrived on Anyar about the same time, only a few thousand years ago.

  Yozef walked the length of the
inlet along the cliff tops until he reached the end, swarms of flying creatures swirling around him the whole length, while he thought of fertilizer. Guano contained all of the major nutrients for plants—nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium. Christ! There must be enough guano in this one spot to supply most of the entire island’s fertilizer needs for decades, if not longer. He wondered whether the islanders already used it for their crops. He’d have to check when he got back. If they didn’t, maybe this was his next project.

  A second use for the guano occurred to him only when he was in sight of his house and a stray thought included the Narthani. Gunpowder! The main ingredient was potassium nitrate. It was usually sourced from mineral deposits but could be isolated from excrement, such as manure piles and guano. Yes, he remembered. Potassium nitrate could be extracted from bird guano by a series of filtering and precipitations, but bat guano was a better source. The South in the U.S. Civil War used guano from bat caves as a major resource in making gunpowder.

  He didn’t know whether the Caedelli made their own powder or imported it, but if these Narthani were a big enough threat, more sources of gunpowder might be important. He’d need to check about both fertilizer and gunpowder.

  His inquiries confirmed that guano deposits were common to the coasts of Caedellium, but its use as fertilizer was unknown.

  Not really a surprise, mused Yozef. With so much fertile land and the island relatively underpopulated, there was no pressure to increase yields over what they already produced.

  As for the farmers using guano to fertilize, the obvious question was “Why would the Caedellium farmers care if they could increase their crop yields?” The Narthani embargo of trade resulted in the island’s farmers producing more than there were markets for.

  But this won’t last, Yozef figured. Eventually, trade would start again, and increased yields from fertilizer would pay off. It wouldn’t be of any use right away, but fertilizer was a good long-term investment, even if years from now. He’d also need to investigate whether there was a market for gunpowder.

  To pursue fertilizer production, he needed an action plan. First was to find out how to buy or lease the land from the current owner. Then, hire workers to mine enough guano to test, and find farmers willing to find out how much of this fertilizer to apply, how many times to apply, and when in the growing season to apply it. Increased yields might not tempt farmers to cooperate, so he might have to pay farmers for the use of their land and aid in the experiments. Depending on the cooperation of the farmers, he might also need to hire someone to manage the tests, both to keep accurate records and to make sure the farmers didn’t do anything to invalidate the outcomes.

  Filtin Fuller confirmed Yozef’s supposition that inquiries into property ownership of land needed to be through the clan’s registrar system. However, the relevant records and changes in ownership had to come at the district registrar’s office in Clengoth, the district seat fifteen miles east. Not having his aged Volkswagen Rabbit at hand, Yozef’s next problem was getting to Clengoth and back. Although his horsemanship had improved, he didn’t see himself riding Seabiscuit thirty miles.

  There being no formal transportation systems on Caedellium, that left Yozef walking or finding a wagon heading his way and willing to take passengers. He didn’t mind the idea of a good hike, but not in both directions.

  The solution came in the form of an abbey wagon taking a patient to Clengoth. A man visiting Abersford had broken his leg. Brother Alber was returning the man home by wagon, with the patient’s horse tied behind. The man, being moderately prosperous in whatever was his trade, was paying the abbey for both his treatment and the ride home and was displeased when informed it would be a working wagon and not a carriage. He was also disgruntled to learn his paid-for transportation included sharing the ride with other passengers. His complaint to the abbot was futile, and he endured the trip alternately sullen and wincing at the harder bounces. However, the abbey provided him with a straw mattress to lie on, whereas Yozef and the other five passengers sat on burlap bags containing something round and not quite hard. It turned out that two of the passengers had the same destination as Yozef—one man was going to register a major land transaction involving a disputed inheritance, and the other was the part-time local agent of the registrar himself and carried a satchel of papers of everyday matters to copy at the district’s main registrar’s office. The other passengers were a woman visiting family and a young man who told Yozef he traveled to Hewell Province to a scholasticum well-known for apothecary training.

  The trip to Clengoth took two and a half hours. After leaving the low hills around Abersford, they rode into the central valley of the Keelan Province and passed farms separated by scattered groves of trees. It was the longest trip Yozef had made since waking on Anyar. He would have enjoyed the experience and the views more, if he hadn’t had to constantly maintain a semblance of balance while jostling on his assigned bag. Once at Clengoth, he followed the two men with registrar business to the office, then roamed the town for an hour until he figured the others had finished.

  Clengoth was large enough to be considered a town. He estimated three thousand citizens, compared to Abersford’s nine hundred or so. What Clengoth also had was a significant business district with far more variety and a number of shops. Mixed in with smaller shops were a few with up to twenty-five workers, enough to be considered small factories.

  In addition to the local main abbey they passed on the outskirts of Clengoth, there were several smaller abbeys in the town, and by their bells he knew when it was time to find his way back to the registrar’s office. Inside sat two desks where clerks worked with other customers. Several straight-back chairs lined against the front wall near the door, and two chairs were occupied, Yozef assumed, by people waiting for a free clerk. He sat on a chair and daydreamed until interrupted.

  “Next,” said a clerk, who impatiently waved him to the now-empty chair facing the desk.

  “What matter?” barked the clerk.

  “I’m interested in buying two pieces of land near Abersford, but no one there knows who is the owner of the land. I’m told that information would be kept here.”

  “That’s correct. You’ll have to tell me exactly where this land is. Did you get a map showing the location from the Abersford registrar agent?”

  Yozef hadn’t but reached into the leather portfolio he carried and withdrew several sheets of paper, each of which unfolded twice to reveal hand-drawn maps about eighteen inches square. The clerk looked at the top one, then back at Yozef with a little more interest and respect than moments earlier.

  “Not from the local agent,” Yozef apologized. “I didn’t know about getting maps from him. I drew the maps myself. Here is a rough map of the Abersford area, and the land I’m inquiring about is west along the coast.” His finger traced from Abersford to his cove and to where Birdshit Bay cut into the shoreline. He then moved to the second, more detailed sheet, which showed only the two plots and the immediate surrounding land and shore. A heavy line squared around the cove where he dreamed of a house, and two miles farther west other lines followed the contours of the inlet a few hundred yards inland and included the rock formations within the inlet and offshore. “And these are the two pieces of land I’m interested in purchasing, but I need to find the owner.”

  The clerk managed a smile, without cracking his face. “Excellent maps, Ser. As good as the ones the Abersford agent would have given you. If only more people understood the importance of good records and maps, it would make my job much easier. Let me see whether our maps correspond to yours. If they do, then I should be able to determine ownership.”

  The clerk rose and went through a door into the rear of the building. Since the room with the two clerks was only a fraction of the total building, Yozef suspected that where the clerk disappeared included a record repository. Sure enough, a few minutes later the clerk returned with a two-by-three-foot bound ledger and three rolls of large paper. He checked the
label on one roll, then spread it onto his desk. It was a map of the Abersford area. Even looking at it upside-down from across the desk, Yozef could recognize details of the coastline and markings of the abbey and Abersford. The writings on the map were in three colors—the red and blue ink the first he’d seen, other than the ubiquitous black.

  The black ink divided the land into large sections with blue or red numbers. Offering no explanation, the clerk mumbled to himself as he examined the map. Yozef divined that the blue referenced the owner, and red meant there were many smaller parcels, and a scroll with more detail was needed. Yozef’s and the official maps were compared to satisfy the clerk that Yozef’s maps were reasonably drawn, then another roll showed the regions containing Yozef’s two sites of interest. The first thing Yozef noted was that most of the region fell within a single marked parcel, with smaller parcels ending only a mile or so from Abersford.

  This means no one owns the land I’m interested in? That doesn’t seem likely. Someone owns everything.

  The clerk examined the official map closely and compared it to Yozef’s, then looked up. “It appears this is undeveloped land, according to our records. This usually means the terrain is unsuited to common uses, such as farming, and no minerals worth mining have been found there. You have examined the land carefully?”

  “Very carefully,” answered Yozef.

  “Did you find any signs of present or past occupation or human activity?”

  Yozef shook his head. “Nothing I could see. A few game trails, but no sign anyone has been there recently.”

  The clerk nodded and spoke in the rote cadence of someone who has said the exact words innumerable times and was hardly aware of what he was saying.

  Sounds like the McDonald’s worker telling a customer, “Thank you for eating at McDonald’s and have a nice day,” in one breath.

  “Then we can register you as the temporary owner, subject to your showing improvements and use of the land within one year, no other claimants to the land appearing, and continued use yearly thereafter. Any lapse in use of the land, and it reverts to the clan.”