Conrad's Quest for Rubber

by Leo Frankowski

  When we got to the married housing area, some troops were just carrying a new set of furniture into a new building. Four women in Explorer uniforms greeted our ladies and whisked them away. I was glad to see that someone had talked Lord Conrad out of his silly "men only" policy for the corps.

  The baron left, saying, "Come and see me as soon as you are ready."

  We men were shown the way to the showers. An hour later, scrubbed, shaved, and with my hair properly cut, I walked to the commander's office in a new class A uniform, with my tattered logbooks and journals under my arm.

  The baron returned my salute and politely asked me to sit down.

  "Well, now. The short of it is that as soon as we realized the mistake we'd made, we got another expedition together as quickly as possible. Launching the first expedition without any experienced men was an unavoidable necessity, but sending your company out with riverboats that rotted apart in a few months, with radios that ceased to function in weeks, and with food supplies that went bad even quicker, was downright criminal. The army owes you and your men a se­rious apology, son.

  "We've been here for four months now, and with the buildings mostly up, we've started doing what we came here to do. Namely, to get your people the kind of equipment you need, and to test it on-site. Our first ferrocrete riverboat will be coming down the ways in a few weeks, and then we can start exploring properly! We started testing special paints and preservatives the day we got here, and work is already being done on a radio that works in this humidity. But enough of that. Pour yourself a drink and tell me what has happened to you this past year."

  I told him the whole story, and filled my glass several times in the telling. The short twilight of the tropics had started be­fore I was through.

  "That was quite a story, Captain Sobieski. Yes, you've been promoted, and your men have just been promoted along with you. We'll come up with something for your native warrior woman, as well. You all deserve it, and there is a lot of work around here that needs doing. We'll be working together for a long time to come. The rubber you brought in wasn't the first, but a third source of supply will be very valuable, and your discovery will certainly be exploited. Those Yaminana people of yours sound fascinating, and I look forward to talking to your pretty little Booboo as soon as possible."

  I thanked the baron, but said that I was looking forward to a trip home to Poland before long. I had a young lady there who was waiting to be my bride.

  "That brings me to a very painful topic, Captain. I got a message from Lord Conrad three days ago, and, well, you can't go home. None of us can. It was only a few weeks ago that enough men like you made it back to impress on us the magnitude of the disease problem. It now appears that at least half, and possibly as many as three-quarters, of your old company have died of disease. Furthermore, they died of dis­eases unknown in Europe.

  "In order to replace you, if you went home, we would have to bring in at least two and perhaps as many as four other men, and then watch as one, or two, or three of them died of disease in the first year. And that's not the worst of it.

  "If you went back home, you could be a carrier of any or all of the deadly diseases that have afflicted your company. You could start a plague that could wipe out half the popula­tion of Christendom! And the problem gets still worse.

  "We have already started plagues among the native peoples of this continent! Diseases that don't seriously bother us are deadly to them. Out of ignorance, we may have committed one of the worst crimes in history! Whole villages have al­ready been obliterated. In the end, by simply coming here, we may have caused more deaths than the Mongols did with all their armies, swords, and arrows! So you see, we can't pos­sibly let any of our people go home until this problem is solved.

  "Furthermore, we have another company of volunteers forming up in Poland, medical people who are going to come out here to try to find a cure for the plagues we've started. They are coming here knowing that most of them will be dead within the year. The survivors of that company won't be going home, either."

  I sat back, stunned. It was too much, too big. This day I had been raised to the heights on seeing the new base, when I had feared to find nothing but an empty island. Then I was cast down at the thought of my own dismal failure, then lifted back up at the baron's pleasant welcome, and then cast down again by this horrible news.

  I sat there, numb, unable to absorb it all.

  After a while the baron said, "Is there anything else you want to know?"

  I nodded yes, and asked about the others in my company, Captain Odon and the other platoon leaders.

  "Captain Fritz came in a few weeks ago. He's on recupera­tive leave, but you'll find him around here somewhere. Sir Taurus, of course, was killed before you set out on your mis­sion. Sir Kiejstut is dead. He died six months ago of some disease he picked up. They say that his ending was quick. Sir Lezek was reported to have been alive as of a few months ago, several hundred miles upriver. Of the others, we have no definite news."

  So. I still had Fritz and probably Lezek. Maybe Captain Odon, maybe Father John. Maybe even Zbigniew, although that seemed remote. I was twenty-six years of age, and I felt old. Very, very old.

  As I left, the baron's secretary passed me a note, saying that my men and the ladies were waiting for me at the mess hall, after which they would be at the inn. I had news for them, but I went to the radio room first.

  I composed a message for my mother, and a much longer one for Maude, trying to tell her that I was well, but that I couldn't come home to her. I wrote and rewrote that message, but it never said exactly what I felt. No matter how I worded it, it still wasn't right. Finally, I just gave my first draft to the operator and asked him to get it out when he could.

  I was told that the airwaves had been fairly clean for the last few days, and my messages would probably go through sometime tonight to the relay station in Portugal, and from there to Poland.

  It was late when I got to the almost empty mess hall, but the cook scrounged me up some food. I barely noticed the en­tree, but the bread and the beer were so wonderful they al­most cheered me up.

  I found my party at the inn. I was surprised that the army would build an inn at so remote a site, but Lord Conrad was always concerned about the happiness of his men. It was just like every other Pink Dragon Inn, except the carved sign over the door showed one of the local dragons, painted pink, instead of the classical one.

  I found my people scrubbed clean, pleasantly drunk, and comparatively well-dressed. The men at least were in proper uniform, and the ladies had been prevailed upon to wear short cotton skirts, at least.

  When I asked, I found that they had heard of the orders for­bidding return to Europe, so I wasn't forced to break that news to them. I told the men that the Christian Army was pleased with us, and congratulated them on their promotions, calling them Sir Gregor and Knight Banner Tomaz. After we drank to that, I explained that they could now refer to me as Captain Sobieski, if they did so respectfully, and with suit­able bowing and groveling. They laughed, and we drank to that as well.

  I told them that Jane was accepted as an army civilian scout, with the status of an army knight. The pay consisted of room, board, and equipment, plus eight pence a day, retro­active for a year. She didn't understand what most of this meant and was soon talking intensely with Knight Banner Tomaz.

  Our wives had no clear idea why we were so happy about our promotions. Our increased pay had no meaning for them, since they didn't know what money was. Our increased status also meant little to them, because in the society they grew up in, small differences in status had little meaning. You were either the chief or you weren't. But at the inn, they were delighted with the music, the dancing, and the ambience of the place, and they were happy because everybody else was happy.

  Looking at them, I was reminded that they were really very limited creatures, and a life with Booboo would be much dif­ferent from the one I had long dreamed of with Maude. It seemed rude
to even think it, but we three were permanently bonded with creatures that were, at best, pretty, amusing little puppy dogs. And at worst? I couldn't even imagine, but I was sure that it could become very bad indeed.

  I knew that life must go on, but I wasn't at all sure that I wanted to go on with it.

  Before my thoughts got too morose, Captain Fritz came in, bringing with him the eight men of his platoon who had survived the year. After introductions were made, our ladies were all surrounded by eager admirers. Fritz and I found ourselves at one end of the table, deep in conversation, discussing our year apart. It was almost like being home. Slowly, my mood revived.

  I told my story to Fritz, and he nodded and shook his head in all the right places. He understood what I was saying be­cause his life's experiences were so very like my own. As a good friend will, he let me tell the whole story almost without interruptions, before he started in on his own.

  Fritz had found the natives on the south bank friendly from the start. They had immediately seen the value of our prod­ucts, and were familiar with the concept of trade. If they be­lieved in ghosts, they never talked about it. He thought that the huge width of the river must separate two very different nations.

  The people he found did some hunting and gathering, but they were primarily agriculturalists. The dozens of plants they cultivated were completely unknown in Europe, and he saw rich possibilities in trade with them.

  There was a kind of pea in which the pods grew at first aboveground, but then went underground as they matured, actually planting themselves! Dug up, roasted, and heavily salted, Fritz said they were wonderful with beer.

  They had dozens of fruits he had never seen before, and most of them were delicious. One of them, which looked like a big hand grenade growing in a display of swords, was par­ticularly good.

  "On the other hand, nobody ever insisted that we partici­pate in a mass orgy. I think I'll always envy you that one!"

  Apparently, the native girls were not extremely interested in Fritz and his men. They were generally available, but only after you negotiated the size of the gift that was to be given to them in advance.

  "The price was mud cheap, but it still smacked too much of prostitution for me to greatly enjoy it. I scratched the itch once a week or so, but it was mere gratification, and not love."

  The only trouble that he encountered in the first few weeks happened when one of his men was urinating over the side of their riverboat.

  "Sir Ian started screaming, and clutched his privy member. He bounced around for a bit, and then fell over onto his back, shouting the most blasphemous of oaths! I was the closest thing to a surgeon we had on board, so I had a half-dozen men hold him down while I examined him. I couldn't see a thing out of the ordinary, so I had him released.

  "None of our medications had any beneficial effect, and we didn't yet have a native who could speak Pidgin well enough to question what passes for a doctor among them. Ian remained in great pain for three days, during which time he never urinated, and I began to fear that his bladder would burst. After consulting with the others, it seemed that the only thing to do was to cut the member open, to see what was causing the problem.

  "We couldn't even get poor Ian drunk, since that would only have generated more urine. With six men holding the screaming knight down, I took a sharp, clean scalpel and sliced along the last half of the length of his penis. Pints of blood and a gallon of urine squirted out, but can you guess what else was in there?"

  I shook my head, and Fritz continued.

  "There was a tiny fish, stuck in the urine vessel! It had three little barbs, like a catfish, that had stuck into Ian's flesh, and that was what was blocking his pipe!

  "All that we can imagine is that as he was relieving him­self, the fish must have swum upstream, right up his urine and into his privy member! There seems to be no other way it could have happened. As you can imagine, we all used a bucket after that.

  "Well, I sewed the man up, and he managed to live. That is, he lived until he came down with a fever, three months later."

  The rest of his sad story was a matter of surviving a fever much as I had and then building a boat and getting back to the rendezvous. Lacking native advice, since those natives who had not died of their own plague had run away, it took him much longer than it did us to build a suitable boat.

  "I managed to get more of my men back than you did, but I must admire the ladies you brought to replace some of those you lost. I've often had fantasies of having a girl so small that I could carry her along in my pouch, and your new wife comes close to that. If there are more like her where she comes from, I'm minded to go along with you when you re­turn. But for tonight, what is the story on the warrior woman you brought back? I mean, is she really the sort who prefers other women?"

  I said I honestly didn't know about the lady's sexual pref­erences. Her tribe was heterosexual, of course, with women marrying men, but from there on, the usual roles were re­versed. She had fit into my team as one of the troops. None of us males had seen fit to make any advances toward her, as far as I knew, and she had made none toward us. I said that if Fritz wanted to try, he was free to do so, but I advised that he move with great caution, and that at no time should he dare to offend the woman. She could be quite deadly if she wanted to.

  Fritz went over and talked to Jane, and in time their con­versation became more and more animated, with both of them smiling hugely. Eventually, they walked out of the inn arm in arm. I wished them both well.

  After a bit I noticed that my wife was either asleep from too much excitement or had passed out from too much to drink, and that in any event it was getting late. I bid the others good-bye, picked her up in my arms, and carried my little bride home.

  Someone had mentioned that in the course of giving her a medical examination today, they had weighed her in at thirty-four and a half pounds. Cuddled up in my arms, she reminded me of a sleeping kitten. She was very pretty, very precious, but somehow something less than a real human being. I began to believe that her tribe's evaluation of themselves, that they were above the animals but below the true men, was essentially true.

  By no stretch of the imagination could I imagine her be­coming my true life partner. The pretty lady I had married in a pagan ceremony was in truth but a house pet.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  FROM THE DIARY OF CONRAD STARGARD

  FEBRUARY 26, 1251

  I SAT at my desk with my head in my arms. Father Ignacy was in Rome. He was a cardinal bishop now, and he was voting on who would be the next pope. Many said he himself would win the office. I suppose I was happy for him, but the truth was that I needed my confessor, more than at any time before in my life. I had sinned. Oh God, how I had sinned!

  I had sent a company of my best men out on an ill-thought-out mission, and because of me, most of them were dead. Far worse still, I had been responsible for introducing all of the diseases of Europe into the New World, and native Ameri­cans were dying by the whole villageful!

  Killing in time of war has never bothered me, but this hor­rible thing I had done was something far worse than that! It is one thing to kill fighting men who invade your country, and quite another to go to someone else's land and sicken every man, woman, and child there with deadly diseases!

  It was undoubtedly still going on. The damage was still being done. People were still dying. We had no way to stop those diseases from spreading throughout half the world.

  Maude came into my office and stood in front of my desk. She wasn't smiling.

  "Josip sent me a message. He says he cannot come home. He says that if he did, he might spread diseases here in Europe."

  "Yes, Maude. That, too, is another of my sins."

  "You must not sit there and cry. You must talk to your cousin Tom. Tom knows about diseases. Tom knows all about living systems. If you ask him, he will help you. He will help Josip. You must talk to Tom."

  "Tom has helped me out several times before, but I h
ave never asked for help before," I said.

  "You must talk to Tom. He will help you."

  "You are right, of course. People are dying as we speak. This is no time for stupid pride." I looked up at the ceiling and said, "Tom! Help me, Tom! I need your help! If this dis­ease problem isn't solved quickly, I am going to have to stop the entire exploration program! You will never see a world­wide culture! I won't be the cause of making things worse than they already are! I won't be responsible for bringing plagues and the Black Death all across the globe! If I have to, I'll build a ten-story concrete wall all around Europe, I swear I will!"

  A door that hadn't been there before opened up in the wall behind me, and my cousin Tom, dressed in T-shirt, shorts, and tennis shoes, walked into the room. He had a handwritten Polish manuscript in one hand and three test tubes in the other.

  "All right! All right! You don't have to start making threats!" He surprised me by speaking in Polish. I'd never heard him do that before. Thinking about it, I had called to him in Polish.

  He set the manuscript on my desk, turned to me, and held up one of the test tubes.

  "Okay. This is part one. What it does is mark every cell in the body as being human. It must be given at least twelve hours before the next part is administered. That's six of your hours. We call it the butter, because that's what it looks like and tastes like. You can take it as often as you like, and for your regular troops, we recommend a pat of it every morning. That way, the treatment can be started immediately in the event of illness. Also, it doesn't spoil, and it's cheaper than real butter. You can make it even with your primitive tech­nology. You just mix a sample of it with any fresh mam­malian milk, and let it set for a day. That's also how you make the other two parts of this system.

  "This second part is called the cheese, for obvious reasons. The dosage is nine grams per hundred kilograms of body weight, plus or minus twenty percent. It's a deadly poison, and will kill anything alive except for human cells that have been, protected by part one, the butter. The person treated is poisonous to all other life-forms for the next six of your hours. Keep the patient away from plants and pets during that time period. That includes neohorses, wenches, and all the other bioengineered critters.