CONRAD'S QUEST FOR RUBBER

that when we enter into a new area, a new sea or a new coast, we will put teams of trained men ashore at intervals of about four dozen miles, ideally at the mouth of a river.

'The team will spend a year or so exploring the area, finding out who lives there, learning their language, and teaching the local inhabitants some Polish.

'We need to know what kind of people they are, what sort of products they produce that might be of interest to us, what sorts of things we have that they might want, and so on.

'We will want to know what minerals and other natural resources are available there, what agricultural possibilities exist, and what the military capabilities of the local inhabitants are.

'We want to know as much as possible about their culture, as well. We want to know about the songs they sing and the dances they do. We want to know the stories they tell, and if they are pagans, we want to know as much as possible about their gods.

'And we will want the area to be mapped as thoroughly as possible.

'Each of our ships will be capable of carrying about a company of men in addition to the crew. That is to say, about three dozen seven-man teams. On a given cruise, it will put the teams ashore and then spend much of the year mapping the shoreline, measuring the currents and the tides, surveying the fishing and other resources, and generally being on hand to help out if any of the explorer teams gets into trouble.

'Does this program sound interesting, so far?'

Sir Odon glanced at the rest of us, sitting on the edges of our chairs, and said, 'Yes, sir. We are very interested.'

'Good. Now, if you find something of sufficient commercial interest at the site of your operations, and if the local inhabitants agree to it, we plan to build permanent trading posts whenever possible. The team that first investigates an area will make a percentage of future profits, and will obviously be the best choice for personnel to run the trading post. It could be a very lucrative proposition, with considerable possibilities for independent action.

'Our ships will visit those posts periodically, of course, for commercial and religious reasons.'

'Yes, sir. You say religious reasons?'

'Yes. We are not going out into the world for crass commercial reasons only. Oh, if a thing cannot pay for itself, we could not afford to do it too often, but our main reason for going out and discovering the rest of the world rests on the fact that the people in most of the world are not Christians. We want to give them a chance to come to Christ.'

'Uh, sir, I'm not sure that any of us are truly qualified to teach religion,' Sir Odon said.

'Well, I am sure, and yes, you're not qualified. If all else works out, your team will need an additional member, a priest. But we'll worry about that later. You will be interviewed by a number of other people. My secretary will give you a list. But so far, you seem to be the sort of people that we are looking for,' Lord Conrad said as he leaned back in his chair, becoming less formal. He looked at me. 'You are the same Josip Sobieski who operated on my eye, that time during the Battle for the Vistula, aren't you?'

I felt my innards tighten up, from my testicles to my throat. I admitted that I was.

'Thinking back on it, it really was an amusing misunderstanding. I've remembered it often, reminding myself not to take things for granted. Assumptions seem to always get me into trouble. I think I might have been a bit rude to you at the time, and I'm sorry for that. Please remember I was under a lot of stress and pain, and forgive me, will you?'

I said there was nothing to forgive, and I was glad when I learned that the results of my clumsy efforts had finally healed.

'Well, there's no proof that it was your fault the eye went blind in the first place. The surgeon who watched the operation said he wouldn't have done anything differently from what you did. So like I said, thank you for helping me.

'Oh yes, one other item. Sir Odon, next time you want to change jobs, please consider that one application is usually sufficient. We really do read these things, you know, and it wastes a lot of valuable time to have eight different barons all reading the same application.'

'Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.'

'Very good. Dismissed.'

Chapter Thirteen

From the Journal of Josip Sobieski

WRITTEN JANUARY 28, 1249, CONCERNING OCTOBER 5, 1246

LORD CONRAD'S remarkably attractive secretary gave Sir Odon a list of people we were to look up, and a slip for the palatine authorizing rooms and meals for us while we were at Okoitz, which spared us the expense of staying at the inn.

We spent the rest of the day making appointments with the people we had to see. There was a medical doctor who would be giving us all a physical examination, since, if we got the job, we would be away from a hospital for years at a time. We had to be healthy to begin with.

There was a priest to see. We supposed he was to make sure that we were sufficiently devout to do God's work among the heathen. There were visits to three linguists, to make sure that between us, we really did speak all of those languages.

There were experts in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, geology, music, radios, mapmaking, and survival training, and finally a meeting with a certain Baron Siemomysl, the man who would be leading the Explorer's Corps.

After supper, the others retired to the Pink Dragon Inn, for a drink and a look at the scenery, while I dutifully made yet another visit to my family in the hopes that my father would finally talk to me.

My visit was just like all of the others I'd made over the years. Everyone was glad to see me, except for my father, who, as usual, walked out as I came in. I was almost used to it by now, like a dull toothache that has gone on for years.

I was feeling depressed as I walked back through the seemingly endless corridors and stairways of Okoitz, going to our assigned room, but I was cheered to find that the others were already back from the inn.

As expected, they had found suitable female company for themselves, and being truly decent sorts, they had invited along an extra girl for me.

It's good to have friends.

Most of the people we had to see were teachers, and their interest wasn't so much in deciding whether we could join the Explorer's Corps as seeing what we each knew about their own specialties, and what they would have to teach us to make us into useful explorers. Mostly, they were planning our curriculum, because, unbeknownst to us at the time, we were going to be spending the next eighteen months at the Warrior's School.

The exception was Baron Siemomysl, who could have sent us back to our oil tanker if he did not like us. But apparently he did, because by the end of the week, they gave our boat to some other bunch of deserving young warriors, and we went to Hell.'

Only we didn't call it that anymore, and it didn't seem like Hell anymore, either. The section of that huge school we occupied was now a lot like the University of Paris, or so said some people who had been to France.

We spent a long army hour every day doing physical exercise, mostly working out with swords, axes, knives, or just fighting empty-handed. But the workouts weren't brutal any more. They were just to keep our bodies in shape while our teachers worked over our heads.

The Explorer's School was planned to have two functions: to train future explorers, and then to organize what we learned about the world into something meaningful. But naturally, they had to do the one thing before they could start on the other.

The first class through the school was only of company size, three dozen lances, but then the first year, we would only have one steamship in operation anyway. To teach us, there were some five dozen instructors, so we