CONRAD'S QUEST FOR RUBBER

remembered me from when I was a little boy at Okoitz who knew her ancestor Anna! She really did have all of Anna's memories.

I had never had a horse before, much less one of the Big People. I was unsure of how to take proper care of her, and Fritz was almost as ignorant as I was, since as a farmer his father had kept only oxen. Rather than risk causing the ladies any discomfort, we paid the stable keeper at the inn double the usual rates, and told him they must get the very best of everything. The next morning Margarete said that she was satisfied, so I considered the money well spent.

Fritz and I spent only a single night carousing in the Pink Dragon Inn at Okoitz, and then he went on his way, to his home near Worms, in the Holy Roman Empire. He was excited at the prospect of going home a true, belted knight, with eight pounds of gold on his uniform, a gold-hilted sword, a modern pistol, and a pouch full of silver at his belt, riding on one of Anna's famous children!

'My parents will burst with pride, and my old friends will turn purple with envy!'

I visited my parents the next morning, and it was the same old story. Everyone was glad to see me again except for my father, who still would not talk to me.

I went back to my room in the inn. I sat alone and thought about my problem with my father. I thought for a long while. I'd already tried using every intermediary possible. The priest. My mother. My sisters and brother. Even the in-laws. I was just going to have to settle the problem myself, somehow.

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.