A Dubious Peace

by Olan Thorensen

  Whatever had transpired during Gaya’s trip to Munjor, the kingdom was obviously eager to develop the relationship. A second shipment of craftsmen came on the initial run of a scheduled monthly arrival of a Munjorian trade ship that also carried updates on Narthani activity. Yozef revived his thought of recruiting Ranglid Amapunt away from Preddi. Balwis’s initial annoyance at having a useful staff member taken away was ameliorated when Yozef assured the Preddi hetman that the foreign ambassadors and representatives would eventually be allowed to move to Orosz City.

  In the meantime, Yozef began laying the groundwork for the hetmen’s not noticing Amapunt becoming more visible in Yozef’s interactions with foreign delegations. Eventually, he planned on Amapunt moving to Orosz City as a real or ghost leader of the Department of Foreign Affairs.

  A Fuomi Evaluation

  Most of the attendees had left the cathedral when Lorta Tuvasalo, an aide to Ambassador Irvod Koskanin, found the ambassador and Eina Saisannin standing in a rear corner. Tuvasalo carried a large leather case containing the cello-analog he had used as part of the day’s orchestra.

  “An interesting performance, Lorta,” said Eina Saisannin. “Frankly, better than I expected. I heard Heather playing and singing before, but this was different. And yes, yes, I know you told me to be surprised.”

  “Well, I don’t know anything about music and don’t care, Lorta,” said Koskanin, irritated. “I agreed to let Saisannin take you away from other duties for a time. Do you have anything to tell me about the Amerikans that relates to our mission?”

  The musician looked at Koskanin. “As I told Lady Saisannin, many of my family’s members are well-known musicians, and I play several instruments. I also studied music composition in Loksia and apprenticed with its orchestra’s director before I entered the diplomatic service. As asked to do, I joined this local music group. I can hardly call it a real orchestra. Oh . . . most of the musicians are what I would call competent-enough amateurs, but only a couple of the Caedelli and ex-Narthani would qualify for positions in even minor orchestras in Fuomon.

  “However, the music introduced by the woman named Chen is surprising because it implies a background in music theory incompatible with this island. Three of us worked on composing and arranging the music you heard today. I think the man named Pernel shows a natural talent but has virtually no formal training. The woman is different. Most of the final products were due to the interaction of the two of us. She also has natural talent, but unlike Pernel, she’s had significant training, though probably not as much as me. However, she has an impressive memory of music from Amerika, where she’s from. I tried questioning her about Amerika, as I was asked to do, but she almost always deflected.

  “Anyway, I can tell you that this Amerika has a deep music history. What we played today is only a fraction of the examples of music I’ve heard from her. In some cases, she played samples or described specific music pieces, but I didn’t have to pretend to be interested in learning more—she seemed eager to share. If I were to compare it to Fuomon’s music history, I’d say Chen’s music reflects different music history eras and from more than a single culture or nation. With the caution that I come from Fuomon, so I come with an opinion, I believe Fuomon’s music can reasonably be considered the most advanced on Anyar, at least in theoretical aspects. Several of the Amerikan music pieces would easily be welcomed in Fuomon. Even the Loksia orchestra would play them, although I think they would first need to be developed more to account for our different musical instruments and larger orchestras, which several of these pieces were clearly written for originally.

  “I also know some of what we played are excerpts of larger pieces. I’ve asked Chen about that, and she acknowledged it. She’s obviously reticent about giving details of Amerika but is more open when the topic is restricted to music. By longer pieces, I mean half an hour or more. Those are more common in the eastern end of the Throat, especially choral and opera music, but not so much around the western Throat. Evidently, Amerikan music pieces for orchestras can go up to two hours, which may be more like those in Fuomon than anywhere else. Certainly, the Caedelli have no such history.

  “Fascinating were the pieces by the Amerikan composer named Bahk. If I had heard it in Fuomon, I would have instantly suspected it was a new composition by Tuulin Voskala. Uh . . . you may not know, Ambassador, but Voskala has been a resident composer at Loksia since he was eight years old. He’s been prolific and is widely considered to be the greatest composer ever. Even more impressive are his writings on music theory. The features of the Bahk piece we played fit well into Voskala’s work, such as intertwining melodies, the importance of underlying bass, and melodic development. I tried to trick Chen into revealing she had knowledge of Voskala’s work, but I believe her ignorance was real.

  “As I said, Chen seems to make an effort not to divulge information about Amerika. However, she inadvertently let things slip that can be put together. For example, she indicated this composer named Bahk has been long dead, perhaps for centuries, probably much longer than the other composers she wanted to attribute for some of the pieces we played. Now, I cannot be certain that the history of music development has to be the same for cultures that don’t have direct contact with each other, which I assume is the case for Amerika and Fuomon, but I can’t help but wonder if it means that the Amerikan culture is either much older than Fuomon’s or that it is developing faster than ours. Again, this is only my wondering.”

  Tuvasalo stopped. “That’s all I can tell you.”

  Koskanin and Eina had listened without comment, but the ambassador stroked his upper lip with a finger. Eina nodded to Tuvasalo.

  “Thank you, Lorta. Keep working with Chen for now, and we may have more questions.”

  The musician’s expression indicated he wanted some answers, but he walked away without speaking.

  “Outside,” said Koskanin, “to be sure no one overhears us.”

  They walked out of the cathedral. Hundreds of people milled around, either lingering after the performance or going about their routine activities.

  “Not here either,” said the ambassador. “I have to get back to the embassy, so let’s head in that direction, and we’ll talk when it’s clear. That way, you don’t have to make the entire trip back and forth.”

  Ten minutes later, they passed out of the city’s main gate and followed a paved path paralleling the city wall. Traffic was light, and two minutes later, they came to a park being developed. The transplanted trees had been in the ground only a few months, but several benches were scattered across the ten to twelve acres. They moved to a branched path and found a bench where there were no humans within a hundred yards.

  “Lorta’s report is just one more support for what we believe,” asserted Koskanin. “This Amerikan is part of an old civilization, possibly as old or more so than any known on Anyar. The only other option is they are a nation of geniuses—something the small sample of three Amerikans we know of does not support. Oh . . . all three of them are intelligent enough, and they may be exceptional examples, but you and my agents have collected enough descriptions of their relatives and their previous lives to make their people seem like any cross-section you might find in Fuomon.”

  “I agree,” said Eina. “I’ve had more contact with Yozef than any other Fuomi, except maybe for Kivalian, but over the years, Yozef has mentioned his family enough times that they appear to fit an ordinary family. I’ve carefully probed so as not to alert him, but I conclude his people would resemble ordinary Fuomi, except, of course, for language and culture details.”

  “So, let me summarize,” said Koskanin. “A reasonably old culture, one that has had time to develop technology and knowledge in advance of any realms we know of, which Lorta believes has a music history to at least match ours, and whose location remains unknown. How is that possible?”

  Eina reluctantly shook her head. “If we did not have evidence of the Amerikans, I would have said it wasn’t possible
.”

  “Saisannin, your earliest reports from here stated your belief Kolsko was hiding aspects of his origin. Our failure to get more information after all this time, even with opportunities to investigate the two new Amerikans, only adds to the mystery.” Koskanin drummed fingers on a thigh. “I don’t like mysteries, Saisannin. I also worry about what the Caedelli are hiding from us. They settled the telegraph problems pretty quickly after Kaldwel appeared. Yet Kolsko didn’t tell us about it until much later, when they were already expanding the system around the island.”

  “Yes, but he did pass on the information to us, and we’ve sent it on to Fuomon. It’s going to have a major impact, on both our industry and the military.”

  Koskanin frowned. “Which only means they fulfilled their obligation for the arrangement they made with Rintala, who headed the mission that first came to Caedellium. But not only were they slow in giving us the information, we also suspect they have more going on with the steam power work than they are revealing. We have tantalizing hints that the joint steam project near Adris City is not the only effort underway. And why hasn’t the Amerikan Kaldwel been more involved in the joint work? Kolsko mentioned that Kaldwel is one of the Amerikan ‘engineers’ he’s wished were here. And just where does Kaldwel go when he leaves Orosz City for days or sixdays at a time?

  “Kolsko has restricted our people from traveling around Caedellium, except for Kivalian, and I’m not sure he still has loyalty to Fuomon. He’s acting more and more like a Caedelli. And I don’t believe that Kolsko’s rationale for limiting our travel is because he’s not allowed the other ambassadors to even leave Preddi Province. Why would he care about aggravating the ambassadors more than they are about our being in Orosz City and having regular access to Kolsko?”

  Eina didn’t respond. She had the same concerns. However, it was Koskanin’s longer-term views that conflicted her. He had expressed them to her on several occasions, and she anticipated another episode. She was right.

  “We have two major long-term concerns. Is this Amerika a potential threat to Fuomon? This is an obvious concern if their technology is as much ahead of ours as it seems to be. Then, even putting that aside, could Caedellium be part of a future center of power in this part of Anyar? We all believe the Narthani will eventually fall, and Fuomon wants to be in position to take advantage when that happens. Could we end up being opponents of the Caedelli many years from now?

  “Well . . . we need to double our efforts here. We need far more information. I assume you’ll do your best. I want you to give reports at the embassy every sixday, starting three days from now.”

  Without further words or a parting salutation, Koskanin rose from the bench and walked east toward the embassy. Eina watched him until he was out of sight. She remained another half hour going over the day’s events and discussion. She didn’t doubt that Koskanin had just given her orders to produce more information and a warning that he had reservations about her. When she stood up to return to the cathedral complex, she remained disquieted for many reasons.

  Koskanin was also disquieted. He had been suspicious of Saisannin’s loyalties from reading her reports, and more so once he’d arrived on Caedellium. He had considered ordering her back to Fuomon but refrained once he realized she had a close association with the Kolskos. Even a questionable agent that close to the Paramount was better than none at all.

  CHAPTER 25

  PROGRESS AND BETRAYAL

  Plastics

  Yozef’s mood was bolstered both by Mark’s reports and when progress was reported with a plastics project. He had managed to spend enough hours the last sixdays to shepherd the three-man-and-one-woman staff. On the day of the project’s success, the five of them stood admiring a golfball-size lump of a hard whitish substance.

  Yozef picked up the object of their attention and rapped it against the stone workbench.

  “Definitely hard,” he said. “Congratulations, people. You have made the first plastic to exist on An . . . er, Caedellium.”

  The woman leader of the team shook her head. “I admit, Yozef, despite your reputation, I didn’t see how we were going to turn cattle milk into this plastic you described. We all should have known better.”

  “That’s all right,” he said. “It’s certainly not an obvious thing to expect.”

  Success had not come quickly. First, they had to confirm that Anyarian bovine milk was as high in casein phosphoproteins as milk from cows on Earth. They also tested the milk from krykors and found it to have an even higher casein composition. However, the krykor casein was locked up in micelles more resistant to processing than bovine casein. That left it open for using krykors in the future if they could work out the micelle issue.

  Isolated casein protein was extruded as a paste into rods or sheets, then compacted by pressure, and this was soaked in formaldehyde to create crosslinks between casein molecules to make the final plastic hard and insoluble. The second major problem was making formaldehyde. The simplest route for the existing technology was heating methanol in the presence of oxygen and a silver catalyst. As with too many chemistry ideas, a limiting factor was the availability of feedstocks. In this case, to make formaldehyde they needed to make methanol. Fortunately, the procedure was simple in concept, though it took development time. The earliest method was known by the ancient Egyptians. Wood was heated in the absence of oxygen, and methanol was purified from the condensate of liberated gas. If demand for methanol increased enough, Yozef would have to work with Mark to ramp up the technology to turn wood into syngas to get higher yields of methanol per ton of wood.

  He picked up the white lump to examine it more closely, then rapped it again on the bench top. “Go ahead and experiment more on the procedure, but I think you can also start working to produce it in small sheets of different colors. Once you can do that, we’ll pass the sheets on to craftspeople to see what they can do with it.”

  He would drop suggestions to the craftspeople, but he was confident they would come up with more ideas than his for buttons, pipes, combs, and jewelry. The resulting galalith was rigid, too brittle for large piece use, and nonmoldable, but it could be processed like wood—drilled, sawed, polished, glued—and could be produced in colored versions. Commercial markets were often unpredictable, but jewelry had the potential to be a high-value export catering to women who could not afford gemstone jewelry.

  He congratulated the team again and left, thinking he might have to talk with Mark earlier than anticipated about methanol production. With the success of the galalith, there was no reason not to consider moving on to phenol formaldehyde resin to produce moldable plastics. He smiled. One thing led to another. They would also need to produce large amounts of phenol, likely from coal or petroleum. Also, more methanol and formaldehyde from wood syngas. Everything was interrelated and depended on developing infrastructure and basic feedstocks for a genuine chemical industry. Still, he had time, and he couldn’t do everything at once.

  Mood Dampening

  Yozef was smiling, and his steps had a definite bounce days later when he entered his office. He found Maera and Sissel Morgan waiting for him with grim faces. He stopped, one hand on the door handle he’d not yet pushed shut. He looked back and forth as if waiting for one of their expressions to change. On the fourth cycle, he capitulated, groaned, closed the door, and sat in the nearest chair. He hadn’t met with Sissel since she had formally left the MIU.

  “Okay. What is it?”

  “Sissel has come up with something, I’m afraid,” said Maera, turning to the middle-aged woman.

  Sissel was semi-retired but worked with Maera to set up a network of women throughout Caedellium. Their main purpose was ensuring Yozef’s efforts were followed to open up more opportunities for Caedelli women, while keeping another finger on the pulse of the general populace. Sissel reported to Maera, who in turn decided what to pass on to Yozef, an arrangement he was happy about. That way, he could avoid having yet one more item to keep track of. Sissel
was also “tidying up” issues and reports before turning over all MIU responsibility to others.

  “I’ve never been to Nyvaks Province myself,” Sissel said, “but I have a niece who married a Nyvaks man, and they live in the province’s capital, Montron. About a month ago, an acquaintance of my niece’s casually passed on a third- or fourth-hand rumor about the Nyvaks hetman meeting with Narthani before and after the war. Now . . . we always have such rumors floating around. Much of the time, it’s straightforward to judge whether what you hear has any validity—usually not. However, Nyvaks’s past behavior made me believe this had to be checked out once I received a letter from my niece. I wrote back to her saying not to talk about this with anyone else. I then used our women’s network members in Nyvaks to do some quiet snooping. I’ve heard from them that this is a fairly widespread rumor in sections of Montron and the more northerly Nyvaks districts. There is no firm evidence the rumors are true. However, stories circulated about Hetman Nyvaks having made frequent and unusual visits usually lasting no more than two or three days to one remote area of northern Nyvaks for several years before the war and possibly after the Orosz City defeat.”

  Yozef’s thoughts on hearing Sissel’s news surprised him. He felt that he should be angry if the rumor were true, but somehow, he instead felt sad. He and others had had suspicions about Janko Nyvaks. The hetman’s resistance to clan organization leading up to the war and his clan’s persistent foot-dragging during preparations and when fulfilling troop obligations had been raised in more than one War Council meeting.

  “Well . . . we’ll have to look into this further,” said Yozef, “although I don’t say it comes as a surprise. We’ve suspected something like this for some time. I was hoping not to deal with it. However, if it’s true that the rumor is already fairly widespread, it’s bound to keep spreading to more of Nyvaks and to the other provinces.”