Isaac pursed his lips. “It is undeniable that trees and mills to cut and grind them can be found in the Emirates and elsewhere. More important than the paper, however, is the words to put on it. I'm quite certain New Israel has preserved more libraries than the rest of the continent put together.”
I wonder if they've noticed how similarly they speak? she thought. Despite the many differences between their lands and governments. “Gentlemen,” she said, does it occur to you that we might all be better served by a triangle trade agreement involving all three of our nations?”
Both men sat up straighter and fastened their eyes upon her. Qusay was the first to speak. “What do you mean?”
They're both so intent on outdoing the other that they don't see the potential synergy here. She smiled in her mind. “We can all agree that the Emirates do not need our crops, and New Israel has little need of our ore. Am I right?”
After glancing at each other, both men nodded.
“The Emirate have vaster forests than New Israel, and although you also have mines in the Appalachians, they are nearly exhausted, while New Israel has richer deposits that are less depleted?”
Isaac shifted in his chair. “What you say is true, Kristana, and is precisely the reason that some trade between our two nations has continued, though independent trader caravans. So?”
“What neither of your countries have, though, is swizzles, according to my own sources. We all know swizzles are useful for wells and irrigation, i.e., farmland, and I have recently been reminded by my own technicians that swizzles are very handy in mines for the pumping out of water and dangerous gases. Unlike animal or human-powered pumps, they never suffer mechanical breakdowns.”
Now she had their attention. “Dixie needs swizzles and ores. New Israel needs swizzles and crops. And Rado will need crops and paper and books. Are you seeing what I see? Xander tells me that his wizard students, in practicing their skills, will make many swizzles. We could set up a three-way trade that benefits all of us. Rado will trade swizzles to the Emirates. The Emirates can trade crops and paper to New Israel in return for ores and metal tools. Then New Israel can print books and trade them and paper to Rado to get their own swizzles. Everyone gets what they need, and no one needs to compete – we all do what we do best. Doesn't this make sense?”
She nearly laughed out loud at the way they were staring at her now. I have them, she thought. From here on, the rest is mere details.
Chapter 76
Xander: lovers and advisors
“My most brilliant achievement was my ability to persuade my wife to marry me.”
– Winston Churchill
He liked to think he would have thought if it himself, had he been there at the negotiations. But give credit where credit is due. “I only wish I could have seen their faces,” he said, leaning his staff against the wall of her bedroom. You're a genius.”
She snorted. “Hardly. Their surpluses and deficiencies are common knowledge. As for our part in it, you gave me the idea for that, yourself.”
He was pretty sure he knew what she meant, but she deserved to brag. “Oh? How?”
“It was what you told me about the students. Both Nathan and Kareef are having a hard time making their first swizzle.”
He nodded. “Everyone else has passed the test but them.”
“They never talk about it, but both Ambassadors are also wizards. Yet the students they brought here have trouble with swizzles. That tells me that neither country has much in the way of wizards who can make or refresh swizzles. So we have something they both need.”
“For now,” he said. “That might change when the boys go home. What then?”
Kristana rolled her eyes. “We both know that's not happening any time soon. If I know you, you'll soon have them both up to speed and so busy researching and teaching with you they'll have no time to leave and start from scratch back home.”
He looked away. “Even if I can (and I'm not saying it's impossible), do I have the right? After all, we do want these skills I'm teaching to spread out as widely as possible. I want to uplift the whole damned planet, not just Rado. If our local civilization rises but theirs don't, it'll be war again until we conquer them or they destroy us.”
“You're worried about right?” She took his head in both hands and turned him back to meet her eyes. “Did I have the 'right' to become Governor when Roberto died?'
He bit his lip. “That was different. Rado needed you. When I helped you do what the General wanted, we were both giving Rado what it needed: continuity and strong leadership. It wasn't selfishness on your part, it was a sacrifice!”
She caressed his hair and kissed him before replying. “I love you for understanding that, but you have to see that this is exactly the same thing. Holding onto your school to ensure that it survives is what the other countries need, even if they don't know it.” She locked gazes with him. “By becoming a benevolent tyrant, I preserved the future of democracy, even if no one but you knows it. By growing your open school faster and stronger than the secret ones, you're ensuring that eventually there'll be similar schools everywhere.”
He jumped to his feet and began pacing by the bed. “I want to believe that. I hope we're not both just rationalizing our selfishness in the service of the ungrateful masses. The problem is, if I can't root out whoever is staging these 'accidents', the school will die in its infancy. Your people will demand that we shut it down or hide it somewhere else, and then it will either be gone, or just another secret society.”
She reached out and grabbed his robe. “You'll find a way before it gets to that point. Now do I have to rip off your clothes, or will you come quietly?'
He let her pull him back onto the bed with her. “With you, I'll never come quietly.” He kissed her. “Although, as I recall you usually make more noise.”
“Fortunately, this building has thick walls.”
Chapter 77
Kaleb: the past is behind, the future ahead
“The Tao is called the Great Mother: empty yet inexhaustible, it gives birth to infinite worlds.
It is always present within you. You can use it any way you want.”
– Tao Te Ching, the Book of the Way, by Lao Tse
His roommate was at it again: mumbling to himself as his fingers turned the flimsy pages of some old book. Esteban's eyes scarcely blinked as he scanned the fine black print by the light of a candle on a stand near his bed. Squinting, Kaleb tried to see what held the other's attention, but all he could see was row upon row of words, some of them, unaccountably, printed in red ink instead of black. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Reading my Bible. What, you've never seen one before.?'
“Why do you read it?”
“I'm looking for guidance.”
“No, I mean, why now?”
“Because it's quiet, I want to meditate and sleep on it. Maybe I'll get the answer to my question in a dream.”
“Well, it's driving me crazy. I can't sleep with you mumbling to yourself like that. Can't you find some other time to do it?”
Esteban closed the book and blew out the candle. “You're not always quiet yourself, you know. You mumble to yourself in your sleep sometimes.” He stretched out on his bed. “Good night, brother.”
Why do you always say that? I'm not your brother. “I don't mumble to myself.” Kaleb threw himself back on his own bed. “Good night!”
Without his even knowing it, his left hand groped under the mattress in the darkness and pulled the ring out. As he slipped it onto his finger, the cool metal against his skin, for some reason, made him feel so heavy and sleepy. His eyelids fluttered and closed. Soon he was floating in the comforting warmth of a familiar inner voice.
You can hear me perfectly, and my words are all you hear.
This was undeniably true.
Now tell me everything you know about the other students.
His lips twitched as he formed words in his head, speaking about Carolyn, Es
teban, Nathan and Kareef. The voice in his head was gentle and patient. It kept encouraging him to supply more details until it was satisfied.
Now this is what you are going to do. I am going to give you a list of tasks, and when I am finished and say the words 'so let it be done', you are going to remember the list perfectly and perform the tasks one by one in order. The voice paused. And when you have complete each one of these tasks, you will forget all about it. Tomorrow night when your roommate goes to sleep, you will put the ring back on again. Do you understand?
Yes.
Good. Here is the first task...
Chapter 78
Lester: midnight musings
“Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.”
– Albert Einstein
Sleep would not come. He gave up the struggle (if lying motionless attempting to pass out could be called a struggle) and glanced at Xander's oil clock. He still had a couple of hours before his turn guarding the stairwell, so he took a seat at the little table and got out the set of little tops to practice his spinspace weaving.
Is weaving really the right term to use for the Space of Spins? He shook his head slowly. Seems a little off. Maybe we should call it twirling instead of weaving. Can't call it spinning, that would be a little too redundant.
He had gotten to the point where he could set up a spinspace pattern anchored on each of the tops that was good enough to keep them turning, as long as he gave them a start by twirling them up to speed with his fingers. One by one he started them all whirring, each in in its own square, resting in a dimple of the board.
He watched them for a while, letting his mind drift. The saboteur making accidents in the building couldn't be Ludlow. The failed apprentice had to know Xander would sense a familiar presence if he came back.
But he wanted it to be Ludlow. The man clearly had mastered invisibility. The proof was parked across the street: the tanks he had shielded well enough to roll right into Denver before anyone knew they were there. Ludlow was no Xander, but the man wasn't entirely devoid of skills.
But Xander had sensed no sign of Ludlow, so tempting as that hypothesis was, clearly their culprit had to be someone else. But who? And if it was one of their students, how had he passed Xander's questioning? It was like one of the apprentices had an evil twin – one that disappeared every morning.
Lester reached out with his imagination and focused the spinspace pattern tighter, making the tops rotate even faster, but he was beginning to find it boring. He wondered what he could do to make the practice more interesting.
He reached over into Xander's box to see what else he could dig out, and when he did this, his elbow knocked one of the tops out of its dimple. It spiraled on the table top, slipped off the edge and ended up lying on its side on the floor. Except it didn't. It was still spinning, and went rolling away under its momentum.
He stared at it, an idea taking shape in his head as the top scurried across the carpet and ended up grinding against the wall until it stopped. Bolting out of the chair he dashed to the stairwell.
Xander looked up when Lester pushed open the door and stood beside the desk where the old wizard had been reading to pass the time of his vigil. “You're early. What's the matter, couldn't sleep?”
“I had an idea when I got up to practice my spinspace.”
“Please tell me it has something to do with catching the troublemaker.”
“Sorry, no. It has to do with motivating the students.” He forced himself to slow down and catch his breath before he went on. “For pathspace, the first incentive was easy: invisibility. Everyone wants that, so it's a great way to get people to work on learning to weave the pathspace. The swizzle test is more of a chore, since there's no immediate benefit to the person learning it.”
Xander set down his book. “So?”
“We need something similar for spinspace. When we get to tonespace it won't be so hard to motivate them, because people love to play with fire. But we need something to make them work at spinspace, and I think I have one answer.”
“I'm all ears.”
“Remember when you told me that we could always refuel the tanks from Texas with alcohol if we needed to?”
“You mean, because they're a multi-fuel design? So what?”
“You don't even need fuel, do you? If you wanted, you could use spinspace to make their wheels turn.”
“Well, I'd rather cast the pattern it on the flywheel, actually.”
“The what?”
“Flywheel. Most of the old motors used them. The engine gets the flywheel turning, stores spin in it, and then you couple it to the axles with something called a 'transmission'.”
“Why did they do that? Why not make the engine turn the wheels directly?”
“Several reasons. For one, most of the Ancient vehicles had different gears, including a reverse gear. If the motor drove the wheels or axles directly,. You'd only be able to go forward all the time, or backwards all the time. So I'd use my spinspace weave on the flywheel, not the axles.”
“Whatever. My point is, we could give the students cars, once they're ready to use them. People love to race on their horses. If the student wizards had spinspace-powered cars, racing against each other would motivate each student to work on his or her spinspace weaves to go faster than the others.”
Xander rubbed his chin. “Maybe so. And where would we get cars for them? It's not like anyone has made any in two hundred years.”
That stumped him for a moment. “Well, the Honcho found those tanks. We just have to go looking. You told me once that the first few floors of this building, the ones we use for the stables because of the ramps that connect them, that those floors used to be used for parking cars. I'll bet there must be cars parked in old buildings all over Denver!”
Xander looked dubious. “There might be, but even indoors I doubt they're in good shape after a couple of centuries.”
“Maybe not, but I'll bet fixing them up has to be easier than making new ones from scratch. After all, we don't have to make the old engines work – all we need are solid axles, wheels, flywheels and this transmission you mentioned. There have to be old books and manuals about cars, if the Ancients had so many of them.”
“All right. Maybe it's not such a bad idea,” Xander granted. “But to get to that point we have to keep the School alive, and that means catching our criminal. We need to work on ideas for that first.”
Lester sighed. “I know. I just wanted to tell you while it was fresh in my mind.”
“Great. Can we get back to the real problem now?”
Chapter 79
Nathan: hard is not the same as impossible
לא משנה מה היד שלך מוצאת לעשות,לעשות את זה עם הכח שלך
“Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might”
– Ecclesiastes 9:10
Things we changing, and not always for the better. Like the fact that their meals were sent up from the kitchen now, and the fact that the stairwell door was always guarded, by Xander or Lester sitting at a desk with the door behind them. Although he secretly suspected that neither of the older men minded having an excuse to sit down with a book Sometimes, he envied them.
Like now. Reading seemed much more rewarding at times like these, when his endless practice He glowered at the length of pipe in his hands. “Positively Sisyphean,” he muttered.
Esteban looked up from his own work. “Positively what?”
“Sisyphean. You know, from Sisyphus.”
Kareef paused in his glaring at his own pipe. “Who's he, the god of sissies?”
Nathan shook his head. “No, he was a king in ancient Greece. He was good in some ways, but deceitful and a violator of xenia. The god punished him for it.”
Carolyn stopped making a little wad of paper float above her palm and joined in the discussion. “Who was Xenia, and how did he violate her?”
Nathan blushed. “Not a person, a custom.
Xenia means 'guest friendship' – hospitality and kindness to strangers and travelers. Kind of the opposite of xenophobia, the fear of strangers. Sisyphus killed travelers who came to his kingdom. For this he was punished in the afterlife by having to roll a stone up a hill. It always rolled down again, so he could never complete his task.”
“Hellish” said Esteban.
“From his name we get the adjective Sisyphean, meaning something that can never be completed.” He looked down at his pipe. “That's what trying to make a swizzle seems like, to me. It's a Sisyphean task.”
Kareef smirked at him. “So which is it? Are you saying you're a sissy, or that you're being punished for something?”
You mean, like for wearing a white robe like my Tzaddik father does...without earning it? Nathan answered his smirk with a scowl and was about to say something when there was a knock at the stairwell door. Lester put down his book and slid his chair out of the way so the door could open.
Xander stepped onto the workroom floor. “I thought you could all use a break from your practicing to consult with me on a major project for the School and for the Governor.”
“Who, us?” Kareef looked skeptical. “We can't do anything special.”
“You can think, can't you? I'm looking for ideas. Sometimes knowing what to do or how to do it is more important than being powerful. I'm looking for suggestions, things I haven't thought of yet.”
Lester scratched at his stubble. “Ideas about what?”
“A way to fix the elevators.” Xander pointed to a double door without handles, set into a metal frame in the wall. Every floor had one or two of these doorways, but Nathan had never seen any of them open.
Spinspace: The Space of Spins (The Metaspace Chronicles Book 2) Page 25