He’d been so focused on learning Caedelli and getting through each day that his universe was limited to his room and the abbey complex. Obviously, there was more he needed to know to survive and build a life here.
The recognition of dangers outside the abbey walls brought back other questions that had temporarily retreated. Questions about the Watchers. Their unknown physical appearance was not as important a question as their intentions. Yozef inferred that the Watchers had been around this part of the galaxy for a long time, at least some thousands of years. He believed Harlie when the voice said the Watchers didn’t know who had transplanted humans, both here and on the other planets; Harlie said there had been multiple translocations. Why had he ended up on Anyar? Simply a convenient place to dump him, or was there some rationale? Why Caedellium? Was the island a deliberate or a random choice? Were there other survivors of the collision dumped on Anyar? He doubted he would ever know the answers.
A more fundamental question and one for which even the Watchers didn’t have the answer was why had that other alien race transplanted humans, along with other terrestrial plants and animals? Was it a benign act to let humans spread and evolve on more than one planet? A safety measure to assure humans survived in case something happened to their original planet? A malign act? A reason only understandable to an alien species?
On one starry evening, he sat in the complex gardens and gazed at the stars with no constellations he recognized.
He was likely the only human, on Earth or Anyar, who knew about the Watchers and the other human worlds, and there was nothing he could do with the information. He knew what would happen if in 1700 Earth he tried to describe television and aircraft. Depending on the country and perhaps even the locals, he could end up in an insane asylum or burned at the stake. So forget about telling anyone. Ever. It was knowledge he’d hold close and in isolation. That wasn’t all he knew. Even if he couldn’t share how he got here, he had scientific knowledge that would push Anyar civilizations ahead centuries. But what to do with that knowledge?
For sixdays, he thought about how he might introduce knowledge or whether he dared at all.
Chapter 9: Interview with the Abbot
“Yozef! Wait a moment.”
Yozef stopped and turned to face Brother Fitham. The kindly older brother smiled as he always did.
Fitham laid an arthritic hand on Yozef’s forearm. “Abbot Sistian requests you meet with him in his office tomorrow after morning meal.”
Yozef’s breath skipped at the words. He had been expecting this. “Did the abbot say what he wanted to meet about?”
“No, but I assume he’s interested in how you’re progressing.”
Yozef’s gut tightened. “I’m sure. Tell the abbot I’ll come as soon as I finish eating.”
“Fine, fine.” Fitham patted him on the shoulder, turned, and retraced his steps.
So. It’s that time. I’ve been wondering when the abbot would get around to this. I expected it to happen soon. The fact that I can carry on conversations with Brother Fitham is proof I’m ready to answer questions. The abbot has to be curious in the extreme about who the hell I am and how I got here. His manner is friendly enough, but this is likely to be a serious interrogation all the same. I’d better be on my toes.
He ambled back to his room as he reviewed the past months. The language studies had progressed faster than his initial concerns, based on his experience with high school Spanish and chemical German. He was a sponge, soaking up Caedelli. He knew part of the reason was total immersion. There was nothing to fall back on, to clarify uncertainties in lessons, to socialize, or to retreat into English. Caedelli was it—unless he wanted to talk to himself, which he often did. Even granted the incentives, the speed at which he went from stumbling over a few words to freely conversing was unanticipated. New words keep cropping up, though once he heard them two or three times, he didn’t forget.
Then there was the sheer necessity. He couldn’t communicate for any purpose without the language. In spite of that incentive, the speed with which he was picking it up gave him pause. He knew he was smart. Science, mathematics, yes. Languages, no. Yet here, fewer than three months into intensive study, and he could carry on conversations and read simple texts.
At first, two-way verbal communication was a multi-stage process with a mental English-Caedelli dictionary. A local would say something, he would mentally translate, assemble the suspected correct Caedelli words, and pronounce them back. As time went on, mentally leaning on English faded. He still thought to himself and dreamed in English, but talking in Caedelli became easier day by day.
He thanked God, or whomever, for the simple grammar. The rules were reasonably straightforward, with limited irregularities, compared to the declensions, cases, and genders of Spanish and German.
He wondered whether his progress was only because of necessity or from effects of whatever the Watchers did when they fiddled with his physiology to help him survive? Was he now smarter, or was his memory enhanced? He suspected memory, since he didn’t feel smarter.
“Thank you for coming, Yozef,” said the avuncular-sounding abbot as he welcomed Yozef. “Selmar and Brother Fitham tell me you’ve made amazing progress in learning Caedelli. Enough so that I’m anxious to learn more about you and your people.” The abbot waved to a pair of chairs facing each other, and they both sat. “And the medicants say you’re fully recovered from your ordeal.”
The abbot continued inquiring into Yozef’s condition and was oh so friendly and supportive sounding. However, Yozef never lost the feeling that the agenda was to determine whether he was a victim or a danger, a lost human, an enemy spy, or a demon of whatever pantheon of gods they had here.
“Tell me, Yozef, where is your home? The name of your people?”
Best stick as close to the truth as possible—without telling the whole truth. The closer to the truth he stayed, the fewer inconsistencies would crop up later. Lying forced him to remember what story he told.
“My people are Americans, and our country is called America.”
“America,” said Sistian, letting the syllables roll off his tongue. “America. I don’t believe I have ever heard of America. Of course, I’m not well traveled throughout the world. What continent is America on, or is it more of an island like Caedellium?”
“It’s on a continent, but we’ve had little contact with neighboring peoples. Though I don’t understand why, I know I’d never met any other peoples of Anyar before I awoke here on Caedellium.”
Well, thought Sistian, the world is wide. There were many lands he was sure he’d never heard of. Still, it was unusual the man had never met anyone from outside his own people.
Sistian reached behind himself and pulled a folded paper off a shelf. He laid it on the small table separating them and unfolded it several times to reveal a world map.
“This is a map of Anyar. Can you show me where your land is?”
Yozef looked at the map, his eyes roving over the features of the planet. He’d seen Anyar from images of the globe Harlie had shared with him, but the projection map made clearer the relationships of the major landmasses concentrated on half the globe.
To the left side of the map was an island with more prominent labeling than the other lands. Yozef’s Caedelli reading lessons let him recognize the name of the island, Caedellium. It was about half the size of Texas or Madagascar, maybe some hundreds of miles across. Selmar hadn’t shown him any of this, so he wondered where Keelan lay.