“What about your wife?”
“Diera? Ah . . . she’d spend more time with patients and studying medical books. She always worries she’s forgotten some piece of knowledge or records of past treatments that she might find useful.”
“What if Diera had access to ten times as many books and records?”
“I’m afraid she would try to drive herself to learn everything, no matter how much there was.” Sistian smiled. “I might have to drag her from the library every day.”
“What if it was a hundred times? A thousand?”
Sistian was silent, his eyes narrowing as he looked at Yozef. “A thousand times as much knowledge? How is that possible? I know we’re remote from the rest of Anyar, but we’re not that isolated!”
“Consider if your people spent half their time in study for a hundred years.”
Sistian sighed and sat back farther in his chair. “I see where you’re headed. I can’t say I truly understand the consequences of what you imply, though I can see how the amount of knowledge could become huge. However, in your proposal, if there’s that much knowledge, how does any one person learn it all?”
“They don’t,” said Yozef. “With this much knowledge, the best that can be done is that any one person can only study small parts of the total.”
“Then they would be almost ignorant of the whole and all the interconnections of knowledge!”
“Not completely. All students study basic topics. This gives some knowledge common to everyone and takes perhaps the first fifteen years of study. Beyond that, we narrow our focus into specific topics and study those in more depth—a common knowledge base and then specializations. While it’s not a satisfactory solution, it’s the best resolution my people have come up with, and many have argued and struggled with the problem.”
“I can see how that might be one solution,” Sistian allowed, “although, as you say, not completely satisfactory. I suppose it’s not that different from here, although your people spend many more years at study than we do. And that explains how someone of your age is still a student.”
“Yes. I had the common ten years of study, followed by another four years narrowing to only a fraction of knowledge, and finally, another two years of even narrower specialization before whatever happened led me to be here on Caedellium.”
“And yourself, what’s the area of knowledge you specialized in?”
“We call it ‘chemistry.’ The study of how to take known substances and use them to make new ones.”
“Chemistry,” repeated Sistian slowly. “Chemistry. I’ve never heard this word. I assume it is in your language. What exactly does it involve?”
“Many aspects would be difficult for me to explain to you because you don’t have the words or background knowledge. This one example may be instructive. You make beer out of barley and wheat. Do you know exactly what is happening during the process of beer-making?”
“No. I assume the brewers do, though.”
“I doubt it. They probably are simply following steps they learned from past brewers. In contrast, our scholastics understand exactly what is happening. The same with winemaking. Although I have never made beer or wine myself, by ‘chemistry,’ I know that both drinks contain something we call ‘alcohol,’ the ingredient that makes you relax and feel good. This alcohol is converted from the ingredients of the grain or fruit—starch in grain for beer and sugar in fruit juices for wine.”
Sistian put a hand to his chin. “So you know about beer and winemaking. Perhaps we could find you employment in Abersford or even the district center at Clengoth.”
“Perhaps. Although the fact that I know more about the underlying mechanisms doesn’t mean that I could make better beer or wine than your brewers or winemakers. However, I believe the basic knowledge would eventually be useful.”
“Well,” said Sistian, “still, it might be something to explore.”
Yozef paused . . . then said, “I suddenly realized there may be something else useful for your brewers and winemakers. I also know some of the properties in your spirits that could allow them to produce a completely new form of drink, one much more potent than either wine or beer. Do you have something like ‘ice-wine,’ where you make wine more potent by freezing it and then removing ice forming before the entire liquid turns solid?”
Sistian nodded. “The northern clans do something as you describe. I’ve tasted it, and it’s definitely more potent. I’ve seen men get drunk after only a small amount. There’s also the stronger spirits that make one drunk even by drinking much smaller amounts. It’s one of the few pieces of new knowledge that the Narthani brought to Caedellium. A shop in Abersford produces some of this with the help of an escaped Narthani slave. I’ve tried the drink; it tastes terrible.”
Hmm . . .Yozef pondered. Maybe some kind of early pot distillation. Interesting. Maybe my example wasn’t that good. And Narthani? I’ve heard this name before, often accompanied by curses. I should ask more about whoever they are.
“I’m sure if I talk with the shopkeeper in Abersford, I could show him how to make a stronger drink faster, unless you think introducing a stronger drink is not good.”
“It might not necessarily be a good thing to make stronger spirits more readily available,” the abbot said with a frown. “Some men already drink too much.”
“Then how about another use for alcohol? As a disinfectant for your medicants?”
“What is this ‘disinfectant?’ Another of your ‘English’ words?”
“I’ve already seen the medicants rinse their hands and instruments with a solution of a thin acid and soap to reduce corruption. Alcohol can be used the same way and would be better sometimes than the carbolic acid. I could show you how to purify alcohol in a form pure enough for use.”
The abbot stroked his beard. “I would have to check with Diera, but I assume she’ll be interested.”
Yozef paused for a moment—it was another opening. “One thing I worry about is how would such knowledge be received by yourself, the other brothers and sisters, and the common people. In my country, this knowledge simply derives from our attempt to understand God’s world, but here it could be considered as having an evil source. I wouldn’t want to cause any discord among your people, and, to be honest, my own safety worries me. Would it be better for me to simply be silent?”
The abbot sat back in his chair, his eyes narrowed toward Yozef. “Not an easy question to answer, Yozef. The Word tells us to beware of the Evil One’s temptations. In some lands of Anyar, I think your worries about safety would be well considered. Even on Caedellium, there are some of the more conservative who’d question new ideas. You may have been fortunate to have washed ashore in Keelan. I believe we’re more tolerant than many other clans, at least with more willingness to listen to new ideas. While this doesn’t mean we might not find something you say disturbing, we’d at least listen.”
Sistian thought for a couple of minutes, stroking his beard with one hand and gazing out a window as he considered. “Here’s what I suggest for the moment, Yozef. Whenever you have a piece of this knowledge you wish to share but are worried about how it would be understood, talk to either me or Diera before anyone else. At some point, I’d bring this to the attention of the entire senior staff at the abbey for a more thorough review, though for now let us keep this among the three of us.”