After he got back at his cottage, he had decided on a goal to underlie everything else for the rest of his life. When he’d first arrived on Caedellium, he’d feared introducing new ideas. Now, his position and reputation were solid enough that the risk of introducing new knowledge was acceptable, as long as he took care.
He envisioned three objectives. First, continue pushing his various projects and staying alert for new opportunities. Most important were not the novel products themselves, but the techniques and the technology adopted by workers and getting those workers to think in new directions. In addition, products generated coinage—life’s blood for change.
Second, push more basic scientific knowledge beyond the medical and biological ideas he had shared with Diera and the scholastics. He had so far been circumspect on what he shared, not knowing what they could absorb without triggering countervailing reactions. Their current level could not absorb cell structure, DNA, RNA, antibiotics, and the associated chemistry, genetic engineering, molecular biology, genetics as applied to plant and animal breeding—along with another topic that could be tricky: the evolution of organisms. It was only a matter of time before the people of Anyar recognized two lines of organisms on Anyar, and humans belonged to the line that couldn’t have evolved on this planet.
He had already changed the course of Anyarian mathematics, yet he hadn’t touched the physical sciences—physics, astronomy, geology, and whatever else he could remember. He would have to introduce knowledge step by step, trying to remember the stages in Earth’s scientific history, so the new concepts could be accepted and integrated.
The third objective was long term, mostly to be used beyond his lifetime. He would write down as much as he could remember about everything. One set of books for the sciences and a second series on how he came to Anyar, the Watchers, and as much of the history of Earth as he could recall. He would develop a plan to keep the second set of books concealed until some indefinite future, likely well beyond his own lifetime. Anyone reading them too soon would judge him insane. But one day, there needed to be a record to let the people of Anyar know about Earth and the Watchers. And not incidentally, he admitted to himself, to know about Joseph Colsco, a.k.a. Yozef Kolsko.
He stood on his veranda, smelling the evening meal being prepared by Elian, watching birds and murvors sail over the surf. Having a life-long plan, albeit one for which he didn’t know the outcome, gave him a feeling of focus. He would dedicate himself to knowledge transfer in the confidence it would spread to all of Anyar. It would be his purpose in life and his legacy, a path for the rest of his life, a life of purpose here in Abersford.
A cruel God would smile. A beneficent God would shake his head in sympathy.
The next evening, Yozef celebrated his newfound commitment to his future by walking to Abersford after eating with the Faughns. He peeked into the Snarling Graeko, and, sure enough, Carnigan sat at his table against the wall, alone.
A jovial Yozef plopped himself on a bench opposite Carnigan.
“What are you so cheery about?” Carnigan grated to an oblivious Yozef, who had decided many months ago that most of the time the grating was just the natural tenor of Carnigan’s voice. He wasn’t ready to crush your skull. Most of the time. When he was in a bad mood, his voice got softer—that was the time to make a hasty exit.
“Oh, just in a good mood tonight. Who else would I want to share my good humor with, except Carnigan Puvey?”
Carnigan’s response was a grunt and a renewed focus on the half-full beer stein. He picked it up and downed it in one long draught. By magic, a woman appeared with two new full steins. Yozef was about to thank her for anticipating his order when she said, “Ev’ning, Ser Kolsko. Will yuh be hav’ y’r usual?”
“Ah . . . yes, thank you,” he answered. Yozef’s mood shifted to concern. Carnigan was a prodigious drinker, but usually a few beers put him into as openly a good mood as he was likely to get.
He kept a watchful eye on Carnigan, until the woman returned with a third stein for their table. He then sipped. Sipped again. Again. Then jumped in.
“Carnigan,” he ventured, “is there some problem? You seem . . . troubled tonight.”
Carnigan was quiet at first, then took a smaller quaff from one of his steins.
“Sometimes our lives go in directions we never dreamed of. One thinks he knows his place in the world and what’s in the future . . . then everything changes, and everything he expected is gone.” Carnigan looked up from his beer at Yozef, a melancholy expression on his ruddy face. “Does that ever occur to you, Yozef?”
Yozef was thunderstruck by the question.
Carnigan saw the expression on Yozef’s face and slammed a giant fist on the table. “God’s curse on me, Yozef! If there’s anyone on Caedellium who’s been jerked from his life path, it must be you! My apologies for wallowing.”
“Nonsense, Carnigan,” reassured Yozef. “All of us have this feeling from time to time. Granted, some more than others, and I guess I’m one of those others. What about you, though? What is it?”
Yozef could see the hand holding the metal stein tighten, and he half held his breath, wondering if Carnigan was going to crush the vessel without realizing it. Then the hand relaxed, and the owner sat back against the wall. “It’s the day.”
“The day? Something happened today?”
“No. The date,” he whispered. “This date every year. It was on this date that my life changed. On this date, I realized I wasn’t a good person.”
“Could you tell me what happened?”
“No,” Carnigan replied in the soft tone, signaling it was time to end this discussion thread.
Yozef decided to try another tactic to maybe improve Carnigan’s mood. He’d let Carnigan rib him about the brief affair with Buna.
Whoops, Yozef thought. Wait a minute. Carnigan isn’t married. He lives in the abbey, and I’ve never seen or heard of him in relation to a woman. That’s unusual among the Caedelli, what with their attitudes toward sex and the shortage of men.
Granted, Carnigan wasn’t the most personable of men. Still—something involving women? Or a woman? Best to avoid the topic.
Yozef spent the next half hour rambling about progress on his various projects, news and rumors about the Narthani, the weather, and anything else he could think of, trawling for any topic that might bring up a spark of interest from Carnigan. He was about to give it up when he hit pay dirt.
“Filtin tells me he had another run-in with his mother-in-law. Or, as Filtin refers to her, ‘the old witch.’” Yozef’s attention spiked when he thought he saw a hint of Carnigan’s mouth turning up at the corner. The referenced older woman was notorious throughout Abersford for making caustic remarks at the slightest perceived provocation. However, Filtin insisted she needed no provocation, and it was her nature that anything coming out of her mouth was required to be nasty. Her looks were a good match to her personality. She had straggly gray hair, seldom washed, and had bad teeth. Her rheumy eyes reminded one alternately of a snake or a wolverine, and her breath could melt metal. All in all, a charming person. Anyone would have questioned the wisdom of Filtin not having serious reservations about marrying a daughter of this harridan, yet to the surprise of all, the daughter was nothing like the mother. Nerlin Fuller was, from all accounts, mild-mannered, was liked by all, adored Filtin, and was a conscientious mother. Filtin half-jokingly speculated one evening that Nerlin had the perfect model of whom not to be.