I said I honestly didn't know about the lady's sexual preferences. Her tribe was heterosexual, of course, with women marrying men, but from there on, the usual roles were reversed. She had fit into my team as one of the troops. None of us males had seen fit to make any advances toward her, as far as I knew, and she had made none toward us. I said that if Fritz wanted to try, he was free to do so, but I advised that he move with great caution, and that at no time should he dare to offend the woman. She could be quite deadly if she wanted to.
Fritz went over and talked to Jane, and in time their conversation became more and more animated, with both of them smiling hugely. Eventually, they walked out of the inn arm in arm. I wished them both well.
After a bit I noticed that my wife was either asleep from too much excitement or had passed out from too much to drink, and that in any event it was getting late. I bid the others good-bye, picked her up in my arms, and carried my little bride home.
Someone had mentioned that in the course of giving her a medical examination today, they had weighed her in at thirty-four and a half pounds. Cuddled up in my arms, she reminded me of a sleeping kitten. She was very pretty, very precious, but somehow something less than a real human being. I began to believe that her tribe's evaluation of themselves, that they were above the animals but below the true men, was essentially true.
By no stretch of the imagination could I imagine her becoming my true life partner. The pretty lady I had married in a pagan ceremony was in truth but a house pet.
Chapter Thirty-Two
From the Diary of Conrad Stargard
FEBRUARY 26, 1251
I SAT at my desk with my head in my arms. Father Ignacy was in Rome. He was a cardinal bishop now, and he was voting on who would be the next pope. Many said he himself would win the office. I suppose I was happy for him, but the truth was that I needed my confessor, more than at any time before in my life. I had sinned. Oh God, how I had sinned!
I had sent a company of my best men out on an ill-thought-out mission, and because of me, most of them were dead. Far worse still, I had been responsible for introducing all of the diseases of Europe into the New World, and native Americans were dying by the whole villageful!
Killing in time of war has never bothered me, but this horrible thing I had done was something far worse than that! It is one thing to kill fighting men who invade your country, and quite another to go to someone else's land and sicken every man, woman, and child there with deadly diseases!
It was undoubtedly still going on. The damage was still being done. People were still dying. We had no way to stop those diseases from spreading throughout half the world.
Maude came into my office and stood in front of my desk. She wasn't smiling.
"Josip sent me a message. He says he cannot come home. He says that if he did, he might spread diseases here in Europe."
"Yes, Maude. That, too, is another of my sins."
"You must not sit there and cry. You must talk to your cousin Tom. Tom knows about diseases. Tom knows all about living systems. If you ask him, he will help you. He will help Josip. You must talk to Tom."
"Tom has helped me out several times before, but I have never asked for help before," I said.
"You must talk to Tom. He will help you."
"You are right, of course. People are dying as we speak. This is no time for stupid pride." I looked up at the ceiling and said, "Tom! Help me, Tom! I need your help! If this disease problem isn't solved quickly, I am going to have to stop the entire exploration program! You will never see a worldwide culture! I won't be the cause of making things worse than they already are! I won't be responsible for bringing plagues and the Black Death all across the globe! If I have to, I'll build a ten-story concrete wall all around Europe, I swear I will!"
A door that hadn't been there before opened up in the wall behind me, and my cousin Tom, dressed in T-shirt, shorts, and tennis shoes, walked into the room. He had a handwritten Polish manuscript in one hand and three test tubes in the other.
"All right! All right! You don't have to start making threats!" He surprised me by speaking in Polish. I'd never heard him do that before. Thinking about it, I had called to him in Polish.
He set the manuscript on my desk, turned to me, and held up one of the test tubes.
"Okay. This is part one. What it does is mark every cell in the body as being human. It must be given at least twelve hours before the next part is administered. That's six of your hours. We call it the butter, because that's what it looks like and tastes like. You can take it as often as you like, and for your regular troops, we recommend a pat of it every morning. That way, the treatment can be started immediately in the event of illness. Also, it doesn't spoil, and it's cheaper than real butter. You can make it even with your primitive technology. You just mix a sample of it with any fresh mammalian milk, and let it set for a day. That's also how you make the other two parts of this system.
"This second part is called the cheese, for obvious reasons. The dosage is nine grams per hundred kilograms of body weight, plus or minus twenty percent. It's a deadly poison, and will kill anything alive except for human cells that have been, protected by part one, the butter. The person treated is poisonous to all other life-forms for the next six of your hours. Keep the patient away from plants and pets during that time period. That includes neohorses, wenches, and all the other bioengineered critters.
"The third part, the oil; replaces all of the body's symbionts that were killed off by part two. You drink a few grams of it the day after you take the cheese and rub about twice that amount on the skin.
"Now, nothing is perfect. When you use this system, all of your stomach flora are killed and you are in for a serious case of the runs. There are a few rare types of brain tumors that this system can't cure. The worst problem is that in the case of very large tumors, the tumor is killed, but sometimes having a big, dead mass in your body overloads the body's cleanup system, and that can kill the patient. The best way to be sure this doesn't happen is to go through the treatment every half year. That way, really big tumors don't have time to grow. Also, life spans and general health are increased with regular use.
"In the case of communicable diseases, the system will cure the patient, but then sometimes the patient will contract the same disease again. In that case, just repeat the cure. Eventually, given enough time, the body will develop a natural immunity to that particular disease.
"Any other questions you might have are answered in the manual I brought. You ought to read it thoroughly before you try using this stuff."
"Tom, thank you. This stuff sounds like magic!"
"By your standards, I suppose it is. One man's magic is another man's technology. This project consumed over nine million high-quality man-hours, which is good, since they needed something interesting to do. Anything else you need, ask for it. Within reason, of course, and as long as you don't ask me to violate causality. Well, hang in there."
"Thanks again, Tom."
He left my office by the same doorway that he came through, after which the door disappeared. Maude never left the room, and Tom never acknowledged her existence, which was typical of him.
I glanced at the other, normal door into my office and saw Baron Piotr and my secretary looking in with their mouths open.
"Your grace, you have some very strange relatives!" Piotr said.
"How long have you two been standing there?" I asked.
"Ever since we heard you shouting at the ceiling," Zenya said. "You called for help."