“Yes, she is, well enough. The climate doesn’t agree with her and truth to tell I don’t care much for it either. Oh, we have a daughter now, Hana, which means ‘flower’! You must meet her, she will sit on your big tummy and pull that mustache of yours until you cry for mercy!”
Blom laughed heartily and gave Yoriaki one of his jovial yet gentle claps on the back. “That’s wonderful, a little girl. I’ll bet she’s as pretty as her mother! Why, does she even know she has a fat old white-faced uncle? Won’t she be surprised. I’ll bet I have something pretty for her from my travels. Here, let’s get out of this blasted heat and have a good talk. We need to catch up. I have much to tell you, Yo-san, much to tell.”
The two of them repaired to Groenevisch where they found some shade beneath the reefed sails and sat on a couple of handy barrels. Between bites of grilled fish and rice, Blom told him of the many journeys he had made with his uncles and polished off one bento and then a second faster than Yoriaki had ever seen anyone else manage to.
“The reason I took so long to get back to you, Yo-san, is that we sailed all the way to Europe. Once there I had quite a bit of business to attend to, family matters and such, and my uncles needed time to straighten out their own affairs and find new cargoes to bring back here to Asia. But all that’s neither here nor there, what was interesting was the special expedition we took to the Germanies, the lands that run east and south of my own Netherlands. Something happened there and it’s rather odd.” Blom paused, his jovial face having taken on a very thoughtful expression. “You probably won’t believe me, a good Christian like yourself, but I swear it all to be true.”
He paused again, finally prompting Yoriaki to ask, “What, what did you see there? I’ll believe anything you say now that I’ve seen you eat two bentos in the time it takes most men to have one bite!” This made the two of them laugh, and Blom seemed to relax.
“All right, then. My uncles and I visited a town, a very strange town like no other in any corner of the wide Earth, and I’ve been to most of the corners. This was a town…from the future!” Blom’s eyes were sparkling with wonderment, like a child’s on his first visit to the pageantry of a Christmas mass. Yoriaki studied him for a moment and knew that whatever Blom said it would be true.
“I believe you. Tell me more,” Yoriaki said, moving his barrel closer in anticipation.
When Blom was done it was nearly noon. Yoriaki tried to imagine the ground vehichles that moved without horses, not to mention those that flew with men inside them through the very heavens! But more than wonders such as those he pondered a society in which men were free to choose their own religion and to live as they pleased without caste and station, so like the Ayutthaya that had been lost to them.
“It sounds like a kind of paradise on Earth,” he murmured to Blom, who having finished his tale was fortifying himself with two more bentos.
“Well, wouldn’t call it paradise. It’s still in the Germanies, you know,” he said between bites. “But it is a good place, a place where people have freedom and rights. Plus, it’s a boom town; it has riches and opportunities that make Ayutthaya look like poor Phnom Penh here.” He looked around at the depressed city. “What a shit-hole! Anyway, I wanted to tell you about Grantville for a good reason, not just to entertain and amaze you, which it appears I succeeded at doing, by the starry-eyed look on your face.”
Yoriaki gave his friend a confused look. “Yes, it was a wonderful tale, I am very enthralled. But what is this ‘good reason’?” Yoriaki asked him with great curiosity.
“Simple! I think you should move there.”
“Move there.” Yoriaki blinked at his friend in the light of the merciless midday sun that had shifted in the sky to catch them out in its blaze as they were engrossed by Grantville’s tale.
“Yes, move there. To live. All of you.”
“All of us?”
“By my uncles’ beards, is there an echo here? Yes, Yo-san, all of you who fled Ayutthaya to this sweltering outpost of Hell! This place stinks!” With that he got up and slid his stool back into the dwindling shade beneath the mast, Yoriaki doing the same.
“Look, I talked to some people there, including some Catholics. I didn’t tell them exactly who you were and where you were from, but I said you were Catholic refugees who had been persecuted, numbering a few hundred looking for a safe home. They just about tripped all over themselves to tell me you would be welcome there, you poor darlings, and if you came they would do whatever it takes to find you homes and get you started. I must say, these Americans are nice to the point of almost seeming ridiculous, but I can also say they really mean it, I saw their charity with my own eyes. Come, Yo-san, think on this. Surely you aren’t happy here. I’ll wager none of you are.”
Yoriaki shook his head solemnly in agreement. “Yes, Blom-san, you are right. We all despise this place, but there has been nowhere else for us to go. The Khmer, although not kind by any means, at least leave us alone and so far no one has tried to burn down our houses. Please, give me some time to think on this and discuss it with the others. I will call a meeting of our men this very night. May we hold it here on your ship? It would be best if the women didn’t hear of this yet.”
“Absolutely, you are all welcome!” The big Dutchman grinned widely, very pleased with himself.
“Blom, if we should decide to do as you suggest, how will we get there? We are so poor.”
“Not to worry. My uncles are big-hearted fools just like me. It’s already been decided. You will ride on these two ships. It will be tight but we can fit you all, plus we are a bit short on crew anyway, so you can help sail. We are bound back to Europe next, with only a few stops along the way. In any case, we shall consider your future success in Europe as an investment, and in my uncles’ case, a little Christian charity might be just what it takes to keep them from ending up in a place like this when they die.” The two of them laughed long and hard. Yoriaki grinned like a fool all the way back to their settlement, dreaming of a new faraway land full of freedom.
By that evening Yoriaki had whispered in the ear of the Japanese men, all of whom agreed to come listen to Blom’s proposal. They remembered Blom as a hero and benefactor during their time of trial and would hear his words with open hearts. Arriving two hours before midnight as planned they sat on the deck of the Groenevisch, enjoying the wine that the Dutchmen passed around along with what fitful river breezes cooled the muggy night. When Blom began speaking, Yoriaki acted as his translator, swearing from time to time as he went that he was absolutely sure his friend was sincere and telling the truth. The Japanese listened silently until the very end. For a long time after Blom finished no one spoke. Finally Yoriaki, himself convinced through and through that they should take this offer, spoke to them.
“Men of Nihonmachi, please, what do you say? Surely this is an opportunity the likes of which we may never see again!” Yoriaki implored them in excited tones.
Ishida stood up and walked over to where Blom and Yoriaki stood, giving them a brief but polite bow.
“I have a question. If these Americans have changed the tide of history with their arrival, how did they do it? You said they landed in the middle of such a terrible war, why weren’t they slaughtered along with the rest of the unfortunates in the region?”
Blom answered him, Yoriaki translating quietly as he spoke. “Ishida-san, not only do they have amazing vehicles and lights that burn without flame, they also have weapons of incredible power. They have guns that can shoot a hundred times, nay, a thousand times faster than any we of this century possess, and other, larger weapons of unbelievable destructive force. With their superior firepower, they were able to turn the tide of the war quickly in their ally’s favor and have affected to some degree the politics of the entire continent. You have seen that we Europeans are a powerful people in this world. What these Americans of Grantville can do dwarfs our achievements. They are feared by all who stand against them and loved by all who stand with! No one has ever seen anything like it.”