Interspecies Exchange (5)
What kind of ore is this?! Iron ore? Copper? No—copper isn't this color. Then what? Damn it! Whatever it is!
It was ore.
Ore, right there in front of him!
Of course, Chester was no professional blacksmith with more than a decade of training and study. He had no idea what kind of ore lay before him, nor whether it was of good quality. Even so, there was one thing he knew with absolute certainty.
I don't care what it takes. If I can just melt this down—!
Even without specialized skill, as long as you could melt ore and shape it, anyone could make iron tools—crude ones, perhaps, but tools all the same.
“…….”
Staring at the ore, Chester suddenly went over to the campfire and began pointing back and forth between the ore and the flames. Grasping his meaning, the young Island Master sat down with him before the fire, and the two of them began to converse through gestures, simple drawings, and the tone of the sounds they made when they spoke.
— I want more of this.
— It is far from here.
— Tell me the place, and I will teach you how to make the fire you want.
— Is this worth as much as a little sun?
— It is worth it.
— I want the little sun. You want the hard, shining stone.
— Yes.
Monia watched the two men talk in silence. They were serious, piecing together each other's meaning through drawings and hand signs—yet from the outside, knowing nothing of the context, they looked exactly like children playing house.
How adorable.
While Monia gazed fondly at Chester looking as if he were at a children's tea party, the exchange between him and the young Island Master grew smoother. After a while of back-and-forth, reading each other's intent became easier, and the conversation flowed more freely.
— We trade this hard, shining stone for the little sun. Is that right?
— Yes. That's right. But I want this ore regularly—or at least enough of it to satisfy me.
— Give me time, and I can gather enough hard, shining stones to satisfy you.
— Snow may fall soon. Do you not hibernate?
— We do not sleep even when the white rain falls. And from these nearby seas to the seas where white rain falls takes some time.
At the young Island Master's words, Chester's eyes lit up.
Oh-ho.
Of course—the climate of the Floating Island changed with the seas it drifted through. As long as they did not reach waters cold enough for snow, no snow would fall. The island might race ahead for some reason and plunge them into sudden winter, but from what the young Island Master said, there was clearly still time before then.
— How much time do we have? I also want detailed information about winter. Can we trade something else for that knowledge?
— Trade it for the way to make ba-ju.
Chester nodded in agreement. Rope-making knowledge for information. A simple barter of goods and an exchange of the method to make those goods were not the same in value. The moment you taught someone how to make a thing, its trade value vanished. But knowing in advance the dangers of a winter they had never experienced was worth a great deal on its own.
— Then set aside the hard, shining stone and the little sun for now, and teach me when the white rain falls.
— A moment.
“Monia! Bring me some leather!”
“Hm? Yes!”
When Monia brought the hide, Chester took out his stone knife and briefly ground it against a flat rock to sharpen the tip.
“What are you going to do?”
“Write on the leather. The claw knife's tip is curved, so a stone knife is better for this.”
After quickly honing the stone knife to a keen point, Chester spread the hide, weighted it with heavy stones so it would not shift, and settled into position to write.
— Now explain winter to me.
The young Island Master, who had been watching Chester's preparations, nodded and began to describe the winter. Even though they could communicate, it was only by reading drawings, gestures, body language, and tone. Conveying detailed knowledge was another matter entirely. So Chester and the young Island Master cross-checked again and again—whether each had truly understood, whether the meaning had truly gotten across—and worked to record the knowledge in as much detail as possible.
It demanded considerable patience and endurance from both of them. Recording a single piece of information took a long time. Their pace gradually improved, yet it still crawled like a slug. Even so, both Chester and the young Island Master kept at it without pause. It was a precious chance to learn the dangers of a harsh winter in advance—and a precious chance for the Island Master to learn how to make ba-ju, a useful thing by any measure, and keep making it.
Chester apologized to Monia in advance.
“Sorry, Monia. We might not make it home for three days.”
“Ah—no! It's fine! We need this, don't we? I understand.”
“Thank you.”
From that day on, Chester and Monia began staying with the young Island Master. Ant still fled far away whenever the young Island Master appeared, so they had yet to get along.
“Ant, are you all right?”
The next morning, Chester and the young Island Master rose early, secured food, and returned to the work they had begun the day before. Monia dressed the game they had brought while soothing Ant, who was still afraid of the young Island Master.
— Whine…
“Aww, still scared?”
Meanwhile, the young Island Master marveled at Chester, whose worth only grew the more he dug into it.
It isn't a picture. He's recording what I tell him with something else he can read.
The Island Masters, too, painted pictures when they took a great catch or marked a special day, to remember it. But Chester was recording far more—and far more detailed—information than any picture could carry, in some unknown form.
I see. With that pointed stone he's doing delicate work claws can't manage. As long as the tip is sharp, I could use something like that myself.
If vast information could be passed on in detail by means other than pictures, how much help would that be to his family?
I want to learn it.
The young Island Master, who knew only the most primitive communication, had no idea how hard it was to build a system of language and writing—yet he still wanted to learn.
But first, making ba-ju and the little sun.
One step at a time. Both of them had already shown they wished to keep this bond; there was no need to rush. That day, too, they devoted themselves to recording the knowledge of winter.
Three days, four, five… Recording the winter information stretched on for more than five days from the day they first began. And because they stayed longer than expected, Monia's training sessions stretched longer as well.
“Hiiik…! Hieeek…!”
In the breaks between recording winter, the young Island Master watched with interest as Monia and Chester exercised together. Wild animals had no concept of exercise or training. Birds could fly from birth; horses could run fast from birth; and the Island Masters themselves grew strong as a matter of course. So what Chester and Monia were doing looked strange—and endearing.
Right. The weak have their own ways of living by ingenuity…
He remembered how some of his family used to bring home tiny creatures to play with. He had never understood why then; now he thought he might.
Next time I should apologize for laughing at them for wasting time on something so useless.
As more time passed, even Ant grew used to the young Island Master. Watching Chester hunt easily with Ant at his side, the young Island Master marveled and decided he should learn that knowledge as well. At last, after ten full days, Chester managed to record every scrap of winter information the young Island Master could give him across two sheets of leather.
Carefully rolling the hides and packing them into a basket, Chester taught the young Island Master how to make rope. The Island Master's fingers were all thick and large, so learning delicate work was hard—but after about three days of earnest effort, he could make rope with skill.
— Well then. Now we talk about the little sun and the hard, shining stone.
— Right.
In truth, they had already worked out the terms in bits and pieces while recording the winter knowledge.
First: Chester would take the ore they currently had.
Second: Chester would tell the young Island Master where their home was.
Third: thereafter, whenever the young Island Master obtained ore, he would come find Chester.
Fourth: assuming pieces the same size as the ore they now held, once about ten pieces had been obtained, Chester would teach the young Island Master how to make fire.
Considering the value of fire, the deal favored the Island Master—and so Chester had fretted over whether he could wring something more out of it. Fire held that much worth. It was a powerful force and a light that could advance a civilization by leaps. Like the method for making rope, it was far too precious to hand over lightly as payment for something. Yet he could not know what else the other party possessed, nor how highly the other valued fire. In the end, Chester settled for arranging a situation in which he held the upper hand and they would meet regularly.
Monia's opinion had gone into that decision.
“Assuming the other party has a conscience, if you take a small loss in a deal and later make sure they understand how much you conceded, you can gain something far greater. My father made quite a profit that way!”
Of course, if the other party had a conscience as woolly as a sheep's fleece, that would not work—they would simply see you as a mark. But in Chester's judgment, the young Island Master was not that sort. So he took Monia's advice and closed the deal.
“I've haggled plenty when buying things at market, but I've never done a trade like this. My head had gone stiff.”
The night before they finished everything and headed home, Chester stroked Monia as she nestled in his arms and said as much.
“Thank you. Without you, who knows what mistake I might have made.”
“No. You would have managed fine on your own, Chester.”
“No—it was thanks to you. When I saw the ore, my eyes went wild. Greed hit me, and I wanted to squeeze out a huge profit somehow.”
The ore was worth that much.
“People say greed makes a person ugly, but beating desire isn't easy.”
When Chester seemed a little downcast, Monia carefully kissed his lips.
“It's all right. If one of us gets greedy, the other can help.”
After the kiss, she soothed him with those words.
“We're together, aren't we?”
“……That's right. We're together.”
Saying so, they held each other tight.
Do they sleep pressed together because they have no fur?
A little ways off, the young Island Master was watching.