"How's the research going, Henri?"
Henri pointed to the latest specimen. The iron rod was about the thickness of his thumb and about a hand span long. The rubber covered most of its length. He unrolled it and blew into it. He let it expand to several times its original size before releasing the air. "What do you think?"
George barely attended to Henri's little demonstration. Instead he took possession of the iron bar. Then he did something that surprised Henri. He pulled a purse from his belt and removed something. It wasn't until George presented the iron bar with the lamb intestine preventative unrolled over part of its length that Henri started to understand George's fascination with his new rubber balloons.
George was all smiles. "A nearly perfect fit. How many of these long balloons can you make?"
"How many do you want, George?"
"Thousands. Tens of thousands."
"George, you may be a sailor, but you'll never use that many."
George laughed. "Not for me, Henri. To sell. Many a ship's captain would be happy to have cheap preventatives. Your balloon preventatives will be cheap, won't they? It's not like they have to be custom-fitted, is it?"
"You can't start a business without a supply of raw materials. Where am I supposed to get a supply of rubber?"
"The same place you got that first shipment, of course."
"George, you can't run a business using pirated raw materials."
"Why not? The Dutch have managed quite well using pirated sugar."
Henri shook his head. "That's different, George. There are hundreds of merchants carrying sugar. But how many have you heard of carrying a shipment of rubber?"
"Just the one." George looked horrified. "But that means we'll have to buy the rubber." Then he grinned. "Ah well. If we must buy it, I know just the man to ask. A Portuguese merchant based in St. Malo." He looked over at the balloon. "Do you want that?"
Henri studied the balloon. "I was thinking of making several more and sending them to my friend Phillip in Jena. Why?"
"I was thinking maybe I should conduct one of your 'scientific' tests. Just to see if it works, of course." George reached over, picked up the balloon and placed it in his purse. Then he rolled the other preventive off the iron bar and put it in his purse, too.
Henri sighed. "A scientific test needs a sample greater than one."
"That's okay, Henri. If you're going to make more for your friend, you can make enough for me. I'm quite happy to be the test subject." George smirked. "I'll even do a comparison test."
"I'm sure you will, George. I'm sure you will."
George reached for the pen at Henri's desk and quickly wrote out an address. "Put a rush on those, would you? I'm going to have a busy few weeks."
Henri watched George leave his laboratory, chortling with glee. Then he looked over at the iron bar. Oh well. The sooner I start, the sooner George can . . .
He reached for the bar, burst out laughing, then stifled it. The last thing he wanted to do was explain all this to Sarah.
Stretching Out, Part Two,
Amazon Adventure
by Iver P. Cooper
Belem do Para, Estado do Maranhão (northern Brazil), Late 1632
Like an arrow falling from heaven, the cormorant plunged into the waters of the Para. For a few seconds it was lost from sight. Then it emerged triumphantly, a fish in its mouth. Two gulls spotted the capture and winged over, no doubt hoping to snatch the meal away. Before they could carry out their designs, the cormorant gave the fish a little toss in the air, and swallowed it. The would-be hijackers swerved, and headed out toward the sea.
Henriques Pereira da Costa, watching this drama from the docks of Belem do Para, hoped that his own dive into the unknown would be as successful as the cormorant's.
He heard a cough, and turned. It was his servant, Mauricio. "We're packed and ready to go." Mauricio hesitated, then added, "May I see the fabulous map again?" Wordlessly, Henriques passed it over.
Mauricio studied it carefully, then handed it back. "It's got to be a fake, boss. I asked around, and no one has explored beyond where this river"—he pointed to the Rio Negro—"comes into the Amazon."
"M-m-my family has assured me that I can stake my v-v-very life upon its accuracy." Henriques had an unfortunate tendency to stammer under stress. It had been mild at first, but had worsened after his parents' deaths.
"Trouble is, you will be staking your life on it . . . while they're home, safe and sound in Lisbon." Henriques was the Da Costa family's factor in the town, which lay near the mouth of the Para, the river forming the southern edge of the Amazon Delta.
"Bu-, um, -bu-. . . ." Henriques' stammer was one of the reasons he was stuck here in Belem, rather than enjoying the high life of a successful plutocrat in the capital. Instead of collecting expensive artwork and mistresses, he was looking for drogas do sertão—products of the hinterland—that might one day have a market in Europe. Most recently, pursuing a strange material which his relatives called "rubber."
"Speak English, or Dutch, boss, no one here will care." Henriques' stutter disappeared when he spoke a foreign language. Even one of the Indian jawbreakers.
Henriques nodded. "But there are those rumors . . ."
"Right. Like the Seven Cities of Cibola. Or El Dorado and the Lake of Manoa. Or the Kingdom of Prester John. Or . . ."
Henriques made a fist, and shook it. "Will you let me finish?" Mauricio subsided. "Rumors of a town called Grantville, which has visited us from the future."
"If true, showing poor judgment on their part."
"Well, even if the story is false, I have my orders. Find the rubber trees, teach the natives how to tap it."
"And your family knows how to tap it, even though they don't know where the trees are?" Mauricio's eyebrows flickered.
"Perhaps they found the trees in the Indies already? Or perhaps it's more knowledge from the future."
* * *
"Coming aboard, Mauricio?"
Mauricio jumped into the canoe. The boat rocked for a moment, then steadied. Mauricio nervously checked to make sure that his neck pouch hadn't slipped off in mid-leap. What it held was more precious than gold: his letter of manumission, signed years ago by Henriques.
Mauricio had been born into slavery. His mother had been one of the housemaids employed by Henriques' parents, in Bahia. In his childhood, he had been one of Henriques' playmates. Henriques' handwriting was a disaster—sometimes, even Henriques couldn't read it—and Mauricio had been trained to be his scribe.
Henriques' father, Sergio, was a physician, the usual choice of occupation for a Da Costa who was temperamentally unsuited for the business world. He had one of the largest libraries in Bahia, and it was Mauricio's second home. Mauricio mastered Latin, and Greek, and even Hebrew. Not that there was much need for any of those languages in the rough-hewn society of Brazil.
Sergio's will had instructed Henriques to make Mauricio a curtado, a slave who had the right to earn his freedom by paying a set price. Henriques instead freed Mauricio outright. "I hope you can now be my friend, instead of my slave," he had said. The words were burnt into Mauricio's memory, as deeply as a slaver's brand had bitten into his mother's skin.
* * *
The canoe, perhaps forty feet long, had eight Indian rowers and a "bowman." The middle of the boat was roofed over with palm fronds to provide a somewhat flimsy shelter. Henriques was glad to be on his way. In town, his stuttering was a recurring source of embarrassment. In the wilderness, he could relax.
Henriques knew the Amazon about as well as a white man could. He was a criollo, a man born in Brazil but of European descent, and he had been among the first settlers in Belem. Henriques had frequently canoed up or down the main river and its tributaries, and he had lived in some of the native villages for months at a time. Mauricio occasionally joined Henriques, but mostly remained in Belem to look after Henriques' interests there.
It started to drizzle. Mauricio held out his hand. "I thoug
ht you said it was the dry season." It was an old joke between them.
Henriques delivered the customary punchline. "The difference is, in the dry season it rains every day, and in the wet season, all day."
Whether in appreciation or mockery of the witticism, the drizzle became a shower. Henriques dived for the shelter, Mauricio following.
* * *
"I don't understand," Henriques muttered.
"Huh?" Mauricio had been watching a giant river otter playing in the water. He looked up. "Don't understand what?"
"Why none of the Indians we have questioned have heard of the rubber tree. I would have sworn that they knew every tree within ten miles of their villages." Henriques and Mauricio had visited the tribes of the lower Xingu River: the Tacunyape, the Shipaya, the Juruna. The explorers had been shown some trees which produced sap of one kind of another, but none of them matched the description of the rubber trees.
"So it doesn't grow on the Xingu. Perhaps we'll have better luck on the Tapajos."
"We're in the shaded area of the map, where the tree is supposed to be found."
"Perhaps we don't know what to ask for."
"We asked them to show us a tree which weeps when it is cut. Because, uh . . ."
"I know. Because the first letter from Lisbon said that rubber is also known as caoutchouc. From the Quechua words caa 'wood,' and ochue 'tears,' that is. . . ."
Henriques finished the thought. "The 'weeping tree.'"
A lot of good a Quechua name does you," Mauricio said. "It's the language of the Incas, who are, what, two thousand miles west of here?"
"Even if it's a rare tree, you would think that some Indian would try cutting it down," Henriques said. "See if it was good for building a dugout canoe, or at least for firewood. And then see it bleed."
Mauricio brushed an inquisitive fly off the document. "Sure, but that might have happened a century ago. And they don't remember it, because they don't use its, what's that word . . . latex . . . for anything. The latex is old news."
His expression brightened. "Of course, they might still know of the tree. Maybe they use its leaves to thatch their huts. Or—"
"Um . . ."
"Or, they eat its seeds. Or—"
"Uh-uummm . . ."
"I know, it's sacred to their Jaguar God, so it's forbidden to speak to strangers about it."
"Mauricio!"
"Yes?"
"Shut up."
Henriques brooded. Clearly, he thought, merely asking for a "weeping tree" wasn't good enough. But Henriques' superiors, or the mysterious up-timers, had provided more than just the map. He also had received drawings of the rubber tree, and its leaves and seeds. And even a sample of rubber. So he had thought he had some chance of success.
"Shit!"
Mauricio gave him a wary look. "What's wrong."
"I have been going about this all wrong. The drawings are meaningless to the Indians we've been talking to, their artwork is too different.
"What we need to do is make a model of the leaves and seeds. Out of clay, or mud, or something. Life size, if possible."
Mauricio waited for Henriques to continue.
Henriques crossed his arms.
"Oh," said Mauricio. "'We' means 'me.'"
* * *
It had taken months, but they found the trees, trained and recruited rubber tappers, and went to work. The rubber tapping operation was nothing like a sugar plantation. The rubber trees were widely separated, perhaps one or two in an acre, and paths, often circuitous, had to be hacked out to connect them. Each tapper—seringuero—developed several routes, and walked one route each day. A route might connect fifty to a hundred trees.
Henriques and Mauricio made periodic trips to collect the rubber, and bring the seringueros their pay, usually in the form of trade goods. And they also took advantage of the opportunity to spot-check that they were following instructions.
"Are we there yet?" Mauricio asked.
"Almost. Yes. Pull in over there." It was a short walk to the trail.
Mauricio stood quietly, studying the man-high herringbone pattern carved on the nearest rubber tree.
Henriques joined him. "Something wrong?"
"I was just thinking, it's like the Amazon writ small."
"What do you mean?"
"Look. You have the diagonal cuts. Those are like the tributaries. And they feed into the vertical channel, the main river. First on one side, then on the other."
Henriques considered Mauricio's metaphor. "And the cup at the bottom, where the latex collects, that's the ocean." He walked over to the trunk, and felt the cuts. "We have a good tapper, here. He's getting flow, but the cuts are still pretty shallow. We won't know for sure until next year, but I don't think he's harmed the tree significantly."
"We really need something better than knives and hatchets for making the cuts the right depth."
"I agree. In fact I said so in the letter that went home with the last shipment. But I have no idea what sort of tool would do the job."
"Are we done here?"
"Well . . . I want to talk to this seringuero. Perhaps give him a little bonus. Word will get around, and the other tappers will try to emulate him."
They waited for the tapper assigned to this route to appear. Even though they knew the direction from which he would be coming, and were watching and listening for him, they had little warning. One moment, there was nothing but the green of the forest, and the next, he was standing ten feet away, appraising them.
They greeted him, and he relaxed. They offered the Indian some water, and he took a quick swig and set to work. He deftly cut a new set of diagonal grooves, slightly below the ones cut the time before, and rubbed his finger over them.
Henriques complimented him on his work, and handed him a string of glass beads. The seringuero held them up in the sunlight, laughed, and fastened them around his upper arm. He gave the two Belemistas a wave and headed on to the next tree on his route.
The visitors returned to their canoe and paddled on. That evening, they were able to witness the climax of the seringueros' daily routine.
"Here, look," one said, handing them a large gourd. He had made a second round of his trees in the afternoon, collecting the latex from the cups. Henriques dipped his finger in the milk to test its consistency, and passed it on to Mauricio. Mauricio rolled his eyes, but dutifully accepted the vessel. He made a pretense of drinking from it, which greatly amused the Indian.
It was time for the next step. The Indian dipped a wooden paddle inside, coating it with the "milk." He then held in the smoke of a fire.
"This is exciting," Mauricio said. "Like watching paint dry."
The first coat of latex slowly hardened into rubber, and the tapper put the rubber-coated paddle back in the gourd. He repeated the process, building up the mass, until it had reached the desired thickness for a rubber "biscuit."
He then pried it off the paddle, and handed it to Henriques. Henriques nodded to Mauricio, who handed the Indian some brightly dyed cloth.
"Time to call it a night," Henriques said. Mauricio agreed.
Henriques pointed. "There's a good place for you to hang up your bed." Mauricio walked over, hammock in hand, to the trees which Henriques had marked out. He tied it to one trunk, and was ready to fasten it to the other, when he suddenly stopped short. A moment later, he was hurriedly untying the hammock.
Henriques was laughing.
"Very funny," Mauricio commented. "I haven't been in the rain forest as often as you, but I don't fall for the same trick twice." One of the trees in question was notorious because it often served as a nest for a breed of ants of malignant disposition. It was commonly used in practical jokes on greenhorns.
Mauricio sniffed haughtily. "As punishment for your crime, I am going to read you the poem I wrote last night."
* * *
The men were getting bored. And irritable. There had been two knife fights a day for the past week. Benito Maciel Parente knew som
ething had to be done.
"Time for a coreira," he announced. His people were delighted. They so enjoyed hunting. As they readied their canoes, one man accidentally knocked down another. What a few hours earlier would have led to another duel, was laughed off. Clearly, Benito had made the right decision.
It took a bit of time to find a suitable village. At last they found one which, according to his scouts, was in the throes of a festival. The kind that involved imbibing large quantities of fermented drink laced with hallucinogens.
Benito watched as one villager after another collapsed to the ground. At last he waved his men forward. Their first target was the place where the Indians had stacked their bows. They cut the bow strings and threw the weapons into the fire. Then they started shooting. The snores were replaced by screams.
Benito nodded approvingly. "Kill the fathers first, enjoy the virgins afterward," he reminded his band. They didn't need the reminder; and half their work was done already. They laughed as they chased down the women.
* * *
The Da Costa family had helped finance some of the sugar mills in Bahia, and it made arrangements for the sugar boats, en route to Lisbon, to stop in Belem and see if Henriques had any rubber for pickup. Those ships came up the coast monthly . . . assuming they weren't picked off by Dutch privateers near Recife. And the captains didn't mind the stopover too much; it wasn't out of their way and they could take on food and water.
The visits had increased Henriques' popularity in Belem. The town mostly exported tobacco, cotton, and dye wood, but not enough to warrant regular contact. There was some sugarcane grown in the area, but it was used locally to make liquor. So Belem was a backwater compared to Recife. Before rubber tapping began, a whole year could go by without a vessel coming into port.
Henriques was under orders to expand production, but to do that he needed to find more rubber trees, and more Indians to milk them. He hoped that the town leaders, who were mostly plantation owners, would help him now. They had looked down on him for years as a mateiro, a woodsman, and a small-time merchant. The stuttering hadn't helped, either.