The person on a stroll among the inland hills who saw two gentlemen huddled among rocks under specialty umbrellas painted in greens, grays, and browns to resemble the surrounding landscape, the latter their protection against the drizzle and the former against being spotted from the harbor of Wawamd below, might have believed them to be engaged in conduct far from any the respectable advocated. If his eyesight were so keen as to inform him one was a black-haired Adaban and the other an Adaban rather lighter if nevertheless far from blond, his suspicions doubtless would increase, for they were far from Greater Enloffenkir. Moreover, he would have been correct.
“Observations?”
“The day is unaccommodating.”
“It isn't what anyone prefers, to meet with inconclusive failure,” said the fairer Adaban who, speaking properly, was not an Adaban despite the improbability that any passerby outside of Greater Enloffenkir (and few within it) would recognize the fact. Then again, as any such person creeping up the slope inland of Wawamd at that hour likely was up to something regardless of tribe, that passerby's opinion might be dismissed without consideration. “Dispiriting as it is, that is nothing but the usual day in this work.”
Dirant Rikelta made no coherent reply, but only a noise which might be interpreted as a grunt if made by a man more in appearance like a lumberjack than a junior partner in a law firm, not that he was either. He belonged to the commercial world, and as such he was calculating whether there was anything to gain in saying, “It is not failure in the undertaking which prompts my evaluation, but rather that I am here at all, with you, whose fault it is.” There was not.
Stansolt Gaomat turned again to his telescope. The device humbled the smaller models used by pirates to check a passing ship for marines pretending to be common sailors but was not nearly so large and fine as anything a competitor in the race to name celestial objects would deign to employ. His view of the harbor gave him reason to smile. “There is a consolation which comes from this sort of job, and it is the opportunity to meet interesting people. Even better is for the meeting to be other than mutual. Look at this, Mr. Dirant.”
“I see two men.”
“That is as it should be, but describe them.”
“The one, older and evidently more prosperous, the evidence being the golden buttons on his coat and the trim which, if not actually silver, is not without its expense, keeps his hands on said coat as if afraid the wind will blow it away, something conceivable in this country but perhaps an indication of a limit to his means. He is of middle age and therefore ought not to have that boyish cowlick, but nature and fashion are uneasy neighbors. He is a tanned man of the islands, and no one would be so rude as to mention within his hearing anything about how big and rectangular his head seems to be.”
“You have described Mr. Urvs Beutands.”
“Ah!” Even outsiders to the eminently respectable but (or perhaps because) small society of shipwright-followers had heard of Urvs Beutands. His celebrity was a small thing compared to that of Topent Atkolta or Teuris Desintro, but under a more reasonable standard, he was not unknown. Just as the eminent Mrs. Desintro was the sole living painter celebrated by the average person anywhere in the continent, if asked to name a single ship designer the answer must be Urvs Beutands, the genius credited for the schooner which had pushed his country of Ililesh Ashurin to the forefront of nautical innovation. As much as greater familiarity with the topic ennobled the bearer of it, Dirant admitted himself to possess the lesser degree. He shifted to the other man.
“Mr. Urvs Beutands is speaking to someone who is almost certainly not his son. Aside from their relative ages which preclude a relation much more distant than fraternity, though there are of course cases of nephews older than their uncles, it is his ears which are excessive rather than his whole head. To proceed beyond unkind observations, his chin is large too in a powerful and even inspiring way, and his curly dark hair may be a result of Adaban and Survyai combined unlike Mr. Urvs Beutands in whom the former element is probably absent. His dress is less rich, but clean and pleasant enough.”
“That is Innars Rakin, a well-known independent captain.”
“Ah.” With regard to Rakin, Dirant recognized not the name but the profession, which in that milieu referred to a smuggler in possession of his own vessel and crew with which he engaged in the customary transactions and in any additional opportunities which suited his resources, convenience, and inclinations, a regard for legality not among them. “Is there anything remarkable in a conversation between these men?”
Stansolt reclaimed the telescope and redirected it, an answer in itself. “The islands would be improved in character if it were. Here Mr. Rakin is regarded as a reputable citizen. He is an especially prominent example of his type, and is that not commendable? As for what they have to discuss, ships are ships after all, money is money, and it would be foolish to make distinctions the sea and creditors do not.” Perhaps it was an illusion caused by presumed alignment of opinion, but Dirant believed Stansolt's wry tone expressed condemnation of the local attitude but also understanding. He may have been examining the waves beyond the harbor, not wild then but prone to rouse themselves to passion without such courtesies as an announcement posted in the town square.
The remainder of the session yielded to the surreptitious observers nothing even so interesting as a conversation between two personages of moderate regional fame. Stansolt concluded the exercise with these words. “Tomorrow, a changed plan of action is indicated.”
After a few days of that routine, or a week, or a year (just as the considerable differences between an adakigen and a sea giant meant little to the victims of their terrible clubs, the exact duration had ceased to be of importance), Dirant was ready to stop, not that he had ever wanted to begin. A wiser man might have speculated which was likelier, that the next duty Stansolt envisaged would be more congenial or that it would add danger to tedium, but each day made Dirant wetter rather than wiser.
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Stansolt continued in his soft Sivoslofer speech which at times took on the character of when a man is inventing lyrics for a tune on the spot and whistling when he fails to think of something, a clear contrast against Dirant's precise, businesslike Kitslofer accent “The circumstances will be favorable for a walk around the main harbor, which till now I have been hesitant to do without a good excuse. You can cover a burp by knocking a glass over, but by the third broken glass people cannot help but question. I must thank Mr. Beutands for our excuse. He announced a presentation about his latest design scheduled for tomorrow.”
“And are results to be expected from that, or?”
“My desire for results is unlikely to be satisfied, but that is nothing to you, Mr. Dirant. Persistence as all know is the heritage of the Adaban.”
“So I have heard from foreigners, but among Adabans we do not regard our own capacity so highly. Perhaps studies on distributions of Sticktoitiveness are loud on this point.” As for Dirant's rating in that stat, it was 57, and if not sufficient to qualify him for the Brawny Knight class, it prevented him from converting his private complaints about his current occupation into attempted escape from the assignment rather than from the nest alone, an undertaking which required an amount of repositioning tripled in discomfort by the pebbles grinding into his legs at seemingly every point. At last he managed and thereupon withdrew while the other man packed up his telescope and his umbrella designed for clandestine activities before his own exit.
“The ambiguities, contradictions, and enigmas of Ililesh Ashurin begin beyond its name, about which there is no confusion whatever, disagreements as to translation notwithstanding. The Obaluon phrase signifies 'Decent Islands.' One might also read of 'Middling Islands,' 'Usable Islands,' or 'Sufficient Islands' and be assured that all refer to the same territory. Those adjectives were and continue to be the judgment of the Obenec when it comes to this archipelago which is worthy of settlement, development, and government in their opinion and that of many others, but not of passionate attachment.
“What the name encompasses is the first intellectual snarl. Unquestionably there is a chain of islands amid the Northern Sea (to us; to the inhabitants of Pavvu Omme Os it is the West Sea, and from Ililesh Ashurin itself it can be nothing more or less than 'the sea'), five significant in size and far more not. Unquestionably also there is a country called Ililesh Ashurin. The two existences share much, but borders are excluded from that. The principal islands of Syiglean, Aitanyean, Imfreyan, Peinyabralnura, and Combem to rank them by land area are often what is meant by Ililesh Ashurin, but Aitanyean is a possession of the state of Iptlelkolmar and, by transitive necessity, of the Greater Enloffenkir confederacy. That is to exempt unjustly from consideration the myriad smaller islands, many of which are claimed by Greater Enloffenkir or by the kingdom of Saueyi. . . .
“The economy is not wholly reliant on fishing and the amber trade whatever reputation posits, and still less on smuggling and piracy, neither of which as currently practiced deserves the shameful name. In the case of the former, the country provides the service of facilitating exchanges of goods about which there are questions posed by the law but none by men of sense. For instance, artifacts extracted from sites fallen into ruin centuries before the grandparents of the grandparents of a single living person enjoyed the fortune of birth are the natural property of the person who extracted them or else he who paid for them to be extracted, and yet from time to time certain governments assume the position of enforcers of the rights of the dead (who see no benefit from the custodianship, nor yet do their descendants, save those able to enrich themselves with bribes and forewarnings of auctions because ensconced in relevant offices). As for the latter, piracy in the north at least is today nothing but a privately collected toll, since merchants gladly make arrangements with 'pirates' which permit their own ships to pass while forbidding their rivals the use of the sea. While a disgraceful practice, it bears too little resemblance to the classic form not to merit another name.
“There is of course shipbuilding, and while Ililesh Ashurin excels in that industry, an inherent expense detracts from its profitability. That is the need of lumber, which is so great that the islands are nearly denuded of the trees useful for the purpose with the result that wood is the country's primary import. The careful analyst of national finances, and again the debt this work owes to the keen mind, diligent research, and magnanimous attitude toward dissemination of his results which render Mr. Genrisholt Polminteraf an ornament to humanity is happily acknowledged, reveals the 'Unexceptional Islands' to be unexceptional also in their economy, the bulk of which consists of the products of the farm and the ranch. . . .
“The residents divide themselves, when they can trouble themselves to consider the intangible, into two groups, the Utenec and the Hausikirib. The mixture of half of the continent creates the Utenec: Adaban, Saueha, Jalpi Sessu, Obenec, Survyai, Jalpi Peffu, and Yumin, to give the living tribes their hypothesized prevalences. The Hausikirib, meanwhile, are the same but without the Obeneutian element, a distinction rather less important today than when the Obenec first wrested the islands from the Survyaian empires which claimed them and subjected to their government the inhabitants who had already become a separate people.
“It is impossible to accept however that every islander bears on his body the mark of every one of those tribes, to say nothing of varying proportions as well as additional admixture in the form of Riks, Dvanjchtlivs, and even adventurers from distant Neast, Tando OHW, or Yosrobzi Vugri to name a single country on each of three populous continents. The residents are susceptible to a hundred schemes of classification, all of them useless and alien to the local paradigm which replaces genealogical study with presumptions based on competence. It is unthinkable that a mayor should not have some Survyai blood, to the extent that if no such ancestor is known, the townsfolk will speculate without blushing as to which generation introduced that infusion of unacknowledged ancestry. A rancher successful at contriving a breed of pig sought by continental traders must be a scion of the Yumins. These are the clearest cases, but every village has its families believed to be of a specific stock which makes it suited for its role. The scheme if unfolded in its entirety requires not a paragraph but entire volumes. . . .”
Dirant Rikelta had studied literature recommended by Stadeskosken's academic consultants and found them accurate so far as they went, though he found wisdom also in the pithy advice a fellow Fennizener who had traveled there for commercial reasons gave to the city as a souvenir upon his return: “It is unnecessary to learn the language, for the locals ignore the outsider as readily in Adaban as in Ashuraluon.”
