Olan Thorensen - Cast Under an Alien Sun

Yozef’s reputation as a tycoon rose even higher. Silver and gold coins gravitated to him exponentially.

His enterprises flourished, but never far from Yozef’s consciousness were thoughts of, What “exactly” am I doing here on Anyar? Earth was still out there … somewhere. The Watchers studied humans, and he found himself glancing at the sky and wondering whether they were looking at him at that moment. Not that he would ever know, assuming Harlie told the truth about non-intervention.

The patient who had died during an amputation had jolted him into teaching the Caedelli how to make ether, and that had led to ethanol and distillation as a basic procedure, kerosene production, soaps, and different papers. He didn’t doubt there would be more. Ideas were constantly bubbling up, some to be discarded as too impractical, some for further consideration, and others many decades or lifetimes away from implementation.

Still, when he surveyed his time on Anyar, he had made a difference: useful products, simple technologies, rudimentary medical-related knowledge, and introducing novel branches of mathematics to Cadwulf. All to the good, so why a longing for more? In his old life, living with Julie, contemplating leaving graduate school for a safe job and a comfortable lifestyle had been the extent of his ambitions. He had been satisfied then, but now … ?

By local standards, he was becoming wealthy and would only get richer. Did he have any other purpose, except to live out his life as best he could? Not that such a future was all bad, considering his circumstances, but he was angry. Angry at the Watchers, angry at the fates, angry at—God? Even if he couldn’t assign blame, there was a need to “show” that he mattered, that his existence left a mark. Such thoughts were confusing, since they’d have been alien to Earth’s Joseph Colsco.

One inescapable fact of his existence on Anyar was Bronwyn’s coming child. What kind of future would it have? What if he married and had more children? What would be their and their descendants’ future? What of all of the peoples of Anyar? There must be hundreds of millions to low billions. If the people of Anyar had the knowledge lying available in his brain, the planet’s technology would leap ahead centuries. What if the Watchers were not neutral observers? He had only the word of Harlie that they’d had no hand in transplanting humans.

He worried. What if the Watchers or whoever had done this someday returned? If they showed up in two hundred years, would they expect to find Anyar with the technology of Earth 1900–1950? If the Anyarians could be pushed ahead, maybe they’d have the ability to stand on their own against whatever came. For that to happen, Yozef would have to both transfer his science and technology knowledge and have it accepted. He had made changes, yet most of those would have come on their own within a century or more, assuming they didn’t already exist elsewhere on Anyar. In his focus on himself and the here and now, he could easily forget there was the rest of the planet beyond Caedellium, and who knew what level of technology might exist elsewhere? He knew of the Narthani, having gotten an earful from both Carnigan and the abbot, but were the Caedelli views parochial? Maybe the Narthani were a better vehicle for what he knew. And what of other realms that might be more advanced?

These thoughts monopolized Yozef for an entire day. He walked from his house to Abersford, then to the abbey, back to his house, along the shore to his cove, to Birdshit Bay, and back to his house. By twilight, he had walked more than twenty miles without eating or drinking since morning meal. His throat was parched, his stomach ate at his backbone, and his feet protested blisters, but none of the complainants were noticed.

After he got back at his cottage, he had decided on a goal to underlie everything else for the rest of his life. When he’d first arrived on Caedellium, he’d feared introducing new ideas. Now, his position and reputation were solid enough that the risk of introducing new knowledge was acceptable, as long as he took care.

He envisioned three objectives. First, continue pushing his various projects and staying alert for new opportunities. Most important were not the novel products themselves, but the techniques and the technology adopted by workers and getting those workers to think in new directions. In addition, products generated coinage—life’s blood for change.

Second, push more basic scientific knowledge beyond the medical and biological ideas he had shared with Diera and the scholastics. He had so far been circumspect on what he shared, not knowing what they could absorb without triggering countervailing reactions. Their current level could not absorb cell structure, DNA, RNA, antibiotics, and the associated chemistry, genetic engineering, molecular biology, genetics as applied to plant and animal breeding—along with another topic that could be tricky: the evolution of organisms. It was only a matter of time before the people of Anyar recognized two lines of organisms on Anyar, and humans belonged to the line that couldn’t have evolved on this planet.

He had already changed the course of Anyarian mathematics, yet he hadn’t touched the physical sciences—physics, astronomy, geology, and whatever else he could remember. He would have to introduce knowledge step by step, trying to remember the stages in Earth’s scientific history, so the new concepts could be accepted and integrated.

The third objective was long term, mostly to be used beyond his lifetime. He would write down as much as he could remember about everything . One set of books for the sciences and a second series on how he came to Anyar, the Watchers, and as much of the history of Earth as he could recall. He would develop a plan to keep the second set of books concealed until some indefinite future, likely well beyond his own lifetime. Anyone reading them too soon would judge him insane. But one day, there needed to be a record to let the people of Anyar know about Earth and the Watchers. And not incidentally, he admitted to himself, to know about Joseph Colsco, a.k.a. Yozef Kolsko.

He stood on his veranda, smelling the evening meal being prepared by Elian, watching birds and murvors sail over the surf. Having a life-long plan, albeit one for which he didn’t know the outcome, gave him a feeling of focus. He would dedicate himself to knowledge transfer in the confidence it would spread to all of Anyar. It would be his purpose in life and his legacy, a path for the rest of his life, a life of purpose here in Abersford.

A cruel God would smile. A beneficent God would shake his head in sympathy.

The next evening, Yozef celebrated his newfound commitment to his future by walking to Abersford after eating with the Faughns. He peeked into the Snarling Graeko, and, sure enough, Carnigan sat at his table against the wall, alone.

A jovial Yozef plopped himself on a bench opposite Carnigan.

“What are you so cheery about?” Carnigan grated to an oblivious Yozef, who had decided many months ago that most of the time the grating was just the natural tenor of Carnigan’s voice. He wasn’t ready to crush your skull. Most of the time. When he was in a bad mood, his voice got softer— that was the time to make a hasty exit.

“Oh, just in a good mood tonight. Who else would I want to share my good humor with, except Carnigan Puvey?”

Carnigan’s response was a grunt and a renewed focus on the half-full beer stein. He picked it up and downed it in one long draught. By magic, a woman appeared with two new full steins. Yozef was about to thank her for anticipating his order when she said, “Ev’ning, Ser Kolsko. Will yuh be hav’ y’r usual?”