“It’s very nice,” Courtney said, easing into the water as Mike walked back. “Whose idea did you say it was?”
“Mine,” Edmund said, pushing aside the flap. “Hello, June, mind if I join you?”
“Not at all, Edmund, plenty of room.”
All three of the apprentices were wide-eyed as the mayor lowered himself into the water. They were amazed to see the already semilegendary leader simply joining people in the bath.
Herzer was covert in his study but he had heard so much about Edmund Talbot that he knew he had a case of hero worship going. The smith’s body was unusually hirsute; most people inhibited hair growth to a much greater degree. It also was immensely muscular, not like a bodybuilder but like a person who used a wide variety of his muscles every day for hard physical labor. He also had a full beard and mustache, which was unusual. Herzer had had all the hair on his face and most of his body inhibited except for a straggling mustache and he knew very few people who even had one of those.
“I’m surprised to see you,” June said.
“Think I’m too good to hang out in the bath?” Edmund chuckled.
“Not that. I just thought you’d be too busy,” June replied.
“I’ve got a couple of hours between meetings and for a wonder nothing was coming apart. So I thought I’d catch a quick bath. I can’t stay long though.”
“Sir, can I ask a question?” Herzer said.
“Ask away, I won’t promise to answer,” Edmund said, sliding down in the water and closing his eyes. “We haven’t met by the way.”
“I’m Herzer Herrick and this is Mike Boehlke and Courtney Deadwiler, sir.”
“Herrick?” Talbot said, opening his eyes back up and peering at the boy. Herzer felt as if his brain was being probed but he just nodded.
“Heard a bit about you. Sorry, we had met before, hadn’t we? Thanks for helping Daneh and Rachel on the trail.”
“I… yes, sir,” Herzer said in reply.
“Hmmm…” Edmund said and Herzer could tell that his evasive answer had been noted. “What was the question?”
“Err… is this a Roman bath? I was thinking about you being in here, too. It was said that the Roman senators would take the public baths because that way it proved that they did not think that they were not one of the people.”
“You’ve studied history,” Edmund replied after a long pause, staring at the boy again.
“More like dabbled in it, sir,” Herzer replied. “Mostly military history but the Romans were such a major factor in preindustrial military thought that paying more attention to them than, say, the Egyptians just made sense.”
“It’s sort of a Roman bath,” Edmund said after another pause. “Some aspects of Japanese also. The Romans would wipe their bodies with bent pieces of metal or wood and then take steam. Then they would swim or bathe in cooler water in the frigidarium. When the new baths are done we’ll probably have a steam room as well as a sauna. But the hot soaking bath is a Japanese item as much as anyone’s. And I prefer it to steam so I thought that would be the way to go.”
“Some softer soap would be nice,” June said acerbically.
“Working on it,” Edmund said. “As soon as someone comes up with an industry making softer soap, we’ll buy it. In the meantime, the apprentices are making lye soap and lye soap only.”
“Because that way someone will start making better, sir?” Herzer asked, cautiously.
“Got it in one,” Edmund said with a nod, lifting himself out of the water. “The town will keep people reasonably healthy and alive. As long as they work at it and as long as we can support them. But if I had my way all the town food would be nothing but gruel, and thin gruel at that.”
“So people would find other work to get better food?” Courtney asked.
“Well, right now there’s not much better than what people have been getting,” Edmund admitted, drying himself off sketchily. “But there will be. And I don’t want anyone permanently dependent upon the town. In a democracy that leads to bread and circuses and eventually to despotism. In a despotism it leads to bond labor. I won’t have even the beginnings of either one as long as I’m mayor.” He nodded at them and walked back out of the room.
“Wow,” Courtney said.
“He’s intense,” June said with a nod.
“Actually, I think the term I was considering was ‘charismatic,’ ” Courtney replied.
“Oh, that too,” June chuckled. “Very charismatic. The one thing nobody has ever seemed to find a gene for.”
When Edmund got back to his house it was nearing midnight, but as he entered the main hall he could see Daneh sitting by the fire, staring into it pensively.
“You’re up late,” he noted, walking over to the matching chair and sitting down in front of the fire. “And, frankly, you should be getting all the sleep you can.”
“I’ve got a lot on my mind,” Daneh replied. She stood up and bent over to poke the fire. “I guess I dimly realized how much I depended upon technology to do my job. But it’s really gotten driven in lately. I’ve got a couple of cases… I don’t think they’re all going to live, Edmund.”
He thought about getting up and giving her a hug but since… the encounter with Dionys she had never touched him. And he wasn’t going to press her about it.
“Anything I can do?”
“Not unless you can cure gangrene,” she sighed. “Or figure out how to repair an internal bleed with no dissolving sutures, no anesthetic and no sterile conditions to open somebody up.”
Since he didn’t have any of those things he kept his peace. But he knew that wasn’t all that was on her mind. He had known her for a long time and her body language told him that there was more. Not what, but more.
“Anything else?” he finally asked.
“Yes,” she said after a long pause. There was another as she poked at the fire again, this time with more vehemence. She finally set the poker down and sat back in the chair, still looking at the fire. “I haven’t started bleeding.”
He waited for more revelation than that, then shrugged. “Don’t they… skip?” he asked.
“Sometimes, but almost all the women in the town have had the ‘curse.’ ” She paused and then closed her eyes and her face worked. “I asked some of the ones who didn’t and they’d all… been engaged in sexual activity between the time of the Fall and now. Every. Single. One.”
“Oh,” Edmund said then thought for a moment. “Shit. Is there anything that we can do?” he asked.
“Like get rid of it?” she smiled, wanly. “Perhaps. But I’m not sure that I want to. Edmund, this will be the first child born of a woman’s body in millennia. Surely such a wonderful miracle should be considered carefully before we decide to end it?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“What is it now, Celine?” Chansa said, impatiently. He had given up running multiple avatars and had instead transferred to the lab.
“I thought you should see my newest toy,” Celine said with a smile. “It’s… right up your alley.”
She led him down a corridor, then through a series of security screens until they were looking down into a metal-lined pit. Inside was a bipedal beast. It was nearly three meters in height, stoop shouldered and long of leg with massive biceps and thighs. The fingers were long and strong with hooked claws. The face was bestial but it looked up at them with a surprising degree of intelligence and Chansa could see it sizing up the walls trying to determine if it could reach the top. The eyes also burned with fury and it finally leapt into the air, striking a punitive force screen that threw it back to the floor. It screamed in pain and rage.