Chapter 18: Big Plans
Nunuk had not been pleased with what they had found out, even if they assured her Tom was adamant his world could not come here by force. He had been transported by a weird entity, not of his world.
Sapphire couldn’t blame her though, knowing there was a force out there that outnumbered this entire world by orders of magnitude while on peace footing! Was deeply unsettling. In the end, she had settled for if this was true, there wasn’t anything they could do about it. But she had a guy that knew the secrets of such an army and she would be damned if she didn’t make the most of it.
Nunuk had Apuma draw up another Circle to make the discussion easier. For the first time though Tom hadn’t been willing to cooperate entirely.
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“I will not teach you the means to kill any who stand before you. I will teach you things that will help people and make their lives better not destroy them, at least not yet.” Tom had said
Nunuk had been going at him hard for a while now, it was clear she had the scent of just what some of the things Tom knew could theoretically do. Tom hadn’t been ready for this conversation. He was still trying to work out what was a good idea to share at this point.
“Better weapons would make defending against the evils of this world so much easier and save countless lives.” Nunuk had protested.
“Only if evil doesn't have them, if they do then you are just killing faster.” was Tom's reply. Her point was valid he thought, but he didn’t want to teach her how to wipe out her rivals, Besides what if they are all racist here, he hadn’t seen a non-white Dragonette yet, if that even existed? He needed to know these people a lot better before imparting that sort of knowledge.
“Why would we give our enemies our new weapons that would be stupid” Nunuk clearly found the argument ridiculous.
“In time they will get them, they always do. In my world, we always try to have better weapons than our enemy. The result? We now have weapons that can wipe out millions of lives in a blink of an eye and leave the ground poisoned for thousands of years! I will not go down in history as the one who set you down that path. I WILL NOT!!”
There was silence in the grand hall, his little outburst clearly having caused quite a bit of thinking to be undertaken. The ramifications of what he was talking about clearly were not lost on those in the room.
“Why would you make something like that?!” Fengi had asked, seemingly horrified, rightly so he thought, she should be.
“Because nobody wants to die for nothing, and if destruction is certain you will not go to war. We call it mutually assured destruction. No major country has been in open war with each other since the invention of such weapons. Nobody dares! We call them nukes, sometimes also referred to as weapons of mass destruction. They are as far as we have gone down the road of weapons and destruction, but the principle applies to all. Better weapons only result in more death and destruction in the long run. Never peace and prosperity. That is achieved through economics, cooperation, and technological progress.”
Tom felt like a preacher of the rapture, but he didn't see the alternative. He needed to convince these people he knew best what was smart to give them and what was not.
“What will you have us do then? If you start giving us all these other things you talk about, how will we defend them? Others will come to try and take it if they deem it worth the effort.” Nunuk had a point, of course, somebody would come looking in time. Nothing stays secret forever. Nor was this supposed to be a secret he was supposed to change this world after all, not just this island.
“I haven't figured that out, that is why I didn’t seek this conversation yet. I don’t have an answer, but it is beside the point for now anyway. I wouldn't be able to make anything special with your current facilities. That will need to be the first priority no matter what.”
“Right then, you speak of needing things, what might those be?” Nunuk seeming to accept this was all she was getting for the time being.
Large quantities of metal, for the production of manufacturing machines. We are talking about a LOT of metal. I don’t know what metal is worth to you but I’m guessing it ain't cheap?”
“You would be correct in that assumption, it is quite valuable and we don’t make it ourselves, only shape it. How much do you need?”
“Tons I think. At least a few hundred kilos to make some basic machines if I’m creative with the use of other materials.”
“There is no way we would be able to afford that, not to mention the cost of transporting it. I doubt we even have that much metal here total!” Nunuk was clearly baffled by the request as if she couldn't comprehend what he would need so much metal for.
“I believe I have a plan for that. Sugar seems to be very valuable to you, yes?”
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“What is sugar?” Nunuk’s tone shift was tangible, she was clearly not sure where this conversation was going but was simply allowing him to get on with it.
“It's like honey powder but even sweeter.” Tom clarified. “Your huntresses have had a taste already, the candy I gave to them was melted sugar with fruit flavor.”
“So like honey of sorts, yes that is very valuable, about the price of silver per weight. Bees are very dangerous, many who collect honey die in the process! The ones who are brave enough to do it are few and far between and they demand considerable pay. That makes it incredibly hard to acquire. Why do you ask?”
“Because I brought the means to grow sugar.”
“Please elaborate” Nunuke was clearly very intent on this new development, as she leaned forward almost in anticipation, Tom thought.
“I brought seeds for a plant called sugar beets, they are easy to grow and contain a large amount of natural sugar. You boil them down and render the liquid till you get a hard crystal, you then crush that into powder, and voila sugar. It won't be pure but it will still be as sweet as any honey.
“You know how to grow honey!?” It came from the gentleman that had caused Sapphire to hide when they arrived. “I would say impossible but you seem to take that lightly.”
“Well, where I come from sugar is as cheap as bread so yeah.”
This was when Apuma fainted either from exhaustion or the information dumped on the poor guy. Dakota had been there to catch him at least. There was a lot of commotion in the grand hall with people bickering and pointing. Nunuk had just sat back down in her chair contemplating what to do with this information.
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Sapphire wasn’t sure what to make of herself, Tom had just told her his people had the ability to kill on a scale she had never even dared have nightmares about and he was so scared the same would happen here, he wasn’t sure what to do?! And now they were apparently contemplating becoming sugar farmers? Also, the sweets Tom had given them were considered cheap where he was from? Well, it explained why he had given them out so freely back then.
What was going to happen now? At least it sounded like Tom wouldn’t be able to do much just yet, he needed many things to get started. Also, why did he want to start here, he could just go to the capitol and find someone who could get him what he wanted. She didn’t reckon that would be hard with some of the things he had brought. Was it because he couldn’t fly? He was technically stranded here for the time being. She decided to bring it up with Nunuk in private at some point.
For now, the lessons had just become a lot more important. These translation sessions could not continue so Tom needed to learn Draconic fast. It wouldn’t hurt either if he could teach them English too, so they could read his books. Even if there were things he wanted to hide from them.
Tom was clearly willing to share what he thought was safe with them, but Nunuk didn’t appreciate being told what she could and couldn't have, it was a difficult position to argue following what Tom had told them though. Besides, it wasn't like they could easily force him if they wanted to.
They had continued asking questions of Tom after Apuma had been taken to go lie down for a bit.
Apparently, Tom’s plan was to plant these sugar beets in spring, then they would be ready in autumn so that gave them nearly a year before any results. It seemed he believed it was currently autumn. That caused some confusion, but eventually, they convinced him it was in fact mid-spring, so they should probably get going.
So that is how pretty much the entire keep found themselves working to make a new field in record time, too many protests from some of the participants naturally.
“Why don’t we just put the weird magic fruits in the ground and be done with it?” Jackalope had protested.
“Because we want them to grow as big as they can get.” Raulf clearly enjoying their misery.
“But earth is earth. This is just to get us all dirty” Jackalope clearly wasn’t buying it.
“Ohh just you wait, you haven't seen dirty yet” the chuckle and wide smile on the guy made Sapphire realize she should go find something else to do before they got to whatever he was thinking about.
Shortly thereafter she heard some considerable moaning from Jackalope followed by a high-pitched whine as she was closely acquainted with how you fertilize a field by falling over with the wheelbarrow. Fengi had begun laughing receiving a handful of the manure to the face for her trouble. She proceeded to run around screaming until Esmeralda came over with some water to wash it off.
Tom had cracked a laugh it the scene
With all hands helping working in shifts and Tom getting out the quadbike to set a new world record for plowing, they had a hastily prepared field ready by evening, ready to be sown tomorrow. Even if the fencing still lacked.
Sapphire had to admit, it was impressive to watch Tom work. He just didn’t seem to get tired as they did. Even Raulf, who was used to this type of work, had to give up trying to keep up. And that was while being told by Nunuk to slow down quite regularly. Sapphire was starting to understand why he needed more food than them at least.
They had agreed on planting only half of the sugar beat seeds Tom had brought, in case something went wrong. He had shown Raulf the selection of seeds he had brought. The farmer had been speechless, so many things he had no idea what was. They had agreed they should try as many different things as they could in small patches, to see what would grow here and what wouldn't.
Tom had been consulting the book Sapphire had been looking in regularly, it was clearly so kind of manual of how to farm. It was quite clear after all, this was not one of Tom’s areas of competence, even if he was good at digging drains and holes.
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Well, this wasn’t entirely how Tom had imagined the enlightenment project was supposed to start, but it did the trick. Farming was the key to both money and fuel apparently, so might as well start there. Even if it was a shame sugar was worth this much, it would in turn make alcohol-based fuel incredibly expensive. Not even considering the distilling process.
But if he was sitting on the world’s main supply of both, and the world's only machine shop. Price wouldn’t be much of a problem, though Nunuk’s words were weighing heavily on his mind. As soon as they began trading in this stuff people would notice. And with the kinds of wealth simply growing silver could generate, they were looking at some serious incentive for people to come knocking. They would need equally serious defenses. Those would be expensive though so they need to buy time. Maybe that was a problem for the locals Tom thought. This was a keep, after all, it was clearly meant to be defended against considerable forces. Why was that? what were they expecting to fight? Tom suddenly became acutely aware he was sworn to defend the keep he was currently working to turn into a massive target… Shit.