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We've met Bobbie for real now, and seen a little of Kristie.
Does it go without saying that I'm borrowing from this world to give rough translations for the names?
Well, before I introduce Karel and Dan properly, I also need to tell you, time on their world is measured a little differently from time on ours. Am I stating the obvious? I do that too much. I suppose you don't want all the details, but so far I've been using a rough translation of the time units as well.
Karel turned the ignition off and sat for a minute outside Dan's house. He needed a little rest.
The door of the house opened and Dan stuck his head out the door. "Hey, Karel, how the heck are you?"
"Not bad for just finishing a five hour drive. How about you? Got your stuff?"
(Five hour drive. He actually said "three and a half chip drive", since you
need to know.)
"Yeah, I got my stuff, but come on in and say hi to the family. My little sister's dyin' to see you again."
Two voices chorused, almost in unison, from inside the house, "Dan!"
"Your little sister ignores me whenever I come any more."
Dan ducked back in and came outside, carrying a small briefcase. "Unless you give her a ride on your shoulders.
The door opened again behind Dan, and a fifteen year-old girl came running out and slapped her big brother up side-of-the-head. Dan just ducked and grinned.
Karel climbed out of the car, glad for the excuse to unbend, and walked around and gave the girl a hug. "My, you've grown, Sheliah. Wanna piggy-back ride?"
"Mom says I'm getting too old."
"Ah well. Are you still gonna marry me when you turn twenty?"
(Twenty. They actually use hexadecimal numbers, for what it's worth. Gives
a different sense to "teen-age", even I don't coin the word "hex-age". And 20ten just doesn't read like
14sixteen. But I'll stick to decimal here. For now.)
"Mom says you have to find someone your own age before then."
"Darn. She's probably right about that, too, though."
"Where are you gonna find someone as cool as me?"
"That's a tall order. But I'll let you know when I do."
Karel went in and said hi to the Claymount family, then he and Dan got in the car and headed out of town.
"I don't know whether I'm better friends with you or your family sometimes."
"Yeah. Too busy to keep up with each other. Sure is too bad the team waived you after your second year."
"Football can't last forever."
"Which is why I let you talk me into checking out grad school with you, right?"
And they caught each other up on personal news as they went, until Dan dozed off.
Dan had promised to drive at least half of the way from his town to the
university. But Karel knew he would be tired, and would probably not be able
to wake up enough to drive when it was his turn. So they had
left early enough that they could stop and get some sleep at a rest area on the way.
*****
(We used to stop to sleep at rest stops in the middle of the night, like that. But we can't any more. Too many problems with criminal activities going on in the middle of the night. So the highway patrol has to wake you up and tell you to move on.
But back then, in the UIS mid-west, too, it was standard operating procedure for
students traveling the long distances between home and college, especially for
male students. Not so much for female students traveling alone, of course.
Football. You'll allow me to continue with the substitution? It was a game with rules close to American Football in our world, anyway.)
*****
Not quite a chip after sunrise, Karel parked the car in a school parking lot and reached over to wake Dan up.
"Hey, we're here," he said, shaking his shoulder.
They had caught a bit more than three chippu of sleep at a rest stop east of the mountains, but, even with that, Dan was still not feeling safe behind the wheel. So Karel had driven the rest of the way in.
"Oh, man. Sorry I couldn't wake up."
"That's okay. You can drive on the road back."
"Has it been five years?"
"Five for you. Since I finished up my master's during the off-season while we were playing pro, it's only been a couple for me."
"Yeah. So, I'm going to the PE department to look at a graduate degree in sports education while you check out the anthropology department, right?"
"That's the plan."
"And you'll come down to the PE department to look at studying dance as another option, right?"
"Right. So we'll meet down there and then go get some lunch."
------
And that is how it was that Karel was sitting in the anthropology department offices, tired from the long drive, trying to read application form instructions, when Bobbie came in that morning. And why he wasn't there when she came back.
He did get an appointment to talk with a member of the anthropology faculty heading down to the PE building,.
------
"Hey, Karel, what's wrong?"
"Oh, nothing."
"You look like you just lost a friend."
"Just kicking myself for not trying to get a girl's phone number."
"That happens."
"Didn't even introduce myself. I only said something stupid like 'Nice day.'"
"Heh. Hey, don't sweat it. If it was meant to be, you'll get another chance."
"You should talk."
"True. Girls just don't understand us boys. Did you get an interview?"
"Got an appointment for the afternoon."
"Me, too. Are you going to come in and ask about the dance program or what?"
In the dance office, one of the professors was available to talk, but she was not encouraging.
"We just don't have the expertise to help you with teaching dance to football players, and, frankly, I think the football body would not train well in dance. Getting the turnout would be nearly impossible."
"I know it would be pioneering, but I'm willing to put in the effort."
"I really hate to be so discouraging, but I can't promise that any of the
faculty here would be willing to put in the effort to help you. We're up to
our necks in our standard curricula, anyway." (We'll forgive this professor for not being a little more forward-looking.)
Karel must not have hidden his disappointment well.
She continued, "Look, you have another option you're considering, right?"
"Yeah. Anthropology."
"Maybe that's going to be a stretch for you, too, but I think it will be less of a stretch."
On his way out of the office, he noticed a poster on the wall.
"What's this?"
"Oh, that's from several years back. A master's candidate at," and she named the school Karel remembered Bobbie saying she'd gotten her master's from, "who came to give us some workshops in modern dance here. It was very exciting. I keep the poster as a reminder."
"Roberta Whitmer," Karel read absently.
"Do you know her?"
"Know her? Can't say that I do."
After that, Karel and Dan went up to the school cafeteria, showed their alumni cards, and bought lunch. While they were eating, they talked about the morning.
"I can't believe she just basically turned me down flat."
"You've got to quit letting women walk all over you like that." Dan grinned between bites. "On the other hand, maybe that girl you didn't really meet this morning is part of your destiny."
Now, for whatever reason, Karel had not mentioned anything further about Bobbie, not even about seeing the poster.
"Destiny. Maybe. Well, let's go to our interviews."
Karel's interview was with a Doctor White. When Karel gave him his CV to look at, he scanned it, muttering, "mission, football, instrumentation technician, military, engineering, semiconductors, ... . Lots of experience. But I don't see an obvious connection. Why do you suddenly want to get a PhD in Anthropology?"
"When I was a missionary in," and he named the same mission that Bobbie had named, "I thought the islanders I worked among had an intuitive understanding of the cultural basis of economics and management. At that semiconductor company where I worked, I watched managers who seemed to have no interest in things cultural tear the company apart with bad management and worse economics. I think their lack of interest in the human factor was the proximate cause of their bad management, much more than the technology."
"I see. So, what do you intend to research?"
"I want to learn how to describe the human factors and develop some useful economic models companies can operate under, that take them into account."
"Okay, that sounds like something we can work from."
So Karel also had to explain his groundwork for coming in from outside the major, just as Bobbie did.
Of course, he had different holes to fill. Where he would just monitor the senior-level research methodology class, he would have to actually take the anthropologist's introduction to medicine and physiology, and so forth.
He also committed to correspond with Doctor White for further advice as he prepared to begin coursework in the fall, and Doctor White promised to shepherd his application through the processes.
When Karel and Dan left later that afternoon, they both had the necessary forms and had made the necessary contacts.
Dan drove on the way back, and they arrived at his home around midnight. Karel crashed in Dan's room for three and a half chippu before driving home in the morning.
On the way home from Dan's house, he complained a bit to God:
"Why didn't I try harder to strike up a conversation?"
It didn't feel natural, did it?"If I were smooth like Dan, I could have gotten her phone number, I'm sure. Why can't I be smooth like him?"
Dan said it himself, he's not particularly successful at getting married yet, either.
Karel didn't have a quick response to that. But, ultimately, he said, "Well, Father, like Dan said, if it's something that should happen for me, I'd sure like another chance to make her acquaintance."
He could have described the response he felt as a galactic "Hmmmm."
------
Dan picked up some publicity work for their former team, and Karel picked up some consulting work, mostly for his father's company, and both Dan and Karel spent a lot of the time over the next eight months preparing to go back to school.
They made another trip about a month after their first trip, to hand-deliver their applications, because it was a little close to the deadline.
Karel wanted to live on campus, and Dan wanted to live off campus, so after they submitted their applications, they each spent part of the day separately arranging for housing and checking out possible work opportunities.
I explained a little about what a "mission" is, at the end of last chapter. I forgot to mention there that a missionary's field of labor is also called a "mission" in Ehyephoot parlance.
There are two parallel organizations within the Church. One is focused on the members, and one is focused on the missionary work.
In the latter organization, a "mission" is both a physical area, and the organization within which the missionaries assigned there work. It's similar to the church I attend, where, at this time, Japan, is divided into seven or eight areas called missions, and the Philippines is divided into twenty or so. Each of these missions had around fifty to a hundred fifty missionaries working in it (in our world, also, up until the Corona virus pseudo-pandemic.)
When Karel served his mission, there were not nearly as many missions in existence. A few years later, when Bobbie was serving hers, some of the missions had been divided, so there were a few more. Even though it was the same mission, it was a smaller area when Bobbie served.
(Which mission they served in, well, I don't want to dig into Xhilr geography. Not just yet.)
About time, before I strain my back in interpolation -- there are sixteen chippu to a day -- 10sixteen.
If we were to travel to Xhilr, we would experience their day as approximately the same length as an Earth day. But, of course their days aren't exactly the same length as ours. That kind of equivalence would require constant intervention over distances so vast the comparisons wouldn't be meaningful. Whether they are longer or shorter, and by how much, doesn't really matter.
Midnight is zero or 10sixteen. If the days were exactly the
same length, there would be exactly ninety earth minutes to the
chip:
(Just for the record, I once calculated it as ninety-one and a fraction
minutes to the actual chip, but, as I say, the calculations become
meaningless at the distances and velocity differentials involved. Because of
the different paths the planets are traveling, I'm not sure the calculations I
made then still hold, if I even got them right in the first place.)
| Table of Contents | Next: Bobbie Meets Karel |
You can find the original first draft of this chapter and various
approaches I have tried with it here:
https://free-is-not-free.blogspot.com/2016/05/economics-101-novel-ch02-introducing.html.
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Keep it on topic, please.