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Extracts from a Diary
by Amelia Bourne-Phipps
-edited by Simon Barber-
22 February, 1937 to 28 February, 1937

"Spring forward, Fall back"

(Being the twenty-second part of the diaries of Amelia Bourne-Phipps, studying in her final year at the Songmark Aeronautical Boarding-School for Young Ladies, on Spontoon’s Eastern Island. She’s just returned from an … Interesting mission to Macao and Tillamook,
and now has to tell her Tutors all about it.)


Monday 22nd February, 1937

Dear Diary – it was good that we managed a few nights of relative relaxation on Tillamook with hotel beds or camps in the woods, as there seems no prospect of any more relaxation in the next month and a half. Last night we got in to Songmark, reported in to Miss Cardroy who was staffing the duty bungalow by the gate, and hurried up to our room to wash and put everything away. It would not have surprised us if we had been put on night gate guard right away to make up for lost time – as Madeleine X commented we should be, when we went in past her.

    Happily we got everything stowed away before lights-out and managed a standard night’s sleep. This morning we had a meeting with Miss Devinski where we gave a brief report on how everything had gone. She nodded and said she looked forward to reading our detailed write-ups. A Songmark first-year might have asked her if we would be given time off to work on them, but we are sadly better informed. Quite the contrary; she passed us individual folders with all the work we had to catch up on in addition to the usual timetables. There were five drooping sets of tails in the room; Adele might not be pathologically unlucky any more but that only means she gets it as bad as the rest of us.

    A busy day, starting with an extra course of the usual refresher we get at the start of every term. One might think that Songmark girls spend their holidays drinking extremely bad bootleg liquor and forget everything in a few weeks, to judge by the hoops they make us jump through. Almost literally; we joined the first-years over on Moon Island before luncheon to provide an example of how to get over their obstacle course with speed and style. I am glad I am not a Persian feline with massively fluffy fur; one of the first-years is and she looks rather like a dripping, muddy floor mop after slipping and falling snout-first in the water jump.

    I managed to drop postcards to Mrs. Hoele’toemi and Saimmi as we went past the docks; although we will be swamped with work we should manage to get away for Sunday and there is a lot to tell them. There was no need to tell Post Box Nine we were back; I am sure Mr. Sapohatan knows already and he will let us know when he wants to see us.
   
    After lunch I had a surprising meeting – Miss Blande showed me what Maria’s telegram had done for the Direwolf, when we asked the first-year Alpha Zarahoff (or Rote as she calls herself) to work on a Torpedo Breaker. I had expected something amazingly complex and the size of a log canoe – but there was a shelf with ten neat, yard-long bright red mini torpedo interceptors that apparently work! It is rather as if I had asked for a better sort of postcard and Alpha had invented the Super-Iconoscope from scratch. Quite what they call a “Embarrassment of riches” as this rather changes naval warfare. Miss Blande told me firmly to keep my snout shut until local interested parties had decided what to make of the invention. Posting the plans off to Barrow-in-Furryness with instructions to set up an assembly line right away, is something that might not happen. Unlike the lash-up systems made with recycled Great War hardware we saw demonstrated in Macao, this is probably too good to share.

    Then – back to work! Songmark beds are notoriously hard (the deep pine needle forest floor of Tillamook forests were much springier and we did not have to do the laundry) but we will be spending all too little time in them for the next few weeks.


Thursday 25th February, 1937

As we expected, we have been run ragged this week – no time to write till today, as we have been working non-stop till lights-out when we are not on gate duty. Gate guard twice in a week! Definitely our Tutors are making us sweat off all the three-star hotel cuisine we enjoyed in Macao. If we did much sweating walking the fence in the rain in February, that is.

    I have heard about the fate of my Torpedo Breaker – the Direwolf is not getting them, and neither is the Allworthy estate. At least, they are not getting the manufacturing contracts but I should be able to pass on the royalties! Of course I have to pay for it first; Alpha did the job with an efficiency that is positively frightening to contemplate. Cranium Islanders may have what she calls “no prejudice towards Sanity” but judged by their achievements one can hardly complain.

    Having talked with her I looked through the folder of the Allworthy estates and their assets; as soon as I have sent enough money back to Barrow-in-Furryness I can keep my end of the bargain and make over to Alpha the deeds of a cottage and old mine workshop sheds up in the woods, which is currently untenanted. Effectively I am buying it from myself, then giving it to Alpha and Nancy Rote. I am doing my best to keep it all above-board, as when I stop being Lady Allworthy the proper claimant to the title deserves a full accounting as to how I have looked after the estate. Beryl says I should sell the whole estates off, and has various plausible-sounding reasons for it. She knows a lot of lawyers and “for a suitable fee” offers to introduce me to them. I think not.

    Having a title, however unwanted, does seem to make furs think I am better than they are. Quite wrong. Florence Farmington came over with a rather odd personal request last night when Molly and I were on gate guard. She is the leader of her dorm, but is rather the odd one out as the others regard the Double Lotus as the centre of island social life, to put it mildly.
 
    Florence seemed somewhat down in the dumps, and began by commenting that the rest of her dorm have been enjoying what one could call an extremely busy time since their first term here. In fact, despite all the Precautions Mrs. Oelabe has taught us, nothing is a hundred percent reliable and Florence grumbled that if she had been as popular with canine gentlemen since arriving on Spontoon, she would probably have two pups already and be finding out about the third on the way shortly. And she is just a second-year!

    I saw Molly’s expression of horror and realised what Florence was leading up to – she asked if I thought it was a good idea to try what the rest of her dorm enjoy. I was rather puzzled as why she would ask me, as I am hardly qualified that way; Prudence is surely the one to ask.

    I was rather flabbergasted when she told me I had the reputation of having the most solid common-sense in my year! Given some of my misadventures I would never claim that. Plus, Florence said she was sure Prudence would automatically say yes so there would be little point in asking her opinion.

    It is somewhat common knowledge what happened to Molly with Captain Granite, though nobody talks much about it (Prudence hates that more than anyone; she wanted to be on the mission after New Year that ended up killing her)  so Florence was prepared for Molly’s rather forceful opinion. Molly says she is only lucky not to have picked up such tastes – she says Florence is like someone wanting to catch tuberculosis so they can have a nice stress-free holiday in a sanatorium.

    I shooed Florence off to talk to Prudence and her dorm, who can tell her anything she might want to know. This did not sit at all well with Molly, who was aghast that I did not discourage her strongly.  But Molly has had unfortunate experiences that way, and is hardly unprejudiced. Florence should come to no harm at least, and might get on rather better with the rest of her dorm. Not that she gets on badly as it is; they almost hero-worship her, but she is like a netball star being put as captain of a hockey team.

    It was rather an uncomfortable night shift, Molly walking around glowering with her ears and tail right down. If any intruder had dared come over the fence I doubt they would have got out alive! I suppose it is not amazing that all of us are changing. Helen is losing her fear of being “domesticated”, or rather she is seeing that having Marti, a longhouse and cubs is a distant future she quite likes. Maria is coming into her own at last, after being very quiet about her connections these past three years until her abilities grew to match. I have the uncomfortable job of both being as good a Lady Allworthy as I can, and getting rid of the title as soon as I can – if I can! Just refusing to answer letters and retiring to domestic bliss a longhouse with Jirry, is no sort of answer. I would be no better than the last holder of the title, and they at least had the excuse of being internationally wanted by the law and unable to look after their duties even had they wanted to. I wish I could have stayed a “Lady” as I tried to.

    Despite being on gate guard we were up well before breakfast, the only available time to start writing our reports on the Macao trip. Having a diary to refer to definitely helps; it was a case of fleshing out technical details and working out what embarrassing bits I could manage to leave out without leaving any obvious holes in the story. As Maria has said about journalism, getting a story often starts with finding one small loose thread – and our Tutors are expert at pulling them.

    We had a surprising “guest lecturer” with translator today, having gone over to Moon Island to the Syndic hall. I recall in our first year helping land that giant Soviet Kalinin K7 bomber, the pilot of which vanished (it being his duty to crash in mid-ocean rather than have the secrets of the aircraft revealed) and today we met him! Where he has been and what he has been doing recently was a forbidden subject, but his translator was wearing a Rain Island uniform. Furs escaping to political asylum paid for with state secrets is common enough, and is probably one of the things that gives Ioseph Starling sleepless nights, if anything does.

    Having a resident expert on paw was rather alarming as we were shown a newsreel the Tass news agency had put out of the record-breaking flights in the model. They also have a flying-boat tanker aircraft that works with them; the newsreel showed a non-stop flight from Leningrad to Vladivostok and back again with tankers coming up to meet it from the Caspian Sea, Lake Baikal and a river near Vladivostok respectively. Thirty hours in the air with five in-flight refuelling hook-ups is quite a feat – even considering that the K-7 has space for two shifts of crew onboard and can access all its engines in flight as they are conveniently within the wing. The Soviet Union has been testing the in-flight refuelling technique for ten years and more, and has finally got it working. Look out Vostok – and almost everywhere else!  *

    The pilot, a rather harried looking weasel, said the newsreel was showing it as a “special record-breaking aircraft of scientific interest” but the assembly lines at Voronzeh in the Ukraine were running day and night, turning the model out not quite like Model T Fnords in Detroit, but close enough. He added that they seemed to have deleted the No.7 pusher propeller that used to stand alone on the trailing edge, which had been a cause of much trouble with the buried engine overheating and the airflow causing vibration in the twin tail boom.
 
    Quite an impressive, if alarming lecture! Maria was taking copious notes, and if Il Puce does not know already I think he will soon. Italy is a mere hop across the Black Sea from Voronzeh, a skip over the Balkans and a jump across the Adriatic; such a force would hardly even need refuelling on that trip. For that matter, Leningrad to London is about the same distance and especially at night I doubt the Scandinavian countries could even track them going over at eight thousand metres let alone stop them. The pilot added they can get off the ground with a full bomb load only if they fill the fuel tanks a quarter full, but that of course is where the in-flight refuelling comes in.

    Back to write everything up! It is alarming that Ioseph Starling is building up a long-range bomber force this size – but unlike other nations they do not have much of a navy. Last year we saw the French “Surcouf” class submarines, two squadrons of which are only six days on the surface away at their huge base on Clipperton Island off Mixteca. The world balance does keep changing with every new invention, and my Torpedo Breaker is yet another one that looks set to change things. Still, I might be wrong. We have all heard Madeleine X boast about the indestructible Maginot Line as the true future of conflict, and if any future dispute turns out to be like the last one but far more so in terms of giant trenches and dugouts, all bets will be off.

* Editor’s note: Amelia is quite right on most technical matters. The USSR was experimenting from as early as 1927 with in-flight refuelling.

   
Friday 26th February, 1937

Our first week over! We handed in our official reports of the Macao trip, and are rather sweating about how “acceptable” they turned out to be. At least I am; Helen, Molly and Maria did their parts very well. If we were allowed to give marks to each other, I think Molly deserves the highest for managing to stay in character as an efficient maid (and resisting temptation to throw the similarly dressed if more scantily clad hotel “maids” out of the window). She is nearly as disturbed at that as I am about whatever did happen to me – and too many things have happened in the past year and a bit for my comfort.
 
    Checking my local bank account against my records and my diary, I found I am richer by one cowry. I almost expected this; it has happened in mysterious circumstances a few times before. Not that the cowry comes as part of any rounding-up by the bank itself, but that someone took the trouble to pay it in as a single anonymous transaction. There must be some significance here.

    I have heard from Saimmi; she made the odd request for me to bring with me everything I took to Macao, when I head over to South Island on Sunday. It is a good thing that Lady Allworthy travels light. I include items I own such as the Webley VI revolver that Helen actually carried, being the one with most pockets. Possibly Saimmi has some spiritual version of flea-hunting to do to try and see what bit me.
 
    Thinking of embarrassing situations, Prudence had a few words with me about my sending Florence her direction. She can be very blunt at times (her family being hard-nosed owners of Lancashire cotton spinning and wool twirling mills) and was not entirely happy with Florence thinking of her dorm’s preference as a source of second-rate cheap and safe thrills. She told Florence what to do for that. Although she has relented and invited Florence to the swimming club practice tomorrow, she says if any of the more predacious ladies at the Double Lotus latch onto our second-year, it will serve her right. That dark-furred mare Nikki is not the only one who would jump on her on sight, nor (Prudence says) the worst.  We have heard what happened to Tatiana Bryzov, although that seems to have come out all right in the end.

    We are back on gate guard again tonight. Our Tutors certainly believe in making us pay for our first-class tickets to Macao! Miss Devinski has dropped a few words about silver-service meals and four-star restaurants. She has not mentioned (though she surely knows) that it was not all like that; Helen grumbles that as a reward for spending an evening in the Macao rain watching over me at the reception there, she gets to spend more evenings in the rain back at Songmark with no deep hot hotel bath to look forwards to after. Certainly our water heater is ingenious and the baths are very welcome but they are necessarily rather brief, and the third-paw tub is better sized to Beryl or Li Han than Maria or Missy K.
 
    I managed to chat with Jasbir when we were on the way to Main Island to climb a few cliffs today, about the athletics challenge match from our rivals the Ave Argentum. Jasbir was on the team, and says it was quite a weekend. The main events that the Guides chose for us were fairly predictable given we are both establishments for Adventuresses – an open-sea swimming race, the cross-country race carrying a quarter of one’s bodyweight, and other such things. The “Mystery Event” turned out to be something that was probably staged for the cameras, a log-rolling match. That is, a big log was set up on bearings so it spun freely, and Susan de Ruiz was our contestant trying to stay on while spinning her opponent off, an Andalusian mare. Which unfortunately she failed at – the Ave Argentum do have some talent amongst them, and outnumbering us they have a bigger pool to draw on. Her opponent was a quarter again heavier and must have some mountain mustang blood in her to be that sure-hoofed. Seeing what the Ave Argentum are like about pedigrees, I expect she would keep very quiet about that if true.

    Still, Songmark won three contests to two, which is good. Had we chosen our own events based on our strengths it would have been five-nil, and I doubt the Ave Argentum could have done that themselves. The Guide’s School are a fine and neutral body, and nobody complained otherwise. Beryl’s old school chum Masie “Crusher” Thynne proved a radically dangerous opponent, but anyone who graduates from Saint T’s is expected to.

    The world really does move on. Jasbir and her sister Meera are excited about plans from London that will quite change how some of the Empire is run. There have been rumbles of discontent for years about India wanting to be a Dominion like Australia or Canada, and their National Congress want it to quit the Empire altogether! The new plans get around the problem that large parts of India are ruled by their traditional aristocracy who hardly fit with an otherwise elected Government. The solution is radical yet simple – the parts not currently ruled by Native princes and Maharajahs will get their own, with ranks such as the Duke of Delhi being created and local loyalists of good family elevated to the positions.
 
    Jasbir says it is a master stroke; India will be ruled day-to-day by her own people and yet nothing significant will change. I doubt their Mr. Ghandi will like this idea much, but at a stroke it cuts a lot of his main support from under him. Just like the House of Lords at home there will be Life Peers as well as Hereditary Peers  so folk not born to the rank can aspire to be a Duke (a rank not previously used over there) if they work hard and loyally enough for the Empire. London will, naturally, be in charge of appointments.

   
Saturday 27th February, 1937

It is definitely getting lighter. Helen and I were in a position to notice, being roused by Molly and Maria at three and standing watch till seven. Spontoon is heading towards Spring, the second-years having already tackled the year’s land crab migrations last full moon on Main Island, and had their fun with the “invaders” in the Spontoon annual military exercises. By all accounts they made the invaders’ lives rather unhappy, despite exceeding orders. I doubt they lost any points for it, though.

    Dawn on the gates is better than the early shift on a good day; we see the first sunlight hitting the top of Mount Kiribatori away to the West, and creeping down its great cliffs. It is as good as a sundial, albeit one that “gains” about two minutes a day; this time of year by the time the light reaches the bottom of the cliff we know our gate guard is over.  Friday and Saturday dawn shifts are obviously the least popular evenings for this duty, as while everyone else gets extra sleep on Saturday and Sunday mornings we have to go without.

    The guard dogs are up and active all night, as they are only fed at breakfast time and are hungriest just when we are starting to droop. The female one is very strange; I recall her looking wistfully at one Sophie D’Artagnan and her latest date kissing goodbye outside the fence. One would not have thought a four-legger would have a romantic streak. Adele says she knows a similar one somewhere else, to whom she has read romantic fiction; anything by that rather slushy but enormously successful writer Bill Sandmoon goes down very well by her account.

    Just when we feel at our lowest ebb, there is none of our usual energetic but fun dance class on Casino Island, but a huge pile of work to catch up on! Off to the empty classrooms with many a book and our tails drooping. Jasbir and co are very happily heading out to dance classes just as we start to open our books and see the exercises in them make grim reading.

    (Later) With piles of completed exercises on the desks and our eyes threatening to close on their own, we “downed tools” for the day. There was the prospect of Poi for teatime, and indeed we could scent it being prepared to serve in an hour for students without passes.  Definitely time to be elsewhere. I called for a vote that we head out to Mahanish’s, which was carried unanimously – so ten minutes later we were out of our Songmark uniforms and out of the main gates, dressed in our comfortable clothes. There is little point in third-years having weekend passes and never using them – as Helen pointed out, they will be no use to us in six months time.
 
    Mahanish’s is always a lively place, what with pilots and air crews of all types dropping in at any time as well as the airport staff coming off shift. It is very well equipped, having a bar and restaurant but also a lot of sleeping accommodation, all staffed round the clock. There most be two dozen or so rooms, very basic but containing a large and comfortable bed apiece – and they have showers, real baths and a big fur-drier. Exactly what a pilot coming in after ten hours over the Pacific wants, before having to get back again in the cockpit. This year they have even expanded, having extended their “tornado cellar” (All new Spontoonie buildings have a reinforced concrete Tornado Cellar by Althing decree) to put some rooms down there, which are cool and very quiet. I can imagine them going at a premium in the middle of summer, where an exhausted pilot arrives at dawn and wants somewhere with a cool bed far from the glare of the tropical sun.

    Our own needs were simpler; a fine meal of roasted meats (Mahanish’s is famous for accepting fresh imported foods from aircrew in lieu of money) and a Nootnops Blue apiece, then a real bath! Admittedly it is only a week since the hot springs of Tillamook, but after being awake and working hard since three in the morning it was most welcome. Molly says she is very glad to be out of that maid’s costume, which was jolly uncomfortable, and she is much happier crawling over the Moon Island obstacle course with a Fedorov Avtomat rifle.

    I made the mistake of pointing out she fulfilled her duties extremely well, and that I doubt anyone who met her on Macao thought she was anything but a genuine modest, hard-working maid. Her ears and tail went right down at that, and she swore she would never put that costume on again. It was rather disturbing to see her transformed, if one knew Molly in other circumstances. She tends to mutter and sharpen her latest bayonet, a pre-war “Trowel” pattern one that looks indeed like a cross between a Zulu assegai and a builder’s trowel.

    Maria had whispered to me at the time that it was a radical experience for Molly, being a helpful, selfless servant. Then, Molly has always been fanatically “herself” and scorned any other way of living since the first day she got here, a few grass-skirted deceptions aside. If there is something deeper involved I hardly know. Beryl is the only one of us who has considered becoming an Alienist, because of the lucrative wages promised at the top of the profession as well as the power they can yield. As Beryl says, once qualified she could give wealthy patients the choice of continuing with her own expensively patented treatment or have them committed to some secure institution where they will doubtless discover the burly wardress has her own very special ideas on what constitutes “therapy”. Though I definitely did not mention this to Molly.

    It was a real treat to take turns in the full-body fur dryer, with a second glass of Nootnops Blue waiting outside. Compared with poi and the third-year showers we would otherwise have had, a wonderful treat! Although we all know that there are only so many weeks’ worth of (mostly uneaten) paid for Songmark poi dinners remaining for us, and Mahanish’s prices reflect the fact that pilots tend to be quite well paid. Fortunately none of us are short on money right now, with Molly receiving a rental fee from the Althing for the ship Captain Granite used to own, as well as her income from the “fish log.” There were a lot more land crabs caught and canned this year, though indeed the Spontoonies set aside more food for the rest of them. So this coming tourist season there is going to be quite a production run of Molly’s invention, and she has more ideas where that came from.

    Actually, Helen is now the poorest of us. Her late father’s fortune has mostly gone on the Songmark fees, and in fact if it had been one term longer she could not have afforded it. Still, it is an investment rather than a pure expense; if a Songmark graduate cannot make money nobody can! And not as Beryl keeps musing, with the right paper and a really good mimeograph machine. Still, Helen is the only one with a clear future as she will probably beat me to becoming a Mrs. Hoele’toemi. By tradition a Spontoonie girl is Tailfast twice in succession before she marries, and she qualified last year.

    Back to Songmark, so tired we could hardly think straight. The Nootnops Blue is hardly a factor; unlike wine it tends to make one lively rather than sleepy. I must say, although Napoleon famously managed on four hours sleep a night, I definitely need more. And as Molly pointed out, Napoleon lost at Waterloo and is dead now. Having six hours sleep would not have helped some of that (he would be about a hundred and eighty by now) but it would be worth a try.

   
Sunday 28th February, 1937

A rare thing last night – our dorm were all fast asleep an hour before lights out, and Maria could have snored like an engine testing range without waking us this morning before the alarm. The extra hour abed on Sunday morning felt very sweet after yesterday.
    
    A rapid check around the room and a packing of knapsacks secured everything I took with me to Macao, for Saimmi to look over. After some arguing I even took the case itself, as Saimmi wanted to be thorough. Just as aniseed oil can scent-mark items for weeks afterwards, if there is any sort of tainted item she should be able to spot it.

    Breakfast was a lively affair, with the first-year Crusader Dorm celebrating a “catch” as they solved one of their cases. It is a lot harder for them now they have lost their official protection after that scandal with Police Chief Pickering being sacked and imprisoned – but having proved successful the regular Police seem to be rather more tolerant to them than before.
 
    Thinking of first-year sleuths, it was rather strange yesterday with Alpha Rote approaching Molly and wanting to subscribe to Criminal World! I had not realised how difficult that was; in an effort to keep it out of the paws of Detectives, every new subscriber must have the recommendation of an existing subscriber. Molly agreed, and is thinking of asking payment by having Alpha act as her own maid for a week – including having Madame Maxine train her first at Alpha’s own expense. The rest of us just smiled and shook our heads; perhaps this will help Molly get around her traumatic experiences in Macao.

    The trip to South Island laden with suitcases and such was harder than usual, and we were very glad to see the Hoele’toemi compound again. Unfortunately Jirry is away still, as is Marti! The oldest brother, Joni Hoele’toemi, was there with his fiancée. We have not seen him much this past year. His fiancée is a Euro by ancestry, a poodle beauty who was adopted by a Main Island family. She takes after her birth mother, a silent movie starlet who like several others returned to Hollywood after a winter “resting between films” here with Film Frolics and the other scandal sheets none the wiser.

    Saimmi was there, and was very interested to hear what Helen and I had to tell her about Macao and our trip in general. She went through our items like a Customs inspector sniffing for opium, and showed us the ritual she was using. Her ears went down as item after item failed to show anything.
 
    Helen did ask what sort of influence would work on me, as I am hypnosis proofed and as even a trainee Priestess I should be able to detect something myself even if I could not throw it off. Saimmi has been thinking quite a lot about that and says it would have to be a development of something I had agreed to myself. The gold ring in my tail-fur is decidedly not it; she looked hard at that. Hopefully that really is what it claimed to be, an “insurance policy” against various predators. As for a Tailfast ring, Saimmi says that would definitely do it – but I only ever had one of those, and it “expired” a year and more ago when we were on Vostok. Actually I lost it, but it would have expired very soon after anyway.

    Saimmi cleared everything I carried, then went on with our training. Gha’ta has gone now; she is probably still swimming back to her home near Ponape. As Warrior Priestesses we are progressing well, she said, though we need to take a lot of care with our rituals. It is like that phrase Helen’s father brought back from the Great War; “there is nothing so dangerous as a determined second lieutenant with a map and compass.” Of course, he had never contemplated the idea of Molly as commandant of an arsenal. It is not unprecedented; by all accounts the Czech leader Field-Marshal Schweik was once sent to work in an ammunition dump, where his careless pipe-smoking had somewhat foreseeable results.

    While we were away, Eva Schiller has been politely asking to look around some of the Spontoon ritual sites. She always has a local Guide where required, and always asks the local Priestess first. Saimmi has a lot of questions for us to ask her – and she is not the only one. I know Irma Bundt drops her ears whenever we see Eva, who is a competent and rather fanatical representative of her nation. But Irma tells us strange things about her true beliefs that are not shown on the newsreels, and calls her “darkly illuminated” whatever that may mean. Eva is a strange one; I recall once she stated that she was not a member of some Tooler Society at all, because it never existed, and in any case did not admit girls.
 
    Saimmi mentioned rather wryly that it makes a change – a lot of Euros look around local sacred sites only to scorn them as “primitive superstition” and “heathen nonsense”. But Eva is sure that it works, though her own system is rather different. It is like a hydraulics expert suddenly being confronted with their first electrical motor – the two are not plug-compatible at all. But she can tell engineers sat down and built it, so with enough reverse engineering it is always possible to discover what makes it run.

    By lunchtime we were all exhausted, and it was a great relief to sit down to one of Mrs. Hoele’toemi’s excellent meals. Songmark serves generous if plain ones, which are best enlivened by chilli sauce, anchovy essence and similar – but at the Hoele’toemi table nobody would need anything of the kind. Molly used to pour salt and pepper over everything before even tasting it, but that was only in the first-year and may say something about the usual cooking in Chicago.

    Saffina was here last week on her own, but her dorm is off in the Kanim islands all this week. Saimmi says she is a mine of information, having contributed various rituals from her home in Africa that work over here.  Possibly they had local equivalents five hundred years ago that were lost when the great experiment went so hideously wrong – certainly there are gaps in the knowledge that Saimmi is trying to patch from wherever she can. The idea of Eva and her uncle Professor Schiller discovering how such things work and trotting back to Germany is a disquieting thought. Helen says she once had a flash of nightmare involving seven suicidally dedicated secret agents in exactly spaced rooms surrounding a foreign city starting a chant that would rewrite the maps as well as the pages of history.
 
    Still, there seems no immediate prospect of that happening, and we had a leisurely afternoon working on the longhouse and in the gardens. Moeli is getting definitely round now; she sees her husband most weeks and her first daughter is growing fast as well.  The Natives of No Island are folk we will definitely not be introducing Eva to!
 
    Back in brilliant sunshine, our tails and ears picking up despite having a few more hours of catch-up work to do. Spring is almost here; the weeds are growing in the Hoele’toemi garden patch already and we have another three weeks of term to catch up with everything.
 
    On the way back, Molly whispered an awful idea. We have always thought our missions were dangerous enough, but now Jirry is out at sea in the “import-export trade” he has rather more dangers than the usual island ones of falling off a surf plank. Apart from the regular hazards of the seas there is the matter of what he is (presumably) carrying, rather like our Parsifal trip with Lars where there is lethal rivalry in the trade. She asked what I would do if it is him, not us, who “fails to return” as they used to describe missing aviators in the Great War.
 
    That is definitely not a prospect I like to think about. And yet it could happen; at Songmark the first-years are always expected to come up with a credible Plan A, B and C, which would mean we are somewhere half way into Japanese kanji symbols having worked through all the European alphabets. And we are taught to look hard at all our fears and face them down.

    One thing I am definitely not putting down as Plan Z (or some tricky Polish letter, even) is her idea of joining Lars in a “herd”. Definitely not my style - Lions may have extended families that way, but anyone who ever tried to herd cats soon gave up on the idea. Lars is a very good match for Molly, and as far as being handsome and healthy he would win any prizes going, as he does in Native dancing. But I turned down a “respectable” shared marriage as one of the Mrs. Johnson tribe in the alternative New South Zion last September (respectable according to local laws, anyway) and am no keener on Molly’s suggestion!


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