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Jack reunites with Cookie below decks.
"Duck-boy. how you been?"
"Cookie! nice to see you again."
The fact that Cookie has been to the west coast of Colonia Norte comes up.
"I can’t even image what it would be like there on the west coast!!?!"
"Everything crazy. Keep it!"
They return to the Pelican and the innkeeper has something for him. It’s a copy of the ship’s log of Cinnabar & Co. They had it made for Jack along their journey and had a passing ship take it back to the inn just in case Jack returned after they left.
Tiny talks more about his parting ways with the other cutthroats and turning honest. Cookie and maybe a handful of others he points out joined him.
Tiny will attempt follwing the trail of the rest of the cast with this log book.
Jack becomes immersed in feeling truly alone, but Lucy shows up and revives his sense of adventure.
After sloop's pursuit north starts, there is a scene with an lone, unknown shipwreck survivor, clinging to some flotsam on the open sea.
"My choices are few."
"To drink the water, and go mad. Or not to drink it, and not know if it would be a kind madness."
"One of forgetfulness and hallucination, or a cruel madness of agony and cursing."
"A second choice. To burn. To burn and blister ... then burn and blister again ... and again. I haven't protection from the sun."
"Another choice. Rescue. It's a gamble against the other two. I cannot play such a game of chance." I am too weak for it.
"Lastly, to just fall away. I haven't the strength to struggle. I would just sink and be done with it."
"When I saw this piece of flotsam, I chose to cling to it. Now, I can simply choose not to."
He slips underwater. Immediately after, a ship pops into view of the emptly raft. Back below, Adarro arrives, releases a fish that swims into his mouth.
Back above, the survivor resurfaces and holds onto the raft. He is possessed by Adarro. Whether he is alive or some soft of puppet is unclear, and a bit creepy.
"Never so much as a man until now. I may play at it longer this way."
He waves down the ship. "Ahoy ship of men! May i join you?"
The ship belongs to Anne, Cinnabar and the Uncles. "Look there! A survivor of some wreck."
"It's amazing. He's still alive. He looks fit as a fiddle."
The remainder of the story goes back and forth between Jack reading the log and learning of the adventures of the others after departing, and the circumstances of the Adarrow-man aboard their ship.
The swift sloop can potentially catch up to the larger ship.
At some future point, Jack realizes that his trip to the Seminole Empire was not random. He had been dwelling on the lack of Indians in Colonia Norte when it happened. Although Sally helped, it suggests his power is more in his control. He also recalls when first arriving in Colonia, he had been actively dwelling on not wanting to return to Massachusetts after the fishing season.
Jack applies this thinking to the discovery that the Indians don't exist due to the sea peoples creatures overrunning the Bearing Straights millennia ago. It the future he confronts Teela with a new twist:
"All this talk of slip slides is always relative to the sea people. How it affects them. How it suits their needs."
"We are central to the harmony of all the world. That is not a conceit, it simply is."
"But . . . what if a slip slide changed from a reference point that precedes your own evolution?"
Jack sees a look of fear for the first time on Teela’s face.
**********
What follows is some general HISTORY I developed for the altered world of Colonia for my own reference. Although the lack of Indians occured millenia ago, it wasn't until the period after Columbus that modern Western geopolitical history altered, and slowed, dramatically.
1504: The Kraken incident was still heresay, but enough to cause a rebellion by Vespucchi’s crew. Loss of the term America.
1510’s: Spaniards fruitlessly searching for gold in the West Indies. Would succumb to madness. Reports of nuggets the size of eggs, yet very little evidence.
1519: Magellan’s fleet sailed and encounted more of the same. To much affirmation of same. Coincided with return of a beleaguered crew from Cabot’s journey.
1520 forward: Humanism movement surpressed. Encounters with fantasia in new world created fear of antiquity and heathen literature being re-discovered via Byzantine exodus.
After Colon’s time a period of fear and isolation followed in europe. Official government sanctioned adventures were not allowed. Some groups did set out on their own , sometimes taking with them the local fantastic which flowered in this new wild world. This created the myth that all journeys to the new world were commisioned by witches, etc. Middle ages dragged on for another 300 years.
Supression was official policy of the dominant Catholic chuch and state, yet simultaneously there was a revival in pagan beliefs by those cultures last to convert. Instilled a fearful reverence for wilds of new world. Prolonged the inquisitions and created new religious wars.
Spain, Portugal, England turn to Africa and India for trade and plunder. Some slavery occurred in the form of pressed crews, but there was no global exportation of slaves. Problems at home inhibit any serious colonization to 1550.
1520-1539: First Protestant Reformation War.
1550: Congo Plague out of Africa (ebola). France and Western European sea powers devastated. Halting of exploration/exploitation of African interior. Superstitious avoidance of African peoples. Many forts
left in disarray. Temporarily conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1700’s.
1575-1580: Second Protestant Reformation War. Spanish Armada defeats Drake, Invades England.
1577-80: During English revolt against Catholic Spain, Drake become first to circumnavigate the globe.
1720: Luther’s work re-discovered. Reformation enacted along with peasant uprising.
High Renaissance delayed until 1750.
1780’s: Period of exploration and Colonization begins. Spanish, British, French, German, Norwegian, Russian. Limited to coastal activity due to fantasia. No large scale missionary activity, although some incident of attempts at conversion of fantasia.
1820: Height of Spanish colonial empire. Without aid of indigenous peoples and limited access to the interiors, precious metals were discovered and mined at a much slower pace, in much less volume. Emergence of English raiders.
1802: Napoleon’s regime sends explorers and adventures into the Louisiana area. Discovers the Napoleonic River.
1800-1875: Catholic Counter-reformation (Jesuits). Germany’s kingdoms unite as a result, including the annexation of Holland, to form a colonial empire.
1875-1925: Germany’s Dutch East India Company, West India Company established.
1875- present: The Baroque period/Age of Reason.
1900: New Spain expands into Alta California.
2000: Russians discover gold in Bering Territory. English clash with French over “manifest destiny” westward. Germany clashes with French over Panama. Spain with Russia. Jack enacts devolution.
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