[Backup] PHR Ch. 4: Swimmingly

Backup of https://joelrees-novels.blogspot.com/2017/10/phr-04-swimmingly.html.

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Ch. 3: Invitation

Ch. 4: Swimmingly

[JMR202008172359 replace all -- cleanup of first dump from old notebook]

"Late's okay, Mom!"

"So's early."

We left for the pool on foot a little before nine and got there about nine twenty.

The sign above the counter said,

Open swim from 

10:00 AM to 7:15 PM 

in good weather.  

Changing rooms 

open at 9:45,

close at 7:30 PM.

Swimming class only 

before 9:45.

"Twenty-five minutes, Mom, what're we gonna do?"

"It's enough time for a walk."

Not much rainfall, so the park there is a little on the dry side most of the year. But there are baseball diamonds and football fields, and children practicing. Around the pool and the wading pool, they grass is pretty green, and they try to keep it green around the picnic tables and the children's park. More of a yellow-green, the further you get from the pool.

We read the botanical tags on some of the trees and bushes.

"Western soapberry. Says it can be used for soap."

"Broom dalea, also known as purple sage."

"Desert willow."

"Blue oak. Maybe there's more to like about this town than we thought."

"Wha ...?" I stopped. "Mom, did you just admit you had doubts about this move?"

Mom walked ahead and didn't reply.

We were back at the pool by the time they opened the changing area.

"Where's your swimsuits?" the girl at the counter asked.

We held up our bundles. "Tee shirts and shorts okay in the pool?" I asked.

She looked at our bundles. "Not unless they're clean and you're wearing a clean swimsuit underneath."

We both spread our bundles on the counter. 

"Looks clean. Shower and check the rules before you go in."

We paid our money and went into the changing area. Mom and I shared a locker basket. We showered and changed quickly and went into the pool area dripping wet.

"That winds a little cold."

"We'll warm up quick in the water."

Swimming coaches were still chasing stragglers out of the pool. Life guards were skimming the water surface with nets to clear leaves. We had to wait.

The pool is a big Z. There's a diving area on the far end and a kid's play area on the near end, and a huge practice area ten lanes wide and fifty meters long between.

"We can do some serious swimming here, Cherry Hill."

"Not until the lifeguards blow their whistles."

Mom and I dove in the moment the whistles blew, and did laps. Mom still swims faster than I do when she's motivated, but not much. We stayed pretty even.

Rusty dove past us on the third lap and stayed just ahead. His friends started jumping in behind us. One girl kept up, but the rest lagged behind.

About the tenth lap, one of the boys was stopped ahead of us, blocking Rusty's path. A girl that looked like his twin was behind Rusty, and they teamed up to dunk him. I stopped and the girl who was keeping up did, as well, and we teamed up to dunk the twins. All his friends stopped and joined in the water fight.

Then the lifeguards' whistles blew, and I got to meet everyone. The girl who had kept up was June, the twins were Karl and Kim. And Karen and Kelly were there, as were their moms.

Mom got to gossip, well, find out a lot more about the school, the town, and the people. At first, they teased her about the workout she was doing while they talked. But she talked them into joining her.

I think it was Kelly that suggested water polo. We got permission from the life guards, and they roped off half the length of the practice area for us and set up goals. My mom and the other two moms did some short laps while we played.

Rusty's friends may not all be fast swimmers, but they are serious about water polo.

We had fun playing that for almost an hour, then rested on the sides and talked, and dove off the diving boards, and played piggy-back wars -- with permission from the life guards, of course.

No, I was not riding on Rusty's shoulders, at least, not most of the time. We all took turns being horses and riders, and I was a horse a lot of the time.

A guy named Joel tried to do a back flip from the low board, and didn't get his head down. he ended up in a major back-flop, splashing water to both sides of the pool. It hurt just to hear him hit the surface. Then he went limp in the water, face up and sinking.

I was close and swam for him. Rusty was on the other side of the pool, but he was under the lifeguard station and Sharon, who was manning the station, waved him off so she could get in safely. She was in mid-air when Joel floated back up, still facing the sky. He let out a roar, "IH-TEH YAHN KAH!" and started laughing. Then he rolled gingerly over and stroked carefully for the bank while the rest of us broke up in relieved laughter.

Sharon made him lie on the bank while she checked his eyes and reflexes.

I asked him where he learned Japanese. Turns out his dad is from Awaji Island, across from Osaka and Kobe.

It didn't take him long to convince Sharon and Hank, the other lifeguard on duty that day, he was okay, and he went back to the low board and turned a perfect back flip. Kim followed with a rolling bomb that splashed water over the banks, and Karl did a deliberate belly-flop, shouting, "Feels GOOD!" when he surfaced. Joel dunked him and the whistles blew again.

Sharon is June's older sister, and Hank is Karen's older brother. They're members of the college swim team.

While we were resting, Rusty and I got to talking about RFCs 1459 and 2813 and encrypted channels, and suddenly four girls grabbed me and four guys grabbed him and we went into the water. And the lifeguards' whistles blew again.

I was having too much fun to think about it, but it felt like I had known everyone forever. Everybody shared and everybody was included. No cliques. Well, except for Karl and Kim, but they have an excuse, and, anyway, they're an open clique.

And everyone wore conservative suits. Mom was right about the shorts and tee-shirt. I never took them off.

Some of the group had to leave about twelve, and others came. Mom and I said our goodbyes and left about one.

That evening, after Mom and I got back from finishing my registration for my senior year in high school, I did some web searches for Rusty's name and his public key. I found out he's on the school's science and technology team. He runs the school's student servers, and is teaching several students how to take his place. And his jobs with the ISP and the newspaper are official.

{join gwydyr.ussw pen9choir=}

{nick cutegeek}

{cutegeek :oxide Hey!}

{oxide alias superpaperboy}

{superpaperboy 'sup?}

{cutegeek had fun today. there long?}

{superpaperboy til 2. ya coming tomorrow.}

"Mom, can I go swimming tomorrow?"

"Of course."

"Thanks."

{cutegeek yeah}

"All week if you want. Can I come, too? It'll be good exercise for me."

"I guess so."

We chatted a little before I signed off and went to bed. IRC is much more convenient than raw UDP packets.

Wednesday morning, I gave Rusty a copy of one of my public keys before we went in to change. Mom went again and met Rusty and June's mothers.

I mentioned something about encrypted channels once while we were taking a break and we got thrown in the pool again.

That evening, Rusty and I imported each other's keys and talked shop over encrypted IRC. And other stuff.

{superpaperboy having a party at my house sat}

{cutegeek ?}

{superpaperboy friends from school and church}

{cutegeek oh}

{superpaperboy interested?}

{cutegeek maybe}

{superpaperboy dancin n games}

"Mom, Rusty's having a party at his house on Saturday. Kids from school and his church."

"Yes you can go."

"Just like that?"

"Rusty and his friends are good people."

{cutegeek im on}

We got thrown in the pool on Thursday, too. Mom laughed, and the life guards didn't even bother blowing their whistles until it turned into a water fight. And it wasn't even Sharon and Hank on duty that morning.

We were on unencrypted IRC that night.

{Superdad joined gwydyr.ussw}

{cutegeek Dad?}

"Mom, did you tell Dad about Rusty's IRC channel?"

{Superdad Hi, Rusty.}

"Well, yeah."

{superpaperboy Hello, sir.}

”Oh."

{Superdad I hear you're smooth-talking my daughter.}

{cutegeek :Superdad Identify yourself.}

{Superdad joined sugitahkr.net}

The sugitahkr.net channel can only be joined encrypted, with keys that only Dad, Mom, and I have.

{Superdad@sugitahkr.net Hi, Cherry.}

{cutegeek@sugithkr.net Hi, Dad.}

{Superdad@sugitahkr.net exited}

{cutegeek@sugithkr.net exited}

{cutegeek meet my dad}

{Superpaperboy Hi, Dad.}

{Superdad Just wanted to say hi.}

So Dad joined us that night. Mom joined us, too. Rusty suggested I pass his public key to Dad and Mom, and I did, out-of-band. (Sent it in encrypted e-mail to Dad, just handed it to Mom.) So we established an encrypted channel, and talked a little shop. Rusty's dad also joined for a bit.

After Rusty and his dad logged off, Dad and I got back on the encrypted channel.

{Superdad@sugitahkr.net So ...}

{cutegeek@sugithkr.net Haven't mentioned the computer room, Dad. Or anything about your work.}

{Superdad@sugitahkr.net Get as much information as you can.}

{cutegeek@sugithkr.net OK!}

{Superdad@sugitahkr.net And watch yourself.}

{cutegeek@sugithkr.net ok}

{Superdad@sugitahkr537738.net And don't have too mucho fun. ;-).}

Dads.

[JMR202008172359 replace all -- end]

[JMR201710220339 original dump from old notebook]

"Late's okay, Mom!"

"So's early."

We left for the pool on foot a little before nine and got there about nine twenty. But the swimming classes weren't finished yet, so we walked around the park. They had a children's playground with interesting , and there was a small garden with local flowers and plants.

"Maybe there's more to like about this town than we thought."

"Wha ...?" I stopped. "Mom, did you just admit you have doubts about this move?"

Mom walked ahead and didn't reply.

We were back at the pool by quarter to ten, and they had opened the changing rooms for everybody.

"Where's your swimsuits?" the girl at the counter asked.

We held up our bundles. "Tee shirts and shorts okay in the pool?" I asked.

She looked at our bundles. "Not unless they're clean and you're wearing the swimsuit underneath."

We both spread our bundles on the counter. 

"Looks clean. Shower, and check the rules before you go into the pool area."

We paid our money and went in. Mom and I shared a locker.

We finished showering and changing and went in to the pool area, dripping wet and just a little cold because of the wind.

Swimming coaches were still chasing stragglers out of the pool. Life guards were skimming the water surface with nets to clear leaves.

The pool was a zigzag. There was a diving area on the far end and a play area on the near end, and a huge practice area ten lanes wide and fifty meters long between. We could do some serious swimming here.

Mom and I dove in the moment the life guards blew their whistles, and took laps. She still swims faster than I do, but not much.

Rusty joined us on the second lap, then several of his friends. He and one girl (June) kept up, but the rest fell behind.

About the sixth lap, a guy and a girl (Karl and Cris) dunked Rusty. I stopped to help him dunk them back and that stopped the laps and started a water fight. The life guards' whistles stopped the water fight and Rusty introduced me to his friends.

Karen's and Kelly's moms both came, and Mom got to gossip, I mean, find out a lot more about the school and the town. At first, they teased her about the workout she was doing while they talked. But then they joined her.

Rusty introduced me to June and the rest, and I think it was Kelly that suggested water polo. We got permission from the life guards, who roped off half the length of the practice area for us and set up goals. My mom and the other two moms did a few short laps while we played.

Rusty's friends may not all be fast swimmers, but they are serious about water polo.

We had fun playing that for almost an hour, then rested on the sides and talked, and dove off the diving boards, and played piggy-back wars -- with special permission from the life guards.

No, I was not riding on Rusty's shoulders, at least, not most of the time. We all took turns being horses and riders.

I was having too much fun to think about it, but it felt like I had known everyone forever. Everbody shared and everybody was included.

And everyone wore conservative suits. Mom was right about the shorts and tee-shirt. I never took them off.

Some of the group had to leave about twelve, and others came. Mom and I said our goodbyes and left about one. Rusty stayed, he told me later, until two.

And that's how it was I was swimming with Superpaperboy and his friends during the mornings the whole rest of the week. Of course, I did not call him Superpaperboy.

And we didn't talk shop at the pool. Well anytime we said anything like RFC or packet protocol, four of the girls would gang up on me and four of the guys on him and we'd end up in the water. And the life guards would blow their whistles.

The fourth time it happened in as many days, the life guards warned me and Rusty to quit talking tech around the pool. As if it were our fault!

We also chatted over IRC in the evenings. IRC is much more convenient than assembling UDP packets by hand. Rusty introduced me to some of his white hat friends on the 'net, too. Sometimes he changed his nick to superpaperboy, and I changed mine to cutegeek.

Wednesday evening, I mentioned the computer room, and he sent me the name of a friend of his father's who could do the final check-off. I asked Dad by IRC, and he got a little upset. He contacted Rusty's father, and then the friend, a mister Whiteall, himself, and messaged me back later on an encrypted session to say it would be okay.

But he told me to watch like a hawk when he was there for the check off. And to sweep for bugs after. Like I wouldn't. He also told me not to let Rusty look at the computer room until he said it was okay. And he told me to double-check after any time Rusty came over. Dad is a little too paranoid sometimes.

On Thursday, Rusty told me he was having a back-to-school party at his home on Saturday, with dancing in the back yard and board games and stuff inside. I said I'd think about it.

Friday, just as Rusty, June, Jake and I had finished eight laps and were resting, Karl was sneaking up behind Cris to dunk her, and everyone suddenly became just a little quiet. It felt a little eerie. Some of my new friends were looking at the entrance to the changing area. Some were looking anywhere else.

Rusty looked up and waved. There was a small group of four students I hadn't met yet coming in. These students were different. The guys were in speedos and the girls were in bikinis. Tiny, expensive bikinis. Without thinking, I looked down at my tee-shirt. I had worn a one-piece under my tee and shorts every day after the first, and suddenly I was doubly glad. I would have looked positively under-endowed standing next to any of those four in my bikini.

They waved back, and a woman followed them out carrying a baby. One of the girls turned around and took the baby and lifted him up to see the pool. Maybe she was showing him off to the students I was with. He beat the aiMom and I left on foot at nine the next morning, and got there about nine twenty. But the swimming classes weren't finished yet, so we walked around the park, exploring the children's playground and looking at the trees.

"Maybe there's more to like about this town than we thought."

"Wha ...?" I stopped. "Mom, did you just admit you have doubts about this move?"

Mom walked ahead and didn't reply.

We were back at the pool by quarter to ten, when they opened the changing rooms for everybody.

"Where's your swimsuits?" the girl at the girl's side counter asked.

We held up our bundles. "Tee shirts and shorts okay in the pool?" I asked.

She looked at our bundles. "Not unless they're clean and you're wearing the swimsuit underneath."

We both spread our bundles on the counter. 

"Looks clean. Shower, and check the rules before you go in the pool area."

We paid our money and went in. Mom and I shared a locker.

When we finished showering and changing and went in to the pool area, hair and bodies dripping in the hot morning sun, swimming coaches were still chasing stragglers out of the pool, and life guards were skimming the water surface with nets to clear leaves. The pool was a zigzag,  with a diving area and a play area on the ends and a practice area ten lanes wide and fifty meters long between. We could do some serious swimming here.

Mom and I dove in the moment the life guards blew their whistles, and took laps. She still swims faster than I do, but not much.

Rusty joined us on the second lap, then several of his friends. He and June kept up, but the rest fell behind. About the sixth lap, Karl and Kris dunked Rusty, and the water fight that caused stopped us doing any more laps until the life guards' whistles blew.

Karen's and Kelly's moms both came, and Mom got to gossip a lot, I mean, find out a lot more about the school and the town. They teased her about the workout she was doing and then joined her.

Rusty introduced me to June and the rest, and I think it was Kelly that suggested water polo. We got permission from the life guards, who roped off half the length of the practice area for us and set up goals. My mom and the other two moms did a few short laps while we played.

Rusty's friends may not all be fast swimmers, but they are serious about water polo.

We had fun playing that for almost an hour, then rested on the sides and talked, and dove off the diving boards, and played piggy-back wars -- with special permission from the life guards.

No, I was not riding on Rusty's shoulders, at least, not most of the time. We all took turns being horses and riders.

I was having too much fun to think about it, but it felt like I had known everyone forever. Everbody shared and everybody was included.

And everyone wore conservative swimming gear. Mom was right about the shorts and tee-shirt. I never took them off.

Some of the group had to leave about twelve, and others came. Mom and I said our goodbyes and left about one. Rusty stayed, he told me later, until two.

And that's how it was I was swimming with Superpaperboy and his friends during the mornings the whole rest of the week. Of course, I did not call him Superpaperboy.

And we didn't talk shop at the pool. Anytime we said anything like RFC or packet protocol, four of the girls would gang up on me and four of the guys on him and we'd end up in the water. And the life guards would blow their whistles.

The fourth time it happened in as many days, the life guards warned me and Rusty to quit talking tech around the pool. As if it were our fault!

We also chatted over IRC in the evenings. IRC is much more convenient than assembling UDP packets by hand. Rusty introduced me to some of his white hat friends on the 'net, too.

At some point, I mentioned the computer room, and he sent me the name of a friend of his father's who could do the final check off. I asked Dad by e-mail, and he got a little upset. He contacted Rusty's dad and the friend, himself, and mailed me back later to say that it would be okay.

But he told me to watch like a hawk when he was there for the check off. And to sweep for bugs after. Like I wouldn't. He also told me not to let Rusty look at the computer room. And he told me to double-check after any time Rusty came over. Dad is a little too paranoid sometimes.

I think it was Wednesday Rusty told me I was invited to a back-to-school party at his home on Saturday, with dancing in the back yard and board games and stuff inside. I said I'd think about it.

Friday, just as Rusty, June, Jake and I had finished eight laps and were resting, Karl was sneaking up behind Kris to dunk her, when everyone became just a little quiet. It felt a little eerie. Some of my new friends were looking at the entrance to the changing area. Some were looking anywhere else.

Rusty looked up and waved. There was a small group of four students I hadn't met yet coming in. These students were different. The guys were in speedos and the girls were in bikinis. Without thinking, I looked down at my tee-shirt. I had worn a one-piece under my tee and shorts every day after the first, and suddenly I was doubly glad. I would have looked positively under-endowed standing in my bikini next to any of those four.

They waved back, and a woman followed them out carrying a baby. One of the girls turned around and took the baby and lifted him up to see the pool. Maybe she was showing him off to the students I was with. The baby beat the air with his feet and hands and laughed.

I looked at Rusty and saw an odd expression on his face. His face was often unreadable, but now it was a mask.

The new group came around the pool and some of our group went over to greet them, Rusty among them. He looked back at me with another expression I couldn't read, so I followed.

The baby's sister seemed to single me out. She smiled. "Hi. We heard Rusty found a new girl to join the group. You must be Cheryl."

While we played water volleyball, I noticed that the girl whose mother had brought the baby seemed to be holding back a little. Her bikini revealed a certain lack of tone around her stomach. I was not intending to look closely, but I noticed a fresh scar that reminded me of the one my mother carried from when I was born.

When we ended up on the same team, they introduced themselves to me.

"You must be Cheryl."

"I am."

"I'm Pietra. I'm with Kazu." I guessed she meant they were going steady.

"I'm Mandy. Jimmy's my man over there. That's my mom, Clarinda, with little Jimmy."

While we waited for service, Pietra said, "I hear you know a lot about computers."

”Yeah." I bumped to Mandy and she set to June. June spiked and Rusty blocked, sending it back to Pietra. She jumped and killed it. We rotated and Luke took the serve.

"Swim pretty well."

"Sometimes. You play volleyball?"

"On land, mostly."

We won the game. Pietra was asking the questions, but Mandy was listening. Made me feel a little uncomfortable.

Saturday was the last day before school, and it seemed like everyone in the city was at the pool. Anyway, there was no room to play water polo, and there was only room for laps until about nine thirty. The pool had opened for general swimming at nine. I met more of the students at the new school, but I didn't have as much fun.

Pietra and Kazuo were there, and it seemed like they were near me all the time. I can handle silence, but I'm not sure Pietra can. It kind of seemed like she was still pumping me for information.

Mandy's mom had to work, so Mandy was watching little Jimmy and couldn't come. Big Jimmy was not in evidence, either. Pietra said he had to work, too.

At one point, Kazuo and Rusty were clowning around with some other boys on the diving boards, and Pietra said, looking significantly towards Rusty, "You really ought to show off your curves more."

I don't know why, but I pulled off my tee and shorts and left them on the grass, and went for some dives. Competition one-pieces show off curves in a little different way from bikinis, but they do show off curves.

As I came of the board, I saw Rusty looking at me with an unreadable expression of another type. I cut the water as clean as I think I ever have.



I looked at Rusty and saw an odd expression on his face. His face was often unreadable, but this was a mask. The small group came around and some of our group went over to greet them, Rusty among them. He was careful to be among those who said hello to the baby. I don't know how I knew it, but he was being very careful not to be obviously interested in the little boy, and at the same time careful to be interested.

While we played water volleyball, I noticed that the girl whose mother had brought the baby seemed to be holding back a little. Her bikini revealed a certain lack of tone around her stomach. I was not intending to look closely, but I noticed a fresh scar that reminded me of the one my mother carried from when I was born.

When we ended up on the same team, they introduced themselves to me.

"You must be Cheryl."

"I am."

"I'm Pietra. I'm with Kazu." I guessed she meant they were going steady.

"I'm Mandy. Jimmy's my man over there. That's my mom, Clarinda, with little Jimmy."

While we waited for service, Pietra said, "I hear you know a lot about computers."

”Yeah." I bumped to Mandy and she set to June. June spiked and Rusty blocked, sending it back to Pietra. She jumped and killed it. We rotated and Luke took the serve.

"Swim pretty well."

"Sometimes. You play volleyball?"

"On land, mostly."

We won the game. Pietra was asking the questions, but Mandy was listening. Made me feel a little uncomfortable.

Saturday was the last day before school, and it seemed like everyone in the city was at the pool. Anyway, there was no room to play water polo, and there was only room for laps until about nine thirty. The pool had opened for general swimming at nine. I met more of the students at the new school, but I didn't have as much fun.

Pietra and Kazuo were there, and it seemed like they were near me all the time. I can handle silence, but I'm not sure Pietra can. It kind of seemed like she was still pumping me for information.

Mandy's mom had to work, so Mandy was watching little Jimmy and couldn't come. Big Jimmy was not in evidence, either. Pietra said he had to work, too.

At one point, Kazuo and Rusty were clowning around with some other boys on the diving boards, and Pietra said, looking significantly towards Rusty, "You really ought to show off your curves more."

I don't know why, but I pulled off my tee and shorts and left them on the grass, and went for some dives. Competition one-pieces show off curves in a little different way from bikinis, but they do show off curves.

As I came of the board, I saw Rusty looking at me with an unreadable expression of another type. I cut the water as clean as I think I ever have.

[JMR201710220339 original dump from old notebook -- end]

Ch. 5: Swimmingly

TOC

---

Backup at https://joel-rees-economics.blogspot.com/2017/10/bk-phr-04-swimmingly.html.

[Backup] PHR Ch. 3: Invitation

Backup of https://joelrees-novels.blogspot.com/2017/10/phr-03-invitation.html.

---

Ch. 2: UDP Packets

Ch. 3: Invitation

Just as he said, he gave me ten minutes. Mom and I were waiting on the porch when he rode up on his bike. He laid the bike on the grass and came up and sat down on the other side of Mom. I had sat on one end of the step, and Mom, at first, had sat on the other. But I made Mom scoot over before he arrived, so there was no room for him to sit next to me.

We all looked out at the sunset.

"Rusty Ellison."

"Hi Rusty. I'm Joy, and the Cute Geek is Cheryl."

"I guess I was a little abrupt."

"Understood." Mom just smiled.

Superpaperboy nodded with a grin.

Mom understood, and I did, too, really, but I had to defend myself. "A port scan shouldn't be a problem, should it?"

"Well, unannounced, it is a little bit uhm, disconcerting to a sysadmin, don't you think?"

"Maybe."

"But it wasn't the port scan. Or the other parts of the standard vulnerability tests. Those were professionally done. Who taught you?"

"Dad. I picked up a lot on my own, too. But he made me learn how to do it the way a business would want it done."

"What came after was not professional."

"Maybe I went too far. But most servers, nobody pays attention."

"I take recurring parses of my logs."

"When you sent the UDP packets, I thought you must have been watching for me or something."

"No, I didn't really take you that serious when you said you were a geek. But the parser triggers a notification to my phone, so I was watching by the time you started directly fuzzing the customer database server."

"Cheryl?" Mom raised her eyebrows.

"Well, I wondered how tight he keeps things."

"Pretty tight. There are local black hat groups. It would be real easy to get owned."

"You guessed it was me?"

"Uhmm, the thought did cross my mind. But I didn't really think so. I also run the local access for your ISP, and I can look up an IP addresses. "

I leaned forward to look at his face. "You're a little scary, you know."

Mom was just laughing at us.

"Okay, okay. But it's not like an ISP doing their job wouldn't have looked up the address."

"But usually there's a little division of responsibility."

True. I suppose this isn't really my job." He thought for a moment. "But you need to understand that this town is not a place to play carelessly on the 'net."

Mom lost her smile. "Is that a threat?"

"No, Ma'am. I'm relatively harmless, but there are people here who aren't."

Mom and I both waited, but he wasn't volunteering more than that.

After a minute, he broke the silence. "Say, Cute Geek, we can talk shop anytime, but a bunch of my friends are trying to finish up the summer in the pool. Ya interested?"

"Are you going to keep calling me Cute Geek?"

He laughed. "No, not in front of my friends. That wouldn't be fair."

I wondered how he might have known I like swimming. But I decided to indulge my paranoia later. "Where is this famous pool?"

"It's in a park named after a mythical European forest."

"Gwydyr Park? I think I saw that on the map. About a mile from here?"

"That's it. Mile and a half, really. The pool is on the northeast corner. We meet there at ten in the morning so we can swim for a couple of hours without getting sunburned."

"Close enough to walk. How many?"

"Eight to twelve, sometimes more. About half and half guys and girls."

"Parents?" Mom asked.

"Somebody's mom usually comes. Kelly was saying something about his mom coming tomorrow. Karen's, too."

"And I could come, too?"

"Mom, ..."

"Sure."

Now he leaned forward to look at me.

"I'll think about it," I said before he could ask.

"Listen. I'm okay if you attack my servers, just let me know when you do, so I can tell the real owners you're running tests for me."

"Maybe I'm not interested any more."

"Promise me something else. Don't test any other nodes or hosts without permission."

"Permission from you?"

"From the legal owners."

"It's dangerous."

"Very."

"Cheryl, ..."

"Okay I, promise."

"Thank you, Cheryl's mom." He jumped up. "Gotta go. Good night." He picked up his bike and stopped, then set it back down. Coming back the porch, he handed me a slip of paper. Then he nodded and left.

"Mmmm?"

"His IRC nick and usual chatroom, mail address, and public key. I guess I could start a local web of trust with this."

 Mom and I went back inside and explored the news and SNS services for a boring half hour, going through the front door this time.

Well, I was bored. Mom found out lots of things about the town and neighbors. I captured the data stream for later analysis.

"You should check your suit." Mom said as I shut down my laptop.

"I wore it two weeks ago at home. Uhm, our old home."

"Miss the place, huh?"

"Yeah. Anything from Dad?" I went into my room and dug my swimming stuff out of a box.

"He says he's trying to find a certified electrician to come sign your work off." Mom came into my room behind me. "Hasn't that bikini grown too small for you?"

"Small is fashionable." I was checking it for stretch holes. Yeah, it really was too small.

"I have a hunch you'll be more comfortable in one of your one-piece team suits."

"No way, Mom!"

My team suits are actually pretty cool. But somehow I thought I'd be starting off on the wrong foot if I weren't in a bikini.

"Well, if you go with the bikini, be sure you take shorts and a tee you'll be comfortable swimming in."

It was time for bed, but I got the laptop back out and did some web searches for my name. I wanted to figure out how much Superpaperboy might have found out.

He might have found me on the swimming team roster. But how would he know my first name before I told him? How would he know what school to look at?

Swimming team. My teammates in South Dakota would just now be finding out I wouldn't be there this year.

We don't post much to national SNS. Even given that he had our ISP records and knew our last name was Sugita, how could he have connected me to Mom, except by guessing?

Was the swimming just guessing? Just a coincidence?

Ch. 4: Swimmingly

TOC

---

Backup at https://joel-rees-economics.blogspot.com/2017/10/bk-phr-03-invitation.html.

[Backup] PHR Ch. 2: UDP Packets

Backup of https://joelrees-novels.blogspot.com/2017/10/phr-02-udp-packets.html.

---

Ch. 1: Paperboy

Ch. 2: UDP Packets

"Mom!"

Of course, I don't really need defenses with Mom. She is not my enemy. She's my best friend in the world.

Dad is my best friend in the world, too -- and on the 'net. I wish they wouldn't argue.

No, it's not that I need defenses against Mom, it's just that my defenses were so far gone. It's not every day you just happen to be outside your new house when the good-looking newscarrier comes by and you find out he runs a local server.

 "Never mind, I'm sure I'll meet him soon enough. What should we do for dinner?"

"Pizza?"

"Are you gonna make it?"

"Can't we order out?"

"You know we can't afford that. Especially not until your Dad sells the house."

We had tofu and tossed salad and rice. And we split a can of tuna. Mom and I fixed the salad together after I cleaned up in the computer room and she finished some more paperwork.

"It's kind of lonely without Dad, isn't it?"

"Oh, Mom. How long is it going to take?"

"I wish I knew."

"Is it really about selling the house?"

Mom didn't answer, she just took my hand and squeezed it. I don't know what Mom was thinking, and I'm not sure what I was thinking. But we sat there for a while.

"Rusty said I could give him a ping."

"Mmmm?"

"The paperboy. Send him a message so we can talk. Should I?"

"How should I know? Should we look at the news?"

"I wanna see what that neighborhood SNS is all about."

We got on the internet again, and Mom logged on to slashdot and her aggregator, which I don't mention, and she doesn't mind if I don't. While she read to me from the firehose, I logged in to the ISP's modem's control page. It was cool enough (barely) for one fan to cover both of us and our two PCs in the living room. Still not dark. Daylight savings? Get serious. Totally unnecessary here.

The modems that ISPs provide are hardly worth the plastic they're housed in. NAT and port forwarding in name only. What logging? No fine tuning, and only a hundred lines. Just enough filtering to keep Universal Plug and Play from letting your neighbor own everything you dare leave open to UPnP.

I had already set the password and the inside IP address to something not default, so we could safely get our mail. And I had put a real firewall between the modem and our inside router. Nice little low-power semi-custom ARM box running openBSD. Lots of space to keep logs. Dad's job has some perks. Updating the firewall can be a panic sometimes, because the box is semi-custom and there's no place for the drivers in the project source tree.

I wanted to check out our superpaperboy's SNS server before we signed up, and I don't mean the end-users' agreement. That would come after, so I could at least have plausible deniability. Mom would be my witness that I hadn't thought to read it first.

I mapped all the modem ports to the firewall and dropped all the filters the modem would let me. Then I started probing Superpaperboy's servers. I was very impressed. He knew what he was doing. So I gave Mom the thumbs-up and she typed in the URL for the local news and started reading the legal stuff to me.

"Nice of the newspaper company to provide both the news and the SNS in the same service," she commented an hour later.

"Smart business, too. Wait, Mom. Don't sign us up yet, I see something strange in the logs."

Superpaperboy was sending me messages in raw UDP packets.

{Hey, Cute Geek. Uninvited probes are not considered polite.}

I was impressed.

{Hey, superpaperboy. I practice safe hex.}

{Cut it out or I'll come over and tell your mom what you just said.}

{Mom is riding shotgun.}

{I'm coming over.}

{Don't you dare.}

Mom laughed. "Guess I get to find out how cute he is."

"Mo-om!" I whined. I admit it. I whined.

{See you in ten.}

{Won't be here.}

But he had already set the message to repeat every ten seconds, counting down in English, no less, and was not responding.

"Where do you plan to go?"

"Well, I'm not going to answer the door!"

Mom just laughed as I ran into my room to change clothes and get some of the dust out of my hair.

Ch. 3: Invitation

TOC

---

Backup at https://joel-rees-economics.blogspot.com/2017/10/bk-phr-02-udp-packets.html.

[Backup] PHR Ch. 1: Paperboy

Backup of https://joelrees-novels.blogspot.com/2017/10/phr-01-paperboy.html.

---

TOC

Ch. 1: Paperboy

I was out there on on the front steps of the new house, sitting there, doing nothing, kicking with my toes at the grass growing through the cracks in the sidewalk. I felt like I was melting. No, not melting, sublimating. Late August afternoon heat and air so dry that a young woman like me can't even glow. Just evaporates before it can even begin to make your skin glisten.

When my mother and I moved here from South Dakota last week, my father's things were conspicuously absent from the moving van. He said he needed to stay behind to clean things up and sell the house. But he didn't send a single box of his stuff with us.

Mom says it's because he's a geek and an ascetic. He literally owns nothing that he doesn't use every day. I'm not so sure. They've been having a lot of arguments, and it seems like, at least half my friends back home, their parents are divorced now.

He did let me bring the servers I usually work on. But it just feels so strange logging in to his research servers remotely.

Oh. I'm a geek, too. I set up the new computer room here all by myself in the extra bedroom. False floor and walls, insulation, airconditioning, wiring. The county inspector was surprised when he asked who had done the work, but I showed him my apprentice papers and Dad's plans.

Mom insists that I should formally finish real, brick and mortar high school, so I haven't had time to be certified as a journeyman yet. But Dad's a master electrician and he did the blueprints, and the computer room really isn't that complicated.

The inspector made us shut down the computer room until a real electrician came out to "finish the job". Mom said she told us so. Nanner-nanner.

At Dad's suggestion, I swept the whole house and the mains for bugs after he left, but there were none that my bug sweeper or eyes could find.

And that's why I was outside kicking the grass on the front sidewalk instead of inside working in the cool, regulated air of our new computer room. Master electricians have schedules, and no one has an opening for three weeks. No air conditioned computer lab in the house until after school starts.

School is another thing I am not looking forward to, and Mom just laughs it off. She so does not want me to be a geek.

Mom says the new school will be good for me. The sun, too.

I'm glad connecting to the internet doesn't require a full computer room. But there's only so much you can do with a notebook PC cooled by a fan. (Maybe the notebook doesn't need the extra fan just for e-mail, but the human does, in this heat.) So I let Mom do her mail and went outside to sit down and see what the real world looked like in the hot August afternoon in our new neighborhood.

I heard the sound of newspapers plopping onto porches and looked up the street. Yeah, there's so little traffic that you can actually hear a newspaper plop at the end of the street, and our street is a long one -- a soccer field or two either direction from the house.

There was a boy, walking with a load of newspapers in his shoulder bags, front and back, headed our way. I was surprised. No. I was floored. What kind of boy would you expect to be doing such a thing? In this heat? A geek?

Like me?

I could see the red hair from the end of the street. As he got closer, I could tell he was not your average geek. Wavy hair, freckles, clear complexion, nicely defined face.

And he was sweating. You'd have to be superhuman not to sweat. He had to be superhuman, just walking with that load of newspapers in that heat.

He waved, and suddenly I remembered I was wearing one of my grungier tank tops and loose running shorts still dusty from the work in the computer room, and barefoot. Dust in my hair, too.

Barefoot's a plus, as long as I'm not standing on the hot sidewalk. But I am not such a geek that I don't care what I look like when I meet the new superpaperboy.

"Hi!"

"Hello." I was trying to be cool, anyway.

"Did you just move in?"

Ohmigosh, he was going to try to sell us a subscription. "Uh, well, ..." And his eyes ... were, uhm, still are, ... so ... blue.

"Must be. I've been wanting to catch you at home, to see if you need hardcopy."

We'd been out most days during the afternoon. There was a lot of paperwork to take care of, and I went with Mom to help her get it right. Two heads are better than one.

"We get ours on the 'net."

"Great. We have a 'net edition, too. Virtual coupons and stuff. Neighborhood SNS. Lemme give you the URL."

Why not? It gave me a little more time to evaluate him. Maybe on the skinny side, but delivering newspapers didn't seem to have made him a wimp.

He fished in his pocket and handed me an one-page flyer. "My name's Rusty. I run the neighborhood servers."

I retrieved my jaw. And my tongue. Not my brain. "My name's Cheryl. I'm a geek."

I couldn't have said that. Just drop all my defenses.

He didn't miss a beat. "Cool. My mail address is on there too, ping me. Gotta get the rest of these out." And he raised his hand as if to bump fists, but shifted to a half wave when my hand didn't move, and turned and continued down the street. Looked back once and gave me a grin.

I stood up under auto-pilot and went inside to show Mom the flyer.

"Oh. The ISP mentioned this. It's one of the bundled services." Mom looked up at me and smiled dryly. "Is he good looking?"

All my defenses.

Ch. 2: UDP Packets

---

Backup at https://joel-rees-economics.blogspot.com/2017/10/bk-phr-01-paperboy.html.

edits: Ch. 2, Priorities Begin to Change

[JMR20170725 edits]

{replace}
A proper Adam and Eve story also requires laying too much groundwork -- and there's too much of the models that I would have to explain explicitly if I were to just start off telling you about the Adam and Eve of Karel and Bobbie's world. (And that is also an interesting story for someday.)
{with}
A proper Adam and Eve story also requires laying too much groundwork -- and there's too much of the models that I would have to explain explicitly if I were to just start off telling you about the Adam and Eve of Karel and Bobbie's world. (And that is also an interesting story.)
{end replace}

{replace}
God. And I've been talking about prayer, too. I will be talking about both. But maybe you are an atheist. Or, maybe you don't think you can believe in my God.
{with}
God. And I've been talking about prayer, too. Maybe that worries you. I will be talking about both. But maybe you are an atheist. Or, maybe you don't think you can believe in my God.
{end replace}

{replace}
"Yep. That's east," Bobbie confirmed wryly. "I do hope we're not here long enough for you to make an accurate astronomical compass." Bobbie grinned, and Karel chuckled in response.
{with}
"Yep. That's east," Bobbie confirmed wryly. "I do hope we're not here long enough for you to make an accurate solar compass." She grinned, and Karel chuckled in response.
{end replace}

{replace}
But bear with me, and I think I can convince you that I am not trying to sell you my gods, at any rate. And religion and cosmology is generally a part of most value systems, and economics is impossible without value, so we can't really avoid talking about the stuff.

So let's not fuss about it. I'll try not to pull my punches with the religious elements of the story.
{with}
But bear with me a bit, and I think I can show you that I am not trying to sell you my gods, at any rate. Religion and cosmology is generally a part of most value systems, and economics is impossible without value, so we can't really avoid talking about the stuff.

Let's not fuss about it. I'll try to keep the religious elements of the story out where you can see them.
{end replace}

[end JMR20170725 edits]


Current version: https://econ101-novel.blogspot.com/2017/05/e02-priorities-begin-to-change.html.

edits: Ch. 1, The Framing Story -- the Pilots and the Island

[JMR201707241351 edits]

{replace}

"Your thesis plan looks good, but you'll need to do some on-location research." Professor MacVittie was helping Karel review his plans.

Karel Pratt nodded his agreement. "I guess I should say so in my proposal? Should I revise the plan to say something about needing the fieldwork, but not yet knowing when and where?"

Professor MacVittie nodded slowly, in half agreement. "Well, you could, but I think you know enough to be somewhat specific already. You should be able to name several islands as possibilities."

Karel scratched behind his ear. "I guess I can say I'm looking at a few locations, but don't know which, yet?"

"Sounds reasonable." The professor paused. "Changing the subject a little, but do you know Roberta Whitmer?"

Karel looked surprised. "Not really. Well, I think I've met her. She calls herself Bobbie, right? And she's in the anthropology program, too?"

"Yes, that would be her. Her thesis seems like it could complement yours. Professor White and I were thinking you might want to talk with her. Just a suggestion, of course, but it often helps to have someone you can work with."

"Mmm," Karel thought for a moment, then nodded hesitantly. "I'll talk with her and see."
{with}
Studying economics is not like studying physics.

In physics, we can start with things we see and work directly with -- the angle of a shadow on sand, water pulling on an oar, a rubber dinghy floating in the sea, an airplane gliding through the air.

Even the moderately complex chemical reactions that are the regular controlled explosions of fuel in an airplane engine are quite repeatable. (And so are the effects of running out of fuel.)

With economics, nothing is static.

Sure, we have money. But money is a contrived proxy for value, and is not constant over time, or even from person to person. So we need to simplify our basic models to make them understandable.

I don't know about you, but the simplest economic system I can think of is one person on a desert island. Except, of course, one person alone is only interesting for a little while.

---

"Your thesis plan looks good, but you'll need to do some on-location research." Professor MacVittie was helping Karel Pratt review his plans for his doctoral studies at Orson Hyde University.

Karel nodded. "I guess I should mention it in the proposal. Should I revise the plan to say something about needing the fieldwork, but not yet knowing when and where?"

The Professor nodded in agreement. "Well, you could. But I think you know enough already to name some specific islands as possibilities."

Karel scratched thoughtfully behind his ear. "I guess I can say I'm looking at a few locations, but don't know which, yet, ..."

"Sure. Why don't you think about that." The professor hesitated before changing the subject. "Say, do you know a Roberta Whitmer?"

"Roberta Whitmer?" Karel was surprised. "No, not really."

The professor thought he might have seen something unsaid behind Karel's eyes, but it was gone before he could be sure.

"Well, I think I may have met her once. She calls herself Bobbie, right?"

"She does."

"And she's a pre-PhD student in the anthropology program, too?"

"Yes, that would be her."

"And?"

"Her thesis seems like it could complement yours. Professor White and I were thinking you might want to talk with her."

The professor still couldn't read Karel's reactions.

"Just a suggestion, of course, but it often helps to have someone you can work with."

"Mmm," Karel grunted, then nodded somewhat absently. "I'll look her up and talk with her and see."

{end replace}

{replace}
Karel continued: "And we've been working together on the itinerary. We contacted some travel agencies, ..."
{with}
Karel continued. "And we've been working together on the itinerary. We contacted some travel agencies, ..."
{end replace}

{replace}
Ultimately, the faculty and Sister MacVittie decided it would be best for Professor MacVittie to accompany them for the first two weeks. That way he could help them solve the early problems. He could also make contacts in the islands for the university.
{with}
Ultimately, the faculty, Bobbie, Karel, and Sister MacVittie decided it would be best for Professor MacVittie to accompany them for the first two weeks. That way he could help them solve the early problems. He could also make contacts in the islands for the university.
{end replace}

{replace}
Names? I'm translating the names mostly by meaning and history rather than sound.)
{with}
Names? I'm translating the names mostly by meaning and parallels in their history rather than sound. But some of the names do sound similar, Bobbie's and Karel's, in particular.)
{end replace}

{replace}
And you thought this was a novel, right?
{with}
And I told you this was a novel, right?

Well, it is -- something like a novel, anyway.
{end replace}

{replace}
Well, when trying to decipher the physical laws of the universe, we find it easier to start with a simplified model. For example, when describing the flight of a cannonball, we start by ignoring air friction and wind. That makes the math simple enough for one person to handle without a computer in many cases, and the calculated results are close to the actual flight in the common cases.

Economics is not as easily simplified as physics. In physics, we can see, or at least measure the interactions, even when there are interactants we don't directly see, like wind, or electric or magnetic fields, or chemical reactions.

Of course, gunpowder is not very simple, but we might instead use something simpler like a catapult or trebuchet to launch the cannonball. Those are a bit more repeatable than crude gunpowder.

We can see what happens, and we can measure and time the acceleration paths, and so forth. And we can compare our results with the path and timing of a dropped cannonball or a cannonball rolling on a slope, where things happen a little more slowly and are easier to measure.

We can simplify.

In economics, we deal with complex interactions and abstract interactants. Some of the elements are fairly straightforward, like food, fuel, and housing. Some, like value, are so abstract that we can't even safely define them once and expect them not to change while we are trying to observe them.

Some elements of economics, like money, are deceptive simplicities hiding complex and abstract qualities whose continual, often hidden variations play directly into the math.

We need simplifications to be able to work with economics, even if we have the help of computers. But economic interactions are difficult to simplify.

Complex mathematics looks a lot like literature, abstract mathematics even more so. So, I'll take a hint from the math, and make a small logical leap, as well, and construct this informal thesis on the fundamentals of economics as a set of thought experiments in the form of a novel.

-- but maybe a little bit of an unusual novel.
{with}
As I say, when trying to decipher the physical laws of the universe, we find it easier to start with a simplified model. For example, when describing the flight of a thrown football or papaya, we start by ignoring air friction, and wind, and the way it tumbles in the wind. That makes the math simple enough for one person to handle without a computer in many cases. And the calculated results are generally close enough to the actual flight.

Economics is not as easily simplified as physics.

But we can still simplify.

In economics, we deal with complex interactions and abstract interactants. Some of the elements are fairly straightforward, like food, fuel, and housing. Some, like value, are so abstract that we can't even safely define them once and expect them not to change while we are trying to observe them.

With only two people, maybe we can do away with money. Value systems can be simplified. And we can focus more easily on the bargaining processes, and on what they exchange.

Complex mathematics looks a lot like literature, abstract mathematics even more so. So, I'm taking a hint from the math, and making a small logical leap, as well, and constructing this informal thesis on the fundamentals of economics as a set of thought experiments in the form of a novel -- but a slightly unusual novel.
{end replace}

{replace}
Wycliffe sat on their desk and picked up their schedule. "Hey, Zed. Look what we got this week."

Zedidiah looked up. "Yeah, I see that. Them two grad students from that Apist school. Come to study ant rope loggies -- native cull-chewer and all that. And do busybody serve ice pro jets. Straight as two rulers. Even the natives are laughing behind their backs."

(That's roughly how it would have sounded to us, if we spoke their language.)
{with}
Wycliffe sat on the desk they shared and picked up the scratch paper they were using that month to write their schedule on. "Hey, Zed. Look what we got this week."

Zedidiah looked up. "Yeah, I see that. Them two grad students from that Apist school. Come to study ant rope loggies -- native cull-chewer and all that. And do busybody serve ice pro jets. Straight as two rulers. Even the natives are laughing behind their backs."

(Anthropology, culture, and service projects, of course, but that's roughly how it would have sounded to us had Zedidiah been joking in English. Oh, and E-P-ist.)
{end replace}

[end JMR201707241351 edits]
[JMR201707251541 edits]

{replace}
We need a framing story to get them onto the islands. A good simulation game always has a good framing story, and this is (pretty much) a mental simulation game.
{with}
A good simulation game always has a good framing story, so we need a framing story to get them onto the island that will be our laboratory.
{end replace}

{replace}
"And the nether moon high in this late morning sky is just a little bit romantic, too."
{with}
"And the nether moon high in this late morning sky is just a tad romantic, too," she added.
{end replace}

{replace}
And I guess it would be less confusing to keep saying "hour". Sixteen gohbu are a chippu.
{with}
And I guess it would be less confusing not to say "hour". Sixteen gohbu in a chippu, sixteen chippu in a day.
{end replace}

[end JMR201707251541 edits]

[JMR201707291824 edits]

{replace}
I don't know about you, but the simplest economic system I can think of is one person on a desert island. Except, of course, one person alone is only interesting for a little while.
{with}
The simplest economic system I can think of is one person on a desert island. Of course, one person alone is only interesting for a little while.
{end replace}

{replace}
"Roberta Whitmer?" Karel was surprised. "No, not really."
{with}
"Roberta ... ?" Karel was surprised. "No, not really."
{end replace}

{replace}
I'll tell you about that world as we go. It's kind of like ours in a lot of ways ...
{with}
I'll tell you about that world as we go. It's kind of like ours in a lot of ways ... .
{end replace}

{replace}
Bobbie answered: "Nothing in particular. But we don't want to spend all of our evenings the rest of our lives talking shop at home." Maybe she wasn't being totally up front, but she didn't think her relationship with Karel was any of Wycliffe's business.
{with}
Bobbie answered, "Nothing in particular. But we don't want to spend all of our evenings the rest of our lives talking shop at home." Maybe she wasn't being totally up front, but she didn't think her relationship with Karel was any of Wycliffe's concern.
{end replace}

[end JMR201707291824 edits]


Current version: https://econ101-novel.blogspot.com/2017/04/e01-framing-story-pilots-island.html.

RFQ4: Ch. 7, Wycliffe, Changing His Heart

A Little Cosmology

---

[Yet another false start, incomplete edit.]

Wycliffe, Changing His Heart

This chapter does not sound like an economic discussion, but it's necessary background. Otherwise, when we start trying to understand value for real, we'll get bogged down in details.

---

Light.

There shouldn't be light. He was underwater. He was dead, anyway. There shouldn't be anything.

The light grew, and he looked toward it. He sensed a Presence he did not want to face. There was an invitation in the light, but he knew he could not stand before that Presence.

It was hard to describe the direction of the light in any way but up and ahead.

In the opposite direction there was a blackness, and a presence he really wanted to avoid. Not so much an invitation as an imperious command, a seducing influence. "Give it up. You are mine." He shut his mind to it.

And then he was filled with a desire to go back in time and tell Karel not to trust him, not to get on the plane. Somewhere, he had heard that time in the afterlife was not like time for mortals. Maybe he could.

Suddenly, he was on the airstrip on their last island, watching himself load fuel. He ran towards himself, shouting, "No! Don't do it."

No reaction.

Against reason, he tried getting into his own body, but of course that didn't work. His body already had a lower entropy level version of himself in it.

Bobbie and Karel came out onto the strip, pushing their luggage in a cart. He tried to block their way, but they just walked right through him as if he weren't there. Shouting, screaming, crying, nothing got through to the land of the living.

He was panicking, but when they boarded the plane, he stayed with them, still trying to find a way to communicate.

He stayed with them to the uninhabited island, trying to get their attention and stop them, fighting the fear that he wouldn't be able to.

When he took the plane up for testing, he stayed with himself, first, trying to get himslef to take the plane back down and trying to reinforce the second thoughts he knew he was having, then trying to get himself to work harder at clearing the spark plugs and trying to get him to set the plane's speed to a more conservative speed. None of that was any good. There was an entropic wall he couldn't breach.

He suppressed his terror and stayed with himself as the plane went down, watching himself swim, whispering the directions as he watched himself lose them, hopefully watching himself find his bearings again, encouraging him to stay the distance, listening to himself pray, wondering when the angels would show up.

In blackest agony, he watched himself drown. And he watched as his own spirit at the lower entropy level separated from his body, hesitated, and left to try to stop himself.

And he heard a Voice say,

This is not the way to repent.

Surprised that he still existed, he went back to the island in despair and listened to Karel and Bobbie talking in the dark about their plans after they got back to civilization. Bobbie was in the tent and Karel was under a makeshift lean-to formed by lining their luggage up near the tent.

And he felt the irony as he realized, that they were, indeed, talking about getting together. The realization that it was an on-going discussion was bittersweet. He probably could have saved himself a lot of plotting, and avoided the dangers, by just suggesting once more on the flight back that they take a vacation together before they left the islands.

Trying to think of other ways to undo the damage, he thought about trying to contact Zedidiah. And found himself in their office several days before, watching Zedidiah and himself as they mocked how Karel and Bobbie respected each other.

Now he could recognize the irony under the jokes. The regret was bitter, but the understanding of mutual respect was a sweetness he decided he wanted to get used to, if only he weren't dead.

And still, talking, shouting, screaming, whispering, jumping, dancing, nothing he could do got their attention. There seemed to be no way to get Zedidiah to suspect his plans for real, or to get himself to recognize that his plans were so seriously wrong.

Again, he stayed with himself. He stuck with himself all the way to the island where he picked them up to bring them back. He stayed there until he saw a lower entropy version of his own spirit come to try to get their attention and then join them in the return flight that wasn't.

And he heard, again,

There is no way that this is helping anything.

Then he went back to the office again, to focus on getting Zedidiah's attention, with no results. His desparation helped him focus away from the lower entropy version of himself that was focusing on himself.

And again, he heard the Voice.

This is not how you make amends.

Trying to contact other friends did not work.

Nothing worked.
But he kept hearing that Voice.

So he worked backward in time until he found the point where he had consciously given up believing that other people could choose happiness for themselves. It was during his relationship with Tessa, and he saw that his own choice to return to cynicism after being baptized was a major part of the reason she had left him.

And he couldn't contact himself to get himself to give up on cynicism, either.

And then he started repeating his course, trying again where he had already failed creating an entropic loop because he had tracked onto his own path through the entropic field.

Talk about vicious cycles.

Temporal, or entropic loops are hard to get out of. They tend to amplify the distress, terrors, and passions, and attenuate faith and rationality. Because it involves going back in time, there's no way to count your number of times through the loop. Recursion with no exit strategy.

The primary effect is a sideways increase in personal entropy, bringing you closer to second death.

Fortunately, that Voice also stays with each person who goes into the cycles of hell. And it stayed with Wycliffe repeating things like --

Trying to change the past is not the way to repent.

At some point, having gained significant entropy, equivalent to being through the loop thousands of times, his thought processes lost focus and started becoming random. He lost the strength to keep himself tied to the assumptions that kept the cycles closed.

And he tried something different. He went to Australia, to find a certain police station and try to inform the Australian police there of some petty crimes he had committed. He thought, if he had gone to jail, maybe he wouldn't end up flying charter in the islands, and then he could never have done these terrible things.

It was not a rational thought, but it broke the cycle.

And he saw many other dead people trying to tell the police things. None of them were having any success. And he began, finally, to doubt the rationality of trying to stop himself after the fact, to yield to the despair that there was nothing he could do to save himself.

Something he had learned while studying with the Mormons, about a young man named Alma crying for help from the pains of hell, moved him to ask God to save him from his own despair. And he found a glimmer of hope.

He recognized one of the dead at the police station as a friend he hadn't talked with in a long time, so he tried to talk to him.

"Hey, Kev!"

Kevin turned away from the police officer he was trying to hound into re-reading a police report.

"Huh? Wha? Wyck! What are you doing here?"

"I really screwed up. I was going to ask you."

"Killed my gf."

"That's not good."

"Had an argument while we were out joyriding in the outback."

"Arguments happen."

"We shouldn't have been there. We'd left the baby in the house. And we were arguing about money and other things that don't matter."

"You have a baby?"

"Turned the jeep over, and we didn't have our seatbelts on. She ended up under the rollbar. Couldn't get her back to the hospital in time. Called my neighbor from the hospital to go keep an eye on the baby."

"That really sucks."

"Myeah."

"So how did you end up dead?"

"Driving trucks on long hauls with no breaks. Had to make money to support my daughter. Bad accident on an empty stretch of highway, load of fruit all over the road. I'm not sure how long I was hanging upside down in the rolled-over cab before I died."

"What are you doing now?"

"I'm trying to get the police to take the wife abuse reports more seriously, so I'll be in jail before we have that last argument."

"Do you ever hear a voice telling you that time travel is not a substitute for repentance or something like that? I have, and I've been ignoring it, but I think I'm beginning to understand."

Kevin thought for several moments, or it might have been an eternity.

"Uh, huh, now that you mention it, yeah. I've been ignoring that voice, so I haven't really heard it, but the voice has been there. What does it mean?"

"Maybe it means we should quit trying to change the past."

"But it's not really past is it?"

Now Wycliffe had to think. "Well, maybe, but we'd have to rewind the whole world. Once the future is chosen, it's chosen, really."

"Fate?"

"No, we have a choice, once. That once moves forward, and if we don't move forward with it, then we have no more choice. How do I understand this now?"

We're telling you.

"Who are you?" Kevin asked as Wycliffe looked towards the voices, astonished.

"I'm Wycliffe's grandfather and your grandfather's friend. My name is Greg."

"I'm Georgianna, Wycliffe's grandmother. We've accepted the good news, and we're your angels on call right at the moment."

"Are you the ones that keep telling me to repent?" Wycliffe asked?

"No, that's the voice of the Master, Himself."

"Jesus!"

"That's right. God Is Your Help." Georgianna smiled. "So, Wycliffe, you know why Kevin is here, why don't you tell him why you are here?"

"Well, I've been sort of not getting over breaking up with Tessa."

Kevin look startled.

"Tessa was a girl I used to date. I thought she was going to agree to marry me, but then she ran away. Said I wasn't passionate enough for her or something."

"Oh, really?"

"I've been, well, had been doing charter flights on some islands for a while with a Zealander named Zedidiah, and I met this couple that I thought needed a little push to get romantic."

"Huh?"

"They liked each other. But they weren't into romance. So I thought I should make sure they had an opportunity to get romantic. I effectively kidnapped them and left them on a desert island to seduce each other."

"That's twisted."

"Yep. For all I know, they're dead now, too. I'm a rapist by proxy and a murderer."

"I thought my case was bad. But, you said, 'Tessa'?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"That's my girlfriend's name."

Greg spoke up. "We know where she is. Would you two care to visit her? She needs some cheering up."

Kevin shook himslf negatively. "No way could I see her."

It was Wycliffe who asked, "Why? I'd say you should ask her to forgive you. And I'd like to clear some things up."

"I can't face that."

"It's hard. I know I'm going to have to ask Bobbie and Karel to forgive me."

"Bobbie and Karel are okay. Let's take care of first things first," said Georgianna.

"I'm with you," said Wycliffe.

And Kevin thought for a moment and said, "I guess I should come, too."

And they found themselves in a white place with many people dressed in white. And they looked at themselves and realized they were still clothed in the unclean thoughts they had brought with them. The angel suggested they change their thoughts, which they did, setting aside the negatives and the terrors, and then they were also dressed in white.

Greg spoke to one of those spirits there, and he called out to someone who called out to someone, and soon they saw Tessa looking at them. Tessa would not join them, so Georgianna asked if she'd let them go there so they could talk. She concurred without speaking.

Wycliffe said, "Hi, Tessa."

She turned away.

"Tessa, look. I forgive you now, even if I hadn't before now."

"How dare you?"

"People do stupid things, like admitting they've been offended. Can you forgive me?"

"Of what?"

"Emotionally hanging on too long, I think. Are you offended that I kidnapped Bobbie and Karel?"

"I don't know about that."

So Wycliffe rehearsed the events that had lead him out of the mortal world.

"And I thought you weren't passionate enough. It sounds so romantic!"

"I don't think it's romantic for them any more."

"Okay. So I was blind to your romantic side. I guess you can forgive me for that. And I guess I forgive you for not being able to make me see you as you are until I had gone too far away."

At this point, Kevin said, "Man, I feel like a third wheel."

And Tessa said, "No. You and I have a child. We have to be her angels now. I've been trying to understand how we could do that, but now I see. And I forgive you, too, if you can forgive me for the emotional abuse I put on you."

"Uhm, killing you is worse than emotional abuse?"

"Sure, but I assume you've been through your hell. I've been through mine. We've lost a lot, and we have more to do, but God is able to save us. Sin is sin. It's time to move on."

They were all silent for a moment, thinking how words could give one hope in the impossible, and then Greg said, "Kevin, Tessa, Someone would like to talk with the two of you." And Kevin and Tessa went to talk with God.

Georgianna said, "I think you were saying, ..."

"Bobbie and Karel."

"You've done part of your recompense, but it isn't quite time for talking with them, yet. Are you ready to talk with your Savior?"

"I guess, maybe."

Greg said, "Let's let Tessa and Kevin finish their interview. In the meantime, I think you need a review about the meaning of eternity."

"I'll say."

And Wycliffe listened carefully as they helped him recall his lessons from before he was born, about the nature of spirits and the nature of the mortal world, and the nature of the post-mortal existence. Then it was his turn to talk with the Master.

And then Georgianna and Greg took him back to the island where Bob and Karel were waking up from the first night alone.

"I'm on my own here?"

"Do you have a partner?" asked Georgianna.

"I guess not. But I just watch them?"

"You'll know how to help them without taking away their right to choose now," replied Greg.

"And when things are going okay here, I go help the searchers to not look here?"

"Yes."

"And this is part of how I make amends?"

"That's right." Greg answered. "You started things the wrong way. But if you had started things the right way, God still intended to give them an opportunity to be on this island by themselves."

"They'll have to forgive you, but I think they'll see their way to that."

"Just out of curiosity," Wycliffe hesitated and then continued, "Does anyone ever do something like this deliberately, so they can take on the job of watching over someone?"

Georgianna sighed. "Yes, sometimes people try such things, but it does not end well at all. Leaves a real mess for all the angels to clean up. You did not do this knowing what you were doing, so you don't face that mess."

"Okay. So I'm on the job. And if I need help, ...?"

"Pray, of course." Georgianna nodded.

And they were gone.

And Wycliffe took a tour of the island while Bobbie and Karel got up and tried to figure out how to start a day without any of the things they usually used to start their days. There were lots of things about the island he had not known.

Fortunately, time in the post-mortal world flows differently from time in the moral world, and he was finished with his tour before they had started putting breakfast together.

Then he settled down to watching over them.

---

A Little Cosmology

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RFQ4: Ch. 4, Tentative Exploration

(Wycliffe's Punishment)

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[Yet another false start, incomplete editing.]

So we have seen Wycliffe behaving as if there were more important things than money.

How can we talk about economics if the characters of our story don't think money matters?

:)

Well, let's think about such questions as we go back to see what Karel and Bobbie have been doing while Wycliffe was trying hard to save himself so he could save them.

It's tempting to use the native Kakgu words for many things -- foods, plants, animals, etc. But then you'll get lost learning a language you'll never use. I'll try to find something close to translate them as, instead. 

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Karel and Bobbie separately closed their eyes and offered silent prayers of thanks for their food.

Karel took a bite of his sandwich and drank some water from his canteen. "What kind of sandwich did you did you say you brought?" he asked.

"Egg salad, with some of the native wild lettuce. How about you?" Bobbie said between bites. (Xamina -- Might as well call it lettuce. Broad purple and green leaves, mild flavor.)

"Ham, with some of the native mustard greens. Try it?" (Vusa -- compressed and cured meat. The animal looks like a pig and the flavor is similar, I guess. And haraina -- green and orange leafy vegetable, mildly piquant mustard-like flavor.)

Bobbie looked at him doubtfully. He dug into the emergency kit again and found the knife, and wiped it with his handkerchief. Bobbie reached over and covered his hand and the knife.

"That's okay." Then she took his sandwich. "I trust your saliva more than that knife until we can wash it." She took a bite and handed it back, chewing thoughtfully and swallowing. "Not bad. Have a bite of mine?"

Karel blinked. "Sure." He took the sandwich she offered, took a bite, and handed it back. "Nice," he said, between chews, "especially with mayonnaise." (Gyup, we can call mayonnaise without any loss of meaning at all. It does have a distinct green cast.)

Bobbie said, "It's been a while since we treated ourselves to Berikeil food, hasn't it?" (The Union of Independent States of Berikil. Berikil Mesufito was the mapmaker who made the first maps of the new world.)

"Mmm, well, yeah. Focusing on the local cuisine and all hasn't left us much time to eat Berikeil."

(The shape of those continents is a little different from our Americas, but there are a number of parallels in the history, including naming the continents after the mapmaker instead of the leader of the expedition. At least Berikil was part of the crew.)

Both of them wondered whether it would be yet a while before they ate food from their home country again, but neither put the thoughts into words.

When they had finished eating, Karel asked, "What should we do next?"

"Start exploring the island for real, maybe?"

"Ya know, I'm thinking I want to make sure the water filter works."

"Good idea. Have you read the instructions?"

Karel dug into the emergency kit, but could only find the filter body and the pack of paper filters that looked more like coffee filters. No instructions.

"Can that actually filter water?" Bobbie said doubtfully when he showed her the paper filters.

"For short-term, drink-or-die emergencies, I guess."

"We'll have to be careful with the drinking water Wycliffe gave us, and use sea water to wash."

"Maybe we can find something to make a real filter with." Karel thought for a minute. Then he said, "Let's wash the utensils from the emergency kit so we don't have to worry about that for dinner."

Bobie agreed, so they took the utensils with them and went down to the beach to look at the water. The sea was clear and blue, and looked inviting. Karel asked, "Want to go in for a swim?"

"Is that preparing? Sounds more like play. What about the dishes?"

"Part of exploring -- gotta check out the water source."

Bobbie looked at Karel with a smile that bordered on a smirk and said, "Sounds good to me."

"You think I'm just making excuses." Karel complained as they walked back up the beach to get their swimming suits.

Bobbie just laughed.

Looking at their baggage spread out on the grass, Bobbie pointed out, "No place to change."

"Well, we need to put up the tent, anyway. Give me a hand?"

"Sure, let's do it."

They opened up the canvas bag with the tent in it and pulled out the rubberized ground sheet, the canvas tent, the tent poles, lines, and stakes, and starting setting it up.

"Should I trust you with that big hammer?" Bobbie joked as she held the stakes while Karel pounded them into the dirt. Fortunately, the ground under the grass was firmer than beach sand.

"You want to swing it?"

"Just be careful." 

When they had the tent up, Bobbie changed into her swimsuit inside the tent while Karel pulled the dinghy out of its canvas bag and looked it over. "There's a canvas tarp in the bag with the dinghy." he reported. "And a foot pump." He started inflating the dinghy with the foot pump.

"Those'll be useful," Bobbie said as she came out in her swimsuit. "Your turn."

She half-hoped Karel would say something in the way of appreciation of her appearance in her swimsuit, but he did not oblige. If she had been watching closely, she might have noticed him catch his breath and swallow before he offered her the pump.

While Karel changed, Bobbie took over inflating the dinghy. When he was changed, they traded turns until the dinghy's frame was tight. While they were inflating the dinghy, they hung their clothes out to finish drying. Then they threw the oars in the dinghy and carried it to the water.

And, for her part, Bobbie did not quite dare voice her appreciation of Karel's appearance, either. Being too frank about certain things might make it a very long three days.

Leaving the dinghy on the sand, they waded into the water. Bobbie bent down and scooped some of the water up. Curious, she tasted it.

"Mmm. Salty."

Karel followed suit. "Tastes okay, other than the salt. Properly filtered and boiled, it would probably be pretty good. Maybe the filter will work for a few pints of water."

The beach sloped gently down into the water and continued more or less at the same slope below the water line for quite a distance. They were only to their knees about a sederteh out. (Sederteh -- sixteen derteh, or about thirty-three yards.)

So they went back and put the dinghy in the water, pulling it to where the water was deep enough to float. Then they got in and rowed out about two sederteh, pushing and probing the bottom with the oars as they went.

"Still not much seaweed. It'll be faster to push it," said Karel, and he climbed out in water that was now to his waist and started to push the dinghy ahead of him. Bobbie continued to paddle on her side.

About four sederteh (about a hundred twenty yards) out, where Karel was up to his chest in the sea, Karel's foot dropped suddenly through the carpet of seaweed, and he slipped under the water, flailing for the dinghy. "Whoa! blub blub blub!"

"You okay?" Bobbie called out to the ripples on the surface, readying to jump in after him. 

Karel put his hand on the sandy bottom and got his feet back under himself so he could stand, shaking the water off as his head broke the surface. "Sudden dropoff here hidden by the seaweed."

"Good thing to know about." Bobbie watched as he dove back underwater to see how deep the dropoff was.

"How is it?" she asked when his head broke the surface again.

"Not bad. About two, maybe three derteh deep beyond the shelf edge (about twelve to eighteen feet). There are lots of fish and seaweed out here. Both look edible. And I'm not seeing any jellyfish or other nasties." (Uikaren -- stinging translucent floaters, jellyfish, for all practical purposes.)

So Bobbie sat on the side of the dinghy, facing in, and sat backwards into the water, and Karel hung onto it while she explored. Then she held the dinghy while he explored some more. After about four gohbu of exploring the shelf and shallows and a little playing in the water, they climbed back in the dinghy and rowed further out in the sea, to get a good look at the island. From maybe nine sederteh (about three hundred yards) out, they could see where the beach curved away from them to the north and to the south.

"The water's really nice." Bobbie said, almost to herself.

"Clean enough to wash the eating utensils in, I'd say."

"How big do you think the island is?"

"If the island is a simple oval, I'd say about seven rhip (a bit more than two miles) across, north to south. Can't tell anything about east to west from here. What do you think?"

"Looks like about ten rhip (about three miles) of beach to me. It'd be fun to live here."

"Lots of adventures, and a lot of hard work, too."

"We're daydreaming. We need to get some dishes cleaned up."

So they brought the dinghy back to the beach, washed the bottom in the surf, and carried it back to the grass.

Bobbie dug the rest of the mess kit out of the emergency supplies. Karel looked at it and said, "You know, we don't have a good place to dry these, yet, so lets just wash the two plates and the food knife for now."

"Aren't you feeling domestic?" Bobbie asked in a mocking voice.

Karel laughed. "Two plates could even wait until just before we eat."

"Should we eat now?" Bobbie asked and looked around. "It's getting close to cee o'clock isn't it? I want to look into the woods a bit before it gets dark." (Cee o'clock. Remember, they count in base sixteen. C_sixteen is 12_ten and on a 16 hour clock that's early evening, around six-ish.)

"Me, too. The plates can wait a few gohbu."

"Let's get something on our legs before we go wandering through any tall grass."

After changing back, they hung their swimsuits on tent lines and walked into the woods, sighting on the camp as they went.

Karel stopped at a tree with a roundish fruit about five to ten inches in diameter and examined the fruit. He asked Bobbie, "Do you think this might be breadfruit?" (Painko is comparable to our breadfruit, although it does taste a little like cacao when it's really ripe.)

Bobbie looked at the fruit he was indicating and said, "Does the stem break easily? We could take one back and open it up."

Karel picked one, and they kept going. When they lost sight of the camp, Bobbie backed up until she could see the tent, and Karel went further in until he lost sight of her.

"Finding anything?" Bobbie called.

"Not yet. I don't think we've seen any signs of rats or other small animals at all."

"Me neither. Just birds and insects."

"Wait a bunmu." Karel looked closer at a the base of a tree branch. "I thought I saw a muskrat. (Had to think about liito. It's an amphibious rodent, kind of a cross between a squirrel and a muskrat.) "I guess it's hidden itself now." Shortly, he came back.

"About how far in was the muskrat?"

"I'm not sure I really saw one, but it was in a tree about a sederteh in."

Bobbie crept into the woods, following Karel's hand signals. After a half gohbu of searching, she came back.

"No luck?"

"Nah. We'll have to be a bit more quiet."

They walked parallel to the camp for a bit. Then Bobbie went deeper in.

"Here's something that looks like jackfruit. I'll bring one back." (Hariko, although the ripe fruit of some species more than a little resembles a large avocado.)

"Great."

"This one looks like boxfruit." (Pagoka. Not useful for food.)

"Don't take one of those. Maybe we'll check it later."

She bruit the jackfruit back, and they proceeded, parallel to the camp.

"Oh, look at this. It looks like hemp." (Xant -- Other than the basic differences in biochemistry between their world and ours, it was, for all practical purposes, hemp.)

"Rope, paper, ...." Karel thought out loud.

"The seeds are supposed to be edible, too."

It was beginning to get dark, so they returned to camp, laying out the samples they had taken on Karel's trunk. Then they went down to the water and washed their hands.

Coming back, Bobbie opened up the food boxes, which they had set on her trunk in hopes of avoiding attracting insects, and they got out the bread and sausage.

"Nuts," she said.

"What?"

"I just realized we could have brought some seaweed back. We don't have any salad here."

"I'll go back in and get some."

"I'll go with you. Let's take those tin plates and the food knife."

And they took turns in the tent, changing back into their swimsuits again. Then they went down to the water in the twilight, waded in, and washed the plates and knife in the ocean water. Waded further in, they collected some seaweed that they recognized as edible in the light of the slowmoon, washed it to clear off silt and sand, and carried it back to the camp.

Leaving the seaweed on the plates, they changed back into their clothes again and turned their attention to dinner.

"I'm having fun."

"Me, too. Do you want to say the blessing?"

"Sure." They bowed their heads, and Bobbie said, "Heavenly Parent, we are having fun. It's scary, but we are having fun. Thank you for letting us do this, and it was nice of Wycliffe to take us here, in a strange sort of way. We forgive him. We aren't perfectly sure the seaweed is safe, but please bless us that, if it's poisonous, we can tell quickly enough that we can stop eating it before it makes us really sick. And please bless the bread and the sausage and the cheese and the seaweed to our health and strength. And bless Wycliffe, too. We pray in the name of God-Is-Help, amen." And Karel echoed the amen.

After eating, they put the food boxes and the box of emergency supplies in the tent, setting the samples they had taken on the box of emergency supplies. Then they spread the tarp from the dinghy on the ground by the tent and moved the trunks and suitcases around it to form a barrier.

"I could just sleep under the stars, really," said Karel.

"Let's be safe this time. I think you need a roof, too." Bobbie replied, indicating the dinghy.

Karel didn't like this idea. "The corners of the trunks could tear holes in the bottom."

So they moved the trunks beside the tent and leaned the dinghy upside down with its tubes on the trunks, setting the suitcases at the ends as animal barriers. Karel was still not quite satisfied, but it kept the trunk corners away from the fabric of the bottom of the dinghy.

Then they retired for the night.

"I feel like a queen," Bobbie complained jokingly inside the tent.

"That's okay," replied Karel from under the dinghy.

"I could get used to it."

"No, you won't. I know you well enough by now."

Silence. Then, "I mean, I could get used to you being nice to me."

"I wouldn't mind. Really."

More silence.

Karel said, "You know, for two people who sometimes think they are polar opposites, we seem to get along together all right."

"Hah. There's nothing to argue about, here."

"True. I guess we have really good reasons not to argue right now. But we haven't, really, disagreed all that much over the last four months."

"My mom keeps telling me that opposites are supposed to attract. She approves of you."

"She's told me as much. Your dad, too."

"He keeps asking if you are blind or something."

Karel chuckled. "And I think I like your dad, too."

"What do your parents say about me?"

"You know."

"True."

"They keep telling me they don't want to push me one way or the other, but they also keep telling me they really, really like you."

"One of the girls in the dorm asked me why we didn't just get married before we came. She said it would solve so many problems, and, since we had both gone to meet each others' families, it was obviously going to happen anyway."

"The boys on my floor have said similar things."

Again, silence.

"Harvard has invited you to go for a year of teaching and research. And the reports you've sent back from here have been making impressions there."

"And Berkeley has invited you. Your work gets a lot of approval, too, from what the Professor says."

"Can we resolve that?" Karel asked.

"Neither of us has actually made any promises."

"We could find a school that would take us both."

"Or try, and, if we don't, live poor on one salary, the first few years, like most Mormon newlyweds."

"We're serious about this, aren't we?" Karel asked quietly.

"We'll talk more about it in the morning. Excuse me, I'm going to pray and go to sleep. Goodnight."

"'Night."

And both of them did exactly that, repeating in their prayers their requests for help for themselves and for Wycliffe, and adding pleas for help understanding each other and for help understanding which direction their relationship should turn when they were back in civilization again.

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Doesn't this sound romantic?

Are they talking about money?

Look carefully. Even though money is not a high priority with these two, economics is a deep undercurrent in their actions and words.

And it's not a bad thing, really, since it clearly takes lower priority than the more important things.

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(Wycliffe's Punishment)

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