Only minutes later, it seemed, a soft knock rattled Ilika’s door. He poked his head out from under the blankets, but his face showed confusion.
The knock came again.
“Hello?” he called out in a groggy voice.
“It’s Sata,” she said through the door. “My father thought you might want breakfast in your room. I got juice, too.”
Still wearing his clothes, he stood, yawned and stretched, and opened the door. Sata stood holding a tray, but looked fearful.
“Good morning, Sata. Thank you very much,” he said pleasantly.
She relaxed. “Is there anything else I can get you?”
He looked at the tray, brimming with porridge, honey, cream, two pieces of fruit, and a mug of juice. “This is a feast!” he said, handing her two copper pieces. “There is one more thing you can do for me. Come and knock again at the tenth hour so I’ll know it’s time to . . . finish what I came to do.”
“Okay!” she agreed. “See you then!”
After drinking deeply of his fruit juice and sweetening his porridge, Ilika looked up. The scoring chart on the easel looked back at him, representing the hopes and fears of twenty-six slaves and one innkeeper’s daughter.
He grabbed blank paper and pencil, and started writing down names, letting his heart jump from name to name on the list. He quickly had eight names, all of whom had touched him in some way. Kibi was at the top, but Sata, Mati, and Rini were there also.
NEBADOR Book One: The Test 105
After a few bites of porridge, he set that sheet aside and started a new one, this time ranked by intelligence scores. Toli headed the list, but he smiled when he saw that all eight from his first list were near the top.
Next he tried the same thing with the language scores. The first ten were the same as the first ten on the intelligence list, and Kibi and Sata were at the top.
Ilika became excited. Next he looked at the psychological symbols that worried him the most. Seeing none of them beside the names of the top ten, he breathed a sigh of relief.
Then he looked over the names on the chart who had not touched him emotionally and were not among the top ten on the other lists. None of them spoke to him strongly. With a slight cringe, he let them go, marking them out completely on the scoring chart.
An hour later he finished several more lists based on personality types, the drawing projects, and the ethics discussion. Each list was different, but each felt complete with the ten who had survived the first cut. None of the others were threatening to return.
Ilika sighed. There appeared to be no way to choose five crew members.
Any five he chose based on one or two lists would leave out some of the best in other categories. But he could choose ten and get the cream of the crop in all ways.
What would happen, he wondered, if he couldn’t narrow it down from ten?
Would that be the same as failure?
In a sense it would, he admitted to himself. His ship only had places for five crew members. He could not begin training until he had only five.
What if he . . . added a step? What if something came between the initial selection and the serious training? Something . . . that would allow him to get to know them better? He lay back on his bed, trying to imagine what he could do that wouldn’t require the ship.
The answer nearly slapped him in the face. His candidates were almost completely illiterate and uneducated. Before he trained his crew, he would have to teach them many things. He could use that time to get to know them better.
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A great weight lifted from his shoulders. He looked at the list of ten names again, then copied it in large, clear letters to another piece of paper, leaving off Sata.
His heart made him go back through the sketches again, taking one last look at all the faces he would not be choosing, all the young people he would allow to remain in slavery.
Ilika suddenly remembered gut-wrenching exercises from his own training, emergency simulations in which the captain could only save part of his passengers and crew.
But he was not, he told himself, condemning the other slaves to death. He was simply leaving them where they were, where their own people had put them.
Not much later, his door rattled again. “It’s the tenth hour, even a little past,” Sata’s voice called.
He opened the door. “Thank you, Sata. Please tell your parents I will be down in a few minutes with my decision.”
“Okay!” she squeaked with a broken voice full of excitement and fear.
Six great gold pieces, and several smaller coins, came out of hiding and into his money pouch. The final list of nine slaves was placed in a side pocket of his shoulder bag.
Ilika of Satamia found a small table in the common room. The two innkeepers and their daughter joined him.
“I thought I could choose my five crew members after all the tests yesterday. I was wrong. I cannot make my list any smaller than ten. I have decided to take the next several months, all during this summer and early fall, and give those ten a good education. I will then hopefully know them well enough to choose my five. The ones I do not choose will receive three great gold pieces each to help them get started in life.”
Sata shook like a frightened animal, barely holding in the burning question Ilika had not yet answered.
“If this situation is okay with all three of you, Sata is invited to be one of those ten.”
She squealed, clapped, and bounced up and down on her stool.
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“Where will you do the teaching?” Doko asked.
“We will be here for a little while, long enough to get clothes and other gear for everyone, then we will buy horses and wander about the kingdom.”
“I want to know my daughter won’t be . . . forced into anything,” Mosa asserted with a worried look.
“I will make sure of that. I will not allow any . . . intimate relationships during the learning time, although I’m sure close friendships will develop.
Anyone who wants out will be free to leave at any time. In the case of Sata, I would deliver her back here.
“But,” he said pointedly, “there are always dangers in the wide world. I can protect her from harm by anyone in our group, but I cannot guarantee her safety from all mishaps.”
Doko nodded. “Are you comfortable with all that, Sata?”
She smiled and nodded excitedly.
“And you, good wife?”
Tears were close, but Mosa nodded also.
“Okay, Sata,” Ilika said. “I want you to come with me to get the others, wearing your old dress. There won’t be any differences in routine between you and the other nine. Some of them are just as smart as you, and a couple are even smarter at some things, although you were one of my highest-scoring candidates.”
She grinned. “Wow!”
Her parents glowed with pride. They had both listened at the curtains to the common room off and on during the previous day, and knew how difficult some of the test questions were.
Sata dashed to her little room behind the kitchen to change into her old dress.
“My son and I will bring in the extra beds before you return,” Doko promised.
The sun brought warmth to the cool spring day as the pair, appearing to be master and slave, began their journey up Market Way.
“The girl with the crutch is also in the group,” Ilika mentioned.
“Mati’s nice. I think we could be friends.”
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“I bet she’d like that.”
They entered the clothing shop. Ilika found the stacks of simple, ready-made tunics and pulled out his list to guess the sizes he needed.
“When do you want me to change?” Sata asked as Ilika paid for the tunics.
“When the others do. Is it okay if your old dress gets tossed along with their rags?”
They headed back into the street. “Yeah. If the others can leave their old lives behind, I can too.”
They walked in silence awhile.
“You and I have something in common,” Ilika said.
“What’s
that?”
“I was ten years old when I started training to work on ships.”
“So when I’m your age, I could have my own ship!”
“It’s possible. I did have some advantages you don’t have.”
“Like
what?”
“I had had a good education already.”
“But you’re going to give us that this summer, right?”
“Yes, but it’s always easier when you start younger. Where I come from, education starts at about seven.”
“I started working at the inn when I was five.”
“My first job was like yours, serving food at an eating place.”
Sata smiled with pride. “We do have a lot in common.”
“It’s okay that we have these little secrets, but I have to give you a warning.”
Sata lost her smile.
“There is no place for boasting on my ship. Be happy that we share some things, but keep them in their place, between you and me.”
Sata was quiet and thoughtful for the remainder of the walk to the slave market.
Ilika and Sata seated themselves in front of the big desk.
The slave master squinted at what appeared to be a slave sitting in one of his good chairs, but remained silent.
Ilika handed him the list.
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The large man was well practiced at keeping his feelings hidden from his business associates, but for a moment his glee showed clearly as he gazed at the length of the list. Once he resumed his business-like expression, he copied the names onto another piece of paper, then rang a hand bell. A guard entered.
“Rope these up, except the cripple can just tag along.”
To Ilika he said, “Good choices. They will serve you well.”
Sata started to open her mouth, but Ilika jabbed her before she could speak.
The slave master began writing up bills of sale. “Instead of digging through all my records, which would take me hours, shall we just call it five for boys, eight for girls?”
Ilika did the math in his head. “That sounds about right. It comes to five great and seven small gold, I believe.”
The slave master did the calculation on paper. “You are right! Where did you learn to figure like that?”
Ilika just smiled as he opened his pouch and brought out the coins.
Sata’s eyes nearly bulged out of her head at the sight of so much money sitting on the table in front of her.
Ilika inspected each bill of sale as it was written, signed, and sealed with wax and the slave master’s ring. When he had received and inspected all nine, he rose and extended his hand.
As they shook, the slave master said, “Come back any time you need more!
Want to sell that one? She looks like a hard worker.”
“She’s not mine to sell,” Ilika replied.
Sata clearly had some strong feelings, but this time held her tongue.
Deep Learning Notes
Ilika experienced one of the most difficult decision-making situations. He could only “succeed” at what he came to do by discarding old, unworkable assumptions, and re-defining the problem. This is very difficult for us because we usually invest much time and energy in our initial assumptions
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and definitions. To discard them can easily feel like failure.
Specifically, a “solution” to his problem existed, but it was a list of ten names.
The night before, he was looking for five names, so the ten-name solution could not even be seen. Only morning and breakfast brought the clarity needed to see the “illegal” solution.
Most schools, camps, and recreation programs today promise to keep kids
“safe and sound.” Why did Ilika not make the same promise to Sata’s parents?
Ilika asked Sata to keep secret the things they had in common. Is this a good kind of secret, or would honesty (with the other students) be better?
After the slave master said, “They will serve you well,” what was Sata tempted to say?
Ilika seemed unconcerned about getting the very best deal, and often let himself be over-charged a little. Can you think of any reason for this?