Chapter 8

We got back to Ruma and were greeted with considerable enthusiasm, at least, Alice was. They were glad to see me because they thought that Venus would not return without her consort, so I found out just how important I was in the general scheme of things. Oh, well, every swelled head needs to be punctured every once in a while, I guess.

The Ruman trading empire had flourished while we were gone, and Ruma was overflowing the original 7 hills. That wasn't all that was overflowing! Several places along the river had become the favorite places to dump shit and other such refuse. These were sure to become garden spots for disease if something was not done about it yesterday, if not sooner. Alice and I got together and worked out a workable plan for a sewage plant to process all of the offal and shit produced by a town of over 1000 people. I put all of the plans together, along with a cost estimate and a work schedule and went to the town elders for a formal presentation. I expected some mild opposition just on principle, but I was not prepared for the flat rejection of the whole scheme. They weren't worried, if something went wrong, Aquaria/Venus would fix all of their problems!

I left the meeting with my tail between my legs. Never in my life have I been so disheartened. I gave Alice a rundown of what had happened at the meeting, and she was duly sympathetic. She said that I shouldn't worry about it, she would make it all better. Aquaria called an official meeting of the Ruman city elders at the temple and laid out a bombshell! She announced that she was abandoning Ruma to its fate, and she would have nothing further to do with the town or the people. They had become sorry excuses for intelligent people, and she was ashamed to be associated with them. She wanted nothing to do with a people who were too lazy to take care of themselves and had become dependent on charity from a god to do what was necessary for their own good. She said that she had called them together to tell them goodbye; we were leaving tomorrow, never to return.

This tirade was met with stunned silence. Nobody said anything for a full 30 seconds, then the room exploded with shouts for mercy and tears of shame and horror. Alice turned her back and let them rant for 10 minutes, then she slowly turned around and held up her hand for silence. Voices froze in mid-word as people choked themselves into silence. She asked, "Why should I show you ungrateful wretches any mercy?" She pointed to the de facto mayor and said, "You expect me to take care of you as if you were children. Well, I WILL NOT! I will only do for you what you cannot do for yourselves. I will tell you how to do a thing if you ask my advice, but I will not be your babysitter. You will all die of a disgusting disease if you do not clean up your sewage, so you had better get to it; I will not do more to help you. So, what will you do? Will you build this sewage disposal plant, or will I leave? Give me your decision now!"

There was about five minutes of begging Alice to change her mind, but she simply stood there with her arms crossed and a stern look on her face. When the five minutes was up, Alice again held up her hand. When there was silence, she pointed at the mayor and asked, "What is your decision? I will not wait any longer."

The mayor looked around at the other elders, but got no support from any of them. He hung his head low and mumbled. Alice told him to speak up. Finally, he said, "We beg of you, mighty Aquaria, please don't abandon us. We will build this thing you want. We will start tomorrow."

Alice said, "Very well, I will not leave you, provided that you keep your promise. But, woe unto you if you back down. You may go home now."

She came to me and reported that the sewage disposal plant would be built.

I was greatly relieved, because I had built my plans around having Ruma become the center of culture and trade for the new world I hoped to build. However, I began to wonder if I should look for another place to raise to prominence. I was caught on the horns of a dilemma. If I promoted a rival for Ruma, I might be setting up another Punic War. On the other hand, competition was good because it kept one's attention focused. Maybe I should push for another Carthage and hope for the best. I would have to talk that one over with Alice.

Meanwhile, I was happy to see that my olive growing project was off to a good start. I would have to keep a close watch on this operation, as well as the vineyards, since they were so labor intensive. I was afraid that slavery would make a comeback if Alice and I weren't vigilant. I tried to impress on the landowners that the work was seasonal, but slaves had to be supported the year around, so hiring migrant workers was to their economic advantage. Of course, with that, I had to make sure that the migrant workers were not exploited. Oh, well, an altruist's work is never done!

One item on my agenda had initially given me some problem, but Alice, or should I say "Venus," came up with a creative solution. I had tried to start schools for the children, since I had little hope for the adults learning anything until they had to, but there was a problem with enforcing regular attendance. The kids wanted to play, and neither they nor their parents could see any real advantage to spending a major part of the day in school. The school had been meeting in Venus' temple simply because it had several rooms of adequate size.

Initially, Alice and I had been teaching the "3 Rs," but that was not enough to keep the kids' interest, so Alice suggested we add sex education to the curriculum. She instituted a junior league to the Venus cult which taught a full range of sex-related subjects. The instruction covered a multitude of topics, such as how rape was unforgivable and probably unnecessary, and where to find the erogenous zones. But, by far, the most popular subject was masturbation, particularly when they got to the daily laboratory exercises. Both sexes were taught the proper techniques to please both sexes. The hands-on training in the laboratory each day made it imperative for each student to attend every day, for fear of missing something new and interesting.

Interest in the 3 Rs was promoted by publishing an illustrated textbook for the sex education course, written in Basic English, which the children wanted to learn to read. As a side issue, the parents also wanted to read the book, so the children spent a lot of time teaching written English to their parents. This book was a first class teaching aid! And it had religious significance because Alice and I were the ones who posed for the illustrations, which were completely unretouched and anatomically correct. Later on, this textbook became one of out most popular trade items and a great income producer for the Venus cult.

Construction of the sewage disposal plant was progressing well, and we had found some Venus cult acolytes who could do a good job of teaching the school, so Alice and I thought that we could spend a few weeks exploring the coast of North Africa. Traders from Ruma had already been there, of course, but Alice and I wanted to play tourist for a couple of weeks. I was interested in what had changed in the few thousand years between this time and 1950. The Venus' Joy happened to be in port between trips, so we commandeered it for our voyage to North Africa.

Captain Osus said that he would be happy to take us for a little sail, since interesting things always happened around us. We got ready and were prepared to leave within a week. Weather on the Mediterranean Sea did not completely agree with my digestive track this time around, so I did not have a very pleasant voyage; however, by superhuman effort, I did manage to survive a bout of seasickness every day. The sailors were impressed that even a demigod was susceptible to mal de mer; the revelation appeared to do a lot for their morale, considering the number of jokes at my expense that I overheard.

We were surprised to encounter pirates as we approached North Africa. We all quickly decided to teach them a lesson about interfering with Ruman ships. There were two pirate ships, so they probably thought that our one ship would be easy pickings, even though our ship was larger than either one of theirs. We let them get close enough to know that their downfall came from us and not just some bad luck, just in case there happened to be any survivors from either of their ships.