Chapter 1

As far as Doug knew, there were two ways to fight smallpox, and they both involved vaccination. Right now, his main hope was to find a case of cowpox and use a vaccine made from those pustules. The potential death rate from this source of vaccine was too small to worry about, though the possibility did exist. If he could not find a case of cowpox in a reasonable length of time, he would have to use the pustule scabs from a human with small pox as his source of vaccine. There was a much higher chance of death from this type of vaccine, but still much lower than the chance with no vaccination.

He could safely travel up and down the coast of China until he found a suitable cow since he, personally, was immune to the disease. The first thing he had to do was to discover the Chinese word for cowpox, then he could start asking everybody he met about a potential source.

He finally found somebody who spoke the Korean trade language he had learned and got the word he was looking for with a lot of work and pure stubbornness. With this word at his disposal, he spent nearly eight months searching for a cow before he finally found one. It cost him three fire starters to get the cow, but he left to meet the rest of his expedition with a feeling of relief and triumph. At least, small pox was not going to play havoc with the people he felt responsible for!

Once he found his people, who had almost given up hope of ever seeing Doug again, it only took a few weeks to have everybody vaccinated and the pots boiling to prepare more vaccine. Doug planned to cut short the expedition and head home, stopping along the way to vaccinate his people and everybody else around them against small pox.

As soon as he got home, he supervised the vaccination of every person in San Diego, and then worked east. Meanwhile, he sent a ship to India to collect as many cattle as they could find and bring them back to be the source of more vaccine. Of course, everybody on board was vaccinated before the ship left port. Furthermore, the people making the trading runs anywhere away from the coast of Doug's World were being vaccinated as fast as they could be rounded up.

When he got back from Asia, Doug found that the people had just not taken to his choice of West for the name of their hemisphere. Instead, everybody was calling it Doug's World, so he decided not to fight it, besides, he was highly flattered!

The production of vaccine was well under way, so Doug was free to return to Doug's Town, which he had come to consider his "home town." He was in a hurry to be reunited with his wives, so he commandeered a small jet and left in a hurry for home. His current chief wife, Darling, met him at the airport. She had ordered the other wives to wait at their home while she met Doug. Darling was always horny, but she rarely had a chance to entertain Doug alone, so she took advantage of her rank on this rare occasion. Doug's over 500 years of sexual experience made him, literally, the world's best lover, and Darling didn't want to miss her chance for something special.

They spent the night at a guest house at the airport and went to their home the next day where Doug greeted Honey, Sweetness, and Sugar as he came in the door. Doug couldn't remember when the practice started, but these had become the traditional names for his wives, and each one adopted the available name as she joined the family. Doug flatly refused to have more than four wives at one time, claiming that he could never satisfy a greater number. By tradition, no other man had more than three wives, though there were a few women with more than four husbands, but that didn't count. In Doug's World, people were free to do what they wanted, as long as nobody was harmed.

It took five years, but eventually everybody that could be found was vaccinated against small pox, and Doug breathed a sigh of relief. He had to admit that being an absolute ruler sometimes had its advantages. Actually, he was an absolute ruler because everybody wanted him to be. He was trusted to know what to do in emergencies and, so far, had always been right. The situation might quickly change if he was ever stupendously wrong.

The other disease that scared Doug was measles. It had a 30% death rate among undeveloped countries back in Doug's 21^st century, though, good nutrition and hygiene kept that number to much less than 1% in developed countries. He had no hope of preparing a vaccine against measles currently, but he could fight it by pushing his people into eating properly and using good sanitation. There simply was nothing else that he could do at this time!

He already had a fledgling Public Health Service under development, but they had a long way to go to be able to fight major epidemics. The best that the health service could do was to educate the people in the fundamentals of good nutrition and good sanitation. They had sent out troupes of actors to put on plays which emphasized the advantages of the principles they were trying to teach. Fortunately, they did not have to face a sophisticated audience, so the little plays they put on were at about the level that would have been used for kindergarten children in the 21^st century. The adults were no more familiar with stage presentations than were their children, so all could laugh and learn together. A puppet show along the lines of Punch and Judy was especially popular in promoting sanitation. A favorite punch line was when Judy dumped a full chamber pot on Punch's head.

Vaccinations were also promoted by these little plays. The children were instrumental in nagging their parents into conforming with the teachings of the plays; it was surprising how effective this sort of education was in influencing the actions of the adults. Many went along with the demands of the children just to shut them up.

Good nutrition was a little harder to sell, since there were such differences in the diet from the sea shore to the plains to the mountains. The dialog had to be tailored to fit the food the locals had to choose from. Doug was trying to get some semblance of dietary supplements, such as fish oil, made available to the interior of the continents, and vitamins distributed everywhere. He was currently pushing for a liver extract to provide vitamin A to prevent pellagra, and he hoped the fish oil would provide enough vitamin D to fight rickets. Both diseases were a problem for his people.

It had now been 1,000 years since Doug had come on the scene. Doug's World was a thriving society of nearly 300 million people with railroads and paved highways from ocean to ocean and ice in the north to ice in the south. Doug had tried to push the people toward a kind of benign capitalism, but they had turned toward socialism instead. Doug constantly had to fight the attitude of "If Doug hasn't ordered it, it's probably not worth doing." The result was that Doug was constantly nagged by the need to micromanage, and it was driving him nuts. He needed to find a rebel who could be subtilely pushed to go his own way without abusing others.

Doug's World was trading with people everywhere that they could reach. This really meant people who lived along ocean coasts and large rivers. The Black Sea flood had occurred recently and now the Danube had made possible access to Central Europe. None of the Eastern Hemisphere had the infrastructure necessary for easy trade with the interior, and Doug was caught on the horns of a dilemma. He was reluctant to order that roads or railroads be built, because he could see that as reinforcing his autocratic rule. On the other hand, he hated to see so many people go without the advantages of a modern society because easy trade was denied them.

Finally, a breakthrough! A man in India named Many Thoughts made himself known. He started what accidentally amounted to a new religion of free thought and self expression. Many Thoughts was an artist—his paintings could stir the emotions of a boulder, and he used his paintings to express his ideas. His teachings spread like wildfire throughout India and the surrounding country. At first, there was resistance when his ideas encountered the innate conservatism of China, but even that was overcome within 10 years.

The Indians traded for what they needed to start putting down paved roads and railroad tracks running all over the country. The roads and railroads were privately owned and went anywhere there was a profit to be made. Soon, India was synonymous with progress. Unfortunately, profit and progress to some people meant taking what somebody else already had.