The gentle bobbing motion, and the pleasant scent of cooking chicken lulled me back to sleep. A few minutes later, by my internal clock, I felt something soft brushing my lips. Sniffing told me that it was fresh rice.



“Emissary of the Celestial Emperor, I offer you food.” An old woman said in Mandarin and I opened my eyes to see her framed against the curve of her boat. She extended chopsticks with a smidgen of rice on them, and my stomach grumbled as I spotted the chicken cooking over a charcoal grill.



My previous hosts would not have approved since they were so vegetarian as to not be able to conceive of a use for the cutting teeth in my head. But, I had gone nearly a month and a half with only a contaminated can of wieners to garnish the mountains of lettuce. If I could not have a Whataburger, then wok-cooked chicken terriyaki would do as a fine substitute.



The old woman did not look like she was malnourished, and so I felt unworried that I might be taking her share. Still, I would have to make it up to her. So, I ate, and then I asked what she needed.



She bowed to me, and banged her head gently, a couple times on the bottom of the boat floor. Then she got me some green tea. I drank it, and engaged in polite conversation about the harbor with its swarm of tiny boats that such as her lived on.



It turned out that the city was Hong Kong.



Luckily, the people had been spared being turned over to the Reds because Mao had been killed in the Time of the Warlords by a servant of the Celestial Emperor. No Cultural Revolution, or any of the other numerous atrocities that delineate the nature of that self-centered land in my world had happened here.



“Oh, great one, if I, your most humble servant may ask a favor of you?” She said bowing again. Probably because I had appeared out of thin air on her boat, she assumed I was some sort of demigod or angel. Evidently, I was expected to be a minor functionary in the bueraucracy of the Celestial Emperor.



I doubted that explaining the truth to her would get anywhere.



I consented, and she asked again trying to bind me to my word, and I agreed, and she asked again trying to get me to agree to the favor before she even asked.



“You are an excellent cook, and no doubt a credit to your community, but I do not have all day. Pressing matters call for my attention.”



Then I had to assure her that I did have time to actually listen to her petition. That took a while.



If my stomach was not full of her good teriyaki, then I might have snapped, but it was easy to be mellow, and let the evening sea breeze play over my face while the boat rocked in the harbor.



“My grandson is a most excellent, and well-favored boy. He is most respectful to his elders, and to his ancestors, and he gives sacrifices of fruit and money on all the holy days.”



Now we were getting to it. I studied her face, and she seemed sincere. This was not just the automatic praise of someone pumping up another’s reputation.



I nodded, and she continued.



“Great one … blah, blah, blah for several minutes…he has been taken by the White Crane Tong to be one of their warriors.”



“Did he wish this?”



“No!” She cried, and then relented a bit as I stared at her sternly. Many a young fellow thought being a hood was a romantic occupation. It was one of those multiversal constants–stupidity.



“He thought much, and was enticed by them with many gifts, and the leader’s daughter giggled to see him, but in the end he listened to the advice of his parents and his grandmother. He promised he would not, and he was ever good to his word.”



I could see this being complicated, but I would have intervened even if the punk had wanted to join. A dose of reality can be an effective cure for dreams and insanity.



“And so being a devout servant of the gods, I prayed for a deliverer.”



She looked at me with desperate hope shining in her eyes. For all I knew, I might have been sent by the Celestial Bueraucracy. Gods seem to feel less compunction about messing with versers. After all, we are immortal and thus even if we break, we are easily fixed. Besides we often know many of the secrets of the gods already.



I stood, and thanked her for my meal, and hugged her.



“I’ll see what I can do.”



Tadeusz