Impossible Dreamers

Chapter 28 (degtwi-que): Pritch learns

The Grabblers had been staying with Pritch for two months now, and he had learnt a lot of fascinating stuff about them and their land. Pritch still wasn't sure how much of what they said he could believe. They certainly seemed very sincere, and he didn't get the impression that they were trying to deceive him.But the way they described things was so different from the way things were done in Bartyronis, it was hard to understand how their world could possibly work.

Pritch needed to find out about things that would be valuable to Tyro and Sleech, but the conversation kept getting diverted to other things. Things that were no use to Tyro, but Pritch couldn't help wanting to understand.

These people still thought that things in their country were continuing without them just as they had before, but Pritch knew that an enormous change had taken place in the Grabble lands. Old buildings had been knocked down, and new ones built. Roads had been constructed. Places for flying machines to land had been got ready. The people had been made to work on Bartyronian projects, and educated in Bartyronian ideas. If they saw it now, Selentaya and Piacho would not recognise the place they had come from. Mipper Hool had been insistent that Pritch must not let the Grabblers know any of this. But sometimes it was difficult not to let it slip.

Pritch really wanted to know more about these strange people. And so, every day, he would talk to them. Talking was not always easy, even though most of the words they all spoke had near enough the same meanings. The problem was, there were some things that the Grabblers said about their world that seemed impossible to Pritch, and there were some ways in which Bartyronians did things that made no sense to the Grabblers.

The Grabblers were always very pleasant, and were extremely interested in what Pritch had to say. But there were things which seemed obviously right and proper to Pritch, that the Grabblers simply couldn't understand.

Money, for instance.

Pritch listened with great interest to how the Grabblers did everything by agreement, and how all objections from anybody were taken seriously and dealt with. The explanation from the Grabblers of how things were done in their land seemed kind and considerate, but Pritch couldn't help thinking that it lacked one of the most important aspects of how people lived in Great Bartyronis. Money.

Pritch just asked them the simplest possible question:

'In your "Seren-ila", how did, or rather, do, do... how do people get paid?'

Both Piacho and Selentaya looked blank.

'Get paid?' Selentaya answered. 'What do you mean by "paid"?'

'Paid,' Pritch repeated. 'What do people ...erm ... what do they get for their work?'

'Are you asking how people become happy from working?' Piacho asked, clearly very puzzled by the question.

'Well, yes, I suppose so,' said Pritch, though it was a strange way to put it. Something about the way Piacho had answered made Pritch feel almost embarrassed, as though he had asked a very stupid question.

'People don't really think about it,' said Selentaya. 'They are happy that their work has brought pleasure to others, as well as themselves ...'

Piacho added, in a tone like someone speaking to a small child: 'If somebody makes a cake, they get pleasure from seeing people enjoying eating it, ha, as well as the taste of the cake itself.' Selentaya nodded.

'Yes,' Pritch said. 'Of course. But I don't think you have really answered my question. How do they get paid for that work? And who decides how much they get? Who is in charge of making cakes? Who tells somebody that they should be making a cake? Who decides what sort of cake should be made? And do people get paid every week, or every month? Or maybe every day?'