Meanwhile, Max is taking a head-clearing stroll around the barracks. He's out of uniform and done with his shift at the Flame until tonight - they finally found someone else, someone much more qualified to work on getting the comm system up.
It's still not working, but Max is glad that he's not the one being forced to deal with that headache anymore.
He really, really wishes there was something else he could do, something more suited to his talents, but what is there to spy on, on an island this size and this scarcely populated?
His current "job" doesn't matter much, though, because he's one of the few optimistic ones who believe that they'll eventually find a way back to their own worlds. When they'll figure that out and how, he has no idea, but he knows that you can't be pessimistic in a situation like this, which is why he's trying to make the best of it.
The barracks are, at least, clean and comfortable.
And air-conditioned.
... they're air-conditioned, and yet he's outside. Maybe this is another of the Island's mysteries?
While he had found a new home and a new vocation of sorts since the Incident out on the Wörmway, Rossamünd still kept to some of the drills and practices of the Lamplighters, if only to keep some normality in the face of the great strangeness of his experience
( ... )
He nodded, as this was a basic truth. He was a foundling, raised in a marine society, and while there had been people who loved him, he had always to some degree been alone. The lamplighters had not changed this state much except that Threnody had stuck by him, a difficult but still loyal friend.
"Nothing as of yet, sir," he reported. This place was strange and confusing and he'd obviously caused some difficulties as he'd insisted he was a working man and most of them had insisted he should be in school. He'd said he was a Lamplighter, trained and billeted. They'd said they had no lamps for him to light.
...it hadn't gone very well from there on in, especially during the biology section of things.
There are no inferiors to a foundling. Foundling is also a word for wastrel and he had been quite lucky to have been taken in at the marine society instead of facing the mines or the mills or the other fates most foundling children faced. But no matter where they ended up, there were no inferiors to a foundling and so he had been taught to call everyone sir.
When he thought of communications, he thought of the Emperor's mail carriages but most importantly of one of his amblers, a man who called himself Fouracres. He missed him, one of the few people he missed from his own world especially. It was another point in Max's favor.
It's still not working, but Max is glad that he's not the one being forced to deal with that headache anymore.
He really, really wishes there was something else he could do, something more suited to his talents, but what is there to spy on, on an island this size and this scarcely populated?
His current "job" doesn't matter much, though, because he's one of the few optimistic ones who believe that they'll eventually find a way back to their own worlds. When they'll figure that out and how, he has no idea, but he knows that you can't be pessimistic in a situation like this, which is why he's trying to make the best of it.
The barracks are, at least, clean and comfortable.
And air-conditioned.
... they're air-conditioned, and yet he's outside. Maybe this is another of the Island's mysteries?
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There's a kid here?
"Hi there," he says, returning the wave with a bit of uncertainty.
He is so bad with children.
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"Good day, sir."
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He's not sure whether or not he should ask this question, but it's all that's coming to mind: "Are you - by yourself?"
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"Aye, sir."
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Max looks sort of disturbed by this.
"What've they got you doing?"
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...it hadn't gone very well from there on in, especially during the biology section of things.
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"That's good. The work's really boring, you know," he says, with a tiny smile. "I'm Max."
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"Rossamünd, sir," he said with a small, careful smile. "Rossamünd Bookchild."
He was just waiting for the laughter. It's what he always got.
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Really, celebrities have come up with worse.
"Oh, well if you're going to be formal, I'm Maxwell Smart. But just call me Max," he says, giving a little bow in return.
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"Thank you, sir. I will, sir. Max. Sir."
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Talking to this kid? So totally not as bad as talking to the ones he's used to back in DC.
They're all little punks. Rossamünd is certainly not a punk.
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There are no inferiors to a foundling. Foundling is also a word for wastrel and he had been quite lucky to have been taken in at the marine society instead of facing the mines or the mills or the other fates most foundling children faced. But no matter where they ended up, there were no inferiors to a foundling and so he had been taught to call everyone sir.
"And, er, what do you do here, um, Max?"
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"Someone else is working on it now."
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"And what will you be doing now?"
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