I looked at the statue.
"It's interesting, isn't it?" A voice spoke behind me.
The statue in front of me started out as a rock and then changed into the legs of a man and then his torso, working upwards over his chest up to his face and a smile that seemed to be saying something.
"Are you a sculptor yourself?"
"Not at all, I'm a physicist and an astronomer. It's just...I saw two things."
"The talent of the sculptor has to be one of them."
"Yes, that, and also, there had to have been something there that he saw before he could show it in stone."
"They said this was the third night that you came here."
I turned, and then I saw him, the guy who was the reason for the sculpture, the guy who was the rock.
"Join my crew."
"I'm sure your every week has stories that would inspire the best of our authors. My place is here in London with my colleagues."
"But are any of them as loyal to you are you are now being to them?"
"London has everything."
"Except the one thing that you want." The stranger's voice was now low and harsh.
"Because in my crew we never stop learning. I have several islands. Our network of islands has libraries and buildings for study. In a way we are our own university. If you need a telescope, we can buy it or build it. The industrial revolution has darkened the sky and the purity of the air over my islands will give you a clearer view. Gold coinage is no cause for worry. I have more than a dozen pirates each with a two hundred thousand gold coin count chest maxxed out. We can build houses and laboratories."
"So you think the one thing I want is money--for telescopes and laboratories."
"No, that is important but there is one thing one step even higher." He paused.
"Honesty. You don't find it in this city--not like how we have it. You think you know stuff? If you are holding an idea in your hand and you think it is important you should be able to explain it to someone else, and no, that isn't enough--you should be able to explain it in some form--to anybody."
It would be days before I would walk up the gangway, but at that moment I was on his ship.
