Jim Baen's Universe

The entire Grantville Gazette, Volume 31

What is this? About the Grantville Gazette

Written by Grantville Gazette Staff

The Grantville Gazette originated as a by-product of the ongoing and very active discussions which take place concerning the 1632 universe Eric Flint created in the novels 1632, 1633 and 1634: The Galileo Affair (the latter two books co-authored by David Weber and Andrew Dennis, respectively). More books have been written and co-written in this series, including 1 634: The Baltic War , 1634: The Bavarian Crisis , 1635: The Cannon Law , and 1635: The Dreeson Incident .  1635: The Eastern Front is forthcoming, and the book Time Spike is also set in the Assiti Shards universe. This discussion is centered in three of the conferences in Baen's Bar , the discussion area of Baen Books' web site . The conferences are entitled "1632 Slush," "1632 Slush Comments" and "1632 Tech Manual." They have been in operation for almost seven years now, during which time nearly two hundred thousand posts have been made by hundreds of participants.

Soon enough, the discussion began generating so-called "fanfic," stories written in the setting by fans of the series. A number of those were good enough to be published professionally. And, indeed, a number of them were—as part of the anthology Ring of Fire , which was published by Baen Books in January, 2004. ( Ring of Fire also includes stories written by established authors such as Eric Flint himself, as well as David Weber, Mercedes Lackey, Dave Freer, K.D. Wentworth and S.L. Viehl.)

The decision to publish the Ring of Fire anthology triggered the writing of still more fanfic, even after submissions to the anthology were closed. Ring of Fire has been selling quite well since it came out, and a second anthology similar to it was published late in 2007. Another, Ring of Fire III , is forthcoming.  It will also contain stories written by new writers, as well as professionals. But, in the meantime . . . the fanfic kept getting written, and people kept nudging Eric—well, pestering Eric—to give them feedback on their stories.

Hence . . . the Grantville Gazette. Once he realized how many stories were being written—a number of them of publishable quality—he raised with Jim Baen the idea of producing an online magazine which would pay for fiction and nonfiction articles set in the 1632 universe and would be sold through Baen Books' Webscriptions service. Jim was willing to try it, to see what happened.

As it turned out, the first issue of the electronic magazine sold well enough to make continuing the magazine a financially self-sustaining operation. Since then, even more volumes have been electronically published through the Baen Webscriptions site. As well, Grantville Gazette , Volume One was published in paperback in November of 2004. That has since been followed by hardcover editions of Grantville Gazette , Volumes Two, Three, Four and Five.

Then, two big steps:

First: The magazine had been paying semi-pro rates for the electronic edition, increasing to pro rates upon transition to paper, but one of Eric's goals had long been to increase payments to the authors. Grantville Gazette , Volume Eleven is the first volume to pay the authors professional rates.

Second: This on-line version you're reading. The site here at http://www.grantvillegazette.com is the electronic version of an ARC, an advance readers copy where you can read the issues as we assemble them. There are stories posted here which won't be coming out in the magazine for more than a year.

How will it work out? Will we be able to continue at this rate? Well, we don't know. That's up to the readers. But we'll be here, continuing the saga, the soap opera, the drama and the comedy just as long as people are willing to read them.

— The Grantville Gazette Staff

Margarete's Rose

Written by James Copley

    

"Do you mind moving?" Hans asked without taking his eye away from the surveyor's transit. The lenses for the transit were hand ground to precise specification in a shop in Amsterdam. The brass fittings were made by an artisan who was otherwise hand-cutting clock gears. The precision arcs and screws came from a Grantville machine shop. The whole thing, plumb bob, brass-inlaid hardwood tripod, transit, bubble levels, screws and everything else was assembled into a shiny thing of beauty. Up-time it would have been on display in a glass case in the home office, not out in the field getting dirty.

It looked expensive, as well it should.

The horse did not move but neither did Hans' head. "Sir, I can't see the target with your horse there."

There was no answer or movement. Finally Hans looked up at whoever was keeping him from his work and started to unleash the colorful American vocabulary he learned along with the new civil engineering program at the university in Magdeburg. "What the . . ." The abusive words died in his throat.

Oops . . .

Love at first sight might well be a cliché. But lust at first sight certainly isn't, as Hans suddenly discovered. He stared back at the young woman who sat atop the horse in question.

She was not the most beautiful he had ever seen, still more of a girl than a woman. Maybe it was chemistry, maybe it was perspective, and maybe it was fate, karma, destiny, or the hands of the old pagan gods. Maybe it was the fact that he hadn't had the time or energy to notice any women other than his uncle's chambermaid and Oma, the old kitchen drudge, for months on end while he was cooped up in the loft, studying.

For whatever reason, desire boiled his blood and stopped his tongue.

"What are you doing on our land?" she demanded sharply.

Hans stood there, struck dumb as a pole-axed ox and feeling like one, as he felt her eyes evaluating him. Her eyes crinkled slightly as if reacting to amusement or expressing distaste. From somewhere he got a clear impression that she was well aware of the effect she had on young men. The look of disdain which followed the crinkling of her eyes clearly seemed to say, "Keep it to yourself mister. I don't flirt with commoners. I know what that can lead to. I have no interest in marrying beneath my station, especially with the likes of you."

Hans gestured towards Hambühren. "Your land? The headman in the village said it was okay for us to survey across it."

"The village leases the rights to farm it. The land itself still belongs to my family. So I want to know what you are doing on our land." She glanced at the rifle with his equipment and the pistol on his belt. "Are you hunting?" she asked. "I think you are. The village had no right to give you leave to hunt."

Hans finally retrieved his wits from somewhere around his waist.

He signaled his two assistants to rest easy. "I'm not hunting, I'm surveying."

"You don't need a hunting rifle to survey."

"Lady . . ." Hans looked at the transit. ". . . do you know what a bandit could get for some of this stuff? Duke Georg expects me to keep it safe."

When he mentioned the duke, the girl's face turned to stone. "I think you had better come to the manor and talk to my father right this minute."

"Look, I'm busy. Can you read?" Hans was beginning to become impatient.

"Don't be insulting."

"I have a letter of authority from Duke Georg, he wants a road surveyed from Wietze to Celle, so . . ."

The girl interrupted. "There already is one! In fact it's right over there."

"It's a set of dirt ruts and mud holes. It jinks around from house to house, and twists like a drunken snake at every little patch of wheat or rye. It's only five miles from here to the edge of Celle, and the existing road is already nine miles long! That's wasteful!

"He wants a Grantville-style road, straight and hard-surfaced. Don't you want to see it?"

"A new road? Of course not!"

"I meant the letter of authority."

"No!"

Exasperated and confused, he blurted; "What's your name?"

The look of disdain return to her face, overlaid with sullen suspicion. She asked, "Why?"

"Well, I am going to have to ask you to move your horse and I would like to be polite about it."

She burst out laughing.

That might be when Hans fell in love. Or it might only have been when his lust cranked up another notch.

"Dorotee von Harenberg," she answered. "My father, Otto von Harenberg, is the lord here." But in the process of answering his question she moved her horse to the side.

"Thank you. Will I be seeing you again?"

"If you are going to try building a new road across our land, without our leave, then you will most likely be seeing far more of us than you want."

"We're surveying, not building!"

She turned her horse toward the old road with an expert flick of her shapely wrist. "If you won't come to speak with my father, then needs must, my father will come speak with you . . . albeit with more force."

She twitched the reins, set the horse to a brisk walk, and glared back over her shoulder. "Good day to you, sir."

As the words she spoke slowly sank into his head, Hans realized what they might mean. "Uh oh . . ."

When her horse disappeared over the next rise, Hans shook himself to free his mind from the haze of befuddlement, then returned his attention to the transit, took the sighting, and recorded the results in his survey journal. He then signaled the crew to pound in the marker stake and return with the survey pole. He began to disassemble the transit and place it carefully in its carrying case, and began to ponder his next move.

On one hand, he had the duke's express permission to survey through this area, and no single lord, no matter how powerful, was going to be able to prevent the eventual construction of the road if the duke decided to force the issue.

But that wasn't his primary concern.

While the letter, in theory, protected him from prosecution, it wouldn't prevent the lord from making the decision to punish the messenger, and without Hans' mercenary escort, there was really no one to keep the lord from doing just that. There was little chance of the lord coming to any grief about it either.

It had clearly been a mistake to tell his escort—after having erroneously determined from the headman in the village that no protest would be made about the survey—to stay in the village and procure supplies for the next leg of the journey and then catch up, while Hans continued to work.

Since noon he had finished surveying another mile past the edge of the village. They were making good time, barring a few false starts.

But his bodyguards were overdue. . . .

He and his assistants had two revolvers and a rifle between them, but he hoped the escort would arrive before the girl brought her father. A couple more people on his side of the ledger would make him feel better.

Besides, he was not comfortable with the idea of getting into a shooting match unless he had no other choice, especially with the local authorities.

He was still standing there, contemplating the new situation as his two assistants, Chaim and Andrew, trudged up next to him.

When he didn't seem to notice them standing there, they smirked at each other.

"Ahem?" Chaim finally cleared his throat.

Hans didn't bother looking at the two foreign adventurers when he replied to the verbal nudge. "Andrew, go see if you can find Ebert and his partner. They should have been here by now. Chaim, we might have a problem. If we end up with company before the others get back, just take what equipment you've got strapped to the horse and head for the village. Keep your head down and stay out of trouble."

From what little he had learned of his assistant's past, Chaim was good at keeping his head down. According to Andrew, Chaim hadn't even revealed his true name until well after arriving in Grantville.

They went back to work, but Hans' mind kept wandering and wondering.

****

The church bells in the village rang sechs just as the focus of his mind rode toward him. Three armed men on horseback, followed by a pack of dogs straining at the leads held by two more men accompanied her. Hans glanced toward the village, hoping to see Andrew and his returning escort.

The men and the girl slowed to a halt.

The three men carried wheel-lock pistols and hunting muskets. They were well-dressed, with tall riding boots and buff coats. The quality of their clothing varied somewhat, and one of them had the air of hand-me-downs that comes with clothes which are not quite the right size for the person wearing them but would have been a perfect fit for the person wearing the newest outfit.

The best dressed of the lot said to Dorotee, "Child, he doesn't look like a poacher."

"Father, he's on our land, with a hunting rifle, without your leave. I suggested he come to the manor and he refused. Sounds like a likely poacher to me."

"You said he claims to have a letter from Duke Georg?"

"That's what he claimed. I never saw it."

Hans wondered when they were going to stop talking about him like he wasn't there.

"You, boy! You say Duke Georg gave you a letter of authorization?"

"Yes."

Dorotee's father rode close enough that he could boot Hans in the face if he so desired. "That is 'yes, mein Herr' from the likes of you! Give it here!"

Hans did.

The older man looked at the seals and then slowly read the letter. "Humph! It says here that you are surveying for a new road for the duke. Young man, this is a blatant forgery. The duke would never presume to do such a thing without first informing me and my peers of his intent. I think my daughter is right.

"Regardless, he is not due at Parliament till next month, so you can be sure I will investigate these claims of yours with him personally before he departs.

"Hermann, lock this fellow up until I get to the bottom of this."

Hans felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. It seemed his escort would not be arriving in time after all.

He started as the lord's men dismounted and moved towards his precious transit. "Hey, what are you doing? That's . . ."

A final thought passed through his mind as he watched the butt of Hermann's musket, in slow motion, travel inexorably toward his head.

This is going to hurt . . .

****

"Anna!"

It sounded like Duke Georg was headed for the parlor with every intention of ripping the door off.

"What have you done now?" His voice trailed off as he realized his wife was not alone.

Anna rose to greet him. Her companion rose as well. "Georg, you remember Margarete von Harenberg, don't you? She is the wife of Otto von Harenberg, with whom I believe you have been speaking."

"Speaking is not the term I would have used. Shouting, growling perhaps . . ."

Margarete stepped forward. "I must apologize for my husband's rudeness. I can hardly take him anywhere anymore."

Georg's eyebrows shot up.

Anna explained. "We've been discussing the reason they came to meet with us, dear. I'm sure that after Margarete and her husband have a moment to discuss the relevant details, things will settle down quite nicely."

Georg looked almost punch-drunk, so Anna took the opening. "Margarete, why don't you go explain the details of our discussion to your husband. We'll be along shortly."

"What is it that you have done now?" Georg whispered when Margarete left the room.

"Why, nothing harmful dear. I simply did some advance planning, is all. I merely asked the company involved in paving the docks and the manor roads to survey a new road between here and Wietze, and it happened to pass through their lands south of Hambühren. I was sure that no one of note would have objected, you see. It's only a survey party after all."

"Only a survey party?" Georg began to pace. "Why, Otto spoke as if we had sent an invading army of hunters and horses bent on trampling his holder's crops. Not a survey party.

"I can't deal with this right now, Anna! I am due at Parliament in only three weeks!" Georg continued to pace, a nervous habit gained at his residence in Magdeberg. "This could turn into a fiasco!"

Anna answered quietly, "It was only five men, dear. A surveyor, his assistants and two guards is not what I'd call an invading army."

"Two of those men were found drunk in the tavern waving pistols around! They had half the village terrified! And why were guards needed?" Georg waved his arms. "You sent heavily armed men skulking around his hunting preserve. He's calling it an invasion! And I'm not sure I blame him.

"Why were they so heavily armed if that is all they were? Every one of them had a gun or two. They had breech-loading rifles and revolvers, for goodness sake. They could have taken on a score of men and walked away unharmed!"

He glanced at the door, where Margarete had gone. "And why do you suddenly think everything is solved anyway?"

He paused, and jerked back to pacing across the room. "And how much is that survey costing?"

"You men and your bull heads! Why must everything be a fight? It's costing us very little, only one team of surveyors and their equipment.

"And don't quote me your gaggle of so called 'advisors' about 'bogs' and 'cost.' If they can't see that the future of our city balances upon its roads, then they are as pigheaded as you are! Which they are, considering it was you who put them in position as your advisors in the first place!

"I highly doubt that Herr Stearns would have objections to it, and he is more intelligent than your 'advisors' by a quite a fair margin."

Georg's face grew red at the comparison. Realizing she had perhaps stepped on a nerve with her last comment, Anna skillfully redirected his attention back to the survey party. "As to the surveyors being armed, one would think you would want them to protect the equipment from bandits. I realize that Hambühren is only three hours ride away, but considering what happened, I'm actually glad I provided those guns. With what it cost us to outfit them with modern surveying equipment, modern firearms from Suhl seemed like a very reasonable addition."

"Oh?" His forehead crinkled in thought.

"We don't want to lose the equipment, do we? Not to mention the skilled men using it."

"Well, I suppose . . . Wait a minute! You said you hired a company to do this but you keep talking like they're our men and our equipment."

"Well, yes. It is my company after all. We can do that now. The emperor's government in Magdeburg has ruled that Adel can work without losing status."

Georg put a hand to his forehead and slowly drew it down his face as hard as he could.

"Don't worry, dear. It will all work out. You'll see."

Georg gave his wife a suspicious look as she smiled a beatific smile. At a time like this there was only one thing really that a man could say. "Yes, dear."

****

Dorotee rose as the door opened for her parents. The manor had felt a bit empty without them, especially since her sister had gone to visit at their aunt's house while wedding plans were made for her cousin.

Her sister was, of course, decidedly giddy at the opportunity to assist in planning the event. Eager and willing hands begging for the chance to help seemed to pour out of the woodwork whenever a wedding was mentioned. And the experience would do her good at her own wedding whenever they managed to finish the dowry negotiations with Gottfried's family.

Her half-brother had taken to hiding at his friend Gottfried's house to avoid the sideways looks his step-mother gave him every time the word "wedding" was mentioned.

"Welcome home, Father." She strode forward to greet them as the servant took their coats.

Her father said nothing and refused to meet her gaze.

"Hello, darling," her mother said, as a servant passed by to deliver their bags to the living quarters.

Her father stomped off toward the office kept in the back of the manor.

"What happened, Mother? I take it father was not able to prevent the duke's invasion plans."

"Oh dear, is that what you thought it was? That explains why your father was growling the entire way there. How is that boy? I hope he is not too badly hurt?"

Dorotee deliberately ignored the question. "What do you mean? There were five of them and they left bits of wood stuck in the ground all over the place. It's like they are planning a city, not a road."

"Well dear, it was just a 'survey team.' Apparently they were asked to look at the possibility of a road, and that is the new method of marking surveys. This particular team was led by that young man out of Grantville who went to their 'civil engineering' school."

Dorotee bristled. "He was incredibly rude!"

"And in what way was he rude, may I ask?"

"He . . . he . . ." Dorotee's voice trailed off. In fact, she felt responsible for the young man's injury. After her parents had left, she had scampered into the carriage house to bandage the oozing gash on the back of his scalp. She had wanted to apologize but he had not woken.

"I hope that your feelings about him did not prevent you from seeing he was cared for?" Her mother's stern tone cautioned her that she was treading dangerously close to trouble. "Regardless of his transgression, he does not deserve any further mistreatment at our hands."

"Of course not, Mother. I had the kitchen send food for him as well as bandages for his wounds. I had Hermann deliver them to him." Her hands twitched at the small mistruth.

"Very well. That is enough, I hope. Though one wonders why your father had him beaten unconscious. I can't believe he was that much of a threat. There was just him after all. His companions deserted him at the very beginning, from what I hear."

Dorotee flinched guiltily as she recalled the meaty sound made when the butt stock of Hermann's musket had struck the man's head. "Hermann only struck him once, but I do wish he hadn't hit him quite so hard."

She considered again the sequence of events that led to the injury, wondering if she had truly done the right thing.

"How badly was he hurt? Your father was in such a rush to set out for the ducal palace that I had hardly a moment to assure myself that he would not bleed to death."

"Mother, I supervised the dressings myself. It was not as bad as it seemed. The wounded from the French raid at Wietze were worse."

Three years previously, she had insisted on helping when a panicked woodsman who had been shot by French troops turned up. Later, when more wounded were brought through because there was no room for them in Wietze, she had again been allowed to help.

She saw her mother looking at a spot of blood on her sleeve from bandaging the man's head. She tried to hide it. She did not want to reveal just how closely she had supervised his treatment.

"Well, all this traveling has made me hungry."

Dorotee knew well that her mother was changing the subject.

"And where is your brother? Off at Gottfried's again I presume? Will that boy never settle down?

"I wish your father would settle on a wife for him, but every time I suggest someone he just huffs and won't talk about it. Well, he's not my son, as your father has pointed out often enough; the Good Lord knows I've done the best I can by the boy. If your father won't let me help, there is nothing I can do about it." She swept up her skirts in one hand and waved at the waiting servant. "Bring some light refreshments, and fetch Dorotee's books to the parlor."

Dorotee used the distraction to slip into her room, where she quickly changed her blouse and made sure that there were no more traces of blood anywhere else.

After her mother changed out of her traveling clothes, and with the snacks and small beer delivered, it was time for Dorotee's lessons.

The servant placed her books on the small table as her mother began to question her knowledge of last week's lessons covering Latin, art, and music composition. The quizzing also included some of the up-time English literature that Grantville was publishing so much of and she and her mother were reading together.

"There is something new I want you to look at this week, Dorotee." Her mother placed a new book on the pile. It was written in English, but for some reason had Greek symbols etched upon the front.

"This is a mathematics textbook, dear."

Dorotee's eyebrows rose slightly. "Mathematics?"

"It's printed in Magdeburg and Jena. They have new schools there these days that even take women students."

"What kind of school?" Dorotee asked, picking up the proffered textbook. Her mother had instilled in her a desire to learn. Her curiosity was seemingly insatiable, and her studies were expanding her worldview well beyond that of a normal teenage girl in the northern Germanies. There was nothing in her current life that she did not want to learn more about.

Except boys. Those she felt she knew all too well.

"I want you to read from that textbook, Dorotee. I talked with one of the women on a survey team in Wietze. I want you to at least know what it is they teach girls in the day and age these Grantvillers come from."

"Yes, Mother." Dorotee was already lost in the sea of knowledge placed in her hands.

****

"Why I agreed to this I will never understand," Otto grumped as Margarete entered his office. "There is no reason I should, in fact. That man is trying to infringe upon my property rights! I should be shouting this base violation from the rooftops, so tell me again, why I am not doing exactly that!"

He glared at the subject of his ire. "Maybe this time it will make sense."

She glared right back. "You've been complaining for three years now. Everybody else is making money off Wietze but you. Here is your chance to collect a bit of the profit and all you want to do is complain about the cost and insist that they stop."

"What profit? He's cutting a swath right through the middle of some of our prime fields. You say he wants this road to be a full thirty feet across! That's ridiculous! No road needs to be any wider than a wagon."

"No one has cut anything yet. It's a survey to see if they can! And, husband, if you really feel that way about it, then I suppose we should turn down the honor of being the main resupply point for all the commerce that will soon be headed down that road.

"Have you even considered just what the implications of an up-time road going through our land are?

"Right now, you collect rents from farmers, half-farmers and small-holders. There is no way to increase the rents until the leases are up."

"Which is why losing some of it to a thirty-foot-wide road is ridiculous!" Otto said.

His wife ignored the outburst. "What if you could collect rents on an entire city's worth of merchants and innkeepers? Don't you realize what the road would mean? We own both sides of the road for a stretch of nearly a mile! Everything needed by the merchants traveling the road can be sold here. Think of it! Sutlers, wheelwrights, coopers, blacksmiths, sundries. It could all be here!

"There is no more land suitable for farming. But a mercantile village doesn't need land for farming. Some of the village half-farmers and quarter-farmers would happily be innkeepers and full time crafters in a heartbeat if they could make a living at it."

"A lot of their food would have to be brought in!" he protested.

"That won't be a problem with the new road. You know what their roads are like. We saw it in Grantville. It's practically as smooth as a river. You've seen the route they have staked out.

"We can lease out the land on the east side of the hunting preserve. You don't hunt there very much anyway, and when you do you always complain that there isn't any game since it's too close to the village."

Otto demanded, "And who would pay for the buildings, Margarete? Not us, for certain! I can barely raise a dowry for our first daughter, let alone our second. I have no additional monies to undertake such a building project."

"This is why we need more income. Where else are we going to get it? And don't be ridiculous. It doesn't cost us anything when they build in the village. Sometimes they even have to pay for extra timbers. All we have to do is lure the right merchants here with promises of low rent! They will build their own buildings."

"What about establishing drainage. Georg's father wanted to improve the road in his time as well, and was told by his own architect that the cost would be prohibitive. I can't see what may have changed between now and twenty years ago," Otto objected.

"They have new tools now," his wife pointed out. "Clearly with the rents from this 'way station,' as the up-timers call such places, even reduced a bit to entice the merchants, we would be making far more than we are now. And I imagine we'd even lure some business away from elsewhere. Wietze is running out of suitable land to expand on. The higher ground around the proposed road will require less drainage and will still be close enough to travel between both Celle and Wietze!

"With a good road, an artisan can work here and with the lower rent still make a profit after he carts his work to Celle, or even better, carts it to Wietze. They don't have guild restrictions in Wietze on who can sell what there. With an asphalt road they would be close enough to make it worthwhile." With that, she crossed her arms and stared at her husband.

He grew uncomfortable under her gaze. He busied himself with some papers on his desk, but her stare was relentless. Finally, he tossed his papers in a drawer and sighed. "Very well, he can build his damn road. But I want it nowhere near the manor!"

"Of course not, dear." She rose from her chair, and turned to leave. "Send Hermann along, as I'll be seeing to the poor young man you had knocked about. That was not the wisest of things you could have done, Otto."

"Yes, dear."

****

Hans was miserable.

Not only did his head hurt, but he was probably going to be fired.

He had lost the transit and all the other equipment, not to mention the firearms.

He was doomed.

After three years of constant sleep deprivation, cramming and anxiety at the University of Leiden and another year at the new imperial college in Magdeburg, all of the schooling in civil engineering, not to mention the additional classes on surveying done in Grantville, he began to question his choices of the last five years.

The time and effort that he had invested in learning a new up-time trade, the months and months of study, scrimping and saving his meager funds, was seemingly all for naught.

There was no way that anyone would hire a man who had lost his equipment within ten miles of his starting point.

He thought of his brother and his wife, who owned a bakery back home. He remembered going further up the mountain to the new monastery to buy beer.

And what beer!

He'd missed having it while staying with his uncle in Leiden.

Ah, those had been good days.

Of course they were also over.

Even if he lived through what the duke had in store for him, he would have to slink back home, hat in hand, and beg for any work his brother might have for him. Or go up the mountain and seek a vocation. At least the beer would be good.

That was assuming he could get out of this pickle he'd found himself in.

He was so engrossed in his self-pity he did not noticed the visitor who peeked through the boards of his makeshift cell, a disused storage room in the manor's stable.

The cat was a scrawny thing, almost all fur and bones. The size of the opening was no bar to her, and she wiggled and squeezed her way though.

Not until the cat jumped to his shoulder to sniff at his head wound did Hans notice that he was no longer alone.

He started, at which the cat plopped down and maneuvered her way around under his arm. She placed her paws against his chest and sniffed at his hair. Her fur, a pale cream nearly the color of moonlight, was silky-smooth, and well kept.

He held still for a minute, letting her explore as she wished, and sighed when she curled up in his lap. Hans smiled and scratched behind her ears. She rewarded him with a loud purr as she settled down for some real petting.

Every time he stopped, she would focus on his hand, until he brought it down again as she bumped her head into his fingers.

"Well, at least someone likes me here," he groused. "One would think strangers weren't welcome, what with the way they treat poor little surveyors like me."

The cat looked up at his voice, then deciding she'd had enough petting, curled up and went to sleep.

"Now, you're comfortable, but what about me?" He gently picked her up and repositioned her so he could lean back against the bench that represented his cot.

She was boneless in the way of cats everywhere when they don't want to be moved, but after he got her in position, she settled down with barely a nudge.

The cat's arrival prompted him to take stock of his situation in a more realistic manner.

He knew in truth he would not be in major trouble for losing the transit, although he cringed and the amount of debt that might be incurred for its loss. Its manufacture cost more than he made in a year.

He also wondered what was happening in the manor. He had been locked up for nearly two days now, and although his captors had fed him and given him clean bandages for his scalp, they had done nothing else beyond giving him an old horse blanket to sleep on.

He could see the side of the manor through the cracks in the walls. If he really wanted out of the room, he could probably kick his way out through the walls.

But he also knew how much noise he would make, and having already suffered enough under the ministrations of the infamous Hermann, he had decided that meek was wiser than mighty.

His jailer came to check on his condition at least once an hour, and had given short shrift to his requests for information.

"Well there, little one, it looks as though we're stuck here for a while."

The cat's ears twitched in response to his voice.

She was a patient listener.

He glanced down at his lap warmer and smiled. "You wouldn't happen to have any influence with the ladies of the house, would you?"

There was no response except the cats' eyes grew from tiny slits to larger slits.

"Ah well, it was worth asking. She's beautiful isn't she? Ha, listen to me, I'm starting to sound like Andrew, aren't I? And here I am, carrying on a conversation with a cat! Well, at least you're a good listener!

"What do you think, little one?" He glanced down at his discussion partner. "I could do well to meet someone like her. But then, there's no way she'd give the time of day to the likes of me. I'll bet she's got dozens of suitors already, just lined up at her father's door. I wonder what she's doing right now. Probably reading up on how to make poor surveyors shrivel up and cry."

His audience decided it was time to eat, and she slinked over to the plate holding what was left of his latest meal.

She sniffed about and settled on picking up a small piece of gristle that he had decided was too tough to eat and began licking it with her rasp-like tongue.

"Ha, I see what you really want from me, you little sneak!" Hans chuckled at the sight of the cat's self-assurance.

As there was nothing else to do, he settled back onto his makeshift cot and decided to follow his guest's example by taking a cat-nap.

His breathing had slowed to a gentle rise and fall.

As soon as the cat finished the meat he had provided, she hopped up onto the cot, curled up into the crook of his arm and was soon sleeping as well.

****

He was a picture of serenity, his face a pose of angelic innocence, with Luna, the Princess of the Stables curled beneath his arm.

She paused for a moment, allowing the picture to imprint itself indelibly into her mind. She had a feeling that it was significant, a harbinger of things to come.

Luna raised her head at the opening of the door, and seeing her mistress, began to squirm out from under Hans' arm. Purring with pleasure, she spoke her welcome in her own unique fashion.

The noise had a wakeful effect on the young man on the bench, and he lurched upright, nearly upsetting the cat from her precarious perch.

"Well, I see you've made a friend! Hello, Luna, and how is the Princess of the Stables today?"

The Princess purred even louder, expressing her royal favor of the attention. The young surveyor seemed to relax a bit at the sound of her voice.

Undoubtedly he wondered at his fate.

"Oh, is that her name? She's been good company today."

He rose to take the tray from Margarete's hands. "I thank you, gnaedige Frau. Would you perchance know when I might be able to contact my employer? I'm sure he will vouch for me, even if he will be quite vexed I'm sure."

"Don't worry about that. You will be released shortly." She pulled a folded parchment from a pocket hidden in the sleeves of her dress. "We have already spoken with the duke and duchess. Here, this is for you."

His hands shook as he received a folded and sealed missive. She could tell he recognized the wax seal as being the duke's. It was identical to the one that had sealed the letter of authorization he had given to her husband.

"These are instructions to plan and survey a resupply station alongside your duke's road while you are here. I believe your letter includes the number and type buildings we will require. Once these plans are finished, we will, as negotiated, allow you to continue with your survey of the duke's road across our lands."

"Yes, gnaedige Frau," he said.

Margarete hid a smirk. He seemed ecstatic to have escaped further incarceration. She suspected his finding out that only his skills in survey and civil engineering were being requested must seem to him a siren song of joy, especially since it appeared to have the blessing of the duke and duchess.

    "The rest of your party should be at the inn in Hambühren by now. Tomorrow you will be met after breakfast and shown where we think the station should go. If your master has other ideas you can have him discuss them with my husband."

"No need, miss. That is well within the scope of my authority. If the land you chose is not suitable I will tell you so when we are shown the proposed site tomorrow, although I will only be able to provide you with a basic template for the buildings themselves."

"But, surely whoever is in charge of the survey party should be consulted?" Margarete asked, with a show of trepidation.

"I am the master of the survey party. I report directly to the duchess."

"Truly? You seem young for one saddled with that level of responsibility. I would have expected someone with experience to be entrusted with such a large undertaking. Would you care to explain?"

"While I admit to very little experience, I am a proud graduate of both the University of Leiden and the Technical College in Magdeburg. I graduated near the top of my class, and so was recommended to the position by the dean when a request for a surveyor was forwarded to them from Her Grace, the Duchess Anna. I had recently begun my own company when the opportunity presented itself.

"I have been honored to provide the duchess with several surveys within the city of Celle, but I will admit this is my first cross-country attempt, which I am embarrassed to acknowledge has turned into quite a mess." His face grow red in the telling.

"Very well, it appears that while you are young yet, you seem to have a good head on your shoulders." Magarete heard her daughter's stifled groan at the perceived pun, and inwardly smirked. "You have handled your responsibility well so far, regardless of certain people's initial impressions. Definitely not rude after all . . ."

With a significant glance, Lady Margarete motioned to her daughter, who immediately blushed scarlet and, with obvious reluctance, stepped forward.

With a visible effort she spoke her carefully rehearsed speech. "I must apologize for my actions before. I did not intend that you be injured."

She looked pleadingly at her mother, who just cocked her head to the side and stared back. "I also apologize for being rude. It was uncalled for. You were just doing your job, and I interfered without considering the consequences."

Margarete was pleased to note that Hans did not miss the hidden meaning from her previous statements. He clearly realized why the young girl had reacted so badly to him initially.

"Please, miss! I meant no disrespect to you at all. It is I who should be apologizing to you! I would not have you think badly of me for anything in the world." His eyes pleaded for her forgiveness.

Dorotee fled from the stables, running back to the manor.

Her mother shook her head, and turned to Hans. "Well, I guess that's the best we'll get out of her today. Truly, you have my apologies. My husband is, of course, understandably busy, and so it falls to me to make sure you are compensated for your trouble."

"No compensation needed, ma'am! Although . . ."

"Your equipment and personal things have been preserved, young man. You need not worry on that account." Lady Margarete smiled at his obvious relief.

"I thank you kindly, and I will be sure to trouble you no longer."

"Make sure to pass my regards to the duchess when you next meet with her."

"I will most certainly carry your message to the duchess, ma'am."

"That will be fine. Good day to you, young man."

****

As she gave instructions to the servant, she recounted the conversation in her mind. Worries over her daughter's virtue flared as she remembered seeing a spot of red on the underside of Dorotee's sleeve, which she now deduced the origin of.

But looking back at the young man, seeing him stare at the side of the manor, where Dorotee had fled, she recalled her own youth, knowing that if the boy, no, the young man, had entertained unhealthy designs upon her daughter, he would not likely be standing like a man entranced, gazing out into nothingness.

Margarete smiled with relief.

She considered; in some ways, this situation might have advantages. He was an up-time trained graduate, nothing to sneer at these days, regardless of his other origins, which she was certain were rather plebian. And also, there were many a high magistrate or burgher whose relationships did not include a direct business contract with a duke or duchess.

If those august personages were acceptable as husbands for second and third daughters of families like hers, what would be the worth of this one? She had seen the look in her daughter's eye and had a small inkling of a possibility of a dream.

She would have to see how he handled himself with his employees, of course, and it would all have to be handled very carefully.

Very carefully . . .

****

When Hans got to the inn he was greeted enthusiastically by Andrew and Chaim. The assistants, acting like little brothers, hurried to get him a warm meal and a cool beer as they began to pry his story from him.

He considered the two young men as he sat down at the proffered table. He had never asked where the inseparable pair had come from, and they had never volunteered the information, but with their accents, he guessed they might be from England. Regardless of their origins, even if that country was now an enemy, he had never encountered a better pair of workers, or friends.

He related his tale slowly at first, gaining speed and animation as he became absorbed in the telling.

The questions grew more pointed at one juncture, and his ears grew warm after describing Lady Margarete and her beautiful daughter.

Chaim and Andrew teased him mercilessly over Dorotee when they realized where his interest lay.

Finally he was able to recover a scrap of dignity when he realized his bodyguards were missing. "Where is Ebert and what's his name? They have a lot of explaining to do!"

Andrew lit up with excitement as he realized that they had as much news to deliver as their wayward boss. "The duchess fired them. Oy, she must have been mad. They'd been getting drunk and waving guns around here in town and scaring everybody when they were supposed to be keeping us safe. Someone said that she had them jailed for breach of contract and public endangerment!

"Of course, we heard all this second hand. By the time I got back here looking for the brutes, they had already been scooped up by the lord's magistrate.

"Then Chaim came buzzing in saying you'd been killed and that they were going to be coming after us next. I knew better of course!"

Andrew jerked suddenly as Chaim elbowed him in the ribs. "I did not come buzzing in, I walked calmly to your table, sat down and told you that we were doomed. And you are! That silly little grin of yours is going to get you killed yet! And me with you, just you watch!"

Andrew snorted into his beer. "Chaim here wouldn't budge his nose out of the room till these two showed up."

He indicated a pair of solidly built men in livery sitting at a nearby table. "They came back with that lord's riding party. They say they're the replacements for Ebert and Yuri, and I guess they are, as they have a letter with the duke's seal. These ones aren't mercenaries. They're part of the duke's regular guards.

"Hans? What is going on? I no more than got a message to the duke when they showed up and told us to wait here."

"We'll be here a bit. We've got to lay out a sort of a town before we move on. Well, a resupply station at least. The details are in here." Hans flashed the sealed missive under his coat, while glancing at his new travel companions.

"A town? What are you going to call it may I ask, O Great Civil Engineer?"

Andrew's teasing grew bolder. "Doroteestadt? Doroteeville? Dorotee City?"

His smirk turned to a good-natured grin as he watched his friend and master's face grow redder by the minute.

"No, Andrew." Hans' eyes grew distant. "I was thinking more like 'City of Angels.'"

Andrew and Chaim looked at each other in dismay.

"Chaim, I think our friend here has lost all sense of perspective and sanity. Something will have to be done!"

Chain nodded solemnly.

Hans' face warmed to an interesting shade of magenta.

****

"Yes, Mother. I understand that someone has to show them where we want to put the buildings, but I don't see why Hermann can't do that without me." Dorotee tumbled her books onto the table in a jumbled heap.

"Dorotee, it needs to be someone with the family's authority. Your half-brother is nowhere to be found and your sister is still at your aunt's estate. I certainly don't have the time and surely you don't want your father to do it? He'd as likely have the boy shot by the end of the day as not. Think it penitence, if you wish, but do it."

"Yes, Mother."

"Now, about your lessons. You said you were having trouble with the new mathematics?"

"I just don't understand them, they don't use real numbers all the time and the ones they do use make no sense at all!"

Dorotee flounced down into a nearby chair. "I'm beginning to think that those people from the future didn't have numbers, just these marks and symbols from some Greek play!"

"I will not have you giving up that easily, Dorotee. If you do not understand the book, then you simply need more time studying it." Lady Margarete gracefully lifted the book from its precarious perch on top of the stack and held it out to her daughter.

Dorotee sighed and accepted the book from her mother, feeling a bit like she thought she would upon receiving an arrest warrant. It wasn't easy but she accepted it with a bit more grace than she had placed it on the table.

"You will take it with you tomorrow, and any time you are not busy guiding Master Surveyor Blum and his party, I expect you to be studying it. Marie will be accompanying you tomorrow and has instructions to inform me if you do not."

Dorotee felt her mother's eyes bore relentlessly into her soul.

"Is that clear?" Lady Margarete's last statement came in a voice like steel.

Dorotee was positive that her mother would enforce that edict if she had to stand over her every hour of the day. Knowing she was defeated in all her attempts to avoid the inevitable, she meekly gathered up her skirts and left the room.

****

After her daughter left, Lady Margarete gave over to a series of pensive thoughts, hoping that her actions would result in a positive outcome.

There was still time to turn back, she supposed, if the reports she got from Marie about the young man's actions proved him unsuitable, but that remained to be seen.

In the back of her mind, a premonition yammered insistently that the young man was exactly as he seemed.

A private letter to the duchess, sent earlier in the day, would also help determine her future actions.

In the meantime, she gathered herself together, and strode calmly to her room.

Time would tell.

****

    Margarete sat in her upholstered chair and looked out the window at the enclosed greenhouse that was home to a delicate rose garden.

The vines branched about the trellis in exquisite curls.

The Blood-Rose, a beautiful and rare flowering vine, revealed its splendor as the soft rays of the afternoon light filtered through the wavy panes of glass.

The nearly unique flower was her second-biggest pride and joy.

Her biggest was, of course, her children.

As she watched the dappled sun play upon the prized blood-red petals, she prayed that a certain Master Surveyor might survey more than just a simple road.

And a wayward daughter might see the path of the future beneath her feet.

****

Lion's Tower

Written by Iver P. Cooper

    

January 1634

The lion roared.

"What a cute little kitty," said Rita Simpson.

Thomas Heneage, keeper of the lions and leopards of the Tower of London, was not amused. "That's a lion, the king of beasts. Ferocious."

The ferocious king of beasts took this statement as his cue to flop onto one side and take a nap.

Heneage reached for a prod, clearly intending to force the lion to put on a show for them, but Melissa Mailey realized his intention, and stopped him.

"We don't need to have you disturb him on our account. Even a king must rest from time to time."

    Rita snickered. "If the king of beasts is anything like a house cat, he does more resting than reigning."

Thomas Wentworth, the constable of the Tower, had given permission for his involuntary guests, the American envoys Rita Simpson and Melissa Mailey, to visit the royal menagerie. Rita, who had gained nursing skills since the Ring of Fire, had been devoting much of her time to caring for Cecily, the daughter of the yeoman warder Michael Dunn. She had barely survived the winter, mostly thanks to Rita's medical care. Michael Dunn had told his captain that Rita deserved a reward for her labors, and Wentworth agreed. A visit to the Lion Tower was authorized.

In 1634, the "Tower of London" wasn't simply a tower, as it had been during the reign of William the Conqueror, but rather a full-blown castle. The "Lion Tower" was a barbican, an extended gatehouse, at the southwest corner of the fortress complex, and it stood partway across the moat constructed in the days of the Henry III.

Normally, the Lion's Tower was open to tourists, provided that they had connections at court, and were willing to pay for admission. That was a few shillings, or, by decree of Henry VI, you could donate your dog, cat, or other domestic animal as the lions' next meal. (The yeoman warders weren't the only "beefeaters" at the Tower.)

Of course, Wentworth couldn't take the chance that on the occasion of Rita and Melissa's outing, the tourists might include accomplices of the Americans, there to spirit them out of the Tower. If that happened, Wentworth would soon be an involuntary guest himself. Hence, the Lion's Tower had been closed to the public, and only the two ladies, and not the rest of the American party, had been invited. And to make sure the ladies didn't get into any mischief, there were four yeoman warders keeping an eye on them.

"Have you seen a lion before?" asked Robert Gill. While Rita and Melissa were at the Lion Tower to see the menagerie, he had been invited by Heneage to see a sight that a Londoner would deem even more remarkable: two up-time women. He was no tourist; Robert Gill was the son of Ralph Gill, who had been the lionkeeper before Heneage. Robert Gill and Thomas Heneage were cousins, Ralph having married Ann Heneage. It was generally expected that Robert would soon be granted the position of keeper for life, in reversion after Thomas Heneage.

"Yes, there are several at the Cleveland zoo," acknowledged Rita.

Gill looked puzzled. "A zoo?"

"That's 'zoo' as in 'zoological park,'" Melissa explained, in full "schoolmarm" mode. "From Greek, 'zoion.' A place to see wild animals." Melissa sniffed. "Of course, they don't really act the same way in the wild as they do in captivity."

"And of course I've seen the National Geographic and Animal Planet movies of the lions of the Serengeti," Rita continued. "Those show the lions and zebras and wildebeests just as they are in the wild."

"Which is why we don't really need zoos anymore," snapped Melissa.

Rita pouted. "But I like zoos. It's just not the same, seeing the animals on TV. You can smell them, not just see and hear them. And they react to you."

There were half dozen lions in the menagerie at this time, and Heneage assured the American visitors that one of them was a century old, and had been a present to Henry VIII. Melissa started to express disbelief but subsided when Rita nudged her.

The visitors and their hosts were standing on the walkway that lined the outer wall of the barbican, looking down at the animals. The enclosed grounds were the exercise yard for the creatures, and these included, not only lions, but also a leopard, a pair of cougars, several camels, a rather mangy hyena, and a few other specimens.

Heneage pointed. "Now, if you look down there you can see the elephant's house."

"African or Indian elephant?"

"Err . . . Actually, there is no elephant presently in residence. It's just as well, they cost a fortune in liquor to maintain."

"Excuse me? Liquor?"

"Yes, we got an elephant in 1623, as a present from the king of Spain, and the Spanish told us that between September and April, elephants only drink wine. To keep out the cold, y'know.

"Unfortunately, it was just too cold here in London. The poor thing died. Perhaps we should have given it something stronger?"

Rita and Melissa exchanged looks, but contained themselves.

"The constable tells me that you visited the Tower in your twentieth century, Lady Mailey," said Heneage. "Has the menagerie grown in size? Does it have any new animals?"

"I'm sorry," said Melissa. "All of the royal animals were given to the new zoo in Regent's Park after the death of King George IV, by order of the Duke of Wellington. The Lion's Tower is now the visitors' entrance, and there's a gift shop nearby."

There was an awkward silence, and Melissa finally filled it with a placatory remark.

"But before then, it was a very popular attraction. Perhaps too much so. I think Wellington was anxious to get the tourists out of the Tower, so it would be more effective from a military standpoint."

"Somethin' to be said for that," one of the warders whispered to his companions.

"I must compliment you on your knowledge of the history of the Tower, Lady Mailey," said Gill.

"Miss Mailey knows a lot about the history of everything," Rita proclaimed. The Englishmen laughed.

"I don't know about that," said Melissa, "but I certainly was interested in the Tower. Did you know that when Christopher Wren rebuilt parts of the Tower, his workmen found the bones of Prince Edward and Prince Richard?"

Heneage's eyebrows shot up. "The princes in the Tower! I pray you, tell me where!"

Melissa thought for a moment. "If I recall correctly, their bones were in a wooden chest that was found when the workmen disassembled the stairs leading from the royal lodgings to the chapel of the White Tower."

Heneage lowered his voice. "I would be most, most appreciative, Lady Mailey, if you would not mention this to anyone else before I have the opportunity to send a missive about this discovery to the king. I am sure that he would want the bones of his royal kinsmen to be properly buried, and that he would be, ahem, grateful to the courtier who brought the matter to his attention."

"Not a problem."

"And of course I would be most interested in whatever else you can tell me about the future—I suppose I should say the former future—of the royal menagerie.

"Well, there are some interesting tidbits . . ."

Spring 1634

Andrew Short slammed the door shut.

His wife, Elizabeth, frowned. "Please, Andrew, you'll wake George." That was their three-year-old. "And he only just settled."

    "Sorry. It's that damned Spaniard."

"Lieutenant Alvarez?"

"That wh—" He swallowed the word. "Gentleman."

Alvarez was the second-in-command of one of the three companies of mercenaries that the earl of Cork had lodged in the Tower after the queen was killed and the king crippled in a carriage accident. Wentworth had been accused of treason and imprisoned. The new constable, Sir Francis Windebank, had brought in the outsiders; plainly, he thought that the yeoman warders might liberate their former superior.

Many of the warders, and their families, had been forced out of their longstanding quarters and forced into huts in the outer ward, to make room for the mercenaries. This would have caused discontent even if the mercenaries, and their leaders, had been apologetic about the disruption.

They weren't.

And Lieutenant Alvarez was extremely critical about England in general and the yeoman warders in particular. As Andrew put it to the chief warder, Stephen Hamilton, he was "the boil on the Devil's ass."

Not that complaining about him had done any good.

"I wish, I wish we could just throw that damn Alvarez to the lions. Although they'd probably refuse to eat him, fetid mass of maggots that he is.

"Even the hyena would decline his carcass. Even—"

Andrew suddenly smiled.

Elizabeth narrowed her eyes. "I don't like that smile, Andrew. What are you thinking of?"

"Have you spoken much to Lady Mailey?"

The abrupt change of subject took Elizabeth off guard. "Of course, I have, since I made sure that our households stringently obeyed the sanitation regulations the Americans recommended to us. Why?"

"Well, she is a veritable fount of knowledge about the history of the Tower of London. And the keeper of the lions passed on some fascinating information. There is a custom from, um, 1698, I think it was, that I think it's high time that we put into practice. I can hardly wait for the 'morrow, so I can make the arrangements."

****

Lieutenant Alvarez looked at the invitation with satisfaction. Clearly, his communications with Juan de Necolaldes, the Spanish charge d'affaires to the court of Charles I, had finally borne fruit. It was ridiculous that a man of his family was not invited to participate in the doings of the court.

The invitation had been slipped under the door of his quarters (formerly those of the Hardwicks', who now had but a single room). Written in a fine hand, it began, "Please admit the Bearer to view the Annual Ceremony of the Washing of the Lions."

He appeared at the Water Gate on the appointed day, at the time specified by the invitation.

He looked around. No lions. He spoke to a nearby waterman. "Hey, you. Is this where the lions are washed?"

"Washed? Oh, yes, in the moat. You'll see soon enough, good sir. Just be patient."

Alvarez gave a curt nod. After a while, he started pacing. "Stupid Englishmen," he muttered. "Can't stay on schedule. No wonder, since they can't see the sun half the time."

The waterman approached him. "You know, sir, you should have a boat. The view will be much better that way."

Alvarez thought about this. "That makes sense. How much will a boat ride cost me?"

They dickered briefly, and made a deal.

"You must leave your weapons on shore, sir. No pistol, no sword."

"But what if the lions attack me?"

"They are fed before the washing, good sir, so they aren't hungry. And the keepers know how to handle them. But you must leave your safety in the keepers' hands, and God's; these are the king's lions, sir; 'tis certain death for any who dares to harm them save the keepers or by the king's direct order. Why one of them is named Charles, after the king, and 'tis said that if the lion dies, the king will, too."

Alvarez was quick to appreciate that accidentally killing the Lion Charles would not be a career-enhancing move. "All right, then, but they better still be here when I return!"

"Have no fear. Now hop in while I hold the boat for you."

Alvarez jumped into the boat, which rocked wildly for a moment, then settled.

The waterman gave the boat a hard shove, and it glided into the moat.

"Wait a moment, aren't you coming in with me?"

The waterman shook his head, smiling.

Several other boats came by, and their occupants started splashing Alvarez with great vigor and much laughter.

Sputtering, he tried to find the oars, but couldn't. The boat spun slowly about.

The waterman who had provided the boat reached under a tarpaulin and pulled out the missing oars. "Looking for these, oh noble Spaniard?" he yelled.

Alvarez screamed, "When I get my pistol and sword back, you'll be sorry!"

The waterman laid down the oars. "You want your pistol and sword, now? Not a problem. Here you go!"

Two splashes followed.

"Oops," said the waterman. He had artfully tossed the weapons into the moat, out of Alvarez' reach. They disappeared immediately into the murky waters.

"Don't worry, you'll find them. All you need to do is drink the moat dry." The waterman laid the oars on his shoulder, and strode off, whistling:

But God almighty be blessed evermore;

Who doth encourage Englishmen, to beat them from our shore.

The words were from a ballad by Thomas Delony, and the "them" were the Spanish of the Armada.

Andrew Short and Stephen Hamilton, standing on the parapet of the Tower, studied the Spaniard's plight for a few minutes.

Hamilton looked at Short. "You made provision for the waterman? He can hardly ply his trade here again."

"He's no waterman, he's an actor with one of the traveling companies. And they're on their way north tomorrow."

"Ah. Then I may enjoy the Annual Ceremony of the Washing of the Gullible Spaniard with a clean conscience."

"Indeed you may."

Hamilton smiled. "Well, to quote Lady Mailey—"

They finished the quotation in unison. "There's no Fool like an April Fool!"

****

Author's Note

For description of the royal menagerie, I relied heavily on Hahn, The Tower Menagerie (2004). I don't know its "inventory" in 1634, but Hahn said that there were eleven lions in 1613 and six in the 1650s. The butterfly effect of the RoF would account for any discrepancy between the numbers given in the story and the historical ones.

The first reference to the "washing the lions" prank is from April 2, 1698. It was a happy accident that Melissa Mailey had heard of it, and described it to the yeoman warders just when they were in need of a morale boost.

There is a fair amount of mystery surrounding the origin of the April Fools' holiday. The Museum of Hoaxes asserts that the earliest clear reference to pranks on April 1 was by a Flemish poet in 1539. It is clear that by 1686, when John Aubrey wrote about it, that it was practiced in England. What isn't clear is exactly when it reached England. Certainly, once it was practiced in Paris, it wouldn't have been long before it became known to the British aristocracy. And according to Muirithe, Words We Use (2007), at the end of the sixteenth century, the English ecclesiastical lawyer Henry Swinburne (1551-1624) defined an "idiot" as "a clown, an April fool." I assume this was in his A briefe treatise of Testaments and last Wills (1590).

In view of the uncertainty, the story is deliberately vague as to whether Melissa Mailey's contribution was April Fools Day itself, or merely the "washing the lions" prank.

The Future Is Where You Started

Written by Terry Howard

    

The village of Lasnamae

Not far from Reval (modern Tallinn), Estonia

Spring 1637

"What do you mean you are leaving!" Jaan screamed at the top of his lungs.

Martin did not cringe or look away. He smiled. Actually he smirked, and he chuckled just a little. Jaan's rants and rages were no longer a significant factor in his life. His time as a journeyman was over. He lifted the bundle with his personal possessions. "Just what I said. Good-bye. I'm leaving."

"But . . . it's been arranged. The guild has agreed. You have agreed."

At these words Martin's smirk broadened.

"We have it all worked out," Jaan said. "You will stay on and run the shop. We will take on a batch of new apprentices. I will leave the shop to you and when I die they will make you a master."

"No thanks," Martin said. "I don't want to go broke and starve."

"What are you talking about? This shop has made a good living for decades."

"Yes, it has. But it's over. Open your eyes, you foolish old man! In this modern day and age a papermaker's shop is obsolete. Can't you see that the guilds are finished! Finished! It is nothing but a good way to go broke. You can't compete with the Kymi mills and there are going to be more and more of them every year. My family has arranged a bride for me and her family has arranged a job at the Kymi mill. I will learn to be a miller instead of a papermaker."

"You can't do this!" Jaan yelled turning red. "It has been arranged!"

"You can't stop me. I'm a journeyman and I am free to leave."

Martin smiled and listened as Jaan Rummu cursed and ranted with more volume than a windstorm and more color than a rainbow. Then the man picked up part of a broken frame from a paper screen and Martin quit smiling. "Yell and scream all you want, old man. But if you try to strike me I will hit you back. I am not your wife or an apprentice. Before I left I just wanted to say thanks for all the miserable years. Living here has been hell, especially since your wife died. She was the only redeeming thing about you. But I am through and I am out of here."

"You won't work in paper making ever again. The guild will stop you."

"Just like they've stopped the Kymi mills?"

"They won't be selling that paper in Reval."

    "Do you really think the papermaker guild is going to tell the printer's guild that they are going to have to go out of business because they have to charge twice as much for a book since they can't use the cheaper paper? Or are you expecting both guilds to tell people they can't buy books from outside of town? If that was all there was to it, they might manage, at least for awhile. But do you really think the guild is going to tell Count Niels Brahe, the governor-general of Mainz, where his wife can and can't sell her paper? I told you! The guilds are finished. Holding out town citizenship like a carrot to a donkey is just as finished, if only people would look!

"When I am ready to make paper, I will go wherever I need to go, someplace with a good water flow for the wheel, and deep water for the dock, and a plentiful supply of trees for the pulp. My new father-in-law is putting together a prospectus group. When I am trained as a miller they will be ready to build a mill and a village if they have to. What do I care about the guild? Its day is over. It is as close to being dead as you are, you nasty old goat. The mills are the future. Anyone but a blind, foolish idiot can see that. Your way of paper making, one sheet at a time, in a paper shop, is in the past. It's dead or it will be when you are. I am moving forward into the future."

"You ungrateful pup! If you had been my apprentice I would have kicked the crap out of you and taught you some respect."

Martin laughed. "I saw you try that with your apprentices after your wife died. That is why you don't have them anymore. Try it. Go ahead. If trying doesn't kill you, I'll leave you on the floor crying like a baby. I'm bigger and stronger than you are. I'm not your wife or some helpless child. I won't put up with it."

Jaan turned red. "I should . . ."

"You should what? Old man?"

"I should get my gun and put an end to your insolence once and for all."

"You don't have a gun. You borrow one for the militia musters."

"I can buy another."

"Yes, you can. But I won't be here so you will have to find me." Martin picked up his bundle.

"But . . . what am I going to do?"

"Frankly, I don't know and I don't care. You will probably keep making paper until you can't sell it and then you will probably start drinking heavily again. I suspect that this time you will drink yourself to death. If it's convenient I will come to the funeral and help carry you to your grave. But most likely I will still be in Kymi learning to be a miller. So, good-bye. I will look you up in hell, if I don't manage to avoid it."

The last words Martin heard as he walked out were, "I'm going to get a gun, I'm going to follow you to Kymi or wherever you go. When I get to Kymi I'm going to kill that damned foreigner who built the mills and then I'm going to kill you."

Martin did not take it seriously. It was just another rant by a man much given to ranting. He was confident he had heard the last of Master Jaan Rummu's voice.

A few months later

"What in hell do you mean you can't buy my paper?" Jaan screamed at the top of his lungs.

"I can't buy it because I can't use it!" The printer yelled right back.

Jaan's first blast of rage thinned out just a bit. Now he was only yelling at about half throttle, "Your grandfather bought paper from my master when I was a new apprentice. Your father bought my paper and complained for years that I wasn't producing enough. I always told him I could make more, faster, if he wasn't so picky about the quality."

Jaan's volume eased up a bit more. "What are you using? Is it that new paper from Kymi? Kymi paper is made out of wood pulp. The papermaker's guild voted. They will not allow wood pulp paper to be sold in Reval. This is linen rag. It's better. You can see that for yourself."

The printer sighed. At least the old man wasn't screaming any more. "Yes, Jaan, you are quite right. The papermakers' guild voted to ban it. But, the printers' guild voted to ignore the ban and Countess Anna Marketta Bielke's salesman didn't even bother to vote. He just stopped in and asked how much paper I wanted. The papermakers took the printers before the town council asking the council to enforce the ban on imported paper. The town council voted in favor of the printer's guild after we pointed out that you couldn't keep us fully supplied anyway, so we would have to import some paper or print fewer copies.

"Your paper is better quality paper. So what? Kymi paper is cheaper and it's good enough. Look, if you'll sell this lot to me at the Kymi price I'll take it . . ."

The printer watched the papermaker start to blow up and held up his hand to forestall Jaan's explosive expression of outrage. ". . . this time, because we had a long standing implied contract. I'll set it aside, maybe some day I'll do a print run of bibles or something special.

"But right now, I've got an open order that will keep me busy for the rest of the year and there will be more orders after that as long as I keep the price down and make my deliveries on time. The customer is perfectly happy with Kymi paper and won't pay more for better. Kymi stock cost me half as much as I was paying you. The price I quoted the buyer reflects that. I'm not going to cut into my profit margin to buy better paper. I don't need to. And, besides, I don't have enough of a margin to do it.

"That's my best and final offer. Take it or take your paper and get out. Either way, there is no point in you bringing me any more. I don't want it, I can't use it, and I won't buy it."

"I can get a better price than that across the street," Jaan objected.

"No, you cannot. But if you want to try go ahead. He prints broad-sheets. He's using something the countess' salesman calls newsprint. I know for a fact that this is the best price you're going to get anywhere in Reval. If you don't believe me, go check. If you can find a better market, I'll be happy to sell it back to you at cost."

"But the guild has set the price for first quality linen rag paper at over twice what you want to pay me for it!"

The printer shrugged. "Take it or leave it. I really don't care."

"But at that price I can't make a living. That isn't enough to pay my rent and put food on the table. What am I supposed to do?"

"Not my problem," the printer said. "I've got work to do. That's the price. Take it and get out or get out and take your paper with you. Either way, I don't care."

"So, I've got to find a printer that wants to print Bibles."

The young printer snorted. "Good luck. My new supplier told me it won't be long before they would be coming out with a product line just for Bibles and such. He said it would be acid free, whatever that means, and he said it would be better than anything I've ever seen. Of course he's exaggerating, but I'm sure it will be good enough and it's sure to be cheaper than handmade paper."

"I'm dead! I'm going to starve. I might as well buy a pistol and blow my brains out in style," Jaan complained.

"You can do that or you can find some other way to make a living. I don't care. You're leaving now. Are you leaving with my coins or your paper? "

****

    Just down the street Jaan approached the sign hanging over a door reading, "Grantville-Style Barbequed Ribs." He'd been looking forward to a celebratory meal of "falling off the bone tender" ribs in a sweet and spicy tomato sauce with potatoes cut in strips and fried in hot grease. The little hole-in-the-wall shop had opened last year. Then it expanded to the left for a dining area and later to the right for more dining area. It was lunch time and the place was packed with a line waiting.

Jaan walked past. He did not want to wait. He had nothing to celebrate. What he really wanted was to get drunk. Farther down the street was the tavern where he had stopped for years to get a beer and a meal before heading home after having sold his paper. It was still there. Only two things had changed since he had last been there. One was the size of the crowd. The place was fuller than he had ever seen it. The other change was the menu.

"Jaan!" The jovial publican's cheery greeting filled the air when the papermaker walked through the door. "I thought you'd died." This might well be true and not just a social amenity, considering the papermaker's age. "I haven't seen you in ages. Where have you been?"

Jaan didn't answer. His attention was caught by a sign hanging on the back wall. Grantville Barbequed Ribs sold here. "You're cooking ribs now?"

"No. I send the boy down the alley for takeout," the last word phrase was odd sounding being a translation of an Amideutsch word set. "We get priority service." He did not mention the running tab and the volume discount. "And you get a better choice of side dishes, wines and beers and a quieter place to eat. You should try them. They really are as good as they're touted as being."

"I came here to get drunk."

"Are you celebrating? The ribs are good for celebrating."

"No. I have nothing to celebrate."

"Oh, well if you're looking to forget, one taste of these ribs and your troubles will flee from the pleasure."

Jaan confided, "I'm thinking about buying a pistol and blowing my brains out."

The publican didn't even blink. "Well, that calls for a special last meal. You really do deserve to experience these barbequed ribs before you die. Have a seat, I'll get you a draft of that dark beer you like and some fresh-from-the-oven bread while the boy fetches your meal."

The publican set the beer and the bread on the table and then sat himself down also. "Now, what's the problem? You look to be in good health. You are old but far from worn out. You've got your teeth, your eyes are clear, all four limbs are sound. You're hale and you look hardy enough. What is this talk of blowing your brains out? Is your life really that bad?"

"I'm a papermaker. After a lifetime of buying everything I made, the printer down the street just told me he wouldn't be buying any more of my paper. That damned mill in Kymi has put me out of business! The damned guild isn't going to do anything about it. I'm too old to start over."

"So you're just going to give up and blow your brains out without even trying? What about the people who are depending on you? Are you just going to leave them to fend for themselves?"

Jaan snorted. "My wife died. The kids are dead or married and gone. Shoot, even the dog died. My last journeyman just walked out on me. Nobody is going to give an apprentice into my keeping at my age. I won't live long enough to finish training them. I'm out of business. I might as well end it quick instead of starving to death."

The publican nodded in understanding and agreement. He'd run the same equation recently and came up with very similar results. "Sometimes, life isn't worth it anymore. That ribs place had me all but out of business. Even my old regular customers were going there instead."

Jaan squirmed a bit in guilt.

"I don't blame them. The food is damned good. Then one day, when I was standing in line . . . Yes, even I was eating there occasionally . . . I was thinking about burning the place down. I think I would have one moonless night if I had thought we could get the fire put out before my place burned too. I had pretty much decided that it didn't matter if I burned out because I was out of business anyway. Then I heard someone complaining about not having anywhere to sit down. And someone else complained back to him about them having only small beer when he wanted wine and about the lack of bread. So I told them to get their ribs to go. The rib place, for a price, will wrap the ribs in paper so you can take them home. So I told these two fellows to get their ribs to go and come buy my wine and bread and sit down in peace and quiet.

"The next day I went down the alley and talked to the owner. Now I send the boy down the alley with the covered plates and he carries them back filled with hot ribs and French potatoes. They fill my orders first. Sometimes, when they are busy, you can actually get your ribs faster here than there. The owner's happy because he's got more seating and doesn't have to pay for it. The customers are happy because they can sit down in peace and we've got a selection of beers and wines and side dishes the ribs place does not have. Why the owner even gave me the recipe for a cabbage salad called coleslaw that he said is supposed to go with the ribs and potatoes but he's never had time to do anything with it. It's one of my best selling items and some of the customers come here rather than there because I've got it and he doesn't. I'm happy because business is good again. In truth, it has never been better. The only person who is unhappy is the boy who has to go out in the cold and the rain, but he should be happy about having a job at all."

"I never thought that," Jaan said, thoughtfully. "I could burn the print shop down. Better still, I could go to Kymi and burn the mill down. That would work. They'd rebuild but I'd be back in business for a year or two."

"Haven't you heard?" the publican asked. "Someone already tried to burn the Kymi mill."

"No, I didn't hear about it. If I can't burn it down, I can still kill the foreigner who runs the mill and the worthless, lying, cheating, journeyman who walked out on me when I was going to give him the shop. It would only be justice. He's stolen my livelihood after all."

"Jaan, quit talking foolishness. Here's your meal. See, I told you it was quicker here."

****

"I wish to buy a pistol."

The proprietor looked the customer over. The man was clearly not walking a straight line. The gunsmith shrugged. So the man was drunk. So what? He made and sold guns. There was no law against selling one to a drunk and drunks often forgot to bargain. "Certainly sir, do you want an old-fashioned wheel-lock? We have a nice selection of used ones, and I've got two new ones left. Or, would you prefer a new Grantville-style flintlock? Or better still, I can sell you a French-style cap-lock."

"I don't care about the lock. I just want to buy a pistol."

"Sir, a gun consists of the lock, the stock, and the barrel. When you buy a gun you buy all three, already put together. Now here is a wheel-lock. These are the cheapest guns I've got in stock." This was true. He could get a good bit more money for the others. "First you load a powder charge . . ." He began his demonstration.

The old man started to say something, but the gunsmith didn't want to listen to a drunk. "This is a Grantville-style flintlock. You charge the powder and the ball, prime the pan, cover it, cock the hammer and point the pistol, then you pull the trigger. If you kept the powder dry it goes off. This is most of what I am making these days."

"I . . ." the old drunk started.

The salesman kept talking. "I've got a few of the French percussion cap pistols. But the caps are expensive. I have to import them and they are hard to get. Still, of the three it's the easiest to use and it's also the most dependable. That is to say, it is the least likely to misfire and not go off. You don't have to worry about your priming powder getting damp. It's the simplest of the three to use. It is also the most expensive to buy and to use, but if you aren't going to use the gun more than once or twice it's the best . . ."

Jaan finally got his thick tongue around the words he was trying to get out and he interrupted the sales pitch. "I know which end of pistol goes clack snap and which end goes boom. Just sell me a damned pistol!"

The gunsmith handed Jaan the most expensive pistol in the shop and named a price.

As Jaan left, the proprietor smiled. He loved selling guns to drunks. You could sell them anything and at twice what they'd pay sober.

****

"This is it sir, Myllyla. If you need a drink there are several taverns in the village." The sea captain addressed his passenger in German since that was the language the man used when he boarded. He took the elbow of the boat's last passenger in his hand and headed the man toward the gang plank. The fellow was slow about getting off the boat. The captain wondered if the old man was addled, reluctant, just in the throes of being hung-over or, perhaps, all of the above. He had certainly been drunk enough when he booked passage and boarded. Then, too, wine was the only luggage he brought on board. It had been a storm-tossed journey. Being seasick is bad enough. Being seasick and hung-over is unspeakable.

"If you want to go back, we leave in the morning. But you will need to pay for another passage. You can get a room for tonight. I suggest the Lomailla Majatalo. Odd name that. The foreign millwright owns it; so I guess that explains the odd name.

"Although, why a 'holiday' suggests a place to sleep makes no sense to me. But he's a foreigner and foreigners are strange, aren't they? Anyway, they have a fine bath house, and flush plumbing. Do you know what that is? I didn't the first time I stayed there. It's a chamber pot that empties itself. The beds are clean and the food is good if you want something strange and new. I eat there when we are here. They've got French potatoes and Grantville ribs like that place in Reval. I like the ones in Reval better, but these are good. They've got a beef sandwich named after Hamburg which is not bad. There is an open-faced cheese sandwich named after that town in Italy with the leaning tower. My favorite is the dish of round noodles in a red sauce with balls of meat that isn't named for anywhere at all. The beer is not bad either."

The captain turned loose of the man's elbow at the head of the off ramp. "That's the Lomailla Majatalo there." He pointed.

A still hung-over Jaan Rummu disembarked in the bustling riverside town whose dock thrust out into the waters of the Kymi River within sight of the mill complex. The mills had their own docks which were visible from the new town's crowded and busy quay.

For want of a better idea, Jaan headed where he had been pointed. He could use a beer or three. Besides, now that he was on land and his head wasn't spinning, Grantville ribs and French potatoes sounded better with each step.

****

Martin did a double take and turned pale.

Petteri asked, "What's wrong?"

"That man!" Martin pointed at the disheveled graybeard ambling past on the other side of the street. "That is Jaan Rummu. He is the master I was a journeyman under."

"What's he doing in Myllyla?" Peter asked.

"You can be sure it's nothing good."

"Why?"

"Look at the way he's walking. Sober, master Rummu only knows one speed and I had to half run to keep up with him. Sober he's an asinine idiot . . . mostly, anyway. He has a wild temper. He will fly off the handle and yell and scream and throw things at you over anything, everything and nothing. You'd think the very sound of his voice would flay you alive. But two minutes later he would be over it, normally. But when he'd been drinking, look out. It doesn't stop with yelling and screaming. After his wife died he lost his apprentices when their parents complained to the guild."

Petteri looked at the back of the passing man. "Did you notice the bulge in his belt? He's carrying a pistol. Maybe we should tell the town watch."

"Shit!" Martin said. "He's got a pistol? He's here to kill me."

"What makes you think that?"

"Because he said he was going to."

"Why?" Petteri asked.

"He wanted me to stay on and take over the business. I told him I would, but then I changed my mind when I found out I could get a job here. I told him there was no future in a paper shop. I said I was coming here to learn the new way to make paper. He called me every name you could think of, and made all kinds of threats. The last one was that he was going to buy a pistol, then he was going to come to Kymi and he was going to kill me and Master McCabe. I laughed it off because I knew he was all bark. But now he's here, with a pistol, and he's been drinking. If he's not drunk now, he will be shortly."

"Did he really threaten to kill Master McCabe?"

"Yes."

"Look," Petteri said. "He's going into the Holiday. Let's get back to the mill. We need to stop Master McCabe before he goes to lunch."

Back at the mill they found Aappo, one of the first three millers Vernon had trained. He was also Vernon's son-in-law since he married the daughter of Vernon's new wife.

"Where is Master McCabe?" Martin asked.

"Gone to lunch."

"We've got to stop him."

"Why?" Aappo asked.

"My last master has a pistol and he's waiting at the Holiday to kill him."

"What?" Aappo asked. "Why?"

"Because he's an angry old man with a violent temper. He's lost everything. He's blaming Master McCabe for stealing his livelihood. So he wants revenge."

"You never mentioned it before!"

"I never thought he was serious before. But he's here and he's armed, just like he said. He's capable of doing it, especially if he's drunk."

"Damn," Aappo said. "Let's go tell Jussi."

Jussi Kallenpoika was part of Anna Marketta Bielke's staff. After the first attempt to burn the mill down by disgruntled papermakers, the countess insisted on having part of her guard detachment headquartered in the mill complex. She wanted a regular presence in the mills.

Aappo pushed the door open and rushed into the middle of whatever was going on. Jussi was talking to a stranger who was sitting next to a travel bag.

"Aappo," Jussi said, "this is Carl. The field marshal sent him to help out. He just got in."

A normally polite Aappo ignored the introduction. "Jussi, Martin says there is an assassin waiting with a pistol at the Holiday Inn to kill Master Vernon. He knows the man. I think you should check it out."

"After we hung the men who tried to burn down the mills and the one who attacked Hans, you would think the word would get around that it isn't worth trying."

"Hey, there are a lot of angry desperate men out there who don't want the world to change," Aappo said.

Oddly, Carl opened his bag and started digging to the bottom. He handed a box to Jussi who thought it was a strange time for Carl to give him a present. "The field marshal sent you this. I was going to present it formally at dinner with the men but you might want it now." In the box was a double-barreled, brake-action pistol and a box full of .410 brass and paper shotgun shells.

Jussi looked it over. "Let me get you a pistol out of the arms locker and we'll go check out Martin's assassin suspect."

"No need. I've got one, too. Let's go."

****

The inn looked new, as a new inn should. But there was something odd about it. Jaan felt it but couldn't quite put his finger on what it was. The place was mostly empty. Jaan sat down. From a counter that separated the kitchen from the dining room a man called out in Finnish, "Can I help you?"

"What?" A startled Jaan replied while he was figuring out that the man had asked 'Can I help you?'

"What do you want?" the Finn asked again.

Jaan understood him, mostly. "Olu," he called out.

"Olut? Oh." The publican switched to German. "You're Estonian. Do you have the German?"

"Yes," Jaan replied in the same tongue.

"One beer coming up." He set a beer mug on the counter. "Here you are. Do you want to order food?"

"Where's your bar maid?" Jaan asked.

"This is an American lunch counter. We don't have bar maids. You place your order here. You pick your food up here, and you pay here. You're encouraged to put your dirty dishes over there . . ." He nodded toward a second window to the kitchen area. ". . . when you're done. If you leave them on the table, you are expected to leave some small change to pay for having the table cleared."

"That's crazy!"

"That's American. Same thing, I guess. But, then, what's crazier than making plywood, or paper bags, or paper by the ton?" The publican shrugged. "Hey, it's a living isn't it?"

"For you maybe," Jaan said aloud. As he went to fetch his beer, he muttered, "Not for me, though."

Then he asked, "Do you get a lot of Englishmen here, then?" while trying to decipher the menu.

"None I've ever noticed."

"Then why in English?"

"That's what they speak in Grantville so the American insisted. It's his inn and his eatery, so we do things his way.

"He's an old man, your age or older. Married himself a handsome widow and then built her a fine house up on the hill. But he didn't want to walk home for lunch in the cold. And he didn't want to teach his wife how to cook American dishes. He told me once that a man should never compare his second wife's cooking to his first wife's cooking. Nor should he ever tell his wife that her cooking was not what he was used to or what he wanted, or that it was not like his mother's. So he decided to build an eatery, what he calls a lunch counter.

"But he wanted it with flush plumbing. Once he had that he figured shower baths were easy enough to put in. Then there was the unused second story, so he figured he might as well add sleeping rooms. At which point he had himself an inn. So he named it after his favorite inn from his home country, and here we are.

"The ribs will be a while yet, when your beer glass is empty bring it up for a free refill."

The publican charged him for a third beer when he collected for the meal, before it left the counter. Jaan looked at the publican and asked, "What if I want something else? Why not wait until I'm finished?"

The man shrugged. "That's the way the foreigner wants things done. Ask him about it when he comes in for lunch."

The ship's captain showed up and joined Jaan at his table. Jaan was licking the sauce off of his fingers before using his napkin. "You know, you're wrong about the ones in Reval being better. I like them, but, these ribs are just as tender and the sauce here is just as sweet and not as spicy."

"Well, it's a matter of taste. I like spicy foods," the boatman said.

A nondescript old man dressed like a prosperous craftsman walked in.

"Vernon," the publican called out in a friendly way that is the stock and trade of a good barkeeper, "what will it be?"

"A cold one, Niiles. Ribs if they're up, and spaghetti if they're not. I can't linger. I've got to get back. I need to be there while they're laying out the third papermaking machine this afternoon."

Vernon had answered the barkeep in Finnish so that was the language the captain used, "Is this the one that's going to make the parchment paper for Bibles?"

"When it gets going." Vernon said.

"I hear congratulations are in order," the captain went on. "This third mill belongs to you."

Vernon smiled. "Yes, it is. When the countess heard I wanted to get my own land and wanted start my own mill, she got busy and wrote some letters. I now own a thousand acres of prime forest upstream of here. But the countess insisted that I build the mill here in town. She made me a very good offer on the building that was already being built. She said she wanted to keep her expert close by."

Then the old man switched to German and addressed the boatman as he sat down without an invitation like he owned the place or something, "Captain Frei, what news from Hamburg?"

"The new ship yard is coming along nicely. But then they have all of that stone that got blasted out of the old wall to work with. They have finished clearing the ruins on the wall. Just like when I talked to you last time, they are still debating whether or not to rebuild it. One side says they have to if they want to be safe and the other side is pointing out it didn't help in the least and the ships and planes are only going to get bigger. It looks like the latter won because they've started to clear that section of the wall down to ground level. There is talk of clearing the whole thing and leaving the foundation as a road."

Vernon nodded. "They are absolutely right. I saw it as I came past Hamburg. As a military defense that wall is next to useless. It's more of a target than anything else."

Niiles the publican called out, "It's up, Vernon."

When the old man came back he asked the captain, "Who is your friend?"

"This is Herr Rummu. He was a passenger from Reval."

Vernon stuck out his hand. "Vernon McCabe. What brings you to Paperimyllynkyla?"

Jaan started working on twisting his ear around the half familiar sound.

Captain Frei spoke up, "Paperimyllynkylain Finnish, Paberiabrikkula in Estonian. He's talking about Myllyla, the village. Myllylais short for Paperimyllynkyla. I guess Myllyla means something like mill-ville."

"Oh," Jaan said to the captain and then he answered Vernon, "I used to be a papermaker. I've come looking for the man who put me out business."

"Oh, that's me, and you're late. Your letter said you'd be here last week."

"Letter? I sent no letter. What I have to say cannot be said in a letter."

"Then it was some other papermaker. It doesn't matter. Can you match this?" Vernon handed him a paper napkin. Captain Frei and Jaan had cloth ones that could be washed and reused. The inn had an imported supply of paper napkins to put on Vernon's trays because he owned the place, and he like it that way.

"What is this?" Jaan asked fingering the napkin.

"It's tissue paper and not very good tissue paper at that. I'm importing it from Thuringia and it's costing me a fortune. I'm trying to find someone who can make it for me here."

"But you have a paper mill."

"Two, three shortly, and both of them are busy twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, turning out printing paper. We've got a third one coming on line later this year and it's for parchment after it's run a stock of wrapping paper for the bag line.

"I don't know a thing about running tissue paper. Besides, the market isn't there for it. All I know is that it's supposed to be tricky. I'll leave that to the younger guys to figure out. Even if we knew how to make it, we would have to build another mill and it would be another year and a half before we could start running it. Besides, if we did build another mill, which we will, the orders for printing paper are probably going to be so much bigger it isn't likely that mill could run paper towels, anyway. So it's not going to happen even then.

"If you can make this, and it would be nice if you could make it softer and stronger. I can buy all you produce, as long as you don't get greedy or carried away. Can you do it?"

"Yes, I can do it. It will take some time to get it right but I can do it."

"Oh?" Vernon said, disappointed. "The fellow I was corresponding with claimed he was ready to run it. But he's a week late and you're here so let's give it a shot. We can set you up in a research lab with an assistant or two and cover your time out of the product development budget. But if you aren't here because of the letters, what did you want to see me about?"

"What?"

"You said you had something to tell me that couldn't be put in a letter?" Vernon prompted.

"Well, you put me out of business."

"You came all this way to tell me that?"

"No. I figured I was going to starve to death this winter." Jaan was pretty well through his third beer. It was a dark beer with a solid kick to it, not at all like the small beer Jaan had been, mostly, limiting himself to for the last few years. Small beer could be made from a second round of brewing, rather like reusing a tea bag. It was safe to drink when water wasn't and it was pretty much impossible to get drunk on it. "In wine is truth," the Romans said. The Dutch issued a ration of brandy before battle so the English called it "Dutch courage." The beers had Jaan buzzed and feeling good. His next words were the reckless bald truth which, in a more sober, wiser, moment, would have never been spoken. But strong beer and sound reason do not long abide in the same mouth. "So I decided to burn your mills down."

Captain Frei pushed himself back from the table so hard all three glasses spilled. The captain's chair likewise toppled and the man fell over it trying to back up even farther. Vernon jumped to his feet when the cold beer landed in his lap. Jaan calmly finished his sentence. ". . . and if I couldn't manage that, I was going to shoot you for stealing my livelihood.

"But," Jaan said, ". . . you are going to hire me to make this—" He rubbed the napkin between his fingers. "—tissue paper. So I will not starve." Jaan wondered why Vernon's right arm was now tucked under his jacket, with his hand up under his left arm. The American looked rather uncomfortable, as if he was getting ready to run or fight. Jaan realized he needed to do something to defuse the tension. "If I'm not going to starve, I have no reason to shoot you. So I won't need this." Jaan handed his pistol to Vernon butt first. Vernon looked relieved when the pistol was in his hands.

"A cap-lock? From France?” Vernon asked, looking the pistol over.

"The silly little shiny hat-shaped things are from France. The pistol, though, was made by a gun maker in Reval. You wouldn't believe what he charged me for a half handful of those French primers. The man truly has a silver tongue and a larcenous heart. He convinced me they were worth it."

Vernon looked it over and started to hand it back and then thought better of it. He stood there looking at the mess and watched the captain gather himself and rise to his feet. The ship's master was clearly unhurt, but his eyes were glued to the gun in the American's hands as if it were a poisonous viper that would strike at him any second now.

"Relax, Captain," Vernon said. "No one is going to shoot anybody."

"You're not going shoot anyone are you, Herr Rummu?" Vernon asked the Estonian papermaker.

Jaan shook his head. "With what?" he asked, and set his toppled glass upright. Fortunately it had been mostly empty anyway.

Vernon wiped halfheartedly and quite pointlessly at the soaked spot that was his entire belly and down to his knees. After a bit he called out, "Niiles? Pour me another cold one, please, and whatever these fellows are drinking. And dish up another plate of spaghetti for the captain while you're at it. His is covered in beer. Then have someone grab a mop and clean up this mess."

Gathering his plate in his off hand, Vernon said, "Fellows, why don't we move to a clean table?"

Jaan called out, "Niiles, could you make mine a small beer please? That dark beer is damned fine, but it's going to my head and that is not a good thing."

****

Jussi and Carl walked in as a rather nervous Niiles was stepping back from putting the beers down at the new table. Yes, being a barmaid was not his job. But when the owner asks for a beer and his guest is talking about burning the mills down and shooting people, and he had the pistol to do so, it was not the time to stand on principle and tell his boss to come and get it, which he normally would have; since that was what he had been told to do. Niiles nodded to the guard.

Carl subconsciously equated foreigner with stranger. He recognized Captain Frei and Jaan Rummu from his boat ride to Finland, even though he couldn't put a name to either of them. So that left the third man, the one with the pistol, as the obvious target. And, yes, there was something strange about him. He wasn't dressed fancy, but he had that hard-to-describe but very real air of self-possession, an absolute assurance of worth, a cockiness, about him that some sorts have. Carl stepped to the side so he could shoot the armed man if it proved necessary, without putting anyone else at risk.

Looking at Vernon, Carl spoke in the trained-co-carry voice he used for official business. "Jaan Rummu, we have a complaint lodged against you of . . ."

Upon hearing his name at the top of Swedish sentence, Jaan said, "What?" He spoke Estonian and German. He could understand Finnish, sort of, but Swedish was even stranger to his ear than Finnish was.

Upon glimpsing the guards' pistols, the German ship captain pushed back from the table and ducked to the floor, sending his chair flying and knocking the three beers over again. Vernon's landed in his lap, again.

With a second lap full of cold beer, Vernon yelled, "Shit! What the . . ." and stood up with the French pistol in his hand. He looked first at the German captain on the floor.

Jussi yelled at Carl, "No, you fool. That's the chief miller."

Vernon looked at the yelling guard, realized the French pistol was pointed at the guard who he recognized and then at Carl, who he didn't. Furthermore, it was clear to Vernon that the man perceived it and him as an imminent threat. Vernon let go of the cap-lock and started ducking. The dropped cap-lock, half cocked, hit the table and discharged. A ball was later found high on the wall, almost to the ceiling.

Turning to his old friend, Carl asked, "What?" in the Swedish that was their first language, just as the dropped pistol went off.

His white-as-a-sheet friend answered in the same tongue. "That is the chief miller. It's worth your life to hurt him!"

At these words, Carl's face mirrored his old friend's color.

"Holy shit!" Jaan yelled at the top of his lungs before the ringing in his ears cleared, realizing it was his pistol which almost made Vernon a target. Jaan turned a deep red that would have made a radish jealous and a pickled beet proud. A second later he stood up, grabbed at his chest, closed his eyes, gritted his teeth and crumpled back into the chair.

Looking at the man on the floor and more spilled beer to be cleaned up, Niiles said, "Good Lord, what a mess."

Vernon went to the papermaker and tilted the man's head back to make sure he was breathing. Then he fished an ancient square aspirin tin out of his pocket and pushed two of the white pills into the man's mouth.

Jaan started to spit the bitter things out.

Vernon said, "Chew them!" in a command voice. Then he explained, "If you want to live, chew them. You are having a heart attack." When Jaan was through chewing, Vernon put a much smaller white pill under his mouth and said, "Put that under your tongue and let it dissolve.

"Niiles, have someone fetch a stretcher. Do we have an empty room?"

"Three," Niiles said.

"Put him in one. I'll get a nurse in here to look after him."

Vernon looked at the Guards. "What in hell, is going on? You could have killed me." Looking at the man just off the boat, Vernon said, "I swear to heaven, he was trying to do just that. And you scared Jaan into a heart attack. He could die from it at his age. What am I talking about? For all I know I'll have one any minute now. I really would like to live long enough to see my kid get christened."

A mob was trying to push through the door to see what was going on. A member of the town watch was amongst them. Vernon looked at the watchman. He knew his face if not his name. "Keep those people out of here and have someone get a stretcher," Vernon ordered.

"What are you doing here?" Vernon demanded of the guards.

"We had a report of another possible assassination attempt," Carl answered.

"Oh, so you can speak German? Why weren't you using it before?"

"But, sir, this is not Germany. It is part of Sweden. I don't know Finnish yet."

"So you almost shot me because I didn't know Swedish!"

"No. I almost shot you because you were pointing a gun at me."

"I wasn't pointing a gun at you. You just happened to be standing were the gun was pointing!"

"Master Miller, please," Jussi said. "You are not hurt. It was just a misunderstanding."

"A misunderstanding? What did you think was going on?" Vernon asked.

Three days later

"If you are trying to be funny, I assure you that you are failing completely," Martin told his boss.

Aappo, solemnly looked at Martin and said, "No. I am not trying to be funny. Vernon wants your old master to make toilet paper for him. I want you to help and then I want you to figure out how to run it on a mill. Someone is going to eventually, and it might as well be us."

"Look, I had to put up with that grouchy old man for over . . ."

    "Exactly! The man is grouchy. Worse, he's given to fits of angry shouting, truly impressive threats, and he throws things. He's scaring the help. They don't know what to make of him. You are an expert on the topic. Vernon says he's already had a mild heart attack. We want him to work out Vernon's toilet paper before the next one kills him. You already know how to work with him, so you get the job. On the other hand, it will put you in the same circumstances I am in with Vernon. When Jaan dies, you will be the authority on toilet paper.

"Look, you get the title of a first assistant in product development, and that means a raise. And you get to work out how to run a new product. The other trainees don't get that. I think Vernon is wrong. I think when we can run it on a mill there will be a market for it, and I think it will be a bigger market than printing paper. But Vernon says he doesn't know anything about it and I can't for the life of me figure out why he isn't even interested in trying."

Martin objected, "But I came to Kymi to get away from the yelling and the screaming and having things thrown at me. I left all that in the past."

"Well, your past just caught up with you. You are the resident expert on Jaan Rummu, and he is now our expert on toilet paper and before very long that will be your title."

"This is for shit!" Martin said, using one of the new phrases that were finding their way from the mouth of Vernon McCabe into the language and culture of the paper mills.

"Exactly!" Aappo agreed. "That is precisely what it is all about. And we need to make a line of paper to deal with it. It will make us all rich."

****

Storm Signals

Written by Jack Carroll

    

Vlissingen, Netherlands

1636

The wind off the North Sea howled through the antenna wires outside, blasting rain sideways at the shack's windows, driving droplets through the chinks in the double-hung sash. The occasional snap from the speakers told of faraway lightning bolts striking the sea. Inside, the electric lights fed from the little turbine at the transmitter site cast a warm glow over the log sheets. The coal stove in the corner and the coffee pot softly bubbling away on its top were a mercy to the three operators on watch.

BzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhZHZHZHZHZH . . .

The raucous whine erupted from all three receivers at the two megahertz desk, never mind that they were tuned to three different frequencies spread halfway across the band. There'd been some message traffic earlier in the day about a Swedish coaster in-bound for the Harlingen base; that was probably him tuning up—into a live antenna, of course. Frankel half-muttered, "I will be so happy when spark goes away!" He picked up a pencil and waited, ready to copy. The watch supervisor looked across in sympathy.

SOS SOS SOS DE FV FV FV

It just stopped. No procedure signal to go ahead, no nothing. It took him a second to gather his wits. "What the hell, Breuning? Is that some kind of a French call sign for a ship, but only two letters? We answer?"

"Ja, Frankel, we answer a distress call from anybody. Find out where they are and what's happening."

It came again, and stopped. Frankel fired off a quick request across the telegraph wire to the transmitter site, tone modulation on and high power amplifier in line—a station with a spark transmitter was probably receiving with a stone-deaf crystal set—then hit the key.

SOS FV FV FV DE PBN PBN PBN R R R QTH? K

—Distress transmission. FV, this is PBN. Received your transmission. What is your position? Go ahead.

PBN DE FV QUE SIGNIFE QTH?

—PBN, this is FV. What does QTH mean?

Breuning stared for a second. "Oh, Jesus, he doesn't know Q signals. Bet he doesn't know Dutch or German either. Try sending 'Quel est votre position?' I hope to hell position is a French word. Ellegoot, I'll cover for you. Go wake up Courriveau, tell him to get in here on the double." He reached over Frankel's shoulder and patched one of the receivers into a direction-finding antenna.

Frankel's mouth was suddenly dry. He didn't even notice the burst of rain that blew in during the second and a half Ellegoot had the door open. He started sending again. This was not going to get done by the book. Whatever happened, it was going to be a long night.

Trouville-sur-Mer, France

Some weeks earlier

It was such a beautiful, bright blue morning. The waves whispered upon the sand, retreated, advanced again. Overhead, the white gulls cried incessantly as they searched for things to eat. The kite fluttered and swung from side to side in the offshore breeze, as Professeur Lebrun finished his preparations at his table full of indescribable apparatus. Through a decent glass, Henri Fourchet could just make out the other kite, across the bay at Sainte-Adresse.

"Do you suppose your assistant is ready, Professeur?"

"We shall soon see. Our clocks are now synchronized, therefore he knows when to connect the antenna to listen and when to send to us. There, now, I have the wire wedged in place on the transmitter's terminal. I shall check the tuning—yes, the screw is at the proper mark. On the minute I shall try."

"This seems an awkward arrangement. How would we manage this when one of my ships is to give us notice of its arrival, hours before or even a day before? We could never maintain such timing."

"Ah, that's a different thing. This is only a crude affair, to determine what will work. I have seen pictures of a thing called a knife switch, which Charcoutier the coppersmith can make for us. I will draw it. Then we would leave the antenna connected to the receiver at most times, and in the merest instant move it to the transmitter when we wish to send."

"But could you not keep it connected to both, and avoid this? I speak as a layman in these matters, of course."

"Sadly, no, for the power of the transmitter would instantly ruin the delicate receiving crystal. So we shall have the knife switch. Excuse me, I see it's time." He bent to the key, and began tapping out a series of long and short buzzes. As he did, an iron piece rattled on the side of the "induction coil," whatever that was, and long purplish-blue sparks came and went between the two small brass balls on top. A pungent metallic odor assaulted Fourchet's nostrils. After a minute Lebrun stopped. "The patterns of long and short bursts of sound stand for the letters of the alphabet. It's called Morse code; it was in the books I studied in the Grantville libraries. I was forced to make up patterns for our accented letters; the books said they existed, but did not have them. Now we shall listen."

He unfastened the wire and secured it to another collection of outlandish-looking contrivances of wood and metal. He picked up one bulky cylindrical affair trailing a pair of linen-covered wires and held it to his ear, took up a pen in his other hand, dipped it, and waited poised over a scrap of paper. Fourchet heard faint sounds coming from the thing. Success? Lebrun began writing, a letter at a time, on the paper. What was the message? A passage from the Bible? No, it was a verse from that rowdy university student's drinking song, "Gaudeamus Igitur." He left off writing, and began making painstaking adjustments, an expression of intense concentration on his face. The sound came and went, but did seem to grow stronger after some effort. "There, that's easily audible now. Clearly, we can make this work over a greater distance."

"All very well, but can it allow my ships to send word to me here, so that I can arrange to have buyers ready to bid for my goods when they arrive, and have day workers on hand to unload promptly? That is the heart of the matter."

"True. Well, then, we must find out, not so? We shall need to take this on board, and move about on the water to see what happens. How shall we proceed?"

"I expect the arrival of La Fleur de Villerville at any time. She will need to have some of her rigging renewed before she sails again, not to mention collecting the rest of her outbound cargo, and so will be here for perhaps a few weeks. Will that serve?"

"Admirably, and perhaps while the apparatus is being improved, we could arrange for a more durable support for an antenna at your establishment. An old ship's mast, perhaps."

****

Michel Pouliot had a few minutes free before beginning the day's work, and so he paused by the Seine to admire the sun shimmering on the ripples. Freneau's ship Petrel had evidently come to anchor in the last hour or two; one of her boats was grounding on the strand. Suddenly a crowd formed around the three men who had just stepped ashore; arms moved excitedly. Pouliot went to listen. When the news sank in, he hurried to the warehouse of Henri Fourchet.

****

"Michel, what is it? Have you seen the devil?"

"No, Monsieur. The Petrel is here. Their mate says he saw La Fleur de Berville, four days ago. She was headed southwest, past Quessant, into the open ocean, with strangers on her deck."

"Mon dieu! Are you certain?"

"I wasn't there to see it, but I have no doubt those who did will tell you all they know, over a glass."

Fourchet's closed hand pounded softly on the desk. "Pirates. And not from our coast. Even if we had anything powerful enough to take her back, she's beyond reach by now. This is disastrous."

"I'm sorry to bring such news. Still, I must ask what I'm to do today."

"Keep the shop open, I suppose. We're likely to see buyers for some of what we have here. I must make a few calls regarding cargo for La Fleur de Villerville. I'll be thinking, on the problem of what to do next."

****

The children were long since asleep. Spread out in front of the candles on the dining table were the account books, the latest inventories, and a sheet of hastily written figures. The warm evening and the chirping outside brought little comfort. "I see, Henri, but what are we to make of all this?"

"Anne, I see only penury slowly closing around us, if we stay here and try to carry on. Things have been precarious for a considerable time; this loss pushes us over the cliff. Everyone around here is worried at what's going on in the world, nobody spends more than they must, and some of the most desirable imports are becoming expensive at the source. We cannot expect profits enough to sustain us, let alone regain our old fortunes."

She drew in a breath. "Are you saying we'll be cast out? Lose our home and go on the roads? Starve?"

"No, not if we act while we still can. In the east, there's opportunity. The new rulers in the Netherlands value commerce, and protect it. The United States, more so. We have funds on deposit in Amsterdam, commercial contacts as well. In Copenhagen they know us. We still have La Fleur de Villerville. If we load her with what we can take, sell what we can't, we should have enough to establish ourselves."

She looked around the familiar room, the old pewter ranked on the shelves. "To lose all this? Everything we've known all our lives? Our relatives? The friends of Claire and Jules? I can hardly imagine it."

He nodded, and laid his hand atop hers. "Yes, and all the people we know, who speak our language. We can expect no more than a letter from them at long intervals. But others have borne much worse. We will be able to live, and God willing, prosper again. Especially for Claire and Jules; for their sakes alone, we must go. If there's an alternative, it eludes me."

"So. This is so much to take in, so suddenly. We must leave as soon as the cargo is assembled?"

"No, ma cherie. I see no point in waiting for that. We would only drain our funds further. It's best that we load what we have and go as soon as we can. I'll begin closing our affairs here in the morning."

****

La Fleur de Villerville was crowded, even though only half-loaded with salable goods. Besides the crew and the Fourchet family, Michel Pouliot, his young wife, and their three children had elected to follow his master, as had two of the warehousemen. Professeur Lebrun, as well, saw better opportunities in the Netherlands, and accepted Fourchet's offer of passage. Perhaps he would teach at Leiden.

They'd had a following wind much of the way. They'd passed through the narrowest part of the Channel in the dark, sailing by the compass, and not been seen. Food and water, well, there was enough to last his crammed-in multitude until Amsterdam, with a little care. It wasn't too far, now.

As evening came on, an overcast crept in from the west, and the sky slowly became darker and grayer. Captain Bouclet studied it for a time. "All hands on deck! Aloft, and furl the topsails."

He went below to the cabin and busied himself with the charts for a few minutes. Back on deck, he gave the helmsman a new course to steer. Fourchet looked at him, a question in his eyes. "Knowing where we are, Monsieur, by seeing the shoreline, is good. But if those clouds mean what I suspect, it will be better to be far away from land. Never mind that we'll have further to sail afterward."

Fourchet nodded, and said nothing. He knew when to let a man do his job. Especially a man as experienced as Joseph Bouclet.

****

    The last of the daylight faded; the only light on deck now was the binnacle lamp and a couple of lanterns. Emile Giscard had the watch. Over the hours the wind swung around to the northwest and strengthened; rain came at times. He and the hands on deck covered themselves with what protective clothing they owned; at least the coldest time of year wasn't yet at hand. So far, they'd been able to swing the yards and shift the sheets little by little to hold their course and still keep driving ahead, but Giscard could see that they would soon reach the limit of what was possible in that regard. Evidently, Captain Bouclet could tell the same by the ship's motion, even below. Though the watch wasn't yet at an end, he came on deck, listened, felt the tension on the various lines, and reached the decision Giscard would have made in another few minutes. The wind was too strong to continue sailing. It was time to lie-to under bare poles, until the worst of the storm passed. "All hands on deck! Clew up and furl."

Giscard moved to the mainmast's running rigging, his usual place during all-hands maneuvers. Suddenly a strong gust hit like a giant's fist. The ship heeled over hard. Miraculously, the weather shrouds held, but from aft came the terrible sound of wood splintering and then canvas tearing out. A thundering impact shook the deck. The hands froze in shock. Giscard felt the bow begin to swing down to leeward as the balancing force of the great lateen mizzen sail was lost. In seconds, the fore and main would belly out, taking the full force of the wind broadside, and blow out from the strain, if the masts didn't go first. No time to form any of this into words in his mind, only time to roar out the one vital order. "Obey the captain! Cast off sheets and clew up! Helm hard alee!" He already had his hand on the port mainsheet.

****

With the fore and main sails hauled up to the yards, the high poop and whatever there now was of the mizzen sail had turned the bow to face into the wind. Ships had ridden out storms that way for hundreds of years. That took care of one danger, but whatever had crashed down on deck was liable to go over the side at any moment and drag the ship down onto her beam ends. Yet no orders were coming from the captain. Giscard took his lantern and went to look.

"Lord, take his soul into Heaven!"

The huge yard must have broken in half just above the midpoint. The whole upper yardarm and half the sail had come flying down with the wind behind it to the main deck. The captain had evidently tried to take shelter in front of the break of the poop, a sensible enough move in the dark, but luck had gone against him. The broken spar must have been pivoting as it fell. But Giscard couldn't stay to look, there was immediate danger to deal with. The upper end of the yardarm thrashed back and forth along the remnants of the poop rail with the roll of the ship. If it didn't go over, it could batter away the shrouds.

"Buisson! Garrier! To the poop and help me secure the wreckage to the mast. The rest, aloft and furl."

Finally, with the remaining part of the mizzen yard and sail lowered to the deck and roughly secured, there was a moment to take stock of the situation, and to make a proper report to their employer. The immediate danger of foundering, or further damage to the rigging, was past. The great concern now was their position. Did they have enough sea room to just wait out the blow, while they determined what sort of repair was possible? Not that they could even find out the condition of the spars and standing rigging before first light. Giscard went below and brought the navigational calculations up to date. The answer was not to his liking. If nothing changed, they had only hours. Perhaps ten, perhaps fifteen. The storm could easily last that long, and the way it was blowing, nearly from the northwest, they were embayed. There was land further to windward, whatever direction they sailed. If they could sail. Well, that would become possible, with just the mainsail and the fore and mizzen topsails, once the wind moderated. But slowed down by the effective loss of the largest sails on two of the masts, they'd make leeway almost as quickly as lying-to, so that would be useless unless the wind direction shifted as well. Well, it usually did, when a storm finally passed. In any case, all that was for later. What was left for now? Anchor and buy time? Giscard called for the lead to be cast. There was a bottom, within reach of the cable.

"Rig the anchor. We shall drop it."

Fourchet said, "That's heavy work, I understand. Will it help if my warehousemen and I lend our strength?"

"No, Monsieur, I cannot permit landsmen on deck while we do this. You wouldn't know where to stand or when to move. Later, there may very well be occasion to accept your offer."

They got the exhausting, dangerous job done. But the motion of the ship was wrong. Giscard put his hand on the cable, to feel it. Yes.

"Monsieur, the anchor is dragging. I must order it hoisted again; we can use your men's help now to get this done quickly, and the women under Buisson's direction to lay it in proper order in the cable tier so it will run freely again."

"Even dragging, does it not slow our leeward drift and gain us more time for the storm to pass?"

"A little, but if it drags on the bottom for long, the cable will chafe and we'll lose the anchor and be worse off. No, we must take other measures. Boatswain Tissot, if I set everyone you can use to help you, can you turn the wreckage of the mizzen yard and sail into a sea anchor?"

"Certainly, mon capitaine."

Mon capitaine. Was this what it felt like to be a captain? It was an honor he could have cheerfully forgone at this moment.

****

With the ship finally riding to the crude drogue, Emile Giscard paced back and forth, thinking of alternatives. There were a couple of spare spars, but nothing the size of that yard. They could perhaps hoist something like a square topsail on the lower mast. That would be worth something. The mizzen topsail itself would be worth something; they still had it.

Before they could do anything like that, however, it would be necessary to inspect the mizzenmast and all its rigging for further damage—he knew already that at least two of the mizzen shrouds had parted. They could splice, but rope once broken in such a way wasn't to be trusted. They would have to rig preventer stays before putting any strain on that mast; fortunately, they had a spare length of anchor cable.

So, then. There was no way to move against the wind while it remained too strong to set topsails, but once it moderated enough, or changed direction, they could head up and get past the Texel, or at least turn the other way and move somewhat back the way they'd come, but out to sea, and then wear round to take up their course again. But setting any sail while the wind kept on at anything like this strength would require great caution and constant vigilance. Not to be attempted in the dark. If anything else blew out, they would be done.

Other ideas passed through his mind, to be instantly discarded as useless or impractical. In the end, it all came down to two conclusions. Everything depended on some sort of a change in the wind, before they were finally driven onto the Dutch coast, and it was impossible to determine the true condition of the rigging or make workable repairs before first light. For now, set a small anchor watch and rest the crew for the work to come.

****

Anne was below, alternately calming the children and praying, first for poor Captain Bouclet's soul, then for their own safety. Several others, those who were awake, had joined her in prayer. Henri, after comforting her for a time as well as he could, returned to the deck.

"Well, Giscard, how do we stand?"

"We wait and keep watch. When the wind moderates, we set course again."

"And if it does not? We're driving closer toward shore, are we not?"

"Yes. If it does not, we'll be coming into well-traveled waters. There's a good chance we'll encounter local shipping or fishing boats at daylight. They could tell us the direction to the harbor at Velsen, which is not too far from here."

"Could we find it, though? For that matter, by then would we be in a position from which we could still reach it?"

"It should be recognizable by its buildings. But it would be preferable to pay a local fisherman to lead us to the entrance."

"So, then, if I understand you at all, it's uncertain, much depends on luck, and maybe someone heading out to fish in this storm at daylight would be there to help us, and quite possibly not. We're in trouble, yes? We could end up driven ashore and find nothing there but beach or rocks, in this violent weather?"

"Yes, Monsieur Fourchet, you have the right of it. We're in trouble."

Fourchet considered this. "But, help. Well, then. Lebrun, could that collection of mysteries you have below bring us help? I believe you once spoke of such."

"Perhaps. I can try."

"Try, then. No sense letting any more time slip out of our fingers. If there's help to be had, there's no knowing how long it may take to reach us. Giscard, you agree?"

"Yes, Monsieur. If it can be done, the sooner the better."

****

They were far enough east, perhaps, to be in seas where men had radio. What frequency to try, though? The answer was: all of them. Victor Lebrun slowly, methodically worked his crystal set through its tuning range, searching for signals. The minutes wore away. Then, through the ship's manifold sounds, he passed across something strange, inexplicable. It wasn't anything he recognized, but curiosity brought him back, to spend a few moments puzzling over it. There were faint, rhythmic interruptions in the atmospheric background noise, at a frequency far above anything he'd used in his experiments. But, wait, the interruptions were in the patterns of Morse code, or a strange mirror-image of it! He could think of no explanation for such a thing, but those regular rhythms couldn't be a natural phenomenon, they could only be an unknown effect of someone else's transmitter. He delicately moved the tuning screw back and forth, settling on the strongest position. He switched the antenna over to his transmitter, and set it roughly by eye to what should be about the same frequency. Then he closed the key, and refined the setting until the sound was strongest in his receiver.

Radio stations, he knew, had call signs, strings of letters by which they could tell one from another. What should he call himself? The book had said call signs were given out by nations, and each had its own set. All call signs beginning with F belonged to France. What else, then, to distinguish him alone? V, for La Fleur de Villerville? Well enough.

SOS SOS SOS DE FV FV FV

Again.

Suddenly a stentorian musical tone rang in his headset. Someone was calling him.

Off Vlieland, Netherlands

Keeping a radio watch with a total crew of four, including the cook, was something on the bare edge of the possible. Petty Officer Third Class Otto Schmied had enough to do, between steering, keeping the sails trimmed to make the best use of the wind, and keeping up a proper lookout. Heaven help his chances for promotion if he failed at any of those duties. He could hear the speaker, protected from the weather under the skylight, monitoring the four megahertz calling frequency, but nobody on deck was going to copy any traffic on paper with all this spray coming over the rail. Staying on course and keeping track of his position claimed most of his attention. Even in a fast and able schooner like this one, a lee shore was an uncomfortable place to be, especially in the kind of weather the latest reports spoke of. The captain's orders were to go straight out to sea a good long way, before turning for home.

The latest addition alongside the compass housing was a marvel. One dial showing speed through the water, and another showing distance traveled. He hadn't the faintest idea how all of that worked, but he would very soon. Lieutenant Cameron had already put its operating and maintenance manuals on everyone's list of required studies. Now, if some genius could figure out an instrument to measure leeward drift as well . . .

He looked at the compass again, and checked the luff of the sails. Right where they should be. Running lights glowing brightly, and nothing visible on the horizon except a few stars low down in the east. Another hour and a half at this speed, and he could make the turn. They'd be off the Elbe in the morning.

Morse code came out of the speaker, as it had periodically since they'd left. A routine beacon transmission from a shore station, inviting calls. Suddenly it penetrated his attention. NOK, on the Norwegian coast a few miles west of Stavanger, had just sent a CQ—a transmission addressed to all stations—with the SOS prefix. Somebody was in danger, somewhere. Harlingen would be repeating it in a minute. He locked the wheel and went below to wake the captain.

****

It was a common misconception that Archibald Alexander Cameron had ridden with Mackay. In fact, he'd never sat on a horse. He had, though, walked many a rolling deck in his years, though few as odd as this one. But he'd needed a place, and this new navy needed sea officers who knew what they were doing. After a year and a half, though, he was still refining his mastery of this United States courier schooner, the original of the Wild class herself. Well, sometimes old sea dogs had to learn new tricks; everything about seamanship was getting turned sideways these days.

Tonight he was dreaming of home—the freezing winters, the land you couldn't get your hands on, the crops you couldn't raise on it if you did, the sheep-stealing bastards you and your dogs had to keep watching out for . . .

Someone was shaking his shoulder. "Sir. Sir. There's distress traffic on the net. I've started the transmitter warming up."

"Urff?" Blood and balls! Would it ha' been too much to sleep to the end o' the watch? The mental fog began to blow away. Dinna nip at a man for doing his duty. He worked himself into a sitting position and massaged his forehead. "A'right, Schmied, I understand. Thank y', you can go back on deck now."

He moved over to the radio position tucked into the corner of the main cabin and sat down. Getting some clothes on could wait. Here came Harlingen repeating the emergency message; he copied it and then acknowledged. What followed was as predictable as sunrise.

WNDS DE WNP QTH? K

He snorted. The duty officer at Harlingen base knew SSIM Lawrence Wild's itinerary as well as he did. With a glance at the chronometer, he worked the rough numbers in his head and banged them off. The question at this minute was, should he divert? That decision was his responsibility, and nobody else's. Well, the fleet mail could stand to take an extra day en route if it had to, and the only other cargo on board was even less urgent—a dozen burst boiler tubes for the shipyard engineers to puzzle over with their microscopes and their destructive testing machines. Meanwhile, there were twenty-two lives in deadly peril somewhere to the southwest, and no other vessel had acknowledged the message so far. Maybe the little Wild could make the difference, maybe it couldn't, but it certainly wouldn't if he didn't go. The chart was right there on the mess table. He reached for the parallel rule.

****

Cameron went up the ladder carrying the slip of paper with the new course, and slid the hatch open. "Is that you, Captain? I just spotted running lights, off to the north. I'm going to sheer off a little, to steer clear."

"Eh? No, dinna do that. Keep on, then turn and run parallel off their quarter. I'll hail them with the flare pistol. The sails will raise less racket, with us running before the wind."

That course change could wait just a little longer.

****

They'd edged in as close to that other vessel as he dared, in this rising sea with nothing to see her by but the running lights. Even so, it was still hard to tell what the other captain was shouting. Halvard Wooden-hand had his elbow crooked around the shrouds, the other hand cupped to his ear. "I think I heard 'distress' and 'radio.' That's all I caught."

"Radio? Lars! Man the radio!"

CQ CQ CQ DE SAFF SAFF SAFF QRZ? K

—Who is calling me?

SAFF DE WNDS . . .

Stripped of Q signals and abbreviations, it went:

Who are you?

I am schooner Mariehamns Aurora , three hundred tons, out of Kymi River with sawn lumber for Harlingen base.

I am SSIM Lawrence Wild , thirty tons, out of Harlingen base with mail for Hamburg. A French ship in distress off Haarlem with twenty-two souls on board needs to be towed off a lee shore. Can you assist?

Yes. How will we find them?

Radio direction finder. Do you have one?

No.

I do. You can keep my running lights in sight. If you lose me, I can guide you back with the direction finder.

All right. Tell me the course you intend.

WNP, did you copy? Inform PBN. Estimated time of arrival five to seven hours.

****

At the turn of the watch they were far enough west to have a straight over-water shot to Vlissingen, and hear PBN's beacon signal while WNP was still in range. Mariehamns Aurora was holding station astern and to leeward. Cameron called an all-hands briefing. He and Boatswain Paul Langenburger worked out the estimated dead-reckoning position separately. They took separate radio bearings on the two coastal stations. The shore stations took bearings on them, unhindered by pitching and rolling. From here on it would be dead reckoning off a lee shore, and Cameron wanted to know where they were starting from. They weren't yet close enough to hear the French signal, so Cameron drew a course to the search area, safely off shore.

"And that's the way of it. Questions?"

"Looks like dirty weather we're heading into. Should we reef down now, while we're all still awake?"

"Aye, that'd be a sensible idea, Langenburger, except we don't know how much time those folk have. They likely don't, themselves. That being so, we'll reef when we must. It's your watch and your call, just don't wait overlong. And get bearings on them when you can. When you call me for my watch, belike we'll be close enough by then to gather everybody on the same frequency and make some plans."

"Aye, aye, Captain. Until then."

"You have the deck, then. Schmied and Bardaro, to our bunks. We're going to find oursel's muckle busy afore long."

****

Giscard had left orders to be called as soon as there was light enough to see by.

In the cold gray dawn, he and Tissot could finally see and touch all of the hurts La Fleur had suffered. It was worse than they'd imagined.

"Boatswain, your face speaks of words you dislike to say. Best you come out with it."

"Very well, mon capitaine. Outside of a shipyard, I see no way to set all this right. The broken and stretched shrouds, yes, those we can jury-rig with some of the extra anchor cable. The broken deck planking, bien, that we were able to cover over last night with canvas to keep most of the water from pouring in. But see how badly sprung the lower mast is! Before it could carry any sail, we would have to fish it. We could use a piece of the broken yard to lend it strength, perhaps."

"Perhaps. I was thinking of recovering the sea anchor and dropping the hook again; we may be over better holding ground by now, and the wind has dropped a little. But, if those two ships Lebrun has been communing with half the night should arrive soon, and he swears their radio signals are very strong now, it would take much longer to raise that than to bring in the sea anchor."

Tissot put his finger to his lips, thinking. "True enough. But then, carrying sail on the fished lower mast is one thing, carrying sail on a topmast resting on a fished lower mast would be a different matter entirely. That, I would not like to do. But . . . if we set the topsail yard on the lower mast instead, then we would have the topmast itself to fish it with."

"Ah, yes, and of course the topmast already has all the bits of iron in place to carry the yard." He slapped his hand on the lee rail. "Eh, bien. This is clearly the best that can be done, and the quickest. Very well, you may call the hands and begin. And I will wait a little longer to try the anchor again."

    The thought went through his head that if this tow succeeded, they would likely need to cast it off anyway to get through the narrow passage into the Zuider Zee, and so would have to sail on their own when that time came. If it failed in any of half a dozen ways, then they would need to sail again as soon as the wind let them—if the anchor could keep them from being driven ashore in the meantime. And perhaps nothing would work, but fortune favored those who prepared the way for her coming. As he finished his ruminations, Buisson called down from the masthead, "Sails in sight to windward! Some crazy sort of foreign rig!"

Giscard took a moment to climb part way up the foremast shrouds to see for himself, and saw a small vessel, moving very fast, changing course to come straight at them. Behind her, something much bigger, long and low, emerged from the murk. So this was what a three-masted schooner looked like.

****

There was a great lot of jury-rigging going on this morning.

Archie Cameron watched the Swedish crew finish hanging their heaving line out where his men could snatch it on a run past the stern. Nowise would he give up steerage way close to another vessel in this sea. Mariehamns Aurora's mizzen boom stretched out well past her taffrail, and they'd given it extra reach by lashing on a twenty-foot four-by-four from their cargo. The heaving line hung down from the very tip, with a loop in the end spread open with an odd bit of lumber. Up went their boom with a rush, safely above Wild's mast height.

A few feet aft of where Cameron stood, Salvatore Bardaro had more pressing duties at the moment than getting porridge on the boil. He stood ready with a boathook lashed to an oar for extra reach. He and his implement were secured to the mainmast with a line each; if ever there was a good time to have a man go overboard, this wasn't it.

Over on La Fleur de Villerville, they were sending down the mizzen topmast, not a thing to be done on a whim with the waves rolling in like this and the wind ripping sheets of spume off their crests.

Langenburger braced his lean form against the wheel housing. "It would be so much easier to pass a towline with that beautiful motor tender we have hanging in the stern davits."

"Aye, Bosun, daft as it would be to try lowering a boat amid these tumbling waves. O' course, if it weren't for yon sea and th' gale, we'd na be here passing a towline t' begin with. And t'would be a good deal easier to pick up th' line, had we all day for the Swedes to drift it down to us. Well, they're set. Let's be aboot it."

"Aye, aye, Captain. Ready about."

Schmied threw off the inner jib; everything else but the foresail was already furled for this business. Langenburger spun the wheel hard over, and around they went, on a broad reach, aiming just to leeward of the hanging line, with Schmied and Cameron playing the sheets.

Bardaro got the boathook on the hanging line for an instant, but it slipped off before he could get it inboard.

"A braw practice run, Bosun!"

Langenburger acknowledged with a rueful grimace, and ran on just far enough to get room to tack. Back past Aurora, and around again.

This time, he had the feel of the leeway they were making, and got them in closer. Bardaro aimed the boathook like a lance, pointed forward. The tip went through the loop. He swung it in, and the line came sliding down the shaft toward his waiting hand. Cameron grabbed, bent down, whipped it around a deck cleat, and crossed it over the top. The bit of light yarn holding the line to the four-by-four broke free as soon as the strain hit, and off they went, with the cable paying out from Aurora's stern.

"So much for the easy part."

Langenburger steered for the Frenchman's stern, to pass to leeward as close as he dared. Just beyond, they headed up, dragging the line up toward the stern. Someone threw a grapnel, hauled in. Missed. The man tried again, but the line had caught the sloping edge of the rudder and slid down out of sight.

"Ballocks. Take us down t' leeward, Bosun, and stretch that line out again, so it's well clear o' that rudder. We'll tack, beat up, and come at him again."

This time the man with the grapnel had a better method. It was already hanging straight down from the extreme aft end of the poop deck, just under the waves. The courier passed, bore up to windward, and as the heaving line straightened inside the courier's turn, it slid right into the grapnel's line and kicked it sideways. The French sailor hauled up furiously, and had the line in his hands within seconds. Bardaro flung the free end over the side, stick and all.

****

The work at the mizzenmast was not to be interrupted. Giscard thought about calling Fourchet's men to help bring the heavy towline aboard, but no, this was no time to risk mistakes. It was a job for sailors. Garrier had already tied off the heaving line and was leading it forward. "Buisson! Come down on deck and help us with this."

A few minutes of hauling by three strong men, and they had it. Giscard gave a close look at their handiwork; yes, the heavy line was properly secured to their forebitt. Getting in the sea anchor took little longer, with Fourchet's men helping at the plain hauling.

Giscard looked aft. The topmast was safely lashed to the lower mast in two places, and wouldn't be dislodged by any awkwardness in starting the tow. Good. It was time. He turned toward the Swedish schooner and gave the agreed-upon signal, hat waving in a circle above his head. Nothing happened. Again. Nothing. Apparently, they couldn't see him; well, he couldn't see what was happening on their decks any too well through the spray, himself.

"Professeur Lebrun . . ."

SAFF DE FV TIREZ K

—Pull.

FV DE SAFF R K

The Swede's sea anchor must have already been hove short. It lifted from the waves and swung inboard with little apparent effort. The foremost and smallest of their sails rose from the bowsprit and stretched out to port for a few moments. Slowly, delicately, the bow turned. The sails began to gingerly draw, shivering at all but the trailing edge. She made bare steerage way, into the gale, taking up the slack in the towline. La Fleur de Villerville responded, pivoting to follow the cable. At that, Mariehamns Aurora's bow swung smartly to leeward, and the three great sails filled, heeled her over, thrust her forward across the oncoming seas. Their own bow wave rose like a waterfall, and away they went to windward and north to clear the Texel. Never had he seen any vessel sail so close to such a wind. What could she do, unencumbered by a tow?

The little navy vessel waited until they passed, then filled her sails and bore up, crossing their wake, finally taking station to windward like a shepherd's dog. Down the wind came a snatch of song.

Storm along, drive along, punch her through the rips
Don't mind the boarding combers, as the solid green she ships
"Just mind your eye and watch your helm," our skipper he did say
"Clean decks we'll sport tomorrow, on the Mary L. Mackay."

Epilogue

It was nearly a year since Lawrence Wild had been to Harlingen. Cameron stood amidships, listening to Petty Officer Second Class Schmied by the wheel, teaching the new man the fine art of holding course in the light mid-day breeze. If it weren't for the lesson, he'd have just lowered the boat and motored in. Up forward, Langenburger stood with a boathook lying at his feet, ready to pick up the mooring, meanwhile keeping a lookout all around as they worked their way into the anchorage. Suddenly he stopped and stared at something.

"Captain, I think you'll want to see this." The boatswain handed him the ship's binoculars and pointed at a tidy-looking new building on the commercial waterfront.

Cameron looked. It took a second for the sign on the building to register.

Henri Fourchet

Ship Chandler

"Well, isna that a bonny sight! So those folk we snatched from the wind and wave have come and taken root here, eh? It'd be a fine thing to finally go meet them face to face, wouldn't y' say?"

Langenburger's face settled into a quiet smile. "I'd like that. They would too, I think."

****

The Red Flag of Henneberg

Written by Virginia DeMarce

    

Grantville, Spring 1635

“What are they?” Hedy Beasley asked her husband.

“Bed sheets. King size. Fucking worn out bed sheets that won’t even fit our mattress. Just like everything I get to bring home from the laundry is so worn out that the person who brought it in doesn’t want it any more. Damn, but I hate hand-me-downs. Always did, even when I was a kid. Never fit right. Always a couple of years behind what everyone else in your class has.”

Hedy frowned. “They aren’t worn out. This one just has a hole in the middle and the ‘elastic’ has died. If I cut it down the center, cut off the elastic, sew the side edges together, trim the new outsides until they are even and hem them, then . . .”

“It’s worn out, Hedy.” Jarvis didn’t have much patience with the domestic arts. He finished his current task and looked down at what baby Viana had just accomplished. “Cut it up and use the edge parts for diapers. The way she’s going, we could sure use more.”

Hedy looked doubtful. “Dark red diapers?”

“Camouflage.” Jarvis handed Viana over to her mother and sat down to drink his beer.

****

Hedy turned both of the dark red pillow cases into baby dresses. Viana needed them, she was growing so fast, and it was hardly any work, since they were already hemmed and had side seams.

She salvaged what she could from the “bottom sheet” with the hole. Since Jarvis had complained, she thought he might notice if she sewed the two sections together into a new sheet and put it on the bed, but he would never notice new curtains. She was very proud of her new kitchen curtains. She had a “valance” and “tie backs” and “ruffles,” with narrow ruffles edging the wide ruffles. It was as close as she could make to what she remembered she had seen when she was cleaning Frau Donna Bates’ house, before Frau Brandy made everything there so stinking plain.

Plain was for people who couldn’t afford fancy, in Hedy’s humble opinion. Not that anyone would ask her.

She laid the “top sheet” away in a drawer. It was a truly magnificent amount of fabric. The center was worn thin, but didn’t actually have a hole. She could cut around the thin spot. Perhaps she could make herself a whole dress, suitable for wearing to a fair. She would love to go to the Badenburg fair wearing a red dress. Before Jarvis, her clothes had been either sort of tan or sort of olive green or sort of drab blue. She had never aspired to red.

She would love to go to the Badenburg fair with Jarvis. If, that was, she was ever again allowed to leave the confines of West Virginia County to go to a real kirmess. The “fair” in Grantville was more of an industrial exhibition now, full of mechanical gadgets and competition for investors and funding. It wasn’t really fun.

Grantville, Summer 1635

The emperor invaded Saxony.

Hedy thought over what Judge Tito had told her the previous spring and made a call at the West Virginia County Courthouse to ask him whether or not it was safe for her to go to a fair, now that John George and his Saxon officials and his Saxon laws probably had other things to worry about than whether she was a bigamist.

She received informal judicial advice that it was better to be safe than sorry.

At that point, she called on the Freedom Arches.

She received informal political advice that until the Saxon-administered districts in Henneberg got themselves sufficiently together to throw the rascals out and make it stick, it was better to be safe than sorry.

On the way out, she stopped to look at the CoC bulletin board.

The advice “To be sung to the tune of ‘O Tannenbaum’ from Suhl County” headed one sheet of paper.

Not that this was unusual. It seemed to her that half of the anthems rendered by CoC members in their more expansive and liquid moments were sung to that tune. It seemed to be everywhere.

There were English words in the first column. Hedy passed over those. She couldn’t read English yet, but presumably the strange letters that said The Red Flag meant the same thing as the sensible Fraktur letters that everyone knew how to read and which said Die Rote Fahne.

The people's flag is deepest red,

It shrouded oft our martyr'd dead

And ere their limbs grew stiff and cold,

Their hearts' blood dyed its ev'ry fold.

Dark red. Blood.

Dunkelrot. Blut.

Refrain:

Then raise the scarlet standard high,

Within its shade we'll live and die,

Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer,

We'll keep the red flag flying here.

Here? Grantville didn’t need a red flag, even if someone got above himself and called it a scarlet standard. But Henneberg. Henneberg could use a dark red banner. Judge Tito and the CoC leaders agreed. She couldn’t go to a fair until Schleusingen threw out the Saxons. That would, possibly, require, red and blood. Maybe even martyrs. As Jarvis often said, “shit happens.”

Red, she could provide. The rest would be up to her fellow Hennebergers.

Look round, the Frenchman loves its blaze,

The sturdy German chants its praise,

In Moscow's vaults its hymns are sung,

Chicago swells the surging throng.

Moscow. She thought that Frau Brandy’s husband Vladimir came from Moscow. In fact, she was sure of it. He was a prince, though, so why would he want to sing a revolutionary hymn? But that was his problem and not hers. Henneberg was certainly German.

It waved above our infant might

When all around seemed dark as night;

It witnessed many a deed and vow,

We must not change its colour now.

There was one thing to be said for the up-time dyes. They rarely faded. If she made a red flag, it was unlikely to change its color.

It well recalls the triumphs past;

It gives the hope of peace at last:

The banner bright, the symbol plain,

Of human right and human gain.

Ahrensbök. Gustavus Adolphus’ new victories this summer. Triumphs. The Council of Copenhagen. Peace, but it hadn’t lasted. Maybe next time. Surely attending the Badenburg fair qualified as a human right, even if she had to go in her old tan skirts.

It suits today the meek and base,

Whose minds are fixed on pelf and place,

To cringe before the rich man's frown

And haul the sacred emblem down.

She frowned. The meek and base must be the Hennebergers who did what the Saxon administrators told them to because they wanted to be rich. Because they wanted to be appointed to this or that position, wear gold chains of office around their necks, and march toward the front of town parades.

Dark red.

Revolution.

Henneberg.

The Badenburg fair.

Without hesitation, Hedy sacrificed her dreams of a red dress to a higher purpose.

****

The “king size” top sheet would make a really big banner.

The center was very thin, so Hedy reinforced it, on both sides, with pieces of white sheet, about four feet by five feet, whipped onto the stronger cloth at the edges.

Then she started to make appliqués through all three thicknesses. She appliquéd every revolutionary symbol that anyone in the Grantville CoC had ever mentioned to her. There were adders on all four corners with the motto that said, “Don’t tread on me.” She embroidered portraits of Brillo and Ewegenia and placed them next. There was a hammer and sickle toward the bottom center.

That was just one side.

    The other side started with a Bundschuh in the center and went from there.

By the time she finished, the white fabric was practically quilted and stood out stiffly with the flimsier wide red edges fluttering around it. She thought it would be very nice for being carried as an ensign on a long, long, pole.

She folded it up. She stopped at the Freedom Arches and painstakingly copied out Die Rote Fahne. She put that on top, wrapped the package carefully in oiled cloth, stopped at the post office, and mailed it to “Head of the Committee of Correspondence, Schleusingen, Henneberg (Saxony).”

She did not include a return address. The revolution might succeed. But then, again, it might not. Nobody can say that Hedwig Altschulerin has ever been anybody’s fool, she thought with satisfaction.

Schleusingen, Henneberg, August 1635

Wolfgang Heilman—almost always called Wolf, whether by exasperated parents and teachers when he was a boy or friends and enemies in the present—looked at the contents of the package he had just opened.

No, there was nothing else. Just the banner and the poem.

He knew “O Tannenbaum,” of course. Everybody in the Henneberg CoC knew the tune. As chairman, he was expected to lead a lot of the singing.

With heads uncovered swear we all

To bear it onward till we fall.

Come dungeon dark or gallows grim,

This song shall be our parting hymn.

According to the newspapers—if a man could trust them—the emperor’s campaign in Saxony was going well. John George would soon be on the run. He’d better call a meeting of the committee.

That evening, he looked at the people gathered around his mother’s kitchen table. Four women, including his formidable mother Hildegard, were crowded onto the high-backed bench. Albrecht Mack’s wife Anna Gerlichin, too pregnant to sit comfortably, was standing up. The men made do with three-legged stools. All of them were staring at the banner with fascination. Clearly, this was A Message From On High.

Hildegard touched the top edge. “It’s genuine up-time fabric,” she said with awe. “So expensive. So rare. I’m amazed that they consider us worthy of it.”

Thomas Jehn turned it over so they could look at the other side.

“I thought we were going to use a Ram banner when the time came,” Albrecht complained. He could always find something to whine about.

“There’s a Brillo on this.” Barbara Wermann stabbed a finger at the image.

“Only on one side.” Albrecht could be relied upon to focus on the cloud that surrounded every silver lining. Maybe it was because he was a tanner and spent his days among vats of curing leather in a constant fog of urine and ammonia.

Wolf decided to let them talk themselves out. That was the easiest procedure—consensus by exhaustion and hoarse voices. He motioned to his mother not to refill the beer pitcher. Thirst was also a powerful motivator when it came to getting a meeting to come to some kind of a conclusion.

Paulus Weigel cleared his throat. “It was mailed from the post office in Grantville itself. That is significant.”

“But who sent it?” Barbara’s brother Bartholomäus had a tendency to ask uncomfortable questions, often along the lines of, “Just who is paying for this?”

“Someone delegated by the central authority.” Weigel’s voice oozed confidence. “That is clear. Possibly it is from Spartacus. Perhaps from die Richterin herself. But certainly, it is a message. They don’t want us to play nice any longer.”

Dorothea Kästel nodded.

“It’s obvious what it means,” Catharina Sommer added. “Get a move on. It’s time to throw the rascals out! Things like that.”

This time, Hans Leibner nodded. So did Wolfgang’s brother Philipp—generally known as Lips.

When Albrecht opened his mouth again, his brother Dieter rapped him on the top of his head and his wife gave him that look.

“Will the Suhl CoC take an interest?” That was Bartholomäus.

“Take an interest and probably take us over,” Albrecht grumped.

Wolf frowned. That last was uncomfortably close to the most likely outcome. Since the Ring of Fire, the balance of power on the south slopes of the Thüringerwald had tilted in favor of Suhl.

“Who’ll be our major problems here?” That was Bartholomäus again.

Paulus pursed his lips. “Matthis Wilde is still the first Burgermeister and there’s never been anyone more pigheaded.”

“He’s not really in charge,” Bartholomäus pointed out. “How will Herrengossenstädt react?”

“John George’s overseer?” Wolf pulled at his mustache. Owing to his position as second to the militia captain responsible for defense of the southern walls, he had seen more of the Saxon administrator than any of the others. “Ludwig Ernst Marschalck von Herrengossenstädt is brave enough, even if he did take his family and dash off to Nürnberg in 1631—what else could he do, under the circumstances? Plus, he’s taken an oath to Saxony and when he gives his word, he takes it seriously. It’s unfortunate—unfortunate that he’s brave, I mean. If the town was about to be raided by Croats, I’d be delighted to have him in charge of the Schloss. In a situation where we’re the guys on the outside who are trying to get in, I can only wish that he was someplace else. He’s sure not likely to join us, considering that he named his son Johann Georg. Make a list, Barto. You and Paulus.”

“Anna, too,” Paulus said. “She worked for the apothecary’s wife for years before she married Albrecht and now old Amthor is the second Burgermeister in place of Johann Scheuner.”

Anna nodded. “I heard a lot. Overheard.”

“Eavesdropped, more likely,” her husband corrected. “I’ve never met a nosier woman.”

“Stop complaining. Right now, that’s a good thing.” Bartholomäus threw a piece of chalk at him.

Anna smirked. “Amthor might be reasonable. Schott, the new city council clerk, now he might be one of your problems. Stubborn as an old goat and worked in the Leipzig chancery office until they sent him over here. Don’t expect any real support from Ittig, even if he does say sympathetic things. Funk at the tax office will dig his heels in. And . . .”

“Take it to the other room. You three, the slate, and the chalk.” Wolf waved toward the door. “Come back when you have the list.”

Anna looked back at him from the door. “Do you want the ones who might work with us, too? Like Hans Gratias at customs? He didn’t move here from Arnstadt until a couple of years after the Ring of Fire, so he knows people in Grantville, and his wife’s a sister of the new mayor in Badenburg who married an up-time woman.”

Wolf blinked. He hadn’t thought of that. “Sure. For that matter, I can put together a list of the other militia officers who won’t go out of their way to interfere with us.”

Schleusingen, Henneberg, September 1635

Albrecht Mack looked at the pole. “Do we have anyone strong enough to carry this thing? To bear it onward till we fall takes on a whole different meaning with a banner this size. It’s as heavy as I am. Heavier, probably.” Albrecht was on the scrawny side.

“Maybe we don’t,” Barbara said, “but that blacksmith who came over from Suhl with Jorg Hennel has enough heft to weight it down at the bottom.”

“Do we want an outsider at the head of our column?” Anna asked. “This ought to be a movement of Hennebergers for their own freedom.”

Thomas Jehn sucked on his teeth. “Until the last count died, which was before I was born but my dad remembers it, Suhl used to be part of Henneberg, just like Schmalkalden.”

“Schleusingen Hennebergers,” Barbara specified.

Her brother ignored her and answered Jehn. “Not just like Schmalkalden. That belongs to Hesse-Kassel now. At least, Hesse-Kassel is administering it, which is why there are some Calvinists down here.” Bartholomäus’ day job was as a clerk in the canon law section of the Lutheran church’s superintendent’s office. He had his doubts about the wisdom of tolerating Calvinists, but had resigned himself to it as one of the CoC’s articles of faith that sometimes coexisted rather uneasily with his prior beliefs and convictions. “Suhl’s a county in the SoTF because it went to the other Wettins, the ones in Saxe-Weimar. That damned Crown Loyalist now-I’m-a-commoner-so-I-can-be-a-prime minister. Sneaky as hell. You’d think that the least that nobles could do is stick to their born-to-be-better-than-thou principles.”

“So we can count the blacksmith as one of us?” Dieter Mack asked.

Paulus Weigel grinned. “If he’s willing to volunteer to be martyred. The flag has to be right in front.”

****

“Hell, yes. I’ll carry it.” Tönnies Kummer laughed. “Can’t carry a gun at the same time, though.” Tönnies face reflected his dissatisfaction. “Not and manage this thing, even with the socket and neck strap that your tanner cobbled together for me to use. Too bad. I’d love to get rid of a couple of Saxon oppressors. Hang a few and shoot the rest, I always say.”

Jorg Hennel sighed under his breath. Gretchen Richter may have reamed out Tönnies and Lorenz Schmuck for shooting into Ruben Blumroder’s manufactory a couple of years earlier, but she hadn’t managed to change their personalities. They were still hotheads, both of them.

Moreover, they were his hotheads. He was the one who would get blamed if they did anything stupid this time.

“Why not just throw a scare into them and let them run?” Barbara asked. “It would be sort of satisfactory to watch them flee in cowardly terror. That’s what you did in Suhl last spring after the Dreeson assassination. You guys killed Pastor Abesser, the old witch finder Zehner’s son-in-law, during the Kristalnacht, but you let his wife and kids run off.”

Hennel shook his head. During the first six months of 1633, he had learned quite a bit from the organizers that Gretchen had left behind in Suhl to assist the CoC there and he’d been trying to put it into practice in the two years since then. “Most of the Saxon officials in Schleusingen won’t flee. Where can they go? Think about it. Henneberg’s entirely surrounded by the SoTF, and the SoTF, except on the east, is entirely surrounded by the USE. Margaretha Zehnerin ran off to Saxony, which isn’t exactly a peaceful place at the moment even though Gustavus Adolphus took it easily enough. Even if they’re Saxon dogs, corner a mutt and he’ll fight.”

“We could just arrest them and then wait until things calm down with the war and let the USE send in people to relieve them of their offices.” Bartholomäus tended to be considerably less militant than some other CoC members.

Jorg opened his mouth, but Paulus Weigel beat him to it. “Won’t work—not if we want influence in the town after the Saxons are gone. If we wait for the USE to move, now that Wettin is prime minister, they’ll just install some of the old guard who were willing to cooperate with them. Not us. Not CoC. Not Fourth of July Party. Unless you want to see old Amthor move up to First Burgermeister and keep things pretty much the way they’ve always been, we’re the ones who have to get rid of them. That’s why Grantville sent us the banner, I’m sure.”

“What I say,” Schmuck proclaimed, is ‘kill all the nobles, lawyers, local officials, church administrators, and their families too’ before they get themselves organized and kill us. Does anybody really think that’s not what the Crown Loyalists are planning to do? Wettin may not be saying it, but a lot of his toadies are thinking it, for sure.”

“Oh ducky, our own private little Reign of Terror right here in Schleusingen.” Bartholomäus sighed. He had read quite a few translations of up-time history books.

“What’s a ‘reign of terror’?” Tönnies Kummer inquired with interest. Schmuck perked right up.

Wolf Heilman decided that he needed to get control back, in a hurry. “They’re not that nasty, most of them. Not as individuals. If you look at it one way, they’re just doing their jobs. They’re enforcing an existing legal and political system on a day-to-day basis. Sure, we hate the system and we need to get them out of office. There are a few we need to get completely rid of, but I want to emphasize ‘a few.’ Killing them all would be overkill, if you will excuse the very bad pun.”

“I’m not so sure of that,” Paulus answered. “Think of what Machiavelli said about cutting off the head of a viper. . . . Maybe we do need to take out anyone who might spearhead a revenge movement later on. That would at least put a stop to endless local feuds before they start.”

Practical planning gave way to one more theoretical discussion as endless as any local feud.

****

Wolf looked around.

The courtyard behind Thomas Jehn’s knife-grinding shop was a fairly good place to meet if you had more people than would fit into Hildegard’s kitchen. Which there were, since a dozen or so more of Hennel’s Suhl people had arrived, plus the chairmen from Schmalkalden and Meiningen and a delegate from Hildburghausen. The guy from Römhild had come on his own—the town didn’t have a real CoC chapter yet.

At some point, probably a couple of hundred years earlier, this had been a much more prosperous and fashionable part of Schleusingen. The wall was a good eight feet high and topped with sharp barbs. Dieter Mack had climbed up and was sitting in the one spot where the barbs had rusted out, acting as a lookout.

Someone, a long time ago, had stuccoed the inner walls. Large sections had peeled off, letting the bricks show through and giving the whole thing a scabby appearance. Still, they caught the sun’s warmth during the day and shared it in the evening with anyone who was sitting outside.

Jehn’s wife had closed the back door to the house, trapping the children inside. She’d given the oldest boy, who was about eight, a rare permission to play his drum indoors. He was taking full advantage, which would probably take care of any eavesdroppers on the street side. She and Barbara Wermann perched on the shallow stone stoop.

There was an open shed on the north side where Thomas kept his equipment. Next to the house, the two rabbit hutches and the chicken coop didn’t make the area smell any better, but it was still preferable to the Mack brothers’ tannery yard.

He was about to call the meeting to order when there was a disturbance in the house. Jehn’s oldest boy squalled for his mother. Osanna yelled back that she was nursing the baby, so would somebody else please get the door. Barbara hopped up off the stoop and ran inside. The next thing was that she hollered for Wolf and Thomas to come, because some guys were trying to break through the front door.

Everyone in the courtyard reached for a weapon.

Wolf reached the door first and looked through the peephole just as a sledgehammer splintered the middle plank. Thomas had veered away to shoo his children up the ladder and into the loft.

****

“How dumb can you be?” Jorg Hennel asked with disgust. “The four of you aren’t even supposed to be here. You’re supposed to be home in Suhl.”

“We got to thinking, after you’d been gone for a few days,” Martin Grobben said. “We thought that maybe you and Tönnies and Lorenz were being detained against your will—that the whole thing had been a ploy by the reactionaries here in Schleusingen to get their hands on the leaders of the revolutionary movement in Suhl.”

Hennel groaned. “Sometimes I wish that you would just refrain from thinking. Nothing good ever comes out of it when you think for yourselves.”

“So we came over,” Caspar Trott said. “We asked around at a few taverns . . .”

“More than a few, the way you smelled when you arrived at Jehn’s house. Why in hell did you batter the door down?”

“The kid wouldn’t let us in,” Werner Streitling answered. His face assumed a solemn, if somewhat simple, expression. “We had to assume the worst.”

Baltzer Motz nodded. “That’s when we started to break through the door. How were we to know that the Schleusingen CoC chairman and a girl were on the other side of it? I’m real sorry that I broke her arm.”

“You ought to be even sorrier that you broke Heilmann’s collarbone.”

“Why? He was trying to keep Baltzer and the rest of us out. Damn it, Jorg, we were coming to your rescue. And anyway,” Streitling continued, “Tönnies and Lorenz are right. They’re a batch of wimps, all of them. What this situation calls for is direct action.”

Hennel waved his hands in exasperation. “I wish you had never learned that sentence. What this situation needs is for you to have stayed in Suhl where I left you. Do you remember when Richter came back to Suhl and made you all apologize to Blumroder? Do you?”

****

    Herrengossenstädt had refused to surrender the Schloss peacefully.

Wolfgang Heilman, his right arm in a sling designed to relieve the pressure on his collar bone, stood at the back of the square and assessed the Bertholdsburg for one final time. It wasn’t a fortress, precisely—not the kind with battlements, but the few windows on the ground floor were very small. The low stone walls were easy enough to climb on a day that nobody was shooting at you from out of the windows.

It was a sure thing that people would be shooting at them from out of the windows today. Herrengossenstädt had succeeded in arming not only the small Saxon garrison but also most of the members of the city council and their sons, a lot of the wealthier guildmasters with their journeymen and apprentices, and a fair number of the town’s dregs who were just in it for the money.

In a different way than the council members and the guildmasters, who were also pretty much in it for the money. Their money, their prestige, their honorable offices that they wanted to keep.

If the CoC succeeded in setting the Fachwerk story at the top of one wing on fire, that would provide a distraction.

If they succeeded, that was.

If they could cover the front lines until they managed to make it up to the gate next to the shorter, square, tower.

A couple of the dregs inside had agreed to open the gate if the CoC forces managed to make it that far.

“Follow the money” wasn’t a process that only went one way. Even dregs had their uses. They could be bribed. The only problem was keeping track of who had bribed them last.

At best, it wouldn’t be pretty.

At worst, it would be a fucking disaster. He’d managed to bring together just over three hundred men, and a few really militant women, but the Bertholdsburg was a honking big building.

****

Wolf winced. Somehow, Herrengossenstädt had managed to get a three-pounder up to the top level of the half-octagon tower. The blacksmiths were almost all with the CoC. The farrier from the castle stables must have dismantled it and then put it back together once the garrison’s soldiers got the pieces upstairs.

The only mitigating circumstance was that the square tower interfered with the gunner’s line of sight. He wouldn’t be able to direct the balls at the CoC men once they reached the gate and clumped up to wait for the dregs to open it.

He could certainly direct them at the CoC men as they headed for the gate.

The first shot missed the men. It landed on the cobblestones and broke up. One of the stones flew into the air and brought Tönnies Kummer down. The banner pole tilted sideways right along with Tönnies. Albrecht Mack, of all people, caught the pole and managed to hold the flag upright until a couple of other men dashed to assist him. Without the leather socket, which was still strapped to Tönnies’ body, it took all three of them, Albrecht, Thomas, and Paulus, to stagger toward the gate with it. But the banner stayed up and the CoC men followed it.

The three-pounder got another shot off. More cobblestones went flying.

Wolf jerked his head up. The gun must have exploded inside the confined space of the top floor tower room, because roof slates were flying. So much for Barto’s idea that once they won, they should mount the flag on the rooftop there. If they won, they’d have to mount it on the top of the old round tower at the corner.

A few flames started licking out of the Fachwerk, which meant that his guys on the other side of the building, shooting incendiary rockets, had done well, but most of the building was stone, without really a lot of wood, not even in the interiors. It wouldn’t burn well. Even the interior courtyard’s balcony railings were stone rather than wood.

****

Ludwig Ernst Marschalck von Herrengossenstädt died at his post. One of the dregs, who had been called to bring in a pitcher of water for the commander, shot him in the face with a small replica of an up-time pistol that Jorg Hennel had brought from Suhl.

The other officers in the room killed the dreg, but . . .

****

Paulus Weigel and Thomas Jehn recruited some helpers to drag the banner and pole up to the top of the square tower.

Albrecht Mack was dead by then.

Wolf managed to get inside in time to keep some kind of order as the CoC people took the castle’s garrison, staff, and impromptu defenders prisoner.

While he and Hennel managed the situation in the Schloss, Schmuck and the other four hotheads from Suhl hanged Matthis Wilde on an impromptu gallows in the square.

Their argument, when they were later required to justify their actions, was that they did it, more or less, because the First Burgermeister was a symbol of the unreconstructed old regime—plus, he refused to apologize for his offenses when they demanded it, on the grounds that he didn’t believe that he had committed any.

Anna Gerlichin and the other women in the Schleusingen CoC rescued old Amthor, the Second Burgermeister, from their Suhl allies in the nick of time by storming the gallows, armed with frying pans and fireplace andirons. They bundled him off to safety, making sure that the rest of his family got out of town, too. Anna had worked for the apothecary’s family for years before she married and thought he’d been a pretty decent employer. It wouldn’t be fair to hold a grudge against him because Albrecht got killed in the fight. Men who ran right out to get shot at ran the risk of getting shot. That was the way of the world.

When Thomas Jehn saw what Schmuck was doing, he sent his oldest boy into the castle to get help. Hennel, Heilmann, and the rest of the Schleusingen CoC people removed Schott, Ittig, and Funk from Schmuck’s custody. They made do with a public ceremony in the shadow of the gallows in which the three former Saxon officials knelt, abased themselves, and apologized.

****

The men who would go down in CoC legend as the Schleusingen Martyrs—Tönnies Kummer, Albrecht Mack, a blacksmith’s apprentice named Hans Patzer, and the dreg who killed the castle commander, whose name turned out to be Claus Volhart, received a state funeral.

The Red Flag of Henneberg was large enough to drape over all four of the lined-up coffins, shrouding them all.

****

“It’s not fair,” Hildegard proclaimed at the funeral dinner. “They”—she didn’t specify they, but her listeners knew who they were, namely Jorg Hennel and his associates—“insist that they’re still going to call it Suhl County. If they won’t hyphenate it to Suhl-Schleusingen County, the least they could do is agree to turn the name back to Henneberg County, since that’s what we used to be instead of keeping it as Suhl County just because they joined the SoTF first over there to the east. Bunch of glory hounds, if you ask me. ‘Suhl County’ indeed!”

“But now your son is interim mayor of Schleusingen,” Anna Gerlichin pointed out.

“That’s better than nothing, but people come and go. Nobody can promise me that he’ll win the election when we have it. Places last a lot longer than people. I think we should put the county name on the ballot next election—the general election, not the special election for local officials here.”

“Suhl District has more voters than Schleusingen District,” Barbara Wermann protested.

Anna frowned. “But if we can somehow get Schmalkalden away from Hesse and back to Henneberg, then there would be more voters here in the west. The people in Schmalkalden wouldn’t want to be in something called ‘Suhl County’ either.”

Hildegard nodded. “What we really need to do is get all the parts of the old Grafschaft Henneberg back and make it into one county that no foreigner has anything to do with, whether he’s Saxon of any stripe or Hessian or Stolberg, or . . .”

Barbara opened her mouth. “We can’t just keep out foreigners. The new citizenship laws . . .”

“They say that the Crown Loyalists will revoke those, so . . .”

“Hille!” Anna waved her hands with exasperation. “We’re supposed to be supporting the new laws. Remember, it’s the opposition to us that wants the old ones back.”

****

Back at work for the first time in three weeks, Bartholomäus sorted through the Lutheran consistory’s case files on top of the chest next to his podium desk. Now that the superintendency was no longer under the Saxon state church, which ones should be considered active? Which ones were obsolete?

When he reached the one with the label “Altschulerin, Hedwig,” he paused.

His task was to sort.

In the eyes of God, no doubt, the woman was a bigamist. Her prior betrothal had been valid and the Bible regarded betrothal as being as binding as marriage. Mary had only been betrothed to Joseph, but when he found out about her pregnancy, he would have had to take legal action and put her away quietly to free himself from the bond. Hedwig Altschulerin had not been divorced by her former, if vanished, fiancé, nor had she gone through the established procedures for petitioning the consistory for a decree of nullity.

The up-timers and now, through them, the matrimonial legislation recently passed by the legislature of the SoTF seemed to have little concern with how things might appear to God’s eyes—especially not in regard to the equivalency of betrothal and marriage.

Sometimes, he wondered why he had joined the CoC. Really, though, he knew. After all, every evening at Vespers, along with every clergyman in Schleusingen and those lay people who appeared at optional services, he chanted the words of Mary the mother of God:

He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble.

He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.

The up-timers weren’t the only people who often didn’t stop to think how their actions might appear in the eyes of God. There had been the witchcraft persecutions, sporadic since their own counts died out, worst in the Lutheran districts but the Calvinists in Schmalkalden didn’t have clean hands in the matter, either. There had been massive executions between 1628 and 1631. The Stolberg officials in the Schwarza district had been the worst, but twenty years ago, old Superintendent Zehner right here in Schleusingen had preached sermons intended to heat up the congregation against witches. He and Barbara had been forced to watch the execution of old Hildegard’s sister Juliana—Wolf and Lips’s aunt. He should repent the joy he had taken in hearing that the Meiningen Centrichter Siebenfreud was one of the victims of the late unrest. Wolf, that had been—the son. Too bad that Niclas, the father, was already dead and missed the experience. And . . . And that had not been a sentiment that a good Christian should feel. You shall not permit a witch to live, the scripture said, but Siebenfreud’s victims had not been witches within the meaning of that statement. Souring your neighbor’s milk or drying up his cow, even if the accused person actually did it, which was usually questionable, was scarcely in the same category as raising the spirits of the dead.

Damned absentee landlords—John George especially, whether for himself or as guardian for the boys in Saxe-Weimar—who had let the witch hunters get out of hand because Henneberg was far away and not all that important to him. His officials never should have let Siebenfreud charge the prosecution costs to the families of the victims. If they’d stuck with making the village or town councils pay the prosecutors and executioners, they’d not have put up with the idiocy anywhere near as long as they did.

What would be the applicable scripture? Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s? Bringing the Altschuler woman to repentance would now, at least for the time being, be the task of her pastor rather than that of the Schleusingen consistory.

He sighed and placed the file in the third, “dormant,” stack. Like the girl-child Tabitha raised from the dead by the Lord, she is not dead, but only sleeping.

Grantville, October 1635

“No, I didn’t send any kind of flag to the Schleusingen CoC.” Andy Yost stared at the newspaper the Rudolstadt CoC chairman was waving at him. “Not red, not green, not pink with purple polka dots. No poem, either. Nobody in the Grantville chapter did.”

“Well, neither did we, and neither did Jena, because Rudy asked around.”

“It wasn’t us,” Yost repeated. “We didn’t do it.”

“Nobody from Magdeburg sent it or told anyone else to send it. I’ve checked with Spartacus. Hennel from Suhl says that the package Heilman got had a Grantville postmark, so . . .”

“I tell you on my honor, Walther. It wasn’t us.”

Badenburg, October 1635

Hedy and Jarvis, who carried Viana in a back sling that Hedy had made out of the last few remnants of the old bed sheets, had a wonderful time at the Badenburg autumn kirmess.

****

Me Fecit Solingen Nicht

Written by Kim Schoeffel

    

  

1632 September 1

To: Burgermeister und Guild Masters von Solingen

Solingen, Westphalia

Greetings be unto you, the Burgermeister und Guild Masters von Solingen;

Ich bin Meister Lawrence Farha. I head the RAND Group of Grantville. I have taken the opportunity of retaining the Abrabanel family to represent my interests to you.

The swords you make have a centuries old reputation both now and in the future world, where Grantville has come from. I offer you the singular opportunity to manufacture distinctive products from the future. If this business proposition is successful, I have other items that may be offered in partnership.

I have sent two items for you to examine. Both of these classic pieces have important military applications. The KA-BAR knife was the signature combat knife of the United States Marine Corps. The United States Marine Corps was an elite military fighting unit of the future. The KA-BAR could be wielded as a combat knife or if slightly modified, attached to a musket or rifle as a bayonet.

The Swiss Army Knife could easily be renamed the Solingen or Swedish Army Knife. This knife is a smaller, multiple use tool. There are many types as shown in the accompanying brochure. I would recommend the one with a single blade, a screwdriver and file, and a saw blade. I also have some ideas on marketing these products.

If you agree to my proposal and we reach a negotiated contract, you can use these examples as working models. In addition I can provide information on how to increase your productivity and profit.

If you choose not to accept this offer I request all items be returned to my representatives and I will pursue discussions with less skilled Guild Masters elsewhere.

I regret that I am unable to come to present my proposal in person as my health is delicate. I look forward to hearing your reply.

Lawrence Farha

Chairman, RAND Group

Grantville

  

1632 October 13

TO: Meister Lawrence Farha

Chairman, RAND Group

Grantville

Greetings Meister Farha,

We, the Burgermeister and Guild Masters, are intrigued and honored by your proposal. We can make the pieces as evidenced by our first attempts which you now have in your possession. A small minority of the Guild Masters are firmly against any changes in our manufacturing process. In contrast, your representative has expounded on the benefits to Solingen. To our dismay, your representative is also discussing these benefits with journeymen, apprentices and local Committees of Correspondence.

If you are willing to invest 750 guilders, we are agreeable to this proposal. Please have your lawyers contact our lawyers to concluded this contract.

Burgermeister

Guild Master for Grinders

Guild Master for Cutlers

Guild Master for Sword Makers

Guild Master for Temperers

  

1632 December 6

Greetings to the Honorable Burgermeister and Guild Masters,

Let me begin by expressing my appreciation of your foresight in accepting my proposal. My representative has invested the monies you requested. Based on the contract, I understand I now own 30% of the Solingen Messer Werks.

As owners of the company, I highly recommend your representatives meet with a representative of the Higgins Sewing Machine Company to learn how to market the selling of common stock. This will increase the monies available to expand the company.

I have found further examples of goods we can produce. These include medical instruments, different types of shears or scissors and dinnerware.

If a small group, of say 6 representatives, consisting of a City Council Member, a willing Guild Master, three journeymen and an apprentice would come to Grantville, I will personally show them the wonders of Grantville. During this time, I will have them visit other manufactories and local experts. I will also pay any reasonable expenses.

Lawrence Farha

Chairman, RAND Group

Grantville

  

1633 Februar 12

TO: Mister Lawrence Farha

Grantville

Our representatives have returned from Grantville with distressing information.

The lodging provided for the apprentice and journeymen was far beyond what they needed. They could certainly have shared a room.

The tour of the "machine shop" offends our sensibilities. Using machine to do the work a fine craftsman does is an abomination. The fact this would improve production is meaningless.

The meeting with your local expert, Master Peter Jones was illuminating. His description on how metalwork could be polished to the high gloss sheen was informative.

The informal evenings our journeymen and apprentice spent at the Thuringen Gardens have made our blood boil. We keep hearing about unions, shares, and working conditions. They are now spreading these impossible tales to others through the Committees of Correspondence.

Finally, the presentation from the owner of the Higgins Sewing Machine Company proves an outrageous point. The owner, Karl Schmidt, told us of how a group of mere children, both boys and girls, started playing at being serious businessmen. Of how this firm became successful but needed to be bought by him for his survival. Of how this sewing machine has incurred the wrath of the Tailors Guild.

Now we come to you. You are not the established businessman we expected, no matter how you object. You are a young, sickly man, barely 20 years old. We are shocked and dismayed by your deception. We are seriously discussing our options.

Burgermeister

Guild Master for Grinders

Guild Master for Cutlers

Guild Master for Sword Makers

Guild Master for Temperers

Hardegg, Selfisch & Krapp

Attorneys-at-Law

1633 Marz 7

To: Burgermeister und Guild Masters von Solingen

Solingen, Westphalia

Greetings to the Honorable Burgermeister und Guild Masters von Solingen,

We applaud your stupidity. Only village idiots employ lawyers that have problems reading a contract the way yours have. If you choose to fight this contract, we and even our children will prevail, no matter how long your lawyers try to drag this out.

We ask you to find someone in your village that can read. Then have them read, on the third page, section 6, subsection 2 describing the penalties to be inflicted by us when you attempt to break this contract.

We eagerly look forward to embarrassing you in court.

In rapt anticipation,

Stefan Hardegg

Attorney at Law

  

1633 April 1

TO: Lawrence Farha

Grantville

Mister Farha,

All the Guild Masters remain incensed by your actions to dupe us. What else could we expect from a boy barely able to dress himself. Your lawyers though, are as tenacious as pigs rooting for truffles. Because of their bullying and threats we realize you have left us no option but to terminate this contract. We accept the pox ridden penalty clause you inserted in the contract. We have sent the payment to your lawyers.

We expect to hear no further from you or your lawyers. We have also found it incumbent on us to inform other Guild Masters of your deception.

Burgermeister

Guild Master for Grinders

Guild Master for Cutlers

Guild Master for Sword Makers

Guild Master for Temperers

  

1633 April 15

TO: Burgermeister und Guild Masters von Solingen

Greetings Gentlemen,

My able team of lawyers have informed me that you agreed to pay the penalty to escape from our legal contract. They also inform me that, based on their reading of the contract, I can still manufacture under the name Solingen Messer Werks. I am obliged to demand any design patterns, metal blanks, partial or finished items replicating the items I have shown you, now and for the next ten years. I fully understand that this will not be to your liking.

I offer this compromise that my lawyers are willing to spell out in an addendum to our contract. I will not use the name of Solingen and I will specifically make known to all that my company's metall werks are not from Solingen. I also require you not to compete with my company in making copies of my products. I am willing to do this for an additional 100 guilders.

Your competitor in business,

Lawrence Farha

Solingen Messer Werks

Grantville

  

1633 Mai 5

TO: Lawrence Farha

Grantville

Mister Farha,

We reluctantly agree to your dictates. The company name, Solingen Messer Werks, is now and forever owned by Solingen.

May you be unable to find skilled craftsmen or a site to produce the knives.

Burgermeister

Guild Master for Grinders

Guild Master for Cutlers

Guild Master for Sword Makers

Guild Master for Temperers

The Street—Finances For Our Times

1633 September 7

Business News

The recently formed Uberzeit Metall Werks presented their first reproductions of the famous uptime KA-BAR combat knife and Soldat Messer #1 to the offices of King Gustav II Adolph and President Mike Stearns.

The KA-BAR combat knife features a silver tang and pommel with a silver filigree engraving of the Vasa coat of arms on the blade. A sheath of the finest black leather with silver studding was included.

The Soldat Messer #1 features polished burled oak sides with silver filigree of the Vasa coat of arms. It features a large and small blade, a screwdriver, a file, a punch, scissors and a magnifying glass. President Stearns’ reproductions feature the new Confederated Principalities of Europe coat of arms. These items are now available for purchase through fine merchants. Other items to include medical tools, scissors, shears, cutlery and dinnerware will be available soon.

AD #1 Exclusive KA-BAR

AD #2 Exclusive Soldat Messer 1

The Uberzeit Metall Werks (UMW) common stock will go on sale next month. Word on the street is this is a definite buy! (Paid adverstizing)

 ****

Rotkäppchen

Written by Kerryn Offord

    

Freyburg, August 1633

Julius Halberstadt plucked at the shriveled leaves on his vines. "I tell you, there is something wrong with the vines," he insisted.

"It's just a bad year, Julius," fellow vintager Friedrich Beyerweck disagreed.

Julius dragged Friedrich closer to the wilted vines. "Look at that! Does that look like a bad year? It's as if there was no water, but the rains were better than last year." He plucked a bunch of grapes and waved it in front of Freidrich's face. "Look at that. They aren't even worth harvesting."

Friedrich caught Julius' hand and pulled it away from his face. "What do you expect me to do about it?"

"Come with me to Grantville. Maybe they can help."

Grantville, a few days later

Susan Beattie entered the farmhouse and stumbled along to the nearest chair before slumping down.

"Bad day?" her mother asked from the kitchen.

Susan lounged back in the easy chair and called back. "Lousy day. Heck, make that a lousy week. None of the test plots look like the crop will mature enough to harvest."

    Lisa Beattie walked up behind Susan and started to massage her shoulders. "Don't take it so personally. You knew growing sorghum this far north was likely to be difficult."

"But we're managing to do it on our land."

"South facing land, Susan. Sheltered south facing land at that. We've got our very own microclimate that lets us continue to grow sorghum even though we're now the equivalent of north of the Canadian border."

"And that's the kind of land I looked for to plant the test plots." Susan shook her head. "All that seed wasted." She started to stand. "I better let Celeste at the Grange know the bad news."

Lisa pushed Susan gently back into the chair. "There's no need to do it now. Tomorrow will be soon enough."

"I wasn't thinking of going into town to tell her. The phone still works, doesn't it?"

The Grange

Celeste O'Connor was drafting a soil map for Birdie Newhouse when there was a knock on the door. She looked up to see one of the grange's part-time staffers at the door.

"Are you busy, dear?" Rose Harris asked.

"Not really. How can I help you?"

Rose stepped into the room and held the door open. "I think you might be able to assist these two gentlemen."

Celeste studied the two men. With their weather-beaten faces they had the look of farmers, and, judging by their clothes, well-to-do farmers. Both, as best Celeste could guess, were about fifty.

Rose made the introductions. "Herr Julius Halberstadt and Herr Friedrich Beyerweck, this is Frau Celeste Frost. She hold's a degree in agriculture from an up-time university, and I'm sure she'll be able to help you."

"Please gentlemen, take a seat," Celeste said while trying to read the expression on Rose's face. She didn't have a university degree. Almost, just one semester short in fact, but why would Rose puff up her qualifications? Well, now wasn't the time to worry about Rose. She had two potential clients to deal with first. "What seems to be the problem?"

****

Julius exchanged glances with Friedrich. This young woman was supposed to help them? Well, if she was an up-time university qualified expert, maybe she actually knew something. He emptied the small bag of cuttings and bunches of grapes he'd brought all the way from Freyburg onto her desk. "There is something wrong with the vines in Freyburg."

He waited impatiently while she examined the cuttings and immature bunches of grapes.

"It looks like the vines have been starved of water," Celeste said after examining them for a few minutes.

"There has been plenty of rain this year in Freyburg," Julius informed her.

The woman met Julius' eyes for a few seconds before she looked back down at the cuttings on her desk. Then she did something that surprised him. She reached into a drawer and brought out a magnifying glass, and then she bent her head and studied her desk through it. Julius glanced across to Friedrich. He shrugged his confusion back. The woman wasn't even examining the cuttings.

"What are you looking at?" Julius asked.

The woman lowered the glass and looked straight at Julius. He didn't like the look in her eyes. It spelt trouble. She waved him closer and offered him the small glass. Then she pointed at a number of small black dots on her desk.

Even through the magnifying glass Julius had difficulty seeing the small animals moving about on the desk. "What are they?" he demanded.

"They're probably the cause of your problem," she answered.

"How do we know they weren't already on your desk?" Friedrich asked.

The woman glared at Friedrich, the look daring Julius to say anything. But Julius was a married man. As such he had well developed survival instincts. He just smiled pleasantly and waited to see what she would do.

She sniffed loudly, then pulled a sheet of white paper out of a drawer and placed it on her desk. Then she shook the cuttings over it before passing the paper and the magnifying glass over to Friedrich. It was all achieved in total silence. Even Friedrich had realized he might have overstepped the mark and silently accepted the paper and magnifying glass.

A loud ringing emanating from a contraption on the desk broke the silence.

"Excuse me, I'd better answer that." The woman picked up part of the contraption and held it to the side of her head.

"Celeste Frost . . . Susan, hi . . . Yes, that is bad news, but I can't talk now, I have a couple of clients."

The woman smiled apologetically at Julius. He just stared at the object she was using. Was this one of the fabled telefones?

"Just a minute. Before you go, could you check your references for grape pests? You can? Thanks."

The woman held a hand over part of the instrument. "Sorry about this, but it's probably quicker to get Susan to check her references than for me to hunt up something around the office." As soon as she finished speaking she concentrated on listening to the telefone. He didn't like the looks passing across her face. Eventually she put the hand-piece down.

"Well?" Julius asked.

"Susan thinks that your vines might have been infected with an insect called phylloxera. What I need to do is take these . . ." She gestured to the dots moving around on her desk. ". . . and examine them under a microscope and compare them with pictures of phylloxera."

"And then you'll be able to cure us of our problem?" Friedrich asked.

The woman shook her head. "Not really. If it is phylloxera, then back up-time, Susan says the only successful treatment was grafting the vines to resistant rootstock."

"Grafting an entire vineyard to new rootstock? Surely the problem isn't that bad?" Friedrich asked.

"Susan didn't have time to look too deeply, but an encyclopedia she checked said that phylloxera almost destroyed the wine industries in France, Italy, and Germany in the nineteenth century."

"It could take years to produce enough root stock to replace our existing vines, and we can't afford to wait that long. We need a remedy now," Julius said.

Celeste got to her feet and walked over to a map on the wall. "Where is Freyburg?"

"Go up the River Saale until you reach Naumburg. Freyburg is about three miles up the Unstrut River." Julius watched the woman trace the blue line of the River Saale until she found Freyburg.

She turned to the men. "That's a long way north to be growing grapes."

"We are the northern-most growers in Germany," Friedrich said proudly.

"How long is your growing year?"

"Nearly five months. Why do you ask?"

The woman smiled. "Because I might have an ideal alternative crop for you."

"We are vintagers. What we know is how to raise grapes." Julius said.

"It'll be worth your while, if Freyburg is suitable," Celeste said.

"Suitable for what?"

"Suitable for growing sweet sorghum," she announced.

Julius stared blankly at the woman. "What is sweet sorghum?"

"Another name is 'Chinese Sugar Cane.'"

"Sugar cane? In Thuringia? Impossible," Julius said. Everyone knew sugar cane was a tropical plant.

"It's not real sugar cane. It's a similar plant that will grow in temperate latitudes. Susan's family has been growing sweet sorghum for sugar with some success on their farm near Grantville since the Ring of Fire. They've been planting trial plots around the area without much success, but if you can grow grapes near Freyburg, maybe you have a suitable micro-climate."

"You're suggesting we grow sugar in Freyburg?" Friedrich asked.

"Maybe," she said.

The woman seems convinced that we can grow sugar in Freyburg, and given the price of sugar . . . "How much do you think we could produce per acre?" Julius asked.

"You can't be thinking of growing this crop, Julius?" Friedrich sounded outraged.

"My vines are failing. I need to grow something. I have a living to earn." Julius turned back to the woman. "Can you tell me more about this 'sweet sorghum'?"

"Susan and her family are probably the best people to talk to. They can show you their operation and walk you through the whole process. Why don't I give her a call and see when it's convenient to take you around?"

"Please do," Julius said.

That night

Julius stepped off the bus that had brought them back into town after the visit to the Beattie's farm and waited for Friedrich to join him. Then the two of them walked to their hotel.

    "Phylloxera is very bad news," Friedrich announced.

"We already knew that," Julius said. "But the sweet sorghum, that sounds interesting."

"I preferred Lawrence's suggestion. Plant American grapes and raise rootstock to sell to all the other vintagers who will soon be infested with phylloxera."

Julius nodded. Susan Beattie's grandfather had made a number of interesting suggestions. "That is for the long term. For the short term, I like the sweet sorghum. It grows from seed, and is ready for harvest in a season. For a vintager, it is a nice and simple crop to grow until he can grow grapes again."

"But what about the processing plant Lawrence says we need?" Friedrich asked. "It's no use growing sorghum if we can't process it for the sugar."

"Celeste said she knew someone who could get it built," Julius said.

"Did she mention any names?" Friedrich asked.

"Helene Gundelfinger."

Friedrich's brows rose. "Detlev Timmreck's widow?"

Julius nodded.

Friedrich shook his head. "I'll believe that when I see it. How would a grange employee get to know Detlev Timmreck's widow?"

Freyburg, September 1633

The "farm survey" had been expensive, but seeing the aerial photographs, taken by a camera suspended from a kite, of the vineyards along the Unstrut River almost justified the expense on their own. For the first time ever Julius Halberstadt was able to see how his vineyard lay relative to the rest of Freyburg. He passed the photograph he was holding to Friedrich and turned his attention to the map Celeste Frost and her team had produced from the photographs and a ground survey. With his knowledge of the area the map had immediate meaning. He could see why different vineyards produced different tasting wines. He ran a finger over the map. His vineyard got the sun for most of the day. It was also in the middle of a large yellow shaded area. "What does the yellow shading mean?" he asked.

"It means you've got a high concentration of calcium in your soil," Celeste said.

"And the significance of that is?"

"The calcium has good heat retention, so the yellow shaded areas are those most likely to have a suitable soil temperature. Your high calcium levels are part of why you're able to raise grapes this far north."

"So you think we can grow sweet sorghum in Freyburg?"

"Not on all the ground. Even in the areas with high calcium levels, only the terraces that are predominately south facing will be warm enough, but that's still something like half the acreage currently in grapes."

Julius stared at the wall. Through it he could imagine the terraces along the north bank of the Unstrut River. There would be areas already in shadow that would obviously not be warm enough. "What do we do with the land you don't consider suitable for sorghum?"

"Raise rootstock, maybe even try planting beets. They contain sugar as well, just not as much," Celeste suggested.

Julius answered Celeste's wry grin with one of his own. "Lawrence talked of sugar beets. They sound like too much work for this vintager."

"Well, I'm sure I can find something that you'd be willing to grow. Or you could lease your land to a crop farmer."

Julius winced. It made economic sense, but to grow common crops on his vineyard, it just didn't bear thinking about.

"Does this mean we are planning on replacing half the area's vines with sorghum next year?' Friedrich asked.

"Yes," Julius said.

"No," Celeste said.

Both men stared at Celeste. "No?" Julius asked.

"We don't have enough seed to plant that much acreage. I'd recommend planting in the most suitable areas and mostly raising seed next season."

"But Fräulein Beattie said that sorghum is best harvested before the seed sets," Friedrich protested.

Celeste nodded. "That's right, but getting a supply of seeds for the next season is more important."

"That just leaves the building of a suitable mill. You said you knew some people who could get it built?" Julius hinted.

"I've already shown the aerial photographs to Carl Schockley, of Kelly Construction, and he thinks . . ."

"Brillo!" Julius and Friedrich said as one.

"Pardon?" Celeste asked.

Julius smiled. A question had been answered. "Friedrich and I were wondering how you came to know Detlev Timmreck's widow. We both saw the performance of Bad, Bad Brillo at Duke Johann Philipp's Saalfeld schloss at the beginning of the year, and met Herr Schockley. He is a close friend of Frau Gundelfinger. Obviously you met her through him."

"That's right. Back to what I was saying, Carl thinks that we should build the processing facility right by the river, to take advantage of the river for power and for transportation."

"How big a facility are we talking about?" Julius asked.

"Not very big. At peak we don't think you'll be processing more than a hundred tons of cane a day. That's not much more than four tons an hour. So, we probably won't need much more than a couple of thousand square feet of area, and most of that will be storage."

"So it won't take too long to build this new facility?" Friedrich asked.

"If you can sort out where you would like to have it built before the end of the year, there's no reason why it can't be up and running in time for next year's harvest."

Julius nodded. He gathered up the maps and photographs Celeste had given him. "That means we now just have to persuade the community to get behind the new industry."

Friedrich snorted. "Facing loss of their livelihood because of phylloxera, I don't think there will be too much resistance."

"Just 'not in my backyard,'" Celeste said.

Julius took a moment to understand the meaning of the expression. It was true. There wouldn't be any resistance to building a processing facility, just as long as it was on someone else's land. "If my river frontage is suitable, I'll allow it to be built there."

Freyburg, October 1634

The new dock and processing factory had ended up being built on his land. Not that Julius was complaining, at least, not too much. It was a little larger than Frau Frost has suggested, but not by much. And it didn't spoil the view from his house. But there was the smell, and the noise. He stood beside his old friend Friedrich and admired the ballet of small boats and barges bringing cut cane to the dock.

"Those motorized boats make it so easy to get the empty barges up-river," Friedrich said.

"The project would never have worked if we'd had to rely on a towpath to get the empty barges back up-river for the next load," Julius said.

"It'll be our land being harvested soon."

Julius nodded. "Another two weeks before the seed sets according to Frau Morton."

"Now that is foolish. Why should a woman change her name just because she marries? Did your wife change her name?"

Julius shook his head.

"Neither did mine."

"It's an up-timer thing, though I noticed Helene Gundelfinger didn't take her new husband's name."

"Can you imagine her answering to Frau Goodluck?"

Both men smiled. Their personal acquaintance with Helene Gundelfinger was mostly from the period when she was married to Detlev Timmreck, but even then there had been something about Helene that marked her as somebody special.

"Excuse me."

Julius turned at the voice. It was the young man who had trailed in behind Celeste Frost and Susan Morton.

"Thomas Werner," the young man said as he proffered a business card.

Julius read it, and his brows rose. "You are a representative of Frau Gundelfinger?"

"An associate," the man corrected, pointing out the "and associates" part of Helene Gundelfinger's company name. "Frau Frost suggested I should ask you if the vintagers are happy to be growing the new crop."

Julius sucked in his lips. "I wouldn't say happy. We're wine-makers, and we'd rather be making wine, but . . ."

"But this pest the Americans brought down-time with them has devastated our vines," Friedrich said. "We're happy to grow sorghum until we can get enough resistant rootstock to get back to doing what we do best, making wine."

"But what about the Saale-Unstrut Zucker Kompanie's investment in the mill?" Thomas asked. "If nobody grows sorghum, then the investment all goes to waste."

"Stop being a worrywart, Thomas," Celeste said. "Julius, Friedrich, stop upsetting poor Thomas."

She turned to Thomas. "Don't worry; there'll be plenty of sorghum grown along the Unstrut to keep the mill running at full capacity."

The glare Thomas sent Julius and Friedrich's way brought grins to both their faces.

"Shall we find somewhere to celebrate a successful growing season?" Julius suggested.

"Shouldn't we find your wives?" Susan suggested.

Friedrich swept his arms around indicating the bustling town of Freyburg. "Where would one start looking? No, it is better that we stay in one place and let them find us. To Rühlmann's, I say."

"A regular watering hole?" Celeste asked.

Julius grinned. "It doesn't do to make it hard for your wife to find you."

The five of them made their way along the main road to the town's square where they found somewhere to sit. "A taste of the last vintage for my guests, Johannes, and you might as well join us," Julius instructed the tavern owner who'd appeared as soon as they sat down.

Johannes Rühlmann disappeared for a few moments to return with two bottles and a serving maid with a tray of glasses. He proffered the wine to Julius, who nodded acceptance, before drawing the stopper and pouring everyone a glass each.

"To last year's Freyburg vintage, may it not be the last," Julius proposed the toast.

"May it not be the last," the rest agreed before sipping the wine.

Friedrich lowered his glass. "It's just not right," he protested. "I'm a vintager, but I can no longer make wine."

The wine drinkers stared at their glasses. As a group they emptied their glasses.

"You think you have problems," Johannes said as he refilled the glasses. "What about me? With no wine being grown, what am I going to sell?"

"What about turning some of the sugar into spirits," Thomas suggested.

"Spirits?" Julius shook his head. Spirits were common. Not like wine. Making good wine was an art.

"Would you be happy to distill wine to make 'brandy' if you could?" Thomas asked.

Julius nodded, as did Friedrich and Johannes. Brandy was special. It took the essence of wine and made it richer.

"Well, what's the difference between distilling wine to make brandy and distilling fermented sugar to make—"

Thomas seemed to be struggling to find the write word. Julius was happy to watch the man struggle, but it was immediately obvious that the Americans were out to spoil his fun.

"Rum," Celeste supplied. "Thomas is right you know. You already have yeast, although I'm not sure what kind of rum wine-yeast will produce. It'll almost certainly have a unique taste."

"Unique," Julius muttered. He let the word swirl around his mouth as he tasted it. Unique was good. He could happily put his name to something that was unique.

"Yes, a unique product," Thomas said. "Your fine city could be famous for the rum you produce."

Freyburg, January 1635

Julius Halberstadt stood to one side of the door as the rest of the business leaders of Freyburg entered the meeting room. When the dozen men were seated he approached the table. "Fellow businessmen of Freyburg, it is with great pleasure that I am here today to introduce you to the new beverage that will carry our fine town's name from this day forward." He gestured to one of the stewards to place clear glass bottles of a red-tinged liquid, each with a red cover over the cap, in front of each of his guests.

"Don't bother trying to open the bottles," he warned when several of them started fingering the covers. "They're full of colored water. Those are just to give you an idea of how we propose to market Freyburg rum."

"How did you pick the name?" Michel Berbig asked.

"Friedrich and I did some research, and up-time, Freyburg was famous for a beverage of the same name. We felt that it wouldn't hurt to introduce it a couple of hundred years early." He exchanged a grin with his co-conspirator. There was no need to tell them that the famous beverage in question had been a sparkling wine.

He gestured for the head steward to broach the barrel, and soon each of his guests had a glass with a finger's worth of red-tinged rum, to which another steward added a finger's worth of spring water. Julius waited until all of the men had their glasses. "Before we start discussing our new product we should toast it." He raised his glass. "To the new beverage of Freyburg . . . Rotkäppchen."

"Rotkäppchen," the men repeated before everyone took their first sip.

"Nice, but it could definitely benefit from a little more time in the cask," someone was heard to mutter.

****

Euterpe, Episode 4

Written by Enrico Toro and David Carrico

      

To Father Thomas Fitzherbert SJ,

Illustrissimus Collegium Anglicanum

Roma

From Maestro Giacomo Carissimi,

Grantville, USE

Second day of January, in our Lord's year 1634.

Dear and illustrious Father,

Today I finally sit down to write to you. This is the first letter I write in three months and I apologize for that. I hope that you find my English improved over the last one.

In your last missive you were complaining about my silence, and in my defense I can only say that I have been swept away by the current events and I have not been able to focus my mind enough to describe with coherence what happened here in Grantville since October.

When I last wrote you from this town I was living in the New United States, part of the Confederated Principalities of Europe. Now I am living in the State of Thuringia, part of the United States of Europe and I did not move a mile from where I was the last time my quill wrote the words I sent across the Alps.

This change in names is not a whimsical thing, but an apt metaphor of the many transformations this land and, even if in a much more minor way, your friend Giacomo are going through.

In my last letter I wrote you about the battle of Wismar, and, being a person who prides himself of knowing the events happening in this world (the latest news the Americans would say) you certainly are well informed about it: a small group of people from Grantville and a down-timer stopped the Danish invasion force with an even smaller loss of life.

This would have been cause for celebration in any other place in the world I know of, and the victory was certainly celebrated in Grantville, but with a deep feeling of sadness underneath.

Compared to the rest of the population in Germany the up-timers are a small group and all the events since the Ring of Fire strengthened the bonds among them. The same Hans Richter was a special down-timer for many Americans. He was one of the first Germans welcomed here and many members of his family married into American families. He also had an American fiancée, the daughter of that Moor physician that is revolutionizing medical practices.

Mr. Richter was considered the best of both worlds. His heroic actions during the battle gained him a very high place in the Pantheon of heroes of this new nation.

I believe that the powers of the League of Ostend have made a serious mistake beginning this war. I am sure they were convinced that the sooner they begun the less the USE would have been prepared to put up an effective resistance, but they didn't consider a crucial factor, something I see everyday here in Grantville and I hear about in the rest of the USE territories. For the Americans and the Germans this war is different. This war has become a personal thing.

In our time we fight wars because our sovereigns want it. We, as subjects, simply obey even if we don't understand the reasons behind that war. Even if the war may have serious consequences for any population the population itself is not involved in the decision making process. Wars, like plagues, simply happen and we simply try to make the best of it. Well, it is not the same here.

The Americans and the Germans are not building a state or a league, they are building a Nation. A place that everyone, from Prime Minister Mike Stearns to the most humble of citizens, can call home. And when a nation goes to war, when citizens cross arms with subjects, subjects don't stand a chance.

In the Other Time Line it happened already once. At the end of the eighteen century, armies from half Europe declared war and invaded republican France. At the cry of "Ça ira," and, later, under the guide of one the most brilliant military minds, these ragtag citizen armies flooded Europe defeating any sovereign's army that dared confront them.

Only when the French betrayed their ideals and from liberators became conquerors were they defeated after long and bloody wars. At the end, it was the same ideal of nation that they exported all over the continent that defeated them.

Many people even here believe that it will be the superior weapons and all the other devices from the future that will help in the war. I think that if this war will be won by the USE it will be thanks to the ideals that this new nation represents. I know perfectly well how these ideals can be stirring and how easy it is to fall prey of their allure.

There is only so much that a soldier of Richelieu and Olivares might do; they kill because they are trained and paid to do so, but how much are they ready to die for their kings? The soldiers of the USE will fight for their families, their homes, their rights; and Wismar has already demonstrated to the world how much they are willing to pay for what they do believe is right.

Everyone seems involved in the war, even when they are not directly getting ready to fight. The tension that was looming over this town the days before the war was magically transformed in a strong wish to get over with the war as soon as possible. These people want to win, because they have no other choice. It means survival of their way of life and it means survival of all they believe in. This clear determination is not only present in the eyes of those young men and women that are enrolling in the armed forces, but in those of civilians of every age and faith.

At the end I am happy to know that the Holy Father decided to remain neutral.

Nevertheless I am afraid that, no matter how big his admiration for the Re D'Oro is, he won't be happy when he will know that I gave my contribution to fight this war. I did it in the only way I know about, with well-written musical notes. I can only hope that, upon my eventual return in Rome, I shall not find myself hanged and quartered on Ponte degli Angeli.

It all started in church, at Saint Mary's. I told you in my last letter how I am enjoying the time I spend there. Even if there is a service in Latin for us down-timers, I still find strange the up-time Catholic liturgy. It's simpler, shorter, with the priest facing an audience that is much more involved in the rites. It's the concept of democracy applied to the Mass. Where first only the priest was the link between the Creator and the community, now it is the whole community that celebrates the communion with Christ. It's fascinating, even if it lacks the mystery and the charm of our liturgy.

It was after one of those services, a few days after the battle, that Father Kircher gave me the idea for a composition. I remember we were busy talking and gossiping about natural philosophy and politics. I was explaining how belittling I found that Cardanus would be remembered in the future more for his accomplishments in mechanics than for his mathematical works and Father Kircher was trying to convince me that Valeriano Castiglione, the author of the "Statista Regnante," was destined to become the principal apologist of the League of Ostend.

As is his usual practice, the Jesuit abruptly changed topics and asked me "So, Maestro, I've heard you are going to perform a piece of Palestrina for the concert?"

"Yes we will, the Kyrie from the Missae Papae Marcelli, just before the Händel piece."

"Was it hard to talk the choir into singing a polyphonic piece?"

"Well, it was easier than to convince them to play Monteverdi's Stella Maris hymn," I replied to him, "but once I found the violin and viola players I needed even that went smoothly. Besides Mrs. Bartolli has been a real help in putting Brian Grady by my side."

"Who is going to play?"

"Two Germans from Franz Sylwester's group of friends. They are Protestants, but I think this climate of religious toleration has perhaps soothed their hot reformist spirit. Or perhaps they simply wish a chance to play here in Grantville. Or perhaps it is because they are friends. It is no matter; I asked them and they accepted."

"Where did you find the scores?" Here the wily Jesuit began to lead me down his path.

"Nowhere. Or from my mind, I should say. I learned at heart both pieces while I was still a music student in Tivoli, and I never forgot them. I think Monteverdi's Vespers are the highest expression of musica sacra written so far this century. I wrote them out from memory, making some simple arrangements for the choir. I have very little doubt that the performance will be spectacular." I confess to feeling a bit smug at that moment.

"Will we have the pleasure to listen to a Carissimi too?" he asked with a perfect Jesuit innuendo.

"Not yet, dear Father. I wish I could, but with all the things I am learning I think my art is going through a severe reshuffling. I am not sure at the moment there is enough of it left to compose something." Too late I saw his trap. I tried to turn from it, but you know how Jesuits are.

"Oh, come now," he said with a very paternal tone. "Don't tell me you haven't composed anything since you arrived here!"

"Well, I wrote some small things, but they are mainly exercises to become familiar with the piano, small variations hardly worth the name composition." As a small fish, I tried to wriggle free, but he, the master fisherman, had hooked me very well.

"Too bad, Giacomo, because I think everybody would be happy if you composed something for the concert. And, you know, it would give prestige to the church."

"Father, Saint Mary's is the only parish in the entire Christian world that can perform pieces from Händel and Liszt in the same concert. You need me for prestige?" Now he was teasing me, I think.

"Well, Giacomo, you are alive and a member of the community, even if a late admission. These other composers instead are not part of this universe, they are memory. In my opinion all their music, no matter how beautiful, is not worth a single note of what you, and other people living here and now, may write."

"I don't think I understand, Father" Truly, I did not understand this from him.

"What I mean is that many of the things that came with the Ring of Fire are good and useful, but this is not twentieth-century America or Germany. It is something new, and the Americans, with all their mighty knowledge, need us down-timers. We cannot stop creating or exploring just because scholars or musicians in a future that will never exist have already said and written so much. If we do, we will become just like those philosophers who consider wrong anything written in contrast with the words of Aristotle. Or those painters that copied Raphael and Titian over and over again."

He took a long breath and continued, "This Mozart, this Bach may be giants, but we cannot just learn how to play their music and then do it over and over again. Their work may influence us, change the way we write our music, give us more opportunities and more paths to explore, but we must move on. It is from people like you that the future generations will find inspiration. You and the other musicians in this town are the torch bearers for the future, not Mr. Beethoven. The Eroica makes more sense with a Napoleon in the world's history. When the time is right, we will compose our own."

Now, as the Grantvillers say, he had me. I succumbed to his lure. "I think I now understand what you mean. Our music, even if not so inspired or majestic as the music of the future is connected to our lives, to our experiences, our reality like no music from the future can be."

"Exactly! And I believe that now more than ever they need something to encourage and inspire them through the incoming war. You can do this better than Chopin, Giacomo, because you know their fears, you have counted their tears, and shared your bread and salt with them. You can touch their souls like no one-day-may-be-born-composer can." The net closed. Good man that he is, Father, he did not grin in triumph over me.

"I may agree to that, but the hard truth is that I still don't have anything in my hands and time runs." My final feeble attempt to evade the net.

"Let's make a deal then. I have thought about a little poem of my own and I will finish it in ten days. I will give it to you if you promise me you will try hard, very hard to come up with the music for it. Would you agree to these terms? Make it great, Giacomo!"

"Yes, I think I can try."

I was well and truly caught. Father A was kind enough not to exult over me. He simply smiled and poured more wine in my cup.

So after that long conversation, and the challenge that ended it, another chapter of my American life began.

Ten days later I had in my hands the wonderful and moving words of the "Jammern Für Einen Gefallenen Adler" or "Lament for a Fallen Eagle." Carissimi the scholar had become again Carissimi the composer—but such a different Carissimi it was from even a year before.

I knew that Father Athanasius was renowned for his erudition, so I was not so surprised that the Lament was using the same metre of Horace's "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori." The fact that he managed to transpose in German the same rhythm and pathos of the Latin words was already a big accomplishment, but he went beyond that. Father Athanasius Kircher SJ sure knows his Aristotle.

When I read it to Elizabeth, that is, Mrs. Jordan, she was clearly stunned. It took her a while to say: "I was sure this was going to be a patriotic song, and honestly I was afraid it could be obnoxious, pompous and uselessly rhetoric as many patriotic songs are. I was expecting to read about the Fatherland or German Youth, all those words that give us up-timers a chill along the spine when we hear them. It's part of our experience, our conditioning I believe. But I was mistaken, there is nothing Nazi in these lyrics. That priest has managed to express sadness, mourning, and loss while, at the same time, he has been able to write a call of arms for the new nation. Nevertheless, this not a song to the glories of war, it's a tribute to human drama and courage, to the pride of doing your duty up to the very end. This poem is so rich in humanity, such sadness yet pervaded with hope."

Then she added, using that delicious smile of hers, "It's beautiful, Giacomo, so true, and you, Jude, are going to make it better, I am sure."

This name Jude is one she often calls me. She says it is from some obscure up-time rock and roll song.

So it was now my turn to get the work done and have something finished soon. Despite my assurance to Father A, I could not stop feeling it like a too heavy burden for my shoulders.

When a composer wants to write a piece of music for a text he needs to know such a text precisely. The construction and the meter of the poem must be perfectly clear to you. To do that I always used to carry the poem with me. Recite it in my head and out loud, paying close attention to any detail, the rhythm, the pauses, the cadences. After a while those written words become music; the letters notes; the phrases themes.

That moment is what I learned to call inspiration. For me it is a dream-like state where ideas flow freely from inside you to the paper. It's a mystical trance that I believe is not so very different from those that touched one of the great mystics like John of the Cross. It is a moment when the spark of divinity that dwells in each of us glows brighter; a moment of perfect harmony with the Almighty. Prayer made with notes.

If inspiration is the base of successful composing, it is by no means all there is to it. One needs craftsmanship. A good balance between rhythm, melody and harmony requires a strenuous mathematical exercise. There are rules that help you put all the parts together and one has to follow them. Genial minds invent new rules and adapt their music to them; they are the Fibonacci, the Pythagoras of the musical world. My conundrum was being stuck between two sets of rules: the one set by the men of my time and the many, disaccording ones set in . . . not the future, but certainly a future.

An average composer writes approximately two minutes of music per day. Monteverdi and other great minds can write four minutes a day. My speed increased during the years with the strengthening of my musical muscles. Before my trip to Grantville I could write three minutes a day.

But that, again as the Grantvillers would say, was then, and this was now. (They have very many sayings, you see.) A week was passed since I had the lyrics and I had written nothing. Or better, I had a growing amount of crumpled music sheets on the wooden floor of my room. I had wasted at least a florin's worth of paper, to no avail. I swung like a pendulum between mania and depression, at one end scribbling like a madman, only to call it all vanity and smoke like the Preacher and hurl it away. In my rare lucid moments, it would sometimes occur to me that this wastage of paper could make a pauper of me.

Surely it did not help living so close to a music instrument shop where people worked until nightfall or after; or having to go to teach in class everyday, or having decided to not use ornaments for this kind of composition. The up-time performers would not understand it and down-time German performers may be confused by them, for standard forms are different depending on what side of the Alps you are. But always I felt I could have done better, and the more the time passed, the closer my deadline became, the more frustrated I became.

Fortunately, Girolamo became again my deus ex machina. One day I could not stand anymore the noises coming from the garage, and I went downstairs shouting to Girolamo and his apprentices to stop doing all that noise, that I was working too and I was fed up to listen to their saws, hammers, planers. Girolamo didn't say anything; he just walked out of the place. I saw him coming back half an hour later. He entered my room, and began to collect my paper, my quills and ink and the other tools I used to write without a word. He ignored me until he had them all in a package, then he turned to me and said, "Signora Elizabeth's husband is out of town for one week and she agreed to host you every day after school until you have finished writing. You may stay as late as you want, so she says."

"But," I started.

"No buts, Giacomo," he interrupted me. "You are not the only one who wants this thing done. I know it's not proper, but I think nobody in town and probably in the whole world believes you would harass her. So put your doublet and coat on and go to her. She told me she is glad to help."

"I can't . . ." I tried to say again

"Listen to me, you asino cocciuto." Here he grabbed me by the shoulder and shook me till my eyeballs rattled in my head. "I know as well as you that the Muse is a very jealous and finicky entity. If you want to enjoy her embrace you must show you are worthy of it. If you keep on sitting there, holding a grudge against the rest of the world, you will never do anything. So go affanculo somewhere else, but do not stay here in this room" He concluded, shouting and pointing at the door with his forefinger.

    His will overpowered my reluctance, and so to Elizabeth's I went. I admit that it was not proper, but by then I was desperate, willing to do even this if it open the door to the Muse.

Signora Elizabeth was waiting for me on the porch of her house. She was sitting on the swinger, sipping coffee from a large cup with a quilt on her shoulders against the chills of this German fall, so much deeper than we know in Rome. I did not know what to say. I was feeling very, very stupid but at least my rage had cooled down. The months we spent working close together weren't spent in vain because she knew she had to break the ice someway.

"Girolamo told me you haven't eaten anything in two days. Please, come inside, I have plenty of leftovers to warm up." At the mention of food my stomach entered the scene with a theatrical growl, and laughing we went inside.

It was definitely a hearty meal that Elizabeth offered me. Sitting down with her, an opera playing on CD in the background, engaging in small talks about everything but music greatly helped in relaxing me. I felt all the tension accumulated in the last few days melt down and dissipate like late snow to a springtime sun.

The last thing I remember is falling asleep.

When I woke up it was dark, I was laying under a quilt on the comfortable piece of furniture the Americans call a sofa. My shoes were on the floor and I remember that the first thought that came on my head was to look at my feet to make sure there weren't holes in my stockings.

I stood up, watched the living room clock whose arms indicated it was an hour before dawn and I suddenly realized that there was something in my head that was begging to come out. For the first time I had a theme.

My composer training took command. There was a moment where I was frantic, but then I saw the package Girolamo had made, and before I realized it I was sitting at a table writing down music without any particular effort.

One of the rules that I abide to is to never begin working out a composition before the outline of the whole thing has taken definite form. When I started writing it became clear that the whole outline was there, waiting for the speed of my hands to put it down on paper.

When Elizabeth and her children Daniel and Leah woke up they found me scribing with fury on the kitchen dining table.

Even if little Leah knew me well, seeing me so abruptly invading her house must have scared her young soul because she started crying. Her cry made me realize I wasn't alone anymore.

"I am sorry I scared the children, Elizabeth," I apologized. "I didn't expect you to be up so early on a Saturday."

"Oh no, Giacomo, don't worry. It was just the surprise that startled them. If you had kids you'd know they decide when it's time to wake up. You remember Mr. Giacomo, don't you, Leah? Say hello to him."

"Good morning, Mr. Giacomo," the child said with a sleepy voice.

"Good morning to you, gnappetta," I answered using the Roman nickname I gave her when I first became acquainted with her.

She giggled. "That means little one in Roman dialect, Momma," she said. I love the way she giggles when I call her so.

"Mr. Giacomo is here to write a wonderful music, and from what I see he has already begun. He is going to be our guest this day, and we all are going to help him."

"Elizabeth I don't want to be of any disturbance to you and your family. I can go back home, it's not a big deal." I began to gather my things, trying to think where I could take myself to resume the work.

"Do you think I want to lose the occasion to assist a master when he is composing?" she asked. "I have already talked to my neighbor and she will baby sit the kids until dinner. Until then Giacomo, I am all yours."

I think she realized what she just said a moment too late, when we both started blushing.

"Well," I said, trying to get a hold on myself, "let me prepare breakfast while you and i bambini get ready. If my life as bachelor taught me something is how to cook a good meal." I stepped to the stove. "Eggs and bacon?" I kept on hoping that my blabbering helped to ease our embarrassment. "Do you know that eggs were Dante's favorite food?"

After breakfast Daniel and Leah left and we went to work. We made a good team, to use another of those American expressions.

We worked frantically, without a break. I have hardly ever before felt such a creative energy vibrating and such a synchrony with another human being.

We examined my ideas beginning with the vocal theme, then bass theme and the other instrumental parts. I walked in circles around the room dictating the notes as they came in my mind; Elizabeth was sitting on the piano writing the notes, then singing or playing them on the piano.

I could see clearly in mind the three music great factors, melody, rhythm and harmony, combined in a single creation. Slowly the pauses, the rhythm and the counterpoints began to take shape.

Even the adagio, perhaps the part I found most difficult to compose, was written quickly and without too much revision. Finally, bar, after bar, passage after passage, movement after movement, the main motive was complete.

I stopped walking around the living room, turned toward Elizabeth and said, "That's it. It's done, we don't need more. Sure, there are still subsidiary motives to be added and the lines for the single instruments to be written, but what we did has something miraculous in it. Do you realize that in just nine hours we wrote over ten minutes of music?"

Elizabeth stood up and answered while handing me the music sheets, "Well, that's great, Giacomo! I don't know about you, but I am a wreck. I have almost no voice left, and my fingers hurt, but hey, I can't say it wasn't worth it!"

It was dark outside and, looking at the clock (another marvel of technical art that anywhere else would get you burned on a stake), she realized that her children would come back shortly.

She invited me to stay and eat dinner with them. I looked a last time at the sheets of music I was holding in my hands and reluctantly I lifted my eyes from them and I smiled at Elizabeth.

"Madonna, being weary and in pain is the price that those who spread harmony in the world must pay. But I believe it's a small toll compared to the joys it brings. But at least I can alleviate the pain of domestic chores and invite you and your children to dine out. Besides I am anxious to discover if this music is really worth to be played in public. I suggest we play it to Maestro Zenti and see his reactions. He may be our . . . how do call it? He may be our guinea pork."

"Speaking about pork; I would not mind a huge pizza with sausage and mushrooms, I am hungry. Why don't you go pick up Maestro Zenti while I order one? Delivery in one hour!"

I followed her plan and I was back in less than an hour with an extremely curious Girolamo and a bottle of the best wine we had at home to celebrate. Once our hunger was finally calmed by a gargantuan American version of the Neapolitan dish, and with the children in bed, Elizabeth finally performed the Lament for our one man audience.

It was the simpler version of the Lament for a Fallen Eaglein five actions for orchestra, choir and soloist voice, just the piano and Elizabeth's voice. Nevertheless I saw Girolamo, whose knowledge of German was as bad as of English, sincerely moved.

At the end of the performance he got off the couch, bowed to us, stood up again and looked at us in silence. His forehead was frowned and his gaze lost. I knew, for having done it so many times myself, that he was trying to find the right words in a foreign language.

"Mrs. Elizabeth, Giacomo; I believe that many years from now scholars will study the records about this evening, and they will make of today a far more epic day because nothing else will make justice to what I heard sung tonight."

He kept on paying us compliments for the rest of the evening and he wanted to listen to the Lament another three times, curious about the final arrangement and giving some useful advices on how to tweak it. Someway, though, I felt he wasn't saying it all.

So, later, while we were strolling back home he punched me in the shoulder and, trying not to laugh too hard, he said, "Are you happy now? I knew it, you bastard, that you needed a muse! And there is no doubt that Mrs. Jordan is so more fit than me for the part!"

You see, Father Thomas, music is different from the other fine arts. Everybody can see immediately the results of the painter's and the sculptor's work. Everybody can listen to the poet reading his words while he composes, but the music composer needs help to translate his creation in art. Without skilled and highly trained artists to play it, his production is nothing else but obscure symbols written on a pentagram. Without valid performers his art is just simple mathematics.

So it was very clear to me that the first thing to do once the writing part was over was to find those artists, rehearse with them and then share with them the glory or the shame for what I created. The Lament was primarily a song, and I wrote it with one person in mind, the only one that I've met in Germany that could dare touch those notes, Miss Marla Linder.

Yes, Father Thomas, I know that the Holy Father frowns upon the women who sing in public. But even he came to hear Francesca Caccini, La Cecchina, songbird of the court of the Medicis in Florence. Yet Miss Linder's voice surpasses even hers.

I had no funds and no time to invite a castrato such as young Baldassarre Ferri or Il Prosperino to cross the Alps, or even a Venetian artist. I had no doubt that the church choir would perform admirably, but without Miss Linder the Lament would have to become something else.

The problem was that Miss Linder was not in town. She was gone to Magdeburg to look for better glory, and I was not sure whether she would have been able to come back in time. But one must try, you see, so that Sunday I worked only in perfecting the vocal line for the parts I wrote for Miss Marla, and the day after I sent it to her and Franz Sylwester, together with a letter that invited her to perform it for Saint Stephen's Day. In the letter I explained that I would not be able to pay her any money for her performance, because it was already decided that the revenue from the ticket sales would go to finance Saint Mary's charities.

Nevertheless I added that if she had any financial needs, since traveling is expensive, I would be happy to contribute with my own personal funds. Once I mailed the package I had only to wait, being aware of the fabled efficiency of the USE Postal service.

My job was just begun; I needed to coordinate the rest of the performance and the other parts of the choral concert. Besides, I wanted the opinion of other experts. Girolamo's opinion about the lament flattered me, but it was not enough.

I scheduled a meeting in the school's music room (see how direct and efficient is this American English. It reminds me of Latin in more than one way) with Marcus Wendell and Brian Grady, respectively the directors of the school band and of the church choir.

To speed up the meeting I sent them copies of the Lament three days before, so they would have more time to form an opinion about my music.

After the first usual small talk I was glad when they finally went straight to the point. Mr. Wendell was the first to talk.

"Maestro, to be completely frank I should have not been surprised by this piece. I mean, since the Ring of Fire we've seen plenty of strange things, but this is the first time that I see the effects of this mix of twentieth and sixteenth century in something so close to my heart. I have to say that even so, this composition is unusual. It's like Elizabethan antiques in a glass and concrete building, or seeing a man in doublet and plumed hat eating a cheeseburger with fries, the Campbell soup can painted by Rubens. Totally unique, but it shows taste and I believe it has a huge potential."

"I agree," said Mr. Grady. "It's baroque enough to please the tastes of any down-timer, but, at the same time it's modern enough, no pun intended, to not be boring. The closest thing I can compare it to is Albinoni's Adagio. It was a lost eighteenth century music fragment until, in the 1950's, an Italian musicologist found and rearranged it, making of it one of the most famous pieces everybody knows. Of course, Albinoni himself would hardly recognize it. Apparently you Italians have a knack for this kind of thing, no pun intended." He chuckled as if joking.

"Well, I am glad Girolamo is not here to hear you. I am very afraid he would have made sure to meet you tomorrow morning at dawn in some hidden clearing in the woods, and I would hate to see some of my best friends slaughtering each other in a duel. Besides, how many times do I have to tell you that Italians do not exist? There are subjects of His Sanctity the Pontiff, subjects of His Highness the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Citizens of the Most Serene Republic of Venice, Subjects of His Most Catholic Majesty of Spain, well maybe too many of them, and so on. Consider yourself summoned to my next seminar," I answered, waving a not-so-threatening finger at him.

"But I am glad you both liked the piece," I continued. "Brian, we have a lot of work to do and I need your support, and Marcus, I would love to borrow your best tambourine from the band, snare drums if possible. Maybe you could give him some extra credit for that?"

"It seems reasonable to me. Can I help you in any other way?"

"Well I think I have almost everyone I need, but I am thinking about adding a cello line for counter melody, but I don't know any cellist."

"None of our up-timers play the cello," Mr. Wendell replied, to my horror. I knew that I had approached the limits of civilization by coming north of the Alps, but it had not come to me that I had perhaps gone beyond them until this moment. No cellists? Not even a viola da gamba? "Sorry. The Grantville school district was too small to offer a strings program, and the popular music of the up-time just didn't use much strings except guitar, banjo, violin and bass." Banjo? I will have to find out about this banjo, I think to myself. "But maybe you should audition among the down-timers."

"Audition, what is that?"

Brian Grady answered. "Put an ad in the newspapers and tell anybody who is interested to come to Saint Mary's and to show you their skills with the instrument. I can help if you need it. It could be fun."

"It is a good idea, but I don't have much money to spare. If they don't want to play pro bono it could be a problem."

"I am sure that once the rumors about the Lament spread a little you will find many artists willing to be part of it. It's worth trying, anyway. At worst you will find yourself in the same status you are now."

So we placed the ad and we waited a few days.

Well it seems that when you do something good, Our Lord gives you a hand. Once, he heard about my quest for a violoncellist, Johannes Fichtold offered to lend his new cello with the long pin for the audition and the performance. An opportunity that would make any artist worth of the name more interested in trying for the part.

When the day came, twelve players showed up. At the beginning it was frustrating because all the first eight candidates didn't seem capable enough for what I wanted, but the Divine Providence smiled on me once again with the ninth player.

His name is Karel Nedved, a young, meek, blondish refugee from Bohemia. He works in one of the plants here, employed by that Mr. Stone who will be soon part of the delegation to Venice. His impressive skills were much unexpected, because until that moment Mr. Nedved was renown more for his valiant behavior in the sports arena than for any other thing.

Apparently Mr. Stone's sons love an up-time sport called soccer, similar to the game they play in Florence, with the difference that the use of the hands is strongly limited if not forbidden. It originated in your land, dear father, and in the twentieth century became the most played sport in the world.

Considering that it doesn't require any special equipment to play, it's not hard to see why.

Anyway, until that very moment Mr. Nedved's fame was due to the way he could kick the ball, but once I saw the bold way he used the bow tip to give extra strength to his notes; I heard how he could play a tremolo, a martelé, a staccato and the vibrato I knew that this small and young man was a great artist in the making.

When a great artist plays there is no distinction between the man and the instrument, they become one single entity. I could see this in the way Mr. Nedved played. The bow, the strings, and the vibrations they produced when they met, were not made of wood, metal and horsehair but they were the flesh, bones, and breath of a living organism. The discovery of Mr. Nedved was another one of those hidden treasures that seem to crowd this part of Thuringia-Franconia.

My good day didn't end there either. I came home to find a letter from Marla Linder and Franz Sylwester telling me how much they liked my composition and that they would be honored to join the rest of us in Grantville once Marla's recital in Magdeburg was performed early in December.

So, with the ensemble recruited it was time for rehearsals. Except that these Americans have all these days where they just take time off and play. I mean, it truly makes sense to celebrate the saints' days. One must, after all, remain on Heaven's good side. But to take two days off just for something called Thanksgiving? Just to celebrate a small group of Protestants surviving a voyage to the New World in a leaky boat? I moan, I pull my hair, I act the frenzy, but even Brian Grady laughs and pats my shoulder and tells me to take it easy. Easy for him to say, he is not the one who has written the music and like a mother bird wants the musical egg to hatch just right. He is not the one whose reputation before God and the Holy Father is at stake. I ranted. It was a good rant, too, worthy of friend Girolamo at his best. Alas, it did no good. They all went home to their feasts. And then it was Saturday, and no one does anything like work in Grantville on Saturday if they can avoid it—and that included rehearsals, it seemed. And then came Sunday, and of course we can't rehearse on Sunday, Master Giacomo. Bah!

Four days I had to wait. Four days! Girolamo made me leave again on Friday, and Elizabeth suggested walking. So for three days I walked all over Grantville. There should be grooves in the hard stuff of their streets from where I walked my own Via Dolorosa over and over again.

But then it was finally Monday. We were to meet at the St. Mary's Church in the evening. I was there as soon as my last class at the school was finished. It still feels funny that classes are so rigidly timed, you know. There are days where I am cut off in mid-discussion by that most obnoxious bell. But that Monday I minded it not at all, and when my last class was done I went out the door and down the street so fast I was causing a wind.

So I was the first one to the church. Three o'clock by the church clock. Rehearsal would not begin until six o'clock. I set out the music; put the instrumental parts on their stands, and the choir parts on their seats. I looked at the clock; quarter past the hour. I straightened all the parts just so, and dusted off all the chairs and stands and the piano. I looked at the clock; half past the hour. I began biting my fingernails. I would without doubts have gnawed my hand to the wrist but that Father Kircher poked his head in the door.

"Giacomo! What are you doing here?"

"Waiting for the choir and the instruments so we can rehearse."

"Isn't that at six tonight?"

"Yes, Father."

He opened the door wider. "Giacomo, come with me."

"But . . ."

"Giacomo," he interrupted me. "Come with me." And he lowered his bushy eyebrows into a frown. Father A's frown is a very good one, Father Thomas; equally as good as yours, if you can believe it.

So I went with him to the rectory, where he gave me a cup of not-so-good German wine and began to tell me stories of his student days when he sang in choirs and would upon occasion attempt to lead one. The stories were all very funny and most unlikely to have happened—except with Father A you never know for sure.

I lost track of the time, which I am sure was that wily Jesuit's plan, until Brian Grady stepped into the doorway. "Father, do you know where . . . Giacomo, there you are! We're waiting on you, what are you doing over here?" Father A just smiled that smooth angelic Jesuit smile as I was led away, sputtering. I ask you Father, is that fair?

But once the rehearsal started, my nerves were settling very fast, and within minutes I was fine, playing the piano, coaching the instrumentalists, giving Brian and the choir ideas of what I wanted.

Most of Franz Sylwester's musician friends went to Magdeburg along with him and Miss Linder earlier in the year. But two or three remained in Grantville, and by Providence two of them could play parts I needed. Friederich Braun is a journeyman instrument crafter in the new firm of Bledsoe and Riebeck, piano and instrument makers. They are friendly competition for Girolamo. Grantville has no guilds, of course. Friederich could play violin; not at what the Grantvillers would call a "world class" level, but well enough for what I had written. And his friend Thomas Schwarzberg borrowed a viola from Friederich's showroom. Friederich is a goodly sized young man, being a finger's width taller than me, even. But his friend Thomas is worthy of his name, which means Black Mountain. He is the tallest German I have met yet. But for all his size, and despite his protests that he wasn't really a viola player, his touch on the strings was nice. And young Karel was every bit as good with the cello as his audition had promised.

The first evening ended. Brian and the instrumentalists gathered with me after the choir left. "We sounded awful," Brian said. "I told you we could do this, but now I am wondering if I must eat those words."

I laughed. "Brian, for a first rehearsal, everything sounded like a first rehearsal should. You are fine, the choir is fine, they will learn their parts. It will work." He nodded like he wasn't sure. "Trust me. I am the composer. If anyone is to be fretful, it is me. Now go home to your family, and leave the worrying to me, eh?" He laughed and left, waving from the door.

Next the instruments looked at me: Friederich, Thomas, Karel, and the young Dennis Grady from the high school, a member of St. Mary's parish who Marcus Wendell has suggested to play the drum parts.

"Any words for us?" Thomas asked me. They all looked a bit worried as well.

"No," I said. "Or rather, the same words. Yes, things were rough tonight, but we have three weeks to rehearse before Miss Linder arrives back from the big city, and it will all be good by then." That seemed to cheer up their faces, and they followed Brian out the door. I watched them go, hoping in my insides that I had not just lied to my friends.

    Oh, yes, I must also say to you that that same day Girolamo had loaded up on a boat the great piano that he had been preparing for so many months, the up-time Steinway that he had bought and rebuilt. It was a beautiful piece now, and played so well. Anyway, Girolamo had found in his head the thought that he would take this piano to Magdeburg and give it to Captain-General Gustavus himself. With, of course, the thought that he might receive some slight donative for it, as well as the fame of being the instrument maker for the emperor himself. So on that day he left for Magdeburg. The house was strangely quiet with him and Johannes Fichtold gone on this errand he had contrived. But I confess that my focus was so much on the rehearsals I didn't even notice they were gone so much.

We rehearsed three nights a week, and by the end of the first week I decided I had not lied to them. They were getting better.

By the end of the second week they had improved enough that I had to ask Elizabeth to come in during the third week and take the part of Miss Linder so that the choir and the instrumentalists could begin to feel the entire work. She was gracious enough to make that sacrifice of her time for me, and although as a singer she was not as good as Miss Linder, which she admitted to everyone the first night she was there, she was good enough to hold the parts together around the solos.

Truly, Father, I had more time to rehearse than I ever had before in Rome, except for those rare occasions when the Holy Father was to make an appearance. And although the musicians perhaps weren't the best in the world, they were adequate, and the rehearsals were making them to be very solid in their parts. So after three weeks I was feeling safe . . . no, I mean secure. And then Miss Linder arrived.

I remember the night well. It was Wednesday, December 19. I remember she arrived early, and asked if there was a nearby room where she could finish warming up her voice. Father A happened to be there, and he allowed her to use the sacristy. As the other members were arriving, we could hear her voice through the door, rising and falling. Precisely at seven o'clock, the agreed upon time to begin the rehearsal, the door opened and she joined us. Her husband-to-be, Franz Sylwester, had quite appropriately returned to Grantville with her, and he took himself to sit in the seats in what I can only call the nave of the church. Miss Linder, who told me to call her Marla, looked to me and I told her to stand before the instruments.

I sat at my place at the organ, took a deep breath, and said, "Let us begin at measure forty-seven." That is a trick I learned from Marcus Wendell. It makes it much easier to tell choir and instruments where to begin or stop, or where a problem is. Such a little thing, it may seem, but it really helps.

This place where I was having them begin is where the choir enters with a line to prepare a setting for the soloist, and then the soloist sings for the first time. I gave the beginning nod to the instrumentalists, they played the first chord, and the choir sang. At exactly the right place, Miss Linder, Marla, began her first part, exactly.

I really and truly don't remember much of that night. Her voice filled the church completely, with such resonance and such power that it drove almost all thought from my mind. It was a good thing that my hands and feet knew their parts, for my mind was afloat on a sea of mazement. I could tell that everyone in the room except her husband and her close friends among the instruments felt the same as me. Even though most of them knew her from her years in the high school, most of them had not heard her sing in some time. It was just a great "Wow," as the Grantvillers put it.

Miss Linder is the consummate musician, Father, a joy to work with. We moved from section to section. She listened to my wishes, she sang with awareness of what was going on around her, she would stop and ask for my preferences on certain elements or figures. And she sang; oh, how she sang.

Soon it was nine o'clock. We had worked without a stop for two hours, and the choir members were beginning to flag, to fade. Brian Grady looked to me, and I nodded. "All right, folks," he called out. "That's enough for tonight. See you on Friday night, same time."

I walked home that night, not certain that my feet were touching earth.

We had two more rehearsals before the performance, one on December 19 and one on Monday, December 23. They went as well as the first rehearsal with Miss Linder did, although I was in somewhat better control of myself, more aware of what was happening and therefore was able to make direction to the performers somewhat better than I had.

The performance happened on Thursday, December 26, St. Stephen's Day. It was appropriate, I thought, to honor one martyr on the day of the first great martyred saint. I really wanted one more rehearsal, but the Grantvillers make a big celebration for Christmas, much more than we do in Rome, and they shut down even more than they do for Thanksgiving. I had to settle myself for half an hour or so before the performance. It wasn't enough, because I could not risk wearing out the voices of the choir, and then people began arriving early to sit in the nave. The one night of the year when it would have been a help if everyone had been fashionably late, but they instead decide to come not even at the correct time, but early. People!

Miss Linder, Marla, I should say, stepped away and gathered a bag from the front row of seats. She looked to me, and said, "This is the same gown I wore in my recital in Magdeburg. That went well, so maybe it will be equally a good omen here." She went to the women's restroom to change. I should explain that Marla is a large woman, taller than me, with long black hair and blue eyes that seem to laugh at times. She is not the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, but when she smiles, which she does often, she draws the eye of every man who sees her. I think that Leonardo da Vinci or Michelangelo would have found her a worthy subject.

The seats in the nave continued to fill, until there was scarcely room to move an elbow. Precisely at seven o'clock, the door to the sacristy opened and Father A walked out, followed by Marla and Franz. Franz took his place in the front row of seats, while Marla walked to her place in front of the instruments. Father A stood in front of us all, hands clasped in front of him, and said, "Thank you for coming tonight, my friends. It is our hope that the music that is offered to you tonight will speak to you about Hans Richter, our young friend, but not so young to willingly sacrifice himself for a noble cause. In the words of our Lord, 'Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.' So it is tonight our friends will present to us all Lament for a Fallen Eagle."

Father A stepped down and sat beside Franz. It was time. I gave the nod to the instrumentalists, and we began.

Father Thomas, the highest experience for any musician is to lose himself in the music as he performs, to simply be part of something greater as the music is realized and set free. I have always compared it in my mind to Saint Paul's description of the body of the church. That night, it went further than that. I can't describe it, but some of the mystics of the church talk about feeling part of something greater. It was like that, I think. We could all feel it, I knew, that in some way we were all part of one performer. It was like Marla had absorbed us in some way, that we were carried along in her train.

The entire piece, variations and all, has only twenty minutes or so to it. We came to the end, and stopped. Not one of us moved, the performers or the audience. There was a silent hush that, do not laugh at me, Father, was almost holy. Finally, someone in the back of the nave began to clap, then someone else, then with a rush everyone in the nave was clapping, standing up, a few even standing on the seats. Brian Grady wanted me to step forward, but I shook my head and made him do it. He waved a hand at the choir, then at the instruments. The clapping redoubled when he waved a hand to Marla. Last of all he waved his hand at me, and Marla came over and took my hand to drag me from my seat behind the organ. The clapping had started to die down, but rebounded at that.

Father A looked at me and held his arms out as if he held a violin and moved his right arm as if he were playing. Then he pointed to me and to the organ. I could see he wanted us to play more. I muttered the measure number for the final part, the great climax, to Marla, then turned and flashed my fingers in numbers to the instruments and choir, mouthing the words to them. Everyone began turning pages to go that place. I returned to the organ, caught everyone's eye, and nodded. We began the finale. Everyone in the nave sat down immediately, and listened as we did it again. If anything, it was even better than the first time. It seemed so to me, though I could not see a way that could be possible.

The applause was even louder the second time.

I don't know how long it was before people started leaving, but for some time people kept coming to myself and Marla and talking. Father A just stood nearby with his smooth Jesuit smile on, and Franz stood a step behind Marla, smiling himself. At length Girolamo Zenti pushed his way through the crowd. "See, Maestro, I was right, was I not?" His voice boomed and echoed in the nave. "Is this not the greatest work you have ever done?"

"Perhaps," I responded. "Only God will know. And I thought you were in Magdeburg! What are you doing here?"

He placed a hand on his heart and a wounded expression on his face. "How can you believe that I would miss this night, of all nights?" He straightened with a laugh and said, "Ahhh, the king was not in Magdeburg, so I did my business with the princess instead. And since I hear Signorina Marla's recital while I was there, that gave me double reason to be here tonight. And look," he reached behind him and drew someone up beside him, "I brought a friend."

A friend, he said! Father, it was Il Prosperino, the finest castrato and gentilhuomo in all of Italy, favorite of the Holy Father himself, and if not the finest musician in Italy, then certainly one of the top three.

"A pleasure to see you again, Maestro," he purred with a bow. "I confess that I looked forward to this trip to Berlin with dread, but see, in Magdeburg I find the redoubtable Signorina Marla, and in Grantville I find you. Perhaps I will stay awhile. Things certainly seem to be more interesting here than they will be in cold and isolated Berlin."

I regained my wits and we chatted for a moment, then he wandered off on the arm of some local bigwig. Zenti took his leave as well. The musicians lingered for a while, as musicians will do after such an experience, but at length they began drifting off one by one, Franz and Marla the last to go. I went to the platform, collected the music, straightened the chairs, then found my coat. If I have not mentioned it before, December in Grantville is rather chilly. As I paused at the door to turn off the light, I heard someone.

"A good evening, was it not, Giacomo?" It was Father A, sitting in the last row of seats in the nave. "Did I not promise you it would be thus?"

"Yes, Father, you did. Thank you for dragging me into your net and making me do it."

"You're welcome, Giacomo. Have a good night."

"Good night to you, Father."

I went out into the dark night and walked home. I walked slowly, just savoring the feeling as if it were a fine wine. I felt as if I were king of the world, at that moment, as if it all had been laid at my feet. Too bad I didn't know about the changes that would be coming at me before long.

But that will have to wait for another letter. This one is too long as it is. The postal service may charge extra, it is so large.

May your health be good and your spirits joyous, Father Thomas.

Your servant and student,

Giacomo Carissimi

****

Northwest Passage, Part Six

Written by Herbert and William Sakalaucks

    

Newfoundland April, 1634

The anchorage for the new village of Christianburg bustled with activity. The sound of axes chopping trees echoed across the water. The crew of the fishing boat, Bridget, was busy transferring cod to the drying racks a quarter mile from the main landing. Small boats from the larger ships were shuttling settlers and their belongings ashore to waiting tents. The Kristina was the centerpiece of the activity, just offshore, offloading sheep. Three seamen stood laughing at her entry port. As they joked, another sheep rose from the hold on the end of a rope and belly band. The protesting animal was quickly set down by the port and the band removed by one of the seamen. Before the sheep could realize what was happening, the other two sailors grabbed it by its wool and shoved it through the port. It hit the water with an indignant "baaah!" The sight of land and new grass just fifty yards away drew it like a magnet and it swam quickly to shore. When its feet hit bottom it let out another 'baaah' and started to run. Every other step it tried to shake its wool dry. A small rainbow followed it ashore.

    Captain Luke Foxe stood nearby watching as Taggert MacDonald supervised the growing flock's unloading from shore. When the flock began to crowd the landing, Luke pointed toward the gap in the bluff where the stream flowed down the hillside. "Mr. MacDonald, as soon as you're finished, move your flock inland. We'll need this area to unload the equipment next." The beach was ideal for unloading. Boats could anchor close in while the hills started right behind the dunes and protected the beach from winds. The seamen who had been helping the sheep over the side waved to signal they were done. Luke raised his speaking trumpet toward the Köbenhavn. "Mr. Barrow, you may start unloading the sawmill." Luke had decided the sawmill was the most urgent need. The foresters were already clearing a larger area on the nearby hills and logs were available for sawing. Sawn lumber would speed the housing construction and let him clear his ships of the settlers that would be staying. He was already three days behind his planned departure for the exploration expedition around the island. Luke turned once he was certain John had heard him, and headed for the hill where Captain Andersen was overseeing construction of the fort's palisades.

Back on the Köbenhavn, Mr. Barrow supervised the crewmen lowering the cargo sling into the hold. The sling showed signs of wear, but appeared adequate for the day's needs. He decided to continue. Time and tide were their enemies today. He yelled down to the men in the hold, "Lash that crate securely. That's worth more than your scrawny carcasses. I don't want it coming loose when we hoist." John was more concerned about the barge waiting below than the sling. The crude barge that had been built to unload cargo leaked like a sieve and looked like a gentle tap would sink it. They would have to be extra careful lowering the crates. The first crate was quickly tied off and the sailors on deck heaved on the line to raise the load. As it cleared the hatch, they swung the spar that the block and line was attached to and positioned the load over the barge. As they started to lower away, John spotted a strand of rope on a sharp crate edge part and the remainder started to unravel. He shouted at the bosun guiding the line. "Lower away now, or we'll lose it!" The bosun tried to obey but the crate still dropped with a crash onto the barge. The sound of wood breaking was very clear. John grabbed four sailors and they dropped down to the barge. He tossed them oars and roared, "Row like your lives depend on it! I'll not lose this cargo!"

With water rising in the barge, they made slow progress toward the shore. Just before the water reached the low side rail, the barge grounded. John heaved a sigh and jumped into the waist deep water, yelling for the idlers on the beach to help unload the crated sawmill. The sawmill crate was cleared quickly and then the barge was hoisted up and carried beyond the high water mark. A bottom board had been sprung with the crate's impact. John yelled to the ship for the carpenter to fetch his tools. He had planned to finish unloading the rest of the cargo before the tide changed but now he would have to wait until the repairs were done.

Luke had heard the commotion and started to turn back to the beach, but stopped when he realized John was handling the problem. He had to delegate or he would be swamped. As he turned back and continued his trudge up the hill, he remembered why he preferred the deck of a ship. It was flat and level. Climbing hills was agony on his calves. "I'm getting too old for this foolishness." He paused and sat down on a rock to massage his legs. Captain Andersen came down to greet him. Luke took the proffered hand to stand up. Back on his feet, he pointed up the hill. The stockade was going up quickly. "It looks like you've made excellent progress. Do you have enough men?"

"The extra sailors have been a big help. It freed up some of my men for the scouting work you 'suggested.' The Indian boy, Joseph, went along as well. They returned this morning. They explored the entire island and found only one abandoned village. It appeared to have been wiped out by illness quite some time ago. They found graves, but no evidence of violence. Otherwise, all they found were some older campsites. Right now, we're the only ones here. We should have the palisades finished by the day after tomorrow. The well is fresh and has a plentiful water supply. If someone should attack, we'll have a strong place of safety to retreat to." He motioned toward a work party digging a trench outside the wall and piling the spoil inside the seaside bastion. "I'm still going to mount the two cannon where we discussed. With the added height, we can cover the settlement from both land and sea attacks. The guns aren't large, but they don't need to be with a plunging shot like they'll have. Natives aren't my only concern. If that Dutch ship we heard about shows up, we'll be able to give it something to think about!"

The site looked good, even to Luke's unmilitary eye. He was pleased with the choice for military leader. He pointed toward the boats, "Unless something happens to delay the unloading, I plan to finish landing the settlers tomorrow. They can continue to live in tents while the cabins are built. I'll leave with the Köbenhavn Saturday and explore the coast. If all goes well, I'll return in four weeks. That will leave an extra week before the rest of us head to Hudson's Bay. You'll be in charge until then. Captain James will be responsible for the rest of the ships' unloading." Luke gave a wry smile. "I expect the bulk of his time, though, will be spent leading the convention for the new laws." Thomas had put up a vehement protest when he found out he would have to replace the missing Sir Thomas Roe as the leader of the convention. He detested politics but had grudgingly agreed he was the best one remaining to do the job.

Karl looked like he wanted to say something, but was hesitant. Luke decided to ask, "Is something on your mind? When I've seen that look from you before, you've usually had a good idea that meant work."

"Captain Foxe, I'm not sure yet. If the Hamburg is truly lost, I may need to relook where my remaining people need to go. I'll have a better idea by the time you get back from your trip." He gestured to the walls going up nearby. "If this works out as well and as quickly as it seems, I may not need as many military people to stay here. That would still keep my forces for Hudson's Bay up to strength. I'm just not sure how feeding a garrison there will work considering all the settlers we lost."

Luke had missed that point in his planning. The repairs and landing hadn't left much time to consider the impact of losing the Hamburg. Svend's optimism had also helped delay the realization that the Hamburg wasn't going to show up. Now he'd have to reexamine the equipment and supply lists and decide who would still go to Hudson's Bay. "Captain Andersen, you've raised a very good point. I think we may have to reconsider what we can accomplish this season at Hudson's Bay and how we'll do it." Karl seemed satisfied. Luke made a short tour of the site to encourage the workers and then went back down the hill on his aching legs.

****

Saturday morning dawned bright and clear. Neat rows of tents were sheltered close to the new palisade. Off in the woods, a work party was already busy setting up the sawmill. They would be ready to start cutting planks later that day. A nearby stream had been dammed up and a millrace built to supply power. It was quieter this morning, now that the sheep had been taken to the next valley, where new grass was abundant. At the fort, Captain Foxe was going over last minute instructions with his ship captains and Captain Andersen. "I don't plan to be gone more than four weeks. If we're gone six, send one of the fishing boats to search for us. I don't fancy walking back." Everyone laughed. Luke's aching legs had become a topic of humor. "By the way, Karl, thank you for the use of the scout. He'll be valuable for escorting our landing parties. The miners know their business, but they would be lost without guides. While I'm gone have them continue with clearing the land for planting and cutting the timber for planks. The sooner we can get the settlers and supplies in solid buildings, the healthier and happier they'll be."

"And the sooner we can return home!" Captain Johannsson voiced the sentiment of all the captains. An idle ship made no profit. The consensus had been to offload all of the livestock at Christianburg. The few animals that were going to Hudson's Bay could be reloaded when the time came for the ships that would push on. They would stay healthier that way. Without the Hamburg, the settlement at Hudson's Bay this season would be just a small trading fort and base for the surveys during the first year.

Luke continued, looking at Captain James. "And make sure the convention gets us a set of laws the people support. You've got a copy of the framework Sir Thomas planned to support. That has to be finished before I can leave for Hudson's Bay." It was the first time Luke had publicly acknowledged the loss of the Hamburg. That Svend wasn't there to hear the remark probably had some bearing on the timing.

An hour later, the Köbenhavn raised anchor and set sail on a nor-nor'east course. Svend was at the rail with drawing pad and pencils out trying to capture the beehive activity of the new settlement. He'd been kept so busy by Luke that he hadn't had time to think about the lost ship. Luke walked over to admire the effort. "Very nice work, son. You've captured the essence of the bustle onshore."

"Thank you. I've really wanted this to turn out well. Since Agnes isn't here to see the start, I wanted something to show her what she missed when we get back."

"I hope you're right, Svend, but we have to face up to unpleasant facts. If they aren't here when we return, they won't be coming."

"I'm sure they'll be here."

Luke just stared ahead to the open bay. Youthful optimism was hard to kill. If Svend could keep it in this new land, that spirit could overcome all challenges. Otherwise, the challenges would consume his soul.

Luke planned to retrace part of their voyage, sailing clockwise around the island. He'd marked likely landing points on his map where minerals were indicated. The first evening, they remained under topsails on a course to round Cape Bonavista. The next day they approached the first likely site. The exploration party was standing by the entry port as soon as the ship hove to. Besides the gear they needed for prospecting, each member of the party was armed. Captain Foxe had been adamant on that point. They were venturing into unknown territory where humans or animals could be hostile and deadly. The two scouts, Heinrich Reinhardt and Joseph, the Indian, checked everyone's gear a second time to make sure it was secure and comfortable. Heinrich was in overall command.

He gathered them all for one last review of instructions. "Once we get ashore I don't want anyone wandering off alone. Two men together, all the time. That way, if something happens, the survivor can save the gear." That brought some nervous laughs. "Pick out your partner now." He pointed to Svend. "You're with me. The captain said to show you all I can so you can record it for his journal and can learn how to lead a group like this. You may get a chance when we get to our final stop."

Svend was taken aback for a second. This was the first time he'd been told what plans Luke had for him once they reached Hudson's Bay. "Don't worry, I'll stay close. I've heard the Captain's story about the bears around here."

Heinrich laughed, "Those are further north! But there are other dangers that are just as likely here. I wouldn't want to face him if I lose anyone, especially you." The group piled into the two boats and headed for shore.

The landing was uneventful. The beach was level and the boats were pulled up above the tide line. Heinrich told the two sailors with the group, "Stay with the boats, but stay alert. We may need to push off with little warning. If you spot any natives, push off out of range of their weapons but stay near. We may have to abandon our gear and swim for it if troubles develop." The two men nodded energetically. Heinrich turned to Svend, "Which direction does the map say from here?"

Svend pointed toward a hill just inland. "Just to the south of that hill."

Heinrich had a private conversation with Joseph, who then headed off in the direction Svend had indicated. Heinrich turned back to the prospectors, "We'll follow along in a few minutes. Get your gear and be ready. Joseph will scout ahead and blaze the trail. Watch for two axe notches on the trees, about shoulder height." Svend carefully folded the map and returned it to his pack. After shouldering the light pack, he opened his drawing pad and started to sketch the forest opening Joseph had disappeared through. Before he had even finished roughing in the scene, Heinrich passed the word quietly to start out. Svend closed the pad and joined Heinrich at the head of the small party.

An hour later Svend was beginning to have second thoughts about exploring. The short stop at Christianburg had not toughened his legs from the long sea voyage and his shins were sore. As if reading his thoughts, Heinrich called a rest halt. Svend gratefully sat down on a nearby, fallen log. Before he could stretch out, Heinrich came over and asked, "How far does the map say to the site?" Svend opened the pack and pulled out the map. After studying it and checking for landmarks, it appeared that the stream should be just over the next ridge. Before he could answer, there was a rustling from the undergrowth ahead. Heinrich started to raise his musket, but a quiet hail revealed it was only Joseph returning.

As he stepped into view, he pointed back over his shoulder. "I think I've found the site. It's just up ahead." Heinrich looked to Svend, who nodded agreement.

"Very well. Let's get there and we can take a longer rest." Shouldering their tools and weapons with groans for their aching legs, the group set off. Fifteen minutes later, they broke through a patch of brambles and found the stream. Heinrich called a halt and started directing the setup of a temporary camp. Svend stood to the side and watched as Heinrich started a fire for cooking a noon meal so that no smoke showed. The three miners chose their spots to excavate and then guards were set out to give warning of any intruders. Everything was done quietly and with a minimum of fuss. Hopefully, he could do as well if he was called upon to do this in the future.

After a warm meal of boiled salted beef and cabbage, work started on the excavation. Svend stood by and sketched the three men as they worked their locations. Gunther was working the rocky hillside, trying to determine what was in a very small vein in the rock formation. He was the only one of the three with any schooling on mining and minerals. Luke had told Svend to stay close to him and learn what he could. The other two, Karl and Franz, were alternately panning along the stream and digging and sluicing their spoil to see what was near the surface. After about an hour, Gunther had gathered a large enough sample to take back to the ship for testing. Karl and Franz packed up their gear. Franz showed Svend a miniscule speck of yellow. "Your map was right. There is gold here. If I worked for a month, I might find enough to pay for one good meal at the Schwein und Stein back home." He spit on the ground in disgust. "I thought we would find gold by the bucketfuls. That's why I came." Karl nodded in agreement..

Svend vigorously defended the map. "I'd think you would be happy. The map said there was gold here and there was. It didn't say how much, but maybe the next stop it will be plentiful. That's why we have to search."

Karl chimed in, "This seam looks to be the end of an outcropping. He's right. We may have better luck if we can locate the main seam. I've worked twenty years hunting for metals and this is the first time I've at least had a lead on where to look." He seemed satisfied with his day's effort.

Heinrich had Joseph recall the guards and they all headed back to the boat. During the whole time, not one alarm had been raised. By the time they reached the Köbenhavn, the sun was just touching the top of the hill. Gunther reported to the captain on what was found and Luke then gave orders to set sail for the next site.

Copenhagen, May 1634

Bundgaard stood by his cell door, listening to the approaching footsteps. Ever since he had been thrown into prison for dealing with the French, he had been trying to escape. The previous week, a friendly guard had brought word that someone would be seeing him soon. Hopefully, his cousin was working on getting him out. Without his signature, none of his funds could be claimed by anyone else. Once he got out, there was one expense he would definitely pay. His old acquaintance, Oskar the Silent, would be given a job. If it was the last thing he ever did, that bitch at the inn, who had turned him in to the Swedes, would die. Then her brats could starve on the streets.

The footsteps stopped outside his cell. He held his breath and then the door swung open. A guard handed him a cape and hat and motioned for him to step out. Nothing was said. Gammel put on the cape and hat and followed. No one patrolled the passageways they took. Five minutes later he was outside, embracing his cousin.

****

Mette Foxe watched the evening crowd as they arrived for dinner. Two ships had arrived that afternoon and both captains had chosen to dine at her inn. They were in deep discussions with an American that she knew worked for Francisco Nasi. Since she had helped Nasi round up a French spy ring in the harbor area, the inn had seen a rise in foreign visitors. Francisco had even hinted once or twice that he might be interested in the inn as a cover for his work. When the time came to join Luke she would have to see if he was still interested.

A commotion at the door caught her attention. A disreputable looking vagrant had pushed past a departing patron, knocking him into the doorframe. As the intruder swept aside his cloak and reached for something, the American kicked back from the table and drew a gun. As the thug reached back to throw the knife he'd had concealed in his belt, the American fired. Mette heard a thud and turned to her left. The knife was buried in the post next to her. She turned back in time to see the assailant sink to his knees and then fall on his face.

The American turned to face her. "Sorry about that, ma'am. Mr. Nasi has had a number of us watching over you. Gammel Bundgaard managed to escape last week and we had heard he might try something." He nudged the corpse with his foot. "Looks like he tried. We've been looking for Oskar here for some time on another matter. When I recognized him, I didn't have time to warn you. We thought all Bundgaard would try was some intimidation. That was his modus operandi in the past. It looks like he really doesn't like you."

Mette didn't know exactly what modus operandi meant, but the context was clear. She was in trouble. Maybe it was time to talk to Mr. Nasi further about selling her inn and joining Luke in the New World earlier than planned.

Off Bois Island, Newfoundland, May, 1634

    Captain Foxe sat in his cabin in a funk, staring at the mineral map of Newfoundland. His thoughts were far away, wondering how Mette was doing and what his next move should be. Five sites had already been explored and so far, no rare metals had been found that were worth mining. Gunther was ecstatic about some unusual metals that had shown up in the samples, but as far as Luke could tell, they were of little commercial value. If it weren't for the iron deposits at Christianburg, the expedition would have little to show for itself at this point. He stared at the map. It showed coal deposits on the west side of the island, but they were some distance inland. The iron deposits would be much more valuable if they could locate a ready source of coal to smelt the ore into finished ingots. Too bad he couldn't get to Cape Breton. The coal deposits there were substantial and closer to the coast for hauling. But without a contact, the possible trouble with French officials was more than he cared to risk.

Their next stop in the morning would be the English settlement, Ferryland, on the east coast of the island. Rumor had it that the new Lord Baltimore had abandoned the settlers after building a good port and defenses. Maybe they might have some knowledge of the interior of the island and the Boethuck natives that no one had seen yet. Maybe they also had news on the Dutch ship that was raiding in the area. In either case, worrying about "maybes" wasn't going to make tomorrow come any faster. He reached up, extinguished the flame of the lantern, and headed for his cot. His dreams that night weren't of coal.

Christianburg, Newfoundland, May, 1634

Captain James sat at the crude, plank table and surveyed the crowd. The convention to establish a government was in its third night. Planting and building cabins consumed the daylight hours, so the convention was forced to work after the sun went down. Most participants looked to be half asleep. It was a pleasant reprieve. There had already been four fist fights, one major brawl and a knifing. There was a small group huddled over some papers at the rear of the hall, but so far, none of them had spoken at the meetings. Thomas' curiosity was piqued because they were some of the better educated settlers. They had also been sent by the Abrabanels at the last minute, just before departure. No one knew much about them, since they had kept mostly to themselves during the voyage. He had some suspicions, but nothing more. His wandering thoughts were interrupted by a commotion in the crowd. Unnoticed, the current speaker had finally run out of breath and had sat down. Pastor Bauman was pushing his way through the crowd with a sheaf of papers in his hand. Thomas stifled a groan. The brawl the previous night had been caused by the pastor when he began to speak about a state-sponsored church. Bauman called out, "Captain James, I would like to speak!" Immediately, five other sets of hands went up. Three were Catholics, one was a Calvinist, and the other just didn't like Bauman. They all tried to get the captain's attention. They had also all been involved in the brawl. The pastor was almost to the front of the hall when one of the group Thomas had just been wondering about got up and called for attention.

In desperation, Captain James signaled to him. "I recognize the gentleman in the rear. Your name, sir?"

"Jacob Niederhauser."

"Well, come forward and speak your mind. I don't recall that you have spoken yet. Everyone gets a chance to speak." Pastor Bauman looked miffed and stayed near the front, but Thomas relaxed. Anyone other than Bauman right now was an improvement. Whatever Niederhauser had to add would forestall a heated argument for a little while, and who knew, he might talk long enough that an adjournment could be called right after he finished.

Jacob reached the lectern with his notes. "Thank you, Captain." He was a short, thin, young man and was dressed in a linen shirt and breeches. He looked more like a scholar than a farmer. He straightened his papers and began to speak. "Most of you probably don't know me. Before I joined this expedition, I was a university student and a member of the Committee of Correspondence. A number of us were encouraged to join this venture because we had displeased the aristocracy in our home towns and it was felt we would be safer out of their reach." The group at his table laughed at the comment. "I've spent the last three evenings listening to the speakers as they proposed various rules and laws that protected their own self-interest. I've heard calls for a new aristocracy, protection for various groups and guilds, an official church, and voting rights and restrictions on just about everyone here." He had to pause to let the crowd quiet down. Each comment had drawn applause or catcalls from supporters and detractors. When it quieted down enough, he continued. "I'm not up here to propose new rules or laws. The CoC has held many meetings like these already back home and come to the same stalemate. Without a clear purpose of why we want to form a new government and what it will stand for, it's nearly impossible to come up with rules and laws. We have to know why before we can decide how. I would like to propose the following, a resolution of what we believe and why we are establishing this new land. Only after we have a clear purpose can we begin to draw up a set of laws." He handed the papers in his hand to the people in front to pass around.

He held up a copy. "This says: All People have been endowed by their Maker with these rights before Him. The expectations of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness rest in the breast of all people at birth and no just government may take these from them. Our former countries have been engaged in a savage war that has drained our lands of life, hope, and sustenance. We have chosen to settle a new land, to leave the strife behind and offer our families a new hope for a better future. If this future is to have any meaning beyond the enrichment of a privileged few, we, the people, insist that our new government acknowledge these innate rights and defend them against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

We demand these rights before God and country. Too long have the church and the nobility arrogated unto themselves the arbitrary privileges to judge all matters spiritual and civil. Spiritual matters are solely between the individual and his Maker. No church has the right to condemn a soul and then punish the body. The only authority over the soul is that of the Maker and the believer. All people have the right to believe and worship as they choose, just as all churches have the right to accept or reject the members of their body. No government has the right to interfere in the matter of religious conscience and no church has the right to interfere in the government.

In civil matters, all people have the expectation that those who govern them will do so for the common weal. They have the right and duty to choose who will govern them. No one has the right to imprison or punish someone simply by right of birth. Redress of grievances through a just legal system is the right of everyone. Too long has might and privilege made right.

For a government to endure and prosper, it must guarantee the rights of the governed. Chief among these are life, liberty, freedom of religion, and education. For the governed to retain those rights, they must bear the responsibility to maintain these rights through the exercise of the franchise of the vote. Support of honest rulers and judges and the guarantee of those rights to all people rest with the governed. Failure to meet these responsibilities is the first step on the pathway to despotism.

It is self-evident that the denial of these rights to one is the denial to all, and the basis for the removal, by force if necessary, of those that would deny those rights. Here we stand, and accept responsibility. As we stand, we expect our new government to stand also in the defense of these rights; for now and for future generations."

Jacob made a bow to the Captain and then returned to his seat in the rear.

There was stunned silence for several seconds after he finished. It was broken when Pastor Bauman started toward the table. Captain James, who had been watching the crowd's reaction during the speech, sensed an opportunity and seized it. "All those in favor of the proposal and then adjourning, say, Aye!"

The crowd, seeing Bauman moving to the front, responded with a thunderous "Aye."

"Those opposed?" There were only a few nays from the crowd, mostly those that had tried to cover their own interests.

Captain James quickly concluded, "The ayes have it. We will meet next Tuesday evening. At that time I will have a list of the rules and laws that have been proposed that meet the guidance in this Resolution. Further laws can also be proposed at that time. Meeting adjourned." The meeting broke up in a commotion, with those espousing special interests leading a chorus of complaints. They were a small minority and Thomas knew the worst was past. He walked back to join the group discussing the resolution in further detail.

Ferryland, Harbor, Newfoundland, May, 1634

A fog had risen during the night, but the morning sun was rapidly burning it off. Captain Foxe waited by the wheel, trying to sight the settlement he knew lay just to the west. The long boat was already lowered to send a party ashore. He handed his telescope to Svend and motioned aloft. "Go see if the shore is visible. I think we may just be in an isolated fogbank."

Svend hurried aloft. As he faded from sight in the fog, he paused and called down. "You were right, Captain; the fogbank ends less than a cable west of us. It's clear from there to the shore. We're about two miles from the dock."

Luke passed the order to the first mate, "Take her in Mr. Barrow, just like we discussed. We'll anchor offshore and send the boat in. Oh, and have a signal gun ready. The map I have shows they're spread out a bit and may not have a watch set."

"Aye, aye sir!"

The sun and the westerly heading soon had the Köbenhavn clear of the fog. Svend kept the deck posted from aloft on the situation ashore. "The dock seems to be intact, but two boats pulled up on the beach appeared to have burned. It looks like someone has tried to start repairing the least damaged of the pair. I can't make out any activity in the few houses in view." The Köbenhavn continued to sail toward the dock. It was barely making way. The cutwater off the bow was not much more than a child would raise in a puddle after a rainstorm. "Still nothing moving."

"Fire the signal gun, Mr. Barrow. Maybe these farmers are still asleep!" Luke's expression suddenly changed, "Or maybe something has happened."

The discharge of the gun on the forecastle banged out and then reechoed from the nearest hillside. "Do you see anything yet, Svend?"

"There's some movement behind the wall back from the beach. I'm not sure . . ."

The rest of Svend's answer was drowned out in an answering blast from behind the wall. Two clouds of smoke rose from the concealed cannons there. Seconds later, there was the sound of ripping linen and two holes appeared in the mainsail.

"Come about, Mr. Barrow, and get us out of range. These folks don't seem to want visitors." As the ship came about, it seemed to slow down and then stayed heeled over a degree or two. The tide was at ebb and the Köbenhavn had slid up on a small sand bar. As the crew tried to sort out what had happened, another volley sounded from shore. This time, one ball hit the foretop yard and it split in two. The pieces flopped as the chains held them aloft.

Luke gave a quick glance to where the guns were hidden. His cannon could not bear on the battery. "Mr. Barrow, get the two boats lowered. We'll shift the forecastle guns back and try to tow her off." As the crews lowered the boats, another volley slammed home. Both shots hit the hull but bounced.

"They're only using a pair of four pounders Captain." The bosun who had called out had served in the English navy before joining the Köbenhavn.

Luke snapped, "I don't care what they're using. If we stay here much longer, even a rat could nibble us down." He turned to Svend, who had nearly run down the ratlines when the first shots had been fired. "Raise a white flag. Maybe we can parley and find out why they're so belligerent."

Svend raced below and returned with a bed sheet from his cot. Another set of shots rang out, but this time they were a clean miss. The sheet was tied on to a line and quickly raised. After ten minutes without another volley, Luke relaxed a little.

"John, you're in charge. I'm going ashore to find out what this is all about. Keep trying to get us free from the bar. And keep sounding the well, in case we sprung something. Svend, grab your notebook. I want you along in case something needs to be written." Luke stepped to the ladder and headed down to the maindeck and the entry port. Svend ran back to his cabin and packed the paper, ink, and quill into a pack. He reached the boat just as a seaman passed a small white flag to one of the rowers. Svend took it after he settled in. Hopefully the people on shore would honor the flag.

As the boat approached the dock, an armed party of about fifteen men came out to meet them. Even at a distance, angry shouts in English and French could be heard. The seaman in the front of the boat tied the line to a piling and Luke stepped up to the dock. He was met by an old, weathered man, who probably had been the captain of one of the burned boats. "Who are you and where are you from?" he demanded before Luke could say a word. The question had been accentuated with the pistol in his hand.

"I'm Captain Luke Foxe, of the Danish ship Köbenhavn. We're here on an exploring mission." Any comments on settlements and other ships could wait until the situation was less tense.

"Then why did you shoot at us? Or are you in league with that damned Dutchman?" All the guns were pointed at Luke and his sailors. The rage was evident on all the faces in the crowd. Unless something was done quickly to defuse the situation, a single tense finger on a trigger could cause a massacre.

"That was our signal gun. From the water, it was evident something had happened here. Since no one showed themselves, we fired to attract attention. We had heard from a passing ship that a Dutchman was raiding these waters. If there were desperate survivors, we wanted to let them know succor was at hand. Now put down that pistol before you shoot a fellow Englishman."

"But I thought you said you were Danish?" Uncertainty was starting to replace the rage.

"We're chartered to a Danish company that's partly owned by Sir Thomas Roe." Luke noticed that everyone in the crowd looked gaunt, so he added, "We're provisioned for a two year voyage. If you need supplies we'd be glad to share. How many are you?" The instant smiles told Luke he had hit the right note.

"We've forty-three English settlers and twelve French sailors that were marooned here by the Dutchman with no supplies. We started to try and rebuild one of the boats they burned but we don't have anything for a mast or sails. It's been over a year since our last supply ship arrived from England. Our food is almost gone."

Luke called to Svend, "Return to the ship and ask Mr. Barrow to hoist out a barrel of flour and some cabbages as soon as he has the ship off the bar." Even as he said it, he heard a cheer from the ship and could see that the Köbenhavn had refloated with the returning tide. "Come back to me as soon as you've delivered the message." Luke was now surrounded by well wishers pounding him on the back, grateful that the specter of starvation had been lifted.

Later that evening at a modest feast laid out in celebration of their rescue, Luke sat down with Captain Willem Holmes, the leader of the group in the morning and Captain Rene Chaumont, the leader of the French sailors. As Luke poured them all mugs of wine he asked, "So, what's the story on this Dutchman? All we heard was from a passing ship that a Dutch ship was raiding off the Banks."

Rene raised his mug and pointed at the crews in the room, "We were all fishing off the Banks, minding our own business. Next thing we know the Dutch comes sailing into view and fires a shot across our bow. He sends a boat over and tells us we're his prisoner. We ask why and he says that France stabbed Holland in the back and that we're at war. They gave us five minutes to gather our personal belongings and then they whisked us into the boat and set fire to my Berthe!Four times that day they do this. The entire fishing fleet from Baie de Mordiennehe sinks! Even if we get back, our village is ruined!" He slammed the mug down to emphasize the loss. "He tells me he wants to hurt the English too, since they helped the French. Since there are no Englishmen working the Banks at that time. he decides to kill two birds with one stone and sails here, to Forillonand sets us off without supplies and burns the English boats."

Willem nodded agreement and then added, "It was already a rough winter for us, with no supplies from England. We knew nothing about any war. We were just trying to hold on." Tears started to roll down his check. "We've already lost six this season from sickness and the start of scurvy. One was my youngest daughter."

Luke's mind was racing. The problems facing the village presented an opportunity for all of them.

Baie de Mordienne would become Port Mordien in another future. The Port Mordien that would also become the site of the first coal mine in Cape Breton. He just had to present the solution the right way. "From what we heard before we left Copenhagen, it sounds like the new Lord Baltimore may have decided to cut his losses here and go elsewhere. Our major backer was Sir Thomas Roe, an English diplomat to King Christian's court. He has friends in England that know Lord Baltimore and they had told him that Newfoundland was being abandoned. That's why we're here. We're setting up a mining settlement near Bell Island. From there, we plan on expanding into the Hudson's Bay area. This harbor would make an idea second site for the fishing boats we plan on supplying the settlements."

Willem interrupted, "I don't know what the others here will say, but good riddance to Calvert if he wants to treat us that way. We don't owe him nothing! We'll talk it over, but I think you have your port."

Rene sat there with a long face. "But what about us Bretons? What do we do?"

"Patience, my friend. First I have a question for you." Luke tried not to let his eagerness show. "As I understand, you are under the French, non?"

"Oui, the Compagnie holds a charter for our territory."

"But do they have any administrator living there?" This was the key.

"Non. They only show up about once a year to collect taxes and sell us shoddy trade goods. They keep us in servitude by forcing us to sell our fish cheap, back in French markets, and control the prices we pay for goods. If there was some way to change that, we would. With no fishing boats now, they'll let us starve and start over with new victims."

"We'll make sure you get home. When we get there I'll need to contact your leaders. There may be a way for you to break your chains to the Compagnie and we'll all be rich men. Just how badly do you want to stay a fisherman?" Rene and Willem both smiled broadly and leaned forward to listen to Luke's proposal.

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Stitching the Country Together: Railroad System Technology in 1632

Written by Iver P. Cooper

    

The American railroad system was, in the words of Jessamyn West, "a big iron needle stitching the country together." The "needle," I suppose, is the locomotive, but it doesn't accomplish much without the "thread"—the track.

In this article, I will be covering railroads in pre-RoF Grantville, the immediate post-RoF rail supply, route planning, track design and construction, rolling stock, and some safety issues.

Railroads in Pre-Ring of Fire Grantville

Canon does not specifically describe the rail network in the vicinity of Grantville. However, since Grantville is based on real-life Mannington, West Virginia, it is worth taking a look at Mannington's situation. In 2005, CSX owned a line which extends approximately 17.51 miles from Milepost BS 306.32 near Barrackville to Milepost 319.48 near Mannington. This line closely parallels Buffalo Creek. The right-of-way (ROW), which varies from 30 to 90 feet wide, was originally acquired in the 1850s by the Baltimore & Ohio (B&O) Railroad (which became part of first the Chessie System, and later, CSX). (It presumably is part of the original B&O main line out to Wheeling.) CSX also owns, in the same area, the 4.35-mile Dents Run Spur between Milepost BSB 0.00 and Milepost 4.35. I am not sure exactly how much of this track would be within the Ring of Fire, but certainly some of it is.

As of 2005, there were still rails, cross-ties, and ballast on the line, at least in some sections. We know this because CSX sought government approval to abandon the line and salvage that material. We don't know the weight of the rail, but for reasons explained later, I would guess it to be at least 100 pounds a yard on the part alongside Buffalo Creek, and at least seventy pounds a yard on the Dents Run spur.

The line also includes some old bridges, "built from 1904 to 1912. They are all steel/concrete or steel 'I' beam structures."

Barflies visiting Mannington have documented the existence of track serving various abandoned coal mines or lumber camps in the area. In the 1632 Dead Horses FAQ, their findings are summarized as follows:

* 45 narrow gauge rail cars were found in the ROF mostly in abandoned mines. There was a mix of 2 ft and 2.5 ft gauge as well as cars that could operate on either....

* 60 miles of 20lb track were found on lumber trails and in doghole mines—of this about 45 miles is serviceable.

A rail line went into Grantville for servicing the power station. So that track, as well as some rolling stock and even a kind of a small car workshop, came with us through the Ring of Fire. Regrettably, there was not even a single engine at this time in Grantville.

Besides the track, there is also a brick, ex-B&O railroad station in Mannington, built in 1896, and now used to house a business ( Arrowhead Resources LLC, 104 West Railroad St).

Rail Supply

The USE starts with both the old B&O standard track, and the narrow (2 or 2.5 foot) gauge lines servicing the lumberjacks and miners. Some of the latter is being used by Pitre's railway battalion. The story doesn't say anything about the rest of that track, but it seems reasonable to expect authors to follow the guidance of the FAQ, which says that "the unserviceable track . . . was turned over to USE Steel for recycling into bar rail."

The initial supply of steel rail is whatever salvaged up-time rail is not used to make armor for the four ironclads (Weber and Flint, 1634: The Baltic War, Chapter 52; only three were referred to in Weber, "In the Navy," Ring of Fire). We know that the navy is going to need "miles of track." How many? Until we have the specs of the ironclads—the thickness of the armor, whether it is just flank armor or also deck armor, and the length, height above water, and width of the ships—we cannot determine the quantities involved. However, that didn't stop me from making a crude estimate.

Eddie Cantrell at one point makes reference to the Benton and the Tennessee, as being bigger than what the USE Navy will be building.

The first CSS Tennessee would probably have displaced 800 tons like her sister ship CSS Arkansas. She was burnt before completion. The second was 1273 tons, 209 feet long with a 48 foot beam. She was captured in 1864 and became the USS Tennessee. Both were larger than the Benton.

The USS Benton was a 1033-ton Civil War ironclad, the largest in the western flotilla. It was 72 feet wide and 202 feet long. The sides were slanted, probably at a 45 degree angle, and bore armor 3.5 inches thick. The wheelhouse and stern had 2.5 inch thick iron. I am not sure of the height above water, but for the "city class" ironclads like USS St. Louis, it was twelve feet. If the stated beam is at the waterline, then each flank had 990 cu. ft. of armor, and the bow and stern each had 252 cu. ft. So we need around 2,500 cu. ft. to armor all four sides. (I am ignoring deck plating, if any.) One cubic foot of wrought iron weighs 480 pounds, so that is about 600 tons.

Is that a good estimate? By way of comparison, an 1862 Navy Department specification for an iron-clad steam battery, with a 465 foot water line, side plating mostly 4.25 inches thick, 1.5 inch deck plates, and two armored conning towers, said that the estimated weight of the armor was 691.6 tons. (Baxter, The Introduction of the Iron Clad Warship, Appendix B) Clearly, I am in the ballpark.

Steel weighs about 500 pounds per cubic foot. So, to get 2,500 cubic feet out of rails weighing 40 pounds a yard, we would need 31,250 yards (17.8 miles). For three such ironclads, we would need over 53 miles of 40 pound rail, which means over 26 miles of track.

However, the USE ironclads are designed to resist seventeenth century, not nineteenth century, cannon, and therefore probably carry thinner armor. Moreover, since they are designed to traverse rivers considerably shallower than the Mississippi, they are likely to be smaller, too. So their salvaged rails are likely to be quite a bit less than 26 miles of track.

Also, while we know that some of the rail is going to be used for the ironclad armor, canon does not insist that all of the armor be salvaged track. Some of it could be down-time iron, rather than up-time steel. The Civil War ironclads in fact used wrought iron armor.

John Zeek, one of the authors of the TacRAIL stories, stated on 1632 Slush Comments that TacRAIL used only 20 miles of the serviceable track, the other 25 miles worth having been turned over to the government. I would think it likely to have been used to make "strap rail" for the civilian railroad, rather than melted down.

Route Planning

It should be appreciated that it usually will not be possible to run the line on a straight, level path, except for short distances. If you encounter a hill, your choices will be to go over it (so the train must climb and then descend a grade), to curve around it, or to cut or tunnel through it. If you meet a river, you can cross it with a bridge (or a tunnel), or transfer the train cars (or their cargo) by ferry. An approach curve may allow a river to be crossed perpendicularly rather than obliquely.

In nineteenth-century America, where the railroad was penetrating thinly settled areas, it was not unusual to construct, at relatively little expense, a line with sharp curves and steep grades, and later, after the railroad had recouped its initial investment, reroute. New towns and businesses sprang up along the line. In Victorian Britain, on the other hand, the railroad tended to go to places where people, factories, and mines were already located, and it was easier to raise the money to finance expensive bridges, tunnels and the like. The USE of the 1630s is likely to take a middle course.

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Grade (Slope). Grade is expressed either as the change in height relative to horizontal distance (e.g., 1 in 10, or 10%), or as the degree of the slope (5.7 degrees being the slope of a 1 in 10 grade).

If you are going uphill, the locomotive has to overcome gravitational force as well as rolling friction. This grade resistance is roughly 20 pounds per ton of load, for every 1% of slope. (Armstrong, 20) If the locomotive isn't powerful enough to pull the entire train up a bill; it can double up, that is, take half the train up to the top, then head back down to retrieve the second half.

As it progresses, the locomotive is doing work, converting chemical energy into potential energy. To lift one ton a distance of 100 feet will cost 0.1 hp-hour (about 75 watt-hours). It doesn't matter if you lift it slowly or quickly, or up a gentle slope or a steep one. The energy bill is the same.

Lifting is costly, too. The energy needed to lift one ton by that distance might be enough to propel the train 10.5 miles, at 15 mph, on level track.

You will recover that energy when you go downhill if the slope is gentle enough so you can safely coast down. If you have to brake, to avoid losing control, then some of the energy is irrevocably lost.

You see the Catch-22 here. If you economize on road cutting by letting the track go up and down hills, you will need to pay the piper by building more powerful locomotives, or running shorter (lighter) trains.

In early nineteenth-century England, great care was taken to limit grades to a maximum of 1 in 330. This of course entailed a great capital investment in road bed construction. In America, economy of materials and cash was triumphant, and much steeper grades were deemed acceptable. (NOCK/L, 34). In 1911, at least in British practice, a grade of 1 in 400 was considered easy; 1 in 200, moderate; and 1 in 100, heavy.

On a normal railway, the maximum possible grade depends on the adhesion of smooth wheels to smooth rails, which in turn depends on climate, the adhesion being strongest when the rails are dry. According to EB11, the theoretical limit is around 1 in 16 to 1 in 20,and the practical one at that time was more like 1 in 22.5.

Steeper grades can be climbed by means of a rack railway, in which a cog wheel on the train engages a tooth rack on the rail. According to EB11, rack railways can have a gradient of 1 in 4 or even 1 in 2. If that isn't good enough, one must resort to a cable railway, in which the train is pulled up.

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In the U.S., about one-seventh of all track is on a curve. (Henry, 79) Curves force the train to reduce speed (so it doesn't derail), and also result in an effective increase in resistance. The sharper the curve, the greater the problems presented. (Armstrong, 26).

There are two ways of expressing the sharpness of a curve. First, you can calculate the angle through which the track turns in 100 feet, say, one degree. Or you can imagine the curve to be an arc of a hypothetical circle, and state the radius of that circle (for a 1 degree curve, it is 5,729 feet).

When you go around a curve, you experience a centrifugal force. The train wants to keep going straight, the tracks want it to turn. If the centrifugal force is too great, the train wins, and it leaves the tracks. Not good.

One engineering trick for dealing with this problem is called super-elevation; the outer rail is raised a few inches, tipping the train, and causing the combined effect of gravitational force and centrifugal force to keep the train on the track. Six inches of super-elevation is perfect if you are going 45 mph around a five degree curve.

Unfortunately, if you run slower trains on the same track, the wheel flanges bear down heavily on the inner rail, resulting in excessive wear. So the degree of super-elevation is usually a compromise on lines carrying both fast passenger trains and slow bulk freight.

Another remedy is to provide a check rail on the inner side of the inner rail. As the wheels try to slide horizontally outward, they meet the check rail.

    A third solution is to "tweak" the shape of a railcar wheel. If you stand in front of a train (hopefully one which is stationary!), you will see that wheels are not perfect cylinders, they are slightly conical (standard "taper" is 1 in 20), with the narrowest diameter on the outside. As the train moves onto a curve, the wheels shift outward, so the outer wheel's diameter at the point of contact increases, and that of the inner wheel decreases. That corrects for the curve.

If these expedients are insufficient to compensate for the centrifugal force, the train must slow down. The speed on a fifteen degree curve might be half that on a five degree one, and one-quarter that on a mild one degree veer.

There is also extra friction involved when you take a train around a curve. For each one degree of curve, figure increased resistance of about 0.8 pounds for each ton of load. That means that a 25 degree curve has the same effect on resistance as a 1 in 10 grade. Consequently, route designers usually find it better to curve around hills, than to traverse them. On the Horseshoe Curve of the Pennsylvania R.R., which is a nine degree curve, the grade is 1.8%. If the track were laid straight, the grade would have been 8.5% (Henry, 56). The most extreme examples of trading curves for grades is on certain mountain railways, which climb a hill by a series of switchbacks.

What kind of curves might be expected on the USE's railroads? EB11 says that in Great Britain, a 15 degree curve (383 foot radius) is considered "very sharp, at least for main lines on the standard gauge." It is very sharp, indeed; you probably would encounter such a curve only in a mountain region, or to get onto an industrial siding. (Henry, 57). Clarke (8), discussing late nineteenth-century practice, says that on main lines, most curves are of at least 1,000 foot radius in Europe, and 300 foot radius in America.

Traversing curves has an energy cost. First of all, there is the increased friction. When the curves add up to a full circle, you have used up about 0.014 hp-hour per ton, the equivalent of lifting a ton a distance of fourteen feet. Moreover, curves increase the effective distance traveled, and work equals force times distance.

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Acceleration. To stop at a station, you must decelerate. Then, when you are ready to move again, you must accelerate until you reach "cruising speed." Likewise, if you slow down to negotiate a curve, you will pay a price when you speed up again. You need extra tractive force (above and beyond that needed to overcome the base train resistance) whenever you want to accelerate; as Newton said, Force equals mass times acceleration. According to EB11, the acceleration resistance equals the weight of the train, multiplied by the ratio of the desired acceleration to gravitational acceleration.

Acceleration also has an energy (fuel) cost. According to Armstrong (24), the energy needed to accelerate a stopped train up to 30 mph is what would be needed to get it to roll three miles at a constant 30 mph. Decelerating doesn't cost energy, but does result in brake wear.

Track Gauge

The track gauge is the distance between the inside edges of the two rails forming a single track. Wider gauges allow the railway to carry heavier loads (because it can use wider cars), but construction costs are higher, because everything must be scaled up: the weight of the rails, the length of the crossties, the width of the supporting bed. Narrow gauges not only reduce those costs, but also allow the track equipment to negotiate tighter curves.

In the twentieth century, gauges ran from one feet for certain industrial railways, up to nine feet for one of the Japanese funiculars. The so-called "standard" or Stephenson gauge is 4 ft. 8.5 in. Seven different gauges were in use in the United States in 1860.

It is very undesirable for there to be a mix of gauges within one country's rail lines. If gauges are mismatched, then, at the point where the gauge is "broken," passengers and freight must be unloaded from one train and reloaded on another. Or some other adjustment must be made, e.g., "cars with a sliding wheel base, hoists to lift cars from one wheel base to another, and, most commonly, a third rail." (Railroad.net)

On the other hand, a change of gauge at a national border makes it difficult for an invader to use the victim's tracks, at least until it captures the latter's rolling stock. The Finns deliberately used a different gauge than the Russians.

Since no other power has a railroad, the USE isn't going to be much concerned about the defensive value of a change of gauge. It seems pretty likely that the old timeline "standard gauge" will be standard for civilian railroads in the new timeline, too. See Weber, "In the Navy" (Ring of Fire).

Loading Gauge

The loading gauge is the maximum height and width of the rolling stock which can use the track, and is defined by bridge, roadcut and tunnel clearances and, in some cases, limited by the stations through which the tracks pass. Modern British railways under a restrictive limitation of 9'0" width and 12'11" height. In contrast, in America the rolling stock can be as wide as 10'10" and as high as 16'2". (NOCK/RE, 208-9).

The tradeoff, here, is that a permissive loading gauge results in greater construction costs for bridge and tunnel work, while a restrictive one forces the use of more cars to carry the same load. I suspect the American standard will prevail in the post-RoF USE.

Bear in mind that having a large loading gauge is ineffectual if the track gauge is narrow. If you run big cars on a narrow gauge, they may tip over when the train tries to negotiate a curve.

Monorail Systems

Thus far, we have assumed that each track uses two rails. However, some short rail lines are monorail. A monorail system has some real advantages. You only need have half as much rail, obviously. And you don't have to keep two rails level with each other, and at the correct separation.

So what's the catch? A train with only one line of wheels, riding on top of a single rail, would tip over, just as a riderless bicycle would if you let go of it. The stability problem has been "solved" in several ways, three of which are mentioned in EB11: you can suspend the train from an overhead rail, you can straddle the cars over a somewhat lower rail, or you can equip the cars with gyroscopic stabilizers.

Suspended monorails have found some acceptance in mountainous areas; a good example is the "floating railway" (1901–present) of the Wupper Valley. The longest suspended monorail in the world is presently the Chiba Urban Monorail (15.2 km)(Wikipedia).

The problem with a suspended monorail line is that you have provide a tall structure from which the train can hang. If that structure is made of iron, you will probably need more metal for it than you would for a second rail. If it's made of reinforced concrete, the ferrous demand will be less, but it's unclear that the savings in iron will justify the investment which must be made in concrete formulation and construction.

A supported quasi-monorail line, designed by Lartigue, operated from 1888 to 1924 (Listowel to Ballybunion, in Ireland, 9.5 miles), and, at its peak, carried 1,400 passengers a day and 10,000 tons of freight a year. ( MBI 114) Its supports were waist-high, A-shaped wooden trestles, with the main rail on top. I call it a quasi-monorail becuse there were two additional lower rails; the cars had unpowered guide wheels which rode upon them. Its construction cost was 30,000 pounds; the line ran 9.5 miles. It had to use a custom "Siamese Twin" locomotive and custom cars; these were divided, so they "hung" over the monorail, like panniers on a camel. This of course lowered their center of gravity.

Most modern monorail systems use cars which straddle a 2-3 foot wide reinforced concrete beam. (Wikipedia).

A full size (40 foot) prototype of a gyroscopically balanced monorail railcar was demonstrated in 1909–10. It never attracted sufficient investment interest to progress further.

Track Design

The Grantvillers have plenty of up-time track—complete with steel rails, cross-ties, and cross-bed—to study. So they know what they want to build. Let's take a closer look at the track components. . . .

Track Foundation

In early nineteenth-century Britain, and occasionally in America, the rails were fastened to square stone blocks, perhaps two feet to a side. These were cheap in England, and had the advantage that horses could walk freely between the rails, drawing the train forward. They were also durable. Unfortunately, they didn't have any resiliency, so the ride was harsh, the rail and the wheels were subject to heavy wear, and the jar tended to shift the stone blocks out of position, leading to a variation in the gauge. (NOCK/D, 7-9, 112; Mills 210).

Hence, the stone blocks were replaced with wooden sleepers. This was usually a transverse sleeper (crosstie), a support which laid perpendicular to the rails, with both rails fastened to each sleeper. (Mills).

In 1889, there were still 1,000 miles of longitudinal sleepers (each under and parallel to a rail) in use. Light crossties were used together with the longitudinal sleepers to maintain the gauge. (SciAm Fig. 8).

Wood was preferred because it was resilient, and therefore easier on the rolling stock. In America, where timber was cheap and widespread, this also led to lower construction costs.(Stover 32).

Sleepers normally have a rectangular cross-section. However, to save money, a railroad can use a "half-round" sleeper; essentially, a log split in half (Mills 211). In fact, for a pioneer railroad, one can cut down a tree, plane down the sections where the rail would lie, and otherwise leave the log intact.

According to EB11, the British sleepers typically have a length of nine feet, a width of ten inches, and a thickness of five inches. The most common American crossties are eight feet long, eight inches wide, and six or seven inches thick. However, the width and thickness can be adjusted to the intensity of the traffic.

The sleepers are usually placed two to three feet apart (measured center to center)(EB11). Henry, addressing 1940's practice, says that there are 3,000 ties/mile on the main lines, and 2,800 ties/mile on side tracks. (Henry 68).

Beam theory says that the maximum deflection between supports is proportional to the cube of the distance between them (Gordon, Structures, 382-3), so maintaining a spacing suitable for the expected loadings is important.

Sleepers deteriorate as a result of decay and abrasion. Baltic wood, impregnated with creosote preservative, will last twelve to eighteen years in America and only six or seven years untreated. I would expect similar performance in Europe. In the tropics, and in dry climates at high altitudes, creosote isn't particularly effective; the sleepers rot within three or four years. (Mills 213-4).

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The sleepers are most commonly made of wood, and in 1911, European railways had the wood pretreated to preserve it. EB11 suggests the use of three gallons of heated "dead oil of tar" (cresote) per sleeper. This is forced into the sleeper, which is also warmed. At that time, American railroads relied mostly on open air seasoning, but by the time of the RoF, they had changed their practice. Preservation treatment is most urgent if the rail is running through timberless country, as it is then less convenient to replace a defective sleeper.

The Boston and Lowell used solid granite longitudinal sleepers, and found that while they had a long life, they destroyed the rolling stock (Meyer 311; Bradlee 4).

Concrete and ferro-concrete sleepers have also been used, especially in twentieth-century Europe. Concrete doesn't burn or get devoured by termites like wood, or rust like iron or steel.

Because concrete is not resilient, like wood, you have to provide cushioning pads. Because of its deficiencies in tensile and bending strength, concrete ties need pre-tensioning and steel reinforcement. Since you can't spike concrete, you need to provide inserts to receive fasteners. (Armstrong 34). Concrete ties cannot easily be mixed with wooden ties because of the differences in mounting equipment.

In 1909, concrete sleepers cost 50% more than wooden ones, but offered twice the life expectancy. (CCE).

I doubt that concrete sleepers will be used on the initial USE tracks. However, once we are laying track in northern Germany and the Netherlands, where wood is scarce and expensive, concrete sleepers may be cost-effective.

Steel sleepers, introduced by 1875, are relatively lightweight, dimensionally accurate, and immune to biological attack, although of course they can corrode. You don't want to use steel sleepers if the tracks are running over salty soils! In 1884, they had an expected life of perhaps 35 years (Mais 50). But steel is going to be so valuable in the first post-RoF decade that I doubt that the railroads will use it for sleepers (as opposed to high traffic rails). Wrought iron or cast iron have also been used in place of steel. (Vernon-Harcourt 252ff).

Recycled plastic and rubber, or composite, sleepers have resiliency similar to that of wood but of course don't decay. These sleepers started to enter the market around 2004 and hence the up-timers will not be aware of them.

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The sleepers themselves rest on a layer of ballast, which is sloped to provide drainage. For a double tracked line, the width at the top is 25 feet in British practice (EB11), and greater in America. The materials used are earth, gravel, broken stone and the like, sorted so that the coarser materials are on the bottom. Ballast also fills the gaps between the sleepers. EB11 recommends a depth of six inches to one foot, or more.

Rails

Overview. The rails (stringers) have two purposes. The first is to provide a low-friction surface over which a load can be dragged with relatively small force. The second is to provide a guideway so that one vehicle can lead a train of followers.

The first rails were made of a single type of wood. These were replaced by a composite of a relatively inexpensive softwood, overlaid with a hardwood as the wearing surface. The hardwood, in turn, was replaced with iron, resulting in so called "capped" or "strapped" rail. (There were also experiments with putting iron on top of stone, but it was more expensive as well as more time-consuming to lay. See Dilts, 128, 136.) The wood-and-iron composite in turn gave way to all metal rails: the cast iron rail, the wrought iron rail, and finally the steel rail.

Steel rail is made in a rolling mill. Rough stock, usually in the form of a rod, is heated and then shaped by one or more rollers. EB11 has an article on "Rolling Mills."

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Quentin Underwood criticizes the present (early 1634) rail line to Halle, because it is merely capped (strap) rail. But it is important to understand just what the use of capped rail implies.

So far as being able to pull a rolling load is concerned, capped rail is just as good as modern rail. The rolling resistance (more on that later) is dependent just on the surfaces which are in contact, so just a little pull is necessary to move a big load.

The hidden price of strap rails is that they are not as strong as all-metal rails, and so there is a limit on the axle weight of the cars. That is important if you are transporting heavy bulk freight. Maintenance costs will be higher, because it will be necessary from time to time to refasten the metal strips to the wood. The metal wearing surfaces are thin, and hence are also likely to fail more quickly than a modern steel rail would under the same circumstances.

Canon doesn't say whether the rail surface on the Halle line is iron or steel. The strap rail used on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad in 1829 was wrought iron, 0.625 inches thick, 2.5 inches wide, and fifteen feet long, with a weight of fifteen pounds a yard. It was imported from England ($55-60/ton), since domestic production would have been almost twice as expensive. The total cost of laying the track was $4,000 a mile. (Stover, 32).

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The reason strap rails replaced wooden rails was not because they further reduced friction between rail and wheel, but because the older rails broke, wore away, or decayed too quickly. This changeover occurred even before the invention of the locomotive. Now, a curious fact—not likely to be known to the up-timers, but perhaps capable of rediscovery by someone like Dr. Gribbleflotz, who wouldn't know not to try to do it—is that it may be possible to improve the qualities of wood by impregnating it with iron oxide and lime. This was reportedly done in the 1840s, and the wood rails cheerfully bore the equivalent of twelve trains a day for seven years. (MBI 113). In those parts of Germany which are still well-endowed with trees (see Cooper, "The Wooden Wonders of Grantville," Grantville Gazette 13), treated wooden rails might be worth experimenting with.

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There was also some early experimentation with stone rails. The "Granite Railway" (built 1826) carried granite three miles from Quincy to Milton. Initially, it had twelve inch wooden rails on granite crossties. When the wood decayed, they were replaced with stone rails. (GRCQM)

A modern engineer would think of concrete, rather than cut stone. Concrete rails have experienced a renaissance in the form of guided busways. Of course, rubber tires on concrete experience much greater rolling resistance than steel wheels on steel rail, mostly because of the deformability of the rubber.

Concrete rails have the disadvantage that once such rails are produced, they can't be bent. In contrast, steel rails can be bent as needed to form curved sections.

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Rail Composition. Rails can be made of iron or steel. Cast iron is hard, but too brittle. Wrought iron is tough, but a bit too soft. (Armstrong, 31). Nonetheless, wrought iron replaced cast iron in the 1820s, as it permitted use of longer rails, thereby minimizing the number of rail joints. (NOCK/D, 28).

Still, the best rail material is steel, which is harder, tougher, and stiffer. According to experiments in the 1860s, it had 2.4 times the compressive strength of wrought iron and 3.5 times that of cast iron. In tensile strength, it was about twice that of wrought iron and four times that of cast iron. (Flint) In general, it can carry three times the load borne by the same rail formed in cast iron (Henry, 73), and almost twice the load carried by a similar wrought iron rail (Clarke, 122).

Moreover, it is much more durable than iron. In an experiment in which trains ran over both iron and steel rails, eight iron rails were completely worn out, on both faces, while the one used face of the steel rail was worn down only one quarter of an inch. (Flint) Another authority says that steel rails have 5-6 times the working life of iron rails (Clarke, 37).

Carbon has a major influence on the hardness of steel. EB11 suggests that steel rails made by the Bessemer process should have a carbon content in the range of 0.55-0.65%, and not more than 0.1% phosphorus. If the steel is made by the more modern open hearth furnace, the carbon content is the same, but phosphorus is limited to 0.03%. The purpose of these specifications is to minimize rail failures.

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Rail Geometry. The standard rail for the last one hundred fifty years is of a kind called "edge" rail, because it looks like the old plate rail turned on its edge, or "T" rail because it is fancied to look somewhat like an upside down "T". Personally, I think it looks more like the letter "I". However you visualize it, the base (foot) is wider than the top (head); the vertical connection is called the web. Modern rails are "parallel," that is, they have a uniform width throughout the rail; certain nineteenth century rails had bases which were wider at the center ("fish-bellied"). This was designed to strengthen them against bending where they were least supported by cross-ties, but they tended to break near the "chairs" which held the junction points.

EB11 Fig. 13 shows the cross-section of American ninety pound rail, and its interaction with the rail joint. EB11 also comments that in the eighty five pound rail used by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1908, 42.2% of the metal is in the head, 17.8% in the web, and 40% in the base. The Canadian Railway specifications for the same weight rail contemplate less metal in the head (36.77%), more in the web (22.21%), and slightly more in the base (41.02%).

A 132 pound rail has a cross-sectional area of thirteen square inches, and lighter rails would have less. (Armstrong 33).

Rail height controls stiffness; a 7 3/8 inch rail is about 14% stiffer than one which stands only 7 inches high. (Henry, 74).

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Rail Weight. The wrought iron rails used by George Stephenson in the 1820s weighed 28 pounds per yard. By the mid-1830s, the new English rails were fifty pounds per yard, and by 1911, main line rails were more like one hundred pounds per yard. (EB11) The rails used by the Baltimore & Ohio in 1830 were about 35 pounds per yard (Dilts, 128).

By the late 1970s, new rail was 112-145 pounds a yard, and six to eight inches tall. (Armstrong, 31). The mainline standard in the USA, just before RoF, was 141 pounds per yard. In 1960, only five per cent of the rail used on Class I U.S. railroads were less than seventy pounds per yard. Even on Class III railroads, only about one-third was that low in weight. (NMRA) Nonetheless, we will probably need to content ourselves with even lighter rails.

The rail's cross-sectional dimensions (head, base, and height) are scaled to its weight. The stiffness of a rail is proportional to the square of its weight (Bitzan), as well as to a measure of the intrinsic stiffness (Young's modulus of elasticity) of the rail material. The deflection of the rail under load, which stresses it, is a function of its stiffness. Thus, a heavier rail can tolerate rolling stock with higher axle loads.

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Rail Length. The length of the individual rail is a compromise between several factors. The shorter the rail, the more sections must be fitted into each mile, and hence the more joints which are created. Each joint is a point of weakness. The longer the rail, the harder the rail is to manufacture, transport to the line end, and lay to extend the track. In the United States, the standard rail length is 39 feet, because the standard car length was once 40 feet. In Britain, in 1911, the rail lengths were 30-60 feet.

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Jointing and Welding. In early nineteenth century Britain, the ends of the rails, which had rounded bottoms, were wedged into cast iron chairs (see EB11, Fig. 10), which, in turn, were spiked or bolted down on wooden sleepers. Later, the joints were suspended between two chairs, and were connected by what is called a fish joint (See EB11, Figs. 7 and 11). American practice was to simply spike flat-bottomed rails directly to the supporting sleepers (see below), and to connect the joints by "angle bars" (EB11, Fig. 13).

Among the many subtleties of jointing is the practice of putting the head ends of the bolts alternately on either side of the rail.

Rails can be laid so that the junction of one rail of a track are aligned with those of the other, or so that they are staggered.

The effective length of the rail sections can be increased by welding sections together. This can be done in-place, if there is suitable portable equipment. Ideally, this is done on a hot day. (Armstrong, 32-3).

Road and Track

A single track, by itself, can only accommodate traffic in one direction. If two-way traffic is light, it can be handled by providing sidings. The train with priority will keep going; the yielding train will move onto the siding and stay there until the priority train passes.

The greater the number of signal blocks and sidings, the less two-way traffic is impeded.

Ultimately, the railroad company will want to double track the entire line, assuming it is a busy one (Formally speaking, this doubles the "miles of track," but the "miles of road" remains unchanged.) Then the traffic moves in one direction on one track, and in the opposite direction on the other, without interference.

In the vicinity of major stations, and railroad service facilities, it is not unusual to need more than two parallel tracks.

Initially, we will be building one complete track, together with a few sidings. That means that we need to discuss block movement and signaling (see "Safety" below).

Track Construction

On the www.1632.org site you can find my "railroad construction spreadsheet." The original version relied on Carsten Edelberger's proposed routes ("Railroading in Germany," Grantville Gazette 7) and allowed you to set the following for each line:

—initial construction date going "up the line" (e.g., Grantville to Magdeburg). (The date had to be expressed as 193x rather than 163x to sidestep an Excel limitation.)

—initial construction date for a second crew going "down the line."

—a difficulty multiplier for each section (default value 1).

—a miles/week construction rate, independently, for each month from January 1632 on. (This rate applicable to all crews on all lines).

I have in the works an improved spreadsheet that lets you specify separate construction rates for each month, for each line, in each direction.

All completion date estimates given in this article were achieved at by making assumptions and plugging them into the original or the improved spreadsheet.

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The nitty gritty of surveying, road preparation and track laying are explained by Evans, "Binding the Land With Steel" (Grantville Gazette 25). Evans describes how railroads were built in America after decades of experience. He describes a "living machine," a relentlessly advancing assembly line.

After the first few decades of railroad building, the supervisors knew how to maximize efficiency, and there was a supporting infrastructure—suppliers of rails, crossties, food, and so forth.

Even if the up-timers have read about how the transcontinental railroads were built, I am doubtful that they will be able to take full advantage of this book knowledge. They will have to learn the hard way how to estimate the rate at which they prepare the road and lay the track, and how that rate is affected by weather, season (long or short days) and terrain. They don't yet know how many man-days it takes to extend the line by a mile, or how most efficiently to allocate the laborers to clearing, grading, ballasting and track-laying.

None of the down-timers they are supervising will have any prior experience with laying track, and while they can cut trees and shovel dirt, their approach to road preparation may be crude by up-time standards.

Then there is an infrastructure problem. The railroad is competing with the military, and other industries, for the available iron. The down-timers don't make steel on a large scale. So, to enjoy the benefits of steel rails, we have to reconstruct those techniques, too.

Also, there is a shortage of wood in some parts of seventeenth-century Germany (it was used as a fuel, as well as in making ships, furniture, etc.). In early nineteenth-century America, in contrast, while iron rails were imported, timber was often available locally.

Like an army, the railroad work force must be supplied with water, food and shelter, and that may not be easy in some part of war-torn Germany.

There can also be social problems. Labor unrest has disrupted the construction of several lines, including the B&O's Washington line in 1835. In DeMarce, "Prince and Abbot" (1635: The Tangled Web), talk of seizing land for a railroad by eminent domain sparks a peasant revolt, of sorts. Contrariwise, towns which want to be served by railroad but fear that service will go to a rival town may protest violently, as the good people of Omaha did when they believed the Union Pacific would cross the Missouri at Bellevue.

Finally, it is quite possible for the promoters to run out of money, and the whole project grinds to a halt while they go through another round of financing. That's what happened to the Pacific Railroad after July 1853; as a result, it took nineteen months to complete the next eighteen miles. (mopac).

Admittedly, it will be easier to interest investors in the new time line, when the benefits of railroad are plain to anyone reading the encyclopedias, but sources of capital are still more limited than they were in the nineteenth century.

The bottom line is that I think it is safer to look at the construction experience of the earlier railroads than that of the transcontinental companies.

Construction of the first public railway, the Stockton and Darlington, began May 23, 1822, and the 27-mile line opened on September 27, 1825. That corresponds, you'll note, to a construction rate of about a mile a month.

    The B&O's second line, running Baltimore-Washington (32 miles) line was surveyed by September 1831, but it took another two years to get funding for construction. Construction began October 1833, and service didn't begin until August 25, 1835. (Reynolds, 16). So it took two years to go 32 miles, even though they already had the experience of building the main line to Harper's Ferry.

I am sure we can do better than that. However, not necessarily a lot better.

The Union Pacific, using the "living machine" methods I alluded to, laid eight miles of track in one ten-hour day (and its competitor, the Central Pacific, outdid it with ten). But if you look at the Union Pacific's entire record, you get a somewhat different perspective.

The UP broke ground at Omaha on Dec. 2, 1863, and started laying track in the spring of 1864. It took one year to complete the first forty miles to Valley; it was difficult to get construction materials to the railhead; the persons in charge were not at that time experienced; funds were scarce, and there were disagreements regarding the route to be taken. (Bailey).

The next 60 miles took from December 31, 1865 to June 2, 1866; a rate of 2.75 miles/week. Over the next 147 miles to the 100th meridian, they picked up the pace, to 8.2 miles/week, arriving October 5, 1866. Over the 460 mile section from Laramie, Wyoming (May 9, 1868) to Ogden, Utah (March 8, 1869), the Union Pacific made 10.6 miles/week.

Overall, it took until April 28, 1869 to reach Promontory, Utah, 1086 miles from Omaha. That's about 200 miles/year, or less than 4 miles/week. On the other hand, if we ignore the pathetic Omaha-Valley leg, it took from December 31, 1865 to April 28, 1869 to go 1046 miles—about 6 miles/week.

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According to Camp (188), if rails are carried in a rail car, and ties are hauled ahead with teams, 56 laborers, three foremen and eleven teams can lay a mile of track in ten hours. (If ties are carried, you need 64 laborers, three foremen and two teams.) You can assemble enough men to lay four or more miles of track in a day, but the cost per mile will be higher. In August 1887, a force of 217 men averaged 4.27 miles/day. (189).

With the 1902 version of the Holman track laying machine, a crew of 30-33 men can lay 1.5 miles/day. (195). The track laying machine doesn't actually lay the track; it positions the rails more efficiently than can be done by teams.

That's just the labor for laying track on an already prepared roadbed. More is needed for clearing and grading. For example, a team with a wheel scraper can move 50-55 cubic yards of earth per day on a haul of 90 feet. (10).

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In deciding what would be a suitable construction rate for the early post-RoF period, we also have the constraints of canon to consider.

Until the creation of the New United States, in the aftermath of the Croat Raid of August 1632, there was no reason to build a long-distance railroad. After the NUS was created, with Magdeburg earmarked to become the industrial base, there was good reason to create a Grantville-Madgeburg line, but the next step would be to survey a route. So figure that there wouldn't be any construction until say November 1, 1632.

We know that rail service existed, but had not yet reached Halle, as of summer 1633, but had reached it by spring 1634. Lutz and Zeek , "Elizabeth" (Grantville Gazette 4). This led me to propose construction rates which began at 1.25 miles/week, and eventually increased first to 1.5 and then 1.75, with a stoppage in September-November 1633 and a reduced rate December 1633-February 1634 because of the diversion of steel to the ironclad project. Based on those calculations, in "The Chase" (Ring of Fire II) I made it canonical that there was service to Naumburg, but not significantly further, in July 1633. (Of course, there is no reason a writer can't find an excuse to speed construction up, at least temporarily, after that, in order to meet a plot requirement.)

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Carsten proposed a trunk line running from Grantville north to Jena (milepost 27.8), Naumberg (56), Halle (88.75), Stassfurt (134) and Magdeburg (158), and south to Kronach (milepost 44), Bamberg (78) and Nurnberg (117).

The northern line is running to Naumberg as of July 1633 (Cooper, "The Chase", Ring of Fire II), and Halle as of spring 1634 ("Elizabeth," supra).

In April 1634, Fischer stated that Reverend Chalker's revival group was working its way up rail line to Magdeburg, and, if the rail company kept to its construction schedule, they would hold a big event in Magdeburg in late April or early May. Hughes, "Turn Your Radio On, Episode Five" (Grantville Gazette 23).

As of May 1634, supplies for the Halle-Magdeburg section had been found, but only after a "struggle" (DeMarce, "Prince and Abbot," Grantville Gazette, Volume 8 and 1635: The Tangled Web). Consistent with this, Chalker and Fischer go to Magdeburg by RV, not train, in May. Indeed, Iona, going to Quedlinburg in June 1634, gets off the train at Halle. DeMarce, "Until We Meet Again," (Grantville Gazette 4).

If (1) the railroad reached Halle in March, (2) there was no construction in April or May because of the dearth of supplies, but then (3) track was laid at 2 miles/week for June-October and 1.5 in the winter months, we would reach Magdeburg around February 11, 1635 (Take this exact date, and those that follow, with a very large grain of salt.) We could complete the line sooner if there were a second crew working down from Magdeburg at the same rates; they'd meet the second half of September, 1634, between Hettstadt and Stassfurt. Or if track was laid faster than the rates given above.

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As early as October 1634, there were at least plans to push the railroad north of Magdeburg. Flint and DeMarce, 1635: The Dreeson Incident (TDI), Chapter 18). No details are given.

My advice (if Mike and Gustav are listening) is to build a line from Magdeburg to Celle on the Aller. The Aller feeds into the Weser, which runs down to Bremen and the North Sea, and up to the general vicinity of Kassel. Celle is near Wietze, and a pipeline could bring the oil to Celle. Another possibility is a line from Magdeburg to Braunschweig, Hannover (on the Leine) and perhaps Minden (on the Weser). There's oil near Hannover, too, although nothing has been said in canon about it. In fact, there could be a branch line from Hannover or Braunschweig to Celle.

Gustav is probably more concerned with rail connection to the Baltic ports, that being his lifeline to Sweden.

However, given limited resources, it would make more sense to run steamships down the Elbe and either emulate the post-RoF Elbe-Lubeck canal (itself based on the pre-RoF Stecknitz Canal) or run a short rail line along the same route (Lauenberg-Lubeck).

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The southern line had not reached Nurnberg as of September (Cooper, "First Impressions", Grantville Gazette 19) or even October (Flint and DeMarce, 1635: The Dreeson Incident, Chapter 18) 1634. In fact, I doubt that it had gone beyond Saalfeld. But in late February, 1635, Bamberg is chosen by referendum as the capital of the State of Thuringia-Franconia. The effect is that "it's suddenly become a real high priority on everybody's list to push the railroad through Kronach and all the way down to Bamberg." (TDI, Chapter 42).

With a single crew building down from Saalfeld beginning March 1, 1635, I would expect the track to reach Bamberg around February 7, 1636. That assumes a 1.75 miles/week rate most of the time, and 1.5 during the winter. If we could have a second crew working up from Bamberg at the same time, the construction time would be cut in half, with tracks running from Grantville to Bamberg by the end of July, 1635. To get the supplies to Bamberg, we'd probably have to ship them up the Rhine and then up the Main; Bamberg is a short distance from the confluence of the Main and the Regnitz. The necessary logistics would probably delay the northbound crew by 1–2 months, moving the completion date to the end of September, 1635. Alternatively, a single crew could finish by November, 1635 if the average construction rate overall for Saalfeld-Bamberg was about 2 miles/week. Which isn't that much more than the 1.75/1.5 I assumed previously.

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Carsten also advocated a cross-line, running from Jena both east to Gera and west to Weimar, Erfurt, Gotha, Eisenach and Horschel. It's doubtful that any part of this line has been constructed as of October 1634, because Simon Jones then muses "it would be great when a spur went west. It would be worth a big detour not to have to travel from Erfurt [to Grantville] by horseback." (TDI Chapter 18).

Unfortunately, there is a bit of an inconsistency in canon. In March 1634, Fischer says that after reaching Magdeburg in April or May, they would take a break, "then start working the other rail line out to Eisenach. By September, we should have covered the major points on both lines." Hughes, "Turn Your Radio On" (Grantville Gazette 23). "TYRO" was written way before TDI, and the inconsistency no doubt slipped through for that reason.

There is also reference in canon to private interest in a line running from Erfurt-Eisenach to Hersfeld, Butzbach, Frankfurt am Main and Mainz; the route crosses the Fulda Gap. There were surveyors in Fulda in May, 1634, but construction had not yet begun. (DeMarce, "Prince and Abbot," supra). Indeed, it wouldn't make sense to begin it until the Jena-Eisenach connection was in service.

Passenger Cars

The first passenger cars were little more than stagecoach bodies with flanged wheels. On stagecoaches, the privileged rode inside, and the second class passengers on the outside. Since rail travel soon attained speeds at which the latter hazarded life and limb, the railway companies were forced to provided separate rail cars for their economy passengers. These vehicles were usually open-topped, and seatless.

In the 1830s, American engineers developed the modern four- or six-wheel passenger car, in which the axles, instead of being mounted directly on the car frame, were instead attached to independently pivotable "bogies" or "trucks." Since the front wheels could turn before the back wheels, these American-style cars could negotiate the sharp curves of the North American rail lines with aplomb. Moreover, the cars could be longer. (NOCK/RE, 100-3, 134-5).

The passenger car bogie is actually quite complicated. Not only can it pivot, it can also move horizontally or vertically, independently of the carriage body, to some degree. So it can adjust to all sorts of track anomalies.

We can reconstruct this nifty piece of equipment after careful study of an up-time exemplar: the bogies mounted on the caboose which has fortuitously passed down through the RoF.

Anther technological problem which had to be confronted was vibration. Nineteenth-century American track was rather uneven (we didn't believe in spending money on road beds) and hence some form of vertical springing was highly desirable. We also needed shock absorbers at both ends of the car, since the car came to a halt when it bumped into the one ahead. Rubber springs and buffers (see Cooper, "Bouncing Back," Grantville Gazette 6) will help solve these problems.

Passenger cars were initially made of wood, and later of steel. A 1908 wood coach, carrying 70, weighed 41 tons. A 1920s steel passenger car, seating 90, weighed 70 tons. An eight car wood coach train might weigh (including the locomotive) 1725 pounds/seat, and a steel one, 2495. (Thompson 214). These would be a formidable load for the pickup trucks and horse teams alluded to by Quentin Underwood (1633, Chapter 34), and so it's safe to assume that the first "cars" of the Grantville-Halle run are smaller and flimsier.

I cannot resist discussing a rather more unusual challenge. The Rottingdean Extension (1896) of Volk's Electric Railway featured cars on stilts; they needed to be able to move through fifteen feet of water at high tide. These were, perhaps, the only railroad cars required to be equipped with a lifeboat. (Mike's).

Freight Cars

Early cars were made of wood, later ones, of steel. The standard freight car has four axles, each pair mounted on a swiveling bogie. In the 1970s, while cars ranged from 30 to 175 tons in nominal capacity, most were 70 or 100 tonners. A 70-ton car had 33 inch diameter wheels; a 100-ton car, 36 inches. Wooden cars could carry their own weight, a steel car, two to four times as much. The exact load limit depended on the commodity for which the car was designed. Car lengths ranged up to 89 feet (not counting the couplers), with 40 feet being traditional. Freight car types include the box car, the covered or open hopper, the gondola, the flat car, and the tank car. (Armstrong, 65–7, 75, 129).

Safety

sTrains are controlled by "T&TO," which stands for "timetables" and "train orders;" orders are given by telegraph and override the timetable. If central control is on-the-ball, and the trains follow their T&TO, then you won't normally have two trains on a collision course.

T&TO is supplemented by a second layer of protection, which is the block system. The line is divided into blocks and only one train is allowed per track, per block.

In the manual block system, there were traffic guards at the junctions of the blocks, who communicated with each other. In the automatic block system, the presence of a train in a block is sensed electrically.

Blocks are equipped with signals which tell the trains whether to stop, proceed at full speed, or proceed with caution.

If the block is automatic, then in the absence of a train, current goes up one rail and down the other, energizing, through a relay, a "clear" signal. If a train is present, the steel wheels and axles create a short circuit, the relay opens, and the signal says "Stop!"

The signals themselves have taken a number of forms, including hoisted colored balls (giving us the term "highball"), semaphores, and colored lights. Perhaps the most important signaling principle, although it went unrecognized for a while, is that, if the equipment is faulty, it should not give an "all clear" signal. (NOCK/D, 7).

Brakes. It doesn't do much good to receive a danger signal if you can't respond to it; you never know when a villain has tied a pretty girl to the track ahead of you. Seriously, the train ahead of you may have made an unexpected stop. Or worse, is heading toward you on the same track. Or a bridge fails. Or a herd of animals decides to cross the track to see what is on the other side. And even if there is no emergency, the train must still be able to stop at its destination.

The kind of brake we want is, at a minimum, the Westinghouse air brake patented in 1869, and described in the EB11 "Brake" article. The brakeman in the locomotive turns a cock, so that compressed air flows out of a reservoir and into a pipe connecting all of the cars of the train. (The pipe in each car is connected to that of the adjacent ones by flexible hoses; ideally, these would be made from our dwindling supply of rubber, but if need be, a leather hose could be used.) The air presses brake shoes against the wheels, thus applying braking force to all wheels.

EB11 also describes several improvements in this brake. One is the automatic brake; the "Brake" essay provides a sectional view through the triple valve and brake cylinder. At least three further improvements were described, culminating in the Westinghouse "high speed" brake of 1894. A train of fifty empty cars, traveling 8 mph, could be stopped in 14.5 seconds, with a stopping distance of only 475 feet.

An alternative brake mechanism, the vacuum brake, is also described and illustrated.

The caboose in the museum once again comes in handy, as it should be equipped with even more modern brakes than those discussed in EB11.

Couplers. The original types of coupler were the chain-and-hook in Britain, and the link-and-pin in America, and had to be operated manually. Horrific accidents occurred when the railwayman was caught between the two cars. This led to the replacement of the manual couplers with the automatic "knuckle" or "Janney-type" coupler.

The efforts to design such a coupler began at least as early as 1874, but did not reach fruition until 1887. The Master Car Builders' Association commented that it had been the "knottiest mechanical problem that had ever been presented to the railroad."

It is therefore fortunate that the materials which passed through the Ring of Fire provide very detailed guidance as to how this solution can be duplicated. In EB11, Fig. 28 shows a perspective drawing of the coupler, and Fig. 29, is a plan view of the working faces.

Moreover, the caboose in the museum should have working couplers at both ends. (Yes, I know that cabooses were usually at the rear of the train. But I have checked several pictures of cabooses, and they can be coupled on either end.)

****

John Moody declared that "the United States as we know it today is largely the result of mechanical inventions, and in particular of agricultural machinery and the railroad." The railroad will if anything play a greater role in creation of a prosperous and democratic society in post RoF 163x Europe.

****

The Long Fall

Written by Jason K. Chapman

    

To Mi Dimarco, the habitat blister's common room felt cavernous after her five-month trip in the solo transfer ship. She floated just inside the room while Estevez, in the quick, clipped patter of a salesman, gave her the short-form tour of the asteroid mining camp.

Estevez ended with, "Those hatches are the bunks. Last one, on the end, is yours."

Mi slung her pack over one shoulder and used her legs to launch off the wall, arrowing toward her bunk. She did a quick flip to look at Estevez as she floated, feet first, across the room. Estevez shoved off a console to follow her. He looked a little clumsy, like a ground-bounder who'd come to freefall through training, not instinct.

"'Mi.' That's nice. Is that Japanese or something?"

Everyone asked about her name. "It doesn't mean anything. My dad used one of those baby name books and picked the first thing he came to."

She landed on the wall next to her bunk, absorbing her momentum with her legs. Estevez flew in and clutched at the hatchway to stop himself.

"Wouldn't that be an 'A' name then?"

"You'd think so, wouldn't you?"

He hesitated, as if searching her expression for signs of a joke he'd missed. "Well, anyway, it'll be nice to have a woman out here."

Mi kept her expression blank. He'd deadpanned the line, but he was studying her, eyes narrowed. Inwardly, she sighed. Didn't they teach rookies etiquette? She'd worked on all kinds of crews. Some were open, some weren't, but they always worked it out up front. Making assumptions was just rude.

She decided to spank him, but not too hard. "I'm guessing you're new at this, so I'm going to do us both a favor and pretend I didn't understand what you thought you meant. That way no one has to deal with the complications of hurt feelings, awkward moments, or bits of broken teeth floating around and getting into the equipment. What do you say?"

Estevez looked surprised, then a smile spread slowly across his face. "Damn!"

"Yeah." Mi shoved her pack through the open hatch. "I have that effect on people. And for the record, I don't like to play at the office."

Asteroid BOCS-4312, called Rocky by the miners, was a belt object with a stable, roughly circular orbit. Shaped like a blunt cigar, it was more than a kilometer long and massed enough to shepherd its own flock of smaller asteroids around the inner rim of the belt. With an environment blister on the dark side, it served as a base for a rotating crew of four miners as they harvested the local cluster of asteroids. The sunward side had an automated hydroponics farm and a small ore processing facility. The camp was nearly self-sufficient. What organics they couldn't get from stray deposits of cometary ice were shipped up from Mars. Mi's presence on the transfer ship had been almost incidental. The hold had been packed with food, tools, and equipment.

Mi glanced into her bunk. There wasn't much to see. It was little more than a large closet with sleep webbing on one wall, a recycle toilet, and what looked like either a computer panel or an entertainment station set into what, in her current orientation, was the ceiling.

"Yeah," Estevez went on, looking around the common room. "So, anyway, Niedermeyer and Vann should be back in as soon as they unload the last of the cargo and get Chung off on the drop to Mars. Vann's okay, but ya gotta dance around him a little sometimes. Kinda got a temper."

"I'll be fine."

"Yeah, you're a real charmer." He gave her a half smile. "Anyway, Nieder's a little, well, you'll see. He's kinda become Vann's puppy, if you know what I mean."

"Not really." She didn't think she wanted to know. She pointed to a hatch on the far end of the room. "Where does that lead?"

"That's the bubble. Wanna see? It's all plexi. Vann keeps the hatch closed 'cause he doesn't think the shielding's good enough. Afraid the cosmic rays will shrivel his . . ." Estevez's voice drifted off and he looked uncomfortable.

Mi just let him hang there and pushed off toward the bubble. She was neither embarrassed nor offended, but Estevez didn't know that. When you'd spent most of your life on space stations, you learned there wasn't much room for baggage.

She reached the hatch, cranked the wheel, and levered the heavy door open with a knee against the wall. Unlike the bunk hatches, this one looked vacuum-worthy. If the bubble ever blew, the habitat would likely survive. Vann's fear of shriveled organs aside, keeping the hatch closed just made sense.

The bubble was a seamless transparent curve about five meters across. Mi hooked a foot on the console that stood in the middle of the floor and pulled herself down. She looked out across the asteroid's surface. Work lights cast dagger-sharp shadows across the landscape. To her right, about ten degrees off the horizon and far enough away to be out of the rock's shadow, the power station gleamed in direct sunlight. The solar panels were big onyx wings shot through with amber filigree. Sunlight played along the umbilical that snaked toward the asteroid and occasional plumes of ice crystals burst from the station-keeping thrusters.

Estevez bumped in beside her. She tossed her head at the dome. "Tell Vann he can lose the lead undies. It's Lunamum."

He made a derisive noise. "Let him sweat."

Mi just shrugged. She didn't know either of them. He could play it however he wanted to.

Estevez sighed as he stared out at the surface. "Makes you feel like you're a long way from home, doesn't it?"

"Not really." In truth, it was only out there that she ever really felt at home.

"You know you say that a lot."

"Say what?"

"Nothing."

"Fine."

"No, I mean you don't say anything. It's all 'no' and 'not really'. We're gonna be out here a while, the four of us, and I've got three months before my shift's up. If you're just gonna—"

"What? I'm supposed to spill my life to you because we're out here working together?"

"I just—"

"Let's see. Born on the moon, Bishop Colony, West Dome. Age: 32. I've done micro-g work all my life. My mother died in a blow out on Diana Station when I was four. My father is a smothering, over-bearing—"

"Hey, look."

"Oh no, you started this. What else do you need? I wear size eight shoes, I'm AB negative, and I hate the taste of turnips. Is that enough? You happy now?"

Estevez paused, brows lifted, fighting back a smile. "Not really," he said.

Mi just stared at him. She felt foolish, but tried hard to hang on to the fire of her outburst. At last, she gave up and let herself smile. "Now you know why I don't say much."

"Yeah, I get that."

Movement outside the bubble caught Mi's attention. Someone was pulling himself along the hand holds set into the surface, as if climbing a horizontal ladder. Walking on Rocky was possible, but too time-consuming. A dropped tool took ten lazy minutes to settle to the surface, and a hard jump could get you to escape velocity.

There was something strange about this person's suit, though. It was form-fitting, like her own skin-tight, but bulkier. It looked somewhat like a hard-suit, the little one-person space ships often used in heavy construction, but it was too small. Thick through the torso, it showed no sign of external tanks, just a standard safety harness for tools and tether rings. The climber was too far away for details, but the helmet looked odd, as well. In fact, it looked like he wasn't wearing a helmet at all.

"That's Max," Estevez said.

"Max? I thought this was a four-man crew."

"It's a four-person crew. Max stands for Mobile Autonomous Excavator, or something like that. He's an AI. Supposed to be some kind of experimental robot rock jockey."

Mi felt a familiar knot tightening her gut. AIs made her uncomfortable, but not for any reason Estevez would guess. "No one mentioned it during training."

Estevez scratched the stubble on his cheek slowly, as if tapping his fingers. "Yeah, they never do. Trade secrets, I guess."

Mi shook her head. "There's no way. Anything even approaching artificial intelligence needs a lot more processor than that thing will hold and it still can't match your average three-year-old. It just fakes it better."

"Oh, he's pretty smart. Just ask him."

"Look, I know something about personality algorithms and learning nets. Unless that thing's just a terminal for something a lot bigger, it's not an AI."

Estevez tapped the console. "Hey, Max. It's Estevez."

The voice that came from the speaker surprised her. It was beautiful in a way that had to be by design. It was a favorite uncle full of comforting bedtime stories. It was a strong, confident doctor pronouncing the lump benign. It was a giggling child poking at a freefall water droplet. It captivated her, and all it said was "I'm here, Estevez."

Estevez looked at Mi while he spoke, grinning. "Wave to the bubble, buddy. I got the new crew here. Her name's Mi Dimarco."

The robot shifted and gave a long, full-armed wave. "Is that, M-E?"

"M-I," Mi said.

"Chinese, isn't it?"

Mi sighed and gave her standard "baby name book" answer before she realized how silly a thing it was to say to a machine.

The speaker emitted a strange, crackling buzz interspersed with scraps of Max's voice. "Brzzzzz that's brzzzzz baby name—brzzzzzzz—less. Brzzzz—title—BRZZZZZZZ!"

Estevez punched at the keyboard. "Max! You okay? Your radio's coming through all frazzed again. You snap an antenna or something?"

"No—brzzzzzz. Sorry. How's that. I'm—it should . . . be better now."

"That's it. Anyway, when you get a chance, come on in. You can meet her in person."

"Will do."

Estevez shut off the radio. "What's wrong with you?"

Mi was surprised to find him staring at her. "Oh. Nothing. He's an interesting, uh, piece of equipment."

"Isn't he? Plays a mean game of chess, too."

But there was something wrong. Mi knew what that buzzing sound had been. Of all the thousands of times she'd used that line, no one had ever caught on. Her father had used a book and he had chosen the first name he'd come to. The book was "1,001 Baby Names," and he'd gone no further than the title.

Max had been laughing.

****

The crew's first meal together, dinner according to station time, was an awkward bit of social dynamics. The three men had long since settled into whatever arrangement worked for them, like bubbles on a pool of water. Now a new bubble had surfaced and there was the usual period of reshuffling as everyone tried to figure out how Mi fit into the tableau.

Vann was hard. He had the heavily muscled body of an Earth-born weight lifter. Low gravity did nothing to soften his features, either. Without gravity, body fluids normally spread out, giving everyone a rounder, puffier face. Vann's just looked like it had been chiseled from a softer stone. He was into his tats, too. The tiger on his right arm was one of those new biolume jobs that scrolled the colors of a neon rainbow when he moved.

His questions were all about the work, and the work was all about the money. He was crew chief for the rest of his shift and he took more than one opportunity to emphasize what that meant. Outside, on the job, his word was the final word. It was the only word.

Niedermeyer couldn't have been more different. Needles, as he introduced himself, was thin enough to be space-born, but he was loose-jointed and awkward. His blond hair was long enough to lag behind his movements and his face would have looked like a kid's in any amount of gravity. He was on an adventure and he was eager to talk about it. What had she worked on? What had she seen? What had it been like living on the moon?

More than once he glanced at Vann before speaking, as if making sure it was okay, and he snapped silent whenever the bigger man talked. It didn't look like fear so much as deference. It was hero worship, maybe.

Estevez was station chief, so inside things went his way. He was sharp, in a sly sort of way, and he never failed to get an edge in word-wise. He poked at people until he got a reaction, looking for sore spots to irritate, finding out just how far he could push. "We take turns by day on galley duty," he said. Then he gave Mi a lopsided grin. "Unless you want to work out some kind of arrangement."

Mi glared at him. "We've been over this, Estevez."

Vann leaned forward. "Hey! You got a problem, Mimi?"

Mi turned to Vann, but kept the glare. She hated dominance games. "It's Dimarco."

"Is it, now?"

Needles spoke up. "I'll take your shifts. I like—"

"Shut up!" Vann tried to slap him on the back of the head, but hadn't braced himself for the motion. He just twisted awkwardly, fanning the air.

Needles ducked anyway, muttering a quiet "Sorry, Vann."

Estevez, armed with a disarming grin, popped off the bench. "It's okay. It's okay, you guys. We did discuss it already. She's just concerned about foreign objects getting into the equipment panels."

"What the—?"

"In other words," Mi said, still focused on Vann, "not really."

"It's frosty, Vann, really." Estevez did a lot of shrugging and gesturing. "I'm good. She's good. We all take turns and everything's sub-z. It's fine."

Vann relaxed slowly. He looked uncertain, but willing to let things slide.

"We good?" Mi asked.

Vann shrugged. "I don't plan to kill you in your sleep, if that's what you mean."

"Good enough, then. I'm going for a walk." She kicked off toward the ceiling, did a swimmer's flip, and shot toward the airlock. She was showing off, but it wasn't the dramatic exit she'd have preferred. The suits were stored in an equipment closet next to the airlock, so she spent twenty minutes in the corner of the room wriggling into and rigging her suit. It helped, though. None of them had ever seen a skin-tight before and they pounded her with questions about it. They cooled a little when she told them it had cost her two years' salary, but by the time she had everything on but her helmet, they all seemed comfortable with her on the crew. Vann, no doubt, was calculating how much extra rock they could cut with her experience.

"Then there's this." Feet planted on the deck, she put her hands up, bent over, and touched her toes. "Try that in one of those gas bag suits."

"I can do that," Niedermeyer said.

Vann sort of growled. "In vacuum, idiot."

"Oh."

Outside, Mi felt like she could breath again. The stars were fierce points in a vast, black openness that seemed to call to her. She hooked a tether on one of the surface grips, spooled out about twenty meters, and jumped. She tucked, turned, and lay flat, parallel to the asteroid's surface. With a faceplate full of stars, she relaxed. The long fall. This was what her father could never understand. Out here, it was just her and a few billion of her favorite stars. She could imagine herself shining back, just as bright, just as fierce, as they all fell together.

Stay safe. Stay close. Don't take chances. That was her father's mantra. At first, she'd taken it as a sign of his love, skewed by the loss of her mother. But as his grip grew tighter, more desperate, things changed. It became selfish. His life. His daughter. He couldn't lose her, couldn't take it, wouldn't let go!

Then came that whole scam of an engagement and her father's complicity in it. How could anybody think she'd want to give up freefall work? Matchmaker, manipulator, jailer. He'd keep her safe no matter how miserable it made her.

So she jumped. Then she kept on jumping, from the moon to Lunar orbit, then to Ares Alpha in Mars orbit and the construction work on the Beta station. Then finally, here. The edge of the map.

Her radio warbled in her ear. Someone was requesting an encrypted private link. She briefly considered ignoring it, but on the third tone, tapped the key on her arm band that allowed the connection. There was no sense rekindling someone's anger.

"I just wanted to make sure you were all right." It was Max's voice.

"AIs don't worry, Max."

"Wouldn't it make sense to program an AI to value the crew's safety?"

"And they don't laugh. Humans don't even know what makes humor tick. Coding a machine for it is impossible."

She started when Max slid into view above her. He maneuvered in front of her with bursts from a hummingbird. The multi-nozzled frame spit compressed gas, centering him.

"Does not compute," he said.

"Oh, knock it off. Another thing, humaniform robots are just stupid. It's a generalized design. There's almost always a better application-specific form factor available."

"I should be a hovering ball with telescoping manipulators and laser beam eyes."

"You're either a waldo, which means you're really standing around in a telepresence rig somewhere inside of radio range, or you're, I don't know, something else."

Max's head tilted to the side. "Maybe I'm the phantom, come to teach you to sing."

"French lit?"

"I get a lot of time to read."

"How about Quasimodo, then?"

"Brzzzz. Have you thought that through? That makes you Esmeralda."

Mi laughed in spite of herself. "I guess I hadn't."

She watched Max as he spoke. It was bizarre. He gestured as he talked, fully articulated hands and fingers adding subtle emphasis. His—skin?—was bright white, but seemed to have a fine gold mesh beneath a lacquered surface. Nothing on his face moved, except for some kind of lenses set beneath a proud, Greek-statue brow.

"You know a lot about AIs," Max said.

"It comes with the genes."

Max nodded slowly, and it struck her. That was something she could never do. Nod inside a helmet and no one sees it. She envied him. He could live here, while she could only visit.

"So you're related to that Dimarco?"

"My father."

"I see." Max jetted a little closer to her. "I take it they didn't know that when they gave you a contract."

"I made sure of it. Why?"

He reached toward her, as if he wanted to touch her face. "Because it's very important that no one gets too curious about me. I'm just an AI experiment."

"You're not."

"I have to be." He jetted sideways, rolled, and headed back to the surface. His hummy left a dissipating cloud of ice crystals behind.

Mi rolled over and watched him sail away. "Then why tell me anything at all?"

"I don't know. Why did the phantom come to Christine?"

Her radio beeped. The connection was closed.

"I failed French lit, you know!"

****

The next day, Mi went out on her first run with Vann and Niedermeyer. Vann was in a brittle mood. They were drilling organics and light rock from a low-density aggregate a few kilometers west, anti-orbit, of camp. Essentially an old comet core, the rock would yield ice and rock that could be cooked down for essentials like carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and even some bonus elements like nitrogen and calcium. The problem was that what they didn't use themselves rarely fetched much on the Martian market.

They rode out on the sled with Vann at the controls. The sled was a big, open-frame platform with a cargo bed, four seats, and a little nuclear-powered steam boiler. Mounted on either side were harpoon guns for launching pitons and tow cables. These weren't like the compressed gas piton guns they each carried on their tool belts. These fired the heavy two-meter rocket-assisted harpoons that could plant themselves in dense materials. It was a perfect platform for rock diving.

Vann parked the sled about twenty meters north of the rock. He rolled it ninety degrees, putting the asteroid to port, and set it for station-keeping. "You're up, Dimarco."

The rock was a craggy, shapeless clump about thirty meters across. Niedermeyer had dubbed it Bullwinkle, from an old cartoon he kept in the library. She slapped her seatbelt open and pushed out of her seat. "On my way." She clipped a bag of pitons to her harness, then added a pair of tether spools.

"Not wearing a hummy," Vann said.

"It slows me down." She slipped on her metal mesh gloves and scrambled over the edge, planting her feet on the side of the sled. The rock loomed over her head.

Vann grunted. "Just remember, you lose your grip and drift off—"

"I know," said Mi. She snapped a tether to one of the sled's d-rings. "You won't waste fuel coming to get me."

"I was going to say I'd be pissed off about the waste of time."

She dove straight up and felt the familiar tingle of coming alive. Arms spread, back arched, she became the sky.

"But I'll live either way," Vann added.

Mi flipped slowly and landed on the surface like a spider, careful not to bounce off. She grabbed her piton gun and fired into a soft seam between two stony masses. The asteroid was like a big slush ball of clay, dust, ice, and rock. The piton dug half-way in and held. Next came one of the self-setting hand grips. Pulling on the piton let her push against the rock as the drill points bit in. Once the drills were in, she fired the charges that rammed the spreaders home.

She moved the tether spool from her harness to the hand grip and locked it. "Come and get it."

"On the way," Vann said.

Mi watched him slide hand-over-hand along the guide wire, towing the big drill. Carefully choosing her grips, she crabbed clear of Vann's landing spot and helped him wrestle the gear to the surface. Smooth bore holes and fresh, angular cuts gleamed on the sunward edge where the rock had been mined on some previous trip.

"Coming in!" It was Niedermeyer this time, starting down the wire.

"Anchor that," Vann said.

Mi set another piton and clipped the tool bag to it. "I thought you hated drilling light rock."

"I do, but the word is that Mars is gonna be thirsty in about a year."

"It's what?"

"Tell her, Needles."

Niedermeyer's voice sounded unsteady, nervous. "Water futures. Gonna spike in about twenty-eight hours. The new PlaneTat dome."

"You're kidding."

"Needles tracks the markets!" Vann might just as well have said "Good boy!"

"Twelve-month futures," Niedermeyer went on. "No one else likes to play out that far on commodities."

"I had no idea."

"That I was smart?"

"That you were business savvy."

"It's just a thing. I—"

His hand missed the cable and he started to roll. He reached again, missed, then missed again. His movements started showing panic.

"Niedermeyer? Needles!" Mi leaped up and toward the guide line. She one-handed it and swung up as she came around.

"Leave him be!" Vann said. "He's tethered."

"He's terrified! Needles, listen to me. I'm here. Look at me."

Niedermeyer's voice was torn by ragged breaths. "I can't— I'm not—" He was still grabbing blindly for the line.

Mi stopped in front of him and tapped his faceplate. "Here, Needles. I'm right here. Just breathe. Don't move! Just relax. Just breathe. I've got you."

"Oh, for cryin' out—"

"Shut up, Vann! How're you doing, Needles? Good?"

He'd stopped grasping at nothing and his face looked calmer. "Yes. I'm good. Thanks."

Mi guided his hand to the wire and he grabbed on.

"Jesus! What are you even doing out here?" She backed down the wire, making sure her face was all he saw.

"I'm fine on the rocks. Really. And on the sled. It's just . . . in between. When I'm nowhere."

"It's called sky panic. No visual cues for orientation. The inner ear goes crazy. Some get it, some don't."

"It's just so big."

"Don't look at the sky. A lot of people get it and get by just fine. From now on you look at your destination or you look at you helmet telltales. Got it?"

"Yeah."

"Anywhere else and you just close your eyes."

"Got it."

Once he was down, Niedermeyer seemed perfectly comfortable and ready to work. Vann gave orders in sullen, one-word sentences, but while Mi was setting up the drill she noticed him key his radio controls. He stood for a while with his hand on Niedermeyer's shoulder. Scolding or soothing? Whichever. It seemed to work for them. She didn't exactly have a yardstick to measure normal human relationships. Maybe everyone else threaded the same minefields she did.

They broke off a massive chunk of the asteroid. Shrouded in a thermal sheet to prevent out-gassing, it looked like the system's largest silver nugget. Of course if Niedermeyer was right, it was worth a good bit more. It took them an hour to secure it to the sled. They drained and refueled their hummies four times nudging it into place. When they were done, Vann let the computer steer them home.

There was nothing to do but wait for the steam jet to build enough acceleration to get them back to camp. Mi keyed a private channel to Vann. "Why don't you use Max on trips like this? Let Niedermeyer hang back. He still gets paid."

Vann's hand chopped at nothing. "Needles ain't your problem. He's good."

"Why push him?"

"Leave it alone. I'll take care of him."

"But Max can—"

"I don't like that thing on my crew!"

"Why?"

He was silent for a minute while his hands floated around aimlessly. He pulled his piton gun off his belt and started fidgeting with it, loading and unloading a piton. "I don't trust it."

Mi thought about that and watched Vann's hands worry the piton gun.

"That thing you did," he went on, "for Needles. That machine would never have done that."

Neither did you. "But if he can help."

"It! It's a piece of equipment."

"So?"

"So what if StarMines decides it works? What if they just put a few dozen of them out here? It's gotta be cheaper, right? So what happens to us? We get sent home and there's no more paydays. I can't do that. I've got . . . obligations."

"Legal problems?"

"What the hell do you care?"

"I don't, really."

"This is my first shift out here, and I need three. Two to clear me and one to set me up. The company starts shipping robots out here, that ain't gonna happen."

Vann loaded the piton back in and stopped fidgeting. Was he deliberately pointing it at her? She couldn't be sure.

"Stay clear of it," he said. "The experiment's gonna fail. It has to."

****

After dinner, Estevez's special tofu and sweet potato soufflé, Mi took one of her walks. This time, though, she climbed around to Rocky's sun side. Her faceplate darkened as the sun cleared the horizon and she took a moment to let her eyes adjust. More than a bright star, but less than the well-defined disk she'd seen from Mars, the sun turned the asteroid's surface into a playground of glints and long, syrupy shadows.

When she reached the greenhouse, its size surprised her. She knew it was a hundred meters long, they'd said so in training, but that was an abstract. From just outside its airlock, it was an emerald palace that went on forever.

Inside, she stripped off her suit. The place's alienness assaulted her. Every shade of green ever imagined fought for her attention. Green smells pushed away the filtered, processed smell of normal. Dampness clutched at her skin. She gripped the edge of the nearest tank and closed her eyes.

"Are you okay?"

She opened her eyes to find Max floating a short distance away. His hand lay on a railing that ran the length of the room. There had been no metallic scrape.

"It's a little overwhelming," she said.

"After months in a solo ship, I suppose so."

"After thirty-two years. I'm space-born. The moon, Diana Station, Ares A."

Max cocked his head. "Now, I know Diana has an installation a lot bigger than this. I . . ."

Mi waited, but he never went on. "You what?"

"I've read about it."

Mi watched him, but it was frustrating. People had tells—a lift of the brow, a tightness at the corner of the mouth. Max was impenetrable. Face value was all you got. But then, how good had she ever been at looking deeper?

"Loneliness," she said.

"The farm?"

"The phantom."

"Oh." He tapped his index finger idly on the railing. Was that his tell? "Are you sure it wasn't revenge?"

On impulse, Mi reached over and touched his hand where it lay on the railing. The skin was soft, pliant, not so warm as flesh, but not cold. "It's soft."

"So is yours."

She snatched her hand back and looked around for something else to focus on. "The tomatoes. They're, um, they look ripe."

Max plucked one from the vine and pushed it toward her. She grabbed it as it floated by and bit into it, thankful for the diversion. The skin was thinner than she was used to and the tomato, overall, was rounder. Droplets of juice formed a tiny cloud around her mouth. She sucked them up through pursed, smiling lips.

"It's delicious," she said, starting to hold it out to him. "Would you . . . ? Oh, God. I—."

"Brzzzzz. It's okay. Brzzz. Sometimes I forget myself."

Mi stared at him, still trying to read something from those marble features. "Forget what?"

"My manners. Come on. I'll give you the tour."

Row after row of tanks and soil beds held a wide assortment of crops. She saw short, stubby wheat stalks, soybeans, cranberries. There was an oddly shaped lettuce that turned out to be a hybrid of Iceberg and Romaine. Most of the facility was automated. Changing a few filters and harvesting the crops were the only intervention required. Those duties had fallen to Max.

"I like it here," he said. "It's a perfect blend of living things and technology."

They'd reached the eastern end of the farm. She could see the tip of the asteroid just a few dozen meters away. Beyond that was eternity.

Max tapped something at the computer terminal that stood near the clear, sloped wall. "It's almost time."

"For what?"

He pointed out the window. "Watch."

A fountain of light exploded out on the surface. It shot straight up in a tight spray of blue and gold. A curling halo of ice shimmered where the exhaust gases were pushed far enough away to freeze.

"Orientation adjustment," Max said.

"It's beautiful."

"Give me a lever long enough . . ."

Mi looked at Max's face. The rocket's light toyed with his features, infusing them with a living warmth. "What the hell are you?"

He drifted over to the window, resting one hand against the glass. As if mesmerized, he stared into the rocket's fire. Tap, tap, tap. His finger against the window.

He spoke in a monotone. "I am an AI experiment."

"That's bull! I know better. Your hands, your skin, they're like—"

"Like every other AI robot asteroid miner you've ever met."

She took his free hand, examining it. She bent the wrist, the thumb. "Are you here to spy on us?"

"I'm here to work."

"We both know you're hiding something. How am I supposed to trust you?"

"How do you trust anyone?"

Mi launched herself at the railing. It was getting late. "That's easy. I don't."

She pulled herself back to the airlock. Max caught up with her while she was getting into her suit. He reached into a cabinet and came out with something in his fist.

"I made this." He opened his hand. Resting on his palm was a loop of tether cable attached to a silver medallion. An ornate letter 'M' was cut out of the center of the disk.

She picked it up and examined the delicate scroll cuts. It was fine work. "Is that 'M' for 'Mi?'"

"Yes, it's for you."

She looked for the smile that would have been on anyone else's face. "Bastard. You know I can't tell when you're joking."

"We should play poker some time."

"'M' for 'Mi' or 'M' for 'Max?'"

Max shrugged and Mi found herself thinking about what an amazingly complex mechanical motion it was. She moved her shoulder around slowly, trying to feel which muscles pulled which way, how her skeleton moved.

"I was thinking 'mystery'," Max said.

She already had her suit on, so she looped the necklace onto her safety harness. "Or 'mannequin.'"

"Or 'monster.'"

"No. Not that." She checked the seals on her suit and lifted her helmet from the rack. "I think there is one, though. You should be careful of Vann. He doesn't like you very much."

"Vann's afraid."

"Of you?"

"Of everything. Aggression is his safety blanket."

"'Misunderstood.'"

"Maybe he is."

"No, the 'M.'"

"Too maudlin."

"Moody. Morose. Miserable."

Max tilted his head, first to one side, then the other. "Is there a pattern here?"

She smiled, then let it stretch into a grin. "Mmmaybe."

He took the helmet out of her hands and started to put it over her head. "Mercurial."

Mi heard the familiar click as he locked the helmet to her suit's collar ring. Her own breathing filled her ears. Mercurial. She liked that. It had a nice, classical ring to it. Mercurial Mi and the Misunderstood Mannequin.

Max swung the airlock door open and bowed deeply, waving her in. She slipped in and keyed her radio. "Most mannerly."

"Merci, mademoiselle."

The door latched and she punched the button to cycle the lock. "Now you're just showing off."

****

Mi wedged the hydraulic jack under one end of the ingot and levered it off the sled's cargo deck. The ingot was a hundred-kilogram beam of iron and nickel. Estevez did the same at the other end, and soon they had it floating free above the deck. Mi strapped on a hummy and readied herself for the heavy work.

With Max's help, they were assembling a shipment to Mars. Working half a kilometer above and east of Rocky, they were banding the ingots together into a two-metric-ton block. Four of the ingots were platinum. They weren't supposed to be, but the miners were gambling on Niedermeyer's talent.

Using their hummies, they pushed on opposite ends until it was parallel to the stack that was already assembled.

Max directed them from the stack. "Good. Now slide it a meter toward Estevez and bring it over."

Mi nudged it, then Estevez pushed back to stop it.

It had been two months since Mi's arrival and, while the work was hard, she couldn't remember being happier. She felt like she had escaped, as if she had broken free from the tight death-spiral that came with a close orbit around her father. She spent most of her free time with Max. In front of the others, she was careful to treat him as the robot he pretended to be, but they'd become friends. Sometimes, she even managed to pretend he wasn't lying to her. She tried not to think about that.

Estevez waved her over to the middle of the beam. "On three, ready? One, two, three."

They pushed on the ingot as if holding it over their heads, their hummies on full. Mi's arms strained against the pressure. For a long time it seemed like nothing was happening. Just when she was about to ask for a break, Max called for them to shut off. She glanced back at the sled. It did seem a little further away. They probably weren't moving more than a meter per minute, but any faster and they would have trouble braking on the other end. Max jetted out to join them and they scrambled around to the other side, feet aimed at the growing stack. Estevez read their speed and distance from a radar gun aimed past his toes.

Her father would probably find her eventually. He might even know someone who knew someone who could influence someone else and she could find herself without a contract. But for now, and for a while yet, she was free. She was making good money, too. Niedermeyer's talent for predicting the futures market kept them a step ahead. StarMines's trading department had started calling them when short-term options came up. They were able to make deals they once had to pass on—high profit deals.

"Hey, guys. Get this!" The laughter in Vann's voice blared through the radio. "Anderson in Trading wants to know if there's any way to get some platinum into this load. Some company's paying huge to option fourteen-month futures."

Estevez howled. "Needles, I love you!"

Mi couldn't help smiling. "I hope you made him sweat for it."

"Like I was pulling it out of his—"

"Talk later," Estevez said. "Ten seconds to retro."

Hands over her head again, Mi fired her jets on Estevez's command. She felt the familiar strain of being crushed by the metal beam. He called the shut off just as her boots touched the stack. Together, they eased it into place. Four more trips and they'd be ready to strap it together, mount the rocket and guidance package, and kick it off on the long fall to where Mars would be in just over a year.

Mi programmed her hummy to take her back to the sled, but something caught her attention before she activated it. Out and up, something had winked at her. There! It looked a little like a comet, but the tail was an odd, dashed line. She sighted it through her compass and watched the angles spin down to a steady reading. Calibrated against the positions of known stars, the device tracked angles and direction relative to the plane of the ecliptic and the position of the sun.

She read the direction off to Max and Estevez. "What is that?"

Max answered first. "It's COEN-1709. It's more asteroid than comet, but it's on a cometary orbit."

"COEN? It's an Earth-crosser?"

"We call it Tinkerbell," Estevez said. "You can't see it from camp because it's behind the big lump Niedermeyer calls Boris."

As he always was on an open channel, Max was matter-of-fact. "It's apparently the result of a collision between a comet and an asteroid. The rotation causes the outgassing to be periodic rather than steady. It's also smaller than it looks."

"Then it's close."

"No prob," Estevez said. "It's supposed to miss us by a million kilometers or so."

Mi keyed a private channel to Max. "It's beautiful, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"You're supposed to be looking at the comet."

"I'm looking at you looking at the comet. That's beautiful, too. You belong here, Mi."

She checked to see that Estevez was still turned away from them and gave Max's hand a quick squeeze, but the lie rose up again. She wasn't sure if the person she knew as Max could feel it, or if it would mean anything to him if he could. She felt foolish and somehow betrayed.

Estevez broke in on the common channel. He'd reached the sled. "Come on, Dimarco. Let's go. Four more bars and this tune is done."

She switched her radio over. "On my way."

It took them an hour to get the rest of the ingots stacked and strapped together. Mi and Estevez were exhausted, so Max did most of the work mounting the booster and calibrating the guidance package. The hard calculations would be handled from Mars. The miners just had to fuel it up and start the sequence.

"We should go," Max said. "First burn is in twenty minutes."

Estevez patted the side of the bundle. "Safe trip, you big beautiful paycheck." He jetted back to the sled.

Mi smiled and turned for another look at Tinkerbell. Something had to change. She keyed her radio. "I need to know, Max. I need to know the truth."

"I've given you what I can."

"I've tried to accept that. I really have. But it's not enough."

"I'm sorry."

She slapped the radio's disconnect and jumped for the sled, ignoring the repeated tones echoing in her helmet. By the time she reached the sled, Max had stopped trying to reconnect.

****

Four days. That's how long it had been since Mi had spoken to Max. She floated in the bubble, staring out, but not really seeing anything. The lights were dimmed and a random selection of classical music washed over her from the camp's library. Was it better this way?

The crank turned and the hatch behind her opened. She could see Max reflected in the Lunamum. Then he closed it, and the image was gone.

"Mozart, isn't it?" he said.

"I don't know."

Then he was next to her, a foot hooked under the console.

"It is."

Silence built up between them. Mi let it build. If he had something to say, let him say it.

"I've missed you."

"Max, don't." She still didn't look at him, choosing instead to stare out at the asteroid's surface.

"You don't understand."

"Sure I do. You're an AI experiment and you're here to work. Fine. Go work."

He moved around in front of her so she had to look at him. "It's complicated."

"No, it's simple. You don't trust me. That's fine. I can deal with that. I just can't invest in it."

Max started to reach toward her, but pulled his hand back. Instead, he put it down on the console, where the index finger began tapping. "What do you know about prosthetics?"

"Oh, please." She looked at his face, but there was just no way to read it.

"Really, really expensive ones," Max went on. "With pressure-sensitive skin and titanium joints. And electro-contractile metal-fiber musculature. And fullerene joint lubricant."

"But . . ."

"CCD eyes. Aural implants. Nerve controlled limbs. None of it is new. It's all been done before. Just not on this scale."

When he'd lied to her before, she'd known he was lying. This was different. It had the feel of truth. She put her palm against his chest. "That means . . ."

He nodded. "My brain is intact. And most of the brain stem. It's kept in a nutrient solution. I have to hook up to a machine every so often, to filter it and add supplements. It's something like kidney dialysis.

"That's why you're human, I mean humaniform."

"Of course. It's a lot easier to wire up one-to-one replacements than it is to teach motor nerves to operate tractor treads."

Mi stared at him. As she did, he looked away. "Why?"

"Why else? I was dying."

Max had once been Carl Bernard, an asteroid miner working contracts for StarMines on an Earth crosser named Toutatis. With his wife and young son, he'd migrated to Ares Alpha, intending to work the Martian Trojan asteroids. The plan had been to build a stake and settle in one of the new colony domes on Mars. A routine physical changed all of that.

"Cancer," Max said. "Liver, kidneys, lungs. Everywhere. Maggie and Brad would have been left with nothing. We spent our whole stake just getting to Ares A."

He was silent for a long time, staring out the window. She let him have his thoughts for a while. Finally, she reached out, almost touching his arm. "Carl?"

"Carl is dead. It's official. Maggie gets a healthy death benefit paid in annuities and Max pays for it working here. And no one can know." He turned to look at her. "I mean that. No one. It's part of the deal."

"But why?"

"It's illegal for one thing. No testing. No clinical trials. No government approval."

"But you said yourself it's all been done before."

"Not like this. It would make a lot of people uncomfortable, to say the least. Forget French lit, there's another book that fits the situation perfectly."

"What? Pinocchio?"

"Brzzzz. Brzzzzz. I was thinking of Frankenstein."

Mi shook her head. Warmth flooded through her. It felt good to have her friend back, but it was odd in a way. Her mental image had always been of someone, somewhere, talking to her through a machine. Now that picture snapped back like a rubber band as the image tried to become the machine.

But there was still one thing she just had to know. "What is with that laugh?"

His head cocked to the side. "Brzz. I guess the designers of the speech synthesizer never considered laughter. It has a verbal component, but it's not really speech. The circuit doesn't know what to do with it. Personally, I find it both charming and covert. It keeps me from giving myself away."

"Oh yeah, it did a great job of that."

****

Boris was a shiny, black tumbler that promised a mother lode of platinum group metals. It would be a tough job to settle it down, though. Some cataclysm in its past had given it a nasty spin. Not only was it rotating once every minute, but it also rolled over about once an hour. Until they could spin it down, it would be impossible to mine. The asteroid was nearly six hundred meters across, so someone clinging to the equator would experience nearly half a gee trying to throw him out to space.

Vann parked the sled above the rock's temporary northern axis. The plan was to use what StarMines called a yo-yo brake. The miners would jump to the surface at the axis, climb down to the equator, and mount tethered rockets on opposite sides. When the rockets were launched, the tether cables would wrap around the equator, pulling against the spin. A lot of time, and several refueling trips later, the spin would be slowed to something manageable.

Mi wondered about the odd choice of crew for the job. Vann had chosen just Mi and Max to go with him.

"I've got the strength," he'd said when Mi asked about it. "You've got the experience."

"And?"

"The can opener's expendable."

Mi hooked a radio beacon to a harpoon and armed the port gun while Vann worked the sled's controls. Keeping position over the slowly moving pole was tricky. Through the sight, Mi tried to focus on the spinning surface. Oblique sunlight made it a chaotic smear of light and shadow. The gun bucked against her hands when she pressed the trigger. Compressed gas shot the harpoon out, then her view went white as its rocket lit. She looked up in time to see the shaft bury its tip in the surface.

"It's in," she said.

Vann checked the beacon and set the sled's automatic positioning system. "And we're locked."

The sled's thrusters spat a few short bursts. Using the beacon, the computer would keep the sled's relative position while they went to work.

Vann made some last adjustments to the controls, then went to the rear to gear up. He shoved a hummy toward Max. "I go in first, then the Tin Man. While we're setting the first pod, Dimarco, you come in and start driving a ladder down the other side."

Mi shrugged into her safety harness and, as she did on every run now, looped the necklace Max had given her onto the belt. "Shouldn't one of us stay with the sled in case something goes wrong?"

"I want to be cutting on this thing by the end of next month. I'm not wasting time. Besides, if something goes that wrong, the sled won't help."

"Still."

Vann wrestled the first of the yo-yo pods to the side of the sled. It was an ungainly affair with two bulbous tanks wrapped around a stubby cone. It was ringed with sturdy cable mounts that trailed thick, titanium alloy ropes back to a mounting plate.

Snapping a line to his safety harness, Vann grabbed a net full of hand grips. "Still nothing. You don't like it, sit this one out. But I'll make sure you don't see a dime off this rock."

"Save the hardass talk, Vann. I'm just as worried about your safety as I am mine."

"Well aren't you sweet." He went over the side and dove for the rock.

Max stopped next to her on his way to the side of the sled. He reached down and clutched her medallion in his fist.

"You, too," she said, putting her hand on his.

"My momma always said so," Vann said.

Mi had forgotten she was on an open channel.

Max dove. Mi watched him sail down to join Vann on Boris's spinning surface. They used the harpoon for leverage until they, too, were spinning. Once they were in tune with Boris, they started driving hand holds in a line away from the pole. Vann was in the lead. It wasn't long before the spin was strong enough to swing their legs out. They were hanging from their harnesses and working over their heads.

By the time Mi had gathered her equipment and gotten to the surface, Vann and Max were well over the asteroid's tiny horizon. She lined herself up opposite their trail and started driving her own series of hand grips. She worked in a steady rhythm, testing each grip, then tethering herself to it and swinging into position to set the next. She was twenty minutes into the job when a tortured squeal pierced through her radio's speaker.

"Max? Vann? What's going on?"

There was no answer but the steady, deafening noise. Rule number one had been passed down from the earliest days of manned spaceflight: There are no small problems.

She unhooked herself and scrambled back to the pole hand-over-hand, not even bothering with a safety line. Boris's roll put her in steady sunlight as she reached the harpoon-pierced landing spot. The sled was still turning dutifully overhead. She called for the others several more times, but heard only that same squealing static.

She bent her knees and jumped as hard as she could, free diving for the sled. Trying to kill some of her spin, she flung her arms out to her sides. The sled, still spinning, was coming up fast. The railing slammed her shoulder, then came around and clanged off her breathing gear. As she started to tumble, she grabbed a cargo strap and held on. Her shoulder tried to scream harmony with her radio as it bore the burden of matching her momentum to the sled's.

"Max! Vann! Can you hear me?"

From the pilot's console she looked down at Boris, but there was no sign of the others on the part of the surface she could see. There was something, though. Out there, to the east and sunward, something bright. Something wrong.

She trained her compass on the spot and zoomed the optics. Max! He was drifting, helpless, and heading out of range fast. If he'd come loose at the equator, he'd be moving at more than sixty meters per second. Something flashed near him and she followed it with the lens. He'd fired a piton back toward Boris. Trailing a tether line, it drifted lazily toward the asteroid, much of its velocity spent overcoming Max's own.

Mi killed the station-keeping lock and spun the sled around, readying the main thruster. Every second Max was sailing further away, and it would still take her time to build velocity. Before long, reaching him would be impossible. Even empty, the sled couldn't manage much more than a quarter gee. She slapped the control for the main thruster, but earned nothing but flashing red status messages on the screen. It was complaining about a faulty propellant pressure sensor. Nearing panic, she tried to override it, but the system refused to cooperate.

"Max!"

Her radio squealed, mocking her.

No time. No thought. Instinct. She snatched an extra hummy and a couple of fresh tether spools. No time! The line snapped solidly onto the railing and she leaped, aiming herself at Max's listless piton. If she could reach it before his spool ran out, she had a chance. Once he reached the end, it would spring after him.

No time! Hummy on full, she watched through her compass and willed the little jets to push her faster.

"Max!" The radio was still useless. Her mind couldn't focus. The insanity of what she was trying to do crowded around her, threatening that single, fiery point of will. Don't think! Just be. Be me. Be Mi. Max! That's it. Just move to meet Max. She giggled, sobbed, something. Just make it to the meandering missile.

"Dammit!" Her hummy pinged a "fuel out" alarm and went dead. She straddled the spare and lit it up.

She was closer now. Sunlight teased along Max's trailing tether. The piton was off to her right. To her left, Max was little more than a bright dot. Almost there. She could see the tether clearly now. She readied herself to grab it. If she missed, she'd never be able to decelerate in time for another try. Max would be gone.

The line shuddered, then went taught. He'd reached the end of the spool! The piton, close now, teasing, began flying to the left, across her path. Too fast! She stretched her arm out, but she could already tell she would come up short. Inches. That's all she needed. Just a few measly—Max!

She snatched the necklace from her harness and gripped the loop. Almost there. The piton was nearly in front of her now. She flicked the pendant away from her and swept her arm across. It grazed the tether as the piton slid by and snagged on one of the tines. She pulled to keep tension on it, but then it pulled back harder than she could have imagined. Pain shot down her arm as she swung around behind Max. Do not let go. Do not LET GO! She was the pivot point of a kilometer-long tug of war. Straining, she pulled the piton toward her and earned enough slack to hook its line to her harness. She'd done it!

She looped the little necklace back where it belonged with her left hand. Her entire right arm was a throbbing mass of pain. The static had quieted somewhat and she tried calling for Max again. This time, through the shrill noise, she thought she could hear the music of Max's voice.

The line spooling out back to the sled was banded in yellow. It was almost out. Max was a brilliant, white dot to sunward and the sled was a tiny flash above Boris's dark mass. She was about to be pulled in two directions at once, but the sled's mass should be enough to anchor them both. At least this time, all the strain would be on her harness.

Mi readied herself for the jolt and checked the spool again. It wasn't moving. There was still line on it, but it wasn't paying out anymore. Vann must be bringing the sled after them. She started the rewinder to take up the slack. In spite of her aching arm, she climbed a dozen meters up Max's line and gathered the loose cable. She whipped a few sine waves up the line. Hopefully, he'd notice the slack and climb back to meet her.

"Max, can you hear me?"

His reply was almost audible through the dimming interference.

"It's okay, Max. I've got you and Vann is bringing the sled. Copy?"

"—ink so. Vann . . . I . . . you . . . this."

The slack she'd gathered in Max's line went tight. He was working his way back to her. Slowly, his form grew more distinct. So did his voice. Mi began to cry quietly as the tension and fear finally broke and her adrenaline abandoned her. She closed her eyes and gave herself up to the tears and to the solace of the long fall.

Max's voice brought her back. "Mi, are you all right?"

She opened her eyes to find him just a few dozen meters away.

"Oh, Max. Yes, I'm fine. Vann should be here soon with the sled. Everything'll be okay."

"No, Mi. He won't. He's—I wish you hadn't. I'm so sorry, Mi."

"What are you talking about?" She spun and looked behind her. The sled was nowhere in sight, but a tiny flashing spark chased her reeling tether. She knew what it had to be. The hook she'd latched to the railing.

"I don't understand."

Max pulled himself the final distance and wrapped his arms around her. "I'm so sorry."

"For what? What's going on?"

He let go, but held her hand. "Vann did this. He set a bad hand hold for me. Once I'd tethered on, he kicked it loose. I tried to warn you, but he was already jamming the radios. My hummy failed, too, not that it would have helped much. I fired that piton hoping you'd bring the sled."

"I tried to, but . . . dammit! He must have disabled the main thruster so I couldn't come after you."

"Sweet Mi. He never counted on you being completely insane."

She laughed in spite of everything. It felt so good to be back with Max that the terror of their situation seemed a distant abstraction. In a sense, she had exactly what she'd wanted. She was free. She and Max and the universe were all falling together. She was a cometary being, a bit of star stuff returning home. She had, what? Three, maybe four hours? Five, if she powered down to minimum. Then she and Max would just . . . Oh.

"Max?"

"Yes?"

"How long will you . . . ?"

"I'm not really sure." His voice was soft, as if he were trying to ease the burden his words would put on her. "Two months, maybe more, but I'll never know. The toxins will start to build up before then. Plaque deposits. Cell death. I'll lose my mind long before the end."

"You'll be alone."

"If I'm lucky, my memory will go first."

"I'm sorry. It should be me. Alone is pretty much my natural state. And I'm not all that fond of a lot of my memories."

"I'm sorry."

"For which, my life or my death?"

"Both."

"Don't be. You've managed to make them both pretty spectacular." She tried to laugh, but it didn't work very well. She pulled her hand free and grabbed her compass. "Well, we should at least figure out where we're going. Wouldn't it be nice if we could end up catching air around Mars or Earth and wind up as someone's 'wish I may, wish I might?'"

"I've already checked. I'm broadcasting a looped SOS beacon with our course on the off chance someone at the camp will pick it up."

"And fight off Vann. And reach us in the sled."

"I'm an optimist."

"You're a Romantic. In the classical sense."

"Dickens would never let us die."

Mi laughed as she sighted their position. "Shakespeare would, if he thought there was a lesson in it."

Max buzzed a short laugh. "Hugo would kill me and save you."

"Not if you're Jean Valjean."

"Right. Then he'd kill you just to make my life more poignant."

Mi took a reading from a sparkling gray mass to sunward. Its lateral motion was nearly zero relative to theirs. They'd be making a close pass. It looked like the craggy mud ball that brought up the rear of their local cluster. What if? Could they really make it back?

"Camp," she said.

Max shook his head. "No. For camp you want Moliere. He'd have us bump into a passing survey ship with—"

"No, no, no. Hear me out. That rock to sunward. Rho two point nine and one degree north. Isn't that 5716, the next organics mine on our list?"

Max sighted the asteroid, then the sun, then back at Boris. "5761, but yes. I think so. Why?"

"Because it looks to me like we'll pass it by less than a kilometer."

"So?"

"So what would Melville do?"

"He'd have it eat us."

"Yes, but only after we'd harpooned it! It's a mud ball, a piton should set easily."

Max was silent. He swept his compass around, taking dozens of readings, mostly behind them. Mi tried to be patient, but after a while she couldn't wait any longer. "Well? What do you think? We'll take a hell of a jolt, but it would keep us in range of the sled."

Max put his compass down and shook his head. "I wish I had a computer."

"Why?"

"Because I think we can do better. With the right timing, we can use the tether to steer."

"Swing around and let go when we're aimed back at Boris?"

Max looked at her. His finger was tapping the side of his compass. "That's where the computer comes in. I was thinking a few degrees short of a one-eighty."

Mi thought it through. After a minute, she realized what he was suggesting. "Back to camp? Without a visual? Not to mention Boris is plus half a degree rho from camp. How would we change direction southward?"

"Brzzzzz. Brzzzzzz."

"What's so funny?"

"Brzzzzz. You're worried about what direction our frozen corpses will be going long after we're dead?"

"We're not dead yet!"

"Exactly. So quit sweating the details and let's do the math."

It was roughly ninety minutes before their closest approach to BOCS-5761 and they spent most of it working through the mathematics of the maneuver. Their calculators weren't really designed for the purpose. The built-in functions were more related to time and distance calculations and fuel estimates. No one anticipated the need for a bank shot off a tethered asteroid across several thousand kilometers. When they were done, they had settled on a best-guess figure for where on the arc to release the cable.

When they were close enough, Mi fired a piton, careful to adjust her aim for their relative motion and for the nearly eight seconds of travel time the missile would need. They were 700 meters away when the steel shaft buried its point into the asteroid's surface.

"Now we hope it holds," she said.

"It'll hold."

"How do you know?"

"I'm a Romantic, remember?"

The sun disappeared behind the asteroid, and shadow swept over them. Her suit's heater lit up and she tapped the controls on her arm band to shut it down. She could take a little cold to save the power. They strapped their harnesses together, checked the tether, and began the nervous wait before they were in position.

"I can't imagine what it must be like for you. You must miss them a lot," Mi said, as she tied their harnesses together with her necklace.

Max's voice was quiet and he stared out at the stars behind her as he spoke. "Of course I do. It's nice, though, knowing I'm still taking care of them."

"Like a guardian angel."

"I suppose."

"I'm sorry."

Now he looked at her, touched her hand. "I'm not. I lived. I died. Now I live again."

She sighted her compass on the distant glimmer of Boris. "Now you're probably going to die again."

"It's time."

Mi's harness yanked her as the cable pulled tight. Pain exploded in her back where the straps tried to cut her in two. Spots cluttered her vision, but she kept Boris lined up as they started to swing around. When they swept behind the rock and Boris was eclipsed, she felt a brief panic. She swept her compass up and down the westward limb, afraid she'd miss it. There! She picked it up again and watched the angle change. Her breathing was strained against the acceleration of their turn and she felt cold. Three. Two. One. "Now!"

The stars doubled, tripled, swam around her. Shaking her head cleared it some, but the pain in her back, in spite of their return to freefall, refused to subside.

"I think we did it." Max's voice was steady, clear. She tried to focus on it, to use it like a lifeline.

Still breathing raggedly, she spoke between gasps. "Any idea how close?"

Max was rapidly taking compass readings. "Not yet, but I'll update the SOS loop with our new course as soon as I have it. We won't know any more until we get a sighting on camp. The power station should stand out."

"Good." Her breathing eased, but every breath still sent blasts of fire across her back. She tried bending forward, but pain exploded down the backs of her legs and the stars swam around her. "How long?"

"Two hours. Maybe a little more. Why? Getting bored?"

She blinked back the spots in her vision and checked her suit's telltales. An hour of air. More for batteries, but not much. A cough ripped through her and some of the stars turned pink through droplets on the inside of her helmet. "Getting dead, I think."

Max twisted around. He held her helmet between his hands and stared in at her. His face was as unchanging as ever, but his voice sounded tortured. "Mi? Oh God, Mi!"

She whispered now. It was easier. "It's okay. Fine. It's . . . just not such a long fall anymore."

Max punched her suit's controls. "I'm powering you down. You'll feel a little cold and sleepy."

"Sleepy. Yes."

"We're in sunlight. You won't freeze. Just rest."

"Die anyway. S'difference?"

"No! I'll get you home, darling."

White stars stained pink. Black sky. Max's shining face, dimming, turning gray. "You . . . said 'darling.'"

"Sleep, Mi. I'll get you home."

She tried to raise her hand. It hurt, but she pushed through the pain to touch Max's face. "Sweet. Max. I am home."

Max pulled her to him. She relaxed against his chest and gave herself up one last time to the long fall.

****

Bright, foggy light. Faces sweeping past like comets. The soft kiss of moving air. Death wasn't at all the way she thought it would be.

"You're awake!"

Mi blinked back the fog and saw the ceiling of the camp's common room. Niedermeyer leaned over her.

She tried to talk, but her dry throat was too raw. She barely managed to whisper. " . . . happened?"

"You cracked a coupla ribs. Broke another. That one tore a lung. Not too bad, though. There's, uh, something with your back, too, but the doctor can't tell without a scan."

She tried to move, but something held her down and the effort made her dizzy.

"You're strapped to the table. Don't try to move. The doctor says you're supposed to stay still. You've been out for a week." He smiled, looking proud. "Don't worry. We've been working two-man crews around the clock to keep the rock dropping. You'll get paid."

Ignoring the pain, she looked around, but couldn't see anyone else. "Needles. Watch Vann, he's—"

Niedermeyer looked away. "Just rest. The doctor says—"

"He's dangerous."

"Not anymore!" He looked at her and pain aged his features. He didn't look at all like a boy. "I didn't have a choice."

"What?"

"He tried to stop us. Said the radio was broken. That he was trying to fix it. But he was lying."

"I'm sorry."

"If I hadn't been checking the market reports." He shook his head and a smile tried to creep back onto his face. It didn't get very far. "Imagine. Who'd'a thought Max would send an emergency message on the commercial freqs, huh?"

"Max."

The smile finally won out. "Helluva robot. You know he used his own power to keep your suit going? Sliced himself open with a piton to get at the leads. Helluva thing."

"Hell," Mi gasped, "of a man."

"Nah, I didn't do anything special. You should sleep now. Here." He gave her a small drink from a squeeze bottle. It tasted funny, but it soothed her throat. "Doctor wants you out for a few more days. You can thank Max for that, too. He blew off the regular staff doctors and got in touch with some research guy. He really knows his stuff."

"Max."

"Yeah. You sleep now. Okay?"

"Max . . ."

****

"Max?"

"I'm here, Mi."

She felt the soft, warm skin of his hand in hers. She opened her eyes to find him looking at her.

"I had a dream," she said.

"I don't wonder."

"We were together. Flying free. Holding hands. It was nice."

He lifted his other hand so she could see the "M" medallion hanging from it. He laid it gently on the pillow next to her head. "I've been wearing it," he said. "For luck."

She smiled. "They were the same, our hands. Brilliant white in the sunlight. Soft. Warm. No suits. No helmets."

Max brushed her cheek with the back of his index finger. "I would have thought you'd had enough of that."

"Never." She took a deep, cautious breath. It hurt far less than she remembered. She took some of the water Max offered her, then more.

"Doctor Gianelli says you can try to get up for a while, if you're up to it. But not if your back hurts. He's still worried about nerve damage."

"He's your doctor, isn't he? Doctor Gepetto. The one who . . ."

"The one who made me what I am today."

Mi stared at his immobile features. There was nothing there, but there was something. "You're smiling."

His head tilted to the side. "How can you tell?"

"I just can."

Max started undoing the straps that held her to the table. His movements were quick, nervous. He fumbled with the clasps.

She put her hand on his arm. "I love you, Max."

He froze. "No."

"I do."

His shoulders slumped and his head bowed. He didn't breath, but it was a long sigh in every other respect. "You can't."

"You're as human as I am."

He was silent for a long time before he turned to look at her. "There's a new crew person coming out on a high-g transfer. He'll be here in about a month. You're supposed to rotate out as soon as your back can take the acceleration."

It should have been a hard decision, but she couldn't remember an easier one to make. It was time to stop running. "Talk to him, Max."

He stared at her. Light flared across the lenses of his eyes as he searched her face. "I can't ask that."

"You're not asking. It's my decision."

"It's too much! You're young, healthy."

"My back may be broken. I can't feel my legs, Max. I know what that means."

"It's still too much."

She ignored the agony in her back as she wrapped her arms around his neck. "It's more than that. It's everything!"

He pulled her arms loose, but he didn't pull away. He touched her cheek, her chin. "Are you sure?"

"I want to be with you, Max. I want to be like you."

She watched his face, studied the tilt of his head, the angle of his eyes. "You're doing it again."

"What?"

"Smiling."

"Am I?"

"You've already talked to him, haven't you?"

He shrugged that marvelous mechanical shrug of his. "When he first suggested you might not walk again. I knew you'd ask."

"And?"

"He's agreed to consider it, but you'll have to convince him. He's concerned with the fact that you're not dying."

Mi laughed. It hurt, but she didn't care. "That's an odd trait in a doctor."

"You know what I mean."

"But I could come back here. With you."

"You'd have to."

She pulled back, puzzled. "Why?"

"It's a very expensive procedure. It'll take years to pay off."

"I don't care if it takes forever. There's one thing, though."

"What?"

She smiled at him, wondering if, in her new form, he would come to recognize it. "Do you think he can do something about the laugh?"

"Brzzzzz. I sure as hell hope so."

###

Changing Times

Written by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

For more than a decade, I’d played with something I called The Freelancer’s Survival Guide. I wrote the introduction. I outlined the book, chapter by chapter. I went so far as to write a book proposal, but I never mailed it.

I wanted The Freelancer’s Survival Guide to be exactly what it sounded like—a nonfiction book for freelancers, one that explained how to have a freelance career. Not how to quit your day job or sell a few things, but to actually survive on your own, year after year, decade after decade.

When the recession hit with a thud in September of 2008, I realized I had missed my window. I should have proposed the book to New York publishers in September of 2006, so the book would be coming out in the middle of the recession. People lose their jobs in uncertain economic climates, and many people use that job loss as an opportunity to open their own businesses.

For a few months, I moped. Then I realized I could write and publish the Guide on my website. I was leery. I have been part of the internet since 1990 or so, and my experience of it was filled with flame wars, nastiness, and time sinks. I had heard horrible things about books published on the internet.

I also knew that some popular blogs became published books (and popular movies: witness Julie and Julia). So I contacted my friend Michael J. Totten, who has made a living off his blog for years. Dean and I got together with him and Scott William Carter, who also had an active blog, and talked about joining the 21^st century.

A week later, I posted the first two chapters of the Freelancer’s Guide.

That was April of 2009. On July 29, 2010, I wrote the last installment. I still have to organize the chapters and trim, but as soon as I finish that, I’ll have a finished book.

One that’s vastly different than one I would have written in the privacy of my own office. Readers commented, asked for advice and—oh, yeah—paid my advance through weekly donations. Michael suggested a donate button, so I put one up with hesitation. Sure enough, people contributed, and are still contributing.

I will release the book as an ebook by this fall, and then do a print edition as well. I did not sell it to a New York publisher, and am now unwilling to. In addition to the full-size e-book, I’m doing short e-books on particular topics. So if you only want to know how to survive after you quit your day job, you can buy that section of the Guide.

(Note: You can find the full guide on my site if you go to http://kriswrites.com/freelancers-survival-guide-table-of-contents/. You can find the short books on most e-book sites. You’ll be able to find the full Guide in a month on all e-book sites as well.)

I feel as if I’ve lived years between the start of that book and its completion. Normally, I write one book at a time, but while I wrote the Guide, I wrote three other books, half a dozen short stories, and a lot of nonfiction. I also learned about the future of publishing, by getting my feet wet in all aspects of it.

What has happened in the 15 months since I started the Guide is that publishing got hit with game-changing technology. Starting a book on my website, even a nonfiction book, was still controversial in April of 2009. Now a lot of people are doing this. Publishing on the web has become expected. Recently, Marty Halpern published a few teaser stories from his collection Is Anybody Out There on his blog. One of those stories was mine. I volunteered. I have learned that “free” gets people through the door, so that they will look for your work.

In that time, I bought a Kindle and an iPhone, as well as a second (and third) iPod, joining the revolution myself. On Tuesdays, I listen to the free offerings in iTunes, and I’ve ordered a number of other songs by those artists. I have downloaded a dozen free books on my Kindle, and discovered several writers new to me, whose work I will now buy. I read The New York Times free on my phone when I’m away from home, but I find the tiny screen annoying, so I often pay a few dollars to get the Times on my Kindle, even though I know I can get it free on my computer as well.

The web is all about convenience. If I want a song I’m hearing on the radio right now, I can call up iTunes, spend 99 cents, and have the song in my iPod rotation within a minute. If I read a review of a book in Locus, I can type the title into my Kindle, and download the book before I forget that it sounded interesting. I’m consuming more product, rather than less.

And I’m accumulating product as well. I have several issues of new magazines on my Kindle, waiting for me to get to them, just like I have several physical issues of the Dell magazines sitting on my to-read pile. Sometimes, I order a copy of a magazine I already own so that I’ll have it on my Kindle for convenient reading. I hear from other Kindle owners that I’m not alone in this.

Several sf magazines have started up in electronic editions. The Dell magazines have added e-editions to their paper editions and, according to Sheila Williams, editor of Asimov’s, e-subscriptions have increased the magazine’s sales tremendously. Circulation is growing again, instead of declining.

For years, many of you have read my increasingly strident posts about how narrow-minded the sf book publishers have become. Five years ago, I worried that sf publishing was going to slowly kill the genre. And if we had to rely only on the New York publishing establishment, we would have had only a handful of writers to chose from. But other, smaller publishers have started up. Some are doing well, like Pyr, and others are struggling. But they’re bringing solid sf to readers.

As is electronic publishing. The ease of publishing ebooks has allowed a number of us to revive our backlist. Unlike the romance and mystery genres, the sf genre seems to believe that books should go out of print, even if they’re part of a series.

That trend has stopped now. A lot of writers, from Mike Resnick to Kevin J. Anderson, are taking excellent books that were out of print, and putting them back into print in ebook format—and those books are selling. WMG Publishing has offered to reprint my entire short fiction backlist, as well as many of my novels. Suddenly, a reader can find the story they’ve been hearing about for years with only the click of a button.

This is great, not just for writers, but for readers. As someone said on my Facebook page a while back, readers don’t care who publishes their favorite author, just as long as they can get the book. I understand that very well.

I am writing an article on alternate history for a textbook. In preparation, I wanted to read some classics of alternate history that I had somehow missed in my copious reading. I went to the Locus website to find the publication dates of some of those stories, figuring we had the magazine issues in our library. (My husband Dean Wesley Smith is a collector.) We did—not. For example, Murray Leinster’s “Sidewise in Time,” for which the Sidewise Alternate History Award is named, was in the June 1934 Astounding, which was a pulp. Dean had sold all of our pulps.

Likewise, we didn’t have Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle. The book is highly collectible, and Dean never found a copy. I went to our world famous used bookstore (I’m not kidding) and asked the proprietor if he had any Philip K. Dick. He said, “I wish” in a tone that told me he would have paid top dollar for any of Dick’s novels.

So I went to Alibris and nearly died. A terrible copy of The Man in the High Castle—no covers, water damaged, stinky—went for $40. I could buy a copy new at any bookstore for $15.

But I could get it immediately on my Kindle for $9.99. Which I did. And by that evening, I had finished the book. I had also found Kindle copies of most of the books and stories on my list—all without leaving my house. As I looked at my research list, I found myself getting annoyed when a book wasn’t available electronically.

I realized, in the midst of all of this research, that one thing I have always hated about reading was the search. You know what I mean. You find an author who is new to you, even though that author has been publishing for fifteen years. You want to read their entire oeuvre, and if you’re like me, you’d prefer to read it in chronological order. But you have to read what you can find, and you might not be able to find all of their work.

Because we all used to be subject to the writer’s initial print run. Let’s use Philip K. Dick as an example. When The Man in the High Castle came out, Dick was a working writer with a strong core following. The initial print run on that book was small.

However, over the years, Dick’s fans recommended his work to other fans, and they in turn recommended it to others. His novels had gone out of print. There were a finite number of copies of his books in print, and that number grew ever smaller. It wasn’t until the spate of movies made from his work that his books came back into print. For years, readers had to rely on luck in finding that first print-run book to read all of Dick’s works.

Dick was lucky—or rather, his estate was. Those books came back into physical print. Writers used to have to wait for that kind of lightning to strike to keep their entire oeuvre in print, and even popular authors had books go out of print.

Readers never understood that. Remember that Facebook comment: a reader doesn’t care who publishes the book, so long as the book’s in print somewhere. I often got letters from readers complaining about the unavailability of my novels, something I didn’t like either. Even though I wrote back explaining the situation, I knew the reader really didn’t care. All the reader wanted was my book.

Now they’ll be able to get it. Or rather, they’ll be able to get it within the next year or two, as the backlist trickles back into print. The dynamics of publishing are changing, and they’re changing in favor of the reader, no matter what gloom and doom you hear in the press. The gloom and doom comes from traditional publishing, which has to change a lot of internal publishing practices to make e-publishing affordable.

None of that matters to readers. Books are books are books, whether they’re available in electronic form or paper form. If you want book three in a seven book series that’s been out for ten years, you don’t want to be told that the publisher underpublished book three and you’ll have to pay through the nose to get a copy. (This happened with book four of my Fey series, and as a result, that paperback often went for $200 on used book sites.) You just want that book as soon as you finish book two.

And now you’ll be able to get it.

I hear a lot of talk now about how the internet will be the death of publishing. It’s silly. Just like talk that digital music was the death of the music industry.

Traditional publishing adopted a lot of expensive, difficult, and unwieldy business practices. E-publishing will force the traditional publishers to make changes.

But for the readers, this sea change in publishing will mean we can read what we want when we want. We’ll be reading more books than ever.

And it also means that we writers have more opportunities to write than ever before. Honestly, in April of 2009 when I started The Freelancer’s Guide, I thought I’d get a handful of readers—maybe a dozen. I also thought that those dozen readers would help me maintain my weekly deadline—a pressure point, and nothing more. I didn’t expect any donations. In fact, I was humoring Michael when I put up the button.

What I got surprised me. In addition to an actual advance, I got interaction and a community. I had thousands of readers come to my website, and people discovered my fiction through my nonfiction (and vice versa). It was an exciting, dynamic experience.

I’m having a lot of those through the internet now. Not just through my website, but through Twitter and Facebook. I’m working on projects with people from Italy and England, France and Japan. I’m in contact with fans in Russia and Germany as well as in the United States.

I keep hearing gloom and doom about publishing’s future, but I’m not believing any of it. As a writer, I’ve never experienced a more exciting time.

As a reader, I’m overwhelmed with the amount of material I have at my fingertips—old and new. I’m beginning to wonder if sleep is overrated. I want to read more. I want to write more. And I love the interaction.

I like the way things are changing. And I didn’t realize how fast things were moving until I finished the Guide. Sometimes you need a marker, and that was mine. I feel like the Kris who started the Guide lived in the Dark Ages, and the Kris who finished it lives in the Age of Enlightenment.

Now I’ve finished my online column, I’m off to read some Randall Garrett on my Kindle while listening to some Ella Fitzgerald on my iPod. Such is my life in this extraordinary summer of 2010.

****

Table of Contents

What is this? About the Grantville Gazette

Margarete's Rose

Lion's Tower

The Future Is Where You Started

Storm Signals

The Red Flag of Henneberg

Me Fecit Solingen Nicht

Rotkäppchen

Euterpe, Episode 4

Northwest Passage, Part Six

Stitching the Country Together: Railroad System Technology in 1632

The Long Fall

Changing Times