Grantville Gazette Volume 34

Portrait of Bees in Spring

Written by Bradley H. Sinor and Tracy S. Morris

"Now this won't hurt a bit."

Betsy Springer rolled her eyes, remembering the first time she had heard that phrase. Her family doctor had been about to give her a booster shot. Despite what the nurse said, that one had hurt.

"Like I really believe that, Nurse Rached! Do you also have a bridge in Brooklyn that you can make me a great deal on?" Betsy muttered the last part under her breath.

The dark-haired nurse gave her patient a confused look before continuing to wrap a long strip of bandage around the young reporter's ankle. Actually, Betsy thought that the woman tied the bandage too tight on purpose, but she was determined not to give the nurse the satisfaction of hearing her cry out. Instead, she tightened her grip on Denis Sesma's hand; driving her nails into his palm. The fact that he stoically refused to react was typical of the half-Basque artist who had become her closest friend in the months since he had come to work for The Grantville Times.

"My name is Miller, not Rached," said the woman said with a sigh. She spoke reasonably good English but every now and again Betsy could catch just a hint of Swedish in her voice when she became irritated—like now. "I've told you that several times. Why am I not surprised that you up-time young people don't pay attention to what your elders say?"

Denis suppressed a chuckle. This was not the first time he had heard that statement around Betsy.

"You are really a very fortunate young woman," Nurse Miller said as she gently placed Betsy's leg on a stool. "This could have been a lot worse. It's what the doctor calls a grade one sprain. It will take several weeks to heal, but you should have some mobility with the use of crutches. If you don't move carefully though, you could easily hurt yourself again and make it much, much worse." She shook her finger in warning at Betsy.

Normally Betsy would have had a good comeback on the tip of her tongue, but right now all she could do was grit her teeth and try to endure the throbbing in her leg.

"How long have you two been married?" asked Nurse Miller, in what Denis guessed was an attempt to distract Betsy.

"We're not married!" both Denis and Betsy spoke at once.

The nurse said nothing, though her expression suggested she was thinking "Yet."

"Are you finished now?" Denis asked nervously.

"You can go, but make certain that Miss Springer stays off her injury and does what she is told," said the nurse.

"Like I have any control over that," muttered Denis.

"I will fetch you some crutches. You're lucky the doctor has a side business manufacturing them. Otherwise you would have to wait for a carpenter," said Nurse Miller. "How did you say you hurt yourself in the first place?"

"I wish that I was doing something really cool, like fighting off a bunch of mercenaries on our way here. But I stepped wrong getting out of a coach. The trip here to Hamburg is one of the most boring ones that I've ever taken in my life." Betsy looked down, embarrassed at her own clumsiness. "At least it isn't as bad as an injury a friend of mine in high school had. He fractured his ankle hitting it on the side of a concrete curb."

"I believe you. It sounds like you were having—what do you Americans call it? 'A really bad day.'" Nurse Miller ducked her head to hide her smile.

Betsy frowned down at her sprained ankle. "For the record, this not the way I wanted to get close to the story."

The nurse continued as if she hadn't heard Betsy. "Now that I'm done I'll send Dr. Kunze in to see you."

Once the nurse was gone, Denis let go of Betsy's hand and went over to the door. He waited for a good thirty seconds before he spoke, all the while listening to the sounds outside the office that doubled as an examining room.

"I think we're alone, at least for awhile. I don't know why, but I just have the strangest feeling that something is going on here that they're not telling us," said Denis.

Betsy looked up from her ankle with a startled expression. "Aren't you and Paul the ones who are always accusing me of being paranoid and seeing conspiracies where there aren't any?"

"Mr. Kindrad just wants you to have proof of them before writing the things up," said Denis.

He retreated from the door to a nearby chair where he had left his drawing pad and a piece of charcoal. "Besides, I told you it was just a gut feeling. I hope I'm wrong. Mr. Kindrad said this trip was supposed to keep us out of trouble."

"Yeah right," said Betsy as she pushed herself to the edge of the chair and gingerly lowered her right leg. She inhaled, as if preparing herself for an excruciating task, then grasped both arms of the chair and pushed up. The result was a sharp sensation of pain that forced her back into the chair.

"You weren't listening to the nurse," Denis laughed. "You're supposed to stay off that foot and keep your leg elevated."

"Yeah, elevated . . . check," groaned Betsy.

Denis turned his drawing around so that she could see it. "This is the image I plan to submit with your story. What do you think?"

"You're just trying to distract me," Betsy said.

"Of course I am," he replied.

"You can be just as much of a baby when you're injured." Betsy stuck her lip out in a pout and crossed her arms. After a moment of silence she put her ankle back on the stool. "I guess it's the thought that counts."

Denis's sketch showed a man, his chest bandaged, lying on a table. A second man, obviously a doctor, judging by the stethoscope that hung around his neck, was pouring something from a jar onto the bandage.

"Not bad, but how will we be able to tell that its honey he's using?" Betsy wondered.

"Your story will tell them that," Denis said.

"But what about people who can't read?"

"If they can't read, why would they have a newspaper?" Denis asked.

"Because they like the pictures?" Betsy shrugged. "Or maybe their Aunt Gertie is reading it to them."

"If you think it will help, I could draw a label with a bee on the jar," Denis said.

"Then people who can read will see the image and wonder why that doctor is putting honey on that man's bandages," Betsy said.

"Which will make them want to read your story about how the navy doctors who don't have antibiotics are using honey to keep infection out of serious wounds," Denis retorted.

"Just like the Egyptians did in the time of King Tut." Betsy smiled in satisfaction.

"King Tut?" Denis tilted his head to the side in a thoughtful pose. "Was he in the movie about the archeologist with a bullwhip?"

"He's from history, not movies." Betsy waved her hands in the air as she spoke. "He hasn't been discovered yet. But when he will be—or was in the future—those archeologist types that found him figured out that the ancient Egyptians were using honey to fight off infection in wounds long before antibiotics. What do you think of this for a headline—" She spread her hands in front of her face as if to picture the headline on a newspaper "Teaching a new dog old tricks."

A new voice chimed in. "Not bad."

Betsy and Denis turned to see a rather large man standing in the doorway. The pair of crutches he held in one large hand suggested that this was the one they had come to see, Dr. Johannes Kunze.

"I'm sorry that I am late for our interview, young lady," said Dr. Kunze, apologetically. "But we've had a bit of . . . trouble with Thomas Radetzki, the bee keeper who supplies our honey."

Denis and Betsy exchanged a look.

"What kind of trouble? Denis asked.

"He was supposed to bring us a fresh shipment of honey this morning, from his latest harvest. I saw him only two days ago and he confirmed his plans to me," the doctor said. "But he has not kept his schedule, which is most unusual. The man is normally quite punctual."

Dr. Kunze lifted a shoulder in a helpless shrug. "Since he is a civilian, I can't justify sending a seaman to go check on him, not for just being late. But I remembered that you said you wanted to speak to him for your story. I thought that perhaps you could go to his apiary and check on him."

"Normally I would be happy to help, Doc. But . . ." Betsy pointed at her leg.

The doctor smiled in that "I was expecting that comment" way that had always irritated Betsy. "I hate to send you so soon after your injury, but there is no one else available right now. If you go it will help put my mind at rest. I just have a bad feeling about the whole matter. We can loan you one of our wagons so that you can stay off of your injured leg. If everything is fine, you can fetch back the honey with you. And when you return, we can finish your interview. I would go with you, but we are short-handed."

"You must be busy," said Betsy. "You haven't even had your pants repaired."

"My pants?" said the doctor, glancing down at his trousers where a ragged piece had been ripped out. "Ja, it got caught in a wagon wheel earlier today. Nurse Miller has offered to repair them when we have time. So will you do me this favor and look in on our missing beekeeper?"

"All right." Betsy chuckled, and then muttered under her breath. "The things I do for a story."

"Would you mind if I asked a question?" Denis asked as the doctor handed Betsy her crutches.

She braced them against the floor and tried to use them to stand. Her first attempt was not a glowing success, since she rammed her bandaged foot against a side table and dropped back into the chair. She stifled a muffled groan through closed lips. "I feel like one of the Stooges here."

Denis winced in sympathy, and moved to help her. Betsy's glare caused him to back out of her way with his hands in the air in mock surrender.

After a few deep breaths Betsy levered herself up to a precariously balanced standing position. While keeping her weight on one foot, she tucked a pad under each arm, and then began to hobble forward. She moved only a few feet before she tottered as if about to fall. This time, when Denis stepped forward, she allowed his steadying hand on her shoulder.

"Ready?" Denis asked.

Betsy gave him a reassuring nod before tottering forward a step. Her smile brightened as she took another step and then another, aiming herself toward the door. The doctor nodded approvingly and stepped aside to let her pass.

"Now, about that question?" the doctor asked Denis

"Would I be right in assuming that there is more worrying you than just a late shipment of honey?" Denis asked.

"We are at war," The doctor shrugged. "This is a military hospital and that honey will save soldiers' lives. With the number of spies traipsing around the USE—it would be one more way to strike back at the navy."

"I'm sure the beekeeper just lost track of time," Betsy said over her shoulder as she stumped down the hall. "We'll go out there, collect the interview and the honey and be back here before you know it."

****

Outside, the stable hands brought out a one-horse wagon with a buckboard on it. Denis lifted Betsy into the seat carefully. Then he tucked his drawing tools alongside her before vaulting into the driver's place.

The road between the hospital and Radetzki's apiary was fairly well maintained, but Betsy winced in pain with every stone or rut that the wagon bounced over.

Denis slowed the horse to a sedate walk.

"You don't have to go this slow, it will take us twice as long," Betsy touched his shoulder. "I'm fine."

"It should only take a few hours by wagon," Denis said. "Since it is still early in the day, we can afford to take a little extra time."

"I would rather get our work here done with and get back to Grantville." She frowned down at her bandaged ankle. "This is so inconvenient."

"The nurse said that if you stayed off of it for a few weeks, you should be as good as new."

"I'm no good at sitting still," Betsy crossed her arms and looked out across the field that bordered the road. Denis pinched his lips together to keep from laughing.

****

As the hours passed, the city gradually gave way to rolling countryside. In an obvious attempt to distract herself from the throbbing in her ankle, Betsy described, in extreme detail, the plot of several different movies. It hadn't taken Denis long, after he had met Betsy, to master the art of looking like he was listening, while letting his mind wander.

When the wagon crested a hill, Denis wished he had time to sketch the picturesque scene in front of them. It would make an interesting painting, very different from the things he had been doing for the newspaper. He missed doing art like that, but a regular paycheck was a really nice thing to have. Fresh yellow straw thatched the roof of the beekeeper's cottage. Around the yard, a riot of roses, chamomile and lavender flowers sprouted.

"Hey look!" Betsy broke off and pointed to a field bordered in shrubs that were covered in pink flowers. Denis craned his neck, seeing dozens of insects darting back and forth between the flowers. "Bees!"

Denis pulled the wagon to a stop and squinted at the cottage. "No smoke coming from the chimney. He may not be home."

"One way to check," Betsy said.

"You wait here. I'll go look."

"No way!" Betsy shook her head. "You aren't leaving me out of things. I don't care if I end up having to crawl after you."

Denis sighed. So much for any hope of her being reasonable because of her injury—not that there actually had been much hope of that to begin with. If Betsy had been agreeable, he probably would have been worried about what she was plotting.

As the two of them crossed the yard to the front door of the cottage, they could hear excited barking from inside the building.

Betsy looked at Denis with a sly smile. "Sounds like someone has a little yappy dog."

"If the beekeeper is home, one would think that he would come out to see what his pet is barking at."

Betsy shrugged and reached out her hand to knock. The door creaked inward under the pressure of her rapping. The little dog that they had heard then squeezed through the opening and began to run in circles around the two of them, barking as it did.

"Hello? Anyone home?" Betsy called out as she hopped through the doorway, holding her crutches awkwardly. "Your door is open and—Uh oh!" She froze, with one hand on the door frame to keep her balance.

Denis stepped behind her and looked over her shoulder, then he swallowed hard. A man that he presumed was Thomas Radetzki sat at the table in the tiny kitchen, face-down on a tray of sausage and cheese. A bread roll and cloth napkin lay upside down next to one of his open hands. A knife, sticky with what Denis guessed was honey, lay next to the other. It looked as if the beekeeper had died right in the middle of sweetening his Brötchen.

The two of them looked at one another, and then Betsy clomped her way into the kitchen with Denis at her heels. She moved to the table and held her hand over his mug.

"His tea is cold," she said. "He's been dead for a while."

"We had better fetch Dr. Kunze. He may be able to tell us why this happened," Denis said.

Betsy pulled a second chair away from the table and plopped in it, allowing her crutches to clatter to the ground. The dog ran up to her, barking and nuzzling at her uninjured leg at the same time.

"Oh, you poor dear," she said as she picked the animal up, put it in her lap and began to scratch it behind its ears. "You're an orphan now."

At that moment, a figure stepped through the door behind them. Betsy twisted and saw a man in a dark jacket standing there staring at them. The stranger scanned the room slowly, then turned suspicious eyes on Denis and Betsy.

"May I ask who you are?" One of the newcomer's eyebrows winged upward.

"Dr. Kunze sent us. I think we should be asking who you are?" Betsy countered.

"Abelerd Gottschalk, Seaman Apprentice with the USE Navy."

Betsy wrinkled her forehead. "I thought Dr. Kunze said that he couldn't send a seaman. Are you part of the hospital staff?"

"I am not assigned to the hospital. I'm with Naval Criminal Investigative Service and was here to see Herr Radetzki on USE business."

"NCIS? You're like a navy detective." Betsy grinned. "Just like Sherlock Holmes on water, only real! I bet that would make a great addition to the story that we're working on. When this is all over with, can I interview you?"

Abelerd looked to be no more than a year or two older than Denis, but he moved in the manner of someone who had complete confidence in his authority. He ignored Betsy's request. Instead he walked over to the body and stared down at it for a time, as if cataloging everything in front of him; then bent down to bring his eyes to the level of the table.

"Dr. Kunze sent us to check on him." Denis said to fill the awkward silence. "He was supposed to be delivering a shipment of honey today. Was he expecting you to visit?"

"That information is classified, I'm afraid." The weight of his gaze made Denis feel nervous.

Gottschalk reached over and carefully lifted the dead man's hand, the limp fingers drooping down in reaction. "I would estimate that he has been deceased less than three hours."

"Because rigor mortis hasn't set in?" Betsy asked.

"Correct. Plus the jars of honey for today's shipment are sealed," said the seaman, pointing over to the work bench that occupied the other end of the room.

There were nearly a dozen jars of wax-sealed honey sitting there next to a brazier, tripod and lumps of beeswax that were no doubt used to seal the jars for transport. On the floor was a box filled with identical wax-sealed jars. While there were several projects under way in the USE for manufacturing and marketing Kilner-style screw lids, they were still a long way from being widely available, so this was still the best way to protect the contents of a jar.

"I bet he got up early, which was probably his usual routine." Betsy surmised. "You can set your watch by some farmers. I don't know how often he robbed his hives, but he had obviously done it in the last day or so. Then he came in here, sealed the jars, sat down to eat and then bam!" She paused in scratching behind the dog's ears to wave at the dead man. "Luca Brasi ends up sleeping with the fishes."

Abelerd stared at her for a moment. "I do not know this Luca Brasi that you speak of. He sounds Italian. The man before you is definitely Thomas Radetzki, not Luca Brasi." A growl of frustration escaped the seaman's throat. "I don't have what I need to process this crime scene."

"Why do I get the feeling that this isn't your first murder investigation?" Betsy asked.

"Because it isn't," said Abelerd.

The seaman's expression hardened in a way that made Denis feel even more worried. Law enforcement types always seemed to have that effect on him. Perhaps it was because of all the detective movies that Betsy had told him about. There were a few matters in his past that he had not mentioned to her that could still come back to haunt him.

"I am afraid that I will be the one asking questions, since you and your friend are either suspects or witnesses." said Abelerd. "I have long suspected Herr Radetzki of selling naval secrets to spies. But I could not figure out who was supplying him with the information. He could not have gotten it on his own. Not with the limited time that he spent on navy property. I intended to confront him with what I knew and see if I could get him to admit the identity of his contact. However, I suspect his associate became aware of my investigation and decided to silence Radetzki before he could talk to me."

Betsy's eyes widened in surprise. Her grip on the little dog loosened. It jumped from her lap and skittered under her chair, from where it growled at Abelerd.

The seaman's hand crept to the folds of his own clothing in an unmistakable hint that he was armed. He pointed from Denis to a chair next to Betsy in a silent demand that the artist take a seat. Abelerd then began to move around the room, studying items with a magnifying glass that he produced from his pocket.

"You don't suspect us of killing this man," said Denis. "Do you?"

"Should I?" said Abelerd.

"I've never been a murder suspect before," Betsy whispered to Denis. He wasn't sure if her tone implied surprise, fear, or that she was pleased with it. Knowing Betsy, the latter might have been the most likely scenario.

"We just got here maybe a minute or two before you," Denis said to the detective with confidence that he didn't really feel. "We couldn't have possibly had the time to murder this man."

"Well," mused Betsy. "I suppose we could have had time if we had driven the wagon at a normal rate of speed instead of really slowly. Our friend here might assume that we were working for the French. Heck, Cardinal Richelieu himself could have hired us when we went to France on that wolf story."

"Betsy, you're not helping us. Besides, a lot of people go to France and don't come back working for the French government," Denis said.

They looked up when Abelerd cleared his throat. "I've seen all I can here. When we return to the hospital I will bring a doctor back to check for poisoning, along with a full field kit to allow for a closer examination of the scene."

"Good idea! We can wait for you here," said Betsy, figuring she could do her own investigation while the man was gone.

"No," the young man snapped. "You will not. You both will be coming back with me to the hospital, where you will be held for further questioning. If you were simply unlucky enough to stumble on the body, it will be a matter of your own safety. After all, the killer could still be lurking around here."

"Despite what I said, we couldn't have killed the beekeeper." Betsy set her chin in a defiant expression. "In case you didn't notice, I have a sprained ankle, which is not the easiest thing to move around on. I doubt a cold-blooded French assassin would be hobbling around on borrowed crutches. That whole scenario doesn't fit. And 'if it doesn't fit, you must acquit.'" She balled one hand into a fist and slammed it into the open palm of the other hand.

"You may be correct, but nevertheless, you are coming back with me, if only to provide statements about what you have seen here," he said. Denis couldn't help but think this was the young man's way of admitting that Betsy was right without saying it. "We will leave everything as it is, until I can return to examine the scene."

"Fine," Betsy said with a huff. "But I'm taking the dog with me! Poor thing was locked up in the room for hours, with a dead body!"

As if the dog knew that it was being spoken of, the animal sprang from beneath her chair. Betsy made a grab for it, but the dog danced backward, barked at her and then raced in circles around the room. Aberlerd and Denis both made attempts to grab the animal, but it evaded them, pausing only to nip at the detective's heels before dashing out the door.

"Denis, don't let him get away!" Betsy started to rise and then fell back into her seat. "He's a witness, too!"

"If we don't catch him, I'll never hear the end of it!" said Denis, angling his head in the direction that the dog had run.

Aberlerd looked at the two of them helplessly. Denis sensed a shift in the man's demeanor. Before, the detective had seemed cold toward them and ready to explode at Betsy's eccentricities. Now that they didn't appear to be suspects, he looked like he was suppressing a chuckle.

Finally, the detective shook his head. "We'll both go. I don't think that the young lady will be making any swift getaways in her condition or getting into any kind of trouble."

"He don't know me vewey well, do he?" Betsy muttered in her best Bugs Bunny voice as the two men disappeared out the door. She waited a full minute, then forced herself up onto her feet and hobbled across the room to open a window. The heat of the day had begun and the odor from old food and decaying flesh was intensifying.

Having a long time to search a place was a luxury that wasn't available to Betsy; Abelerd and Denis could come back at any time—not to mention the crutches were cumbersome. But she still wanted to have a closer look at things. Betsy was certain she could find something that Abelerd might have missed. Seeing the look on his face when she found the evidence he missed would be worth it.

Her breath came in hard gasps as she struggled to stay on her feet and not knock anything over. In her haste, she slammed her injured ankle into the leg of a side table where Radetzki had left several bowls and a blue porcelain pitcher.

"That's all I would need. Abelerd would be convinced I'm the killer and was trying to destroy evidence. He'd haul me off to the hoosegow without a second thought."

Everything looked like what Betsy would expect to see in a bachelor farmer's home, but something bothered her. The beekeeper had a few utilitarian possessions, but his home was lacking in feminine flair. So why was it so clean? Weren't all bachelors a little bit messy—especially bachelor farmers who had more important things to do than to be sweeping up the dust on the floor? It seemed to her like the killer had cleaned up after himself. The one thing that seemed out of place in the room was a torn piece of ragged green cloth lying on the floor, obviously one of the dogs' toys.

Betsy had made her way around half of the room when she stopped and carefully rotated herself so she could look back at the table where the late owner of the apiary sat as silent and still as he had when she and Denis had come in. There was something about the table that didn't seem right, but Betsy couldn't put her finger on it for the longest time, until she moved closer and stared down at the bowls in front of her.

She gasped as the realization hit her.

"It's so freaking obvious that I should have seen it from the start," she laughed staring at what she had thought was a napkin.

****

"I didn't think a dog that small could run that fast," said Denis as he skidded to a halt. The animal obviously knew to keep well away from the hives.

"You should have seen the little dog that my mother kept," said Abelerd. "That mutt could outrun a horse, not to mention climb straight up a vertical fence."

Denis scanned the grassy knoll looking for any sign of the dog, though the little beast probably had the full run of the countryside and knew every nook and cranny along with every tree and bush.

"Do you see it?" asked Abelerd. "If we don't find it quickly, I don't care if your wife does get mad; we're going back."

"She's not my wife. Why do people keep trying to marry the two of us off?" snapped Denis.

Before Abelerd could answer, the two men heard the dog's barking coming from the base of a small tree ahead of them. On one of the tree's branches above it, a blue jay chattered irritably at the dog.

"There, now. Maybe your wife will be happy and I can do my job." said the detective as he cautiously approached the animal. The little mutt turned, growled at him and took off running.

Denis paused to look at the flower-covered bushes that spread out in the field. They had wandered a long way away from the apiary property, but the bees were obviously collecting honey here.

"Enough!" Abelerd bellowed as he put his hand on Denis shoulder. "We go back now."

"Do you know what those are?" Denis said, gesturing at the bushes.

"Flowers?"

"Rhododendron! I think I know what killed Thomas Radetzki. And If I'm right, it proves that Betsy and I are innocent."

****

As Denis and Abelerd stepped from beneath the cover of the shrub-filled meadow, the little dog darted out of the underbrush a few feet away from them and weaved between their feet. Abelerd threw his hands up in disgust and muttered something about accursed dogs.

"Betsy!" Denis called out as the two men came through the cottage door. "I think I know what killed the beekeeper. It was—"

"Poison!" Betsy said as she looked up from where she sat on the floor of the room. She had pulled a crate from beneath Radetzki's worktable. The contents were spread across the floor in a seemingly chaotic pattern.

"You already know?" asked Denis, feeling his enthusiasm evaporating with each passing second.

Betsy paid no attention to his reaction. Instead she reached over and grabbed a jar to show him. "This bottle is marked with the skull and crossbones. Someone tried to hide it among the jars of honey. And look at the cloth under the beekeeper's hand. I thought it was a napkin, but it's a handkerchief. There are several more in his laundry. Radetzki was sick. The honeyed tea was to make him feel better."

"If he was sick, the poison would have killed him quickly," Abelerd said.

"How did you figure out that the honey was poisoned?" Betsy asked Denis.

"I saw some rhododendrons outside," Denis said. "Remember how your research for the article said that feral honey made from rhododendrons can be poisonous?"

"He was working, so his illness wouldn't have made him weak enough for feral honey to kill him, but good thinking." Betsy said.

"You haven't opened the bottle, have you?" Abelerd knelt on the floor next to the crate, glaring up at her several times.

"I'm not stupid! I've seen enough mystery movies to know not to disturb evidence." Betsy snorted at him, trying to seem like she was insulted by his assumption.

"That never stopped you before," muttered Denis.

"Never mind that," she hissed. "Whoever poisoned him was someone who was acquainted with him well enough to know where he kept his personal honey."

"That's not the sort of information that you would share with every Jonathan, Dick and Harry," Denis said.

"Tom, Dennis. The expression is 'Tom, Dick and Harry.' And I think I know who it is!" Betsy said triumphantly.

****

Despite her throbbing leg, Betsy attempted to look as relaxed and comfortable as possible when Denis pulled the cart onto the hospital grounds. The ride in had taken half the time that the trip out had, but had seemed longer as she was anxious to get back.

Betsy was sitting on the back of the wagon, dragging her crutches in the dirt when Dr. Kunze emerged from the building and staring at his two emissaries and their companion. The doctor stared at Seaman Abelard for a moment before turning his attention back to Denis and Betsy.

"You're . . . back?"

"Don't sound so surprised; it didn't take all that long to get there and back." Betsy said. "We ran into Seaman Abelard there. He was happy to accompany us back. Denis wanted to baby me because of my ankle, so it might have taken a lot longer. But I wouldn't so much as let him drive the cart slowly. We made good time."

Dr. Kunze's eyes grew comically wide. "And Herr Radetzki? He was . . . well?"

"Indeed he is," Denis replied. "He said to apologize for worrying you. He was feeling ill this morning, but he took a purgative and has since recovered. He looks forward to seeing you soon so that you two can discuss some business. He even gave us a tour of his apiary. You should have seen Betsy scream when a bee landed on her."

Betsy made a grunting sound at Denis' words and then took a blanket off of several boxes full of honey. "There we go, Doctor. Herr Radetzki promised he would bring the rest soon, but this should be enough to handle any patients you may need to care for."

The doctor took a few steps over and stared at the boxes. He gingerly lifted one of the jars out and squinted at the hand-written label on it.

He chuckled uncomfortably and tugged at his collar. "That is most excellent. I'm glad that my worries were for nothing. We can do that interview this afternoon, Miss Springer. I'm sure you and your companion are tired and would like a few hours to rest and freshen up."

"Of course, Doctor," said Betsy "That's an excellent idea; my ankle is hurting a bit."

"You will excuse me, then. I have several patients that I must see to. I'll send someone to unload the wagon." Dr. Kunze whirled on one heel and hurried away.

Once the doctor was out of sight, Betsy looked over to Abelerd who had quietly dismounted and was headed after the man.

"He went thataway, pardner!" she said.

Denis just smiled and said nothing, a few months ago he would have been confused but now he just assumed her remarks were film related and saved himself a long-winded explanation.

"Come on." He jumped from the wagon. "I have a feeling that things are going to be getting very interesting, very quickly."

"I think you're right on the money," she said and tucked her crutches under one arm as she let him lift her from her seat.

Inside the hospital, the members of the staff were standing around with confused looks on their faces. Betsy was about to ask where Abelard and the doctor were when the sound of furniture crashing came from Kunze's office. Denis took off at a run with Betsy, doing the best she could on her crutches, a few steps behind.

Denis stood just inside the doctor's office door when she arrived. Inside the office, papers littered the floor. The doctor lay among them like a child who had spread out in a pile of autumn leaves. Abelerd stood over him, holding a sword with the point pressed up against the man's throat.

"Don't move," the seaman said. "It will not bother me one bit to put you down like a rabid dog." He threw a quick glance over his shoulder at Denis. "Herr Sesma, would you be good enough to fetch some rope so we can tie this fellow up?"

It took Denis only a minute to find a set of the hospital's restraints. Then he and Abelerd hauled the prisoner up and put him in the wooden chair that Betsy had used to rest her leg on when they had arrived.

"You were correct, Miss Springer," Abelerd said, reluctantly. "Dr. Kunze was the one

responsible for poisoning Radetzki."

"I knew it!" Betsy pointed to the tear in Dr. Kunze's pants. "You told us you haven't seen Radetzki for several days. But I'm guessing you knew that NCIS was onto Radetzki, so you decided to eliminate him and get the heck out of dodge. You added the poison to the honey that he had set aside for his own use—and that was all she wrote for your partner in crime. I'll bet that the beekeeper's dog attacked you then and tore your pants, because I saw a bit of the torn fabric at his house. I thought it was a doggy toy."

"And these will prove that you are the one selling navy secrets," Abelerd said as he gathered the papers up quickly so that Denis and Betsy couldn't see the contents. "I suspect that somewhere around here is a bag of French silver, payment for his little 'sideline.' I would be willing to bet that there are also traveling papers somewhere in this office that would have given him passage to safety in enemy territory; good doctors are hard to find, I'm sure they would have welcomed his arrival."

"Our being here probably gave him the perfect culprit for the murder." Betsy lifted her hands from her crutches to point an accusing finger at Dr. Kunze. "Denis and I took twice as long getting to the apiary because of my ankle. If we had hurried, we would have had the means to commit murder."

"There is more than enough evidence here to convict Dr. Kunze of treason," Abelerd said. "I'll send someone back to the apiary to process the scene."

"What about the dog?" Betsy said suddenly. "Who is going to take care of the poor thing?"

"Miss, if you are volunteering, you can have the job!" Abelerd sounded exasperated.

Denis looked to Betsy in horror. A smile of triumph crossed her face. "Since he helped us solve the murder, we should name him Asta, after Nick and Norah Charles' dog."

A chuckle from Abelerd drew Denis's attention. "Whatever the missus wants, eh?"

Betsy didn't seem to hear him. "That was a nice bit of sword work. You're a regular D'Artagnan."

Abelerd turned a suspicious eye on her. "Just what do you know about D'Artagnan, Miss Springer?"

****

Going Home

Written by John Zeek

Suhl

For once it was quiet in the garage. G.C. Cooper and his mechanics were eating lunch in the living quarters upstairs, and the drivers, with an audience of admiring young boys, were washing the trucks out in the square. Anse Hatfield took advantage of the moment by relaxing. It seemed like the perfect time to read his mail. He quickly leafed through the stack of notes and letters that had been dropped off this morning.

Nothing from Grantville. That wasn’t surprising; just yesterday he had read Hank’s weekly letter. Nothing from Magdeburg; again no surprise. Leonore was busy with the transportation school, and Wili didn’t like to write letters. So, on to the official stuff.

There on the top of the official pile was a thrice-folded sheet with the new wax seal of the Thuringia-Franconia National Guard. Anse muttered, “Shoot, I hear more from Jackson now in a month than I did the whole time I was in TacRail.”

Sure enough he saw the familiar scrawl.

Hatfield

From the reports I’m getting you are doing about as good as could be expected with the trucking service, and a better than good job on the garage. That’s as close as an attaboy as you’re going to get.

I had an interesting conversation yesterday with Rolf Nestmann, currently adviser to the Suhl delegation to the state legislature. He blames you for his problems and wants your head on a platter. You must have done something right to fire up an asshole like that.

I am sending three trucks with trailers in a convoy to Suhl. One of the trailers has parts for you to keep in stock if needed for the APCs. There are no plans at present to base them close to or in Franconia, this is just a precaution.

No, you can’t keep any of the drivers. You’re running a training program; train your own. You can keep one of the trailers. The others and the trucks come back, loaded with army rifles. Someone is making money.

Your request to transfer G.C. Cooper out of Suhl is denied. Look, Hatfield, I know he’s a problem, but he still owes West Virginia county six months of community service and he’s doing it as your chief mechanic in Suhl. The mayor wants him out of Grantville for a while.

On the good side, the city of Suhl is about to receive some new additions to the liaison group. You can’t say I never did you a favor after this.

Got to run. Unlike some people, I’m going east.

Frank Jackson Commanding SoTFNG

Anse read it twice. The business about Nestmann was good to know. He had really had nothing to do with putting a stick in the man’s spokes, but it seemed he had made an enemy. He would have to tell the guys that they were doing a good job and Jackson approved. He noted that he was going to have to find some storage space for the APC parts.

But what was Jackson thinking about with the part about new people being sent to Suhl? Shoot, they had radio operators and some advisers to the city council. What more was needed? And why tell him? And what favor? The man was speaking in tongues.

A noise in the garage told Anse that the mechanics were done with lunch and he would have to think about it later. Now he had to deal with the hard part of the letter.

“G.C., come here., Anse called from the door. “I just got a letter from General Jackson. He refused my request for you to go home. In fact, he wants you to stay six months. Hey, I’m sorry, man, but I tried.”

Cooper looked stunned. “Gee Anse . . . er . . . Boss, I've given up on going back to Grantville. Forget about it. I’m getting used to being here. In fact, I’ve been looking for a place to rent so I can send for Connie. Do you think I could stay permanently?”

Anse felt like tearing out his hair. For the past two months he had heard nothing but complaints from Cooper about Suhl. “Let me get this straight. All you've done is moan about going home since you got here and now you want to stay?”

“Yeah, I’ve gotten to like living here. I’ve made friends with some of those Jaegers that work for you. Heinrich Emmerling and me are going hunting next week. Besides, I’m helping one of Reardon’s guys build a steam engine in my spare time. Boss, I bet you could fix it with Jackson so I can stay.”

Anse nodded. “I’ll give it a shot, G.C. No promises, but if you can keep the trucks running, I want to keep you.”

Cooper walked off happy, but Anse was amazed. The thought of G.C. Cooper and Heinrich Emmerling hunting, and more importantly, drinking together, drove Jackson’s letter out of his mind.

****

The crew cab pick-up seemed to hit every bump and hole in the road. Leonore von Wilke was sure that the driver was aiming at them. After the train ride from Magdeburg, this reminder of the normal road quality in Thuringia was tiring. Living in Magdeburg had made her soft. But, she reminded herself, the big truck was more comfortable than a coach. Not much faster though, she thought as a party of mounted constabulary trotted past the truck. But this was the third time they had passed today. Horses have to rest, trucks don’t.

The thought of trucks reminded her of Anse, setting up a trucking service in Suhl. Damn the man, he had no right to interfere with my life this way. She had to admit that Anse could have suggested this course of action and she might have agreed. They had talked of marriage and were technically engaged. But it was little more than a comfortable fiction to keep other men away. She smiled. Well, it was a bit more than just a fiction. Damn the man, arranging this transfer to Suhl went beyond suggesting. He could have asked. He's treating me like baggage.

She had liked being a captain in TacRail. What was this Mechanical Support Division she was being transferred to? Who was going to take over the communications classes at the transportation school? Was she asked? No! It was pack up, and take two of her best radio operators to Suhl. And to add insult, she was not transferred in rank; there were apparently few captains in Mechanical Support. Lieutenant Leonore von Wilke was not happy. Damn Anse for fixing this and damn General Jackson, too.

Lost in her thoughts, Leonore let her hand release the grab handle above the door. At that moment the truck driver decided that the upcoming set of ruts were too big to dodge so chose to drive on through. The predictable result was that Leonore bounced against the hamper in the middle of the back seat, and her leg banged into the cooler on the truck floor. “Damn! Treated like baggage.”

“Ma’am, are you all right?”

Leonore looked across the seat to Gertrude Barth, her fellow backseat passenger, and realized that she had spoken out loud.

“I’m fine, Trudi. The bump just caught me by surprise.” Leonore saw the concern fade from the young radio operator’s face. She questioned herself, was I ever that young? The other radio operator, Jost Fassheber, had turned to look from his seat in the front. Another young one; he couldn’t be more than twenty-eight, and he was the oldest of her people. Even the driver was young; she doubted he had seen nineteen years yet.

The other drivers in this convoy looked even younger. The sergeant commanding looked like he had started shaving last week. The other passengers were also young women and men. Sometimes she felt like she hadn’t joined an army but the "Children’s Crusade."

And now she was talking to herself; the children would think she was a crazy old woman. Damn that man.

****

Anse was cursing his maimed left arm as he and the Berenger brothers were laying out the next day’s schedule. The damaged muscle meant he had to limit his driving to level ground and good roads. Level ground and good roads were rare around Suhl.

“Okay, Eudo, you’ll take the northern run and Achille, you take the western trip. You’ll both drive Blazers with winches and no trailers. That way you can help anyone who gets into trouble.”

When the brothers nodded in agreement Anse noticed that Stefan Bocker, one of Kirk Franklin’s recruits, had come into the garage and was looking around.

“Yo, Stefan, we’re back here.”

Bocker looked relieved and hurried to join the trio. “Herr Hatfield, you are needed at Herr Franklin’s office immediately.”

Hatfield thought for a second. What could Kirk want with him? Lieutenant Franklin was head of the liaison office to the city council and thus was effectively in command of the National Guard contingent in Suhl, all six men. But he never interfered with the trucking service other than to have Cooper service the old truck assigned to them. In fact, he spent most of his time talking to the council and inspecting weapons orders for the army. Oh well, there was only one way to find out.

“Stefan, run back and tell Lieutenant Franklin I’m on my way.”

****

Kirk Franklin had a relieved look on his face when Anse arrived in front of the building that housed the liaison office. The former garrison barracks was a busy place since it also housed the mounted constabulary office.

The first words out of Kirk’s mouth confirmed Anse’s impression. “Boy, am I glad to see you! I just received written orders from Jackson that you were to be present to meet this convoy. The constabulary patrol reported they were less than two miles out.”

“What’s all this about, Kirk? I have some parts coming in, and one of the trailers is supposed to stay in Suhl, but . . .”

Franklin shook his head. “I have no idea what’s going on. The orders did say you would want to talk to one of the replacements.”

“Replacements?”

“Yep,” Franklin nodded. “I’m about to lose Ralph Difabri, and Pete Chehab is already gone. There are supposed to be a couple of radio operators to replace Ralph and a junior officer to replace Pete. I’ve been asking for a trained doctor or a couple of EMTs, instead I lose my sergeant and radio operator. To top it off, we’ll probably lose Pete’s wife, Penny, as a nurse. ”

Anse still didn’t see why he was supposed to be here. Jackson obviously wanted him here because of one of the replacements. But who was coming into town? “Got any names on the replacements, Kirk?”

“Not a clue, Anse. I’m not even sure of how many, other than the lieutenant and the radio operators. I’m still hoping for a medic or a nurse.”

****

The first person Leonore recognized when the truck came to a stop in the square was Anse. For once he was not dressed in a coverall, but a rather neat denim jacket worn over a pair of locally-made trousers. He was standing next to a man wearing a tie-dyed camouflage jacket with a lieutenant’s insignia on his shoulder, obviously the commander, Kirk Franklin.

Ignoring Anse, Leonore walked straight to Franklin and saluted. “Leonore von Wilke, reporting with a party of five.” She refused to use her new rank; the man would surely recognize her collar insignia.

Franklin looked at the four men and women who had assumed a line behind her. “I was expecting only you and two radio operators, Lieutenant. Introduce your people. We’ll have to find a place for them to live, Suhl is getting crowded. And relax. We’re not that big on the formalities.”

Leonore used a formal tone as she pointed them out. “On the end is Specialist Jost Fassheber, my senior radio operator. Next to him is his wife, Specialist Hille Bach, a trained EMT and a Suhl native. Next is Specialist Gertrude Barth, my junior radio operator. On the end is Corporal Kurt Hennel, a trained MP, and also a native of Suhl. So, Lieutenant Franklin, you only need to find quarters for myself and Trudi. The others have made arrangements to live with their relatives.”

Franklin looked a bit peeved. “Excellent, Ms. von Wilke. But I did say we were informal here in Suhl, so relax. If we used titles in conversation it would get confusing. Since I’m a lieutenant, you’re a lieutenant and even Anse here is a lieutenant, it can get messy. First names are fine between us. Oh, you remember Anse Hatfield? He is building a trucking service for the city.”

Leonore turned to Anse as if she had just seen him. “Yes, sir, I remember Lieutenant Hatfield. We were at one time engaged to be married. Now if I can dismiss my people, you can show me those quarters.”

****

“Okay, what did I do wrong and how do I fix it?” Anse asked.

Kirk Franklin had wisely walked away from the problem; no one wants to be in a train wreck. He had informed Leonore that Anse would show her to the large house that the liaison group rented close to the city garage.

Now Anse was asking the big question.

“Anderson, I think you have fixed quite enough already.”

Anse knew she was angry. That was the only time she used his full name.

After a few steps Leonore continued, “As to what you did wrong, that is obvious. I am here.”

Anse had to ask. “Just how am I supposed to have arranged this? Frank Jackson is not my best buddy, you know that. And you were in the USE Army not the National Guard. The only pull I have there is with Colonel Pitre, and I doubt she would have listened if I asked her for your transfer. She wouldn’t want to lose her best officer.”

“I don’t doubt that she would listen to you. She did sign the orders transferring me to the Thuringia-Franconia National Guard. You must have started ‘fixing things’ as soon as you got my last letter. Anderson, I am not helpless nor am I stupid. You are treating me like I was both.”

She walked faster. “We should have discussed this before you started pulling strings. I could have stayed in Magdeburg and you could have joined me there. Instead I am ordered here, and given a make-work job after being demoted in rank.” Leonore gave a sigh. “I am not happy with you right now. You have broken our agreement to treat each other as equals.”

Anse felt like screaming. He hadn’t done anything to deserve this. He hadn’t done anything. Instead, he asked in a quiet voice, “What letter was that? The last letter of yours I got was from two months back. You had just gotten orders to continue your assignment at the OCS and transportation school.”

Leonore stopped walking and turned to face him. “Honestly, no evasions or half truths, you didn’t get my letter from last month?”

“I haven’t gotten a letter from you in two months. I was worried, but I figured you were busy setting up classes. Just what was in this letter that was important enough for me to violate our agreement of equality?”

Leonore smiled and Anse felt a burst of hope. It surprised him some times how much he cared for her.

“Well, Herr Hatfield, our last meeting in Grantville was more productive than you thought. I am schwanger . . . enceinte. What is the English word? Pregnant? Yes, that is the word. I am pregnant. Or as you hillbillies would so crudely but accurately put it, I am knocked up. And you are the knocker.”

“But . . . How . . .”

“I think you know how, since you were there when it happened.” Leonore chuckled. It wasn’t a happy chuckle.

Anse stepped back. He had never thought about this. Damn, he was fifty-five years old—too old to be starting a new family. He well remembered that last meeting. He had used showing the Berenger brothers the road to Grantville as an excuse to get three days with Leonore, who was between classes. Now he was seeing the results of shirking his duties. But this was not the time to kick himself; it was time to deal with the result. And deal with a seriously pissed off Leonore.

“Besides this letter to me, which I remind you I never received, who else knows?” Anse was finally able to ask.

Leonore thought a moment. “Only the doctor and maybe a couple of nurses. Well, Adriane went to the Medical Center in Grantville with me, so she knows.”

Anse fought to keep his voice calm. “Adriane? You mean Adriane Hall who runs the tram shop?” Adriane was the fixer. After all, it was Adriane who had gotten Leonore and him together on their first date.

“But of course. How many Adrianes do we know?” Leonore had started walking again, but slowly.

Anse stepped out to walk beside her. “Then it’s a good bet that Colonel Beth knows. Adriane exchanges letters with her every week. And the colonel does have a lot of pull with Frank Jackson.”

“Maybe, but I doubt Adriane would betray my confidence. And Colonel Beth would never interfere in my personal life this way.”

Anse smiled. “So you think friends shouldn’t interfere? Back when I was crawling into a hole because of my wounds, who was it that pulled me out and threatened to kick my ass? Who was it that convinced me to come to Suhl in the first place? That was you, my dearest friend. And I thank you every time I wake up in the morning.”

“That was different, you were . . .” Leonore’s voice trailed off.

“I was making a mess of my life and you saved me from myself. I would bet Adriane and Beth are saying the same thing right now. And you know how Frank Jackson thinks of the colonel. She's the daughter he never had. Nora, we have been well and truly set up.”

Leonore stopped walking and appeared lost in thought for a long moment. Just when Anse was about to interrupt, she said, “Anse, you may be right. If you didn’t arrange this, and I believe you didn’t, someone did. And Colonel Beth and Adriane are the most likely culprits.”

“That’s water under the bridge, but I’m glad you believe me. The question now is, what do we do? I can start making arrangements and we can have a church wedding within the month. Or we could go back and get Kirk Franklin to tie the knot tomorrow. I think it’s within his power as commander of the liaison group, if you want just a civil wedding.”

Leonore reached out a touched his shoulder. “Stop, you’re fixing again. Besides, you're forgetting the most important part. You have never asked me to marry you. I know we've both assumed it would happen in the future, but this is now.”

Anse recognized a clue when it hit him in the face. He knelt in the muddy street and took Leonore’s hands in his. Much to the amusement of passing pedestrians, he asked, “Leonore von Wilke, dearest lady, love of my heart, will you make my life perfect? May I be your partner in life and love? Will you marry me?”

Leonore smiled and touched his cheek. “Oh, stand up. You don’t have to win my heart. And you’re getting dirty. And your answer is yes. With so many people throwing us together, who am I to resist?”

Two days later

“Let me do most of the talking,” Rudolph Amberger stated as he and Anse walked toward the church. “My brother Paulus is a stickler for details of faith and will be looking for reasons to refuse your request. He dislikes all the changes you Americans have brought us. He has a special dislike for your concept of freedom of choice in religion. But he is a fair man and will listen to reason. You’re lucky that he’s here; our pastors before were very strict and unreasonable. Paulus has been seasoned in the small towns closer to Grantville. We just got him back in town this year.”

Anse had discovered he was supposed to arrange the wedding. Arrange a church wedding, something that he had evaded in his two previous marriages. Leonore had surprised him by preferring a church wedding. But what church? While Anse had attended various churches here in Suhl, mostly the Catholic chapel with Pat and Ursula Johnson, he had no fixed membership. He hadn’t had any church membership since he was sixteen and saw "Uncle Billy" Daniels bitten by the timber rattler he was dancing with at a Oneness Church meeting, and he doubted he should mention that to a Lutheran pastor. Because it had to be a Lutheran church. Leonore was a practicing Lutheran. Of course, she was not a member of any of the congregations in Suhl, but had letters of introduction from pastors in Magdeburg and Grantville.

He didn’t even know any of the Lutheran pastors in Suhl. That was why he enlisted the help of Rudolph Amberger. Amberger was not just a member of the city council, but the member in charge of marriage records. His brother was the pastor of a major Lutheran church in Suhl. Besides, Rudolph had become a friend.

Amberger continued, “If you’re willing to become a Lutheran, he will agree to witness the marriage. You and Lieutenant von Wilke can be married as soon as three months from now.”

Three months? There was no way Leonore wouldn’t be showing in three months. While it wouldn’t bother him, Anse was sure it would embarrass her.

“Uh . . . Rudolph, I’m not sure we want to wait that long. I was hoping for some time this month.”

“Ah, you are anxious for the pleasures of the marriage bed. Anse, it is simply not done that way for a non-Lutheran. There are protocols that Paulus will insist on. And then the intended marriage must be announced and . . .”

“No, it’s not me that’s anxious.” Anse hunted for a way to say the obvious with out saying it. “In about six months I am not going to be the only Hatfield in Suhl. A little one will be arriving.”

Luckily Amberger was a man of the world. “Oh, you . . . Oh, I see. You should definitely let me talk to Paulus before you make your request.”

****

Pastor Paulus Amberger proved to be quite different from his older brother in appearance, but much like him in efficiency. After Anse presented him with Leonore’s letters and made the request, he asked only a few questions.

The first was the hardest. Luckily, Rudolph had coached him on the way over. “Herr Hatfield, are you willing to renounce all other religions and support the Lutheran church?”

Anse answered honestly. “Yes, as far as duties I owe to the laws of State of Thuringia-Franconia allow. I can’t deny other people the right to worship as they see fit. With that exception, I am willing.”

“I see.” The pastor thought for a moment. “That is not a problem; government is part of God's natural order. Christians are free to serve in government, and the military, and engage in the business and vocations of the world. Laws are to be followed unless they are commandments to sin.”

Pastor Amberger smiled as he asked the next question. “Are you willing to have any children that you and your intended may produce baptized and raised as Lutherans?”

“Yes.”

“Are you willing to learn the Small Catechism and teach it to those same children?”

“Yes.”

With those points settled the pastor seemed to relax. “Herr Hatfield, do you know the Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments and the Apostle’s Creed? They are all part of the Small Catechism.”

Anse answered with a smile. “I do, but only in English. If I try to put them into German they might not come out exactly right. Besides, I learned the Methodist version. You’ll have to teach me the proper form.”

“Ah, yes, even some of the adults in my congregation have trouble remembering what they were taught in catechism class. Maybe if you attend, some of the worst of them will also attend.”

The pastor turned to his brother. “Rudolph, I expect you to attend. It is shameful what you do with the Apostle’s Creed.”

Then, turning back to Anse he stated, “I see nothing that would prevent me from witnessing the marriage of Leonore von Wilke and yourself. Would three weeks from now, on the south steps of the church, be suitable?”

On the other side of the City Square

With her second day at work behind her, Leonore was finally getting a handle on her new job. It was more than just supervising the radio operators. That was pretty cut and dried. What Lieutenant Franklin and the liaison group really needed was an office manager. Leonore, with her experience in running the communications platoon for TacRail and setting up classes at the transportation school, was a natural fit as an organizer. It helped that she spoke—and, more importantly, read—four languages besides her native German, five if you included her ability to speak German with an Austrian accent. The duties she had inherited from Sergeant Chehab she had quickly passed on to Corporal Hennel. He had the makings of a fine sergeant; besides, the Suhl merchants would find it easier to deal with a man, even a young man, than with a woman.

“Ma’am, it is time to quit for the day,” Martin Meurer called from the door. Martin had become her messenger shortly after she had discovered him following her just yesterday. When questioned he had revealed that he had been assigned by the CoC for her protection in Suhl. Rather than have him wait for her outside, Leonore had put him to work. Besides, how much protection could a young boy be? She was going to have a long talk with Corporal Hennel’s cousin Jorg, the CoC organizer here in Suhl, about that. But until that discussion Martin was her messenger and—to use that useful up-time title—go-fer.

“Yes, Martin, I think I we’re done for today. It is time for you to escort me to Anse and go to your dinner.” Leonore stopped and studied Martin. He was too thin. “Better yet, you will join us for dinner. That way you can protect us both.”

****

The two had just left the liaison offices when they heard a voice calling, “Leonore! Leonore von Wilke, I need to speak to you.”

Leonore turned and looked at the approaching man. He was the last man she expected to call her name on a street in Suhl. And the last man she wanted to see.

Her voice was cold. “Lothar, when father ordered that no one in the family was to speak to me, my greatest joy was that I would never see your face again. What do you want?”

Before the man could speak Martin stepped between him and Leonore. She noticed that his left hand was under the back of his coat. Obviously Martin was armed.

“Martin, stand aside. This is Lothar von Wilke, my older brother. But stay close. He is not a friend.”

“Ah, dear sister, so cold. I could almost think you were unhappy to see me.” Lothar was careful to stand well away from her. And never took his eyes off Martin.

“The last time I saw you was when you threw my portrait in the fire and declared you had no sister. I repeat, what do you want?”

“But that was at father’s orders. You had refused the marriage he had planned for you and taken up with that mercenary officer. He would have disowned me as well as you if I had not followed his wishes. You were dishonoring the family name.”

“I could almost believe you, but I remember the joy on your face when I was ordered out of the house.” Leonore started to walk away.

Lothar took a step closer and raised his hand. “Wait, I am head of the family now and I am rescinding Father’s order disowning you. I have been searching for you ever since his death.”

Leonore was taken aback. She hadn’t known her father was dead. “Father is dead?”

Lothar seemed pleased to have upset her, or maybe just pleased that she had stopped walking away. “Yes, he died during that madness your former friends in the so called Committees of Correspondence performed. Their ‘Krystallnacht,’ whatever that meant. No, he was not executed. Father was never a witch-burner or Jew hater; he died of apoplexy. The thought that inferior peasants would rise up against their betters that way just killed him. You did well to leave that crowd.”

Leonore turned to face her brother. “I have never left the Committees. And we disagree on timing, not tactics. Be careful what you say, brother, Martin is also a member.” She had noticed that Martin’s left hand was no longer under his coat, but now held a small pistol.

Lothar had also noticed and taken a step back. “Sister, send your servant away. I have no wish to spread our business before the lower orders.”

“Martin is not a servant, he is a friend. But to get this over with quickly . . .” Leonore drew her revolver from beneath her coat. “Martin, step out of earshot. I am safe and armed. I want to hear what Lothar has to say and he is afraid of you.”

Lothar spoke in a lowered voice. “A friend? Sister, you’re picking up strays again. And this puppy is showing his teeth.” He waved his hand. “No, it’s unimportant. As I said, I have been searching for you since Father’s death. Imagine my surprise to find your upcoming marriage to be the subject of street gossip in a city I was just passing through. I must say, you have a positive talent for picking unsuitable men. First a penniless soldier and now this American wanderer.”

Leonore hissed with exasperation. “Lothar, I’m tiring of this conversation. Get to the point.”

“The point, dear sister, is quite simple. I am offering you a return to the family and will arrange a suitable marriage to a man almost our equal in status.” Lothar was almost glowing with self-satisfaction.

Leonore just stared at him. “And what do you expect in return?”

“You will give up this madness of being a camp follower in the army of the Swede who claims to be our ruler. And you will stop all communications with the Committees. And, of course, you will accept my choice for your future husband.”

“Do you also want me to act like I enjoy being a useless fool?” Leonore laughed in his face. “Lothar, you’re just stating father’s ideas in a new form. You’d marry me off to an old rich Ritter with lands you could add to the family’s holdings, or sell me to a rich merchant to save you from your debts. I will have to decline your offer. I enjoy my life too much as it is; I’m not going to let you run it. Goodbye, Lothar.” Leonore started to walk away.

“Sister, you are assuming you will have a life after your activities in Jena become public. I did say I had been searching for you, and I found out how you lived after your supposed husband, Captain Kasischke, died. I doubt the old man you plan to marry will want a woman with your reputation. And even the Swede’s army might not accept you if your past were to become public knowledge.”

Leonore laughed again. “Lothar, you’ve been listening to street gossip. Next, you’ll mention the ten men I am supposed to have murdered and my house that was supposed to be a brothel. Go ahead. Tell Anderson. He’ll laugh at you . . . if he doesn’t shoot you.” Leonore waved to Martin. “Come, Martin. Let’s go get Anse and go to dinner. We’re wasting our time with this person.”

Ten steps later she turned. “By the way, brother dear, you will be happy to know I intend to follow American custom and take my husband’s last name. So you will be the last von Wilke.”

The Next Day

Anse was getting ready to start the day when Achille Berenger leaned into the office. “Boss, there’s a man outside asking to see you. He says he is Lieutenant von Wilke’s brother.”

Anse hardened his resolve. He would not harm this man. Ever since last night when Leonore had told him of her brother’s demands, he had been attempting to keep his temper under control. “Tell him I’ll be right out. I don’t want him in my office.”

To help him resist temptation, Anse left his pistol belt hanging on the back of his chair when he walked out of the office. Killing your future in-law is not the way to start a marriage, even if the man is a toad.

Outside in the street, a well dressed man greeted him. “Good morning, Herr Hatfield. I am Lothar von Wilke. I understand that my sister is perpetrating a fraud on you and has convinced you to marry her. There are a few things you should know . . .”

That was as far as Lothar got before Anse totally lost his temper. His work hardened right hand seemed to move of its own volition as he hit Lothar in the face open-handed. Then Anse followed through with a backhand to the other side of Lothar’s face. The sight of the jerk's bleeding face just made him even angrier. Anse grabbed Lothar’s coat front with his ruined left hand, and rained a steady storm of slaps to the man’s face.

“What’s that?” Slap. “I didn’t hear you.” Slap. “You want to apologize for insulting Leonore?” Slap. “Speak up, I can’t hear you.” Slap. “You’re a toad and an asshole.” Slap. “Threaten me or mine again and I’ll beat you silly.” Slap.

Finally, Anse shoved Lothar away. Lothar's feet tangled and he ended up sitting in the muddy street, and then he reached to the dagger on his belt.

Anse stood over him. “Pull that pig sticker and see what happens. Go ahead and pull it.” Anse kicked Lothar’s leg. “Or you can crawl away and bleed someplace else.”

Lothar waved his hands. “No more.” When he tried to get to his feet, Anse stepped up and kicked his hand out from under him.

“I said crawl, so crawl like the snake you are.”

Lothar crawled away, crawled to the other side of the street, much to the amusement of the crowd that had gathered. Finally he was pulled to his feet by a man wearing a watchman’s armband.

Lothar clutched the watchman’s arm. “I am Lothar von Wilke, a Pomeranian Ritter. I have just been assaulted.”

The watchman looked across the street to where Anse was still standing. Then he nodded. “I saw and heard the whole thing. You should leave town, Herr von Wilke. Anse Hatfield is a personal friend of the watch commander. And he seems to have developed a slight dislike for you. I would hate to see that man really angry.”

****

“That was well done. It’s unfortunate that you don’t keep dogs. I would have set my dogs on him when he crawled away.” Rudolph Amberger was watching Anse soak his hand and commenting on the street action he had just witnessed.

“I shouldn’t have lost my temper. Where did he go?”

Amberger grinned. “When last seen, he was running like a madman toward the eastern gate. Losing your temper with your in-laws is part of marriage. I think some people even put it in their vows.”

Anse’s mind was pulled back to the up coming wedding. “Vows. Shoot, I have to recite vows at the wedding.”

“But of course. They call the pastor’s duty being a witness for a purpose, you know. But what is there to recite? You just say you take her as your wife and she says the same. Then Paulus registers the marriage. Then he will deliver the morning message. It’s that simple.”

“No. Leonore deserves something special. Something that’s for her alone.”

Three Weeks Later

Anse pulled his jacket straight. “Well, I’m as ready as I’m going to get. Let’s get it over with.” He was surprised to be nervous. Come on, man, you’ve done this before. He joined Pat Johnson and Heinrich Emmerling waiting near the door. Heinrich had shown up two days before, just in time for the bachelor party, which he had pronounced a wonderful custom, and stayed for the wedding.

“Ah, the happy groom. Leonore will not be disappointed,” Heinrich commented as he held out a glass. “Do you need a touch of liquid courage? I find that a touch of schnapps does wonders to settle the nerves.” Heinrich’s touch looked like about six ounces.

“No I . . .” Anse was interrupted by a knock on the door. When he opened it he saw the smiling face of Rudolph Amberger.

“Good, you’re dressed. I was afraid I was going to have to wake you. You’re late; all your friends are outside to escort you to church.”

“What?”

“Yes. It is the custom for you to have a procession to the church. This is your wedding day, after all.”

“But I was going to go get Leonore. She doesn’t know that many people in Suhl. Who’s going to be with her?”

Pat tapped Anse’s shoulder. “Already taken care of; Ursula is organizing the wives of the liaison group. Plus the CoC is sending a few people; they like Leonore’s pamphlet writing. Then there is the liaison group itself. And every American in Suhl that’s not here in this room. So, I'd bet there are more people with her than with you. Let’s move it. As Rudolph says, we’re late.”

Outside there were at least twenty people. The drivers and mechanics from the trucking service with five Jaegers headed the group. Anse noticed that G.C. had managed to recover from the bachelor party.

Anse turned to Rudolph. “How do I feed all these people after the wedding? I only planned on twenty!”

Rudolph pointed to his house next door. “Already arranged. The Jaegers brought in four deer and seven boars. My people have been cooking for days. It’s not a gift, though. I’ll send you a bill. Now, move! We’re late.”

The walk was interesting. It seemed like half the city was waving and offering well wishes. Anse knew he didn’t have that many friends. He thought, they must be starved for entertainment.

Then they were at the church and Anse had eyes only for Leonore as her party approached. She looked beautiful, and the smile on her face was a wonder to see.

The two of them climbed the steps of the church followed by their witnesses. Pastor Paulus greeted them at the door of the church with a smile. “If you wish to marry, repeat your vows to each other.”

Anse, nervously at first and then with a firm voice stated the vows he and Paulus had agreed on in catechism class. The vows Leonore was hearing for the first time.

“I, Anderson Theodore Hatfield, do take you, Leonore, to be my wedded wife. To honor, respect and to hold your needs before my own. To cherish and keep you as my true love for all of my life. This day I affirm before God and all witnesses my undying loyalty and pledge to forsake all others for you. To uphold you in sickness and health, to be your best friend, sharing in our happiness and sorrow, to always have compassion and love without reservation or reward. Though life may be rich or poor, I will hold to you alone. As you were by my side in my darkest hours, so will I try to be a light in your life. I will lift you up and support you in laughter and in tears. As you cared for me in times of infirmity, I will keep you sheltered when storms arise. I will comfort and console you. I will be the rock that you stand on, the staff that you lean on. Leonore, I can not offer you the summer of my life, but I promise the autumn will be brisk and vibrant. I promise to be a companion worthy of your precious friendship. To you, this day, before God, I pledge this vow.”

Leonore had tears of joy in her eyes as she stated, “I, Leonore, take you, Anderson, to be my husband, and these things I promise you. I will be faithful to you and honest with you. I will respect you. I will trust you. I will help you and care for you. I will share my life with you. As you have inspired me to follow my dreams, so will I strive to help you achieve your goals. I will encourage you in all your endeavors and nourish your spirit as we walk through this life together. As you love me, so will I love you. I will be by your side, a part of one person, but above all else, I will allow you to be you. Anderson, our miracle lies in the path we have chosen together. I enter into this marriage with you knowing that the true magic of love is not to avoid changes, but to navigate them successfully. I vow this until death parts us.”

“You will now accompany me to the church register where your marriage will be registered and your witnesses will sign.” It didn’t seem to matter to the pastor that Pat was officially a Catholic, though he made sure that Rudolph also signed.

Anse sat beside Leonore through the following service. And it was mostly a blur. Only the quotation from the Gospel of Mark was familiar.

The dinner after church was more like a banquet than what Anse had planned. Kirk Franklin gave a speech. Not to be outdone, Rudolph gave a longer speech—as a politician, he had more experience. Neither made much sense to Anse. All he wanted was to be alone with Leonore.

Finally, Leonore and he were able to politely walk next door. They were followed by the sober half of the guests. Their friends called wishes for a happy marriage and earthy advice as Anse carried Leonore into the house for the first time.

When the door closed, he said, “Darling, we’re home.”

And they were.

****

The Dragon Slayer

Written by Kerryn Offord

February 1635, Wietze

John Felix “Puss” Trelli didn't know why it always seemed to happen to him, but here he was, on one of the coldest days of the year, walking patrol around the makeshift enlisted housing at Wietze. One advantage of the cold was that most of the garrison was staying indoors. A disadvantage was that they were likely to be bored. Unfortunately, bored soldiers tended to find ways of relieving their boredom that negatively impacted the quality of life of military policemen, of which Puss was one.

Puss let his baton hang from its wrist-strap while he adjusted his hat. It was a classic fur-lined hat—as seen on various episodes of M.A.S.H. With flaps that could be folded down and tied under the throat. Not that he had his tied under his throat. That was a recognized choking hazard if you got caught in a fight and someone pulled back on your hat. Right now, Puss wasn't so sure that the improved levels of safety justified the painful cold affecting his ears.

"Keep moving, Puss, otherwise we'll freeze to death," Dietrich Fischer said.

Puss glared at his patrol partner from the down-time garrison's equivalent of the military police. The man had been a soldier for most of his life and he took a veteran soldier's interest in his own personal comfort. Dietrich's fur hat covered most of his head and face, and he was wearing a heavy cape that just about trailed on the ground—unlike Puss' heavy woolen field coat, which barely covered his knees.

Puss shoved his gloved hands into the pockets of his coat to try and keep them warm, and continued walking. The going was reasonably easy, as the heavy freeze of the last few days had frozen the previously muddy ground. One had to be careful of the wheel ruts now that they were frozen, but at least you didn't pick up half the field with each step.

They were passing the road that headed north from the village of Wietze to the ford across the river of the same name when Dietrich broke the silence. "How'd you get a nickname like 'Puss' anyway?"

"It's something the kids at school used to call me." Puss saw Dietrich smile, and he was sure he was about to say something, but there was a loud scream from just behind them.

"Mad dog!"

Puss spun towards the voice. He could see someone running, and chasing him was a dog. Not just any dog. A big dog. Puss had neglected to tell Dietrich how he'd earned his nickname. It hadn't been just the association with the cartoon character "Felix the Cat" that had led to the nickname "Puss." When he was very young he'd been terrified of dogs. He'd grown out of the habit of running from any dog—one of his teachers had explained that dogs were predators, and any running animal tended to be viewed as something to chase—but he'd never really lost his fear of the beasts.

The man who'd called out the warning managed to get to the safety of a building and slam the heavy wooden door before the dog could catch him. The dog hit the door hard and bounced. Then it turned towards Puss and Dietrich.

Puss stared at the animal. He knew the cry of "mad dog" implied rabies—probably one of the most lethal diseases known to man. Other diseases might kill more people, but usually a good proportion of those infected survived. That wasn't the case with rabies. Even back up-time, Puss had heard of people dying of the disease—from bat bites rather than dog bites, but that was more a case of the dogs mostly not having rabies while lots of bats had it—and that was with the benefit of modern medicine and vaccines, which were sadly lacking down-time.

He wanted to move, to run, but he was frozen to the spot in terror. The dog was staring back at him, and then it started walking toward him. Puss felt for the pistol he had safely under his coat—on patrol the carrying of easily accessible hand guns was discouraged. They were only expecting to have to deal with drunks, and a drunk grabbing a gun could easily escalate a confrontation between MPs and soldiers. He started to fumble with his coat buttons, but the dog suddenly sprinted towards him.

The dog launched itself at Puss and knocked him to the ground. Puss only managed to stop the animal sinking its teeth into his throat by the simple expedient of letting it chomp down on his left forearm instead.

Once it had its teeth into the sleeve of Puss' coat the dog didn't seem interested in letting go. Instead it tried to tear Puss' arm off. With his body being pulled around by the dog, Puss tried to beat it off with his baton. A sharp rap across the snout just seemed to further enrage the beast, so he tried to hit the animal around its ears.

But the dog was having none of that. It pulled away at just the wrong moment, and Puss' next swing struck his own hand. That forced a rethink. He gripped the baton tightly and struck at the base of the dog's skull with the butt until the animal collapsed.

Puss pulled his arm free and, using both hands to grip his baton, proceeded to beat the dog's skull to a pulp. Only when he was convinced the dog was never going to get up again did he stop. Then he tried to stand.

That was a mistake. The effort was more than his poor abused body could take. He blacked out and collapsed in a heap.

Grantville

"Some reporters to see you, Corporal Trelli." The overly cheerful nurse pushed Puss forward so she could fluff up his pillows.

"Why would reporters want to see me?" Puss asked as he placed the book he'd been reading on the bedside table.

"It seems you're a hero, and you didn't tell me." Nurse Lise Gebauer waved a forefinger remonstratively.

"I didn't do anything," Puss protested.

"Of course not," Lise agreed with a smile. "I'll just show them in."

Puss was slow to react, and before he could call out for her to wait she was closing the door behind her.

He lay back in his bed and stared at the closed door. He didn't understand what was going on. He'd recovered consciousness quite quickly back in Wietze, when a medic poured antiseptic solution over his arm before bandaging it. He'd sort of slept for a couple of hours after that, to be woken by Dr. Rivera-Sullivan jabbing an enormous needle into his abdomen. Then he'd been bundled onto an airplane and flown to Grantville. That had been two days ago. And although his parents had visited daily, this was the first he'd heard anything about being a hero.

The door opened and Nurse Gebauer let in the reporters or, more precisely, some reporters and Dylan Pence.

Dylan carried none of the normal accoutrements of a reporter. Instead he looked more like a door-to-door insurance salesman. Though what he had in the laundry sack he was carrying, Puss couldn't guess.

Dylan strode towards Puss and dumped his laundry sack on the bed. "It's good to see you looking so much better than when I last saw you. How's the arm?" he asked.

Puss almost got to ask when exactly Dylan was supposed to have seen him, because he certainly didn't remember the meeting, but one of the reporters got in first.

"Ernst Schreiber; Grantville Times. How badly were you injured, Corporal Trelli?"

"The dog . . ."

"Tore up his arm real bad," Dylan interrupted. He pulled a field coat out of the laundry sack and held it up so everybody—especially the television reporter's cameraman—could see it. "Look at the damage to that sleeve. And that was all the protection Corporal Trelli had against a large rabid dog."

Puss watched several supposedly intelligent reporters record the barefaced lies and half-truths Dylan was spouting with mounting horror. Heck, he'd been told that his old field coat had been incinerated with the rest of the clothes he'd been wearing as a public health measure, so he didn't know where Dylan had got the coat he was showing them.

"So the dog did infect Corporal Trelli?" Ernst asked.

Puss was so engrossed by the outrageous lies Dylan was telling that he failed to react in time to prevent him removing the loose bandage on his left forearm to reveal massive bruising—from the crushing of soft tissue by the dog—and the mass of inflamed wounds where the dog's teeth had broken the skin. He rescued his arm from Dylan's grip, wincing with pain as he gathered it protectively against his body. "What's going on?" he demanded.

"You're a hero," Ernst Schreiber announced.

"But all I did was kill a dog," Puss protested.

"A rabid dog," Ernst said, and the rest of the reporters nodded in agreement.

"That still doesn't make me a hero."

Ernst shook his head. "Eye witnesses have told us that you stood between the charging dog and the bürgermeister's wife and children."

Puss looked at the attentive faces, and lens of a TV video camera, all waiting eagerly to hear about his heroic feat, in his own words. "I stood there because I'm effing terrified of dogs," he all but shouted, and watched in horror as the reporters carefully recorded each and every word for posterity.

"Wow! Terrified of dogs and yet you stood bravely between a rabid dog and a defenseless woman and her children. You deserve a medal." The speaker looked across at Dylan. "Herr Pence, is Corporal Trelli in line for a medal?"

Dylan slid off Puss' bed and stood to face the reporter. "Unfortunately, Corporal Trelli's feat of valor didn't happen on the battlefield, so there is no current award to which he is entitled."

"Not even the Purple Heart?" Ernst asked.

"Not even the Purple Heart," Dylan confirmed.

"Well there must be some way Corporal Trelli's valor can get the recognition it deserves," Ernst said.

"Yes . . ." Dylan started to say.

"Dylan Pence, what are you doing disturbing my patient?" Dr. Annamarie Rivera-Sullivan demanded.

Instead of answering, Dylan hastily collected his reporters and ushered them out. "As you can see, Corporal Trelli is getting the best of medical care . . ."

Puss missed the rest of what Dylan was saying because Dr. Rivera-Sullivan had shut the door after them and was leaning against it looking in his direction. "They think I'm some kind of hero," he told her in disbelief.

The doctor ignored Puss. Instead she turned a baleful glare onto Nurse Gebauer. "I hope you have a very good explanation as to why you permitted that media circus to disturb my patient."

Puss glanced in the direction she was glaring. He'd completely forgotten about the nurse. He added his glare to Annamarie's.

"Herr Pence had a letter from Dr. Adams," Nurse Gebauer said.

"Did Herr Pence allow you to read the letter? Or did you just take his word for it?" Annamarie asked.

"But why would he lie?" Nurse Gebauer asked.

"Because he's Dylan Pence. If he really had a letter from Dr. Adams he would've shown it to me when I ordered him and his circus out. No, Master Dylan Pence is up to something."

"He's trying to make out that I'm some kind of hero," Puss said.

Annamarie nodded. "That's what he's doing. The question is why?"

****

That evening the story hit the TV news. Puss could only sit and watch in horror as an act of self-defense while in a condition of abject terror was turned into an act of valor that, if it had occurred against an enemy, would have been worthy of the highest honor, the Medal of Honor.

Puss felt as if everyone in the TV lounge were looking his way. As quietly as he could he got out of his chair and walked back to his room.

"Is something the matter, Puss?"

Puss turned to see Dr. Rivera-Sullivan watching him, a concerned look on her face. "They're making out that I'm a hero."

"Who? The other patients?"

"No," Puss shook his head. "The media. The TV news was full of it. How I overcame my terror of dogs to heroically stand between a charging rabid dog and some woman and her kids . . ."

A comforting hand landed on his shoulder. "Come on; let's get you back to your room and into bed. I'll do what I can to stop them bothering you."

****

The next morning Puss sat up in bed reading the papers. None of them contained good news. It seemed there was a growing movement to award him with some kind of medal for heroism. The worse of the articles was one penned by Roger Rude—the byline assigned to the Grantville Gazette's regular "In the Public Interest" column. It wasn't that the article said anything that was untrue—the column had a reputation for always getting its facts right—the problem was the spin the writer had put on even the most innocent of comments.

Puss looked up from reading the Roger Rude column to see Dr. Rivera-Sullivan watching him. He folded the paper and passed it over to her. "Can it possibly get worse?"

Annamarie snorted. "Have you seen what the National Inquisitor had to say?"

Puss checked the pile of as yet unread papers on his bedside table. "Not yet."

"Don't bother. At least Roger Rude didn't ask why the nation's latest hero wasn't being treated by a real doctor."

Puss winced. Dr. Rivera-Sullivan was one of the up-time trained nurses who'd taken the opportunity to upgrade their qualifications to a medical degree, and was probably one of the first people to be awarded the brand new (for down-time) Doctor of Osteopathy degree. No way was she going to be happy to have her qualifications questioned. On the other hand, "Why are you in charge of my case?"

"Because I've had more experience with treating rabies than anybody else. Some of the places I served in with the army had bad feral dog problems."

"Still, shouldn't any of the other doctors have been interested in how you're treating me?"

Annamarie leaned over and gave Puss a motherly pat on the head. "You poor dear, are you imagining that you're the first case of possible rabies infection we've had since the Ring of Fire?" She shook her head. "No, you're being ignored by the other doctors and even the medical students, for which you should be suitably grateful, because last year alone we treated over a dozen cases."

"I didn't read anything about that in the papers," Puss said.

"Nobody who got bitten was sufficiently important for the papers to take an interest." Annamarie shoved her hands into the pockets of her white lab coat and stared hard at Puss. "Georg Lenkert has asked me to ask you if you wouldn't mind being the face of a publicity campaign for the new rabies treatment."

"Who's Georg Lenkert?"

"He's the head of the Sanitation Commission's new Emergency Operations Center here in Grantville. He organized the charter flight that got me and the rabies vaccine to you in Wietze so quickly."

Ouch! No pressure. The man had probably helped save his life, so there was little Puss could do but agree to at least talk to Herr Lenkert.

A couple of days later

Puss lay in his hospital bed and glared at his visitor. It didn't help that he'd just had another dose of rabies vaccine, but Dylan Pence was not his favorite person.

"Why can't you leave me alone?" Puss demanded.

"Because your nation needs you," Dylan answered.

Puss felt his brows climb. Dylan was definitively not someone to play poker against. Not when he could utter a line like that with such a straight face. "You've already had your pound of flesh. I can't even walk outside my room without everyone wanting to touch the hero."

"Do you have any idea how much your treatment has cost the government?" Dylan didn't give Puss a chance to answer. "A fortune! And that doesn't include the cost of the air charter to get Dr. Rivera-Sullivan and the vaccineto you as quickly as possible and bring you back to Grantville."

Puss just stared.

Dylan must have understood Puss' lack of response. "Don't worry; the government doesn't expect you to pay back the money."

"But they do want their jot of blood," Puss retorted.

"What?" Dylan shook his head. "Never mind. Sign here please."

Puss managed to catch the paper Dylan had thrust at him before it fell to his bed. Clearly Dylan had never read Shakespeare; otherwise he would have recognized the reference to Portia's speech from "The Merchant of Venice." "Shouldn't I read it first?"

Dylan passed over a pen. "It's just an authorization for the reward the people of Wietze want to give you."

Puss ignored Dylan and kept reading. "I'm investing all of it in war bonds?" He stared at Dylan. "Is that what this is all about? Selling war bonds?"

Dylan shrugged. "War's are expensive."

"You're turning my life upside-down just to sell war bonds?"

"You wouldn't want our boys on the front line to not have the best of equipment just because there wasn't enough money now, would you? Just sign it, and you can get your old life back."

"Until the first public appearance," Puss said sourly.

March, BlackshireElementary School, Grantville

Puss closed the door behind the assistant principal's secretary and turned to face Mr. Jones, the assistant principal. "Thanks for agreeing to see me at such short notice."

David Jones gestured towards a chair. "You picked a fine time to learn not to run from a dog."

Puss felt instantly at ease. This wasn't someone who thought he was a hero. This was the teacher who many years ago told him that a dog would instinctively chase anything that ran away. He slid into the chair Mr. Jones had indicated. "I would have loved to have turned and run, but I was too terrified to move."

"That's not what the papers are saying," Mr. Jones said with just the hint of a question in his voice.

"Yeah, everyone seems to think I'm some kind of hero, but I'm not."

Mr. Jones leaned back in his chair and interlaced his fingers. "You are doing a great service promoting the rabies treatment, and I hear the demand for war bonds has gone up."

"If I wasn't publicizing the rabies vaccine at the same time I wouldn't be doing it, but all the hype about me being a hero is . . ."

"Wearing you down," Mr. Jones suggested.

"That's one way of putting it," Puss said. "It's more like, I can't get my mind around the fact that people are making out that I'm a hero for killing a dog that was trying to kill me."

Mr. Jones grinned. "That does seem like an eminently sensible reason for killing a dog. I think your problem is something psychologists call cognitive dissonance. You're being told things you know can't be true. It's a bit like motion sickness, where the body knows it's moving but the eyes can't see any change."

"Sometimes what I'm hearing makes me want to throw up," Puss agreed, "but what can I do about it?"

"If you can't get away from the source of the problem—" Puss shook his head to indicate that wasn't possible. "—then the best I can suggest is that you develop some kind of coping strategy."

"'Scuse me?"

Mr. Jones grinned. "Find something to do that takes your mind off what's happening."

"You got any suggestions? It has to be something I can carry with me, because I'm going to be moving around a bit with the war bonds road show."

Mr. Jones chewed on his bottom lip and stared into the distance for a while. "I seem to remember you and James Warren used to amuse yourselves writing film scripts one year."

"That was just playing around, Mr. Jones. A little bit of fun seeing what we could come up with. Mostly based on some of the movies we'd seen."

Mr. Jones nodded. "I did read a couple of them, you know. They were entertaining, and for your age, quite good. Maybe you could try writing as a coping strategy."

"You mean a story with me as a real hero?"

"Something like that. If you create your own fantasy world where you're the hero, then the media and everyone else calling you a hero would then become just an extension of your own fictional world and you shouldn't feel so much cognitive dissonance."

Puss stared blankly at Mr. Jones. It sounded like witchcraft and snake oil. "You really think that might work?"

"It can't be any worse than anything else you could do. Basically, I think you need to give yourself something cognitively intensive to take your mind off what's happening to you."

Puss stood up and held out his hand to shake the one Mr. Jones was offering him. "Thank you for your help, Mr. Jones. If there's anything I can do . . ."

"Actually, if it's not too much trouble, could you talk to some of the students?"

Puss winced.

"Oh, don't worry. I expect the boys at least will be more interested in all the gory details of your fight with the dog and the medical treatment than in the idea that you're supposed to be a hero."

"That I don't mind talking about," Puss said. "I'm happy to tell people that we've got rabies vaccine."

Mr. Jones flicked through his desk calendar. "Would Wednesday at eleven be convenient?"

Sunday, April 1st, 1635, Wietze

Today was April Fools Day, and Puss couldn't help but think the timing was eminently suitable. He fingered the new sergeant's stripes on his arm. Dylan had had the audacity to feed the media the story that he was being promoted as the army's contribution to recognizing his valor, even though Puss knew he had more than enough points to have been promoted in May anyway. Thinking of Dylan, Puss' gaze drifted over to him.

He now understood why Dylan Pence had been so determined to turn him into a hero. It was all about money. According to reliable sources—and they didn't come much more reliable than his mother, who had a very good ear for gossip—Dylan Pence was being paid a commission on every war bond sold through his little dog and pony show.

Dylan was the first to speak. He opened with the now almost obligatory call for people to buy war bonds. Then he described Puss' act of valor before inviting the bürgermeister of Wietze to say a few words. Then, with the wife of the bürgermeister stepping up holding a velvet cushion with a medal laid on it, Puss was called forward.

The weight of the chain was a surprise. It couldn't possibly be real gold, surely not. Not a chain this big. Puss lifted the medal hanging from the chain and examined the image on it. It looked like St. George killing a dragon. Puss thanked the bürgermeister. Then he took possession of the microphone and faced the waiting crowd.

Magdeburg

It was going to be a while before the commanding officer of the USE Marines was free to talk to him, so Puss let his eyes drift around the room he was waiting in. A painting hanging on the wall attracted his attention. He approached it, taking in that it was of a fortress somewhere. He read the inscription on the frame. Hammershus, Bornholm, 1634. It didn't ring a bell, but the scene depicted USE Marines in combat. He searched the room for his Press Corp handler. "Corporal Anderovna, do you know anything about a battle involving the Marines at Bornholm?"

The young woman turned from the window she'd been looking out of. "Bornholm is a Danish island in the Baltic. King Gustav Adolphus was supposed to be intending to make Hans Richter's woman the Baroness of Bornholm. So some fool decided that was a good reason to invade the island, and another fool thought the Marines should be involved. It was a complete fiasco that has been comprehensively ignored by the Press Corp."

"What about the Hammershus?" Puss pointed to the painting.

She glided gracefully over to the painting and examined it for a moment. "It probably depicts the view from the hills above the Hammershus where the Marines fought a small scale action. It was once the most powerful castle in Europe, but gunpowder changed that. It has probably remained the seat of power of whoever holds Bornholm for the Danish crown." She waited long enough to see if Puss had anything else to say before returning to her window.

Puss couldn't help but admire the cat-like grace with which she walked. Not that he had any hopes in that direction. Puss had few illusions as to his personal attractiveness to girls, and he couldn't see a girl with Corporal Anderovna's looks ever being interested in him. So he settled for admiring her on a purely aesthetic level.

Before she reached the window she'd been looking out of—just in case she looked back and caught him watching her—Puss turned his attention back to the painting. The Hammershus looked like a perfect villain's stronghold. He checked his watch. There was still a while until his appointment to speak to the Marines, so he returned to his bag and hauled out his notebooks and sat down to work on his script. Mr. Jones had been correct. Writing about the heroic exploits of a fictional hero had helped him cope with the attention he was getting.

"Sergeant Trelli!"

It was the kick in the shins that actually brought Puss out of his writer's daze. He looked down to see the hard object that had connected with his shin. It was a leather shoe. Said shoe was being worn by a delicate foot, which in turn was connected to a shapely leg, all belonging to Corporal Anderovna. He met her eyes. "Yes?"

"What is it you are writing?"

Puss glanced down at the notebook in his hand. He didn't really want to talk about what he was writing, and he certainly didn't want to explain why he was doing it, most especially not to the gorgeous Corporal Anderovna. "I'm just trying my hand at writing a story." He smiled, hoping that this sudden burst of interest in his activities would just as suddenly die a natural death. "It's just something to occupy the time."

"Could I read what you've done?"

Puss stared at the hand the girl held out. Then he followed the arm up to her face. She wasn't smiling, but then, Puss was used to Corporal Anderovna not smiling. He passed over the first of his completed notebooks.

He didn't know what he actually expected, but he was surprised when she accepted the notebook and settled down in a chair to read it. Well, he wished her luck. His teachers had always complained about his handwriting and, as he'd never expected anybody else to read his movie script, the level of legibility had reached new lows.

****

Corporal Svetlana Anderovna only asked if she could read what Sergeant Trelli was writing because she was bored and wanted something to do. However, after just a single glance she knew what she held wasn't an attempt to write a novel. It was a play or movie script. And just recently she'd witnessed a discussion (okay, listened to it through the door) between Jabe McDougal—the man she loved—and Gino Bianchi, a producer of plays and extravaganzas and wannabe movie producer. Jabe and Gino were interested in producing a movie. All they needed was a suitable script.

Svetlana couldn't help but imagine how much Jabe would appreciate being handed a good script. Maybe her assignment to baby-sit Sergeant Trelli wouldn't be a complete waste of time. She settled down to read. The handwriting was atrocious, but compared with Jabe McDougal's almost illegible scrawl, it was easy to read.

June, Grantville

Puss had been granted leave before he had to join General Mike Stearns' Third Division in Magdeburg and he'd elected to take it with his family back in Grantville. He got off the tram a short block from his parents' place and with his rucksack slung over his shoulders, set off for home.

He hadn't gone far before he was pounced on by an energetic and happy Jabe McDougal. "You've been holding out on me," Jabe accused.

"What?" Puss would have preferred a more intelligent response, but he was lost for words. What could Jabe possibly be taking about?

"Your writing." Jabe waved one of the notebooks Puss had discovered missing after his visit to Magdeburg.

Puss reached for it. "Where the hell did you get that? It's mine."

Jabe pulled the notebook protectively away from Puss' outstretched hands. "Corporal Anderovna thought I might be interested in your writing. And she was right. Me and Gino have been searching for a good story to make a movie about for ages, and with a bit of work, we think we might be able to do something with this." He patted the notebook sitting securely under his arm.

"That's just something I was playing with to pass the time while I was being led around with Dylan Pence's dog and pony show," Puss protested.

"Good, then you don't have too much emotional attachment to your story, because it needs a few major changes."

"What the heck are you talking about?" Puss demanded.

"Making a movie from your script."

Puss let Jabe lead him to a tavern where he was introduced to Gino Bianchi.

****

Gino Bianchi actually liked his screenplay. And if Puss could make a few minor changes to better suit the medium—like removing almost all the dialogue and increasing the action—Gino would turn it into a movie. Puss walked out of the tavern in a bit of a daze. He adjusted his rucksack over his shoulders and set off for home.

And almost ran slap into Prudentia Gentileschi. Fortunately, he managed to jump to one side in time, otherwise the clearly worked up young woman would have plowed straight into him. Puss stared after the girl. He was tempted to call out that she should look where she was going, but decided not to. There was no telling what a female in her obviously agitated state might say or do. Instead he turned and walked on.

He heard the weeping as he neared the alleyway. Curiosity, a besetting sin often associated with cats, had him stop to look at the source of the noise.

Corporal Anderovna glared at him through tear-filled eyes, but glares were like water off a duck's back to a military policeman. Someone had recently slapped Corporal Anderovna. He glanced over his shoulder. In the distance he could still see Prudentia Gentileschi striding aggressively down the street. He had an idea what had happened. He just didn't know why Jabe McDougal's fiancée had slapped her.

It wasn't in Puss' make-up to desert a female in distress, but what to do with her? He couldn't take her back to her office. Not with that mark on her face and her eyes red from crying. People were bound to ask embarrassing questions. He could take her home, but a moment's reflection—mostly concerning how his mother might interpret the act of bringing a young woman home—suggested his favorite cousin might be a better bet. He placed a gentle hand on her shoulder and turned her toward the back of the building. "Come on, you can't stay here."

He was surprised when she offered no resistance when he tried to move her, but he didn't let that slow him down. He used his intimate knowledge of Grantville and its various shortcuts to get the pair of them to Betty's house without running into anybody.

****

Betty was at home. She answered the door with Master Michael Avery in her arms. "Puss!" she said, then she noticed his companion. "My god, what's happened to her?" She thrust Michael into Puss' arms and dragged Corporal Anderovna into her home.

Puss headed straight for the nursery where he put Michael down in his crib. He had the baby settled before Betty came looking for him.

"Who is she, and do you have any idea who hurt her?"

"She's Corporal Anderovna of the Press Corp, and I think she's had a run in with Prudentia Gentileschi."

"Ahhhh!"

It was the sound of enlightenment dawning. Betty obviously knew something Puss didn't. "Does that mean something to you?"

Betty nodded. "There've been rumors that Jabe was playing around with someone last year."

Puss glanced at Corporal Anderovna. She certainly had what it took to distract a normal guy, but Jabe wasn't really normal, not when it came to Prudentia Gentileschi. "Can she stay here?"

"For how long?"

"Until she pulls herself together, I guess."

Betty sighed. "I guess so, but I don't know what Isaiah's going to say."

"Your husband's a counselor; he'll probably be able to help."

****

Cousin Betty had been pretty closemouthed when she'd phoned him at his parent's. She'd demanded that Puss show up after seven that evening and then she'd hung up. So, after an early dinner with his parents, Puss walked over to his cousin's place.

Betty was waiting for him and dragged him inside as soon as he reached the door. "Your lady friend has a small problem," she explained as she guided him into the lounge where Corporal Anderovna was quietly sitting in an armchair petting the family cat, watching Bugs Bunny videos.

"She's not my lady friend, she just happened to be my handler from the Press Corp when I was doing the rounds for Pence's dog and pony show," Puss whispered to her.

"As of now, she's your lady friend," Betty hissed back.

"What?"

"Look who's turned up," Betty announced.

Corporal Anderovna glanced up and gave Puss the barest nod of acknowledgement before returning to the more important task of petting Maxie while she watched television.

"What's going on?" Puss demanded.

Betty pushed Puss into a chair beside Corporal Anderovna and settled into the couch opposite. "It's quite simple. Svetlana has been invited to Jabe and Prudentia's wedding, and she needs an escort."

Puss switched his gaze from Betty to Svetlana. So that's Corporal Anderovna's name. Both of them were looking at him. Heck, even Maxie was staring at him, but that might be because Svetlana had stopped petting her and she was assigning blame for that where she thought it belonged. He pointed to himself. "Me?" Betty nodded. An expression that might have been agreement flashed across Svetlana's face.

"Why me?" He waved a hand in Svetlana's direction. "A girl with her looks can have any guy she wants."

That didn't go down well. Svetlana buried her face in the handkerchief she was holding and sobbed. Betty glared at him. Puss wasn't slow. He realized almost immediately that Svetlana was upset precisely because she couldn't have the guy she wanted. "What I mean to say is, why me? I'm just a sergeant in the army."

"But not just any sergeant. You're the sergeant with the very fancy gold necklace," Betty pointed out.

"It's a gold chain, with a medal on the end," Puss corrected. And it was gold, well, eighteen karat gold. Nobody made ceremonial chains out of pure gold—it was too soft.

"Gold chain, gold necklace, what does it matter? What matters is that you have it, and everybody knows why you got it. That, plus the fact you've been seen in public together makes you an ideal candidate to be Svetlana's escort."

"But why does Corporal Anderovna need a pseudo-hero as her escort?" Puss asked.

"Prudentia accused her of pursuing Jabe, and she needs a suitable escort to the wedding to show that she has better fish to fry."

"I'm supposed to be better than Jabe McDougal?" Puss asked.

Betty shrugged. "You clean up well, and besides, you'll be wearing your gold chain and medal."

"You want I should carry my gold inlaid revolver as well?" Puss asked sarcastically. He'd received a number of presentation quality weapons, all beautifully engraved and gold inlaid, and totally impractical as service weapons.

"That won't be necessary. Now, to be convincing you'll have to learn to use Svetlana's name. Better yet, use her nickname—Sveta. And Sveta, you'd better try calling Puss 'Puss.'"

"I refuse to call a grown man 'Puss.'" She stared at Puss, and for maybe the first time since he'd met her, she smiled. She sent the television a glance, then looked straight at Puss. "I will call him George. It can be my pet name for him."

Betty burst out laughing, and even Svetlana broke a smile. Puss just shrugged. He'd been called a lot worse. Besides, he wouldn't have to put up with it for long. "You do realize that I'm supposed to be joining the Third Division in eight days?"

"That's not a problem," Betty said. "It's not as if you and Sveta are really interested in each other. This is just for show. And by the time you get back from the campaign, everyone will have forgotten."

"Gee, thanks for the sympathy. People get killed in wars, you know."

"Come off it, Puss. You told me yourself that the role of MP's in times of war is to make sure the traffic keeps moving. The chances are you'll never see a shot fired."

"That's how I'd like it to be, but you never know."

The day of the wedding

Puss showed up at Betty's early. He slipped out of the hansom cab and called up to the driver. "I don't know how long I'll be."

"Women are never ready," the driver agreed.

Puss grinned and headed up the path. Betty met him at the door and showed him in. Inside, Betty's mother and sisters were gathered around a startlingly beautiful woman. So that's what she looks like out of uniform.

Betty's mother, the owner-operator of Carole’s Beauty Salon, stepped up to Puss. She looked him up and down as she walked around him. Occasionally she brushed her hand across a spot on his suit. Eventually her circuit brought them face to face again. "You do clean up well, Puss. And what's this?" She reached for the medal hanging from the chain and studied the enameled image. Then she smiled. "Well, George, are you ready to go out and slay your lady's dragons?"

****

Warm Spit

Written by Virginia DeMarce

Grantville, September 1634

“I say that we bring back nominating conventions.” Henry Dreeson folded his hands over the little paunch that sat so oddly on his otherwise scrawny frame. “Real ones, that amount to a hill of beans. Conventions that nominate the candidates. Smoke-filled rooms. Horse trading. What’s the point of sticking ourselves with the damned primaries that run the whole time in between the elections?”

Tom Riddle shook his head. “Can we sell it to the League of Women Voters?”

Henry started to pick up his coffee and then put it down again. “Play the nostalgia card. How many of the old ladies will remember sitting at their radios back in 1952, listening to the roll calls in the contest between Estes Kefauver and Adlai Stevenson for the Democratic nomination. That’s where the country went wrong. If they’d nominated

Kefauver . . .”

Riddle nodded reluctantly but opened his mouth fast, before Henry could digress into his views on Adlai Stevenson. “Yes, I can remember. Not that Veleda would appreciate it if anyone called her an old lady. It was hot that summer. Chuck had just turned six and Mary Myra was almost four, so there was a lot of washing. I was just getting ready to open my own law office in Morgantown, so we had to save every cent. She would stand there in that little apartment with all the windows open, hoping for a bit of a breeze, ironing. First the “starched and sprinkled” ironing, then the “sprinkled” ironing, and finally the “dry” ironing. She’d put my shirts on hangers, and then hang them on one of those pull-up wooden drying stands . . .” He shook his head. “All that week, from morning to night, she had that little brown bakelite radio on, listening to the convention.”

Chad Jenkins pulled a little notebook out of his shirt pocket. Those stands—fastened together with wooden pegs, too, if he remembered them right. Perfect down-time technology that any village carpenter could manage. He could make some money selling the stands, but even more selling the plans. Just think what Mary Simpson’s maid Hilde and her boyfriend had done selling plans for those folding wood-with-a-strip-of-canvas camp chairs. Not to mention what he’d made himself on diagrams for folding wooden TV trays. With most down-time houses so small for the number of people who lived in them, fold-away furniture—the easier to make, the better—was a gold mine. He scribbled, his mind half-way on the continuing conversation and halfway on prospects for making more money.

“Theater,” Ed Piazza said. “Pure theater.”

“Better than a lot of professionals. During the war . . .” Riddle turned to Constantin Ableidinger. “That was the Second World War. I was a journalist. I accompanied Bob Hope on one of his tours to entertain the troops.”

“They were professionals,” Piazza said. “The guys who staged those conventions were professionals. Entertainment. Songs. Demonstrations. Placards.” He looked at Ableidinger. “Annabelle showed you a couple of those Bob Hope tapes, didn’t she?”

Ableidinger had expressed his appreciation of the amenity of Dorothy Lamour in a sarong at the time. Now his smile started at his mouth. It finally ended somewhere about the tips of his ears. “The Ram Party agrees,” he said, his voice booming out as usual. “Nominating conventions.”

“That’s the easy part,” Henry answered. “Now let’s get down to business. We don’t have to rig our convention to make sure that it nominates Ed here for president. We can rely on the Fourth of July Party delegates. There’ll be some other nominations, of course, but he’ll win. Franconia, though—Ableidinger, I expect that your Ram people down in Franconia will do their own convention and nominate not just you—they will, but you can decline gracefully on the grounds that you’d rather make a run for delegate in the USE House of Commons—but some other favorite sons, too. How are you going to make sure that they finally nominate a guy to fly the Ram banner who will make a respectable showing in the statewide presidential vote but still be sure to lose to Ed?”

“Favorite sons?” Ableidinger asked.

Tom Riddle started to explain.

Chad tucked the notebook into his shirt pocket and leaned his chair back. “That’s manageable. Let’s get to the hard part. Who do we want for Ed’s running mate and how do we make sure that the convention picks him? The State of Thuringia-Franconia is going to need a vice-president and I’m not going to put up with some Balkanized idea that the head of the losing party gets to be the second fiddle in the executive branch in some kind of coalition arrangement. That’s a recipe for disaster. Think of Italy.”

Only Tom Riddle immediately thought of the correct aspect of Italy.

Ed Piazza actually thought first of Mario Lanza, Ezio Pinza, and Luciano Pavarotti. Some of the special effects in Il Trovatore didn’t need any up-time technology . . . Bizet . . . Carmen . . . working-class factory girls . . . Toreador would make a catchy tune for a campaign song if somebody didn’t take offense that the setting was Spanish . . . or the composer French . . .

October 1634

Philip Massinger’s theater troupe was in Grantville for the winter. Massinger, along with the new drama teacher at the high school, had agreed to take responsibility for staging the public events—music, “spontaneous” demonstrations in favor of the various candidates, ghost-written orations, and such, which was why he was sitting in Chad Jenkins’s living room this evening.

He had even sent a selection of his personnel down to Franconia to do the same for the Ram party. Personally, he thought that they were fortunate to have him. He couldn’t think of any competitor likely to do as well for the Crown Loyalists—who didn’t show any sign of holding a nominating convention in any case. From a professional standpoint, he thought the CLs were making a mistake. Just the convention coverage in the newspapers would bring a lot of free publicity for the FoJP and he suspected that a significant portion of the voters would simply mark in favor of someone whose name they had heard before, even if they weren’t sure where, how, or why. Any dramatist who wanted to make money served up a certain number of simple-minded farces for those paying customers who couldn’t or wouldn’t grasp anything more complex.

While Massinger kept one ear on the discussion, just in case anything that might affect his proposed designs came up, his thoughts wandered. Democracy might not be so bad. He had developed some concerns last summer that the foreseeable decline in coronations, royal progresses, ceremonial entrances, princely weddings, and other such occasions would have a bad effect on business. Royalty was good for business, usually—when they weren’t closing down the theaters because of politics. He remembered one of the appearances of Tom and Dick Quiney’s grandfather, livery-clad, marching through the streets of London with the remainder of the King’s Men, swelling the parades.

But apparently not. Democracy seemed to need pageantry too, and where there was pageantry, there would be actors and musicians. Thus far, moreover, the representatives of democracy appeared to be more inclined to pay their bills in a timely manner.

****

“We ought to run a down-timer with Ed,” Chad Jenkins said. “Chip thinks that having a down-timer for VP will pull in a lot of votes and make people think that the up-timers are serious about not turning into an aristocracy of their own.”

“Well, we’re not running any of Chip’s new cronies from Jena,” Henry Dreeson answered. “And Ableidinger’s doing his own thing with the Ram, so we can’t pick anyone from Franconia without stepping on toes. Most of the people at Weimar are Crown Loyalists because of the Wettin connection. Maybe we could find someone in Erfurt, but I don’t know the guys up there very well, yet.”

“Precisely what does a vice president do?” Johann Georg Hardegg asked. He was attending his first Grantville FoJP meeting because Mary Kat Riddle’s grandfather Tom wasn’t feeling very well and Georgie had come with her. “How significant is the office?”

The up-timers looked at each other.

“Well, there’s John Nance Garner’s opinion,” Jenny Maddox ventured.

“Which was? Or, first, who was he?” Hardegg, as a lawyer, liked to lay things out in order.

“A conservative Democrat,” Ed said. “Senator. Ally of Sam Rayburn when Rayburn was in the House of Representatives. Both of them Texans.” He checked Hardegg’s expression. “Guess that doesn’t help very much.”

“It goes back to 1932. Garner ran for the Democratic nomination against Roosevelt—Franklin, not Teddy. Roosevelt had the most delegates going into the convention, but not a majority. Garner was one of Roosevelt’s strongest rivals and cut a deal with him. The ticket was re-elected in 1936. Garner’s famous for saying that the vice presidency was ‘not worth a bucket of warm piss.’ Which got bowdlerized to ‘warm spit’ by the media. Garner then called the reporters ‘a bunch of pantywaists.’” Henry Dreeson grinned.

“What he meant,” Mary Kat said, “is that the position doesn’t have any power of its own and deprives the holder of any real power base he had before he accepted it.”

“Two more questions. First, what’s a ‘pantywaist’?” Once that was settled, “So there’s no power?”

“None, really. Lyndon Johnson was far more powerful as a senator than as vice-president.”

Hardegg frowned. “I thought that Lyndon Johnson is a young policeman here in Grantville.”

Mary Kat giggled. “Different guy. Hank and Karleen just couldn’t resist the temptation.”

“If you are putting on theater,” Philip Massinger said into the pause that followed, “you need a leading lady. Preferably a fairly good-looking one. You can’t have a successful play without a leading lady. Or, at least, it is much more difficult.”

Liz Carstairs tapped her finger on the TV tray that held her herbal tea. “Geraldine Ferraro?”

“I haven’t met her,” Hardegg sipped his coffee. “Is she an up-timer or down-timer?”

“Neither. Walter Mondale picked her as his running mate in 1984.”

“So there is precedent. Up-time, at least.” Hardegg looked thoughtful. “What about Frau Gundelfingerin? Walter Goodluck’s wife? She’s good-looking as well as a Goodluck and perhaps good luck for you.” He leaned back, very pleased with his English-language joke.

****

“I dunno.” Ted Moritz looked in the mirror as Walt Jenkins sheared off his hair. “About running a woman, I mean. Watch it—don’t take so much off the sides. I’m doing a lot of business with down-timers now and they take me more seriously if I look dignified. Which, in their ass-backward way, means more hair, so I have to go around looking like a semi-hippie.”

Walt moved his scissors away from Ted’s scalp and gave the reflected image a critical look. “Maybe just a little more. You’re not coming in as often as you did before the Ring of Fire. What does Karen think?”

“Most of your old customers aren’t, but you more than make up for it with the new ones, so stop fussing. Oh, Karen’s all for it, now that she’s a career woman with the school system.” Ted frowned at his image. “Naw, no more off the top, either. I’ve got a meeting at the bank tomorrow and I don’t want to look skinned for it.”

“Okay.” Walt picked up his brush. “Thelma says this Gundelfinger woman is all right.”

“Tino Nobili doesn’t think so.”

“Tino’s a Crown Loyalist.” Walt son’s Evan, who was snipping away on his uncle Ripley Cunningham in the second chair, looked over at his dad.

“Pay attention to where you have those scissors,” Ripley complained. “I bleed like a stuck pig if you catch my ear. If you ask me, we’ll lose most of the independent vote if we run a woman along with Ed, so by rights Tino ought to be all in favor of this ridiculous idea.”

Evan cocked his head to one side. “What does my new-ish Aunt Lydia say?”

“Oh, she’s all for it.”

“So’s Laurel. She’d like to go out campaigning.”

“Not on her own, she’s not.” Walt proclaimed. “Your sister is . . .”

“Over eighteen.” Evan finished the sentence. “But she’s also in the army, so she can’t. Non-partisan and all that. Count your blessings.”

Ripley snorted. “Non-partisan like the League of Women Voters, maybe? Sure, Lydia says they aren’t supporting any candidate for the VP nomination. Sure, they’re not. They’re just chatting about the joys of political participation by the female portion of the electorate until their tongues are practically falling out.”

“Seriously, though, Uncle Ripley. We don’t want to go along with the 250 Club line, do we? They’re being . . .”

“Themselves.” Walt pulled the cape off Ted’s shoulders and shook it. “Gerry and Tami Simmons like the idea of running her.”

Ripley shook his head and then yelled for a towel when the point of Evan’s shears got his earlobe. “Gerry and Tami never came across a left-wing liberal idea they didn’t like. Now Honcho, he’s threatening to quit the party if the convention picks her.”

Ted stood up and headed for the cash register. “Honcho’s a grump. Always has been. Always will be. The main reason he’s self-employed is that he couldn’t get along with any boss he ever had. And he doesn’t get along with Gerry, either, even if they are brothers-in-law.”

The barber shop emptied out.

Evan picked up the broom and looked at his dad. “What are you going to do?”

“Oh, hell. I’d not vote for the Crown Loyalists if the FoJP ran a monkey. Mike’s Becky did a good job for us as senator, and it’s not as if the VP really has much in the way of influence.”

Magdeburg, November 1634

“It makes sense, Mike,” Ed Piazza said. “It started as a joke, but it makes a lot of sense. Helene Gundelfinger has ties into the business community and ties with Duke Johann Philipp down at Saxe-Altenburg. Without his encouragement of investors, USE Steel wouldn’t have progressed anywhere near as fast as it has, and through the girls’ school the duke sponsored here in Magdeburg, she’s got ties to the leadership community here. As her husband does, through Kelly Construction. She’s made friends with Count Ludwig Guenther’s new wife. Plus . . . Well, she’s smart. Very smart.”

He looked at Rebecca, raising his eyebrows.

“I like her,” Becky said. “Moreover, I respect her.”

Matthias Strigel, who was almost certain to become the FoJP governor of Magdeburg Province come the election, waved his hand. “The ‘ties to the business community’ mean that she’s very much on the conservative wing of our party.”

Strigel wasn’t. He was CoC all the way.

Ed stood up and walked to the easel, grabbing a piece of colored chalk from the tray. “Take a count. How many of the provincial heads of the USE as of this date are Catholic?” He started through the list. Lutherans, sure, even if they were as nominal in their attachment as Strigel himself. Calvinists, yes, even if they were as nominally attached to Presbyterianism as Mike Stearns. Catholics, no. As of this autumn of 1634, not a single one.

“Face it.” Ed waggled the chalk. “The emperor isn’t going to be thrilled by my nomination as Mike’s replacement, and neither are a lot of the Thuringian Lutherans. Most of the Catholics in the SoTF are down in Franconia, and will be voting the Ram ticket. One of the few balances we have is that Ableidinger is a Lutheran political leader in a mostly Catholic region, and he’s agreed to make sure that anyone they nominate for SoTF president on the Ram ticket is Lutheran too. It’s jiggering and gerrymandering in a way, but it should tilt things the way we all want them to come out next February. But—and this really is important, Mike, whether you like it or not—Helene’s Lutheran. Having her on the ticket as VP will make the prospect of a Catholic head of state in the USE’s largest province a lot more palatable to Gustavus—and a lot more palatable to a lot of the uncommitted voters in the SoTF.” He looked at Strigel. “We’re going to need the independent voters and the fact that she is on the conservative wing of the FoJP will appeal to them.”

Albert Bugenhagen, who was slated as the party’s candidate for mayor of Hamburg and thereby a member of the USE upper house, nodded. “He’s right, Matthias. I’m CoC, but I’m rational enough to know that Hamburg can’t survive without the money that comes in from shipping and transshipping, making and selling.”

Mike shook his head. “I don’t like this mixing of politics and religion.”

Ed wiggled the chalk this time. “You can work on separating church and state, but you’re not going to manage to separate politics and religion. That’s a lost cause. We’re living in a real world, not some kind of abstract revolutionary perfection. Helene’s not only Lutheran, but she’s pretty much a Philippist Lutheran, on the more liberal end of their theology. A lot more of the local Lutherans in the SoTF sympathize with Philip Melanchthon’s ideas, or tend that way, rather than with Matthias Flacius Illyricus, even if the Flacians do make more noise. The Flacian base is more in Saxony and Pomerania.”

Mike frowned. “I haven’t met either of those people.”

Becky patted his hand under the table and whispered, “That’s because they’ve both been dead for more than fifty years. I hate to classify any theological treatises as a case of, ‘the evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones,’ but the disputes between their followers in the decades since then definitely put their differences of opinion into contention for that status.”

Mike took a visual survey of the FoJP leadership on the national level.

“Go for it,” he said.

Grantville, November 1634

Ed circulated the list of former vice presidents of the United States of America around the table.

Chad Jenkins blew the foam off his beer. “Damn, but that’s a lot of dead white men, as Melissa Mailey would say.”

“Some of them are probably still alive, back up-time,” Walter Goodluck said placatingly.

“Even so. Who the hell was Hannibal Hamlin?”

December 1634

Everything was over but the shouting, at least as far as the convention was concerned. The acceptance speeches were still to come, and then the big party. It hadn’t been the best time of year for people to travel, given the weather. On the other hand, it was about the best time of year for farmers to be able to get away from their villages for a while and the Grange had really pushed the importance of active political participation, so they’d had a good turnout.

Ed and Helene were standing behind the podium, waving.

Henry Dreeson, behind the stage in the middle school auditorium, waiting his turn to come out, folded his hands over his little paunch.

“There was one more thing I thought of when I took another look at that list of American vice-presidents that Ed handed around, Hardegg.”

“Yes?”

“A lot of them, I’d never heard of.”

“Same here.” Hardegg’s command of up-timer idioms was improving rapidly.

“The rest of them—the ones that I had heard of . . .”

“Yes?”

“Something happened to the guy at the head of the ticket. Remember when we were talking about Lyndon Johnson? They’re called ‘presidents’ now.”

****

Orlando Delivers

Written by Sarah Hays and Terry Howard

On the road to Augsburg, late May 1636

"Stare allerta!" the caravan lookout cried, as bandits boiled out of ravines on either side of the trail. "We are attacked! Robbers! Bandits!"

Orlando Rosalez glanced first one way then the other. Neither direction offered escape; ahead of him lay just over half the caravan, behind him the rest. The bandits would arrive before he could get away. From the left he counted four; from the right half a dozen, but those had twice as far to run before they reached him. He concentrated on the nearer group, hearing his father's voice in his memory.

"When the bandits come, run. When you cannot run, fight." As a pair of the caravanner's hired guards stepped up to block the oncoming foursome, Orlando listened to his father's remembered voice : "Fight just long enough to get away, son."

The caravan guards' advance delayed the four brigands. Orlando's wheel-lock pistol, steadied over the back of his donkey, went off in a blast of choking smoke; he never knew whether he hit the man he'd aimed at or not. He pocketed the empty pistol, out of habit, on the saddle and drew his rapier.

The thickest smoke didn't so much clear as split open, showing him an oncoming giant bearing a club raised overhead in both hands. If it connected, Orlando had no doubt he'd be driven into the ground.

"Hell," said Adolfo Rosalez de Carcassia in his son's memory, "needs fuel, son. That's why Adonai made so many Gentiles. When all you can do is die, an angel will guide you home. Take as many of the sons of dogs with you as you can, eh?"

Adolfo, three years ago, had taken four with him.

"I guess it's my turn to see what an angel looks like, Papa," the young Jew murmured, stepping quickly forward inside the blow and turning sideways to meet his foe.

The club came whistling down, but by the time it landed Orlando's head had moved. The blow glanced off its moving target, striking instead the top of his shoulder, driving him to his knees. Orlando thrust the blade of his rapier before him as he fell. It went through his opponent's belly.

With a cry he fell, his heavy body covering Orlando from view. His club hit Orlando's thigh with all his weight behind it. But Orlando didn't feel the pain; he wouldn't know about that injury, or the slice above his ear, or his dislocated shoulder, until he could be wakened. First the caravan guards had to drive off the rest of the brigands, then they had to find Orlando. Then they had to figure out he hadn't been killed, and get the body of the bandit off him.

Then they had to wait for him to wake up.

****

"Tell Jano he's coming around."

Orlando opened his eyes. Above him stood the owner of the caravan he had joined to cross the Alps. Hostility and anger boiled off a man usually noted as tranquil and uncommonly reasonable. "What did you have on your ass," he demanded, "that got three of my men killed?"

"What?" Orlando asked, puzzled.

"Three of my men are dead. Once the bandits made off with your ass they fled," Jano snarled. "What were you carrying? Gold? Gems? Had you mentioned valuables I would have charged you for extra guards. Now your treasure is gone, three of my men are dead and seven more wounded, and it's all your fault! What did you have?"

"A book."

"A book? Was it covered in gold and studded with gemstones?"

Orlando started to shake his head. Pain stopped him. He started to shrug. Pain stopped him. He settled for speaking softly: "A rich man, an American up-timer in Augsburg, just bought this book from a dealer in Venice. I'm delivering it."

"You're hand-carrying a book to Augsburg, from Italy?" Jano began to yell. "You do not hand-deliver just a book!"

Orlando protested, "It is just a book. In the up-timers' world something happened to make this book special. Now, here, it is just a book—a beautiful book, and one of a kind, but nothing more."

The caravan master's jaw worked. "So much trouble for just a book?"

"Well," Orlando conceded, "Some people screamed bloody murder because the dealer sold it to a Gentile." He didn't add many others had screamed the book should be destroyed, nor how the Doge of Venice had what he believed to be the original safely deposited in his library. Orlando doubted the notion of abomination and blasphemy as surely as he knew the Doge possessed only a copy. "At least two or three cardinals want it. A dozen more people would want it if they knew about it."

"So you brought this book on my caravan?" Then he glanced at the man treating Orlando's wounds. "How is it?"

The man laughed. "He's not cut. Just one whopper of a bruise."

"Can he walk?" the caravan master asked.

"Sure, he can walk. It's going to be very sore and he might limp, but not much."

Glancing back to Orlando, the caravan master said, "I've got all the injured I can carry. Walk, or stay here."

Before the caravan master could stalk off, the guards' captain came up on a horse. Jano shifted his gaze to this target. "Yes?"

"You're right," the man said flatly. "Alfredo's band attacked us. But you knew to watch for them, when you didn't find his man waiting in the usual place to be paid off. The party with the ass went one way, the rest of the band another. I got a good look at them going over the ridgeline, Alfredo bringing up the rear."

"I hoped he'd retired." Jano sighed. "Move out. We've got lost time to make up for."

The guard looking at Orlando's thigh helped pull him up. "Here," the fellow said, handing Orlando the club, "you'll need a walking stick. If I was you I'd keep the thing as a good luck charm."

Somewhere in an Apennine pass, a few days later

Orlando sighed, sliding from his saddle. He slipped his mule's bit to let the beast drink, and stepped upstream to dip a pan into the water for himself. Orlando hadn't stayed with Jano's caravan. He wanted to follow the thieves' trail in its freshest hours. He bought a pair of horses from the guards, and took off on an overpriced horse in his travel-worn boots. When his horses wore out, he'd traded for a mule and the other supplies he'd need to travel light. He'd no idea where this trail might lead; a mule did much better over rough ground than a horse.

Orlando glanced at the sky and saw three stars, marking the official start of the Sabbath. He whispered a promise to say a prayer later and spoke to the mule.

"At least you can rest awhile." He hobbled it to graze while he made himself a meal. Not bothering with a large open fire, he struck a spark from flint-and-steel and teased the frayed edge of charred rag wick in the little brass lamp he had purchased at the caravansary to flame.

While he waited for the water to boil he murmured a prayer. Once the water boiled he divided it, leaving a little in the pan to keep warm against the needs of washing-up.

Orlando finished his meal then cleaned and packed away his gear, and glanced at the moon. Perhaps an hour had elapsed since he'd set the mule to graze. He wanted to give the sentry, if his quarry had set such a precaution, about that much longer to grow inattentive. He opened his saddlebag and drew out his cloak, turned its darker lining to the outside, and wrapped it around himself. He slipped off his boots to rest his stocking-feet among rocks still warm from the cooking lamp.

Some time later he woke, feet now cold. A glance at the moon showed he'd slept longer than he'd meant to; but the night's clear sky provided enough visibility to find the mule. He undid the hobbles, replaced his saddle, and convinced the mule to accept the bit so he could lead his mount as he approached his target.

****

So, they'd posted a sentry. But Orlando's patience paid off: the man leaned against a tree, head on his chest, softly snoring. Orlando looped the mule's rein over a branch. He crept quietly round where the four travelers' horses had been tied up for the night, and carefully slipped the long rope looped through all their headstalls from its moorings. He'd hoped to find his ass on this picket line, to no avail. Orlando led the picket string down to the creek, pulled off all their tack, and left them to graze or roam as they pleased. Within a quarter hour he'd deprived the horses' riders of their use and come back to the camp where the sentry still sat, fast asleep.

Orlando studied the fire-lit circle. The sentry's blanket lay empty on the fire's far side; beside it he could see another, snugly wrapped over a slim shape. No packages there; the sleeper nearest him had similarly taken full advantage of his meager bedding. The fourth form sprawled, half-on, half-under, a cloak instead of a blanket. He turned to the saddles; the first boasted no bags at all, but a pouch looped over the horn, too small for the prize Orlando sought. The second lacked even so little room for cargo. The third bore a bundle.

Slipping quietly around the camp, Orlando reached the saddle and cut the thin leather string holding the bundle, slipped the covering off, and grinned. A moment later he'd secured it across his back; another moment sufficed to ensure he left nothing valuable on the last saddle.

Orlando slipped away, worked his way quietly back to the mule, and departed in the moonlight, thoroughly pleased. He walked a hundred paces before he swung into the saddle.

Not wanting to attempt the passage over the mountains alone, Orlando continued south. Picking up another caravan or even returning to Venice seemed like a good idea. He did not wish to make another mistake; his last had nearly ended up killing him. He'd stolen back his book from people who'd already shown themselves ready to risk life, limb or prison.

The moon set; beneath his saddle the mule slowed, not out of a normal reluctance to work but genuine weariness. Orlando took stock of his surroundings. Half a mile behind him the trail he rode clung to the edge of the mountain like a burr to a homespun stocking; before him, it narrowed.

On his right the slope spun down steeply into blackness. To his left a fold in the face of the stones led upward. Orlando slid out of his saddle and cinched the strings of his prize more tightly, then led the mule into the defile. A couple of mule-lengths from the trail, he looped the rein over a stubby branch, turning back to check for tracks. With a wisp of brush he erased the marks of his passage away from the well-traveled route. Presently the mule began to reach toward nearby graze.

"It's too soon. Come on," Orlando said, and led the mule upward again. When he could see over the peak, at least partially, he drew a breath. No one, canny soldiers of fortune or otherwise, waited there. A boulder twice his height marked the shoulder of the slope; he circled it, silently, one careful step at a time. No one waited on the far side. The view he had from here, of the valley below and the trail across it, would take a man's breath away in daylight, Orlando thought. By starlight, he could tell only that so far, at least, he and the mule had the place to themselves . . . except for the wildlife.

The boulder sheltered a hollow a little wider than Orlando's outstretched arms, perhaps twice as tall as a man on muleback; from the hillside wall ran a fast trickle of water, collecting where it had worn away the stone. Overhead a sleepy-sounding bird complained as Orlando led the mule into the space, but finding them harmless, subsided. Past the crevice between boulder and mountainside, a little hollow opened toward the stars; it might reach twenty feet long and half again as wide, its walls barely less than straight-up cliffs. Knee-deep grass covered its floor.

Orlando hobbled the mule, parked himself in the narrowest part of the entryway, unrolled his cloak and murmured a lengthy and apologetic prayer.

****

Twelve days and nights of similar travel, daring difficult passages to avoid roads where ambushes could be set, ensued. Orlando came to think of the mule with some affection; it proved a faithful beast of burden, if not a companionable one. Seeing the valley below, Orlando understood why the longer, steeper, less traveled route existed.

"Well," he told the mule. "A few hours more, and you'll have a stall, with water and grain and somebody to brush you. A bit of luck and you might even get to stay there three or four nights, eh?" The mule, after the manner of its kind, did not answer. Fallow fields, vacant towns and weathered bones, presumably left by plague, explained the empty trail. Orlando rode onward. "Might be I've mistaken our chances," he told the mule. "We could have to do without a stall or bed again tonight."

Crossing two more ridges, he left the devastated valley behind before coming to a run-down inn.

"A Jew's money spends as well as a Gentile's," the gray, work-worn host said flatly. "I'd as lief take yours as not. Custom's not easy come by, lad. My business has been slow since the last full moon."

Curiously, Orlando said, "What makes you think I'm a Jew?"

"Cut of your clothes, boy," the man lied. The tale of the Jew with golden book full of treasure maps, worth a fortune to any prince of the true church, had made its way even here. "Either you're a Jew or you stole them from a Jew. You don't have the manner of a thief."

Orlando left his mule with the lass in the stable, then trod cautiously inward. A group of young men carried on over bowls of stew and mugs of . . . something . . . passing hunks of dark bread to one another and carving thick slices from a slab of cheese in a platter on the bar.

"Buy an ale, stranger," advised the slightest of the customers. "Bread and cheese come with."

"All right."

The crowd studied him a little more carefully after he let a small coin fall on the bar with a chiming sound. A woman who might've been the innkeeper's wife—or sister—picked up the coin. "Help yourself," she said, handing him a bowl. "Stew's on the hearth. I'll bring your ale to your table."

He nodded, and then used his dagger on the cheese. He cut a triangular slice, broke it in half and tucked it into his bowl. The stew had onions, garlic, and bits of something green in the gravy with the long-cooked, soft white beans. Orlando tore half his fist-sized hunk of bread into bits and stirred them in.

The woman brought him a wooden mug. Cautiously, he sipped; the taste ran like fire down his throat. He ate, sipping as he went, rationing his bread to match the drink and stew, until bowl and mug held no more. Then he set his dishes down.

"Thanks," he murmured to the stable-girl, now waiting on his table. She dimpled at him, a child of ten or maybe twelve.

"Welcome," she said. "The mule's fed and brushed and watered, like you asked."

"Thanks. Where will I find my night's lodging?"

"Upstairs," she said. "I'm to show you when you're ready. Mika'll see to the others."

"I'm ready now," Orlando said quietly.

The girl led him up a narrow, winding stair to a sturdy planked door, pulled a string and shoved her hip against the edge. One long wall sported three short shelves, ranging up from waist-height; a basin and jug stood on the lowest. The next one up lay bare; the third, not much more than a handsbreadth wide, sported an oil lamp. The girl offered him a candle.

"Haven't had oil for the lamps for a spell, but the chandler down the way sells these cheap," she said. Gravely, Orlando thanked her. "The latch works on a string. You'll need to loop it over this hook if you don't want anyone disturbing you." He nodded, watching her demonstrate. "Now if there's nothing else you need . . . Oh, under the bed's a necessary," she said. "See you downstairs in the morning, then."

With a sketch of a curtsey, she fled. Orlando tied his latchstring tightly.

****

What he wanted most in all the world amounted to a long hot bath and a good night's sleep, but he doubted he'd have either until he'd delivered the book to his cousin's buyer in Augsburg. He finished his prayers, hung his saddlebags from the wall-hook, and considered the bed. It actually didn't have visible bugs writhing in the wrinkles of the blankets; indeed, he couldn't smell anything vile on the bedclothes. He moved the candle for a better examination, ignoring a knock at his door.

"Faith," he murmured to the night. "No bugs at all?" He studied the rest of the room's furnishings: four hooks in the wall by the door, the (for a wonder, empty) necessary vessel under the bed, a curtain he could drop over the window by undoing a string, and what looked for all the world like a washcloth and towel, rolled up neatly on the shelf behind the basin and pitcher. And the pitcher, when he checked, actually held warm water! "Well, well, well," he said tiredly. "I believe I'll have a night's rest, anyhow. A bit of a wash-up won't hurt, either."

Another knock came at the door. Orlando sighed. "What is it?"

"Did you want anything else tonight, Mister?" The voice didn't sound like the stable-maid's, nor the woman who'd brought ale to his table.

"More water, in a bit," he said. "I'll set the pitcher out."

"All right," the voice answered. Orlando grinned. She sounded disappointed.

One of the little pouches in his saddlebags provided him a lump of soap the size and shape of an egg, his razor, and a comb. He lathered the soap, then tackled his ablutions, a hint of a reckless grin on his face as he worked, glad he'd first seen the too-young stable-girl and the too-old crone of a common-room hostess. Otherwise he'd have hoped for a little easy company, perhaps.

Twice Orlando emptied soapy water from the ewer and wrung out the cloth before he felt he'd done his best to clean himself. Wiping out the basin with the rag last, Orlando wound the towel around his waist, knotting it at a catty-cornered fold. It flapped against his thighs, eight inches above his knees. He rinsed the basin, put away his tools, and poured the last of the clean water into his own mug. Then he untied the string to set the pitcher on the landing.

Out of the shadows stepped a girl, her eyes as big as saucers. She wore a shift so thin he could nearly see through it. Not the stable-lass, this girl might have been her sister. Now she asked, "Can I do anything for you?"

"I want more water," Orlando said. "Is there a laundress here?"

"Mika does our washing. Tomorrow is the regular day," the girl said. "Do you want clothes cleaned? I can take them down to her for you."

He bundled his slops and hose into his shirt. "These, then, if you please," he said. "Once they're dry I'll be on my way."

She reached out, running one hand along the muscle of his arm as she took the bundle with the other. "I wish you could stay longer with us."

He laughed gently. "I am a man working for another. My time is not my own, but if it were I might stay . . . with you."

She pulled the clothes against her chest. "I might like that."

He watched her bend to lift the pitcher, the outlines of her body barely hidden by the shift . . . and nearly didn't see the club whistling toward his head. For the next little while things moved very fast. In the room's half-shadows, Orlando didn't recognize the face of the man pushing in, but he couldn't miss the glint of a blade. The thug's rush bore him back beyond the bed, where he could not reach his own sword.

He slammed his own head into the face of the man who'd tried to stab him. With a cry the fellow fell back and dropped the dagger. Orlando did not dare look for it, for the assassin grabbed Orlando's own sword and swung it blindly like a club. It hit nothing but one stone wall of the tiny room; its wielder cursed as the blow reverberated into his hands and arms.

Desperately, Orlando yanked the curtain down from the arrow-slit, swinging the slender pole like a mace on the end of the ragged material; far more by luck than design, the stick struck his attacker in the eye. The man fell toward Orlando, who shifted his grip from the rag to the branch, his motion from a swing to a stab, and drove the end of the curtain rod into the man's eye. A strangled scream followed; Orlando twisted his grip, breaking the stick. The man kept screaming, unable to do more.

Fueled by desperation, Orlando grabbed his fallen sword and turned to face the new flickering light in the doorway. He found himself staring straight at the innkeeper. The startled man held a light, expecting to greet the triumphant young tough from his dining room. He'd depended on his lamp for light to finish Orlando's murder. Now the innkeeper's eyes went wide.

"Please," the man got out, ashen-faced and white-lipped, "please, good sir, I heard a noise and came to see. That's all. I had nothing to do with this. You must believe me."

"Sure. Help me get this—" Orlando kicked the writhing blinded body at his feet. "—out the door to close it. Set the lamp down. You'll need both hands."

The landlord stooped to set down the light. Orlando brought the pommel of his rapier down on the back of the man's head. Still filled with rage and adrenaline, he turned to the girl who'd played the bait. The girl had curled up in a tight ball on the landing, whimpering softly around her thumb.

He jerked a handful of her hair hard; her whimpering ended, replaced with a scream of fear as high-pitched and primal as anything Neanderthals once heard in the caves across the valley. Still she continued to hug her shins tightly with both arms, trying to hang onto the comfort of a fetal ball even though he more than half lifted her from the floor.

She'd played the bait, a knowing accomplice. Had the night's events gone her way she'd have helped murder him. Yet the fear on her face, the total lack of comprehension in her blank blue eyes, her insistence on retreating into a world he could not see, hit him like a torrent off a mountain glacier.

The girl's desirability vanished. He dropped her head. She tucked it against her knees, once again found her thumb, and went back to whimpering.

****

Orlando dressed, collected his things and headed to the stable. He saw not a soul anywhere. He saddled his mule while apologizing and promising it a good long rest as soon as a safe place could be found.

"Wait," said a voice at his back.

Orlando spun, drawing his rapier. At its point stood the lass who'd tended his mule—and by the look of the beast she hadn't done a half-bad job.

"Whatever for?" he asked with some of the viciousness he had directed towards the older girl.

"If you leave now the men who left earlier will ambush you," she said. "That's what they did to my father and brother. Mika is my mother's uncle's widow—when he died she hired my father to run the inn. When we came here to work for her, these men . . . killed my father and my brother. I watched them beat my mother to death outside the kitchen when she tried to stop them raping Luna."

He looked at her. "Luna?"

"My sister," the stable-girl said. "They made her pretend she wants to sleep with you. They planned to kill you while she had you distracted."

"The one who came to my room tonight won't do such things any more," Orlando said calmly. "I'm sorry about your family."

The girl lifted her chin. "Call me Salome. You're Orlando, the Circassian. Right?"

"How do you know my name?"

"I heard them talking about you. Orlando the Circassian and his golden book full of treasure maps."

"Great. That story's probably been told in every caravansary in the Alps by now." Orlando let out a deep sigh. "I won't be able to show my face anywhere."

"If we meet anyone," she said, "best we have some story to tell, that sounds the same no matter which of us they ask. Luna's sick; I'm taking care of her and you're helping us get to my uncle in Innsbruck."

"The truth, as far as it goes. All right, then. My name is Orlando—Orlando Rosales, from Circassia. Son of Jaime Alfredo Rosales, the caravan master, at your service," he said, with a slight, mocking bow. "I still don't know why I should trust you."

"Luna cries in her sleep and talks of Father as if he will return any day now. She only gets up when they beat her. She . . . they hurt her," Salome said, "badly. She's weak and like a baby sometimes. You're the first traveler who's stopped here and lived out the night since my father died. I thought I could get help from the first large group to stop, but there hasn't been any. The word seems to have spread. Doesn't anybody care?"

Orlando listened.

"You can get out over the mountain and down to the caravan route by the back way. But I want to go with you."

"How would you know about the mountain trails?" Orlando asked.

"I don't. Otto does."

"Otto?" Orlando asked.

"Here," a voice came from the hay loft. Orlando glanced up and a boy about the same age as Salome climbed down. "My grandmother is the cook here."

Salome said, "Before those men killed his parents, Otto's papa ran the stables here. I found Otto in the hayloft—I hid there too, the night they beat Mama to death. I stole food for him, and for me, until Mika caught me."

Orlando sheathed the rapier.

"I didn't tell her he's here. We talked about running away, but he doesn't want to leave me behind and I won't leave Luna here."

"Why didn't you go alone?" Orlando asked the boy.

"I don't think I can make it." Otto said. "I don't know how to fight."

"How do you know the trails?"

"Papa took me hunting," Otto answered, "a lot of times. After the plague, business got bad. If we wanted meat to eat we had to hunt."

Orlando nodded. "So what's different, now?"

"You can fight. If those men come after us, you'll stop them." The boy's complete confidence in him flattered Orlando. Charmed, he found himself not wanting to disappoint the lad.

He said, "I'm leaving now. If you're ready you can come with me. If you're not you can stay here."

Salome interrupted, "I'm ready now, but Luna is still upstairs. It'll take me a few minutes to get her down."

"I won't wait. She helped them try to murder me tonight. You're lucky—I left her alive. I'm not taking any chances on her."

"We can't just leave her," the girl said.

Orlando said, "She's . . . not quite right. How will she handle the journey?"

"She's not dead yet," Salome said, pleading. "But she will be, as soon as those two men get back with their friends. They'll kill us both if you don't take us with you now."

"Go get her dressed, then," Orlando said, disgusted with himself for being softhearted. "Let's go."

****

Otto chose trails barely visible, when they could be seen at all.

Orlando quickly dismissed all thought of riding his mule. More than once Otto led where even a mountain-goat would not have gone. Salome, burdened by Luna, scarcely seemed aware of where she trod. When Luna stumbled, missed her footing and fell, Orlando lifted her into the saddle. Salome crawled up behind her to hold her in place.

Several times Orlando, despite having a guide, felt sure he would fall off the face of the mountain. Without a guide he would never have found his way even in the daylight; even with one, after the moon set, he feared every step along the precipitous route.

"Are you sure you know these hills?"

"We hunted all over them," Otto said. "There's a place ahead where shepherds stop when they move the herds. The trail widens. There's trees and grass there. "

"We'll stop," Orlando said firmly. "The mule's tired."

No knots of livestock dotted the slope when they arrived. Even Otto had trouble staying on his feet by the time they reached the shelter the few dozen thin-trunked evergreens offered. The mule snorted, shoving its muzzle into the pool of water in the middle of the grove. Orlando let the beast drink its fill; Salome sank down in the thick cover of needles with Luna below the nearest tree, dull-eyed and silent.

When daylight woke him, Orlando studied their surroundings. The three children lay huddled together like puppies trying to keep warm. His mule, a few yards away, cropped grass with more energy than the beast had shown for days along the trail.

The youngsters gave no sign of waking. Orlando built a tiny fire, then toasted some of the bread. The smell finally seemed to rouse his companions. Salome took bread out of a bag on her shoulder, then showed him a bota. He shook his head; she shrugged and dripped ale into Luna's mouth, waking her.

The mule drank and ate again; Orlando cleaned his gear and packed it away. As they started back out, the trail climbed, narrowing.

They stopped to rest often through that day and night at any place wide enough and flat enough, especially if it had a bit of grass. They walked over trails a horse could not navigate. When they stumbled, exhausted, onto the main trail, Orlando turned south.

"No," Salome said. "We must go north. You're known to be traveling south and they will look for you there. Besides, I have an uncle in Innsbruk."

"Innsbruk is out of my way."

She snorted. "Staying alive is never out of the way."

"All right. But we stop as soon as we find a suitable spot—my mule is nearly as tired as you. Let's find somewhere out of sight. We'll rest until moonrise. Do you have anything to eat?"

"The last of Mika's bread, from the inn," answered Salome. "Ale, too."

They found a small, mostly hidden clearing. By then Orlando himself wanted to rest and eat. They stayed put through the rest of the morning and into the late afternoon. Near dusk Luna woke from a nap, screaming, frightened of the unfamiliar surroundings, alerting Orlando. The younger sister calmed the elder.

"Shut her up!" Orlando said. "And we might as well go on, after all that noise she made!"

But before they could return to the trail, a handful of men went by in a rush. Salome clapped a hand over Luna's mouth as her sister's eyes went wide in recognition.

"That's them," Otto said, running back from a hiding place near the trail. "They're looking for us."

In the next village, the inn sounded rowdy.

Luna recognized the voices of her tormentors, forcing Salome to muffle her sister's mouth again. When Orlando approached the kitchen door to buy bread and cheese, the innkeeper hesitated, glancing back over his shoulder at the noisy crowd within.

He looked likely to refuse until he spied Otto with the girls. "Otto?"

"Yes, Herr Hess?"

"How are your parents, lad?"

"Killed, sir," the boy returned. "By the men in your common room."

At these words the innkeeper hissed to his wife. "A cheese and four loaves of bread. Hurry!"

"Can we buy a horse?" Orlando asked.

"Otto, at the far end of the stable . . . my oldest nag and an older saddle. Quick, now—saddle up and begone." Again he glanced at the noise in the common room as if he could see through the kitchen wall.

"I can hold Luna on the horse in front of me. You and Salome ride the mule," Orlando said. "We need to be elsewhere, and we're in a hurry."

They went on, traveling mostly by night, resting from daybreak until sunset. Orlando bought provisions along the way, sparingly. Luna burdened the horse a little less every day, just as the pack on the mule grew lighter.

Innsbruk, August 1636

As twilight gathered, Salome led the horse through the streets to her uncle's place. Once there, she handed the reins to Orlando, who had been leading the mule, and went inside. Otto stayed on the horse to hold a half-conscious Luna in the saddle.

The kitchen door burst open and a small crowd poured out.

"Damnation," a large stout fellow bellowed at Orlando.

"Wait, Uncle Paul!" Salome practically hung off her uncle's upraised hand as Orlando turned to look at them, dropping a hand to his rapier.

"I came out to cuss you soundly for treating my nieces so foully," the burly man said. "But I've seen men three days dead who looked better than you."

Orlando blinked.

"Even on a horse, she looks more dead than alive," Paul went on. "Hermina, help me get Luna down," he turned to his wife, "and you get her to bed." His wife, a woman the same age but not so broken-down as Mika by far, obeyed with quick hands and a look of pity at her niece. "Someone get these poor mistreated animals into the barn and looked after! Sarah, take the young man's gear to the good room upstairs." Turning back to Orlando, Paul clapped him on the shoulder. "And you, sir, need a meal. You're as dead on your feet as Salome. We'll find you a bath and a bed."

Through bowls of thick stew and stout bread, Salome's family left Orlando in peace. When he finished bathing, someone else's clothes awaited him, his own having been whisked away for washing, although the laundress allowed that some of them really ought to just be burned. Dressed enough for indoor public spaces, he let a maid lead him to his room; there he fell on the bed, and did not stir until sometime after noon. Upon waking he found the chamber pot, then the kitchen.

While he ate, Luna's uncle came in.

"So you're back from the dead, are you? You'll be happy to hear Luna's awake. She's resting. She even remembers her last visit here." Paul's voice grew quiet. "Though she talks like it happened yesterday. She sounds as if she's still that little girl I remember, as if what happened never took place."

He paused. "Salome told us everything, including how she thinks you came to be at that inn alone. My family owes you a debt."

Orlando shook his head. "I'd have never gotten out of that place without Salome's help. Give Otto a place, send Mika help, and we'll call it even."

"I hate to rush you on your way, but I need to tell the duke's men about the murders. If you're still here, they could hold you up. They might take an interest in that book everyone in the carrying trade is talking about."

Orlando grinned. "I see the rumors are still swifter than I am."

"Could I see it? Is it really covered in gold?" Paul sounded wistful. "Is it true it's written in a language only the Americans from the future can read, and that's why no one else found the treasure maps?"

Orlando snorted. "It's written in ordinary Hebrew. Doesn't have any maps in it at all, never mind treasure maps. Of course it's one of a kind and it's very beautiful; but if this up-timer hadn't wanted it, the previous owner could never have sold it for a tithe the price."

"Why did the up-timer want it, then?"

"My boss says he took a notion for it because, in the world he came from, something happened to make this book very famous, and worth a lot of money. That's not going to happen now, but the up-timer still wants the book. There, he could never have owned it, even as rich as he is, because of how famous it became, and what a price it could fetch. Here, he can have it for a fraction of that cost."

Orlando stretched. "I'll show it to you. Can you find me a good horse and a decent saddle to take the place of the nag that carried Luna here? I'll pay for the horse, if it isn't too much; I'm afraid my traveling money is about gone."

Paul shushed him. "What you've done for my brother's children is pay enough, if you want to leave the nag and the mule."

"Hang onto the mule for me. I'll pick it up on my way back to Venice. I've grown oddly fond of the beast."

The innkeeper nodded. "You can leave in the morning. Otto will guide the duke's men back to the inn to see after the old woman there."

Augsburg, a week later

"Were there problems on the trip?" Avram Ben Rubi, head of the Augsburg firm who handled local business matters for the Abrabanels, knew Orlando's journey had been anything but smooth. Every caravansary from one side of the Alps to the other buzzed with one tale or another. A good tale travels faster than any other freight. Many tales had taken wing along Orlando's route.

"Nothing I couldn't handle," a very confident courier answered proudly, refusing to admit that he'd almost lost the package at least three times and nearly got killed twice in the bargain.

"Well, it's good you're not early. Word arrived from Venice three days ago. They want you to bring it back to Venice," Avram said, in a firm, serious, senior-partner voice.

"Back to Venice!" Orlando didn't, quite, shout. "I've been clubbed, stabbed, shot at, and beaten for this book, and now you want me to take it back to Venice? I've gone without sleep for more nights than I can remember, starved and freezing! I've been robbed and nearly killed in order to protect this priceless relic, this precious, one of a kind book!"

"But it's a forgery," Avram said. "We promised the genuine article!"

"Tell the customer it's a fake, or not," Orlando cut him off. "I don't care. He won't ever see the difference by looking at it."

Avram stared at his young associate.

Orlando, one hand on his hip and the other on the pommel of his sword, stared right back. His voice dropped to a snarl. "I'd never have left Venice with this book if anyone could tell it's a fake! You don't know for certain, either. So I'll deliver this book into your buyer's hands, but I'm not taking it anywhere else."

Avram tried to soothe him. "I cannot take a forgery to our client—it's a matter of trust and honor!"

"It's killed at least seven men, Avram, and maimed more than I can count," Orlando exaggerated. Avram Ben Rubi stepped back. Orlando's voice rose and kept rising. "I've been ambushed, beaten, fallen down a cliff and dragged a girl halfway over the Alps, all to deliver this book to H.A. Burston—your client. Now, you want me to take it back! Are you completely insane?"

Avram's mouth fell open. Such passionate defiance struck him as completely out of the norm. Orlando looked at Avram's face. Then he laughed—a laugh half a cry, a laugh he couldn't choke off until it brought tears to his eyes. When his laughter ran out Orlando gasped, overcoming hiccups, endeavoring a calmer demeanor.

"After I hand the customer the package, you can explain that it is not what he ordered. Then, if he says to take it back, I will. Not until then."

Eliyahu, Avram's partner, came into the room at the sound of raised voices. "One of us will go with you to see him, then. Rest, and refresh yourself. Tomorrow is the Sabbath. We go the next day."

Orlando nodded. "Where will I find a mikva? I've time for a bath before sunset, if the mikva is not too busy. Is there a synagogue? If not, where do you meet for evening prayers? Do you know someone who can make room for a guest for shabat dinner?"

Eliyahu scribbled a note. "Take this five doors down, on the left. Ask if they'll find you proper clothes. You look like a Gentile, 'Lando."

"You should see me fight," he answered, a reckless gleam in his eye.

"No," Avram put in quietly, "I'm pretty sure I shouldn't see that, 'Lando. Do you honor your father in this?"

Memory filled the youngster's eyes with sadness, rage, and then defiance. "I honor his memory every day I don't let his only son be murdered, Avram. Every day."

"Forgive an old man," Eliyahu suggested. Like Avram, he could be no more than thirty-five. "Forgive both of us, Orlando."

Orlando shrugged. "Wasn't you who murdered Jaime Rosales, stole his goods and livestock, killed his employees and left his son to die in the desert, was it, Avram? You've no more to be forgiven for than Eliyahu, here—or your client, for that matter. A man doesn't always remember the awful things that happen, if they don't happen to him."

Ben Rubi bit his lip; Eliyahu bowed his head. They said nothing.

Orlando folded the note. "Will you keep the book here, until we're ready to deliver it to your customer, Avram? I would rest to honor the Sabbath, and I cannot do that if I'm keeping this book safe."

"I'll keep it," Eliyahu said. He took the leather bag Orlando had worn around his waist for so long, and shook his head. "So small a thing, to cause such trouble."

Relieved of his burden, Orlando de Circassia smiled. "To think, if one man hadn't wanted an old book, all this trouble never would have happened."

He left their office to seek the mikva.

Later Orlando spent the evening and the Sabbath day in prayer and study in borrowed clothes, while his own lay waiting for cleaning and mending, once the Sabbath passed. Avram offered him a bed in a loft both nights, and Orlando gratefully accepted.

H.A. Burston's home, Augsburg, the morning after the Sabbath

Eliyahu, Avram and a younger man arrived at Horatio Alger Burston's door.

Horatio Alger Burston's name, bestowed upon him by the unthinking cruelty of his father who considered it heroic, and the inability of his mother to tell the man no, had marked Al Burston for life. As a child he answered to Al; now he signed his name H.A. Burston. His business associates addressed him thusly, or he did no further business with them.

His visitors arrived as he prepared to go to church. While Horatio never dishonored the Sabbath, his business associates knew quite well they wouldn't disturb him by appearing on a Sunday. Orlando Rosales de Circassia stepped forward at Eliyahu's introduction, with a beautifully illuminated Haggadah in hand.

"At last," H.A. said. "Not before time!" After repeated delays and excuses, the book he had coveted for more than a year had appeared. H.A. looked at it and remembered the words of Keats, "A thing of beauty is a joy forever."

He said as much aloud.

"Yes, it is beautiful." Avram hesitated. "But, Herr, ah that is, Mister Burston, it is not the book you ordered. This is, alas, but a forgery. As of our last correspondence, the original has been recovered, but remains on its way here."

"Why," H.A. Burston asked in the quiet voice a man uses when he's trying to hold on to his temper until he can straighten out a confusing and outrageous situation, "did you bring me this one now, then?"

Avram paled. H.A. Burston didn't have to be the noble, angry Gentile who could order a Jew's head separated from his body or send him with all his family into the streets with nothing but the clothes on their backs to invoke his almost inborn dread. Indeed, both Avram and Eliyahu knew this man would not behave so. H.A. Burston didn't know how to act like that. Yet Avram's ingrained reaction to the situation would not bow to mere knowledge.

"As a sign of good faith," Avram answered, "and because the courier insisted."

H.A. lifted an eyebrow.

"Yes, he had quite a time getting here."

"Oh?" H.A. said. "Join me for breakfast and tell me about it."

Avram glanced at his associates.

"Eliyahu and Orlando can stay. I must get back to the office," he said. As an Ashkenazi Avram kept kashrut far more closely than either Sephardic Eliyahu, a cosmopolite at ease when eating with Gentiles, or caravan-bred Orlando, who would eat anything with anyone. Avram considered the former highly improper and the latter only dubiously Jewish. Had Orlando not often prayed fervently in his hearing, he'd entertain no doubts at all.

Augsburg, May 1637

Orlando came back to Augsburg via the first spring caravan, with the original manuscript H.A. Burston referred to as the Sarajevo Haggadah. Avram and Eliyahu studied the illuminated manuscript with care, comparing it to the photographs in the magazine article H.A. Burston had provided. Neither could find any discrepancy between the article Orlando carried and the book pictured.

****

H.A. Burston's wife Catharina had finally fallen asleep. H.A. nestled Catharina's fourth child, their first daughter—his second child and the newest apple of his eye—in the crook of his arm a few feet away from the crib beside his wife's bed. Once the child, too, began to snore, he raised an eyebrow at Maire, the nanny. She crossed the room on quiet feet and lifted the baby into her own arms.

"Thanks," he murmured, watching her settle the child next its mother. Standing up, he stretched until his spine crackled, then left as quietly as he could walk to his office; the sun hung half over the horizon. It had been a long night and a difficult labor, nearly nineteen hours of shrieking pain. His daughter presented as a breech birth, with all the complications and dangers such events entailed.

A chambermaid appeared. "Herr Burston, a Jew and an up-timer are asking to see you at the door."

"Don't you mean in the parlor, Inge?"

"I will see them to the parlor, Herr Burston."

"In the future, do that first," he said firmly. "Then come find me. But in this case offer our guests breakfast. I'll be down to meet them in the dining room shortly. "

"Yes, Herr Burston."

H.A. went to the bathroom he'd had retrofitted into the house. A rich man did not live without running water and flush plumbing. After the night he'd witnessed, he needed a shower. But for courtesy's sake, he did not dawdle.

At the dining room table, Horatio recognized the "up-timer," Orlando Rosales de Circassia, whose dress had inspired the chambermaid's confusion. The young man worked his way through a massive breakfast as Eliyahu sat and watched.

"Good morning, Eliyahu. Please forgive me for keeping you waiting; we had an eventful night. Catharina just gave birth to a beautiful baby girl."

"Mazel tov, Herr Burs . . . ah . . . H.A. Do I have the pleasure of being the first to offer my congratulations?" When Horatio nodded, Eliyahu continued, "You remember Orlando de Circassia. He arrived last evening, from Venice. At last we can deliver the book you ordered."

Orlando stopped eating long enough to set a carefully wrapped package on the table. As he gave his attention back to what was left of the six light, fluffy, scrambled eggs with just a hint of dill and chives, H.A. stared at the wooden box. Silently, he stood letting that stare linger. Finally Eliyahu said, "So if we could make the exchange, Herr Burston, we will be on our way."

"No," H.A. said. "I mean to keep both copies. With the delays in delivery, I expect a good price on the forgery. I bought the original as an anniversary gift for my wife. That occasion has long since passed; but it arrives perfectly for giving to her as a birthing-day present."

Eliyahu nodded. Orlando smiled.

"I want the copy for my daughter. I will tell her it is hers when she is old enough to understand that she owns a book she cannot touch."

Eliyahu named a price. H.A. named a much lower one.

They finished haggling just as Orlando finished his eggs, grits, biscuits, gravy and links of the smoked turkey sausage Horatio preferred. Orlando made eye contact with his host. "What your cook does with eggs . . ." He shook his head. "These are incredible."

"They had better be," H.A. said. "He's a French chef. His cooking should be the best in the Germanies, even if I did have to send him to Grantville to study with someone who does Cordon Bleu for fun." He helped himself to some eggs and sausages, took a bite, and nodded. "How was your trip? Less exciting than last time, I hope?"

The young man who'd affected the lefferto style of dress since his previous appearance here produced a genuine smile. "The only troubles were the late snow and the cold of the high passes."

****

A few days later Catharina looked at the two books side by side. "Tio Al, these are exactly the same."

"No, Mrs. Burston, on that point you are quite mistaken," Horatio told her, thumping one of the two volumes. "This is a copy, but still worth a tidy sum. Even now the original there is a very old book, unlike any other, written in Spain two hundred years ago."

H.A. glanced from the newly delivered, beautifully illuminated manuscript past the copy to his wife. She cradled their daughter. His joy of ownership paled a bit, despite the obvious care in the copy's craftsmanship and the historical significance of the original. When he weighed the book against having a healthy wife and child—a treasure Horatio had feared losing more than once during Catharina's unbearably prolonged labor—the thrill of owning the Sarajevo Haggadah faded away like a forgotten tear.

He looked at the two hundred-year-old book. He knew he would forever after think of it, not as some national treasure Horatio Alger Burston never could have dreamed of owning in his own place and time, but instead as the book Orlando had delivered on his daughter's birthday.

"One is yours," he told his wife as he gathered her in his arms. "The other is our daughter's. Both are, therefore, priceless."

****

Northwest Passage, Part Eight

Written by Herbert Sakalaucks

Late May, 1634, off the coast of Newfoundland

Captain Luke Foxe sat at the desk in his cabin, staring at the maps and data graphs spread out in apparent, random confusion on the desk and pinned on the walls. A closer examination revealed a method to the madness. The maps contained handwritten notes and symbols on mineral deposits throughout the country that would have someday become known as Canada. He had acquired them during his visit to Grantville, along with the graphs with volume and weights for various crude and refined metals. He gathered up the maps for the Newfoundland and Cape Breton regions and added a chart that was titled "Characteristics of the Ingredients for Steel and Iron." He sat down and held the chart so the candle lamp overhead gave enough light to read it easily. His eyes weren't getting any younger. For a long time, he went back and forth between the charts and maps trying to reach a decision. The Grantville researchers he'd paid to scour the library, offices and private papers for any hints of minerals in Canada had hand written a wealth of information on the maps. What they hadn't done was tell him where he should search. He finally set the papers down and closed his eyes in exhaustion.

"Do I dare try it? The gamble has so many risks." When he opened his eyes, a paper on the corner of the desk caught his attention. It had been part of the package he acquired in Grantville. It was a short article from an encyclopedia on the "Life and Death of Captain Luke Foxe." Supposedly, he was already dead. He smiled at the implied contradiction. "Well, for a dead man I seem to be doing quite well. I've beaten the odds so far."

Many things had happened since he originally read that article. He was now the Hudson's Bay Company's leader for the settlement expedition to North America and had to make the decisions since Sir Thomas Rowe appeared to have been lost at sea with the Hamburg. He thought back to his conversations with the Abrabanels on how to conduct the exploration operations once they got to the New World. Reuben had said something that had brought a chuckle at the time but now seemed very apropos. "How did that saying go?" Luke concentrated on the memory, "Ah yes, playing with the house's money!" The iron ore discoveries around Christianburg already promised to pay for their efforts. Anything else, from this point, was found money. If a way to easily convert that ore to pig iron or steel could be developed, the profits would more than double. They could ship refined metals back to Europe, instead of ore. For roughly the same weight, they could triple the value of each load. The only catch was that the French nominally controlled the coal deposits around Cape Breton, even if they didn't know they were there. The sailors he had rescued at Ferryland and was returning to Baie de Mordienne would provide an opportunity if he could just find the right way to use their influence. They had already agreed that they wanted to improve their lot, but the specifics were what needed to be resolved.

They would sight the Cape Breton coast in the next two days and he needed to come up with a workable plan. Too bad Reuben hadn't come on the voyage. He always had a crazy plan to solve a problem, just like that offer of his to give land to the settlers. Sir Thomas had almost had an attack of apoplexy, until Reuben explained that giving away some of the land just made the company's land more valuable. Luke leaned back and closed his eyes. Something was there in that thought, if he could just recognize it. Suddenly, he snapped his fingers. "I've got it!" He picked up a pistol he had been using to hold down a stack of maps and used it to hammer on the nearest cabin partition. He called out to his stepson, "Svend, are you finished studying?"

A muffled reply came back, "Yes, sir!"

"Can you come here, please? I need you to do something for me."

"Right away." A moment later Svend entered. He paused to take in the mass of papers spread around the cabin. "I hope you don't need this straightened in the next five minutes. Mother always said I never was very good at straightening up."

Luke looked perplexed before he realized what Svend was talking about. "The mess can wait. I'll take care of it later. Would you please go and find Mr. Barrow and ask him if he would come, at his earliest convenience, to my cabin. The three of us have some planning to do."

Svend nodded and hurried off to find the first mate. Two minutes later, the pair knocked and then entered. John was tucking his shirt tails into his trousers. "You sent for me, Captain? I was just getting ready to turn in. In case you forgot, I've got the late watch tonight"

"I'm sorry to interrupt your rest, John, but it seems I have some work for you and Svend to do before we sight Cape Breton. Pull up those chairs while I finish clearing a space on the desk. Then let me explain what I need. Hold your questions until I'm done explaining."

Fifteen minutes later Luke finished and then waited for the questions. John rubbed his forehead and chuckled. "Captain, you and I have done some pretty crazy things in our day. That time we killed the polar bear with a pike and a pistol when it tried to climb aboard ship from that iceberg ranks right up there, but this one takes the prize. Do you figure we can just sail into this fishing village, ask them to move, and the French won't care if we start mining the coal? If you can pull that off, the rest of the plan sounds reasonable. But unless you have a pair of frigates hidden somewhere, I don't see how it can be done in the long term. What you're talking about is an act of war!"

Svend saw the slight smile trying to hide on his stepfather's face. "Mr. Barrow, I think there's something that he hasn't told us yet."

"You're right, son. My plan revolves around something Reuben Abrabanel said to Sir Thomas. That land is only worth something if it's developed. We need some French partners to act as our agents to secure the land for us and provide local workers. We'll cut them in for a piece of the profits without their having to risk one sou. If my suspicions are correct, things are probably still in some turmoil from the Kirke brothers' invasion and the Compagnie des Cent-Associes may not have much, if any, presence this far from the mainland. If we can keep a low profile, we may be able to operate a long time before someone in France gets wind of our adventure. By then, who knows? Maybe the French company will have gone broke, the king will have died, or we will have our own fleet of warships!" The last line got a laugh from all three.

"John, here's what I need you to do. During the evening meal, mingle with the French and find out what the situation is around Cape Breton. Be subtle! Their friendship is important and I don't want them to feel we're just using them. Anything at all about how the Compagnie is treating them, how they handle trade, what the situation is on land ownership, is important. Even something as simple as where their leaders are and what defenses are used against smuggling could help our cause. If you need to enlist some help, make sure the men understand what's at stake and can keep their own counsel. Do you think that's possible?"

"I'll sit down with Chaumont and see what he has to say over a bottle. He's pretty smart and seems to know what's going on there. If I run into a blank wall, then I'll see about asking for some help."

"Good. I'll trust your judgment, John."

Luke turned to Svend. "Your job will start after we arrive. I want you drawing and surveying as much as possible. Start with pictures of the village and the people to ease any fears. But, I also want views and maps of the surrounding countryside and views of the seaward approaches. Captain Andersen isn't with us, but we will want his advice on whether the sites are defensible and we'll need pictures to help him plan those defenses. We'll also need you to map out the land for future building and mining work. I'll have Reinhardt accompany you to watch out for any trouble."

"I can take care of myself! I don't need a wet nurse!" Svend looked to be on the verge of rebelling.

"He'll not be there to be a wet nurse. It will be to discourage busybodies. The fewer questions asked, the better for everyone. This won't be your typical village we'll be visiting. This is a fishing village. These are hard men, with few women along. A young man like you could easily get into trouble without even knowing why." The concern on Luke's face defused Svend's response.

"All right, since you put it that way." Svend still didn't seem pleased with the prospect.

John rose from his chair and stretched. "If it's all right with you, Captain, I'll get ready for my part. I'll find Rene and invite him to share our mess tonight." Luke nodded and John left, steering Svend out in front of him.

****

Luke woke the next morning, tired and nervous. John had not gotten back to him before his watch and he was apprehensive that something had gone wrong. After a cold shave and a quick meal, he dressed and was getting ready for his watch when John knocked on the cabin door and entered.

"You look like something the ship's cat caught and threw away, Captain! Did you have a bad night?" John acted positively cheerful. "I've got the bosun to handle the rest of my watch, so I could fill you in on what I learned." He sat down and stretched his legs, not saying a word. His exhaustion from a long night was evident. He started to nod off.

After a minute, Luke gave up in exasperation and demanded, "Well, what did you find out? I can't read your mind!"

John shook his head in chagrin for nodding off. "You won't believe it, but Rene was wondering why you hadn't asked him these questions when you first discussed possibilities with him at Ferryland! The local situation is just how you explained it to Svend last evening. It's simply an overgrown fishing camp, with crude huts. There are a few families, but mostly single men. He thinks there should be one or two boats left, if the Dutchman didn't get them too. In any case, their situation is tenuous at best. The Compagnie's control doesn't extend beyond the territory immediately around their capital, La Have, on Ilse Royale. They used to show up about once a year to collect a 'tax' on whoever was there. Since the Kirkes' freebooting expedition, things have been jumbled. The revenue cutter was sunk and not replaced, as far as he knows. France just got the lands back from England and no one seems to care what happens in the farther reaches. The locals would welcome anyone who could give them trade and security. Rene promised that he would give you his full support, no matter what you planned."

"You didn't tell him of our plans, did you?" Luke asked with alarm.

"Rest easy. I said nothing. He's simply worried for what will happen to his people without their fishing boats to support them. He's like a drowning man, grasping at whatever branch is available. It looks like your plans may be possible after all."

"Excellent. Go and get some rest, you've earned it! I'll relieve the bosun early. When I finish my watch, I'll meet with you and Rene and we'll lay out a plan for our arrival."

****

"Land ho! Dead ahead"

Captain Foxe took a quick sighting with his telescope, then closed it with a click and turned to his companions. He stood at the port rail of the aftercastle, with John Barrow and Rene Chaumont. Rene shook his head in amazement, "Just as you predicted, Captain. Those new instruments are amazing. I had some doubts about your stories, but this feat of navigation supports your claims." He looked to the sky and then asked, "We still have good weather and some daylight left. Do you still plan on laying over here 'til dawn?"

"These are new waters to me and I'd rather arrive at Mordienne in daylight. Besides, this will give us all a chance to see what the area looks like. The anchorage looks superb. Tell me, Rene, why didn't you use this as your port, rather than Baie de Mordienne?"

Rene stood with his left leg on a coil of line on the deck, watching the approaching shore. "We thought about it, but Mordienne already had some abandoned huts there when we put in and we didn't know who or what might be here. Besides, this is more closed. Anyone could arrive here and we'd be trapped. At Mordienne, it's more open and we can escape to sea easier. I just hope the Dutch didn't come calling while we were gone. Nothing we had could have stopped them." His concern was written all over his face. "One day won't matter and you're right. Seeing what's here will help me convince the rest of your plan."

"You won't be disappointed, Rene. We have a good military commander at Christianburg who will help build adequate defenses here to protect the settlers and the mines. I plan to send for him right away." John Barrow frowned at the statement. Luke hadn't mentioned this to him. Before he could ask, Luke continued, "John, would you ask Svend to gather up his drawing supplies and start making the sketches we discussed?"

"Very well, Captain." John descended the ladder to locate Svend down below. He could take the boat ashore that was just being lowered.

Later that evening, after the ship was safely anchored, John sought out the captain. Luke was in his cabin with Svend, going over the drawings that Svend had finished that day. John rapped on the doorframe and then entered. "Do you have a moment, Captain? I need to ask you something." Svend started to rise but John waved him back to his seat. "It's not a secret. I just was wondering, Captain, what you meant when you told Rene we would be sending a message back to Christianburg? Are you planning on cutting the exploration short?"

Luke paused for a second, trying to recall the conversation. "No, nothing of the sort! Just a new idea, based on something you said the other night and Rene's reactions today. If they have a fishing vessel still intact, I will try to convince them to send it to Christianburg with some letters. Hopefully, some of the ships will still be there and can take them on to Copenhagen. The vessel could return with some of the miners and we can start work here immediately."

Svend quickly asked, "But what about our voyage to Hudson's Bay? Is that off?"

Luke shook his head, "No, we will still leave for there after we finish this exploration trip. I had already decided to limit our efforts there this season to establishing a site. If reinforcements arrive from home before the winter ice blocks the way, we will remain there for the winter. Otherwise, we will return to Christianburg and try again in the spring. The opportunities here are too good to pass up. If we can get a firm toehold here before anyone else realizes what we're doing, we may accomplish much more than we first envisioned. We would have bases on both sides of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. We could repeat what the Kirke brothers did, but have a much better chance of holding on." The fervor in his voice showed that much more thought had gone into the plan than either Svend or John had been aware of.

Svend still had some concerns. "What about the directors? Are they aware of these changes?" He left unsaid his thoughts on the fate of the Hamburg.

"No, that's why I must send the letters. If they don't approve, all we'll have lost is a season. If they can raise the funds to send more miners and equipment, a whole continent may open up for us. The risk is great, but the possible rewards are tremendous."

John answered dubiously, "I hope you're right, Luke. A lot of lives will be depending on you."

"I hope so too, John. If I'm wrong, I'll still do my best. We'll sail in the morning, once the rest of the shore party returns"

****

The next morning, Rene Chaumont was like a bridegroom on his wedding day. When John started to tease him, Rene was quick to reply, "It's been almost a year since we left. They certainly believe we've perished. I pray they're still there and in good health. If that Dutch bastard attacked the village, I don't know what we'll do." He pointed to the rocky point they were approaching. "We're almost there! The baie is just around that headland."

Svend had spent the morning in the crows nest, drawing the coastline as they passed. He called down to the deck. "There's a small ship ahead. It looks like a fishing boat. It's tacking into the bay off our starboard side."

Rene stepped over to Captain Foxe and begged the use of his telescope. Luke handed the glass over and pointed to the maintop. "Of course, man, take it and find out if she's one of your people's." Rene made his way up the shrouds as fast as his aged body would allow. When he reached the crosstree, he paused. He couldn't wait to go higher. He got a firm grip with one hand, opened the telescope, and tried to sight the ship. After a moment, he started waving the glass and almost lost his hold. "It's the Coquette! I'd recognize that patched topsail anywhere! They're still alive!" He slid back down the stay, ignoring the burns on his hands. Luke met him as he jumped down from the railing.

Rene embraced and kissed him, "Captain, thank you for bringing us home!"

Embarrassed, Luke accepted the telescope back. "I'm glad they're still there. I hope everyone is safe." He looked up to see how the sails were drawing. "We should be there in two hours." He glanced at Rene's hands. They were scorched, but the calluses had kept them from serious injury. "Go take care of those burns and get your people ready. I'm sure they'll want to go ashore as soon as we arrive."

Rene looked at his hands, wondering what Luke meant. They were just starting to sting. "Just like a landlubber! You'd think someone my age would know better." He headed below, shaking his head at his stupidity, to get some grease from the cook.

****

The Baie de Mordienne was just as Rene had described. Once past the headland, the bay opened up, with low hills behind it. In the winter, it would be a dangerous anchorage. Any easterly winds could bring ice and a ship would be trapped. There were about two dozen rough huts and cabins on the hills behind the beach. One boat was onshore, being cleaned of weed and caulked. Nets were spread along the beach and fish was being dried on racks. The arrival of the Coquette had everyone down to the beach. The Köbenhavn was still hull down to the villagers and the Coquette had no way to signal, if the sailors had even sighted the Köbenhavn. As the Köbenhavn entered the bay, someone dockside spotted her. The Coquette was too far inshore with the prevailing breeze to escape an enemy, so she tied up at the ramshackle dock and awaited the visitor. The villagers scattered over the hill in case there was trouble. Luke had a French flag raised to signal that they were friendly. He then anchored a cable length from the dock and prepared to lower his boats to return the fishermen to their friends and families.

As the boats were being lowered, Luke surveyed the small group of sailors on the dock. Everyone held some type of weapon, whether it was a belaying pin or a fish gaff. He walked over to Rene. "I feel like I just went through this scene a week ago. I'm glad you're going first!"

Rene laughed. "See the gal with the spear? That's my sister-in-law, Anna. Looks like she's still mad at me for convincing my brother to come here! Maybe you should do the honors again, Captain." He bowed and waved Luke to the waiting boat.

"Very well. But this is the first time I ever saw a Frenchman scared of a woman." That brought a roar of laughter from the waiting survivors.

"Touché, Captain!" Rene clapped him on his shoulder. "Let's face the foe together!" The two captains descended the battens to the boat. The rest of the survivors, with their meager belonging, and the boats' crews clambered down and prepared to row ashore.

As they approached the dock, the man next to Anna shaded his eyes and then called out, "Is that you, Rene?"

Rene stood up and roared back, "Jacque, your eyesight really must be failing if you can't recognize your own brother!"

Others on the dock started to point and shout. Weapons were dropped in place and the crowd rushed to the arriving boats. The bedlam and obvious shouts of joy brought the rest of the village back to see what had happened. Luke, and the boat crews, were a small island of tranquility on the dock, until the villagers realized they were responsible for the return of their friends and family members. Gallic passion then swept them up in a tide of embraces and kisses. Luke soon found himself in the bear hug of an older, gray haired matron. With Rene hovering behind her, he realized that it must be Rene's wife. Just then, a larger wave hit the dock and it gave a small shudder. Rene shouted out over the noise, "Everyone ashore. We can tell our tale better there and we won't risk getting drowned!"

As they walked toward the village, Rene leaned over to Luke to make himself heard. "I wonder what else suffered while we were gone? That dock wasn't rebuilt this spring like it should have been."

"Maybe you won't need to worry about it if things go as we hope." Luke gave a vague nod toward the north.

"You're right, my friend. We can build a new one there."

****

Supplies and spirits were brought from the Köbenhavn and the celebration lasted well into the night. When the singing quieted, Rene walked over to the bonfire and called for everyone's attention. "I know I speak for everyone here when I say we owe a debt of thanks to our rescuers. Captain Foxe, thank you!" Luke stood, made a small bow and sat back down. Rene continued. "We've been rescued from the devil, but we still face the deep blue sea. With only two boats, we cannot support a village this size, we can't return to France, and we have nothing with which to build any new boats." The fishermen around the fire nodded in agreement. "So what do we do? Stay here and slowly starve or do something about it? The Compagnie has done nothing to help us. From what you've said, they can't even help themselves. The Dutch leveled La Have after they captured us. This village is now the largest French settlement on Isle Royale. Our new friends here have already settled a large group in Newfoundland and have reached an arrangement with the English at Ferryland to support them in the future, too. They have financial backers that see a bright future for this country. They need settlers that want to make a good future for their families. Strange and wonderful things are happening back home. They say people from the future were brought to the German lands with knowledge beyond our wildest dreams. I've seen a small part of this in the new navigation tools Captain Foxe used to sail here. He has maps of this island far better than any available. He asked me to speak to you about a proposal he has made. Just north of here is another bay that is protected and can be secured. It also has large coal deposits his company is interested in. He has proposed that we move our village to that site. They will help build new homes for us to live in and new boats to replace those we lost. What they ask in return is that we supply food for the miners they will bring to dig the coal and the militia that will defend the new port. Anyone who wants to quit fishing and work the mine will be welcome too." Rene turned to Luke and gestured for him to add anything else.

"What Captain Chaumont has said is true. I represent the Hudson's Bay Company and we are looking at mining the nearby coal. We want to be partners with those people already settled here."

One of the fishermen interrupted. "What about the Compagnie des Cent-Associes? We're French and you're Danes. What will they do when they learn about you?"

Luke answered, "Well actually, I'm English, and most of our investors are English, Germans, and Swedes. As for the Compagnie, as Rene said, they seem to be pretty scarce around here. Even some freebooters like the Kirke brothers could kick them out and the Dutch just did it again. I don't see them giving two clipped sous for this area. They just bought the English colonies further south and they should be tied up there for many years to come. You will be just like the English at Ferryland. Abandoned, because new and better opportunities came along for their investors."

"What says you won't abandon us, too?"

"Over forty million livres in steel and precious metals says we won't."

The villagers were dumbstruck. Finally a voice was faintly heard. "Forty million?"

Luke knew he had struck just the right note. "Yes, forty. We have information that indicates where the deposits are probably located and the tools to mine them. What we need are people smart enough to see a future with us."

The first questioner still wouldn't give up. "But who would rule us and protect us? Are you the new duke? And what about a church? We're all Catholic and the Danes are Lutheran. Will we have to convert?" There were some mutterings and defiant stares when the last question was asked.

"Our charter allows us to rule ourselves. Right this minute, in our new settlement, Christianburg, they are drafting the laws to govern themselves. We have cannon and muskets for our own militia and a military commander to plan our defenses. This is a new land and it calls for a new way to be governed. No kings and aristocracy here. And no state church. We have freedom of religion. No one is told what to believe or how to pray. The government can't tell you and you can't force your neighbors, either." Luke paused to let what he had just said sink in. The looks of disbelief were almost comical, if the cause wasn't so serious. He continued, "I know this is unexpected and I don't need an answer now. Talk it over tonight and we can meet again in the morning. My crew and I thank you for your hospitality and bid you good night."

Luke gathered up the crew that had come to the party and returned to the ship. The conversations around the fire could be heard well into the night.

****

Late the next morning, after his hangover had dissipated, Luke went ashore with just Svend and Mr. Barrow. They met Rene as he emptied the night slops. He looked much the worse for the night's festivities. Luke commented, "You look how I feel this morning. Two old men like us should know better."

"Yes, Captain, but how else do we keep the young ones in their places?" Rene winced, but smiled.

"It went well after we left? We could hear some, even out at the ship."

"They all eventually came around. Old Berthe wanted to know if he would have to build a new hut himself. I told him no, that your crew would do it. Was I wrong in saying so?"

"No, Rene. As I said when we spoke before, the cabins will be built before they move. Will they send the boat with the letters as I asked?"

"Yes, they saw the wisdom there. And the benefits too! The pay you offered did the trick."

Luke took Svend aside. "I want you to get an accurate count of how many cabins we will need to build at the new site. Make sure you allow extra space for families. Let them know why you're asking and make note of any special requests. Get me a count of people and a rough idea of the cargo we will need to move. Can you handle that?"

"Yes, sir. One census coming up." Svend went off with Rene to start the counts.

"John, I want you to get with the captain of the Coquette and make sure of the arrangements. Give him copies of my charts to reach Christianburg and find out how soon he can leave." Luke returned to the ship to complete his letters to the Abrabanels and Mette.

****

Two days later, both ships prepared to sail. The few people remaining in the village turned out to wish everyone Godspeed. They would use the time available to finish careening and repairing the other fishing boat. The Coquette raised anchor first and cleared the headland on a long reach. The Köbenhavn took longer, since they needed to finish loading some excess supplies that would be used at the new settlement. Rene helped John stow the gear. An hour later John reported back to the captain that everything was secure. "Very well, Mr. Barrow. Weigh anchor and let's be on our way. We've a fair wind and should be there before nightfall."

"Aye, aye, Captain." As he walked forward, he called out, "Man the capstan and prepare to make sail!" As the anchor broke free of the bottom, the Köbenhavn paid off at her head and followed in the path of the Coquette. When she cleared the headland, she turned to the west northwest and headed for Spanish Bay. Late that afternoon she dropped anchor just west of the river that flowed into the bay. Luke surveyed the shore through his telescope. "It looks peaceful, but we'll stay on board tonight." He closed the glass and handed it to Svend. "Please find Mr. Reinhardt and bring him to my cabin. The three of us need to discuss how we will proceed from here." Svend slid down the handrail to the main deck and then ran below to find Heinrich. Luke remarked to John, "I just hope he has that much energy in two weeks. He's got a lot of hiking and survey work coming up."

****

The next two weeks were a blur of activity. Svend accompanied Reinhardt and the three miners during their survey for the coal deposits. They rowed across the bay, to the town site , Sydney Mines, shown on the map. After an hour of hiking, they had discovered a large area of surface coal that gave every indication that was just the tip of a larger, underground deposit. They spent the rest of the day helping Svend lay out the area for the mine and set stakes for future excavation work. When Svend returned with the maps and drawings, it was decided that the mine would have cabins nearby for the miners, but the fishing village would be across the bay. As Svend had said, "The mine will need a large area for the works and for the docks. No need to have everyone living on top of the tailings. With all this space to use, let's make it a healthier site to start with."

Luke looked surprised. He hadn't expected such forethought in someone so young. "That's an excellent idea. Show me how you plan to lay out these sites." Svend unrolled his drawings and Luke, Svend and the village leaders studied the plans. It took a while to explain what the drawings meant, but once they understood and could relate them to the land, they gave a hearty endorsement. The next morning, clearing began for the new mine and settlement.

Shortly after the first foundations were laid out, a delegation from the village workers came to Captain Foxe. Their spokesman asked, "Captain, I know this may be presumptuous, but we would like to ask a favor."

Luke was surprised by the request but said quickly, "We're all working together. What can I do to help you?"

"Can we include a church in the construction plans? We know we have no priest now, but maybe in the future someone will come." The spokesman stood twisting his cap in nervous anxiety.

Luke relaxed, since he had already anticipated this moment when he sent the letters off. "I apologize for not saying something sooner. A church will go up just as soon as the houses are done. As for a priest, I requested that one be found to accompany the miners. While there may not be a state church, there will be churches for those who want one. I can see this place growing fast enough that that would have been a grave oversight. Rest assured, you will have a priest before the year is out." Luke had to struggle to keep from being hoisted on the shoulders of the group. He was too old for that type of celebration. Seeing the signs of the cross and prayers among the group left him with a feeling that the decision for religious freedom may have been the best decision for the new lands.

While the clearing was progressing, Svend and Heinrich set out with their party to survey the surrounding countryside. Captain Andersen would need detailed maps of the area to decide the best defenses for the terrain. Joseph worked as the scout, and the three miners continued to search for additional mining sites. The fourth day out, they paused near a large pond for the evening meal. Heinrich directed the set up. He tossed some empty water skins to Svend.

"Would you go back and get some water from the spring we just passed? Karl can collect some firewood while Joseph keeps watch." He pointed at the two remaining miners. "Gunther, you and Franz break out the cooking pot and start preparing a stew. I'll follow in a minute, Svend, to help carry the water skins back."

As Svend left to get the water, with his gun and the water skins, Heinrich reminded him to watch out for trouble. Svend told him one mother was enough, thank you. Heinrich then pulled out a flint and steel to start a fire. Karl already had a small pile of kindling ready and in a few strikes, the fire was lit. Heinrich picked up his rifle and followed after Svend. He heard Karl mutter that some fresh meat would be nice for a change. He caught up quickly to Svend. After a short hike they reached the spring and filled the skins. As they walked back, he said, "I think we may stay here a day and do some hunting. Our supplies could use some fresh meat to stretch them out and there were quite a few signs of game around that spring."

"I'd like to go with you, if you don't mind. I've never gone hunting before and father said I should learn from you."

"I don't see why not. I've heard you're a good shot and you seem to be able to handle yourself in the woods. We can leave Joseph to guard the camp." With that settled, they continued on quietly toward the camp. When they arrived, Franz was tending the fire. Heinrich asked quietly as he set the water skin down, "Where's Karl?"

"He went down to the pond to see if he could catch some fish. He said he was tired of the dried meat." Franz poked at the fire, and then added a larger branch.

Heinrich raised his eyes skyward in supplication for deliverance from fools. A commotion in the brush in the direction of the pond caught their attention. They all turned toward the sound. When it came again, Heinrich and Svend grabbed their rifles and raced off toward the pond. Heinrich was furious, "I told him to stay close. We don't know what's around here."

As they approached the pond, they could see Karl struggling to pull a fish ashore. There were already two large ones lying at his feet. He let out a whoop when the fish he was fighting broke the surface in a leap. It was at least two feet long. At the same time, a roar sounded from the brush about thirty feet away. All three men turned to see a large black bear rear up. Heinrich called out, "Karl, set the pole down and back away slowly." The bear dropped to all fours and stared in Karl's direction. Karl just stood there, too petrified to move. The fish flopped on the ground in front of him. Heinrich broke from cover, yelling and waving his gun, trying to spook the bear. Instead the bear started to amble toward Karl.

Heinrich dropped to one knee, brought the rifle up, and fired in one smooth motion. All he got was a misfire. Waving the rifle had somehow dislodged the priming. Without thinking, Svend raised his rifle and took aim. Time stood still as his training kicked in. Aim, lead, hold the breath, and gently squeeze the trigger. The bear was just about to Karl when he fired. The impact of the bullet sent the bear sprawling. It also broke Karl's trance and he started to run. The bear rolled over and started to chase Karl again, but its pace was labored.

In the meantime, Heinrich had reprimed his rifle and took careful aim. This time the rifle discharged and the bear dropped dead in his tracks. A head shot had taken him down. Svend came running up, reloading as he ran. Heinrich motioned for him to slow down. "It's over. You don't need to trip and shoot one of us." Svend stopped and grounded the butt of his rifle. He still finished reloading, just in case. Heinrich walked over and clapped him on his back. "Your shot was excellent, but would have taken a couple of minutes to kill him. Luckily, I was able to reprime in time and get a close head shot. Bears that size are notoriously difficult to kill."

Karl staggered back as they checked the bear to make sure it was dead. "You saved me! Thank you."

Heinrich fixed him with a furious stare, "No thanks to you, you fool. This is why I told you to stay together. It's spring and they are hungrier than usual. To him, you were just his next big meal. Only luck, and Svend's shot, kept you alive. Grab those fish and take them back to camp. I hope you enjoy them, because they almost cost you your life." He turned back to the bear and started to show Svend how to skin it.

They spent the next day butchering the bear and preparing the meat and skin for transport back to the landing site. When they arrived, the story spread quickly. By the evening, even Heinrich and Svend didn't recognize the tale. Everyone enjoyed the fresh meat that night.

****

After two weeks, Luke decided that they had done all they could with the building supplies they had and announced that they would sail as soon as the Coquette returned. "We'll take a day of rest and then start loading fresh water and wood." As they finished loading the last of the water casks, two sails were sighted to the northeast.

The Coquette returned with the Wilhelm. As soon as they anchored, boats were lowered and their captains came ashore to confer with Luke. He greeted them as they landed. "Jan, it's good to see you. How are things in Christianburg?"

"It's going well. Your timing on the letters was excellent. Both fishing boats were loaded with fish and just about to sail when the Coquette arrived. Captain James had copies made of your letters and sent them on both ships. In case something happened to one of them, the other should still get delivered."

"Just like Thomas, always planning for possible problems. How is the convention doing? I know he wasn't happy to be stuck with running it."

"It was finishing when I left. As you surmised, it was raucous, but Thomas handled it well. From what he told me, just before I sailed, the results were exactly what you two had worked out beforehand." Jan gave Luke a cynical stare.

Luke feigned surprise. "I'm shocked, shocked I say! Why would I do such a thing? It was all decided by the people." He managed, just, to not smile when he said it.

De Puyter shook his head in disbelief. "In any case, it's done. I brought the tools and extra lumber we had cut to help start up here. Four of the miners came along to get things started, but will need to go back when I sail. What are your plans now? Thomas assumed you probably would finish your voyage, but won't be worried if you miss your deadline. He said to tell you, just make sure you're there by late July, or things might get dicey for Hudson's Bay this year. That is, if you still plan to go this year."

"Yes, yes. I'm still going. We're ready to sail now. If you and Captain Gilbert would join me for a celebratory drink, I'll fill you both in on where we are here and what needs completing." Luke pointed toward a roughly finished cabin. They all walked over, admiring the work that had already been done.

****

The next morning, the Köbenhavn raised anchor and set off on the remainder of her exploration voyage.

June, 1634, Paris, France

The courier rider dismounted at the Palais Royale, covered in dust from his ride. He hurried up to the sentries with his dispatch case. After a hushed conversation with the guard captain, he was escorted to Etienne Servien's office. After he entered, he handed the case to the intendant and came to attention. Servien quickly read the dispatch from Copenhagen. It detailed the recent military events there. It also mentioned that a fleet had sailed for the New World in March. There was still no news available on what had happened to the previous French agent in Copenhagen, but the Swedes were making things difficult on all potential spies. Possibly, he had been caught and disposed of. The message ended with a note that there might be some time elapsed before future contact was possible. No signature was attached.

Servien questioned the courier. "Are you aware of what this contains?"

"No, sir. I just carried it on the last leg here. I did not open it and received no verbal orders with it."

"Very well, you are dismissed!"

The courier turned and quickly left.

Servien sat down to read the dispatch again and to try and digest its implications. "I think His Eminence may be quite displeased with events in Denmark," he said, shaking his head in disgust. He decided to see the cardinal and bring him the dispatch.

Cardinal Richelieu read the dispatch and heaved a weary sigh when he finished. "The Swede is getting too powerful and something must be done. I fear events here may quickly get out of control." He pointed toward the dispatch. "Too bad about that fleet, too. It seems Villareal didn't stop it like he promised. That will have to be taken care of somehow. Send a merchant ship with powder and arms to Lord Baltimore. The troops and ships with him should be sufficient to erase this minor problem. I don't need another upstart like the Kirkes meddling in our affairs in New France. See to it immediately, Etienne!"

"Yes, Your Eminence." Servien took care of the matter in his usual, efficient manner. The orders to the armory and to the harbormaster in Le Havre went out that afternoon. Within a week, a ship sailed to meet Lord Baltimore at New Amsterdam, with two hundred stands of muskets to arm Indian allies, and five cannon to attack any fortifications that might have been built.

June, 1634, West coast of Newfoundland

The trip along the west coast of Newfoundland was quick and uneventful. The Köbenhavn made landfall twice, once to check for mineral deposits and once to replenish food stocks. Gunther reported that the terrain was favorable, but nothing was found by the miners. Luke felt a sense of urgency. The season was moving on. Coal and iron were valuable, but they didn’t have the appeal that gold fostered. If he was going to get the investors he needed to realize the enormous profit potential of the coal and iron, he had to have the lure of gold. He once more had the cabin covered in maps and paper. The west coast had been his original goal for coal deposits, but the events in Cape Breton had relegated the small Newfoundland deposits to a remote contingency. Their location, and questionable size, turned his attention to the possibility of rare metals along the north coast. He had to find some indication of gold and silver, or his backers, and the miners, could be fickle and desert him. The long term profits from the iron and coal should prove to be enormous, but he needed something now. Time was becoming a factor. He had to make a decision to concentrate on one or two areas or he would miss sailing for Hudson's Bay completely this year. He asked Svend to join him as he reviewed the maps one last time.

"Here's what I have for information, Svend. These markings I made indicate where the up-timers mentioned traces of the minerals we're seeking. They don't say exactly where and how much was found. The writing has gotten smeared and I can't read all of it. It seems the whole north coast has traces, but nothing is positively identified." Frustration was written all over his face and in the set of his shoulders. "I'd hoped a fresh set of eyes might help."

Svend leaned over and studied the maps. "What's this sign mean, by Baie Verte? I can't make out what the legend says this symbol is for."

Luke picked up the map and stared at the spot. "I'm afraid my eyes are getting old," he said. "Can you make out anything better in the light?"

Svend took the map and held it up to the hanging light. He could see something, but it was faint. On a hunch, he turned the map over and checked the back. In the light shining through the paper, he could read the legend in reverse. "It says producing site. They found something there. Some type of mining must have been done!"

"Then that's our destination." Luke called, "Mr. Barrow! Set a course for Baie Verte!"

Five days later, the Köbenhavn dropped anchor off a rocky cove. The high expectations that Luke felt had been conveyed to the crew and everyone was anxious to get the surveyors ashore to start their work. Luke gave them some words of caution before they departed. "I know this area holds a great deal of promise, but don't forget to exercise care." He looked straight at Karl. "Last time you got careless and almost died because of it. I don't want to have to read a funeral service before we get back to Christianburg. Do your jobs right and find what we've been searching for. Good luck. Carry on, Mr. Reinhardt!"

"You heard the captain! Into the boats and let's shove off. Sooner started, sooner finished." The six members of the survey party went over the side and down the battens to the boats. Their gear was lowered to them and they shoved off for shore.

****

When Gunther and Joseph finally came back to the beach and were rowed back to the ship, Gunther boarded with a grim look on his face. Luke hurried over to the railing. He had been increasingly worried about time, since this had taken so long. As he reached Gunther, Luke saw him break into a broad grin. "We found it, Captain! Your researchers were right about the area. There's a stream with paying metal in it and it eventually led us back to the main deposit. It’s a combination of copper and gold. It's not going to be easy to mine, but it should pay handsomely, someday."

When the word spread through the crew, they raised a huzzah and started celebrating.

Gunther took Luke aside to fill him in on the extent of the find. "I left the party at the site. Joseph came back with me as a guide. Franz and Karl are doing some additional surveying and digging to see if there's more indications in the area. This should make our voyage."

Luke looked toward the shore. "It's already been made, Gunther. This just means the workers we need will come. They won't all find gold, but they can all find work." He took Gunther to his cabin for a toast to their find.

****

A week later found the Köbenhavn standing off the new dock at Christianburg, preparing to tie up from her journey. A boat from the Henrietta Marie had just brought Captain James ashore and was tying up. Captain James and Captain Andersen stood at the dock as a welcoming party. The Kristina was anchored downwind from the dock. She and the Henrietta Marie were the only ships in the harbor. Svend's heart sank at the implication. Suddenly, from the fort, a salute rang out and a new flag was raised. Luke had the gunner return the salute with a four-pounder on the main deck.

Captain James called out after the last echo, "Were you successful?"

A grinning Luke leaned over the rail. "In all respects. Summon the settlers, we'll tell the story to them all at once!"

An hour later, all the settlers who could steal away from their duties met in the community hall. Luke recounted their adventures on Cape Breton and then gave the news on the gold discovery on the north coast. Captain James then read the results from the convention and proudly pointed out the new flag. By this time, the cooks were ready with the feast and everyone settled down to some serious eating. When the meal was winding down, Svend approached Captain James. "Has there been any word on the Hamburg?"

"I'm sorry, son, but it looks like she's gone."

Svend hung his head and walked slowly away. With the ongoing festivities, no one heard him mutter, "I still don't think she's gone."

July, 1634, Christianburg Harbor

Under a cloudless sky, the Köbenhavn, Henrietta Marie, and Kristina set sail for Hudson's Bay. Up in the crosstrees, Svend sat sketching their departure. On the opposite page was a sketch of Agnes as he last saw her. He was smiling as he finished the sketch.

****

Second Chance Bird, Episode Three

Written by Garrett W. Vance

Chapter Eight: Sacrifice

Near the Southern Coast of Mauritius

The captain's face was grim as he watched little Muskijl place itself between Redbird and the attacking French man-of-war, a David dwarfed by a terrifying Goliath. It was doubtful God could provide as lucky an outcome. Muskijl was far beyond her class in this match. Behind the looming warship, Analise and Ide were trying to flee to the northeast but Pam saw several smaller ships with elegantly slanting triangular sails in their path. “Lateen,” she said to herself, remembering the word from her far too brief crash course in seventeenth-century sailing. The kind of sails used by the infamous Barbary corsairs. That can't be good. What is going on here? A thundering boom jarred her from her thoughts; the French had opened fire on Muskijl.

“Will we fight beside Muskijl,Captain? The men are ready at the carronade and cannons,” Janvik asked, his face as pale as the wild, skirling clouds that blew before the tailing storm.

The captain watched the battle begin through his spyglass. After a moment of silence he shook his head. “No. Captain Gyllenskiöld has waved us off. He will sacrifice Muskijl to give us a chance of escape. Hard to port; we will make for the west. Have the men—”

Before he could finish his orders an explosion somewhere below them rocked the Redbird, throwing Pam to the deck. She came to her knees but stayed there, not daring to move, hand gripping the rail. The French had trained a long gun on them, a warning not to flee or just a sampling bite of their next meal.

“Jävla fransk kuksugare!” the captain cursed, “Keep steady for the west!”

“She's coming around sluggish, sir! I think they've hit our rudder!” The helmsman's voice was strained as he pulled on the wheel with all his strength. Another crewman leaped to his side to help.

Gerbald turned to Pam. “We should get below decks, Pam, it would be safer there.”

“I'm not so sure about that. I think I want to stay here. I'd rather know what's happening than wait in the cabin. You two go down; I'll be all right.”

Dore nodded. “I have seen enough war in my time, a battle at sea is not so different. I will go to the galley and prepare emergency supplies, in case we must leave the ship.”

“And I wish to go get my weapons. If we are boarded, I would stand beside these men.” Gerbald's voice was barely audible over the cannon fire. Despite announcing their intention to leave her side the two of them remained, looking to Pam for some signal that they really had her approval. After a moment she figured this out and gave them both a gentle shove.

“Go, both of you! I am as safe with these guys as I would be with you. Better we prepare for the worst. Go, and be careful!”

Looking back at her with worried faces Dore and Gerbald hurried down the ladder. Another shot from the man-of-war ripped through a sail, not doing much damage but definitely adding to the tension.

“Shall we return fire, Captain?” Janvik's eyes had taken on a predatory character, Pam was surprised to see a boiling fury there, the man was usually so cold, showing no emotion beyond a constant irritation. They all turned their gaze to the ongoing battle, poor Muskijl was barely visible within a pall of cannon smoke. She listed now, tattered and torn like a toy boat forgotten on the pond for the winter. She had scored a few hits on the man-of-war but the outcome was clear enough. The French soldiers were gathering now, readying to board her. Swedish marines stood proudly waiting on Muskijl's heavily damaged deck, prepared for the inevitable. They would give their lives to buy the fleet under their guard more time.

“No, damn it all, we run!” the captain's voice was filled with pain. “This is a civilian ship, the princess' mission comes before anything else!” he shouted. His tone softening, he added “We would stand no chance, my friend. Let us hope we live to see revenge. Bosun! Report!”

“Sir!” The bosun was bent precariously over the stern rail attempting to see how bad the damage was. “Not good, Captain. We barely have a rudder left; she's held together by splinters.”

Inch by painful inch the Redbird changed its course, exiting the battle with all available speed. Another shot from the French gun landed against her starboard side even as she pulled away. Pam started to get up to view the damage but the captain saw her move.

“Blast it all, woman, stay down! I'd tell you to get below but it's no safer there!" Behind them the roar of cannons had stopped, replaced by the lightning strike crack of musket and pistol fire. They were still near enough to hear the sound of men screaming in agony. Pam tried to watch the action astern but the ever increasing power of the waves slamming into their side made it hard to focus. She felt sick, but not from the movement of the sea. Men were dying today, dying for her and that damned dodo. She fought back angry tears, her hands pale and bloodless as they gripped the Redbird's rails. The wind was picking up, the storm had arrived with untamed Antarctic wrath.

“We've got to find safe harbor before this gale blows us up on the rocks!” Janvik yelled over the howling wind.

“If the rudder holds we have a chance!” The captain joined the sailor at the wheel; now he and the sailor held Redbird on course with all their strength. “Bosun, tell that fool Pers to come down from the rigging before he blows away!”

Redbird pitched up and down like a roller coaster, cold spray drenching them. It became much darker of a sudden as storm clouds overtook them. Pam saw Mauritius drawing closer, still lit by the setting sun, the waves pushing them toward frothing shores.

“Pam!” The captain called to her. She left her place by the rail to stand before him, steadied by one of his strong arms grasping hers. He was dripping wet, his muscles trembled from the cold and the strain of the damaged rudder. “Quickly now, go below and get only your most precious things. There is a chance we may have to abandon Redbird; best to prepare for the worst! Don't tarry! Then I want the three of you waiting beside the ship's boat, understood?”

“Yes, sir!” she shouted back over the roaring wind. Their eyes locked for a moment, icy blue to cloudy gray. The captain managed a smile for her. “Fear not, my friend. Who knows what fate awaits? We have escaped those French bastards and now we may survive the ocean's rage as well.” Pam sensed that he wasn't as hopeful as he meant to sound but gave him a smile back, anyway. This satisfied him, he gave her arm a squeeze before releasing her and turned back to his struggle with the wheel. Pam knew she wanted him to do much more than squeeze her arm but now was not the time for such thoughts. Still, she smiled again despite all the horror unfolding around her. We are going to survive, we must! she told herself.

Pam hurried down the ladder as carefully as she could. Everything was made slippery by the crashing sea and the icy rains that had come to join the winds. After a half-slipping half-sliding journey across the bucking ship, she paused at the rail near the hatchway to the lower decks. Pausing to catch her breath, she stole a look back at the battle they had left behind. There in the distance, still illuminated by the day's last feeble rays, the two ships were locked together, smoke streaming from battered Muskijl in long, orange ribbons. Pam saluted the brave crew that had sacrificed themselves to give Redbird and the rest of their fleet a chance. A great swell blocked the view, then another. The sun set, storm clouds swept low over the world and the tragic scene went to black.

****

Chapter Nine: Redbird Down

Pam was about to begin crying for lost Muskijl when Gerbald and Dore emerged, so she held back her tears to show courage to her friends. Each was carrying a variety of baggage. Pam wasn't sure how anyone could haul so much stuff.

“The captain says we may have to abandon ship. Wait beside the ship's boat while I go get my things.”

"I will go!" Gerbald told her.

"No, you stay with Dore! I'm smaller and I can move faster—three minutes!" Pam ran to the hatch and somehow made her way to the deck below without falling.

Pam was thrown against the wall of her cabin as Redbird listed hard again. She hit her elbow right on the funny bone, which is never very funny at all. Gasping with the pain, she pushed herself toward her desk. "I have seconds, only seconds," she muttered.

Her trusty rucksack was there already holding her most precious gear. Good thing I thought of that. I wish I wasn't right about things so much. She stuffed her notes from the desk and her pencil box in; everything else was replaceable. Her flashlight was on her bed; she grabbed it just as the boat listed again, this time throwing her to the wet and sloshing floor. She saw her grandmother's walking stick lying on the bed against the wall; sadly it would have to be left behind. There was no way she could hang onto it and get herself back topside; she would need both hands to navigate the dangerously tossing path. She shoved the flashlight into her rucksack, zipped it shut and shrugged it onto her back. Seawater slapped hard against the small portal. She realized she was standing in eight inches of sloshing seawater now, the ship must have sprung a leak from one of the cannon hits. It was time to go!

Back on deck the scene was mayhem. The waves were driving them closer and closer to the rocky shores of the island. Dore was clutching a large wicker basket as if it were a darling infant, while Gerbald helped load the ship's boat, a narrow pinnace, along with several of the marines while the sailors struggled to keep Redbird alive. Pam could barely see the captain through the rain and darkness. She thought she heard cannon fire again but it was the impact of massive waves on cliffs. Mauritius towered over them like an unfriendly giant, illuminated by eerie flashes of blue lightning.

The bosun arrived, his usually cheery face flushed and lined with worry. “We are abandoning ship! All hands to the pinnace!” The sailors grimly dropped whatever they were doing to make ready for launch. Pam couldn't imagine how this was going to work in these wild seas. She told herself to breathe and to trust in these good souls who she had come to love on their long voyage together. She was angry, too, but there was no time for that now, she knew she must focus on each moment or it may become her last.

"Come, my friends, get in, get in!" he told them. The first mate was holding tight to the line, his face gray with the strain, trying to keep the pinnace steady.

"The captain!" Pam cried, looking back at the man who now stood alone at the nearly useless wheel, buying them what time he could before the rocks could take her. "Captain!" she shouted, louder, frantically trying to get his attention.

He waved them off frantically. "Go, go now!" His words were barely audible over the crashing seas.

"He will do as he must; you can't help him! Now get in or we all die here!" the bosun shouted. With a firm hand, he half pushed, half helped Pam into the swinging pinnace. The small craft bucked and leaped on its lines. She and Dore collapsed into the boat's bottom on top of the baggage. Gerbald arched himself over Pam and Dore, trying to stay out of the way of the sailors as well as using his own bulk to prevent them from being pitched out.

They were lowered swiftly into the fast-moving water, which caused them to bounce even more crazily. Around them, the sailors and marines climbed in, readying themselves at the oars, their movements fluid and confident despite the raging waves. Pam looked up at the first mate who was still on deck, having seen them safely lowered. He favored her with a smile, the first she had ever seen upon his thin lips.

"May God be with you, Frau Miller." With a swipe of his knife he cut the pinnace loose. Suddenly understanding the risk he was taking for them Pam shouted "Thank you!" as loudly as she could. The first mate granted her a sketch of a wave before hurrying to join his captain at the wheel.

The nimble craft moved rapidly away from Redbird, more steady now that she was free of the ship and fully manned. They rode fast, carried by the marching swells, surfing along like the canoe in that old TV show Hawaii Five-0. The show's dramatic theme song began to play in Pam's mind and she wondered for a moment if she would wake up on her sofa in front of the TV, all of this just an awful dream.

"Thank the Lord! The cliffs stop here, there's a beach. Make for it!" the bosun shouted. The sailors and marines rowed for their very lives, silent and determined to beat the hungry sea.

Pam forced herself out from under Gerbald's protective weight to grasp the gunwale. She could see Redbird through the sheets of rain; some of her lanterns were still lit despite the wind and rain. As the ship spun about and rolled precariously, she caught a glimpse of where the enemy cannon had punched a jagged hole beneath her water line. No wonder she had grown so sluggish. It was a bullet through the heart of her. The captain and first mate were still trying to steer the badly damaged craft away from the rocky point toward the same possible safety the pinnace was fleeing toward, but an unseen rock caught her and sent her over on her side. Pam couldn't see if they had time to leap free or not. The Redbird rolled completely over; the sound of her wood scraping and splintering against the rocks was the screeching music of hell itself. Pam screamed over the gale, her voice driving hopelessly into the curtains of rain that now mercifully hid the wreck of the Redbird from view.

Their troubles were not over. Sweeping twelve foot rollers pounded against the narrow beach they were aiming for. Landing would be dangerous.

The bosun shouted to the frightened passengers and crew, "We are going to try to bring her all the way in but it's ugly—if we go over, you'll have to try to make it on your own!"

Pam looked down to see Dore's face was white and filled with fear, a sight that Pam would have given anything never to see.

"I can't swim!" Dore blurted out, a trace of sob in her voice that brought a gush of tears from Pam's eyes. Thankfully, Dore couldn't see them as they were lost amongst the ceaseless raindrops.

"I can swim for both of us, don't worry!" Pam shouted back, injecting a tone of confidence she didn't really feel. Pam was in the grip of a clutching fear of an intensity she hadn't felt since the time she had stood between a badly wounded Gerbald and an evil man wielding a bloodstained sword. She had lived through that; maybe she would live through this, too. The thought helped quell the worst of her terror.

The pinnace and her frightened passengers sped toward the shore, the white sands intermittently lit by cobalt lightning like some haunted dance floor beneath a spectral strobe light. The bosun ordered the men to row harder as he used the tiller to guide the craft along the treacherous waves. Pam clutched Dore and Gerbald clutched them both, grimly ready to swim if they must. The bosun let out a whoop that had something of joy in it as he turned the pinnace quickly to starboard. Through the rain and darkness Pam could see that the shore at that edge of the wide cove was somewhat protected by a jutting wall of rock, another arm of the same rocky point that had destroyed the Redbird farther out. If they could make it in to the calmer waters behind that the chances of landing the boat safely would greatly improve; and if they didn't they would crash against the very rock that could save them.

"Get ready to jump if I say so. It's going to be close!" the bosun bellowed over the storm and hollow booms of the waves slamming onto the shore. The sailors heaved mightily on their oars at the bosun's hoarse commands, now surfing again along the face of an awesome wave, growing menacingly taller as it reached the shallows. The rock wall loomed ahead of them, waves crashing against it in foaming white fury.

"Steady . . . steady . . . Now, hard to starboard, men, heave!" The nose of the pinnace jumped to the right, well away from the fast approaching rocks. The boat bounced dangerously across an area of roiling white streaked water deflected from the rock face. "Now, hard port!" the bosun fairly shrieked. With a roller coaster flutter in their stomachs they slid over the hump of a smooth swell and into a patch of relatively calm water in the lee of the rock wall. "Brace yourselves!" The prow of the pinnace hit this gravelly section of beach hard, but stayed upright. "Jump to shore, hurry!"

Gerbald pulled Pam and Dore up by their arms and guided them to the prow, Pam leaping first. There were larger rocks amongst the gravel, she felt one scrape the side of her leg and knew it had drawn blood. She turned to help catch Dore, who, still clutching her wicker basket, landed with a heavy "Ooomph" but managed to stay upright. They were up to their knees in clutching, fast-moving water that almost knocked them over, but Gerbald had arrived and used his solid strength to keep them upright. Pam was towed along by the still very fit retired soldier, her arm in his powerful grip. Soon the three of them were above the tide-line standing amongst driftwood and the hearty kind of low brush that thrives along the edges of beaches. Gerbald ran back across the gravelly sand to help the men secure the pinnace. The sailors had gotten lines out and were dragging the boat safely away from the angry sea.

Pam squinted through the rain at Gerbald and the sailors working to secure the pinnace, almost grateful for the ghostly flashes of the lightning show that played across the scene. She wanted to help them, but how? She realized with relief that she still had her rucksack on and quickly doffed it, fumbling around within until she found the flashlight. She handed the bag to a still stunned Dore and said, "Try to find some shelter in those trees just above the beach!" Then she ran down to the waterline, following the narrow but powerful beam through the driving rain. Reaching the men, she tried to aim the flashlight at places she thought would help the most. Eventually the men had the boat nearly to the high tide line and were tying her to the sturdiest trees and rocks they could find. The craft secured as best as it could be they, opened up water-tight compartments that contained a few emergency supplies.

Pam found a relatively flat area of grass among the wind-twisted shrubs and small trees that lined the shore beneath rows of towering palms, which swayed like hula dancers in the howling wind. Dore joined her and they did their best to help the sailors set up a camp, using the pinnace's sail draped over lines tied between trees as a rain tarp. An oil lamp sprang to life, lighting the surroundings in a heartbreakingly warm glow. Pam could now see the faces of the sailors and soldiers she had come to know as friends. They were exhausted and fearful, but there was relief there, too; they would live to see the dawn. Suddenly Pam remembered the captain and the first mate left behind. She came to her feet quickly, feeling saltwater still sloshing in the toes of her boots.

"Get up! Get up! We have to search the shore for the captain and the first mate!" Pam told them. The weary men looked at her for a long moment; there was little hope in their eyes. Some of the marines started to stand before their officer, Löjtnant Lundkvist could growl at them. The sailors stirred, but it was plain they were exhausted.

The bosun's gravelly voice cut through the noise of the still raging storm. "Frau Pam is right. Move your arses, you lazy sots! We have a duty to perform." As one, the sailors rose to their feet, stifling groans. If there were any chance of finding the first mate and the captain alive, they must take it now.

Dore also stood. "Herr Bosun, do you have any kind of foodstuffs in the boat's stores?"

"Yes, but not much, I'm afraid."

"Then I will stay here and make us a supper. You will all need something to eat to regain your strength after a night like this."

The men all gave her a grateful murmur of thanks as they shuffled back out into the night's cold rains. Pam favored her friend with a grateful smile as she ducked out from under the tarp herself. Her doughty Dore was back and working, a glimmer of good in all this night of loss and pain. Better to stay busy, Pammie, because if you start to think too much about what's happened here you will lose it and not be of any help to anyone. The thought of the captain, her friend, and possibly the beginning of something more, sent a knife of fear into her, but the pain made her move faster. Please, oh please let him be alive!

****

The cove was about half a mile long. The gravel turned to softer sand as they left the rocky edge where they had landed. The waves had calmed somewhat but were still dangerous. They made their way slowly through the darkness, fighting the fierce wind, forming a line from as near the pounding surf as they dared to the highest line earlier waves during the storm had reached. Two men carried lanterns, one high up the beach and one roughly in the middle. Pam, walking between Gerbald and the bosun, stayed as near the shore as they dared to, scanning the surf with her flashlight. Pam tried not to think about the long-handled spade the bosun carried and what its purpose might be.

Flotsam and jetsam from the wreck of the Redbird were beginning to wash up on the shore. Anything that might possibly be useful, such as planks and pieces of rigging, the men dragged up to relative safety. A brief cheer went up as they recovered a large cask of a potent Swedish liquor. Upon reaching the far end of the beach they found it ended in a jumble of massive volcanic rocks, making further exploration this night impossible. On the way back to their camp they, found a few more odds and ends, but no bodies, much to Pam's relief. Maybe the captain and the first mate had escaped the wreck and survived, ending up somewhere safe elsewhere on the island. It was a faint hope, but better than none at all.

At their makeshift camp, they were surprised to find a roaring driftwood fire blazing a safe distance from their shelter. The storm had mostly blown itself out and the rain had stopped. Dore was busy clucking over the old cast iron skillet Pam had given her so long ago. It sizzled delightfully on a bed of coals. The heavenly scent of pancakes wafted toward them, mingled with the fine perfume of wood smoke.

"Good gravy, Dore, how on earth did you get a fire started in that rain?"

"Oh, that was nothing, Pam. Remember that I was once a camp follower. I have lived outdoors for months on end thanks to that man there." She gave a haughty tilt of her chin to Gerbald who returned it with his usual shrug of guilty-as-charged resignation. "I took the flint fire-starting kit he keeps in that infernal old coat of his and I found plenty of dry tinder under all that driftwood. It was a snap!" The last line was in English, and she snapped her fingers loudly to punctuate her West Virginian vernacular. "Now, you men gather round and get dry but don't kick sand on my cakes or I'll have your hides!" There was a murmur of assent as the exhausted men gratefully circled Dore's bonfire. Soon they were eating the simple pancakes Dore had concocted, most likely with the help of that big wicker basket and other mysterious baggage she had brought along. Dore was not a woman to be caught unprepared! They were a little brown on the outside and a little mushy on the inside and absolutely delicious.

After dinner those with weapons huddled in a group under the sail's shelter to begin a rigorous cleaning process. It was vital to remove any sea salt from the guns right away. From somewhere in the infinite secret pockets of his sage green soldier's coat, Gerbald pulled out an up-time gun cleaning kit, which he shared with the grateful Swedes. Pam watched him deftly clean the "Snakecharmer" pistol-grip shotgun her son had given him. His touch was noticeably tender. Pam had seen it before, the fanatical love men had for their guns, but this time, as she listened to the wind blow through the fronds of the shore palms, she was glad for it.

The important ritual of gun cleaning accomplished and with a hot meal in their bellies, they all found places on the matted grass beneath the sail tent to curl up. Despite the chill, most soon slept the deep and silent sleep of those who have faced death and lived.

Pam lay awake, watching the fire dance in the wavering breeze still blowing in from the unquiet sea. Under decent circumstances, she would have reveled in spending the night on an exotic island, but now she just felt lost, a castaway in a hostile environment. Even surrounded by her closest friends and a group of highly trustworthy men, a desperate loneliness overtook her because, deep down in her heart, she knew she was a woman out of time and out of place.

Chapter Ten: On the Beach

Pam awoke just after sunrise to find Dore preparing breakfast. She had arranged a pile of volcanic stones into a simple oven and was using it to bake what looked like muffins. Pam decided right then that the woman was some kind of miracle worker. Nearby, Gerbald, Löjtnant Lundkvist and the bosun were conferring about their situation while the sailors and soldiers slowly roused themselves. Pam, her legs and back stiff from the lack of a mattress, lurched over to join them. The Swedes greeted her warmly, glad that she was up and about while Gerbald flashed her a grin.

"Look, Pam, it is just like in The Swiss Family Robinson, isn't it? We are marooned on a desert island! How exciting!" Gerbald told her in far too chipper a tone, obviously hoping to cheer her up but just succeeding in annoying her thoroughly.

"Back off, Man Friday, I ain't had no coffee," Pam warned him in a menacing croak. This just made Gerbald nod solemnly at her medical emergency, but not lose his smile. He always seemed delighted with adversity, much to her and Dore's chagrin.

Pam turned to the bosun. "Any idea where we are, Herr Bosun?"

The stout, windburned Swede scratched at his red beard. He had a stick in his hand and used it to draw a rough map in the sand.

"Not with perfect accuracy, Frau Pam, but I have some idea. We were approaching the south tip of our destination when the attack happened. We fled to the north and west. The storm carried us some five miles, our progress slowed as we were taking on water. So, we are somewhere on the south coast of Mauritius. Even after looking at the up-time maps I have no idea where; they show very little of the island's topography." The sun could now be seen poking its head above tall green hills.

"What do you think became of the rest of our fleet?" Pam turned to Löjtnant Lundkvist, a serious fellow in his early thirties and considered by all to be an adept leader who would go far in the king's service. She tried to keep a growing sense of fear and loss out of her voice.

"Frau Pam, when last sighted the colony ships were fleeing the opposite direction from us, heading east toward the southern tip up the island's east coast. They would have been looking for a sheltered harbor and I recall seeing one on the map . . . I hope they made it that far. They weren't alone, I fear. We saw other foreign sails, of a kind the heathens use. No doubt mercenaries hired by the French to aid in this foul endeavor. There can be no doubt our little warship was captured, God save their souls. We are, for all purposes, still at war with the French.”

"The fucking French. Those bastards." Pam was startled at the seething hate she heard in her words, but it was there. These weren't the charming, beret-wearing fellows seen in daytime TV documentaries about wine, cheese and fine cuisine. This was another age and these were the enemy. She had lost nearly everything; the expedition was in ruins. They were just lucky to be alive and she wasn't sure how long that would last. She looked around at the men gathered, all grown quiet as the direness of their situation grew ever more apparent.

"Gentlemen, doesn't it seem a bit convenient to you that in all this wide ocean, a French man-o-war was lurking around a remote place like this, just in time for our arrival?"

They all nodded grimly.

"Richelieu," Lundkvist said the name as if pronouncing a particularly offensive obscenity, "has spies everywhere. He wouldn't have even needed them this time. Our journey was very public, widely promoted in newspapers and on radio while the princess and her offices were fund-raising for it. As for why he would attack us, I think that's clear enough—"

Pam jumped in before he could continue. "Because in the up-time history this island became a French colony and he doesn't want to lose it to Gustav. Once developed into a way station on the journey around Africa to and from points east, I guarantee you this place will be an economically and strategically valuable holding."

Lundkvist grinned at her. "Well put, Frau Pam. Have you ever served in a military? You seem to have the mind for it."

"Nope, I just did my homework. I spent more time at the library than at home before we left. But the thing I didn't think of that's killing us right now is how desirable this island might be to other foreign powers. I should have bugged the princess to get us a bigger warship."

"Pam, you ask too much of yourself," Gerbald told her gently.

Lundkvist nodded. "Frau Pam, we are military trained and we didn't see this coming either. In any case, another ship would have been impossible. The king's assets are all tied up in Europe. We got the Muskijl only because she was being retired. It was to be her last voyage as a Swedish warship; we planned to donate her to the colony."

Mention of their ill-fated colony caused them all to fall silent, their concern for the colonists weighing heavy on their minds. What more was there to say? It might be another year or more before anyone friendly came looking for them, meanwhile they were stuck on an island where they were heavily outnumbered with no ship. To put it bluntly, we're screwed. Pam kept the thought to herself.

Still filled with anger, she made herself unclench her fists and looked around at the three men, one old friend and two new. She realized that now they were waiting for her to say something. Why were they waiting for her? The bosun's tired and bleary hazel eyes looked at her patiently. Yes, this was a man awaiting orders, a man ready to go to work. More surprising, she felt the same vibe from the lieutenant. She realized that with the captain and first mate missing, she was ostensibly in charge, the brilliant up-time lady scientist who was the designated right hand of their beloved princess. Oh, Hell! I don't want this job. All Pam wanted to do was curl up under a tree and cry herself to sleep. With a kind of mental shove she made herself look up at them and found herself talking, no, giving orders.

"All right, then. Thank you, gentlemen. We must hold on to hope that Analise and Ide won free. We may be shipwrecked but we aren't completely lost; we know what island we're stuck on and the people back home will eventually know to look for us here. We may be outnumbered and outgunned by the French and their allies, but we are far from helpless. I have great faith in all of you and our men. Let's stay vigilant and keep working while we ponder our next move." Good Pammie, you can fake it with the best of them! Her next order was silent, telling her nagging mental voice to shut the hell up, she had work to do.

"We should make another sweep of the beach to see if anything has washed up on the beach overnight." She had hung on that word "anything" for a second longer than she wanted to, thinking of what things might have arrived in the night that she might not want to see. "We are going to need fresh water. Gerbald, can you take that on? This sure isn't Germany but you're the best woodsman we've got."

"Of course, Pam. We may be far from home but this is still the world of our birth and where there is greenery, there is water. I will find it."

"Good. As Crystal would say, 'You the man.'" They shared a quick smile and Pam began to feel better. It was a small, weak kind of better but still a step in the right direction. The Swedes were already heading off to organize the search party. She called after the bosun.

"Herr Bosun, can we take the pinnace out today to see what's left of the Redbird?"

"Yes," he said, coming back to her side "but we must wait for a better tide. Right now it is too shallow. See the coral reefs out there? In a few hours the tide will come in and we can go. While we wait, I will send the men down the beach."

"Taking the pinnace out to the wreck, that's exactly what they did in the Swiss Family Robinson book!" Gerbald was back to his boyish delight in being marooned. "I wish I had that with me now." He sounded like this was all a cheerful Sunday picnic, earning him a roll of the eyes from both Pam and the bosun.

Pam turned to the grizzled seaman. "Thanks, Herr Bosun. When you go, I want to come along. I have to see how bad it is with my own eyes . . . it was kind of my ship, you know?"

"I understand completely. I am so sorry we lost her for you. It is a shame myself and all our men feel most strongly. Today the seas are calm and I believe it will be safe enough. And now, to work." The bosun, with his orders set, sounded almost like his old cheerful self as he rousted the still sleepy men and gave them their morning's orders.

Gerbald stayed with Pam a minute longer, his always startling blue eyes regarding her calmly from beneath his monstrous mustard colored hat, which had unfortunately survived the wreck along with him. Pam met that stare with her own metal flecked grays and said "What?"

Gerbald flashed her a truly sunny smile. "I am just pleased to see you have adjusted to the circumstances so quickly, Pam. You are truly the toughest woman I have ever met, excepting Dore, of course. There is no one else I would rather have as my captain." With that he made a smart salute, turned martially on his heel and marched up through the row of palm trees not looking back as Pam gave him a salute of her own, the one-finger high kind.

"Shit. Captain? Not even! I resign!" she shouted after him but she had a small smile on her lips as she went to aid in the search.

****

Chapter Eleven: The Flood May Bear Me Far

Later that morning the sailors raised a shout from down the beach. Pam and the bosun rushed over to see they had discovered a ship wrecked high above the tideline. There wasn't much left intact, it was nothing but a wooden skeleton really. Nearby, pieces of it looked like they might once have been used to make a shelter.

"Apparently we are not the first to sail, or wreck here," the bosun said, looking around the scene carefully.

"How long do you think its been here?" Pam asked, a note of concern n her voice. Did they have neighbors?

"I have seen a lot of ships and a lot of wrecks in my time, too many of the latter I regret to say, but it's impossible to really tell for sure. The vessel's wood might be some kind of cedar, which could explain how well-preserved it is. From their overall condition, I'd make these pieces to be around a hundred years old, more or less. Just a guess mind you." The bosun cast his eye around the scene with a worried expression on his face. “Still, we can't be sure we are alone here. No one should go wandering off by themselves, although I don't see any signs of recent activity. Best to play it safe, though.” Pam was not comforted.

After a bit of digging around the decaying hulk, Pers let out a whoop of discovery. Full of youthful vigor he soon unearthed around two hundred pounds of wax bricks ensconced in a hollow under a heavy beam. To their surprise each bore some kind of inscription.

"This looks like Arabic to me, but I'm no expert." Pam said. The bosun nodded, squinting at the strange script.

The men made a thorough search of the area but nothing else of use or interest was found. The bosun ordered the men to carry the bricks and whatever lengths of wood that might still be usable to camp. Looking back at the abandoned shelter, he told Pam "Perhaps they were rescued!" with a well meaning attempt at good cheer.

"There's a good thought. We must think positively.” Easier said than done. I have to stay busy or I'm going to go nuts, this is really all just too much. Pam put six of the odd bricks into her bag. Having been too uptight to eat earlier, she returned to camp to see what kind of miracle her friend had produced for breakfast.

First, Pam gave the wax to Dore to see if she could find any use for it, keeping one for herself as a souvenir. Dore was well pleased. "Candles!" she exclaimed and began to bustle about trying to scrounge up something to use for wicks.

“There's a lot more where these came from, the men found them on an old shipwreck.”

“A lucky find, we shall have light through the night now if we wish it.”

Pam sat down cross-legged in the sand under the sun-dappled shade of the palms, studying her mysterious prize. So, others have been here before us. She wasn't sure if that was a comfort or not. Dore handed her a muffin on a plate of banana leaf. At the moment none of that fruit, which grew in abundance not far from camp, were ripe but Pam looked forward to the day. She loved bananas and there weren't any to be had in Thuringia-Franconia. The plus side of being marooned.

Pam ate her muffin slowly. It was utterly delicious, seasoned with a bit of sugar and cinnamon, and just enough to fill her. The real problem was coffee, or the awful lack of it. Her head still felt fuzzy inside even though she had been up and about for hours and there was a dull ache at her temples. These were the same telltales of caffeine withdrawal that she had experienced in the first year after the Ring of Fire, before Grantville had come into a fairly reliable supply of the blessed bean again. It would take a few more days, but the feeling would pass. Hopefully they would be rescued by then, but she wouldn't let herself think too hard about that unlikely prospect.

No one was dwelling too much on that subject. The Muskijl was certainly lost and God only knew what had become of the colonist ships. They had most likely been captured, too. Pam stood up from her place near the fire and tied the red cotton handkerchief she had found in her back pocket over her head. The sky was the extra deep cerulean that can be seen sometimes after a storm has passed and the climbing sun promised to be hot. It felt like it was already around eighty degrees Fahrenheit and it couldn't be much later than ten AM. The sea glowed the intense aqua of tropical waters; the sapphire sparkles at the surface almost blinding to look at.

At least it was beautiful here and Pam began to feel just slightly better, the awesome pageantry of nature pushing her many worries to the back of her mind. Its a nice day, just enjoy it for what it is, fool. She made herself get up, thanked Dore, and wandered down the beach to rejoin the sailor's in the ongoing search and salvage operation. Down at the water's edge, the sea was as gentle as a lamb now that the lion winds had ceased their roaring, so she took off her socks and boots and walked barefoot across firm pale sand through the lapping wavelets.

From Pam's point of view the pickings were fairly slim, but the men seemed happy with every broken barrel and tangled mess of rope they recovered. They found a saw and some wood-working tools packed in a water-tight wooden crate had washed up and they held a brief, whooping celebration at such excellent luck. The tide was all the way out now and just beginning to turn, at the cove's far end it revealed a wide muddy flat dotted with slippery black volcanic rock. The upper beach here was made up of a coarser salt and pepper sand composed of tiny volcanic pebbles and bits of broken coral. Neither surface was particularly conducive to walking in, and Pam definitely didn't like the feel of the mud oozing between her toes. After rinsing her feet in the sea as best she could she put her footware back on, taking a moment to be very thankful she had been wearing her best waterproofed boots when the wreck happened.

Shortly, Pam whooped aloud herself when she saw a small barrel floating along the water's edge. The sailors got there first and were checking its contents as Pam ran through the splattering muck to join them. Please be coffee, please be coffee, Please be coffee! she prayed earnestly. It turned out to contain sugar, which was no bad thing, so Pam did her best to hide her disappointment.

Pam continued to follow the waterline closely, scanning the shallows. There were countless black crabs scurrying about the rocks, Pam thought they might make a decent meal if they could be caught. She was startled for a moment by a long, brown tube shaped object half hidden in a clump of kelp. A sea snake? She approached carefully, then let out a peal of delight as she realized the menacing looking creature was in fact her grandmother's gnarled oak walking stick! After flicking off sticky bits of seaweed she found the tough old thing damp but no worse for wear. Pam clutched the familiar item with both hands and held it to her breast.

Memories of her grandmother flooded into her mind, the long birdwatching walks they had taken through the mellow West Virginia countryside, her grandmother's gentle voice listing the many birds and animals they found to her attentive grandchild. That was where a love of nature had been firmly planted in her heart. What would her grandmother have thought at Pam using it as a weapon in the seventeenth century? It was beyond imagining. That incident had begun with trying to save a family of up-time wood ducks from poaching. Why? Because she had to save the world, that's why, Pam Miller, Mother Nature's Protector, "The Bird lady of Grantville." She shook her head, thinking of the dangers her love of nature had led her to, as well as the friends she had made because of it.

She looked around at the men combing the beach, every bit of civilization they could find increasing their chances of survival a bit more. Everybody was putting on a brave face but she knew they were all in grave danger here. The bright burst of joy from recovering a personal relic from a lost future faded as the depression which had been whispering to her, biding its time at the edge of her consciousness, finally asserted itself in her mind, a dark cloud spoiling her sunny day. All the parades and good will speeches meant nothing now. Their ship was sunk, their expedition was over before she had even seen a damned dodo and they were marooned on a remote island in the seventeenth century with no such thing as search-and-rescue planes. Pam fought back tears; they had been waiting, too, now threatening to spill. That was when she saw the sailors who had moved ahead of her up the beach had gathered in a circle around something floating in the shallows.

Her walking stick helped a bit as she made her way across the muddy flats toward the now silent sailors. Young Pers saw her approaching and quickly came to cut her off. As he came closer Pam thought that he didn't look so young anymore. Where was the happy fellow who had helped her pass the hours on the long journey around Africa? His rosy cheeks looked dimmed even in the bright Southern sunlight.

"Pam, please, you mustn't come any closer. This would not be good for you to see."

Looking past him Pam saw the men were dragging a soggy mass from out of the shallow water. Their movements were strangely gentle and spoke of deep respect. She saw a boot had come free revealing a bare foot, its color an unnatural white with a tinge of palest blue. Pam looked away.

"Who was it?" she asked in a small voice.

"Our first mate, Janvik. We must give him a proper burial now. It is better to do it quickly . . ." Pers paused, afraid that he had already said too much.

The tears that had been waiting impatiently behind her eyes burst loose now, and she swallowed a terrible sob. Her grief was made worse by a sharp sense of guilt that she hadn't liked the man much in life, and that only because he was just doing his job and keeping his men at their tasks while she flitted about the ship like a silly school girl, distracting them at her whim. Tears fell hard in a hot cascade down her tanned face, their salt and moisture joining the Indian Ocean in tiny splashes.

Pers reached out to tentatively pat her on the shoulder. Pam stepped into the young sailor's strong arms and clung to him, pressing the walking stick painfully against his back, but the solid youth didn't seem to mind. He did his best to comfort his distraught friend who now felt she had added a death to her list of responsibilities. Maybe two, if she counted the missing captain. The thought made her cry so hard she shook. Pers patted her back gently, as a son would his weeping mother.

"There, there, Frau Pam. We who go to sea know death well. He sails silently behind us waiting until he is called to bring us to the next world. It is just the way of things. Please, you mustn’t cry so."

"It's my fault. All of this fucking disaster is my fault."

Pers clicked his tongue to negate that statement. "You cannot think such things. Can it be your fault the French came with their warship, your fault such a terrible storm blew in when it did? You must not make this your burden, Frau Pam."

Pam stopped her tears and slowly drew herself out of her young friend's comforting embrace. She nodded and sniffed sharply. Finally, after doing her best to wipe her face dry on her sleeve, she asked him "How did you get so wise, anyway?"

"I listen to those around me, and I remember what they say when it is of value. I hope my words, simple though they may be, will be of some use to you, my friend. You are also my teacher, and I am grateful to have met you; I have learned much. We men of the Redbird all think the world of you, Frau Pam, don't you know?"

Pam gave him a squeeze on his arm. "Yeah, your words are helping, kiddo. I'll remember what you said. Thanks for being here for me, Pers. It means a lot to me to have such fine friends." This pleased the young sailor, who even as he blushed, smiled in his infectious way. Pam's personal storm having blown itself out for now, for now, she watched the solemn and timeless ritual of digging a grave. Such sad toil taking place on a sunny tropical beach seemed incongruous, like an odd twist of plot in a confusing dream.

"I'll go get everyone at camp and bring them back for the service," she told them, needing some time alone to pull herself together.

"It will take about an hour to finish our task here. We will wait for your return before we say any words," the bosun replied, sweating from his turn with the long spade.

Pam nodded and walked slowly back toward the distant white rectangle of their sail tent, leaning heavier on her grandmother's walking stick than she had ever remembered doing before.

By the time she returned, the grave had been filled, a fresh mound of sandy loam beneath which their sailing mate's mortal form would be returned to the earth. The funeral was simple but very sincere. The bosun said the Lord's Prayer in Swedish and Dore sang a Lutheran hymn in German, Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern,which Pam translated as "How Brightly Shines the Morning Star." Pam marveled at the beauty of her friend's strong alto voice. During the years she had come to think of this woman as an older sister but this was the first time she had ever heard her sing. All held a respectful silence once the last thrilling notes of Dore's voice fell away with the sea breeze.

Pam, clutching a bouquet of simple wild flowers, weeds really, that she had managed to scrounge together on her way back down the beach, looked up to see all eyes on her. Oh no. This is part of that stupid "captain" thing Gerbald was teasing me about. The great woodsman hadn't returned from his mission yet and Pam felt vulnerable without his reassuring presence, the older brother to match Dore, the two forming a much-treasured set. She realized she would eventually have to say something. Her mind suddenly slipped into a seldom used gear and she found herself stepping forward, miraculously speaking up in a somber yet confident tone.

"I want to share a poem I learned when I was a school girl. It's by a man named Tennyson, who might never be born in this world. He wrote it for sailors in particular. I only know how to recite it in English, but I hope it will still bring comfort to all gathered here. The poem is called Crossing the Bar.

" Sunset and evening star,

" And one clear call for me!

" And may there be no moaning of the bar,

" When I put out to sea,

" But such a tide as moving seems asleep,

" Too full for sound and foam,

" When that which drew from out the boundless deep

" Turns again home.

" Twilight and evening bell,

" And after that the dark!

" And may there be no sadness of farewell,

" When I embark;

" For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place

" The flood may bear me far,

" I hope to see my Pilot face to face

" When I have crossed the bar. "

Pam looked up to see the men around her nodding their approval, even if they hadn't understood much of the language, they had felt the emotion of the piece. Dore looked at her with a quiet, beaming pride. Pam gently placed her simple bouquet at the foot of a stout red painted plank from Redbird the men had placed there as a marker, on which the first mate's name, nation, ship and year were carefully scribed with the wax they had found that morning. They hoped the water resistant substance would tell his story for many years to come. Pam turned away first and they all walked together back to camp seeking relief from the stinging noon day sun.

****

Chapter Twelve: Redbird's Last Gifts

A couple of hours later Gerbald arrived in camp carrying several full water skins, which were gratefully received. Their meager and stale supply from the pinnace, augmented by what little rainwater they had been able to capture in the confusion of the storm, had nearly run out so Gerbald was just in time. After hearing the sad news and paying his graveside respects to the deceased first mate, Gerbald led them to a delightfully clear spring about half a mile back in the forest that would provide more than enough water for their needs. If that ever failed he had also found an actual river a few miles farther on, so they were no longer in any danger from dehydration. Everyone felt a piece of their overall tension fall away; the presence of potable water was crucial to survival. Even if all else was hardship, their thirst would be quenched, their bodies hydrated.

Pam turned to the bosun. "It looks like the tide has come in. Have your sailors got enough strength left to go check out the wreck?"

"Why of course we do, Frau Pam, we are Swedes of the royal navy! Stronger than any ten other men, ja, boys?" The men all brought themselves to their feet with a creaky chorus of jas, mustering smiles for the brave Lady Scientist.

Dore took Pam gently by the arm. "Pam, you must promise me to be careful, yes?"

"I will be, Dore. We all will be." Serious-faced Dore looked satisfied at this, then clutched at Pam's arm again. "I know you go to look for things we can use from the broken ship. Please, if you can, and only if it is not dangerous, try to find me some more pots and pans! I can make do with only the one but if I had more to cook with I could provide some better comfort for these poor men, and we three, too."

Pam smiled at Dore's always earnest desire to help and gave her a quick hug. "I will, Dore. That's first on our list—I'm sure these men will all agree. You are the best, Dore, always the best."

Dore blushed at the praise and hid it with her usual bluff sternness. "Yes, well, I'll be better with a soup pot in my hand! Now go, and be careful. All of you!"

The salvage party, including the bosun, all murmured their "Yes, ma'ams" to the feared and revered Most Excellent Cook as they went to drag the pinnace back into the water.

****

Pam sat in the prow of the long, narrow boat where she could use her birdwatching trained sharp vision to locate any floating prizes as well as keep out of the oarsmen's way. Gerbald had declined to come along, preferring to continue his scouting of their new and hopefully temporary home. The water was incredibly clear, the tide having swept away the roiled murk from the storm. Beneath their craft a kaleidoscope of fantastical fish darted and cruised among branches of coral in an undersea garden of fancy. Pam looked back at the horizon, resisting the siren call of the mysterious realm beneath which beckoned so alluringly to her curiosity. She regretted that she couldn't put a name to a single denizen of these exotic seas. Maybe some day there would be time.

The pinnace carefully approached the rocky point that had taken the Redbird in its crushing embrace. Pam's heart sped up as she waited with dread for the first view of her wrecked ship. She knew it had sustained heavy damage, but maybe, just maybe, they could fix her and she would sail again. As it came into sight, that hope was dashed. Pam bit her lip as she saw what little remained of her, the broken spine and ribs of her hull surrounded by splintered wood and damp scraps of torn sails. The men landed the pinnace on a flat stretch of sand from which they clambered up slippery rocks to view the carnage closer. Pam stood at the water's edge, gazing at the place where her great mission had come to its grievous end.

"So much for rescuing the dodo." she mumbled to herself. "Now we are the ones who are going to need rescuing." Shaking her head in resignation, she gingerly made her way up the tide-bared volcanic rocks. Most of the ship's contents had been smashed by the power of the storm into unrecognizable bits of flotsam and jetsam.

A flash of bright color against the dark stone caught her eye, a canary yellow plastic whistle, still intact. It had been the captain's, a prized possession from the future world he had come across in his travels. It made his absence all the more painful but she tucked it safely into a pocket of her rucksack, holding onto a wispy hope that she might one day return it to him. She heard one of the sailors, kindly old Fritjof, the princess' number one fan, calling to her so she made her way over to him. He grinned with his few odd remaining teeth as he pointed down into a wide shallow depression in the rocks filled with lukewarm seawater left behind by the tide.

"Look! Madame's bird wire!" Just under the surface lay one of the rolls of chicken wire that her friend Willie Ray had managed to scrounge up for her, in perfect condition except for a festooning of seaweed. She hadn't thought of Grantville for days and the memory of afternoon lemonades on the much-loved farmer's wide front porch filled her senses. Suddenly she missed Grantville, badly, and wondered if she would ever see it again.

"You want us to retrieve it, don't you?" Fritjof asked her shyly, having seen the sad look pass across her face.

"Yes, please do. It could still be of some use. We don't know how long we'll be here . . ."

Fritjof nodded respectfully, then climbed down into the depression to manhandle the heavy roll up out of the pool. Pam was astonished at his strength and agility, considering his octogenarian looks. He's probably only in his fifties! This world is so hard on people. Soon he and another sailor, sturdy Arne, were hauling it down to the pinnace. Slowly, as they sifted through the broken remains of Redbird they found other small prizes; a length of good rope here, a box of copper nails there. To their eyes it was pretty fair salvage; they would by no means be coming back empty-handed. Pam saw the bosun and a few of the sailors standing near one of the ships' surviving ribs, a curved finger of wood pointing at the bright southern skies. Pam made her way over to see what they were up to.

"It is one of the cannon, Frau Pam!" The bosun announced with a bright tone of excitement in his hoarse from shouting at sailors voice. "The new type, the carronade made with the Grantville designs! It is still usable! We just have to pick up the balls scattered about here and we brought plenty of gunpowder with us on the pinnace!"

Pam looked down at the big metal weapon still connected to a section of broken ship's wood. It shone brightly in the sunlight, retaining its polish despite the rough handling.

"Okay . . . but what good does this do us? We don't have a ship anymore."

The bosun nodded. "Even with no ship, this gun can protect us. We can mount it on the shore. If an enemy ship comes to our cove, then boom! It is better than throwing coconuts!" This made everybody chuckle, even if a bit grimly.

"Can we get it back to shore?"

"Yes, I think so. It is very heavy, but we have tools. Tomorrow we will come back for it; now the tide is returning and we must go. I think this won't be floating away!" They left the elegant-looking cannon behind for later retrieval, but the men didn't wait to haul the tremendously heavy barrel of ammunition back to the pinnace. They would take no chances there.

The sturdy little boat rode lower in the water on the return trip under the weight of their prizes. Pam rejoiced to see a variety of metal pots and pans along with some cutlery lying in the bottom of the boat. That would make Dore very, very happy. Maybe our luck will change? Pam mused, but didn't dwell on the thought, not wanting to jinx it.

That night they passed around a big bottle of kirschwasser that had miraculously survived the storm and a bit of cheer came back into the group. They were not in a good situation, not at all, but at least they were working to improve it, the best medicine anyone could take in troubled times. Pam tried not to think of the dodos she had come to save and the abrupt end of her quest, she swallowed as much of the cherry flavored liquor as the men did and drifted off into an exhausted slumber. If she dreamed she knew not.

****

Chapter Thirteen: Gilligan!

The next day she woke late. Except for a single well-armed guard, all the men had gone off to retrieve the cannon, including Gerbald, who had something of a way with jury rigged mechanics. Dore gave her a simple breakfast and remarked that they were going to need to do something about getting more food, soon. Pam nodded, feeling hazy and disconnected. Caffeine withdrawal, bleah. Dore made sure she drank some water and told her to take it easy for a while. Pam obeyed, lounging around in the shade, watching for the men to come back from their mission. She felt drained, like a balloon with all the air spewed out of it, just a floppy piece of limp rubber. This was not a good feeling. After a while she got up and decided to make herself useful, but ended up just wandering around the camp, which evolved into collecting seashells. By the time the men came back she had a pretty little set of them, lovely, and entirely useless.

There not being anything she could do to help, she watched as the men hauled the carronade up from the beach with a system of ropes and makeshift pulleys Gerbald had helped set up. Once it was safely ensconced above the high tide line, everyone sat down for some lunch. Dore had something special for dinner in mind but they had to make do with the hard bread and dried meat from the ship for now.

“We need to have fruit,” Dore announced, looming over where Gerbald, Pam, the bosun and the marine's lieutenant held council sitting beneath a shady tree. “Pam, you have studied these islands; what can we eat here? I am going to run out of flour and such eventually, and I have learned about the need for certain vitamins during my time in Grantville. We can't survive on bread and water, especially since we are going to run out of bread.”

Pam felt a bit put on the spot but understood her friend's concern perfectly. “Well, during my library research I made a list of every edible plant that grows or might grow in this region. I had preferred the colonists learn to use native species along with whatever we brought with us. I'll go through my notes. Off hand, we have bananas, they just aren't ripe at the moment. There's probably breadfruit here, too. I think I'll know it when I see it. These palms along the beach have coconuts and there are some with other types of fruit just inland, maybe dates or oil palms. Either way I am pretty sure there aren't any poisonous palms, although some are inedible. I suppose coconuts would be a good place to start.”

Their group stood up to scan around the camp. There were a few coconuts lying around but they looked as if they had been there a bit too long, some were even beginning to sprout fronds. Looking up in the trees they could see what they thought might be several likely specimens, but they were quite high up.

“Someone must climb a tree and bring some down,” Dore decreed after careful scrutiny.

“Who is going to do that?” Pam asked, maybe just slightly irritated with Dore's bossy attitude.

“I know who.” the bosun said smiling. “Pers!” he shouted.

The youth came running, looking around with wide eyes to see what might be required of him.

“Congratulations,” Pam told him. “We have just elected you to be our resident Gilligan.” Gerbald and Dore laughed immediately but the Swedes could only smile politely.

“It's a high honor.” Gerbald told the boy in English, trying to keep a straight face. They had been teaching the ever-curious Pers English and German throughout the voyage and he was getting pretty savvy. He gave his older friend a suspicious look.

Pam snorted. “I'm sure you can rise to the task.” she added, then burst into a fit of giggles.

By the time they had explained their up-time humor to the uncomprehending Swedes, who still didn't really get it but understood someone like Gilligan's role in life well enough—a low-ranking youth who is a bit of a buffoon and gets stuck with all the crap jobs no one else wants.

Before they knew it, Pers had shimmied all the way up one of the trees, an accomplished climber by nature. “How about this one?” he called down, pointing at a large light-green sphere that was a size again bigger than a bowling ball.

“Sure, send it down!” Pam shouted back. With a couple of whacks of Pers' knife the coconut plummeted, causing the bosun to have to jump out of the way.

“Sorry, Herr Bosun!” Pers called down.

The bosun grumbled something about getting things to do and began ordering the rest of the men, who were taking a bit of sweet time finishing their lunches while watching the entertainment at hand, to get back to work.

“Are there any brown ones?” Pam called back up.

“Well, try this one. Look out below!”

After a while they had a collection of coconuts of varying ripeness. After opening the outer husk some were still green while riper fruits were the more familiar brown. Pam knew the green ones were edible from visits to the Thai restaurant in Morgantown, and was pretty sure she had eaten a ripe brown one at some point, or at least had drunk a piña colada out of one.

It was a study of trial and error. Gerbald sliced the first one in half with his katzbalger shortsword as if it were an enemy's head, splashing the juice all over the place. That taught them to poke a hole in it first, using an auger from the ship's tool chest, then pouring the juice, or milk, into one of Dore's prized soup pots. It tasted a bit sour, but there was a sweetness there, too. Pam thought she might grow to like it. The meat was delicious and further research stopped as they gorged themselves. The ripe brown ones were even better, more meaty and a creamy juice that much more closely resembled milk. Once the meat was removed, Dore suggested they clean and save the sturdy brown shell halves for soup dishes. Pers was sent on several more missions up the trees to make sure there would be enough for everyone's dinner.

Pleased with their progress Dore bestowed them all with a truly lovely smile. “Now we will survive.” she said matter of factly and returned to her makeshift kitchen.

****

Chapter Fourteen: Interlude-Keeping Busy with Bamboo

The following days were spent trying to improve their situation as best as they could. They picked a relatively clear spot for their camp, well past the high tide and hidden from the beach by a belt of tall grasses and the stately row of palms that stretched all down their cove.

First of all, by unanimous consent, a sand-floored, palm frond-roofed "galley" was constructed for Dore, featuring a bamboo work table and a framework to hang food up off the ground. There was very fortunately a large grove of the versatile grass that grows like a tree nearby and it made an excellent building material. A few yards outside the kitchen door they built a primitive but functional oven and stove from volcanic rock. Dore was very pleased with it all, considering she had worked with worse in her years following Gerbald to war.

Next came a simple bungalow for Pam. The small structure, which she called "The Professor's Hut" was raised five feet high on bamboo stilts to avoid creepy crawlies, and provided a safe place to sleep and store her things. It was nothing fancy but they did add a small sitting porch out front with a very basic bench and desk in the shade of the roof's extended eaves, a comfortable spot for her to do her reading and writing at.

A similar structure went up for Gerbald and Dore ("The Howell Mansion") and then the men built a communal longhouse for themselves. On the tour Pam was pleased to see that Fritjof had lovingly hung his somewhat water damaged photograph of the princess on a beam near the entrance. Weapons and ammunition were carefully stored in cabinets fashioned from the best lumber salvaged from Redbird.

Just behind the tall grass, the men erected a well-camouflaged platform where they mounted the carronade so that any unwelcome visitors would have a nasty surprise. The bosun was very pleased with the progress.

"The sailor's general wisdom upon becoming a castaway,” he told Pam, “is to think long term and hope short term. Besides, the men are happier if they are kept busy."

That works for me Pam mused.

Gerbald and some of the sailors were catching some very tasty-looking fish lately. One day Pam was amazed to see Dore pull a slightly rusty red and white tin of circa 1983 Schillings brand curry powder from her wicker basket. Seeing Pam's astonished expression, Dore exclaimed, "You told me to bring anything I thought I might be able to use from your kitchen so I packed up most of the spice cabinet. They don't weigh much."

"What will you make with it?" Pam's mouth was beginning to water, it felt so long since she had eaten anything one could call savory.

"Do you remember when we dined at Crystal and Walt's home a few days after their wedding? She served something called a 'fish curry' that I thought was quite tasty. I remember she said it would be better with coconut milk. Well, we have that and fish so I thought I'd try it. Is it a good idea?"

Pam hugged her so hard she almost knocked the sturdy woman over.

All in all, Pam couldn't help but think things were improving. She tried to put the real danger of their predicament out of her mind for now, there just wasn't anything more to do about it than what they were doing.

Pam suggested to the bosun that they send the pinnace up the coast to scout, but the seasoned sailor told her that such a voyage would be too dangerous. While a sturdy little craft, it wasn't designed for long journeys in rough seas and worse yet it could be captured easily. It was his opinion that they save that idea for a last resort and she agreed.

Pam decided that meanwhile she and Gerbald would scout around on foot. There were mountains rising a few miles behind their cove and by the looks of them they weren't any higher than those of West Virginia that she had climbed so many times over the years. They would definitely offer a broader view and Pam was getting bored and depressed hanging around camp, anyway. She needed to walk.

It was too late to head out that day, she would have to wait until morning. Whistling an old Looney Toon tune she arranged her ever growing shell collection decoratively around the edge of her front porch to pass the time. Well, Mauritius is definitely not better than the Bahamas but today is a pretty good day anyway. Satisfied with the results of her art project, she rested in her hut until dinner, still feeling antsy to get hiking. There was another thing fueling her urge to go walk about, something that she didn't dare think on too much due to the still fresh pain of losing her ship and all hope of accomplishing the expedition's goals. The fact was, despite everything else, she was dying to see a dodo.

****

Chapter Fifteen: I'm No Darwin

Early the next morning Pam and Gerbald donned their rucksacks and left camp, promising to be back before dark. Rather than try to follow the very difficult terrain along the shore leading northeast, they headed due north inland, planning to gain the summit of the closest mountain, a fairly easy day's hike for them if the lay of the land cooperated. So far it wasn't much worse than a West Virginia woodland, some thorny underbrush but mostly easy walking through a very beautiful forest. There was a plethora of amazing birdlife at hand but Pam resisted stopping to take notes and make sketches, they were on a mission. Despite natural wonders revealing themselves at every turn, Pam grew morose.

"I'm no Darwin, not even an Audubon. Everything I do has been done," Pam muttered. "I'm just following in the footsteps of those who discovered the world."

Gerbald, well familiar with this negative train of Pam's thought, tried to encourage her. “That was a different world, a different time, Pam. Darwin and Audubon probably aren't even going to be born. There is an awful lot that isn't in your library. I have been told the Ring of Fire brought back only a small amount of all the information collected in that other future. Right here and now there is still much to learn! Someone must seek out all the knowledge yet to be discovered on this world, in this time. Look around you. I don't see any human tracks here, do you? We are likely the first people to visit this forest. This world needs a trailblazer, a scientist, a dreamer. We don't have Darwin. We won't need him because we have Pam Miller."

Pam laughed aloud despite her dark mood. “Gawd, Gerbald, when did you come up with that speech?”

“I have been working on it, knowing the need for it would come. Were you moved?” He was grinning at his great cleverness now, which made it impossible for Pam to maintain her funk.

“Yeah, I was moved. I reckon I'll never know how or why I ended up here but I can say it's not all bad. I know I have a purpose in this century. It's just hard to stay focused, especially when everything turns to shit like it has lately. Perhaps you may have noticed my most recent purpose has literally ended in disaster.”

“Well, you know I am no religious man, but Dore is convinced that you were sent by God to help us improve this world. I see no reason to disagree.”

“Thanks Pollyanna, you can knock it off now, I'm cheered up.” Their laughter mingled with the cries and songs of a hundred unknown birds.

****

Chapter Sixteen: Gerbald, Dinosaur Hunter

They took a break before noon near a small spring fed creek. The water was cold and delicious.

"We've been walking for hours and still no sign of a dodo." Pam looked around the open forest, searching the leaf littered floor for movement.

"Perhaps we did not land on Mauritius after all? Could this be Reunion or some other island?"

"No, we passed Reunion the day before we wrecked. It was far enough away I didn't get much of a look, but I trust in our navigators anyway. This must be Mauritius."

“Pam, as a hunter I have spent days on end in the bush without seeing a single example of whatever game animal I was hunting. It's not unusual. I believe the American phrase is 'getting skunked.'"

“Yeah, well, I suppose. I'd just like to see one, is all. I mean, we came all this freaking way. Remember, there aren't any left up-time, so it's kind of special. I will be the first person from my former century to see a dodo, and yes, I am kind of excited about it.”

“My eyes are peeled, Pam. If there are any around here, we will find them.” They finished drinking their fill and continued on. The trees were getting bigger and more numerous as they made their way through an unexpectedly deep valley they hadn't known stood between them and their intended hill climb. The massive trunks and their chaos-patterned fretwork of high branches blocked out most of the sunlight so they walked along in a green gloom. In the distance something squealed, the sound taking on a sinister ring in the primeval setting.

Pam began to get jumpy as they made their way through the ancient groves. The raucous cry of an unseen bird high in the canopy startled her, causing her to miss her step and sprawl clumsily on the forest floor, face down into a bed of moldering leaves and twigs. Gerbald hurried to help pick her up and brush her off. She clutched at him for a moment, her eyes wide with fear.

"Pam, what is the matter with you?"

"I can't help it. Damn!” Standing now, she took a deep breath and tried to get a hold of herself. “I'm getting the willies out here. I mean, this isn't Thuringia. We're on a weird, remote and uninhabited island looking for dodos, for chrissakes! What if there are still fucking dinosaurs out here in these jungles? I mean, this place has been untouched since time began!"

"Now, that would be something to hunt, a true challenge!" Gerbald sent a piercing gaze out into the foliage, his face full of melodramatic wonder and avarice. “I could be the first man from my century to bag a dinosaur!”

"Oh, Christ, I wish I'd never let you read those Edgar Rice Burroughs books Walt gave you.”

"At the Earth's Core is fantastic, but I'm most fond of Doyle's Lost World. The movie was great, too, although the dinosaurs were men in rubber suits."

“Not to mention all those other hokey old movies you like so much. There were scads of film masterpieces we didn't have with us but, Jesus wept, some dork had five years worth of schlock he taped off the Channel 13 Friday Midnight Thrillfest and the Saturday Afternoon Matinee. What was that one you liked so much? Oh yeah, Valley of the Gwangi, featuring cowboys versus dinosaurs. Give me a break! How many times did you watch it anyway, twenty-five?"

“Thirty-two. A brilliant film! Ray Harryhausen was a genius! The tyrannosaurus rex menacing the town, prowling through the shadowy church—stupendous! I don't care what anyone says, Harryhausen's work was far more gripping than that Jurassic Park flick, ha! A children's story! Oh, Pam, if only we could get a Hollywood going in Grantville, I would so like to be in the movies. People say I have a talent! Just think of it, Gerbald, Dinosaur Hunter!" Gerbald struck his most heroic pose.

It was true, Gerbald was one hundred percent pure ham at heart. The guy probably could have gotten at least some bit parts up-time; he did have charisma. Pam just laughed at him as she stepped around a particularly fresh and pasty animal turd, glad that she had not fallen into it. Seeing that she was ignoring his current heroic pose Gerbald changed his patter down to a lower, but still melodramatic key.

"You know, Pam, I sometimes wonder—" He paused to look suspiciously at the leaf screened sky, then continued in a somehow familiar creepy timber while giving her a penetrating look of dread. "What if the event that happened to Grantville had taken you all even further back into history, or even prehistory? What if you had fallen much further through the depths of time, say, to the Cretaceous period, when dinosaurs ruled the world? What would have become of you then?" He stood looking at her wide-eyed as if this nightmare might occur at any second.

"Knock it off, Jack Palance. You're already weird enough without talking like that guy. I'd probably be safer out here with a velociraptor than a nutcase like you." Pam, as usual, couldn't help but smile at Gerbald's antic. Once he got started it was hard to stop. His goal wasn't really to freak her out, goofing around was just his way of passing the time on a long trip. She knew he also did it to distract her from her moods, and couldn't help but love him for that.

"You got it! That was Jack Palance; that's wonderful! A master actor. I do miss movies. One day we will have one of those festivals where we drink beer, eat pizzas and watch movies all day like we used to."

"Yeah, that wouldn't be half bad. I miss the beer and pizza anyway." While humoring Gerbald, Pam had inserted a stick into the still mushy turd. It was full of smashed seeds and what might be crushed nutshells. "Although, one day we will look back at this jungle and say "Ahhh, the good old days."

Gerbald's face suddenly took on a sincerely wistful expression. "I would be glad if you were to one day think of our adventures together in that way, Pam. I certainly will."

"Yeah, we have fun, Ivanhoe, just don't get all misty on me. Let's see if we can find a damn dodo along the way while we are out here. Look, check out this turd, it's very exciting. It might be dodo scat, it's big enough and has the right consistency for a large-billed terrestrial vegetarian. Say, here's an idea, we can co-host a thrilling nature series, In Search of Wild Bird Poop."

"Always the romantic soul, our Pam, a woman who lives for the adventure." Gerbald started humming the National Geographic theme loudly as they made their way through the underbrush. Pam joined in until they were laughing so loud it hurt their sides.

"I know! We shall do a remake of The Valley of the Gwangi! We could film it here on this very island! I will portray the heroic cowboy, naturally! Lacking Ray Harryhausen we will cast live dinosaurs, of course.” he stopped abruptly and pointed at a tree, his face a model of terror. “My God, its an allosaurus! Flee!"

"Shh, I'm trying to think of what I will tell Dore when I come back without you tonight." Pam's scowl was fierce enough that Gerbald went back to his silent woodsman mode, but a hint of a contented smile still showed on his lips. He had cheered Pam up after all, always a very good thing.

****

Chapter Seventeen: Pam's Pot o' Gold

Leaving the forest behind, Pam and Gerbald arrived at an area of grassland, their proposed climb rising before them. It was a tad bigger than it had looked from a distance but they decided to try it anyway. There was still plenty of daylight left. They were pleased to find themselves heading up a gentle slope and soon hiked high on a grassy mountainside. Reaching the mound of the summit they were rewarded with views east and west, as well as into the interior. One thing for sure was that they were on a big, rugged volcanic island and reaching the north end of it by any route on foot would be hard going for even an experienced hiker.

Now that they had accomplished their task and weren't in such a rush, Pam wandered about the mountaintop, pausing periodically to make sketches of the views and various new species of birds they came across. It was sunny but cool at this altitude, the breeze scented with the wildflowers that dotted the sub-alpine heaths.

Suddenly Pam let out a shrieking whoop. Gerbald rushed down the hill after her to see what the matter, his hand on his katzbalger shortsword.

"Pam! Are you all right?" He found Pam running around hugging the shrubbery, her eyes tearing up with an intense joy.

"All right? Am I all right? Oh hell yeah I'm all right!" She kissed a leafy branch and jumped up to perform some kind of celebratory dance through the plants as Gerbald looked on thunderstruck.

"Pam, what is going on?" He asked as her delirium showed no signs of stopping.

"Don't you see it? Here, here! Look at this little tree! Do you know what it is?" She hugged the one closest to her.

Gerbald took a moment to study it closely; it was a pleasant enough looking shrub with glossy green leaves and yellow-shading-to-purplish berries. He had never seen one before in his life.

Pam stopped her crazy dance to stare at him expectantly. Finally he shrugged his shoulders in defeat. Pam laughed, the merry sound echoing around the hills.

"Gerbald, this is the most wonderful plant in the world. This, this is coffee! Coffeeeee!" She turned back to the shrub and hugged it again.

"Coffee? Coffee! Great Caesar's ghost, Pam, you found a coffee tree here at the ends of the earth! Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure. I studied the hell out of this stuff before I left, trying to find crops for our colonists to grow down here. I couldn't get my hands on any viable beans before we left but look! Coffee trees growing wild and they are all over the place!" She swept her arm around and Gerbald realized there were hundreds of the pretty little coffee trees thriving on the slopes of their antipodean mountain, all heavy with berries.

“Are you sure you can drink it?" Gerbald liked coffee well enough but his knowledge on the subject didn't extend much beyond asking for "A little cream, no sugar."

"Sure, why not? There's different species of the stuff, but they're all drinkable. I'm not sure what type this one is, but it looks like the berries are in season! Sweet jumping Jesus, I have coffee again, hallelujah!" She returned to her ecstatic dance while Gerbald searched through his many pocketed sage green coat to locate a cloth bag suitable for berries.

The two of them got back later than expected. The extra weight had slowed them down since they had filled every hollow and pocket of their clothes and rucksacks. Gerbald's coat was lumpy with the things. They were just about on their last legs when they reached camp, but Pam couldn't wait until morning. Her exuberance was easy to catch and soon everyone watched expectantly as Pam and Dore went to work on the treasure trove of beans. They roasted them as carefully as they could in Dore's makeshift stone oven, then ground them with the back of one of the sailor's axes. Pam used her cotton handkerchief for a filter and soon enough a black brew simmered in the cookpot. Pam, no longer caring that she hadn't seen a single damn dodo all day, took the first sip of the new found coffee from a coconut shell cup. She held the hot, bitter, liquid in her mouth for a moment before swallowing as all eyes waited for her reaction.

"Oh. My. God. This is the best thing I have ever tasted. It's coffee here in the middle of no-effing-where! It's coffee for castaways! Yippie-kay-yay!"

Everyone hollered with joy for Pam as Dore refilled her cup, followed by cups for herself, Gerbald and all the crew. The bosun determined that some of the spirits recovered from the late Redbird would make it taste even better and the sounds of laughter and good cheer echoed around their little cove late into the night.

****

Locomotion: The Next Generation

Written by Iver P. Cooper

In "Harnessing the Iron Horse" (Grantville Gazette 7), I speculated about the evolution of the steam locomotive. My focus was principally on what might appear within the first decade after the Ring of Fire.

In this article, I will look further along the time line, at what might one day replace the steam locomotive. While Steam will be King in the 1630s, and for years beyond, there will be experimentation in the 1640s, and perhaps earlier, with alternative motive power technologies, and that will in turn affect how governments, investors, shippers and passengers view steam.

It may take one or more generations before these alternative systems become commercially significant, but their day will come.

First, let's look at what fuels could be available, and in particular, what the oil situation is likely to be a generation after RoF. Then we'll systematically review our power plant and transmission options, and finally we'll consider the economic aspects of the choice among steam, diesel and electric operation.

****

Fuel

Fuel is the food of the locomotive. The important considerations with fuel are energy/unit mass, energy/unit volume, cost, and more difficult to quantify factors such as safety and ease of handling.

The energy densities vary according to the number of C-C and C-H bonds in the molecules of the fuel, but here are some typical figures:

(Wikipedia/Energy Density, except wood: PHT)

Wood. For millennia, wood has been burnt to generate heat. Sweden, Norway, Finland, Russia, the Baltic states, Bosnia-Hercegovna, and parts of Germany, Austria and Hungary are heavily forested. Cooper, "The Wooden Wonders of Grantville" (Grantville Gazette 13). The United States and Canada are well-endowed with trees, as is evidenced by the extensive use of wood-burning locomotives for much of the nineteenth century. There are also extensive forests in Central and South America, southeast Asia, Japan, Korea and Siberia, and more limited ones in central Africa, the Himalayan foothills and Deccan plateau of India, and on the periphery of China.

The wood used as fuel needn't be wood that is of value as a structural material (or anything else). In Bolivia, resinous shrubs (yareta) were burnt. (Messerli 174).

Organic waste. 1911EB/Fuel mentions the use of "cotton stalks, brushwood, straw, and the woody residue of sugarcane" as fuel, especially for raising steam. In France and Germany, spent tanners' bark was used to some degree. The dried dung of camels (Egypt), oxen (India), and llama (Bolivia) have also served as fuels.

Coal. From highest to lowest rank (in energy density), we have anthracite, bituminous, sub-bituminous and lignite. In the nineteenth century, a grade between anthracite and bituminous, called "steam coal," was recognized. In addition, note that peat, a precursor to coal, can be used as a fuel. In terms of heating capacity, the general rule is that 2,000 pounds of coal is equivalent to 5,250 pounds (1.75 cords) of wood.

Not that a coal-fired steam engine made particularly effective use of the chemical energy of coal. One pound of good coal in the firebox yields about 15,000 British Thermal Units (BTUs) heat energy, of which 50–80% is transferred to the water. When the steam is released from the steam dome into the cylinders, about 7–11% actually does work (i.e., moves the pistons), and the rest escapes. So the overall thermal efficiency is only about 6% (900 BTU per pound of coal). (EB11). Some sources cite even lower values.

There are major coal fields in modern Germany, England, Belgium, France, Russia, Siberia, the United States, Canada, China, India, Australia and, to a lesser extent, Japan. On the other hand, Scandinavia, the Mediterranean countries, Africa, the Ottoman Empire, Mexico and South America are relatively deficient in coal. Coal is heavy, and it can only be transported economically by sea or by rail.

As a result of the RoF, Germany's natural bounty of coal has been augmented by Grantville's coal mines. Not only is there a considerable amount of coal within the Ring, the miners have up-time equipment for mining it very efficiently. This of course gives all transport technologies that can utilize coal a big boost.

Coal Dust. Diesel's original idea was to use coal dust as diesel engine fuel (Germany having a lot more coal than oil.) There would be expenses associated with drying, pulverizing and sieving coal, but presumably it would still have been less expensive than imported petroleum.

The coal dust was deemed unsuitable after experiments in 1899. (Wells 77). "He observed high wear and accumulation of deposits on the piston and cylinder wall. He ceased working on the concept after an accident (possibly a coal dust explosion) occurred during operation on coal dust." (ADL 2).

The coal dust worked best when the coal was mixed with the air during the suction stroke of the air pump, and this mixture compressed with a bit of liquid oil to make ignition easier. (Wells 78). Even so, there was a problem related to accumulation of a coating of powdered coal on the internal oiled surfaces of the cylinder. Hence, to use coal dust as fuel, the engine needed a separate combustion chamber. It was concluded that liquid fuel was available at a good enough price so that it wasn't worth continuing to pursue coal dust.

Every decade, the idea gets dusted off again. (Groan!) It's believed that in Diesel's experiments, and in later ones conducted during WW II, the coal dust had 10–20% ash and particle sizes of 75–100 microns. There were problems of sludge accumulation, nozzle blockage, and engine wear (35 times normal level in piston rings and cylinder liner).

More recent experiments have had better luck, using slurries of, e.g., 12 micron coal particles in a 50:50 coal-water slurry. (Some coal combustion serving to evaporate the water.) It was still necessary to "harden" the injectors (Cooper-Bessemer used ceramic; General Electric (GE), diamond; Little, diamond, silicon carbide or tungsten carbide), piston rings, cylinder liners and valves. In 1991, a fully modified 2500hp diesel locomotive was run on the GE test track. (theoildrum.com; Wald). The GE work was under contract with the Department of Energy's (DOE) Morgantown, West Virgina Energy Technology Center, so there's a possibility that up-timers in Grantville knew about it.

The materials technology necessary to make coal dust-fired diesels work is probably several decades down the road, but it does mean that we have another alternative to conventional diesel fuel.

Liquefied Coal. Liquid fuel does have certain advantages, and coal can be converted into liquid hydrocarbons by the Bergius hydrogenation process or by the Fischer-Tropsch (FT) process (which first converts the coal to a synthesis gas, a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen, and then that to hydrocarbons). The latter process was used by Germany in World War II (when it was blockaded) and by South Africa (when it was ostracized). FT has high capital and operating costs. It would of course take time and money to reconstruct these processes and it would result in a more expensive fuel.

In 1996 it was calculated that crude oil prices had to be at least $35/barrel for FT fuel to be competitive. (Choi); the oil price was then around $25/barrel. And before you made the capital investment, you of course wanted to be sure that the oil price would remain well above that breakeven point long enough for you to recover and make a good return on your investment.

Raw Coal Tar. This is the water-immiscible residue from the pyrolysis of coal to produce coke or illuminating gas. It was for many years considered to be a waste product, and was used as a secondary fuel under the retorts that produced it in the first place. In Paris, 1830, it sold for 8s/ton, probably mostly for use in waterproofing (Lunge 21). The invention of the coal tar dyes increased the value of coal tar, and in 1883 it sold for 55–63s/ton, dropping to 7s/ton in 1886. (22). When the price was on the low end, or the gas-works or coke-oven was too far from the tar-distiller, it was still burnt. (Lunge 322).

To achieve complete combustion, the tar may be atomized by a steam jet (325), and other tar burner designs were developed in the nineteenth century. The heating value of coal tar is about 37–45% that of coal (329).

Gygax (1446) says that "Many experiments have been made with raw tar as a Diesel engine fuel which have proved conclusively that tar can be used successfully in the ordinary diesel engine," but only "vertical retort" tar has a sufficiently low free carbon content to be suitable.

Coal Tar Oils. It is also possible to use "coal tar oils" as diesel engine fuel. These are distillates (at least 60% distilling at 300^oC) from coal tar (including tar from gas works and coking plants). In 1913, "in Germany and France, the majority of middle sized and large Diesel engines run on tar oil." At the time, Germany was producing 1,400,000 tons of tars, and 400–450,000 tons of tar oil, of which 120,000 could be used in a Diesel engine. The total consumption of Diesel fuel was then 75,000 tons. (Gygax 1450).

It appears that a light oil was blown into the cylinder ahead of the tar-oil charge; it caught fire first and ignited the heavier tar-oil (Morrison 250). However, Morrison doubts that this method would work in an engine faster than 200 rpm. So this might be inadequate for locomotive diesel, but it could be used in a marine engine and therefore free up some conventional diesel fuel for locomotive use.

Tar oils may be made from lignite, not just from bituminous coal. There was significant use of lignite tar-oils as fuel in early twentieth-century Germany. (Gygax).

Naturally, "coal tar oils" may also be burned under the boiler of a steam engine.

Oil. The principal oil regions are in Galicia, Romania, the United States, Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, Russia, the Middle East, and Indonesia The remaining European countries are poorly endowed with oil. Oil can be transported by sea, by rail or by pipeline.

Crude oil is refined into various fractions, notably gasoline, kerosene (jet fuel), diesel oil, fuel oil, lubricating oil, and asphalt. These are differentiated by distillation temperature, viscosity, and cetane number (ignition delay).

It's important to note that the distillation temperature ranges for gasoline (122–374^oF) and No. 1 diesel (300–575^oF) fuel overlap. Where they overlap, gasoline and diesel consumers are in competition for the supply of that "cut."

However, if the demand for gasoline encourages increased prospecting, drilling and production, it will have the side effect of making more No. 2 diesel (distillation 500–640^oF), or heavier oils, all unsuitable for gasoline use, available. And in a like manner, if there is increased demand for diesel, that will "pull" more "light gasoline" onto the market.

In early twentieth-century America, the price of diesel fuel was only about half that of gasoline (SolomonADL 34).

The ideal diesel oil for a diesel engine is dependent on engine speed, with low speed engines such as those on ships favoring heavy, high viscosity oils (no. 5 or 6), and the high speed engines of autos, trucks and buses desiring light, low viscosity oils (no. 1 or 2). Locomotive engines prefer intermediate oils. (Sivasankar, Engineering Chemistry 372).

Petroleum Residues. These are the liquid and solid residues of crude oil distillation, and are a considerable proportion (over 50%) of heavy crudes, such as the shallow Wietze oil or that of Baku. At Baku, they are called "massud," and have a heating value nearly twice that of coal, one pound raising 12–15 pounds steam. The petroleum tar is atomized with steam in a "forsunka" burner. (Lunge 329). Gygax (1455) says that residues containing up to 46–48% asphalt (the material left behind after distillation to 350^oC) "have been used successfully as Diesel engine fuels."

Natural Gas. As of the RoF, some Grantville vehicles and installations are powered by natural gas. Flint, 1632, Chapter 8. Others are converted to run on natural gas, post-RoF. Jones, Anna's Story (Grantville Gazette 1); DeMarce, "Second Thoughts" (RoF2), Howard, "A Gentile in the Family?" (Grantville Gazette 19). A tram is running on natural gas as of early 1634. Zeek, "The Minstrel Boy" (Grantville Gazette 15).

Natural gas is practical as a vehicle fuel only if compressed (CNG) or liquefied (LNG) to increase its energy/volume ratio. Chad Jenkins realized this fairly early, and cornered the market on pressure tanks and their connections, which were the initial limiting factor insofar as natural gas conversions were concerned. Rittgers, "Von Grantville" (Grantville Gazette 4). Of course, both compression and liquefaction require energy.

Grantville has natural gas, but its real-life counterpart, the Mannington field, is not a major field. The largest natural gas field in Europe is the Slochteren field, near Groningen, in the Netherlands; it was discovered before WWII. There are two major fields in Norway (Ormen Lange and Troll), and at least three in western Siberia (Yamburg, Urengoy, Medvezhye). The Groningen field is mentioned in "Grantville literature" but I am not sure about the others.

The most economical way to transport natural gas over long distances is by pipeline. However, CNG or LNG can be transported in railroad tank cars, etc. My expectation is that at least up to 1650, natural gas will be exploited only within driving distance of Grantville.

Biofuel. A biofuel is one derived at least in part from living organisms. Biodiesel, in turn, is the biofuel equivalent in distillation temperature and viscosity of petroleum diesel.

One option is to ferment the carbohydrates in plants (wheat, corn, sugar beets, sugarcane, potatoes, etc.) to alcohols. (Destructive distillation of wood will also produce alcohol, and it can be applied to wood that isn't useful as a structural material.)

A second option is to use vegetable oil or animal fat. In 1631, Ed Piazza tells Mike that you can run diesel engines on vegetable oil, but that it would take until the next year to make it in quantity. Flint, 1632 (Chapter 11). Note that in OTL, whale oil was used as an illuminating fuel. However, McDonnell, "How to Keep Your Old John Deere Plowing: Diesel Fuel Alternatives for Grantville 1631–1639 (Grantville Gazette 4) identifies cod liver oil as the most economic raw material.

In general, the component molecules of vegetable oil are fairly high molecular weight, making for a viscous fuel. The molecules can be degraded to make them more suitable for fuel use.

A third option is to incompletely burn plant material, resulting in a syngas (carbon monoxide and hydrogen).

Hydropower. This is relevant only to railroad systems with central power plants. The power generated is dependent on the elevation change and flow rate of the rivers, so mountainous areas with good precipitation are favored. (Within Europe, the countries with rivers whose energy could be harnessed include Norway, Sweden, Russia, Germany, Switzerland, France, Italy, Spain and the Ottoman Empire.) Even so, quite expensive engineering works might be needed to dam rivers, protect towns and farmland from flooding, etc.

There is no guarantee that the dam will be near the railroad line. Hence, it might be necessary to transmit the power over a greater distance than would be necessary with a coal- or oil-fueled plant (the railroad could be used to bring coal or oil to such a facility, if need be).

Water power, by its nature, tends to fluctuate. Therefore, it's necessary to have a reserve power plant to fill in the gap if the hydroelectric power supply is interrupted by drought or a freeze.

****

Fuels for Steam Locomotives. In OTL, steam locomotives burnt wood, coal, oil and occasionally more exotic materials.

The first American railroads to convert to coal were those which serviced coal fields. They were followed by railroads operating in the heavily populated northeast (where timber was cut down to make houses and furniture), or across plains or deserts. Eventually, the opening of large new coal fields persuaded even the heavily forested south to adopt coal. The American far west was coal-poor, so railroads in that area were eager to switch to oil burning after the big California oil strikes.

In general, a firebox design that was suitable for burning wood worked reasonably well with bituminous coal. However, one could use a less elaborate smokestack (because coal produced fewer sparks), introduce a firebrick arch (to force the gases into an indirect path, allowing for more complete combustion), and replace copper with wrought iron or steel (because the coal products corroded the copper). (Solomon ASL 29ff).

Anthracite burns slowly because of its lack of volatile gases, and hence is best suited to a broad shallow firebox.

Lignite has a low energy content, and thus you need a large firebox, with a large grate area, to get adequate power. Raw lignite is composed of small, light particles and hence throws out a lot of sparks, like wood. The lignite may be bound into briquettes but this adds to cost.

Oil provides a higher energy density than coal. As of 1915, despite Europe's greater access to coal than oil, several railroads in France, Austria and England were "using oil fuel more or less extensively" (Gibbings 2).

Gibbings (8–10) has listed numerous advantages of oil over coal: reduction (at least in oil-rich countries) of cost (40%) and weight (30%) of fuel; can travel further without refueling); less manual labor in stoking and station management (pipes and pumps replaced shovels and cranes; at one station, two men were able to do the work formerly done by 26); no smoke, ash or clinker; rapid adjustment of fuel to load without waste; higher evaporative efficiency, elimination of losses (2–10%) due to weathering of coal; elimination of damages for setting fire to adjacent crops and properties as a result of sparks; more rapid steam raising (40 minutes); improved shed economics; greater shelf life.

To burn oil fuel, the firebox must atomize the fuel (convert it to a mist)(Gibbings 16), and this is usually done with a steam jet as disclosed in 1911EB/Fuel.

Oil Shortage or Glut?

We are going to be producing oil no matter what, since we need it for cars, trucks and aircraft. The question is, when will we have enough to use oil products in locomotives?

First, let's look at the demand side. Historically, oil demand was at first just for illumination—the kerosene (later used as jet fuel) was the cash fraction and everything else was essentially waste. The automobile created the demand for gasoline, which is a lighter fraction. The lightest fraction was used by the chemical industry. In the twentieth century, heavier fractions were variously used as fuel oil in stationary power plants, ships or locomotives, or cracked to make gasoline or chemical feedstocks.

In the 1630s and 1640s, the demand for oil for fuel use may be limited by the number of engines available. At first the only engines will be the ones that came through the RoF, and then there will be a trickle of post-RoF builds.

Mannington, per the 2000 Census, had 1342 auto, vans and trucks kept at home for household use. To that you may add motorcycles, trailers, tractors, and government and commercial vehicles—call it 1500 total. It doesn't much matter for purpose of calculating oil demand whether their engines are kept where they are or are re-purposed as marine or aircraft engines.

Only late model, high-performance engines are likely to be earmarked for aircraft use. Huff, "Aircraft in the 1632 Universe," Grantville Gazette 12, assumes that a year 2000 auto engine would normally get 25mpg but, rigged as an aircraft engine, would only do half as well—thus consuming four gallons an hour. However, he also assumes that it will be running on M85, that is on a mixture of 85% methanol and 15% gasoline. I imagine that there are other engines that can be used with such a mixture.

Perhaps a quarter to a half of the Grantville vehicles are carbureted and therefore can be modified to run on natural gas.

We know that the coal trucks have diesel engines, some of which were re-purposed for use on the ironclads. It is canonical that the diesel engines in Grantville can run on vegetable oil. While supplies of that are no doubt limited, that still helps reduce the demand for crude oil.

I would imagine that even if gasoline were readily available there would be limits to how many miles the land vehicles would be driven. Initially, the only area with asphalt roads is the RoF, 6 miles in diameter. Canon does speak much about road construction but I have the impression that the amount of construction, in mileage, of good roads was not very high. The fifteen mile "luxury road" (graded and graveled, not even paved) built to bypass Forchheim in 1633 consumed the entire budget for road improvements in the prince-bishopric of Bamburg. DeMarce, "Bypass Surgery" (1634: The Ram Rebellion).

The number of new engines built in the 1630s is likely to be very small relative to the number that came through RoF. And of course there are going to be up-time engines that stop working, too.

Still, let's say that we have 1500 vehicles driven an average of 10 miles/day, and getting 20 miles/gallon. Then the demand for gasoline would be 750 gallons/day. A barrel of oil is 42 gallons. The gasoline fraction varies from say 1–30% depending on the source. (The shallower Wietze oil is on the low side.) Let's assume 10%, so one barrel of oil provides about four gallons of gasoline. And we would therefore need about 200 barrels crude per day to keep all 1500 vehicles running.

Of course, oil is in demand as an organic chemical feedstock, not just as a fuel. But that's equally true of coal, and it's at least plausible to assume that the supply of oil will not be exhausted by these non-fuel uses.

Railroad use is probably not going to add significantly to the demand. In 1980s Africa, which is not heavily industrialized, the oil consumption by the railroads is just a few percent. (Alston 35).

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Now let's look at the supply side. Oil supply is certainly going to increase, as we drill more producing wells. The production rate will accelerate because our prospecting and drilling efficiency will increase. If the price of oil is initially high (because of high demand) then of course that's going to coax more investors into the oil industry.

In 1631–34, the supply of gasoline is clearly limited. In canon, we initially are collecting some condensate from gas wells in Grantville. By 1633, we are exploiting one German oil field: Wietze. The down-timers knew of the existence of tar deposits and oil seeps there, and the oil was sold as a medicine as early as 1480 (Clark 7). In OTL, a well (drilled looking for coal) struck oil at 200 feet on May 29, 1858. (Clark 25) Mining of oil-bearing sands began in 1917, so strictly speaking, we don't even need drilling technology to obtain Wietze's black gold.

The oil extracted by mining at Wietze was a heavy oil, more useful as a source of lubricating oil than of gasoline; gasoline content was under 5%. Corwith, "The Oil Mines at Wietze and Pechelbronn" (Grantville Gazette 23). I would expect that the drilled oil isn't much better, certainly no better than 10%.

It's possible to find light oils at Wietze; they are in Upper Triassic (Rhaet) rock at a depth of 330–350 meters. Find it, and almost 20% of production distills at under 250^oC [482^oF]. (Kauenhowen 480, 482). But in OTL, the light oil was discovered only in 1900.

Pechelbronn, which is in modern France, was added to the USE's Upper Rhenish province by the 1634 peace treaty (Flint, 1634: The Baltic War, Chapter 68). It likewise has both heavy and light oil deposits. The light oils lie at 150–600 meters. (Rice 281). Pechelbronn production in 1950 was about 500,000 barrels of light oil annually. (Bateman 692).

While Germany does not have any giant oil fields, it has quite a few salt dome deposits like Wietze. Germany's total oil reserves are sufficient to support USE military forces and industry for a long time. In 1880–1918, Germany produced about 17 million barrels. (Day 134), an average of 436,000 annually or 1194 daily. Just a smidgeon compared to the USA, but plenty relative to what the USE can consume in the near-term.

OTL, Wietze production (including mining) was 826 tonnes in 1892, 27,042 in 1900 (KKGG; Volkswirtschaftliche Chronik 23)(an average annual rate of increase of 55%). One metric ton is about 7 barrels, so in OTL 1900 we have 190,000 barrels/year, or 520 barrels/day.

There are several larger fields in Germany. In 1937–1993, the Reitbrook field (discovered 1937, first oil sand at about 750 feet, 1000 acres producing) produced a total of 15.7 million barrels of oil (average 280,000 annually). Nienhagen (discovered 1909) production mid-twentieth century was around 300,000 tons (2,100,000 barrels) annually (Ludmer 259; Tiratsoo 120ff; Pennwell 146). None of these would impress a Texan, of course!

The question is, how fast can we scale up the production rate of crude oil and, in particular, of gasoline and diesel fuel?

By 1635–36, it's likely that there will be additional wells drilled at Wietze, boosting production. However, it's less predictable that they would have found the light oil, and nothing in "Grantville literature" would have told the field management that in fact there's light oil to be found.

Until we have a lot of drilling rigs, scale up will be slow. Wietze is a "Hanoverian" field, and in 1897, the 80 shallow wells in operation in that area averaged 20 barrels/day (Emmons 513). So each new well might add only 20 barrels/day to total production—and with Wietze heavy oil, less than 2 of those barrels will be gasoline. For a big increment, we need to drill deeper or start mining (for which "quantity has a quality all its own"). And I doubt the up-timers will know about the OTL oil mining at Wietze, so they will have to think of it on their own .

In 1950, Germany was producing about 4.5 million barrels annually (Bateman 692), but it will take decades to reach that level.

Developing new fields will help. But while Germany has many small oil fields, there are numerous reasons why an area that in fact contains an oil field might be neglected:

—we lack accurate information as to where to start looking.

—it's too remote for it to be convenient to send prospectors or drillers, and it would be expensive to transport back any oil found.

—the members of our limited corps of geologically trained prospectors have been sent to more promising areas.

—if the locals aren't aware of surface oil signs, and we have to map the surface geology to find favorable structures, it can be very time-consuming, especially in marshy or forested areas.

—the locals might not let us look where we want to look.

—the oil field may lack surface evidence of oil or even of favorable structures.

—there may be legal uncertainties as to who can grant the right to drill, or the owner may simply refuse for fear of disturbing agricultural activities, or the owner may have too high an opinion of the oil prospects and demand too much money.

—there may be a shortage of drilling crews or equipment, so we can't drill everywhere we'd like to.

—drilling may prove too time-consuming, expensive or hazardous, because of very hard rock, "caving" formations, water infiltration or high pressure gas.

—we lack the resources (money, fuel, wire cable, drillpipe, casing) to drill deep enough to reach the pay depth.

—our exploratory well may be dry, discouraging further attempts in the same area for several years (even though we may be close to, or even nominally within, the bounds of an oil field).

—inept development may cause the early depletion of the field.

—the oil found isn't worth the lifting cost (it's contaminated with water or sulfur, it's heavy, it costs too much to ship).

The bottom line is that since there's a lot of luck in the oil business, Eric can justify an oil shortage or an oil glut, or even a fluctuation between them, as he pleases.

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I have no doubt that there was, in the short term, a serious oil shortage as reflected in canon. But if we hit the light oil stratum at Wietze, or find another major field, gasoline and diesel fuel production could increase dramatically. To the point that we had a quite abundant supply of fuel, relative to transportation demand, at least until the number of "down-time" engines in operation exceeded the number of "up-time" ones.

I expect that by the 1640s, perhaps sooner, we will be producing light oil at Wietze, we will be mining heavy oil at Wietze and Pechelbronn, and we will perhaps have started development of additional Hanoverian oil fields.

Looking further afield, both Gustavus Adolphus and Albrecht von Wallenstein are expansionist monarchs, and they are probably both eyeing Galicia (southeastern Poland). In OTL, the Swedes invaded Poland (including Galicia) in the 1650s. Rail or pipeline transport would make it feasible to use Galician (or Romanian, if the Ottomans played ball) oil elsewhere in Europe. Consideration of the economics of pipelines must be relegated to another article.

Overseas oil is also a possibility. I anticipate several objections: (1) most of the oil is outside USE control; (2) it's too risky to rely on overseas oil because it can be interdicted by an enemy navy; (3) it would be too expensive to transport it; (4) we will lack the tanker capacity to transport the necessary quantities (5) we don't have access to suitable port facilities.

Access to Oil. As I said in Cooper, "Mineral Mastery" (Grantville Gazette 23), "The oil fields which can be developed by anyone are those of the Gulf Coast, parts of the Arabian Peninsula, and perhaps California and Nigeria. Access to the fields of Mexico, Venezuela, the Middle East, Galicia and Russia is likely to be restricted on the basis of nationality." I would add that while Trinidad is under Spanish dominion, it would be relatively easy to seize it (we collected oil there, without much hindrance, in Cooper, "Stretching Out, Part 4: Beyond the Line," Grantville Gazette 16). Also, Suriname is under USE control and there is some possibility of finding the oil at Tamburedjo.

The fact that an oil field is under Spanish, Ottoman or Persian control doesn't mean that the oil won't be developed, it just means that the USE will probably have to buy it from a local entrepreneur. And the fact that we are presently at war with Spain (and facing hostility from the Ottomans) doesn't mean that they won't be perfectly willing to sell oil to us; the Spanish and Dutch traded war materiel even when they were at war.

When the giant oilfields of the Middle East were opened up, the price of heavy heating oil in Hamburg fell, from 146DM/ton in 1957 to 88 in 1958 and 66 in 1959. Likewise, light heating oil dropped in price from 242 to 144. The result was that "within Germany, oil was absolutely cheaper than coal," and homes and factories switched from coal to oil heating. (Milosch 85–6). So the cost advantage of coal over oil, even in Europe, is not eternal.

Military vulnerability. While I don't doubt that there will be efforts to copy USE military innovations (steamships, ironclads, explosive shells, etc.), I think that the USE has the technological edge and the population base to keep that edge. (Given the rivalries among Spain, France, England, and between the Ottomans and the Hapsburgs, I doubt that any combination against the USE will be maintained for long.) Consequently, I think that we will be able to break blockades of our ports and also provide adequate convoy escort service for our tankers. Which are likely, in the 1640s, to be oil-fired steamships.

Transport Costs. With regard to the cost of transport, in the seventeenth century it was much cheaper to transport goods by water than by land. Cooper, "Hither and Yon" (Grantville Gazette 11). (This is nothing new; in Roman times, the cost of transporting wheat by sea was 1.3%/100 Roman miles, and by land, 55%. In the early eighteenth century, English land transport was still over 20 times as expensive as transatlantic shipment. Duncan-Jones 368). "In 1816, the cost of shipping a ton thirty miles overland in the United States was the same as shipping the same ton to England. The average cost was seventy cents per ton per mile (a ton-mile)." (Mabry)

Because oil has a higher energy content than coal, and the diesel engine is more efficient than the steam engine, the cost of fuel per unit power generated would be equal if the cost of oil was about three times the cost of coal. (Wells 85).

In 1915, the cost of oil was perhaps 18s6d–28s/ton in oil-producing countries, whereas in non-producing countries without substantial tariffs, it was 38s–59s/ton. In Germany, the duty was 32s/ton, resulting in a price of 62s–79s/ton. (Id.) (implying a duty-free price of 30–47). The estimated cost of coal was 14s/ton. (86).

Wells compares marine diesel with marine steam; with oil at 40s/ton (consumed 10 tons/day) and coal at 14s/ton (consumed 42 tons/day), and with engine-room staff being 16 for the coal-powered ship and 8 for the diesel, the cost per ton mile (counting fuel, wages, and provisions) was .0067d/ton-mile for coal and .0035d/ton-mile for diesel. (86ff).

It is interesting to note that in 1900, Germany imported 145 million gallons of crude and refined oil from the United States, and 32 million gallons from Russia, while producing 15 million gallons. Plainly, the Germans were willing (if not eager) to pay the piper to get petroleum, despite their huge coal fields.

Transport Capacity. With regard to transport capacity, in the seventeenth century, a large transatlantic trader would be 250–500 tons "burden" (originally a measure of what could be carried in wine barrels). Oil is roughly 7 barrels to the ton so such a trader could carry 1750–3500 barrels. A dedicated tanker with an oil compartment, I suspect, could carry perhaps one-third more, getting us up to the 5000 barrel range. If this were a light crude, like that of the Gulf Coast, it could be 50% gasoline (EPA/Appendix 6A), which would be 2500 barrels (~100,000 gallons)—enough for 133 days supply at the 750 gallon/day demand level.

Of course, if the overseas field produced a heavy crude, like that of Wietze, it would be prudent to refine it on the spot and only ship over the useful fractions.

Once steel production ramps up enough for steel steamship construction to be practical, we will see tankers with a carrying capacity of several thousand tons, which in turn will make it that much easier to supply oil.

In OTL, the "real" price of oil (in 2008 dollars) fluctuated erratically over the first decade of production, hitting a high of about $110/barrel and a low of under $40. From the late 1870s until the early 1970s, it remained under $40/barrel and indeed I would estimate the mean as about $20/barrel. Production isn't likely to climb as quickly as it did in OTL (where most early development was in America), but, on the other hand, the population, and hence the demand for oil, will also be smaller.

Ports. After the Baltic War, USE territory includes the ports of Stettin, Stralsund, Rostock, Wismar, Lubeck and Kiel on the Baltic Sea, and Hamburg, Bremen and Emden on the North Sea. The allied Union of Kalmar has its own ports, including Stockholm and Copenhagen on the Baltic Sea and Aarhus, Malmo, Goteborg, Oslo (Christiania), and Bergen on the North Sea. In addition, there is river traffic down the Rhine to Rotterdam, and then by canal to Amsterdam.

These ports were visited by merchant ships of moderate size and therefore should be able to accommodate tankers of up to 100–200 tons burden, at least. By the time we have locomotive-grade diesel engines, say the 1650s, it's quite likely that at least one of these ports will be improved by dredging so it can accommodate larger vessels. Remember, there are a lot of goods that the USE is going to be importing and exporting by sea so there are considerable economic advantages to having a deepwater port.

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Motive Power

The motive power for the railroad has two basic elements, the power plant and the transmission.

The power plant (engine, prime mover) converts some other form of energy into a mechanical form—the rotary movement of a turbine or the reciprocating movement of a piston.

The transmission takes the kinetic energy of the turbine or piston and uses it, directly or indirectly, to turn the wheels. For a stationary power plant, transmission normally is electric, but we will briefly discuss pneumatic systems.

The first "locomotives" in the new time line were pickup trucks (with gasoline or diesel engines) hauling rail cars on strap rail tracks. There were also horse-drawn trains.

Steam locomotives appeared at least by 1634, possibly earlier. Steam locomotives have been discussed at length in Cooper, "Harnessing the Iron Horse: Railroad Locomotion in the 1632 Universe," Grantville Gazette 7; Edelberger, supra; Evans, "Fire Breathing Hogs" (Grantville Gazette 20).

Eventually, the steam locomotive will face competition from Diesel (especially diesel-electric) and straight electric locomotives, and perhaps other kinds as well. The 1953 Encyclopedia Britannica "Locomotive" article devotes three pages to steam, three to "straight electric," and three to diesel-electric locomotives.

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Power Plant Distribution

We have several choices as to how to distribute the power plant. First, it can be mobile or stationary.

A mobile power plant usually burns fuel, converting chemical energy to heat energy, and using the expansion of heated gas to operate the turbine or piston.

If it is mobile, we can put it onto a locomotive that pulls or pushes the other cars of the train. Or we can put it on every car of the train, in which case there is no dedicated locomotive. This may be advantageous if a single high-powered prime mover has substantially higher initial costs, or operating costs, than the equivalent series of low-powered prime movers. Or to improve traction by taking advantage of the weight of all the cars rather than just the locomotive.

If traffic is so light that the locomotive is only pulling one car, you might do better to replace the train with a single "railcar" ("rail motorcar"): a self-propelled passenger, mail or express freight car which travels on the rails.

We can take the prime mover out of the train entirely and instead use a stationary power plant, transmitting the power to either a single locomotive (really a glorified "motor") or to individual cars each equipped with its own motor. (The latter are often referred to, rather cryptically, as "multiple units"; they are designed so that they can still be controlled from one cab even though each one propels itself.)

Finally, we can equip the locomotive, or individual self-propelled cars, with a portable energy storage unit, that is charged up at a stationary power plant.

We still have the question of whether it's better to have one or two large stationary power plants, or many small ones. The latter is most likely to be considered an option when an electric railway is running on direct current, because that can't be transmitted efficiently over a long distance. Still, power plants tend to have economies of scale favoring bigger but fewer facilities.

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Mobile Power Plant Types

The steam (piston) engine is an external combustion engine, that is, the fuel is burnt in one chamber (the firebox) and the combustion gases serve to heat a working fluid (water in the boiler) inside the engine so that the resulting steam moves the piston in another chamber (the cylinder). A steam turbine engine is similar except that the steam moves turbine blades instead of pistons.

In an internal combustion engine, the fuel is burnt to generate a combustion gas, and the combustion gas expands against the piston or turbine, in the same chamber. The combustion can be continuous or intermittent. The ignition of the fuel may be by means of a spark, as in an Otto ("gasoline") engine, or by compression, as in a Diesel engine.

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Transmissions

Mechanical transmissions. In the nineteenth century steam "rod" locomotive, a connecting rod mechanically transmitted the forces on the piston to the wheel. This transmission has the disadvantage that there is a one-to-one relationship ("direct drive") between a piston stroke and a wheel rotation.

This relationship can be altered by interposing a gear, so the engine turns a gear and the gear turns the wheel. A geared locomotive (Shay, Climax, Heisler) uses reduction gearing so it can achieve higher tractive effort (pull) at low speed than would be possible with a rod locomotive having the same size driving wheels. Most geared locomotives are single-speed, but a few had the ability to switch from one gear to another, and thus to change the engine-wheel speed ratio, like a car or truck transmission.

Other transmissions. It is also possible to convert the mechanical energy into some other form of energy (electric, hydraulic, pneumatic) and then back again "at the wheel." This allows for continuous variation of the ratio, and thus for greater versatility.

If a locomotive type has a "two-part" name, like "diesel-electric", the first part identifies the power plant(e.g., diesel engine) and the second part the transmission (e.g., electric).

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Pistons versus Turbines

Most locomotive engines, whatever their type, drive a piston. However, it is possible to re-engineer them so that the expansion of the compression gas or the steam turns the blades of a turbine instead.

The turbine's advantages are that it has fewer moving parts (potentially reducing maintenance, and requires less mass and volume for a given power level.

Also, two cylinder piston engines produce various vibrations as a result of the incompletely balanced movements of the pistons, and these can lead to mechanical wear, an unpleasant ride, hammering of the track, etc. (The balancing problems are exacerbated if the engine is coupled to a mechanical transmission, as more mass is involved.) A turbine avoids the problems of balancing reciprocating masses.

Turbines can be driven by combustion gases or by steam. The first combustion gas turbine-mechanical locomotive appeared in 1933. Unfortunately, the turbine's power and efficiency are very strongly dependent on the rotational speed; that is, it runs best only close to full "load." That's a problem if the turbine is driving the wheels directly (mechanical transmission), since locomotives need to accommodate a broad range of speeds. A turbine-mechanical locomotive doesn't run downhill, idle, or creep along very well. A workaround is to have several turbine engines which can be brought on line as needed.

Another problem with a turbine-mechanical locomotive is that it needs an "extra" turbine dedicated to reversing, because a turbine can turn in only one direction.

The first combustion gas turbine-electric reached the market in 1941. Turbines produce a rotary motion of the shaft, and that's exactly what generators need to convert mechanical energy into electrical energy. So the turbine-electric combination is a natural one. The turbine can be run near full speed and if the load is light, the excess energy perhaps can be fed into batteries or even into a resistance heater to keep the fuel warm. Still, it's best to operate them close to full load as much as possible, i.e., on high-speed, long-distance runs.

Union Pacific was the principal proponent of the gas turbine-electrics, and it used Bunker C oil as fuel. However, after a while this fouled the turbine blades (presumably as a result of incomplete combustion) and thereby increased maintenance costs. (Wikipedia).

A steam turbine (MRT) works pretty much like a gas turbine, except it uses pressurized steam rather a combustion gas, and it usually burns coal rather than bunker fuel. The first steam turbine-mechanical locomotive (with four turbines) was built in 1907, and the first steam turbine-electric in 1910. The most successful was probably the LMS Turbomotive 6202 (1936–49).

The advantages and disadvantages are similar to those of the combustion gas turbine. However, there seems to have been a problem of reliability on steam turbine-electrics; coal dust or leaking boiler water got into the traction motors. The C&O introduced steam turbine-electrics with much fanfare in December 1947 and quietly sold them for scrap in 1950. (Shuster 299).

Steam turbines do work quite nicely in stationary power plants, however, provided that they are large enough (Stott 1172).

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Steam-Electrics

The piston motion of a steam engine may be used to rotate a DC current generator, rather than a wheel, and the generated electricity then transmitted to a motor.

If there were two pairs of pistons, you could fully balance the lateral forces without resort to wheel-mounted weights that would cause rail pounding.

The first steam-electric locomotive was the Heilmann (1893). It was used to haul a test train, and performed well, but the design didn't catch on commercially.

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Diesel "Compression Ignition" Internal Combustion Engines

In the old time line, the Diesel engine was invented in 1893, the first Diesel locomotive was put into operation in 1912, and "diesel electric" locomotives were first used in passenger service in the Thirties.

In the Diesel locomotive, a Diesel engine (a "compression ignition" internal combustion engine) is used to convert the chemical energy of fuel into mechanical energy. Air is compressed (more so than in a gasoline engine), fuel is injected and ignited by the heat of compression, and the combustion gases expand, driving a piston.

The diesel fuel, being liquid, can be stored in small tanks located in otherwise wasted spaces and still easily delivered to the engine when needed. The handling of wood or coal for a steam engine is much more cumbersome. Of course, an oil-fired steam engine would have the same fuel handling advantage.

Diesel engines are 3–4 times as thermally efficient as steam engines (Vauclain), and diesel fuel has a higher energy content. A given weight of diesel oil in a diesel engine might do eight times the work of an equal weight of coal in making steam for a steam engine, so if it were four times as expensive, fuel costs would be halved by diesel use. (Mike's). Also, please remember that "alternative" fuels for diesel engines exist, as discussed in the "Fuel" section.

A steam locomotive might need a pound of water for every pound of coal; diesels require much less water. Dieselization reduced the B&O's water bill by over 80%. (Holt)

Because it doesn't need to stop for water, and fuel stops are less frequent (every 500 versus every 100 miles), diesels make better time, and "crew districts" (typically eight hours travel) are larger. That reduces labor costs. (Solomon 13, 15).

Maintenance-wise, steam locomotives were typically out-of-service half the time, diesels more like 5–10%. (Coifman; Solomon 14). However, steam locomotives had a longer service life; 20–30 years versus 14. (Solomon 17).

It is much easier to operate diesel-electrics locomotives in combination ("multiple units," MU) to haul a single train than to coordinate the operation of multiple steam locomotives (Coifman). Hence, we can increase traction without increasing locomotive size. Big heavy locomotives require gentler curves and increase track maintenance costs.

The great disadvantage of the diesel was initial cost, typically 2–3 times that of a steamer. Diesel engines had many more parts and they had to be machined to higher tolerances (1/10,000th vs. 1/100th inch) (Solomon 17; Francis 67; Wikipedia/Diesel Locomotive).

Weight was also a problem for early diesel. The high compression ratios needed for ignition meant the engine had to be strong enough to contain the gases. Until the Thirties, when high strength/weight alloys became available, that meant using a thick, heavy, cast iron or steel block. The Winton W40 had a engine weight-power ratio of 200 pounds/hp (as opposed to 20 for the 1933 Winton 201A). (Solomon 41ff)

Naturally, that also meant that the vehicle weight-power ratio was undesirable, making it difficult to scale up to a locomotive suitable for mainline service. A Baldwin diesel-electric locomotive (1925) weighed 275 pounds per horsepower. A steam locomotive of the same period was more like 140 pounds/hp. (Vauclain 46).

Modern diesels are more compact, of course; the 1960s Napier Deltic has an engine weight-power ratio of 5.5. (Ransome-Wallis 33).

It is worth noting that quite a few locomotive diesels (including the Winton 201A and the Napier Deltic) were first marketed, or co-marketed, to the navy for submarine and fast attack boats. The four ironclads of the Baltic War use diesel engines scavenged from coal trucks (Flint and Weber, 1633, Chapter 4), and it is likely the NTL Navy will be encouraging diesel engine construction.

Turbocharging (using exhaust gas to drive a fan that pushes more air into the compression chamber) increases power 30–50% (railway-technical; Holt). Turbochargers appeared on locomotives in the 1920s.

How powerful a diesel engine do we need? The answer will affect how soon diesel locomotives can be put into service. You can calculate the frictional resistance of a train of a given weight using the formulae in Cooper, "Harnessing the Iron Horse" (Grantville Gazette 7). The engine provides the tractive effort (force) that overcomes that resistance, and the speed of the train will be that which makes the "TE" equal the resistance.

The exact relationship between TE and engine horsepower is dependent on the electrical characteristics of the generator and the motor. With modern diesel-electrics, TE in pounds at full throttle can be very loosely estimated as 308 times the horsepower available for the generator, divided by the vehicle speed (mph), for speeds above 10–20 mph. (Hay 100).

However, I am not sure how typical that would be of the first diesels built in the new time line. It may help to consider the characteristics of some of the first successful diesel-electrics (Ransome-Wallis 113ff; Solomon 53ff).

A switcher with just a 600 or 900hp Winton 201A did just fine in the Thirties. And two of the 900hp models powered the E1 series passenger locomotives. These were replaced with two, more reliable, 1000hp EMD 567 engines in the E6 (1938), providing a maximum tractive effort of 51,250 pounds.

The first successful diesel freight locomotive, the Electro-Motive FT (1939). This had a two or four unit engine, each unit providing 1350 hp. The four units together weighed 900,000 pounds, spread across 32 driving axles, and totaling 193 feet in length. The 5400hp version produced a starting tractive effort of 220,000 pounds, and carried 4800 gallons fuel, giving it a 500 mile radius of action. It hauled 3500 tons from Winston to Barstow.

There is endless dispute as to the relative power of diesel-electrics and contemporary steam locomotives. The Y6, usually considered the most powerful steam locomotive ever built, had a maximum tractive effort of around 166,000 pounds. (The locomotive weight was 611,500 pounds, and with the tender added, the pair totaled 961,500 pounds.)

The EMD F7 diesel unit (230,000 pounds, 1500 hp) had a maximum tractive effort of 56,000 pounds. So a string of four F7s would be expected to beat even a Y6. (EMD also had an SD7 in 1952—maximum tractive effort of 90,800 pounds. So two of these would beat a Y6.)

Steamheads might respond, "so that means that it takes four diesels to beat one steamer!" But that's not the point. The design philosophy for diesel electrics (and straight electrics) is different. Instead of building one big steam loco that is overkill for most jobs, you build say a 1350 hp unit capable of single or multiple operation. Two give you 2700hp, four, 5400, eight 10,800, etc.

There were limits to how big any steam loco could be, and they didn't play well together on a single train, so no matter how powerful steam loco the steamhead has in mind, the diesel proponent can add enough MUs to beat it. (If the control circuitry will support it. . . .)

And when you don't need them to combine efforts, they (at least the ones with cabs) can work independently.

Moreover, even a single diesel unit on the track beats a steam locomotive, however powerful, sitting in the maintenance shop.

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Diesel engines are used in large trucks, and undoubtedly there are some Diesel engines available for study in Grantville. There are also mechanics with experience in the maintenance and repair of such engines.

There will probably be resistance to using any coal truck diesel engines, previously used in APCs and the ironclad, as "mere" locomotive engines. But if they do become available, they are probably comparable to the 2750hp Detroit Diesel engine on a Liebherr T282 coal truck of 1998. At the other extreme, if a pickup truck had a diesel engine, it would be perhaps 250hp (like the 1994 Ford Power Stroke 7.3L).

There undoubtedly will be efforts to duplicate these exemplars post-RoF, but it remains to be seen how quickly they can be duplicated and whether the necessary precision will be exercised.

While it's helpful that there is mechanic-level expertise with Diesel engines, the learning curve is still going to be much steeper than with steam engines (Grantville's "steamheads" probably built, or helped build, steam engines for tractors or locomotives, and probably have collections of schematics for steam locomotives.)

It took post-independence India about twelve years to go from importing all the parts for a 6hp Lister engine (for water pumps) and just assembling it themselves, to a completely indigenous diesel engine. (Lovson).

The Wikipedia article on Diesel locomotives asserts that there were problems with the reliability of modern diesel-hydraulics "built using parts made locally to German patterns under license." If this happens in the modern world, what can we expect to occur in the 1630s? Remember Torstensson's reaction to the micrometer in 1632.

The diesel engines in Grantville may be something of a mixed blessing as models. Their designs may reflect the availability of alloys we don't have.

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Diesel-Mechanicals

In a diesel-mechanical (direct drive) locomotive, there is a mechanical transmission (gears and the like) similar to that on a truck. Most diesel-mechanical locomotives have been small, low speed switching locomotives. The diesel engine has a small range of useful engine speed (rpm). For a diesel-mechanical to have a high maximum wheel speed, it would need an enormous gear train (20–30 gears if it maxed at 110 mph. (HSW).

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Diesel-Hydraulics

In a diesel-hydraulic locomotive, the engine exerts pressure upon a liquid (water, mineral oil, etc.), which in turn acts on a hydraulic motor, which turns the wheels. The fluid is virtually incompressible so the only loss of energy is the result of pipe friction. On the German V200.0, the engines interacted with the liquid through a torque converter.

The reported advantages of the diesel-hydraulic design included reduced locomotive weight, better adhesion to the rails, excellent braking, and avoiding the electrical failure problems experienced with electric transmissions. (Grant 118). Diesel-hydraulic locomotives were used in post-WWII Germany and Britain. However, American railroads weren't impressed; the Southern Pacific bought 12 Krauss-Maffei locomotives and found that they required extra maintenance. (Luna 108). I have also seen reports that they didn't "work well in heavy or express locomotive designs." (Railway Technical).

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Diesel-Pneumatics

In a diesel-pneumatic (the German V320, 1929), the engine drives a compressor, and compressed air acts on the motor. The compression makes them rather inefficient.

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Diesel-Electrics

The most popular diesel locomotive nowadays, at least in the United States, is the diesel-electric. The diesel engine drives a generator, which transmits an electrical current to an electric motor, which turns the wheels. There is also a control system to protect the engine, the generator and the motor.

Since the wheels are turned by motors, rather than by piston action, the driving force is applied more constantly, leading to better adhesion to the track and reduced track wear.

Locomotives with electric transmission can also take advantage of dynamic braking at speeds above 10mph. The motors are made to act like generators (instead of the electric current causing the wheels to turn, the turning of the wheels creates an electric current) and the "generator" drains kinetic energy from the wheels. That way, brake shoes don't have to be changed as frequently.

On a conventional diesel-electric, the current is fed into resistors, and dissipated as heat ("rheostatic braking"). In theory, a diesel-electric can be equipped with some sort of energy storage system (like the lead-acid batteries on the "Green Goat" yard locomotive, or flywheels, or compressed fluids) so that this energy isn't wasted.

The first generators were dynamos, which produce direct current. Later, these were replaced with alternators, which produce alternating current, and are cheaper, easier to maintain, and more compact. Likewise, DC motors were replaced with AC ones, which can carry a higher thermal load. (Holt).

The "weak link" in the early diesel-electrics was the control system (Campbell). Originally, there were separate controls for the engine and the generator (Coifman), and it was difficult to balance these as the load changed as a result of stops, starts, curves and grades. The engine could stall and the electrical equipment could burn out (Duffy 225). It took Dr. Lemp about thirteen years (1910–1923) to come up, in stages, with a solution, in which the operator simply used a lever to control the supply of fuel to the engine and the exciter circuitry adjusted the generator (Lemp USP 1589182). Note that the timing implies that the Lemp control system would not be found in EB11.

And that's not our only problem. We certainly understand the basic designs of generators and motors. The question is whether we can build them to the power needed for at least a railcar, and more preferably for a locomotive, without melting the insulation or running into weight or size problems.

A typical current load for a modern diesel-electric locomotive is 600–1500 amps. (Halberstadt 13, 71, 75, 85, 93). A 1600hp Alco diesel-electric (1951) used silicone insulation for windings with a current rating of 1085 amps. (NSWGR). A 1925 locomotive had an 800 kw generator running at 600–1100 volts, which implies 730–1330 amps. (Vauclain 48).

These problems aren't theoretical: "Almost all failures on diesels are electrical. One damned little short kicks a breaker and the entire locomotive is shut down." (Westing 382).

That suggests that having good insulation will be important. The most immediately available insulation would probably be oiled paper or (more durably) leather. Natural resins (pine?) and waxes are also possibilities. By 1634–35 we should be able to use imported rubber or gutta percha, albeit in limited quantities. Plastics will also begin to be available. For polymer (rubber and plastic) availability, and suitability for electrical applications, see Cooper, "Industrial Alchemy, Part 5: Polymers" (Grantville Gazette 29).

The motors also have an amperage limit; they burn out if they operate at too high a current for too long (Holt). This in turn limits the torque, and thus the tractive effort, that can be coaxed from them.

Still, with new gasoline IC engines being built, however slowly and laboriously, in the new time line, the railroad companies are going to be acutely aware that the handwriting is on the wall for steam locomotives. Historically, the new, relatively primitive diesels had to compete with steam locomotives that were the product of a century of development. This time, there's a more level playing field.

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Gasoline "Spark Ignition" Internal Combustion Engines

Gasoline "spark ignition" internal combustion engines may be used, in place of diesel engines, as the prime mover on locomotives or railcars.

There are, of course, a lot more gasoline engines than diesel engines available in Grantville. They are typically lighter, and cheaper to build or maintain than diesel engines, and have a better power-weight ratio.

While most radial engines use gasoline, they can be designed to take diesel fuel (e.g., Bristol Aeroplane Company's Phoenix I, 380 hp, 1067 pounds, 1928). However, they still wouldn't have the efficiency of a true diesel engine.

A "gasoline" engine doesn't necessarily need gasoline to run. As previously noted, canon says that some engines have been converted to run on natural gas. Also, it's possible to eke out the supply of gasoline by use of mixes such as M85, the methanol-gasoline mix used canonically by "The Monster."

Gasoline is likely to be scarcer and more expensive than diesel fuel, and gasoline engines have less endurance under continuous use. They are also less energy efficient than diesel engines, especially at low power, and slower to start. However, they still produce four or five times as much power from the same weight of fuel as a steam engine (Mike's), and they start faster, too.

Our ability to use gasoline is dependent on producing sufficient "light" oil; the Wietze field, at shallow pay depths, produces mostly "heavy" oil (conventional diesel fuel is heavier than gasoline).

We have the same choices of transmission systems as we did with diesel: mechanical, hydraulic, and electric. The first commercially successful gasoline IC-electric locomotive was built in 1913, and had two 175hp 550 rpm V8 engines (SDRM). But note that it weighed 57 tons; 652 pounds/hp. (Solomon 34).

Historically, the gasoline-electrics made their debut as motive power for rail cars, and helped pave the way for diesel-electrics. That could easily happen in the new time line, because we have so many gasoline engines in cars that are parked indefinitely. The 140–145hp Vulcan V6 was the standard engine for the extremely popular Ford Taurus from 1992 on, whereas 133 or 194hp engines were available for the Toyota Camry of the late 1990s. Presumably, two engines could be paired up for railcar use. (There were two-engine, two-transmission systems in some diesel-hydraulic locomotives.)

There are also pickup trucks with gasoline engines. The Ford F-150, F-250 and F-350 of the Nineties had half to full ton engines of 145–380hp, and could tow 1–4 tons. That assumes resistance typical of rubber tires on asphalt; towing a railcar, I would expect it to handle a load 5–10 times as great (Lay; HNC), if adhesion were sufficient.

Douglas Jones pointed out to me that pickup trucks are grossly overpowered; their chassis are too weak to carry the load that they need to get the traction that their engines are capable of providing. He suggested that the up-timers could build a new, more massive frame to receive the engine.

As for new builds, canon says that four 220 pound, 120hp 7-cylinder radials were delivered by Swartz Aviation, probably in early 1635. It appears that they took six months to make, primarily using handmade parts. Huff and Goodlett, "Spark of Inspiration" (Grantville Gazette 13). By 1636 we might see production on the order of three/month. Of course, the aircraft industry will be snapping those up.

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Straight Electrics

The straight electric locomotive, like the diesel-electric, has an electric transmission, but its energy source is externally generated electrical energy.

The advantages (such as multiple unit operation) imparted by the electric transmissions of diesel-electrics also apply to straight electrics, but the latter has some additional advantages.

Straight electrics are capable of supporting rapid acceleration since the central power plant is much bigger than what could be put on any individual locomotive. That's very desirable for urban rail service, where stations are close together.

Straight electric "locomotives" don't have a power plant on board, and hence are simpler to construct, and have less down-time and lower maintenance costs than even a diesel-electric. (In theory this simplicity should also translate to lower locomotive purchase costs, but in OTL, diesels benefited from economies of scale.)

Electric locomotives are quiet and non-polluting (the power plant is another matter, but it's less of a problem than the steam or diesel locomotives it replaces) which has made them attractive for use in cities.

Their efficiency is enhanced by a more versatile form of dynamic braking. In a straight electric system, the current is fed back into the power distribution system where other trains can use it ("regenerative braking"). Clearly, this is more energy efficient than rheostatic braking. Amtrak has said that regenerative braking reduces energy consumption by up to eight percent. (Amtrak). Regenerative braking is most advantageous when the volume of traffic is the same in both directions, on a steeply graded line.

Straight electric operation imposes high initial infrastructure costs (for the central power plant plus electrification of the entire line), except for the battery-type electrics. In addition, line maintenance costs are higher, because the overhead or third rail must be kept in working order.

The first electric locomotive was built in 1837, and was battery-powered. Obviously, reliance on batteries will limit the available power. The first third rail system went into operation in 1879. The first electrified lines were urban subways and suburban commuter lines. The first mainline electrification was in 1893; an overhead line was installed in Baltimore's Howard Street tunnel, from which steam locomotives were banned. (SDRM)

As for mainline electrification, the infrastructure cost is proportional to the distance to be covered. The vast distances between cities in early twentieth-century America made it difficult for electrification to be considered cost-effective there.

The Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad electrified two districts, a total of 656 miles. The cost of the second electrification (1917–27) was $257 million, and the railroad went bankrupt, in part as a result of the unrecovered electrification costs, in 1925. The other major American mainline electrification was that of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and totaled 2677 miles.

Electrification is widespread in modern Europe, but of course the population density in 2000 is much higher than it was in the seventeenth century and even with improved medical care and nutrition there are limits to how fast the population of Europe will grow.

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Electricity Generation. This is by a stationary power plant. It can use a source of energy other than fuel (chemical energy), such as the gravitational potential energy of falling water (hydropower) or something more exotic (wind, tide, geothermal, solar, etc.) This article will not discuss the more exotic power sources.

In 1910–1920, the coal-powered reciprocating steam plant was usually more economical than a hydroelectric plant up to a "load factor" (demand/capacity ratio), of about 50%. Steam turbine plants were superior to reciprocating steam, but only in the larger plant sizes.

Early electric railroads built their own power plants, whereas later ones simply bought electricity from a power company. Naturally, if a railroad is buying electricity from a power company, the price will include a profit for the latter. If that profit margin is high, then the railroad will certainly be tempted to build its own power plant.

It can then power the railroad at cost, and sell excess electricity to other consumers to further defray its costs. The catch, of course, is that the savings have to be high enough to pay back, within a reasonable time, the cost of constructing the power plant. And it's also helpful if the other customers need energy at different times than the railroad, flattening out the "load curve."

Electricity Distribution. Third rail direct current (DC) systems are used on some suburban railroads. The principal alternative to third rail is the overhead line ("catenary") system. This can carry DC, single phase alternating current (AC), or three phase AC. In 1996, the most common system were single phase AC at 25 kilovolts (kV)(36%) , DC at 3000 volts or more (33%), and single phase AC at 15 kV (15%)(Oura).

Power is voltage times current. If voltage is low, then current must be high, and energy loss (as a result of the resistance of the wire) is proportional to the square of the current. So high voltages are desirable, but unfortunately, even in the early twentieth century, it was difficult to obtain a voltage high enough for long-distance power transmission with a direct current system. (Christie, 524).

Hence, practical implementation of DC railways involved transmitting high voltage AC power to rotary converter substations which then convert it to lower voltage DC for train use. Substations are 5–10 miles apart, to minimize transmission losses, but transmission efficiency is still lower than with the alternatives. DC tends to be used for short haul (metro or suburban) systems.

AC systems don't provide quite as much traction as comparable DC systems. Nonetheless, by the Thirties, AC systems were preferred. At one time, electricity was distributed by AC, but then converted on the locomotive to DC to maximize traction. This required rectifiers suitable for locomotive use, which OTL didn't appear until the Fifties. Later, AC motors were developed that had speed and torque control equal to the old DC models.

Some AC systems also use substations, but their purpose is to step down the voltage, and DC requires eight times as many substations.

In modern practice, the simplest form of overhead line is a single wire, usually steel or bronze (as on the TGV). These are strong but not especially good conductors, so an alternative is hard-drawn copper or, with a little more industrial finagling, copper-clad or aluminum-clad steel. It is also possible to hang one or two conductive contact wires from a strong messenger cable (catenary); the support wire is then preferably galvanized steel, and the contact wire may be copper, aluminum, or a copper-silver alloy. (Oura).

Three-phase AC uses three conductors each carrying an alternating current, but peaking at different times (phases). Several old texts indicated that three-phase power transmission required use of two contact wires rather than one, increasing construction costs.

The overhead line must be supported; in early practice, it was on wood or steel poles, or steel towers. Wood poles are cheap but must be closely spaced; steel towers are at the other extreme. In modern practice, aluminum, concrete and reinforced plastic supports have also been used.

The wires are bare, but are attached to the supports through porcelain or glass insulators, either above (suspension) or below (pin) the wire. The insulator has more than an electrical function; it must help bear the load.

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Hybrid Electrics

Hybrid electrics are designed to use more than one power source. This could be, for example, two different voltages. Or both DC (overhead or third rail) and AC power. Or battery and overhead. Or diesel fuel and overhead (a diesel-electric that also has a pantograph so it can receive power from an overhead line).

Hybrids are used mostly when a locomotive is forced to travel over a line with both electrified and non-electrified, or differently electrified, divisions. They save the trouble of having to change locomotives at the boundary, at the expense of having a more complex, expensive locomotive.

The hybrid diesel-electric is most likely to be used on a line that has short electrified sections, e.g., for tunnels or steep grades. Note that it will have the regenerative braking advantage of a straight electric when going downhill.

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Exotica

Pneumatics. The motive systems described above differ in many respects, but in all cases, the immediate reason the train moves is that force is applied to its wheels so that they turn. However, that isn't the only possibility.

In a pneumatic railway, a difference in air pressure to propel a train. Alas, their day will never dawn in the new time line, because everything they can do better than a steam locomotive, an electric locomotive can do better still. But that doesn't mean that someone won't try to make them work. . . .

The canister-driven pneumatic locomotive is the Aeolian equivalent of the electric battery locomotive. Instead of batteries, it carried compressed-air tanks. In essence, their advantage was that they did not require a fire or produce smoke. Likewise, they didn't need to carry the weight of a firebox and a boiler. Unfortunately, they were inefficient because you lose some of the heat of compression once the compressed air cools. Also, if the air, after expansion, gets too cold, ice forms in places where you really don't want it.

A compressed-air-driven vehicle was run, on a test track, in 1838. The first truly successful design was the Hodges engine, with a reheater between two piston stages. It found a niche in coal mines, especially gassy ones; hundreds were sold in 1896–1930. Chances are that the battery-driven locomotives will preempt this market, unless pressurization technology advances more quickly than storage battery technology.

The pneumatic equivalent of the electric third rail was proposed by Medhurst (~1812). In essence, a piston hung below each car. This piston rode inside a tube with a slit opening at the top. The slit was necessary, of course, to accommodate the strut connecting the piston to the car. The slit was sealed by some flexible element, such as a flap, to create a "valve." Central pumping or fan stations evacuated the air in front of the piston, or compressed the air behind it, or both. The difference in air pressure created a force on the piston, and the piston carried the car along with it.

At least three piston-in-tube pneumatic railways were built in the early days of railroading, and operated for at least a short period of time: Dalkey (Dublin & Kingston) (1.5 miles; 1844–54); London & Croydon (initially 5 and later 7.5 miles; 1846–7); Paris & St.-Germain (1.4 miles, 1847–60); South Devon (initially 15 and later 20 miles; 1847–8). (Brader) There is a brief description of these systems in EB11/"Atmospheric Railway."

On the South Devon line (where the use of pneumatic technology had been promoted by Brunel), there were eight pumping stations, three miles apart. The tube was 13 inches diameter so with the air evacuated enough to create a 10 psi pressure differential, the total driving force was 1344 pounds. With a light train, a speed of 70 mph was achieved (Mike's).

Unfortunately, it took 865 horsepower to do the work that Brunel expected to be done by 300 horsepower, so operating costs were high (this was partially attributable to the lack of telegraph communications between the pumping stations. The valve began to fail in 1848, and the pumps were replaced with steam locomotives.

On the Dalkey, the tube was 15 inches diameter, it took five minutes to exhaust the tube enough to start the train, and the reduced pressure on the forward side of the piston was eight pounds (about half-atmospheric). The leather lasted for six to eight months before it had to be replaced. (Bramwell).

There were a variety of problems with these systems. The leather flaps (or its tallow coating) could be eaten by rats, or simply deteriorate as a result of freeze-thaw cycles. (MRT) In the new time line, we will be able to use rubber or plastic flaps, instead.

The third option is the tube-tunnel pneumatic railway; the entire car sits inside the pneumatic tube. The advantage is that since the rear is much larger in area, much less of a pressure difference is needed to generate the same force. The disadvantage is that the passengers are likely to feel that they are fitted inside cylindrical coffins. This system was used at the Crystal Palace line, which operated as essentially a tourist attraction in 1864. The propulsion system was a 22-foot diameter fan, and it only needed to generate a 0.02 atmosphere differential. The car was propelled at 25 mph.

There was never a general adoption of any pneumatic system for mainline railroad, so perhaps the proponents of pneumatic railways will just be whistling in the wind. (Groan.)

If pneumatic railways find a niche, it will be in subways and mines, where one can't use a steam engine . . . and then only until straight electrics are available.

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Sail cars. In 1830–31, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad experimented with Evan Thomas' "sail car," the Aeolus. According to B&O's General Counsel, it didn't work well: "It required a good gale to drive it, and would run only when the wind was what sailors call abaft or on the quarter. Headwinds were fatal to it, and Mr. Thomas was reluctant to trust a strong side wind lest the Meteor might upset. . . ." (Stover, 35). It received a positive spin from a Baltimore historian; "when the wind was favorable its performances were highly satisfactory," impressing a Russian diplomat who took a ride on it. (Scharf 321).

What was new about the B&O sail car was that it was mounted on rails; the Chinese reportedly built a sail wagon around 500 A.D. (Burgan 6).

While the B&O pronounced it a failure, I found that a sail car proved useful on an industrial track, running three-quarters of a mile from a dock to an ice house, in St. Petersburg, Florida (where apparently it is often windy). For a photo, see Popular Mechanics, July 1911, page 26.

Railplanes. Finally, consider the Bennie Railplane, which hung from a monorail and had front- and rear-mounted propellers. (Mike's). Because it was driven by the lift provided by the propeller, rather than by driving wheels, it didn't need to be heavy to "adhere" to the rail. You can watch a silent film showing it in action on an eighty foot test track. (Scottish Screen Archive).

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Cost-Benefit Analysis of Electrification and Dieselification

Electric versus Diesel

Electrification requires a huge initial investment in the overhead line and related structures, coupled with a more moderate initial investment in the electric locomotives. The payback comes in the form of lowered operating costs. Typically, electric locomotives have lower maintenance and energy costs. The locomotives themselves are usually more expensive than diesels, but this is balanced out by the fact that you need fewer electrics to do the same amount of work.

The most obvious energy source for an electric power plant in Germany is coal. Bituminous coal has an energy density of 24 MJ/kg (Wikipedia), and if the plant burns it with a conversion efficiency of 40% (range is more like 30–50%; (Roth 2), or 32–34% (McNerney 4), that yields 2.7 kilowatt-hours/kilogram. Of this, perhaps 76% reaches the rail (Steimel 10); that's a net of 30%, or 2.0 kwh/kg. It will be better if the plant burns anthracite (32.5 MJ/kg) and worse with lignite (14 MJ/kg). (There are parts of Germany in which lignite or even peat would be the most likely fuel.)

Diesel fuel (density 0.85 kg/liter) has an energy density of 46.2 MJ/kg (Wikipedia)—almost twice that of coal—and the combined efficiency of the diesel engine and its electric transmission is about 30% (Schobert 275; cp. Steimel 10 for diesel-hydraulics), yielding 3.85 kwh/kg (or 4.53 kwh/liter) at the rail.

So that means that for there to be any energy savings as a result of using electrics, the cost/kg of diesel fuel must be at least 93% more than the cost of coal.

In the 1650s, the relative efficiencies may also work against coal. The earliest coal plants had efficiencies of under 3% (McNerney 4). Even in 1908, powerplants had efficiencies of only 3–11% (Hobart 25ff), and transmission losses were higher, too. Whereas even in 1913, there were marine diesel engines with efficiencies of 32–35%. (BSB). So, it's possible that there will be a period in which the diesel engine is more efficient than the available coal-powered powerplants. So that would require that the price of diesel be even higher to make coal competitive.

What about hydroelectric power? After all, "white coal" is free. Certainly, the operating costs of a hydroelectric plant are low. In 1909, Stott (284) said that they averaged 6% that of a reciprocating steam plant. In 1916, Stillwell said to allow $1/kilowatt for the operation of the hydroelectric plant. For a steam plant of 50,000 kw capacity, he suggested an operating cost, excluding the coal, of $3.50/kilowatt. With coal at $1–5/ton, and the plant running at 50% load, 200,000 tons of coal were needed annually, at a cost of $4–20/kilowatt.

The problem is, the plant must also be paid for. In 1916, "first cost" for a steam plant was $56–75/kilowatt capacity (Stott 1172). Stillwell assumed that his steam plant could be built for $63.70/kilowatt. Allowing 12% for interest and depreciation, that meant annual capital charges of $7.64/kilowatt.

In 1916, the first cost for a hydroelectric plant was at least $150/kilowatt, and, if a large dam was needed, $200–250/kilowatt was more likely (Stott 1172). (Mead 681 reports even higher numbers.) Interest and depreciation on the first cost would run perhaps 11–12% annually. Assuming 12%, that's $18–30/kilowatt capital charges. That brings the annual hydroelectric cost to $19–31/kilowatt, versus $7.50–23.50/kilowatt for the steam plant. Stillwell concluded that if coal were at $3/ton and the capital charge was 12%, the maximum justifiable price for hydroelectric power was $147/kilowatt.

Perhaps because of cheap oil, for Class I railroads in the United States in 1944, 1949, 1954 and 1959, the fuel cost for diesel-electrics was substantially less, on a gross ton-mile (freight) or passenger train car-mile (passenger) basis, than for straight electrics. (NRC, Table 15).

Critical Traffic Density. Even under favorable conditions, the traffic density must be high for the operating cost savings to accumulate quickly enough to justify the up-front cost of electrification. We need to quantify just how high.

Passenger traffic is measured in annual passenger-miles (kilometers), and freight traffic in ton-miles (kilometers) (net tons are just the freight, gross tons include the rail cars and may also include the locomotive weight). There is no good consensus on how to combine passenger and freight traffic into a single traffic measure. Traffic density is the annual traffic per route-mile (kilometer) or track-mile (kilometer) of line; a double tracked line would have two track miles for every route-mile.

Analyses of the merits of electrifying a railroad that is already running diesel locomotives naturally were uncommon prior to the big run-up of world oil prices. I have found quite helpful a cost-benefit analysis set forth in a 1985 World Bank paper (Alston); it was detailed enough so that I could build a spreadsheet to implement it. It assumed that investment and maintenance costs of the fixed installations were proportional to track length, investment in locomotives and energy consumption proportional to traffic (measured in gross ton-kilometers), and locomotive maintenance proportional to locomotive mileage (measured in locomotive-kilometers).

Alston's model provides several important insights:

—for a given combination of economic (discount rate, prices) and technological parameters, there is a critical traffic density (gross ton kilometers moved, per kilometer of track, per year) at which the net present value for electric vs. diesel operation is zero: if traffic density is higher, electric operation is more economical.

—the critical traffic density is proportional to the electrification infrastructure (overhead line, but not the locomotives) cost per kilometer if all other parameters are held constant.

—the critical traffic density is unaffected by a general price movement, i.e., all prices (electrification, maintenance, diesel fuel, electricity) altered by the same percentage. (So we don't have to worry about converting from 1985 dollars to a different general price level)

—the critical traffic density is reduced if the ratio of the nominal annual operating cost savings to the initial up-front electrification infrastructure costs are reduced, e.g., by increasing the ratio of diesel fuel price/liter to electricity price/kilowatt-hour or overhead line construction/kilometer.

In Alston's "base case," the critical traffic density was 13,700,000 gross ton-kilometers/track-kilometer (per year), but Alston assumed that there would be a decrease in the rate of growth of diesel fuel prices mid-project that didn't make sense in a 163x context. So my calculation yields a slightly lower critical traffic density (13,025,610).

I have tested Alston's conclusions both by constructing a spreadsheet to duplicate his reasoning, and also by comparing his technological and economic assumptions (and traffic density conclusions) with other sources.

However, I want to comment on Alston's energy costs. Based on his price and consumption assumptions (which were reasonable for 1985), on a gross ton-kilometer basis, electric operation cost 74% as much as diesel. But I saw that diesel consumption rates had been twice as high in 1960.

I did a certain amount of "sensitivity testing" of Alston's model. For example, if I double the cost of diesel fuel, double the diesel consumption rate, and drop the "in-service" percentage of diesel locomotives from 86% to 65%, the critical density is reduced to 2,410,718. You could bring it down to 1,375,718 if you also reduced the discount rate to 6%. Or if you could halve the electrification infrastructure cost. Further reductions would require more pronounced pro-electric changes in the underlying parameters. And of course, we may find that some parameters should be moved in the other direction, e.g., an increase in the cost of electricity or in its consumption rate. In view of these findings, I think it would be unlikely that the circumstances will result in a critical traffic density less than 1,000,000.

In 1915, the US average traffic density was 1,116,000 ton-miles/route-mi freight and 114,000 passenger-miles/route-mi. However, for twenty of the more important railroads, the freight density ranged from 522,000 to 7,220,000, and the passenger density from 49,600 to 738,000. (Williams 78). So one can imagine that when the nationwide traffic density is only 100,000, there could be individual railroads with a density of 1,000,000. And when the nationwide is a million, there could be individual ones at ten million.

So, what sort of traffic density might we have in 1635 and how long would it take to reach the hundred thousand, million, and ten million levels?

Initial Traffic Density on USE Railroads. In 1820, the English turnpike roads had a traffic density of 2,383 ton-miles/mile. Germany in 163x doesn't have a road system anywhere near as good as that turnpike system. But let's assume, as a starting point, that once a railroad is built, that it will generate a traffic density that bears the same relation to the population of 1600 Germany that the English turnpike system did to the population of 1820 England. If so, then we would predict an initial freight traffic density in say 1633–35 of around 1,600 ton-miles/mile.

It has been estimated that Germany circa 1800 transported 325,000,000 ton-miles/year by horse (Pomeranz 301). I don't know the total road distance then, but in the late nineteenth century it was 265,000 miles. (Mulhall, Dictionary of Statistics 516). Since there was probably less roadway in 1800, that implies that road traffic density was at least 1226. We would capture the long-distance portion of that business for which the origin and destination are close to a railroad station, and also generate some new business because of the lower cost/ton-mile of rail transport.

In 1839, when there were only about 2700 track miles in the USA, the freight traffic density was 11,115 (net? ton-miles/route mile), and the passenger figure was 33,346. Now, the population density in the USA 1839 was lower than in Germany 1600, but it's difficult to decide whether that's good or bad. With a lower population density, less passenger and freight traffic might be generated, but on the other hand, they probably need to travel farther to reach the destination, so the number of ton-miles may remain the same.

So a fair estimate for the 1635 rail traffic density level would be 1,000–10,000.

Traffic Density Growth Rate. There is general agreement among scholars that traffic density is positively influenced by growth in both population and economic productivity. However, I have done a series of regression analyses on both US data from 1939–1910, and cross-country data from 1912, and there is no formula that closely fits that data. And published regression analyses, based on other samples, disagree with my results and each other. And, to be frank, it's not that easy to predict the USE's population or economic growth, anyway. Nor can we easily forecast the price of railroad transport relative to competing roads, although it's reasonable to assume that it will be cheaper.

What we can do is say how many years, at a particular growth rate in traffic density would be needed to reach the levels I mentioned.

Looking at the increase in combined traffic density in the USA from 1839 to 1910, the geometric average rate was 13.9% for 1839–1849, and thereafter varied from 1.5–8.4%. For 1839–1910, it averaged 5%. (Using Alston's conversion to gross ton miles, the USA passed the 100,000 mark between 1839 and 1849, and the 1,000,000 mark (per route mile) between 1890 and 1900. )

Now, I realize that we are going to have a massive dissemination of up-time knowledge. Still, it will take time to seriously impact the size of the labor force or its productivity.

China experienced rapid economic growth in 1978–2003 (GDP per capita from $240 to $4020 in 2003USD), as it attempted to modernize after cutting itself off from most of the world. Over 1978–2000, passenger traffic multiplied more than four fold and freight traffic two fold, while the rail network increased 20%. (Bouf) Combining the two forms of traffic, this impressive increase still amounts to an average annual increase of 9.3%. This leads me to believe that the USE will be hard-pressed to maintain a traffic density annual growth rate greater than 10% over a period of decades.

Electric v. Steam

Murray, the consulting engineer for the New Haven (which electrified in 1907), confirmed that "success is entirely dependent upon density of traffic." In 1911, Burch (500) declared, "Railroads must have 10 trains each way per day or haul 1,000,000 ton miles daily, per 100-mile division [equivalent to traffic density of 3,650,000 ton-miles/route-mile] , before electrification is practical. . . . Electrification for passenger service alone, from the terminal of a city of less than 300,000 people, is financially impractical."

As a quick-and-dirty estimate, in my Alston model spreadsheet, I changed the diesel availability from 0.86 to 0.50, and tripled the fuel consumption per gross-ton kilometer, to simulate steam. The critical traffic density dropped from 13,025,610 to 3,043,158. That fails to take into account the savings in labor costs, or any differences in pulling power or speed between steam and diesel.

Thus, it appears that electrification of a steam railroad is worthwhile if it has reached a critical traffic density that is about one-third what the critical density would be if we were contemplating electrification of a diesel system, and, of course, if dieselification is not then an option.

Diesel v. Steam

This is the easiest sell of all. The operating cost advantage of diesel over steam is nearly as great for electric over steam, but the up-front costs are much smaller—simply the purchase cost for the diesel locomotives. In 1936, the diesel:steam locomotive cost ratio was 2.5:1 (Coloroto). In 1940, you could get 4–5,000 horsepower at the rail by investing $175,000 in a steam locomotive or close to $500,000 in a diesel-electric (Grant). In 1946, if a steam locomotive cost $85,000, the diesel-electric would cost $200,000. (Francis).

In 1944, in the United States, the fuel cost per 1000 gross-ton miles was 22.9 cents for steam and 11.0 cents for diesel. Or 2.71 cents per passenger-train car mile for steam and 1.48 for diesel. Prices were higher in 1949, 1954, and 1959, but diesel maintained a substantial energy cost advantage over steam. (NRC Table 15).

In 1957, the unit cost of fuel in the United States was $6.29/ton for coal and $2.91/barrel (*6.7barrels/ton=$19.50/ton) for fuel oil. Nonetheless, it was estimated that if the existing diesel locomotives were replaced by an equivalent number of steam locomotives (mostly burning coal), fuel cost would have been increased by 112%. Additionally, repair costs would have increased by 98.7%. (Table 14).

Prognostications

There was quite a bit of disagreement on the Bar as to how soon we would be able to build diesel engines. Estimates ranged from 1635 to 1680.

The way I see it, transferring diesel engines from the coal trucks (used as APCs, the core of the USE strike force) to ironclads is a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul. There is going to be tremendous pressure from the military to build at least crude diesel engines so as to alleviate the shortage.

While canon says that new internal combustion radial engines have been made in the 1632verse by early 1635, diesel engines are likely to be more difficult to manufacture. It's a WAG, but I would say that it will be the 1640s before we have new diesel engines for capital ship use, and the 1650s before we achieve the power-weight ratios needed for a locomotive (or fast attack craft).

Likewise, there are myriad reasons why we will want to develop flexible insulation suitable for high amperage applications, and that is the principal bottleneck for developing locomotives with electric transmissions. I address the insulation issue in my polymers article and the bottom line is that it's plausible that in the late 1630s and early 1640s progressively more suitable polymers will appear.

That will be, most likely, before we can make our own diesel engines. If there are up-time diesel engines which are powerful enough for a locomotive but not enough for an ironclad, and we don't need them for an APC, then perhaps we will build an experimental diesel-electric. Obviously we will have enough fuel for a single experimental engine, and until we can actually make our own diesels, we aren't going to be contemplating "dieselification" of the railroad system.

While it is undeniable that in the old time line, diesel displaced steam, steam still has its proponents. They point to the enormous disparity, at the end of the twentieth century, between coal and oil prices (over seven-fold in 2007) and urge that with modern technology, the thermal efficiency of the steam locomotive can be improved, from the old 6% to perhaps 27%. As for maintenance costs, they urge that there were a few late model steam locomotives (N&W Class J) that were cheaper to maintain than the contemporary diesels. (Rhodes).

These advanced steam locomotives feature triple expansion engines, a gas producer combustion system, multi-stage feed water and combustion air heating, the Lempor exhaust, Porta boiler water treatment to inhibit scaling, automated boiler and traction control, "water brakes" for dynamic braking, and other improvements. The hard question is whether, even with the headstart given to steam locomotion by the "steamhead" hobbyists in Grantville, and its machine shops, we will conceive of, and build, these high-tech steamers soon enough to stave off dieselification. And whether we will see the same oil/coal price disparity at the critical point in the railroad history of the new timeline.

If there is no suitable diesel engine in the 1640s, there are a few alternatives. First, we might have some sort of gasoline-electric locomotive. We already have the gasoline engines, and we can make more. So it's pretty much a matter of whether we can obtain fuel (gasoline or a substitute) at a reasonable price.

The window of opportunity for gasoline-electric locomotion is short; essentially, gasoline-electrics have a chance if (1) gasoline (or an alternative fuel) is available, (2) the problems of "railroad-scale" electrical equipment are solved while the engineers are still tinkering with the equivalent Diesels, and (3) traffic hasn't reached the level at which straight electrics are cost-effective.

Secondly, we could introduce steam-electrics. We will be able to produce steam engines in quantity before gasoline engines, but the question is whether we can solve the maintenance problems that were experienced OTL.

Finally, we can produce a straight electric locomotive. I must emphasize that there is no way that mainline electrification is going to be cost-effective in the 1640s. What I am talking about is either an urban commuter line, or more likely a very short experimental line that probably doubles as a tourist attraction.

Come the 1650s, and we should be making locomotive-grade diesel engines. I expect that we will have ready access to overseas oil by then. I also expect that we will not yet be able to justify the infrastructure cost for mainline electrification.

Electrification will come first in urban/suburban light rail. But to economically justify commuter service electrification, we need a large population living in a relatively small area. Magdeburg (20,000 before the sack) doesn't qualify. Paris (~400,000) and London (~300,000) are possibilities.

The first mainline electrification will be in urban areas, long tunnels, or in mountainous regions.

As of 2005, the most electrified European countries were Switzerland (100% track electrified) and Luxembourg (95%), both heavily mountainous. Sweden was 77%; the Netherlands, 73%; Italy, 69%; Norway and Austria, 62%, Poland, 61%; Germany, 57%; Spain, 56%, France, 50%, Finland, 46%; Great Britain, 33%; and Denmark, 28%. (Wikipedia REA2005).

The flip side is that in OTL 2005, Germany was still running diesel-electrics over 40% of its track. Hence, I cannot agree with those barflies who were of the opinion that there would not only be early electrification in the USE, but that such early electrification would result in there never being dieselification.

****

Conclusion

In Richard Stilgoe's song, "Light at the End of the Tunnel," in the musical Starlight Express, we are told

Diesel is for unbelievers, electricity is wrong,

steam has got the power that will pull us along.

Steam won't be pulling us along indefinitely, but unless Eric decides to skip the story line ahead a generation or two, we aren't likely to see it replaced by diesel or electric.

****

Author's Note

I regret to report that because of a boot hard drive crash, certain material that I had intended to provide with this article has vanished into the electronic abyss. These include my "Alston model spreadsheet," my critical analysis of Alston's assumptions, my cross-country and cross-time traffic density regressions, much of my bibliography, and very detailed nineteenth- and twentieth-century infrastructure cost, operating cost, and performance data for steam, diesel and electric systems. My (mostly reconstructed) bibliography is quite long and hence will be made available at "Gazette Extras":

http://www.1632.org/gazetteextras/

The Progression of Trauma Care and Surgery after the Ring of Fire, Part 1

Written by Gus Kritikos

From Wiki: From Greek τρώυμα = "a wound," compare verb τιτρώσκω (stem τρω-) = "I injure"

A number of stories in canon depict serious injuries and deaths resulting from trauma, but I don't recall any specific articles, and few stories, covering the care of injuries either under austere conditions generally or in the New Time Line (NTL) specifically. In this article, I will include a number of references to stories in canon, to Wiki, and to professional articles and textbooks that cover some topics in more detail than practicality allows including here. I am also working on an addendum to be posted on the 1632.org site, with pictures and diagrams of various instruments as a resource for other authors.

I dedicate this series of articles to my first medical instructor: my mother, Darlene (a Diploma RN, 1951) who taught me how to give a bed bath and change the bed under the patient, even for patients in skeletal traction.

My thanks to Danita, Kerryn, Stanchem and Nimitz Lover for off bar advice, suggestions, and requests for clarification. Any errors of omission or commission remain mine.

The State of the Art in AD 2000

Here in the US, we’ve chosen to use a pyramid approach to treat trauma, where the doctors are usually centralized in hospitals, taking care of other patients when not working on a trauma patient. Other people, at various levels of training, occupy lower areas of the pyramid, seeing the cases earlier, usually in the field. Therefore, the first trained personnel to encounter most serious trauma patients in OTL are often among the lowest-paid and least-trained professionals (or volunteers) in the system, known as first responders. First responders open or maintain the trauma victim’s airway so they can breathe adequately. If the victim is not breathing, they provide breaths through any one of various methods of artificial ventilation. If the victim’s heart is not beating, first responders may perform compressions to promote circulation. They also control or stop bleeding and transport the patient to the hospital for definitive care. These steps are essential for the trauma victim’s survival because they preserve brain and organ function before arrival at the hospital. While there has been much discussion in Old Time Line (OTL) about "the Golden Hour" and the "platinum ten minutes," over the last thirty years, we've found that these are more guidelines for aggressive transportation, rather than hard limits on survivability. I will also point out that not all trauma requires an OR visit. For example, the casting of broken limbs, initial care of moderate or even some severe burn patients, and watchful waiting on many closed head injuries (CHI) all don’t require immediate OR time. That being said, severe trauma is a condition that can only be treated in the operating room, and only temporarily handled in the field or even the Emergency Department (the ED, also known as Accident and Emergency—A&E—in the British system). Other countries, particularly France, Germany, and to a lesser extent Spain, have physicians and nurses responding directly to the accident site in the ambulance. This is practical in Europe because of the much smaller distances generally involved. I know of no study that shows an advantage either way.

Trauma—1 Team, 1 Goal

In the OTL, definitive treatment of trauma is a well-established surgical specialty. Most practitioners are true general surgeons, capable of both handling surgery in any major body cavity, including at least basic brain surgery, and of providing the intensive care needed in the vital hours, days, and weeks following that surgery. Most major trauma centers maintained at least one surgical team available on short notice—usually within minutes. The head of a team is an Attending Surgeon[i] or a Trauma Fellow[ii], and such a surgeon was expected to be "in-house" and available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year. Along with the surgeon leading the team, major centers generally keep multiple residents, fellows, and specialists of all types on staff, all available on short notice around the clock. Additionally, specialized equipment such as CT scanners, ultrasound scanners and “Cell Savers” (equipment to salvage blood that has been lost inside the body) are found in these major centers.

Ideally, critically injured patients barely stop in the ED on the way to the Operating Room (OR) or specialized care unit (e.g. the burn center), but this often isn't done. Frequently, the surgery suite is in use or a needed subspecialist is not immediately available. Initial resuscitation has to take place, in such cases, in the ED's trauma bay. Such first treatments might include putting tubes or probes in all natural and often several unnatural openings of the body, or even surgically opening the chest or abdomen in an effort to control severe bleeding. These trauma bays are stocked with the appropriate sizes of equipment most often needed—for example, some facilities specialized in pediatric trauma have a larger selection of the smaller instruments needed to handle children. The first mobile Computed Tomography (CT) scanners were appearing in 2000, allowing the machine to be brought to the patient, saving time and reducing problems moving the patient.

Hot and cold running residents are not always available.

Smaller trauma centers depend on surgeons who are on call but do not stay in the hospital. Those facilities utilize experienced physicians, usually certified in one of the general medical specialties (either Emergency Medicine or Family Medicine in the US, often Anesthesia in other areas of the world) to lead the center's trauma team as part of their duties in the ED.

Depending on how badly a patient is injured, and what other specialty physicians are available at the facility, these centers may or may not transfer major trauma cases to larger facilities. Most of these facilities have fixed CT scanners in the ED, so that the patient does not have to leave the department to be scanned. Both critical trauma and medical patients could be treated in these centers' emergency departments, which usually include at least one room with a cart with specialized pediatric equipment.

Rural and small town hospitals may not have a surgeon around all the time.

The smallest facilities may not have a surgeon on call on a regular basis, and will have to transport any major (and even some relatively minor) trauma patients to a larger facility for further care on an urgent basis. Recommendations for many smaller facilities included consideration for direct transfer, often by helicopter ambulance, for seriously injured patients, bypassing the smallest facilities and taking the patients directly to a large trauma center.

See One, Do One, Teach One

While learning the care of severe trauma is a years-, even life-long, process, there are courses available to introduce physicians, nurses and paramedics who are not trauma specialists to the systematic care of trauma patients. These include:

Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS)

Trauma Nurse Core Curriculum (TNCC)

Anesthesia Trauma and Critical Care (ATACC)

Basic Trauma Life Support (BTLS)

International Trauma Life Support (ITLS)

The US Department of Defense Combat Casualty Care Course (C4)

The C4 program includes ATLS for physicians (and physician extenders like Nurse Practitioners (NPs) and Physicians’ Assistants (PAs) and TNCC for nurses. Please note that while NPs generally have collaborative but independent practices with physicians, they are still considered as physician extenders by the American College of Surgeons as far as the ATLS certification is concerned.[iii]

Any family medicine physician who wants to work in the ED or even to practice in a rural area will most likely have taken ATLS[iv]. Similarly, the TNCC course is recommended for any nurse wanting to work in an ED or a trauma ICU. Any physician, dentist or nurse with more than three years of (US) active duty military experience[v] will probably have taken the C4 course during that time. These courses, of themselves, do not qualify a physician or nurse to perform major surgeries, but instead gives them a good basis for starting treatment, and the knowledge to provide immediate life-saving care involving critical airway and chest injuries. I expect that Drs. Adams and Shipley will have taken ATLS in the years just before the Ring of Fire (RoF), Drs. Sims and McDonnell may have taken ATLS in the late 1970s or early 1980s, and that at least Mary Pat Flanagan may have been exposed to TNCC before the RoF. I have not found any evidence in canon that this was the case, but based on my experience in the ED during the 1990s, I believe it is likely.

Major surgeries associated with trauma care range from the short procedures best described as “damage control,” to hours-long reconstructive procedures. Aseptic (without infection) conditions are the norm in surgery and later care OTL. Frequently, further surgeries and treatments work together to help the patient heal fully or to address areas that could not be safely dealt with until the patient was more stable. These may range from an assortment of powerful antibiotics to high-technology instruments that monitor a patient's condition. Life support can include everything from a ventilating machine that can breathe for a seriously injured patient to a specialized bed that helps prevent bedsores. Skin, bone, muscle and even digits can be re-implanted, transplanted, or grafted to repair or replace missing parts. Powerful anesthetic and analgesic drugs are available to allow the most seriously injured patients rest while intravenous or tube feedings prevent dehydration and malnutrition, provide routes to administer medications and allow healing to continue. This is the general pattern for trauma care in the US and Canada, and, with a few modifications, true in the rest of the developed world.

What can be done immediately after the Ring of Fire?

The complex and comprehensive care taken for granted in the developed world is not available in most of the world in OTL. This state of affairs will most likely be true in the NTL at least through the late 1640s or even the mid 1650s, due to the need to develop both the physical plants and the medical infrastructure out of the ruins left by the “Fifteen Years War.”

In OTL, outside of the U.S., Canada, Europe and other developed countries, complex and comprehensive care is usually limited to a few large hospitals in major metropolitan areas. People with major injuries in other areas of those countries, or even in metropolitan areas after a disaster, will receive care that is much more limited. As we shall see, "limited care" does not mean bad care, or even a bad result.

Canon shows that work on the Leahy Medical Center was the major construction project started in 1631 after the RoF, as Mike Stearns and company realized that the lack of an operational medical facility was a potentially disabling problem for the community. Leahy Medical Center (LMC) is in canon as operational by late 1632, when overtures were made to the medical faculty in Jena for a cooperative education effort. This leads in turn to the program now turning out advanced midwives, Bachelors of Science in Nursing (BSN)[vi]and Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine (DO) by sometime in 1634. Some of the equipment for Leahy's operations and the Jena joint effort will be transferred from the physicians’ offices, some from the veterinarian’s offices, some from the nursing home, but many more instruments and devices will be made down-time, out of sheer necessity.

Trauma care in the NTL, before the establishment of the Leahy Medical Center, will be similar to that seen during the recent earthquake in Haiti or the floods in Pakistan—simple, even rough, and much more concerned with saving a life than saving a limb. Even after the establishment of LMC, only those patients fortunate enough to end up at LMC will benefit until other facilities open up.

The experience of Drs. Ellis, McDonnell and Sims during the middle years of the twentieth century will help the only fully trained surgeon, Dr. James Nichols, bring other physicians to the point of being able to handle all the surgery that is practical between the RoF and at least 1637. It should be recognized that all three of the older physicians will die by 1637, according to the Grid, which does put a premium on their remaining life spans.

By 1637, there will be New Model medical schools at Jena and Padua, as well as the New Model hospitals—at minimum in:

Grantville

Magdeburg

Bamberg

Essen

Jena

and probably in Padua and Venice, but in time, there will be others. These hospitals and medical schools will not only teach a fusion of up-time and down-time information, but will also start new medical research to further extend medical knowledge. It is in canon that by November 1634, the new hospital at Jena is capable of handling major trauma and burns.[vii]

An important point here: Dr. Nichols was trained during an era when a general surgeon was expected to be able to operate safely in any area of the body, at least enough to provide life-saving care in almost all conditions. The three older doctors, while not surgeons, were trained in an era when rural general practitioners were expected to handle basic surgeries and orthopedics as needed. I will explore many of these operations later in this series.

The initial limitations of surgical techniques will revolve around the lack of trained personnel, lack of instruments, lack of medications, (safe and titratable analgesics, muscle relaxants, and sedative agents) and lack of equipment (especially anesthesia equipment), but most importantly, the lack of a safe, clean place to operate. The older doctors probably remember the efforts of Josep Trueta i Raspall, MD—a Catalonian orthopedic surgeon who took the lessons from WWI and developed them into a consistent framework involving careful debridement, limited closure and long-term dressings with plaster cast immobilization of horrendous wounds during the Spanish Civil War. There is a fair chance that the older physicians had experience with these techniques during their training and practice in the late 1930s, 40s and 50s. There is also a good chance that Dr. Nichols will have learned some of those techniques while he was in surgical residency, since it is guaranteed that his older professors had experience with those techniques during WWII. Beulah McDonald should also be familiar with them, as these techniques were part of nursing training at the time and she would have used them in Korea.

These techniques are still used today by surgical teams from the International Committee of the Red Cross/Red Crescent and Doctors Without Borders who work in areas affected by major disasters. I have included links to PDFs available from the International Commission of the Red Cross/Red Crescent Societies covering much of this information.

Despite the Trueta method, the lack of vascular repair will increase the number of amputations markedly[viii] with up to half of the patients needing ligation of a major artery requiring eventual amputation. This is five to ten times the rate seen in OTL, especially as the art of trauma surgery has evolved with the current war on terror. We had recognized, after Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm (1990-91), that limiting IV fluids and using tourniquets to stop severe bleeding was actually very effective at saving lives. However, direct pressure on the wound remained the quickest and safest method of bleeding control. Mary Pat Flanagan and David Dorrman would have been aware of these details, even if Dr. Nichols was not.

We already know that up-timers with varying degrees of training have overcome many of the obstacles to surgical training, since Dr. Nichols’ daughter, Sharon, who was trained as an EMT with a BS in Biology (Magna Cum Laude, WVU 1999?) before the RoF, was able to master the techniques abdominal surgery well enough to save “Filthy” Sanchez after he was gut shot in 1634[ix]. Tom Stone was able to make it back from Padua to provide the open cone anesthesia, and provide Sharon with some light relief. Canon also mentions several industrial accidents, as well as combat injuries, that result in amputations[x], paralysis[xi], severe burns[xii] and other disabilities, where the patients probably would not have survived without the efforts of the up-time medical team. Beulah and Mary Pat saved the life of the young printer Veit when they first got to Jena, by inserting a chest tube to relieve a collapsed lung and tension pneumothorax.[xiii] As life-saving as this action was, it almost sank any chance to work with the Jena medical faculty, because of the embarrassment of the up-time, female nurses saving a patient that the down-time male doctors would have had to watch die.

Dr. Trueta’s work, on the other hand, was more involved with salvaging horribly damaged limbs, and to this end, he developed a network of fixed, mobile and railroad hospitals during the Spanish Civil War of the late 1930s. His philosophy of debridement, loose closure, and sterile dressing followed by a long period of supportive plaster casting was responsible for a marked reduction in the infection and amputation rates for horrendously injured limbs. He was able to show, in an era before effective antibiotics, that it is often more important not to disturb the healing wound with dressing changes than it is to observe the healing wound for signs of infection. This technique was well-documented in the surgical textbooks written during and after WWII, and so should be available to Dr. Nichols even if he didn’t learn about it during residency and the older doctors do not have direct experience with it.[xiv] This was something that was being gradually rediscovered in the 1990s, as more problems were being noted with infections resistant to standard antibiotics. I will discuss this more in Part 2.

Basics save Lives.

The basics of trauma care are surprisingly easy to teach: every US soldier and Marine has received this “buddy aid” teaching for years, culminating in the combat life saver course that was developed in the 1990s. The important steps are remembered with the mnemonic “ABBCDEE”: open the Airway [with cervical spine (neck) control], start the Breathing, stop the Bleeding, start the Circulation, evaluate for neurologic Damage, Expose the wound and Evacuate the patient. An experienced medic should be able to identify all of the immediate life threatening problems in a field situation in less than two minutes, given decent light. More importantly, this same experienced medic should be able to determine in less than one minute if the patient is treatable within the capabilities of the situation, or if the patient will die despite the medic’s best efforts, a technique called "triage," from the French word for "sorting." It is important to note that children can be taught the basics of CPR and first aid, and babysitters often take a more advanced first aid training class, as do many lay people. Thus, there will be a fair number of people with that knowledge to spread.

Not every victim can be saved.

Based on my experience both doing and teaching triage, this is one place where the down-timers training as medics, nurses and physicians will have a definite advantage over their up-time counter parts, since most of the up-timers will have a desire to help no matter what the circumstances. That being said, just the use of paramedical personnel trained in the up-time methods will improve combat and field medicine. It is in canon that several groups of soldiers and sailors have taken the new EMT program, in addition to up-time trained EMTs who were first deployed by the NUS/USE government. These troops would have been trained not only in trauma stabilization but also in a broad base of core knowledge in the areas of medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics, sanitation and communications. Just having personnel on the battlefield who know the life-saving skills of stopping the bleeding, ensuring ventilation, splinting fractures and reducing infection will be a qualitative force multiplier. By reducing the troop losses from various infections, and by increasing the morale levels of the troops (since they know that one of their buddies is there to take care of them if they are wounded, and that they will not be left to die, alone, and in agony), [xv] the units will remain more cohesive and more effective. Canon shows that a number of the up-time EMTs died due to combat or disease by December 1635.

For the want of a horseshoe nail

Of the 3500 folks transported to 1631 by the Ring of Fire, fewer than 100 had substantial and systematic medical training and education. A number of others had training as emergency first responders (police officers, firefighters, some of the mine employees) or in basic first aid (teachers, childcare workers). Active, up-time physicians included:

James Nichols, MD (born 1947, Surgeon, probable residency graduation 1979 to 1981 due to his time in the service)

Susanna Shipley, DO (born 1963, Family Medicine, probable residency graduation 1992)

Jeff Adams, MD (born 1962, Family Medicine probable residency graduation 1991).

As a baseline for comparison, despite being older than either Dr. Shipley or Dr. Adams, I would have been in medical school only a couple of years ahead of these two, because I spent four years in the Army as a medic between college and medical school.

Three older physicians:

Henry Moss McDonnell (1925-1636),

John Thompson Sims (1921-1637), and

Emery Ellis (1919-Dec 1634)

come out of retirement to help provide care for the community. There is also Mr. John Daoud, who has some training as a chiropractor. His background in manual therapy will prove particularly helpful to the rehabilitative medicine teams. Dr. Nichols was visiting for the Stearns wedding, so he does not have his personal library along, and no mention is made of him being enough of a technophile to own a PDA, much less have a substantial library hidden on one.

Dr. Sims’ son is one of the two dentists, with the other being Jaroslav “Jerry” Elias. There are two veterinarians, Les Blocker DVM (1946) and Bentley Alexander DVM (1961), both of whom are in active practice; however, Dr. Alexander’s office is a partnership left in up-time Fairmont.

Up-time educated nurses include:

Beulah McDonald, RN, BSN, US Army Nurse Corps veteran (Korea), now teaching midwifery and acting as the Dean of the College of Nursing and Associated Medical Arts— she is effectively in charge of the new medical curriculum. (B: 1930. Probably received her diploma in 1950. She had also started a nurse-midwife program but stopped as she was close to retirement and thought she was too old.

Garnet Szymanski, RN, BSN, now one of the Nursing Supervisors for Leahy Medical Center, as well as teaching LPN courses at the Vo-Tech. (B: 1947, date of graduation probably 1969)

Mary Pat Flanagan, RN, BSN, US Army veteran as an enlisted medic (with a tour in the Balkans and a Bronze Star for her actions under fire in Somalia[xvi]) and up-time trained as an LPN/91 C (advanced military medic). In her final year of a ROTC LPN to BSN bridge program when caught by the RoF, she is teaching the combat medics and acting as assistant to Dean McDonald. (B: 1971, graduated 1631 based on previous work)

Hendrickje "Henny" Kiers (De Vries), RN, has a substantial background in psychiatric nursing, and is a supervisor/instructor at Leahy Medical Center until her move to Copenhagen in 1635. (B: 1943, graduated in the early 1960s)[xvii]

Inez Wiley as a “Craft Midwife” and daughter and granddaughter of Craft Midwives.[xviii]

Darla (Wild) Bowers as an office trained practical nurse, also a Craft Midwife.[xix]

Kourtney Pence is shown as a Midwife in 1634[xx]

Anne Jefferson, RN, MSN, is setting up a de facto medical practice as a NP in Amsterdam. (B: 1972 Listed as having an MSN from Johns Hopkins, as well as course work toward a PA in critical care obstetrics.[xxi] Probable graduation around 1998)

Mary Pat had a fair part of her library with her, as she was going to do a rotation in Community Health after the wedding.

As another baseline for comparison, my mother, born 1931, graduated from her diploma nursing school in 1951, and my ex wife, born 1969, graduated from her LPN program in 1988.

There are a number of others with at least an up-time EMT certificate. Please see the Grid for other names.

Good Drugs always help!

Pharmacists and pharmaceutical chemists are also scarce, with just three pharmacies in Grantville.

Tom Stone is listed as having a Masters in Pharmacy, with work towards his PhD in that same field, as well as much practical experience. Bill Hudson, one of the up-time EMTs, goes to work with Tom Stone when the two of them return to Grantville.

Tino Nobili (1940) is the owner and pharmacist for Nobili’s Pharmacy.

Trelli’s Good Care Pharmacy went out of business and was absorbed by the Leahy Medical Center in 1635 when the owner and pharmacist, Lazare Trelli, had a stroke.

Raymond Little (1960), previously a partner in Moss & Little’s Cut-Rate Drug Store, moves to Leahy Medical Center to run that department using equipment from Trelli’s.

John Moss (1949) continues the Cut-Rate Drug Store, and agrees to take the apprentices from Trelli’s into his teaching.

Up-time medications quickly run out. Trelli's pharmacy had equipment for compounding and pill-forming, which can be used to supplement available down-time equipment in providing safe medications.

Senior Chief Hospital Corpsman David Dorrman is assigned as the NCOIC of the hospital at the Naval Yard. [xxii]He’s also the closest thing available to a medical examiner, working with the Provost Marshal’s Office, including NCIS, the Shore Patrol and the Marine MPs in Magdeburg.

Preventing the loss of the battle.

Despite the paucity of fully-trained up-time medical personnel at the time of the RoF, there are thousands of down-time medical workers, from classically-trained physicians to herb-wives, many of whom will be interested in learning the up-time methods. In turn, these down-timers will teach up-timers the effective points of down-time medicine.

Among the down-time physicians and surgeons already canonized are:

Scultetus—German, known as the surgeon at LMC to have work on you if Dr. Nichols was not available.

Balthazar Abrabanel—one of the first down-timers to meet the up-time people, and the first down-timer to be saved by up-time methods[xxiii]

Gerhard Eichhorn—German, a barber surgeon working with Essen Chemical and the Antonites and involved in development of penicillin.[xxiv]

The Reverend Bartholomew Wesley, MD and his wife, Anna, who is a midwife, move to Amsterdam just ahead of a King’s Warrant, and participate in the defense of that city. [xxv]

There are some Jena-trained surgeons are in canon as of May 1634[xxvi]in Torstensson’s army outside of Ahrensbök. These would have to be down-time personnel, either physicians or barber-surgeons, who have been "taught up to speed." In particular, a Dr. Dietrich Weiss is mentioned as having saved Anse Hatfield’s life, along with most of his left hand and arm.

Additionally, a Dr. Jensen complains that one of the field medics is being called “Doc” by the troops he is working with. While Dr. Jensen has spent six months working at LMC to learn the uptime techniques,[xxvii]he obviously had little experience with the military, and was quickly quashed by the field commander.

Nicolaes Tulp, a Dutch surgeon and politician, not yet in canon, could be interesting for the author who chooses to use him, as he was one of the Amsterdam city magistrates after 1622, and mayor of that city for four terms, beginning in 1654. In OTL, he was the subject of Rembrandt’s 1632 painting, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, one of the works that was changed by the butterflies, as evidenced by the cover of Grantville Gazette IV.

Thomas Bartholin, one of several medical scions of the noted Danish surgeon and anatomist Caspar Bartholin, would be entering medical training in OTL in the mid 1630s. That would make him a natural to attend the up-time influenced program at either Jena or Padua. Other Bartholin family members also entered the profession. Other notable down-time physicians available include Peter Spina and his progeny. William Harvey is already in canon. There are many, many others.

Important predecessor physicians and surgeons to this era would include:

Caspar Bartholin the Elder, known in OTL both for a duct under the tongue, and a standard anatomy text of the time.

Abu Ali Sina (980-1037), more commonly known as Avicenna, and for the Canon of Medicine, one of the seminal works of medicine and surgery

Theophrastus Paracelsus (1493-1541), whose writings started to replace Galen as the ultimate source of medicine. He is the claimed ancestor of Herr Doktor Gribbleflotz.

Ambroise Paré, 1510-1590, a barber surgeon known for more humane battlefield medicine, ocular and orthopedic prosthesis

Hieronymus Fabricius (1533-1619), a gifted anatomist who first described the technique of tracheotomy, a life saving operation to open the airway when nothing else will work.

A Cast of Thousands

If the up-timers are limited, and the traditional down-time MDs are relatively rare, often hazardous, and almost always expensive, the numbers of midwives, herb wives, barber surgeons, bone-setters and hedge—or horse—doctors were literally legion. We have some in canon already, including the midwife Greta in Magdeburg, who has taken up-time training, and is proving to be the bane of her less-scrubbed counterparts.

Herr Dr. Gribbleflotz has had a number of appearances reproducing up-time medical compounds for the benefit of his pocketbook and the community.

My shared characters in canon include:

Katharina Schrey is working with the Sanitation Commission as a quarantine house attendant while she is attending the BSN course[xxviii]. She expects to enter the DO program at Jena when she has her BSN.

George Lenkert, her husband, also works with the Sanitation Commission, and has completed EMT training.

Caspar Weybrecht has also completed EMT training, and will be starting in the Jena BSN/DO program in 1636.

Anna Krause is a couple of years behind him in school, but she is already in canon as the first geographic epidemiologist. She is also planning to attend the program at Jena.

Kerryn Offord and Danita Ewing were both kind enough to send me copies of information posted much earlier on the Bar from H.W. “Butch” Clor and Danita, laying out the expected progress of medical training down-time. Updating this material will become part 4 of this series.

Success has many fathers and mothers .

Medicine had many significant influences between 1632 and 2000, including many physicians, nurses, and educators, with various therapists and paramedical personnel coming in after 1970. Anatomists and surgeons in particular made major advances that paved the way for modern surgeons, starting with an increase in teaching human anatomy by direct dissection. There were two major problems with this: first, the lack of proper preservation of said bodies, which meant that there was only a short time each body could be used and second, the relative lack of usable bodies, since the only ones available were supposed to be those of executed felons. The change from execution to transportation as a sentence for many crimes lead to a marked decrease in the supply of bodies. This occurred even as the demand for fresh bodies went up. The increase in demand lead to the Burke and Hare murders[xxix] (to supply Dr. John Knox) and the only somewhat less unsavory activities of Dr. John Hunter in London as he "acquired" the bodies needed to support the anatomy classes he was teaching with his brother, Dr. William Hunter[xxx]. The outrage over the murders and body snatching lead to the Anatomy Act of 1832, which allowed the use of donated bodies in the teaching of medical anatomy.[xxxi]

An incomplete list of others would include Florence Nightingale, Baron Lister, and the aseptic surgeons Drs. Kocher, Crile, Halsted, Oschner, and the Mayo Brothers. Abraham Flexner, an educator and the physicians John Shaw Billings, William Osler, and William H. Welch systematized and revolutionized medical and surgical education in the OTL in many different ways, based on the program at Johns Hopkins University.

Nurses McDonald and Flanagan, and physicians Abrabanel, Nichols, Shipley and Adams will do much the same in the NTL.

Dr. Hugh Owen Thomas of Great Britain developed the first traction splints, along with many other orthopedic devices. He is considered the father of modern trauma orthopedics. His career was influenced by the problems that his father, Evan Thomas, had as a non-physician bone-setter in the early 1800s.

William T. G. Morton, a dentist, demonstrated the use of ether as a general anesthetic in 1846. Others, too numerous to list, will become more important as materials technologies develop to allow more advanced surgeries. Additionally, the use of assorted skeletal traction techniques is old and will make a comeback since it will be some time before the materials and techniques that allow up-time orthopedists to bypass the prolonged bed-rest needed by external traction.

I’ll examine the problems of medical training in more depth in parts two and four of this series

If it’s not written down, it wasn’t done.

Most of the journals that I subscribed to and at least thumbed through every month were associated with various professional organizations. These included:

The American Family Physician (also available on CD ROM covering years 1990-1995, continuing medical education (CME) was a major feature of this magazine

The Journal of the American Medical Association JAMA

The Journal of the American Osteopathic Association JAOA

The Journal of the American Board of Family Practice JABFP

Family Practice Physician

The Southern Medical Journal.

Scientific American Medicine, considered one of the better textbooks of medicine and surgery, was in two large, loose-leaf binders, and updated monthly. A choice of hard copy or DOS (later ISO CD ROM) based CME programs was also included. Family Practice Management was dedicated to helping physicians manage their office, and offers more CME. The Clinics of North America series were slim hardbound volumes, issued quarterly, covering many different subjects. I personally subscribed to the Primary Care series, but also had access to the Surgical and Emergency Medicine series. Both Large Animal and Small Animal Veterinarian Clinics series were also available, and would probably be in the vet’s office libraries.

Various other slick and pulp periodicals were also available, many of them in the category of "free to physicians." The better ones I subscribed to included:

Emergency Medicine

Hospital Practice Physician

The Cortlandt Forum

Medical Economics (which had a fair number of articles that would be useful down-time on how to run a practice or hospital)

Emergency Medicine News

Nursing journals would include The American Journal of Nursing, Nursing (insert year here—my mother kept a subscription from at least 1970 to 1990), and professional journals for midwives and nurse practitioners. There was also a version of Clinics of North America, dating from at least 1995, directed towards the NPs

Most of these should be found when the libraries are consolidated, with enough overlap to cover the period 1950-1999 almost completely. Other articles would have been available with access to the National Library of Medicine through several different sources, most commonly, the local hospital. On-line searches (MEDLine/MEDLars) were available by 1994, and were even easy to use by 1998, replacing the hard copy Index Medicus for most purposes. Some of these articles were already available online, and my collection of hard and electronic copies easily numbered a thousand or more articles on various, and often odd, subjects by early 2000. In checking my personal library, and sorting out items that I acquired before January 2000, I have found a number of titles that would have been common enough that at least one of the five local doctors would have had a copy. I need to do an inventory and will post it as an addendum at 1632.org.

While I had a "typical small town/rural primary care practice" for the time, I will admit that I had a selection of medical books that were probably a bit wider than most physicians my age. This was due to my work in the US Army Medical Corps at various levels, as well as my interest in the fields of sports, emergency and field medicine. Additionally, I subscribed to the Classics of MedicineLibrary, a division of Gryphon Editions. Gryphon specializes in publishing high quality editions of classic literature, using leather covers, archival quality acid free paper, and fully sewn bindings—the kind of books that look good in a professional library, something that will attract most physicians at some stage of their career.

Stanchem reminded me that up until the late 1990s, it was common for drug companies to give assorted textbooks and other "giveaway goodies" to physicians. These would include everything from small monographs from Upjohn and Bacto covering office laboratory subjects, to more general textbooks in many specialties—I have a nice copy of Principles of Ambulatory Medicine that I received this way. It is hard to tell what Shipley and Adams might have received in this manner, much less the older physicians. While not directly related to trauma, these books would have been an important core for the medical library. Inexpensive but usable stethoscopes, assorted scissors and other medical equipment should be found amongst the detritus of the older offices.

Relevant surgical and medical textbooks from the period 1983-1999 include:

Various anatomy books

Grey’s is still the classic, and widely available in the 1990s.

Grant’s was commonly used in medical and nursing schools

The Ciba-Geigy Anatomy series, illustrated by the late, great Frank Netter, MD was one of the most colorful available.

The Color Atlas of Human Anatomy featured detailed photographs instead of drawings, and was popular with medical and nursing students.

Principles of Surgery (4thedition, Schwartz, 1984)

Advanced Trauma Life Support, 6^th Edition

Modern Manual Therapy of the Vertebral Column (Greive, 1986)

Management of Wilderness and Environmental Emergencies (2ndedition, Auerbach & Geehr, 1989)

Sports Injury: Assessment and Rehabilitation (Reid, 1992).

Tintinalli’s Emergency Medicine, 5thedition, was available in early 2000, but I’m not sure it would have been available by the time of the RoF. I would expect at least one copy of the earlier 4thedition to be available at the RoF.

I also had a selection of spiral bound "pocket textbooks" covering different subjects, mostly purchased as aide memoire items for student and resident rotations. Drs. Adams and Shipley will have done the same, as did virtually all medical students, interns and residents at the time. Many of these titles came out in formats compatible with PDAs, but that didn’t really start until 1999, so the selection would have been limited, even if the doctors were technophiles.

I lost the copy of the DePuy instrument catalog that I acquired in or about 1995, when I was helping select new instruments for the local ED, but it had good drawings and photographs of many of the instruments. I’ve included a link to a similar on line catalog as a simple reference to the instruments[xxxii]

Among the Classics of Medicine Library editions that would have been available in 1999 would be:

The Expert Midwife (Rueff, 1637, 1997),

Classic Descriptions of Disease (Major, 1932, 1994).

There were also books by or about Percival Potts, Osler, Lister, the Mayos, Crile, Halsted, and many others, covering much of the development of medicine and surgery from the 1630s to the 1940s.

Thanks to the assistance of my antique-hunting aunt, I was also able to acquire books from several different rural Kansas physicians, including Modern Medical Therapy in General Practice (3 volumes, Barr, 1940), which was one of the premier texts of its day. While not covering surgeries directly, these tomes cover physiotherapy of the day in detail, as well as "low tech" diagnostic techniques for some of the more operable cancers. This is the sort of book I would expect in the libraries of the older physicians. They also would have various surgical textbooks dating back to their student and internship days.

A number of textbooks were available from the International Commission for the Red Cross/Red Crescent Societies in Geneva, Switzerland. Among those that were current in 1999 were Surgery for Victims of War (1999)[xxxiii]and Amputation for War Wounds (1992)[xxxiv].

One or more of the ICRC books might have found their way home with one of the folks who had been on a mission trip, or could have been in Mary Pat’s traveling library. At least one copy of any of several editions of NATO War Surgery will probably be in the doctors’ personal libraries. I owned the 2ndUS (1988) edition of the NATO book, and had access to Amputations through my local hospital, so I’ll have to defer to the Editorial Board the chances that one of them might have come back.

“Modern” nursing textbooks available would have included:

Mosby’s Textbook of Nursing,

Brady’s Textbook of Medical-Surgical Nursing

Taber’s or Dorland's medical dictionary,

The Anatomy Coloring Book (which many medical students also used!)

The Lippencott Manual of Nursing Practice

The older nurses might have had copies of Cunningham’s Anatomy, DeLee’s Obstetrics and one of the older editions of The Merck Manual. This is based on the books that my mother still had in her library well into the 1990s, when my sister (a high risk OB doc) received them for her library.

Mary Pat is almost certain to have had an up-to-date Merck Manual, probably Stanhope & Lancaster’s textbook[xxxv] on public health, and her NCLEX (the US national nursing exam) review book. She’ll also probably have the current version of The Control of Communicable Diseases in Man, a publication of the US Centers of Disease Control. She’s interested in emergency nursing, so she may also have a copy of the Trauma Nurse Core Curriculum course with her. She may have had a number of other textbooks (including various military manuals) with her, but none have made it into canon yet.

The paramedics, basic emergency medical technicians, and anyone who took a medical course in the military should have a variety of medical resources in their libraries. In addition to the medical and nursing textbooks already mentioned:

Nancy Caroline’s Emergency Care in the Streets,

The American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons’ EMT book, (The Orange Book),

Paramedic Emergency Care (Bryan Bledsoe, DO; Brady)

will all be popular. In addition to these, the military medics should have copies of

FM 8-230, Basic Nursing Care

FM 21-10, Field Hygiene

FM 21-11 First Aid for Soldiers

FM 8-36 The Aidman’s Handbook

and various others. The military manuals will have great (if not yet canonized) importance, as they will provide much information directly related to field medical care under austere circumstances. David Dorrman probably has copies of the USN versions of some of these books in his library.

Besides Chief Dorrman, we do have more up-time military medics[xxxvi] in canon, but few with recent experience. It was a very common secondary MOS in infantry units, and especially in the Special Forces. I’ll have to research to find which of the Combat Lifesaver programs was in effect between 1993 and 1999, as there were several changes in that time, but that will wait until Part 4.

Nimitz Lover also pointed out that there would have been other resources in the libraries of various fire fighters, including at least Hazardous Material Emergency Response Guides, and Civil Defense First Aid manuals, as well as more copies of books such as TheMerck Manual and various editions of Grey’s Anatomy. It is also probable that the safety office at the mine will have a library covering occupational health and advanced first aid, as well as equipment that will prove valuable to the rescue teams. She also pointed out that the families of chronically ill folks would likely have acquired a variety of useful popular medical books (ranging from Grey’s Anatomy to TheMerck Manual and on to herbal and other alternative therapies) before the RoF.

By 1999, a wide variety of medical resources and continuing medical education material were available in downloadable and CD-ROM formats. In addition to the previously mentioned Scientific American Medicine program, Novartis (a large pharmaceutical corporation) was a leader in this field, and I have several different items from them that were distributed by 1999. Most of mine covered drug therapies, but there were others aimed at surgeons (to get them to use the expensive drugs as an adjunct to the operations), that might prove valuable as materials technology catches up with the needs of the surgeons.

There were a few textbooks on CD available by 1999, and I would expect that Drs. Shipley and Adams would have owned them. Two that I can lay my hands on right now are:

The Color Atlas and Synopsis of Clinical Dermatology (a companion CD to the book Clinical Dermatology by Fitzgerald, and was available in 1997).

The Interactive Atlas of Human Anatomy, (Ciba-Geigy 1995), featured the brilliant works of Frank Netter. The etchings and drawings of Grey’s Anatomy pale by comparison. This one contains a feature that the instructors will love even more: the ability to create test material based on the illustrations. This CD was based on the hard back version noted above.

Some things will last . . .

Durable medical equipment available after the RoF will include items from the professional offices, ambulances, and mine safety group, as well as items that are out in the community for home health care. These will include respiratory equipment such as demand valves, Intermittent Positive Pressure Breathing (IPPB) treatment machines and Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) equipment, and home nebulizer sets with associated air pumps. Other pieces of equipment will include laryngoscopes, a flexible endoscope or two, one to three electric cast-cutters, several portable electronic monitors and simple electric coagulation devices. As will be noted repeatedly, at least some of this equipment may come from the veterinarian’s office, as this office is likely to have been equipped for animal surgery, which does translate well to the capabilities down-time. A consideration is that many of the items that we currently take for granted as “single patient use/disposable,” can be cleaned, re-sterilized and then reused for other patients. We will examine the needs of sterilization in Part 2 of this article.

Considerations for how long the up-time equipment will last will be mostly due to battery life or the need for small, high intensity lamps. Any flexible, fiber optic endoscopes[xxxvii] would also have a life limitation due to breakages in the fiber optic bundles, although with care, those should last long enough for the technology to catch up with the need for a high intensity lamp for the light source. Drs. Adams and Shipley may have one flexible sigmoidoscope in their office; the veterinarians may have a flexible colonoscope or long gastroscope, and possibly the equivalent of a flexible bronchoscope to facilitate the intubation of large animals.

Rigid endoscopes, including bronchoscopes, gastroscopes, proctoscopes, and laryngoscopes will remain useful after their bulbs burn out. These instruments can be used with a coaxial mirror (that’s the one that fits over the doctor’s eye in many Norman Rockwell paintings) and an acetylene or “town gas” mantle (Coleman or Aladdin style) lamp as a light source. The rigid versions of the instruments are also within the capabilities of down-time technology to reproduce.

Women will not be neglected. Their special examination needs are relatively easy to manage, as the appropriate specula will be readily duplicated down-time by journeyman whitesmiths, using up-time recipes for pewter for the metal, to reduce the lead content, and make the equipment stronger. Again, the coaxial mirror will provide decent lighting into the recesses of the body.

Drs. Adams and Shipley should have been familiar with a couple of low technology tricks to help identify women at high risk for problems[xxxviii], and one of them might have even owned a culposcope[xxxix], which can double as an operating microscope in Dr. Nichols’ hands. These were techniques that I picked up in my residency and an item that I owned and used in private practice.

“Pap” smears won’t be a high priority for various reasons, but will be readily reproduced as the first down-time pathologists and pathology technicians come out of the system.

Otoscopes (ears) and opthalmascopes (eyes) will also be limited to the useful lives of their bulbs, but this will be measured in years for the wall mounted, line powered versions, due to the habit of most physicians of stocking a dozen or more bulbs for each type of instrument. The portable versions of these instruments usually had rechargeable batteries, which also last a long time. Again, coaxial mirrors will make a comeback for the examination of various cavities of the body, where the portable units are no longer usable due to battery or lamp failure.

Electric cast-cutters are heavy-duty vibrating saws, used to trim, modify or remove heavy plaster or plastic casts. We can expect at least two, possibly four, of these in Grantville. I’m sure that one will be turned over to the medical school or the medical examiner’s office, as they are also used to remove the top of the skull during an autopsy (or in the teaching of head and neck anatomy). Duplicating these items will be within the capabilities of any facility able to make fractional horsepower electric motors.

A few electric coagulation devices, such as Bovie[xl]and Hyfrecator[xli] devices, will also be available after the RoF, again, mostly in the veterinarian’s office. There will most likely be at least one Hyfrecator in each of the doctors’ offices, as those are cheaper, lower power and simpler than the Bovie devices, and don’t require the expensive grounding pads needed to use the more comprehensive devices safely. Bovie devices do have the advantage of being able to cut flesh and coagulate the minuscule blood vessels that otherwise make for a messy operating field. Hyfrecators provide point coagulation of bleeding vessels, and can be used to treat skin lesions by electrically desiccating them. Both devices use radiofrequency electric currents instead of heat to do the job, allowing the surgeon better control over the amount of damage that is caused. As more down-time electronics engineers are trained, these devices will be as simple to make as the first low-powered transmitters.

These should not be confused with the diathermy machines used in physical therapy to provide local heating with the use of microwaves to relieve sore muscles[xlii]. I would expect that at least one of the three older physicians would have a diathermy machine in his office, as the method was commonly used in office practice in the 1950s and 60s. Again, I inherited such a machine (operating at 1250 megacycles per the nameplate, and with two extra final power tubes still in the box) from one of our older doctors when I started my office practice in 1993, and he would have been a younger contemporary of Dr. McDonnell. It will take a bit longer for the diathermy machines to be replicated, so the hot wet packs and paraffin baths will have to do for a long time.

Most of the electrocardiographic monitors will be in the ambulances, with possibly one in each of the physicians’ and veterinarians’ offices, one at the mine and at least one at the nursing home. From the same sources, perhaps a dozen vital sign monitors will also be transported in the RoF. The state of the art of monitors at the time is such that the batteries will wear out long before the monitors break from other reasons, given a modicum of care, and the presence of stable AC line power. Between the time the batteries wear out, and the time the electronics and chemical industries can reproduce the monitors and batteries, it is probable that those monitors will still be able to work on AC line power in the operating theater and intensive care units, providing valuable information in critical situations.

At least two x-ray machines should be available, along with the film cassettes from before the RoF. One of those machines should be in the vet's office. At least one more will be found in the physician’s offices (forty miles is a long way to go to get basic radiographs—we had a decent, if elderly, set in our office and we were only three miles from the hospital), and maybe even a mobile machine at the nursing home (for the same reason). A fourth machine may be mothballed at the mine. The film is simple fine-grained monochrome, and glass plates can be used if needed. Once roll film is again available in 1635[xliii], I would expect 17x20 films to be within reach. Basic x-ray units, gently cared for, are mature enough technology that I'd expect many thousands of uses before failure, and a portable unit could be converted to stationary unit with the addition of a (large, oil bath) capacitor when the batteries wear out. The developing and fixing solutions are well within Dr. Gribbleflotz’ capacity (or that of any other reasonably competent alchemist) and the folks over in the electro-refining operation should reclaim over 99% of the silver in the used solutions. We know that black and white film photography is widely practical by 1636, and I would expect that a critical application such as radiographs would have been available at least a year earlier.[xliv]

Some things won’t . . .

There is a significant amount of disposable medical equipment that must be saved as future reference, since having these items on hand will make reproducing them easier as down-time materials science benefits from up-time knowledge. These items include almost everything made of flexible polymers, such as endotracheal tubes, urinary catheters, chest tubes, IV catheters and assorted drains. Many of these can be made from latex, but most work better with clear, stiffer, polymers such as PVC. Bag-Valve-Mask breathing assistance systems are reproducible with a formed, flexible latex membrane for the valve, machined brass or pressed glass for the valve body, and firm rubber for the mask. Making the bag is trickier, but can be done with a flexible rubber bag and a bit of spring steel, but better ones will come along as soon as PVC is available. I have included some illustrative diagrams adapted from the World Health Organization’s book, Anesthesia in the District Hospital, kindly provided to me by Stanchem, in the supplemental information to be posted on 1632.org.

Boys (and girls) and their toys.

Most of the basic surgical instruments[xlv] we use today date back hundreds of years, and many have roots in the Roman era. They fall into several broad classes, including cutting instruments, hemostatic clamps and holding instruments. While most instruments in 2000 were made of stainless steel with some inserts made of tungsten carbide, there were a few being made of the lighter titanium. We can expect a few odds and ends of instruments to have been in the nursing homes and more from the younger doctors’ offices[xlvi], but many, if not most of them, will be low quality "single use/disposable" instruments.

Drs. McDonnell and Simms probably had a better selection of instruments stashed, and Dr. Ellis might have some made out of mild carbon steel as well. While carbon steels rust under adverse conditions, this is not a problem if the instruments are properly cleaned, lubricated, sterilized, dried and stored between cases[xlvii].

Almost all of the instruments needed before 1640 can be reproduced from examples found in Grantville or from the illustrations and descriptions that can be found in some of the catalogs and books found in the doctors’ libraries, or in the State Library. Instrument makers working with the doctors will redevelop the ones that cannot be directly duplicated, through trial and error. Each hospital will probably have at least a journeyman instrument maker working as part of the central supply department as a matter of course, since carbon steel instruments need far more care than stainless steel. This is especially true of scissors and needle drivers, both of which have the harder carbide inserts in OTL, but which will need regular adjustment, sharpening or re-facing in the NTL.

I would expect a master instrument maker to be on the staff of the Department of Surgery of any medical school that adopts the up-time techniques, to work with the surgeons and operating technicians to produce new instruments at need. Uberzeit Metall Werks[xlviii], established in September 1633, was planning to offer "medical instruments, and different types of shears or scissors," along with the Ka-Bar and Swiss Army style knives. Mr. Farha reportedly had a number of type patterns available for his smiths to work from. One nice item in canon already is the development of replaceable razor blades[xlix]as this is the same technology needed to make replaceable scalpel blades. While fixed blade scalpels are still occasionally used even as late as 2000, they require regular and careful sharpening, while the replaceable blades are changed with each case.

The scalpel handles will come in about five different styles, depending on where and how they are being used, and there will initially be about five different styles of blades compared to the many currently in the inventory. Wiki[l]gives a decent rundown on the various handle and blade combinations available in OTL. Handles type 1, 2, 3, 4 and 7 are the most common, with the #2 and #4 being heavy-duty models. Type #7 is a longer, slimmer handle that is often used for delicate work such as plastic surgery. Blades 10, 11, 12, 15 and 22 will probably be the first ones made using disposable technology, but others will be made as the need occurs.[li]

Scissors cover several different, sometimes overlapping areas. It is possible to use them "across" the categories, but this may damage the scissors or the tissue. Paramedics and nurses carry some form of Lister or bandage scissors, which have a blunt lip (shovel tip) on the bottom blade and a rounded tip on the top blade. They also have an angle at the pivot, so that the bottom blade can be held flat against the skin, sliding under the bandages so that the bandages can be cut and removed without having to try to unwrap the dressing. The heavier forms usually carried by the paramedics, known as trauma or combat shears, have slightly serrated blades to prevent slippage and were developed in OTL to cut through a soldier’s heavy web gear on the battlefield. These shears will cut soft metal the thickness of up-time pennies easily, so will also handle the heavy leather jacks and buff coats common to downtime soldiers.

Surgical scissors commonly used in the ED and the OR fall into two basic types: tissue scissors and suture scissors. A surgeon who cuts too many sutures with his tissue scissors will set himself up for a rap on the knuckles by the operating assistant who is responsible for the instruments, as that tends to dull the relatively delicate tissue scissors rapidly. The tissue scissors come in four basic forms, most of which are made in OTL in both straight and curved versions, with the curved versions allowing for cutting closer to the body. The Metzenbaum scissors most often seen in the curved form, and the iris scissors most often seen in the straight.

Mayo scissors are blunt tipped, symmetrical scissors that are used for heavy work such as cutting the thick connective tissue around muscle bundles. The handles of a pair of Mayo scissors are only about twice as long as the length of the blade. Metzenbaum scissors are lighter scissors, again with blunt tips, where the handles are often more than twice as long as the blades. While they are used for cutting, one of the more important uses is to insert the tip of the closed Metzenbaum scissors into tissues and then spread the tips. This splits the tissues along the natural planes without cutting blood vessels or nerves in a technique known as blunt dissection.

Iris scissors are very finely pointed scissors initially developed for eye surgery, but this instrument has also found favor in plastic and hand surgery.

Lastly, there are so called "sharp and blunt" scissors that are midway between the Mayo and Metzenbaum scissors in weight, and have one sharp point and one rounded point on straight blades. These are often used as suture scissors in the OR, but can also be used to trim ragged tissue edges.

Suture scissors tend to have shorter, heavier blades than most tissue scissors, and often have a "hook" on the bottom blade and sometimes, fine serrations to prevent the slick suture material from slipping out. Wire-cutting scissors have even shorter blades, often as short as 15mm, with comparatively long handles to provide the extra advantage needed to cut stainless steel wire. They also frequently have a notch in both the top and bottom blades near the pivot point, which provides even more security to cut heavier wires.

Bone saws are already common in the 1600s, because amputations were the last chance to save someone’s life when gangrene threatened. The big improvement in the saws will be using first metals and later autoclavable plastics for the handles of the instruments, rather than the bone or wood, which was common up to the 1880s in OTL. A smaller, but significant improvement will be the Gigli style wire saw, which will make some types of brain surgery possible down-time, and does an amazingly fast job of cutting through a femur, when used by an experienced surgeon. Interestingly, one of the major uses of Gigli saws started in WWII, when the saws were inserted into bootlaces worn by aviators for use during escape attempts. Similar saws are included into tactical survival kits to this day in OTL.

There are a number of other cutting implements in use, primarily in orthopedics. Bone cutters (rongeurs) have sharp edges on scoop shaped mating jaws, allowing the surgeon to nibble the harsh edges of cut or broken bone to allow for the closure of an amputated stump. Several types of diagonal cutters are available for trimming wires and pins after they have been inserted into bone. Simple hand drills, again made with metal instead of wood grips, are used to place pins to align bone, or to start holes in the skull to pass the Gigli saws so that a flap of skull can be removed. Manual cast-cutters may bear a distinct resemblance to compound metal snips or to an arboralist’s tree limb lopper, save for having a blunt shovel tip like bandage scissors.

There are a wide variety of different types of "clamps," so called because they generally have a ratcheting locking mechanism, which allows a variable amount of pressure to be maintained by the clamp after the surgeon has released the handles.

Hemostatic clamps or forceps fall into two classes: crushing and vascular (atraumatic) clamps. The difference is simple: the vascular clamps are used when the surgeon wishes to preserve that blood vessel for later reattachment, while the more common crushing clamps are used when the surgeon plans to ligate (tie off) the blood vessel.

These hemostats are also used for blunt dissection, where their smaller tips may be more effective in delicate dissections. Most of the crushing clamps were devised between 1880 and 1940, with the rise of the vascular clamps after 1940 as vascular repair became practical, and intricate cardio-thoracic surgery became possible. Because of the worldwide progress of medicine, it is not unusual to find similar clamps named after widely separated surgeons, doing the same function. For example, there are the Crile and Halsted mosquito clamps, invented by G. W. Crile and W. S. Halsted respectively, which differ only in how far along the jaws the serrations are carried.

Before the development of electrocautery (actually, an offshoot of radio experimentation) in the 1930s in OTL, much time had to be spent providing a "dry" operating field by individually ligating (tying) all of the little bleeders in the skin, subcutaneous fat and the muscles of the abdominal wall before an abdominal operation could proceed. This was done in OTL with the use of upwards of twenty mosquito hemostats being placed along the length of the incision, and then lengths of suture material being used to ligate those small bleeders. Silk and cotton threads were most commonly used, and were tied using one or two-handed "free tie" techniques most commonly associated with Dr. Halsted. A well-coordinated surgeon and first assistant can ligate all of those little blood vessels and remove those hemostats in a remarkably short length of time, but this is far longer than the same team can affect the same process using an electric cautery.

Fortunately for Sharon Nichols, Sanchez was both slender and probably in early shock, both of which tend to reduce the amount of bleeding she had to deal with during his operation.

Small vessels are tied off with fine thread, usually of silk or cotton in the early part of the twentieth century, replaced for hemostasis with either electric cautery or synthetic absorbable sutures after the 1980s. Larger vessels are secured with wide tape, which may be held in place with one of the hemostats, or with one of the vascular clamps if available. This helps prevent excessive damage to the lining of the blood vessel, reducing the formation of blood clots inside the vessel lumen.

True vascular surgery will have to wait for several milestones:

the (re)development of polymers strong and flexible enough to be pulled as hair fine monofilaments for sutures

the (re)development of "swaged on" suture and needle combinations and

the (re)development of polyester and PTFE (Teflon® and Gortex ®) for large diameter grafts (because veins are only suitable for small diameter arterial grafting).

Until those milestones are reached, ligation rather than repair will be the rule for vascular injuries.

An interesting hemostatic device, called a "bulldog clamp," is very useful for surgery of the head and neck, particularly of the scalp. These areas are so richly supplied with blood vessels that achieving a bloodless field is difficult, and the surgeon often finds the need to tie blind. These clamps resemble small binder clips, with the folding handles being replaced by a tong shaped applicator. Once a ring of these clamps stop the bleeding of the scalp edges, the surgery can be completed easily. As the clamps are removed for wound closure, individual bleeding vessels can be tied off as needed, with the final closure and a firm dressing providing a final stop to the bleeding.

Another group of clamps is used to close off various types of hollow organs such as the bowel or the bile duct, preventing the contents of that organ from contaminating the abdominal cavity. As with the vascular clamps, there are a number of different but similar clamps, invented by widely separated surgeons, which do the same job. For example, Drs. Emil Kocher (Switzerland) and Alton Oschner (USA) invented similar clamps used in the removal of the gall bladder.

Other locking clamps are designed to hold tissue gently but securely so that the surgeon can reattach edges together. The jaws of these clamps may be smooth, have grooves along or across their width, and may or may not have teeth at the tips.

The last general type of clamp is a simple long, locking clamp with looped ends. Called sponge forceps, these are used by placing a folded square of gauze in the looped ends of the clamp. The gauze "sponge" is used to swab on fluids or medications or to swab blood from the depths of a wound (or occasionally, sweat from the surgeon’s nose).

Thumb forceps, by contrast, are tweezers, often writ large, ranging from 6 to 12 inches (15 to 30 cm) in length. The tips of the thumb forceps will usually have grooves across the width of the tips, and most forceps used to manipulate tissue have some type of interlocking teeth at the ends. Dressing forceps, on the other hand, have relatively smooth tips to avoid snagging on the loosely-woven fabric. Two special kinds of thumb forceps that have proven very handy to me in the past include the Brown-Adson tissue forceps and the Russian or “bear paw” forceps. The Brown-Adson forceps have two rows of a half dozen teeth on each tip, which interlock to hold tissue over a wider area than other tissue forceps, allowing for a firm grasp with less pressure, and therefore less damage to the tissue. The Russian forceps have circular tips with interlocking teeth, allowing the surgeon to easily manipulate a suture needle deep in a body cavity. This both reduces the size of the cavity needed, and reduces the chance that the surgeon (or the assistant) will end up stuck with the bloody needle.

The most important device that prevents the surgeon from being stuck is the needle driver. Using a similar locking ratchet mechanism to the hemostatic clamps, the jaws of the needle driver are shorter and stouter, with a definite crosshatch pattern, rather than the simple unidirectional ribbing of the clamps. The drivers range from 4 inches (10 cm) to 12 inches (30 cm) long, but the jaws remain constant at about 10-15 mm long. Someone skilled in the "instrument technique" of suturing can place neat stitches deep in the belly or another body cavity through a surprisingly small incision.

One major problem with surgery in the early 1630s will be the strictly limited supply of up-time suture material, something that will take years to replace. Fortunately, there are some old-fashioned and down-time alternatives that will suffice for most uses until materials science in general and polymer technology in particular catches up with the needs of surgery.

One last piece of equipment that the field medics and many of the ED nurses will carry will be a leather holster that has slots for two hemostats, a regular pair of Lister bandage scissors, a pair of trauma shears, and a lock-back folding knife. A loop for a pen light will be included, but not filled until the battery and bulb technologies get to the point of providing the small lights again. The floor and ICU nurses will carry a lighter version, with room for only one pair of scissors, one or two clamps, a penlight and a pen.

In Part 2, I’ll discuss the basics of aseptic surgery and anesthesia.

[i] The Trauma Attending is a board certified General Surgeon with extensive experience in trauma and critical care.

[ii] A Trauma Fellow is a surgeon who has completed a seven to ten year residency, and who is now acquiring extra experience in trauma and critical care prior to taking the general surgery boards.

[iii] Personal communication with the ATLS coordinator at the AmericanCollege of Surgeons.

[iv]Some of us go so far as to become ATLS instructors, but there is nothing in canon to indicate that any of the physicians have done that.

[v] The C4 program is open to any nurse, dentist, PA, or NP who has completed their training, and to any physician who has completed at least their first year of postgraduate training (the internship year). Reserve and Guard members can use the program to fill all or most of their Annual Training requirement. I took mine during an elective block in my second post graduate year, as soon as I was eligible. Mary Pat would not yet have been eligible, and Beulah McDonald and the older physicians would have completed their service before the program was in place. CW3 John Sullivan (MOS 18D- see below) might have taken the course as part of his military training,

[vi] In a communication from Danita, she indicated that the nursing degree would be a BSN rather than the BN that has occasionally appeared in Bar discussions.

[vii]Grantville Gazette Volume 16: “The Galloping Goose”

[viii] In 1946, DeBakey and Simeone wrote a landmark paper entitled "Battle Injuries of the Arteries in World War II; An Analysis of 20,471 Cases". This paper, published in the Annals of Surgery, looked at two distinct groups. In the larger group, soldiers underwent ligation of their injured arteries, and 49% of those individuals who survived went on to amputation. In a much smaller group of 81 patients, primary suture repair of the injured vessel was performed, and the amputation rate in this group was 35%, and was "deemed significantly better" by the authors. With the institution of "routine" primary vascular repair by Spencer and colleagues during the Korean conflict, and the progressive decrease in times from injury to definitive care in Korea and Vietnam, amputation rates dropped to around 10%, and the current civilian experience with isolated arterial injuries now has documented an amputation rate of less than 5%.

Quoted in a Trauma-L correspondence with Ron Gross, MD, FACS, COL, MC (ret)

[ix]1634: The Galileo Affair Chapter 43

[x]Grantville Gazette, Volume 9: "Tool or Die" Feb 1632

[xi]Grantville Gazette, Volume 4: "'Til We Meet Again"January 1634

[xii]Grantville Gazette, Volume 14: "The Galloping Goose" November 1634

[xiii] "An Invisible War"ibid

[xiv] Trueta, Joseph, TREATMENT OF WAR WOUNDS AND FRACTURES WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE CLOSED METHOD AS USED IN THE WAR IN SPAIN. London 1940, PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF WAR SURGERY WITH REFERENCE TO THE BIOLOGICAL METHOD OF THE TREATMENT OF WAR WOUNDS AND FRACTURES. St. Louis 1943

[xv]Grantville Gazette, Volume 14 "Doc"

[xvi] From communications with Jose Clavell and Danita

[xvii]Grantville Gazette, Volume III “If the Demons Will Sleep”

[xviii] Ibid

[xix] Ibid

[xx]Grantville Gazette Volume 26: “Advice and Counsel”

[xxi] I’ve never understood this one. Why didn’t Jefferson get her MSN as a Midwife or a Nurse Practitioner? "A Matter of Consultation," Ring of Fire

[xxii]Grantville Gazette, Volume 29: "NCIS: No Greater Love"

[xxiii]1632

[xxiv]Grantville Gazette, Volume 10: “The Prepared Mind”

[xxv]Grantville Gazette, Volume 23: “Loose Canon”

[xxvi] Grantville Gazette, Volume 15: "The Whippoorwill" I base this statement on the salvage of Hatfield’s arm, rather than an amputation, which I would have expected most down-time surgeons to do because of the damage. This goes along with the statements in "Doc."

[xxvii] "Doc" ibid

[xxviii]Grantville Gazette, Volume 11: "A Gift of Blankets" Spring 1632

[xxix] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burke_and_Hare

[xxx] Moore, Wendy The Knife Man (Broadway Books, 2005)

[xxxi] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatomy_Act_1832

[xxxii]http://www.teleflexmedicaloem.com/pdf/KMAD-4_General.pdf

[xxxiii] http://www.icrc.org/Web/Eng/siteeng0.nsf/htmlall/p0446/$File/ICRC_002_0446.PDF

[xxxiv] http://www.icrc.org/Web/Eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/p0516

[xxxv] Suggested by Danita

[xxxvi] Including at least one Special Forces (18D) medic and another 91C LPN (John and Anamarie Sullivan), pointed out to me by Caper2. They are currently claimed by Kerryn, and he has slushed a story where they are now a BSN (John) and a DO (Anamarie) respectively.

[xxxvii]Endoscopes are used to "look inside" the body. These include devices to peer into the throat and voice box (laryngoscope), the lungs (bronchoscopes), the stomach and upper part of the small intestine (gastroscope) and the large intestine (proctoscopes (very short), sigmoidoscope (longer) or colonoscope (very long)). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endoscope

[xxxviii] A mild acetic acid (vinegar) wash is used to turn precancerous cells white, and is followed by an iodine wash which turns normal cells a mahogany brown, making the white cells stand out.

[xxxix]The culposcope is used to examine the back of the vagina and cervix for cancerous changes.

[xl] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrosurgery

[xli]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyfrecator

[xlii] Oddly enough, finding a diathermy machine hiding in one of the older doctor’s attics would go a long way to helping redevelop the microwave oven, as the older machines would be easier to copy than the more compact kitchen microwave units.

[xliii]Grantville Gazette, Volume 28, "On His Majesty’s Secret Service"the first down-time produced movie

[xliv]Grantville Gazette, Volume 17, "Feng Shui for the Soul"HDG has developed film sensitive enough for Kirlian photography by the end of 1634. HDG is producing commercial quantities of the developing chemicals by this time.

[xlv] http://www.teleflexmedicaloem.com/pdf/KMAD-4_General.pdf

[xlvi] Again, I was a bit atypical. I purchased a small steam sterilizer and four decent suturing sets, including high quality carbide insert scissors and needle holders when I first started in practice in 1990.

[xlvii] Personal experience as a sterile instrument technician

[xlviii]Grantville Gazette, Volume 31: "Me fecit Solingen Nicht"

[xlix]Grantville Gazette, Volume 5: "Burmashave"

[l]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalpel

[li] Insert link here to supplemental material posted on 1632.org. These will include both regular and macro jpgs of various instruments.

That Old-Time Religion

Written by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

In January, I was a guest of honor at Chattacon, a small science fiction convention in Chattanooga, Tennessee. This was the 36^th Chattacon, which has a long, proud history as an sf convention. It also has quite a bit of community acceptance which, for someone coming from the Pacific Northwest, was a bit startling. The articles in the newspaper were nice, even laudatory, and the interview that Chelsea Quinn Yarbro and I did on a local radio station focused on our writing and the convention as something to attend, not something to gawk at.

The hotel, the Chattanooga Choo-Choo Hotel which is built out of the old train station where the famous Choo-Choo began its route, loved the convention. All of the staff treated us with respect. They couldn’t wait to have some free time because their employee badge gave them a free pass into the dealer’s room in the convention hall across the street.

I have been to a lot of conventions, and let me tell you, it’s a rare con that gains the respect of the community and of the hotel where the con’s being held. Some of that is the Chattacon’s con committee, which ran the small convention with a professionalism you rarely see outside of a big convention. But a lot of it was the attendees, who while doing their thing, did it with a bit of consideration for the non-sf fans in the vicinity.

I was pleased. I also enjoyed myself. I’m a big science fiction fan at heart, as some non-sf friends of mine with a seven-month-old daughter will realize when I give them the little Horton Hears Cthulu t-shirt I bought for her at the convention. (And then I’ll have to explain who Cthulu is.)

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the sf field lately because it is in flux. As my last column mentioned, flying your geek flag is becoming acceptable these days. At least one of my conversations at Chattacon was about the 40,000 people who go to Dragoncon (in Atlanta, 90 minutes to the south), and how many of those 40,000 wouldn’t consider themselves part of the heart of sf fandom.

And yet they go to panels, buy cool dragon pens in the dealer’s room, and gladly stand in line to get autographs, not just from their favorite TV personalities, but from comic book artists, novelists, and game designers as well.

I’ve also been reading biographies and autobiographies from the old-timers in the field. Someone posted a Six Degrees of Isaac Asimov thought experiment on Facebook recently, and mentioned if you’d shaken the hands of certain authors, you’d also shaken the hands of the long-gone grand masters and originators of the field.

I’d shaken all of those hands and some others not included in the list. Which meant that I’d shaken the hand of John W. Campbell and Hugo Gernsback and H.G. Wells—at least from a short distance, anyway.

Over the past few years, I’ve been thinking about the literary influence of the Grand Masters and Originators of Science Fiction, and I’d given some thought to First Fandom as well. First Fandom are the folks who started most of the sf traditions, especially the World Science Fiction Convention. Most of First Fandom went on to become writers in the sf field, although not all of them. And many of them continued to attend sf conventions until they died.

When I came into fandom in the late 1980s (I wasn’t allowed to fly my geek flag as a young woman or as a teenager: my mother was horrified when I wanted to go to a Milwaukee Star Trek convention when I was sixteen), a large number of the members of First Fandom were still alive. They’d crowd the stage during the Hugo ceremony to honor their own, and sometimes they’d walk off, because the fights that originated before World War Two continued unabated.

(It’s really not fair to call some of those things fights. It’s better to call them grudges, but even that doesn’t quite encompass the level of bitterness involved. Internecine warfare, perhaps?)

I didn’t think much about those fights because I was young and self-involved and developing my own fannish likes and dislikes. (Someone once told me that you hadn’t really joined fandom until you could actually put names on the form that asked who you did not want to share a panel with.) In fact, I really didn’t understand the various stories I’d heard until two years ago as I plunged into the various biographies and realized I was getting one side of a conflict I didn’t entirely understand.

Unfortunately, by then, most of the people I knew who had been part of First Fandom had died. I couldn’t ask them to clarify. I couldn’t get them to explain their part in a war that still has an impact on the field today.

How we start often influences where we go. I was mulling all of that as I flew to Chattanooga. When I got to the hotel, I met longtime fans and I watched teenage fans go by—and that’s when I had my own epiphany.

I had just arrived in a city I had never been to and put my trust in people I had never met to speak at a conference that felt less like business and more like home, because of a group of teenagers.

Yep, you read that right. A group of teenagers.

Sometimes I’m slow at figuring things out. When I met the members of First Fandom, they were in their seventies and eighties. They were much older than me, and so to think that they had started something—well, that makes sense, because starting things is what adults do.

It wasn’t until I watched those teenage fans go by in Chattanooga that I realized nearly everything I would do that weekend had been designed by the seventy and eighty year olds when they were a group of teenage kids who wanted to meet their heroes and to discuss their favorite literature.

The first conventions—and the 1939 Worldcon was not the first—were just gatherings of like-minded people. Because they read the same magazines and wrote letters to the letter columns, because they then formed groups that sent newsletters to each other (cobbling together money in a very hard time to print up those newsletters), they wanted to meet each other in person.

They drove to nearby communities and had adventures along the way. They stayed at each other’s apartments because they couldn’t afford hotel rooms. They found free public space to hold their weekend talk. They found officers and organizers, and when they couldn’t find a speaker—someone of sufficient fame to speak to their small group—they held group discussions, with the leaders sitting at tables.

They had panels, they had guests, they had small tables where they sold their newsletters or extra copies of some magazines.

They invented science fiction conventions, and as time went on, those conventions grew. Nothing happened during the war, of course, but afterwards, the gatherings of friends—the conventions, even with their internecine warfare—took on even more importance. They were an escape from a world rocked by a cataclysm we can’t quite imagine. Their heroes went off to war just like they did, and when they returned home, science fiction was never quite the same.

(Jack Williamson wrote in his autobiography that the dropping of the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima changed his writing forever: he no longer saw science as a force for good; he also saw the horrors it could unleash.)

Still, these fans—older now—held their gatherings, invited the writers whose work they loved, and continued to have panels and discussions. They continued to fight and fall in love and intermarry and intermingle just like fans do today. And they discussed new media—which went from radio and pulp magazines in the 1930s to television and comic books in the 1950s.

Even costumes were there from the beginning. Young (and I do mean young) fan Forest Ackerman wore a costume to his very first gathering in New York City. I don’t know what his fellow fans thought of it, but I do know that costuming became as big a part of fandom as the literary discussions.

So I, and hundreds of others, spent our weekend in Chattanooga (not to mention the folks at a handful of other conventions that same weekend around the nation) following a format developed by a group of teenagers who had no idea that their little get-togethers would found entire movements. Those kids probably couldn’t imagine conventions the size of Dragoncon or Comic-Con. Or maybe they could.

They did name their first big convention the Worldcon, after all.

****

And it's . . . Dragon*Con!

Written by Grantville Gazette Staff

This year. Labor Day weekend. Atlanta, Georgia. Dragon*Con.

Yep. The 1632 con within a con will be there.

Will you?

Panelists are expected to include Eric Flint, Virginia DeMarce, Paula Goodlett, Chuck Gannon, Rick Boatright, Gorg Huff, Walt Boyes, David Carrico, Iver Cooper, and Kevin and Karen Evans. Panel titles, participants, and times will be available at a later date.

You should register as part of Dragoncon to participate; for registration, hotel information, directions, etc., see www.dragoncon.org. Dragoncon registration (membership) prices increase on May 13.

See you there!

How to Catch a Falling Star

Written by Stuart D. Gibbon

Gerund knew the princess was dying. The heavy tread of the approaching dragon emphasized her fate, but there was nothing he could do.

"Quick," she said, "someone turn on the television!"

"Are you still playing that silly game with these children?" The ward matron bustled into Kristy's room. "Well, visiting hours are over and you, my lady, need rest."

Jake shook off his alter ego of Gerund the Barbarian. "But we're watching the news!"

The matron snorted and turned a stern gaze on Kristy. She flicked a finger at the television, which promptly turned off.

Despite being only twelve, Kristy returned the glare boldly, eyes wide beneath the cloth cap pulled low to cover her chemotherapy-ravaged scalp. Angrily she snapped her fingers, and the screen flicked on again.

Jake shook his head; the technology in this hospital was weird.

"Five minutes," harrumphed the matron, "or I won't be the one answering to Themselves!"

Kristy stuck out her tongue as the woman left, but Jake's eyes were caught by the television. "Quiet, guys. They're talking about the space station."

Alex and Toby paused in collecting the books, dice, and paper with which they conquered worlds, and turned to the screen on the wall.

". . . a repeat of the Skylab incident of the nineteen-seventies. NASA officials maintain that the unscheduled re-entry of the International Space Station's solar power module poses no threat to public safety, but residents of the town of Yardley disagree."

The picture jumped to an on-location shot of a woman in her sixties. "I lived in Esperance when Skylab fell, and they were still promising it'd fall a thousand kilometers away while pieces rattled off my roof! They say this'll hit in the national park outside town, but I won't be staying here next week."

The news cut back to the anchor. "Thousands disagree, however, and authorities fear an invasion of souvenir hunters . . ."

Alex spun around, eyes bright. "Wouldn't that be cool to see?"

"Yeah." Kristy smiled. She looked down at the hospital bed and sighed. "Yeah," she said quietly. "That'd be cool."

An awkward silence was interrupted by the matron's return. "Off you go, now. Even she need their rest." She flapped her hands at the boys.

Toby raised his eyebrows at the nurse's grammar and, behind her back, tipped up an imaginary bottle.

Jake scowled; Gerund surged to his feet and swung his sword. The heavy point sheared through the dragon's neck in a fountain of blood. The matron turned outraged eyes on him and Jake reeled under the unexpected lash. Icy fingers crawled through his brain, and he wondered what he'd done to give himself away.

"Stop that!" Kristy snapped imperiously in a tone Jake had rarely heard her use.

The matron half-opened her mouth, but settled for crossing arms across her ample bosom and glowering.

Uncomfortable, Jake stood. "We'd better go." He looked at Kristy. "Same time next week? Or are your parents doing something for your birthday?"

Kristy's mouth tightened. "If they drag themselves away from their duties." Her lips pursed sourly. She shook her head as if dislodging the thought, ignoring the shocked expression on the matron's face. "Come anyway, okay? It's my birthday, not theirs."

The boys nodded and shuffled out of the room. Behind them, Jake heard Kristy's voice whisper savagely at the matron. "I will not have you treat my friends that way. I don't care that they're human—they care about me, not about impressing my father. And as for—"

Her voice cut off when the elevator doors closed, and the boys swapped bemused looks. Sometimes Jake wondered if Kristy knew the difference between the game and reality. But since she was the only girl he'd ever met who even knew what role-playing was, he wasn't going to complain if she was too good at it.

The ride to the ground floor was quiet, each boy lost in his own thoughts. As they left the hospital Alex spoke up wistfully. "It would be cool to see the power module come down, wouldn't it?"

Jake stopped. "Why don't we?"

Toby and Alex exchanged confused looks.

"Cause we're, like, twelve, and we can't drive, and it's hundreds of kilometers away," said Toby.

"No, seriously," said Jake. "Yardley's only a few hours away by train, and the module's coming down next Saturday, on Kristy's birthday. I . . ." He looked down. "I thought we could take her, too."

Alex shook his head. "Dude, she's got leukemia. They won't let us take her anywhere—you know what her parents are like. The hospital treats them like royalty!"

Her parents certainly acted like royalty. Jake had met Kristy six months earlier when he'd had his appendix out, and her parents had been horrified when they'd discovered the two of them talking. "But he's only a . . . he's so common," her mother had said fiercely while she'd ushered Kristy away. Jake never found out what he was "only," but he doubted it'd been complimentary, given the supercilious way Mr. Sealey had then ordered him to stick to "his own kind."

He shrugged off the lingering hurt. Kristy hadn't allowed her parents to stop her, and neither would he.

"A princess needs rescuing." Gerund held out a clenched fist. "Who's with me?"

Toby looked at Jake and grinned. "Why not?" Tagor the Rat's thieving hand joined Gerund's.

Alex bit his lip uncertainly. Jake simply waited. Abruptly Alex nodded, and Exalion's hand burst into argent flame where he gripped his companions'. "Indeed."

****

The week passed in a whirl. The power module's impending re-entry splashed across newspapers and television, outrage and excitement clamoring for precedence. The boys' preparations, necessarily hidden from parents, took time—not to mention their combined savings—but finally they met in front of the hospital under a bright Saturday sun.

"I still don't see why I have to stay with the horse," Exalion grumped.

"Because it belongs to your cousin," said Gerund, "and I don't want to be turned into a toad if something happens to it."

"We'll only be fifteen minutes," Tagor added.

Alex scowled but dutifully pushed his charge toward the bus stop where, if everything worked out, they would all meet shortly.

Jake kept his head down while he and Toby crossed the lobby toward the lifts. Stay calm, he told himself. It was visiting hours and they were allowed to be there, but he couldn't help feeling that their plans were painfully obvious to everyone.

He was glad Toby had the job of distracting the matron. Gerund was willing to fight the dragon, but for subtlety Tagor was the better choice; the wiry thief had the ability to actually believe whatever lie he was telling.

Tagor peeled off to wait when they passed the dragon's empty nest; no doubt the beast was out terrorizing poor innocents. Gerund nodded to his companion and headed deeper into the labyrinth where the princess was held.

Kristy's initial welcoming smile faded when she looked past him. "Where are the others?"

"Helping with your birthday present." He closed the door, then took off his bag and dumped the clothes he'd swiped from his sister's room onto Kristy's bed. "Put these on and we'll go find them."

Kristy looked blankly from the clothes to Jake. "Excuse me?"

Gerund grinned broadly. "We're rescuing you, Princess. It's time to catch a falling star."

"Huh?"

Jake sighed. "We're gonna sneak you out of here and go to Yardley to see the power module come down," he said. "Happy birthday."

"But, what about . . ." Her sweeping gesture took in the room and, by extension, her illness.

"It's only one day. We'll look after you." Jake scuffed his feet on the carpet. Maybe this was a stupid idea. They should have asked her first, but he'd wanted it to be a surprise. Well done, genius. "Look, it's okay if you don't want to go. We can stay here and—"

"You're serious!" Kristy blurted.

"Er, yeah."

"I love you," she squealed and threw her arms around him. The embrace lasted only a moment. "All of you," Kristy added, pulling back. "As friends, I mean. So . . . um . . . what's the plan?"

Five minutes later Jake was shocked by how thin Kristy looked in his sister's clothes. She swept a self-conscious hand over the thin cap covering her scalp. "They'll still know something's wrong. And even if I had the strength to cast a glamourie," she added with an odd smile, "I don't think it would fool anyone here."

Jake pulled a wig from his bag. "That's why I bought this."

Kristy stared. "It's pink."

"It looks real," he protested.

"But it's pink."

"All the normal colored ones looked like old mops." Jake shrugged. "Try it!"

She pursed her lips but took the wig back into the bathroom; she never let her friends see her without the cap.

She came out still adjusting her new hair. "How does it look?" Her expression made it clear that smiling would be taken badly.

"Princess," said Gerund, "you look ravishing. But unless you want to be ravished—by a dragon—we need to leave, or not even Tagor's cunning will save us."

****

"That was amazing," Kristy said when they walked out into the warm sunshine. "How'd you do that? I didn't think a . . . one of you could fool her that way."

"Just one of many talents," Tagor said, sticking out his chest.

Gerund laughed and clapped him on the back. Tagor stumbled and caught himself on a bench. He opened his mouth to retort, but stopped when the princess collapsed onto the seat. Even for one of the Fair Folk she looked pale.

"Are you okay?"

Kristy's breathing was labored "I'll be fine. Just tired." She smiled weakly. "Haven't exercised . . . a lot . . . lately."

"We only need to walk to the bus stop," Jake said. "Here, let me help."

Kristy took his hand and stood, and Jake wrapped an arm around her to help before they set off. Toby smirked and opened his mouth, but Jake glared so fiercely that—for once—the smaller boy refrained from making a snide comment.

When they rounded the corner Alex jumped up from where he'd been waiting. "Your noble steed awaits, your highness," Exalion declared with a flourish.

Jake almost stumbled when Kristy stopped and stared. The wheelchair looked nothing like the square, plastic ones used in the hospital. It was a brilliant metallic blue, all sleek lines and angled wheels.

"It's my cousin's," Alex said defensively. "His wheelchair rugby team got all new equipment, so he let me borrow his old one."

"It looks, um, heavy," Kristy said uncertainly. "It's not made from iron is it? Or steel?"

Alex threw the chair a surprised look. "Aluminum, I think." He lifted it easily with one hand.

Kristy sighed gratefully and sank into the wheelchair. "This might work after all." Then, "Oh!" She fished her mobile phone from her pocket. "I probably shouldn't have brought this." She turned it off decisively. "Out here, this is the only way my parents can contact me, and if I don't talk to them, they can't make me go back."

Riding the bus to the train station, they could barely contain their excitement, each boasting they would find a bigger piece of debris than the others.

"Size doesn't matter," Kristy said, "so long as . . ." She frowned. "Some of it would have to be iron, or steel, I suppose, wouldn't it?"

"I thought it was all carbon fiber and ceramic and stuff," Toby replied.

"There must be something," Kristy said. "Even a tiny piece of sky-iron might be enough, if . . ." She trailed off and looked out the window with a wistful expression.

"If I'd known you wanted a meteorite for your birthday we could've gotten you one," Jake said, vaguely annoyed.

"What?" Kristy blinked as she turned to him. "Oh, no, that's fine. They're the wrong type, anyway. Besides," she added with a grin, "this way we get to go on a real adventure."

Their good mood lasted until just inside the station, where a large television hanging above the crowd displayed the midday news. Jake stopped in horror when security camera footage of them leaving the hospital played behind the anchor. Color footage—Kristy's pink wig shone like a beacon on the screen.

"Crap!" He herded the others behind a pillar. "What do we do now?"

"Lose the wig," said Toby. "I told you it was stupid."

"No!" Kristy's hands flew protectively over her ears. "I like having hair again."

Exalion snapped his fingers. "Where there's a spell, there's a way. Wait here." Before anyone could protest he blended invisibly into the crowd. Five minutes later he returned with a bag he handed to the princess. "Saint Vincent has provided."

The plastic bag held hair clips and a broad-brimmed hat. She hugged Alex and laughed at his awkward embarrassment. "You are a wizard."

The wait on the platform dragged at their nerves. Each time transit guards walked past the boys clustered about Kristy's wheelchair to hide her from view. Casual glances morphed into suspicious orcish stares, the tension ratcheting higher while the minutes mounted.

Eventually the train arrived and they piled inside. They were not the only ones headed for Yardley, and they discussed plans excitedly while the train rolled along, suburbia morphing into bushland and then farms. Distant purple mountains barely moved, but as they neared their destination one rocky arm jutted deep into the plain. A line of green heralded the national park that was their destination.

The crowd that finally spilled from the train was an order of magnitude larger than Yardley's small station had been designed for. The brief dotting of blue uniforms struggled to impose order. A harried-looking policeman with a bullhorn must have felt like King Canute facing the tide.

"The National Park is closed for safety reasons. Viewing centers for the descent have been set up in the town square. Please proceed calmly. . . ."

The three boys clustered around the wheelchair as the crowd funneled toward the entrance. "This is crap," Toby said. "The chance of anyone getting hit is, like, nothing!"

"Maybe they're worried about fires," Alex said, "and—"

He stopped talking when they neared the gate and came face-to-face with a policeman. The officer nodded distractedly and Jake began to breathe again, but then the cop frowned and followed them with his eyes while he triggered his radio.

"I think the orcs know we're here," Gerund whispered, chivvying the princess's horse forward.

"Maybe that's why they want everyone in the square," she said darkly. "I bet my parents are behind this."

"I doubt it," said Tagor, "but it'll probably have the same effect."

It wasn't fair. Kristy's birthday would be ruined by some bureaucrat's decision to keep people safe from something that wasn't even dangerous! Jake scowled in thought, but Alex spoke up first.

"What about the lookout?" he said, pointing at the looming mountain ridge. "It's not in the park, and we'd at least get a better view."

Toby raised an eyebrow doubtfully. "It looks pretty far." He nodded at the lowering sun. "And it's getting late."

The disappointment in Kristy's face decided Jake. "To hell with the orcs," Gerund rumbled. "We didn't come all this way to quit now. We promised the princess a star—now who's with me?" His out-thrust hand was quickly joined by three others.

Yardley was not a large town, but it still took them a good half-hour to reach the road they needed. A large sign waited for them.

"Five kilometers," mused Toby. "Yeah, we can do that. It'll take, what, an hour?"

One hour later they had covered barely three kilometers, with the boys taking turns pushing Kristy. Jake massaged his thighs while they examined the latest obstacle thrown in their path.

Almost in their path. The road they'd been following rose in front of them to snake its way to the lookout, but another, wider road crossed its path. Temporary barriers blocked that road to the east where it headed into the national park; a police car sat behind them. Two officers leaned against the bonnet, chatting companionably.

"Are they waiting for us?" Alex whispered.

Toby threw him a withering look. "Who do you think we are, doofus—Yardley's Most Wanted?" But then the smaller boy frowned. "Of course, they could still be suspicious of four kids sneaking around, especially if one's in a wheelchair."

They couldn't think of any way to avoid crossing in full view of the police without a massive detour, so they decided to brazen it out. Toby and Alex began a loud discussion of the plot weaknesses of the latest sci-fi remake, while Jake concentrated on pushing Kristy across as fast as possible. He heard her muttering something that sounded like "Don't see me" over and over, and mentally wished her luck. Unfortunately it was only in the game that the princess could cast spells.

"Hey—you kids."

They looked at each other nervously while one of the officers strolled over. Whispers flew between them while they pasted on innocent smiles.

"What do we do?" "Nothing. Just relax." "We have to do something." "What?" "I don't know. Anything." "Anything?"

Toby grinned and, as the policeman approached, waved one hand through the air mysteriously. "These aren't the droids you're looking for. We can go about our business."

The officer rolled his eyes while the other three burst into tense giggles. Even in the midst of their nerves the three boys shuffled forward to obscure Kristy from the officer's view.

"What are you boys doing out here? It's getting late, and the park is closed for a reason."

Alex snorted but held his tongue, whereas Toby—as usual—was not so restrained.

"But we're not going to the park. We're just walking up the hill. Is that illegal?"

The policeman frowned. "No, but—"

"And it is getting late, so we'll be off. Bye!"

Toby shoved the others forward while the officer scowled after them, but as the gap widened they all began to breathe easier. They attacked the steep road with renewed energy, and had just rounded the first switchback when a shout rose from below. They could only make out the words "wheelchair" and "hospital," but that was enough.

They began to run, a panting Jake wishing the wheelchair really was a horse able to take its own weight. A second shout sounded, louder and closer.

"Get off the road," Toby said suddenly, veering to one side.

"What?" The others skidded to a halt.

He pointed to a sign indicating a walking trail to the lookout. "Quick, before they see you."

Jake slewed the wheelchair around. Kristy gritted her teeth and hung on. Fortunately the ground sloped away from the road, and it required little extra muscle to drive the chair onto the track Toby had seen.

Toby! Jake spun around to see his friend still standing on the road.

"Happy birthday, Princess," Tagor called softly. "Hope you make it." He ran further up the road, yelling at imaginary companions in front of him to wait.

Heavy footsteps pounded in his wake.

A minute after the footsteps faded Jake swallowed to remove the lump from his throat. "Come on," he whispered harshly, and began to force the wheelchair along the rapidly darkening path. It was reasonably level, but only made of shallow dirt over unyielding rock and the wheelchair jumped around like an oversized mouse. He welcomed the effort as his muscles burned—it took his mind off the burning behind his eyes.

"Will he be okay?" Kristy asked while she hung on grimly.

"He'll be fine," Alex said tightly. "We haven't done anything wrong."

They struggled on in a silence punctuated only by grunts of effort. Toby's action had driven home that they weren't playing a game any more, and it wasn't long before they received another slap in the face from reality.

Stairs.

A barely visible sign stated that the lookout lay only three hundred meters away—almost straight up.

Jake groaned. "Maybe if we carry her . . ." He looked at the wheelchair helplessly.

"I'm not dead yet," Kristy said grimly. She levered herself to her feet. "See," she said with a fixed smile. "I'm fine."

"But—"

"But nothing." Kristy faced the stairs determinedly and began to climb slowly. "It's my party and I can climb if I want to."

Alex looked at Jake and shrugged, then started after her. Jake sighed, tucked the wheelchair under a tree, and followed.

Within a dozen steps both boys were assisting Kristy, who stubbornly refused to use the steel handrail. Within thirty they'd all collected painful bruises from numerous stumbles in the thickening dark.

"Didn't anybody bring a torch?" Kristy said irritably, nursing a nasty graze on her palm.

"No," replied Alex through gritted teeth as he rubbed his knee.

"Well," the princess said, straightening tiredly, "I suppose elven magic will have to do." Pale light blossomed from her outstretched hand.

Jake didn't know how Kristy managed to get that much light from her phone, but he was grateful nonetheless. Simply holding the phone seemed to drain her even faster than walking did, but she hung on grimly and struggled upward.

Until a jarring ring tone shattered the night air.

Jake did a double-take as Kristy pulled her phone from a pocket. What the . . . ? Then how . . . ?

"Who is it? And how'd you get a signal out here?" Alex said.

Jake glanced at him, but in the dark he couldn't tell if the other boy had noticed anything . . . odd.

"My mother," Kristy said distractedly. "I . . . ah, I thought I'd turned the signal off." She bit her lip hesitantly, then shrugged and put the phone to her ear. "Hello, Mother."

She immediately jerked it away when tinny screaming erupted from the small speaker. Jake and Alex looked at each other nervously; Mrs. Sealey sounded pissed.

"Mother, I'm fine," Kristy said eventually. "No, I'm— I said I—"

After another few minutes of futilely trying to get a word in edgewise, Kristy lost her temper. "Mother!" she yelled. "I'm the one who's sick, remember? I know I could die. Do you think I don't know that, with you and Father and everyone all whispering to each other and never telling me a thing? I know I could die, but," her voice dropped, suddenly weary, "can't I at least live a little first? Being out here makes me feel alive. This world is so vibrant." She sighed. "I'm sorry, Mother. Goodbye."

She closed the phone and slumped onto a rocky step. She looked up at the boys; her eyes shimmered silver in the pale moonlight. "It's my birthday, and she didn't even come to see me. Too busy with her duties. Father, too. They said they'd come tonight, but . . ." She looked around and shrugged. "I know they love me, but our . . . family doesn't get sick, not often. They don't know how to deal with this." She dragged the hat—and the wig with it—from her head.

Jake opened his mouth, but there was nothing there—no wisdom, no advice, no comfort. "Kristy, I . . ." he began anyway, but she cut him off with a harsh laugh. In the play of shadows Jake swore her ears looked pointed. What's going on? Am I losing it?

"Forget it. It's not important anyway." She returned the ensemble to her head and held out her hand to accept his help getting to her feet, then looked up the hill and sighed. "Come on."

Kristy draped her arms around the boys' shoulders and step by step they approached the top.

Suddenly Alex looked at his watch and swore. "It's six-fifteen. Re-entry is supposed to be six-thirty."

"Even if there's no point I'm not missing out now," Kristy said grimly.

Jake frowned at the fatigue dripping from her voice, amazed that she somehow managed to push her staggering pace a fraction faster.

Finally they were only three steps from the top, then two, and then one. Jake and Alex bent over to gasp in huge gulps of breath, while Kristy simply sank to the ground, spent. The surge of elation that shot through them was enough, though, that after a few seconds they looked around in anticipation.

But excitement turned to ashes when flashing red and blue lights threw everything into stark contrast.

Alex shook his head in disbelief while a soft sob escaped Kristy, but Jake felt anger boil up. No. Not now. Not this close. He reached down and grabbed one of Kristy's hands.

Despite the frustration surging through him, Gerund's voice was gentle. "It's only goblins, Your Highness. When have goblins ever stopped us?"

With a last sniff the princess raised her head. Her eyes searched Gerund's for a moment before she smiled. "When indeed?"

With Gerund's help she climbed to her feet and, flanked by Exalion, began the unsteady walk to their goal, ignoring the goblins' harsh demands to stop. It wasn't until a burly hand fell on the princess's shoulder that Gerund unleashed the berserker inside.

"She's dying, okay! She's got leukemia and she's dying!" Jake knocked the policeman's hand aside and stepped in front of Kristy.

"Then she should be in hospital, son," the policeman said.

"She's been in hospital, and she's going back, but they never let her out and . . ." All of a sudden Jake had to fight back tears. "It's her birthday."

Alex stepped forward. "All she wants is to see the power module come down. Fifteen minutes, that's all."

The policeman looked at the two boys, then past them to Kristy. "Where's your wheelchair?"

She laughed weakly and raised her head. "We had a little trouble with the steps."

The officer's eyes widened when he saw her face. He opened his mouth, but Kristy shook her head sharply. His gaze flicked from Jake to Alex, then back to Kristy; his voice was gentler than before. "Do your parents know you're here? With these . . . boys?"

"They do." Kristy straightened to take her own weight.

"You're telling the truth," the policeman said with a frown. "I'm surprised. Your parents' court isn't known for being this . . . liberal."

Jake gave a start. Her parents' court? Maybe she really was a princess. Hell, maybe she was even a . . . no. That was ridiculous. Wasn't it?

Kristy's chin lifted. "It's my decision, and these are my friends."

The moment drew out as the officer locked eyes with Kristy. In the flashing light both pairs of eyes threw back brilliance like a cat's. Jake tried to ask Kristy how the cop knew her, but she shushed him and hissed back that her father knew a lot of people. Finally the policeman shook his head and Jake's heart sank.

"You're crazy, but if you can walk up that hill then I guess we can wait fifteen minutes before I take you back to your parents."

Jake felt his face threaten to split from the grin that burst out. He gave Alex a victorious punch on the arm and shared an elated look with Kristy. The officer spoke into his radio, and Toby hopped out of the car and raced over.

Apologies and excitement babbled back and forth until the goblin guard cleared its throat and nodded toward the viewing platform. There was a hint of amusement in its eyes that Gerund was unused to seeing from the blue-skinned creatures, and the half-bow it gave the princess carried not a trace of mockery. He rolled his shoulders; that was a problem for another day. He put his arm around her and, together with Exalion and Tagor, moved slowly toward the railing.

Jake's hands gripped the cool wooden railing and he glanced sideways at the princess. Her eyes shone when they met his and he grinned fiercely. Questions could wait, whatever the answers. He didn't care what she was—she was still his friend, and that mattered more than anything as he placed his hand over hers and squeezed reassuringly.

He looked up, and there was magic in the air. Lines burned across the sky as stars fell. Closer and closer, breaking into a thousand streamers of fire. Thunder rumbled and the heavens shook as something exploded overhead.

And then the cops were there, dragging Kristy back, yelling at them to get under cover while hail—except it wasn't hail—rattled off rocks and trees. Jake ducked down but was otherwise frozen by the sight of the sky falling and the deafening noise.

Finally, silence.

Reflected light drew his eye down, where a warped strip of metal rocked gently near his feet. It was still hot to the touch, but he peeled off his shirt and wrapped the debris carefully before standing and looking around.

A car door opened and Kristy pushed her way out. "Jake, are you okay?"

Gerund smiled down at her as he held out his prize. "Happy birthday, Princess."

She took it from him with trembling hands, burning a finger when she eased back the cloth. "It is," she breathed. "Sweet Danae, it really is."

Her smile was wondrous, and in her eyes he saw, for the first time, hope.

****