JIM BAEN'S UNIVERSE
Grantville Gazette, Volume 29

Grantville Gazette, Volume 29, 1 May 2010

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this magazine are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

Copyright © 2010 by Grantville Gazette

A 1632, Inc. Publication
Grantville Gazette
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What is this? About the Grantville Gazette

Written by Grantville Gazette Staff

The Grantville Gazette originated as a by-product of the ongoing and very active discussions which take place concerning the 1632 universe Eric Flint created in the novels 1632, 1633 and 1634: The Galileo Affair (the latter two books co-authored by David Weber and Andrew Dennis, respectively). This discussion is centered in three of the conferences in Baen's Bar, the discussion area of Baen Books' web site. The conferences are entitled "1632 Slush," "1632 Slush Comments" and "1632 Tech Manual." They have been in operation for almost seven years now, during which time nearly two hundred thousand posts have been made by hundreds of participants.

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

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

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

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

Then, two big steps:

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

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

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

—The Grantville Gazette Staff

Speaking of Uncle Abner

Written by Virginia DeMarce

Grantville, October 1634

"That is the most perverse use of the law that I have ever heard of," Samuel Krapp exclaimed.

Thomas Price Riddle closed the law textbook he had been balancing on his lap and looked at his "student body." If a man could call it that. A dozen young men and women. At first, the only students who had come to him had been girls, like Laurie Koudsi and his granddaughter Mary Kat. And Ricky McCabe, with the police force. Most of the young men had already been called into the army, or busy on technical projects, before it had occurred to anyone in town that they might, possibly, if they survived, need a few more lawyers. Then the government of the New United States—now the State of Thuringia-Franconia—had thought that some of its civil servants and bureaucrats could benefit from an introduction to legal principles. So he had added a few up-time young men who came when they could and, if they survived their postings elsewhere, would come back if they could. Those were doing most of their course work by mail.

The new lawyers, "baby lawyers," like Laurie and Mary Kat still came to class. He hadn't managed to cover everything when he pushed them through his first version of a law course. Luckily, they knew it. If they hadn't known it when they passed the bar exam he and his son Chuck designed, they had found out during their first year or so of active practice.

A couple of years later, even the military had recalled that there was only one person in town who had any experience with administering the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and that person was not precisely youthful. His "student body" had increased in size to include young officers taking law courses in what counted as their spare time.

Now he had a few down-timers as well, some students from the University of Jena putting in a semester in Grantville, but mostly associates from the German law firms that had opened branches in town—men who already had their degrees and, in most cases, a few years of practice, but who realized the need to build bridges between the up-time and down-time codes. Or like young Samuel Krapp, a cousin of the friend and rival his granddaughter Mary Kat addressed as "Georgie," who had just finished law school in Jena last year and was adding the practice of up-time law to his licentiate before starting graduate work in pursuit of the Dr. utriusque jur.—an advanced degree that would allow him to rise to a professorship or judgeship someday.

So he looked at Sam. "What I just explained to you is far, far, from the most perverse use of the law that I ever encountered in my practice. And, probably, far from the most perverse that you may encounter in yours. There is a reason for the quotation, 'The law, sir, is an ass.' Maybe," Riddle said, "the time has come that I should talk about something other than the law in the strictest sense of the word." He placed the textbook on the lamp table next to the arm of the sofa. "Let me tell you a story. Speaking of my Uncle Abner . . ."

He closed his eyes. "Abner Patton was actually my uncle by marriage." He smiled at Sam. "He was married to my mother's sister—Ann Price was her maiden name. Aunt Ann. I think that I prefer the down-time terminology for these things. When you bring me a document on probate that refers to Mutterschwestersmann or Vaterschwestersmann, I know that it's an in-law who is probably involved in the case as an adult male who has potential to serve as an executor or a guardian—not a blood relative uncle with possible inheritance claims. Muttersbruder tells me directly that a specific 'uncle' has concern for the child of a marriage, but no claim to the farm in which the child's late father held a quarter-share. That can be very useful data." He ran his fingers through his thin white hair. "But perhaps I am digressing from the point."

Not one of the students shifted with impatience. They had learned, some more quickly than others, that even when Tom Riddle appeared to digress from the topic, there was usually a connection—if they waited long enough, without interrupting his train of thought.

Johann Georg Hardegg, seated next to his cousin, wondered idly why it was a "train" of thought in English rather than a "chain" of thought. True, railroad cars were coupled together with hitches, but the links of a chain were fastened even more firmly.

"Abner Patton was a foreman at the ceramic plumbing fixtures factory. My father, Theodore Riddle, was a manager there. Pa was born in 1898—Spanish American War, that year—and named for Theodore Roosevelt. Though nobody ever called him Teddy, as far as I recall. Abner was a few years younger than Pa. But the man his name reminded me of was older than TR. And only lived in the pages of magazines and books."

Riddle turned his head, looking at the bookshelves on the wall behind the sofa. He grasped his walker and started to pull himself up.

Mary Kat jumped first. "What do you want, Grandpa?"

"Um. To the left of the fireplace. Second shelf, I think, about a foot in from the left side. A black-and-gray dust jacket with a small tear at the bottom. Melville Davisson Post. The Complete Uncle Abner."

The book was right where he said it would be.

Riddle took it and flipped it open, without even bothering to glance at the table of contents. "Post's 'Uncle Abner' stories are set in West Virginia—one of the reasons I like them, but not the main one—in the years before the Civil War. Back before the state seceded from Virginia, so, I suppose, they were really set in a remote region of Virginia, if one feels impelled to be precise. Which a lawyer should. Always. Naturally.

"Now, Post's Uncle Abner was a defender of the innocent." He looked at Sam Krapp. "You might want to read it. You can borrow the book after class tonight."

He closed his eyes. "The story I was thinking about, 'The Strange Schemes of Randolph Mason,' isn't in here, though, because it wasn't an 'Uncle Abner' story. It came out in a magazine. I don't think I have a copy of it here. Well, I might have photocopies of the Randolph Mason stories in one of my filing cabinets, but it would take a lot of looking to dig them out.

"Post's father was a lawyer. So was Post, himself. I suppose that might be relevant. Randolph Mason is a lawyer. A smart lawyer and a perverse lawyer. A cynical lawyer. One who uses his skills and undoubted mastery of the legal system to set criminals—genuine criminals, embezzlers, thieves, a crooked sheriff who abused the power of his office; not the unjustly accused—free. And considers himself to be a defender of the weak and powerless all the while he does it. I sure wish I could find that series of stories."

Hardegg looked up. "Why? What do they show that is important, specifically?"

"What were we just talking about, Georg?" Riddle smiled. "Before young Sam became morally indignant and I went off on this tangent, that is?"

"You were discussing 'legal technicalities,' and the abilities of lawyers to get men off in American courts under the up-time law by using procedural improprieties, such as lacunae in the chain of custody for evidence or . . ."

"Improper police procedure," Krapp interrupted, receiving a cousinly glare for his trouble.

"Precisely. Thank you, both of you. However, in Post's stories, Mason did not use this approach. Rather he had the defendants admit precisely what they had done—that they had in fact committed the acts of which they were accused. These acts were—necessarily, if the stories were to succeed as literary devices—not common or ordinary crimes such as assault, but devious and, well, extraordinary. Mason would then proceed to demonstrate to the court that the laws, as they stood on the books, simply did not cover the action committed by the defendant and could not be stretched to cover the action committed by the defendant. Mason's point was always that while his client freely admitted that he had done something manifestly unfair, unjust, and morally wrong, it was nonetheless not illegal and did not fall within the purview of the current statutes."

Hardegg nodded. "He, then, undertook, ah, adventures, or explorations, perhaps . . ." He shook his head. "I am not sure of the precisely correct word in English. But . . . this practitioner applied the pure logic of the law. As legal scholars are accustomed to do, often to the point of absurdity. But Mason used logic to display the law's shortcomings. It's inadequacies. Thus the stories would have been designed to show—as in last summer's unfortunate matrimonial tangle of Patricia Fitzgerald—the inability of human reason to predict, and thus to cover within the pages of a legal textbook, all of the things that human beings may do."

"Especially all of the deep troubles from which Randolph Mason specialized in extricating his clients," Riddle said. "Long before the techniques of television's 'cop shows' of the later twentieth century, Post's Mason, in the story called 'The Corpus Delicti,' spent much time on such topics as the legal difficulty of prosecuting murder charges in the absence of a corpse—and the then-modern advances in scientific knowledge, at the turn of the nineteenth into the twentieth century, that contributed so helpfully when a miscreant found himself in need of making a corpse disappear."

Sam Krapp nodded. "Possibly, then, being of relevance when our theologians question whether all of the advanced technology that the up-timers urge us to adopt, so very strongly urge us to adopt, is really beneficial."

Mary Kat cocked her head sideways. "That too, though . . ." She had been introduced to the literary Uncle Abner long before, when she was in high school. "Post showed good things about the use of physical evidence, too. Horse tracks. Things like that. Even if he didn't always explain to the reader exactly what it was that Abner was seeing when he looked at a crime scene. That's not considered exactly fair in the classical detective story."

"Possibly both of you are correct," Tom Riddle said. "Even probably, both of you are correct, more or less to the extent that each of the six blind men observing the elephant was correct, given that his other writings—" He held up The Complete Uncle Abner again. "—are full of exposition on religion. Perhaps the best known of all of Post's stories—" He nodded toward the book in his hand. "—has the title 'Naboth's Vineyard.' He certainly expected his readers to grasp the reference. Philosophy and morality, also, but certainly religion. And democracy and the meaning of democracy in practice."

His eyes becoming shrewd, he looked at his students again. "Which of you, if called upon, would feel prepared to summarize the underlying moral of 'Naboth's Vineyard' for me without first going to look up the phrase?"

All of the down-timers raised their hands. Of the up-timers, only two of the seven.

Riddle muttered something about rampant cultural illiteracy. Nodding at the five, he said, "Be prepared to summarize it and explain the point of the passage, in the legal context of the historical period in which it occurred, by Thursday. If you manage to figure out where to find it, that is."

They looked back at him, expressions blank.

"Since we are discussing detective stories, perhaps I should give you a clue. Another of the 'Uncle Abner' stories, which revolves almost entirely about matters of the law and various types of legal swindles, has the title, 'The Tenth Commandment.' If my wife Veleda is feeling charitable, she may be willing to introduce you to the existence of a type of reference book usually called a 'concordance.'"

Mary Kat looked down, hiding a smile. Her grandfather was rarely acerbic. Even when he was, he did not follow the model of the law professor in Paper Chase, the icon of up-time law students for decades. That his sarcasm was presented gently did not make it any less acid, if a person knew what she was hearing. Grandpa knew perfectly well that Grandma would leap at the chance to introduce anybody at all to the use of a concordance, with a few well-chosen sentences about the need for one.

"Not just detective stories, although the puzzles are fascinating. Democracy," Tom Riddle said. "And the place of the law within a democracy."

He looked at Samuel Krapp. "So read it, young man. And when you're done . . ." He looked at five children of Grantville who could not identify Naboth's vineyard. "The rest of you read it, too. Take notes. Annotate your notes. With special reference to ambiguities."

Mary Kat raised her eyebrows.

"Think, child," her grandfather said. "What position does Uncle Abner hold in his community? Is he a policeman?"

"No."

"An officer of the court? A judge?"

She shook her head in the negative.

"Who is the righteous and honorable justice of the peace whose efforts Uncle Abner assists in righting wrongs and administering justice?"

Mary Kat opened her mouth; then closed it; opened it again. "Squire . . . Randolph."

"The two sides of the law in society. Always, the two sides of the law in society. Do not forget them." He handed the book to Samuel Krapp as the door to the living room opened. "And, now, I believe that Veleda has prepared some refreshments."

Jena

"Professor Arumaeus has published really a lot of books," was the way that Georgie Hardegg put it to Mary Kat, "which in due time led to his becoming dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Jena."

She nodded. "Publish or perish; a well-known principle in academic careers."

"His major area of interest is public law, but he wrote one rather interesting diversion on the topic of the legal definition of stipends, mercantile income, and wages, which has led to any number of academic disputations on the topic of whether or not such social groups as entertainers, fortune tellers, gypsies, and faith healers can truly, from a philosophical perspective, be said to earn income."

"Oh."

"He's not bad at public relations, either," Hardegg summed up.

"You might as well come with us," Sam Krapp said. "You're going to have to meet him some day—you and Laurie Koudsi both—if you intend to do anything with your law practices beyond the limits of West Virginia County. You'll need to get your regular licentiates; not just the 'bar exam' that your people invented after the Ring of Fire.

"Is my German really good enough to get through a meeting with a dean? Much less my Latin?"

"His English is fine if it comes to a pinch," Hardegg said absently. "He studied at Oxford before he got his doctorate. Anyway, he's curious to meet you, given that the dean of the Faculty of Arts has hired the famous Ms. Mailey to teach up-time political science. Which is quite a coup, since she's possibly the only person in the world today qualified to teach the subject. The best-qualified, at least. Or the most famous, anyhow. It should bring in a lot of students, which, of course, means a lot of income and prestige for Jena."

"Well, Jena had an advantage in the bidding wars, considering that Dr. Nichols is already on the medical school faculty there. I sort of doubt that, once she got out of England, Ms. Mailey was interested in taking a job outside of his sphere of influence. If she travels any more, she says, it's going to be with him, like the Prague trip. She didn't even wait in the Netherlands for the wedding—just came on home. I was honestly surprised, though, that they hired a woman."

"Who else could they hire?" Hardegg asked. "It's not as if she had any competition for the job. It's sort of like a ruler sending his sister or daughter as a negotiator instead of some faceless bureaucrat." He thought a moment, then grinned. "The bureaucrat, as a noble male of the human species, can always save what face he does have by thinking that if the ruler had a brother or son available, he'd have priority over the females in the family."

"Ms. Mailey is coming in as an extraordinary professor," Krapp pointed out. "If they'd hired her instead of a down-time academic with all the proper degrees as an ordinary professor, the faculty members would have made a lot more fuss, I'm sure."

"I get it," Mary Kat said suddenly. "She's an 'in addition to' rather than an 'instead of.' Or 'untenured adjunct' rather than 'tenured regular' professor."

"The university is paying her more than they pay most of the ordinary professors, though. They really do expect her to be an attraction." Hardegg turned to Krapp. "Who's doing the Latin translations for her handouts?"

"Cunz Kastenmayer. At least, I think I heard someone say so. Because of the Dreeson tour this fall, he has a sort of 'in' with the up-timers now."

"Odd sort of guy. But he does make the most of his chances. For someone who's never had a chance to make the grand tour, he's compensated by making friends with every single foreign student who shows up in Jena and talking to him in whatever his native language is. Somebody ought to fix him up with a plummy tutoring job, so he can travel around with some rich kid."

* * *

Mary Kat just listened almost all the way to Jena. That was one thing she had learned. She could often find out a lot more about what was going on in the down-timer community by listening to her colleagues talk to one another than by talking with any of them herself.

Until, near the end of the trip, she asked, "If you find the premises of Post's stories, the 'crucial' ones that you've hand-copied and we're taking for him to look at, to be so very 'Calvinist,' aren't you worried that this Professor Arumaeus will be offended by them? It's a Lutheran university, after all."

"The university is Lutheran," Hardegg agreed. "So the professors have to be Lutheran, of course. But Arumaeus isn't. Or, at least, he wasn't. He was born in Leeuwarden in the Netherlands. Dominik van Arum, Latinized into Domenicus Arumaeus. He was a Calvinist until he took a job at Jena—that must be close to thirty years ago, now. He's the one who introduced Staatsrecht, the law governing such things as sovereignty, as an independent subdiscipline here."

"Well, all of them are," Krapp said. "Almost all, at least. Althusius, for example. The professors at Herborn and Leiden. And Hoen."

"All what?"

"The scholars and professors with a serious interest in public law. Constitutional law, perhaps, would be a better term in English, except that it can be confusing, since no political entity in Europe has a constitution in the sense of your American written constitution."

Hardegg nodded. "Ever since Lipsius. Maybe because of Lipsius—his Politica is still very influential, nearly thirty years after his death. The people who are developing the theory of the law of government. Men like Arumaeus. And Grotius. A lot of them, as Sam says, are Calvinists from the Netherlands. Though I have to say that the Jesuits are also publishing on the topic. If Ms. Mailey were going to teach down-time political theory, she would have had plenty of competition. I wouldn't be surprised if the university hires a down-timer, now, in the Arts Faculty, to complement her courses. At present the field is taught only in the Faculty of Law, except in so far as it can be addressed in rhetoric courses through the Greek and Latin classics. That would bring in even more tuition-paying students."

"I have news for you," Mary Kat said.

"What?"

"If they think that Ms. Mailey is going to turn into a Lutheran because they hired her, they'd better think again."

"Ms. Unruh is Lutheran," Krapp said. "The extraordinary professor for statistics. I know—I've seen her in church in Jena on weekends she doesn't return to Grantville."

"That's different. She was Lutheran already. She's a member at St. Martin's in the Fields."

"What about Ms. McDonald in the medical faculty?"

Mary Kat frowned. "Presbyterian, I think. Most of the McDonalds are. And Mary Pat Flanagan is Catholic. Maybe they're making exception for the adjuncts."

Krapp frowned. "Lipsius taught for a while at Jena, too—ethics, logic, and history, in the Faculty of Arts. He never became a Lutheran, so maybe they are. Have. Do. Make exceptions, I mean."

Hardegg shook his head. "No, he was a Catholic from the Spanish Netherlands and had to convert to Lutheranism to be hired. The faculty was skeptical of his sincerity. That's why he had to leave again after only two years and go to Cologne. I've heard people talking about it. He only became a Calvinist, later, when the University of Leiden hired him. They say that's why he eventually applied for the job at Louvain—so he could go back to being Catholic. Though he was really a Stoic all along, no matter which confession he belonged to at the moment."

"I read the book," Mary Kat said. "All six sections. Grandpa said I had to. He ordered the English translation from a used book store here in Jena, because my Latin wasn't up to it the first couple of years after the Ring of Fire. The title page is burned upon my brain. Justus Lipsius, Sixe Bookes of Politickes or Civil Doctrine, Done into English by William Jones (London: Richard Field, 1594). I didn't like it at all and didn't agree with a word of it."

Krapp laughed. "I never expected that you would. Anything that Richelieu likes, anything that Maximilian of Bavaria admires, anything that Count-Duke Olivares considers a model of statesmanship . . ."

"Just doesn't do it for an old hillbilly girl. 'You have a choice between a virtuous authoritarian prince or anarchy and civil chaos.' That about sums it up for Justus Lipsius. No faith at all in ordinary people and their ability to govern themselves. As if we don't have any more sense of justice than a herd of pigs. Talk about a proto-Hobbes!"

"You'll probably like Arumaeus' ideas better, if you read his book. It's actually an anthology that he edited: Discursus academici de jure publico. It came out in five volumes several years ago, but I think it's still in print. As far as the Holy Roman Empire is concerned, he's pretty much in favor of the rights of the individual territories. Federalism, I suppose, except that it's not exactly the same thing the up-timers define as federalism."

* * *

"My daughter wanted to meet you," Dean Arumaeus said, thus explaining the presence of a severely dressed young woman in her mid-twenties in the room. "She feels somewhat deprived because she is only the daughter and wife of lawyers, without being one herself."

Mary Kat suspected that he was repeating a joke he had made many times before.

His daughter's face—her name was Dorothea Susanne and her husband, Ortholphus Fomann, was also present—indicated that it was a joke she was tired of.

Very tired of.

She'd clearly heard it much too often.

"Ortholphus' father was born in Schleusingen," Arumaeus continued. "He was a prominent member of the law faculty here at Jena until ill health forced him to retire; I'm sad to say that he died earlier this year. His mother is still alive—one of Georg Mylius' daughters."

He clearly expected Mary Kat to be impressed by his son-in-law's genealogy. She made a mental note to find out who Georg Mylius was. Or had been, since the implication was that he also was deceased.

* * *

"While you are in town," Professor Arumaeus said, "your escorts really should introduce you to Professor Ungepauer. And to Johannes Limnaeus, since he is in town with Margrave Christian of Bayreuth. Both of them are already acquainted with your father, Chief Justice Riddle, of course." He picked up the "crucial stories" from The Complete Uncle Abner that Hardegg and Krapp had copied for him. It was a dismissal—a polite one, but clearly a dismissal.

The dean was imposing, Mary Kat thought. Not just heavy, though he was, um, somewhat overweight. Also impressive and certainly an effective speaker. It was scarcely surprising that the former dukes of Saxe-Weimar had used him as a diplomat in addition to his other duties. He could probably talk a hen into laying her egg right into his hand.

* * *

His daughter escorted them to the door, where she stopped and looked at Hardegg and Krapp, nodding toward the steps.

Sam grabbed Georgie's arm and pulled him outside.

"What?"

"I just thought. Margrave Christian of Bayreuth. Cunz Kastenmayer. He's got two sons—the margrave, not Limnaeus. Rich kids, really rich kids, and just the age to be starting on a grand tour. Run and find Cunz—he's bound to be in the library. Get him here while we have an absolute order to go introduce Mary Kat to his most important councillor. SoTF Chief Justice's daughter. Mayor Dreeson's tour. Recommendations. We've got to take Cunz along when we talk to Limnaeus."

* * *

Mary Kat stayed where she was.

"I am tired of the joke," the young woman said. "I was sixteen when my father decided I should marry. Ortholphus' first wife had just died—she was Professor Hilliger's widow. She left him with a stepdaughter and daughter to care for, both under five years old, so he needed another wife right away. He was also a law professor at Jena—Oswald Hilliger, that is. I do not resent the marriage; I love my daughters—those two and my own. She is three, now. But I am tired of the joke. So tired of the . . ."

"Condescension," Mary Kat suggested.

"That will do."

"What do you need from me?"

"Give me your grandfather's address, please. I have lived among jurists all my life and I am not stupid. My mother's father was a law professor here at Jena, too—it's not as if I've never seen a law book in my life. I've done more than just dust them like a good little Hausfrau. I want information on what more I need to learn, specifically, to take this 'bar exam' that exists in West Virginia County." Dorothea Susanne smiled. "I couldn't practice, there, of course—not living in Jena. It wouldn't be practical. But perhaps, if I pass an examination that proves I know these things, he will stop it."

* * *

"You'll probably find Limnaeus' work on the constitution of the Holy Roman Empire of even more use than the one Arumaeus compiled," Sam said on the way home. "It's more systematic. Ius publicum imperii romano-germanici. Only three volumes, too. They came out in Strassburg between 1629 and 1632, so you won't have to bother with the used book trade—you can just order them from the publisher."

Mary Kat sighed. "I don't suppose there's an English translation. How can you possibly be so enthusiastic about three more volumes of Latin?"

"Well, I do want to become a law professor." Sam grinned. "Some day, I'll make a great reputation for myself by writing a definitive treatise on comparative up-time and down-time constitutions. If you ask the professors right now, 'Who are the upcoming lights of the legal profession?' they'll name Conring and von Chemnitz, or the younger Carpzov over in Saxony. They're all five or six years older than I am, though. Just wait."

Hardegg laughed. "Whatever else you may lack for, Samuel, it is not self-confidence."

"Just wait," Sam said. "Just you wait."

Grantville

"Well," Tom Riddle asked the class the next week. "What do you know about Naboth's Vineyard."

"I looked it up," was the offering of Jon Villareal, back from Würzburg at Wes Jenkins' behest to take over duties as deputy director of the SoTF Consular Service—a job reputed to require some minimal legal knowledge—offered cheerfully.

"What did you find?"

"Jezebel." He hummed a couple of musical phrases.

"That's all?"

"Hey, Mr. Riddle, I hardly had time for deep analysis this week. The new boss will be arriving any day now and we have to get the office up and running the way he wants it."

"That is the story of this seminar, I sometimes think. At least we are testing all of you on the basis of what you have learned by the end, rather than on how fast you learn it. Anyone else?" He looked at the other four culprits who had professed themselves to be ignorant of the existence of Naboth's vineyard.

"Elijah came along and made a prophecy that the dogs would lick up Ahab's blood," Paige Clinter contributed.

"True enough. Why?"

"Because Ahab coveted the vineyard and that's against one of the Ten Commandments?" Catrina Dion Kennedy suggested a little dubiously.

Lawrence Quinn, who had only recently joined the seminar, shook his head. "That's only part of it." Then he looked a little anxiously at Riddle and added, "I think."

"Go ahead."

"Well, I was talking to Babette about it when Joe was down from Erfurt this week." He waved at Babette Salerno, who was married to one of the Goss brothers. "Joe sat in on our study group and said that what connected it to the story was that the king and queen, who were supposed to use their authority for the good of the people they ruled, instead used it for their own advantage. And that Jezebel ordered it, but Ahab was just as guilty, because he took advantage of what she did. And the officials and leading citizens were guilty because they obeyed Jezebel's order. Even if the queen tells you to do something, if it's an illegal order, you aren't supposed to obey it."

Riddle heaved a dramatic sigh. "A potentially great legal mind, lost forever to the cause of improved radio communications, I fear."

Babette giggled.

Samuel Krapp shook his head. "It's what the passage is about—1 Kings 21. But it isn't what Melville Davisson Post's story is about. You're all a little right, but you're all also a little wrong."

"Like the six blind men and the elephant?" Mary Kat asked.

The seminar digressed once more, the digression ending only when she promised to make enough copies of the poem to distribute to everyone the next week.

Riddle nodded to Sam again.

"The parallel that links the two is the person in authority who covets something owned by another. But the story, Post's real story, is about where sovereignty resides under a republican constitution. For which insight I thank Mary Kat."

"But . . . I hadn't figured that out myself. I didn't ever say anything of the sort," she protested.

"You didn't have to," Georgie Hardegg said. "It became perfectly clear to both of us the moment you explained exactly why you hated reading Lipsius so much."

November 1634

"You can't get through everything in those filing cabinets in one day," Veleda Riddle protested.

"I'm not going to do it by myself, Grandma. Catrina Dion and Babette are coming, too. We'll each take one cabinet today; start on the top drawer and work down. Make an inventory of everything Grandpa has. Finding the rest of the stories by Melville Davisson Post that he maybe did and maybe didn't photocopy once upon a time will just be a side benefit. Who knows how much more useful stuff he has stashed away in there. Nobody's ever had time to look. We'll make duplicate cards, one set for you to keep here on top of the cabinets and the other one for the state library. Elaine Bolender gave us a supply of their cards and I dug a hole punch out of Mom's desk. Babette and I can sprawl on the floor, but Catrina Dion needs a chair with a pretty high seat. At seven months along, she can hardly heave herself up once she's down. I predict the kid's going to be as big as Brendan Murphy."

"Do your friends really want to give up their Sunday afternoon? Afternoons, if you don't finish today. I don't think you will."

"We're the three musketeers. We stick together. All for one and one for all. Babette sees more of Joe than I do of Derek or Catrina Dion does of Brendan. The honest truth is, though, we'd all be as lonely as sin if we didn't have each other."

Her grandmother nodded. "I had friends like that, back when Tom was in the military." Then, tentatively, "How is Catrina Dion doing right now? Because of her father, you know."

"The skunk. The absolute, utter skunk. Defecting to Austria for money. The Masaniellos are just . . . livid."

"I can imagine."

"Her mom's divorcing him. Even though they're Catholic. She filed this week."

"That didn't take long."

"Tim Kennedy's not going to be any skunkier next month than this month. She'll stay here in Grantville until the divorce goes through—Lisa Masaniello, that is, Catrina Dion's mom. After that's over, the Leeks have asked her to come up to Magdeburg and join the staff of the Magdeburg Memorial Hospital that they're funding. Since Brendan's already up there, and plans to stay—which I would, too, if I was Keenan Murphy's cousin—I expect that Catrina Dion will go, too. Not till next summer, though. She'll wait till her mother's ready and the baby's a bit older.

"Today, though, we're indexing Grandpa's filing cabinets."

Veleda nodded. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Matthew 6:34. I'll see to the refreshments."

* * *

"The ideas of Philipp Heinrich Hoen—he works for the counts of Nassau-Dillenburg and Nassau-Dietz, who are relatives of Stadholder Frederik Henrik in the Netherlands—in regard to federalism, especially since . . ." Sam interrupted.

Tom Riddle frowned at him. "In due course, young man."

Krapp subsided.

"Now. As I was saying in regard to the development of the covenant tradition in law, as it pertains to the relationship between the government and the governed . . ."

* * *

"Ah," Arumaeus said appreciatively. "My dear Mrs. Riddle. The hot chocolate was delicious. The berry tortes are superb. The whipped cream . . ."

Veleda beamed with pleasure. Nobody else in the world was going to equal her whipped cream in her lifetime, she was sure. At the time of the Ring of Fire, she had five pounds of confectioners' sugar in the second freezer, the one in the basement. A pound had come out for Marty's wedding, a pound for Chuck's appointment as chief justice, a pound for Mary Kat's wedding. She was glad she hadn't broken into it when Marty's children were christened—she thought something more important was likely to happen—and if nothing else, she would save it until the children themselves were able to enjoy a taste.

For this occasion, however, she had doled out a few ounces.

"In return for your generous hospitality and your husband's agreement to loan me this book, The Complete Uncle Abner, with permission to have it reprinted with distribution to every law faculty on the continent, and at no cost—is there any favor that I could possibly perform for you?"

She smiled beatifically. "I understand that many foreign students come to the university of Jena.'

"Yes."

"If you should identify one who is already ordained as a clergyman in the Church of England—would you ask him to visit us in Grantville, please? My prior efforts to acquire a minister for the church we are reopening . . . I will not say that the tree has definitely proved to be barren, but it has not yet produced a ripe fruit."

"Why, of course. I should be delighted. I will have my colleague Ungepauer notify the registrar to be alert the minute I get home."

"Would you care for another piece of torte? There's still some whipped cream left."

Arumaeus beamed. "How kind of you, Mrs. Riddle. Why, yes."

Grantville, December 1634

Mary Kat started jumping up and down in front of the store window. "There it is. It's perfect. Perfect, I tell you. Here I've been stewing about what I was going to get him for Christmas and there it is, right in front of me. Perfect."

Babette laughed. "You're not even a little bit excited that you're going to see Derek again, are you?"

Mary Kat glared. "No, of course not. How many jackpots can a girl expect to hit in a lifetime, after all? I got nearly six feet of guy with curly rust-red hair, hazel eyes, lots of freckles, and an infectious sense of humor—and he's smart, too. No, I think I'll just wander around being blasé about the whole thing. Like hell I will—I never dreamed that any marriage of mine could actually be fun until I met him and I'm not going to miss a minute of it."

"You didn't expect marriage to be fun?" Catrina Dion frowned.

"Well—maybe it's just that my parents sure don't seem to have any fun being married to each other. It's not that they aren't fond of each other, I think. I'm sure they're both a hundred percent faithful and loyal. But they never laugh with each other or tease one another the way Grandpa and Grandma still do. And I've sure never caught them sneaking a kiss on the sly the way Grandma and Grandpa still do."

"They do?" Babette asked, a blank expression on her face. This was a new insight on the life of her law professor. Who had to be eighty years old, at least.

"Oh, they sure do. As for Mom and Dad, sometimes I just think that a time came when they were the right age to get married, and each of them was the kind of person that the other one expected to marry, so they did and then just made their minds up that they'd enlisted for the duration."

"That's sad."

"Maybe they did enjoy one another at first. There are some snapshots in Grandma's album right after they were married when they didn't look so dutiful. Maybe parenthood took it out of them. Marty and I've talked about it sometimes. He's three years older than I am, but he doesn't remember either that they ever had fun together. That would be sad—if having us come along made them feel so . . . responsible . . . that nothing else was left. Having to set what they considered to be a good example absolutely all the time. Things like that."

Mary Kat reached for the handle on the door. "Just let me go in and buy this before somebody else snatches it out from under my nose. Then we can go to Sternbock's and grab a cup of coffee."

* * *

"No coffee for me, Theo," Catrina Dion said. "I'm going down to the train station to wait until Brendan gets in and they don't have a bathroom. What with Junior here . . ." She looked at her stomach. "Well, anyway, no coffee. Thanks, but no thanks."

"Coffee for both the other lovely ladies, though?"

The other two lovely ladies agreed.

"Brendan's here for how long?"

"He's staying for a week or until after the baby shows up. If the baby shows up sooner, for a week. If not, longer. He wangled something with his supervisor. What's your schedule, Babette?"

"Up to Erfurt two days before Christmas, and staying until after New Year's."

"And Derek will be here just any day now, depending on the roads from Fulda. So." Catrina Dion raised an imaginary toast. "Happy holidays to one and all." She shifted in her seat and knocked over Mary Kat's tote bag full of packages. "Damn, I'm sorry. Where did you meet Derek, anyway? He didn't go to high school here, did he?"

Mary Kat shook her head. "He's from Fairmont. The brother of Lisa Dailey, at the high school. He grew up in Fairmont, went to college in Fairmont, worked for the county parks department there, he and Rhonda had Hannah Rose there. Except for when he was in the army—that's when he met Rhonda and married her—he was a Fairmont boy all his life. He was over here to go to the sports shop, to listen to Allan Dailey debate with himself about some new fishing gear, the afternoon of the Ring of Fire and lost all that. Everything. All at once. So he joined the army right away. Like the next day after the Emergency Committee called for volunteers. April 2000 or May 1631, depending on how you look at it, and just buried himself in it. I didn't run into him until the fall of 1632—late fall, just a couple of weeks before Stearns and Jackson sent him over to Fulda to be the NUS military administrator there. Well, really, Wes Jenkins picked him for his team—they knew one another through the Marion County Parks Department, back before. That's why he was at the diplomatic party at all—Wes and Scott Blackwell made him go."

"You ran into him where?"

"At a blasted social event. You know the kind. It involved Dad and the NUS supreme court on the one hand—a big meeting about how the new court was going to interact with the existing Schöppenstuhl and Saxe-Weimar Hofgericht in Jena. And all the administrators who were being sent to Franconia—I suppose Ed Piazza decided to spare the budget by having two receptions in one. It was in the big hall at the middle school—which is actually pretty impressive architecture, when you go back and look at it as an adult. Mom said I had to go. Formal." She leaned back. "I am just not the formal-wearing type."

"You had a formal?" Babette asked with some disbelief.

"I had a bridesmaid's dress. For my college roommate's wedding. Undergraduate roommate—she got married my first year in law school." She grimaced at them. "A sort of bright pink with blue undertones, butterfly sleeves, a little back bustle with a bow on it, taffeta, and just to make the general effect worse, cocktail length with a crinoline under the skirt."

"Oh," Babette said. "Oh, no."

"So I was standing there, feeling miserable and looking as wretched as I'd ever looked in my life except at the wedding when I wore that same stupid dress, when this guy standing behind me laughed at something. I turned around. He crinkled up his eyes and said, 'I'm not Ogden Nash, but I'll write a poem for you.

Let me guess.
Bridesmaid's dress."

"I could have spit. Here was a guy, a real, live, nice-looking human male somewhere near my age. Apparently unattached, which was as rare as hen's teeth in Grantville that winter. A man who didn't go to school with me and therefore wasn't likely to know that Voss Gordon gifted me with the nickname 'Stumpy Widebottom' when we were in seventh grade and it stuck all the way through high school. I was looking so bad that I figured I might as well make a defensive play, so I said, 'I know, I look like a lampshade in a brothel.'"

"And?"

"He laughed again and said, 'I'm not personally familiar with brothel decor, but I think the effect is closer to a peony in full bloom. Except that with the legs sticking down, the poor blossom has two stems instead of one.' Then we talked some—" Mary Kat started acting out the dialogue with two speakers.

"'You should have seen the bridesmaids' dresses at my sister Lisa's wedding.'

"'They couldn't have been worse.'

"'They could have been. They were. Someone told me the color's called chartreuse, but it looked like . . .'

"'Never mind. I know.'

"'Would you like to dance?'

"So we danced. And saw one another for two weeks. Then he went off to Fulda; we wrote letters until February 1634, when he came back and we got married as soon as we could get a license. Mary Ellen Jones did the honors in the parlor of the Methodist rectory, much to Grandma's disgust. She really wants to get an Episcopalian minister into this town."

"Now that we know about. We were there, after all. The straight skirt and cable-knit turtleneck sweater in winter white looked really good on you. And Doria managed to miss out on having to get a bridesmaid's dress, considering that she was eight and a half months pregnant."

"I'd have loved to have both of you stand up with me, too. But all Derek's friends were in the army. It was hard enough to pry Allan Dailey loose to be the best man and one of the witnesses, without trying for two more. Marty had to hold Chuckie—he was going through a stage where no one but his parents would do at all. Anyway, if my brother had been a groomsman, then I'd have had to ask Lisa to be a bridesmaid, and we'd still have been short two men."

"We were happy to be guests, honestly. Don't worry about it. It was a very nice wedding," Babette said. "Followed by the famous three-day honeymoon, during which the two of you never emerged from your suite at the Higgins Hotel."

"We knew he had to go right back, what with the Franconian election on tap and the Ram Rebellion heating up. Why waste any of our time by traveling? They have room service."

Jena

"You just collapsed," Erasmus Ungepauer said to Domenicus Arumaeus. "With no warning at all. Right in the middle of a faculty meeting."

"Which is why I am in the hospital rather than in my office?" Arumaeus looked from his fellow professor to his wife.

"The law school should count itself lucky that it was all-faculty rather than just jurists. There were enough medical types there to get your heart going again in a hurry." Anna Pinzingerin verh. Arumaea frowned. "I know that I am thanking God with every breath. It would be good if more people knew how to do that."

"Anna?" Arumaeus said.

"People like me. Well, it is true. As soon as you are well enough, I am going to visit these 'Red Cross' people and learn. What would have happened if you had been at home when you fell? It would have taken far too long for one of the servants to summon a physician."

* * *

"They tell me that the condition is not immediately threatening," Arumaeus said. "My interpretation of this, Erasmus, is that while I am not in danger of dying tomorrow, neither am I likely to make my allotted four score and ten—or more, if I should have the strength. Which means that it is time for me to take thought for the future. I want an obvious successor in place when my time comes to die. You are already carrying far too many administrative burdens for the university as a whole—president of the faculty senate, among others. So, I have been thinking..." He gestured toward an engraved portrait hanging on the wall of his study. "We need his mind, Erasmus. We need his mind."

"Hugo has always refused to convert to Lutheranism, Dominik."

"True. Nor will that change. But. Other things are changing. One of those things, I am quite certain, is that we are no longer the university of the Duchy of Saxe-Weimar, but one of the universities of the State of Thuringia-Franconia. So, clearly, while the members of the theological faculty, certainly, must be Lutheran—why do the members of the other faculties still need to be Lutheran?"

"And I, having such heavy administrative burdens for the university as a whole, am expected to . . . ?"

"Push the change through. President Piazza will back you."

Ungepauer nodded.

"As rapidly as possible. As for me, I will write Hugo today."

"He's still in Oldenburg, isn't he?"

"Count Anton Guenther has made him welcome. But, given the ages of his sons, it can scarcely come amiss for him to take a faculty position at a good university. The perquisite of free tuition for them alone . . ."

Ungepauer laughed. "For his sons? What if, the way the world is changing, what if he wants free tuition for his daughters as well? I have heard that Cornelia is a great 'fan' of Ms. Melissa Mailey. There are women students in the medical school already. How fast do you want me to create miracles in the faculty senate?"

Arumaeus looked startled. Then . . . "Piazza would back you on that change, as well. As unsettling as it may seem to us. In Prague . . . and, Erasmus . . ."

"Yes."

"Anna insists that I must eat vegetables. Without butter."

Grantville, February 1635

"Oh, dear," Veleda Riddle said. "Are you certain you should have come, Dean Arumaeus? In this weather and so soon after your heart attack."

"The train is a very comfortable mode of transportation. Warm and dry. I assure you, gracious lady, that I am feeling entirely well again."

"And, to ensure that you continue to do so, I confess, Sam Krapp brought me a note from your wife last week that I am not to feed you whipped cream any more. The hot chocolate, I think, is still fine." She paused and poured the cups full of the aromatic brown beverage. "Otherwise, though." She pulled the napkin off the refreshment tray. "Edna and Irma brought them to me especially for you, from their greenhouse."

Dean Arumaeus tried to feel suitably thankful to God for a small dish of fresh cherry tomatoes in a world that contained whipped cream.

"I take it that the registrar at Jena hasn't identified a clergyman for us, yet. However, it's no longer so pressing. Master Massinger, the playwright, has persuaded someone to come for a few months at least. A poet, he says, as well as a clergyman, interested in exploring the future course of English literature. Leopold Cavriani says he knew the man's brother when he was in the Levant—another merchant. The family name is Herrick. I don't suppose you would have met them when you were at Oxford, for this young man was barely ten years old when you were in England, and later attended St. John's College at Cambridge in any case. He's going to take a detour on his way, see Archbishop Laud, and obtain the appropriate authorization. So if, within the next half year, you should hear of someone more permanent, I will be most grateful, but we should have a temporary solution for our little parish by May.

"Now if you would excuse me, if you and Tom are all set? I have a League of Women Voters meeting this afternoon."

Her husband sighed as she bustled out. "Veleda is very energetic."

Arumaeus nodded. "Most women are. I am becoming more sure, the longer I live, that the 'weaker vessel' concept must be purely theological, since it does not appear to apply in practice. So. What is on your mind, Tom?"

"Do you know a man named Friedrich Hortleder? Well, I'm sure you know him, but do you know him well?"

"I was the adviser for his doctoral thesis. Yes, I think I know him well."

"Gary Lambert, the business manager over at Leahy Medical Center, has gotten engaged to his daughter. Nice girl, as far as I can tell. But Hortleder has drawn up a pre-nup . . ."

Arumaeus frowned.

"A marriage contract. We called them 'pre-nuptial agreements.'"

"Oh, of course. Obvious, now that I think about it. I have met Herr Lambert, since Leahy is in cooperation with the medical school in Jena."

"Gary had Laurie Koudsi look it over for him. It has more clauses than the constitution of the United States of America did. She thinks she's in over her head. She is in over her head, and she's smart enough to know it. So if you could do me a favor and recommend someone with really extensive experience in down-time family law—someone Gary can afford, you realize . . . The hospital doesn't pay him a princely salary. Reasonable, but not lavish at all."

"That may be Hortleder's main concern. He's done well for himself—very well, considering how humble his background is."

"I want to make sure that it's fair. That Hortleder doesn't throw in some sneaky wording that could mess things up down the road."

"Oh, yes. I've seen some of those. Provisions that even if the first wife should die childless, upon the husband's death the amount he settled upon her is to go to her relatives rather than reverting to any heirs of his subsequent marriage. With interest. Don't worry. I'll see to it that he's taken care of."

"I do thank you. Very sincerely. With all the weddings coming up, next month and in May, I'm beginning to feel that we really are creating 'the ties that bind.'"

"Or, possibly, forging links in a durable chain. One by one."

April 1635

"Where did I put that file? Back in the cabinet, I suppose." Thomas Price Riddle started to pull himself to his feet.

Mary Kat jumped before anyone else in the seminar could move. "I'll get it, Grandpa." She planted a kiss on the top of his head as she went past him.

"You shouldn't be serving me, child, in your condition."

"I'm pregnant, Grandpa; not an invalid."

Oldenburg, June 1635

"I'm glad," Marie van Reigersberch said. "If you ask me, with Ostfriesland joining the United Provinces, we are too close to the Dutch border for comfort. I have no desire to smuggle you out of prison in a book chest again. That was nearly fifteen years ago. I'm getting too old for that sort of thing."

Hugo de Groot, Latinized as Grotius for academic purposes, obediently said, "Yes, dear."

"What made you change your mind? Finally? It isn't as if you hadn't received other invitations from universities in the USE. Some of them, as in Hesse, Calvinist."

He reached across the table. "The book, I think. The book that Dominik sent me."

"You must have read that book fifty times since we received it right after the New Year. I read it, yes. Once. It was enjoyable. Especially the clues. I would like to read more of these 'detective stories.' But I don't see the fascination for you."

"It's seeing the fruit, Marie. Seeing the whole development from the seed to the fruit.

"The stories about this Uncle Abner are set in West Virginia. Where the Ring of Fire came from. And in them, I can see the fruit. Set in a time when this 'West Virginia' was a remote place. 'Backwoodsmen,' Dominik wrote to me, and sent an explanation of the word written by a young lawyer named Samuel Krapp. Excellent work, by the way. Outstanding explication."

He turned to his oldest daughter, so much help in dealing with the burden of his extensive correspondence. "Cornelia, take a note to Arumaeus, please. I want this Krapp for my personal assistant, please, if he can arrange it."

Then he looked back at Marie. "The ideas that are so slowly, painfully, and incompletely born from my mind—by the time Melville Davisson Post wrote about his Uncle Abner, they were ingrained in an entire culture, so much part of it that the people who held them were scarcely aware of them. They were as natural to them as the air they breathed, the earth upon which they walked.

"It is wholly improbable that people whose culture descends from the English I met on my diplomatic mission for the States General in 1613 ever absorbed such modern ideas. Rarely have I encountered such an intransigent and stubborn group—even the Counter Remonstrants scarcely equal them. One would think them totally blocked from ever accepting new ideas at all—they could not even think an occasional new thought about commercial relations in the East Indies. But, somehow, their descendants did.

"I want to see them, Marie, before it is too late for me—this people from the future who have brought the first fruits of my mind back to our troubled times. Not in completed form, perhaps. But people who assume that the foundations of my political thought are not revolutionary, not dangerous, but simply the way that things are. Not a wishful 'way they should be,' but the way they are. That I want to see."

Jena

"Not this year," Dorothea Susanne Arumaea verh. Fomann said. "I haven't passed your grandfather's 'bar exam' yet, Mary Kat. But next year. Next year I will tell my father and husband that if they let women study philosophy and medicine at Jena, then they must let them study law as well. It is only logical. I hope it doesn't give Papa another 'heart attack.' I truly do love him. But it is only reasonable that they should start with me—a respectable older married woman whose husband and father are right there to ensure her welfare and prevent any rowdy behavior by the other students. It makes much more sense than to have some young, unprotected girl bear the burden of being a pioneer."

Mary Kat looked at her. "I think you have a legal mind. Which isn't really surprising, under the circumstances. A person couldn't even get into a 'nature or nurture' argument in your case. Talk about mutual reinforcement."

Grantville

Thomas Price Riddle looked at his seminar students. "Some months ago, I think, I was about to tell you a story about my uncle, Abner Patton. I was thrown off the track and somehow never got back around to it. While it's probably not relevant to anything I'm supposed to be teaching you, and certainly won't have any impact on the course of history . . ."

* * *

The Red Menace: Latency

Written by Gus Kritikos and Kerryn Offord

Wednesday, 28 November, 1635
Grantville High School Gymnasium, 1500 hours.

Caspar Weybrecht's forehand smash had the shuttlecock shooting through the air straight at Anna Krause. It was only by virtue of her lightning reflexes that she was able to get her racket up in time, and it was blind luck that the racket was perfectly placed to rebound the shuttlecock over the net where Caspar couldn't return it.

"Twenty all," Norma Sims called.

Anna gave the crowd that had gathered around the hotly contested match an "I meant to do that" grin as she wiped the sweat from her forehead. Opposite her Caspar, a senior, was positioning himself to return her serve.

"Players ready? Serve!" Norma called.

Anna dropped a graceful underhand serve just over the serve line in Caspar's court. He struck the shuttlecock back with a slicing backhand that sent it curving toward the rear of the court. Anna's return set Caspar up to take advantage of his powerful forehand. However, this was the third and deciding set of a hard fought match and Anna had learned a lot about Caspar's playing style. She was set for the slam when it came and her return had the shuttlecock sailing high over Caspar, toward the back of the court. He had to rapidly backpedal and only just got his racket under the bird. The shuttlecock flew gently over the net and was a gift for the waiting Anna. Caspar remained near the back of the court, ready to field the slam that she was obviously set up for, so instead, she used a minimum of force to drop the shuttlecock just over the net. Caspar dove desperately, getting his racket under it, but without enough force to lift the shuttlecock over the net.

Anna smiled down at the boy sprawled at her feet and reached out a hand to help him back up. He ignored her hand and rolled back under the net before rising to his feet. Unnoticed, the shuttlecock fell at his side.

"Humpf!" Anna exhaled indignantly before raking the shuttlecock under the net. She bounced it up with the tip of her racket, and with the shuttlecock in hand walked to her serve line.

"Match point!" Norma, called. "Players ready? Serve!"

Caspar's rejection of her offered hand told Anna that she now had him psychologically beaten. It was now just a matter of scoring the required point. Her underhand serve was high. It was a gift that Caspar couldn't possibly resist if he wanted to save the set, and he returned it with an overhand smash that just cleared the top of the net. However, Anna hadn't sent that gift without good purpose. She'd bet herself that tired and beaten as he was Caspar wouldn't try anything fancy. Instead of attempting to cut the shot she firmly expected him to revert to basics and go for maximum power. That meant he'd slam in a direction perpendicular to his shoulder line, which was exactly what happened, and Anna was ideally placed to make a cross-court backhand return that caught the tired Caspar flatfooted.

"Game, and match to Anna!" Norma called to loud cheering, and some jeering, from the players who had gathered to watch the match.

Anna opened and closed her right hand several times to release the cramps built up over the three hard games as she walked to the end of the net nearest the coach. She wiped the sweat from her palm before reaching up to offer her hand to Caspar. She wanted to compliment him on the match, but he looked past her as he quickly mumbled his congratulations for her win before hurrying off toward the coach.

She was shocked at Caspar's behavior, but before she could chase after him to demand an explanation, the coach blew her whistle for attention.

"Caspar, I know the match lasted a bit longer than expected, and thanks for sticking with it until the end. I'll catch you later," Norma said.

Caspar gave Norma a quick salute of acknowledgement before hurrying off to the showers. After he disappeared through the doors, Norma turned back to Anna. "We've had a lot of interest in our expanded Winter Tournament this year, and we need an extra open grade mixed doubles pairing to balance the draw . . ."

"I don't have a partner for mixed doubles," Anna said.

"Don't worry, I know just the person."

Anna swung around to see who Mrs. Sims thought should be her mixed doubles partner. There was nobody behind her, just the still swinging doors out of the sports hall. She stared blankly at the doors as she slowly realized who Mrs. Sims meant. She turned in horror. "Nooooo," she wailed.

* * *

The weather mirrored Anna's mood. It was dark and miserable, with sleet rattling on her umbrella as she hurried the last few yards from the tram stop to the hospital where she was due to start her shift on the Emergency Department admissions desk.

"You're running a little late, aren't you?"

Anna was startled by the sound of another voice. She looked up and smiled when she identified her foster mother. "Badminton practice ran a little over time," she explained.

"I expect you're doing extra training for Winter Tournament," Garnet Szymanski prompted.

"Yes, and Mrs. Sims wants me to enter in the mixed doubles as well."

"Well, that's good? Isn't it?"

Anna sighed. "She wants me to pair up with Caspar Weybrecht."

"Nice boy. Good brain in his head. He did well in the EMT program," Garnet said.

"He's a prig, Mama Garnet."

Garnet shook her head. "That doesn't sound like the Caspar I know. You must be mistaken."

"He's a poor sport," Anna protested. "He couldn't get away fast enough after I beat him tonight."

Garnet paused. "Are you sure there isn't a good reason why he ran off?"

Anna paused. Mrs. Sims hadn't seemed to mind that Caspar hurried off rather than hang around after the game. "He might have been late for something, but he couldn't even meet my eyes when we shook hands at the net."

"He might have a lot on his mind, what with the new semester entry exams for the B.N./D.O. program at Jena coming up soon," Garnet suggested.

Anna was distracted. That was the same program she hoped to get into, and she had a question that had been teasing her for a while. "Why does the new program lead to a Doctor of Osteopathy rather than a Doctor of Medicine?"

Garnet grinned. "In order to keep the time to gain an undergraduate degree reasonable they've dumped a lot of the content the universities insist is required before they're willing to grant a B.A. Creating a new nursing degree was the obvious solution, but there was still the problem with the existing M.D. programs."

"I would have thought that the university would have been happy to adopt the up-time medical curriculum," Anna said, a little confused.

"You're forgetting one important fact about the universities," Garnet said.

"What?"

"That they are all run by men." Garnet grinned. "There's a lot of chest pounding and bragging rights involved, and one of the most important things Jena University wanted to do is differentiate their medical graduates from medical graduates from lesser schools like Padua and Bologna. The easiest way is to give a different doctorate to those people who have been taught the new, up-time, medical theories."

Anna had to smile at that. Padua and Bologna were Italian universities, and until the up-timers arrived, they had been two of the highest rated medical schools in the world. Even with Herr Stone's help, it was going to be years before Padua offered anything comparable to Jena's medical faculty. "So anybody calling themselves an M.D. won't have trained in the new medical techniques?"

"That's right."

"I wonder what Dr. Adams thinks of that?" Anna wondered out loud with her tongue firmly in her cheek.

Garnet lightly smacked Anna's hand. "Enough of that cheek, girl. Instead, why don't you tell me what you've been doing lately?

"Dr. Abrabanel has asked me to do some research for his lectures to the medical students and resident physicians."

"Oh?"

That one word question was a good indication that Garnet knew more about her activities than Anna had hoped. "He's planning a series of lectures on epidemiology, and he wants me to re-do my posters from last year with the current information to help illustrate," Anna said in the vain hope that Mama Garnet didn't realize just how much time she'd have to devote to the project.

"I know you want to make me and your family proud. You are doing that. And, I want you to know that your sister is already paying enough for your room and board, so you don't really need to work." Garnet paused for breath. "Anna, when are you going to make time for yourself?" she demanded.

"I do," Anna protested. "I do make time for myself. Don't I play badminton?"

Garnet shook her head. "That's not really what I mean, Anna. You should be going out to parties and meeting people."

Anna turned a beady eye onto Mama Garnet. "You mean boy type people?"

"Well, yes."

Anna glared. There was nothing she could possibly say, so she took advantage of the fact that they were just outside the entrance to the hospital to abandon the conversation.

* * *

"Anna, we have a small problem," Nell Bowers, the hospital admissions clerk, started. "Mrs. Norris has called in sick, so you're going to have to manage the desk on your own. I hope that won't be a problem?"

Anna paused in the action of removing her damp cloak. Sole charge of the Emergency Department desk? She swallowed a couple of times to calm herself. "No, that shouldn't be a problem. The last two nights I worked, Mrs. Norris just watched me as I filled out the forms and the logbook. I hope it's nothing serious?"

"Just a winter cold. Mrs. Norris should be back at work in a couple of days. Now, I'll leave you to get on."

Anna hung her cloak on the one of the hooks at the back of the admissions area, and settled in behind the desk. There was no one in the waiting room as she checked her supplies and sharpened a couple of pencils. She picked up her book bag and started to lay out the notes that Dr. Balthazar wanted her to work on. "I'd better get working on this stuff while it's still quiet."

Anna dug into the small stack of reports she had brought with her. With a tally sheet and a precious plastic coated map of the area around Grantville, she started tracking the various cases of sickness reported in the area over the past month.

A train on the Bamberg-Saalfeld railway

Elisabeth Ochs laid her book down beside her and shuffled around in her seat in an attempt to relieve the pressure on limbs forced to remain seated for hours. Her family seemed to be coping with the journey reasonably well, but then, they weren't six months pregnant. She caught a movement in the edge of her eyes and looked up to meet the eyes of her middle stepson. She saw the way he was looking at the cover of her novel and raised her nose in the face of his obvious contempt for her choice of reading material.

"Couldn't you find something decent to read, Mommsy?" Twelve-year-old Hans Michael Weybrecht asked.

Elisabeth, who was happily enjoying her Regency romance, looked across to the book Hans was reading. "Saltzman, Siebenhorn, and Stolz? You think I should be reading their Introductory Alchemy text?"

He nodded. "It's a very interesting book."

"I'm sure it is, and you really shouldn't use your Dr. Gribbleflotz Junior Alchemist Set to replicate some of their experiments."

"That wasn't me," Hans protested.

Elisabeth raised her eyebrows. "What wasn't you?" she asked conversationally. She cast an eye over the youngest of her three stepsons. Eight-year-old Hermann was restlessly sleeping in the corner next to the window. "I'm sure you haven't allowed your brother sufficiently close to your book for him to have read chapter seven."

"You've already read it?" Hans demanded in shocked tones.

She turned to look at her husband who was sitting beside her with her five-year-old stepdaughter asleep across his lap. Her marriage to Nikolaus Weybrecht five years ago when she was barely eighteen had turned out much more successfully than she could ever have hoped for. Nikolaus had a sense of humor, something sadly lacking in her own father, who was a contemporary of Nikolaus. Right now, his eyes were alive with humor at the stunned look on Hans' face.

"We both have," Nikolaus Weybrecht answered.

Hans held the textbook protectively against his chest. "Why didn't you say something?" His eyes switched between the smiling faces of his father and stepmother. "You didn't like the Heinkelmanns either," he accused hopefully.

"They are your mother's family," Nikolaus said.

"But they were being horrible to Mama Lisabeth," Hans said.

Elisabeth exchanged looks with Nikolaus. His late wife's family hadn't responded well when he'd married her so soon after Juliana's death of childbed fever, but Nikolaus had been desperate. He had a business to run, three sons, the eldest only thirteen, and a brand new baby daughter to care for. Most families would have understood him taking a second wife so quickly, but not the Heinkelmanns. Elisabeth was sure that one of the biggest causes of their upset, beyond her general lack of lack of dowry and respectable family, was just how readily her stepchildren had accepted her. "They still didn't deserve having their salon targeted with a stink bomb." She was sure that Hans would have appeared a lot more penitent if she wasn't so obviously trying not to laugh at the memory of uproar that had resulted when the smell started to permeate the crowded room.

"I understand it's a most difficult smell to remove," Nikolaus said. "So don't be caught doing anything like that again."

"Or you'll be thrust upon your grandmother's mercy," Elisabeth finished. She was trying to be strict and condemning of the action, but Nikolaus' former mother-in-law had always been horrible to her.

Grantville Train Station

Betty Jo Hunsaker struggled against the wind and sleet as she walked carrying her suitcase along the road. Somewhere ahead was a tram stop where she could catch a tram to the railway station so she could head back to Magdeburg. However, the wind was playing havoc with her umbrella and she was getting wet.

"Hey, want a ride?" a voice from the road called out.

Betty Jo looked up to see Carl Duvall had pulled up along side her in a pickup truck. She walked over to the open passenger side window. "I'm headed for the railway station," she said hopefully.

"So am I. Toss your bags in the back and climb in."

Betty Jo collapsed her umbrella and put it and her suitcase on the back seat of the crew-cab pickup before climbing in. She slumped down on the seat and smiled at Carl. "Thanks. It's a lousy day to be out."

Carl grinned and passed Betty Jo a cloth to wipe the rain form her face. "Tell me about it. If the shipment coming on the Bamberg train wasn't needed urgently, I'd be sitting at home."

"Well, I'm thankful you had to make the trip," Betty Jo said.

"Yeah, no trouble. I thought you were based in Magdeburg now?"

"I am, I was called back to help revise the curriculum for the respiratory therapy course. Just a few hours on the train and I'll be back home in Magdeburg.

* * *

Betty Jo let Carl carry her suitcase into the railway station. They found somewhere to sit while they waited for the Bamberg train to arrive. She was half-asleep when the train pulled in and slowly rose to her feet. She was just starting to gather her possessions when she heard the primeval scream of a mother in distress. Her head rose and she scanned the platform. She quickly identified the source and hastened over.

"My baby, my baby!" a mother wailed.

Betty Jo could see a visibly pregnant woman trying to comfort a young child thrashing about in its father's arms. Someone grabbed her hand, and she turned to see a familiar face.

Caspar Weybrecht dragged Betty Jo closer to the distressed parents. "Papa, this is Mrs. Hunsaker. She works in the hospital. Please let her examine Juliana."

Betty Jo reached for the child in the man's arms. They gently lowered the child to the ground before Betty Jo did a quick assessment. The girl was breathing but showed no other response. They had to get to the hospital quickly. She peered around looking for a face. "Carl! I need your truck. We need to get this child to the hospital, now!"

Carl ran up to Betty Jo, pulling the keys to the truck out as he ran. "Do you want me to carry the girl?"

"No, just get the truck." Betty Jo turned to the parents of the child she'd discovered was a girl. "Your daughter needs to get to the hospital fast. My friend has a vehicle that can get there quickly."

The father took the child in his arms as Betty Jo wrapped her arm around the mother and hurried them toward Carl's truck. Caspar took charge of his younger brothers. It took only a moment to get the whole family into the big pickup, and Carl took off in a squeal of tires. Betty Jo was too busy keeping an eye on the child across her lap in the back seat to react to the startled responses of the down-timers to Carl's driving.

* * *

Despite the bad weather, the trip to the hospital was mercifully quick. Carl screeched to a halt at the entrance to the Emergency Department. The vehicle had barely stopped before Carl was out and pulling the girl out of Betty Jo's lap and into his arms. He turned his shoulder to absorb the shock of the swinging doors as the girl started thrashing again.

Betty Jo helped the pregnant woman out while her husband chivied the three boys toward the still swinging doors.

Leahy Medical Center Emergency Department, Grantville

Anna was deep into her mapping when she was startled by the screech of tires. She heard some shouting and the double doors banged open. Carl Duvall barged into the emergency department, a slight child in his arms. Anna didn't need a second look to realize the child was seizing. She hit the buzzer to alert the duty crew.

Nurses and techs converged on Carl, and carried the thrashing child to the main treatment bay. Warned by the sound of footsteps coming down the hall from the main area of the hospital, Anna held out a clipboard with a blank chart. Doyle Jackson, the duty respiratory therapist, grabbed it and he headed to the treatment bay at a run, while two of his students followed in his wake.

Anna turned back to the reception area where she saw Betty Jo Hunsaker leading a woman not much older than herself, as well as the rest of what she assumed was the patient's family, an older gentleman and three boys. By their dress, they were at least well-to-do Germans, but not local. "Willkommen, Herr und Frau . . ." She continued in German, "To the Leahy Medical Center. Please take a seat here and one of the nurses will be out in a minute to talk to you."

"Hello, Anna."

Startled, it took her a few seconds to recognize her recent opponent in his heavy coat. "Caspar," she acknowledged before giving her attention back to the rest of the family. Her first good look at the other two boys shocked her. The youngest one was obviously feverish, with matted hair and dull eyes. Anna's eyes widened when she noticed a reddish rash extending down his forehead.

"How long have they been ill?" She asked, gesturing at the two boys.

Caspar turned to his father and translated the question.

"Ill? Not Hans as well? Juliana and Hermann have been a little flushed and unsettled the last couple of days, but we have been traveling for four days. We thought it was just tiredness and travel sickness until Juliana fell down and started thrashing when we got off the train."

Anna glanced at Caspar. He was looking at his brothers with barely concealed horror. "Excuse me for a moment, Mein Herr. I must tell Dr. Shipley something. I'm sure that someone will be out to talk with you soon."

Anna picked up her telephone, pushed two buttons and held the hand piece up to her mouth. "Nurse Szymanski to the ED please, Nurse Szymanski to the ED please."

Having made her call she walked around the counter to the treatment bay where Caspar's little sister was being examined. Everyone was clustered around the child, now still and almost as pale as the sheet draped over her. Betty Jo and Doyle were at the head of the bed, supervising their students as they used one of the precious ventilation bags to breathe for the girl. Dr. Shipley was standing back a bit, watching as the well-trained team went through the initial life supporting steps. The child was not even resisting as the senior respiratory therapists supervised the two students squeezing the bag to keep the girl breathing.

Anna edged up to Dr. Shipley. "Dr. Shipley, we have a problem!"

"Oh? What is it, Anna? I heard you paging Garnet."

"The children out here . . . measles . . . I think they have measles!"

"Oh, great!" Garnet had come up behind the two as Anna was talking. "Doc, Anna can introduce you to the family so you can get more information from them. I'll get things more organized here. Take a couple of masks with you for the kids out there." She took a look around, noting that there was a student nurse in the corner busily writing down what was happening. "Listen up, people! We have a potentially infectious case here. Masks and gloves, everyone! Recorder, make sure you have everyone's name down on the list so that we can follow up on the exposures."

Anna left Caspar to introduce Dr. Shipley to his parents while she slipped behind the counter and gathered up her map and papers. It didn't take Dr. Shipley more than a minute before she was showing the two boys how to tie the masks on. "Anna, you have good eyes! It looks like all three of the younger kids have the measles. I'll have Garnet out here in a minute to go over things with Caspar's parents, but we'll be admitting the kids to the isolation ward." With her hand on the door to the treatment bay, she called out, "Garnet, break out the paraldehyde. We're probably looking at measles encephalitis."

The next few minutes passed in a blur. The father was left to comfort his wife and the two now very upset boys while Caspar answered Anna's questions. It was a welcome relief when the swinging doors opened and Garnet came through.

"I'm Garnet Szymanski, the nurse in charge," she said. "Your daughter is resting comfortably now, but she is still very sick. We need to keep her for a while so we can give her the medicine to keep her stable. However, she and your younger sons show all the symptoms of measles, which is a contagious disease. So, we're going to have to put your whole family into quarantine. One of our quarantine houses is right behind the hospital, so you can be close to your daughter." Garnet pulled a chair over to the desk so she could sit and talk with the family without anyone straining their necks.

The father looked thoughtful, "We are familiar with quarantine houses. Most towns have them. But, Frau Szymanski, what is this 'measles' and what is 'encephalitis?'"

"'Measles' is what we call this particular infection, because it is different from smallpox or chickenpox. All three of them start out with the high fever, feeling bad and loss of appetite, but the rashes are different. With measles, the rash is flat and redder, as you see along your youngest son's forehead. If we were to take the masks off the boys, we'd see little white spots on red rings inside their mouths as well. Up-time, we learned that those signs, taken together, are a result of a specific infection. 'Encephalitis' is from the Greek words for 'brain' and 'inflammation' and means that the brain itself is affected by the infection. You might know this type of infection as a 'brain fever.' What it means is that your daughter is very sick, but now that we've controlled the seizures, we believe she'll make a full recovery."

Caspar spoke up. "Frau, this is something only mentioned in the EMT course I just finished. Will I learn more in the study of small life, the microbiology?"

"Yes, Caspar, you'll learn more in your microbiology classes. Now, there's only a small chance that your brothers will get much sicker than they are now, but we don't want them to infect other folks, so they need to keep wearing those surgical masks." Garnet gestured to the masks over Hans and Hermann's faces. She stood up and offered her hand to the family. "They were almost ready to take your daughter upstairs when I came out. Let's go back so you can see her, then I'll have Mrs. Hunsaker escort the rest of you upstairs to see the boys settled. You, Caspar, are just young enough that you will have to spend a couple of days in the quarantine house, but it will be safe for you two, as the parents, to stay with the kids for now. Mrs. Hunsaker will show you over there after that. She'll have to stay there, anyway, for a couple of days."

Anna had been catching up on the last of the paper work while Garnet spoke with the family. She handed three charts to Garnet and stepped back to let the group shuffle through the doors. She could hear Garnet and Dr. Shipley explaining what had happened to the young girl, including the need to keep giving her the medicine for at least a couple of days to let her body heal.

Anna finished making her entries in the logbook, and turned back to the reports she had been mapping. She had a new urgency to her actions, looking for evidence of more cases of measles.

She didn't look up from her work until Betty Jo and Caspar walked back into the Emergency Department lobby. Papers were strewn across the desk and it looked like the map in the middle had developed a case of measles of its own. A rattle of sleet against the windows reminded her why she'd been able to work for so long without being interrupted.

"Anna, I need the key to Snell House. Caspar has to go into durance vile until he's cleared of infection. I get to stay as well."

Anna passed the key to Betty Jo, who couldn't miss the tears in her eyes.

"Honey, what's the matter?"

Silent tears ran down her face as Anna pushed the map she'd been working on across the desk.

Betty Jo stared at it blankly at first, before the meaning of all the dots and dates registered. "Oh, my! It looks like we've got a full fledged outbreak starting, and we missed the beginning of it two weeks ago!"

Anna bowed her head in shame. If only she'd started the mapping as soon as Dr. Abrabanel passed her the reports. Instead she'd put it off for over a week so she could train for a silly badminton tournament.

Thursday, 29 November, 1635
The Leahy Medical Center, Emergency Operations Center, Grantville, 0600 hours

"Okay, folks, let's settle down so we can figure out what we need to do next." Garnet Szymanski's voice broke through the buzz of excited chatter as she called the meeting to order.

"You should all have heard by now that we have three confirmed cases of measles in the hospital. One is in serious condition while the other two are resting comfortably. In addition to these three, we also have more than a dozen cases in outlying areas, including several reported from day cares, and at least another fifteen up-time folks with uncertain immune status who have been exposed. We've opened Snell House already, and the other quarantine houses should be reopened by this afternoon."

Garnet paused to look around. This epidemic was going to be the first challenge to the Sanitary Commission since the brush with smallpox and an unknown infection back in 1632, and it was the first real test for the hospital's new Emergency Operations Center. Everyone in the room was terribly aware of that fact.

"Early this morning, Dr. Abrabanel, as Chairman of the Sanitation Committee, issued official travel restrictions for our state. Public Health Officers have started trying to identify anybody who might have come into contact with the infected family before they boarded the train in Bamberg. The train in question was stopped and quarantined in Magdeburg before passengers could leave, so hopefully we'll be able to control the disease there. Dr. Shipley, would you give us a rundown on what we're dealing with?"

Dr. Susannah Shipley stood. "Thank you, Mrs. Szymanski. Each of you should have a handout covering this material, as well as the symptoms of measles. We have two major problems. Just like with smallpox, the up-timer community has low herd immunity to measles. We have a large pool of people born between 1959 and 1980 who may not have full immunity, and we have many babies born since 1999 who have no immunity at all. The other problem, and one I think we must not underestimate, is that many up-timers won't report an occurrence of measles because they believe it is 'just another childhood disease.'" She stopped to take a sip of water. "We need to launch a publicity campaign to ensure that all infections are reported." Susannah glanced over at the head of the Emergency Operating Center. "Georg, you'll have to take charge of that."

"Radio and newspaper?" Georg Lenkart asked as he made a note on the pad in front of him.

"We'll probably want to add an announcement on the TV as well," Susannah answered.

"What do you want me to put across?" Georg asked.

"We need to tell people what to look for, and what to be aware of. Patients are infectious for about ten days starting from about four days before a visible rash breaks out, so they have to be kept isolated for that time."

"How do you know to isolate someone four days before the rash appears?" Georg asked.

Susannah shook her head. "You can't, so we'll have to record the names of everyone an infected person has come into contact within those four days so they can be quarantined. The incubation—or latency—period runs between one and three weeks, so we have a minimum of a month of work ahead of us. We can expect that up to twenty percent of the folks in our area who get sick will need more care than they can get at home, and up to five percent will die either from the measles or from a secondary infection despite our best care."

"I assume you don't want me to broadcast that little snippet?" Georg asked.

Susannah stopped speaking. After staring into the distance for nearly a minute, she smiled grimly. "It might be the shock to the system the up-timers need to make them treat measles with the respect the disease deserves."

"Dr. Shipley," Kirk Walker, one of the Sanitary Commission's enforcement staff, called. "I notice you're only worried about up-timers. What about down-timers?"

Garnet winced at the question. She wondered how Dr. Shipley would handle Kirk, but it was Georg who spoke out.

"Most down-timers are already aware that any fever with a rash can be a killer, Herr Walker. We don't need a media campaign to tell us that."

* * *

Garnet escaped from the meeting room and wiped the sweat from her forehead. Someone bumped into her and she turned to see Georg beside her. "For a moment there I thought Dr. Shipley was going to murder Kirk."

A grim smile lit Georg's face. "No jury would ever convict, but it would have been an unnecessary distraction, otherwise I wouldn't have spoken. Anyway, can you get me a list of nursing and medical students who have already had the measles?"

Garnet nodded. "You're thinking about using immunes for your field teams?"

"Yes. I just hope we have enough."

Garnet smiled. "With school out due to the quarantine, I believe we'll have enough. I can almost assure it."

Georg looked at her quizzically but she refused to say anything more.

Friday, 30 November, 1635
Sanitary Commission Office, Leahy Medical Center, Grantville, 0800 hours

Georg Lenkart looked up as two teens peeked into his office. "Guten Tag, Anna, Caspar. You are right on time!" He closed the book he had been making notes in and got his heavy coat. "Anna. You have your maps with you?" She held up the leather messenger's case hanging across her chest. "Very good. Then if we're ready, let us get our vehicle and go and collect Katharina." Garnet had proven true in her prediction and every Commission team that had gone out in the past two days had a pair of older teens willing to help, if for no other reason than to get out of sick-child-sitting duties.

They stepped outside to a brisk but sunny day. Even the wind didn't cut as badly as it had just two days ago because of the bright sunshine. Georg turned to Caspar. "Did you train with the new ambulance buggies in your EMT class?"

"Yes, Herr Lenkart. We had to practice working in them as they were being driven down some of the rougher roads, and also had to take a turn as the patient for the others to practice on."

Georg grinned when Caspar shuddered. He would put money on it that he was re-living lying on a stretcher on some of those roads. "Even with pneumatic tires, the suspension can't deal with those roads if you're trying to go fast."

"Tell me about it," Caspar muttered.

* * *

Anna looked at Caspar quizzically. He didn't sound stuck up when he was talking to Herr Lenkart. Maybe Mama Garnet was right about him after all. She turned her attention back to where they were going, and just in time, because just as they turned the corner they were confronted by a gleaming white carriage with a pair of horses hitched to the front. A stable boy was standing at the head of the horse on the left, while the horses had their noses buried in feed bags.

She dropped her overnight bag and walked around the ambulance, admiring the bright blue six-armed crosses that adorned both sides and each of the doors. Picked out in gold paint around the large crosses on the sides were the words "Leahy Medical Center Ambulance Corps, Grantville, SoTF". She could only marvel that such a big wagon could be drawn at speed by just two horses, especially when the postal coaches never had fewer than four horses.

Georg joined her in her examination of the vehicle, but his examination wasn't concentrated on the paint work, he was paying close attention to the wheels and springs. Anna followed him, paying closer attention to the construction of the vehicle. The most noticeable feature was the wheels. They weren't wooden wheels, they were up-time tires.

"Herr Lenkart, this is very different from any other carriage I have ever seen. Is this something that the up-timers brought with them?"

Georg shook his head. "No. They had so many of the automobiles that most of them couldn't even ride a horse or drive a team when they first appeared in Thuringia." He rapped the wooden side of the ambulance. "This little beauty is something the Sanitary Committee dreamed up for when there isn't an up-time ambulance available."

"How is it possible that just two horses can pull it so fast?" she asked.

Georg rapped the side again. "This is made from plywood attached to a lightweight frame. And, that's fixed to a box section steel chassis. All up, we're maybe half of a ton lighter than if we'd built the same thing using our old methods and wood, and of course, the up-time pneumatic tires help."

Anna met Georg's grin and smiled.

"All ready here, Herr Lenkart!"

Anna jerked at the sound. She'd completely forgotten about Caspar. "What have you been doing?" she asked.

"Checking everything we need is in place and secured." He glanced back at Georg. "I am ready to go."

"Very good, Caspar," Georg nodded. "Pass the feed bags to Caspar," Georg called to the stable boy. "Anna, you'll be in front with me navigating. Up you get." He took Anna's overnight bag and added it to his own bag under the seat before he helped her up the high step before climbing aboard himself. He took up the reins before glancing through the window into the cabin behind to check that Caspar was seated. Then he gave a little slap with the reins, and the horses started moving.

* * *

The ambulance barely pulled to a halt outside Snell house when Caspar swung open the back doors and jumped out. A young woman, bundled up against the chill and holding a large basket in one hand and an overnight bag in the other, hurried over to him. Caspar accepted the heavy basket she thrust into his arms before she tossed her overnight bag in and scrambled up after it. When he got to his seat the woman was already seated with her bags secured around her. She unwound her scarf and smiled at Caspar.

"Nice to see you again, Caspar," Katharina Schrey said. "Betty Jo said to tell you that you're lucky your father remembered that you had measles when you were your sister's age. Otherwise you'd still be with her in Snell House right now, and she's stuck there for at least another two weeks."

Caspar gestured to the faces at the hatch separating the cabin from the driver's seat. "Have you met Anna Krause?"

Katharina held out her hand for Anna to grasp. "Oh, I've heard good things about you from Dr. Abrabanel. We're all sure you'll get into the BN/DO program after you graduate from high school."

Caspar stared at the blushing Anna. He'd known her for most of the semester as just another badminton player. Now, suddenly, he was confronted by the fact that she not only wanted to get into the BN/DO program just like him, there were actually important people who thought she'd get in.

"Thank you, Frau Schrey."

"What's with this Frau Schrey business? Georg, what have you been telling these children?" Katharina demanded. Then she turned and held her hand out to first Anna and then Caspar. "Call me Katharina. Now, Georg, can we get a move on?"

"Of course, dear."

Caspar settled himself in his seat as best he could for the trip. It was an up-time motor car seat complete with a seatbelt, and his experience on the EMT course was that sometimes you needed it. He secured his seatbelt and glanced over at Katharina just in case she needed help, but she'd already strapped in and was actually writing in her notebook.

Rottenbach village square

After a drive of nearly two hours, made worse by the condition of the half-mile or so where the road—and calling that section a road was being overly generous in Georg's opinion—passed through the Ring Wall to connect Route 250 to the road to Rottenbach. Georg finally pulled the ambulance to a halt outside the largest building in Rottenbach. He tossed a small coin to the stable boy who appeared as if by magic from behind the inn while Anna pulled the feed bags out of the locker under her seat. All four travelers stopped to stretch before Georg led the way into the inn.

"Guten Tag. We represent the West Virginia County Sanitary Commission and we wish to have speech with the Schultz. Where might we find him?" Georg asked of the man behind the counter.

The innkeeper ignored Georg's words and quickly rounded the counter to wrap his arms around him in a ferocious bear hug. "Georg! It's been too long since we last met" He sobered quickly. "You are here because of the sick children?" At Georg's nod, he continued. "The Schultz and his wife are at his daughter's house. Two of his grand-children are sick. You'll also want to talk to the pastor, as we've already lost a little one."

"We'd hoped not to hear that kind of news so early in the day. What about the rest of the families?"

Henning Wandsleb grimaced. "The visiting nurse was through last week, just before the rash appeared. She reminded us about the need for quarantine if something like this showed up, but the mother of the dead child couldn't stand to stay here. She disappeared two nights ago with her other two children. We sent messages to your office and the sheriff's office as soon as we realized she was gone."

"I haven't seen anything from Rottenbach." Georg chewed at his bottom lip. "Is there a husband?"

Henning shook his head. "He was killed in one of the skirmishes near Luebeck last year."

"Does she have much money?" Georg asked hopefully. If she had money, it'd be easier to find her.

"She had only her home here and the widow's benefit that the government paid. She couldn't have much money in hand."

Georg turned to Katharina, who'd been carefully filling out the case report form while Caspar and Anna looked on, exposing her to Henning's view. His face lit up as he pushed Georg aside so he could hug her. "Katharina! A thousand pardons for not having noticed your light behind this big lunk."

"Henning, you'd flatter a mud turtle if you thought that he'd buy your beer!"

Henning shook his head ruefully and glanced at Georg, "You have married an independent woman!"

"Ja! She is that, and I love her all the more for it."

"Let me introduce you to our assistants," Katharina said. "This is Anna Krause and Caspar Weybrecht. They both hope to enter the new medical program at Jena."

Henning reach out to shake Anna and Caspar's hands in turn. "So you hope to follow Katharina's footsteps. That is good. We need more proper doctors." Henning smiled for a moment before turning serious again. "Enough chatting, you have people to see." He clapped a hand on Georg's shoulder. "But don't leave Rottenbach without seeing me again."

* * *

The church was beside a silent and empty schoolyard. Katharina was happy to see this evidence that the quarantine was in place. She pulled Anna into the lead with her and they walked to the parish house and knocked on the door. A slight figure in heavy academic robes answered the knock, and peered at the two women as he fumbled for the spectacles hanging from his neck. "Yes, my daughters, how may I help you?"

"Pastor Wilhelm?" At his nod, Katharina continued. "I'm Frau Schrey and this is Fräulein Krause. We're Public Health Officers from the West Virginia County Sanitary Commission, and we need to ask you some questions about the child who died."

"Ach, a sad thing. Come in, come in out of the cold" The pastor finally got his spectacles on and he noticed the men. "Are these men with you?"

"Yes, Pastor Wilhelm, but they will be going to interview the Schultz and check on his grandchildren." She waved at Georg and Caspar, and the pair started on down the lane to the house where Henning had indicated they could find the Schultz.

"Margarethe, we have guests from the Sanitary Commission," Pastor Wilhelm called out. There was the rattling of crockery in a distant part of the house in response to his call and a woman soon appeared at the parlor door bearing a tray loaded with several mugs, a pitcher redolent of spices and small beer, and a pile of Pfeffernüsse. "Margarethe, these ladies need to know about little Kunigunde."

Margarethe Schrapel sniffled a bit while her husband patted her hand. "Kunigunde was my first husband's late cousin's youngest girl. She had a fever one day, the rash the next, and the morning after that, she was cold and blue when Dorothea went to wake her up."

Katharina kept the interview going by gently prompting the pastor and his wife with carefully worded questions while Anna filled out the incident report form. When she thought she had everything she was going to get from them she gently wound up the interview. "Thank you for your cooperation, Pastor Wilhelm, Margarethe. You have been most helpful."

* * *

Outside the pastor's house, Anna turned to Katharina. "Where is Trassdorf?"

Katharina thought for a moment before shaking her head. "We'll have to ask Georg. He knows the area much better than I do."

"Do you think that's where she has run?" Anna asked.

Katharina glared at Anna. "How should I know? Until we know where the place is, I have no opinion. Understood?"

Anna nodded glumly and they walked in silence until they joined the men. Katharina spoke first. "The pastor's wife thought the mother might still have some family in Trassdorf."

"Scheisse!" Georg spat out angrily. "That's six villages and the Ilm River road west of here. There's no telling how many people she could have infected."

Katharina cringed at the expletive, but she understood the reason for it. "We had some luck. The older siblings of the deceased child apparently had measles two years ago while the mother, Dorothea Müller, was still suckling her."

Georg smiled grimly. "At last, some good news. Well, Matthaeus' grandchildren definitely have measles. I've given the mother a treatment pamphlet and a package of oatmeal cream to help with the itching as they get better. She's an intelligent woman and has her mother to help. We'll check the quarantine arrangements, but Matthaeus says there have been no other cases yet."

"But, if there are no other cases, how did these three get infected?" Caspar asked.

Georg glared at Caspar. "Thank you for your question. Next question, please."

"You mean that is something we have to find out?" Caspar asked.

Georg nodded. "Welcome to the glamorous life of a Public Health Officer."

The Inn at Greisheim, late afternoon

Georg pulled the ambulance to a halt outside the inn in Greisheim. Standing on the step before climbing down, he glanced to the west. About a mile to the west he could almost make out the village of Trassdorf. They'd spent the day following in Dorothea Müller's wake, but they'd also had to inspect the villages they passed through. They were all tired, and Georg doubted any of them was looking forward to spending the night in whatever limited accommodations Trassdorf might offer. So, he stopped here. At least Greisheim had an inn.

He left the ambulance in the hands of the efficient looking groom who'd appeared moments before he stepped to the ground and herded Katharina and the two teens toward the inn.

"No sign of Frau Müller," Georg observed.

"But also no sign that she has left a trail of death and destruction behind her," Katharina said.

"Yet!" Georg said pessimistically. "Remember the incubation period. We could go down that same route in a week's time and find villagers dropping like flies."

He led his charges into the inn and after arranging rooms guided them to the dining area. Georg could feel suspicious eyes following them, and wondered why.

A serving girl guided them to a table and took their orders. She returned a few minutes later with a large tray laden with bowls of steaming stew, bread fresh from the oven, and four large mugs of beer.

Georg had just taken a bite when a burly, well-dressed man with the key of a Schultz hanging from a gold chain around his neck bustled through the door. His eyes followed the man as he strode up to the innkeeper and engaged in a short conversation before the innkeeper pointed to their table.

"You are the people who arrived in the Leahy Medical Center Ambulance Corps ambulance?

"Guten Abend, Herr Schultz, I am Georg Lenkart, my companions and I are with the West Virginia County Sanitation Commission. How might I be of assistance?"

"Are you here to enforce the quarantine on our village?" the older man demanded.

Georg exchanged a smile of enlightenment with Katharina. So that was why there had been those suspicious looks when they entered. He stood up, and in a calm but deliberately loud voice said. "Quarantine? Why would we need to quarantine Greisheim?"

"We have heard that the Sanitary Commission is worried about a new epidemic," the Schultz said.

Georg smiled most sincerely. "There is no epidemic, sir. There is merely great concern about a disease called measles, which many of the up-timers are vulnerable to, that might be passing through Grantville. Out current job is to look for signs of measles in the communities around Grantville.

"And if you find measles what will you do?"

"Isolate the sufferers, and give the poor suffering parent—because it's going to be children that will have it—a special oatmeal cream to reduce the itching," Georg said.

"Thank you for your information, Herr Lenkart. I'm sure that the good people of Greisheim will give you and your people every assistance." Without a further word, the burly Schultz turned and strode out, almost knocking a younger man down in his haste to get out of the door.

The younger man backed into Georg while watching the Schultz leave. He hastily turned, all apologetic. "Beg pardon, Mein Herr!"

Georg felt something in the palm of the hand the man offered. He secured it with a thumb as they released hands. "Think nothing of it, Mein Herr." Georg thrust his right hand into a pocket and released the folded piece of paper he'd been handed before returning to his meal.

* * *

Inside their room, Georg pulled out the piece of paper and read it. Then he passed it to Katharina.

"Dorothea Müller is Schultz Müller's niece." Katharina handed back the piece of paper. "That was a very sneaky way to pass such a seemingly innocuous note. Why not come straight out and say it?"

Georg stared at Katharina for a few seconds. "Now why didn't I think of that?"

"You're a man," Katharina answered. "Men don't think. Now, the only reason I can think of for such a discreet method of relaying the information is that Dorothea is not only the Schultz's niece, but she is currently staying with him."

"Without identifying the snitch to the rest of the community," Georg said.

"Ah, so you're not just a pretty face," Katharina said. "So, what do we do now?"

"We pay a call on the good Schultz and beg his assistance in checking the village for measles," Georg said.

"And once we cross the threshold, we look for Dorothea?"

"Yes."

* * *

The threshold in question supported a massive, nail-studded door. The Schultz himself answered Georg's knock. "Herr Lenkart?"

"Herr Schultz, this is my wife, Katharina, and one of our students, Fräulein Krause. This strapping young lad is my apprentice, Caspar. I'm hoping that you or your good wife will show me and my apprentice around the village so we can check on the health of the citizens."

The large man's nod of acknowledgement was abrupt. "One moment." He called to a rather dumpy but well dressed woman. "Wife! Take the Frau und Fräulein to the parlor and entertain them while we are gone!"

A smile appeared on Katharina's face as she watched Georg and Caspar lead the Schultz away. She turned in time to greet his wife.

"Wilcommen. I apologize for mein husband's abrupt manner, but he is under a lot of pressure right now. I am Anna Maria Füchsel."

Katharina wasn't surprised that they had been turned over to the man's wife, but she was surprised that, despite his domineering ways, the woman didn't appear at all cowed. "Danke, Frau Füchsel. I'm hoping that you will help us tonight. We know that Dorothea is your husband's niece. We only need to talk to her and check the boys out. If they are all right, we won't need to do anything else."

At Katharina's words both Frau Füchsel and another woman who'd been fussing over finger food and mulled wine turned white and the 'maid' almost dropped the pitcher of wine she was pouring from. "Frau Müller, I presume?" Katharina continued sympathetically, "I was sorry to learn of your loss. Pastor Wilhelm and his wife told us of the tragedy."

The woman, who Katharina had correctly identified as Dorothea Müller, collapsed in her aunt's arms, sobbing. Katharina directed Anna to continue pouring the wine while they waited for the sobs to subside. "Frau Müller, have your sons been sick since you left Rottenbach?" Katharina spoke softly, so as not to restart the sobbing.

"No. They had the measles last year, shortly after Kunigunde was born. The visiting nurse saw them then and confirmed that," Dorothea responded, hiccoughing slightly.

"Good! If you'll just lead me to your boys I'll have a quick look at them and then, when Frau Füchsel's husband is done trying to confuse my husband, we'll take our leave."

* * *

The four women were chatting easily when the door boomed open and the Schultz strode into the room. "What is this? Wife, what are you doing?"

"Oh, hush, Hans!" Dumpy Frau Füchsel underwent an almost magical transformation when she stood up, seeming to gain almost six inches in height. "I told you that you were being paranoid. These nice ladies had no intention of putting the whole village under quarantine. They have already seen to the boys, and cleared them."

Hans Müller knelt next to his niece, who had started sobbing again. He gently stroked her hair, and when he looked at Katharina again, tears were streaming down his face. "My apologies, ladies. We had heard that you were looking for Dorothea and her boys, and that you would have to quarantine the whole village wherever you found them."

"Herr Müller, the Commission won't quarantine the whole village for one case of the measles," Katharina continued. "How long has it been since one of the visiting nurses has been around to explain such things?"

Königsee Village Square, next day

It was well past noon when Caspar led the way toward the ambulance that stood waiting in the middle of Königsee. Since they'd left Greisheim at daybreak they'd visited five villages, with Königsee being the latest, and covered barely ten miles.

"Still nothing more than the usual winter measles," Georg commented to the silence.

Caspar took a moment to understand what Georg was saying. They'd been met by less than a dozen mild cases of measles. That was nothing like what he'd been led to believe the Sanitation Committee expected. Before he could say anything, a rumble interrupted the silence. Caspar looked around apologetically while he rubbed the source of the sound. The day had started before sunrise, and he hadn't eaten for hours. His embarrassment was reduced when Anna's stomach spoke out in sympathy.

"It sounds like the children are hungry," Georg said. "Would you like to eat now, or later?"

Caspar sent Katharina a begging look that made her laugh. "Poor Caspar, he's fading away. Let's stop down by the river."

Georg smiled back. "Very well. All aboard. Anna, keep an eye out for somewhere suitable for our picnic."

A hundred yards outside Königsee, Georg pulled the ambulance to the side of the road. Anna took a bucket down to the stream for water for the horses while Georg tended to them and Katharina and Caspar brought out the hamper that had been refreshed in Greisheim.

"Next stop's the new kaolin mines," Georg announced as he dug into the hamper.

"I don't think I've ever been there," Katharina said. "What's the housing like?"

"Not as bad as you might expect," Georg said. "They might be mostly unskilled labor, but they have a real community spirit, which makes up for a lot."

The Kaolin Mine

Anna had visited the mining settlement several times with the local visiting nurse while she was working on the blue ribbon project that had caught Dr. Abrabanel's attention, the one that led him to recruit her to help with his epidemiology classes. She glanced around. Other than the addition of what looked like a water tower and a windmill to power a pump for it at the back of the main residential building, there didn't seem to have been much change since her last visit.

"We need to split up," Katharina announced. "Most of the children should be in the living quarters. Caspar, you go with Anna and start checking there. Georg and I will start with the diggers."

Anna shot a covert glance at Caspar. She was worried he might object to being placed in the subordinate role. She was surprised to hear him acknowledge Katharina and accept a clipboard without any trace of resentment before joining her.

They scattered a small flock of scraggly looking chickens as they picked their way through the rather messy ground leading to the long thatched building that was the settlement's living quarters. Anna pretended not to hear Caspar's disparaging comments about "Peter Tumbledown" living conditions.

They were met just outside the living quarters by a bellicose billy goat. Much to Anna's surprise, Caspar stepped between her and the animal. She gently pushed him out of the way. "His gruff is worse than his butt," she explained as she produced part of a sandwich she'd saved when told the mine was their next stop and held it out on an open palm.

The shaggy animal sniffed at the offering before taking it delicately. While the goat licked the crumbs from her hand, Anna reached out and scratched him between the ears. "See? Hold out your hand and I'll introduce you to Gars." The goat finished chewing the bit of sandwich and after assuring itself that Anna didn't have any more food sniffed at Caspar's hand. Finding Caspar's hands empty, Gars tossed his head and trotted off.

"The first time I came out here he chased me around the barnyard until one of the young goatherds took pity on me and introduced us." She sent Caspar a smile hoping he'd accept her peace offering. When he smiled back, she got more serious. "Caspar, these are some good folks, albeit not the kind of people you're probably used to dealing with. You might have difficulty understanding their accent. I think that's why Katharina wanted me to take the lead."

Caspar didn't have a chance to respond as suddenly the main door to the living quarters burst open and a wave of children boiled out and hustled Anna and Caspar back into the building.

Anna immediately noticed changes since she'd last visited the settlement. For a start, the long room was warm. Immediately to her left, a potbelly stove that hadn't been there only a few months ago radiated heat, while a pot of something simmered gently on the hotplate. The women, young and old, seated near it barely broke their spinning to look up and acknowledge Anna and Caspar's entry. The only person who seemed to be interested in the intruders, other than the noisy children, was the teenage woman who'd obviously been trying to teach them their letters.

Anna shooed away the children that were tugging on her coat and walked toward the teacher. To her left the southern wall had a number of windows, with real glass in them, albeit in small panes, letting in sunlight. To her right, put up against the wall, were the sleeping pallets that would be lowered at night for people to sleep on. Beyond the group of long tables that doubled as the schoolroom and communal dining area, the large fireplace where the community had done all their cooking had been replaced by a large cast iron stove. She stopped and looked around. The people in this small mining community had certainly made an effort to improve their comfort.

"Hello, Anna. What brings you here at this time?" the teacher asked.

"Hello, Greta. There's a measles scare in Grantville and the Sanitation Commission has sent out teams to check for signs of the disease in the settlements surround Grantville."

"We don't have any measles here. The visiting nurse was here just last week and gave us a clean bill of health.'

Anna nodded. She knew the nurse visited the settlement regularly. "I'm sure you're right, but we'd better check."

"We?" Greta looked past Anna and saw Caspar. "Who's he? Your boyfriend?"

Anna tried to ignore the arch look Greta was sending her. It was difficult, and she could feel the heat flooding her face. "Caspar's just another volunteer. We hardly know each other."

Anna would have felt a lot better if Greta hadn't looked at her in that knowing way.

* * *

Anna turned the last toddler toward his mother and gently sent him on his way. She glanced over at Caspar who was also just finishing his share of the children. Their eyes met and Caspar shook his head to indicate he hadn't found any sign of measles either. She stepped closer enough to Greta to be heard over the din.

"How have you managed to keep the children clean in this weather?"

Greta smiled shyly and led the way to the door to the left of the larger stove. She opened it and proudly pointed out the large hot water tank that backed onto the iron stove in the new addition. "Hot water from here feeds the bath, the showers, and the tubs where we wash clothes."

Anna was quite impressed. The first time she had been to this settlement, her first thoughts had mirrored Caspar's "Peter Tumbledown." Things had come a long way since then.

"Anna?" Caspar's voice sounded loud in the now quiet building.

"In here, Caspar"

"Wow!" Caspar said from the doorway.

Anna turned and grinned. "Impressive, isn't it?"

Caspar nodded and moved closer to give the bathroom a closer inspection. "We don't have anything like this back home." He smiled at Greta. "If Step-mama could see this she'd insist Papa have one just like it installed at home."

Anna listened to Caspar and Greta comparing notes on the problems associated with keeping younger siblings clean and out of trouble in silent wonder. She couldn't help but notice how animated he became when he talked about his brothers, sister and step-mother and father. Was this really the same Caspar she'd labeled a prig? Had she been as wrong about him as he had been about the mining settlement when he called it "Peter Tumbledown"?

"Caspar? Anna?" Georg's voice echoed through the building and caused another eruption of noise from the children in the common room. Anna led Caspar and Greta back there to find Georg being mobbed by children demanding if he'd brought any gifts.

"Yes, liebchen, I did. But, you have to wait, as it's too close to dinner time. Your mamas would hurt me if I gave you a treat right now. It's for dessert tonight."

Katharina entered the common room from the door to the right of the iron cooker right then, and the expression on her face instantly sobered the others. Greta grabbed the older girls and had them chivvy the children to the other end of the common room before returning.

"A spinster aunt who moved in last week has taken ill. The silly woman insisted on working in the clay pit even after she started feeling bad. I think she's got influenza, and she's pretty dehydrated. I've already sent someone to Königsee with a request that they telegraph the hospital and warn them we are bringing her in. Caspar, take Anna with you and get the stretcher and a hydration pack." She turned to Greta. "You, go with them and show them where to take it."

"What is influenza?" Greta asked as they hurried toward the ambulance. "Is Tante Ursula going to die?"

Anna and Caspar exchanged glances. Caspar turned away first. "Of course not," Anna said, with more bravado than truth. While not as life-threatening as measles, influenza could still be a serious illness in the very young and very old. And, unlike measles, there was no long lasting immunity from the disease, which meant that everyone at this settlement was probably going to have a miserable week or two.

At the ambulance, Caspar grabbed the collapsed stretcher while Anna and Greta took blankets and Greta led them to where her Tante Ursula was lying.

They found Georg and Katharina standing over the patient talking to a couple of men.

"Oh good, you brought extra blankets," Georg said. He helped Caspar unfold and lock the stretcher while Katharina and Anna pulled a blanket under the patient to make it easier to move her from her pallet to the stretcher.

When they were ready, Georg directed the two men to help lift the patient and in seconds she was gently deposited on the stretcher. Then, with Casper at the front left, the four males took a corner each and lifted the stretcher off the ground. "Katharina, you hurry ahead and prepare the ambulance."

Anna followed Katharina and hurried ahead to the ambulance. They climbed into the back, and helped guide the stretcher into its rack, where they locked it in place.

The doors slammed closed behind Caspar and Anna heard the driver's door being opened. Then Georg's head appeared at the connecting window.

"All set back there?" he called.

"Yes," Katharina called as she hit a switch, flooding the cabin with light. Anna blinked, not expecting that a horse-drawn ambulance would have electric lighting.

The ambulance started with a jerk, but soon settled down. Anna settled into one of the attendant's seats and watched Caspar and Katharina work on the patient. This was a part of medicine that she wouldn't otherwise get to experience until she was old enough to take the EMT class in the fall.

"Should I start an IV? Caspar asked.

"No," Katharina said. "I'd rather see how she responds to rehydration by mouth rather than try and insert a needle while we're moving. Besides we should be able to get her to the hospital inside the hour if they have a motor ambulance ready to transfer her when we get to the power station."

"Why do you want to transfer the patient at the power station?" Anna asked. "Surely it would be faster to continue straight to the hospital without stopping."

Katharina shook her head. "Maybe, if the horses were fresh, but they've already had a long day, and at the pace Georg is running them, they'll be well and truly blown by the time we reach the power station."

Grantville Power Plant

The high cliff of the Ring Wall was cutting off the light of the setting sun, putting the road and the power station in deep shadow. The lights outside the main office acted as a beacon, and Georg steered the ambulance toward them and the waiting motor ambulance. It was the work of just a few minutes to hand over the patient to the other crew, and Georg gathered his foursome together as the motor ambulance moaned off toward Grantville.

"We'll call in and let your folks know that we're staying out here at the power station. I'd rather not drive the horses any further today and it saves the horses the pull back to Grantville tonight, and back out here in the morning. With the horses better rested, we'll be able to visit more places tomorrow. Katharina, you take the children in and show them around. Caspar, Anna, the Commission has an arrangement with the power station, so don't worry about paying for what you eat or using up the hot water."

Georg watched his wife lead off the teens before he turned to take care of the horses. The hot baths at the power station were something to cherish, and he couldn't wait to sink himself up to his chin in really hot water.

The guest rooms at the Power Plant

Caspar and Anna followed Katharina over to the phone booth in the corner where she was able to get through to Garnet Szymanski, who was already on duty at the hospital. She passed on the information about Trassdorf before asking for an update on the situation at the hospital. She passed the phone to Anna while she digested the news from Grantville. Anna in turn passed it to Caspar.

Caspar was smiling when he handed the phone to Katharina. "Juliana is doing much better. Mama Lisabeth says she's even woken several times. That is good?" he begged of Katharina.

"Yes, that's good, Caspar," Katharina confirmed. "Now, let's hurry over to the cafeteria before that guts of a husband of mine can grab everything worth eating."

They hurried through to the staff cafeteria where they loaded trays with bowls of stew and plates of bread. They'd barely sat down when Georg appeared with his own loaded tray.

"The horses are settled in nice comfortable stalls on beds of fresh straw. I only hope we'll be half as comfortable," he said as he sat down.

Katharina looked at her husband over her loaded spoonful of stew. "I'd much rather have a proper stuffed mattress on a spring base. No unwanted guests," she informed the obviously curious Anna and Caspar.

With no conversation to hinder them the four quickly emptied their plates. Georg held Katharina back while Anna and Caspar led the way out of the cafeteria. "Bad news from the hospital?" he asked when the teens were out of sight.

Katharina nodded. "They've hospitalized Kathryn McDonnell with a bad case of influenza."

"Dr. McDonnell's wife?" Katharina nodded. "That's bad. At her age it could be serious."

"Very serious," Katharina agreed. "With influenza around at the same time even normally minor cases of measles could assume all kinds of complications. Even worse, there are a dozen more cases of the flu reported in Grantville, and five more cases of measles that had to be admitted to the hospital."

The couple continued on arm-in-arm. They found Anna and Caspar sitting on a bed talking.

"Children," Georg said. "We missed everything from Königsee to here last night, so we're going to have to go out again to finish our loop. That means we'll need to be on the road as soon as there's enough light to drive the horses, so get what sleep you can, because tomorrow's going to be another long day."

Caspar said his goodnights to Anna and Katharina, then Georg led him down the hall to his room. Katharina took a long look at Anna and smiled. "So, is he still a 'prig and a poor sport'?"

Anna blushed. "No, I misjudged him. He was worried about not being at the railway station to meet his family. He's actually quite nice." Her blush intensified and she ducked her head.

Katharina reached out a hand and tipped Anna's chin up. "Ah, liebchen, just as long as he doesn't know what you thought there is no problem. Now, let us hurry to the bathrooms for a hot bath before bed. Remember what Georg said. We have an early start tomorrow."

Saturday, 2 December
The guest rooms at the Power Plant

Anna sat bolt upright in bed. She woke shaking, and it took an unsteady couple of minutes, and two repeats of the noise, to realize it wasn't the shadowy menace in her dream that was screaming, but the steam whistle of the power plant calling the first shift to duty.

She rolled out of bed, collected her clothes, and dressed quickly. Then she stripped the sheets from her bed and took them down the hall to the laundry chute before heading for the washroom where she found Georg and Caspar already washing up.

"Caspar!" Katharina's acerbic tone had the three of them jumping. "Where are your sheets?"

Anna was sure she saw Caspar flinch at the glare Katharina was sending him, and she wasn't surprised when he hurried off.

"Let that be a lesson for you, Anna. He responds well to simple commands."

"Am I missing something?" Georg asked.

Anna sent Katharina a beseeching look. "Please don't embarrass me," it said.

Katharina patted Georg gently on the top of his head and guided him out of the washroom and toward the cafeteria. "Never you mind, dear. It's a girl thing."

Sunday, 3 December, 1635
Leahy Medical Center, Grantville, 1800 hours

Anna was struggling to stay awake when the ambulance finally pulled into the stable yard behind the hospital. She stumbled out of the back of the ambulance, and would have fallen but for a hand from Caspar.

A very weary looking Georg and Katharina appeared from the front of the ambulance. "You two," Georg said pointing to Anna and Caspar, "get everyone's stuff out of the ambulance so it can be replenished and meet us in the hospital. Katharina and I need to go check in with the nursing supervisor and see if there is anything else we need to do tonight."

A few minutes later, laden with overnight bags and an empty hamper, and nearly dropping with fatigue, Anna and Caspar made their way to the staff break room, where they each got a cup of hot coffee and laced the steaming drink with liberal amounts of sugar and cream. After a few sips, Anna felt she had the energy, barely, to peel off her heavy outer coat. She slumped back in her chair and after tucking it around her legs, smiled at Caspar who'd also removed his outer coat. "Badminton practice tomorrow afternoon is going to be fun," Anna said

Caspar nodded. "I don't think I'll have the energy."

Anna smiled. She felt exactly the same. In fact, right now, what she most wanted to do was sleep. She snuggled up in her chair and closed her eyes.

She woke suddenly when someone landed on her. She tried to move, but there was an arm, belonging to Caspar, draped over her shoulder, and horror of horrors, she'd been sleeping with her head on his shoulder. Then she realized who'd woken her. It was an old man. She struggled out from under Caspar's arm when she realized who the disheveled man was. "What's wrong, Dr. McDonnell?"

"She's gone . . . She's . . . just gone."

It took Anna a few moments to grasp what he was saying, then her stomach sank. Dr. McDonnell seemed to have aged ten years since she last saw him a week ago. The only "she" likely to affect him like this was his wife of over fifty years, Kathryn McDonnell, and at something over eighty years of age, "gone" was unlikely to mean she'd run off with another man. A tight grip on her shoulder informed her that Caspar had reached the same conclusion. Kathryn McDonnell was dead.

Anna made a fresh mug of coffee and pressed it into the old man's hands, folding them around the warm cup. He stared into the steaming beverage. Tears dripped into the brew as he wept over his loss. Anna put an arm around his shoulders, offering him silent support as best she could. She glanced toward Caspar, who looked as lost as she felt. He signed that he was going to get someone and hurriedly left, to return quickly with Katharina.

Anna was relieved when Katharina led Dr. McDonnell away. She watched the way Katharina tried to comfort him and reached out for Caspar. They wrapped an arm around each other's waist and just stood there, tears of their own falling slowly down their faces.

"Do we need to post the banns already, son?" Nikolaus Weybrecht's voice was gentle but with a hint of steel behind it. Anna and Caspar jumped apart smartly and turned to be confronted by Nikolaus Weybrecht and Elisabeth Ochs.

"You're both going to have to learn to deal with the families of the dead and seriously ill if you want to be doctors," Elisabeth said.

"And, speaking about the seriously ill, your brothers and sister are waiting for you. Juliana got out of the ICU this morning, and she's been demanding to see her biggest brother ever since."

Anna released the hand she hadn't realized she still held as Caspar stepped toward his parents. He glanced at her once, a confused look on his face, before he turned away. He left with his father, but his step-mother stayed. She smiled at Anna.

"If you're Caspar's friend, you'd better come as well." She held out a hand.

Anna swallowed. She wasn't sure what she felt for Caspar, but she'd like to be a part of his family, even if it was just as a friend. She reached out for Elisabeth's hand. "Thank you."

Epilogue

Garnet watched Anna being led off by Caspar's step-mother. "At least the Weybrecht family has something to celebrate."

Garnet's tone of voice penetrated Georg's fatigue. "Explain."

"Christie Anne Sloan's twins have been admitted with possible meningitis. Dr. Shipley has them on paraldehyde, but it doesn't look good."

How many up-timers does that make now?" Georg asked.

"With complications from measles?"

Georg nodded.

She counted them off on her fingers. "Diana Flannery, Richard Eckerlin, Andrew Glazer, Eva Maria Davis, Shirley Lee Jackson, as well as Skye and Alyse Sloan. I make that seven up-time children who've been admitted to the hospital." Garnet paused and looked straight at Georg. "It gets worse. Jena and Magdeburg have reported another three up-time children admitted to the hospital. Another ten children who aren't as bad were admitted here for hydration and fever control."

Georg released a pent-up breath. "Anybody I know?"

"Of the bad ones? Fidel Sanabria and Harry Fries in Magdeburg, and Nora Craft in Jena."

"Norris' daughter? In Jena? What was he doing there?"

"He was doing promotional work for his book, the Abbreviated Manual of Statistical Principles," Garnet answered.

"So it's spreading already," Georg said.

Garnet knew he meant the measles. "And it's only going to get worse. Dr. Abrabanel wants you to split your team and track down any contacts that the Weybrecht family had on their way here. We've yet to find our Case Zero."

Georg looked up and Garnet could see the matching worry in his eyes. He gave her a short wave of apology. "How did that crazy lady in the film put it? It was in Spanish . . . ah . . .'Que Sera, Sera!' Let me check on Dr. McDonnell and my wife. We'll finish our reports tomorrow morning and be on our way tomorrow afternoon."

Garnet nodded her understanding. "I'll make arrangements for someone to stay with Dr. McDonnell while you are gone. I'll also stop by and tell the kids to meet you and Katharina in your office by nine in the morning."

Georg gave a gruff chuckle. "They'll be so busy the next few days that they won't have time to realize that the badminton tournament has been canceled because the schools will remain closed for at least another two weeks."

* * *

NCIS: No Greater Love

Written by Jose J. Clavell

Greater love hath no man than this,
that a man lay down his life for his friends.
John 15:13

Chapter One
The Alley
20 Breinhart Strasse
Magdeburg City, USE
Early Spring 1636, 0930 Hours Local Time

Stop me if you've heard this.

A navy cop, a military police lieutenant, and Magdeburg's finest meet at the entrance to a dark alley one cold cloudy morning . . .

As I looked at the body hidden in the shadows nearby, a male dressed in quality civilian clothing, I was pretty sure of the punch line. Don't take me wrong. There is nothing funny about murder, but at my arrival I saw my companions' grim expressions. I thought that someone ought to lighten this most assuredly historic occasion. My beloved wife assures me I tend to be a bit silly and possess a childish sense of humor. Perhaps she is right. On the other hand, the good ladies at Government House call this behavior a good coping mechanism. Regardless, sometimes you need something extra to let you face a cruel world day after day. I'm certain that our guest of honor wouldn't mind.

My name is Günter Schlosser and I'm that navy cop.

More specifically, I'm both the director and Magdeburg Senior-Agent-In-Charge for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. My boss is Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John C. Simpson; he pays me relatively well for our cash-strapped times. However, he is not one to spend one penny more than he needs to, which explains the multiple hats I wear, as well as my current presence at an active crime scene. If our nation, the navy and NCIS manage to survive the next two hundred years and prosper, I expect the then-director will have hundreds of agents at his beck and call.

Lucky me, I was born two hundred years too early.

But I digress. Technically speaking I wasn't even sure this was our crime scene. True, the body lay close enough to the navy yard that one of our combined military police and shore patrol units had stumbled upon him—smack dab on the imaginary line that divides our jurisdiction from the one controlled by the Magdeburg police department. Unlike up-timers and their hunger for precision, we down-timers prefer the "more or less" approach to life. That aforementioned lieutenant could have easily looked the other way and let the MPD have the glory and the headaches of trying to solve this murder.

Especially as at first glance, the portly, middle-aged man did not seem to be a member of our military. That made me wonder why the lieutenant had instead summoned NCIS, and me, personally.

Something in my gut told me that I was not going to like the answer.

The MP in question, my friend Brigitte "Britt" Strausswirt, is the yard provost marshal. Britt is in her early twenties, a fair-skinned and attractive redhead. I know her as a smart, by-the-book cop. However, she was no martinet and was well aware of our heavy workload. Whatever she had seen on her arrival had made her call for us; recognizing potential jurisdictional conflict, she had used her own initiative and also alerted the MPD.

I couldn't fault Strausswirt for doing her job efficiently but I would have preferred that she had been a tad less diligent and delayed that notification, at least until we could clarify the scope of our involvement in the investigation. Certainly, it's not a secret to anyone in the city—and probably half of Europe by now—that there's no great love lost between us in NCIS and the former city watch of Magdeburg. Despite their up-timer provided leadership, new name, uniforms and training in investigative methods, I wasn't completely persuaded they weren't still the same watchmen who once saw me and mine as a collection of former thieves, thugs and whores. Granted, there was more than a smidgen of truth in that characterization; but I don't think that what used to be a bunch of drunken, loudmouthed Luddites was in any position to complain too much.

As I said before, we are not exactly in a mutual admiration society. Perhaps that's a shame, but although I pride myself on my own thick skin, I've been known to carry a grudge for a long time when my loved ones are involved. No one insults my wife, the mother of my child, and goes away unscathed.

Strausswirt was deep in an intense conversation with our city colleagues. Given my history with them, I decided to go around them and find out for myself why she had called me here in the first place. However, that became glaringly obvious as soon as I got close enough to the body to see his face clearly in the cloudy morning light. Feeling like someone had punched me in the pit of my stomach; I abruptly stopped and, very uncharacteristically for me, stood paralyzed looking down at him. I was well acquainted with the deceased, Ferdinand "Ferdi" Schwinger. You could say that he was—or had been—a very close acquaintance of mine, both professionally and personally.

He was my best friend.

* * *

Our acquaintance did not exactly start on what you would call "friendly" terms. When the admiral hired former Grantville Police Chief Dan Frost to educate, train and professionalize our force, we—and that means mostly me—went through a "Badges . . . ? We don't need no stinking badges" period.

Chief Frost started to change my mind with his collection of up-time badges, or shields. He patiently explained the history behind each of the law enforcement organizations represented, until even I was impressed.

It quickly became apparent that, for him, the badge was more than a symbol of the office. It also stood for the implied promise and commitment of each peace officer that wore one to enforce the law impartially, and to stand as a shield in defense of society and its individual members, regardless of politics, religion or social standing. The chief compared our work to sheepdogs watching over the flocks to keep the wolves away.

Due to my own spotty upbringing and the lessons learned during my Committee of Correspondence days, this belief resonated deep within me. It changed my outlook about my new job and its complex and developing responsibilities, and helped in my own transformation from a former thug and bodyguard to a cop and law enforcer. Perhaps my view has become a tad sentimentalized now. My wife and fellow agent, Brunhilde "Brunei" Spitzer, likes to say so. But I notice that she takes care of her own badge as carefully as I do.

Herr Schwinger, who was one of the best jewelers in Magdeburg, had developed a profitable sideline providing the rank devices, medals, ribbons and other doodads that our military folk find so appealing. Not ones to reinvent the wheel, Chief Frost and I paid the man a visit with our proposed design for NCIS badges, and immediately ran into a brick wall. The prices that Schwinger initially demanded would have easily cost me a month of my people's total annual salary.

We, of course, negotiated. After all, my mother had not raised little Günter to be anyone's patsy. Chief Frost found it alarming that negotiations were conducted at the top of our lungs, accompanied with loud mutual accusations of "thief!" and "bourgeois exploiter of the people!" with the peanut gallery freely wagering who was likely to throw the first punch. As I told the chief afterwards, "negotiations" in my century were not for the faint-of-heart.

We finally did agree on a price which was more than I wanted to pay but much less than he had demanded. The observers, after agreeing that it had been an impressive display of haggling, and that the solution was equitable, declared themselves satisfied with the outcome despite the disappointing lack of bloodshed.

When my friend Strausswirt wanted to get her own shields for her MPs and masters-at-arms, I referred her to him. This led to more orders as more cities and towns formed police forces, or reorganized their city watches as Magdeburg had done. Schwinger's became the de rigueur provider of quality police badges and shields for both the civilian and military markets.

As things often are between men, once we had matched wits, Schwinger—now and henceforth known as Ferdi to me—and I quickly developed a fast friendship. His wife Hannelore and my Brunei found this situation both amusing and exasperating due to our very different backgrounds and more than twenty years difference of age, but that never became an issue. Ferdi may have been in his early fifties, but in his mind was still very much an adventurous young man.

Our developing friendship cemented after he and his Hannelore accepted our invitation to join us at Movie Night at EGA, the Eagle, Globe and Anchor. That Kneippe, owned by Strausswirt's parents, is the unofficial Marine and NCIS off-duty social club.

I was especially pleased to discover that, like me, Ferdi was especially fond of crime stories, detective tales, and up-time lingo. He also shared my somewhat lopsided and humorous view of the human condition. That was the first of many enjoyable evenings there, where we discussed the non-confidential aspects of my workload and interesting crime-related stories in the papers. We did it so often that our wives accused us of being police groupies. Our usual retort was that I was the police and he was the groupie.

When our family ranks increased with the arrival of our beautiful daughter, Magritte, the Schwingers presented us with a baby-sized NCIS badge as a christening present. As I looked down at his body, my fury and pain was barely under control despite my outward composure.

I knew I was going to miss him sorely and swore a silent oath that I would get whoever had murdered him.

* * *

All this ran through my mind as I mentally rearranged my schedule and reprioritized my commitments to accomplish my new goal. I had scheduled follow-up investigations in matters relating to some missing items during the attempt on the SoTF vice-president's life at the request of Grantville's Police Chief Richards. But, like him, I understood that this was a very long shot. In comparison with typical soldiers of my day, USE Marines were earnestly honest, but they were not plaster saints. No one was going to begrudge them taking mementos from an owner who will never have a use for them again. Not when they were expected—in the words of my friend Lulu O'Keefe—to jump from perfectly good aircraft to reach their objective. So, I could throw that one safely onto the back burner.

I was sure that the Marines of Captain Fink's reconnaissance company were going to be pleased, but I doubted that the admiral was going to be happy. Frankly, I was beyond caring. My people were well trained and could go on without me for a while, plus I had my own secret ace in the hole to keep us on an even keel during my absence: Genghis, back in the office.

Deep in thought, contemplating my friend's lifeless corpse, I suddenly felt a hand on my shoulder and looked up to see a concerned Strausswirt staring at me.

"Are you doing okay, Günter? I am so sorry about Ferdi, he was a good man," she said with sorrow on her face. "As soon as I saw who he was, I sent for you."

I blinked several times to clear my blurred vision but only dared to nod, not trusting my voice quite yet.

Behind her stood a city plainclothesman. The area in and around the alley had been secured by our MPs and MAAs to preserve the crime scene. As usual, they had done the through and efficient job expected from troops under Britt's command. A couple of MPD's patrolmen had also joined the cordon and were cooling their heels outside the perimeter, unable to approach Ferdi's body. I was surprised that the detective had chosen not to make a big issue out of it on his arrival.

"Günter, this is Detective Karl Honister." Strausswirt made the introductions. "He's been assigned to the case."

I was surprised when he stepped around her and offered his hand in the American manner. Despite my misgivings about the city watch, I found myself warming to him as I shook his hand. His grip was strong and confident.

"Herr Director, please accept my condolences. Lieutenant Strausswirt spoke well of your friend Herr Schwinger. I am at your service."

We did not usually get that much cooperation from the MPD. Of course, I had heard of Honister and his reputation, but never met him until now. That's quite a feat in a small city. I knew that he was in his early twenties, and supposed to be one of the brightest of their new crop of recruits. He even had some university education under his belt, which was a rarity for the watch, much less us in NCIS. I decided that if he was a sign of things to come, we might have to change our whole outlook on their organization.

It also dawned on me who I had to thank for throwing oil on the water and smoothing our first meeting. I had known Strausswirt since she was a child. Like everyone else who had been hanging around the Magdeburg Committee of Correspondence Golden Arches that day, three years ago, I had been dumbstruck when she stepped forward to answer Joachim Thierbach's call for volunteers for Marine Officer Candidate training. Now, with a growing reputation in the USE military and civilian law enforcement circles despite her sex, Strausswirt possessed the air of self-control and authority of the consummate police professional. It was obvious that she had gained Honister's respect.

"Thank you, Detective. Would you mind if I examine my friend's body?" I asked politely.

"By all means, Herr Director. I want to look at him, too." Nodding, we both moved toward Ferdi.

* * *

Ferdi was on his back, his head facing left, away from the street and resting over what had been a large puddle of blood that had mostly soaked into the ground. Luckily for my peace of mind, his eyes were closed.

I said a brief prayer. The back of his head looked smashed in, and a blood-splattered brick lay beside his body.

I looked up at Honister as he also stooped, and with a nod he started to write in his notepad. We quickly fell into a routine: I would identify possible clues and he would record them, until the similarities of our procedures suddenly dawned on us.

As we exchanged an amused look, we had to shake our heads in disbelief. It was bound to happen one day: the first meeting of graduates of "Dan Frost's School of Criminal Investigation" from two different agencies at a crime scene. If our numbers continue to increase, we may have to start thinking about putting out a newsletter, secret handshakes and annual conventions. Grinning at the absurdity of the whole idea, we returned to the task in front of us. That quickly killed any vestiges of amusement as we concentrated on our work.

The sudden increase of shouts and equine whinnies back on the street made me look, just in time to watch the arrival of two horse-drawn wagons from the navy yard: a carriage and an ambulance. In the absence of better tools, I had opted for summoning extra manpower. In one case, this was actually womanpower—my best crime scene investigator.

Even under these depressing circumstances, I felt a smile come to my face as I stood up and saw my partner in both the job and life. My lovely Brunei climbed down from the carriage. Once on the ground, she turned around to pick up a struggling infant from the young woman who followed her out.

I know that the up-timers' books extol the virtues of plenty of fresh air and sun for the health of young children. I rather doubt that the advice extended to trips to active crime scenes. But with our regular sitter sick, we, like the Marines love to say, had to adapt, improvise, and overcome. So, we had our first take-your-baby-daughter-to-work day.

I expect that my little Magritte will either grow up to join the family business or else I'll end up paying for her visits to an up-timer-trained shrink for a long time to come. I suppose those are the compromises I have to make when my wife refuses to be a stay-at-home mom.

As she approached the perimeter, Brunei stopped and handed our daughter back to her companion. I seriously doubt that, when she joined our ranks, Corporal, now Special Agent, Annalise Schuhmacher expected to find baby-sitting in her job description. As the oldest daughter in her family, she had the experience needed by two overprotective first-time parents, and we were very grateful for her help.

Her senior partner, Hans Leiss, a former river man and a solid and proven master-at-arms petty officer, had driven the carriage and now followed them after helping to unload the equipment of his two other passengers.

Photographer's Mate Second Class Peter Zurich, together with his assistant, Seaman Apprentice Karen Berg, formed the whole complement of the US Navy Photography Service. Their organization came to into being several months ago, when one of our Marine recruits was discovered to be an honest-to-God Italian duchess. Although her story ended like a fairytale and gained us a great leatherneck, it was the second such incident on record. This led to a general tightening of our security posture. One of the measures implemented was a requirement for an official file picture to go with the personnel record. This required the establishment of an official photo shop, the first one in the USE Armed Services that I know of.

I did mention my admiral's penchant for penny-pinching, right? In order to get full utilization out of the photo shop, Zurich and Berg were also made available to support any other naval photographic requirements, on an as-needed basis. This usually meant that NCIS took its turn in the queue with the other staff sections, although we did take precedence over the rest for homicide investigations. This was the first time that I had asked for their technical support for that purpose.

Both seemed to be a little reluctant to get close to Ferdi's remains. This made me somewhat irritated and I wondered if, after I provided them some verbal encouragement in my own inimitable way, I could expect tears. Before I could find out firsthand, Strausswirt intervened. After some brief and pointed instructions, she managed to instill in them a new zeal and dedication for their professional duties.

What I can say? I felt disappointed but recognized that I just wanted to yell at someone.

In the meanwhile, Brunei had noticed my grim expression and had stopped beside me, puzzled. That is, until she took a good look at the body. Covering her mouth in horror, she muttered a soft, "Oh, Ferdi."

Closing her eyes, she mumbled a short prayer before nodding to me in greeting, "Public Display of Affection" rules being in full force.

I introduced her to Honister. After another nod, she gathered her divided skirts and crouched to inspect Ferdi's body closely.

I expected that tonight, when we were alone in our bed, she would allow herself the liberty to grieve; but now she was all cop. As she looked around the scene, I welcomed the occupants of the ambulance.

Senior Chief Hospital Corpsman David Dorrman, an up-timer in his early forties, was the NCOIC for the yard's new naval hospital. Although we have Jena-trained surgeons on staff, none had the forensic experience that the Senior Chief had acquired working in prior cases with me. Along the way, he had become the closest thing to a medical examiner that our navy had.

Dorrman had also brought along a litter team.

"Good morning, Günter," he told me, glancing curiously at Ferdi's body as Brunei started to search his pockets. "Who's the stiff? He doesn't look like one of ours."

"His name is—or was—Ferdinand Schwinger and he was my friend." My stark and pain-filled admission caught his attention immediately. He looked back sharply as an expression of pity crossed his face.

"Then I'm truly sorry for your loss, son; you have my condolences. What I can do to help?"

"Thank you, Senior Chief," I replied formally, but I was grateful for his kindness. "This is Detective Honister from the MPD." He nodded at the detective before returning his attention to me. "You can start by telling me when he died. I already have a pretty good idea how it happened."

Curious at my statement, he looked at the body. "Ah, the brick! You got it, Director. I'll do that as soon as I make sure that your photo bugs are not going to pass out on top of Herr Schwinger."

Zurich and Berg now looked decidedly green but gamely kept at their task. I felt a twinge of remorse, but looking at Ferdi laying there under their flashes, it quickly passed.

Honister was looking at Dorrman with curiosity and I guessed that he was wondering what the chief's role was in the current proceedings. I held my tongue and left him to find out on his own; it's a lot more amusing that way. Glancing one more time at the body, I signaled to Strausswirt and Brunei to join me in a quiet corner and included the MPD detective on my summons. Honister kept looking back at the senior chief as he walked toward us.

I scanned the growing crowd as I waited for my companions to join me. The large number and variety of police was attracting attention. I was relieved to see that so far no members of the press had graced us with their presence. I didn't want to alert our quarry.

"First, Britt, thank you for calling us in."

Strausswirt nodded as a slight flush colored her cheeks. She preferred to work behind the scenes and public acknowledgement of her deeds made her uncomfortable. "As I said before, he was a good man, Günter. My parents were very fond of him."

I nodded. Her dad was known to occasionally sit with us and shoot the breeze. I then addressed our new colleague.

"Detective Honister, it is obvious that Herr Schwinger could be either in your jurisdiction or in ours. Since he was my friend, and we were here and had started working the scene first, I would appreciate it if you would allow us to take the lead in this investigation."

Honister turned around and stared at the half-dozen or so of our troops controlling the crowd and assisting with their equipment as the photographers finished. He watched curiously as Dorrman, gloves on, pulled a long probe from his tool bag as his corpsmen prepared Ferdi's body. I knew that the senior chief was going to do a liver temp but it still wasn't a common procedure. I kept my eyes averted, trying to act nonchalantly. To my disappointment, Honister failed to have too much of a reaction, but for some reason that also pleased me. We manfully ignored the retching sounds as first Zurich then Berg finally managed to lose their breakfasts—away from the body, luckily for their safety and general well-being.

"Herr Director, I'll agree for the moment. But, I'll need to clear it later with Chief Reilly. I do insist on remaining as an observer, and I'll require copies of all your notes, reports and photograph for my records."

I nodded approvingly as my gut feeling that he was someone that we could work with was proven right.

"Not a problem, Detective. Welcome aboard," I said, and even managed to smile as Brunei rolled her eyes at the birth of our first task force. That damn woman knew me too well.

Finished, Dorrman came over to join us. Despite his early indifference to the forensic examination, Honister gave him a wide berth. Unconcerned, the up-timer consulted his notes, frowned, made some quick calculations and after looking around to make sure that he had everyone's attention, started his presentation.

"Director, ladies, Detective, according to my readings of temperatures, calculations, and the level of rigor mortis present, death occurred somewhere between 2100 and 2300 last night, more or less. It was a cold night but it did not either rain or snow, so I'm pretty confident of my timing. I think that it is quite obvious to everyone present that the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the back of the head." He punctuated the end of his report by closing his notebook with a snap.

"Thank you, Senior Chief. Can you prepare his body for return to his family?" I asked him.

"Sure thing, Director. It would be an honor. We'll take him back to the hospital with us and give him a more careful examination there. I'm sure that Doctor Lutz will be able to assist me and if we find anything else, I'll let you know. I'll have his body returned to the family as soon as we complete our examination. So if you will all excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, have a good day." We silently watched as the corpsmen under his supervision placed Ferdi's body, with the bloody brick, carefully on a litter and then took it to the ambulance.

I needed the other carriage, so I took the opportunity to order Zurich and Berg to go back in the ambulance. For some reason, neither photographer seemed particularly enthused with the idea of returning to base in the company of a dead man or the murder weapon.

I felt sorry for them . . . really.

Smirking humorlessly, I mentally organized our to-do list and turned my attention back to the tasks ahead.

"Okay, people, what's our timeline here?" I asked around.

Strausswirt glanced at her notes. "I was making my last round before calling it a night when I was told of the discovery of the body. Let's say around 0600. As soon as I saw who he was, I called for you."

I nodded. She had learned her work ethic from her parents and, to the chagrin of many of her officers and troops, was known to show up unexpectedly at any time of day or night. It kept everyone in the provost office on their toes. Honister raised his hand, seeking my attention. With some effort, I managed to keep a straight face and nodded my recognition.

"Herr Director, Frau Buchwald made a formal complaint to the duty patrolman about her husband's absence around midnight last night. The watch commander assigned me to follow up this morning, after our initial search failed to discover his whereabouts." At least Honister had the good grace to look embarrassed when he noticed my displeased expression.

I was betting that her complaint had been given a low priority because somebody higher up assumed, incorrectly, that Ferdi was somewhere safe—either passed-out drunk, or asleep in the embrace of his mistress. Honister's expression also told me that he had not agreed with that assessment and it earned him several more brownie points with me.

Still disgusted, I looked at my wife for her take.

"I can tell you one thing, Günter, it wasn't robbery. He still had his pocket watch and money bag when I examined the body." I had noticed that earlier on my own examination and found that extremely curious. Ferdi was well-regarded in town and, as I can attest, didn't have any known enemies. Under those circumstances, the most common and logical cause for his demise was likely to be robbery. However, that wasn't so in this case, and I didn't have to consult my gut feeling to know this was important. Brunei continued, "All the footprints around his body were fresh and made by military or police issue boots.

"I saw two earlier-made ones, however. One of them belonged to a woman," she said.

Honister looked at her, curiously.

I've seen similar reactions many times before, and not only from MPD personnel. Brunei is a petite, pretty-looking blonde—at least in my own very biased opinion—in her mid-twenties and yes, she is a tad younger than I am. At least, since Magritte's birth, my so-called friends have stopped accusing me of being a cradle robber. When Brunei wants to, she can put on an innocent face and do a great empty-headed impression, masking her sharp wit behind it.

Hands down, I recognize that she is much smarter than I am.

During our first murder investigation, she had been impressed with the tracking abilities of Marine scout-snipers—not something that your run-of-the-mill city cop or NCIS agent sees in our line of work. So later, during her pregnancy-imposed light duty, she trained with them. The scout leader, First Sergeant Hoffman, considers her one of his best pupils. Other women knit booties and blankets during the wait for their blessed events. My wife became a tracker.

There are reasons I love her so much.

Her expression remained troubled. In one of those telepathic communications purported to exist between married couples, I knew immediately what her concern was. "Honister, has anyone notified his wife yet?"

"No, Herr Director. I was on my way to his shop, when I was ordered to come here. Do you want me to send a patrolman to do it?" he asked.

"No, Detective, Frau Buchwald is a close family friend. My wife and I will deliver the news. Of course, you are invited to come along with us and deliver your respects too, if you wish."

"It would be my honor, Herr Director," he said with a slight head bow.

Brunei gave me a sad little smile of thanks.

"Britt, can I borrow one of your men to serve as my driver? I need to use Leiss and Schuhmacher to start canvassing the area. Someone around here ought to have heard something last night."

"Günter, you can have Seaman McCain and I'll assign a section to help your agents."

I nodded my thanks.

"Herr Director, I too will place my patrolmen under your agent's command. This is their beat and I expect that they will be also helpful," Detective Honister said.

I had to admit that I was pleasantly surprised at his earnest cooperation. I decided right then that perhaps it was high time to bury the hatchet with the MPD. "Thank you, Detective. It would certainly speed our tasks. Okay, folks, Herr Schwinger usually closed his shop around 2000, that's our starting time. So my intentions are, first, to visit Frau Buchwald to deliver the bad news and get her take, and go from there to his shop to talk to his employees. They are likely to be the last people that saw him alive. I hope they will help us fill in the time between him closing his shop for the day and the discovery of his body. Everyone agree with me?"

I looked around our circle and watched them nod in agreement. With everyone on the same page, Brunei recovered our daughter while I instructed Leiss and Schuhmacher to start the canvassing. By the time we departed, Leiss was giving individual assignments to his new command.

Chapter Two
The Schwinger Residence
Magdeburg City, USE
1115 Hours Local Time

Our relatively short, but uncomfortable, ride to Ferdi's home was done mostly in silence. I might have preferred to walk, but with Magritte likely to catch whatever befell her sitter, we did not want to expose her more than necessary to the cold air, and took our chances with the carriage's suspension and Magdeburg's uneven streets. First time parents, you know.

Honister spent his time during the trip reviewing his notes and looking out of the window as Brunei cooed to our daughter while feeding her. It provided me with a charming vision of the young Madonna and child and a delightful eyeful. Although very much a lady, my wife is not exactly the shy type. Her past experiences and former life cured her of any excessive prudery. Like our women Marines, "she don't mind much if you look as long as you don't touch" or linger. Despite the interesting view offered, I was left alone with my thoughts as the same question kept popping back into my mind no matter from which angle I approached the problem.

What the hell was Ferdinand doing in that part of town at that time of the night?

That was puzzling, and so far outside the norm for security conscientious Ferdi that I found myself baffled and clueless. That alley was in the opposite direction from the route that he would have normally taken to go home. Despite the MPD assumptions, he was not a drunk, nor did he have a mistress on the side. Like Brunei and me, he shared a happy family life with his wife Hanne, although their marriage had been arranged. Their parents had taken particularly good care to match them well for temperament, and the two had fallen in love almost since their first meeting.

Any further speculation in any other direction came to an abrupt halt with our arrival at Ferdi's house.

I was the first one to step out of the carriage and Brunei handed Magritte down to me. I looked down at my little agent-in-diapers, now sleeping without a care in the world, and honestly envied her.

I wasn't looking forward to what we needed to do now, a sentiment apparently echoed by my wife and Honister as they stood beside me staring at the green door atop the short flight of stairs. Like me, each was unable to take that first step.

I don't know about Honister's hesitance but in Brunei's case, we're talking about a woman who, in the course of our official duties, had been known to stare down Italian mercenaries and had to be occasionally physically restrained to prevent her from being the first one though doors. However, death notification calls are the toughest tasks to accomplish in both military and law enforcement circles. No decent human being wants to inflict pain on the innocent. Doing what we were expected to do to a woman that we both considered a close friend was above and beyond.

But with rank comes responsibility and I had never believed in ordering something that I could not do myself. So, with a sigh, I handed the baby back to Brunei, pinned my badge to my lapel and walked up the steps. I was ready to knock when the door suddenly opened. With a small curtsy, a smiling maid bid us to come in. She fussed over Magritte while taking our cloaks and hats before going out in search of her mistress.

Hannelore Buchwald was ten years younger than her husband; now in her early forties, the years had been, mostly, kind to her. As blonde as Brunei, though with a lot more gray, she shared with Ferdi a belief that what a person decides to do with the rest of his or her life is what makes the difference; neither had ever looked down a nose at our backgrounds. We had been welcome in her house since Ferdi and I became friends. As neither Brunei nor I had live parents or close family, the Schwingers had filled the role of older relatives that we could rely on to seek advice on marriage and parenting.

It was easy for me to see her smile was plastered on a face that hadn't seen enough rest in the last twenty-four hours, no doubt due to the anxiety clearly etched on it.

"Günter, Brunei, what an unexpected and delightful surprise! And you brought your precious Magritte along with you, welcome. However, my husband is out and . . ." Hanne's welcome spiel suddenly came to an abrupt halt. Her smile froze as she finally registered our grim expressions, my badge, and Honister's presence. I had seen it too many times: the initial confusion followed by a sense of dislocation and disbelief, followed by overwhelming grief. Before her knees buckled I was at her side and, to my surprise, so was Honister. Between the two of us, we lowered Hanne onto a couch while she emitted an animal-like keen that broke my heart.

The commotion quickly brought out the rest of the household, who, after being told of the reason of her distress, joined in. No surprises there, as my friend had been well-liked, even by his staff. It made me wish I could join them and share their grief. However, time was at a premium if we wanted to have any chance to catch his murderer.

Before I could take any action, Brunei handed me a screaming infant and waded into the fray. By the time Brunei had everything under control and the household working to prepare for the necessary funerary arrangements and notify those of the family not present, Magritte had calmed down. After a stiff drink and quiet words of sympathy, Hanne seemed ready to talk to us. Honister found a quiet corner, pulled his notebook out and got ready to record without being asked, allowing me to concentrate on her interview. The way that he did that once again impressed me.

Before I could phrase my first question, Hanne started with a pain-filled voice. "Günter, can you tell me what happened?"

I momentarily debated how much information to give her, but looking into her eyes, I decided that only the unvarnished truth would do.

"His body was discovered early this morning by MPs in an alley at Breinhart Strasse. Someone hit him repeatedly on the back of the head with a brick." I watched as her hands covered her mouth and she seemed to crumble.

Brunei propped her up and gave me a dirty look. By her expression, I guessed that little Günter was not going to visit little Brunei anytime soon. Well, that's why in our family, she is the diplomat.

Hanne finally calmed down and I continued my questioning.

"Hanne, I'm truly sorry to impose on you under these circumstances. But I'm trying to gather as much information as possible to help me catch whoever did this." She stared at me with teary eyes for a moment before nodding and glancing at her hands. "First, had he received any threats or do you know of anyone that wanted to harm him?"

She looked back up and gave me a look that made me feel six inches tall.

"No, of course not, Günter. How can you say that? Everyone loved my Ferdi."

"I'm sorry, Hanne," I said, and I was. "But I need to ask. It could lead us to intent and motive."

"Just like one of your damn up-timer videos and books, right, Günter?" she said angrily. I knew that in her grief she was liable to strike at anyone in range and kept my silence. Hanne looked away, annoyed but deep in thought. Suddenly, she turned back. "Perhaps this is nothing but for the last couple of days, Ferdi seemed worried."

My mental alarms went off and I saw Honister's eyebrows raised almost to his hairline.

"Worried?" Brunei gently prompted her.

Hannelore looked at her. "Yes, I think that it was something to do with the shop. I asked him to tell me what it was but he always changed the subject and told me not to worry about it."

My eyes met Brunei's and Honister's. Both nodded in agreement; there was something worthy of pursuit there.

"God, I sent Julius to watch over the shop today when Ferdi did not show up!" Hanne suddenly exclaimed in alarm. Julius, a university student, was their eldest son. "He needs to be told."

Brunei reassured her, patting her hand. "Don't worry, Hanne. We are on our way there next and will send him back here immediately."

"Detective Honister, do you have any other questions for Frau Buchwald before we depart?" I asked him, standing up.

"No, Herr Director," he said, closing his notebook and giving her a slight bow. "Frau Buchwald, my name is Karl Honister and on behalf of the Magdeburg Police Department, please accept our deepest condolences for your loss. We are at your service."

She nodded weakly at him before looking back at me. "Günter," she said quietly.

"Yes, Hanne."

"Please get whoever did this to Ferdi and make him pay." There was fire in her eyes, when she asked me to do that.

"You have my word on it."

Strangely enough, I knew that I would.

Schwinger Jewelers
4 Weimar Avenue, Magdeburg, USE
1235 Hours Local Time

The emotional scene with Hannelore and her family had taken a toll on us greater that we had bargained for, and we made the trip in silence.

Ferdi's shop was in one of the most prosperous areas of the new city, as befitted his commercial success. Taking inspiration from up-timer commercial styles found in Grantville, it had display windows, albeit small, to showcase some of the wares in their inventory. At my suggestion, the wares displayed were fakes, the windows were reinforced with iron bars, and armed guards were always on the premises, all quite modern.

One of the windows was dedicated solely to military displays with mannequins wearing USE Army, Navy, Marine and Air Force uniforms, with all their insignia and appropriate accoutrements on display. A new addition to those wore an MPD uniform. I found it all quite ironic, since five years ago no one had seen, or even heard of, military or police uniforms, or knew there was a market for their insignia.

I call that progress.

We located Ferdi's eldest son, Julius, back by one of the glass-sided counters. He was showing a tray of wedding rings to a young couple. Lately I had been thinking about surprising Brunei with one. After giving me such a beautiful child, the woman had more than earned it.

Julius saw us and, after asking one of his employees to take over for him, came toward us with a welcoming smile that vanished when he got close enough to read our faces. "Günter, Brunei, what happened to my father? When I left this morning, he had not yet arrived at the house."

"Julius, is there somewhere private where we can talk with you?"

"Certainly—we can go to my father's office. Please, follow me." We took the familiar route to the back of the store, passing the busy workshop where half a dozen artisans and apprentices were hard at work. The shop was well-lit with gas lamps that showed the beauty of the pieces displayed.

I wondered if I could ever afford buying something like that for the wife. Not that Brunei would allow me do something so extravagant. Thrifty by nature, she carefully squirreled away any extra money for our children's future education and our retirement.

Our little parade hadn't gone unnoticed. The attention of everyone in the shop was on us and on Julius' stiff posture and pale face. Everyone could see that something was wrong. I hoped that we wouldn't have a repeat of the earlier turmoil at Hanne's.

Ferdi's office was richly appointed, with up-time inspired furnishings. He told me once that was so their more "elite" customers could have a venue to inspect his wares in private.

I had to admit, the man knew how to make money.

Julius, with visibly shaking knees, sat heavily in one of the visitor's chairs in front of his father's desk, already dreading the news. He looked at me with fearful eyes. I swallowed hard before beginning. Certain things do not become easier with repetition.

"This is Detective Karl Honister of the Magdeburg Police Department, Julius," I said. He nodded politely to Honister and then looked back at me.

"I have unfortunate news. Early this morning, Marine MPs discovered your father's body in an alley near the navy yard. He was murdered. You don't know how sorry I am to have to tell you this."

Julius buried his face in his hands, his body shaking from uncontrollable sobs. In a now well-practiced routine, Brunei handed me Magritte and went to crouch down by his side, the natural mother in her easily coming to the forefront as Honister and I exchanged uncomfortable glances, wishing that we could be somewhere else.

We distracted ourselves by inspecting our surroundings. Behind the desk was a display of all the police badges that his shop had designed. As far as I know, it's the first and only one of its kind in the whole world. I noticed the NCIS badge sample held a place of honor in the wall display.

At times I had suspected that Ferdi had secretly wished he was twenty years younger and able to join our ranks. At heart he had been very much one of us, a sheepdog. I think that he would have made an excellent agent. There was nothing wrong with his analytical capabilities and critical thinking.

Truth be told, Honister reminded me of him a bit.

While I mulled this over, Brunei managed to calm Julius down. She looked back at me, stood up, and gave me a quick nod.

"Julius, I talked to your mother earlier today and she told me that your father had been worried about something for the last couple of days. Do you have any idea what he was concerned about?"

He looked at me with tear-filled eyes, thinking hard. "Günter, I noticed . . . but he never confided in me. As you know I'm away for most of the day at school."

I nodded. His father had held the firm belief that learning was important and had wanted all his children to receive a proper education.

"Perhaps, Herr Bieber can help," he offered. "As my father's shop manager, he was privy to a lot of information."

I looked at Honister and he went out, returning shortly with a gray-haired man.

Albrecht Bieber is a master craftsman, rumored to be one of the best in his trade in the city. He followed Honister into the office, but immediately went to Julius' side when he noticed his distress. "What's the problem, lad?"

"Herr Bieber . . . my father is dead."

I watched carefully for his reaction, and saw him go deathly pale, needing to grab the back of Julius's chair for support. Seeing that, I felt certain that I could take him off my list of suspects. As befitted a man of his age and experience, he quickly recovered, his inner strength obvious. My gut feeling told me that the Schwinger family would be relying heavily on him and that strength for the foreseeable future.

"Herr Bieber?" I said. "I think we have met before. Günter Schlosser, NCIS. This is my wife, Special Agent Spitzer, and this is Detective Honister of the Magdeburg Police Department."

He nodded gravely to Brunei and Karl and smiled at Magritte, still in my arms.

I continued my interview as Honister resumed his note taking. "Frau Buchwald and Julius have mentioned that Herr Schwinger seemed worried about something lately. Do you have any idea of the source of his concerns?"

He looked at me thoughtfully for a moment before replying. "Indeed, Herr Director. Fact is, when I brought my initial predicament to Herr Schwinger, I was hoping that he would make you aware of the problem."

I was left speechless and stunned for a brief moment. I felt an acute sense of dread, compounded by guilt. Only Brunei's hand gripping mine pulled me out of my spiraling despair. Putting my feelings aside, and imbued with a new sense of purpose, I looked back at the master craftsman.

"Herr Bieber, I'm sorry to say that Herr Schwinger was prevented from sharing your concerns with me. Perhaps you would like to elucidate for us what those concerns were."

"Certainly, Herr Director, but why I don't show you instead?" He moved to the file cabinet as I passed Magritte back to Brunei. I stepped to the desk where Bieber spread open a sales file. Honister, Julius and Brunei crowded around us and looked curiously over our shoulders. "Last week a gentleman came in to place a test order for ten badges for the new Hamburg Police Department. Both Herr Schwinger and Julius were out of the store."

I nodded. I'd heard rumors that the Committee of Correspondence members on their city council were pushing for a more modern, and much less partisan, law enforcement organization than their old city watch.

"I found that strange because usually our customers from outside Magdeburg use the postal service and don't come to order in person. He also told me that his name was Otto Meyer, but he spoke in no German accent that I could recognize."

I looked at Honister, caught his eye, and significantly raised my eyebrow. He immediately copied the address and other relevant information in the ordering form.

Bieber continued. "Here in Schwinger's, we pride ourselves on providing unique products. So when Herr Meyer showed me his design, I told him that we have done something similar for another client and that I would be more than happy to redesign it for him at no extra charge. However, he insisted that this was what the Hamburg council had approved and he was not inclined to go against their wishes.

"I finally agreed because Herr Schwinger always told us that 'the customer is always right.' Besides, he made the down payment in cash. But it kept bothering me and three days ago, I brought it to his attention. Yesterday, when Herr Meyer returned to pick up his order and to pay the remainder of his bill—again in cash—Herr Schwinger talked to him. I don't know what was said but Meyer took the badges and left in a hurry. Herr Schwinger remained upset, then told me to take care of the shop and left early."

Bieber finally pulled the Hamburg design out from underneath the invoices and placed it where we all could see it clearly.

Brunei stiffened beside me and I didn't have to read her mind to know what had upset her. Honister and Julius looked at the drawing with puzzled expressions at first but then looked up to stare at Ferdi's badge display. I knew what they were looking at. Except for the lettering, it was the same badge that Brunei and I wore, the NCIS shield.

Chapter Three
Headquarters and Field Office, NCIS
Provost Marshal Building
Magdeburg Navy Yard, USE
1500 Hours Local Time

Before we left Schwinger's, we asked Bieber to describe the so-called "Herr Meyer," and he told us that he could do much better than that. After a short detour to verify that the address in Magdeburg that Meyer had given him was bogus—no surprises there—we dropped Julius at home. We rode back to the yard, sharing our first impressions as we examined the pencil-and-ink drawings Bieber had made for us.

There was no question that Honister would stay on the case, although it was obvious this was now an official NCIS investigation. By this time Brunei, Magritte, and I considered him part of our team. He was smart, knew when to keep quiet, and didn't miss a thing. I suspected that he was also watching us closely and taking notice of how we did our jobs.

Honister seemed particularly impressed with our teamwork, but I can't take all the credit there. There are some distinct advantages to being married to your partner. Perhaps he needed to find a partner of his own . . . Schuhmacher wasn't seeing anyone. Alas, matchmaking would have to wait until we put this case to bed.

I owe it to Ferdi and his family.

* * *

One day I hope NCIS will expand enough to warrant our own facility, but at present we have to share the second deck (floor, for all you non-sailors) of the provost marshal's building, not far from the navy yard stables.

Seaman McCain drove our wagon back there after dropping us in front of the building entrance. I was looking forward to a long delayed visit to the head and my comfortable desk chair when another arriving carriage caught my attention.

The Provost Detainee Transport Unit, known to all and sundry as the paddy wagon, made its way toward us at a leisurely pace. Sitting shotgun beside the Marine driver was Hans Leiss. This surprised me, because with all the time our group spent chasing clues around Magdeburg, I assumed that Leiss would have been inside and on his second cup of coffee by now.

I watched the wagon stop in front of the Provost's building with growing interest and gawked as first Schuhmacher climbed out of the back followed shortly by a MPD patrolman. They in turn assisted a civilian woman in handcuffs to climb down.

Her look, the cut and the quality of her clothing, gave me a pretty good idea of her chosen profession. Her slovenly appearance, slurred speech and unsteadiness told me of her drunkenness. Not that that prevented her from launching a long spiel about the injustice of her detention and her overall innocence, interrupted by bouts of cursing that would have made a chief bosun's mate blush. Sadly, her magnificent display of eloquence was brought to an abrupt halt by an explosive episode of retching.

I counted myself lucky that we were too far away to be in range, although not far enough that her stench did not fail to clear our sinuses. Unfortunately, that was not true for either Schuhmacher or the patrolman, who, after taking a fresh grip on her and with grim and determined expressions, marched our unexpected guest inside for booking.

Shaking his head at the debacle, Leiss turned and gave us his report. It seems that after we left, he and his posse had scoured the neighborhood in search of witnesses, initially to no avail. Their luck improved when one of Patrolman Honker's snitches recalled seeing a lady of the evening fleeing the area roughly during the time frame indicated by Dorrman.

That explained the female footprints that Brunei had discovered at the scene. With that information in hand, they had checked out all the local whorehouses and known individual entrepreneurs. They hit pay dirt when one of Schuhmacher's acquaintances volunteered that a new arrival to the city was seen late at a local tavern trying to drown herself in liquor. The prostitute was overheard to mumble repeatedly something about not wanting to get involved and that she was nobody's fool.

With that clue and a physical description, our people hit all the possible sleeping places. After hours of searching, Fräulein Ilse Cramer was discovered, passed out, in a local flophouse. Cramer, after she was finally roused from her stupor, was advised of her rights and told of the charges, but denied any knowledge of the whole incident. However, Schuhmacher noticed bloodstains on the hem at the back of her dress. Confronted with the physical evidence, she broke down and admitted to being present during Ferdi's killing but refused to say anything else for fear of reprisal. She remained silent, regardless of all attempts to get her to talk, assisted no doubt by her half-inebriated state.

Leiss finally decided to kick it upstairs and let me take a crack at it. His confidence in me was heartwarming and I hoped not to disappoint him.

My mentor and friend, Günter Achterhof—yes, the other Günter—taught me that anyone can be made to talk if the proper techniques are applied. However, effective torture requires skilled operators and an independent way to verify the information. This is due to the sad truth that under torture, anyone—even someone like me—can be made to admit to anything. That limits its effectiveness for that purpose. Plus—and even Achterhof agreed on this—it is bad for one's soul.

So, Fräulein Cramer was to be spared any harsh measures, even if my personal desire for revenge screamed for it. Besides, being the top law enforcer in the naval community required me to set the example. The admiral would never give me carte blanche to treat her harshly without a damn good reason. I had other tools in my arsenal but those required careful preparation. I gave explicit instructions to Leiss, who sped off to implement them.

While we waited for Leiss to set the right conditions, I gave Honister the nickel tour after a quick visit to the head.

He seemed impressed with the organized police activity of the personnel around us. Strausswirt runs a tight ship. I could see no small amount of envy in his eyes and I could understand the reason. The citizens of Magdeburg were still coming to terms with the concepts behind a modern police force. Still, most of them treated their new police officers with the same contempt that they once held for the old city watch, a step above knackers or executioners. On the other hand, like the rest of the navy since our successful campaigns of '34, the provost office and NCIS were respected, understood, and supported by our community. I continued the tour up the ladder to the second deck to allow him to feast his eyes on NCIS Central.

Sadly, we were ambushed on our way to my office.

Several months ago, I had mentioned to Senior Chief Petty Officer Dietrich Schwanhausser, the admiral's yeoman and Chief of Naval Administration, that we were drowning in paperwork, which was cutting our time in the field. A week later, Yeoman Third Class Hanna "Genghis" Metzger and her typewriter of death descended upon our peaceful abode with all the enthusiasm of a Mongol invasion. Without any mercy, we had been folded, stapled, and mutilated into conforming to administrative regulations, and overnight our problems seemed to disappear. There was something frighteningly intense in the petite, bespectacled brunette's ruthless efficiency; so much so, that I gulped hard when I saw Genghis patiently waiting for us on the second deck landing, clipboard of doom in hand.

"Good afternoon, Herr Director, Agent Spitzer. I have the duty rosters, your evaluations and the weekly report to the naval staff ready for your signature." During the short trip to my office, I signed or initialed at least ten different forms. I am not quite sure, but I think that on one I may have volunteered our next child for human sacrifice. The whole exercise seemed to amuse Brunei and Honister to no end.

"And finally, Petty Officer Zurich dropped off copies of the photographs that he took this morning. I placed them on your desk," the little dynamo concluded before departing, leaving a trail of pixie dust in her wake. With abject horror, I watched a mesmerized Honister follow her with interested eyes until she reached her desk. There's no accounting for taste.

As Brunei put Magritte down in the crib that we keep in our office, I looked at the pictures; and once again, my mood darkened. I passed the pictures to Honister one at a time, and watching the flashes of anger on his expression, I bet that he shared the same desire for justice that ran through my veins.

Yep, the kid was a sheepdog, too.

Interview & Record Storage Room
Headquarters and Field Office, NCIS
Provost Marshal Building
1615 Hours Local Time

It took us an hour to set the right conditions for Fräulein Cramer's interrogation, time that I confidently expected was well spent and would save us countless hours in the end.

Honister observed everything in the process quietly, and I was quite certain he was taking copious mental notes. That is, of course, in those instances when his eyes had not wandered toward a certain desk outside my office. I guessed that the interest was mutual, since Metzger also discovered countless excuses to fuss around my office. I seriously considered using the fire hose at the damage control station outside my door to give them a good dousing, but Brunei seemed amused by their antics. Not one to rain on my beloved's parade, I restrained myself, although I thought she was taking her tendency to matchmake to an extreme.

Eventually, Leiss knocked on my doorframe and nodded once, indicating that everything was ready.

I thanked him, and with Magritte out for the count and back in her crib, I instructed Brunei about her part in our little play. I was planning to use the old up-time "bad cop, good cop" routine or in our case, the "bad cop, worse cop" version. Honister, all ears, listened. Brunei nodded, gave me some suggestions and a small grin, and with a quick peck on my cheek, departed. Together with Honister, I went to collect my props as I explained my overall plan, leaving Genghis to watch over Magritte.

Our "interview" room was where we stored our records. Thanks to Metzger's organizational skills, it could now be used without anyone tripping over boxes. The idea of a dedicated room for interrogations came to me after watching police TV dramas during Movie Night. Perhaps one day we may have one of those in our own facility. In the meantime, we make do.

We, of course, are missing the two-way mirrors and the recording microphones of the up-time versions, but with ingenuity and some elbow grease, we are able to substitute convenient peepholes and ventilation-grid listening posts.

I used one of the peepholes to check how Cramer was doing. It was easy to see that life in the streets had not been easy on her. Her face seemed older than her reported age, and her teeth looked even worse. Cramer, in the words of my friend Lulu O'Keefe (and pardon the pun), looked like she had been "ridden hard and put away wet." She now looked reasonably alert, although not completely sober or sure of herself.

I watched Brunei enter the room, place a cup of hot tea within her reach, and then go sit at the other end of the table. Carefully—one of her hands was now cuffed to a ring bolt in the table—Cramer took the cup and sipped the beverage. Brunei remained quiet and expressionless. No trace remained of Magritte's loving mother, or the compassionate friend that I had seen throughout the day. I guess that Cramer was parched, because she finished the tea in record time and started to look curiously around the room. For a moment, she stared at the file cabinets. I wanted her to get the impression that this was a place where secrets were extracted and preserved. The small shudder that shook her body and the abruptness with which Cramer swiveled her head back toward Brunei told me that she was halfway there already. Minutes dragged by as Cramer stared at my wife, waiting for her to speak. When that did not happen, Cramer started to loudly protest her innocence again.

Brunei remained impassive and silent, and just stared back at her. I know how unnerving that stare can be, and I work extra hard at avoiding its being directed at me. Frustrated by the silence, Cramer went from protesting her dubious innocence to cursing with an impressive vocabulary that showed her close, personal association with our friends in the sea trades.

For all the effect that she was having on my beloved, she might as well have been reading romantic poetry. I did mention that Brunei had stared down mercenaries, right? Finally, her patience gone, Cramer grabbed the now empty cup and threw it. My wife, without missing a beat, changing her expression, or even uttering a single word, reached out and caught the mug in mid-flight before placing it gently back on the table.

Cramer crumpled, burying her face in her hands, sobbing. In my opinion, she seemed softened enough. I invited a very impressed Honister to take my place at the peephole and collected my props.

I entered the room unannounced and stopped by her side. My arrival forced Cramer to look up, and keep looking up. I'm as tall as an up-timer, generally broader, and my face has been in one too many fistfights. Occasionally those physical attributes can come in quite handy.

Cramer gulped at my stern expression and her face grew pale. Before she could utter a word, I slammed the bloodied brick in front of her, not hard enough to break it but hard enough to make the table reverberate like a drum. Cramer almost jumped out of her skin and stared at it, completely mesmerized.

One by one, I pulled out the black and white photographs taken at the crime scene, placing them in front of her. Cramer jumped away from the table as far as the handcuffs allowed, eyes wide open in horror and guilt. Frankly, I had been counting on it. I let her stare at them for a while, before loudly clearing my throat, forcefully returning her attention to me.

"It's clear, Fräulein Cramer, by both the physical evidence and your confession to Agent Leiss, that you were a willing accomplice in the murder of one Ferdinand Schwinger, a leading citizen of this city and a friend of our navy. The question before us is the manner of your execution," I said, using my sternest prosecutorial tone of voice.

Her eyes went wilder and her pupils dilated. I was almost sure that Cramer was going to pass out. With one hand, I pushed her back in her seat.

"Nein, Herr Offizier. I'm innocent and don't have anything to do with his death," she started to beg. "I was told to lure him into the alley, so we could find out why he had been following Mons . . . I thought that we were only going to rough him up and possibly steal his money. I did not know that Pa . . . he was going to keep hitting him like that. You have to believe me, please!"

I ignored her pleas and continued speaking. "Under the circumstances, the judge is likely to call for your hanging."

"Hanging?" She parroted back in alarm, her voice becoming quite strained.

"Say, Spitzer, when was the last time we hanged a woman in Magdeburg? It's been a while and I forgot," I deadpanned.

"I believe, Herr Director, that it was six months ago. The butcher's wife, you remember?" she deadpanned back.

"Yes, now I remember, the woman who murdered her husband with poison. Ugly affair that one! Say, Spitzer, isn't death by hanging supposed to be quick? The poor woman lingered for a while."

"It usually is, Herr Director. But, it all depends on what kind of knot the executioner uses in the rope. If he used a hangman's noose, the fall is supposed to break the condemned's neck and death is relatively fast and painless. With a regular knot, you strangle to death," Brunei said, without even batting an eyelash. Believe me! Never play cards with that woman.

"But sadly, you are correct, Herr Director. That poor woman lingered a bit, although I heard rumors that the butcher's family slid a few gold coins to the executioner to make it so. If I recall, Herr Schwinger's family is also well-to-do, right?" Brunei continued with apparent sincerity.

Cramer sat speechless, white as a ghost and terrified out of her wits. It was time to reel her in.

"We may be able to convince the judge to show leniency, even perhaps to forfeit the death penalty all together, Fräulein Cramer. Of course, that will require complete cooperation on your part. So what say you?"

"If I speak, they will kill me," she pleaded.

Without a word, Brunei pulled a short piece of rope from her pocket and idly started tying it in knots reminiscent of a noose. That got her message across rather well.

"His name is Paul, Paul Diermissen," Cramer told us in a rush. "He told me that he was from Hamburg but his accent doesn't quite put him there."

I pulled Bieber's drawing from the folder and showed it to her.

"Is that him?" I demanded, noticing how she stiffened looking at the drawing.

"No, that's his boss, Monsieur Baricourt, Philippe Baricourt, although I have also heard him go by Meyer."

Bingo, I thought. "How many other men does Monsieur Baricourt have in his employ, Fräulein?"

"At least five more that I could see around the house. The numbers varied depending if he has any couriers waiting for messages or arriving with them. They only needed me to do their cooking, carry messages around town and occasionally service their needs, and did not tell me anything about their business."

I decided not to touch that statement.

"One more thing, Fräulein Cramer. Can you tell us how Herr Schwinger ended up in that alley?" I needed to know.

Cramer looked at me with renewed fright in her eyes and in a very small voice replied, "Monsieur Baricourt noticed that he was being followed and was unable to shake him off. So he asked Paul to get rid of him. We waited for Herr Schwinger in the alley and when I screamed for help, he came to my rescue."

For her protection, I moved away from the table and faced the bulkhead as my hands clenched into fists. I wanted to hit it as hard as I wanted to hit her, black rage coursing through my body.

I felt a soft touch on my arm and looked down to see Brunei's concerned blue eyes. She didn't say anything but I could see her love and, once again, that knowledge drained my anger away. I mouthed a quick "thanks, love" and turned my head toward Cramer.

"Fräulein Cramer, Agent Spitzer will take your statement now. I want the address and directions to Herr Baricourt's residence, their routine and a layout of the place. If you know what's good for you, I strongly encourage you to be precise."

Without a further word to her, I left the room.

The Provost Marshal's Office
Provost Marshal Building
1635 Hours Local Time

Outside the interrogation room, I was met by Honister, Leiss, and Schuhmacher. They matched my angry steps, with Leiss bombarding me with questions about why Ferdi was shadowing Monsieur Baricourt and his cohorts. I finally stopped on the landing and faced them. "Detective Honister, can you show the drawing to Agent Leiss?"

Karl pulled the drawing from his notebook and I watched as both Leiss and Schumacher stared at it, speechless.

Leiss finally looked up. "Okay, Skipper, I sort of understand now and I got a bad feeling about the whole thing, but why NCIS badges?"

"Hans, the only thing that comes to mind is that they want to be able to get into the yard," I speculated. "Most of our people are unknown to the community at large. Having badges is a lot simpler disguise than trying to steal enough navy or Marine uniforms unnoticed."

"Herr Schwinger probably had the same idea," Schumacher said, continuing my thought. "He must have tried to follow them back to their hidey-hole before reporting his findings and suspicions. I just wish he had called for backup first."

All of us nodded in grim agreement.

"He did what any of us would have done, Skipper," Leiss concluded in a somber tone. "He paid for his heroism with his life, but he may have saved dozens by his actions."

I nodded in grim agreement and led the way down the ladder. Down in the provost section, I asked one of the yeomen if her boss was in her office. I wasn't surprised when she answered in the affirmative. Strausswirt seriously needed to get herself a life.

On our way there, Honister asked, curious, "Is there anything in what you told her in there that was not true, Herr Director?"

I looked at him, grinning humorlessly. "Not a thing, Detective. If she had not given up her cohorts so readily, she would have likely ended up hanged for her involvement. Unless it is absolutely necessary to lie, I always prefer to stick to the truth."

I knocked twice on the provost's door, and waited for her invitation to enter. As soon as I opened the door, I saw that Strausswirt had another visitor, Captain Annette de Ventron. Luckily for us, she was the next person on my list to talk to. She had once been the regimental adjutant for First Marines, but was now one of the assistant directors for the Office of Naval Intelligence.

I introduced Honister and then gave them both a summary of our findings. As soon as I finished, de Ventron exchanged a strange look with Strausswirt and then stood up.

"Okay, everyone inside. Annalise, secure the door," she commanded.

With a muttered "Aye, aye, ma'am," Schuhmacher almost slammed the door shut on poor Leiss as he darted inside. De Ventron waited until we found more comfortable positions in the small, and now rather crowded, office. "What I'm going to say now is classified top secret, so remember your oaths. Herr Honister, you may consider yourself under an imperial seal. Is this understood?"

"Yes, Captain." The poor man looked like he wanted to be somewhere else.

"Günter, I'm truly sorry about your friend. He was a good and brave man. We may never be able to truly appreciate what his sacrifice saves us. Mes amis, we have been getting reports from confidential sources that a major action has been planned against the yard. So far, we've only been getting scattered rumors in support of that information. That is, until last week, when we were informed that the action was imminent." Everyone was glued to her words, so much so that you could probably have heard the proverbial pin drop as she continued.

"The admiral authorized ONI to take the necessary steps to thwart this threat. I was sent to give you a heads-up and step up our defensive measures. It seems, though, that Herr Schwinger's brave sacrifice has given us the means to go on the offensive instead." She paused again, perhaps for effect, not that she needed to, because we were hanging on her words. "Britt . . . Günter, you are hereby ordered to marshal your forces and, in coordination with the Magdeburg Police," she said with a small nod toward Honister. "Eliminate this menace to the safety of our community. Is this understood?"

"Aye, aye, ma'am," Strausswirt and I parroted together, she because of her Marine training, I because de Ventron has that effect on even free-spirited, confirmed civilians like yours truly.

"Good," she said in a more normal voice, "Günter, before you ask, yes, you may tell your wife and anyone else that you deem to have a need-to-know. I'll coordinate with the imperial representative and Admiral Simpson but, on behalf of the boss, I would consider it a personal favor if you don't burn the town down in the process."

I rolled my eyes. One little fire and a small explosion and now everyone thinks that I'm a confirmed pyromaniac.

"Now if everyone will excuse me, I need to go talk to the commandant. Britt, I will see you at the nunnery tonight."

I was ready to either wonder aloud "who was that masked woman" or ask her if her visit to von Brockenholz was professional or personal in nature when Strausswirt gave me the "you better behave now" look. It was obvious that she was in cahoots with the love of my life, both trying to mend my errant and uncouth ways.

With a smile, de Ventron left the office, leaving a noticeable vacuum in her absence as we continued to stare at the door.

Strausswirt cleared her throat.

I exchanged a weary look with her.

"Günter, we have lots of work ahead of us," she said and I sighed but could only nod in agreement.

Chapter Four
Assembly point
First Lutheran Church Courtyard
Magdeburg City, USE
0430 Hours Local Time, Two days later

It had taken a relatively long time to make the necessary preparations. Some of the delay was caused by the need for coordination with outside agencies. There was a time after the siege and burning of Magdeburg that any military unit could do whatever it wanted in the city. Fortunately for everyone concerned, that time has long gone, but occasionally, in instances like this, we could be excused for wishing that we still had the same freedom of action.

Once we all agreed on the basics, Strausswirt, Honister, and I left Brunei, Leiss, and Schuhmacher behind to start organizing our respective efforts and trooped over to see Honister's boss at home.

Magdeburg PD Chief William "Bill" Reilly heard us out as he quietly took notes. He was surprised to find that what had started as an ordinary murder investigation had transformed into a major counter-intelligence operation. He readily agreed to support our operation and ordered Honister to continue serving as our liaison.

However, he requested that in light of the latest developments, we also brief his boss. Once again, we packed ourselves back into the carriage and went to pay a late night visit to Herr Otto Gericke, Mayor of Magdeburg.

We got him out of bed.

Herr Gericke sat stonily silent in his robe during our presentation, heard Chief Reilly's recommendations, and through all this I felt that he was looking directly at me, warily. It was painfully obvious that my reputation had once again preceded me.

* * *

Surveillance of the objective, a two-floor nondescript residence several short blocks away from where we had found Ferdi, had started. It lasted throughout the next day and most of the next night, and care was taken not to alarm the occupants of the house.

No one really was able to sleep too much. The close watch was done discreetly; we never could have gotten away with it without using the combined resources of all agencies involved, the provost, MPD and us.

Outwardly nothing seemed out of place. Perhaps one or two extra patrolmen making the rounds at random intervals; a street vendor here or there—activities that were so normal, and so very much part and parcel of the usual street scene that nothing seemed amiss. Using the information provided by Cramer and our combined observations, we refined our plans, learned the lay of the land, examined the attack routes, and looked for any possible avenues of escape.

Finally, we felt confident that we could perform the assault with a minimum of disruption to the neighborhood. We took the time to carefully rehearse it several times.

You might be asking yourself why we went to all that trouble. The simplest answer is that dead men can't talk. If this had been a simple case of murder, we could have bombed the place flat and let God sort them out without giving it a second thought, an option that still held a great deal of attraction for me.

This, however, was possibly the first of many enemy operations. There was a crucial need to capture as many of them alive, with as much intact materiel, as possible, in order to generate intelligence information that would help us stop those later attacks. Another of those up-timer notions that seemed absurd at first thought, but was eminently practical.

Around 0300 we started to move from the yard to our assigned assembly areas in small groups, wagon wheels and horses' hooves muffled with rags. The Provost Special Response Team, or PSRT, led the way as we ghosted through quiet streets and empty alleyways holding onto the harnesses of the man or woman in front of us. We hoped to take advantage of the late hour to catch our adversaries asleep and unable to respond rapidly. Behind us, the MPD closed off the streets as we moved in and manned an outer cordon of barricades where—to my immense chagrin—fire crews also stood by. They had also, earlier, under the cover of darkness, quietly evacuated the neighbors on both sides of the target.

* * *

While we waited word from the scouting element, I told Honister to jump up and down several times, much to Brunei's amusement. Using pieces of cord, I securely tied down any jangly items in his kit, a trick that I learned from "the man" himself, Sergeant Major Hudson.

In the dark courtyard, I felt and heard rather than saw when Strausswirt finally returned from her leaders' recon and final inspection. Like us, her face was covered by a black wool balaclava, and she was wearing dark gloves and camouflage utilities, so that only her eyes could be seen clearly.

"All right people . . . Snipers and illumination are in place, let's move out," she commanded in a low voice.

Three squads, one carrying an assault ladder, headed toward the darkened house at a quiet trot. I had assigned an NCIS agent to each one. Handguns drawn, Strausswirt, Honister, and I, together with two corpsmen, formed a fourth squad that silently followed the rest.

She took us to the corner of the street where the house was located and waited for the rest of the teams to glide into their final assault positions. We watched our second-story element as they placed their ladder against the targeted windowsill. The element lead MP climbed carefully up the ladder to fasten something small to the window and climbed halfway back down. A match was struck; a charge cord started to burn furiously; and everyone crouched down to wait for the detonation.

The explosion was rather anticlimactic. I had caused bigger ones by accident, but it did the job, smashing the window open. The element on the ladder scrambled through the resulting opening. The other two squads crashed their battering rams into the front and rear doors, forcing them open and gaining access. Strausswirt led our element at a trot through the front entrance amidst angry yells and curses in several languages, and shouted commands in French and German to the occupants to lie down on the floor with their fingers laced on the backs of their heads.

As you could expect, the scene was chaotic, with half a dozen naked or almost-naked men flat on their stomachs with shotguns or pistols to their heads while they were handcuffed. Schuhmacher and another female MAA forced one of the naked guys to stand up and then marched him toward the door. It was cold outside, and I hoped that someone would remember to throw a blanket over him.

In the meantime, and following my instructions, Honister and Brunei were inspecting each prisoner, carefully looking for Monsieur Baricourt, AKA Herr Meyer, with no luck so far.

I saw Leiss come down the stairs escorting another handcuffed captive, but when I yanked his head back to check his face, I quickly saw that he was not our quarry. I told Strausswirt that we were going to check upstairs and led my companions to the next floor. Not surprisingly, we found that it was just as chaotic. We soon realized as we inspected each of the captives taken that there were at least a dozen men altogether, counting those on the first floor, and not the half-dozen that Cramer had told us about originally.

My gut feeling told me that de Ventron had been right, and that we had been mere days, perhaps hours, away from whatever was planned. I could see the heavy hand of irony all around. Had they simply left Ferdi alone or hidden his body better, we would never have found out about their plan until it was too late.

"The best laid plans of mice and men," I reminded myself.

Staff Sergeant Dallas Chaffin, the enlisted leader of the PSRT, and one of his men dragged a bleeding man out of the last room. It seemed that he had been a tad too close to the window when the entry charge exploded. I was surprised that he was still alive, much less on his feet. To my deep disappointment, it was not Herr Meyer either. Chaffin shouted that his team had finished clearing the whole floor and there was no one else left.

Brunei, Honister, and I started a methodical search for incriminating evidence. During our hunt, we got a message from Strausswirt that they discovered in the basement quite an impressive arsenal but no trace of the ghostly Herr Meyer.

After finishing the last room without finding anything or anyone, we met in the hallway. Honister looked as tired and frustrated as I felt when we removed our helmets and balaclavas. Brunei looked distracted and I assumed that she was thinking about our daughter, currently under the tender mercies of Genghis.

I was ready to ask Brunei to get her head back in the game when she turned toward me and asked, "Günter, do you smell smoke?"

I looked at her and then turned to look at the gaping hole where the window used to be. To my immense relief, I did not see any indications of fire. I doubted that my battered reputation would ever live it down if another house burned. She continued to sniff around. I knew that her nose was incredibly sensitive.

Brunei started to move toward one of the rooms that we had already cleared, sniffing all the way. Honister and I exchanged puzzled glazes and wearily followed her. To my surprise, after I entered the room, I too could smell smoke and, by the surprised look he gave me, so could Honister.

We looked around but there was not a discernible source for the smell.

Suddenly, Honister shouted, "Quick, people, douse your lights."

Brunei and I complied and as soon as our eyes adapted, we discerned some barely visible but flickering light coming from the bottom of one of the interior walls.

I knew that whatever was going down behind the false wall needed to be stopped quickly, and there was no time to call for tools. My dear, departed mother had always warned me that I was far too impulsive for my own good and that it would lead me into trouble. Once more I proved her right by taking a running start and, using my shoulder, crashed through the wall as if it had been made of smoke—well, actually, paper. My momentum kept me going and I tripped over the framing and found myself sprawled at the feet of our long-lost friend, Herr Meyer.

I had rudely interrupted him as he was setting fire to some very interesting documents and diagrams.

Before I could say something clever like "Doctor Livingstone, I presume" or something even more appropriate to the occasion like, "Hands on top of your head and back away from that fire," I found myself staring at a double barreled shotgun while my own weapon was still holstered, a cop's worst nightmare.

I discovered that I was not truly scared for myself but hoped sincerely that Herr Meyer or Monsieur Baricourt, whatever his name was, did a good job of blowing my head off. I was quite sure that otherwise, Brunei was likely to finish the job herself for my being such a heroic ass and making her a widow. I watched his finger tighten on the trigger, trying to come up with something clever to answer my mom's "I told you so," on my arrival in heaven.

Suddenly, a body flew overhead and tackled Meyer as the shotgun went off, luckily into empty space. Brunei daintily stepped over me, after delivering a swift and hard kick to my butt, and kept her weapon centered on Meyer's forehead while holding her penlight. The situation reversed. He could only stare into the light meekly as Honister handcuffed him.

Finding myself still in the ranks of the living, albeit with a sore rear and a bruised ego, I stood up and tried to extinguish the fire with my gloved hands as the room behind us filled up with cops.

Strausswirt and Chaffin elbowed their way through the pack and jumped to help as someone called for the firemen.

Oh, who could have thought it possible; we had to use the fire crews after all. Maybe I ought to ask Meyer to shoot me anyway.

12 Vasa Strassen
Magdeburg City, USE
0830 Hours Local Time

Once the fire department arrived, we explained to the fire chief that we would prefer if they didn't damage our evidence with excessive water. He finally agreed but we were still forced by them to wait outside the house. To top it off, after we were finally cleared by the fire chief, Strausswirt stopped us from going back in, instead ordering everyone to wait for the arrival of combat engineers. Of course, I couldn't fight her reasoning after Meyer's secret room discovery. Who knew what else might be hidden in there, especially booby traps?

While we waited for Gunner Hobbs and his merry band of explosive ordnance disposal experts to arrive and work their way through the house, we received other visitors. Chief Reilly and Captain de Ventron joined us and, to my chagrin, neither of them seemed particularly surprised to see firefighters on the premises. I guess that my growing reputation as the local pyromaniac remains secure. I took the opportunity to commend Honister's actions to his boss. I had already thanked him in private.

Herr Meyer and associates were escorted under heavy guard to the yard brig where they were to be kept isolated until time for their interviews.

If they survived those, Magdeburg could have a crack at them for Ferdi's murder.

Hobbs and his EOD engineers finally made an appearance and got to work; they specialize in a job that no one can pay me enough to do. Lacking adequate up-time technology for protection, they were truly left with only one option if something goes terribly wrong. The sign attached to their wagon succinctly captured this: "EOD—If you see us running, try to catch up." I guess a good sense of humor and nerves of steel are a must to work there.

At last we got the all clear and everyone went back in to do a through search, assisted by the MPD. Brunei, Honister and I escorted de Ventron, Strausswirt and Chief Reilly to our secret room and were pleasantly surprised that we did not have to wade in ankle-deep water to do it. It took a mere moment to finish the removal of the false wall. It soon become clear that Monsieur Baricourt or Meyer hadn't taken into account the possibility of sudden discovery or made any kind of arrangements for the speedy destruction of the incriminating evidence.

Despite his best efforts, we discovered documents and plans secreted in nooks and crannies everywhere. In a soft cloth bag in one of those nooks were ten shiny new Hamburg Police badges.

We piled everything on top of the bed.

De Ventron and Honister, who could also read French, went through the pile. He was the one to hit the jackpot. We crowded around him and de Ventron as they opened the large diagram. Neither Honister nor Reilly knew what they were looking at, but the rest of us did. In almost perfect unison, we gasped in surprise but had to keep quiet as neither Honister nor Chief Reilly had a-need-to-know.

The shipyard drafting department serves also as a cover for the naval research activity, known to some of us as NSA for "no such activity." Officially it did not have a name and was mainly known by where it was located. The building was a small non-descript two floor edifice, sheltering an organization devoted to turning up-time ideas and knowledge into down-time functionality with occasional detours toward the road never taken. The brainchild of the admiral, it operates with a shoestring budget and handful of personnel in the fulfillment of unique naval needs.

It could be a powerful force multiplier, as the Danes found out the hard way in '34, and has not stopped working since, waiting patiently for our cash-strapped nation to provide the budget to move its newest shipbuilding projects into reality. They were located in one of the most out-of-the-way, and well-protected, areas of the yard, far from the general activities and knowledge of most members of our naval community.

Now, spread on the bed, lay a rather detailed plan of the building, with all the known active and passive security measures. Under no conceivable circumstance could this be considered a good thing.

I looked at de Ventron with wary eyes and quickly noticed how pale she had become. I couldn't blame her; the diagram was the last piece of the puzzle that put together Ferdi's assassination, the false badges and this nest of spies.

However, instead of tying everything together with a nice pretty bow, it introduced a whole new set of troubles and unanswered questions.

One thing was glaringly obvious; we had a mole inside the Navy Yard.

* * *

We scoured the house from top to bottom in search of anything that could help us pinpoint the source of the leak or the identity of the mole. Apart from a stash of shipyard workers' uniforms, nothing else of significance was discovered.

De Ventron left early with the diagram and other materials to brief Simpson and to give her superiors at ONI a heads up.

I didn't have to read tea leaves to know that everyone's morning at ONI was going to be ruined. The ferreting-out of moles and spies is more their kind of game than ours, although we, like the provost office, will stand ready to provide assistance.

At last, concluding that we had gotten as much site exploitation as we were likely to get, we prepared to return to the yard, leaving behind a house whose walls seemed to have endured the attention of a flock of overzealous woodpeckers. For the moment, the MPD was going to secure the premises until we all agreed on its disposition. Anxious to return to the yard Brunei, Strausswirt and I thanked Chief Reilly and Honister for their assistance.

In return, Reilly thanked us back for allowing his department to assist and for the professional way we had conducted ourselves throughout the whole process. He also suggested we get together more often to conduct training and improve inter-agency communications. Much had happened in less than a week, because for the first time that I can remember, I actually thought it was a nifty idea and didn't add any of my usual wise-ass comments. Perhaps it was a sign that I have finally buried the hatchet with the MPD. The chief excused himself and, looking at his up-time wristwatch, made an off-hand comment that if he hurried up, he might able to make it to the Schwinger service.

It dawned on the rest of us that there was something else that we needed to do before we could call it a day. I had an idea and told them what I wanted to do. Everyone agreed with my proposal, and I sent for Stoffel and Kathee Hudson. Our fast trip through the Magdeburg streets in full assault gear would become a source of gossip and much comment in the succeeding days, but no one tried, or even dared to try, to prevent our passage.

The church, as befit my friend's standing in the community, was packed. To the consternation of the pastor and many of those present, members of the PSRT and NCIS, together with MPs, MAAs, and two very out-of-place junior Marine musicians, filed into the sides and back of the nave.

Flanked by Brunei and Strausswirt I walked down the center aisle, with Honister bringing up the rear. Our arrival had stopped the service cold, and everyone was looking at us, astonished. We ignored comments about our grimy appearance, or our apparent lack of manners. Nothing of that sort mattered to us as we marched the whole way down the nave, heads held high and holding our helmets smartly under our left arms until we reached Ferdi's plain coffin.

I was later told that we stopped as one and bowed our heads in unison but I am not surprised that we did so. We were now a team. I turned and faced left, where Hanne and her children sat in the front row pew. She had an expectant look on her face as she held Julius' hand and stared at us. In the pew behind them, I saw Chief Reilly taking his seat beside Herr and Frau Gericke, and I gave them a small nod before walking toward Hanne.

When I stood in front of her, I passed my helmet to Brunei and knelt on one knee. Taking hold of her free hand, with suddenly blurred eyes, I told her: "We got him! We got them all!" Disregarding propriety, and my dirty gear, she hugged me, crying.

* * *

Sadly, Magdeburg had grown accustomed to military funerals, but had never seen one for a policeman. We all agreed that by his actions, Ferdi had earned the honor. So, he got the uniformed pallbearers, the three volleys and a boy bugler playing "Taps." As we lowered his coffin, a girl piper played "Amazing Grace" with such a feeling that there was not a dry eye around. He also got one more thing before they nailed the coffin lid for the final time.

I pinned an NCIS badge, a real one, to his chest.

Epilogue

The Eagle, Globe and Anchor (EGA) Kneippe
The Strausswirt Family, Proprietors
Magdeburg City, USE
2000 Hours Local Time, A month later

It was another Movie Night at the EGA, and the place was packed to the rafters. Everyone seemed to be having a good, but orderly, time. There are some distinct advantages to having one of your daughters as the local provost marshal, and imperial agents and military police hanging around your place when off duty. It was my first night back here since Ferdi's memorial service last month, and I told everyone that I had been busy, which was pretty close to the truth. I really did want to keep a low profile. The town was still buzzing several weeks after our impromptu parade and colorful participation in his funeral, and the press continued to write about the raid and its aftermath.

Admiral Simpson agreed with my assessment of the value of Ferdi's deeds. Three days after the funeral, I escorted him to the Schwinger's' residence to pay his respects, and to present Hanne with the Navy Commendation Medal. Ferdi also became the first civilian in the brief history of our navy to be mentioned in dispatches. I hoped that it would ease some of her pain, and her children's pain, by giving his loss meaning, and a purpose.

Only time will tell.

Our mole is still at large, which was the reason I had been genuinely busy. Our interviews with Herr Meyer and the rest of his cohorts were not as productive as we all hoped. We discovered that, except for Meyer, everyone had been a hired hand, perhaps a better kind of mercenary than we were used to dealing with, but mercenaries nonetheless. Even Meyer had been hired as force commander through intermediaries, and although he had received copious amounts of intelligence materials, he had never met anyone directly involved in its collection. This alone showed a sophisticated level of compartmentalization that we had not seen before. Remember, we are talking about Magdeburg, a place where you can't throw a rock without hitting a spy.

Our conversations with him also led us to an interesting conclusion. While their attack plan was carefully designed to inflict a maximum amount of death and destruction on our R&D efforts, their escape plan did not rise to the same level. For all practical purposes, this was intended to be a one-way mission. The level of ruthlessness that this implied was awe-inspiring.

De Ventron even admitted to me that, although Meyer and his main lieutenants were French, she could not tie the blame to Richelieu, or even to France, and her gut feeling was that someone had gone to a lot of trouble to provide misdirection.

This was most significant. If you knew how she felt about the good cardinal, you can understand how much soul searching it took for her to admit that. That leaves us back where we started. There is still a hidden and ruthless enemy out there, gunning for us. This was not the time to lower our guard.

We did get some names, and other leads, and ONI is following up on them. In the meantime, we in NCIS have been redoing the background checks of everyone working, or having any connection with NSA, so far unsuccessfully. Nothing significant has jumped out at us. There is, however, one thing that we and ONI have learned, and that is patience. We will get him, or perhaps her; it's just a matter of time.

One of Meyer's associates, Pablo Rodriguez, a Spaniard better known to us as Herr Paul Diermissen, confessed to Ferdi's killing. He was the same guy who had been too close to the window-breaching charge but had survived to tell the tale.

To my surprise, Rodriguez corroborated Fräulein Cramer's account of her involvement with Ferdi's death and saved her life. Perhaps there was, after all, honor among thieves.

* * *

Life goes on. After much nagging and the occasional threat of withholding of marital privileges, Brunei had her way and dragged me here. They are showing Lethal Weapon, one of my favorite movies. Normally, it would have been enough to pull me out of my doldrums, but it also had been one of Ferdi's favorites. So I kept thinking about him as I sipped the same tankard of beer, its contents remaining mostly untouched for the last hour. That was strange; I have lost comrades before, so I couldn't really justify how I felt.

Darn shame that I was not at my usual sharp wit, because the place was a target-rich environment. To start with, Britt Strausswirt had an actual day off and dressed like a girl. No one could remember when that happened last; many wondered aloud if those were signs of the apocalypse.

These portents could only be explained by the presence of her pet fly-guy and under-the-table flight instructor, Eugene "Woody" Woodsill. I gave the guy points for bravery: showing up at a Marine club in air force uniform is not something done by the faint-hearted. On the other hand, if my guess about the why of his presence here tonight is correct, Woody may have preferred mauling by a whole Marine regiment instead of the deep conversation that he was having at the moment with Herr Strausswirt.

I heard shouted greetings and turned to look at the new arrivals. To my great surprise, I saw Karl Honister entering the kneippe in the company of an unknown young civilian woman. He looked happy and relaxed. Good for him, I thought, and then I took a good look at his companion and did a double-take. Dumbstruck, I emptied my whole tankard before daring to glance again.

My eyes were not deceiving me.

Genghis Metzger, the navy's dark mistress of administration and signatures-in-triplicate cleans up pretty well. She also looked very much like a woman in love as she held hands with Honister. The looks that he was giving her in return made it clear that he was a goner, too. I suspected that he would be stopping by Schwinger's in the near future to check ring prices at police discounts. It is sad to see how the mighty have fallen. Both saw me and, to my horror, made a beeline for my table. I plastered a smile on my face and rose.

"Good evening, Herr Director."

"Good evening, Detective, but please its only Günter here," I told him, smiling as we shook hands. "The only three persons that go by their rank in this place are Admiral Simpson, Colonel von Brockenholz and Sergeant Major Hudson. House rules, you know. Good evening, Ghen . . . I mean, Hanna," my ears burned at the slip.

"That's okay, Günter. I actually like being called Genghis. It's amazing how the right nickname can speed up the delivery of supply requisitions," she told me, dimpling a smile. Oh, damn! She just looked adorable!

"I want to thank you for your invitation, Günter. I have never been to your famous Movie Night before."

I smiled, without a clue.

"Frau Spitzer told me that this movie is one of your favorites."

Ah, clarity at last. I looked in Brunei's direction and saw her devilish little grin as she kept an eye on me. Darn that woman!

"Yes, indeed it is, Karl. It will be at least a half hour before the movie starts. Would you two care for something to drink?"

"Not for me right now, sir. I think that I'm going to check on Annalise. She looks sort of green," said Genghis. I turned to look, Schuhmacher had been sitting with Brunei and Frau Strausswirt and if I knew them well, they were probably regaling the poor kid with harrowing tales of childbirth. I felt sorry for her . . . really.

With a gesture, I invited Karl to sit.

"I hear that congratulations are in order. Official Liaison to Naval Law Enforcement; it sounds impressive." I said.

He looked embarrassed. "Chief Reilly told me that as long as I was hanging around with you guys, he might as well make it official."

Yes, I had been told that Romeo here had become quite a regular fixture in our office at lunch breaks. So far, I had been fortunate not to catch the love birds in action, but my fire hose is always standing by.

"So, Karl, have you considered my offer," I asked. Hey, I may be clinically depressed, but I'm not crazy, and he is definitely NCIS material.

Again, he looked sort of embarrassed. "Well, Günter, I'm really flattered by your offer, but you know something?"

I listened intently as I signaled the barmaid to bring us another round.

"When Chief Reilly and Lieutenant Chieske recruited me, they talked about wanting to professionalize the city watch and turn it into a real police force. Despite the obstacles, we have made great progress and I want to stay and help them reach that goal. So, thanks, but no, I think that Magdeburg and the MPD need me more, and anyway competition is good for everybody."

I smiled and nodded in agreement. He definitely was one of us, a sheepdog. It was a damn shame for NCIS, but he did have a good head on his shoulders and the right ideas, so it was definitely a gain for Magdeburg and the MPD. I made a note to talk soon to Reilly, informally. He needed to start looking for more kids like Karl.

The barmaid deposited two new freshly filled tankards and picked up my now empty one. I pulled my money purse out. The EGA had a strict pay-as-you-go policy on drinks.

"No, Günter, my treat," Honister said, paying the maid. I'm neither a fool, nor likely to look a gift horse in the mouth, so I readily accepted, but I did make a mental note to get the next round. Honister waited, and I realized that he wanted me to give the toast.

"Absent companions!" The Marine traditional toast to fallen comrades sounded strange for those who heard it in the first place. He looked puzzled at first but still touched his tankard lid to mine. It was time to move on, and I took inspiration from another of my late friend's favorite movies. I knew that, wherever he was, Ferdi would approve.

"You know, Karl, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

* * *

Dedicated to the Sheepdogs that man the line against the Wolves, you know who you are.

Special recognition goes to Sarah Hays, Neil Hansen, John Harvell and John Johnson for their help on navigating my usual grammar-free zone and Virginia DeMarce for her comments. Thanks, guys!

Yes, Dear

Written by Terry Howard and James Copley

"Wives . . . more trouble than the Methodist church."
The Devil, in Damned Yankees.

Lili Trainer entered the office and without a word to the receptionist, the clerk or Dwight Rogers' secretary, walked straight into the site manager's private office. When your husband is the manager's boss and your late father owned part of the company—which you expect to inherit when the estate gets through probate—you can get away with doing things like that.

"Dwight, I'm sick and tired of the mud and the dust, and tripping on the damned cobblestones. Do something about it." There was cobblestone on the old part of the street in a little village just outside of Celle where the oil company had leased land to build an office and some modern housing for senior staff. The new section of the street was just packed dirt. The duke owned the village and he hadn't done anything about extending the paving.

"I suppose we could put down oil on the roads for the dust."

"Now that would be a waste of oil." Lili made it sound like an accusation.

"Not really. Bunker fuel is too heavy for diesels. The steamboats out of the naval yard can burn it, what we don't burn to run the refinery. That still leaves the stuff that is too thick to be bunker fuel and too light to be tar."

Lili shook her head, "You'd end up with oil getting tracked into the houses. Then when it rains it just makes the mud worse. You've got that asphalt stuff. Don't tell me it's not asphalt! I looked it up! It's that bitamen stuff they make asphalt with! Don't tell me that isn't what you've got in those big thatch-covered piles, at Weitze. Why can't you spread it over the roads?"

Dwight sighed. He had just had this same argument with the army liaison when he came to negotiate their fuel prices. "Lili, that's impossible right now." He began his well-rehearsed explanation. "It isn't that simple. What we need to do is mix the 'bitumen' with aggregate, to make bitmac. Even then you can't just spread it on the ground, and believe me it's not as simple as just pouring it like cement. You first have to have the proper road base, which means you need surveyors because once you put in a hard road it's kind of permanent. So after the road is staked, then it has to be graded and stabilized. Ideally that calls for stabilized gravel, over a bed of larger stone. Stabilized gravel means gravel with sand and the right clay in the right mix. Then you can put down the bitmac."

"So do it."

"Happy to. I don't like muddy streets either. Tell your husband to get me a steady supply of gravel in different grades, plenty of sand, and the right kind of clay." Dwight ticked off the items on his fingers.

"Along with an endless supply of gravel and sand, I'll need a roller, and scrapers. And we'll need culverts for the cross streets and some way to get an even layer of asphalt spread over large areas. An asphalt laying machine would be nice. Bradford Steam Works in Grantville can build one, but for now we don't have one. Nobody does.

"Get me my shopping list and I'll get started. Until then the bitumen is just going to sit there."

"Is that all, Dwight? I thought you said it was impossible."

"It isn't going to be easy or cheap, which is the same thing as impossible."

"No it isn't, Dwight. It's not anywhere near close to being the same thing. You and Jerry, two big-shot engineers! How many times have I heard you two say that the first step in solving a problem is stating it clearly? You might as well be talking about an alcoholics' anonymous twelve-step program. The first step is admitting that you have a problem. Well, at least you've admitted it. But from your shopping list I don't see why it's a problem at all."

"Lili, we'll have to re-invent some of the equipment, 'cause Grantville sure isn't going to give up any of its up-time equipment just so we can have a smooth ride. Besides, the county's hot asphalt machine wasn't inside the ring, so they don't have one to loan us anyway."

"I still don't see why we can't do it. We've got the asphalt. We know how to do it. Grantville has paved roads. Why can't we?" Lili walked out into the heat of an August summer.

Dwight rolled his eyes skyward.

* * *

The sunshine announced it was Sunday morning, a lazy time to lay about and take it easy. The Baptists in the area decided one Sunday service was enough and that an afternoon service was more amenable. They had to gather from Wietze to Celle and beyond. Since the sermons were kept short and the Baptists were willing to share the pulpit, the English speakers came together every Sunday. It wasn't just the Church of Christ and the Methodists who turned up. Some Lutherans and Catholics, and some un-churched showed up too. Worshipping in German or Latin, on top of living in German and polyglot jargon, just wasn't the same as back up-time. Besides, the ladies arranged for an old-fashioned, West Virginia dinner to be served up after the service. People had been known to socialize until they had to leave to be home by dark.

Perhaps the oddest thing about it was the number of down-time English speakers who showed up. As long as they stuck to English they were welcome. The old deacon, Doty Maze, had held a German-language Baptist worship service for his growing class of converts on Sunday morning until he got shot and killed. Then a down-timer took over as pastor. Without the old deacon to link them together they were two different congregations now.

Helga, the Trainer family's maid, knew that on Sunday mornings breakfast didn't happen on a schedule, but hot biscuits were not required. A short order menu was fine. Often a pastry bought on Saturday from the bakery in Celle was all she needed. She knew Mr. Trainer would still wake up at five o'clock. He would hit the bathroom, brush his teeth and go back to bed and back to sleep. Around seven Mrs. Trainer would wake her husband up. Helga would become aware of them whenever they came down for breakfast.

On the last Sunday morning in August 1636 Helga did not have to wait for them to come downstairs. The whole house, from basement to attic, was very aware of Mr. and Mrs. Trainer—starting at twelve minutes after seven.

Helga heard it all. At a volume that would not stop rising until it was rattling the shingles, Lili started with: "Jerry Trainer, you ungrateful, selfish pig! I've given you the best years of my life! I even got a job to pay the bills so you could get your masters degree! I'm not asking for all that much, just a decent, civilized place to live with a few basic amenities! It's not surprising you like the mud; you're a pig. A selfish, self-centered, arrogant pig! Don't tell me it can't be done. Dwight says he can do it!"

"I didn't say it can't be done. I said it can't be done right now!"

"Dwight says it can!"

"Well, he doesn't have to pay for it!"

"Neither do you! It's company money we're talking about here. My money! Not yours!"

"It isn't your money until the probate is settled. It can't be settled until the court rules on the claim your dad was co-mingling public and private funds. Then there's the charges of profiteering, and conflict of interest! That will take awhile. The probate is a mess."

"So what?" Lili crossed her arms as she looked away. "That just means it'll take longer for me to pay it back to the company."

That didn't make any sense at all to Jerry. Did she think she could spend some portion of the company's money as she wished and in advance? Clearly the facts were whatever she wanted them to be and when she looked away like that he knew there was absolutely no way of getting her to see reason.

"Even if your mother does go ahead and sign her interests over to you like she says she's going to, if and when she actually gets any, you still won't own anywhere near a majority."

His arms waved wildly as he emphasized his point. "Even if you did, you couldn't do whatever you want! It's a publicly traded company! I know your dad acted like he owned it all. That's what all the fuss is about. At the time nobody cared as long as he got the oil flowing. Now, it's the money flow they're interested in. I can't run the company that way. I've got to look out for everybody's interests, what is best for the bottom line. Paving the street in front of the office and our homes is out of the question!"

"Dwight says it isn't. Dwight says all he needs is gravel!"

"Well, if that's what Dwight said, then Dwight is an even bigger idiot than you are or he's lying through his teeth just to get your goat!"

Oops. It really wasn't wise to make a remark like that. Jerry knew that as well as he knew his name.

"I'm an idiot? I'm an idiot?" Her volume climbed with every repetition.

"Lili, look. We'll be putting down gravel this spring. Okay?"

"Why stop there when we've got all of that stuff on hand that can be asphalt as soon as you add gravel?"

"Time, trained people, and equipment that we don't have and can't get!"

"Dwight says we can get it."

"Laura Lee Trainer!" His voice was straining with exasperation. "Just who is going to pay for it? I can't justify spending company money on it!"

"But, Dwight said . . ."

"I don't care what Dwight said!" Jerry replied, barely restraining himself. "It isn't going to happen! It costs too much!"

"Jerry, that's your answer to everything! I'm damned lucky you wanted flush plumbing and hot running water or that would have cost too much, too!" Lili's voice was practically a howling growl. "It's your answer to everything. If you don't want it, then it costs too much. But you can always seem to find a way to do it if it is something you want. That golf course you laid out between the oil wells was the dumbest thing I ever heard of! But I guess it didn't cost too much!" The last part was a rising shriek.

"All right! Listen, we've got gravel coming. I've got to pay the crews to put it down anyway. I tell you what, Miss Smarty Pants. If you think it is just that simple, you figure a way to pay for the asphalt machine and I'll find a way to cover the other costs! Okay?"

"And you think I can't, don't you? You just make sure you keep your end of the deal!"

"Yes, dear!" Jerry snarled.

Helga watched Jerry grab his golf clubs and stomp out of the house. He didn't come home for lunch and he didn't show up at church that night either. When he did come home he slept on the couch.

* * *

"Dwight? Why in hell did you tell my wife you could pave the streets if I wasn't being a stubborn, pig-headed idiot about getting you the gravel you needed?"

"I never said that."

"Yeah, well what did you say?"

"I said I'd need aggregate, scrapers, rollers, a paving machine, surveyors, a trained labor force and lots of time."

"Do you have any idea what that is going to cost? Shoot, just getting the equipment made up is going to cost a fortune."

"Sure, I know that. That's why we haven't done it already. I told your wife as much."

"Well, she didn't hear that part of it. All she seems to have heard is that you can do it if I get you the gravel."

"Sorry, Jerry."

"Shoot, Dwight, I know it's not your fault. The woman has selective hearing. I know; I've lived with her for years. But since her father died and she knows she's going to own a big chunk of the company she acts like she owns the world."

"Ha!" Dwight snorted. "Can you imagine what she'd do if she did? We'd be out of a job in a hurry!"

"Nah!" Jerry got a shit-eatin' grin on his face and dropped into a hillbilly cant, which he only did when he was wantin' ta be nasty and ridicule someone, "She'd miss us. Come a light bulb needin' changed, we'd be back on suffer'ce. Just you watch . . ."

* * *

After a quiet breakfast in the solar, Georg, Duke of Kalenberg sat reading dispatches from the engineers at Wietz, while his wife, Anna Eleanor, busily applied embroidery to one of her daughter's new dresses.

"Georg, I was talking to Mrs. Trainer. Wouldn't it be nice to have an asphalt road, like they have in Grantville, from the docks to the manor? I wonder what it would be like to have roads that didn't wash away or turn to mud," she said as she glanced his way. "Darling, you said so yourself when we were in Grantville that the roads there were superb. And I, for one, think it would be a fine investment, what with all the new trade going on down by the river.

"What a market district we could have. And surely it would draw some of that Grantville business you've been harping about."

"Yes dear," Georg replied, without really listening to what his wife was saying.

"I can't imagine it would be too expensive to get it done. A good portion of the things we need are right here."

"Hm . . ."

"Then I can go ahead and order it done?"

Georg mumbled something indecipherable. It might have been, "Yes, dear."

"Also, Mrs. Trainer was telling me that they will need a machine or two that they don't have but could get made in Grantville, and some rock and such from the quarry.

"Oh, and this should make even a pfennig-pincher like you happy; Lili said if we paid for the machines then the oil company would undertake the cost of scouting out and training the crews and working out the . . .'bugs' is what she said. I think she may mean the new machines might have problems and they would have to work them out."

Grumble . . . Mumble . . .

"Thank you, darling, you're such a dear. It's so nice to talk to you in the mornings." She gathered up her sewing and left the room.

"Huh? What was that, love?" Georg looked up. Anna Eleanor wasn't in the room.

* * *

On April first a servant hurried into the telegraph office just outside of Celle in Oil Town. "I need to send a telegram," he said. "Then I will wait for a reply."

Somewhere near Grantville a telephone rang, "Good afternoon, Bradford Steam Works. How may I help you?"

"That you, Anna?"

"What's up, Maria?"

"Got a telegram for you. You want it over the phone? Or you can pay to have it hand-delivered, or you can send someone to pick it up."

"Give it to me over the phone. And hold the hard copy. Someone will pick it up maybe tomorrow."

"Doesn't sound like a happy customer. It says:

April 1, 1637

To: Bradford Steam Works, New Street, Schwarza

From: Georg, Duke of Kalenberg, Celle

You want how much—stop—

For what—

—End—"

"Anna let me call you back after I check this out."

* * *

April 1, 1637

To: Georg, Duke of Kalenberg. Celle

From: Bradford Steam Works, New Street, Schwarza

We're ready to deliver the asphalt paving equipment you ordered—stop—

The balance is due and payable upon delivery—

—End—

* * *

April 2, 1637

To: Bradford Steam Works, New street, Schwarza

From: Georg, Duke of Kalenberg, Celle

I never ordered any asphalt paving equipment—stop—

What is asphalt paving equipment—stop—

I don't even know what asphalt is—

—End—

* * *

April 2, 1637

To: Georg, Duke of Kalenberg. Celle

From: Bradford Steam Works, New Street, Schwarza

We are in receipt of an order signed by Duchess Anna Eleanor along with a draft on an account with OPM, for materials cost—stop—

As verified previously, Duchess Anna Eleanor is authorized to draw upon said account—stop—

OPM requires that final payment be made by you directly or additional approval documents must be provided to them, due to OPM's withdrawal restrictions—

—End—

* * *

Georg scrubbed his face hard after placing the telegraph form back onto the table. The servant who delivered it, anxiety showing on his face, slowly started to slide away along the wall as he attempted to avoid his lord's wrath.

With a deep sigh, the duke placed his hands flat on the table, and raised his head, piercing the servant with his gaze.

"Would you kindly request that the Duchess Anna attend me here at once." It was a capital O Order, not a request.

Hearing more than a little steel in the voice, the servant scampered off, relieved the lord's wrath would strike elsewhere.

* * *

"Anna, what has possessed you?! Because of your order, our investment account at OPM has reduced by half!" Georg ground his teeth as his wife calmly entered the study and gracefully ignored his outburst of anger. She looked over the papers sitting on his desk, noting the telegrams from Grantville.

"Anna! You simply cannot do something like that without my permission."

"Don't you remember? I asked you about this, over breakfast, months ago, back in September! You didn't object then, and besides, it's a wonderful investment. Imagine the prestige of being the only city outside of Grantville with asphalt roads."

"We can't just build roads wherever we want! Agreements must be negotiated, documents drawn up, approved and signed. I have no right to . . ."

"And who tells the duke what to do in his own duchy? Are you a duke or a mouse? If you want to build a road, you simply buy the rights to build a road. Simple, no?"

"Simple? Yes, if want to start a revolt. But that is beside the point. Are you trying to bankrupt me? Why should we spend money on asphalt? We have plenty of roads, and the streets by the docks are just that, by the docks! Who cares if they're muddy? You don't have to walk in them!"

Anna's eyes grew flinty. "Bankrupt you? Whose dowry money do you think is in that account in the first place? An account, dear husband, you refused to even think of putting any of your money into. You called it 'that up-time foolery,' as I recall!"

Georg screwed his eyes shut for a moment, realizing he might have gone a bit far. "But, Anna, dearest, I am the person who is responsible for your fortune, and I have to take better care of your money than of my own. It really would be irresponsible of me to let you risk more than just a very little of it on untried, harebrained schemes. We had this discussion when you insisted on investing some of your money in that crazy, up-time foolery. I only very reluctantly acquiesced with your wishes. It seems I may have been wrong, at least so far, anyway. You've been getting a very good return. At least up to now. But then you go and spend half of it without even asking me. It's not like the law allows you to make this sort of transactions without my consent—except, it seems—in Grantville. This paving machine you ordered is ridiculous. I didn't realize you would be able to access that account like this without my consent."

The storm clouds over Anna's head darkened even further. Georg could feel the growing threat to his domestic tranquility like cold juices running up his spine to shoot icy fingers into his brain that hurt like daggers. He recalled how Anna had threatened to seek financial "emancipation" when she insisted on making the investment in OPM. If she did, especially now that the first investment worked out so well, he would be a laughingstock.

"Don't 'but, Anna' me, Georg! You let me have joint access to that account because, and I quote, 'You might as well control it, there won't be anything left in six months anyway!' Well, you were wrong about that, and you are wrong about this, too. That paving machine is going to be the second best thing that ever happened to you. The only thing better was the day my father—who must have been dead drunk at the time—agreed to let you marry me.

"Just because a bit of your family's lands has suddenly become supremely useful, does not suddenly make you the smartest man of means in Kalenberg. If my family had not assisted you in the initial finance of the oil fields, you too would be simply looking in from the outside! Ownership or not!"

Georg felt an urgent desire to flee back to his troops in Gustav's service where all he had to worry about was getting shot to death. There at least I know what I am doing, charge when you can win and retreat when you can't. But modern finances are a bottomless quagmire. Life had been so much simpler in those days. Lord in Heaven, give me a nice, simple, peaceful war.

Anna never even slowed down.

"I talked about things with Mrs. Trainer and some other ladies from Grantville, back when you were being stubborn about investing in OPM, Georg. They told me, if I go to Magdeburg or Thuringia-Franconia, I can have a divorce just by asking for one. I wouldn't even have to prove you were spending all of my money on, as Lili put it, fast horses and wild women.

"Then I could establish my own power over all my property! My family already has an estate in Franconia, so I don't even need to establish residency. I am already arguably a native of that state.

"It's only these benighted places like Duchies of Luneburg and Brunswick where a woman is always under some man's guardianship. Well, my high and mighty lord and master, as duke of Luneburg and Brunswick you can legislate that old-fashioned stupidity away. And I fully intend to see that you do. And you will. Because if you don't, well, I will go to my home in Franconia. Do you really want me to divorce you? I can and you know it!"

Georg's mind went back, yet again, for a time beyond counting: to the day when he and his brothers drew lots twenty years earlier to decide which one of them would marry so the family's wealth would be preserved in one line instead of being sub-divided into ever smaller separate bits and pieces. Why did I have to lose by winning? I'd be free to have mistresses and no commitments. I could hunt and travel and enjoy life. I'd have a free rein with the stuff of wine cellars. His thoughts took a turn back to reality. Yes and I'd have gout in my feet like August, which is not so good after all. The winning lot could have fallen to Fritz. He would have done well with it. But, then I wouldn't have my delightful children. I'd be just an uncle. I'd miss having kids.

A man needs to have harmony at home, how else am I going to preserve our dynasty's power, to serve the emperor and the true faith, and to ensure a good future to my sons? "Anna, quit being silly. There is no need talk about a divorce. I only want the best for you and our children."

The duchess, somewhat mollified, admitted, "So do I. I don't really want a divorce. Even after comparing notes with the ladies from Grantville, I still know very well that I've invested the best years of my life in you. And I've finally gotten you relatively well trained, as much as any man can be. But you will see to it that the law is changed."

Georg decided to keep his mouth shut. But he couldn't help but wonder. Trained? Like a hunting dog? Like a horse? Is it that how she sees me? Is that really how women see their husbands?

Anna continued, "Most of my fortune is safely in real estate anyway. Real estate always survives. Cash money can be invested in riskier ventures; the higher the risks, the higher the return. I can afford to lose it. None of it is borrowed; none of the properties are at risk. It might take two or three good crop years but I can replace what I lose, if I do indeed lose anything. Which I won't! Georg, this paving machine is going to be a gold mine!

"Besides, even if I don't make any money back, I will still get a good paved road from here to the river. That is something I am more than willing to pay for."

"But, the costs . . ."

"Oh, bother the costs. We would finally be able to ride from the valley to the river without once getting out while the carriage was pulled out of the mud, or having our teeth rattled out of our heads." Anna rose and began to stride out of the room . . . "That by itself will be a wonder."

* * *

Jerry Trainer came home for a quiet, relaxing lunch and walked into a beehive of activity. Lili was supervising half a dozen women busily scrubbing the house down, top to bottom.

"I thought you decided, last year, to leave the spring cleaning until after the streets dried up," Jerry said as he pecked his wife on the cheek.

"Oh, that? Well the mud won't be a problem this year and we have an important guest coming so I want the house to shine."

Jerry heard two alarms in his head and decided to check out the safer one first. "Who's coming?"

"Anna Eleanor, the wife of Duke Georg. You've met her before."

"The duchess? Why is she coming? Her husband isn't, is he?" Jerry felt the cold chill of uncertainty running down his back. They were leasing the mineral rights to the oilfields from the duke at a flat percentage of gross sales. He had been very helpful in getting access rights to the drilling sites, which was separate and different from the mineral rights, along with the lease on the land the refinery was on down by the river. There for awhile it really had looked as though they would never get a lease for enough land to build the complex everyone was calling Oil Town. Then the duke intervened. But even when he was being supremely helpful, no one likes a surprise visit from the landlord.

"No, dear, her husband isn't coming. Anna Eleanor wants to be here when her asphalt paving machine arrives. That should be next Tuesday or Wednesday. So I want the house looking its best."

Jerry's face became very calm, which it often did just before he blew up. In an unnaturally steady voice, Jerry asked, "Why is the duchess having a paving machine delivered here?"

"So we can use it while hiring and training a crew. Don't you remember? You said if I got the paving machine you would take care of everything else."

Lili looked at the expression on her husband's face. "Jerry? You aren't thinking of welshing on our deal are you? You can't, Jerry. I took you at your word. I promised Anna Eleanor that if she bought the machine we would train the crew for her for free. Of course while we're training them, we can get the streets paved, right?" Lili smiled. "You promised, Jerry. A deal is a deal."

Jerry clamped his jaw closed tight, did an about face, and marched out of the house without another word.

When he walked through the front door of the office, the receptionist took one look and ducked back to her typewriter, pounding away furiously. Her father had had a look much like that just before he took his belt off to teach someone a lesson.

With the inner office door closed, Jerry sat down and let out a long breath. "Dwight, we have a big problem!"

Dwight sat behind his desk, working a pencil back and forth between his hands, and waited without saying anything.

"Remember when Lili wanted the streets paved? I told her we couldn't afford it and we had a big fight. Well, to get her off of my back I said if she could come up with a paving machine I could take care of the rest.

"Dwight, there was no way in the world she was going to raise the money to have a paving machine built. Right?" Jerry waited for Dwight to nod.

"Well, she couldn't, and she didn't, but she got the wife of Duke Georg to do it for her. It's going to arrive next week and Lili promised the duchess we would hire and train the crew for her.

"It's not in the budget. What in the world am I going to do? I could tell Lili I was wrong . . ." Jerry plopped down in a chair in front of Dwight's desk. "She'd make me miserable, but I could do it. I could string her out and take forever with one delay after another and just put up with the constant nagging. But I can't do that with the duke's wife.

"Dwight, please, gim'me a miracle," Jerry's language was slipping, "it's not like you ain't done it before." Dwight was the up-timer with hands-on oil experience. On several occasions when the theory didn't seem to be working he had looked the situation over, made one or two small changes and everything else fell into place.

Dwight carefully placed his pencil down on the desk. "Jerry, calm down. It might not be as bad as you think. Look, we've got a hot lay asphalt paving machine that we didn't know we had. Seems to me, we can manage to pave some of the street here in Oil Town."

Jerry shook his head glumly, "I don't see how."

"What Lili was really complaining about was that the mud was getting tracked into the buildings. Right?"

"Well, that and the dust."

Dwight waved a hand in dismissal. "It's the mud that's the problem. Look, the old street is already cobblestone, and most of the new buildings have boardwalk fronts instead of sidewalks. But people pick up mud on their shoes when they cross the streets. Let's take what we've got and pave the intersections so people can cross the street and only have to deal with the mud that falls off of the wheels."

"Even that is going to cost more than we've budgeted," Jerry objected.

"If this works, once we get things rolling, I betcha the only limit will be how fast we can produce the bitmac. Yeah, we've got a stockpile, but if we pave the street here . . . once word gets out, I bet that new machine will be so busy with orders we'll run out before the end of the season. If that's the case we'll have enough of a windfall that we can buy enough gravel to do like we planned on with this round and gravel the road down to the refinery by fall. Be nice to have it paved too.

"Look, Jerry," Dwight continued, "the duchess has a paving machine and she is going to be buying bitumen. We can tap the research and development budget for some of the shortfall. Heck, if we work it right, we might even squeeze out enough to pave all of the street in front of the new buildings!"

Reaching into a desk drawer, Dwight brought out his old solar-powered calculator. He'd found it in the back of a junk drawer at home. He could have sold it for hundreds, if not thousands of dollars. Instead he kept it. He was good at math, but he hated it.

"One sec, Jerry, while I do some numbers. . ." Grabbing the budget spreadsheet, he began punching numbers into the calculator. "Okay . . . There's that . . . And . . . per crew . . ."

Jerry began to fidget, picking up an old ceramic coffee mug on the desk that Dwight used as a pen holder. He noticed a few ballpoint pens that still worked and one of the new and expensive fountain pens.

"And . . . done!" Dwight did a double-take at his calculator as he wrote the final figures onto his notepad. "Well I'll be damned . . . not bad. In fact it's downright affordable."

Jerry looked at the figure. "That's still too high, Dwight. I can't justify that big of an unbudgeted expenditure. I guess I'm gonna have to go talk to Lili . . ."

"Hold on, Jerry. You didn't let me finish. That price is if we were purchasing the materials. We already have most of the gravel on hand, and sand is, pardon the pun, dirt cheap.

"We're getting about five percent of bitumen per barrel of crude and we aren't selling very much of it. We haven't had much luck making inroads on the existing pitch markets. They're just a little afraid to try something new and we're a long way from any large users, so the transportation cost would eat us alive. I figure we can up the price when we sell it to the duchess, hey, one job and we'll be making money! There's your budget adjustment . . . Just call it development costs!"

Jerry's eyes had gotten brighter and brighter as the information worked its way through his mind. He was not a greedy type, but if this got him out from between the rock that was his wife and the hard place that was the company's shareholders, he was all for it.

Jerry jumped out of the chair, his mind racing. Visions of road crews in orange vests and projections of the next quarterly report flipped back and forth through his mind.

"Of course!" He walked to the large slate mounted on the wall, looking at manning requirements that had been chalked onto the makeshift planning calendar.

"Hot damn, Dwight! I think we gots ourselves a business here! We might want to buy our own paving machine!"

"Wait a minute, Jerry. Remember, it's only cheap for us until we run out of gravel, plus we'd have to commit a lot of money if we buy a paver. Let's just let the duchess do her thing, and we'll make money selling her the asphalt."

"Yeah, you're probably right . . ."

"So, what ya' gonna tell Lili?"

Jerry chuckled, and an evil grin grew on his face. He turned to Dwight.

"Ain't gonna tell 'er nuttin'," Jerry said in a redneck leer. "You don't think I'm going to encourage her to say, 'I told you so', do you?"

"You mean just like you never told her we really didn't actually have to have a hot-paving machine? Yeah, we need one, to get the best results, but we could have made do."

"Shhhh!" Jerry said. "Things are bad enough as it is."

* * *

Lili stood on a boardwalk facing the first paved section of Oil Town's street and watched the workmen putting blacktop on the second section while another crew packed the gravel on the third so it would be ready for asphalt; a fourth section was being dug down with horse-drawn scrapers.

Lili smiled. "See, dear," she said, squeezing her husband's hand, "Dwight was right. We can do it."

Jerry wasn't paying attention to his wife. His thoughts and eyes were on Anna Eleanor and the guests she had invited to watch the process after there was a finished section for them to see. Jerry was listening carefully to overhear the conversation the duchess was having with the duke.

"Georg, quit worrying. I already have three contracts lined up for the new company."

"But the air force is considering the possibility of requisitioning the use of the paving machine and they're insisting they have a priority claim on the stockpiled bitumen."

This didn't bother the duchess in the least. She was more than ready to rent the machine and its crew to the air force at crew cost. "Good. When we get it back, the demand, and the price, and the profit will all be just that much higher. It will be the final proof that there was no finer road surface in the world. If that happens, you can think of a score of people who will absolutely have to have it right now. As for the bitumen, well, I had someone look it up for me in the library in Grantville. There were other sources for asphalt if it ever comes down to that and Mrs. Trainer says she will get me the right of first refusal on sales here. It is really just tar after all. And the up-timers aren't the only source of tar, now are they? I've already put in an order for two more machines."

"You what?" Georg's startled voice caused heads to turn.

"Yes, dear. It is obvious this one is going to pay for itself in short order. Unless I want someone else having them made up," Anna Eleanor said, "I need to keep the machine builder busy. I want a solid lock on the business before I have to deal with competition. So I ordered one for next year and another for the year after."

Georg put a hand to his forehead and dragged it down to his face.

"You'll see. It will work out."

Jerry could see Georg taking note of how many people were looking at them. It was clear he wanted to have a fight with his wife, but not in public. What could a man say at a time like that . . . ?

Jerry chuckled. The additional costs to pave and upgrade Main Street of Oil Town were fully justifiable as a promotional expense. They could quit trying to market it as a pitch substitute, because it looked like the duchess was ready to buy all they could refine. He could foresee the day when there would be a waiting list.

Lili heard him chuckle and asked, "What? Jerry? Are you listening to me? Jerry?" There was a tug on his hand. "Earth to Jerry, come in?"

"Hum?" He quit counting the un-hatched chickens in his mind and turned to his wife. "What, dear?"

"I said," Lili's voice was a touch stern, after all, no one likes being ignored, "Dwight was right. We can do it."

Jerry smiled and took a lesson from Duke Georg of Kalenberg, a grandfather of the George kings of England in a history which now would never be. At a time like this there really was only one thing a man could safely say to a question like that from his wife.

"Yes, dear."

Small Problem with Cafe Press Store

Written by Grantville Gazette Staff

The Cafe Press store problems have been fixed and I've started ordering.  Just a bit more patience and we'll have it caught up.

Apologies for the delays, folks.

Paula, 20 Dec 09

We've got a small problem in our Cafe Press store.  If you're due some of the gifts for subscribing, I want to assure you that you haven't been forgotten. We are working on it, however the person who maintains the store and has the passwords, etc., has been in the hospital for a couple of months.

We'll keep after it and it will eventually be fixed, at which time I'll catch up on sending out the gifts.

Paula

Northwest Passage, Part Four

Written by Herbert and William Sakalaucks

London, September 1633

"Another political delay!" Cecil Calvert, Lord Baltimore, maintained an outward calm but seethed inwardly. Years of political maneuvers to secure a charter for a new colony had taught him the benefit of maintaining an appearance of calm in the face of frustrating setbacks and delays. Lately, he'd had to call on that trait more times than he cared to remember. The Calvert brothers had been waiting in Lord Strafford's outer office for over an hour in response to an urgent summons.

This made the third trip to Whitehall Palace to deal with delays about the colony. The Ark and the Dove were waiting at the Isle of Wight to reboard the colonists and sail for Maryland. The ships had already sailed once and been recalled by Charles. The note hinted that something similar might be happening again.

Cecil turned to Leonard, his brother. "I hope this isn't another problem with the Virginia Company's directors. I have the king's personal assurance that the issue is settled."

Leonard shrugged. "Maybe he wants more money for the charter. I hear he's spending much more than he can afford for these new mercenary companies. The navy's put to sea to support the French and that's going to cost too. Maybe he thinks you have a bottomless purse."

"I hope not. Even my resources are limited and these delays have stretched me to the limit." The funds to resupply his Newfoundland colony had gone to feed the settlers on the Ark and the Dove. The few settlers remaining in Newfoundland would live or die on their own efforts.

Further conversation was cut off by the opening of the door. A clerk appeared. "Lord Baltimore, Lord Strafford will see you and your brother now." He stepped back and bowed them in.

Thomas Wentworth, Lord Strafford, remained seated at his desk. The dour look on his face warned Cecil that the news was not good. Cecil and Leonard made the obligatory bow.

Cecil started the conversation. "I received your summons, Thomas, and came as quickly as feasible. How may I serve you?"

Wentworth avoided eye contact. "I won't mince words, Cecil. The king has revoked your charter. I'm sorry to be the bearer of this news." He passed a parchment with the king's seal across the desk.

"What?" Cecil quickly read the document. As he reached the end he saw his world crumble and lost his composure. "Is this another maneuver by the Virginia Company, or just an attempt by Charles to extort more money?"

"Neither, Cecil. It has nothing to do with you. His Majesty no longer has a charter to give."

"You mean he's sold it to someone else? What about the funds I've paid?"

Wentworth finally looked up. The stress of his position was evident in his gaze. "My Lord, I summoned you to tell you directly, before the rumors started. His Majesty has sold all of his possessions in the New World to France. I've also been ordered to send word to your ships that they are not to sail for Maryland. In fact, Charles does not want them back in England, either. He told me emphatically, 'since they're Catholic and don't seem to care to live in England, they're free to go elsewhere.'"

"But . . . but, my company and investments. What is to become of them? And where will my people go?"

"My friend, be thankful you are still at large." Wentworth had a strange look that awoke both Calverts' political senses.

"How many?" asked Leonard.

"More than I care to count. Anyone Charles senses as a threat or who complains about his activities." He turned to the older Calvert, "I truly am sorry, Cecil. History says you would have been successful."

"What do you mean, 'history says'?"

"Since Charles saw the books from Grantville that said Cromwell would overthrow him, his only thought has been for his personal survival. You're mentioned prominently in those histories. Just about everything they said about you was good and loyal. That's why you're still free."

"But what do I do now? All my wealth depends on starting the colony. My friends and their families are waiting to sail."

"I don't mean to sound cruel; Cecil, but I've got bigger problems than two ships full of colonists. The king sees schemes everywhere and I have to personally deal with them. Go see Richelieu. Your colonists are Catholic and he still needs someone to settle those lands he's just acquired for France." Wentworth sounded as though he made the comment half in jest. Then he then picked up a parchment and quill and started to write, avoiding any further eye contact. It was evident that the appointment was done.

Before he could say something he knew he would regret, Cecil motioned for Leonard to accompany him and they walked slowly to the door.

* * *

The atmosphere during the ride back to Cecil's London house was like an afternoon storm waiting to break. Cecil just sat and brooded. Once, Leonard started to ask a question, but Cecil raised a hand to cut him off. A brusque "Wait" was all he said.

When they arrived at the townhouse, it was evident that he had reached a decision. "Leonard, perhaps he's right. Have Matthew start packing. We leave for Paris as soon as possible. First I have to send instructions to George about the colonists, and contact some friends in Paris."

* * *

Bad news traveled quickly. The money lenders drove hard bargains. Only by mortgaging Arundel, his ancestral estate, was Cecil able to raise enough gold to possibly entice the French into ratifying his now worthless charter from Charles. Everything he held dear was now dependent on his meeting with the French. For the first time in his life, Cecil faced money problems and the stress showed.

During the boat trip down the Thames to Gravesend, he kept harping on the fact to Leonard that he should have gotten twice the amount from the lenders for Arundel. Occasional comments on Charles' ancestry and concern for the stranded colonists were the only breaks in the litany. When he started in again after they boarded the ship for La Havre, the normally mild-mannered Leonard finally told him to shut up.

Surprised by his brother's outburst, Cecil apologized. "I'm sorry, Leonard. I'm just so overwhelmed by what's happened."

"I know, brother, but you need to concentrate on what's coming. You've always been the driving force in the family. I'll help where I can, but you have to shake this fugue that's settled on you."

By the time they reached Paris, Cecil's attitude was nearly back to normal, but he still was nervous.

Paris, October 1633

When they arrived at their Paris lodgings, Cecil sorted through the mail that had been waiting for them. Most were social invitations. "Hopefully the letters I sent get us an introduction to Richelieu. The bribes were expensive enough. It was fortuitous that I meet with St. Chaumont while he was in England. He seems to have Richelieu's ear on this matter."

Leonard looked dubious. "I wouldn't count on seeing Richelieu immediately. My contacts tell me everyone goes through the intendants first. Etienne Servien will probably be the best we can hope for to begin with."

"If he actually listens, I can live with that. If he's just another with his hand out for a bribe, the delay could be serious." Cecil continued to scan the invitations and decide which he would accept

Even with the largess that he had spread around to expedite an audience, it was still two weeks before the hoped-for invitation arrived, along with another invitation.

Opening the important note first, Cecil read it quickly. "Just as you predicted, brother; it's to be Servien first. We're to meet him tomorrow."

"And the other?"

He held up the other invitation, "News travels fast. It's from Jean de Lausen, director of the Compagnie des Cent Associes. It seems that we're invited to a party this evening, for dinner and cards. I should go, but I need to prepare for our meeting with Servien tomorrow and a good night's rest would be in order." He handed the invitation to Leonard. "Why don't you go in my place? I'm sure de Lausen will understand. It should be a good opportunity to make some contacts with our possible competitors. Besides, you're a much better card player than I am. Just be careful with the wagering. Our funds aren't limitless."

Leonard stared at the invitation for a moment. "I must confess, I'm curious to find out more about these American card games people are talking about." He slipped the invitation into his breast pocket. "I'll put no wagers. Tonight, I'll go to study the games and the players. I can mix and ask questions without risking our funds, or revealing our intentions. People talk more when they think they have a naïve fish nibbling at their line."

* * *

The room was ablaze with candles and the doors to the balcony were open to alleviate the heat. While he surveyed the crowd gathered around the wealthier patrons and the card tables, Leonard noticed the moths that fluttered around the flames. The similarities between the moths and the crowd were striking.

"Monsieur Calvert?" A well-dressed Frenchman addressed Leonard speculatively.

"You have the advantage of me, sir."

"Jean de Lausen, your host. I hoped you or your brother might be here tonight. You're arrival in France was a bit of a surprise."

Leonard was instantly wary. "We're pursuing some investment contacts. Nothing serious has been found so far."

De Lausen seized on the opening and launched into a sales pitch. "Maybe you've heard of our company? The new treaty with England has greatly expanded our opportunities in the New World. We're looking for additional investors. Maybe you would have some time to discuss your investment needs with our directors?"

"We might. If you would send a note to our lodgings, my brother and I will try to fit you into our schedule."

"Would Friday work for you? I'm sure you'll need time to digest the results of your meeting with Servien tomorrow."

Leonard kept a poker face. It seemed their meeting was not a secret. "I'll discuss your proposal with my brother once we've received your note. He will make the final decision."

De Lausen finally recognized the brush off, but bowed graciously. "In the meantime, let me introduce you to other, like-minded, guests here tonight," he offered, motioning to a group gathered around a card table across the room.

After introductions and some desultory small talk, Leonard settled into an open spot to watch the card game. After a few hands, a light touch on his elbow caught his attention.

"Does Monsieur play poker?" The silk brocade coat and jewels shouted wealth and nobility.

"I've heard about it. I'd hoped to see it this evening and learn some of the finer points before I risk my funds."

His unnamed acquaintance continued, "I prefer primero or baccarat. They're more civilized games, but I would be glad to explain it."

"Thank you. That is most gracious." Leonard was positive his companion was important, but didn't want to cause an embarrassment by asking his name.

Over the next hour, Leonard was educated on poker, with a continuing litany of how it was inferior to French card games. The inane comments started to grate. As he was trying to find a polite way to excuse himself, Leonard was saved by the approach of a footman.

"Monsieur Gaston, your carriage is ready as you requested."

His companion turned to him. "Monsieur Calvert, I hope I was of help this evening. I must be off. Until we meet again." He bowed and followed the footman out.

Leonard hid his surprise. This was no coincidence. The king's brother spending an hour with him, and knowing his name signaled that he was fishing in deep waters. After waiting a reasonable period, he thanked de Lausen for the convivial evening and returned to his lodgings. He wanted to discuss the unexpected turn of events with his brother, but he had already retired for the evening.

* * *

The next morning, breakfast was cold by the time Leonard finished relating the events of the previous evening. Cecil let Leonard relate the entire series of meetings before commenting. "I can understand de Lausen's interest. He's concerned about his monopoly. If we're successful, his charter loses value. That fiasco back in '29 with the Kirke Brothers almost wiped them out. Losing an entire expedition is expensive."

Cecil paused. "I should know, we're there right now, too. What I can't fathom is what Gaston's intentions are. He loves to intrigue. I don't know what he hopes to gain here. Did he give any indication why he was interested in us?"

"Nothing," Leonard said. "Just that last comment about meeting again. Maybe he's heard something about today's meeting. It seems everybody has. Or maybe he was just fishing."

* * *

The meeting with Servien started out as a replay of their last visit to Whitehall. They sat and waited. This time, though, it turned out that they weren't kept waiting just to bolster someone's ego. Servien himself opened his door to escort a French naval officer out. Their discussion continued as they walked. They didn't notice the waiting visitors.

Servien was evidently giving some final instructions. "Make sure de Villareal realizes the importance of stopping that expedition! He must do whatever it takes, as long as it cannot be traced back to us. We have enough unrest among our own settlers without someone else stirring the pot."

He handed the officer a dispatch pouch and then realized that the conversation might have been overheard by the visitors. Without missing a beat, he switched to mundane pleasantries and dismissed the officer.

Once the naval visitor had left, Servien came over to his waiting guests. "My apologies. The officer arrived just before you with urgent dispatches that required my attention. Please, come in and make yourselves comfortable." He bowed and motioned for them to enter.

The office was very utilitarian for someone of his rank. The single window was glazed with clear panes that admitted a good quantity of light. A carved sideboard held a carafe of wine and glasses for entertaining. He offered refreshments, but Cecil declined.

After assuring that his guests were comfortable, Servien sat down behind the desk, leaned forward, and addressed his visitors. "Lord Baltimore, Monsieur Calvert, how may I be of service to you?"

Cecil's first impression was that they were dealing with a dangerously competent official. He decided on a direct approach. "Monsieur, as my note indicated, my brother and I have come to Paris on matters concerning the recent French and English treaty on lands of the New World."

Servien just nodded, so Cecil continued.

"My family has made a significant commitment to settling territory in the New World. We hold a charter to a large section of land at the head of the Chesapeake Bay. We've come to ascertain if France intends to honor that charter."

Servien leaned back, steepling his fingers. "You raise an interesting question. Your charter is from King Charles, who no longer owns the territory. The Compagnie des Cent Associes has a charter from King Louis to all the lands in the northern Americas. It appears to me that your problem is with Charles."

Now Cecil was sure he was dealing with a dangerous opponent. Servien's reputation as Richelieu's best intendant was justified. His best hope was to go on the offensive. "Lord Strafford washed his hands of the issue. He suggested that the cardinal might be interested in our situation."

"How so?"

"I currently have two ships ready and waiting to sail with nearly one hundred and fifty Catholic settlers. All that is needed is His Eminence's blessing."

"And why should His Eminence consider this? Didn't England try to destroy France's Canadian settlements recently? The Kirke brothers' treatment of Roquemont's expedition nearly bankrupted the Compagnie. His Eminence is a major contributor and lost a great deal of money."

"You have my sympathy, but I was not involved in that affair. It was regrettable what happened, but that, too, was Charles and it is in the past. Let me be blunt, the Compagnie has had a poor record of encouraging settlers to emigrate. I offer a fully-funded expedition, ready to sail. Moreover, a Catholic expedition that no longer has ties to England. Charles has forbidden their return."

"That, I was unaware of." Servien paused a moment to digest the statement. Up to that point, he appeared to be following some well-rehearsed lines. His next comment confirmed that. "His Eminence is aware of the other issues you've raised. You have a valid point on the advantages to be gained by firmly planting a Catholic colony between Plymouth and Virginia. However the matter of your charter has already been discussed and settled. Someone has already paid the Compagnie a sizeable sum for the territory just north of Virginia."

Cecil caught the emphasis on "just north."

Servien picked up a paper from the desk and slid it across to Cecil. "The cardinal has authorized me to make the following alternative proposal to you. For the sum of 250,000 livres and ten percent of the annual revenues from the colony, he will ratify your charter from Charles, with some changes. The sum will pay the shareholders in the Compagnie for the loss of their opportunities in the region and the expenses they suffered in the recent unpleasant affair."

Cecil started to ask a question, but Etienne held up a hand for silence. "In addition, His Eminence will increase the size of your holdings. It will include all the territory between the headwaters of the Chesapeake and Plymouth."

The offer took both brothers completely by surprise, but Cecil rallied quickly. "But what of the Dutch? I would think they might object."

"That is quite likely. That is why two additional ships will accompany you. A frigate and a transport with troops will remove the Dutch squatters. Peaceably, if possible, by force if necessary. You will start your settlements by occupying New Amsterdam." He sat back in his chair. "His Eminence does not expect an immediate answer. Can you return in three days with a reply? A simple yes or no will suffice. Understand, His Eminence will not negotiate the terms. Your colonists are not that important to him."

Leonard sat quietly to the side during the exchange. It seemed the negotiations had devolved to a "take it or leave it" proposition. Some of the previous evening's events now made sense. When Cecil interrupted his thoughts and asked, "Is that agreeable brother?" he simply nodded. He knew Cecil had only about the English equivalent in gold of 100,000 livres and was probably trying to buy time.

"Let us study the proposal," Cecil said. "We may need a few more days to contact our bankers. This wasn't an option we had considered."

"Very well, but no later than next week. Other operations are underway that cannot be delayed. The Compagnie is prepared to proceed with, or without, your participation. Right now, you are merely a convenient opportunity that could quickly become inconvenient."

"Rest assured, Monsieur Servien, we will give you a timely reply."

* * *

Once in the carriage, Leonard turned on Cecil, "What in the name of all that's holy were you thinking? You didn't even try to negotiate! You know full well we don't have that much money! We have no hope of raising those types of funds. Unless you know of a gold mine in this new territory, no sane banker will lend us that amount of money. Not after the fiascos the Compagnie experienced these past few years." He pulled at his hair in frustration.

"Relax, brother. If my hunch is correct, we should get an invitation from your card-playing instructor in the next day or two. If we keep our heads, we may come through this in relatively good shape."

* * *

Cardinal Richelieu sat by the window in a dressing gown, enjoying a light cooling breeze.

"Your Eminence, I met with the Calverts and made the proposal as you directed. Their reactions lead me to believe we may have overestimated their financial means. They are definitely stalling for time. Lord Baltimore does not have what you would call a poker face. His brother does, but when I mentioned money, Lord Baltimore looked worried and pained."

"That's all right, Etienne. If they can raise the funds, we win. If they cannot, we still win."

"I don't understand."

"There is a philosophy from the future that says a successful war is one that pays for itself. If they raise the funds, we will have recouped an eighth of what was spent to acquire the new lands in the first year alone. If they cannot, we may still be able to coax their settlers into joining our new ventures without having to spend one livre in outfitting them. In either case, it is a minor matter. I have just returned from Louis and he has signed the edict."

Richelieu handed Servien a rolled up parchment. "See to it that the orders go out in the morning to Admiral Duquesne and Mausineur. I want this finished as quickly and quietly as possible.

* * *

Early the next morning, there was a knock on the door. Leonard answered it to find a man in a workman's clothes waiting. Thinking he was a peddler, Leonard glanced up and down the street but no cart was visible. The man started to reach in his jacket. Fearing an attack, Leonard started to shut the door, but then he noticed the man's hands. They were smooth, like a house servant's.

"My master sends his regards. He said he hopes the lesson in cards was helpful. He instructed me to deliver this invitation and await your reply." The man handed over an envelope and stepped back from the entrance.

Leonard glanced at the envelope. "Tell your master we would be honored. We will be ready when the carriage arrives."

Cecil was just coming downstairs. "What was that all about?"

Leonard handed over the letter he'd just finished reading. "Just as you predicted, we've been invited to meet with Monsieur Gaston! He will send a carriage by this evening. I accepted for the both of us. It can't hurt to hear what he proposes."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that. Just meeting with Monsieur Gaston . . . some might call that treason."

"Perhaps," Leonard pointed out, "if we were French."

* * *

Leonard had expected an opulent vehicle. What arrived was only remarkable in the plainness of its finish. Grey and subdued green, it would have disappeared if parked next to some trees. On the street, in the lengthening shadows, it was very forgettable. The side curtains were drawn shut; the driver wore somber, non-descript clothes. He descended from his seat, opened the door, and beckoned for Cecil and Leonard to enter. At first, the compartment appeared empty, but a movement revealed a dark-clad occupant with a black silk hood covering the face.

"Come in, come in."

Leonard recognized the muffled voice and nodded to his brother.

After the driver closed the door, the occupant removed the hood to reveal the face of the Duc d'Orléans. "Pardon my theatrics, but Richelieu's spies are everywhere and I prefer our meeting to remain unnoticed." He turned and opened a small door under the driver's seat. "Giscard, you may proceed as we discussed." The carriage departed at a sedate pace.

Cecil got down to business quickly, "Monsieur, your note did not provide much in the way of the reason you wished to meet with us."

"My reason is simple. I wish to assist you with your financial dilemma." Despite his regal position within the royal succession, Gaston gave the impression of a bumbler.

"To what are you referring?" Leonard's poker face revealed nothing.

"Oh please, Monsieur, do not take me for a fool. I refer to your meeting with Servien and his request for more money than you have available to ratify your charter. I may not wear the red cap, but I do have my sources. I am prepared to provide you the funds you need to complete your transaction."

Cecil leaned forward. "Assuming that were true, what would you want for this help?"

"Nothing!"

Cecil laughed. "We are not fools either, Monsieur! Nothing in life is free." Too many of Gaston's courtiers had ended up a head short from accepting his leadership. Cecil was worried this might lead to a similar fate. "However, we might be interested, depending on the true cost."

"I am sure, Lord Baltimore, that you are aware of the state of French politics. I have wealth, but the king has the power. And his power rests on the machinations of Richelieu. I, too, have seen some of the books about the future and what the New World means. If I were to try and participate openly in settling the New World, the cardinal would cut me off immediately."

Leonard choked back a laugh. More than one of Gaston's associates had been "cut off" when his schemes failed.

"What I seek is someone whose friendship and assistance can be counted on in the future and has no visible connections to my cause. That is worth more to me than this trivial amount of gold."

A tapping from the driver's area interrupted the discussion. "We are passing by the Palais-Cardinal," Giscard said, just loud enough to be heard.

Monsieur Gaston pulled a curtain aside. In an overt display of theatrics, he pointed to a lit room on the second floor. "Even now, my opponent is planning his next move." The shadows of two figures moved against the curtains. "I seek a counterweight for his actions."

* * *

In the room Gaston had pointed at, Cardinal Richelieu was meeting with Michael Mausineur. Only a few trusted servants knew who he was and why he was there.

Richelieu pointed to a map of the New World on the wall. "If France is to endure and flourish, the New World will be the basis." Pausing and gathering his thoughts, he continued, "Michael, I have a special task for you."

"As always, your Eminence. I stand ready to serve France."

"As we already discussed, Monsieur Champlain is to be the titular head of the new colonizing effort in the southern Atlantic area of the Americas. He will be supplied with colonists to establish a strong trading and military center in the south." He reached for one of the up-time books lying on the table. It lay open to a page titled The Battle for Charleston 1777. He pointed to the illustration of a palmetto log fort. "This will be our bastion to defend against any Spanish incursions. The new settlement will be military, first and foremost.

"Champlain understands how to handle traders but not how to defend a colony. His past failures are evidence of that shortcoming. The military will be your responsibility. I want a fortress built there. You will carry on when he is gone." He closed the book. "I intend this effort to solve another potential problem at this time too. I want to transplant the Huguenots from the Poitou area to America. I need to dilute their strength. The king has already signed the edict.

"Work with Admiral Duquesne and Jean Guitton from La Rochelle. They're both Huguenots and not to be entirely trusted, but should be able to help 'persuade' enough Huguenots to move and still maintain their leadership among them. Guitton will see this as an opportunity to improve his position and the bribe he took should be sufficient to insure that end. I intend to divide and conquer over time. If the Huguenots can't be persuaded with words and money to move, you have my permission to use a judicious amount of force."

He leaned forward in his chair. There was a fire in his eyes. "However, let me be perfectly clear, there will be no massacres! I will not allow the problems that occurred in another time. Be firm, but don't create a bigger problem."

* * *

As they passed beyond view of the Palais, Gaston closed the curtain. The look on his face was grim. "The cardinal is not the best for France. The king has no heir but I'm slighted as his successor. Richelieu thwarts my every move. He has no honor." He drew himself up and struck a regal pose.

Just then, the carriage passed an open sewage ditch and Gaston paused to cover his nose with a scented handkerchief. All Cecil and Leonard could do was cough and try to hold their breath. Once they were past the odor, Gaston resumed his diatribe. "He's a stench on the rightful order of things. He stands between you and your rightful charter, but cares not what happens to your Catholic friends. He stands between me and my destiny. Something must be done.

"I understand you need additional funds to ratify the charter. Having it ratified might, in some small way, upset some of the cardinal's plans and further my own."

The carriage hit a rock and threw everyone in the air. Laughing, Gaston quipped, "I want to make sure that when the king passes, the country doesn't hit a bump like that. With friends in the right spots, the succession should be smoother. I need friends in the New World. If I'm to take my rightful place, upsetting the Cardinal's well laid plans would further my goals and yours. Once you're in possession of a colony, it would be hard to take it away."

As usual, Gaston had overlooked an important point. Once Leonard and Cecil had their charter and sailed, they would be out of reach of Gaston as well. Cecil looked to Leonard, who nodded. "Monsieur, you have a deal.

"Excellent."

* * *

Three days later, a much chagrined Etienne Servien reported to the cardinal that the Calvert brothers had notified him by letter they had accepted the offer and were making arrangements with their bankers. The funds for the new charter would be available inside the week.

Le Chaume, Poitou Province, October 1633

Captain Reneuf's patrol was one of several spreading out that Sunday to post the new edict on the Huguenot churches in the province. Since the church at La Chaume only consisted of three dozen families, Jean Guitton had decided only a captain, a sergeant, and four men were needed.

"Close up back there!" Captain Reneuf turned to his sergeant, who had been with him for three years. "At least it's not raining and the sun has some warmth. If it goes well, we'll have enough time to stop at the inn outside La Rochelle before we head back to the barracks." The sergeant grinned his approval of the suggestion.

Up ahead, the steeple of a church was visible through the bare tree branches. As they rode through the village, only a stray dog greeted them. Everyone appeared to be at services. When they arrived at the church, Reneuf left Charles and Jacques to hold the horses. Sergeant La Batt took a hammer and nails from his saddle bag and prepared to nail the edict to the church doors.

Captain Reneuf held him back. "Before you post it, I was instructed to read it to the congregation. Wait outside with the men, but be ready if there is any trouble." Taking his sword, he used it as a striker on the door and then entered. Inside the church all heads turned to see what the noise was about.

"What is the meaning of this intrusion?" The pastor stepped around the baptismal fount. "This is a house of God. All are welcome to hear his word, but I insist you leave your weapons outside."

Reneuf handed his sword to Jacques. "I beg your pardon, but I have orders from Paris. King Louis has issued an edict for all Huguenot congregations in Poitou and has directed that it be read to the congregations before posting."

A murmur started to run through the worshippers, but Pastor Bigeault's voice cut through the noise. "Very well, we will render unto Caesar, but please, be brief. I have a baptism to complete."

La Batt handed the Edict to his captain who unrolled it and in a loud, clear voice read:

Edict of Paris

Louis, By the Grace of God, King of France, and Navarre, To all Present, and to Come, greetings.

In order to settle the new lands acquired by France and to reduce the future conflicts in the Poitou region the following is enacted:

It is hereby ordered that all Huguenot churches in the province of Poitou provide to the Crown at least three families each for resettlement to the newly acquired lands in the Americas, or a payment of 2,000 livres in lieu of each family not delivered. For those families volunteering to emigrate, the Crown will purchase their lands and chattels at a fair price. Failure to provide the three families will result in confiscation of all the offending church's property, and the forced emigration of the entire congregation without compensation.

Upon arrival in the Americas, each family will be given forty acres of prime farmable land. Guild craftsmen will be given a bonus of 200 livres and journeymen 100 livres if they have their own tools. All families are to report to Admiral Duquesne's fleet in the port of La Rochelle no later than January 15, 1634.

Given at Paris, in the month of May in the year of grace 1633, and of our reign, the twenty-fourth.

After he finished reading, Reneuf looked the congregation over. Shock and disbelief were evident on the faces, but there was no sign of hostilities, yet. He turned to leave the chapel. "Again, pardon for our interruption." He tossed some coins in the basket by the door and left, handing the edict to La Batt and retrieving his sword. The sounds of hammering broke the spell of silence.

By the time the patrol had mounted and set off for the next village, the sound of retreating hoof beats couldn't be heard inside the church over the shouts from the congregation.

"Silence!" Pastor Bigeault's shout brought a momentary lull to the noise. "Let us finish the Lord's work." He reached for the infant. "After the service, I ask that all of the family heads remain. We will read the edict carefully, and then discuss what must be done."

Cowes Harbour, Isle of Wight, November 1633

Something had to happen soon. They were in danger of being bored to death. Ever since the recall order had summoned the Ark and the Dove back to Cowes, they had been anchored in the same spots with the same view. A short note from Lord Calvert had simply told them to wait, but said nothing about how long or for what reason.

Captain Richard Lowe of the Ark was concerned that food supplies would soon become a serious problem. Soon he would have to start using the supplies they would need when they eventually sailed. Having some settlers wait on shore had temporarily eased the problem. He glanced again toward the horizon. At least something was different today.

For the first time in a month, another ship was entering the harbor; a fluyt, probably French by the cut of her sails. Captain Lowe studied the approaching ship. She was approaching quickly and a collision appeared imminent. At the last moment she backed sails and turned.

"Ahoy, the Ark!" The fluyt had approached perilously close to the Ark's stern and was preparing to lower a boat. "Is there a George Calvert on board?"

"Who wants to know?" Captain Lowe answered, suspicious.

"We have a letter for him from Paris."

"Send it over. He's below right now."

Five minutes later, the sealed letter was handed over by a Frenchman who spoke no English and seemed in a hurry. "Mes compliments, monsieur capitaine." He bowed and descended back to the waiting boat. Ten minutes later, the fluyt was heading back to sea.

Captain Lowe stared at the letter's address. George Calvert, Cowes Harbour, Isle of Wight. "Must be damned important. The Frenchman only stopped to deliver it and is headed out without taking on or dropping off cargo." He recognized the handwriting on the packet as Lord Baltimore's and hoped it contained new instructions.

George Calvert arrived from his cabin, stuffing a shirt in his pants and out of breath. "Well?"

"It appears your brother has sent word from France." Lowe handed over the packet, along with a knife to open the sealed linen cover.

George slit the linen and quickly read the cover letter. He handed a set of instructions to the captain. "He's done it! We're to sail immediately. He's included instructions for you and Captain Wintour."

Captain Lowe motioned for his first mate. "Mister Boulter, go ashore and see to the provisions we discussed. We set sail on tomorrow's tide!" He reached for a speaking trumpet that was stored on the side rail and stepped up on the railing nearest the Dove. "Captain Wintour! We have orders! Come aboard so we can make our plans!" A loud "huzzah" was raised by the crew and passengers when they realized that the long wait might soon be over.

La Chaume, November 1633

Pierre Marion shook his head in disgust. Talk, talk, talk. The old man must be deaf. He'd lost most of his teeth years ago and his lisp put everyone on edge.

"Giscard, you old fool, sit down!"

Pierre couldn't tell who'd yelled, but Giscard glared out into the smoke-filled room. "I'm jutht ath good ath you and I have a right to my thay in thith matter."

"And you've said it three times already! Sit down!"

Giscard spotted his heckler and started in his direction with his cane. Pastor Bigeault immediately rose and artfully directed Giscard into an open seat and away from his intended victim. He took the cane and handed him a mug of wine.

The second meeting on the edict had been moved to the tavern soon after the discussion had started. The church was cold and uncomfortable, and throats quickly got dry. After two hours and three near fights, there was still no agreement on what should be done. Some of the older men and most of the younger wanted to raise a fighting force and resist the Catholic oppression. The siege of La Rochelle was still fresh in many memories. The married men were split between staying and going, mostly depending on whether they were landowners or tenants.

Pierre pulled himself away from the table and rose. Small as he was, he had to bang his mug on the table to try to get attention. "My friends!"

The talking went on.

"Quiet!" Pastor Bigeault used his best sermon voice to quiet the crowd. "Let Pierre speak."

"Thank you, Pastor. I've listened for the past three hours and all our discord just plays into Richelieu's plan. We can fight and we can die, then the Catholics will roll over what's left of us and our families will suffer grievously. We can stay and pay the penalty. All that will do is buy us a few years and then we will all be destitute tenants. The comte de Le Chaume has never done one of us a good turn. He's a weak reed that blows in whatever direction will benefit him the most, and he's Catholic."

Heads were starting to nod as he made each point. From the back of the room, a voice spoke up. It was his neighbor, Georges Bannion. "So what do we do, Pierre? Pick some sacrificial lambs and send them to La Rochelle, bound hand and foot for the slaughter?"

"So nice of you to volunteer, mon ami. Now we only need two others!" Georges sat down with a thud. He and Pierre had always traded barbs in a friendly manner.

"Just joking, my friend. What I propose is that we all go to the new colony." In the stunned silence, Pierre quickly laid out his reasoning. "Besides the comte, only three families have much in the way of land holdings: Georges, François, and me. I don't know about François, but my land and Georges' just barely supports our families and if we're just keeping our heads above water, where does that leave everyone else? From the complaints I hear around here every night, we may all be hungry come next spring. Pastor, do you have any miracles lying around that can help our cause?"

Pastor Bigeault shook his head no. He and Pierre had spoken just before the meeting started and he had been waiting for his cue. "Pierre is right. We must help ourselves. If the entire village goes, we preserve our faith in the New World. If we stay, our faith perishes. Each family will have its own land and we can break new ground for our cause; away from the greedy landowners and Catholic priests." He sat down and nodded to Pierre to continue.

"The edict says each family gets forty acres. Jean, how many acres do you rent?"

"Five."

"And Phillipe?

"Ten."

Now heads were nodding all around the room. "But what about those who own land? What happens to us?" Georges had gotten his voice back.

"We sell and use the money to get better tools and livestock for our new farms." Pierre climbed up on the table. "I don't know what the rest of you plan on doing, but I intend to take advantage of the offer. Who's with me?"

"I am." Georges stood up. Their oldest children were planning on marrying soon and Elie had already told him they were going. Slowly, more and more stood up. When Pastor Bigeault rose and committed himself, the rest rose and the vote was unanimous. La Chaume was moving to the Americas.

* * *

No Ship for Tranquebar, Part Three

Written by Kevin H. and Karen C. Evans

Copenhagen
September 1636

Marlon burst through the door of his townhouse. "Reva! You won't believe it!"

Reva seemed to be waiting in the salon, tapping her foot. "I've already heard. You're off on a wild goose chase halfway around the world."

Marlon was caught by surprise. He hadn't thought about how Reva would take the news. Yes, all the danger signs were there: the tapping foot, arms folded tightly across her chest, withering frown on her brow. It was definitely time to tread lightly.

"Reva, it's not a wild goose chase. They already have a colony in India, and the governor has the possibility of a whole shipment of nutmeg. But it won't last forever. We need to get it here quickly. How else are we going to do it?"

"I don't want to be sweet-talked, so I'm not sitting down. Now you listen here, Marlon Pridmore. I've said nothing about you spending almost a year here playing with your airships. In fact, I've made some really good friends. I've had plenty to keep me busy."

"We've talked about that before, and there's no reason to drag it out now. I just . . ."

Reva waved her hand at him, and started pacing. "I'm not dragging out old business, you fool. I'm expressing my concerns. Now let me talk, I'm not finished. I've said nothing about the time we've spent here. I've said nothing about you crawling all over the ribs of that monstrosity, showing the craftsmen what you think they need to do. I've said nothing about you flying up there with student pilots, any one of whom could dump you in the Baltic at any moment."

She again stopped for a breath, and Marlon opened his mouth, but shut it with a snap when she held up her hand. "But now you're sitting there thinking that you're the only one capable of getting this silly venture off the ground, and all the way to India, for God's sake."

Marlon could tell it was not the moment to speak. He sat on the couch and kept his peace.

Reva started pacing in time with her temper. "You've trained everyone. Eric Strand, your flight engineer. He's been here at the house so often, it's almost as if he was your actual son. He handles the ship better than you do. Jannik Lynngaard . . . you couldn't have a better chief engineer. And Gunnar Ibsen, that nice young man we had to dinner the other night."

She stopped pacing and glared. When he didn't speak, Reva said, "Just give me three good reasons why you, Marlon Pridmore, gentleman banker, need to fly off into the heathen wilderness!"

Marlon sat silent for a couple of moments. Finally he patted the divan next to him. "Okay, you've had your say. Now come sit down, and I'll tell you my reasons."

Reva stood tapping her foot for a little bit more, then sighed and sat.

"Now, Reva. I realize that I've never taken an airship anywhere as far as Grantville, let alone to India. And the crew is in many ways much more competent than I am. Hell, some of these kids seem to have a natural talent at flight and navigation.

"But my first reason is that I have more hours in lighter-than-air flight than anyone else in the world. You have to admit that, if nothing else."

Reva frowned as if not wanting to agree yet. But finally she nodded.

"Second, while this crew is wonderful, the only one over the age of twenty-five is Jannik. Someone has to be there to make the hard choices in an emergency. Ships don't arrive at their destination by committee vote."

Again Reva frowned, but nodded. Now her legs were no longer crossed, and she dropped her folded arms to her lap. She was opening up a little.

"If I have to have a third really good reason over and above all that, I'd have to say that I'm going with them because I'm the only one with an atlas that shows the route we're going to take. Their own maps only show the shores, not the inland. And the quickest way to India is going to be largely over land. I have to be there to find our way home."

Reva sniffed angrily, and wiped her eyes. Marlon could see that she didn't want him to see her cry right now, so he looked at the ceiling until the sniffing stopped.

Reva's voice cracked as she spoke. "Well, at least I'll have a little bit of time to get used to the idea. When are you leaving? A month or six weeks?"

Marlon cleared his throat, and considered not telling her. But right now, he knew that honesty would get him farther with her than anything else. "Actually, sweetheart, we were thinking of starting in five days."

He stopped, expecting another explosion. Instead, Reva stood up, straightened her spine, and headed toward the bedroom. "I guess I should start helping you pack."

Copenhagen
September 1636

Marlon spent the afternoon in his study. When he heard a knock on the front door, he opened the study door and saw Gregers show Cornelius Holgarssen in. "Herr Chairman, come in and have a seat. What can I do for you?"

"I brought you the list of cargo we wish to ship to Venice."

Marlon, in the process of settling at his desk, was startled. "Venice? I thought we were going to India."

Cornelius shook his head. "Routing your airship by way of Venice will allow us to make a substantial amount of money before we take the risk of sending it to India. Some of our members feel that perhaps the only thing that the Indians want from Europe besides our gold and silver money are the glass wares of Venice."

Marlon sat down at his desk. "So you think we should try glass in India then?"

"Yes, I do. Nobody has tried it yet, so it will be a new commodity. Until now, it's been thought impossible to send glass and have it survive all the way to the Indies."

"I can see that. Glass may well be our best bet to make any kind of profit for the main leg of the journey. Of course, no matter what I take out there, we will make the cost of the airship, at least, when we return."

Cornelius nodded, but obviously still had something on his mind. "I have another matter I really want to discuss. I think we need more than the twenty tons of cargo that you've designated on the airship. I've gone over the numbers you've given us and the results of the tests we've conducted. I had it double-checked by Rikard Shipwright, just to make sure, and he confirms it. Our airship can lift fifty tons. I understand that twenty tons of the total is reserved for the airship and its fuel. That would seem to leave thirty tons for cargo."

Marlon grimaced. "I understand that it looks like we have an extra ten tons for cargo. But we need that extra weight for safety. Having a little extra lift will allow us to carry a few extra tools, and the hydrogen production system, so we can refill the gas cells on the other end of the trip. Besides, if we load it to capacity now, we won't have room to acquire anything extra on the way. Who knows what we may find?"

The chairman looked thoughtful for a moment. "You are certain about this? There is no room for negotiation?"

Marlon shook his head. "On this first flight, I want to be very conservative. Perhaps in later flights we'll be able to change that ratio. But for now, I'd rather stick with twenty tons of cargo."

Cornelius sighed. "All right, then. Twenty tons. On another matter, His Majesty was commenting today on the device that you used to produce hydrogen. Who would've thought that spraying water on red-hot iron would free such a light gas."

Marlon smiled. "It's not really my invention. I lifted the entire apparatus from a conflict in up-time America called the American Civil War. It was a device exactly like this one that was used to provide hydrogen for observation balloons. I still want the extra capacity so we can carry that and the extra fuel to make certain that we can make the trip. It's almost certain that there will be no refined oil in Tranquebar."

Cornelius seemed to hesitate. "The matter of navigation still has many of the shareholders seriously concerned." Cornelius pointed at the atlas that was always on Marlon's desk. "Indeed the maps depicted in your book have very small resemblance to the charts that our navigators have compiled over the years. Many are afraid that if we use these maps from your atlas, the airship could be lost, without possibility of any return on our investment. So we've decided to provide you with a true navigator. His name is Frode Nillsen. He has been with the fleet for some time, and he's, by all reports, very reliable."

Marlon shrugged. "As you wish, Cornelius. A navigator won't hurt anything, and may actually help me stay on track."

Copenhagen
September 23, 1636

Marlon sat in the command chair at the rear of the control gondola. This command area's not bad, he thought. Although it still looks too much like the bridge of the Enterprise. I tried to avoid it, but the layout was just too efficient.

He watched as the helmsman and flight engineer in front of him prepared to take the airship away from the ground, and off to Venice.

"Let's get this thing going," Marlon said.

Gunnar nodded and stepped to the open window. "Okay men, give her a bounce," he called. The men holding onto the rail around the outside of the gondola pushed down, compressing the springs of the landing wheel. Then, on command, everybody let go of the rail, and the large spring pushed the airship into the air.

Marlon said, "That was so much better than our first flight. I told you that spring would work."

The navigator, Frode Nillsen, at his small table full of charts raised his eyebrows then smiled, and went back to his calculations.

"Okay, Gunnar. Take us up to five thousand feet, please. With any luck we'll be able to hear Magdeburg's radio beacon from here; if not, maybe Grantville's. It's a fine night and the wind is just about right. Let's enjoy the ride."

As they sailed up and over the city, Marlon could see the sun to his right flaming in a glorious sunset. He looked the spires of the church, where he knew Reva was watching the launch. She didn't like good-byes, and was a little superstitious about watching him leave.

"Gunnar, call the engine section, and have them set revolutions for full power. Keep an eye on the ground site to check our forward progress. If we can, we will shut off two of the engines."

Just at sunset, the winds were calm, making for a much better launch. They would fly through the night to Venice. That way they would be able to land during daylight.

"Herr Captain, aircraft on the starboard bow," Gunnar said.

Marlon leaned forward, and saw the Danish Air Force flying escort. "Too bad we're too big to waggle our wings. Signal the air force, 'Thanks, and good luck landing!'"

* * *

It was a wonderful night for flying. "Gunnar, tell Jannik to take the engines back to half power. We don't need to fly this ship full speed and I want some warning before we reach the Alps," Marlon said. "I'm going upstairs to check the cargo. Eric, take care of the bridge."

The door led to a hallway, and Marlon could access his cabin, the galley's night table with coffee and sandwiches, and four other cabins. One was a hot-rack for the bridge crew shifts, one for Engineering shifts, and the other two for guests. Then came the ladder that led to the catwalk over the cargo hold.

Behind the cargo hold, there was the chow table for the whole crew, and the galley and food storage area. Also the cabin for Jannik, chief engineer. Finally, there was the Engineering section where the other tools and equipment were stored.

Marlon continued past the cabins. One of those was empty, but the other was occupied. Their only passenger was the new Governor of Tranquebar, Niels Lund. The current governor, Roelant Crappé, had requested a replacement.

Marlon climbed the ladder up to the inside of the airship envelope. Proceeding aft along the walkway, he nodded to the crewmen who were still checking the cargo pod tie-downs.

At the midpoint of the airship, Marlon reached the ladder that went up to observation on the very top and climbed up. "Hi, Martin. How do you like the cat-seat, up here?"

The lookout shrugged. "It's a good view. But it's hard to see in the darkness."

"It's important, though. Keep a good eye out for storms. The only protection we have is to run away from the storms if we can. We can't afford to get caught in any kind of rain or weather front."

Martin nodded, and kept the binoculars in hand.

Marlon perched on a rail, and watched the clouds. He felt like he was standing on the top of a great silver bubble. The full moon rose and turned the land below to shades of pewter and silver. He could see a river gleaming in the moonlight. "This is all so beautiful. But don't let it lull you into a sense of safety. We are pointed directly at the Alps, and we need to know about them before we run into them. Hopefully, the sun will touch the tops as we arrive, and it will be easy to spot them. Report regularly to the command deck."

"Yes, Captain."

Finally, Marlon climbed back down into the airship. Once back on the cat-walk he checked the tie-down points for the cargo pod along the way to the galley and his cabin. Everything seemed to be in order.

Marlon climbed down the next ladder into the bridge level and sat down in the command chair. "How's it going?"

"Nothing's changed while you were gone, sir. As you wanted, we're using engines three, four, five, and six. They're working at about seventy-five percent of their capacity and they seem to be holding our speed well. As far as we can tell, we're moving around fifty knots."

"Let me know if we have any problems." Marlon yawned, surprised to feel tired at such an exciting time. "I'm going up to the galley to get a cup of tea. Can I get you guys anything?"

* * *

Marlon was nervous, and couldn't sit still. The more time he spent on the bridge, the more he disrupted the work. It was the same up in the Observation Dome. Martin seemed to come to attention every time he showed up.

Also, about the third time he went up and down the long ladder into the observation dome, he was huffing and wheezing like a leaky steam engine. Been a while since I've been in New Mexico, he thought. I didn't used to think that five thousand feet was much altitude, but the air seems very thin up here.

Tired, and yawning again, Marlon went to his cabin. It was at the back of the gondola area, with windows opposite the bridge. The crew was well-enough trained to handle things, and they knew to wake him for anything unusual.

As the flight proceeded, they reached the limits of reception for the Copenhagen radio. Without waking Marlon, they transferred to the Grantville Station.

* * *

There was a knock at the cabin door. Marlon was instantly awake. "Yes?"

The door opened, and one of the crewmen stuck his head in. "Captain, lookout reports sunlight on the tops of the Alps. Helm requests you to the bridge."

"Tell him I'll be right there."

* * *

There in front of them, mostly still dark, he could see the pink and orange sunlight dancing on the snowy peaks.

"Pretty, aren't they?" Marlon settled himself into the command chair.

Gunnar's eyes looked like saucers. "Sir, are those really the Bavarian Alps?"

Marlon knew that the boy had hardly ever been out of Copenhagen. "Yes, that's what they are. Now pay attention to what you're doing, and steer around them. Beautiful as they are, we don't want a closer look. I think it looks pretty good around there to the left."

He turned to Eric, the flight engineer. "How are we doing?"

Eric said, "Sir, since we left the Grantville beacon behind, we've been searching for the radio frequency in Venice, but haven't found it yet."

"Well, I didn't expect it. We've got those mountains in the way. As soon as we're clear of them, I'm sure you'll pick it up and home us in."

In the distance the mountains seemed to grow right out of the clouds, higher and higher. The snow-topped peaks were brushed with green along the edges. Lower down, the fall colors were strongly apparent among the trees. Here and there you could see the curling smoke from fires in villages spotted around the mountains.

The angle of the sun in the bridge changed as the helmsman and the chief engineer together set the airship on the new course more to the west. This way, they would slide around the mountains and down toward the Adriatic Sea.

The morning was a brilliant blue, one of those truly perfect flying days you can get in the fall in Europe. Marlon turned to Eric, now busy at the radio. "I need to know if the landing mast has been set up according our instructions. Please tell me they'll be ready when we are about an hour and a half or two hours out. I think they're going to need all the warning they can get to be ready for us."

That afternoon, the lookout in the observation dome announced that he could see Venice. The sun had been reflecting off the ocean for some time, glowing like the forge of the gods. Using the radio as a beacon they had been able to steer almost directly toward the transmitter. The city was laid out in all its splendor. Light reflected from the canals, and thousands of people were in the streets and courtyards and the central plaza, looking up at the airship as it approached.

Marlon stood with his hand shading his eyes. "Is the mast up?"

Martin replied on the speaking tube. "Yes, sir. I can see it over there. It's set up on one end of the Murano, as you asked for."

Marlon sighed and then grinned. "Very good. Gunnar, it's time. We need to fly this thing over there to hook up. Remember, you approach the mast just like we practiced back in Copenhagen. Head out past the mast towards the east, then approach heading west. That should put us against the wind and allow fine control for our approach. Eric, when we get close and down near the ground, have the lines to the bow dropped. I hope some knucklehead doesn't pick them up and electrocute himself before they dissipate the static."

Eric nodded. "Already deployed, sir. We have the crew ready to jump off once the nose is tethered."

"Good. Once we're tied off to the mast, I need everybody to tie us down, and to fill the ballast containers full of water so we will be held firmly on the ground. Then we can get that stuff out of the cargo bay and get the glass loaded."

The airship made a majestic turn out toward the east and then back again toward the mast as the helmsman carefully controlled it. They were just barely crawling. No sense in approaching too fast and damaging something. It was still early in the trip.

"Drop the bow line now." Marlon was standing near the window, watching the ground. "Take us in slow. Let me know as soon as we're hooked up."

Gunnar was standing next to the open window again. "Release the lines," he called. The control rope fell away and bounced on the ground. After a moment people ran up and grabbed the lines.

At least they listened to that part of the orders, thought Marlon. With a slight bump, the airship snubbed up tight to the tower and was secured.

Marlon stood and stretched. "All right, it's tied down. Get that cargo offloaded, and get that glassware loaded. Let's get out of here before the wind changes."

As he reached the door of the bridge, he turned and saw his Chief Engineer. "Jannik, you might also check if we can top off the fuel tanks. Almost any oil will do. But I want to leave here topped off."

It was a scene of controlled chaos all around the airship. Side panels were opened on the cargo pods and willing hands started retrieving the naval stores for the arsenal. Marlon stood at the window of his cabin, watching with a slightly bemused expression. It reminds me very strongly of ants swarming on a grasshopper.

Venice
September 25, 1636

The cargo was unloaded, and loading was finished. It was midnight, but Marlon wasn't willing to wait for the morning. So, from the port window of the bridge, he called, "Cast off all lines. Dump the ballast we picked up, and bring the engine revolutions up enough to balance the wind." He picked up the speaking tube to the man in the nose and said, "Pull the pin on that thing just as soon as it's loose. It's time to get on our way."

All in all Marlon was quite pleased. The turnaround, offloading and loading the cargo, had taken less than twelve hours. Careful planning on the part of the people in Copenhagen allowed the naval stores to be unloaded quickly and the glass came aboard in crates that fortunately fit almost exactly into the spaces left by the off-loaded cargo. Tie-down was relatively simple.

"Set us on course south-southeast. The moon has just risen; we can make our best time now. Helmsman, let's go."

And so the Royal Anne rose up over the darkened city of Venice, and set her nose toward India.

* * *

"Captain Pridmore! Captain, come quickly." Martin was knocking on Marlon's cabin door.

Marlon blinked. He felt like he'd just closed his eyes, but obviously he'd finally dozed off and apparently gotten some sleep. Daylight was just coming in the window of his cabin. "What's the matter? Are we in danger?"

"I don't know, Captain. One of the crew members reported a banging from about the middle of the airship on the bottom. When we looked out the window at dawn it looks like one of the cargo hatches is loose and is banging open and closed from the wind."

"So why didn't somebody just reach out and close it?"

Ulrik shrugged. "It seems the cargo hatches can only be reached from the outside of the ship, sir."

"And whose idea was that?"

"Why, if I remember correctly, it was yours, sir." replied Gunnar.

Just then there was a whistle on the tube from the engine room. Gunnar listened, and then turned. "Captain, they report that another hatch is starting to flap."

Marlon shook his head in disgust. "It looks like there is nothing for it but to get down to the ground so we can seal them up properly. Martin, I need you to run up to the lookout, and tell them to look for a hill we can land on, preferably one with a bald spot. Let me know when you find it.

"When we spot this hill, I need you to come up against the wind and down close to the ground. Get a couple of crew members in harness and attached to the airship with a bow line. That way, if the wind blows us away they'll at least come with us."

It was only about ten minutes before the lookout reported a bald hill ahead of them. Tue Strang, navigator of the watch said, "What about that one, sir?"

"Yes, that looks like it will do," replied Marlon.

"Captain, I hear gunfire, up ahead on the side of the knob." The report came again from the lookout up on top. His little observation nest was open to the air near the front of the airship.

Marlon looked out the window. He could just make out what looked like the remains of a battle. There was little movement, and just below the top of the knob was an overturned cart with a canvas cover. Between the cart and the base of the hill lay a man with a long musket propped over a log. Scattered down the side of the hill were the crumpled forms of several men.

One last attacker staggered up towards the top of the hill. He suddenly crumpled, and then they heard the delayed crack of a rifle.

"Well, whatever it was, it looks like that's over now," said Marlon. "Take us down." He headed for the door of the gondola, below the control room. He saw Engineer Jannik next to door. "Who's going out to work on the hatches?"

Jannik pointed to two young men buckling harnesses around themselves. "Sir, they've already harnessed up Gunnar and Jan from Engineering. They are waiting for your orders."

Marlon walked to the door near Jannik. "Make sure all the cargo hatches are shut tight. Tell them to check both sides. I don't want to have this problem again. Make sure it's done right."

Jannik nodded. "You can count on us, sir."

Marlon watched a moment, then turned back to Jannik. "Have a couple of the boys break rifles out of the armory, to stand guard. One can be up on the lookout, and one can stand in this door. There was some kind of skirmish over there, and I don't want any bandits to get the wrong idea about us. And have somebody check that cart. There might be survivors."

Jannik nodded and left.

Balanced against the wind, the Royal Anne gracefully descended to the hilltop. Crewmen leapt out from the doors on either side of the gondola, raced back to the cargo container and began checking the fastenings of all the doors.

Marlon made his way to one of the doors to the outside. The ship settled on the top of the hill, and Jan and Gunnar hurried out to repair the cargo hatches.

Claus, the assistant cook, and Magnus, the helmsman's apprentice grabbed rifles. Claus went to a door of the gondola, and Magnus hurried up the ladder to observation.

Claus pointed toward the cart. "Captain, I think I see movement out there. Someone might be hurt."

Gunnar had just finished his hatch check. "Gunnar, hustle down there to check out the cart," Marlon said.

The helmsman nodded, then hustled down the hill, trailing the line behind him. He disappeared behind the cart, then his head popped back into view.

"There's a woman in here! I think she's alive."

Marlon called, "Check that guy behind the log."

Gunnar dashed down the hill, but announced, "I don't think there's anything we can do for him now."

Moments later, he was helping a pretty young woman back up the hill. Marlon called Eric, and hustled all three into the ship, then bolted the door. He hurried up to the control room and to the forward window. He hadn't told anyone, but he had his pistol in the back of his belt, just in case.

Jannik stepped into the control room. "Sir, the men report that they secured the broken doors, and have firmly strapped all the others. We are ready."

Marlon stayed near the window, scanning the hill for any other movement. "Good. Let's get out of here. I don't like this neighborhood."

* * *

The ship lifted her nose, and soon they were in the air again. Marlon finally left the window and went into the galley. Time to see about this girl. Hope she speaks Danish. Or English.

At the table sat a young woman. She was dirty and smudged. It was obvious to anyone that it had been days since she'd been able to wash.

Marlon sat down and looked her over. She wasn't very responsive. She just stared at the floor and said nothing.

I hope she's not going into shock, Marlon thought. "I'm Captain Pridmore, of the Danish airship, Royal Anne. What is your name?

The woman raised her chin, and for the first time, focused on Marlon. Her dark eyes searched his for a moment. "Perdão? Qualquer um fala o português?"

Oops. Marlon didn't speak Portuguese.

Marlon turned to the crew, all watching with rapt attention. "Does anyone speak Portuguese?"

There were some negative mumbles, then Gunnar said, "I know a little dockside Dutch. Should I try that?" A couple of tries with the girl, and they both smiled. So Gunnar took over the questioning.

"Her name is Estela Diaz Sansão. And she says her father is a rich man who will ransom her."

Marlon blinked. "We have to travel quite a ways before we can contact her father. I suppose she'll just have to stay with us until we return to Europe."

Estela looked confused, but said nothing. It was obvious that she was exhausted, and not ready to process everything that had happened.

Marlon told Gunnar, "Take this young lady to the empty cabin and let her rest. Get her some water so she can clean up, and make sure she has something to eat."

Gunnar tore his eyes away from the dark-haired beauty that was thrust so suddenly in the middle of his adventure. "Yes, Captain."

Marlon stood up and glared at all the rest of the crew. "And all you lollygaggers better get back to work, or I'll find something for you to do. This woman is to be left alone, or I'll throw the man who bothers her from the front window of the bridge. Do you understand me?"

Men evaporated away as if they were a fine mist in the summer sun. The girl was escorted into the extra cabin and told to stay put. Marlon put her out of his mind.

* * *

Estela sat on the bunk of her cabin, and tried to figure a way to escape and go home. Certainly the young man named Gunnar had reassured her that she was not a prisoner. At least I think that's what he said. I don't understand Dutch very well, and I don't think he does either. Nevertheless, here she was in a small windowless cabin with a closed door.

She tried the door, and was surprised to find it was not locked. But somehow that frightened her even more. So she moved the chest to block the door, and then undressed. The cabin was cramped, but the water was fairly fresh, and it was wonderful to feel at least somewhat clean again. It was amazing to see real bread and fresh fruit.

Before she could eat half of the food, a wall of sleep swallowed her up and carried her away into dreams. But stretched out on the bunk, she slept as she had not slept since she left home several weeks before.

Her dreams seemed to be filled with frightening scenes. She saw the bodies of her sailors drenched in blood, and her maid screaming as she was dragged into the hold of the ship. But every time the images threatened to wake her, she saw the young man that had rescued her from the cart, and her heartbeat slowed. Finally she went into a deeper sleep, and dreamed no more.

* * *

After lunch, Marlon stood in the observation dome, watching as the airship flew on course toward India. "You know, the terrain down there looks a lot like the American Southwest. It seems like it's getting a lot drier as we get further south."

Martin was there again, with the binoculars. "Look there, Herr Captain. I see a large city. There are tall spires like churches and palaces."

Marlon shaded his eyes and looked south of their position. "Ah, yes. That would have to be Istanbul."

The city could probably not even see them. It was more than thirty miles away, and the airship was high in the sky, already shrouded in darkness. But the afternoon sun danced on the shining domes of the city.

The rest of the day was without incident. They were cruising along at a steady speed, and the fuel consumption and water stores were being used as predicted. The scenery was nothing short of magnificent. In the distance they had sighted Mount Ararat. The mountain loomed even higher than they were flying, and the snow and glaciers on top reflected the pinks and oranges of the sunset.

Just after dark, Marlon came down from the observation dome, and into the bridge area. "We've sighted a lot of serious mountains around here. I think we should activate the air system, and fly up at about fourteen thousand feet."

Gunnar and Eric said, "Yes, sir." Marlon looked at his helmsman. "So Gunnar, I noticed that our damsel in distress noticed no one in the crew except you."

Gunnar blushed, and someone on the bridge giggled. Everybody knew that while Estela hadn't stepped out of her room all day, Gunnar had been the one to make certain that she got food before he got some for himself. The chemistry between the two was palpable.

Bells were starting to ring, and Marlon leaned over to Gunnar. "I think Estela will be frightened by all this noise. You better run down and make sure she understands about her mask procedures. Or she'll be knocking on the door with her dagger, demanding to know what's going on."

Gunnar's eyes widened, and he hustled himself out of the bridge.

Just like the rest of his crew, Marlon put on his leather mask, and hooked the hose to the central pipe running down the keel of the airship. The masks weren't much, just a lower facemask connected to a leather hose, that was attached to a pipe running the length of the airship. The pipe was fed by a big compressor set to provide sufficient air for the crewmen. Most of the crew were from sea level, and were not used to extremely high altitudes.

Marlon watched as his crew donned their masks. Then he stood up and said, "I know how much you dislike these things. They aren't very elegant, but I did my best. Let me know what our navigator gets for the dusk position fix." Then he stood and let Ulrik settle into the command chair. When all was in order, Marlon wearily tromped back to his own cabin.

Somewhere over the Ottoman Empire
September 26, 1635

It was not morning yet. Marlon was in his cabin, trying to read. It was difficult because the mask leaked and wheezed, and he was feeling a little light-headed. But sleeping was even more difficult. There was a knock at the door.

"Come."

The door opened to the chief engineer, Herr Jannik. He was also wearing a mask. These silly masks make us all look like pelicans, Marlon thought.

"What can I do for you?"

Jannik's voice was muffled. "Herr Captain, the lookout reports that we have passed the mountains."

Marlon grinned, and stood up. "Very good. We can take the ship back to eight thousand feet, and get rid of these masks." He stood up and reached for his, but thought better of it. They hadn't reached the lower levels yet, and there really wasn't much oxygen up here.

So the captain and the engineer returned to the bridge, dragging their leather hoses behind them. On the bridge, Marlon gave the orders that would allow them to drop to a more friendly level. Then he turned to the engineer. "Jannik, take us back to cruise speed. We will be all right running on the last four engines again. Close up the other two."

"Yes, Captain."

The bells sounded again, and the crewmen gratefully took off the masks and breathed free air again. Below them, they saw the desolate areas of what Marlon thought of as castern Iran.

When he took his mask off, Marlon sighed. "I guess all I have to do now is keep our course straight and take a position fix at sundown and sunup. Let me know when we see the next big body of water; that should be the Indian Ocean. It probably won't show up till this time tomorrow, at the earliest. Keep an eye on things while I go back and get some breakfast."

* * *

The day traveling across the emptiness of the desert was monotonous. No settlement or people were spotted. Nothing as big as a camel was seen as far as the lookout could see. Marlon sat in his command chair to read the reports.

The evening and morning navigation fixes were included. Each fix was taken by three separate people and all of them agreed very closely. The evening position put them somewhat to the north of their desired course, and the morning fix put them somewhat to the south of where they should have been. All in all, a pretty good flight. Not too bad at all, Marlon thought. That is, for twenty hours of dead reckoning.

Marlon smiled to himself when he glanced at Gunnar. The young man was spending much of his off-duty time sitting in the galley with Estela. Now that she had eaten and slept, she didn't look so much like a frightened rabbit. And Gunnar spent a lot of time looking into her brown eyes. They both were teaching each other words of their native tongue. Those kids are so cute, falling in love. After the face mask incident, she wanted to follow Gunnar everywhere. Marlon had relented, and allowed her on the bridge. She was seated in the navigation chair, looking out the window into the darkness.

Marlon wasn't one to give advice, especially about women. He fully believed that every man had to deal with the problems of relationships on his own, without interference from "older and wiser" heads. As far as he could tell, no man he had ever met was really any wiser about how to make a woman happy. Let the boy make his own mistakes. Then he can't blame anything on me later.

Besides, Marlon had other things to worry about. The biggest thing on his mind at the moment was fuel consumption. It was September, and the monsoon winds were supposed to change some time in the middle of this month. Marlon had been hoping that the change would come after they arrived in Tranquebar, but it looked like the winds had shifted some time this afternoon. And now, they were using fuel at an alarming rate in the teeth of the headwind.

"Well, you boys take good care of this airship. I really want to make it back home and see my wife again. I'm off to bed. Wake me if you need me."

* * *

To be continued . . .

Industrial Alchemy, Part 5: Polymers

Written by Iver P. Cooper

In The Graduate (1967), Mr. McGuire told Benjamin, "There's a great future in plastics." Those "plastics" were a metaphor for the phoniness of (adult) society, but as a chemist, I have to admit, McGuire was right. And there's an even greater future for plastics (and other polymers) in the 1632verse.

I have divided this article into two parts. In part A, after a brief overview of polymers, I present my proposed timeline for polymer development, and then discuss, in the expected chronological order of availability, the polymers and their properties and potential uses. I will also cover industrial polymerization methods, methods of forming the polymers into useful articles, polymer blends and additives, composites, and (incompletely) polymer economics.

Some readers will no doubt be troubled by the placement of certain very important polymers late in the new timeline. In part B, I go into some detail regarding the problems confronting the polymer industry, both in general and with particular regard to my "late" polymers.

PART A: POLYMERS: USES AND PREDICTED AVAILABILITY

Use-Types of Polymers

Functionally, polymers include plastics, fibers, elastomers (rubbers), adhesives and surface coatings. 73% of synthetic polymer production in 2000 was for plastics, 13% for fibers, 9% for coatings and adhesives and 5% for rubbers. (Elias 11).

Plastics are dimensionally stable at room temperature but at least initially can deform (change shape) under the influence of heat and pressure. The deformation is inelastic, that is, they don't spring back to its original shape after it cools. Elastomers stretch under stress at room temperature, and recover their shape when relaxed. Fibers have lengths great in proportion to their diameters, and high tensile strength. They can be woven into fabrics, or introduced into a matrix made of plastic or other materials to form a fiber-reinforced composite. Coatings adhere to a surface to decorate or protect it, and must be resistant to abrasion. Adhesives must adhere to two, possibly chemically different, surfaces, in order to join them. They must at the same time be sufficiently cohesive so as to hold the joined surfaces together.

Plastics and elastomers are mutually exclusive categories. (Although light crosslinking may convert a plastic to a rubber.) However, there are polymers we think of as fibers (nylon) that can be used to make bulk plastic parts, and ones we think of as bulk plastics (polyethylene, polypropylene) that can be drawn to make useful fibers. Plastics and rubbers can also be compounded into formulations suitable for adhesive or coating uses.

Plastics Use in the Twentieth Century

Plastics (resins) flow under pressure and therefore can be formed into a desired shape. As a result, even if the polymer is expensive, the finished article might not be, because the fabrication costs are low. Generally speaking, plastics are low in density and in electrical and heat conductivity, and chemically resistant.

Historically, synthetic plastics were developed as substitutes for ivory, tortoiseshell and horn. Plastics can also serve as substitutes for:

glass (transparent plastics are lighter and can have greater impact resistance)

paper and leather (plastics can be less permeable to fluids)

wood (plastics have greater dimensional stability and resistance to biodegradation)

metal (plastics can have an excellent strength/weight ratio and provide low friction surfaces).

About half of modern plastics use falls into the following categories, with the most popular plastics (as of 1988) indicated in parentheses:

packaging—containers, foam, films, coatings, etc. (high density polyethylene (HDPE) or low density polyethylene (LDPE), polypropylene (PP), polyethylene (PE) or polybutylene terephthalate (PET), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), polystyrene (PS))

building and construction—plumbing, resin-bonded wood composites, flooring, siding, heat insulation, windows, etc. (PVC, phenolic, HDPE, urea-formaldehyde, amino resins, LDPE, polystyrene, polymethyl methacrylate, acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS))

electrical/electronic—wire insulation, housings, plugs and sockets, printed circuit boards, fiber optics (PVC, polystyrene, LDPE, HDPE, ABS, phenolic resins, polyamides, epoxides, polycarbonates)

furniture—structural components, padding, wheels and casters, coverings (phenolic, polystyrene, PVC, polypropylene) .

household goods—small appliances, toys, sporting goods (LDPE, HDPE, polystyrene, polypropylene)

transportation—vehicle bodies, instrument panels, tires and wheels, adhesives (polypropylene, PVC, ABS, polyamides, urea-formaldehyde, epoxides)

(Elias 9; Witcoff II-9ff, Muccio 5ff).

Introduction to the Polymer Timeline

The dates that various polymers were discovered and commercialized (often much later) in the old time line are available (Ram 2), but it's clear that the polymer industry will develop quite differently in the new time line.

My conclusions as to when experimental quantities of the monomer (enough to start experimenting with polymerization processes) could plausibly be available are set forth in Table 5-1. This assumes a fairly smooth development process and it could easily take longer than what I have proposed.

Even so, I must consider early (1630s) production of synthetic polyethylene (or polymethylene), polypropylene, poly-cis-butadiene, poly-cis-isoprene, or their copolymers to be very much a long shot. (Don't believe me? Read part B. . . .)

For any of the polymers, figure that it could take another 5–20 years to scale up production of the monomer(s) and the polymer to the point that the compound is readily available.

In 2000, the leading plastics by world production volume were polyethylenes (52 million tons), polypropylenes (29 million tons), polystyrenes (26 million tons), polyvinyl chlorides (13 million tons), thermoplastic polyesters (10.5 million tons), and polyurethanes (8.4 million tons). (Elias 10). Clearly, in the first decade of the new time line, the leading plastics will be somewhat different.

Let's look at the new time line's first polymers in more detail.

1632–34 Polymers

Vulcanized Rubber. Natural rubber contains cis-polyisoprenes which make it elastic. See Cooper, "Bouncing Back: Bringing Rubber to Grantville" (Grantville Gazette 6). Heating masticated rubber with molten sulfur, or dissolving it in a solution of sulfur chloride in carbon disulfide causes crosslinking (vulcanization) of the polymer chains. Vulcanized rubber first appears in canon in winter 1633–34, see Offord, "Letters from France" (Grantville Gazette 12).

Light crosslinking (10 parts sulfur:100 parts rubber) results in a product that retains elasticity over a broader range of temperatures . . . even those of American winters and summers. Heavy crosslinking (50 parts sulfur) results in a plastic, called ebonite, vulcanite or hard rubber.

In response to recent queries on Baen's Bar as to how much natural rubber is available in Europe in the 1634–35 period, in canon we have the following rubber sources developed:

1) Henrique da Costa organized a Portuguese Hevea brasiliensis tapping operation in Brazil, on the Tapajos. (Cooper, "Stretching Out, part 2: Amazon Adventure," Grantville Gazette 12). Each tapper walked one route, of 50–100 trees, each day. The rubber trees were tapped every other day and each produced about 2 pounds rubber/collection month. The collection season began June 1633 and would have continued at least through November 1633 and possibly as late as February 1634 (whenever the waters have risen too high). So we are talking 12–18 pounds/season/tree. (Some sources say 10 pounds/season/tree.)

If we assume 50–100 tappers as a starting point, then the first season we would have produced 30,000–180,000 pounds (15–60 tons) of rubber . The rubber was carried by sugar ships stopping at Belem every month or so. It would have taken them at least two months to reach Lisbon. The Portuguese would eventually sell most of the rubber in the USE, since that's where most of the demand would be. Henrique was forced to flee into the rainforest to avoid arrest, and we don't know how soon there will be a second production season, under new management.

2) David de Vries and Maria Vorst established a bauxite/rubber-based colony in Suriname (Cooper, "Stretching Out, Part 3: Maria's Mission," Grantville Gazette 14). Their ships left Hamburg in December 1633 (presumably before any of the Brazilian rubber reached Hamburg) and arrived off the coast of Suriname in Early 1634. Upriver, they begin are tapping Hevea guianensis. Surprisingly little is known about this tree, but I am going to assume it is essentially identical to H. brasiliensis. They definitely do not have as many tappers as Henrique, perhaps 20. Suriname, near the coast, has two dry and two rainy seasons, the dry seasons are February through April and mid-August through November. So 6–7 months collecting.

De Vries got stir-crazy and by April 1634 he was in Trinidad. It follows that he couldn't be carrying much H. guianensis rubber on his ship, they weren't tapping long enough. If he has the March production, that's perhaps one ton of rubber. (In the 1634–35 season, perhaps they can produce 6–7 tons. More if they can recruit more tappers.)

3) Just to complicate matters, De Vries harvested Castilla elastica rubber in coastal Nicaragua in May-June 1634. Cooper, "Stretching Out, Part 4: Beyond the Line," Grantville Gazette 16). There, they are cutting down, rather than tapping, the trees, each felled tree producing 15–20 pounds of rubber. (If they chose to tap and come back, note that Castilla can be tapped only 1–4 times/year and that one tap is good for no more than 1 pound, probably less.)

It's difficult to guess how many trees they've found and cut down. Density estimates are anywhere from 50–700 trees/acre. Let's say 1000 trees, producing 7.5–15 tons rubber. The rubber arrives in Hamburg in late 1634. Treat this as a one-time deal. (The trees take 6 years to mature, and the Spanish will increase coastal defenses since come summer De Vries led raiders inland, ransacking Granada's gold and silver.)

4) Finally, I have seen reference to milkweed rubber being available in 1634. Offord, "Feng Shui for the Soul," (Grantville Gazette 17). Milkweed is a bit problematic, because the rubber yield is low and there's a high resin content. The yield per acre per year is 114–171 pounds. If we had 10 acres under cultivation in 1634, then that would mean producing half to three-quarters ton rubber.

Balata (50% trans-polyisoprene) comes from Manilkaea bidentata, found in Guyana and the West Indies. It has been used for machine belting. (EB15/balata). The colonists in my Suriname colony are collecting it, beginning in early 1634.

Casein and Casein-Formaldehyde Plastics. Primitive casein plastics have appeared in canon, as the result of treating milk with vinegar (dilute acetic acid). Offord, "Bootstrapping" (Grantville Gazette 11); DeMarce, "Songs and Ballads" (Grantville Gazette 14).

This is simply the commercial embodiment of a classic elementary school science experiment for making "plastic milk." There isn't really a chemical reaction, but rather the acetic acid is coagulating the casein (essentially the same mechanism as lactic acid curdling milk). The acid denatures (unfolds) the protein molecules, allowing them to aggregate. The casein is least soluble at its isolectric point, pH 4.6 (acidic). In OTL, the material is known as acid-precipitated casein and is used primarily in paper-coatings, but also as a paint emulsifier, adhesive, rubber additive (internal lubricant) and a fiber. (SIF)

A related material (rennet-precipitated casein) actually predates the Ring of Fire (RoF). A sixteenth century recipe says to extract a "paste" (crude casein) by repeatedly treating goat cheese with hot water and removing the liquid on top; then treat the paste with a heated soapy solution (alkali salts of fatty acids) and press it into a mold. The material, once cooled, imitates horn. The recipe was published by the Bavarian Benedictine monk Wolfgang Seidel (1492–1562), who had learned about it around 1530 from the merchant Bartholmaus Schobinger (1500–1585), who in turn had heard it from an alchemist. (Haefele 127; Elias 4; Deusches-Kunstoff Museum). Presumably the soapy solution isn't so alkaline as to convert the casein to soluble caseinates.

Rogers (837) recommended the addition of strontium hydroxide and powdered marble to increase the hardness and durability of casein plastic, and I believe that was what was done by Lilienthal when he used it to make children's building blocks. (Elias 4, Scherer 98).

Rennet casein is reportedly still used to make buttons and other small plastic articles (SIF), and I have seen current advertisements for biodegradable casein knitting needles (arnos), but I strongly suspect that many of these products are not simple casein, but rather casein "hardened" with formaldehyde as I discuss below. For one thing, a primitive casein plastic will "dissolve" if it comes in contact with weak alkali. (Johnston, 969). Also, it is vulnerable to moisture attack ( Brady 182), and it's brittle (Seidel said "bending or twisting will cause it to shatter like glass").

Casein is a milk protein and thus already a polymer, but it can be further crosslinked by formaldehyde. The new polymer, the conventional "casein plastic" (galalith), was first produced in 1897. Either curds or whey may be used as starting material. Galalith is still used in the button industry. (Brydson 5). It has a tensile strength of 8000 psi, and can withstand a temperature of 150°C.

Not that casein-formaldehyde plastic production is without its trials. The dry process involved applying heat and pressure to casein powder using a screw press, thereby extruding a soft plastic, and then hardening it by immersion in formaldehyde solution. This hardening process took three weeks to six months, depending on the thickness of the material. Then the material had to be dried down to 8–12% moisture content, which took an equally long period. (Brothers).

While casein plastics can definitely be extruded, my sources (Brady 182; Salter, SIF, Wikipedia/Galalith) are hopelessly contradictory as to whether they can be molded.

For those interested in economics, I was able to find some information about the German experience with galalith in 1908. In France, they paid butter makers 30 cents/220 pounds of skim milk, coagulated it, and shipped the pressed curds back home for finishing. It took 2000 liters of skim milk to make 220 pounds dry casein, and that much casein was worth $15.50. A plant large enough to make one ton galalith/day would cost $300,000, and the factory in Hamburg, with 200 workers, produced 800 tons/year. (MCTR).

Cellulosics. Bracannot treated wood with nitric acid in 1833, creating cellulose nitrate (guncotton). Others similarly nitrated cellulose from paper and cotton. As of September 1633, Ferrara hadn't yet made guncotton, but he knew how—the supply of nitric acid was still too limited to make cellulose nitrate in militarily significant quantities. (Weber and Flint, 1633, Chapter 28).

Historically, the immediate problem with cellulose nitrate was that it couldn't be formed into a useful shape. (Deanin 167). In the 1870s, cellulose nitrate was plasticized with camphor, producing "celluloid", the first thermoplastic. This was highly flammable, and only the degree of nitration distinguished it from guncotton explosive. In manufacturing facilities, "minor fires were frequent, major ones not rare," and there was an explosion at one factory in 1888. (Meikle 22). Fabrication, storage and use were also dangerous. Workers sawed blanks of cellulose nitrate while working, stripped to the waist, under a stream of water. (79). Poor nitration could also be a problem, leading to the failure of Merchants Manufacturing Company. (19).

Camphor was a bottleneck in the production process, as it had to be imported from China, Japan or Formosa. Synthetic camphor was first made in Germany in 1901 and in the United States in 1933. (19). Also, a variety of new plasticizers were identified in the 1890s and thereafter. Plasticizers were required for other plastics, including cellulose acetate, butyrate, and propionate, and polyvinyl chloride, butyral and acetate, and by 1940 dioctyl phthalate was the leading general-purpose plasticizer. (Deanin 168).

Celluloid was used as a substitute for ivory, tortoiseshell and horn, as the middle layer in the first safety glass, and as the first movie film substrate, but its only significant modern use is in ping-pong balls.

Instead of nitrating cellulose, one can acetylate it, obtaining cellulose diacetate or triacetate. Similarly one can make cellulose propionate or cellulose acetate butyrate by reaction with the appropriate carboxylic acids.

Cellulose acetate was first synthesized in 1865 but not commercialized until the twentieth century (Meikle 78). It was first used as a "dope" for WW I airplane wings, and as a fiber. In the 1920s, it replaced celluloid for motion film, and it ultimately replaced celluloid in safety glass.

Cellulose acetate is potentially of great importance, because—if the plasticizer problem is solved—it will be the new time line's first nonflammable thermoplastic. The development of injection molding encouraged its use as a strong, stiff, hard, tough plastic in, for example, protective goggles. Cellulose acetate butyrate and cellulose propionate aren't as well documented in Grantville, but they're superior in some respects to cellulose acetate.

Rayon (cellulose xanthate) was a "poor man's silk," developed in 1884, and given the huge prices commanded by Oriental silks, it will be an attractive target for the USE chemical industry. It appears that only "a limited quantity" of rayon is produced in early 1635 (Huff and Goodlett, "In the Army Now," Grantville Gazette 20), but it was still more expensive than cotton, let alone silk. But I have discussed this with the authors, and they say that what they meant was that there are lots of uses for viscose, and the demand for it won't be close to being filled as of 1635. So this isn't inconsistent with rayon being available in June 1633 (as in their story "The Monster") or even earlier.

The three basic methods of producing rayon are described in EB11/Cellulose and EA/Rayon. EB11 predicted that the viscose method would prevail, because of its lower cost, and EA says that it's the most widely used. It requires sodium hydroxide (lye), already known to the down-timers, and carbon disulfide, in order to produce viscose (liquefied wood pulp cellulose). The viscose is extruded through spinerettes (holes) to make the fibers. If instead it's extruded through slots, we obtain regenerated cellulose sheets that can be waterproofed to make cellophane.

If for some reason carbon disulfide is not available, the rayon can be made by treating cellulose with a copper-ammonium solution or with acetic and sulfuric acids. Acetate rayon, because of its high tensile strength, would be of interest to the fledgling airship industry. See Evans, "Wingless Wonders" (Grantville Gazette 19).

Phenolics. Phenol-formaldehyde (Bakelite) is a member of a broader class of plastics, the phenolic resins, made by reacting an aromatic alcohol (phenol, cresol, xylenol, bisphenol, resorcinol, etc.) with an aldehyde (formaldehyde, fufural). Furan resin (phenol-furfural) is another member of this class. There are also some ion-exchange resins (OTL 1935) that are related to Bakelite. (EB15/ion-exchange reaction).

Bakelite was used for insulation of coils, knobs and sockets for electrical equipment, adhesives for making plywood and particle board, and, with reinforcement, heat-resistant electrical connectors and appliance handles.

Furan resins are chemical and heat resistant. They've been used in pavement coating, chemical plant lining; and with asbestos fiber reinforcement, construction material. (EB15/heterocyclic compound; CCD401).

Urea-Formaldehyde resin (OTL 1925) had uses similar to phenol-formaldehyde, but offered a broader color range. (Meikle 76). The price of a grocery scale was reduced from 49 to 35 cents/pound by replacing the cast iron with urea-formaldehyde. (110).

Polyacetal. Engineering thermoplastic, with high chemical resistance and dimensional stability, good temperature and abrasion resistance, and low friction. In the old time line, polyacetal was commercialized in 1960 (Salamone 2). In the new time line, it's likely to be the first engineering plastic. It's useful as a replacement for small metal parts in appliances and machinery.

Polyglycolic and polylactic acid (PLA): Biodegradable. PLA was first made in the 1890s. (GreenPlastics).

1635–37 Polymers

Two more natural plastics of the trans-isoprene type will probably be exploited by Europeans in this time frame. Gutta-percha is produced by trees of the genera Palaqium and Payena, found in the Malay Archipelago. This was used as insulation for underwater electrical equipment and cables. (EB15/gutta-percha). Chicle (75% trans-, 25% cis) is derived from Manilkaea zapota, the Sapodilla Tree of Mexico and Central America. It's now mostly used in chewing gum. (EB15/chicle; EA), but there are sources which indicate that it once was likewise used as electrical insulation (Wilcox 208).

Melamine-formaldehyde (Formica®) (OTL 1938) is harder and more water-resistant than urea-formaldehyde, therefore used in table and counter tops, and dinnerware.

Polystyrene is a hard, rigid thermoplastic used in packaging and electrical and thermal insulation. Its Achilles' heel is its brittleness. The first impact polystyrene was made in 1927 by blending polystyrene with natural rubber. (Scheirs 18). Modern impact polystyrene is a blend of polystyrene with 5–10% polybutadiene rubber.

Styrene is compatible with many different copolymers. One that's mentioned in EB15/Ion-Exchange Reaction is divinylbenzene; together they form a polymer which, after chemical treatment to introduce sulfonic acid or quarternary ammonium groups, is a very useful ion-exchange resin.

Polyurethane. Foams, coatings, fibers (Spandex is a segmented polyurethane, see EB15 for particulars).

Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is a polyester thermoplastic; strong, stiff, transparent, chemical resistant, gas-impermeable. It's used to make fibers, recording tape, bottles, conveyor belts. Mylar® is a PET film, stretched horizontally and vertically. Dacron® is a closely related polymer.

At least as of late 1634, polyester isn't being produced yet; Nicki Jo Prickett of Essen Chemical says, of her cotton-polyester blend sweat pants, "we probably won't have something like them any time soon." Mackey, "Game, Set and Match" (Grantville Gazette 23). Since cotton is available from India, the polyester is the problem.

Polycarbonate. polyester; engineering thermoplastic. Transparent, high impact strength, high dielectric strength, cold resistance, but limited chemical resistance.

Polyphenylene sulfide. Engineering thermoplastic; useful up to 260°C (higher with glass filler), chemically resistant. With dopants, becomes conductive.

Polyvinyl chloride. A strong, tough thermoplastic. Pure PVC is used in conduits and siding; plasticized PVC (a copolymer with vinyl acetate) in flexible tubes and sheets, and wire/cable insulation.

Polyvinyl acetate (PVAc) is used in adhesives and paints, but it can also be used to make tough, flexible moldings. PVAc can be hydrolyzed to form polyvinyl alcohol, or reacted with formaldehyde or butyraldehyde to make polyvinyl formal or butyral.

Polyvinylidene chloride has low water/gas permeability, ideal for food packaging.

Polyethylene oxide (glycol). Depending on the degree of polymerization, this is a liquid or a low-melting solid (Carbowax®). It's used as a thickening agent in cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. (Field 137).

Polypropylene oxide (glycol) has similar uses.

Butyl rubber. Excellent insulator; cold resistant; gas impermeable. Inner tubes. It cannot safely be blended with natural rubber. (Miles 299).

1636–38 Polymers

Polyphenylene oxide. Rigid engineering thermoplastic. Can be extended by blending with polystyrene.

Epoxy. Thermoset used as adhesive, coating, and, with fiber reinforcement, in structural parts.

Phenoxy. Same monomers as epoxy, but a thermoplastic. Transparent, ductile, heat and chemical resistant. Containers, pipes, adhesives, coatings.

Thiokol rubber. Excellent sunlight, oil and solvent resistance. Very low gas permeability. Lacquer and paint hoses.

Neoprene. The first commercially successful (1932) synthetic elastomer. The chlorine atom makes the monomer extremely reactive with free radicals, and indeed it polymerizes spontaneously. It is also compatible with many comonomers. (Kirk-Othmer 8:1045ff). Very good strength, abrasion resistance, flexion resistance; good oil/solvent resistance. Of the six major rubbers, the only one with good flame resistance. Used for oil-resistant footwear and balloons. Acceptable for transmission belting.

Polyhydroxybutyrate. Biodegradable.

Unsaturated polyesters. The premiere matrix material for fiberglass composites. Their availability at this early stage is conditional on using fumaric acid isolated from natural sources.

The more common maleic anhydride-based polyesters will not be available until we have vanadium pentoxide catalysts, and hence I have slotted them into 1638–42.

1637–39 Polymers

Nylon 66. Polyamide. We think of nylon as a fiber (the hit song of 1943 was "When the Nylons Bloom Again," a reference to wartime diversion of production from stockings to parachutes) but it's also an engineering thermoplastic—strong, tough, abrasion resistant, flexible, and low friction. Nylon 6 has similar properties.

Nylon was admired by Heinrich Schütz in a letter to his mother in April, 1634. Carrico, "Motifs" (Grantville Gazette 21). It can be used, not just for scarves for Heinrich's relations, but for making sails stronger, lighter, and less leaky than canvas. Cooper, "The Wind is Free: Sailing Ship Design, Part 1: Propulsion" (Grantville Gazette 21). Simpson has a nylon prosthesis (1633, Chapter 41), and the suspension system in up-time hard hats is made of nylon. Cooper, "Safety First: Industrial Safety in 1632, Part Two, Technical Aspects" (Grantville Gazette 18).

Polycaprolactone. Biodegradable.

Aramid (ARomatic polyAMIDe.; Nomex®, Kevlar®). A high-performance thermoplastic used for ballistic fibers, composite reinforcement, machinery belts. Kevlar® aramid is "five times stronger per weight than steel."

Polyimide. Engineering thermoplastic. Abrasion and chemical resistant, low friction, useable up to 250°C . Can be made in linear or network polymer forms.

Polymethyl methacrylate (Plexiglas, Lucite) is a transparent, rigid, hard, weather resistant thermoplastic. Think of it as a glass substitute, suitable even for aircraft windshields.

Polymethyl cyanoacrylate (Super Glue) is used as a contact adhesive (sold as the monomer and polymerized during use); e.g., to close incisions.

Vinyl ester resins. As a matrix material for composites, these are intermediate in price and performance between unsaturated polyester and epoxy resins. They also have very high chemical/environmental resistance. (azom.com).

Polyacrylonitrile. Wool-like fibers. Intermediates for production of carbon fibers.

Styrene-Acrylonitrile. Rigid, transparent thermoplastic, more heat and solvent resistant than polystyrene, intermediate in production of ABS.

Polytetrafluoroethylene. Thermoplastic. Resistant to chemicals, weather, heat, and cold; low friction. Used as high temperature electrical insulation, cooking surface, chemical equipment liner, bearings.

Polyvinyl fluoride. Thermoplastic. Transparent film.

Silicones. Thermoset. Can be prepared as a fluid (by stopping the polymerization), plastic (by use of a crosslinking co-monomer), or rubber (Miles 102). Heat and chemical resistant, water repellent, popular in high temperature electrical insulation.

AIS. A semisynthetic analog of ABS, see below.

1638–42 Polymers

Styrene-butadiene rubber. Excellent age and electrical resistance. Used for wire/cable insulation, tire sidewalls, and to some degree for tire treads. Less heat resistant than natural rubber, making it less useful for truck tires.

ABS. Hard, tough, heat-resistant thermoplastic, sometimes considered an engineering plastic.

Nitrile Rubber. Gas-impermeable, oxidation-, oil-, solvent- and heat-resistant. Gas and oil hoses.

Styrene-maleic anhydride Copolymer. EB15 says "used in automobile parts, small appliances, and food-service trays."

Methyl rubber. The rubber substitute used by the Germans in WW I, and abandoned at the earliest opportunity. Its strength can be increased six-fold to 2400 psi (still inferior to natural rubber), by addition of carbon black, as was demonstrated by Whitby in the 1930s, but Grantville literature doesn't mention this and indeed is universally critical of methyl rubber. No specifics are given, but besides the strength problem, it has very poor oxygen resistance, and the elastic form (W-rubber) became brittle in the German winter. (PSLC).

Evolution of Material Choices, by Application

For chemical reactor linings and piping, we are concerned with resistance to temperature extremes and a wide range of chemicals; strength is a secondary consideration. In general, the plastics containing fluorine or (to a lesser degree) chlorine exhibit the best chemical resistance, and the first of these we will develop will probably be polyvinyl chloride. Later, we will be blessed with polytetrafluoroethylene and polyvinyl fluoride. The best of the rest are probably the furan resins (vulnerable to oxidizing agents), polyphenylene sulfide, epoxy, nitrile, polyacetal, neoprene.

For mechanical parts, we value both tensile strength and impact resistance; we need to be able to fabricate to close tolerance and the polymer has to have the dimensional stability to maintain that tolerance. We will initially make do with polyacetals, but our options will expand to include polycarbonates and polyphenylene sulfides, then nylons. ABS, unfortunately, will be delayed by the problems of making polybutadiene, but a semisynthetic analogue could be made using natural rubber. If low friction is important, then polytetrafluoroethylene (Teflon) is also worthy of scrutiny.

For thermal insulation and mechanical shock absorption, we should fairly soon have polyurethane foam.

For optical parts, transparency is critical, but impact resistance is also important. We will have cellulose acetate first, then polycarbonate and polystyrene, and later polymethyl methacrylates.

Polymers have an important role to play as electrical insulation; high resistivity and dielectric strength are the key parameters. However, insulating use must be further subdivided into rigid versus flexible, and low frequency versus high frequency.

When mechanical strength is also important, we would probably make good use of phenolic resins, and later polystyrene, polyphenylene sulfide and epoxy. For simple encapsulation of discrete electronics, waxes, tars, gutta-percha, balata or chicle may also be of value.

For wire and cable, the best known flexible plastics are PTFE, polybutylene, LDPE, some polyurethanes, and plasticized PVC. Rubbers, by their nature, are also flexible. We will probably be using natural rubber and plasticized PVC in the mid-1630s for low-frequency cable.

To be suitable for high frequency use, we want a low "dissipation factor" at frequency, and preferably also a low dielectric constant. For rigid applications, we can use phenol-formaldehyde (dissipation 0.04@1MHz), polyacetal (0.008), polystyrene (0.0003), or even, if mechanical strength is unimportant, wax (0.001). I fear that for high frequency cable, initially we will be making do with tars (loss tangent 0.04) and natural rubber (0.03), and then with plasticized PVC (0.006). PTFE (0.0003) or silicone (0.002) will hopefully become available by the late 1630s.

It's perhaps worth noting that cables may have both an inner layer as electrical insulation and an outer layer to protect the inner one from the elements.

Industrial Polymerization Methods

Older textbooks classify polymerization reactions as being addition or condensation polymerizations. Addition polymerization is usually exothermic, and the reactors must be designed to dissipate the heat. Otherwise, the retained heat will increase the speed of the reaction, which will produce more heat, which . . . well, the result wouldn't be pretty. Condensation polymerization is usually endothermic, so the reactors must efficiently supply heat to the reaction so it doesn't peter out. (EB15).

EB15 describes five basic industrial polymerization methods, which are classified according to how the monomers are brought together.

Bulk (Melt). Without any solvent or dispersant. Simple, but heat control and stirring can be difficult. Also, monomer purity is quite important. (Bahadur 57).

Solution. Alleviates the problems of bulk polymerization, but the solvent can react with the polymer and also be difficult to remove from the polymerization product. Hence, it is preferred for products sold as liquids, such as some adhesives and coatings. Note that gas phase monomers can be dissolved in a solvent.

Suspension. If the monomer won't dissolve, it can still be suspended in a liquid by stirring. The polymer is produced in a granular form.

What Grantville literature doesn't mention is what happens if you don't stir sufficiently. If there isn't enough agitation, and the polymers haven't polymerized enough so that their glass transition temperature is above the working temperature, the particles coalesce, and you get a "runaway" bulk polymerization. For similar reasons, suspension polymerizations cannot be run continuously. (Kirk-Othmer 19:899).

Emulsion. A detergent is added to emulsify the monomers. This works well with free radical-initiated reactions, if you want a high molecular weight polymer, because the polymerization reaction isn't terminated as easily. Finding the right detergent can be tricky and purification is difficult, so this is best for producing coatings and adhesives that can be used as emulsions.

Gas-Phase. If the monomers are gaseous, they can be reacted under pressure. The polymer, because of its molecular weight, will be a solid.

CCD715 gives some exemplary conditions: Bulk, 150°C; Solution, -70 to 70°C; Suspension, 60–80°C; Emulsion, -20 to 60°C; and Gas-Phase, high pressure and temperature (200°C).

Another technique, not mentioned by EB15, is interfacial polymerization. One monomer is dissolved in solvent A, the other in solvent B. If the two solvents can't mix, and the monomers can't self-polymerize, then the reaction can occur only at the boundary of the two liquids.

Fabrication of Polymeric Materials

A polymeric material is either a pure polymer, or a material that consists predominantly of polymers but to which other substances have been added. Polymeric materials can exist in a variety of forms:

1. dimensional: fibers

2. dimensional: sheets, fabrics and coatings

3. dimensional: solid parts; foams; liquids

Polymeric materials can comprise plastics or elastomers. Plastics can be thermoplastics or thermosets. Thermoplastics (linear and branched polymers) soften and melt when heated, and will dissolve in certain solvents. They can be reheated and deformed again and again.

Thermosets (networked and crosslinked polymers) suffer chemical reactions when heated so that once they cool they are permanently set ("cured") in a particular shape. They also are then insoluble. If reheated, they decompose. They are not suitable for use as fibers. (Wittcoff I:163). They tend to be harder and more brittle than thermoplastics, and they are more difficult to process into a desired shape. (Wittcoff II:40).

The commercially important thermosets are phenol-, urea- and melamine-formaldehyde, epoxy, unsaturated polyester (used to make fibreglass), furan resin, and some polyurethanes. Most elastomers also behave like thermosets once they have been vulcanized.

* * *

EB15 and EA outline the basic methods of forming a polymer into the desired shape. The sine qua non is causing the polymer to flow. You have four choices: melt it, dissolve it, suspend particles of it in a liquid, or put it under sufficient pressure that it flows even at room temperature.

Extrusion involves putting the polymer, heated or not, under pressure and forcing it out through a die. Extrusion can be driven by a piston (ram), but screws are more popular. Screw extruders were built in the 1840s to coat copper conductors with gutta-percha.

If you want to make fibers, you use a die with lots of small holes (spinnerets). If the die has a narrow rectangular slot, you extrude a sheet, and if it has an open ring, you get a pipe. The key point about extrusion is that the object will have a constant cross-section.

While the technology is a fairly straightforward one, it has its subtleties, "the specific design of the screw(s) having an enormous effect on the degree of mixing and the temperatures that are generated inside the chamber." (Teegarden 160). About 60% of all plastics are extruded.

In injection molding, the extruder, instead of forcing the material out through a die, forces it into a mold. The mold must be clamped to resist the extrusion pressure. The first injection molding machine, patented by the Hyatt brothers in 1872, used a ram extruder, whereas screw injection was introduced by Hendry in 1946. (Wikipedia/Injection Molding).

Injection molding took advantage of the reformability of thermoplastics. Historically, injection molding was an adaptation of die casting of metals. The first injection molding machines were hand operated, but the first fully automatic machine appeared in 1935. An aspirin box could be produced in 15 seconds by injection molding, as opposed to 15 minutes by compression molding. The machines of 1930 could only inject a half ounce "charge," but this was scaled up to 16 ounces by 1939. (Meikle 80ff).

In blow molding, air is blown into a plastic hollow tube (parison), which thereby expands against the inner surface of a mold. I have seen it asserted that this technique was known to the ancient Egyptians. Of course, the down-timers don't have any blow-molding machines, but we can certainly compress air and feed it into a parison, mechanically. Blow molding machines were used in the early 1900s to make celluloid bottles, dolls and ping-pong balls.

Thermoforming takes a sheet of polymer, heats it until it softens, and rams it into a mold. Primitive forms of this method (heating tortoise shells in hot oil, or tree bark in hot water, and then forcing then into a mold to make a container) date back to ancient times. (Throne, Understanding Thermoforming 2). Thermoforming machines were developed in the 1870s.

In compression molding, the polymer (usually preheated) is first placed into the mold, and then pressure is applied (as opposed to pressure forcing it into a mold as in injection molding or thermoforming).

While not discussed by EB15, the up-timers are probably aware of the possibility of hand lay-up or spray-up with certain plastics (notably unsaturated polyesters and epoxies) as these are part of the home hobbyist arsenal. Polyesters could be laid-up by hand because they didn't give off water or gas during formation. (Meikle 158).

Thermoset plastics (the phenol-, urea- and melamine- formaldehyde copolymers, epoxies, and unsaturated polyesters) are usually compression molded, whereas injection molding is the most common process for thermoplastics.

* * *

Foams. The holes in a foam are made by gas bubbles. If you inject an inert gas (air, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, etc.) under pressure directly into the polymer melt, the foam will have an open cell structure. Or you can use a volatile liquid that evaporates to make the gas. If instead a foaming agent, which decomposes at the melt temperature to produce a gas, is incorporated into the resin, you get a closed cell structure. The foam may be flexible or rigid, depending on the plastic chosen. The most commonly foamed plastics are vinyls, polystyrene (Styrofoam), polyethylene, phenolics, silicones, cellulose acetate, and polyurethanes (EB15/foamed plastic). Foam (sponge) rubber is made by whipping the latex into a froth containing about 85% air, or by using a foaming agent.

Fibers. If the polymer is being formed into a fiber, it will be melted and spun, or dissolved, gelled or emulsified, and spun. (EB15/MMF) The spinning is really an extrusion of the polymer through small holes. During or after spinning, the fibers are drawn (stretched) to orient the polymer chains and thereby increase their tensile strength. Drawing can be cold or hot.

There was a long gap between when polyacrylonitrile was first made (1941) and when it became commercially significant (mid-fifties). The problem was that it can't be spun from the melt, because it isn't heat-stable enough. It took time to find a suitable solvent (dimethylformamide). EB15 mentions that such a "spinning solvent" exists but doesn't identify it. Hence, unless we are luckier than the DuPont chemists of the Forties, we will probably make copolymers of acrylonitrile and other monomers, rather than pure polyacrylonitrile.

The drawn fibers may also be textured to change their feel, and of course they are often dyed. Dyes may be introduced before, during or after spinning.

* * *

Processing time is of critical importance in determining whether a particular polymer/fabrication method is successful in the modern world (the hardening time for polylactic acid had to be reduced from a minute to few seconds in order to make PLA production economically viable) but I assume it will not loom so large in the first decade or two after RoF.

Additives

While the polymer is the main ingredient of a plastic or rubber, other ingredients are usually added to it to improve its properties.

Fillers. Fillers for plastics come in two principal categories, reinforcing agents to increase strength (finely divided silica, carbon black, glass fibers) and extenders (like sawdust, to reduce cost). Mica and asbestos are added to increase heat resistance. (EA). Fillers may be particulate (spheres, cubes or flakes) or fibrous. A plastic with fibrous reinforcement is usually called a "composite," see below.

Stabilizers. To protect against oxygen, you may need antioxidants such as "hindered phenols" (butylated hydroxytoluene) or tertiary amines. Some plastics will require protection against heat, sunlight, or microorganisms.

Pigments and Dyes. These include titanium and zinc oxide (white) carbon (black), and oxides of iron or chromium.

Plasticizers. These are low molecular weight organic compound that soften the polymer. The number of commercial plasticizers rose from 56 in 1934 to 414 in 1987. (Deanin 167). Variety is good, because a plasticizer suitable for one polymer might not work with another.

One standard plasticizer is dioctyl phthalate. Plasticizers are frequently added to PVC.

Flame retardants. These are typically rich in chlorine or bromine.

Foaming agents. These decompose at the molding temperature, evolving large quantities of gas. They include isopentane and azidodicarbonamide.

If additives are used, they must be mixed into the polymer in some way. If both are liquid, this is trivial. Otherwise a powerful blender is needed.

It is very important to recognize that additives can drastically alter the characteristics of a polymer.

Polymer Blends

Polymers may be blended together, just as metals are alloyed together. If they are miscible—that is, each dissolves in the other—then the properties of the blend are usually weighted averages of those of the component polymers.

If the polymers are immiscible, then unless precautions are taken, they will separate under stress. This can be avoided if the two polymers are "embedded" in a network formed by a third polymer. Alternatively, a homopolymer of monomer A and immiscible homopolymer of monomer B are blended with a block or graft copolymer of monomers A and B. (EB15/IPC).

Polystyrene is usually blended with 5–10% polybutadiene to make high-impact PS.

Composites

A composite is a "macroscopic" combination of two or more constituent materials to form a new material, in which the original constituents remain distinguishable. This can result in very different properties. Unfilled Bakelite has a tensile strength of 5000 psi, but wood flour filler can increase it to 7000 (Miles 338). A typical epoxy-boron fiber composite (70% fiber) has a flexural strength of 300,000 psi. (EA/Composite Materials). In contrast, a simple epoxy resin has a flexural stress at fracture of at most 23,000 psi. (MCA 38). (Just to complicate matters further, a constituent material of a composite may itself be a composite.)

The composite may comprise matrix material which surrounds a filler material; the latter may be particles, flat flakes or fibers. Or a skeleton or honeycomb of one material may have its open spaces filled by a second material. Or you may have a laminate, in which alternating layers are of one material or another, as in the case of plywood.

The particles of particulate composites include glass spheres, calcite, kaolin, mica, talc, carbon black, wollastonite, feldspar, metal or metal (zinc, iron, titanium, antimony) oxide powders, and wood flour. Particulate composites are almost as old as synthetic plastics themselves. Note that many synthetic rubbers require carbon black for strength.

Fibrous composites are of particular interest. The fiber provides strength, and the matrix protects the fibers from environmental attack. Pure Bakelite is brittle, but very early in its development, "wood flour" (short cellulose fibers) were added to toughen it. (Kirk-Othmer 7:2).

The fiber content of glass fiber-reinforced plastic (GFRP) is such that it might more aptly be described as plastic-protected glass fibers. (Note we usually make structures out of GFRP, not "fiberglass"; "fiberglass" strictly speaking refers just to the bundle or mat of glass fibers.)

When the reinforcement is a fiber or yarn (twisted fibers), the orientation matters; they may be unidirectional, bidirectional (as in a fabric), two-dimensionally random or completely random. Composites with controlled orientation will probably be stronger than a random orientation composite in some directions and weaker in others.

Another important consideration is the length of the fiber, long fibers being better (sometimes!) at resisting loads but making it harder to fabricate the composite into a desired shape. It naturally is possible to use a combination of fibers of different materials or lengths.

The strength and stiffness of the composite are intermediate between those of the matrix and the fiber. It's difficult to achieve a fiber content of even 50%. (Gordon 187) but this depends on fiber orientation and length, and the fabrication method. With hand lay-up on glass fibers, 20–40% may be expected, but some methods yield up to 80% (Kirk-Othmer 7:31).

Here, we are concerned with composites in which either the matrix or the fibers are plastics. The most commonly used plastic matrices are epoxy, polyester, and vinyl ester resins. Phenolics were once popular, but are now used mostly when their flame and heat resistance, and low cost, outweighs their inferiority in strength. (Kirk-Othmer 7:29).

The fibers will usually be made of a material with a high tensile strength. Glass and carbon fibers were discussed in Cooper, "Better Foundations, Part 1: An Introduction to Concrete" (Grantville Gazette 19). However, it's important not to get fixated on them. Other possibilities include vegetable (wood, bamboo, sisal, banana, hemp, cotton, flax, jute, coir, ramie, etc.), metal, asbestos, plastic (polyacrylonitrile, nylon, polyethylene, polypropylene, aramid), boron, ceramics, and basalt.

In 1943, Henry Ford showed off a plastic car with fourteen composite panels that were 70% a combination of southern-pine, straw, hemp and ramie fibers, and 30% Bakelite. The panels were quarter-inch thick, but allegedly had an impact strength ten times that of steel. (Stidger).

A thorough discussion of when the various fibers can be made in the new time line, and what their advantages and disadvantages are, is beyond the scope of this article, but I hope to address them in a mini-article in the near future.

The fiber and matrix must be compatible; that is, the matrix must adhere to the fiber so that stresses on the matrix are transferred to the fiber, which is better able to withstand them. The fiber may receive a mechanical surface treatment or be coated with a chemical coupling agent to improve adhesion.

There are several methods of fabricating a FRP composite. Resin may be hand brushed or sprayed on a fiber mat. In transfer molding, the mold is filled with the fibers and then the resin is injected into the mold. In compression molding, the pre-impregnated composite is laid in the mold and then squeezed. In filament winding, fibers or tape (optionally precoated with resin to make a "prepreg") are drawn through a resin bath and then wound onto a mandrel. In pultrusion, a fiber bundle is pulled through the resin matrix bath and then through a heated die to make a composite with a constant cross-section.

* * *

In June 1633, a composite of glass fiber cloth and viscose was tested by Markgraf Aviation as a possible fuselage material. A GFRP wasn't used on their first plane, the Mercury, because the fiberglass was too expensive. A technical note implies that fiberglass was used in their second plane, the Jupiter (nicknamed, "The Monster"), but the story doesn't actually say so. In January, 1634, when it was being built, there were arguments about which resin to use in making the composite, so viscose clearly wasn't the only one under consideration. And we don't know what the final choice was. Huff and Goodlett, "The Monster" (Grantville Gazette 12).

In view of the polymer timeline, the most likely resins are agglutinated casein, casein-formaldehyde (galalith), viscose (rayon, regenerated cellulose), cellulose acetate, and phenol-formaldehyde (Bakelite).

Agglutinated casein softens and ultimately dissolves if exposed to alkali. With galalith and viscose, water absorption is severe (for galalith, 33% per Scherer 115 and 7–14% per Brady 152; 100% for rayon, Lewin 788), and impairs dimensional stability. In contrast, it's 2–5% for cellulose acetate and under 1% for Bakelite (MCA). Also, I worry about the casein and cellulose-based plastics being biodegradable—they will be exposed to moist air and fungi, and I know that the casein glues once used in aircraft deteriorated (Gordon 158), as did the cellulose fibers in a paper-based phenolic used in a German WW I aircraft (182).

While these problems could be alleviated by coating the GFRP with a waterproof paint, possibly containing a biocide, that would certainly add to the production cost. Glass fiber-Bakelite composites are known to be functional (183), and Bakelite was made by Dr. Gribbleflotz' laboratory in 1634. And perhaps Markgraf reproduced it independently earlier. So I favor Bakelite as the first matrix material.

Recycling Up-Time Polymers

Many polymeric materials contain dyes, fillers and other additives, and it isn't easy to remove them. If waste thermoplastics are in pure enough form, they can be reground and reused.

This is most likely to be possible with beverage bottles and plastic bags. And it makes sense to remove labels, if possible.

Such recycling presupposes that we can identify the plastic. This is simplest if the waste bears the standard resin identification codes: 1 PET, 2 HDPE, 3 PVC, 4 LDPE, 5 PP, 6 PS and 7 Other. If not, then we can try measuring its density, and there are also some simple chemical tests. Thermosets (which includes most rubbers) can't be recycled.

My suspicion is that the post-RoF value of up-time plastic articles qua up-time "relics," if nothing else, will be much greater than the value of the raw plastic that might be obtained from them by recycling.

Polymer Economics

World annual per capita plastics consumption rose from 0.03 kilograms in 1920, to 0.16 in 1940, 2.2 in 1960, 13.3 in 1980 and 26.3 in 2000. In 2000, it was 102 kg in the United States and 133 in Germany, but only 1 kg in India. (Elias 8).

The price of modern plastics is extremely dependent on that of oil. The plastics of the new timeline are derived from coal and natural feedstocks, and hence their prices will be "pegged" accordingly.

We want to minimize the number of synthetic steps in monomer production both to maximize monomer purity and minimize costs. A useful rule of thumb is to figure that each synthesis step produces an intermediate whose price is 2–3 times the raw materials cost. (Wittcoff).

In the course of the first efforts to produce synthetic rubber, the initial obstacle was the high cost of monomer production; Hoffman's 1912 process took six steps to go from p-cresol to isoprene (Morawetz 64). On the other hand, the "dumping" of war supplies of phenol after WW I contributed strongly to the early commercial acceptance of Bakelite.

Bear in mind that prices of products produced in R&D quantities are usually very high. As plastics become more popular, their prices should decrease as a result of economies of scale. The price of the newly introduced "furfural plastic" dropped from $65/pound (1917) to $3 (1921)(Weekly Commercial News). Polyethylene was introduced at $0.40 but fell quickly to under $0.10—the ethylene monomer was available for less than $0.02 from petrochemical production.

Another useful guideline is that the price per unit is proportional to the -0.4th power of the annual production (Elias 243). Hence, if volume doubles, the price will drop by 24%.

In 1984, polypropylene and PVC had the same cost per weight as polyethylene; ABS 2.5x; polyester and furan, 3x; nylon 66, polyacetal, and polycarbonate, 3.5x; epoxy 4x, polyphenylene sulfide 10x, and PTFE, 12x. (Cornish, 98). Relative prices are somewhat different if costs are figured on a per volume basis, with PTFE 26 times polyethylene. However, polyethylene and polypropylene will not be relatively cheap within the first decade of the new time line.

The pricing of plastics before petrochemical feedstocks became dominant may be of interest.

Natural rubber prices were mostly in the $0.10–1.00/pound range during the period between the world wars. In peacetime, when it was at the low end, the interest in synthetic rubber was purely academic (PSLC). When neoprene was introduced, it sold for $1.05/pound, but natural rubber was then 3–5 cents/pound (Morton 339), relegating neoprene to niche (solvent resistance) markets.

PART B: CONSTRUCTION OF THE TIMELINE; SELECTED PRODUCTION PROBLEMS

Chemically speaking, polymers are large molecules formed by the combination of many units of one or a small number of chemical building blocks, called monomers. The polymer thereby consists of numerous repeating units derived from the original monomers.

The introduction of a synthetic polymer may be delayed because:

1. Grantville literature does not reveal how to make one of the required monomers, or the known production methods require starting materials, reagents, catalysts, or process conditions that we can't yet provide, or can provide only at a cost that renders the process uneconomical;

2. there are problems in controlling the polymerization so we achieve a reasonable polymerization time, or so we limit the degree of polymerization so we obtain a processible polymer; or

3. the properties of the polymer are dependent on controlling its stereochemical structure, and to achieve it, we need a catalyst or initiator that we don't know how to make or which we cannot make cheaply enough.

Synthetic Polymer Production

Plainly, the first step toward duplicating in the new time line a polymer of the old one is figuring out which monomers it is based on. Often, that's pretty trivial; polymers are named on the basis of the monomers that were polymerized to make them. Thus, "polypropylene" is the product of the polymerization of propylene. However, if you just know a polymer by its tradename or trademark, such as nylon, Orlon®, or Kevlar®, then you will need to do some library research.

For example, vinyl ester resins are alluded to in EB15/airplane, but the monomers aren't identified. (One class of vinyl ester resins are essentially acrylate or methacrylate-modified epoxy resins, and hence should be producible once we have solved the problems of making epoxy and polymethylmethacrylate resins.)

Next, to make the polymer we need to (1) be able to make the required monomer(s) and (2) work out the polymerization chemistry. Table 5-1 shows which chemicals are used as monomers in the manufacture of which polymers. Some can be used to make more than one polymer, and of course any heteropolymer requires at least two different monomers. Some polymers are made, not by polymerizing one or more monomers, but by modifying an existing polymer.

Being able to prepare the component monomers is just part of the battle. The process conditions (pressure, temperature, catalytic agents, etc.) determine whether polymerization occurs, the degree of polymerization achieved, the regularity of the arrangement of the units of a heteropolymer, the stereospecificity of the repeating units, and so on.

The degree of polymerization strongly affects the polymer properties. To achieve a high degree of polymerization you need very pure reagents (monofunctional reactive impurities would terminate the chains) and precise reaction proportions of the monomers, and you must drive the polymerization to completion. To achieve stereoregularity or stereospecificity you usually need special catalysts or initiators.

Monomer Availability Problems

In the Thirties, the American organic chemistry industry went through a revolutionary change, switching from coal tar to petroleum as its principal feedstock. By the Fifties, this revolution had spread even to coal-rich, petroleum-poor Germany.

As a result of this changeover, modern plastics production is dependent on petrochemical feedstocks, and, when modern Grantville literature discusses how to make organic chemicals on an industrial scale, the emphasis is on petrochemical processes.

Even in the late twentieth century, most (90%) of the petroleum produced was consumed as a fuel. It was only because the production was on such a huge scale that the organic chemical industry could rely on petrochemicals. And it did so, of course, because of cost.

Price is an important factor in whether plastics are used, and the monomers used to make the major plastics were, in 2000, all petrochemicals. Because of the limited supply of crude oil in the 1632verse, and the large captive demand (unused cars and trucks) for gasoline, the price of petrochemicals will be high. In 163x, we are going to have to build the plastics industry, like the more general organic chemical industry, on the isolation and transformation of chemicals from coal tar, biological sources like animal fats and ferments, and inorganic sources such as carbides.

The principal heteropolymers, and their component co-monomers, are listed in table 5-3. The "C#" after the monomer is the size of the largest carbon moiety in the monomer, and is provided because the next table arranges the monomers by C#.

Table 5-4 outlines my proposed non-petrochemical routes for obtaining various monomers. The table lists the monomer, the "ultimate" building block, the feedstock from which the building block is obtained, the number of steps (S#) needed to obtain the monomer from the building block or (+n) another monomer in the table. When it isn't obvious which polymer the monomer is used to make, this is indicated in parentheses.

C1 Chemistry. The C1 monomers should be fairly easy to make, but to use them to make a polymer, we need additional chemicals.

C2 Chemistry. The use of acetylene as a synthetic intermediate was discussed in Cooper, "Industrial Alchemy, part 3." Acetylene is made by fusing lime and coke in an electric arc furnace (resulting in calcium carbide) and then adding water.

A miner's lamp that reacted calcium carbide and water to produce (and burn) acetylene first appeared in canon in January, 1635, so I have assumed that acetylene is available in 1634. Acetylene is the key C2 intermediate (as it was in WW I Germany) and makes possible the production of Thiokol rubber (1636–8), polyvinyl chloride (1635–7), polyvinylidene chloride, polyethylene oxide (1635–7), and one of the comonomers used to make polyethylene terephthalate (1635–7), polyurethane (1635–7), and unsaturated polyester (1636–38).

If for some reason we couldn't use acetylene, the logical C2 building blocks would be ethyl alcohol or acetic acid, both available from winemaking and wood processing.

While polyethylene and polytetrafluoroethylene are derived from C2 monomers, they are late in my chronology, PE because of polymerization problems, and PTFE because of the general reluctance of sane chemists to work with hydrogen fluoride.

C3 Chemistry. C3 monomers aren't too difficult to make, but there are polymerization problems facing polypropylene and related heteropolymers.

C4/C5 Chemistry. Chloroprene and the acrylics can be built by combining C1-C3 building blocks, putting the corresponding polymers in the late 1630s time frame.

The polymers based on butadiene (C4) and isoprene (C5) face something of a double whammy, as the older methods of making the monomers (from non-petrochemical sources and without fancy catalysts) aren't well documented in Grantville literature, and there are also problems in achieving the stereochemical control during polymerization necessary to use them to make a general purpose synthetic rubber. These problems impact our ability to make polybutadiene, polyisobutylene (which comprises some isoprene), polyisoprene, styrene-butadiene, butadiene-acrylonitrile, and ABS polymers.

Lebedev apparently obtained butadiene from ethyl alcohol circa 1910, and in WW II that route accounted for 40% of American butadiene production, and one with acetylene as the precursor for 60%, but details aren't stated. (EB15/elastomer, butadiene). Reconstructing one of these methods could make a big difference to the polymer timeline for all polymers with butadiene or derivatives as a monomer.

Doing some sleuthing outside Grantville literature, it appears that the Lebedev process was a single stage, gas phase reaction at 400°C, 0.25 atm. pressure, over a zinc oxide-alumina catalyst. It had a yield of 50%. (Petroleum Chemicals Industry 231). Another ethanol-based process was developed by Ostromislensky, reacting it with acetaldehyde over an oxide catalyst at 360–440°C (Comyns 189). The acetylene-based method probably involved heating acetylene with ethylene (Martin 366c) or formaldehyde (DeBell 507).

Another option would be to isolate Clostridium acetobutyricum, or a similar organism, that converts starch into butyl alcohol. This is treated with HCl, producing various chlorides, and the correct one must be isolated by distillation and then treated with soda lime.

Otherwise, we will probably make butadiene by reacting acetylene and formaldehyde under high pressure to get 1,4-butanediol, and then dehydrate the latter with acid and heat. This will be a more cumbersome process to develop, and probably on the expensive side.

As for isoprene, while Tilden isolated it from turpentine oil in 1882 (PSLC), the typical yield was only 6% (Martin 366d). Perkin recommended converting amyl alcohol (from fusel oil) to isoprene by methods analogous to that for converting butyl alcohol to butadiene.

The C4's maleic anhydride and fumaric acid are obtained by vanadium pentoxide-catalyzed oxidation of benzene. Unfortunately, I am not expecting vanadium to be available until the 1637–39 time frame. This in turn will probably delay the appearance of the unsaturated polyesters.

Maleic anhydride is also available as a byproduct (5%—Bjorksten 22) of phthalic anhydride production, and can be converted into fumaric acid. Unfortunately, phthalic anhydride requires the same catalyst.

However . . . EB15 does mention that fumaric acid can be used instead of maleic anhydride. and EB11/Fumaric and Maleic Acids states that it's found in "fumitory (Fumaria officinalis), in various fungi (Agaricus piperatus, &c.), and in Iceland moss." Fumitory is referred to in herbals from the sixteenth century and should be recognizable and available at least in Britain. (EB11/Fumitory). The fumaric acid content of fumitory is variously reported as 6.156% (Watts 742) or 0.156% (Gmelin 23) of the fresh herb. Iceland moss is found in many parts of northern Europe, and is probably known to down-timers at least in Iceland, but I haven't been able to ascertain its fumaric acid content.

C6/Aromatic Chemistry. Coal tar feedstocks makes it relatively easy to make aromatic monomers, and by some further chemical shenanigans, the linear C6 hexamethylenediamine.

In the Appendix I go into detail as to what Grantville literature has to say about how to make each of these monomers, sometimes by several different routes.

In Table 5-5 I am proposing the following monomer availabilities:

Monomer Purity

Experts say that "more time is wasted in polymer chemistry by impure monomers than for any other reason." (Green 125).

M&B 261, discussing free-radical polymerization, warns, "since even traces of impurities, acting as chain-terminators or chain-transfer agents (interrupting one chain to start another), can interfere drastically with the polymerization process, the monomers used are among the purest organic chemicals produced."

The problem is worse with a linear polymer, because each chain has only two "growing ends." If a monofunctional molecule impurity (one with only one relevant reactive group) reacts with one end of the chain, that "kills" that end, reducing its activity 50%. If a second such impurity comes along and reacts with the other end, the chain is "dead," wasting all of the monomers that have already been strung into that chain if it isn't long enough to achieve the desired properties.

Bifunctional impurities don't prevent chain growth, but they can create mechanical or chemical weak points in the polymer. Trifunctional impurities do that, too, and they also start branches, which aren't desirable if you're trying to make a linear polymer.

How pure is pure enough? Modern expectations are 99–99.9% purity, depending on the polymer (Arlie, 12, 14, 39, ArlieCT, 26, 77). Moreover, there are especially stringent limitations on specific impurities, for example, of 3 ppm on acetylene in making polyethylene, or 1 ppm on oxygen and sulfur in making polypropylene.

Hence we may find that even though we can produce the necessary monomer, we cannot provide it in the necessary purity.

Since nylon is a linear polymer, polymer growth could easily be halted by reaction with a monocarboxylic acid or monoamine impurity. The solution was to purify the monomers by crystallization of a salt of the acid and the diamine. (Teergarden 126).

Commercial production of polystyrene began in 1931, using styrene derived from ethylbenzene. (Wunsch 7). EB15 says that it wasn't possible to prepare a commercially acceptable polystyrene (there were problems of brittleness and cracking) until 1937, when the monomer was obtained in greater purity.

Polymerization Initiators/Catalysts

Step growth polymerization involves reaction between monomers that react on their own. Heteropolymers are typically "grown" by step growth; the "X" group of a "di-X" reacts with a "Y" group of a "di-Y" to form a linear polymer. A step-growth polymerization is usually a condensation (the reaction making nylon 6,6) but may be an addition (the one making polyurethane). Catalysts and initiators are not needed, but the polymers grow slowly as the reaction progresses.

Chain growth polymerization requires an initiator. The initiators are not considered catalysts because they are consumed by the reaction. The initiator reacts with the monomer or nascent polymer to form a reactive intermediate. High polymer is formed quite rapidly; so increasing the duration of the reaction simply increases yield (Teergarden 89).

One important class of initiators are compounds that break down to generate a free radical. Peroxides, such as benzoyl peroxide, fall into this category. The free radical that attacks the monomer, converting it into a reacting species that attacks a second molecule of monomer. The resulting dimer is thus itself activated, attacking a third molecule of monomer. And so on. The reaction terminates if two activated molecules combine.

Cationic initiators, such as sulfuric acid, transfer a hydrogen ion to the monomer in order to activate it. This method has been used to polymerize isobutylene (Kirk-Othmer 19:901).

Anionic initiators, such as methyllithium, add to the monomer to form a reactive anion. Or, like sodium metal, they transfer an electron to the monomer to make an anion that is also a radical. Anionic initiation leads to an essentially monodisperse (polymer molecules of equal length) product; in the absence of impurities, the polymerization is halted when the vessel is depleted of monomer, but the chain ends are still active—"living polymers." (Id.)

McGHEST/Polymerization suggests use of peroxides, persulfates, azo compounds, oxygen and certain radiation for free radical initiation; Lewis acids (boron trifluoride), sulfuric acid, aluminum chloride or Friedel-Crafts reagents as cationic initiators, and chromium oxide (on silica-alumina), nickel, cobalt (on carbon black), molybdenum (on alumina), alkylaluminum, and titanium chlorides, in hydrocarbon or ether solvents, for anionic initiation. .

* * *

Catalysts participate in a reaction, speeding it up, but aren't consumed by it. If the NTL chemists are unhappy with polymerization times, they will try adding catalysts. If they're lucky, Grantville literature will suggest a specific catalyst for the polymer of interest. Otherwise, they will run through their "medicine chest" of common catalysts—typically strong acids and bases, metals, and metal oxides—and see what works.

The right catalyst can also direct the monomers to connect in a very specific way, changing the properties of the polymer. (See "Stereochemical Control Problems", below).

In table 5-6, I propose a timeline that covers some of the more important of the substances that can be used as polymerization initiators or catalysts, or as catalysts in monomer synthesis, or as supports for catalysts.

Note that I have moved lithium one row earlier on the timeline from where it was in Chapter 2, because of the demand for lithium chloride and alkyllithium as polymerization catalysts.

Polymerization Control Problems

At one extreme, we can have trouble achieving a reasonable degree of polymerization. Low-density polyethylene (LDPE) may be made with just a peroxide or peroxysulfate catalyst, but the pressures needed were among the highest used in the Forties chemical industry. This in turn resulted in high plant investment costs, about $1000/ton annual capacity. And the product itself had problems; it was too soft, weak and flexible, and couldn't be sterilized. (Sittig 12ff).

Paraffin wax (under 1000 molecular weight) is essentially what you would get if you tried to make polyethylene and failed to achieve a high enough degree of polymerization.

* * *

The most effective catalyst for polymerizing formaldehyde (to make polyacetal resin) is triphenyl phosphine. CCD 891 says that this is made by a "modified Grignard synthesis," which is not too informative. Fortunately, it's possible, although apparently more difficult, to just use a strong acid. Hence, I deemed that the catalyst was not a limiting factor.

Polyacetal depolymerizes at 110–120°C and to prevent this, it must be "capped" by reaction with acetic anhydride or suitable co-monomers incorporated. (EB15). Either acetyl chloride or acetic anhydride is used as the acetylating reagent in the manufacture of aspirin and since aspirin is in canon (as of August 1631!—see Offord, "Dr. Phil's Amazing Lightning Crystal", Grantville Gazette 11) we may have figured out how to make acetic anhydride at an early date. The recommended co-monomers are ethylene oxide or 1,3-dioxane. (McGHEST/polyacetal).

* * *

The Germans relied on methyl rubber—a polymer of dimethylbutadiene—during WW I. Polymerization times were 6–10 weeks to make H-rubber (hard) and three to six months to make W-rubber (elastic). (PSLC) The original process for making styrene-butadiene rubber (Buna S) took weeks to convert the monomers, but after years of development work this was reduced to hours (Miles 302).

* * *

It can also be difficult to drive a condensation polymerization to completion. Grantville chemists will be able to write the chemical reaction for these polymerizations and in theory should recognize that according to Le Chatelier's principle, removal of the byproduct will drive the reaction forward. But bear in mind that Carothers, who won a Nobel Prize for his work on polymers, didn't anticipate that the polymerization reaction of a dialcohol and a diester, to make the first synthetic heteropolymer, would be inhibited by water production. (Meikle 130). And it took him about a year to get a product with a molecular weight above 5000. (Teergarden 61).

Still, EB15 says "in the case of condensation reactions, reactors must provide for the efficient removal of volatile by-products." In a condensation reaction, some small molecule is produced by each addition step. If the concentration of this byproduct increases, it will inhibit the polymerization. It can be eliminated physically (escaping as a gas if volatile, escaping by precipitation if insoluble) or chemically (by reaction with something else).

For example, the nylon 6,6 polymerization is a condensation with a water byproduct, so water causes depolymerization. A "molecular still" was needed to more completely eliminate the water and thereby drive polymerization to completion. (Teergarden 126).The reaction of bisphenol A and phosgene to produce polycarbonate releases HCl; this can be destroyed by conducting the reaction in a basic medium. (Kirk Othmer/Polymers 19:897).

* * *

At the other extreme, the degree of polymerization can be too great. For chromium oxide-mediated polymerization of ethylene, it's necessary to include "chain-stoppers", or one obtains a very high molecular weight polymer that's impossible to process further. (Wittcoff I-199). And I am afraid that the Grantville researchers are going to run afoul of this problem and have no inkling of what's going wrong, let alone how to fix it, because they have so little real knowledge of polymerization processes and little in the way of analytic methods for characterizing the polymer.

Similar problems exist for the manufacture of nitrile (acetonitrile-butadiene) rubber. The Grantville chemists haven't been warned that if they don't add a "chain stopper," the polymerization will create a very high molecular weight, highly branched polymer that is essentially impossible to process. (Kirk-Othmer, 8:1011).

With regard to styrene-butadiene rubber, CCD 822 refers to the value of dodecyl (lauryl) mercaptan as a chain-modifying agent. That chain-modifying agent is actually critical to obtaining a processible polymer. (Kirk-Othmer 8:914). I have not found a synthesis description in Grantville literature.

* * *

EB15 describes two methods for making Bakelite: (1) react phenol with excess formaldehyde, catalyzing with base to obtain a "resole" (prepolymer, "A-stage"), then heat to obtain thermoset network polymer; and (2) react formaldehyde with excess phenol, catalyzing with acid to obtain "novolac" (another prepolymer), then supply more formaldehyde. We may for example use aqueous 37–50% formaldehyde at 50–100°C (CCD 669) with an ammonia catalyst (EB15/Ammonia).

I brooded for quite a while over whether we could make Bakelite (phenol-formaldehyde resin) any earlier than its first canon appearance (1634, see Offord, "Feng Shui for the Soul," Grantville Gazette 17).

On the one hand, phenol can be distilled from coal tar and formaldehyde produced by oxidation of methanol (itself from destructive distillation of wood). We have DDT in June 1633 and so we had to have chlorobenzene earlier. The benzene would have had to have been extracted from coal tar. So we probably had both monomers in hand by late 1632.

On the other hand, the OTL development of Bakelite was marred by false starts. An 1891 attempt to react phenol and formaldehyde resulted in "violent release of gas at the beginning of the reaction," producing a porous, brittle material. Still, its hardness and chemical stability were attractive. Most further efforts concentrated on finding a plasticizer, analogous to camphor for celluloid. In 1907, Baekeland chose instead to use heat (150°C) and pressure (100 psi), with various catalysts (HCl, zinc chloride, ammonia), to suppress the foaming. It was somewhat analogous to processes already used to harden shellac and vulcanize rubber. (Meikle 36ff).

Baekeland's patent (939966) explained that the foaming occurred when the initial condensation product (the A-stage) was heated in an open vessel above 100°C. If a lower temperature was used, the final hardening was very slow and possible only with thin material. Baekeland taught to instead use counter-pressure. (Nor was this disclosure the end of the R&D process; Baekeland found that he had to offer considerable technical assistance to customers to ensure that the plastics were properly formulated and processed to do the job. (Meikle 41ff)).

The question, then, is how much of the Baekeland "secret" was revealed by Grantville literature. We are told that "high temperature and pressure" were needed (EB15/Baekeland), and perhaps that's enough.

* * *

Butyl Rubber. Isobutylene was first polymerized in 1873, with the goal of making a substitute for natural rubber. Unfortunately, the polymer couldn't be crosslinked to form a useful elastomer. (Kirk-Othmer 8:934) The solution was incorporation of a small amount of isoprene. Even so, "Before experimental difficulties were resolved, butyl rubber was called 'futile butyl'".

I would be more sanguine about the prospects for making butyl rubber (admittedly much inferior to natural rubber) if we knew what those "experimental difficulties" were.

Stereochemical Control Problems

The properties of some polymers is dependent, not only on having the correct monomer, but having those monomers correctly oriented along the polymer chain. It's usually necessary to use a special initiator or catalyst to obtain the desired sterochemical control, and those catalysts may be hard to come by. A "plain vanilla" catalyst like peroxide or peroxysulfate might not work at all, or it might yield a polymer with a disfavored stereochemistry. Table 5-7 reviews the "problem" catalysts and polymers.

I will discuss the catalysts first, then comment on some of the individual polymers.

Chromium trioxide is likely to be the first HDPE catalyst available in the 1632verse. There is a De Geer-sponsored, Richelieu-approved expedition to Maryland to seek chromite (iron magnesium chromium oxide) for making stainless steel; if they are very lucky they will start production by 1635. Chromium trioxide may be made from potassium bichromate (EB11/Chromium), the latter being obtained by "fusing chrome ironstone with soda ash and lime" with a secondary treatment with sulfuric acid (EB11/chromates and dichromates). The trioxide should not be confused with the sequioxide produced as green "ash" in the classic ammonium dichromate "volcano" experiment.

Ziegler-Natta catalysts are a combination of a transition metal halide (e.g., titanium tetrachoride) and organometallic compound (e.g., alkylaluminum). Grantville literature provides some information about them (See Appendix for particulars). We can at least sketch out a process for making the two components. Titanium tetrachloride is made by heating titanium dioxide in chlorine. (CCD866). Titanium dioxide in turn may be obtained from certain sands in India. (see Cooper, "Gajam Raanni," Grantville Gazette 25). Triethylaluminum is derived by reacting ethylene, hydrogen and aluminum under "moderate temperature and varying pressures" (CCD881).

What the Grantville literature does not say is just how devilish it will be for a fledgling chemical industry to make and use these complex, finicky catalysts. There is no disclosure of the ratio of the components or the size of the particles, or how the components should be ground together.

Ziegler-Natta catalysts are decomposed by oxygen, carbon dioxide, water, sulfur, acids, alcohols, halogens, amines and other substances. In 1961, ethylene was commercially available in a form containing not more than 1500 parts per million oxygen—and that's not good enough! You want to get it down to 50, 10 or even 5 ppm. (Sittig 29ff, 115). Kirk-Othmer/Polymers (19:902) observes that these catalysts are "easily poisoned by moisture."

The simplest way of getting the reactive impurities out of the monomers is to pre-treat them with the same or similar organometallics until there's none left to react. Of course, that's wasteful of a very expensive organometallic, unless it can be recovered efficiently.

Another problem with the catalysts is that they are pyrophoric (Id.). Given that the monomers (and probably also the solvent) are flammable, this means that they are risky to use given the rather crude state of industrial safety in the 1632verse.

If these problems are overcome, the experimenters will still need to work out the precise temperatures, pressures and process times. There's also the need to recover the catalyst, not merely for economic reasons, but because if left in the polymer it impairs its properties and also corrodes the polymer molding equipment. (Sittig 119).

Metallocenes are organometallic compounds in which a metal atom is sandwiched between two rings. Metallocene polymerization catalysts became commercially prominent in 1995, and hence they are likely to be mentioned only in EB15 versions published after that date. Since the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology in the high school library is the 1977 edition, it's highly unlikely to say anything about it. However, I discuss the teachings of the 2002 edition in the Appendix.

Alkyl Lithium. Butyl lithium is manufactured by reacting lithium ribbon with a butyl chloride in pentane or hexane. (CCD 139). Lithium metal is not one of the easier ones for us to obtain (see Cooper "Mineral Mastery" and "Industrial Alchemy, part 2"), but of course we don't need huge quantities just to make a catalyst.

Peroxides. Peroxide manufacture is discussed in Cooper, "Industrial Alchemy, Part 2: Inorganic Chemical Bestiary" (Grantville Gazette 25).

Now, a few comments on the problem polymers. . . .

Polypropylene. Produced like LDPE, that is, at high pressure, polypropylene is atactic, and essentially worthless. Chromium oxide is not useful in polymerization of propylene. (EB15/Transition Element). The Ziegler-Natta catalysts make possible the production of isotactic and syndiotactic polypropylene. (Solomons 409ff). However, it should be noted that while Ziegler used the titanium tetrachloride in the catalyst system for HDPE, Natta found it necessary to use the trichloride in producing stereoregular polypropylene. (Miles).

Ethylene-Propylene Monomer rubber (EPM) is a block polymer of ethylene and propylene; EPDM adds a small amount of a diene. According to EB15, both are made using Ziegler-Natta catalysis. The same is true of the fluorinated analogue of EPM.

Synthetic Rubber, Generally. Natural rubber is a polymer of cis-isoprene. Attempts to synthesize natural rubber replacements (whether from isoprene or butadiene) resulted in polymers which were random combinations of cis- and trans- structures, until first, it was recognized that natural rubber structure was stereospecific (the "cis" means that the hydrogens of the C=C carbons are on the same side of the double bond), and second, stereospecific polymerization catalysts were developed. That didn't happen until the mid-Fifties.

Polybutadiene Rubber. The first polybutadiene was made after World War I using sodium (or other alkali metal) catalyst. This was the original BuNa rubber (Na=sodium), and it was 10–23% cis-1,4, 25–45% trans-1,4, and 23–65% "side vinyl" (Morton, 247). Obtaining sodium metal is not a problem. The problem was that it was quite inferior to natural rubber.

A 95–97% cis-1,4 polybutadiene, needed for tire rubber, is in fact made with Ziegler-Natta catalysts, or catalyst systems of equal complexity.

A 35% cis, 55% trans, 10% "side vinyl"polybutadiene is made with a "living anionic catalyst" based on alkyl-lithium, and lends itself to creation of modified polybutadienes. Similar catalyst systems can be used to prepare medium or high vinyl polbutadienes. The high vinyl polybutadienes also vary in terms of stereoregularity (atactic, isotactic, syndiotactic). There is also a high-trans polybutadiene similar to gutta-percha that EB15 ignores. Like the cis-rich polymer, it requires transition metal catalysis. (Kirk-Othmer 8:1031ff, IISRP; Yoshioka).

Polyisoprene Rubber. Unfortunately, the more available alkyllithium catalysts do not elicit as high a cis-content as do Ziegler-Natta types. The polymerization is also acutely sensitive to the structure of the Ziegler-Natta catalyst. Only if the catalyst contains beta-titanium trichloride do you get high-cis polymer; the alpha, delta and gamma forms yield trans. It's possible to make a polyisoprene by free radical (persulfate) emulsion polymerization. Unfortunately, you obtain a high-trans structure, resembling gutta-percha. (Kirk-Othmer 8:915, 9:4).

Styrene-Butadiene Rubber. EB15 teaches free radical initiation in emulsion, or anionic initiation in solution, resulting in a random copolymer. CCD822 says to use a 1:3 ratio, and that a peroxide catalyst is fine.

Historically, SBR went through four phrases. First, there was the "hot" emulsion polymerization using free radicals (potassium peroxydisulfate), resulting in the "Buna S" of the Thirties. The butadiene units were about 72% trans isomer. Second, during WW II, the Germans developed "cold" methods, with a "redox" initiator, which were adopted by American companies after the war. The "cold" polymer was more linear. Third, in the Fifties, the Ziegler-Natta catalysts made possible SBR with a high-cis isomer content. Finally, in the Sixties, we switched to anionic solution polymerization with organolithium catalysts, which resulted in a "living" polymer suitable for grafting. (Kirk-Othmer 22:995).

We can certainly make the original Buna S (once we have styrene and butadiene), and somewhat later the "living" SBR, but the high-cis SBR may be more of a problem.

Polymethylene. In view of the potential problems with early duplication of the historical processes of making polyethylene, I have investigated the prospects for use of polymethylene (a linear molecule like HDPE, except that it can have an odd number of carbon atoms) as a substitute. Polymethylene was made by Von Pechmann (1898–9), by thermal decomposition of diazomethane in ether (EB15).

Diazomethane may be made by reaction of chloroform, hydrazine and potassium hydroxide, or of nitrosomethyl urea with potassium hydroxide. (MI342; cp. EB11/Diazo Compounds).

There was no attempt to commercially exploit polymethylene produced by thermal decomposition. Diazomethane was a rather expensive material (Lokensgard 460), and dangerously explosive, and hence even if the modern uses of polyethylene were foreseen it probably wouldn't have been commercially feasible to use it.

In 1948–52 it was discovered that the decomposition and polymerization could be catalyzed by alkyl boron esters or by copper powder. Unfortunately, the resulting polymers were brittle, of low molecular weight (18–22K), and obtained in very low yield. Rawe (267) says that "formation of polymethylene by this reaction is not practical for commercial utilization."

A 1956 patent (US2749318) describes obtaining a more useful polymer using, as catalyst, boron trifluoride, and a 1962 patent (3062756), using an alkali metal borohydride or a boron-containing carborane. The '318 patent said that the product had a molecular weight of 3300K , tensile strength of 4900 psi, and extensibility of 500%—better than LDPE—and good electrical properties. However, there are no signposts to direct Grantville chemists to these catalysts, and in any event, it doesn't appear that these processes were ever shown to be commercially feasible.

Heteropolymer Structure Control

In a heteropolymer, there are different ways of arranging the monomers. Think of a pearl necklace as a polymer, with black and white pearls representing two different units. They can alternate, they can be grouped in blocks of the same color, or they can be randomly strung on the necklace. Those are analogous to alternating, block, and random copolymers, respectively. Next, imagine that the main string is all black pearls, but there are little strings with white pearls hanging down from it. That's analogous to a graft copolymer.

An alternating copolymer results automatically if one of the comonomers is unable to react with itself, or if the two comonomers form a complex that is what actually is polymerized.

Otherwise, the most likely product is a random copolymer, but the proportions of the monomeric units will depend on the original monomer proportions and their relative rates of polymerization. There are many useful copolymers that are predominantly derived from one monomer, with just a smidgeon of the other.

Special methods are needed to make block and graft copolymers. Spandex is an example of a block copolymer, and impact polystyrene or ABS of a graft copolymer. (Wittcoff I:192).

You can make a block copolymer by first making a living homopolymer (a polymer that still has an active chain end) of monomer #1, then adding monomer #2, then adding monomer #1 again, and so on. EB15 mentions "living polymers" but doesn't provide details about how to avoid chain termination. Living polymers are in fact the natural result of anionic polymerization because you have to add a "chain stopper" to terminate the polymerization. (Teegarden 99).

Graft copolymers are made by creating free radical sites along the backbone, to initiate the growth of secondary chains, or by providing free reactive groups along the backbone that a second monomer can be condensed onto. (Wittcoff I-192).

* * *

ABS (acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene) is a graft polymer. The earliest forms of ABS were either mechanical mixtures of styrene-acrylonitrile and butadiene-acrylonitrile (nitrile rubber) polymers, or obtained by co-coagulation of the two polymers. The modern ABS is obtained by grafting acrylonitrile and styrene monomers onto styrene-butadiene or polybutadiene rubber. That is, the styrene and acrylonitrile are allowed to polymerize in an emulsion formed by the latex. (Scheirs 19).

Hence, to make ABS, we need to have at least one of the three elastomers: nitrile rubber, high-cis SBR, or high-cis polybutadiene.

I wonder whether some bright chemist will think of grafting styrene and acryonitrile onto natural rubber, which is poly-cis-isoprene, thus obtaining semisynthetic AIS (acrylonitrile-isoprene-styrene). (Prasassarakich).

* * *

In part B, I have defended my prediction that certain polymers will appear relatively late in the 1632verse. If you think I haven't been pessimistic enough, you should look at the Appendix (which will be posted to www.1632.org ), as this contains additional detailed analysis of what Grantville literature has to say about synthetic routes to the various monomers, and polymerization conditions.

Conclusion

The band Aqua had "Barbie Doll" sing, "Life in plastic, it's fantastic." Hopefully, the down-timers will soon be singing, "Life with plastic, it's fantastic."

* * *

Common Childhood Diseases in the 1630s, Part 1: Fevers with Rashes

Written by Gus Kritikos

One of the greatest limitations on population growth in the 1630s (both OTL and NTL), and in the Third World today, is the number of children who die before their tenth birthday. The emotional and physical toll on the parents (especially the mothers) was literally incalculable, and was part of the reason used to "justify" treating women as the "weaker sex."

A surprising number of these deaths are preventable with up-time technology that is easily adapted to down-time situations. This includes improved food and water sanitation; improved food sources and nutrition; appropriate waste disposal; and appropriate immunizations, which may be active (relatively easy), or passive (which requires a bit higher technology). Some of the diseases, including smallpox and polio, have no known reservoirs outside of man, and might be eventually eliminated in the NTL.

Additionally, the down-time authorities have experience in limitations of travel, the use of isolation wards (lazarettes) and traveler quarantines as a method of reducing the spread of disease. Information on the germ theory, Koch's postulates and up-time hygiene will put these methods on a rational basis, and improve the effectiveness of the techniques. This improvement alone will limit the spread of many of the pestilences "scheduled" to appear between 1634 and 1700. This is the main reason why Mike Stearns, James Nichols, Bertha McDonald and Mary Pat Flanagan are determined to spread this information as widely as possible.

In April 1634, Anna Krause did a report on childhood diseases in the area around Grantville. She received a blue ribbon for her efforts, and was pushed toward a career in nursing/medicine by Hennie DeVries, RN. Fraulein Krause is the first known down-timer to study what we know now as Epidemiology.

Rashes with Fevers

Down-time physicians would not have been able to differentiate many of these diseases before the arrival of up-time information. The "Six Diseases" were finally separated in the late 1800s, and named as such in the early 1900s. All of them start with fevers and muscle aches, loss of appetite, nausea, and sometimes diarrhea. Often sore throats and headaches are common with all of these infections.

Bacterial

Scarlet Fever/Scarletina, known as the Second Disease, as it was the second rash described as a separate entity. Normally associated with a high fever (103 F is common, and 105 F is not unusual), and a bright red rash that may be patchy, all over the body or just confined to the tongue (the so called "Strawberry Tongue"). The rash on the body is peculiar, in that it feels as rough as sand paper. This is the only rash in this group that is not caused by a virus, but by toxins produced by Streptococcal throat infections. The tonsils at the back of the throat are usually swollen and covered with pus. Lymph nodes in the neck, usually along the front side, are swollen and tender. Without antibiotic treatment, these throat infections will eventually lead to many problems with the heart, kidneys, ears or lungs.

Viral Flat Rashes
Measles

The Arab Physician/Philosopher Abū Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyā Rāzī, better known in Europe by his Latinized name, Rhazes, first described measles (First Disease) as compared to smallpox in the 9th Century (CE). Despite this, there was enough overlap between measles and other viral rashes to prevent clear delineation for another 900 years. The "three C's" (cough, coryza (runny nose and sore throat) and conjunctivitis) are some of the initial symptoms, but these are also common to influenza. Koplick's spots, blue white dots on red rings inside the mouth are present from about 24 hours before the rash starts to 48 hours afterwards, and are diagnostic for the measles. Two to four days after the onset of the fever, a flat red rash spreads from hairline down the body, turning from red to brown over the course of several days, and resolves in the same head to toe pattern, commonly with dandruff-like flaking of the skin as the rash resolves. The rash is typically most prominent along the shoulders, back of the neck and upper arms, but the rest of the body, including the palms and soles may be involved. The dandruff-like flaking skin will not extend to the palms and soles.

The virus can be transmitted from person to person starting with the first appearance of the "three C's" (up to 5 days before the rash is noticeable) and extending for around five days after the rash appears. As the disease is highly infectious, upwards of 90% of non-immune people will catch the infection from even brief contact with an active case. Major complications of measles infections include ulcers of the delicate membranes of the eye, which can lead to scarring and blindness, and weakening the body's immune system for some time after the infection, making a secondary, bacterial, infection more likely. These infections often include severe ear infections that may lead to deafness and pneumonia which can be fatal. Other problems which can occur include an aseptic meningitis (a cause of seizures), viral pneumonitis (which again sets the stage for pneumonia) and even an inflammation of the liver. A significant diarrhea may also occur. Malnourished children, especially those suffering from Vitamin A deficiency, are ten times as likely to die from the infection.

Care is almost completely supportive, even in OTL. There are some antiviral agents which help shorten the period of illness, but they are rarely used. Fever control, oral hydration, and relief of the itching as the rash starts to resolve will be the main treatment for simple cases. Cases that are more complex will require intravenous fluids for severe dehydration, possibly antibiotic treatment for the secondary infections, or medications to control seizures associated with the high fever or from the inflammation of the tissues surrounding the brain (meningitis). Based on Iver Cooper's chemical time lines, I believe that the drug paraldehyde will be the first available medication to control acute seizures some time in 1633 or early 1634, as it is a cyclic form of formaldehyde. Barbiturates are more complex, having a substituted ring structure (2 nitrogen and four carbon atoms, but they will most likely be the second group of drugs in this classification, as they were in OTL, as they are much simpler than the other drugs. Vitamin A supplementation alone has been shown to reduce the risk of death by 50% even in the face of significant protein calorie malnutrition or young age. High dose carrot juice will probably be among the safest ways to deliver the vitamin in the 1630s, as the vitamin itself is potentially toxic.

Prevention will be a matter of case tracking and isolation of contacts, until the development of virus culturing techniques capable of producing live virus vaccines, probably in the late 1640s or early 1650s.

Koplick's spots (small blue white dots on inside of cheek) (photo courtesy of the WHO website)

Rubella, also known as "German" or "Three Day Measles," was the Third Disease to be differentiated by physicians in OTL. Generally milder, up to one half of all the patients may be almost without symptoms. The fever is generally lower, the rash is very mild, and the amount of discomfort is lower with the "Three C's" being almost absent in many cases. The great tragedies occur when a young woman in the first months of her pregnancy contracts the disease. This prenatal rubella exposure results in marked congenital growth and mental retardation, hearing loss, heart disease, and eye problems. An interesting point that will make an excellent story line is that some cases of congenital rubella may remain infectious until the child's first birthday.

Treatment is again supportive, with oral hydration and fever control. The rash is generally not as "itchy" as that of true measles.

Prevention again consists of case tracking and contact isolation. With rubella, there will be the development of "rubella parties," where nubile young females who are not known to have had the disease will be exposed to a known case of rubella and isolated together for several days. This will be the best method of preventing the complications of congenital rubella until the development of advanced live virus vaccines.

* * *

The term "Fourth Disease" is no longer recognized, as it was actually several different, similar rashes, all of which were mild and require no further discussion here.

* * *

Erythema Infectiosum

The Fifth Disease to be isolated is characterized by a high fever, malaise and a loss of appetite for two or three days, followed by the development of the classic "slapped cheek" rash, a solid, bright red rash limited to the cheeks. A peculiar, more generalized rash will often develop over the body in the following days, which has been described as looking like a fishing net dipped in red paint was applied to the body. Usually a mild disease, limited to children under age six, it requires only supportive care. Barring problems from the high fever (which is controllable), there are no long-term problems.

Roseola infantum

The Sixth Disease is another disease of early childhood, usually occurring before the second birthday. Again, it is characterized by a high fever (up to 104F/40C), the possibility of seizures associated with the fever, and followed by a rash on the body a day or so after the fever subsides. This is a more generalized rash than that of Fifth Disease, and again, does not cause problems with itching.

Viral pustular rashes:

Small Pox is well known to down-time physicians, who have survived and then treated waves of this disease for their entire lives. The infection starts with a fever with prostration, headaches or backaches several days before the rash appears. The rash starts in mouth (enanthem) and then spreads to face around the mouth and nose after a day or so. Over the next several days, the rash spreads to extremities especially the distal limbs, including the palms and soles, but rarely affects the trunk or abdomen. There is only one crop of lesions, which initially appear dimpled, but later extend deep into the skin, resulting in healing with scarring in survivors. Saliva, fluid from the skin lesions and scabs are very infectious. Fatality rates in naïve populations were up to 30% with younger children and infants being more likely to die. Some varieties, including flat and hemorrhagic forms, have higher (90+%) fatality rates. Survivors will have life long immunity to the disease.

Chicken Pox, on the other hand, is a milder disease with a much lower fever, much less prostration and a more variable course. Patients will show multiple crops of lesions, which are superficial ("dew on rose petal"), and which are more on the body than the face and limbs, and very rarely on the palms and soles. These pox usually heal without scarring because of the more superficial nature of the infection. Fatalities are uncommon, but possible when the disease is contracted by older persons who were not exposed as children, as lung infections may result. The name "chicken pox" is not related to an infection of fowl, but from the idea that the disease was a weaker, or "chicken," form of small pox.

Both diseases are highly infectious by airborne spread from early in the disease, and teens or adults who are exposed to the infection but do not get the infection have probably been exposed as young children even if no history (or typical scarring) is present.

Rickettsial infections

There are several infections in this classification, including Typhus and the various Spotted Fevers. None of them are directly transmissible from person to person, instead being passed by an arthropod vector, usually body lice or ticks. The problems with Typhus are already in canon in several stories, and the spotted fevers will be discussed in another article.

Making the Diagnosis Clinically

These diseases are mostly easy to diagnose once they are in the acute stage, as each one has a consistent pattern. The trick is to make the diagnosis early enough to help quarantine patients to prevent the spread of the disease. All of the diseases tend to follow several stages of infection:

Asymptomatic or Latent stage: these infections usually take between 5 and 20 days from exposure to the first symptoms, which usually consist of fever, aches, pains and general discomfort.

Prodrome stage: starting with the first, usually non-specific symptoms noted above, the patient is now infectious. Generalized discomfort quickly progresses, with nausea, vomiting or diarrhea and loss of appetite and energy commonly occurring.

Active infection stage: This is usually where the characteristic rashes start to become obvious. With the notable exceptions of small pox and chicken pox (which remain infectious until the last of the scabs are gone), most of these diseases are infectious for only a few days after the rash becomes apparent. Very young, malnourished or otherwise debilitated children can become frighteningly ill in a very short time at this point, mostly due to dehydration associated with the fevers and diarrhea. Care consists of reducing the fevers, maintaining hydration and nutrition, and preventing secondary infections (most often pneumonia) by encouraging deep breathing and coughing to prevent excessive mucus from clogging the airways. Antibiotics will help with the secondary infections if they are caught in time.

Resolution stage: The patient is no longer miserable from a fever, the rash is starting to resolve, and the appetite is coming back. As previously noted, small pox and chicken pox are both still infectious at this time, until the "pox" are fully resolved. The other infections are no longer infectious after the fever drops and the rash starts to resolve.

Brain Fevers

Meningitis is an inflammation of the membranes that cover the brain. There are two basic types: "aseptic" (because nothing grows when the spinal fluid is cultured), caused by one of several viri, which is usually mild, or "purulent," (caused by bacteria or fungi) which is more often severe, and may result in disability or death. Both the bacterial and fungal types may result from the spread of an infection from an infection of the sinuses, blood, facial skin or scalp. An interesting point is that "encapsulated" organisms such as pneumococcus and meningiococcus, or fungi such as Cryptococcus cause many cases of purulent meningitis. These capsules contain sugar groups that generally act to protect the bacteria from attack by the body's defenses. These same sugar groups can be processed (when the technology is available) into vaccines to provide significant protection from these infections.

Encephalitis is usually viral, but may be from syphilis or brain abscesses. Biting insects, usually mosquitoes, most often transmit the viral forms except for rabies. Cases range from mild to devastating, with a modest but high percentage of victims needing life long care.

Poliomyelitis (Polio) is a viral inflammation of the spinal cord and brain that develops after infection by a water borne virus. The initial infection is actually in the gut, and only progresses to the more serious form if the body's defenses do not suppress the disease early on. There is evidence that the disease is mild very early in life, with immunity developing from the mild disease (similar to the Sabin oral polio vaccine, see below). Seasonal pandemics of paralytic polio were noted in OTL as cities became larger and improved sanitation, until the development of first the Salk and later the Sabine vaccines in the 1950s (see below).

There was a correlation between polio pandemics and improved municipal hygiene, and polio in the 1890-1954 timeframe did hit the middle and upper classes in the cities much harder than the lower, and more rural classes. This being said, there is no direct evidence that I know of that might show that a new, more aggressive strain of the polio virus developed along with the improvement of central sanitation, but it is certainly a consideration. I can not excessively stress how feared this disease was at the time. The apparent randomness of many of the cases (due to variations in previous exposure giving partial immunity, as well as the wide variation of pathogenicity of the virus strains) caused a level of terror not seen since the terrors of syphilis in the 1500s and not seen again until the first cases of AIDS were diagnosed in the 1980s. A similar pattern can be expected in the NTL, and I expect that the Daisy Matheny Memorial Biolab will be in the forefront of redeveloping polio immunizations. Polio vaccines will be some of the more difficult to reproduce, as they need live primate cells in culture for mass production. In OTL, this took until the late 1940s to get started and into the late 1950s to perfect.

As with small pox, measles and most other viral diseases, there will be no cure, only prevention, supportive care in the acute disease, and rehabilitation after recovery. Iron lungs are well within the tech level of the 1630s. With Torricelli and Guericke around, there might even be some improvements leading to the more portable cuirass types much sooner than in OTL. Limb bracing and crutches will be well within 1630s tech, especially with up-time knowledge to help reduce some of the "clunkiness" of early efforts.

Complications

The complications of these diseases span many organ systems and can be temporary, life long or even life threatening. Strep throat and Scarlet Fever lead to the heart problems associated with Rheumatic Fever and Bright's Disease which may lead to kidney failure. Rubella is another one of the congenital infections that lead to TORCHES syndrome, the others relatively common ones including Toxoplasmosis, Cytomegalovirus, Herpes virus, Hepatitis B, and Syphilis. Syphilis has been covered in detail in an earlier article, and the others will be covered in the future. These all may lead to an assortment of birth defects, preterm labor and even miscarriage. The chicken pox virus resurfaces later in life as Herpes Zoster, or Shingles, a rash that can be debilitatingly painful.

Laboratory Tests Available

In first year or so after the Ring of Fire, there will be a limited amount of up-time testing equipment available, mostly test strips from the nursing homes, but these will quickly run out. There are enough old hands around who remember the manual methods that were in use prior to the 1980s in OTL, and which are still in use in many field situations even today in 2010, simply because these testing methods are simple and robust.

Manual blood counts require a couple of different, but simple, dilution solutions which can be reproduced down-time with little problem, along with a decent microscope (with a magnification level low enough to be reproduced down-time, roughly two to four hundred power), and a specially calibrated grid etched on a microscope slide, which is again reproducible down-time (with the help of similar microscopes and a device called a reducing pantograph. Differential counts of white blood cells use the same microscope, and the dried blood film is stained with a simple mix of stains that should be available from the high school lab stocks until Lothlorien Farbenwerk starts reproducing the dyes from coal tar.

Urine testing starts with simple chemical tests for sugars, proteins and ketones to start, all of which an alchemist of Dr. Gribbleflotz' stature will be able to reproduce with up-time guidance. The microscopic examination again uses a medium power microscope, some simple stains, and a hand powered (ultimately electric) centrifuge, again simple enough for easy reproduction down-time.

Microbiological cultures will be one of the more complex up-time techniques to reproduce, at least until the Agar supply is reproduced. After that, it will be a matter of finding the correct combinations of nutrients and inhibitors to promote the growth of the species that you are interested in, while preventing the overgrowth of unwanted bacteria or molds.

Lumbar puncture is actually a diagnostic technique of inserting a thin needle into the spinal canal and removing a small amount of spinal fluid for testing. There is a possibility that a few pre-packaged equipment trays will have come back with the Ring of Fire, but not many at all. These will be difficult to reproduce down-time, due to the need for stainless steel for the spinal needles and the need to redevelop local anesthetics (at least to the level of cocaine) to ease the discomfort of the procedure. I've done enough of them over the years to know how difficult they are under the best of circumstances. I'd hate to do one without the anesthetic available. Additionally, the needles need to be relatively—up to four inches—long, and have a hair fine removable obturator wire running through the center of the needle, which may be the most difficult item to reproduce consistently.

Microscopic Evaluation of Microbial Organisms

These tests will be more limited than the microscopic tests previously described, as there will be a more limited supply of instruments suitable for this purpose. These tests need the more sophisticated up-time instruments which are capable of both higher magnification (up to one thousand times normal) and finer resolution (being able to distinguish two small objects closer together) than down-time instrument makers will be able to accomplish for a number of years.

Gram's technique will continue to be the mainstay of microbiology, because it is simple and easily reproducible. Again, the high school stocks should last until the Dye Works have started producing.

Acid fast staining techniques are similar to Gram's technique, but involve different dyes, and the use of an acid-acetone solution instead of an alcohol solution to remove unwanted stain from the specimen. This is used to make the diagnosis of tuberculosis and similar infections.

India Ink (a suspension of fine carbon black particles in water or alcohol) can be used as a "negative stain," in particular for examining spinal fluid or urine, looking for encapsulated organisms. The capsules form a noticeable clear zone in the midst of the fine black particles.

Immunization

Many of the diseases discussed here result in long term, often life long, protection from reinfections. Smallpox and pertussis in particular were known in the 1630s to confer immunity to survivors after recovery, allowing them to work with relative impunity in the face of new cases.

Rubella parties—and similar parties for chickenpox and measles—have already been mentioned, and should be considered for children in the 10-13 year age range who have not had a documented case of the wild disease yet, at least until the development of effective and relatively safer vaccines

Live, attenuated virus vaccines, when developed, should not be given to pregnant women or those with severe immune problems (which, in the NTL, would be fairly rare). Certain of the live virus vaccines, in particular rubella, have the same capacity to cause birth defects in early pregnancy as the wild disease.

Smallpox immunizations were initially "variolation," where fluid or pus from a mild case of smallpox was used to induce a (hopefully) mild case of smallpox in another person. As practiced in some areas of Europe in the 1630s, this was associated with purging, bleeding, and large doses of pus rubbed into large wounds, resulting in erratic outcomes, including severe life threatening disease. With up-time information, better hygiene and nutrition, and small doses of pus, this is a relatively safe way to prevent severe disease, but is not a good way to isolate active cases. True vaccination, where the vaccina virus from cowpox, cat pox, or "grease" (horse pox), is much safer, and can be used to isolate cases of true smallpox by immunizing contacts of active cases in a "ring" fashion. This technique resulted in the elimination of small pox as a disease in the wild in OTL.

However, even vaccina use is not without danger, especially with infants and small children when they are receiving their first dose. Fevers are common, and "inadvertent inoculation" (spread of the infection to other areas on the body by transfer of material from the desired site) is more common in younger children who pick or scratch at the healing lesion. More rarely, more generalized vaccinia or immune complications can also occur. These are generally mild and self limited, but are more common if the patient is debilitated, has problems including eczema or psorasis, or has a lowered immune system, and persons with these problems are likely to have problems with inadvertent inoculation by exposure to a person with an active vaccination site. The chances of death or serious complications in healthy persons in OTL are on the order of one in one hundred thousand to one in one million.

Vaccination is known to provide substantial protection for at least ten years, and even the waning protection after fifteen or twenty years is enough to usually prevent death if not scarring. It is already canon that the thirty-year-old vaccinations of most of the older folks in Grantville will not provide full protection, and immune serum from recent survivors may need to be used to help extend the protection. The last vaccinations for general US citizens were in the 1970s and the last general vaccination for the US military was done in the mid to late 1980s. Except for certain researchers, no further smallpox vaccinations were offered in the US until 2002.

Polio Vaccines

The Salk polio vaccine is an injectable, killed virus vaccine and only confers humoral (blood borne) immunity that prevents the spread of the poliovirus from the gut through the blood stream and then to the spinal cord, preventing the development of full blown poliomyelitis with the resulting complications of frequent paralysis or long term weakness. Current recommendations in OTL are for the Salk vaccine as the primary immunization against polio, due to the now rare nature of this disease. The development of the Salk vaccine in the early 1950s freed many parents from the worry of a devastating illness that seemed to strike frequently, but randomly, among children.

The Sabin polio vaccine, which was developed on the mid to late 1950s, is the oral form of the immunization that causes a mild case of the infection in the gut. It induces immunity both in the blood (humoral) and in the gut, which prevents the spread of the infection both in the body and from person to person. Now that the risk of polio is so diminished in OTL, current recommendations are for more use of the Salk type vaccines due to the small but significant chance that the live virus can revert to the wild (paralytic) type and spread in close contacts. I expect that the Sabin vaccine, once developed, will be the preferred form for prevention of polio for a long time in the NTL, until the development of the substantial level of herd immunity to this disease that we now enjoy.

Other Vaccines

Influenza vaccine, whether a killed whole virus, killed split virus, or live, attenuated virus vaccine, will be lower on the list of vaccines to develop, simply because the generally lower mortality from the disease and the known problems with variability in each year's spread of disease. The one advantage of influenza virus is that it does grow in fertilized eggs, so complex methods of cell culture are not needed. The disadvantage is that a large number of eggs are needed to produce significant amounts of the virus to process into the vaccine, and purification is not trivial.

Bacterial vaccines are under development in canon at the Matheny BioLabs. Already documented are the killed whole cell vaccines for Pertussis (whooping cough) as a dual vaccine with typhoid by late 1634. Tetanus toxoid is also being developed by summer 1634. Diphtheria toxoid will probably be close behind, as it is no more complex.

Louis Pasteur's famous rabies vaccine will likely be among the next to be reproduced, as there is a ready source of rabbits already in canon, and rabies is one of the more feared (and fatal, even today) viral infections around. The treatment will involve a long series of painful shots in the abdomen, again, until the development of cell culture techniques, but will prove life saving to patients ravaged by rabid canines.

As the BioLabs become more sophisticated and competition emerges, the capsule antigens of many organisms that cause pneumonia or meningitis will be the next rich source for immunizations. These will include up to 23 forms of pneumococcus, three forms of meningiococcus, and Hemophilus influenzae type B (or HiB). I do not expect this to happen until the 1650s at the earliest, as the purification techniques needed are about as complex as those needed for the growth of pure cell cultures.

Other Treatments

Immune serum (more commonly known as antiserum) from survivors of recent infections is used as early as 1632, and the purification of concentrated gamma globulin fraction is simple enough that it should be available by 1635 or 1636. For infections such as tetanus (which are usually fatal in humans), the use of hyper immunizations (where fairly massive doses of the appropriate toxoid are given to the subject animals) to produce immune serum, first from horses and sheep and later humans, will help slow the progression of those diseases and allow the body to recover.

Antibiotics

Crude Penicillin is available early on, thanks to the serendipitous discovery of a high producing strain of the mold at the back of the high school laboratory freezer. Cologne Medical develops pea juice with borax as an inhibitor of unwanted overgrowth by Jan 1635. Both Diphtheria and most Streptococci (species of this bacteria are responsible for strep throat, many cases of pneumonia and meningitis, and a particular infection of new born babies) are sensitive to topical (and later injected or oral) penicillin, so even the crude broth cultures can be used as gargles to treat urgent cases of diphtheria and strep throat.

Chloramphenicol and the sulfa drugs are also useful in the treatment of the secondary infections associated with these (mostly) viral infections.

For further reading:

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/surv-manual/default.htm this link leads to the current US CDC recommendations for surveillance of vaccine preventable diseases and is available to the public.

These are some of the books that should have been available in Grantville at the time of the Ring of Fire:

Control of Communicable Diseases in Man, 14th edition 1985, US CDC

The Travel and Tropical Medicine Manual, 2nd Edition 1995 WBSaunders

Scientific American Medicine (in a loose leaf binder format, updated monthly)

THE END

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Grantville Gazette Volume 29

Table of Contents

What is this? About the Grantville Gazette

Written by Grantville Gazette Staff

Speaking of Uncle Abner

Written by Virginia DeMarce

The Red Menace: Latency

Written by Gus Kritikos and Kerryn Offord

NCIS: No Greater Love

Written by Jose J. Clavell

Yes, Dear

Written by Terry Howard and James Copley

Small Problem with Cafe Press Store

Written by Grantville Gazette Staff

Northwest Passage, Part Four

Written by Herbert and William Sakalaucks

No Ship for Tranquebar, Part Three

Written by Kevin H. and Karen C. Evans

Industrial Alchemy, Part 5: Polymers

Written by Iver P. Cooper

Common Childhood Diseases in the 1630s, Part 1: Fevers with Rashes

Written by Gus Kritikos