Up-Time Pride and Down-Time Prejudice

by Mark H. Huston

  “I see,” said Mary.

  Franz continued. “You kick with the small ski, and then you glide on the large one. That is how you change direction, by kicking with the small one.”

  As they stood at the top of the meadow, Leonhard shook his head when he examined her skis. “I don’t see how you will not break your leg into a million pieces if you fall and twist your ankle.” He looked doubtfully at the hard plastic boot and the spring loaded binding. “This long ski will snap your leg like a twig, tied to it like that!”

  “No, it won’t, Leonhard. It opens up and releases the ski if I fall. Which I'm going to try not to do. It just pops off. And this cable keeps it near me if it does fall off.”

  He bent over to examine the bindings, and then stood up and demonstrated as he explained. “If I fall, I just step out of them so I don’t hurt my knees or my leg. Like this. See?”

  The three boys looked at her with some doubt. “Trust me, boys. It works.” She put her own sunglasses down on her nose, and kicked off down the slope. “Last one to the end of the meadow buys the schnapps!”

  She tucked in, going straight down the mountainside, following an earlier path through the powder. The wind whistled in her ears, and the cold air forced its way into her lungs. Her knees bent, she absorbed the bumps and allowed the powder snow to briskly sting her face. God, she missed raw speed. The seventeenth century was positively languid, even at its most rapid pace. Twenty miles an hour down a slope felt like two hundred miles an hour. It was exhilarating.

  She smoothly slalomed back and forth to keep her speed under control in the small space and then approached the end of the run. She kicked out with one ski, planted her pole and cut to the side, and scrubbed off speed in a plume of powder. She stopped, planted her poles and looked up slope. She watched the boys come down, their fat ski gliding across the powder, their small ski kicking one way or the other to change direction, and the long pole used alternately to help with the change in direction much like hers, or like a tight-rope walker, helping them keep their balance on the one ski. It looked odd, but it worked.

  Johann was first of the boys down the slope, maneuvering smartly to arrive next to Mary. Franz was trying to catch him and overshot the end of the meadow. He decided to bail out of his skis before he got to the trees, and as a result he ended up tumbling into the brush, narrowly missing one of the trees with his head.

  He stood up waving with a snow-covered arm. “I’m okay—or rather, I mean, I am not injured. I am un-hurt.” He nodded and waved empathically.

  They shouted and then pointed out where the skis went careening off into the trees, and Leonhard skied over to help him locate them. They had shot off at the bottom of the slope in different directions as he fell. Mary and Johann skied over to the draft horse with the boy, Matthias Spotl, sitting on it, bundled up so much he was barely recognizable, and picked up a rope attached to the horse collar. The boy flicked at the horse’s ear with a pine bough, and their one-horsepower ski lift began to plod up the hill, towing the two of them behind. Once the horse was moving, they simply hung on to the rope and slid up the hill, a little to the side, in case the horse decided to decorate the trail with his road apples. It was slow, but a lot better than walking. They looked back towards the other two, still searching for Franz’s skis.

  Johann nodded towards Franz, now tramping in the deep snow in the woods after his skis. “Did you notice he said ‘okay’, and then changed it?”

  “Not really, no.”

  “It has become a bit of a rallying cry, that word. There is a group in the family that doesn’t like up-time influences, and that word, for some reason, has caught on. Many are using it now. But a few resist it out of principle.”

  Mary smiled. “It’s a really good word.”

  “It’s a word you don’t say around Maximilian of Bavaria. Not a good idea to use it in front of him if you want to keep your head.” He made a slicing motion across his throat. “So people need to be careful across the mountain, and in parts of Swabia. That word isn’t welcome.”

  “This Maximilian sounds like a really nice guy. Flexible too.”

  Johann shrugged. “He is who he is. A prince of the Catholic Church, an elector of the Holy Roman Empire, who believes he is defending his country and his God from attack. At one time he was a great leader. Today? Perhaps his time has passed, but he is scheduled to live for many more years. So it will be a long time before there is change in Bavaria.”

  Mary knew the information about Maximilian of Bavaria’s birth and death dates had made it back through the Ring of Fire, and he wasn’t supposed to die until sometime in 1651 at the age of seventy-eight. “Assuming that part of history doesn’t change, and he lives that long. He also married Maria Anna in the original time line and that didn’t exactly work out either.”

  “Well, you know what they say?” He grinned at her, obviously setting up something he considered funny.

  Mary had seen what passed for humor from Johann, and down-time Germans in general, and she wasn’t optimistic about whatever he was going to say next. She sighed. “No, Johann, what do they say?”

  “Everything has an end. Only a sausage has two.” He laughed loudly and with considerable enthusiasm.

  Mary smiled politely, fighting an eye roll. German humor. But Johann had a nice laugh. Solid, male, and infectious. But regardless of his pleasant laughter, his jokes were abysmal. “Johann,” she sighed, “I really need you to listen to some comedy albums if I ever get you to Grantville. Why is it that almost every down-time joke or idiom is about sausages, or pigs? Or pants? You make a lot of pants jokes.”

  He shrugged as they eased past one of the deposits left by the draft horse in their path. “I don’t know. Pants are funny, I guess. And pigs are funny too. Sausage isn't that funny, but it is important. It’s best not to overthink this.”

  “I think we can agree on that without argument, Johann. Best not to overthink it.”

  After a few minutes they reached the top of the hill. The heavily bundled Spotl boy turned the horse around, and headed back down for Leonhard and Franz. They were alone at the top of the slope, the sun beaming down, and the mountain before them. They both put on their sunglasses. He glanced at her, and Mary tilted her head, looking at him. “They look good. The sunglasses. Very cool.”

  “Don’t know how I lived without them. Greatly relieve the eyes in the snow.”

  Mary watched as the Spotl boy guided the horse down the hill. They had several minutes before the others would join them. She turned to him. “Johann, I have something to ask you.”

  “Okay.”

  “Why did you ask to marry me?”

  “What?”

  “Why did you ask to marry me? It was such a surprise. I had no idea it was coming, no idea that you were interested in me. Why did you ask?”

  He sighed and looked down at his skis, gathering his thoughts. He then looked out and down the mountain before them. A wintery gust of wind blew down the mountain, kicking up the fine powder snow. “We are finally going to have that talk we were trying to have?”

  She smiled at him. “Something like that.”

  He angled his body to face her, a slightly ponderous movement with the skis, snow crunching under them. “Okay. The simple fact is that I thought it was the right thing to do. This is the truth, Mary Margaret Russo Von Uptime. I have been smitten by you since the first day I saw you and -err, tackled you, in the forest just down there, your little handgun popping off over my head, trying to shoot me.” He pointed to the bottom of the slope with his pole. “Just beyond those trees. That is why I asked you to marry.” He paused as if he wanted to say more but didn’t want to go too far. He took a breath. “Why are you asking now? Are you considering…?”

  She shook her head. “No, Johann I’m not. Please don’t be upset. I don’t want a marriage proposal from you, right now.” She looked into his eyes, and through the cheap sunglasses she could see the pain and desire. She also watched him as he
parsed the phrasing of her statement. He was not a stupid man. “I’m not ready for marriage. Not now. Perhaps, someday. But not now.”

  He nodded, his body stiffening. She was beginning to understand that his formality and rigidity was his defensive mode, where he went to be comfortable and safe, and not just to be Count Pissy-Pants. She reached out and touched his shoulder. “But Johann, I need to - I want to understand something. I've been thinking a lot, since before Christmas, about something someone told me, about perceptions. And how I am perceived. Prejudices.”

  “I don’t understand.” His voice held the same rigidity as his posture. He stared straight ahead. He was afraid of another hard conversation with her, she realized, like that July day in the Hapsburg hall at Schloss Tratzberg.

  “How much money am I making for your family, Johann? More than my salary, less?”

  Johann’s head swiveled to her, his head tilted in query. There was a moment of hesitation before he answered. It was not a question he was expecting. “More.”

  “A lot more?”

  He nodded slowly, his confusion showing. “Very much, as I am told.” He pushed the long pole into the snow, so he could talk with both hands. Johann answered in a businesslike fashion, his tone subtly changed from their conversation just a moment ago. “But we are also investing heavily. Very heavily, to the point that it’s causing issues across the trading company. But I do know the work you have done on the mine tailings alone is projected to return a substantial profit. One of the accountants described it as picking up money by the basket-full from the trash heap.”

  “That’s what I thought.” She smiled.

  He put his hands behind his back settling further into a business mode. “Are you thinking of renegotiating your contract?”

  “Ha!” she laughed at him, surprised and smiling more. “No, but not a bad idea. That isn’t why I do this, not entirely.”

  “Then why?”

  She looked down the slope to where the other two skiers were making their way to the tow rope. They still had some time. She turned back to Johann and realized that he was waiting for her to answer. “Johann, I do what I do here because you people are important. For the future. And I think maybe I am too.”

  “I think you are important, Mary. You are important to me, and the family.”

  She continued, nodding a simple thanks. “You know, it’s kind of funny, but back up-time we had a lot of stories about time travel, and how if you went back in time and you changed one tiny thing, it became a different world. You had to be careful in the past. Don’t step on a butterfly, or the president will be different when you return, and the world in chaos.”

  His eyebrows shot up behind the dark glasses. “It would seem that Grantville and the Ring of Fire have broken those rules rather spectacularly.”

  Mary snorted a laugh. “Yes. By a country mile. We’ve stomped on a ton of butterflies.” They laughed for a while. Some of his tension bled away, but he was still quiet and attentive.

  Leonhard and Franz were now behind the horse, skis recovered, which began to plod back up the hill, dragging them along. “You see, Johann, with you people, the Fugger, I am in a position to really throw a monkey wrench into the future. Influence it in a good way. Change things. Although I need to be careful. I could still step on the wrong butterfly. Do you understand? The information I pass along, the technical stuff is important. But the up-time way of looking at things, the thought processes, the ideas of democracy, ideas about the rights of man, those ideas, the acceptance of those ideas, are even more important. Every light bulb I can illuminate over the head of one of the Fugger is another step to a better world, for everyone. And that’s one hell of a responsibility. Frightening.”

  She turned to look at him. He was listening to her closely, patiently, not interjecting, just listening. He raised one of his eyebrows to quietly encourage her to continue. She nodded back and pushed her sunglasses up onto her forehead. “You see, the thing is Johann, back up-time, at this time, I would have maybe gone to Fairmont State, which was my local community college, and if I managed to save enough money maybe continued on to WVU or somewhere like Colorado State to finish my degree as a teacher – which I doubt we could have ever afforded. That would have been my perfect world. But most likely, I would have gone to school for a year, run out of money, and ended up working at the DQ, or for a bank as a teller, or in a shop like my mother. Maybe get married, hell, maybe I would already be married. Pop out a couple of kids and that would be it. I’d be a small-town mom in the middle of nowhere, raising my kids and dragging my husband out of Club 250 to come home for supper, and that would be it. My life. Good as it was going to get.”

  He was looking at her with an attentive sympathy. Still, he was quiet.

  “But this thing, this miracle of the Ring of Fire happens and makes me something else, something more. It somehow gives me an opportunity to be someone-something I never could be. Something special. Something important to the world, to the future, perhaps-perhaps even a person whose teachings and decisions could echo down through history for hundreds of years.” She took a breath and turned to him. “So, here I am, Mary Margaret Russo, on a ski slope in the Tyrolian Alps, talking to a Swabian Count about the future of the world, and what I am going do about it. Do you see how confusing it is? How important it is?”

  He shook his head slowly. “I do not understand what it means. I have stopped thinking about it, and simply accept the Ring of Fire for what it is. But my world-changes are not your world-changes, and yours have been far larger than mine.” He pushed his sunglasses to the top of his head, his eyes burning into hers. “Mary, I know that you are special. Special to the Fugger. Special to the world.” It looked like he wanted to say more, but he stopped himself, and put his sunglasses back on.

  “Maybe I'm special to the world, Johann. Maybe not. Maybe I’m just Mary, from li’l old Grantville West Virginia, who really should be pushing soft serve at the DQ and raising a couple of kids while my husband works in the local coal mines.” She pushed her sunglasses back down on her nose, and looked at the snow-covered meadow below her, ringed by towering pines, and at the blue alpine sky above. Franz and Leonhard were approaching. “So. How much of a head start should I give you? I want to make it fair this time. You boys are too slow.”

  Chapter 29 The Mountain

  Mid-April 1635

  "I

  t’s not much to look at, is it?” Mary was a good one thousand feet below the surface of the town of Schwaz, in the Fugger silver mine. “I can see the quartz, and the veining, but it just looks like a lot of dark grey rock with some deposits in it.”

  “Right there is the actual silver.” Trufer, the mine manager for the Fugger family was pointing at the vein in the rock. It was cold and damp this far under the mountain, and Mary could see her breath at times. The mine had a peculiar odor, a mixture of lingering black powder from blasting, incredible humidity, mold, the odd metallic earthy smell of the ore, and smoke from lamps and candles by the dozens. The air quality was atrocious. The dim lighting made it hard to see the details on the walls. “The silver tarnishes when exposed to the air and moisture. Later tonight they will drill and then blast it out in smaller pieces. Then it goes back to the surface, first by hand, and then by cart on rails for processing.”

  “It’s kind of amazing, how much mining changed and at the same time, how little it changed. Men still go underground and fight hand-to-hand with the rock.” Mary looked at the passage behind them, and the steady stream of water flowing past. Just a few feet beyond was one of the deeper parts of the mine, where the electric powered pump sat, pumping water up and out. This part of the mine in the past had been impossible to keep dewatered without the electric pumps. They were so deep they had to pump the water up to a holding area to keep the water pressure from becoming too high. The number of engineering problems they had to solve had been staggering, but with down-time pragmatic creativity, up-time techniques, and Mary’s ability to blend t
he two worlds, they had succeeded in opening up this rich vein. According to Trufer, it was one of the richest veins since the mine was discovered in the 1400s.

  As they made their way back to the surface, Mary inspected the piping the down-timers made to hold the high pressures. In practical downtime fashion, they also used the same style pipe to protect the electrical cables, simplifying the number and type of flanges they needed. She made sure they were labeled correctly, as mixing them up could be a real problem. Electrical lines filled with water were a very bad idea. It was a much safer installation than the original direct current installation they began with in the fall. It was now an alternating current system, modeled after up-time power distribution. The Fugger had basically bought a system from Grantville, and then reverse engineered it, and in many ways made it far more robust. They were building their own power systems, which included alternators for generating the power, copper wire to connect everything, fuses and switches to protect the system, and motors and pumps that were driven by the power. The Fugger leveraged their existing fabrication and metals businesses, along with their interconnected workshop network to create the components and products. And with spring, power generation equipment for mining was getting shipped all over Europe to their extensive mining network.

  Johann had been the center of the power generation projects, and he spent a lot of time away from the schloss. But when he was there, he and Mary worked together closely. As the knowledge base expanded, and individuals across the network became more familiar with the technology, Mary worked less and less with power generation. Of course, the Fugger had other things for her to work on, and she had moved into chemistry, metallurgy, and of course radio. They really wanted radio. Radio was going to be hard.