Raising Steam

by Peter Rhodan

  He paused and jumped up on the platform Gregorix occupied and pointed at a red painted object set on a white painted flat piece of metal at the front of the tube thing. “As the pressure inside grows this thing is forced up. It is supposed to represent pounds per square inch, which is the measure I adopted, but it is only pretty rough.”

  “And how much pressure do you operate this at?” Arturo asked.

  Ceri shrugged. “We think the safe pressure is between one hundred and one hundred and twenty pounds per square inch. If it gets to one hundred and forty that measuring thing gets blown right out the top of the tube and the steam then escapes.”

  “Ah. Simple yet effective. I like it. I gather you have been testing it?” Arturo waved a hand at the machine.

  Ceri nodded. “Yes. We have been firing up the thing most days for the last week, except for when we needed to cast this latest set of cylinders. It has actually been a rather frustrating process getting to this point. Each time we cast a new set of cylinders it takes a couple of days to get them smoothed down to the required amount! Very frustrating, especially when we filed one set down too far trying for a really smooth finish and had to throw it away!”

  Arturo smiled at his friend’s complaints. By throwing away he really meant putting in the scrap pile to be melted down and re-used. The smile on Ceri’s face indicated he thought the tribulations more than worth it though. Personally, Arturo was ecstatic! It was amazing that his friend had got this far already! Arturo was under no illusion that there was any chance he could have developed this thing on his own. His engineering and metalworking skills were practically non-existent. Ceri on the other hand was clearly a genius at metal work and translating theory, often very nebulous theory, into practical, if rather clunky looking, reality. “All right then. Let’s see your steam engine doing some work.”

  Ceri smiled at the device being called his and nodded to Harlain. “Start her up.’ He ordered.

  Harlain checked a few things then pulled off a lever. There was a hissing sound and steam billowed from around the cylinder at the front, then there was a sighing sound and some smoke billowed up out of the chimney and the rod began to move forward from inside the cylinder slowly rotating the wheel at the front.

  The machine started to make a wheezing, chuffing sound, slowly getting quicker and quicker as the rod moved in and out of the cylinder. It built up speed, getting faster and faster and the wheel rotated ever more rapidly until soon the spokes were a sort of blur. “Isn’t it marvellous!” Ceri yelled almost jumping up and down on the spot like a child with a new toy. The two helpers were beaming at their toy as well.

  Arturo smiled and glanced at Oween who had a dumbfounded and rather scared looking expression on his face watching the demonic device in clear trepidation. Arturo walked forward and watched the wheel spin for a period then returned to the rear and studied the whole device. Yes, it would work, he thought to himself. There was steam escaping all over from joints and such as well as the cylinder blocks themselves which would have to be tightened up but that was merely a matter of refining methods. The burning smell that he detected was most probably the fat they were using for lubrication he decided. The overall engineering seemed sound or at least there did not appear to be anything a little fiddling with procedures would not fix. After letting it run for five minutes Arturo gave Ceri a nod. “Good work Ceri. You can shut it off now.” He had to speak loudly to be heard over the combination of the device's clanking and rattling and the hissing of the escaping steam at the front.

  Ceri turned to his two lieutenants and had Gregorix open the fire door to let heat out and Harlain took hold of the lever he had started the machine with and put it back in its original position. The chuffing sound slowly died while the wheel went slower and slower with the power shut off. Hmm. Brakes, Arturo thought himself. No idea presented itself of how to engineer brakes, but he was confident that Ceri would run with the idea and come up with something. The building was now filled with smoke and he coughed a little. The aroma was subtly different to the burnt wood that was the most common cause of smoke around the area. Something that was about to change as well.

  “Damn impressive Ceri. You’ve all done a great job!” Ceri’s two lieutenants beamed at being included in the praise. “Have you thought of any applications for it yet?” He asked.

  Ceri laughed. “Ha. You are always making a joke of things Arturo. Where do I start. Running high speed lathes for making metal tools, oh and wood objects too of course. Powering cranes and lifting devices. I have already roughed up a sort of crane base on a small water wheel type design. The only thing I have not yet worked out fully is how to transfer the rotary motion only when wanted, rather than continually.”

  “Ah yes. I am not sure I can help you there as I have little practical knowledge as you know.” Arturo offered apologetically. "They use gears and gearboxes in my land, but I have never seen the inside of one I'm afraid."

  Ceri waved his hand casually. “No matter Arturo, I'll work it out. You have given me the idea and enough knowledge to build this machine. It is amazing!” Actually Arturo rather thought it was Ceri who was amazing!

  Now that the thing was almost stopped Oween went over for a closer look at the still very hot machine. Arturo decided to give Ceri a few more ideas. “It could be used as a pump too, not just for water but also for air like a bellows, I would think.”

  Ceri appeared taken by surprise at this idea. “What an idiot!” He said of himself hitting his palm against his forehead. “Of course it could be used to pump air into the furnaces. Oh lord, why didn’t I see that??” He wailed.

  Arturo clapped him on the shoulder. “Because you have been focused on getting it to work. Too many trees so you couldn’t see the forest.”

  Ceri stared at him for a second then laughed. “I like that. I could not see the forest because of the trees. Ha. You are droll Arturo.”

  “Well there will be a host of other uses too such as using it to power a big weaving machine or a bank of spinning bobbins all at once. Powering a lifting device to raise and lower men and material into and out of underground mines is another. Once you work out how to turn using the power on and off.” He paused and pointed at the engine. “But the single most important use I haven’t mentioned yet.”

  Ceri looked at him. “Really? I had thought of saws for cutting trees up and powering a bank of drop forges to make wrought iron in quantity or stamp out several items at the same time from a bank of die cutting machines.” He looked expectantly at Arturo who just smiled enigmatically and walked over to Oween

  “What do you think my friend?” He said to the scowling Oween.

  “I think it is probably the single scariest thing I have ever seen. The Christians will say it’s the work of the devil you know.” Oween shook his head in negation.

  Arturo laughed. “Don’t care. This is the future regardless of what they think.”

  Oween stopped scowling but still looked unhappy when he nodded. “Oh, aye. I can see that. I heard your conversation.” He turned from his inspection of the device to face Arturo. “Now I’m not clever like Ceri so you just be telling me the answer to what is the single most important use, yes?" He asked, reflecting Arturo’s statement to Ceri back at him.

  Ceri came and stood next to Oween. “Yes. Come on Dominus Primarius. Give!”

  Arturo smiled at Ceri’s use of his self-proclaimed title. He glanced at the door where Briana was standing stoically, apparently unmoved by the whole thing and doing her bodyguard job. He beckoned and after a quick glance around beyond the door, she trotted over. “What do you think of this here device? Oween says the Christians will regard it the work of the devil. What about the pagans?”

  Briana frowned “It be scary yes. But it is still but a thing of metal made by men. I not know how it works but steam I have seen before from cooking pots. Not in such quantity but it is nothing special. Smoke is smoke whether from campfire or coal burning in metal oven. It is clever device.
Nothing more.”

  Arturo smiled at her simple response. “So, Briana says it is a clever device and northing more, good. You want to know what the most important use will be?” The two men nodded. Briana looked on with her usual bland expression but Arturo was sure she wanted to hear as well. Arturo stepped back a few paces till he was roughly equidistant from either end of device and maybe four meters back from it.

  “Well Ceri. You see how you have the barrel up on that stand?” The iron master nodded. “Well what about if you mounted that whole thing on the floor of one of the flat wagons you use in the iron works here to run around the rail roads. And if you moved the cylinders back next to and perhaps below the front of the barrel. You follow so far?”

  Ceri nodded. “Yeah, I could see that mounted on one of the flat wagons.”

  “Okay. Then you reverse the end of the cylinder so that the power rod comes out of this end and you put a much more solid version of that wheel, made with the rail road wagon wheel rim, under the rear of the wagon. Put a regular set of wheels and axles at the front under the cylinders. Repeat on the other side. It will take some work getting it balanced and you will probably have to make a solid framed chassis rather than use a flat wagon but do you get the idea?”

  ‘Oh shit! Shit! Fucking brilliant!” Ceri yelled, beside himself with sudden enthusiasm. His two lieutenants looked up surprised at his language and loud outburst. Oween looked intrigued and appalled at the same time. Briana looked, well blander perhaps but kept her expression straight as usual. Ceri took his two helpers over to the machine and started talking to them, obviously working out the best way to put this idea into practice while Arturo and Oween waited patiently for the discussion to come to an end.

  “This is the most amazing device I have ever seen or heard of!” Ceri enthused, returning to where Arturo and Oween stood waiting.

  “I’m glad you like it. There will be lots of problems to sort out you understand. Probably the first will be making stronger rails, out of steel most likely, although you will probably have to use wrought iron at first. It’s not just the weight of the engine but there is also the force exerted by the stroke of the pistons. And like the development of this engine itself there will be any number of small technical problems to be overcome. Most of which I can’t anticipate I’m sorry. Like with the engine itself my knowledge is too general to be of use at a practical level.”

  Ceri nodded but still smiled. “Yes. Yes, I understand. But like we did with this engine we will overcome such problems as we go. A self-propelled travelling engine.” He mused, staring off into the distance. He shook himself and came back to reality. “The first step is building more of these fixed engines, better and bigger ones. Having a lathe powered by one of these will make building cylinders with close tolerances much easier for a start. Too much steam escapes from this design and it will take a lot of work to get things significantly better.”

  Arturo nodded. “Well. You will need to find someone to come up with better lubricants as well. The friction these things produce is like nothing ever built before. It possible you may be able to use something left over from distilling the coke gases or the tar itself.” He paused for a moment considering the machine. “There, I have provided you with an interesting task for the winter my friend.” And he clapped Ceri on the shoulder. “And no denying others the use of such machines. Once one or two get in service others will be wanting them. Especially Lewarth. Make sure he gets priority in getting one or more made for his use.”

  Ceri frowned at this, as he usually did when Arturo made him help his only serious local opposition. He still looked unhappy even after a couple of long talks about industrialisation that he and Ceri had enjoyed. Arturo was pretty sure that Ceri understood why Arturo was doing the sharing technology thing, but it still went against the grain not to keep the advantages Arturo’s knowledge all to himself. What was not in doubt was that Ceri was certainly making money and using it to build an operation that was now so big he could not have dreamed of it even just a year before.

  “Well, I will leave you to your marvellous steam engine Ceri. We have to go check on our engineer.” Arturo informed him and after handshakes all around the three left the iron master and his disciples to their continued study of the arcane steam engine and the new idea they had been presented with. And so the Industrial Revolution gathers steam, Arturo smiled to himself at the private joke.

  In actual fact Arturo and Oween's first task was to visit the cloth works where Mabwhen, the local carpenter, had apparently made some improvement to Arturo’s original loom design upgrade. In practice what he had done was develop a foot pedal attached to a wheel that could be used to spin wool on two bobbins at once, improving the output considerably. The offset rod looked a lot like the wheel Ceri had attached to his steam engine, but Arturo didn’t ask if he’d copied the ironmaster or not. The pedal could be used by either foot so the operator could switch feet as one tired. The best thing about this new process he had designed was that the whole thing could probably be automated with a steam engine powering the motion down the track.

  A new building was being built on the edge of town to house the first proper cloth making factory in the world, or at least so Arturo surmised. While most of the cloth would still be made in homes the final products would be assembled in this building. The idea had been Briffet’s and the financing had come partly from her father but also as a collective by the families of the women who did the weaving. They had all received a share in the enterprise and stood to get rich down the track. At least Arturo hoped they would.

  Observing the stone base walls being started Arturo suddenly remembered he needed to introduce cement. He was sure it was made by baking limestone, rather like baked coal made coke. The limestone for the iron works came from either down the coast or inland a bit from Maglona so he resolved to get to one of the sites soon and sort the matter out, as it would be better to build the cement plant there than cart the stone all the way to Dervent. Elsewhere there was a chap supervising four Scotti captives pulling down a house near the edge of town. The former owners had been offered a new larger house on the other side of town away from the ironworks. That house was now finished and their old was being knocked down as the first step in widening the main road and adding a sewer running underneath it.

  They were invited to Arcadius’ house for lunch by Briffet and the serious Roman greeted them in a rather friendlier manner than usual, which surprised Arturo. Arcadius had always been helpful, despite refusing the jobs Arturo had offered, but something had obviously happened that had pleased him, given his effusive welcome.

  He led the small party through the atrium of his Roman style house and to a room done up for eating in the local Brythonic style rather than the traditional Roman couches. On the table was what Arturo immediately recognised as a book, as in trimmed paper pages bound in a stiff cover and he guessed that Hwillam had produced the first print run of book one of Virgil’s Aeneid. Indeed, Arcadius went straight to it and picking it up waved it at Arturo. “This is the most brilliant thing I have ever seen!” He announced, unconsciously echoing Ceri’s outburst earlier.

  Briffet and Oween smiled dutifully. Oween was careful to smile at whatever Arcadius said, so that didn’t mean much but Briffet was normally far less receptive to her father’s statements due to their long disagreement over Oween’s suitability as a husband. And in fairness to Arcadius, he could understand a father being reluctant to seeing his daughter involved with the man. Given some of the things Arturo had heard about Oween and his actions in the time before Arturo arrived, Oween could best be described as being of limited means and a shady character to boot! Not ideal husband material for an upper class Roman that was for sure!

  Oween’s loyalty to Arturo along with the reliable and sensible approach he took in performing his role as aide had mollified Arcadius somewhat although he had not as yet given them permission to marry. Now he beamed at Arturo holding what was clearly the first fruits of
Arturo’s printing press development. The book was bulky and rather rough in finish and taking it from the proffering Arcadius, Arturo could see the pages were little better than the scratchy paper Hwillam had showed him the last time he was down there. The ink was a washy grey more than black and had obviously smudged slightly in the printing while the binding could only be described as clunky. But for all its faults it was a real book, nevertheless. A primitive version of the ones Arturo had seen in the museum back in the Federation.

  “You like it I gather?” Arturo enquired somewhat satirically, handing it to Oween for him to look it over as well.

  “It’s brilliant! The whole concept is revolutionary. Instead of all those bulky scrolls you will be able to have a rack of these compact books. Hwillam says he will print the whole Aeneid within the next few months in between other things. And the press concept itself! Being able to produce multiple copies of a book one after another like that. You really are from somewhere very different aren’t you?”

  Arturo smiled. “Well not so different, people are still people where I come from too, you know. Oh yes, my people know how to do things that you Romans have not learned how to achieve as yet, but that is only a matter of time. I am merely, ahh, helping the process along, so to speak.”

  Arcadius nodded smiling. “Melwyn says this will revolutionise teaching as all the pupils will be able to have a copy of the same text at the same time to study and it will put works like the Aeneid here into the hands of almost anyone.”

  “That’s true, and to a large extent, that was the idea.” Arturo confirmed. “Too much knowledge is locked away in a few scrolls or some scholar’s head. Books like this will make knowledge available to all, not just a few rich scholars.”

  Arcadius nodded. “And that will change society in time, won’t it?” He asked, looking sideways at Arturo obviously trying to gauge his response. Arturo noted the sly look but had no intention of dodging matters with Arcadius.