Grantville Gazette Volume 27

by edited by Paula Goodlett

  Marlon made sure that his passengers were safely aboard, and waved to Reva. "Loose the line, Reva."

  As they sailed into the air, Cornelius leaned forward to speak to Marlon. "Herr Pridmore, I would dearly love to fly over to the east of here. See that grey tower between the two churches?" Cornelius pointed.

  Marlon nodded, and swung the rudder around toward the target. "Is that another church?"

  Cornelius smiled. "No. It's Rosenborg Palace."

  * * *

  Marlon and the Upwind spent the rest of the afternoon flying. All of the bankers, many of the notables, and even Lukas and his friends managed to get a ride.

  After two refuelings, Marlon called it a day. "Gentlemen, would you care to accompany me and my wife for some refreshment?" Marlon was more relaxed and comfortable than he had been for weeks.

  When they were seated at an enormous table, the questions came fast. Young Josef Magnussen seemed to be the man with the most technical questions. "Herr Pridmore, we have some very specific concerns beginning with this. How much did this cost, and how long did it take to build?"

  The men seemed fascinated with every detail. And when Marlon got to the part about acquiring cloth and materials, they were most intently interested. All in all, it was a greatly satisfying afternoon for Marlon.

  * * *

  Monday morning, Marlon was elated. He was certain to be on the edge of finishing this business. Reva had gone shopping early in the morning, and he had to fuss with the ornate clothing with only the help of his valet, Gregers.

  He was looking in the mirror when Gregers came into the suite. "Sir, there is an official envoy in the drawing room."

  Marlon turned, fussing with his lace collar. "What sort of envoy, Gregers?"

  The young man cleared his throat, then said, "I think it is the herald from the palace."

  Marlon turned. "From the palace? Someone sent by King Christian?"

  Gregers nodded, then stepped forward and straightened Marlon's coat, brushed some lint off the shoulder, and smoothed the lace collar.

  Marlon took a deep breath. "I wish Reva was here right now." Then he put a smile on his face and went to the drawing room.

  * * *

  "Good morning. I'm Marlon Pridmore. Can I help you, sir?"

  The man standing near the window turned. He was younger than Marlon, his salt and pepper hair tastefully curled on his shoulders, expensively dressed, and had lace on his collar and wrists.

  "Herr Pridmore, it is a pleasure to meet you. I am Niels Rasmussen, servant to His Majesty. We've heard many accounts of your activities on Saturday. His Majesty is very interested in your hobby. We were wondering if you would meet with him this morning."

  Marlon was still a little flustered by the thought of meeting the king, but quickly pulled himself together. "Sir, my time is yours."

  Rasmussen smiled. "Excellent. I have a carriage outside. Would you care to accompany me?"

  "Oh, I have a gift for His Majesty. If you could be persuaded to wait for just a moment, I'll fetch it from upstairs. Then we can go."

  * * *

  The ride to Rosenborg Palace was uneventful, and neither gentleman felt the need to indulge in small talk. The formal gardens were beautiful, even with the snow. Marlon followed Rasmussen through the echoing halls, with a small seed of nervousness sitting like a lead ball at the bottom of his stomach.

  Then they were at a large double door guarded by two pikemen. Rasmussen walked up without looking at the guards, and opened the doors. Marlon followed quickly.

  "Your Majesty, this is Herr Marlon Pridmore of the Grantville Bank. Herr Pridmore, His Majesty, King Christian."

  The king smiled and offered his hand. Marlon returned the smile and stepped forward, shaking the king's hand. Then Christian turned toward the windows. "I think you know Cornelius by now."

  Marlon turned, and saw that Cornelius Holgarssen was also in the room. He nodded, then said, "Your Majesty, I would like to present you with a gift. This is a book from up-time about balloons and airships. Great effort was made to have the finest photographs with the most spectacular views available."

  When he received the book from Marlon's hand, King Christian said, "Very impressive." The king indicated a cluster of chairs nearby. "Shall we sit?" The three men settled into chairs. It was then that Marlon noticed the absence of the royal herald.

  "Excellent idea, Your Majesty." Minutes passed as the King, Cornelius, and Marlon paged through the book. Marlon explained various parts of the lighter-than-air society as it existed up-time.

  Some time later, the king leaned back in his chair. "So! How was it that you have been flying in my city without inviting me?"

  Marlon's heart fluttered. "Your Majesty? I had not thought that my humble airship would be of great interest to someone who has his own air force."

  King Christian smiled. "Yes, but your airship is such an extraordinary thing. It must be very different as it proceeds almost regally through the sky."

  Cornelius said, "Herr Pridmore, I have reported everything that I knew about your airship to His Majesty, and he insisted on meeting you immediately."

  Marlon could tell that the king had wrung every last impression from the gentlemen banker. "Your Majesty, it's a feeling unlike anything else in the world."

  Christian turned back to the book. "I looked up airships in my encyclopedia when I heard you were coming to Denmark. The things shown there were much larger, quite unlike your aircraft."

  Marlon nodded. "Yes indeed. Unlike the hydrogen filled types, the thermal airship was quite a new concept in my time. Such airships had only been in existence for perhaps ten years before we arrived here in Europe."

  Christian leaned back and stroked his beard. "I have heard of hot air balloons, but I had never imagined from the encyclopedia that they could be guided like this."

  Marlon warmed into the discussion of his favorite topic. "The clever part comes from having an engine, and a shape that is held rigid by air pressure inside. It is most important to have a power plant that is light enough to provide the energy needed. Of course, even heavier power plants can move lighter-than-air craft more easily than an airplane, because the lifting gases hold up more than their own weight. Using an envelope and lifting gases gives much greater capacity than just a normal heavier-than-air craft is capable of."

  The king also became more animated. "So an airship can move much more weight than aircraft for the same amount of engine."

  "Well, yes. Except that airships are generally slower than aircraft."

  "How much slower?" asked Christian.

  "Well," said Marlon, "that depends. It all revolves around the size of the airship and how much power the engines have."

  Cornelius had been silent until now. "About engines . . . is it possible to get more engines?"

  Marlon felt he had found the reason he was in Copenhagen. "New engines from Grantville would be a real problem, because almost everything there is committed to one project or another. There are a few companies that are making new-built engines, but they are small and too under-powered for a large airship."

  Cornelius frowned, and the king looked somewhat disappointed, but Marlon continued before there were questions. "However, large new-built engines are not impossible. In fact there are several types that are possible to build here. For example several types of steam engines could be explored, and there is also a generator that can produce steam for very little weight."

  The king focused his piercing eyes on Marlon. "This is all very interesting, but what I really want right now is a commitment that you will take me flying in your airship at your earliest convenience."

  "Your Majesty, why not come out to the meadow with me right now?"

  * * *

  The afternoon was very much like Marlon's flight with the bankers on Saturday. But somehow, Marlon enjoyed it even more. Here he was in the air with someone close to his own age, and also an enthusiast of air travel. In this way Marlon Pridmore and King Chris
tian IV were very much alike.

  From the look on his face, the king was enraptured. He was leaning ever so slightly over the edge of the gondola, and looking down at Copenhagen. "Herr Pridmore, this is amazing. It is so slow and stately. And the silence is awe-inspiring. When I flew in my airplane, I was astounded. But it was noisy, and went so fast."

  He was silent for some time, and Marlon remembered again his first airship flight, and even his first time up in a hot air balloon. Some things just didn't need words.

  * * *

  The afternoon spent flying, landing, answering questions, and instructing King Christian in the subtleties of hot air had been very fulfilling.

  Then Marlon noticed that one of Those Envelopes had been delivered. He opened the sealed and beribboned packet with trepidation. Was it possible that I offended someone?

  The envelope contained a request for Marlon to meet with Cornelius and the other bankers tomorrow. "Gregers, I need you in here."

  His valet stepped into the office, and could tell that Herr Pridmore was nervous. "Yes, sir?"

  Marlon looked up from the intimidating envelope. "Gregers, ask my wife to step in, please. I think I'll take her out for lunch. Oh, and if anything else comes up, the only person I will be able to see would be King Christian. All others have to wait.

  "Right away, sir."

  * * *

  Marlon drummed his fingers on the table. Reva hadn't been home, of all things. So a servant went to find her and came back with her agreement to meet for lunch. She was usually so punctual. He never considered the possibility of having to wait forty-five minutes for her to arrive.

  Then the door of the tavern opened, and through a flurry of wind and blown snow, Reva hurried in, carrying packages, and trailed by two servants carrying more. All were bundled in fur-lined cloaks, and all three had red noses.

  "Reva, what's all this? Where were you? You've never been this late."

  Reva smiled. "Maria, thank you so much for your help this morning. Would it be too much trouble for you to take my share of the packages home for me? Or would the two of you like to join us for lunch?"

  Maria was already unloading packages from Reva's arms. "We'll take everything home, and start preparations. We only have a couple of weeks before Christmas, after all."

  Marlon sat down, a little flustered. He had never considered the possibility that Reva had other ideas of how to spend her time. The truth was, he had only really been thinking about bank business, and airships. What exactly has she been doing for the last couple of weeks? he wondered.

  Reva settled herself at the table. "So, Swordfish. What's so important?"

  * * *

  Next morning, Marlon walked into the upper room of the Merchant Bankers of Copenhagen building. Reva had refused to come with him. When questioned, she was a little mysterious, and just told him not to get into trouble.

  Marlon hadn't met here with the bankers before. While it was unlike any other business office he had ever been in, something about the room just screamed Big Money. Unlike any large business meeting of his own times, there was no conference table. There were chairs and a string of side tables down one wall with a selection of delicacies. It's much more like a cocktail party than any kind of serious business meeting, Marlon thought.

  The group in the room was almost twice as large as the group Marlon had met with about the bank business, but all of the bankers who had flown last weekend were there.

  Cornelius smiled when he saw Marlon. "Let's talk business."

  The chairman led Marlon over to a seat, and gestured toward the food. "Herr Pridmore, the truth is that we have been very interested in your airship from the moment we heard about it last fall."

  Marlon nodded. Now he would find out why he had really been brought to Denmark.

  Cornelius said, "We heard from a number of sources that you didn't plan on building airships on any commercial basis. In fact, as we tried to find more out about you and your technology, we heard repeatedly that you didn't want to start any kind of airship company. So we took this approach in kind of a roundabout way so that we would have the opportunity to present you with our proposal before you had the chance to refuse us out of hand. We know you have found it frustrating that we haven't made a lot of progress on our agreements with your bank. While those agreements and proposals are very important to us, we have another matter to discuss. We know that the small airship was made for your amusement. We want to know, can you make them bigger?"

  Marlon looked around. The other shoe had finally dropped. Why is everybody trying to get me into the airship business? Marlon could see, however, that these men wanted their airship and none of his bank business would go forward unless he gave it to them.

  He settled down to answer questions, and to defend his position as a hobbyist and not as entrepreneur.

  He noticed that the others had selected chairs nearby, and everyone in the room was listening. "Cornelius, I want to make it clear from the beginning that I'm not a miracle worker. Nor am I a superman. I can't guarantee that everything will work as planned. I have no training in engineering, or aircraft design. Bigger ships are not easy, and they will cost a lot of money."

  Cornelius nodded. "Yes, that's obvious. Everyone here knows that value costs money."

  "Comparing my airship to a large commercial airship is like a rowboat compared to a galleon. I don't know very much about bigger ships. I could make some serious mistakes and people could die. That's a lot for my conscience."

  Cornelius stroked his beard. "Herr Pridmore, you probably don't realize it, but my partners and I have been researching airships and new modes of transportation for almost two years. After a disastrous attempt on our prototype airship, in which two men lost their lives, we decided we needed more expertise. Then you launched your airship, and it became apparent we needed you to make this enterprise successful."

  The young man, Josef Magnussen, stood, and began to lay out their proposal. "Herr Pridmore, we do not consider you to be a holy saint, or a hero of the Greeks. In any new endeavor, there are risks, not only of money, but of life and limb. This enterprise has been the same. In our business, ships are lost and people die. Nobody likes that, but business still goes on."

  Cornelius picked up the discussion again. "Among the powers of Europe, Denmark is by no means the largest, richest, or most powerful. There's a lot of competition in trade. We want to get our cargoes to their destinations faster. Transporting cargo overland quickly would be the same as controlling a large share of the money."

  And then Cornelius sipped his wine and smiled. "His Majesty also wants to show the world that we can fly. He is very impressed with you, sir. He feels that you are just the man to help us get our cargoes to the buyer faster."

  Marlon pulled together what he thought was his strongest point to keep him out of the shipbuilding business. "What about railroads? They can go as fast or almost as fast as an airship, and can carry so much more cargo. And what about that Monster airplane?"

  Cornelius smiled. "It will be at least five years and possibly as much as ten years before the railroads will go where we want. And the Monster airplane can only fly so far and carry so much."

  Josef took up the question. "With an airship, we will be able to move large cargoes. And development will take a year, perhaps less. We have already gathered many of the materials you have described. As you said, a medium large airship could have a useful cargo load of over twenty tons. That is about the same as five large freight wagons. And the transport times will be in hours and days. Much better than the weeks and months it takes now to move the same amount of freight."

  Marlon started to object, but Cornelius held up his hand. "As you said, mistakes will be made in this venture. People will die, both in the experimentation and in the building and flying of such a ship. People already have. Just as they died up-time. But the truth is that fewer mistakes will be made and fewer people will die if you were our advisor."

  Marlon's mouth snappe
d shut at that. He knew the truth when he heard it. "But Herr Holgarssen, I'm not a qualified engineer for this sort of project, and I still have commitments to my employer."

  Cornelius stood. "Just know, Herr Pridmore. Our group is determined to continue in this venture with or without you. You have given us a new direction to pursue, and we are ready. If you do not help us, those lost lives may well end up on your conscience."

  Marlon stood also, and heaved a great sigh. But he already knew he would accept. He could not let anyone take the risks without his knowledge and experience. He said, "I can help, but much will have to be rediscovered here."

  Cornelius nodded. "Agreed. We have only one condition. You must stay and help supervise the building. For this, we offer your bank a share of the enterprise, but we really require your knowledge and help. You will be handsomely compensated. King Christian wants you close so he can personally consult with you."

  Marlon said, "I have to consider this. I also need to consult with my superiors and my family. An enterprise like this could take quite some time."

  Cornelius took Marlon by the arm, a friendly gesture. He strolled toward the door as he spoke. "Very good. That you are a cautious man is reassuring. How soon can we meet again?"

  "About a week, that should be enough time to talk to everybody."

  There was a lot of murmuring, and Cornelius laughed. "So soon?" He turned and consulted in a low voice with others, then smiled again. "We will make it ten days."

  * * *

  To be continued in Grantville Gazette 28

  NONFICTION:

  Industrial Alchemy, Part 4: Organic Chemical Feedstocks and Product Timeline

  Written by Iver P. Cooper

  Here, I expand upon the introduction to natural feedstocks which appeared in part 3, and then discuss some products which might be made, and when they might be available.

  Coal Feedstocks

  Coal Pyrolysis and Coal Tar Distillation

  In 1856, Perkins reacted aniline from coal tar with potassium dichromate, serendipitously obtaining the new silk dye mauveine. In the half-century that followed, the organic chemical industry primarily derived its products from coal tar.