Grantville Gazette 38 gg-38

by Коллектив Авторов

  "To let people know we're ramping up production to meet the expected need, and to tell Schmucker and Schwentzel what we're doing, why, and reassure them that their order will be available on schedule."

  Gottfried was impressed, he was also aware that time was passing. He dropped a kiss onto Veronika's lips and hurried off to get things organized.

  Later that morning

  Gottfried was busy checking the quality of the latest batch of pulp when Friedrich slithered up beside him.

  "You'll never guess who I found sitting at your desk in the office."

  Gottfried turned. "Nobody's supposed to be in the office but me. Go and tell them to get out and back to work." He expected Friedrich to immediately do as he was told, but instead he got a gentle shaking of his head in reply. Then the significance of what Friedrich had said started to penetrate. "But she should have gone back to work hours ago."

  "Maybe she should have, but she didn't. Not that she hasn't been busy. You can actually see your desk now."

  Horrified, Gottfried dropped the paper mold he was holding, not even noticing as it sank into the Hollander tank. "I'll never be able to find anything now."

  "But I'm sure your Veronika could. She seemed real happy working away at your desk."

  "Happy? Doing paper work?" Gottfried shook his head in disbelief. "Impossible."

  Friedrich shrugged. "It takes all sorts to make a world. Some of them have to like paperwork. It's just your good luck Veronika is one of them."

  "Yeah, maybe I should offer her a job."

  Friedrich let out a sigh heavy with frustration. "I never should have told you that Catrin told me Veronika had turned down some guy in the office's offer of marriage."

  "But you did tell me."

  "And now you're scared that she'll say no if you ever get the nerve up to ask her."

  Gottfried buried his hands in his work jacket pockets, where Friedrich couldn't see the tight fists he was making with them, and stared belligerently at his friend. "Wouldn't you be scared?"

  "So what are you going to do?"

  "I'm going to take my time and do it right. First I'm going to ask Veronika if she'd like a permanent job at the mill, then, when the time's right, I'll ask her to marry me."

  "I wash my hands of you," Friedrich said before stalking off.

  Gottfried stared after Friedrich long after he'd disappeared into the far reaches of the mill. He couldn't help it that he was scared that Veronika wouldn't want to marry him. She had been trained at the Grantville Vo Tech, and was doing a Grantville GED part-time. The GED was almost the same as having a degree from a university like Jena or Erfurt. What did he have to offer a woman with her prospects? Just a mill, and not a very big one at that. With those thoughts running through his head, he headed for the office.

  ****

  Veronika was a sight to behold, sitting comfortably in his chair, at his desk, calmly making entries in his accounts book. He waited until she put the pen she was using down-ink blots would have made a mess of all her good work, and Gottfried wasn't suicidal. Eventually she put down the pen, and looked up.

  "How would you like to do that permanently?"

  "Do what?"

  "Would you like to come and work for me? Doing what you've been doing, but full time, on a salary."

  For a bare moment the light went out of her eyes, to return almost as quickly as it disappeared. "Why are you offering me a job now?"

  "You ran out on your job with the council to warn me that the newspapers might need more paper, and it's crossed my mind that you might find yourself in need of employment." He gestured towards the cleared desk. "You seem to enjoy office work, whereas I . . ."

  "You don't," Veronika said. "Yes, I would like to work here full time."

  "Good, good. Then let's walk down to the council and see if you still have a job to resign from, and collect your things."

  "I might have to serve out a notice period," Veronika said as she rose to her feet.

  "If you have to, you have to. Don't worry, the paperwork will still be there waiting."

  "How can a girl turn down an offer like that?"

  ****

  The walk to Saalfeld was pleasant, but not as pleasant as walking behind Veronika as she preceded Gottfried into the council building. Veronika didn't seem to have noticed that he'd dropped behind, so Gottfried dawdled a little, maximizing the time he could watch her swaying hips. All this meant he missed the reaction in the office when Veronika appeared. But he did manage to hear some of it.

  ". . . he won't marry you, you know," a voice Gottfried vaguely recognized said.

  "Gottfried will too marry Veronika." That was Catrin, defending her friend to the end.

  Gottfried waited a few seconds, just in case Veronika wanted to protest otherwise, before he pushed open the door. Catrin was facing down a man he recognized as the man who'd refused him his water discharge consent. Off to one side the man who had talked to him about coppice leases had a comforting arm around Veronika. That didn't bother him, because the man was obviously old enough to be her father.

  He took in the scene before him in an instant, and said the first thing that came to mind. "Come on, Veronika. If we hurry, we can get the banns posted before the pastor at Saint Johan's leaves for lunch."

  Catrin squealed and threw her arms around Veronika. Stephan Wachter slipped free of Veronika and walked up to Gottfried and offered him his hand. "Congratulations. You couldn't have picked a better woman to marry."

  Gottfried shook the man's hand, but he was watching Nikolaus, who had an enormous sneer on his face. Their eyes met for a moment, and Nikolaus stalked off. He glanced over to Veronika, who seemed to be coming out of her shock. He had to act fast, before she started to think. Gottfried peeled her free of Catrin. "Come on, girl, let's get a move on." He dragged her out of the office and towards Saint Johan's.

  Outside the council building Veronika stopped. "You don't have to marry me."

  Gottfried put on his best wounded puppy impression. "You don't want to marry me?"

  Veronika dropped her head. "I didn't say that."

  That was close enough for Gottfried. He reached out and pulled her close, so that her face was buried into his chest. He held her like that for a while, savoring the warmth of her body snuggled up against him. Eventually he tipped up her chin. "So it's agreed, we go to Saint Johan's and post the banns?"

  "That's not a very romantic proposal." She giggled. "What's Catrin going to say when I describe how you asked me to marry you?"

  "She'll be most disillusioned, won't she?" Gottfried gazed into Veronika's eyes. "Of course, she's also going to ask if we kissed, isn't she?"

  "Yes."

  "Then we shouldn't disappoint her." Veronika obviously agreed, because she threaded her arms around his neck. He lowered his lips to her's and . . .

  The Arrow

  Gorg Huff and Paula Goodlett

  Willem Krause watched the Las Vegas Belle fly over and the left side of his mouth lifted in his patented half-grin. He was a charming fellow. Which was something he both knew and worked at. Krause worked at everything. Very little had come easy to him. His title was real enough, but mostly meaningless. He made his living as a mercenary soldier. He watched and as he watched, he formed a new goal. The goal of my life, he thought. He would gain an airplane-buy one, or build, or steal one, to take him where he wanted to go and turn him into a whole scout company all by himself. With an airplane, he could sell his services anywhere. Anywhere at all. To Krause it was obvious just from seeing the airplane fly, that aircraft would be of immense value in war even if they could never fire a shot. He watched the plane for another moment, then turned away. He had things to do. And he needed to be in Saxony to get the money to do them with.

  ****

  "It's true, Elector," Willem Krause said. "I saw the airplane fly with my own eyes."

  John George of Saxony asked for another beer-as was his custom, by dumping what was left of his present beer on the
head of his servant. It was a boring old joke a hundred years before the Ring of Fire. But Willem smiled as though it was the freshest of wit. "They," he said, referring to airplanes, "will be world-changing, Elector. But I don't think the up-timers know it."

  "Why not?" John George asked.

  "Because of the resources-or rather the lack of resources-they are dedicating to them even now." Willem shook his head in only half-pretended disgust. Telling John George anything bad about the up-timers on his western border was always a good tactic, but in this case Willem was somewhat amazed at how little resources the up-timers were spending on aircraft.

  The conversation continued, a mix of complaints about the up-timers and their destabilizing effects, upsetting the natural order of things. And the advantages of air power which, if invested in by farsighted members of the better classes, could stave off-at least for a time-the democratizing effects of the up-timers.

  It took two more weeks and quite a bit of groveling, but Willem got the money and headed back to Grantville. During the groveling, they discussed whether it was better to simply buy an airplane or have one built. Krause managed to convince the Elector of Saxony that having one built, and having the Elector's loyal Willem Krause involved in the building, would mean that they were not dependent on the up-timer knowledge nearly as much as they would be if they simply bought whatever some up-timer sold them.

  ****

  Back in Grantville, with a bank account filled with Saxony silver, Willem Krause started looking into the possibilities for airplanes. There were many people building many types of airplanes. The Kellys, an up-timer couple, were building three different aircraft at once. A pair of idiots, one up-timer, one down-timer, were trying to get people interested in building multi-engine bi-wing airplanes.

  ****

  Money, Darius thought. Back up-time, big stars and rich people ran around in faded jeans and torn T-shirts. Not down-time. Down-time, real money was needed to have a wardrobe and having a wardrobe meant having real money. And at first glance this guy looked like he had real money. All those fancy clothes, and this dude was pretty well-padded, too. Not fat, but definitely nowhere close to starvation.

  "How can I help you, sir?" Darius asked.

  The guy looked at Darius and gave him this sort of conspiratorial grin, as if he had a secret but was willing enough to share it with Darius because he trusted him. "Aircraft. I'm interested in aircraft."

  "Yes, sir!" Darius said in Amideutch, half-unconsciously returning the grin, "Aircraft design and history have been two of our most popular research areas ever since the National Library was established. And they've gotten even more popular since the Las Vegas Belle first flew. We have a standard booklet you could buy. It has some basic research from the library and it contains the basic theory and the main formulas involved. It costs twenty-five dollars, but it's just an overview. There is a much more detailed and complete book that was put together by three researchers and examined by Herr Smith. He said it has enough information in it to get you killed."

  The guy looked kind of surprised and a bit bemused by that comment. But it was exactly what Hal Smith had said about the book. And Darius told him why. "An airplane that never left the ground was unlikely to kill the pilot, but even the best airplane ever built is a death trap if badly-flown or poorly-maintained. The more expensive book Aeronautics 101 has enough information in it to get you off the ground."

  Darius continued with his sales pitch. "If you're actually going to try to build an airplane of your own, you want to read the second book. It's two hundred dollars, but it has a lot of information. After you've read it, you want to consult with Herr Smith and get his thoughts on any design you come up with. That's expensive too, but Herr Smith is a real aeronautical engineer and the only one in the world. There are also the spreadsheets that Herr Smith and Colonel Wood came up with. You can do the calculations with a slide rule, or even on paper if you're good enough at math. But you're safer with the spreadsheets."

  ***

  "That was a good sale," Gemma said behind him. A few minutes later while Willem Krause was leaving with his books. Researchers got a ten percent commission on books sold and twenty-two fifty wasn’t bad for a quarter hour's work.

  Darius jumped a bit. "Jeez, Gemma. Where did you learn to sneak up on people like that?"

  "Don't take the Lord's name in vain, Darius. Not even half the Lord's name. I don't understand why the good Lord sent a bunch of up-timers back to our time just so they could blaspheme."

  "Maybe," Darius suggested, "it's because the good lord doesn't actually care that much about blaspheming. Maybe he cares more about what's in your heart than what comes out of your mouth."

  "Maybe," Gemma agreed. "But I'm not going to risk centuries in Purgatory on the chance." Then she smiled at him.

  Darius' heart gave a little flutter. Gemma Bonono was pretty. Not pretty in a "oh my god, she's gorgeous" kind of way. Pretty in a "home-town girl" sort of way. If your hometown was in Italy in the seventeenth century, that is. Or at least so Darius imagined. Not that he'd ever been to Italy, not yet.

  Gemma also worked in the library. She was more a translator than a researcher, since she spoke Italian, Latin and German. Her English was coming along, too.

  "I gotta go, Gemma." Darius sighed. "I need to keep the commission from that sale, so I've gotta do some of the pro bono questions."

  "I'll help," Gemma said. "It'll be good practice."

  They went back to the reference desk to pick up the next pro bono question. As it happened, that question-like so many others-was one that had been asked and answered before, so they made a note to reference the number for the already researched answer and put it on the out-going stack, then went on to the next question. One of the many clerks would get in touch with the person who had asked the question, find out what kind of report they wanted, and either answer it verbally or, for a fee, have a written report made up and sent out. Some questions already had reports written up and ready to send out, but not all of them.

  That part wasn't the researcher's problem. Darius and Gemma would mark down on their timesheets that they'd spent however many minutes answering the question. Enough hours of answering the pro bonos would pay their library fee, which is what they were after.

  While they were doing this, Darius explained to Gemma that the sale had been to another aviation nut, and who knows, maybe he'd come back with questions. Most of the people who bought that book never returned. Darius wasn't sure if it was because the book answered all their questions or if it was because the answers in it scared them off.

  ****

  Willem Krause bought both books and read them through, which took him almost two months. Partly because there was a lot of stuff in them, partly because they were in the up-timer type face and he wasn't used to it. Partly because they were in English and he would have done better with either German or Latin. But mostly because they were poorly written. What they were, were articles copied out of various encyclopedias, periodicals, and bits of books, strung together with connecting paragraphs inserted to explain why they had chosen this article or this scene from a given book. There was an article about a plane that had tried to pull out of a dive too fast and had its wings come off. The accompanying paragraph pointed out that while lift increased by the square, stress on the wings increased by the cube, and then failed to explain what that meant.

  Willem made a note of another question to ask the next time he went to the library and went back to reading.

  This was a few paragraphs from a fiction book, describing how the hero took off from an aircraft carrier. And the connecting paragraph discussed preflight checklists. It was poorly organized minutia of aircraft design and flight, put together by people who, for the most part, had never been in a cockpit or drawn so much as a line of a design of an aircraft. The knowledge was there and some of it was sneaking past the poor authorship to present itself to him. And that was the two hundred dollar book. Willem wanted to throw
it across the room. Or, better yet, at the pimple-faced teenager who had sold it to him. At the same time, he realized that it was absolutely the best book available down-time on the subject of powered flight.

  ****

  Willem presented his list of questions to Darius, who examined them carefully then looked at him with considerably more respect. "Some of these are new."

  "The questions that aren't new . . . why aren't they answered in the book?

  "Because they've come up since it was written. There is a second edition being worked on now, but it won't be out till the end of the year, if then. It should be better organized, though. By the way, if you agree that the answers we find for you can be included in the next edition, there is a discount."

  "How much of a discount?"

  "Well, they may not want the answers for the book, so it's only twenty percent. Or you can gamble and if they use it and you’re the only one that asked it, they will refund half the research cost."

  Willem knew a scam when he heard one. But the whole library worked on a pay-me-again system. Almost every question asked would have an answer that more than one person would want. So the rates they charged took into account the fact that they could probably sell the answer several times. And they always charged extra if the customer wanted their answers kept private. Even if you paid the extra, it didn't keep someone else from asking the same question and getting it answered. It just kept that researcher from selling the answer to the general pool of previously answered questions. By now a lot of questions were answered by typing the question into the list of previously asked questions and getting back a reference number to an already found, correlated and printed answer. So even if Willem didn't take the discount, it was just as likely that someone else would come along and ask the question, so the answer would show up in the next edition of the book anyway.

  "I'll take the twenty percent discount." Willem shook his head, partly in admiration for a good scam but mostly in disgust that he was the one who was helping write the next edition of Aeronautics 101-and he was paying for the privilege.