1637_The Volga Rules

by Eric Flint

  Izabella wasn’t happy about it, but three days later Alexander and Leonid were off on an ice boat. It was a hybrid of up- and down-time designs. Three blades, widely spaced, allowed for a large sail, but it had a nice cabin and was marginally comfortable. Given the right wind conditions, it could go quite fast.

  Part Three

  The Way East

  CHAPTER 19

  Survivors

  Outside Berlin

  December 1636

  Petr Nickovich held out a shaking hand and heated small beer was poured into the mug it held. The local farmers had taken them in and fed them after the crash of the Czarina Evdokia. The snowstorm had simply gotten worse, and for the last week they had been stuck here. The farmers weren’t overtly unfriendly. More cautious than anything. They had treated their wounds and given them a place to stay, but had also taken any weapons and other valuable gear. It was dark. There were windows but they were shuttered against the cold and the lamps didn’t even have glass chimneys, much less the Coleman pressurized fuel system. All that was bad enough, but worse—so far as Petr was concerned—was the fact that they hadn’t been allowed near the Czarina Evdokia since they had been rescued. There was a fortune in gear out there. Steam engines, radios, goldbeater’s skin, treated fabric, struts and more. And the locals seemed to think that it belonged to them.

  Petr sipped the small beer and moped while Valeriya Zakharovna managed the other survivors. Valeriya was strong for a woman, probably because she’d been raised on a farm. The “wrong side of the blanket” daughter of a minor nobleman, she had gotten her posting in the Dacha and later the crew of the Czarina Evdokia through her father’s influence and had proved hard-working and capable. She was only a couple of inches short of six feet tall, rangy and well muscled. But she had gotten her father’s looks, unfortunately. She was a hatchet-faced woman with brown hair, and in her uniform overalls she looked more like a man than a woman.

  But she was a forceful person. While, normally, Petr was well organized, the death of his captain and friend Nick had left him too bereft to think straight. He felt guilty about that, but didn’t seem to be able to pull himself out of it.

  There was a pounding on the door of the peasant’s cottage they were staying in and no appreciable wait for an answer. The door opened and a young man in a waist-length cape and vest combination that had never occurred in the almost four hundred years between 1631 and 2000 in that other timeline, came through the door. He was also wearing a fur-lined hunting cap, and black calf-length boots that had clearly been polished to a high gloss before he put them on to ride through a blizzard to get here.

  The young man pulled off his fur-lined gloves and slapped them against his creased—and very tight—pants. The local authorities had arrived. “Who’s in charge here?”

  “I am Lieutenant Colonel Petr Nickovich, executive officer and chief engineer of the Czarina Evdokia.”

  The young man sniffed. “I take it that the burned wreckage cluttering up my father’s lands is the Czarina Evdokia?”

  “Yes. We are a diplomatic mission from Czar Mikhail of Russia.”

  “Do you have any proof of that?”

  As it happened, they did. The Czarina had a very nice fireproof safe on board and the official documents had been in that. The furs that they were bringing hadn’t fared so well.

  The young man, who turned out to be Adolph Grossmann von Rheinsberg, became rather more congenial after seeing the papers, which were copied in Swedish, Russian, and Amideutsch. But he did point out that damage had been done to his family lands by the crash of the dirigible and they were due some compensation. He also wanted to keep the engines and well, pretty much everything from the crash until that debt was settled.

  Still, he did agree to radio Prince Vladimir Gorchakov, who then arranged transport for them to Grantville.

  Grantville

  January 1637

  “Welcome.” Princess Brandy Bates greeted them in Russian with a pronounced accent. It was the same accent that Bernie Zeppi had, and she sounded a lot like Bernie had back in 1632. By now, there wasn’t much of what Petr thought of as the up-timer accent in Bernie’s Russian, but the up-timer twang was still pretty clear in Princess Brandy’s voice. One look at Princess Brandy and Petr knew where Czarina Evdokia and Princess Natasha—not to mention a large number of court ladies in Russia—had gotten the inspiration for their attire.

  She was dressed in a calf-length split skirt, tucked into a pair of fancy pointed-toe boots with about a two-inch heel, and a ruffled, embroidered blouse, with a fur-lined vest over all of it.

  They were ushered into a small not-quite-palace, with electric lights, and Petr got to see an actual television—a working one. For the first day or so, just the amazement of Grantville and the Ring of Fire were enough to distract him from Nick’s death and the urgency of the mission. He knew that Prince Vladimir and his wife were discussing it, but they left him alone.

  “This is crazy, Vlad. Why do they want us in Russia? We’re much more valuable here. Who else can work with Ron Stone to get the funding for the Catherine the Great and its cargo?”

  “You—” Vladimir started, but Brandy interrupted.

  “Forget it, Vlad. If you go, I go.”

  “Brandy, the Catherine the Great is an experimental ship. I won’t risk—”

  “Forget it, I said. If it’s too dangerous for me, it’s too dangerous for you. For that matter, I’m gonna raise the stakes. If you insist on this particular bit of idiocy, you’re going to be bringing little Mikey with you too.”

  Vladimir, who had been about to continue the argument, stopped. “You’re not serious?”

  “Mom’s dead and Dad’s a cold fish. I wouldn’t want him raising our son. I don’t have any brothers and sisters or even any close cousins, except Jabe McDougal. So just who should we leave little Mikey with?”

  “We leave him with Kseniya and Father Gavril. We are going to have to leave a presence here anyway.”

  Brandy shook her head. “Kseniya is good people, but I’m not leaving my son with anyone. I am not going to miss his growing up while I go gallivanting off to Russia or wherever. And Mikey isn’t going to grow up without a father, either. So you either figure a way out of this or you arrange suitable quarters for us all on that experimental boat of yours.”

  It was, Vladimir thought, a totally unreasonable attitude. But he knew Brandy quite well by now. The woman had a whim of steel. Most of the time, she was perfectly reasonable. Even moderately pliant. But on some things, she would dig in her heels and when that happened, nothing would move her. For a moment right then, Vladimir considered sneaking out one night and leaving her here. But he knew it wouldn’t work. She would figure out a way to follow him. Besides, as much as he knew it was a bad idea and as frightened for her and little Mikey as he was, he didn’t want to leave her behind.

  That just left the question of whether to go or not. Unfortunately, that was even less a question. Czar Mikhail hadn’t sent a request or advice. He had sent an imperial command, cosigned by the rump duma in Ufa. If Vladimir refused it, he would discredit Czar Mikhail—and there was no way at all that Vladimir could do that.

  So, wise or not, Brandy and little Mikey were going to travel the Arctic Circle. Since that was the case, Vladimir was going to make sure that there would be a warm comfortable place for them on the ship.

  Hamburg

  January 1637

  The Hamburg shipyard was a blend of down-time and up-time, with rather more of the down-time than the Magdeburg yards. That, however, didn’t mean that the shipwrights of Hamburg had turned up their collective noses at up-time tech. Certainly not after Admiral Simpson had used that up-time tech to forcibly open the gate to the North Sea. If Magdeburg was the Chicago of the USE, Hamburg was the port of New York, and the port of Los Angeles, as well. This was the place where the goods produced in Magdeburg, Grantville, all the factories and shops along the golden corridor were transshipped from riverboats to s
eagoing ships that would take them to the rest of the world.

  To facilitate that, the shipyards of Hamburg, both naval and privately held, were if not the largest in the world, close to it.

  It was a dirty, busy place filled with sailors and longshoremen, with knocking shops and bars, but also with coffee houses and business offices. And it had the fine hotels that went with all the wealth pouring through it.

  The offices of the Kruger shipyards were surprisingly modest for the fourth largest shipbuilder in Hamburg. They were also located closer to the docks than some.

  “I was surprised that you decided to visit, Your Highness,” said Paul Kruger. “Captain Adams has done an excellent job working with our shipwrights and the ship is progressing quite well. But we are still at least a couple of months from launching it.”

  “I guess you hadn’t heard,” Vladimir said. “The airship Czarina Evdokia crashed a few miles north of Berlin. It brought urgent orders for me to return to Russia as quickly as possible. If it hadn’t been caught by the storm, I would be flying back to Russia on board it right now. We need to put a rush on the completion of the Catherine the Great. When it sails, I will be aboard. Also my wife and son will be accompanying me, so a level of comfort that might not be necessary if it were just me will be required.”

  “Those are somewhat contradictory goals, Your Highness. There is an up-timer saying, ‘You can have it fast, good, or cheap. Pick any two.’”

  “This wasn’t cheap to begin with, Herr Kruger.”

  “With all due respect, Your Highness, for what you want, it is cheap. This is a ship that was never built even in that other history. We are combining up-time and down-time techniques in a way that is producing a thing never before seen in the world. The tread chains may be based on motorcycle chains, but they are five wide links across and every tenth link along the line there is a tie on that will hold either a paddle or a shoe depending on the use the tread is to be put to.”

  Vladimir nodded. He had seen the specifications and he knew that wasn’t the only point involved. The whole tread assembly could be cranked lower or higher, though that would be a job in itself. “I understand. What I’m talking about, though, are almost cosmetic changes. It was suggested that we could use foamed panels to provide extra insulation with little extra weight. I want to add an aft cabin that will hold myself and my family, and a few others who will be returning with us to Russia.”

  The discussion continued and Captain Adams was brought in, as well as Petr Nickovich, who had years of experience with Russian-made steam engines. It couldn’t be honestly said that Captain Adams and Petr Nickovich got along like the Kilkenny cats. They didn’t come to blows, after all. But it was still early in the conversation when Captain Adams mentioned that Petr’s ship had crashed after less than a year of service. Petr had responded that Captain Adams’ design had yet to touch the medium in which it was meant to travel.

  In spite of the possibility of homicide, Vladimir had to leave them here and go back to Grantville to raise even more money. Partly, that was to pay off the extortion of Baron von Rheinsberg, who was unwilling to release the engines and, well, everything from the Czarina Evdokia till the exorbitant price he was claiming for the small grove of wood ignited by the crash was paid in full. If there were going to be more dirigibles, Russia needed those engines and boilers and so on.

  Her Highness Brandy Bates Gorchakov sat down across from Her Serene Highness Millicent Anne Barnes and asked her for a loan. “Gee, Millicent, can you spare me a little cash? I’ll pay you back just as soon as I can.”

  Millicent giggled. “My mother warned me about you! How much?”

  “Just a million reichsmarks or so. Come on. It’s not like I’m asking you to let me borrow your last up-time lipstick.”

  “Maybe not, but it’s still pretty risky to loan money to a government involved in a revolution. I doubt that loans made to the last Romanov czar got paid back in the original timeline.”

  “I know, but Czar Mikhail is trying to set up a constitutional monarchy. And Sheremetev is a bit too much like Stalin for my peace of mind.”

  “Maybe, but I’m not a politician.” Millicent paused. “Look, Brandy. I know that you’re trying to do something good. But it’s still a pretty big risk for the reichsbank to take. I thought you were getting funding from Ron Stone.”

  “We are. But it’s not just the one trip we’re dealing with. We have to keep the investments in the USE going and we are going to need more of everything. Tubes, guns, engines, factories, latex. And there is tremendous wealth in Russia, if we can just exploit it effectively. Besides, Vladimir’s aunt is trying to smuggle out a load of mica capacitors.”

  Brandy didn’t get a million reichsmarks, but she did get enough that some of the immediate pressure was relieved. But the Catherine the Great was going to have to come back loaded to the gills in furs and gold to keep them from losing their property in the USE. Even more importantly, to keep the credit line open. That, or Sofia would have to get considerably more than a single shipload of mica.

  A letter carrying a coded message was sent to the station in the Swedish Ingria on the Russian Baltic. From there, it flowed along the radio network to Nizhny Novgorod, where an agent took it to a station on the Ufa net. It took three days for the message to cross the gap and then Czar Mikhail learned of Vladimir’s plans to come to Ufa by way of Mangazeya on the Northern Sea Route. Unfortunately, the Northern Sea Route had been made illegal on pain of death, in 1619—the year his father, Patriarch Filaret, returned from exile. Czar Mikhail repealed that edict after he escaped from Sheremetev, but that was seen as something of a desperation move. Besides, General Shein’s Siberian state controlled the route between Ufa and the North Sea. Before anything could reach them by that route, they needed something approaching an alliance with Shein.

  “We’re going to need more than neutrality on General Shein’s part,” Czar Mikhail said. “He was a great friend of my father, but I doubt he ever held me in very much respect.” He looked at Evdokia and she nodded.

  “General Shein hates the Poles and he knows that Sheremetev was one of those pushing for his execution in that other history. There is no love lost between him and the usurper. The only reason I can see for his not coming out for us is that he doesn’t have any faith in Mikhail.”

  “Besides,” Natasha added, “Shein has been acting as an alternative destination for Russians who don’t like Sheremetev. He has attracted a lot of the Streltzi and lesser nobility. Shein is no more enamored of Czar Mikhail’s emancipation of the serfs than Sheremetev, and some of the defectors who have gone to him have taken their serfs with them.”

  “Not that all of them have gotten there. We’ve had runaways from the north showing up here in dribs and drabs for a couple of months now,” Anya said.

  Mikhail looked around the room. This was his inner council, not the Ufa duma, but his true advisers. “We need to send a representative to Shein now that we have lost the dirigible. Word from Dirigible Valley is that even with what they got from the wreck of the Alexis, it will be at least a year before they will have another one.”

  “That’s too long,” Bernie said. “We don’t need a big one like the Alexis or the Evdokia. But we need something to carry the mail. Something with enough range to reach Shein in Tobolsk or Nyen. Maybe something the size of the Testbed.”

  “It’s a thousand miles from here to Nyen!” Natasha said. “That’s a long way for anything small.”

  “So we find places to refuel along the way. But the point is, even if it can’t carry more than a couple of people and a hundred pounds of mail, we need something to keep the messages flowing. Even if it can’t go all the way to the USE, we at least have to get mail to the Baltic.”

  Filip nodded. “They might be able to do something along those lines in a couple of months. I wish Petr Nickovich was here.”

  “I wish Nick was here,” Bernie said sadly.

  “A smaller airship is an excellent id
ea. But we still need to send an embassy to Siberia,” Evdokia said. “Who can we send?”

  “I always got along with General Shein well enough,” Bernie said hesitantly, looking at Natasha. It was clear he didn’t want to leave her here while he went off to be the ambassador.

  “You’re not of the upper nobility, Bernie,” said Filip. “General Shein is less rank obsessed than many of the great families, but sending a peasant—even an up-timer peasant—to represent Czar Mikhail would likely be seen as an insult.”

  Evdokia smiled a subtle smile and said, “Natasha will have to go along.”

  Natasha, who had been looking quite downcast, suddenly brightened.

  “That still leaves the question of how we get you there,” Filip said. “We don’t have enough gas for the Dodge.”

  “And we left the sleighs back at the Dacha,” Bernie complained.

  “We’ll find something,” Evdokia said.

  Goritsky Monastery

  The “sisters” watched and reported, but they had at best limited influence. Partly that was because they were not on the scene and radio messages don’t have the same immediacy as your wife, sister, aunt or cousin ragging on you in person. But also because though the radio network that had grown up in Russia was extensive, it was much more extensive to the east than to the west. There was a radio link to the Swedish Baltic, to the Polish Baltic, to Archangelsk, to the Polish border, and the border forts to the south. But it didn’t go west into the territory controlled by General Shein, and the radio network around Ufa was only intermittently connected to the main Russian network.