Grantville Gazette, Volume IX

by Eric Flint

  "I know, son. " Boris had to concede that some of the objections to working with the dacha crew seemed to be valid. Among the other things that Boris had brought back was a down-time copy of the first book of the Encyclopedia International, 1963 edition, that had been in someone's garage. They had refused the outright sale of the books but had rented them to Vladimir for an outrageous sum. "But you never know what might combine with something else to solve a problem. We saw it again and again in Grantville. There would be an article on something that they needed but it would be missing some vital bit. Then the vital bit would show up in the biographic blurb about the guy who discovered it. Something like where he was when he found the first deposit of some rare earth."

  "So you decided to send a copy of everything. I know. Father. I even agree." Pavel's face was serious, his dark eyes intent. "That doesn't change the fact that spending the next ten years of their lives translating minutia about people who will never even be born seems a pointless, career-ending job to most people."

  Boris sighed. "I had hoped it would be more popular. It is a secure position, doing important work, if not the most exciting. A safe place in the bureaus."

  "That's the problem, Father." Pavel shrugged. "It's not secure unless the Grantville section becomes secure."

  Boris was left with an office and a budget and not nearly enough people who read and wrote English and Russian. The budget . . . for the moment he had plenty of money. Well, lands. The government of Muscovy ran on a formalized barter system because there was not nearly enough money to support the economy they had. That, however, was about to change.

  * * *

  Ivan Nikitich Odoevskii didn't look like a book worm. He was tall and as richly dressed as a prince and a member of the boyar cabinet ought to be. He rode, he was a skilled falconer, but he did love to read. He read anything. Account books. Treatises. Stories. Anything he could get his hands on. His fierce black beard was twitching and his blue eyes squinted as he thought. "It's complicated, Patriarch. Yes, the up-timers use paper money but their system is a tortured mix of the government and . . . well, anarchy."

  "Anarchy?"

  "They have something called Federal reserve banks . . ."

  Patriarch Filaret was a man of no mean intellect, but his eyes were trying to glaze over within a paragraph. He tried to follow the salient points for a while, but finally gave up. "Enough. Can we use it, Ivan Nikitich? Can we use it?"

  Ivan Nikitich sighed like the wind gusting from the north. "Yes. But it is dangerous. The books made that clear, even if I could only understand one word in three without talking to that idiot Bernie Janovich." Ivan Nikitich snorted. "And only one word in two after talking to him. The danger is more than the simple temptation to print ever more and more as it loses it's value. That's a danger, true enough. It is made worse by the fact that failing to print enough can hurt the nation even more. That is one thing the books on economics taught me. Half of Muscovy's troubles are caused by not enough cash."

  "You needed a book from the future to tell you Muscovy is not a wealthy nation?" Fileret snorted in exasperation.

  "No!" Ivan Nikitich almost shouted, then visibly got hold of himself. "Patriarch, what I needed the books from the future to tell me was that Muscovy is a wealthy nation. A wealthy nation with a cash flow problem. That Muscovy has everything it needs to have a booming economy, except the economy."

  Filaret glared a bit. "Speak sense!"

  Ivan Nikitich sighed. "We have grain. We have timber. We have pitch, not to mention furs of all sorts. We have rivers that in summer give us clear roads from China and India to the Baltic sea. In hard winter, the sleighs are more efficient than wagons are. What we lack is a means of tying all those things together. Much of our trade is just that. A peasant trades a bushel of grain to another peasant for bit of cloth. It happens that way because neither peasant has any money. Did you know that over ninety percent of the up-timers purchases were made with money? Everything from their homes to a piece of candy for their children. Everyone had money, even the very poor. That—along with their transportation system—made the manufacturing of goods in one place to be sold in another much easier."

  Ivan Nikitich spoke with passion. He even stood and began pacing the room. "The raw materials are here. The trade routes are here, mostly. Even the skills are here. Every peasant in holy Rus spends half the year at some craft because you can't farm ice." Ivan Nikitich shook his head. "The only thing really missing is some practical means of letting the people in one place buy the products from another. Buy them, Patriarch, not trade for them. Because barter simply won't work for what we need. The things we must have are: Money, ways of transferring money from one place to another without bandits robbing the caravan, banks where bureau men and even peasants can save money or get loans. As I said—everything we need for an economic boom but an economy."

  "What you're saying is we're rich in goods but not in money?"

  Ivan Nikitich nodded. "What we need is cash and the books of the up-timers explain how to do that without silver or gold. The idea is to have just a little more money available than there is product for it to buy. That encourages the peasants to work harder to get the last bit. It's like hanging a carrot in front of a mule. Too close and he eats it. Too far and he gives up. Muscovy's carrot is hanging off the mule's ass."

  "So, you think Vladimir is right." This was the test. The Odoevskii didn't get along all that well with the Yaroslavich family. If Ivan Nikitich could find a way to say Vladimir's report was wrong, he would.

  "No, absolutely not," Ivan Nikitich said by reflex. Then he laughed. "Well, perhaps a little bit. The way the boy proposes to go about it is all wrong. We are not some barbarous western nation. It will need to be the Czar's Bank and all the little banks part of the Czar's Bank. The Yaroslavich boy's proposal will just make the Yaroslavich family richer than they already are."

  Filaret gave the Boyar of the Exchequer a look.

  "Very well. The Yaroslavich family and many others," Ivan Nikitich conceded. "But the czar should reap a greater benefit if the government owns all the banks, not just the Czar's Bank."

  Filaret considered. "What bureau would control the Czar's Bank?" he gave Ivan Nikitich another hard look.

  Ivan Nikitich gave him back look for look. "The bureau of the exchequer is the obvious choice," he acknowledged.

  In some ways Filaret really preferred Vladimir's plan. As chaotic as it was, it had the advantage of not putting the power of a central bank in the hands of one of the great families. On the other hand, having the Romanov family in charge of the central bank would strengthen them considerably.

  * * *

  The discussion continued for several hours that night and then broadened over the next several days. Eventually, it included every member of the cabinet and many members of the Assembly of the Land. It was pointed out that the institution of this system would probably mean fewer taxes would be needed, at least for now. Which made it quite popular.

  Fall, 1633

  The Fresno Scrapers left Filip Pavlovich Tupikov wondering what they really needed Bernie for. It wasn't that he was unhelpful. "Yes, da," Bernie said. "The handles let you control the depth of the cut. Push down for a shallower cut, let them rise just a bit for a deeper cut."

  Filip translated.

  "How deep can you cut?" Petr Stefanovich asked.

  Filip translated.

  "It depends on the ground," Bernie explained. "If you loosen the earth with a drag board, you can usually cut a couple of inches. You get a feel for it with practice. You start to notice when the scraper is pushing up hard. Then you have to push down and shallow the cut."

  Filip translated. Bernie had indeed been of help to the blacksmith and carpenters in making an iron reinforced wooden version of the scraper in a matter of days. That wasn't the reason Filip wondered why they needed Bernie. Filip had seen the design for the scraper, the drag board and a couple of other pieces of road construction equipment. They were al
l quite clear. Written and drawn to make it easy for a village smith and carpenter.

  The horses, small steppe ponies, were hitched and Filip followed along as Bernie demonstrated. A cut, about half an inch deep grew quickly to a length of about twenty feet.

  "Whoa." Bernie pulled the horses up. He turned to Petr. "You want to give it a try?"

  Petr Stefanovich took Bernie's place. At first the scraper slid along the ground. "Lift the handles." Bernie gave directions as Filip translated. Filip stepped between Bernie and Petr Stefanovich to see. Petr Stefanovich lifted the handles about three inches.

  "Gently," Bernie shouted. The next thing Filip Pavlovich Tupikov knew he was being jerked back by his collar. He saw a blur.

  He turned on the uppity outlander but Bernie wasn't there. He was checking on Petr Stefanovich, who was holding his arm and looking surprised. The scraper was turned over and the ponies were looking back in confusion.

  "Look, dude." Bernie's voice was harsh. "This stuff is heavy equipment even if it's run by horses, not a motor. Gentle does it. At first, until you get to know it. I don't give a fuck how big you are, you're not stronger than two fucking horses working together with leverage on their side. You empty the bucket by lifting the handle, too." Then Bernie turned to Filip Pavlovich, eyes flashing. "Dude, the handles on the scraper are like the end of a lever. You just came within an inch of getting your head busted, big time."

  Filip Pavlovich looked at the scraper, remembered the blur and decided that perhaps Bernie wasn't totally useless after all.

  * * *

  Bernie wasn't sure whether to be elated or scared shitless. He had just repeated almost word for word the two lectures he had received the first day he worked with the scraper after he joined the road crew. The combination of his wrenched arms and the fear in the supervisor's eyes had impressed the lecture on him. Petr Stefanovich was a big mother, and proud of it. Bernie should have figured that he would push it, but he hadn't. Worse, Bernie hadn't even considered that Filip Pavlovich, the Russian nerd, would stick his head in the way of the handles. Somehow, it hadn't occurred to him that someone could get killed using the stuff he helped the Russians build.

  "Look, dudes. This stuff can be dangerous. I guess most of the stuff we brought back in the Ring of Fire can be dangerous, even the medicine." Filip was looking at him funny and Bernie sort of ran out of steam, not really knowing how to say what he wanted to say. He really didn't want to be responsible for getting someone killed.

  "I understand, Berna." It was the first time Filip had called him Berna like Boris did. "You came to help us, not to get people killed. It's all right. People get killed using shovels to smooth a road or dig a canal, too. Believe me, this will help."

  * * *

  As soon as the test was finished, Filip sent a message to Boris in Moscow. He also sent one to his cousin who worked in the bureau of roads. Boris didn't know it but by the time he arrived at the offices of the bureau of roads, the place was abuzz with the news of the scraper. Boris was surprised at how easy it was to arrange a meeting with an assistant to an assistant bureau chief. Still, things have to go through channels. It was almost a week before they could arrange for a viewing of the scraper and the drag board.

  In the mean time, both devices had been put to use. The primary purpose of that use was to familiarize the crews with the equipment. But the still small dacha team also wanted to show off.

  * * *

  Boris was riding beside the assistant underchief of roads. Yuri Mikhailovich was in charge of assigning crews to specific roads in the area around Moscow. When the man suddenly pulled up his horse, Boris pulled up, too. Yuri was staring at a ridge in the road—path, rather—they were riding on. About a hundred yards from the dacha, the road suddenly rose about six inches and became quite smooth. There were bare sections on either side, where the grass and an inch or two of top soil had been scrapped away, clearly where the new surface of the road had come from. Slowly, Yuri approached the road. He paused again and gave Boris a look. Evaluating.

  Boris looked back and shrugged. I tried to tell you, the look said, as plain as words. Boris had seen roads like this before, near Grantville. Truthfully, he hadn't expected to see one here. Not this soon, anyway. There was no way he was going to admit that, though. Not even with his expression.

  Yuri snorted. They rode on, carefully getting a feel for the road. "Where is this scraper, Boris? I would have expected it to be working on the road."

  Boris shrugged and they continued on.

  * * *

  They were greeted at the dacha by Filip Pavlovich. And Berna, who clearly wanted to be somewhere else.

  "Come, come." Filip Pavlovich waved pompously. Then led the way around back, where the scrapper was in use.

  The drag board was just a board with spikes sticking out the bottom. It was used to cut the ground and loosen the soil. In combination with the scraper, two men and four small Russian ponies could do a phenomenal amount of work, more than twenty men with shovels could accomplish.

  Boris paused and stared. So did Yuri.

  "You see?" Filip Pavlovich waved at the project. "You see what can be accomplished?"

  The trench was about seventeen feet, just under three scrapers wide. It was a hundred feet long and about three feet deep, not including the mounds on either side of it. It had ramps on either end which allowed the horses to get in and out of the trench, which the team pulling the scraper was doing now.

  "It will take planning for proper use." Filip Pavlovich waved at it again. "With that planning, a team can cut a six foot wide trench at a rate of approximately one mile in four hours in this sort of soil. The trench will be approximately two inches deep. The second pass is actually slightly faster than the first because the ground is smoother. Three teams could do the same but with the trench seventeen feet wide. Or a six foot wide trench six inches deep could be cut. As the depth of the cut deepens, it gets harder to do, of course. You need a ramp about every hundred feet."

  Yuri nodded, still watching the scraper as it dumped a load along the side of the trench. It had climbed the ramp then gone around to the side of the trench to dump the load. He finally pulled his eyes away from the scraper and looked at Filip Pavlovich. "I am impressed with the scraper, Filip Pavlovich. Considering your comments about planning, why haven't you taken your own advice and planed the placement of this trench to serve some purpose? You could have made a fish pond if nothing else." Yuri was a relative of Filip Pavlovich's and enjoyed twitting him a bit. While Yuri was the more politically astute and of higher rank, both within the family and in the bureaus, Filip was the more intellectual of the two and had never gone to any effort to hide it.

  Filip Pavlovich sighed with what he thought was drama. Both Yuri and Boris found it overdone. "It's for the tile field, part of the plumbing system. See the notch half way down the trench? That will be dug deeper for the septic tank."

  Boris laughed. "Is Berna still going on about indoor plumbing?"

  Filip Pavlovich sighed again, more real this time. "Constantly. Toilets and showers are his constant obsession. When I first saw the design I thought it would take months. Now it seems we will see it begin to work in a few more days."

  "So we are presented with a useful device that is to be used for expensive doodads?" Yuri sneered.

  "Not entirely." Filip Pavlovich's admission was a bit grudging. He threw a glance at Bernie, who grinned. "Sanitation, from what I have read, is an essential part of preventing the spread of disease. It is a complicated field and I have not studied it deeply yet."

  Boris was trying not to grin. Filip Pavlovich's grudging admission meant that there was another use for scrapers. Which in turn meant that the scrapers were still more valuable in terms of favors.

  Yuri didn't bother to hide his scowl. "What else have you got?"

  Filip Pavlovich shrugged. "There is a report on something called 'macadam style road construction.' We haven't finished translating it yet. It seems to make for
good roads that handle the winter freezing well."

  New roads and canals would make trade easier and safer. Boris didn't concern himself with the other blocks on trade; they were above his pay grade.

  Boris smiled, as Filip Pavlovich explained. "We used the road out front to practice road work, then we used this to test its use in digging canals."

  "Canals?" Boris heard the apprehension in Yuri's voice though Filip Pavlovich apparently missed it.

  "The scraper works by scraping a thin layer of soil then putting it somewhere else. By going over the same stretch again and again you can go a little deeper with every pass. " Filip Pavlovich waved at the trench. "Roads, leach fields, canals, even cellars. Anything where large amounts of earth need to be moved."

  The underchief of roads gave his cousin a sharp look, which Filip Pavlovich appeared totally unaware of. The bureau of canals and river transport was constantly in competition with roads for resources of all sorts. The families that controlled the bureaus disliked each other intensely. The bidding war has begun Boris thought.