Grantville Gazette.Volume 22

by Eric Flint

  "I know the books say the diaphragm is rubber, but maybe you can use leather," Matt said.

  "You are behind the times, Herr Tisdel."

  "Huh?"

  "You haven't heard about the Gribbleflotz Kirlian Imager?"

  "No." Matt shook his head. "What's that?"

  "Never mind what it is. Just accept that it uses rubber. I will ask my contacts in Magdeburg about getting some." Asmus steepled his hands. "Of course that will take time."

  "How much time?"

  "I'm sure I can have a working regulator available well before anybody can make SCUBA tanks."

  "SCUBA tanks are going to be difficult?" Matt asked.

  Asmus opened his eyes and smiled. "Anything small enough for a man to carry that holds enough air to be worthwhile will be difficult. So, do you still want me to start work on your new underwater breathing apparatus?"

  "Can you make one that can connect to a surface compressor?" Miquel asked.

  Asmus sat up. "You mean replace the existing helmet with just a regulator on the end of the hose?"

  Miquel nodded.

  "Well, I suppose that could work. There is the problem of a reservoir for the diver to breathe from…" Asmus started doodling on the pad he was using to take notes.

  "Reservoir?" Miquel asked.

  "Yes, normally the helmet acts as the diver's air reservoir. If you do away with the helmet, the diver needs a reservoir of pressurized air to draw on… I think we will need a storage tank. Nothing very big, just enough to ensure the diver has a steady supply of air."

  "You could make one?" Matt asked.

  "I think so. A reservoir tank fed from a compressor doesn't need to hold more than a few minutes of air. We can probably get away with only a couple of hundred pounds pressure. And the plumbing will be simpler. Yes, if I can get the rubber it should be possible."

  Matt stood up. "Well, if there's anything we can do to help, you know where to find us."

  Asmus escorted the two divers out and returned to sit at his desk. He gazed at his doodles for a few minutes before turning to a clean page and started to sketch breathing apparatus.

  A week later

  Matt cut the last fiber of the last rope and the cannon floated free. At last. He pushed on his pole with the saw bladed knife attached, then carefully got to his feet. Kneeling in the dive suit while he cut the ropes anchoring the cannon was extremely uncomfortable and he welcomed the opportunity to stretch his legs.

  As the cannon floated through the hole he'd made in the top deck he stepped forward, probing with his pole, trying to decide which of the half dozen remaining cannon to work on next.

  There was a strong jerk on his safety line. Then it was repeated, rapidly. He looked up to see what was pulling on the line, and froze. The cannon he'd just seen heading for the surface was now heading for him. He threw himself backwards. At least he tried to throw himself backwards. Most of his body moved easily out of the plunging cannon's way, but his feet, each of them in special boots weighed down with nearly twenty pounds of lead, stayed anchored to the deck.

  The cannon missed his foot, just, but it crashed through the gundeck, and the trailing ropes and the deflated lifting bag dragged him down.

  He bashed his head on the back of the helmet when it hit the deck on the way down, then his feet hit the bottom, and his torso continued falling until it hit the cargo in the main hold.

  Bruised and aching, Matt tried to step out of the tangle of ropes and lifting bag. His left foot moved easily enough, but his right foot was caught. Using his belt knife he cut away the various ropes until he could see what was holding his foot.

  "Oh, shit!"

  The cannon had smashed open a large box and his foot had followed the gun barrel into the box. The cannon and its carriage were crowding the opening so he couldn't pull his foot out.

  He tried to reach down to remove the boot, but the bulk of the helmet and the heavy breastplate made it impossible to get a hand near his foot.

  "God damn sonofabitch." Matt tried to move the cannon. It wouldn't budge. He leaned on it, breathing heavily, and wondered what the hell to do. Then he realized all he could hear was his own breathing and he knew he was in real trouble.

  On deck

  Everything was going as normal. Miquel had just signaled that a cannon was on its way up and preparations were being made to lift the cannon onto the tender. Then Daniel noticed the change in rhythm of the number one compressor. "Keep pumping, Hans."

  A sudden increase in the rhythm of the compressor meant that the resistance to the flow of air had been reduced. It could be nothing, just a momentary glitch, or it could signal something really drastic, like a break in the air hose.

  "Matt's in trouble," Jurgen Weidemann called.

  "Georg, what's Miquel doing?" Daniel asked Miquel's attendant.

  "He's asked for more slack," Jurgen replied.

  Twenty-five feet underwater

  Miquel spotted the major problem quickly. The "whip" hose between Matt's helmet and the control valve had been ripped apart, leaving him with only the air trapped in his suit. He descended toward Matt. If he could free him quickly, getting him to the surface would be a simple matter.

  A few seconds was all it took to realize there was going to be no quick fix. Although the cannon carriage didn't appear to be crushing Matt's leg, it did make it impossible to free his trapped foot. Mindful that he didn't have a lot of time before Matt ran out of air Miquel tapped Matt on the shoulder and signaled that he was going up for a replacement whip hose.

  ***

  Matt knew something was wrong with his air supply because he couldn't hear the regular hiss-click of the non-return valve. He must have torn it when he crashed through the gundeck. He had to trust Miquel and the support team. If anything could be done, they would do it. He just had to try and relax so they would have the maximum amount of time to change his connection to a new air hose. He tried to distance himself from what was happening, because every time he thought about his situation he started to gulp air, wasting it. A working diver at thirty-three feet needs nine cubic feet of air every minute. The helmet and suit probably have about six cubic feet.

  Of course half of those nine cubic feet a working diver should receive were safety factor. So, at a pinch, at this depth, a working diver could function on only four and a half cubic feet per minute-or he could work for about one and a half minutes on the contents of the suit and helmet alone. However, right now he wasn't working. That meant the air in his suit and helmet should last longer.

  But how much longer?

  On deck

  "Emergency ascent, Miquel's coming up. Get the stage into the water," Georg Doppel called.

  Daniel swung into action. "Jurgen, Hans, help swing the stage."

  The three men had the stage swung overboard and into the water when Miquel burst through the surface and bobbed about.

  "Jurgen, pull him closer to the stage," Daniel called.

  Jurgen used the safety line tied around Miquel's waist to pull him towards the decompression stage.

  Miquel grabbed hold of the stage and pulled himself aboard. Then he unclamped the faceplate so he could call out to the deck crew. "Matt's trapped and his whip hose is torn. It's too fiddly to replace wearing gauntlets. Bring me aboard so I can unsuit. We can use my air hose and I'll free dive."

  The deck crew guided the stage onto the deck, and while Hans and helped Miquel out of the helmet. Daniel ran to get the tools Miquel would need.

  "Get me a face mask, and drop some weights into a tool bag as well, Daniel. I want to get down again fast. Matt doesn't have much time."

  Miquel sat impatiently while Hans unbolted the breastplate and Jurgen removed the weight belt and the leather straps that held the helmet firmly down on Miquel's shoulders. He knew they were working as quickly as they could, but Matt was thirty feet underwater with only minutes of air.

  Finally they got the breastplate clear. Miquel stood up as Hans and Jurgen pulled at the
neck opening and the heavy suit slipped easily down his slim frame.

  Miquel reached for the equipment he'd asked Daniel to get. He pulled on the up-time face mask before checking the contents of the tool bag. There were the two wrenches he'd need to reconnect the air hose and four six-pound cannon balls, more than enough to carry him straight down. He felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Daniel with the air hose. Miquel waited for him to tie it to the tool bag. Then with the weighted tool bad looped over his left arm, his left hand holding onto the air hose, and his right hand clamped over his face mask to stop the force of entry pulling it off, he jumped feet first into the water.

  The weighted tool bag pulled him straight down onto the deck of the Falken. Within seconds he was looping the slack air hose ready to join Matt.

  ***

  Matt had been drifting in and out of awareness, or maybe it was consciousness. He had a vague idea that carbon dioxide buildup would lead to unconsciousness. The fact that he was capable of that much thought reassured him. He wondered how it had been since Miquel left him. It couldn't be long, not if he was still conscious. He was breathing as slowly as he could, to give Miquel as much time as possible, but his body was starting to shake with cold. That wasn't good. It meant his body was burning the oxygen he needed to stay alive.

  The clink of metal on metal ringing through his helmet dragged Matt back from the edge of panic. Then he realized something was holding his helmet. That had to be Miquel. He was back, and he was fitting a new hose to his helmet. Matt let loose a sigh of relief, and then he started worrying again. How long would it take him to replace the whip hose?

  Suddenly water cascaded over the ports in his helmet. And then he heard it, the reassuring hiss-click of the non-return valve. The water must have been the contents of the whip hose. Miquel had done it. He'd saved his life.

  He felt something, a hand, grasp his and squeeze it. He squeezed back. Then he saw Miquel. Hell, he was free diving. How long had he been holding his breath? Matt knew Miquel could hold his breath for a long time, but even sponge divers had limits. Which was one reason why he didn't panic when Miquel squeezed his hands once more before heading for the surface.

  Matt watched Miquel follow his safety line up until he was out of sight. Then he just stood there, waiting patiently for Miquel to return, savoring to the life-giving sound of air passing through the valve.

  ***

  Miquel broke the surface in a rush. "He's okay. Matt's alive," he called to the men on the support boat. "I'm going down again to try and free him."

  "Understood," Daniel yelled back.

  Miquel duck-dived, and using Matt's safety line, pulled himself down to Matt.

  His explorations found that Matt's foot was trapped in a big, solid looking box, which had been badly damaged by the falling cannon. If the cannon had fallen another few inches its gun-carriage would have crushed Matt's leg. Instead it just obscured the opening, loosely trapping Matt's foot in the box. He tried to move Matt's foot. He could move it a little. He could even get a hand into the box to move around its contents to give more room, but the heavy dive boot wouldn't come free. He tried to unbuckle the boot, but with just the one hand he couldn't free the strap. There was only one thing for it. He reached up to Matt's belt for the dive knife.

  It was a very good quality knife, with a razor sharp blade, but it still took a lot of effort to cut Matt's foot free of lacing and straps that held the heavy boot to his boot. Clamping the blade in his teeth Miquel eased Matt's bootless foot out of its trap.

  Once Matt was free it was the work of a few seconds to maneuver the boot until it came free. Miquel dropped a couple of the small bags he found inside the box into the boot before pulling it out of the box. He was interested in knowing what Matt had found. He dropped the boot and it's cargo into the tool bag and passed it over to Matt. There was no way he could swim to the surface carrying all that weight, but in his dive suit Matt should have no trouble.

  On Deck

  "Daniel, how long to fix this?" Miquel asked, holding up the dive boot he'd cut free.

  Daniel accepted the dive boot and examined the damage. "Hans could have it ready in an hour or so." Then his exploring fingers discovered something inside. He tipped the boot and two small leather sacks fell out. "Hey, what's this?"

  Miquel looked on curiously. "I forgot about those. They were in the box Matt got caught in. What's in them?"

  Daniel opened the drawstring on one bag and emptied it into his hand. "Silver." He looked over towards Matt. "Jeez, if you fell into a midden you'd come out smelling of roses."

  Gotthard vonHoveln, the ever present salvage assessor, held out his hand. "I'll take that, thank you. As salvage from the Falken, it is the property of the city of Luebeck."

  "What the hell? Matt almost died for that," Daniel protested.

  "That would have been most unfortunate, Herr Spieker. However, he didn't." Gotthard held up the moneybags. "Herr d'Alcaufar, could you describe the box you found these in?"

  "It was about so wide, so high, and so deep," Miquel indicated using his hands.

  For the very first time since Daniel had known the lawyer, he could have sworn there was a smile on his face. "Is that good?"

  "Yes, that is very good. The manifest lists two strong boxes of about the size Herr d'Alcaufar indicated. These bags are but a small portion of what should be in those boxes."

  "Shit! What are we doing sitting around doing nothing while there's a fortune sitting right below us? Hans, get this fixed." Daniel tossed the heavy dive boot to Hans. "Matt, are you okay to go down again?"

  "Sure, as soon as Hans fixes that boot and we can rig a replacement hose and test it."

  "Right, then I declare an early mid-day break. We'll resume diving in an hour."

  That evening

  Matt walked over to where Miquel was leaning on the gunwale looking overboard. "Thanks."

  "You would have done the same for me," Miquel muttered.

  "I would have tried, but I can't hold my breath as long as you can."

  "Then we are fortunate that it was you in trouble and me who was available to come to your rescue."

  "Yeah, but what about next time?"

  "We worry about it when it happens. Come, let's join the others in drowning our sorrow at how little of the silver the city of Luebeck is letting us keep."

  A few weeks later, in the workshop of Asmus Brockmann

  Matt lifted the back pack with the small reservoir tank on it. "I thought the reservoir was going to be on the surface."

  Asmus nodded. "That had been my original thought, but I after you left I got to thinking. If anything happened to the air line the diver would run out of air immediately. This way he has a couple of minutes to get to the surface. Also I noticed in the books you left that the up-timers often used the SCUBA supply to inflate a buoyancy vest and thought you might like that ability."

  Matt stared at the air tank. A buoyancy vest would allow a diver using the new rig to control their buoyancy just like a hard hat diver. "That's great thinking, Herr Brockmann."

  "Thank you. I hope it is what you want."

  Matt thought about Miquel diving in the Caribbean. They might not be able to afford a hard hat rig, but this lightweight dive rig was within their means. "I think it's exactly what we want, Herr Brockmann."

  1635, near Marquesas Keys, the Caribbean

  Three of the team from Luebeck had decided to accompany Miquel to the Caribbean. The whole crew, though, had contributed funds to the treasure hunters. There wasn't enough to buy a hard hat rig, yet. However, a little success using the lightweight diving rig Asmus had built and they would be able to afford to have one built according to the plans they had with them.

  Miquel put on his face-mask and pulled up some slack in the lines and air hose. He clamped a hand over his face mask and jumped feet-first into the warm brilliantly clear waters of the Caribbean. Using his pole he started searching along the sea bottom.

  Elegy

&n
bsp; David Carrico

  Magdeburg, April 1635

  Andrea Abati moved down the hallway with a light step. This was one of Marla Linder's lesson days, and he didn't want to be late.

  Working with Marla was such a joy to him. As a gentilhuomo -or castrato, as he and those like him were more vulgarly known-his life in Italy had been one of performances mixed with adulation, a certain amount of scheming in the papal court, and frequent dalliances with ladies-often married-who enjoyed both his notoriety and the fact that an unanticipated pregnancy would never complicate their lives. In his early thirties, his voice fully mature and in the prime of his singing life, he had not yet begun to teach. But then he came to Magdeburg and met Marla Linder.

  Andrea's friend, Maestro Giacomo Carissimi, called Marla's voice golden. Andrea thought that the maestro was guilty of an understatement. The young woman's voice surpassed his own in range, and was fully the equal of his in timbre. What she lacked was technique. And she awoke in him the hunger to teach, the desire to take a younger musician in hand as a gardener might take a sapling, to nurture the raw talent, help to shape it and grow it, until full maturity was reached. And as that hunger grew, Andrea's life began to change.

  Il Prosperino, Andrea had been called in Italy. The name literally meant "The Prosperous One," but was usually meant to say "Little Prospero." It had actually been bestowed on him because in his early days in Rome he had been somewhat of a protege to Prospero Orsi, an artist and fellow citizen of Norcia, Andrea's home. Some wit had said, "Look, here comes Prospero and his Prosperino," and the name had stuck. He hadn't minded-in truth, he had been a bit smug about it. The name was appropriate, because he had indeed prospered in almost every way.

  If musical talent was the cornerstone of Andrea's fame in Rome, flamboyance had certainly been the keystone. Flamboyant speech, flamboyant dress, and definitely flamboyant liaisons with the ladies. Yet here in Germany, exposed to the music found in Grantville, the uptime instruments and works and harmonies, bit by bit the flamboyance began to drain from him. That alone had shocked him when he realized it was happening. But to find it replaced with a desire to teach, when he had always looked down on teaching as the refuge of those who either could not perform to his high standard or those who were past their prime, that had been an even greater shock. But before long, Il Prosperino had been replaced by Master Andrea.