Grantville Gazette 35 gg-35

by Paula Goodlett (Ed)

  In spite of the fact that the superstore was poorly stocked by up-timer standards, with many of the shelves having only examples-like the steam tractor, not for sale themselves, just display models of things you could order-they didn't sell out in that first grand opening sale.

  No one had any money. More precisely, most of the villages didn't have beckies or USE dollars. And didn't have much of the local currency either. But after the grand opening party, they wanted beckies. Wanted them badly.

  Not that they didn't get orders. As it happened the old farmer who had whined his village's poverty in such an irritating voice took one look at the steam tractor and knew his village had to have it. While not nearly as poor as he had whined to the sergeant, his village wasn't rich.

  "It's a five percent deposit and payment on delivery, Herr . . . ?"

  "Krup." The voice would have shocked the sergeant had he happened to hear it. It wasn't whiny at all it was rather abrupt. "I am the Mayor of Markvartice." Which was perhaps a bit pretentious, but he was a pretentious fellow when he wasn't whining. He was, however, a bright fellow and dedicated to the welfare of his little village. "What about credit? I heard the up-timers give credit."

  So they talked credit, interest on the loan and amount down. They talked about how long the waiting list for steam tractors was. And how if you didn't have the money or hadn't arranged credit when the tractor arrived they would sell it to the next person on the list and you would go to the back of the line. Herr Krup left looking for ways to raise beckies. He figured that the village had six months to raise 20,000 beckies and that was going to take work. But they would do it or he would know the reason why.

  ****

  "So how much for a hundred weight of wheat?" the farmer asked.

  "If it passes inspection . . ." The price was reasonable, even good after what he'd seen in the superstore. The farmer had paid his rent and tithes in kind just after the harvest and had some wheat left. This wasn't the lean time of year, but it would be coming on fairly soon. Still, if they could get the wood lathe for Karl now during the slack time, they'd have chairs and tables to sell come next harvest.

  "We'll be bringing in a few hundred weights then." He went on his way.

  ****

  The next guy wanted to know about the price for cabbage and the one after that for flax. Then hemp and . . .

  It was winter, moving toward the lean time, but people had been hearing more and more about the wonders of the up-timers in the years since the Ring of Fire. Most of them had either never seen an up-timer product or had only seen one held as a talisman of better days at some nebulous time in the future. Now in Tetschen there was a store that had up-timerish stuff for sale. It used up-timerish money backed by the most famous up-timer of them all, the Prince of Germany, with a noble portrait of his wife, the famous and beautiful Jewess, Rebecca Stearns nee Abrabanel. A trip to Tetschen wasn't exactly a trip to Grantville, but Tetschen was closer. People came and they brought what they could scrape together and they had one great advantage over the looting parties that an army would send out to supply itself. They knew precisely where the stuff was hidden. After all, they were the ones who had hidden it to keep it safe from the looting parties.

  It became much easier for the supply officers of the Third Division to buy stuff with beckies. It wasn't instant. At first it was a very short loop. The goods came in, got turned into beckies and the beckies got spent right there in the Exchange Club Superstore. But there were the people that let it be known that they would do work for beckies because the village was saving up for a tractor or plows or because the family or an individual wanted canning jars, a crystal radio set, a record player or whatever. The loop got a little bigger. Taverns and inns started taking them willingly. Finally the local nobility decided they would accept them as rent. They were money.

  ****

  "He doesn't look a thing like Tony Curtis," Jeff Higgins muttered to himself, remembering a movie he'd seen about a pink submarine. And it was true. David Bartley didn't look a thing like Tony Curtis. Nor was it a casino, but David did have one thing in common with the supply officer played by Tony Curtis. They both sat like spiders in their webs while the supplies came to them.

  "There's another difference, Colonel Higgins," a voice said from beside him.

  "What? Oh, I didn't see you there, Herr Kipper," Jeff said to the older man.

  "The other difference is that Master Bartley isn't cheating anyone," said Johan Kipper, the old Grantville hand who had seen the movie and had been David Bartley's man since the Battle of the Crapper. "The tables, if we had them, wouldn't be rigged and those people are going to get their money's worth and more."

  "Beckies?" Jeff asked. "I know it's necessary but they are still company scrip whatever we call them."

  "You're wrong, Colonel Higgins," Kipper said, not so much with heat but with a sort of cold certainty. "The beckies are as real as American dollars. Never doubt it."

  The next morning the Third Division headed for Dresden. But the Exchange Corps store stayed and so did the beckies.

  ****

  Fire and Ice

  Iver P. Cooper

  Grantville

  Reardon Miller liked to joke that he had six jobs: his real job, and the five that certain clients of the Grantville Research Center thought he was doing. As the token male at the GRC, he was the researcher nominally assigned to those clients who were obviously very uncomfortable with the idea of working with a female researcher, but who were trying to be polite and not say so.

  The would-be clients who weren't polite about it were just shown the door.

  Reardon had a plan of action for, as he put it, "weaning the clients away from himself." (He said this with full recognition of the incongruity of applying the word "weaning" to the process of switching a client from male to female support. ) The first step was to introduce the female researcher as his assistant. The next was to let her deliver progress reports. Hopefully, the client would notice how knowledgeable and articulate she was. And finally, she would deliver the final presentation, with Reardon beaming benevolently in the background. Once the client expressed his thanks for the work, Reardon would lower the boom: "I'm just the pretty face here, this lady did all the research."

  "Okay, Christine, we've got another client, name's Olafur Egilsson, a Lutheran minister from Iceland of all places. Something of a hardship case; he and his family-in fact, his whole congregation-got captured by the Barbary pirates.

  "Wow. How did he escape?"

  "He didn't. They released him to ask their friends and relatives, and the king of Denmark, for ransom."

  Christine raised her eyebrows. "But-"

  "But Denmark had just gotten its ass kicked by Count Tilly, so the royal cupboard was bare. And the Icelanders are rather like hillbillies with fishing boats. . . . They don't have much in the way of resources, other than fish.

  "So your job is to find goods that they can trade to the pirates, or sell somewhere for lots of cash.

  "He's pushing seventy, we think, so we are going to reduce the shock to his system of how we do things in Grantville. I will be introducing you as my assistant."

  "Great, I have three strikes against me; I'm young, I'm Catholic, and I'm female."

  "So don't talk religion. "

  ****

  Hendrick Trip steepled his fingers. "Well, you certainly did your homework, Miss Onofrio."

  Christine smiled at him. "Thank you. I am just an apprentice researcher, but I try to be thorough."

  The two of them were sitting in one of the conference rooms at the Higgins Hotel. Trip had rented it, and had been conducting meetings there all day.

  "As my agent told you, my uncle Elias is a former partner of Louis de Geer. Our families still cooperate, and since I was coming to Grantville on my own business, Count Louis asked me to meet with you.

  "He was quite interested in what you had to say about the aluminum industry in late-twentieth century Iceland. That aluminum w
as more than ten percent of its exports, and that it made it from imported alumina very cheaply, thanks to its vast energy resources, both hydroelectric and geothermal.

  "You are of course correct that Louis de Geer is interested in aluminum production. It is not a secret anymore that he has been acquiring bauxite and cryolite toward that end.

  "And it's also true that the availability of electricity is one of the bottlenecks in producing aluminum anywhere outside Grantville. Magdeburg or Essen.

  "Alas, Herr de Geer has asked me to inform you that it would be premature to invest in a hydroelectric plant in Iceland at this time. While the coal-fired plants we have access to now are certainly less efficient than hydro, they are adequate for our current production level and we can still charge a high price for aluminum. More than enough to cover the cost of the coal.

  Perhaps in a decade, he will reconsider the issue."

  Christine caught herself nervously chewing on a pencil. "What about the advantage of the proximity of Iceland to Greenland, where the cryolite is mined?"

  "I am no technical expert, but I have been told that the cryolite is just a flux, it is not consumed in the reaction. So De Geer didn't need a lot of cryolite to start, and only needs enough in a future to replace that which is lost by evaporation, or when the dross is removed from the smelter. "

  "The cryolite can also be used to make soda ash."

  "Indeed it can, and I believe that was the back-up plan if aluminum smelting proved impractical. But Iceland doesn't have significant wood or coal, and so-barring those hydroelectric or geothermal power plants-it's hardly the place to base a chemical plant."

  "Well, I'm sorry for wasting your time." Christine began collecting her papers and stuffing them into the portfolio case her mother had given her.

  "It wasn't a waste of time. I wanted to meet you."

  Christine's eyes widened. "Me?"

  "My family is always on the lookout for bright young people. Your teachers wrote to me that you are in the advanced track. When you graduate high school-next year, is it?"

  She nodded, looking slightly dazed .

  "Think about coming to work for Trip Enterprises. We even have a branch office in Grantville now, although your star may rise faster if you're in Amsterdam."

  ****

  "German Sugar, Not Made by Slaves," Reverend Egilsson read. "Each ton of New World Sugar costs two human lives."

  He handed the can back to the storekeeper. "Is it true?"

  "Which part? The German sugar is real enough. There's a kind of sugar-rich grass which was grown in Grantville, called 'sorghum corn.' They used it as a fodder before the Ring of Fire. When the Americans discovered how expensive sugar was in this day and age, they decided to extract sorghum sugar. The sorghum is fast-growing and produces lots of seeds, so more and more acres are planted every year."

  "What about the cost in lives?" Egilsson asked.

  The shopkeeper stepped off the ladder he had climbed to reshelve the can. "Well, that's what the Anti-Slavery League pamphlets say. I've never met a slaver myself."

  Lucky you, Egilsson thought.

  "The pamphlet said that in the African slave trade, there are many deaths at sea, of crew as well as of slaves," said the storekeeper. "And the life expectancy in the sugarcane fields is only ten years."

  "You seem to have studied the pamphlet carefully," said Egilsson.

  The storekeeper smiled sheepishly. "I see it often enough.. When I run out of sugar from sugarcane, I set the German sugar out front, and leave a stack of those pamphlets nearby."

  "Does the pamphlet say anything of the Turkish slave trade?"

  "The Barbary pirates, you mean?" The storekeeper frowned. "I don't think so. But then, they don't grow sugarcane on the Barbary coast, do they?"

  "Not on the coast, but in Sous, in the Berber kingdom of Tazerwalt to the south, they do."

  "You know, the Anti-Slavery Society has an office in town. It's over by the Golden Arches; you can take the senior citizens bus there."

  "Unfortunately, I don't qualify as a citizen of the town."

  "Oh, they don't mean 'citizen' in the German sense. They'll take anyone that's, um, rich in life experience."

  ****

  Reverend Egilsson found the ride on the bus to be quite remarkable. The bus rode on a strange black material that Egilsson took to be some kind of smooth lava rock. The bench seats, each sitting two, were comfortable, and there was little vibration as the bus forged ahead. The hum of the motor was a bit disconcerting, however.

  He introduced himself to his seat companion, who was Edgar McAndrew, an up-timer in his seventies. Eventually, Egilsson revealed his purpose in coming to Grantville.

  "Well, lordy me," McAndrew said. "You have certainly survived a lot. But I'll tell you what you should do, Rev. I'm retired now, but I was once one of the best salesmen in the U S of A, in my lines; I have the achievement certificates and statues to prove it.

  "You need to get one of the GRC youngsters to make a list for you of old, rich people. The young rich, they're just thinking of making money. The old rich, they get worried about what'll happen to them when they come before the pearly gates, on account of all the dirty tricks they played on the way up the ladder, and they start giving to charity. You tell them that ransoming some of the Icelandic captives, people they don't even know, will count for a lot in Heaven."

  Reverend Egilsson pondered this nugget of wisdom. "The GRC is trying to find new products for Iceland, so that we are prosperous enough to pay the ransom ourselves."

  McAndrew snapped his fingers. "Hey, I've got an angle on that, too! If the business plan's a good one, then sell stock to the old misers. You prod them with the carrot of maybe making more money and the stick of going to Hell if they don't help. There's nothing like the iron fist of greed in the velvet glove of charity. Or something like that."

  The ex-salesman reached for the stop cord, and pulled. "Get off when the bus comes to a halt, Anti-Slavery office is to your right. God bless you, Reverend."

  "May God have mercy upon you."

  The ex-salesman chuckled. "At my age, mercy is infinitely preferable to justice."

  As he disembarked, Reverend Egilsson mentally reproached himself for not lecturing the ex-salesman on the evils of Popery, with particular reference to indulgences, and the concept that someone can buy himself into Heaven. However, Kastenmayer had warned him against provoking religious arguments with up-timers, and Kastenmayer, as the resident Lutheran preacher, would have to live with the consequences of any disturbance caused by Egilsson.

  Anyway, with Egilsson's stop approaching, there hadn't been time to properly educate the up-timer as to his doctrinal oversights.

  ****

  The man behind the desk at the Anti-Slavery Society stood up when Egilsson entered his office. "Please come in, make yourself comfortable. I am the Reverend Samuel Rishworth. What brings you to the Society office?"

  The Reverend Egilsson told him.

  "A sad story, and all too common. The Society has a committee studying the Barbary slave trade; perhaps you should speak to them. But I must warn you, it is Society policy not to pay slave owners to free their slaves. I hope you understand why-it would just encourage more slave-taking, would it not?

  "Instead, we educate the public as to the immorality of slavery, and we seek to make slavery uneconomical in a variety of ways. Making it possible for Europeans to work in the tropics, for example. Organizing boycotts of products made with slave labor. And commissioning privateers to harass slave traders. "

  Rishworth started pacing, hands clasped behind his back. "Until the Ring of Fire, opponents to slavery were few. I was once the minister for the Puritan settlement of Providence Island, in the Caribbean. When we sailed across the Atlantic, we prayed that God would shield us from the Turk. Yet we were quick enough to buy slaves from the Dutch once we were ashore.

  I saw the hypocrisy in this, and preached against it. And eventually I practiced what I preache
d; I hid fugitive slaves, and eventually fled with them aboard a USE ship that visited the island.

  "If there is one thing you need to know about the Americans, it is that they are adamantly opposed to slavery. If you read their history books, you will find out that they fought a very bloody civil war to get rid of it. Since the State of Thuringia-Franconia adopted the American legal system, slavery is already illegal here. And I know that the Committees of Correspondence want to make that part of USE law, generally. Having the ability to grow sugar at home has strengthened their position."

  Rishworth stopped short. "I'm sorry. Once a preacher, always a preacher."

  "I understand. But is there nothing you can do to help me?"

  "Perhaps not in the short term. But our committee would like to find a way to persuade the Barbary states to at least treat their captives as prisoners of war, not slaves. And we hope that we can find goods they want to buy and goods they can sell us, so we can engage in peaceful trade instead of preying on each other. "

  "Reardon Miller of the Grantville Research Center, and his assistant, are trying to find goods which Iceland can trade to the pirates in exchange for its people. Or at least, which Iceland can sell to someone in order to raise the ransom money."

  Rishworth nodded. "That's a step in the right direction. If they like the goods, perhaps in the future they will accept trade as an alternative to war. And if not, then perhaps with increased prosperity, you can afford better defenses."

  ****