Grantville Gazette 35 gg-35

by Paula Goodlett (Ed)

  Claus then handed the man another box. The man pulled out another medal; this one a silver star suspended from a red, white, and blue ribbon.

  Claus read the next certificate. "The Prime Minister of the United States of Europe takes pride in presenting the Silver Star Medal (Posthumously) to Bjorn Svedberg, Gunner's Mate, U.S.E. Navy, for conspicuous gallantry as a member of the three-man crew aboard the navy boat Outlaw during action against an armed enemy fleet on 7 October 1633 in defense of the city of Wismar. Remaining at his station in the face of hostile fire, Gunner's Mate Svedberg, with cool courage and utter disregard for his own personal safety, manned his weapon until he was fatally wounded. His heroic devotion to duty, maintained at the sacrifice of his own life, was in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States of Europe Naval Service. Signed John C. Simpson, Admiral, United States of Europe Navy."

  Claus gave both certificates to the man. "In addition to these decorations, I want to inform you that the U.S.E. Navy has commissioned a schooner to be named in honor of your son and his sacrifice."

  "A schooner?"

  "It's a small, fast ship, sir."

  The man had a small, sad smile on his face. "Did you hear that, Helena? They have named a ship after our son."

  The woman nodded sadly. "Lieutenant, was Bjorn buried properly?"

  Claus felt very uncomfortable, but it was a question he had prepared to answer. "Madam, I'm sorry to say that since Bjorn was lost in a naval action, his body was not recovered, nor were the bodies of any others lost in the sea. There was a memorial service held for all those lost and a monument has been erected at Wismar dedicated to those who gave their lives that day."

  The man looked troubled, but nodded in understanding. "That is the way of war. I want to thank you, Lieutenant. What you have done must have been difficult for you."

  "Yes, sir, it was, but I accepted the difficulty because it needed to be done." He rose from the chair and stepped away from the table. "Sir, madam, now that I have performed my duty here, I must return to Magdeburg. However, I will not leave town until tomorrow morning, so if you have any more questions, you can find me at the inn on the corner tonight. Please, if you need anything at all, feel free to contact me. Again, I am sorry for your loss."

  Claus had just reached the door when the man hurried over to stop him. "Lieutenant, I do have a question. You never served with my son and you did not know him. Why did you come all this way, do all that you have done, for a man you never met?"

  Claus turned to the man. "Sir, it is a policy our admiral put in place and, when I think of my own family, one that I agree with. When any member of the navy loses their life, the navy will do everything it can to inform that man's family. Our policy is that no family should ever be left not knowing the fate of their loved one."

  It was obvious the man was confused. "But my son was no one important; he was not a noble or an officer."

  Claus held himself up with pride in his service. "That doesn't matter, sir. Everyone who wears our uniform is important."

  With that, Claus opened the door and stepped out.

  ****

  Erik watched the young man walk away and then closed the door to the shop. He walked back to the table where his wife was looking at the medals with tears in her eyes.

  Sitting down again, he opened the envelope. As he began to read the letter, tears ran down his cheeks.

  To the family of Bjorn Svedberg,

  My name is Lieutenant Commander Edward Cantrell. Writing this letter is the hardest thing I have ever had to do. Admiral Simpson offered to write it in my place, but he and I agreed that it would be more appropriate if I did it.

  I was Bjorn's commander on the day that he died. Other men died that day as well, among them a lifelong friend. It was only pure luck that I survived, although I was wounded and captured.

  But this letter isn't about me, it's about Bjorn. I didn't know him long, but let me tell you of the time I did know him and of his bravery that final day . . .

  ****

  A soft wind came off the Baltic Sea on the late June afternoon in Wismar. A light drizzle washed the dirt from the bronze plaque set into the stone monument erected near the shore.

  A lone man dressed in the uniform of the U.S.E. Navy, with the double silver bars of a lieutenant, stood at the base of the stone and read the words cast into the metal plaque. The same message was repeated in English, German, and Swedish:

  On October 7th, 1633, joint elements of the U.S.E. Navy and the U.S.E. Air Force defended the city of Wismar against an invasion fleet of the Kingdom of Denmark. Although vastly outnumbered, the small group of defenders successfully repulsed the fleet and kept the city from enemy hands.

  This memorial is dedicated to the bravery and sacrifice of the men who gave their lives that day:

  Captain Hans Richter, USEAF

  Lieutenant Lawrence Wild, USEN

  Gunners Mate Bjorn Svedberg, USEN

  When he had finished reading, the young lieutenant came to attention and saluted. If anyone had been standing nearby they would have heard his soft-spoken words. "Mission accomplished, Gunners Mate Svedberg."

  Boom Toys

  Kim Mackey

  "Come on, Nick. What's bothering you? You've been like a-what's the American expression?-like a bear with a sore tooth. All day, I might add, even at work. You can tell us; we're your house mates. And best friends. If you can't trust us with your secrets, who can you trust?"

  Nicki Jo Pricket sighed. Tobias Ridley was a shrewd judge of character. It had been a mistake to let him be the odd man out in the three-handed game of gleek that Katherine Boyle, Solomon des Caux and she were playing. It gave him way too much time to ponder.

  Katherine smiled. "Better tell them, Nick. They'll find out soon enough, as it is on Monday."

  Nicki Jo nodded. "I suppose you're right Katy." Then she looked at Tobias Ridley and Solomon des Caux. "But don't talk to anyone until Monday, do I have your promise on that?"

  Both young men nodded solemnly and Nicki Jo shook her head.

  Almost three years since the Ring of Fire. How could she have suspected how much her life would change in those three years? Right after the Ring of Fire she had been nearly all alone in a hostile Grantville where she had effectively burned all her bridges by "coming out," exposing to the world her lesbianism by bringing her Fairmont lover to the Senior Prom. It hadn't seemed that important at the time. She'd gotten a full ride at WVU in Morgantown because of her grades in science, especially chemistry. She'd never expected to return to Grantville except for rare-very rare-trips home to see her dad and sister. Her dad hadn't been that concerned that one of his daughters was a lesbian, but her mom . . . her mom had stopped talking to her for good.

  When her sister had called her the Friday before the Ring of Fire and told her that Mom would be out of town visiting relatives, she had seized the opportunity to get in a last trip home to pick up her few remaining belongings. Amy Kubiak, her best friend throughout her years in Grantville, despite being a class behind, had come home with her from Morgantown that weekend. And been caught like she was. Fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes was all that had separated them from being on the other side of the Ring of Fire.

  At first Nicki Jo had blamed Amy and her bitterness and depression had lasted months before she finally made up with her friend.

  But when she finally did, it had been Amy who had saved her, just as she had saved her in high school, by introducing her to Colette Modi who had hired Nicki Jo to help develop the Essen Chemical Company.

  For months after the Ring of Fire Nicki Jo buried herself in her work for the biogas plant and in studying chemistry. At WVU Nicki had been taking both organic and physical chemistry her sophomore year, giving her as good an academic background in chemistry as almost anyone else caught by the Ring of Fire. But she needed more, especially practical experience, if she was to achieve her goal of getting a patron outside Grantville. She had been relieved to discover that sev
enteenth-century Europe was not as hostile to lesbians and homosexual men as she had thought. True, there were cases of women and men being tried for sodomy in Europe, but the cases were rare and usually involved women and men who were already on the margins of society.

  It was odd, really. Right after the Ring of Fire Nicki Jo had cursed her luck thinking that she had wound up in a universe where Grantville, filled with her enemies, was the most tolerant town in the world instead of just a hick little village. Only gradually had she learned that homosexuality in the seventeenth century was tolerated, even ignored, except in certain rare cases. Of course, you didn't want to actually go out and flaunt your sexuality, but that was as true of heterosexuals in many ways as it was of homosexuals. So long as you kept things discreet and didn't go out and parade around for gay rights, people were willing to look the other way. It helped, of course, if you were rich and powerful, or had friends who were rich and powerful.

  But even that wouldn't help if you weren't discreet.

  The case of Mervyn Touchet, Earl of Castlehaven in England, had been a cautionary tale in the value of discretion.

  In 1631 the earl and two of his retainers had been beheaded for sodomy. But the case would never have come before the courts if the earl's family life hadn't been highly dysfunctional. Besides being a sodomizer, the earl had also allowed-even encouraged-his retainers to rape both his wife and his new daughter-in-law. That alone would still not have been enough to draw the attention of the courts if he hadn't also threatened his son with disinheritance. In the end, it had been his son who had brought the case before the courts. Other noblemen, disgusted at the earl's inability to control the chaos of his manor-a chaos that they loathed even more than the earl's sexual barbarities-had applied pressure in the right places to ensure his conviction.

  With that tale in mind, Nicki Jo and Katherine Boyle had invited Tobias Ridley and Solomon des Caux to share a house with them in Essen. Gossips would assume that they were living in sin, but the more normal and recognized sin of a heterosexual relationship between unmarried couples.

  Only the couples themselves, and Colette and Josh Modi, knew that the relationships were homosexual ones.

  "Okay," Nicki said, "This is the situation." Nicki thought for a few seconds and then continued. "We've been making toluene so we can methylate morphine to produce codeine efficiently, right?"

  Both men nodded.

  "Well, after we provided some codeine to the Essen Intelligence Service, the director must have mentioned it to someone, because the ordnance team for Essen Steel is now breathing down our necks to make tri-nitro toluene, TNT. Colette and I have been putting them off for a month, but they finally went to the Governor-General and he's starting to put the pressure on. So we've got to produce some explosives to get them off our backs."

  Nicki Jo wrinkled her nose in exasperation. "Not that I want to. I want to save lives, damn it, not make boom toys."

  Tobias laughed. "Boom toys are fun, Nick. Besides, the Republic can't afford a very large army, so we need to keep a tech edge."

  "I know, Toby," Nicki Jo said, "but our feedstock situation isn't that great. Until we can get a steady supply of nitrates from Peru or Asia, we're limited in how much nitric acid we can produce. We can't produce it with electricity like Grantville can. At least, not profitably. And every ton we use for explosives will cut into our profit on stuff we can get higher margins on."

  Tobias looked at Solomon. "Let me and Solomon work on it. We're good at nitration, aren't we you old catamite?"

  Solomon gave Tobias a mock scowl. "Catamite am I? Who was on top of who last night, you sodomite?"

  "Sodomite? Sodomite am I? Buggerer!"

  The two men looked at each other and grinned. Nicki Jo laughed. "Please, guys, I don't want to hear about it. Male sexual bonding is not my thing." She smiled at Katherine, who smiled back.

  She knew she shouldn't do it, of course. Tobias and Solomon just weren't quite ready to be on their own yet. Oh, they were good chemists, but they still didn't understand, deep down, how dangerous some of the processes were that they were dealing with. But it would get De Geer and the ordnance team off her back.

  "Okay, I'll let you guys have building number one. But you've got to be careful. That was our original pilot plant and it just doesn't have the safety features we've built in to the major production facility. Remember . . ."

  Tobias and Solomon laughed, then chorused together, ". . . it's hard to make miracle drugs when you've blown up the chem lab." Nicki Jo had had that sign posted in three different languages at all entrances to the Essen Chemical Company's facilities and laboratories. It seemed to have worked because they'd had no major accidents except for some minor burns, spills, and inevitable glass cuts. But there was always a first time.

  Nicki Jo shook her head and wagged her finger at them. "I'm serious, guys. Watch your damn purity. Distill, distill and then distill again. If you even suspect you have too many impurities, destroy it. And for God's sake, make small batches. Just telling the ordnance team we're starting to work on it will keep them satisfied for a few months. Understood?"

  Both men nodded solemnly again. Nicki Jo sighed. Now she knew what it felt like to send children off into the world where you couldn't watch them every step of the way. It wasn't a pleasant feeling. She resolved to drop in as often as she could to check up on them.

  "Okay, Toby, your turn to play gleek. You still owe me two guilders from last week."

  ****

  Three weeks later, Nicki Jo was deep in conversation with her head chemist, the Hungarian Banfi Hunyades, when Katherine Boyle came hurrying through the door of the Essen Chemical Company's main research lab. The lab was an impressive assemblage of glassware, earthenware and stoneware. Alembics, retorts and ovens were everywhere and the building had been designed to take into account the needs of a down-time chemistry lab that had to depend on seventeenth-century materials and apparati. The majority of the glassware, thermometers and other instrumentation was manufactured by the Essen Instrument Company, a separate subsidiary started up by Colette Modi, Nicki Jo and Katherine, with financial backing from Essen Steel investors. Stoneware came from the Raeren workshops south of Aachen. Ovens, alembics and other metal apparati were built to spec by metalworkers in the Steele area who worked for or contracted with the Essen Steel Company. To the eyes of a twentieth-century chemist, the lab would have seemed a dangerous Rube Goldberg mishmash filled with safety hazards. In the down-time universe it represented the best state of the art chemical research lab in Europe, outside of Grantville.

  When Nicki Jo saw Katherine's face, her guts began to twist inside her. Normally there was nothing that could get Katherine Boyle upset. So the worried frown on her face was not a good sign.

  "What is it, Katy?"

  "I really don't know if it's that much of a problem," Katherine said, "but Tobias and Solomon have kept it a secret for a week, so I thought I better tell you as soon as I could."

  "What?"

  "According to Franz Dubois, Tobias and Solomon decided they weren't getting enough toluene out to work with, so they decided they'd try distilling out phenol and nitrating that for an explosive instead."

  Nicki Jo's face turned white. "Oh shit."

  Banfi Hunyades shook his head. "Young fools. Don't they remember the lectures? Or do they simply think they are immortal?"

  Of all the alchemists and chemists hired by Essen Chemical Company from the members of the Acontian Society, Banfi Hunyades had the most experience. A man in his late fifties, Hunyades not only came from a long line of Hungarian alchemists, he had also instructed students in chemistry and chemical medicine at Gresham College in London. His experience and intelligence had enabled him to easily pick up on the principles of up-time chemistry and help adapt up-time laboratory techniques and methods to seventeenth-century materials.

  "What?" Katherine said. "Is it that much more dangerous than working with toluene?"

  Hunyades nodded. "Tri-nitr
o phenol is also known as picric acid. Many of the metal salts of picric acid are highly unstable, even more so in some ways than mercury fulminate. And you know what kind of precautions we take in its manufacture."

  "So what are we going to do?" Katherine asked.

  "Tear those boys a new asshole, for one," Nicki growled. She looked at Hunyades. "Will you back me up on this one, Banfi? Sometimes I think Tobias and Solomon are still stuck in male dominance mode. If you help ream them out, it might make more of an impression."

  Hunyades nodded. "Whatever you wish, Miss Pricket. Do you want to go now? The experiment still has an hour to run."

  "Yeah," Nicki Jo said, "let's shut it down. We may not be back in time and I don't want to leave this up for someone else to stumble across." It took them five minutes to break down the apparati and arrange for a clean-up crew.

  Building one, two hundred yards away from the main research lab, had been the first coal tar pilot plant built by the Essen Chemical Company in the spring of 1633. It had been mainly a proof-of-principle plant, designed to establish the needs for a more sophisticated coal tar distilling facility.

  Banfi Hunyades, Nicki Jo and Katherine Boyle were thirty yards from the plant when it blew up.

  ****

  It all could have been much worse, of course. Banfi and Katherine were hit by non-lethal splinters from the door while Nicki Jo was knocked unconscious when a bigger chunk dug a groove along the left side of her head. The plant itself had been designed with a weak west wall in case of a hydrogen explosion and that fact helped save the lives of the ordnance team and Solomon des Caux who had also been protected by heavy equipment between them and the blast. The only serious injury was Franz Dubois, who lost an eye to a splinter.

  But the three men closest to the blast, including Tobias Ridley, died.

  ****

  It was the fourth day after Tobias' funeral when Nicki Jo's subconscious baggage forced itself into her fore brain. She was in the dark, alone, in her bedroom.