by Eric Flint
* * *
Vesuvius erupted. Russian words spewed forth. Bernie didn't understand. Didn't want to understand after he caught the Russian words for idiot and uncultured repeated several times. At least this time everyone was an uncultured idiot, not just Bernie. Which was a relief. Everyone, Pter included, everyone from Adam to Aristotle . . . especially Aristotle. Everyone in the entire history of the world, both histories. Only two exceptions could be made: God and Sir Isaac Newton. God for creating such a complex world from such beautiful simplicity and Sir Isaac Newton for understanding it.
"Don't you understand, you uncultured outlander? We can fly."
"What in blazes are you talking about?" Filip Pavlovich was not one to accept being called an idiot by much of anyone. "Of course we can fly, once we know how. If the outlanders from the future could do it we can learn to do it." He froze then. "You know how?"
"It's all forces don't you see . . . damn Aristotle to the worst region of hell. Innate desire. Natural tendency. Bah . . . it's forces. Water is heavy, air is light, the force of gravity works better on heavy than light, that's what makes it heavy."
Jeez, Bernie thought, you'd think he just found out that Jennifer Lopez was a sure thing. Bernie left the geeks to their talk. Somehow he couldn't stop grinning. These guys got such a charge out of this stuff. Now if only he could get the plumbing to work.
* * *
That night, instead of the studying, Bernie watched as Gregorii Mikhailovich drew out another Rocky and Bullwinkle episode for Daromila. One of the other letters was one from her, pestering him about it. And he had promised, after all. It was kind of hard, sometimes. Gregorii didn't like the dress the Natasha of the cartoons wore. He even blushed a bit.
* * *
The older he got, the less he slept. Filaret stalked around his room, thinking. They were on a dangerous path and he didn't think Mikhail realized just how dangerous it was. Mikhail was a good boy, but too gentle for the real world. Still, something he'd said kept coming back to Filaret. Knowledge, freely given. Filaret had started the only print shop in Muscovy. Like most things, it was a royal monopoly. He had also been instrumental in starting schools in monasteries. Again a monopoly, this time of the church. Giving things away didn't come naturally to him, especially something as valuable as knowledge. Freely giving knowledge had its drawbacks, didn't it?
But the more he thought about it, the better it sounded. Freely given. Charity. A gift to the poor. Alms of knowledge? What an interesting idea. The agreement with the Yaroslavich family was that the government could do what it wanted with the knowledge from the Dacha. It wouldn't do to give everything away. But some of it. . . . Things that would help a lot of people and would cost a lot to administer. A gift from the czar, granted freely to every citizen and serf in Muscovy. The right to make the turning plow. One of the new plows produced by the Dacha. And, of course, the Yaroslavich family could still sell the right to make the plow to anyone who would buy what had already been given them for free. It would serve as a reminder to the Yaroslavich family who was Czar. At the same time, it would remind everyone that even knowledge was the czar's to give and withhold at his will.
* * *
Boris stared. A flying ship. Not a little one that they talked about in Grantville, but something the nerds—Boris liked that word—at the Dacha were calling a half blimp. There were drawings, still rough sketches, rough estimates of carrying capacity, all of which seemed to agree that bigger was better to the extent that they could build bigger. Everyone in the section would have seen it by now. The rumors would be flying faster than the half blimp could travel. And he had to come up with a recommendation. How was he supposed to know if it would work? Meanwhile, he had dozens of requests for things he knew they could make. And suddenly hundreds of requests for transfers to his section. "Pavel, get in here."
Pavel came quickly enough. Boris smiled. Pavel looked nervous, as well he should. "You will be missing dinner at home again." Boris handed him the report. "Go out to the Dacha and find out about this."
"But, Papa," Pavel started to complain.
Boris cut him off. "I know all about the party at the Samelovich house. They want you to get their little Ivan a job in the section, but he doesn't speak English and the only thing I've heard he's good at is getting drunk. Make your apologies, but get out to the Dacha."
Boris put the rest of the reports in his case and headed for home.
* * *
Daromila was snickering again. Boris looked up, a bit bleary-eyed from reading reports. "Woman—" he put on his "stern patriarch of the family" voice. "—what are you on about this time?"
She snickered again. "Nothing, dear. Just a letter from Berna."
"Oh ho!" Boris puffed out his chest. "I shall have to have words with him. Stealing my wife's affections from me. That's what he's doing."
Daromila gave him a telling look. "Boris, dahlink," she said, using the same sultry voice Natasha occasionally used when she was teasing. "You know you are the only man for me."
Boris groaned a bit. Daromila and Natasha both teased him about the inept spy Bernie spoke of. "I never should have brought him here," he said mournfully. "I knew he was going to be a bad influence."
Daromila grinned. "Possibly more than you know." Then she wouldn't say more, just began writing another letter.
* * *
"So what is this Bernie like?" Czarina Evdokia took a sip of strong Russian tea.
"I'm not sure. He knows many things. He drops ideas without being aware of it, but . . ." Natasha hesitated. "I guess I was expecting some great philosopher. He is just a man. A workman. Much like the craftsmen on either of our estates." Natasha and the czarina were having a quiet lunch together.
Evdokia nodded. "That sounds like the little I saw of him at court. I find the possibilities of the future amazing." She stopped a moment. "Do you believe they sent someone to walk on the moon?"
Natasha considered. "Yes. I do believe it."
"Why?"
"Partly because Vladimir confirms it in his letters, but mostly because Berna talks about it the way we would speak of Ivan the Terrible or the Mongol rule. Not a fantastic tale, just something that happened."
"Can you imagine? And women went, too. Russian women."
"Valentina Tereshkova. Vladimir wrote about her and Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin. Berna didn't remember her name but didn't dispute that the first man and the first woman in space were Russian." Natasha paused and looked at the czarina. There was a look in Evdokia's eyes. A dreamy, hungry look. To Natasha the fact that the first man and woman in space were Russian was an interesting piece of information and made her feel good about being Russian. For the czarina, it seemed more somehow.
"I have always dreamed of flying," Evdokia's voice had a soft faraway tone. "Since I was a little girl. Floating up to the clouds and looking down to see the whole world spread before me." She visibly pulled herself back from dreams of flight, but a bit of the smile lingered. "Child's dreams, but it warms me somehow that it was done, and by Russians first."
"Who knows?" Natasha offered. "What they, those people from the future, could do, we can learn to do. Pter Nickovich says we can fly. He thinks he understands gravity. You may fly yet."
Evdokia laughed a bit sadly. "Even if we learn to fly, it will not be allowed." Then she grinned with more joy. "It is a pleasant thought, though. Now tell me of the progress of the Dacha."
Natasha grinned as she began her report. "As I said, Pter Nickovich thinks he understands gravity. Fedor is not convinced . . ." These weekly lunches were interesting. She would give a very unofficial report on the doings at the dacha. Then there were the letters from Grantville. Natasha almost always had a new one to share.
* * *
"Thank God," Bernie said when Natasha handed him the latest batch of letters. "There wasn't anything about plumbing in those books. I hope I've got an answer to that problem." Natasha had made a rare foray into the kitchen, searching for him. He was hav
ing his usual sandwich lunch.
Dear Bernie,
Vic Dobbs says you left out the vent stack for your plumbing, that's the problem. Without the vent stack you get a build up of pressure in the septic system and it forces the dirty, yuck, water back up. He made a drawing to show you what you did wrong. He also said you'd probably never seen one, since they're usually inside the walls, so don't feel bad about it. This ought to fix the problem. Just in case, Vladimir has contracted to have several books on plumbing that Vic recommends scanned and reprinted. A couple had already been copied. They're included in this shipment and the others will be coming in the next batch.
I saw your father in town yesterday. He said to tell you hello and wants to know can he sell your car? It's in the way, he said. He also said you should write him and your sisters. They want to hear from you, too.
Old Grantville is rocking along just fine right now. We've got, I swear, thousands and thousands of people around here now. It's so different from before.
Vladimir says you're doing pretty well. I hope so. I bet it's a lot different than working on cars was. But then, who'd have ever dreamed I'd wind up working in a research center, of all things?
Well, gotta go. I need to have this done before I get to work so it can go in Vlad's pouch. Just let me know if you need any more information. Oh, and I hope you get this before the house blows up.
Best,
Brandy
* * *
"You have wood in your hair." Natasha grinned like she had caught him out. "Quite a bit of wood. What have you been doing out there in that shop of yours?"
Much to Natasha's surprise, Bernie went outside to shake off the wood shavings. "Sorry about that," he said when he came back to finish his lunch. "I didn't realize. I brushed myself off, but didn't know I had it in my hair. We were working on the pattern lathe. Finally got the setup for that connecting piece Ivan the Tolerable wanted." Bernie had gotten into the habit of giving various people at the Dacha nicknames. "Now I need to talk to the guys about this vent stack thing. Maybe we can get the bathroom back in operation." Bernie gulped down the last of his sandwich and beer and rose from the table again. "Excuse me. I really want to get this fixed."
* * *
After Natasha left the kitchen the cook, Marpa Pavlovna turned to her assistant (and niece) Anna Stepanovna. "Did you see that? Have you ever seen one of 'them' worry about dropping anything on the floor? He may be a little strange in some ways, but he's not one of 'them.' How is your English coming, Anya? The quicker you learn, the sooner you'll be able to understand."
Anya shrugged. "Better. I understood nearly all he said, that time. I will be able to report it nearly word for word."
Marpa frowned. "He seems a good young man."
Anna stirred the contents of a pot and shrugged again. "Because he acts like a peasant?" At Marpa's look she continued. "The nobles don't worry about mud on the floor because the servants can't box their ears for it. He seems much like any other man to me. Just not used to having power. He'll be just like the rest, given a little time."
Marpa began clearing the table. Anya was a hard one. Which was probably all to the good. They had a job to do, after all, and little choice about doing it. Their family's debts had been taken over by a man neither of them knew. Through his agents, that man had assigned Anya the task of finding out everything she could about Bernie. It was not the first time Anya had been given such an assignment. She was a very pretty girl with hair like spun gold and deep blue eyes. The very picture of innocence. Anya hadn't been innocent since the day she was born.
* * *
"Could you light a couple more candles?" Bernie smiled at the cook's assistant. "I can't tell you how much I miss good lighting, I really can't."
Anya decided to try it. It was late at night and almost everyone else was asleep. She had been about to lay down on the massive stove when Bernie had stumbled in to the kitchen with a single candle and disturbed everyone. She nodded, and went for the candles.
The outlander went to another room and sat down at a table with a book. She knew that he thought sleeping on stoves was strange, but it made sense in a Russian winter. The amount of wood it took to heat the whole house was too much, a serious expense even for the wealthy and impossible for the poor. Even with the improvements Yuri had suggested based on the books from Vladimir Petrovich Yaroslavich, it was still a lot of wood. Not as much, though. The Dacha now had cold air come down one side of the chimney, so it was warmed before it entered the house. The main rooms were warmer now.
Anya took Bernie Janovich more candles and lit them for him. "Good lighting?"
Bernie Janovich grinned. "You speak English? Wow, that's great."
"Only little." Anya struggled with the words a bit more than was really necessary. "I learn. You wish beer? I get beer."
"Just one for me, please. I'm going to study a bit more, then I've got to get some sleep. And have one yourself, if you like."
Anya wondered for a moment if she should, but decided she might as well. She went to the kitchen, poured two beers and placed one in front of Bernie Janovich when she got back.
He motioned toward a chair. "Have a seat. I get lonesome sitting by myself. And even if you don't understand everything I say, you're company." When Anya hesitated, he urged, "Come on. Have a seat."
Shrugging, she complied. Bernie Janovich was an important person even if he didn't know it. A complaint from him might anger her employer, both her employers. Besides, she was supposed to get close to him. He took a good look at her. Anya lowered her head and peeked at him from under her lashes. She wanted to show interest but not appear too easy to get. She needed him to work at seducing her. Throwing herself at him as some of the girls in the Dacha did would not get her what she wanted. Then what did he do? He buried his nose in the book. What was wrong with the fool?
* * *
All the things he didn't know meant Bernie had to study. It was worse than being in school, as far as he was concerned. All the stuff that he had been sure that he would never need once he graduated high school, he needed now. He was having to interpret words he'd never heard and in contexts he'd never dreamed of. What the hell was calcareous grassland? Calcareous turned out to be to do with chalk or calcium, at least that's what the dictionary said. But calcareous grassland? How could there be chalk grass? He had to go to the dictionary all the time to find the weird stuff that the Russian nerds wanted.
Then there was Bernoulli's Law. Pter Nickovich had found a description of how wings worked in one of the books. The explanation described a wing's dependence on Bernoulli's Law. Then they had looked up Bernoulli's Law, done the math and come to the conclusion that it couldn't work that way. Bernoulli's Law, Bernie was assured, would require a small plane to be traveling at over three hundred miles an hour to fly. They wanted to know if powered flight was really possible and if so how.
Bernie knew it was possible; he had flown twice and seen planes flying more times than he could count. But he didn't know how they worked. He built paper airplanes and wooden airplanes that flew, based on the rubber band powered airplanes he had played with as a kid, but he couldn't explain how they worked.
What Bernie didn't know, and for that matter most people in the Ring of Fire didn't know, was that planes flew through a complex mix of Bernoulli's Law, Newton's Laws and the complexities of air flow. The mathematicians and natural philosophers who surrounded Bernie now would have understood the complex explanation but Bernie didn't have it. He had seen the drawings of air flow over a wing and assumed that they were accurate. They weren't. This didn't mean the shape of the wing was wrong. They weren't really inaccurate either, just simplified. Using the drawing out of those books for the cross-section of the wing would produce a wing that would fly quite well. Assuming, of course, that you added the ailerons and the rest of the plane.
Every day he had people asking him questions that he didn't have the answers to. They weren't meaningless questions that didn't really m
atter, like how many planets there are in the solar system. Well, most of them weren't. The astrologers were nuts to know the locations of Neptune, Uranus and Pluto. Mostly, though, the questions were about how things worked and how to treat injuries and diseases.
"I just don't know enough. I don't know if anyone does." The candles were half burnt and the girl was dozing in the chair. She jerked awake at the sound of his voice. He looked over and saw how tired she looked. "Oh, Lord. I've kept you up when you need to sleep. I'm sorry. I lost track of the time. I'll get out of your way and let you get some sleep. I'm really sorry."
* * *
The outlander grabbed up a candle and hustled away. Anya watched him go in amazement. He was strange this, this Bernie from the future. That strangeness was giving Anya pause. What was his game? What was he up to? It hadn't occurred to her that Bernie might simply be a nice guy. She hadn't met many nice guys in her life. She worried about him possibly being onto her, but there wasn't really any evidence for that. This is just too easy. Anya didn't trust easy; easy usually meant a trap.
Anya had never seen the man her reports went to and didn't know his name. He was simply referred to as "the prince." The Dacha was filled with experts, but it was also increasingly filled with spies. She thought half the servants in the place, and more than a few of the craftsmen, must report to someone. This didn't in any way diminish the quality of the service. It was just as important for agents to provide good service as it was for a normal servant. In fact, most of them were normal servants just making a bit of extra money on the side.
For the ones, like Anya, who were agents, quality was even more important. The people who had trained and placed the agents had a pretty unforgiving attitude. If an agent got fired for spilling the soup, the result could be a tragedy for that agent and his or her family.
* * *
Filaret's forehead was creased with concentration. He was writing something, as he usually was. Mikhail sat quietly and waited for his father to lift his head. Filaret eventually did. He smiled when he realized that Mikhail had come in the room.