Ring of Fire III Read online

  “Excellent. But it must be very absorbing. We don’t see much of you in town.”

  “But how would you know if I’m in town, Don Francisco? Your presence here seems much rarer than mine.”

  “Touché. But I have much family here, and they are my eyes and ears. On the streets, in the restaurants, elsewhere—”

  Elsewhere. By which you mean, “the synagogue.”

  Nasi looked up the street at nothing in particular. “I have regretted that the circumstances of your arrival made it impossible to—to welcome you, as was proper. As is traditional.”

  Miro proferred a small bow. “You had no choice, Don Francisco. Your official responsibilities must trump all other considerations.”

  “Yes. But only for as long as they must.” Nasi put out his hand to say farewell, opened his mouth, waited a long moment before speaking. “You have no family here. And a seder alone is no seder at all.” Then Nasi smiled faintly, released Miro’s hand, and, hunching over, hurried off into the cold.

  Miro looked after him: it had not been, strictly speaking, an invitation. But that would no doubt change when Estuban Miro made his appearance in the almost-repaired synagogue this coming Shabbat.

  He trusted that the spitting rain hid any other moisture that might have made his eyes blink so quickly. To sit and pray in a synagogue once again. To share a seder once again. To hear and speak Hebrew. To be a Jew in something other than name and memory only. To reclaim his life after nine long years.

  Estuban stared up into the cold rain and felt suddenly warm, felt his soul rise with the promise of his almost-ready airship.

  April 1635

  Franchetti angled the props upward a bit, driving the blimp toward the ground. Then he cut the engines, and pulled hard on the lead ground line.

  The forward bow of the gondola pushed into the soft loam, and the night-time noises hushed; the moon stared down, bright and indifferent.

  As the rest of the Venetians swarmed the craft—affixing new lines, tossing in some ballast, opening flaps—Franchetti hopped out, followed by Bolzano, his beefy assistant in all things. “I am an aviator!” Franchetti cried. “I have flown like the birds!”

  Miro smiled. “Excellent work, Franchetti—and you must not breathe a word of it.”

  “But Don Estuban—”

  “This is as we agreed, Franchetti. Would you take away Signor Pridmore’s joy at being the ‘first’ to fly in a balloon? After all he has done to help us build the Swordfish?”

  Franchetti looked like a truant child. “No, you are right, Don Estuban—but did we not finish first? Long before him? And look at her! Is she not beautiful?”

  Now sagging slightly in the moonlight, her abbreviated ribs showing, Miro thought the airship looked more akin to an emaciated maggot. “She is beautiful indeed, Franchetti—and I promise, in the future, you will be able to tell everyone that you were the first test pilot—for the next airship we build.”

  Franchetti stared at him. “The next—? So we are not done? Then why did you say that this was our final week of pay?”

  “Because now we change how you will be paid, Franchetti. I have been thinking that the master craftsmen who build my airships should also have the option to have part ownership in them. Of course, not all will want that. However, for those who do—”

  But Franchetti was out of the gondola in a single leap and, landing with his arms around Miro, planted a sweaty kiss on each of the xueta’s well-shaven cheeks. “I will be an aviator!” he shouted loudly into the night sky.

  So loudly that Miro harbored a faint worry that Marlon Pridmore might have heard—and might have lost the joy of thinking himself the first to fly one of the airships he had designed.

  May 1635

  Francisco Nasi’s desk was almost bare, and the contents of his “courtesy office” were now mostly in boxes. Nasi was bound to depart within a few months, and the process of relocation was already underway. But right now, his attention was very much riveted on the report in front of him. “I notice that President Piazza’s agents picked up this man Bolzano just a day after you passed word to me that we keep an eye out for him, heading south. What I’m wondering is: why?”

  “Why what, Francisco?”

  “Why you wanted the local authorities advised to pick him up. And how you knew he was a confidential agent for ‘other interests.’ ”

  Miro shrugged. “The answer to the second is also the answer to the first. Bolzano started out as self-deprecating, unskilled illiterate, only worried about securing a salary. But during the process of constructing the Swordfish, he proved to be a quick study, dedicated, resourceful. And when I offered extended contracts with better terms to all my workers, he demurred, pleading urgent business in Padua. Nonsense. He had to return south to report to his real employers, and so had to decline the permanent position—which was wholly out of character for the role he had opted to play up here.”

  “Well, you were right—although it seems he was not working directly for any government. Only a factotum for parties unnamed. But why did you recommend that President Piazza hold him in custody, Estuban?”

  “Firstly, Francisco, I suggested it to you.”

  “Yes—and my responsibilities here are finished. I no longer have power in this matter.”

  Miro decided not to look as dubious as he might have. “Yes—that’s what all the official documents say. But it seems to me that President Piazza has asked you to, well, ‘watch over’ me this far, so I surmised that he might ask you to oversee this final related incident. Just as a means of ensuring a smooth transition, of course.”

  Nasi did not blink or move for five full seconds. Then he said, almost without moving his lips: “I have certain—discretionary allowances—regarding the resolution of your current project. But let us return to the topic: why did you request that Bolzano be held?”

  “First tell me this: why have you elected to do so? My suggestion certainly isn’t justifiable grounds for detaining a foreign national, is it?”

  Nasi shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “You know it’s not.”

  “Then I was right to guess that—for a little while, at least—Grantville’s own intelligence ‘brotherhood’ would like to keep my balloon a secret.”

  “Well...yes. So far as it’s possible, since the Venetians spoke openly about what they were doing. But most everyone thinks they are still building the first balloon, not the second.”

  “Yes; that was why I suggested you find and detain Bolzano. Not to protect the knowledge of how to make an airship; that will be common knowledge, soon enough—particularly since this design is so simple. But Bolzano might also have informed others that we already had a working balloon.”

  “Yes, about that—”

  Estuban let himself smile. “It’s about Italy, isn’t it?”

  Nasi’s face became completely expressionless. “How do you know?”

  “News like that travels quickly; by tomorrow at the latest, everyone in Grantville will know that there will soon be an anti-pope, and that Urban is missing.” Miro smiled wider. “Or is he? Because if Urban isn’t missing—if, instead, someone wanted to fly him out from a spot where there was no airfield, or fly in a special security team and their equipment—I suspect it might be very helpful to have a balloon to expedite that kind of mission.”

  “So you can do it? You can fly to Northern Italy?”

  “I can lift three thousand pounds over the Alps and arrive in Brescia four to eight days after we start out. The journey would be in four legs. Leg one is to Nürnberg. Then to Biberach. Then across the Bodensee up to Chur in the Grissons cantonment. Then south over the Valtelline and onto the Northern Italian plain. Each leg is a three-hour trip, give or take. Assuming that we must arrange support at the endpoint of each leg, we should be able to make a flight every two or three days. If the support could be arranged ahead of time,”—Miro looked through the wall in the direction of the radio room—“we could perform a flight a day.”


  “So we—that is, President Piazza—could have a team on-site in four days?”

  “If you consider Brescia ‘on-site,’ then, yes: if the weather permits, four days. Assuming that President Piazza—or even higher authorities—can arrange the necessary support.”

  “And what kind of support will you need?”

  Miro wondered, given the carefully rehearsed diction of that question, if it had been originally anticipated by Nasi, or Piazza, or Stearns—or maybe all three. “At each endpoint, we need a place to store the balloon—which, given its segmented keel, folds down to fifty feet long and twenty wide. And we need enough fuel on site—ethanol, methanol, lamp oil, fish oil—for the balloon’s next flight.”

  “Sounds simple.”

  “Oh, it is—which is why I already have twelve transport contracts for when I begin commercial flights.”

  “Twelve? Already?”

  Miro nodded. “Six out of Venice, one from Lubeck, two from Amsterdam, one from Prague, two from Brussels.”

  “And you are carrying—?”

  “A fair number of passengers, particularly diplomats and specialists. Lots of documents: data, research copies, bonds, certificates, and contracts of all sorts. Some specie, some spice, some lenses, even some gemstones and pearls. Low weight, high value. My rates are steep, but the transport is fast, safe, and almost entirely tariff- and toll-free.”

  “And could you carry a—a ‘special cargo’ for President Piazza, first?”

  “Of course; here’s the rate sheet.”

  Nasi studied it, blanched, and then looked a bit like a penniless farmer confronting a burly amtman. “Estuban—I can’t—I don’t think the government here can pay these charges.”

  Miro nodded, watching Nasi closely: another second and the spymaster might start mentioning how President Piazza might need to “nationalize a key asset—such as your balloon—for the duration of the crisis.” Probably not, but why risk having the deal move in that direction? By claiming poverty, Nasi had inadvertently given Miro the initiative: “Let’s keep the operating expenditures equal to my costs, Francisco: just have the president—or your successor—pay for the fuel and the crew. Besides, what’s more important to me than your government’s money is your government’s political influence.”

  “What kind of influence?”

  “The kind that would allow my airship company to become a government partner in bulk purchasing and shipment of various kinds of fuel. The kind of influence that would help us get support facilities established in the cities we’d be servicing directly. The kind of influence that reduces or eliminates certain tariffs or taxes. In short, nothing that needs to come out of a president’s—or a spymaster’s—always overburdened operations budget.” And Miro smiled.

  Francisco smiled back. “To quote a fine, if sentimental, movie I just saw, I suspect that President Piazza may consider this ‘the beginning of a beautiful friendship.’ ”

  Miro nodded. “Casablanca. See? I’m acclimating. And none too soon, for today I am truly embarking upon the American Dream.”

  Francisco frowned. “What do you mean?”

  Estuban feigned surprise. “Why, I have attained what every person in Grantville is pursuing! Today, as my financial prospects promise to rise with my airship, its seems that I have literally achieved ‘upward mobility.’ ”

  Four Days on the Danube

  Eric Flint

  Chapter 1

  The first notice Rita had that something was amiss was on the startling side. The front door to the small apartment in Ingolstadt’s military headquarters that she and her husband Tom had just finished settling into was blown in by an explosion. A splinter from the door sliced open her left arm just below the shoulder. Another splinter flew into her side and stuck there like a pin, just above the hip.

  The blast itself sent her stumbling back. She tripped and fell into the fireplace. Where her dress caught fire.

  A man came through the door on the heels of the explosion. He had a wheel-lock pistol in his hand which he leveled at her and fired.

  That was pretty much the low point of the evening. Luckily for Rita, the door hadn’t been completely blown off the hinges. Half of it was still hanging in the entrance and a jagged edge caught the man’s sleeve as he brought up the gun. His aim was thrown off and the bullet went into the fireplace instead of Rita’s chest.

  Squalling with fear and anger, Rita scrambled out of the fireplace. She started slapping at her dress to extinguish the flames licking at the hem. Then, seeing that her assailant was bringing out another pistol, she left off trying to extinguish the flames and turned instead toward the mantelpiece. Her husband Tom kept his shotgun up there.

  She wouldn’t make it, she realized despairingly. By the time she—

  Another crash drew her head around. Tom had burst in from their bedroom. The front room of the apartment doubled as a dining area. Tom disarmed the gunman by the simple expedient of driving the dining table across the floor into the man’s hip.

  Tom Simpson was a former football lineman. If anything, the years since the Ring of Fire and his military service had put still more meat and muscle on his immense frame. And he certainly hadn’t lost any strength. The table smashed into the assailant like a battering ram, smashing his hip and slamming him into the door frame. His eyes rolled up and he slumped into the room unconscious.

  Now that he was out of the doorway, Rita could see another assailant coming right behind. This one had a pistol also.

  “Watch out, Tom!” she shouted, as she brought the shotgun to bear.

  Rita had been raised a country girl, the daughter and sister of coal miners. She’d been handling firearms since she’d gotten a .22 rifle for her eighth birthday and had been hunting pheasant and quail with a shotgun since she was ten.

  That had been a 20 gauge, of course, suitable for a small girl. But she’d graduated to a 12 gauge long since.

  Tom had the gun loaded for war, not hunting. The heavy slug punched the man back with a hole in his chest. If he wasn’t dead already, he would be soon—and either way, he was out of the action.

  A third man stood behind him in the corridor, a look of surprise on his face. He had his dying companion half-supported with one arm while he tried to bring his own pistol to bear with the other.

  Rita pumped in another round. Since she didn’t have a clear shot at the man’s center mass, she aimed at his head instead. Later, she’d realize that she could have taken the much easier center mass shot. At that range, a solid slug fired from a 12 gauge would have blown right through the man standing in front. But this was her first gunfight—and it was a mistake even experienced gunmen probably would have made.

  The head shot missed, not surprisingly. But the man she’d fired at, who was also not thinking clearly, frantically pushed his dying comrade aside so he could bring up his own pistol and fire.

  And miss. The shot went completely wild, in fact, striking the wall of the corridor and never even making it into the room Rita was standing in.

  Now she had a center mass shot. She pumped in another round and fired.

  And missed. Her intended target, at least—but the shot went high and struck her opponent on the side of the head. A chunk of his skull was torn off and the corridor was splattered with blood and brains all the way to the outside entrance another fifteen feet further down the corridor. The man spun completely around, dropping his pistol, and then collapsed on top of his companion.

  Rita jacked in another round. The next thing she knew, she was doused with cold water.

  “Hey!” she squealed, spinning around to face this new attack. Just in time, she managed not to point the shotgun at her husband.

  “Don’t move, dammit,” Tom growled. “You’re on fire.” He had the faucet running in the basin and the saucepan under it. A couple of seconds later, he threw half the contents over her dress.

  Looking down, she saw that there were still some flames flickering along one edge. />
  And her leg hurt. She’d been burned, she realized.

  “Ow,” she said.

  Tom took the time with the third panful to lift up the hem of her dress and carefully pour the water over the still-burning and smoldering spots, instead of just splashing it on her.

  “You’d better see to your wounds and change clothes,” he said, setting the pan down on the table he’d used to disable the first assailant.

  Who, for his part, issued a groan.

  Tom leaned over, lifted the man to his feet with one hand, slammed the back of his head against the door jamb again, then let him slump to the ground.

  This impact was far more savage than the first. The man would be unconscious for hours. If he wasn’t dead—Tom was in a quiet fury and he was very strong.

  “I’ve got to go see what’s happening, hon,” he said, reaching for the jacket of his uniform hanging by the door.

  For the first time, Rita realized there was a cacophony of shouts and gunfire coming from outside. It sounded like the whole city was under attack.

  It finally dawned on her that this hadn’t been a house invasion by criminals.

  “What do you think...?”

  Now, Tom was buckling the holster with his sidearm around his waist. He’d had that hanging by the door also.

  “At a guess, the Bavarians are attacking.”

  “But how’d they—”

  “Get in? Treachery, I figure. Has to have been, as many as there are from the sounds of it.”

  His gun holstered, Tom stepped forward, reached out and plucked out the splinter above her hip. That was her first realization that it was there.

  “That’s probably nothing to worry about,” Tom said. “It’s hardly even bleeding, from the looks of your dress. But you’d better see to your arm.”

  For a moment, he seemed to be dancing back and forth, obviously torn by indecision. Rita shook her head.

  “I’ll be fine,” she said. “Go see to your men.”