Grantville Gazette. Volume XX (ring of fire) Read online

  "Yes, Herr Bosboom. I think we all would like to know that."

  "Marta, that isn't all Herr Bosboom has to tell us. He said down at the mill that these generators are making money for other millers." Turning to their guest, he continued, "What's that all about? What makes this an attractive proposition?"

  "Well. There's one simple fact about electricity. It's the cheapest and most convenient way to move a lot of mechanical power from where it is to where you want it. That pumping problem Winkler has is just one example. His little generator could equally well supply electric lights to a village of a dozen houses. And that's the smallest model our company makes. Seventeen of our big ones run all of Grantville."

  "Electric lights in houses. Yes, I can see what that means, steady income all year round, doesn't it? But if we turned all the power of our wheel into electricity and sold it, there would be nothing left to run the mill."

  "Actually, the usual kind of wheel captures less than half the power of the water running over it. And a lot more is lost in the runs along the brook from one mill wheel to the next. There's a fellow teaching water power the way they did it in their nineteenth century. I've attended some of his lectures. That brook out there could deliver at least ten times as much power as you're getting now, if you used all of their tricks."

  ***

  There was more. A great deal more. As much as Marta wanted to ask the foreign visitor about his family, his life, all the places he'd been, she put it aside. There was just too much that could be vital to her own family's future. She could see her husband too, struggling to make sense of all these new thoughts fighting for room in his head.

  Finally Bosboom sat back and stretched. "Well, thank you very much for all your hospitality. I really should get some sleep now. I need to be on my way soon after sunrise."

  Marta answered, "Oh, it was a pleasure. You've been generous to let us ask you so many questions. I'll have a bit of cheese and bread ready in the morning for you to take along. Stefan, show Herr Bosboom where he can sleep tonight."

  Their footsteps faded out, up the stairs.

  Marta stayed seated, staring across the room at the hearth, her chin cradled in her folded hands. "Gerd…"

  "What is it?"

  "He said we could sell enough power to light a village, and still have enough to run the mill."

  "Well, yes…"

  "Think what that means. Our water rights are enough to make electricity to sell, and still run a mill. That mill could be just as easily run by electricity, somewhere else. "

  "But, why…"

  "Ours isn't the only wheel on this stream. Somebody else could put in a generator and sell enough electricity to run a mill, and send it down to the village and run a mill there. And then the farmers wouldn't have to cart their grain all the way up here."

  Gerd froze. "Marta! If that happened, we'd be ruined!"

  " Unless we did it first. Gerd, maybe this is only a fantasy. But if electricity means the mill could be away from the brook and put where the farmers are, then we must be the ones to do it."

  "But, wait a minute. We have the only milling rights around here."

  "You've been reading the newspapers as much as I have. As strong as the free trade factions have become in Parliament, how much can we really count on that, any more?"

  Gerd began to pace. "If, if, if. So on one hand, if we do nothing, all these changes could wash over us and take away our business. But if we do all this and it doesn't work, we could spend a lot of money and get nothing back from it. And we're already short of money. I don't know what we're going to do about a coat for Peter, he's grown so much lately. What have these strange people done, Marta? Made us some bizarre kind of offer we can't refuse?"

  "More like… given us an opportunity we'd be fools to ignore. But what we must do is find out the truth about all of this. The one thing we can't afford to do is guess."

  ***

  Thump. Rustle.

  "Urrr. Are you still tossing and turning?"

  "I can't sleep, Marta. I don't know what's going to happen to us."

  "Well, it isn't going to happen tomorrow, or probably even next year. Meanwhile, if it's slipped your fevered mind, there's the flour order for that mysterious army camp on the mountain. And they pay on time, if we ship on time. So the first thing to do is get your sleep."

  "Yes, I know. But still…"

  "Still. Yes." She chuckled softly. "Well, I know what will make you sleep." She snuggled closer. She laid her fingertips on his chest. She nibbled his ear. "Hmmm?"

  "Mmmm…"

  ***

  Their guest came downstairs just as the family was settling down to breakfast. Marta picked up a package wrapped in newspaper and handed it to him. "This should help you keep body and soul together on the way back. How is your shoulder this morning?"

  "Better, but I still feel it. I should be able to ride all right, though."

  "I'm glad to hear it. Here, sit down." She busied herself setting another place next to Stefan. She looked across the table. Well, Gerd was looking a lot calmer this morning.

  A few minutes passed in silence. Gerd looked up from his plate. "Herr Bosboom, we're going to look into all this. I think before we visit any of these places you told us about, we ought to read up as much as we can first, so we understand what we're seeing. You mentioned books. Which ones would you suggest I order?"

  "Hmm. I think, to start with, I'd suggest The Modern Millwright's Electrical Guide, and Installing Antique Wiring. Maybe the Thuringia Electrical Code. They're all available in German."

  " Antique? What? Are you saying the ancients did this kind of thing?"

  "Hah, no." The engineer laughed. "The up-timer electrician who wrote it has a slightly twisted sense of humor. You see, they can't make the materials for the kind of wiring they're used to. Not yet, anyway. So they had to go back to the forgotten methods of their great-grandfathers, and there weren't any books around to describe them. Not in enough detail, anyway. They had to examine surviving examples in a few old barns, and figure out how it was done."

  "They didn't pass their skills down? I never heard of such a trade."

  "Oh, they did, they did, from one generation to the next one, and that's the funny thing. The materials and the methods changed fast. Very fast. That seems to happen, when the up-timer Americans are involved. After a hundred years, everything was completely different, and there was no use for the older ways.

  "So now, they're trying to get back to where they were in just a few years. It's learn the trade, and then every time something new comes along, read another book or manual. I'll tell you, it never gets boring."

  Gerd ruefully scratched his head. "No, I don't suppose it does. Things are changing all around us, since those people appeared."

  "True. But, you know? We lived in changing times before any of this happened." He laughed. "They've certainly made it blindingly obvious, though."

  Three months later

  Marta was down at the mill keeping a close eye on things. The batch of coarse meal Stefan was grinding looked satisfactory enough. She glanced over at the new switchboard, with the metal case and the circuit breaker handle sticking out the front, that Gerd had insisted on after he got his hands on an electrical supply catalog. Winkler had squawked like a chicken over that one, but Gerd had roared like a bear. Well, he could look like a bear when he wanted to. The front panel had meters, too-she could see that the frequency was holding right on the mark. She returned her attention to the ledger in front of her.

  Halfway down a column of figures, Marta glanced up with a momentary flicker of annoyance as Peter stuck his head out the door for what must be the tenth time that morning.

  "Mama! They're coming!"

  She put down the ledger and hurried outside, with Stefan right behind her. There Gerd and Ilsabe were, just coming into sight around the bend in the road. They waved, and walked a little faster. Half a minute later they were dropping their traveling bags at their feet, and Mar
ta was seizing them both in a two-armed embrace.

  "I've read all your letters over and over. Oh, Fraulein Apprentice Electrician, I'm so proud of you!"

  "I'm not an apprentice yet, Mama. I still have to take the entrance examinations. The man at the power company said it will take a couple of months of study here at home, before I'll be ready for that."

  "But the director of training was very complimentary, Marta. He said Ilsabe has the skill and the strength of character to take on the responsibilities of an electrician, and that's what they value most. He promised her a place as soon as she passes the tests."

  "What an honor for you, Ilsabe!"

  "And now…" He reached into his bag and pulled out a bank draft. "Look at this!"

  She took it with an indrawn breath. "Oh, Gerd! This is most of what we owe. And now that Winkler is paying us, it won't take long to pay off the rest. You wrote about this, but just how did you manage to come home with more money than you started out with?"

  "Luck was on our side, for once. You knew that Herr Bosboom advised us to go see the water works at the Braun and Scharff machine tool factory, so we could understand what water power can really do?"

  She nodded.

  "Well, it was the head millwright who showed us everything and explained how it all works. That was more of Herr Bosboom's doing. Their wheel is so small I could get my two arms around it, and it gives them hundreds of horsepower. Amazing! Anyway, it came out in conversation that he was short of temporary help to get a new part of the building running, and here we were with mill experience. So he hired the two of us for a month's work at good wages, helping his men hang line shafts and doing other mechanical work. We've missed you all terribly, but this was an opportunity we couldn't let slip away. Peter, I think you're taller."

  Ilsabe broke in, "One of the men showed me how they put up electric lights, and I did a few myself."

  "So she's done a little of the work with her own hands, and liked it. So, I consented to the apprenticeship."

  Marta hugged them again. "I'm so glad you're home. You must both be ravenous after walking all the way from the train station. Stefan, you can stop the millstones now. We'll go eat, and then we'll talk."

  "Oh, yes, Marta. There's so much to talk about."

  ***

  Gerd eyed the pole and crossarm lying on the ground. Peter was taking a turn with the tools Theodor Dranitz had borrowed from the mine. He slammed the heavy bar into the bottom of the hole once more, and worked it around to loosen the dirt. That boy is getting strong! Stefan moved in with a post hole digger to lift out what Peter had loosened-a wonderful tool.

  "That's deep enough, boys."

  The four of them took their places around the pole and picked it up. Into the hole went the butt. Theodor, Gerd, and Stefan pushed up the top end as far as they could while Peter took up the slack in the tackle hitched part way up and belayed it. Then Gerd ran around and helped him haul the pole upright, while Theodor and Stefan steadied it from the side. Gerd walked around with a plumb line, making hand motions until the pole was vertical.

  "Okay, Peter, it's straight. You can back fill it."

  "It looks okay to me too, and I can tell where you've been lately!"

  Gerd looked over his shoulder in surprise. It was Jan Willem Bosboom, riding up the road. Gerd's face lit up with a lopsided grin and a mischievous gleam in his eye. "Oh, yeah? I wasn't expecting to see you, though. What brings you up here?"

  "I have a customer to visit nearby, and your mill isn't far out of the way. I thought I'd see how things are going." He dismounted and came over to shake hands.

  "Things are going in directions I never imagined. Marta and I were only thinking of buying a generator of our own, you know, and selling what power we could spare from our own wheel."

  Bosboom nodded.

  "Did you know what all those people you arranged for us to see in Grantville have in mind?"

  "Not exactly, but I thought they'd tell you what you wanted to know, so you could decide what to do."

  "Hmmph. It seems they weren't interested in anything as modest as that. The government wants some little commercial power plants up here in the mountains, to help the mines get going again. Tiny by their standards, but a lot bigger than we could run with only our family water rights. There are investors ready to finance it, if we can show them a business plan that makes sense. So I asked them why they would think of coming to us to put something like that together, and do you know what they said?"

  Bosboom shook his head.

  "They said, 'There's nobody else to do it.' I think it must be their favorite saying down there."

  "Now that you mention it, you're right. That's just about what they said to me when I was hired."

  "So Marta and I have been asking around to get an idea who might buy electricity if we go ahead with all this, and we've been talking to our neighbors up and down this brook to see what kind of deal we might be able to make to combine some water rights. You know that phrase 'sweet-talking' some of the up-timers use? She has a talent for it. And meanwhile, we're learning all we can about running a power plant, while it's still mostly on Winkler's pfennig."

  Bosboom threw his head back and laughed. A second later everybody else was laughing too. He waved his hand toward the pole. "So what's this for?"

  "We're putting up a power line to the house. We only need two poles and a small transformer. We'll have one light in the kitchen and one over the dining table. After all, who would take us seriously if we couldn't show electricity working in our own home?"

  "Who, indeed?"

  "So, will you stay for dinner?"

  "I'm sorry, they're expecting me up ahead. I'll just pay my respects to Frau Seidelin, and then I have to be on my way."

  "No more Herr Hartmann and Frau Seidelin from you, with all you've done for us! It's Gerd and Marta from now on."

  "Well, then, call me Jan Willem." He put out his hand to shake again.

  Theodor said, "Herr Bosboom, I'm glad you came by. There's something I'd like to ask you about."

  "Yes, what is it?"

  "Well, Herr Winkler has been talking about another mining improvement he's heard of, that he thinks will help us dig the ore out much faster." He paused. "Do you know anything about something called nitroglycerin?"

  ***

  One Fine Day

  John Zeek

  Dec. 23, 1633

  "Where is it? It's late," Heinrich muttered under his breath as he waited impatiently for the tram. Soon he would be out of this nest of heretics. Soon he would far away from this cursed city, this Grantville, the so-called city from the future. He smiled. Soon he would be rich. Then he heard the rumble of the tram wheels on the tracks. "Finally, here it comes," he said aloud, ignoring the looks he got from the shoppers standing around him at the tram stop.

  The tram was one of the "Motor Trams." He thought about finding the secret to that "motor" and how it would make him a rich man. No, he forced the thought to the back of his mind. I have enough right here. He patted the pack he carried.

  The tram came to a lurching stop. As luck would have it, he had to wait while nine other people boarded. At the front of the line were two boys and an older man; all three had packages. Heinrich took them for up-timers from their clothing, but the boys were chattering away in German. Behind them were four women loaded down with packages and two men carrying tool boxes. When he finally was able to board there were no empty seats.

  He had ridden trams for two weeks and they were never this crowded what was special about today? He studied the people. Were any of them here to watch for him? Was it a trap? A man tapped his shoulder from behind. "Move on to the back and make room for the rest of us to board, please."

  Heinrich dropped his money in the fare box and moved toward the rear of the vehicle. His pack banged into the ends of the seats and once into the shoulder of a large woman. So much for being inconspicuous. He felt like everyone was looking at him.

  "Sir, would li
ke a seat?"

  Heinrich looked; it was one of the boys he had seen getting on the tram.

  "Sir, would like my seat? I like to ride standing up and you could put your pack in the overhead rack." The boy pointed to the tray hanging from the ceiling over the seats.

  Heinrich clutched his pack tightly to his chest. " Nein. I will move to the rear." Then grudgingly he added, " Danke."

  Heinrich moved toward the rear of the tram until he could see out the rear window. He studied the people on the street; it looked like no one was following him. The tram stopped with a lurch; Heinrich almost lost his footing but was able to recover. Four people shoved past him to get off and he was finally able to sit down.

  "Now I'm on my way." He sighed as he sank into the seat and drew odd looks from the people around him.

  "Traveling someplace?" the old woman sitting beside him asked. "Maybe you are going to visit relatives?" She tapped the pack on his lap.

  " Nein, just going home from work." Heinrich pretended to go to sleep. Stop asking questions, you nosey old woman. Luckily the woman got off at the next stop.

  When he opened his eyes, Heinrich saw that the tram was clearing out; each stop saw more people get off than on. Finally there was only the man and the two boys riding behind the driver. The tram bounced to a stop in front of a large house; the man and one of the boys got off. "Is this the last stop?" Heinrich called out. "I need to get off."

  The driver answered, "I stop at the top of the hill to refuel. That is the last stop. After that we head back to town."

  Heinrich gathered his pack by its straps and started moving to the door. He was surprised to see the boy scoot out the door as the tram came to a stop. Heinrich was just stepping down from the tram when he heard the driver say something out the window to the boy. Heinrich turned to look and his pack tangled with his legs and he stepped on a patch of ice. "Oh, merde."