Conrad Starguard - Lord Conrad's Lady Part 14

So why not move the entire R&D section from Three-Walls to Okoitz? Three Walls was getting overcrowded, and we were starting to run out of building s.p.a.ce there.

R&D was probably the easiest group to move, and it would give us something to do with all the extra s.p.a.ce we had in the castle. My own household was outgrowing my old apartment at Three Walls, since everybody seemed to be sprouting body servants, and Count Lambert's vast apartment might suit me very nicely. Yes.

All this was going on in my subconscious mind as I toured the factory. My conscious mind was mostly on the hundreds of s.e.xy young ladies who were working the machines. They were all flirtatious and tended to wear as little as the temperature permitted. Another good reason for moving R&D here was that the apprentices who made up two-thirds of the teams would surely appreciate the scenery hereabouts. I certainly did!

Mulling through my thoughts, I tried to have supper quietly in the big cafeteria, but the manager of the factory, a Florentine named Angelo Muskarini, insisted that I give a speech to those present. There was nothing for it but to oblige him.

"Thank you," I said when the girls and farmers had quit screaming at me. "As you doubtless all know, the war is over, and the good guys have won!" This brought on more cheers. When they died down, I continued. "The important fact for all of you ladies to know is that except in the river battalion, our losses were small, and that if your favorite young man has not gotten back yet, he will likely be coming here soon." More cheers and bouncing up and down.

"I suppose that you have all heard that my liege lord, the n.o.ble Count Lambert Piast, died honorably in the defense of his country. You also know that I was named his heir. I simply want to say that I intend to make very few changes around here, and those will all be for the better. We will be expanding our cloth-making operations, since for the last two years our shepherds have actually been selling raw, unprocessed wool to foreigners, to be spun and woven in foreign lands instead of here. To counter this trend, we will be hiring more workers and making better, more efficient machinery for you to work at.

This will mean putting a new group of intelligent young men to work here to design and build the new equipment, but I expect that you fine ladies can keep these poor lads from getting too lonely! " Again, more cheers.

"Perhaps, if you make them welcome enough, we'll move all of our research groups here. Well, we'll see. There is one other major change that I would like to make, however. Up until now you fine ladies have been working for cloth, not money. That is to say, you have been working on a barter system. What would you think about being paid in money instead? Then you could buy cloth, at special prices, if you wanted to, but you could also buy anything else you wanted as well." The reaction was mixed. Some cheered but they were probably doing that out of habit. Most didn't do anything, since this was a new thought for them.

"Well, you think about it, and we'll talk it over again when I return in a few weeks. You might want to elect four or five representatives to negotiate for you. Also, what would you farmers think about my dividing Lambert's farmland up among you, thus having your own land doubled, paying taxes or a fee on it to pay for what you and your families eat here in the cafeteria and then selling your crops to the kitchens here for money? I'm not saying that we have to do it this way, but I want you to think about it.

That's about it. I want to finish my dinner now, even if it has gotten cold. I'll be back in a few weeks."

Of course, a lot of the girls had all sorts of questions ' and they had no qualms about shoving the peasants aside and putting their scantily clad young bodies out in front. After a while I tried to get away and pleaded fatigue, but four of them sort of invited themselves to talk further with me in Lambert's old chambers. They were all pretty. A plain girl wouldn't have dared to be that pushy, fearing rejection.

There is a limit to how many times a man can say no, and I pa.s.sed it. I was bleary-eyed the next morning and told myself that I was getting too old for this sort of thing.

I met Muskarini for breakfast and told him about the rest of my planned changes. Lambert had been running the entire factory on a barter system. Wool and flax were provided by his va.s.sals, and like the workers, they received a portion of the finished cloth in return . The problem was that wool comes in various grades, of different values. The long wool from the sides of the animal is far more valuable than are the short hairs that grow on the legs. And some sheep grow much finer wool than others do. The workers had various skill levels in different crafts, and we produced hundreds of grades and types of cloth, again worth all different amounts. The accounting required by all of this was so ridiculously complicated that I doubt if anybody really knew what was going on.

There was a very good reason why Lambert had done things in this strange way. By the terms of his separation with his wife, he had to send her one-half of all the money that he took in. Not half of his net income but half of the cash that he grossed. When he had made this agreement, it had been reasonable enough, since most of what little money Lambert got he received from selling his surplus agricultural products, what was left over after he and his peasants had eaten most of it. His old castle had been built for him by his people out of local materials. His smiths made many of the things that he needed. Cash money was just something with which to buy occasional luxury goods from the merchants, not something that was needed for life itself. Also, Lambert's wife had very extensive estates of her own in Hungary to support herself with, so she wasn't hurting.

But all this changed when I built him a productive factory. He could hardly pay her one-half of the gross cash worth of the products of his factory, since the cost of materials and labor was well over half the sale price. Running the clothworks with a conventional accounting system would have put him quickly out of business. Indeed, for several months, until he came up with the barter solution to his problem, he was very difficult to work with!

I was under no such liability, and I wanted to know what was happening financially, so I ordered the factory changed over to a sensible money system. We would buy our wool and flax with money, pay the workers with money, and sell all our output for money. Well, we'd offer special discounts to our workers and vendors to keep them happy, but it would now be an accountable system.

Muskarini was not at all pleased with my changes and came up with all sorts of ridiculous reasons why we couldn't convert to a cash system. This made me suspect that he had his hand in the till somehow.

After two hours of arguing with the man, I told him that he would do it my way or I would send him back to the garret that I had found him in nine years before. That quieted him down some. On leaving him, I went to the inn and sent a message ordering a team of accountants and time-study men to descend on this place, ASAP!

I saddled Silver to get to my next stop, Eagle Nest, before lunch. The medieval world had no great collection of restaurants available to travelers, and you generally had to time your trips around the hours when food was served at the manors and factories if you didn't want to miss a lot of meals.

As I was leaving, one of the girls who had spent the night with me was waiting by the drawbridge. She smiled and reminded me that Eagle Nest was an all-male inst.i.tution, and didn't I really want some companionship tonight? I decided that if I didn't give her a lift, she'd probably hitchhike there, putting herself into all sorts of danger. At least that was how I rationalized it to myself. I pulled her aboard and set her on the saddle bow. She was the prettiest of last night's group, with incredibly soft skin for so slender a person and the longest legs I've seen this side of a Hollywood musical. Her name was Zenya.

I found that I rather liked having a girl sitting in front of me, where we could talk easily, as opposed to having her behind, riding apillion. I resolved to have a saddle made up with a more comfortable seat for a woman up front.

The boys at Eagle Nest were always enthusiastic, bustling about wherever they went, and their mood was infectious. They had eight planes flying now, and many more were being built. Their eagerbeaver att.i.tude toward whatever they were doing was a joy to watch. It was such a pity that I was going to have to slam them down hard!

On being told that all the aircraft were brand-new, except for the engines, I said, "But there are the nine planes that were still intact after crash-landing on the battlefield at Sandomierz. They were sent here immediately after the battle. What happened to them?"

We asked around, but no one had any knowledge of them. They had received the thirteen engines that we had hauled back with the booty, but whole planes? No, sir!

What bothered me worse than losing the planes was the fact that each of those planes had been strapped to the top of a war cart that had been manned by a full platoon of warriors. Where were all those men?

I sent a dozen messages out, trying to locate them, but had no luck. A company and a half of men had simply disappeared! We never did find them, their equipment, or the airplanes, either. It remains a mystery that is told late at night around the fires, and the story grows a bit with each retelling.

Interlude Three I hit the STOP b.u.t.ton and started fumbling with the keyboard, trying to call up the Historical Corps records on just what had happened to all those men and all that equipment. I wasn't that used to the system, and it took me quite a while to get what I wanted.

The naked girl at my side looked on without saying anything, so I explained to her what I was after. She just said, "Yes, sir."

She was a cuddly little thing and seemed to enjoy my light petting, but she didn't have a lot to say. I mean, she didn't actually encourage my roving hands, but she didn't object any, either.

Eventually I dug out what I was looking for.

"Those men were caught in a Mongol ambush," I told her. "They were going without a cavalry screen, and those planes on their war carts made it hard to get their weapons out. They were killed to a man.

Then the Mongol commander had their armor and equipment sent straight back to the east, and the bodies hidden. If the Mongol craftsmen can figure out the guns and planes, Conrad is going to have some serious problems on his hands!"

"Yes, sir," she said.

I hit the START b.u.t.ton.

Chapter Twenty-five.

FROM THE DIARY OF CONRAD STARGARD.

Since the war was over, the boys were back at their usual two shifts, going to school in either the mornings or the afternoons and working in the shops or flying on the opposite shift. I couldn't address them all until after the evening meal.

"Gentlemen. First off, I want to thank you for your dedicated service in the war that together we have just won. While a final head count is not yet in, I think that I am safe in saying that over two million Mongols were killed on the banks of the Vistula by our riverboats, and those boats could not have done half that job without your accurate scouting and reporting of enemy positions. I think that it is fair to say that a million of the enemy owe their timely deaths to your own very good work! That's more than were killed by the regulars at Sandomierz, Cracow, and Three Walls combined!"

"Furthermore, the land forces were able to defeat the Mongols that got over the Vistula with relatively light losses. That would not have been true had there been another million enemy troops fighting against them. We could have been totally defeated! And had the Christian army lost, Poland would have been lost. The fifty thousand or so knights that waited with Duke Henryk at Legnica probably would not have fared any better than Duke Boleslaw's conventional knights at Sandomierz. You deserve much of the credit for saving all of Christendom!"

They spent some time cheering. I let them go on until they wore themselves out. Then I told them the other half of the story.

"On the other hand, your performance was far from perfect. First off, you totally missed the entire Mongol army that skirted the Carpathian Mountains and entered Poland by crossing the rivers where they are scarcely more than mountain streams. You got so involved with patrolling the Vistula that you didn't bother looking south of it. You not only did not find them, you made the near-fatal mistake of a.s.suming that they could not be there!"

"Worse yet, you did not sit on Count Lambert when he got the stupid idea of landing at Sandomierz to take part in the 'final' battle with the Mongols. True, he was your liege lord and you were required to follow him, but it was also your duty to give him good advice, and there you failed him completely! You failed him, and he and two dozen of your cla.s.smates died because of your failure. They died uselessly, because of one man's vanity and your pusillanimity. And then, since we had no aerial reconnaissance, Cracow was burned because of your failure! East Gate fell because of your failure! Three Walls was attacked because of your failure! "

A look of dark horror was spreading over the boys. I stopped and let my words sink in. Then I continued, "The trained warriors of the Christian army would not have failed in this fashion. Part of the training they get clearly defines their duty to both their subordinates and their superiors. They know what courage, and honor, and duty really are. And you must learn!"

"Therefore, Eagle Nest, with all who work and fly here, is going to be absorbed into the Christian army.

Starting one year from today, no one over fourteen years of age will bee allowed up in a plane who has not completed the full one-year course at the Warrior's School. This means that in the next two years every one of you is going through that school, and if you want to swear fealty to me and not have to give up flying forever, you had better pa.s.s the course! That includes the instructors as well."

"The Warrior's School will be starting up again in two weeks. I will expect half of those of you who are over fourteen to be at it. In the future, no new student will be accepted here without first being a warrior.

That's all that will count, besides good eyesight and physical fitness. Eagle Nest will no longer be a haven for those of n.o.ble birth. Anyone who can qualify will get in. And it will no longer be an all-male organization. Qualified young ladies will be flying within the year."

"I am Conrad, and I taught you that air is strong! Believe what I say!"

"On the plus side, this means that all of you boys and men will soon be drawing a regular army salary, and your various benefits will be brought in line with theirs."

"Oh, yes. You will also be getting a share of the rather extensive booty that the army took, so if not exactly rich, you are all at least quite nicely off. I'd like to speak to the instructors tomorrow morning for about a half hour to discuss scheduling. Good night!"

I had jerked the boys around pretty severely, and I didn't want to sit in on the inevitable bull sessions that would occur while they absorbed it all. I went immediately to the small room that was always reserved for me there. Zenya was waiting for me, of course, but I firmly resolved to get at least some sleep that night.

My next stop was Coaltown, where things were booming nicely. The coal seam there was one of the most ma.s.sive in the world, being fully two dozen yards thick, Once our miners had penetrated through the substantial layer of limestone above it and the layer of clay between the coal and the limestone, they had just been going in any which way. It didn't seem to matter to them, since wherever you dug, you were digging through coal.

We set up a more rational system of exploitation. Surveyors transferred a true east-west line down to the bottom of the main elevator. Then the miners cut a barrel-vaulted chamber, two dozen yards wide and a dozen yards high, through the limestone, leaving the clay on the floor. Every four dozen yards they started a cross-vault to send shafts at right angles to the main one. The limestone was sent to the cement plant.

When these miners got a gross yards east of the shaft, another group started harvesting the clay for the brick works. And this group was followed by coal miners, who could work with a stone ceiling over their heads, which, being vaulted, wasn't likely to cave in. Not only did this prove to be an efficient way to get the minerals out, it also left behind these huge, cathedral-like rooms and tunnels that sure looked to be useful for something.

The next day I went to Copper City. Here the Krakowski brothers had things well in hand, and production was going full swing. They were delighted that the city was now army property, though in fact it didn't actually change anything immediately except for some accounting procedures. In the long run, though, it meant that we didn't have to get Duke Henryk's permission to change things, and that speeded things up a bit. Mostly, I had asked for the city because I had been pretty sure that I could get it at the time. Greedy of me.

Then we raced back to Three Walls and got there on the evening of the fifth day since leaving East Gate.

At last I could get down to being an engineer again!

Zenya had just sort of tagged along during the trip, and I really couldn't just leave the girl in what was to her a foreign city. Once back at Three Walls, she sort of fell in with my other three servants and proved to be outstanding at giving back rubs. A week pa.s.sed before Sonya asked me if she shouldn't be put on the payroll like everybody else. By then I had gotten so used to having her around that I went along with it. Yet the whole affair nagged me. Had I hired her, or had she hired me?

Francine was still staying in Cracow, and that was fine by me. She could come back when she was ready, but I'd be d.a.m.ned if I was going to beg her to come home.

Despite my firm intentions to do technical work, my next four days were spent doing managerial stuff.

There were the plans for the new standardized factories to be gone over and approved, and then the plans for the factory that would make the precast concrete structural members for the standard factories.

The bills of materials had to be carefully scrutinized, since we would be putting these buildings up at the rate of one per week for the next two dozen years or so. Little mistakes can become big mistakes when you are working with those sorts of numbers.

And each of these structures was more than just a factory.

Each housed a complete company of workers and their families, with a school, a church, a cafeteria, and many of the usual things that a stand-alone company needed. Well, since they would be built right next to each other, they could share facilities on certain things. They didn't each need a separate general store, for example, and inns were built only at the rate of one for every two companies, although they had to be larger, of course. Rather than having one medical officer per company, they were grouped in clinics that each served six companies, so that there were always two doctors on duty at any time of the day or night.

We were really planning a huge industrial city, and except for some land set aside for hobby gardening, there would be no agricultural work being done. But at the same time a city environment needs things that a country place can do without, and each factory had a gymnasium and a swimming pool.

The factories were to be built on both sides of the Coaltown-East Gate railway, which would be expanded to four tracks and roofed over in the course of construction. In the future, bad weather wouldn't slow down interfactory transportation.

Each company-sized factory/housing complex was to be seventy two yards long, three to six stories tall, and a half mile wide. It would be a strip with housing on the outside, then community services, and then a factory at the middle that ab.u.t.ted the covered railroads. All this would be under a single roof, and it would rarely be necessary to go outside in the cold Polish winter.

Building one a week, on alternate sides of the road, we would be constructing a long strip city, a mile wide and growing a mile longer every year. It would be called Katowice after my hometown in modem Poland.

A more difficult job was scheduling just what each of these factories would produce and making sure that they had the machinery and skills to produce it. There were many crowded product sections in our existing system, and much of the job would consist of moving them to Katowice and enlarging and modernizing them in the process.

After a few years, once we had at least three companies producing a given product, we would be able to use a system where the captain of each company would have almost complete control over what his group would be making and how they would make it. Functionally, it would be a free enterprise system.

But free enterprise doesn't work well when there is only one producer and only one consumer, and for start-up, that would be the situation. Most of what would be produced would be needed for building these factories and for the concrete forts we would start putting up next year. We had specific requirements, and it would have to be regulated from the top. It was a ma.s.sive scheduling job, but at least there wasn't much politics involved. It was such an audacious project that people got a kick out of just jumping in and doing their best.

Chapter Twenty-six.

I was going over the truly bodacious amounts of steel reinforcing rod that would be needed, and subconsciously, worrying about how I was going to fairly divide up the booty without causing inflation, when a visitor arrived.

I wouldn't have been disturbed this way if I had still had Natalia working for me, but the new girls weren't as sharp as she was. Four people were trying hard to replace one, and they were doing a poor job at id, I didn't realize what a treasure I had until I lost her.

Anyway, this guy was standing at my drawing board, trying to get my attention while I was doing arithmetic in my head. He was covered with rings, brooches, necklaces, and other jewelry, a thing I have never liked on a man. Personally, I wore almost none at all, except for the bra.s.s on my dress uniform.

And the solution hit me!

It was vitally important that each of the men get his fair share of the booty. I couldn't possibly cheat them and keep the army intact. Yet having that much spending cash dumped on the market would be equally disastrous. The answer was jewelry! Every man would get a new dress uniform with the epaulets, b.u.t.tons, buckles, insignia, sheaths, dirk handle, and sword guard in solid gold. With a little creativity we could probably get three or four pounds of gold on the lowest warrior basic!

And then there would be a glorious medal for being a member of the Radiant Warriors, bigger than a man's hand, and various other medals for valor and partic.i.p.ation in various battles. The women who manned the forts would get similar decorations., along with a nice dress uniform, which we didn't have as yet for the women, and the Big People would be decorated as well! And there should be something nice that a warrior could give to his wife, say, a necklace or a belt--or, better yet, both! They would get the booty, but not in the form of inflationary cash. Uniform doodads would stay off the market, because the men would have to come in dress uniform on certain occasions, and it would be embarra.s.sing to show up wearing mere bra.s.s.

I was smiling insanely when I looked up at the fellow and said, "Can I help you?"

"Well, yes, your grace," he said, confused by my grin. "I am Baron Zbigniew, and I was va.s.sal to Count Herman of Cieszyn. I have been told that you have inherited his estates. Is this true?"

Would you believe that what with all the things going on, I had completely forgotten about the city that I had inherited? I dropped my pencil and bent the lead point.

"I knew I forgot something! Forgive me, Baron. Yes, I now own Cieszyn and those lands that were held by both the count and his wife. There has been. so much happening lately that I have not had time yet to do everything. Look, for now have one of the secretaries put you up in the n.o.ble guest quarters, and we'll discuss the matter tonight at dinner."

"Yes, your grace. " The baron limped away on crutches.

When he was gone, I said to my lead architectural designer, "Do you know of anybody who would want to be my representative in Cieszyn?"

"Why not Komander Wrocek, sir? I served under him in the war. He is a member of the old n.o.bility, so he knows the game, and he lost his leg at the fight in Cracow, so he won't be of much more use to the regular army. He should be up and around by now, I expect."

"Not a bad thought, Josep. Betty, go to records and get me Wrocek's file. Then check through the files and get me the names of all the officers, captain and above, who were permanently disabled in the fighting. Sitting at the high table and presiding might be just the job for them. There are going to be a lot of posts like this to fill once the knights get back from Hungary."

I tried to get back to what I was doing, but other things were nagging me. I sent a message to my jeweler, telling him to see me, and another to Francine: MY DEAR WIFE, IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO JOIN ME AT THREE WALLS, WHAT WOULD.

YOU THINK OF BEING MY REPRESENTATIVE AT CIESZYN? CONRAD.

Francine answered back within the hour: MY DEAR HUSBAND, YOU ROB ME OF THE CROWN OF POLAND, AND NOW YOU.

WANT TO STUFF ME INTO A BACKWATER PLACE LIKE CIESZYN? MAY YOUR DEAR.

SOUL ROT IN h.e.l.l! FRANCINE.

I deduced by this that she was still unhappy. And now every radio operator in the army would know about it. I was angry at her, but I wouldn't hire a new maid this time. I was already one up.