The Grantville Gazette - Vol. 10 Part 32

"Dina is visiting her family."

Caleb grinned. "At the rectory at St. Martins? That's more like it. Come on, hop in. I'll just tell the housekeeper where we're going."

Well, at least that explained who the woman was. Phillip looked down at the car. It was a small four-door car. Compared to most of the American cars he'd seen, a very small car. He slid in and sat down. It was very different from the buses he had traveled in before. To his left he could see the steering wheel, the device by which the vehicle was steered. But other than the speedometer, that was all he recognized. He looked in the back. There was a bench seat that could take two or three people, and that was about all there was to it. A moment later Caleb returned and climbed into the driver's seat.

"Right. Shut your door and we'll be off."

Phillip copied Caleb's action of grabbing the handle on the door and pulling it closed. Then he sat still while Caleb did something under the steering wheel. There was a whirring noise, then the gentle rumble of an internal combustion engine. Caleb did something with the lever to his right and the car started moving.

Phillip sat back to enjoy the trip. He'd been on the Grantville buses often enough that the car's speed didn't bother him. But he was curious to know how fast they were going, so he leaned over a bit to read the speedometer. "Twenty-five miles per hour? It seems faster than that."

Caleb darted a look at Phillip before turning his eyes back to the road ahead. "You ever traveled in a car before?"

"No." Phillip shook his head. "Just the bus."

"That explains it. It's a perception thing. The closer you are to the ground, the faster you think you're going. If you were in something really low like Trent Haygood's buggy, you'd really think you were motoring."

Phillip tried to visualize what Caleb was talking about. He couldn't. "Could you explain how this 'perception' works?"

Caleb shook his head. "No, it's just something I know."

"Well, if you ever find an explanation, I'm sure we can schedule a seminar."

"Maybe you'd be better off getting someone else. I wouldn't know where to start."

Phillip enjoyed the run out to the rectory. He felt very important being driven in a private car, and waved to anybody who stopped to stare. "Caleb, how is it that you can run a car? I thought there wasn't enough fuel."

"You're thinking of gasoline. This car's a diesel. That means we can run it on just about anything that'll burn. If your nose is sensitive enough you'll be able to smell the rape seed oil. It's not cheap, but if we keep the speed down we should average over fifty miles to the gallon."

"Speed?" Phillip gave the car another look. "How fast can this car go?"

"The book on it says ninety-two and a bit miles per hour, but I've never had the old girl up to more than eighty-five."

"Eighty-five miles per hour?" Phillip had thought he was traveling fast at twenty-five. What would that kind of speed be like? Was it even safe? "You're kidding. Surely traveling that fast can't be safe."

Caleb grinned. "It's not the speed that kills you, Phillip. It's the coming to a sudden stop."

Phillip checked his watch. The car trip had been exciting. It had also brought him back to the rectory well ahead of schedule. But for Caleb's kindness, he'd still be waiting for his bus. Phillip dropped his watch back into its pocket and entered the rectory.

He could hear voices coming from the kitchen. It sounded as if Dina was sharing confidences with her step mother. That pleased him. He set off for the kitchen.

". . . said I was pregnant."

Phillip froze at the door. That was Dina talking. Did that mean she was with child? Phillip took a deep breath. It was, after all, a perfectly normal thing for a married woman to have a child. A couple of the older women he employed inJena were married with children. Only, he'd never thought of being a father.

But now that the possibility existed, he quite liked the idea. He could almost picture a pretty little girl who would take after her mother, or a boy to share his interests in alchemy. A broad smile on his face, he pushed open the kitchen door.

"Phillip!" Dina flew into his arms. "Such news. Dr. Shipley says I'm with child."

Phillip wrapped his arms around her. "That's marvelous, Dina. We must see about reducing your work load back home."

Dina pushed her way out of Phillip's arms. "I'm not ill, Phillip. I'm pregnant. It's a perfectly natural condition."

Phillip glanced hopefully at Dina's step mother. The self-satisfied look on her face told him there would be no support coming from that quarter. He struggled to think. What would Jonathan tell him to do? Then he smiled. When women start to gang up on you, there is only one way to survive. Abject surrender.

"Yes, dear." He reached out to Dina. She smiled and burrowed into his chest.

Salome snorted and left them alone in the kitchen.

The Higgins Hotel, Grantville Phillip sat on the bed beside Dina. She lay there with her hands on her belly and her head in his lap.

Phillip gently caressed her neck and shoulders.

"Phillip, Mama suggests I should have the baby in Grantville to take advantage of the medical services."

"Of course, Dina."

"With the train service, I can stay at home until almost the last minute, and still have our baby at the Grantville hospital."

Phillip stilled. He didn't have much experience of children, and even less experience of babies. But he was pretty sure of one thing. "Dina, I don't think even your baby will decide to come to fit the train schedule. It'd be much better if you moved in with your family, or we rented an apartment as you near your time."

"What? Leave home for a couple of weeks? But who will teach the children?"

"I'm sorry, Dina. But if you want to have the baby in Grantville, then you'll have to move here before you're due. Hans and your brothers can take your cla.s.ses while you're away."

Dina grabbed Phillip's hand. "No. You're just trying to cut back my work load."

"No I'm not."

"Prove it."

"Be reasonable, Dina. You can't rely on the train service to get you to the hospital in time. What you need is a personal ambulance . . ."

Suddenly, Phillip scrambled to his feet. "Don't go away. I have to make a telephone call."

"A phone call?"

He dipped down and kissed Dina on the tip of the nose. "Yes. I want to call a man about an ambulance."

"Call a man about an ambulance?" Surely that wasn't possible. Dina shook her head. If anybody could solve the problem of getting her fromJena to Grantville when the time came, it was Phillip.

She lay back on the bed and started to daydream about the child she carried. It would be a boy, with the intelligence of her husband, who would follow in his footsteps.

Downstairs at the Higgins Hotel Phillip waited impatiently for his call to be put through. Eventually someone answered.

"Fortney Consulting. Caleb Fortney speaking."

"h.e.l.lo, Caleb. This is Phillip Gribbleflotz. We met earlier in the day."

"Hey, hi, Phillip. What can I do for you?"

Phillip hesitated. How to ask? Obviously the Jonathan way was best. Just come straight out and state what you want. "I was wondering about that car you were driving earlier. Could you teach me to drive?"

"Yeah, well. Sure I could teach you. But I'm not the greatest teacher. Absolutely no patience. Just ask my daughter. I think d.i.c.k Clelland, the Driver's Ed teacher at the high school, would be your best bet."

"Thank you, Caleb. How do I go about making arrangements?"

"Just call the high school and ask the secretary to make an appointment. Mind, you'll need to provide your own car. Do you have one?"

"I was wondering it you could help me there. Do you know where I might buy something like the car we traveled in earlier today?"

"You can have that one if you like. It belongs to my daughter, Lynette. She married Kevin Fritz late last year and, well, they could use the money."

Phillip beamed. This was better than he had hoped for. The little car would be perfect on the narrow streets ofJena . Not that he intended to drive through them very often. Just once or twice, right past the university. "Thank you, Caleb. I'll let Frau Kubiak negotiate a fair price."

"Rightyo, and thanks. Lynette and Kevin will appreciate a quick sale. Reading between the lines, I think they're expecting my first grandchild."

"Thank you, Caleb, and congratulations on becoming a grandfather."

"It's not a sure thing yet, Phillip. The wife might be jumping to conclusions, but there must be a good reason why they suddenly asked if I could get the car ready for sale."

A month later Phillip waved goodbye to Trent Haygood, engaged gear, and drove off. After a month of commuting to Grantville for driving lessons, d.i.c.k Clelland had declared himself satisfied with Phillip's driving. However, Jonathan had suggested that Phillip might benefit from some lessons from a real driver. He shuddered when he remembered that first trip as a pa.s.senger inTrent 's vehicle. Caleb had been right. That close to the ground you really did think you were traveling very fast. Of course,Trent had driven fast. Over eighty miles per hour. It had been an interesting few hours, but now Phillip considered himself sufficiently skilled to safely drive Dina betweenJena and Grantville. Thanks to Caleb, he even had some idea how to maintain the car and its engine.

Phillip stopped just outside theLeahyMedicalCenter . He zeroed the trip meter, took note of the time and started the stopwatch function on his pocket watch. Then he set off home.

It was a gentle drive along the road connecting Grantville to Rudolstadt andJena . He kept the speed down for several reasons. Firstly, fuel economy and preserving the tires. The other reason was the fancy new road could be damaged if he traveled too fast.

He was happy to find that he had no difficulties with other road users. Not even when pa.s.sing through Rudolstadt and the villages on his route. Apparently the locals and their animals were used to the American vehicles, although a number of dogs had attempted to give chase.

Pulling up outside the door of his apartments at HDG Enterprizes, Phillip stopped the stopwatch. One hour eight minutes and four point three-four seconds. Not bad for a run of, he checked the trip meter, of twenty-six and three-tenths miles. It was certainly much quicker than going by train, and it was door to door.

Phillip undid the seatbelt, a safety measureTrent had recommended he use, and reached for the door latch. That was when he realized he'd attracted a crowd. Pushing the door open he set about showing off his new car.

Two months later Dina knocked on the door of Phillip's laboratory and poked her head in. "Phillip. You haven't forgotten that I have an appointment to see Dr. Shipley this afternoon?"

"Of course not, Dina. If you're ready, I'll come now."

Dina suppressed a sigh. She had used to think Phillip was perfect. She now knew that he wasn't. But she had to admit, he tried. Although sometimes he was just "trying." Like right now, when it should be obvious that she was ready to go. "I'm ready, dear."

Phillip knew how to take a hint. He marked his place and put the book he'd been reading into his shoulder bag. He could read some more while Dina was with the doctor. He called over to his a.s.sistant.

"Hans, you know the drill."

Hans nodded.

"Right, Dina, I'm all yours." Phillip slung the shoulder bag over his shoulder and escorted Dina out of his office and set off for the garage.

The garage was a work of art. There was plenty of room for the car, and anybody working on it. It was heated by a radiator, because Caleb had suggested that there might be problems with the fuel jelling in cold weather. The car itself was covered by a heavy quilt custom made for the job.

A couple of laborants removed and folded the cover while Phillip led Dina to the pa.s.senger door and helped her in. After making sure she was comfortable and was wearing her seatbelt, he walked around to the driver's side. Stopping a couple of times to polish specks off the metal work and the rear window.

Before entering the car he checked the windshield for blemishes. Finally he got in.

"You think more of this car than you do me." Dina accused.

Phillip was shocked. "No I don't, Dina. What ever gave you that idea?"

"You certainly pamper it more than you pamper me."

"But dear, the car is temperamental and needs delicate handling . . ." Phillip bit his tongue. In the mood she was in right now, Dina was bound to take that the wrong way.

"I am not temperamental."

Phillip wilted under his wife's glare.Yes. Definitely a big mistake. "Of course you aren't temperamental, Dina." Before Dina could start an argument Phillip started the car and reversed out of the garage. To fill the silence he inserted a tape into the car tape deck. To the strains of Elgar's Pomp and Circ.u.mstance, they set off for Grantville.

The Higgins Hotel Phillip frowned. What the book on pyramid power said didn't agree with his findings. That meant either there was something wrong with the author's theory, or there was something wrong with Phillip's pyramid. He slumped back in the easy chair and contemplated the possibility that the author's theory was wrong. It wasn't an attractive thought. If the theory of pyramid power was wrong, then all of his efforts to invigorate theQuinta Essentia of the Human Humors had been wasted. Alternatively, Phillip couldn't imagine what he could have done wrong with his pyramid. He had even obtained pure nickel for the structural members, and Michael and Kurt had made some new gems from aluminum oxide which he'd had faceted by a local jeweler. What Phillip needed was access to a computer so he could check his calculations. At least, Gerry Stone had suggested he run his calculations through a computer spreadsheet just in case the problem was acc.u.mulated rounding errors. Dina's friend Ronella Koch taught mathematics at the Grantville high school and she had arranged for Ronella to check the numbers for him.

Phillip looked up at the clock. Dina had said that Ronella wouldn't be free to run the calculations until after school, but it was now well past six. He sighed. He had always heard that when women got together to gossip, they could forget about time. And he wanted those calculations. He wasn't sure if he wanted his calculations to be right though, because that would mean he had wasted nearly four years on a pipe dream. Maybe he wasn't destined to be remembered in the same breath as his great grandfather, the great Paracelsus.

Phillip took another sip of wine. Now that he had Dina, he could live with not being as famous as great grandfather Paracelsus. He knew he would be remembered through his children. Right now, that was much more important than fame. And he was scared. What did he know about raising children? And then there was the bombsh.e.l.l Dr. Shipley had delivered earlier in the day. Twins. His Dina was carrying two babies. Of course Frau Mittelhausen would be there, but maybe Dina would like a nursery maid to help.

Maybe he should see Dina's stepmother about hiring one. Phillip froze at the thought. That was probably the wrong way to go about it. Maybe a better bet would be to ask Dina if she wanted help first. He nodded. Surely Dina wouldn't bite his head off if he suggested employing a nursery maid, especially as it would leave her more time for her teaching.

Proud of his logic, Phillip closed his pyramid power book, placed it on the occasional table beside his chair, and picked up the first of the books on babies and child rearing Frau Kubiak had found for him.

Dina entered the suite first. Together she and Ronella looked around the room. The light was on, so Phillip should be in the suite. "Phillip." Dina called.

There was no response. Both women started to walk around the room. Then Ronella stopped and gestured for Dina to come over.