The Grantville Gazette - Vol 3 Part 8

As Judy the Elder calmed her husband by the simple expedient of letting him run down, Sarah was going from repentant to downrightp.i.s.sed . It wasn't like she was some silly Juliet sneaking off to get married, or commit suicide or whatever. She'd just forgotten that she wasn't allowed to date yet. She had told her parents and apologized. She had even been initially willing to call David and cancel, though she hadn't said so. Not anymore, however. Now it was a matter of principle. She paid the housekeeper out of her salary from HSMC, not that she begrudged that. Mom and Dad both worked for the newly formed Department of Economic Resources, which was important work, but didn't pay all that well. The addition of her income from HSMC elevated the family lifestyle from existing to comfortable. She wasn't a little kid. She had a job, and did her share.

Fletcher had actually calmed down a bit when who should call but David Bartley, the cad, the rake, the libertine himself!

Luckily David wasn't calling to entice the innocent Sarah to an illicit rendezvous in the woods, nor to run off to Badenburg and get married. He was calling to apologize, and to invite the whole family to the opening ofThe Importance of Being Earnest . That is, to have the date without breaking the rules.

Opinions on the proposal were mixed. Judy the Elder thought it an excellent solution, one setting a marvellous precedent for future first dates (an observation that caused Judy the Younger some concern).

Fletcher, of course, saw it as barracks lawyering; a crack in the wall for all the boys out there that wanted to do, well, what he had wanted to do in his youth. Sarah really would have preferred a less conciliatory approach on David's part, but she couldn't help but admire the sneakiness.

It was a compromise that everyone could live with. Which left only the question: What to wear? The five women of the Wendell household-Judy the Elder, Sarah, Judy the Younger, Mrs. Straus the maid, and Greta the maid's daughter-went into emergency dress-up mode. Fletcher retreated to the home office muttering tohimself .

In the English-German blend that the play was written in, a line would be stated in one language and then paraphrased in the other, to make sure that everyone got it. Sort of like the Shakespearean trick of using three versions of a line, one to the left, one to the right, and one to the front so everyone could hear it. The playwright team that had written this version ofThe Importance of Being Earnest had used that trick to play with the audience. The play worked if you spoke English, it worked if you spoke German, but it worked better if you spoke both because there were subtle and sometimes not so subtle differences in what was said in each language. The effect was a two-language pun of some sort about every third line. That wasn't the only trick up the writer's sleeves. The lines were arranged so that if you spoke only English it seemed that the guys were being reasonably sane and the girls were total ditzes. But if you spoke only German the girls seemed fairly reasonable and the guys off the wall. If you spoke both languages, it added to the feeling that they were talking past each other. At one point, one of the ladies described herself in German as preferring the quiet life in her country estate of Ept to the social whirl of the big city. The English version of the line was "I'm still socially in Ept." It was all like that, a reasonable statement in one language followed by a groaner of a translation.

"So, David," Judy the Elder asked as they all walked outside during intermission, "how is Master Schroeder treating you?" Bruno Schroeder was the master tailor in charge of the clothing for Karl Schmidt and Ramona Higgins' upcoming wedding.

"I got him to give up the diapers."

"Diapers?"Fletcher was still a little miffed about the non-date date, and quite ready to hear about David in diapers.

"Yes, sir.Those really puffy short pants they wear. They look like diapers; worse, they look like full diapers."

"So what did you have to give upto lose the diapers?" Sarah asked with a grin. She knew that Master Schroeder was trying to convert up-timers to down-time fashions, even though he claimed to be looking for a compromise.

"Embroidery.Bruno has found a way to use a Higgins sewing machine to do embroidery. Basically he draws the pattern in chalk and then sews along the lines. Apparently the king ofSweden had all this gold thread embroidered onto his wedding outfit. Karl's and mine aren't going to be gold, but they might as well be considering how much dyed thread costs. Anyway, we're both going to have our outfits embroidered up the kazoo. Mine'll be bad enough, but on Karl's you mostly won't be able to see the cloth for all the embroidery: trees, flowers, coins, even sewing machines, in every color he can get from Mr. Stone's dye shops."

Fletcher laughed. "I must be sure to bring my digital camera."

David rolled his eyes. "If you don't, someone else will, probably the newspapers. Karl is making a big deal of the wedding. It's Badenburg politics."

Badenburg had joined the new littleUnited States , but mostly it was politics as usual in the city council.

The new elections were scheduled for some months in the future. Karl Schmidt was the foundry guild master in Badenburg, but that was because he had the only foundry in town. He wasn't, or hadn't been, one of the major players. Those were mostly the large property owners. With the merger between the foundry and the HSMC, he had rapidly become the biggest employer in Badenburg. A lot more money was flowing through his hands. More people looked to him. There were also more voters, since the property owner restriction had been dispensed with. And, just to add the icing to the cake, Karl's upcoming marriage to David's mother, Ramona, would give Karl a prestigious close personal tie to the up-timers from Grantville. "He's planning a try for either a seat on the Badenburg council, or perhaps becoming the first Senator from Badenburg. The wedding is going to be a sort of promotional show to demonstrate how important he's become. He definitely wants the press there. I think he's caught on to what expanding the franchise means better than most of the others."

"Let me guess. He wants to show off his up-timer connections?"

"Yeah.He's hoping Jeff and Gretchen will attend.Especially Gretchen. She's become something of a saint to the refugees. In regard to status, up-timers are like the jokers in a deck of cards. Whatever status you need to make the set work, up-timers are it. Of course, not everyone buys that. Claus Junker has decided that we are all peasants and Jews.

"Claus Junker? Do I know that name?" Judy the Younger asked. She didn't like being left out of conversations.

"On the Badenburg council," Judy the Elder clarified. "This year he's effectively the bookkeeper for Badenburg. He also owns a fair bit of the rental property in the city." She had met Junker, and neither had enjoyed the experience.

"You've heard some of the things Karl sometimes says about Jews and thinkshe's being fair and even-handed?" asked David. "Listen to this guy for five minutes and you'll think Karl is a paragon of openness. Junker also disapproves of children being involved in business, and of lower cla.s.s people trying to act like they matter. Jeff marrying Gretchen has proven to him that we are all peasants, because no one of rank would be allowed to make such a marriage. Of course, that doesn't mean he won't do business with up-timers, if they are properly subservient in att.i.tude. He's backing some guy that's trying to make microwave ovens."

"Can we do microwave ovens?" Judy the Elder asked.

"Not according to Brent and Trent," said David, "or our science teacher at school. Not for five years at least, probably more. Mr. Abrabanel could have found out for him. But ask a Jew? Not Claus Junker. I could have told him, but listen to a child on a matter of business, especially a peasant child? No way.

Heck, if he had been willing to talk to anyone without looking down his nose, he could have gotten the four-one-one. The thing is, he's a Von something or other on his mother's side. So he figures that he must be smarter than anyone else."

"So why care?" asked Judy the Younger. "It sounds to me like he's getting what he deserves."

"Claus Junker can fall down a well for all I care," Fletcher said, "but what happens when a major player, or even a minor major player like him, gets publicly burned in an up-timer, down-timer deal? It could shut off the supply of investment money. We need investment capital."

"Not us so much, unless you count Mom's bathroom," David said.

"Grantville in general," Fletcher clarified. "Some of the projects that really need doing will take years to prove, much less make a profit. So how is your average down-timer to know what an investment is, what's a wild gamble, and what's an out-and-out con? When the microwave project breaks, it's going to scare the c.r.a.p out of the down-time investors who have been throwing money at us."

"Not that anyone threw money at HSMC," said Sarah, still annoyed about the att.i.tude the adult business community had shown toward HSMC in the early days. "That's already changed and you know it. And it never was true in terms of down-timers," Judy the Elder corrected. She was getting just a little tired of Sarah's harping on the matter.

"I've been approached several times in the last few months, by merchants and masters who wanted to know what I thought of an investment opportunity. Actually, that's one of the things thatis bothering me about this latest project of the twins."

David was interrupted by the end of intermission. They left the school parking lot where they had been chatting and returned to the theater to see the second half of the play. The play was quite good, and one more bit of proof that Grantville was already drawing talent like a magnet. The Grantville High School Theater seated seven hundred and fifty people in tiered seating so you could usually see over the head of the person in front of you. It was acoustically designed and had a sound system and lighting. It was one of the places where the expensive-to-make electric lights were used. The combination made it probably the best theater inEurope .

It showed plays five nights and two afternoons a week, and was usually packed. The three theater and music companies that took turns using it had a deal with the school that included teaching and financial benefits for the school. The final curtain fell with foundling Ernst restored and engaged to his cousin, and his older brother Ernst engaged to his ward, and everyone prepared to live happily ever after. The curtains then opened again for the cast to take a bow and accept the applause of the audience. As the final curtain fell the audience started to file out of the theater to wait for the buses.

While they were waiting in line for their bus Mrs. Straus plucked up her nerve and asked a question that had been bothering her ever since she had gotten her job as the Wendells' housekeeper. "Why do you not own stock in the sewing machine company, Herr Wendell? Sarah is your daughter, yes? What is hers is yours, yes?"

"Ah, no.Sarah is my daughter, but that doesn't mean that I own what she owns. Her mother and I do have certain veto power till she's eighteen, but her property-especially what we call real property; stocks, bonds, land, that sort of thing-is hers. And, come to think of it, that's probably a good thing.

Not everyone in the government has been quite as careful as I'd like about potential conflicts of interest, and in the job that Judy and I have, it's especially important. We're out there trying to sell the improvements Grantville has to offer to the towns and villages around the Ring of Fire. Things like grain silos, plows and so on. If we owned an interest in the companies that made them, especially if we owned an interest in one of the companies and not in another, it would be a real conflict of interest."

"So what's your problem with Brent andTrent and their washing machines?" Judy the Elder wanted to know. "Do you think you'll have difficulty raising the money, David?"

"I can raise the money, all right. In fact, I'll probably have trouble avoiding it once news gets out. The investors are going to expect results though. They'll want a repeat of the sewing machines, with a quick and high payoff. It's not that I doubt the twins, but we have a reputation now. I think I've felt it more because I've spent so much time out there, where Grantville is still sort of a magical mystery. They look at HSMC-and, believe it or not, Mom's bathroom-and they want in. They don't care how much it costs.

They want in. It's like owning a share in a Grantville business is a guarantee of a secure future."

"Ah," Judy the Elder nodded, "the light dawns. What happens when it blows up in Junker's face?" "Right," David agreed. "The thing is, aside from his unwillingness to do business directly with Jews, Junker is considered one of the sharper men of business in Badenburg."

"They're still going to want in," said Sarah. "Never doubt it."

"You're probably right."

"The bus is here. Where do you want to eat?"

"I don't feel like the Gardens.How about pizza?"

Ramona Higgins was at that moment in her bathroom in Karl Schmidt's house. She was demonstrating to her betrothed husband one use of the ma.s.sage table she had insisted on. Karl had stopped complaining about the cost some time before. At this point he was no longer complaining about much of anything. He was barely capable of moving. Now she looked around the room that had been added to Karl's three-story townhouse. It was eight feet wide and fifteen feet long. It had a hot tub in the end near the main house, a shower in the middle, and the ma.s.sage table on the other end. The water tank was on the roof of the bathroom, against the wall of the main house. From there the water flowed down and then back up a little way to connect to the water heater attached to the new stove. The hot tub and the showers had faucets for hot and cold water. Of course, the stove was needed to heat the water, but the whole household could have a hot shower every night if no one hogged the hot water. The bathroom was really just one of the changes made with the "bathroom dividend," as David called it. There were the porta-potties, too. They had to be emptied by hand. But for that there was the dumbwaiter, so you didn't have to carry the loaded pots up and down stairs. It was all like that. The bathroom was the best they could do within the budget that Karl complained about so much. In Ramona's opinion it had all turned out to be pretty good. The house was crowded, and everything was used for several things, but there was a feel to it like things were going well. The neighbors were envious, and thought they were very modern. As much fuss as Karl made over the bills, he was sure quick to show off the results.

Adolph Schmidt didn't know whether to be pleased or really annoyed. His papa had been right. The latest offer for HSMC stock was for fifty-seven American dollars a share, except no one was selling.

That was the least of it. They were making sewing machines faster than he had thought possible, and selling them faster than they could make them, at a higher profit than he had imagined.

His father's engagement to Ramona Higgins had made the family up-timer friends, people that they could sit down with over dinner or a beer and ask questions of. Through those friends and the knowledge they brought, the Schmidts had a small electroplating operation up and running. Jorgen was also producing fairly decent crucible steel. Steel was still an art, but it was an art backed by scientific knowledge, and the pours that didn't work could usually be redone.

The Schmidts had been hiring almost since the day of the merger, and, for the first couple of months, spending a lot more than they took in. Then things had taken off. They had made and sold sewing machines at a heroic rate. Rather than being supported by the foundry and smithy, the sewing machine plant was now supporting both and the research operations as well.

Papa's senior journeyman, Jorgen, had been told to research the making of crucible steel. Further, the journeyman had been told that the steel was his masterwork. Making the crucibles had turned out to bethe hardest part. Now that Jorgen had found the clay and could make the pots, he could make what the up-timers called high carbon steel. Recently he had started experimenting with other additives for greater strength.

Jorgen's masterwork was judged by Master Marcantonio, the up-time master metal worker. Master Marcantonio had made most of the machines for the sewing machine factory and had a seat on the board of HSMC. When he was judged to have completed a successful pour of high carbon steel, Jorgen was declared a master steelmaker. Papa had set up a new company, forty percent owned by HSMC and thirty percent owned by Jorgen. The remaining thirty percent of the stock was held by the company to raise money and provide stock options for its employees. All of which meant that Jorgen could now get married.

Adolph hadn't been so lucky. He had been a.s.signed electroplating, and he had succeeded sooner than Jorgen had with the crucible steel operation. Adolph's operation was turning out gold electroplated iron and now, steel flatware at relatively low cost. They always carefully explained that the items were only gold plated, but at the prices they charged, the customers didn't seem to care much. The gold electroplating kept the iron from rusting, and the product looked like solid gold. However, clever chemistry didn't make Adolph a master smith who was able to marry where and when he wanted.

Most of the major cliques in school were represented at the pizza parlor that night. There were several new groups since the Ring of Fire. In addition to the traditional jocks, nerds, and toughs, there was now JROTC or cadets, artists, and entrepreneurs. Like at any high school, there were those who fit into more than one group, with a different rank depending on the category and several subcategories.

David and Sarah were right at the top of the entrepreneurs, but from there they diverged. Sarah was also near the top of the brains, a subcategory of the nerds. David was somewhere near the bottom of the JROTC. Most of the boys, and more than a few of the girls, were ranked somewhere in the JROTC.

There was also, as there usually is, a set of the elite: the most popular and successful from the other groups. Who was in that last grouping depended on who you asked.

There was cross-pollination between the groups, and different groups had different degrees of influence.

JROTC was the largest and single most important group. Brains, though not universally popular, had gained some prestige since the Ring of Fire. Entrepreneurs were fairly high up, and for obvious reasons they rose to near the top as the students approached graduation. This had the effect of moving David up in the JROTC group and Sarah up in the brain group. It also placed them both just on the edge of the elites. So David and Sarah were greeted by many of their fellow students when they arrived. The fact that they were there with Sarah's family put a bit of a damper on things, but Fletcher and Judy weren't the only adult customers.

Judy the Younger was definitely in the elite at the middle school, and had friends in high school. It was through her that the nature of the evening was revealed. The technique of taking out the whole family was considered, and viewpoints were mixed. There was the added expense, of greater concern to most than to David Bartley. Between the tickets and the dinner, the evening had cost over two hundred dollars.

There was also the inhibiting presence of the parents, right there for the whole evening.

On the whole, it was a fun evening, the conversation was lively, and David and Sarah had about as much timeon their own as they knew what to do with, though not so much as they wanted.

* * * Guffy Pomeroy was not looking his best when Officer Gottlieb found him. Electrocution, followed by a couple of days to ripen before anyone notices, is not conducive to a tidy appearance or pleasant aroma.

There was a variety of electrical gear scattered around the body. Apparently he had been a bit careless in hooking something up, and ended up as the line of least resistance through the circuit. Or at least that's how Officer Gottlieb understood it. She was an old Grantville hand, and had been a cop for almost eight months. She had seen a lot of dead bodies in her life, mostly before becoming a cop. This, however, was her first electrocution. It wasn't pleasant, but not nearly the worst she had seen. Not being all that conversant with uncontrolled electricity, she carefully did not touch anything. She called in and waited outside for backup.

Guffy had been a well-known character in Grantville even before the Ring of Fire. He was a get-rich-quick schemer, not exactly a conman, but not exactly honest either. Guffy had a knack for getting people to back his schemes, usually to their detriment. He'd done two years for pa.s.sing bad checks up-time. Down-time he had claimed he was going to be the re-inventor of the microwave oven and the microwave forge and so on. The rumor had it that his backer was a bigwig from Badenburg.

Guffy had been a hard guy to dislike and was easy to trust, till you knew better.

Well, he was past trouble now.

By now the Grantville area had three papers. Two dailies, theGrantville Times and theDaily News , and a weekly business paper, that called itselfThe Street , and had pretensions of becoming theWall Street Journal of the seventeenth century. TheTimes tried for a responsible tone with thoughtful articles and a restrained style. TheNews was big on flash. They also differed on several political issues. The Times was owned and edited by an up-timer, theNews by a down-timer. TheTimes was very big on treating up-timers and down-timers just alike. TheNews felt no such restraint. While violently egalitarian in most ways, it expressed the view that up-timer knowledge was irreplaceable and every up-timer death was a terrible loss to the whole world.Daily News editorials called for up-timers to be restrained by law from wasting their unique knowledge and abilities in risky endeavors. TheNews had quite a bit of refugee support for this position, partly because high-risk high-pay jobs that up-timers weren't allowed to do would need to be done by down-timers. The two papers often got quite snippy with each other on the subject.

This was one of those times. Guffy Pomeroy had obviously been working on something important, which might well now be lost for all time. TheDailyNews rushed into print. TheTimes was slower and more cautious. It mentioned his death above the fold, but it wasn't the headline. The headline had to do with Badenburg politics.

What neither paper caught at first was the short-term economic consequences. Claus Junker had invested a medium fortune into the microwave project. It was mostly his own money, but he'd had some extra expenses lately and some of the city's money had found its way into the project as well. Claus was already nervous about the project after several unasked-for warnings. The only things that had kept it going this long were Guffy's gift of the gab and Junker's aversion to admitting he was wrong.

There was no backup plan, and no fallback position. Guffy had offered ironclad guarantees of success.

But how do you sue a corpse?

* * * In Badenburg first, then in other towns near the Ring of Fire, people were starting to wonder. "What happens if my up-timer dies?" That was the first blow. About the time that concern was getting back to the Ring of Fire, theTimes published its response to theDaily News article. It contained a report of what Guffy was trying to do, why it wouldn't work, a guess about how much it had cost, and the conclusion: "While any death is tragic, in this case the most likely result is simply to prevent a continued waste of his investors' money." There was no Black Tuesday, but it was not a good time for the Grantville Stock Exchange.

In the midst of the slump came Karl and Ramona'swedding. The wedding was a circus. People came from all over, partly because Karl was becoming an important man, but also because it provided an excuse to travel to the area of the Ring of Fire and look at what was going on.

The day was bright and sunny. Badenburg's market square was festooned with banners and ribbons.

Tables groaning with food were everywhere. More than a couple of fatted calves had met their fate.

There were countless cabbages, squash fruits, flavored gelatins and all manner of good things to eat.

There were jugglers, dancers, musicians, and a.s.sorted other entertainers. Three battery powered boom boxes playing tapes at full volume added to the ambience. Games and contests were available for children and adults.

Invitations had gone out to every employee and stockholder of the Higgins Sewing Machine Company, as well as to every prominent person in Grantville, Badenburg, and the surrounding towns. The wedding was a show of prominence. Not everyone who was invited came; but then, not everyone who came was actually invited. Children were playing everywhere; quiet conversations were shouted. The noise was deafening.

The wedding itself had happened that morning to control the size of the gathering. The wedding reception was costing more than Ramona's bathroom, and had involved Karl taking out a loan secured by some of his HSMC stock. Delia Higgins was not going to foot the bill for a city-size block party to launch Karl's political career. Just after the wedding itself, Karl had announced the endowment of The Badenburg School for Young Ladies. Endowing a school or other similar civic project was the traditional way of gaining the sort of social rank needed to sit on the council.

There were many conversations on all manner of subjects, but two main topics dominated the conversational landscape: the elections for Badenburg's senate seat, and the recent downturn in the Grantville stock market.

David, Sarah, Brent and Trent were getting a lot of questions about the stock market, and questions about specific companies. They were all, pretty much, the same questions: What happens to the company if the up-time partner dies?

And: Can this product really be made?

All too often the answer to both questions was: "I don't know." Questions, delicately put, about the consequences of the kids being removed from the sewing machine company were met with a different answer. There were four of them, and even if all were gone HSMC would continue to produce sewing machines and continue to produce new models as needed. It was a bit humbling for the kids as theyrealized they really weren't needed at HSMC anymore. The designs for the Model Two were already set, while those for the Model Three were almost set. Their knowledge of manufacturing and the use of machines to make machines had already been imparted. They just weren't needed in HSMC anymore. It wasn't that they didn't have value; but other than their publicity value, they could be replaced by down-timers or an accounting firm.

Brent and Trent had not been shy about mentioning their argument over whether to build washing machines or small-scale electrical power plants. Brent and Trent, as time went by, had focused more and more on the mechanical aspects of the sewing machine project. Aside from a certain natural avarice, they had never been all that interested in the money. They liked the idea of being rich just fine; they just didn't care much about how that part of it worked. They cared about making things. For them the fun part was figuring out how to make the parts and fit them all together so that they would work. There was tremendous satisfaction for them in seeing the first prototype working and knowing that there was something new in the world because of them. Aside from the sewing machines, they had been closely involved in producing the collection of the gadgets that together were known asRamona's Bathroom . In that project, they had met most of the top craftsmen in Badenburg. Now they wanted to make something new and useful again.

Brent and Trent knew how clothing got washed here and now, and found the process horrible. They knew that with small electrical generation units, combined with some basic circuitry and small electric motors, appliances could produce a tremendous leap in both comfort and productivity for every household that got one. They had worked up the plans for both projects. The washing machine could be done fairly quickly with what they knew now. They could be in production before the regular school session started. The electrical power plant and motor factory would take longer, and cost more. They wanted to get started on one or the other. David and Sarah had been dithering on which one they preferred. The twins decided to force the issue by going public. They b.u.t.tonholed merchants and master craftsmen for their opinion on which to do. So far the opinions had been divided along simple lines. If the craftsman would be involved in a project, that was the project they favored.

Sarah had been approached more times than she could count about the availability of stock in whichever new company the twins ended up starting. Sarah knew why she was getting the questions, too. She had been standing just a few feet away when Karl had been approached on the subject.

"Talk to Sarah," he'd said. "I have the sewing machine company to run, plus the foundry, the crucible steel, and the electroplating. Besides, I've had to become concerned with politics recently. There are things that Badenburg needs, like a sewer system. I just don't have the time, which is a shame. I've learned enough about both proposed projects to be sure they can be done." Then, with what Sarah felt was a rather overdone tone of self-sacrifice: "Badenburg needs a senator who knows Badenburg and knows what the up-timers can and can't do."

Sarah left Karl and hunted up the twins. She found them cornering another merchant to ask his opinion.

Together they went in search of David.

David had snuck off to the Boar's Head, one of Badenburg's inns, to avoid the questions for a few minutes. David was just sitting down and grabbing a bite to fortifyhimself before venturing once more into the breach, when Sarah showed up with Brent and Trent.

Things were quite a bit different since that first meeting in the woods shortly after the Ring of Fire, when they had started the process that ended in the creation of HSMC. For one thing, in Badenburg they were recognized for their involvement with the Sewing Machine Company. As a group, they were known as "The Sewing Circle," sometimes even to their faces. They were important people now. When David hadentered the inn the owner had, rather more deferentially than David was actually comfortable with, offered him the best table in the place. Whatever the likes of Claus Junker thought, most people in Badenburg were convinced that up-timers were, if not actual n.o.bility, at least as good as and probably better than the real thing. That was the basic att.i.tude toward all the up-timers; but in Badenburg, that att.i.tude was focused on the Sewing Circle.

When the rest of the Sewing Circle showed up at The Boar's Head, people noticed and it became a forgone conclusion that they were planning yet another way to make life in Badenburg better. The funny thing was, as uncomfortable as the kids were with thatreputation, that was precisely what they ended up talking about.

"So, David, which do you think we should do first?"Trent asked.

"Have you been listening to what's going on out there at all?" David asked in response. "It's not a panic yet, but it could turn into one real easy."