Eric Flint's Blog, page 218

1636: The Chronicles of Dr. Gribbleflotz – Snippet 29

1636: The Chronicles of Dr. Gribbleflotz – Snippet 29

“Now that’s a good question,” Tobias said.

“And deserving of a good answer,” Kuntz added.

“So?” Johann asked.

“Herr Ackermann threw a flask of Oil of Vitriol at him,” Tobias said.

“Missed him of course, but it sure scared Young Fritz,” Kuntz said. “He’s probably still running.”

Johann could well imagine Young Fritz running. Oil of Vitriol was a very strong acid. If the youth had been hit by it he would have, at best been horribly scared. At the worst, it could have killed him. “Why did Herr Ackermann throw a flask of Oil of Vitriol at this Fritz?” he asked.

“He was probably upset that his Oil of Vitriol isn’t as good as the new guy’s,” Tobias said.

“What new guy?” Johann asked.

“Dr. Gribbleflotz,” Kuntz said. “He leased Old Man Steiner’s laboratory from his widow back in July and he’s been showing up the local alchemists ever since.”

“Seriously?” Johann demanded. “The guards at the north gate suggested that Dr. Gribbleflotz might be suitable, but they also said he was giving an anatomy course. What would such a man know about alchemy?”

“Quite a lot,” Tobias said. “He’s an iatrochemist in the Paracelsian mold. He makes a lot of his own medicines, and his acids sell at a premium because they’re so much better than anyone else’s.”

“The Paracelsian mold?” That wasn’t the kind of thing Johann would expect a paper maker to say. “What do you know of Paracelsus?”

Kuntz and Tobias exchanged grins. “More than you’re likely to believe. Dr. Gribbleflotz will talk about his great ancestor and his school of thought at the drop of a hat,” Kuntz said.

“He really doesn’t think much of the Galenists,” Tobias added.

This was so much in line with Johann’s own beliefs that he knew he was going to have to at least talk to the man. “How might I find Dr. Gribbleflotz?”

“His laboratory is just down the road.” Tobias pointed in the general direction of some buildings opposite the St Alban’s cloister. “Of course, you might do better to wait until tomorrow, because I don’t know when he’ll be getting home tonight.”

Next day

Johann presented himself at the door of Dr. Gribbleflotz’ laboratory at the crack of dawn. He knocked on the door, and waited. Five minutes later he knocked again, only harder. He knew there was someone awake inside because he could see the light of a candle through the window.

“Coming!” a voice from within called.

The door opened to reveal a man in his late twenties with a candlestick in his hand. “I’m looking for Dr. Gribbleflotz,” Johann said.

“You’ve found him,” Phillip said as he held up the candle to get a better look at Johann. “How can I help you?”

Johann stared at Dr. Gribbleflotz. He’d always imagined alchemists as being wizened old men.

“Well? I don’t have all day,” Phillip said.

Johann recovered himself. “I have heard that you are a noted iatrochemist and alchemist, and I am hoping that you will take me on as a student.”

“Are you looking to take up an apprenticeship? Because I can tell you here and now, I don’t expect to be in Basel long enough to train an apprentice.”

Johann held up his hands. “Oh, no, Dr. Gribbleflotz, I am traveling around learning new techniques from different alchemists.”

Phillip glanced back over his shoulder into his laboratory. “I do have need of an assistant. Are you willing to commit to working for me for the next two years?”

“Two years?” That was a little more than Johann had planned. “I was thinking more along the lines of a year,” he said.

“A year’s not worth my time,” Philip pointed out. “I’ll have just got you trained and you’ll be off.”

“But I’m trained,” Johann protested. “I’ve worked for alchemists before. Could we have a trial, of say, a week in which I can prove myself?” Johann asked.

“Only if you can start now. I have orders to fill and an able assistant might be useful.”

“I can start now, Dr. Gribbleflotz.”

“Good, come on in.” Phillip shut the door after Johann and led the way into his laboratory. “There should be a spare apron over there.”

Johann followed Philip’s pointing hand to a number of leather aprons hanging from a peg in the wall. He hurried over to them, dropped his bag in the corner, and grabbed the top apron and put it on. “Now what?” he asked.

Phillip pointed to a shelf full of carboys in wickerwork. “I want two of those bottles on the bottom shelf carried over to the bench where I’m working.”

Johann walked towards the large carboys. In passing he noticed a large clear crystal on a higher shelf and paused to examine it. “What’s this” he asked, pointing at the crystal.

“Just something a grateful officer gave me many years ago after I saved his leg, and probably his life, using maggot therapy.”

“What’s maggot therapy?” Johann asked.

“It’s nothing you need to worry yourself about unless you want to study surgery.”

“I don’t want to study surgery,” Johann said. The crystal still fascinated him. He leaned closer for a better look.

“Are you going to bring me those bottles any time soon?” Phillip asked.

Johann looked up guiltily. “I’m sorry, Herr Doctor Gribbleflotz.” He used the wicker handles to pull the first Carboy off the shelf. It was surprisingly heavy. “What’s in it?” he asked as he lifted the first carboy.

From the other side of the laboratory Phillip answered. “Just how much alchemy did you say you’ve learned?”

That put Johann on his mettle. He considered the possibilities as he carried the carboy over to the bench where Phillip was working. The way it sloshed around when he moved suggested it definitely wasn’t water, or even aqua vitae. The weight of the full carboy, being nearly twice what he’d expected, was another clue. “Is it Oil of Vitriol?” he asked as he put it down.

“Yes. Now, get the other bottle.”

Johann did as he was told. “What are you making?” he asked as he lowered the second carboy of acid onto the bench.

“I have an order for acidum salis,” Phillip said as he measured what looked like salt into a retort.

“But you don’t make acidum salis with Oil of Vitriol,” Johann protested.

“Are you sure about that?” Phillip smiled. Anybody who’d attended his recent anatomy course would have recognized the look on Phillip’s face. He was entering his teaching mode.

“You make acidum salis by distilling a mixture of salt and green vitriol,” Johann insisted.

“That is one way,” Phillip agreed. “However, think just a moment. How do we make Oil of Vitriol?”

“You distil green vitriol.”

“And how do we make aqua fortis?” Phillip asked.

Johann had no idea where this was leading, but he answered anyway. “You distil a mixture of saltpetre and green vitriol.”

“Correct,” Phillip said. “Now, do you see a pattern here?”

Johann stared blankly at Phillip and shook his head.

“What is common to the production of all three acids?”

Johann’s eyes widened as slowly he started to understand. “The green vitriol,” he said. “But alchemists have been making the acids by distilling salt or saltpetre with green vitriol for centuries. Surely if there were an easier way, someone would have discovered it before now?”

“Maybe they did,” Phillip said. “And maybe somehow their knowledge was lost. Of course, it’s not just a simple matter of mixing Oil of Vitriol with salt and suddenly your Oil of Vitriol is turned into acidum salis. If that was all it took, everyone would be doing it.”

Johann surveyed the retorts Phillip had arranged. “It seems a lot of work for something that could just as easily be done the old fashioned way. All you’re doing is adding an extra step to the production of acidum salis and aqua fortis.”

“It makes sound economic sense,” Phillip said. “Oil of Vitriol is obviously the quinta essentia of acids. And as long as you have a supply of Oil of Vitriol, you can make any acid you like.”

“But the quinta essentia only applies to distillates of living things,” Johann protested.

“That is quite true, but in the case of Oil of Vitriol, it’s a good analogy,” Philip said as he loaded a number of retorts with a mixture of salt and Oil of Vitriol. With the last of a dozen retorts loaded he stretched his back and turned to Johann. “Now you can help me set these up on the furnace.”

Johann helped set the retorts up on the furnace and then he watched in surprise as Phillip carefully weighed some wood before adding it to the furnace. “Why are you doing that?” he asked.

“Being an alchemist is a business. By keeping track of how much fuel I use, I can accurately price my products.” Phillip waved his notebook at the furnace. “I have to be very careful. This furnace is one of the least efficient I’ve ever used. It’s because of the distressing economics of distilling green vitriol on this furnace that I first explored using Oil of Vitriol to make acidum salis and aqua fortis.”

Johann hoped he didn’t look half as confused as he felt. “I’m sorry, Dr. Gribbleflotz, but I don’t see the connection.”

 

Death’s Bright Day – Snippet 38

Death’s Bright Day – Snippet 38

CHAPTER 14

Benjamin

Though in command, Cory was at the navigator’s console, opposite Adele on the Princess Cecile’s bridge. The equipment was the same, and Cory had said he didn’t need Six’ seat to act as captain. When Vesey commanded the corvette, she remained in the Battle Direction Center where she would have been when Daniel was aboard.

That probably implied something about Daniel as a leader, though Adele didn’t have any idea what. She observed human beings closely and could often predict their behavior, but as a general rule she didn’t really understand why humans did things. Desire for money or power or sex were behind most human activities…and none of those things interested Adele in the least.

“Cory?” she said on a two-way link. Another person would have turned and spoken directly. “Do you know of a great deed that was done for the sake of knowledge?”

“Ma’am?” said Cory. He was echoing her display on the lower half of his own, but he hadn’t expected her to address him directly. “Well, explorers like Commander Bergen, I guess. I’d say it was pretty great to open as many routes as he did, over.”

Adele considered that for a moment. Daniel’s uncle hadn’t gotten rich from his work. He had retired as a commander while Academy classmates had become admirals because they had focused on paths to promotion while Stacy Bergen was finding routes through the Matrix. He had never married.

He must have been driven by a desire for knowledge.

“Yes, I see that,” Adele said. “Thank you, Cory.”

She had never paused in her task of observing the assault parties. The three hundred and some red dots were overlaid on a terrain map created from imagery which the ships’ sensors had gathered during their landing approaches.

Benjamin didn’t have enough water for oceans and continents. The elevation of this region didn’t vary as much as a hundred feet in a mile, but six feet was sufficient to hide a standing human and a hundred would conceal the ships from the villages their crews were attacking.

That was fine, but it caused Adele a coordination problem since Benjamin had no satellite network. She was making due by having both ships raise a dorsal antenna high enough that the masthead sensors bore on the target village and also had a line of sight to the other ship.

A keen-eyed local could notice the distant glint on the horizon, but you couldn’t eliminate all risks.

“Beta Six to control,” Vesey said. She wasn’t in sight of the ship; her signal was being relayed through several commo helmets until it reached one which had a direct link to the Sissie’s sensors. “Beta is in position. Please confirm, over.”

Adele checked her display. It was being echoed to Vesey’s helmet, but the larger scale of the console might show something that could be missed on a face-shield display. Besides, Vesey probably wants contact with someone who’s on her side.

“Beta Six, I confirm that your party is in position,” Adele said. The hundred-plus red dots had advanced to within fifty yards of the village on the left of their line and of the Roebuck on the right.

The pirate ship’s rocket basket was locked in a forward position. With optical sensors within a mile of the target, Adele could see that only two rockets remained in the launcher.

Village Beta was dead quiet. Only dust moved in the wind.

“Acknowledged, Beta out,” Vesey said.

“Alpha Six,” Adele said. “Beta party is in position. Over.”

“Roger, Control,” Daniel said. “I think we’re here also. Please confirm, over.”

Adele checked her display again. She had split the screen vertically with Alpha on the left and Beta on the right; she had compressed the ten miles in the middle between the villages.

“Alpha Six,” she said. “Your party is in position. Over.”

She had created a do-not-cross line, yellow on the consoles and a yellow pulse on the face-shields of all spacers who reached it. That was the point beyond which the helmet was visible from the village according to the terrain map. In many cases it was closer for a spacer on her belly than it would be if she stood bolt upright.

“Control,” Daniel said. “When you’re ready, you may give the command to attack to both parties. Six out.”

There’s no reason to delay. “Nabis Contingent,” Adele said. “Attack!”

* * *

“Attack!” said Adele’s crisp voice in Daniel’s commo helmet and the other helmets in Alpha Party.

Daniel got up from behind a sand-scoured boulder, waved his sub-machine gun over his head — he didn’t shout; they were still unobserved as best he could tell — and began trudging across the hundred yards of wasteland toward the Mezentian Gate. Scrubby plants the size of a double fist studded the gravel plain at intervals of a yard or two.

Commo was a problem. The Katchaturian’s Table of Equipment had never been to RCN scale, and what there was had been run down considerably. Pasternak’s techs and a considerable amount of scrounging on Peltry had provided about half the original Nabies with something that would work.

The former Nabis officers had RCN helmets from the Sissie’s stock. They were being judged on this mission, and Daniel was making sure his decisions were based on the personnel rather than on their equipment.

The Mezentian Gate was an ordinary tramp freighter for this region. She had a single ring of antennas and was missing the uppermost yard on at least the starboard set. A circle of bright scars around a broad dimple showed where the rocket had hit before she was captured, but so far as Daniel could tell the blast hadn’t penetrated her hull.

He looked over his shoulder. His Sissies were keeping quite a good skirmish line; probably better than they would have done if they hadn’t been setting an example for the Nabies.

The village straggled off to the right. It was a line of shacks made from packing containers with the smelter was on the other end. It would give the locals an excellent strongpoint if they were organized enough to use it.

Daniel waved his sub-machine gun again and slanted toward the ramp of the Mezentian Gate. The ship was cold and silent, completely shut down.

Twenty spacers had been told off to capture the freighter with him, but it appeared that more were joining. That wasn’t ideal, but Woetjans should’ve been able to round up all the villagers with half a dozen picked Sissies. Daniel had detailed a hundred and fifty for the huts and the two small pirate ships as training, not the job itself.

Just as Daniel reached the boarding ramp, a woman began to scream. He looked over his shoulder. A local wearing a shift had come out of a hut and seen the attacking spacers. She dropped her bucket and bolted back the way she had come.

The woman was a problem for Woetjans and her people. Daniel went up the Gate’s ramp at a run; they had crossed the hundred yards from cover at a steady walk so as not to reach their targets winded. He hadn’t expected to get as far as this before being discovered.

There was a burst of gunfire from the village. Daniel hoped it was his people doing the shooting, but that was out of his control. It was always out of the commander’s control when the shooting started, and he wished more politicians understood that.

He entered the up companionway and started for the bridge. Wright, the Katchaturian’s gunner, was immediately behind him. Daniel was much more surprised to see in his glance backward that Hugo, a midshipman from Nabis aristocracy, was third in line with a determined look on his face.

Hogg had been staying far enough back to keep a lookout for stragglers. He hadn’t caught up in time to bull past the pair of Nabies before they reached the helical staircase. He was probably furious, but Daniel suspected Wright would provide sufficient backup — especially since the Nabie carried a sub-machine gun. Hogg’s stocked impeller was useless except as a blunt spear in the tight confines of a starship.

Daniel was breathing hard when he reached Level E, the freighter’s highest deck. Because the Mezentian Gate had a tiny crew compared to that of a warship, the galley and all accommodations were on this level with the bridge.

He stepped into the rotunda which served both companionways and the freighter’s dorsal airlock. A barefoot local in dungarees started out of the accommodation block behind the bridge; he bleated and jumped back when he saw Daniel.

Daniel lunged after the man and butt-stroked him in the ribs from behind. The local had been reaching for an impeller leaning against the wall; the blow pitched him forward into the rack of bunks welded to the outer bulkhead. The crash and jangle was welcome, at least to Daniel.

Men were wired to the bunks, though Daniel didn’t have time to count to be sure all were present. “We need wire-cutters!” Daniel shouted as he started to turn.

WHACK-whang! Someone kicked Daniel hard in the left buttock.

He staggered and almost fell down. He hopped to the hatch — his left leg was going numb — and grabbed the coaming.

Wright faced into the bridge and fired a short burst. Somebody unseen cried out. Wright disappeared onto the bridge with Hugo following.

“Master!” Hogg said, grabbing Daniel by the shoulder and pivoted him back into the accommodations block. Somebody emptied a sub-machine gun on the bridge; a slug ricocheted into the rotunda and disappeared aft with a nasty keening.

“I’m all right!” Daniel said. “A ricochet hit me in the ass, but I don’t think it even broke the skin!”

“It did,” said Hogg grimly, “but I can see the metal. A good thing your butt’s so fat, though. I wonder if this tub has a Medicomp?”

Daniel was getting feeling back in his leg, but his left hip was beginning to feel as though he were sitting on a hotplate. He wanted to sit in a bucket of ice water.

He said, “The Katchaturian’ll be incoming soon; she’ll have lifted as soon as we attacked. Right now I need to see what’s happening on the bridge.”

The bridge had a single console and a flat-plate display attached to the aft bulkhead by a cable which was bolted to the floor. Wright held two sub-machine guns, his own by the pistol grip and that of Hugo by the sling; the barrel was fading to red heat.

A dead local holding a rusty impeller was sprawled beside the console. A second dead man, apparently unarmed, lay on the other side of the console; he had been shot at least a dozen times in the chest. The rest of the sub-machine gun’s magazine had splanged directly into the forward bulkhead. Fortunately recoil had lifted the muzzle as well as pulling the weapon to the right, so the slugs had passed over the console instead of into it.

Hugo was down on all fours, still facing the pool of his vomit. He was weeping.

“Don’t blame the kid,” Wright said hoarsely. “He’ll be all right. Fire discipline’s a lot harder to teach than marksmanship.”

“Agreed,” Daniel said. He switched the console on. It took long enough to start to boot that for a moment he was afraid that it’d been damaged after all.

“I hear the Katie coming in, isn’t that so?” Wright said. The throb of the destroyer’s thrusters reflecting from the ground near below was making the freighter tremble. “You’ll want to get your butt looked at, so why don’t you head on out and I’ll watch the kid here.”

“Let me borrow that multi-tool,” Daniel said, nodding to the pouch on the Gunner’s equipment belt. “I need to cut some wire. It’ll take a while for the ground to cool so I can board.”

Wright set down the empty sub-machine gun. He hooked the tool out of its pouch and tossed it to Daniel.

Daniel and Hogg reentered the accommodation block. They’d had to make their way through a handful of the members of the assault force who had followed them but were milling uncertainly.

“If that fellow wants a warrant from the RCN some day…” Daniel muttered. “I’ll bloody well pull some strings to make it happen.”

 

The Span Of Empire – Snippet 14

The Span Of Empire – Snippet 14

****

Descant-at-the-Fourth’s song fought against the dissonance that threatened to overwhelm the system as ship after ship emerged from the sun. She descended to the great dance chamber of her ship, followed by Second-Strong-Cadence and every other Ekhat on the ship not required to make the servients operate the vessel.

All the Trīkē servients not actually at controls were also summoned.

****

Gabe Tully’s jaw clenched as the repeater screen in his command deck on the Ban Chao finally gave him a clear view of what the Terra taif fleet faced.

Beside him Lieutenant Bannerji whistled. “Eight of them. Wow.”

“What’s the matter, Lieutenant?” Gabe asked with a grin. “Think Dannet can’t take them, after wiping out their sun patrol?”

“Oh, no, sir,” Bannerji replied earnestly. “It’s just, this will be one of the biggest Jao/Ekhat engagements for the last hundred years or so. And we’ve got a ring-side seat.”

“More like we’re sitting in the ring,” Gabe muttered. He pointed at the sidebars displayed on the view screen. “So what can you tell me about this fleet?”

Bannerji pointed his pad at the view screen, pulling the data off and matching it into the databanks he had stored. “Hmm, yes, that matches . . .”

“Vikram,” Gabe said with a bite. “Give.”

“Oh, yes, sir,” the lieutenant looked up with a flash of white teeth. “According to the Jao records, the ship types aren’t from the Melody faction, probably not Interdict, either. Most likely either Complete Harmony or True Harmony.” He ran his fingers over the screen of his pad. “I’d say Complete Harmony.”

“Okay, so they’re Complete Harmony. What does that tell me that’s useful in knowing where to point Ban Chao?”

Bannerji pointed his pad back at the view screen. Four of the Ekhat ships turned orange. “Those four are smaller than the others. Think of them as cruisers, maybe. Scout ships, small expeditions like the attack on Terra, that’s what they’re usually used for.”

Three more of the ships turned green. “These three are main battle craft, about the size of the Bond’s Harrier class ships. Any one of those would be a good target.”

The last Ekhat ship turned red. “But this one,” Bannerji’s Oxonian tones took on an air of excitement, “this one is the prize. It’s been at least two generations since a Jao has seen one of these. They call it a World Harvester, and they’ve only seen them used when the Complete Harmony goes in and literally harvests a planet, taking all life forms for use in their service in some way.”

“Uh-huh,” Gabe said, frowning. He looked around at his company commanders and command staff. “Well, gentlemen, I expect that’s going to be our target. Let’s take that thing away from them.”

Wolfish smiles lit up all around the room.

“Give us the tech readouts, Vikram,” Gabe ordered, and heads bent over pads as the data flowed.

****

Caitlin was hugging her knees again, watching as the view screen showed the Ekhat ships approaching closer. Or at least, it seemed like the Lexington was standing still and the Ekhat were rushing toward them, when the reality was that they were actually all in motion toward each other.

She looked up at Wrot again. “Is that normal?” she asked. “All that moving around? I thought they would just charge right at us again, like the ships in the sun.”

Wrot’s angles shifted to willingness-to-tutor, with a hint of amused added at the end. Caitlin resisted the temptation to call him a smartass.

“In some confrontations in the past, they have done this,” he said. “Some of the Bond strategy circle almost understand it as a ritual choreography. It has never seemed to help them much, but they still do it.” He shrugged. “The Ekhat are not sane.”

“Fleet Commander,” the head sensor officer called out, “the central ship is a World Harvester.”

All noise in the command deck stopped for just a moment. Then Dannet’s head twisted toward the communications officer. “Inform Ban Chao and Colonel Tully that that is their target.”

Caitlin pressed back in her seat as the normal noise resumed in the command deck. She wanted to protest, but knew she couldn’t. She had oudh over the mission, but not over the combat. For better or ill, that fell into Dannet’s hands, and it had already been proven that the Fleet Commander was superb at her job.

For Tully’s sake, Caitlin hoped that would continue to be so.

****

Such was Descant-at-the-Fourth’s control that when she began the new song, within moments Second-Strong-Cadence and the immature Ekhat had locked into it. Their individual urges were sublimated to her song. They followed her steps, they barked and staccatoed and glissandoed with amazing integration, even for Ekhat.

To a human, it would have sounded like the ultimate cacophony. To the Ekhat, it approached divinity–or it would have, if the Ekhat had had a concept of God. But even Descant-at-the-Fourth was impressed with the facility with which the others achieved her design.

Having established the ground, the foundation for her work, Descant-at-the-Fourth waved her manipulators. As the other Ekhat continued in the ground, she and Second-Strong-Cadence began a new theme; and with that Descant-at-the-Fourth’s genius was revealed.

A new harmony sprang into being, one that vibrated strongly against the dissonance brought by the invaders. Against the rock hard ground maintained by the others, she and her mate moved and sang, now mirror imaging each other, now offering thesis and antithesis, every step and every note strengthening the harmony.

The other ships echoed back the song, enriching the harmony and buttressing it against the dissonance.

As it crested, the first of the Ekhat ships flung themselves against the intruders.

****

The second phase of the battle seemed to last forever. And through it all, Flue Vaughan felt somewhat like a musician trying to play Bach with one hand and Rachmaninoff with the other, all the while singing the classic song “Stairway to Heaven.” His fingers flew from one pad to another, sampling data flows, pulling data and status snapshots into his files as he muttered notes into his mic. He glanced up at the view screen as often as he could, but mostly he was watching the readouts and bars of his workstation display.

The opening laser attacks had little impact. The Lexington-class ships had the strongest defensive screens yet known to the Jao, and they were carrying screens of solar plasma along with them. What little energy penetrated through those barely warmed spots on the hull metal. Flue knew that wouldn’t last, though. As the ships drew closer, and as the plasma cooled and attenuated, the Ekhat lasers would have more and more effect on even the Lexingtons, much less the smaller ships.

He kept one eye and one ear focused on the fleet commander. Dannet had issued no commands since the order to Ban Chao, but she and Terra-Captain Uldra were discussing something. He noticed Wrot heading in that direction, as well.

“More of that bloody flow,” he muttered.

****

Lim slowly refolded the edge of her robes with care. She was watching her fingers rather than the view screen repeater. Caitlin Kralik had authorized a feed of the command deck view screen signal to the Ekhat-lore elian quarters, ostensibly to aid Ramt in collecting data about the Ekhat. Ramt had extended the use of that privilege to the two members of Terra-lore elian, so she and Pyr were now seated in Ramt’s common room, watching the repeater even though he was on the Ban Chao.

Or rather, Pyr was watching it. Lim was avoiding the view. This was her first time to experience what the humans called combat–if she could be said to be experiencing anything at all seated on a Lleix-designed bench inside a human-designed room behind the armor and defensive shields of a Jao/human-designed battleship. Ignoring the slight vibrations felt through the decking, the view screen repeater could have been a human television in the Terra-lore quarters back in the Lleix refugee settlements in the mountains of Colorado.

But Lim knew that wasn’t the case. Intelligent beings were fighting and dying all around her, and it was disturbing to her that there was no sense of the struggle, no sense of the combat, no feeling that she was involved. That bothered the young Lleix, bothered her deeply.

Lim was slowly coming to the realization that her understanding of sensho, of the Lleix concept of right-living, was beginning to evolve. And she knew that some of the tall elders, such as the Starsifters just down the hall from where she sat, would be shocked that her sensho would vary from the way sensho had always been. And others would simply frown and whisper, “She is from the dochaya. What can be expected from such?”

At the moment, though, she was hoping very hard that Colonel Gabe Tully would survive this battle, this combat. She desired more than ever the teaching he had promised her.

****

Wrot settled into the angles of query-for-the-purpose-of-commencing-action, but said nothing. Dannet’s posture was a solid determination-to-prevail, but she said nothing. Terra-Captain Uldra ran a rapid kaleidoscope of surprised/uncertain/uncomfortable before he settled on neutral.

“The flow . . . is not,” Uldra said.

“Say rather, it is opposed,” Wrot replied, shifting to adamant-purpose. “We must continue as we’ve begun.”

The other two also shifted to adamant-purpose, and began issuing orders.

 

Death’s Bright Day – Snippet 37

Death’s Bright Day – Snippet 37

In the bosun’s hands, that was certainly true. For the slightly built Cazelet — probably less so, but that wasn’t the point. Cazelet didn’t have the military indoctrination which trains its subjects out of the normal human hesitation to kill another human. He’d failed to shoot an enemy during a deadly struggle on Corcyra and he might fail again, but he could lead an attack just as well with a club as with an impeller.

Likewise Vesey. Daniel had been thinking of Vesey as the person whom he could best trust to take care of Adele and the Princess Cecile. He’d ignored the fact that she was an RCN officer — and a human being, who had the right to resent Captain Leary’s unintentional insult on her ability to lead.

Daniel smiled, relaxing his audience. “Yes, all right, Cazelet,” he said. “That means I’m going to put the Katchaturian under –”

His pause may not have been noticeable to his officers, but it was very real in Daniel’s mind. Cazelet’s request had surprised him, though it shouldn’t have: Rene wouldn’t have been much of a man if he hadn’t asked to accompany into danger the woman whom he was seeing when they were both off duty. He and Vesey had been together for nearly two years now.

“– Captain Schnitker, who commanded her in Nabis service. He’s got a good deal of dry landing experience and has shown himself generally competent. What I don’t know about him yet is how he behaves when bullets are flying. For that reason –”

Daniel grinned at Hale, seated beside Cory.

“– Acting Lieutenant Hale will be on the Katchaturian’s bridge during action at the navigator’s console. Hale, if you believe at any point that the mission or the personnel on the ground are being endangered by Captain Schnitker’s behavior, you are to shoot him and take over. Can you handle that?”

“Sir!” said Hale. “Yes sir!”

“Draw a sidearm, then,” Daniel said. Normally personnel turned in their weapons when they returned from detached duty. Not only were guns unnecessary, the steel bulkheads made ricochets from an accidental discharge a particular nightmare.

“If that’s all our business here…” Daniel said. He waited a few beats to make sure that it was all the business. “Then we’ll go outside and inform the crews of the plan.”

He rose, bringing his officers up with him. Daniel gestured them out of the cabin so that they could join the ordinary spacers before Captain Leary addressed them from the main hatch of the Katchaturian.

“How much trouble do you think the wogs are going to give us?” Hogg asked over his shoulder as he led his master down the companionway. He carried his own stocked impeller and had slung a sub-machine gun for Daniel.

“I doubt there’s half a dozen guns in either village,” Daniel said, speaking over the echoes of boots on steel treads in a steel tube. “At Beta there might be a problem if somebody’s awake enough to use the rockets on the Roebuck.”

“Hey Hogg?” Tovera called from behind Daniel. “You want to switch duty? A slug from that cannon of yours would take out the rockets. Maybe set ’em off, even.”

“Naw, I’ll stick with the master,” Hogg said. “If the wogs get their fingers out in time, which I don’t figure’ll happen, then it’ll show this Nabis lot that life has risks, right?”

True enough on all counts, Daniel thought. But he really hoped that it wouldn’t happen. He’d be able to hear eight-inch bombardment rockets detonating even from fifteen miles away.

Reed and Nagata, both techs, were on watch in the boarding hold, standard operating procedure when the hatch was open. They muttered greetings as Daniel and the servants stepped to the top edge of the hatch. Gusts from outside whipped their clothes.

“Fellow spacers of the Nabis Contingent!” Daniel said. The loudspeakers on the Katchaturian’s spine were being fed from a parabolic microphone on the Princess Cecile, lying parallel to the destroyer and a hundred feet away.

The crews, assembled into squads, stared up at him. The spacers’ expressions varied from anticipation through discomfort to outright concern. The Sissies who would be acting as squad leaders had done the sorting while Daniel addressed the officers who would command larger groupings. The attack parties weren’t armies, but at least they were organized.

Daniel was uncomfortable too, if it came to that. Benjamin’s air was thin and dry and cold. He knew he wouldn’t notice it once they moved out to attack, but he didn’t want to shiver and have the Nabis personnel think that he was trembling in fear.

“We’re going to attack two peasant villages, capture the ships there, and free any prisoners we find,” Daniel said. “Our job is not to kill peasants, though anyone who resists will be dealt with in the quickest way possible. People who surrender are not to be harmed.”

He wondered if the spacers below could see his stern expression as he said that. Probably not, most of them; the wind flicked dust from the ground and made them squint. Benjamin was really a miserable place.

“Now that it’s really coming to the point, some of you may be thinking that maybe you’d be happier in a job where nobody’s going to be shooting at you,” Daniel said. “You’ve got that option: anybody who decides he doesn’t have the balls for this work can chicken out now. You’ll stay on shipboard till we can carry you back to Peltry and land you on the beach. The Nabis Contingent has no room for cowards!”

Daniel gave his words a few moments to sink in. He didn’t expect many Nabies to take up the offer, since crewing a starship was a dangerous job itself — more dangerous than rushing a couple villages full of startled peasants. Besides, even real cowards hated to admit they were cowards, especially in front of their comrades and a corvette-crew of foreigners, many of whom were women.

When nobody stepped forward, Daniel nodded and said, “I’m done here, then, but before we board the ships for deployment, my servant Hogg has a few words to say to you.”

Daniel stepped back, taking the sub-machine gun which Hogg handed him. Hogg and Tovera moved to the edge of the ramp. Tovera carried a full-sized sub-machine gun from the Sissie’s arms locker.

“I’ve been looking after the young master for nigh-on thirty years,” Hogg said. His gravelly voice boomed out from the speakers above him. “I’m still doing that. Now, the master knows that if we go in fast and everybody keeps moving, this is going to be a piece of cake. The only way it gets dangerous is if we funk it after we start; and by ‘we’ I mean ‘you.’ I’ll be following the batch with the master, and Tovera here –”

Tovera raised her sub-machine gun overhead by the balance.

“– will be in back of those of you landing on the Sissie. What we’ll do is kill anybody who runs away or tries to go to ground. If you think we won’t do it or can’t do it, you talk to your shipmates who served with us before. Believe me, we’re a lot more dangerous than the barefoot wogs you’re going up against.”

Hogg and Tovera backed away; Daniel took center again and said, “Fellow spacers, if everybody does his job we’ll be back on Peltry in three days, with liberty for all and a bonus –”

Paid out of Daniel’s own pocket if the Ministry of War balked.

“– to spend. Dismissed to your ships!”

Sissies led the cheer, but Daniel saw that a gratifying number of Nabies were joining in. Tovera walked down the ramp to get to her action station on the Princess Cecile. Daniel moved to the side to let the Katchaturian’s crew reboard.

“I think they’ll do fine,” Hogg said, eyeing the squads of spacers.

“We’ll know in a couple hours,” Daniel said, wishing that he were as confident as Hogg sounded.

 

Through Fire – Snippet 13

Through Fire – Snippet 13

He turned to me and smiled, “There will be clothes for you in the bedroom when you’re done with the fresher.” He turned to Alexis. “You’ll have to wait your turn, Brisbois.” And, advancing towards an impressively stocked drinks table. “What do you drink?”

Which, I thought, was just like men, sending me off to wash, while they drank and, doubtless, Lucius Keeva got an accurate report of the revolution and the mess in Liberte from Alexis Brisbois.

I was in the spacious, and certainly luxurious, fresher and scrubbing the outrageous makeup off my face when it occurred to me that I’d been positively itching to get out of this; that Alexis was probably better equipped to explain the military situation to Keeva, and that they were not being slighting but gallant, giving me first shot at getting out of what were clearly uncomfortable as well as awful looking clothes.

Still, I washed as fast as I could, and rushed out, to find that indeed there were clothes waiting for me: a black pair of pants and a gray tunic in roughly my size. Lifting them, I found underwear underneath, and pulled that on first, in a hurry. Then I ran my fingers through my wet hair and rushed out, barefoot.

The men had sat down, across from each other, with glasses of something amber in their hands. They both rose as I came in. “Ms. Sienna,” Lucius said. “May I offer you something to drink?”

“Whatever you’re having,” I said.

He lifted his eyebrows, but I wasn’t quite up to the variety of drinks on Earth. I knew that some of them weren’t considered ladylike — whatever that might be — but I had yet to taste one I couldn’t drink. None of these people had, after all, been raised on the particularly noxious drink my countrymen made from fermented bugs.

He handed me a glass of amber liquid that smelled alcoholic and peaty. I took a short sip, determined this was a drink to take slowly, and did so. “What did Alexis tell you?” I asked.

“Everything,” Alexis said. “Everything I know.”

I wondered if that was true. I suspected Alexis Brisbois didn’t tell everything he knew, not even to himself. Not if he could help it.

“And now you may go clean up,” Lucius said. It wasn’t an order, but it was. Alexis hesitated, but he got up and said, looking at me, “I’ll be right back.”

I wondered what he feared exactly, from Lucius. I didn’t think he intended to attack me. But Lucius waited till Alexis had vanished into the room beyond, before saying, “Ms. Sienna?”

“Zen.”

“Beg your pardon?”

“If you’re Luce I’m Zen.”

“Very well, then, Zen. What… what is your relationship with Simon?”

“What?”

“Your… relationship. Are you… involved?”

“He–” I said. The problem with Simon is that you couldn’t help liking him. But it came to me that one always felt slightly guilty for doing so. “He has been very kind to me. He’s … he let me live in his palace and… and get acclimated to Earth. I suppose you could say we are friends.”

A short silence, then he frowned. “Yes, but… but that covers a vast array of terrain. Excuse me, but… are you emotionally involved?”

Was I emotionally involved? What did he even mean? “I owe him a debt,” I said, stubbornly. “I think he… I think he likes me very much, but–”

“But?”

“I can’t… I think he arranged for an innocent man to murder his fath–predecessor. I think he enjoys power and being the center of the seacity. He says he loves me, but I can’t tell if he means it, or is just playing at it.”

“Oh,” Lucius smiled suddenly, as though startled. It was an odd smile. Fleeting. When I’d met him before, we’d been in battle mode. I realized for the first time he’d been raised in the same world as Simon, if not in the same way; that he could probably be charming, if he wanted to, in a way that meant absolutely nothing. The smile was followed by a sigh. “Oh, likely neither can he. Simon–” He paused. “Simon’s… ancestor was created as a spy and someone who could play any role, and I don’t think Simon’s situation these last few years, knowing he was not like the other Good Men and remaining safe only by playing the fool and encouraging the idea his “father” might recover helped whatever inherent tendencies were in his make up.”

I nodded. I’d known about Simon’s original, the person he was cloned from; had learned it from someone who’d known the original. As for Simon playing the fool, I knew that too. I didn’t think I could explain — or wanted to explain — to Lucius the glimpses of someone more substantial beneath Simon’s playacting. Saving me at the expense of himself, even as his world quite literally crashed around his head, was not the act of a self-centered fool. I didn’t think I could explain that I felt as though someone were a prisoner, encased, in Simon’s playacting. Nor could I explain the sympathy I felt for his situation. So I said, “Yes.”

He nodded. “But that doesn’t answer my question. Are you involved? Physically or emotionally?”

“What difference does that make?” I asked.

He let air out through his nose. “It might. In how much I can help, within my limited capacity.” He raised a hand. “No, look. Our organization — not the military, but the organization that predates it — has an unbreakable policy of helping dependents: children and spouses or spouses equivalent. I can’t get you help officially, not from Olympus, that is, but you did render the Usaians a service, and though it’s stretching a point, I can take it to the council. If you’re Simon’s — If–”

I sighed. “We’re not. Not that close, and not physically. I was widowed less than a year ago. I’m not ready–”

“Understood. And emotionally?”

“I care for him,” I said. “Possibly more than I should — but I’m not sure how…” I looked up at those blue-gray eyes staring down at me like a judge from a podium. “Look, I don’t know if I have the slightest romantic interest in him, or if it’s just… just that I feel sorry for him. I always feel bad for people who are ducks out of water, because I am.”

This surprised a chuckle out of him. “Yes,” he said. “I do too, for the same reason. That’s why I said I’d help to the limit of my ability, but my ability is very limited. I can’t go with you and help you. I’m needed here. My superiors would skin me alive for risking myself in the hell Liberte has become. And we can’t send troops into the mess in Liberte because we don’t have troops to spare.”

The meaning of his words so far had sank in — and I understood the sense of cold I’d got from our reception. It wasn’t so much that he didn’t want to help us, but that even if he wanted to, he couldn’t. “But you’re the Good Man!” I said. “You can order someone like Nat Remy–”

I realized I’d gone too far. His gaze hardened. “I’m not the Good Man,” he said. “Not anymore. Unlike Simon, I didn’t declare the revolution, nor do I control it as he thought he did. And as for Nat, he’s in enough danger without sending him on what will turn out to be a suicide mission. Even if I had the power to order him, which I don’t. I don’t remember the rank in his last letter. It seems to keep changing. But I warrant you he’s my superior.”

“Suicide?” I said.

“What do you think? You know more history than most people on Earth — So do I for my sins. When a land, or in this case, a group of territories, takes it upon their head to make all humans equal, it always ends one way. It’s not that reality can’t be violated,” he said, and sounded suddenly very tired. “It’s that there is always a price to pay for it. Always. And the price for the fantasy of equality is always paid in blood.” He looked very sad but mostly very tired. Then his expression changed in a second, as he looked over my shoulder at someone behind me, “Ah. Brisbois. I would extend you the hospitality of my house, but as you see my quarters are reduced to a single guestroom, and I am about to offer that to Ms. — To Zenobia.”

“I can sleep anywhere,” Alexis said. I turned around to see that he had changed appearance almost as markedly as I had. He looked yet completely different from the man I’d guess I had glimpsed around the palace, in a formal and undistinguished gold and white uniform. And he looked again different than the man in cheap clothes who’d brought me here.

I didn’t know what clothes Lucius had arranged for him, and I hadn’t paid attention but now I remembered seeing a young man in uniform walk in and down that hallway carrying clothes. The clothes Alexis Brisbois was wearing were the formal attire of the upper-crust of Earth, such as I’d seen Simon wear. Silk shirt with lace at collar and sleeves. A velvet jacket with shoulder padding that, in his case, wasn’t necessary, narrowing to make the waist look small — in his case not very convincingly because the man was a single square block of stone-like muscle — and ornamented with ruffles at the back. The pants fit like a second skin under all that, and the boots came to meet the pants just above the calf.

 

The Span Of Empire – Snippet 13

The Span Of Empire – Snippet 13

Down to one blip now, which seemed to be spinning and swooping randomly, but Caitlin wasn’t able to determine if it was due to damage or intent on the part of the Ekhat. Whether by accident or not, that last ship seemed to be evading a lot of the fire from the battleships. She heard Vaughan muttering rapidly into his microphone, and he was playing the push pads on his station like it was a piano or an accordion.

Suddenly the blip took a careening curve and headed directly for the Vercingetorix. Caitlin sucked in her breath, and Vaughan’s hands stilled on his station’s pads.

“All guns cease firing,” Terra-Captain Uldra ordered.

****

“Cease firing immediately,” Kaln heard Mallu order. The repeater view screens made it clear the order had come to keep them from firing at their sister ship. They watched as the Ekhat approached the Vercingetorix.

****

Quarter-tone Ascending’s rage was almost as consuming as the fires that raged in the great dance chamber which the command chamber overlooked. Her voice continued to pulse out her aria of death and destruction; solo, now, since her mate lay dead behind her.

She was splashed with ichor and blood; white from Ninth-flat and several of the youngling Ekhat in the chamber, purple from the many Trīkē who had been slaughtered. Her mind didn’t hold the concept of an abattoir, but any sane species would have been horrified.

One by one, Quarter-tone Ascending had heard her daughters grow silent. One by one, the echoing voices had dropped from the music, until she alone was left, throwing her defiance and her hate at the strangers.

Locking her legs so that she would not fall, with her only working manipulator claw Quarter-tone Ascending grasped the head of the nearest immature male Ekhat and forced his mind into union with hers. Other species would have called it child rape. For her, it was her last tactic.

The young nameless male stepped forward and took the pilot’s controls from the Trīkē, shifting the course of their dying vessel by main strength to charge the closest of the stranger/enemy vessels.

Quarter-tone Ascending stood behind him, pouring her voice into him, pounding him with the pulses and peaks, urging him on to their mutual immolation.

****

The command deck of the Lexington was almost silent. Humans and Jao alike watched the view screen. Most of the Jao had slipped into angles of observing-impending-destruction. Fleet Commander Dannet and Terra-Captain Uldra both stood in impeccable gratified-respect, the posture that recognized expected honor. Wrot went beyond that, adopting honorable-recognition, as flow deepened and crested simultaneously.

The blips merged.

Chapter 5

Quarter-tone Ascending shrieked in mingled fury and dismay as the stranger/enemy ship moved at seemingly the last moment–not enough to dodge their charge, but enough that the central mass of her ship would miss the other. Only subordinate structures, struts and trusses, made contact, crumpling against the nose of the stranger/enemy and scraping down its side.

The Ekhat ship was left spinning toward a plasma cell. All controls were dead, although the Trīkē continued to work them frantically, apparently in the belief that their Ekhat masters would produce a miracle.

As her ship was carried downward in the current of the cell, Quarter-tone Ascending lost both her aria and her grip on what passed for sanity among the Ekhat. She began shrieking, tunelessly, swinging her forehand blade around her, completing/slaughtering the remaining Ekhat and those Trīkē who couldn’t evade her.

Her last vision was of the flood of solar plasma that suddenly burst into the chamber as the ship’s shields failed and the hull materials began to vaporize. The heat of that moment matched the heat of her rage.

And then there was nothing.

****

Flue Vaughan studied the readouts on his panel, then raised his eyes to the viewer. The solar plasma seriously degraded the accuracy of even the Jao science instruments, but it looked very much like the Vercingetorix was still there.

He glanced over at Caitlin, and saw her smiling. She looked up and said something to Wrot, who nodded his head and shifted his position into something Flue couldn’t read. His command of Jao body language was improving, but still couldn’t be considered more than elementary.

A readout on his panel caught his attention. “Fleet Commander,” he called out. Dannet turned his way, head tilted and ears lowered, which Flue did recognize as an abbreviated form of curt-attention. “Lexington’s A and C gun decks report 77% combat load remaining, E deck has 75%.”

He watched as Dannet absorbed that information. If the other battleships had similar stock levels, that meant that nearly 25% of the fleet’s gunnery ammunition stocks had been used up in a single engagement. That didn’t exactly fill Flue with warm feelings. Dannet’s posture went neutral, and she returned her attention to the view screen without a word.

Flue shrugged, then looked back at his own panel.

****

Caitlin sat back, limp with relief. They’d done it. Or rather, Fleet Commander Dannet had done it. Six Ekhat ships destroyed with no losses to her own fleet. She looked up at Wrot, and he bent toward her.

“I’d say that was a good day’s work,” she murmured.

Wrot’s whiskers twitched as he shifted to cautious-optimism. “Indeed. The only other instance I can think of where a Jao force won so . . . forcefully was the battle at Valeron.”

Which was where Dannet, then Terra-Captain of the Lexington, had defeated and destroyed five Ekhat ships. Caitlin realized in a new light just how large a gift the Narvo had given Terra taif in the person of Dannet.

“But,” Wrot continued with one of his ubiquitous human phrases, “don’t count your chickens before they’ve hatched. If there were this many ships waiting at the sun, who knows what else might be in the system.”

“I didn’t need to hear that,” Caitlin muttered.

****

“Fleet command: take the ships out. Formation Epsilon Alpha,” Dannet ordered, “Lexington to take point. And take a full load of plasma.”

Flue nodded to himself. Bold moves, but with a certain amount of caution as well. Epsilon Alpha inverted the cone formation, and Dannet had put Lexington in the lead. Which, he had to admit, made sense, since it had the most practiced crew.

He muttered more notes into his microphone. After a moment, he looked over at Wrot and caught his attention. The Jao stepped over to stand by his station.

“What is ‘the flow’ telling you now?”

Wrot considered for a moment, then shrugged–he was one of the best at using human gestures–and said, “Time to move forward.”

“So all the other ship-captains will follow Lexington?”

Wrot gestured toward the view screen. “As you can see.”

Flue looked and could see that the other battleships were indeed moving, following Terra-Captain Uldra’s lead out of the plasma. And he thought he could see hints that the other ships were following them.

“We have got to get a communicator that works in plasma,” he groused. He punched a pad, then said for his notes, “Talk to the sub dudes and the science dudes. Will sonar or something like it work in the solar plasma? Can we use it for pulse codes?”

****

Descant-at-the-Fourth stepped around the great hall of the ship’s pyramid, waiting impatiently, manipulators absent-mindedly shredding the corpse of a servient who had dared to squeak while she was singing. Since Quarter-tone Ascending’s aria had faded into the music of the sun, she had been directing a pavane between the remaining ships in the system, orchestrating them to coalesce in a dance of seven ships around the massive harvester/purifier that she, as one of the signal voices of all the Complete Harmony factions, had at her personal disposal.

Now she waited for the return of Quarter-tone Ascending’s daughter-group, wanting those tones for the melody. Her mate, Second-Strong-Cadence, maintained the music behind her, riding on top of the chorus of immature Ekhat and servients. Their time of mating would occur soon, the music hinted.

Descant-at-the-Fourth’s head tilted suddenly, and her manipulators squeezed what remained of her servient toy into protoplasmic jelly. A thin whistle issued from her mouth as the harmonies in the system tilted; dissonance obtruded. She watched as an ovoid shape, sheathed in plasma, emerged from the sun. Sharp staccato notes crescendoed and accelerated in her fury as it became obvious that the interlopers had defeated Quarter-tone Ascending.

A new theme emerged, overwhelming Second-Strong-Cadence. Within moments it was echoed back to Descant-at-the-Fourth from the other ships. The pavane wheeled, and began flowing toward the sun.

“Destroy! Unharvest!” Descant-at-the-Fourth sang as more interlopers began to emerge from the solar plasma. “Purify!”

****

“Cachu!” Flue muttered in his native Welsh as they cleared the last of the plasma veils and the sensors were finally able to provide clear resolution of what lay in store.

“More Ekhat,” he continued, slapping at pads on his console to pull the sensor data into his files. “How ducky.”

He stilled as Dannet lifted her head from where she was studying the sensor details over the shoulder of the lead sensor officer.

“Light attack craft to Epsilon Delta, north and south. Support ships remain at the photosphere transition for further orders.”

Vaughan pulled that into his files, and tried to make sense of the fleet dispositions. He could see no advantage in placing the lighter ships in the offset formation Dannet had just ordered them to. He ground his teeth. “Bloody flow.”

 

1636: The Chronicles of Dr. Gribbleflotz – Snippet 28

1636: The Chronicles of Dr. Gribbleflotz – Snippet 28

Jean quickly recovered his good humor. “Someone I’ve never seen before. A Dr. Phillip Theophrastus Gribbleflotz, and he was almost as good as you, Papa. But that wasn’t what was so funny.”

“I’ve heard of him,” Gaspard said. “So if Dr. Gribbleflotz showing Ambrosius up for the fool he is wasn’t so funny, what was?”

“That.” Jean struggled to speak though his laughter. It took a few attempts before he could explain without bursting out laughing. “Dr. Laurent’s accused Dr. Gribbleflotz of trying to make a fool of him, but Dr. Gribbleflotz said to Dr. Laurent that he didn’t have to try and make a fool out of him, because he was doing a good enough job of that himself.”

Gaspard joined in the laughter. They managed to stop laughing, several times, but every time they made eye contact they started again. Eventually they were all laughed out. With tears still streaming from his eyes he looked at his son. “I haven’t laughed like that in years.”

Jean was glad his father was in such a good mood, because there was something he wanted. “Papa . . .”

“No.”

“But I didn’t ask for anything,” Jean protested.

“I’m your father, and I knew you were going to ask for something.”

“But I only want to attend a private anatomy course,” Jean pleaded.

Gaspard raised a brow. “I thought you weren’t impressed with Ambrosius’ course.”

“I’m not,” Jean admitted. He started pacing around his father’s study, glancing at his father every now and again. “Three of the students happened to bump into Dr. Gribbleflotz during a break in Dr. Laurent’s course. They say that if there’s enough interest, he’s prepared to deliver a short course on anatomy.” He paused to give the next statement added emphasis. “With real cadavers.”

“Ambrosius still economizing by only using animal carcasses?”

Jean nodded. “Not that I think Dr. Gribbleflotz would be against using animals, Papa. I think that if he were to demonstrate an amputation, he would use a live animal, just to show how difficult it could be in reality.”

“This Dr. Gribbleflotz sounds very interesting,” Gaspard said. “Yes, you may attend, and I might drop in and watch myself.”

A few days later: the first day of Dr. Gribbleflotz’ anatomy course

Professor Bauhin stood in the gallery beside his son and watched as Dr. Gribbleflotz cleared up from the morning session of his public dissection. He was impressed. The man certainly knew what he was doing, but more impressive than his obvious knowledge of anatomy and surgery was the way he managed to involve the audience. Not just the half dozen young hopefuls, who he was sure, were pleasantly surprised at just how much of the actual dissection they were doing, but also the people who were just watching.

He felt an aggressive tug on his hand and looked down into the pleading eyes of his son. With a rueful smile he let Jean lead him onto the dissection floor where Dr. Gribbleflotz was taking off his surgical apron.

“A most impressive display, Herr Dr. Gribbleflotz,” Gaspard said. He smiled at the startled look in the eyes of Martin Stoler before he hastily whispered into Dr. Gribbleflotz’ ear.

“A pleasure to meet you, Herr Professor Bauhin,” Philip said as he hastily wiped his hand clean on the folds of his still relatively clean surgical apron before reaching out to grasp the hand Gaspard held out. “I hope my poor efforts haven’t bored you.”

“No. I wasn’t bored. You’re a credit to your teachers.”

“Thank you, Professor Bauhin. I studied for three years under Professor Casseri,” Phillip said, “and he would be pleased to know his efforts weren’t in vain.”

“Ah, Professor Casseri. He was merely Giulio Casseri when I was studying at Padua under Professor Fabricius. Were you there when Giulio gave his anatomy course in the public anatomy theater?” Gaspard had read reviews of that course and was envious of those who had been there.

Phillip nodded. “I took comprehensive notes, which you are welcome to borrow, Professor.”

“I might take you up on that offer. Meanwhile, you may not be aware that human dissections are supposed to only be done with the approval of the university.” Gaspard held up his hands to silence Phillip’s immediate response. “However, having seen you at work, I’m sure that I can persuade the university to backdate its approval of your demonstration.”

Phillip’s jaw dropped. He hadn’t expected that kind of support. “Thank you, Professor Bauhin,” he managed to mutter.

Gaspard clapped his hand on Phillip’s shoulder. “Come, let’s have lunch together.”

Next day

Peter Hebenstreit was a survivor. Chronologically he was fifteen, but his soul was much older. Right now he was cursing his lack of forethought. He’d heard Professor Bauhin invite Dr. Gribbleflotz to lunch. He’d seen the two men, with Professor Bauhin’s son trailing behind, leave the anatomy theater together the previous day. He should have realized that after his performance that first day, and with the apparent endorsement of Dr. Gribbleflotz by Professor Bauhin, that places on the anatomy course would be in high demand. Foolishly, instead of raising the price for the remaining spaces in the audience, he’d actually sold them at a discount, thinking that no one would pay full price for a five day course after missing the first day.

Two men with entry tokens hanging from strings around their necks approached. Peter checked off the numbers written on the wooden tokens and let them into the theater. That was everyone. He then turned to the group of hopefuls who had turned up hoping to attend the lectures. “I’m sorry, but there are no vacancies. Maybe there will be some no-shows tomorrow,” he told them.

“But I have money,” one of them protested.

“There is no more space in the theater,” Peter apologized. And that really annoyed him. He could have sold another twenty places if they’d been available. “I’m sure Dr. Gribbleflotz will put on another series of lectures soon.” Certainly he would be doing so if Peter had anything to do with it, and in a much larger theater. Peter backed through the door and bolted it before heading over to the preparation room where Dr. Gribbleflotz was tying on a clean apron. “You have a full house, Herr Doctor Gribbleflotz.”

“Very good, Peter. You may occupy yourself as you will until the noon break,” Phillip said as he waved for his assistants to carry the body into the theater.

Now the dissection was starting Peter took his position at the entrance to the dissection level. The previous day Dr. Gribbleflotz had only had one stoppage during his lecture, for lunch. Members of the audience had got hungry and sent him out to buy snacks. They’d also needed the chamber pot, and rather than miss any of the demonstration they might have relieved themselves in a convenient corner. Dr. Gribbleflotz had provided Peter with some buckets and told him to see that the audience used them.

A hand waved and Peter made eye contact with the man who’d waved — his first customer of the day. Peter slipped back through the entrance and made his way up to the gallery.

Three days later

Johann Rudolf Glauber walked up to the Riehen-tor, where he was stopped by one of the gate guards.

“Name and purpose for entering the city?” Hans Keisser asked.

Johann leaned on his hiking stave as he answered. “I am a student looking for teachers.”

“What kind of student?” Sergeant Niklaus Heffelfinger asked as he walked over to join Hans and Johann.

“I’m a student of the alchemical arts. Would you know where I might look for suitable teacher?”

“You might try Dr. Gribbleflotz,” Hans suggested.

“No.” Niklaus shook his head. “You’re forgetting that he is running an anatomy course this week.”

“But today was the last day, Sergeant,” Hans said. “Dr. Gribbleflotz should be in his laboratory tomorrow morning.”

Niklaus turned to Johann. “There you are, Herr Glauber. Dr. Gribbleflotz might be willing to provide the training you seek, otherwise you could ask around over by the paper mill.”

At only eighteen Johann didn’t have much experience of doctors, but ones he’d met so far hadn’t known anything about practical alchemy. Too many of them were, as Paracelsus had written, lazy and insolent. Too idle and given to displays of wealth to actually dirty their hands in the pursuit of alchemical knowledge. So he had no intention of contacting this Dr. Gribbleflotz, but the other suggestion had merit “Where might I find this paper mill?” he asked.

Niklaus pointed vaguely to an area on the other side of the Rhine. “You cross the bridge and turn left. Keep walking past the St Alban cloister. You can’t miss it.”

Johann thanked the guards and entered the city.

****

“You want alchemical training?” the man at the paper mill asked.

Johann nodded. “That’s right. The guards at the north gate said you might know where I can find a suitable teacher.”

The man chewed on his mustache and looked around. Seeing another worker he called out. “Hey, Kuntz. This youngster wants to find someone who can teach him alchemy,” Tobias Brunner said.

Kuntz Hegler wandered over to join his colleague. “There’s Herr Ackhermann. I heard he was looking for a new laborant.”

Johann was suspicious of the grins on his new acquaintances’ faces. “What happened to his last one?” he asked.

 

The Span Of Empire – Snippet 12

The Span Of Empire – Snippet 12

Chapter 4

Quarter-tone Ascending charged into the command module of her ship, followed closely by her mate Ninth-flat. Several of the attendant servients were trampled in their rush, their cries of pain and distress and death adding to the urgency of the building harmonies.

“What occurs?” she keened. “What is this discordance in the harmony?”

“Strangers,” one of the youngling Ekhats uttered a recitative from his position. “Unknown ships. Not Ekhat.”

Quarter-tone Ascending slapped the speaker away from his station with her foreclaw, leaving him lying broken on the deck. “See to him,” she snapped to Ninth-flat as she stepped between the servients operating the station. “Show me,” she said.

One of the operators fumbled the controls. Quarter-tone Ascending snapped his head off, and the nearest servient stepped into his place. “Closer,” she shrilled. “More detail.” The sense of impending dissonance increased.

Behind her Quarter-tone Ascending could hear the rasp of Ninth-flat’s forehand blade as he completed the broken male.

The display sharpened to reveal a large ship, ovoid in shape. Quarter-tone Ascending was so shocked she almost lost her grip on the flow of harmony. “Not Jao,” she intoned. “Not Lleix. Not Ekhat. Who? Who brings dissonance?”

“It matters not,” another Ekhat voice sang. Quarter-tone Ascending spun to face another station, only to behold the visage of Descant-at-the-Fourth staring at her from a communicator. “They have no place!” the senior Harmonist of the system continued. “They break harmony! They pollute! Unharvest!” Descant-at-the-Fourth’s voice was true and pure, so much so that Quarter-tone Ascending was both admiring and jealous. “Destroy!”

With that final atonal arietta, the communicator signal shut off.

Quarter-tone Ascending belled out the only conceivable command–“Attack!”–and led her daughter ships toward the intruder. The six ships of their squadron swarmed forward, almost racing to reach their target, all desiring to add the note of that destruction to the universal melody.

****

“Still withdrawing,” Flue Vaughan muttered into his boom microphone. “Terra-Captain Uldra is conning the Lexington. No further commands issued to other battleships. Formation is shaping into a shallow funnel, with Lexington at the point at rear. FC Dannet is watching instruments.”

How will we ever learn to work with Jao at higher command levels? This was the first time that Vaughan had seen either the Terra-Captain or the Fleet Commander in a true combat situation, and it bore home to him just how alien the Jao were. Their reliance on sensing “the flow” and acting in concert without verbalizations was just eerie to watch. Dannet had issued no further orders after the initial commands, but still the Jao captains of the other ships positioned them in the most advantageous locations for what was coming. Even with the viewer set to distance, Vaughan could see that.

“No further commands,” Vaughan spoke into his boom mic again. “Ekhat are pursuing Lexington. No detectable formation or stratagem.”

There was a low murmur of conversation in the command center among the various human members of the crew and between them and the Jao ranks. But all were keeping an eye on the Fleet Commander, who stood watching the view screen, position neutral, eyes black.

“Now,” Dannet said.

The view screen flashed to short range display, and the Ekhat ships showed up in more detail, seemingly hurtling through the photosphere to assail the Lexington.

“All gun decks, fire as you bear,” Terra-Captain Uldra ordered.

****

Kaln krinnu ava Krant stood on the A gun deck of Pool Buntyam as deck commander, her status as a senior tech notwithstanding. Her body was poised in the angles of readiness-to-wreak-revenge. It was not a polite posture to take by regular Jao cultural standards. Kaln didn’t care. She was of Krant kochan; small, struggling, with no ties or associations to more prosperous kochans, overlooked and looked down on by the more affluent. Looked down on, that is, until Krant associated with Terra taif. Politeness was not a consideration to Kaln; not here, not now. Humans sometimes called her kochan hillbillies, and once she understood the full meaning of the term Kaln had embraced it.

Her eyes glittered green with rage; an emotion shared to its full depth and intensity by all the Krant crew who stood to the guns with her. Ekhat of the Melody faction had destroyed three Krant ships some time back. Kaln had survived, along with Krant-Captain Mallu and some of the crew of the ship that had held together long enough to destroy the Melody ship. She hadn’t forgotten. Nor had her fellows.

Today was payback time. Today, after over two years of waiting, they faced Ekhat again. But there was no comparison between their old Krant ship and Pool Buntyam. Today they would hammer the Ekhat with their beautiful new ship. And it didn’t matter if these ships weren’t Melody faction. Today, all Ekhat were the same.

Kaln felt the flow, rode it, waiting, anticipating, until it felt as if green sparks should be shooting from her stiffened whiskers. Just as the flow crested, Krant-Captain Mallu gave the word through the com: “Shoot!”

Twelve 200 millimeter cannon fired as one.

****

Quarter-tone Ascending stood in the center of the command module. There was no time to descend to the dance chamber, no time to prepare a grand performance plan, no time to prepare her mind for the music to come. There was only time to unite with Ninth-flat and stand and improvise an aria of death and destruction, extinction and eradication, genocide and glory. Their voices twined around each other, soaring, leaping, finding new heights of murderous passion, flowing out over the communicator to overmaster and draw the daughter ships in to follow her lead in the dance.

The Trīkē servients added their piping chorus behind the booming voices of the two great Ekhat.

“Onward!” Quarter-tone Ascending sang as their ship entered the outer plasma layer of the sun. “Erase the strangers!”

Echoes of her motif came back through the communicator from the daughter ships.

****

“Damn, that’s cool” Flue Vaughan muttered as he watched the streams of 200 millimeter rounds flaring through the plasma, somewhat like tracer rounds used to do in the old movies. They were depleted uranium sabot rounds, and the fierce solar plasma sublimated a layer of molecules with each passing second, but their velocity was so great that they didn’t lose much before arriving at their targets.

The solar plasma really interfered with the viewer, but Vaughan could make out faint bulges in the visual texture. “Bow waves off the Ekhat ships,” he said into his mic as he pressed another pad, capturing a view for later study. “Need to talk to old sub crews. We’re operating in a fluid here. Maybe they would have some ideas.”

He watched as volley after volley after volley flew out, targeting the lead Ekhat ship.

****

The aria duet continued, echoes from the daughter ships fading as they entered the plasma. Quarter-tone Ascending and Ninth-flat, in synchrony, took a servient from each side of the command module, held it up, and began slashing limbs off with their forehand blades, slowly, in counter-rhythm to each other. The agonized squeals of the dying servients added a most wonderful descant to the aria.

Their ship shuddered. Quarter-tone Ascending shrieked in anger, pulling the aria in an unplanned for direction. Ninth-flat lost synchrony, and she lashed behind her with her own forehand blade, feeling it bite without looking.

The Trīkē servients were ululating in terror, working their controls at furious rates. The young Ekhat were beating the servients, flogging them to higher pitches of frantic labor and shrill terror.

The ship shuddered again, and several bolts of flame flew through the compartment. One passed behind Quarter-tone Ascending, and Ninth-flat fell silent.

****

Kaln stood watching her gun crews work the weapons, her posture nothing more than pure blunt satisfaction. With four Lexingtons in the fray, none of the Ekhat ships had a chance. And the fact that her ship, her Pool Buntyam, was one of them only made the emotion that much stronger.

Her crews went about their work smoothly, feeding the rounds and the liquid propellants into the chambers of their cannons with efficiency. If one or two of the crew members had body angles of foreseen-retribution, well, she would overlook that.

Kaln did not own a human watch. She didn’t think in terms of seconds. But the volleys crashed out from the guns in synchrony with the flow. And she could feel the completion approaching.

****

Caitlin watched in awe as, one by one, the torrents of metal that the Lexington and her sister ships threw at the Ekhat ships caused them to disappear from the view screen. She had been told more than once of the effect of a depleted uranium sabot crashing through the side wall. The fiery hell that would have been created in each ship before their shields failed and the solar plasma overwhelmed them didn’t bear thinking about.

One by one the blips faded from the view screen. It seemed to take hours, but after a glance at her watch, Caitlin knew it had only been minutes. Less than half an hour to send an entire Ekhat squadron to oblivion.

 

Through Fire – Snippet 12

Through Fire – Snippet 12

And The Rock Cried Out

“I don’t think I can help you,” Lucius Keeva said. He was a large man and built with slab upon slab of muscle. It would have been easier if he were angry at me, or if he’d seemed emotional. Instead, he looked stern, controlled. In his sky blue uniform, he gave the impression of being no more than the conveyance of the will of Olympus seacity and, at least if we believed what the locals believed, of its inhabitants.

We’d arrived to Olympus at sunrise, and identified ourselves to the questioning of the guards as we approached the Good Man’s palace. Or what had been the Good Man’s palace.

At first I’d thought that the change in Olympus, now fully in control of the Usaian movement was the same it had been in Liberte seacity. The Good Man had proclaimed himself something else, and everything remained the same.

But it wasn’t like that. I hadn’t seen Lucius Dante Maximilian Keeva since our raid to Circum Terra six months ago. Back then I was very new to Earth — had just arrived there with a party from Eden. Just the sheer size of Earth, the ability to travel anywhere, to hide, to disappear, had overwhelmed me. Earth had been a kaleidoscope of images and sounds. More people than I’d ever seen in my life; more people than I’d ever known existed anywhere had crowded around me. And yet, I’d seen areas that were forgotten, lost–places with no humans at all.

When my friends had gone back to Eden, I’d taken my opportunity to run away from home in style, to stay behind in a whole world where no one knew me, where no one would expect anything of me.

Is there such a state for anyone human?

I’d lingered with someone who was kind to me and who protected me from the strangeness of Earth and made me feel welcome. A whole world, many times larger than anything I knew — than anything I could even imagine, had proven too daunting.

Back when I’d last seen Lucius Keeva, he’d looked stern and remote and frightening. He still looked frightening. A very tall man, with long dark-blond hair, it was rumored he’d spent fourteen years in prison, in solitary confinement.

I wasn’t sure that was true. I thought no one could survive that and remain functional, let alone sane enough to be one of the leaders of the Usaian revolution. But there was something different about him now from when I’d last seen him: a confidence, perhaps, a … but no, it wasn’t swagger. A man who is six seven and built like an assault vehicle doesn’t need to swagger. It is an alien art to someone that size.

Perhaps it was that he was no longer the Good Man, though I was having trouble pinpointing exactly what he was.

When we landed in what had been the Good Man’s palace, the people had seemed puzzled as to whom I was asking for, when I asked to speak to the Good Man. At first I thought the difficulty was my pink and plastic-looking finery, or perhaps Alexis standing like a sullen statue behind me.

But when I said “Lucius Keeva,” the two — well, I thought they were guards — very young men in sky blue uniforms looked at each other.

“The Lieutenant Colonel, Ichabod.” one of them — the blond one, the other one being dark-haired and olive-skinned — said. They seemed almost identical in everything else, particularly youth and very upright posture.

“Oh,” Olive-skinned said. And when I’d given my name, he’d said, “I’ll be right back,” and, leaving his friend with us, had walked fast into the house. I didn’t know whether to consider that leaving us alone with one guard was a bad thing. The guard hadn’t even taken out his burner. I wondered if Olympus was really lax about its security. Then I started suspecting that there was more to it than that, that there were other levels of security between us and the Good Man. But why were they calling him Lieutenant Colonel?

A few moments later, Ichabod returned, and the two guards escorted us down a cool corridor, into the depths of the house. I’d been right about one thing: the place was filled with men in uniform, all of them armed, saluting each other around every corner. Mostly our escorts saluted other people. But since I didn’t know the insignia on people’s shoulders and chests, the distinctions evaded me.

Up a staircase, till we stood at the door to an office. Not a private office, but a huge room, filled with desks and activity. This one had at least fifteen desks, most of them manned by very young people. As we stood in the doorway, Lucius Keeva rose from behind one of the desks, which was piled high with paper and walked towards us. “Ms. Sienna,” he said. And to what must have been my startled expression, with a politeness that didn’t soften him in the slightest, “I beg your pardon. Am I forgetting a rank? Do you have one?”

I shook my head. I’d been Miss and Mrs. and Navigator Sienna, and I had no idea what I was now, but Ms. would do as well as anything. “Lieutenant Colonel?” I said.

This brought a shadow of a smile to the man’s tired face. “Oh. That’s mostly a courtesy title. I pilot a desk. The military titles should be reserved for the people in the field, but I guess they needed to call me something.” He gave me a quick look, up and down. It wasn’t that sort of look. I happened to know Lucius Keeva’s interest in women was academic. It was an open secret and not just in Olympus that he and one of the Usaian leaders, Nathaniel Remy, were a couple. But his look clearly registered my incongruous attire, yet when he looked back up it was to say, “Call me Luce. We fought side by side, that warrants treatment of equals. And how may I help you?”

I can’t describe it. I’d expected… I wasn’t absolutely certain what I’d expected. I hadn’t got the impression that he and Simon were friends precisely. In fact, Simon had told me that he had been in the same broomer lair as Lucius’ late brother, Max, but they’d never been that close. Friendly, sure, but not friends.

But Lucius had said we’d fought side-by-side. And so had he and Simon. I had been sure I could get help from him … help in rescuing Simon.

Then I found myself face to face with Keeva and couldn’t help acknowledging he was no longer the Good Man, no longer an autarch, but a man caught in the machinery of an organization he couldn’t control and I couldn’t understand. And something in his reserved, guarded expression made me feel I was up against something inflexible and hard. My heart sank.

“Simon,” I said, not expecting anything. “I need help for Simon. Simon was captured.”

Luce nodded. “We heard news… I was afraid you were both dead. It was a relief to see you here,” he said, then looking behind me. “And–”

“This is Alexis. Alexis Brisbois. He is–was the head of Simon’s security.”

“Secret police,” Alexis offered, and also offered his hand. There was a momentary but visible hesitation before Lucius shook it.

“I beg your pardon,” he said. “The attack on the palace was a shock, of course. Simon had invited me to the ball, but I couldn’t get away, and besides–” He frowned fleetingly. “It was considered too risky. My value to the cause might be largely ornamental, but it has value.” He sighed. “I’m sorry, the damned house is mostly taken up with the operations of the Daughters of Liberty.” And to our blank look, “The propaganda arm of my — The propaganda arm of our revolution.” And then, though I hadn’t asked, “It’s not a gender thing. The Sons of Liberty are the active troops.”

He shook his head. “I have a private area, for my use. Please come with me. You’ll want a bath.” The impersonal evaluating look raked me up and down again, and said that if it were him wearing that kind of finery, he’d want a bath.

The idea of Lucius Keeva in a plastic dress, with badly dyed hair made me want to giggle. Perhaps it was a stress thing. When you’ve been running for your life, emotions seem to become compacted, close together and you can flip from intense grief, or intense fear, to sudden laughter, then back again. It took a great effort for me to suppress it and by the time I had it under control, he was leading us along another set of hallways. He stuck his finger in a genlock, which sprang open. What we entered could have passed for an upscale apartment in a modern building, a white carpeted area furnished with the sort of understated simplicity that screams wealth.

Lucius gestured at a hallway at the back of the living room. “At the end of that there is a bedroom, and a fresher. I’ll have clothing brought to you. Sorry, I no longer have staff. Everyone either left, or is working for the revolution. But someone should be able to unearth a comfortable outfit your size somewhere. Martha Remy, if no one else.” He punched a com button in a nearby console and spoke so quickly and so tersely that I didn’t understand much, except that he was speaking to someone with whom he was comfortable and asking for clothes, and also that that appraising glance had got my size to a nicety. There was an equally terse answer from the other end, “Will do.”

 

1636: The Chronicles of Dr. Gribbleflotz – Snippet 27

1636: The Chronicles of Dr. Gribbleflotz – Snippet 27

“Coming,” Phillip called out as he hastily dressed for the outdoors and grabbed his medical bag. A quick glance round the room confirmed there were no candles burning, and he hurried over to the door. The messenger was pounding on it again as he opened it.

“I said I was coming,” Phillip said as he opened the door. “Well, are you going to lead the way?” he asked after he’d locked the door.

The boy took off, only to stop and wait when he realized he was leaving Phillip behind. The boy took a side street, and Phillip followed as quickly as he could with his heavy doctor’s bag banging against his legs. They hurried past houses and then market gardens as they came within sight of the gate tower. They made it to the gate a couple of minutes later, the boy was hardly breathing heavily while Phillip was huffing and puffing.

“Good job, Peter,” Heinrich said as he paid the boy. Then he turned to Phillip. “This way, Dr. Gribbleflotz, Private Stohler managed to tear open his thigh on a passing cart.”

Phillip stumbled to a halt and turned to stare at Heinrich. “Again? I patched him up barely a month ago.”

“It’s the left leg this time,” Heinrich said as he led the way upstairs to the gatehouse guard quarters.

Ulrich Schmidlin was sitting beside Leonard Stohler feeding him cheap pear brandy. He turned as Phillip stepped into the room and his eyes lit up. “Dr. Gribbleflotz am I please to see you. Leonard seemed to think you were attending some dissection demonstration this week. ”

“I was supposed to be attending Dr. Laurent’s demonstration,” Phillip said as he laid his medical bag down beside Leonard and started to examine the injury. “Fortunately for Leonard here, I was invited to leave, and so I was at home when Sergeant Schweitzer’s messenger arrived.”

“What did you say to upset Dr. Laurent?” Heinrich asked. He and the others grinned.

Phillip matched theirs smiles. He’d become the unofficial physician to the city guard soon after he arrived and he’d got to know quite a few of the guardsmen, and they’d got to know him. “The silly fool had no idea about the realities of performing an amputation.”

“And you called him out on it,” Heinrich said.

“Naturally,” Phillip said, happy that Leonard was being distracted by the banter while he cleaned his wound. “Then he challenged me to show everyone how I thought it should be done.”

“You took Dr. Laurent up on it, I hope,” Ulrich said.

“Of course,” Phillip said. That set all three guardsmen off, and Phillip joined in. “You should have seen his face,” he said as he struggled to control his laughter. He pulled out a scalpel to trim off some of the more damaged flesh.

“Are you going to take Leonard’s leg off?” Ulrich asked.

Leonard jerked his leg out of Phillip’s hand, wincing at the pain. “You’re not going to cut it off, are you?” he asked.

“No,” Phillip said. “But I do need to trim off the worst of the damaged skin before I pack the wound and bandage it tightly.” He looked questioningly at Leonard. “Unless of course you’d rather I sewed it closed?”

“No, no,” Leonard said, waving his hands. “If you think it doesn’t need stitches, then I’m happy.”

“It will leave a bigger scar if I don’t stitch it,” Philip warned.

“But last time you said not stitching the wound closed would speed up healing,” Leonard said. “So, what are you doing now you’re not attending Dr. Laurent’s course?”

Phillip gestured for Ulrich to feed Leonard some more of the brandy before he set to trimming the worst of the damaged skin and flesh from the wound. While he worked he talked, mostly to distract Leonard. “A group of students attending the course have asked me to give my own course.”

“What does that involve?” Heinrich asked, getting into the spirit of distracting Leonard.

“I need to confirm with the owner of the warehouse where Dr. Laurent’s has set up a theater that I can use it, and then I have to see about obtaining some suitable cadavers.”

“How do you get suitable cadavers?” Ulrich asked. “I thought they used condemned prisoners for the public anatomy course?”

Phillip nodded as he finished trimming the damaged flesh from Leonard’s wound. “That’s one source, but back in Padua we used to look for poor families who might be willing to let us dissect the bodies of their family members in return for a proper burial. Unfortunately, I don’t have the contacts in Basel that I had in Padua.”

“I could help you,” Peter Hebenstreit said.

Phillip had completely forgotten about the teenage boy who had brought him Heinrich’s message. The boy had the look of the urban poor, which meant he might have the contacts. “The funeral expenses are paid directly to the priest or pastor,” he warned, knowing that a child of the streets like Peter would be looking for every opportunity to make money.

“But you’ll pay a fee for someone to find the bodies and talk the family into letting you cut them up, right?”

Phillip nodded and mentioned a sum.

Peter’s eyes lit up. “I’ll do it for you,” he said. “I’ll find you some dead people.”

Phillip smeared some of his special formula ointment into the wound before bandaging it closed. He looked up at Heinrich. “Is he reliable?”

“He hasn’t let me down yet,” Heinrich said.

Phillip turned back to Peter. “Okay, here’s the situation. I’m waiting on confirmation that there will be enough interest to warrant running a course. When I get confirmation, I’ll need to confirm a location, and a supply of ice to preserve the bodies until they can be used. If you report to my laboratory in three days’ time, I should know whether or not I will need you to find me some bodies.”

Peter ran his tongue over his lips. “It’s a deal. He spat on his hand and held it out.

Phillip, who’d met this method of closing an agreement before, spat on his own hand and shook hands with Peter. Then he turned to Leonard. “Don’t use that leg more than you have to for the next three days. I’ll drop by then to check on how it’s healing, and if necessary, put in some stitches.”

Heinrich escorted Phillip out of the gate tower. “Thank you for coming, Dr. Gribbleflotz. The men really appreciate your willingness to help,” he said as he placed a couple of coins into Phillip’s hand.

“Don’t mention it,” Phillip said as he dropped the coins into his purse. The payment would barely cover his costs, but his willingness to help wasn’t born from a pursuit of wealth. It was born of his experience in the service of the counts of Nassau-Siegen. Too often he’d seen common soldiers suffering unnecessarily because their leaders didn’t care enough about them to provide proper medical care. Soon after he’d settled in Basel he’d made a point of cultivating the sergeants of the guard and offered them his professional services for a fraction of what a doctor might charge. There had been some skepticism at his apparent altruism, but once he’d explained his motivation, they’d been much more receptive. The fact that his professional services were superior to what the local doctors provided had sold them on the idea.

“Oh, and Dr. Gribbleflotz,” Heinrich said. “Basel isn’t Padua. The local Religious authorities might not look so favorably on dissections on human bodies.”

“But if the families agree,” Phillip protested. He hadn’t thought of this problem, because it hadn’t been a problem in Padua.

“Even if the families agree, and it is a private demonstration.” Heinrich smiled and clapped a hand on Phillip’s shoulder. “But don’t worry. If you let me know where and when you intend holding your demonstration, the guard will do what it can to see that you aren’t bothered.”

Phillip was almost at a loss for words. He muttered a disjointed thanks before heading back to his laboratory.

That evening, the home of Professor Gaspard Bauhin

“It was absolutely hilarious, Papa,” sixteen year-old Jean Gaspard said as he dashed into his father’s study.

Gaspard Bauhin, professor of the practice of medicine and professor of anatomy and botany at Basel, was ensconced in a comfortable armchair with a drink in one hand and a book in the other. He raised his eyes from his book at the interruption. His eyes lit up he recognized his son. “Hilarious? Are you sure you went to Ambrosius’ lecture?”

Jean sniggered at the sally. “It was as boring as you warned me it would be, until one of the audience made a comment about Dr. Laurent’s surgical technique.” He giggled at the memory, his eyes sparkling. “You’ll never guess what happened.”

Gaspard lowered his book to his lap and laid his drink on the table beside his chair. “Ambrosius told your man that if he thought he could do better, that he could come down and show everyone how it should be done,” he suggested.

Jean pouted his lips. “Someone’s already told you.”

Gaspard shook his head. “No, but I do know Ambrosius. Who was it and was he any good?”