Eric Flint's Blog, page 289

Polychrome – Chapter 21

Polychrome – Chapter 21

Chapter 21.

I walked straight to the East, not looking back. Not daring to look back for a while. It had been almost impossible not to just blurt it all out, looking at her then, when I knew I might die before reaching Oz, that this might be the last time I saw her. But she didn’t need that burden, even if it was something she wanted to hear, which I really didn’t think she did. I was pretty sure she did like me as a friend, now; we’d worked together a lot and she’d gotten used to me. But that was just more reason I needed to avoid that subject. I really didn’t want to get the ‘I think of you as a friend!’ knife in the gut, and our recent conversation had shown that it wouldn’t matter much anyway; her father and politics would be choosing her dating regime as much as she would.

Finally I glanced back; the Rainbow, and Polychrome, were gone. I walked on, just a bit heavier of foot for a while until the job at hand focused my attention. I’d picked this location at the border of the Nome King’s domain very carefully; Eastward, where I was heading, lay the kingdom of Gilgad (which Baum had whimsically chosen to re-name to “Rinkitink”), and its similarly-named capital city. Iris could, of course, have dropped his Rainbow right into the city itself, even on top of the royal castle, or possibly right at my first destination. And in some ways, that would’ve been a good idea.

On the other hand, there was absolutely no reason to give any spies a blazing flare-lit tipoff, complete with rainbow colored arrows pointing to my destination, as to what I was doing first. And I could use a little bit of time walking through the countryside and getting accustomed to the larger world of Faerie outside of the Rainbow Fortress.

There was a faint path visible here, which appeared to head in the right general direction. I strode along easily, something which I found amusing as hell; me, the quintessential nerd, now making my way in (admittedly very light) armor along steep mountain pathways and not even really breathing hard. A year of heavy training sure makes a difference.

As I crested a hill, I saw the trail getting more clear below… and grasses and trees carpeting the slopes farther along. I was now past the Nome King’s domain, which as described was almost lifeless barren rock, and entering Gilgad. Scents of earth and forest reached me, startlingly appealing and nostalgic; I realized that I hadn’t smelled anything like them in the Rainbow Kingdom. I’d known, of course, that they’d had to do some considerable work to keep me fed (either summoning the food, creating it, or maybe even having to occasionally send some faeries on a food run), but until now it hadn’t really registered just how alien a world that was in some ways. Iris Mirabilis’ kingdom was entirely a place of sky and wind and rain and light. There was no true stone or steel or grass or any other ordinary living thing to be found there.

This was much more like my homeworld, and I felt suddenly steadier in a way. This was the sort of land I understood, even if there were a lot of strange things to be found. I moved under the canopy of a light forest, enjoying the sparkle of sunlight and the green-tinted light in the shadows.

Glancing around, I noted signs of habitation; hewn stumps of harvested trees, tracks of indeterminate nature in the leaves and soil. Good. I needed to find people, get a good route to follow to the port city and capital of Gilgad, and get things rolling.

As I rounded a corner, however, I realized things might not be quite that simple.

About a hundred yards ahead, the path opened up into a clearing, in which was a small house with some cultivated fields around it, a small stream flowing through, clearly inhabited by a woodsman and his family. I say “clearly” because I could see the man, his wife, and two children in front of the house. They were not having a good day, as evidenced by the fact that the man himself was being held dangling above the ground by the hand of a seven-foot tall tailed monstrosity while a similar beast held an axe poised to strike the cowering children.

I took a step sideways into the forest and moved forward as quietly as I could; it looked to me like this was an interrogation, and I wanted to get some idea of what was going on before I busted in. As I got closer, I could make out what was being said, beginning with the grinding-gravel tones of the first creature:

“…ast time, mortal rat, where is it?”

I could see the man more clearly now; as you’d expect from a man living in the woods without near neighbors, he was strong-looking, weathered, the sort who would probably face down a wolf without a second thought; the futility of his struggles against the indigo-skinned hand gripping his throat showed just how strong the monster was. Supporting his weight partially by gripping the thing’s wrist, he managed to choke out an answer. “If… I tell… you let my family go…”

“I might think about letting them go.” The deep chuckle from the other made me – and from his pale face, the poor woodsman – suspect that there wouldn’t be much sincerity in the thinking.

Time to get to work. “Oooh, good. Then I might think about letting you go, too.” I said, stepping out from the forest.

The things whirled, the one tossing away the woodsman like a rag doll, and snarled.

I froze for a moment, unable to move or answer. All my training had been against human or very humanlike people. These things were nothing of the sort. Indigo-gray skin, like some sort of shadowed basalt, covered their bodies. The eyes glittered yellow crystal in the sun above wide mouths that had the jagged-fang look of a rock crusher combined with a steam shovel, but the mobility of flesh in the cruel curve of their smiles as they saw me go white; they wore gray-white stone armor and carried thick bronze axes, while their hands and feet sported sharp black claws.

Instinctive fear shot in a chill through me, and for an instant I felt myself starting to take a step back. I’d seen thousands of monsters on TV and movie screens, but that’s nothing at all like seeing them in the flesh, any more than watching a dozen shark specials on television compares to the first time you meet one in the surf, all white teeth and gray sandpaper skin and black, dead eyes, as I had once as a child.

The leader laughed. “Oh, loud of mouth but not so brave when facing the opponent, are we? Too bad for you, worm. This is Oz business.”

Oz business? The part of my brain that never stops thinking grabbed that, shoved it forward, and dumped a bucketload of shame over me. You want to save Oz, hero, and you’re too scared to face a couple of Ugu’s bullies a thousand miles from his stronghold? Run back to your little house now, then, let Poly see just what a loser she’s picked.

I swallowed, but got my limbs back under control. “This isn’t Oz, monster. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll go back right now.”

The creature – which I now guessed was a Temblor, one of the twisted Earth spirits under Ugu and Amanita’s control – sneered. “From one human shaking in his boots with a sword too big for him to swing?”

The other moved forward slowly, swinging its axe lazily. “Should I kill it, Morg?”

Morg nodded. “Why not, Gron? Might finish convincing these others to talk. Make it messy.”

Gron grinned widely, showing interlocking teeth like razor-sharp crystals, and lunged forward.

I’d had enough time to get a grip and prepare. Gron moved fast, but Earth spirits weren’t anything like the faeries of the air that inhabited the Rainbow Kingdom. The massive Temblor was actually no faster than me, not even as quick as Iris Mirabilis, and I first leapt aside as he charged, letting Gron thunder past.

He recovered and spun to face me. “Duck and run all you like, little man, you will tire, and I will not. Better to die with courage. Draw your blade.”

Time to learn if what works in training works in the real world. I straightened, and gave my own sneer in return. “And get it dirty? Come on, then.”

Gron gave a snort of disbelief mixed with amusement. “So be it.” He raised the axe and charged.

Bracing myself for an agonizing impact, I gritted my teeth, stepped forward just inside of the axe, and swung my fist with every ounce of force I could muster.

Stone armor, rocky skin, and mineral bone broke, split, and shattered at the impact, that felt to me no more than a hard punch into a sandbag. Gron flew backwards at a terrible speed, struck a tree, broke it off like a twig, continued on through two more before smashing into the mountainside with a sound like doom.

I stared in awe and felt a hell-bent grin spreading across my face as I turned towards Morg, who was staring in utter disbelief. “Your turn.”

Morg brought up his axe, but I could see there was no smile on his face now. “Wh… whatever trick this is, you are still a fool! Do you not know that this will bring Mombi’s vengeance upon you? And if that does not suffice, then the power of the King and Queen itself?”

Now I moved forward, and he was the one starting to back away. “Mombi, eh? I thought she’d be one of the ones they’d choose as a viceroy. Of course I know that. If, of course, you get your chance to report home.”

He was backing away in earnest now. “No! You mortal idiot! Whatever magic you’re using, it cannot equal theirs! Don’t you realize this?” As I closed in, he swung. Not without a chill of fear that it would end with my hand being chopped off, I reached out to catch the blade.

It was like catching a styrofoam prop; the thing stopped with barely a jolt and I could see the blade crumple a little on impact. “Here’s a surprise for you, Morg.” I said, ripping the weapon out of his hand and breaking it, then catching him and holding him up by the throat, just the way he’d been holding the poor woodsman. I brought his face close to mine and whispered, “I’m not using any magic.”

Then I threw him as hard as I could. That might have been something of a mistake, because he flew over the nearer ridge; I never saw him hit the ground, and given how he was basically made of stone, he might well survive. But… I really didn’t want to kill them, now that I thought of it. At least some of them were Winkies and other natives of Oz, warped by enchantment. I couldn’t go around killing them randomly. I would’ve pulled my first punch, if I’d thought about it and been sure I had the power to spare.

Now I knew. My True Mortal abilities were even more formidable than I’d thought, at least against the footsoldiers.

But enough of that. I turned to the woodsman and his family, who were staring with eyes so wide I thought they might pop out of their sockets. “Are all of you all right?”

After a speechless moment, the father recovered. “Y… yes, sir. You… you have rescued us before they could truly harm any of my family.”

“What were they after?”

The woodsman grimaced, rubbing his throat. “Stoneseeds. Grow just at the border between the Nome King’s lands and Gilgad and a few other lands. Dark magic has many uses for them.”

“And you know where to find them? Or you gather them yourself?”

“Both, milord.” He straightened and bowed proudly. “Amrin Stoneseed am I, and such has been my family’s name for generations.”

“Then I’d guess there are not-dark uses for the stoneseeds?”

“Oh, many. A stoneseed picked at full ripeness may be grown into many things – stone walls, stone houses even – under the right conditions by a skilled wizard. Unlike those growing on this border, such a seed will produce only sterile stone, not stoneflowers and new seeds, so there is always a need for new stoneseed crops.”

That made sense in the usual Faerie context. And undoubtedly, since such things couldn’t grow except on the borders of the Nome King’s territories, it was worth it to Oz to send out collection agents. “Well, I’m glad I was able to help. I hope it will not cause you worse trouble later, though.”

Amrin looked glum. “They will try again sometime, I am sure.”

“Well,” I said with a grin, “if they’ll hold off for a bit, they just might never get a chance.”

He looked up sharply. “Do you mean…?”

“I mean that all is not lost. Can I ask your help?”

He looked at me, eyes showing a flicker of hope. “After what you have done, of course.”

“Tell me how I can reach Gilgad, the city.”

Amrin looked at his wife and children. “I will do more than that. I will take you there.”

 

Into The Maelstrom – Snippet 02

Into The Maelstrom – Snippet 02

“Must I?”

“Yes, it’s possible the frame field might interfere with the specimens.”

Helena touched the “hold” icon while she recovered her calm.

“Have you looked outside at all, Professor?” Helena eventually asked. “You may have noticed something of a debris storm.”

“Never mind the paintwork on your ship. This research is too important to be held up by petty military regulations. I’d explain but you wouldn’t understand.”

“It may have escaped your notice, professor, but I captain this vessel. As such I am responsible for it and the crew. If I decide your request,” Helena emphasized the word if, “is too dangerous then it won’t happen.”

“I shall complain to the Grant Committee!”

“Indeed.”

The opinion of an academic grant committee carried about as much weight with Helena as a petition from a delegation of rock apes. She answered to the Navy Board and she doubted they cared a fig what a bunch of academics thought either. On the other hand the Board could be downright unreasonable to captains who smashed up their ships.

“It may also have escaped your notice, professor, but that is not just a neutron star out there but a magnetar, a star with a massive magnetic field…”

“I know what a magnetar is.”

Helena continued remorselessly as if he hadn’t spoken.

“…which is why the debris field is so energetic and chaotic. Iron debris is subject to different forces to non-magnetic rocks and hence has different trajectories. The resulting collisions cause endless fragmentation. It would be like dephasing into a shotgun blast of hypersonic pellets.”

Finkletop said. “Well, if you’re frightened…”

“Be careful, Professor,” Helena’s knuckles clenched until they were white.

An officer of the Brasilian Navy could display many faults from drunkenness to licentiousness and still prosper. Cowardice was the one intolerable weakness.

“We’d also have a major problem with magnetic forces such as diamagnetism which is the…”

Finkletop attempted to interrupt. “I know what diamagnetism is but I don’t see…”

“…temporary opposing magnetic force induced in materials by an ultra-magnetic field. Our ceramic hull is a good example as it is repelled by the star. Other materials are paramagnetic and will be dragged towards it. Furthermore, while naval architects use nonmetallic materials as far as possible in a ship’s construction to limit drag and hence heat build-up while moving through the Continuum sometimes there are no acceptable nonmetallic substitutes. Our large iron heat sinks are a good example.”

Finkletop tried again. “Well…”

“So if I dephase at our current location the ship’s hull and heat sinks will push in opposite directions while I try to dodge high velocity debris on chaotic trajectories.”

Dead silence.

There was a compromise option. She told herself she was all kinds of a fool for even considering it. Unfortunately, Finkletop was stupid enough to insult her honor without seeing that she would have to call him out. That could wreck her career. No one would openly blame her for protecting her reputation. Nonetheless, she would always be remembered as the captain who killed her charge. Actually, she reflected, Finkletop wasn’t stupid. A Blue Horizon professor just couldn’t be stupid. He was simply incredibly focused and limited in his world view.

“How big a specimen do you need?” Helena asked.

“What? Just a few micrograms would do.”

“Very well, I’ll harmonize the field of a small jolly boat to pass through the ship’s fields. The boat can phase out for the few seconds necessary to recover your sample without endangering the whole ship.  Magnetic tidal effects are limited on such a low mass object. It will also present a smaller target to incoming rocks. I won’t risk trying to bring the jolly back in through the ship’s field as the harmonization will drift out of phase within minutes. We will rendezvous and recover the boat from a quiet area beyond the debris field. Is that satisfactory?”

“I suppose so, seems a lot of stuff and nonsense to me, usual bureaucratic ineptitude, typical of the military…”

She cut the link while Finkletop was still blathering and gave the necessary orders.

#

The Reggie Kray’s field shimmered metallic green when the jolly boat pass through.  The phase harmonization with the boat’s field was less than perfect. That observation caused Helena little surprise. No human procedure in the history of the universe had ever achieved perfection. She saw no reason to assume that this was about to change any time soon for her benefit.

Finkletop insisted on supervising the sampling personally. Helena had been equally insistent that a naval rating coxswain the small craft, not one of the academics. She watched the boat’s progress on a holographic screen. Once clear the boat adjusted its heading and moved to match speeds with a debris pile. It stopped while the coxswain waited for a signal from the ship indicating he could dephase safely. Well, not safely perhaps but at least without facing instant destruction. Safety is one of those irregular nouns.

Communication was impossible over any distance through the continuum. Anything not protected by a field rapidly decayed or was ejected into realspace. At short range lasers could exchange narrow bandwidth data. Small open frame crews often resorted to hand gestures and flashing lights.

The ship’s information analyzers tracked and predicted the immediate debris field. An icon indicated a break in the debris bombardment. It was now or never. She sent confirmation to the jolly boat.

The boat’s field flicked off and it drifted towards the debris. Steering thrusters fired to brake the craft alongside a stream of gravel and match velocities. A mechanical arm extended and took a sample. Sparkles ran along the arm where microscopic dust moving at a high relative speed struck the ceramic surface.

The arm had almost withdrawn when the jolly boat shuddered. Its hull flexed under the impact of particles larger than microscopic dust. A ceramic plate peeled off and span away. Jets of escaping air distilled into arches of silver crystals that fanned out in the magnetar’s strong tidal gravitational and magnetic fields like a celestial peacock’s tail.

Helena swore.

The jolly boat should have been safe enough in realspace for that short period of time. The ship’s autos predicted a ninety-five per cent chance of success. She should have anticipated that the unlikeliest disaster would happen at the first opportunity. The gods of probability delighted in shitting on mankind’s collective head from a great height.

She crossed metaphorical fingers and waited for the jolly boat’s field to reform. Survival suits would protect the crew for a while. She counted slowly to three but it never happened. The boat’s field generator must be knocked out. The gods were piling improbability upon improbability today. They probably didn’t like Finkletop any more than she did but why stick the boot in on her watch?

The boat’s crew were in the deepest possible fertilizer. It was only a matter of time before a bigger impact smeared them like raspberry jam across a slice of toast.

“Close and try to enclose the jolly boat in our Continuum field,” Helena ordered. “Finkletop you feckin’ lunatic,” she added under her breath.

The Reggie Kray’s pilot swung the ship around as if it was a one-man frame and accelerated smoothly. They reached the boat just as its field unexpectedly flicked back on. The two energy bubbles interacted dynamically in a sharp release of violet lightning. The boat couldn’t penetrate the ship’s field because its field had drifted out of phase during the off-on transition. The debris strike probably hadn’t helped either.

The ship pushed the smaller vessel with its field like a ball on the edge of an avalanche.

“All halt,” Helena said, trying to keep her voice calm.

Then something happened, something unfathomable, something she had never witnessed before in all her years in the navy.

The boat imploded soundlessly leaving nothing but a black stain. Helena had the impression of spreading darkness. A dark spear thrust into the Reggie Kray, collapsing its field like a pin going into a balloon. The ship rang like a bell struck by a hammer. That’s not possible, Helena thought, we’re only semi-phased. Nothing that powerful can penetrate our field. A deep chill froze her bones and the lights went out.

#

Helena felt cold. Her throat hurt like hell. Water vapor condensed from her breath. It hung in the air like a superior’s admonishment. Only the glow from instruments leaking across the cabin broke the darkness. To top it all she had one hell of a headache.

“Status?” she asked.

Well, she tried to ask but what came out was a croak.

“Fusion motors decoupled. Trying to get them back on line before our batteries fail,” said a voice.

 

Castaway Planet – Chapter 08

Castaway Planet – Chapter 08

Chapter 8

Despite the sledgehammer impacts, the cabin of LS-5 remained cheerfully, invariably lit as the world spun, and now, as the ship quivered to stillness, they stayed on, as though nothing had happened.

Laura could see that Sakura, at least, was unharmed; her seat had locked properly and the girl’s one arm was visible, white-knuckled with tension. Hitomi’s sobs of terror, though heartrending to hear, were paradoxically comforting; those were cries of a frightened little girl, not one badly injured.

The local net was readjusting, and Laura could access the biosignals. “Is everyone all right?”

“I seem uninjured, love,” answered Akira.

“I’m fine, Mom.” That was Caroline, the shakiness in her voice belying the casual words.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I screwed it up, I –“

“Sakura!” Her daughter’s name came out much more sharply than she intended, and Laura took a deep breath, let it out. She had to stay calm. “Sakura, honey, don’t apologize. Are you all right?”

“I… I think so.”

“Good.” She turned her seat to face the others. That felt very odd, because with the way LS-5 was sitting, she was now looking down, held in her seat by the restraints.

“You were right, Mom,” Melody said. “I did need those straps that tight.” The twelve-year-old’s face was white as a sheet, and tears were starting from her eyes, even though she was rigidly controlling her expression.

Laura chuckled a little at that, and Melody gave a tearful but sheepish smile. “There’s a reason for what we tell you. I’m glad you listened.” She looked over to the next seat. “Hitomi, come on, little girl, just tell Mommy if you’re all right.”

The sobs slowed, and Hitomi lowered Skyfang from her face; the hazel eyes were wide and frightened, but her head nodded, and a mumbled “Okay,” managed to make it through the winged wolf’s fur.

“I’m… a little battered, Dr. Kimei,” Whips volunteered, “But I think everything’s okay.”

“Good. Now everyone just stay still for a few minutes; I’ll check your vitals to make sure that we really are all okay.”

It was almost quiet inside the crashed shuttle except for the howling fury of the wind outside, which managed to penetrate faintly even through the soundproofing. LS-5 occasionally quivered under what Laura guessed were either waves or extremely strong gusts of wind. She carefully examined all of the readings and, finally, relaxed.

“All right, everyone. We’ve landed, and we’re all fine. Sakura –“

“I’m sorry!”

“Young lady,” Akira said mildly, “your mother told you not to apologize. I think what she — what we both — wanted to say is ‘well done’, actually.” Her husband turned so the others could see him. “You already knew there were no automatics. But when we were on final approach, we went into a small storm… and even so, Sakura kept us up and flying until the very end, all by herself. I think there are plenty of professional pilots who might have had trouble when the wind hit during the conversion.”

Melody grinned — a very shaky grin, but with much of her spirit and returning, and Laura felt herself relax again. “That old saying you told me, right, Sakura?”

Sakura sniffed, obviously trying not to cry, but there was a tiny chuckle there too. “Any landing you walk away from… is a good landing.”

“Exactly!” Whips said. “By the Beyond, Sakura, you kept us flying right to the end, and I think if that wind gust hadn’t hit at just the wrong time, you’d have brought us down perfect.”

Hitomi sat straighter and clapped. “Hurray for Saki!”

Laura laughed and suddenly they were all clapping. Sakura turned her chair around and they could see she was blushing, but smiling, tears finally drying. “Okay, I did awesome then. And we’re really all okay, Mom?”

“Really. Sitting like this is going to be a little uncomfortable, but that storm won’t last forever, and once it’s over I hope we can get out. What’s the condition of LS-5?”

“Checking.”

“I have to pee,” Hitomi said suddenly.

Laura shook her head. “All right, hold on.” A thought struck her. “Um… will the toilet work in this position?”

“I think so, Dr. Kimei,” Whips said after a moment. “It works in microgravity and when we were attached to Outward Initiative, and in the position we’re sitting… yes, if we keep it in the microgravity mode I think it will.”

“Good. Then since you’re farthest back and the biggest can you help –“

“Of course.”

As the big Bemmie assisted Hitomi to get out of her harness and move to the rear of the cabin, Sakura spoke up. “Well, the bad news is that we’re not flying LS-5 again, not any time soon anyway. We skidded along on most of her exterior and ruined most of the thrust nozzles, ripped off her wings, crushed her tail. Took off most of our exterior sensors, too, so right now I can’t get much from outside.

“But that’s most of the bad news. All that stuff getting ripped off and crunched… well, it took a lot of the crash energy, let our harnesses do their work, which is why we’re all in good shape. Internal systems all seem pretty good, and the starboard lock shows all green so we shouldn’t have any trouble getting out. Cargo looks like it all stayed secure.” She looked troubled. “Getting the cargo out, though.. we’ll have to move LS-5 until we can open the rear loading doors. Right now we’re sitting on them. And this thing weighs tons. Lots of tons, actually.”

“Worry about that later. Are we close enough to land to be able to get out?” Laura was particularly concerned about Hitomi, who still needed help swimming.

“I’m pretty sure we’re in that little lagoon that’s a few hundred meters short of the end of the continent; that was my target, I wanted to set us down near the edge. If we’d come down farther along we’d have been in trouble, but we’re not bobbing up and down, just twitching a little, so we’re sitting on something solid. And the recordings of our path tell me that we were running on solid ground right up to the end when we fell.”

“We can’t get any information from outside?”

Sakura shook her head. “The cameras all got wrecked in our cartwheeling across the ground. Radar’s out, too. There’s one working external microphone, but that’s just hearing a lot of wind and rain, and a little thunder once in a while.”

“Well, that’s all right,” Akira said. “I’m sure we will be able to get LS-5 out of the lagoon with a little work and some of the smaller equipment on board, and once we get into the cargo we should be much better off. I believe we have everything, really, that we could want for this emergency on board, right?”

As was often true, Melody answered. “We have a Dust-Storm Tech Nanofacturer VII 3D manufacturing system in the cargo, Dad; that was meant for the whole colony. With raw materials and power that’ll make anything we can spec out well enough. Whips can probably run it, and LS-5‘s reactor has enough power according to the datasheet.”

A full manufacturing system! Laura found herself grinning. “We’ll be able to make our own little colony easily, then.”

“Especially since we’ve got you and Dad’s stuff, too,” Sakura said, excitedly. “You’ve got the full medical equipment list, and Dad’s bio research stuff is perfect for this — I mean, really, he was supposed to be doing research on Tantalus, but we’ll have to do the same kind of research here, right?”

Akira laughed. “You’re exactly right, Sakura. Same kind of research — what’s safe, what isn’t, how all the species interact, that kind of thing.”

Laura noticed that Melody, oddly, seemed somewhat let down. “What is it, Mel?”

The black-haired little girl flushed. “Oh… Just being stupid. Never mind.”

She caught a flash of data from Melody’s omni and realized that the girl had been reviewing old books like Robinson Crusoe and some of the outdoor survival shows that had been popular a century or so back, and couldn’t quite keep from smiling. The laziest of her children was still hoping for a big adventure. Thank goodness she wouldn’t get it.

“So… we’re really going to be okay?” Hitomi said, as Whips lifted her back to her seat.

“Really,” Laura assured her. “Oh, it’ll be a rough few days or even weeks getting everything ready,” she saw Melody make a face, “but we’ll be just fine.” She smiled around at the others. “So let’s sit back, relax, and let this storm blow itself out.”

 

 

Spell Blind – Snippet 02

Spell Blind – Snippet 02

I let myself into the trailer and started putting things away. The dishes and pans from the previous night’s dinner were still in the sink. I saw no evidence to suggest that he’d had any breakfast.

“I got you Rocky Road this time. You seemed to like it when I got it for you last month.”

Nothing.

When I’d finished with the groceries, I cleaned up his kitchen. Then I joined him out front, unfolding another lawn chair.

I kissed him on the forehead, then sat. “How you doin’, Pop?”

“This wind means rain,” he said, not bothering to tear his gaze from the desert hills.

I glanced up at the sky. There wasn’t a cloud over the entire state of Arizona.

“I don’t know, Pop. They’re saying clear skies all week.”

He mumbled something else that I couldn’t hear.

“How are you feeling today?” I asked, studying him.

No answer. He was squinting, but his eyes were clear, and his color was good. The doctors told me to check him closely when he was non-responsive like this. Most times he’d be fine — this state of mind was as normal for him as any other. But they said that if he ever did have any physical problems, his mind would be the first thing to quit.

My father was the only weremyste I’d met who didn’t appear even the slightest bit blurry to me. No heat-wave effect at all. I’ve thought about this a lot and wondered if maybe people in the same family vibrate on the same frequency or something like that, so that to me he’d look normal. But that’s just a half-baked theory. I could ask Namid about it, I suppose, but I figure I’d get another riddle in response. Whatever the reason, I could see him well enough to know that there was nothing wrong with him physically.

“Did you have any breakfast?” I asked.

He nodded, then frowned. “I’m hungry.”

“I’ll get you some cereal,” I said, standing and going back inside the trailer, grateful for something to do.

I filled a bowl, added a bit of milk — he didn’t like too much — and brought it out to him with his favorite spoon.

He took it from me and began to eat, spooning it slowly into his mouth, his eyes still fixed on the mountains.

A hawk circled in the distance.

“Swainson’s,” he said, without even lifting his binoculars.

I had no doubt that he was right.

“So I was in Randolph Deegan’s house yesterday, Pop. You know, Senator Deegan? There’s . . . there’s a new case and . . . Well, anyway, I got to go to his house. You should see it. It’s huge and it’s got this great view of–”

“Used to be you’d see Harris’s Hawks up here, too. Not for a while now. That brown air scares ‘em off.”

I exhaled, deflating like an old balloon. “That right?”

“I remember cottonwood leaves being yellow in the summer before the rains came, and the doves would sit in the trees watching the leaves shrivel and fall. There wasn’t any rain for that long. Birds just died. The wind would blow like it is now, but it didn’t mean a thing. It was just dry, and blue, and yellow leaves, and doves looking like they were shivering. But it was hot. That’s all it was. Nothing else. Just hot.”

“When was this, Pop?”

“Dad and Mom drove me to water, to cottonwoods. But there were none to see. None with anything on them. None that weren’t yellow already.”

“So you were a kid? This was with Gran and Pappy?”

“‘S different now. Wind and rain. That’s what they say. Wind and rain. When it rains, at night, the sky over there is orange.” He pointed with the spoon, dripping milk on his jeans. “The colors are confusing now. Yellow and blue, brown and orange. Used to be I understood better.”

Something in the way he said this made me sit forward.

“When was that?”

He dropped his gaze, but now he knew I was there.

“Before.”

“Before what? Before you left the job? Before Mom died? Before I was born?”

“‘S harder now.” He glanced out at the desert once more. “It’s been a long time.”

“Do you remember Namid, Dad?”

I’m not certain what moved me to ask the question, but as soon as it crossed my lips he turned his head and looked right at me. Even after all these years, after watching his decline, after feeding him, and helping him take a piss and change into his pajamas on those really tough days, I still found his gaze arresting. Those pale gray eyes were so similar to my own that it was like staring into a mirror and seeing myself thirty years from now. The rough white beard and mustache, the long, lean face — it was me; me as I will be.

“Namid?” he said.

“You do remember him, don’t you? The runemyste. He taught you how to do magic. He might have come to you sometimes during–” I stopped. We hadn’t spoken about the phasings and magic in almost twenty years, since I accused him of being a drunk and stormed out of the house. I’d never told him that I could conjure, or that I understood now what it was like during the full moons. After all these years, I still didn’t know how to start that conversation. “During a case,” I finally said, knowing how lame it probably sounded; knowing that he wouldn’t notice. By then I’d lost him again. He’d turned away and the glimmer I’d seen in his eyes had vanished. They were unfocused again, the way they had been when I arrived.

“There was lightning. It was gray and cool, and lightning cut the clouds in half. The wind blew then. Colder than it is now, but it blew the same. And birds soared by like leaves. They couldn’t help themselves and they couldn’t fight it. They just flew by, black against the gray. I couldn’t hear them, but I saw them. They went sideways, like they were caught in some current, like white water . . . .”

I made myself sit through it, like I did every week. There were times when staying with my dad was a pleasure, when the hours passed as easily as an afternoon in the mountains. Most days, though, were like this one. I’d long ago given up trying to decipher all that he said, although I did think it interesting that as soon as I mentioned Namid he started talking about rain and white water, as if he could see the runemyste in front of him, fluid and as changeable in his moods as the sea. But after a time, even this thin thread was lost, and he rambled on about the desert and hawks and the damn wind.

At midday I went back inside the trailer and made a couple of sandwiches. Dad barely touched his, but I ate mine, happy for any distraction. After cleaning up the dishes and cutting board, I stepped back outside.

“I should get going, Dad. I’ve got work to do.”

“They treating you well?” he asked. “They made you a sergeant yet?”

He forgot sometimes that I’d left the force. I had told him several times, of course, and we’d had plenty of conversations about my work as a PI. But, hell, at least he was speaking to me instead of at me.

“No,” I said. “Not yet.”

“You can trust Namid, you know?”

I gazed at him, not knowing what to say. He was like this sometimes: incoherent one moment, lucid as can be the next.

“You hear me?”

“What do you remember about Namid, Dad?”

He shrugged. All the while he kept gazing at the mountains, but he was frowning now, wrestling with memories.

“Not much,” he said at last. “It’s all muddled today. But he was a friend when others weren’t.” He cast a look my way. “Know what I mean?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I know.”

“Get going,” he said. “Go work.”

I kissed his forehead again, and he gave my hand a squeeze.

“I’ll see you soon,” I said, and left him.

Funny how even that little bit of a connection can make the whole damn visit worthwhile.

 

1636 The Viennese Waltz – Snippet 49

The book should be available now, so this is the last snippet.

1636 The Viennese Waltz – Snippet 49

Marina was looking at him and he snorted. “All right. I’m not talking about the Partow twins. They’re clever enough, especially for untrained kids, but David Bartley and his grandmother are little more than con-artists who got tied into the down-time local power structure. You know that the down-timers do everything through marriage. And I don’t believe for a second that Bartley was opposed to Delia Higgins’ hotel venture. She got a sweetheart deal, count on it.”

“Never mind Bartley. He’s not coming here. What about Prince Karl?”

“A rich playboy is all. His family’s money plus some good luck. Besides, from what Gundaker said they sent a really bright advisor with him.”

“The Wendell’s seem all right,” Marina said.

“The Wendell’s are tied into the Grantville power structure and that’s why they got their positions, and that’s why the daughters . . . well, the older girl . . . got her job in Magdeburg. From what they were saying back in Grantville, that whole Barbie Consortium was a bunch of underage femme fatales, using their looks to scam everyone.”

“Some of the rumors said they used more than their looks,” Marina said. “I heard that that Susan Logsden didn’t fall far from her mother’s tree and that Velma Hardesty was a slut from way back.”

“Engineering takes time, skill, and training. The gambles they take in Grantville, the lack of proper analysis, is going to come back to haunt them,” Peter said, just like he had said hundreds of times before. And it was true. He was constantly being pressured to do the same sort of sloppy engineering here, but he wouldn’t do it. There were reasons for the regulations they had had up-time and no building or engine designed by Peter Barclay was going to fall down or blow up because he cut corners.

Meanwhile, Emperor Ferdinand was getting impatient and Peter couldn’t blame him. It was just incredibly hard to build engines down-time. He had to do everything himself. It seemed that every part to make every machine to make a part of the next machine took more time and cost more than it could have. People always talked about how skilled these primitive craftsmen were supposed to be, but they took forever, and they wasted so much time on curlicues and fancy work that nothing ever got done. And he was sure in his gut that the new up-timers were going to come in with some trick and steal all the credit for all the work he had done.

****

In a way, Peter was right. But in a lot of ways he was wrong. The big difference between up-time production techniques and down-time production was not quality, but time. It takes a hellacious long time to do almost anything by hand. And if you’re going to spend that much time on it in the first place, why not add in a little more to make it beautiful as well as functional? Meanwhile, over the past most of a year in Vienna, he had built up the infrastructure to build internal combustion engines. One piece at a time, because he wasn’t good at delegating or trusting, and so required everything to go through him, but it was at least halfway to a finished product.

Peter’s unwillingness to listen to the expertise of the down-time craftsmen who did know how to get the most out of their equipment was slowing things down even more.

Water Park, Race Track City

On the other hand, Dana Fortney was getting along quite well with down-timer ladies, teaching them yoga and therapeutic massage at the water park. The water park had evolved into a combination down-time bathhouse and up-time water park, with an up-time beauty shop next door to a down-time barber/surgeon. Well, sort of down-time barber/surgeons. The up-time knowledge of antiseptics had gone a long way to improve their outcomes. They weren’t in Sharon Nichols’ class — not even close — but they were much better than they had been. In fact, they were getting better results than the professional doctors from the university. The advance of the surgeon from hack to king of the medical profession was starting much sooner in this timeline.

Vienna

The message was terse and less than informative. It had been sent before it was even known whether Pope Urban was still alive, but other messages in the same pouch had confirmed that the pope was alive but had fled from Rome. Cardinal Borja was claiming that Urban had fallen into heresy, and half the priests in Vienna seemed to believe Borja’s version. The other half was convinced that Borja was a Spanish pawn who was trying to place the whole church under the Spanish crown.

Over the next several days, the situation clarified some. In fact, there were two versions of events, each very clear and insistent. Even strident. Unfortunately, they were mutually exclusive.

In one version of events, Urban had fallen into heresy, abandoning the true church in favor of the Protestantism that the up-time church had fallen into, and — with great restraint and forbearance — the College of Cardinals had remonstrated with the erring pontiff for as long as possible. But the cardinals had finally been forced to take action to defend the faith against corruption. In this version, the true church had been forced to those measures only by Urban’s insanity and the corruption of a faction of cardinals who had abandoned Christ’s message.

In the other version of events, Urban had been in the process of weighing the issues brought into the world with the care and deliberation required by his position as head of the church, when a clique of ambitious and venal clerics under unknown influences had attempted to assassinate Christ’s vicar on Earth and had succeeded in assassinating a majority of the cardinals. But, through God’s grace, the pope had escaped the vile assassins and was continuing to do his duty. He had not decided the issue of the Ring of Fire and, even with the actions of Borja and his mad men, was not going to rush to judgment.

No one knew where Pope Urban was, but wherever he might be, messages from the Father General of the Jesuits confirmed that he was alive. On the other hand, the rump College of Cardinals — mostly the Spanish faction — had, in effect, charged Father General Mutius Vitelleschi of the Jesuits with heresy and insisted that he was not to be trusted. They were, at the least, no longer claiming that Pope Urban had been killed in Rome.

Meanwhile, there had been fist fights and even knife fights between priests of the holy mother church. Fights mostly between orders that were not overly friendly with each other to begin with. The conflict between the Dominicans and the Jesuits had approached riots. Neither faction was all in favor of Urban or Borja, but the Dominicans tended to support Borja and the Jesuits tended to support Urban. According to Ferdinand III’s confessor, Lamormaini was tending toward the Borja faction because of the raising of Larry Mazarre to cardinal, and was feeling somewhat ill-used by Father General Vitelleschi and Pope Urban.

And in the middle of this came the news that Karl Eusebius von Liechtenstein would be arriving within the week, with his fiancée . . . and in an airplane.

 

Castaway Planet – Chapter 07

Castaway Planet – Chapter 07

Chapter 7

“Nebula Drive fully retracted. All smart dust now stowed away. Recovery of materials at 95%,” Sakura reported, partially to herself. The routine, reporting each detail of her tasks, helped calm her, slow the heart that threatened to accelerate out of control.

It’s all on me.

The thought was terrifying, more so because she knew she couldn’t show it. Melody and especially Hitomi could panic if they realized just how scared their older sister was.

But she was scared. Lincoln now loomed up before them, as beautiful as it had been at first with drifting streamers and coils of white cloud across the green ocean and brown-green of islands and continents. It was the salvation they needed, a real, livable planet with an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere and water and animals and plants…

… if fourteen-year-old Sakura Kimei could manage to land LS-5.

Stop worrying, Whips said. I can tell you’re ready to jet yourself into blackness with this, and it’s not doing you any good. We’ve chosen a landing spot, the apps we’ve got for your display will help guide you, and all you have to do is keep calm.

A hand touched her shoulder. “Whips is right, sweetheart,” Laura said to her quietly. “You told me yourself, didn’t you?”

“I know, Mom,” she said, and tried to keep her voice from trembling. “But still, I’m going to –“

“You’re going to do just fine,” her father said from the other side. “Just take some breaths and relax. Even choosing the points isn’t happening right now. You want to select them once you’re sure where we’re setting her down.”

“Yes, Dad.”

She turned back to the console, bringing up the physical controls. “In a real emergency situation,” her instructor Sergeant Campbell had said, “you do not rely on the projected interfaces. Understand this, boys and girls, projections can fail. Our wireless toys can go haywire, even today. Your local net can shut down. But the real console controls, the ones built into the shuttles, those won’t fail you unless the ship itself is bad, bad damaged. So you can practice all you want on your virtual toys, but in this class you will do everything on real, solid controls, do you understand?”

I understand, Sergeant. She remembered him, a craggy-faced man towering over her, seeming almost two meters high and as intimidating as a thunderhead — but really one of the kindest and most patient teachers she’d ever had. I hope I won’t screw this up after all your lessons. I… just wish I’d had about a hundred more lessons.

The controls of LS-5 responded exactly like the simulator’s. She gave very brief test actuations of all systems to make sure they responded as expected. “All controls active. Test burns all green. On course for de-orbit and landing on Lincoln.”

Lincoln was starting to take on more the aspect of a wall than a planet. She checked all the sensors that still worked, which wasn’t many. “Huh.”

“What is it?” asked Caroline.

“There’s some… strange, really long-wave stuff that the radar’s just able to pick up.”

Her mother’s head snapped up. “You’re not saying it’s… inhabited, are you?”

“I… don’t think so. It’s kinda like some signals you can get from gas giants like Jupiter, random noise at funny wavelengths, and there’s no sign on our telescopic images of lights or anything like cities.” It was disappointing, of course. Discovering a new intelligent alien species would have been awesome.

“Should we wait? See if we can figure out what it is?”

Caroline shook her head. “Mom, that’s an unbounded problem. Looking at the waves, Sakura’s right. It’s got the patterns of some type of natural phenomenon, and they’re hardly intense enough to be dangerous, or even interfere with our systems. We could spend months surveying this planet. But we don’t have months.”

Her mother frowned, then nodded. She knew the truth as well as any of them; Whips was starting to show signs of real skin dehydration, even with everything her mother could do to try and slow it. They couldn’t afford to wait long.

“Besides,” Whips pointed out, “we have done a basic survey on approach, as Lincoln rotated. We know there are several small continents and many smaller islands. We’ve got a basic map of their locations. As Sakura says, we’ve seen nothing to indicate that it’s inhabited — though I guess it could be, especially if the inhabitants are like my people, in the water and not making lights or fires. We also know that there don’t appear to be any huge mountain ranges — largest altitudes we can guess are maybe three hundred meters or so. We’ve got good candidates for landing locations. We know that the atmosphere’s close to Earth’s ratios of nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon dioxide, which means we all should be able to breathe there just fine.”

“Right,” Caroline agreed. “We also know that there’s the type of salts we expect in the ocean and my guess at the concentration puts it at an acceptable level. With our limited sensors, Mom, we can’t expect to get much more.” She said the last uncomfortably, her preference being for complete and detailed answers.

“All right,” Laura said. “Then I’ll shut up and let the pilot… pilot.” She smiled at Sakura, and Sakura felt a warm glow and a boost of confidence.

Lincoln’s white-and-green filled the viewport. Close enough. She looked at the projections on the screen. We’re in orbit.. if we get ready to de-orbit, another orbit and a half… that brings us here. She studied the general area they would have to land in and saw one of the sites they’d already discussed, one of her favorites. There, the end of that small continent. I can use the very tip of that, and these points on the nearby islands. The tip of the small continent ended with an almost circular lagoon, with long, gently inclined slopes preceding the lagoon; sheltered access to the sea, easy terrain for exploration, and part of a nice large landmass — fit all the criteria they were looking for. She designated the guidance points to her display app as they swept over the target area. I’ll refine it with radar scans just before we do the de-orbit.

“We’ve got almost two hours before re-entry,” she said, trying to sound calm. “Everyone use the bathroom or whatever before then.”

Nervous as she was, she used the bathroom three times. How could time seem to be dragging by, yet going so fast?

As she sat down for the third time, she saw her timer alert go to yellow. Sakura took a deep breath and raised her voice. “Everyone please make sure you’re strapped down right, it’s going to be a rough ride even if there’s no trouble. Mom — I mean, Captain, can you check for me?”

“Hitomi is secured. Melody, tighten your straps just a bit, honey.”

Melody’s muttered, “What a pain…” brought a quick smile to Sakura’s lips.

“Caroline?” asked her mother.

“Secured, Mom.”

“Harratrer?”

Whips voice was very matter-of-fact, showing how tense he really was. “All hold-downs fastened, all secure.”

“And I’ve already made sure I’m locked down,” said her father.

“All secure, Sakura. Don’t worry about us now.”

“Yes… Captain.”

Focus. Eyes on the instruments and controls. Find those points!

The target location came into view again, the last time before — hopefully — they landed. Get the angle… clouds starting to cover the one, but no problem, I can see through the clouds with radar anyway… radar painting them… designation…

The guide app considered, blinked green. It now understood the geometry. “Caroline? I’ve got the estimates. Can you make sure everything’s right?”

“Of course.” A pause. “I make our first de-orbit burn as being in eight minutes, fifty-two seconds from … mark.”

“Checked,” Melody said.

This is it. Sakura knew that re-entry and landings were the hardest part of spaceflight. “Eight minutes, twenty seconds to burn on my mark… mark,” she said. “It’ll be about one g for eighteen seconds. We’ll have lowered our orbit and me, Caroline, Whips, and Melody’s apps will track our reactions to the first fringes of atmosphere, verifying their models of the planet’s atmosphere and the performance of LS-5, before we do the final de-orbit burn which will last for a few more seconds and drop us low enough, to about eighty to ninety kilometers altitude, for the atmosphere to do the rest of the work. That’s when it’s going to really get rough, but we might feel a little something before then.”

“Okay, Sakura,” said her father.

She watched the countdown tensely. This much, at least, she could automate, putting a simple timer in line with the engine controls. Still, she poised her hands over the actual controls in case it didn’t work. A few minutes later, the main engines roared to life, pressing them into their seats with a full gravity of pressure. Sakura watched, ready to cut the burn off if it didn’t stop of its own accord, but it shut off exactly on time.

Maybe it was her imagination, but in the minutes that followed, she thought she felt phantom quivers, twitches in the big shuttle, as the very outermost fringes of the atmosphere began to touch on this intruder from a distant solar system.

This was one of the sticky parts. The problem with a de-orbit and re-entry was that there was a very narrow band of re-entry angles — slightly more than one degree, in this case — between the extremes of striking the atmosphere too sharply and burning up like a meteor, or literally bouncing off the atmosphere back into space. They had to hit this exactly right, because there were also limits to the g-loading they could take, and what the thermal protection system (TPS) on LS-5 could handle.

“Reconfigure for re-entry, Sakura. We want as blunt a profile as we can get,” Caroline reminded her.

Fortunately, LS-5 could shift between multiple design configurations; landing, it looked not terribly different from the original Space Shuttle, a boxy airframe with stubby wings, but it could transition from that to a sleeker hypersonic configuration, a lower-speed, wider-winged subsonic craft, and even reconfigure for vectored thrust as a VTOL aircraft. She made sure the shuttle was in the first configuration. “Locked into re-entry mode. TPS shows all green.”

After a lot of checking and re-checking, Caroline and Melody finally agreed with Sakura on the landing calculations, and put the guidance data into her guide app. “This is it, everyone. We’re landing!”

Hitomi cheered, Melody said something like “Finally!” and Whips sent her an image of thumbs-up, a gesture he was incapable of really making himself.

“This won’t be fun at the beginning,” she said, looking over the stats. “We’ve tried to figure the easiest re-entry we can manage with our configuration, but we’ll have some moments above 4.5g.”

Whips twitched. She couldn’t blame him; for Bemmies, 5g was just about the limit because they were originally water creatures, and they were so much larger than the average human. “How long?”

“Only a few seconds. Mom?”

She saw her mother check the restraints and Whips’ medical readings. “I think it should be all right, honey. Aside from his hydration issues, Whips is in good shape. Just try not to tense up against it too much, Whips; your internal shift-plates need to flex with the pressure, not try to fight it.”

“Okay, Dr. Kimei.”

Everyone else settled back into their seats. Sakura swallowed hard, then took the controls firmly in hand. She couldn’t let go now until they landed, really. The guide visualization counted down the seconds and projected a simulated view for her, with a generated guide path. It couldn’t control anything for her, but it could help her know when she was going wrong — and she would, inevitably. But with these apps, she’d probably know in time to fix the mistake.

“Full de-orbit burn in three, two, one… now!”

The second burn finished, and then there was no doubt that atmosphere was touching LS-5. A faint vibration and a rumble, and Sakura sealed all ports, making sure the TPS was in place and showing green. “Re-entry beginning. We’ll temporarily lose most sensors in the next few minutes, lasting until we’ve slowed down to a few Mach numbers.”

Breathe. Calm. Hold the controls firmly but not tightly, guide the ship. Don’t react quickly! Fast maneuvers will kill us.

The manual controls transmitted more strain, more buffeting vibration as the rumble from outside rose to a frightening crescendo and the hull sensors showed that LS-5 was careening through the atmosphere like a meteor, blazingly hot, but the vibration was less than she’d expected. Deceleration crushed her down, but she forced her hands to stay rock-steady, even though her heart was ratcheting itself into ever-faster beats. Yellow along the guide path and she restrained her panic, forced her hand to move the tiniest, most controlled bits. Green again, and they were holding to the original calculated glide pattern as though running down a set of tracks.

Hitomi gave a series of yelps as the deceleration peaked, forcing them into their harnesses with more than four times their own weight. Whips burbled something in the Bemmie native language and she wanted to reassure him, but she didn’t dare take her eyes from the guide display or hands from the controls.

At least if it screws up here it’ll be fast…

But now the pressure began to ease, and she felt a smile starting as the temperature sensors showed they were past the peak.

As the temperature continued to fall, Sakura finally caused the forward shields to be retracted. They were around Mach 5 and dropping, heading towards their destination. The three points should be coming into view soon.

As the speed fell to that of normal atmospheric craft, Sakura triggered the mode shift from a re-entry configuration (minimal surface area, all-refractory surfaces with ablative covering) to that of a high-speed aircraft, larger wings, multiple control surfaces, more capable and responsive. “Activating atmospheric engines,” she said. Jet intakes opened and Sakura felt the vibrations as the nuclear reactor heated the incoming air and hurled it out the back through jet turbines. Great! All engines were operating just like they were supposed to.

LS-5 now tore through the sky at Mach speeds, fast but far, far slower than it had been. “Atmospheric re-entry complete — guys, we’re a plane now!”

A rippling, pained sigh from Whips. “Thank the Sky Above. That hurt.”

She shot a glance at her mother. “Is he –“

“Just some strains, Sakura. No injuries. Just focus on flying.”

Below her, green and brown with occasional splotches of brighter color streamed by. “We’re over the target continent. Expect to see our landing site any minute. Transitioning to subsonic flight.”

The third configuration deployed larger wings, gave her more control. She tested this new setup. It responded just like in the sims. Maybe she could do this after all.

A bank of clouds was moving in over the target region, but that shouldn’t be a major concern, Sakura thought. She had infrared and radar to penetrate the clouds, and it didn’t look like a big storm. The long-range radar located the tip of the continent, built up an outline picture of a gently sloping section of land coming down from the small mountains she was approaching, a section of land narrowing to a narrow tip with a nearly circular lagoon — like a gigantic arrowhead with a huge hole punched through the tip. Beyond the lagoon was a narrow, triangular section of the continent and then the sea. To either side were two smaller islands.

Her guide program recognized the three points she’d designated — the triangular tip and the other two islands — but, oddly, showed yellow for the correspondence. Sakura didn’t understand that. She could see clearly it was the same group she’d chosen. She re-designated, the display went back to green, and the guide path solidified.

There were no flat landing fields here. She’d have to go to VTOL configuration at the end, which made her a little nervous. That was the hardest mode to control and she maybe hadn’t practiced that one as much as she should. Still, she only needed to hold it together for a few seconds, enough to get them down.

She was grateful — so very grateful — that everyone else was staying calm and quiet. They didn’t need to see her worry. And she couldn’t do this with Hitomi screaming or worrying in her ear.

Gingerly she tested the controls as she began the final approach. They were exceedingly responsive — almost too much so. She nearly spun LS-5 out before getting a feel for the ship’s performance. Fortunately, Hitomi took it as a fun stunt rather than thinking something was wrong.

Then the two island key points went yellow again. “What the..?”

“What is it, Sakura?” asked Caroline.

“Lost lock on two of the guide points! That makes no sense. It’s just a geometric relationship.” She swallowed, forcing the acidic bile that was trying to rise from her stomach back where it belonged. “No… no problem. We’re close now, I can tie the display to the radar and focus on where we’re going.” A glide path calculated to the nominal surface appeared, guiding her like a pathway. It was a lot better than nothing, telling her the right ratio and where she needed to think about changing modes to land.

Suddenly the ship bobbled, jolted; there was a rattle from the forward viewport. Storm… entering the fringes. That was sleet or something. Radar showed it shouldn’t be too bad, though it was larger than she’d thought; it would be raining for a while.

To visible light, it was dark gray outside, and at this altitude mostly fog and rain; hints of terrain, maybe trees or something, began to appear as they descended, but if she’d been relying on eyesight she would have panicked. But LS-5 wasn’t limited to visible light; in infrared and radar, the clouds and rain was practically gone. Wind might still push on the craft, try to distract her, but it couldn’t blind her, and that was the important thing.

LS-5 bucked slightly, but she was getting a real feel for the controls, and she saw that she was staying pretty close to the middle of the glide path. Radar showed they were approaching the target area, clearing the higher ground in their path, dropping —

Just about there. She could see the lagoon up ahead. Final mode change time, to VTOL. Changeover initiated…

Suddenly a gust of wind struck LS-5, sent the shuttle swaying sideways through the air, just as the mode conversion began. The jolt made her pull a little harder than she intended, but the shuttle’s dynamics had already changed. Desperately, Sakura shoved the stick back and sideways, trying to compensate, even as she heard the sergeant bellowing not fast, not fast, don’t overcompensate!

But it was too late now, too late by far. Still moving at well over one hundred kilometers per hour, LS-5 heeled over, slammed diagonally on its tail into the alien soil of Lincoln, performed a spectacular somersault (had anyone been outside to see it), smashed back down and skidded uncontrollably, the cabin inside now filled with horrified screams and curses and cries of pain. Careening onward through the storm, LS-5 carved a trail of destruction straight down to the shore of a storm-lashed lagoon, where it dropped over a sharp incline into the water, flipped, and came to rest, tail-first, with a thunderous crash.

Movement ceased, and the storm roared its triumph.

 

Spell Blind – Snippet 01

Spell Blind

By David B. Coe

While this is the first snippet of this book, you’ll notice that I’m starting with Chapter 7.

That’s because the first six chapters are currently available at http://www.baenebooks.com/p-2534-spell-blind.aspx

You can view them by clicking on View sample chapters at the above link.

Spell Blind – Snippet 01

Chapter 7

I woke up early, not because I was so eager to see Orestes Quinley, but because after working for the PPD for eight years and getting to work first thing in the morning, I was no longer capable of sleeping late. Besides, this was Tuesday, and every Tuesday morning I drove out to the desert north of Wofford to see my dad.

I started doing this several years ago, when I was still on the job. It had become clear to me that while he could take care of most of the day to day stuff — cooking his own meals, getting an occasional load of laundry done, keeping his trailer somewhat clean — he couldn’t handle anything that involved interacting with the rest of society. The way the shifts worked after Kona and I moved to homicide, Tuesday mornings were my free time, and since Dad had no one else, I gave them to him.

I went to the market first to get his shopping done. He still received a small pension from the department, and that paid for his place and some of his food. We also had some family money — from my mom’s side. It went to my dad when she died, although ultimately I think it was meant for me. These days though, I made enough to get by, and my dad needed the money more than I did.

He liked steaks, New York strips mostly, and chicken salad, the kind that came in cans like tuna. He ate raisin bran for breakfast everyday, but only one particular brand. And, man, could he tell if you tried to slip in the wrong one. He loved ice cream at night before he went to bed, and he didn’t care much what kind, so I liked to surprise him with something different most every week. I also picked up basic supplies for him as he needed them: paper towels, toilet paper, laundry detergent, soap; stuff like that. And I usually brought him a six-pack of beer. Two, if I intended to stay with him for dinner. He no longer drank the way he had in the years after my mom died — though of course he’d quit many years too late — and his doctors said an occasional beer wouldn’t hurt him, as long as he didn’t have too much. The funny thing was he never did. For a guy who’d accelerated his own psychological decline by boozing, my father was now pretty disciplined. He allowed himself one beer a night. No more.

He was funny that way, a study in contradictions. I never knew from one visit to the next what I’d find when I reached his place. Some days he was sharp as a tack; other times it seemed like his brain and his mouth weren’t connected, so that he’d be carrying on a normal conversation, except that nothing he said made any sense at all. There were times when he was jovial and talkative, and times when he acted so depressed, so withdrawn, I was afraid to leave him alone, and I’d end up spending the night curled up on his couch. And sometimes he’d have what he called his “piss and vinegar days” when he was ticked off at the world. Those days were no picnic.

The tricky thing was there were endless combinations with all of these moods. He could be pissed off and incoherent, or lucid and utterly cheerless. Each visit was a crap shoot.

For the first several years, I resented every second I spent with him, every mile I drove to get there and every mile I had to drive to get away again. He hadn’t been the best father in the world. It was tough on cops to begin with, what with overtime, schedules that were less than family-friendly, and the occasional stakeout. Add in a difficult personality and the effect of the phasings, and my dad was never a nominee for Father of the Year.

Things grew far worse after my mother’s death. I still don’t understand all that happened. I know she had an affair with another man, and eventually both of them wound up dead. Some people said my father killed them both, but I can’t imagine it. For all his faults, and despite all the damage to his mind, my father was no murderer. Most assumed that my mother and her lover killed themselves when their affair became public knowledge. Whatever the truth, there could be no denying that my father loved her. After she died, he started drinking all the time and his mind began to go. Soon he had lost his job as well as his grip on reality, and I was left effectively orphaned by the age of fifteen. Is it any wonder I hated him?

I should have ended up in foster care, and who knows where I’d be now if I had? But the cops in my dad’s unit took me in. I got passed around from family to family, from home to home, but they were all good homes and good families, and they all took care of me, got me through high school, helped me get state aid to go to college. And after I went to the academy, they made sure I got a job on the force.

It was only then, as I started to live a cop’s life and learn what it meant to be a weremyste, that I came to understand my old man. I’m not naive enough to think that I’ll ever forgive him entirely for the things I went through as a kid. Those old resentments die hard. But for better or worse, he’s my dad. And those days when I find him upbeat and clear are priceless.

I got an early start on this day and finished most of the shopping before eight in the morning. It had been a comfortable night, but I could tell that the day would be scorching hot. It was already warm and the morning sun felt like one of those heat lamps in a fast food restaurant.

A hard, hot wind blew out of the west, sweeping clouds of dust and tumbleweeds across the Phoenix-Wickenburg Highway and making the Z-ster shudder as I cruised past the pale, baked houses and gas stations of Peoria and El Mirage.

Phoenix had crept farther and farther into the desert over the years, new subdivisions and shopping malls fanning across the landscape like flame spreading across paper. But Wofford remained much the same: a small, bland little town with a gas station, a post office and not much else. A single road off U.S. Sixty cut through the town and one mile north of the town center, such as it was, you were back in the desert again, following an endless line of sun-bleached telephone poles and watching dust devils whirl above the sage.

My dad lived on a small rise a short distance off of this road, at the end of a rutted dirt track. His trailer had been nice once, but it was old now, and he didn’t do much to keep it up. A couple of years ago I’d rigged a little covered area for him outside the front door, using a sturdy tarp and a frame I built out of two-by-sixes. It flapped some in the wind, but it had made it through three winters with only a few minor repairs. He sat out there every day on an old lawn chair, sipping iced tea and staring at the desert waiting for God-knows-what. He knew his birds, and he often had a pair of old Leica binoculars at his side.

He was out there already today, his chair angled eastward, toward the New River Mountains, which were partially obscured by the brown haze hanging over north Phoenix. He was dressed in jeans and a torn white t-shirt. He’d put on his old tennis shoes, but hadn’t bothered with socks.

My dad was a little like a scrying stone. There were signs I could watch for, portents of his mood and state on a given day. No socks was never a good sign. Neither was a mess anywhere in the house. He kept things neat when he wanted to, and when he could manage to clean up after himself. If there were dirty dishes in the sink or clothes strewn about in his bedroom I knew that he’d been out of it for a day or two.

I got out of the Z-ster, grabbed the bags of groceries from the back, and pushed the door shut with my foot.

“Hey, Dad!” I called.

He didn’t answer. I could see that he was muttering to himself, his white curls stirring in the wind, his hands gripping the plastic arms of his chair. He sat slouched, long legs stretched out in front of him, his belly, once as flat as mine, gathered in folds beneath the threadbare shirt.

 

1636 The Viennese Waltz – Snippet 48

1636 The Viennese Waltz – Snippet 48

It had become a matter of increasing worry over the last few months only partly ameliorated by getting into the exports trade. They were now shipping goods manufactured in Vienna up- and downriver, but that was not enough to cover their raw material costs. And even with their labor-saving machines making the goods, production still took labor. And labor had to be paid. “Look, Mom, Sarah is pretty good at the financial stuff. That’s why Coleman Walker hired her, in spite of the fact that she is a woman and, in his eyes, still a kid. Maybe she can help. And the Barbies are doing real good in the USE. I can raise some money from them if I have to. We’ll work something out.” Hayley wasn’t real sure whether she was trying to convince her mom or herself. And in either case, she didn’t feel like she had done a great job.

Jack Pfeifer’s Office, Race Track City

Jack Pfeifer was worried too. As the lawyer for SFIC, he was aware of the amount of debt that SFIC was owed and he was increasingly concerned that it was going to be unpaid. If the Sanderlins and Fortneys wanted to, they could probably put two or three percent of the population of Vienna in debtor’s prison. It was mostly small amounts of debt per individual, but no amount was small if it was more than someone could pay.

He pulled another form from the pile and checked the name, number and the amount against his records. Three pairs of socks and a kerchief. He shook his head. The man who had bought them worked on the canal project and was probably going to lose his job in another month when the canal was done. Then where was he going to get the money to pay this off? Jack sighed. He really needed to get a clerk to handle this, especially since it was checking what Mrs. Fortney or Mrs. Sanderlin had already done.

Krause Rooms, Vienna

“I got dinner, Maria,” Adam Krause told his wife.

She looked worried. “They took your note again?”

“Yes, no trouble.” His boots were muddy from a day behind a Fresno scraper, building the canal that would connect the Danube with Race Track City, and his wife helped out by working as a maid in the apartment block they lived in. They were getting by better, in fact, than they had for the last several years. But they were terrified about what would happen when the canal was finished and they lost his income. “It’s all right. I’ll find something. I am a good worker and I learn quick. Herr Fortney said so himself.” Adam put all the confidence he could in that statement, and his Maria seemed to accept it.

It was a grand canal too. Wide and deep, lined with stone and mortar. Adam suspected that they were making it grander than they had to, just as a way of keeping people working.

240Z Shop, Race Track City

“How’s the canal going, Sonny?” Ron Sanderlin asked.

“Too damned well,” Sonny Fortney said. “They work like beavers and we will be opening it in another week. Then what do we do with two hundred workers who are going to be out of a job?”

Sonny sighed. “I dunno, Ron. Maybe ask Hayley which project we ought to take on next?”

“Oh, quit bragging, dammit.”

Fortney House, Race Track City

“I don’t know, Dad. There are lots of things we could do, but no one has any money to buy anything. We could build a frigging skyscraper next door to Saint Stephan’s and fill it all, except no one could pay their rent. We could build factories and make everything from sewing machines to steam cars and no one could buy them ’cause no one has any money.”

“Well, how are they doing it in Grantville?”

“The American dollar, Dad. They have the American dollar.”

“What’s wrong with the Austro-Hungarian thaler?”

Hayley looked at him. “Which would you rather have, Dad?”

“All right. But you know they are backed by silver.”

“And, unlike most people, I actually believe it,” Hayley agreed. “If they were issuing more than they had the silver to back, there would be enough of the thalers. Austria is suffering from deflation.”

“I hate when you talk like Fletcher Wendell.”

Hayley stuck out her tongue. “Don’t blame me. I didn’t make this mess.”

“I know, but I remember the little girl who dressed her Barbies in overalls and hard hats and had them planning bridges over at Wave Pool.”

“That’s a possibility Dad. What about a water park? You know, people swim in the Danube during the summer. I bet a water park with swimming pools and stuff would be a big draw.”

Through March and April, and into May, workers from the canal project managed to get moved either to the railroad or to the construction of the water park. While SFIC got further and further in debt.

Barclay Engineering, Vienna

Barclay Engineering was the bottom floor of a three-floor townhouse rented by the Barclays. They lived on the second floor, and the servants on the third. Peter Barclay looked at the blueprint of the support ring for the concrete mill and tried to concentrate on his work. It wasn’t easy. He could hear the servants moving around upstairs and the traffic on the street. Still, they were doing better than a lot of the royal hangers-on. They were Hofbefreiten, so they weren’t paying city taxes. And he had been able to get quite a bit of paying work consulting on up-time innovations that the down-timers didn’t understand or know how to use. All in all, they were getting by.

“What do you know about Karl von Liechtenstein?” his wife Marina asked.

“Only what his uncles say. Gundaker thinks he is a traitor to the Holy Roman Empire.”

“There is no Holy Roman Empire and there hasn’t been since before we left Grantville. And Prince Gundaker von Liechtenstein has a flagpole up his ass.”

Peter snorted a laugh. “True enough on both counts, but he is who Ferdinand III stuck us with.”

“Well, at least it wasn’t that murderer Drugeth,” Marina said, looking over at him. There was a smudge of charcoal on her nose and that had gotten to be a constant since they got to Vienna. No CAD systems here, not that there had been that many available in Grantville after the Ring of Fire. But at least there had been better pencils. It amazed Peter how much work it took to get ready to work here in Vienna. And that was even when they had a down-time staff. Most of whom, Peter was convinced, were spies.

“Well, Prince Karl was involved with David Bartley in that business with the Netherlands guilder a couple of years ago and they say he made millions.”

“Financial shenanigans,” Pete said. “Not building anything. Just arbitrage, and probably crooked as a dog’s hind leg to boot.”

 

Into The Maelstrom – Snippet 01

Into The Maelstrom – Snippet 01

Into The Maelstrom

By David Drake and John Lambshead

“To the legion of the lost ones, to the cohort of the damned,”

Gentlemen-Rankers, Barrack Room Ballads by Rudyard Kipling

This book is dedicated to all the soldiers throughout history who fought and died in unremembered wars for causes long abandoned.

Chapter 1 – Magnetar

Tap – Tap – Tap went the claw on the window.

Commander Frisco pressed her eyelids together tighter than a virgin’s knees in the hope that the damn thing would go away.

Tap – Tap – Tap.

It didn’t – go away that is.

She opened her eyes slowly and very reluctantly. The goblin leered at her from the other side of the airtight screen from where it perched on the blunt shovel-nose of her ship. Triangular was a word that summed it up, triangular and blue. Its head was a downwards pointing triangle ending in a long pointed chin. Its mouth V-shaped with triangular teeth, its chest V-shaped, even its bloody ears were triangular.

Stroppy was another good descriptive word. The creature thrust vigorously upwards with two fingers topped with triangular claws. It made the time-honored Brasilian gesture indicating that she should indulge in sex and travel. She tried not to notice what it was doing with its other hand.

Most of the time the Continuum looked like a seething mass of multi-colored energy but every so often ship crews saw and heard illusions. The philosophical postulated that such phantasms were the product of some sort of arcane interaction between the human mind and energy leakage through the ship’s field. In truth, no one had a clue why the phenomenon occurred but the illusions were usually specific to each individual.

Such ghosts materialized when one was under stress causing fears to be dredged from deep within the mind. Helena Frisco was hard pressed to explain why her subconscious might harbor blue goblins with triangular body parts and obscene habits. It was probably Finkletop fault: most current problems in Helena’s universe originated with feckin’ Finkletop.

Satisfaction with her promotion to commander and the captaincy of the Brasilian Research and Exploration Ship Reggie Kray, nicknamed the Twin-Arsed Bastard by the other ranks, rapidly eroded when she shared her first cruise with Professor Obadiah Finkletop. The good professor held a Personal Chair in Cosmic Evolution at Blue Horizon University. No doubt his peers considered him a learned savant. Helena considered him a pain in the arse.

Finkletop alone she might have coped with but the old fool was completely under the spell of his research student, a curvaceous young lady who went by the name of ‘Flipper’ Wallace. What Flipper wanted Flipper got and her desires were entirely capricious when looked at from a naval perspective.

The catamaran hulled Reggie Kray, hence its nickname, had all the naval equipment including the engines and field generators in the “A” hull so that various “B” hulls stuffed with different scientific equipment could be added or detached as required by the current mission objective. The mission in this case was to convey Finkletop’s research group to a neutron star deep in the Hinterlands. The exercise involved gathering “stuff” to test some scientific hypothesis or other concerning nova chains. Finkletop failed to volunteer details and Helena felt no desire to enquire.

The Reggie Kray was about as large a ship as could usefully be navigated within the Hinterlands where the gravity shadows of star systems were tightly packed in the continuum. This stellar proximity channeled chasms, or streams, of boiling energy that made the passage of larger ships too slow and laborious to be viable. Speed equaled range in the Continuum because passage time was capped.

The Reggie Kray handled like a pig because of the asymmetric design. On the plus side Helena did not have so socialize too much with the bloody academics. They tended to keep to their own territory in the “B” hull.

A symbol flashed in the area by her command chair reserved for holographic controls. Finkletop desired communication. She sighed and keyed the comm symbol, ignoring a mischievous impulse to activate the B hull emergency detachment bolts instead. The goblin gave a final leer and disappeared. Helena did not recall that the detachment icon was a blue triangle. No doubt that was just as well.

“Ah, Frisco?” said Finkletop’s voice by her chair. She had switched out the video. It was bad enough having to listen to the man without looking at a caricature of personal grooming that would cause a Naval Academy drill instructor to self-immolate. She rearranged her features into a neutral expression because he could no doubt see her.

“Professor, what a pleasant surprise to talk to you again and so soon after our last conversation.”

“Flipper, Ms. Wallace, needs to be closer to the neutron star. You will move to point gamma-3-alpha-99.”

The two ratings on the bridge with Helena froze. They developed a deep fascination with their consoles. It was not normally considered good naval practice to give orders to a ship’s captain on her own bridge. Not unless you were an admiral at any rate. Even then an order was usually couched as a suggestion. As research team leader Finkletop had the authority to choose the survey sites but the bloody man could show some deference to her rank.

Helena gritted her teeth and keyed in the necessary course as she couldn’t think of a good reason to refuse.  She automatically checked storage heat levels as she did so. Ships’ fusion engines supplied effectively unlimited fuel but electromagnetic radiation could not pass out through the Continuum field reality bubble to any extent. Waste heat had to be “stored” in heat sinks made of frozen iron cores. Captains worried constantly about heat build-up. When levels got too high there was nothing for it but to find a suitable world with available water to dump heat and refreeze the cores.

Unfortunately the Reggie Kray still had an adequate reserve in the sinks. She hit the command key. Her staff would attend to the details of the course change.

“And could you part phase so we can observe the system.”

“Why not?” Helena asked, waving a hand to the appropriate minion to indicate that he should comply. “Anything else we can do for you? Brew up some tea and send it ’round to your hull, perhaps?”

“We are too busy for a tea break. Some of us have work to do,” Finkletop replied, killing the link.

The bloody man was impervious to sarcasm.

The pilot slowly part-dephased the ship on approaching the neutron star. With its fields at low power the reality bubble enclosing the Reggie Kray was subject to a degree of interaction with electromagnetic energy from realspace. That meant that the crew saw into the real universe, albeit in monochrome. In return, light-speed limitations slowed the ship to a crawl. Not an issue in this case as they had only a short distance to travel.

The neutron star was tiny despite its huge mass. It gave off only a dull glow in the visible spectrum. Helena had to look hard to find it against the background star-field but the body’s effects were out of all proportion to its size. It probably weighed about 1,000,000,000,000 kilograms per milliliter. That gave it a gravitational field so strong that escape velocity would be measured in significant fractions of light speed.

A large chaotic debris field rotated at high speed around the star. Helena found it unnerving to watch the lumps of ice, metal and rock tracked on the navigational hologram. No doubt similar junk hurtled through the ship’s realspace location at speeds too high to be visible to the naked eye. She could create a holographic representation of the bombardment for the crew’s edification but doubted they would enjoy the experience.

Deep space made sailors uneasy. Most voyages started and ended on the surface of habitable worlds, the ships phasing within the world’s air envelope. Fields enclosed air within the reality bubble so most commercial vessels and small frames omitted an air-tight hull as an unnecessary expense. The naval architects designed the Reggie Kray to sustain human life even with the fields off because of its unusual research function.

Massive tidal effects commonly produced swirling fields of junk around a neutron star but this one was positively frenzied. Helena ran an analysis using the limited electromagnetic radiation that penetrated the ship’s field.

The comm link lit up. Helena sighed and keyed it.

“We may’ve found it,” Finkletop’s voice shook slightly with excitement.

“Oh good,” Helena said, wondering what “it” was.

“You must dephase completely and turn off the shields so we can obtain samples.”

 

1636 The Viennese Waltz – Snippet 47

1636 The Viennese Waltz – Snippet 47

Chapter 16: Wedding Plans

March, April and May, 1635

The Hofburg Palace

Vienna, Austria

Emperor Ferdinand III wasn’t thrilled with the letter from Wallenstein. He looked at the two Liechtenstein brothers sitting across the table in the private audience room, and gestured with the letter from Karl Eusebius. “What is your nephew up to, gentlemen?”

“Walking the tightrope?” Maximillian von Liechtenstein said. “When we set up the family charter, it gave Karl and his heirs much of the control over the family estates. Karl Eusebius is trying to follow enough of the rules to keep that agreement from ending up in the courts while at the same time protecting the family’s assets. Just in case.”

“We can, Your Majesty, convince Karl Eusebius to provide more funds. I’m sure of that,” Gundaker said. “But that sort of thing is best done face-to-face.”

Moses Abrabanel snorted. “The princes Liechtenstein are well known for their wealth. However, I doubt that every groschen of it is enough to handle the problems we have today.”

Ferdinand III said, “Every little bit helps, Moses.”

“Yes, Your Majesty. But to solve the problem, we have to start creating money.”

The uproar this caused filled the private audience room, but Moses overrode the noise. “I am less concerned with getting Prince Karl here than I am with getting Sarah Wendell to Vienna. Up-timers still have great cachet, after all. And Sarah is an acknowledged expert in the field of economics. She does work for the USE Federal Reserve Bank and her father is their Secretary of the Treasury.”

“You’re saying that if we got her to endorse it, we could print more money without a larger silver reserve?”

“Yes, I think so.”

Ferdinand III looked at the advisers, Moses Abrabanel, Gundaker and Maximillian von Liechtenstein, and Reichsgraf Maximillian von Trautmannsdorf. “So you all think I should accept Prince Karl’s credentials as ambassador from Bohemia?”

The men around the table nodded.

Higgins Hotel, Grantville

“Maid of honor,” Judy the Younger squealed. “Me? I thought sure you’d ask someone else.”

“You’re my only sister,” Sarah pointed out, trying to sound regretful. “Now, if I’d had another sister . . .”

Judy tossed a pillow at her. “You know you love me.” She hesitated a moment. “What about your other bridesmaids?”

“I really don’t know,” Sarah admitted. “Who’s going to be able to travel all the way to Vienna? Most people I know are up to their eyeballs in work.”

“What about us?” Judy stopped a moment. “The Barbies, I mean. We’d love an excuse to travel, you know.”

“Eek!”

“Oh, don’t be pretending to scream,” Judy said. “You know we can be . . . well, act . . . really presentable when we want to.”

“Yeah, maybe. It’s getting you guys to want to that’s the problem.”

“Seriously, Sarah. I’d really like something for us to do that’s out of Grantville. Vicky took Bill’s death really hard. And if we don’t get Susan away from the old . . . cats . . . in Grantville, she’s going to explode. Even with all the uproar after Mayor Dreeson was killed, those old bats keep after her about her mom.”

Sarah fully understood that, considering Velma Hardesty’s reputation as a man-eating slut. “Actually,” Sarah said, “having Susan in Vienna might be a very good idea.”

“Take one, take us all.” Judy laughed, but there was a catch in her voice. Even Judy was shaken by the deaths of Mayor Dreeson and Bill Magen and she knew that.

“Hush. I said that because I know that Karl’s family is going to be looking for money. Susan is the best of your crew when it comes to holding on to money.”

“I think she’s got the first dollar she ever made,” Judy said. “She’s afraid to let go of any of it. Well, except for what she invests. She doesn’t think that’s spending it.”

“And she’s right. But Karl’s family isn’t looking to invest it. They’re looking to loan it to the emperor.”

Liechtenstein House, outside the Ring of Fire

“So how are we going to get there?” Susan Logsden asked. “I have no desire to repeat Hayley’s trip to the frontier in a covered wagon.”

“Vienna is hardly the frontier, Susan,” Karl complained.

“You’re right. It’s past the frontier, well into Injun country,” Vicky said harshly. “But my point is, I have no desire at all to spend weeks in a covered wagon, squatting in a field to do my business. I am a child of civilization.”

“Well, you can stay home if you want,” Sarah said repressively.

“Nope. Got a letter from Hayley. She needs us, so we’re going, even if we leave the Ken Doll here in Grantville.”

“Not a chance,” Sarah said.

“I’ll arrange transport,” Karl said.

“How?” Sarah asked.

“I have no idea, but I’ll think of something.”

****

It took Karl two days to think of that something, and the expense of several radio calls back and forth to the Netherlands. But he got the loan of one of the Jupiter’s from Fernando, King in the Low Countries. Happily, the royal Netherlands airline had two Jupiter’s currently in service so they could spare one for a week or so. King Fernando might not have agreed on his own. He tended to hoard his beloved new aircraft the way dragons of legend hoarded gold. But Karl suspected he’d come under considerable pressure from his wife. Part of the arrangement was that Karl would bring letters to deliver to her family from Queen Maria Anna.

Fortney House, Race Track City

“Hey, Mom!” Hayley shouted, tracking mud in. “I just got a letter from Judy. Sarah is going to marry Prince Karl von Liechtenstein. Here! In Vienna!”

“What? What happened to David Bartley?” Dana asked.

“Got me. I always thought he was kind of cute, in an Ichabod Crane sort of way. Nothing to write home about. Maybe he just couldn’t compete with the Ken Doll? You know, prince and all that.”

“You think Sarah is the sort to go title hunting?”

“Not really, but I don’t know her all that well. I mean, she’s Judy’s sister, yeah. But you know how older sisters are when it comes to their baby sister’s ‘little’ friends.”

“Big sisters are indeed cruel and heartless creatures. At least till you’re all grown up, and they are never quite convinced that you really are an adult.”

“Right. Just like Natasha is.” Hayley grinned. “So, anyway, Sarah was always a bit distant and we all had the impression that she didn’t approve of the adventurous nature of the Barbie Consortium, but apparently she’s gotten over that.” Hayley looked back at the letter. “Because Judy and the rest of the Barbies are to be her bridesmaids. Judy’s going to be the maid of honor.”

“That’s great. If we don’t go broke before they get here,” Dana said. Over the last several months they had been building up a truly massive cache of I.O.Us and slowly spending themselves into bankruptcy to keep goods on the shelves.

“Yes, I know, Mom. I talked to Moses Abrabanel yesterday, and he is getting leery about loaning us money based on the notes we are carrying. He doesn’t see how people are going to be able to pay us back, so he doesn’t see how we are going to pay his family back. But we can’t stop giving people credit.”