Eric Flint's Blog, page 301

1636 The Viennese Waltz – Snippet 06

1636 The Viennese Waltz – Snippet 06

“Only if they’re balanced by down-timers with technical know how,” Judy the Elder said. “One thing we have consistently underestimated is what down-time craftsmen can do.”

“And don’t think we aren’t aware of that.” Karl smiled. “Aside from farming and mining, what would you suggest as the best options?”

“Upgrades in the manufacture of things you’re already producing should come first. Basically, labor-saving devices for small shops. Stamp presses and steam hammers for blacksmiths. Sewing machines for tailors. One of the most important things that does is free up labor for new types of work while increasing your productivity. Freeze dryers, and canning plants for the preservation of foods, so that you lose less of your farming output to spoilage. Both of which will help you avoid inflation.”

“Don’t forget consumer goods,” Judy the Younger added. “Like grooming kits.”

“Grooming kits?” Karl asked. “And why consumer goods?”

“Little pouches or folders that have stuff like fingernail and toenail clippers, nail files, combs, or brushes and maybe a little mirror. Grooming stuff. Why, is because you need to build a consumer base. You need things that are small enough for people to buy, and stuff they will use. Grooming kits in particular, because good grooming is important to how others see you and how you feel about yourself.”

“And because the Barbies have an interest in a company that makes grooming kits,” Sarah added with a look at her sister. Judy the Younger just grinned like an imp. And Karl laughed out loud.

****

Over the next week the Liechtenstein Industrialization Corporation was formed. The LIC charter had lots of high-sounding rhetoric in it and was officially a nonprofit, which had some tax advantages. It really was a nonprofit. Karl and the family would get their profits on the other end, in increased pieces of the action from the new companies it would help to form and finance. The slogan “with a lic and a promise” was considered for the company but rejected as soon as Karl found out what it meant. It struck just too close to home.

Karl talked to the local Abrabanel representatives about what the LIC was designed to do and how it might be expected to increase revenues in Liechtenstein lands over the next few years by fostering industrial development using up-timer knowledge. He specifically asked that the information be forwarded to the Abrabanel representatives in Vienna.

Then he wrote back to his Uncle Gundaker

I’m sorry, Uncle, but you’re catching me at an inopportune time. I have learned from my stay here that if our properties are not upgraded, the incomes they generate over the next several years will be diminished as they are forced to compete with up-timer influenced lands that produce more for less.

In order to avoid that, I have created the Liechtenstein Industrialization Corporation to introduce up-timer techniques into our lands. While the initial costs of such a program are quite high, in the long run they will much more than pay for themselves. For the moment, however, we are in the expensive part of the proposition and it will be a few years before returns outpace investment.

I have talked to the local Abrabanel representative and he concurs that should the investments I have been making continue, the income derived from our lands should double, at the least, over the next decade or so. However, should I pull the funds already allocated to that endeavor, confidence in that increase would be drastically diminished. Based on that assessment, I am authorizing you to borrow funds up to two hundred thousand Holy Roman guilder at a rate of interest not to exceed six percent annually, secured by the income from our lands in Bohemia and Silesia. I’m sorry it’s not all you asked for and that I must limit the interest to six percent to secure the family’s ability to repay the loans.

There is considerable coal under our lands, Uncle, enough to support a strong and profitable industrial development. To facilitate that development, one of the most important of the general improvements is a wooden rail railroad from Opole to Vienna. This will connect Vienna to the Oder by rail and hence to the Baltic by a combination of rail and river. It will also provide our lands ready access to markets from the Baltic to the Black Sea, politics allowing.

I don’t expect the wooden rails to last long, five to ten years I am told, depending on many factors. However, I consider them an important stopgap measure to facilitate trade until we can develop iron and steel industries and replace the wooden rails with steel. I have written your good wife to ask her authority to facilitate the road in Silesia and hope that you and Uncle Maximillian will use your influence with His Imperial Majesty to facilitate its approval between the border of Silesia and Vienna.

Karl knew that his Uncle Gundaker wasn’t going to be thrilled with his letter. Especially the part where he mentioned that he was appealing directly to Aunt Beth. Also, Gundaker wasn’t going to be all that thrilled with the limits of two hundred thousand guilder and a maximum interest of six percent. Inflation was rearing its ugly head in the USE, but for the most part it had been put off on other currencies, including HRE guilders which were still circulating in the USE. The silver ones, anyway. People were anxious to get American dollars because they were anxious to have what American dollars could buy — or at least that was how it had started. By now, almost everyone in the USE just trusted American dollars. However, the HRE didn’t have that advantage. There were things that you could buy with the HRE guilder more readily than with other currencies, but not nearly as many of them. Besides, HRE guilders based their value on the silver content, and silver had been dropping against the American dollar since its introduction. The HRE was suffering stagflation, because imports from the USE were expensive, but sought after. Karl was right about his Uncle Gundaker’s reaction to his letter. In fact, he underestimated the case by a considerable margin.

 

The Savior – Snippet 19

The Savior – Snippet 19

“No, sir, I don’t.”

“To get the cold hell away from my father’s plantation, that’s why.”

“Where was that?”

“Was? Is. It’s still there. Ingres. In the middle of the province. Best land. They grow wheat and flax. There are whole villages of people who work for my father. People who will always work for my family. Serfdom. That’s the way it’s done in Ingres.”

“I know about the plantations.”

“From scrolls? From passing through on your way to better things? No, you don’t know anything!” Von Hoff slapped a hand down on the table. The pistol jumped and rattled back down.

“Why don’t you tell me, Colonel?”

Von Hoff was silent for a long moment. Then he brought his hand back up, kneaded his forehead, and finally spoke. “They say we have no slavery in the Land. That’s one way we are different from those cursed dust-worshipping Redlanders. They take slaves, but for us civilized people, slavery is counter to the Laws and Edicts of Zentrum” Again, the faint smile crossed von Hoff’s face. “I’ve seen slavery. It’s alive and well in Ingres. And my family have been slave masters for three hundred years.”

“So you joined up to get away from all that?”

“So I wouldn’t have to become a slave master myself.”

“And now –”

“I’m about to make my kin look like children playing at what they do.”

“Unless you put a minié ball through your skull?” said Abel. “And how is this going to help those people in Progar?”

“Nothing can help them.” He smiled, still looking at the gun. “But it doesn’t have to be me who does it.”

The colonel’s conclusion does not follow, Center said in his impersonal voice. He makes utilitarian argument for his inability to effect change, but from that argument it would follow that it is better if he is in charge of the extermination to minimize pain and suffering.

The man’s wrestling with his soul, said Raj quietly. He’s run up against the trouble with that sort of thinking.

Utilitarian philosophy is normally sound. It is that which is often deemed practical, with end justifying means.

It’s that kind of thinking from Zentrum that’s left this world wallowing in Stasis, with children dying from the measles and mumps, and men with ideas kicked to the stones. It isn’t cowardly to want to escape from doing evil.

I was not accusing the colonel of moral weakness. I was merely pointing out the logical contradiction in his argument to justify self-slaughter.

Abel found himself wanting something he’d never desired before. For a moment, he wanted to share Center. To show the colonel what a future would look like with no Zachary von Hoff.

 

Can I? Is it possible?

No, Center replied. You were conditioned during your proximity to the capsule which brought us to this world. Your mind was tuned on a quantum level, beyond mere rearrangement of neurotransmitters. Raj and I are with you in a very real way. We could not be with the colonel in such a manner unless he were to come within several paces of the capsule.

Show me, then.

Acceptable. Observe:

Cold.

It’s a cold he’s never felt before. Beyond the cool of a winter evening in the Land. Breathtaking cold. And there is snow. He’s never seen snow before, has known of its existence only from scrolls. Now he understands it at a bone-deep level.

And it is hard to breathe. Almost as if the air has given out. He is not walking particularly quickly, but every step is a struggle.

He looks behind and sees a line of men following. What was supposed to be a flanking attack has instead turned into a death march to escape the weather and an enemy in pursuit.

Abel looks down at his hands, uncovered, growing blue, and doesn’t recognize them. They are a brown color, many shades darker than his natural hue even with a full tan. He turns over his palms. Lighter skin there. He is a black man.

You are Captain Leonard Fowlett of Third Battalion Wednesday Company. The men following you are the remains of your entire unit.

I haven’t counted them, but there can’t be more than thirty or forty left of a hundred, Fowlett/Abel thought.

Chambers Pass. This is what it had come to, where they had come to. The headwaters of the River when it wasn’t a frozen hell of snow and ice as it was at present.

Fowlett knew it was a fool’s errand going in. The company was not equipped for snow. But it was the natural element of the enemy.

Brilliant. Fucking brilliant.

Colonel Vallancourt, now a general. Promoted from the rockfucking First. Always sure he’s the smartest guy in any room. Always certain he’s right.

Well, this time he wasn’t right. It was only the latest of a series of stupid blunders on this bloody, benighted campaign. Oh, the Corps would win, all right. That was apparent from the start. But to pay this kind of price, when it should have been relatively easy. To lose so many of my men.

To die in this cold hell.

Chambers fucking Pass.

A man comes huffing toward him, plowing through the snow. It is the young lieutenant, the trustworthy one with the platoon taking up the rearguard.

Breathless, he arrives, stands before the captain. Tries to speak, but cannot.

“Easy, man,” says Fowlett. “It takes time to catch your breath in this thin air.”

The young lieutenant nods, takes a moment to get his breath under control.

“They’ve caught up with us, sir,” he gasped. “We couldn’t hold them. They’re using…I don’t know what to call them. Things that slide over this white horror we’re wading through.”

“Skis,” Fowlett said. He’d read about them, somewhere. In some impossible children’s tale of the frozen north. He turned his gaze back down the snowy valley which they had been heading up in their attempt to escape.

Hunted.

There, not far away, perhaps a few hundred paces. Brown and black dots, moving impossibly fast. Men walking — no, men sliding — on the top of the snow.

“Form ranks!” he called out. His weary men moved to obey.

Even after all this, the stupid losses in an insane charge on the walls of Orash. The repulse. The counterattack. After all this, Wednesday men had fight left in them. But it was so cold.

The flight. The cold.

A night of hell. Men dying standing in their own tracks. Dying of cold.

Yet the ones who remained pulled together into a ragged line, their sergeants’ shrill voices goading them once more into battle formation, two deep.

Across the valley floor from him, the black and brown dots grew larger. No longer dots, but forms with arms and legs. Men. Gliding over the snow like magical beasts.

“Tell them to hold fire!” he called to his first sergeant. “Wait until those cursed rockfuckers are in range.”

We can’t waste the little ammunition we still have.

The enemy drew closer. Closer.

Then stopped.

They stopped well out of range.

What the cold hell…

Someone was forming them into a line. They raised their rifles.

They’re out of range. Don’t they know the chance of hitting us is one in a thousand?

But the rifles weren’t aimed at Wednesday Company. They were aimed at the sides of the valley, the steep slopes packed with snow.

The enemy fired. It was ragged fire, no discipline there. And they were shooting into snow.

For a moment, he laughed. Blood and Bones, was this some sort of joke?

He couldn’t understand why they did it, but he didn’t need to. The enemy would have to reload. His entire unit was armed and ready. He would charge. Even bounding through snow, they would come into range.

He would rout those rockfuckers after all!

That was when he heard the rumble. It sounded like distant thunder, but Fowlett didn’t recognize it. He’d only seen his first rain six days ago. This — was outside his knowledge.

The rumble grew louder. Where was it coming from? What was it?

He looked wildly around.

The walls of the little valley — were they shifting? Was the snow itself on the move?

It was.

Then the rumble became a roar, and he understood.

The enemy would not have to shoot them. No, the snow would take care of that.

He watched the avalanche approach. Some of the men turned to run. But the other side of the valley was avalanching as well. There was nowhere to run.

He tried to brace himself. Tried to be ready. But the snow hit him like the punch of a giant. So cold. Flung, churned. Nothing but white, white, white in his vision. Pulled in opposite directions.

He felt his right leg break at the thigh.

Pulled, yanked, turned.

Finally he came to rest. His eyes were still open. Darkness. Wet when he blinked. He couldn’t get his hands free to wipe them, couldn’t move at all. He struggled, but it was no use. Was he upside down? Right side up? How deeply was he buried? There was no way to tell.

He knew he was freezing to death, because the cold didn’t seem to bother him anymore.

But then Fowlett realized he wasn’t going to die from the cold after all.

No, it would be suffocation.

There was no air here, except what he brought with him in his lungs. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t move and he couldn’t breathe.

Cold hell. He’d sworn by it a thousand times, not realizing it was real.

And now he was there.

Cold hell was Chambers Pass.

* * *

“No, you can’t help them, and you can’t help yourself out of obeying these orders. But it’s the Goldies who’ll suffer if you leave us, Colonel. Third Brigade in particular.”

“You can’t know that,” answered von Hoff with a shrug. “I’m just a man. Men are interchangeable. By the will of Zentrum, that’s how the system is designed.”

“Colonel, don’t ask me how it is I come by this, but I know for a fact that they will give the Third Brigade command to Colonel Vallancourt.”

Von Hoff looked away from the pistol, turned to Abel and laughed, as if Abel had made an absurd joke. “No, I don’t think so.”

Abel met the colonel’s gaze, slowly shook his head. “It’s true. It will be Vallancourt. I know this. It’s practically a done deal.”

“Absurd. How do you know it?”

“I can’t tell you, but it’s from a source I completely trust.”

 

For a very long time, von Hoff held Abel’s gaze. “Who are you?” he said. “No one your age at the time could have won the Battle of the Canal. What do you see? What are you?”

“A man, like you,” Abel answered. “But sometimes I know things. The way I knew how to use the breechloaders Golitsin made. This is another one of those times.”

Von Hoff looked into Abel’s eyes a little longer. Then he dropped his gaze and reached for the pistol. He carefully removed the firing cap and lowered the cocked hammer. Then he pushed the gun abruptly away. It skittered across the table, but did not fall off.

“I can’t,” he whispered. “I can’t visit a plague like Vallancourt on the men. I just can’t.” He looked back to Abel. “And you’re sure?”

“Almost certainly matters are going to align in such a way that he’ll get the command if you’re gone.”

The crooked smile slowly returned to the colonel’s face.

“Back when Vallancourt and I were both in the Academy, I looked at that First Family dolt and said to myself, ‘Someday, Zachary, your life is going to depend on him, on something he does or does not do. What will you do then? Will you accept that fate can be that cruel?’ I even thought about killing him at one point.”

“Is that true, sir?”

“I always figured he would be the death of me, through one or another of his incredible fuck-ups. It would be justified self-defense.”

Von Hoff took up the pistol, pushed back from the table, and slid the dragon back into his waistband.

“Damn Vallancourt to cold hell,” he said — but with resignation, not anger, and with the same crooked smile on his face. “Now he’s gone and saved my life.”

 

Paradigms Lost — Chapter 20

Paradigms Lost — Chapter 20

Chapter 20: An Unusual Consultant

Red liquid swirled warmly in the crystal glass, throwing off crimson highlights. Verne Domingo sipped. I swallowed some of my ginger ale, noticing how little I was affected these days by the knowledge that Verne was drinking blood.

“Why doesn’t it clot?” I asked idly.

“Heparin, my friend. A standard anticoagulant.”

“Doesn’t that give you any problems?”

His warm chuckle rolled out. “Not in the least, Jason. Nor does anything else within the blood. Disease and toxins cannot harm me. It does change the taste somewhat, and on occasion I do need some fresh blood; but that, too, can be arranged.”

“How’s things going?” I asked, realizing I was evading what had brought me here… but now that I was here I found myself a little nervous. “Your new business and all?”

“Oh, well enough. Sky Hashima was to have visited either this evening or the next, but he had a family emergency; his daughter apparently managed to break her leg and develop appendicitis at the same time.”

“What?”

“The description was a bit… disjointed, but I gather that the infection came on quickly, and when she was trying to come down the stairs the pain hit, she tripped, and fell. So she is now in the hospital, having surgery for a ruptured appendix and a complex fracture.”

“Holy crap. I’d better send them a card or something. I hope she’ll be okay.”

“I believe she will be, and am sure they would appreciate it.” He gazed at me levelly. “Enough of these pleasantries, Jason. Tell me what is bothering you.”

Okay, I can’t hide much from him, can I? “An awful lot of things, really. This has been the kind of day that makes me think I should have just slept on to tomorrow.” I put the glass down and fiddled with my keys. “I really don’t want to bother you, either. I guess any problems I have would seem pretty insignificant to you anyway.”

“Perhaps not, my friend.” He took another sip. “I am many centuries old, that is true, and such a perspective makes many mortal concerns seem at best amusing conceits. But the affairs of the heart, and the concerns of a friend, these things are eternal. Those… immortals who lose sight of their basic humanity become as was your friend Elias Klein. Something I was myself in danger of becoming, and had come very close to becoming more than once in the past.”

He put the glass down. “Truly, Jason. I am interested. It is a rare thing for me, remember, to again think of, and take part in, the ordinary things of humanity.”

That much was true. “Well, first there was a call from Renee,” I said finally. “This kid, Xavier Ross … well, long story short, his brother was murdered in a nasty way, cops closed the case awfully fast, Xavier had reason to think they were wrong, he came to me. I found some other evidence, he took it to the police but they wouldn’t re-open the case, so he waits a few weeks and then takes off on his own — best guess that he’s heading for LA like he’s some kind of hero.”

Verne nodded. “And…”

“And Renee called today; they managed to track him to Chicago, and he just disappears. Some kind of gang fight right in his last vicinity, and they found a lot of blood and a couple traces of clothing that matched his.”

“So,” Verne said seriously, “then you blame yourself?”

“I should’ve cut him off from the start. Damn, Verne, he was sixteen. He shouldn’t have been …”

“Understandable, indeed. Yet… I feel there was more. You must have ways of letting go, so to speak.”

I sighed. “Yeah. Yeah, I do, and mostly I know he made his choices on his own, and it’s not my fault or lookout. But still, that took me a few hours to dig my brain out from under, so to speak, and then I get out of work and Sylvie wants to… talk to me.” I hesitated.

He smiled. He probably meant it to comfort me, but the kindly effect was slightly offset by the sight of his fangs. “I can guess, my friend. The affaire d’amour, eh? And you are, I have noticed, a bit uncomfortable with the subject.”

I stared carefully at my drink. “That obvious, huh?”

“Quite.” He raised his glass and drank. “A word of advice, if you will take it? Women are indeed different from men in many ways – even as they are much the same in many others; but both sides like things that are certain and predictable. If you do not intend a romantic involvement with the young lady, then comport yourself accordingly. I know you, my young friend. You are attracted to her, but at the same time I can sense that you are, to put it bluntly, petrified at the thought of such an involvement. When she demands a decision, she is not telling you to either become involved with her or she will leave; she is telling you to treat her as either lover or simple friend, not something of each. It may be easy for you to behave as your impulses lead; it is hard on her.”

I stared harder at my glass. That was a cutting analysis. I hate having to see myself like that. But he was right. “Sylvie… she’s different from everyone else. It’s strange, really. You intimidate me a lot less than she does.”

Verne laughed. “Now that is odd, my friend. I agree, most certainly, that the lady is different. She has a Power which is rare, rarer even than you or she realize, especially in this day and age. But for a man who has dueled one of the Undead and emerged the victor, a talented young lady should hardly be a great threat.” His smile softened. “It seems to me that, just perhaps, the reason is that she is more precious to you than any others because of this talent  — she sees within the souls of those about her, and thus you know she accepts what you are more fully than anyone else living could. To a bachelor such as yourself, she is a grave threat indeed.”

I couldn’t restrain a nervous laugh of my own. “I couldn’t be that clichéd, could I?”

The old vampire smiled again. “I am afraid, my friend, that we are all too often the clichés of our times. I am only unusual because I have outlived all those who would recognize me. Yet, in your own fiction, I have found myself being stereotyped once more.” He finished the glass of blood and set it down. “Was there anything else, Jason? Though I will admit that a young life in jeopardy due to perceived responsibility on your part, followed by friendship troubles is quite enough to make a bad day, I suspect something worse would be needed to make you come here.”

I nodded. “You could say that.” In a few sentences I outlined the horror in the clearing. “So you see I had to come here.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I don’t quite see that you had to come here.”

“Reisman may be thinking ‘psycho’ right now, but that’s because your little hypnotism job, or whatever you call it, keeps her from remembering that there’s a local vampire who could do that to someone a heckuva lot easier than an ordinary nut. And since the guy was a Fed… I had to find out from you if you did have him killed.”

His lips tightened. “You offend me, Jason. Once before you suspected me of being a murderer, but then I had been well framed for the part. Now you know me, and yet you would think I would kill someone in such a grotesque way?”

“Look, I’m sorry, Verne. It’s not that I suspect it. It’s a question I have to ask because Reisman can’t ask it. I don’t believe it. But Elias knew you were a drug-runner, and though we conveniently made that disappear when we did the great vampire cover-up, Renee Reisman could easily find it out again, and then she would be up here grilling you. Even though you’ve changed your profession since, the fact that you were ever involved in that kind of thing won’t look good.”

He sat back slowly, and I relaxed a bit. Pissing a vampire off isn’t the way to ensure a long life — what he’d done to Carmichael’s estate had shown that all too well. “I did have another couple of reasons. I thought you might know something, maybe about another vampire that for some ungodly reason decided to move here.”

He shook his head, hesitated a moment, then spoke. “As you know, vampires are one of the few sorts of beings that I cannot sense automatically. Unless your hypothetical newcomer were to introduce himself, I’m afraid that I would have no better idea than you of his presence.

“Besides that, it stretches the bounds of reason to suppose that three vampires would be found in such close proximity.” He chuckled slightly. “We are a rare race; were the environmentalists aware of us, I would not be surprised to find us on an endangered species list. I am still somewhat puzzled by Klein’s presence; he obviously became a vampire relatively recently, yet his maker seemed unconcerned with either Klein’s behavior or survival.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You mean his maker might have objected to what he did?”

Verne nodded. “His maker should have objected, or in fact have controlled him. As a general rule, they try not to make waves, so to speak, for other beings that live in the twilight world between your civilization’s ‘reality’ and the lands of myth. And, not to sound overly egotistical, I am an extremely well-known member of that group. I would have expected his maker to be extremely concerned about annoying me by involving me in the manner Klein did. And, indeed, if I discover who was responsible for making him and leaving him uncontrolled, I will… have a talk with that person.”

“We never did find out how or why Klein became a vampire; couldn’t this killing be due to whoever Klein’s maker was?”

Verne rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “It is possible, of course. It would eliminate that element of coincidence; if this was the case, then Klein’s behavior might even have been precisely what his maker wanted. But still… a vampire who had decided on such a bizarre and savage method of killing… I find it difficult to believe such a creature would waste so much of the essence of the living. But you said ‘a couple’ of other reasons. What was the other?”

“The murderer apparently phoned headquarters… and he gave his name as Vlad Dracul.”

I would never have believed it was possible, but the blood drained straight out of Verne’s face, leaving him literally white as paper. “Vlad Dracul… that is not possible. It must not be possible.” His voice was a whisper. I felt gooseflesh rising on my arms; Verne sounded afraid.

I didn’t even want to imagine what could scare him. “Of course it’s impossible. Vlad Tepes, the Dracula of legend, died a long, long time ago.” Another thought occurred to me. “Unless… given the initials… you were him.”

He made a cutting gesture with his hand, his ruby ring flashing like a warning. He stepped to the window; for several minutes he stared out at the moonlit landscape. “No. I was not… him. But that name has… meaning…” He paused. “I’d rather not discuss this now, Jason. I must make some inquiries.” He turned back to me. “I’m sorry to cut this short, but you’ll have to leave now.”

One look was enough to convince me not to argue. “Okay, Verne. Can you just tell me one thing?”

“Perhaps.”

“Is it another vampire? Is that what you think?”

A very faint, eerie smile crossed his face. My skin prickled anew. “A vampire? Oh, no, not a vampire.”

That smile stayed with me all the way home.

 

Trial By Fire – Snippet 35

Trial By Fire – Snippet 35

The spalling, splintering, and outgassing of that hit had imparted a small tumble to the ship. The nose of the crippled carrier began pitching down, the engine decks at its stern rising slightly. As it did, the hull spat out two small white ovals from behind the torus’s rotator coupling: escape pods. Another one came out of the engineering decks–

Almost too fast to see, a pair of stars streaked into the picture, one striking the keel just abaft the torus, the other slicing into the engine decks. Blinding light rushed outward, swallowed the ship, the pods, the whole screen–then, static.

Downing sighed and turned off the screen. “And that was the Shanghai. I received the final loss list from The Second Battle of Jupiter just minutes before you all arrived. It is not reassuring.”

“How bad?” asked Elena quickly.

“Both of the Chinese carriers and the Egalité were destroyed, as you saw. So were ninety percent of their complements. The other Euro carrier, the Tapfer, managed to cut across the primary axis of the engagement and is making for the outer system. But the fleet is effectively destroyed as a force in being. By all assessments, the strategy of closing quickly with the Arat Kur to inflict more damage was more disastrous than long-range sniping. We’d need a significant numerical superiority in hulls and drones to make such a tactic advisable.”

Opal looked up slyly. “What about the drones we haven’t shown them yet, the ones hidden in deep sites?”

Downing started. “How do you know about those?”

“I’ve been hanging around you sneaky intel types long enough now. I know how your minds work.”

“Very good–I think. At any rate, we had none in range of this engagement. Most are committed to cislunar defense, but we have no way to use them at the moment. Having established full orbital control, the Arat Kur can jam any ground-based control signals, other than tightbeam lascom. And they are not going to tolerate any of the latter. They proved that right after their exosapient ‘solidarity forces’ began landing in Indonesia at the invitation of now-President Ruap.”

Elena narrowed her eyes. “So is that why the Arat Kur made those limited orbital strikes against a few of our cities, and wiped one off the map in China?”

Downing nodded. “Yes. When the second Arat Kur fleet arrived by shifting into far cislunar space, they blasted all our orbital assets, including all our control sloops. The Chinese, who have an immense number of remote-operated interceptors, did not want to cede the high ground. So they launched a wave of antiship drones, all controlled from their large lascom ground station in Qinzhou.”

Opal’s voice was tight, angry. “And so the Arat Kur bombed it–and Qinzhou itself, for good measure. And now they’ve got how many ships floating over our heads?”

Downing aimed his palmtop at the flatscreen, pressed a button.

A brace of Arat Kur ships–all gargantuan shift-carriers–glided out of view, huge spindly gridworks crammed with an eye-gouging assortment of subordinate craft, rotating habitation modules, cargo canisters, and other objects of less determinable purpose. Arrayed around them were the less gargantuan, but still massive shift-cruisers: smooth, single-hulled oblongs, flared and flattened at the stern. Other ships of the line–each a freight-train composite of boxes, modules, engine decks, rotating hab nacelles and fuel tanks–looked drastically smaller, both because they were only a third the displacement of the shift cruisers and because they were more distant, arrayed in a protective sphere around the shift vessels.

“Those tinier guys don’t look so tough,” said Opal with a false bravado that fooled no one.

“Actually, except for when a shift cruiser uses its drive capacitors to charge its spinal beam weapon, the slower-than-light craft are far more deadly. They have no heavy, unipiece hull. No shift drive and no antimatter power plant to drag about. Far fewer fuel requirements. They are built purely for maximum speed and firepower.”

“But once the STL ships are detached from their carrier–”

“Yes, that’s the rub. Once they are deployed, they’re stuck in-system until they make rendezvous with a carrier.”

Opal looked back at the screen. “Do they have anything else up there, maybe hulls we haven’t seen?”

“Doubtful, but we can’t be sure. We haven’t wanted to risk our last orbital assets taking new pictures unless ground observatories detect additions to the blockade.”

“Wait. We still have orbital assets?” Trevor asked. “I thought they smacked down everything.”

“Everything except our old ‘disabled’ satellites,” Downing corrected.

Trevor frowned. “You mean we’re getting pictures from broken satellites?”

Downing smiled. “We call them Mousetraps. Seven years ago, we started replacing the innards of failed satellites with dormant military systems. Some contain lascom control relays, others are communications transfer hubs, some conceal weapons.”

Opal sounded indignant. “So why didn’t we use these, uh, Mousetraps to attack the Arat Kur’s orbital fleet?”

“The armed Mousetraps don’t contain weapons large enough use on the big ships. Not all of which are blockading Earth, by the way. Most of the fleet we engaged at the First Battle of Jupiter has moved to the Belt, primarily to take possession of our antimatter facility on Vesta.”

“And the remainder?”

“Still controlling Jovian space.”

Opal drummed her fingers on the table-top. “So, they left some guards at the self-serve gas station.”

“Just so.” Richard smiled at her archaism.

“So this means that right now, all told, Earth has lost–?”

“–nine of its eleven military shift carriers, Major Patrone.”

“Can civilian carriers be used to replace them?”

“Not really. While any carrier can pick up and shift a payload to another system, fleet carriers are designed to do it on the move and under fire. They have far more thrust potential, far more system redundancy, far better weaponry, and autonomous docking systems for high-speed deployment and recovery.”

Elena sighed. “So it seems like we have very few military options left. Which makes me wonder what answer First Consul Ching is going to give the Arat Kur tonight. Any guesses, Uncle Richard?”

“Elena, I’m not even sure what the invaders’ new surrender terms are. But I do know someone who’s been talking about that with the president today.” Downing looked at Trevor meaningfully.

Trevor shrugged. “The Arat Kur haven’t moderated their initial terms of surrender. In fact, they’ve put in an additional requirement.”

Downing grimaced. “So what do they want now?”

Trevor seemed to repeat the new demand from memory. “‘The World Confederation must hold a species-wide referendum to officially confirm or reject it as humanity’s legitimate government.’”

Elena made a disgusted noise. “Do they have any conception of just how long it will take to solicit a complete global vote?”

“Not just global,” Trevor corrected, “speciate. Their requirement specifically extends to offworld colonies.”

“But it would take a whole year just to get the notification to Zeta Tucanae, and another year to get the results back here.”

“That’s right–and they know it. Believe me, they know it.”

Opal was frowning. “Then what are they trying to do with a condition like that? Sabotage the peace process before it gets started?”

Downing nodded. “That’s exactly what they’re trying to do.”

“But if they push us too far–”

“Then what? At this point, how can we threaten them? Their air interdiction of Indonesia is absolute, as we learned when we tried to contest their ‘invited’ landings near the Indonesian mass-driver. One hundred seventy-eight combat aircraft and interface vehicles lost with all crews. Chinese, Australian, Japanese, a few American craft out of Guam: it didn’t make a difference. The best Arat Kur visible light lasers can reach right down to sea level with enough force to instantly take down any air vehicle in our inventory, even the armored deltas. And a maritime counterinvasion would be even worse. You’ve seen on the news what happens when an unauthorized ship crosses over the fifty-kilometer no-sail limit they imposed around Java.”

Opal nodded. “A hail of kinetic-kill devices from orbit and down she goes to Davy Jones’ locker.”

Elena looked around the room. “So that’s it? We’re just going to give up?”

And again, all eyes drifted toward Trevor. He shook his head. “No, we are not giving up.”

Downing found he was exhaling in relief. “Then what message is Ching going to send in answer to the Arat Kur and Hkh’Rkh demands?”

Trevor looked at him. “Nothing.”

 

The Savior – Snippet 18

The Savior – Snippet 18

3

The morning brought more marching. And after a day and a half they left Treville behind and entered Cascade district.

Almost the moment they crossed the border they were attacked. This time it was not crossbows at night. The raiding party was mounted on donts, and they rode down upon the column about its midpoint. Abel was riding with von Hoff to the front, and the pop of firearms behind them alerted them to the attack. Von Hoff ordered an immediate cavalry charge, and he and Abel joined in. In front of them, puffs of blackpowder smoke were rising, but before they arrived, the raiders had fled. Abel took reports. The attackers had fired salvos from carbines, reloaded while they were riding, fired again, and then switched to bow and arrow. Progar — whatever oligarchy was in charge — was serious about their harassment raids.

The attack left behind sixteen casualties, with ten dead.

There might have been many more, but instead of disarray, the attacked portion of the line fell out in good order and took positions behind a low hedge on the Road’s eastern side. They lay down mass fire, aiming for the legs of the donts. This had brought down a good third of the attackers. The cloud of gun smoke Abel had seen had come from the rifles of Guardians. There were perhaps one hundred raiders in all. More of the column came up, and instead of standing around gawking, joined in the fray, giving the front lines time to reload. The Guardians’ counterattack moved steadily forward like carnadons drawn to a kill.

Finally the raiders had had enough. They’d broken off and fled back toward the Escarpment. Several officers started to give chase on foot, but von Hoff called them back. Instead, he sent a company of cavalry after them.

That night, the cavalry brought the heads of twenty raiders into the camp staked on the end of banner poles. These raiders they had ambushed and killed. The others had made it to the Rim by the skin of their teeth.

You tangled with Goldies at your own peril.

General Josiah Saxe, who commanded the entirety of the Guardian Corps, did the wise thing and marched the corps off the Road, overland, and around the sprawling city of Bruneberg, staying a respectful two leagues distant. Even Abel cast a long look or two toward it.

This was his domain. His command until a short time ago. He was the one who had taken on the corruption, the decadent idiocy of the ruling class.

Taken it on and beaten it with terrible cost.

Of course, there was a memory that lay lighter in his mind: he’d also once gone into that city a virgin, but hadn’t left one.

They circled back to the Road near the top of the First Cataract, the system of shoals and rapids that lay near Bruneberg on the River. Then it was northeast again. After a bewildering series of twists and turns, they arrived at the base of the Second Cataract. By afternoon that day, they were in sight of the great fortress of Montag Island.

Fort Montag was garrisoned by Cascade District Regulars. Their commanding officer was the extremely competent Eugen Metzler, whom Abel had promoted and appointed himself. Metzler rode out to meet Saxe, and offered the Corps the hospitality of the place. The fort was not large enough to hold sixteen thousand troops, but the island was, and the men bedded down around the stone walls and down to the River shore. The island sat at the midpoint of the Second Cataract, but this did not mean the swiftly flowing rapids had no carnadons in them.

That night, Second Brigade lost a man to prove it.

As per Abel’s instructions to Metzler before he left, Saxe and all the command staffs were invited inside the fort. Saxe had lined them up to enter through the gate, but Metzler led them south along the eastern wall. As Abel knew, and Saxe discovered to his amazement, the wall ended. There wasn’t a wall, and only the sparest of battlements, to the direct south. About a fieldmarch away, Abel saw the wall on the western side pick up again. There was a large gap separating it from the eastern wall.

“I guess the idea is to guard against Redlander attack from both Rims,” von Hoff said.

“But they’re wide open for an attack moving up or down-River.”

“Well, the only ones moving in the Valley would be us friendly forces, wouldn’t it, Major?” von Hoff answered. “Still, you can’t count on that. It is an odd arrangement.”

Created under Edict of Zentrum, said Raj. All modification forbidden.

Like a window for the Blood Winds to blow through, Abel thought.

Precisely, said Center.

* * *

They stayed under a roof for the first time in nine days. The garrison Regulars had been turned out of their barracks for the evening to join the Guardians outside, and their bunks given to Corps staff officers. Abel didn’t complain. Each bunk had a mattress filled with cane-silk.

Metzler had given von Hoff a captain’s quarters, a double-roomed affair of mud wattle, with its own privy hanging over the ditch of river water that flowed northeast to southwest and bisected the interior of the fort. Abel had at least ordered Metzler to see to it that the fort took its water from a point above the row of cabins that lined it. The previous Cascade DMC and his fort commander had not bothered.

The barracks were for enlisted and had no luxury at all. There was a common outhouse shared by every two buildings — outhouses that had to be mucked out daily.

Abel knew that on the north end of the island near its point was a giant pile of nightsoil waiting for the spring floods to finally carry it away.

Von Hoff invited the command staff in to cook on the hearth in the cabin. Here there were cookpots and spits, and in a larder closet Abel discovered a smoked hank of dak shoulder. Everyone reasoned that the owner of the cabin wouldn’t have left it there if he didn’t mean for them to have it.

They sat at a real table, in real chairs, and fell to their meal with gusto. Someone else found a half keg of beer, and clay mugs from the crockery closet were passed around. After eating, the nesh chewers went outside to chew and spit, and the smokers took out their pipes and lit up around the table. Abel brought his out for the first time in a very long while and joined them.

Von Hoff was convivial but subdued through the evening, yet he seemed happy to have company. Several candle lanterns hung on wall pegs burned, casting a warm hue on everything in the cabin. Their wicks were guttering before everyone had gotten up and made his way to the barracks and his bedroll.

Abel himself sat on a bench on the porch of the cabin after the others left. He gazed up at Churchill, which was three-quarters full now. In the distance was the low roar of the Second Cataract rapids. Abel shivered even though it was late ripening time; the evening was as chilly as a winter’s night in Lindron would have been. They were getting farther north.

In the sky burned the stars. Constellations he knew: the Dragon. The Bridle. The Scythe. Reitz the Water Carrier and his bucket full of clustered stars.

Those stars of the bucket are very close together in actuality, Center said. They are a nebular cluster burning blue and hot. They have only lately emerged from a gas cloud and are quite young, at least on a galactic time scale.

Where is Bellevue’s star? Abel asked. This was the system that Center and Raj came from.

It is too faint to observe in the Duisberg sky, Center replied.

How do I know it exists at all?

You can never know unless you go there. As with many things, all you can do is infer its existence.

Or take your word for it.

Yes.

Does it ever rain there?

A lot more than here, Raj replied.

What about Earth?

It is said to rain there all the time, said Center. But the truth of the matter has been lost.

Just then, Abel heard the sound of a chair scraping inside the cabin. He’d thought the colonel had gone to bed. Maybe von Hoff was up rummaging for another mug of beer or cup of water. Then a light came through the door cracks.

He’s lit a new candle off the hearth coals, Abel thought.

Another scrape of the chair. Abel was on the verge of knocking to see if he was needed, but thought better of it. Then he heard a sound he could not mistake.

The cocking of a pistol.

Abel opened the door and came inside.

Von Hoff was sitting with his back to the door. He did not turn at the sound of Abel entering.

Von Hoff was light in complexion. He’d probably been blond when he was young. He was well-proportioned and compact. He’d created a complicated set of exercises that Abel had seen him perform religiously each morning. Evidently they worked. His arms and neck were textured like tightly coiled rope.

“Go away, Dashian,” he said.

Abel considered. This didn’t sound like an order to him. It sounded like a desperate request. He ignored it, closed the door, and took a seat on the end of the table, facing the colonel in profile.

In a wall niche, the new candle was burning, putting out more smoke than light. Von Hoff’s blunderbuss lay on the table.

“What are you thinking about doing here, Colonel?”

Von Hoff did not turn to face Abel. He stared at the pistol.

“None of your thrice-damned business.”

“Colonel, I believe it may be. Colonel, you seem…Are you all right.”

“In what way all right?”

“You seem…agitated.”

“Agitated?” von Hoff said. He let out a strained chuckle. “Agitated. Yes.”

“Colonel, what is it? If it’s something personal, I’ll butt out.”

Von Hoff’s mouth ticked into the approximation of a smile. “Oh, it’s personal,” he said. “A personal weakness, you might call it.”

“I don’t understand, sir.”

“Do you realize what our orders say, Dashian?”

“No, sir, they’re secret as of now, and you haven’t made me aware of their contents.”

“Have you made a guess?”

“I suspect we are supposed to wipe out the private militias that have sprung up in Progar, probably kill every last one of the officers, maybe even the men, and drag the oligarchs who hired them back to Lindron in chains, where they’ll be executed by crucifixion or burning.”

“That would be acceptable,” said von Hoff. “Harsh, but acceptable.”

“Then what?”

“We’re going to sell them to the Redlanders.”

“All the private militia men?”

“No. They die. You were right about that.”

“Then who.”

“The others. Orash.”

“I don’t understand, sir.”

“Every living person in the capital city. Men. Women. Children. To be either killed or sold as slaves. To wipe out this water heresy, you see.”

“There are…there must be many thousands of people in Orash.”

“There were sixty thousand in the last census.”

“How would we do it, even if we tried?”

“A pretty problem. I suppose we will have to do it systematically, create some sort of slaughter facility. That problem the Abbot of Lindron graciously left up to the commanders of the Corps,” said von Hoff. “If we can’t sell them, we have to kill them. No exceptions.”

Abel nodded. He didn’t need Center and Raj to explain to him the inexorable logic of Zentrum in this matter. Wipe out whatever heresy had sprung up in Progar and open the door for a slow Redland invasion. Or, as he knew Zentrum thought of it, reap and burn the blighted crop, and reseed the field.

He might be horrified, but he was not surprised.

“You don’t agree with these orders, Colonel?”

“That is completely beside the point,” said von Hoff. “As long as I live, I’m bound to carry them out. There can be only one Law in the land, and that is the Law of Zentrum. This is what makes us…civilized.”

Abel glanced at the blunderbuss pistol.

“Are you thinking of taking your own life, sir?”

“What makes you say that, Major?”

“The loaded pistol on this table, for one thing.”

Von Hoff’s eyes went back to the gun. “Do you know why I became a Guardian, Dashian?”

All Abel knew was that von Hoff was originally from Ingres. His instructor, and now commanding officer, had hardly ever spoken of his younger days, except for an occasional comment about his tour in the Regulars and his promotion to the Goldies. He had been very proud of that.

 

1636 The Viennese Waltz – Snippet 05

1636 The Viennese Waltz – Snippet 05

“But it doesn’t matter. I would have to apply to both King Albrecht and King Ferdinand II for permission to issue currency. Besides, the point of this evening is to remove money from the accounts, not add it.”

“In that case, as we said before, buy equipment and sell it on credit rather than simply giving loans,” said Judy the Elder.

This would tie up his money quite well and had the added advantage of making corruption rather more difficult. If he just gave out the money, some people were going to take it and run. That had happened to the up-timers more than once as they tried to get the New US industry going. If he gave them the equipment, they would at least have to find a buyer for it before running off with the money. Of course, it wouldn’t prevent some thief in Silesia from taking his stuff and running into Poland hoping for a better deal. So shipping equipment rather than sending money was no replacement for due diligence.

Sarah and Judy had opinions about who he should buy from, which businesses were stable enough to provide the goods he would be ordering for delivery over the next year or so.

“Unfortunately,” Karl said, “the Oder is the only major river into Silesia. It runs through Brandenburg.”

“And that’s a problem?” Judy the Younger asked.

Karl blinked. Judy was a very clever girl, but she had some blind spots. Anything farther than Magdeburg might as well be in China. “Brandenburg is ruled by Emperor Gustav’s brother-in-law, Frederic William. The one who, along with John George of Saxony, refused to come to Gustav Adolf’s aid when he was attacked by France and the League of Ostend.”

“We trade with France, for goodness sake,” said Judy.

“True enough. But Fredric William has decided that, since he is not part of the USE, he is under no obligation to allow free trade with the provinces of the USE. As usual, he is in need of money. This time to hire an army to hold his brother-in-law at bay. So, his tariffs on goods from the USE are quite high. And that’s how things are going to remain, until Gustav gets around to dealing with his recalcitrant relative.”

The Bohemian situation was a bit better. Bohemia had a border with the USE, but it was a long slog over bad roads. The main river corridors in Bohemia flowed through Saxony, which John George would no doubt find a major headache when Gustav got around to him. And Prince Karl Eusebius von Liechtenstein, having studied war under his father and uncles and having lived in Grantville, was quite confident that Gustav would sooner or later be free to deal with both of them. Which belief failed to fill Karl with joy. If he honestly thought there was anything he could do to restore the Holy Roman Empire, he’d do it. But he didn’t think that. He didn’t see a damned thing anyone could do to stop the Swede — or Wallenstein, for that matter. And if some of the things that the Vatican II conference had said about freedom of conscience and the importance of respecting other faiths were true, then God didn’t want the HRE restored. If the Good Lord didn’t want conversion by the sword, the HRE had been doing it wrong. But that wasn’t all the Holy Roman Empire did. It also protected Europe from being forced away from Christianity itself . . . to Islam.

Anyway . . . Karl pulled his thoughts away from that over-trodden path, back to the matter at hand. For right now it was going to be almost impossible to ship large stocks of goods to Silesia or even Bohemia. Small things were not that much of an issue, but caravans of goods would never get to their destination, or would get there with half their goods gone as tolls.

“Instruction sets,” Sarah Wendell said out of the blue. “There are a lot of things that you can build with nothing but instruction sets, even simple steam engines. And even more that you can build using a few components and forms. It will be slower and more expensive, but it will get you started.”

“Yes. I’ve already done some of that,” Karl acknowledged. “I’d like to do more but I’m not sure what needs to be done.”

“So set up the Bohemia and Silesia Advancement Corporation,” Sarah said. “Hire some researchers — all sorts of researchers — and put together a prototyping and testing shop. Then have them come up with cheat sheets specific to your family’s lands in Bohemia and Silesia. What sort of natural resources are there?”

“Quite a bit of coal and copper. According to the encyclopedias, and from our experience as well.”

“So, coking plants to get you coke, coal tar and all sorts of stuff. You have the foamed rosin process for making copper and bronze parts. Copper wire for electricity, coal for steam to generate the electricity. Which gives you electrolytic refining.”

“That’s very good, but it will take time to set up.”

“Yes. But not necessarily to pay for. If you pay in advance by funding the company and moving the money out of your accounts to the company’s, you give the company a sound financial footing and it will be better able to hire people,” Sarah said. “And skilled people are harder and harder to find. The pros can mostly write their own ticket.”

“Which gives you an excellent reason for not pulling the money out, because to pull the money out so soon would destroy confidence in the company,” Judy the Younger said. “You want an up-timer on the board, for confidence,” she added in a thoughtful voice. “It can’t be Mom or Dad. They work for the government. And it can’t be Sarah, because she’s going to work for the Fed as soon as she graduates. That just leaves me.” Judy smiled brightly.

“Better would be David Bartley or the Partow twins,” Sarah said repressively. “Even better than that would be Mr. Marcantonio or one of the up-time teachers at the high school. I doubt you can get Mr. Reardon or anyone like that. Aside from the public relations aspect, having an up-timer, especially one with a somewhat technical background, will be a help in terms of telling what can and can’t be done.”

 

Polychrome – Chapter 06

Polychrome – Chapter 06

Chapter 6.

We leapt from cloud to cloud, the white mists undefined at close range, yet giving springily underfoot like deep, deep turf, little puffs of mist following every step. If I die right now, I’ll die happy, I found myself thinking. It was clichéd, it was corny, but it was true. I’d met Polychrome, I’d actually found a way to show her beauty, and I’d flown and danced through the clouds themselves.

But I wouldn’t die a success, and the problem wouldn’t be solved, so I hoped that dying wasn’t in the cards for a while yet. The warning of danger and that sharp, perilous smile Polychrome had flashed me added an edge of excitement that was almost too much to bear. Part of me had wanted to hear that there was danger… even though I was very far indeed from being ready to face anything. It was a little galling to recognize that I’d have to depend on Polychrome to defend me, though.

I knew my eyes weren’t nearly as good as Poly’s, but having had good reason to learn to sense movement and oddities in a background – both as an amateur astronomer and as one who had, in his past, been frequently bullied – I was pretty good at noticing things that might pass others by, at least when I was paying attention. I was paying attention now, and a tiny flicker of motion caught my eye.

“Poly –”

A single glance in that direction and her face hardened, suddenly more Valkyrie than fairy. “Yes. We run now, Erik. Do not let go, do not falter.”

The dark shape was terribly small in the distance, yet somehow it had the same eerie implication of deadly power of a tornado; in the sunlight I could see the same green-black color that was unmistakable to anyone who’d ever seen such clouds.

But there was no time to look back now, because Polychrome was pulling me along, forcing me to run, run as I hadn’t in years. I had mastered long walks, gained some endurance that way, but effort-triggered asthma was not something that encouraged distance running.

I ran, though, holding Polychrome’s hand as her power helped turn my heavy mortal steps to inhuman bounds, clearing a hundred yards, two hundred at a step, sprinting at a speed to rival a jet, yet leaving hardly a wake behind us. It was a terrifying but exhilarating experience, and in some ways I wished it could go on forever.

But my lungs were not cooperating. The air was not nearly so cold around Polychrome as it should have been, nor so thin, but my air passages were closing themselves off. I heard the thin, shrieking whistle in my chest, felt the pressure. My ribs began to ache and I stumbled, almost falling, forced myself to continue, but now my thighs and calves were beginning to protest, pain of fatigue starting to radiate through them, stiffening my legs and throwing my stride off. “P…Poly…” I gasped, but my voice was a thin whisper and the wind of our passage tore the word away, cast it backwards.

Then I staggered again, tripped, reflexively reaching out. But Poly had already begun the next leap, and as she did, the rainbow glory that surrounded her passed out from beneath me.

A shockwave of deadly cold washed over my body and my ears screamed and popped as pressure equalized, explosive decompression at 35,000 feet. For a moment even the strangled ache in my chest was forgotten in the ice-bladed agony of that moment.

And then I had something even worse to worry about, as I plummeted like a stone into the clouds below.

Ice crystals tore like microscopic claws of miniature demons over my face, and I screwed my eyes shut to keep the wind from possibly freezing my eyeballs solid. 35,000 feet… terminal velocity maybe 120mph… reached that or close to it by now… about 7 miles… I’ve got three, three and a half minutes before I hit. Ouch.

An apocalyptic blue-white flash and a BOOM like the shattering of a mountain let me know that I might have a LOT less than that. Or more, if I got into an updraft. I was buffeted by turbulent winds and freezing rain soaked me. I was wheezing and shivering and the only reason I wasn’t screaming is that I couldn’t spare the breath.

I’ve still got my inhaler on me. Got to wait until it’s warmer, though… can’t suck this stuff in deep… too cold. I might be dead a couple minutes later, but if anyone could save me, I sure didn’t want to suffocate to death afterwards.

A blast of warmer air, a splatter of rain that was probably still cold, but felt like a warm shower after that last bit. It was pitch black… but no, wait, something light… which direction? I’m going towards it, so it’s down. Oh boy, get ready…

The gray-black mist thinned, lightened, and suddenly I burst out into clear air, the thunderhead still rumbling above me, wrinkled carpet of the earth below. Already I was very far from home, I could tell; none of the geography looked familiar, and I’d done quite a number of airplane flights over the years. A minute or so left…

I pulled out the inhaler, took a shot. It was a feeble first try, but the tightness began to loosen. I waited a few seconds, spreading myself as wide as possible on the winds… Not that this will help much… even if I hit water from this altitude it’ll splatter me like concrete, even if I slow myself to a mere 90 miles per hour or so… Another puff on the inhaler, and that – plus all the adrenalin from the fall – seemed to finally force my lungs to give up on the suicide attempt. I felt air rushing back into me, my brain clearing, as the details of the ground began to resolve, showing that I had only a few thousand more feet to go…

And then I saw a spark of rainbow light above me, dropping from the cloud like a diving hawk. It plummeted towards me, closing the distance… but I was still falling. I glanced down, saw the Earth rushing closer with terrifying speed, looked up, and I could see Polychrome now, a look of grim determination on the beautiful face, drawing nearer, nearer, reaching out…

And our hands touched.

Instantly I stopped, enveloped by warm air and standing on rainbow glory. I looked down.

Polychrome had caught me with about two hundred feet left to go.

I looked at her, trying to smile, while my legs shook from the reaction to near-death, seeing her own pale face mirroring my own. “Cut it… a… a little fine there, didn’t you?”

For a minute I thought she was going to slap me, but suddenly she giggled. “You… you don’t ever do that again!”

“Believe me, I didn’t plan on it. But I can’t keep running like that for long; I stop breathing.” I was glancing around now, looking for a speck the color of gangrene and storm.

She looked concerned. “Are you …”

“All right… for now. But what about our pursuers?”

She gave a shaky laugh. “Your… unexpected maneuver, Erik, probably surprised them more even than it did me. And I did not use my power to pursue at first, merely dropped, so they had not a trace to follow. I hope… I hope that we have lost them, at least for now. Can you walk, at least?”

“I can. Maybe even jog a bit.”

She watched me with concern, but led us upward, away, back into the sky. By the time we reached the heights again, the stormclouds were gone, and fluffy cumulus floated in every direction. “Well,” I said finally, “against that background I think I could see one of those things a long way away.”

“And I could see them even farther, and there are none to be seen.” She gave the first real, relaxed smile she’d given for hours, and that ethereal music rolled out again.

“What is that?” I asked.

“What?”

“I keep hearing music.”

She laughed, and that helped loosen the tightness remaining in my chest and body, just hearing her laugh again. “The Music of the Spheres! It follows all the Faerie in one way or another. ‘Tis the song of the world we inhabit, the spirits and powers that are associated with all Faerie and, perhaps, those above us as well.”

“Above you?”

We landed atop another cloud and saw more stretching before us, a curious formation of one cloud higher than another, almost like steps. “Something had to lay the foundations of the world, chart the direction of the winds, place the stars in their courses. Some even say my Father is descended of these. He might be. I have never asked. But call them the Great Spirits, the Powers, the Gods, what you will, I do not doubt they exist.”

I chewed on that as we hopped from one cloud to the next. I suppose that wasn’t the sort of thing Baum would even want to have touched with a forty-foot pole, especially not in the early 20th century. It did give a deeper level to what was happening, and I wondered how these… gods… might be, or get, involved in the current events.

Wind buoyed us up, the Spheres sang, and we rose higher and higher. And finally, leaping once more to another cloud through a level of even higher mists, I beheld…

“… The Fortress of Rainbow.” Polychrome spoke with dramatic flair and a deep pride as she gestured upward.

The clouds here were steps, there was no more mistaking it, as they became more and more immense oblong risers, great stairs a hundred feet high and just as broad, reaching to a Brobdingnagian edifice that made the words fortress or castle utterly inadequate – a mighty palace with invulnerable walls of polished gray-crystal stormcloud, tumbled rose-quartz mists made solid rising as pinnacles, azure crenellations defining the tops of amethyst keep towers within, bridges of gossamer-white fog joining each to the next, and a shimmering aura of all colors shining out from behind it.

I stared at it for many minutes, speechless as we rose higher and came closer to the Fortress of Rainbow. “If you live here, Lady Polychrome,” I said finally, “I can only say that you did our poor mortal city far too much honor, for nothing save your own beauty have I ever seen to compare to that.”

Was it my imagination, or did she actually blush for an instant? “You are far too kind, but I am sure my father will be pleased to hear your words.”

I was going to meet the Lord of the Rainbow. “And when will I have the pleasure of saying these words to him myself?”

We stepped down on what felt and looked like polished marble, and the great golden gates swung wide. “In a few minutes only, Erik. For I am to bring you before him at the very moment I arrive, and even now I can see a runner going before us, telling Father that I am coming.”

I wasn’t sure I was quite ready for this. I didn’t even know what to expect from this meeting. I was damn sure I wasn’t what he was going to be expecting.

I tried to not look like I was gawking as I was led through the streets towards the Palace that lay ahead. The last thing I needed was to be overawed. I managed to achieve this but only by doing something which – in retrospect – might have been more dangerous: looking almost entirely at Polychrome. And once more her beauty captured me so completely that I really, truly did not notice most of what we passed, did not become aware that we had entered the castle until a great thunderous clang echoed through my consciousness and I looked up, to see two massive portals swinging open before us.

“My Father!” Polychrome called eagerly. “I have returned!”

Seated at the far end of a pillared hall so immense that I was sure I could have flown the Goodyear Blimp down it without touching the pillars on either side, looking down from a throne that must itself have been twenty feet high, was the Lord of Rainbows. In the violet-stormy eyes and in something of the set of the jaw I could see that Polychrome was his true daughter, but the heroic frame, muscled like a Greek Titan, the iridescent armor, the white hair falling around a face chiseled and resolute and with a single scar across one cheek, these were entirely unlike the Daughter of the Rainbow. I knew I was looking not merely on a King, but on some being of vast and dangerous power; I could feel it crackling in the air around us.

He rose and bowed. “Indeed you have, Polychrome, first of Daughters. And … this… is the Hero?”

She laughed. “So it must be, for every prophecy to now he has fulfilled.”

He looked grave and – no surprise – doubtful. But he bowed again to me, and said, “Then I give you welcome. Iris Mirabilis, Lord of the Rainbow, Master of the Seven Hues, greets you.”

I gave my own best bow. “I thank you for the welcome, Lord. I, Erik Medon, mortal man and little else, greet you.”

A slight smile acknowledged my own lack of titles. “It is well. Daughter, leave us.”

“But –”

He gave her a stern look, and Polychrome sighed and bowed. “As you will.” As she turned, she whispered in my ear, “Don’t let him scare you. He’s really the kindest of fathers.”

That’s reassuring. We both waited until the massive throne-room doors had closed behind her. Then I turned back to Iris Mirabilis. “My Lord, I –”

The immense Lord of Rainbows had drawn himself to his full height – which was a lot larger than anything human-shaped had any business being – and a swirl of crackling blue-white electricity was forming about his hand.

“Whoa, now, hold on –”

“Stand fast, mortal! For now the truth shall be known – in life or in your death!”

And a blazing sphere of living thunderbolts smashed down on me.

 

1636 The Viennese Waltz – Snippet 04

1636 The Viennese Waltz – Snippet 04

“I’ve been corresponding with King Albrecht and he is supportive of the idea of improvements and so are the Roths,” Karl said. “Silesia is a little more complicated. Well . . . difficult. I will have to convince Aunt Beth that I am not building roads to help my uncle invade.”

“Is your uncle really likely to invade?”

“Not really, but it was a political marriage and was never a happy one,” Karl admitted. He suspected — but didn’t say — that the Wendell women would see what had happened back then as church-sanctioned rape. He was starting to look at it that way himself. In any case, it had left Aunt Beth with a distrust of the church and of men. At this point, after her duchy had been overrun by Protestant Danes, Aunt Beth had little faith in any confession and still less faith in men. But that wasn’t something he wanted to get into with the Wendell women. Instead he continued. “The goal of both families was to unite the lands in Silesia, or at least most of them, under one rule.” Actually, at this point Karl was pretty sure that the whole thing was a put up job and an attempted land grab on the part of his family. But he wasn’t going to say that either. “But my Uncle Gundaker is very dedicated to the Catholic faith, and interpreted the marriage to mean that Aunt Beth’s lands were now his.”

“What about you?” Sarah asked. “About the church, I mean.”

“I was much as my uncle,” Karl admitted. “And in a way I still am. But the Ring of Fire is its own holy writ. God–” Karl looked at Judy the Younger and grinned. “–or little green men if you insist, brought a town from the future and didn’t choose a Catholic town. Anyway, Aunt Beth was always . . . ah . . . iffy . . . about her Catholicism and the enforcement. Besides, she figures she is the ruling duchess and Uncle Gundaker figures he is the man and therefore the head of the woman.”

Sarah and both Judy’s snorted and made various comments about that.

Karl held up his hands and said, “I surrender, I surrender! Come, ladies, it’s not my fault! But Elisabeth Lukretia von Teschen’s lawsuits against Uncle Gundaker and the Holy Roman Empire were in the courts since her brother’s death, until King Albrecht went ahead and confirmed her and her line as the proper heirs to the duchy. In response, though, the HRE found against her and is now claiming the duchy as part of the Habsburg lands. So Aunt Beth is not at all trusting of anything coming out of Vienna. Absent a railroad, she is in Silesia and any attempt to push her would have to go through King Albrecht’s armies. Add in a railroad, and they can take a train right to her doorstep.”

****

It turned into quite an interesting evening. Surveying equipment and surveyors came up, and Judy the Younger confirmed that Sonny Fortney had worked as a railroad surveyor, as well as a bunch of other things since the Ring of Fire. Micro-financing and micro-industry the way Boot’s Bank in Magdeburg operated were discussed, where to put it and how to set it up. They talked about the things the up-timers had gotten right and the things they had gotten wrong. Local banking and investment could be better done by buying the equipment to set up micro industries, then reselling them to individuals and groups in his lands, either for a share of the business or on credit.

“Don’t try introducing your own money, Karl,” Judy the Younger said. “No one will take it.”

“Judy!” Sarah complained. “There’s no reason to be rude.”

“You said it yourself,” Judy said.

Karl had felt his face go a little stiff when Judy made that comment. Not because it was a surprise, but because it wasn’t. “No, she’s quite right,” he forced himself to say. “I know that my family’s reputation is not good when it comes to the issuing of money.”

“It’s not that we don’t trust you, Prince Karl.” Sarah flushed a little. “The fact is that full faith and credit isn’t dependent on any one person, but on how most people will see the thing. I believe you about what happened in Kipper and Wipper, but my belief won’t make your money good. Besides your territory is too small . . . well, I think it’s too small . . . to be issuing its own currency.”

“When taken altogether, it’s actually about the size of Saxony. But it’s not all in one place . . . or, at this point, even all in one country.”

“That seems like enough territory,” Sarah conceded, “but didn’t you tell me something about it not qualifying as noble lands?”

“Imperial immediacy,” Karl explained. “The princely title is a court title, so it doesn’t involve rulership over any lands. We hold quite a bit of land and often enough we’re the local government, collecting both rent and taxes. Both landlords and lords. However, those lands aren’t held directly from the emperor. Instead some are in fief from the king of Bohemia, some from the king of Austria, and some from the king of Hungary.

“Isn’t Ferdinand II the king of Austria and Hungary,” Sarah said. “I mean, it’s the same guy, right?”

“Actually, he’s the king of Austria and the king of Hungary and the Holy Roman Emperor, plus other stuff. Yes, it’s the same guy, but he’s legally different people. And the only one who matters for a seat in the Council of Princes is the Holy Roman Emperor. Whereas all our lands are held in fief from someone who isn’t the Holy Roman Emperor.”

“Does that mean that Wallenstein is entitled to a seat in the Council of Princes?”

“Well, it would if he swore fealty to Ferdinand II. Of course, the first thing Ferdinand II would do is order him to execute himself for treason. I don’t see him doing that anytime soon.

 

Paradigms Lost — Chapter 19

Paradigms Lost — Chapter 19

Chapter 19: Blood and Moonlight

When I can’t talk and can’t act and can’t work… I drive. I cruised down the various highways — the Northway, then part of the Thruway, 787, back to I-90 — the windows wide open and the wind roaring at sixty-five. Even so, I barely felt any cooler; for sheer miserable muggy heat, it’s hard to beat the worst summer days of Albany, New York, and its environs, which unfortunately include Morgantown. It was days like this that made me think that an air conditioner retrofit would be a really, really good idea; there were a few drawbacks to driving a 1970s-vintage car.

How long I was out there driving I wasn’t sure. For a while I just tried to follow the moon as it rose slowly, round and white. It was the flashing red lights that finally drew my attention back down to earth.

No, they weren’t chasing me — I wasn’t speeding; there were two police cars up ahead and flares in the road. I slowed and started to go around them; then I saw a familiar, slender figure standing at one car. That made me wince; it was that same person’s voice who’d caused part of my major upset earlier, and she couldn’t be feeling great about it, either. I pulled up just ahead of the squad car. “What’s up, Renee?” I asked.

She jumped and her hand twitched towards her gun. “Jesus! I didn’t even hear you come up.”

That was weird in itself. “Must be something pretty heavy if you didn’t notice Mjölnir pulling in.”

She gestured. “Take a look if you want. Just don’t go beyond the tape. We’re still working here.”

I went down the steep, grassy embankment carefully, finally pulling out my penlight to pick my way down. Despite the moon it was pitchy dark, and the high, jagged pines blocked out what feeble light there was; at least it was cooler under the trees. The slope leveled out, and the light from the crime scene started brightening. The police had set up several portable floods and the area was almost bright as day. I stopped just at the tape.

At first it just looked like someone had stood near the middle of the clearing and spun around while holding a can of red-brown paint. Then one of the investigators moved to one side.

A body was sprawled, spread-eagled in the center of the clearing. The green eyes stared sightlessly upward and the mouth hung open in a frozen scream. His throat had been torn out. The charcoal-gray suit was flung wide open, the white shirt now soaked in red-brown clotting blood where his gut was ripped open. My stomach gave a sudden twist as my gaze reached his waist.

Something had torn his legs, still in the pant legs, off at the hip; then that something had stripped every ounce of meat off the bones and laid the bones carefully back, to gleam whitely where the legs had been.

I got my stomach under control. A few months ago I might have lost it, but having watched Elias Klein fry under a hundred sunlamps had been a couple steps worse.

Still, it was an ugly sight, and I felt pretty shaky as I climbed back up the hill. “Jesus Christ, Renee! What kind of a sicko does things like that?”

She shook her head. “That’s what we’d like to know.”

“Who was the vic?” I asked.

“ID found on him says he’s a Gerald Brandeis of Albany, New York. ID also says he’s Morgan Steinbeck of Hartford, Connecticut. His last ID says he’s Hamilton Fredericks of Washington, DC; also says he’s a Fed.”

That got my attention. “Fed? What kind of Fed?”

She glanced hard at me. I made a zipped-lips motion. She nodded. “Okay, but make sure you keep it zipped. His ID says he’s NSA, Special Division. Occupation is just ‘Special Agent.’ His Hartford ID makes him an insurance investigator for Aetna; the one for Brandeis gives him IRS status.”

I whistled. “From the No Such Agency?” It was a cinch that one was the real deal; no one sane would fake that. “One heavy hitter, that’s for sure. Was he carrying, and if so did he get off any shots?”

“Answer is yes to both.” She pointed inside her squad car. I glanced in, could just make out a 9mm pistol. “Smell indicates it was fired just recently and we found three shell casings. With all the blood around we haven’t been able to tell if he hit anything offhand. We’re trying to find the bullets, but in that sandy- soiled forest chances of getting all three is slim.”

A blue-flashing vehicle pulled up; the medical examiner’s office. He got out and nodded to me, turned to Renee. “Your people done?”

“With the body, yeah. But ask the other officers to direct you, we’re nowhere near finished with the site yet and we don’t want anything here messed up.” The ME gestured and he and his assistants started down the hill.

“How’d you get on to this?” I asked Renee.

She looked uncomfortable. “Someone called us.”

I could tell there was something bothering her. “Someone who found the body?”

She shook her head.

“Then what? Come on, Renee.”

She shrugged. “The station got a call from someone at 7:40 p.m. who claimed to have left a body at this location. The operator said it sounded male, but kind of deep and strange. He didn’t stay on long enough to trace.”

“That is weird. I’d assume he didn’t give a name.”

“You’d assume wrong.” Her face was grim. “He gave a name, all right.

“The name was Vlad Dracul.”

 

Trial By Fire – Snippet 34

Trial By Fire – Snippet 34

“That sounds very impressive. What does it mean?”

Richard unfolded his hands. “The sloops stay close to the drones–the fleet’s various unmanned attack and sensor platforms–and relay commands to them and coordinate their actions. Their crews get the closest to the enemy, which is why, comparatively speaking, they are built for speed.”

“So they’re like fighter aircraft,” Opal summarized.

“No, not really. They carry armament, but only as a last resort. Their role is to direct attacks made by remote-operated and semiautonomous systems. They ensure that human judgment continues to guide all our units, even those operating many light-seconds away from the cruisers and other ships.”

The Bolton-class cruiser ignited its plasma thrusters in addition to its pulse-fusion main engine and began angling off from the Egalité. The two Gordons split off to either side of the Bolton.

The scene changed to a view of space, upon which a collection of blue guidons were arrayed. Each was capped by a slightly different symbol with a short data string attached.

Opal nodded. “So, that’s our fleet, right? Ship types and tail numbers on the guidons?”

“Yes,” affirmed Downing.

Elena frowned. “How are we getting this view? Why is there a camera just waiting in the middle of deep space?”

“It’s mounted on a microdrone,” Trevor supplied. “We launch dozens of them before and during combat. They not only give us pictures like this, but relay damage-assessment views of our hulls, and help during salvage and rescue ops. And they’re so small that they blend in with the rubbish and then work like spy-eyes after an engagement.”

Opal was frowning. “I count four carriers: Egalité, Beijing and Shanghai close to each other, and Tapfer way off to the left. Why is it out there?”

Downing shook his head. “After the first engagement, the Tapfer was forced to show her heels. She only got half of her complement back in the cradles and was too far out of position to regroup with the rest of the fleet elements. It took them this long to get close enough to add their limited weight to the engagement.”

The scene changed again, this time to a camera mounted on one of the Gordon class hunter/seeker sloops. Superimposed on the view were hordes of small blue and red triangles attempting to swarm around each other, the red ones being notably faster and more agile. At the points where the swarms intersected, there were occasional flashes, like fireflies seen at great distance on a lightless night.

“Those,” explained Downing quietly. “are drones destroying each other. Mostly ours on the receiving end. And as you watch, the rate of our force erosion will increase. The Arat Kur capital ships are picking them off with their UV lasers.”

Trevor uttered a dismayed grunt. Opal leaned into his field of view. “Why’s that so bad?”

Trevor sighed. “If Richard is right, it means the Arat Kur lasers retain decisive hitting power at much greater ranges than ours.”

“But I thought we had some pretty dangerous UV lasers, ourselves.”

“We do, but only on the biggest cruisers. Even then, there’s ongoing debate whether they’re really worth all the expense, the space, and the special engineering they require in a hull.”

“Why?”

“They’re energy pigs, and they have much more complicated and expensive focusing requirements. Morgan Lymbery, the guy who designed the Andrew Bolton class, said it best: ‘you don’t really build the UV laser into a ship; you build a ship around the UV laser.’”

The screen changed to the viewpoint of another minidrone, riding close alongside what looked like a Chinese light cruiser. The ship’s counterbalanced habitation-modules had stopped spinning and were being retracted toward the hull, a sure sign that it was going to general quarters. Downing sat up a bit straighter. “A little context about what you’ll be seeing. We fought the first engagement against the Arat Kur using the same tactics we employ against human opponents. In short, not knowing the enemy’s specific capabilities, it wasn’t prudent to close too quickly, but to maintain range and take them under fire, closing in only if and when we perceived a decisive advantage.”

“Or to run like hell if it turned out that they had all the advantages,” Trevor added.

“Yes, and that is just what happened at the First Battle of Jupiter. The Arat Kur demonstrated superior speed, superior long-range accuracy, and superior destructive power. Consequently, the notion of standing off at what we had believed to be long range was a mistake; we were overmatched in every meaningful performance metric. So the logic of this second battle was to force a meeting engagement.”

Opal frowned. “Which means what, in space?”

Trevor took over. “Well, it’s kind of like a joust in that you run at each other head-to-head, if possible. If you’re confident you’re going to win, you do it at low speed, so you can retroboost and catch the other guy–sometimes weeks later–to pound on him some more in an extended stern chase.”

“And if you’re not so confident, then you approach at high speed, so that the other guy can’t catch you, later on.” Opal deduced.

Trevor nodded. “That, and you minimize the engagement time, thereby minimizing damage to your fleet.”

“Those have always been fairly reasonable tactical alternatives,” Downing concluded. “Against human opponents, that is.”

Onscreen, there were light puffs of what looked like dust jetting out from the rounded nose of the light cruiser. “The Chinese ship is firing its primary armament–a rail gun–now,” mentioned Trevor. “The puffs are buffering granules, doped on the rails to prevent wear and to ensure uniform conductivity.”

“That ship seems to be putting a lot of lead–or steel or depleted uranium or whatever–downrange,” commented Opal.

“Yes, it is,” agreed Downing.

There were two more puffs, and then the ship shuddered as hull fragments came flying off just behind the nose. Two sensor masts went spinning backward, one almost smacking the camera, just before the drone carrying it swung around to survey other damage farther aft.

Halfway down the long tail boom, a sparking thruster bell was hanging on by a single strut. Intermittent flames were curling out of a blackened hole in a hydrogen tank, which meant that a nearby oxygen feed line had also been clipped. Two cargo modules–hexagonal tubes–were tumbling behind.

“What hit it?” Elena said in a small voice.

“Laser, probably pulsed UV, given the range, the power, and the multiple hits,” said Downing in a tightly controlled voice.

As the camera began rotating to show the stern of the ship, a flurry of smaller explosions pocked its smooth midship flanks. Then a larger blast ripped one of the rotational gee-modules out of its hull-flushed housing recess. “Rail gun submunitions,” Trevor murmured, apparently for Opal’s benefit. “A long-range space shotgun.”

The viewpoint drone was evidently struck by some of the debris that had spalled off the hull. It shook a bit, righted itself, and refocused–just in time to show what looked like a flame-trailing star arc suddenly out of the velvet blackness and strike the cruiser amidships. The screen went blank.

–And changed to a more distant space shot. But in this one, a small blue-white sphere burgeoned into existence at the lower right hand corner.

“Was that the cruiser, exploding in the distance?” Opal asked quietly. “And was that a missile which got it?”

Downing nodded as the viewpoint changed to the bow camera of a Gordon-class FOCAL. It was apparently engaging in emergency maneuvers. The camera had to gimbal a bit to maintain the same perspective.

A bright yellow-white smear flashed in the center of the screen, then two more in quick succession far to the left: the death-blooms of smaller ships, probably human. Firefly flickers of dying drones and missiles stretched across the view, some very near. One was surprisingly close.

“That was a near miss,” Trevor said confidently. “I’m guessing our viewpoint ship’s own Point Defense Fire system got an Arat Kur missile?”

Downing nodded tightly, never taking his eyes off the screen. After a lull in the flashes that signified the deaths of smaller human ships and drones, a much larger blue-white sphere expanded to dominate the center of the screen. “That’s the Egalité.” murmured Downing. “Destroyed when we thought she was still safely out of range.”

Another sphere bloomed in the upper left.

“And the Beijing.” he added.

The picture shifted to a distant side shot of a third naval shift-carrier. Its forward-mounted hab ring was already missing two sections and spewing bright orange flame. A moment later, the bridge section at the bow blasted outward into an expanding hemisphere of debris. Pointing toward the epicenter of the cone of destruction, Downing commented, “Definitely a laser–and a bloody powerful one. Only a focused beam could inflict so much damage to such a small area.”