"Is it a serious problem?" David asked.
"No. I don't think so. It's hard to tell just from the letter, but I think she actually enjoys it, as long as she doesn't have to do the actual wiring."
"Back to our real business, what about the guilders?" Franz interrupted, bringing the conversation to their purpose. "What are we investing in besides the spinning problem?"
"Well, your interference in the siege hasn't helped," Johan complained. "Now that the craftsmen have access to a market for their goods, they are less interested in whiling away their time on learning to make up-timer products. Not uninterested, but not nearly so desperate for work as they were when we got here."
"Fine. We're ruining your scam," David said, not sounding particularly sorry. "But what have you invested us in?"
"Shipping," Johan said.
"What?"
"I brought designs for fiberglass production and showed them pictures of fiberglass hulls, down at the shipyards.
"They can't sail their ships out, so there is no market for them just now. Even Don Fernando isn't letting them sail ships in and out of Amsterdam at the moment." Johan, while mostly pleased by the situation they had been able to support here in Amsterdam, found his sense of propriety somewhat outraged by a siege in which the besiegers were buying their boots and uniform tunics from the besieged. It was just not the way a siege should be carried out.
"They are in Antwerp," Sarah Wendell complained to Darlene over a bowl of mutton fried orzo. Which Darlene seasoned as much like beef fried rice as she could, except she added a bit of mint and some honey for sweetness. Mutton fried orzo had turned out to be one of her most popular dishes with the crew at Twinlo Park, and increasingly with people who found a reason to drop in for the food. The TwinloPalace provided buffets for breakfast, lunch and dinner for employees of TwinloPark for free, but anyone could come in, pay ten American dollars and have all they could eat. By now they were serving thirty people at most meals. It was a very fortunate thing that Josef had insisted on a large dining room, even if he had done it so that there would be room for more employees as the research and development center grew.
"I know. I got another letter from Johan. Why them?" Darlene said. She and Sarah had found themselves in a similar circumstance, since Sarah was dating David and Darlene was sort of dating Johan. Sarah was more than a little resentful of David's getting to go when she didn't, and Darlene figured there was trouble on the horizon for the kids, but it wasn't her business. Darlene didn't resent not getting to go to Amsterdam, but she did worry about Johan a lot more than she had expected to when he left.
"I don't know. David insists they are the only ones that the Cardinal-Infante and the Duke of Orange could agree on, but I think they just figured to get all the use out of the up-timers they could manage. The radio towers are expensive, even if they are using an existing building for a lot of the height."
"Sure. But Johan isn't going to be building any radio towers."
"Neither is David," Sarah agreed, then visibly considered. "It's probably HSMC and OPM. I bet the cardinal is looking to get up-time tech for the Spanish Netherlands. He knows that David and Herr Kunze are running OPM. If OPM decides to put, say, a light bulb factory in Antwerp, it won't hurt the cardinal's tax base any."
"It's weird to think of Johan that way," Darlene admitted. "Whenever he talks about himself, it's always not about himself. If you know what I mean."
"I haven't got a clue."
"It's 'young Master David put me on the board of OPM to represent him and the other members of the Sewing Circle.' Or 'and Mrs. Higgins put me in charge of the guard force for the Higgins Hotel.' It's never 'I am on the board of OPM' or 'I am in charge of the guards at the Higgins Hotel and at the Higgins warehouse.' It's even 'young Master Donny listens to me on matters of down-time custom.' Never 'I explained to little Donny that he's not supposed to kiss the girls and make them cry.' "
Now Sarah nodded. "I know. There is a whole range of responses we get, even from the down-timers who like us. We have Gretchen Richter, who has become more up-timer than up-timers on the subject of equal rights for all. Then you have Johan, who can barely manage to give lip service to the notion. He thinks of up-timers as nobles, the real nobles, the ones who behave the way nobles are supposed to. The ones, not to put too fine a point on it, that God put here. At first David tried to argue him out of it. Then he just sort of gave up. Besides, Johan is a heck of a lot more of a father to David than his dad ever was. He figures if that's the way Johan wants to be, then that's the way he can be."
"Pretty convenient for David to have Johan trotting around after him," Darlene said, feeling resentful of Johan's absence and blaming David for it.
"Look, Darlene, I know you're older and wiser than a teenage girl. . but the down-timers have different rules. And Johan Kipper has been learning those rules for fifty years and more. Expecting him to throw them all away in a few days or even a few years. . well, it ain't going to happen. It's not that David asked Johan to act the way he does. It's Johan. And David respects him enough to let him, even when it makes David uncomfortable. And it does. If you want any kind of relationship with Johan, David is part of the package, because Johan has picked David as his lord and that's all there is to it."
The fog was thick enough to walk on and it had been for a good part of their time in Antwerp, but the mission to Amsterdam boarded the packet boat that would take them to Hamburg in generally good spirits.
"I'll be glad to get back home," David Bartley said. "I'm getting awfully behind in my school work."
"We knew that was going to happen from the start, Master David. Though I admit we've spent more time on this than we expected," Johan said. "It was worth it, though, so far as OPM is concerned. We managed to make a good start on several businesses, and with the goods we've bought here and in Amsterdam, we have more than doubled our initial investment in guilders." Johan was grinning happily. That they had bought those guilders with a low interest loan from the Fed didn't bother him at all, and he suspected it didn't bother young Master David either. There would be significant bonuses for both of them when the annual report came out. That was important to Johan because, well, if a man was thinking about getting married it helped if he had the wherewithal to support a family. He would have something to show Darlene, something to prove she was getting more than a serving man. Even if he was young Master David's serving man and happy to be so.
Fletcher Wendell grinned at Johan. "Well, up-time women are just as practical as down-time women, but they like to pretend they are romantics. So you want to go with the whole romantic part first, you know." Then, seeing Johan's face, he added, "Well, maybe not. You take her out to a romantic dinner, kneel on one knee, present her with an engagement ring and ask her to honor you by accepting your proposal of marriage."
By this time Johan was looking a little green and Fletcher was having a grand old time. He kept elaborating on the proposal and adding bells and whistles till Johan caught on that he was being teased. Then Fletcher backtracked a bit. "Remember, I said they like to pretend that they are ruled by romance, not that they truly are. I guess the biggest difference is that it's easier for a woman to say no if she wants to, because she is less dependent on the prospects of the guy than down-time women. For that matter, the guys are less likely to end up asking the girl on the basis of her prospects. I think it's just because we were richer up-time. We could afford to follow our hearts, not that our hearts were always right either.
"Look, just ask her and let her know it's truly what you want, not just what's practical."
To be continued. .
Ein Feste Burg, Episode 7
Rainer Prem
Chapter 9: Too Hot
Jena Lokschuppen, Jena, Saxe-Weimar County
May 1633
Nikki Bourne didn't exactly know why she was here.
One year ago she had started a chicken farm in Grantville-something she thought she was good at-but then the Croat Rai
d came, and the Croats had torched the farm and killed all her chickens and her future.
Then she had concentrated to get the best grades in her senior year, but now she still didn't know what to do after graduation, which was due soon.
When the principal announced that the senior class of the Grantville Tech Center would arrange a career day at the R amp;D facility of a new railroad company in Jena, and that the senior class of the high school, her class, was invited, too, it seemed a good idea to her to attend. But now she was the only high school girl among all these tech geeks.
The whole morning had been full of information about the jobs and training as machinist, surveyor, engineer, etc.-that the facility (everybody here called it Lokschuppen, even if there was not a single locomotive or even tracks to be seen)-had to offer for the tech center and high school graduates.
But manual labor was not exactly fitting for her. Ninety pounds, five foot high-or short- delicate, blond. Not a figure to operate one of these enormous lathes they had been shown or to haul a twenty pound theodolite through the wilderness.
At least Marshall Ambler, the guy who was in charge here, had promised to talk about office jobs in the afternoon, not that that seemed to her like a primary target to aim at.But what was her primary target?
Now was lunchtime. The large canteen was already nearly full of Germans, when the Grantville students-eighty percent of them Germans too-arrived. They got their share of vegetable stew and dark bread and now she looked around for a place to sit down.
"He, Puppchen, willste dich setzen?" Her German was not perfect, but "sit down" was something she could easily understand. And when she saw the friendly faces of some young workers-cute, they had introduced dungarees and overalls here-she smiled back and sat down on the space they had freed.
"Hi, ich bin Nikki." She introduced herself.
"Johann," "Hannes," "Hanns," "Johannes," were the answers from the four boys around.
"Are you joking?"
"No, welcome to the Four Johns, as chief Marshall calls us."
They didn't speak the Grantville Amideutsch but German with an admittedly not too heavy dialect. Nikki had enough contacts with Germans since the Ring of Fire to understand them-as long as they were talking to her. But when they talked to each other, Nikki was left out.
So she concentrated on her stew and let her thoughts wander. Nice guys, but no nice job in sight.
Her thoughts traveled back to the table, when she noticed that the boys were studying a book. An American chemistry schoolbook.
". . need a bowl of china. ." Hannes was reading haltingly. Then translating "eine Schussel aus China. . Where do we get a Chinese bowl from?
". . eventually you get. . eventuell bekommst du. . Why 'possibly'? Why not in every case?"
"Boys, you're wrong," Nikki interrupted them. "These are false friends."
"Hey, girl, don't get fresh at us," Johann said scowling. "We're honest friends, not fraudulent."
Nikki blushed. "Sorry, I didn't intend offense. Look, here 'false' means 'not fitting.' These are words which seem to be equal in German and English, but have a different meaning.
"'China' is porcelain-you know that as modern pottery-and 'eventually' means 'at last.' Didn't your English teacher tell you that?" Nikki wondered.
"We don't have an English teacher any more. Only a dictionary."
"And let me guess: You only look into the dictionary when you think there's something you don't understand."
The four boys nodded in unison.
"So you need someone to tell you about the subtleties of modern American."
"What about you?" The voice came from behind her.
Nikki turned around and saw Marshall Ambler standing there. How long was he listening?
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"It seems you just found your market niche. Do you want the job?"
"Teaching English? ESOL? I'll need a certificate for that first."
"Not in Germany. Not here in the Lokschuppen. We need people who can do something, regardless of certificates. We have journeymen who run shops; we will have high school graduates who work as engineers. We don't have the time to wait for them to finish their BS at the college.
"Oh, and come to think of it, we don't even have a college for this. The only thing we can do is on-the-job training. And it seems you have just started it." He waved over to the four boys who had obviously tried to follow the Americans' discussion.
"I'll talk with Archie Clinter. He can organize teacher training at the middle school for you, and we'll pay for it. Then you'll have a contact when you need help. They're only a radio away."
Nikki took a deep breath. Yes, he was right. Tutoring her classmates had always been something enjoyable and satisfying. To see that her 'A' grades in English mattered for something, even in this new and wild world made her feel good. Eventually. She laughed.
The four boys at her table looked quizzical.
"Wollt ihr mich als Lehrerin?" she asked them.
"Yeah, Miss Schoolmarm!" Johann shouted.
"Darned good idea!" Hannes added.
"But you'll have to work on your diction," Nikki said laughing. "Slang words are not what you'll learn from me."
"Nae bother," Hans interjected with Scottish slang. All of them laughed.
Road from Rudolstadt, near Jena
September 1633
Wolfgang Hilliger shifted his hat to his neck and looked around. The traffic here was not normal. There were not only the normal merchants on the road between Jena and Rudolstadt, but many, mostly young, men transporting all kinds of things around.
Weird wagons dragged or pushed by horses or men, and suddenly even a steaming wagon appeared without any draft animal, but with a young man on a kind of chair behind a horizontal cart wheel on it. The wagon blew smoke or steam from a small chimney. Other young men were running behind it and cheering.
Wolfgang jumped aside to leave room for the crazy thing and its obviously equally crazy coachman.
"Stop it, stop it!" another young man cried from behind, and the wagon slowly came to a halt. Now Wolfgang could see what weird kind of clothes they were wearing. Dark blue pants with a patch going up their chest, held by cloth belts over their shoulders.
Since they were completely occupied by their strange wagon, Wolfgang decided to make his way to the gate they had emerged from. Two burly watchmen were standing there. They had followed the motion of the wagon with their eyes, but now concentrated on the young man approaching them.
Wolfgang reached into his bag and produced the broadsheet which had brought him here.
"Craftsmen wanted!" it read. Fortunately for Wolfgang, who couldn’t read English and could speak only the most necessary sentences to get something to eat and drink in Grantville, it was printed in two columns, the other one in German: “Handwerker gesucht!”
"Experienced journeymen preferred. All crafts needed. Report to JenaLokschuppen of Jena-Eisenach Eisenbahngesellschaft."
"Guten Tag," he greeted the watchmen. "Is this the L-o-kschuppen?" he slowly spelled out the uncommon word.
"Ja, junger Mann," the older of the two watchmen answered friendly, and then pointed to the next building. "You're lucky. The boss is holding the hiring interviews in person today. Just proceed into the office."
"Danke," Wolfgang said and made his way into the building.
A young woman was sitting behind a desk there and looked up when he entered the room.
Wolfgang removed his hat. "Guten Tag," he said, but before he could continue, the young woman interjected.
"Want a job? Here's a pencil. Fill out this form and give it back to me! Sit down over there until you get called."
"Ah, thank you."
He sat down on a bench and studied the "form." It was a sheet of paper, partly printed, with space to fill in his name, date and place of birth, and much space to write about his career.
Freiberg, Sachsen, 7/17. im Brachmond 1607he wrote behind the text
"Geboren/born." He stopped, then struck Brachmondand wrote the modern name Juni above it.
Four years at the Elementarschule, just enough to learnreading, writing and calculating; thenten years working in the family's foundry. They were not rich enough to let the children waste time on books.
Son of a bell founder, grandson of a bell founder, great-grandson. . back to the early fifteenth century.
Apprentice-bell founder, what else. .? Then his journeyman time at the places where bells were cast. Or cannons; in the last ten years more and more bells were melted down to make cannons. In Prettau at the Lofflers' foundry; in Augsburg at the Neidhardts'; in Nurnberg at the Herolds'. At least one year and one day at each, as determined by custom.
Next station would have been, perhaps, Aachen, but first a visit in this new town, Grantville. Wolfgang was overwhelmed from the achievements of the new time. And then he had seen this broadsheet. Perhaps they would need some bells for the railroad. Jena was on the way to Aachen, anyway.
"Hey, you."
His thoughts returned to the present, to Jena, to the woman who had called him.
"Yes?"
"Are you finished with your form? The boss awaits you."
The "boss" was a tall, haggard American. Middle-aged, but for an up-timer that could be forty or up to sixty.
"Guten Tag. Ich bin Marshall Ambler, Chefingenieur," he said in very good German and extended his hand.
"Guten Tag. Ich bin Wolfgang Hilliger, Glockengie?er," Wolfgang answered while shaking the hand. The American's hand was hard, callused, the hand of a man who worked. Not the hand of a noble who directed.
"Sit down," Marshall pointed to a chair, "and tell me about you."
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