by Eric Flint
A more realistic concern was that they would gain influence with the czar. Mikhail was loved, but not that well respected. Not considered . . . particularly strong. Of course, his hands were tied. The Assembly of the Land had seen to that when he was elected. Those limitations might well explain why he was so popular. When the government got blamed for something it was usually his advisors, not the czar, who got the blame. It was known that Mikhail had cried when told he had been elected czar. As well, it was known that he had refused the crown. He had continued to refuse until told that if he didn't accept, the blood of the next "time of troubles" would be on his hands.
Natasha knew the czarina, Evdokia. Before Bernie, that acquaintance would have given her family protection, but not much influence. Now that acquaintance was a way for up-time ideas to reach the czar without going through his father, who was also the patriarch of the Orthodox Church. And the ideas had gotten to Mikhail, some of them, anyway. Hence this little event.
* * *
Ivan Ivanovich had read the reports. That was one of the reasons that he had pushed for this general demonstration of the products of the Dacha. One of the reasons. The other being his increasing concern about the influence of the Grantville Section. Increasingly, he had been forced, almost against his will, to realize the importance that the Ring of Fire was going to have on the rest of the world, including Russia.
He watched Pter Nickovich pace about in a dither, getting in the way of the workmen handling the ropes. And found himself tempted to do the same thing. He knew what was about to happen he'd read about it in the reports. Then as the ropes were let out, it began to rise. Two poles, about five feet apart with ropes going from them to a basket below and balloons above. He had thought that he knew what was going to happen, but he hadn't realized what it would feel like. Twenty feet into the air, then twenty five, thirty, supported by nothing but air. It's only connection to the earth the ropes that held it down. And in the basket that hung below the dirigible testbed, Nikita Slavenitsky smiled and waved to the crowd of dignitaries.
Ivan Ivanovich waved back, it was absolutely the least he could do. What he wanted to do was jump up and down and shout. A Russian was flying in the air, held aloft by the knowledge and craftsmanship of his fellow Russians. He had read that the up-timers had already flown. But knowing about it from a report was one thing, seeing it was something altogether different. The up-timers with their machines doing it was one thing. Russians making a flying device out of wood, rope and cow guts—that was something altogether different. Even in his excitement about the flight, Ivan realized that it meant that one of his goals in forcing this demonstration had backfired. If anything it would increase the influence wielded by the Grantville Section. He looked over at the czar's pet up-timer, in time to see as Bernie, looking bored, snorted a laugh.
* * *
Bernie could understand why Pter Nickovich was so nervous. Today the czar, the czarina and some members of the cabinet had come to see his baby fly. Bernie looked over at the big shots. They were gawking. Totally gone. You'd think the aliens were landing or something. Then he thought about it. Granted, it wasn't that much of a dirigible. It had no power and there wasn't much you could do with it, not yet. But, Nikita was the first Russian to fly in this time line.
Shit, this was history. For here and now, this was like the first rocket ship to the moon or something. Bernie found himself giggling a bit. Nikita Ivanovich Slavenitsky was a nice guy and usually had a joke to tell or a dirty story. But he wasn't the sort of guy you would think of as Neil Armstrong or whoever. But Nicky was going down in history.
One of the big shots was looking a bit offended. "You find this funny?"
Bernie had forgotten the guy's name. He was the head of the Embassy Bureau, Bernie knew that much. "It's not that, sir. I just never thought that a guy I had a beer with every now and then would make history."
"History?" The guy paused. Looked up and nodded. "The first Russian to fly."
"Yes, sir," Bernie said. "Nikita Ivanovich Slavenitsky and Pter Nickovich have done Russia proud today. Real proud."
The big shot looked at Bernie a bit sharply for a moment, then he smiled. "You will excuse me, Bernie Janovich. I must speak to the czar."
* * *
Ivan Ivanovich headed back to the czar in a rather bemused state of mind. He wasn't sure what to make of the up-timer. He hadn't tried to take credit for the flight, even though Ivan knew that Bernie's explanations had been a large part of making it possible. Nor had he been demeaning of the Russian efforts. Ivan didn't know what to make of the man, and that bothered him. He glanced up at the flying carriage. He wanted control of such devices if he could manage it. He thought they would be important.
* * *
"We can fly," Evdokia, Czarina of All Russia—and sometimes a real pain in the butt—insisted. Mikhail looked at his wife and sighed. He knew he was going to lose the argument. They were in the best room in the Dacha and it had been an interesting day.
"I know how you feel," he tried, though in truth he didn't. He knew his Doshinka had dreams of flight but he never had. Mikhail's dreams tended to be dark things, best forgotten. "But we have real problems that we must deal with."
Evdokia, thankfully, didn't ignore the problems, though Mikhail was fairly sure she wanted to. "I know, Mikhail. But I think that Pter Nickovich made some excellent points about the usefulness of such a flying ship. More importantly, though, is the useful thing he didn't mention."
"What useful thing is that?"
"Pride. Pride in being Russian. Pride in being a part of something great. Who is, ah, was . . . will be that up-time general that Mikhail Borisovich Shein is always quoting about eggs?
Mikhail shook his head, not able to remember the name. He thought the general was French but that was all he remembered.
"Well, that's not the only quote. The general Nappy something also said that the moral is to the physical as three to one." She grinned. "I think to the fiscal, it's even more. Let us fill the hearts of the people of Russia with pride in who they are. Not with fear of the bureaucrats."
Mikhail looked at his wife for long time, just taking in the bubbling excitement. She fairly glowed with it. Could Pter Nickovich's big balloon really produce such a reaction? And if it produced that sort of reaction in the Russian heart, what effect would it have on the Polish heart and the Cossack heart? "Very well. I will support the project. I can make no promises, mind."
Evdokia just grinned. Somehow, as pleasant as that smile was, it made Mikhail a bit nervous.
* * *
The dog and pony show had been going on for three days. Bernie had been moved into his garage, because of all the important people who had shown up. He didn't mind it, especially. The garage was where he was trying to fix the car, without a lot of success. The VIP visit, Boris said, was going quite well. But it was still a total pain in the butt.
Bernie had spent most of the last three days explaining that it was really Vanya, Misha, Filip, Grigorii and the others who had actually worked out all the improvements. He had just helped a bit. Really, the whole thing was kind of embarrassing. The only good thing about the whole dratted business was the thankful looks he got from the brain cases. They had apparently not expected to be given credit. Finally, he had had to sneak away. When Grigorii Mikhailovich started explaining orbital mechanics and Newton's laws of motion, Bernie's brain started to fry. He just didn't want to hear it again, not right now.
He was having a beer in the kitchen when the door opened unexpectedly. At first Bernie was afraid that one of the brain cases had come looking for him again. But, no . . . it wasn't a brain case. Jeez. This was the boss, the big boss.
"Howdy, Your . . . ah . . . Majesty." Bernie snaked out an arm and grabbed a chair. "Have a seat."
The big guards who followed the czar around were looking daggers—or maybe swords—at Bernie. Apparently they thought he was supposed to be doing something differently, but Bernie was tired and couldn't
figure what. "Say, Your Majesty, why is the muscle looking pissed at me?"
Bernie knew that the czar knew some English but it didn't appear to be modern English. "Muscle? Pissed?"
"Ah, guards looking angry. I figure that I've done something I'm not supposed to do. That, or I ain't done something I am supposed to do. But I don't know what."
The czar nodded. "Probably you didn't bow. Bernie, is it?"
"Yes, sir. Bernard, really, but that makes me sound like some kind of old coot. I like Bernie better."
"Do you?" The czar laughed. "I'll call you Bernie, then."
"I'd appreciate it more than I can say. Thank you, Your Majesty." Grinning, Bernie stood up and swept the czar the most impressive bow he could manage. After watching movies all his life, it wasn't all that bad. Not really right, but impressive, in its own way. For some reason the guards were looking daggers at him again, but the czar cracked up. That laugh made Bernie feel better. Looking at the guy, Czar Mikhail, Bernie figured he didn't get to laugh all that much.
Bernie sat down again and repeated his offer of a chair. "I'm playing hooky. I'm supposed to be in one of the lectures explaining that I didn't do anything. You want a beer?" Sure, he was an older guy, and the czar, and all that crap . . . but he was a guy. Bernie figured he could use a beer now and then, just like anyone else.
* * *
Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov was more than a little bemused by the up-timer. He had been impressed, seriously impressed, by the demonstrations. There was a telegraph that allowed messages to be sent from one part of the estate to another. The plumbing system . . . ah, the plumbing system. He wanted that in his palace. Also the telegraph, all through the Kremlin. That would be good.
The military applications of the telegraph were obvious—if it could be made to work over any real distance. And they talked of radios that might be made that would not need the wires. He had been briefed on most of it, but hearing was not the same as seeing.
Mikhail had also noticed that Bernie was constantly giving credit to the local experts for doing the work and solving the problems. He had wondered how much of that was truth and how much politics. "I noticed you explaining again and again that you didn't do anything. Is it true?"
"Mostly, yeah." Bernie shook his head. "When I got here . . . well, I was never the smartest kid in class but I figured with a four-hundred-year head start, I ought to be able to teach you guys something. Mostly, though, I'm sort of a glorified dictionary. I explain words that have changed meanings and words that English didn't have, doesn't have, now, that it had up-time. And everyone here is smarter than I am."
"Surely not everyone?" Mikhail pointed at Anna. He assumed the maid would be illiterate. And she was a woman, after all.
"Yep, her, too." Bernie grinned. "She's picked up English fast, really fast. And she can do Arabic numerals and paper spread sheet bookkeeping. All that, while my Russian is still the pits even after I've been here so long. And she's better at the bookkeeping than I am. What's worse, I taught it to her."
"Yes." Czar Mikhail's eyes were hooded and dark. "There has been a great deal of talk lately about your accounting and taxes. An income tax. The patriarch is quite enamored of it."
Bernie shifted in his seat. It was pretty uncomfortable, all of a sudden. "I sort of opened a can of worms with that one. No one really wants to explain anything to me, just have me explain things to them, so I don't know how it works here. Anyway, the most important thing about taxes back up-time was that they were mostly fair. Mostly everybody paid them. There were people who had good lawyers and sometimes folks cheated. Still, it sort of spread the burden around, so no one group had to do it all."
Mikhail nodded. "We are considering that. It does seem that it will increase revenues, at any rate. The, ah, what was it called . . . the Fica, that one. That one we're having a little trouble with."
Bernie grinned and took another sip of beer. "Yeah, I heard. I had to explain what 'retire' meant. And no one understood that one. What do people do here, just work until they die? No chance to just kick back and relax, just live. I had a lot of trouble getting that clear. And when I told them about the Social Security numbers and how everybody had one, well, the brain cases just went nuts."
They sat and chatted for a long while. It was interesting to listen to someone who was mostly unguarded and not weighing every word to make his case. Mikhail finally, once the servants unfroze, got his beer and the discussion ranged all over.
Mikhail enjoyed especially the discussion of what it was like to live up-time. Cars, first dates and bananas in winter were only a part of it. Mikhail was the wealthiest and, in theory, most powerful man in Russia and had never had a banana in any season, much less a banana split.
Mikhail brought the discussion around to representative government. He wanted to get a feel for how it worked from someone who had experienced it to compare with the theory. Bernie seemed to assume that Mikhail would disapprove of it. It was the most guarded Bernie had been all evening. Mikhail liked the concept, but wasn't sure how well it would work on the ground in Russia. From his reading, it had almost seemed that every citizen of the nation must be a scholar of the law. All in all, Mikhail found Bernie's ignorance of how the details worked according to the books reassuring. It didn't take him long to figure out that Bernie actually knew less about the mechanics of how the constitutional laws of the United States of America worked up-time than he himself did.
It was clear to Mikhail that Bernie didn't have the slightest clue about how Russia worked. Russia did have a history of electing officials and representatives. But the constitution—that was a bit different. It was not like England's Great Charter or Poland's. Nor like the agreement that the Assembly of the Land had insisted he sign when they forced the throne on him. The constitution . . . those were a list of restrictions on the crown. They restricted the czar's power, but the constitution seemed to do more than that. It provided a concrete structure that was designed from the beginning, rather than growing just any which way.
"I don't know, Bernie." Mikhail stared into the mug he held. "I was elected to be the czar, but that was a special case. They picked me because I was only sixteen years old and they felt sure they could control me. Even so, they limited my power. Which wasn't something that bothered me, then or now. Mostly, my father runs things. He is the one who really should have been czar. But the reason that the election happened at all was that there was no one left in the direct royal line. And because they needed someone after the time of troubles. Anything was better than continuing to fight over everything. Even then, it was the Assembly of the Land and the cabinet who voted. The people of Muscovy aren't used to voting on everything."
"Yes, I get it. That's sort of the point of representatives," Bernie said. "The people elect them and they are the ones who vote on the laws and stuff. Were the people who voted elected?"
Mikhail shrugged. "Some, not all. The Assembly of the Land has men who represent the crafts or a place or who are high in the church. Some representatives of the merchants and tax collectors participate."
* * *
"That sorta sucks." Bernie had not cared in the least about the people of Muscovy when he agreed to come. It had just been a job; keep your head down do what the man tells you and get your pay. It had been good pay, so who cared. Gradually, without his really noticing it, that had changed. Bernie knew he was living in a very privileged situation. He had no desire to endanger that privilege by upsetting people—especially the frigging czar. The comment had just sort of slipped out. At the same time, he felt sort of obligated to help these guys get it right. He started to apologize. "Sorry about the profanity, Your Majesty."
He should have stopped there; he knew it. And he intended to, but some how it all just came poring out. "What does someone who has a lot of power and money care about the little guys? It's not a representative government unless, well, all the people get represented. Everyone, not just churchy guys, not even just guys, and not just peopl
e with money, should have a vote. If you just listen to the guys with the money and power, they're going to tell you what they want, not what people need. You ought to get rid of them and get yourself some regular folks to advise you."
Mikhail was looking at him like he was crazy. Then slowly his expression changed. Now he was looking at Bernie like Miss Mailey used to look when Bernie said something stupid in class. "Have you considered the possibility that I might not have a choice? When I was selected as Czar of Muscovy, I was required to sign an document. It had four major provisions. First, I promised to uphold and protect the Orthodox Church of Russia. Second, I promised to give up any possibility of revenging myself or my family for wrongs done to us."
The czar paused for a moment and a pained look crossed his face. "And there were wrongs done to us, Bernie, severe wrongs. Third, I promised to make no new laws or alter old ones, and to take no important measure which might contradict the existing laws, or suspend the legal proceedings of the court of justice. Finally, I promised to begin no wars and to make no peace by my own will."
Mikhail Romanov shook his head a bit and took a sip of beer. "I cannot dismiss those 'churchy guys,' as you call them, Bernie. Not my father, or any of the others. Nor the boyars or dvoryanstvo, ah . . . councilors and bureaucrats. I cannot restore the elected officials from the provinces. It is not within my power."
