Grantville Gazette V

by Eric Flint

  Magdeburg, October 8, 1633

  Mike Stearns imagined that he looked like hell. He felt even worse. He hadn't gotten any sleep the night before and wasn't counting on getting much tonight. Mike had walked from the radio shack to his rooms so many times the last few days he could have made the trip in his sleep.

  It may yet come to that, Mike thought. He stood up and stretched, stepping away from the radio. The radio window for the evening was now closed, and Mike could do no more here tonight.

  He called for his escort for the evening. "Pete! I'm ready to head back."

  Pete McDougal opened the door. "If you don't mind me saying so, you look like nine kinds of rough," he said.

  "Ten kinds, Pete."

  For the first few moments, they walked in comfortable silence. The two had been fellow UMWA officials in their local before the Ring of Fire and had known each other a long time.

  Mike shook his head. "Medals don't seem like enough, Pete. I wish I could do more. If we were up-time these kids would have been all over TV. Dateline NBC, Sixty Minutes, the whole works."

  After hearing Pete's response, Mike abruptly changed course, leaving Pete scrambling to keep up. "What a great idea! Let's go get Frank out of bed."

  Grantville, October 10, 1633

  Mike had hoped to have Jesse Wood fly Frank Jackson back to Grantville the day before, but things hadn't worked out quite that neatly. As Frank and Jesse touched down, the American general found himself, for once, a little grateful he was in the early modern world. At least, Frank thought, the thirty-minute news cycle was a thing of the past. Or future, depending on how you looked at it.

  By now, it had been officially acknowledged that Eddie, Larry, Hans, and Swedish sailor Bjorn Svedberg had been killed in action at Wismar, but the situation in Magdeburg had not left time for the release of a detailed statement. Until now.

  Frank found Henderson Coonce waiting for him at the airstrip, truck engine running. Coonce saluted, and they drove to the high school. Even if Frank had been vain enough to think his rank entitled him to a chauffeur with captain's bars, Henderson put paid to that notion by complaining the whole way. By the time they pulled up to the high school, Frank was ready to recruit an entire regiment's worth of press officers, just to shut Coonce up.

  "If you don't want to wait, Captain, I'll ring when I'm done," said Frank.

  "I can wait," said Coonce.

  "I said you'd get your press officer."

  Coonce smiled. "I heard you, Frank. Why do you think your ass ain't walking back?"

  Military protocol in the new little United States still had a long way to go. Frank just shook his head and went into the school.

  He found Janice Ambler and Jabe McDougal waiting for him. Jabe sprang to attention. Prudentia Gentileschi sat quietly in a corner, sketching something off of a television screen.

  "At ease, Jabe. We're not in the barracks."

  He went straight to the subject. "You still have all that video stuff you were doing after the Ring of Fire? That oral history project you were working on?"

  "Sure, sir," replied Jabe. My tape's almost gone, though."

  "Have you got footage of Eddie and Larry? Hans?"

  Jabe nodded.

  "Good. Can you put something together? By noon tomorrow?"

  * * *

  Jabe hesitated. He was only a self-taught video documentarian and even before the Ring of Fire he was far from certain he'd wanted to make a living making movies of any kind. Jabe had thought of his video projects as little more than a hobby.

  But it was a serious hobby, so Jabe knew that the rule of thumb for editing footage was that one hour's work yielded one minute of usable footage. Cutting hours of footage down to sixty minutes in less than a day?

  Insane.

  For this, though, Jabe couldn't say no. "You'll have it, sir, Ms. Ambler. It'll be ready."

  "Would you mind if I observe you?" Prudentia had been so quiet her presence had been forgotten.

  Jabe crimsoned. "Sure, Prudentia. I wouldn't mind."

  Frank told Jabe he would clear the young man's absence from the barracks. All of Jabe's video gear was at his house, in his old basement room. Frank continued to talk to Janice; his statement would be simulcast on VOA radio. Jabe and Prudentia left.

  Jabe was preoccupied enough not to be nervous around Prudentia—at least not nearly as nervous as he usually was. Without even thinking, he broke the ice.

  "What were you sketching, Prudentia?" he asked.

  "A scene from Dr. Strangelove. General Ripper sitting at his desk, looking at his cigar. A lot of interesting play with light and shadow. It would, I think, make a good painting."

  Without wanting to, Jabe blurted out the question that had really been bothering him. "Why did you want to come with me?"

  "I grew up around artists, you know. I love to watch them work. I find it very inspirational for my own art."

  "I'm not an artist."

  "It may be so, but from my understanding of this Orbis Incindiae it is unlikely I shall ever see an artist in this medium of film, not anytime soon. Besides," she added, "you have a good eye and good sense of the beautiful."

  Jabe flushed. Hastily, he decided the best course of action would be to shift the conversation away from himself. "How have you liked Grantville? It must be a lot different than the places you've lived."

  "It is. I miss Napoli and Roma, but Grantville is a fascinating place. And the things I've learned, especially about the science of optics and behavior of light, have been magnificent. It's been most useful to me. But your beliefs and customs are rather shocking. Mother would not approve of me walking home with you."

  "Why not? It's not like we're going to, you know, um, well . . ." That sentence trailed off into confused oblivion.

  Prudentia smiled. "I trust you, Jabe. It's just that my mother's experience with men, especially when she was young, has led her to be . . . wary."

  * * *

  The McDougal house was empty, save for the dogs. Zula McDougal was still at work, Karin Jo and Kyle were still at school.

  Hatfield, Llewellyn, and Dottie greeted Jabe with their usual enthusiasm. Hatfield, a golden retriever-husky mix, made his usual strange Chewbacca noises, with Llewellyn—Lew, for short—and Dot, both Pembroke Welsh corgis, adding to the din with their barking. Hatfield had been adopted from a shelter. Lew and Dot were originally only going to stay with the McDougals for a short time, until they found homes, but the Ring of Fire had made them permanent residents. Jabe's younger brother Kyle was trying to train the dogs to do useful work.

  Jabe gave Hatfield a quick tummy rub and then scribbled a note, leaving it on the table where the first person home would see it. Prudentia phoned the Nobilis. Jabe escorted his guest to his basement room. He had originally shared a room with Kyle until the two brothers decided that absence would make the heart grow fonder and Jabe fled to the basement. It could get damp and chilly down there, especially since the Ring of Fire, but Jabe was more than willing to sacrifice a few comforts for privacy.

  Jabe turned on his computer and pulled an extra chair up to the desk, while he looked through his tapes and got his camera.

  * * *

  Prudentia admired Jabe's computer, caressing its curved lines. She had seen many computers since coming to Grantville and they usually struck her as ugly in their design, even if they were quite useful things. This one was different, though. It seemed to have been designed by someone with a true artistic sense.

  "Pretty, isn't it?" said Jabe as he sat down and began connecting his camera to his computer. "I've always loved Macs. I saved up for three years to buy this one, and the video stuff. 'Course, Eric Hudson helped me get the camera. He knew a guy in Morgantown who wanted a better one and was selling this one cheap."

  Prudentia was less interested in Jabe's tools than his motivations, his inspirations. "Why do all this?" she asked.

  Jabe reflected for a moment. "After the Ring of Fire, I got to thinking about ho
w we were going to remember it. You know, what the history books would say. I got to thinking, well, I should talk to people in Grantville about the Ring of Fire. Get their memories of it before too much time passed so we wouldn't forget. I figure one of these days I'll watch all the interviews again, write the words down. Do a book."

  Prudentia nodded. "So, then, why do you have extra on the soldiers?"

  In the world Prudentia grew up in, mercenaries and prostitutes were below even actors in social rank. Even after a year in Grantville, she was still often uncomfortable with the Americans' peculiar notions of status and social mobility. She was grappling with her attitudes, though, and could see advantages to the way the Americans did things. After all, hadn't she been sent here because of that? Her mother Artemisia had fought against established customs her whole life, and wanted something different for her daughter. Prudentia was eager for any new insights.

  Jabe didn't answer immediately, as was his habit when thinking about an issue.

  "In the up-time United States," he said slowly, "we called ourselves a land of opportunity. We told ourselves that you could start with nothing and that if you worked hard enough, if you took advantage of the chances God gave you, you could be whatever you wanted. No matter who your parents were, or where you were from. I wasn't old enough to vote right after the Ring of Fire, but I remember Dad saying that's why everyone backed Mike—President Stearns. Because he said we could only survive if we kept on being Americans."

  "But why were the Richters special? They weren't even born in your up-time United States."

  "Because they were proof that the ideas we'd grown up with would work here. Gretchen was a camp follower but given the chance, she became an important leader. Her grandmother married Mayor Dreeson and started a school. I remember Hans told me he only became a soldier for Tilly because he had to. But he joined the Air Force because he wanted to. That made all the difference to him. The Richters are what we would have called an 'All-American Tale.'"

  Prudentia watched Jabe work and thought about what he'd said. She'd liked Jabe from the beginning, to the point of finding his awkwardness around her sweet. What Prudentia liked most about the young American was that he listened and thought before speaking. This was new to Prudentia; though, from talking to up-time girls, it seemed to be an unusual male trait from their viewpoint as well.

  Prudentia was not sure what her relationship with Jabe would evolve into, if indeed it evolved into anything. But she was more than interested enough to find out.

  So, as they worked in companionable silence, she was grateful for the friendship and presence of Jabe, and she knew he felt the same way about her. Jabe was soon absorbed in his work and Prudentia began sketching him in the pad she always carried with her.

  Both young people were surprised when Zula McDougal announced dinner. Jabe's mother seemed glad enough to have her oldest son back for the evening. Working for Ollie Reardon and riding herd on Karin Jo and Kyle kept her busy enough, Prudentia knew, but with Pete in Magdeburg and Jabe living out of the house most of the time, she imagined the place did feel empty to the woman.

  Zula fussed over Prudentia, much to the young woman's embarrassment, and continually apologized for the simple meal. Jabe explained to his mother what he needed to do.

  "I'll leave you to it, then," Zula said. "I can bring coffee down later."

  "Thanks, Mom. That'd be great." Jabe said.

  "Yes, thank you, Signora McDougal. You are a most gracious hostess."

  It was Zula McDougal's turn to blush then. Prudentia thought it was a most charming hereditary trait.

  "You're welcome. Call me Zula, please."

  * * *

  Once again, after dinner, Jabe lost all sense of time. The documentary seemed to be going well, and he thought might be able to pull this off after all. Jabe was glad that he was so meticulous about logging his footage, because he didn't have to waste a lot of time watching tape he'd shot that wouldn't have anything to do with his present project. He smiled to himself. He'd been called "anal-retentive" more than once, but if Jabe weren't so exact he'd never be able to do what he was doing right now—cramming sixty hours' work into a night.

  * * *

  As Prudentia watched Jabe work, she remembered Alfonso, a master sculptor she'd loved to watch working when she was a young girl in Rome. The old man hadn't been terribly famous, and hadn't been good enough to attract commissions from the leading families. Still, Alfonso was sufficiently skilled to work for wealthy merchants and petty nobles and had a steady income. In any event, it wasn't the ability of the artist that had impressed Prudentia. It was the obvious passion Maestro Alfonso had for his work that remained in her memory.

  Old Alfonso would spend hours, sometimes days, just studying a block of stone. He would touch it, even talk to it. When at last he touched chisel to stone, the sculptor considered each stroke with care, until the object emerged, as if the stone were slowly giving birth to it. She watched Jabe as he would replay a few seconds of video over and over, taking just what he wanted from each clip. Sometimes Jabe would shave off the tiniest increments of time from a piece of footage, just like Maestro Alfonso with his precious marble blocks.

  "A sculptor, but of reality," murmured Prudentia Gentileschi. She wondered what her mother would think about that.

  "Hmm?" Jabe asked. He stood up from his chair, stretching.

  "You remind me of a sculptor I used to watch as a child, in Rome. It struck me that you are a sculptor, but of reality rather than stone."

  "I told you, Prudentia, I'm no artist."

  Prudentia Gentileschi knew she did not fit the clichés—at least the twentieth century clichés—of the temperamental artist. She didn't hang around in smoky cafes and wear black turtlenecks, nor did she act like a diva, in the sense up-timers would have meant. Prudentia was not a particularly somber young woman. Now, though, she fixed Jabe with a very serious stare.

  "You are an artist, Jabe McDougal. I've been watching you all night long. You have the soul of a true maestro."

  "I've never thought of it that way. Thank you, Prudentia, very much. I can't tell you how much that means to me, coming from you."

  They looked at each other for what seemed like forever. Prudentia did not know how to handle this moment. Obviously enough, despite being several years older, neither did Jabe.

  Finally, Jabe looked outside, through the basement window. "Good grief, is that the sunrise?"

  Prudentia was also surprised. "So it is. How is it coming?" she asked, nodding toward the computer.

  "Done, or nearly so. It'll run for one hour. I just need to put some music on it, make sure all the audio's okay, and put it on a VHS tape. I should be able to get it to Ms. Ambler just in time." Jabe yawned so wide his jaw cracked.

  "It's time for more coffee," said Prudentia. "I'll get us some."

  * * *

  While Prudentia did battle with the McDougals' battered Mr. Coffee, Jabe eyed his CD shelf critically. Verve Pipe's "Bittersweet Symphony" was a given, and he thought Barenaked Ladies' cover of "Lovers In a Dangerous Time" would work for the section about Hans and Sharon's relationship. Some quieter pieces of classical music, along with R. Kelly's "I Believe I Can Fly," rounded out the soundtrack.

  Grantville, October 11, 1633

  Janice Ambler was starting to panic. It was ten minutes till noon and Jabe still hadn't shown up. Janice's mentor had worked at a TV station in the early days of live television and had told her often of what it took to play the live programming produced in New York for a west coast audience three hours behind. The shows were broadcast over phone lines, projected, and filmed with a kintescope. The film was rushed to the lab, developed, and rushed back to the studio by motorcycle courier. Janice wondered if her old friend had felt what she was feeling now—and, if so, how he had avoided getting ulcers.

  Pacing in front of the high school's front door, Janice heard Jabe before she saw him. A farmer driving his horse cart into Grantville had given hi
m a ride. Prudentia Gentileschi was with him. Jabe handed Janice the tape. The tirade she'd been working up evaporated in a second as soon as she saw the young man; he'd obviously been working through the night.

  "Sorry to cut it so close, Ms. Ambler. Had to make sure this one was as perfect as I could make it."

  "Jabe, no offense, but you look like hell. Hello, Prudentia."

  Prudentia inclined her head in acknowledgement. "What Jabe won't tell you, Signora Ambler, is that sunrise came as quite a surprise. And then he had to watch the finished product at least twice more to make further changes. An artist indeed."

  "Yeah, look, I've got to get this into the studio and then get Frank on the air. You two are welcome to watch if you want." Jabe and Prudentia followed Janice to the studio.