Grantville Gazette, Volume I

by Eric Flint

  He looked over at his children. A boy and a girl. He smiled. That meant there was one each. Not that a parent should place a claim on a child. But he was sure his daughter would take after her mother. His son, maybe he would have the look of his mother, too. That was all for the good. They'd have to think of names. Dina had suggested Salome Blandina for a girl, after her mother and step-mother. She had asked Phillip if the boy should be called Theophrastus, but he'd managed to dissuade her. Anyway, there was plenty of time to worry about names. Dina and the children were healthy. That was what was important.

  A Week Later,

  HDG Enterprizes (Jena)

  The car drew to a halt just outside their apartment in Jena. Dina waited for Phillip to open the door and help her out. That was when she saw the two women. One of them was a young American. That was probably Lori Drahuta. She'd indicated interest in finding out more about what the position at HDG entailed, and been invited to visit. The other woman looked much the same age. She had rich black hair and an unlined porcelain white face. Her clothes left little to the imagination. Who was this woman?

  Dina watched silently as the female approached a clearly embarrassed Phillip. She looked over at Frau Mittelhausen. The housekeeper looked embarrassed that the homecoming had been disrupted, but she wasn't looking at Phillip with condemnation. It struck Dina that Frau Mittelhausen's look was more one of pity.

  Dina looked back at the woman. There was something unnatural about her. Dina stepped closer.

  Makeup. That explained it. This female, whoever she was, gave the lie to the American claim that lead-based cosmetics were unhealthy. She had seen the sales records for the new Oxide of Zinken, and there was no indication that anybody was buying it in the quantities this female was using. She must be applying her makeup with a trowel. Dina was sure of one thing now. This female was not someone she wished to associate with. Her friend Ronella had pointed out an American woman dressed up and made up to appear much younger. She would have used the same expression, "mutton dressed as lamb" to describe this female. Obviously she was much older than she appeared. Just how much older was impossible to tell. Dina stepped up beside Phillip. One of his hands shot out and latched onto her hand.

  "Theophrastus. Aren't you pleased to see me?" the female asked.

  Dina felt the tension in Phillip. He gave her a beseeching look before returning his gaze to the female. "Hello, Mother."

  Butterflies in the Kremlin,

  Part 3:

  Boris, Natasha . . .

  But Where's Bullwinkle

  By Gorg Huff and Paula Goodlett

  "Order Kameroff to take his battalion to the west." The barely bearded Russian wearing two stars on his collar moved his finger along the map, over a set of hills then northwest along a river. "He is to take dispatch riders and notify us at the first sign of the enemy."

  "Yes sir," said the grizzled veteran with the graying beard half way down his chest and a single silver bar on his collar. There was probably a bit of amusement in his voice. But if the "general" felt any offense at that amusement, he kept it to himself.

  The "lieutenant" left to deliver the orders. The "general" hid a sigh. This was his first time in the War Room and he was trying hard to keep up a good front. But he was scared. He had been doing fairly well in the standard games. A little too well, it turned out. He looked over at "Captain" Timriovich. At least Boris wasn't looking too happy either. The "general," actually Third Lieutenant Igor Milosevic, had made the mistake of cleaning up at the standard board games sent by Vladimir Petrovich Yaroslavich. They had become all the rage in Muscovite military circles. With serious wagering on the outcomes.

  Igor looked back at the map, then pointed at a hill just north of the map piece that represented his main army. "We'll build the temporary fort here." He then described how he wanted it organized. He really was good at this stuff when he managed to forget for a moment about the real generals breathing down his neck. Before he had finished the "lieutenant" returned. Igor didn't even notice.

  * * *

  The "lieutenant" did notice. Gorgii Ameroff was an old campaigner. His rank was between that of a major and lieutenant colonel. Just at the moment, he was caught between being thoroughly impressed and heartily offended. Impressed because the "general" was mostly doing it right. For too long, the years of campaigning had taught him not to expect "doing it right" from soldiers that young. Offended for mostly the same reason. Gorgii Ameroff was a member of the bureaucratic or service nobility and held, roughly, middle rank. Totally aside from his youth, the "general" was from a modest family, more merchant class than nobility. Gorgii was still trying to work out how he felt about that. It just didn't seem right that this baker's son would have such talent or potential to gain such rank. The changes brought on by the Ring of Fire were disturbing and they would be increasing now that Vladimir had sent not just books and games but a person. A real live up-timer.

  * * *

  Bernie was going nuts. He had been at the dacha for a while now, and was frustrated. He had run headlong into a massive wall of ignorance and arrogance. Mostly, but not entirely, his own.

  "What is a gravity feed?" Filip Pavlovich asked. "How can one make water grave and serious? Water does not flow because it is serious. Water flows because water wants to return to its proper level. Aristotle said it. So to make this 'seriousness feed' the book speaks of, you would have to make the water serious. How do you do that?" Filip Pavlovich was in part having a bit of fun with Bernie, but only in part. The use of the word gravity in describing the system of getting a liquid from one place to another was confusing and a bit irritating. It obviously meant something different than seriousness but he didn't know precisely what. Besides, explaining that new meaning was the up-timer idiot's job. Filip Pavlovich saw no reason not to have a little fun in the process.

  "It didn't say water falls because it is serious." Bernie tried clenching his teeth and counting to ten. "It said that the force of gravity causes it to fall. It didn't say anything about water being serious, for crying out loud. The force of gravity is a force of nature. Oh, hell . . . never mind. Let me think a minute."

  Bernie stormed away from the workshop. He had never thought himself arrogant. He just figured that among people who thought there were only six planets, he'd do all right. He'd tell them how to make stuff and they would. The problem was, Bernie didn't really know how to make stuff. He had quite a bit of the knowledge needed, but he had no idea how to put it together into a form that would produce a product.

  That should have been all right. There were a number of very bright, very creative, people at the Dacha. They had been arriving a few at a time. However, as yet there was very little crossover between what Bernie knew and what they knew. Their map of the world and his were so different that communicating, even with a good translator, was difficult.

  Right at the moment, the problem was with the toilets. The manuals talked about a gravity feed. To the local experts, gravity meant "dignity or sobriety of bearing." In fact, though Bernie didn't know it, the gravity feed was something they already understood quite well. However, the terms were different. They would have called it a "natural flow feed" or something similar. That would have referred to Aristotle's assertion that there were natural and unnatural types of motion. Water flowing down hill was natural motion. There was no force that made things fall. Things fell because things had a natural desire to go where they belonged. Steam went into the air and rocks onto the ground because that's where they belonged. Water, as was the case here, just naturally wanted to travel to the lowest point. Granted, Galileo had chipped around the edges of Aristotle, but just around the edges. Besides, few people here had read Galileo.

  Bernie didn't know it, but an extension of this Aristotelian world view had led to many of the concepts that the up-timers thought of as superstition. After all, if water just naturally wanted to flow down hill, didn't it make sense that a wheel would just naturally want to turn, that a candle would just
naturally want to burn? That any device that was made well enough would want to perform its natural function and, given the opportunity, would do so on its own? And if water had a natural desire to flow down hill, what about people? Was it not self evident that people were innately good or innately evil? Innately superior or innately inferior, good blood, bad blood?

  It was a subtle but profound difference in the way people thought about the world. The early modern period, the period the Ring of Fire had thrust the West Virginia mining town into, was when that notion of a world where things did what they did because it was their nature to do so was being replaced. Slowly, one chip at a time, with the notion that things happened because of external forces like gravity and drag. But it hadn't happened yet. It would have been Newton who really shifted the world view and he hadn't been born yet. He probably wouldn't be born in this universe. Here it would be Grantville that the change spun on, and the change would come much faster. Worse, Muscovy, in general, was lagging about two hundred years behind the rest of Europe.

  Bernie didn't know any of that; he didn't even know that Aristotle had gotten it wrong. He knew Newton had some laws—three, he thought. He sort of thought that Einstein had gotten it right and corrected the bits that Newton had gotten wrong with his theory of relativity. That was how the A bomb worked. More importantly, Bernie didn't know that the problems sprung from a difference in world view. Half the time he thought they were playing with him. Half the time he thought they were idiots, and half the time he thought he must be the idiot. There were too many halves of Russia.

  Bernie entered the kitchen of the dacha and sat at the table. "Marpa Pavlovna, may I have a beer, please?" When the cook nodded, Bernie leaned back and tried to figure out how to explain gravity.

  The cook handed him a beer. His "Thanks" was a bit absent minded. At the same time she also put a plate of ham and cheese sandwiches in front of him. He'd had a little trouble explaining to Natasha Petrovna that no, he didn't want to stop work in the middle of the day and have a big meal then take a nap. It was weird. Everybody in Russia took a siesta in the middle of the day. Bernie had thought that only happened in, like, Mexico.

  Bernie rubbed his temples with his fingers, trying to ease the headache he invariably got when he tried to explain a complex concept to Filip Pavlovich. In a few moments a pair of cool feeling hands began rubbing his temples for him. Bernie leaned back against the chair and let one of the maids, Fayina Lukyanovna take over. One of the things Vladimir had not lied about was the availability of willing women. Bernie had been being hit on ever since he had reached the dacha. Boris had told him that it was probably because they wanted to get information from him. That was fine with Bernie. He'd tell them anything they wanted to know.

  "What is now, Bernie?" Her voice was low, gentle. "'Sewer system' again?"

  Gravity was the least of his problems with the sewer system. Bernie had arrived at the dacha with complete designs for a toilet and complete designs for a septic system. But it wasn't working right. The toilet had backed up, the sink had backed up, the bathtub had backed up. Each and every one of them was producing the most awful stinks it had ever been his misfortune to smell. He couldn't use the indoor bathroom anymore. The room had been closed off and some pretty horrible sounds came from it. Bernie was pretty sure that the problem was in the septic system or in the pipes. He had finally remembered the U shaped pipes just below the sinks. He had had those installed and that had seemed to fix it for a little while. But then things got worse.

  "I don't know how to fix it." Bernie groaned. "God, your hands feel good. The bathroom is going to drive me crazy until I figure it out."

  "Natasha Petrovna wishes to speak to you." Fayina stopped rubbing his temples. She was dark haired and short, well padded. He noticed that she was wearing one of those crown-looking headdresses with her hair loose. Customs were different here. Confusing. Single women wore a smaller headdress than married women and left their hair loose. Married women kept their hair covered all the time. "New books have arrived from Grantville."

  * * *

  "I have good news for you, at any rate," Natasha said. "Here. You have letters. I have letters from Vladimir as well. And more books. Perhaps the answer will be in the new books."

  Bernie took his stack of letters, wondering who had written him. Dad wasn't much of a letter writer and his sisters, well, they were busy. The handwriting on the top one was vaguely familiar. And the envelopes, some of them, were from up-time. Bernie opened the first one carefully and read:

  Dear Bernie,

  Gosh, it's been a long time, hasn't it?

  I just wanted to let you know that the folks in Grantville haven't forgotten you.

  Also, your Dad and sisters are just fine. The CPE is having an effect on Grantville. Lots of people are moving. To Jena and Suhl and even Magdeburg. There's a contingent off in Franconia and a lot of the folks that got rich since the Ring of Fire have bought estates in the country with servants and the whole bit. But for every one that moves out, two or three down-timers move in. Then there are the tourists. Grantville is more crowded than ever. A lot of people are talking about moving their businesses to Magdeburg. Partly because its gonna be the capital of the CPE but partly because it's on the Elbe and materials will be cheaper there. Not to mention real estate.

  The new anchor at the TV station is all right, but she's no Becky. You felt like Becky was talking to you, not just reading stuff off a prompter.

  Anyway, things are rocking along just fine here. Wanted to let you know. Write me, why don't you? Tell us about life in the wilds of Russia.

  Best,

  Brandy.

  "Thank God." It was a relief to read something that wasn't an encyclopedia. "Someone who speaks my kind of English. Natasha, when can I send a letter back to Grantville?"

  Natasha looked up from her own letters. "The courier will leave tomorrow. You can send a letter with him." Bernie knew Natasha didn't approve of his tendency to sit in the kitchen. She was also the reason he was growing a beard, even though it itched. He still wasn't going to wear some silly robe out in public, though, no matter how much she nagged at him.

  "Good. I'll get right on it and have Grigorii make a drawing as well." When Bernie had arrived at the dacha, he had been introduced to a secretary and an artist. Grigorii Mikhailovich was the artist whose job it was to take Bernie's descriptions and very rough sketches and turn them into usable drawings. "Brandy can probably find out what I've done wrong. It's a darn good thing your brother stayed in Grantville. When I've finished the letter, I'll take a look through the books and stuff he sent. Maybe I can figure out how to explain gravity."

  "Seriousness?" Natasha's voice was curious. "Don't they know what seriousness is?"

  Bernie groaned. Then headed back to face the brain cases.

  * * *

  "Bernie Janovich, what is the center of gravity?" Pter Nickovich had been waiting impatiently while Bernie was out of the room. His English was not good and the discussion of gravity was more confusing than helpful. He knew there was something there because the notes he had received on flight mentioned gravity regularly. Center of gravity, specifically. He sat and thought, giving no sign how much it hurt him not to understand about gravity and how to fly. Finally, Bernie returned with the letters and Pter asked his question before the sewer system could distract them again.

  "Hey, I actually know that one." Bernie grinned at Pter. "Cars need a low center of gravity for stability."

  Pter just looked at him. As usual, Bernie hadn't explained anything.

  Bernie lost his grin. "Okay. Try it this way. Bend over." Bernie bent over. "As your head moves forward, your rear end moves backward, otherwise you fall on your face. That's to keep your center of gravity over your feet." Bernie stood up again. "Try to balance something on one finger. It's the same thing. To keep it balanced you have to keep your finger under the center of gravity."

  "You mean that center of gravity just means the point of balanc
e?" Pter couldn't help his look of shock. "The place where you would place the fulcrum?"

  The outlander shrugged. "Pretty much."

  Pter considered, then asked. "Then why does how high the center of gravity is matter?"

  "There is other stuff besides gravity. Centrifugal force and stuff."

  "Explain that, if you would." Pter tried not to grit his teeth. He knew he was close to something but wasn't sure what. He listened to Bernie's rambling explanation. It was there he knew, if he could just grasp it. The secret to everything. It came in bits and drabs . . . gravity was a force like centrifugal force. Then another piece when Bernie squared his stance and had someone push from the side. The person pushing on him to try and over balance him was a force. The key came when he asked why they used rockets to get to the moon. "Why not wings?"

  "No air in space."

  "Why not?"

  "Gravity, dude," an obviously frustrated Bernie insisted.

  Pter froze. He could see it in his minds eye. "How much does air weigh?"

  "I don't know." Bernie shrugged. "It's pretty light; we can look it up. Uh . . . maybe not, but we can write Vladimir about it."

  The outlander didn't realize. How much air weighed didn't really matter. What mattered was that air weighed. That it had weight. It was pulled down to the ground by a force; water was, too, but more so. They wouldn't have to look the weight of air up, Pter could think of several ways to work it out. Looking it up might be easier if it was in one of the books. The important point was that air had weight. That was how the balloons worked. That was how it all worked.