Passages

by Olan Thorensen

  “Better still, many of those convinced customers told friends, family, and business connections about the secret miracle technique for better rides. I had more than six hundred orders without releasing a single spring. Of course, that will change quickly. The first modified wagons will be on the streets and roads in a sixday. After that, the secret will be out, but we’ll have sold a thousand wagons’ worth of springs, with more certain to be ordered before other smithies duplicate ours.”

  Stillum shrugged. “From that point on, it’ll be competing with other smithies for the leaf spring trade, but everyone in Kaledon will know it was my shop that introduced them—thanks to you. I think your reputation will spread, as word circulates that both the leaf spring and the safety pin came from Mark Kaldwel. I have a suspicion there will be more surprises from you, so if any future idea needs smithy work, come see me.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind, Stillum. As for my share of the leaf spring profits, give it to Argah, as we discussed, and he’ll see it gets to me. If things work out, you’ll see me again in Kaledon—I just can’t say exactly when.”

  When Mark left the smithy shop, he ruminated over Stillum’s interest in being part of future projects. Hmmm . . . eventually there will be a steel industry. How to start from scratch is something I’ll give serious thought to, well before the time comes. I wonder if potential partners would be either smiths like Stillum or the smelters where initial refining is done—or both. Food for thought.

  An hour later, Mark and the rest of their party departed Kaledon, heading east toward Tregallon.

  ***

  Hundreds of miles above Anyar, one of a set of geosynchronous observation satellites downloaded a packet of data to an AI’s station also circling the planet. The AI scanned the data, extracted individual pieces of information for cataloging and cross-referencing, and archived the entire download. Among the observations not deemed important enough for further study was the periodic gathering of humans in city plazas. The AI’s reference banks suggested the gatherings were related to local economies—buying and selling various goods. Among the ignored market days was one in the city of Kaledon, realm of Frangel, Drilmar continent—not that the AI knew the names assigned by resident humans. A fractional second consideration of the data occurred only because a human from Earth had been deposited on a beach east of the city. Another fractional second analysis failed to find a reason to associate the market day with the human, and the AI continued its analysis.

  CHAPTER 11

  WEAVING

  Although buoyed by the safety pin and leaf spring sales, Mark never lost sight that the success was transitory. Other craftsmen were already starting to sell copies of both products in Kaledon, as confirmed by messages from Argah and Stillum. Mark and Wiflow discussed stepwise pin production cutbacks for Brawsea in similar anticipation of other producers jumping into the market in that city. They were also prepared for inevitable price reductions when the market became saturated.

  “I figure it’s worth continuing to make the pins as long as the price stays above five pins per copper/silver coin,” Wiflow had told Mark, after accounting for the last month’s books. “Below that and the transport to Kaledon and sharing with Argah will make it a losing effort. Your idea of selling the pins as ‘Genuine Tregallon’ pins will help for a while until people realize there’s no functional difference between ours and others. For Brawsea, we’ll see how that goes and if we can arrange to work with someone there to handle things. I’ve mentioned the possibility of Landylbury and beyond Frangel, but I’ve come around to being more cautious. Such an expansion might be possible, but I don’t want to lose the coin we’re making by being too ambitious.”

  Mark didn’t disagree. They had already evaluated the future of the safety pin market, and he suspected Wiflow was content to go back to his normal jewelry trade—albeit significantly richer than before. In contrast, Mark was eager to move on.

  However, the production cutback would happen only after stockpiling for Mark’s intended campaign in the Brawsea market. From everything he’d heard, Frangel’s largest city and capital was more sophisticated than Kaledon and was the main international trading center of the realm.

  It also would give Mark a better introduction to the technological and political situation in Brawsea. That would prepare him for his next big introduction, the one he thought would give him the resources for what he really planned to introduce. This experience would be vital if he wanted to succeed in using his knowledge and experience in mechanical engineering, materials science, general science, and information from twenty-first century Earth to make major changes to Anyar’s 1700s technology.

  His ultimate projects would take coin. Lots of coin. Far more than the safety pin and leaf spring introductions could provide. He didn’t doubt he could come up with more simple innovations, but he needed a home run to amass the coin for things like Bessemer furnaces, steam engines, railroads, and—if he lived long enough and was successful enough—maybe internal combustion engines, aircraft, and who knew what else?

  But first things first. One successful innovation had to provide the coin for the next-level innovation, which would provide even more coin until he had the resources and reputation to do whatever he wanted.

  He also didn’t deceive himself that a position as a miracle worker, a genius, or someone inspired by whatever gods people believed in didn’t have its attractions.

  However, the long-term plan hinged on the next phase. What could he introduce that would yield magnitudes more coin than safety pins and leaf springs? While waiting for pin production to reach target numbers for Kaledon and Brawsea, he had partly filled the days by thinking long and hard. He obsessively visited Tregallon tradesmen’s and tradeswomen’s shops and talked to people until he exhausted any information they might have. This continued even after the solution had coalesced in his mind. Cloth making.

  He needed a product that couldn’t be immediately copied, as had happened with the safety pins and the leaf springs. Textiles seemed a promising candidate. During his stay with the Hoveys and his tours of tradespeople in Tregallon, he’d observed the current state of clothing production. A textile industry required isolating and processing fibers, spinning the fibers into yarn and thread, weaving cloth, and using the cloth to make articles of clothing. There were three sources of clothing: carry out all the steps within a family; buy products of one or more of the steps from another family or tradesperson—such as thread or cloth; or buy the clothing ready-made. As expected, the state of individual or family finances was usually the determining factor; that is, the wealthier the buyer, the more clothing was purchased already made. Conversely, the poorer the family, the more its members made their own clothing.

  Gwanel Hovey provided a convenient example. Mark watched her spin yarn and weave cloth on a loom she’d used for almost fifty years.

  “Why are you so interested in watching me spin and weave?” Gwanel asked one day after Mark had pestered her with questions.

  “I’m just curious how it’s done here in Tregallon. Is it the same everywhere in Frangel?”

  “Oh, the steps are the same, but I hear that in the bigger towns and cities there are more shops where a worker might only do one step. For example, one group might only spin, another group weaves cloth, and a third makes clothing out of the cloth. Sometimes all this is in a single large shop, and other times a shop might do only one of the steps and trade with other shops doing different steps.”

  “I see you spin two different kinds of fiber.” Baskets in Gwanel’s workspace had either a dark-brown fiber mass or a lighter-colored fiber that felt softer to Mark’s touch. The two fibers matched in appearance most of the clothing worn by the Hoveys and all the clothing Gwanel had provided to Mark before he earned enough to buy from Tregallon shops.

  She held up some of the dark-brown fiber. “This is sheared from krykors, then treated to make it ready to spin. I got this batch of fibers from a farmer who traded Ulwyn for a cooki
ng pot.”

  Mark translated to himself that the animal fibers were a type of wool, and the source was the ubiquitous sheep-size animal seen in town and on almost every farm or ranch Mark had passed by. He had also eaten stringy but savory krykor meat at the Hovey table and at the Crazy Squirrel pub.

  “And the other fiber?” he asked.

  “It’s flurox,” she said. “A plant I’m sure you’ve seen growing outside town on farms. It grows about waist high and has red flowers.”

  When he’d seen the fields, he had assumed it was a type of fodder crop.

  “I make all of our clothes,” said Gwanel. “I used to make the fibers myself when I was younger, but now I buy it from shops in Tregallon or occasionally directly from farmers on market day. Sometimes fiber is given to Ulwyn in trade.”

  Gwanel went on to summarize making flurox fiber, a process that sounded similar to how Mark’s aunt made flax fibers she spun into thread. Aunt Betty was a fervent member of a colonial life reenactment society active in connection with a history museum in Pueblo, Colorado. She was always willing to describe her spinning and weaving hobby to a young nephew eager to ingratiate himself, in hopes of being rewarded with another of her products—large cookies.

  Mark’s settling on cloth weaving was facilitated by his past. During a two-week visit one summer, he’d helped his aunt pull flax from the ground, rinse off clinging dirt, and lay it all in a shallow wooden tank Uncle Bill had made for her. After a few days in the water warmed by the sun, the inner parts of the stalks had rotted enough—a process she called retting. To isolate the flax fibers, they beat the straw to break it and then separated the fibers from the stalk fragments using hand tools and combs, a two-step process called scutching and heckling. He was sure she had explained the origin of the words, but he couldn’t remember. The final product was flax ready to be spun into yarn.

  He had humored his aunt when she tried to convert him to weaving—it hadn’t succeeded. However, he sat through a few sessions of both spinning and weaving with Aunt Betty guiding him, step by step. Then, as a senior in high school, he was required to do a library project that involved researching and writing an extensive report on a topic of his choosing. His aunt suggested weaving and its influence, along with that of steam power, on the Industrial Revolution. Thus, what Mark lacked in practical experience was compensated for by his knowing it could be done and understanding the basic principles.

  Watching Gwanel spin flurox the first time brought back longings for Earth that he hadn’t felt for many months. He could almost imagine Aunt Betty and smell her cookies. Whether it was the connection to his past or the logic of the introduction, he didn’t know, but he settled on weaving as an innovation to introduce. He hoped this would give him the resources for what he really wanted to do.

  However, his plan to advance Anyar’s cloth making required constructing two machines unknown in Tregallon or the rest of Frangel—versions of the spinning jenny and a loom using a flying shuttle. Neither was useful without the other. The spinning jenny increased thread production by allowing the spinner to produce thread on multiple spindles at the same time. However, while this innovation alone would provide more thread for weavers, the increase in thread production was of limited utility without a concomitant increase in weaving speed. Similarly, the flying shuttle sped up the weaving process but was hampered by limited thread availability. Only when both innovations were operational would cloth production skyrocket and form a foundation Mark could ride to a true industrialization of Anyar.

  Mark didn’t want to offend Gwanel by not including her in the weaving innovation development, but he didn’t think she possessed the energy level he expected would be necessary. He also figured older weavers would be less receptive to changes in what they had been doing for decades.

  When he asked her to recommend other weavers in Tregallon, he groped to apologize for not inviting her to join the new project.

  “Don’t worry, Mark,” said Gwanel. ““I’m used to doing it the way I always have. It’s my way of relaxing. I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I tried to spin and weave a different way. You’ll also find other older women and men less likely to change. I suggest younger ones, like Dayna Firman. She does weaving only and is one of the best weavers in Tregallon, which doesn’t make her friends with some of the older women.”

  The next day, Mark explained the basics of the spinning jenny and the flying shuttle to Dayna Firman while twin one-year-old boys crawled around the floor of the main room of her family’s house.

  “Ser Kaldwel, you say this would speed up weaving, but I don’t understand exactly how it would work.”

  “That’s not necessary, Sen Firman. You, I, and a carpenter would work together to build a new loom that includes the speed loom.” Ulwyn had suggested that substituting speed loom for flying shuttle would make the process easier to visualize. Similarly, the spinning jenny would be known as the many spinner.

  “I’m confident that you’ll grasp it quickly once we begin designing the loom,” said Mark. “I expect it will take some time to work out all the details.”

  “I’m sorry, Ser Kaldwel, but even if your speed loom works, I can’t be taking time away from the work I already have, in addition to my home and children.”

  “Of course, I would pay you for your time spent on the speed loom project. Shall we say at twice the coin you normally receive for weaving?”

  “Twice—! Ah . . . I’ll have to talk with my husband, but I’m sure I can help you as long as my family doesn’t lose coin.”

  “Fine. Once I find a carpenter to work with us, I’ll let you know when we’ll start.”

  In the end, Mark committed to hiring Dayna’s husband, Holt Firman, as a foreman once all procedures were worked out and production ramped up. Holt was initially resistant to his wife working outside the home, but Mark made the offers of employment too good to pass up—once he decided Holt was a solid worker, honest, and not likely to be a detriment. However, Mark was convinced he needed Dayna.

  “No, Ser Kaldwel, I can’t work with you,” said Yurnel Borsan, a carpenter Ulwyn had suggested as the best loom maker in Tregallon. “I have enough orders for looms to keep me and my eldest son busy for most of the next year. However, I have an idea that might help both of us. My younger son, Kornel, is a fine craftsman, perhaps as good or better than me and my older son, but he’s too easily bored by most of our orders. I think he’ll grow out of it once he matures a bit and understands that responsibility means doing things you’d rather not do. Maybe working on this loom idea of yours will catch his interest. A break from our family business might also make him more content when he comes back to it.

  “However, he’s still a valuable worker, and you would need to pay me for the time he spends on your project. Shall we say at twice what he would earn for the family at our business?”

  Mark groaned to himself. Bargaining. Not one of his favorite things.

  Christ! he thought. Why not just tell me your best price, I’ll do mine, and we’ll meet in the middle right off?

  “Surely not twice?” answered Mark. Irritated or not, he had to play along with the custom. “I can argue I’m actually doing you a favor by giving your son something he can be enthusiastic about. You should just loan him to me part time since it won’t be full-time work.”

  In the end, they agreed Mark would pay one and a half the estimated value of the hours Kornel Borsan would work on the speed loom.

  After a frustrating session spent drawing a spinning jenny, Mark thought, Too bad the aliens couldn’t have given me a perfect memory, in addition to the nano-elements for disease and the quick healing.

  Mark then met with Dayna Firman and Kornel Borsan to go over the diagrams he’d struggled to come up with.

  It took two hours for Mark to be satisfied that Dayna and Kornel understood as much as he could communicate to them on the design of the many spinner and the speed loom. Kornel made several good suggestions that Mark agreed t
o.

  “We should start with the many spinner,” said Kornel. “From what I understand about weaving, if we can’t greatly increase the production of thread, then the speed loom isn’t going to be useful even if it works.”

  Dayna nodded vigorously. “It won’t make any difference how much faster the loom is if there’s not more thread. It would take too many hand spinners to feed a speed loom and would make the cost of the cloth too expensive.”

  “I also think the number of spindles should be reduced to two on the first machines, instead of the eight you propose,” said Kornel. “This is all so new, we need to make it as simple as possible until we see if it’s going to work at all. If we can get it to work with two spindles, then I don’t see a problem with increasing the number with some work. I’ll think about this, but I believe I can make a two-spindle spinner that can be modified for more—maybe up to eight or ten.”

  Mark felt encouraged by Kornel. The young carpenter might not believe the new machines would work as Mark described, but he obviously was enthused about trying to make them. Dayna was even less optimistic, though she pointed out an aspect that hadn’t occurred to Mark.

  “You realize that if the new loom works as you describe, I’ll be able to weave much wider cloth than before. Now, I’m limited to my arm spread to pass the shuttle through the shed, the space between separated warp threads. When a wider cloth is required, I need an assistant to help pass the shuttle, but that slows the weaving and costs more.”

  Satisfied he had launched Kornel and Dayna to work on the speed loom as well as he could, Mark left them. He worked separately with Kornel on the first model many spinner. He didn’t see any reason to mention a worry that might derail the entire project. He remembered that the early spinning jennies produced thread too weak for the warp, the longitudinal threads through which the transverse threads, the weft, were woven. Whether the local flurox plant fiber was naturally strong enough to overcome the spinning jenny’s limitations of thread strength had to wait for operational machines to be tested. He told himself that no matter what the results, he would find a way around any problems.