Grantville Gazette-Volume XI

by Eric Flint

  At dusk, the Minquas attacked. Several feet of icy water still separated the exposed part of the ice from the actual bank. Hence, they had to first leap across the water, onto the midget iceberg, then clamber onto the bowsprit, which pointed landward.

  Two of the Indians made it onto the ice, but were confronted by all eight of the crew, armed and armoured. They retreated. Throughout the night, David kept two men on the alert at the bowsprit, and the others slept on deck, in their armor, with their weapons beside them.

  At dawn, they were still alive. Standing, half-asleep, David read to them. "Let us, with a gladsome mind, praise the Lord, for He is kind."

  The river rose. The ice floated away from shore, carrying the Eikhoorn with it. The iceberg ran aground on a sandbar, and the river swirled angrily around them. The ship creaked in response, and David wondered how long it could endure this treatment.

  Then the Indians who were their foe unwittingly became their saviours. The lookout spotted two dugout canoes, unmanned, floating toward them. At David's order, the crew caught them, and pushed them under the bow. As the waters rose still further, they buoyed up the canoes, and thus the Eikhoorn's bow as well. At last, when David had almost given up hope that this ploy would succeed, the Eikhoorn was freed from the ice.

  By the fourteenth, the wind shifted to the southwest, and brought in warmer air. The ice softened into slush. At their first opportunity, the crew gathered stones for ballast, to restore the yacht's balance. Soon, they were back in Zuidt River Bay.

  * * *

  By the end of March, it was clear that the whaling had been a failure. Jan's people had harpooned seventeen whales, but had little to show for it. Most had been struck in the tail, whereas a Basque or Cape Verde harpooner would have aimed for (and hit) the fore-part of the back. As a result, only seven carcasses had been brought in, and those were the puniest of the lot.

  David sighed. "Thirty-two barrels of train oil. My partners will be furious."

  "It's not your fault that they didn't give you experienced harpooners, or proper whaleboats, or strong enough cables or winches to handle the larger whales," said Heyndrick. "Godijn chose the ships and the whaling expert." They were back on the Walvis, where Jan couldn't hear them. Still, he kept his voice down.

  "Godijn won't remember that when I return," said David gloomily. "I will be thrown to the sharks.

  "But that's how it goes." David raised his voice. "Helmsman, set a course for Nieuw Amsterdam. Pieter, signal the Eikhoorn to follow."

  David turned to Heyndrick. "After we re-provision there, we'll head home. And then I am going to find myself a new patroonate, and new partners. Ones with more trust in my judgment."

  Grantville, July, 1633

  The theater at the Higgins Hotel was packed with people. The men wore everything from a twentieth-century jacket, pants, and tie, to seventeenth-century breeches, blouse and cloak. The women were even more varied in their appearance; black cocktail dresses for some, bodice and bell skirts for others. And of course there were those who wore some combination of up-time and down-time styles, or who had decided to copy a garment of the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries.

  "This is a madhouse," said de Vries. He was seated at a small table at the front of the theater.

  Kaspar Heesters, an Amsterdamer who had escorted David to Grantville, shrugged. "There's method in their madness."

  Hugh Lowe, the former President of the Grantville Chamber of Commerce, tapped the microphone. The loudspeaker squealed. "Can everyone hear me? Welcome to the Grantville Investment Roundtable.

  "Our first guest is Captain David Pieterszoon De Vries, a patroon of the Dutch West India Company. He has an investment proposal for us. Remember, Captain, we limit the summaries to two minutes. Here, speak into the mike." He put it in front of de Vries, who stood up.

  "Thank you, Herr Lowe. My proposal is to establish a colony in Surinam. That is the Dutch name for the Wild Coast, the area of northern South America between the Orinoco and the Amazon. The English call it Guyana.

  "I intend to transfer my patroon privileges in the West India Company from America to Guyana. I would be entitle to a patroonate of, oh, about twelve hundred square miles." There was a gasp from somewhere in the audience.

  "This would be, primarily, an agricultural colony. It would grow tobacco and cotton, of a surety. Orlean, too, that's an Indian dye plant. Sugar cane, if we can find a suitable teacher. And I hope that there may be plants not yet known to us which are of value.

  "As to other possibilities, once the colony is established, I can take a yacht upriver, to look for the gold which Guyana is reputed to possess." He was referring to the legend of El Dorado, and the Lake of Manoa. "Or I can take my squadron privateering; that can be very lucrative."

  David finished off by discussing how much money he was trying to raise, and what it would be spent on. "There is a—" He looked blank for a moment.

  "Handout," whispered Kaspar.

  "—handout by the door. Thank you for listening to me." He sat down.

  "Are there any questions for the captain?" said Hugh.

  David Bartley stood up. "Aren't you worried that the Spanish will wipe out your colony?"

  David de Vries was surprised that a youngster would ask questions in such a gathering, but answered his question politely. "There are already Dutch, French and English settlements on the Wild Coast, and the Spanish have simply ignored them."

  "And where are you going to get your colonists? I don't think you're going to find many here in Grantville."

  "There are many displaced peasants in Germany and Flanders, thanks to the wars. This would be their big chance to own land of their own."

  Chad Jenkins, one of the major landowners in Grantville, stood up. "Captain De Vries, you are going to have to find a suitable site for this colony of yours. Do you have experience as an explorer?

  "Yes, in the Barents Sea, in my youth, and more recently in the Americas, between the Zuidt and Noord Rivers."

  "The South and North." Kaspar Heesters explained. "What up-timers would call the Delaware and Hudson Rivers."

  Chad wasn't finished. "And have you been in more tropical climes?"

  "I spent several years with Coen in the East Indies, and I also visited several islands of the West Indies on my last voyage."

  Claus Junker raised a newspaper. "Joe Buckley says here that you were involved in the Zwaanandael disaster. The attempt to found a colony in Delaware."

  David's face reddened. "That was hardly my fault. I had sought the command of the first expedition, but it was denied. Indeed, I had to stay at home, trusting to the leaders picked by my partners. And on the second trip, it was the so-called whaling expert who failed, not me."

  Endres Ritter chimed in. "You know all about financial disasters caused by picking the wrong partners, don't you, Claus?" It was a reference to Claus' ill-fated investment in microwave ovens. The two men glared at each other.

  Claus returned to his original target. "But even if it weren't your fault, your . . . association with a failed venture has made it difficult for you to raise money for your latest enterprise, hasn't it?"

  David folded his arms. "It made it difficult for me to fund it myself. But I do have prospective investors. Jan Bicker of Amsterdam, for one. And two of his friends." There was an answering murmur from the financiers in the room. "Coming here was not a necessity. I was hoping to raise more money, be able to give the colony a more secure foundation.

  "And I hoped that there might be some Germans here who had a yen to own their own farm in the New World."

  An up-timer stood up. "And I imagine your colonists are going to steal their new farmland from the natives. And then either force them into labor, or kill them outright."

  "That's Andrew Yost," Kaspar whispered to David. "He's manager of the Grantville Freedom Arches, and one of the leaders in the local Committee of Correspondence. I told you about that."

  "Herr Yost, if you examine the history of what someo
ne earlier referred to as the 'Zwaanandael disaster,' you will find that despite great provocation—the murder of thirty settlers in America while I was still in the Netherlands—I did not retaliate in kind. I was able to trade for furs, with the Lenape. And I kept all of my crew alive, without having to kill any Indians."

  A gentleman with a moustache and a goatee stood up. He was dressed in a staggering variety of colors, leaving David with the impression of a somewhat cadaverous peacock. "Captain, I am Doctor Phillip Theophrastus Gribbleflotz. You mentioned mining for gold. But there is a mineral, prolific in Guyana, which is a necessary precursor to the preparation of the 'Quinta Essentia of the Human Humors.' This mineral is called bauxite. Perhaps—"

  "No," Tracy Kubiak moaned. "Not aluminum, again."

  Doctor Phil sighed. "Perhaps we should talk about it privately. I will call upon you."

  There were no more questions. Hugh Lowe repositioned the mike. "Okay, our next speaker is going to bring us an update on the concrete project. . . ."

  * * *

  "Captain, I am Johann Georg Hardegg, of the law firm of Hardegg, Selfisch, and Krapp. My clients were quite interested in your presentation last week. They think there could be some commonality of interest."

  "I beg your pardon?" said David. He had learned English in his youth, but he wasn't sure whether that was what Hardegg was speaking.

  "He thinks you can work together," Kaspar explained.

  "If you will follow me, I will introduce to the principal members. "

  They walked down an elegantly decorated corridor of the Higgins Hotel, and Hardegg knocked on the door. David heard a muffled "About time."

  There were both up-timers and down-timers in the room. David recognized several of them, and exchanged greetings with Hugh Lowe and Endres Ritter. There was no sign of Claus Junker.

  The nobleman at the head of the table said, "My name is Count August von Sommersburg. I am also the Secretary of Transportation of the USE." David bowed.

  "Our group has some interest in that part of the world. For example, in Trinidad. It has great deposits of tar."

  "The place Sir Walter Raleigh visited when he needed to caulk his ships?"

  "Yes, that's right. We can use that tar in road building. Then there is a material called rubber. It's used in the tires of our cars. The rubber comes from—call it the sap—of certain trees."

  David raised his hand. "I know nothing about trees."

  "That's all right. We have a tree expert who wants to go to Guyana to study and do research. As for your proposed colony, Captain, hopefully it will be able to tap the Guyana rubber trees. If not, we have some other economically interesting plants which we are hoping can grow there. Coconut palms, coffee, a few others. Of course, you should be looking for native plants of value."

  "Tell him about the other rubber trees," urged Joseph Stull. He was the SoTF Secretary of Transportation.

  The count nodded. "If we can't get rubber from Guyana, you'll have to go into the Viceroyalty of New Spain."

  David steepled his fingers. "They don't exactly welcome foreigners."

  "The source we're interested in is pretty far from the Spanish towns. Here, let me show you on a map." He rolled one out on the table. He jabbed a finger down. "There." He was pointing at southern Honduras.

  "Hmm," said David. "That's convenient." He pointed to the eastern coast. "Here—" he twirled his finger over the Bay of Honduras "—that's prime hunting ground for capturing Spanish galleons."

  Hugh Lowe shook his head. "We aren't interested in privateering. We don't see a distinction between it and piracy."

  "Oh, no? I think Dutch privateers capture a ship a week in that part of the world. Galleons, caravels and coasters. Ship and cargo worth as much as two hundred thousand guilders."

  Someone in the back of the room muttered, "let's keep our options open, then. It's not like the Spanish are friendly to us."

  "You have been in sea battles, Captain?" asked the count.

  Kaspar interrupted. "Captain De Vries is famous in that regard. He had some great victories against the Barbary pirates."

  "But no Spanish treasure ships came my way, unfortunately," David admitted. "Or I wouldn't be talking to you now."

  * * *

  "So, Captain, I understand that your only reservation to our 'counterproposal' is the choice of a woman, Maria Vorst, as your, uh, 'Chief Science Officer.'"

  "That's right, Herr Lowe. I am sure that she knows her plants and all, but I don't believe that she can possibly comprehend the rigors of an expedition.

  "It is true that there are Dutch colonists already in Guyana—at Fort Kykoveral on the Essequibo—but I doubt that there are any white women among them. It would be one thing if she were going to stay in the new colony, but she intends to join us in exploring the rainforest.

  "Moreover, it is quite possible that we will have to go to the Miskito Coast for this rubber, which will put her in hazard of capture, and worse, by the Spanish.

  "How can I agree to put this delicate flower of Dutch society into such straits?"

  "Hmm, well, you did agree that it was only fair to meet her before making any decisions."

  "Yes, I so agreed. I am not sure why we had to meet out here."

  "I think she wanted to show you something."

  They stood on a hill near the southwest rim of the Ring Wall. When Grantville was deposited into seventeenth-century Thuringia, it was such a way that, in general, the Grantville terrain was lower than the surrounding Thuringian land. Nowhere was the transition more dramatic than here in the southwest, where the Ring separated the power plant from the castle of Schwarzburg.

  "Well, I can't complain about the view." Where the Ring Wall was intact, it was perfectly smooth, and shone like a mirror in the morning sunlight. Some of the rock had been destabilized by the change, and had fallen onto the American side. The Schwarza river dropped sharply, perhaps fifteen feet, forming the Schwarza waterfall. It was a triangular curtain of water, higher on river left than river right. It then descended, in a series of smaller drops and rapids, over the bed newly formed by the fallen rock, to the Grantville valley floor. The path was not a straight one. First, it paralleled the Ring Wall, then it curved away. Ultimately, the water entered the Spring Branch, a tributary of Buffalo Creek.

  "So, when will I meet this Maria?"

  "Here she comes now." Lowe pointed upriver, at a lone figure in a bright red kayak at the top of the falls. As David gaped, the kayaker pencilled over. David ran to a better vantage point, expecting to see an overturned kayak, and perhaps, a lifeless body spinning in the foam.

  Maria was already past the hydraulic at the foot of the falls, and gave them a quick salute with her paddle as she rested in an eddy. She then paddled on. They watched as she boofed over a second, smaller waterfall.

  "So, I hope you are up to a bit of a hike, now. We have to go down to the valley floor so you can properly question this, uh, delicate flower of Dutch society."

  * * *

  To be continued

  Butterflies in the Kremlin, Part Four

  Written by Gorg Huff and Paula Goodlett

  Yaroslavich Dacha, outside of Moscow

  A Dissertation on the Value

  of Freedom and Security

  "Those that give up their freedom for a little temporary security deserve neither freedom or security and ultimately will lose both." So goes an up-time quote. This humble writer doesn't know if that's true or not. It is demonstrably true that the nation it comes from—founded on principles of freedom—grew to be one of the richest and most powerful in the world.

  That nation had no greater resources than the Russia of its time. But it had a great deal more wealth. Why is that, I wonder? The question troubles my sleep at night.

  The 'Time of Troubles' is a weak name for what Muscovy went though at the beginning of this century. It has perhaps made us a bit timid, afraid of freedom. It's so much easier when everyone knows their place and no one is allowed to
argue or try something new. So much safer it seems. But I wonder, safe for how long?

  The bandits are mostly gone from our roads and villages now. Surely that is a good thing. It seems worth a bit of freedom. What use, after all, is freedom to a man murdered by bandits? Is it worth, perhaps, the right of a serf to leave the lands of his lord? Some of those serfs might become bandits and make our roads unsafe yet again. Yet, why was this America, with its freedom, so rich? Where did its great wealth come from?

  Much of it came from people leaving their work and striking out on their own. From people who left their homes and tried to do something that they had never done before. A man named Bell tried to find a way to make the deaf hear. Instead he found a way to send his voice and thousands of other voices thousands of miles along a wire. Another man, named Edison, hated transcribing the messages he received to send on. So he made a machine that did the job. This type of event happened again and again and made the land that the up-timers came from the richest in their world. Was it the freedom that did it? I think it may have been. For the same rule that prevents a serf from becoming a bandit also prevents him from becoming an inventor, or a merchant.