1636: The Viennese Waltz

CHAPTER 13

December 1634

Race Track City

“I heard that they killed someone in Grantville and that’s why they ran,” Gayleen Sanderlin said over coffee and pastries at the still-not-completed pastry shop. The shop was located about a hundred yards from the race track and mostly catered to the race track workers.

“I hadn’t heard that,” Dana Fortney said. “But we’ll know when the next letter from Grantville arrives. Thurn and Taxis are really good. I was surprised at the speed they can deliver mail.”

“Should we invite them over?” Hayley asked. “The up-timers, I mean, not Thurn and Taxis.”

“Let’s wait on that till we have a better handle on what happened,” Ron Sanderlin said. “I don’t know the Barclays, but Jay Barlow was one of that Club 250 bunch. For him to run off to live among down-timers, it would have to be something serious. I’m not sure that they are the sort of people we want to be involved with.” Ron Sanderlin was a reasonably bright guy, however it was the “think with his hands” sort of bright, not the book learning sort of bright. He had made it through high school, but barely. He wasn’t overly fond of the sort of self-important jerks who waved their credentials in everyone’s face. That was one reason he still wasn’t fond of Simpson, even if the guy had sort of reformed. This group, with Club 250 types and college grads who still couldn’t make it in Grantville, didn’t sound like anyone he wanted to meet.

University of Vienna

“No.” Peter Barclay looked around the classroom, and saw the lectern that they called a desk. “I doubt the Fortneys and Sanderlins will be much help. They are no doubt decent enough people of their sort, but they lack the education to be of much help to us. As I understand it, they have but two high school diplomas between them, and no university training at all.” Peter wasn’t in any mood to deal with people from Grantville who would look at him and his companions as traitors in spite of the fact that they were here, too.

“That was my impression as well,” Herr Doctor Himmler proclaimed from the lectern. “Craftsmen, useful at their craft, but lacking the understanding needed for higher callings.”

Peter Barclay had no idea why Herr Doctor Himmler was so willing to agree with him. He didn’t know that the doctor had heard about the Fortney family choosing Faust over himself to educate their children. Not, of course, that Herr Doctor Himmler would have taken the post had it been offered. . but it should have been. All Peter Barclay knew was that Herr Doctor Himmler was clearly pleased to hear anything bad about the up-timers who were already residing in-or rather, near-Vienna. In fact, there were a number of the elite of Vienna who were pleased to hear anything bad about any up-timer. Especially members of the Fortney and Sanderlin clans.

Dr. Himmler asked a question about steam and Peter gave him the formula for the calories needed to turn water into steam. Then another professor asked him another question and he answered it. Peter knew a lot of this stuff of the top of his head as much because of the work he had been doing since the Ring of Fire as because of the engineering degree he had gotten years before. He explained that internal combustion was more efficient, working at higher temperatures, and that because of weight, aircraft engines would have to use internal combustion engines. He knew, but didn’t point out, that up-time there had been at least one steam aircraft that had operated. However, he felt that with down-time tech the only way to make an engine that would work in a flying machine was internal combustion reciprocating engines. A project that he knew he was better qualified to lead than anyone else, even Hal Smith. Smith might be an aeronautical engineer, but Peter Barclay was a mechanical engineer, so knew more about the design of engines.

Fortney House, Race Track City

The mail arrived. There were letters from the Barbies to Hayley, from friends and family to the Sanderlins. Dana had one from her sister Holly, wanting reassurance that the evil Austrians weren’t holding them prisoner, and Sonny had a rather long one from a down-time friend named Cavriani. It was quite a long letter, full of gossip including quite a bit about Istvan Janoszi who had recruited the Sanderlins and him, and apparently had also had a major hand in the recruitment of the defectors. Sonny was more than a little disappointed in Janos Drugeth. He had thought better of the man. Both as spy and as a man.

* * *

The first meeting with the defectors was stiffly formal and polite. The Barclays were brought to Race Track City to look over the race track and comment. Comment they did, but later. For now, they made notes.

Sonny showed them the race track and told them about his idea to bank the track on either end.

Ron showed them the 240Z and the garage. Peter and Marina Barclay made notes and asked questions.

The adults mostly ignored the children who were carefully doing the “seen and not heard” bit, partly because the kids on both sides were aware that there were politics involved and didn’t want to be involved. And also because the kids-Hayley, Carla Ann, Brandon, and Thomas-knew each other from Grantville, having been in the same grades in the same schools.

* * *

“What are you guys doing about school?” Carla Ann asked. “I hate that we moved here before I graduated.”

“There is a school here for young ladies,” Hayley Fortney told her. “It’s run by the Jesuitesses, the English Ladies. But I’m being tutored and taking correspondence courses.”

“Why aren’t you in the school?”

“I think I may not be high class enough.” Hayley grinned. “After all, my dad’s just the assistant auto mechanic for the emperor’s car. Besides, I like having a tutor better.”

Carla Ann nodded. Of course Hayley Fortney of the Barbie Consortium has her own tutor. I’ll be lucky to get tuition to the English Ladies’ school.

* * *

“How are your rabbits?” Thomas Barclay asked Brandon.

“Acting like rabbits.” Brandon grinned. “Velma has another bunch in the oven and we should have more soon. With luck, satins will become a big seller. They have more meat than the local rabbits. I figure I’ll be able to sell a bunch of breeding pairs.”

“Why not sell the meat and keep the breeding pairs?”

“That would be stupid. It would make a lot of folks mad and we don’t need the hassle.” Brandon didn’t say that his original plan had been to do just that and Hayley had jumped on him about it, then gone to Mom, who had made it clear that if he tried it, she would take the rabbits away from him.

* * *

“What angle of ramp are you planning on?” Peter Barclay asked.

“About thirty degrees, I think. That’s what they had on NASCAR tracks up-time.” Truthfully, Sonny wasn’t sure. He had seen races up-time but he was hardly a NASCAR buff.

“I’ll calculate the angle that will be needed, assuming you can tell me the average and top speeds that will be used,” Peter Barclay declared.

Sonny shrugged. It wasn’t an issue that he felt was all that important.

Ron said, “Sure. Figure an average of around sixty and a top speed around one twenty, but that could go up in a few years.”

“I will look into it.”

“Well, if you do look into it, we’ll need it fairly quickly. His Majesty doesn’t want the track closed for months while you do your calculations,” Gayleen Sanderlin said. Gayleen wasn’t overly impressed by the new additions to the Viennese up-timer community.

* * *

“The track is dangerous as it stands now, and will become even more dangerous if they try to build their bank without the proper calculations,” Peter Barclay explained to Janos Drugeth and Gundaker von Liechtenstein that evening.

Janos wasn’t greatly swayed by Peter Barclay’s pronouncements, but Gundaker was. Gundaker wasn’t all that impressed by the up-timer engineer, but at least he was a scholar of sorts.

Carla Ann Barclay listened to the self-satisfied way that her father and Prince Gundaker decided that whatever the Sanderlins and the Fortneys had done was meaningless and unimportant because they weren’t the right sort of people. She had gotten that her whole life from her parents. Not the right color, not the right education, not the right “sort.” It amazed her how people so unsuccessful could be so full of themselves. Especially after the Ring of Fire, when Mom and Dad had become two of the very few people on earth that had actual up-time college degrees and they had still managed not to get much of anything done. And it wasn’t that they were stupid or incompetent, though her dad was certainly stupid when it came to people.

So was she, Carla knew, as much as she hated to admit it. But, damn, Hayley Fortney was part of the Barbie Consortium and they had gotten rich in less than two years after the Ring of Fire. And Mom and Dad didn’t even notice she was here. Well, Carla sure as hell wasn’t going to tell them.

English Ladies’ School, Vienna

A few days later, Carla Ann Barclay sat and waited as her parents discussed her future with the Jesuitesses. She felt like a spoiled child’s rag doll. The child would scream and throw a fit if it was taken away, but as soon as it was returned she would casually toss it into a corner. A dirty corner. The English Ladies’ school was the corner she was being tossed into and she had no idea how Jesuitesses would take to up-time knowledge. Honestly, she was a little worried that she would be facing exorcisms or the Inquisition.

It’s bad enough we got thrown back to this time, Carla Ann thought. But then my idiot parents do this to me!

* * *

The elite of Vienna came in two categories, townies and court, burghers of Vienna and the Hofbefreiten of the court. The Hofbefreiten included a lot more than Carla Ann had ever thought of as courtiers. Oh, the Hofbefreiten included the courtiers, but also the third assistant dressmaker to the Countess von Nowhere Important. Hofbefreiten were anyone who had some right to serve the court in some way and were therefore excused from the normal fees and rules that the burghers and craftsmen of Vienna had to deal with. Of course, most of Vienna wasn’t in either group. But the daughters of both courtiers and burghers went to the school of the English Ladies. There they mixed, as did their parents. Together they made up the people who mattered and they were busy those first days after Carla Ann joined them, figuring out where she fit in the category. Her parents were hired by the court, which was almost a unique status. Most people who worked for the emperor paid for the privilege and got some set of rights or privileges in exchange. From people like Wallenstein, who raised his army out of his own pocket to the guy who polished the emperor’s boots who paid for the right to do so then made his living selling boots. People who actually got paid by the emperor were few and far between. On the other hand, the Barclays weren’t actually being paid that much in comparison to what a clerk of the court made in bribes.

On the third hand, there was the fact that Carla Ann had actually experienced the Ring of Fire. What it all came down to was that the other girls weren’t at all sure what to do with her and she had the potential to take over the queen bee slot so far as the school hierarchy was concerned.

That status was as obvious to the English Ladies as to the students, and they, in all honesty, were as curious about the Ring of Fire as anyone else. With their leader, Mary Ward, in Grantville at last report, the English Ladies were still more curious.

* * *

Carla Ann caught the ferry out to Race Track City the first Saturday after they got to Vienna. She wasn’t the only one; two of the girls from the English Ladies’ school had gone out to see the emperor making laps, something that the emperor did most Saturdays. The other two girls were wearing seventeenth-century chic. Carla was wearing a mix. She had on a paisley blouse that would cost a fortune down-time, if less of a fortune now than just after the Ring of Fire. Jacquard looms had been appearing all over Europe for the last couple of years, and the price for down-time made paisley was just exorbitant, not armed robbery. However, Carla’s blouse was an actual up-time blouse. She didn’t have much money, but she did have some clothes that her sister didn’t want. She was also wearing a used navy peacoat, which wasn’t fashionable but was darn sure necessary in Vienna in December during the Little Ice Age. A long split skirt hid the heavy wool socks that went up to her knees, and she’d sneaked a pair of her sister Suzi’s combat boots to wear. They looked ridiculous, but the other girls thought they were the height of fashion.

The boat stopped at a dock on the river and the girls had to walk about a mile on a pretty smooth dirt road. They could see where the workers were digging a channel to the race track, but the last of the canal to be dug was the part that connected to the river, so there was a stretch of about thirty yards between river and mostly dry canal works.

The morning was cold, but they were used to it, even Carla Ann. It took them about a half an hour to stroll to the race track, and by the time they got there Carla was wishing one of the girls had been willing to spring for a cab ride from the river to the track. There were cabs that made the trip, but that cost four pfennig each way. Worse, a pfennig wasn’t a penny; it was worth more than that. And Carla was on a pretty restricted allowance. Her parents had been provided with a place to stay, but they hadn’t been paid. And as things had turned out, they weren’t going to get paid. Instead, they were given Hofbefreiten status in exchange for consulting with the crown on demand. They had some money to start out, because they did get paid for the stuff they brought with them. But so far there wasn’t any work besides the work for the government. That wasn’t paid, so they were living off the money from the stuff they brought.

To Carla Ann, what all that meant was that she didn’t have any money to speak of and that lack was likely to put her in a bad spot in the English Ladies’ school. She needed a way to make some money of her own, and if any one in Vienna could tell her how it was Hayley Fortney.

* * *

There was no fee to watch the emperor race around the track, but for Carla Ann there wasn’t much excitement in it either. She had seen real NASCAR on TV up-time. One guy in a 240Z traveling at maybe 60 miles an hour didn’t get her blood pumping. The other girls were the next best thing to in awe, though, so Carla couldn’t let herself seem too bored.

While the other girls were watching the emperor go around in circles, Carla Ann slipped away and found Mr. Sanderlin, the younger one-she didn’t know his first name-and asked where Hayley was.

* * *

“Hey, Carla. What’s up?” Hayley said. She was in a shop behind the garage, working on what looked like an engine block with a big down-timer. There was actual glass in the windows of the shop. It had ripples in it, but it was glass.

“Are you building an engine?”

“Steam four cylinder,” Hayley said in English, then continued in German that was starting to take on an Austrian accent. “And Herr Groer here is the one building it. I’m just helping with the measuring. He’s a master smith and this thing is expected to put out about six horsepower when he gets it finished in another month or so.”

“Ah, isn’t that a pretty slow way to go about it? Hand building the engines, I mean? Is it the price of iron?”

“No, though the cost of iron has gone up even here,” Hayley said. “And it sure is a slow way to go about it. But building an engine factory would cost a fortune. And we can’t do it anyway, because we can’t afford the licensing fees.”

“Licensing fees?”

“Never mind,” Hayley said. “It’s silly, but it’s the rules. We could afford a few individual licenses, but the owner wants a fortune for the licences for mass production of engines.”

“What about steel?” Carla knew that the price of iron had gone through the roof in the USE since they got started on the railroads.

“Yes, it’s gone up even here, but they import up the Danube from Hungary and points south. They also have iron mines near Linz and just north of Judenburg. Plus, it’s both hard and expensive to ship anything heavy from Vienna-or just about anywhere in Austria-Hungary-to the USE. You either have to go around Europe by way of the Black Sea and Mediterranean, up the Spanish and French coasts, past England and around to the Baltic. Or you go over really bad land routes, through lots of little lordling’s territories. Either way, the price goes up a lot. So iron, copper, and a lot of stuff is cheaper here than in the USE.”

Hayley blathered on about the price of this and the shipping cost of that, and Carla finally couldn’t take it anymore. “Can I talk to you?” she blurted out.

Hayley didn’t wince, but Carla could tell she had to work at it. And Carla, a bright and fairly well-educated girl, knew why. Last year in Grantville, Hayley was always being hit on by people who wanted the Barbies to invest in something, or wanted Hayley to tell them what the Barbies were doing, or just loan them-better, give them-money. In a way, that was what Carla was here for and she hoped that them being the only up-timers would help.

Hayley gestured Carla to a bench and came over to sit down next to her. Hayley’s dark brown hair was held back with a scrunchy and there was a grease smudge on her forehead that Carla wanted to wipe away.

“What can I do here to make money?” Carla didn’t mean to say it that way, but it just spilled out of her mouth as soon as she opened it. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to blurt it out like that, but I don’t know how things work here. And. . well, Mom and Dad didn’t exactly ask my opinion before they brought me here.” Though she didn’t know it, that was the right thing to say.

“I’ll try to help,” Hayley said. “What do you know about?”

“I’ve been thinking about that. I was in theater arts at Grantville High, stage setting, some acting. I’ve learned German, of course, and some French and Latin. From before the Ring of Fire, I know tap dancing, though I’m out of practice. Mom and Dad had me taking lessons since I was six, and I didn’t like ballet as much as tap. And I can play the piano. Not real well, but I can play it. They made me take a gymnastics class on Saturdays. I’ve sort of kept that up since the Ring of Fire. Wednesdays were Japanese classes, ’cause Dad said the Japanese are really big in electronics.”

“I doubt Japanese is going to be much use, but maybe the piano.” Hayley paused a minute. “Do you know how a piano is made?”

“Sort of. I know the basics.”

“See if you can find out if anyone owns the patent on pianos. And if someone does, they probably don’t know how to build them. You can probably make some money working with whoever they have trying to build them. I don’t know about the tap dancing or gymnastics. Would the English Ladies think it was a good idea? Maybe you could teach tap or gymnastics at the English Ladies’ school.”

Carla grimaced at that.

“What’s wrong?”

“Well, it’s the school. The students aren’t the children of the washer woman. They’re pretty status conscious and I’m not sure how comfortable they would be with going to school with someone who is being paid by their parents to teach them something.”

“I’m glad we have the tutor,” Hayley said. “Are you doing the correspondence course?”

“No. No one knew we were leaving. I didn’t know we were leaving. We have some course work in the baggage we brought, but not enough. And it’s been turned over to the English Ladies as my tuition to the school.”

“Well, that’s good,” Hayley said. “At least some of it will get to the people here. What courses?”

“We have the textbooks I was using in Grantville, both a copy of the English version and new German version. Biology, comparative history and German lit, also stage dressing and blocking, and studio management. It’s the senior year stuff for theater arts behind-the-scenes program. Before this happened I was going to be the down-time Frank Capra or Busby Berkeley.

“But it’s just the text books, not the course notes and like I said, my parents gave them to the English Ladies, so I have to share them with the whole school. And it’s not like I can write back to Grantville and get another copy. I think the books are hot.”

Carla was trying very hard not to cry. None of this had been her idea, but she was going to be tarred with the same brush as her parents. It wasn’t fair.

“Well, I’ll talk to Herr Doctor Faust and see about getting your school copies of the course outlines.”

Carla choked a laugh. “Your tutor is Dr. Faust? Has he sold his soul yet?”

“No, but he does get teased about his name a lot,” Hayley said repressively. “The stories are over a hundred years old, even in this time. And his taking up natural philosophy rather than theology fit too well with the legends.”

“Sorry,” Carla said.

“It’s okay. He’s a nice guy, and I think he’s sensitive about it, even though he tries to laugh it off. So I thought I should warn you.” Hayley changed the subject. “I can write back to Grantville. Are there any messages you want me to send?”

“Yes, I had some friends who came to the school from Rudolstadt. Not that I have any idea what I’m going to say.”

Carla looked at her watch. It was a down-time-made pocket watch. Those could be had in Grantville and Magdeburg now. “Oh, shoot. The girls from school are watching the emperor. Do you know how long he’s going to be driving around the track?”

“Not long. He generally goes for about ten minutes at a stretch. You should probably get back to them.”

“About that, Hayley. Some of them have made some comments about you being just the daughter of a mechanic. Which they figure is about the same as a groom in the imperial stables. Should I tell them you’re part of the Barbie Consortium and could buy their parents out of pocket change? I don’t know if you’ve been keeping quiet about it on purpose or if they were just being snooty.”

“Well, they are just being snooty.” Hayley smiled. “What’s wrong with a groom, after all? But, no. Don’t tell them, please. I really don’t want them pressuring me, or their parents pressuring my family, about money.”

“I won’t say a thing.” Carla assured her, thinking, Well, that at least gives me an in.

“Thanks,” Hayley said. “And I’ll be thinking about what you can do to earn a bit of extra cash.”

* * *

Carla ended up too busy to do much in the way of starting businesses because the English Ladies put her to work teaching algebra to the young ladies of good family. Not on the basis of her owing it to them or anything. Just because she had had algebra and knew more about it than anyone else. About half Carla’s school day was spent as the teacher of this or that up-time discipline, often as not with two or three of the English Ladies as students. It put an uncomfortable distance between her and her fellow students, but the English Ladies didn’t seem to care.