Grantville Gazette 36

Equal Rights, Part One

June 3, 1631

The phone stopped ringing before Olivia Villareal could snap the spring into place and reach for a rag to wipe her hands. Then it started again. Four quick strides and she was out of the kitchen and across the front room.

"Hello?"

"Mom, you gotta get down here! The Wildman is raising hell. He's in the alley banging his piece-of-shit truck into the dumpster and the fence trying to turn around. He's hollering 'There's no business like show business' over and over! Jeez!"

"Did you call the cops?"

"They said they'll come when they can. I think something's going on downtown. His mother won't come, and Linda said she'd serve him on toast if she came at all. Hurry, Mom!"

"All right, try to keep the customers from getting upset. We'll get there as quick as we can. Carlos! Leanna needs us down at the laundromat, right away! Jimmy Wild's raising a ruckus."

Olivia's green pickup was the closest to the end of the driveway. She was already cranking the starter when her husband slid in carrying a baseball bat. If the cops weren't even coming, to heck with the driving ban.

When they jumped out two minutes later, the first thing she heard was violent retching. Jimmy had left his truck half on the sidewalk and was busy throwing up the entire contents of his gut, spewing all over the sidewalk almost in front of the Mi Casa Laundromat’s front door; it stunk like cheap liquor and old blood.

Jimmy caught his breath and looked up. "Jeez! Mary! What the fuck! Carlos! Livia!" He pointed at the alley that ran behind the building, and hollered, "Git back there, you lazy-ass bastards, and look-see!" Then he puked again. "Look in the god-danged damned shed! Monkeys! You domesticated turkeys! Idiots!" Jimmy's eyes shut tight; his knees went out from under him and he dropped onto the blacktop, hard. Blood spewed out from somewhere.

Leanna stammered, "Oh, crap! Maybe I should call an ambulance? Serve the creep right to drown in his own puke!"

Carlos was already around the corner of the building, with his bat up and ready for God-knows-what. Olivia, rooting in the glove compartment for her revolver, called out over her shoulder, "Yes, call the ambulance! He looks like he could die right there, you want that on your conscience? Whatever's going on, he's the only one who noticed it, so show some gratitude." She slid out of the truck and ran across the parking lot, to follow her husband.

There wasn't any noise coming from behind the place, so at least there wasn't a fight going on. Before she could catch up, Carlos appeared around the far corner, with the bat hanging loose in his hand and a half-stunned look on his face.

"What is it?"

"Take a look, Livie. Just take a look." He turned and pointed.

The gate in the chain link fence was hanging open, and the shed door was splintered where the lock had been. Even at first glance, she could see there was a whole lot missing. But whoever had done it was long gone. Carlos let loose for half a minute in Spanish, but there wasn't a thing they could do about it now. They went back around to the front.

Their sons, David and Jon, arrived on their bicycles from different directions. They were staring at Jimmy. Still acting like fool teen-agers, full of testosterone, and they didn't even have the excuse of being that young any more. The run-ins they’d had with Jimmy Wild since the Ring of Fire were just nasty. Pointless, too.

Leanna looked like she was about to speak, then stopped with her mouth half-open when she saw her father slump against the storefront. "It's bad, Le. Whoever busted in there knew his rocks. Everything that was worth anything is gone. The worst is that big South American cathedral geode-the jewelry and ornaments I could have made out of that would have carried us for a long time. Just as it was, it cost us a pile."

"Oh, Jeez, Dad, you think there's any chance of getting any of it back?"

His lips went hard. "It's been at least a month since the last time we were in that shed. Where we are here and now, yeah, there's thieves and robbers everyplace, but would any of them even know what those minerals were? And the chain on the gate was nipped with a bolt cutter. So what d'you think? Damn. That was half our business. What the hell are we gonna do for cash now? What the hell are we gonna do?"

Olivia laid her hand on her husband's forearm, the hand that wasn't carrying the pistol. "Carlos, bebe, hold yourself together. We've been through trouble before, we'll get through this. We still have the laundromat, we've got my writing, maybe you can get some commissions from Roth or get the mariachi band going again. We have our health, and we haven't even started rockhounding outside the Ring. We'll make it."

"The laundromat? My God, look how often we have to fix those old machines. Where are we going to get parts now?"

David got a blank look for a second, then he focused. "The machine shops?"

The ambulance siren sounded in the distance.

Padua

September

William Oughtred raised his eyes from the cards turned up on the table. Sir Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, was looking at him with a mixture of sympathy and amusement. "Alas, William. Shall you make good, now? Can you face the gates of Hell, should they stand open in this fabulous prodigy Grantville?"

"Gates of Hell, milord? For all the exaggeration and embroidery there likely is in the tales we've heard of the place, I deeply doubt that anyone less than the Almighty could have done such a work as to thrust an entire town from parts unknown into the heart of the Germanies. In truth, it's a place I would desire to see for myself, were it not for the expense of the journey."

Arundel's mouth pursed; he gazed at the candle light coming through the rich wine in his glass for a few moments, obviously considering something. "If you mean that, Master Oughtred, expense can be dealt with. Something of great consequence has happened; if we know nothing else, we know that. In place of garbled rumors, I would greatly value first-hand reports of the place and what it may mean to us, from a sober and clear-headed scholar. Such as yourself. If you wish to go, I shall meet the expense."

Oughtred's partner in the game just concluded, Arundel's foster son, James Rothrock, was flicking his eyes back and forth between them. The young man evidently had much yet to learn about the turn of a card. Well, he had much to learn about a great many things, though he was no laggard at the learning. "If Master Oughtred goes . . ."

The earl favored him with a slight smile. "Perhaps, James, but let us see what his letters tell us before we consider sending you as well. But this brings us to another thought: a man should not travel those roads alone, he should go with companions skilled at arms. And I know just who of this household has been showing signs of wanderlust of late." He turned his gaze toward the footman by the door. "Send for Tim Morton. And his son Jack."

Grantville High School

October

The office was full of warm colors and bright sunlight. The drawn-back yellow curtains framed a trickle of leaves falling onto the garden outside. The pictures on the wall portrayed not frowning men of power, but large groups of young people, mostly smiling. Graduating classes? Will had perhaps three seconds to take it all in, before the man behind the desk rose and extended his hand to be shaken. He was quite tall. "Doctor Oughtred? Thank you for coming." He waved toward a comfortable-looking armchair.

"You do me too much honor. The degree I hold is Master of Arts. From Cambridge."

"Oh, sorry about the mistake. You are William Oughtred, though, the mathematician? The inventor of the slide rule?"

"One of the contributors, at least. Is that what you wish to discuss?"

"Not exactly. I just wanted to be sure of who I was talking to. Look, my name's Len Trout. I'm the principal of this madhouse. When the school secretary spotted your name on the list of research center license holders, I got excited. I'll get right to the point. How'd you like to teach here?"

Will couldn't have been more surprised if the chair he was sitting in had spun thrice around and deposited a stein of the ThuringenGardens' best in his hand. "Teach? I thought your school was bringing great edifices of never-before-seen mathematics to this world. How could I help with that? I've barely begun the study."

"More than you'd think. You can teach Euclidean geometry, right?"

Will nodded.

"Solid geometry?"

Nod.

"Algebra?"

"Much of it. Some of the notation has changed, and there are theorems I've not seen before."

"And how long would it take you to catch up with that? A month? Two? Your reputation precedes you."

"Well . . ."

"Never mind, here's the point." Trout's hands waved with energy that had to find an outlet. "This place is bursting at the seams. We've got so many students now, we're running in shifts, and the Ring of Fire left a lot of our teachers up-time. The army and the military labs have taken some more. We're hurting. If you join us, and just teach an introductory course or two, you free somebody else up to teach trig. Or calculus. Or something more advanced. And it wouldn't surprise me any if you were teaching one of those courses yourself, a year from now. So whaddya say? Interested?"

Will took a few moments to catch up to the blizzard of words and consider the question, before responding. "There is a certain attraction to the notion." He paused.

Trout took that as an invitation to rush on. His finger came up, pointing vaguely off into an upper corner of the room. "Another thing, faculty can sit in on any lecture they want to, as long as there's space. It's one of the benefits."

"Hmmm, that could be of use. Having seen how the miracle slashed the very earth asunder, I've conceived a desire to understand what was done there. Perhaps there's learning here that could advance such an enterprise."

"Earth sciences? Sure. There's a lot of interest in that now; there are minerals we need to find, soon as we can. I'm recruiting for that department too."

"I shall look into that, then. However, it was for other reasons that I came to Grantville, and I have certain responsibilities. I have inquiries to make, letters to write . . ."

Trout's hand waved in a quick gesture of acceptance. "Pretty much every scholar who comes here does. So we pay by the course. You tell us how much you can handle. All right?"

"That does seem fair enough. There is one other matter. I have heard that professors here, or instructors, or however they are styled, are not required to take holy orders?"

Trout sat back in his chair, wide-eyed for a moment. "Holy orders? Good grief, no, this is a public school. Government here doesn't stick its fingers into religion, not allowed to, except to defend everybody's right to practice it whatever way they want. Or not practice it. Whatever."

"So the freedom of religion clause in your constitution is seriously meant and upheld, not a theoretical formalism of law?"

"Oh, yeah, it is. Better believe it."

Murphy's Run

April 1632, near Easter

Tim Morton was playing hide-and-go-seek with his stepdaughter Sybil near the edge of their land. Every time he found her-or she him-she squealed, pealing with joy. Sybil was such a pretty, red-haired poppet, just like her mother! Today it was sunny but cold, with snowy patches still lingering here and there. Tim dearly wanted to get her something nice. She was going to be four years old on Sunday. One thing to be said for Grantville, neither of his Deborah's little ones had died or even taken sick since they'd decided to marry last December and settle here. Between his son Jack and Deborah's girls, their pretty little house was packed so full they sounded like a chattering monkey horde.

Sybil came running from her hiding place, calling, "Lookit, Papa! Lookit I found! It looks like purple fire! Come here, Papa!" She grabbed onto his hand and tugged him to the edge of a melting snowbank a few yards from the Ring Wall.

The rock she held up to him was so pretty . . . and there were a good many little stones just like it, lying all over the side of the road! Hmmm. He knew a barkeep in Jena who had a jeweler for a steady customer. Maybe these pretty things would bring a bit of money, enough for a little present or two, just when there was the need. It could do no harm to mention that he'd found them near to the Ring Wall, when he went there next week.

God worked in mysterious ways, right enough.

"Let's show Mama!"

Tim smiled to himself and let her pull him along. If the little whirlwind was done with the game just now, there was that next letter to His Lordship awaiting his hand. What Arundel paid him for snatches of tavern gossip, those bits of political mumblings, wasn't a king's ransom, or even a swayback donkey's ransom, but it all helped. Pretty stones found in the dirt by a Ring-hacked roadside were for another day. Master Oughtred might fancy one of these bright shards, though, the old man being so keen to know what-all the Ring was made of.

Lower Buffalo Creek

Early June

"Does this look all right, Mrs. Penzey?"

Christie went over to look at what Hans Brinker was doing. The label on the sample box he'd just closed looked all right; the boy's name, a sample number, and the date. She turned her eyes toward the field book he was holding up. "You want to be able to find the exact place again, if something looks interesting after you examine your samples in the lab. You have the distances and bearings from the witness trees, but how about the elevation?"

"Oh. Stretch the tape measure up from the ground?"

"That'll work, for now. In a regular geological survey we'd have at least a compass equipped to measure elevation angle, of course. But you've got the idea."

Hans nodded and reached in his bag. She looked around to see how her other students were doing. Will Oughtred and Douglas Jones were doing as much in the way of coaching the kids, as practicing the techniques themselves. The sooner Jones could teach this course, the better.

When she got to the other end of her flock, she had a good view downstream, and saw a familiar figure working at something in the bank. "Hey, Carlos, got a minute? There are a couple of guys I'd like you to meet."

Padua

April 18, 1634

James Rothrock arrived at the blue salon out of breath. The earl of Arundel was gripping a printed publication so hard that it half-crumpled. He thrust it forward, saying, "Look!"

James took it and examined it. It proved to be one of the new scientific journals, printed in Leiden barely two months before. It fell open to a description of the inner structure of the Thuringian mountains, revealed by the Ring of Fire's awesome slicing.

The authors were Rev. William Oughtred, M.A. and two associates in natural philosophy whose names he had not seen before, a Carlos Villareal and a fellow of GreshamCollege named Douglas Jones.

James looked up in astonishment. The earl's face was grim, as he pointed to the top of the page. "You see the date of publication? It must have gone out at the time of my last letter to Oughtred, or not long after. And since that letter left my hands, nothing more, nothing to us."

He began to pace before the window, with a look of furious concentration on his face. It was a minute or two before he spoke again, slowly at first. "That, you will recall, was the letter inquiring as to anything he might know of the nature of the Ring's Fire, this strange gem which has become such a craze among the great and mighty.

"James, I'd felt that I was coming to know and understand Grantville, from his many letters and the writings of others that he sent. But now? I wonder how well I understand anything. One thing that I am certain of-I do not believe William Oughtred would cease writing of his own accord. So. Was I foolishly indiscreet? Has someone been reading our letters, and been moved by its mention to interfere? Or acted for some other reason? To what purpose? And, what harm might they have visited upon him in the doing, to bring about this silence?"

"Sir, you correspond with others there, do you not? Might you ask?"

"Humph. I correspond with Tim Morton, who kept him safe along the journey. But Morton fell silent as well, after that letter left my hands. He would be a much tougher nut to crack, but still, this worries me. What have we all stepped into?" He paced, twice more, back and forth. "Are they safe? Do they need our aid? And what else may be coming our way?"

George Bennet, a recent addition to their circle, had been gazing with dreamy bemusement at a painting on the wall. Now he turned and spoke for the first time. "We cannot answer these questions sitting here in Padua, milord."

"No. No, we cannot. And that being so . . ."

"It is necessary to go see."

"So it is, James. And further, this is no task to entrust to strangers. I understand that all too well." The earl gave him a sharp look. "I know your thought; I see it on your face. But this is no simple light-hearted adventure. It requires, above all, circumspection. If you go there, can you keep your eyes open and your mouth shut while you discover whether William Oughtred lives? Whether he needs rescue, or funds, or some other thing? Can you?"

"Yes. Certainly. Am I some witless maiden, to babble whatever comes into my head?"

"Good. And I have seen you at practice with arms, often enough. You've a fair hand. Still, it would be foolish to go alone into uncertain circumstances."

Bennet was looking their way as he leaned casually against a heavy reading table. "You'd wish me to ride with young James? Well, perhaps it's time to see other parts of the world once more."

"If you would, George. All right, let us consider details. It should be possible to join an armed party traveling in that direction for strength against ordinary brigands; I will have inquiries made. Probably best to communicate through the ordinary postal service; it's regular enough. Your letters can be made to appear as family correspondence. And on no account ask prying questions about the Ring's Fire, lest you attract attention you cannot fend off. If you come across common knowledge of the jewel, well and good, but Oughtred and the Mortons before anything! Once safe, then find some way they can get their messages to us again. Perhaps through Hartlib in Leiden."

Rothrock gave him a half-bow. "Just as you say."

May 4

Rothrock was bewildered.

Like many of these hill towns, Chiusa was beautiful. Vineyards stretched up toward the castle. Ceccoletto’s inn was most comfortable, and it would have been pleasurable to stop a while, but this was not meant to be some leisurely tour. Bennet had been no stranger to drink and the gaming table while in Padua, even to opium, but this obsession was something new. For two infuriating days, it proved impossible to pry him away from a card game with others of the party. Was this change only because they were no longer under Arundel's eye? When Bennet did emerge, he was filthy, not only with the dirt from the road, but also with grease and wine stains, and had a wild look at times. About four miles out of town Bennet decided to bathe in a cold stream. Unclothed, he exhibited livid purple bruising all over his torso. And his breath smelt bloody, like rotten meat.

Innsbruck was worse. Bennet went prowling for companionship; no whore would touch him after seeing his bare flesh. His conversation became truly foul; he spoke words Rothrock would not have repeated to a sailor. Bennet's headaches, the invariable coughing-up of blood with any exertion, were distressing to the entire party.

The air of relief was palpable as they passed Kamsdorf, and the party began to scatter upon private business. Rothrock and Bennet crossed into Grantville's awe-inspiring circle with the last of their companions.

****

"This? Do you imagine we are paupers?"

"Have you looked at the cost of accommodations in the town, George? Aside from that, milord Arundel bade us strenuously avoid attention. What do we need for the time we are here, beyond a place to sleep and keep our possessions? Small it may be, but it's clean, and the other tenants do not seem given to riotous living. And as far from the center of things as this rooming house is, the 'tram' is close by and not expensive."

"No, it's merely a rabbit warren full of common laborers. Well, I suppose it will do. We took enough time tramping about to find it."

"So we did. Let us speak to the landlord, then, and set about our business."

****

"This is a fool's errand, James!" Bennet turned over the last page of the months-old newspaper before him and dropped it onto the pile at his left hand. He glanced at the twilight outside the library's window. "At least let us go find something to fill our bellies, before the last of the light goes." One of the graybeards scribbling notes at the next table cast them a black look, and pointed a finger at the "Quiet, Please" sign on the end of a bookcase.

Rothrock leaned forward and spoke in a much lower voice. "Supper, yes, and perhaps a short stroll to relieve the kinks in our bones. Then we resume." His chair scraped as he rose and turned toward the main door. It was fortunate that there were cheap places to eat nearby if one did not insist on exotic up-time cookery, but then, not all of the scholars flocking to this place were blessed with jingling pockets.

Bennet fastened a sneer on his face as they headed down the driveway. "Do you really expect that we will happen on the trail of you-know-who this way? He whose name must not be spoken? The reference librarians supposedly can find out anything; why not just ask them where he is?"

"I wish, George. I wish we could know what is safe and what is not. I wish this town had one main square, where we could watch and wait, and be sure that everyone would pass by sooner or later. Slow and laborious it may be to winnow through telephone directories, and business directories, and newspaper archives looking for a hint, a clue, but it has the great virtue of anonymity. Until we know what has happened and what forces are at work, that counts for a great deal."

"The man himself seems to be anonymous. Who's Who in Grantville was disappointment enough. Perhaps he's not considered somebody, regardless of his accomplishments."

"Hardly. The preface explained clearly enough that it's merely a first attempt to list and describe the up-timers, of whom there will be no more. We must cast a wider net, and persevere."

A few minutes' walk brought them to the modest eatery they had settled into the habit of patronizing. It felt distinctly odd to be in a foreign place, and be addressed in English by the counter man. Not any sort of English they were accustomed to, or even the Americans were accustomed to, but English nevertheless, and mostly understandable. It was just as well; the man spoke no Latin, and they could afford little time as yet to make a serious start on German. Equally odd was the complete lack of table service, but perhaps that helped to explain the reasonable prices.

"How very dull this is! Be sure to boast to His Lordship of how well we dined in Grantville."

"George, your complaints grow dull. Perhaps, if all goes well, there may be enough left in our purses to sample other fare before we leave, but for now, it's as well to keep far away from the places the notables frequent. Until matters become clearer. Finished?" Rothrock rose from the bench and deposited his empty bowl on the shelf outside the kitchen.

It was a warm, pleasant night, with tiny creatures chirping everywhere. People dressed in all styles of clothing were leisurely strolling along the street; though the sky was full dark by then, there was no difficulty seeing their way. Enough of the lights on the poles outside the high school and library were kept in operation, that it was impossible for anyone to approach unobserved at any hour of the day or night. Master Oughtred's letters had made it all too clear why that was.

Rothrock managed to keep Bennet at the work for another hour. After that, he simply wandered off-presumably to a gaming table somewhere. I wish milord Arundel had sent someone else. Almost anyone else. He must have muttered it aloud; the Dane at the far corner of the reading table glanced at him for a moment and went back to his page-turning. Rothrock kept on until he could no longer absorb the words in front of him. Then he brought everything to the returns desk and set off for their lodgings. The tram ran at all hours.

****

By the time Bennet staggered in, Rothrock was already dressing. The sky would soon grow light. Rothrock came to a sudden decision.

"George, I believe it's time to take thought, and see some of the strangeness of this place for ourselves."

"Better than burying ourselves in musty words all day. What do you propose?"

"The high Ring Wall first, perhaps. The tram runs as far as the coal mine; the cliffs there are supposed to be striking in the morning light."

"Good enough, James, good enough. I can sleep later; I've done it often enough before. Ha! Onward to the tram stop."

****

It was, indeed, a rare sight. Once past the mine works, the view of the cliffs opened up. The changing colors of the eastern sky reflected from the perfectly spherical inner surface, rising from the valley floor to an astonishing height and incongruously topped with a ragged edge of soil and trees. Small sprays of miniature waterfalls flickered in the changing light. Part of the wall was adorned with striking diagonal bands; in places, it glittered.

As the sunlight reached the ground, Rothrock began to look more at their surroundings. In places, there were lines of dirt and gravel, where loose stuff must have fallen from the cliff top. Some untutored artist had painted a slapdash depiction of an up-time car, emerging from the cliff face where the cataclysm had made an end of the road. That seemed to catch Bennet's eye; he started to move closer.

"Have a care, George, the pamphlet warned against coming too close under that overhanging wall. See how much has already fallen!"

Bennet seemed oblivious. Suddenly he went to one knee beside the road, and pointing to the ground, exclaimed, "Look, James!" His head moved from side to side. He waved to Rothrock to stand behind him and look over his shoulder.

And there it was. A tiny fragment, too small to make out its shape, and as Rothrock moved to get a better view, the morning sunlight glinting from it changed from amber to violet. Rothrock sucked in his breath. He had seen this once before, at a salon in the company of the earl, set into a golden ring on the hand of a French nobleman. The enigmatic Ring's Fire. Here! Mere yards from the foot of the Ring Wall itself!

Rothrock's thoughts flew into turmoil. This chip itself was insignificant; it might bring a few shillings, conceivably a pound, nothing more. He looked more closely. The earth around it showed signs of considerable disturbance, and not recently. Someone had been thorough, and undoubtedly left nothing worth taking. But such things rarely are found atop the ground. Could it have fallen from above? While Bennet carefully lifted the little thing from its resting place with the tip of his dirk, Rothrock stepped back a hundred yards and looked again at the awesome wall. There was a man-high dark hole near the top, almost directly above the spot where George was rising to his feet. Perhaps . . .

****

Unlike some towns, Grantville didn't divide itself into different quarters where neighboring shops practiced related trades. On the contrary, this small shop dealing in an eclectic mix of unusual minerals, the tools and supplies for seeking them, and all manner of rugged outdoor equipment was tucked into a mechanical laundry. The building itself was a melange of construction styles.

Rothrock watched the girl behind the counter listing the climbing equipment in front of them on a printed rental contract form. She was a bit slow totaling the charges. Perhaps she was new to the abacus. Probably so; she worked the sum twice.

When she straightened up and separated the forms to hand him the "carbon copy," he was startled to see the signature at the bottom, Paola Villareal.

Villareal? Some relation? Do I dare try to make conversation, and see what we might learn from that?

Before he could carry the thought any further, she suddenly glared over his shoulder. When Rothrock followed her gaze, George Bennet was licking his lips lasciviously. He hurriedly concluded the business without another word, and directed a cold look at Bennet on the way out. "Have you lost all sense of where we are? It could be disastrous to attract the attention of those men in blue uniforms across the way. Our absent friend has written of them; they are expert at what they do. Merely because we see her flesh up to her knees does not make her a whore. Such is not the custom here."

Bennet laughed. "No, just a slut and maybe a witch. I've heard about up-timer women! The presumption of the temptresses is beyond belief!"

Rothrock was disquieted beyond words.

The Thuringen Gardens

June

The noon rush was about to hit. Carlos did a quick eyeball check of the stock behind the bar, to see what they'd need to bring up right away. A glitter in the lost-and-found box caught his eye. He picked it up for a better look. It was a little polycrystalline cluster, with a void near one end. Somebody had strung it on a leather shoelace, with a complicated knot. He tilted it. The color changed from burnt orange in one direction to purple the other way. Huh? What in hell? Ametrine? He mumbled, "How the heck did this turn up?"

Jake Chekhov was out front, wiping down tables. If Chekhov wasn't the king of grouches, he was at least a count. He half-turned his head and growled, "How is what a turnip?"

"Huh? Not a turnip, Jake. I said 'turn up.' It means, how did it get here?" It didn't make a damn bit of sense for a chunk of ametrine to be in Germany-or anywhere in Europe, for that matter. The part of South America that stuff came from probably hadn't even been explored yet.

Chekhov glanced at the cluster Carlos was holding, and said, "That junk? It was onna floor last night. I woulda swept it out, but that string says it belongs to somebody, so I stuck it in lost-and-found like you said to. Why?"

"Why is because it's a rare mineral. Really rare. If anybody asks, tell them I've got it. I want to show this to Oughtred and ask him if he's seen anything like it."

Chekhov got a funny look on his face. "That mean somebody'd pay money for it?"

"They would, up-time. But who the hell knows, now?"

July 9

A bang like a howitzer shook Carlos awake and blew away the remnants of his dream. Livie was up on her knees, looking out through the blinds with a broad grin on her face. She looked down at him when he moved. "Did you see that? What a heck of a fireworks show!"

Just as he turned his head to look, another blue-white lightning bolt lit up the sky. He pushed the covers off and swung around to see better. Livie moved in and put an arm around his shoulders. She kissed his earlobe for a moment, then looked out the bedroom window again. He glanced at her sidewise, speculatively. "Are you thinking about making some thunder of our own?"

"Could be, big boy, could be. Kiss me right here."

****

Olivia was humming to herself when Carlos finished shaving and came into the kitchen. "Toast'll be ready in a minute." She poured the coffee.

For a few minutes they didn't talk; they didn't need to. There were a few distant rumbles as the storm line moved on and the rain tapered away.

As Carlos finished washing up and put away the silverware, he snapped his fingers and pulled open the next drawer down. "Oh, yeah, don't want to forget this."

Olivia looked over at the small cluster of crystals he was holding, strung on a strip of leather. It didn't look familiar, but she'd never been quite the rockhound Carlos was. It was more the outdoors itself that she enjoyed. "Mm? What's that?"

"Real good question. It looks like ametrine, and that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The janitor found it on the floor at the Gardens. I want to show it to Will, and see if he's seen anything like it."

"Oh, yeah, it's about time to load up our gear and get over there, isn't it? I just wish he'd built up a little more rock climbing experience, before tackling this mineral survey grant on the Wall. If you ask me, all these down-timers take too many chances. As sensible as he is most of the time."

"Well, that's why we're going along this first time, right, to show him the ropes?"

Olivia stuck out her tongue and threw a gardening glove at his head.

"Seriously, it should be a lot more manageable once we help him get that first line of fixed anchor points set. And it's not like El Capitan, this is all business. Won't be any hot-dogging."

"Better not be. I'll give him an earful if he pushes things."

"Yes, Mother."

Murphy's Run

This was nothing like sport climbing. Will began by shooting an arrow trailing a lightweight cord across to where Carlos was standing on the clifftop. In a few minutes they had a line dropping from a solid-looking tree, protected by a heavy canvas covering where it went over the edge, coming down at an angle to their starting point on the south slope. Will anchored a second line close to where he and Olivia stood, and looked at her inquiringly. Olivia nodded. Good. They had a few minutes' wait, until Carlos could work his way back down through the woods. Olivia used the time for one more visual check of their equipment.

Carlos buckled on his harness and hung his gear, ready for use. "Will, suppose I demonstrate the first few, and then you take the lead? Livie, you want to belay?"

"That seems reasonable, Carlos."

"Sure. On belay."

Will watched closely while Carlos clipped onto both lines, then Olivia started carefully paying out slack in the side line from their starting point while he "ascended" the overhead line at a slant, ending up several yards out on the Wall at their original height. There was nothing but mirror-smooth hard rock wall at that spot. Carlos pulled a star drill and a hammer out of his tool belt, both of them secured with lanyards, and proceeded to drive a hole a couple inches deep. Next he brushed the dust out of the hole, tapped in a lead shield, and cranked a forged eyebolt into it and set a carabiner ring. Next, he hauled in the line that was to be left in place, slipped that and his trailing line into the ring, and closed it. No, this was nothing like sport climbing. This was somewhere between high construction work and ship rigging. "Want to watch another one, before we switch?"

"Yes, please."

"Okay, slack."

Will continued observing as Carlos maneuvered out further and set the next rock anchor.

"Very good, Carlos, I believe I understand it. Did you capture the dust you drilled out?"

"I got some of it. It's in these two bags. Just a second while I number them. After that, I'll come back and we can switch. Livie, you want to take up on the side line for me?"

Will turned and made a series of hand signals to the student down on the valley floor with a theodolite and a field book. There wasn't much wind, but it was still difficult to shout that far. Carlos came back to the starting point, and they went to work.

Along the Schwarzburg road

James Rothrock looked to be sure Bennet was ready to resume the upward trek. It was laborious to take a roundabout route up the slope to where it met the original Thuringian terrain, then up again on the hillside outside the Ring, but far easier and safer to climb to the clifftop and then descend by ropes, than attempting the route straight up to the cave above the place where George had found that tantalizing fragment.

This time they were bringing a collapsible canvas bucket and a spare line, so that they could haul away a much greater quantity of what they'd discovered than they could carry on their backs while climbing back up.

Rothrock casually glanced toward the Wall to his right, and froze. Another party had come into view around the flank of the cliff. That in itself was not to be wondered at, but . . . there was something familiar . . . He reached into the handcart, snatched at a side pocket of his backpack, and pulled out a small telescope. Bennet looked at him curiously as he focused the thing. He couldn't quite make out the faces, but by the shape of the man, and the rhythm of his movements, Rothrock knew. "Mars and Jupiter! George, Oughtred himself is crawling sideways across that cliff! What a strange way to proceed!"

"What? Let me see."

Rothrock passed over the instrument. Bennet stared at the cliffside for a short while. "There are two others there with him. Who do you imagine they could be?"

"Not anyone I can recognize, but by their size and the cut of their clothing, I should think up-timers, Americans, more than likely. We had best watch what they do, and not reveal ourselves until we know better what is happening here. Come, we can watch from under the trees there."

Hours passed. The party on the cliff moved slowly, starting and stopping, as if they were searching for something, or closely examining what they saw as they went along. But then . . .

"James! Look where they are now!" Rothrock saw, and his lips tightened. They were coming close to that cave, the one where they'd made their discovery. The party reached it. And went inside.

Rothrock stared in consternation. "Our mine is there! Do they intend to poach on it?"

"Ha! If they try, we could put a quick stop to that. After what we have risked, they certainly shall not."

"What? What do you mean?"

Bennet pointed to the far ridge, the one that held back a deep, still lake.

Rothrock could not stop his jaw from dropping. "Murder? Have you lost your mind? Why, by all that's holy? Our mining right is already recorded in the county archives! By the law here, it's ours! And even leaving that aside, how in the turmoil that would surely follow, could we accomplish the purpose for which we came here, to restore the correspondence between Oughtred and His Lordship?"

"Oh, a record, my young friend, a legally recorded right to bring forth what we found! Do you really imagine that these people, who made all these laws and offices for their own purposes, all of them related by blood, could find no way around that? Yes, we saw it recorded in ink in a bound record book. Do you care to wager that they couldn't cause it to vanish into thin air, like a conjurer's trick?"

Rothrock felt his face tighten.

Bennet laughed until he started coughing up blood, gagged on the clot until he spat it on the ground and could speak again. "He thinks nothing of showing that hidden place to those others. He shows not the least sense-nor, I do think, do you!"

"You call him a fool, now? Whether he is or not, remember our errand. We have found William Oughtred; he not only lives, he looks to be well. But now we must watch for a chance to speak with him in strict privacy, and learn whether he acts freely, or whether those strangers have some hold over him. Look, they have come out; they couldn't have penetrated so quickly to where we did. We shall watch where they go."

William Oughtred's cabin

Murphy's Run

It had been a pretty good day, with two rows of anchors set, but they'd all had enough. Carlos finished writing up his observations in one of Will's regular-size scientific notebooks, refreshing his memory from the little dollar-store address book Will carried in the field. He passed it over to Olivia, so she could make her own additions. It was just such a compliment that a real scientist thought a couple of country rock dealers had ideas worth listening to. And that's what he was now, too; it hadn't taken William Oughtred long to understand what Francis Bacon's controversial ideas would have flowered into, in another generation-not that Bacon was the only one questioning the old ideas of where knowledge came from.

About the time Will brought coffee to the table, along with some bread and cheese, Olivia put down her pen and looked up. "Carlos, what was that thing you wanted to show Will?"

"Oh. Yeah." Carlos picked his pack off the floor and dug into it. He laid the little crystal cluster on the table. "You've been looking at rocks all over the place. Seen anything like this?"

Will turned it back and forth in the late afternoon sunlight for a minute or so, then he got up and took down a box of labeled rock samples from an upper bookshelf. After a few seconds of poking around, he took one out.

"Here, Carlos. Tell me what you make of this. Tim Morton brought it to me two years ago, but as yet I have no idea where it fits in the world." The chunk was half the size of Carlos's hand, but it was crystals on one side and a rough crust on the other.

Olivia was looking at it from the other side of the table, though. She suddenly reached out and pointed her finger at the dull backside. "Oh, my God, Carlos! Look at this!" She grabbed it and turned it over. There was a painted number 214, weathered out. It was a piece of their stolen cathedral geode.

And the colors flashed as she turned it. "Madre de Dios! It's ametrine!" The guy who'd sold the unbroken cathedral geode must have thought it was something a lot more common. What he'd charged was a long way short of what it must have been worth.

Will was looking at Carlos as sharply as he'd looked at the rock. "You know what it is?"

Carlos got himself back under control. "Yeah, we do. Ametrine is a rare precious stone, it's a kind of fusion of amethyst and citrine and has zones of the different gemstones. The source I know about is a place in Bolivia called the Anahi Mine. Legend up-time had it that Spain has a good-sized piece in its royal jewels, had it since the sixteenth century. Anybody's guess whether that's true or not. Sometimes it's called trystine or Bolivianite."

Olivia zeroed in on the thing that mattered. "Will, you said Tim Morton found it? Where?"

****

On the way over to the Morton place, Carlos was still trying to take it all in. Olivia filled Will in on what had happened at the storage shed in 1631. All the evidence had screamed that it happened up-time, and what was gone was gone forever. It was such a crushing loss. What it all might have been worth down-time-now this.

Jack Morton came out at the sound of footsteps on the front porch. When Carlos took out the little cluster, his face lit up. "Hello, Mister Villareal. You've found my lucky piece? I wondered what became of it."

Carlos was too speechless to tell him. Livie did, gently. More of the story came out, as Jack led the way down to the edge of the property, by the road along the bottom of the run. He pointed to the patch of dirt and weeds, where he and Tim had found fragments of all sizes, fanned out around an old concrete well casing a few feet from the road. Will squatted down for a close look. "See here, this is scarred and cracked on this side. This is where the geode must have struck and broken apart."

"Hit? You think . . ."

"Yes. Consider the physics. Olivia, you told us that you found the stones gone a few days after the Ring of Fire, and thought they must have been stolen up-time? What we can see here tells us that the thieves must have used an open truck, and rushed off without securing the load properly-likely because of haste or stupidity. So, then, there is a deep pothole, and there is the well casing. I believe the geode was dislodged by the jolt, and fell free, still moving. That motion then carried it on a ballistic arc-" He showed what he meant with his hand, and then pointed his boot at the banged-up well casing. "-here. Where it struck at the speed the truck was traveling, and shattered from the impact."

Carlos felt a flicker of hope. "Jack, did you guys keep any of it? Besides that little piece you had, and the hunk you gave Oughtred?"

"No, just those. Father found someone to buy all we could find. It was a considerable task to carry it all off. It took us several trips."

I can imagine. That beast weighed two hundred pounds. They sure didn't get what it was worth, not if Tim is still tending bar for me down at the Gardens.

Meanwhile, Olivia was looking at the painting on the wall, of the front of a jeep. She suddenly asked, "What's this, Jack?" She was looking at one spot.

"Oh, the car? I painted that when we first moved here, with a bit of what was left over when we repaired the window frames. Not something I would stand here and do again, I'll tell you, not after hearing a couple of rocks thump into the ground. Cool, isn't it?"

"Yes, but what's this?"

Carlos looked at where she had her hand, and froze.

Jack ran on, "Those two little boulders? They were lying just over there. I thought they would do well as headlights, if I were to cement them in the right place and paint them."

Carlos sucked in his breath. The things were spherical, about six inches across, and the last time he'd seen them was in the shed behind the laundromat, before the Ring of Fire. They were two of the three smaller geodes, from the same lot as that monster cathedral geode.

"Livie, do you mind if we ask Will to dinner tonight? I think we have a lot to talk about."

****

Olivia pushed a little bit, trying to make it home before the rain really got going. They still had to dash in through the garage to keep from getting drenched.

A couple of minutes later Paola and Beth came in and vanished into the photography studio behind the kitchen. Will looked at them intently, and raised an eyebrow.

"My two younger daughters."

Paola had a package in her hand when she came out, and said, "Mom, I have to go to Leanna's, I need the keys-Oh, hi, Mr. O!"

"Wait! I need to know-" She was out the door while the words still hung in the air. "Mr. O?"

Will chuckled, "I'm sometimes called that at the high school. Some of the students are quite impressive." He smiled toward where Paola had gone. "That one is what they call a math head. She has a quick theoretical grasp. She would do well to continue with it."

"Oh. Cute. I hadn't heard that name, but then I hardly ever get to the high school."

"But you do teach, I recall?"

"Well, I taught photography for a while, more the artistic side than the technical. But I decided I'd better hang onto the film I still have in my freezer. I hear they're about ready to start making it, though, so maybe I'll start giving lessons again."

Will gave her a sympathetic smile and went over to look at the large portrait on the wall above the fireplace. He studied it closely for a few moments. "Speaking of photographs, this one is quite impressive. I don't believe I've seen one this fine. Done by a student of yours?"

"No, my mom and I took a trip to Malta in 1981. We went over to Gozo for a couple of days, and when Mom spotted a portrait studio near the beach, she wouldn't let up until I had my picture done. He really was an artist, but I think he went overboard with the costuming and props."

"Mmm-hmm. I like the way he used the mirror to show your face from two angles. Quite ingenious. Well, that explains the wall plaque beneath the mirror. Do you know what it says?"

"No, it's Greek to me."

"Ha! It's from Homer, the Odyssey. 'There is an isle, Ogygia, which lies far off in the sea. Therein dwells the fair-tressed daughter of Atlas, guileful Calypso, a dread goddess, and with her no-one either of gods or mortals hath aught to do.' A very apt description of Calypso, I might add."

July 10

Grantville looked a lot different ever since the food crisis in '31 made a deep dent in ornamental gardening. Olivia sat on the back patio resting her eyes for a while on the two white rose bushes they'd kept, turning over in her mind the problem of cutting three verses of poetry down to two, and still bringing it to a clean ending. Finally, she decided the best thing was to leave it for a while, and turned her hands to the potato patch.

Finally the sun got her attention. The afternoon was getting on, and she hadn't gone off yet to Miller's Hardware for some string, or to Sternbock's in town to replenish the espresso. She scribbled a note to Carlos and the girls to let them know she'd be back around six, and left it by the drain board in the kitchen, weighed down with a salt shaker to make it stay put. It was so hot, she left the French doors in back open, with just the screen doors closed.

On the way out, she saw Will's pocket notebook lying on the dining room floor under the chair he'd sat in the night before. "Oh, fiddle!" The traffic around the high school would be a mess that time of day. Better to do the shopping first, then run it out to his place.

****

Olivia pulled up by the path to Will's cabin, intending to leave his notebook in the mailbox if he wasn't home. But she heard him all the way down where she was, talking to somebody, the loudest she'd ever heard him, maybe arguing. She parked and started up the path.

Next thing she knew, she was face-to-face with a man in a lavender coat. By the long, blond, curly hair, he was some kind of upper-class down-timer, but by the way he'd suddenly materialized from behind a bush and planted himself in her way, he didn't look friendly. She turned to run for the truck; if she could slam the door and hit the lock button with her elbow, she'd be able to drive off before he could do anything else. If he knifed a tire, there was always the pistol in the glove compartment.

Before she was halfway around, somebody else grabbed her from behind. She tried to grab the one she could reach and pull him in, so she could slam her knee into him. Then she'd only have the one behind her to fight; if she could shift her footing enough she could probably throw him. But that blond hair came off in her hands, and she saw a shaved head covered with scars and sores. Before she could get hold of him some other way, or just try a kick below the belt, his hand came up at her face. She heard a crackle, then smelled something obscenely sweet. The world spun around her. There was a sensation of dragging, and lifting, and dropping, and pain, like someone kicked her between her legs. Somewhere along the way she got her eyes open and saw only black, then a face, then nothing.

****

Much, much later, Olivia woke to a faint breeze. Her head pounded. She felt shaky. Her whole right side felt like pins-and-needles. Everything was spinning. Light, what there was, came from somewhere on the far end of a crooked passage. By the texture of the rock all around her and over her head, there was only one place she could be; this far in, though, there were glittery crystals. How in hell had she gotten here?

With her free hand she touched her body, and felt only chilled flesh, not clothing. She was shaking, she was so cold. She cried for a long while.

Carlos would explode in fury when he found out.

I . . .

God, I feel stupid, leaving my gun in the glove compartment like that.

She got up on her hands and knees, still too shaky to balance upright. Her legs and hips and middle hurt. One arm was bloody from a slice, and there was more blood on the cave floor, but it didn't seem to be bleeding now. Must have gotten slammed into a sharp edge, being hauled up here. She crawled toward where the breeze was coming from, and reached an opening. In the twilight she discovered that she was right above the road that slammed into the wall, if hundreds of feet was right above. The mine buildings below told her for sure.

Whatever way she'd gotten here, the rock shop had likely rented the equipment to the wrong people. But there was no climbing gear here now. Try free climbing? Not on that wall.

Just behind where she'd been lying on some kind of mat, there were camping supplies piled on a rickety table: food, water, toilet paper, a small oil lamp and striker, and a chemical toilet behind that. Her framed photograph from Gozo was standing up on top of it, leaning against the cave wall-what the hell? Never mind, that could wait. Drink some water right away, eat something. That was a start.

Who were these maniacs? She cried, and passed out again.

Evening

When Will Oughtred came to tell Carlos and Olivia of the mad sensation their stolen gemstones had ignited among the rich and mighty of Europe, and the commodity of influence and power they'd become, there was a police car out front, along with a fire truck and eight or nine other cars and trucks. The house was dark. In the wisps drifting across the headlight beams came the smell of charred wood. The neighbors were telling the police they'd seen a couple of strangers go around back, one of them wearing a fancy purple coat, and a while later they'd heard a smoke alarm go off and seen flames coming up over the back patio. They'd caught the blaze right away, and fought it back with a garden hose while the firemen were on the way.

Carlos was standing just outside the door with a flashlight in his hand, pointing out something to a police technician inside. Will came and stood by his shoulder, and saw; the house was a shambles. The big portrait of Olivia was gone entirely, leaving empty wall above the fireplace.

Olivia could not be found anywhere, only her note, and it was long past the hour she'd written of. There was nothing to be said, until Officer Neubert came to him with a notepad in his hand.

"James Rothrock called on me at home today . . . foster son of the earl of Arundel, residing at Padua . . . What was it we spoke of? Other than some difficulty with letters, he sought to know the origin of a gem called the Ring's Fire, reputedly forged in the cataclysm . . . No, Officer, stolen property of the Villareals, found all-unknowing and innocently sold . . . "

Chief Richards arrived just as Will finished telling everything he could think of that might be remotely useful. Richards listened to Neubert's clipped summary, then went to the radio in his patrol car and issued his first orders. Within fifteen minutes the passes through the Ring were all guarded, and VOA was broadcasting the call for volunteers to join in the search for Olivia. The chief brought writing materials from his car, and asked for a sketch of Rothrock.

At the cemetery above Grantville

James Rothrock stopped his furious pacing on the graveled path and matched Bennet glare for glare. Even in the dimness up here, he could make out the black eye and the gash on the man's face easily enough; he had no doubt there were more scratches beneath Bennet's clothing. He put as much fury into his tone as it was possible to project without raising his voice so that it could be heard at a distance. "Do you have the least idea how stupid you are, George? We can never return to our lodgings!"

"What? Why ever not?"

"Why not? Because of the hue and cry rising all around us! If I hadn't heard a radio blare as I passed an open window . . . Have you entirely lost your wits? You and that scruffy little man you hired were to do no more than keep watch, to distract and delay anyone who might blunder into the meeting with Oughtred! But seizing her and stealing her away, and then going to her house afterward and rampaging through it to make it blindlingly clear that she didn't merely forget the time on some ordinary errand! You have kicked open a raging hornets' nest! I can no longer appear on the street in daylight; my name is heard everywhere and Oughtred's sketch of my face is on the television! Our business here could have already been concluded successfully; there is no difficulty with Oughtred beyond the unexplained missing courier. But now . . . George Bennet, what have you done with Olivia Villareal?"

"I did nothing wrong." Bennet's tone could have belonged to a naughty child.

"Her family and her fellow citizens disagree."

"So, pleasuring myself, like a man should, you'd begrudge? James, she is so much like a real goddess."

Rothrock's bowels clenched in terror. "You raped her?"

"So? Did you see how she was attired? She's a whore! I eliminate the mistress . . ."

"By Mars and Janus! Thor and Odin! She's not Oughtred's mistress! Stripping her! Ravaging her-Hellfire, George, this is beyond madness! Olivia Villareal is a married woman, a greatly respected and loved one! You should hear what the radio announcer said about her! She's an up-timer, George! They all dress that way, it doesn't make her a whore anymore than the queen was a whore, God rest her . . ."

"Ha! It wasn't ravaging. We gave her opium and she was not inhibited after that. Besides, she was stupid enough to come."

"Did you leave her clothing? Did you leave her food? What about water? Who else did you share her with? Is she even alive? Damme, you were to do nothing but keep whoever came from discovering the meeting with Oughtred, and if at all possible, without noticing that they were being deliberately fended off!"

"Rothrock, you're an ass. Of course she is a whore and a witch. Why should I listen to you? You have been seduced by this place-only try to put me off."

"Put you off? Put you off!? You have overthrown everything Oughtred achieved, everything Arundel hoped for, and put an end to any hope that we could stay and profit by the gemstones we found. No, they are not Ring's Fire, but they would have been enough for us."

"Damnation, Rothrock! Listen to me, you are nothing but a hasty witted, impertinent, wet behind your ass, jolt-headed, bastard if you think exactly why Arundel wants Oughtred is the reason he gave you. We shall take his Ring's Fire. I do not much care what you think. Then we can sink Oughtred in that lake and tell Arundel we could not find him."

"What? Bastardy is nothing to what you propose now! Murder? Robbery? And as to telling Arundel anything, my letter recounting the meeting with Oughtred is well on its way by now."

Bennet was no longer listening, he only ranted on. "I'll buy myself a Genovese countess! You can buy yourself a damned pedigree and move to damned Spain and turn damned Catholic and claim Arundel as your rightful father. I'm still going to kill Oughtred's damned mistress and take my half of the money."

Rothrock's mind whirled in chaos. He could not imagine why Bennet had called the woman a goddess-then he remembered the painting at the palazzo in Padua. The resemblance to the television picture of the missing woman was astonishing. But a blinding realization drove that thought right out of his head. He suddenly was certain of where she must be.

He had one final word as he turned and started down the hill. "George Bennet, if you place any value upon your life, be out of Grantville within the hour and never stop until you are beyond the borders of this state. I shall not be far behind, after I do what I can to repair what you have done, if that is still possible."