Eric Flint - The Grantville Gazette Vol 9

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Grantville Gazette-Volume IX

Table of Contents

ASSISTANT EDITOR'S PREFACE

FICTION

Mail Stop

Those Daring Young Men

NCIS -Young Love Lost

Those Daring Not So Young Men

A Matter Of Taste

Those Not So Daring

Anna the Baptist

Fly Like a Bird

Gearhead

Water Wings

Under the Tuscan Son

Wings on the Mountain

Pocket Money

Moonraker

The Minstrel Boy

Ultralight

Tool or Die

If at First You Don't Succeed . . .

Waves of Change

Try, Try Again

Little Jammer Boys

Safe at First Base

The Order of the Foot

The Transmitter

CONTINUING SERIALS

The Essen Chronicles, Part 3: Trip to Paris

At the Cliff's Edge

Butterflies In The Kremlin, Episode 2: A 'Merican in Moscow

FACT:

Radio in 1632, Part 3

The Sound of Mica

A Tempest In a Baptistry

The Daily Beer

White Gold

IMAGES

SUBMISSIONS TO THE MAGAZINE

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Contents

Water Wings

by Terry Howard

Somewhere in the North Sea

The line arcing off the boat kinked between deck and water. Eric, watching for just that, yelled to the

crew uncoiling the stiff hose, "Hold it! Back it up!" Then the kink swelled a bit. Eric screamed, "Back it

up! Back it up now!"

Before the offending line could be pulled back up onto the deck, the kink burst.

"Shit!" Eric yelled. "Get the bell up! Now! Get it up!"

The crew who had been manning the air pump left their now useless post and manned the capstan to

raise the bell. Putting their backs into it, they pushed its arms for all they were worth.

Eric watched as the collapsed air line came up out of the water at a fast pace. He had brought the details

for a diving bell along with the location of the wreck, due north of Castle Point and west of St. Olef's

Bay, back from a strange town in Germany called Grantville and was able to convince a local merchant

to fund the salvage effort.

The air line was made of two layers of waxed leather. The book called for rubberized canvas, with the

outer layer sewn over the seamless inner layer. No one, outside of Grantville, knew what rubberized

meant. It had to be water-proofing. It must really be something because they had absolutely no luck using

canvas to make the high pressure air line. Two layers of leather worked. It had to be doused down with

hot water before it was lowered away to keep it from cracking and it made a large coil that filled the free

deck from rail to rail. The coil barely left room for the air pump and the capstan for lowering the diving

bell in the middle.

"Belay that!" the captain called.

"But, sir," Eric protested. "We've lost air."

"I am aware of that, Mister." He turned to the pump crew. "Kyrie Elison, gentlemen," he said, meaning

he wanted them to start singing the old church chant and turning the capstan at a slow measured rate.

"Bring him up at the regular pace, if you please. We don't need him doubled over and dying on the deck

with cramps. That's why we put the valve on the bell."

The line crew lifted the leather hose over the heads of the now chanting men who now turned the

capstan. Eric, worried, turned back to the sea and watched the collapsed air line inch up out of the

water.

Until now, when a line broke they hauled away with all speed to raise the bell before it lost air. Twice

they failed. Twice they succeeded, only to have the man die a painful death from horrid cramps. This was

the first time a line had blown since they had installed a shut off valve. The pump had to work harder to

push it open but it should hold the air in if the pump failed.

"I can see the bell." Eric called out. Then, without another word, he dove into the cold waters of the

North Sea. At the staging platform, eager hands pulled him and the body he had retrieved out of the

water.

"I saw him slip out of the bell. He must have passed out. We need a tie off in there so a man stays in if he

blacks out."

With the bell up, the capstan was switched over to lifting the cargo cable to see if anything had been

loaded.

With five lost to accidents and one lost to illness, Eric wondered if he would be number seven. It was his

turn to go down.Well, if my number is up, my number is up. If I die, at least I die rich.

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Framed

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Contents

Under the Tuscan Son

by Iver Cooper

November, 1633

Curzio Inghirami had learned a great deal during his visit to Grantville, but he now was back home at

Villa Scornello, the family seat. It was a few miles outside of Volterra, a town in the grand duchy of

Tuscany.

He beckoned to one of the family servants. "Tell Father that Lucrezia and I are going fishing." Lucrezia,

his younger sister, giggled for no apparent reason. "Have Cook pack a picnic lunch for us, and then meet

us out back in half an hour."

Curzio and Lucrezia whiled away the time, gossiping about their friends in Volterra. In due course, the

servant joined them, basket in hand, and the three began the half-hour walk down to the bank of the

River Cecina. The two siblings fished for a while, handing each catch to the servant, then started throwing

stones into the river. Curzio reached down for another, then exclaimed, "Wait a moment! Look at this!"

"Oh, it's just an old pottery shard," said Lucrezia. "Throw or drop it, but don't talk about it."

"No, wait, it has writing on it. In Etruscan, I think. And here's a Latin word: 'thesaur'–the rest of the

word is lost." He thought about it for a moment. "I am sure it must be 'thesaurus.'"

"I don't think Father Domenico has taught that one to me, yet." Father Domenico Vadorini was the

Anghirami family priest, and their tutor.

"It means . . . 'treasure.'" Their servant blinked, but said nothing.

"Treasure?" Lucrezia put her hands on her hips and stared at her older brother. "Well, what are you

waiting for? Let's find the rest of the vase. Perhaps the treasure is inside!" They started rummaging about.

"Here it is!" said Lucrezia triumphantly. She turned the broken vase upside-down, and shook it. What

came out wasn't a treasure. At least not one which was recognizable as such. It was a lump of what

looked like pitch, but with many hairs sticking out of it. "Yuck. Some treasure."

"Don't jump to conclusions, little sister," said Curzio loftily. He was six years her senior. "There might be

something inside. Let's take it back up to the house and examine it more closely."

"Very well. I am tired of fishing, anyway." Curzio and Lucrezia tramped back up the hill. The servant, a

respectful couple of yards behind them, carried the fish.

Once on the veranda of the family villa, Curzio threw the lump against a stone wall, and it broke apart.

"Now we're getting somewhere. Look, there's a folded cloth inside. Some kind of linen. And there's

writing on it. Let's go show Father."

Their father, Inghiramo Inghirami, was impressed. At least by the reference to treasure. However, the

writing, some of which was in Latin, was not too informative. It suggested that the 'treasure,' whatever it

might be, was located in a citadel, and that the latter was set on a hill near where the little stream, the

Zambra, met the Cecina. They knew such a hill, and there were ruins of some kind there. Inghiramo told

them that if they were interested, they could, on his authority, direct some of the tenant farmers to help

them excavate the site.

* * *

"Hello, Curzio," said Raffaello Maffei. Raffaello was Curzio's best friend, and a noted antiquarian. "What

brings you and the good Father down to town today?"

"Have a look at this." Curzio proffered the linen scroll. "I think this message might be in Etruscan."

"Come with me. We'll compare it to the inscriptions my namesake found." Raffaello led them into the

Palazzo Maffei, where they could inspect the Etruscan inscriptions on a funeral stele and on a statue of a

mother nurturing a child. Sure enough, the letters were similarly formed. As a frequent guest, Curzio had,

of course, seen these Etruscan exemplars many times before.

"Did you find any more of these scrolls?" asked Raffaello, with the eagerness of a true scholar.

"Indeed, we did. I found this one inside a strange hairy, tarryoffa ." The Latin word could mean a ball of

dough, or a tumor, or indeed any shapeless mass. "But we have others we haven't opened yet. I wouldn't

think of doing so without the benefit of your company."

"I thank you. You have them here?"

"A few. Father Vadorini is carrying them."

Curzio, as the discoverer, was granted the honor of the first incision. He took out the new scroll, and

read it. "This is astounding—read this sentence, Father."

Father Vadorini read aloud, "I am an augur, a prophet of my people. Yet it is not prophecy which

compels Man, but the Great Aesar, who, when he created Man, permitted him to possess his own Will."

He crossed himself.

"This is of great theological import! We know that of all the ancient peoples, none were more religious

than our ancestors, the Etruscans. And we know that over the centuries, that the Lord prepared the

world for the coming of the Savior by granting inspirations to learned and worthy pagans, such as Homer,

and Plato, and Virgil. Here then, is proof that he moved among the nobler of the Etruscans."

His companions immediately recognized the significance of his comment. This Etruscan divine had

apprehended, at an early date, one of the major teachings of the Catholic Church, and one on which the

Protestants had grievously erred.

"We really need a more attractive name for these packages thanoffa ."

Raffaello considered the problem. "Perhaps you can call it achrysalis . That is the container from which

a butterfly emerges, and these messages, at least to learned men, are as beautiful as a butterfly."

* * *

To His Grace Ferdinand de' Medici, Second of that Name, Grand Duke of Tuscany, Magnus Dux

Etruriae:

As you requested, I thoroughly investigated the claims of the Inghirami family to have discovered

Etruscan antiquities of great significance in the vicinity of their villa of Scornello. I have heard the

testimony of Curzio and Lucrezia Inghirami, the discoverers of the first artifact, and of the manservant

who accompanied them. I have also questioned the tenant farmers who carried out the further

excavations, under the direction of young Curzio, of the ruined citadel overlooking the Cecina. And I

have also considered the words of Father Vadorini and of the noble Raffaello Maffei.

Naturally, we have spoken to scholars. They have not reached any consensus as to the authenticity of

the artifacts. However, it does not appear that there is anything in the circumstances of these discoveries

that would lead one to suspect that the chrysali are not of great age. The chrysali were found within

ancient pottery, or in cracks in old masonry, or even entangled within great tree roots. We have no

reason to suspect that someone has attempted to deceive your Grace in terms of their provenance.

Moreover, even the critics have conceded that, according to the ancient Greek and Latin writers, the

Etruscans wrote on books of linen. If the artifacts are authentic, then they are the first such Liber Lintei to

be found, making this an archaeological breakthrough. It is possible that the dissenting professors are

merely expressing their indignation that such a discovery has been made by someone outside the usual

academic circles.

Curzio's father Inghiramo is your Salt Inspector for Volterra, and his uncle Giulio is your Postmaster

General. Both have urged that this young man be appointed "Defender of Etruscan Antiquities," with

certain privileges pertaining to excavation of known and suspected Etruscan sites. Such an appointment

would honor Curzio's achievements and also gratify two of your most steadfast supporters.

Sincerely, your kinsman, friend and servant,

Tommaso de' Medici

Provveditore de Volterra

* * *

Curzio and Lucrezia were by their fishing spot. They were temporarily alone, having sent the servant

back to the villa to fetch something. "They fell for it!" shouted Curzio and Lucrezia simultaneously, and

hugged each other in delight. Lucrezia's long, dark, Etruscan hair bobbed up and down.

For Lucrezia, the whole venture was just a lark. Like most twelve year olds, she was convinced that

what adults knew could be written on the head of a pin. She had happily donated her hair to the cause,

and had especially enjoyed her little stage role on the day of the "discovery."

Curzio's motivations were of a more somber nature. Curzio had attempted, several years before, to

persuade his father to let him study history and classics at the University of Florence, or its counterpart in

Pisa. Since his formal education had been limited to weekly lessons with Father Vadorini, the faculty had

been . . . discouraging.

In order to prove himself as a scholar, Curzio had spent many hours at the archives of Volterra. He had

painstakingly written up his findings on genealogy and local history, in both Latin and Tuscan vernacular,

and had sent them to professors at the two great Tuscan universities. He had fondly hoped that his essay

would impress the faculty members sufficiently so that they would insist that his father allow him to

become one of their number. The only one who bothered to answer had crushingly remarked that he did

not have time to tutor country bumpkins in the rudiments of historical scholarship. Curzio's father urged

him to forget all the nonsense about studying history and become a lawyer. Curzio was not enthusiastic

about this idea.

Then Curzio had gone to Grantville. The grand duke encouraged his trusted noblemen to visit, and study,

that eldritch place, and, since the plague had not fully loosened its grip on Tuscany, his father had thought

it was a good idea for his heir to leave the duchy for a while.

In the up-timers' libraries, Curzio had researched his pet interest, the ancient history of Tuscany. The

saga of the glorious days when the Tuscans were the Etruscans, and Rome was just a village of

primitives.

Nor was Curzio the only Tuscan fascinated with the past. The Medici collected Etruscan artifacts, such

as the "Etruscan Chimera," found at Arezzo in 1554, and restored by Benvenuto Cellini. They also

encouraged their court to speak in "Tuscan vernacular," supposed to be descended from ancient

Etruscan, rather than in Latin.

After a few months in Grantville, Curzio had a stroke of luck. One of the Americans owned the "Lost

Civilizations" series of "Time-Life Books." And these included one entitled,Etruscans: Italy's Lovers of

Life . While the owner wouldn't sell it, there were alternatives. Thanks to one of the English-Latin

translation services which had sprung up in Grantville, Curzio had been able to obtain a complete Latin

translation.

Curzio had figured that over the four centuries which separated the up-timers and the down-timers,

surely the former had made some interesting finds. And they had. Unfortunately, the most important ones

were located on the property of other noble families. So they would get the lion's share of the glory.

Then Curzio had his brainstorm. He would use his secretly acquired up-time knowledge to plant

Etruscan artifacts in his own neighborhood. The professors would reluctantly acknowledge his

achievement, and the prestige he would acquire by "discovering" the antiquities could be parlayed into a

grant of general authority over archaeological sites from the grand duke. Then he would go to the other

sites and uncover them.

He would then lord it over the professors who had mocked him in the past. Yes, it was a perfect plan.

And the up-time books had told him what he needed to know in order to fake an Etruscan message.

Such as the fact that their books were written on folded, tightly woven linen with black ink.

Summer, 1634

Lieutenant Lewis Philip Bartolli was nervous. He had never expected that his first mission outside of

Grantville would be a solo one. But here he was in Florence, the capital of Tuscany. His nearest superior,

Ambassador Sharon Nichols, was a good hundred miles away, in Venice.

It was amusing, actually. Lewis' parents had planned a trip to Tuscany, but then the Ring of Fire had

changed everything. But thanks to that cataclysm, and the USE Army, Lewis was now in Florence nearly

four hundred years ahead of schedule.

The French, the Spanish and Austrian Hapsburgs, and the USE's other foes definitely had the bigger

battalions. If the USE was to win the war, it had to maintain its technological edge. In that war, the

chemical industry had a vital role to play.

Trouble was, Grantville was just a small West Virginia hill town. Its technical people didn't know all the

details of the important industrial chemical processes. That meant that it would have to do chemical

research. And to do that research, it needed apparatus which was likewise in short supply.

If you wanted laboratory glassware, you wanted borosilicate glass. It was resistant to acids, high

temperatures, and thermal shock. To make it, you needed boric acid, or one of the borate salts, such as

borax.

Borax was available in seventeenth century Europe. It wasn't used to make glass, but it was used by

goldsmiths as a flux, and by assayers as a reagent. It was imported, under the name "tincal," from Tibet.

The Venetians held a monopoly on it and charged dearly for it, around three hundred thousand New

U.S. dollars to the ton.

The Grantville encylopedias had revealed that, in 1777, boric acid had been discovered in theMaremma

of Tuscany. During the nineteenth century, until large deposits had been found in the American West,

Tuscany had been the world's chief supplier of boron compounds. An up-time picture book of Tuscany,

owned by one of Grantville's many Italian-Americans, had directed the USE's attention to the town of

Larderello, founded by Francesco de Larderel in 1827 to exploit the local boric acid.

Lewis' scientific training and linguistic skills had made him the ideal candidate for his current assignment.

After his accelerated graduation from high school, he had enlisted in the Army, and was assigned to the

Military Research Group. Joining the military didn't keep him out of school for long; they sent him right

back to the high school. There, he served as a teaching assistant, and received advanced training in

chemistry.

There were only so many young men in Grantville who had chemical laboratory experience . . . and

Lewis had grown up speaking Italian. Picked up Latin pretty quickly, too. So he was the logical choice,

despite his age.

The plan, as devised in Grantville, was that Lewis would test Tuscan waters for boric acid. He would

start in Larderello, and then move to the other sites mentioned in the up-time books. Once he identified

the most promising locations, the Cavriani office in Florence would acquire the mineral rights and hire the

workers and foreman. Lewis would then, somehow, figure out how to get the production process

up-and-running. While a method of recovering boric acid had been described in the 1911 Encyclopedia

Britannica, Lewis was sure that he would have to improvise.

* * *

Lewis was welcomed to the Tuscan city of Florence by Niccolo and Lorenzo Cavriani. Niccolo Cavriani

was thecapo of the Cavriani Brothers branch office in Florence, and Lorenzo was his son. The Cavrianis

were the USE's informal commercial agents in Italy.

After taking precautions to make sure that there were no eavesdroppers, Niccolo began briefing Lewis

on the political situation. "Grand Duke Ferdinand II de Medici is only twenty-four years old, and has

been ruling Tuscany for only the last seven years. Before then, his mother and grandmother were

co-regents.

"Ferdinand's mother was Maria Magdalena, who died in 1631. That is probably just as well; the

Austrians have enough influence in the Tuscan court as it is."

"What was her connection to the Habsburgs?"

"She was the Holy Roman Emperor's sister. After Breitenfeld, she persuaded her son to send a Tuscan

contingent to join the imperial army. He promised six thousand soldiers, under the command of two of his

brothers. He thought better of it, but allowed Francesco and Mattias to serve as volunteer officers. They

are somewhere in Germany now."

"So Tuscany is an Austrian ally?"

"Nominally, at least. More in the hope that the imperials will support their designs on Elba, Urbino, and

Piombino, than out of any deep-seated enthusiasm for the imperial cause."

"Does that mean that my venture is doomed from the start?"

Niccolo looked shocked. "Oh, no! Trading with the enemy is a time-honored custom in Europe. Indeed,

the war in the Netherlands would not exist without it. When the Spanish merchants enter Dutch ports,

they pay special charges, which go to the Dutch admiralties to pay for their warships. And then the Dutch

turn around and sell grain, naval stores and even weapons to the Spanish, allowing the war to continue."

Lorenzo spoke up. "And the USE does have the advantage that it is not, strictly speaking, a Protestant

state. You even have a Cardinal-Protector!"

"And the Medici are very much interested in trade. Nonetheless," his father continued, "it is premature

for the grand duke to accept an embassy from the USE. This isn't Venice! In order to maintain

appearances, when you deal with the grand duke, you will do so as the representative of an American

company."

"Universal Imports and Exports," Lewis confirmed.

"We, in turn, will hint to the ministers that this company has a quasi-official character, like the Dutch East

India Company. That way, you are much more likely to be granted a private audience with Ferdinand.

Yet he may plausibly deny that he is treating officially with the USE."

"Why do I need to see Ferdinand at all? Why can't we just go to the mining region and talk to the local

landowners?" asked Lewis.

"The state–meaning Grand Duke Ferdinand—controls all of the rights to extract minerals," said Lorenzo.

"Usually it rents them out, but we might be able to negotiate a different arrangement since this venture is

so speculative. Not like extracting iron, or copper, or mercury from one of the well-established sources

in theColline Metallifere .

"Now, where exactly is this Larderello you spoke of?"

Lewis took a map case out of his backpack. He opened it up and unrolled the map. Lorenzo helpfully

pulled a few books off the shelves of the Cavriani study and strategically placed them at the corners, so

the map would remain flat.

"Here!" said Lewis. He pointed to an area south of the town of Volterra.

"Hmm," said Niccolo. That is in what we call theValle del Diavolo ."

"And why is it called the Devil's Valley?"

"It is a most uncanny place," Niccolo said. "White vapors rise out of holes in the ground, thesoffioni .

Occasionally, steam gushes out, in great geysers." He sipped some wine. "Even when thesoffioni are

silent, the water bubbles in thelagone , the hot springs." To Lewis, the terrain sounded much like that of

Yellowstone National Park. Minus the grizzlies.

Niccolo leaned back in his chair. "It is thought that one of the circles of Dante'sInferno is based on the

Valle del Diavolo . It is a most uninviting place. Still, you are better off there than in the lowlands, the

trueMaremma ." Lewis understood. The up-time encyclopedias had made it clear that on the coast and

in the river valleys, malaria was rampant.

"So, how do we proceed?" Lewis asked.

"I will present you to the grand duke," Niccolo explained. "Once we obtain his blessing on the project,

my son Lorenzo will escort you, first to Volterra, and then on to the Devil's Valley. He will do whatever

on-the-spot 'facilitating' is needful."

"If we are successful, Larderello will come into being three hundred years ahead of schedule." Niccolo

smiled. "It will have another name, of course. Bartollello? Ferdinello?"

* * *

Lewis was somewhat surprised by how quickly they received an invitation to the palazzo. Niccolo

Cavriani told him that Grand Duke Ferdinand was known to be very curious about Grantville, for both

political and intellectual reasons. Ferdinand had encouraged his more trusted citizens to visit Grantville as

tourists and bring back reports. Spies on the cheap, you might say. However, he was probably tired of

hearing secondhand accounts, and anxious to meet one of the mysterious up-timers in person.

The machinations of Niccolo Cavriani had no doubt helped, too. The Cavrianis liked to call themselves

"facilitators." Lewis preferred the earthier term: "fixers."

Eric Flint - The Grantville Gazette Vol 9

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