Grantville Gazette, Volume 72 Read online

  It hadn't been easy. The Abrabanels could usually be counted on to support any new technology. In this case, it wasn't new technology that interested them; it was the use of mechanization that drew their attention. It was the mechanization and the production processes that would be developed to put metallic cartridges into production.

  "Will we really need that much?" Ruben Blumroder asked. "That's an enormous amount!"

  "I hope not, Ruben," Gary answered. "We will have access to funds as we complete certain milestones on our plan. They tried to impose some time constraints on those milestones but I was able to talk them out of that. And was that a struggle! I finally convinced them that tying the money to arbitrary deadlines would lead to failure. We have to be flexible, not rigid adherents of a schedule. "The first milestone is the delivery of the steam engines for Osker. The next is his hammer mill, and another is the production of hard carbon steel, a bonus if he produces tungsten carbide steel, too."

  "What are some of the other milestones?" Ruben asked.

  "There are several, Ruben. The brassworks will be one as soon as I add it to the plan. The chemical plant is another. By the way, I did get a concession for a small release of funds when Nicki Jo finishes her plant design. That will help, with what we already have on hand, to fund the construction and clearing of the production site," Gary explained. "Another is the first pilot production of primers—the list has more milestones. They are all included in your copy of the project plan." The project plan had been created using the Grantville library's PCs. The PCs helped determine the project's critical path—those things that had to be done, in the order they had to be done, and what was required for them to be completed on time. The project plans helped convince the financiers the Suhl Consortium would succeed.

  "Think we can make that one-year target?" Archie asked.

  Gary looked at the others sitting around the table. Archie had asked the most important question, and it had a simple answer. He sighed, looked down at his notes and the plan, and then looked back up at the faces waiting for his answer.

  "Yes . . . full end-to-end commercial production with a minimum of five production lines, one year from today, October 19th, 1635."

  ****

  Archie knocked on the study door of Suhl District Judge Wilhelm Fross. Judge Fross didn't like the term office. He preferred the term study because the law required continuous review and contemplation—studying, in other words. He looked up and waved to Archie to sit at the couch before the Judge's desk. "What can I do for you, Herr Marshal?"

  "I have a question for you, if you don't mind, Your Honor. A legal question."

  "And what is that question?"

  "Does SoTF law allow for incorporation, the creation of a legal entity for a business? Is it legal? I've been told that incorporation is legal in Grantville, that the Higgins Sewing Machine Company is incorporated. Does the law concerning incorporation that is in force in Grantville, apply here in Suhl County?"

  Judge Fross gave Archie a long look. He was continually amazed at some of the questions that came before him. "What a curious question, Herr Marshal, would you give me some context please?"

  Archie repeated the discussion from Pat Johnson's meeting earlier that day and the purpose of the new corporation. "As we grow, we know there will be legal issues. It's inevitable. As we understand it, incorporation will protect individual investors from direct legal action for acts of the corporation. Do those provisions apply here in Suhl?"

  "Have you been reading your newsletters, Herr Marshal?" The newsletter Judge Fross was referring to was published weekly by the SoTF court system. Most of the articles were reviews of legal decisions in the rapidly-evolving SoTF legal system. The rest of the newsletter contained occasional promotions and awards, and any reported movements of groups of armed men—both bandits and what seemed to be the last phase of the Ram Rebellion.

  "Most of them. I may have missed one or two when I got busy. Why do you ask?"

  "There was an interesting case in Grantville last month, Murphy vs. Murphy. It was a divorce case but that wasn't the interesting part, from a legal viewpoint, of the case. The interesting part concerned the concept of full faith and credit. The decision from Murphy vs. Murphy was that full faith and credit with up-time law was applicable in the former New United States—in this case, for events that had occurred up-time. The ruling upheld the concept of full faith and credit, and that it was valid now under current law. Since the NUS constitution was used to create the SoTF constitution, and grandfathered the previous statues of the NUS, full faith and credit was, therefore, also applicable in the SoTF." Judge Fross stopped and waited. He expected Archie to understand what he had just said. When Archie didn't respond, he continued. "To answer your question, since incorporation is legal in Grantville, it is also legal in Suhl, in the earlier NUS and now in the SoTF."

  That settles that, Archie thought. "Would you be willing to put that in writing, Your Honor? An official opinion?"

  Fross thought for a moment. Why not? It was established law, now, according to the summary in the newsletter. He would have to get a copy of the official decision from Grantville but that wasn't difficult. "Have your lawyers make an official request for an opinion and we'll proceed from there."

  ****

  Umph! The coach hit another pothole in the road and bounced sharply. Nicki Jo Prickett and Katherine Boyle had started their journey to Suhl the previous day. They had stayed overnight in an inn in Dortmund. Today, they were taking the northern route to Magdeburg and from there to Suhl. The troubles along the Rhine south of Essen made travel by a more direct route unwise. Colette Modi had hired a squad of mounted mercenaries to travel with them to Suhl. The war between the USE and the League of Ostend was over. Still . . . a little protection was nice. Colette was insuring her investment in Nicki Jo. For Nicki Jo, her .38 revolver, tucked inside a leather pouch at her waist, provided more reassurance.

  Nicki Jo had the windows open, the shutters rolled up, to watch the countryside roll by. She was thinking about a trip she had taken with her parents a decade before. They had taken a family vacation. The good times . . . before Mom started drinking. They had driven first to Philadelphia to see the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall before going to Washington, DC. She remembered sitting in the rear seat watching the fields and valleys, small towns and homes flow past the car. She let the memories flow. It was a demonstration about the discovery of nylon at the Smithsonian that had sparked her interest in chemistry.

  Katherine was seated across from Nicki Jo. For Katherine, traveling was not an adventure. Most of her travels had been flights from unwanted futures. One such was her flight from her now thankfully deceased husband. Another flight was from the political scheming of her father and his machinations. Her father had planned to wed her to someone who would increase her father's political strength. Katherine had declined her father's request—forcefully. She would be no one's puppet.

  She was tired of fleeing from one place to another. The last two years with Nicki Jo had been . . . redemption, perhaps. A repudiation of her life as the fifth daughter of the Earl of Cork, the primary adviser to England's King Charles.

  Nicki Jo let her vision wander back inside the coach. Katherine was reading. What was it? She could barely read the title of the book. Twelfth Night. Shakespeare hadn't been well known in the here and now before the Ring of Fire. His name hadn't spread far from England's shores. Now, everyone seemed to be reading him. Katherine must have picked up a copy somewhere for the trip.

  She heard the driver talking to his hired guard. They were approaching an inn where the coach would exchange its horses during the layover. Whoever owned this coach line may have been copying the waystations used by the postal services. If so, she was glad he had. The waystations and frequent changes of horses had reduced travel time. Fresh horses made better progress than tired horses. Moreover, she needed a nature break and some lunch.

  While she looked out of the window, Nicki Jo h
ad also been mentally working through a process for the new primer compound. She didn't want to put anything in writing yet. It would just be speculation until she had a lab set up and could actually do some experimenting. Nicki Jo was a visual person. She could visualize processes, each step, each task for making DDNP. Documenting that process was the difficult part for her. Not so for Katherine. Katherine could listen to Nicki Jo's verbal stream of consciousness, make sense of it, and write it down in a logical fashion. That ability of hers was another reason why together they were better, more effective, than they were separately.

  The inn appeared around the curve of the road. It suddenly occurred to Nicki Jo that she hadn't thought about Tobias or Solomon since Gary Reardon's visit the previous week. In fact, her thoughts had been completely occupied with the coming project. She was feeling the urge, once again, to experiment. With precautions of course, she reminded herself. She had someone who was dependent—no, not dependent—someone she was dependent upon and whom she didn't want to disappoint. In her trunk was a large binder with all her notes from last year's toluene experiments. She wasn't going to repeat Tobias and Solomon's mistakes.

  VII

  November, 1634

  Suhl

  Gary Reardon was standing before a window looking out upon the street and the passers-by below while waiting for the others to arrive. Suhl had had its first snow the previous day. Most of that snow was gone, melted, except for remnants in shadowed corners.

  The consortium's lawyers had filed the new company's incorporation petition after receiving Judge Fross' written legal opinion. They were waiting for the final approval. The headquarters now had a few permanent employees to handle the growing administrative tasks. Gary, Pat, Osker and Nicki Jo had private offices—spartan offices until the permanent corporate headquarters was finished at the soon-to-be corporation's site, now being called "the Reservation."

  Today's meeting, a lunch meeting, was upstairs in the Boar's Head. Osker Geyer walked through the door accompanied by Pat Johnson. Nicki Jo and Katherine Boyle followed moments later. They had arrived in Suhl a couple of weeks earlier. After spending three days inspecting the Reservation and examining topographic maps, Nicki Jo disappeared into her office. She emerged several days later with her plant design in her hands.

  When everyone had filled plates from the buffet provided by the inn's kitchen and was seated, Gary opened the meeting. "Before we start, I have some . . . information for you. There is apparently a spy in Suhl, a stranger who is asking some very pointed questions."

  "Who is he?" Pat asked.

  "I'm not sure. We know his name, Andres Zoche, and he's staying at Der Bulle und Bär. He says he's from Ingolstadt but no one believes him—his accent says Leipzig."

  "Who is he working for?" Geyer followed Pat's question.

  "Unknown at this time. Hart Brothers? Someone from Essen? Or Magdeburg? I just don't know but I think we're in a race now." Gary was glad that Archie Mitchell was watching for strangers. Archie's motive, so he said, was checking for known criminals on the run. Whatever his motivation, Archie discovered Zoche and asked the watch to keep an eye on him.

  Gary's opening was a warning to them all. Others were interested in what they were doing. A secret can only be held by one person. Too many knew, albeit bits and pieces, to keep their plans and objectives secret. Putting those bits and pieces together would reveal the consortium's goals.

  When no further questions arose, he returned to his agenda with a simple question. "Status?"

  Geyer responded first. He always acted fast, whether eating or working. Speed, to him, was an imperative as if time was a precious commodity to be spent with extreme care. He had arrived directly from his foundry still dressed in his leather work clothes. He was a hands-on manager and took a personal interest in the foundry operation. He knew every one of his employees by face and name. "Please excuse my appearance. I had a problem at the foundry this morning." He pushed aside his plate, placed some notes before him that he'd written earlier and continued. "The first four steam engines should arrive in a week or less. As we initially planned, two are for me at the foundry, one for the brassworks, and one for the final assembly plant. One of the smaller engines will drive my hammer forge. The rest are for the fabrication buildings and for Gary's tool manufactory. The engines will arrive disassembled and should be up and running before the first of December. Schmidt Steam will assemble the engines on our site and will train our engineers to operate and maintain those engines." Geyer glanced at his notes again. "Gary, your man will be a part of that training as well."

  Gary nodded and made a note for himself. While Geyer was talking, Gaylynn had been refilling cups of tea for the attendees.

  "By the way," Geyer said to everyone after taking a sip of tea, "I've altered my long-term goals but I don't think the change will affect the plan. I can't be a big steel producer like USE Steel or Essen Steel. I haven't the infrastructure to ship my product . . . yet. Not until we get a railroad into Suhl or we dredge the Werra River and add canals around all the mills to allow flatboat and barge traffic. Instead, I'm focusing on quality not quantity, on specialty steel—hard carbon, carbide, and, if I can get sufficient ores, chrome for stainless steel. I may not be able to match up-time steel quality but I want to get as close as I can. I can't match the output of USE Steel nor Essen Steel, but I'll create a niche for us. USE Steel and Essen Steel can make iron and steel plate and rails; I'll make tool and specialty steel."

  "What about the ore supply?" Pat Johnson asked. Iron and copper ore were available locally. The rest, like zinc, tungsten, and maybe molybdenum had to be imported from the Harz Mountain mines.

  "We have contracts with the Harz mines for zinc and the other ores. We may have to extract the tungsten ourselves."

  The ore issue wasn't surprising. Gary had been concerned about acquiring enough for their needs and had asked the Abrabanels for help. They had come through.

  "There is one unexpected issue," Geyer added. "We may have to improve the road, widen it, from the mines to Suhl, building or widening some bridges. The traffic over the road will be increasing four-fold. The mine owners suggest using their mine tailings as a gravel source. At a price," he said with a smile. "They know how to squeeze every bit of money out of us they think they can get away with. At some point in the future we should consider making the road all-weather, macadamizing it."

  He continued, "We have local sources for iron and copper. They are not an issue." He paused and took another sip from his tea cup. "I have also, on our behalf, bought controlling shares in a couple of silver mines . . . just in case we need more funding," he said with a grin. "They're low producers but once we start making tools, I think I can upgrade the local mines with drills, ore saws, mechanization, that sort of thing and make them much more productive."

  Gary was glad the consortium had another revenue source. It would help pay off their debt faster if Geyer was correct. Getting back to the agenda, he asked, "Got a date for your first tool steel production run?"

  "Hard carbon by the first of January. Tungsten carbide will depend on how quickly we can extract the tungsten. I hope Fraulein Prickett will be able to advise me on that task."

  "Thank you, Osker." Gary started to turn to the next member at the table, but Geyer had one more thing to say.

  He reached into his pocket, withdrew a purse and threw it on the table. It landed with a thud. "This is the first revenue for our new corporation. One hundred silver guilders. I've a new profit line—making nails. The stamping machine has been working for a couple of weeks making nails for our construction teams. The stamping machine worked so well, I just let it run making nails of various sizes. I sold a hundred barrels of nails to a factor in Magdeburg, and the payment has just arrived. This is the corporation's share after expenses."

  No one spoke, and then a grin spread across Gary's face. That was followed by a yelp by Gaylynn. "Thank you, Osker. That is good news, indeed." The one hundred guilders was not a l
arge amount as it counted in the scheme of things, compared to their current debt. Their working expenses would make the contents of the purse disappear as if they were smoke. Nevertheless, it was a start. One more step to completion; one more product to be marketed.

  Pat Johnson picked up the purse and hefted it in one hand. Coins faintly clinked. "Heavy," he commented.

  Time to return to business, the next agenda item. Gary chose the next member to give his update. "Pat?"

  Pat put the purse back on the table and picked up his notes. He skimmed them quickly to refresh his memory and spoke, "We have completed the purchase of that plot of land I mentioned when we last met. We now own 2,000 acres, a little over three square miles, and we have an option to buy 1,200 more acres within five years if we need it. I had some topographic maps created when the surveyors were here. Nicki Jo has been using them to plot where to place the various units—storage bunkers, chem plant sites, primer manufactories, brassworks, assembly plants, and all the interconnecting service roads—not to mention plumbing and piping for waste storage and to the settling pools."

  Marjorie Mitchell wasn't here to take the minutes but Gaylynn was substituting for her. Pat paused for a moment to let her catch up. When she nodded, he continued. "For security, we will be adding a berm completely around the production site, the admin building, and the bunkers. The berm won't be anything close to being a fortress but it will give us a better defensive position if we ever need it. We're ready to start on the initial chem plant and the brassworks. I've started making dies with the hard carbon steel that I already have on hand . . . enough for a pilot plant, I think. We'll need more from Osker for the production plants."