Chapter 3
Monday morning
The Imperial College of Science, Engineering, and Technology
It had been a busy three days for Matthias.
Arriving in the city on Friday at mid-day had been none too soon. Finding a room within hours, and a roommate as congenial as Germund, had been a stroke of luck. The big blond Norwegian had made it much easier to get his trunk up the zigzagging staircase.
Saturday went mostly to a last concentrated study session before classes began, on Englisch für technische Studenten, by Wolbert Oberdorfer, instructor at the University of Jena. It had hardly been practical to do much with it in the jouncing freight wagon.
Sunday was for worship, and contemplation, and his first letters to Aunt Grete and Dora Hammelin.
Now here he was, at the college's temporary home in the Altstadt. Everything about the institution was makeshift. The pamphlet was frank enough about that.
Lifetimes ago, the edifice had been an Augustinian monastery. Then, it had been put to use as the city's Latin school for students bound for university. It hadn't been altogether well-maintained, even in those days. Whoever had escaped Tilly's marauders could have done nothing to stop the lead from being stripped off the roof. Now there was a crew of roofers clumping around overhead, doing their best to save the building before the damage from rain and snow could get any worse.
With the Latin school in operation once again, the college was jammed in like a poor relation wherever there was an empty spot. Or wherever a spot could be emptied.
A Latin recitation echoed down the second-floor corridor as Matthias found his way to class. He just had time to drop his books onto the table that took up the middle of the little lecture room, and slide a chair in under himself. If you could call it a lecture room. It had once been a monk's austere cell. There was barely enough space for the half-dozen students to get in and out without tripping. There was interior plaster missing in places, probably where a chair had bumped the water-softened wall.
He took a quick look around at his new classmates. There were two red-bearded fellows about his own age and one man probably in his late twenties. Somewhat to his surprise, two were young women. One of them was short and rather broad-faced. A faint smile seemed to be her resting expression.
Before Matthias could introduce himself, an older man bustled in and took a seat under the chalk board opposite the doorway. He had to be an up-timer if the short haircut, clipped mustache, and the shirt of cotton instead of linen meant anything. He moved with the practiced and confident air common to teachers everywhere. "Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Lennon Washaw, and I'm happy to meet you all. Welcome to Algebra One, German section. You're all where you want to be, right? Nobody here who'd rather take this course in English or Latin?"
"Ja, Herr Washaw." "Ja." Matthias and a couple of the others nodded their heads.
"Good, good." He smiled. "Now, before we get started, there are a couple of things that I need to make sure you all understand. I could talk for a half hour, but the main point is this:
"There's a lot more riding on your success here than just your own careers. You've seen how much up-time technology has done to make people's lives better and stop our land from being everybody else's battleground. Well, if the nation doesn't get more engineers and scientists with twentieth century knowledge very soon, it could all come to a stop. Way too few came through the Ring of Fire. The emperor is very worried. That's why he chartered this college and got his staff to find us a place to meet.
"So. This college is going to go faster than any school or university you've ever seen in your lives. We'll get to know each other better in the next few days, but I do know you're the smartest and most determined students we could find. You can do it.
"But everyone gets stuck now and then. When it happens, come see me for help. That's why I'm here. Or ask another student. Just don't wait. Don't let yourself fall behind. I want you all to pass this course. End of speech. Let's get rolling."
He slid his chair back and stood up, picking up a piece of chalk as he turned toward the blackboard. "Here's what algebra is all about, and why we need it. Books open to chapter one?"
Matthias watched a right triangle take shape on the blackboard, with the sides marked A, B, and C. Was it all about to make sense? The idea of letters that stood for numbers whose size you didn't know was just strange. And apparently all of engineering depended on that. Even geometry. But now there was someone to ask.
∞ ∞ ∞
When Matthias came downstairs to the school's refectory at the end of that first morning's chemistry lecture, he was almost overwhelmed by all he'd heard. Chemistry was the only science course that didn't require algebra as a prerequisite. Considering his goals, he'd been advised to begin it immediately. And it was offered in German.
A trickle of the new knowledge had worked its way to Eisenach, but here it was a river. Elements and compounds. The atomic theory. The ancients had gotten so much wrong, but they'd tried to understand the world by reasoning alone. Well, it was their own seventeenth century that had given the world the philosophy of scientific experiment. The Englishman Francis Bacon had written of it even before the Ring of Fire, and then there was Galileo. There was so much to write home about, if he could find time for a couple of letters tonight.
He looked around the hall to orient himself. It was as timeworn as the rest of the building. If the walls had ever had any decoration, it was long gone. Now it was just bare stone and smoke-blackened ceiling beams. Judging by the pathways worn into the stone floor, it had seen many feet through the centuries.
Unlike the university he'd attended for a year, nobody waited on tables. There was a serving line at one end instead. It seemed to move fairly quickly. In a minute or so Matthias found himself carrying away a wooden tray with a bowl of fish stew, a bread roll, and a cup of the ubiquitous small beer. He looked around for a place to sit.
He saw a few Latin school students leaving, probably the last ones returning to class. Some of the tables were filling up now with the much smaller college contingent.
The first thing that struck him was that nobody wore academic dress. But there was a table where a couple of gray-uniformed young soldiers were just sitting down. They were clean-shaven, and had that up-time way of carrying themselves. It was a perfect chance to practice his English. He walked over to them. "Hello. May I join you?"
The one facing him looked up with a quick smile and made a gesture with his spoon that was probably some sort of welcome. "Sure. My name's Dave Fritz. That's Brent Little over there. You studying here?" For someone with a name like Fritz, he looked almost Italian, with dark curly hair and an olive-tinged complexion. Little was pale and a couple of fingers taller, with light brown hair.
"Yes, I'm starting on chemical engineering. My name is Matthias Ehrenhardt."
"Oh, that sounds like fun. You get to play with boomenstoff?"
"Well, maybe, when they find a place they can put a laboratory. It's all classrooms and books now, and a lot of it. What are you studying?" As he spoke, he was setting his tray down and sliding onto one end of the bench.
"Me? Surveying and mapping. I've got some of the high school math and I took drafting my second year, so the army decided to send me over here for a while. It beats digging latrines."
Little sat back and laughed. "Yeah, a lot of things beat digging latrines. On the other hand, there are a lot of things that digging latrines beats. Like having to hide in one. And even that beats some things. But like you say, I'd rather be right here." He patted the table next to his bowl.
Matthias must have had a puzzled look on his face. Fritz swallowed the bite of bread he had in his mouth and pointed a thumb at Little. "He's talking about the Battle of the Crapper. You know about it, Matthias?"
"No."
"Well, it's a longer story than we can get through right now, but right after we landed here in Germany we had to fight off a big bunch of mercenaries near town. Gretchen Richter hid four little girls down in a latrine so they wouldn't get raped or killed, or both, by whoever won. Could have happened anyway, but some of our guys were in the right spot to stop it. So it didn't. And Brent's right. Even if you're in the shit, things could always be worse."
Matthias was busily spooning up the soup while he listened. The college's mid-day halt was sufficient for a simple meal, but no more than that.
Little snorted. "You've got a way with words, Dave. Couldn't put it better myself."
Fritz made a thumbs-up gesture. "Thanks. And what are you taking? If you said, I forgot."
"Electronics technician course. I'm a radio operator anyway, so I put in for it. Somebody has to keep this junk we've got running. You wouldn't believe . . ."
"Yeah, I probably would. They've got me helping out, teaching basic mechanical drawing. T-square and triangle, if you believe that. And they don't have plastic to make see-through ones, either. Slows you down. Hey, Matthias, will I see you in class?"
"I don't think so, not this term. All engineering students take mechanical drawing, but they say I need algebra first. For now, I study mathematics and chemistry in the morning, and up-time English the whole afternoon. We must master it quickly. The second year's books aren't translated yet. Not many, they say. Of course, my Latin is good."
"Hadn't thought about that. Do you even need Latin here?"
Matthias rocked his hand. "It's useful, sometimes. But the up-timer engineering students have to learn it. Not for science and engineering books, but for correspondence later on, maybe for papers they publish."
Little's mouth turned down for a moment. "Better them than me. German's complicated enough."
Dave Fritz laughed. "Whatever German turns out to be, five years from now!"
Matthias looked back at him, and smiled. "Hmm, yes. Doctor Luther would not be pleased. You up-timers are a corrupting influence."
"Ain't we, though!"
They all laughed, and got on with eating.
Sömmerda, a couple weeks later
Bosboom had had the foresight to put in a forge at one corner of the lower floor where there was a chimney. It wasn't walled off yet, but that would have to be done soon. Soot and ashes in the air wouldn't be a good thing in a place that made linen.
Thomas finished restoring the end of a grossly abused pry bar, and banked the fire. When he straightened up, one of the men came over.
"Forge work finished for the moment, Herr Hammel? Herr Bosboom would like to see you. Over there." He pointed.
Thomas nodded, and followed the workman to the other end of the mill.
"Ah, Herr Hammel, here it is."
Thomas stared at the machine bolted to the bottom of one disassembled crate, and what had to be its base in the other. "This is what you meant by a lathe? I worked with lathes in my journeyman days, but nothing the least bit like this mountain of cast iron!" He spared hardly a glance for the collection of even more enigmatic objects that had been packed in with it, cushioned in oily rags. He straightened up and turned to look at the engineer. "So, Herr Bosboom, what are we supposed to do with all this?"
"We do what Hochuli was going to do, what else? Secure the stand to the mill floor good and solid, put it all back together, and bring a belt down from the overhead shaft. And stack his tool chests alongside the way he did at our last job site, so they're within reach. We're going to need this as soon as we have shaft power. There are always precision parts that have to be made or altered, when we're bringing up a place like this. I know you could do it by hand, but we don't have time for that."
"Hmmph. I don't see any manual in there with it, like all the other machines you ordered. I hope you've done this before."
"No, Hochuli always did that. He was my mechanic. He knew how to set it up and work it."
"Gregorius Hochuli, who lingered too long in the wine shop last night, and stumbled blind-drunk into the mill race? That Gregorius Hochuli? Who never even hinted at this―thing? My aching head!"
"Thomas, you're a master smith. You're a very smart man, I've seen what you've done already. Surely you can manage this."
"Surely? Are you just trying to butter me up? This thing has more gears than anything I've seen yet, and cranks and levers everywhere." Thomas pointed with the pry bar he still held in his hand. "Look at this whole business in the middle! This is nothing like any lathe I've ever heard of. Well. Did he leave us any books? That would help."
"I think so. I'll look in his baggage later, but let's see what's in this big tool chest." Bosboom started opening and closing drawers. Very little of what was in there made any sense to Thomas at first glance. The bottom drawer was deeper than the rest, and there among the strange gleaming tools rested a fat volume. Bosboom pulled it out and opened it to the title page. Marks Handbook.
Thomas looked over his shoulder to see. "Oh, wonderful. It's in English. Why should I not have expected that?" He tossed the pry bar to the floor and threw up his hands. "You can count on me to cry at Hochuli's funeral."
The mill office
October
Dora Hammelin hung her coat on a peg by the head of the stairs and went to take her seat. The office area still had no partitions. It was just an open space at one end of the upper floor, stretching from one plain white outer wall to the other. The table they'd given her was no more than a pair of carpenter's saw horses, topped with three loose planks that would soon be part of the building. It was in the middle of the space, which was just as well. Cold air came off the windows. Herr Bosboom and the builders had tables and papers all around too, but they weren't there at the moment.
She sat down just as the bell rang for the start of the day. Her second day. A soft low-pitched rumble in the floor under her feet began, as the machinery started up.
Dora had a great deal to be happy about. The mill was running now, some of it, and Papa had found her a place here. Matthias would so pleased when her letter reached him. No more wearing out her hands and back in domestic service for meager pay and taking forever to save up a dowry. This was not what she had imagined doing at this time of her life. This was better. And she could live at home with Papa and Mama.
There was a slip of paper on the table.
Please see me. B. Pöhls,
She went around the end of the tall portable slate standing in front of the head clerk's desk, where he kept a long list of things that needed attention. He, at least, had a proper desk and a couple of bookcases. At her approach, he dropped his pen into the inkwell and sat up straight. He was thirtyish, tall, cadaverous, and stooped. By the expression on his face, he looked for all the world like he was sampling a lemon, and fretting about whether the rest of the barrel would meet the approval of some demanding client. "I tell you this frankly, Dora, I'm not at all used to the idea of women clerks. But your father seems to have the factor's ear, and so here you are. So. I will expect you to earn your pay." He shook his finger. "There are no sinecures in the Sommersburg enterprises!"
"No, Herr Pöhls, of course not. No-one would imagine such a thing. I am a very good worker."
Pöhls looked at her severely over his spectacles. "I hope you are a fast learner, as well. You put these invoices in proper order quickly enough yesterday, which is very well, but it's unfortunate that you came knowing nothing of the Italian system of bookkeeping." He sighed, stood, and took a thick volume from a high shelf. "Here, I'll lend you this. Take good care of it and study it carefully. Come to me when you have questions, for you will. This is not easy to grasp. For now, you understand the purpose of a ledger and you can add, yes?"
"Yes, Herr Pöhls."
"Good. I'm thankful for that." He picked up a thick ledger book from the desk, opened it to a page marked by a slip of paper, and put his fingers on two of the columns. "Check these for errors against the invoices you just sorted, then total them, and do the same with the six following pages. Now, I must return to my own work." Muttering something under his breath, he arranged a couple of stacks of paper to his satisfaction and reached for the pen again.
Dora picked up the ledger, the papers, and the textbook, and returned to her own table. Fussy, grumbling employers were no novelty. A grumbling employer in a clean office where the windows let in plenty of light and they paid on time was. If they wanted her to learn formal bookkeeping, then good enough, that's what she would do.
She sat down again with the invoices at her left hand and the ledger at her right, turning them over one by one and deliberately moving her finger down the column. Pöhls wanted accuracy, not speed. The soft trembling of the floor faded from her mind. She hardly noticed when the rest of the office staff came up from a brief meeting on the main floor.
Fritsche Brothers smithy
Bischleben, Thuringia
November
Georg and Friedrich Fritsche were neat and well-organized master craftsmen. Just the same, clean was not possible in a shop where soot, sparks, oils, and metal chips were in the nature of the day's work. The only benefit of plastering the ceiling overhead was to keep sparks off the wood. They kept a table for any papers they needed to handle downstairs, and put it under a small window as far away from the forge as they could. Debris still got there.
The window wasn't bringing in any light to speak of this late in the year and this late in the day, though. The two burly men were peering at what the Erfurt army depot had sent them, with the aid of a couple of candle lanterns. It consisted of a folio-size drawing in an unfamiliar style and color, a "Request for Quote" with pages of legal verbiage, and a sample of a steel part.
Georg held it up in the lightly oiled rag protecting it from rust. "Friedrich, it's ridiculous! For what they're willing to pay? Absurd."
"I don't know, the piece looks simple enough."
"Look again. You see what the finish is like, every place it isn't left rough from the casting? Then look right here―" his finger stabbed down "―on this drawing they gave me, this 'blueprint.' You see these numbers next to the diameter? The army supply clerk explained what it means. They call that a tolerance. The thing has to slide in and work with no hand-fitting at all. It's something to do with rapid repairs on the battlefield."
Friedrich's eye skipped from place to place on the drawing for a dozen heartbeats, then he put his finger on the spot again and looked up with a question on his face.
Georg looked right back. "You don't believe it could mean what it says? I didn't believe it either. Yes, it does have to be bored to within three thousandths of an inch of the exact diameter the drawing says, or they won't accept it." He tapped one finger on Friedrich's leather apron for emphasis. "Not to mention, the rest of the tolerances aren't much more forgiving. And they measure every one, too. He showed me their measuring tools. Exquisite."
"Whoof." Friedrich ran his fingers through his hair for a moment, looking away toward the far end of the shop a dozen paces away, where a single lamp burned above one of the benches. In his mind's eye he saw the shop years ago, when they'd employed three journeymen and a couple of apprentices. The only sound now was the soft purr of the river just outside. He came back to the present. "Well, somebody made this one you brought for us to look at. We're master smiths, Georg. If they could make one, so can we. Let me think on it for a day or so."
Georg's mouth tightened. "Ja, that's another thing." He picked up the sheaf of papers and flourished it. "They don't want just one, they want fifty, and they want them in two weeks. And they claim the Grantville shops could do it, for the price he offered, if they weren't all backed up down there."
"What? That is crazy. One of these things would be close to a week's work, and that's after we figure out how. We'd have to make some kind of special tools for a thing like this, before we could even start. Fifty, though?"
"And plenty more jobs like it, if we could take them. We're a lot closer to the Erfurt army depot than the Grantville shops are. He said they'd love to send us the work."
Friedrich stepped away and walked back and forth between the table and the nearest post supporting the upper floor, thinking. "Fifty of them, and more jobs like it. Wonderful. More work than the two of us could do alone, work enough for all the men we could take on. That's what they tempt us with." He blew out a breath, and looked at the beautifully finished steel part. "Grantville this, Grantville that. I tell you what, Georg. It's time to find out whether that nest of sorcerers really can do something like this and make any money at it. Or is that pen pusher just trying to blow smoke in our eyes?"
Georg set the thing down in the box it had come in, and laughed. "And you want to go there and see with your own eyes, don't you? I can see the look on your face."
"What, shouldn't I?"
Georg clapped his brother on the shoulder. "Well, one of us should. Two days, Friedrich, and we'll have the order for spikes finished and sent off. Two days and we'll have the time free. Why don't you find us something to eat, while I douse the forge fire and sweep up?"
Ten days later
Though the fire was keeping the shop reasonably warm, Georg preferred to work with a pair of heavy gloves that came halfway up his forearms. Just in case. The end of the workpiece was glowing a nice cherry-red. Perfect. He chose a medium size cross-peen hammer, placed the piece just-so on the anvil, and brought down the hammer in a smooth, economical motion. With hardly any need for conscious thought, he advanced the bar and took aim for the next stroke.
The little bell on the door jingled, and a breeze blew in. A customer? Georg stayed his hand and looked up toward the street end of the shop. "Friedrich! Welcome back!" There was somebody else just coming in the door behind him. Georg started to put down the hammer.
"That's all right, brother, strike while the iron is hot. We can talk in a minute. This is Karl Reichert. I'll show him around meanwhile."
"All right, then, this won't take long." Georg turned his eyes back to the work in front of him and resumed striking.
The piece was well on its way to becoming a hinge-half by the time it was too cool to shape further. Georg shoved it back in the forge and turned to look curiously at the young man examining the big power hammer. Clean-shaven, fairly short hair, maybe in his early twenties, and just average size. His clothes looked well-made and reasonably new, but they were clearly meant for working, not for impressing people with his importance. The shirt cuffs looked sweat-stained. Before he could speculate further, Friedrich started across the shop with the newcomer in tow. "Georg, Karl here is a machinist from Davis's new shop in Schwarza. I've arranged for him to be here for a week to see what we have. He can look at some of the things we're being asked to make, and tell us what he thinks might be sensible for us to take on. Karl, this is my brother Georg."
"Pleased to meet you, Herr Fritsche." The fellow had a firm handshake. Not like a smith's, of course.
"So, you're the master Friedrich wrote about? You look young for that."
An amused smile crossed Reichert's face. "I hear that a lot. No, there hasn't been time yet for anyone who started after the Ring of Fire to master my trade. If Grantville had guilds, I'd probably be a middle-rank journeyman. My job is mostly to set up the machines for production runs and show the operators how to run them. I make whatever special tools are needed, and run the more complicated parts myself. And anything else the machine operators and junior machinists can't handle."
"You teach? That sounds like master's work."
"Someday, maybe. The old-timers, what few of them there are, have their hands full teaching us what they know, when they're not doing the really tricky jobs. Some of them are trying to turn themselves into tool-and-die makers with nobody to go to for advice. We all have to stretch ourselves.
"Anyway, I can answer one question for you right now. You've got enough water power to run a small machine shop, if you don't run the hammer at the same time. Otherwise you'd want to put in one of the new mill wheels and a better shaft system. So, would you like to show me what your customers are asking for?"
Georg nodded. "We certainly would." He laid aside the bar he was working on, and stopped the bellows driving air into the forge. "This way." He led the way to the table by the window, and the basket of papers that had come in.