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unabashed partisan of the Stearns administration and so, by definition, a natural enemy where John Chandler Simpson was concerned. Despite that, he noted a flicker of pleasure in the redhead's gray eyes at Simpson's acknowledgment of the youngster's contribution. One of his many contributions, to be sure-but Nat was still somewhat surprised that Simpson himself could recognize it, much less be willing to acknowledge it openly.

As he had sometimes before, Nat found himself wondering if the elder Simpson had found the personal rupture with his son Tom far more painful than he ever indicated in public. If so, it might be that in some odd way John Simpson was finding in brash young Eddie Cantrell-as well as his friend Larry Wild-something in the way of surrogate sons.

It was hard to know. Whatever John Simpson's other talents, 'personal sensitivity' was very far down the list. Nat shook his head slightly and returned his concentration to the matter at hand.

The gun mount design Davis and Ollie Reardon had finally come up with was a far cry from anything the 21 st century would have accepted, but it ought to be sufficient for their present purposes. It would permit the guns to recoil completely, then lock them there, with the muzzles well inboard while they were sponged out and reloaded, until the release lever was tripped and the hydraulic cylinders ran them back to battery. By adopting Eddie's suggestion and using top-opening armored shutters for the gun ports and an articulated rod between each shutter and the carriage of the gun it served, the same hydraulics would open and close the gun ports automatically as the weapon was served.

'What about the carronades for the wing mounts and the timberclads?' Simpson asked.

'They're coming along on schedule,' Davis assured him. 'And the team at Luebeck says that they'll be ready to begin casting Gustav's carronades on-site within another four to five weeks. We just got a radio message from them yesterday.'

'As long as they don't distract resources from our project,' Simpson grumbled sourly. 'That monster Gustav demanded has already eaten up enough effort.'

'I don't guess we should've been surprised,' Eddie observed with a grin. 'I did some research on seventeenth and eighteenth century navies for a war game a couple of years before the Ring of Fire, and it was only a few years ago Gustav built this really big galleon. Supposed to be the biggest and baddest warship in the entire Baltic. Named it for the Vasa dynasty.'

'Really?' Davis looked at him and raised an eyebrow. 'Should I assume from your expression that it was a less than completely successful design?'

'You could say that,' Eddie chuckled. 'Sucker sank right there in harbor. Seems they hadn't gotten the stability calculations just right.'

'Wonderful,' Simpson snorted. 'Not exactly the best recommendation for his latest project, is it?'

'Oh, I expect they'll get it closer to right this time… sir.' Eddie grinned again. 'The king's naval architects just about ate my copies of Chapelle's books on American sailing ship designs. They don't show any ironclads, but the sloop of war design they settled on should carry the armor no sweat. Especially with the reduction in the weight of guns.'

'I don't really doubt that the design is workable, Lieutenant,' Simpson said. 'Practical, now… That's something else again. It's a sailing ship. That means they're still going to have to have men on deck to trim the sails, which seems to me to leave a teeny-tiny chink in their protection.'

'Guess so, at that,' Eddie allowed. 'Of course, the armored bulwarks oughta help some, even there.'

'Some,' Simpson acknowledged. 'In the meantime, though, we're diverting the effort to build a real rolling mill at Luebeck.'

'Maybe so,' Davis said, 'but it's going to be turning out iron, not steel. And the individual plates aren't going to be all that much bigger than ours, anyway.' He grinned at Simpson. 'Frankly, I'm just as happy to let him play with his own design while we get on with building ours.'

'You may have a point,' Simpson replied. He let his chair rock back and forth a few times while he considered what Eddie and Davis had reported. At least it didn't sound as if there'd been any more slippage in the construction schedule. He considered-again-suggesting that the timberclads be given a somewhat higher priority. True, they were going to be much smaller, armed only with relatively short-ranged carronades and protected only by extra thick, heavy timber 'armor.' In addition, they were going to be powered by paddle wheels between their catamaran hulls, and their power plants would be steam-driven. In every way that counted, they were going to be cruder, less capable designs. But they were also going to be available in greater numbers, and they were going to be shallower draft than the ironclads, even with the bigger ships' trim tanks.

He had a nagging suspicion that he ought to be pressing for their more rapid completion. After all, all they really needed was to be just good enough to do the job, not the best design that could possibly be produced. Surely he'd seen enough unhappy demonstrations during his original navy days of what happened when the service insisted on building in every possible bell and whistle!

He told his suspicion-again-to shut up. No doubt there was something to it, but there was also something to be said for building at least a few really capable units for the timberclads to back up. And if there was an element of the empire building Stearns was so contemptuous of (even while he was busy building his own little political empire), then so be it.

'I think that will probably be all, gentlemen,' he told them. 'Mr. Davis, I would appreciate it if you would make it your business to check in with the local ironworkers. It looks to me like our next possible bottleneck is going to be bolt production. It won't do us any good to manufacture the armor if we can't attach it to the hulls! Please see what you can do to expedite that for us.'

Davis nodded, and Simpson turned to Eddie.

'As for you, Lieutenant. According to Dietrich, there's a problem with the port gun mounts in Number Three. He's not certain what it is. I'd like you to check with the crew foreman and see what you can find out. If you can deal with it yourself, do so. If you need some additional assistance, I'm sure Mr. Davis would be happy to help out.'

'Yes, sir,' Eddie said. 'I'll get right on it.'

'Good. In that case, gentlemen, dismissed.'

Davis nodded, and Eddie came to attention-or, at least, Simpson decided, closer to it than usual-and the two of them turned and headed for the door.

'Just a moment.' His voice stopped them just before they left the office, and they turned back to look at him as he smiled slightly at Eddie. 'I almost forgot. I thought you'd like to know, Lieutenant, that the President and Congress have accepted your recommendation for names for the ironclads.'

'They have, sir? That's great!' Eddie grinned broadly.

'Indeed they have. Number One will be Constitution. Number Two will be United States. Number Three will be President, and Number Four will be Monitor. I trust this meets with your approval?'

'Oh, yeah!' Eddie said exuberantly. Then he shook himself. 'I mean, it certainly does, sir.'

'I am delighted to hear it,' Simpson said dryly. 'Dismissed, gentlemen.'

Chapter 5

'I have it!' Gustav Adolf suddenly exclaimed. 'Let's pay them a visit!'

Standing next to him at the open window of the new palace overlooking the heart of Magdeburg, Axel Oxenstierna's eyes widened. He was staring at one of the new buildings which had been recently erected in the city. More precisely, he was glaring rather than simply staring; and doing so at the peculiar ornamentation of the building rather than the building itself.

The fact that the ornamentation was even newer than the building was not the cause of the Swedish chancellor's irritation. Almost every edifice in Magdeburg was new, or largely so. Two years earlier, in the single worst atrocity of a long war filled with atrocities, Tilly's Bavarian soldiers had sacked the city. Most of the inhabitants had been slaughtered-some twenty to thirty thousand people, depending on who told the story-and Magdeburg itself put to the torch. Between the damage caused by the siege and the sack, there had not been much left standing intact when Tilly's army withdrew.

For months now, starting with Gustav Adolf's decision the previous autumn to make Magdeburg the capital of his new imperial realm called the Confederated Principalities of Europe, Magdeburg had been a beehive of activity. No one knew the size of the population, but Oxenstierna was certain it had already exceeded thirty thousand. People from all over central Germany-even beyond-were practically pouring into the city to take advantage of its prospects. New construction was going up everywhere, and of all kinds. New residences, of course-as well as the emperor's new palace in which Oxenstierna was standing. But also, along the banks of the river Elbe, the somewhat bizarre-looking new factories which Gustav's American subjects had designed. From where he stood, Axel could see the naval works where John Simpson and his men were building the new ironclad riverboats.

'Subjects,' thought Oxenstierna sourly. Like calling a wolf a 'pet' because-for the moment-the wild beast has agreed to wear a collar. With a string for a leash, and no muzzle.

'You must be joking,' he growled. 'Gustav, you can't be serious.'

He twisted his head to look up at his ruler. Gustav II Adolf-Gustavus Adolphus, in the Latinized version of his name-had a personal size and stature to match his official one. The king of Sweden and emperor of the Confederated Principalities of Europe was a huge man. Standing more than six feet tall, he was wide in proportion and very muscular. The layers of fat which inevitably came to him whenever the king was not engaged in strenuous campaigning only added gravity to his figure.

'You must be joking,' repeated the chancellor, more in a half-plea now than a growl.

Gustav shrugged. 'Why should I be joking?' He lowered his heavy face, crowned with short blond hair and framed with a thick mustache and a goatee. The powerful beak of a nose seemed aimed at the offending structure below.

'They are my subjects, Axel, even if-' A little chuckle rumbled. 'I admit, the rascals seem to wear their subordination lightly. But I remind you that not once-not once, Axel-have they done anything openly rebellious.'

'Not openly, no,' admitted the chancellor. Sourly, he studied the peculiar twin arches adorning the far-distant building. The arches had been painted a bright gold, which made them stand out amidst the gray buildings which surrounded them. All the more gray, in that most of those buildings were factories.

The color annoyed Oxenstierna perhaps more than anything else. Partly because its vividness, against the backdrop of the drab new factories and workshops, served to accentuate the awkward fact that these cursed Committees of Correspondence almost invariably found a receptive audience among the new class of workmen which was rapidly arising in central Germany. Nowhere more so than in Magdeburg.

But, mostly, he was annoyed because gold paint was expensive.

The implications were disturbing to Oxenstierna. It was one thing for a realm to have a layer of its population filled with unrest and radical notions. There was nothing unusual in that. For two centuries, Europe had been plagued with periodic eruptions of mass discontent-even rebellion. The Comuneros had shaken even Charles V's Spanish kingdom to its foundations-the Dutch had thrown the Habsburgs out completely-and Germany itself had been convulsed, a century earlier, by the great Peasant War and the Anabaptist seizure of Mьnster. Even Sweden had had its share of domestic turbulence, now and then, such as the rebellion led by Nils Dacke a hundred years earlier.

But, for the most part, the rebellions had been easy enough to suppress. The rebels, as a rule, were a motley assortment of poor peasants and townsmen, many of