1633

That seemed clear enough. 'Aye. Only after sundown, and then turn it off when you instruct me to do so.'

'You got it. Good.' There was another pause. 'That's really all I've got for tonight. Any questions?'

The prisoner thought for a moment. Then, in a mild tone of voice: 'Yes, actually, I do have a question. Why did the man you sent to deliver this device strike me on the head-several times-spray what I suspect is poison in my face, and bestow a truly monumental string of curses upon me? I don't recall ever meeting the fellow.'

He heard another muttered string of phrases. The only part he understood was: '-kill the stupid kid, I swear I will-'

She broke off abruptly. 'It's because he's Irish and you-well, the 'you' that would have been-conquered Ireland once and apparently-depends who you hear this from- either killed half the Irish or-ah, hell, never mind. He's holding a grudge for something you did about fifteen years from now. In another universe.'

'Ah.' The prisoner nodded. The little smile on his face widened. 'It seems fitting enough. The king is peeved with me for a similar reason. So why should my-ah, allies-not feel the same?'

'Well.' Another pause. 'It's all pretty complicated. To be honest, I'm not sure what I think about the whole thing myself. Not just you, I mean-everything. We're from the future, you know. Americans. You may have heard about us.'

'Oh, to be sure. The earl of Strafford has waxed eloquent on the subject to me, once or twice. I confess I was somewhat skeptical. Apparently I was wrong.'

Silence. Then: 'Okay. Well, I guess I'll sign off now. Remember to turn the walkie-talkie off.'

'A moment, please. What is your name, Lady of the Walkie-Talkie? And do you have any thoughts on the subject of predestination? I have been puzzling over that matter myself, these past many weeks. Nothing much else to do, of course.'

'My name? It's Gayle Mason. As for predestination… oh, hell, Oliver Cromwell. I haven't got the faintest idea. I always just figured a person should try to do the right thing and let God figure out the rest of it.'

'Ah. Splendid. A Puritan after my own heart.'

He heard what sounded like a snort. 'Ha! 'Puritan,' is it? That's sure as hell not what my ex-husband called me.'

'The more fool him, then.' The prisoner's smile became something rather sad. 'Enough. I'll not keep you, Lady Gayle. I suppose it is just that I have not heard the sound of a woman's voice since… since my wife died. It's a sound I miss a great deal.'

Again, there was silence. The prisoner began to push the button, then paused. 'Is there some proper signal I should give, before shutting down this little machine?'

'Oh. Yeah. 'Seventy-three.' But-'

'Aye?'

'Ah… never mind. I'm sorry about your wife and your son. We heard what happened from some of the Yeoman Warders. Ah… never mind. I'll call you again tomorrow night, Oliver Cromwell.'

'And the nights after that?'

'Oh, yeah. Sure. Every night. And now, ah-'

'Seventy-three, Lady Gayle. May the Lord watch over you.'

Part IV

A tattered coat upon a stick

Chapter 26

'Goddamit, Mike, we've got to put a stop to this! We're too sloppy, I tell you. We might as well be handing out all our technical secrets on street corners.'

Mike leaned back in his chair and studied Quentin Underwood for a moment, before he replied. He was trying to gauge exactly how much he would be forced to let Quentin know, in order to head off another one of the man's typical bull-in-a-china-shop rampages. There was a part of Mike-no small part, either-that wished Underwood would finally sever his connection with the July Fourth Party and go it on his own politically. Granted, the immediate damage would be significant. But, in the long run-

At least I'd be spared these constant clashes with him, Mike thought sourly. Quentin may be one of the best industrial managers the world's ever seen, but what he understands about how a society works could be inscribed on the head of a…

For a moment, Mike indulged himself in a little fantasy where he set all the world's scientists to find a pin small enough to fit Quentin Underwood's 'social consciousness' on its head.

Can't be done, he decided. We left all the electron microscopes behind in that other universe.

He realized he couldn't stall any longer. Underwood's flushed face showed the man was working himself up to another explosion.

'Oh, calm down,' he growled. What the hell, let's try it one last time. 'Quentin, I've told you this before, but you never even listen to me. Whatever short-term damage might be done to us because of our 'open books' policy isn't a pittance compared to the long-term damage that clamping down would do. I don't have a problem with locking up a few books, and I've done it. But that only applies to stuff that involves immediate and specific details about weapons-making that really can be kept a secret, at least for a while. An example is that old 1910 book on guns by Greener that Paul Santee owned and all the gunmakers slobber over. Or Chapelle's books, with the building drafts for all those 19 th -century frigates and ships-of-the-line.'

Underwood, from his sullen expression, wasn't moved in the least. Mike decided to match Quentin's temper with his own. He slammed the palm of his hand down on the desk. He was a very strong man, with a large hand. The sound bore a reasonable resemblance to a thunderclap.

'Damnation! Do you even listen to the reports Dr. Nichols gives the cabinet?'

That jarred Quentin. A bit, at least. Underwood leaned back in his own chair, his hands braced on the armrests, and said defensively: 'Hey, c'mon! I've been up in the Wietze oil field for the last stretch. Just got back a few days ago.'

'James has been giving us the same message for a year,' growled Mike in return. He wasn't going to let Quentin off the hook that easily. 'Longer than that-and you've never paid any attention.'

He levered himself out of his chair and took two steps to the window. Jabbing a forefinger at the teeming little city of Grantville below, he said:

'Thirty percent, Quentin. That's probably the lowest fatality rate we can expect, if we get hit with a really good dose of the plague. Or typhus. Or smallpox. Or-hell, you name it.' Frowning: 'And it could be worse than that, especially if it's plague. Some of the Italian cities have suffered a death rate in excess of sixty percent, from what we've heard. Every city in Europe in this era is a mortality sink. People die in them faster than they get born. The only reason urban areas exist at all is because paupers and poor peasants keep drifting into them hoping for a better chance. And most of them are young, too-which gives you some idea of how badly disease hits the cities.'

He heard Underwood shifting in his chair. 'I thought… I mean, dammit, I still don't like the idea of relying on a hippie drug-dealer, but he does seem to know what he's doing. I thought you were pretty sure we'd have some of this-what do you call?-cloram-something or other. Ready by now. Supposed to be some kind of wonder drug, even if'-his voice was a bit skeptical now-'I never heard of it.'

Mike smiled thinly. 'Chloramphenicol. Also known as Chloromycitin. And it is a wonder drug, Quentin. Very effective against typhoid fever and syphilis as well as plague and typhus.'

He turned away from the window. 'James tells me it was real big back in the 1950s. Which, of course, is before your time or mine. That's why neither one of us heard of it before, because they dropped it in favor of other stuff, back in the universe we came from. The problem, apparently, is that about one in twenty-five thousand people has a really bad reaction to it. Bad reaction, as in fatal. Kids-not many, but some-were dying just from being treated for an ear infection. So, with penicillin and other drugs available, it pretty much got put back on the shelves. But, for us, it's the one major antibiotic we can make quickly. And a one-in-twenty-five-thousand fatality rate in a world facing epidemics of bubonic plague just isn't worth worrying about.'

He moved back to his chair and almost flopped into it. Mike was feeling bone tired, more from what seemed like never-ending stress than any actual physical weariness. Becky's absence was especially hard on him.

'Yeah, we can make it, Quentin. Stoner already has, in fact. Just like he and Sally over at the pharmacy-your son-in-law at the chem plant too, for that matter-have been able to make some of the sulfa drugs and DDT. But we can't make enough. That's the problem. We're doing better with DDT, but as far as the medicines go… right now, we've got enough stockpiled to treat a few thousand people. That's it, and the stockpile only grows slowly. A trickle-with, by now, maybe a million people just in the United States alone. Ten million, probably-maybe more, who knows?-in the CPE as a whole.'

He gave Underwood a stony gaze under lowered eyebrows. 'Stainless steel, Quentin. That's what we need in order to move from home-lab bucket-scale production to real industrial production. That's what we need in order to turn antibiotics from a social and political nightmare into an asset. From a privilege- who gets it? and who decides?-into a right.' He waved a hand at the window. 'Yeah, sure, we've been able to scrape up some stainless from what we brought with us in the Ring of Fire. Enough stock in the machine shops to make valves, that kind of thing. A couple of small dairy tanks, the lucky break of having a tanker truck in town when the Ring of Fire hit. Some other stuff. But we need lots of it, Quentin. Thick slabs of it, too, not just thin sheet. Some of these chemical processes require a lot of pressure as well as high temperatures.'

As always, given a technical problem, that impressive part of Quentin Underwood's brain which wasn't half-paralyzed by bias and preconception was now working. 'How about-'

Mike laughed. 'Leave off, Quentin! You've got enough on your plate as it is getting our petroleum industry up and running. Without that-also-everything else is moot anyway. Besides, you're missing my whole point.'

He leaned forward and tapped the desk with stiff fingers. 'Forget us doing it, in the first place. There are tens of millions of people in Europe today, Quentin. They are just as smart as we are-smarter, some of 'em-and plenty of them have as much initiative and get-up-and-go as we do. And they're often-more often than not-in a better position to do something than we are. For stainless steel, just to name one instance, you've got to have access to chromium. Which they already have in Sweden. In fact, Gustav's sent out an expedition to examine some place called Kemi, somewhere in or near Finland.

'So let them do it. Hell, let the French do it, if that's how it winds up shaking down. Once anybody starts making stainless steel, you won't be able to stop it from spreading. Provided-'

Here he gave Quentin his best glare. 'Provided that we didn't put a roadblock in the way by locking up every book that might have a so-called 'technical secret' in it.'

Quentin tried to match the glare, but gave it up after a few seconds. 'Well, I guess,' he grumbled. 'But I still hate to just see us standing around with our thumb up our