Grantville Gazette 43

  "The style of the Playboy’s photos reminded me more of Botticelli—I presume you know the Birth of Venus—"

  Christine nodded.

  "Even sometimes with the same hand positions. "But this here." Max pointed to the spot on the painting where two lower bodies not completely met, but showed something very male between them. "Never!"

  Both women laughed.

  "So I believe," Christine said, "there is actually something the Americans can learn from us down-timers."

  Max grinned. "I'm not sure. Some of the articles I read—" Christine chuckled. Max blushed. "Oh, you devious woman! Not in the Playboy! You know about their videotapes?"

  Christine nodded again. "We have seen movies when we visited Grantville and lived in the Higgins' Hotel."

  "They have a kind of movies, they call triple-ex. As far as I understood, they show exactly this, but no American would admit that he owns one." They laughed again.

  "And we would not admit," Christine concluded, "that we own this book."

  When Max turned the page, revealing another, rather similar painting, she noticed something scribbled on the bottom of the page.

  Capital and small letters B and b. She skimmed forward and back again. Yes, most pages had these scribblings, two or more letters B, b, M, and m. Sometimes a stroke.

  "Christine," Max pointed to the scribblings. "What is this?"

  Now was the time for Christine to blush. "These are our—ah—ratings. In Latin. The capitals are from Johann, the minuscules from me. B stands for bonum . . . "

  "And M stands for malum. I understand. So you tried all these?"

  "Not the stroked ones."

  Max opened one of these. "Oops!" The man on this painting raised—front side up—on his hands and feet. The woman was sitting on his hip. "I understand."

  "Yes, Johann has never been an acrobat." Double laughter.

  Max was skimming again. "But all the others. Hmmm. This one is possible?"

  "With the decent amount of motivation and effort, yes it is." Christine's gaze was somewhat dreamy.

  Now Max concentrated on the paintings marked B-b or with even more of these, and the next hour was filled with much giggling and explanations.

  Then she reached a page with no ratings on it. Max needed some time to register, what was special with this painting. "Oh!" Now her gaze got dreamy. "Oh!"

  "Christine . . . " Max had to clear her throat thrice. "Christine, would you like to hold my hand, too?"

  The morning after

  Now was the morning after. When Max slowly opened her eyes, she looked into two smiling faces. Christine had huddled herself against Johann's other side, and Johann had never looked as complacent as in this moment.

  "Christine, you scheming woman! I love you both!"

  "Hey," Christine responded. "This time I didn't plan anything. You did everything alone.

  Max grinned. "But I'm sure that your mentioning of the book on the first evening was not completely incidental."

  "What book?" Johann asked frowning. "Oh, that book. I understand. Now I understand!"

  Max kissed his cheek. "Good. I love clever men." Then she giggled, as she remembered Johann's startled face, in the moment the two women had entered his sleeping room hand in hand, both in their long white nightdresses. He had thrown away the book he had been reading and his spectacles as fast as he could . . .

  She stroked his chest with her hand, while he stroked her buttocks. It was something special to wake up in the arms of someone you love. Love? Is this love? Someone in Grantville had told her how different Gretchen Higgins had looked at her husband Jeff, the first day both appeared back again in Grantville after their wedding. They had told Max that the day before, Gretchen's face had reminded them of steel, and of rosy wax afterwards. Max had never believed this to be real, but now . . .

  Now it seemed it was real. Suddenly her hand met Christine's, who also was stroking her husband's hairy chest. Max stroked this hand, and looked up. She could not see the faintest idea of something like jealousy in Christine's eyes. Only friendliness, approval, and again this whiff of elation. No, it was softer. Love? Is this the face of love?

  Max heaved a deep sigh. Then she remembered the rest of the world. "Oh my goodness. This is so weird!"

  "But good," Christine answered softly. "Very, very good."

  "I love this," was Johann's inevitable comment.

  Late March 1634

  The weather had turned bad, and during the week, Max spent most of her time in the Jagdschloss. She had moved her workplace into the annex of the sauna, the outhouse as Johann called it, because the many windows in the outer wall provided her with the best daylight for working. The house's electric generator produced enough power to recharge the wet-cell of her electronic calculator and drive some extra light bulbs in the morning and late afternoon hours.

  She was very fond of the "old" HP-95LX, she had found together with her beloved Filofax at a Grantville yard sale, shortly after her arrival.

  ****

  Max had spent a too long night in the library, and it had just broken dawn when she had sleepily noticed that sign.

  An old woman—old from age but fit like many older people in Grantville—was just putting boxes from her garage out onto some tables. In spite of her tiredness, Max offered her—his—help, and so the two worked together and chatted for some time. The woman's grandson Tom, Max learned, had been at the college—the American term for Universität —the day the Ring of Fire fell, and the "young man" Max reminded her of him.

  The woman was now clearing the boy's room since her pension had also stayed up-time, so she had to sell as much as possible. These were the days before the big run onto Grantville's hidden treasures had started. When Max got to a dusty, cobwebbed cardboard box, she was astonished how heavy it was.

  "Yes," the old woman had said, "this is Tom's knickknack box. I think it contains books."

  Books! Max was now wide-awake again. "May I have a look?"

  "Of course. Everything here is on sale."

  Max opened—Phew!Cough!—the dusty container, and in fact found books. "HP-95LX User's Guide" was the first title. As she pulled it out, she noticed that a plastic box was hidden beneath.

  The woman looked over her shoulder. "Oh, that is a broken calculator. When Tom got his new computer in 1995—his uncle Tommy, who he was named after, was always generous—he said this ancient stuff was 'scrap' anyway. He'd cleared half of his shelf to make way for his new manuals."

  At that point, Max had read already much about the American computers and scientific calculators and was eager to read more. Buying a real computer was too expensive, even when she regarded the money she had inherited from her uncle, which had in the meantime arrived on her account in the Grantville bank.

  "I think, he said something leaked out of the batteries," the woman muttered.

  Max opened the battery compartment and revealed a green mess. Broken. Apparently. But the books . . .

  "Would you like to sell the whole box to me? I like these books, and perhaps I find someone who can mend the calculator."

  "I have no use for it, but it won't be cheap—" A shrewd smile appeared, turning to warm. "But I like you. It'll only cost you—ten thousand dollars."

  Oops! Hmmm. This might be affordable . . . First for some bargaining . . . "What do you think about getting one thousand now, and I pay you another four, if the calculator can be repaired?" A good start . . .

  Some "professional discussions" with one of her up-timer classmates ("Where did you get that old piece of crap from?") and some serious cleaning actions within the battery compartment had eventually yielded her a real little computer. Even if the up-timers regarded that tiny display and the even tinier memory as completely outdated.

  The wide-range power adaptor was very sweet-tempered for the occasional fluctuations in Grantville's power grid and had her still working, when the newer computers of the others ("Shit, bluescreen again! I haven't saved my work for ha
lf an hour!") went on strike. Later she invested in a big wet-cell and a pedal generator in case she had to work on construction sites out of town with no access to the power grid.

  Below all the computer stuff in the box she had found an empty Filofax. At first, she had no idea what to do with this thing. The smooth leather envelope was very nice, but she could not imagine what these steel rings in the middle might be for. In the library she had to browse back into the 1980s to find information, fortunately the golden stamp on the empty binder had disclosed its name.

  Then at another yard sale, she had found an unopened content pack for the year 1986. Since it was already September she could use the calendar—oddly enough, the weekdays all matched with the Gregorian calendar the Americans used—only for three months, but she was well able to create next year's calendar herself from empty pages.

  Since then, Filofax had been her friend, lover, even husband—ah, wife. Every single piece of information she had gathered in her classes and her long nights in the libraries had entered into the paper database, which wasn’t depending on unreliable electrical power.

  When eventually one of Grantville's print shops announced last November that they would publish a Filofax content pack for 1634, she was the first on the subscriber list and one of the first in the queue on a cold December morning when the availability had finally been announced.

  ****

  And so the week passed, with drawing plans, rough calculating the necessary amounts of materials for the structural work, and creating a crude project plan.

  After lunch with Johann and Christine—Samuel had his main office in Eisenach and returned to Marksuhl only for the Schabbes—they sat over a cup of coffee together in the salon—Was it only last Friday when Johann made that indecent proposal here?—talking about problems and developments for an hour or so.

  In the afternoons occasionally craftsmen appeared to have discussions with their contractee and his architect about the where and when and how of their contracts.

  On one of these days, when a stubborn master carpenter had fortunately just left, Max jumped up and let out a loud roar. She clenched her fists and tried to give the heavy leather armchair a nine-ten-knockout.

  Laughing, Johann managed to get her into one of his strong hugs and calmed her down. "Shhh. Take it easy! They are as they are. Look at me, I have dealt with these kind of people for fifty years, and still haven't yet broken my knuckles. Not that I sometimes aren't tempted to do what you just did."

  "We should buy a punching bag. Or sew our own." Max laughed.

  Then she said, "Why don't they understand that they can't use their own measures when they want to get a contract for the Wartburg? When we buy windows from ten different masters, they use twenty different measures. Oh my God! Can somebody please unify the German measures?"

  Three years in Grantville . . .

  "Okay," Johann said. "I have no political power in the rest of the Germanies, but at least in West Thuringia they listen to me when I speak. What do you need?"

  "What?" Max was startled.

  Johann grinned. "Nice to hear that from a woman. It's a pity that Christine is not around.

  "Hey, I'm the duke. Moreover, the governor. In case you forgot that, Liebling."

  "I love it when you call me 'darling.' " Max kissed him passionately on the cheek. "And I love you, too."

  After a while, they separated and she donned her professional facial expression.

  "Hmmm. Let's see. We don't want to invent something completely new. So we can either use the metric system meter or the American foot.

  "The metric system is a great deal better. Multiplying and dividing by ten, or hundred, or thousand is taught in the Elementarschule. All up-time scientists—even the American ones—used it, all the while gnashing their teeth. Eventually it will spread all over the world. Since it's a French invention, Richelieu and his minions will certainly do their share.

  "But since it's a French invention, in the current political climate, no German prince can force it without being accused of conspiracy." Max looked to Johann. Johann nodded.

  "That leaves the American system. Going from the Zoll to the Fuß, or to use the English names, from the inch to the foot, means multiplying by twelve. Therefore, the optimum would be to proceed with that multiplier. We could have the Dutzendfuß, then the Grosfuß, and then the Maßfuß, which would be twelve, one hundred forty-four and one thousand seven hundred twenty-eight feet.

  "But to calculate twelve times twelve times twelve, even I normally would rather use paper and pencil. It would still be much simpler than the American way to get from the foot to the mile, but we cannot send all craftsmen to the Lateinschule."

  "No," Johann agreed, "that would be a little too expensive. And futile in most cases." Both laughed joyfully.

  "That leaves us," Max now started to pace up and down the room her hands folded at her back. Her students had detested that, but she could not suppress it, once she was on Warp 9.9 as her up-time students had called it.

  "That leaves us the American inch and foot, which are well-known in Thuringia, Franconia, and everywhere else the Americans trade. And multiplying the foot by ten, and hundred, and thousand gives us the Dekafuß, the Hektofuß, and the Kilofuß."

  "Kilofuß!" Johann shouted. "I love that!"

  "And while we're at it, we could have the Megafuß and the Gigafuß. But the latter is nearly 190,000 American miles long, so it would span more than seven times around the earth or nearly up to the moon. We won't need that; it’s a dimension only the scientists use. And they—"

  "—will use the metric system anyway, frog-eater or not," Johann interrupted her. Then he cocked his head. "Did you recognize that I have listened to you?"

  "Oh yes," Max jumped again into Johann's hug and kissed him passionately again. This time directly on the mouth. "I love clever men!"

  "But—" Johann gave the kiss back, and shoved her at arm's length.

  "There is no but. I do love clever men!"

  He smiled, and tried to keep his composure. "Yes, you told me. But what exactly is a Fuß ? "

  Pointedly she slanted her head and directed her stare to the lower end of his legs. Then she looked back in his eyes. "There is an obvious answer, and a less obvious one."

  He smiled. "Hmmm. I dreaded that. What is the obvious answer?"

  "Without kidding. A Fuß is a foot. In days bygone, it was exactly the sovereign's foot's length. When they had a new sovereign, they had a new Fuß. So if you would like to put your foot on a sheet of paper . . . "

  "Oh no," he laughed. "Please tell me the less obvious answer."

  "The length of the so-called International Foot was fixed in 1959 to point three zero four eight meters."

  "O . . . kay," he said slowly. "So now I need to know, what is a meter?"

  "At the moment, nobody knows."

  "What?" He flinched a little.

  Max grinned devilishly. "No, I won't slap you, I'm pondering over my own kind of reaction, and until I find one, you are safe. And this question is in fact not that stupid." She frowned and started pacing again.

  "There is a definition of the meter in terms of motions of atoms, but nobody—not even the Americans—has a device or can build one to measure this motion at the moment. Up-time they had made a rod out of platinum and iridium exactly one meter long, and kept it in Paris. Then they made thirty copies of this rod, and distributed them to the capitals of the world. Of course, Grantville has none of them.

  "So nobody knows at the moment what exactly a meter is. However, the Americans know what a foot is. Each up-timer school kid has a ruler, which shows a foot’s length. The machine shops have much better devices, which show what a foot is.

  "Steel rulers are better than wood rulers; platinum rulers would be more exact, but for our masons and carpenters, wood will be good enough."

  "So," Johann's eyes gleamed. "We tell the Americans to make us a one foot ruler, or thirty, or one hundred of them."

&nb
sp; "Yes, this is it. Did I already tell you, that I love clever men?" She kissed him quickly again. "But it would be better to have rulers with, say, eight feet length, and marks for each foot, and each inch, and each eighth of an inch, so the craftsmen can directly check all the necessary lengths.

  "We have the Americans make them from steel, and let the carpenters here in Eisenach make official wooden copies of them.

  "Oh, and the up-timer craftsmen have wooden foldable rulers with metal hinges; they wear them in a long pocket along their leg. So we should check if there is already a company which builds them or at least can build them on order."

  ****

  Johann retired into his study and wrote one of his famous "We, Johann Ernst" proclamations. Within the County of West Thuringia, his words were no longer automatically law, but his new position as Hereditary Governor allowed him to write one first and let the government approve later; they were accustomed to this.

  But he also wrote a letter with copies to the governments of the county and the state, to his nephew-in-law Wilhelm, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel, and his nephews in the other duchies; he even addressed Ludwig Günther, Count of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, although their families' relations were not really good.

  He offered each of them one of the rulers made of steel free of charge, and emphasized that it would be an enormous advantage for their dealing with his Wartburg project, and trading with each other and the Americans, if they would introduce them as mandatory measurements in their respective reach of power.

  ****

  When the Americans produced the steel rulers one month later, each of them—by officially unknown means—had the name of the duke and a small representation of his coat of arms engraved. And when the licensed carpenters, first in Eisenach, and then in the other principalities around, started to make wooden copies of them, they stamped the duke's name and his coat of arms onto them with glowing iron stamps. Also the folding rulers which were produced later got this stamp. And the tape measures which followed much later, too.

  County after county, and city after city in the USE started to introduce these measurements, and the rulers were distributed everywhere. In the meantime, nobody called it an "eight foot official ruler" any longer, but everybody knew it as a "Johann Ernst."