David Weber - How firm a foundation

“As long as we’re not talking about something which would compromise his own principles, at least,” Wylsynn agreed.

“And you feel the same way?” Mahklyn asked quietly.

“And I’m trying very hard to feel the same way.” Wylsynn quirked a brief smile. “I’m afraid I haven’t quite decided where my principles are going to settle now that I’ve learned the truth. In fact, I’m afraid I’m discovering that I have very few principles-or hesitations, at least-when it comes to considering things to do to those bastards in Zion.”

“I can work with that,” Mahklyn said with an answering and far colder smile. “Of course, I’ve been thinking about it for a while longer than you have.”

“True, but I have a very personal motivation for seeing every one of them dangling at the end of a rope, just like those butchers in Ferayd.”

“By the oddest turn of fate, I believe that’s precisely what Their Majesties and Captain Athrawes have in mind, Father.”

“In that case, why don’t we see what we could do to expedite that moment?” Wylsynn’s naturally warm eyes were as cold as the gray ice of Hsing-wu’s Passage in winter. “I’ve been giving some thought to Commander Mahndrayn and Baron Seamount’s more recent ideas, and even more to Master Howsmyn’s. I don’t believe the Baron’s notions are going to present any serious problems, but Master Howsmyn’s getting close to the Proscriptions’ limits. I can probably cover his interest in hydraulics by an extension of my attestation for his accumulators, but his proposed steam engines clearly cross the line into exactly the sort of knowledge Jwo-jeng and Langhorne wanted to make certain we’d never go anywhere near.”

“I was afraid you’d say that.”

“In my present mood, that’s actually a powerful recommendation for building the things tomorrow,” Wylsynn said dryly. “Nonetheless, we’re obviously going to have problems if we don’t prepare the ground carefully. Fortunately, all the years I spent condemning intendants and inquisitors who connived at getting around the Proscriptions in return for the proper considerations gave me all sorts of examples of logic-chopping when I approached my new task, and it occurred to me that if I simply borrowed a page from their book, the steam engine problem might not be so insurmountable as I’d first thought.”

“Indeed?” Mahklyn leaned back and raised his eyebrows hopefully.

“Of course not!” Wylsynn assured him. “It’s very simple, Doctor! We’ve used steam and pressure cookers since the Creation in things like food preparation and preservation. There’s nothing new or tainted about generating steam! Who could possibly object to someone’s doing that? And when you come right down to it, producing steam the way Master Howsmyn is proposing is simply a way of generating wind pressure on demand, isn’t it? Of course it is! And we’ve used windmills since the Creation, too. For that matter, wind is one of Jwo-jeng’s allowable trinity of wind, water, and muscle! So except for the novel notion of making wind where and how it’s most urgently required, I see no barrier under the Proscriptions to the development of Master Howsmyn’s new device.”

He leaned back in his own chair and smiled broadly at his host.

“Do you?” he asked. . V.

King’s Harbor, Helen Island; Navy Powder Mill #3, Big Tirian Island; and Tellesberg Palace, City of Tellesberg Kingdom of Old Charis

“Have you got those new fuse notes for Master Howsmyn, Urvyn?”

“Right here, Sir,” Urvyn Mahndrayn said patiently, tapping the leather briefcase clasped under his left arm with his right forefinger. “And I also have the improved high-angle gun sketches, and the memoranda High Admiral Rock Point wants me to deliver, and the memo from Baron Ironhill, and your invitation for him to dine with you when he visits Tellesberg next month.” He smiled at his superior and raised his eyebrows innocently. “Was there anything else, Sir?”

“You,” Sir Ahlfryd Hyndryk, Baron Seamount, said severely, swivel chair squeaking as he leaned back, the better to contemplate the commander, “are an insubordinate young whelp, aren’t you?”

“Never, Sir!” Mahndrayn shook his head, expression more innocent than ever. “How could you possibly think such a thing?”

“After working with you for the last couple of years?” Seamount snorted. “Trust me, it’s easy.”

“I’m shocked to hear you say that, Sir,” Mahndrayn said mournfully.

“Disappointed if I didn’t, more likely!”

Mahndrayn only grinned, and Seamount chuckled.

Sunlight poured into the baron’s office. He had a marvelous view out over King’s Harbor from his windows, although some people might have felt just a little uncomfortable knowing that the fortress’ main powder magazine was directly underneath them. The slate wall panels were covered with their usual smudgy chalked notations, at least a quarter of which were in Mahndrayn’s handwriting, not Seamount’s. Stacks of memos and folders of correspondence littered the baron’s desk in seeming confusion, although Mahndrayn knew they were actually carefully organized.

“Are you sure my absence isn’t going to knock anything off schedule, Sir?” the commander asked more seriously, and Seamount shrugged.

“I realize this may come as another shock to you, Commander, but I’d been looking after myself on my own for quite some time before you happened along. I imagine I’ll be able to fumble through somehow until you get back,” he said dryly.

Mahndrayn nodded, although he and Seamount both knew he’d been gradually assuming more and more responsibilities as Seamount’s assistant and executive officer-what High Admiral Lock Island had called a “chief of staff.” And a trip to Ehdwyrd Howsmyn’s massive foundry complex wasn’t exactly a jaunt to Tellesberg, either; it was well over eight hundred miles, which would take a full five-day each way. That was going to take a serious bite out of Mahndrayn’s usual schedule, and a lot of additional work was going to end up dumped back on Seamount’s desk while he was away.

“I think we’ve got everything covered,” the baron went on, more serious now. “I won’t pretend it’s not going to be a pain, and I don’t want you away any longer than you have to be, but we’ve been letting stuff that needs to be handed off to Master Howsmyn pile up too long because both of us were too busy to make the trip. If we’re going to meet High Admiral Rock Point’s schedule, we can’t afford to let that go on. Which means one of us has to go, since no one else is cleared for all of this material, and I just plain can’t. Which is why-”

He gestured at the briefcase under Mahndrayn’s arm, and the commander nodded again.

“Yes, Sir. I think Master Howsmyn and I can probably cover everything in one day. And I promise I’ll get back here as quickly as I can.”

“Quickly is good, but the whole point of this trip is to give Master Howsmyn the chance to ask any questions he needs to face-to-face. Don’t rush your meeting with him. Better to take an extra day, or even two or three, than for one of us to have to make the same trip again.”

“I understand, Sir.”

“I’m sure you do. And give your cousin my regards.”

“I will, Sir.”

“Good. Now go.” Seamount pointed at the office door, and Mahndrayn smiled, saluted, and obeyed the command.

“Urvyn! This is a surprise,” Trai Sahlavahn said as the yeoman ushered his cousin into his office. “I didn’t know you were coming!”

“I’m on my way to see Master Howsmyn,” Mahndrayn explained, crossing the office to clasp Sahlavahn’s offered forearm. “Big Tirian’s not very far out of the way, so I thought I’d drop by.”