Eric Flint: Grantville Gazette. Volume XX

The tenors came in with their heroic entry in this section, followed by the altos, who were in turn followed by the sopranos.

"King of Kings, and Lord of Lords,

King of Kings, and Lord of Lords…"

The sopranos were beginning what Marla had always thought of as climbing the ladder, repeating the King of Kings line over and over, raising the pitch a step every time, unison with the high trumpet.

The movement, when it happened, was so slight she almost missed it. It took a moment to dawn on her that Princess Kristina was standing. Standing!

The sopranos continued to climb.

"King of Kings, and Lord of Lords,

King of Kings, and Lord of Lords…"

Higher they climbed, sounding with the trumpets and supported by the lower voices.

"… and Lord of Lords…"

Finally, on the last rung of the climb, it happened.

Mary gasped when she saw Gustavus Adolphus stand to his feet. It had happened! She shot to her feet, followed a moment later by the rest of the audience. Mary was smiling at what had just happened. A correlation between a future German who was undoubtedly butterflied out of existence now, George II of England, and the master of northern Europe, Gustavus. Oh, sure, the story of George being so moved upon hearing Messiah's "Hallelujah" chorus that he stood was probably apocryphal, but it was such a lovely legend. And here, now, it was fact, not legend… with the note that it was the princess who led her father.

Joy shot through Marla when she saw the king climb to his feet and set his hand on his daughter's shoulder. He stood there, tall and straight, a sober expression on his face, as the chorus continued praising the God that he claimed to serve.

Marla's mind was so full of happiness that she almost lost track of the words. She did kind of hiccough one, which earned her a sidelong glance from Master Andrea. He would undoubtedly have words for her about that one at her next lesson.

The king stood!

It was a seal on their work. It was a seal on the up-time music. It was the capstone of everything she had been trying to do, and it meant that all of it, music, women musicians, now had visible royal approval. Suddenly, the future looked both brighter and easier.

Marla abandoned herself to the music with elation.

"And He shall reign forever and ever,

Forever and ever, forever and ever,

Hallelujah, Hallelujah,

Hallelujah, Hallelujah,"

"Hal – le – lu – jah!

"Good morning, Europe. Guten Morgen, Europa! You're listening to Voice of America as we begin another broadcast day from our studios on Mountaineer Lane in Grantville, New United States. Today is September tenth, Gregorian; August thirty-first Julian and at the tone it will be five thirty Grantville Standard Time."

September 1632, Grantville, New United States

It wasn't on a fancy cul-de-sac. Rather, the house was at the dead end of a one-lane paved street where the hills had become so steep that the road builders gave up. Before the Ring of Fire, the small, cedar-shanked, one and a half story house with a basement opening up to the valley below had been distinguished only by being where strangers occasionally had to pull into the driveway to turn around or just start backing up. Now, on that red siding below the front porch, someone had painted around the two diamond shaped basement windows in red, white, and blue, star spangled Gothic lettering, "VOA-650" with "Voice of America" spelled out in foot-high black block lettering underneath.

A hundred-foot-tall steel tower stood high on the hilltop behind the back yard, looking very much like the cellular telephone relay tower it had begun life as. In other relatively level parts of the yard, men and women were busy building new buildings to house new projects for this bustling new world.

Gayle Mason turned toward John Grover. "Who would have believed it the day I went in to talk to Coleman Walker? What was it? Less than a year and a half ago. Not quite a month after the Ring of Fire happened."

Gayle laughed. "And Coleman named it Voice of America, even though he didn't want to fund it at first. Come on in and have a cup of something hot."

What had been-until recently-a little three bedroom, two bath, with a combination living-dining room and a galley style kitchen home, was now the headquarters of the most state of the art electronics corporation on the planet.

"It's all so scary, John," Gayle said, allowing her self to show her uncertainties. "All I ever wanted was to fiddle with my ham rig and do my electrical thing in the mines until my pension vested. Maybe someday, find a guy who isn't afraid of letting me be who I am."

She pulled her feet up under her and wrapped her arms around her midriff. "Now, we've signed the papers to make me Chairperson of General Electronics, Incorporated. I just signed a deal with the government for unlimited funding and who knows how many guaranteed profit contracts for redeveloping an entire electronics industry, and Mike wants me to take personal charge of equipping an entire army and navy with communications gear as soon as I can finish turning everything over to you, Mr. Chief Executive Officer and Station Manager."

She allowed her shoulders to slump and frowned, "It's just too much."

John Grover smiled and wondered again at the way some strong women often seemed to want to hug their daddies for comfort when things were going good. "Yeah. It is more than a bit overwhelming, isn't it?

"I know exactly how you feel. When they made me vice president of the construction company back up-time in Fairmont, I remember thinking, 'Wow, and me a high school drop out.'

"But you've made some really good decisions so far and we are so far ahead of where we have any right to be simply because of you. So take your time, get used to it, and then forget about all the titles. It's just you and me and Deanna Dee, just like always."

Smiling, Gayle allowed herself to come back to the present. "So how long do you think it'll take to get the tube research project going?"

"Well, when the new building is finished, we can finally move our jewelers and glassblowers into the same facility. We should be able to start training new supporting staff by the first of the year. It's going to be an example of having to build the tools to build the tools to build the tools. The rest of it…" John reached over to the desk and picked up a pile of freshly signed government contracts and read a few bits from them. "The first thing we've go to do is build radio receivers to go along with all those crystal set instruction flyers you've been spreading around. That's the only way our new neighbors can start getting the hang of seventeenth-century radio! For sure we won't die of boredom!

It was a warm late September morning as the Council of Elders of the Grantville Pentecostal Church gathered together at the spot on the banks of the new Ring-of-Fire-created lake where they had become accustomed to performing their baptisms. Brother Chalker's message had been somewhat nebulous as to what the event was that they were meeting about.

Pete Enriquez, as chair of the council, arrived first and set up the chairs. Elder and choir director Jennifer Copenhaver and her husband Roy brought drinks and some fresh homemade cookies, and Elder Paul Nemeth and Ingrid arrived in their newly-converted natural-gas-powered company pickup truck just on time. Ingrid had driven and had to help her husband out.

"We passed Brothers Chalker and Fischer along the way." Paul smiled faintly as he added, "Esau was a bit ornery this morning and fought taking the bit, so they're running a little late."