Eric Flint: Grantville Gazette Volume XI

Not this time, piglet.

I parried the thrust with my sword and then spitted him in the stomach. He folded into a ball when I withdrew my sword.

The muskets went off behind me and I began to turn to shout at my men when a blow to my helmet turned the world black and red and I fell to my knees, then onto my side. I rolled over onto my back.

God, not like this, damn it.

An Inuit warrior stood over me with his spear held high, eyes mad with pleasure, and my body refused to respond to my commands.

The triumphant expression on the warrior's face turned to pain when the tip of a harpoon burst through his stomach.

He fell across my legs.

Father Amancio reached down next to me and picked up the dead warrior's spear just as my Bosqueros came forward along the path.

"Father… Amancio?"

He helped me to my feet. "I see you've met Kinalik the angakok," Father Amancio said drily, pointing to the body with the harpoon in its back. "Apparently Kinalik had a few more followers than Uutaaq thought."

My head began to swim and I staggered.

"Careful, Antonio, that was a strong blow you took."

My arm went around Father Amancio's shoulder as my Bosqueros deployed around us.

"I am in your debt, truly, Father Amancio."

Father Amancio shook his head. "I think not, Antonio. It was merely a payment for a debt I owed you. Thanks to your words, I know what path I will follow." He smiled at me. "And I think from now on I shall be called Father Wolf. Time for a new beginning."

It was the end of October when we finally arrived with the cryolite in Essen. A bribe to a Basque naval officer in Oquendo's fleet in Rotterdam had eased our path up the Rhine.

"That went well," I said smugly, patting the pocket that held the letter of credit Balthasar Coymans had given me. "Now I can return to Cartegena in style while I look for this platinum ore they want me to find."

I looked over at Esteban. "They weren't as happy as I'd thought they'd be with the cryolite. Although they seemed to accept the idea of calling it orsuksite as Father Wolf requested."

Esteban shrugged. "It suits their purpose. It will be hard to keep the mining expedition a secret, but calling it orsuksite will at least misdirect a few people. But you're right, they weren't too happy. They expected us to bring back a lot more."

I snorted. "More than eighty tons? The first season? In those conditions?"

"Well, they were thinking of Frobisher, obviously, who brought back nearly a thousand tons of ore in a single season. But I explained to them that it was more important to get the infrastructure of the mine established this first season than to bring back a large amount of cryolite… orsuksite."

"Well," I said, "It seems to have altered their plans."

"Indeed," Esteban said. "They'll be doing more experimentation, apparently, in hopes that they can develop the processes they want."

"Just one question, Esteban."

Esteban looked at me. "What?"

"What in the hell is a zeppelin?"

Author's note: The narrator of the story, Antonio de Erauso, born Catalina de Erauso, is an actual historical down-timer. Here is some information from the book

Lieutenant Nun: Memoir of a Basque Transvestite in the New World

http://books.google.com/books?id=FAtuo0MYVZwC amp;printsec=frontcover

"Catalina de Erauso led one of the most wildly fantastic lives of any woman in history. Refusing to be regimented into the quiet habits of a nun's life, she escaped from a Basque convent at age fourteen dressed as a man, and continuing her deception, ventured to Peru and Chile as a soldier in the Spanish army. After mistakenly killing her own brother in a duel, she roamed the Andean highlands, becoming a gambler and a killer, and always just evading the grasp of the law. Distinguished for her fighting skills and cursed with a quick temper, Catalina de Erauso spent much of her life balancing precariously between valor and villainy. She is an adored folkloric hero of the Spanish-speaking world."

Quarantine House Alpha, Grantville, 1632

"How do we feel today?" Katharina Anna Schrey asked Quarantine House Alpha's most important patient.

John Thompson Sims looked up from his sick bed. "Lousy!"

Katharina smiled down at the elderly doctor. He'd been her friend and mentor since she started the long course of training that would eventually qualify her as a doctor. "If you can complain, that is a sign you are getting better."

John rolled his eyes. "How badly did I have it?

"Not too badly. There were only a few pustules on your face, and with any luck, they'll barely leave a scar."

John nodded his understanding. "And the child I was treating, what happened to him?"

"He recovered. The whole family is now out of quarantine and has been placed in the refugee center."

"That's good to know." John shook his head in gentle wonder. "I wouldn't have thought my old vaccination would have been much good after thirty odd years. It's nice to think the older people in Grantville have some protection." He stopped when he saw Katharina's shaking head. "No?"

"Dr. Ellis drew blood from the team. We helped you fight the infection by pumping you full of anti-serum."

"Oh!"

"There is a bright side." Katharina smiled at Dr. Sims disappointed face. "Now there are two immune doctors. You and Dr. Abrabanel."

John shuddered. "Do you know how soon I can leave?"

"Dr. Abrabanel will visit later this evening. If he gives you the all clear, we can let you out tomorrow."

John's head sank back into his pillow. "You're all heart, Katharina."

Days later, a meeting room at the Leahy Medical Center

The people of Grantville had been extremely lucky. In a time when smallpox was endemic, they arrived in Thuringia between cyclic waves of the disease. It took an average of five years for the pool of vulnerable people in a community to grow large enough for the next wave. Children born since the last wave made up most of these pools. That's why smallpox was known as a childhood disease in this era. Either it killed you as a child, or you survived. But Grantville was different. Since smallpox was dropped from the national vaccination program in 1972 only the military and a few people traveling overseas might have been vaccinated, and even the military stopped vaccinating against smallpox in 1990. Only about half of the up-timers had ever been vaccinated, and if those vaccinations were more than ten years old, they were nearly useless. That meant that almost the entire up-timer population was vulnerable. If smallpox spread through Grantville, at least one in three up-timers could expect to die. That was if the medical services could cope. If they couldn't, well, there was evidence to suggest that the entire up-timer community could die.

The inevitable had to happen. Smallpox arrived, but the people of Grantville hadn't been standing idle. Precautions were being taken. Precautions most people probably didn't even notice. Then there was the processing of refugees by the sanitary commission. All refugees entering the Ring of Fire were examined by public health officers. The ill were quarantined until they either died or were declared well enough to enter the community. And the doctors had been busy looking for a vaccine.

Dr. Jeff Adams looked around the table. "Five days ago we discharged our first case of smallpox, a young boy from a refugee family. That means we finally have some smallpox virus to start the variolation program Dr. Abrabanel has been advocating this past year. Now we have to work out how to best use the limited supply of virus."

Hope Underwood, president of the Grantville chapter of the American Red Cross, looked over at Dr. Adams. "Isn't using smallpox virus dangerous? Isn't that why they used cowpox back up-time?"