Eric Flint: Grantville Gazette.Volume VII

Father Athanasius picked up John's mug, and waved at a waitress.

"It isn't Morris Roth's fault that every jeweler in the world wants to be near the world's only source of knowledge about faceted gems. But that means that the people with skills in working with very small wires and parts that I need don't come to Grantville anymore.

"It isn't my fault that I have an associate's degree in business, not a masters in electronic engineering. I'm the best available for running VOA, but I don't know the background of the history and development of radio. No one in Grantville does."

The waitress arrived with two fresh mugs. John took his without even noticing it.

"It's nobody's fault. But you put it all together, and Murphy has arranged the world so that we cannot get Gustav's Radio station on the air. And I have to. Mike is counting on me."

"We have talked about this Murphy before, John," the priest said gently. "Most would blame Satan when faced with such adversity."

John shook his head. "It isn't evil I'm dealing with, Father. It's just perversity. It's like the bread always falling butter side down. If things can go wrong, they will. Wasn't that true when you built your water organs?"

Father Kircher nodded firmly. "It was. It is." He thought back to those days, and grimaced. "Everything that could go wrong did. Indeed. We just did not express it so compactly."

"Imps, daemons, gremlins… name them as you will, Father. But Murphy acts in the world as sure as God does. But he isn't evil." John took a swallow from his mug. "The best decisions have been made. I know that. Gayle being in London, Morris being in Prague, are absolutely for the best. Godly. But Murphy arranges that the Godly best causes something else to go wrong. We have the Voice of America running, but we can't make the tubes for Gustav's station."

Father Kircher nodded. "I know. The station manager has asked each religious leader in town to give the morning invocation before the dawn news broadcast. Yesterday was my turn! It is amazing to have your words carried by the lightnings across the heavens to say, 'Here I am!'"

John smiled at the nod to Job. He remembered using the line himself when defending his interest in getting his Ham license to his Baptist pastor thirty years earlier. My sword John thought.

John heaved a big sigh. He took his screwdriver out of his pocket and fidgeted with it. "The worst is the alternator."

"Alternator?" Father Kircher prompted gently.

"That's the most perverse of all, Father. It's a tease. We know that Reginald Fessenden and Ernst Alexanderson built an RF alternator in 1906. We know they broadcast voice to crystal radios without tubes. We know they were heard over a hundred miles away. We know all that. We even have a picture. A poor, dark, grainy picture, but a picture nonetheless. We can look at that picture of Fessenden's alternator at Brant Rock, Massachusetts. But that's all. We have no idea what was inside that round case. Just that it was 'an alternator.' I can't build a photo. It's a tease. We have to invent an alternator. And so I started, thinking, 'Gee, we have all the alternators out at the power plant, every car has an alternator, how hard can it be?'" John looked back towards the folding table. He looked back at Father Kircher. "So we pulled most of the people off Gunter's team, since working on tubes without Gayle was very slow going, and started in on the alternator. I know now how hard it can be. It can be very hard."

Father Kircher's hand made the beginnings of a gesture that he knew would be of no comfort to his Protestant friend. "I know, John. I will think on it. Perhaps we can find someone to help. Perhaps we can find a way to put Murphy behind us."

John shuddered. "No! Never behind you, Father. You always have to keep Murphy in front of you. Dead in your sights, never allowing him a moment to screw anything up. Out of sight, out of mind. We need a way to keep Murphy before us."

"A talisman, then. Something to help you remember to focus on the possibilities both good and bad, to keep at the work."

"Yes, exactly. Well, that and a jeweler with an interest in radio who can help with the wire and the forms and the work on the damned alternator."

"I will think on it, John, and I will pray."

"No one can ask more, Father." John drained his cup and stood. "Thanks for listening."

"You're welcome." Father Athanasius' "my son" was unspoken, but heard nonetheless.

The vision of dreams is the resemblance of one thing to another, even as the likeness of a face to a face.

(Deuterocanonical Apocrypha, 3 Sirach)

"Nick? Is that you?"

Nicholas Smithson froze. God in Heaven, how could this happen? How could it be that there would be someone in Grantville who knew him?

"Nick? Nicholas Smithson!" The voice was insistent. Nick slowly turned around, and almost groaned. Of all people. Father Augustus Heinzerling. What was Heinzerling doing here, and why hadn't that information been given to him? There was no possible way that he could convince Augustus that he was someone other than Nick Smithson. They had spent too much time together at the English college in Rome.

"Hello, Gus."

"It is you!" Heinzerling looked delighted, but then suspicion began to creep across his face. "It is you. What are you doing here?"

"I…" Nick hesitated, torn between telling the truth and concealing his mission. "I cannot tell you that, Gus."

Now Heinzerling's face took on the appearance of a thunder cloud. "What do you mean, you cannot tell me?"

"I have orders."

Heinzerling's jaw tightened. He took a firm hold of Nick's arm. "You will come with me and explain yourself to Father Mazzare, then." He started off, and Nick perforce went with him. Father Gus in a mood was no one to trifle with.

Father Lawrence Mazzare looked at the young man accompanying his curate with some confusion. Father Kircher watched from the back of the room. "Okay, Augustus. What exactly is your problem again?"

"Where do I start?" Father Heinzerling ran his hands through his hair. "I see this man at the radio station this morning asking for work. I knew him when he was at the English College of the Society in Rome studying. We spent many hours together in Rome attempting to find an Italian who knew how to brew beer. I thought he was my friend." Heinzerling glared at the young man.

"Go on."

"I greet him as brother of the Society and as a friend, calling him by his name, and he refuses to tell me what he is doing. He is dressed in common garb, had not come to see you. I say he's a spy for the Jesuits!" Heinzerling looked confused for a moment, then surged on. "Or a spy at least for someone in the Society. I am the official spy for the Society in Grantville, not some upstart impudent Englishman!" His frown was truly impressive.

Larry repressed a grin. No wonder Gus had looked confused. He turned to the young man. "And you are?"

Nicholas looked at this up-time priest, Father Lawrence Mazzare. What little he had been able to find out on his way to Grantville indicated the man was very well educated, and could give lessons to a saint in propriety, probity and rectitude. However, no one had mentioned his gaze-that calm, straight gaze that seemed as though it could see through four inches of oak, much less his own flimsy pretenses. It reminded him very strongly of the Father General of the Society. Nicholas abandoned all hope of dissembling; forthrightness was the only course with a man like this.

"I am Father Nicholas Smithson of the Society of Jesus, late of London."

"Nicholas?" Are you named after Father Christmas or Saint Nicholas Owen then?" Larry calculated in his head. "You look a little old for it."

" Saint Nicholas Owen?" Nicholas exclaimed.