Eric Flint: Grantville Gazette Volume 24

"Sir, are you Judge Tito?" I asked, after all the students had left.

"Yes, what can I do for you?" he asked.

"Sir, I'm told I need a search warrant," I said, making a small bow as I pulled out the papers. "Chief Frost said we need your approval."

The Chief's warning about Judge Tito proved to be right. For the next five minutes, he quizzed me. He had three basic questions. First, he wanted to be sure that my relationship with the Grantville police was legitimate. Then, he wanted me to explain the crime I was investigating. Finally, he wanted to know precisely why I was interested in any records the Red Cross might have on Eisfelder, Martel, and Kleinschmidt.

After I'd explained my case, he signed the typed copies of the warrant Vera had prepared. "I keep one," he said. "You return one to the police station and take the other to the Red Cross. They'll be closed by now, so you'll want to be there bright and early tomorrow. Good luck figuring out what's going on at the power plant."

On my way out, I decided to poke my nose into the steam engine shop. When I found it, I saw that it was in space that had once been one end of the auto shop. A group of men at one end of the room had an American car hoisted into the air so they could look at its undersides. At the other end, a small group of men was clustered around a pair of middle-sized steam engines.

An old man looked up as I walked over to the engines. "Can I help you?" he asked.

He introduced himself as Dick Shaver, the teacher for the evening steam class, and then invited me to join his students. I just watched and listened for ten minutes, saying nothing. The two steam engines were huge compared to the toy machine that Scott Hilton had shown me, yet tiny compared to the monsters at the power plant. One was turning lazily, making quiet put-put noises. The other was partially disassembled.

Only after the students had been set to work on their tasks did Dick turn back to me. "Any questions?"

I looked at the engine they'd opened up. "You've got the valves opened up, right?"

"You're a downtimer," Dick said, looking a bit surprised. "You know 'bout steam engines?"

"A little," I said. "Scott Hilton showed me round the power plant."

He brightened. "Lovely monsters they're buildin' out there!"

"So what are these machines for?"

"Teachin' and experimentin'. Gotta teach kids how they work, and gotta try new setups. The one we're workin' on was the second we made. Worked OK, but we know how to do better, so we're rebuildin' the valves. Good work for the kids."

I didn't see any kids in the room. His youngest students might have been eighteen, and two of them were near my age. "What kind of students do you get here?" I asked.

"All kinds," he said. "The worst, the best, an' everythin' between. Take Hans there," he gestured at a young man. "He's the son of a miller, grew up aroun' machines. He catches on right quick. The best we get are like that. Had a guy in here last spring, Manfred from Suhl, apprentice gunsmith 'for he come here."

"Manfred Kleinschmidt?" I asked.

"Yeah, that's right. He went to the power plant, didn't he. How's he doin'?"

"Mr. Hilton says he's one of the three best men he's got," I said, wondering how I could get more information out of him. "I didn't know he was from Suhl. Why'd he leave? I thought the gunsmiths there were doing really well."

Dick Shaver scratched his head. "Well, there's two answers to that. He said he was kicked out cause he was sweet on the boss's daughter. Might even be true, but the way I figure it, he probly come here as a spy. Pretty near every master gunsmith wants to learn the secret of our uptime guns y'know."

"You really think he might be a spy?"

Dick smiled. "There's people comin' here from all over to spy on how we do things. Seemed sorta funny at first, but what the heck, we got nothin' to hide. May as well show them the answers, even if they're a mite shy 'bout comin' out ans askin' straight questions." Suddenly, Dick Shaver turned to his students. "Stop! Halt!" he said, before turning back to me. "I gotta see to my students before they wreck that valve seat."

"My pardon," I said, turning to leave. "But before I go, I wonder. You're not teaching how to make guns, you're teaching how to make steam engines."

"How are steam engines like guns?" he asked, with a smile. "Well, for one, you bore a cylinder exactly the way you bore a cannon. Thanks for the visit."

I stopped at Tip's Tavern for supper on my way back into town. That's when it struck me. What Dick Shaver meant when he called Manfred Kleinschmidt a spy applied just as well to me. I was the Green Regiment's spy trying to understand Grantville's police department.

Claudette Green was in charge of the Red Cross office. She read my warrant closely before sending a young German girl into the back closet to find the papers I needed. While the girl was at work, Claudette looked me over. The look on her face wasn't approving.

"Good woman," I said, feeling awkward. "Is there a problem?"

"What do you know of the Red Cross?" she asked.

"'Tis a Christian charity," I said. "You help those wounded in battle, you help those seeking refuge," I drew breath to say more, but then realized that I'd said all I knew.

"Close enough," she said. "Do you understand that refugees might be less willing to seek our help if they know that our records might be turned over to the government?"

"No," I said, before I realized that admitting so might not have been wise.

"Think about it," she said. "If I could, I would demand an oath that you disclose nothing of what you learn here. Certainly nothing about any man who turns out to be innocent."

"On my honor," I said. "I will try to keep to your wish."

" Bitte? Die papieren," the girl said, from behind me.

" Danke. Let's see what we've got," Claudette said, sitting down to look at the papers. "Here," she said. "We have a folder for Thomas Eisfelder, nothing on the others."

In the next few minutes, I learned that Thomas Eisfelder had arrived in Grantville penniless a few weeks after the Imperial army and half of the king's army had swept south on the road to Coburg last fall. His home village somewhere not far from Eisfeld had been looted and burned by one army or the other.

Eisfeld has one foot in the Saxon Dutchies of Thurungia and the other in Franconia. A Franconian jager had shot at the power plant, so as far as I was concerned, anyone from the Werra valley was suspect. On the other hand, Thomas's story wasn't too different from those of half the Germans in Grantville.

"Ah," Claudette said, turning a page. "We helped him with job placement too. Look at the skills inventory."

I was mystified, but she translated the arcane paperwork for me. "It says he was the son of a millwright, apprenticed to his father. A good woodworker, some blacksmith skills, and good at machinery. We placed him as a carpenter with Ted Moritz first. When Mansaniello's steam engine company asked us to look for people who knew machinery, we told Eisfelder about the job."

"That's all you have?" I asked, after she started putting the papers back in order. "What about Kleinschmidt and Martel?"

She looked up at me with a serious look. "We're not the only refugee aid organization here in Grantville. Some of the churches help their own, and some people fend for themselves."

The mention of churches jogged my memory. Charles Martel was supposed to be a Huguenout. I knew that was some kind of French Protestant, but beyond that, I couldn't say much. I go to church when I can, but it's hard to keep track of all the different kinds of heretics on the fringe of the Protestant world. Some church in Grantville would probably accept the man, but which?