Лео Франковски - The High-Tech Knight

"I'm glad you're so positive of that. Because you're wrong. The correct statement is that everybody knew that branching is impossible. They don't know it anymore. Cousin Conrad, damn his soul, has done the impossible and kicked the underpinnings out from under everything just when I was getting ready to retire."

"But how-?"

"How, I don't know. The theory people have been in conniptions for months. No telling when they'll settle down. Maybe never."

"But we have the where and the when down pat. The split didn't start when Conrad first got to the Middle Ages. It happened a month after that, when Conrad had to make a difficult decision. For good and sufficient reasons, his employer ordered him to abandon a baby in a snowstorm. Conrad both saved and abandoned that child."

"In our timeline, he obeyed orders. On arriving at Okoitz, however, Count Lambert's ladies didn't treat him like a hero. By their lights, anybody who would allow a kid to freeze to death was a bum, and unworthy of their services. Those are my feelings as well."

"Their influence on Lambert was such that he was not much impressed with Conrad, either. Conrad left Okoitz with his employer, but soon argued with him. They split up and Conrad continued, alone, westward to Wroclaw."

"There he was promptly robbed of his booty, and had a rough time of it for many years. He eventually got involved in copper mining but never really amounted to much. When we tracked him down, he jumped at the chance to return to the twentieth century."

I was still trying to absorb just what a split in the timeline meant.

"Everything was doubled? Where did it all come from? What about the conservation of mass and energy?"

"It's right out the window! Along with just about every other law of physics. When Conrad kicked out the supports, he didn't mess around!"

I was so flustered that I didn't notice the naked wench who announced lunch. Tom took me by the hand and led me from the screening room.

In an hour we were back at the documentary.

Without stopping we rode to the inn we had left in the morning. The innkeeper gave me an artificial smile. "Did you find the Red Gate Inn, Sir Conrad?"

"You know what I found. A hole in the ground."

"Is that what's there? The merchants who reported it to me were very unclear. Does it have devils?"

"Worse devils than you'll ever imagine. You're a bastard for not telling me about it, but keep on warning people away from that hole. People can die just from looking at it."

My party was eager to head back to Cracow, and it was still early in the afternoon, but Sir Vladimir talked us out of leaving until the next morning. It seems that there wasn't another decent inn within six hours; if we left then, we'd have to camp out again, and considering our last experience with camping, we weren't eager. Leaving in the morning, we could easily reach Uncle Felix's by the afternoon.

Uncle Felix didn't have time to kill another fatted calf, so he had to make do with a slab of beef, three geese, a suckling pig, and a whole lamb, plus the usual tons of extras.

He protested vigorously when I insisted on leaving first thing in the morning, but I wanted to get to the salt mines at Wieliczka as early as possible. We got there that afternoon, with Tadaos complaining the whole way about having to ride an unsaddled mule.

In the twentieth century, the salt mines are a tourist attraction par excellence: fifty generations of miners have cut nine hundred miles of tunnels, passageways, galleries, and chambers. And what does a salt miner do on his day off? He mines salt, of course. Only he gets artistic about it. Down there the miners have hollowed out two churches plus a "chapel" as big as a cathedral, each encrusted with statuary and carvings ranging in style from the romanesque to the modern. The annual miner's ball takes place on a dance floor that can accommodate thousands. Tennis tournaments are held in a chamber more than forty stories underground.

There are natural wonders besides. There is a briny lake down there, and the "growths" in the Crystal Grotto are a natural phenomenon without equal anywhere else in the world.

There are even species of plants and animals that have adapted themselves to living underground. They have a museum to show it all to you.

In the thirteenth century, they had a ways to go, but even then the miners had been at work for at least three hundred years; the caverns were already pretty impressive.

Not that Annastashia and Krystyana were all that impressed. They wanted to get to Cracow, and Sir Vladimir had been to the mines before. But it was my vacation and I was footing the bills.

We were watching a walking-beam pump, a device similar to that which we built at Three Walls to saw wood. But for pumping water, my condensing steam engine was far more efficient. I called the works manager over and started to explain my pump to him.

He cut me off with, "What? You're a miner?"

"Well, not exactly, but-"

"Well I am. And my father was a miner, and his father before him. We've been miners for over four hundred years."

"That's very nice, but about my pump-"

"I know everything there is to know about mining. I don't need to know about your foolish ideas."

"But it's not just some pipe dream! I have one running at Three Walls!"

"Three Walls? I never heard of a mine at any 'Three Walls."' And he turned and walked away. Arrogant bastard.

The price of salt was about equal to the cost of chopping it out and hauling it to the surface, pretty cheap. By loading down the mules, slinging sacks across the backs of all four horses, and letting Tadaos walk, we were able to take a ton and a half back with us-about two kilos Per capita, probably enough to last us until spring. These people ate a lot of salt, maybe because of all the beer they drank.

We had been gone from Cracow for less than a week, but there was a major change in the Vistula waterfront. The ferrymaster had taken my suggestion about using river power to move his ferryboat. A long sturdy rope ran from his boat to the tree I'd suggested, and he'd come up with an efficient block-and-tackle system that let him effectively move the rope from one side of the boat to the other with only the power of his own arms.

He let us ride it free, in thanks for my suggestion, but he was still getting full fare from everyone else. Business had been better than ever, with many people riding it just for the novelty of moving in a boat without oarsmen.

He no longer had to pay a dozen men, and eventually someone would see his vast profits, go into competition with him and drive his fares down. But just then he. was in heaven.

1, too, was very pleased. Think of it. Because of an idea of mine and the few minutes it had taken to explain it, twelve men were released from the drudgery of paddling that boat back and forth across the river. Twelve men had been given their whole lives to do more productive, more enjoyable work.

Actually, it was far more than twelve, for there must be many ferryboats operating on the Vistula. Word of the improvement would get around quickly. And there were many other rivers. And it wasn't just those men, but their children and grandchildren had also been set free.

As we rode toward the city gates, I was patting myself on the back for a job well done. Then a rock the size of my fist slammed into the side Of my helmet. I was stunned, tried briefly to stay in the saddle, then fell to the ground.

I wasn't quite unconscious, and could hear the shouting around me. Krystyana and Annastashia were holding my head up, and vision was starting to return. Tadaos had strung his bow and had shot two men through the arm, pinning them to a tree. Sir Vladimir and Anna were out rounding up the rest of our assailants. It was all over by the time I had regained my feet.