"You pissed at me?" asked Frank, as soon as the truck started driving off. Mike had a fairly ferocious frown on his face. "I guess I should have asked you before-"
"Nah, forget it," said Mike, shaking his head. "We'd talked about putting Jesse in charge, once before, if he ever got that contraption off the ground. It made sense to me then, makes sense now. That's not the problem. It's the damn oil."
Frank's eyebrows went up. "I thought things were going pretty well up there. The last report you gave from Quentin sounded good."
Mike's frown deepened, became almost a scowl. "Yeah, sure. Quentin's a hard-driving manager, about as capable as they get, and you know as well as I do that he'd get that oil field up and working faster than anyone. So I'm sure his report was accurate. He's also got about the worst case of tunnel vision I've ever met in my life. Or have you forgotten?"
Frank smiled. In the days before the Ring of Fire, he and Mike had been coal miners working for Quentin Underwood, who had then been the manager of the coal mine they'd worked at. No one had ever questioned Quentin's managerial competence, to be sure, but… damn near everything else about the man had tended to drive his employees nuts.
"So, naturally, Quentin hasn't given a bit of thought to how we're going to haul the oil, once he's got the refinery running. That's my problem, I guess, not his."
"That's Quentin Underwood, all right. He's probably assuming a pipeline will materialize out of nowhere. Made out of what, I wonder, and by who? A cast-iron industry that's just got up to cranking out potbellied stoves a few months ago?"
Mike shook his head. "Not to mention that Quentin doesn't seem to have the slightest understanding of what the term 'conflict of interest' means. According to Uriel, he's already gotten himself a partnership with the Germans who put up most of the money for the operation. So I'll have to bring the hammer down. Again."
Frank made a face. Quentin had gone out to Celle to oversee the establishment of an extraction and refining operation at the nearby Wietze oil fields in his capacity as the United States' secretary of the interior-not as a private entrepreneur. But, as had been true several times already, the man seemed unable to grasp that there was anything wrong with using his official position to further his own personal interests. As long as he didn't steal anything, of course. Quentin Underwood would have been more outraged than anyone at the suggestion that he was a thief.
My books are good, dammit!
Yeah, fine, Quentin-but they're not supposed to BE your books in the first place.
Mike continued grumbling. "How the hell did two good union men like you and me wind up in charge of a pack of robber barons anyway? I swear to God, Frank…"
He broke off, sighing.
Frank shrugged. "It's not that bad, really. Stuff like this is bound to happen, Mike, under the circumstances. Everything's busting wide open and everybody wants to grab a piece of it. Hell, half the guys in the UMWA have got businesses on the side now. No way to stop it-even if you wanted to anyway, which you don't. However messy it is, we need that economic growth badly.
"I grant you," he added, "it'll make for some nasty situations down the road. But don't forget that we do have a powerful trade union movement also. So…"
He scratched his head. "Becky probably knows more American labor history by now than I do, but I do know this much-when the old-style robber barons were cutting loose in the 19 th century they had all the advantages of labor legislation-if you can even call it that!-that was nowhere near as good as we've got. Not to mention-"
Frank cleared his throat. "I hate to be crude about it, Mike, but let's not forget that this time around we've got the army instead of them. So there won't be any federal troops being sent in to stop any big strikes, like the bastards did at Blair Mountain or that railroad strike in, when was it? The 1870s, I think. No goddam way. And just let those fucking rich boys try to get tough using nothin' but hired goons. Hah!"
For a moment, the cab of the pickup was illuminated by the righteous scowls of two lifelong union men, glaring at the world around them as if daring any new would-be robber barons-
Go ahead! Try it!
Suddenly, the scowls dissolved into laughter.
"True, true," admitted Mike, shaking his head, still chuckling. "Lord, aren't we a pair of good old-style hillbillies! Just goes to show: you can take the man out of the shack, but you can't take the shack out of the man."
By now, they'd reached the town itself and Mike slowed down. By the summer of 1633, Grantville had become almost as densely populated as Manhattan and-except for buses and the occasional official vehicle-the streets were given over entirely to pedestrian traffic. Well…
Not quite. Now and then, a newcomer to the town not aware of the city's ordinances would try to take his horse onto the streets. And, beginning a month earlier, the first products of the recently formed Jennings, Reich and Kuhn company had started showing up on the streets. The new bicycles were crude things, compared to the few modern ones which had come through the Ring of Fire. But they worked, and they were priced in a range which a family with a decent income could afford.
"Damn!" exclaimed Frank, his eye caught by something moving along one of the side streets. "D'you see that?"
"What?" Mike's eyes had been on the road ahead, picking a way through the crowd.
"It was like-I dunno. A rickshaw, I guess you could call it, except it was being hauled by a guy on a bike. Two people sitting in the back. Reminded me of Saigon, for a moment."
Mike grunted. "Steve Jennings told me, a while back, that they were thinking of introducing a line of 'cabs.' "
"He's gotta be doing well, these days."
"I'd imagine," agreed Mike. His frown was back.
"What's the matter? Steve's a good guy, and after that tough run of luck he had some years back, I sure as hell don't begrudge it to him."
"Neither do I, Frank. But the problem is…" Mike was silent for a bit, as he slowly worked his way through the town's main intersection. Then: "The problem isn't Steve personally, and it's a long-term problem."
He waved his hand around, indicating the town itself. "Give it a few years, Frank, and everything'll change. It's bound to. The truth is, when the dust finally settles-at a guess-I'd say at least half the original Americans who came through the Ring of Fire will be richer than they ever were. Way richer. Sure as hell in relative terms to everybody else, even if they miss their fancy toilet paper. Any high school kid with half a brain can figure out a way to apply his knowledge to something that'll turn a profit. And if he can't, some eager German partner of his will."
He swiveled his head and gave Frank a considering look. "And then what? How solid is a commitment to democracy and equality going to remain-in this world-when most of the people who brought it with them are part of the upper crust? Huh?"
Frank pursed his lips. Then, somewhat uncomfortably: "Hell, Mike-I went from 'coal miner' to 'head of the army.' You did even better than that. But I can't say I think my-what would you call it?-'political moral fiber' has declined any."
Mike smiled. "Mine, either. But that's not really what I'm talking about, Frank. I don't expect anybody-well, not more than a handful anyway-to start making paeans of praise to aristocratic rule. It'll be a lot more subtle than that. But it'll start happening, soon enough, don't think it won't. People on top always see the world from their angle, don't ever think they don't. We're no exceptions to the rule. Nobody is, really, except a few individuals here and there. And, by themselves, a few individuals aren't enough to make a difference. Not unless they have a mass base."