“So why the bow?” Hayley asked.
“A lack of respect might cause you trouble.”
“They better not try,” Brandon said belligerently. And Hayley felt tempted to agree with him. But Dr. Faust was shaking his head. “It could cause your parents trouble to show them a lack of respect. It’s better to give them the bow and avoid the trouble.”
* * *
Bernhard Moser was one of the better qualified applicants to the race track work force. He was a journeyman blacksmith who had been let go when his master had gotten a steam hammer. The master had three journeymen working for him, including his two sons. So Bernhard was the one who got cut when the steam hammer had arranged for them to need one less worker. He was a friendly sort and had the solid muscles expected of a blacksmith. Better yet, he was at least a little familiar with steam hammers. Ron Sanderlin hired him on the spot to work in the shop. Bernhard started out on Fresno scrapers.
Vienna, Austria
“So far, sir,” Bernhard told his contact, “it’s just what you would expect. They are making Fresno scrapers, picks, shovels, all the sorts of things that you would expect to build a road. The up-timers themselves seem friendly and down-to-earth, but they have a truly horrible accent.” Bernhard shook his head. “It’s like nothing I’ve ever heard before.
“This is not about the up-timers themselves, but one thing. The housekeeper that the Fortneys hired is Annemarie Eberle, and I am fairly sure she works for Janos Drugeth.”
“Did she recognize you?”
“I don’t think so. It wasn’t that we had ever worked together, but someone pointed her out to me once when she was acting as an under maid in the palace.”
The contact nodded. “Come and see me once a week for now
If anything urgent comes up, you know the signals.”
“Yes, sir.”
Race Track at Simmering, Austria
The unemployment situation in Vienna became increasingly clear over the next few day, demonstrated not by numbers reported on TV, since they didn’t get any TV in Austria, but by the numbers of people showing up looking for work on the new race track. Ron Sanderlin couldn’t hire them all; he couldn’t even hire an appreciable fraction of them. At the same time, he hated turning away hungry people.
“Sonny, can you hire some of these guys to do something, anything?” Ron asked their third day in Simmering.
“What? Why me?”
“Well, you know.” Ron shrugged. He didn’t want to come right out and say can you get your teenage daughter to hire a bunch of these people? The up-timers had only been dealing with newly rich relatives since the Ring of Fire and asking those newly rich relatives for money was handled in different ways by different people. Everything from the assumption that what they had was yours to I’ll starve before I drag them down with me. It became especially difficult if those newly rich relatives were sons and daughters, because of the embarrassment factor. “Why am I still a working stiff when little Billy-or, in this case, little Hayley-has managed to turn herself into a millionaire?”
The elder Fortneys took a notfanatical hands-off approach. They didn’t ask Hayley for money or stock tips but if she volunteered they would mostly let her help if it wasn’t going to endanger her future prospects. Ron knew, for instance, that Hayley had offered to pay for the tutor. Which Sonny and Dana had agreed to, but the maid was paid by Dana.
“I know how you feel, Ron, but. .”
Just then another person showed up. He wasn’t a prepossessing fellow. He was balding, with bad teeth and a wart over his right eye. But it was also clear that he was desperate for work.
Ron looked at Sonny then back at the man. “Check back in a couple of days. I can’t promise anything, but maybe we’ll have something.”
After the guy had left, Ron just looked at Sonny.
“I’ll talk to Dana. That’s the best I can do,” Sonny said.
Fortney House, Simmering, Austria
Sonny talked to Dana and Dana talked to Hayley.
“The thing is, Mom, I’m not really all that good at business.” Hayley looked around the sitting room in their new home as though she could find the explanation in the whitewashed walls. “That’s mostly Susan, Millicent and Vicky. I’m the tech geek. In most of the businesses we’ve taken over, it wasn’t that the tech didn’t work. It was that the business didn’t work.”
“I understand, Hayley, and neither your father nor I want you to endanger your future over this. It’s just really hard to say no to hungry people looking for work.”
“I’m not saying no. At least not yet. Let me think about it. Okay?” Hayley looked around the sitting room again. There were windows with glass in the standard down-time diamond pattern, a big fireplace with no fire at the moment. A polished wood floor with a rug. It was a nice room in a nice country house, that was easily three times the size of their place back in Grantville. No indoor plumbing. Instead they had people lining up to empty their chamber pots. No microwave, electric toaster or natural gas oven. In this day and age, cooks worked from before dawn to after nightfall to make bread and stew. It was, to Hayley, as if the Ring of Fire had just happened.
* * *
“Dr. Faust?” Hayley knocked on the third door of the third floor room.
“Just a moment.”
Hayley waited as Dr. Faust got himself together. Then he opened the door to a room that was a bit bigger than a closet but not much. There was a bed about the size of a camp cot, but probably not as comfortable and a stack of books on the floor.
“What can I do for you, Miss Hayley?”
“Do you know anything about business law as it is practiced in Austria?”
“No, I’m sorry. I studied natural philosophy and for a while medicine, but the law never held any interest for me. Why?”
“Well, do you know anyone who does?” Hayley asked.
Dr. Faust looked at her a moment. “Jakusch Pfeifer was studying law to work with his family in shipping, but they lost several craft, ah, upriver. They had to stop going that far and he’s short of tuition money. But again, why?”
“Just a plan Mom and Dad are thinking about.”
* * *
As it happened, Dana Fortney was the keeper of the family accounts, as was Gayleen Sanderlin for the Sanderlin family. Between them they had a pretty complete listing of what the families had brought to Vienna. It was quite a lot. It included a Higgins Sewing Machine, a typewriter-also down-time made-an adding machine, but not, unfortunately, a computer. The Sanderlins had had a computer, but they sold it to the Higgins Hotel when they moved to Vienna. They had Brandon’s rabbits, his roosters and hens and thirty-eight chicks that were starting to turn into cockerels and pullets, and a RosinFoam incubator ready for the next batch. There was a lot more stuff on the list.
“I can’t run the business on my own, Mom,” Hayley said. “If you and Dad want me to hire people, you and Mrs. Sanderlin get to keep the books. And keeping those books is liable to end up as a full-time job for the both of you. We’re going to need extra household servants, because between the lack of things like vacuum cleaners. .”
“We knew we were going to need servants when we came, Hayley,” Dana said. “We already have two maids and a cook. Not to mention Dr. Faust and-”
“But not how many, Mom,” Hayley said. “We’re not going to have a couple of maids to help out; we’re going to have staff. A cook and probably two undercooks, four or five maids and an overmaid to run them. Also a couple of groundskeepers. And the Sanderlins are going to need the same because you and Mrs. Sanderlin won’t have time for housework, not even for much in the way of supervising. Neither I or Brandon is going to have time for chores, because Brandon-the little creep-is going to be managing the groundskeepers. Teaching them about those silly rabbits and chickens of his and modern corn, tomatoes, watermelons and stuff. And I’m going to be looking for stuff to build using what we have. Not to mention instructing master craftsmen in the crafts they have spent the last forty years learning. Between that and our school work, we won’t have time to turn around.”