“I think I have an answer. . but all the Barbies will have to agree.” Susan took a deep breath. “And I do mean all the Barbies. Every investor in American Equipment Corp, here or back in the USE.”
“What?”
“We have to sell the Austro-Hungarian Empire BarbieCo.” Susan sounded sad.
“It won’t work,” Judy said. “It’s us, the Barbies, that they have faith in. If we sell Ferdinand III BarbieCo, who will trust Barbies? No, just like before, we will have to have skin in the game and everyone will have to know it.”
“We can accept payment in BarbieCo,” Sarah said.
“Sarah, I don’t want the Austrian economy to collapse, but that doesn’t mean I’m willing to let Ferdinand III turn BarbieCo into waste paper and pay me in that same waste paper.” Susan shook her head. “I won’t do it.”
“No. We will have to keep control,” Judy said, “and not just for Susan, but for everyone. If the people out there are going to have faith in our money, then it’s going to have to stay our money.” Judy had an abstracted air as she spoke. “Trudi, would you go ask Hayley what’s the fastest way to get a message to Grantville?”
“A steamboat up the Danube will reach Regensburg in three, maybe four, days. Then radio to Grantville.” Trudi knew that answer.
“Fine. Go tell Hayley to order a boat. We are going to offer a buyout of BarbieCo stock at ten percent over face value in silver. And, Trudi, when you tell Hayley, make sure that there are servants in the room.”
“No one is going to take ten percent,” Susan said. “Not in silver, not in Grantville.”
“I really don’t care. We’re offering it, so if they don’t take it, it’s their own look out.”
“What are you planning?” Sarah asked Judy.
“I’ll tell you once we get to the palace.”
“No, I don’t think so, Judy,” Sarah said. “Tell me now.”
“I haven’t got it all worked out, Sarah.” Judy grinned. “But basically, you. . well, you and the Barbies. . are going to become the national bank of the Austro-Hungarian empire.”
As it happened, Trudi was in the process of stepping out the door when Judy said that.
In the living room, where Hayley and Dana Fortney, Gayleen and Ron Sanderlin were waiting-along with half a dozen servants, merchants, and shopkeepers-there was a sudden and profound silence.
“Hayley,” Trudi said into that silence, “can you arrange the fastest boat possible to go up-river to Regensburg? We have some instructions for Heather Mason.” Trudi paused and looked around the room with a little grin on her face. “Oh, and can someone run tell the royal yacht to get up a head of steam? We’ll be going to the palace directly.”
The Hofburg Palace, Vienna
The Barbies made an entrance. Sarah and Judy were in the lead, heads together, apparently arguing. “No,” Judy said. “I think we should get Carinthia.”
“I don’t want Carinthia,” Sarah responded. “I swear, Judy, you’re getting downright medieval in your outlook. Besides, we’re doing this to save the economy, not to make you and your gang even richer.”
“I don’t mind saving them, Sarah,” Susan piped in from behind them, “but I expect to get paid.”
The doors to the council room opened just as Susan said this, and the young women filed into the room, still talking about the empire of Austria-Hungary as though it was a gown they were considering buying.
Once the girls were all in the room, Judy looked around. “Where’s the Ken Doll? We can’t do this without him. He’s going to have to agree.”
Then she turned to the emperor and curtsied very low. She made it both respectful and graceful. “Your Majesty, you called and we are here.” She looked around again. “I don’t doubt the faith or discretion of your servants, Your Majesty, but even the most loyal and trusted retainer may make a slip. And there will, I suspect, be things discussed that you will not wish the world at large to know. So I beg your indulgence, that we might discuss these matters with only your closest advisers present?”
* * *
Ferdinand III had been ready to explode at the casual lese majeste that the Barbies had displayed, and then that curtsey had stopped him. He looked at Judy Wendell von Up-time and found himself wondering how much of what he had just seen was theater. He looked around the room. It held more servants than advisers. Ferdinand made a gesture. Quickly, the servants left.
“So how much of that was real,” he asked, “and how much pageant?”
“Is there a difference?” Judy said more than asked. “Perception affects reality, which in turn affects perception. Sarah will tell you that the value of money is the end of some formula, and no doubt she’s right. . as far as that goes. But you and I know that the value of anything is the same as royal authority. It’s there if people think it’s there. Right now, today, the value of BarbieCo stock is tied up with the rank of the Barbies.” Judy waved at herself and the others. “You can destroy that with raw power, call in the guards, have us dragged out into the public square and executed. That will destroy the value of BarbieCo stock, and I don’t doubt that some of your advisers have been advising you to do just that.” She looked over at Gundaker. “But wiser heads have pointed out that destroying BarbieCo will not restore reich money. Some will see it as firm, but more will see it as desperate. So it will, on the whole, only weaken reich money still more.”
“And,” Vicky Emerson said, “it will offend your northern neighbors, making rapprochement and alliance more difficult. And leaving Austria-Hungary in much the position that Bavaria is in today. A worse position, actually. Bavaria has you between them and the Ottoman Empire whether you want to be or not. All you have is an open road.”
“No one is contemplating execution!” Ferdinand III said truthfully.
“Well, that’s good,” Judy Wendell said. “With execution off the table, all the lesser punishments are even worse options. They will be seen as even more desperate, without the advantage of decisiveness. They will hurt the reich money worse than the BarbieCo. Lock us up, and people will hold onto their BarbieCo all the harder for their uncertainty.”
“What do you suggest?”
“It’s been said that the Habsburgs would rather wage marriage than war. What we need to do is wed the BarbieCo stock to the reich money, to produce one trusted money. And for that you need the Barbies to have the status that we can produce. Sarah will examine your economy and its prospective growth and tell us all how much money Austria-Hungary can have in circulation. Then, you and I together will figure out how to present it so that it will be trusted.
“The first step to that will be to make the production of that money completely independent of the. .” There was a knock at the door.
“Come,” said Ferdinand.
The door opened and Karl Eusebius came in. He bowed and said, “I got word I was needed.”
“You did?”
“He’s the Ken Doll,” said Millicent.
“What, pray tell, is a Ken Doll?” Peter von Eisenberg asked.
“He stands around looking pretty and giving us money,” said Vicky Emerson.
“I am told that that is the natural function of men, Your Majesty,” Karl said with a slight smile.
“What a lovely notion,” said the empress of Austria-Hungary. “I quite approve.”
Ferdinand saw the expression on his wife’s face and felt a bit uncomfortable.
“My wife had a similar attitude,” Marton von Debrecen agreed. “But why the Ken Doll?”
“Well, you know that the Barbies were dolls made for little girls. There were several sorts of Barbies. Malibu Barbie, Princess Barbie, Doctor Barbie, Astronaut Barbie. . but there was just the one Ken doll. This occurs because the Barbies do things. The Ken Dolls, however, stand around looking pretty and giving us money,” Millicent explained.
Sarah groaned. “The dolls were designed for preteen girls, with a childish view of relationships. Which my little sister maintains, even though she should long since have outgrown it. In fact, Karl is a major investor in many of the projects of the Barbie Consortium and the largest single stockholder of common, ah, voting stock in BarbieCo. So if we are to make any changes, he will have to agree.”