Sergio accepted it gratefully.
Cornelis returned to his earlier train of thought. "Still, this Thomas Jefferson-may the fleas of a thousand camels infest his armpits-humiliated the Algerines. The Tripolitans, too. I fear that this Michael Stearns would be no kinder to those of the true faith than Jefferson, and that his ships will be more powerful."
"There would be no reason for the Americans to harm your people if you didn't take slaves," said Antonelli. It was something he wouldn't have dared to say a few months ago, when their trip began, but Janszoon even in the beginning had been strict but not cruel, and lately had shown him some small kindnesses. Like the offer of the apple.
"Yes, well, all unbelievers are fair game. Besides, if my father made peace with all countries today, he would lose his head on the morrow. We must have a nation to cruise against, the richer and weaker the better.
"But perhaps my father will make a peace treaty, or even an alliance, with the USE. Are they not at war with the English, the French and the Spanish? Are we not their friends, as the enemies of their enemies?"
Antonelli objected to this reasoning. "Temporarily, at least, there is peace. The members of the League of Ostend have been licking their wounds since June of last year."
"Pah," said Janszoon. "I would have liked to have seen the USE forces at war. Here in Grantville, all I have seen fired are a few small arms. They are excellent weapons, but I need more to impress my father."
Antonelli nodded. "We could visit the airfield and watch the planes take off and land. "
Janszoon clapped his hands. "Excellent idea."
"And we could go up to Magdeburg, see the Swedish troops at drill, and continue on to Hamburg where the ironclads were in action. Perhaps an ironclad will even be in port."
"Even better!"
Antonelli had finished the apple and was about to toss the core away.
"Wait, give it to me," Cornelis ordered.
Antonelli handed it over. Cornelis hefted it, and threw it at a squirrel that was sitting on a stump some yards away, licking its paws. It squawked indignantly when it was struck.
"A hit! A palpable hit!" Cornelis crowed. "I am quite the marksman, am I not? Too bad that military technology has advanced a bit beyond stone throwing."
****
Christine looked disapprovingly at Reardon Miller's desk. "It's a mess, Mr. Miller. I could organize it for you."
"No, please don't," he admonished. "I know where everything is; I have a system. Anyway, what can I do for you?"
"You were right, Mr. Miller."
"It's so nice to have a young lady tell me that. Or a lady of any age, now that I think about it. What was I right about?"
"The price of rhubarb is high because it comes all the way from China. By the time we could get the seeds from the Chinese and have the Icelanders raise a crop, the captives would have died of old age."
"I see. So, what's next?"
"Back to the library, I guess."
"Are you sure?"
Christine paused. Miller suddenly seemed fascinated by the papers on his desk.
"That . . . sounds like a trick question. . . ."
Miller started humming the "waiting for the contestants to answer the big question" music from Jeopardy.
"Please, Mr. Miller, I'm an apprentice researcher. Take pity on me." She batted her eyelashes at him in an exaggerated manner.
"It's a mistake to rely exclusively on books, Miss Onofrio. Never underestimate the value of intelligence collected by talking to human beings."
"Human beings. . . . Oh, like the garden club members?"
Miller nodded. "There are those in town who like rhubarb pie. So perhaps you can find some rhubarb seeds in Grantville. Bit less of a trip than China, don't you think?"
****
"Well, Hannah, for your sake, I hope you've produced an egg today," said Catherine Genucci.
"Come on, girl, let me have a peek." She tried to shoo Hannah out of her nest.
Hannah the Chicken from Hell declined to cooperate.
"Come on, now, be a nice lady, and . . . owww!" Hannah had pecked her.
Catherine licked the wound. "Oh, you nasty b . . . b . . . beast. I hope you're still barren, and I'll take the axe to your neck myself."
This charming pastoral scene was interrupted by a visitor. "Hi, Kathi!"
"Huh . . . Oh, hi, Christine. I thought you were working at the GRC." Christine and Kathi were born the same year, and knew each other from both school and church.
"I am, I'm here on business. So, are you the Queen of Hearts today?"
"The Queen . . . Oh, 'off with her head.' I hope so."
"I don't suppose you grow rhubarb here?"
"Rhubarb, no. But Mom might know who does. You want to talk to her?"
****
"Some more milk and cookies?" asked Fran Genucci.
"No thank you, Mrs. Genucci," said Christine. " But I hope you can answer some questions for me, being a Master Gardener and all."
"Well, I can try."
"Who around here has rhubarb seed? And how easy is it to grow?"
"Well, not me. I am more of a flower gardener, as perhaps you've noticed." She gestured vaguely in the direction of the front yard. "But there's rhubarb in Grantville, that's for sure. I think Mildred has it in her garden." Mildred was Fran's cousin, once removed, and another Garden Club member.
"But before you head over there, Christine, you ought to know, that people usually don't grow rhubarb from seed. It takes too long-two years, I think-and they don't grow true."
****
"Fran's right," said Mildred. "Wait until the plants are four or five years old, then divide the crown. You should be able to get eight or ten divisions from a single parent."
"But would they survive a trip to Iceland?"
"I'm sorry, dear, I am not sure. That's weeks? Months? I suppose they'd have to sit in pots on a ship. Perhaps Fran's nephew Philip, would know? He's the one that stowed away on a ship to Suriname, because he was gooey-eyed over that botanist Maria Vorst, from Leiden. He came back with plant specimens."
Mildred cocked her head. "Why Iceland, if I may ask?"
Christine told her.
"Oh, the poor man. Well, I can explain to you how to grow and propagate rhubarb, and give you some divisions, and a seed pod too, but I can't make any promises that they won't be D.O.A."
****
"I . . . I . . . I'm back," Christine announced. With a pseudo-Austrian accent.
Reardon Miller laughed. If anyone looked less like Arnold Schwarzenegger, it was Christine Onofrio. He motioned for her to sit down.
"It's strange," she said. "According to the 1911 encyclopedia, Prosper Alpinus was growing rhubarb in 1608, in Padua. And he gave seeds to Parkinson, who gave them to a 'Sir Matthew Lister,' supposedly physician to Charles I. I was puzzled, since I heard that William Harvey was Charles' physician, so I spoke to Thomas Hobbes." The philosopher had come to Grantville in 1633, escorting young William Cavendish on his "grand tour," and after learning how the powers-that-be reacted to his writings in the old time line, had decided it would be healthier not to return to England.
"Hobbes says that at least as of when he left London, Lister had not been knighted, but that he had indeed been one of King Charles' physicians, and had served James I and Queen Anne previously.
"So I don't understand. If the Italians and the English both have the plant, why is it still so rare and expensive? The price I told you was from 1656!"
Miller clucked his tongue. "Your generation remembers the internet, so you expect everything to be communicated instantaneously. In the old days-and we are now living in the 'really old days'-information moved slowly, and people were even slower to capitalize on that information. I imagine that both Alpinus and Lister were thinking small. They found a trophy plant for their own herbal gardens, and they used it in their own medical practices, and that was it. Did the encyclopedia say when serious commercial production began in Europe?"