"I did nothing wrong." Bennet's tone could have belonged to a naughty child.
"Her family and her fellow citizens disagree."
"So, pleasuring myself, like a man should, you'd begrudge? James, she is so much like a real goddess."
Rothrock's bowels clenched in terror. "You raped her?"
"So? Did you see how she was attired? She's a whore! I eliminate the mistress . . ."
"By Mars and Janus! Thor and Odin! She's not Oughtred's mistress! Stripping her! Ravaging her-Hellfire, George, this is beyond madness! Olivia Villareal is a married woman, a greatly respected and loved one! You should hear what the radio announcer said about her! She's an up-timer, George! They all dress that way, it doesn't make her a whore anymore than the queen was a whore, God rest her . . ."
"Ha! It wasn't ravaging. We gave her opium and she was not inhibited after that. Besides, she was stupid enough to come."
"Did you leave her clothing? Did you leave her food? What about water? Who else did you share her with? Is she even alive? Damme, you were to do nothing but keep whoever came from discovering the meeting with Oughtred, and if at all possible, without noticing that they were being deliberately fended off!"
"Rothrock, you're an ass. Of course she is a whore and a witch. Why should I listen to you? You have been seduced by this place-only try to put me off."
"Put you off? Put you off!? You have overthrown everything Oughtred achieved, everything Arundel hoped for, and put an end to any hope that we could stay and profit by the gemstones we found. No, they are not Ring's Fire, but they would have been enough for us."
"Damnation, Rothrock! Listen to me, you are nothing but a hasty witted, impertinent, wet behind your ass, jolt-headed, bastard if you think exactly why Arundel wants Oughtred is the reason he gave you. We shall take his Ring's Fire. I do not much care what you think. Then we can sink Oughtred in that lake and tell Arundel we could not find him."
"What? Bastardy is nothing to what you propose now! Murder? Robbery? And as to telling Arundel anything, my letter recounting the meeting with Oughtred is well on its way by now."
Bennet was no longer listening, he only ranted on. "I'll buy myself a Genovese countess! You can buy yourself a damned pedigree and move to damned Spain and turn damned Catholic and claim Arundel as your rightful father. I'm still going to kill Oughtred's damned mistress and take my half of the money."
Rothrock's mind whirled in chaos. He could not imagine why Bennet had called the woman a goddess-then he remembered the painting at the palazzo in Padua. The resemblance to the television picture of the missing woman was astonishing. But a blinding realization drove that thought right out of his head. He suddenly was certain of where she must be.
He had one final word as he turned and started down the hill. "George Bennet, if you place any value upon your life, be out of Grantville within the hour and never stop until you are beyond the borders of this state. I shall not be far behind, after I do what I can to repair what you have done, if that is still possible."
Highways of the Sky
In late twentieth-century America and Europe, freight and passengers are transported by autos and trucks, trains, ships and aircraft. However, there was once a dream that lighter-than-air airships, capable of powered flight, could play an important role in the transport network. Both Kevin Evans and Kerryn Offord have explored the possibility that airships could be built at a relatively early date in the 1632 universe, and carve out a niche for themselves.
In this article, I will consider what routes an airship of given capabilities can fly, and how the choice of route can compensate for the deficiencies that can be expected in early airships, i.e., that they are under-powered and have limited fuel capacity.
I'll take the High Road, You Take the Low Road . . .
At the time of the Ring of Fire, trade routes linked together Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas. Some routes were by land, others by sea, and these could be in competition. The sea route between Europe and India required circumnavigating Africa, and thus was much longer than the overland route across the Middle East. However, it was also safer (despite navigation errors, storms and pirates), faster (a ship in a good wind was several times faster than a train of pack mules), and able to accommodate larger volumes of cargo (it takes a lot of pack mules to carry as much as a single large merchant ship).
An airship can travel at least as fast as a watership and can take an overland route (at least if there are no mountains in the way). It is not vulnerable to piracy (except when it lands) and it can safely sail at night (except in mountainous regions).
Since airships can travel over land just as easily as over sea, they are likely to first make their commercial mark on those trade routes for which the land route is much shorter.
The shortest distance between two points on the Earth's surface is a great circle route, and I'll explain how to calculate that distance in the next section. Unless a mountain barrier blocks the way, an airship can fly a great circle route (although there are reasons that we will reveal that it might want to deviate from such a route). Waterships are more constrained, since any intervening land forces them to find a way around.
To calculate the length of a sea route, use the Portworld calculator:
www.portworld.com/map/
Be sure to disallow the Panama and Suez Canals!
For example, the sea distance from Amsterdam to Chennai is 12,634 miles (and that's for a modern ship, that isn't worrying about catching the right winds). That's more than twice the great circle distance (4,899 miles)!
There are similar advantages to flying from Europe to China, or from Europe to the west coast of the Americas (e.g., Spain to Peru).
That said, airships can compete on the normal oceanic shipping routes, too. If they have enough fuel and engine power, they can behave like steamships, more or less ignoring the wind (although the wind will have more effect on any airship than it would on a water-bound steamship, because the airship doesn't have an underwater section to confer lateral resistance if the wind is coming cross-course). If the airship needs to conserve fuel, then it behaves like a hybrid sail-steam watership, powering through regions of neutral or unfavorable wind (horse latitudes, doldrums) and taking advantage of favorable winds.
Route Selection: Great Circle, Rhumb Line and Composite Routes
Since the Earth is (more or less) spherical, the shortest path between any two points on the surface is a great circle route. The great circle is defined by the intersection of that surface with a plane containing the origin, the destination, and the center of the earth.
If you have the longitude and latitude, you may calculate the great circle distance using the Great Circle worksheet on my spreadsheet.
However, it's nice to be able to actually see the route displayed graphically. If you have Google Earth, use that. Draw a line with the ruler between your origin and destination; that line is a great circle route. You can see where it crosses coastlines, or particular latitudes or longitudes. In addition, if you save the line as a path, you can right-click on the pathname in the sidebar and pick "show elevation profile." This is by far the easiest way to figure out what is the minimum altitude you need to fly at to avoid an embarrassing tete-a-tete with a mountain (the mountain always wins).