"Why not?" John George asked.
"Because of the resources-or rather the lack of resources-they are dedicating to them even now." Willem shook his head in only half-pretended disgust. Telling John George anything bad about the up-timers on his western border was always a good tactic, but in this case Willem was somewhat amazed at how little resources the up-timers were spending on aircraft.
The conversation continued, a mix of complaints about the up-timers and their destabilizing effects, upsetting the natural order of things. And the advantages of air power which, if invested in by farsighted members of the better classes, could stave off-at least for a time-the democratizing effects of the up-timers.
It took two more weeks and quite a bit of groveling, but Willem got the money and headed back to Grantville. During the groveling, they discussed whether it was better to simply buy an airplane or have one built. Krause managed to convince the Elector of Saxony that having one built, and having the Elector's loyal Willem Krause involved in the building, would mean that they were not dependent on the up-timer knowledge nearly as much as they would be if they simply bought whatever some up-timer sold them.
****
Back in Grantville, with a bank account filled with Saxony silver, Willem Krause started looking into the possibilities for airplanes. There were many people building many types of airplanes. The Kellys, an up-timer couple, were building three different aircraft at once. A pair of idiots, one up-timer, one down-timer, were trying to get people interested in building multi-engine bi-wing airplanes.
****
Money, Darius thought. Back up-time, big stars and rich people ran around in faded jeans and torn T-shirts. Not down-time. Down-time, real money was needed to have a wardrobe and having a wardrobe meant having real money. And at first glance this guy looked like he had real money. All those fancy clothes, and this dude was pretty well-padded, too. Not fat, but definitely nowhere close to starvation.
"How can I help you, sir?" Darius asked.
The guy looked at Darius and gave him this sort of conspiratorial grin, as if he had a secret but was willing enough to share it with Darius because he trusted him. "Aircraft. I'm interested in aircraft."
"Yes, sir!" Darius said in Amideutch, half-unconsciously returning the grin, "Aircraft design and history have been two of our most popular research areas ever since the National Library was established. And they've gotten even more popular since the Las Vegas Belle first flew. We have a standard booklet you could buy. It has some basic research from the library and it contains the basic theory and the main formulas involved. It costs twenty-five dollars, but it's just an overview. There is a much more detailed and complete book that was put together by three researchers and examined by Herr Smith. He said it has enough information in it to get you killed."
The guy looked kind of surprised and a bit bemused by that comment. But it was exactly what Hal Smith had said about the book. And Darius told him why. "An airplane that never left the ground was unlikely to kill the pilot, but even the best airplane ever built is a death trap if badly-flown or poorly-maintained. The more expensive book Aeronautics 101 has enough information in it to get you off the ground."
Darius continued with his sales pitch. "If you're actually going to try to build an airplane of your own, you want to read the second book. It's two hundred dollars, but it has a lot of information. After you've read it, you want to consult with Herr Smith and get his thoughts on any design you come up with. That's expensive too, but Herr Smith is a real aeronautical engineer and the only one in the world. There are also the spreadsheets that Herr Smith and Colonel Wood came up with. You can do the calculations with a slide rule, or even on paper if you're good enough at math. But you're safer with the spreadsheets."
***
"That was a good sale," Gemma said behind him. A few minutes later while Willem Krause was leaving with his books. Researchers got a ten percent commission on books sold and twenty-two fifty wasn’t bad for a quarter hour's work.
Darius jumped a bit. "Jeez, Gemma. Where did you learn to sneak up on people like that?"
"Don't take the Lord's name in vain, Darius. Not even half the Lord's name. I don't understand why the good Lord sent a bunch of up-timers back to our time just so they could blaspheme."
"Maybe," Darius suggested, "it's because the good lord doesn't actually care that much about blaspheming. Maybe he cares more about what's in your heart than what comes out of your mouth."
"Maybe," Gemma agreed. "But I'm not going to risk centuries in Purgatory on the chance." Then she smiled at him.
Darius' heart gave a little flutter. Gemma Bonono was pretty. Not pretty in a "oh my god, she's gorgeous" kind of way. Pretty in a "home-town girl" sort of way. If your hometown was in Italy in the seventeenth century, that is. Or at least so Darius imagined. Not that he'd ever been to Italy, not yet.
Gemma also worked in the library. She was more a translator than a researcher, since she spoke Italian, Latin and German. Her English was coming along, too.
"I gotta go, Gemma." Darius sighed. "I need to keep the commission from that sale, so I've gotta do some of the pro bono questions."
"I'll help," Gemma said. "It'll be good practice."
They went back to the reference desk to pick up the next pro bono question. As it happened, that question-like so many others-was one that had been asked and answered before, so they made a note to reference the number for the already researched answer and put it on the out-going stack, then went on to the next question. One of the many clerks would get in touch with the person who had asked the question, find out what kind of report they wanted, and either answer it verbally or, for a fee, have a written report made up and sent out. Some questions already had reports written up and ready to send out, but not all of them.
That part wasn't the researcher's problem. Darius and Gemma would mark down on their timesheets that they'd spent however many minutes answering the question. Enough hours of answering the pro bonos would pay their library fee, which is what they were after.
While they were doing this, Darius explained to Gemma that the sale had been to another aviation nut, and who knows, maybe he'd come back with questions. Most of the people who bought that book never returned. Darius wasn't sure if it was because the book answered all their questions or if it was because the answers in it scared them off.
****
Willem Krause bought both books and read them through, which took him almost two months. Partly because there was a lot of stuff in them, partly because they were in the up-timer type face and he wasn't used to it. Partly because they were in English and he would have done better with either German or Latin. But mostly because they were poorly written. What they were, were articles copied out of various encyclopedias, periodicals, and bits of books, strung together with connecting paragraphs inserted to explain why they had chosen this article or this scene from a given book. There was an article about a plane that had tried to pull out of a dive too fast and had its wings come off. The accompanying paragraph pointed out that while lift increased by the square, stress on the wings increased by the cube, and then failed to explain what that meant.
Willem made a note of another question to ask the next time he went to the library and went back to reading.
This was a few paragraphs from a fiction book, describing how the hero took off from an aircraft carrier. And the connecting paragraph discussed preflight checklists. It was poorly organized minutia of aircraft design and flight, put together by people who, for the most part, had never been in a cockpit or drawn so much as a line of a design of an aircraft. The knowledge was there and some of it was sneaking past the poor authorship to present itself to him. And that was the two hundred dollar book. Willem wanted to throw it across the room. Or, better yet, at the pimple-faced teenager who had sold it to him. At the same time, he realized that it was absolutely the best book available down-time on the subject of powered flight.