"Not as scary as watching my adopted German daughter trying to teach my up-time daughter how to not blow up a seventeenth-century kitchen. Not as scary as trying to convince the town council of Bamberg that electricity isn't something you distill from water and that hydroelectric dam means flooding the countryside. Personally, I don't think Blaise could get a dam big enough to spin a generator fast enough to electrify Bamberg."
"Blaise was my fault. I saw him and Jacqueline arguing over a book in the library. Something about Pascal's Triangles. I couldn't wait to tell my dad about who I found. I thought Dad would be so proud of me. I even gave Blaise my for-real drafting ruler."
"Your father is proud of you." Julie shook her head. "And I'll have to think about whether or not to forgive you for 'finding' Blaise."
"Blaise Pascal was one of my dad's favorite mathematicians. And now he's hogging a bed upstairs and calling me 'indecent.'"
"What?"
"He's still mad that I helped undress him when the medic came. And I was holding pressure until the medic got here. I couldn't just let go because it was 'indecent.' His sister was useless, and his father was worse."
"You did a good job." Julie shrugged. "You fell down the stairs very well."
Logan sniffed. "That was an accident."
"In more ways than one." Julie waved Blaise's preliminary report she still clutched in her hand. "I sent a radiogram to Bill Porter, asking him if he's behind Blaise's plan for electrifying Bamberg. Well, I just got a reply back from Bill. He said he asked Blaise to look around and estimate what it would take to begin providing electric power to Bamberg customers. Nothing about a full-blown hydroelectric plant and power distribution network."
"Blaise goes overboard. So what else is new?" Logan shrugged. "By the way, those weren't his clothes he was wearing when he arrived. First of all, he doesn't wear leather. He told me once that he was appalled at wearing some other being's skin as clothing. What the hell happened to him out there that he was forced to wear leather?"
"That is still being determined. Norman confirmed that he did, in fact, fall into the same river three times. But the cliff he says he fell down was more like a rocky side of a hill, not a cliff. He did, though, taser one of the bandits, and the other two either shot each other or shot themselves somehow. They're still arguing the forensics of the bullet wounds."
"I guess I could see how two people would be driven to shoot themselves because of Blaise Pascal, world's biggest doofus."
"We're still trying figure out where he got the sword and why his hat was a hundred feet up in a tree." Julie shook her head. "I guess this report makes complete sense. Bill would think it's funny to saddle me with Blaise Pascal, junior electrical engineer. Ask Blaise what time it is, and he'll design an atomic clock. Bill had to know that if he told Blaise to look into what it would take to start delivering electricity to Bamberg, and we'd get this." She waved the report. "I saved a kid from hanging himself from a church steeple. I didn't save Moses from a river in Egypt. The fire department deserves most of the credit anyway."
"My guess is a gust of wind took his hat off, and he went after it-not looking where he was going, and he stumbled into that poacher's camp, and when he fell off his horse he bumped his head. Why were they taking his clothes off? Now that's indecent."
"Clothes are valuable in this day and age. Even in New York City, up-time, people were robbing each other for expensive sneakers. Took 'em right off the victim's feet. That green vest of his would have brought some money. Some of what he was wearing was silk. Silk ain't cheap nowadays."
"Doofus," Logan shook her head.
Julie smiled. "Yep. The same doofus who, the moment he hears you up and disappeared, drops everything important to him and grabs a horse and goes off to rescue you."
"He should know me well enough to know I don't need rescuing. I made it all the way to Bamberg without a single person being killed-or even injured slightly."
"We find ourselves in a different time, Logan. Chivalry might have been dead up-time, but here and now, it's still kicking. Everything is different now."
"Don't I know it. Would it have been too much to ask for there to have been just one Cessna in Grantville? Just one? A Piper Cub even. Somebody had that stupid power boat-why not a Beechcraft or a P-51 Mustang. Could you imagine? A Mustang. ."
"Blaise can't stop talking about math, and you can't stop whining about airplanes." Julie shook her head. "Times change. But some things always remain the same."
"Like what?" Logan asked.
"The things we do for love."
Hunter, My Huntress
Patience growing short in the afternoon heat, Dara's favorite leopard yowled and spat at her handler, ready to hunt.
Dara grinned, ready as well, welcoming the prospect of release from the tension being around Aurangzeb always provoked in him. Now, if only they could begin. The small army of beaters had started the day before, working through the night to drive all the wild game resident in several square kos toward where the hunting party lay in wait. The camp was loud with the voices of men and animals, many of Father's more notable umara present to witness the hunt and curry favor with the wazir.
Seeking distraction, Dara again took up the gun he'd had as a wedding gift from Father last year, the inlaid piece monstrous heavy yet reassuring in its solidity. He sighted down the nearly two gaz of barrel, arms immediately trembling from the weight of iron, ivory inlay, and mahogany. Among the many refinements, the weapon sported one of the new flintlocks rather than the traditional matchlock, and even had a trigger rather than lever.
"Here," he grunted.
Body slaves overseen by his Atishbaz gunsmith, Talawat, hurriedly set up the iron tripod needed to support the hunting piece while he struggled to hold position.
"Ready, Shehzada," Talawat said.
Trying to keep the weight under control, Dara slowly lowered the gun onto the mount. Talawat slotted the pin that would hold the gun's weight when aimed into place, easing the awkward weight from Dara's arms. The prince knelt and placed the butt of the weapon on the cushion another slave hurriedly set in place.
Rubbing the ache from his biceps, hoofbeats drew Dara's attention. He looked down the gradual slope to the pair of watering holes that formed the two sides of the killing zone for the hunt. About one hundred gaz of grassy clearing lay between the slowly-drying watering holes, with about half that much distance between grandfather's tent and the open space. The beaters were working toward that spot in a steadily shrinking circle.
One of Asaf Khan's men emerged from the wood line at a gallop, crossing the clearing and pounding up to the camp. In a fine display of horsemanship, the sowar swung down from his mount to land lightly a few paces in front of Dara's grandfather.
Asaf Khan stepped forward and listened as the young trooper made his report: "At least a hundred head of blackbuck and red antelope, a small herd of nilgai, Wazir. Tiger spoor was also found, but no one has laid eyes on it, yet. Should not be long, now, before the first of the beasts make an appearance."
Asaf Khan dismissed his man. Gray beard dancing, the aging but still-powerfully-built Wazir called out: "A tiger would make a worthy prize for one of my grandsons!"
"Perhaps for Dara, grandfather. He has yet to take one," Aurangzeb drawled from inside the tent.
Dara watched Asaf's smile dim before he turned and answered, "One tiger could never be enough for the sons of emperors."