I also will be glad to get back to Grantville. I find that I miss our conversations. I miss your insightful questions and your friendly smile. I know the loss of your family cut you deep and being here again reminds me of how deep and slow to heal such a loss can be. I understand your need to be around people but find myself wishing that you could find a position that lets you be around people, but still lets you use more of your skills.
The letter went on to talk about how he felt about her and the world.
A couple of days later Darlene gave Trent Partow a letter to go into the pouch for Johan and asked, "Has Johan mentioned my working in the cafeteria?"
"No. Why?" Trent asked.
"Because he said pretty much the same thing you did in his letter."
"About what?"
"About why am I working in the cafeteria when I ought to be working in electronics."
Trent shrugged a very teenage shrug, and said, "It's a pretty obvious question."
"It is if you know I worked in the power plant, but why would you know that if Johan wasn't talking to you?"
"Oh." Trent looked rather embarrassed. "David had you checked out. Because, well, Johan is rich now and that means a lot down-time."
It meant a lot up-time too, Darlene knew. Not to everyone but to a lot of people. She'd read enough stories before the Ring of Fire to know that pre-nups were pretty standard among the rich and famous. Still, the whole notion that she might be a gold digger was more than a little offensive. Especially because, well, she had noticed that Johan was rich and it had had an effect. Along with the realization that he thought of her as someone who he could discuss matters of importance with, it made him seem more attractive and less threatening. She didn't figure he would have her out at the stream pounding his dirty clothes on rocks.
"I'm not sure how I would react if Johan had checked me out. But David Bartley? What the fuck business was it of his?" Darlene didn't usually curse, and especially not in front of kids, even teenagers. But suddenly she was really pissed off.
It was clear that Trent Partow didn't have a good answer to that, from his embarrassed look more than his silence. She humphed and gave him the letter anyway.
Trent thanked her and left, but that wasn't the end of it. An hour later, Brent Partow showed up. Brent looked like Trent but moved differently. He was more open and casual, less studied. "David did it because he's Johan's friend and he cares. It wasn't an insult to you, because before he checked you out, we didn't know who you were. Even if you had been a gold digger-and every single one of us has had experience with gold diggers since HSMC went public back in '31 and especially since OPM-David wouldn't have tried to buy you off or treat you like Sabrina in the movie. He would have let Johan know and decide for himself." He grinned engagingly. "I should know. That's what he's done when one of my friends turns out to be after my money. Which happens more than you might think, Ms. Myers."
"Well, it's still insulting. And it's still none of his business," Darlene said, in spite of the fact that she saw Brent's point. "And if he wanted to know something, he should have had the guts to ask me to my face."
"Maybe. All right. In that case, I have a question to ask you to your face. What are you doing slopping the high schoolers when you could be teaching down-timers how to build electrical components and gauges? Do you have any idea how important electricity is to the world?"
"Well. . you know. . the thing is. ." Darlene stopped.
Brent just waited.
"Well. ." Darlene hadn't thought about it from the point of view of the rest of the world. "I just. . I was so tired. And sick. Just sick of everything. All I could think about was Jack and Johnny. . And I didn't quit till I had trained up replacements."
Brent nodded. That had apparently been in the briefing they had gotten. "I'm sorry about your family," he said. "I was comparatively lucky. I had a lot of friends that were left up-time, but most of my family was here. I know it was worse for people who lost family. I think you ought to talk to someone about it. It's not just the opportunities for yourself that are getting lost. It's what you can do for the world, as well. Look, Ms. Myers, I know a bunch of people think of David as some sort of Scrooge or maybe J.P. Morgan or something, but the truth is that he, all of us, do this stuff because it's important. Not because it makes us rich. That's just a byproduct."
"Not a bad byproduct," Darlene said.
"I'm not complaining, true. Back up-time, I'd never have been this kind of rich. But, more importantly, I'd never have been able to build the things I've built. The washing machine has made life easier for hundreds of people-heck, probably thousands of people. The generator packages we're working on-and that's something you could help with-why, those are going to improve even more lives. And improve them more."
Darlene was intrigued in spite of herself. "What sort of generator packages?"
Brent snorted. "That's the trouble. You can't just build a generator, or a toaster, or a light bulb. The toaster and the light bulb need the generator and the generator isn't a lot of use without the toaster or the light bulb, or something to power. And then there's the question of getting the mechanical motion to run the generator."
Darlene started nodding, because this was basically what she'd been doing at the power plant, or at least part of it. "So how are you working it out?"
"Not as well as we'd like. It takes a lot of fiddling. We can't build a standard system, like the sewing machine or the washing machine. We have to fit each one to the use it's to be put to. And that makes it more expensive. We need to standardize as many of the components as we can, so they can fit into a customized system. We've been doing that one component at a time, as we develop them. Then selling them off to other companies to mass produce."
"What sort of components?"
"Well, the toaster I mentioned and an electric space heater. Small electric motors to power things like down-time-made food processors. But we also have to make fuses and switches so that the little electrical systems we put in houses and factories don't burn out because too much is plugged into them or too little. We are working on better lead-acid batteries. Well, a village just outside the Ring of Fire is doing those, but we are having to buy them by the rack. Which makes the systems more expensive, but we have to have something to balance the output of the generators."
"Have you tried gyroscopes?" Darlene couldn't help asking. She knew that up-time and down-time the power plant had used great big gyroscopes to balance power requirements with generation and keep the system from blowing.
"Now see," Brent said with an impish grin, "that's why you're needed. Your understanding of this stuff. It's not stuff that down-timers can't learn and I know you taught it to down-timers before you quit the power plant. But there are always more down-timers to learn it. And more ways to apply it. Have you considered a job at one of the research firms. . like, say, TwinloPark?"
"You're trying to recruit me?"
"Sure. Why not?"
"I thought you thought I was a gold digger."
"Nope. We wanted to find out if you were a gold digger. There is a difference. And while we were looking, we found out you have knowledge we need."