Wolfgang cleared his throat. "So we now only need to find a suspect."
"'Only' isn't the word I thought appropriate. 'Big task' would be a better term."
Some days later
"It's frustrating," Wolfgang said groaning. "There are at least twenty people who are familiar with the metal workshop's arrangements. But I think we can drop the 'foreign agent' idea."
"Why do you think that?" Marshall wondered.
"The action did not yield any consequences. If we hadn't locked the steam car up until now, the young machinists would only have needed half an hour to fix it. An agent could have locked the security valve and the whole steam engine would have blown up."
"It's fascinating," Nikki said thoughtfully, "how fast a seventeenth-century bell founder grasps technical concepts like these."
"Oh, I only repeat the words I heard from the guys in the workshop." Nevertheless, Wolfgang blushed. "No," he continued. "This deed was especially targeted to the driver. But from all the people I talked with, I found no one who hated Peter."
"Me too," Nikki continued. "I mentioned him several times in the class, and all I saw and heard was regret and sympathy."
"And," Wolfgang lifted a finger, "The death was not necessarily intended. Nobody saw exactly what happened when the axle broke, but they all said he could have stopped the engine without the wheel, exactly how I did it in the foundry.
"Perhaps he was so surprised that he stood up and fell from the car. And even that would not have been mortal, if his foot hadn't become entangled."
"But it was intentional," Marshall interjected. "Somebody wanted to do him harm or make fun of him."
"Of him?" Nikki asked. "Or of the driver? Was Peter the only one who drove that infernal thing?"
Marshall and Wolfgang looked at each other.
Wolfgang said: "Clever question." Marshall nodded.
Nikki blushed.
The next day
"I think we've got it-more or less," Wolfgang said.
Nikki nodded. "Julius."
Marshall frowned. "Julius?"
"Yes," Wolfgang said. "Julius Hartung was the target. He's an asshole." He grinned.
"He didn't learn that word from me," Nikki protested.
"No the term is common knowledge, and the fact, too. 'Julius is an arrogant asshole,' they all say. I only wonder that nobody calls him an 'arrogant Catholic asshole.' Nearly all team members are Lutherans."
"It's fascinating," Marshall said, "how fast religious disputes disappear, when people work together and build something together. And are too tired afterwards to talk about religion.
"And you think Julius was the target of that prank?"
"Certainly," Nikki said confidently. "He boasted 'I can drive that thing without a wheel.' Perhaps he can do it. But he was sick that day."
"Yes," Wolfgang continued, "and so Peter assumed the driver's role. If I could only remember my first day better. I don't know who of the team members was not running behind him and cheering.
But-" he stopped. His forehead showed deep furrows.
"What?" the others asked unison.
"Proverbs 16:18 says 'Pride goes before destruction.' That was the aim. I think I know who did it."
"No," the elder machinist said. "Thomas has taken a day off. 'Urgent family matters,' he said."
"Where does his family live? In Erfurt?" Marshall asked.
"I don't know. But I think I saw him on his way to the railway station."
Wolfgang asked: "Are there any of his personal belongings?"
Nikki grinned. "Clever question."
Wolfgang blushed.
Grantville
Later on the same day
They arrived with the late train. To Marshall and Nikki, Grantville was familiar. Wolfgang had spent some time here, too. But for Nicolaus Happe, colonel of Jena's town watch-or Stadtpolizei, as they were starting to call it-it was the first time to visit the town.
The first thing he did after leaving "Central Station" was kneel down and touch the asphalt. "I've heard of this," he explained, "but I never could believe it, how smooth and level the streets in Grantville are. We need that in Jena, too. As soon as possible."
The he rose again. "Where is this church?" Marshall and Nikki pointed to St. Mary's. "Let's go."
Pater Heinzerling welcomed them. "Yes, he's here. But I won't tell you anything he told me under the seal of confession."
"We won't ask you, Pater," Nikki stated firmly. "We already know everything."
Thomas Hartung entered the room. His eyes were red. "I'm prepared now. I'll follow you."
"I only want to know one thing," Marshall said. "When your brother was sick, why didn't you try to stop this horrible affair?"
"I wasn't there," Thomas whispered. "I've been in Jena, buying medicine for Julius. I didn't know that they would use the steam car without him. I never intended any harm to Peter. He was my friend."
Rasenmuhle, south of Jena
April 1634
"Wolfgang, do it," Marshall said, and Wolfgang turned the wheel to open the big valve that had closed the Lache, the channel that had fed the Rasenmuhle for over a century.
In the meantime, the miller had moved to the Muhllache, the larger channel near the center of Jena. The railroad company had bought the whole Rasenmuhlen-Insel, the artificial island that lay between the Saale and the Lache. Nothing could be built there because the spring floods regularly drowned it.
Now the water was streaming into the dry channel again. It flew into the newly built tunnel and filled it nearly to the top. And then it happened. The new turbine started rotating. The engineering team had planned and constructed it from an up-time design called a Kaplan turbine, and the foundry team led by Wolfgang had cast the large adjustable blades, which made up a propeller six feet in diameter. And the bronze bearings which guaranteed that the turbine could work twenty-four hours a day.
For nearly a year, the glassmakers had produced light bulbs, and the electricians had laid copper wires and sealed them with sealing wax. But the small generators attached to water wheels in the creek called Leutra could only light some of them at a time, and when the electric ovens in the materials development department were in operation, all other loads in the Lokschuppen had to be cut off the grid.
But now the turbine gathered speed, the big generator turned and when an electrician gave a sign, the grid was attached to it. And the lights went on in the Lokschuppen.
All lights in all the houses, one after the other. Then the lights in the alleys and yards between the houses. Then the lights along the road between the entry gate of the R amp;D premises and the Rasenmuhle, which now contained the new power plant.
And then some technicians started the large carbon-arc lamps they had installed on both sides of the entry gate. Two white fingers of light pointed up into the evening sky and met far above.
The electrician who observed the flow of the electrical power lifted a hand with two fingers extended. Two hundred kilowatts.
That was only half the calculated maximum output, but enough for now.
Applause went up from all the people who had gathered there.
"Wolfgang, would you please come over here?" Marshall shouted and waved a hand.
Wolfgang went over and saw a middle-aged man standing beside Marshall.