“What about Magdeburg?” Claudia de Medici asked.
“Not soon.”
“Why not?”
“Again it’s mostly politics and just a little bit of economics. You know as well as I that the planes rarely fly much under their max load. We have more passengers and cargo than we can carry and would on just about any route between major cities. There are hundreds of rich people in every major city in Europe. And thousands of tons of cargo that someone can make a fortune on, if only they can get it to their partner in days instead of weeks.”
Claudia laughed. “When it absolutely positively has to be there on time. Yes, letters of transfer, bids ten pounds of gold coins because the person they are dealing with doesn’t trust paper.”
“Marijuana seeds so that the crop can be gotten in this year not next year. Dye because the ladies at court have to have the new colors for the party next week,” Magdalena added.
“Fresh Italian oranges for Duchess Maria who is Frau Higgins’ guest for the season and absolutely must have her freshly-squeezed orange juice or she’ll die. Even though she has spent the last twenty years of her life without it.”
And on they went listing some of the things that had been shipped on the Jupiter 1 and the Neptune since the Venice-Grantville route had opened. After they wound down Magdalena continued, “The same thing will be true in a route from Brussels to Paris or London, and almost as true on a route from Grantville to Magdeburg.”
“Almost?”
“They have the train between Magdeburg and Grantville. Those oranges would have been just as fresh after a train ride as after a plane ride.”
“The plane would be full anyway. You know there is a waiting list,” Claudia insisted. “So why not Magdeburg?”
“His Majesty, so I am told, does intend to have scheduled flights to Magdeburg just as soon as we have enough planes for it. It’s on the list right after Paris. But putting it at the front of the list would imply that the USE is more important than France or Spain. The point, as it was made to me, was that economically it’s pretty much a wash whether the fifth plane we get goes from Brussels to London or Grantville to Magdeburg. But politically putting Magdeburg ahead of London makes the king in the Low Countries look like he’s a vassal of the Emperor of the USE or at the very least like he’s siding with Gustavus Adolphus against the League.”
Claudia was nodding by the time Magdalena was finished. “If the Netherlands are to be effective as a buffer state they must, absolutely must, maintain an evenhandedness in their dealings with the nations that surround them. They already have scheduled flights to one city in the USE and Royal Dutch Airlines is owned by the crown.”
“Please forgive me. Please, please, please?”
Magdalena looked toward the door. The voice had certainly been Georg’s, but what was at the door didn’t look much like him. Well, if you didn’t count the feet. He’d apparently forgotten to put on the clown shoes. Or hadn’t been able to walk in them, knowing Georg.
“Emmett Kelley was a silent clown,” she pointed out.
Georg pulled three long-stemmed roses out of his sleeve. But he’d obviously forgotten to trim off the thorns, since he said “Ouch” rather loudly.
Magdalena couldn’t help it. She began laughing. Georg’s sad face didn’t look so sad now. “What are you doing in that outfit, Georg?”
“Apologizing for being a jerk. Even if I didn’t really know I was,” Georg said. “I’m sorry. I just assumed…well, I’m not a very romantic type, I know. But I do love you. And I do hope you’ll marry me. Even if you do go off to Brussels, I hope you’ll marry me. Eventually. I’ll move to Brussels, too. Anything.”
“Hold off on that, Georg. Farrell needs you here.” Magdalena thought for a moment. “You do realize I’ll be back in Grantville at least twice a week, don’t you?”
Georg looked hopeful. “We could maybe work something out, yes?”
“Yes. I imagine we could.”
Merton looked at the maintenance checklist and flipped a switch to check the battery power. It was well into the green. That’s done. It’s time to get some shuteye. It was Merton’s night in Brussels this week. He had spent one night a week here for the last month and never seen Brussels. Walking tours weren’t his favorite type of entertainment. In fact, he wasn’t looking forward to the walk to the Airport Inn. He turned in his chair and grabbed his walker.
Merton was hobbling back to the door of the Jupiter 3 when the guests arrived. There was Herr Quackenboss, a member of the new board of Directors of RDA and several other people, craftsmen of various sorts by their dress. “What can I do for you, sir?” Merton had met Herr Quackenboss just once. Several of the German board members had sold out and resigned when King Fernando bought the company. They had been replaced by members of Fernando’s court and wealthy merchants from Brussels and Amsterdam. Herr Quackenboss was both a member of the court and a wealthy merchant from Brussels. But that didn’t explain what he was doing bringing a bunch of people here in-well, not quite the middle of the night, but the sun had set.
“Ah, Herr Schmidt,” Herr Quackenboss said, with what appeared to Merton to be false good cheer. Merton was sensitized to false good cheer as people saw his legs. But Herr Quackenboss had already seen them and had been mostly curious about how they were made. “Why are you still aboard?”
“Aircraft checkout.” Merton tapped one of his fiberglass legs. “It takes me a little longer to get it done. Speaking of which, what brings you…” Merton looked at the, yep, craftsmen, who had followed Herr Quackenboss onboard. “…and your friends out at this time of the evening?”
Quackenboss hedged a bit and blustered a bit, but eventually came clean. They were there to examine the airplane. In detail. Take measurements. Make drawings. Learn as much as they could about how to build it.
“Sir, you and your guests are free to take your measurements. You’re on the board, after all. But I am going to have to be here. It’s a safety matter. I have no desire whatsoever to fall out of the sky because something vital got broken.” He motioned Quackenboss over, then whispered, “You know I’ll have to report this, sir.”
“I have His Majesty’s approval.” That was said rather huffily, so Merton figured he probably did. Otherwise he would probably have offered Merton a bribe. As it was, Merton figured that these guys were to be the guiding lights of the Royal Dutch Air Force, or whatever they ended up calling it. Not everyone in the Netherlands was thrilled with the idea of King Fernando spending so much money on airplanes and they were especially upset about his spending that money in the USE, not with good Dutch merchants and craftsmen. His Majesty ought to be spending his money on stuff they could make, like ships. Or at the very least give them a chance to make airplanes.
Georg wasn’t going to be happy about this development. Neither was Maggy.
“Well, what the hell did you expect me to do?” Merton tilted his head up to look Georg in the eye. That was one of the most irritating things about his lack of legs. It made it really hard to stare someone down. “It’s their plane, bought and paid for.”
“But it’s my, our, design. Royal Dutch Airlines didn’t buy that.”
“I’m not altogether sure of that, Georg,” Farrell said.
“What? Show me in the contract where it said they could copy our design.”
“No, Georg. I’m pretty sure that they are going to point to the contract and ask us to produce the clause that says they can’t. Even worse, a clause that says that they can’t let someone else look at it and copy it. After all, it probably won’t be Royal Dutch Airlines that is making the Dutch knockoff Jupiters; it will be some other Dutch company that is also in large part owned by the crown.” Farrell shook his head. “I don’t know if the USE and the Netherlands have any agreement on the protection of patents and even if they do most of the Monst-Jupiters aren’t patentable. The wing shape is right out of Dad’s aeronautics text; the ACLG is from an article in Time…even if we did have to figure out how to make it work. Don’t get me wrong, there is some really brilliant engineering that we probably could patent. At least, we could have up-time. But none of it is stuff they couldn’t work around.”