"What's the silly idea that has Leonhard spooked this time?" asked Sarah when David stepped into her office. Sarah's relationship with her secretary was rather better than David's was with Leonhard. "Actually, I'm not sure it's silly," said David. "Someone sent us a play written by Manschylius Schultheiss.

I haven't read it, and wouldn't know if it was a stinker or a masterpiece even if I had, but it got me to thinking. You know how full the theater is all the time, right? And I've been hearing talk about turning the football field into an outdoor theater. It occurs to me that if we can find someone who's good at that sort of thing, we could sp.a.w.n a production company."

"I don't know." Sarah shook her head. "It's pretty high risk, and it's not like we can make movies. That's where the real money would be. Maybe we can try it later, when we can make movie film."

"Ok, I'll have Leonhard send the guy a nice note saying we're not backing that sort of venture at this time, but may do so in the future."

"Have him send back the play, too. Maybe Mr. Schultheiss can get it produced somewhere else."

"Well, David," said Kaspar, "I'm off forAmsterdam , or will be by the time you get out of school tomorrow."

"How do you think you'll do?"

"Honestly, I have no idea. When I leftAmsterdam , I was unconvinced that the Ring of Fire had actually happened. We had heard stories, but even from a normally reputable source they were hard to believe. I was sent here to find out what was going on. Seeing the ring of cliffs and the difference in the land-it's not the sort of thing you tend to believe without seeing it. So it's entirely possible that I will be no more than another of the 'normally responsible people taken in by whatever is really going on.' On the other hand, I am taking back artifacts to show what's here, and what you can make. When I left, there were vague rumors about a coming crash in the tulip market. Those rumors were mostly disbelieved. Partly because though there are rare breeds that bring good sums there isn't really a tulip market. Now, there probably never will be. I've been gone three months now. I understand that some up-timers, or their representatives, have gone toAmsterdam to try to make deals. Much of what I have to tell my family and friends may be old news by the time I get there. I'm as prepared as I can be."

Kaspar smiled. He really didn't find David all that unusual. In a number of ways, David was a younger version of himself, a young merchant under the guidance of older merchants. The guidance wasn't quite so overt here, because Other People's Money was using the success of the sewing machine company and the magic of the Ring of Fire as its a.s.surance of competence and good faith. If there was one thing the Americans did differently, it was their willingness to let anyone play. The mutual fund was not really a new concept. Similar techniques had been used by Romans to finance trading ships. The difference was the way the thing was organized to let just about anyone who could sc.r.a.pe up a little money in. That was the attraction, and the danger of the up-timers. They were willing to let anyone in, which meant they gathered support from the most unlikely places.

Hensin Hirsch recognized the two members of the Sewing Circle when they came in the front door.

Brent and Trent were fairly famous among the teens in Grantville, down-timers especially, and by now it was common knowledge that their investment fund was starting up. What Hensin wondered was whether they were here to buy some of the light bulbs his father made, or to buy the whole shop. He rather hoped it was the latter. The truth was, they weren't doing all that well. Hensin's papa had been a master gla.s.s blower inMagdeburg before the sack. They had wandered into Grantville in August of last year. Papahad seen a light bulb work, and been captivated.

The small light bulb shop had taken a year of scrimping and saving, and moneyraised from three investors who had expected better results. The shop had two rooms; one occupied by finished light bulbs for sale, and one in the back where Papa made the bulbs. They had a vacuum pump from an old refrigerator, and Hensin baked linen threads till they were carbon. But between the rent, materials, and the sheer amount of time it took to make each light bulb, the price they had to charge meant sales were slow. They were barely making enough to feedthemselves , let alone pay their backers.

"Master Hirsch wouldn't let us examine his shop.Trade secrets, and all that.As if we couldn't look up how to make a light bulb in the encyclopedia." Brent was disgusted at a wasted afternoon, and it showed as he flopped into the chair. The chair was nice. Tooled leather, made with up-time power tools by a combination of up- and down-time craftsmen. It matched the other seven in the meeting slash boardroom of the mutual fund. "The son was all right. I think Hensin wanted our help, but his dad would barely talk to us. I think he was really afraid that we'd tell him how to do it better, and the idea of teenagers telling him what to dofreaked him."

"Okay. I guess we don't mess with light bulbs for right now. We'll look at it again in a few months," said David. "What about Gribbleflotz?"

"Herr Doktor Gribbleflotz,"Trent corrected. "He is, believe it or not, related to Doktor Bombast.

Apparently there really wasa Bombast , and this guy is related to him. He's not really bombastic though, just sort of bitter and cynical. I felt sorry for the guy."

"So he's a nice guy," said Sarah. "What about increasing production of baking soda?"

"Hey, I never said he was a nice guy. I just said I felt sorry for him. He's a good tech, and innovative in his way, but no theoretician. My hunch is his t.i.tle is his own creation. He's sort of desperate for recognition, and he really isn't interested in doing what he's doing. He just needs the money."

"If we throw some money and a fancy t.i.tle at him, he'll probably do what we want," Brent added. "He explained enough about what he was doing so that I'm pretty sure we can chop up the process he uses into different steps and get all sorts of stuff. He doesn't understand the marketing or organizational parts very well."

Sarah snorted at that. In her opinion, Brent didn't understand marketing or organization at all. "So we get him a business manager." With the help of Herr Kunze she had gathered a small group of craft masters and merchants who had been introduced to up-time management practices. They were ready, willing, and able to come in and take over the management of companies OPM bought into where the people starting the business didn't know business. They were employed directly by the board in support positions, with the understanding that if an investment opportunity needed someone with their particular talents, they would have the first shot at it.

Frantz had been expecting this. He took his copy of the proposal from his desk. His office was in his home in Badenburg, a well-lit room on the second floor of his town house. The proposal was from Delia Higgins. She wanted to build a hotel on her property, fifteen stories tall. The bottom two floors would be shops and meeting rooms, the next offices, then the rooms for rent. The proposal specified the roomswould be large and luxurious, based on a room in a Holiday Inn, whatever that was. The top two floors would have a fancy restaurant and private residences. The thing that would make it all work was the elevators. It was the proposal he had been expecting, though not quite on this grand a scale. What he wasn't expecting was what the kids had done. David, in fact the entire Sewing Circle, had delivered the proposal without recommendation. No note on how it should be done, no suggestion at all as to whether OPM should buy into the project.

In a way, that fit the up-timer pa.s.sion for avoiding what they called "conflicts of interest," a pa.s.sion Frantz had noted was spotty in its application. Some up-timers were serious about it, others less so. He had expected a warning from the Sewing Circle to the board that they were close to the applicant which might affect their judgment. He had gotten similar warnings in several cases where they were friends with or actively disliked the applicant. Not this deafening silence. Something was wrong, and he had his suspicions about what it was. Delia Higgins had spent a great deal of money directly and indirectly on her warehouse project. She had looked into brick, quarried stone, concrete, and wood construction. With each experiment she had spent money, the largest amount on concrete. Eventually she settled on fairly standard down-time construction techniques, with concrete pillars added for support. "What do you think, Leonhard?"

"Young master Bartley was less than pleased with the proposal. I know he's been concerned over his grandmother's financial situation. I was rather expecting him to support the project for that reason. It would give Lady Higgins a much-needed influx of capital. From the discussions, it doesn't seem in any way beyond the up-timers' capabilities. While none of the children are expert in construction, there is a certain amount of expertise available. I honestly don't see anything here that can't be done. I would have expected Young Master Bartley to have approved it for reasons of family, and the rest to do so for reasons of personal loyalty to both their friend and the woman who gave them their start." Leonhard was comfortable with his role as spy for the board of directors. He liked the children well enough, but they were young. They needed to be watched for their welfare, as well as that of the board. He did find them confusing in their att.i.tudes.

Kaspar Heesters arrived back home inAmsterdam in August of the year 1632. He arrived by sea because the water route was more suitable to the volume of goods he carried with him. The goods had filled a barge. He had many examples of new products, mostly for his own household, and to act as examples of the goods that could be bought in Grantville. They were, for the most part, things that the up-timers could make down-time. Some, though, like the small generator were, so far, borderline.

David Heesters, Kaspar's father, was a bit shocked at the amount of stuff Kaspar had brought home.

He had seen that his son was provided with fairly generous living expenses and funds for some limited investments, but the mission had been primarily exploratory in nature. When he saw what was in all the crates he was shocked. It looked like his son had not only spent all the investment money on fancy toys, but had indebted the house as well. The only thing that saved him from seriously embarra.s.sing himself was the faith he had in his son's judgment. He didn't publicly disown his son as a mad spendthrift. He waited and asked. When he learned the prices of some of the devices that his son had brought home, he became even more concerned, but no longer that his son might have wasted the family's wealth. It was simply that it was hard to believe that so much, well, stuff, could be had for so little money.

Then Kaspar showed him the typed copies of the history of the tulip bubble. "There isn't a tulip market.

Yes, certain rare breeds would bring money if their owners would sell them but a market in tulips is just silly. Besides the price offered for even rare breeds of tulips has been dropping in the last month." "Yes, Father, silly, but nonetheless real. At least it would have been if not for the Ring of Fire. What would have happened without the Ring of Fire? Someone would have been a bit short of cash and gone ahead and sold some rare tulip bulb, the buyer would be offered more for it and would sell it in turn, and the tulip bubble would start. You know the price offered for the Semper Augustus was twelve thousand guilders, for ten bulbs of a single flower. There would have been tulip dealers who bought them not through any interest in tulips but because they could, or thought they could, make a profit on them. That's how it would have gone, but the Ring of Fire did happen. There were rumors even before I left of a tulip bubble that would burst. Those rumors have caused people to be cautious about buying tulips, bringing the price down. If you have any, Father, you really ought to sell them. Because when this gets out there truly won't be a market for them."

"And where should we put our money, O sage of the future?"

Kaspar brought out the mutual fund prospectus. That took some explaining. "It works like this. I take a guilder and put it in the pot." Kaspar actually pulled out a shallow pot from one of the boxes, and put a small green printed piece of paper in it. The paper had the image of a stag printed on it. "Several other people put in what money they have for investing. The pot is then turned over to the fund managers to invest in various businesses. Each person gets shares in the fund that equal the amount of money they put in.Nothing new so far. People have been pooling their money to invest forever. But now comes the interesting part. The fund managers invest what is in the pot into various companies, and a few months later, those companies are worth more than they were when we started. But now some other people want to invest in the fund. How do you determine how much their money will buy? You take all the money and property the fund has and determine its total value as of the day the new person buys in, and divide by the number of shares outstanding. So, say there are a hundred shares and the fund is worth a hundred and fifty guilders. Each share is worth one and a half guilders. The new investor can buy shares at a price of one and a half guilders per share. The original investor doesn't lose anything because his shares are still worth the same amount."

"And when I want my money back?"

"You sell your shares back to the fund."

"Why shouldn't I invest my money on my own?" David Heesters was really just testing his son here. He understood the reason for putting money into other hands to have it invested. It always came down to expertise, time, or access.

"Would you have invested in four children who intended to build a machine that sews?"

"No, and I'm glad I didn't, because if they are selling that device for twenty-five guilders they will go broke quickly enough. It must have cost hundreds to make. Besides, even at twenty-five guilders, how many people can afford it?" But Kaspar was grinning most impudently. Clearly his son had expected the question and had an answer ready. David sat quietly and listened as his son explained. Other People's Money, it seemed, had in its management staff those same four children who had introduced not only the machines used to make the sewing machines cheaply, but the concept of rent with the option to buy, as a way of acquiring goods. This avoided the whole problem of usury, since the buyer was getting something, the use of the product and the seller was not charging interest, but rent. The children in turn were supervised and advised by local men of consequence who knew the situation, and were themselves investors in the mutual fund, including his son.

Kaspar had made his first sale inAmsterdam . It wouldn't be the last. This was a good thing, because Kaspar had a list of raw materials needed by the industries of Grantville. * * *

Brent brought the project to OPM. It was a mechanical calculator apparently invented by someone named Curta. Terrell, one of the kids in school, had brought it to him. It was something he had from his dad. He wanted to build the Curta Calculators like the Sewing Circle had built sewing machines. The calculator was more complex. It not only added and subtracted, it multiplied and divided, and other stuff.

It had about six hundred parts. Brent wasn't really looking forward to what Sarah and David would say.

It was a well-worked-out plan mechanically, but only mechanically. In the whole proposal there wasn't one word about production cost, or sale price, or potential market. But he'd promised, so he sort of snuck it onto the agenda.

This wasn't the first time this had happened. They had been approached by most of the kids in school about this or that project. Mostly they had been able to say, honestly, that they didn't have the kind of money it would take to start up a company, that they couldn't sell their stock without their parents'

permission, that permission hadn't been forthcoming until OPM, and even with OPM, Mom and Dad hadn't allowed them to sell it all, only two thousand shares each. On the other hand, each and every member of the Sewing Circle had a portfolio of stocks in kid-started companies, a few of which were doing all right. Now the excuse not to back the projects of their fellow students was in desperate need of a rethink. OPM was designed as a source of venture capital for new start-ups, as well as to buy stock in established businesses. The kids from school had apparently decided it was time to try again.

Oddly enough, David thought they could do something with this idea. "It's like a useful Faberge egg.

Expensive as h.e.l.l, pretty and intricate, but this one does stuff. There's a good excuse to pull it out and show it off. It could be the next best thing to having a computer in terms of status, better in some ways, because it works without electricity. Give a couple away to important people, and everyone who thinks they're important will want one."

"They'll need a manager," said Sarah. "A couple of engineering types will spend the investment tinkering.

Do you really think we can sell enough to get back our investment?"

"Don't know." David shrugged.

"Have them build a couple of prototypes. Find someone important to give one to and then see how many people ask for one," said Trent, who had become convinced that the stupidest thing they had done in starting HSMC was not building a prototype.

"It would have to be pretty," David added. "What I would really like to do is have the case in gla.s.s but that's not strong enough. Gold electroplated?"

Sarah entered the Higgins house wishing she was anywhere else. David was chickening out, so were Brent and Trent. Someone had to talk to Mrs. Higgins. Liesel took her coat and asked her to wait in the living room. The down-time servants were having a strangely civilizing effect on the hillbilly up-timers. It was less than a minute before Liesel ushered Sarah into Delia Higgins' sewing room where the original Singer sewing machine was shoved into a corner. Mrs. Higgins was working at a desk David had bought for her. Liesel quietly closed the door behind her as she left. This was horrible, the worst thing Sarah had ever had to do. After Mrs. Higgins had had so much faith in them and sold her dolls. David was a wimp to leave Sarah to do it. Except David didn't know that she was here, and would be mad when he found out. "What's wrong Sarah? You look like your dog just died."

"Well, Mrs. Higgins. It's, well, the thing is..."

"Have you and David had a fight?"

"Yes, ma'am, but it wasn't about this, or maybe it was. I don't know."

Delia looked at her with sympathy. "Sit down, Sarah, and tell me about it," she said, waving Sarah to a chair. "What was the fight about? You know teenaged boys can be fickle, ruled by their hormones. Has David..."

"No. Nothinglike that," Sarah smiled for a moment. In that area, at least, she had David well in hand.

Then she remembered why she was here and the smile faded.

"It's the hotel. Isn't it? The fund isn't going to invest in the hotel?" Delia had gotten part of it.

"Sort of.Ah. Well."

"Well what?" Delia was impatient now. "Spit it out."

Sarah did, in a rush. "David doesn't think they should, and he's right. I'm sorry, Mrs. Higgins. If it was David's money he'd do it, you know he would. But it's not. Its other people's money, and not just big fat-cats, but widows, and orphans, and working stiffs, and well... David delivered your proposal to the board, and Herr Kunze turned right around and said the board would go along with whatever David recommended. I think he figured something was wrong when David presented it with no recommendation. Now David's trying to figure out a way he can finance the whole thing himself so he doesn't have to tell you no, or put other people's money in a bad investment. He won't even let the rest of us help. That's what our fight was about, sort of. David is trying to run everything, take everything on. But he's right about the hotel. The warehouse was poorly planned and overbuilt, and we're all afraid that the hotel will be too. And the thing he really doesn't want to say is that it would be a good project, and a sure moneymaker, if you weren't..."

Sarah ran down, ready to cry. She hadn't meant to say that last part.

Delia was in too much shock to be in any danger of tears. That would come later. Delia Higgins was a capable lady, and a good woman. But this was a hard pill to swallow. She wanted to find a reason that Sarah was wrong. She didn't want to believe that her faith in David was not returned. But the pieces were falling into place, his hesitation on certain subjects, his recommendation that she check things with Judy Wendell and other experts. How, often when she did, those experts had explained some error she had made. And how she had recently mostly stopped checking, even when David suggested she should.

And Sarah's last words:A sure moneymaker if you weren't...If she wasn't what?In charge? Involved?

Apparently, it wasn't the hotel that David had the problem with, but her.

"What is the problem?" Delia asked with precision. Much as some one might ask a doctor about the amputation of their leg. Sarah sat mute.

"You have to tell me, Sarah." Still in that detached tone. "It's me, in some way, isn't it?"

"Yes, ma'am.It is." Sarah tried for Delia's detached tone, but didn't quite bring it off. "There is such a thing as being too generous. The money you've spent on the concrete program will be good for the New U.S., but in terms of getting the warehouse built, it was mostly wasted. The condos you built onto the warehouse to house the staff were a very nice gesture, and it's made you very popular with your employees. It was also a pretty expensive gesture. The deal you worked out to build the warehouse set things up so that no matter how much you spent on it you would pay and it wouldn't affect the other stockholders' income. Nice for them, but it means that you're not going to get back your investment for years.All that's okay, as long as it's your money you're dealing with, though it worries the people who care about you. David figures you'll have to sell as much as ten thousand shares of HSMC to handle the balloon payment on your loans come January. That's all fine. It's your money that you got from selling your dolls and trusting us. But the truth is, even there we got lucky. We really didn't know what we were doing. This last year has been a very intense business course for all of us. Each and every one of us would do things differently now.Important things.Things that could have sunk the whole deal if we hadn't been lucky. If Karl hadn't fallen for David's mom we'd probably be struggling to stay in business right now. He wouldn't have had any reason to look for another option; he would have gone into compet.i.tion with us. We needed someone like Karl, someone who actually knew how to run a business.Someone who wasn't making it up as they went along, or reading it out of a textbook they didn't really understand.

Don't get me wrong. Karl needed us too, especially right at first, to show him up-timer tricks. I wouldn't bet on it happening that way though. Not now."

"So you're saying that betting on you kids was a bad investment?" Delia was almost bemused now.

"Yes, and if you ever tell Mr. Walker over at the bank I said so, I'll deny it," Sarah said, trying to inject a little humor into the discussion.

The party was a bit less successful than I had hoped,Kaspar thought, as he was seeing the last guest to the door. This was his public welcome-home party, and the one at which he had introduced the mutual fund. His family had invited the wealthiest people they knew, twenty-three merchants of means. He had shown the goodies from the New U.S. and described things that might be made in the future. Then he had talked about the OPM Mutual Fund. How it worked. What it had to offer. Sales had been less than expected, but everyone had taken a prospectus. This made Kaspar feel hopeful.Surely they just need some time to think about it.

Two days later he learned of the forming of another mutual fund. Then he heard about two more the next day, and two more the day after that. By the time of the next OPM party, there were five mutual funds available for purchase inAmsterdam . The funds specialized in shipping ventures, commodities trading, and even one in tulips.

That last was the one that bothered him the most. One of the topics of discussion had been the aborted tulip market. Now that the Ring of Fire had warned everyone, that market wouldn't happen. He knew it, and he was quite sure the fund managers of the tulip fund knew it.So why? Was the tulip fund a way to dump tulips, by suckering lots of people for a little rather than a few people for a lot? But why would they need to dump tulips? Was it possibly an attempt to start the tulip craze early? But that was silly. With the doc.u.ments he'd brought there wouldn't be a tulip craze. His father told Kaspar simply to make sure his name didn't get tainted with the tulip fund.And how am I to manage that? Kaspar wondered.

Kaspar was called in by the authorities shortly thereafter, to provide them with an explanation of mutual funds and how they worked. He spent two days being grilled. He stated for the record, his disapproval and suspicions of the tulip fund, but he ran into a problem. There was an important clause in the fund contracts that OPM and the tulip fund shared. For OPM it was what David called the "twins" clause and everyone else called the "Sewing Circle" clause. On that first day, when OPM was forming itself out of rumor and innuendo, the rumor that Trent and Brent would be financed exclusively in the production of washing machines and home power plants by OPM, had, like so many others become fact. So a clause had been inserted into the OPM contract that specifically allowed OPM to invest in businesses started or controlled by David Bartley, Brent Partow, Trent Partow, and Sarah Wendell, even while they were employed by the fund. Kaspar didn't explain all that. He simply pointed out that the youngsters involved were thought lucky as well as talented. They were a sort of combination of young Leonardo De Vinci and rabbits' feet.

The tulip fund managers had put a similar clause in their contract. Actually, they had left one out. There was no restriction on the fund managers as to what they might, or might not, buy from, or sell to, the fund.

This meant they had the right to buy and sell tulips, or anything else, to the fund at a price they set.

"Since the fund manager is both the buyer and the seller," Kaspar explained, "it'sunlikely there will be much bargaining, especially since it's his money on the one side and other people's money on the other.

Unless he's an unusually generous fellow, it's not hard to guess who is going to get the better of the deal."

The tulip fund managers had apparently not made a point of bringing up the missing clause when discussing their mutual fund with potential buyers. In fact, the clerk of the "inquisition" hadn't been aware of it till Kaspar had pointed it out. Kaspar showed them the restrictions on OPM board members. OPM board members could not sell commodities or stocks to OPM or buy them from OPM. All investments had to be authorized by the board. A member of the board of OPM could buy shares in OPM or sell them, but that was about it. The possibility of sweetheart deals was there, but required a third party.

It took a few days before it became clear what the tulip fund meant. Its founders had apparently heard the rumors of the tulip bubble but had read them differently. They had felt that if it had happened it would happen, and decided to get in on the ground floor and sell out at the top. They had not considered the changes the Ring of Fire would make in the markets. When Kaspar explained the effects the Ring of Fire had already had, they had realized their error and decided that a mutual fund would be just the way to get out safely. What Kaspar found most remarkable was that they had called it the "tulip fund." They might as well have painted a sign sayingcome and be fleeced . His father was less surprised, and concluded that it was pure and simple arrogance.

When what Kaspar told them to look for was found, it made him both friends and enemies inAmsterdam . It had also defined him to the city as the acknowledged expert on mutual funds. That was not all together a good thing. It made explaining the special provision for the sewing circle harder, and some people a.s.sumed that since he could use a fund to defraud them, he would.

The tulip fund had not broken any laws, nor had its managers quite broken the contract. What they had done was sell their tulips to the fund at a nice profit for themselves. They had then sold their shares in thefund, leaving the other investors in the fund holding the bag of tulips. It had gotten them out of the tulip market at no financial loss. It had also pointed out the dangers involved in any investment where the people you're dealing with aren't honest. The tulip fund managers had been fairly selective in choosing their victims from those without a lot of political clout. But while the victims individually didn't have much clout, collectively they had some. The idea of a cla.s.s action suit was put forward, but the fund managers hadn't actually done anything illegal. It looked like the outcome would be that the managers of the tulip fund would come out of it financially sound, but would never again be trusted to create and manage a fund. Their general reputations as men of business had also taken a hit, for which they blamed Kaspar Heesters.

Between the tulip fund and the resentment of the technical prowess of the up-timers, there was a segment of theAmsterdam power structure that didn't really like the New U.S. Kaspar spent quite a lot of time mending what fences he could. For a while it looked like mutual funds would be outlawed inAmsterdam . The other funds were more honest, though, and mutual funds were an excellent way of allowing people to invest with relative safety in ventures that they could not afford to partic.i.p.ate in, or have access to, without mutual funds. The shipping fund and the various commodities funds came to his rescue. In a strange way, so did the attack on Grantville.

With the tulip fund and the other complications, Kaspar had already been home longer than he had intended. He wanted to leave the sales of OPM shares in his father's hands and return to Grantville with its movies and indoor plumbing. Then the rumors about Spanish troops on the move began to hitAmsterdam . Suddenly everyone was terrified that the up-timers, and more importantly, their investments would be wiped out by a Spanish army. Kaspar had a decision to make. He would be within his legal rights to insist that investors who wished to withdraw from the fund lose the loading. Loading is a fee charged when you buy into a mutual fund, and when you sell out of one quickly. Because of the distance and communication lag, OPM shares were bought inAmsterdam at a price dependent on the share price when the money arrived in Grantville, but they were bought when the agent received the money. Kaspar had already received the money, but he didn't insist that the panicky investors sacrifice the loading. Instead he voided the contracts and gave them their money back. He resolved to ride it out.

It was an especially difficult decision because of his second job inAmsterdam . He was buying raw materials. The idea was that he would use OPM investment money to buy things like lacquer, iron, silk, chocolate (if he could find any), and other supplies needed by the industry and consumer base in and around the Ring of Fire. The profits on the deal would go to OPM. By now Kaspar had bought quite a lot and contracted for even more. He had to go to his father and ask for help. He managed to convince his father that Grantville would survive.

Delia Higgins was sitting at her desk, explaining to herself, again, how she had been right in her decisions about the warehouse. Granted it was a lot of money, but she wasn't just thinking about the warehouse.

She was trying to develop the infrastructure for building the hotel. The concrete program at the school was developing a group of young people who could make structural concrete, and form it into structures that would support tremendous weight. Hiring Michel Kappel was done both to get a down-time builder familiar with up-time building techniques, and as favor for Karl Schmidt. Claus Maurer was a master builder with more experience than Herr Kappel, but again, part of the reason for hiring him was to get him familiar with the available up-time tech. It wasn't her fault that they had fought with each other and with the teachers at the tech center and Carl over at Kelly Construction. Besides, materials were so expensive that the cheapest halfway decent material was quarried granite from the ring wall. The radio, which had been quietly playing the morning music program in the corner, became suddenly louder. "Attention! There is an attack!" the radio blared. "Raiders, probably Croats, but we don't have that for sure yet, are attacking the high school and the town! Becky is at the high school." The announcer was clearly upset though not quite in a panic. "Chief Frost wants everyone from..." There followed a list of streets and locations to be evacuated and places for the people to go. "Everyone else who is not part of the reserves should arm themselves and stay secure in their homes."

Delia Higgins stayed in her home and listened to live reports of the battle on the radio. She thought about how stupid the fight over the hotel was.

When faced with the flat-out choice of investing in the hotel with other people's money, David had turned down her proposal. He'd then tried to finance it on his own, not even allowing the other members of the Sewing Circle to help.And what did I expect him to do? David has always been a stubborn little cuss, and I've encouraged him in it more than most as long as it applied to Ramona or Karl, but when he looked at me, at my project and didn't approve...David's lack of faith in my judgment.