Try, Try Again

by Paula Goodlett

"It isn't right."

Marie lowered her eyes so that her employer wouldn't see the glare she couldn't suppress. "Ma'am, I did what the package said to do. Twice." She picked up the container of Spirits of Hartshorn and tried to get Frau Werrin to look at it.

The Frau ignored her pointing finger. "If these American's can get bright shining white, we can get bright shining white. Try again. Try the other product-the, what do they call it? The bleach."

Marie nodded. Frau Werrin stomped out of the laundry area and slammed the door. Marie shook her head at the retreating back. d.a.m.n the Americans anyway. Word of the costumes that had been worn for the ballet had even reached this far and nothing would do but that Frau Werrinmust have the glowing white fabric the reviews spoke of. No matter that wool-even white wool-tended to be a creamy color.

There was nothing else to try and her job was on the line. Marie heated another cauldron of water, added the Spirits of Hartshorn and the bleach. She stirred the mixture for a moment, then began adding the fabric.

Her eyes watered a bit when she leaned over the cauldron, but she blinked away the tears that formed.

"If only I can figure this out," she thought. She stood straight, but her eyes kept tearing. She shook her head and gently pressed the fabric under the water with her paddle.

The fumes kept rising. Marie kept stirring as long as she could. When the gasping started, she tried to make it to the door.

Frau Werrin stormed into the laundry room. "Marie, where are you?" Then she gasped. Marie was on the floor and the acrid stench in the room made her eyes water. "What is that smell?"

With the door open, the stench began to clear out. Frau Werrin blinked back the tears the stench had caused, then went to check on her fabric.

"Oh. We really can get the glowing white!"

Little Jammer Boys

by Kim Mackey

The terrified servant handed the message to Johnny von Sachsen as he and his younger brother, Augi, entered the elector's palace in Dresden. It was terse and to the point.

Come to my bedchambers. Now.

In their father's handwriting. John George I, Elector of Saxony, was not a subtle man.

"Wonderful." Johnny heard the disgust in his voice. He handed the note to his brother. "Simply wonderful. What have you done now, Augi?"

"Me?" hissed Augi. "Why does it always have to be me that our father is unhappy with? You're the one who got us into this mess, with your record players and American radios."

Johnny looked at his rotund brother and shook his head. "It can't be that. Maybe he's heard about your indiscreet comments to the French amba.s.sador. Calling him a drunken pig and a disgrace to Saxony was just too much."

"Wait a minute. You started it with your comments about how ashamed you were of him. I was just following your lead!"

The two young men continued their bickering all the way to the elector of Saxony's bedchambers.

When they entered there were only three people in the room. A bad sign. Worse was the presence of their father's personal guard dogs, Fang, Dagger and Granite. The boar-hounds were each two hundred plus pounds of dark gray fur and muscle. Granite growled at them as they entered and the elector clouted him on the head.

"You can't eat them just yet, Granite. Shut up."

John George the First looked at his court dwarf, Maximilian, and motioned him out the doors. Johnny felt the boom of their closing like a knell of doom.

The elector's blond hair and beard were beginning to gray but his broad shoulders were still firm and muscular. With the toe of one foot he pushed a jumble of wire and wood in the direction of his sons. "Do you know what this is?"

Johnny took the initiative. "Wood and copper wire?" The elector snorted and took a swig from his beer mug. "Tell them, Benedict."

The other man in the room stepped forward. Benedict Carpzov was one of the Elector's most trusted privy councilors and an expert in German and Roman law. "Crystal radios, as I am sure you both know.

Confiscated right here in the palace."

Carpzov looked at John George, then back at Johnny and his brother. "The elector is not amused. You were responsible for stopping the influx of radios into this area. Yet you cannot even keep them out of the palace!"

"We tried!" Augi threw his hands in the air. "But they are too easy to make! Everyone wants to listen to the broadcasts. Every time the soldiers capture or confiscate radios, the parts, or those pamphlets at one point on the border, they pour through at another. It's impossible!"

"Bah," spat the elector. "Tried my sainted a.s.s! I'm tired of your useless whining! Benedict will now be in charge of this task, and you will a.s.sist him in any way you can. We may be at war with the f.u.c.king Swede and his pet Americans by next spring and we don't need our people listening to the enemy's mindless blathering. Get this done, and do it quickly."

John George turned to Carpzov. "You have my authorization to call on whatever resources you need to stop this plague of radios. I'm not that worried about the n.o.bility, but we have to stop the lower orders from listening to the Voice of America. Understood?"

Benedict Carpzov nodded. "I understand, Your Excellency. Your sons and I will accomplish what you command."

When the elector waved in dismissal, Carpzov motioned for them to follow. They left the bedchamber.

"We really have tried, Benedict. Honestly," Augi said. "But the border is just too porous."

"Not to mention that the Committee of Correspondence is involved," Johnny added. "Even if we could close the border, it wouldn't do any good. They're printing the pamphlets everywhere, we're sure of it.

We don't have the manpower to do a house-to-house search of every village."

"Then we will have to look for other solutions," Carpzov said. "Now where is my half-brother?"

"Gus?" Augi asked tentatively.

Benedict's smile was a thin angry line. "Yes, that's the one. August Carpzov. The person who is selling radios to all the n.o.bility in Dresden. The one you are in league with, making money when you are supposed to be limiting the use of radios. The person who supplies the records for your parties in the country estates."

Augi blanched and Johnny was pretty sure he did, too. Benedict laughed. "No, I have not told your father. Yet. My honor is involved here as well. But you will take me to him. Now."

"So how did you get started in all of this?" Bernard Stoltz was one of Dresden's more prominent goldsmiths.

Gus Carpzov smiled his best genial smile. "I was going to school in Jena when the Americans first camethrough to stop one of Tilly's regiments after the battle of Breitenfeld. I was intrigued by their CB radios and decided to investigate. I spent almost two years in Grantville before coming home."

Gus motioned at a radio on the shelf. This one was mounted on polished wood and stone. "Your daughter might like this one. It was designed to appeal to a woman's vanity."

Stoltz took the radio down and admired it. "Nicely done. Helmholtz did the inlays? I think I recognize his style. "

Gus nodded. "You have a fine eye, Herr Stoltz. Yes, that is Helmholtz's work. For someone like yourself, I will offer a discount. Only twenty guilders. I manufactured the inner workings myself using a real up-time transistor. I will guarantee the radio for six months, no charge for any repairs needed. " That wasn't true, but it let Gus sell a radio that cost him a guilder to make-including the case-for twenty guilders. No one was going to pay twenty guilders for something peasants could make from a broadsheet.

"Excellent," Stoltz said. "Done. But she also wants one of the . . . record players, are they called?"

"Yes, record players. " Gus nodded. "Right this way. I have them in a side room under lock. Since we cannot manufacture them yet, they are considerably more valuable, you understand."

Stoltz nodded. Mentally Gus rubbed his hands. He would discount the record player, as a sign of respect for Stoltz, but mark-up the records he had. If he could impress Stoltz, that would open up a whole new clientele among the richer merchants in Dresden.

Gus Carpzov's workshop was in an old stable and store room behind the Golden Swan Tavern. The Golden Swan catered to the higher orders of society in Dresden and the location had allowed him to make contact with a number of successful merchants. As for the patricians, his life-long friendship with the sons of the elector had paid huge dividends. It also kept the elector's soldiers off his back.

When Johnny and Augi walked into his store, he greeted them enthusiastically. "h.e.l.lo, boys. Guess who I sold a radio and record player to today? Bernard Stoltz, the goldsmith, he . . ." Gus stopped cold when he saw the expressions on the faces of his friends. "What's wrong? You both look like you just lost your best horse or something. What's happened?"

Johnny shook his head. "We're really sorry, Gus. We had no choice."

"Yeah," said Augi. "He forced us to bring him here."

"Him? Him who?"

The bell on the front door blinged again and Gus froze in horror when his elder brother entered.

Benedict Carpzov smiled. To Gus it seemed like the smile a wolf would give a lamb just before devouring it.

"h.e.l.lo, August. I think we need to have a talk."

After Benedict Carpzov had left, Augi patted Gus's shoulder in sympathy. "Well, at least you've got aweek to come up with something."

"Come up with what?" Gus raised his head off his arms. "If I could build a transmitter so the elector could have his own radio station, that might be one thing. But I just don't have the expertise to put it together in a week. And the people I knew in Grantville aren't exactly my friends any longer. Considering the radios and other things I, ah, borrowed when I left. What the h.e.l.l am I going to do?"

"Do you think your brother was serious? Would he really put you on trial as a warlock?"

Gus nodded. "Count on it. The family honor is at stake. And that's likely to be where I wind up, burning on a stake. Unless I can think of something. Sorry, guys. I have to do some serious thinking. Come back in a few hours?"

The two Von Saschen brothers nodded and left the store, shaking their own heads. It would be a shame to lose Gus. He had the best contacts with smugglers bringing in records from the USE.

Augi looked over at his older brother. "What are we going to do?"

"Well," said Johnny, "if Gus comes up with something, help him the best we can. If not, I guess we'll have to look for a new supplier."

Gus Carpzov spent an hour trying to convince himself that he could build a transmitter for the elector. But he knew his own limitations. There were too many variables, too many unknowns. Plus he knew there had been a lot of difficulties getting Voice of America and Voice of Luther operational. The elector would not be satisfied unless his own radio station rivaled Voice of Luther, at the least.

But what else could he do? He could probably stretch out the pretense for months, which would be vastly better than being tortured into a confession of witchcraft in the dungeons of Dresden. He could just imagine his half-brother enjoying that.

Start brainstorming, Gus.

He decided to put some Christmas music on the record player. It was soothing enough to calm him down and maybe his mind would remember things from his time in Grantville. It really had been the best time of year there.

Our finest gifts we bring, pa rum pum pum pum . . .

That's what he needed, a fine gift for the elector. But he doubted the elector would be pleased with just a record player. He needed something to address the problem of the lower orders having radios. But what?

I have no gift to bring, pa rum pum pum pum, that's fit to give our King . . .

Right, a record player or even an up-time radio wasn't a fit gift for the elector. He wanted toprevent people from listening, not necessarily listen himself.

Then He smiled at me, pa rum pum pum pum, Me and my drum.

So how to make the elector smile? Gus chuckled. If I had a big enough drum I could drown out the Voice of America and the Voice of Luther combined. He sat up. Wait a minute . . .

Suddenly eager, he began to make sketches in his notebook.

Benedict Carpzov blinked in astonishment after Gus finished demonstrating his device. "It really works.

And even against an up-time radio."

Gus laughed. "Of course it works. As my old radio instructor used to say, it was simple dimple. Battery, buzzer, capacitor, and a few dozen feet of antenna. Coverage will be only a few hundred feet, maybe two hundred yards maximum. We'll have to do experiments. But with limited coverage we can make sure that the n.o.bility isn't bothered by proper placement in the appropriate parts of town. And then there's the export market."

"Export market?"

"Sure. " Gus grinned. "There are lots of villages and towns in the USE that aren't too happy about the Voice of America and Voice of Luther programming. And a porous border works both ways. So we can start shipping jammers to people in the USE who want to jam the signals. They can even tailor the jamming to certain programs by turning it on and off as needed."

Benedict shook his head. He hadn't really believed his half-brother would actually come up with a viable solution, but he had. What was more, it would delight the elector to ship jammers into the USE to disrupt his enemies.

"So tell me. How did you come up with this idea?"

Gus grinned. "Let's just say a little jammer boy whispered in my ear."