“First message from Europe just came in. Took three days to get it.”
“Three days? I saw the radio we had on the Eendracht. Those boyos sent messages in a few minutes. At most.”
McCarthy nodded. “That’s because they were transmitting over short ranges. When we try to get or receive a signal from over the Atlantic, there’s a lot of signal loss and unreliability, and there are certain times of the day when you can send more easily than others. We’re working through all that now. So we had to tell the folks in Vlissingen to keep repeating the message. And they did. Over and over and over. But finally, we got the last pieces filled in about an hour ago. Then we were able to run it against the code-book. And here I am with the message.”
“Well, good on yeh, Don Michael, for getting that beast up and running. And that steam engine you brought to make the power for it: working as well as you hoped?”
“It is now. Took effort and then some to get it to run on either wood or petroleum by-products.”
“On what?”
“Er, the less valuable parts of the oil that we’ll be getting from Trinidad.”
“So they’re producing oil? Already?”
“No, but the bitumen of Pitch Lake can be separated into different components. Some of them make a reasonable fuel on their own, some work best when you use them to inundate wood. That radio itself was the real trick to get running. The Alexanderson alternator that makes it possible is pretty big and pretty delicate. Well, delicate enough that it’s a little grumpy after having made an Atlantic crossing in a small ship like the Intrepid.”
O’Rourke raised an eyebrow. “The Intrepid is small? Then just how big were your up-time ships?”
“We’ll talk about that some other time. Like maybe after half of the farm owners are done trying to kill me.”
“It’s come to blows, then, has it? I’ve heard a bit about that ruckus you’ve started.”
Mike shrugged. “Well, no, it hasn’t come to blows. But I’m pretty sure some of the landowners would be eager to finish me off in a single blow. They’re not interested in fisticuffs, O’Rourke. Every slaveholder on this island pretty much hates my guts enough to want to wear them for suspenders.”
O’Rourke folded his hands meditatively over his broad, flat belly. “We’ve a saying in Ireland about such situations.”
“To listen to my dad, the Irish have a saying for every situation.”
“So we do. It’s the hallmark of wisdom, don’t you know. But here’s the saying anyway, you ungrateful pretend-Irishman: ‘it’s a compliment to be both hated and feared by all the scoundrels in one’s own town.’ So, it was your rabble-rousing rhetoric that’s brought things to their current state?”
“Oh, they probably could have lived with it if it was just coming from me. But, having been the first go-between for Eddie, and Hugh, and Tromp, I had access to the admiral’s ear. And van Walbeeck’s. And we had conversations about how different colonial powers in the up-time history weaned themselves away from slavery. And they started to put those methods into practice here.”
“Hrrmmm,” O’Rourke subvocalized. “I’m not surprised to hear it. Maarten Tromp’s a man of principle, he is.”
“You know him?” McCarthy said, surprised. “How?”
“Well, after the wound from Puerto Cabello turned ugly, that heathen Tromp came by to stare at me a bit on my sickbed aboard the Intrepid.”
“‘Heathen?’”
“Well, he’s not a Catholic, is he?” Seeing the bemused look on McCarthy’s face, O’Rourke scowled. “Ah, that’s right. You up-timers are above petty differences such as the path a man must go to see the face of God.”
“We’re not above it. We just don’t kill each other about it.”
“Yes. Well. So the heathen Tromp came to see me and inquire after my health on a few occasions—although, I must allow, he’s a most civilized and pleasant heathen, and sure it will be a shame that he’s to burn in hell.”
“Er. Yes. So you were already familiar with his attitudes about slavery?”
“And tyranny in general, for that matter. As I said, a most principled man.”
McCarthy nodded. “Yeah. But he knew he wouldn’t be able to sell his reforms based on principles. He persuaded most of the council here by walking them through the up-time historical models I showed him. However the models differ, they all show pretty clearly that any economy dependent on slave-labor is extremely vulnerable to all kinds of disruptions. Van Walbeeck pushed them further along by outlining what he had seen himself while in the East Indies, how every slave population always becomes a breeding ground for crippling rebellions. So between those arguments, Tromp got the council to support his directive to recategorize all slaves as bondsmen.”