"We sent a message ahead about you," said Magnus Fries. "Father Mazzare is expecting you. He is our Catholic priest."
Johannes shook his head. "I told you, I am no longer a member of the Catholic church."
"That doesn't matter, you can stay with him until you find a place of your own. And besides, he wants to see you."
"Oh."
* * *
Father Mazzare met Johannes and Magnus at the door of his church, and when Johannes looked into the smiling eyes of the priest, he immediately felt less worried.
"Father," Johannes blurted out. "Do you understand God's purpose?"
"No. And I personally doubt anybody truly can. But sometimes His Mercy is unmistakable. Please come in." Still smiling, Father Mazzare stepped aside.
* * *
Inside the church a small boy left his mother to run down the aisle, shouting "Uncle 'Annes, Uncle 'Annes!"
When the Chips are Down
Jonathan Cresswell and Scott Washburn
The tool bit reached the shoulder of the shaft and the steel chip it was peeling off suddenly widened. A screeching noise hammered at Larry Wild's ears. Frantically, he hit the panic button on the lathe, remembering a split-second too late that—
Bang! The tip of the cutting tool shattered as the lathe slammed to a halt. Larry stared glumly at the ruined tool bit. Nat Davis was heading his way and Larry could hear the lecture already. From the expression on his face, the owner of the machine shop was pissed, pissed, pissed.
"—many times do I have to tell you, Larry? Carbide's fragile, dammit, you can't slam it around like you can high-speed. You stop a cemented carbide tool in the middle of a heavy cut and you'll bust it nine times out of ten! You're supposed to stop the feed before you hit the shoulder and ease it in by hand."
Angrily, the middle-aged man pointed to a small wheel on the side of the lathe. "That's what that's for."
Larry looked at the machine shop's proprietor sheepishly. "Sorry, Mister Davis."
Davis looked as though he was going to explode; but after he took a few very deep breaths, the red color slowly faded from his face. "Larry, you can't treat a piece of precision machinery like one of your damn video games! This is the third time you've done this. Take it easy, for Pete's sake. Learn how to do it right before you start trying to do it as fast as possible. Look at this! The tool's busted—and there's no way to repair it. Not cemented carbide—and that's the last thing we can afford to be wasting. There's no way to replace carbide in the here and now. Not for years, anyway."
"I'm sorry," Larry repeated dully.
Davis snorted. "Sorry doesn't cut it around here . . . Look, kid, it's almost quitting time. Why don't you go home before you wreck anything else?"
Oh, and I guess you were born knowing how to do this? thought Larry; but he just muttered, "I didn't do it on purpose."
Relenting, Davis clapped Larry on the shoulder. "I know, I know. But go on home anyway. We can try it again tomorrow."
"Okay. Good night, Mister Davis."
" 'Night, Larry."
As he headed toward the shop's exit, Larry brushed the metal shavings off himself. He started to remove the safety glasses but decided to wait until he'd left the shop itself. The last thing he needed was another lecture from Nat Davis.
A few more steps took him out of the shop and into the December twilight. It got dark early these days. Cold, too. He pulled his bicycle out of the rack and started pedaling toward town. He felt a little silly riding his old bike, but with the gas restrictions, he couldn't use his dirt bike anymore. One more irritation. It seemed like life had become just a collection of irritations now. Since Grantville had been deposited in seventeenth-century Germany, things had gotten worse and worse.
Oh, it had been exciting enough at first. The realization that they had actually traveled through time and space had fascinated Larry. And then there were the battles and Jeff's wedding to Gretchen Richter and the influx of refugees and all the other new things. But now that winter was here, there were no more battles; just a daily grind with everyone trying to survive.
And everyone trying to do their part.
Larry hadn't been sure what his part should be. Before the Ring of Fire, he'd had some hopes of going to college. That was now on indefinite hold—instead, he'd become a motorcycle scout for the Grantville army. But the campaigning season was over, and he needed something else to justify the food he was eating. He needed a job.
But he was starting to suspect that "machinist" was not something that suited him.