He didn't seem inclined to elaborate, and Achterhof was not a man whom one would lightly press on such a matter. Engler knew enough of his personal history to know that he'd had plenty of things to have nightmares about. Quite a bit more than Thorsten himself, for certain. A terrible accident was one thing. What Achterhof had lived through . . .
A little shudder went through Thorsten's shoulders.
"How much do they charge?" he asked. "I can't afford much, now. I got fired this morning. Because of the accident."
"Assholes," said Krenz. "It wasn't Thorsten's fault."
Gunther shrugged. "No, it wasn't. But the coal gas plant was owned by Underwood and Hartmann. The biggest American prick in partnership with the biggest German prick. What do you expect? 'Shit rolls downhill,' as the up-timers say—and any company owned by Underwood and Hartmann might as well have that for its official motto."
He took a long pull on his beer. "They probably would have fired you too, Eric—every man working the shift—except the rest of you were in the union ." He tipped the stein in Thorsten's direction. "Engler wasn't, since he was officially part of management."
Eric shook his head. "I still say that's silly. In the guilds—"
"Fuck the guilds," said Achterhof harshly. "Yes, I know. In the guilds, a foreman like Engler would have been a member. Which is one of the many things wrong with the guilds. It's the guildmasters and top journeymen who run them, and fuck everybody else. The American union system is better for the common man. Much better—even if, now and then, something shitty happens like this. Just the way it is."
Engler agreed with Achterhof, actually. Krenz came from a family of long-established gunsmiths. Even though he'd joined the Committee of Correspondence soon after he arrived in Magdeburg, in some ways he still had the attitudes of a town guildsman. Thorsten's family, on the other hand, had been farmers from a small village. Prosperous enough ones, until the war ruined them and forced the survivors into the towns—where they got no help or friendship from the haughty guilds.
"Yeah, fuck the guilds," he murmured. "I understand the situation, Gunther, but it still leaves me in a bad place. I've got enough money saved to get me through for maybe a month. After that . . ."
He shrugged. "There's always plenty of work here. But it won't pay very well. Unlike Eric, I don't really have any skills. I was lucky to get that foreman job."
"Luck, bullshit," said Krenz. He used the English term. No American loan words except purely technical ones were adopted wholesale the way their delightful profanity was. "You were a good foreman, Thorsten. That's why they promoted you in the first place. They're shitheads, but they're not stupid."
Achterhof drained his stein and called for another one. "Eric's right, Thorsten," he said, after the waitress left. "I asked around. All the men thought well of you. Being a foreman is a skill too, you know."
"Sure is," agreed Krenz. "I know. I've had plenty of bad ones. Either they didn't know the work or they were afraid to make a decision—usually both—or they knew what they were doing but were rude and unpleasant bastards to work for. It's not that common to find a foreman who doesn't have either vice."
Engler made a face. "I didn't really know what I was doing."
A sudden flashing image of Stiteler came, and he paused while he desperately tried to fend it off. It was the same image as most of them. There'd been a moment there, after Robert had been slammed into a stanchion, when his body seemed to be glued in place by the force of the blow. His face had been untouched, but the back of his head had been completely crushed. Eyes still open but empty, the man already dead, with blood and bits of his skull and pieces of his brain starting to ooze down the metal column.
Thorsten closed his eyes and shook his head. That seemed to help, sometimes.
When he opened his eyes, he saw Achterhof gazing at him. Sympathetically—and knowingly.
"Go talk to the up-time women, Thorsten," the CoC organizer said softly. "If you can't pay right away, they'll make arrangements."
Engler took a slow, deep breath. "All right, I will. Where is their business?"
"It's actually a government enterprise. Part of what they call the 'Department of Social Services.' " The waitress arrived with Achterhof's beer, and he paused long enough to pay her. Then, with the stein, gestured in the direction of Government House. "They're in the corner next to the river, on the third floor. Just ask for the social workers."