His finger lifted and swept across the line of men standing to one side of the room. "That is the new city council in all but name, just as Herr Ackers is the new commander of the town militia, in all but name. Private elections were held, and they were the ones selected."
One of the councilman still had a bit of spirit left, apparently. "But . . . selected by whom?"
"By the ram, of course. Who else?"
Ableidinger rose. "Remember. Figures of speech. Or we will have you flogged in the same square you flogged the Americans. And—be assured of this—there will be no one to intervene this time."
A smile came to his face. "Certainly not the Americans. Who are, I remind you, officially in charge."
Within a week after he got out of the infirmary, Johnnie F. had pieced together most of the truth. All of it, really, except the identity of the mysterious man who'd come into Bamberg for two or three weeks and somehow engineered what amounted to a political revolution in the city.
Noelle Murphy arrived just a day after Johnnie F. finished his inquiries. She'd been sent there as soon as Ed Piazza got word of the incident in Bamberg. By Mike Stearns himself, Johnnie F. was pretty sure.
"So, who was he?" she asked.
Johnnie F. shook his head. "I think the name he used was a fake. Even if it wasn't, it doesn't tell us much. `Helmut, speaking for the Ram.'"
Noelle burst into laughter. "You're kidding!"
"No, I'm not." He cocked his head, looking at her. "And what's so funny, anyway?"
She covered her mouth with a hand, stifling the laughter. "It's a joke. Germans don't even use `Helmut' as a given name in this time and place. It's almost got to be a joke. `Helmut, speaking for Boskone' was the villain in one of the Lensman books."
"The . . . what?"
She shook her head. "Never mind. If you've managed to reach this stage of your life without having your mind rotted by science fiction potboilers, far be it from me to seduce you to the Dark Side."
They'd been talking in one of the cramped offices in the American headquarters in Bamberg. "Can we get some air?"
"Sure." Johnnie F. led the way out. "I want to show you something, anyway."
Once they reached the street outside, Johnnie F. kept walking.
"What does the joke mean, d'you think?" He waved his hand. "I don't mean the arcane stuff. Like you said, I don't need my brain rotted. Any more than it is already. I mean politically."
Noelle pursed her lips. "Well, at a guess, it's a subtle hint to us."
"That he's a villain?"
"No, no. Just . . ."
But Johnnie F. had already figured it out for himself. "Never mind. Yeah, I can see it. His way of saying he's been studying us. But that seems like an awfully cryptic way of doing it. I mean . . . how many people in Grantville could he assume had read that book? Whatever it's called."
"Galactic Patrol, if I remember right."
They'd reached the big town square where the flogging had happened.
"Who knows, Johnnie? Maybe it was just his own private joke. I've been piecing together what I can about this guy, from the reports that have come into Grantville. Not all of them, by the way—not even most of them—are from our administrative staff here. Ever since the incident in Suhl, we've been on good terms with the Jaeger in the Thuringenwald and they pass bits and pieces on to us. Mostly, I'm pretty sure, whatever they're told to tell us."
"Told by who?"
Noelle shrugged. "This `Helmut,' at a guess. Or maybe it's the gunmakers at Suhl, especially Ruben Blumroder. Pat Johnson—he's Anse Hatfield's brother-in-law, the one with a gun shop in Suhl—tells us the Suhl gun-makers aren't sending guns south to the Bavarians any more. But he says they're still making more guns than he can account for. He's pretty sure they're selling them—at cost, he thinks—to somebody in Franconia."
Johnnie F. took a deep breath. "Oh, boy."
" `Oh, boy' is right. What I think—so does Mr. Stearns—is that there's a rebellion brewing here. And one that's already got what amounts to its own armament industry."
"That's got to be worrying Mike."
Noelle seemed to choke a little. "Uh, Johnnie, when I told him my conclusions—just before he sent me here—I thought he'd split his face. Grinning."
Johnnie F. rolled his eyes. "I keep thinking because his title is `President' that we're still back uptime. And he's entertaining dignitaries in the Rose Garden. All of them wearing expensive suits."