The Viennese Waltz(152)
“It’s also too soon,” said Trudi. “What we are seeing in the USE now and what we saw in front of the synagogue when Mayor Dreeson was murdered, is proof of that.”
CHAPTER 37
Wedding Preparations
January 1636
The Vienna airfield, near Race Track City
The Jupiter made its landing on the Danube with no difficulty. In the months since its first visit, the airfield had been considerably improved. The runway was now macadamized.
First off the plane was Fernando, King in the Low Countries, followed by Queen Maria Anna, Doña Mencia, and her brother. Four more counselors, and, finally, the father and mother of the bride.
* * *
The next day, Mike Stearns arrived, flown in on a Gustav aircraft by the head of the USE Air Force himself, Colonel Wood. General Stearns and his Third Division were now stationed in the southern Bohemian city of České Budějovice.
His visit was unofficial, however. In theory, this was purely a personal trip to attend the wedding of a daughter of old friends. Never mind that the Wendells had never been more than casual acquaintances, and especially never mind that Stearns hadn’t bothered to ask permission from the USE government.
And whose permission would he ask, anyway? Word had just arrived that Prime Minister Wettin had been arrested in Berlin at the order of the Swedish chancellor Oxenstierna—who had precisely no authority to give such an order in the first place.
Not to mention that the Swedish general Banér had just placed Dresden under siege, despite being ordered not to do so by Ernst Wettin, the administrator of Saxony appointed by the emperor himself before his incapacitating injury. For all practical purposes, the government of the USE was now a vacant abstraction. The nation was dissolving into civil war.
Liechtenstein Tower, Vienna
“Karl? You do know that a tower is supposed to be taller than it is across?” Fletcher Wendell asked with a sardonic smile, and Karl hid a grimace.
He had gotten along quite well with Fletcher Wendell before he started courting Sarah, but since then Fletcher never missed an opportunity to call Karl’s abilities into question. Sarah’s mother was bright and helpful, if a little awkward around people she didn’t know. Judy the Younger was was charming, if manipulative. But Fletcher Wendell was snide. “Yes, Fletcher, I do know that,” Karl said, as he led the way up the three steps to the main entrance.
“Have you considered changing the name? Liechtenstein Lump, perhaps.”
“We did consider that, Dad,” Karl offered, with a certain emphasis on “Dad.” “But there’s all that bureaucratic paperwork involved, so we thought we’d simply add fourteen more floors.” The doorman opened the door for them and they walked in. The generator and the steam heat plant were both installed in the basement. At this point, neither of them was working at anything near capacity, but that was because it wasn’t needed yet. There was plenty of heat and power for what they did need. They also had enough light bulbs to light the shops on the first two floors and the grand indoor plaza.
The grand indoor plaza was sixty up-time feet across and the ceiling was held up by two rows of concrete trees with trunks a yard wide. They started branching at nine feet and reached their full extension twenty-three feet above the floor.
Fletcher Wendell looked around and whistled, and Karl started to smile. Then Fletcher said, “This place is going to need an army to keep it clean.”
Karl led the way into the plaza, pointing out the various shops that surrounded it. There were quite a few and about half of them were already open. They would stay open even as the floors above were built.
* * *
In the basement of the tower, Father Montilla walked down the hall, carrying an ordinary lantern with the wick so low it sputtered. He needed just enough light to see, and the light sockets in the basement were empty of light bulbs. There weren’t yet enough electric lights to go around, and the shops on the first floor were getting what there were.
He angled the lamp so that the light fell at his feet. He didn’t want to call attention to himself.
He made his way to the door of Gundaker von Liechtenstein’s storage room and pulled out the sheet of paper that held the combination. It was a down-time-made multiple-dial lock based on a bicycle lock. It didn’t take him long to get it unlocked and go into the storage room.
Once inside, he closed the door, turned up the lamp and looked around. The room was twenty by twenty up-time feet and packed high with pallets of barrels marked as holding apples. Father Montilla knew that the barrels held fine grain black powder. There were four barrels to a pallet. The pallets were stacked two high and three deep, in three rows.