The Viennese Waltz(99)
Hayley considered. She hadn’t been old enough to date when her parents had brought her here. And once they got here, she had just been too busy. They all had. “I guess we should go . . . though he should have asked me before he did anything like this.”
“I disagree,” Dana said. “You know that it’s entirely possible that his parents might have gone ballistic over the very idea of an up-timer in the family. Not that you’re going to be in the family any time soon. You’re not even sixteen yet.”
“Which is another weird thing. What is he doing, wanting to court me at this age?”
Dana knew what she meant. After they hit the seventeenth century, they had been surprised by how late people waited before getting engaged or married. “Nobles, Hayley. The reason that the commoners wait so long is because they can’t afford it earlier. If things work out, you’ll be able to date . . . but keep things light for the next couple of years anyway. For your dad’s blood pressure, if for no other reason.”
CHAPTER 26
Tools and Rumors
August 1635
Liechtenstein House, Vienna
Johannes Koell, the bookkeeper for the Liechtenstein family, was in love. Not with Susan Logsden, but with her computer. It took a few weeks for the love affair to blossom. At first he had looked at the whole thing askance. The “desktop computer,” the battery pack and transformer, the pedal-powered generator to provide power. The down-time-made from a combination of up-time parts dot-matrix printer. It all seemed like expensive gewgaws, designed to disguise the basic lack of mathematical skill of the girl. However, young Prince Karl had insisted, so Johannes provided a room and guards and a kitchen boy to pedal the generator and change the batteries.
He objected when Prince Karl insisted that he provide Millicent and her assistant with copies of the account books. There was private Liechtenstein information in those books. That was some weeks ago.
In those few weeks, Millicent, her assistant, and one of his apprentice accountants had been doing something called “data entry.” It wasn’t a long time. They had, in fact, barely scratched the surface. But by concentrating on one set of transactions, they had enough for a demonstration. The transactions selected were the rents paid by both the crown and the regular tenants of an apartment building on Market Street, placed against the costs of upkeep. The picture wasn’t heartening. The crown rents were in arrears by more than a year and private rents were far from up-to-date. In response, the upkeep—basic repairs that any building needed now and again—had been put on hold. With the consequence that what would have been minor fixes had gotten worse to the point that they were now going to cost twice to three times as much as the regular repairs would have cost.
Which, as it happened, was what Johannes had been arguing for the past several months but had been unable to prove.
“While we’re happy to help out,” Judy Wendell informed him, “the computer is not owned by the Liechtenstein family, but by Susan. And using it just for one family’s books, even the Liechtenstein books, would be a horrible waste of resources. So what we propose to do is open an accounting firm. When Susan isn’t using the computer for her investment strategies, the accounting firm will have access to it for use in keeping the books of various businesses around Vienna. Sometime soon, the Liechtenstein family, with your advice, will need to decide whether or not it will engage the services of our firm.”
“Perhaps I should rent time on the emperor’s aqua computer.”
Johannes was a bit surprised when the up-timer girl nearly rolled on the floor laughing. For rather a long time.
Between gasps, she said, “Be my guest. I promise you, that old desktop of Susan’s, as antique as it was up-time, has about a hundred times more power than the aqualator. At least. You’ll pay the emperor twice as much and wait four times as long for the results.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Judy continued, wiping her eyes. “I actually love the aqualator. But they are not as fast, they are not as powerful. And if you’re going to go that route, you’d probably be better off buying your own in a year or so. I’ll bet you a couple of reichsthaler that in a year, just like computers up-time, they’ll have a better, faster model.”
After some consideration, Johannes recommended to House Liechtenstein that they use the Barbies’ computer. Besides, there was no point in having the family accounts put at risk of exposure by going to an outside firm.
Race Track City
Anna was spending her Sunday afternoon at Race Track City. Word was that the emperor would be doing speed runs at the track and it seemed like half the city of Vienna was out enjoying the midsummer air.