Grantville Gazette by Eric Flint

Author:Eric Flint [Flint, Eric]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General, Action & Adventure, Space Opera, Science Fiction
ISBN: 9780743488600
Google: hjT-azI1fhwC
Amazon: 0743488601
Publisher: Baen
Published: 2004-11-01T05:00:00+00:00

August 12, 1631: Delia Higgins' Place

It had been an unpleasant roundabout trip to the Higgins estate. It was an unusually hot day, and Karl Schmidt was not a good rider. He didn't like to ride. He also didn't like going around in circles, and the Ring of Fire had produced a ring of cliffs facing in or facing out all around itself, with only a few places where it was easy to pass. All this was bad enough, but the things he had seen en route were worse. It was one thing to talk about people from the future, even to consider what powers they might have gained. But to see a road that wide and that flat, and put it together with what they called the "APCs" . . .

These people were rich almost beyond measure. The civilian APCs parked along the way really brought it home. The civilian APCs weren't a special case, they were the norm for these people. Their money worked, that was easy enough to see. The question this left Karl Schmidt with was whether his money was good anymore. Karl was not the first to ask that question.

The Higgins estate itself was divided into two parts. One was fenced with a kind of heavy gauge wire fence held up with what appeared to be metal bars. Along the top were strands of a different wire with spikes on it. There was a gate made in a similar manner that was open, and a smallish boxlike building next to the gate that looked like it might be made of painted metal, or perhaps the plastic he had heard about. Farther back, he could see rows of really small buildings: flat topped boxes set side by side, each no larger than a largish outhouse. They too might be made of metal, or perhaps plastic.

The other section had a more familiar, but still somewhat strange house on it. They appeared to have built out, rather than up. It was a single story, with an attic that he wouldn't put a servant in. The roof was flatter than it should have been. From the extension of road that led to the large door, and the APC parked in front of it, one section of the house was for storing APCs. Why wasn't the APC in the room that was clearly designed for it? Was there another APC in it, or was it being used for something else?

There were too many windows and those windows were too large. The more he looked, the stranger it got. The place was short, no more than ten feet from the ground to the eaves. On a day like today, with no airspace, it must be stifling in there. They seemed no more concerned with winter than summer. He could see no chimney, just a little pipe sticking out of the roof.

He sat his horse for a little while, mopped his brow, and thought it out. He finally decided that, since this was a matter of business, he should go to what appeared to be the business part of the estate.

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