"Brother Johann? The fathers are ready."
Brother Johann closed the small book he was studying and rose, straightening his black robe. While he had been aware of the gathering of abbots, he had no idea why the assembled abbots of the Order of Saint Benedict in the region had summoned him to their chambers. He followed Brother Mark into the meeting hall, which was carved out of the living rock cliff that the monastery was built out of. As he entered, he recognized the five abbots and archabbots. Each represented congregations of Benedictine monasteries from Rome in the south to the Bursfeld Union in Germany and had traveled to Subiaco to consult on the current crisis facing the faithful. Also seated at the table was Dean Bernard, of his home monastery of Fulda.
"Thank you for coming, Brother," Cardinal Subiaco, the host for this congregation, began. "Please be seated. The order has been blessed by the wonderful work you've done in the six years since the Lord called you here to tend to our archives and the Saint Scholastica Library. However, Dean Bernard has brought us most disturbing news from Johann Bernhard, abbot prince of Fulda. We thought it may very well provide a most important calling for you and your skills."
Cardinal Subiaco nodded to Dean Bernard, who began, "It's wonderful to see you again, Brother. It's been too long since we've broken bread in Franconia. Johann, have you been following the news from our home?"
Brother Johann pressed his glasses back into place and squinted. "Not really, Bernard. I have noted in some of the recent reports the reversals in the campaigns to reestablish the Holy Church in the area. Of course I am aware that the monastery at Fulda itself is now under control of the Swedes."
"Not quite the Swedes, at least not directly." Dean Bernard pulled out a small book and passed it over to Brother Johann.
The book was of a construction that Johann had not seen before. It was of cloth, worn but smooth, wrapped around some sort of hard material. The backing had silver printing in what Johann assumed was English. It read: Western Civilization. He turned the book in his hands and felt the smoothness of the edges of the pages between their covers, and noticed a slight gleam that he had not noticed on the thousands of books he had handled in his life.
Pressing his glasses back into position, Johann then carefully opened the front cover and felt the glossy paper of which the book was printed. Casting a quick glance of disbelief at Dean Bernard, he thumbed through the book. Then such an incredible sight met his eyes that his mouth fell open and he instinctively crossed himself.
There on the page was an engraving unlike anything he had ever imagined. The colors were so vivid and the engraving was so fine that he thought momentarily that the people pictured there would begin to move at any moment. Johann had seen the finest illuminations that the Order of Saint Benedict had collected in the nine centuries since its founding, but nothing to rival this!
As he turned the pages, Johann noted illustrations, engravings, and actual paintings of people, places, and the most incredible artifacts that he could imagine. Even the clothing on those in the engravings changed from the familiar to more and more bizarre as he flipped rapidly through this incredible book.
"Dean Bernard, where did this come from? It is . . . most unusual."
"Most unusual indeed, Brother. It came from a city in the Saale River Valley. While filing away your monastic reports, have you come across any references to a 'Grantville'?"
"As you may recall," Johann responded in a puzzled tone, "I was born in the Saale River Valley just west of Schwarza. I recall no village or town by such a name."
"That is our problem, Brother," Archabbott Monte Cassino, who represented the monasteries of the congregation of Saint Justina of Padua, broke in as he leaned forward. "Until some months ago, there was no Grantville in the Saale River Valley, or anywhere else in God's Creation. It appeared there, full blown, along with people and inventions and artifacts which no one has ever seen before."
Glancing over to Bernard and nodding an apology, Archabbot Monte Cassino continued, "Forgive me for breaking in on your explanation, Dean Bernard. But the urgency of the matter requires a more direct sharing of information with Brother Johann.
"Brother, this Grantville has become the ruling power in Thuringia and an ally of the Swede. It, not the Swede, now controls vast reaches of Franconia and has managed to put the forces of Tilly in panicked retreat.
"They claim to be from a future almost four centuries ahead of our time. They claim to have no idea how or why they were brought here to the current time and place. The book you hold in your hands is evidence of the incredible things that their merchants and tinkerers can do with the most exotic machines. These devices mystify the most knowledgeable alchemists and scientists that the Church has consulted.
"Even more puzzling, although they have made a devil's pact with the Swede Gustavus Adolphus, they seem to be perfectly content to allow followers of the True Faith to practice our religious beliefs. They attempt to make no regulation based on their leaders' faith and beliefs.
"Dean Bernard has brought it to our attention that our brothers in Christ, the Society of Jesus, have managed to place observers right in the middle of Grantville. This was done openly, with no apparent repercussions or persecutions of these emissaries. There even seems to be a Roman Catholic Church with its own congregation and parish priest, also from this amazing future.
"Brother Johann," Archabbot Monte Cassino asked, "would you please read the passage marked in the book you hold?"
Johann again looked down at the marvelous relic in his hands and noticed for the first time a cloth ribbon protruding slightly from the edge. Opening to the marked page, he saw a passage marked with what must have been a quill pen.
Johann was horrified at the desecration of such perfection. Still he began, "The confiscation of Catholic religious property following the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) had been for the benefit of Protestant rulers alone. More than a hundred monasteries and countless pious foundations disappeared at this time. By the middle of the eighteenth century a new movement devoted to the destruction of monastic institutions swept over those German portions of the Holy Roman Empire, which had remained loyal to the Catholic faith. The supernatural character of the religious life was totally ignored; abbeys and convents were permitted to exist only after giving proof of their material utility."
"That's enough, Brother." Archabbot Monte Cassino paused and looked around the table. "For nine centuries the order has brought education, civilization and the Good News of our Lord's Passion to the peoples of Europe and the world. Now we find ourselves still strong in the faith, but weakened. Only three centuries ago, our order numbered over thirty-seven thousand monasteries. If this book is to be trusted, by the end of this century, we will be able to count only five thousand. Our lands in Germany are under Protestant control. Bursfeld itself is under Lutheran control. The Hessians have looted the great library at Fulda. And now, the Lord has brought to us a clear vision of how the Adversary will triumph over our best efforts unless we open our eyes to whatever it is He is trying to show us.
"We are in a crisis, Brother," Archabbot Monte Cassino continued. "Your brothers in Christ, here assembled, believe that the Lord has brought this test to us for a reason. After much prayer and discussion, we believe that Grantville was placed near Fulda at the time of its greatest challenge just so we could learn what lessons our order may have passed along to this future generation, represented by Grantville. Thus we hope to have a light cast on the path the Lord intends for us to walk during this time of death and destruction.
"You, Brother Johann, are from the very valley in which Grantville is now located. You worked and prayed and studied for decades in the library of Fulda. You brought such a rationality to the organization of the books and journals and other papers there that your methods have been adopted by not only our monasteries," Archabbot Monte Cassino gestured to the other abbots around the table as he continued, "but by Benedictine monasteries throughout Europe. You were called here to help rediscover the knowledge that our Lord has revealed to our brothers that has been stored here since our founding.
" 'Listen, my son, to the precepts of the master, and lend the ears of your heart.' These are the words of our beloved Saint Benedict and this is the calling which we believe that God has chosen for you."
All the abbots and Dean Bernard stood and clasped their hands as if beginning a prayer. "Brother Johann, we, the fathers assembled, humbly request that you make a pilgrimage to this place Grantville, not to spread the Word, but to listen and learn. We fervently pray that the Lord reveal His purpose to you, thereby to the future of the order and how we may continue to serve the souls of humanity by His Grace."
Johann had spent the night in his cell praying for guidance on how to prepare for this great adventure that God had ordained for him. When the first rays of light broke through his small window, he ended his communion with the Lord, crossed himself, and walked to his library.
Like the fruit that tempted Eve, the book lay on the table where he'd left it the previous night. The stories it held! Up to the current time, it seemed to be accurate or at least convincing that there might be truths contained that he had not been exposed to. But then it continued, page after page of horrible, mind-numbing events and wars. But most amazing of all, the ideas!
Thinkers, some just born, some not to be born for centuries, illuminated this future with such intriguing ideas and the results of those ideas. Some of those ideas were on a par with Aristotle, some on a par with Lucifer, but all contained promise and all contained traps.
Johann picked up the Western Civilization book and wandered over and laid it next to the Lattanzio Sublacense. That was the first book written, typeset, and printed in this very monastery by brothers and fellow Germans Sweynheim and Pannartz. They had brought the first printing press to Italy in 1464. That very press still stood in another room in the monastery. He was staring at what he had always considered the holy art of printing, on one hand 167 years in the past, on the other 367 years in the future. He glanced up and saw the cabinet in which he had stored one of the only manuscripts of Saint Augustine himself, the De Civitate Dei.
"Blessed Saint Augustine," he prayed, "please show me whether this Grantville is indeed a city of God or a city of the Devil."
It took several more days before he was satisfied that he had learned all that his mind could absorb from this book of one future and began his preparations. As a Benedictine monk, Johann led a very simple life. Leaving behind material possessions was not a problem. Brother Julio was ready to take over his responsibilities in the library. Johann devoted his remaining time to meeting with individual monks. He prayed with them singly or in small groups and then began his trip to his almost forgotten homeland.
During the weeks it took for him to walk across the Alps, Johann had sufficient time to realize that this was truly a journey into the future and the past.
Grantville, of course, represented the future. But Thuringia . . . memories of his childhood in Thuringia, seemingly lost in the decades since he had been away, kept coming up at every turn. He remembered skipping rocks off the small pools formed in the meanders of the Schwarza River and chasing rabbits in the meadows of his father's estate. He smiled as he recalled the rich smells of the pastries his mother could bake in that beautiful, giant, solidly built German house that protected his family and in winter, the family livestock.
It had been years since he learned that his sisters Gretchen and Inga had died of the plague. They were the last of his family, other than himself, to survive the horrible devastation of the "Thirty Years' War," as the book had named it.
Johann shivered and pulled his black robes closer and adjusted his pack. It wasn't just the chill of the mountain air in this northern clime that caused that particular shiver. "I wonder if Herr von Schoenfeld is still alive?" he murmured.
When Johann had been a boy, it was von Schoenfeld who had introduced him to the joy of books. They held wonderful tales, vistas and horizons that he could never have even imagined. Books had opened a door that had led Johann inevitably to the great library in the abbey of Fulda, the greatest library in southern Germany.
There it was Brother Georg who showed him how to preserve those precious manuscripts in such a way as to make them last. It was Brother Georg who showed him the beauty of the order of knowledge that exists in a library, and from that in the teachings of God as revealed by Saint Benedict.
And when Brother Georg was promoted to the Church Triumphant some years later, Johann knelt before Abbot Johann Friedrich von Schwalbach and accepted his vows, converting from the Lutheran heresy to the monastic life of Saint Benedict.
After several days of following the road down the Elbe River Valley toward where the Saale River joined its flow, Johann began hearing a peculiar sound. At first he thought it might be his imagination, the soft potato, potato, potato sound, but soon he noticed it changing to a low rumbling roar in the distance. Occasionally he heard a high-pitched whirring sound that he could not identify either. Crossing himself, once again he offered up his silent prayer for protection and took care to keep within sight any convenient hiding spot along his path.
At the next bend in the road, he saw the source of his concern. There, in the middle of the road was a machine, yellow with a large box affixed to one end and what looked like an arm attached to the other. In the center sat a man in dress something like what Johann had seen in the incredible engravings in the book. Black smoke blew from the chimney of the roaring machine as the person on top did something with some levers. The arm moved!
There was a large scoop at the end. The arm and scoop took a bite out of the ground beneath, picked it up, and tossed it to one side. Then it repeated the action.
Johann was so amazed at this that he was startled by the high-pitched whine, which suddenly started up to the left of the yellow machine. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose in order to improve his vision and squinted. He finally located a man standing by a felled tree holding something that was tearing a hole out of the timber. After watching the actions of this small crew of men and their machines for a time, he decided that if he was to ever reach Grantville, he must get past this challenge.
Johann walked carefully toward the men and their machines. Another one of them noticed him and, putting down his device, picked up something that resembled a musket but was much shorter. In bad German, he yelled, "Advance and be recognized! Keep your hands in clear sight! Hurry!"
Johann raised his arms to waist height and turned his palms up in what he hoped the stranger would view as a supplicating manner, and continued his approach.
"I come to find Grantville," Johann said when he was within range of normal speech. "Would you rather speak in English or German?"
The stranger was now joined by a couple of his fellows. "Hell, Jimmy," said one of them. "This guy talks better English than you do."
"What's your business, traveler?" asked the one named Jimmy. "What brings you to the United States?"
A moment's confusion slowed Johann's response. He had read of this United States, but it was clearly on the North American continent at least 140 years in the future. No matter, he quickly decided. "I am Brother Johann of the monastic Order of Saint Benedict. I come to see Grantville and find God's purpose in bringing it here."
The one that challenged him brought his short musket to his side and laughed. "Well, Padre, as soon as you figure that out, be sure to let me know. I've been trying to figure that one out since we got here!"
The men welcomed Johann and offered him water from a bright orange container. They shared their food as they talked about themselves and their home. They referred to this pause as something called a "smoke break." It must have referred to the machines being turned off, because the smoke had stopped while they broke.
Johann was more interested in the men than the devices they took so much for granted. There was a genuine air of openness and confidence in even the least of the crew members. That was combined with a certain sense of danger should some nebulous opponent ever cross their path.
After finishing his first smoke break, Johann got directions from the crew. He picked up his pack and blessed them to be safe in their work. Every man bent his head and one even made the sign of the cross as Johann finished his blessing. The road, from that point, became noticeably more level. It had a layer of crushed rock that had been packed in some way. Where washes had been there were now metal pipes to allow the water flow to go under the roadbed.
For the next several days, Brother Johann continued to pass the familiar sights of villagers going about their proper work. Farmers in the fields gathered what, to Johann, seemed to be large harvests of their respective crops. Also the occasional machine would pass Johann. They were operated by more of these "up-timers," or "Americans," as they called themselves.
Finally he reached the last leg of his journey. Johann turned up the "American road" along the north shore of the Schwarza River. As he walked along the improved road, he passed more and more large American construction sites on and near the riverbank. Amazingly, it seemed that Grantville must be very close to his family estate.
When he came upon several houses within sight of the road, he realized that he recognized them. One, just off the road, had a cairn of rocks in the field in front of it. There was a sign which read:
We don't know who these murdering raping
bastards are that we put here. Don't much care
either. If there are any more of you out
there, be warned. This area is now under the
protection of the UMWA. If you try to harm
or rob anybody we will kill you. There will be
no further warning. We will not negotiate.
We will not arrest you.
You will simply be dead.
We guarantee it.
Go ahead. Try us.
It had been a neighbor's home. Johann clearly remembered the young boy he had played and grown up with. While he couldn't quite remember the name, he remembered the boy always liked to work with his hands, while Johann preferred to keep his hands on books.
Then it struck him. He turned and realized that the American road dove into a cut in the ground just beyond this neighbor's home. How could this be?
Johann dropped to his knees, as the personal price of this mission suddenly became crystal clear him. This was the very land that had been seized from the abbey of Fulda during the early days of the Protestant Reformation. It was the same land that then had been awarded to one of Johann's ancestors for service to his rulers. This very land had been taken by God to advance His will.
Grantville was largely on his very own family land! What a divine irony. Johann's older siblings and their families were dead. Johann himself had taken a vow of poverty and renounced his claim to the land and its income. Thus God was free to do as He willed, and He obviously had.
Johann ran his hand through his graying but still blond hair. He now saw that his entire life had been laid out so that this very event could take place. Like most who study the Bible, Johann had at times wondered what Moses must have felt like when he saw the bush that burned but was not consumed or what the bystanders at the grave of Lazarus had experienced when he walked alive from the grave. Now, for the first time, he really, truly knew.
He passed through the cut and stepped on the soft dark gray rock surface of the road beyond. Johann looked around in what now seemed a state of continuing amazement at the slightly curved earthen wall that stretched out from him in opposite directions. It seemed to form a clear delineation between what was then and what was now.
Steep hills rose and fell on both sides as he continued into what the American road crew had referred to as the "Ring of Fire." He passed small houses and buildings set back off the dark gray road. He also passed less traveled, but similarly constructed roads, which made their way to their appointed destinations. Johann began to notice a smell. He had been in many cities and villages in his life and recognized the smell of soot from the wood used to cook and to warm the inhabitants. He had been into the smithies and hammer mills where iron was worked over coal fires with its unique gritty, sulfur, and metallic smell. Even though this was stronger than he had been exposed to before, there was something different about the smell of this town he was walking into.
There was not the smell of ammonia from the human waste that was a common part of city life to his experience. Not that German or Italian cities were the depositories of human waste that brother monks related from their experiences in England, but so many outhouses and waste collection vehicles naturally left their perfume as part of the background smell of a city.
More and more people passed him on the road. Some of them were dressed in that strange new garb of Americans; most were dressed in the normal clothing that he was accustomed to. Then some wore with mixtures of normal garb and either a cap with a bill on it or light, tight shirts with drawings or messages printed on them. There was an increasing diversity of vehicles as well. Mostly there were horse-drawn wagons jockeying for position in the flow of traffic. But, occasionally, vehicles like Johann had seen in the book at the monastery passed with a soft rumble from under their metal surfaces.
No one seemed fearful. At most, the inhabitants appeared anxious to get to wherever they were going. Nor did he notice any beggars on the corners. Corners that he noticed were not made of cut stone, but of some kind of molded rock material that looked as though it had been poured in a molten state, and had frozen in place.
On his right as he walked up one hill, he noticed a tall, solidly built man stretching on the front porch of a neatly kept white cottage. The man looked very sharply at him, and then, as if making some kind of studied judgment, smiled and waved.
Johann smiled back and, shifting his pack, waved, finishing with the sign of the cross.
"I'd better get back before Heather starts imagining the bodies are moving again."
"Jenny, leave the poor girl alone. She was just jittery when she realized that the job she was assigned to at the Bureau of Vital Statistics was at the funeral home. Of course, catching you taking a nap in a coffin just might have been a bit much."
Marietta Fielder had known Jenny Maddox since they were kids. Although two more opposite personalities could hardly be imagined, they'd remained the best of friends throughout.
"The simple pleasures I have to give up just to get good help these days. I've still got that extra large coffin ready, just in case you get tired of your current bed."
Marietta laughed in spite of herself, "No thanks, I'm perfectly fine with my current mattress."
"Will you looky there," Marietta said, indicating the man walking up the ramp outside the picture window in front of the Grantville Public Library. "Is that some kind of a down-time guy in drag?
"At least he knows how to pick jewelry. That cross perfectly compliments the black gown." Both girls giggled as the door opened.
Marietta greeted the oddly garbed visitor. "Afternoon, sir. If you need any help, just ask."
"Thank you, Frau. May I please see your library?"
"Help yourself. I'm going to have to ask you to leave your backpack up here though. We've had some trouble lately with people taking books without checking them out. Are you looking for anything in particular?"
Brother Johann looked puzzled and pushed his glasses back into place. "I don't really know. I've never been in a library quite like this. Is this the only area accessible to outsiders?"
"Now you've done it," Jenny broke in. "Here comes the Public Lending Library 101 speech. If you two will excuse me, I need to go. See you tomorrow, Marietta. Nice meeting you too, Mister . . . ?"
"Brother Johann. I've just arrived in Grantville from Italy."
"Funny, you don't sound Italian," Marietta said.
"No, I'm actually from . . ." Johann paused. "Very close to here, originally. But I've been serving in the Benedictine library in Subiaco for some years now. I was asked to come here in order to learn what the Lord's purpose was in bringing Grantville to our time."
"Oh! Well then, Brother Johann, welcome to Grantville. You just arrived? You mean you really just got here and came straight to the library?" Marietta was taken aback, half wondering if Johann was pulling her leg and half excited about the possibility of meeting a kindred spirit. She had been initiated into the field of library science at an early age. As a third grader, Mrs. Yardley had noticed her reshelving the 788.12 section in the correct order. Then she had offered her an after-school job as a page.
Johann nodded. "Yes, Frau. I asked where the library was and a kind lady pointed me this way. Is this the whole of your collection?"
"Goodness, no." Turning to her friend, Marietta said, "Jenny, I'll see you later. Let me help this man."
After she and Jenny finished their good-byes, Marietta continued, "This is just the reference and noncirculating section. My name is Marietta Fielder. Glad to meet you. Now, if you will follow me . . ." She walked to the back of the room to a step up to an open doorway. "This section holds up to three hundred books and through there"—indicating another door where an even larger room awaited—"are another four hundred-plus books and, of course, fiction. Uh . . . Brother, are you okay?"
Johann was staring at the ceiling, mouth open. Marietta looked up and saw the fluorescent light fixture. The plastic cover had fallen out last week and she hadn't had time to replace it.
"That's called an electric light, fluorescent to be exact. It was an invention of the early twentieth century. You're going to see a lot of new things here, Brother Johann."
"Yes, this I've learned." Johann followed Marietta through the rest of her tour. He also recognized the same love of books and the preservation of knowledge in Marietta that had consumed his life. He listened to Marietta's explanation of the concept of an up-time lending library and was introduced to some of the staff. He noticed the occasional empty spaces in the shelves, like missing teeth in an otherwise perfect mouth. His mind swirled.
"Frau Fielder, perhaps I should take care of my lodging arrangements before the day gets by, and come back in the morning to study your collection. Do you know where I might find quarters?"
"That's easy, if you have money." Johann nodded as Marietta continued, "You ought to go to see Huddy Colburn at Grantville Homes and Land. He's been handling relocations and housing for the emergency committee since the Ring of Fire. His office is back on Main and just a half block on the right.
"We open at eight-thirty Monday through Saturday and usually close at seven PM," Marietta continued. "Five on Saturdays. I'll see you in the morning, okay?"
Huddy Colburn put the paperwork back in its legal file and laid it on the Done pile. Be careful what you pray for next time, Hudson, he thought, and grinned briefly.
The first couple of weeks after the Ring of Fire, Huddy had gone into the office once a day just to reassure his remaining agents that somehow everything would work out. Business had stopped and no one seemed to know what was going to happen. Then the Mike Stearns plan had kicked in. Just as he had done since coming home, Mike had taken charge. On the strength of his personality alone people had given up driving their cars, pitched in with planting every available square foot of land, turned out for defense drills, and did pretty much anything else he asked.
When the first wave of refugees hit Grantville everything changed. Mike called Huddy and asked him to take charge of making sure everyone had shelter by winter. That alone had put Huddy and his agents on a heavier work schedule than they had ever thought of in this hillbilly town. Then, with construction firing up to build new housing, Huddy had taken it on himself to teach his agents how to do a simple construction inspection. If the builder didn't pass, he could count that Huddy wouldn't let the people he was responsible for live there.
A few days later Huddy's cousin, Willy Ray Hudson, breezed into the office with his business partners in Thuringen Gardens. Willy Ray was looking for some help in drawing up a partnership agreement. All the lawyers were slammed with work, so Huddy pulled out the reference material he had. It was left over from when he put together the buyout agreement to purchase Grantville Homes and Land from Mayor Dreeson.
After that, Huddy became the semiofficial Grantville business broker. With all the entrepreneurs who had bubbled up since, that, too, had become a full-time job. As long as Huddy was busy, he didn't have time to think of Mary, or the other thing.
Well, Huddy ol' boy, you wanted to keep busy, so get back to work. He picked up the next file from the bottomless pile on the right side of his desk.
Huddy had just gotten the paperwork spread out so he could figure out what this deal was all about. The bell on his front door rang. Since Maxine was out running errands and the rest of his agents were out looking at construction sites or collecting rents, Huddy leaned his chair to the left to get a view of the thin blond man in a black robe walking into his office.
"So where are we going to put you, Brother?" Huddy reviewed the notes from his conversation with Johann. "Would you excuse me while I look through the available properties files? Make yourself at home, I'll be right back."
Huddy walked out and Johann looked around the office. As a follower of Saint Benedict, he and his brother monks led a spartan life with only the simplest of necessities. This man's office was anything but simple. It spoke of a life lived in full.
The desk was filled with stacks of files, each neatly labeled. The walls were filled with certificates of some achievement or the other, an old red bandanna, and a misshapen leather glove. More than anything else, there were pictures of smiling people standing in front of houses. Johann was surprised to realize that he recognized one of the houses and the man who had waved at him as he entered the town earlier today.
"Those are my families." Johann was caught off guard when Huddy reentered the room. "I helped every one of those folks to buy their first home. You help people your way, Brother; I help them create a better life in their own home."
"Herr Colburn, I saw this man earlier today," Johann pointed to the picture. "Who is he?"
"You saw him today? That's Mike Stearns, the head of the Emergency Committee. When he first moved back to Grantville and got active with the United Mine Workers Association, he was trying to buy his own home. Some kind of glitch turned up in his credit report and I helped him get it straightened out. Mike's been sending young members of the local to me ever since."
Huddy gestured with his left hand, which held a small stack of cards. "Now, let's go over what's available. I would just send you over to Saint Vincent's, I mean Saint Mary's, the local Catholic church. But Father Mazzare's been sending folks looking for shelter outside the refugee camps to me for the last couple of weeks. He's out of town this week, anyway."
Huddy sat back in his chair and flipped through the cards he held. He considered the information held on each card before moving to the next. One caught his attention and Johann noted that Huddy looked puzzled for a moment, and then slowly a grin formed on his face. "Brother, first you've got to understand that where we're from, real estate agents can't discriminate against folks due to race, creed, color, or national origin. That means that every property that is brought to us can't do that either. Does that make sense?"
Johann nodded.
"Okay, then. My church just finished rehabbing the basement and made repairs on the heating system. It has room for eight boarders, two of which are singles. It's just a couple of blocks from the library where you say you'll be spending the bulk of your time.
"So, Brother Johann, how do you feel about living in a Presbyterian Church?"
"I'd say he's somewhere between a kid in a candy store and a guy trying to take a drink out of Niagara Falls," Gloria Maze commented, as she inserted her sorting rod into the large stack of punch-holed book catalog cards. She lifted some out of the bin and deposited them neatly to the back. "Every time I poke my head back there, he's somewhere else just examining the books themselves, not even looking at the contents."
"Well, what would you expect?" Martha shook her head. "He's discovered almost four centuries of advancement in every field of knowledge. It's a lot to take in at one time."
"Marietta, it's been four days, morning to closing time, taking a break only to say his prayers and he's not even looking at the knowledge. Just the books and the bindings. If I see him run his fingers across the catalog numbers on another spine, I swear I'm going to scream."
Marietta smiled. "Gloria, do you think he's figured out what they are? The catalog numbers, I mean."
Gloria stopped and looked at Marietta thoughtfully. "We're the idiots. He's never been exposed to modern library science, why would he have known? That must explain the sad look that comes over him every time he looks at the numbers on the spines. He must think we've defaced the books somehow but can't bring himself to accuse us of it."
"Well, it's high time to begin his education." Setting aside her catalog cards, Gloria walked into the stacks located behind the circulation desk and quickly found the two volumes she was looking for. Both women walked back to the main library room where Johann was sitting, studying yet another book.
"Brother Johann, do you have a moment?"
"Of course, my ladies," he said while standing up.
"Brother," Marietta began, "we thought this might be helpful to you."
The women laid the volumes on the table and stood on each side of Johann. Gloria motioned him to take his seat and continued. "Brother, these are the keys to the library. It's the instructions to the system that we use to keep the books organized so people can find what they are looking for. It's called the Dewey decimal system.
"These numbers"—Gloria indicated the numbers on the spine of the book that Johann had in front of him on the table—"indicate that this book is about geography. That's a nine hundred classification, see? It's also got the same number on the inside title page right here."
Gloria turned to the page and pointed to the "910.285" on the page. "There were several different systems for cataloging books depending on the needs of the library, but most public libraries used the Dewey system. You'll also see the Library of Congress number," she said, pointing to that number on the same page, "but since we don't use that system, we don't have any publications on how it worked in our library here, or at the school libraries, for that matter."
Marietta took over. "See, Brother, each hundred means a different thing. General information is 000–099, 100–199 is where we store books on philosophy, 200–299 is for religion and so on. Then the tens digits mean what subcategory the books fall under and so on. If it is 207, that means the book covers education and research in Christianity, 252 is where published texts of sermons are kept, and 255 is where information on religious congregations and orders are kept.
"Why don't you look through these and if you have any questions, just come up and ask us."
Johann was stunned. This was a true book on how to find books. The letters he had written to other monks on ideas to find order in their monastic libraries seemed the scribbling of a child next to this two-volume set. Crossing himself and saying a quiet prayer of thanks, he opened the first book and carefully began to study this incredible system from the future.
The next day was very hard on Johann. He kept to his well-appointed cell (no, suite was more like it) in the Calvinist church basement. As he prayed thanks for the marvelous gift of learning about the new system, he yearned to go back to the library even if it was Sunday. When he heard the organist begin upstairs and the choir begin to sing "Here I Am Lord, Send Me," Johann couldn't believe that he was quartered here in the basement of a Calvinist church.
Even more amazing, no one seemed to think anything of it. Well, the up-timers anyway.
Wilson and Witherspoon, the Scottish cavalrymen, certainly maintained their distance, and he occasionally heard them mutter "papist" at him after he passed on the way to the library in the mornings. But he also had seen the sharp, disapproving glances that a member of the congregation, John Furbee, cast their way when they began.
But day of rest or not, even during his prayers, Johann's mind kept coming back to this marvelous creation of Melvil Dewey. This is just another cross I must bear, Johann thought, as he redoubled his efforts to cleanse his thoughts of work while in prayer.
It was almost comical to the library staff, watching this black-robed monk adjusting his glasses on his nose, consulting the DDC21, and then hurrying off to one part of the library or the other. His eyes gleamed with excitement every time he located exactly what he had been hunting for. And the look of absolute delight when he found a book that was mis-shelved that he could move to its proper place! That was worth the price of admission every time.
When Gloria took him to the card catalog and explained the triple filing system it represented, she thought he would burst out into song, or whatever it was that monks did when they were excited. Johann went through drawer after drawer of cards, checking to make sure that a book filed under the author's name was also filed under category and subject.
It really wasn't mean at all, Gloria told herself, to have Brother Johann reshelf the returned books for her. He obviously enjoyed it so much. And Orson DeBolt certainly didn't mind when Johann asked to help him clean up after hours.
Orson had been fussing over all the clutter and trash from so much more traffic through the library since the Ring of Fire. Now he felt that his prayers at the Church of Christ had paid off, even if they had paid off in the form of a Roman Catholic monk.
By the time winter's first snow fell on Grantville, Johann had a firm grasp on the contents of the Grantville Public Library and understood why so many books had been moved to the high school to form the National Library. He even suggested that several other categories of books might be helpful to the researchers over there, trying to find technologies to help them survive in the present era.
As he learned more of the organization systems created in this future, he was less surprised to realize that even these systems were recognized by the people of their age as being less than perfect. There seemed to be an irreconcilable difference between the Library of Congress system and the Dewey system. Later, he was browsing through some of the slick newsweekly magazines he had found stored away in boxes. Johann found tantalizing hints of a system that seemed to be in the early phases of creation that somehow was able to take nouns and phrases from every document and relate it to every other document with similar uses of the same nouns and phrases. These systems had odd-sounding names, even by up-timer standards, but one that had won some kind of award he had to read out loud to hear the sound. "Google."
How they did this, Johann had no idea, but he knew in the words of Solomon, "All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full." Perfection does not exist, did not exist, and would not be found in the works of these Americans. The process of God's Will continued.
But he had no interest in the technology and gadgets of the twentieth century, beyond those incredible fluorescent lights overhead. Those allowed him to do his work in perfect lighting conditions, no matter what time of day or night.
The organization of the knowledge, he felt, still must contain the secrets the abbots had sent him to find. He read the Catholic encyclopedia and marveled at the various concordances he had located. Some of the Protestant sermons had rung true to him, and even the rulings of future popes had indicated that the Church of this future had learned lessons from the Protestant movement of his time.
He carefully quoted appropriate passages in his reports back to his abbot at Subiaco, with the requested duplicate message going to the abbot prince at Fulda. He knew that his colleagues there would print duplicates to distribute to the other Benedictine monasteries that had been notified of his mission, and to his Holiness the Pope. Therefore he was careful to cite only the most conservative of sources.
Then there was the TV! At first, Johann thought of television in the same category as the puppet plays you could find on a town square during market week. Then he saw Charlton Heston portraying Moses in The Ten Commandments and marveled at the parting of the Red Sea.
He was hooked!
Although he had not attended the town Christmas party, he watched the Rebecca Stearns show that night to catch the news of the party and the disturbance that had happened there. After all this time in Grantville, Johann still marveled. In a largely up-time Protestant town, filled to overflowing with down-time Catholics and Protestants of widely differing religious beliefs, a Jewish woman could speak so eloquently about the symbol of the first baby born inside the Ring of Fire on Christmas Day. She said it was a sign of the bright future that stood before them all if they just kept working and believing in this American dream of being united by a better future. Believing and keeping their faith in the ideals of the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of prosperity for all mankind insured a better future for them all.
As Johann wrote his report that night, he realized that he had been shown a light to guide him on his path toward fulfilling his mission. When finished, he rested peacefully.
Woolly Snider had big plans for New Year's Eve. The mines had closed down for their weeklong holiday. Even with the emergency situation after the Ring of Fire, the mines still needed to perform regular maintenance. Woolly, as usual, had been spending most of his off time at Tip's, his favorite local bar. Tip Fisher had built a damn fine brewery out back, which along with the still he swore was built from the plans his grandpappy had drawn up, served a very tasty boilermaker.
Unlike the owner of Club 250, Tip was more interested in cheap labor that didn't steal from him than where or when they had been born. It also didn't hurt that Tip's had a new barmaid named Inga. She was one of those refugee down-timers and always seemed to be at Woolly's elbow when his beer needed refilling. Even though she didn't speak English too good, she always laughed and blushed when he flirted with her. She wasn't the prettiest thing in town but had big tits and a solid, but not fat waistline. As he was on the long side of fifty, Woolly wasn't as particular as he had been in his early years.
To tell the truth, which sometimes even Woolly did to himself, he had never been very particular about women or booze. Those two vices had gotten him into trouble more times than he liked to recall.
Grantville was having a hard winter, so it didn't surprise anyone when it started snowing around nine that night. Woolly, having started early, was fairly well tanked by then. When Joe Coonce, the bartender, announced he was going to close early, New Year's Eve or not, Woolly decided he had nothing to lose by asking Inga to come home with him. Even with the confidence that Tip's still had given him, he was more than a little surprised when she nodded yes.
After Inga finished cleaning up, they walked up the hill in an increasingly heavy snowfall, to his shack. The shack wasn't much from the start. However, because it was connected to a septic collection station, it was now surrounded by a large cluster of new emergency housing. Woolly and his neighbors had built this jumble just downhill from the unincorporated village of Deborah to house a lot of paying refugees during the winter.
Tents, plywood shacks with tar paper roofs, and every imaginable construction shortcut was represented in the cluster of buildings. They were tightly packed around the central toilet and water facility that had at one time been the workshop of Woolly and his neighbor. Who the hell cared if those assholes at the town housing office didn't send renters his way? There were plenty of Germans looking for any warm place to sleep in the middle of this winter.
Some time later, Woolly rolled over and pulled his covers off and sat up. Not bad, old man, he thought to himself. Even after all this time, everything still works like it's supposed to.
As he listened to Inga settling in to her nap, Woolly decided that this would be the perfect time to break out his last pack of smokes. After all, if this wasn't a good reason to celebrate, nothing was!
Woolly fired one up and lay back down and considered his good fortune. He went back over all the little things that had made the evening enjoyable as his eyes got heavy.
As he fell asleep, Woolly dropped the still lit cigarette onto the floor. It rolled to rest against a rag that Woolly had been using to clean the pistons of his car before he installed his new natural-gas conversion kit. It wasn't for some several seconds more that the ash tip came into contact with the oily rag, which began to smolder. A small flame sprang up shortly thereafter. It found fertile fuel in the newspaper that Woolly had pasted to the wall to cut down on the drafts from outside. The newspaper, in turn, put out a plume of smoke and carbon monoxide as it quietly burned away. Unfortunately, Woolly had also been collecting and compressing plastic containers, which also caught fire. This produced even more black smoke and gas. Next to ignite was a stack of more newspapers and a comprehensive collection of slick men's magazines. Woolly had bought these at a gas station by the interstate some time before the Ring of Fire. Now they erected a plume of smoke and were an additional source of carbon monoxide gas. In turn, the curtains engaged, all of which poured more smoke into the room.
Woolly and Inga coughed, but were much too intoxicated and drained after their horizontal exercises to realize that the smoke they were breathing wasn't from the cigarette. It wasn't until the flames caught the polyester bedspread on fire that Inga woke to a terrible burning sensation around her legs. She screamed and she jumped out of bed right into the middle of another burning pile of magazines. If her cotton slip hadn't been fully on fire by then, it certainly was now. Of course, the bedspread wanted to stick to her skin as she dragged it, all the while screaming. Now standing upright, breathing in nothing but smoke and carbon monoxide, Inga continued to scream in agony and run around the room looking for relief. It came with the loss of oxygen as she fainted back into the middle of the now fully engaged bed.
For the second time tonight, Woolly had gotten lucky. Awakened with a start by the sounds of Inga screaming, his heart seized and he died before he even felt the flames begin to lick his naked body.
By now the flames had reached a temperature of over 1800 degrees at the ceiling and between 300 and 400 degrees at the floor and had burned their way through the tar paper roof. Glowing embers were rising up through the heavy snowfall, which had the effect of muffling the sounds of Inga's screams from the sleeping families situated around the flaming house. Mostly, the embers died in the heavy snow. But a few made the most of the fresh fuel they had found in a pile of straw that was stored under the eve of one of the temporary plywood structures nearby.
The dry straw caught on and passed the flames to begin licking up the corner of the adjacent plywood wall where slept the First Christmas Baby of Grantville. Born just six days ago to Mathias and Anna Heydman, who had fled into the Ring of Fire area fleeing the approaching armies of mercenaries, little Mike Stearns Heydman was sleeping soundly in his mother's arms. His father was pulling the late shift cleaning up at the police station. At first the warmth of the wall felt good to Anna. She was unaware that carbon monoxide gas had already slowed her reactions. First, she became aware of the coughing of her child, and then she smelled the smoke. She became alert just in time to see the wall give way and fire flame through the wall and catch her and little Mike's bedding on fire. She immediately grabbed her child and pulled him to her as she tried to escape the danger but the straw-filled mattress was too dry and flamed up, catching the baby's cotton swaddling clothes even as she was pulling him away from the danger.
Anna screamed as she ran to take the baby to safety outside. The flames burned higher on his clothing and now singed her hands. Refusing to let go, but not thinking about anything but getting Mike out to dowse the flames in a snowdrift, she didn't reach the front door before Mike was fully engulfed in fire. The flame now jumped to her cotton nightgown. Her last conscious vision was that of her only baby screaming in agony, flames licking over his face and illuminating his huge, beautiful, baby blue eyes. The flashover effect as she opened the door with one foot ignited a huge fireball, blowing her and her baby out into the snow where they mercifully died.
Thanks to the barking of the dogs, nature's own fire alarms, the call came to the nearest volunteer fireman on duty twelve minutes after Woolly's cigarette lit the rag. However, by the time the first fire truck arrived, it was essentially over. Of the twenty-three families comprising 103 humans huddled together in this privately built emergency housing area, only seven families had escaped the evening unharmed. Four others had only minor scorch damage to the pre-Ring of Fire house that they shared. Three entire families, fifteen men, women, and children, were burned alive and the remaining six families had at least one member dead or with severe burns from trying to fight the flames, for a total of twenty-eight second- and third-degree burn victims.
"Brother Johann!"
Johann had just entered the café where he regularly breakfasted when he heard his name being called. Looking around, he saw Huddy sitting in a booth by the window, gesturing at him.
"Brother, join me." Huddy smiled, pointing to the empty seat across from him.
After Johann ordered his usual porridge, called something else by the Americans, Huddy leaned back on his bench and began, "Good to see you this morning, Brother. I suppose you've heard about the New Year's Eve fire by now?"
Johann nodded.
"I told those damn fools not to build that slum, but they wouldn't listen. And Dan Frost—he's the police chief—had too much else to deal with to go out there and force them to rebuild it properly."
Scowling, Huddy continued, "I had Chief Matheny and some of his firemen over after they finished their shift last night. God, were they bitter. The rest of my up-time booze is now gone, but they needed it a lot more than I did. The whole thing was preventable if any of the building codes had been followed." Huddy looked down at his plate and drank a sip of his coffee. "I know you've been spending most of your time in the library, but I wanted to let you know that Reverend Wiley has been telling me what a wonderful guest you've been at the church."
"The reverend has been a most gracious host. Especially considering the religious views of my . . . this era." Johann adjusted his glasses. "Huddy, how did you all do it? I mean, how in such a brief time, did you Americans, up-timers, adjust so well to such an incredible shift in your entire universe?"
Frowning, Huddy responded, "I guess we just had no choice. In my grandfathers' day, Grantville used to be a much larger town with several industries and a solid economy. By the time of the Ring, the pottery business and the electronics assembly business were closed and the last mine had been shut down. Those of us who decided to stick it out must be survivor types. The outside world had pretty much kicked us out before we got moved here. Maybe we just figured that this is a second chance for us all."
Johann nodded and finished his breakfast as he considered what Huddy had said.
"Brother Johann!" Johann, startled by the familiar voice, looked up to see Marietta standing by the booth, wearing no makeup and cheeks streaked with tears. "Brother, you must come with me. I can't get Jenny to leave the mortuary. She just won't stop obsessing over those bodies."
Jenny hadn't slept in two days when Marietta returned with Brother Johann to force her to stop and rest.
"Those bastards! Those absolute bastards." Jenny broke into tears yet again. She thought back to the totally preventable event that had placed all those charred remains that were still waiting processing in her funeral home's basement. "They were babies, Marietta! Little children who had done no harm to anyone."
Between the sobs, Jenny hugged Marietta's large frame, which was like the oversize teddy bear her daddy had won for her at the state fair so many years ago. "There wasn't a thought given to fire in that whole . . . whole miserable pile of shit. What the hell do we have building codes for, anyway? If any greedy, damn fool can build . . . can build anything he wants to with no thought for safety?"
Marietta and Johann helped Jenny close up and walked her home. Once there, while Marietta helped her friend clean up, Johann prepared a meal, blessing all the ingredients to bring Jenny the gift of endurance during this trial.
As Jenny and Marietta ate, Johann found Jenny's Bible and read the unfamiliar interpretation of the wonderful words he knew so well. "Praise be to the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and He will deliver us. On Him we have set our hope that He will continue to deliver us."
After Jenny finally dropped into a much-needed sleep, Johann escorted Marietta to her home. He prayed for her strength to continue to support her friend in this time of her trial. Then he walked back to his room. While walking over the swinging footbridge crossing the now frozen Buffalo Creek, he stopped. With the electric and gas lights of downtown Grantville largely behind him, Johann gripped the support cable and looked downstream. Then he turned his head up to the brilliant cold points of light steadily gleaming overhead in the clear black sky. Letting his hood fall to his shoulders, he just let his mind go back over the events of this journey upon which God had directed him.
His ancestors, his family, the land they had owned all too briefly, the friends he had grown up with, the beliefs he had followed, and the life's work he had chosen all seemed to be a giant puzzle picture in which he was just now starting to recognize a higher plan than he had ever imagined before.
"I am your servant; give me discernment so that I may understand your statutes. Your statutes are wonderful; therefore I obey them. The unfolding of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple."
In the report Johann wrote that night he observed:
Brothers, when I took on this mission I wondered if Grantville was a city of God or a city of the Devil. I am now satisfied that it is neither. Grantville and the people that came back into our time, their past, against their will, are the same flawed people that we all see around us daily. They love their children, honor their beliefs, and grieve over their misfortunes. Then, like all people, they ask for guidance, and go on with their lives.
Grantville, this entire Ring of Fire area, is not a city of God or of the Devil. It is a city of Man.
The newly elected government took office and quickly put into effect a series of measures to bring in more local down-time builders to get as many refugees out of the unsafe housing as fast as possible. Congress also consulted with the officials of their member city-states to make sure that the building codes Grantville brought back with them met with the needs of the local communities. Finally, the government passed a law formalizing a building safety inspection process and levied stiff penalties for violations, with no exceptions.
As the people around him carried on with their lives, Brother Johann continued his mission. A paper drive had been put into motion to move as much of the up-time old newspapers and magazines out of homes and into safe storage in the empty areas of the library. Over time the drive had pulled in stacks and stacks of every conceivable type of printed material.
Johann set out to try to bring all of it into the order as set forth by DDC 21. First, he sorted the various materials into piles based on how it was printed: newspapers, tabloids, and slick magazines. Then he started to organize each group by publication date and publication. After the major categories had been carefully stored away and the number of copies and condition of each had been recorded in the card catalog, Johann began to work on the miscellaneous pile.
He wasn't sure why he had chosen to glance through the contents of this particular pamphlet. Johann had long ago resolved not to worry about the exact contents of this massive trove of information until he had finished his organization of types of materials. But, while thumbing through the pages before him, he saw the words.
He had already turned to the next page when his mind screamed at him about what he had seen. He flipped back to the page. Yes, the words were there! "Benedictine" and "fire department."
Reading the article, he now noticed with a shock the black-and-white photograph of what must have been a fellow follower of Saint Benedict in his black robe and some others in what appeared to be slick, black, long coats of some kind and helmets with large protective brims extending from the back.
Johann couldn't help but smile when he saw the name of the Order of Saint Benedict Abbey. Not only had he heard of the saint, he had filed many documents from the congregation of the priests of the mission that had been founded by the French father only a few years ago. Here in Grantville, Johann had attended the Catholic Church that had been named for him, Saint Vincent de Paul, but post-Ring of Fire, had been renamed Saint Mary's.
Brother Johann was sure it was the angel's wings fluttering against his neck that caused his hair to rise as he adjusted his glasses and read about the effects of accidents or uncontrolled hazards, panic, fire, explosion, natural disasters, or hazardous materials.
"Created following the catastrophic fire at Saint Vincent in January of 1963, a combination of monks from the Saint Vincent Benedictine Monastery, seminarians, and college students has since served the fire protection needs of the entire Saint Vincent community."
Brother Johann dropped to his knees, crossed himself, and began a prayer of thanksgiving that only ended when he became aware of Marietta turning off the lights in the next room of the library.
In his cell that evening, he began the report that he had so often wondered if he would ever be able to write. Saint Benedict had founded his order based on the belief that the individual should sink into service to his community, to not draw undue attention to himself beyond others, and that obedience must be a path followed by those appointed to lead as much as those being led.
Above all else, there must be a time for prayer, a time for rest, and a time of work and all these times must be considered holy. Thus, the Order of Saint Benedict in all ways lived by the central tenet of prayer and work.
The things that had been taken from the order and the Church in that other future were clearly just things. The estates and the wealth and the power were nothing compared to the Holy Word they retained and the simple life of the rule as written by Saint Benedict himself in the sixth century.
A life of quiet service, away from the confusion of the multitudes but at the same time in service to the multitudes was very much the way of the firemen that Brother Johann had carefully observed in action since the New Year's Eve fire.
Spending the entire day preparing for the call that would eventually come, and being ready when it did, this was the way of the up-time fire department here in Grantville. Brother Johann now believed it to be a fitting occupation for his order.
Brother Johann's report was circulated among OSB monasteries throughout Europe, just as its predecessors had been. It was read to the brothers over dinner, as was their custom. The brothers of each monastery prayed and thought over the information Johann had brought into their lives and, consulting with their respective abbots, found their answers one by one.
The crocuses had just begun to raise their blooms above the melting snow when the first two men walked into Grantville from the west wearing their black robes and carrying their packs and walking sticks. By the time leaf buds appeared on the oak trees in the Buffalo Creek Valley, the residents of Grantville no longer wondered at the similarly garbed men who singly, or in groups of two or three, arrived from all different directions, calmly walked into the town's fire station, and closed the door behind them.