A Special Providence

Stuyvesant - no Night of the Long Knives, but no Brownshirts, either. Hitler was able to secure the generals' loyalty by pushing German re-armament (up to a point) and by re-instituting the personal loyalty oath. Frost has, I think, a more difficult task. She is automatically discounted for being a woman, is up against a military institution (the General Staff) that is in the fullness of its prestige and success, and has only indirect control through an Emperor that everyone knows is, um, a little vague these days. Both of them were adept at playing political divide-and-conquer with the generals, who were unskilled at political games outside their own circle. (Anyone who thinks the military or the academics are too naive for power politics has never been a part of a school faculty or served in the military. Man is not a rational animal, he is a political animal.)

As her murderous fury began to rise when the leaders of the Confederacy squandered the opportunity she gave them (remember, President Bright recognized the Confederacy without a war... the Confederacy provoked the war that lead to their own destruction) so I think her frustration and impatience are growing now. Remember, she's been at this for decades, and has no more than tenuous control yet.

I loved writing about TR on the Vermont but I don't want him to become a caricature. That's hard when the original man was so utterly, completely himself. Being in a room with TR would have been like being in a very small closet with a relentlessly cheerful and inquisitive stimulant-popping elephant. Exhausting, at the very best. Physically fit, with boundless energy and the pure enthusiasm of a child, a man who could read (not skim) a book in a few hours and who read at least four to six hours every day... If you made this guy up no-one would believe in him for an instant. (We can take comfort in the knowledge that he was an over-talkative, brash, abrasive know-it-all... who really did know-it-all... *sigh*.)

Sometimes the characters go off on their own and I only notice it later. Here is TR talking about China and glory while Makhearne nags him on Europe, casualties and logistics. They have a long way to go before they stop talking across one another. And TR had better get busy... war with Germany is coming in less than three years. All told the US can field perhaps 120 divisions counting those in Africa and Asia as against Germany's 300 or more.

For anyone who cares, Vermont's design skips the actual first American dreadnoughts (Michigan and South Carolina) and is very much like the Florida and Utah. One assumes the British Admiral class will be in line with our Dreadnought and her immediate successors.


loki100 - Hi! And welcome to the party! Questions are always in order. Fire away!



I am going to do (have already done, in fact) some monkeying with game events in the next few years. This is intended to improve the quality of the game and story and consists of getting other powers into the World War once it starts. I hope no-one minds. If you do... well, at least you know now.

J. Passepartout - plus, Roosevelt doesn't have the 'advantage' of knowing how modern history comes out. In his time, wars are still small and glorious (Churchill shared the same view even into the 2nd World War). We have the ability to look back on WW1 and 2 and think hard about how that could have been avoided.

Well, 'The Killing Frost' was not wrapped too tight to begin with - she killed a dozen or more of her fellow Knights Temporal to start this caper, and possibly wrecked her home timeline's ability to timeline-skip in the process, and you've never heard her offer so much as an apology. She was nuts, she is crazy and she will only get more so... When things go well she bears down and when things don't go well she goes wild with frustration. So... yeah. It gets steadily less sane from here.

But knowing what a mess the leaders of the governments and armies of the day made of things it is hard not to feel a little sympathy for her frustrated rage. 'None so blind as those who will not see,' and the people running Europe in 1900 are wilfully blind.


loki100 - Glad to hear the tale is holding your interest. I prefer the Civil War section to the Mexican, but I admit I had a lot of fun writing about the heroes of the Civil War before they were famous.

Let me know if you need anything or have any questions.

To put it in terms of the AAR, the Spanish-American War was mostly romantic and the British-American War was romanticized. A ground war in Germany will NOT be.

Still, it is possible that Germany can be beaten. And the destruction of France would be incredibly destabilizing, so I think I have to try. I'm hanging on to the top ranking, but my lead isn't increasing very rapidly. Letting Germany get ahold of industrialized France would be a bad idea.

In 1849 the French put on a grand exhibition of the arts, sciences and most of all the industries of France, showcasing 4500 exhibitors. Wealthy Victorians flocked to Paris to be entertained, enthralled and educated; not least among the attendees were members of Society and the Court. Nothing would do but that Britain must host her own, a display that would of course be even larger and more magnificent. Unlike the French show, half of the 15,000 exhibits would represent Britain and her Empire; the remainder would suffice for the rest of the world. It is a testament to the managerial and engineering talent of the island empire that, in the incredibly short span of two years, this colossal feat was successfully planned, promoted, funded and constructed. The main area was housed beneath the ‘Crystal Palace’, itself an accomplishment like none ever seen before. The extremely short and inflexible schedule did not permit a conventional building of the required size (some nineteen acres) to be constructed – the fair would have been at least a year gone before it could be finished. The solution was both simple and brilliant: the Palace was strung together from standardized, prefabricated parts of iron framing and sheets of glass. The result was monumental and ethereal, majestic, utterly amazing… and accomplished on time and on budget.

The grand success of the 1851 Great Exhibition of the Works of All Nations led inevitably to attempts to emulate and exceed it. In 1876 the United States hosted its Centennial Exposition, though the emphasis there was on the United States and the participation of other nations was seen as secondary at best. With that, the United States receded from the exposition stage; indeed, the planned 1883 World’s Fair in New York collapsed entirely under poor planning and inferior financing. But as 1892 approached it seemed necessary to celebrate the four-hundredth anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ voyage with a grand gala of equally historic import. The question of which American city should play host was quickly reduced to a contest between the ‘old’ American money of New York City and the new fortunes of Chicago. The bidding war was won by the brash, raw – and very rich – millionaires of Chicago, and the making of the great fair helped shape the arts, culture and sciences to the present day.

The first task was to create, from scratch, miles of streets and sidewalks, landscaped grounds, massive public buildings, shops, restaurants – an entire city, save for the lack of housing, complicated by the fact that all of the supporting traffic in goods wagons, grocery vans and the like must be hidden from public view. Happily, some simple concepts were seized upon early and held to with determination, giving the entire campus a unified look and feel. The vast buildings were hastily thrown up from raw lumber (no novelty in boomtown Chicago) and then coated in a mix of hemp, straw and plaster. This was painted white – because the paint was cheap and readily available – and, whether lit in sunlight or illuminated by the liberal use of electric lighting at night, gave the ‘White City’ a grace, purity and majesty beyond all expectation. (The ‘alabaster cities’ in America the Beautiful refer to this.) There was some doubt that Great Britain would participate, given the recent war between the two countries, but quiet pressure from His Majesty’s government made certain the Empire was fully represented. Twenty-five million people came from all over the earth to see vast machines, Wild West shows, electrical apparatus, a Ferris wheel two hundred and fifty feet high… everything about it was outsized, overwhelming, confrontationally modern, magnificent. And it recouped its costs, or thereabouts, and provoked a substantial business boom in Chicago to boot.

The notion that a city could be at the same time beautiful, planned, usable and feasible would resonate through the coming decades, though no city would carry those principles so near their logical conclusion as Chicago. After the closing of the fair, the structures were destroyed by one of the waves of Great Fires that devastated Chicago in the last years of the century. The new, elegant – and largely stone and marble – Chicago that rose phoenix-like from the ashes owed its beauty and character in direct fashion to the glimmering fantasy of the White City fair.

When 1900 rolled around, the example of these prior expositions presented the city of St Louis, Missouri with a template to use and with a high threshold for measuring success. The city intended to sweep its rival for capital city of the West, Chicago, by hosting an even grander exposition. The event was intended to honor the centennial of the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, but the relentless urge to produce bigger spectacles led the organizers to combine the fair with the 1904 Olympic Games. It must be large: 75 miles of roads and walkways would link 1500 buildings, some enclosing a dozen acres or more under one roof. It must be ambitious: more than sixty foreign nations would sponsor exhibits, along with more than forty of the states of the Union. It must be beautiful: leading architects were seduced with the prospect of a vast public forum in which to display their skills in architecture and landscaping. And to incorporate the Olympic Games the fair must be long-running, opening in the spring of 1903 and continuing non-stop to the winter of 1904. The fair was to achieve all of these goals, and was no less magnificent an achievement for being temporary; most of the vast buildings had to be patched or repaired almost daily as raw pine and stucco succumbed to summer heat and winter rains. Though fewer people came to St Louis than Chicago – ‘merely’ twenty million, a staggering number and one greater than the population of some nations – the fair turned a profit and exceeded its own high expectations. It is immortalized today in song (‘Meet Me In St Louis’), in entertainment (it offered the world’s largest pipe organ and one of the first military spectacles staged for public entertainment), and in food (waffle cones, hot dogs, hamburgers and cotton candy were popularized there). It was as grandiose, overblown, pompous and overwhelming as anyone could have wished, and in the American consciousness it became the standard by which all fairs, great and small, would be measured. For generations of Americans, it would be The Fair. And with its closing ceremonies would come war across the entire globe, and with that the end of American innocence.



“I desire you to come at once to St Louis,” the telegram read. “T missing. Audubon Hotel. Bring Ann. MC/DM.” Feric Ronsend frowned and turned it over a few times as though subconsciously expecting to see something more sensible written on the back, then tipped the messenger boy and closed the door. There were a number of explanations for such a peculiar message to arrive, some of which would involve misdirection or anticipated foul play. But the MC/DM – Michael Cullen/Donneval Makhearne – at the end was almost convincing. Frost was in Germany and would not be travelling, might very well not be moving beyond the limits of Berlin and Potsdam, these days. Little had been heard from Temic Messoune for some time, an entirely satisfactory lack from Ronsend’s point of view. Certainly if Frost’s right-hand-man was in the United States then Ronsend’s own network should have turned up some hint…

He picked up the morning newspaper from the rack beside the door and flipped it open to check the headlines. Today was Saturday, April 18th of 1903, only six days past Easter. There was nothing of any special importance on the front page, certainly no banner declaration of disaster in St Louis.

“What is it, dear?” Ann appeared in the doorway of the reception room, now converted into a downstairs office that they both used on sunny days. He smiled to see her and almost did not feel the old pang in his heart. They had come through some difficult years in the last decade and the relationship had only lately warmed again.

“It is a telegram from Donneval – at least, I believe so.” She took it and read it through, reached up absently and smoothed a lock of hair back into place before returning the slip of paper to his hand.

“If the matter is so important would he not have communicated with you more… directly?”

Their servants and assistants were busy in other parts of the house, the maids in the bedrooms upstairs, the cooks in the kitchen and the butler and driver in the carriage house or out on errands. Ronsend thought for a moment, then shook his head. “Electro-magnetic experiments have become more common in the last few years. Some have already broadcast signals… No, he would not try that unless there was no other recourse.”

“Will you go to him?”

He thought there was the merest trace of an echo of the bitter resentment of years gone by. She had always liked Makhearne, but their frightful and nearly fatal adventure in the South Pacific had poisoned her opinion of him. Ann became determined to separate her husband from Makhearne, to protect him from such dangerous doings. Their former happiness was doubly undercut by cold, quiet fights and by Ronsend’s insistence on continuing with what he saw as his knightly duties. Only the rise of the populist demagogue Wiley had brought her to admit that some fights were worth the fighting. And so he hesitated briefly, looking into her eyes but seeing nothing that would guide his answer. “He has asked for us both.”

She smiled, genuinely if a trifle sadly. “Then I should tell Mary to start packing for me, and you should tell Rogers that we shall require the carriage. If I know Mister Cullen, he will have a private railroad car waiting at the station. Rogers could go and see, and arrange for our tickets if the old man has not been so thoughtful.”

He kissed her then, impulsively, and felt a warm stir as she responded. “I am very glad to hear you say that, my love.”

She cocked her head but did not release him from her embrace. “The message says, ‘T missing’. Who or what is the mysterious ‘T’?”

He shook his head and stepped back. “I might only be able to hazard a guess. You know we have not been in close contact of late. Come, let us go and see what Donneval is about. It is a glorious spring, and at the least we shall take a week and go to the Fair.”

She shook her head, keeping that same smile as she said, “No, where Donneval is concerned I doubt we will find much time for pleasant diversions.”

Union Terminal in St Louis was still almost new, the brick and marble and black iron shining in a misting rain that pattered high overhead on the vast train shed. They debarked from the private car into the bustle and roil of the busiest train station in the world, noise and color and odor overwhelming after the dark quiet comfort of Makhearne’s rolling suite. Wisps of coal smoke and steam eddied underneath the roof, throngs battled up and down the walkways between the cars, and the noise… Dozens of locomotive panting and jetting, wheels and brakes squalling, porters bawling, children shrieking in delight and terror… “Come, let us go to the lobby,” Ronsend urged, slipping Ann’s arm under his own. “Rogers will see to the baggage while we secure a car. The sooner we are out of this, the better.”

The best of downtown St Louis stretched west from the riverbank along a series of grassy malls, streets fronted in shops of gray stone or red brick and topped with stories of apartments. Copper roofing had mellowed to a verdant gray-green, metalwork was picked out in crisp black paint and the cobblestoned streets were newly slathered with a concoction of petroleum tar, sand and gravel. Had the signs not been in English one might have imagined oneself in a town on the Franco-German border, save that St Louis had scrubbed and primped and painted itself into exhaustion for the Fair and so was both cleaner and in better repair than its European sisters. The train station was a French chateau fantasy in native stone and stained glass, and it perched on the north side of Market Street, in pride of place midway down the strip between the river and the fairground park. Behind the station, discreetly hidden from view by the deceptive mass of the building, lay acres of railroad tracks, freight yards and machine shops. All of the main railroad lines ran past this jungle of rails and ties, cars and locomotives, men and machines, and both the yards and the rail lines were frantically busy.

For the Fair, St Louis had laid a double-track of tramway rails along the central mall with festively-painted trolleys rolling past every ten minutes during daylight hours. Ronsend slipped Rogers a banknote with a hurried instruction. “Deliver our baggage to the Audubon Hotel and make certain your accomodations are secure. Then – enjoy the Fair, Rogers! Mrs Shea and I will not require your services until four o’clock on Thursday. Cover your expenses from that, and if you require more then a note to the desk clerk at the Audubon will find me.”

After the clamor of the train shed, the electric trolley was delightfully quiet – so much so that they could easily hear the conversations of strolling couples on the wide concrete side-walks. Not for St Louis the mud and dust of unpaved streets and split-board walks over puddle-cratered entries. The self-proclaimed Gateway City of the West would spare no effort or expense to impress her visitors – and, it must be noted, the canny burghers of St Louis had shrewdly calculated that the Fair traffic would pay for these splendid improvements many times over. A brief rush along the Mall, a scant glimpse of cathedrals and museums and vast buildings through the April mist, and they were at their destination: The Audubon Hotel, built on the promise of the Fair and opening almost in tandem with it. As with much else, no expense had been spared to impress the customers, and as with the train station, much lay hidden behind the clifflike gray stone of the front wall. The lobby was vast and opulent, though less in the style of a grand European hotel and more in a new, bolder American mode. Black and white marble graced the floor and walls, enormous electric chandeliers exploded from the ceiling in cataracts of crystal. Off the lobby were controversial American innovations – two restaurants, one a shockingly casual ala carte café with walls of plate glass and the other a grand and formal establishment complete with orchestra. On the other side of the lobby, mirrored doors opened onto a virtual boulevard of shops: florists, candy-makers, milliners and more. The rear areas of the lower floors were made up of smaller, cheaper, plainly-furnished rooms, while the street-frontage ran the gamut from fine accomodations to suites of palatial size and extravagant luxury.

The desk clerk did confirm that Mr Michael Cullen and party were in residence. He gently declined Ronsend’s request for the number but promised to forward a message containing one of the hotel’s own gold-leaf-embossed cartes de visite. This security precaustion was set at nought for Ronsend could clearly see him place it in a pigeonhole whose brass plate bore the floor and number. It was easy to then present his own name and allow the clerk to check them in. Accepting the brass key and its gold-colored tag, Ronsend again took Ann’s arm and strolled with her to the gleaming brass elevators. Arriving at their floor he tipped the boy at the controls and, once out on the plush carpet of the waiting area, paused for the doors to close.

Six elevators opened onto an area the size of a townhouse parlor, thickly carpeted beneath a group of chairs and tables – a place for members of a party to wait for others to join them. The chamber was deserted, as were the hallways that opened from it like the arms of a T. “We should go to the staircase at the end,” Ronsend suggested. “Donneval’s suite is only one floor up.”

Presumably, everyone was at the Fair and the staff had completed their duties for the day. They saw no-one and more importantly they were not seen. At the staircase, Ronsend paused and looked carefully around the walls and ceilings. Up the stairs they went, slowly, Ronsend inspecting the structure carefully at every step.

“Looking for traps?” Ann asked, and he shook his head, then nodded. “Frost and Messoune like traps, the nastier the better. Donneval and I have always preferred… a little sensor like that one.” He pointed to a dot the size of a nailhead. “Either would tell us something, but not enough for a conclusion. Still, whoever it is will know we are coming.”

The hallway was a copy of the one below, the widely-spaced doors identical save for the numbers on the brass plates, the carpet thick and soundless. No-one was in view. Makhearne’s room as on this side but at the mid-point, so Ann set out for it with direct strides, only to have Ronsend gently hold her back. “There are two ways we can do this,” he said, keeping his voice low but not whispering. “Break the door in – which gives us some surprise but is messy to explain, after – or simply knock.” She nodded, and they walked silently down the hall. Ronsend motioned her to one side of the door and stepped to the other, reaching over to knock softly on the door.

Moments passed. Ann motioned for him to knock again, but Ronsend frowned and waited instead. Gently he reached into a pocket and slipped on a gray calfskin glove, then removed a small black device from his jacket. Carefully he lowered his hand, pressed the tip of the cylinder to the lock and then rotated the door handle. The door opened and exhaled a faint breath of air: it was now unlocked. Ronsend eased the door wide enough to slide through; with a silent sigh and a roll of her eyes Ann followed, hands lifting a dainty pistol from her clutch-purse.

Past the antechamber the room broadened into a large sitting area, furniture grouped to face a fireplace and topped by an ornate mantelpiece; on either side of the empty grate double glass-paned doors opened onto a balcony that ran the width of the suite. Jutting just above the top of a broad sofa upholstered in toacco brown suede was shock of gray hair. Ronsend motioned Ann back into the hall, eased the door shut and rapped loudly. A silent minute passed before the lock clacked and the door opened, framing a dapper older man clad in a sober black suit: Makhearne’s valet and genial man-of-all-work, Roarke. Neither had ever met the man, but Ronsend had read in Makhearne's letters a mention of him along with descriptions of the rest of his household.

“Mister Shea, I presume!” he exclaimed, a wide but very proper smile spreading over a round and merry face. “And this must be the lovely Mrs Shea! Please do come inside. Mister Cullen has been waiting most hopefully for your arrival. Regrettably, he has stepped out but I was told he would return shortly.”

Ronsend paused in the entryway. “And Simpkins…?”

Roarke’s mouth twisted down in a sham of regret but his eyes twinkled. “You’ve caught us out, sir, I’m afraid. Come out, Simpkins, and pay your respects to our guests.” The door to the coat closet opened just enough for a short, wiry, dark-haired man to slip through. He had the grace to look faintly embarrassed, which deepened as he shifted the sawed-off double-barreled shotgun from his right hand to his left, using the freed hand to sweep the flat cap from his thinning hair. “Nice trick with the door, sir, if I may say so.”

“Expecting someone else?” Ronsend inquired, an arch smile thinly laid over genuine concern.

“One never knows who may come to call,” Roarke said with gentle regret. “The master has unusual… friends, and there are others who do not always seem to have his best interests at heart. We have become… cautious.” Then more briskly, “Please! Do come in! And permit me to serve you. An iced beverage, perhaps? St Louis is so very warm this spring.”

“One doesn’t often see armed men lurking in a coat closet,” Ann ventured as they were ushered into the sitting area.

“Neither Simpkins nor myself is what one would call a proper gentleman’s attendant,” Roake said, eyes twinkling again, “though I was in service to the second Earl of Thrail in Ireland, before the Rising. My enthusiasms got the better of me that year, I’m afraid. And so I came to America, only to find myself somewhat at loose ends, as they say. Mister Cullen said he had need of a man with, hmmmm, skills out of the ordinary line, if you see what I mean? And I gave a good word for Simpkins… He was a gamekeeper then, and always handy with the guns.”

“Does Mister Cullen have much call for your – how did you say – skills out of the ordinary line?”

“I’ve been with the master twenty-three years,” Roarke said. “Men have tried to break into the house eleven times, six times they’ve shot at the house or carriage, nine times the master has been assaulted and three times we believe there was intent to carry him away.” His smile crooked into a grin. “It has been an interesting time.”

Ronsend smiled grimly back. “Wealthy and prominent men do attract undue and unwanted attention.” They settled onto the settee and Roarke went to putter with bottles at the bar. “Tell me, Roarke, if you can, why Mister Cullen summoned us here?”

“I’m afraid the master does not always confide in me,” the valet said, whisking around a silver tray laden with crystal glasses, silver bowls, tongs and sprigs of mint. “But Simpkins has just signaled me from the balcony that he has espied the master, so I have no doubt you will shortly be able to satisfy yourself. Julep?”

Makhearne entered with a heavy tread and a frowning face that lifted only for a moment while he greeted his friends. “As good as it is to see you both, I am afraid I have some concerning news to impart.” He took a strong pull from the mint julep and handed it back to Roarke unfinished. “Excellent, Roarke – as always – but I am in need of a clear head. I desire you to take these letters to the post office and then Simpkins and yourself may have the rest of the day off. Mr and Mrs Shea will dine with me in the restaurant, or perhaps on the Fairgrounds if the whim takes us.”

Makhearne, Ronsend and his wife enjoyed the view from the balcony while Roarke tidied up the bar. Once he and Simpkins were safely gone, Makhearne ushered them back inside and settled himself in a chair while they perched on the settee.

“You simply must tell us what all of this is about,” Ann said crossly. “Why, we half suspected the telegram wasn’t from you at all. Not to mention dragging us half-way across the continent on so little notice.” Then a flicker of a smile relieved the severity of her expression. “Though meeting Mister Rourke certainly was… interesting.”

“I realize I’ve never had the two of you to visit me at home, and I never involve Roarke and Simpkins in my, um, unofficial business if it can be helped. It never occurred to me that you had not met.” Makhearne’s mouth twisted in a rueful grimace. “And here I thought I was being clever to use both sets of initials. Ah, well… my apologies you have, and sincere ones, too. The problem is both simple and complicated. One of my employees has disappeared. While it could be no more than his usual disdain for the ordinary conventions of things like clocks and calendars, it could be something more… I rather think, under the circumstances, it is.” Ronsend inhaled as though to speak and Makhearne lifted his hands in appeal. “A moment more, I beg you, and I will say all I know.”

“Your work has taken you to California, and I know that the demand for automobile steamers is high. I have invested heavily in another growing industry – electrical gear. Light bulbs and fixtures, improved telegraphy and telephonics, cables, insulation, dynamos and generators and… well, the list goes on at some length. Suffice it to say that the world is moving from water and steam power to electricity, and the demand for equipment is enormous. The demand for improvements and for new types of apparatus is extremely large, and where there is that sort of demand, the man who can harness genius and tame the technology can make a fortune.

“Not that money was my sole concern. The strange people we saw coming through that gate in Nemor’s lair… Well. You can’t bring a technology along too far in advance of its natural time, and this is the time for electricity. I hoped to find someone I could entrust with the basics of parachronic theory. We may be decades – or a century – away from controlling a gate, but even small applications like a warning device could be useful…

“At all odds, I found exactly the man I needed, or I should say that he found me. I was in a patent war with Edison and had put the word out for anyone who had left his employ. This fellow came around, Eastern European, hardly spoke English. I didn’t pick up on him at first, but when I ran the name through the library later…” Ronsend made to speak again but Makhearne waved him down.

“His name is Tesla, Feric – look it up. Jozsef is his first name in this timeline.” Ronsend’s attention turned inward, a sure sign that he was accessing some internal database. While he was absorbed, Makhearne poured cups of tea from the service Roarke had left on the table, and at the same time attempted to answer Ann’s questions.

“As the differences in timelines open up,” he said, “the people become more different. If a major war sweeps through an area, people who might otherwise meet, marry and have children are killed or driven out as refugees. There are certain focal points – the upcoming global war with Germany is almost a contstant – and, despite everything, certain names and abilities keep cropping up. In almost every timeline, when you get to the age of railroads there are Vanderbilts and Brunels and Josephs. For invention, there is usually an Edison, or a Bergman, or a North. Electricity seems to attract a Tesla, a Francois, a Duleny. Here we have both an Edison and a Tesla, though one is Arthur instead of Thomas and the other is Jozsef rather than the more usual Nikola. There are some other small differences, but the fact remains there is a genius of electrical invention named Tesla, who has disappeared.”

“Disappeared?” Ronsend nodded. “That is the T you mentioned.”

“Precisely. I’ve been funding his researches, and the man is undoubtedly a genius. He is also erratic in his habits and prone to distraction if some new idea comes along – which seems to be daily. He and Edison fell out over alternating current. Tesla developed the idea and took it to Edison, who bought up the patent rights and then fired him.” Makhearne shook his head. “I might not have prevailed against Edison in the courts had he not been so intolerant of the inspirations of others… But that is neither here nor there. Tesla has been working on parachronicity for me and pursuing some of his own ideas on the side. We wanted to show off a bit, attract some investors for some new products… and Tesla is a showman worthy of the Bailey Brothers.”

He shrugged. “I sent him here with freight-cars of apparatus. His laboratories are set up, the display areas are ready, and yet the man himself… has vanished.”

“Taken by Frost and Messoune, you think,” Ronsend prompted.

“That is the worst case from our point of view as it deprives us of our researcher and possibly puts his effort onto the other side of the scales. But from a practical point of view it does not matter if he was taken or seduced away, only that he is gone.”

“It has been many days and the trail is doubtless cold. What do you propose to do, and what do you need from us?”

Makhearne sipped at his tea and frowned into the cup. “I think I must go to Germany and see if I can uncover any trace of him. And that means that Michael Cullen must die.” His frown lifted for a moment. “I’m quite tired of pretending to be a man in his seventh decade, so this only pushes up the inevitable by a year or two. My will names you as the executor, and I’ve taken care to cache some funds, so that will all be right. Are there any companies of mine that you would care to have?”

They dickered for a few moments and arrived at a short list. “Fine. Then that is that,” Makhearne said briskly. “I will telegraph my business manager in the morning. Let us take the remainder of the day and go see the Fair – I can at least show you Tesla’s laboratory and display area in the Palace of Electricity. There may be some clue whose meaning is evident to you.”

As they rose, Ann laid a small hand on the old man’s arm. “I have no acquaintance with them, yet I am moved to ask what disposition you have made for your men.”

“They will each receive a most generous annuity. Neither Roarke or Simpkins will need to work another day unless they wish.”

“It is well. I believe sometimes you men see the world as an inanimate place, full of obstacles and levers. I hope you will not take it amiss if, from time to time, you are reminded that it is a place of people, too.”

J. Passepartout - you could of course use codes for telegraphy, wireless or even letters. But wireless is in its infancy and certainly not in daily use. Someone sending signals might be detected, and then have some explaining to do.

Yes, well - as a practical matter it is too much effort to make up new names for everything. And the last post explains a bit more.

Stuyvesant - the world before the Great War was a very different place and in many ways a more innocent and hopeful place, so I have tried to model that here. Our Great War is coming around the time of our timeline's Russo-Japanese War, so we may get to escape at least some of the horrors of trenches, gas, machine guns and massed artillery.

I tried to address some of your points in the above post, which is too long, too clumsy and poorly polished... but I've turned it over for a while without bettering it any, so here it is.

Alfredian - it's not him wanting to go without her, it is her refusal to let him. As the saying goes, she has a 'whim of steel.'

cezar87 - Good to hear from you! Ann is both a bit faster and stronger, and as we see above she is not afraid to carry an 'equalizer'. She was born a woman of class, breeding, elegance and refined taste... but she is neither faint nor stupid.

TheExecuter - I have been terribly busy with work - trips to LA, Raleigh, Dallas, north Alabama, back to Dallas, on to LA and San Francisco, then Dallas again... but I do have an update for your patience.

Yes, things are about to get hot. Frankly, I can't wait.

J. Passepartout - I had a long, complicated post but the forum monster ate it, so this is all I can summon up for the moment. That last post was written because it was fun to write. It did advance some minor elements of the plot(s), but basically I put it in just for fun.

As the mundanes become more technologically advanced the Knights are being extra-specially-careful to avoid giving themselves away. A flap over 'aliens' and 'radio signals from space' could be hugely disruptive and introduce unpredictable elements into an already complicated situation. So - best to err on the side of caution.

Stuyvesant - I do like to point out that while my main characters are immensely intelligent and powerful, they are still capable of being surprised and hurt.

Your point about Makhearne's feigning illness is well taken, but I don't think Frost and Messoune would be fooled.

I hope the next post successfully sketches out the conflict-to-come. Oh, and my apologies in advance - but the Dutch really were the villains of this part of the game.

American humorist Samuel Clemens once wrote, “A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.” As the election of 1904 drew near, more than one wag remarked that this also described the Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. Newspaper publisher and editor William Winfield Hearst went farther, saying, “If there is an issue upon which Roosevelt has not quarreled with capital, industry, agriculture, members of his own party and of the opposition, it is only because even Roosevelt must sleep at some time.”

The election of 1900 had been remarkably contentious, in the opinion of many the most so since before the War of Secession. Certainly, the two parties had spent more money in 1900 than in any campaign in American history. It would have been naïve to expect that one election would have fully settled the issues that made the campaign so heated, but most Americans had hoped that the new administration would be able to calm the waters by focusing on the issues at hand. One suspects they had not realized the proposed solutions would be so fiercely debated in turn, nor that the executive Roosevelt would be so… vigorous.

Despite this, or perhaps because of it – Roosevelt had mastered the art of public relations, relished a good fight and was always careful to be available to reporters – Roosevelt remained immensely popular and his policies received broad general public support. The President’s ability to use the ‘bully pulpit’ of his office to appeal to the voters over the heads of Congressmen won him passage of landmark legislation for the regulation of trusts, stock exchanges and railroad rates, for the establishment of a system of national parks and preserves, for the extension of the merit system throughout the Federal service, and – not least – for the improvement and expansion of the Army and Navy. What the members of the House and Senate thought about being herded around by ‘Roosevelt the Cow-Boy’ was sulphurously unprintable, and as the Roosevelt re-election campaign moved into high gear the President was forced to recognize that his victories over Congress had left him short of allies there.

A Democratic candidate for the Presidency would have to unite the ‘Old Bourbon’ Southern wing, the Populist Western branch and the Progressives of the Mid-West and East. Past nominees Arthur Wiley, William Jennings Bryan and Grover Cleveland all refused to allow their names to be considered. Within the ranks a boom for a Populist candidate produced the awful possibility of radical, rabble-rousing publisher and Representative William Winfield Hearst rising to the top of the ticket. This so frightened the conservative wing that they united behind the affable but uncharismatic Senator Whitlow Price of Missouri and, by threatening to again break up the party, rammed through his nomination.

The Republican establishment sorted through a dozen possibilities before deciding that a ‘dump Roosevelt’ movement would be suicidal. The party elders were grimly sure that restraining the President would be hard, exhausting work. But they were equally of the opinion that they could not win without him, even against the tepid Price, nor was it worth risking the affections of Roosevelt-leaning Progressives and Western Populists. Roosevelt’s friends were approached and indirectly the President himself was advised. With the election looming, Roosevelt was canny enough to cut a deal or two and lie low on some issues, without making any long-term promises.

The campaign looked to be as mild as the previous one had been contentious, with Roosevelt penned in Washington by his friends and Price languidly entertaining from his front stoop in St Louis. But just when the campaign managers were breathing a sigh of relief, up came the MacMillan Scandal, and then the Belgian Crisis, and the public awoke from its winter slumbers to find itself with an election overshadowed by the threat of war.

Relations between the United States and Imperial Germany had come under increasing strain. The American acquisition of Spain’s colonies and of Hawaii, tensions over commercial rivalries and border incidents in Africa had all played a part. And the alliance of the Kingdom of the Netherlands with Imperial Germany was becoming an important factor. Anyone who expected that the empire-building days of the Dutch were over had not paid attention to the steady rightward drift of the Dutch governments. After their overthrow of Atjeh the only place the Dutch could expand to in Indonesia was into American Brunei, New Guinea and the Phillipines. Backed and encouraged by Imperial Germany, the Netherlands exerted heavy pressure by harassing American shipping at sea and in Dutch ports, threatening to close the Singapore Strait and by furnishing arms and money to the native pirates. In particular they fanned discontent in Borneo and American Brunei, escalating occasional tribal cross-border raids into a low-level guerilla war.

One who took exception to this was George MacMillan, son of a Missouri couple who had moved to Brunei after the American War of Secession. MacMillan had built up his holdings into a neat little empire of mining camps and coffee and rubber plantations, several of which were located near enough to the border to be hard-hit by raids. With the bulk of the Colonial Army in China, MacMillan organized his own armed patrols and set the example by leading some himself. It was not merely bad luck that when he chased the bandits back across the border one afternoon there happened to be a company of the Dutch Army waiting in ambush. Wounded and captured, MacMillan was taken to Djakarta as a prisoner. Furious protests from the United States followed, with the exchange of stiff diplomatic notes. Aware that their support of the Boers in South Africa had infuriated the British and that the alliance with Germany had inflamed the French, even the most reactionary Dutch minister understood that the Netherlands could not fight three Great Powers at once. That did not prevent them from playing up the capture of MacMillan for propaganda. It did, however, move the ministers to caution the army to remain squarely on their own side of the border. Aroused by the episode, more planters followed MacMillan’s example by arming their workers, though they were more cautious about pursuit.

Lest one think the MacMillan Scandal was confined in its effects to the local area, one must consider the escalating Belgian Crisis and all its implications. In 1839, when the provinces that made up contemporary Belgium won their independence from the Netherlands, there was a convention of European powers to settle the points at issue. Belgium was to be permitted independence but it was to be constrained to strict neutrality in European politics, a neutrality and sovereignty the European Great Powers all swore to uphold. This London Treaty guaranteed various other things, including rights of passage over the fantastically convoluted and complicated Dutch-Belgian border, and guaranteed Belgium the right to convey goods across Dutch soil by rail or canal to the Ruhr.

In January of 1903 the Belgian government signed a one-sided defensive treaty with France, committing the French to come to the defense of Belgium without requiring the Belgians to respond if France was attacked. Legal scholars of both nations regarded it as no more than a restatement of the treaty of 1839, but for the French government it was a warning to the Germans that Belgium was off-limits. The British government was invited to co-sign but refused, citing the 1839 treaty as ‘settled business’.

Instead of taking this as a check the Dutch, with German support, claimed that Belgium had violated the terms of the 1839 treaty and voided her neutrality and other provisions thereby. Diplomatic protests were declined and legal opinions were brushed aside. The Netherlands closed its border to Belgian commerce and presented a demand that enough territory be surrendered to connect all Dutch-speaking enclaves. Rather than see a war ignite the British suggested a conference be called to negotiate a settlement, with Great Britain, Germany, France, Austria, Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands as participants. This was refused by Germany on the grounds that an eight-member panel could be deadlocked. To this, Britain proposed adding a ninth and neutral delegation, from the United States. France, Belgium and – under French pressure – Spain all accepted the idea; Germany, the Netherlands and Austria indignantly rejected the notion of upstart Americans involving themselves in European affairs. But given the very real prospect that the other six parties would convene without them, the Germans, Austrians and Dutch held out only long enough to extract the concession that the conference would take place on German territory, in Bonn.



“Temic, dear,” Frost purred. “I have a little mission for you, if you would be so kind as to offer your assistance.”

“Does it involve traveling to Bonn?” he inquired. “What a dreadful city. It is all cathedrals and plain water, gothic stone and pious noses. Bonn entirely lacks the ambition to decadence that marks a modern up-and-coming-town. A man of my sophistication must find it Purgatory. No – send me to Philadelphia, or Glasgow if you must, but not to Bonn.”

She smiled. “No histrionics, dear man – not entre nous. I have a rather different place in mind. You know that our embassy in Washington also functions as a headquarters for intelligence in the western hemisphere. Our man there has reported contacts from disaffected parties in Cuba, Jamaica, Venezuela – even Mexico, though he may be making more from that than the facts can support. I’d like you to go see if there is anything of substance to the reports.”

“Anything of… substance? So you wish to raise revolutions in the Caribbean? My lady, those would stand small chances of success. The Americans are idealistic fools – the French are corrupt – the British are complaisant – but none of them is weak enough for that.”

“The conference in Bonn will require all of my time and energy, Temic, the more so since I cannot attend in person. This Low Country Crisis is very like a pot that for best results must simmer yet not boil over. I believe it would be advantageous for us if our enemies were distracted.” The smile grew a trifle larger, exposing a white line of tooth. “The best magic tricks require misdirection, you know. The conference offers a chance to humiliate France, strengthen our allies the Dutch, and – with a bit of luck – drive a wedge between France and her most logical allies. A little distraction can only benefit our cause.”

He folded his newspaper and set both feet flat on the floor, uncoiling with lazy grace until he stood. “I am doubtful that events will unfold as you desire, my lady. I fear that if the other powers are made too clearly aware of their predicament they will band together rather than be forced apart. In your place I would handle this as though the pot you speak of were blown from the thinnest bubble of glass: stir too hard or heat it too much and the contents will be dumped in the fire.” His hand rose and fiddled with the tiny orange enameled pin at his lapel, a popular emblem in the Netherlands and Germany that symbolized support for the Boers without requiring the wearer to make any actual commitment. “You have held to a more subtle approach until now, despite all temptations, and have seen your efforts crowned with great success. Why change?”

“Because we are in the endgame,” she said, “and strategies must needs change as the climax comes. We can safely assume that our enemies will react rather than act; they have more to lose and will be inclined to move defensively. None have the strength to challenge us directly, nor are they able to overcome the old hatreds that bar co-operation. If we have the right provocation – one that allows us to plausibly shift the blame for starting a war onto someone else – then that will permit us to isolate and crush France through direct military action.”

She shrugged. “The conference may produce that pretext, or it may not. In any event we must drag it out at least until the spring of next year.”

“Next year? It is summer, now – prime time for a military campaign. Why not just go ahead and do it? France and Russia will not grow weaker, nor England more blind.” He tapped a cigarette from a silver case and popped a match with a thumbnail. Smiling, she lifted the cigarette from his lips to her own; smiling, he lit another.

“Silly Temic. You know very well why. I need a pretext that will permit the tired old lion and the brash young eagle to tell themselves the lies they want so desperately to hear – that this will not be their fight. Could Germany defeat all three? Likely. But the cost must be high, and it does not suit me to work for twenty years and then wreck my handiwork in an afternoon. I doubt that I can forge my pretext before summer is over and fallis well advanced. There would be no time for a war before winter. Hence, the goal is to distract – befuddle – enthrall – until the springtime.”

He looked unconvinced. “There are always the casinos of Havana,” she murmured, smiling up at him through flirtatious lashes. He did laugh then, and take her hand for a grave kiss, and give consent.