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CHAPTER 13

Most Successful Failure


Saratov

October 26, 1637

Aviv Yeltsin looked up as the radio man came in. Aviv was mostly a farmer, but his brother had gone upriver and sat in on the constitutional convention and, by Saratov standards, the family was quite well off. In preparation for maybe becoming a state in the Sovereign States, they’d held elections in the town and the villages and Cossack camps around, and Aviv had ended up “Governor,” whatever that meant, of the not-yet state of Saratov. The state legislature, a couple of dozen drunken Cossacks, had yet to decide if they were actually going to join the Sovereign States. And Aviv wished they would make up their minds.

Especially since the idiots in Tsaritsyn looked to be trying to drag the whole southern Volga into a war with Czar Mikhail.

There weren’t a lot of serfs in Saratov. The Cossack tribes were violently opposed to serfdom and had a habit of burning farms that held serfs to the ground, and stringing up the serf holders. If Saratov joined the Sovereign States, it would be a free state.

“What is it, Kirill?”

“We got a distress call from Scout Two, then nothing.”

“Where was it?”

“We don’t know. South, but that’s it.”

“Damn!” Aviv Yeltsin was about half Cossack himself. His father had been a minor Russian noble in the service nobility, and he’d been sent down here by Czar Fyodor Ivanovich and married the daughter of a Cossack chieftain who had started life as a runaway serf. So, technically, Aviv was a member of the service nobility, but he wouldn’t be in charge unless his neighbors wanted him in charge. He knew that, and the truth was he’d always been more of a politician than a war leader.

“Run over to the tavern, Kirill, and tell those drunken louts that I need to talk to them.”

Kirill grinned and left. And Aviv shook his head. Kirill was a good kid, down here from the Ufa Dacha with certificates in radio and aqualator science. He ran the radio room, and wasn’t averse to using the aqualator to print out reports and do necessary calculations. Aviv hoped he’d be diplomatic with the Cossacks and not get himself beaten up.

✧ ✧ ✧

Fifteen minutes later, Aviv was in the tavern where the legislature of Saratov met. “Listen, you drunken louts.”

“Boo!” was followed by other expletives, most of them scatological in nature, and a few disparaging his ancestry. Mostly complaining that he wasn’t drunk enough to be listened to. Aviv waited for them to quiet.

“That airplane that landed here last night and took off this morning has gone missing and whether it’s Tsaritsyn’s fault or not, Czar Mikhail is going to be upset. We’re out of time. You need to make up your minds.”

Of course, the problem was they had made up their minds. But of the twenty-four Cossack legislators, eleven wanted to join the Sovereign States, six wanted to stay independent, and the rest wanted to join the Muscovites.

The Muscovites were promising to make the chieftains Registered Cossacks, which was an important distinction in Poland, but less so this far east.

There was silence, then Iosif bellowed, “Have a drink, Aviv, and tell us what you think!”

Aviv didn’t like to drink. He watered his beer and avoided wine, but he went to the bar and the bartender gave him a mug of the black beer that he made. Aviv choked it down, all of it, to prove to the “legislators” that he was serious. “I think that with the steamboats, Ufa is three frigging days away. With the radio, it’s three minutes away, and with the factories, it’s armed to the teeth. I think there are copper mines in the Urals and sturgeon in the Caspian, and we can sell them wheat and rye, and buy both those things. I don’t care if Assistant Secretary General Ivan promises to make us Registered Cossacks. Czar Mikhail has already promised to make us full citizens if we join the Sovereign States. And he can get to us faster and easier than his Uncle Ivan can.”

“You make us sound weak,” Iosif complained.

“Iosif, you’re a tough son of a dog, but I own an AK4.7, and two months ago I shot a bear with it. I shot that bear from over a hundred yards away, then I shot it again before it could get away. Iosif, you’re not as tough as that bear. And it’s a rug on my floor now.”

Iosif stood up, pointed at the ceiling with a finger, and said, “I’m tougher than any bear.” Then he sat down. “But I understand. They shoot us enough times and it doesn’t matter how tough we are. But Uncle Ivan is making guns too. Lots of guns. And the iron mines . . . well, some of them are in his territory.”

“Steamboats down the Volga,” Aviv said. “I say we join the Sovereign States.”

They argued for another hour, then voted. Fifteen votes to join the Sovereign States, nine opposed. Good enough.

When Aviv reported to Ufa that Scout Two was out of contact, he also sent word of the state of Saratov’s formal desire to join the Sovereign States with the borders as specified in the constitutional convention.


Samara

October 26, 1637

Timofey was sipping beer in his room. “Office” was a bit too grand a title for the place. It had log walls with a ceramic stove in one corner, and at night doubled as his bedchamber. It had kerosene lamps with glass chimneys, though. And it was a comfortable place to sit with a beer and consider the situation.

The clerk opened the door, stuck his head in, and said, “Boss, Saratov has joined the United Sovereign States of Russia.”

“Bear crap!” Timofey Razya was a Cossack. In fact, he was a Don Cossack. He’d moved here in 1634, and he had a seven-year-old son, who, it turned out, had made it into the Grantville history books as a rebel leader. Timofey had been half hoping that the southern Volga states would rally around Tsaritsyn, but Astrakhan had pretty much killed that idea. Now, with Saratov joining the Sovereign States, it was a choice between being a state in the Sovereign States or a bandit chief in the state of Ufa. And Ufa was already too big for his peace of mind.

“Okay. Get the men together and tell them we’re joining the Sovereign States, and Fedor is going to be our senator.”

Timofey wasn’t the same sort of leader that Aviv Yeltsin was. His people voted, but they voted publicly with his men watching each vote. One of the reasons that he’d hesitated to join Mikhail’s new union of states, was that he really didn’t want the up-timers’ notions of poll watchers involved in his elections.

He might lose.

But, officially, he’d held elections and everyone over ten had voted.


Tsaritsyn

October 26, 1637

Colonel Ivan Greshnev of Tsaritsyn was not a Cossack. He was a Russian deti boyar and an officer in the Russian army. He wasn’t one of Russia’s better officers, but he thought he was the second coming of Ivan IV Vasilyevich, and this conflict between Mikhail and Sheremetev, now Mikhail and his Uncle Ivan, had seemed like an excellent opportunity to carve out his own kingdom.

Had seemed like.

Now it was all going to crap. Those gutless wonders in Astrakhan had betrayed him, and now Saratov and Samara had betrayed him, as well. But they would get theirs. The Sovereign States couldn’t access the Caspian Sea without him, and he would get Ivan Romanov to support him.

He would make it work.

The rational part of his mind knew better, but he’d already gone too far to back down. He’d had Ilya Blatov killed for insisting that they join the Sovereign States, and he’d placed armed guards on the radio operators in the state of Tsaritsyn. That was five radio telegraph teams and three of them were from Ufa, a total of seven soldiers of the Sovereign States, who were his prisoners. And one of the fools had resisted and died while he was being “persuaded.”

Worse, there were fools who thought this ended things and would want to yield to Mikhail the Weakling now.

He gave his closest aides new orders.

All voices of dissent in Tsaritsyn were to be silenced.


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