CHAPTER 1
Industrial Accident
Ruzukov foundry, Ufa, Russia
July 18, 1637
Izabella Utkin looked up from the desk in her office and grinned. “Welcome, congresswoman. Hey, everyone. It’s the congresswoman from District Two of the state of Ufa.”
“Appointed, not elected,” Vera Ruzukov pointed out as she looked around the office and at the smaller, younger woman. Izabella was five foot three with blue eyes, golden blonde hair and a curvaceous figure. An attractive young woman who’d settled down a lot since she’d married Alexander Volkov. The office was a smallish room off the main foundry floor where the noises of factory work could be heard in the background. There was a drafting table against one wall and Izabella was seated at a rolltop desk. A couple of clerks sat at smaller desks.
“Well, we can’t hold a proper election until we get some sort of count on the number of people in the district,” Izabella said.
District Two of the state of Ufa was the northern district, which included the part of the state north of the city of Ufa and east of the border with the state of Kazan, and the possible state of Perm. (That hadn’t been settled yet.) The borders had been drawn in the constitutional convention and were tentative and would only last until a state’s government accepted or rejected the constitution.
Which Vera knew was a pretty darn big stick. If, for instance, Perm failed to ratify, there was nothing to stop Kazan—or Ufa, for that matter—from annexing the territory that was now on the map as Perm. They would have to get the permission of the federal government, but still, it rather intensified the stakes with regard to whether or not to join.
In the meantime, in need of a congress and with a lack of means to elect one, Czar Mikhail had decided to appoint the governor of Ufa. Alexander Nikolayevich Volkov, Izabella’s husband, had gotten the nod, and had appointed Vera Sergeevna Ruzukov to be the first congresswoman from District Two. Which appointment, Vera suspected, Izabella resented a little.
“Anyway, I’m not here about that. I’m here to see my husband. Where is Stefan?”
“He’s over at Efrem Stroganov’s new copper factory, helping to install the steam boiler for their generator system.”
Ufa still didn’t have, and wasn’t likely to get in the near future, any sort of central power grid. What it had instead was something over a hundred small steam-electric generation plants, each owned by an individual business, and most selling their excess electricity to nearby buildings. Localized brownouts were daily occurrences. Efrem Stroganov was just in from Moscow, the second son of one of the great families, and was using his bank account to get into the large-scale manufacturing of copper wire. For which he needed heat, acids, electricity and drawing equipment to purify, melt, and draw the wire.
The New Ruzuka Foundry had gotten the contract to make the actual steam engines that would power the whole thing. The New Ruzuka Foundry was owned by Stefan, Vera, Izabela, and about half the villagers in New Ruzuka. It was a big contract and a lot of money, but also a new industry for them. Since the foundry had been built, it had been making guns or parts of guns.
There was a boom. A big boom, like a large gunpowder charge going off. Vera and Izabella ran out of the foundry building, onto Irina Way, and saw a mushroom cloud. An actual mushroom cloud. And it was in the direction of Efrem Stroganov’s new copper foundry.
Vera started to run and got less than a step before Izabella grabbed her arm. Vera almost slugged her, but Izabella shouted, “Get the men! We’re going to need their help!” Then, rather than going back into the building, Izabella ran across the street to get the factory there to send men to help.
✧ ✧ ✧
Stefan thought he was dead again. The blast hadn’t come from Efrem Stroganov’s new foundry, but from a building next door, where they did something with chemicals. He thought it was making cleansers or fertilizers. However, the blast was enough to knock down the building they were standing in. Not knowing what was going on, but knowing that the firebox was made of crucible steel and weighed over three tons, Stefan—a big man by any measure—grabbed Efrem Stroganov and his foundry manager, and dragged them with him to the ground next to the boiler. It was an almost instinctive reaction. Not to combat, but to industrial accidents.
Having done so, Stefan lay there while the world fell down on all of them. They ended up in a little tent, with the firebox holding up a chunk of the collapsed ceiling and one of the rafters lying across the three of them, not quite crushing them because the newly installed firebox was holding up one end.
The fire from the explosion started to produce smoke and there was no way out. They were well and truly trapped in a mostly wooden building that was apparently on fire. Stefan looked around their little hidey-hole and saw a foot attached to a leg under rubble.
Then, Efrem Stroganov shouted, “Get off me, you great peasant oaf!”
Stefan tried. There wasn’t much room and one of his feet was trapped in an even more confined space and was at least sprained, possibly broken, when a bit of wall or roof had landed on it. But pushing up with his back, he managed to lift the roof of their tent a little, and free his foot. He got to his knees and then crawled over Efrem to get to the other foot he could see.
“I said—”
“I heard you,” Stefan interrupted. “But there is a man down over there. Check on your foundry manager.” In the excitement, Stefan had forgotten the man’s name.
“Don’t give me—” Efrem Stroganov stopped and Stefan grinned. By now the fact that Stefan had killed a man with a single blow of his fist was well known from Shavgar to Moscow. And apparently Stroganov had just remembered it.
Realizing that his reputation for violence might have its advantages, Stefan shifted around and grunted as the movement exacerbated the pain in his right foot. But he got his back against the boiler and, using his left foot, tried to push up a heavy timber that was pressing against the leg of the unknown man.
Then, quietly, from behind him, he heard Efrem Stroganov say, “Thank you, Stefan Ruzukov.” It was said quietly, but with intensity. Stefan looked over and saw where Efrem was looking and realized that if they’d still been standing where they had been when the roof came down, they’d be dead for sure.
Not knowing what to say, Stefan said, “Reflex. Help me with this wood.”
Efrem looked over at Stefan and laughed. “Good reflexes, man. Good reflexes.” Then he rolled around so that he could add his leg muscles to Stefan’s. They got the beam lifted, but the man was dead.
“We need to get into the firebox,” Stefan said.
“Why?”
“It’s designed to keep fire in. So it ought to do a decent job of keeping it out. Don’t you smell the smoke?”
Efrem sniffed. “Yes, but I hadn’t realized. Ufa always stinks of smoke and fire.”
That was true enough. With all the factories in the city now, the place always stank. But Stefan was used to that stink. This was wood burning, not coal or oil. By now Ufa was getting regular shiploads of oil from the Safavid Empire, and the city was using every drop to provide power to run machines that were making people, including Stefan, rich. In fact, Stefan was now worth more than his old lord, Colonel Ivan Nikolayevich Utkin, had ever been. He laughed. Assuming that they survived to enjoy that wealth—which didn’t seem likely at the moment.
Stefan found the door of the firebox. The firebox was huge, designed to produce a lot of steam fast. It was double walled with an air gap and would have been surrounded in firebrick if the installation were completed. It had a yard-tall door on one side, to allow people to get into the thing to clean the oil jets, shovel in coal or remove ash as needed. It would be cramped, but they could all squeeze in.
Meanwhile, Efrem was checking on the foundry manager. “Iosif, wake up.”
“Iosif.” That was it. Iosif Ivanovich Putinov was the foundry manager’s name. “Bring him over here.” Stefan grunted as he tried to shift more fallen second floor out of the way to get the firebox door open.
✧ ✧ ✧
By the time Vera, Izabella, and the people they could gather got there, at least four buildings were in flames. They were all around a big hole in the ground where a brand-new chemical plant had been earlier that morning. And all four buildings were completely engulfed in flames.
Izabella took one look and said, “Oh, Vera. I’m so sorry.”
“Forget that. Stefan’s already died on me once, and I told him not to do it again. I won’t believe he’s dead until I see the body.”
She said it strongly and with conviction, but Izabella didn’t believe her. Then there was no more time to talk. Only to bring water and throw it on the fire. There were fire engines in Ufa now. This wasn’t the first fire, not by two dozen or more.
It was, Vera thought, the worst yet.
But there was a pump wagon that was based on a design that Brandy Bates Gorchakov had seen in a movie. And it was in use, with six big men seesawing the handles to produce a steady stream of water from the river.
Between the wagon and the bucket brigades, they were containing the fire, but not putting it out.
Izabella looked over at Vera. The woman was taller than her, with her dark hair in a tight style with a ponytail down the back. Her greenish-brown eyes were wet with unshed tears. The stocky woman’s face was set in hard lines, something that Izabella rarely saw, for Vera was as gentle and caring a woman as Izabella had ever known. She almost always had an easy and open smile. Right now, though, her face was frozen and her hands moved with mechanical rhythm as she moved bucket after bucket along the line to the fire.
✧ ✧ ✧
Inside the firebox it was pitch black and getting decidedly hot. Hot enough and stuffy enough so that Stefan was starting to wonder if that was going to prove a better death than the flames. They at least would have been quick. What made it worse was, Stefan knew the design of the firebox. It was specifically designed so that a worker could come in with soap and water and move around to clean and dry the thing. It had plenty of room for one man, was cramped for two, and uncomfortably close for three. It was double walled for insulation, but also for reverse flow. A pipe entered at the top of the furnace, then opened into the space between the inner and outer wall. The air flowed down between the walls and into the firebox. What terrified Stefan was that that intake was high enough so that the smoke would be sucked into it and they would all die of smoke inhalation while they slowly cooked. He needed something to take his mind off it.
“Do you think that Perm will join?” he asked Stroganov.
“What? Right now, I don’t care! How are we going to get out of here?” There was more than a bit of panic in Efrem Stroganov’s voice.
“We don’t!” Stefan said harshly. “We stay here till the fire’s out or we die here.” He took a breath. “If we’re lucky, they will get the fire under control before we bake. If not, I’m sure our funerals will be elegant. I would rather think of something else. So, do you think that Perm will join the United Sovereign States of Russia?” He enunciated each word. By this time most people referred to the United Sovereign States of Russia simply as “the Sovereign States,” but Stefan used the whole name.
Efrem stared at Stefan in confusion for about five beats. Then he laughed. It was a short bark of a laugh, but it was a laugh. “They’ll either join us or join the Muscovites,” Efrem said. “The way the constitution worked out doesn’t give them a lot of choice. If they try to sit on the fence like Shein is doing up around Tobolsk, either we or the Muscovites are going to eat them whole.
“In fact, that’s what that moron, Birkin, should have done last winter. He should have turned east at Kruglaya Mountain and made for the Kama River.”
“General Tim would have seen that play a mile away,” Stefan insisted, and Efrem snorted another laugh.
“You guys put a lot of faith in your boy general.” He waved away Stefan’s protest. “I’m not disagreeing, not really. But he is young and, well, I don’t think anyone is as good as you folks think Boris Timofeyevich Lebedev is. I think there’s too much chance in war. And it’s more about being lucky than good.”
“Are you CRAZY!” Iosif Ivanovich shouted. “We have to get out of here! And you idiots are sitting around talking politics!”
Stefan felt him move as he tried to get to the door of the firebox. Stefan reached out an arm and slammed the man back against the inner wall, hard enough to rattle his teeth and maybe crack his skull if his head hit the wall.
“If that door opens, we DIE!” Stefan shouted the last word into the man’s face. Or at least where he thought the man’s face was. You couldn’t see a thing in this oven. And it was an oven. The inner wall of the firebox was hot. Not yet burning hot, but hot. And Stefan was covered in sweat.
He turned his head the other direction, and said to Efrem, “So, which way do you think they’ll jump? I know your family owns quite a lot of land up that way.”
“That’s why I’m building a copper foundry. There are extensive copper deposits in Perm. My cousin in Moscow will be pushing for Perm to join the Muscovites, just as I’ve been pushing Uncle Anatoly to join the Sovereign States. The problem is, my uncle is more afraid of Ivan Vasilevich Birkin than of your General Tim.”
“Well, that’s stupid,” Stefan said. “We have a river route right up to Perm. Birkin will have to go overland.”
“That probably won’t make any difference if I die here today,” Efrem said, not frightened so much as thoughtful. “With me dead, Uncle Ivan will probably go with the Muscovites.”
“Well, then it will be better for everyone if we don’t die,” Stefan agreed, and they continued to talk, with Iosif Ivanovich sobbing quietly next to them.
✧ ✧ ✧
Vera looked around. The rescuers were making progress. Several of the fires were out, and the rest were struggling as the fire wagon continued to pump water onto the fuel that the fire needed to continue.
They were starting to collect the bodies. There were a lot of them, but none from the chemical plant. Apparently, the blast in the chemical plant was extreme enough to leave no bodies, at least not large enough pieces of bodies to be identified, but a lot of people in the surrounding buildings had died of smoke inhalation or been burned to death.
Vera was starting to lose hope in spite of herself. Several bodies had been recovered from the still burning ruins of the copper foundry. None of them were the size to be Stefan, but if he’d gotten out, he’d have been fighting the fire with the rest of them. “Where are you, you great fool?” she muttered. “You’d better not be dead.” She wiped the tears from her eyes, and went back to moving buckets of water from the river to the fire.
✧ ✧ ✧
Stefan heard the sound of water hitting hot metal and flashing to steam. It was a distinctive sound. Stefan wished he’d been wearing his tool belt. He hadn’t worn it because Izabella insisted that as a member of the service nobility, he shouldn’t wander around with the tools of a blacksmith. By now the inner wall of the firebox was hot enough so that they all had cloth between their bodies and the hot steel wall. Stefan still wasn’t ready to risk the door of the firebox not knowing what was outside of it, but he wanted to let the people out there know that there were people alive in here. So he asked Efrem, “Do you have anything metal on you?”
“My pistol.”
Stefan slapped his head. He had his pistol too. It was a status symbol to wear one of the new caplock revolvers and Stefan owned a factory that made metal parts. By now, most of the workers in his factory owned caplock revolvers.
He pulled his pistol and pounded it against the inner wall of the firebox. The whole firebox rang like a bell.
✧ ✧ ✧
Vera didn’t hear the firebox ring. The sound was muffled by the outer wall of the firebox, but that didn’t make it silent, and one of the people looking for bodies heard it. The firebox was only about a quarter exposed. Three quarters of it were still covered in charred wood. But the hose was pointed at that area and soon enough it was thoroughly soaked.
✧ ✧ ✧
Inside the firebox, the water pounding on the outer shell was deafening, but the temperature started dropping almost immediately. A half turn of the crank and the door was unlatched. Stefan tried to push it open and managed to get a crack of perhaps a quarter of an inch. During the fire, wood had fallen against the hatch and blocked it, but it was enough for water to spray in and they all welcomed that.
It was only minutes later that they were released, and discovered that they were the only survivors of those in the building. Efrem was ready to murder the chemical factory owners and workers, but they were all dead too. Over fifty people had died and if they had gone wrong with the firefighting, it could have been much worse.
Ufa was a boomtown and a war base and the center of government, all at once. People stood on the docks as the steamboats came, holding up signs and shouting that they had work. If a man or a woman in good health reached Ufa and didn’t have a job by the end of the day, it was because they didn’t want one.
There were women working in foundries and factories and canning plants. And sitting on rafters, hammering roofing tiles into place, or painting roofs with tar shipped up the Volga from the Caspian Sea.
When you live like that, grabbing people off the boat and putting tools in their hands with little regard for their skill, two things happened. One was you got a hell of a lot done in a very short time. The other was that accidents happened. Some of them were messy accidents that killed lots and lots of people.
Everyone in Ufa knew that, or at least they should have known that. On the other hand, Vera had almost lost Stefan twice now, in the Kazakh attack and now in this disaster, whatever had caused it, which they would probably never know in any detail. Some sort of safety measures needed to be put in place, even if it did decrease production.
For one thing, stuff that blew up making big holes in the ground and mushroom clouds needed to be off on their own, away from other businesses and her husband, dammit!
Congress, Ufa Kremlin
July 19, 1637
Vera’s speech was moving and her proposal for a congressional investigation into the cause of the accident wasn’t unreasonable, but . . . The plan to put a moratorium on new chemical works until the cause was determined was shouted down. The demand that if they weren’t going to shut them down, they at least had to move them away from other factories and people’s homes passed in the House and the Senate, and was approved by both consuls.
But it ran into Olga Petrovichna Polzin, the effective mayor of Ufa (though her husband still held the official title) who insisted that such regulations were a matter for the city government of Ufa, not the federal government, and not even the state government. Olga didn’t object to the regulation nearly as much as she objected to the precedent that the federal government could impose regulations on the city without even consulting her. She brought suit, and within a week the case landed in Czar Mikhail’s in-basket.
It happened that fast because both Olga and Vera knew all three members of the Sovereign States Supreme Court and their wives. Which meant that none of the judges wanted to be on the record as ruling against either of those two formidable women.
Office of the czar, Ufa Kremlin
July 26, 1637
“Have a seat, ladies,” Czar Mikhail said, “and let’s work this out.”
The office was a large room. The walls were stained wood to a height of three feet, then white painted plaster above the wood. There was a large stove for heat in one corner. Not in use at present, except for a small fire to make tea. There was a couch that he gestured the women to, and four chairs before the large desk.
Vera and Olga took their seats. Czarina Evdokia and Princess Brandy Gorchakov were already seated. With Vera and Olga involved, Czar Mikhail wisely wanted support. Brandy’s son, Mikey, was just over a year old and in the care of one of the czarina’s ladies in waiting, along with the youngest of the czar’s children. After the trip from Grantville, Brandy was less insistent that baby Mikey go with them everywhere.
“Olga, you first,” Mikhail said, looking at the thin woman with graying hair and frown lines around her mouth.
“I don’t want the congress making laws and regulations for the city of Ufa,” Olga said. “You know what will happen. Someone will bribe a congressman and all of a sudden Ufa cloth merchants will have to wear purple robes or some such silly thing, because it will give the cloth merchants of Kazan an advantage. Or, for that matter, the cloth merchant that has cornered the purple cloth market. Most of the congress won’t care, because it doesn’t affect their cities.”
“Vera.”
“So instead we have anarchy, where every city decides for itself, and no one is safe because the local mayor got a bribe to let them dump their waste in the drinking water. Or, as is the case here, put a bomb next door to where other people are working. And don’t tell me that a local mayor can’t be bribed.” Vera’s voice was tense.
“Maybe they can,” Olga said. “But at least they’ll be living in the same city they made dangerous. You congress people are only visiting. Well, most of you are. Even you, Vera. Your official residence is in New Ruzuka, and you spend a lot of your time there. So you guys won’t face the consequences of whatever stupid, unthought-out rule you put in place because you’re upset about something.”
“Brandy, what do you think?” Czar Mikhail looked at the up-timer woman. She was tall and thin, with clear blue eyes and smooth skin, and the amazingly straight teeth that most up-timers had.
“As loath as I am to suggest this,” Brandy said, “I think we need another bureau.”
“No!” Czarina Evdokia said, holding her hands up to hide her eyes. “Not that.” Then she laughed. “Why do you think we need another bureau, Brandy?”
“Because it helped prevent mine accidents in West Virginia and kept the mine owners from forcing miners to risk their lives unnecessarily.” Brandy had grown up in a mining town with miners who remembered the company goons and the all too often fatal working conditions. While not a fan of intrusive government in general, in some cases she figured it was necessary. The truth was that she’d been seriously concerned about the corners that had been being cut from the moment she’d arrived in Ufa. Actually, she’d been concerned about the corners cut since the Ring of Fire happened. Because it wasn’t just Ufa. Those same corners were being cut in Magdeburg, Amsterdam, Venice, and Vienna. The new tech of the up-timers were, on balance, making the world safer than it had been, but people were still putting other people’s lives at risk to make a buck, or in this case, a ruble. “What we need are professionals who have a real understanding of the risks involved and can make educated decisions based on risk and cost. And when they put regs in place, those regulations need to be applied all over the Sovereign States, not just in one city.”
That didn’t end the argument, but it set in place a foundation for a new approach. Meanwhile, Czar Mikhail found for Olga on the basis that while congress did have the authority to make laws governing all of the Sovereign States, it didn’t have the authority to make laws that applied only to Ufa, and not Kazan, Shavgar or other places. That killed the bill in congress because the representatives of other cities weren’t going to impose such restrictions on their home towns.
✧ ✧ ✧
In the meantime, in consultation with the Dacha, Olga and the city council of Ufa put in place a set of regulations about the placement of buildings and what sort of industry could be placed where. Which, among other things, necessitated that the New Rezuka Foundry move to new quarters that were too far from the Kremlin to walk easily. On the other hand, they set up a steam trolley that went for an eight-mile route and was within reasonable walking distance of most of the town.
East of the Southern Ural Mountains
August 2, 1637
Ivan Yurisovich looked at his maps, then he looked around. He was in forested hills, rocks breaking up the grass as much as the trees did. There were birds in the trees and the grass was starting to turn to straw. There were nuts in the trees. It was a pleasant place even in August. Ivan was a large man with a thick brown beard. His clothing and boots were machine made, but designed for rough work. He was southwest of the Berezovsky gold mine. He wasn’t sure how far southwest because no one knew exactly where the Berezovsky gold mine was. The information from Grantville on this was maddeningly incomplete. It, for instance, didn’t mention at all the gold mine found in Kazakh, but there were quartz deposits here and the other indicators were good, so he pulled out his metal detector.
It had two wheels and weighed sixty pounds, what with the batteries and other components, but it worked. The copper coil produced a magnetic field and resonated with metal deposits in the ground.
For the next day and a half, Ivan Yurisovich got gradually more and more excited as he moved his metal detector over the dry stream bed and found more and more gold. Most of it was powder, but as he went upstream, the bits got bigger.
Then, on August fifth, he found the main vein. It wasn’t the Berezovsky gold deposit, not nearly. But it was big. Making careful notes on his maps, he collected up his gold, his equipment, and his mules, and headed back to Ufa.
Czar’s palace, Ufa, Russia
August 8, 1637
Mikhail woke in a cold sweat. He suffered nightmares. He had since he was sixteen and they’d only gotten worse for most of his reign as czar of Russia. They’d gotten worse until Bernie Zeppi showed up and Mikhail was introduced to the concept of democracy and, especially, representative democracy.
Evdokia stirred beside him. She rolled over to face him and said, “Again?”
Mikhail laid back into the pillows. “Yes! I truly hate royalty. I despise the whole concept.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Evdokia said. “You’ve mentioned that before.”
“And I hate being the czar most of all.”
“I know, Mikhail,” Evdokia agreed again, softer this time. Mikhail, like Claudius of Rome, didn’t want the crown, but had never found a way to put it down. And for much the same reason, the fear of anarchy. “Was it the Time of Troubles again?” she asked. Mikhail’s nightmares often repeated themes. The “Time of Troubles” nightmare had seen the family die or Mikhail abdicate, then all of Russia collapsing into anarchy, famine, and war. The mothers of slain sons condemning him before God for failing to do his duty. They would point at the bodies of their dead children and scream that he should have stopped it.
“Yes. This time the Kazakhs were condemning me too.”
“Put it aside, Mikhail. Stick to the plan.” She reached over and turned a switch and an actual lightbulb came on. There were a few even here in Ufa and, of course, the czar’s bed chamber had one. Two. One on her side of the bed and one on his. She looked at her husband. Mikhail was a chubby man, not at all the sort of man anyone would imagine leading armies or leading a country. But, gradually, over their marriage, Evdokia had learned that appearances lied. In spite of his appearance and what he thought about himself, she had come to realize that Mikhail was the strongest man she’d ever met.
“Yes, of course,” Mikhail snarled. “First, send my boy general out to fight the best, most experienced, commanders in Russia to a standstill. Then, of course, convince Shein and the governments of all the states to follow Salqam-Jangir Khan’s example, and actually join the United Sovereign States. And, having done that, protect them from anyone who has a grudge to settle against them or just wants what they have.” Mikhail rolled over to face her and pounded his pillow. “And while I’m at it, I’ll stick one of Vlad’s internal combustion engines up my bum and fly us all to the moon.”
“You’ve been talking to Bernie too much,” Evdokia said.
“That one came from Brandy.” Mikhail grinned at her. “Your buddy can be exceedingly crude, you know.”
“Well, you can skip the moon part,” Evdokia said. Then she reached out and touched his cheek. “I hate royalty too, you know. I was almost poisoned too.” Mikhail’s first wife had only lasted four months and it was almost certain that his mother had poisoned her.
“So we learn how to make representative democracy work. And we can learn new things, my husband. We’ve proved that. And we will find ways of keeping in contact with the rest of the world. Ports on the east, a land route, maybe south around Poland, but some way of staying in contact with the USE so we don’t fall behind the West again. And then, if we’re very lucky, Alexi will be able to reign instead of rule, and no one will try to murder him for the crown.” She patted his cheek again. “Then those mothers will be blessing your name. At least some of them. Now, go to sleep because, for now at least, you still have to make decisions and those decisions will, if we’re lucky, keep us all alive and even most of our people.”
Mikhail looked at his wife. She was a chubby woman with brown hair and brown eyes. And he loved her with all his heart. He, in turn, reached out and touched her cheek.
She leaned in and kissed him. “Now go to sleep. There will be more meetings tomorrow.”