Hesse-Kassel's face looked as sour as a pickle. But, as his eyes came toward the end of the message, the expression began to lighten.
"Huh," he grunted. "I thought this Simpson fellow was some sort of semi-barbarian. You told me-"
Saxe-Weimar looked slightly embarrassed. He'd had no good words to say himself, about the campaign which Simpson had run against Mike Stearns the year earlier. Simpson himself could claim, as he had once to Wilhelm in private, when Wilhelm had raised objections to him, that he had no personal prejudice against Germans. Saxe-Weimar was even inclined to believe him. But Simpson's followers had certainly not been so meticulous in their distinctions. Saxe-Weimar could still remember the sign which had adorned at least one tavern in Grantville: No dogs or Germans allowed.
"An injustice to the man," he said firmly. "I'm quite convinced of it now. Yes, he certainly made some mistakes. Bad ones too, in my opinion. But-" He gave Hesse-Kassel a glance. "Which of us can say he has not, eh?"
They'd reached the steps to the palace. Hesse-Kassel lowered the letter for a moment, to negotiate the steps. Glancing up at the still-unfinished but massive edifice, he grunted again. "Not Germany's princes, that's sure and certain."
He tapped the letter with his thumb. "And I will say this last part certainly seems promising. Impressive, even, though of course I don't recognize any of the names."
Wilhelm didn't need to look at the letter again to know what Hesse-Kassel was talking about. Mike Stearns had ended the letter with a list of the various organizations Mary Simpson had once belonged to-in some cases, been the leader of.
"Yes, it is. Especially for Amalie, I think, given her patronage of the arts and sciences."
Hesse-Kassel grunted agreement again, walking up the steps and still reading the letter.
"What do you think this means? 'Board of Directors'? Sounds impressive, whatever it is."
Up in the sky, now many miles south of Magdeburg, Jesse gave Mike a somewhat sarcastic smile.
"Well? Do you feel better now, Mr. President? After wasting all that valuable fuel, I mean."
Mike's responding smile was serene. "I'd rather waste gas and ink than waste blood, Jesse."
"Um. Okay. I'll buy that."
Chapter 34
The cabinet meeting that began that evening, soon after Mike returned to Grantville, was the stormiest one in months. In some ways, the stormiest ever.
It began with a squall and escalated from there. Throughout, not to Mike's surprise, Quentin Underwood was at the center of it. Like the eye of a hurricane, except this eye was not calm at all.
"Look, I know it's going to be a pain in the ass! Unfortunately, that doesn't mean we don't have to do it. So quit telling me all about how we can't, and figure out how we can!"
Mike Stearns glared at the available members of his cabinet. At this particular moment, he missed Rebecca badly, and not just because she was his wife. And he missed Melissa Mailey almost as badly. This was definitely not the sort of crisis Melissa was best equipped to cope with, but her uniquely astringent version of calm would have been far more welcome than the exasperated expressions looking back at him.
"It's all fine and good to sit there waving your hands in the air telling us we have to do something," Quentin Underwood growled. "Have you really considered exactly how we're supposed to accomplish this miracle for you?"
"Eddie was already pulling together the first barge loads before Jesse flew me home again," Mike said flatly. "They've recalled Meteor and Metacomet to tow the barge strings downriver, and Eddie and Simpson promised me they'd have Meteor underway with the first consignment before dark. If they can manage that, then I am not going to accept any bullshit about how we can't do our part!"
Mike was genuinely annoyed. Meteor and Metacomet were the first pair of several planned sternwheel river tugs powered by Grantville-built steam engines. They weren't fast, but they were much faster than tow horses, and their two-foot drafts were shallow enough to navigate virtually any water deep enough to float a barge-all of which Quentin knew perfectly well, since he was counting on them to provide much of the transportation for the petroleum he was starting to produce at Wietze.
"But they're already on a damned river!" Underwood snarled. "In case you haven't noticed, we're not!"
"Gosh, really?" Mike glared at the other man, and for just a moment, they were once again union and management locked in mortal combat. But then both of them drew deep breaths, almost simultaneously, and shoved themselves back in their chairs.
"Look, Quentin," Mike said in his most reasonable tone, "I know we're looking at a major operation here. Hell, why do you think I've been pushing the rail link to Halle so hard?"
"Which," Underwood pointed out, "we'd have been in a far better position to have finished by now if we hadn't diverted all of those railroad rails to Simpson's damned fleet."
Mike glared at him, and this time several of his fellow cabinet members-including Frank Jackson and Ed Piazza-joined him.
"Quentin, don't be a fuckhead," Jackson said bluntly. The ex-mine manager turned an interesting shade of red, but Jackson went on before he could explode. "You know I was just as pissed off as you were when Simpson-well, Eddie and Simpson, if we're going to be picky-skimmed off all those rails. Not for the same reasons, maybe. But I purely hated to see all that high-grade steel disappearing. But just you ask yourself where we'd be right now if Simpson hadn't been sitting over there in Magdeburg building his little empire… and the boats that're going to kick the Danes' asses!"
"All right," Underwood allowed after a moment. "I'll grant that much-assuming he does get them finished and floated all the way out to sea! But," he rejoined in a voice which was calmer but no less stubborn, "that still doesn't change the fact that we don't have a railroad link from here to Halle. And won't, not for some time." His lips curled a bit. "Not even these dinky wooden rails with an iron cap we're calling a 'rail line,' with pathetic cargoes being pulled as often as not by 'locomotives' made up of a pickup truck-or even just a team of horses."
Mike grit his teeth. One of the many things he didn't like about Underwood was the man's refusal to let anything drop. For better or worse-and in Mike's opinion they'd had no choice-the decision to go with "light" railroads had been made months earlier. Quentin had been opposed, for the same reason the man always was whenever stretched resources required compromises. He wanted what he wanted, damnation, there's an end to it-and he'd make sure to let you know how he felt about it forever afterward. "Spilt milk" and "what's done is done" were not in Underwood's list of stock phrases. "Beat a dead horse," on the other hand, seemed to be right at the top. If he'd been present at the Creation, Mike thought sourly, he'd still be nattering at God for having made the waters out of sequence.
"But we do have a road link," Mike pointed out, through tight jaws. "And we still have some of the coal trucks and the three semi tractors. We've been holding them for use in case of an emergency. Well, Quentin, just what do you call this?"