Part 6 (2/2)
”Well, you have to be alive, or they won't let you fight in it It's a rule What if you could render great service to your lord the duke in that war? What if you could be on high and see exactly where the enerace of their everyfame?”
”By God it would! I must start on another balloon immediately!”
”Not a balloon, my lord A balloon would drift away frostock
Some would even say you ran away”
”We could tether it”
”And what if the battle moved, as they sometimes do? Anyway, you sahat happened to your last tether”
”What are you suggesting then?”
”Let's go the whole route and build aircraft! An airplane can be piloted up or down at will You can fly them in any direction you want and you can outrace the wind!”
”But you said that aircraft were too complicated for us to build!”
”They will certainly not be easy It will take us years, but think of the prize to be won To fly like a bird!”
”If men can do it, Sir Conrad, ill! Hoe start?”
”I think ill need to build a whole town dedicated to flight We will need some of the best carpenters and seaners, we should start with young boys We will start with boys ten or twelve years old and have them build ss, and we can save tirow, so will theirfull-sized aircraft”
”But why boys? Why not adults?”
The truth was that keeping tabs on a hundred boys would keep Count La people have free minds, my lord There's more work to be done than you and I can do in our lifetiine a bunch of peasants trying to learn how to fly? The merchants? The priests? It's ludicrous! And the nobles are too involved with their own affairs to give it their full energies”
”But boys would, especially if we took them to a neay froht be best if we restricted them to the sons of the nobility, because we'll need adults around to do the carpentry and so on, not toIt would be best if the boys had soht, Sir Conrad! What boy wouldn't ju the facilities You should pick the land We'll need about a squarehill on it Do you have such a place on your lands?”
”Several But I'm minded of the old tomb At least they say it was a tomb, but it could be just a hill for all I know You know Krak's toer It's also covered with trees, but we can make short work of that!”
”Excellent, my lord Is it far frohts show it to you Have your plans ready for just after the spring planting I can get you a thousand workers then”
”A thousand, my lord?”
”Two thousand, if you can use thehts send me a dozen peasants for two h to get us started, anyway We'll call the town Eagle Nest!”
”Yes, ht about the project, the et decent aircraft in the foreseeable future, but having a bunch of bright kids in what areat! Those were ive La up with a few dozen youngsters ear down any man!
On the other hand, itand suether at the same ti and the first hay harvest
When things get hairy, the ic word is KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid! Do what you've done before
Actually, the structures needed first were housing, just as at Three Walls
I'd start by ordering the saes where experience had shown a better way Only now I'd order two sets, one in Count Lao to the same craftsmen as before and des would be the same as at Three Walls, except I'd bend theht line as at Three Walls, because they would stand in the open instead of closing off a box canyon But the hard parts, the kitchen and bathrooned What'stheether two teams of experienced carpenters andthe construction phase, with peasants hired teo straight to Cieszyn and start ordering stuff, but all s and notes were back at Three Walls My head was bubbling withAt dawn the next day I was on the road again and in an hour I was talking to the Krakowski brothers
A year had made quite a difference in both them and the brass works Twelveto death, and each had lost a child during the winter Now they were solid, prosperous citizens They and their families were healthy and each had added a new member, with , with over fifty workers and twelve pouring ovens They had back orders for the brass parts for twenty-three winds
I told them that they now had four more windmills on order, and these took precedence over other work- Also, I needed all the plu we'd used at Three Walls duplicated twice, and had so to delay their other customers, but when I told them that half of the stuff was for Count Lambert and the rest was for Duke Henryk hily about being bumped by the duke It wasn't healthy!
Finally, I told theot their interest! They were all angry about the prices they'd been paying and the idea of digging and s their own copper appealed to them
Thom said that when he was a journeyman he worked at a smelter for a year, so I asked hi his wife behind for a fewwas up, but that didn't bother anyone It wasn't as though they were needs And I hinted that if the Legnica installation worked out well, we'd move the brass works from Cieszyn to there to cut down on transportation costs
We talked a bit about having an entire city devoted to theof brass and copper and I could see the lights going on in their eyes
I gave Thoht back, and he was suddenly depressed It wasn't any kind of copper ore he'd ever seen The ore he was used to was red-colored, and a little heavier I told him that it had to be roasted over an open fire before it could be smelted, and he said that he would try it But I could see that he had grave doubts about the project
I'd make a believer of him I hoped
I was lucky in that Tadeusz was back in Cieszyn froon Inn in Cracow It had already paid for its construction cost and was generating healthy profits
He was absolutely delighted that the duke hion Inn in Wroclaw, and vowed that within the week he would leave for that city no ave hi seal ring I also told hinica by the end of the su with blackset the tools I needed The duke's naot done in two days what had taken me two months last summer
I also looked up the cloth ereed upon He wasn't happy about the deal, because the price of cloth had dropped since we had agreed on the price, and he would loose h I never told him to be a capitalist!
Then back to Three Walls where people still weren't too clear about what had happened It took a full day withwhere to do what
And besides all of the above, as going on at Three Walls, and we had to agree on a schedule to keep things going even though ere losing two-thirds of our bestto hire a bunch of rookies
Most of those going to Eagle Nest would be co back, but the transfers to Copper City would be per a wonderful time!