1633

"Danish, Spanish, and French," Gretchen murmured to herself, then looked back at Rebecca and raised an eyebrow. "That accounts for everyone but the English," she observed. "Where do you think they fit into all this?"

Rebecca shrugged.

"At this point, I don't have the least notion," she acknowledged. "They have a much greater interest in the Baltic's naval stores than the French, and I would think they would be unlikely to support anyone who threatened to monopolize access to them. That should mean they would be as opposed to giving the Danes dominance of the Baltic as to leaving it with Gustavus, so perhaps they intend to remain neutral in all this. God knows the rumors suggest Charles faces troubles enough domestically without borrowing still more in foreign adventures! But what matters most is the French. The French… and the Spanish."

She shook her head decisively and moved over to the table where Jimmy had set up the radio equipment. To his right, sticking out of the third-story window, was a hexagonal thing with a coil in the middle on the end of a stick. Even to Rebecca, who was not very familiar with radio, the antenna looked bizarre. It was large in cross-section, too-almost three feet across in its widest dimension.

Gayle Mason and the two other Extra-class hams in Grantville had built the thing, along with an identical one carried by the mission to London. They called it an "isotron design," and had chosen it because it could be packed up to fit easily in a trunk and didn't require a tall antenna.

Jimmy was fiddling with the radio, which was getting nothing but static. To his left, sitting on a nearby chair, one of the German soldiers was stoically pedaling away at a small contraption which they'd bolted to the floor. That provided the power source for the radio, and had also been designed by Gayle and her cohorts. Jimmy had told Gretchen that it was modeled on a device first pioneered in the early 20 th century by people in the Australian outback.

For a moment, Gretchen was almost overwhelmed by an urge to laugh. There was something peculiarly comical about her situation. There she was, in a house in Holland, a girl born in 17 th -century central Germany, consorting with Americans from centuries in the future, who, in turn, were relying on a gadget which had been designed in a country which didn't exist yet-on a continent which had only recently been discovered by Europeans.

She saw Rebecca giving her a cocked eye, with a smile on her face.

"Yes," murmured the young Sephardic woman. "It is all a bit… twisted."

Rebecca turned to Jimmy and laid a hand on his shoulder. "No luck with England?"

His long, half-muttered reply meant very little to Gretchen. Not because his voice was too low but simply because the words themselves were meaningless. To anyone, at least, except someone who shared his technical jargon.

"There's a lot of static, but the bands are clean, since we're the only folks on the air. So there's no QRM, and the QRN ain't too bad-probably some thunderstorms causing that-and it wasn't any real problem making the QSO earlier with SK-1."

Rebecca rolled her eyes. Jimmy plowed on: "But if they're having any kinda problem in London getting that antenna outside-like maybe they've gotta keep it hidden in a room-bad business that, you don't want to get too close to an operating antenna with them kinda voltages-so-"

"Jimmy!" exclaimed Rebecca. "Could you please translate all that into English?"

The youngster started in his chair. "Oh. Sorry. What I mean is…" The effort of abandoning his beloved acronyms was obvious on his furrowed brow. " 'QRM' is interference caused by other radio stations. In the here and now, that's not gonna be a problem. Not for a while, anyway. 'QRN' means noise caused by… uh, God, basically. You know, bad weather, that kinda thing. 'QSO' just means 'contact made.' "

"Three syllables saved by using three other syllables," chuckled Rebecca. "Sometimes I think Americans suffer from a bizarre form of dementia that manifests itself in a compulsive urge to use acronyms."

Jimmy stared up at her, confused. Rebecca smiled sweetly. "Never mind. And what does 'SK-1' stand for?"

"Oh. That's a station call sign. Gotta have 'em."

"Why?" mumbled Gretchen. But-perhaps fortunately-Jimmy didn't hear her.

" 'SK-1' is Magdeburg. Chester'll be guarding the sked there. Uh… that means he's monitoring the frequency at scheduled times. Which, for him, means pretty much the first four hours after nightfall."

" 'SK-1.' " Rebecca rolled the syllables over her tongue, smiling. "Again, three syllables for three. I admit the logic escapes me."

Jimmy was frowning. "You gotta have call signs, Becky! It's-it's-just the way it's done, that's all. Grantville's 'W-1.' People got 'em too. I'm 'NШOXF'-"

"Instead of the two-syllable 'Jimmy,' " murmured Rebecca.

"-and Gayle's 'KC6EU'-"

"Instead of the one-syllable 'Gayle.' "

"-you just don't understand!" The last was practically a wail.