Grantville Gazette, Volume 40 (23 page)

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It took them a month to get the shop built. Meanwhile, Paul Eisenhauer moved into one of the vacant houses in the village, and started making sulfuric acid. He made it the way they made it in the seventeenth century, in small glass containers, a little at a time. Once Gordon saw that he took Paul into Grantville and they looked up ways to make sulfuric acid. There they found the lead chamber process, which wasn't all that different than what Paul was already doing except that it used larger containers lined with lead plus a few bells and whistles that Paul had never thought of.

Elzbeth had noticed that Gordon got upset when she looked at Paul or he looked at her and found she was rather pleased by Gordon's reaction. Paul was pretty enough, meticulously groomed with a practiced smile and studiously pleasant manner. But it seemed to Elzbeth that his interest in her would last no longer than it took him to find our how she reacted. It wasn't that Paul was evil, or even heartless, but the only things that were real to him were his chemicals and experiments.

She was real to Gordon, and that was enticing. So she paid attention to Paul and was pleased by Gordon's reaction. It probably took Paul all of five minutes to figure out what was going on, but he played along. It was, after all, just one more experiment with potentially interesting results. Paul had had only limited opportunity to study up-timers.

****

Their first battery was built using the acid that Paul made in his in his glass jars, heavy lead plates and ceramic beer mugs. They could get them cheap and now. And the very first battery they made worked.

Just not very well.

It put out the right voltage, a little over two volts per cell. But the amperage was minuscule. That wasn't much of a surprise. Just a little reading had shown Gordon that that would be the result. A discharged lead acid battery has two electrodes each coated in lead sulfide and dilute sulfuric acid. A charged lead acid battery has stronger sulfuric acid and two electrodes, one of which is pure lead and the other is lead dioxide. A battery made with two lead electrodes will work . . . just not all that well. But lead dioxide can be made electrochemically using sulfuric acid, a lead electrode, and a copper electrode. It can also be made in other ways.

They experimented all through 1632. They built, charged, discharged, and rebuilt batteries, using power from the Grantville grid. They made lead dioxide in several ways, finally settling on the way that worked best for their circumstances. They made pastes of lead oxide and sulfuric acid and applied them to different lead alloy plates, which had different shapes to try and maximize surface area and strength.

****

It was in June of 1632 that Gordon caught a ride into Grantville with Karl Baum along to push his chair. Elzbeth was busy with Karl's wife. Gordon had timed it that way. In town he went to see Judge Maurice Tito and had a new will made, making Elzbeth his heir. Gordon swore Karl to secrecy because he didn't want Elzbeth to know.

****

A couple of weeks later, Dori Ann asked pointedly, "
When
are you going to go into full production?"

Gordon winced. It was a very good question. The bank had actually been very forgiving of the time it had taken them to work out the details of how to make deep-cycle lead acid batteries. The village of Bechstedt was a much improved place. Some people were investing in indoor plumbing and septic tanks. As well, the village had their own kiln where they made their own stoneware battery cases. They had big lead-lined wooden troughs in which they made sulfuric acid. They had a variety of lead molds and a furnace to melt the lead to pour into the molds. Every house in the village had electricity, used mostly for cooking and heating. They used the batteries they made to power the houses as a test. It would have been easy enough to hook them up to the power from Grantville, but using their experimental batteries let them test things like how long it took for them to run down.

In truth, they could have been in production at least two months earlier but Paul Eisenhauer kept coming up with new innovation's they needed to try before going into production. New plate surface shape, new charge measuring tubes, new mixes of the lead dioxide and sulfuric. It went on and on . . . there were thousands of ways to make a deep-cycle lead acid battery. Most of them worked and each of them had advantages and disadvantages.

"We have several new versions of the batteries that need to be tested," Paul told Dori Ann with his engaging smile. "We are making excellent progress and taking some extra time now will save cost in the long run."

Dori Ann looked at Paul, then at Gordon. "It's time, Gordon, to shoot the engineer and put your batteries into production."

Gordon looked over at Paul, smiled and said, "Sounds like a plan to me."

Elzbeth laughed.

"You don't mean that literally, I hope?" Paul asked, his smile looking just a bit forced.

"Tempting as the thought is . . ." Gordon said, because Paul's eternal quest for the perfect battery and his superior attitude had been getting on everyone's nerves, ". . . no. It just means that we can't afford to wait till you're ready. It is time to put the best design we have ready now into production, even if it's not the best possible design."

Paul argued. That was inevitable. But they went into production.

****

They had a limited stock by Christmas of 1632. The batteries they made sucked compared to up-time batteries, but so what. They weren't competing with up-time batteries. Besides, Gordon pointed out, up-time batteries suck compared to gas tanks for power to weight.

It didn't matter. The batteries they made could power a fork lift or move a wagon ten miles or more before they had to be recharged. And electric cars don't need the hard-to-come-by gasoline that internal combustion requires. And it turned out that there were more people who wanted electric cars than there were electric cars.

Most of their sales were to homes and small businesses that needed, or wanted, some electricity but were too far from the Ring of Fire to conveniently hook up to the grid. Customers could rent charged battery packs a wagonload at a time and bring them back to Bechstedt when the charge ran low. Then the customer could exchange them for a fully-charged pack and be on their way. The deposit on the rented batteries was refundable when the batteries were returned. Mostly though, the deposit was just moved to the new battery pack.

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In March of 1633 Bernhard Kunze came to them with a proposal. "It's a wagon shop in Arnstadt," he said. "They make farm wagons and buggies. They have been interested in the up-timers ever since the Ring of Fire. Like the rest of us, first afraid, then interested in what up-timer knowledge could do to affect their business. They got interested in wheels, then in steam engines, which they make themselves. Well, they visited Karl Schmidt about a week ago and saw that forklift you built for him."

"We didn't. Build it, I mean," Gordon said. "Karl's foundry made most of it and TwinLoPark made the innards. All we did was supply the batteries." Truth be told, in Gordon's opinion it wasn't much of a fork lift, anyway. But he kept his mouth shut. Bernhard Kunze was a major player in Badenburg.

"They want to make electric cars and they want you to make the batteries for them."

"I don't see why not." Gordon shrugged. "The Arnstadt Electric Car Company?"

"No, the name of the shop is Pomal Wagons. They have registered in Grantville and are now a stock corporation. We should do the same, by the way."

Gordon considered that. "We would want to give the employees stock, and I don't want it all to come out of my share. For that matter, until the loans are paid off, the bank would have to approve any change in the structure of the company."

"I'll talk to Herr Walker about it."

That would probably help a lot. Coleman Walker hadn't said a word to Gordon since the Ring of Fire. Heck, Coleman hadn't said more than a few words to Gordon in the thirty-plus years they had known each other. And that was before he became Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank. The battery factory was turning into a successful business, but there were a lot of successful businesses these days.

They talked about taking the company public. And who would get how much stock.

Bernhard was not one to cheat the employees. But neither of them wanted control to get lost. So they would have preferred stock as well as common, with many of the employees getting considerable preferred stock.

****

Dori Ann briefed Coleman on the battery factory and he agreed that the factory was now worth considerably more than they had loaned. Then Coleman told her about the proposal to take the company public and asked her if the bank should convert the loan to preferred stock.

"The way the market is acting right now, the bank would make a lot more by taking the loan in preferred stock and selling the stock."

"Do it that way then," Coleman Walker told her.

And that was that.

****

They made their deal with Pomal Wagons two weeks after the company went public with a nice bounce. It was a stock trade. Pomal was short on cash just then and Bozarth Batteries was flush. So Gordon and Reinhard ended up owning about five percent of Pomal Wagons and Carts. In the long run, that proved a good investment.

****

"Hey, Uncle Gordon. Who's the dish?"

Gordon and Elzbeth were sitting at their picnic table outside when Triple B showed up. And immediately ticked Gordon off with his leering at Elzbeth.

"Haven't seen you in three years now, Bobby Billy Bell," Gordon said, knowing that Bobby hated that name. Good, as far as Gordon was concerned.

"Well, I've been busy. You know. The war and all."

Right
, Gordon thought. "The army send you off?"

"Not exactly. Drill and stuff. Teaching the down-timers how to fight."

"It seems to me they already know that," Gordon said. "Otherwise it would be the Thirty Years' Shouting Match or the Thirty Years' Spitting Contest."

"You know what I mean. The down-timers don't know crap about modern war. That stand-and-take-it crap is just stupid."

Gordon basically agreed with that but didn't think that was what had kept Triple B away. And he was pretty sure what had brought him here now. When Bozarth Batteries went public,
The Street
reported on the value of his stock. Gordon was a millionaire now. The total value of his stock was one point three million dollars. Bernhard had almost a million in BB stock but that was the smaller part of his portfolio and his father was even richer. Elzbeth and Paul each had almost fifty thousand worth and most of the villagers had at least thousands in stock. Most of them were holding onto it to.

"Elzbeth, how about getting us a couple of beers?" Gordon asked.

She stood, passing close to Triple B as she headed into the trailer. And Triple B ran his hand across her butt. She stiffened and gave him a dirty look. Gordon stood up, slammed his hand down on the table and said, "Never mind, Elzbeth. Bobby Billy won't be staying."

"Now, look, Uncle! No reason to get all upset. She's just a maid!"

"No, she's not. She's about to be your aunt."

It was hard to tell who was the most surprised, Triple B, Elzbeth or Gordon.

****

That night, once they'd gotten rid of an enraged Bobby Billy, Gordon's legs were giving him more trouble than usual.

"
Uhhhh
," he grunted. "Damn brat. Come out here and make trouble. It's got me tied up in knots."

"Lay down, Gordon. I massage those legs," Elzbeth said.

It couldn't be claimed that the massage helped with the medical problem, because it didn't. But it sure felt good. And Gordon realized that with the proper stimulation, he didn't actually need Viagra.

****

That having been established, they put up the banns the next day. Six weeks later, Elzbeth and Gordon Bozarth were married, right there in the village of Bechstedt. And shortly after that, Gordon went to see Judge Maurice Tito again, to make sure that his will reflected his wishes and was as unbreakable as the law could make it.

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"Anyway," Johan said, "When Gordon died a few months later, Triple B tried to challenge the will on the grounds of undue influence. And Judge Tito threw him out of court. I understand he's appealed to the USE Supreme Court now that there is a USE, but no one with any sense expects it to go anywhere. Elzbeth and Bernhard run the company and it's doing pretty well."

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Second Chance Bird, Episode Nine

Written by Garrett W. Vance