The Jew looked in Marshall's eyes with a questioning look on his face.

"Get on with it!" Marshall now started to wonder where this was going.

"We want to build a railroad."

Marshall's eyes widened. "Now, that's interesting. And who's 'we'?"

"Hmmm. 'We' are people who have money and estates. I heard that is the first precondition to building a railroad."

Uh-huh. A bunch of German nobles! They've found a new hobbyhorse.

Aloud Marshall said: "But that's not enough. You'll need steel, a whole lot of steel. And there isn't much of it in this world at the moment."

"At the moment, this is true," Nasi confirmed. "But that will change. Everything will change, and we don't want to be left behind.

"I've read books on railroad companies, and it seems they always needed years between the decision and turning the first sod. And we don't even have a company. Only a vision." He pointed to Marshall's model railroad. "A vision of trains."

"Well, that's a modelrailroad. I never worked on the real thing. You understand the difference?" But something nagged at him.

"Haven't you seen The Flight of the Phoenix? I have," Nasi said.

Oh yeah, I'm the German model plane builder, and you're the Americans to get out of the desert with a real plane.

"Sure, but that's the movies, not real life."

The Jew grinned. "Do you doubt your own expertise? In the Gardens it sounded otherwise."

Marshall didn't hesitate a second. "No! On paper I know everything."

Nasi shrugged. "You don't actually need to build a train now. We want you to investigate on the possibilities. We need someone who knows about it. And not only from the books. You're an engineer; you know what is important and what isn't."

Marshall frowned. "And if I accept, hypothetically, what do you think, I should do? Where do 'we' want to build this railroad?"

"Do you know the Via Regia, the High Road?"

Marshall's frown deepened. "From Frankfurt to Leipzig? Through the Vogelsberg and the Rhon? Two hundred miles for a start? You're kidding."

"And what about the Thuringian part of it? At the moment we are not interested in Saxony or Hesse."

"Hmmm." Marshall went to his bed and seized a large folder from under it. He opened it and revealed a stack of maps. He had bought any railroad map of the world he could get. Starting with England, Germany was second.

"This is the Thuringia Railroad in the old timeline." He pointed to the cities. "From the Werra via Eisenach, Gotha, Erfurt, Weimar, Apolda, Naumburg to Wei?enfels. It's rather flat, not a single large river. Towns like a bead chain. It's a good place to start."

"And we didn't even know if it's good or bad." Nasi beamed. "And we don't have such a map. Each city you mentioned is a day's walk for an ox team, and how long with the train?"

Marshall shrugged again. "Twenty miles? Forty minutes with the Adler, that was the first locomotive in Germany. At the time of the Ring of Fire it would have taken about ten minutes."

"So the gain is larger if we build the first railroad, than all they managed afterwards. Reducing the complete east-west trip through Thuringia to three hours instead of five days. That's wonderful."

"But we still haven't enough steel. We can't build it now." Marshall straightened. "But you're right. We can start it."

"See?" Ruben smiled. "Now you said 'we' yourself. It seems that railroads have this influence on men. Deal?"

Marshall extended his hand. Ruben's smile widened when he took it.

"Deal."

Happy the age, happy the time, in which shall be made known my deeds of fame.

Rudolstadt, County of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt

July 1632

When Marshall approached Rudolstadt on the gravel road, he could see Schloss Heidecksburgsitting on a little hill on his left. It was by far the largest building in the little town. And he could see that the owner obviously felt it was not large enough. A scaffold on its left side showed clearly that the current count intended to enlarge it farther.

Another way to spend excess money.

He turned right and shortly after reached the inn " Zum Adler," easily recognizable by the iron eagles on poles over the roof. Here Melchior was supposed to wait for him.

"Willkommen in Rudolstadt, Sorr."

Marshall scrutinized the young, glasses-wearing, portly German while he noticed Melchior scrutinizing him, the tall, gaunt-featured, almost-fifty American.

The American had no problem understanding the German greeting. Marshall had lived in Nuremberg in the late 1960s, working for the U.S. Army and teaching the German civilian employees engineering and safety guidelines. He knew that "Sorr" was meant to be "sir."

"So you're my 'tour guide' for the next few months, Melchior?"

"Yess, Sorr. It will be an honor to serve you and show you every nice corner of three duchies and a Catholic bishopric under Swedish occupation."

This was a description of a less than hundred miles' journey. In West Virginia, they could have stayed in the state for more than twice the distance, and West Virginia only ranked forty-first by size among the U.S. states.

In fact, the whole of Thuringia was smaller than even Hawaii, but at the moment consisted of about twenty different principalities in more than thirty separate areas. Two Reichsstadte-free Imperial cities-several parts that belonged to Hessians or Saxons, tiny pieces belonging to the Brandenburgers or God-knows-who. And of course, any of that could change any day.

So crossing only four borders on this journey was a rather small number.

Marshall stopped his thoughts from straying too far away and concentrated on the current point.

"Do you have the supplies I wanted?"

"Oh, yess, Sorr. Fresh food, soap for washing, thick woolen blankets for the nights and a tent. And the maps-" He wanted to fetch them from his bag, but Marshall stopped him.

"Not here, not now. I think we should take advantage of the good weather and ride at least one more hour. We ought to reach Kahla before noon, and along the Saale we won't need maps."

Marshall was not completely happy about staying in the saddle for another hour, but they were still too near Grantville, and a visitor might recognize him on his confidential mission. So he decided to keep moving.

Gasthaus zum Stadttor, Kahla, Duchy of Saxe-Altenburg

"Yess, Sorr, Count Tilly stayed in this inn last year on his way to Breitenfeld," Melchior loudly commented on the paintings on the walls of the inn. "We Germans are not much concerned if he's friend or enemy. In fact, that may change from one day to another. Martin Luther also slept here in 1524, and Emperor Charles the Fifth when he wasn't emperor yet."

Marshall looked around. The inn was built-according to a sign on the outside-in 1491, and had apparently not been cleaned since then. But that was something he had to live in tonight and live with in the future. He could have stayed in Grantville, but had decided otherwise.

"So you can now show me those maps you have. There apparently hasn't been an American in here yet."