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An Invisible War, Part I

Written by Danita Lee Ewing

Chapter One

June, 1633

1

Beulah MacDonald eased her spare frame into the padded leather chair in Dr. James Nichols' crowded office with a carefully hidden sigh of relief. Beulah, old girl, you're not up to those long hospital shifts anymore. A woman your age has no business on her feet twelve hours a day, most days of the week, turning patients, running a hospital and all that. Still, it wasn't as if there were many nurses around after the Ring of Fire. They could certainly use, oh, say a thousand fully trained registered nurses, a hundred nurse practitioners. And doctors. And pharmacists. Some physical and occupational therapists would be great, too. Enough trained people to handle everything that needed doing weren't just going to drop from the sky. Everyone had to help out where they could, including her. No more retirement checks and social security for you, m'dear.

"Here you go, Beulah. No cream and enough sugar to put any diabetic into a coma." James Nichols handed her a blue ceramic mug and shook his head in mock rebuke. His grin spoiled the effect a bit.

"I have to keep going somehow. I'm not diabetic you know, so a little sugar won't hurt me. At least we've got caffeine again, even if my arthritis is slowing me down some."

Beulah and James had developed a friendly sparring relationship when they were alone. When they were in public, acting in their roles as Director of Nursing and Director of Medicine, they were a little more formal but not too much. Beulah had never gone for that subservient nurse to the almighty doctor stuff in her entire forty-plus year career. She wasn't about to start at this late date even if James had been the type for that nonsense. Which he wasn't, thank God. She and James had worked together a great deal since the Ring of Fire, both in the field and here at the new Grantville hospital. Mutual respect for each other's expertise, a deep commitment to their patients and a shared sense of humor had helped them develop a strong friendship over the last two years. Since Beulah had worked in just about every kind of nursing over the years, she had been the logical (and nearly the only) choice to be the director of nursing at the new hospital after the Ring of Fire. They needed the younger nurses for the more physical work and the nurses older than she was were too old, too sick or dead now.

Still, she couldn't keep up this pace forever. The willow bark tea helped with the arthritis but it wasn't the same as her now unavailable prescriptions. Her hands wrapped stiffly around the hot mug of coffee. The heat helped the pain, as did the paraffin dips. Her definition of an old remedy was certainly changing, though. The paraffin dips had been something they did in the "old days." Without all the fancy medicines, surgeries and other treatments from the twentieth century, a lot of people were using old folk remedies or adapting ones from the 1630s. Which caused its own set of problems. No, not problems. Directors of nursing don't have problems, they have challenges, she reminded herself.

They sipped coffee in comfortable silence for several minutes. Outside James' door, she could hear the sounds of the hospital quieting down for the night. She could practically feel her tired muscles unknot as she sank deeper into the chair. Getting up again would be interesting, but James had known how sore her hips and knees were at the end of the day and had given her the most comfortable chair in the room. The thoughtfulness was as appreciated as the coffee and typical of the man.

She wasn't sure which of them spoke first, just general things at first, chatting about the staff, the hospital, difficult cases recently. So she was somewhat sandbagged by what he slipped in next.

"You want me to what!?"

No teasing grin lit James' face now. His tone was calm but determined. "Become the dean at the College of Medicine's new Health Sciences Department."

"I hate administration. Endless meetings. There's too much paperwork in the job I've got now. Being the dean of a brand new health sciences department will mean even more paperwork. Have you ever developed a course curriculum? Handouts, lecture notes, syllabi. Paper everywhere."

"No, I haven't developed a course. But you have," he countered smoothly.

"I taught nursing for twenty years at a community college. Part time. What we've all been talking about this past year is a multilevel training program for everything from nurses' aides to doctorally prepared researchers. I don't have the background for that. What about you or Balthazar? Balthazar knows everyone and the local educational system. He'd be perfect."

"Even if he weren't tied up with practice and helping train our spooks, Balthazar never fully recovered from his heart attack. You may be older chronologically, but he is older physically. The rest of the medically trained up-timers are needed for more direct patient care, although we'll all probably be doing some teaching and mentoring of students- especially the hands-on aspects of instruction. More importantly, most of us have never taught so much as a CPR course. We wouldn't know how to put together lectures, handouts or a syllabus. We're all being stretched in ways we never planned. You'll be great as the new dean."

James was good, she'd have to give him that. "What about education? Shouldn't a dean have more than a bachelor's degree? I never finished my master's degree as a midwife. Many of the faculty at Jena will have more formal education than I do."

If his snort was anything to go by, James didn't even pretend to consider that one. "You have more education than any other nurse around, up-time or down-time. You also have a great deal of experience in just about every area we need taught." James held up one hand to forestall the comment he could see forming on her lips. "Even if some of that experience is a little old, you've gotten back up to speed very quickly. Don't think I haven't seen how many times you wind up taking care of patients rather than office work. And most of your out-of-date stuff is still state of the art and then some here. Besides, some of your old-time knowledge is more within our current technology base's capabilities."

"I like taking care of patients and we're short staffed."

James pounced on that one. "Which isn't going to change unless we set up programs and start running students through them just as fast as we can. Besides, you told me you like teaching."

A distinctly mulish frown bloomed on Beulah's face. "That doesn't make me the right person for this. I'm already running the hospital."

"We needed you to set the hospital up and get it running. Things are going pretty well here now. You've got the administration side set up and running smoothly. The staff is oriented and trained. Starr Hunsaker can take over while you move on to developing the educational program. You won't exactly be alone doing it, either. We'll all help as much as we can. Getting people trained is a priority. We're staring down more years of war, not to mention smallpox, the plague and on and on. We have to have people ready or we're going to lose a hell of a lot of people, Beulah." James met Beulah's dark blue gaze in shared grief and frustration over the ones that had already been lost.

"We thought Mary Pat would be a good assistant for you," he continued. "She's already living with you, is young, smart and energetic and has come up through the ranks in the army. She's been a medical corpsman and LPN and is now experienced as an RN. She had good trauma experience in the army plus her experiences here. She'd really help you out creating the trauma courses. I'm sure the military will release her for detached service given how desperately they need people trained as medics, nurses and doctors. And almost all of Mary Pat's RN training was as an up-timer. That also works in her favor." James leaned forward in his chair, elbows on his knees, hands clasped loosely together. "We need you to get the ball rolling again, Beulah. You tend to make sure the practical details of setting things up don't get missed so everything runs as smoothly as possible. You know what you're doing, have lots of experience, know how to work as part of a team and get things done. And, frankly, you'd be training Mary Pat while you're at it. You've been acting as a mentor for her for nearly the entire time since the Ring of Fire. You curb some of her enthusiasm with experience. It's a good match, one we can't afford not to take as much advantage of as possible."

Ouch, another point to James, thought Beulah. Mary Pat Flanagan had come to the wedding of Rita Sterns Simpson the day of the Ring of Fire. Her entire large family was left behind, a wound that was still raw, although she hid it fairly well from the outside world. Beulah knew how much she missed them, though.

Beulah had taken Mary Pat into her home just to give her a place to stay at first. It wasn't like Beulah's brother needed his room anymore and space was at a premium in Grantville right after the Ring of Fire. Beulah had never married. There had been a few Mr. Almost Rights over the years, but never Mr. Right. She loved kids, though, and through her work had had "her" kids strung all across the state. But Mary Pat was more like the daughter she had always wanted. They had developed more than a mentoring or landlady and tenant relationship. Mary Pat had almost completed her training as an RN from West Virginia University up-time. Having Mary Pat as her assistant would make the job of dean a lot more doable, as James and the others had clearly realized. Mary Pat was smart, organized and capable.

James and company are getting way too good at this sneaky political stuff. He's hung around Mike too long.

His next sentence changed her mind.

"You'd also have help from Hayes Daniels."

"Hayes! Are you nuts!" Beulah protested, waving her mug around and wincing when her swollen knuckles hit the chair arm. The throbbing in her hand convinced her to be still but didn't change her glare. "He and I worked together on the nurses' aide/LPN course that they're teaching over at the tech center and the combat medics course. We don't exactly have a good working relationship. And Hayes wants everything done to his standards, his way. Like we have time for that. We needed good enough to get moving, make changes as we go, and we needed those aides pronto. Mary Pat's temper matches that red hair. Mary Pat would strangle him before we were done."

Hayes was the first Silicon Valley refugee she'd ever met. He'd worked in two high-flying startups, working too many thirty-six hour days figuring out how to teach the world how the Internet would change their lives. He'd finally decided that he'd had enough, and gotten out and come, of all places, to West Virginia, close to his friend Mike Sterns.

James shook his head. "I don't know that I agree with you on that entirely. The two of you got the job done and we're getting well trained aides, medics and LPNs now. We need to be sure we set up the best system we can from the beginning. The need right now is urgent but we won't do ourselves any favors if we cut too many corners in the name of expediency. Hayes is the only person we have who can take highly technical material and translate it into the course material we need to teach new staff, in any reasonable amount of time. We need him to help evaluate and organize the Jena material in particular. You'll be too busy setting everything else up to handle all the course materials, our teachers are busy teaching the kids, and no one else has enough of a background to even start the job."

The mulish frown was back on Beulah's face. "The faculty at Jena could do some of it."

"The faculty at Jena will do some of it but they're just getting up to speed on some of our basic science material themselves. They'll be one step ahead of the students the first few years. We need someone who can do some of the higher level knowledge synthesis now. And that someone is Hayes. I doubt that any of the Jena faculty even understand some of the biology and chemistry concepts from our era."

"Look, James," Beulah said, running a hand over short curly hair, "I like Hayes, I really do. He's smart and talented and a genuinely nice guy. Hell of a cook, too, for that matter. He's also going under for the third time with everyone's projects and has been since we got here. From the stories he told us while we were doing that last course, doing what he did is like being in a combat zone. And he did it for five years, with no breaks. He got six months off, and he's right back into it. You know what that's like—you've seen it."

James looked a little uncomfortable for the first time in their conversation. "It isn't just that. How old are you now, Beulah? Early seventies? You're in good shape except for the arthritis but that's getting worse. The odds are, you won't be around for as long as we need you. We have to get the medical knowledge out of your head and the heads of the rest of us so we can pass it on to the next generation. Hayes is the only one who can take what you know and put it in a form others can use to learn. The knowledge is too important to be lost when we lose you." His voice was little more than a whisper.

"I know that James." Her voice was almost as quiet. "Hayes isn't even half my age, but at the rate he's going, he won't make it to forty-five. Adding more projects to the man won't help any of us. I'm really worried about him. The man needs a keeper. Otherwise, we may just use him up, and there won't be anything left."

"It isn't as if there are any other alternatives we've been able to find for Hayes. Let's leave him for a later discussion, okay? Right now, you are the best person for the dean's job. Period."

"There are other issues. What about Jena? We'll need to locate the new college there. The first few years of schooling will be there except for brief intensives here. We'll be depending pretty heavily on their faculty. They don't exactly have any women deans at the university. Or faculty, either. Not to mention some of my up-time notions on any number of topics. Have any of you talked to the professors at Jena? How much flack could I expect? It may be that however qualified I am, politically, I'm not the best person. I'm not exactly known for tact and diplomacy."

Beulah saw him note the shift in her tone. She was silently conceding that she was the best-prepared person for the job but looking at the position from another angle now. She was still looking for a way out as James continued his argument.

"There have been a lot of changes at Jena. They have had a considerable amount of exposure to us and to the way women function in all aspects of life here. Some of the faculty will undoubtedly be resistant to any change, just like anywhere else. Some will be especially uncomfortable with any changes initiated by a woman. The handwriting is on the wall though. They know that women as faculty and as deans are going to happen, as surely as the snow comes in winter. From their standpoint, having an up-time woman take the first steps would make for an easier transition. The senior faculty and other deans support it for the most part. You and, if she agrees, Mary Pat will have to work the rest out in Jena."

Beulah sighed. She couldn't think of any other arguments against her taking the position or other questions offhand but she wasn't about to rush into a decision this important. "I wasn't expecting this. I really thought you or Balthazar would become the new dean. Let me think about it. I'm not saying yes. I'm not saying no."

"That's fine. Think about it for a bit. How much time will you need?"

"Give me a couple of days, okay?"

As they walked out into the hall, James was quiet. Beulah was running things through in her head. He could practically hear the wheels spinning. When she got her teeth into a problem, she didn't let go. The early summer evening air was still warm, although it would turn cool again in a few hours. Her "let me think about it" was as close to an answer as he'd get. There was just enough contrariness in her nature to make pushing Beulah an exercise in futility.

As they reached the street, she turned to him with a question. "Exactly when do you plan on starting the school anyway?"

"We'd like to enroll our first class at the start of the year. Good night, Beulah." A good Marine knew when to retreat. James hurried off into the night, the sound of Beulah's creative but anatomically impossible exclamation lingering in his ears. Since he was a man of good sense, he waited until he was around the corner and out of sight before he started smiling.

2

Mary Pat came down the stairs the next morning at a brisk clip, uniform neatly pressed. Where she found the energy after three straight twelve hour shifts plus her daily morning Army PT, Beulah didn't know. The kitchen at home was softly lit by early morning light, quiet and still until Mary Pat brought it to vivid life.

"Morning, Beulah. What's up? You're not dressed yet. Are you sick?" Mary Pat's concern was evident in her voice. Beulah knew that this change in routine would worry her. She was always up when Mary Pat started PT. Her arthritis meant she took a little more time to get moving in the morning than Mary Pat. When Mary Pat came back home, Beulah was always ready to go and had breakfast waiting for them both before they headed to the hospital. The familiar routine felt like having family again. She'd never seen her still dressed in her robe and nightie at 0630 before.

"Don't worry. I'm fine. I've just got some thinking to do and if I go into the hospital, I'll get sucked into work." Beulah chuckled. "The hospital is a madhouse on a good day. Not exactly a place for reflection. I've already called and let the hospital know. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow morning on your day off." Especially since my acceptance is contingent on you agreeing to go with me.

Politically, it might be better to have a faculty member of the College of Medicine at Jena as her assistant. Problem was, she didn't know any of them to pick one for that kind of relationship. Her close relationship with Mary Pat could make some people feel like she was bringing her own inner circle, especially if Hayes was along. That was another potential issue. If she had her choice, Mary Pat was it, politics or no politics. Besides, we make a good team.

The house settled in around itself again after Mary Pat left. Not without some concern and after she had made sure Beulah had the warm paraffin dip for her hands and an extra large mug of that nasty willow bark tea. Heavy on the honey. Why anyone would drink tea when they could have coffee, she had no idea. Beulah smiled affectionately. Mary Pat was a good kid and Beulah loved her dearly. She had brightened any number of dark areas caused by Grantville's trip back in time. If I hadn't had her to come home with, to talk to and share with, I don't think I'd have made it this long. Dear Mary Pat, what is going to happen to you when I'm gone? James' remarks about her age had hit close to home for more reasons than he might suspect. She'd have to think about that, too. Soon. But right now she had a decision to make.

She had never much liked administration. Being in a rural area or Korea meant that she'd still had to do a certain amount of it, but she'd never liked it. Being the director of nursing had too much of it, even without reams of up-time insurance paperwork. Practice and teaching were what she loved. Carrying a public health nurse's satchel and teaching at the local community college had suited her quite well, thank you very much. Watching a student "get it" was almost as good as actually caring for a patient herself. She had the background to teach in a lot of areas, no docs hanging over her shoulder with that handmaiden crap and lots to do. Best of all had been the babies. She had even gone back to get her masters degree as a midwife in the '80s but she'd been too old and too busy to finish it. Or so she'd thought at the time. Now, she wished she had. Maybe as a family nurse practitioner she would have the broadest possible "womb to tomb" knowledge base. It would be nice if hindsight wasn't always so clear. Coulda, woulda, shoulda never changed anything. At least I still have all my textbooks. Those are priceless now.

She was happy with her life overall. She had done some interesting things, helped people out here and there and had a good time. After her stint in Korea and the army, she had stuck close to home. She'd moved back to Grantville to take care of her older brother after his stroke and then stayed on to retire from the local clinic after he died. She had done hospital work when she was younger in the little hospital over in Fairmont but she was too restless for that and had had too much of a taste for the kind of independence and responsibility a nurse could have in Korea. About the only good thing she could say about the war. No, that wasn't quite true. She had met and worked with some very special people in Korea and the experience meant she knew all too well how to handle the kinds of wounds they were seeing so much of in the midst of the Thirty Years War.

In a bizarre sort of way, here, now, she was in a place where everything she had learned and experienced came together. And she did have the skills to pass at least some of that on to the next generation, a wonderful legacy. At least I know which end of a gun to avoid and to duck when someone yells incoming she thought with a flash of grim humor. Taken together with all she and James had discussed the night before, whether she liked it or not, James was right about her being the logical person for the deanship. Dammit.

3

"Okay, what's up?" Mary Pat sipped her coffee the next morning and sat back in the kitchen chair to get comfortable, trying to gauge Beulah's mood. She didn't look alarmed so much as determined and thoughtful. She had scared Mary Pat a little the day before. For a moment, Mary Pat had thought she was sick. The idea of anything happening to Beulah made her stomach tighten.

Something was going on, though. What that something might be had teased at the back of Mary Pat's mind all during her shift yesterday. Beulah taking a second day off was absolutely unheard of. Today, Mary Pat herself had a rare day off. It only happened about once a month. Between the hospital and her position in the army, she rarely had any time to herself. It was getting tiring to say the least, even for someone as energetic as she was. She had intended to do some chores and maybe eat out at the Gardens tonight until Beulah went all mysterious on her.

"I talked to James Nichols two days ago. He and the others want me to become the new dean and get the health care educator programs up and running here and at Jena."

"They've picked the right person for the job. Congratulations!"

"You haven't heard the rest of it yet." Beulah replied with a gotcha grin. "We want you to be my assistant."

Mary Pat didn't spew coffee all over the place but her green eyes did widen. "You could have waited until I didn't have a mouthful of coffee before you said that," she complained. "Exactly when in my spare time am I supposed to be doing this anyway? Not that I don't want to help you out, Beulah, but I just don't have any time."

"I'm sure that given the military's urgent need for doctors and nurses, they will be more than happy to have you temporarily assigned as my assistant. Your trauma skills will be invaluable. Finding a replacement for you at the hospital is going to be harder but the latest class of nurses' aides and LPNs has just graduated from the tech center at the high school. Not the same as an RN, I know, but they can take up a little of the slack so it won't be as hard. It isn't as though we'd be leaving for Jena tomorrow or anything."

"My patients..."

"I know," Beulah interrupted gently. "Neither of us wants to leave them. James and I already had a version of the same discussion. You should have seen me come up with reasons not to do this."

The tension in Mary Pat's voice didn't go unnoticed. Beulah would never say it to Mary Pat but she was worried about the long hours and multiple commitments Mary Pat had taken on the last two years. She was an active duty army nurse and had been deployed all over the area. That meant that although she knew a lot of people and a lot of the local area, she wasn't really close to anyone but her friends Elizabeth, Rodney, Sharon and Beulah herself. When she was home, Mary Pat worked five or six twelve-hour shifts a week at the hospital. She was also one of the most senior officers of the tiny medical corps, which carried its own set of responsibilities and pressures. Having her with Beulah in Jena meant she would be freed up from working sixty-plus hours a week as a staff nurse and her regular military duties. Beulah knew she and Mary Pat weren't the only ones who were getting worn out. So were all the health care types in Grantville. They were stretched way too thin and it wasn't getting any better. If anything, it was worse. Grantville's reputation as a center for healing was beginning to spread. Fortunately, right now the reputation was only local. That was going to change though, sooner rather than later. The demands on their tiny health care system would get nothing but more intense as the war heated up and people found out that they could heal things no one else in this time could.

Beulah gave a dry, humorous recount of her conversation with James. They shared a chuckle, and a little of the tension eased from Mary Pat's shoulders. Mary Pat's sharp mind would fill in the blanks here and there. She was well aware of how strained the health care resources were in Grantville and its military. Beulah ended her recounting with the role for Mary Pat and why she was needed for the position. Much the same way James did it to me.

"So you won't take the position without me as your assistant? You're perfect for it." Mary Pat was frowning a bit. "I can understand your points but I still think I could serve better here." Mary Pat reached for the coffee pot and refilled both their mugs before setting the pot back on the small kitchen table. She didn't like to see Beulah handling the heavy pot. Beulah let her think for a few minutes, enjoying the quiet and the aroma of the hot coffee.

"I don't stand a chance, do I?" She finally asked with a rueful grin. "I know that look on your face, Beulah. You've got all the bases covered and all the arguments ready. I guess we should both be getting used to being ambushed by projects like this. I could see this one coming for you but didn't see it for me." Mary Pat picked up her napkin and waved it like a flag. "Okay, I surrender. When do we get started and what do you think we need to do first?"

Beulah reached across the table and gave Mary Pat's hand a little squeeze. "That's the spirit. We need to get started now to be ready for the first class in six months. The way I see it, there are a few issues we need to start thinking about right away. Politics, personnel and resources are the three big ones at the moment."

"One at a time then?" asked Mary Pat.

"Works for me. Have a preference for which one to tackle first?"

Mary Pat wrinkled her freckled nose and grimaced. "Let's leave the politics till last."

"Personnel and resources it is then. I don't know how much of the big picture you've been aware of and it will help me to think out loud, so I hope I don't go over too much you already know. On the personnel side, the first of the German students will be entering the nurses' aide and LPN program. We're lucky to have had the program already set up before the Ring of Fire at the high school. That has meant we haven't had to start totally from scratch, although Hayes and I had to change a few things with the curriculum given what we're facing now. Hayes will be working with us too. Garnet, Courtney and Marcia are doing a great job in the nurses' aide and LPN program. They're all sharp and easy to work with and they have the program delivery down to a fine science. I know that ties up an RN and two LPNs but the work they are doing is too important to interrupt for direct patient care. I don't think we should change anything there. They're all ready to go with the mixed German, up-timer classes starting this summer."

"I agree about the aide and LPN program. That's been going really well. We have about sixty new aides and nearly twenty new LPNs now. We'll probably want to talk with Garnet, Courtney and Marcia about which of their former students might be good for the new program. Some of them are so new, I don't think any of the hospital staff who have worked with them will have a very good sense of their capabilities yet. Two things, though. My German has gotten pretty good. Are we going to be teaching in German, English or both? And, what about Hayes?"

"German and English. It will depend on who is teaching what at the university and who the staff mentors are for students. Any applicants are going to have to be fairly fluent in both. Eventually, we'll probably switch entirely to German but that's a long way off. We have too many texts in English and too many people who aren't fluent in German as potential teachers and students. Some of the Germans in Jena and other areas won't be too happy about that, I imagine. English isn't known as a scholarly language in this time. Unless we're careful, it may look like we're excluding German natives from the new educational system at the same time we're using their facilities. We'll have to have some sort of English classes for some of the German students who will be coming to Jena. There's another problem with languages. Latin."

"I hadn't thought about that one." Mary Pat winced. "No one I know here speaks Latin except Father Larry. Lots of medical terms are based on it, especially anatomy and physiology terms. So we won't be starting entirely from the ground up."

"We're going to have to learn at least some Latin." Beulah replied. "Many of the textbooks used for medical information now are in Latin. Some of that information is still very relevant. How much and in which texts, I have no idea yet."

"Well, we'll be working with him over the next few months at least. We're going to have to put together the curricula and text materials soon. We'll be focusing on the RN- and MD-level training and that will mean higher level synthesis. Plus, I'm hoping he can help evaluate the materials they have at Jena and help us figure out priorities for copying and translation."

"Okay. You know him better than I do. I know a few of the Jena faculty. They've downsized in recent years because of the war. There aren't going to be a lot of them to help out. The botanical gardens are great though. Werner Rolfinck is probably somebody we'll want to talk to early on. He's been at Jena for several years and heads the medical faculty. He's the one who had the OR theater set up there and is very up on the latest knowledge for this time. He borrowed a copy of a couple of my textbooks a few months ago. The next time I was in Jena, I was going to pick them back up and give him some new material. I had the books copied before I lent them to him. It was lucky I was in the emergency rotation at school. I had several anatomy and physiology texts and a drug book with me that he was interested in." It was Mary Pat's turn to sigh. "I just wish the drug book had more about herbs."

"We have some more information about herbs from the gardeners in town. I was pleasantly surprised about how much medical information they had. Not to mention the medicinal herbs in various gardens. Standardization of dosages and purity are still issues. Stoner and the others are making progress on that. I just wish we had more scientific basis for some of these new medicines. Some of the herbals claim to be able to cure everything that ails a body, including the common cold." She shook her head in disgust, sending shimmers of silver light flashing around her head.

"Sorting out what they have at Jena, what we have here and how the herbs are named and grown will take time but once we're rolling, I think it'll be fine. We may have to take at least one of our gardeners with us to Jena. Do you think Rolfinck will be supportive of us coming to Jena and making so many changes in the program? James and Balthazar have both been sending out feelers about it and kind of paving the way. Rolfinck seems very progressive and interested in having the information but it is actually his school after all. We're outsiders coming in with ideas that challenge a lot of dearly held beliefs."

Mary Pat thought about it for a minute, then shrugged one slim shoulder. "There's really no way to know until we talk with him and the other faculty members. I'd suggest talking to him first. He seems like a very reasonable guy. There are a couple of the faculty who teach what they call iatrochemistry at Jena. It's more similar to our ideas about chemistry than alchemy and that humors stuff. I can't guess how receptive those two will be since I haven't met either of them yet."

"I haven't met any of them. Haven't been to Jena either. You, at least, will be a somewhat familiar face. That should help. I'm not sure how they are going to react to some of my ideas, however progressive they may be. We're going to have to negotiate carefully. I don't want to come across as know-it-all up-timers. First, because it isn't true. Second, because that kind of attitude will cause nothing but problems. We're having a hard enough time with what we can't do. They may have a hard time with what we can."

"I agree. Ideas such as?"

"I've always felt that the split between nursing and medicine was artificial and caused more problems than it helped but it's the time factor that really worries me. We need people trained now. That doesn't even get into content issues like up-time versus down-time knowledge or some of the ethical issues we'll have to deal with. Not to mention that I see men and women having an equal role in health care."

Mary Pat grinned. "You were saying the other day that things at the hospital were starting to get too routine. A new challenge will be good for you."

"Yeah, right. Like I need any more challenges. This project will be full of them."

Mary Pat got up to look for a pen and some paper to start taking notes. "Well, we don't have to solve everything right here and now. Let's think about who we have here and who we need to put together an educational team."

Chapter Two

July, 1633

1

 

The four deans of the University of Jena met in Werner Rolfinck's office at the university. Werner was dean of the medical school. Next to him sat Johann Gerhard, the dean of theology. In his early fifties, Dean Gerhard was a conservative, thoughtful, and prudent man. Werner was particularly glad he was here, as Johann was known for his ability to smooth troubled waters and had studied medicine for several years in his younger days before turning to theology. He was also someone who listened to arguments, considered carefully, and then acted. Werner wasn't sure what Johann thought about the proposed merger with Grantville's medical people. He wasn't sure what he thought of it himself.

Across from Johann and Werner sat the deans of the schools of arts and law, Dietrich Wetzel and Karl Strom. Dietrich was about Werner's age and a good friend. He was a plump, cheerful sort of man who seemed to exist in a perpetual swirl of energetic chaos. Dietrich had incredible ideas. Making them happen was another story. He was usually off on the next idea before the first project was even halfway completed. Karl Strom was his exact opposite in some ways. A member of the minor aristocracy, Karl was meticulous and very cautious in his approach to life. He had a sunny smile but, most of the time, wore a sober face that he thought was more in keeping with his position. Werner wondered if he realized how young and earnest that sober face made him look. Or how like a young man dressing up in his father's clothes. Karl, only twenty-eight, was young for his position as law school dean and painfully aware of it. It could make him rather prickly on occasion.

Dietrich was all but bouncing in his chair with excitement. Werner stroked his dark, thick mustache to hide the grin trying to escape. "As I told you last time, the Americans want to start a joint . . . medical education program. If we are agreeable, they would like a formal arrangement with the school of medicine to start teaching nurses and doctors. The arrangement would be the first in a long-term partnership with us. The medical school would expand into a health sciences College with schools of medicine, nursing, pharmacy and allied health."

"From what you have told us so far, the other three schools we have now may need to be involved right away as well," Johann said thoughtfully.

Karl looked startled. "The other schools? But I thought that was further in the future?"

Werner waved a hand. "You know these Americans. They have laws for everything. They have laws for who can practice, in what area, and under what conditions. Fraulein Flanagan tells me they call it `scope of practice' or some such. I would imagine that as we are setting up the new school, there will be some need to reconcile their laws and ours."

Karl's ruddy complexion blanched a bit. "Yes, I can see the need. Still. They do have a great many laws. I don't know anything about medical law, though, theirs or ours. I have been mostly looking at constitutional and national law. None of us in the law school have experience in the areas of medical law. We did but with so many students and faculty leaving because of the war . . ."

"You could hardly do anything about the war, Karl. We have what we have. It may be that this partnership will attract new students and we will refill the ranks of our faculty as well." Johann's calm practicality eased the anxiety from Karl's face.

"What about the arts?" Dietrich leaned toward Johann and Karl. "We've been translating a few of the books Fraulein Flanagan lent Werner. Fascinating, just fascinating! And the quality of the illustrations are amazing! We may be able to help with that, too."

"Mathematics and philosophy are other areas where we may need help, but I'm just guessing. Right now, it's too early to make many plans." Werner knew Dietrich well enough to stop that line of thought before he went to far with it. The school of arts would be in absolute turmoil if they didn't slow Dietrich down a bit. As it was, that facile brain of his would have a dozen different projects ready to start before he left the room today anyway. "I've talked to the head of the delegation they want to send next month. Frau MacDonald will be—"

"Frau? The head of their medical delegation is a woman?" Johann looked and sounded shocked.

"Yes." Werner knew he sounded a bit defensive. "I don't know about the rest of the delegation but the leader is a woman."

"I hadn't realized they had women as physicians." Even Dietrich sounded a bit shocked. Women simply weren't university-educated physicians. Nor were they barber-surgeons or apothecaries, who were seen as lesser levels of healer. Women were usually midwives or herbwives, considered the very lowest of those caring for patients. They were necessary to care for women's mysteries but any of their other activities were not well regarded. There was simply no comparison between a physician and what amounted in their minds to an uneducated herb witch.

Werner gritted his teeth a bit. "She isn't a physician. She's a nurse." Which of course only made things worse.

The silence that followed was anything but comfortable for Werner. Intellectually, the deans had known that Americans didn't seem to care about a person's gender very much in terms of one's role in life. Most of the Americans they had each dealt with had been men, however. That they understood. Thanks to his meetings with Mary Pat Flanagan, Werner was a little better prepared than the other three but it would be his department that would have to make this work. He wasn't entirely certain how his faculty or students would respond.

"A nurse?" Dietrich seemed nonplussed. "Nurses to teach doctors, to be dean?"

Werner hastily explained. "The nurses from the future know a great deal. They have university degrees and some have graduate degrees, including doctorates. Nurses are faculty at medical schools in the future."

"How will your faculty respond to teaching with women?" asked Johann.

"We've discussed it but more in theory than in fact. Now that we are actually faced with it and soon . . . I just don't know."

"Why aren't they sending a man for such a position?" Karl's disapproval was all too apparent.

"I doubt it even occurred to them to be a problem. Dr. Nichols assured me that Fraulein MacDonald is the best person they have to do this. She taught for more than twenty years at one of their universities." Werner carefully didn't mention that she was a midwife or that she hadn't taught doctors. It would just make things worse. "We have talked about having women as faculty this last year, even as deans. Granted, there aren't many women with university educations in our experiences but we knew that our association with the Americans would change that."

Clearly, talking about it and actually doing it were two completely different things. Judging by the look on Johann's face, he had just thought of something unpleasant. "Will they expect us to enroll women with the men as students as well? The university's prestige may suffer if we do this. I had thought this might be a way of gaining students. Now I wonder if we will lose them."

"Women as students with the men?" asked Karl, looking rather stunned by the idea. "How do you teach women?"

"We are supposed to be one of the more forward-looking universities in all of Europe. We are part of the United States now. I have seen something of what they accomplished in the medical arena. Some of their leading scholars were women. We can build something like that here. Whatever reservations I have about merging with those of Grantville, I want to be able to treat patients as they do. And I want our students to have the very best education possible, as I am sure we all do. If that means women as deans and faculty, I am willing to at least try. I think my students and faculty will as well, but how we act, how we present this to them will be critical for shaping whether they see this as a difficult but exciting opportunity or as a lessening of the university and what we have to offer."

Werner looked each of them full in the face, his tone grim. "There are many other problems to be solved in the coming months. We must discuss at least some of those today. Ultimately, the question is whether or not we wish to join with Grantville and under what conditions."

 

2

 

It had rained the night before. As she crossed the grass in front of the hospital's front entrance, Beulah felt her shoes getting wet and soggy. At least she didn't have to wear hose anymore. She could put the socks over a chair in her office and they'd be dry before she had to be the director of nursing.

The hospital was a source of some pride in the community. The three-story building had been finished nearly a year ago despite shortages of materials and funds, and competing construction needs. The iron grillwork over the windows glistened from the rain. The hospital had been built with security in mind, given the time they were living in now, but they had still tried to make it look more comforting than fortresslike. They had tried to design a hospital that could handle casualties from battles and the epidemics every member of the health-care community feared were coming. Time would tell how successful they had been.

She had received a letter last week from Debbie Leek about building a hospital in Magdeburg using a similar design to the Leahy Medical Center, named after Dr. Leahy, a much-loved former town physician. The Leek family's story was one of the tragedies of the Ring of Fire. Jennifer Rush, Debbie's eleven-year-old cousin, had been doing very well on chemotherapy for her leukemia before the Ring of Fire. Afterward, unable to get the treatment she needed, she had lived only a matter of months. Before the family had moved to Magdeburg, Beulah had gotten to know them all well. Most of the family had been in some kind of management position pre-Ring of Fire and they saw Magdeburg as a place where their backgrounds could be put to good and profitable use. Debbie's letter indicated she was working with Mary Simpson on her educational projects with Veronica Dreeson. Long term, they wanted to found a university in Magdeburg.

That letter started Beulah thinking about something else now. Mary Simpson was working on fund-raising and other aspects of getting the girls' school up and running. The new department at Jena would need funding badly. Supplies, textbooks, tuition, living expenses, teacher salaries, the list went on and on. The cost of just one hand-painted, illustrated herbal had been stunning. They were going to need more funds. It was a certainty the current government didn't have any money to spare. In fact, most people didn't. All those deep pockets Mary Simpson was picking with such class could. . . .

"Guten morgen, Frau Professorin."

 

"Guten morgen, Fritz. Wait up a second." Beulah waved to the young man nearing the entrance. Friedrich Joseph Hersch, also known as Fritz, was a twenty-year-old who worked in the hospital bakery. His family were local German bakers who had relocated to Grantville shortly after the Ring of Fire. Several of them worked in the hospital bakery. Fritz was a little above average height, with sandy hair and hazel eyes. The heavy work he did as a baker had given him a strong build.

"If you have a few minutes in the next week or two, come up to my office. I'd like to talk with you about working here at the hospital taking care of patients."

Fritz seemed surprised but pleased. "I shall come to see you today at lunch. Will that be convenient, Frau Beulah?" Fritz's English was good but tended to be rather formal. He had spent a lot of time learning from English grammars as well as talking with people. Smart, kind, responsible, and motivated—excellent characteristics for what she wanted in a future graduate from Jena. As a bonus, Fritz was just plain nice.

"Perfect. I'll have some food brought in so you don't miss your lunch. Can't have a growing boy deprived of food." With a laugh and a wink, Beulah walked toward the conservatory at the center of the hospital while Fritz headed for the kitchen. The conservatory had practical as well as ornamental uses. Medicinal and ornamental plants were grown in the glass-roofed conservatory. There were cement paths and stone benches for patients, staff, and visitors to stroll or sit and rest. She had made it a habit to stop in and walk in the quiet garden for a few minutes before heading up to her office. Now, she sat on a bench sans wet shoes and deliberately set aside thoughts of all the tasks waiting for her upstairs to enjoy the fragrant stillness.

The plants had come along nicely. The aloe plant was sending out new leaves. Aloe had proven helpful in treating minor burns. It soothed the pain wonderfully and helped keep the tissue moist. The plant grew in the graveled area near the bench she was using. Nearby were Saint-John's-wort and valerian, herbs that were being used to treat depression and anxiety. There had certainly been some of both the last two years.

The garden had become something of a symbol for her. The plants meant hope for treating patients and for finding future cures for the diseases they now faced. When she lost another patient who might have been saved in the twentieth century, the hospital garden reminded her they weren't entirely helpless. They were adapting. The health-care situation was not quite so desperate as it had been when they first arrived, now that they had the hospital, its staff, and the herbal remedies. The sanitation committee was doing a great job. At the same time, the garden was not entirely benevolent. In a shady spot on the second floor was foxglove to make digitalis preparations. The plant grew four or five feet high and had lovely flowers. While good for treating congestive heart failure and some irregular heart problems, it could be deadly poison and thus was placed where curious children or adults couldn't get to it.

When she got too worried about the future, her personal faith and thinking about Mary Pat, Fritz, and the other youngsters eased her mind. Fritz would make a wonderful nurse or doctor. So would a number of others. They would have to choose the first students very carefully. Possible sources of students were likely graduates of the nurse's aide, emergency medical technician, combat medic, and licensed practical nurse programs, as well as personal recommendations from various people. Those programs all took a year or less to complete in Garnet's program at the tech center. They were running people through the programs as quickly as possible. Now that they'd opened them to German students, they'd have an even larger pool of possible applicants from which to draw.

Beulah would be recommending Fritz for the RN program. He'd need to get into the tech program at the high school as soon as possible to be ready to go to school for his degree as a registered nurse. There were several RNs she would like to see go on to the MD program at Jena. Which would leave them even shorter of RNs for a while. Some people, like Sharon Nichols, had essentially had enough on-the-job experience to be functioning as RNs. Some of the Jena students already in the medical program would undoubtedly want to be admitted. That was going to be trickier. How did you tell someone that while they were about to graduate with a medical degree, they weren't qualified to work as MDs in Grantville? A possible solution came to her. Hm. Have to check with Mike Sterns and a few others first. Might work. Who knows, maybe I can handle this diplomacy stuff after all. With a lighter heart, Beulah headed for her office.

 

3

 

The faces around the gleaming conference table at the medical center, or Leahy as it had come to be known, were all familiar to Beulah. She was not happy to see all of them. Mara Washaw was a thorn in her side. She was one of the small number of up-time RNs available, young but still experienced. That made her important and she knew it. Beulah had tried to be more rational about her. Mara had great experience, having worked in a large hospital as a nurse in Charleston before she married Lennon, Starr's brother. Mara and Starr were about the same age, early thirties, and both had kids. Other than that, they were very different. Mara hadn't taken it well that Starr was going to be taking Beulah's place. Frankly, Beulah was glad Mara hadn't gotten the position. Most others had stepped up to the plate after the Ring of Fire and done as much as they could for their families and community. But not everyone. Mara just sort of coasted. Since she was very bright and well educated she got away with it but she did the minimum amount necessary. She knew how bright and talented she was and didn't let others forget it. Beulah could forgive that if Mara had lived up to her potential. Or even tried to. Beulah hoped she didn't have trouble with Mara being on the committee. She didn't think Mara sitting at the opposite end of the head of the table was an accident. Beulah wished Starr was in her place but Starr wasn't at the table. She had assumed Beulah's duties this week. Which left Mara as one of the senior RNs available for the forming health care education committee.

"Morning everyone. Why don't we all get settled? We've got a lot to work on and not much time."

Garnet Szymanski, director of the high school nurses' aide, EMT, combat medic, and LPN programs, gave an exaggerated wince. "So what else is new?" A nice way to start the meeting. Grins all around. Except for Mara. Must have been the mention of lots of work, thought Beulah.

Beulah looked around the polished wooden table as the others got settled into their chairs. Balthazar Abrabanel sat on her left. His face was very welcome. Not to mention the fact that he's far more skilled in diplomacy than I'll ever be, Beulah thought with an inner grin. That wasn't the official reason he was here, of course. He was the first down-time physician to absorb enough up-time knowledge to become a full partner with Drs. Adams and Nichols. His knowledge of the current educational practices in Europe would be important as well. If not for his heart and the amount of time he spent training their spook squad, he was up to speed enough to be the new dean. In Beulah's opinion, he'd be a better choice for a lot of reasons, not the least of which that she and most of the others knew next to nothing about medical education in this time.

Garnet was seated next to Balthazar, wearing as usual, her beloved yellow. The woman had a bright yellow house and had driven a bright yellow car. She was fifty-three and solid in more ways than just her physical appearance. Garnet was someone you could count on. She loved teaching and it showed in the ways she interacted with her students. When Garnet was around, learning was going to be fascinating. Her enthusiasm was catching and her two LPN assistants, Courtney and Marcia, were just as dedicated and competent. Any future nurses and docs who got run through the program at the high school would be getting a first-rate start in their careers. Licensed practical nurses took only about nine months to train now, since many of the things they could have done up-time were no longer possible. They didn't know as much as registered nurses but they knew more than nurse's aides. The program was going to have to expand again but at least the groundwork was all done and most of the kinks worked out.

Across from Garnet was Ann Turski, a health educator who had worked with Garnet before the Ring of Fire. Her time was now split between Garnet's program and helping put staff in-services together here at Leahy. She and Beulah worked well together, although Ann tended to get upset if things weren't organized to her satisfaction. The woman was an organizing machine. Disorder and chaos were the enemy. She had had quite a lot of both to combat during the last two years. When Beulah had told her about the committee and asked her to serve on it, Ann had been visibly relieved. "Finally, we'll be getting properly organized. There's been too much flying by the seat of our pants the last two years." Ann had light-blue eyes and shoulder-length dark-brown hair. When she was nervous or facing disorder, she tended to pat her hair, as if making certain that at least her person was still neat and tidy. Right now, she was patting her hair and had just smoothed her knee-length skirt. Hmmm. Probably knows I'm about to drag her off to Jena and disrupt her routine again. At least her husband, Wells, is off on a diplomatic mission and they don't have kids to worry about.

Next to Ann sat Raymond Little, the hospital's chief pharmacist. He was a quiet man and deliberately rather nondescript. Ray blended into the woodwork whenever possible. He knew his stuff as a pharmacist but she'd never seen him really assert himself for anything. He and Stoner worked very closely together. Beulah suspected that he loved working with the plants and in the garden. Once, she had even seen him give a plant he was cutting a tender, apologetic pat and murmur soothingly to it in his pleasant baritone. Completing the group was Mary Pat, sitting at Beulah's right hand in more than a literal sense. Hayes had been tied up with other projects and couldn't make it to the first meeting. He would be keeping track of a lot of this by minutes when he couldn't attend anyway.

Before Beulah could even get started, Mara fired the first salvo. "This is such an exciting opportunity. I'm so glad you could be here to get us started. I'm sure that with everything going on, you're very busy."

"Yes, it is very exciting. There will be times I can't be here for meetings. Fortunately, when I can't be here, Mary Pat will sit in for me. If she isn't around, Balthazar will take over." Judging by the souring of Mara's smile, that wasn't what she had expected to hear. She'd undoubtedly thought that Balthazar would be too busy, Mary Pat deployed, and the other two easily managed, leaving her to take over and have all the glory with little of the work. Beulah had been on too many academic and public health committees to be taken in by that particular tactic, though. Normally she would have approached the leadership roles on the committee differently. Garnet was here more in a capacity as bridge between the programs to make sure they articulated well. She was already busy. Ann and Ray would be too likely to let Mara slide if they were in charge. Neither of them liked conflict and Mara in full attack mode was something to see.

"Did you all get the handouts for today's meeting? Anything in particular you'd like added to the agenda for today's meeting?" Mary Pat helped ease past the little conflict and get back to business.

"Yes, as a matter of fact there is a problem," Mara said firmly. "We have the hospital here and the most educated staff. It makes no sense to split our resources between here and Jena. It will leave us too short staffed and take too much travel time."

Beulah sternly refused to ask if Mara's concerns were really about the program or about having to work extra and not having students around to lord it over. Unfortunately, the point was a valid one, whatever the motives of the person making it. Beulah wasn't too surprised when Ann spoke up.

"I agree. We have what we need right here. The faculty and students from Jena could easily come here and we wouldn't have to leave Grantville."

"We thought about that. There are advantages to keeping it here but the advantages are outweighed by the disadvantages both in the short term and the long term. First, we need the resources and faculty at Jena. We don't have enough personnel here. We need to spend some time learning about their resources and skills, and time is short if we are going to start the first classes of new RNs and MDs in January."

Garnet nodded agreement. "At Jena," Beulah continued, "we'll have access to the botanical gardens, the faculty, and the textbooks as well as their other facilities. Space is at a premium here in Grantville for everything from classrooms to housing. We plan on building a student dorm, a medical library, and other facilities here but right now, we don't have the money or most of the other things we need to make that happen. Jena has everything but the hospital and our staff. We work with them and both of us win. The students can come here to the hospital for intensives early in their training. We'll have had time to get more resources in place for them here for later training when they are ready for more clinical time. I've already sent a letter to Debbie Leek about raising funds for the health education project.

"Finally, Jena is a strong university as well as being the closest one to us. We don't want to lose the university base for health care education. I know we've all had to do quite a bit of OJT the last few years. We need to be proactive now and set up an educational system capable of creating the knowledge and advances we had up-time. We need people who will be able to practice at that level as soon as possible."

Ann was nodding thoughtfully now, although she still didn't look too happy. Balthazar took over and added some more information about Jena and 1630s medicine. He also spoke a little about the faculty he had been corresponding with in Jena. One area smoothed over. Beulah sighed as Mara came up with another disagreement. Time to get things back on track.

It was going to be a very, very long meeting.

 

Chapter Three

August, 1633

1

 

Dr. Werner Rolfinck strode through the botanical gardens early the morning of the first meeting with the representatives from Grantville and his faculty. He bent down and pulled a weed shoot from the row of Matricaria recutita. Chamomile was a useful herb for calming the nerves, as an aide to wound healing, decreasing inflammation, and an antispasmotic. The people from Grantville had expressed particular interest in the use of herbs and other botanical agents in healing. He didn't want the garden to look anything less than its best. Since it was July, the foliage was particularly lush.

Werner's feelings about the proposed "joint venture" with Grantville's medical personnel were mixed. So were those of the three Jena faculty members who would be sitting around the conference table with him in a few hours. Werner was thirty-four years old and had been the dean at the medical college for several years. He considered himself a forward-thinking man and made an effort to keep up with the latest information in the healing arts. He had been proud of his accomplishments and his career. He still was. Given what he had learned so far from the Grantville texts he had intently studied, he and the faculty here were on the right track in any number of areas. He was proud of the faculty, too. There may not be many of them left, but those who remained were excellent men, all dedicated healers who were devoted to their work.

None of which changed what he had read in those books and the implications of what he had read. Those things had left him frustrated, disheartened, and desperately wanting more. There was so much more to be learned, so much more that could be done for their patients. The possibilities were very exciting. He felt as though a new world was opening up and Jena was going to be a part of incredible things. So am I so unsettled because the changes are happening at all or because they aren't happening fast enough?

It would probably be rude to tell their guests, in the American phrase, about damn time. Rationally, he understood that the Americans had needed to secure their borders and that other pressing needs had kept them from addressing anything but immediate medical needs. Still, they could have shared more of their texts sooner and made medical care more of a priority. Werner began to pace through the feverfew section of the garden. Medical care could save lives just as surely as winning on a battlefield. Healing was its own kind of war. They could have been so much farther ahead of where they were now with more books and communication with Grantville's medical personnel.

Compounding his frustration was the sense of pressure he felt. So much would have to happen very quickly to be ready by January. The bits and pieces he had learned had been tantalizing but bitter. He had read the books and then seen patients in his practice that could have benefited from Grantville's level of care. But Grantville was too far away and even if they had its facilities here, he and the others didn't have the knowledge. That had been eating at all of them for at least a year when they began realizing what the Americans could do.

Instead, the Americans had decided to work with his school at their convenience, when they had time. He knew that wasn't really a fair way of putting it, and it certainly wasn't the frame of mind he needed for this upcoming meeting. Still, fair of not, it didn't change how he felt. He made a deliberate effort to unclench his muscles and slow his pacing. The Americans had chosen the medical college as their first real joint venture with the Jena university. It was both an honor and a burden. A lot of people would be watching how he and his faculty handled the merging. He was hardly naive enough to think the Americans didn't have their own priorities and needs but this could be a mutually beneficial partnership, a partnership among equals. He would see to it.

 

2

 

Werner tried to be subtle as he observed his new colleagues from Grantville. He had spoken with each of them at least once by radio and exchanged letters setting up the meeting today in Jena, but he also wanted to actually see them.

The leader of the delegation was an elderly woman who moved rather stiffly. He could see the arthritic changes in her hands, which the trip here and the cobblestones had probably aggravated. The sight didn't inspire much confidence. This old woman was supposed to lead the new college during a time of dramatic changes? Her evident age and ill health didn't bode well at all, even with the much younger Mary Pat Flanagan woman working as her aide. Werner was impressed with what he knew about Fraulein Flanagan and well disposed to her, given how she had gone out of her way to get texts and other materials copied and delivered to Jena. That they were in English made it rather difficult, but he had had them translated and copies made for the faculty.

Beulah MacDonald, as the elderly woman was named, eased stiffly into the hard wooden chair at the long table and smiled reassuringly up at Fraulein Flanagan. Werner could hardly miss the concern or the affection between them. Then Frau MacDonald turned to look at Werner and the others on the opposite side of the table. The smile changed but it was her eyes that Werner studied. Those navy blue eyes held humor, understanding, and shrewdness. There was an air of experience and competence about her. He wasn't quite sure how to describe it. He would watch and see how this played out.

Coming into the room behind MacDonald and Flanagan were a man and woman. Werner had gotten better about judging ages of Americans. They both looked around ten years older than Mary Pat Flanagan, give or take a few years. The man was of an intimidating size. What Werner suspected were permanent dark circles lay under his eyes. This would be Hayes Daniels, the only man in the group. The last woman to enter the room sat in her chair and carefully arranged pen and paper in front of her. Process of elimination meant this was Ann Turski. Werner still wasn't exactly clear what a health educator was and how that was different from a faculty member. Still, they each gave the impression of confidence and I-know-what-I'm-about he was coming to associate with some of the Americans he had met.

That attitude wasn't always justified, in his opinion. But . . . At least they all speak decent German. That will make things a little easier, Werner thought as the Americans introduced themselves. Now it was his turn to make introductions.

"At my far right is Conrad Herbers. He teaches iatrochemistry and theories of medicine." Conrad, whom they all called Kunz, gave a small seated bow, his expression polite but a bit cautious.

"Next to him is Wilhelm Hofacker, who teaches iatrochemistry and assists me in the botanical gardens."

"I am Willi, please. I shall be happy to give you a tour of the gardens later if you would like." Willi's English was accented but very understandable. He'd spent some time talking to other Americans before the meeting. The two iatrochemists were remarkably similar in more than appearance. Both were blond, forty-ish family men who were interested in what Grantville had to offer but wary of what it might mean for them both personally and professionally.

"On my left is Phillip Ackermann. Doktor Ackermann teaches anatomy and runs the operating theater." Ackermann had just turned fifty. His thinning blond hair was going gray. Werner noticed that although he was over twenty years her junior, Beulah had fewer lines on her face than Phillip. More than about any of the others, Werner was concerned about how Phillip would handle the coming changes. Werner was considered somewhat radical himself and he was younger than the more conservative Phillip. Phillip hadn't said much about his thoughts or feelings on the merger. He was facing the coming changes toward the end of his career, not the beginning. Phillip was terse at the best of times. Now he just gave a stiff inclination of his head in their guests' general direction.

"It is a pleasure to meet others from Grantville at last. We have had so little contact with other healers from Grantville in the last two years." A hint of hostility was present in the polite tenor voice, and it was that hostility Beulah responded to.

"It is a pleasure for us as well. If there had been any way we could have made things happen on our end more quickly so we could meet you sooner, we would have. As it is, we finally feel that we have enough to offer to entice your faculty into a long-term partnership."

That comment wasn't what any of them expected. Willi blinked several times and Kunz raised his eyebrows.

"What you have to offer us?" Kunz asked. "Surely, with all you know, the concern should be whether we have enough to offer you?"

No stranger to negotiations himself, a well-briefed Hayes stepped in. Hayes always did his homework. "On the contrary. You have a great deal to offer us. Books with useful knowledge, buildings to hold classes in, the operating theater, and, of course, your faculty."

"I've seen your facilities, especially the gardens," added Mary Pat. "They're impressive. We brought a few people from Grantville who are gardeners to help us figure out names of plants since we probably won't call them all the same things you do. You know far more about herbal remedies than we do. You know the local artisans who can make medical equipment and have your own practices here in town. Now, we can offer you our knowledge and the hospital in Grantville as a training site."

"We've been pretty disorganized while we were trying to get everything up and running. There wasn't time to plan anything properly before the Ring of Fire," Ann added with a wry grin.

No, Werner thought, definitely not the way I thought they'd approach us.

"You're already set up and fully functional here," Beulah said. "We've spent two years trying to get ourselves organized and dealing with various crises to get to the point where we could approach you. We do have things to offer. I think you'll agree that those things are important. But this merger won't be easy. This is important to us. We don't want to mess up this venture or any future ones."

Even though he had spoken with them over the radio, Werner wouldn't have predicted this. It was better than he had hoped for and the room's atmosphere was warmed by more than the summer sunlight.

Beulah smiled gently. "There is another bonus to working together. You have students who are much further along in their training than those we have in Grantville."

All four of the Jena representatives became very intent. They had been prepared to fight for their students and defend their students' caliber but it looked like that might not be necessary.

"We will be counting on them almost as heavily as on you. I know that the students will need to learn what we have to teach in addition to what you have already taught them," Beulah continued delicately, "but they are still much better trained in any number of areas than the students we would bring from Grantville. Few of our potential students have studied anatomy or performed surgery, for example. The most many of them have ever dissected is a frog in high school biology. One of the things we'd like to ask is whether or not you think your students would be willing to be teaching assistants for the incoming students. We're trying to put together funding for the positions now. We hope to be able to offer room and board, clinical at the hospital in Grantville, and access to our textbooks and equipment sooner. In exchange, in addition to acting as teachers' assistants, we'd want a commitment from anyone we offered the positions to stay in the area, one year for each year of study under the joint system. Naturally, we wouldn't restrict them just to Grantville. We don't think we can come up with enough funding for a stipend but we'll try."

"I think the students will be happy with that plan, if we can make it work," Werner said. "We had been concerned about our students and how they would fit in. None of us is under any illusions that we or the students could just go to Grantville and practice. That has not been an easy ...