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Little Jammer Boys

Written by Kim Mackey

The terrified servant handed the message to Johnny von Sachsen as he and his younger brother, Augi, entered the elector's palace in Dresden. It was terse and to the point.

Come to my bedchambers. Now.

In their father's handwriting. John George I, Elector of Saxony, was not a subtle man.

"Wonderful." Johnny heard the disgust in his voice. He handed the note to his brother. "Simply wonderful. What have you done now, Augi?"

"Me?" hissed Augi. "Why does it always have to be me that our father is unhappy with? You're the one who got us into this mess, with your record players and American radios."

Johnny looked at his rotund brother and shook his head. "It can't be that. Maybe he's heard about your indiscreet comments to the French ambassador. Calling him a drunken pig and a disgrace to Saxony was just too much."

"Wait a minute. You started it with your comments about how ashamed you were of him. I was just following your lead!"

The two young men continued their bickering all the way to the elector of Saxony's bedchambers.

***

When they entered there were only three people in the room. A bad sign. Worse was the presence of their father's personal guard dogs, Fang, Dagger and Granite. The boar-hounds were each two hundred plus pounds of dark gray fur and muscle. Granite growled at them as they entered and the elector clouted him on the head.

"You can't eat them just yet, Granite. Shut up."

John George the First looked at his court dwarf, Maximilian, and motioned him out the doors. Johnny felt the boom of their closing like a knell of doom.

The elector's blond hair and beard were beginning to gray but his broad shoulders were still firm and muscular. With the toe of one foot he pushed a jumble of wire and wood in the direction of his sons. "Do you know what this is?"

Johnny took the initiative. "Wood and copper wire?"

The elector snorted and took a swig from his beer mug. "Tell them, Benedict."

The other man in the room stepped forward. Benedict Carpzov was one of the Elector's most trusted privy councilors and an expert in German and Roman law. "Crystal radios, as I am sure you both know. Confiscated right here in the palace."

Carpzov looked at John George, then back at Johnny and his brother. "The elector is not amused. You were responsible for stopping the influx of radios into this area. Yet you cannot even keep them out of the palace!"

"We tried!" Augi threw his hands in the air. "But they are too easy to make! Everyone wants to listen to the broadcasts. Every time the soldiers capture or confiscate radios, the parts, or those pamphlets at one point on the border, they pour through at another. It's impossible!"

"Bah," spat the elector. "Tried my sainted ass! I'm tired of your useless whining! Benedict will now be in charge of this task, and you will assist him in any way you can. We may be at war with the fucking Swede and his pet Americans by next spring and we don't need our people listening to the enemy's mindless blathering. Get this done, and do it quickly."

John George turned to Carpzov. "You have my authorization to call on whatever resources you need to stop this plague of radios. I'm not that worried about the nobility, but we have to stop the lower orders from listening to the Voice of America. Understood?"

Benedict Carpzov nodded. "I understand, Your Excellency. Your sons and I will accomplish what you command."

When the elector waved in dismissal, Carpzov motioned for them to follow. They left the bedchamber.

"We really have tried, Benedict. Honestly," Augi said. "But the border is just too porous."

"Not to mention that the Committee of Correspondence is involved," Johnny added. "Even if we could close the border, it wouldn't do any good. They're printing the pamphlets everywhere, we're sure of it. We don't have the manpower to do a house-to-house search of every village."

"Then we will have to look for other solutions," Carpzov said. "Now where is my half-brother?"

"Gus?" Augi asked tentatively.

Benedict's smile was a thin angry line. "Yes, that's the one. August Carpzov. The person who is selling radios to all the nobility in Dresden. The one you are in league with, making money when you are supposed to be limiting the use of radios. The person who supplies the records for your parties in the country estates."

Augi blanched and Johnny was pretty sure he did, too. Benedict laughed. "No, I have not told your father. Yet. My honor is involved here as well. But you will take me to him. Now."

***

"So how did you get started in all of this?" Bernard Stoltz was one of Dresden's more prominent goldsmiths.

Gus Carpzov smiled his best genial smile. "I was going to school in Jena when the Americans first came through to stop one of Tilly's regiments after the battle of Breitenfeld. I was intrigued by their CB radios and decided to investigate. I spent almost two years in Grantville before coming home."

Gus motioned at a radio on the shelf. This one was mounted on polished wood and stone. "Your daughter might like this one. It was designed to appeal to a woman's vanity."

Stoltz took the radio down and admired it. "Nicely done. Helmholtz did the inlays? I think I recognize his style. "

Gus nodded. "You have a fine eye, Herr Stoltz. Yes, that is Helmholtz's work. For someone like yourself, I will offer a discount. Only twenty guilders. I manufactured the inner workings myself using a real up-time transistor. I will guarantee the radio for six months, no charge for any repairs needed. " That wasn't true, but it let Gus sell a radio that cost him a guilder to make—including the case—for twenty guilders. No one was going to pay twenty guilders for something peasants could make from a broadsheet.

"Excellent," Stoltz said. "Done. But she also wants one of the . . . record players, are they called?"

"Yes, record players. " Gus nodded. "Right this way. I have them in a side room under lock. Since we cannot manufacture them yet, they are considerably more valuable, you understand." ...