Eric Flint

1632

1632

Eric Flint

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. Copyright © 2000 by Eric Flint All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form. A Baen Books Original Baen Publishing Enterprises P.O. Box 1403 Riverdale, NY 10471

ISBN: 0-671-31972-8

Cover art by Larry Elmore Interior maps by Randy Asplund First paperback printing, February 2001 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Flint, Eric.

1632 / by Eric Flint. p. cm. ISBN 0-671-57849-9 (hc) 1. Thirty Years' War, 1618-1648-Fiction. 2. City and town life-West Virginia-Fiction. 3. Germany-History-1618-1648-Fiction. 4. Americans-Travel-Germany-Fiction. 5. West Virginia-Fiction. 6. Time travel-Fiction. I. Title.

PS3556.L548 A616 2000

813'.54-dc21 99-055275 Distributed by Simon Schuster 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020 Typeset by Windhaven Press, Auburn, NH Printed in the United States of America

To my mother,

Mary Jeanne McCormick Flint,

and to the West Virginia

from which she came.

Baen Books by Eric Flint

Mother of Demons

The Belisarius series, with David Drake:

An Oblique Approach

In the Heart of Darkness

Destiny's Shield

Prologue

The mystery would never be solved. It would simply join others, like the Tunguska event or the Square Crater on Callisto, in the catalogue of unexplained occurrences. The initial worldwide excitement waned within a few months, as it became clear that no quick answers would be found. For a few years grieving relatives would, with some success, press officialdom to maintain the studies and inquiries. But there were no lawyers to keep the fires stoked. The courts ruled soon enough that the Grantville Disaster was an Act of God, for which insurance companies were not liable. Within ten years, the Disaster had devolved into another domain of fanatics and enthusiasts, like the Kennedy Assassination. Thereafter, of course, it enjoyed a near-eternal half-life. But few if any reputable scientists in the world held out any hope for a final explanation.

Theories, of course, abounded. But the vague traces on instruments were impossible to decipher clearly. A small black hole, passing through the Earth. That was one theory. Another-popular for a time until the underlying mathematics were rejected in the light of later discoveries-was that a fragmented superstring had struck the planet a glancing blow.