at

not. Frankly, I can't say I'd lose much sleep over that, anyway. On the best day of his life, Freddie Congden was a flaming asshole. You know it as well as I do. I never could figure out why Anita took as long as she did to pack up her bags and leave the guy."
" 'Fraid he'd kill her," grunted Dan. "Took me months to convince her I'd see to it he didn't. Which, ah—" He looked away. "I did."
Harry's grin was even wider than before. "Broke the rules again, huh? Hell, Dan, you should've kept your own hands clean and just quietly passed the word to me and Darryl. We'd've seen to it good old Freddie didn't lay a hand on Anita. Hard for a man to beat his wife when he can't catch her. Which I'll gua-ran-tee Freddie couldn't have done, not after Darryl and I reasoned with him. Amazing, the persuasive powers of a two-pound ball-peen hammer applied to a kneecap."
Dan scowled, but said nothing. Mike continued smoothly.
"And you know what else will happen, Dan. Every old maid in the country—most of 'em pot-bellied men—will set up a howl and a shriek for every book in sight to be put under lock and key. Before you know it, it'll be harder to get into a library than Fort Knox. Leaving aside the damage to real civil liberties, that'll cause ten times worse damage to our own technical development than any amount of spying could do. I mean, face it. Do you really want to see all books published in the old universe declared 'items of national security'?"
Mike glanced at the marijuana plants. "If you thought the 'War on Drugs' was stupid, how's about the 'War on Unauthorized Reading?' "
Dan grimaced. Then, held up his hand in a gesture of peace-making. "All right, all right. But—" He turned his head and studied the final member of the little group, who had kept silent throughout. The only one of them, as it happened, who had been born in the 17th century—and had the elegant and aristocratic apparel to prove it.
"But," he repeated, "I want you to stay out of it personally. Let Francisco handle it. Him, at least, I trust to be reasonably judicious. And if the word ever gets out, it'll look better anyway having a well-regarded banker being the one who did the, ah, 'negotiations.' At least he's not a union strong-arm boy or a former professional boxer."
"Sure, no sweat," said Mike. Francisco Nasi, formerly a high courtier in the Ottoman Empire, a shaker-and-mover among the widespread and influential Abrabanel family, and now perhaps Grantville's most highly esteemed