Текст книги "Grantville Gazette 45"

Автор книги: Paula Goodlett

Соавторы: Kerryn Offord,Enrico Toro,Terry Howard,David Carrico,Griffin Barber,Rainer Prem,Caroline Palmer
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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 15 страниц)

The depth (and draft!) of the ship limits the number of gun decks. Over the course of the sixteenth century, a second and then a third gundeck (~1591) was introduced. (Creuze 15). The Dutch didn't use three-deckers, but the English and French did. (Anderson 158). British designers of the late-eighteenth century found that three-deck 80-gun ships were top heavy; two-deck 80s were too long for their height, and hogged (drooped amidships); the two-deck 74s were ideal and, even though they were considered to be of the "third rate," became the most common "battleships" in "foreign service." (Millar 9).

On a Georgian frigate, the lower deck was called the gun deck but had no guns (Millar 10). But that did help ensure that the upper deck was safely above the water.

For the British navy, there was no systematic distribution of the different gun sizes among ships of different classes, and among the different decks of a given ship, until 1677, when it adopted a "solemn, universal, and unalterable adjustment of the gunning and manning of the whole fleet." (Tanner 233ff). This was altered (snicker) by the "establishments" of 1691, 1706, 1719, and 1745. After that warship design became somewhat more diverse again.

Gun Weight

After armor was introduced in the nineteenth century, warship design became "weight critical"-the hull displacement provided a particular amount of buoyancy, and the ship couldn't be heavier, so designers had to make compromises vis-a-vis weight of guns, engines, armor, and even fuel and ammunition carried.

As a loose rule of thumb, gun weight is proportional to the cube of the caliber (Meigs 204) and thus, for roundshot, proportional to the shot weight. For early-nineteenth-century British iron guns, gun weight was 170–411 times the latter. (Beauchant 102). Big guns have greater range, but small guns have a higher rate of fire.

We have already alluded to the fact that bronze guns could be made lighter than cast iron ones of the same caliber; steel guns had a similar advantage over their predecessors, because of steel's greater tensile strength per unit weight.

Guns designed to only fire shells (hollow projectiles) could be lighter than those firing solid shot; shells were lighter than solid shot of the same caliber; hence less powder was needed to project them; hence the gun barrels could be thinner. Or, keeping gun weight the same, you could increase caliber. The Paixhans 80-pounder shell gun (1837) weighed the same as the traditional 36-pounder. (Tucker 1320).

Gun Crew

There's some data on crew size in Table 2A. In early nineteenth century French naval service, 14 men attended a 36-pounder; 12, a 24-pounder, 10, an 18– or 12– pounder, 8, an 8-pounder; and 6, a 6– or 4-pounder. (Douglas 149). A carronade only needed 4 men. (163).

Miller (57) provides the rule of thumb that one man was required for every 5 cwt. (112 pounds) of gun weight, although I think that's on the low side. However, he makes the point that gun crews changed constantly; if only one side were engaged, the free crews would come over to help; but crewmen would also be pulled off to handle the ship or to form a boarding party.

Gun Loading; Rate of Fire

It's dangerous to assume that the rate of fire was as good in the 1630s as in the more familiar Napoleonic period (Hornblower Syndrome!).

A modern crew of four handling a replica sixteenth-century wrought iron breechloader required 5 -10 minutes per shot (Konstam 40). An experienced crew might well do better, but on the other hand, handling a large muzzleloader would be more time-consuming. Elizabethan sea dogs probably just fired one broadside at point-blank range and then fought a boarding action. (Konstam 40).

"In 1646 Master gunner William Eldred stated, in The Gunner's Glassethat a maximum of ten rounds an hour could be fired from a gun, and that after forty shots had been fired an interval of an hour must be allowed to cool the piece." (Hughes 35).

The fastest fixed guns on a seventeenth– (or eighteenth-)century warship were the swivel guns. There were breechloaders with removable chambers, and by having several prepped chambers handy, one could get off several shots quickly-perhaps one a minute, at least until the preps were used up. (Konstam 40). They were short range weapons, intended for anti-personnel use, and I imagine that sustained rapid fire wasn't necessary; either the enemy boarding action was fended off, or it wasn't.

Shells cannot be fired as fast as shot because the fuses have to be prepared and adjusted; percussion fuses are less trouble than time fuses. (Owen 338).

For eighteenth-century field artillery (3 -12 pounders), a good rate of fire for an eight-man crew was considered to be two aimed shots per minute (Peterson 119), and this could be doubled by eliminating steps (such as sponging the bore). dangerous, but not as much getting overrun by the enemy. Speed was affected by the weight of the piece; a 12-pounder might only get off one round a minute. (Wise 31).

The rate of fire at sea was lower. (Smaller gun crews? Ship movement?) In 1738, the 70-gun Hampton Court"fire 400 rounds in twenty-five minutes which suggests that each gun fired about one round every two minutes." (Rodger 540). The USS Constitutioncould fire its 24-pounders, which had a twelve-man crew, one round every three minutes. (Mehl 33).

Other published estimates include one round every 3–5 minutes for the early modern era (Volo 256); three broadsides in five minutes (Hill 55); at best one round a minute for the Napoleonic British navy (Miller 58); for best crews under perfect conditions, one round every four or five minutes in 1660 and one a minute in 1756 (Ireland 48).

Gunlocks improved rate of fire; Collingwood's flagship Dreadnought"could fire her first three broadsides in three and a half minutes." (Rodger 540). Such a firing rate could not be sustained; the gunners would tire; there would be casualties; smoke would slow down the aiming process.

Note that the British and American crews of the Napoleonic period typically got off 1.5–3 times as many shots as a French or Spanish opponent. (Toll 7). The 74-gun Guerriereat Minorca (1756) fired 659 rounds in 3.5 hours (5.5 rounds/hour), and another French ship averaged 6 rounds/hour at the Saintes; either the crews were less handy or the French were deliberately taking their time. (Rodger 540).

The heavy rifled breechloaders of HMS Warrior(1861) were a bit faster than the old smoothbore carriage guns, firing perhaps once a minute. On the other hand, the rifled muzzle loaders were very slow. To reload, the barrels had to be fully depressed and sometimes they had to be traversed to the fore or aft position, too. That gave them a rate of fire of just one shot every three minutes. When breechloaders were reintroduced, those with the full screw closure only improved the situation a little, to once every two minutes. (Hill 55).

The elevating screw increases accuracy but not necessarily speed. In tests at Shoeburyness, a 40-pdr rifled breechloader fired 10 rounds in 7.5 minutes using the screw, and in just 6 minutes with the wedge. (Owen 337).

In the ACW, the big guns were slow. With the 15-inch Dahlgren, the average time between shots was 6 minutes; depending on conditions, it might take 3 -10 minutes to fire again. On the other hand, a long 32-pdr or 9-inch shell gun might be fired once every forty seconds. (Canfield).

Late-nineteenth-century breechloading deck guns, with pivot mounts, appeared to have firing rates of 10 rounds/minute. (Mehl 81, 85).

Even with the same model of gun, rates of fire will differ from ship to ship. In 1902, with the Mark VII 6-inch quick-fire, nine British warships exhibited prize firing rates that ranged from 4.17-7.38 rounds/minute. With heavier guns the range was 0.62 -1.25. (Brassey 38).

Rate of fire can be limited by barrel overheating. If the barrel becomes too hot, there are variety of potential problems, including increased erosion (thus loss of accuracy over the long term) and self-ignition of propellant. Barrel liquid-cooling systems have been used with some rapid-fire twentieth-century naval guns. (Wu).

In 1820s and 1830s the French experimented with canon foudre(drum cannon), "equipped with a carousel of multiple powder chambers that could be pre-loaded." It was not a success; the seal between the chamber and the barrel was inadequate. (Mehl 36).

The logical solution was to use multiple barrels (i.e., a volley gun), rather than multiple chambers, as on the Swedish Nordenfelt 25 mm machine cannon (1877). It had a rate of fire of 120 rounds/minute, and an effective range of 1500 meters. This was a semi-automatic, gravity-fed weapon. (62).

On the Nordenfelt, the four barrels were fixed, horizontally parallel. Another approach was the Hotchkiss system revolving cannon; an 1896 Russian model fired 80 rounds/minute to 2700 meters. (63). Another source claimed that 12 aimed shots/minute at 4000 yards was possible. (Ireland1997, 42).

In the canonical Baltic War, the USE army had Requa-style volley guns. The USE navy wanted them for its timberclads, for suppressing cavalry raids on river shipping, but the army was given priority. (And fortunately, the air force conceded that it was "at least two generation of aircraft away from mounting machine guns.) ( 1634: TBW, Chap. 5). Ultimately, the USE navy went with a pivot-mounted Reffye-style mitrailleuse, having twenty.50 caliber barrels. Unlike the volley guns, these were fired in succession; maximum rate of fire was 60 aimed or 100 unaimed shots per minute. It had removable breechblocks and was loaded twenty rounds at a time. ( 1634: TBW, Chap. 41).

Grantville Firearms Roundtable, "How to build a Machine gun in 1634 with available technology: Two alternate views" ( Grantville Gazette4) may be of interest.

Whether at the breech or the muzzle, manual loading was the norm for big guns until the nineteenth century. When turrets were equipped with steam power for traversing the gun, thought was given to whether this same power could expedite the loading process. On Eads' USS Winnebago, steam power was used to lower the gun platform to a (safe) loading position (cityofart.net), but it didn't actually load the projectiles.

On the USS Indiana(BB1, 1895), the 13-inch gun turrets were semi-automatically loaded. They were equipped with hydraulically-powered ammunition hoists, the hoisted car having separate compartments for the powder and the projectile. However, in the magazine, these compartments were loaded by hand. A hydraulic rammer pushed the projectile into the gun breech. It's not clear to me how the projectile got from the hoist car to the rammer. (Fullam 187). A somewhat similar hatch loading system was used on the 16-inch rifled muzzle loaders of the HMS Inflexible(1895), but of course it communicated with the muzzle. (Ellacott 58).

In canon, Simpson's ironclads use salvaged mine hydraulics to open and close the gunports and perhaps operate the blowers that suck out the smoke, but it appears that the shell and powder hoists are operated manually. ( 1634: TBWChap. 38).

This article continues in Part 2, "Ready, Aim, Fire!"

Notes From The Buffer Zone: Standing On The Shoulders of Giants

Written by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

I’m not sure what caused it: Maybe watching the news coming out of NASA about the Mars Rover. Maybe downloading too many Star Trekalert tones for my phone. Maybe the deep and somewhat excessive excitement I felt when I discovered some Stargateepisodes that I missed.

I know something triggered it in combination with some historical fiction I’m planning. The key to historical fiction is to always make certain that your character is of her time. Maybe she doesn’t speak Chaucerian English, even though she lived in Chaucer’s time, but she has the right attitudes-attitudes she wouldn’t hold at any other time.

I know I am a child of my time. I tell my husband almost weekly that I was born into the 20 ^thcentury for a reason. and that reason is really a handful of reasons, all intertwined-penicillin, indoor plumbing, and electricity. All those time travel romances in which the heroine happily decides to remain in 17 ^thcentury Scotland? Well, either those heroines are crazy, the authors don’t know history, or (most likely) the books don’t speak to me.

What speaks to me-what has always spoken to me-is science fiction.

And the realization I had this past fall is that the reason I’m a science fiction writer is because I was born in the latter half of the 20 ^thcentury.

I love mystery. I love romance. I love fantasy. Heck, I love good old complex family dramas without an ounce of adventure in them. I love great writing, great characters, great settings.

But I get truly passionate about science fiction, and that’s almost all science fiction.

Before I was old enough to separate reality from fiction (and yes, there is a difference, even to fiction writers), I saw science mixed with science fiction. My parents’ black-and-white television set brought me The Jetsons, Lost in Space,and good old Walter Cronkite interrupting this broadcast to let me know that mankind had orbited the Earth, had left Earth’s orbit, had died on the launch pad, had orbited the Moon.

Every kid in my school wanted to be an astronaut-at least until we heard about the amount of exercise those poor people went through-and all the girls had crushes on either Kirk or Spock. We almost came to blows at times, trying to decide which one we wanted to spend the rest of our lives with: the brainy one or the brawny one. Me, I rather prefer brains andpassion to brains and bloodless, so I’ve always preferred Kirk.

Or maybe I just imprinted on all of those astronauts. It takes one supersized pair to climb into an Apollo capsule on top of a gigantic Roman candle, and let an explosion propel you out of Earth’s orbit.

How, after that, could anything I imagine even compare?

The first “book” I ever wrote was a typical girl-girl thing, featuring a pony. The second one had a car, I think, and the third-well, in the third, Captain Kirk goes back in time, lands in Superior, Wisconsin, and saves me from the drudgery that was my life. Romance novel meet Star Treknovel, twelve-year-old girl style. (We won’t discuss the Partridge Familygothic novel that followed.)

My friend Toni Rich and I spent most of our English class in our eighth grade year writing one of those back-and-forth novels-she’d write two pages, then I’d write two pages-and from what I remember about it (which isn’t much besides the colored paper), it was some space adventure thing with lots of hunky astronauts and big hairy monsters Threatening The Entire Universe! Yes, there were lots of exclamation points as well, and cliffhangers meant to stump the co-writer, not added for any logical reasons of their own.

But what if I had been born fifty years earlier? Would I have written so much science fiction? Or would I have written cozy mysteries after losing myself in the work of Agatha Christie? Would I write Gold Rush adventures because I loved Jack London? (I still do, by the way.) Would everything have snow and that horrible quest to build a fire?

Or would I have imprinted on the works of Herbert George Wells? Would I look to Mars and see possible invaders? Or would I rip off Jules Verne and writing diving stories set in the deep blue sea?

H.G. Wells makes me wonder if science fiction was just in the air. After all, he was born roughly 100 years before I was, and he became the prototypical science fiction writer. If a modern sf writer wants to do anything, she’ll have to climb on the shoulders of Wells to do it. His work examines both the possibilities of science and the failures of it, the politicization of science and how deeply personal it can be.

But he wasn’t the first with those ideas either. One of the firsts was a woman, Mary Shelley, whose Frankenstein is a tale of science gone horribly, horribly wrong. (Metaphorically, it’s a fear-of-childbirth story, or maybe (more accurately) a fear-of-your-own-child story, but we’ll ignore that for the moment.) She influenced entire generations as well, but in a different way. Perhaps her influence was more on the horror side of the equation because her monster is so memorable or perhaps because science wasn’t in the air in the decades after her novel like it was in the late 19 ^thcentury and all of the 20 ^th.

Everything was about science when I grew up. Everything. From scientifically designed food (the astronauts drink Tang! You should too!) to scientifically enhanced clothing, we couldn’t escape science if we tried.

And, since I’m dyslexic and absolutely unable to write down the correct answer to any equation (even if I know it), I am not very good at practicing science. I would have been a dismal failure as an astronaut. I couldn’t have even started the training, let alone get to that scary exercise program.

But I’m fantastic at making things up. I can imagine strange new worlds and new lives and new civilizations. My imagination can boldly go where Kris herself has never gone before-and will not go ever.

Sometimes I think it a small consolation that I can write science fiction instead of live an adventurous lifestyle. Then I watch documentaries on what the astronauts went through or even watch someone else’s imagined journey (Howard’s trip to the space station on The Big Bang Theorycomes to mind), and I realize that I am hopelessly bookish, not all that adventurous outside of my office, and scared to death of Roman candles.

So would I have written science fiction if I’d been born in a different century? Who knows? If I’d been born much earlier, I’d have spent a lot of energy just trying to convince someone I was a person, not the property of the men in my life, that I had a brain and a purpose other than child-bearing. So I’ve had that luxury as well.

The luxury of respect, of education, of science, and of damn good entertainment.

Yes, I stand on the shoulders of giants. And those giants are living breathing people, with real lives and real fears. Sometimes those living breathing people wrote science fiction.

But many of them lived it-and shared the adventure with the rest of us.

And for that, I’m profoundly grateful.

Guardian

Rebecca Birch

Jin hugged the wall on the edge of an alleyway. Loud music and conversation filtered down from the OldTown night market two blocks away, but nothing moved nearby.

The ancient coin Auntie Bai Wei had given her hung on a thin leather cord around Jin's neck. It pulsed with a steady throb that felt as if it should be audible, but she knew from experience that she alone could sense it.

Jin walked this path every day on her way to the cannery where she worked, when it was a bustle of activity. But by night, the darkness pressed heavily on her. Though not a soul broke the stillness, it felt like someone was watching. A tingling sensation spread between Jin's shoulder blades. Yao had told her that when the bullies chased him that morning, a strange man in a dark suit-unheard of on this side of the river-had watched it all with predatory eyes. It had upset him even more than being thrown in the refuse bin, again.

Knowing her deceased mother's spirit wouldn't approve of her illicit ventures into thievery, Jin had ignored the coin's pull for three days but Yao's fear and the fact that she couldn't protect him during working hours had driven her out into the night. She needed the yuanthat Auntie would pay for the trinket the coin had chosen, and she needed it now, before registration for the tech school on the other side of the river closed.

She inched forward, crouched low. A solitary electric light burned inside the jeweler's shop, back beyond the showroom. Its soft glow caught on the figurine that drew the coin's attention. A white jade lion, shot through with deep, blood-touched red inclusions in its mane and paws. One paw stretched forward, its claws bared, and its jaw gaped wide in a roar. It was a rare piece of stone and a rare craftsman who pulled the beast from its depths. Jin would be sorry to sell it. Undoubtedly, its owner would be sorry when he found it missing.

Don't think about it. She drove away the image of the jeweler, and his smiling eyes behind their wire-rimmed spectacles, when he waved to her every day. Would he smile tomorrow? Would she smile back, as if nothing had happened?

Metal grates guarded the door and windows. She turned the corner and spied a window high on the wall, just within her reach if she jumped, open a crack. It had been unseasonably warm. Had the jeweler opened it for some ventilation and forgotten to shut it again, since it was so far into October that open windows should be a thing of the past?

No matter. It made her work easier. No need to pull out her makeshift lock pick, carved out of an old knife, secreted in a breast pocket.

She backed across the space between that building and the next, then sprinted forward and launched herself up, her fingers catching on the bricks at the window's base. With a tug, she pulled the window open wide, then walked her feet up the wall and slithered through head-first. The floor was a long way down, but she kept one hand on the window-ledge and twisted her body until she hung down the wall, then dropped. Her knees bent, absorbing the impact, and minimizing any sound.

Jin froze for a moment, listening. The jeweler lived above his shop. She couldn't risk being caught. Yao would be sent straight back into the Orphan Care Authority dormitories and the predations of his peers. At twelve years old, he was four years her junior, and she'd only recently earned enough to take him under her guardianship in a ramshackle apartment where they subsisted on O. C. A. nutrition bars. It wasn't much, but at least she could begin fulfilling her promise to her mother to watch over him and give him his best chance to make something of his life.

After a silent count to a hundred, Jin decided it was safe to move on. She had dropped into the jeweler's workshop. The worktable sat in the center of the room, littered with tools and coils of silver and gold wire. Jin padded past, guided by the light in the hallway, then slipped into the showroom.

A spirit-bell hung over the entryway, but Jin resisted the urge to ring it, despite the intensifying feeling that she was being watched. Spirits weren't going to turn her over to the police. People would. Besides, it was probably nothing more than her own guilty conscience. Even now she could hear her mother's ghostly admonishment. Find another way. I'm ashamed to see my daughter is a thief.

"I'm sorry, Mother," she whispered, hardly more than an exhale. "There isn't another way."

Glass cases lined the walls, filled with handmade jewelry-pearl necklaces, gold rings set with precious stones, and jade figurines ranging from a beetle the size of her thumbnail to a reclining ox, nearly as long as her forearm. She passed them by. The lion in the front window called to Auntie Bai Wei's coin like a lodestone.

Jin reached the window and picked up the lion. It felt warm. The wild edges of its mane dug into her palm. Gently, she reminded herself. Jade was strong, but not unbreakable. She placed it at the bottom of her jacket pocket, then returned the way she came.

As she slipped out of the showroom, a floorboard squealed under her weight. Jin froze. An electric light flashed on at the top of a flight of stairs leading up to the next floor. Without a backward glance, Jin fled through the workroom and launched herself at the window.

Footsteps shuffled down the stairs. Jin struggled to wriggle through the open window without putting her weight on the pocket that held the precious figurine. Her other pocket caught on the handle that turned to open and close the pane. With a silent curse, Jin backed up and freed herself, then slithered out and dropped to the ground in a clumsy roll.

Jin stumbled to her feet, and the workshop light went on. She sprinted into the darkened alleyway, despite a sharp pain in her hip where she'd hit the ground.

****

Jin burst clear of the alleyway and into the night market's busy crush. Neon signs advertising beer, cigarettes, and spirit cleansings hung from brick facades, illuminating the patchwork quilt of shacks and tarp-draped booths at the bases of the buildings. With a few quick motions, she lost herself among the milling mass of people.

She pulled her cap lower on her head, making sure her hair was safely tucked, then stuffed her hands in her pockets and hunched her shoulders, curling in on herself. With the collar of her jacket raised, her face was nothing more than a shadow in the neon haze. Her diminutive height and stick-thin body hidden behind loose-fitting clothes made her look more like a young boy than a teenage girl.

A pair of spinsters haggled over pickled eggs while a klatch of young men huddled at the corner warming their hands over a brazier and smoking cigarettes. They looked straight past her. Good. If no one noticed her, no one would connect her to the theft.

The figurine seemed to throb in her hand. Jin released it and pressed ahead. She could hear the river now-the slosh of the water sliding through its concrete banks, the thrum of motors struggling to press boats upstream, the shouting and cursing of cargo men working to unload a supply ship. She moved towards the market street's edge and ducked behind the stalls. Auntie Bai Wei's shop was close, but easy to miss.

Jin ran her hand along the rough brick wall. Hot chili sauce perfumed the air by a noodle seller's cart. A low growl rumbled up from her center. It had been months since she'd tasted something other than the nutritional bars provided by the Orphan Care Authority or the remnants of discarded fish, too poor a quality to can.

Jin's fingers slipped into a nearly invisible seam running up the mortar. She pressed against the next brick and the wall slid inward, releasing a haze of smoke, reeking of opium, that obscured the entryway to Auntie Bai Wei's domain. You only found Auntie's shop if she wanted you to.

After ducking through the entry, Jin pushed the wall back into place, leaving her in near-total darkness. Time to close her eyes and wait until she could see again. A steady throb of heat pulsed in her pocket. Jin reached inside with a tentative hand and touched the jade lion. It felt like a dying ember. Her eyes flashed open and she pulled it out.

An amber glow radiated from its belly, illuminating the stone from deep inside. Dark veins shot through the jade, where small impurities gave it texture. The red edges pulsed. Jin stared, transfixed, for a moment, then stuffed the thing back in her pocket. This was no simple piece of jade, she realized. There was a spirit trapped in its depths. She needed to be rid of it.

Afterimages danced across her vision while she inched her way through the storeroom in a carefully precise straight line. If she veered even a little she'd stumble over barrels and crates, and Auntie Bai Wei would deduct any damage she caused from the purchase price. It didn't matter that she wasn't there in the storeroom to see it. She always knew. You either waited until you could see, or risked breaking spirits-knew-what. There were folks who were indebted to Auntie so deeply they'd be working off the damage for years.

It didn't matter that it had been Auntie Bai Wei who found Jin at the O. C. A.'s employment fair and coerced the cannery into hiring her, although Jin had already been passed over for being too small. Nor did it matter that she had gone on to recruit Jin into her band of "collectors," and occasionally slipped a new textbook for Yao, full of technical details Jin couldn't begin to comprehend, into the payment. If you broke Auntie's stock, you paid for it.

Jin had learned the lesson early, and she'd been lucky. All she'd broken was an old teapot that had already been cracked and glued once before. Auntie Bai Wei took the bronze medallion Jin had just snatched from her neighbor-an old blind soldier who had stumbled into Yao in the hallway, then started bellowing that Yao was a spirit host-and called it even.

It was the only time Jin hadn't felt a moment of remorse when she stole. Anyone foolish enough to accuse a small boy of being a spirit host deserved what came to him. It was only luck no one else had been home and come to investigate the shouting. She'd seen what happened when the government workers came to take away suspected hosts. The protective gear as if they were entering a quarantine ward, syringes full of "medicine" to keep the spirit at bay when they dragged the host off to the black prison perched at the river's edge.

If they had come for Yao, the old soldier might have found himself dead rather than short one small medallion. Even Jin's mother's perpetually disapproving voice in her mind didn't say a word.

Jin found the inner door by walking straight into it. The purple-rimmed, lion-shaped holes in her vision refused to clear. Wincing at the sharp pain where her knee hit the door, Jin opened it and stepped into the cluttered chaos of Auntie Bai Wei's shop.

Thick incense hung in the air and tickled the back of Jin's throat. A brilliant riot of colored paper lanterns hung from the exposed rafters, their flickering light illuminating the room. Cases with sagging shelves lined the walls and mapped a maze through the center. An ancient guqinstood in a corner, quietly playing itself, a haunting, traditional melody. The counter stood on the far wall behind a row of carved wooden chests.

Jin descended the two steps to the shop floor. There were no customers and no Auntie Bai Wei. Aside from the guqin, nothing made a sound. Jin had never been there without at least one other person browsing the knick-knacks, jewelry, antiques, and benevolent-spirit-occupied objects like the guqin, or waiting to haggle with Auntie over the price of a new offering.

"Auntie Bai Wei?" Jin called. Her voice sounded unnaturally loud as it bounced off the cinder-block walls.