Alfheimr Renaissance

Female complications, day 8

Surprises

I realised that I actually miscalculated a day for the New Year and we celebrated on January 1 instead of December 31, because tablets, smart and dumb wristwatches and all mobile phones won't have the same error. Oops. Jane pretends to be completely devastated and shocked that I could do something so wrong. Her whole life and world view is ruined, and I've fallen off my high chair, and can't be my woman any more. She loves to over act, and honestly it feels good that both Jane and I seem to have recovered what we lost, and that we again can joke around.

It hasn't even been a day, but even I have noticed that Jane is behaving in a different way, and seems closer than ever to Iselin who warmly welcomed her as a concubine and official sambo. They do like that word. Jane is definitely happier, and seems freer and more carefree, but it's not that strange considering the thoughts and anxiety she must have felt in the last few weeks. That was apparently one reason why she tried to make it more Midgård Christmas like during the wedding. Jane had expected that this would be the last Christmas with us, and she would be alone in the future. Alone and outside of all social life and friendship. Alone in the world.

The others have also welcomed her as a sambo, and it's basically just Kari who switch back and forth between happy for her friend, and unhappy that I have another woman, even though she has just waited for it to happen. Me too is happier and I feel better, and I'm quite convinced that what I feel for Jane is, to some extent, love. Or maybe the sex was just really good. Which it were. I got a damn weird social life, but neither they nor I are unhappy, at least not from what I've noticed, but that doesn't always mean much.

Both Jane and I have shared a laugh on the irony that after a long autumn we have finally reach somewhere she was trying to get to when we first meet, and I was trying to avoid it. My kept woman. My Älskarinna. It feel so weird to even think that word. But the important difference is that there is now love between us, and we are definitely friends, and children are a subject for way in the future. Neither of us are really interested in having children, although Kari has mentioned that it's time for us to start, so they know that Liv is the fertility issue instead of Radgeirrson's drug overdose.

Olafr is just happy for us, and as subtle as the hammer he wield, that it's time to try to make children with all of my women. Iselin and Kari do want children, and now being married means Iselin and I should try, which we sort of have been doing, since Iselin have sensually told me, whispered or grunted to fill her up, and that just feels way too good. Even with an IUD, if I can make her pregnant, she is likely to become so eventually, since I don't expect the IUD to be fool proof. The only other woman I regularly 'unload' in is Caecilia, and probably not enough for her, while Kari and Ciara are more careful, and I believe they truly want know I can have healthy children before we try, as it might be too painful otherwise.

Anyway, as Olafr will help me with many complex projects, he needs to better understand what it is we will do, so I show him my workshop. He is very fascinated with everything, but for him this is similar to alchemy, with many funny creations in especially wood and brass, and in a very real way, this is a wizard's workshop. Olafr is proud when he recognises and now understands the line shaft system and belt drive, but also confused as there is no water wheel here. So after warning him, I start the steam engine. Olafr recoils with a: "How in Odin's name!?!"

I show that the steam engine can be turned on and off, and he gets to try it himself. We have a long discussion about what a steam engine is and how it works. It helps that I can show parts and take apart the steam engine I'm finishing for the steam boat, and there is also show the steamer's boiler in the basement. My explanations makes Olafr quite speechless. He knows that the lid on a cooking vessel can move when it boils, but that that phenomenon can make something so heavy move, and with such power, he had never imagined.

Once Olafr starts to recover from that shock, I show the machines I made, like the scroll saw and the metal lathe. Of course, Olafr has seen those foot-trodden simple lathes that are used to shape wooden barrels and wooden bowls, and we have one in the carpentry shop, but they can't handle metal, and don't have this fine control. I show how precisely I can measure and control the cut and work. As Olafr witness the lathe making a nice and absolutely round part, I see Olafr's eyes tear up. His eyes stay on me and the work fort the whole time as I slowly make a simple brass spinning top, which may not be the most beautiful work ever, or the finest surface, but it is beautiful, and a piece of leather with the finest abrasive soon have it polished. Olafr understands how enormously difficult this little brass thing would have been for an ordinary craftsman to make, and he has just seen me turn it very quickly. It is nicely balanced where it spins on the bench and he can hardly understand that it can spin for so long without falling. But most of the mass is in the outer disc. It's entertaining to watch the famous swordsmith crouch and watch the little spinning brass top up close, and once it falls, tenderly pick it up and look at the brass top with a smile, before spinning it again. So I give him the spinning top.

I suspect Olafr wants a steam engine in his Borgarsandr workshop and some of the machines, no matter if he needs them or not. I take the opportunity to show my lens grinding machine and it to fascinates Olafr, but the lathe is metal and just more impressive. It is a completely different type of metal work than he is used to, and he really wants to try building other machines to process metal.

Olafr knows we're working with something called 'electricity', so I show the fan to the greenhouse, and an electric motor. I explain it's called electric power and that big rotating thing on the roof? It captures the power of wind and converts it into electricity, and I lead the electricity here via copper wires, store the electricity in the clay pots under the stairs, and then I can use it to power the fan as the power flow via the copper wires. Break the circuit and the fan stops. My explanation only makes Olafr speechless. So I show the light, and explain that the servant system uses electricity. The message back and forth to the guest mansion used the copper wires along the road, and I explain the basic of a telegraph and how combinations of short and long pulses can transmit a message.

The difference between hydropower, steam power and electricity is power scale, portability, time and availability. For instance; hydropower is dependent on the presence of water, flow and head of water. I can't move this electrical system, and can't save that much power in the clay pots under the stairs and beside taking time, there are losses, so I can't power something powerful for long or really that powerfully, but electrical power is practical for some things and can drive machines like my lathe, and for such use electricity is compact, controllable and can be started immediately without keeping a steam engine running or waiting for the steam engine to build up power. It is possible to hold an electric motor to, for example, drill a hole.

The successor to the steamboat engine will hopefully be able to move the Millennium Eagle's replacement, for a whole day without using sails, and we only need wood or coal to keep the fire going, and the ship can almost ignore wind direction, and move even if there is no wind. I draw a comparison between a bow and a heavy axe as they are good for different things. The bow is finesse and can reach far, but is useless for cutting down a tree with, and the axe is useless for trying to take down a deer from a distance.

"I'm willing to try!" We just look at Alith grinning. "Although, I do agree a bow reaches further and is more precise."

After all the revelations, Olafr needs some time to himself, and since there are only small things left to do, I complete the two best of the telephones, which beside tidying up, honestly is mostly a matter of choosing the best carbon-grain microphones and the best speaker elements. The telephones have been given a powerful crank generator that can drive a classic double ringer, and the handset hangs from a hook that switches contacts. When the telephone is lifted, the ringer is disconnected while the speaker is connected, and the battery is connected to the microphone. To make the telephone more efficient with louder sounds, and avoid the microphone always being live due to background noise and so on, as well as save battery and make it safer if someone doesn't hang the handset up correctly, there is a push-to-talk button on the handset. We have a push-to-talk button on the radios, so no one but Jane will find it strange that the telephone has it. There are mostly advantages to having it, and if you want to have the microphone plugged in all the time, you can just hold down the PTT button, or move the PTT to lock it. If the handset is hung back, the battery is still disconnected. Every telephone requires a 'small' battery to be able to talk and that is a limitation of talk time, and while that time is many hours, the PTT button still saves the power. In the future, I hope to power the telephones via the telephone network just like 'modern' land line telephones are. Here on the islands, there network will be relatively short distances and low current, so I can make the supply direct voltage DC and thus battery powered, instead of AC which requires a generator. I should be able to send speech and power via the same wire and through a capacitor, coil and diode, the microphone can then get the power that it needs, while the capacitor only lets through the high frequency sound to the speaker. It is also possible that each telephone continues to have a battery, but that the telephone's battery is maintenance-charged when the handset is hung up. There would have been advantages with AC feeding, but worse to do. Right now, I'm trying to implement the KISS principle, so a battery in each telephone is the solution I've chosen, and it's a manual switchboard, but in the future, a 'line active' signal is needed for the switchboard to know that the phone is hung up and automatically disconnect the call. Now someone has to listen into the line to see if the call is still in progress, or a 'ring' signal must be made to let the switch operator know that the call has ended.

Perhaps I should make a modification, so that the socket for an external telephone handset is available on the standard radios? Being able to actually pick up a telephone and make a radio telephone call would also be quite fun and could be handy, and hooking up a phone line to the radios shouldn't be too difficult, and then a PTT will be useful. If I really think about it usage, is there some kind of 'PTT is pressed' signal on the line so switching can happen automatically, otherwise someone has to listen to the conversation and switch over the radio when 'shift' is said. Hmmm...

I have managed to avoid Jane finding out about the success of this project, so to experiment and surprise her, first telephone is hung up in the guards day room, and the second telephone I plug the telephone directly into the junction box in the small pavilion hall, but we run the wire into the wings hallway by squishing the wire with one of the inner doors. With the inner doors closed, it will be a good test without having to go outside and the snow and cold. Even with sand, the stairs are icy and slippery.

I test with Iselin and Kari, and we have to use a relatively high voice and speak clearly for it to sound good and clear, and it crackles and pops, but it works. Higher battery voltage would have given a stronger signal, and I should try to do transformers. But I clearly hear what they are saying and can hear the difference in the voices. Soon Ciara, the bodyguards and staff have joined us and are testing. It is not long before the ringing and commotion attract Jane's attention. It's so damn satisfying when Jane immediately realises what it is, and her face and expression as she eagerly wants to try. Like a child on Christmas. I leave to let them play. I have many more projects that are half finished. Later tonight we will try to move the telephone in the hall to the guest mansion, and that it is no more difficult than changing which wire the telephone is plugged into. There will probably be both a telegraph and a telephone in the guest mansion in the near future. It's good for future telegraphy practice, and guests don't need to know we have a working telephone system. We have so many types of electric ringing bells that I need to start giving them different sound signatures.

Heh, I need to make ring tones!

The sound of my study door opening behind me, makes me turn my head, and Jane close it behind her. Wow, that is a very naughty look and smile as she very pointedly locks the door. Jane glides forward, giving me a kiss as her hands begin to fumble with my waistband, and whisper:

"The telephones work well, so you, my lover, have earned a surprise blowjob."