Ascent of the Aliomenti (19 page)

Adam considered this. “I’m not sure I understand the idea, but even if it works, so what? Why do we need to make another wheel that’s turned by the first? I mean, I guess I can see that you
could
turn two wheels like that, but... why bother? What would it mean?”

“That’s the thing. I’m not sure
what
we could do with it yet.” He chuckled. “Actually, that’s not true. I have an idea about what we
could
have done with it, a few years ago.”

Adam waited for Will to continue, and finally asked the question after a long pause. “OK, what could we have done with it several years ago?”

“Think about this: what if the paddles aren’t facing the same way? What if the second wheel isn’t mounted vertically?” Will held the second wheel, the one he worked on now, vertically, and stood the original wheel on end, also vertically. “What if the second wheel is mounted horizontally?”

He flipped the second wheel so that it was lying on the ground, and set the first wheel on top. When he turned the vertical wheel, the horizontal wheel, with a few notches already carved, turned just a bit.

Adam’s eyes lit up. “That’s... very interesting. But what does it mean?”

“What if, instead of attaching that horizontal wheel to an axle, we mounted it to the top of a large stirring mechanism? And put a large bowl underneath that wheel, so that the stirring mechanism was down inside the bowl, and then filled that bowl with the ingredients for concrete?”

Adam looked at the two wheels, as Will demonstrated how the teeth would interlock. Will watched Adam’s face, as he slowly put the information together and realized the implications. “The water... the big Wheel... they’d turned the stirring device and stir up all of the concrete! We wouldn’t destroy our arms in the process!”

Will nodded. “That’s what I was thinking as well. It would be interesting to see what else we could do with it. I think we’d need to set up some type of leather band that would connect the larger Wheel to the smaller wheel with the teeth.”

“Teeth? Oh.” Adam noted the ridges in the two wheels at Will’s feet. “That makes sense; they do look a lot like big teeth. We’d need some way to stop it though, wouldn’t we? We probably don’t want that tooth wheel turning all the time.”

Will frowned. “Why wouldn’t we?”

“How would we get the stirrer back out of the mixing bowl in your example? We’d need to stop it to lift the stirrer out of the way, then roll the bowl away to use. And if we have all of this set up near the Wheel, we’d need to run it underground most likely.” He scowled as realization dawned. “You’ve had this in mind for a while, haven’t you? That’s why you insisted on having the bunker built where it was.”

Will shrugged. “I like to think ahead a bit.”

Adam laughed. “I wish you’d mentioned this idea back when we were rebuilding.” He rubbed his shoulder. “My arms still hurt now, all these years later.”

Now it was Will’s turn to laugh. “I know what you mean. It seemed too outlandish at the time, and I didn’t know if it would work. And it didn’t seem like a great idea back then, when we truly needed to focus on rebuilding, to try out something so unusual, especially without knowing if it would work. Now, though? We have a large and stable population, we have excess money, and more importantly, we all have plenty of time. Having a community of Energy users saves us a great deal of time that we’d otherwise spend doing much more mundane chores.”

Adam nodded. “Understood, Will. Now we can set this up and see what we can do with it.”

Will nodded, and then frowned. “But you’ve said something that gives me pause. I’m sure that these toothy wheels will work.” He paused as Adam snorted at the name. “But you’re right; we need to have some means to disable the mechanism that turns them. The problem is that the Wheel won’t stop. I wonder...”

“Another dramatic pause? Do tell, Will.”

Will chuckled. “We had the same problem when we built the aqueduct system years ago. We got the system set up to run the water to the village, but we couldn’t run it right away, not until we figured out where to put the water. If we’d done nothing, the water would have run through the aqueduct and landed on the ground in the village, and eventually the ground would saturate and the village would flood. So we built the shield, the piece of wood that stopped the water from flowing into the aqueduct system. Once we got the return mechanism built, which runs extra water out to the creek, we removed the shield.”

Adam shook his head. “That can’t work, Will. The Wheel will keep turning no matter what you do with the water that it scoops up. We can’t stop the Ealdor River, after all.”

Will nodded. “Agreed, and I do understand that. But recognize what we did. We had to build a water
return
system to be able to use the aqueduct.”

“So what?”

“So... maybe the answer is that we need another water return system.”

“Why would we need that?”

Will grinned. “Why not run another aqueduct spur, and a second wheel, closer to the bunker? The water would flow down that spur and drop on the second wheel to turn it and power the... toothy wheels below ground. The new waterwheel would be suspended up off the ground, and the water that turns it would eventually end up in a return system that would take it back to the Ealdor River. If we don’t want the toothy wheel to turn...”

“Then we set up a second shield that stops the water from flowing that way to begin with,” Adam finished, understanding. “And we can do that and then stop the... the... toothy wheel from turning when we’re done using it. That’s a brilliant idea.” He glanced at the work Will was doing. “I don’t think I can chisel at the same time that you are, so what can I do to help you figure out if this will work?”

Will considered the offer. “Axles for both wheels, and a few people to hold the axles in place while we check to see if turning one wheel turns the other. If it works, we’ll show more people, explain the idea, and then see what everyone wants to do.”

Adam nodded, and glanced at him. “This is what it was like back then, wasn’t it?”

Will arched an eyebrow. “I don’t follow.”

“This is what it was like back when you came up with the idea for the first Wheel, wasn’t it? You came up with an idea, tested it out, and then got everyone interested and excited about being part of it.”

“Not everyone was excited about it, especially not right near the end.” The Wheel had been rolled up the ramps toward the support beams while facing in the wrong direction, and the frustration at the error boiled over into anger at Will and the other Traders. Only the Traders returned to resume the task, and the six of them completed a job that thirty could not.

“Yet, in the end, they followed your lead, Will. They knew that the idea you’d described had merit, and, no matter how bizarre it sounded, they believed it would work because they believed in
you
.”

Will shrugged. “Perhaps. Plenty of people played a role.”

“And plenty will play a role in this effort as well. I’ll be one of them. But I guess what I’m trying to say, Will, is that I don’t know how many men could announce something that seems impossible and yet have so many people believe completely in the vision they propose. When you talk, others listen. More importantly, they
act
. That’s impressive. And never, even back then, did you... manipulate anyone.”

Adam stood, prepared to walk off to get the extra supplies Will had listed. “I’m glad I spared you.” And he walked away.

Will stared after him. “Yeah. Me, too.” His stare turned to a glare, and he felt the urge to give Adam a demonstration that he’d never
spared
Will’s life. Will’s life had never been at risk, even if Adam’s decision had been otherwise. But he took several deep breaths, calming himself, before he returned to chiseling the last pieces of wood away.

Adam returned with the necessary wooden axles. He’d managed to attach what looked like a small wheel to the end of one of the axles, which created what looked like a bolt. Will nodded in approval. Adam had done well, for the horizontal lower wheel would need to rest on something to keep it off the ground. While the wooden “bolt” wasn’t ideal, due to the friction that would be generated, it would at least show if the concept itself was sound.

Will finished whittling the teeth in the second wheel, and Adam walked off and returned with Arielle and Wayne. They, like Adam, found the idea bizarre at first, but quickly saw the potential that the toothy wheels might provide.Will mounted the horizontal wheel on the wooden stake with the “bolt” side underneath, and then he and Adam fed the second axle through the vertical wheel and held the ends. Will, the tallest, held the vertical axle for the horizontal wheel stable, while Adam and Wayne held the horizontal axle supporting the vertical wheel. With Arielle’s assistance, they guided the vertical wheel so that the teeth met up with those on the lower, horizontal wheel.

Arielle turned the vertical wheel. The interlocking teeth of the two wheels caught, and the horizontal wheel began turning as well.

Arielle grinned. So did Adam.

Will smiled, though it was a faint smile. The prototypes were always the easy part. The implementation of the full-scale model? Well, that was when tempers could flare and unforeseen problems could arise. He had only an idea for an expensive, time-consuming project that
might
provide them some production efficiency, in ways he couldn’t explain. It was the type of uncertainty and challenge the original Aliomenti would run from.

It was time to see if this group was different than the last one.

XV

Factory

1029 A.D.

There was significant interest in Will’s concept. Like Adam, many in the village were puzzled as to what, exactly, the “toothy wheels” could do for them. Why should they devote the time necessary to construct this contraption? They weren’t concerned about the costs, and Wayne said he’d happily contribute a large wheel without any payment.

None of them understood what they stood to gain from the undertaking, however.

“What led you to think of this in the first place, Will?” Arielle asked. Unlike the first batch of Aliomenti, the questions like those from the metal worker were asked with genuine interest, not to trap or argue on confuse.

“I’m not really sure,” Will admitted. “I saw the wheels turning on a wagon once, and for some reason thought of them turning while on their sides. Then I thought of them turning at the same time, and thought they might crash or stop each other if they collided.” He chuckled. “And then I curled my fingers together, and realized if I could make fingers, or teeth, on the wheels, they’d actually fit together well. And if I turned one, the next one would turn as well. Add in the Wheel getting turned by water at all times, and it seemed like it could be very useful.”

“So the idea, then, is that we’d use the water Wheel to provide the power to turn this? No more sore arms?” Wayne’s question was met with appreciative laughs, primarily from those who’d been there long enough to remember the major construction projects.

Will chuckled as well. “Exactly. Well, maybe not. You’ll still find
some
use for your arms.” The crowd chuckled. “But this could give us the ability to use the power of the river yet again. We’ve used it to scoop up fresh water and deliver it to where we need it. Now we can use it to turn something a short distance away. Anything that we do repeatedly, anything that requires turning, well, that’s something these special wheels can do.”

One of the carpenters raised his hand. “Just wondering... could we fit
more
of these... toothy wheels together like this?”

Yes!
Will thought.
Someone’s thinking
. “That’s a great question. I don’t see why not. Why do you ask?”

“I make a lot of legs for tables and chairs, and I use a lathe to do that. I have to turn the lathe by using my foot on a pedal. It’s not difficult, mind you, but it does get a bit tiring after a while. I was thinking, though, that if the first wheel is vertical and the second wheel is horizontal... could we make a
third
wheel that was also vertical? One that could turn my wood stock for me while I shape chair legs?”

Will nodded, as the murmuring started. People were intrigued. “That’s a fantastic idea. I think we should definitely try that out. That may help you make a
lot
more chair legs.”

One of the bakers raised her hand. “I think this could help us as well. We could always use help mixing dough for bread or cakes. We could mix much larger batches and then make more at a time. We could also use the second vertical wheel, possibly, to flatten out the dough. That would save us a great deal of time and effort as well.”

In turn, another dozen people hypothesized how the “toothy wheels” Will had described could help them perform their various crafts and professions with greater ease or increased speed, and soon they
all
wanted to build the special “toothy” wheels. Will suggested that they call the wheels “gears,” rather than “toothy wheels,” and the name stuck.

They first built an aqueduct spur which stretched from the primary aqueduct to the ground above the bunker. That was the location where they’d build the smaller water wheel used to power the gears in the bunker below. Tanners began work on the leather band that would connect the rotating axle of the aboveground wheel to the gear in the bunker. Wayne, the wagon-maker, built several larger wheels, and worked with Will to identify the depth and spacing of the teeth. Several masons worked on drilling through the concrete ceiling of the bunker, where they’d need to pass the leather strap through to turn the wheel below. They also joined forces with the carpenters to make certain that the wheels had solid bracing and support beams to turn on.