Several hours later, after Rip had spent considerable time explaining how a barrel of oil could be used for a wide variety of useful things and not just fuel, they were finally ready to leave. He had explained at length the use of bitumen for asphalt and that roads could be paved with it. He gave them a rough idea of how plastics worked, and discussed fertilizer, cosmetics, soaps, shampoos and other products all derived from oil.

“Look at the time,” Sir Brooke finally said. “Let us take a while to digest some of the things you’ve told us. I think we will move first on the petroleum jelly product. Do you agree, Mr. Douglass?”

“Aye, that’s the easiest for us to get up and going, at least for my factory. Once we have the basics down, we can experiment with adding menthol and camphor and so forth as Sir Coulter suggested, and come up with the medicinal breathing treatment he described.”

“Splendid. We really should be going, now. It’s approaching time for supper.”

Rip shook hands with Mr. Douglass and nodded politely to his assistant. They made their way out to the street through the deserted factory. Since the shift was over, most people had gone home.

Brooke’s longsuffering carriage driver remained waiting out in front of the building. He jumped down and arranged the step then opened the door for the trio.

“Take us to the Umbrian Businessmen’s Club, near St. James and Pall Mall,” Brooke said.

The driver tipped his hat and climbed up to his seat. He released the break and headed out of the industrial district and back into the city proper.

As they continued along at a stately pace, Brooke seemed lost in thought, sitting across from Blair and Rip.

“You’re quite a resource to be exploited, Muscles,” Blair said.

Rip shrugged.

“Maybe I can help make this world a better place. There’s different stages my world went through, starting with the equivalent of this country and then my own which was its former colony. In the industrial era, manufacturing took precedence. It was extremely useful to have an edge with building things, especially during wartime. But in the peace that followed, we offshored most of our manufacturing and worked on cleaning up the environment. Our economy switched to a more intellectually based one. We still bought stuff, but so long as it was made somewhere else and polluted foreign shores, we didn’t mind too much.”

“That seems a bit arrogant.”

“Yep. And it was costly, too. There came a time when we needed to produce stuff within our borders again, or at least in our own hemisphere, and it was very costly to bring production back home.”

He paused to think for a moment before continuing.

“Anyway, maybe I can help you avoid some of the mistakes we made. I doubt you’ll be able to avoid them all. You’re probably at least 50 years if not more from deciding that pollution is a bad thing. Right now, though, there’s not much you can do about it.”

The sound of approaching hooves reached them as he spoke, the racing clip clops of a horse galloping over cobblestones.

Rip tensed, but the horse approached without slowing and passed the carriage.

Before he could relax, though, the sound of two pistol shots rang out and the carriage lurched to a sudden stop.

“My horses!”

The shout came from the driver, along with the sound of more horses galloping toward them.

Rip and Blair looked at one another and nodded.

They both retrieved their interspatial wallets and Blair pulled out a loaded Tommy gun while Rip strapped on his Webleys, then extracted another Thompson.

Brooke said, “Oh, dear. I hope that’s not the Luddites. They’ve been making trouble again, sending threatening notes to the main office and stirring up other vexatious bother. Do you have Luddites on your world, Sir Coulter?”

“Yes, but in name only. They died out long before this period.”

“We’ll take care of them. Stay inside, Father.”

“Now, see here young lady . . .”

But Blair ignored him, following Rip out the open carriage door. They both dropped lightly to the cobblestones as three horsemen rode up with pistols drawn in one hand, reins in the other.

[You see a Beaumont-Adams black powder revolver, .442 caliber, 5 rounds.]

“Black powder?”

“What?”

“My [Mechanical Discernment] skill is telling me those are black powder revolvers.”

“Good. That means they’re old. Typical of a Luddite, I suppose. They hate anything new.”

By this time, the three horsemen arrived and the fourth circled back to the front of the carriage.

Their leader had fiery red hair and large splotches of freckles on a preternaturally pale face. He looked tall, although mounted on a horse it was hard for Rip to gauge his height easily, and thin.

Everyone pointed their old revolvers at the two Venture Society members. For their part, Rip and Blair casually held their Tommy guns over one shoulder, pointed up.

The redhead spat out a slew of profanity.

“Has the old man gone and hired himself some guards? Is that it? Be gone with ya. Our quarrel’s not with the likes of you.”

Redhead deliberately cocked his old revolver and aimed it straight at Rip.

The corner of Rip’s lips quirked up.

“I tell you what. You boys get down off your horses and turn them over to our driver here, since you shot his, and we’ll let bygones be bygone.”

Redhead laughed. He looked at the men on either side of him, who chuckled along with him.

Then he stopped laughing and pulled the trigger, setting off a loud blast and a large cloud of thick black smoke.

The horses danced in the street, startled by the sudden noise and the smell of gunpowder.

Rip looked down at the fresh wound in his chest, where the bullet had bumped into his sternum.

He glanced up at Redhead and slowly shook his head.

“Last chance.”

Redhead bit off a curse and fired again, along with the other three men.

Rip and Blair dove to the left and right, rolled, and came up aiming their Tommy guns.

“Try not to hurt the horses!” Rip shouted as Blair squeezed her trigger and let loose on the man to Redhead’s right.