Ripley Coulter walked out of the Royal Venture Society’s headquarters and out into the vendor area set up outside.

“Sir Coulter.”

“Sir Coulter, how are you today?”

He nodded politely at the salespeople lining their booths, all of whom seemed to know him by name. The public recognition made him slightly uneasy. But he suppressed the feeling and smiled back, nodding politely at those calling to him.

He passed by a booth where a new sort of transaction took place. A Venture Society member stood rather impatiently, in the process of purchasing several new rifles from a gun merchant.

The seller spoke on a candlestick phone welded to the side of a cash register, the phone line running into the building and connecting with the society’s accounting department.

“Yes, I need to make a query regarding the account of . . . I’m sorry, what is your name again?”

“Havelock Oliver. Sir Havelock Oliver.”

“Yes, of course, Sir Havelock Oliver. Mm-hmm. I see. Yes, the amount needed is . . .”

He smiled at the implementation of an idea he brought over from his world, and silently wished Sir Oliver well.

Wait until they come up with credit cards, he thought. It’s basically the same idea, just even more impersonal. Especially when it’s declined.

He had another thought as he walked past the booth. The social history he had studied so much in college would never be put to better use than on this world, which seemed to lack so much in innovation.

It’s certainly ripe for some disruptive ideas.

He made his way to a newly prominent booth where a young woman, Marigold Peat, busily peddled ammunition and guns to a line of waiting customers.

On the other side of her booth, Sergio Cuellar stood to one side giving a demonstration, speaking with a slight Spanish accent.

“You see here an empty pistol, 38 caliber.”

He flicked a Webley open, and the top-breaking six-shooter flopped down, displaying its empty chambers.

“My good man with the watch, please count the number of seconds of it takes me to load six bullets.”

An accomplice recruited from the crowd nodded and watched the second hand on his pocket watch.

He called out, “Mark!”

Sergio quickly slid in six bullets. Then he flicked his wrist, bringing the pistol together again with a snap.

“Stop! How long did that take me?”

“Eight seconds.”

“There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. It took me eight seconds to reload. Now, bear in mind, I am not currently being shot at.”

The crowd tittered.

“Yes, indeed. I imagine it would take me longer than eight seconds if one of you were shooting at me, or some dastardly sewer trooper.”

More laughter. This time several people nodded. More than one in the crowd obviously had been shot at by sewer troopers and other bad guys.

“Hard to disagree with you there, sir,” someone said.

Sergio picked up a round metal object.

“You see before you our ‘speed loader.’ It is a new invention, for which we have the patent. It is endorsed by Sir Ripley Coulter himself.”

This brought some “Oohs” from the crowd. Everyone jostled forward for a better look.

“If you see someone else selling one of these, it will not be the genuine article, I assure you. And please let me know about it so our solicitors can pay them a visit.”

This earned him a couple more chuckles. He held up the metal cylinder at eye level, letting everyone get a good look.

“Now, the secret to this contraption is, you load it first. The bullets go in the other way like so.”

He ejected the gun’s ammunition, moving every bullet over to the speed loader.

“When you let go of the plunger, the shells are held in place like so. Observe.”

He held the cylinder face down, the bullets dangling. He gave it a little shake to show they would not easily fall out.

“Now, let us repeat our reloading. My good watch man, please time this again for us, if you please.”

Once again, the man took out his pocket watch as Sergio broke open the top of the gun.

“Mark!”

Sergio inserted the bullets into the gun’s cylinder and pressed the plunger, letting them fall neatly into place. Then he flicked the revolver shut with a flip of his wrist.

“Stop! And, what is the time, good sir?”

“One second!”

A round of applause went up in the crowd.

“In the heat of battle, ladies and gentlemen, these little speed loaders could mean the difference between life and death. Seconds count when the enemy is firing at you! Now, who would like to buy one?”

The crowd pressed forward, holding out silver. The man with the pocket watch stood closest.

He said, “I’ll take eight. Two for everyone on my team.”

He handed over a pocketful of money and Sergio counted out eight of the newly produced gadgets, reaching over the booth with them.

Jerry Peat, Marigold’s little brother, helped Sergio with sales, taking money and handing out products until everyone who wanted a speed loader had one.

When the crowd thinned, and the last happy customer walked away, Rip approached the booth.

“Sir Ripley!”

Marigold moved forward to stand beside Sergio, both of them beaming at him.

“Looks like Peat’s Armaments and Ammunition is doing quite well these days.”

“Yes, and that’s all thanks to you and your endorsement. We can afford to be up at the front now, and business is doing even better since people can find us, for a change.”

“Not to mention,” Sergio added, “your speed loader idea. And financing it so that my factory could produce it.”

“That’s called venture capital. I was delighted to do it.”

“You’ve really meant a lot. For both of us.”

Marigold looked up into Sergio’s eyes as he smiled down at her.

Rip raised his eyebrows. He was not the quickest on the uptake about these things, but it seemed obvious the two were deeply in love.

When did that happen?

He shared a glance with Jerry. The boy made a motion with two fingers toward his mouth, as if vomiting, and rolled his eyes.

Rip stayed and talked shop for a while, then turned and made his way toward the Lyceum’s building, nodding and saying hello to well-wishers all along the way.

Moments later, he stepped into a teaching lab with stadium-style seating. Young men sat in the chairs from across the empire. Rip saw China, Africa and India all represented, along with a few he suspected hailed from the Caribbean.

“Ah, there you are! Come in, come in. Students, may I introduce our otherworlder, Sir Ripley Coulter. He is the one who told us about penicillin and how to go about making it.”

The professor lecturing was a man named Boswell, and Rip nodded at him while feeling a little nervous with all the physicker students staring down at him.

“Now, Sir Coulter, what can you tell our men about this miraculous cure-all before we send them home with crates of the stuff?”

Rip cleared his throat, inwardly rebelling against this public speaking role but doing it anyway.

“Well, I’m no physicker, obviously. But I’ll do my best. I’m sure Dr. Boswell has explained the basics. Are there any questions about it from the audience?”

Several hands went up. Rip pointed at one.

“Can it cure the clap?”

A round of chuckles followed.

Rip nodded and said, “It can generally cure a venereal disease so long as it is bacterial in nature. And it can do so easier and safer than by using hyperbaric chambers with the patient. But if the disease is viral, nothing will stop it, I’m afraid.”

He continued to tell the men everything he knew, warning them that some people would be allergic to penicillin and unable to take antibiotics until new and better strains were developed. He also warned them against over-use, indicating that some bacteria could develop resistance over time.

“Typically, it’s not wise to use penicillin for common colds and such. Perhaps wait until the patient is approaching death. If their own natural immunity can conquer what ails them, that’s always best.”

The men nodded, jotting down notes as he spoke.

The Lyceum would take a small cut off the sale of each vial of penicillin sold, and send him a portion of that. The kickback was small, but the expected amount of the new drug to be sold around the world pretty much guaranteed his personal fortune.

Rip already had ideas about how to invest the money, using his newly founded venture capital fund to change the world for the better. There were design improvements he could think of in everything from the hulls of ships to the plows farmers used to plant their fields.

At last the questions petered out. With no medical background, he was hamstrung somewhat from answering all the physickers’ questions properly, and he could tell his lack of knowledge frustrated them.

With a final nod to Dr. Boswell, Rip excused himself and walked back out to the hall.

There, Sir Jefferson Prescott, the Lord High Steward, waited patiently for him, dressed in red royal livery with a golden slash down the front.

Rip stopped, knowing exactly what seeing Sir Prescott waiting for him meant.

“Sir Coulter, His Majesty would like a word.”