Chapter Two Thousand Sixty-Nine
5th July 1971
Kiel
The city of Kiel just after the annual weeklong People’s festival felt like a balloon with a small puncture letting the air slowly escape. Kiki and Ben had arrived here with no fanfare after spending the prior weeks at Hohenzollern Castle. Because Ben was going to be teaching Air Combat Tactics that autumn, an Aide had been appointed to assist him and that was something that Ben was still trying to get used to. Bram meant well and earnestly tried to do his best, but at the age of sixteen he had almost never set foot outside of Ballenstedt where his grandfather had insisted upon him receiving a military education. So, everything was a new experience for the boy. Music, literature, food, you name it, Bram had never experienced it outside of the narrow confines of his education. Suddenly finding himself in the center of Berlin was an entirely new education and Ben had a few doubts as to if he would survive the experience, especially when he learned the hard way about Kiki’s preferences regarding Mexican Cuisine.
There was also the aspect of Ben now being a Markgraf as well as the Consort of the Princess of Hohenzollern that Ben had not considered, and the selection had been of someone who was felt to be a good match for a man of his station. Bram was the grandson of the Duke of Anhalt. It seemed that Duke Joachim had not been pleased with Bram’s mother, who had divorced years earlier and causing something of a scandal. That had been when Bram’s grandfather had taken firm control over his life.
Still, Bram was good at keeping Ben’s schedule straight and probably for the first time ever, Ben’s dress uniform didn’t look like it had been ironed by a gorilla. All the little bits of military etiquette that Ben had never needed to worry too much about as a Reserve Officer had suddenly become a huge deal in his new role, Bram had lived and breathed that stuff since about the time he could walk. That had been useful. He also wasn’t overawed by the presence of Kiki as some people were.
The trouble was that the presence of Bram was one more person in the ever-growing Staff that surrounded Ben and Kiki. While that presented no problems on land, the Meta was too small to accommodate so many people. Ben remembered how the Meta had seemed huge when it had just been Kiki living on the barge when it was moored behind the Imperial War Museum. He had learned how small it truly was when it had been packed full of people and every berth had someone sleeping in it. Kiki said that the bench seat in the wheelhouse could be slept on, but whoever was up there had better get used to the idea of not having any privacy.
Ben had come to understand Kiki’s love for boating. On the canals and rivers, one was forced to slow down. Everything moved at its own rhythm from the seasons to the waterways themselves and it wasn’t the frenetic pace that defined modern life. Kiki had hoped that she would achieve the same sort of thing in her cottage in Plänterwald, but the world had not allowed her to do that yet, it seemed. The alternative that Kiki mentioned involved pulling up the drawbridge at Hohenzollern Castle and only lowering it for those she knew wouldn’t have expectations of her.
That was why they were in Kiel at the HDW Shipyards. To look at a hull of a barge similar to the one that would become the ML Epione when it was completed next year. Or would it be the SMS Epione? The Medical Service was talking about having it be considered an Auxiliary Hospital Ship, a use that similar barges were put to historically. Kiki was less than thrilled with the Medical Service elbowing its way into what she considered her personal affairs. However, her brother had pointed out that it was a purely symbolic action and when, not if, she got involved in a disaster of some sort, it would cut through a lot of the red tape she might otherwise encounter.
Looking at the cavernous hull, Ben was sure that this represented a huge change. At thirty-eight and a half meters in length and a touch over five meters in width, the Epione would easily be twice the size of the Meta. Where this hull would be left open to haul moderately sized cargo, the Epione would be subdivided into cabins, have a full galley, and living spaces.
“We can change the plans and build to suit your needs, if you have any changes that you want made” The Representative from HDW said, as they looked down from the gantry at the small army of workers completing the superstructure, the wheelhouse and crew accommodation, on the far aft end of the hull. After a decade with the Meta, Kiki had a lot of ideas about things that could be improved upon and had discussed them at length with the Architects when she had been taking bids from the various builders. Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft had been the ones who had been most receptive to Kiki’s suggestions and that had won them the job. Ben doubted that Kiki would request any further changes now that she had settled on that. Still, it was good that they were asking.
