Authors: L.E. Modesitt Jr.

Tags: #Science Fiction, #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Alternate History, #United States, #Literature & Fiction

Ghosts of Columbia (43 page)

BOOK: Ghosts of Columbia

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“What does Dierk think?”

“Dr. Geoffries, he is of the opinion that there are no funds.”

“He’s probably got that right.”

She glanced from the woodstove to the post centre clock, and I paid Victor.

After walking Llysette back to the Music Building and her waiting student, I doubled back to the post centre to find three bills and, as promised, a heavy embossed envelope with the presidential seal. I decided to save it for Llysette to open, although it bore both our names.

Gertrude the zombie was raking the leaves away from the walk as I marched back to the department.

“Hello, Gertrude.”

“Hello, sir. It’s a pleasant day.”

For her, it always was, but I still remembered her sobbing her eyes out at Llysette’s opera the spring before. A zombie, feeling that much emotion? Perhaps … could song rebuild a removed soul or spirit? I didn’t know, but that confirmed my decision not to mix music and ghosting equipment.

I’d had the idea of using the equipment I’d developed to create “ghost angels” to influence people, but the more I’d thought about it, the more I’d turned from it. Trying to cope with the internalized ghosts of Carolynne and the abstract ghost of justice and mercy I’d created had often left me on the brink of sanity—and I knew what I’d done and faced.

I did catch Herr Doktor Doniger in the corridor as he was heading out.

“David … you recall that you and the dean have insisted that I maintain certain political connections?”

“Why, yes, Johan. It does benefit the university.” He still had a wary look.

“Llysette and I have been requested to attend an arts dinner at the Presidential Palace next week. She has been asked to perform, and …” I shrugged. “I’ll work out something for my classes.”

David beamed. “I was going over to the Administration building, and I’m sure the dean will be pleased.”

“It hasn’t been announced yet,” I said. “Probably tomorrow.” That would make the honorable Dean Er Recchus even happier—that she knew in advance.

“That will be another achievement she can use in presenting the budget to the state legislature in January.” David inclined his head. “Funds are looking tight, and that will help.”

“Good.”

He went off smiling, and I vaguely wanted to smash his kneecaps, but I didn’t feel like I wanted to play any more academic politics.

The less I thought about my two o’clock the better, even afterward. Halfway through the semester was a bad time. The students had realized that they were in trouble, that material was piling up faster than they could or wanted to read it because they hadn’t read any of it until right before the midterm. You can’t assimilate the type of material I provided in midnight cram sessions, and that meant most of the class had received grades of less than a B. For a Dutch burgher’s child, even a B was unacceptable, especially with grade inflation.

So the questions became more and more desperate.

“… would you please explain, Doktor Eschbach, the relationship of the Escalante Massacre on the Deseret synthetic fuels development … ?”

“… I don’t understand how the River Compact. …”

“… still not clear on why Speaker Roosevelt rejected the Green River compromise proposed by Deseret…”

“… I just don’t understand… .”

“… don’t understand…”

All the questions translated into either desperate attempts to stall the class or equally desperate attempts to avoid in-depth reading and thinking. I suppose that’s always been the effort of young adults, except in the past those who felt that way either never got to college or quickly flunked out. Higher-level technology has created a dubious boon of removing much of the old manual labor and requiring more positions where judgment and some thinking are required. People want the jobs, but not the effort required to hold them. Oh, they say they do, but when it gets right down to it, the average student would rather use the university’s difference engines for games than number crunching and the library for assignations than assignments.

“Enough!” I thundered, and you would have thought that I’d whipped them. “I am not here to explain every little thing that you find slightly difficult. You are here to learn. That requires thinking. Thinking means working hard. Your questions show that you stop the minute something gets difficult and requires thinking … the minute the answer is not written on the page. And who will be there to answer such questions once you graduate?” Assuming that they did.

I wasn’t patient, and I felt as though I were getting less so. When you first start teaching, it’s flattering to be looked up to and asked, but after a time, you realize that all too many questions are asked out of thoughtlessness and laziness.

Still, I had to remind myself that there was a thoughtful minority in the class who felt, and looked, as appalled as I did at the desperate questions and the failure to try to learn something. That handful was the group I called on when I needed an answer.

Because of them, I’d almost managed to get over being cross when I picked up Llysette.

“You are angry?”

“I’m getting over it. My day was like some of yours. ‘I don’t understand… . I just don’t see how … Can’t you make it simpler? … Why do we have to read so much?’”

“To France perhaps we should send them?”

I laughed. Their questions would have them in Ferdinand’s concentration camps—except he called them relocation and training camps. That or selectively part-zombied and turned into killing machines for the invasion of Britain that was sure to come in another decade … or less. Unless Ferdinand decided to push over the crumbling remnants of the once-great Romanov dynasty in Russia. But no one ever beat the Russian winter, or the Finnish winter, and most of the Scandinavians were building redoubts in every rocky hill and fjord and peak north of the Baltic. The Finns had turned Vyborg into an armory in the Autumn War and continued to upgrade it against the Hapsburgs.

“Oh. Here’s the invitation.” I handed her the heavy envelope.

For a moment, she just looked. Then she opened it. “A personal note there is.” Her eyes brightened, and I could see the hint of tears.

“You deserve it. You deserved it years ago.”

“Johan, what we deserve we do not always receive. Because of you, I receive. Not because—”

“You wouldn’t have those invitations if you weren’t the best.”

“Non. C’est vrai.”
Her green eyes were deep, almost two shades of green simultaneously, as she turned to me. “I would not have them save for you. We know that, and I am thankful to you, and angered at the way the world is. We cannot change what is.” She leaned over and hugged me, then kissed my cheek.

I eased the Stanley out of the car park, around the town square, slowly, because McArdles’ was crowded with late-day grocery shoppers, and then over the Wijk bridge and up Deacon’s Lane to the now-spotless house.

Marie had even set the dining room table and left a steaming apple pie.

I had to scurry to get dinner started, while Llysette assisted with setting out such details as wineglasses and serving bowls. I’d decided on something relatively simple—a spinach linguine pasta with a chicken fettuccine sauce, hot rolls, and the salad.

Before Bruce arrived, I took a few minutes to close the study draperies and remove the ersatz chocolate box from the hidden wall compartment. After I set it on the ancient desk, I went to look for the Watch report that I’d pried out of Chief
Waetjen. I thought I’d left it in a file in the second drawer—on top—but it wasn’t there. I checked the third drawer, then went back to the stack in the second drawer. It was there, about four files down. I shook my head. Even my memory was going. With the sound of something boiling too violently, I dropped the file next to the difference screen and scurried back to the kitchen.

Even while I chopped the roasted almonds for the curried wine vinegar dressing for the salad, I continued to have less than sanguine feelings about Llysette’s invitation to Deseret, despite all the papers—and despite the retainer cheque. But what could I say? “Turn down a five-thousand-dollar retainer; turn away from the recognition you deserve?”

Bruce arrived after dark, well after dark, in his ancient Olds ragtop, and I thought I could hear the beating sound of tattered canvas. My imagination, doubtless.

As he entered, Bruce immediately bowed to Llysette, offering a warm smile. “At last, the beautiful chanteuse of whom I have heard so much.”

She blushed. “I have heard much of you.”

“Try not to believe too much of it.”

I took his coat. “Dinner will be ready in just a few minutes after I put in the pasta.”

Bruce looked at me. “So, Johan, business before or after dinner?”

I shrugged. “I’d thought before.”

The three of us went into the study.

“There it is.” I gestured to the box.

“What is?”

I realized I’d never explained. “A gentleman showed up at the door with this for Llysette. She slammed the door in his face, and he turned into a zombie as a result of the gadgetry inside. I wanted your opinion.” I paused. “I did take the liberty of disconnecting the power.”

“Thoughtful of you, Johan.” Bruce eased open the box and peered and nodded and then fingered his mostly black beard. He took out a small screwdriver, the clip kind, from his shirt pocket and fiddled slightly. Then he nodded and straightened.

“It’s the same thing as your first gadget to separate soul from body and then destroy the spirit or ghost. But it’s a different approach. I prefer your design. It’s a great deal more stable than this.”

It hadn’t been my design, but one I’d stolen from the difference engine of the late Professor Branston-Hay before his untimely death at the hands of the Spazi covert branch. At least, that was my surmise, although the official cause of death had been a faulty steam control valve in his antique Ford. His house—and all his backup disks—had burned in an electrical fire right after the funeral. So the files and designs I had were among the few left, and probably highly illegal after Speaker Hartpence’s announced decision to ban all research and development on ghost-related technologies.

“Good,” I murmured. While not relieved, I was happy to know that my surmises had been correct and that Llysette and I hadn’t panicked at nothing. I picked up the folder. “Here’s the Watch report. It doesn’t say anything.”

Bruce scanned it quickly. “No, it doesn’t.”

“I thought so, but you have a more skeptical mind than I do.”

“Me? How could you think that?”

“Experience.” I laughed, and so did he.

“Is that all?” He held up a hand. “Foolish of me to suppose that, of course.”

“Actually, I have a request of sorts. You remember that gadget you built me, two of them actually, that preceded the perturbation replicator and resembled this in function?”

There was a long silence. Bruce glanced from me to Llysette.

I nodded. “She knows.” Llysette definitely knew about both the ghost-creation technology and the so-called perturbation replicator, or de-ghoster, although I couldn’t remember exactly how I’d come up with the name.

“Those … ah, yes. Johan, I had hoped you would get beyond playthings once you married, that kind of gimmickry, I meant.”

“You know that Llysette has been offered a concert engagement in Great Salt Lake City; one of the conditions, since she is female, is that her husband or other legal guardian accompany her.”

“You are skeptical?”

“She has since received an invitation to perform at the Presidential Palace, and I have received several unsolicited materials that could be construed as background briefing materials.”

Bruce held up his hand. “That’s enough. More I don’t need to know. I’m perfectly capable of creating my own problems. That I can do without assistance—”

“I was wondering if there might be any way to package one of those toys into separate components of an innocuous nature and yet be able to reassemble it into a toy—smaller than the original but equally effective for personal meetings, if you will.”

“Johan … I rather like the insurance business better than any new ventures, and you
know
how I feel about insurance.”

I almost smiled wryly. Bruce didn’t like at all the fact that he was one of the two individuals who’d have to release all my forbidden technology if anything happened to me—my insurance, I hoped, against an untimely and early death. “I understand. Can you look into it?”

“How soon? Forget that.” He shook his head. “It was a foolish question. I’ll wire you tomorrow with an estimate.”

“I appreciate it. Now … I think we should have dinner. I have some very good Californian wines, a Sebastopol you should enjoy.”

“I always enjoy good wine … and beautiful women.” He nodded at Llysette.

“Careful there,” I said with a laugh.

“With you, Johan, I would always be careful. But I can look and appreciate your taste, and your luck.” He smiled gently.

BOOK: Ghosts of Columbia

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