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Authors: L.E. Modesitt Jr.

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

Ghosts of Columbia (54 page)

BOOK: Ghosts of Columbia
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In the meantime, my two o’clock environmental politics class was nearing, and with it the stunned looks on about half the earnest Dutch faces. What would they look like if I showed them the material I’d received from Jerome? I shook my head—just the same stunned looks. Anything outside their universe was incomprehensible.
Had I been that dense when I’d been their ages? I could ask my mother, but I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know.
I slipped the briefing materials back into the envelope and the envelope into my case. The case was going with me to class and everywhere else until its contents reached my study at home.
At least the Spazi was overseeing the house, for which I was becoming increasingly, if reluctantly, grateful.
S
unday afternoon before we were due to leave, I finally faced up to the unpleasant task of determining what I should take to Deseret. Of course, if I decided on Sunday, that also gave me almost a week to reconsider.
The briefing materials from Jerome had given me enough pause, but what they hadn’t addressed was who had made the attack on Llysette and me or sent the package bomb. From what I knew, and from what Jerome had sent, it was clear that the first attack had to have been directed by either Quebec, New France, or the Austrians. Quebec made no sense, crazy as some of the Quebecois were, unless it was as a favor to New France.
Most of the operatives on the other sides, the ones I’d known in passing over the years, wouldn’t have used that sort of a high-technology bungle. A good longrange slug thrower was far more effective and simpler. Only the Austrians seemed fascinated with the use of de-ghosting devices. But Maurice-Huizinga of New France was perfectly capable of using that sort of device to implicate Ferdinand’s people—and that would have been foolproof, because the implication didn’t require the success of the technology, only its discovery. In fact, it would have been better if the technology failed, because that would have me and the government looking.
The bomb was another question, but it fit the same pattern, either Ferdinand or New France trying to pin it on Ferdinand. Except that I really didn’t know. It was all educated guessing, and guessing was guessing.
The other thing that bothered me was the continuation of subtle signs that someone had been looking through the study—and that meant Jerome’s people. Why, I didn’t know, because they had all the information about ghost technology that I did, and a lot more besides—that they could have known about. Or had they figured out more from the supposedly destroyed backup disks of Branston-Hay? But if they had, again, they didn’t need what I had.
I shook my head. I didn’t know enough. I never did, it seemed.
The array of equipment and material spread across the study was impressive, even to me, and I was glad I’d drawn the blinds before I’d started.
Yet after what Jerome had sent me in the briefing package, how would what I could take possibly be enough? Every major power in the world seemed to have a presence in the Saint theocracy—and each had an agenda as to who should get the fuels and chemicals from the Saint factories.
The international situation was worsening, as if it could do no less. DeGaulle
had reinforced New France’s naval forces in the Azores and Madeira—both seized with the fall of the Iberian Peninsula a generation earlier. An Austro-Hungarian garrison had been bombed in Madinah and another in Aqaba, and nearly six hundred soldiers had died. Claiming that the explosives were of New French manufacture, Ferdinand had extended the prohibition on non-European shipping, and that meant non-Austro-Hungarian ships, in the area around the Arabian oil fields. Ferdinand’s Mid-East governor had also rounded up and summarily executed over a hundred known Muslim activists.
I swallowed and shook my head. I couldn’t handle the whole world, or even a corner of it. I just needed to figure out what would best protect us in Deseret.
Deseret didn’t sound all that stable, from the briefing materials. There was supposedly a schismatic group called the Revealed Twelve, sort of a shadow First Presidency. The First Presidency was the effective governing body of Deseret, composed of the Twelve Apostles. From what I could tell, the president and assistant president were almost religious heads of state, while the real power was the First Counselor, who was also a member of the Twelve.
The Revealed Twelve were underground, the actual names and members unknown, but they had been circulating materials claiming that the First Presidency had corrupted the true teachings of the original Saint prophets. The warehouse crackdown mentioned in one of the clippings had apparently been a Saint government attempt to seize materials printed by the Revealed Twelve. One of the Twelve Apostles had been killed in a steamer accident under mysterious conditions three months earlier and another hospitalized for undisclosed ailments.
Of course, that wasn’t all. There was a Women’s Party, but they circulated nothing, except a verbal de facto veto of names for replacement elections to the Seventy—equivalent to the Columbian Congress—and to the First Presidency. According to Jerome’s materials, the women hadn’t been terribly effective in influencing choices for the presidency, but several candidates for the Seventy had, in fact, been rejected. What I still didn’t understand was how women could vote in a patriarchal, polygamous society and yet how they clearly voted to support the theocracy.
At the whisper of feet on the floor, I looked up from my reverie.
Llysette stood in the doorway from the sitting room, her eyes going from the case provided by Minister Jerome to the three dusty cases that had rested in wooden wine boxes, each under two layers of bottles of Sebastopol. I hadn’t even brought down any of the clothing or taken out some of the special equipment that fit on the difference engine—or the large de-ghosting projectors in the compartment under and behind the mirror.
“That … you cannot bring it all.”
“Hardly.” My voice seemed dry, even to me. “I’m not even sure where to begin, except that metal firearms are out.” Of course, that suggested that I should bring the plastic dart gun with the tranquilizer darts—the pieces probably would
fit in the special boots. Probably plastique, because I could conceal that in innumerable places and could rig up detonators from common elements obtainable in Deseret. I sifted through Jerome’s case and found the vest—the standard-issue Spazi vest that was essentially pure plastique and undetectable. There was also a vest liner—proof against most bullets and sharp objects, provided they were aimed at your torso and not your neck and head. The thin synthetic cord might come in useful, because it always had.
My eyes turned to the difference engine, and I swallowed. Just in case … I probably ought to bring some of the codes I’d developed—Bruce had predicted that someone would need a ghost, and I’d always regretted it when I hadn’t listened to him. Of course, he’d also said that he didn’t want to be anywhere around when that happened.
Even those decisions still left a lot to be determined, and I shook my head.
Llysette’s eyes went from case to case, from deadly item to deadly item, and then back to me. A faint smile played across her lips. “If your David … or the dean this could see …”
“I’d rather they didn’t, thank you.” David was paranoid enough without absolute proof that I really had been a covert agent.
“If I had seen …”
“It wouldn’t have changed anything.”
“Mon cher… .”
Her tone said I was lovable but deeply mistaken.
I didn’t argue. I just walked over and held her for a time.
I
n the end, I hired a public limousine to take us to the aerodrome in Asten, since with our newfound visibility I really didn’t want to leave the Stanley exposed in the public car park. I did make the limousine reservations in Marie’s name, with our street address—a small protection, but better than none, and besides, since I didn’t have a published street address anywhere, anyone looking for us was more likely to key on the name.
The driver who pulled up on that cloudy Saturday morning was a sandy-haired woman—she could have been a lady trupp with the hard planes of her face and the gritty voice. “The Rijns here?”
“This is the place. Asten Aerodrome?”
“Be fifty.”
I flashed the fifty, and she loaded the four valises and Llysette’s hanging bag
into the dark gray deSoto, a vehicle far more square than my sleeker Stanley. The faint odor of kerosene emanated from the deSoto, the sign of a mistuned burner.
Rain pelted the deSoto briefly as we passed through Zuider before taking Route Ten southeast.
“You two taking a dirigible or a turbo?”
“Do we look like spendthrifts?” I asked, forcing a laugh.
“Never know these days. If I could afford to go anywhere, I’d take the dirigible—first class. Be nice to sit on that fancy deck and watch the world go by.”
“That it would,” I answered.
“They have a gourmet café, too. That’s what the
Post-Courier
travel section said.” The driver’s voice was firm.
With a shrug, I let it pass, since I’d never traveled first class on a dirigible, not except for a few short trips between New Amsterdam and the Federal District when someone else paid the freight.
“You think your students will miss you?” Llysette asked somewhat later, just before we entered Zuider.
“I doubt it. What about you?”
“They will be most pleased. For a week, no one will make them practice.” Llysette shook her head. “Nor will I beat notes.” She smiled.
“You need this time away from teaching,” I said.
“Plus du temps …
that I do need.”
We talked about teaching and about the weather, but I didn’t feel comfortable about much else, not with a strange driver. In the end, neither Llysette nor I said that much, and I kept worrying about all the questions raised by the briefing materials sent by Jerome. A tense international situation, enough domestic unrest in Deseret that the police were conducting raids against the so-called Revealed Twelve, and enough international concern that someone had tried to turn both Llysette and me into zombies and someone else had tried to blow us up, while someone else had been prowling through my study but taking nothing.
With those happy facts constantly intruding into my thoughts, we arrived in Asten around eleven.
The driver deposited us before the white-and-gray awning of the Speaker Line, and a porter appeared with his cart.
“The first-class departure lounge.”
“Yes, sir.” The porter nodded his square-bearded face, and we followed him to the smooth stone ramp to the second level, past the lower lounges and the smoke that drifted from them.
The landing and loading tower dated back nearly a half-century, although it had certainly been refurbished over the years and doubtless would be again, especially after the dirigible-turbo battles were threshed out.
The first-class lounge was paneled in dark walnut, with heavy but slightly faded green hangings. The windows were clear, shining, spotless, like every window I’d
ever seen in New Bruges, and through them I could see the shimmering white length of the
Breckinridge,
with the twin gray stripes. A direct dirigible flight from Asten to Great Salt Lake City, on the Speaker Line yet.
The brunette in the trim gray uniform with the winged dirigible with the “SL” superimposed inclined her head. “Might I see your passages?”
I extended the folder.
She glanced from me to Llysette. “Oh … you’re the famous singer. The one who sang at the Presidential Palace.”
“
Mais oui.”
The scanners hummed, and I tried not to swallow, hoping that none of the various assorted tools for committing or preventing mayhem would register. The potentially most dangerous “tools” were Babbage code sheets tucked into Llysette’s and my professional papers, but they were meaningless to about anyone but me and the late Professor Branston-Hay. Or so I hoped.
“You may board now. We won’t be allowing coach travelers on yet.” The sniff indicated what she thought of coach travelers, those who would spend days in mere seats.
A first-class cabin on the
Breckinridge,
of the Columbian Speaker Line—clearly, someone had gone to a great deal of trouble for Llysette, or us, although I wondered if I were just being paranoid and jealous of the attention and whether I were really suited to be the spouse of a true diva.
The dirigible was named after the short-termed Speaker who was assassinated more than a century earlier by a disgruntled Irish immigrant whose sister had died in the
Falbourg
disaster, along with nearly a thousand others fleeing the Great Tuber Plague.
Breckinridge had been a compromise Speaker, I recalled, because he had the support of the old Anglo-South. He’d also been a terrible strategist, because he’d misjudged the strength of Santa Anna and ignored the northern provinces of what had then been Mexico, fearful that attempting to annex California would have upset the slave-nonslave state balance. I sometimes wondered what would have happened if General Scott hadn’t died of ptomaine poisoning, but wondering didn’t change history. What had happened had happened.
The
Breckinridge
was not the largest airship, but it was impressive enough—a shimmering white cigar, floating from the docking tower, visible through the windows as we walked up the circular ramps, the porter following with our luggage.
The steward almost clicked his heels as he studied the passes. “Yes, sir and lady. Lower promenade four—one of the most charming. If you would follow me?”
We did, down the central corridor and up a gentle ramp to the next level, the porter and baggage cart behind us. The corridor walls were a cream damask, probably over thin aluminum sandwich with honeycomb sound barrier between.
At the door, we received an old-fashioned bronze key. “Enjoy your trip with us, lady … sir.”
I tipped the porter, and Llysette and I were alone, the door ajar. I closed it.
Like all dirigible cabins, ours wasn’t terribly large, but the bed, covered in immaculate white lace, was double-sized, and our window was beneath the promenade deck. We stepped up to the double-pane glass, sparkling even in the gray morning light, glass framed with shimmering blond paneling that glistened with care.
“There’s the river.” The
Breckinridge
seemed to swing into the wind, and I could hear the slow-speed turbine fans whine.
“This … I cannot believe …
la premiere classes.
…”
“You can’t? Not even after the praise of the president?”
“
Les mots, ce sont seulement les mots.
…”
She had a definite point there. Words were but words, while the cabin represented another two to four thousand dollars for a round-trip. Rather than dwell on that, I stepped behind her and put my arms around her, then kissed her neck slowly.
“You are
impossible… .
”
“Not totally.”
For a moment she relaxed; then she opened her eyes as the airship lurched ever so slightly, and the ground began to recede slowly.
“Could we … the promenade deck?”
“If it’s open. You want to watch as we leave lovely industrial Asten and the mills and factories?”
“Mais oui… .”
So I locked the cabin, not that a lock would stop a real professional, and we climbed the circular golden pine staircase to the promenade deck, itself also polished and varnished golden pine. Stowing the luggage could wait. We’d have plenty of time, and then some.
Asten lay spread out beneath us as the
Breckinridge
eased westward and skyward on a level keel. Intermittent drops of rain from the higher clouds splattered against the transparent semipermeable windscreen, and the impact and screen combined to create a thin fog that shifted unpredictably just above the polished wooden railing of the deck.
Most of the spotless and white padded lounge chairs were already taken, but we did find a pair of chairs near the stern, closer to the rushing whine of the turbinepowered airscrews.
A heavyset man in the business brown of a commercial traveler looked across the space between his table and our chairs. His eyes dismissed me and centered on Llysette. I couldn’t blame him, but it bothered me. Would it be more and more like that?
I didn’t know. So I pointed. “There … way down there, you can almost see where the Brit colony failed. I was in charge of that preservation effort, you know?”
Llysette’s lips crinkled. “Somewhere, you have told me that.”
I got the message. I’d told her more than once. So I laughed.
That got a smile in return.
“You are not so serious now, Johan, not about yourself.”
That might have been, but I felt serious about everything else around us. I did notice that the traveler in brown had shifted his attention to a female steward who was half my age, or less, and I didn’t know whether to be relieved or concerned.
So I signaled for refreshments, and we got an older male steward who immediately made for Llysette.
“Fräulein?”
“Wine … do you have any from Bordeaux?”
“Alas, fräulein … no. We do have some excellent Sebastopols and a red Yountville—a cabernet.”
“The Yountville.”
“Make that two,” I added.
The
Breckinridge
continued to climb as it soared westward, well south of Vanderbraak Centre, and even Zuider, and we sipped the Yountville before ordering lunch—also on the promenade deck—although it was really more of a mid-afternoon chocolate or tea by the time we were served. Still, we weren’t exactly in a hurry.
The traveler in brown left, only to be replaced by a wrinkled lady in purple, whose lavender perfume wafted around us intermittently.
BOOK: Ghosts of Columbia
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