The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Fifth Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

  No, it wouldn’t work. To believe it meant chaos: A world without facts. A world where lies hid among multiple truths. And what did the General think? What did Konrad Schneider make of Kelly’s tale?

  Knecht swirled the brandy in his snifter. He watched his reflection dance on the blood-red liquid. “Tell me, Konrad, have you read my report on the prisoner?”

  “Ja, I have.”

  “And what did you think?”

  “It was a fine report, Rudi. As always.”

  “No. I meant what did you think of the prisoner’s story?”

  The General lifted his glass to his lips and sipped his brandy. Knecht had seen many men try to avoid answers and recognized all the tactics. Knecht frowned and waited for an answer he knew he could not trust. For as long as Knecht could remember Schneider had been his leader. From the day he had left his father’s house, he had followed Colonel, then Brigadier, then General Schneider, and never before had he been led astray. There was an emptiness in him now. He bit the inside of his cheek so that he could feel something, even pain.

  Schneider finished his slow, careful sip and set his glass down. He shrugged broadly, palms up. “How could I know? Vonderberge tells me one thing; Ochsenfuss, another. You, in your report, tell me nothing.”

  Knecht bristled. “There is not enough data to reach a conclusion,” he protested.

  Schneider shook his head. “No, no. I meant no criticism. You are correct, as always. Yet, our friends have reached conclusions. Different conclusions, to be sure, but we don’t know which is correct.” He paused. “Of course, he might be a spy.”

  “If he is, he is either a very bad one, or a very, very good one.”

  “And all we know is … What? He loves Rosa and does not love the military. He has some peculiar documents and artifacts and he believes he comes from another world, full of marvelous gadgets.…”

  “Correction, Herr General. He says he believes he came from another world. There is a difference.”

  “Hmph. Ja, you are right again. What is it you always say? The map is not the territory. The testimony is not the fact. Sometimes I envy our friends their ability to reach such strong convictions on so little reflection. You and I, Rudi, we are always beset by doubts, eh?”

  Knecht made a face. “If so, Konrad, your doubts have never kept you from acting.”

  The General stared at him a moment. Then he roared with laughter, slapping his thigh. “Oh, yes, you are right, Rudi. What should I do without you? You know me better than I know myself. There are two kinds of doubts, nicht wahr? One says: What is the right thing to do? The other says: Have I done the right thing? But, to command means to decide. I have never fought a battle but that a better strategy has come to mind a day or two later. But where would we be had I waited? Eh, Rudi? The second sort of doubt, Rudi. That is the sort of doubt a commander must have. Never the first sort. And never certainty. Both are disasters.”

  “And what of Kelly?”

  The General reached for his brandy once more. “I will have both the Hexmajor and the Kommandant interview him. Naturally, each will be biased, but in different ways. Between them, we may learn the truth of it.” He paused thoughtfully, pursing his lips. “Sooner or later, one will concede the matter. We need not be hasty. No, not hasty at all.” He drank the last of his brandy.

  “And myself?”

  Schneider looked at him. He smiled. “You cannot spend so much time on only one man, one who is almost surely not an enemy agent. You have your spies, scouts, and rangers to supervise. Intelligence to collate. Tell me, Rudi, what those fat knick patroons are planning up in Albany. Have the Iroquois joined them, too? Are they dickering with the Lee brothers to make it a two-front war? I must know these things if I am to … improvise. Our situation is grave. Forget Kelly. He is not important.”

  * * *

  After he left the General, Knecht took a stroll around the parapet, exchanging greetings with the sentries. Schneider could not have announced more clearly that Kelly was important. But why? And why keep him out of it?

  Fox Gap was a star-fort and Knecht’s wanderings had taken him to one of the points of the star. From there, defensive fire could enfilade any attacking force. He leaned his elbows on a gun port and gazed out at the nighttime forest farther down the slope of the mountain. The sky was crisp and clear as only autumn skies could be, and the stars were brilliantly close.

  The forest was a dark mass, a deeper black against the black of night. The wind soughed through the maple and elm and birch. The sound reached him, a dry whisper, like crumpling paper. Soon it would be the Fall. The leaves were dead; all the life had been sucked out of them.

  He sighed. General Schneider had just as clearly ordered him away from Kelly. He had never disobeyed an order. Angrily, he threw a shard of masonry from the parapet wall. It crashed among the treetops below and a sentry turned sharply and shouted a challenge. Embarrassed, Knecht turned and left the parapet.

  Once back in his own quarters, Knecht pondered the dilemma of Kelly. His room was spartan. Not much more comfortable, he thought, than Kelly’s cell. A simple bed, a desk and chair, a trunk. Woodcuts on the wall: heroic details of long-forgotten battles. An anonymous room, suitable for a roving scout. Next month, maybe, a different room at a different fort.

  So what was Kelly? Knecht couldn’t see but three possibilities. A clever spy, a madman, or the most pitiful refugee ever. But, as a spy he was not credible; his story was unbelievable, and he simply did not talk like a madman.

  And where does that leave us, Rudi? Nowhere. Was there a fourth possibility? It didn’t seem so.

  Knecht decided it was time for a pipe. Cigars were for talk; pipes for reflection. He stepped to the window of his room as he lit it. The pipe was very old. It had belonged to his grandfather, and a century of tobacco had burned its flavor into the bowl. His grandfather had given it to him the night before he had left home forever, when he had confided his plans to the old man, confident of his approval. He had been, Knecht remembered, about Kelly’s age at the time. An age steeped in certainties.

  Spy, madman, or refugee? If the first, good for me; because I caught him. If the second, good for him; because he will be cared for. He puffed. For two of the three possibilities, custody was the best answer; the only remaining question being what sort of custody. And those two choices were like the two sides of a coin: they used up all probability between them. Heads I win, Herr Kelly, and tails you lose. It is a cell for you either way. That is obvious.

  So then, why am I pacing this room in the middle of the night, burning my best leaf and tasting nothing?

  Because, Rudi, there is just the chance that the coin could land on its edge. If Kelly’s outrageous tale were true, custody would not be the best answer. It would be no answer at all.

  Ridiculous. It could not be true. He took the pipe from his mouth. The warmth of the bowl in his hand comforted him. Knecht had concluded tentatively that Kelly was no spy. That meant Ochsenfuss was right. Knecht could see that. It had been his own first reaction on reading the notebook. But he could also see why Vonderberge believed otherwise. The man’s outlook and Kelly’s amiable and sincere demeanor had combined to produce belief.

  It was Schneider that bothered him. Schneider had not decided. Knecht was certain of that. And that meant … What? With madness so obvious, Schneider saw something else. Knecht had decided nothing because he was only interested in spies. Beyond that, what Kelly was or was not meant nothing.

  Even if his tale is true, he thought, it is none of my concern. My task is done. I have taken in a suspicious stranger under suspicious circumstances. It is for higher authorities to puzzle it out. Why should I care what the answer is?

  Because, Rudi, it was you who brought him here.

  Knecht learned from Johann the guard that Vonderberge spent the mornings with Kelly, and Ochsenfuss, the afternoons. So when Knecht brought the history book to the cell a few days later, he did so at noon, when no one else was about. He
had made it a habit to stop by for a few minutes each day.

  He nodded to Johann as he walked down the cell block corridor. “I was never here, soldier,” he said. Johann’s face took on a look of obligingly amiable unawareness.

  Kelly was eating lunch, a bowl of thick rivel soup. He had been provided with a table, which was now littered with scribbled pages. Knecht recognized the odd equations of Kelly’s “logical calculus.” He handed the prisoner the text: “The History of North America.” Kelly seized it eagerly and leafed through it.

  “Thanks, lieutenant,” he said. “The shrink brought me one, too; but it’s in German and I couldn’t make sense of it.”

  “Pennsylvaanish,” Knecht corrected him absently. He was looking at the other book. It was thick and scholarly. A good part of each page consisted of footnotes. He shuddered and put it down.

  “What?”

  “Pennsylvaanish,” he repeated. “It is a German dialect, but it is not Hochdeutsch. It is Swabian with some English mixed in. The spelling makes it different sometimes. A visitor from the Second Reich would find it nearly unintelligible, but…” An elaborate shrug. “What can one expect from a Prussian?”

  Kelly laughed. He put his soup bowl aside, finished. “How did that happen?” he asked. “I mean, you folks speaking, ah, Pennsylvaanish?”

  Knecht raised an eyebrow. “Because we are Pennsylvanians.”

  “So were Franklin, Dickinson, and Tom Penn.”

  “Ah, I see what you are asking. It is simple. Even so far back as the War Against the English the majority of Pennsylvanians were Deutsch, German-speakers. So high was the feeling against the English—outside of Philadelphia City, that is—that the Assembly German the official language made. Later, after the Revolution in Europe, many more from Germany came. They were fleeing the Prussians and Austrians.”

  “And from nowhere else? No Irish? No Poles, Italians, Russian Jews? ‘I lift my lamp beside the golden door.’ What happened to all of that?”

  “I don’t understand. Ja, some came from other countries. There were Welsh and Scots-Irish here even before the War. Others came later. A few, not many. Ranger Oswoski’s grandparents were Polish. But, when they come here, then Pennsylvaanish they must learn.”

  “I suppose with America so balkanized, it never seemed such a land of opportunity.”

  “I don’t understand that, either. What is ‘balkanized’?”

  Kelly tapped with his pencil on the table. “No,” he said slowly, “I suppose you wouldn’t.” He aimed the pencil at the history book. “Let me read this. Maybe I’ll be able to explain things better.”

  “I hope you find in it what you need.”

  Kelly grinned, all teeth. “An appropriately ambiguous wish, lieutenant, ‘What I need.’ That could mean anything. But, thank you. I think I will.” He hesitated a moment. “And, uh, thanks for the book, too. You’ve been a big help. You’re the only one who comes here and listens to me. I mean, really listens.”

  Knecht smiled. He opened the door, but turned before leaving. “But, Herr Kelly,” he said. “It is my job to listen.”

  * * *

  Knecht’s work absorbed him for several days. Scraps of information filtered in from several quarters. He spent long hours in his office going over them, separating rumor from fact from possible fact. Sometimes, he sent a man out to see for himself and waited in nervous uncertainty until the pigeons flew back. Each night, he threw himself into his rack exhausted. Each morning, there was a new stack of messages.

  He moved pins about in his wall map. Formations whose bivouac had been verified. Twice he telegraphed the Southern Command using his personal code to discover what the scouts down along the Monongahela had learned. Slowly, the spaces filled in. The pins told a story. Encirclement.

  Schneider came in late one evening. He stood before the map and studied it for long minutes in silence. Knecht sipped his coffee, watching. The General drew his forefinger along the northwestern frontier. There were no pins located in Long House territory. “Curious,” he said aloud, as if to himself. Knecht smiled. Five rangers were already out trying to fill in that gap. Schneider would have his answer soon enough.

  Knecht had almost forgotten Kelly. There had been no more time for his noontime visits. Then, one morning he heard that Vonderberge and Ochsenfuss had fought in the officers’ club. Words had been exchanged, then blows. Not many, because the Chief Engineer had stopped them. It wasn’t clear who had started it, or even how it had started. It had gotten as far as it had only because the other officers present had been taken by surprise. Neither man had been known to brawl before.

  Knecht was not surprised by the fight. He knew the tension between the two over Kelly. What did surprise him was that Schneider took no official notice of the fight.

  Something was happening. Knecht did not know what it was, but he was determined to find out. He decided to do a little intramural spy work of his own.

  * * *

  Knecht found the Hexmajor later that evening. He was sitting alone at a table in the officers’ club, sipping an after-dinner liqueur from a thin glass, something Knecht found vaguely effeminate. He realized he was taking a strong personal dislike to the man. Compared to Vonderberge, Ochsenfuss was haughty and cold. Elegant, Knecht thought, watching the man drink. That was the word: elegant. Knecht himself liked plain, blunt-spoken men. But scouts, he told himself firmly, must observe what is, not what they wish to see. The bar orderly handed him a beer stein and he strolled casually to Ochsenfuss’ table.

  “Ah, Herr Doctor,” he said smiling. “How goes it with the prisoner?”

  “It goes,” said Ochsenfuss, “but slowly.”

  Knecht sat without awaiting an invitation. He thought he saw a brief glimmer of surprise in the other’s face, but the Hexmajor quickly recovered his wooden expression. Knecht was aware that Vonderberge, at a corner table, had paused in his conversation with the Chief Engineer and was watching them narrowly.

  “A shame the treatment cannot go speedier,” he told Ochsenfuss.

  A shrug. “Under such circumstances, the mind must heal itself.”

  “I remember your work with Ranger Harrison after we rescued him from the Senecas.”

  Ochsenfuss sipped his drink. “I recall the case. His condition was grave. Torture does things to a man’s mind; worse in many ways than what it does to his body.”

  “May I ask how you are treating Kelly?”

  “You may.”

  There was a long silence. Then Knecht said, “How are you treating him?” He could not detect the slightest hint of a smile on the doctor’s face. He was surprised. Ochsenfuss had not seemed inclined to humor of any sort.

  “I am mesmerizing him,” he said. “Then I allow him to talk about his fantasies. In English,” he admitted grudgingly. “I ply him for details. Then, when he is in this highly suggestible state, I point out the contradictions in his thinking.”

  “Contradictions…” Knecht let the word hang in the air.

  “Oh, many things. Heavier-than-air flying machines: a mathematical impossibility. Radio, communication without connecting wires: That is action at a distance, also impossible. Then there is his notion that a single government rules the continent, from Columbia to New England and from Pontiac to Texas. Why, the distances and geographical barriers make the idea laughable.

  “I tell him these things while he is mesmerized. My suggestions lodge in what we call the subconscious and gradually make his fantasies less credible to his waking mind. Eventually he will again make contact with reality.”

  “Tell me something, Herr Doctor.”

  They both turned at the sound of the new voice. It was Vonderberge. He stood belligerently, his thumbs hooked in his belt. He swayed slightly and Knecht could smell alcohol on his breath. Knecht frowned unhappily.

  Ochsenfuss blinked. “Yes, Kommandant,” he said blandly. “What is it?”

  “I have read that by mesmerization one can also implant false ideas.”

&
nbsp; Ochsenfuss smiled. “I have heard that at carnival sideshows, the mesmerist may cause members of the audience to believe that they are ducks or some such thing.”

  “I was thinking of something more subtle than that.”

  The Hexmajor’s smile did not fade, but it seemed to freeze. “Could you be more specific.”

  Vonderberge leaned toward them. “I mean,” he said slowly, “the obliteration of true memories and their replacement with false ones.”

  Ochsenfuss tensed. “No reputable hexdoctor would do such a thing.”

  Vonderberge raised a palm. “I never suggested such a thing, either. I only asked if it were possible.”

  Ochsenfuss paused before answering. “It is. But the false memories would inevitably conflict with a thousand others and, most importantly, with the evidence of the patient’s own senses. The end would be psychosis. The obliteration of false memories, however…”

  Vonderberge nodded several times, as if the Hexmajor had confirmed a long-standing belief. “I see. Thank you, Doctor.” He turned and looked at Knecht. He touched the bill of his cap. “Rudi,” he said in salutation, then turned and left.

  Ochsenfuss watched him go. “There is a man who can benefit from therapy. He would reject reality if he could.”

  Knecht remembered Vonderberge’s outburst in his office during the storm. He remembered, too, the map in his own office. “So might we all,” he said. “Reality is none too pleasant these days. General Schneider believes…”

  “General Schneider,” interrupted Ochsenfuss, “believes what he wants to believe. But truth is not always what we want, is it?” He looked away, his eyes focused on the far wall. “Nor always what we need.” He took another sip of his liqueur and set the glass down. “I am not such a fool as he seems to think. For all that he primes me with questions to put to Kelly, and the interest he shows in my reports, he still has not decided what to do with my patient. He should be in hospital, in Philadelphia.”