Ghosts of Columbia

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  It was all there, all right. I decided to keep reading. The story on the bottom of page two didn’t help my digestion. It was also a wire story, but more personally inclined.

  A prominent member of Congress released copies of letters protesting the direction and termination of a secret Defense Ministry research project in New Bruges on ghost elimination technology …

  The letters’ writer, a professor in charge of research, died in an accident days after posting the second letter … The letters also indicated possible illegal contract practices …

  Minister Holmbek had no comment on the charges, which were made by Congress-lady Alexander last night …

  Was it Railley or Murtaugh who knew the congresslady? I had to hand it to whichever one it was. By giving her the letters, the reporter had broken the story without breaking his cover, and no one asked a member of Congress for her sources. But I bet the story had played a lot larger under a byline in either the Post-Dispatch or the Evening Star.

  I leafed through the rest of the paper, and paused on the editorial page. I’d definitely tapped something. The editorial was short, and at the bottom, but it was there.

  LEAVE THE GHOSTS BE

  For months, this paper and others have been filled with stories hinting that the government has been pursuing technology to destroy ghosts. Now, more proof, and violence, have appeared. Most ghosts are the remnants of poor individuals who died before their time, and apparently the Speaker has decreed that their lingering lifespans should be cut even shorter. Enough is enough. There is no reason to spend federal money on technology to eradicate psychic beings who are all that remain of those once and often still loved. In this time of international tension, there are far better purposes for the money, nor should any government spend funds to exterminate the helpless who cannot harm anyone. Leave the ghosts be!

  As I folded the paper and walked quickly back to the Royal Court, trying to keep warm wearing just a suit coat, for some reason I wondered what Herr Professor David Doniger was doing. Then again, what did it matter? For all that had happened, I’d been gone less than a week. I sighed. It seemed longer than that.

  I also still had one basic problem. How would I convince Hans Waetjen not to arrest me for murder? Even though I hadn’t had a thing, directly anyway, to do with Miranda’s and Gerald’s murders, the watch clearly didn’t have any other suspects. My absence wasn’t exactly wonderful, but I hadn’t had much choice. Sitting tight would have clearly sealed my fate.

  Of course, one of the real murderers might well go unpunished by the watch. The other, I was certain, had to have been the infamous “Perkin Warbeck,” and no one could say he’d gone unpunished.

  Still … one murderer on the loose wasn’t the most heartening thought, for a lot of reasons, most of which I really didn’t want to think about. So I didn’t. I went to bed instead.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The next morning the weather in Windsor was worse, with a cold rain falling that froze on everything but salted roads. After a quick breakfast of French toast at Jim’s Place, with chocolate, I had to warm up the Stanley for almost half an hour to melt off the ice. That was one drawback to thermal paint—you don’t want to scrape or chip anything.

  Then I headed north, in four-wheel drive. The three-and-a-half-hour drive to Lebanon took almost five, including the blocked bridge at Waaling, with the windshield being pelted with sleet, rain, and occasional snow.

  Once I turned east on the Ragged Mountain Highway out of Lebanon, the snow got steadier, except for intermittent ice flakes.

  The Stanley had a good heater, and I didn’t freeze. The big drawback was that the paint looked like a rainbow of black, gray, purple, and red. So I had to reset the thermals and let it revert to its base red. The big matters might have gone all right, but the little details were hell.

  By the time I got to Vanderbraak Centre, the ice had stopped, and only big flakes of snow were falling. The back roads were slippery, and I had to take the Route Five alternate, which I always hated, but I wasn’t exactly ready to drive my red Stanley past the watch station and announce, “Your number-one suspect has returned!” Not yet, anyway. I had a few more items to try to square away.

  Obviously I didn’t go up Deacon’s Lane, but took the back road and walked through the lower woods. I left footprints in the three inches of snow, and my dress boots and feet were soaked, and once again I was shivering. More snowfall would take care of my prints, and warmer clothes and boots would remedy the cold—assuming I could get into the house.

  The place was dark, sitting on the hillside, without a single print in the light snow. I walked closer, using the car barn as a shield. Surprisingly, no one was at the house, and I saw no signs that anyone had been there recently. Then again, there wasn’t any reason for anyone to be. I was certain that vanBecton and Ralston, and their successors, thought they already had all of Gerald Branston-Hay’s gadgets, and Waetjen probably hadn’t been told about any of them. Plus, the locals had seen me depart, and had watched the house for several days. But how long do you watch an empty house? Besides, gossip would show when I got back.

  So I walked back through the woods and drove the Stanley up Deacon’s Lane and into the car barn.

  Then I went into the kitchen and dug out some old cheese; the bread had molded. After about three bites, I put on the kettle, then went upstairs and stripped off the damned cheap suit and stepped into a hot shower.

  I felt almost human after I dressed, and I laced on my heavy insulated boots this time. I took the last box of biscuits from the cellar and treated myself to chocolate.

  As the early twilight and the clouds dimmed the natural light, a white figure drifted into the kitchen, halting in the doorway.

  “Good evening, Carolynne,” I said formally.

  She curtsied, but did not speak.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  “How quickly everything dies … we see, in this fickle world, change, faster than the waves at the shore.”

  “And yet, sometimes, nothing changes.” She seemed sad, but I really didn’t know quite what to say. The silence stretched out, and I asked again, “Are you sure you are all right?”

  “One believed in being faithful …”

  I couldn’t figure that one out. So I asked, “Was the watch here?”

  “Alas, sad awakenings from dreams … give me back your illusions … the voice of our despair shall sing …”

  “I take it all that despair means they were.” I forced a wry smile. “It’s not over yet, though. I’m going to have to use the difference engine.”

  “The white moon shines in the forest; from every branch comes forth a voice … but the day of farewells will come.”

  “I know you’re a ghost, but using songs as riddles is hard on me. I’m tired. Can’t you say what you mean?”

  “Ne point passer!”

  She was gone, even if I didn’t know exactly what she had meant or why she had said “Never to change!” in French. She was a full, real ghost, as close to being a real person as possible, and yet she never could be real. Did she know that? Did I know that?

  “Carolynne … I’m sorry.”

  She reappeared. “Let me sleep a while, while you rest …” With that, she was gone.

  “I’m sorry, Carolynne, and I will talk to you later.”

  I hoped she heard me. I did cover the windows in the study with both blinds and curtains, and, for good measure, I hung blankets behind them. With the snowfall continuing, I doubted that anyone would see any faint glimmer of light, and the snow might cover the Stanley’s tracks as well.

  After gulping down the rest of the chocolate, I got to work, making up a complete package on what had happened, naming names and places—the whole business—and providing complete specifications for all the gadgets except the replication projector. That one was mine, and I intended to keep it that way, if I could.

  I did have to unload some things from the Stanley, and that left pri
nts in the snow, but if anyone came that close, they’d probably find other signs I’d returned.

  Halfway through my efforts, the wireset chimed. I wondered whether to answer it, but finally picked up the handset. “Yes?”

  “Johan, where have you been? Your aunt and I have been trying to reach you for almost a week.”

  “I haven’t been at the house much.”

  “No, dear, you certainly haven’t been. It’s too late now, but Anna’s nephew—Arlan’s son, you remember Wilhelm, don’t you?—well, he was killed in a steamer crash in Erie, and I wondered if you would be able to come to the funeral and the wake—”

  “Mother, where are you?”

  “We are in Erie. Where else would we be? That’s where the funeral was. I suppose you’re still working.”

  “Of course.” I glanced at the difference engine screen.

  “Well, do try to take care of yourself. Anna sends her best, and come see us again before too long. I must go, and do try to take care of yourself, dear.”

  The handset beeped and went dead. I just looked at it before I set it down.

  It was nearly midnight before I finished the three complete sets of documents. Almost as soon as I flicked off the machine, Carolynne reappeared and watched me assemble the packages.

  “What have you done, you, who now weeps endlessly?” She seemed to be sitting on the sofa, just like any normal young lady.

  “Creating life insurance.”

  “Down here—ici-bas—all men weep for their friendships or their loves …”

  “Weeping, yes. Blackmail is more like it. I set it up so that this material will be made public if I die. Then the people who know that, and who would suffer if this became known to the press, have a certain desire to preserve my life.”

  “Down here, all lilacs die; all songs of the birds are short.”

  “Probably, but I don’t have any better ideas.”

  We sat in the dark for a while, a ghost well over a century old and a man who had done far too much he was not proud of.

  “Alas, sad awakening from dreams! Is that all there is? Is that all there is?”

  “All what is?”

  “Say, what have you done, you, with your youth?”

  “I don’t know. It’s gone, and that is the way it feels.” Sometimes—and I thought of Elspeth, and Llysette—it was a blind struggle to preserve someone else’s life. Sometimes no one else even saw the struggle.

  After a time, I stood. “I have to go for a while.”

  “Return with your radiance, oh mysterious night.”

  “I’m scarcely mysterious, but I do plan to return.”

  “How quickly everything dies, the rose undiscloses …”

  As her words faded away so did Carolynne, and a heaviness dropped around me.

  I put on my coat alone and in the darkness, and carried two of the three folders out to the Stanley. The last went into the hidden cabinet in the study for the time being.

  I eased the Stanley down the drive with the lights off, and didn’t turn them on until I was well down the lane, skidding slightly even in four-wheel drive. Probably I could have stayed at home, but someone might have seen me and just waited until I went to sleep.

  The roads were brutal, and I was in four-wheel drive all the way. The good news was that it was highly unlikely that anyone would bother to follow me.

  I still thought about Carolynne’s last words: “How quickly everything dies …” Were they just in my head, my own subconscious? Was I coming undone psychically? Why had I been put in a situation where murder was the only way to survive? Whatever the reason, the sadness behind the words hammered at me.

  What could I do about them? Was this all there was? I knew that was a song, one I had heard, but I knew I didn’t know where the other words came from, true as they rang. I tried to concentrate on driving, half realizing that I couldn’t keep up the insane pace and irregular schedule. I wasn’t a thirty-year-old operative, and hadn’t been for all too many years.

  After pulling into the public parking in the Zuider train station—one of the places where no one was likely to remark upon a car arriving at odd hours—I slept as well as I could until the sun rose. Except it didn’t. The snow had stopped, but the sky was cold gray. I found Suzanne’s Diner and had a breakfast larger than my stomach really needed, looking over a copy of the Asten Post-Courier.

  There were only a few stories about the ghost mess, mostly rehashes of what had been in the Courant the night before. There was an editorial more along the Dutch lines of why bother with ghosts, very pragmatic and talking about dollars and the need not to waste them—none of that silly stuff about ghosts being loved or being people. Somehow the editorial bothered me.

  I waited until close to nine before I drove over to LBI.

  Bruce was actually there when I arrived with my package for him.

  “Good morning.”

  “So, the prodigal returns. And you do look like a prodigal.”

  “Hardly. He had it better. You want to be in the insurance business?”

  “Nope.”

  “How about the reinsurance business?”

  “Do I get a share of the profits?”

  “You really don’t want a share.”

  “You know, Johan, did anyone tell you that you look like hell this morning?”

  “Did anyone tell you that hell probably feels better?”

  “You didn’t need to tell me that.”

  “I know.” I held up the package. “This is yours.”

  “I don’t want it, whatever it is.” He gave a wry smile and a head shake.

  “This is an offer you can’t refuse.”

  “One of those again. I knew you’d do this to me, Johan.” He sighed. I felt sorry for him. Still, if he didn’t help, I’d be feeling even sorrier for myself. So I waited.

  “What do you want?” he finally asked.

  “Not much. I just want you to post the envelopes in this big folder if I die anytime in the next four years.”

  “You know, I really don’t like the reinsurance business, either.”

  “I know. It’s hell.”

  “But … I’ll do it.” He took the folder. “I presume you have another one?”

  “Yes. That gets posted to my other reinsurance agent.”

  “Lucky guy.”

  “He thinks so, too.”

  Bruce looked toward the parking lot, empty except for our cars. “You’d better get on with your reinsurance before someone ups the premiums.”

  “You’re all heart.”

  “I know.”

  I waved and walked back to the steamer and the other folder, glad I had my good boots and heavy coat. The boiler wasn’t even cold when I flipped the switch, despite the freezing temperatures outside.

  I found the post centre and sent the second envelope off to Eric and Judith’s oldest son, a very junior lawyer with a firm in Atlanta. But he was my godchild and a good kid, a young man, really. To make it perfectly legal, I also enclosed a small check for a retainer, to seal, if you will, the attorney-client privilege. I chose him for one other reason. Young Alfred couldn’t have built the devices from the specifications if his life depended on it. He probably wouldn’t have understood what they meant without a great deal of study, although I seriously doubted that he would open the sealed inner envelope. He took that sort of thing very seriously. I did post it to his home address in Buckhead, though, so some clerk didn’t open the whole thing by mistake.

  Two probably weren’t enough, but I also really didn’t want what was in the packages getting out. The whole mess needed to simmer down, not heat up, and that was what I was working for—that and my own self-preservation. Of course, I still had to deal with Miranda’s murder, but one thing at a time. I couldn’t resolve the murder if I were in a watch cell.

  I was tired, but there was no going home yet, not until I made my calls. The first was from the outside wireset behind Herman’s Bar and Grill, and it went to Haarlan O
akes, Ralston’s former assistant. They put me right through.

  “Johan, where are you?”

  “In New Bruges. I’ve been trying to stay out of the limelight. I read that Ralston had an accident.”

  “Yes. It was rather remarkable, and embarrassing. There were some papers … they got to the press. And then there was the coincidence with vanBecton becoming a zombie. It was all rather astounding.”

  “I imagine that the president would prefer that things were forgotten quickly.”

  “He has expressed some concern along those lines.”

  “I would think so. I’m a little concerned myself. With the accidents that happened to those two … well, I visited several, shall we say, insurance agents, in the interests of life insurance, you understand?”

  “Did you get a good deal?” His voice was hard.

  “Oh, it wasn’t that kind of insurance. I like living quietly in New Bruges. As I kept telling people, I’d prefer that things remain very quiet. I never did like the commotion. As a matter of fact, I suspect that things will remain quite quiet, quite forgotten, you understand, at least unless someone has to probate, if you will, my estate. Pardon the pun.”

  “Oh … that kind of insurance.” There was a pause. “I think the president would be very supportive—at least this time.”

  “I would hope so, and I would hope he and the Speaker could reach an agreement. I am going to call Asquith next, and discuss insurance with him.”

  “I didn’t know you knew Asquith.”

  “I met him years ago, but I’m sure he’ll recall me.”

  “I suspect so. Well, I’m due to brief the president shortly, and I’ll convey to him your sentiments. Under the circumstances, I’m quite sure that he will be pleased.”

  “I would hope so. After all, I’ve always been a supporter.”