Ghosts of Columbia

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

On the way back to my office from the post centre, I took a detour. I walked by the Science building, noting that the blackened windows remained where Gerald’s concealed laboratory had been. I’d seen the equipment lugged out and even toured the empty spaces that had been refurbished for a new difference engine center for the students.

  I’d been so concerned about de-ghosting, but what about creating psychic proliferation, as Minister Jerome had put it? Was there a military application to creating ghosts?

  I snorted. There had to be. The military could pervert anything. Then it struck me, and I swallowed. He’d mentioned it. I never had to anyone in the Spazi—ever.

  The sky darkened, and I looked up as stiff gusts of cold wind buffeted me. The clouds had swept in and covered all but the lowest part of the western horizon.

  Branston-Hay’s equipment hadn’t been destroyed, no matter what Speaker Hartpence had said. It was doubtless somewhere else, with some other Babbage type attempting to refine the selective de-ghosting procedure already adopted and implemented for Ferdinand’s crack commando troops.

  Pellets of ice bounced off the stone walk as I headed back to the Natural Resources building.

  I also wondered who or what branch of government might be working on Gerald’s project to create ghosts. So far as I knew, I’d been the only one to actually implement that feature of his research, but if Bruce and I could, it certainly wouldn’t be a problem for any number of researchers, assuming anyone had the material … and that was the question. I’d erased the files from Gerald’s difference engine, and his backup disks had supposedly gone up in flames with his house. Had anyone else seen his material—all of it? I just didn’t know, and wouldn’t if or until strange ghosts started popping up places where they shouldn’t be.

  My own efforts had indicated that matters didn’t usually turn out as planned, and while Llysette and I had survived, we certainly weren’t the same people we’d once been. Still, those considerations wouldn’t stop others, and both Harlaan and Jerome were hinting that they hadn’t.

  Hunched up in my overcoat, I trudged through the intermittent ice pellets and wind gusts to the Natural Resources building. Gilda’s desk was empty, and David’s door was shut and locked—not surprising on a Friday afternoon.

  I sat at my desk and extracted the manila envelope that held a single clipping:

  GREAT SALT LAKE CITY, DESERET (WNS). Denying reports that New France had sent a strongly worded note protesting the planned diversion of more than 10 percent of the annual flow of the Colorado River, First Counselor Cannon reemphasized the close and continuing ties between Deseret and New France. “Allies in the past, and allies in the future … there is no room and no reason for discord in a world haunted by the spectre of Austro-Hungarian imperialism.”

  Cannon refused to discuss specifics of the so-called Green River revitalization program, only saying that the amount of water involved was “vastly overstated”… .

  Usually reliable sources indicated that the First Counselor was delicately suggesting that Deseret needed calm relations with both New France and Columbia.

  In a related development, scientists in the water reuse program at the University of Deseret announced an improved metering technology for drip irrigation systems.

  Water, diplomacy, and strained relations between Deseret and New France. The clipping seemed to be something that Deputy Minister Habicht would be more interested in than Jerome or Oakes—but the envelope had come from Jerome’s operation, and that still bothered me.

  Then, everything about Llysette’s scheduled performance in Deseret was beginning to bother me, and we still had another three weeks before we got on the dirigible for Great Salt Lake City.

  Still … there wasn’t too much I could do that I hadn’t already done, and I had papers to grade. There were always papers to grade. Papers, tests, and quizzes. I almost didn’t know which stack to tackle, but I settled on the quizzes from Environmental Politics 2B. That was because I could make a dent in that stack before I was due to pick up Llysette at five o’clock.

  By then, we’d be the last on campus. We usually were.

  I actually got through the quizzes, but I didn’t have time to record the scores in my grade book, so both grade book and quizzes went into my case, as did the other ungraded materials. I had to lock the building and turn out the lights, and that meant it was slightly after five before I pulled the Stanley up to the Music and Theatre building.

  Even so, I waited almost ten minutes before Llysette arrived, preceded a few minutes earlier by the dejected form of a student I did not know. I never knew who the first-year students were until close to Christmas.

  “That was a discouraged student,” I observed as Llysette hoisted herself and two large bags full of papers and books into the front seat.

  “Discouraged she is? Ha! I should be the one discouraged.”

  “Oh?” I waited as she settled herself.

  “To sing, that she wishes with but two hours of practice a week.”

  “Don’t they know better?”

  “They think they are busy, too busy to practice, yet to learn music, to major … they say that they desire.” Llysette snorted. “So few understand.”

  “Most young people have to learn about work,” I temporized.

  “Work … non … I have talked of school too much… .” She shook her head. “So much warmer it was this morning, but now… .”

  “It didn’t last long,” I observed. “All of a day and a half. It feels like it’s going to get colder, a lot colder, and soon.”

  Llysette shivered at the thought, even while ice pellets resumed their pinging on the Stanley’s thermal finish and glass. The square was half-deserted by the time I drove the steamer past McArdles’ and the post centre. Truly amazing how a good ice storm emptied the square so quickly.

  After we crossed the river bridge, I glanced at Llysette. “I think we ought to ask Bruce up for dinner.”

  “Pourquoi? You have need of his services?”

  “No. I don’t need anything. Not that I know of. But I’ve always contacted him when I wanted something, and that’s really not fair or right. Besides, he’s got a good sense of humor, and he likes music.” I eased the Stanley up Deacon’s Lane, taking a little extra care in the heavy gusting winds.

  I let Llysette out by the door, then opened the car barn and put the Stanley away. I definitely didn’t want to expose the thermal finish to the ravages of an ice storm.

  While Llysette changed, I went into the study and lifted the wireset. There was a good chance Bruce was still at the shop. He always was.

  “LBI Difference Designers.”

  “Bruce, this is Johan.”

  “Don’t tell me.”

  “I’m not telling you anything. Llysette and I wondered if you’d like to come up for dinner on next Friday or Saturday. Not tomorrow… . I wouldn’t drop an invitation on you with no notice.”

  “It must be worse than I’d thought.” His voice was dry.

  Had I been that inconsiderate? Probably. “It’s not bad at all. I don’t need anything. No one’s attacked anyone. No strange messages.”

  “That might be worse.”

  “Bruce, it’s a dinner invitation. Good food, and I hope good company.”

  “Saturday would be better.”

  “Good. We’ll see you at seven a week from tomorrow.” After I hung up the wireset, I glanced around the study. I swore I could feel heat from the SII machine, but when I checked it, it was cool, although not so cool as I would have thought.

  With a sigh, I fired it up and checked the accesses. Nothing. Then, on an off thought, I checked the backups. One was something I hadn’t recalled accessing in a while, some notes on the wetlands course. In a moment of whimsy, I’d entitled the notes: “Politics.”

  Maybe I’d called it up, but I didn’t recall it. Besides, how could anyone even get into the house without Jerome’s people noticing? And they wouldn’t be interested in ecology notes.

/>   I shook my head. Paranoia? Or was Jerome playing a deeper game? Probably, but what, and what could I do about it at the moment?

  With a snort, I walked back to the kitchen, wondering what I would fix for dinner. I hadn’t really given it the faintest thought.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Friday’s ice storm turned to snow, more than a foot, which was followed by rain and then a hard freeze that turned everything to ice on Monday. Tuesday, the wind changed, and by Wednesday morning the temperature was springlike again, not at all like the last days of October, and foggy, but not bad for running. I went all the way to the top of the hill and out into the old woods a ways, my boots crunching through the crusty snow.

  After breakfast, a shower, and dressing, I made my way to the car barn to light off the Stanley. Although the day had gotten foggy with the sunlight and warm, moist air, the glare was intense even through the intermittent fog.

  Standing outside the car barn, I glanced to the south, across the glittering iced snow and through the leafless trees of the orchard. Between the drifting patches of white, I could see a gray Spazi steamer on the back road. Jerome was certainly keeping his promise about surveillance.

  I shook my head and opened the car barn door, then unplugged the heater, before starting the steamer and backing out. I’d closed up the barn, turned the steamer—avoiding Marie’s old black deSoto—and even had the Stanley warm inside before Llysette struggled out of the house and into the seat beside me, clutching her bags of music and books.

  “Winter, for this I am not prepared.” Llysette shivered.

  “It’s warmer than yesterday.” I eased the Stanley onto Deacon’s Lane and headed downhill toward the river and Vanderbraak Centre.

  “That is like comparing the icebox and the freezer.”

  “Wait until it really gets cold.”

  “I cannot believe I leave the stove to beat notes to dunderheads.” Llysette halfsniffed, half-shivered in her heavy coat. “Even to the good ones.”

  “You will. You’ll just complain more.” I laughed.

  “You mock me.”

  I could feel the pout. “I wasn’t mocking you, just stating what I thought would happen.” When I stopped at the bridge, I bent sideways and kissed her cheek.

  She raised her eyebrows, and I knew what she was thinking.

  How did I get out of being condescending when I had been? By not opening my mouth in the first place. “Lunch?”

  “Mais non … auditions we have for the festival. Did I not tell you?”

  “You did. I didn’t remember that was today.”

  “Johan… .” She shook her head but then spoiled it by smiling shyly, as if to ask how I ever could have been anything other than an absentminded professor. Maybe she was right.

  After dropping Llysette off at the Music Building I made my morning pilgrimage to Samaha’s for the paper, before heading back to my office to scan it and prepare for my classes. There was little enough in the Asten Post-Courier, except a tiny blurb about the Austrian ambassador being recalled to Vienna for consultations. I wondered why, but the story was just a wire blurb without details.

  The big story was the latest revelation about the Asten midtrupp ring and the turbo-dirigible controversy. One of the trupp chiefs had invested heavily in the governor’s brother’s construction business, and lo and behold, the business had been awarded the contract to extend the obsolete aeroplane runways to accommodate turbojets.

  After shaking my head, I surveyed the environmental economics papers I had to hand back—not really terrible, but methodically mediocre. They’d all realized that I wanted facts and analysis, and most had gone through the exercise, but without either insight or inspiration. I picked up one.

  “… taxes raise the price payed for fuels, like steamer kerosene so when Speaker Aspinall pushed through the excuse taxes …” I couldn’t read any farther again after “excuse taxes,” not without wanting to add comments about proofreading, assuming Miss Lyyker knew the difference. So I set it aside before I lowered her grade more.

  Eleven o’clock came and went, and environmental economics was about as I feared—multiple hidden groans over the grades, followed by sullen glances when they thought I wasn’t looking.

  The class discussion was subdued, because it had begun to dawn on them that they weren’t getting As or, in many cases even Bs—clearly my fault, in their minds. After all, I was there to teach them, to spoon-feed them what they needed to know, if necessary, so that they could obtain the magic diploma and entrance to the occupation or graduate school of their choice.

  Did I feel cynical?

  The frightening part was that I believed my analyses were objective. So I plunged into trying to ignite some interest.

  “Mister Deventer, would you rather be a north woods logger or a New Bruges fishing boat captain?”

  “Ah … sir?”

  “You heard me. A north woods logger or a fishing boat captain?”

  “But, sir … I would prefer not—”

  “To be either? I can understand that. Humor me, Mister Deventer. If you only had those choices, which would you choose?” I smiled and waited, ignoring the sigh. If you don’t ignore such sighs, you go slightly mad.

  Mister Deventer surprised me. “If I had to choose, Doktor, I’d try to be a fishing boat captain… .” He went on to explain in logical terms how he could invest more in equipment to seek out fish while as a logger he would be limited in what he could log and where.

  “Very good. Now what about the impact of the Blue Water Laws?”

  Mister Deventer knew that, too, explaining how the combination of the water and wetlands laws retained the quality and quantity of marshland breeding areas for various species in the food chain and thus increased his putative profitability as a fishing captain.

  Somehow, ignoring the handful of sighs and focusing on those students who appeared interested, I struggled through the examples of how environmental issues and changes impact basic economics and even society’s structures.

  Water from the melting ice and snow covered the stone walks outside Smythe by noon. Given New Bruges’s variable weather, the water would probably freeze at night, leaving a death trap for the early-morning classes. I pushed aside that thought.

  Instead of lunching with my spouse, since she was otherwise occupied, I went to the post centre. When I opened the postbox, I wished I hadn’t, but not totally. Besides a letter from my mother, there was a manila envelope, thicker than any of those I had received earlier. I swallowed and carried it and the letter from my mother back up the hill to my office, stopping to get a sawdust sandwich and powdered chocolate that wasn’t quite a uniform solution from the student center.

  Between sandwich bites and sips of cool and dusty-tasting chocolate, I read the friendly letter first, not that it said much except that life went on for Anna and my mother and asked, again, when Llysette and I would next visit Schenectady.

  I could have worked out some times before semester break, but Llysette couldn’t, not with the load and schedule she carried and not with the time she was taking off to sing in Deseret.

  Outside my window, I could hear the post centre clock chime the half hour. Twenty-five minutes before I had to go another round. I finally choked down the sandwich before opening the manila envelope:

  NEWPORT (FNS). Defense Minister Holmbek represented Speaker Hartpence at the keel-laying ceremony for the Hudson. Holmbek’s remarks were brief, but he did state that the Hudson would provide the first step “to ensure freedom of trade and freedom of passage.”

  The Hudson and the Washington will be the first nuclear-electro-submersibles in the Columbian navy and are projected to be launched nearly simultaneously with the second Japanese electrosubmersible, as yet unnamed… .

  The first Japanese nuclear submersible, Dragon of the Sea, completed her maiden voyage more than a year ago, but the three newer ships will incorporate updated technologies from both Columbia and Japan.

  The s
econd clip put the first in proper perspective, even if I didn’t care for that perspective:

  VIENNA (WNS). Minister of State Franz Stepan announced that Ambassador Schikelgruber is being recalled “for consultation” with the emperor and his government… .

  Sources close to the State Ministry have reported “dissatisfaction” with the Japanese-American technology sharing that resulted in the development of nuclear-electrosubmersibles… .

  In a related development, the Austro-Hungarian Southern Fleet has closed the Arabian peninsula to non-Austrian-flag shipping “indefinitely” in the wake of Islamic fundamentalist riots in Makkah and Madinah… .

  The closure was protested violently by the Indian Mogul Shaharrez, who suspended iron and textile exports to Europe “indefinitely.”

  I rubbed my forehead, not that I could do anything about a world situation that seemed to be getting worse and worse, and slowly studied the next clipping:

  CITIE DE TENOCHTITLAN (NFWS). “In time of trouble, we of mid-America must help each other.” Those were the first words of Marshal deGaulle in announcing a loan of 300 million new pesos to Venezuela for the refurbishing and repair of the fire-ravaged Lagunillas oil depot.

  DeGaulle went on to pledge continued New French support for embattled President de Sanches’s efforts to strengthen Venezuela’s industrial base and trade balance, noting that “we must decide our own destinies, based on the needs of our people, not upon transatlantic agendas.”

  Reports from the Bolivar naval yard indicate that two New French cruisers and the carrier Buonaparte are already on station “somewhere in the vicinity of Aruba.”

  Great—deGaulle was protecting the South American oil fields, while Ferdinand was exerting complete control over the Middle East and Columbia and Japan were racing to build and deploy technology that would make obsolete conventional miltary vessels, presumably to give them the ability to interrupt oil shipments, among other things. I picked up the last clipping: