Ghosts of Columbia

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Students haven’t changed much, I see,” answered Bruce with a laugh.

  “I suspect they’re a bit more spoiled than we were,” I suggested.

  “Un peu? Spoiled you never were, Johan.” Llysette gave me a broad smile.

  She was wrong, but I appreciated the support. Compared to her, compared to Bruce, compared to many, I’d been spoiled, though I flattered myself that at least I knew all the advantages I’d had in life.

  “You were never spoiled,” I finally said.

  Bruce remained silent.

  “Oh, mon cher? And was not to sing before the Academie, was that not being spoiled?”

  She had a point. There, unlike New Bruges, the audience knew great music when they heard it, but most of those who had heard her then were probably dead, except for those few who had survived Ferdinand, either physically whole or as ghosts.

  “Being able to enjoy culture is a form of being spoiled,” observed Bruce.

  “So is being able to perform without fear of starving,” I added. “The highestpaid forms of singing these days are popsingspiel and Philadelphia lip-synch.”

  “They’re reviving Your Town again, I saw.” Bruce finished his goblet of Yountville, and I refilled it.

  “That’s because a flop of the thirties is better than anything being written today.” I hadn’t cared much for either Pound’s poetry or his sole play, satire as it was of Our Town.

  “C’est si triste …”

  From there we discussed theatre, poetry, and, of course, music.

  The Yountville had long since disappeared when Bruce finally rose. “I don’t live around the corner.”

  “You could come more often if you did,” I pointed out.

  “I couldn’t afford to. No one up here except you, Johan, buys what we sell.”

  I nodded and reclaimed his coat from the front closet.

  “It’s been a lovely evening.” Bruce looked vaguely puzzled as he paused by the door.

  I could understand that, but I couldn’t say a word. It was probably the first time I’d offered Bruce something without asking for something, or expecting it, and that bothered him.

  “I’ve enjoyed it,” he added, as if he were surprised that he had.

  “We’re glad.”

  Llysette nodded with me.

  With a nod, he was gone, into the snowflakes that still swirled but hadn’t stuck on grass or drive.

  “Lonely, he is,” said Llysette as we watched Bruce back the Olds around and head out into the darkness, back toward Zuider.

  I knew that. I’d been there, and I tightened my fingers around hers, glad that I was no longer lonely, that our ghosts had left us filled and together, rather than empty and alone.

  Llysette squeezed my hand in response.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Not a great deal happened over the next week, perhaps because of the pair of ubiquitous gray steamers that parked in out-of-the-way lanes and perhaps because nothing would have happened anyway.

  That is, nothing of cosmic import occurred. I did get a brief call from Minister Jerome in which he suggested that the disposal of suspicious packages might be better handled by some of his experts, assuming I preferred not to involve the local Watch.

  I thanked him and told him that I would certainly keep that in mind.

  Llysette still practiced and beat notes into students, worried about the student opera production she had to leave six weeks or so before it went up, even while the students thought six weeks was an eternity. And she reminded me, more than occasionally, to be aware of suspicious packages. But we didn’t get any more, and mostly, her worries centered on the Perkins pieces.

  “So … so … precise … they must be.”

  I’d heard that phrase more than once.

  As for me, I continued to struggle with my own Dutch dunderheads, as well as study the occasional clips from various news sources that periodically appeared in our postbox. I had to admit that the clips were interesting and that I’d missed that aspect of my job two positions previously—I did like learning new and differing things … and always had.

  On that Wednesday, after scanning the local paper, I’d reluctantly plunged into grading papers, half-enjoying the bright sunlight pouring through the window, sunlight that had been rare in recent weeks.

  The papers were on the issue of converting external diseconomies into market forces. I had asked each student to come up with one example of government success and one of failure and then compare and contrast them.

  I glanced at the top paper and began to read: “… the fuel taxes imposed by Speaker Aspinall’s government represent a case in point where a successful use of external diseconomies was achieved …”

  At that point I began to wince. Despite lengthy explanations, Mister Anadahl had apparently failed to grasp the distinction between the specific external diseconomy and the policy designed to remedy the problem.

  Several other papers cited fuel taxes as a success without ever explaining the diseconomy they were supposed to remedy. Then I came to a gem, by one of the quiet ones—Miss Gaarlen. She’d actually gone beyond the assignment and compared legislation that had attempted to remedy environmental diseconomies, such as the Wetlands Equalization Act, with other legislation designed for different objects, such as the fuel taxes, that had achieved the same result. Several of the following papers cheered me up with their understanding of the subject.

  In a way it puzzled me. They were all in the same class, with the same teacher, yet a disparate handful understood, and another larger group, with no noticeable difference from the first group, hadn’t seemed to learn anything and had failed in exactly the same way. Had the second group all worked on their papers together? Who knew? What I did know was that they hadn’t had the brains to work with someone who did understand the problem I’d posed. Or they didn’t care, which was more disturbing.

  I tried to take comfort in the half dozen fairly good and good papers, toiling with papers, and red ink until ten-forty-five and then packing them away and extracting my class notes.

  “You’re leaving next Friday?” David cornered me as I left my office for Environmental Economics 2A with a stack of papers under my arm.

  “Saturday. Friday I teach a full schedule.”

  He cleared his throat. I waited.

  “Johan …”

  “You’re wondering if I have to go the whole time?” I shrugged. “If I don’t go, Llysette doesn’t sing. Those are the terms of the contract. The Saints don’t want unattached attractive females in Great Salt Lake City. Especially singers, I’d guess. So if the dean wants the publicity, I have to go.”

  “Ah … it wasn’t that.”

  I waited again.

  “I just received the latest issue of the Journal—”

  “The one with my article on environmental realities?” I continued to be surprised that the journal of Columbian Politics continued to seek my articles and commentaries, given the outrage they often provoked.

  David nodded.

  “What was it that disturbed you about this one? My analysis of the practical impossibility of compliance with the legal terms of the Safe Water Sources Act?”

  My chair shook his head and cleared his throat. “I was … somewhat concerned by the flippant definition—”

  “Of an environmentalist? Someone who throws his trash in your backyard and proposes to split the cleanup taxes with you?” I laughed. “I could have used almost the same definition for an industrialist, except he leaves the trash where it is and calls it previously used raw materials. Maybe, in my next article—”

  “Johan … the vanEmsdens would not be pleased.”

  “Donors or not, David, they won’t read the article. The most they read is the Dairy News, or whatever their trade press is.” I shouldn’t have been so hard on David. I suppose I should have been grateful to occupy the vonBehn Professorship, but I doubted that the legendary and outspoken Aphra would have minded my independence.

&
nbsp; “Johan … ,” he said almost helplessly. “What about the students?”

  “They won’t have read it either.” Had any of my students ever read the Journal? If they did, not a one had ever read ever mentioned it or used the material. Besides, why would they ever read anything not assigned? Or read a book that wasn’t enjoyable?

  Last year, one Mister Paulus had blanched when I’d suggested that the criteria for greatness of a book included far more than the level of enjoyment of the readers. The poor fellow had been honestly shocked.

  “You’d say that about our students?” David was honestly distressed, or counterfeiting distress well.

  At times, I had to wonder why he got so upset about such comparatively minor things—but I wondered about too many things too often. “We have some good students, David. Then we have the others, and I’d say more than that about them, and you know it. I’m hopelessly outspoken. Use it as an example… . On the other hand, you’d better not. None of them regard outspoken honesty as a virtue.” I smiled. “I need to go, or I’ll be late for class.”

  I nodded and stepped around him. With the endowed chair had come tenure, and that meant David could rant and rail, but that was about it. I only wished Llysette had tenure, but I hoped, even with all the complications, that her singing in Deseret would give her the stature to negotiate something like that.

  Environmental Economics 2A was predictable, especially after having read their papers. Predictable and totally inexplicable. An environmental diseconomy is very simple. It is effectively the negative environmental impact of any cultural or societal action for which no individual or group of individuals bears either the cost or the responsibility—such as air pollution from the old internal combustion engines or wastewater discharges from manufacturing plants before the Blue Water Laws.

  So why did I get questions like Miss Fanstaal’s? “Professor Eschbach, I don’t understand why you said the federal grazing fees created external diseconomies. Can you explain that?”

  “Because the fees don’t cover the maintenance costs of the grasslands. The degradation isn’t anyone’s specific responsibility.”

  She still looked blank. So did four or five others. Miss Gaarlen managed to conceal the same wince I felt.

  All in all, it was a long class, and I kept wondering where I’d gone wrong. So much of what I taught seemed simple enough to me—and to about a third of the class—but for the others it was as if I were teaching Boolean algebra in Sanskrit with Greek footnotes to explain the underlying concepts … or something.

  Llysette was actually coming out of the Music Building before I got there.

  We both looked at each other, and then we began to laugh in the mist that wasn’t quite a freezing drizzle.

  “It’s been one of those mornings,” I finally said.

  “Dunderheads, they are,” she agreed.

  We walked slowly down to the square, arm in arm.

  “The diva and the doktor.” Victor bowed deeply as we walked into Delft’s.

  From his tone, I had the feeling both terms referred to Llysette.

  “The doktors and the diva,” I replied with a smile.

  “But of course.” Victor’s smile was bland.

  We got the table by the stove. That had effectively become Llysette’s table once Victor had ascertained that she was the diva of Columbia.

  “Wine, the good red,” said Llysette.

  “Chocolate, please,” I added.

  Victor nodded and hurried away.

  I offered the basket of bread to Llysette. She shook her head. I took a piece of the crusty bread and ate it all even before Victor returned with our beverages.

  “Your wine, mademoiselle.”

  “Merci.”

  “Thank you for the chocolate, Victor.”

  “It is nothing.”

  I wanted to add, “Et comment!” But I refrained, showing the self-restraint David was convinced I lacked. Instead, I said, “I’ll have the small pasta primavera.” I didn’t need the large serving, not with my battle against midlife bulge.

  “The special soup,” Llysette added.

  Victor bobbed his head and slipped away.

  “You had a bad morning?” I prompted.

  “They are so slow.” She paused to sip the wine, then looked at the glass. “This … I should not. Mais … I dread the afternoon rehearsal. Soon we must go to evenings.”

  Llysette was doing a short comic opera, something I’d never heard of—The Spinster and the Swindler, by a composer I’d also never heard of, Seymour Barab.

  “Why?” I thought I knew, but I asked anyway.

  “To them, six weeks, eight weeks, it is forever. One week and more I will be gone, and for two they have the holidays. They should be off book, but still they must hold their scores. So … we must rehearse more. Only in rehearsal do they look at the music.”

  “You can’t sing with your nose in the score.”

  “Sing? They cannot sing, except three; they cannot act; they cannot think. And I must beat notes and walk them from the one place to the other.” Llysette took another long swallow of the wine, then set the goblet down as Victor reappeared with her cream of broccoli soup and my pasta primavera.

  For a time, we ate silently. We were both hungry. We always were, it seemed, or was it nervousness?

  Later, I walked Llysette back to the Music Building and her waiting student, then went down to the post centre.

  The manila envelope in the postbox was briefing book—sized and thick. Unlike the others, it had a printed return address, the Spazi one, International Import Services, PLC. From the feel, it contained briefing papers and clippings, and I could definitely feel the contents. I swallowed hard but didn’t open the package or the two bills. Packages gave me a queasy feeling.

  David was out—or still at lunch—when I got back to the department offices.

  “Is our esteemed chairman expected back soon?” I almost bowed to Gilda, but that would have been too much of a mockery.

  “Doktor Doniger has left to attend a meeting of the Association of Columbian University Professors in New Amsterdam.” Gilda smiled. “His return is not imminent.”

  “But return he will,” I predicted.

  Gilda nodded, her fingers on the calculator. The sheets of difference engine printouts before her indicated she was trying to catch up on the departmental budget, something she never did while David was around.

  I’d never bothered to join ACUP, since the one meeting I’d attended had convinced me that the group catered to the lowest common denominator, and that was complaining. I hadn’t regretted the decision, not yet anyway.

  For once, I actually locked my office door while I was inside—before I opened the heavy envelope … carefully.

  More than a dozen clippings lay on top of the stapled document that had no letterhead, nor any identifying marks. After setting aside the clips, I flicked through the document, noting the section heads:

  “Deseret: Current Government Structure”

  “Deseret: Economic and Market Structure”

  “Deseret: Internal Security Forces”

  “Deseret: Church Security Forces”

  “Deseret: External Security Forces”

  “Deseret: Dissident Influences”

  “New France: Intelligence Operations in Deseret”

  “Quebec: Intelligence Operations in Deseret”

  “Austro-Hungary: Intelligence Operations in Deseret”

  “Japan: Intelligence Operations in Deseret”

  I noted the obvious omission—“Columbia: Intelligence Operations in Deseret.”

  I had a lot of reading to do in the few days ahead, and I doubted that I’d enjoy any of it.

  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 uni
verse 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.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Sunday 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.