“Yes, I know,” Drachstedt said gruffly. Turning away from the window, he eased himself into the uncomfortable straight chair at the desk by Dorn. He hesitated a moment, then said as casually as he could manage, “She is enchanting, I must admit. Is she quite so—absorbing in private?” Drachstedt had never asked Jager about his private time with Minden Lauer, and Dorn had never mentioned it to his superior officer.
But now the handsome young lieutenant answered readily, though his smooth brow furrowed. “She is an extraordinary woman. Of course, you’ve seen that she’s quite beautiful, and very—uh—eager. But I’m not sure . . . it’s somehow just not the same as when she’s doing these live comms . . . it’s like she— Minden—is just sort of a—an imitation of the Lady of Light. A very good imitation, an excellent likeness . . . but still not nearly as . . . haunting and entrancing as the Lady of Light. I’m sorry, sir, I know I’m not making much sense, but I can’t think of any other way to explain it.”
Drachstedt shook his head, a dismissive gesture. “Never mind, Jager. You understand that I don’t care about your private life. It’s just that she’s such a pivotal part of this complex plan that I feel I ought to understand her better than I do.”
Again Lieutenant Dorn was perplexed. “Of course, sir. But I can’t help you much with that. I don’t understand her strange sorcery either.”
Drachstedt thought that the word sorcery might be much too accurate a description of this situation. Ever since the night three months ago when they’d met with Vice President Luca Therion (who was president now) and Minden Lauer and Commissar Alia Silverthorne, Drachstedt had been apprehensive about many events surrounding Project Final Unity: about the ease with which they’d deceived the vice president; Count Gerade von Eisenhalt’s untimely heart attack within a week, and President Bishop Beckwith’s death the next day; about the way their German scientists had, in such a short time, been able to shape and design the Thiobacillus chaco to be of such phenomenal, and favorable, use to Germany.
The chain of events had seemed to Drachstedt as if there were some forces—elemental and inexplicable forces—that he could neither account for nor control. Being a pragmatic man, Drachstedt attempted to dismiss what he viewed as irrational fears. It had been difficult for him to ignore his deepest instincts, however, as his apprehensions had grown, instead of diminished, as the time for Project Final Unity had neared.
It was all very troublesome to a staunchly rational man like Rand von Drachstedt. He didn’t mention his misgivings to his assistant, however. He just felt compelled to go over the final plans—again.
“All right, Lieutenant Dorn. Step-by-step, explain to me what you and the technical team have told the Americans,” he ordered brusquely.
Dorn let a small sigh escape him, though he took care not to let his harsh superior officer see it. But they had, after all, been over the finalized plans hundreds of times. In just a few hours Project Final Unity would begin. Even if his commander found a fatal flaw, it was too late to do anything about it. Still, he obediently began, “We have told the Americans, and we have offered them authoritative documentation as proof, that tonight at approximately five o’clock, the organism will be inserted into the output coils of key step-up and step-down power transformers. This will isolate the crucial ‘pockets,’ the small areas that the vice president— I mean, the president—indicated for blackout. We have further told them that the insertion of the ohm-bug will not actually affect electrical production; only small segments of the distribution lines.”
“What did you call it?” Drachstedt asked abruptly.
“Sir? Oh, yes, the ‘ohm-bug.’ That’s what Commissar Silverthorne calls it, sir. I assume it’s from Ohm’s law, a measure of electrical resistance. Georg S. Ohm, one of our nineteenth-century kinsmen, invented the calculation, by the way, sir.”
“It would appear that we always have been ahead of them, would it not?” Drachstedt said dryly. “Yet we’ve never been able to best this country in any way.”
“Until now,” Dorn said arrogantly.
“Perhaps,” Drachstedt replied in a neutral tone. “It still appears to me that they have only defeated themselves; we are only incidental bystanders, so it is an empty triumph to an old soldier like me. Continue, please.”
“Yes, sir. The ohm-bug, we have assured them, will travel only in the direction of the flow of the electrical current. That means it will not back up into their production plants.”
“And they truly believed this—meaningless technical babble,” Drachstedt rumbled with disbelief.
“We had most convincing charts, graphs, algorithms, logarithms, and detailed maps, sir,” Dorn assured him. “Our technical team performed miracles.”
“Haven’t we all,” Drachstedt growled. “Including our genetic engineers. They’ve actually engineered this organism to die out, practically upon command. That I do find amazing.”
“Yes, sir, they have. It’s just that we’ve altered the exact extinction rate in what we’ve told the Americans. We’ve shown them projections of exactly what they wanted; Site A ohm-bugs to die out within a month and Site B bugs within three months.”
“But actually, all of the organisms are supposed to die out completely within a six-month period, correct?” Drachstedt asked cautiously. “That is certain, is it not, Lieutenant Dorn?”
“Yes, sir, our genetic engineers assure us that the organism will quite simply starve to death within six months.”
“They’d better,” Drachstedt said darkly. “This vast and rich country won’t do Germany a whit of good if we can’t produce any electricity here.”
“I can’t believe Commandant von Eisenhalt wouldn’t realize that, sir,” Dorn said evenly. “Naturally, the genetic engineers understand that if their extinction rate is not accurate, they would have to answer to him.”
Drachstedt nodded with more certainty. He, and Lieutenant Dorn, the genetic engineers, and everyone else under Count Tor von Eisenhalt’s command understood what a grave thing it would be to displease him. One simply did not do that.
Finally Drachstedt said thoughtfully, “And if I understand it correctly, the actual project will be launched much as we have represented to the American Final Unity Team. The organism will be inserted—initially at least—exactly as you told them, correct?”
“Yes, sir. At five o’clock this evening. By seven o’clock, the areas that the president and the lady chose will be without any power at all.”
“And within eighty-four hours, it will begin to spread uncontrollably?”
“That’s correct, sir. It is calculated that by then the geometric growth rate will reach saturation in the initially infected areas, and it will begin spreading to other areas. Also, three days from now, more of the organism will be released in the West, so as to ensure complete coverage of the United States in four days.”
“Four days,” Drachstedt murmured gutturally. “The most powerful nation the earth has ever known will fall, and be utterly destroyed, within four days . . .”
Of all the places in the United States of America that had been so wrenchingly changed by the Man and Biosphere Project, there was one sanctuary that had not. The Oval Office, the hallowed seat of power in this most powerful of nations, had changed little since the nineteenth century, when it had been completed.
The room was elegantly furnished, with pieces that had centuries of history behind them. The president’s desk was made of wood from the HMS Resolute, a British ship that sank in American waters during the 1850s. Americans had salvaged her, and Queen Victoria had graciously shown her gratitude by ordering a desk made from its oaken timbers. Behind the desk was a brand-new chair, custom designed with Kevlar-Genesis armor in the back for a brand-new president. The desk was curiously bare; normally the president did have mementos or photographs on it, the only personal touches in the formal room.
On this day, however, the polished ancient oak expanse was bare except for a single silver tray. On the tray were t
hree heavy and obviously old silver goblets, curiously wrought with ancient runes. Beside them was a tall bottle, pitted and pocked with age, its neck misshapen as it had been blown in an age when only human hands could form the magic of glass from sand and fire.
The tray, the goblets, the old bottle, and the liquor were all gifts from Count Tor von Eisenhalt to President Luca Therion, and his two closest associates in Project Final Unity, Minden Lauer and Alia Silverthorne.
The three were standing in a loose semicircle at the edge of the desk, their eyes frozen as they stared at the three-hundred-year-old grandfather clock. Today, for the first time in centuries, the bass chimes had been reconnected to sound. The small hand majestically moved to one minute before five o’clock with a tiny snick that seemed loud in the soundless room.
Luca turned, uncorked the bottle, and poured thick golden liquid into the goblets.
“It is mead, the drink of the gods and goddesses, Tor said,” Minden whispered reverently, and took the cup to caress it between both hands.
Alia took hers and glanced down into it; she had never seen mead before. It smelled bitter, but it looked sweet.
Luca kept his eyes on the majestic old clock.
Five deep, sonorous notes sounded.
The president of the United States lifted his heavy silver goblet high. “To Project Final Unity.”
Alia Silverthorne, newly appointed chief commissar of the Sixth Directorate, raised her curiously wrought silver goblet. “To Project Final Unity.”
Minden Lauer, the Lady of Light, the consort of the most powerful man on earth, raised her goblet with both hands. “To Project Final Unity. To our most high goddess, our Lady Earth. And to our beloved and loyal friend, Count Tor von Eisenhalt. May he live forever.”
“May he live forever,” Alia and Luca intoned, and then drank.
FIFTEEN
THE STORM WAS ENORMOUS. Great, glowering charcoal-colored clouds billowed across the Gulf from the south. They seemed to move entirely too fast for their bulk, the sullen lightning flashes in their secret parts like whips beating them onward.
“Ugly storm,” Tessa Kai murmured. Her short, coarse red-gold hair blew straight back from her face.
Victorine said nothing. She had said very little all day.
Dancy popped up between them, leaning far out over the iron railing of the balcony. “Look, a sand-devil,” she cried, pointing down to the beach.
“Dancy, don’t lean out so far, please,” Victorine ordered. Her voice was calm, but her eyes as she stared at the coming fury were narrowed to two sharp black lines.
Dancy looked at her mother curiously, but she did pull herself back from leaning so precariously over the railing. Something was wrong with her mother, she knew. Something had been bothering her all day. Normally Dancy knew exactly the things that upset Victorine, but today she had been as mystified as Grandmother Tessa Kai. Finally Dancy, in her own little straightforward way, decided to stop wondering about it and just ask. Most of the time that worked with her mother. “Mama Vic, what’s wrong?”
Victorine gave her a short sidelong glance. “Nothing, Dancy.”
“Are you sure? I mean—you’re not mad at me, are you?”
That did it. Turning, Victorine gave her a quick hug. “No, of course not. I’m just a little tense, I suppose. Probably because of the storm. It’s well documented that the onset of storms can affect people and animals.”
Dancy studied her solemnly, but Victorine had again turned away to watch the tempest.
She knows . . . and I’ve tried so hard to hide it all day. Today is the autumnal equinox . . . Projekt Schlußenheit . . . What does it mean? What’s going to happen? Oh, Lord, how glad I will be for this day to be over!
For months Victorine had agonized so much over the coming of the equinox, and Project Final Unity, that she had almost driven herself insane. She had considered all sorts of disasters, including nuclear war, gigantic asteroids destroying the earth, plagues, tidal waves . . . all things fearful and horrible. But as summer drifted by, and days and then the months had passed after the meeting between the vice president (now the president) and the Lady of Light and the Germans, no alert had been announced, no warnings, no instructions, no word at all had come from the government.
Victorine did consider—and tell herself over and over again— that “Project Final Unity” sounded like some kind of Man and Biosphere Project that could be anything from a Save the Gophers program to a new tax burden. It really didn’t have the stirring ring of some sort of military alert or a natural disaster plan.
Still, Victorine had been dreading this day.
Then finally, at dawn this morning, she had been somewhat reassured. Minden Lauer’s live comm had featured some live shots of the sun rising on Perdido Key, for Victorine had seen the camera crew a few hundred yards down from the condos and had then quickly turned on the Earth’s Light broadcast to see the shots on Cyclops. Minden herself had been in Virginia, on the rooftop of her vast mansion that had been built two centuries before. She had installed a soundstage, and often broadcast from there.
If Minden Lauer was still on the East Coast, then Victorine was certain that whatever Project Final Unity was, it was not a widespread natural disaster or a sweeping military alert. Nothing that affected the eastern United States, anyway.
She had celebrated—her sort of devious defiance—by buying real T-bone steaks for their dinner that night. It had cost her forty food credits, when three Proto-Syn steaks cost only eight. Still, it had been well worth it, for her mother’s and Dancy’s delight. Victorine herself, in spite of her strict self-instruction to stop fretting about nothing, had had very little appetite.
“Thanks again for the real steaks, Mom,” Dancy was saying. She grabbed her mother’s hand and squeezed it, then held it.
“Yes, Vic, it was so generous of you, thank you,” Tessa Kai said warmly.
“You’re welcome, both of you,” Victorine said. “It’s little enough, it seems . . .”
In the blink of an eye, their whole world changed.
But Victorine and Dancy and Tessa Kai didn’t know that—yet.
“Drat-rat,” Tessa Kai said. “The power’s off.”
Victorine sighed. “I’m not really surprised, with the storm. It must already be inland, up west. You know where the candles are, don’t you, Mother?”
“No, I thought we used them all for that last blowout with the trolls and Goths,” Tessa Kai tossed over her shoulder, turning to go back inside Victorine’s condo. “All those candles, it looked like a coven or a cathouse or both.”
“What’s a—” Dancy began.
“Never mind,” Victorine said hastily. Tessa Kai had just taken a few steps inside and they heard a thump and then a muffled, “Mmph—ouch.”
“I’m coming, Mother,” Victorine called. “Just stay where you are.”
“Gladly,” Tessa Kai muttered. “I think my shin’s bleeding. Stupid coffee table right in my way.”
“I know, the impertinence of it,” Victorine said dryly, skillfully negotiating her way around the memorized path of her furniture. Her eyes adjusted quickly, and she went to the pantry in her kitchen, knelt down, and put her hand right on the flashlight on the left corner of the bottom shelf. “That’s odd . . . the flashlight’s out. I thought I checked the battery recently. Dancy?”
“Yes, ma’am?” She was a slight shadow by Tessa, leading her to the sofa.
“Get Tessa Kai settled down out of harm’s way, and then come put a new battery in this flashlight while I light some candles. Odd,” she muttered. She could have sworn she’d checked that flashlight just a few days ago; she’d checked all of them in each condo. Victorine had a schedule for things like that and she never missed anything on her schedule.
She fumbled until she found the box of all the candle stubs she’d saved from the candlelit dinner three months ago. Pure beeswax candles didn’t drip, and burned very slowly; even a two-inch stub would burn for hours. Qui
ckly she found the matches and some candleholders, and lit three candles. “Here, Mother, just stay right there.” Hurriedly Victorine went to close the glass doors to the balcony. The wind was growing fierce, making the feeble little candle flames bend and struggle.
“Mother, I—I guess this battery’s dead too,” Dancy said helplessly. “This thing still won’t work.”
“That’s impossible,” Victorine scoffed. “It was a brand-new one, dated two years from now. You must have put it in wrong, Dancy. Here, give it to me.” Victorine was the type of person who, deep down, thought she could do most things better than anyone.
Resignedly Dancy handed over the flashlight. Actually it was more accurately called a lantern, for it had a four-inch-square light-box with a 9-volt battery. Victorine unloaded the battery, then loaded it again. “You didn’t confuse the old battery with the new one, did you, Dancy?” Victorine asked.
“No, Mother. I threw the old one away before I opened the new one.”
“All right. Maybe it’s the bulb. I don’t think I have any new ones. I’ll just go over to 703 and get that flashlight.”
“Why don’t you start up the generator, Victorine?” Tessa Kai asked impatiently.
“Because it’s noisy and it smells,” she answered shortly, “and probably the power will be back on in a few minutes. I’ll be right back.”
She grabbed her great round key ring and bustled out the door. The wind caught it and blew it back against the wall with a crash that made Dancy and Tessa Kai jump. Victorine grabbed it, muttering, and with some difficulty pulled it shut.
Dancy said in a small voice, “Something’s wrong with Mama.”
Tessa Kai swallowed hard, but her voice was light and natural. “Yes, she’s a great grump, is what’s wrong with her. You come over here and sit by me, Dancy-doodle.”
Carefully shielding her candle, Dancy came to sit close to her grandmother. “You know she’s been—upset, or something, all day,” she continued.
Tessa Kai stared hard at Dancy; the girl kept her face averted, and picked at her Ty-denim jeans. “I know she’s been quick and crisp, yes,” Tessa Kai said slowly. “But I’m not sure she’s upset, exactly.”
The Beginning of Sorrows Page 23