The Eldridge Conspiracy

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by Stephen Ames Berry


  “You have reasons and places to suggest?”

  “I do. The places we can talk about.”

  “I’m marrying Cassandra. When should I sell the house?”

  “In a few years. I’ll tell you in plenty of time. I believe you’ll do quite well on it.”

  “I thought they didn’t let you know the future?”

  “Me, no. Keiko they do. You ever find out what happened to Schmidla?” she asked. “Not even Keiko would tell me.”

  “Ah, The Good Doctor,” said Jim, turning off the light. “Like Napoleon, he tried to conquer the world. And like Napoleon, he came up short.”

  It was a brief graveside service, Lutheran, held in a cold drizzle beneath a gnarled old linden in an ancient cemetery. Schmidla would have scorned the ritual but enjoyed the rain.

  Only Kurt and the local pastor were there, and the deceased, his remains in a diminutive rosewood coffin. He’d long ago written his own epithet:

  Martin Amadeus von Kemnitz

  Gelehrter, Physiker und Soldat

  3.Maerz 1891 - 28.November 1998

  Morgen Gehört Mir

  Martin Amadeus von Kemnitz

  Scholar, Physician and Soldier

  March 3, 1891 - November 28, 1998

  Tomorrow Belongs to Me

  His stone was topped by a black marble sculpture of the Earth, tilted on its axis and banded about by a finely-wrought bronze double-helix. The pastor found it an odd and vaguely disturbing monument. “Was Dr. von Kemnitz cremated?” he asked as they walked away.

  “No,” said Kurt. “He was just a very small man.”

  The End?

  Oh Fatherland, Fatherland

  Show us the sign

  Your children have waited to see

  The morning will come

  When the world is mine

  Tomorrow belongs to me!

  End Notes

  Chapter 16

  The human genome: Years after these events, Schmidla’s gene count is as valid as any. As of this writing, different computation methods continue to produce widely differing gene counts.

  Chapter 26

  English translation of Jimbo’s rendering of Kyu Sakamoto’s Ue Wo Muite Arukou (Sukiyaki)

  I look up when I walk

  So the tears won't fall

  Remembering those happy spring days

  But tonight I'm all alone.

  Copyright © 1975 Watanabe Music Publishing Co. Ltd

  “Tomorrow Belongs to Me” from Cabaret

  Lyrics by Fred Ebb, music by John Kander

  (From the 1939 novel Goodbye to Berlin, by Christopher Isherwood)

  Acknowledgments

  I’m privileged to know some very talented and generous people, without whose help and encouragement this book would never have been completed:

  My blessedly picky readers: Silvia Bichler, Stephen R. Gusmer and Sharon E. Slominski; research chemist Bill Jackson, who took time from his busy day to unearth a drug for Dr. Schmidla’s diabolical use; MIT physicist Simon Verghese, who early on patiently explained to me basic aspects of classical physics, and my fellow Ace and Tor Books author Melisa Michaels, whose insights prompted some needed plot rerouting.

  I’m indebted also to Genette Carr of Leighs Priory for her kindness and generosity in sharing her knowledge of the Rich family’s ancestral home, to Max Masao of japanlyrics.com for his translation of the Kyu Sakamoto lyrics, and to the eagle-eyed Thomas Stronach of Essex County for plying his proofreading skills.

  And I’m eternally grateful to the talented, thorough, gracious and good-hearted Eman Abu-Khadra of Tunis and Toronto. Her multi-faceted skills of linguist, logician and editor and her presence as boon Internet companion have made this a far better book and the journey to its end much lighter.

  Any mistakes are entirely my own.

  Stephen Ames Berry

  St. Thomas, USVI

  Charlestown, Massachusetts

  Sarasota, Florida

  1999-2006

  Former US Navy Department and Harvard University data architect Stephen Ames Berry teaches wayward youth at a special school. He lived for several years in Tokyo. This is his fifth novel.

  Berry’s Other Books

  The Biofab Quartet

  The Biofab War

  The Battle for Terra Two

  The AI War

  Final Assault

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  The Bureau

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Yokohama

  Chapter 12

  New Orleans

  Chapter 13

  New England

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Epilogue

  End Notes

  Acknowledgments

  Berry’s Other Books

 

 

 


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