Eric Flint's Blog, page 314

Cauldron of Ghosts – Snippet 37

Cauldron of Ghosts – Snippet 37 

Chapter 22

Ruth Winton barked a sarcastic laugh. “Will you look at that? The only time in recorded history — we’re talking a good two thousand years — when the Talking Heads on a vid news program had their tongues tied.”

It was true enough. The panel of guests on tonight’s special edition of Yael Underwood’s The Star Empire Today were all staring at the huge screen behind them. They’d just spent the last few minutes swiveled in their seats, watching the recorded footage of the gunfight in the subterranean depths of Chicago‘s Old Quarter that had triggered off the Manpower Incident years earlier.

It hadn’t, actually. The conflict that ended with the killing by Manpower-hired mercenaries of General Raphael Durkheim, Haven’s StateSec chief in the Solarian League’s capital, and the subsequent destruction of Manpower Inc.’s headquarters in the same city by a retaliatory force sent by the Audubon Ballroom had actually been months in the making. But the general public — anywhere; on Haven as well as Terra, or Manticore — had never known more than the basic facts involved. And not all of those, and especially not the names of the key players who’d never been identified by the media, which was most of them.

First and foremost among those previously unidentified key players was the man sitting next to Ruth at that moment. Victor Cachat, who’d wreaked most of the havoc in the scene that had just been played out on a screen for the Talking Heads of Underwood’s show. A screen, of course, that had also been watched by…

“What’s the count now, Ruth?” asked Anton Zilwicki. He was seated next to Cathy Montaigne on another couch in the salon of the genetic treatment center.

Ruth glanced down at the com in her hand. “Two hundred and seventy-three million viewers as of this moment, but…” She paused for a few seconds. “It’s climbing fast. Word’s spreading, obviously. By the time the replays are counted, we’ll be looking at somewhere between one and two billion people. That’s just here in the Manticore System itself. Once the recording gets shipped to the rest of the Star Empire, Haven, Beowulf, and who knows where else, the number will start getting called ‘astronomical.’”

She tapped the com screen a couple of times. “Yeah, what I figured. “They’re already calling it the third-most-watched news show in a decade. We’re in territory that’s usually only inhabited by championship sporting events.”

The stunned silence of the Talking Heads had been brief, of course. They were already jabbering away again.

“– why Captain Zilwicki trusts him so much, which has always been a mystery. What’s still unclear — “

“– think it’s now blindingly obvious — “

“– can’t say it too many times. We have no reason — none, at, all — to suddenly place our trust in Cachat. If anything, his now-proven extraordinary savagery — “

“– was dealing with the worst sort of StateSec killers and sociopathic so-called ‘super-soldiers’ left over from the Final War. Of course he was savage! What do you propose he should have done, Charlene? Give them a lecture? Or do you — “

****

Sitting on the other side of Victor from Ruth, Thandi tuned it all out. She was still trying to process the experience herself. She’d known of the gunfight in the Old Quarter, but this was the first time she’d seen the recording of the event.

It wasn’t the brutality of the killing that she found startling. Nor was it even Victor’s ruthlessness and the skill he’d shown at killing so many people in such a short time.

Being completely objective about it, Thandi knew that if she’d been in Victor’s place in that half-crumbling cavern in the ancient catacombs of Chicago, the killings would have happened even faster and more surely.

Victor probably would have died there, except that Jeremy X intervened at the end. The surviving Scrags — there’d been three of them completely unwounded and another three injured but not out of action, had all been bringing their weapons to bear on Victor when Jeremy’s pistol fusillade started taking them down.

Thandi wouldn’t have needed Jeremy. She was bigger than Victor, stronger than Victor, faster than Victor, a better shot with any kind of projectile weapon than Victor — there was no comparison at all between their respective skills fighting unarmed or with hand weapons — and she’d spent her whole adult life training constantly for exactly this sort of combat.

But… at that age? With no combat experience at all and only the rudimentary training Victor would have received at the StateSec academy and what he’d taught himself later in simulators?

Impossible. If Thandi Palane had been in Victor’s position at such a young age and with his level of actual combat experience — which was to say, none at all…

There and then…

The only reason Victor had survived — no, triumphed — was because of the man’s nature. His psychology, so to speak. Even then, as raw as any newly minted young officer and only in his early twenties, he’d been a natural killer. And a superb one, an outlier at the very edge of human potential. If that had been Thandi herself down in that cavern, she’d have been dead after taking down one or two — maybe three — of her opponents.

She knew of no one that wouldn’t be true of. Not one person.

Except the man she slept with every night, whenever they could.

She felt a warm glow in her heart, then, and reached out to take Victor’s hand. That was probably not the reaction most lovers would have had, but they hadn’t been born and raised on Ndebele.

She gave the hand a squeeze, and when he glanced at her, a warm smile.

A very warm smile. They’d finally finished the genetic sheathing and the nanotech body transformations were far enough along for Thandi to have gotten used to her new body and Victor’s.

Well enough, anyway. Buster, you are so getting laid tonight.

 

1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies – Snippet 08

1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies – Snippet 08 

Chapter 5

Grantville, State of Thuringia-Franconia

Ed Piazza, President of the State of Thuringia-Franconia rubbed his eyes. “Are those the latest production reports, Anton?”

Anton Roedel, former clerk for the city council of Rudolstadt and now Executive Secretary to the President, nodded. “Yes, Mr. President. The production numbers from the new coal mines should not be considered a basis for long-term projection, though. Their operating managers indicate that — “

“Yes, Anton,” Piazza smiled, “I was listening when you read their letters to us.”

Further down the conference table — a battered brown institutional slab that had started life in the teacher’s lounge of Grantville’s elementary school — Vince Marcantonio, Piazza’s chief of staff, stretched and groaned. “Please tell me that’s the last of the reports, Anton.”

“Yes sir, I thought it prudent to conclude with — “

There was a knock on the door.

Warner Barnes of the State Department sighed. “Now what?”

Francisco Nasi, Mike Stearns’ spymaster, shrugged. “That would be the arrival of ‘unofficial’ official business.”

“Huh?”

Piazza grinned. “C’mon, Warner, you’ve worked in the State Department long enough to recognize euphemistic ‘code’ when you hear it.”

“Oh no,” Barnes sighed, “not covert crap. Not now. That shit takes forever, and I want to get home.”

“Before the evening gets cold?”

“Before my dinner gets cold and my wife blows her stack. This happens every time you and Francisco come back from Bamberg with a ‘special agenda’ for us to go through. This time, I don’t think I’ve even seen her in the past seventy-two hours. She’s out the door before I’m out of bed. I get back after she stops waiting up. You’re a damned home wrecker, Mr. President.”

Piazza nodded. “My apologies, but let’s not keep our ‘unexpected’ guest waiting.” Raising his voice, he called, “Come in!”

“Watch,” growled Secretary of the Interior George Chehab from his sulky slouch at the very end of the table, “I’ll bet this becomes the longest, drawn out business of the whole damned evening. Mark my words –”

But then his jaw shut with a snap, followed by a guilty gulp: Eddie Cantrell stuck his head into the room. He looked a little puzzled as he scanned all the faces.

“Uh . . . hello, Mr. President, gentlemen. I’m sorry if I’m interrupting. I was told you’d be concluded by this ti — “

Piazza smiled and waved him in. “There’s always more work to do than there are hours in which to do it, Eddie. No worries.”

The recording secretary looked at Eddie, then Piazza, then turned a new page, and started scribbling.

Eddie glanced uncertainly at Anton and back again to Piazza.

Piazza nodded faintly, so faintly that he was pretty sure that the only two people who saw it were Eddie, who was looking straight at him, and Nasi, who saw everything, anyway. “No need to itemize the report from Admiral Simpson, Eddie. Just leave it with us. We’ll probably go over it after Mr. Roedel departs.”

Anton seemed to start slightly, then resumed his scribbling.

Eddie nodded. “I understand, sir. Perfectly.”

And he and Piazza shared a smile, just as they shared a complete understanding of why a review of the report was being deferred. By waiting until Anton is gone, there would be no official record of Admiral Simpson’s strident, not to say fulminative, arguments about the materials, money, specialists, priorities, and other assets he wanted — no: needed! — in order to have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting a blue water navy ready by the promised date.

“Those folders under your arm,” Piazza said, nodding at the leather-bound attaches that passed for ‘folders’ in Early Modern Germany, “I take it they also contain brand new requests from Admiral Simpson?”

Eddie’s smile was rueful. “Yes, Mr. President. They most certainly do.”

“And what would the esteemed Admiral want now?”

“Well, pretty much everything he wrote you about last month. Except lots more of it.”

Piazza put out his hand for the folders. Eddie moved to walk them over. Piazza saw the limp, remembered the missing leg, jumped to his feet to get the folders, mentally cursing his forgetfulness and excusing it at the same time. Damn it! Eddie was just a kid — just a smart, awkward kid — only four years ago, staring at cheerleaders, dealing with acne, and coping with the low ceiling of his possibilities in a small West Virginia mining town. And now he’s a handicapped veteran. But I still see that kid, when I look at him.

And that was when Piazza saw the look on Eddie’s face: that ‘kid’ wanted to walk the folders over himself. And the way he held himself as he limped closer — straighter, in a military posture — shamed the image of Eddie Cantrell, Nice Kid, forever out of Piazza’s mind. Who was sad to see that old image go, but felt an almost tearful pride at the image that had now permanently replaced it: Lt. Commander Edward Cantrell, veteran and hero at the tender age of twenty-three.

Piazza extended his hand for the folders that Eddie could now reach out to him and he said, quietly, and as seriously as he had ever said anything in his life, “Thank you for bringing these to us, Commander Cantrell.”

“My pleasure, sir.”

“– And my duty,” Piazza heard as the unspoken subtext behind those words. He nodded. “Before you go, Commander, we have something that you need to take with you.”

“A return communiqué, Mr. President?”

Piazza smiled. “No, Commander.” He turned. Francisco Nasi held out a large, varnished wood box, with a strangely intense look in his dark eyes, as if he was hoping they would convey something that he could not, or dare not, frame as spoken words.

“Sir?” said Eddie, puzzled, as Piazza turned and proffered the box to him.

“Open it.”

Eddie did and seemed to redden for the briefest moment. “Is this –?”

“That’s the finished medal, Commander. Allow me.”

Piazza took the box back, lifted out the first Navy Cross that the United States of Europe had awarded to a living recipient, and put it around Eddie’s neck. Who straightened and saluted.

Piazza straightened, “For your actions in and around Wismar, 1633, as per the citations read at the official ceremony,” and saluted back. Then he relaxed a bit. “I know you did this last year in Magdeburg, with all the pomp and circumstance, but since the artisans and politicos were still arguing over the final design of the medal, and hadn’t gotten around to — “

“Thank you, sir.” Eddie looked Piazza in the eyes and then around the table. “It means more than I can say that you — that all of you — did this.” All present had risen and come to attention as the real medal was conferred. Then Eddie frowned and glanced back in the box. “Uh — “

“Yes, Commander?”

“Kind of a big box for a medal, sir. And damned heavy.”

Piazza smiled again. “I thought a congratulatory gift was in order. To commemorate the occasion and to help you in your future endeavors.”

Eddie lifted out the wooden panel upon which the medal had rested. He stared, and then looked up at Piazza. “How did you know?”

Francisco Nasi may have smiled briefly. “I was sitting just down the table from you at your state dinner in Magdeburg last year. Perhaps you remember having a friendly dispute with the admiral over preferred side arms?”

Eddie lifted out the gift with almost reverent hands. An almost slender automatic pistol caught the light, sent gleams skittering off a blued hammer. “An HP-35. Manufactured just after the World War II, if I read the markings correctly.”

Piazza grinned. “You do. Although you may be the only person in this world who would call it an HP-35. ‘Browning Hi-Power’ was the preferred term in the States, Commander”

Eddie, completely oblivious to Piazza’s correction, turned the weapon over to confirm that no magazine was inserted. “How — where did you find this?”

Piazza looked down, shrugged, was slightly annoyed when Nasi almost drawled, “Actually, it wasn’t hard to find at all. It seems a person we know very well had it in his possession. Had an opinion of the gun similar to your own, Commander, and chose it over many others. Even though it was distinctly non-regulation in your up-time US Army. This person has often claimed that it never failed him, and that he preferred the larger magazine size to the stopping power of the larger, ….er, ‘forty-fives’?” Nasi sent a glance at Piazza, checking his terminology.

Eddie followed Nasi’s gaze. “You, Mr. President? This is your gun?”

“Was my gun, Commander. It is yours, now. Use it with pride and honor. As I know you will.”

“Sir, I can’t take it. I couldn’t — “

“Rubbish, Commander. You’ve already taken it. And it’s the right gift for a young man who has no choice but to go in harm’s way with only one leg. By comparison, I am an increasingly paunchy man whose fate is to sit at a big desk although I have two perfectly good legs. Seriously, now, who has more use for that gun? Who needs every bit of advantage they can get?”

Eddie’s eyes raised from the weapon and fixed on Piazza’s face, assessing. “Mr. President, you’re about fifty-five, now, right?”

“Not a day over fifty-four. Don’t put me in the grave any earlier than I have to go, Commander!”

“So during your tour in the Army, you were in — ?”

“Yes, I was there, Commander. And since the Browning worked in the jungles on one side of this planet, I’m pretty sure it’ll work just as well in the jungles on the other side. I hope you don’t have to use it at all, of course, but if you do, you may find it’s nice to have a thirteen-round magazine when you can’t usually see what you’re shooting at very well — if at all.” He left unspoken the fact that there were plenty of Glocks and M-9s to be had, which boasted even larger magazine sizes. But the Hi-Power was renowned for its reliability and kindness to small-handed or easily unbalanced shooters — as Eddie Cantrell now might be

Eddie looked down and held the gun firmly with both hands, almost as if it were a holy relic. For a second, Piazza saw the eager, earnest kid again.

Eddie looked up. “I don’t know what to say, Mr. President.”

Piazza laughed. “I think ‘thanks,’ will be sufficient. Otherwise, I can tell you’re going to get maudlin on me. Well, more maudlin. Now look here, Commander, I do have one bone to pick with you.”

“Sir?”

“How dare you come down to Grantville and not bring your bride?”

“Sir, I didn’t think that protocol –”

 

Cauldron of Ghosts – Snippet 36

Cauldron of Ghosts – Snippet 36 

Chapter 21

“Zachariah McBryde?”

Zachariah turned around to face the speaker, being careful not to spill his coffee. He had a bad habit of over-filling the mug, which could make walking back to his laboratory an exercise in finicky precision that almost matched the demands of his actual job.

Two men stood there, he discovered. Both were wearing severely utilitarian jumpsuits with nameplates over the left pockets — the one on the left was A. Zhilov; the one on the right, S. Arpino — and both had the elaborate security badges given to visitors draped over their chests with lanyards.

“Yes?” he said.

The one named Zhilov nodded stiffly. “Come with us, McBryde.” He turned over the badge in order to show the identification on the other side, which was a hologram depicting himself and the legend Agent, GAUL.

Zachariah tried not to let his sudden apprehension show on his face. The Genetic Advancement and Uplift League — the “Gauls,” to use the nickname that was sometimes used (though never in front of them) — served the inner layers of the onion as a special security force.

Which explained Zachariah’s tension. The most common use the Alignment leadership had for the Gauls was as what you might call enforcers.

“The preferred term for that is ‘internal disciplinarians,’ you understand,” Zachariah’s brother Jack had once told him. Jack had been smiling when he made the quip, but there been very little humor in the smile. Like most of the Alignment’s professional security people, he hadn’t had much use for the Gauls.

The tension shifted into anger. “How many times do we have to go through this rigmarole?” he demanded. “I’ve told you everything I know about my brother already — at least five times over. There isn’t anything else. Trust me. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zero. I have no idea why Jack did what he did.”

If he did it at all, which I don’t believe for a minute.

Zhilov frowned. “I have no knowledge of what you are talking about. Your family affairs do not concern us.”

He turned his head to give the man next to him a quizzical look. “Do they?”

His partner Arpino was consulting a small tablet. “There is mention here of a brother by the name of Jack McBryde, who is deceased. But that has no bearing on our mission, so far as I can see.”

“As I thought.” Zhilov turned back to Zachariah. “Come with us, please.”

Now puzzled, Zachariah felt his anger fading — but only to be replaced by annoyance. Come with us! As if he was some sort of servant.

He took a sip of his coffee. Partly to stall; partly because if he did wind up having to go with them somewhere, he wanted to keep the coffee-spilling to a minimum. The janitor ‘bots wouldn’t complain, of course, but it was good coffee.

His brother Jack had once referred to the Gauls as goons. He’d gotten close-mouthed right afterward. Zachariah had gotten the impression that Jack had let that slip inadvertently.

He hadn’t pressed Jack on the matter. He and his brother were both very far inside the onion, but they had different specialties. In some respects, Jack had had a higher security clearance than Zachariah did; in other respects, the situation was reversed. They were very close, probably more than most brothers were, but they were also careful not to intrude on each other’s preserves.

He was tempted to try stonewalling the Gauls, but he knew that sooner or later he’d have to give in. They wouldn’t have come looking for him if they hadn’t had the authority to do so. They also had a reputation for rigidly following orders. They weren’t stupid, certainly. No one that far into the onion lacked intelligence. But they didn’t seem to have much in the way of imagination — and even less in the way of empathy.

“Fine. We’ll go. Where are you taking me?”

No answer came. The Gauls just turned and headed down the corridor, with Zachariah in their wake.

****

When the two Gauls ushered him into a room buried in one of the wings of the Science Center’s labyrinthine administration building, the first person Zachariah saw was Anastasia Chernevsky. She was sitting at the end of a conference table in the middle of the room.

Zachariah was relieved to see her. For all his outward nonchalance dealing with the two Gauls, he’d been worried — and had grown more so when they left the science labs and headed for the admin building. He hardly ever went over there and couldn’t imagine a reason the Gauls would be taking him to it unless…

Unless what? The fact that Zhilov and Arpino had denied knowing anything about Jack would lead to the conclusion that at least he wasn’t facing another inquisition over his brother’s purported treason. But why else would…

Zachariah didn’t like uncertainty, other than the frisson of awaiting the results of a lab experiment.

Now, seeing Chernevsky, he relaxed a bit. The uncertainty was still there, because he had no more idea why she’d be present than he was himself. But he and Anastasia got along well and always had. They weren’t exactly friends, since as his supervisor she maintained a certain distance. But their personal interactions had always been pleasant and they respected each other professionally.

The point being that Zachariah couldn’t imagine she’d have agreed to participate in yet another interrogation of him by security people on the subject of his brother Jack. Why would she? She’d have nothing to contribute and would find the whole business distasteful at the very least. Unlike Zachariah himself, he didn’t think Anastasia questioned the official line that Jack had committed treason. But he was sure that she didn’t think Zachariah had been involved, in whatever had really happened.

“Hi, Anastasia. Fancy meeting you here.”

She gave him a quick, almost fleeting smile. Then, motioned to a chair at the end of the table she was sitting at. “Have a seat.”

He did so. He was now sitting at a right angle to her. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that Zhilov and Arpino had taken positions on either side of the door he’d just come through. They weren’t exactly standing at attention, but they came pretty close. Zachariah had a feeling the Gauls came pretty close to standing at attention even in a shower. The Genetic Advancement and Uplift League was nothing if not rigid.

“What are we — “

Chernevsky held up a cautioning hand. “Just wait a bit, Zachariah. She should be coming — “

The door behind her swung open and a woman came through. Zachariah recognized her although they’d never spoken to each other. She was high up in the inner onion and most likely in security.

Well… not “security” in the same sense that his brother Jack had been. Zachariah didn’t know anything specific about his brother’s work. He and Jack had been very careful to steer clear of that subject — just as they’d avoided discussing the exact nature of Zachariah’s job. But from various things Jack had let slip, Zachariah knew that the essential nature of his work had been what you might call “defensive.” To put it another way, Jack McBryde had been one of the Mesan Alignment’s top guardians.

The person he’d reported to, though, Isobel Bardasano, had been…

Different. If his brother Jack had been the human analog of a watchdog, Bardasano had been a wolf. Of that, Zachariah had been quite sure.

He’d only met Bardasano twice, and on both occasions the contact was brief. He remembered her quite vividly, though. She was a striking person in her appearance. Intense, in demeanor — and covered with flashy tattoos and body piercings.

This woman had the same casually arrogant, predatory air about her, although she had nothing visible in the way of tattoos or body piercings. Not even earrings.

He wondered if she was Bardasano’s replacement. After the destruction of Gamma Center, Bardasano had disappeared. Zachariah had no idea what had become of her. It was conceivable that she’d even been executed. The Alignment didn’t use the death penalty very often; not, at least, with people in the inner layers of the onion. And when it was used, it was kept very quiet. But it wasn’t inconceivable that even someone as high up as Bardasano might have suffered the ultimate penalty in punishment for the disaster at Gamma Center. Zachariah was sure that the now-almost-universal belief within the Alignment’s innermost core that the explosion had been caused by his brother was nonsense. But whatever had really happened, Bardasano had to have been involved in it up to her neck.

Which is where she might have finally ended up — to her neck, and no further.

The woman pulled out a chair across from Zachariah and sat down. “I’m Janice Marinescu. Nice to meet you and all that, but let’s not waste time. You’re familiar with the plans for Operation Houdini.”

That was a statement, not a question. But Marinescu paused and gave Zachariah a level stare. Apparently, for whatever reason, she wanted him to affirm that he was familiar with Houdini.

Cautiously, he nodded. “Yes, I am. Why?”

“Because it’s being implemented. The political situation is unfolding rapidly now and we don’t want to take the chance that someone might take advantage of the situation — “

Someone might take advantage…Zachariah was tempted to say “Why don’t you come right out and use the name Manticore, which is what you know and I know we’re talking about?”

But, he didn’t. The tension was back in full force. Something…

Had gone pear-shaped. Or, at least, the powers-that-were in the very innermost circles were worried that it might be going pear-shaped soon.

“– so you’ll be in the third departure division. You and” — Marinescu nodded at Anastasia — “Chief Scientist Chernevsky. Although you might not be evacuated via the same route.”

Zachariah took a deep breath. That explained the presence of the Gauls. Houdini was going to tear a lot of families apart. Including his own. The authorities were seeing to it that anyone slated for Houdini who got cold feet or second thoughts would have…

Chaperones.

He decided to think of them that way. And never mind that the chaperones undoubtedly had orders to permanently silence anyone who got too recalcitrant.

Being completely cold-blooded about it, Zachariah understood the logic. The whole purpose of Houdini was to remove anyone from Mesa who could reveal anything about the onion’s inner layers and inner workings. They either left the planet by evacuation or they left it by shuffling off their mortal coil.

There was no third alternative. Houdini had always been just a possibility, and one he’d never spent much time dwelling on. Now it was here. For real. As serious as the proverbial heart attack.

Zachariah felt a sharp, almost agonizing, pain in his chest, as if he were actually having a heart attack.

He wasn’t. He was just facing the prospect — the now certain prospect — that within a short time he’d lose his entire family. Part of the reason he’d never dwelt on Houdini in the past was that his brother Jack had also been slated for evacuation. So whatever happened, he’d still have one sibling.

Now…  nothing. No one.

He’d be leaving his girlfriend Veronica behind too, but that wasn’t cause for more than regret. The relationship wasn’t really all that serious.

The worst of it, in some ways, was that he couldn’t even say anything to his family. The seriousness with which the Alignment took Houdini had been emphasized again and again and again. Nobody could be left behind on Mesa who knew anything important.

Which meant that if Zachariah did mention anything to his family — any member of it, just one — and the authorities found out, his whole family would be destroyed.

He took a deep, shuddering breath. Anastasia reached out and put her hand on his. Then, gave it a gentle squeeze.

She’d be leaving people behind too. He wasn’t sure who, exactly. But her husband was probably one of them. Filiberto Chernevsky had a responsible position in Mesa‘s government, even a rather prestigious one. But no one in Mesa‘s formal government — well, very few people, at least — were anywhere close to the inner layers of the onion.

“How soon?” he asked Marinescu. Her only response was that same flat-eyed level stare.

 

1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies – Snippet 07

1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies – Snippet 07 

Chapter 4

Grantville, State of Thuringia-Franconia

Hugh sighed, sipped his bourbon again. Michael McCarthy Jr., having shrugged into O’Donnell’s heavy, distinctively embroidered cloak, thumped through the front room and out the front door.

Hugh let his head lean back on the sofa and closed his eyes, savoring the smooth aftertaste of the bourbon and letting the faces and voices of the past fade away. In their place, he let the utterly mundane sounds of the guttering fire and Michael Jr.’s progress fill his mind. Over the hissing crack of logs rapidly breaking down into embers, he heard Michael trot down off the porch and around to the garage-become-stable. A moment later, Hugh’s charger greeted the up-timer with a congenial nicker.

And then, Hugh heard a fast, sliding patter of stealthy human feet: the almost liquid sound of an assassin closing on his target.

Hugh bounded out of the McCarthys’ sagging sofa. He landed next to the coat-closet, hip-pinned his sword’s scabbard against that door, and drew the saber in one, clean sweep, still moving as he did. He was already sprinting through the abbreviated foyer when a crossbow quarrel — almost certainly a blunt, from the sound of it — smashed loudly through the garage-side window closest to the front door. Someone had seen him moving, had taken a shot.

But why a blunt quarrel? wondered Hugh. That fleeting puzzlement didn’t slow him any more than the front stairs. He leaped down all five, already running as he landed. As he approached the corner of the house, he heard a dull thud, a grunt, and the muffled bump of someone bouncing off the pliable up-timer wall-shingling that they called ‘vinyl siding.’

Hugh went low as he snaked around the side of the house, saw Michael Jr. face down on the ground, a cloaked figure over him, club ready, reaching toward him –

But not trying for a quick kill — a split–second observation which, again, did not delay Hugh. Trusting that the unseen crossbowman had not had time to both reload and aim his weapon, he leaped forward, saber whirring back and then forward with the speed that only a trained wrist can deliver.

The cloaked assailant looked up, quickly raised his club: a reflex more than a purposeful parry. Hugh’s Toledo blade clipped the wooden truncheon at an angle. The wood stripped back and then splintered.

Michael’s attacker was thrown back by the blow, alive only because his club had absorbed a cut that would have gone through his collar-bone. But, rebounding from his own collision with the house’s vinyl siding, the thug turned his momentum into a sideways barrel-roll that brought him back up to his feet in a moment. He sped into the darkness –

And I’m out of time, Hugh thought — and dropped prone just a second before a crossbow bolt sliced through the air where he had been standing. The quarrel impaled the vinyl upon the wood behind it with an almost musical throoonk. Hugh did not need to look up to know that this bolt had not been the kind used to stun small game. He jumped to his feet, sprinted along the reverse trajectory indicated by the quivering tail of the quarrel. He found the weapon which had fired it abandoned on the ground twenty yards away, in the lee of the neighboring house’s shed. The dark night was quiet all around.

Staying low — as a lifetime of habit and training had taught him — Hugh frog-trotted back to Mike Jr., who was already raising himself up on his elbows. The displaced earl of Tyrconnell put an arm on his friend’s not-inconsiderable bicep. “Here. Let me help you, Don Michael.”

For a moment, Hugh thought that his middle-aged host was going to refuse. Then he felt the arm sag a bit as Michael grunted his gratitude and allowed Hugh to roll him into a sitting position, back against the house. But he was evidently not too stunned to speak. “So now I’m ‘Don Michael,’ too? What does that make me — royalty?”

“Aristocracy,” Hugh corrected gently, wondering how the up-timers could command such wonderful knowledge of machinery and the physical sciences, and yet make social errors that would mark even a five-year-old down-timer as slow, perhaps simple. “I should have used the title before now.”

“Before now, you were using it only on my Da. I figured that was because he’s almost eighty. So am I really ‘aristocracy’ — or just another old coot who can’t defend himself any longer?”

The answer came from the corner of the house. “Speak for yourself, sonny boy.” Michael McCarthy Sr. was there, on his feet and unaided, but with one hand firmly clutching the corner-board for support. The gnarled fingers of his other hand were wrapped around the grip of a .45 automatic.

Michael Jr. goggled. “Da — you shouldn’t be walking on your own. And is that your Pop’s old service pistol? I didn’t know you kept — “

“Plenty you still don’t know about me, Junior,” interrupted Michael McCarthy Sr.. He tried to suppress a wry grin, almost did, but then his efforts were undermined by a bout of violent, pleghmy coughing.

Hugh was over to the ailing father in a moment. Michael Jr. following only a second behind, remonstrated, “Dad, you shouldn’t be up — “

“Someone was shooting at my son and my guest — and damn if he didn’t bust a window, too. So yes, you’re God-damned right I got up, and brought a little bit of persuasion with me.” He shook the .45 for emphasis — just as his wheezing phrases became a spasmodic coughing fit that was painful for Hugh to hear. He’d heard similar sounds often enough. War-time camp conditions in the Lowlands had killed almost as many of his men as blades and bullets. Now, lessons learned from up-timer books had begun to change that. Dramatically. But for a chronic condition such as Michael Sr.’s, there was little to do but delay the inevitable.

As they helped Michael Sr. back around the corner of the house, the door banged open and spat out the old man’s German nurse, Lenna. Her fierce glance conclusively damned the two younger men for all the martial (and therefore male) idiocy that plagued the world. She almost shoved them aside in her outraged urgency to help Michael Sr. up the stairs, but at the top, he stopped, turned, snapped the .45′s safety into place, and tossed the weapon down to Michael Jr.

Who stared at it, and then him.

“You’re going to need it,” the old man said, almost apologetically, and then disappeared into the darkness of the unlit doorway.

Michael Jr. stared after him and then back down at the gun.

Hugh put a hand on his shoulder. “Michael, are you hurt?”

Michael waved the concerns away with his free hand. “Nah. Hell, I’ve caught worse when a spanner slipped off the hood of a car I was working on. But what about you? Are you okay?”

Hugh paused, as he often did when Americans used that strange word, “o-kay.” It had too many meanings, and each had its own maddeningly distinct contextual rules. “I was not injured — this time.”

“‘This time?’  What do you mean?”

“I mean that I must assume that there will soon be another attempt on my life.”

“Whoa — an attempt on your life?” Mike rubbed his head. “If this growing bump and my short-term memory don’t lie, it was me they were trying to kill.”

Hugh smiled, reached up, put a gentle index finger on the cloak Michael was wearing. It was the ornately distinctive one he had borrowed from Hugh just minutes before. “You took a blow that was meant for me, Michael.”

Who stared for a moment before asserting, “Well, then let’s get over to the police station right away and — ”

“It is not necessary that we involve your nation’s public militia, Michael.”

“The hell it isn’t, Hugh. Look, you are a foreign dignitary, and someone just tried to assassinate you on our turf. And worse yet, they obviously had you under observation in my home.”

“Michael, I am no longer a foreign dignitary. I have resigned my rank and titles in Spanish service, and my earldom is attainted. I am, as some of your novels would put it, ‘just a regular guy,’ now.”

“Bullshit. Regular guys don’t attract assassins. I’m taking you to the Army — “

“Michael, your kindness is a great honor, but I must refuse. I am not here in any official capacity. I am but a man visiting my friends.”

“Then — as your friend — I insist that you come back into the house until we can figure out –” Michael ceased speaking as soon as Hugh began to shake his head.

“Michael, would you have me repay your kindness and friendship by bringing death over your doorstep? These two blackguards showed unexpected — indeed, inexplicable — restraint in their first attempt on my life. They are unlikely to do so next time. So, no, my friend, I will not further endanger you and your good father by accepting the hospitality of your hearth again. I must leave. Now.”

Mike stared up at Hugh for three full seconds. Then he looked at the .45 in his own hand and nodded. “Okay. Then I’m coming with you.”

Before Hugh could utter a negation through the surprise and secret gratitude that washed over him, Mike had pounded back up the stairs, across the porch, and through the front door that had changed Hugh’s life. And if the fates were as kind as they were strange, perhaps he and the younger McCarthy would not merely share the road to Amiens, but share professional fortunes as well. After all, any business with Turenne would ultimately be concerned with military matters — and Hugh had a long and varied acquaintance with those. Of course, it was too early to broach the topic of any kind of joint enterprise with Michael just yet, but the journey ahead would afford ample opportunities to casually learn more about the American’s business in France, and if there was any way a displaced Irish earl might help with it…

Mike wasn’t gone long — a minute at most — before he reemerged, backpack in one hand, his other tucking the .45 under his belt. “I’m just about ready to go.”

“But — doesn’t your family have only one horse?”

“Yeah, but she’s my horse. Besides, Mom’s in another city and Dad ain’t riding again any time soon.”

“Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“You mean, because you’re someone’s target?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’ve been thinking about that. Actually, if I come along, it still might put you in danger. I could be the guy those assassins were trying to kill.”

“Michael, admittedly you are a most important person. As a senior instructor at the technical college, I’m sure any number of foreign powers have a pointed interest in you. But you were wearing my cloak when you were attacked. And if anyone wished to assassinate you, they could have chosen a hundred other moments that would be both less complicated and more subtle. I am forced to conclude that I was the intended target.”

“Okay — but then wouldn’t there also have been a better time to get you?”

“In my case, this timing might actually help to explain why they made their attempt here and now.”

“How so?”

“If an English agent got hold of my letter of resignation during its progress to Philip, then they will have learned that I no longer enjoy the relative protection of my official positions and my own regiment. They might very well send assassins — or maybe kidnappers — to intercept me before I can secure the protection of a new patron. After all, John O’Neill and I are still declarable as princes of Ireland. As offspring of royal blood, we remain worrisome to the English occupiers.”

“Yeah, but England seems to have toned down a little bit on the ‘Irish Question’ right now.”

“Officially, yes. And largely thanks to you Americans. But that might be why these assassins tried to use non-lethal methods, at first. King Charles — or factions in his court — might find it less complicated to simply imprison me in the Tower of London.”

Michael nodded. “Okay, so maybe you are the bullet-magnet. But there’s something else you should know, Hugh.”

“Yes?”

“It’s also possible there’s been some loose talk about the technology that I’m bringing to Turenne.”

“Others know about it?”

“A few. One is going to have to come with us.”

Hugh did not try to stop his eyebrows from rising.

Mike hurried on. “Yeah, I know: another fellow-traveler is probably not what you were bargaining for. But this guy is part of the package. Turenne is going to need him. At least for the first few months. And if this guy, or any of his friends, talked, and rival powers heard the whispers, then — “

“– then they would want to make sure that Turenne will not enjoy the advantage of this new technology,” Hugh finished for him. “So first they would try to take you hostage and secure the advantage for themselves, but failing that, they might resort to a more ‘permanent’ solution — “

“Right, which would make me the bullet magnet. Again.”

Hugh smiled. “Evidently, we cannot know with certainty who is endangering whom. So we will share the peril equally. Now, you mentioned that we must pick someone up on the way. Who is this person?”

Mike started walking toward his nag. “He’s a toymaker.”

“A toymaker? What kind of toys does he make?”

“Secret toys.”

“Truly? Tell me, Michael, what kind of toy would need to be kept a secret?”

“I’ll tell you as we ride.”

 

Cauldron of Ghosts – Snippet 35

Cauldron of Ghosts – Snippet 35 

“You’re what, Ayako? Twenty-two? Twenty-three?”

“Twenty-two.”

“You’ve still got a few years, then. Have you started thinking about prolong?”

She shrugged. “Can’t afford it.”

“Yeah. It’s not cheap.”

“How about you? Or are you already too old?”

Supakrit got up and went over to the coffee maker. After pouring himself another cup, he came back to the table. He used the time to make a decision.

A very easy decision to make, as it turned out.

After he sat down, he said: “That’s one of the reasons I enlisted in the Marines. Prolong’s expensive for an individual, but governments…” He smiled at her. “The magic of taxes, you understand. Actually, Torch probably gets as much money from export tariffs as it does from taxes, but the principle’s the same.”

“What principle?”

“The principle — one of the first ones they set up, in fact — that if you enlist in the armed forces the government of Torch will pick up the tab for your prolong treatments. I did it just in the nick of time.” He blew on the coffee. “I’m thirty, if you’re wondering.”

Ayako scowled. “Supakrit, I really don’t think I’d do well in the military.”

“Neither do I,” he said, still smiling. “Issues of impulse control.”

“Hey! The guy had it coming!”

“I’m not denying it. As impulses go, that one was understandable. Even admirable, if you look it from the right angle. Which I did and do, by the way. But you’re still probably not self-disciplined enough to like the military. Maybe the Navy, but sure as hell not the Marines.”

He drank some of the coffee. Half the cup, actually. Bracing himself. The decision had come easily but implementing it was…

Hard. He’d been a slave for two-thirds of his life.

“There’s a family provision to that principle, Ayako. Spouses and children are also covered if you enlist. And the coverage lasts as long as you’re in the service, so you if you get married afterward…”

He couldn’t quite finish that thought, so he went off on a tangent. “You can petition to have parents and siblings covered too. I’m told they usually grant the petition but…” His expression hardened. “How many ex-slaves have parents and siblings? Or know where they are, if they do.”

Ayako stared at him. Then said abruptly: “Are you proposing to me?”

“Yes. I am.” Supakrit held up his hand. “Look, it can just be a formality. Nobody’s going to stick their nose into our sex life.”

“Shut up. What a jerk. But I’m not. Yes.”

Now it was the corporal’s turn to stare. “Yes… what?”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m marrying a moron. Yes, I will marry you. What the hell did you think ‘yes’ meant?”

She rose and held out her hand. “Come on. We’ll settle the rest of it right now. I’ve got a private room and you don’t so we’ll use mine. I’m not getting laid in a barracks. Forget that stupid coffee. I guarantee you I taste way better than it does.”

But they’d only taken two steps toward the door when the com in the mess room started blaring.

“All personnel assigned to Operation Serket Breach, report immediately to Launch Bay Sigma Nine. The mission will depart Parmley Station at sixteen hundred hours.”

Simultaneously, Supakrit and Ayako looked at their watches.

“Hell’s bells,” he said.

“There ain’t no justice at all,” she agreed. “You better go. Just make sure you come back in one piece, okay?”

They did have time for a kiss, at least.

****

After he left, not knowing what else to do with herself, Ayako wound up making her way into Parmley Station’s control center. She didn’t have any official clearance to be there, but she’d already learned that BSC personnel were willing to bend the rules if they thought there was a good reason to do so.

She figured her reason was as good as it got. So she didn’t wait for anyone to challenge her. As soon as she entered she made her way toward the big tactical plot in the middle of the chamber. She’d never been inside the control center, but the tactical plot was obviously what she wanted. She’d had it described to her before. It was very similar, apparently, to the ones used by starships.

“I just got married — well, agreed to, anyway — and then you — you” — she managed enough impulse control to choke down the pejorative that had been about to emerge — “bad people yanked my fiancé off to go play Marine somewhere.”

Plaintively, she added: “I don’t even know where he’s going because you — you — obsessive-compulsive motherfu — really bad people are maniacs about so-called security and who would I tell anyway? It’s just stupid.”

The five people in the center stared at her. Two of them were obviously Torches and two were just as obviously Beowulfers. She wasn’t sure about the guy doing something at a console against the far wall. (Or what that called a bulkhead? Ayako wasn’t sure.)

“Who are you?” one of the Beowulfers asked. He was one of the three people monitoring the tactical plot.

“And what are you doing here?” asked the man standing next to him. He was one of the Torches, as was the third person working at the tactical plot. She was the only one Ayako recognized, although she wasn’t sure of the woman’s name. Alexia… something.

“I told you. I just got married and my brand-new husband — okay, fine, be anal-retentive about it; my to-be-husband — is on that ship.” She pointed at the tactical plot, which to her just looked like an immense kaleidoscope. “Whichever one it is. In that thing.”

“The Hali Sowle?” That was asked by the other Beowulfer, a woman sitting at a console nearby.

“Yeah, that’s it.”

The male Torch at the tactical plot was now looking belligerent. “You can’t just — “

“Ease up, Liam,” said the Beowulfer next to him. “This might be quite charming — and the universe needs as much charm as it can get, these days.”

To Ayako he said: “I take it your husband — past, present or future, we’ll worry about that later — is one of the Marines or naval personnel aboard the Hali Sowle. What’s his name?”

“Supakrit. Corporal Supakrit X. Royal Marines.”

“Check that, would you, Magda?”

The Beowulfer female at the console worked the board for a few seconds and then studied the screen.

“Yeah, he’s there. One of the Marines assigned to the mission.”

“Hey!” protested the Torch named Liam. “Security!”

“Give it a rest, will you?” Magda was still examining the screen. “What’s she going to do? Grow Warshawski sails and fly herself to give warning to whoever you might notice I didn’t actually specify?”

She tapped the screen and looked up at Ayako. “What’s really interesting is that Corporal Supakrit is listed in the rolls as being single.”

Liam glared at Ayako. “So she’s lying.”

“Fuck you. Me and Supakrit just got married. Well, decided to. About two seconds before you assho — bad people — told him he had to report to launch bay whatzit.”

“That order was actually given by Colonel Anderson, not us,” said the woman Ayako thought was named Alexia. Her tone was mild, and seemed a bit amused. “We’re just in charge of traffic and such.”

The Beowulfer at the tactical plot grinned. “Like I said, charming. Just got hitched, huh? Well, come over here and I’ll show you where your future husband is. I’m Bill Jokela. What’s your name?”

“Takahashi Ayako. Call me Ayako.” Ignoring the glare still coming from Liam, Ayako came up to stand beside Jokela. Up close, the tactical plot looked more like a kaleidoscope than ever.

Jokela pointed to one of the symbols in the plot. It was colored a bright green. “This is the Hali Sowle. They’ve already left Parmley, but they’re still a good fifteen light minutes from the hyper limit. So they won’t be making their alpha translation for another — “

“Their what?”

Jokela paused and gave her a considering look. Then, gave the same look to the movements in the tactical plot.

“What the hell, we’ve got time,” he said. “An introduction to basic astrogation. Pay attention, Takahashi Ayako. Who knows? You might want to make a career out of it.”

 

 

1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies – Snippet 06

1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies – Snippet 06 

Chapter 3

Grantville, State of Thuringia-Franconia

Eddie emerged onto the rapidly-dimming streets of Grantville and pushed up his collar against the faint chill. You’d think after spending almost a year and a half on the Baltic I’d have a little better resistance to cold, but no. Having recovered from borderline hypothermia while recuperating from the amputation had left him weakened for quite a long time. In particular, he had been susceptible to chest colds that, up-time, would have been an annoyance tackled by any halfway decent decongestant. Down-time, they were potential death-sentences in his then-weakened state. And ever since then, cold weather cut through him like a knife.

He strolled west, deciding to take a look at the three trailer homes that had served as his first down-time abode. He smiled to think of the first days when he and Jeff Higgins and Larry Wild and Jimmy Anderson had played D & D there, the game having acquired a strange significance given their displacement in time. It wasn’t because of the ‘historical value’ of the game — because there wasn’t any; role playing games were about excitement, not accuracy — but because it was somehow a symbol that not everything had changed with their arrival in war-torn Germany. Not every waking minute was toil for food, scrambling to preserve or rebirth technology, find allies, and repel utterly murderous foes. A quick session of D & D, where imaginary warriors and wizards strove to slay evil trolls and troglodytes, was also a reassurance that life had not boiled down only to a mere continuation of existence. There was still time for fanciful adventures, for larking about a fictional world with his very real friends.

But then Jeff had married a down-time firebrand named Gretchen Richter, and her entire loosely associated clan had moved in. Overnight, fancy had given way to kid-powered frenzy. And that, too, had been reassuring and endearing in its own way. It was as though the house was constantly alive with rambunctious sounds of hope, thanks to all the healthy, lively kids that were forever charging around and through its small rooms and tight hallways. Yes, in all its permutations, Eddie reflected, it had been a good house.

He almost walked past the tripartite structure, so changed it was. Gone were the bright, albeit fading, colors of the siding. The local tenants (who paid a pretty penny for the privilege of living in an up-time domicile) had given it a second layer of wood shingles, dug a number of discrete latrines in the back to relieve the burden on the indoor plumbing, tidied up the yard, and had replaced two of the doors (and their frames) with solid local manufactures. They had also erected what looked like a huge, wooden carport over the entire structure, evidently in an attempt to preserve the metal and vinyl conglomeration from the elements. However, it created the impression that this was not so much a home as it was an oversized shrine commemorating trailer parks everywhere.

Through the windows, oil lamps glowed to greet the dusk, and then shadows moved with slow purpose toward the largest of the kitchens. A brief pause and then a sharp white-yellow light seemed to blot out all the other fire-orange glows about the house. Clearly, someone had turned on an electric light. Immediately, silhouettes of all sizes began gathering around it, some bearing what looked like outlines of cooking implements, others arriving with already-open books.

It looked ritualistic, Eddie admitted, but he knew damned well it was not some strange species of cargo-cultism, a trait Larry Wild had often ascribed to the down-time Germans before he was killed off the coast of Lübeck almost two years ago. This was the prudence of practically-minded folk, amplified by the parsimony of war survivors. Germans who had lived through the now-truncated Thirty Years War were generally not spendthrifts. Every resource they had was kept as long as possible, its life extended by using it only when absolutely necessary. And when that intermittent and gentle use nonetheless wore it out, the object was repurposed — right down to its last component. Objects with limited service lives became especially revered objects: not because of their wondrousness, but because of the mix of singular utility and utter irreplaceability that characterized them. It would be a long time before the up-time boosted labs and workshops of even the best down-timer engineers and inventors were producing freon filled cooling compressors or a wide selection of vaccines or antibiotics.

But the down-timers were also coming up with new compensatory technologies, one of which now intruded upon Eddie’s reverie. Just down the street from where he stood staring at the house that had been his first haven in this often frightening new version of the Old World, he heard a distant toot. Like a child’s train whistle, but louder. He turned and, already moving far faster than he ever had with his peg leg, Eddie Cantrell hobble-ran in an attempt to catch the new monorail trolley that was approaching the stop on East Main street, just a block behind him.

The strange vehicle chugged slowly into view: a simple wooden front car that resembled a rough-hewn and vastly shrunken version of a San Francisco cable-car. Except there were no cables, and there was only one track, comprised of split logs, their flat-cut centers lying flush upon the ground, their sun-bleached hemicircular trunks facing up. The operator reached down, disengaged the drive-gear, applied brakes. The train slowed and the passengers in the front car swayed, as did the crates and boxes in the high-sided freight car behind it.

Eddie timed his hobble so as to wave his cane and shout when he came down on his good leg. “Hey, wait up!”

If the operator heard him, he gave no sign of it. Instead, he stepped down to help an elderly passenger up into the lead car.

Which, on closer inspection, was a radical departure from any form of up-time rail transportation Eddie had ever seen. In addition to the two, flanged, steel track-wheels — salvaged from small automobiles, and now leather-strapped on their contact surface with the rail — there was, for lack of a better term, a larger wagon wheel attached to the side of the car as an outrigger. It kept the car upright, and ran along the smooth up-time roadbed. The front car’s very small steam engine, puffing faintly, was of entirely down-time manufacture. Not terribly efficient, and both heavy and crude, but none of that mattered: it provided reliable power to the up-time car wheels that pulled the car along the wooden track at a comfortable six miles an hour or so.

“Hey!” shouted Eddie again, and this time, missed the timing with his cane. But his new foot’s spring-compressed heel popped him into his next step, and what should have been a nasty fall turned into an arm-flailing stumble.

Which apparently attracted the attention of the operator. “I wait!” the man assured him loudly, squinting at Eddie’s gait. “We always wait for our soldiers.”

Eddie waved his thanks, noted the driver’s extremely thick accent. Swabian, from the sound of him, likely rendered homeless by the border wars between the up-timers’ first allies — the Swedes of Gustav Adolf — and the upstart dukedom of Bernhard, originally one of the dukes of Saxe-Weimar. As had so many other refugees from all the neighboring provinces of Germany, this driver had probably come to Grantville to find his fortune — and no doubt, from his perspective, had accomplished just that. There was a palpable eagerness as he turned from seating the elderly passenger and came forward to offer a hand to Eddie. The prompt, energetic gesture radiated that special pride particular to those down-timers who operated the new machines that their own artisans had crafted from up-time ideas and inspirations. It was as though they were simultaneously saying, “See? We are helping build this new world with you!” and “Do not discount us: we are just as smart as you are.” In truth, given how little of the up-time science and engineering they understood when Grantville first fell out of the future, and how much of its technology they were now mastering and adapting, it was arguably true that, on the average, the Germans were smarter than the up timers. Markedly so, in a number of cases.

Eddie smiled his thanks at the driver and accepted the hand up into the passenger car. With only room for twenty, who were currently packed in like sardines, there was no seat left for him. Seeing the unnatural stiffness of Eddie’s left leg, one of the comparatively younger men stood quickly, gestured towards his spot on a transverse bench. Eddie smiled, shook his head with a “Thanks, anyhow,” and held on to the rail as the car lurched forward to resume its journey with a sigh of steam.

The other passengers were mostly mothers with children, older folks, and two other amputees. One of the passengers seemed to be a workman, hand truck tucked tight between his legs. Probably delivering the cargo in the back, Eddie surmised.

They had hardly gone a block when the driver stifled a curse and backed off the steam, letting the little train begin to coast. Seeing Eddie’s interest, he pointed forward. “Another train. I have to pull off.”

Eddie saw the oncoming train, almost a twin to the one he was on, approaching from about two blocks away. But there was only one rail. “Um…how do we — ?”

The driver seemed gratified, rather than annoyed, by the question. “See ahead, the curve into the smaller cross-street we approach?”

“Yeah, you mean Rose Street?”

“Yes. We take that curve and wait.”

“Like a train being diverted into a siding.”

“Yes.But it is only one track, so we slow down to wait in the little street. “

And applying the brakes gently, they slid around the relatively tight curve with only a slight bump. But the operator frowned at the brief jolt.

“Problem?” asked Eddie.

“Not with the train; with the track,” he answered. “It is wood. It wears out quickly at the joints.”

“Then why use wood?”

He smiled. “Because wood is also very cheap. So is the cost of putting new track into place. Much cheaper than iron. Or steel. Maybe you forget that, since there was so much of that metal in the future?”

Eddie smiled back. “Yeah, there was — but no, I didn’t forget. I deal with that problem every day.”

The driver’s slightly graying left eyebrow rose. “Yes, and so?”

“I work with Admiral Simpson. Building the new navy.”

“Ah. Of course you would know about iron shortages, then.” He paused, looked at Eddie more closely. “So you are…are Commander Cantrell, yes? The hero?”

Eddie felt a rapid flush. “I was just — just doing my job.”

As the other engine huffed past, the man’s eyes strayed to Eddie’s left leg. “I think you did a little more than just your job, maybe.” He looked up. “I am honored to have you on my train.” His English became slightly more precise. “Where may I take you, Herr Commander Cantrell?” There was also a hint of a straighter spine and the faintest bow. Not enough to imply a new, distant formality, but enough to show acknowledgement and respect.

“Oh, just up the street to — “

“The Government House? We shall be there very soon.”

“The Government House?” Eddie echoed. “What’s that?”

The man smiled. “It is officially called the ‘Administrative Annex’ — the old Presidential office building. It is where all the decisions were made before the capitol was moved to Bamberg. But as you must know, there are still many decisions being made there. And I suspect it will continue to be so.”

“But then why relocate the capitol to Bamberg?”

The driver smiled sagely. “Oh, Bamberg will certainly be the center of attention, and home to most of the bureaucracy. All the fine lords and burgermeisters will journey there and make speeches and drink too much and diddle the barmaids — if their wives have not made the journey with them.”

“And here at the Government House?”

“Here is where the business of putting certain decisions into practice will remain. Certain sensitive decisions. It is interesting to see which offices remain here — renamed, but still here. Offices which must make important decisions very quickly. And how else should it be? Here, all the leaders, all the decisions, are still only a phone call away. But here, also, there are many up-time radios and the people who know best how to use them. Here is running water, and electricity for computers, and heat and light for winter hours that reach far into the night.” He shifted a gear, opened the throttle, looked behind, and began to reverse back out onto the main line of the track that ran along East Main. “Bamberg is certainly the capitol, the center for important talk. But Grantville, Commander Cantrell, remains the center for important action.” And with that, he shifted the train’s gear back into its original position, tugged the whistle cord, and, as if to give emphasis to that hoarse toot, opened the throttle to resume their journey to Government House.

 

Cauldron of Ghosts – Snippet 34

Cauldron of Ghosts – Snippet 34 

Chapter 20

Corporal Supakrit X set one of the two cups he was holding in front of Takahashi Ayako. Then, pulled out a chair and sat down at the table across from her. He blew on the coffee in his own cup while studying her. The young woman looked awfully gloomy for someone who’d recently been freed from slavery.

He thought he knew the reason, though. Uncertainty about the future — more precisely, uncertainty about one’s proper course of action with regard to that future — always trumped satisfaction about the past. And while he didn’t know Ayako all that well, yet — a situation he had every intention of changing as rapidly and as extensively as possible — he was pretty sure she was one of those people who defended themselves against the risk of having a bad outcome by assuming the worst was bound to happen anyway.

It was a syndrome he recognized quite easily. He’d had it himself back in the days he’d been one of Manpower’s slaves. Optimism was not a wise sentiment for chattel.

“You could join the Ballroom,” he said.

Ayako made a face. “And do what? Just because I killed that one shithead — the guy raped me; it was personal — doesn’t mean I’m a homicidal maniac.”

Supakrit placed his hand over his heart. “I’m hurt! Hurt! I was one of those homicidal maniacs myself, you know.” He took a sip from the cup. “Pretty damn good at it, too.”

Ayako gave him a derisive look. “Was? And just what do you think you are now, Corporal Mayhem? A philanthropist?”

He smiled. “But now I do mayhem in a uniform. Makes all the difference in the world. When I killed people retail, I was a terrorist. Now that I kill ‘em wholesale, I’m a stalwart soldier. Get medals for it and everything.”

“You have a medal?” Ayako’s tone was skeptical.

“Well, no. General Palane’s an old school Marine. She doesn’t believe in handing out medals like candy the way the Solarian Navy does. I was coming up for a Good Conduct Medal but…” He grinned at her. “I figure you’re to blame for that.”

“Ha!”

“The point is, now that I’m an of-fi-cial soldier, I can get a medal. As a Ballroom guy, the only thing I qualified for was a wanted poster.”

“They haven’t made wanted posters in over a millennia.”

“Fine. Wanted e-poster. I did get one of those.”

“For what?” She waved the question away. “Never mind, I don’t want to know. I’m still trying to hold onto my image of you as a nice guy even if it’s getting pretty tattered.”

For the first time, she drank from her cup. “This stuff is crap,” she pronounced.

“It’s Marine coffee. There are rules, you know. Navy coffee has to be good but Marine coffee has to be terrible. Anybody who brews good coffee gets busted a rank. Two offenses in a year puts you in the brig.”

There was a companionable silence for a moment. Then, Ayako sighed and shook her head. “I don’t think I want to join the Ballroom.”

“I don’t recommend it myself, as a matter of fact.” He made a gesture, indicating his uniform. “There’s a reason I quit and joined the Marines. The Ballroom… Well, let’s just say they’re going through an identity crisis. It ain’t pretty to watch, believe me.”

“Really?”

“Well, yeah, sure. The Ballroom’s whole purpose pretty much got the legs cut out from under it once Torch was created. It didn’t help any that Jeremy quit also, of course. But even if he’d stayed in charge I think the Ballroom would be having a rough time.”

He drained the coffee out of his cup. “What do they do now? Keep shooting slavers one at a time? Or in small batches, at best? Even with explosives they can’t do as much damage as a warship or a Marine battalion.”

“They could with nuclear weapons.”

“Jeremy always ruled that out. Chemical and biological weapons too.” Supakrit shook his head. “Logically, it might not make a lot of sense. What the hell, dead is dead, right? But people just don’t react the same way when you use weapons that are completely indiscriminate. Jeremy never even let us use conventional explosives on anything but legitimate targets.”

“Legitimate to who?”

The corporal chuckled. “Always a point in dispute, granted. But we blew up Manpower offices and headquarters, we didn’t blow up restaurants and apartment buildings just because there might be some scorpions caught in the mix.”

“So what will they do now?” she asked.

“Don’t know. And since I didn’t want to stick around long enough to find out, I joined the Marines as soon as they started recruiting.” Supakrit paused for a moment, thinking. “I figure they’ll wind up doing one of two things. The dumb thing to do would be to keep up the terror campaign. The smart thing would be to dissolve the Ballroom and reconstitute it as a political party.”

“Political party? I thought Torch didn’t have any.”

The corporal clucked his tongue. “Boy, are you a babe in the woods. Officially, no. We have what’s called a ‘grand coalition’ in charge. But that won’t — can’t — last forever. I don’t give it more than two or three years, myself. Sooner or later, formal factions will crystallize. That’s what parties are, you know? Just a fancy way of saying ‘we agree with each other and you guys are full of crap.’”

“How many?”

“I figure at least three. The Ballroom types — especially if they have enough sense to get rid of the Ballroom altogether. The people who generally agree with DuHavel. And I’d be surprised if a third party doesn’t emerge also. There’re always some people in any society who are just naturally conservative and they’ll eventually want their own spokespeople.”

“I thought DuHavel was the conservative on Torch.”

Supakrit laughed. “Only by a Ballroom definition of ‘conservative’ — and not even most of my former comrades really think of Web that way. I’m sure Jeremy doesn’t any longer, if he ever did.” He made a wagging motion with his hand. “Here on Torch, DuHavel ranks as what you might call a centrist. Anywhere else in the galaxy except maybe Haven he’d be considered a flaming radical. Well, maybe not flaming. But radical, yes.”

He paused and gave her a sideways look. “You interested in politics?”

“Not especially.”

“Well, that’s out too, then. So. No Ballroom for you. No smoke-filled back room either.”

“Why would a back room — any room — be full of smoke? And if it was, why wouldn’t everyone get out?”

“And your possible budding career as an historian gets cut short too.”

She squinted at him. “Are you making fun of me?”

“Actually, no. I’m not. I’m just trying to help you figure out what to do with your life.” He held up his empty cup. “More coffee?”

“I don’t think I can even finish this one. Supakrit…”

“Yes?”

She was silent for a few seconds, staring down at the table top. Then said, in a much softer tone than usual: “I don’t know what I want to do with my life. Before the last few weeks — you were a slave; you know how it is — I didn’t think about the future at all.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“I stayed away from getting close to anyone, too. You know.”

Supakrit nodded. He knew what she was talking about very well. Better than he wished he did. As a teenager he’d made the mistake of falling in love with another slave. There’d been a few wonderful months and then… She was taken away. He had no idea where. Not then, not now. He’d never seen her again. Had no idea if she was still alive — and knew he almost certainly never would know.

He’d always understood the limits Jeremy X placed on the Ballroom’s tactics. Understood — and agreed. But that was just tactics. Emotionally…

If Supakrit X could round up everyone in the galaxy associated with Manpower — okay, leave out the janitors and such — and throw them into a black hole, he’d do it without blinking. And then spend eternity listening to them scream. (Or was it the other way around? For them, it would be eternity. For him, just a few seconds. He could never remember.)

Of course, people didn’t live that long, not even ones who’d gotten prolong. Speaking of which…

 

1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies – Snippet 05

1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies – Snippet 05 

But ever and again, he would find something that reminded him of how his late arrival to Grantville and its histories had allowed him to follow the fateful track of that other future just a few months too long. Too long for his wife, his son, and at least a hundred of his regiment who had been lost fighting for the interests of a Spanish king who, it was now clear, would never fight for their interests.

And on this, the sixth night of his stay, while sitting in the worn living room of Don McCarthy, these specters of regret had been gathering within Hugh once again as Michael McCarthy Jr. had emerged from the kitchen with the dreaded “white lightning” that the up-timers seemed to consider divine nectar. He had found himself recalling all the faces which had come to swear allegiance under his banners, and which were now buried in the loam of foreign fields.

He broke out of his silent reverie without preamble. “I could nolonger command a unit that bore my name like a lure, so as to attract the cultchies — the simple country boys — like bees to pollen.”

The McCarthy’s did not comment as the moonshine was poured out, but he felt their eyes.

“It was hard watching them die in foreign service, far from home, dismally used. But I could make myself do it, so long as I was able to believe we were purchasing the good opinion of our Spanish allies, that we were securing their permanent regard for our honor and character, as well as skill on the battlefield. And that, therefore, Philip would finally be moved to act — if only to keep faith with the promises he had made to men of such quality and integrity.” He took a look a small sip of the white lightning. “What a fool I was.“

Michael Sr. responded in a low, steady voice. “Hugh, you were brought up by good people to be a good man, and true. But nations — even those ruled by kings who claim to prize honor and loyalty — cannot keep faith with those same virtues. It’s in the nature of nations to make promises they don’t keep. Unfortunately, no man can know beforehand that the promises made to him will turn out to be the worthless ones.”

Hugh heard the attempt to take the onus off him. He shrugged it off. “I was gullible — in this and other matters. I was not merely a child but a simpleton to believe the initial priestly rubbish about Americans as the spawn of Satan himself. If I hadn’t put such faith in Philip’s court clerics, I might have thought for myself and come here earlier. I might have read my own future — and in it, seen and avoided Anna’s death in childbirth.”

“You could not have known.” Don Michael’s tone was soft yet strangely certain.

“I could have. I could have found better care for her.”

“She was Flemish aristocracy. She had the finest doctors of Europe.”

“The finest doctors of Europe, even of the Lowlands, are not your doctors. My reading has not been confined to the future plight of Ireland, Don McCarthy. I have spent many hours in your libraries. I have learned of obstetrical bleeding, of placenta previa. And so I learned that what killed my wife was ignorance: my ignorance, our ignorance.”

“Son,” — and McCarthy sounded sincere in affixing that label — “son: you couldn’t have read that in time to save her.”

“With respect, Don McCarthy, you were here almost three years before her accouchement. At any time, I could have — ”

“No, Hugh. I’m not saying that the books were not here to be read. I mean that you weren’t ready to read — and believe — them.” He looked to his own son, whose often unreadable grey eyes were crinkled in what appeared to be pain.

And suddenly Hugh understood that these strikingly plain-mannered beings had been trying to lead him to the realization which now snapped on in his mind like one of their impossible “light bulbs”:

– it was Anna’s death which had jarred him enough so that, shaken from his old perspectives, he could see the world through the new lenses brought by the up-timers. Before she had died, he would not have traveled to read, nor have believed or trusted the content of, the books in Grantville that might have saved her. But when their unborn child had killed her by tearing out the very root of the umbilicus which had already choked him, Hugh’s happy complacency ended. Their two deaths had midwifed the birth of his new consciousness.

The change had not been instantaneous. His former habits of thought had not died suddenly, as if decapitated by the single blow of a headsman’s axe. No, it had been like a fall from a great height, starting when the midwives and doctors left him alone with Anna’s haggard corpse and the tiny, blue-black body of he who was to have had his father’s name, and titles, and boundless love. Sitting there with that tiny form in his hands, Hugh had started falling into a hole at the center of himself: falling falling falling —

And when he finally awakened from that long fall, weeks later, he opened his eyes upon a different world. It was a world which was unguided by Divine Providence, and in which his kinsmen had languished and died hoping hopeless hopes. And then had come the strange letter fromGrantville.

It had been a strange letter indeed. It conveyed, first and foremost, condolences — of which there had been many others, most far more grandiloquent in their invocation of tragedy and the mysterious will of god. In contrast, this letter — from an up-timer named Mr. Michael McCarthy, Sr. — while clearly heartfelt, had been singularly straightforward and plainspoken. Yet, it landed like a thunderbolt before Hugh’s eyes. In part, this was because he had never thought to receive any such expression of solicitude from an up-timer. But even more arresting was McCarthy’s lament that the death of Hugh’s wife and heir were also “terrible blows to all O’Donnells — and to the many generations of patriotic Irish who came after you.”

This added a strange, almost surreal dimension to his loss. Posterity had, somewhere, already been lastingly impacted by the death of his child and his wife. And the more Hugh reflected on that, the more he felt it grow like a tapeworm in that part of his mind that digested new facts. He and his line were known in the future. And that future could be discovered by going to Grantville.

And so he had. And now he sat in Don Michael McCarthy’s living room, sharing this magical bourbon with him and his son. He sighed, sipped again, wondered if life was really any less capricious than the unpredictable dance of flames in this hearth built from eerily identical up-time bricks. He watched the fire send flickering shadow-demons capering along the walls. But less energetically now; it was burning low.

Michael noticed the fading flames and got up, gestured for Hugh to remain in his seat. “I’ll get another few pieces of wood. Stay put.” He looked for his coat. “Damn. That’s right; it’s in the wash.”

Hugh tried to hide his smile. Michael had attempted to ride Hugh’s war-trained charger earlier in the day. The high-spirited stallion had been tolerant enough when the up-timer was in the saddle, but was impatient with his awkward attempt at dismounting. One sharp, tight turn had flung coat-wearing Michael down into the mud and manure.

Hugh rose. “Michael, I will — “

“You will not. You’re my guest.”

Hugh took his distinctively embroidered cape from the knob on the coat-closet door, revealing his scabbarded sword. “Then at least stay warm in this.”

Michael seemed ready to decline, then nodded his thanks and took the cape. Hugh sat back down, contemplated the firelight sparkling through the bourbon, wondered what foreign fire he’d be staring into a year from now.

Presuming, that is, he was still alive to do so.

 

1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies – Snippet 04

1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies – Snippet 04 

*     *     *

Six days ago, Hugh had knocked on that front door — unannounced — to begin his second visit to Grantville. This was a considerable departure from the formality of his first visit, made about three months earlier.

That initial visit had been something of a low-level affair of state. Technically still the Earl of Tyrconnell (in everyone’s opinion but the English), Hugh Albert O’Donnell’s name was known to some up-timers not only in reports from this present, but also from the tales of their own past. And it had been that past, and thefuture which had followed from it, that Hugh had come to explore.

Grantville’s official libraries had been helpful in the matter of general history, but had little mention of Hugh or his illustrious forbears. Rather, it was his first passage through the front door of the McCarthy house that changed his world forever. Although it was Michael Jr. who had invited Hugh to use their home library, it was the father — an elderly ex-miner suffering from black lung — who was the more ardent (or at least outspoken) Fenian, possessing an impressive collection of both historical and contemporary texts on the subject. Like some enfeebled but passionate bard, Michael Sr. could recall twice the number of tales that were in the books, and was singularly well-versed in the lore of Ireland‘s many troubles — troubles which had continued on, Hugh was devastated to learn, for almost another four centuries.

On the last day of his first visit, Don McCarthy had waggled a gnarled finger at him. “Sir O’Donnell — “

“Don McCarthy, this will not do. I insist that you address me simply as ‘Hugh.’ “

“Then stop calling me ‘Don McCarthy’ — ‘Hugh.’ “

Hugh could not stop the smile. “You are the eldest of your family and have the wisdom of many years. I would be a boor not to title you ‘Don.’ “

‘Don’ McCarthy made a gruff, guttural sound. He had learned that, although the thirty-year-old Earl was always gentle with his hosts, he had a winning way of getting what he wanted. “I have a book,” the elder McCarthy grumbled at last.

“You have many.”

“Yeah — well, this one talks about you.”

“I am mentioned in many of the — “

“No, Hugh. This one has a special chapter about you. About your family, your life — your death.”

Hugh felt the hair on the back of his neck rise up straight and stay that way. The old McCarthy patriarch reached up a slender journal. Hugh remembered taking it with the same mix of avidity and dread that he would have felt if given the chance to handle one of the legendary serpents that possessed both the power to kill and confer immortality.

And the chapter, written in 1941 by Brendan Jennings, OFM, had proven to have both such powers. In his first hurried read of The Career of Hugh, Son Of Rory O Donnell, Earl Of Tyrconnell, In The Low Countries,Hugh discovered that he and the last of his men were to die in 1642, only seven years hence, in the service of Spain, fighting the French at sea off the coast of Barcelona. And thus was sparked his resolve to leave direct Spanish service and encourage his men to consider carefully any offer that might draw them away from their benefactress — and his aunt — Archduchess Isabella of the Spanish Lowlands. It was a decision that might simply lead him to an even earlier death, Hugh reasoned, but that was only one possibility. And so, he hoped that he, and many of his men, had been granted a new lease on life.

But within a few minutes, Hugh discovered the darker curse lurking in the pages of the book. It indicated that his wife had died in 1634. And so she had. Eighteen-year-old Anna Margaritte de Hennin had often visited the court of the Infanta Isabella, who had been instrumental in brokering Hugh’s marriage to her. What had started as an act of prudent policy had blossomed (as Isabella had wryly predicted) into a passionate romance, but one which had ended in bitter tragedy. Anna Margaritte lost both their first child and her life in the week before Christmas, torrents of post-partum blood pouring out of her as if some demon within could not kill her quickly or thoroughly enough.

Hugh stared at the book. The warning had been here. It had been here since the American town had materialized in the middle of Germany in 1631. It had been here before he had married Anna Margaritte. Before they had spoken of children. The warning of Anna Margaritte’s death in childbirth had been here, waiting. And he had not come, had not read it.

And so they had conceived a child in blissful ignorance and she had died in horrible agony.

Hugh did not remember leaving the McCarthys’ house. He remembered putting the book down carefully, remembered gathering most of his belongings and notes, and leaving directly into the deepening night, riding west. His two guards caught up with him, frenzied with worry, three hours later.

After returning to his regiment, Hugh spent days recovering from the shock of what he had read, and then weeks thinking about what course of action he should take, and when.

At last, just before spring, he began writing the most difficult and delicate letter of his long career as a correspondent with kings and cardinals, princes and pontiffs. When he completed the letter in early April, he leaned back and tried to see anew this document which had even plagued his dreams. And so, skipping the long prefatory parade of titles and overblown felicities, he read the beginning of its second paragraph with, he hoped, fresh eyes:

“So as not to besmirch the names and honor of my kind patrons — who ensured I kept my own titles when my sires died — I regretfully announce my resolve to take leave of their service, that I may better serve my native country and kinsmen. This decision in no way signifies any deficiency or decrease in the love and esteem in which I hold my many benefactors. I have naught but gratitude for their innumerable kindnesses, and I depart their service heavy with the sorrow that I shall surely never know the like of their love again.”

And, given the many contexts (and pretexts) that had gone into the making of Hugh’s current situation, he reflected that his words were true enough on all counts. The persons who had truly been his surrogate family — the Archduchess Infanta Isabella; Sister Catherine, Prioress of the Dames Blanches; Father Florence Conry of St. Anthony’s — had been generous, compassionate, even loving. And of his more distant benefactors — the careful Philip, his recidivistic court, and its hopelessly blinkered courtiers — he could only say that their ‘love’ had indeed been unique. Indeed, no group of ‘benefactors’ had ever stood in such a strange and often awkward relationship to its dependentsas had the Spanish crown to the relatives of the exiled Irish earls O’Donnell and O’Neill.

Three days later, Hugh was finally able to bring himself to fold the letter and press his seal down deep into the pool of red wax that bled across the edge of the top sheet.

The next day he posted the letter to his patrons and lieges, sought permission for a leave of several weeks, received it, dashed off a letter to the McCarthys that might or might not arrive before he did, and set off for his second visit to Grantville, alone.

He had arrived at their fateful yet welcoming front door six days ago. He had ventured back out beyond it a few times, but had spent most of the days — and nights — reading. Reading reading reading. And when he was not reading, he was making notes, comparing accounts, examining how the dominoes of polities and personalities had fallen during what the up-timer histories called the Thirty Years War. Judging from how current events had already veered dramatically away from those chronicled in the up-timer books, Hugh quickly concluded that although the current wars might or might not last as long as Thirty Years, they would have an even more profound and lasting effect upon the map — and life — of Europe. And, no doubt, the world beyond.

 

Cauldron of Ghosts – Snippet 33

Cauldron of Ghosts – Snippet 33 

“Yes.” Benjamin grimaced. “As a matter of fact, the Gamma Center records which ‘mysteriously’ survived McBryde’s cyberbomb showed Simões as on-site when the suicide charge went off.” He sighed. “I should’ve wondered why those records managed to survive when so much of the rest of our secure files got wiped.”

“You weren’t the only one who didn’t think about that,” his father pointed out harshly. “It did disappear him pretty neatly, though, didn’t it? And no wonder we were willing to assume he’d just been vaporized! God knows enough other people were.” He shook his head. “And I still think we did the right thing to use the whole mess to undercut Manticore with the League, given what we knew. But that’s sort of the point, I suppose. What’s that old saying? ‘It’s not what you don’t know that hurts you; it’s what you think you know that isn’t so.’ It’s sure as hell true in this case, anyway!”

“I think we could safely agree on that, Father.”

They sat silent once more for several moments. Then Albrecht shrugged.

“Well, it’s not the end of the universe. And at least we’ve had time to get Houdini up and running.”

“But we’re not far enough along with it,” Benjamin pointed out. “Not if the Manties — or the Andies — move as quickly as they could. And if the Sollies believe this, the time window’s going to get even tighter.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.” His father’s tone was decidedly testy this time, but then he shook his head and raised one hand in an apologetic gesture. “Sorry, Ben. No point taking out my pissed-offedness on you. And you’re right, of course. But it’s not as if we never had a plan in place to deal with something like this.” He paused and barked a harsh laugh. “Well, not something like this, so much, since we never saw this coming in our worst nightmares, but you know what I mean.”

Benjamin nodded, and Albrecht tipped back in his chair, fingers drumming on its arms.

“I think we have to assume McBryde and this Simões between them have managed to compromise us almost completely, insofar as anything either of them had access to is concerned,” he said after a moment. “Frankly, I doubt they have, but I’m not about to make any optimistic — any more optimistic — assumptions at this point. On the other hand, we’re too heavily compartmentalized for even someone like McBryde to’ve known about anything close to all the irons we have in the fire. And if Simões was in the Gamma Center, he doesn’t know crap about the operational side. You and Collin — and Isabel — saw to that. In particular, nobody in the Gamma Center, including McBryde, had been briefed about Houdini before Oyster Bay. So unless we want to assume Zilwicki and Cachat have added mind reading to their repertoire, that’s still secure.”

“Probably,” Benjamin agreed.

“Even so, we’re going to have to accelerate the process. Worse, we never figured we’d have to execute Houdini under this kind of time pressure. We’re going to have to figure out how to hide a hell of a lot of disappearances in a really tight time window, and that’s going to be a pain in the ass.” Albrecht frowned, his expression thoughtful as he regained his mental balance. “There’s a limit to how many convenient air-car accidents we can arrange. On the other hand, we can probably bury a good many of them in the Green Pines casualty total. Not the really visible ones, of course, but a good percentage of the second tier live in Green Pines. We can probably get away with adding a lot of them to the casualty lists, at least as long as we’re not leaving any immediate family or close friends behind.”

“Collin and I will get on that as soon as he gets here,” Benjamin agreed. “You’ve probably just put your finger on why we won’t be able to hide as many of them that way as we’d like, though. A lot of those family and friends are going to be left behind under Houdini, and if we start expanding the Houdini lists all of a sudden . . .”

“Point taken.” Albrecht nodded. “Look into it, though. Anyone we can hide that way will help. For the rest, we’re just going to have to be more inventive.”

He rocked his chair from side to side, thinking hard. Then he smiled suddenly, and there was actually some genuine amusement in the expression. Bitter, biting amusement, perhaps, but amusement.

“What?” Benjamin asked.

“I think it’s time to make use of the Ballroom again.”

“I’m not sure I’m following you.”

“I don’t care who the Manties are able to trot out to the newsies,” Albrecht replied. “Unless they physically invade Mesa and get their hands on a solid chunk of the onion core, a bunch of Sollies — most of them, maybe — are still going to think they’re lying. Especially where the Ballroom’s concerned. God knows we’ve spent enough time, effort, and money convincing the League at large that the entire Ballroom consists of nothing but homicidal maniacs! For that matter, they’ve done a lot of the convincing for us, because they are homicidal maniacs! So I think it’s time, now that these preposterous rumors about some deeply hidden, centuries-long Mesan conspiracy have been aired, for the Ballroom to decide to take vengeance. The reports are a complete fabrication, of course. At best, they’re a gross, self-serving misrepresentation, anyway, so any murderous response they provoke out of the Ballroom will be entirely the Manties’ fault, not that they’ll ever admit their culpability. And, alas, our security here is going to turn out to be more porous than we thought it was.”

Benjamin looked at him for another moment, then began to smile himself.

“Do you think we can get away with its having been ‘porous’ enough for them to have gotten their hands on additional nukes?”

“Well, we know from our own interrogation of that seccie bastard who was working with Zilwicki and Cachat that it was the seccies who brought themthe nuke that went off in the park,” Albrecht pointed out. “Assuming anyone on their side’s concerned with telling the truth — which, admittedly, I wouldn’t be, in their place — that little fact may just become public knowledge. In fact, now that I think about it, if Cachat and Zilwicki are telling their side of what happened, they’ll probably want to stress that they certainly didn’t bring any nukes to Mesa with them. So, yes, I think it’s possible some of those deeply embittered fanatics, driven to new heights of violence by the Manties’ vicious lies, will inflict yet more terroristic nuclear attacks upon us. And if they’re going to do that, it’s only reasonable — if I can apply that term to such sociopathic butchers — that they’d be going after the upper echelons of Mesan society.”

“That could very well work,” Benjamin said, eyes distant as he nodded thoughtfully. Then those eyes refocused on his father, and his own smile disappeared. “If we go that way, though, it’s going to push the collateral damage way up. Houdini never visualized that, Father.”

“I know it didn’t.” Albrecht’s expression matched his son’s. “And I don’t like it, either. For that matter, a lot of the people on the Houdini list aren’t going to like it. But messy as it’s going to be, I don’t think we have any choice but to look at this option closely, Ben. We can’t afford to leave any kind of breadcrumb trail.

“McBryde had to know a lot about our military R&D, given his position, but he was never briefed in on Darius, and he was at least officially outside any of the compartments that knew anything about Mannerheim or the other members of the Factor. It’s possible he’d gotten some hint about the Factor, though, and he was obviously smart enough to’ve figured out we had to have something like Darius. For that matter, there are a hell of a lot of Manties who’re smart enough to realize we’d never have been able to build the units for Oyster Bay without it. So it’s going to be painfully evident to anyone inclined to believe the Manties’ claims that the Mesan Alignment they’re talking about would have to have a bolt-hole hidden away somewhere.” He shook his head. “We can’t afford to leave any evidence that might corroborate the notion that we simply dived down a convenient rabbit hole. If we have to inflict some ‘collateral damage’ to avoid that, then I’m afraid we’re just going to have to inflict the damage.”

Benjamin looked at him for several seconds, then nodded unhappily.

“All right,” Albrecht said again. “Obviously, we’re both responding off the cuff at the moment. Frankly, it’s going to take a while for me, at least, to get past the simple shock quotient and be sure my mind’s really working, and the last thing we need is to commit ourselves to anything we haven’t thought through as carefully as possible. We need to assume time’s limited, but I’m not about to start making panicked decisions that only make the situation worse. So we’re not making any decisions until we’ve had a chance to actually lookat this. You say Collin’s on his way?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Then as soon as he gets here, the three of us need to go through everything we’ve got at this stage on a point-by-point basis. Should I assume that, with your usual efficiency, you’ve brought the actual dispatches about all of this with you?”

“I figured you’d want to see them yourself,” Benjamin said with a nod, and reached into his tunic to extract a chip folio.

“One of the joys of having competent subordinates,” Albrecht said in something closer to a normal tone. “In that case,” he went on, holding out one hand for the folio while his other hand activated his terminal, “let’s get started reviewing the damage now.”