Ghosts of Columbia

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  The problem with environmental economics is not one of willingness, but one of capability. No society has infinite resources, and certainly not a Columbia faced with an aggressive New France to the south, a blackmailing Quebec to the north, Ferdinand in Europe, and the twin terrors in Asia.

  With a last head shake at the naivete of the young, and at the recollection that I, too, had been equally naive, I left the stack on my desk, pulled on my waterproof, and took the umbrella from the corner. The main office was empty, and all the other doors were closed when I stepped out into the continuing light rain. My breath puffed white, and the cold felt welcome after the stuffiness of the building.

  Umbrella in hand, I walked past the brick-stepped top landing of the long stairs down to the lower campus and then around the Music and Theatre building, stepping carefully to avoid the puddles and taking my time as I passed the closed piano studio. Even through the rain I could see that the Babbage console that had been in Miranda’s studio was gone.

  I stepped into the main office of the Music and Theatre Department. “Martha, have you seen Llysette?”

  “No. Oh, wasn’t she taking some students to the state auditions in Orono?”

  I put a hand to my forehead. “I forgot.” I offered a sheepish grin. “She told me, and I forgot.”

  Martha grinned back at me. “It can happen to anyone.”

  “How’s Dierk taking the ghosting business?”

  “It’s better now.” Martha frowned. “As a matter of fact, no one’s seen Miranda’s ghost for several days now.”

  “I saw Dr. Branston-Hay removing his equipment. Was he studying the ghost?”

  Martha looked around, then lowered her voice. “He asked us not to mention it. People get very sensitive about those sorts of things, even here.”

  “I understand.” I nodded. “Some of the papers had stories about bombings at other universities’ Babbage centers.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. There was one the other day in St. Louis.”

  “How terrible.”

  “You can see why Dr. Branston-Hay wants to be very careful. He probably only wanted a few people to know.”

  “Just Dierk and me, and the watch, of course. Their video camera is still there.”

  “I won’t say a word—not even to Llysette.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Eschbach.”

  Instead of heading home, I went back to my office and locked the door. I pulled down the blinds and took out the thick old hard-sided briefcase, filled with a melange of older publications. The small package of tools and the special wedge came out of the false bottom easily, and I slid the flap shut and pocketed the small, soft-leather case. After replacing the publications, I set the open briefcase on the corner of the desk. I took a Babbage disk in its case from the shelf and slipped it into my pocket. It barely fit. After that I sat down and graded another dozen papers in the time until it began to get dark.

  Contrary to popular opinion, nighttime is not the best time for marginally savory work. Early dinnertime is, especially on a university campus where most students are of thrifty Dutch stock and actually eat in the cafeteria.

  I dialed Branston-Hay’s office number, but there was no response. So I picked up the special wedge and put it in my right pants pocket. Then I picked up my black leather case, half-filled with the day’s class notes, and stepped out into the hall. Once outside, I locked the door to the department, the former residence of some obscure poet—Frost, I think, was the name—and headed across the green to the west.

  The main door to the Physical Sciences building was unlocked, as a number of laboratory courses ran late. There were always several early evening classes, but none, according to the schedule, involving Branston-Hay or the Babbage laboratories.

  I walked to the main Babbage room and glanced inside. Perhaps half the consoles were occupied, mainly for word processing by students worried about various midterm projects, I guessed, although I did see one student struggling with some sort of flow chart.

  The smaller laboratory, the one Branston-Hay used for research, was at the end of the corridor. I knocked, for the sake of appearances, and was surprised when a round-faced man with cold blue eyes opened the door.

  “Yes?”

  “I was looking for Gerald.”

  “He’s not here at the moment. Could you check back later, or better yet, in the morning?”

  “I’ll catch him in the morning. Thank you,” I said as I turned without even hesitating, knowing that I dared not.

  Although the man I had never seen before had kept his considerable bulk between me and the laboratory, I caught a glimpse of it, enough to realize that I’d definitely missed more than a bet. The windows were painted black, and at least a dozen technicians were still working. There was some sort of strange apparatus that looked like a silver helmet, the kind they use to dry women’s hair. Everyone, even the man at the door, wore what looked like a metal hair net.

  The doorkeeper wasn’t a Babbage type. The slightly thicker cut of his coat, and what it concealed, the fact that the other technicians wore no coats, and the guard’s flat blue eyes told me he was more at home in vanBecton’s office than in Gerald’s laboratory.

  After I bowed and left, I made my way back toward the office section, around two corners. When I arrived at Branston-Hay’s office, I knocked sharply on the door, but there was no answer, and the thin line between the tiled floor and the heavy door was dark.

  After glancing puzzledly around, as if mystified that my appointment had not been kept, and seeing no one, I slipped the lock picks out of my jacket pocket.

  As soon as I had the door open, I stepped inside and locked it. Then I tapped the wedge loosely between the bottom of the door frame and the floor. The adhesive rubber would jam if anyone tried to open the door. Simple, and effective. I also unlocked the window, but did not open it. I did lift it slightly to make sure that I could. I have gone out windows before, although I would rather not.

  I tried to remind myself of the old adage that you should never try to find it all out at once. Removals you do once or not at all, but information gathering requires far more patience and repetition. That’s one reason good espionage is far more difficult than murder.

  The first step was activating the difference engine, not that dissimilar to my own recent model. After I turned on the machine and all the lights came on, and the pointer flipped into place on the screen, I typed in the initializing command, and smiled as the substructure menu appeared. Trying not to hurry, I scanned the directories until I found what I wanted, or, I should say, the absence of what I wanted.

  If you attempt to hide something, you have to leave a keyhole, and that was what I needed. Branston-Hay hadn’t been that subtle. He’d assumed that any datapick would need to unscramble the keys. I could have cared less. I just wanted to copy them.

  Still, it took almost half an hour before the machine began to copy what I needed onto the data disk I had brought.

  While it copied, I helped myself to his desk. As I had suspected, everything—or almost everything—was strictly related to his teaching, and the office was as clean as when I had visited earlier.

  I did find a folder of clippings, which I began to read.

  COLUMBIA (FNS)—After meeting with departing Ambassador Fujihara of Japan, President Armstrong today suggested that the Reformed Tories would find that their yet-to-be announced initiative on reducing the VAT on tobacco exports, while desirable from the perspective of Far Eastern relations, was more of a public relations effort than a real step toward solving the growing Asian trade imbalance. Speaker Hartpence had no comment …

  CHICAGO (RPI)—In his speech opening the National Machine Tool Exposition in Chicago, President Armstrong gently chided the Reformed Tories for even considering expanding product liability tort claim protection. According to the president, “Speaker Hartpence would strangle Columbian business to remedy a nonexistent problem.” Neither the Speaker nor his press aide were
available for comment …

  COLUMBIA (RPI)—Even while the general perception of President Armstrong has been that of a vigorous opponent of the Reformed Tories, slashing publicly at their every weakness, his private meetings with members of the House have been exceedingly different.

  “It’s almost as though the president were running for election to the House, and attempting to line up votes for Speaker,” said former Commerce Minister Hiler.

  Since President Armstrong’s election last year, virtually every influential member of the House has been invited to an intimate and off-the-record dinner or luncheon at the Presidential Palace. While not all members have been willing to divulge the exact nature of the conversations, all indicate that the president was unusually attentive and nonpartisan, unlike in his public appearances, generally asking questions and listening …

  MEMPHIS (SNS)—Today, in dedicating the Memphis Barge-Railway Terminus, President Armstrong denounced Speaker Hartpence’s policies as shortsighted and bankrupt. The president claimed that the Speaker is secretly considering accepting Asian revisions to the Law of the Oceans Treaty which would effectively close both the Sea of Japan and the South China Sea to Columbian traders and provide Chung Kuo and Japan with effective trade advantages in Asia in return for similar concessions to England and Columbia in the Caribbean and the Mediterranean.

  “Such concessions, if true, would be ruinous,” declared Cecil Rhodes, IV, chairman of the Columbian Maritime Association …

  Speaker Hartpence angrily denied the president’s charge, stating that he “has nothing to hide.”

  SEATTLE (NWNS)—In accepting the frigate C.S. Ericson for the Columbian Navy, President Armstrong proclaimed “the continuing need for a strong Columbian presence across the waters of the globe.”

  In a scarcely veiled criticism of Speaker Hartpence and Foreign Minister Gore, the president added, “Reducing the federal budget for ships such as this, or for the longrange electric submersibles such as the Fulton, is truly penny wise and pound foolish.” He went on to suggest …

  “Both Minister Gore and Defense Minister Holmbek later denied that the submersible procurement budget was to be reduced …”

  I flipped through the rest of the clips, jotting down dates, pages, and newspapers for all twenty-odd stories. By the time I had copied the dates of the stories, the machine, faster than the human hand, had copied a far vaster volume of material. I folded my notes, slipped them into my folder, replaced the disk in its case and the case in my pocket, returned the difference engine to its previous inert state, then removed the wedge and stepped confidently into the empty hall. The only student I saw in the science building did not even bother to look up as he trudged toward the gentlemen’s facilities at the corner of the first floor.

  I nodded to two students I did not know on my way across the green and back to my office, where I replaced the wedge on the shelf, closed and replaced the old case in the closet, and turned off the lights. I kept the lock picks, uneasy as they made me, in my pocket. They almost looked like a set of hex wrenches or screwdrivers, but any watch officer would know instantly what they were.

  Then again, if they stopped me, it would either be a formality or lock picks would be the least of my problems. I picked up my folder and locked the office, leaving the uncorrected papers on my desk. For once, the students probably wouldn’t get them back at the next class.

  The wind blew, and more drizzle sleeted around me, almost like ice, as I walked to the steamer. By the time I was inside the Stanley, I wished I had worn a heavier coat.

  The roads were beginning to ice up, and visibility was poor at best. I was glad for the four-wheel option when I reached the hill below the house. No matter what they say about four-wheel drive not helping on ice, it does.

  After I garaged the Stanley and went into the house, I lit off a fire in the woodstove in the main parlor, even before I checked to see what Marie had fixed. After unloading my pockets onto the antique desk and setting the disk case by the difference engine, I climbed upstairs, where I hung up my jacket and pulled on a heavy Irish fisherman’s sweater before descending to the kitchen.

  The smell of steak pie told me before I even opened the warming oven, although it was probably drier than she had intended, but it still tasted wonderful. I ate it right from the casserole dish, washing it down with a cold Grolsch, both of which actions would have horrified my mother.

  I did wash the dishes, though, before I headed into the study. Some Dutch habits die hard.

  After I turned on the difference engine, and as it completed its powering up and systems checks, I pulled out the Babbage disk, wondering exactly what I had.

  As I expected, the files were encrypted, but, if you know what you’re doing, that’s not a problem. Time-consuming, but not an insoluble problem. Why not? Because most nonalgorithmic systems used on a single machine have to have a finite and relatively easy key, and because, in most systems, you can go under the architecture and twiddle it. Of course, I made copies first.

  The first interesting section shouldn’t have been on Gerald’s machine at all—his notes and speculations. Most Babbage types fall into two categories. There are those who know the machine so well that everything is custom Babbage language shorthand. I hate those, because it’s all unique. Branston-Hay was the other kind, the kind who play with difference engines, who document everything and link it all together. It’s as though they have to tell the Babbage engine how important they are—almost as bad as a politician’s diaries.

  You can figure out either kind, because the way it’s structured gives it away in the first case, and the documentation in the second is certainly elaborate.

  Still, it was well past midnight before I could break through, and that was as much luck as anything.

  Some of the notes were especially chilling.

  … headset design … multipoint electrode sensors to enhance the ambient magnetic field … A-H design overstresses basal personality …

  … Heisler ignored possibility of disassociated field duplication … phased array of field sensors … duplication of field perturbations would emulate basal personality …

  … personality implantation … greater density perfusion at high field strength and minimal transfer rate …

  … Babbage electro-fluidics emulate field capture parameters …

  That one made sense, given what I knew about ghosting. Instant death doesn’t create ghosts. It’s a stress-related, magnetic-field-enhanced personality transfer phenomenon, and Gerald had merely quantified the electronic and magnetic conditions.

  The last entry in the notes was worse.

  Empirical proof of capture—MM case. Theoretically, the psychic magnetonet should work in most conditions, since a new ghost is clearly the strongest … Practically the disassociator should also work … but the ethical problems preclude construction … Suspect it might not work unless the subject is in an agitated condition … No way to test at this point.

  The rest of the files dealt with specifications. Two were actually schematics, and after reading the descriptions of the “basal field disassociator” and the “perturbation replicator” I realized I might need the lock picks again—if I weren’t already too late—or a good Babbage assembly shop. The third file that looked interesting was called a personality storage file, and required what looked like a modified scanner, although it didn’t look like any scanner I had ever seen.

  There was also what looked to be an elaborate protocol of some sort attached to the personality storage file—again with explanations under such headings as “visual delineation file,” “image structure,” and “requirements for compression/decompression.”

  I thanked Minister vanBredakoff for the two years undercover as a Babbage programmer in the Brit’s mercantile Babbage net. That and a skeptical nature helped.

  Theoretically, neither the disassociator nor the replicator looked that hard to build. I began to sketch what I needed … and got colder and colder.
Most of the components were almost off the shelf, although I’d have to check the specifications with Bruce as soon as I could. Then, almost as an afterthought, I sketched out the scanner I needed before I stumbled upstairs and into bed, leaving my clothes strewn across the settee under the window.

  If Branston-Hay were doing what I thought, Miranda’s murder was almost inconsequential—unless she had known.

  I lay in the darkness, in my cold bed under crisp cold sheets, listening to the cold sleet. Even the faint remnant of Llysette’s perfume somehow smelled cold.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Because I scarcely slept well, even as late as I had collapsed on Monday night, getting up early Tuesday was almost welcome. Or it would have been if not for the headache that had come with the morning. I treated that by skipping my exercise routine and having a cup of hot chocolate and a bigger breakfast than normal—toast with raspberry preserves, one of the last fresh pears from the tree, picked on Sunday before the ice storm, and two poached eggs. I knew I’d pay later with tighter trousers or more exercise.

  A long hot shower helped, and I felt less like a ghost myself when I headed out to the car barn, carrying the empty box that had contained my difference engine. After gingerly stepping down the stone walk to avoid the icy spots, I crossed the bluestone to the barn, where, after opening the door, I put the box in the Stanley’s front trunk and closed it.