Ghosts of Columbia

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  I took a deep breath and sat down at my desk, where, in the hour and a half between returning to my office and Environmental Politics 2 B at two o’clock, I would try to put a dent in the tests from Environmental Politics 2A.

  I hadn’t even started grading the short quizzes that I’d given my honors class in environmental studies. Why did I give so many tests? Because too many of the dunderheads wouldn’t study the material unless I did. The attitude seemed to be: “If I’m not going to be tested, I won’t learn it.”

  What none of them seemed to understand was that—at least in my life—the world wasn’t too forgiving about what you didn’t know. You didn’t get second chances—like emergency procedures when flying. If I hadn’t known them when I’d been in involved in the Panama Standoff, I’d have been somewhere at the bottom of Mosquito Gulf.

  Philosophizing didn’t grade tests, and I began to read and to apply the red ink. While some of the students actually made sense, a lot more merely tried to parrot what I’d said, whether it was in context or not.

  I looked at the next paper: “Speaker Colmer followed the strong environmental example set by Speaker Aspinall… .” Environmental example? Hardly! And I’d told them that, but some hadn’t gotten the message. The bottom line was that Columbia was starved for liquid hydrocarbons and the strong Speakers—Roosevelt, Messler, Aspinall, and Colmer, particularly—had recognized that fact and eased through taxes and conservation measures that had immense environmental benefits, but not for primarily environmental reasons. The combination of the high turbojet fuel tax and the astronomical landing fees was really what kept the more environmentally sound and energy-efficient dirigibles and the trains competitive. A lot more people would have been taking turbos and old-style aircraft if it weren’t for the fact that those fares were nearly ten times as much.

  Except for the Louisiana fields, and Hugoton Fields in Kansas and the Cherokee lands bordering Tejas, most of the big North American oil fields lay in either Deseret or New France. Had the Saint wars happened a generation later, I suspected, Deseret would have been a part of Columbia no matter what the cost in lives, but the disasters in the Mexican War, followed by the slavery issue and the Sally Wright incident, followed in turn by the first Caribbean War, where the Austro-Hungarians had backed both New France and Deseret, had made a full-scale military effort against Deseret highly unpopular … and most impractical. The second and almost abortive 1901 Caribbean War had further reinforced the Deseret-New France ties.

  Now … with Deseret’s chemical and synthfuels industries, and continued militarization, not to mention the so-called Joseph Smith brigades, Columbian military action against Deseret would have been an invitation for deGaulle to strike against the comparatively vulnerable Kansas, Louisiana, and mid-California oil fields, and Columbia couldn’t afford that at all, not when Indonesian oil was held by the Rising Sun and the Arabian peninsula by the Austro-Hungarians. There was talk of development in Russia, but the Romanovs didn’t have the capital, and Russia was so strife-torn and chaotic outside of Saint Petersburg and Moskva that none of the international bankers would consider it, even with what Columbia and the Brits would have paid for the oil.

  Instead, it looked like both President Armstrong and Speaker Hartpence would have to court Deseret for liquid hydrocarbons. Better Deseret than New France, I supposed.

  More than a third of the honors class quizzes missed those points. Honors class? I wondered as I set the few remaining quizzes aside and headed for Environmental Politics 2 B.

  They were presenting summaries of their projects, and that meant I just listened and took notes—thankfully.

  I got back to the department offices at three-forty-five. Gilda waved before I got to the stairs. “Herr Leveraal called. The number is in your box.”

  “Thank you.”

  Once in my office, I closed the door and wired Bruce.

  “LBI Difference Designers.”

  “Bruce?”

  “No. This is Curt.”

  “I’m sorry. This is Johan Eschbach; I’m returning Bruce’s call.”

  “Just a moment.”

  I waited. Curt—that was Bruce’s brother Curtland. I’d never met him, and until now he’d been a shadowy sort of figure, except he’d never been in the Spazi, unlike Bruce and me.

  “Herr Doktor,” offered Bruce.

  “You wired?”

  “I have an estimate on your toys. They should be ready Saturday.”

  “I take it they’re not cheap.”

  “Compared to what?”

  Bruce had a point there. “All right. How much?”

  “Say … roughly three hundred for a pair. Maybe four at the outside.”

  I didn’t quite wince. Then, if they were useful in keeping untoward things from happening to us … how much were our lives worth? “They cost what they cost. Anytime Saturday?”

  “You’re the customer. I’ll see you then, and try to stay out of any more trouble.”

  “You remain all heart, Bruce.”

  “Always.” There was a pause. “I do have a request.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’d really like to hear your lovely bride in concert. So … the next time she performs—somewhere in the seminear geographic vicinity—could you inform me?”

  “Of course.” I cleared my throat. “It might be a little while, because she just did a recital, but I’ll certainly let you know. Sometimes she’s done concerts around Zuider, but there aren’t any scheduled right now.”

  “I understand.”

  Why was Bruce interested in Llysette’s singing? Was it because he did a lot of work with music systems? I shook my head. I could sense he was interested in her singing, but why? Then, for all the years I’d known Bruce, there was a lot I didn’t know, probably because he was private and because I’d never asked. Or was it just that I was getting paranoid about everything?

  That raised even more questions I didn’t want to consider, not at the moment, although I knew I’d have to, sooner or later.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  On Saturday morning, as we lingered over breakfast, Llysette yawned ever so slightly in the warm light from a sun we had seen too little of in the previous week.

  “Are you tired?”

  “Tired am I all the time. Tired from teaching Dutch dunderheads who believe that singing the wrong notes many times is practice. Vocalizes I give them, and they do not use them … but for a few, and those, they are too few. A written sheet on how to practice they have, and they do not read it. Non … they sit and pick out one note after another because the piano they cannot play, and accompanists they will not find. Rhythms they do not learn… .” She sighed.

  “I’m sorry.” I didn’t know what I could do, but I was sorry. Even with my pension and salary, I couldn’t support her in the style she deserved.

  “Quelquefois …”

  I refilled her cup with the last of the chocolate from the pot. “I need to go to Zuider to pick up the gadgets from Bruce. You’d said you wanted to do some shopping. I’m game. Are you?”

  “Shopping, that I can always do, even in Zuider.”

  “I know. We could drive on down to Borkum afterward,” I suggested.

  “That I would like.”

  I’d thought she would. “I thought I’d get the post while you finish dressing.”

  Llysette smiled. “You are good to me.”

  Sometimes, I wondered. I’d almost gotten us both killed, and she was still having to work far too hard.

  The Stanley had plenty of kerosene, and the water tanks were nearly full. I had my own water filter system in the car barn, and that saved a lot of trouble. Then I backed out into the sunlight, under a sky with only a few scattered small white clouds—a good day for a drive.

  Benjamin had the whole family out, doing something in the orchards beyond the field that bordered Deacon’s Lane. None of them looked up, but I knew they’d noticed. They noticed everything, which had certainly been to my benefit re
cently.

  Who had been behind the attack on us? I had no real idea—or, rather, I couldn’t narrow down the suspects. With a half-shrug, I stopped on the east side of the bridge to wait for a long lumber hauler, then took the steamer across.

  The square was crowded with Saturday shoppers, but I only had to take the Stanley around once before I could pull into a spot by the post centre. The clock chimed ten as I walked up the stone steps.

  I opened the postbox gingerly, only to discover that I had cause for my trepidation. Another of the damned manila envelopes from the Federal District lay there like the miniature bomb it was.

  Rather than open it in the post centre, I took it and the letter from my mother and a bill from Dunwijk Plumbing for repairing the kitchen sink lines and eased them into my jacket.

  The manila envelope exuded heat in my pocket. It didn’t, but that was the way it felt, and I opened it once I’d parked the steamer back in our drive. There was but a single clip from the Columbia Post-Dispatch:

  FEDERAL DISTRICT (RPI). J. Taylor Hunter, assistant president of Deseret, met with Natural Resources Minister Reilly yesterday. The substance of the private meeting was not immediately disclosed, but speculation centered on oil or liquid hydrocarbon exports from Deseret… .

  The federal stockpile is at an all-time low, less than two months’ worth of total Columbian demand, as a result of the refusal of Japan to increase exports from its Indonesian fields to Columbia and the recent oil field explosions in Venezuela, which reduced exports to the Mobile refinery… .

  The cause of the South American disaster has not yet been established.

  I had a good idea about the South American disaster. It had the fine hand of Ferdinand written large upon it.

  Since Llysette was still rummaging through the closet upstairs, I set the plumbing bill in the basket for such things on my desk and opened my mother’s note:

  Johan,

  I was sorry that you and your darling Llysette will not be able to come down over harvest.

  Both Anna and I were thrilled to hear that she will be performing before more appreciative audiences… .

  You might recall Romer van Leyden. He passed away after a long bout with cancer last week. His son Georg asked to be remembered to you. He works for the New Ostend Water Authority, but I’ve forgotten what he does… .

  All our best … .

  Mother still insisted on both wiring and writing, the writing a relic of a more graceful age that I appreciated—and that gave me some pleasurable anticipation in opening a postbox otherwise filled with the mundane business of bills or the chilling manila envelopes that represented a past I never seemed quite able to escape.

  Llysette was dressed in a blue jumper, with a white blouse, except she was trying to decide between two jackets—a tan woolen one or a wool one that seemed to match the jumper.

  “Mother sent a note.” I extended it to Llysette as she hung up the tan jacket.

  She frowned in that way that crinkled her nose, and I laughed.

  “You mock me,” she said.

  “You’re cute.”

  “Baby … baby ducks, they are cute.”

  “You are also beautiful and talented.”

  “Cute, that you called me first.”

  I groaned.

  She smiled and began to read. “She comprehends the Dutch audiences here.”

  “Backwater Dutch, she’s always called them.”

  “Backwater?”

  “Away from the culture of New Amsterdam or Philadelphia, or even Asten.”

  “Backwater … a good term.” Llysette nodded and handed the note back to me.

  “I’m still getting clippings,” I said quietly, easing the latest one to her.

  “Mais qui est-ce qui?”

  “I don’t know. It might be Harlaan Oakes—the one who told me about the president’s decision to ask you to sing.”

  “You are not certain?” she asked, pronouncing “certain” in French.

  “No. The clips and the methods are Spazi, but it doesn’t have any of their cover addresses, and I don’t know why anyone in the Spazi would be doing this.”

  This time her frown wasn’t cute as she read.

  “The oils … what have they to do with us?” Her green eyes glinted. “Quelqu’un crois que … am I to sing for oil?”

  “I don’t think so. It’s more to point out how delicate matters are.” I took a deep breath. “Can I explain it on the drive to Zuider?” I forced a grin. “That way we can get through the unpleasant necessities and to the shopping.”

  “You mock me more… .” She gave a pout, lower lip well out, out enough for me to know that she was teasing.

  “Absolutely.” I hugged her and got a warm embrace in return.

  We gathered coats, because despite the sun, there was a chill breeze, and I escorted Llysette out to the steamer, after locking the doors carefully, not that locks would ever stop a real professional. I just hoped they wouldn’t break the glass I’d had replaced … or worse.

  “You would explain?” Llysette said even before I had the Stanley onto Deacon’s Lane. The red thermal paint glittered in the bright fall sun, as it should, since I’d washed the steamer the afternoon before while Llysette had held rehearsals for the winter opera.

  “About the clippings?” I cleared my throat as we headed down to the bridge. “Columbia is oil-starved. We took certain conservation measures years ago to reduce fuel demands, but there’s a cost to all of that. Prices get higher because of the energy component of goods, and higher prices tend to depress investment. Lower investment and higher prices make it harder to develop alternative fuel sources, the way they have in Deseret. We have a lot of natural gas in the Canadian states, but we don’t need gas so much as liquids, and liquification and transport are expensive. A good chunk of the western hydropower goes into the aluminum industry.” I shrugged. “Sorry. It gets complicated. Higher technology means more energy demand—unless we cut our standard of living. If we could get some oil from Deseret—they’re producing a healthy surplus—then we’d have some breathing space to develop our own synthfuels industry more. But Ferdinand doesn’t like that, and New France certainly wouldn’t like closer ties between Deseret and Columbia. At the same time, I can’t believe either New France or the Austro-Hungarians would cooperate in trying to keep Deseret and Columbia from establishing closer relations.” I eased the Stanley onto the cutoff leading to Route Five, which would take us to Zuider.

  “Cooperate … those two? Never,” said my soprano.

  “Exactly. Deseret wants the best deal it can get. The Saints have been working to become less and less dependent on New France, but it’s delicate. We fought four wars with the two of them, but I can see where deGaulle’s expansionism would make the Saints very uneasy. If we can open trade more, then deGaulle can’t take Deseret’s support totally for granted. That also might relieve some of the pressure on the Panamanian Protectorate and the canal.”

  “And us … what of us?” she asked, trying to steer me back to the main point.

  “Your singing is a first step. You’re now a Columbian citizen, and that one clip pointed out how the Saints see art as a reflection of the world.”

  “Someone does not wish me to sing in Deseret?”

  “Ferdinand, probably. Maybe deGaulle and Maurice-Huizinga, his spy chief. Possibly even the Japanese, since we wouldn’t be as dependent on their Indonesian oil.” I coughed, then paused to pass one of the ubiquitous and spotless white tank haulers—from vanEmsden’s Dairy, of course. “That’s the problem. A lot of people have an interest in your singing, and an equal number have an interest in your not singing.”

  “I thought … perhaps they wished for my ability.”

  “They do.” I laughed. “The Saints wanted the best Columbia has. It’s a compliment, and the president has reinforced that. It’s precisely because you are so good that you’re in the middle of this.”

  “Jamais pour l’art,” Llysette murm
ured and looked out the window. I gave her the space she wanted and kept driving.

  After I came off the cutoff onto the new road, Route Five was smooth all the way south to Zuider and Lochmeer, the biggest lake in New Bruges. Route Five shadowed the Wijk south beside fifteen miles of stone-fenced walls enclosing winter-turned fields, stands of sugar maples, and meadows for scattered sheep.

  The stone walls exemplified their Dutch heritage, each stone precisely placed and replaced—as Benjamin always had his family doing—almost as soon as the frost heaved it out of position.

  After nearly twenty-five minutes, we reached the spot where the Wijk winds west and Route Five swings east toward Lochmeer and Zuider. At the sight of the three Loon Lakes and the well-trimmed apple orchards, I shook my head. I still hadn’t gotten around to a proper pruning of my own small orchard.

  “Plus ca change,” murmured Llysette after her long silence. “So hard you try to stay away from what happens in the world, and still they find you. They find me, and, again, my songs are for those in power. But sing I must, or I will beat notes, all my life, and learn the students will not. I do not beat notes, and the rhythms are not there. Half cannot even accompany themselves.”

  “Will it get better as you get better students?”

  “Who would know? Some, like Marlena, they are good. Or Jamella. The others … I give them vocalizes. These to train their voices. The brain it is smart, but the muscles, they are stupid. They will not learn vocalises.”

  “Is that because they feel stupid singing nonsense syllables?”

  Llysette shrugged. “Nonsense is in their heavy skulls.”

  “Thick skulls?”