The Eldridge Roster
Page 32
“You’re kidding,” he managed as she snuggled against him.
“Yup,” she mimicked.
“Is Kaeko really happy?”
“Yes. Thanks to Tennu. Those were two very lonely people.”
“Unlike us. They have her doing anything dangerous?”
“Oh, now and then.” She knew the truth would freak him out.
“Great.”
“The war against Schmidla’s designer supermen should be over soon. They’re on the run.”
“Just what horrors did they perpetrate?”
“Can’t tell you. It was pretty bad.”
“O’Malley still playing the stock market?”
“No way! They don’t let him near a brokerage house, on-line or otherwise. Besides, he has bigger fish to fry.”
“Must have lots of money, what with those stocks of his just sitting around all those years, splitting and splitting.”
“His nearest cousin will have him declared legally dead next year and get all that money. He doesn’t care. And as for money, Jim,” she said, “you’ll want to sell all those juicy tech heavy stocks of yours within the next few years. I have a date in mind. Then move everything into government bonds. And don’t work in the Pentagon beyond mid-summer of 2001. And, sad to say, you’ll need to sell this house. We’ll have to move from Washington before the twins start school. Maybe some nice college town in the mountains.”
“You have reasons and places to suggest?”
“I do. The places we can talk about.”
“I’m marrying Cassandra. When should I sell the house?”
“In a few years. I’ll tell you in plenty of time. I believe you’ll do quite well on it.”
“I thought they didn’t let you know the future?”
“Me, no. Keiko they do. You ever find out what happened to Schmidla?” she asked. “Not even Keiko would tell me.”
“Ah, The Good Doctor,” said Jim, turning off the light. “Like Napoleon, he tried to conquer the world. And like Napoleon, he came up short.”
It was a brief graveside service, Lutheran, held in a cold drizzle beneath a gnarled old linden in an ancient cemetery. Schmidla would have scorned the ritual but enjoyed the rain.
Only Kurt and the local pastor were there, and the deceased, his remains in a diminutive rosewood coffin. He’d long ago written his own epithet:
Martin Amadeus von Kemnitz
Gelehrter, Physiker und Soldat
3.Maerz 1891 - 28.November 1998
Morgen Gehört Mir
Martin Amadeus von Kemnitz
Scholar, Physician and Soldier
March 3, 1891 - November 28, 1998
Tomorrow Belongs to Me
His stone was topped by a black marble sculpture of the Earth, tilted on its axis and banded about by a finely-wrought bronze double-helix. The pastor found it an odd and vaguely disturbing monument. “Was Dr. von Kemnitz cremated?” he asked as they walked away.
“No,” said Kurt. “He was just a very small man.”
The End?
Oh Fatherland, Fatherland
Show us the sign
Your children have waited to see
The morning will come
When the world is mine
Tomorrow belongs to me!
End Notes
Chapter 16
The human genome: Years after these events, Schmidla’s gene count is as valid as any. As of this writing, different computation methods continue to produce widely differing gene counts.
Chapter 26
English translation of Jimbo’s rendering of Kyu Sakamoto’s Ue Wo Muite Arukou (Sukiyaki)
I look up when I walk
So the tears won't fall
Remembering those happy spring days
But tonight I'm all alone.
Copyright © 1975 Watanabe Music Publishing Co. Ltd
“Tomorrow Belongs to Me” from Cabaret
Lyrics by Fred Ebb, music by John Kander
(From the 1939 novel Goodbye to Berlin, by Christopher Isherwood)
Acknowledgments
I’m privileged to know some very talented and generous people, without whose help and encouragement this book would never have been completed:
My blessedly picky readers: Silvia Bichler, Stephen R. Gusmer and Sharon E. Slominski; research chemist Bill Jackson, who took time from his busy day to unearth a drug for Dr. Schmidla’s diabolical use; MIT physicist Simon Verghese, who early on patiently explained to me basic aspects of classical physics, and my fellow Ace and Tor Books author Melisa Michaels, whose insights prompted some needed plot rerouting.
I’m indebted also to Genette Carr of Leighs Priory for her kindness and generosity in sharing her knowledge of the Rich family’s ancestral home, to Max Masao of japanlyrics.com for his translation of the Kyu Sakamoto lyrics, and to the eagle-eyed Thomas Stronach of Essex County for plying his proofreading skills.
And I’m eternally grateful to the talented, thorough, gracious and good-hearted Eman Abu-Khadra of Tunis and Toronto. Her multi-faceted skills of linguist, logician and editor and her presence as boon Internet companion have made this a far better book and the journey to its end much lighter.
Any mistakes are entirely my own.
Stephen Ames Berry
St. Thomas, USVI
Charlestown, Massachusetts
Sarasota, Florida
1999-2006
Former US Navy Department and Harvard University data architect Stephen Ames Berry teaches wayward youth at a special school. He lived for several years in Tokyo. This is his fifth novel.
Berry’s Other Books
The Biofab Quartet
The Biofab War
The Battle for Terra Two
The AI War
Final Assault
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Epilogue