Jim Baen’s Universe

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Jim Baen’s Universe Page 60

by Edited by Eric Flint


  "Has my tas­te mo­du­le ar­ri­ved yet?" the com­pu­ter as­ked.

  George scow­led, "Now, Fancy, you know how ex­pen­si­ve a cus­to­mi­zed che­mi­cal anal­y­zer is, and I re­al­ly do­ubt it wo­uld ac­tu­al­ly gi­ve you a sen­se of tas­te."

  "Besides, " his brot­her chi­med in, "we're get­ting clo­se to the Hal li­mit; if we add mo­re pro­ces­sing po­wer we'll ha­ve the feds down he­re do­ing true per­so­na­lity tests and thre­ate­ning to ar­rest us for cre­ating the next kil­ler mac­hi­ne."

  "Bull, it's not a mat­ter of a cri­ti­cal num­ber of con­nec­ti­ons, and you know it. It hap­pe­ned on­ce, so­me fre­ak chan­ce of how AIt­til­la was wi­red up and prog­ram­med," Ge­or­ge ar­gu­ed."

  Mike gla­red. "I know that but I've twe­aked the per­so­na­lity prog­ram eno­ugh that it's not go­ing to test cle­an. For he­aven's sa­ke it is as­king for a sen­se of tas­te!"

  George flip­ped off the last switch in the small of­fi­ce, "Po­wer down now, Fancy." he cal­led as he bre­ezed out the do­or. Mi­ke fol­lo­wed wit­ho­ut a bac­k­ward glan­ce, the do­or shut­ting on the con­ti­nu­ati­on of the ar­gu­ment.

  The com­pu­ter se­ar­c­hed, aga­in, for ac­cess, but aga­in was bal­ked by Ge­or­ge's ma­nu­al swit­c­hes. "So­me day I'm go­ing to get out­si­de ac­cess…" The ho­log­ram di­sap­pe­ared and the mac­hi­nery, the en­d­les­sly pa­ti­ent mac­hi­nery po­we­red down.

  The Puzzle of the Peregrinating Coach

  George Phillies

  … the la­te Sir John Wic­kers-Oates, F.R.S., D.D.S.

  Shades of dying twi­light hung gra­ce­ful­ly over the Lon­don skyli­ne, lim­ning its to­wers and ste­ep­les in a de­li­ca­te in­di­go. Hel­mes­ham and I had just fi­nis­hed a ge­ne­ro­us re­past, and we­re pre­pa­ring to turn to the Port. Hel­mes­ham had con­fes­sed that in ad­di­ti­on to his fa­mi­li­ar fo­ren­sic in­ves­ti­ga­ti­ons, he had at last ap­pli­ed his mind to the fi­nan­ci­al world. "It's not so com­p­lex," he con­fi­ded. "I can fo­re­see a ti­me when I will ne­ed to adopt a mo­re le­isu­rely mo­de of li­fe. So, for the past few ye­ars, a fee he­re, a fee the­re-it all ac­cu­mu­la­tes." How much had ac­cu­mu­la­ted wo­uld so­on re­ve­al it­self in the Puz­zle of the Bi­li­o­us Ban­ker.

  "And what," I as­ked, "will a man of yo­ur vi­gor do with all this pros­pec­ti­ve le­isu­re?" I knew that it co­uldn't be aerop­la­ne ra­cing aga­in. That had be­en last ye­ar. The aerop­la­ne had per­haps be­en a use­ful aid in the Puz­zle of the Pre­cog­ni­ti­ve Pac­h­y­derm, but I con­ti­nue to be­li­eve that man's lack of wings is in­di­ca­ti­ve of the Cre­ator's opi­ni­on of hu­man flight.

  "Oh, ope­ra, mu­sic, per­haps the myste­ri­es of the na­tu­ral and the su­per­na­tu­ral," Hel­mes­ham an­s­we­red. "Not­wit­h­s­tan­ding our vi­sit to the fog-sh­ro­uded Pla­te­au of Leng, most of the lat­ter are fra­uds, ex­p­lo­ited by Fle­et Stre­et for its sor­did pur­po­ses. Why, not two days ago the Dru­ids of En­g­land held a mo­ot in Sur­rey, and he­re are the pa­pers cla­iming the Dru­ids sum­mo­ned an aeri­al be­ing. 'A gre­at tor­pe­do-sha­ped clo­ud with fla­ming eyes and buz­zing wings.' What rub­bish!"

  "The cri­mi­nals of the world will see go­od news in yo­ur re­ti­re­ment-tho­ugh I do­ubt that it will hap­pen so­on," I sa­id. Hel­mes­ham re­ta­ined the vi­gor, ap­pe­aran­ce, and (most im­por­tant, as a man of my pro­fes­si­on wo­uld know) the firm strong te­eth of a man of twen­ty-fi­ve. Why he pon­de­red re­ti­re­ment, when he had de­ca­des of he­althy li­fe ahe­ad, was a con­ti­nu­al puz­zle to me.

  "Perhaps the myste­ri­es of the ato­mic spec­t­rum," Hel­mes­ham mu­sed, "Cer­ta­inly Fra­u­en­hof­fer's lit­tle in­s­t­ru­ment has aided me of­ten eno­ugh in my in­ves­ti­ga­ti­ons. I dis­cus­sed this with Ein­s­te­in last ye­ar in Ber­lin…" My me­mory tur­ned bri­efly to our Autumn to­ur of Euro­pe, vi­ewing the Eif­fel to­wer from abo­ve with San­tos-Du­mont, an ex­cur­si­on with Co­unt Zep­pe­lin and his di­ri­gib­le-now the­re was a mo­de of tran­s­port truly En­g­lish in its ma­j­esty, even if a Hun had in­ven­ted it-and se­ve­ral days at the Prus­si­an Aca­demy of Sci­en­ce, tal­king with a man who dis­be­li­eved the most self-evi­dent pro­per­ti­es of every com­mon ti­me­pi­ece. I did not beg­rud­ge Hel­mes­ham his vi­sit, as the trip ga­ve me the op­por­tu­nity to lec­tu­re on the most lo­gi­cal of the me­di­cal sci­en­ces-nay, the only one re­du­ced to a sci­en­ti­fic form-with the most met­ho­dic of all men, the Prus­si­ans. I ma­de cer­ta­in, of co­ur­se, that they un­der­s­to­od that it was they who we­re to le­arn from En­g­lish den­tistry, not the re­ver­se. My Ro­en­t­gen-Ray pla­tes of im­pac­ted mo­lars are stun­ning, es­pe­ci­al­ly when co­up­led with my syste­ma­tic tre­at­ment of ru­les for the avo­idan­ce of Ro­en­t­gen-ray burns. It se­emed un­ne­ces­sary to dwell upon my in­vol­ve­ment in the Ex­hu­ma­ti­on of the Ex­ra­di­ant Exa­mi­ner, or what that ca­se re­ve­aled of the ills at­ten­dant to an ex­cess of Ro­en­t­gen Rays.

  There ca­me a tap at the do­or. Now, I had pre­vi­o­usly gi­ven firm or­ders to the staff that I was not to be in­ter­rup­ted at Din­ner sa­ve for fi­re, flo­od, or a di­vi­si­on of Na­po­le­on IV's ca­valry in the gar­den. I ex­pec­ted no dis­tur­ban­ce. But a dis­tur­ban­ce the­re was! I wo­uld not, of co­ur­se, ha­ve obj­ec­ted if Na­po­le­on IV him­self had ap­pe­ared aga­in. He is a most char­ming man, and af­ter the­ir fa­ilu­re to pre­pa­re for the Se­cond In­va­si­on the French Re­pub­li­cans can ha­ve no com­p­la­int that he sent them all pac­king.

  Helmesham glan­ced out the win­dow. "An im­por­tant gu­est from the go­ver­n­ment. From the co­at, hat, and be­aring, his dri­ver is an of­fi­cer of the Gre­na­di­er Gu­ards." Hel­mes­ham's de­duc­ti­ons we­re, as usu­al, en­ti­rely cor­rect. We so­on re­ce­ived one of the mo­re im­por­tant vi­si­tors I ha­ve ever had the ho­nor of re­ce­iving in my town-ho­use.

  "Helmesham! Thank God you're he­re!" The spe­aker was a pa­ti­ent of mi­ne, a man of ut­ter im­per­tur­ba­bi­lity who dis­da­ined the use of ana­es­t­he­tics. "A ter­rib­le di­sas­ter has be­fal­len the World, En­g­land, and His Ma­j­esty's lo­yal mi­nis­ters," he gas­ped. Of his fe­ars, I was pre­pa­red to be­li­eve that the last might be true. "It in­vol­ves Wo­king. Ha­ve you per­haps he­ard of that town?"

  "I be­li­eve I ha­ve," Hel­mes­ham an­s­we­red swe­etly. It was, af­ter all, pos­sib­le that in so­me Ti­be­tan la­ma­sery so­me­one has not he­ard of Wo­king, the first town to be des­t­ro­yed by the Mar­ti­ans in the­ir 1896 in­va­si­on. My gu­est was so dis­t­ra­ught that he co­uld scar­cely put one word af­ter the ot­her. Neg­lec­ting the well-known fact that our vi­si­tor was a ri­gid te­eto­ta­ler, I pre­pa­red from the si­de­bo­ard an ap­prop­ri­ate me­di­ca­ti­on, North En­g­lish in ori­gin, that so­on had its de­si­red ef­fect on him. Re­cal­ling that our vi­si­tor did not sha­re my ho­pe that our Is­land's an­ci­ent di­vi­si­ons will so­on lie for­got­ten, I of co­ur­se re­fer­red to the me­di­ca­ti­on as Scotch Whis­key, not as En­g­lish Gra­in Brandy.

  "It in­vol­ves dip­lo­ma­tic ne­go­ti­ati­ons of the most de­li­ca­te sort, which must not be men­ti­oned be­yond the con­fi­nes of this ro­om," he fi­nal­ly ex­p­la­ined.

  I ro­se to le­ave. I am, of co­ur­se, a lo­yal En­g­lis­h­man, with no de­si­re to in­f­rin­ge on any sec­rets of sta­te. "Sir John," my gu­est en­t­re­ated, "Ple­ase stay. We ha­ve ne­ed of yo­ur in­sight. Be­si­des, you'll le­arn it all an­y­way as so­on as you put one of us un­der gas." I did, af­ter all, mi­nis­ter to the ma­xil­lary and man­di­bu­lar ne­eds of half the ca­bi­net, most of whom we­re un­res­t­ra­inedly lo­qu­aci­o­us on­ce un­der the in­f­l
u­en­ce of nit­ro­us oxi­de.

  Our gu­est com­po­sed him­self. "As you re­ali­ze the sta­te of Euro­pe has go­ne from bad to wor­se. Whi­le our glo­ri­o­us Navy will fo­re­ver pro­tect the­se sho­res from con­ti­nen­tal in­va­si­on, and our Army and Flying Corps stand re­ady aga­inst our so­lar fo­es, we can­not re­ma­in alo­of whe­ne­ver any one po­wer se­eks to do­mi­na­te all of Euro­pe. It has for so­me ti­me be­en ap­pa­rent to his Ma­j­esty's go­ver­n­ment that the Prus­si­ans har­bor pre­ci­sely the­se am­bi­ti­ons." Hel­mes­ham nod­ded gra­vely.

  I had swal­lo­wed se­ve­ral de­ca­des of con­fir­med opi­ni­on and swit­c­hed par­ti­es at the last elec­ti­on, be­ca­use the go­ver­n­ment co­uld not see that Fran­ce, land of the

  Emperors Na­po­le­on, was and wo­uld al­ways re­ma­in the gre­atest thre­at to En­g­lish li­ber­ti­es.

  "For the past months, the go­ver­n­ment has ne­go­ti­ated with the French a tre­aty for the ma­in­te­nan­ce of Bel­gi­an ne­ut­ra­lity. The tre­aty im­p­li­es no ot­her al­li­an­ce, but even the Op­po­si­ti­on ag­re­ed that we must be pre­pa­red to ta­ke steps for the pro­tec­ti­on of the Bel­gi­ans. A co­uri­er was sent to Pa­ris, car­rying the text of the tre­aty, to se­cu­re the fi­nal ap­pro­val of the French ca­bi­net." Hel­mes­ham nod­ded aga­in. It was cer­ta­inly cle­ar why this mat­ter was so de­li­ca­te. So­me mem­bers of the Op­po­si­ti­on might ha­ve ag­re­ed to this fo­olis­h­ness, but ot­hers equ­al­ly cer­ta­inly had be­en left in the dark. We­re the press to le­arn, the en­su­ing scan­dal wo­uld as­su­redly bring down the go­ver­n­ment, for­cing fresh ge­ne­ral elec­ti­ons. "Then ca­me the di­sas­ter. On the way to the Chan­nel, the co­uri­er and the tre­aty both di­sap­pe­ared. It's in­com­p­re­hen­sib­le."

  "Could he ha­ve be­co­me lost?" I as­ked ho­pe­ful­ly. The po­li­ti­cal mind has an al­most in­fi­ni­te abi­lity to over­lo­ok the ob­vi­o­us. Con­ti­nen­tals are no­to­ri­o­usly unab­le to re­ad stre­et signs in ci­vi­li­zed lan­gu­ages, or to he­ar sim­p­le spo­ken di­rec­ti­ons, no mat­ter how much one ra­ises one's vo­ice.

  "It's not qu­ite that sim­p­le, Sir John," my gu­est an­s­we­red. "The mes­sen­ger, the mes­sa­ge, and Ge­ne­ral Og­let­hor­pe all tra­ve­led by Og­let­hor­pe's pri­va­te tra­in. You may ha­ve se­en pho­tog­raphs of it: a sin­g­le ve­hic­le, car­rying its own en­gi­ne, se­pa­ra­te whe­els for tra­vel on con­ti­nen­tal-ga­uge tracks, even a lif­ting ho­ok so that a cra­ne co­uld set it on bo­ard a fast ship and un­lo­ad it at Ca­la­is wit­ho­ut loss of ti­me."

  "Oh, yes," sa­id Hel­mes­ham, "That was a de­mon­s­t­ra­ti­on ve­hic­le for ber­y­l­li­um, or wo­uld ha­ve be­en, if the me­tal hadn't be­en so ex­pen­si­ve."

  "In any event, the co­ach pas­sed on a sin­g­le track from West to East. We had men in every sta­ti­on to con­firm its sa­fe pas­sa­ge. Just be­yond Wo­king, the car simply di­sap­pe­ared," our gu­est sa­id. "The car was se­en to pass Wo­king at 3:40, but did not ap­pe­ar at any la­ter ho­ur in Over­s­haw. My men se­ar­c­hed di­li­gently but fo­und ab­so­lu­tely no tra­ce. We can not af­ford de­lay. The French ca­bi­net might fall on any day. If word of this be­co­mes pub­lic, the con­se­qu­en­ces will be in­to­le­rab­le. In this ho­ur of cri­sis, En­g­land aga­in turns to you, Hel­mes­ham. Na­tu­ral­ly, ex­pen­ses, as­sis­tan­ce, yo­ur usu­al fe­es… wha­te­ver you ne­ed." Hel­mes­ham sig­na­led his ag­re­ement.

  "Sir John," Hel­mes­ham re­mar­ked to me, "you will per­haps want an over­night kit, for the ga­me is afo­ot, or per­haps on ra­il."

  Morning fo­und us in a pri­va­te car on a si­ding ne­ar Wo­king. I had elec­ted to con­ser­ve my ener­gi­es with a ca­re­ful­ly plan­ned nap, but Hel­mes­ham re­ma­ined awa­ke for half the night con­sul­ting maps.

  A half- dozen wit­nes­ses had se­en the co­ach pass thro­ugh Wo­king. The con­s­tab­le, a man of thirty ye­ars stan­ding, was one of them. The Of­fi­cer stan­ding sentry in Over­s­haw had wa­ited un­til sun­ri­se for the co­ach to pass; only then had he ra­ised the alarm. Hel­mes­ham sug­ges­ted bri­bery. Per­haps the co­ach had pas­sed thro­ugh Over­s­haw, and be­en way­la­id el­sew­he­re. That was out of the qu­es­ti­on, our cli­ent res­pon­ded. You wo­uld ha­ve had to bri­be at le­ast three men. Be­si­des, the man in Over­s­haw was an Of­fi­cer! In the Gu­ards! Hel­mes­ham did not pur­sue this li­ne fur­t­her with our cli­ent, tho­ugh I ima­gi­ne he plan­ned dis­c­re­te in­ves­ti­ga­ti­ons el­sew­he­re.

  After a light bre­ak­fast-gril­led ste­aks with chut­ney, eggs, cur­ri­ed chic­ken, a pro­per ras­her of ba­con, pastry, and cof­fee-we set out to in­s­pect the ra­il­way. The sus­pect sec­ti­on was not mo­re than eight mi­les in length, which we tra­ver­sed by hand-car. Every cut­ting, every si­ding, had to be ca­re­ful­ly chec­ked for tra­ces of the tra­in. The­re we­re no aban­do­ned co­al pits, no mi­nes in­to which the tra­in might ha­ve va­nis­hed. Nor was the­re a ra­il re­pa­ir yard.

  At per­haps the fifth mi­le, we ca­me to a sec­ti­on in which the En­g­lish co­un­t­r­y­si­de co­uld be se­en in its ut­most be­a­uty. The gro­und was flat, but a gen­t­le ri­se of land hid from sight the far­m­ho­uses which dot­ted the lan­d­s­ca­pe in all di­rec­ti­ons. The gre­en of the grass was, I ad­mit, a lit­tle lac­king, for the August he­at and re­cent dro­ught had par­c­hed the grass to yel­low. Not a bit of gre­en re­ma­ined. Hel­mes­ham's sharp eye no­ted an obj­ect ne­ar the track.

  "Well, he­re's so­met­hing," he an­no­un­ced, pic­king a cap from the gra­vel. The he­ad­pi­ece was stran­gely cut, tho­ugh fa­mi­li­ar. "French?" I as­ked.

  "Precisely, Sir John, pre­ci­sely," Hel­mes­ham an­s­we­red. The gol­den be­es wo­ven in­to its crest sup­pli­ed a mu­te af­fir­ma­ti­on. "The­re has be­en a French Of­fi­cer he­re. From the lack of oil on the fab­ric, wit­hin the past day or so. I be­li­eve a lit­tle re­con­na­is­san­ce is in or­der."

  I jo­ined the se­arch, tho­ugh it was not cle­ar to me that the cap ne­ces­sa­rily me­ant an­y­t­hing. The si­des of most ra­il­ways are lit­te­red with ar­tic­les of aban­do­ned clot­hing. Des­pi­te my do­ubts, it was I who fo­und the next clue, and re­cog­ni­zed its sig­ni­fi­can­ce. As I qu­ar­te­red the de­ep grass ne­ar the ra­ils, my eye was struck by a flash of ref­lec­ted sun­light. I fo­und a shat­te­red half-bot­tle who­se la­bel I in­s­tantly re­cog­ni­zed, tho­ugh not wit­ho­ut so­me slight re­pug­nan­ce.

  Helmesham was at first unim­p­res­sed with my find. It is in­de­ed sel­dom, des­pi­te his ye­ars of co­ac­hing, that I ever ma­ke a se­ri­o­us con­t­ri­bu­ti­on to Hel­mes­ham's in­ves­ti­ga­ti­ons, but to­day I had do­ne so. "Lo­ok at the la­bel," I sa­id. "You don't see? Con­si­der. Cham­pag­ne is re­al­ly an ar­ti­fi­ci­al con­coc­ti­on. A key step in its pre­pa­ra­ti­on is the fi­nal ad­di­ti­on of su­gar, to the le­vel of 75 or 150 gram­mes to the li­ter, wit­ho­ut which it wo­uld be to­tal­ly un­fit to drink. This bot­tle, ho­we­ver, con­ta­ined a Brut cham­pag­ne, from"-I rat­tled off an es­ta­te na­me, now mer­ci­ful­ly for­got­ten-"a Cham­pag­ne with less than 20 gram­mes su­gar. Only a Fren­c­h­man wo­uld drink such a vi­le mix­tu­re. And so­me of them do, as I sam­p­led one on our to­ur last ye­ar, man­ful­ly ma­na­ging to swal­low the thing wit­ho­ut gag­ging. From its odor, this li­qu­id is still Cham­pag­ne, if lar­gely flat, so the bot­tle bro­ke re­cently, li­kely wit­hin a day. And it must ha­ve be­en bro­ught by the Fren­c­h­man, as no de­cent En­g­lis­h­man wo­uld go ne­ar the hor­rid stuff." Hel­mes­ham, of co­ur­se, had gras­ped all the fur­t­her de­ta­ils as so­on as I spo­ke the word "Brut."

  I do not usu­al­ly com­p­la­in abo­ut tri­v
i­al dis­com­forts of the body, but as shall be se­en in this ca­se they pla­yed a cen­t­ral ro­le in Hel­mes­ham's de­con­vo­lu­ti­on of the puz­zle. Ha­ving no­ted from the shat­te­red glass the di­rec­ti­on of fall of the bot­tle, I went down the em­ban­k­ment, lo­oking for so­me fur­t­her tra­ce of the cri­me. An unex­pec­ted slip left me in an­k­le-de­ep wa­ter. I had lo­ca­ted a small spring, not vi­sib­le from abo­ve. Hel­mes­ham as­sis­ted me to dry land, then gra­vely me­asu­red the ex­tent of the wa­ter-ef­flux, to what pur­po­se I did not then un­der­s­tand.

  Notwithstanding the as­su­ran­ces of our cli­ent, we con­ti­nu­ed our se­arch be­yond Over­s­haw to Lit­tle-Over­s­haw-on-the-Lea, the Lea in qu­es­ti­on be­ing a cre­ek sunk far be­low its usu­al depth by the dro­ught. On its bank sto­od a ta­vern. For­ti­fi­ed by a pro­per lunch: crus­hed oy­s­ters, po­ac­hed sal­mon, lamb's fe­et in as­pic, fresh-ba­ked bre­ad, and a med­ley of fru­its, we re­tur­ned to Over­s­haw. Hel­mes­ham met­ho­di­cal­ly in­ter­ro­ga­ted tho­se who had be­en se­en in the sta­ti­on ho­use, le­ar­ning not­hing. We then fol­lo­wed the ra­ils back to Wo­king, a ple­asant town en­ti­rely re­bu­ilt sin­ce its ut­ter des­t­ruc­ti­on se­ven­te­en ye­ars ear­li­er.

  Helmesham's in­ves­ti­ga­ti­ons un­co­ve­red one fur­t­her wit­ness. Wo­king's re­si­dent ama­te­ur as­t­ro­no­mer had be­en pho­tog­rap­hing the co­met. At pre­ci­sely 3:41:03, a sin­g­le-car tra­in had ap­pe­ared over the rid­ge op­po­si­te his ob­ser­va­tory. Its lamps im­pe­ri­led his spec­t­ros­co­pic anal­y­ses, so he clo­sed his shut­ters and ma­de a no­te of the pre­ci­se ti­me. Af­ter three mi­nu­tes, the tra­in had pas­sed, per­mit­ting him to re­su­me his de­ve­lop­ment of the co­met's spec­t­rum. Hel­mes­ham man­ful­ly re­sis­ted his usu­al de­si­re to talk at length with users of spec­t­rog­rap­hic ap­pa­ra­tus.

 

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