Ghost of the White Nights

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

Piet was alone, and as he started washing the windscreen, I asked, “How are things with your suppliers?”

  “Prices keep going up. Not much at any one time, Doktor, but they never go down.” Piet wiped the Stanley's glass dry. “Widow Huerlein, she saw the prices and backed right out of the station. Went down to Bruno's. Didn't do much for her. He's running a dime more a gallon than I am. He's worried. Some sales rep came by the other day. Asked him a bunch of questions, about what grades of kerosene folks bought and even about whether you college professors preferred Shell or AmeriSun. Bruno played dumber than he already is. Then, the fellow told him AmeriSun was closing stations in New Bruges, those that didn't sell enough.”

  “He sells enough, doesn't he?”

  Piet shrugged. “Who can tell what's enough for the bolt counters in headquarters?” Piet looked at the pump. “Thirtyone even, Doktor.”

  I paid him, and he hurried over to the other pump to catch Fred Jaekels, the korfball coach. Next I picked up the paper from Samaha's and drove back to the upper faculty car park.

  The bright sunshine had me in a happy mood, and when I saw the zombie workforce, I called out cheerfully, “Good morning, Gertrude.”

  “Every morning is a good morning, sir.” The zombie lady smiled happily, then returned to raking, turning over the bark mulch in the flower bed lining the walk.

  Deciding against asking her about the play, I smiled and replied, “It is indeed.” Which, in a way, it was, at least for me. I mostly enjoyed teaching, and I had a loving and talented wife, and I'd seen enough of what wasn't so good in life to appreciate—usually—what I did have.

  Just as I was about to enter the natural resources building to head up to my office, two students appeared. One was Verner Oss, and the other was Pietra Zand.

  “Professor?” ventured Pietra. “About the essay . . . do you mind if we define the terms you used? Or did you have a definition you wanted us to use?”

  For a moment, I had to shift perspectives. “Which terms?”

  “ ‘Survival’ . . . sir.”

  I smiled at the petite blonde, who was one of my better students. “Actually, you can use any definition so long as you make sure you define which one you're using.”

  Verner Oss blinked, as if I'd surprised him.

  “Mister Oss . . . one of the things you learn if you've spent a while in the military is that both survival and victory come in two varieties, long and short term, and you need to consider whether short-term victories, particularly, lead to long-term survival. All too often, they don't.”

  “Were you in the service, sir?”

  “I spent two tours in the Naval Air Corps . . . part of it during the Panama Standoff.”

  “You were a pilot?”

  “FF-7s.”

  “Ah . . . any decorations?” Oss asked, almost apologetically.

  That was a rather presumptuous question, and a bit odd, but the way in which it was asked was clearly one of honest curiosity. For a moment, I wondered whether to answer it, but decided honesty was the best policy. “A few. Nothing terribly glorious. An RAC, with a star, a purple heart, and the usual unit commendations.” I paused. “Did you have a question, Mister Oss?”

  “I think you answered it, sir. I wondered about defining ‘long term.’ ”

  “Define it as you wish, but affirm or attack the proposition and support your argument.”

  “Isn't the proposition almost a tautology, sir?”

  I shook my head. “Not really. You've got a grasp on it already, because whether it is or isn't depends on the de. nitions . . . and I've probably already given you too much.”

  “Ah . . . thank you, Professor Eschbach.” Pietra almost bowed.

  “Thank you,” echoed Verner.

  “You're both welcome, and good luck with the essays.”

  I got a nod from Verner, a respectful nod, not a perfunctory one. As the two walked away, I waited by the door for a moment. I couldn't help but overhear their words as they walked away.

  “Why did you ask about awards?” That was Pietra.

  “Decorations, not awards. Because . . . just because. There's something about him . . . but . . . an Air Cross in an FF-7 . . . they only gave out three in the whole war . . .”

  I couldn't hear any more after that, and opened the door and headed across the foyer toward the stairs. Actually, they'd given out four Air Crosses, and it hadn't really been a war, for all the pilots we lost in the Mosquito Gulf, but we'd kept the canal, to the dismay of both New France and Austro-Hungary. I'd been happy to complete my second tour and quietly resign to enter the Sedition and Security Prevention Service. No matter what anyone said, the mortality in the Spazi was far lower than in military flying, and the government health care that Elspeth had needed had transferred with me. Also, the military time had counted toward my federal pension.

  I smiled at Gilda, who was listening on the wireset, and headed up to my office, where I took off my topcoat and unpacked my briefcase before opening the Post-Courier. There was little new, just more about the unsettled Persian Gulf and speculations on fuel prices.

  In the meantime, while the world was teetering on the brink of a conflict over petroleum supplies, the Romanovs were pursuing their quixotic dreams of intercontinental rocketry.

  Vienna (WNS). Austrian Foreign Minister Erich von-Braun protested as “dangerous” and “provocative” the latest test flight of the Russian Perun missile. “Launching a military prototype rocket from a base less than two hundred kilometers from another nation's borders is clearly a violation of the High Frontier Treaty,” von-Braun claimed. “Russia must cease such behavior or face the consequences of violating international law.”

  In St. Petersburg, the imperial minister of communications, Ivan Lamanov, denied the charge. “This was a test flight for purely scientific purposes. This missile was never designed to carry warheads.”

  According to Russian sources, the Perun's missile body self-destructed, while the instrument capsule parachuted to earth near Lvov, just inside the Russian border, and was reclaimed immediately by troops detailed to the Imperial Astronautics Facility. Unconfirmed reports indicated that the missile may have reached a height of one hundred kilometers. . . .

  To me, it didn't make sense—even the launch direction, which had risked losing the test data. Even if the Russians could make nuclear warheads, and there was considerable doubt that they could make devices both small and sturdy enough to be carried by the reputedly finicky Perun, the missile's range was so limited that half of Austro-Hungarian territory was beyond it. Ferdinand had hundreds of heavy high-altitude bombers and several hundred large nuclear devices. While it would have been difficult for him to use them against the Americas, effectively all of industrial Russia was well within range, and the Russian turbo fighters were no match for the Prussian-built Messerschmidts. But then, from the days of Peter the Great, the Romanovs had always been unpredictable, and Tzar Alexander seemed to be cast from the same mold.

  I couldn't do much about any of it, and so I began entering grades in my gradebook. The intercom buzzed. I picked up the handset. “Yes?”

  “Chief Waetjen is on line one, Doktor Eschbach.” Gilda's voice was cool, and that probably meant that David was standing right beside her desk.

  “Thank you.” Watch Chief Waetjen? I punched the blinking light. “Johan Eschbach.”

  “Why is it, Eschbach, that whenever your wife is about to go off and do a concert somewhere, strange things happen here?”

  “I'm sorry, Chief. I'm afraid I don't understand. What strange things?”

  “Your neighbor reported lights, and strange noises last night. Did you hear anything?”

  “No, but we didn't get home until almost eleven. Llysette and I were at the opening night of Hamlet, and it's a long production.”

  “You didn't notice or hear anything strange when you returned home?”

  “No.” Before he could ask more, I countered. “Could you tell me what this is all about?”<
br />
  There was a long silence.

  “I wish you'd never come home to Vanderbraak Centre, Eschbach. You know that.”

  “You've made that rather clear, Chief Waetjen. But it's the only family home I have left, and I've always been cooperative.” That was politely stretching things, but it was worth saying. “It might be helpful for me to know exactly what the problem is.”

  “You insist you don't know?”

  “Chief . . . I have no idea, and you already know that or you'd have asked me to come down to the Watch station.” He had requested that of me several times before, when bombs had exploded and dead bodies had appeared on my property.

  “Eschbach . . .” There was a dramatic sigh. “A body appeared in the river this morning. No signs of overt foul play. That is, no bullet wounds, no broken bones, no crushed skulls, but Doktor Waasre also didn't find any water in the lungs.”

  “Do you know who it was?”

  “No identification. Rather, there was a set of papers, and a large folder of bills in his wallet, but the identification was all false. Those all reminded me of you.”

  I held back my own sigh. “I can't help you, Chief. I don't know anything about this. I can't even guess.” That was almost true. I had some guesses, of a general nature, but nothing that could have possibly helped the chief.

  “You always say that, but, you know, I can't say that I exactly believe you. Especially when your friends from the federal district are providing, shall we say, a protective detail.”

  “That's for Llysette. She'll be singing for the tzar of Imperial Russia in a few weeks. The Ministry of State is counting on her.”

  There was a silence, at least for a moment. “Give her my best, Eschbach. Don't know as you deserve her, but I can't fault a man for doing all he can to protect his wife.”

  I started to thank him.

  “Just keep out of it this time, Eschbach. Let the Spazi do their own dirty work.”

  “I have no intention of doing anything to upset you, Chief.”

  “Good. Right here is what I have to worry about. Hope everything goes well for her. Have to run.” With a click, he was off the line.

  I set down the wireset slowly. Hans Waetjen was no fool, and he was basically telling me that if I kept out of things he certainly wasn't about to drag me in. He was also saying he really didn't care what I did elsewhere—or what I did in selfdefense or to protect Llysette.

  I had to wonder, and worry, about who the intruder had been, and whether the body in the river had been his. The other question was to whom he belonged. Ferdinand? The New French? Why had he been in our house? Ferdinand's head ghost scientist Heisler doubtless knew far more about psychic research than anything that was in my difference engine files. So did Harlaan's research division.

  Yet someone wanted to know what I knew, and, apparently, Harlaan's boys had been more effective than I'd given them credit for in making sure whoever it was didn't pass on much. That, or matters were even more complicated than I'd been led to believe, and while that was usually the case, I had a depressing feeling that there was far more going on than any of the players knew.

  Depressing or not, there wasn't much I could do, except finish grading essays and quizzes until it was time to leave for environmental economics.

  There, the usual muffled groans greeted me as I handed back quizzes.

  The theoretical subject of the day was the economics of electrical power generation. It was a long class, and I was very happy to have survived it when Llysette met me at Delft's, where Victor had given me her table, by the woodstove, after discreetly asking if she would be joining me. She was a bit late, and I'd already sipped my way through one cup of chocolate and was starting a second when she sat down.

  I couldn't help but smile. “You look wonderful.” But then, she always did.

  “Johan. Always, you say that.”

  “That's because you do,” I pointed out.

  She shook her head, but she was still pleased.

  I waited until we'd ordered before turning to Llysette and saying in a low voice, “Watch Chief Waetjen called me this morning, just before my office hours.”

  “Do I wish to hear this?”

  “A dead body turned up in the river this morning, with no signs of injuries.”

  Llysette's hand went to her mouth.

  “Later,” I said. “We'll talk about it later, but I did want you to know. He seemed to think that any strange happening in Vanderbraak Centre was my doing.”

  “You did nothing.”

  “No, I didn't, but the chief is very skeptical of me. He let

  me know quite clearly that he thinks highly of you, and he understands why I want to protect you. He also knows it wasn't our doing, and he suspects whose doing it was.”

  “Almost, I would like a glass of wine . . . but then, I have Veronique for my first lesson after we eat.”

  “The fundamentalist Dutch Reformed child?”

  “Oui,” Llysette's tone was dry. “All the town would know a glass of wine I had . . . and the dean.”

  “I'll open a good bottle of Sebastopol tonight. We don't have to go anywhere. We saw the play last night, and you don't have any recital rehearsals tonight, do you?”

  “Johan . . . there is a dance tonight. One does not rehearse when one is twenty, and there is a dance. Not in New Bruges, one does not.”

  Victor arrived with the salads, and I had several bites before I asked, “Speaking of rehearsals, when do you start with Terese Stewart?”

  “Tomorrow afternoon.”

  “I thought she wasn't coming until next week.”

  “This way would be best, we decided.”

  I laughed. “What did you promise her?”

  “A larger fee.”

  “You are worried,” I said.

  “Johan, for the first time, I can pay to have the accompanist when I need such. Never will I sing in St. Petersburg but this time. It must be right.”

  I couldn't argue with that, not at all. “At the house, I hope?”

  “In the beginning. I have told Dierk we will need the theatre.”

  “Are you going to do any other pieces? Or have an encore piece?”

  “I had thought . . . ‘Adieu Forêt’ . . . ”

  I was out of my depth with that one. “Another piece I don't know.”

  “Tchaikovsky, it is, but the French version I will sing. It is the sad aria from Orleanskaya Deva . . . The Maid of Orleans . . . trés triste.”

  “Sad, for an encore?”

  “Trust me, Johan. The Russians, they will love the aria.”

  If she said it was so, it was, even if my practical Dutch upbringing wondered about it.

  “Mademoiselle, Herr Doktor . . . the spécialité . . . ” offered Victor.

  “Merci,” offered Llysette.

  “Thank you.”

  With a smile, Victor was gone, and I decided to enjoy the food and my diva. I had been slow to understand, but I had come to realize that such moments in life were fleeting, and to be savored.

  18

  WE DID GET to sleep in a little on Saturday morning, since Terese Stewart wasn't supposed to show up until two o'clock, and we dawdled for a bit over a pot of chocolate and some currant scones that I whipped up. They went well with the last of the orange marmalade that Mother had sent us at the end of summer.

  I took a shower before Llysette did and then hurried down to Vanderbraak Centre, where I picked up the paper, the mail from the post centre, and a few odds and ends of groceries from McArdles'. I'd hoped for some late beans from Florida or Cuba, but there weren't any, just a lot of parsley. So I changed plans and picked up a flank steak and the plain mushrooms, and two pounds of butter, and what there was for a salad, and then waited in line for my purchases to be rung up.

  “Professor Eschbach!”

  I didn't recognize the voice, but I turned anyway. A slender but very pregnant dark-haired young woman stood in the line behind me.

  “Yes?”
I said as pleasantly as I could.

  “You probably don't remember me, but I'm Kara Lacompagna. I studied with your wife two years ago, but then I got married.” She looked down. “I saw in the Chronicle that she was going to give a concert in Russia, and I was so envious.”

  “I hadn't seen the story,” I admitted. Usually, I leafed through the Vanderbraak Weekly Chronicle to check on the short section of university happenings, just to see if there were any articles about Llysette or her opera productions, but I hadn't been exactly regular in looking lately.

  “It just came out this morning. Anyway, tell her I was thinking of her, and I hope she has a wonderful time.”

  “Thank you.”

  On the way out of McArdles', I did pick up a copy of the Chronicle but didn't stop to read it, just putting it with the Asten Post-Courier on the front passenger seat of the Stanley. When I got back to the house, since Llysette was still upstairs dressing, I unloaded the groceries and put them on the kitchen counter, then went out and tucked the Stanley back into the car barn. There was no reason to leave it out, not when gray clouds were drifting in from the northwest. I'd spent too much on the thermal paint feature to let the weather beat it up unnecessarily.

  Back in the kitchen, before I put everything away and started on lunch, I opened the Chronicle and skimmed through until I found the College Notes section.

  Dean Katrinka Er Recchus announced that two faculty members have been honored by the president and the Columbian Ministry of State. Professor of Voice Llysette duBoise was recently awarded the Columbian Medal for Achievement in the Arts. She is the first faculty member of Vanderbraak State to be so honored. In addition, she has been chosen to represent Columbia in a transcultural arts exchange concert before the tzar of Imperial Russia . . . Professor Johan Eschbach has been picked by the Ministry of State to participate in environmental exchanges between Russian and Columbian experts . . . “This shows the success of our efforts to raise the caliber of the faculty at Vanderbraak State,” Dean Er Recchus said . . .

  Trust Katrinka to find a way to misstate matters and to take some credit where none was due. After shaking my head and closing the Chronicle, I glanced through the Post-Courier. The emphasis was back on the economic problems of the Aerodrome, and the local Asten politicians were suggesting that the federal government should be paying more for its usage of the south side of the Aerodrome as a Republic Naval Air Corps base, especially for the wear and tear caused by the more frequent antisubmersible patrols.