Grantville Gazette Volume 24

by Eric Flint

  His most shocking discovery? Grantville was a rural backwater. Certainly that was common knowledge, but after a few dozen issues of Time Magazine, Adam knew it in his bones. He did not see it merely in terms of technology or history. He saw it in terms of culture and society. These vaunted up-timers would have been judged backward by the twentieth-century sophisticates of New York City or Paris.

  He started going through the Time collection issue by issue, starting in 1980, just before the AIDS epidemic was discovered. He made a fast note of each title and topic as he went, regardless of relevance to this assignment, building his own index. He slowed only to read the articles relevant to the AIDS epidemic thoroughly and abstract them. Time enough for the rest later.

  More paper. Another pencil. Always another puzzle on the next page.

  Shilts had died in 1994. Some important material dated after his book had been published in 1988. Adam saw that the story could not be understood from the book alone. Had any down-timer done this additional research yet? The up-timers must already know the story, but AIDS, far more than syphilis, was a disease of pariahs. Would this blind them to its lessons?

  ***

  The library never closed and was always crowded. Even in that busy place-no, especially there-people began to notice that Adam was on a quest. Finally another researcher approached him.

  "You seem to find the magazine collection useful. Perhaps you are compiling an index. If so, I would find ways to be grateful if you would share it."

  Adam made a noncommittal answer, but began to surface from the magazines and books more often to take notice of his surroundings. After a day of that, he stopped and just looked at where he'd been working.

  Some patrons, especially up-timers, just seemed to be reading. Others, both up-timers and down-timers, read and wrote more furtively. This was made easier by the rows of carrels, almost booths, for the researchers, Without that added privacy, the situation would have been intolerable. Some cast challenging glances at any who looked too closely. Many, very many, shielded their materials from others. A few of the researchers had men with them, humorless men, who seemed to be there only to keep prying eyes at a distance. Other researchers acted like spies from a poorly written comedy.

  These men were not hiding their work from the authorities so much as from each other.

  Adam had never seen a library with a bouncer before. This library had more than one.

  Adam speculated that the cloak check at the entrance collected blades for reasons beyond preventing patrons from using them on books. The stakes were high indeed. Monarchs paid some of these researchers, seeking to gain some advantage of history or technology over their rivals. The outcome of wars might be decided in these rooms.

  He was sure it was the largest collection of learned spies ever assembled. Certainly it was the most industrious-and most ironic. What they were "spying out" was free for the taking!

  What did this say about the authorities who permitted it? It couldn't be stupidity. It must be a statement of strength, or perhaps of arrogance. Or was there some deeper game here? Adam was accustomed to deeper games.

  From the door, a woman's voice called out, " Roach coach!" The midnight meal wagon had arrived. People began drifting outside. Some left a friend behind to guard their work.

  Uncle Thomas would have loved this, had he only lived to see it. Madame would have set up court in a corner, reading romances while directing her mignons in their research. Adam wished for their advice.

  Yes. It felt good to be alive, and more so each day.

  ***

  "Pizza. Italian food!" A young man, Tuscan by his accent, smiled at Adam. "An excellent choice." He sat next to Adam uninvited, but not entirely unwelcome. They ate outside the library in darkness broken by gas lights.

  "I grew weary of sausage and sauerkraut." Adam's conversation skills felt rusty. For weeks, he had avoided conversation.

  "My card." The young man handed it to Adam.

  Stephano Vasari

  Grantville Library Research

  Specializing in History amp; Biography

  Best Rates-Can you afford not to ask?

  "I'm Adam. How's business, Stephano?" Adam was genuinely interested in the answer. If he were judged morally unfit for medical training, he would need other work.

  "The usual for a freelance researcher with no great or wealthy patron. Castoff questions not wanted by researchers with better sponsors." Stephano assumed a bored voice: "How will my children fare? Should I invest in Virginia? Will the siege of Amsterdam destroy the tulip market, or create a shortage? Is there anything I should know about Lord Him or Lady Her which will help me gain favor? They seldom phrase that question so baldly, but it's clear what they want. All very predictable. I hope one or another of them will be so pleased with my answers as to refer me to a patron with real money and better questions. I'm seldom so lucky as to find an inquiry from someone who is in the encyclopedias. I seldom even bother to cover my work. I should have listened to my mother, finished my education, and become an attorney." Stephano rolled his eyes to indicate his opinion of that option.

  "It all sounds terribly tedious."

  Stephano shrugged. "It can be. The speculation is that you are compiling a magazine index. If you are generous with it, you might find many willing to share information or hire you in times of need, but be advised, few are willing to share patrons. Of course, you may already have one-not that I would pry."

  "Actually, I'm at loose ends. I intend to petition to study medicine."

  "You invest your idle days shrewdly, friend."

  "So I'm learning."

  Stephano finished his pizza. "And now, back to work. I have to find a way to tell an abbot in Campania that I can not find for him the current whereabouts of Prester John. I fear he will not pay well for that news, if he pays at all."

  Adam decided he liked Stephano. Perhaps it was the charmingly downscale American Western garb. It might have been fun to prowl Southwark with him. He made a mental note to watch for Time Magazine references to Prester John.

  Adam remembered Stephano's remark about "Italian food," and made another note in his future research list, adding "Hamburgers, "French Toast" and "French Fries." Americans and their culture, even their food, were the proverbial child of a thousand fathers.

  His research list was getting long. He was not sure of a market for it.

  Adam had enough material for his commentary on AIDS. The epidemiology aspect was obvious, but he would write a much longer paper. He began writing it the next afternoon. It would have been a much shorter paper without the magazines.

  ***

  Several days later, he dropped the essay off at Leahy for Dr. Abrabanel. He was told it would still be a few days before the doctor had his medicine, so he went back to the library. Stephano had recommended music by The Village People, so he signed up for a CD player.

  The Village People lyrics were suggestive, and the costumes more so. Adjust for period and Adam could imagine those Village People fishing the piers of London-with their hooks baited for sailors. But Adam found he could "stop the music" and did. The librarian suggested Steeleye Span, which turned out to be more agreeable, and quite fascinating to an Englishman.

  Adam had several references to The Village People in his Magazine index. He gave the dates and page numbers to Stephano without comment. The Village People were gay icons.

  Adam wondered when gay had replaced somodite in his mind. Recently, to be sure. The change had not happened easily, but he now found that he occasionally felt "uppity."

  ***

  Adam lay in his bunk, listening to a dozen neighbors breathe, snore, and turn. They didn't keep him awake. Something else nagged him.

  The lady with the pencils.

  Erasers. Ballpoint pens. Light bulbs. A child bawling over a deflated bicycle tire. Amid this, monarchs moved spies through the libraries like chess pieces.

  He got up, dressed, and stepped out into the night. Clear sky. Gas
lights.

  Gas lights. Not electric.

  He went to the library, and sat at a picnic table near his usual gas light. Within the building, Prometheus.

  Instead, Stephano emerged. He must have been sitting near a window, watching. This pleased Adam.

  "Pondering the night, Adam?" he asked.

  "One should, from time to time. Will you walk with me, Stephano?"

  They meandered quietly from one gas light to the next, never very close to the lights, never very far.

  After a time, Adam spoke, "Grantville."

  "Yes," Stephano replied. "Grantville."

  "They are Prometheus, Stephano."

  "Bringers of light. Yes."

  "And you know what happened to Prometheus? Look in the library, Stephano, and see the vultures."

  "Grantville isn't bound yet. They still stand defiant. But look again, Adam. When I see Grantville, I sometimes see the city of Rome. You know what they say of Rome these days?"

  Adam shook his head.

  "I would render it poetically: Where barbarians failed, Barbarini prevailed. Today's Romans use the monuments of the Caesars as quarries."

  "I'm afraid I've never been to Rome, Stephano."

  "I would love to show it to you some day, Adam. But here, have you seen the streetcars? The airplanes? The APCs? They had none of it when they arrived. All of it, quarried from whatever they found in their pockets. How long can they do this?"

  "I've been so buried in my own affairs. I hadn't noticed. But yes, I see it now. And it's of a part with all the frantic work. Steel. Chemicals. Guns."

  "Have you heard of their Granges, Adam? One of their major works is preserving their stock. They have refined seed and livestock breeds, but some of it hangs by a thread. There are not enough of the cattle, for instance, so they must breed carefully."

  "The large horses, also?"

  "Yes."

  "The vision of Prometheus came to me earlier. But there was more to it, Stephano. Look closely at the vultures feeding on the liver of this town, and what do you see? Indigestion."

  Stephano considered a moment. "Yes, it is true. It is such a delicious irony, such a magnificent jest. The Grantvillers could not be more clear than if they had hung a sign over the door. 'Heads I win. Tails you lose. Take what you like.' It must be galling."

  "Look deeper still, Stephano. Have you studied the nations of their world? There's not an important monarchy remaining except maybe in Arab lands."

  "True. Galling indeed."

  "And how did that happen, Stephano?"

  "That's the big question, my friend. You'll hear it discussed among researchers, if you sit at the right tables for lunch."

  "It almost doesn't matter. Whatever did it, it's right there in that library, being copied and spread round the world by the very spies who seek to stop it. An information plague, like one of their computer viruses. That's why they keep the library open to all."

  Stephano went dumb. Then it sank in. "My God! Can this be true?"

  "I'm sure of it. I think I may even have some grip on the details."

  "Adam, you're a very rich young man if you do."

  "Rich? Did Cassandra prosper? Stephano, to understand what they do, it helps to study epidemics. Look closely and see this one spreading. The CoCs. The Granges. The Ram and the Ewe. Religious toleration. Women in pulpits. Jews in Prague taking up arms and tearing down ghetto walls. They're spreading a cultural contagion that touches anything, everything."

  "And the library is the center of all this? I don't buy that, Adam."

  "The people take part also, just by the way they speak and carry themselves, Stephano. The library is how they persuade the great and mighty to steal it!"

  "You may be right, friend. It would explain much. But forgive me if I keep some skepticism."

  "Not at all."

  They walked more.

  "Did you expect all this when you set out for Grantville?" Adam waved around.

  "No. I met an up-timer in Rome named Harry Lefferts, who spoke of the medicines. I came for chloramphenicol and stayed for the library."

  "I'm on the chloramphenicol waiting list. Soon, I hope."

  They stopped and looked at one another, each waiting for the other to speak first.

  After a very tense moment, Stephano suddenly grinned rakishly and sang. "YYYYY-EMMM-CEEE-AAAAAA."

  A dam burst inside Adam. He fell to the ground convulsed in laughter.

  Stephano stood looking down at him. "Damned gas lights," he said mournfully. He then winked brightly. "But as Grandmother always said, chloramphenicol first."

  When Adam's laughter had run its course, Stephano helped him up. "Adam, when I went in for treatment, I got Doctor Nichols. He's not an easy man to fool." He paused a painful moment, then said, "So they know about me. Hang around me too much and… I suppose I should go now."

  "Wait." Adam considered a moment. "Adam and Stephano. I like the sound of that. Do you?"

  Stephano smiled. "I do. You make fine company, Adam."

  That was what Adam had needed to hear. "I think we need to find a more profitable line of work."

  "How?" Stephano asked. "As researchers?"

  "In a manner of speaking. I need to know if you've been working for anyone, Stephano. Will anyone object if you strike out on your own?"

  "There's nothing I can't clean up in a few days, then I'm free. I'm tired of living on the castoffs of others. And you?"

  "The same, and worse. I've no family, no home. I will adopt this place as my home if I can."

  "Agreed. I would not leave the libraries willingly. Have you found a patron, Adam?"

  "No. We can do better than that, I think. I have enough money to get us started."

  Stephano shrugged. "May I hope for intrigue, danger, excitement?"

  "I mean to reach high, Stephano." Adam stared at him appraisingly.

  "Adam, talk to Stephano."

  "Wait till you see some of the things I've found in the library."

  "Adam, should your Stephano be worried now?"

  Adam was pleased to see that his Stephano looked worried, a bit, but very interested as well.

  "I've been working on some essays I'd like you to read, Stephano. Perhaps they'll attract the desired attention."

  They were still plotting when the sun rose.

  ***

  Days later, Adam and Stephano stepped out of the library.

  "I'm tired of the roach coach," Stephano complained. "I hear they have excellent lunchtime entertainment at Cora's lately: improvisational comedy from a female impersonator who calls herself Veda Mae Culpa. Shall we research it?" Veda Mae Haggerty, Grantville's loudest gossip, had become a running joke with Stephano.

  "That sounds fine, but she's a lady, not an impersonator."

  "I mean to check her for an Adam's apple. Either way, she's no lady."

  "She's had no apples from me," Adam said, virtuously. "I need to stop by the Y on the way."

  At the Y, Adam found a message waiting for him. "It would seem I'm going to Leahy this afternoon. They have the curenstoff."

  "We'll eat first. Trust me, it will be good for your nerves. Then we'll go to Leahy."

  "We?"

  "We."

  Adam didn't argue. He'd be glad of the company.

  The Veda Mae Show helped his nerves. Stephano's rather loud donkey impressions helped more, since Veda Mae seemed oblivious of their intent. In the end, they agreed that it would require a medical examination to pass judgment on whether that was an Adam's Apple on her throat.

  The walk to Leahy did not last long enough for Adam's taste.

  ***

  The door to the examination room opened. Dr. Abrabanel entered.

  "Good afternoon, Adam. I have your medicine." Abrabanel placed it on the table. "You swallow it. Again, you understand that there's a small risk? One person in several thousand dies of it. I have not yet seen this happen. I judge the risk favorable, compared to your illness, but the decision is yours."r />
  Adam solemnly took the medicine.

  "I'll want you to visit every third day for three weeks, to monitor your progress. Now, I'd like to discuss your commentary on Shilts."

  "Certainly."

  "Let's allow the hospital to have their examination room back. We'll speak in my office."

  Adam's essay was in Abrabanel's office. The doctor took it up, and glanced at the first pages.

  "I keep an easy schedule these days. Some teaching. Some patients. You're not the first I've assigned this book. I see that you've noted AIDS as an epidemiological example. From there, most students go on to write about the disease itself. You've included some of this. Like most others, you've compared AIDS to syphilis. You've also compared that epidemic to the epidemics of our own time. At this point, some students append sermons. You haven't. Instead, you continue to study the course of the epidemic well beyond the period covered by the book, almost until the Ring of Fire." The doctor looked up.

  "The magazines ran out at that point, with no cure found."

  "Just so. You've noted that it first came to light in a pariah population, and that distaste for homosexuals hampered early understanding and efforts. You note that homosexual distrust of authority was also a complication in controlling the disease, even when it was better understood. You recount the development of organizations to help those with the disease, and the rise of protest movements. I find it interesting that you invested several paragraphs on a description of the American tradition of non-violent civil rights movements, and how the AIDS movements followed in that tradition." The doctor looked up again. The doctor pronounced homosexual like it was an unfamiliar diagnosis. At least he wasn't using sodomite.

  "It's an integral part of the story, sir."

  "Yes. I'd heard some of this from the up-time doctors and staff. If any students found that material, they didn't include it. Only you wrote of it as anything other than a sermon. You expressed no opinions."