Ghosts of Columbia (42 page)

Authors: L.E. Modesitt Jr.

Tags: #Science Fiction, #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Alternate History, #United States, #Literature & Fiction

BOOK: Ghosts of Columbia

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“That I can guess. The chief … what should I tell him?”

“The truth … just not all of it. Tell him that the man raised something and you slammed the door and called and I came running. Then we waited.”

“And the box?”

“The box is something that the chief doesn’t need to know about. The gun is sufficient.”

So Llysette called, and the three of us waited … after I tucked the box away in the hidden wall chamber under the lodestone in the study.

The chief arrived in the black Watch car, along with Constable Gerhardt, he of the ample mustaches and thin, always-cheerful face.

“Doktor Eschbach.” The square-faced and gray-haired chief snorted. “Why do strange things always happen around you? Why couldn’t you have retired somewhere else?”

“This is the family home,” I pointed out, although it had only been in the family for two generations before me, and that was a short tradition compared to many in Vanderbraak Centre. “Where else would I go?”

“Anywhere,” snorted the chief before he turned to the zombie. “What were you doing here?”

“A man gave me five hundred dollars to kill the people who lived here. Something happened.”

“What happened?” asked Waetjen.

“I don’t know. I remember reaching for my gun, and she slammed the door. That was when it happened.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know.” Korfman’s face and voice remained expressionless.

“Disassociative ghosting,” I suggested. “Strong mental block against murder, but not conscious.”

“Eschbach … I know about that.”

“Sorry.”

“Did you ever see these people before?”

“No.”

“How did you know whom to shoot?”

“The man showed me a picture.”

That bothered me—more than a little—since there weren’t any pictures of the two of us together, except for the wedding pictures, and we’d given none to anyone, except for the pair we’d sent to my aunt and mother in Schenectady. They’d come to the wedding, but the pictures weren’t ready until later. But someone had a picture.

Waetjen glanced toward me.

“There aren’t any pictures except our wedding pictures, and no one has any except us and my mother.”

“There wasn’t one in the paper?”

I nodded. “I hadn’t thought about that. It wasn’t very good.”

“Good enough for this.” The chief glared at me, as if it were my fault that someone had been dispatched to kill us, then motioned to Gerhardt. “Drive his steamer down to the post. Use your gloves and don’t touch anything. The wheel won’t have any prints but his anyway.”

We watched as the two steamers departed.

After the chief left, I turned to my dark-haired soprano. “I’d like to invite my friend Bruce up for dinner as soon as we can. Would that be all right with you? You don’t have any night rehearsals yet.”

“Mais oui
… and you think he could help with … what here has happened?”

“I want him to look at that device, and I’m afraid that they’ll be watching me more closely.” I shrugged. “I don’t even know who ‘they’ are.” I thought about the clippings from the Federal District. “With some of those clippings I’ve received, it
could be any one of a number of different groups involved.” What I didn’t say was that my past experience had taught me that once one group got involved, so did another, and often another.

“Johan … with you, nothing it is simple.”

I bent over and kissed her cheek. “Nor with you, my dear.”

I picked up the handset and wired Bruce. It seemed like I always wired or saw Bruce when I needed technical support. Then, he’d been the only one I’d been able to trust when I’d been doing fieldwork and he had been one of the designers in Spazi technical support. He’d been smart and left the Spazi early. Because of Elspeth’s—my first wife’s—medical condition, I’d stayed … and paid dearly. And in the end, the bullets meant for me had taken both Waltar and Elspeth.

“LBI Difference Designers,” answered Bruce.

“Doktor Leveraal, this is your friendly environmental professor.”

“I should have guessed. It’s been one of those days.” There was a pause. “What can I do for you this time? No more insurance, please?”

Bruce remained an “insurer” of sorts, since he had all the files on the ghosting-destruction research project that had almost led to my and Llysette’s deaths—along with a large number of other unexplained deaths, zombies, and “accidents” across Columbia, especially in the Federal District and in Vanderbraak Centre. He also had the files on my not-so-well-known technology that could replicate the electric free fields that defined a ghost. Meddling with that, when Llysette had tried to kill me with her Colt-Lugar, had led to our own “ghost possession.”

“A dinner invitation, for you to meet my lovely bride.”

“That makes you sound almost human, Johan. I won’t ask any more. When?”

“I’d hoped this week. Llysette doesn’t have night rehearsals until the week after, and then it’s going to get hectic. She’s been asked to do a big concert in Deseret—Great Salt Lake City.”

“You’re going with her.”

“There isn’t any choice. She’s female, and they’re Saints.”

Beside me, Llysette grimaced.

“Tuesday, Thursday, or Friday. Monday and Wednesday nights I’m the one who stays late.”

“Tuesday?”

“I was afraid of that. I did want to meet the lady, and your cuisine is superb, but I worry about the technical details.”

“What can I say?” I temporized, knowing everything I said was probably being recorded somewhere.

“I’ll see you on Tuesday. What time?”

“Seven. I could make it later.”

“Seven is fine. Have a pleasant weekend, Johan.”

“I will. And thank you.”

“Not yet.” With a laugh he was gone.

I set down the wireset and turned to Llysette. “We might as well go down to Borkum and go shopping, as we had planned.”

“After this?” asked Llysette. “After someone, they wanted to turn us into ghosts?”

“Do you have a better idea to get our minds off this? We’ve done what we can right now.”

After a moment, she gave me a rueful headshake and nodded.

What else could we do?

CHAPTER FOUR

M
arie Rijn shooed us out of our own house that Tuesday, but I was glad she had decided to stay on as my housecleaner, even after Llysette and had married, because she kept it Dutch-spotless, and for me or Llysette to have done the cleaning would have taken too much time out of schedules that were already too crowded—and getting worse.

“She likes me now, and she did not,” observed Llysette as I waited for the Stanley’s flash boiler to heat.

“She didn’t know you.”

“Different this is. I know, Johan.”

I wasn’t about to get into that argument. We were both different people from those we’d been a year earlier—far different—and I wasn’t certain I had yet learned how different. Every so often, I still recalled a memory image that had to have been Carolynne’s or had a shivery feeling about justice that hadn’t come from me. How long would I continue to process such additions to my soul? Forever? Sometimes I wondered how I’d managed to add two ghosts to my soul and still survive, but I tried not to dwell on it.

“You are thinking.
C’est vrai, n’est-ce pas?”

“Oui,”
I finally admitted.

She leaned over and kissed my cheek, and I eased the Stanley down the drive toward Deacon’s Lane. Despite the clear winter blue sky, there was a crust of skim ice on the Wijk, and a chill wind gusted around the steamer as we crossed the river bridge into Vanderbraak Centre.

As I usually did, I followed my morning routine, dropping off Llysette and then getting my paper from Samaha’s before heading back to my office and holding office hours, of which few-enough students availed themselves. While I waited for their infrequent appearances, I corrected papers or worked on various lectures.

Still, when I looked at my desk and the stack of quizzes remaining from the natural resources intro class, I had to repress a sigh. I knew that they would be depressing. So I looked out the window, toward the Music and Theatre building, and that wasn’t terribly encouraging either.

Sometimes I do get premonitions, and I was definitely getting one about Llysette’s concert engagement. After five years of relative obscurity, why was she being offered the same fees as Dame Brightman? Or ones that were in the same general area, at least? And why were the Saints making the offer?

That line of speculation didn’t go far, because the wireset chimed, and after another deep breath I answered. “Professor Eschbach.”

“Professor Eschbach. Chief Waetjen here.”

“Yes, Chief. Have you found out anything more?”

“Not much. Have you found anything out of place—or anything that your would-be killer might have left?”

“Might have left? I can’t say that I’ve really looked, Chief. I could search if you want.”

“The zombie died this morning—delayed sympathetic bloc, Doktor Jynkstra thinks. But he had mentioned a box of chocolates.”

“Chocolates?”

“That’s what he said.” .

“I haven’t seen anything like that around lately. I mean I gave Llysette a box after the concert, and there were several she got from admirers, but he couldn’t have meant that.”

“Eschbach—I know what your real background is, even if no one ever told me. I don’t like this sort of thing happening to Vanderbraak Centre.”

“I don’t either. I give you my word that I don’t have the faintest idea what this is all about or even why. I was unconditionally released from all … past obligations by the highest possible authority.” I paused. “If I learn of anything that will help you, I’ll certainly let you know.”

“Please do. And I’d appreciate it if you would let me be the judge of whether it is helpful.”

“I understand, Chief.” My understanding did not mean my agreement, not when two of his Watch officers had previously been suborned into trying to kill me.

Another of my lifelong friends—the chief. I stood and looked out, wondering which was worse, facing the chief or my upcoming intro course in natural resources. Or the ungraded quizzes.

I settled on the quizzes and eased myself behind the desk and took out the pen with the red ink. I needed it. About half of them still hadn’t the faintest idea of why food/life complexity distribution was a pyramid or why ancient cities were invariably located on waterways or even of the total extent of the impact of natural resources on the development of human culture.

I groaned after the eleventh quiz. I shouldn’t have, because when things get bad, they invariably get even worse. The wireset chimed again.

“Yes?”

“Doktor Eschbach,” announced Gilda, “a Harlaan Oakes for you.”

My stomach turned at the name—Ralston McGuiness’s successor—in essence, the de facto chief of intelligence for President Armstrong, not that the president had too much more than a token operation, but it could be deadly enough, as I had already discovered once before. Had he sent the clippings I’d received on Saturday? Wouldn’t Jerome have used the Spazi cover firm?

“Johan here.”

“It’s good to hear your voice, Johan. The president is having a reception for the arts next week, Wednesday, in fact, and you and your charming wife will be getting a formal invitation. I wanted to let you have some advance warning. He’d like very much to see you both there, and I’d hoped, since you will be in the Federal District, that perhaps we could get together for a few minutes.”

“That might be possible,” I answered warily.

“The president also wondered if Fraulein duBoise—she still is using that as her performing name, isn’t she?—if she might be willing to sing one or two songs.”

“I would have to ask her, but I wouldn’t see any objection to it … so long as she can sing something already in her repertoire. A week’s too short notice for something new.”

“Anything she would like.”

“Should I let you know? She’ll need an accompanist and a run-through.”

“We can arrange that for the morning of the reception. I can guarantee a good accompanist, perhaps Hatchet or Stewart or even Spillman. We could chat then.”

That wasn’t a request. I swallowed silently. “I’ll wire you later today or in the morning and let you know what she’ll sing.”

“Good, Johan. Very good. The president would very much like that on the formal program.”

“I’ll let you know.”

“Good. I look forward to seeing you on Wednesday next, Johan.”

“I’ll be there.” As if I had any choice. When the head of government, ceremonial or not, wanted something, it usually meant trouble, especially now that President Armstrong was trying to re-create the stronger Executive Branch once envisioned by Hamilton and using more than a few questionable tactics in his struggle with Speaker Hartpence. Having dealt with the Speaker before, though, I liked his tactics and supporters even less than the president’s.

I looked at the wireset. Problems had this way of compounding. If we were to be ready on Wednesday morning, that meant leaving the day before and staying in the Federal District Tuesday night. That brought to the fore another problem that I’d avoided. There are some things you don’t want to think about—such as how to deal with former in-laws. But Judith and Eric had been good to me and stuck by me
when no one else had. So … that was another thing I had to ask and work out with Llysette, and I wasn’t exactly looking forward to that either.

With a deep breath and a glance at my watch—ten-fifteen—I picked up the wireset again and tapped out Llysette’s extension.

“Is this the charming Llysette duBoise Eschbach? One Herr Doktor Eschbach would like to request your presence at luncheon. He would also like to inform you that word of your talent has spread far and wide.”

“Johan … I beat notes today. Do not mock me.”

“I’m not. You will be receiving an invitation to the big fall arts dinner at the Presidential Palace next week—a week from tomorrow. The president—President Armstrong—has requested that you sing two pieces of your choice at the annual Presidential Arts Awards dinner.”

“I do not understand …,” she murmured.

“A friend called me. He thought you would like as much advance notice as possible.”

“But … a week?
Impossible!
I cannot do that.”

“I told them it would have to be from your current repertoire. They agreed.”

“One year … they would forget me. Now, I am to perform before the president?”

“We can talk about it at lunch, but I thought you would like to know. I just got off the wireset.”

“Johan … what is happening?”

I wished I knew. “You’ve been rediscovered. That’s what. Enjoy it—you’ve suffered in obscurity all too long.” That was all true, and certainly the way I felt, but my guts were still tight.

“Much you have to explain at … when we eat. I must beat more notes.”

“I love you.”

“You are sweet.
Au’voir
.”

Sweet? That wasn’t a word I’d have applied to myself. Devoted, responsible, even hardworking, but not sweet.

Next, I needed to find my hardworking and scheming chair, but Herr Doktor Doniger was out. Gilda promised to let him know I was looking for him. That meant I’d still have to run him down after lunch or after my two o’clock class.

Eleven o’clock came and, with it, Natural Resources 1A, and Mister Ferris.

“Professor Eschbach, will we have to know all of this material about the water cycle for the test?”

“No. About half, but I’m not telling you which half.” I turned to the redhead in the third row. “Miss Zand, would you please explain the environmental rationale for avoiding the use of internal combustion vehicles?”

Miss Zand looked blank.

“Mister deRollen … why do we use steamers?”

“Professor, that’s because when you use a burner, an external combustion engine, you can adjust it so it doesn’t pollute, and you get mostly carbon dioxide and water, instead of carbon monoxide. That’s really high for a petroleum-fueled internal combustion engine…”

I tried not to smile too broadly, but you have to take your successes and the thoughtful students when you can.

Because of all the questions about the quizzes I handed back at the end of class to avoid too many questions, Llysette actually made it to Delft’s before I did and was sipping chocolate.

“You look wonderful, Fräulein duBoise, or Frau Eschbach.” And she did, in the gray suit and pale green blouse that she’d found in Asten in August.

“Frau Eschbach … in some ways, that I like.”

She waited until we had ordered before she finally asked, “This performance … at the Presidential Palace … you were not joking?”

“No. Harlaan Oakes called me. He said you would be getting a formal invitation. I’ll check the post centre after lunch.”

“An accompanist … I know no one, and Johanna … on such short notice—”

“They promised either Hatchet, Spillman, or Stewart.”

Llysette’s mouth did open at that. “They … are …”

“The best, I’m sure. You’ll have a rehearsal and run-through that morning. Ten o’clock. I’m supposed to give them the pieces, the arrangement details, this afternoon or tomorrow morning.”

“Tomorrow morning.” Llysette was back to sounding like a diva, if with the softer tone I associated with the overtones from Carolynne. She shook her head slowly. “So strange this is.”

“Very strange,” I agreed. “I have another problem.” And I did—my former wife’s sister and her husband.

“A problem?”

“Judith and Eric.”

“And?” Llysette raised those dark and fine eyebrows. Was there a twinkle in them?

I wasn’t sure, but I’d promised myself—and LIysette—to try not to hide anything. So I didn’t. “I normally stay with them in the Federal District … but … Judith …”

“Elspeth’s sister she was.”

I nodded. “We could stay elsewhere.”

Llysette frowned. “Strange it is…” She shook her head. “With that we have no difficulties.”

“You don’t?” I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t have.

“Johan, we will stay with them, if they will have us. You are a dear man, and you asked, and that says much.”

It said that I was probably stupid, but if I were going to be and stay honest with
Llysette, I didn’t have many choices, especially since I had a tendency to be so selfdeceptive that there remained too many things I didn’t catch.

My soup arrived, as did Llysette’s croissant sandwich, and we ate quickly, with scattered bits of conversation.

“The dean … now she has declared that we will expand the graduate strings program … but we may have no more faculty positions.”

“What about voice?”

“The voice area, that remains to be seen. Barton, he has returned from his …”

“Sabbatical,” I supplied.

“And now he talks about a baritone and a contralto we should have.” Llysette took a last sip of her chocolate.