Ghosts of Columbia (72 page)

Read Ghosts of Columbia Online

Authors: L.E. Modesitt Jr.

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

BOOK: Ghosts of Columbia
12.75Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
I
lurched awake, drenched in sweat from running through endless corridors papered in difference engine printouts, banging at doors that were only images plastered over steel walls, blood running from fingers raw from trying to claw my way through solid steel.
Sitting, breathing heavily, on the edge of the pallet bed, I rubbed my eyes and looked at my hands. No blood. Then, I studied the four walls again.
Nothing had changed. The bulb over the gray metal door still bathed my cell quarters in dim light. The shower nozzle dripped. I still smelled old oil and cement dust. My datacase stood by the side of the bed, and my head ached.
Finally I checked my watch—six o’clock Thursday morning, less than three days, and I was both exhausted and ready to murder the whole lot of them. Llysette was safe, at least, provided Second Secretary Trumbull-Hull hadn’t reneged, provided … provided … I didn’t want to think about all the things that could have gone wrong. That way lay even greater insanity.
Instead, I took a cold shower and washed away the worst of the stink of my own fears.
Then I forced myself to write out more codes and ideas while I waited to be retrieved for more work.
It was becoming clear, all too clear, that unless I could resolve this problem, the next one would be worse—I wouldn’t stand a chance because I’d simply get potted with a sniper rifle. Then everyone would deny everything, wonder publicly, and I’d be an entry on the obituary page. Llysette would mourn—for awhile—but no one mourns forever.
That line of thought made me even angrier, especially at those who had set me up, and the list included the oh-so-helpful Minister Jerome—for who else could have allowed a search of my house?—Speaker Cannon, Brother Jensen, and possibly even Harlaan Oakes. I was convinced, for some reason I couldn’t nail down yet, that Cannon wanted me in the hands of the Revealed Twelve. If they killed me, then he had a civil hook, so to speak, to eliminate them. If I succeeded in somehow disrupting their plans or escaping, then that proved that God was not on their side—at the very least. And … miracle of miracles, if I pulled off creating a ghost that supported the existing order, all would be well for Cannon, Deseret, and Columbia … and who would care about the wear and tear on the poor Eschbachs?
I went back to work, grimly, and had three pages in longhand before they got me at eight o’clock. The timing confirmed yet other suspicions about their status and class—all good family men maintaining a hidden retreat manned by younger disciples. I wouldn’t have been totally surprised if the entire place were locked and deserted while I slept—except for one or two of the new faithful—but I really didn’t see the point in trying to escape, not yet.
My escort to the difference engine part of the redoubt was someone new, slightly more rotund—also in the gray jumpsuit and mesh hood.
The difference engine area hadn’t changed either—gray concrete, shimmering booth shield, and smeared one-way glass that reflected a man whose beard was coming in mostly white. I knew there was a reason I preferred to be clean-shaven, against the Dutch tradition or not.
I wolfed down the half-breakfast while the difference engine went through its checks. Then I entered all the code lines I’d written over the hours preceding.
The prophet’s image was sharper, perhaps sharp enough, because the other profile sections would further refine that image. Time to go back to text.
Sometime after midday the door opened to admit four people. The three figures behind the tall leader turned their hooded visages toward me but did not speak. All three wore dark cloaks under the hoods, so voluminous that their shapes were indistinct even under the gently unforgiving light of the blockhouse’s—or warehouse’s—glow strips.
“Report on your progress, Minister Eschbach.” The word “Minister” was almost mocking.
I ignored that.
“I might have something… . Actually, I could show you something now.”
“How do we know this will work?”
How many times had I heard that question?
“It will work. I could provide a demonstration.”
“Good. After that, we will give you the coordinates where the prophet will be recalled.”
I had to force the laugh, but I managed, and then it wasn’t forced because the sheer ludicrousness of the demand became all too hysterical.
When I finally choked off the laughter, the tall man snapped, “Explain.”
“Don’t you understand? You can’t do this from a distance. Where this equipment is—that’s where the prophet’s ghost will … reappear.” I almost choked on that. “You’re lucky I can do that.”
“How does that allow a demonstration?”
“I’ll manifest the profile, then collapse it before it recalls the actual prophet’s ghost.”
“Then do so.”
I shrugged and began to work, checking the projection antennae and then the auxiliary disk before loading the one I wanted … the incomplete one that didn’t draw full power. I also set up the program run to trigger only three of the eight profile configurations.
“Are you ready?” I asked after about ten minutes. They were beginning to fidget—no patience at all. If they’d known what I was thinking I’d have died three times over.
Almost immediately, at the focus of the antennae appeared the hazy patriarchal image—from the waist up, since I hadn’t bothered with lower limbs on the partial disk—wavering into place, white-limned and slightly flickering, but strong enough to cast a faint reflection in the mirror of the two-way glass.
“It is the Revelator.” Even the tall man’s voice was hushed.
“This is only a partial retrieval, and I need to collapse it.” I turned off the entire difference engine—safer and quicker that way.
The image vanished like the flame of a quick-snuffed candle.
“Why?”
“You don’t want the Revelator to be anchored here, do you?”
The fact that there was no answer was answer enough.
“That will not affect his ghost, will it?” His voice was almost anguished.
“The full ghost was never called. That was just the ghost profile. That’s why it was hazy.” That was a lie, of course. The figure was hazy because I’d inhibited the full projection. “You didn’t want him locked here, did you?”
“That is not clear,” rasped one of the three behind the tall man.
“Look,” I explained. “I told you earlier, where a ghost is created or recalled, that’s where the ghost remains. You can see that when a ghost is created by violent death anywhere in Deseret. The ghost doesn’t move. If I call up the ghost of the Revelator here, his ghost will be locked here, and I don’t think that’s what you want.” I gestured toward the equipment before me. “This has to be set up where you want the Revelator to be recalled and where you want his ghost to remain.”
“Can one of us do it?”
I laughed, easily. “I know what I’m doing, and it’s taken me years to get this far.” That was true. It was also largely irrelevant.
Figures looked at each other.
“Then make the equipment ready. You will have less than two hours to reassemble it and call the Revelator.”
They all left, except for the guard. Once again, I had the feeling that whoever had briefed them had left out a few details—like I was creating ghosts and not recalling them, like ghosts of all sorts had limited capabilities.
Why had those details been left out? Either to ensure that one Johan Eschbach got eliminated in anger or to give me a chance? Or both? Ferdinand’s agent, and there had to be one in the group, wanted me dead. Maurice-Huizinga’s agent—or Dietre’s—wanted me to escape. Cannon wanted me to escape, and I was convinced he had his own agents in the Revealed Twelve. Any government worth its salt has agents among the dissidents, and Cannon was too capable not to. I didn’t know who was who, just that they had to be there.
That was another reason why I’d pushed myself to get the ghost file done so quickly. I had to get it done before people started comparing notes, and they’d do that if I took too long.
Undoing cables and setting drives for transport was much quicker and easier than writing and checking codes. I doubt it took even a half hour.
“I’m done for today,” I finally said. “Everything’s ready to go whenever you are.”
They led me back to my cell. I even got an earlier dinner there. But I didn’t digest it very well. I knew what was coming, and there was little I could do but wait
and prepare, wondering if I were really prepared, if my ghost of the Revelator would be as stunning as I’d planned.
The shower nozzle dripped, and the dim bulb shed minimal light, and I waited and sniffed old oil and cement dust—and tried not to think about all that could go wrong.
I
actually found myself dozing when they came. It was quarter past midnight, and they didn’t bother to knock. They still wore hoods, but not the gray jumpsuits—regular dark gray or navy blue suits and polished shoes.
“It’s time to go.” .
I grabbed the datacase.
“You won’t need that,” said the tall man.
“Unless something goes wrong,” I snapped.
“Let him keep it.”
They let me keep the case, with the quotes and the engineering drawings, and the definite conclusion that they had absolutely no intention of seeing me walk away from my efforts.
For the first time, their weapons were obvious—all Lugers, straight Austro-Hungarian version, and all of very recent manufacture, and that confirmed that Ferdinand’s people had placed one agent, very openly.
The tall man pointed toward the corridor by which I’d entered. “Straight ahead.”
“Where’s the difference engine?” I asked.
“In the hauler. You’ll travel with it.”
I let my steps drag slightly so that I edged back toward the guards who followed, enough so that I had a chance … a faint one, but one against an untrained fanatic.
The hauler wasn’t the commercial kind that had brought me but a square city van, with double doors on the rear. All of us went into the cargo space, except for whoever was driving and one other figure.
The ride wasn’t that long, no more than ten minutes, really, before the hauler backed up to some sort of loading dock. Someone opened the double doors.
“You carry the equipment case, Eschbach.”
As requested, I picked it up, and set the datacase on top of it.
Two more slender figures carried the difference engine.
I got the faintest glimpse of white light—the Temple, I suspected—in the crack between the van doors and the loading dock doors. Even the quick breath of cold air smelled clean, compared to the way I smelled and felt and the oil and cement dust I had been breathing for days.
I followed the two men with the difference engine down a narrow staircase to a ventilation duct that had been removed. The Twelve people liked ventilation ducts, I gathered.
I didn’t like carrying anything but resolved to throw both cases or drop them strategically at the slightest provocation.
I didn’t have any.
Three more of them walked behind me, carrying the long-barreled Lugers pointed in my direction as we walked along the empty tunnel, leading presumably to the Tabernacle.
It had to be the Tabernacle, because the Temple hadn’t been consecrated until well after the death of Joseph Smith. Hard to imagine how a Virginia farm boy ended up in New Ostend, called to a mystical hill among skeptical Dutch, proclaiming a new religion that had turned into a sovereign and powerful nation in little more than a century.
The Tabernacle made sense for several other reasons. It was open to outsiders, and thus the ghost of the prophet would reinforce their claims not just in the Temple, but to all. And of course, everyone would understand his words just as they did. I almost laughed at that but instead kept lugging the equipment box and my datacase.
The tunnel smelled faintly of dust and of a sickly-sweet odor I would rather not have identified and hoped represented the remains of smaller rather than larger animal matter. The only sounds were those of eight men breathing—strange how most armed fanatic organizations are predominantly male—and the echoes of steps in the tunnel that my head almost brushed.
At the other end of the tunnel was an ancient wrought-iron gate whose lock had been previously drilled out. How many tunnels were there beneath the Temple square? Probably not so many as there would have been if Columbia had been successful in the Saint wars.
Then, there might not have been a Temple or Tabernacle at all. Who could tell what might have been?
“Up the stairs.”
The stone steps looked ancient, but they couldn’t have been. The centers were barely hollowed, and the stone walls were rough. I followed the two with the difference engine, and we exited from a closet into an arched foyer, gloomy and dark.
I waited, since the others did. The tall man eased up beside me. “How close does it have to be to where you recall the ghost?”
“Five to ten feet.”
There was a sense of a nod, and he stepped in front of the men with the difference engine. “Follow me.”
They did, and I did, too, my booted feet nearly silent where the carpet lay over the stone floor.
In the dimness, they set the difference engine on the floor in the open space between where the Choir of the Saints normally sat in the high raised seats and the lower seats occupied by worshipers or whoever came to hear speakers or the choir.
One of the younger men laid a power cord from somewhere in the back.
With a hooded figure holding a flash wand, I reconnected the difference engine cabling and then set the antennae in place. Without waiting for any sort of approval, I flicked the power switch and monitored the machine as it self-checked.
I kept checking the positions of the various schismatics, knowing that I’d have only instants once the Revelator’s ghost materialized, knowing that I wouldn’t have a chance to recheck when the time came. I’d just have to act, and hope the old training held enough to immobilize those necessary to escape.
My mouth was dry as I set up the programs and profiles and laid the auxiliary disk and its backup out. Theoretically, what I had in mind would work. It had worked before, but not quite so much had been riding on it, and I’d be really pushing the power parameters with my modifications, not that I had any choice.
First I made sure all eight profile sections were keyed to be projected; then I loaded the auxiliary disk. Then I gave the execute command and prayed … but not for long. While the power built and the antennae almost hummed and vibrated, I eased the calculator from my jacket pocket—I’d left my overcoat behind—then waited until a ghostly shape began to appear in the darkness. Ghosts are slightly phosphorescent and far more impressive in near-total darkness than in daylight or artificial light. Glow strips, especially, tend to wash them out, but the Tabernacle was dark.
The face, and the expressive eyes, appeared first, and then the figure in antique clothes.
The difference engine began to whine, ever so slightly, and I could smell the overload, the odor of ozone and overheating plastics and circuit boards.
“Wherefore, hear my voice and follow me, and you shall be a free people, and ye shall have no laws but my laws when I come, for I am your lawgiver, and what can stay my hand?”
Even the voice was stronger than ghost-normal, except it was more like a mental voice—that was true of all ghosts. People tended to hear the kind of voice they expected, and that should help slow the reactions of those around me.
The eight stood there, stunned.
I had to admit—the ghost was pretty impressive, turning his head from side to side in midair, as if to judge them. The beard was white, patriarchal, definitely patriarchal, and the eyes seemed to burn.
I slipped the pens into the calculator and slowly stood, as silently as possible, angling to one side, so that the disassociator wouldn’t impact the ghost of the Revelator.
“That if the day cometh that the power and the gifts of God shall be done away among you, it shall be because of unbelief… . To believe in man, any man, prophet or man, rather than in the living God and his Revelations, that is idolatry, and marks the idolator as the spawn of Laman. I did not bring your forefathers to Zion to be idolators.”
I winced. That had come out more strongly than I’d expected.
Seven of the eight still looked stunned, perhaps because the ghost aura was overpowering. Number eight turned, and he had something cold and metallic in his hand.
I knew what was coming and pressed the delete key on the pseudocalculator. Bruce’s toy made no sound, but the guard, reformed apostle, whoever he was, shuddered and lowered the Luger, but only momentarily. He staggered, and that was enough.
He was fighting ghosts, a disassociator, and me. I was fighting him and fatigue. The Luger clattered on the floor, and one of the other schismatics shook his head and turned slowly.
Beyond us, that sonorous voice rolled forth into their minds, seemingly turning their reflexes into molasses.
“The Lamanites shall destroy this people, for they do not repent. All peoples who do not follow the Revelations of the living God shall be destroyed.”
I stepped inside his guard and crushed his throat with my elbow. He struggled for a time more, then slowly crumpled. People forget how deadly a well-placed elbow can be, and an elbow’s good close up, extremely good.
Staggering back as the second schismatic moved toward me in slow motion, in my own slow motion, I bent and recovered the calculator, replaced the loose pen, and touched the delete key. The schismatic jerked like a marionette with spastic strings. His face smoothed, and a phantasm of white lifted from him and vanished. Another zombie.
I replaced the batteries in the calculator and focused it in turn on each of the six remaining figures who were entranced by the ghost of the Revelator. I had to replace the batteries once more in the process, and yet no one turned. Shooting fish in a barrel would have been more of a challenge, caught as they were in the power of the ghost that continued to become ever more real- and solid-looking even as the smell of burning insulation grew stronger.
In the end, there were also seven zombies and a body. The body was that of the first man, who had to have been Ferdinand’s agent. I bent down and ripped off the wig, toupee, whatever you called it, and underneath was one of the flexible metallic-mesh helmets that Branston-Hay’s team at Vanderbraak State had worn. My guts churned. I collapsed the mesh helmet and pocketed it. That evidence
would have implicated Columbia, even if it had been planted by Ferdinand, and I wasn’t about to let that happen.
Behind me, the ghost intoned, “Cursed is he who puts his trust in man. More cursed is he that puts his trust in a man’s false interpretation of what I have said. Trust rather the Revelations of thy Father in heaven than the man who twists my words… .”
Even after all I’d done, it was hard to believe he wasn’t talking to me. Then maybe he was.
Sometimes age and treachery are enough to overcome skill. Anyway, this time they had been. But I wasn’t done. I stripped off the vest and molded the plastique in place quickly around the difference engine, then connected the wires.
I scooped up my datacase and sprinted toward the door.
I didn’t quite make it before there were difference engine parts everywhere … some embedded in the wooden supports for the balcony. For a moment, I leaned against the outside door and gasped, before opening it and stumbling out.
Since it might have been a good idea to yell, I did: “Help!”
Nothing happened. I yelled again.
A guard in a blue uniform hurried across the lighted stones as I stepped out into the open air for the first time in what seemed forever. Behind the guard, the light-sheathed Temple towered into the dark night sky. I could even see the brighter stars, and a faint smile cracked my lips as I took a deep breath of the city’s polluted air, which seemed so clean at that moment.
“Who are you? The Tabernacle’s locked. What were you doing there?” His words were cold, brusque.
“I’m Columbian Minister Eschbach. I was kidnapped by … those people. The ones inside. You’d better contact Bishop Hansen of Saint security and the First Counselor.”
“Why?” The policeman clearly didn’t like my unshaven countenance.
At that point there was a second small explosion from within the Tabernacle, and I wondered what one of the zombied schismatics had been carrying. “Go see for yourself.”
He didn’t but waited until two compatriots arrived, and they started in on me while he eased into the Tabernacle through the smoke. I hoped some of the zombied Revealed Twelve had survived the explosion. I had no doubts that the ghost of the Revelator had.
“Can you prove you’re Minister Eschbach?”
“The real Minister Eschbach is at the Columbian embassy.”
I dug out my passport. “You will note, gentlemen, that I possess this passport. You will also note that it contains my picture.”
Sometime around that point, Bishop Hansen trotted up. “Eschbach! Are you all right?”
The two police officers drew back and exchanged glances.
“I’m tired, and it’s been a long week. I’ve got a few bruises, I think, but I’m in far better shape than I expected.”
“Minister Eschbach was detained by the schismatics,” Hansen said crisply. “Not another word.”
They nodded.
I turned to him and lowered my voice. “There’s some exploded equipment in there, and some very stunned schismatics. They’re not going anywhere. I’d strongly suggest you get the pieces of the equipment out of there immediately and swear everyone to secrecy.”

Other books

Mustang Annie by Rachelle Morgan
Versailles by Kathryn Davis
Too Much to Lose by Holt, Samantha
Slow Burn by Ednah Walters
Bless Us Father by Kathy Pratt
The Flower Arrangement by Ella Griffin