William Gibson & Bruce Sterling The Difference Engine

[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

opened the razor's leatherette case: nickel-plate gleamed against a bed of
violet velour. He emptied the toothpowder out on a sheet of Grand's engraved
stationery. He looked in the sponge-bag -- and found a sponge.
The glitter of the razor drew his eye. Dumping its various components atop the
starched bib of an evening-shirt, he used the penknife on his watch-chain to
pry the fitted velour nest from the case. It came away easily, revealing a
tightly folded sheet of foolscap.
Upon this sheet, in pencil, quite smudged with frequent erasure and
re-erasure, was written what appeared to be the start of a draft letter.
Undated, lacking any term of address, it was unsigned:
I trust you recall our two Conversations of th past Aug, during and of which
you so kindly entrusted me w yr Conjectures. I am pleased to inform you that
cert manipulations have yielded a version -- a true vers of yr orig -- which I
feel most confidently can at last be run, thereby demonstrating that Proof so
long sought & expected.
The remainder of the sheet was blank, with the exception of three faintly
penciled rectangles, containing the Roman capitals ALG, COMP, and MOD.
ALG, COMP, and MOD had subsequently become a fabulous three-headed beast,
frequent visitor to the higher fields of Oliphant's imagination. His discovery
of the probable meaning of this cipher, while examining transcripts of the
interrogation of William Collins, had failed to dispel the image; Alg-Comp-Mod
was with him still, a serpent-necked chimera, its heads nastily human.
Radley's face was there, quite dead, mouth agape, eyes blank as fog, and the
Page 191
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
cool marble features of Lady Ada Byron, aloof and impassive, framed by curls
and ringlets that were proofs of a pure geometry. But the third head,
sinuously swaying, evaded Oliphant's gaze. He sometimes imagined its face was
Edward Mallory's, resolutely ambitious, hopelessly frank; at other times he
took it to be the pretty, poisonous visage of Florence Bartlett, wreathed in
fumes of vitriol.
And sometimes, particularly as now, in the rubber bath's cloying embrace,
drifting toward the continent of sleep, the face was his own, its eyes filled
with a dread he could not name.
The following morning, Oliphant slept in, then kept to his bed, Bligh
supplying him with files from the study, strong tea, and anchovy toast. He
read a Foreign Office dossier on one Wilhelm
file:///F|/rah/New%20Folder/Difference%20Engine,%20The.txt (141 of 178)
[1/14/03 11:24:15 PM]
file:///F|/rah/New%20Folder/Difference%20Engine,%20The.txt
Stieber, a Prussian agent posing as an emigre newspaper editor named Schmidt.
With considerably more interest, he read and annotated a Bow Street file
detailing several recent attempts to smuggle munitions, each incident
involving cargo destined for Manhattan. The next file consisted of
Engine-printed copies of several letters from a Mr. Copeland, of Boston. Mr.
Copeland, who traveled in lumber, was in British pay. His letters described
the system of forts defending the island of Manhattan, with extensive notes on
ordnance. Oliphant's gaze, from long practice, slid lightly over Copeland's
account of the south battery on Governor's Island, something of a relic by the
sound of it, and quickly arrived at a report of rumors that the Commune had
strung a chain of mines from the Romer Shoals to the Narrows.
Oliphant sighed. He very much doubted that the channel had been mined, but the
leaders of the
Commune would certainly wish it to be thought to have been mined. As indeed it
might soon be, if the gentlemen of the Commission for Free Trade were to have
their way.
Bligh was at the door.
"You've an appointment with Mr. Wakefield, sir, at the Central Statistics
Bureau."
An hour later, Betteredge greeted him from the open door of a cab. "Good
afternoon, Mr.
Oliphant." Oliphant climbed in and settled himself. Pleated shades of
black-proofed canvas were drawn firmly across either window, shutting out
Half-Moon Street and the stark November sun. As the driver urged the cab-horse
forward, Betteredge opened a case at his feet, took out a lamp, which he lit
in a rapid and dextrous fashion, and fixed, with a brass apparatus of screws
and bolts, to the arm of the seat. The interior of the case glittered like a
miniature arsenal. He passed Oliphant a crimson file-folder.
Oliphant opened the file, which detailed the circumstances of the death of
Michael Radley.
He had himself been in the smoking-room with the General and poor doomed
Radley, the both of them awash with drink. Of their respective styles of
drunkenness, Radley's had been the more presentable, the least predictable,
the more dangerous. Houston, in his cups, delighted in playing the barbarous
American; red-eyed, perspiring, foul-mouthed, he lounged with one great coarse [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Podobne