Empire of Unreason (20 page)

“Voltaire, let me aquaint you with James McPherson, a captain in
our Southern Rangers, and a pretty fine fellow.”

“ Y‘ can call me Jemmy, like most of ’em,” McPherson said,
stretching out one of his long, lean arms to shake hands with the
Frenchman. His soft, low-country accent had some of England and
Scotland in it, but in sum was all Carolina.

Voltaire took the hand. “Good to meet you,” he said. “But what,
may I ask, is a ranger?”

“Layabouts, most of us,” McPherson replied, face dead-pan. He
scratched the four or five days’ worth of beard that roughened his
face and smiled.

“They were formed up about ten years ago, to watch our borders,”

Franklin explained. “You’d look hard to find braver men, or better
ones in the woods.” He clapped McPherson’s shoulder. “It’s good to
see you here, Captain.”

“We almost didn’t make it,” McPherson said. “The Pretender
brought maybe a hundred troops up the Combahee and nearly
boxed us in at the Saltcatcher’s fort. We weren’t fixed to fight them,
so we followed th‘ plan. I left back some good men to harry ’em,
though, so I expect ‘em to come more slowly now.”

“It’s the best you could’ve done,” Franklin replied. “What about
your wife, Rachel—how is she?”

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“We brought the women with us,” McPherson said. “She’s with the
rest of my party, half a day away yet.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

McPherson worked his jaw angrily. It looked like he was cracking
pecans in his cheeks. “I had a pretty good cow pen there, Mr.

Franklin—five hundred acres—and now it’s been stolen from me. I
don’t care for that, nor did I care for running. We will turn and
fight, eventually, won’t we?”

“When we have the strength,” Franklin assured him. “Have you
reported to Nairne yet?”

“No—I only just now got in the gates. I will, though.” He nodded at
Voltaire, then seemed to remember something else. “By the by, I
ran across a Maroon on the way to meet up with his fellows. He
didn’t give us trouble, so we gave him none, but he said he was
coming here for a meetin‘.”

“It’s true. I gave out the invitation, through Mr. Nakaso.”

“Can’t trust ‘em,” McPherson opined.

“So I’m told,” Franklin replied. “But it may be time to set aside such
prejudices.”

McPherson shrugged. “I won’t trust ‘em at
my
back. Just
lettin’y’know.”

“Well, tell Nairne, for I’m no military man,” Franklin replied.

“I will. And I shall see you later. Mr. Voltaire, a great pleasure.”

“Agreed,” Voltaire said.

The fort was a flurry of activity as tarps went up over cook fires and
huddles of talking men and women. After marching out of heavily
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occupied Charles Town with only a few skirmishes, and traveling
for ten days on the “great western road”—really nothing more than
a muddy path through the wilderness—it was time for some
celebration, storm or no. The scent of venison and pan bread
mingled with woodsmoke; and a song struck up, accompanied by
bagpipe and fiddle. As they passed, men waved at Franklin.

“There’s our magus!” one of them cried. “Tell us, Mr. Franklin,
what new wonder will drive them tsarcobites back which way they
came?”

The question came from a fellow he didn’t know, a big man with a
bushy beard and a missing front tooth. A score of others raised
mugs at the question.

“As much as I’ll take credit for my puttering when it’s all said and
done,” Franklin said, “it won’t be any new wonder that licks ‘em,
but plain old colonial guts.”

That got a few cheers. Rum and compliments always made for an
appreciative audience. He doffed his tricorn and moved on.

“They seem confident enough.”

“Aye.”

“I wonder, though, if any have much idea of what the reality of war
is.”

“They’ve seen their share of mayhem.”

“I doubt they’ve seen anything like what James’ troops have known
in Europe. Or the Russians. It’s been hell and more than hell there
for centuries, Ben.”

“I know. And I intend to keep the borders of hell secure somewhere
out in the Atlantic.”

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They crossed on to the headquarters. It wasn’t a fancy building—

dressed logs, solid and serviceable, but not exactly a fine planter’s
home. At the front of it, they found Euler, seated on a small stool,
regarding everything around him with apparent interest. Nearby
Shandy Tupman, whom Franklin had assigned to guard the fellow,
watched Ben’s approach with matching but more singular interest.

Franklin nodded.

“We’ll take him for a bit, Shandy.”

“Good. I thought I’d take a crack at some of those fish in the river, if
you don’t mind.”

“Not a bit,” Franklin replied, “though it is raining.”

“Not for long, I’ll wager.”

As Shandy hurried off, Franklin turned to the captive.

“Hello there, Mr. Euler,” he said cheerfully. “I heard you’ve been
asking to see me. The march wasn’t too hard on you, I hope.”

“Not at all,” Euler replied pleasantly. “I appreciate being unbound.”

“We earn our trust by degrees. You did us a damn good turn, and
we appreciate it.
I
appreciate it. If I had listened to you earlier,
things might have gone even better for us than they did.”

“And so this time you only dally for
half a
day when I ask to speak
to you.”

“Believe it or not, I’m a busy man,” Franklin replied. “But here I am
now. You have more to say to me?”

“First, a request,” Euler said. “I’d much like pen and paper. I’ve
some calculations I’d like to work on.”

“Done, though you’ll understand our stores of such things are
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limited.” Franklin cocked his head. “You’ll also understand, of
course, that we still can’t trust you entirely, so we’ll be keeping a
watch on you.”

“Of course. You won’t like it, I think—what I have to tell you.”

“Go on anyway.”

“This flight to the countryside is a mistake. You were better to stay
in Charles Town where they might have let you work. You won’t
win this battle with musket and sword, Mr. Franklin, with a
thousand men or ten thousand.”

Franklin regarded the fellow for a moment. “You drink rum, Mr.

Euler?”

“If you don’t have vodka.”

“Let’s go inside, then.”

The rain was falling in sheets, and the illumination was that of a
bleak twilight.

A boy brought each of them a plate of venison and corn cakes, and
they retired to the makeshift war room they had spent the morning
setting up. It was dark, lit by a few tapers and oil lanterns. It
smelled of unfinished wood.

He poured each of them a glass of rum and sent the page for Robert.

“There,” Franklin said. “This is bound to be more pleasant with
some food and drink before us.”

“This is quite awful,” Voltaire said, sniffing the rum.

“I’m sure you’ve had worse, or it’s had you. Well, Mr. Euler? At
your leisure.”

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“A toast, first, to my hosts,” Euler said, holding his cup aloft.

“Indeed,” Voltaire agreed.

When Franklin made no move to drink his own health, Euler
stopped with his cup near his lips. “In my country, it is the custom
to drink one’s own health, when it is proposed.”

“Ah.” Franklin raised his cup, watched as Euler drained his.

Holding his breath against the fumes, Franklin finished his own,
then poured another round.

“What
is
your country, Mr. Euler?”

“Ah, that is a question, is it not? And not easy for me to answer.

Just now I was referring to the customs of Russia, but as I told you,
I wasn’t born there. I was born in Switzerland, in Basel. I was—as I
told you, and as you recognized me—a creature of the malakim. I
knew no others like myself, but in time I came to understand that I
was different from other men. I was naturally inclined toward
mathematics, however, and I studied it. I was called at a young age
to apply for a student scholarship to the Academy of Sciences at
Saint Petersburg and, through the agency of a friend, I was
appointed there.

“The academy, my friends, was a place of wonders. For me, it was
heaven. But it was also through my studies there that I gradually
came to understand the full depth of what my masters were
planning.”

“Well, they mean us no good, that much is obvious.”

“True. But what you must understand from the very beginning is
that there are, amongst the malakim, factions—just as there are
factions amongst the people of Earth. I don’t pretend to fully
understand the intricacies of their politics—after all, I was raised
with the point of view of only one—but I can characterize the two
main camps I knew as a child. The one camp—let us call them the
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Radicals—believe that the only permanent solution to their
irritations is the utter obliteration of mankind. Only then will they
be at peace, untroubled by our scientific proclivities. It is, I believe,
this faction you are most familiar with, as it was they who contrived
the fall of the comet upon England.”

“Go on,” Franklin said, his voice flat with anger.

“There is another faction—let us call them the Liberals— who think
it wrong to destroy humanity. They believe a kinship exists between
Man and their kind, and they also believe that there is some service
we can perform for them, though I have never been certain what
that service was.”

“I take it you were a Radical.”

“Yes.”

“I guessed as much.”

“The Liberals wish to control and limit mankind’s explorations of
the sciences. Through the ages, when they perceive advances being
made, they make appearance and offer their services, lift the
onerous burden of calculation and experimentation from the
shoulders of the philosopher. This has the effect, over time—”

“Of killing science in the cradle,” Franklin said.

“Yes. They substitute results for method, so that philosophers
become confused as to what their endeavor is. With tame genü to
do the magic tricks, it seems unnecessary to prove things, devise
elaborate demonstrations.”

“Sir Isaac understood this long ago,” Franklin said.

“Yes,” Euler agreed, “and so he was killed. And so would they

killyou
if they could. But I’ll return to that. The Liberals, as we
agree, create an illusion of science, and when the knowledge of the
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method is lost, they withdraw their aid. Thus, it is said, did they
confound the Greeks, especially Aristotle. They led him to mistake
metaphor for reality, kept him from the method of testing and
experimentation. Once his knowledge was established, it became a
false canon for a thousand years. It happened in other places and
times— Hermes Trismegistus, also known as Thoth, was helped to
become a magician, and again millennia of alchemy were born. For
you see, when after a generation or three the malakim withdraw
their aid, they leave empty ritual and nonsensical learning behind
them. Man’s knowledge of them fades to the status of folklore, and
men forget—until the next time. It has worked countless times,
since the first at Babel.”

“But not this time.”

“Oh, they are near. The most powerful centers of learning today are
in Saint Petersburg and in Peking of far Khitai, and in both places
the malakim have quite subverted the method of science and
replaced it with fairy wonder. The underwater ships you saw, like
the Russian airships you may remember, owe their motive power
and operation to malakim. No, their program goes well, save for
two things.”

“Those being?”

“The colonies, of course, are one. Here you conduct science
according to the method of Newton. You reject the malakim and
have in fact managed to bar their presence and conceal your
activities from their sight. As you say, you have discovered their
plan, refused their seductions. This has happened before, with lone
philosophers, but it was a simple matter to kill them. Now it is not
so simple. They must kill whole nations.”

“I see. So the Liberals and the Radicals can agree, at least, that we
Americans must die.”

“Precisely.”

“And the other thing?”

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“Something happened amongst them, something I don’t know the
details of. Something that transformed their annoyance with
mankind to true fear. It has caused some shifting of allegiances,
new political alignments. There is now a third group, a coalition of
members of the original two, who share a purpose. They mediate
between these extremes. They cooperate in a way they could not,
ten years ago. The immediate consequence of this is the invasion of
your shores. And, I promise you, this only begins it. There are
things at the academy…” He paused. “You have seen, as I said, only
a few of the malakim—those who have some natural proclivity for
manipulating matter, and thus those that affect us, become
sensible to us. But the greatest among them are the least material—