The Confusion (103 page)
Authors: Neal Stephenson
This similitude was apparently improvised by van Hoek, for a barrage of pea-sized hail had just sprayed out of a low swirling cloud and speckled the deck. All hands looked at the hail and dutifully imagined teeth. A gust came across the water, decapitating a thousand whitecaps and flinging their spray sideways through the air; it caught
them upside their heads, and in the same instant the sail popped like a musket-shot and the whole structure of the ship heaved and groaned from the impact. A rope burst and began thrashing about on the deck like a living thing as the tension bled out of it and its lays came undone. But then this momentary squall subsided and they found themselves working into a blustery north wind, across the darkling bay. The sun had plunged meteorically into the South China Sea, and its light was now overmatched by the lightning over Manila, which had merged into a continuous blue radiance that a person could almost read by.
“One day, long after they’ve given up hope, one of these wretches—one of the few who can still stand—will be up on deck, throwing corpses over the rail, when he’ll see something afloat in the water below: a scrap of seaweed, no bigger than my finger. Not a thing you or I would take any note of—but to them, as miraculous as a visitation by an angel! There’ll be a lot of praying and hymn-singing on that day. But it will all end in cruel disappointment, for no more seaweed will be observed that day, or the next, or the next. Another week they’ll sail—nothing! Nothing to do but run before the wind, and try with all their might to resist the temptation to cannibalize the bodies of the dead. By that point the most saintly Dominican brothers aboard will forget their prayers, and curse their own mothers for having borne them. And then another week of the same! But finally the seaweed will appear—not just a single bit of it, but two, then three. This will signify that they are off the coast of California, which is an island belted all around with such weeds.”
Jack noticed at about this time, that the blue-green light had grown much brighter, and had become steady and silent as if some eldritch Neptunian sun had risen out of the water, casting light but no warmth. Fighting a powerful instinctive reluctance, he forced himself to look up into the spars and rigging of the mainmast. Every bit of it—every splinter of wood and fiber of cordage—was aglow with crackling radiance, as if it had been dipped in phosphorus. It was a sight worthy of a good long look, but Jack made himself look down at the crowd on the quarterdeck instead. He saw a pool of upturned faces, teeth and eyes a-gleam, a well of souls gazing up in wonder.
“First ’twas Yevgeny—now Enoch Root is putting in his tuppence worth,” he joked, but if anyone did so much as chuckle, the sound was swallowed up in the susurration of waves against the hull. Van Hoek turned and glanced at Jack for a moment, then squared off again to continue his terrible Narration. The weird Fire of Saint Elmo had crawled down the mast to dance round the fringes of his
tri-cornered hat, and even the curls of his goat-hair wig had become infected by sparks that buzzed and rustled as if alive. The individual hairs of that long-dead goat were now re-animated as if by some
voudoun
chaunt, and began trying to get away from each other, which entailed straightening and spreading out-wards. The quivering tip of each hair was defended by a nasty corona.
Van Hoek paid it no mind; if he was even aware of it, he evidently saw it as a way to add emphasis to his words. “Yet their ordeal is not finished, but only takes a different form; now they must endure the torment of Tantalus, for that land of milk and honey is the domain of savages, and no victuals are to be found on her shores—only sudden and violent death. Now they must sail for many long days down that coast, moving ever southeastward, making occasional desperate forays on to the land to scavenge fresh water or game. Finally one day they spy a Spanish watch-tower glowering down upon ’em from a stony mountain-top above the sea. Signals are exchanged, letting those on the ship know that riders have been sent out, galloping down the King’s Highway to the City of Mexico to spread the news that this year’s Manila Galleon has not been cast away or sunk in a storm but,
mirabile dictu,
has survived. Several days more and then a Spanish town comes into view. Boats come out bearing the first fruit and vegetables that these travelers will have eaten in half a year. But, too, they bring tidings that both French and English pirates have rounded Cape Horn and are prowling the coast—many dangerous miles still separate them from their destination of Acapulco…”
The Saint Elmo’s Fire was dying down now, and the miraculous pocket of calm in which they had drifted for the last several minutes was giving way to something a bit more like a thunderstorm. A big roller got under the hull, and the faces on the upperdeck undulated like a field of grain as every man sought his balance.
“As I said, we will be departing a few weeks after the Galleon, and we require sailors…” van Hoek began.
“Er, excuse me there, Cap’n,” Jack said, “your description of the voyage’s terrors was most affecting, and I’m sure every man jack has shited his breeches now…but you have forgotten to include any
countervailing
material. Having aroused the
fear,
you must now stimulate the
avarice,
of these sailors or else they will jump overboard and
swim
to shore right now, and will
never
enlist again.”
Van Hoek now got a contemptuous look which Jack was only able to see with the help of a convenient triple lightning bolt. “You sorely underestimate their intelligence, sir. It is not necessary to come out and state
everything
so directly. A well-formed Narration says as much by what is left
out
of it as by what is put
in
.”
“Then perhaps you should have left more
out
. I have some experience in matters
theatrickal,
sir,” Jack said, “which is applicable here insofar as this quarterdeck resembles nothing so much as a stage, and
those,
to my eye—notwithstanding your very generous estimate of their intelligence—look like nothing so much as groundlings, knee-deep in hazelnut shells and gin-bottles, waiting—
begging
—to be hit over their heads with some direct and unambiguous
message.
”
A lightning-bomb detonated over Manila.
“There is your message,” van Hoek said pointing toward the city, “and your groundlings will go into it tonight, and dwell in that Message for the next two months. You have dwelt there, too, Jack—did the Message not reach your ears?”
“I may have heard faint whisperings—could you
amplify
it?”
“Of all the enterprises to which a man can devote his energies,” van Hoek began grudgingly, raising his voice, “long-distance trade is the most profitable. It is what every Jew, Puritan, Dutchman, Huguenot, Armenian, and Banyan aspires to—it is what built the Navies and palaces of Europe, the Court of the Great Mogul in Shahjahanabad, and many other prodigies besides. And yet in the world of trade, it is common knowledge that no circuit—not the slave trade of the Caribbean, not the spice trade of the Indies—exceeds the Manila-to-Acapulco run in sheer profit. The wealthiest Banyans in Surat and bankers in Genoa lay their perfumed heads on silken pillows at night, and dream of sending a few bales of cargo across the Pacific on the Manila Galleon. Even with all the dangers, and the swingeing duty that must be shelled out to the Viceroy, the profits never fall below four hundred percent.
That
city is founded upon such dreams, Jack. We are all going to go there now.”
Van Hoek finally shut up at this point, and in the silence that followed he realized that, down below him on the upperdeck, his rant was being dutifully translated into diverse heathen tongues. The translators took more or less time to relate it, depending on the wordiness of their several languages and how much they edited out or how freely they embellished. But when the last of them finally wound up his oration, a light pattering started up. Jack flinched, thinking it was more hail. But then it grew into a heavy, stomping roar, and he recognized it as applause. Dappa thrust both index fingers into his mouth and emitted a piercing noise. Van Hoek seemed startled at first; then understanding dawned, and he turned to Jack, removed his hat, and bowed.
JANUARY
1700
At bottom, all our experience assures us of only two things, namely, that there is a connection among our appearances, which provides us the means to predict future appearances with success, and that this connection must have a constant cause.
—L
EIBNIZ
G. W. Leibniz, President
Berlin Academy
Berlin, Prussia
To Mr. Daniel Waterhouse, Chancellor
Massachusetts Bay Institute of Technologickal Arts
Newtowne, Massachusetts Bay Colony
Dear Daniel,
The appearance of your letter on the doorstop of my Academy brought unlooked-for cheer to an otherwise frosty Berlin day, which developed into pleasure when I read that your Institute now has a roof over its head, and joy when you expressed your continued desire to collaborate with me. I confess that when two years passed without word from you, I thought you had been killed by Indians or hanged for a witch!
Much has happened since we last exchanged letters. You have probably noticed that I have a new address (Berlin) and what is more, it is in a new kingdom (Prussia). The monarch you knew by the name Elector Frederick III of Brandenburg is now called King Frederick I of Prussia. He is the same chap, still joyfully married to the same Sophie Charlotte, living in and ruling from the same palace that he built for her in Berlin, but he has (through machinations that would only disfigure
this letter) persuaded the Holy Roman Emperor in Vienna (still Leopold I, in case you have not been keeping up) to suffer him to use the title of King. His family (the Hohenzollerns) have been the Dukes of Prussia as well as Electors of Brandenburg for so many generations that it made sense to merge the two countries. The result is called Prussia but still ruled out of Brandenburg.
Sophie is as vigorous and crafty as always. She and her daughter have deemed it unwise to give the appearance of being too close, as this would give the idea, to friends and foes alike, that Sophie was now controlling an immense German state stretching from Königsberg in the east almost all the way west to the Rhine. For various reasons she prefers to seem instead like a contented elderly widow; so she lets her son George Louis think that he rules Hanover, and she travels to Berlin only occasionally, to pinch the cheeks of her grandchildren and put on a great show of harmlessness.
I shuttle back and forth between Hanover and Berlin all the time, to the point where the more bloody-minded Berlin courtiers were beginning to whisper that I must be acting as a secret conduit for Sophie’s influence. The problem being that I could not point to any official reason why I should be in Berlin so frequently. The real reasons (to have interesting conversations with Sophie Charlotte and her brilliant circle of friends, and to tutor Princess Caroline) are scoffed at by that sort of person.
Hence the Berlin Academy, of which I am the first president. It seems like the sort of institution that a King ought to found (the fashion having been established, of course, by your Charles II with his Royal Society) and so doing it makes Frederick’s new title seem that much more richly deserved. And being its president gives me an excuse to be in Berlin whenever I wish.
And it is well that I have
something
to belong to other than the Royal Society! By now you have probably received copies of the dreadful publications of last year: volume three of Wallis’s work, in which my twenty-five-year-old correspondence with Newton is exposed to the whole world, and made to seem like something other than what it really was, and Fatio’s
Lineae Brevissimi Descensus,
which is yet another bitter assault on me. A school of thought seems to be developing, according to which I had no inkling of the calculus until I stole the whole thing from Newton around 1677. Apparently my years of toil
in Paris under the tutelage of Huygens count for nothing!
I had best not begin to rant and rave about this. Let me instead turn to some of your questions.
Yes, I still correspond with Eliza. How could I not? But, as many people do when they have children, she settled, at some point, into a more steady kind of life, and since has not written to me as frequently. When the peace treaty was signed between France and the allies three years ago, her title as Duchess of Qwghlm was recognized by the French court, and she began to travel frequently to England—though almost never with her husband. She keeps a town-house near St. James’s and has even journeyed to Qwghlm occasionally to renew her ties to the place of her birth. Once or twice a year she journeys to my part of the world to spend time with her bastard son and to pay a call on Sophie. Her husband, with his long-standing connexions to the Navy, is more fond of Qwghlm than she is, and seems to phant’sy that the massive Castle there has the makings of a country house—though it is difficult to think of a more outlandish and wretched setting for one! And so he is there several months this last year overseeing a project to rebuild one part of that ruin, and make it over into a villa and a proper seat for the nascent Duchy of Arcachon-Qwghlm. Some in London grumble that he is getting ready to turn Qwghlm into a French naval base, à la Dunkerque. But I cannot imagine Eliza allowing any such thing to happen.
As a way of making a name for herself in London society she supports a charity for Vagabond-soldiers, which has been a pet cause of hers for some years. After the peace treaty was signed and the Tories came into power, the size of England’s army was drastically reduced, many regiments disbanded, and out-of-work soldiers have been roaming around the country making trouble ever since. Eliza’s obvious concern for them is an implicit criticism of Tory policies, which should put her in a good position if the Juncto ever returns to power.
Concerning her opposition to Slavery, she is not as outspoken, even though her feelings run deeper. She knows that to make a pest of herself on this topic would cause her to be ejected from society altogether, and to lose any hope of effecting change. Those in the legal profession are well aware of the work she has done in the last few years to secure freedom for some of the Taunton maids who were enslaved by Jeffreys after Monmouth’s Rebellion.
It is well that she maintains good relations with the Whigs. As you must know if you get any letters from London at all, they are close to Princess Anne, who will probably reign over England sooner or later. And they are the party of active foreign policy—or, setting aside euphemisms, of war. That wretch, King Carlos II (the Sufferer) of Spain, who has been on his death-bed for something like thirty-five years now, cannot possibly live much longer—no, really!—and when he dies there will certainly be another great war. For make no mistake. Louis XIV covets Spain, with her Empire and her mines and her mints. It must be admitted that the duc d’Anjou has as good a claim to the throne as anyone else. Never mind that he happens to be the loyal and obedient grandson of Louis XIV!
If you do not get a lot of mail, you might be saying, wait! I thought the matter had been settled by treaty, and that the Electoral Prince of Bavaria was going to be King of Spain. But he has died, suddenly and strangely. The Empire has nominated its own candidate: Archduke Charles, the younger son of the Holy Roman Emperor. There is public talk of negotiations and partition-treaties, but private preparation for war. And as the stakes of that war will be Spain, the beating heart that circulates silver and gold through the world’s markets, we may expect that it will be harder-fought even than the last one.
But on to more interesting matters.
You say you would collaborate with me. I will try to dissuade you by mentioning two facts. First, it is now clear that you will be ostracized from the Royal Society if you associate your name with mine. Second, we will be working for a chap who has his minions broken on the wheel if they incur his displeasure. No, I am not talking about my new King of Prussia, but about a taller monarch who lives farther to the east and owns about half of the planet.
If I have not scared you away yet, then consider the nature of the work. The thing I want to make embodies very little that is beautiful or elegant mathematically. It will consist of two components: a mechanical system for performing arithmetickal and logical operations upon numbers, and a vast compendium of
data
that will inform the operations of that machine. Much work remains to be carried out on both of these fronts. The former promises more satisfaction, in that it is a practical pursuit, akin to Hooke’s watch-making, and one may see the machine take shape on the workbench, and point to this gear or that shaft with a measure of pride. But I fear it is
not what really demands our attention now. Think of how the art of watch-making has advanced during our lifetimes alone, beginning with Huygens’s pendulums, &c., and extrapolate this into the future, and you will readily agree that arithmetickal engines will only get better with time. On the other hand—with due respect for the work that you and Wilkins did on the Philosophical Language—we have only just embarked upon the amassing of the
data
and the writing-out of the logical rules that will govern the machine’s workings.
You are the protégé of Wilkins and the only man still living who worked on that project; on his deathbed he passed his mantle on to you. It follows that you are the man best suited to assemble and organize the
data
that our machine shall require, and to place it in a form that may be read and understood by a machine. This is a matter of assigning prime numbers to the symbols and then encoding them in some medium, probably as binary digits. The medium needs to be something enduring, for it may be many generations before machines can be constructed that are capable of doing the work. Best would be thin sheets of gold.
For my part, I confess I have a thousand distractions, which conspire to make me a poor collaborator indeed. Any work that demands a vast amount of un-interrupted time is impossible for me—which is why I have suggested that you, alone in your quiet Massachusetts cabin, are better qualified to draw up the immense symbol-tables.
Setting aside political entanglements, calculus-controversies, and the three Ladies (Sophie, Sophie Charlotte, and Princess Caroline) who never stop asking me to explain things to them, my chief project, at the moment, is the monadology.
At any rate, what it comes down to is that my life for the next several years will consist of flying back and forth between Hanover and Berlin (with perhaps the occasional excursion to St. Petersburg!) trying to work out a beautiful set of logical rules. That matches well with the other part of the arithmetickal engine project, namely, writing down the set of rules that will govern how it processes symbols. As a matter of fact I should like to think that these two sets of rules—the one governing monads, the other governing the mechanical mind—will turn out to be one and the same. So I propose to take on this part of the undertaking myself, as it is so similar to what I am doing anyway.
That is my proposal for how we might collaborate, Daniel,
and I hope it pleases you. The Tsar is fearsome it’s true, but he is far away from you, and extremely distracted putting down the Raskolniki and the Streltsy and making war on the Swedes. I do not think you need to fear him. Hard as it might be to believe, there is no monarch in the world more committed to advancing what you call the Technologickal Arts. I believe that if I were to ask him for a ton of gold, explaining that we wanted to use it to store
data,
he would hand it over in a moment. But first you and I need to come up with some
data
so that those plates will not remain as blank as Mr. Locke’s
tabula rasa.
Yours affectionately,
Leibniz
