Turtledove, Harry - The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump
VIP免费
2024-11-29
0
0
704.65KB
293 页
5.9玖币
侵权投诉
file:///G|/rah/Harry%20Turtledove%20-%20The%20Case%20of%20the%20Toxic%20Spell%20Dump.txt
= A JASCAN production =
= Scanned November 2001 =
= Proofed: Version 1 =
(If you make corrections please change the version number to a higher number, save and resubmit
the file)
I
I hate telephones.
For one thing, they have a habit of waking you up at the
most inconvenient times. It was still dark outside when the
one on my nightstand went off like a bomb. I groaned and
tried to turn off the alarm clock. Since it wasn't ringing, it
laughed at me. The horrible racket from the phone kept
right on.
"What time is it, anyhow?" I mumbled. My mouth tasted
like something you'd spread on nasturtiums.
"It's 5:07," the clock said, still giggling. The horological
demon in there was supposed to be friendly, not sappy. I'd
thought more than once about getting the controlling cantrip
fixed, but twenty-five crowns is twenty-five crowns. On a
government salary, you leam to put up with things.
2 Harry Turtledove
I picked up the receiver. That was the cue for the noise
elemental in the base of the phone to shut up, which it did—
Ma Bell's magic, unlike that from a cheap dock company,
does exactly what it's supposed to do, no more, no less.
"Fisher here," I said, hoping I didn't sound as far
underwater as I felt
"Hello, David. This is Kelly, back in D.SfcC."
You could have fooled me. After the imp in one phone's
mouthpiece relays words through the ether to the one in an-
other phone's earpiece and the second imp passes them on
to you, they hardly sound as if they came from a real person,
let alone from anyone in particular. That's the other reason I
hate phones.
But the cursed things have sprouted like toadstools the past
ten years, ever since ectoplasmic doning let the phone
company crank out legions of near-identical speaker imps, and
since switching spells got sophisticated enough so you could
reliably select the imp you wanted from among those legions.
They say the/re going to have an answer to the voice
problem real soon. They've been saying that since the day af-
ter phones were invented. I'll believe it when I hear it Some
things are even bigger than Ma Bell.
Nondescript voice aside, I was willing to believe (his was
Charlie Kelly. He'd probably just got to his desk at
Environmental Perfection Agency headquarters back in the
District of St Columba, so of course he'd picked up the
file:///G|/rah/Harry%20Turtledove%20-%20The%20Case%20of%20the%20Toxic%20Spell%20Dump.txt (1 of 293) [2/14/2004 1:03:08 AM]
file:///G|/rah/Harry%20Turtledove%20-%20The%20Case%20of%20the%20Toxic%20Spell%20Dump.txt
phone. Three-hour time difference? They don't think that
way in D.SfcC. The sun revolves around them, not the other
way round. St Ptolemy of Alexandria has to be the patron of
the place, no matter what the Church says.
All this flashed through my mind in as much of a hurry as
I could muster at 5:07 on a Tuesday morning. I don't think I
missed a beat—or not more than one, anyhow—before I
said, "So what can I do for you this fine day, Charlie?"
The insulating spell on the phone mouthpiece kept me
from having to listen to my imp shouting crosscountry to his
imp. I waited for his answer: "We have reports that there
might a problem in your neck of the woods worth an unoffi-
cial look or two."
CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP 3
"Whereabouts in my neck of the woods?" I asked
patiently. Easterners who live in each other's pockets have no
feel for how spread out Angels City really is.
The pause that followed was longer than conversations
between phone imps would have required; Charlie had to be
checking a map or a report or something. At last he said, "Ifs
in a place called Chatsworth. That's just an Angels City dis-
trict name, isn't it?" He made it sound as if it were just
around the comer from me.
It wasn't. Sighing, I answered, "It's up in St. Ferdinand's
Valley, Charlie. That's about forty, maybe fifty miles from
where I am right now."
"Oh," he said in a small voice. A fifty-mile circle out from
Charlie's office dragged in at least four provinces. Fifty miles
for me won't even get me out of my barony unless I head
straight south, and then I'm only in the one next door. I don't
need to head south very often; the Barony of Orange has its
own EEA investigators.
"So what's going on in Chatsworth?" I asked. "Especially
what's going on that you need to bounce me out of bed?"
"I am sony about that," he said, so calmly that I knew he'd
known what time it was out here before he called. Which
meant it was urgent. Which meant I could start worrying.
Which I did. He went on, "We may have a problem with a
dump in the hills up there."
I riffled through my mental files. 'That'd be the Devon-
shire dump, wouldn't it?"
"Yes, that's the name," he agreed eagerly—too eagerly.
Devonshire's been giving Angels City on-and-off problems
for years. The trouble with magic is, it's not free. All the good
it produces is necessarily balanced by a like amount of evil.
Yeah, I know people have understood that since Newton's
day: for every quality, there is an equal and opposite counter-
quality, and all the math that goes with the law. But mostly
it's a lip-service understanding, along the lines of, as long as I
don't shit in my yard, who cares about next door?
That attitude worked fine—or seemed to—as long as next
file:///G|/rah/Harry%20Turtledove%20-%20The%20Case%20of%20the%20Toxic%20Spell%20Dump.txt (2 of 293) [2/14/2004 1:03:08 AM]
file:///G|/rah/Harry%20Turtledove%20-%20The%20Case%20of%20the%20Toxic%20Spell%20Dump.txt
door meant the wide open spaces. If byproducts of magic
blighted a forest or poisoned a stream, so what? You just
4 Harry Turtledove
moved on to the next forest or stream. A hundred years ago,
the Confederated Provinces seemed to stretch west forever.
But they don't I ought to know; Angels City, of course,
sits on the coast of the Peaceful Ocean. We don't have
unlimited unspoiled land and water to exploit any more. And
as industrial magic has shown itself ever more capable of
marvelous things, its byproducts have turned ever more nox-
ious. You wouldn't want them coming downstream at you,
believe me you wouldn't. My job is to make sure they don't.
"What's gone wrong with Devonshire now?" I asked. The
answer I reaBy wanted was nothing. A lot of local industries
dispose of waste at Devonshire, and some of the biggest ones
are defense firms. By the very nature of things, the bypro-
ducts from their spells are more toxic than anybody else's.
Charlie Kelly said, "We're not really sure there's anything
wrong, Dave." That was dose to what I wanted to hear, but
not dose enough. He went on, "Some of the local people"—
he didn't say who—"have been complaining more than
usual, though."
"They have any reason to?" I said. Local people always
complain about toxic spell dumps. They don't like the noise,
they don't like the spells, they don't like the flies (can't blame
them too much for that; would you want byproducts from
dealings with Beelzebub in your back yard?). Most of the
time, as Charlie said, nothing is really wrong. But every once
in awhile...
'That's what we want you to find out," he told me.
"Okay," I answered. Then something he'd said a while
before clicked in my head; I hadn't been awake enough to
pay attention to it tiB now. "What do you mean, you want me
to take a quiet look around? Why shouldn't I go up there
with flags flying and comets blaring?" A formal EPA inspec-
tion is worth seeing: two exorcists, a thaumaturge, shamans
from the Americas, Mongolia, and Africa, the whole nine
yards. Sometimes the incense is a toxic hazard all by itself.
"Because I want you to do it this way." He sounded har-
assed. "I've been asked to handle this unofficially as long as I
can. Why do you think I'm calling you at home? Unless and
until you find something really out of line, it would be best
CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP 5
for everybody if you kept a low profile. Please, Dave?"
"Okay, Charlie." I owed Charlie a couple, and he's a pretty
good fellow. "It's politics, isn't it?" I made it into a swear
word.
"What's not?" He let it go at that. I didn't blame him; he
had a job he wanted to keep. And telephone imps have ears
just like anything else. They can be tormented, tricked, or
file:///G|/rah/Harry%20Turtledove%20-%20The%20Case%20of%20the%20Toxic%20Spell%20Dump.txt (3 of 293) [2/14/2004 1:03:08 AM]
file:///G|/rah/Harry%20Turtledove%20-%20The%20Case%20of%20the%20Toxic%20Spell%20Dump.txt
sometimes bribed into blabbing too much. Phone security
systems have come a long way, yeah, but not all the devils are
out of them yet.
I sighed. "Can you at least tell me who doesn't want me
snooping around? Then if anybody tries anything, I'll have
some idea why." Just silence in my ear, save for the light
breathing of my phone imp. I sighed again. It was that land
of morning. "Okay, Charlie, I'll draw my own conclusions."
Those conclusions made for one ugly drawing, let me tell
you. After a last sigh for effect, I said, "I'll head up to the
Valley right away. God willing, I can get going before St
James' Freeway turns impossible."
Thanks, David. I appreciate it," Kelly said, coming back
to life now that I was doing what he wanted,
"Yeah, sure." I resigned myself to a long, miserable day.
"'Bye, Charlie." I hung up the phone. The imp went dor-
mant. I wished I could have done the same.
I grabbed a quick, cold shower—either the salamander
for the block of flats wasn't awake yet or somebody had
turned it into a toad overnight—a muddy cup of coffee, and
a not quite stale sweet roll. Feeling as near human as I was
going to get at half past five, I went out to the garage, got on
my carpet, and headed for the freeway.
My building has access rules like any other's, I suppose:
anybody can use the flyway going out, but to come in you
have to make your entry talisman known to the watch demon
or else have one of the residents propitiate him for you. Oth-
erwise you come down—with quite a bump, too—outside
the waB and the gate.
I rode west along The Second Boulevard (don't ask me
why it's The Second and not just Second; it just is) about
twenty feet off the ground. Traffic was moving pretty well,
6 Harry Turtledove
actually, even though we all still had our lanterns on so we
could see one another in die predawn darkness.
The Watcher who lets carpets onto St. James' Freeway
from a feeder road is of a different breed from your average
building's watch demon. He holds the harder closed so many
seconds at a time, then opens it just long enough for one
carpet to squeeze past. Nobody's ever figured out how to
propitiate a Watcher, either. Oh, if you're quick—and
stupid—you may be able to squeeze in on somebody else's
tail, but if you try it, he'B note down the weave of your carpet,
and in a few days, just like magic, a traffic ticket shows up in
your mailbox. Not many people are stupid twice.
The freeways need rules like that; otherwise they'd be
impossibly jammed. As things were, I got stuck no matter
how early I'd left. There was a bad accident a little north of
the interdicted zone around the airport, and somebody's car-
pet had flipped. The damned fool—well, of course I don't
actually know the state of his soul, but no denying his foolish-
file:///G|/rah/Harry%20Turtledove%20-%20The%20Case%20of%20the%20Toxic%20Spell%20Dump.txt (4 of 293) [2/14/2004 1:03:08 AM]
file:///G|/rah/Harry%20Turtledove%20-%20The%20Case%20of%20the%20Toxic%20Spell%20Dump.txt
ness—hadn't been wearing his safety belt, either.
One set of paramedics was down on the ground with the
fellow who'd been thrown out. They had a priest with them,
too, so that didn't look good. The other Red Cross carpet was
parked right in the middle of the flight of way, tending to vic-
tims who hadn't been thrown clear—and making everyone
detour around it. People gawked as they slid by, so they went
even slower. They always do that, and I hate it.
After that, I made pretty good time until I had to slow
down again at the junction with St. Monica's Freeway. Merg-
ing traffic in three dimensions is a scary business when you
think about it. Commuters who do it every day don't think
about it any more.
The rush thinned out once I got north ofWestwood, and-I
pretty much sailed into St. Ferdinand's Valley. I slid off the
freeway and cruised around for a while, getting closer to the
Devonshire dump by easy stages and looking for signs that
might tell me whether Charlie Kelly had a right to be wor-
ried about it.
At first I didn't see any, which gladdened my heart. A cou-
ple of generations ago, the Valley was mostly farms and citrus
CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP 7
groves. Then the trees went down and the houses went up.
Now the Valley has industry of its own (if it didn't, I wouldn't
have had to worry about the toxic spell dump, after all), but
in large measure it's still a bedroom community for the rest
of Angels City: lots of houses, lots of kids, lots of schools. You
don't care to think about anything nasty in a part of town like
that.
Before I went out to the dump itself, I headed over to the
monastery to do some homework. The Thomas Brothers
have chapter houses in cities all across the west; more
meticulous record-keeping simply doesn't exist. Even if die
Valley looked normal, I had a good chance of finding trouble
simply by digging dirough die numbers diey enshrined on
parchment
I've heard die Thomas Brodiers have an unwritten rule
diat no abbot ofdieirs can ever be named Brodier Thomas. I
don't know if diat's so. I do know die abbot at die Valley
chapter house was a big-nosed Armenian named Brodier
Vahan. We'd met a few times before, diough I didn't often
work far enough north in Angels City to need his help.
He bowed politely as he let me precede him into his
office. Candlelight gleamed from his skull. He was the bald-
est man I'd ever seen; he didn't need to be tonsured. He
waved me to a comfortable chair, dien sat down in his own
hard one. "What can I do for you today. Inspector Fisher?"
he asked.
I was ready for diat. Td like to do some comparison work
on births, birth defects, healings, and exorcisms in die north-
west Valley ten years ago and in die past year."
file:///G|/rah/Harry%20Turtledove%20-%20The%20Case%20of%20the%20Toxic%20Spell%20Dump.txt (5 of 293) [2/14/2004 1:03:08 AM]
摘要：
展开>>
收起<<
file:///G|/rah/Harry%20Turtledove%20-%20The%20Case%20of%20the%20Toxic%20Spell%20Dump.txt=AJASCANproduction==ScannedNovember2001==Proofed:Version1=(Ifyoumakecorrectionspleasechangetheversionnumbertoahighernumber,saveandresubmitthefile)IIhatetelephones.Foronething,theyhaveahabitofwakingyouupatthemos...
声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！
分类：外语学习
价格：5.9玖币
属性：293 页
大小：704.65KB
格式：PDF
时间：2024-11-29
渝公网安备50010702506394
