Michael Flynn - In the Country of the Blind

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IN THE COUNTRY OF THE BLIND

Michael Flynn

What if it were all a plot?

What if there really were a secret conspiracy runnning things behind the

scenes...and they were incompetent?

It is a little known fact that over a hundred years ago an English scientist-

mathematician named Charles Babbage invented a machanical computer that was

nearly as powerful as the "electronic brains" of the 1950s. The history books

would have it that it was unworkable, an interesting dead-end.

The history books lie. In reality, The Babbage Machine was a success whose

existence was hidden from view by a society dedicated to the development of a

"secret science" that would guide the human race away from war and toward a

better destiny.

But as the decades passes their goals were perverted-and now they apply their

knowledge to install themselves as the secret rulers of the world. Can they do

it? Even though their methods are imperfect, unless they are stopped their

success is assured. In the Country of the Blind, the one-eyed man is King...

"This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this

book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely

coincidental, except for some friends and relatives who make cameo

appearances."

PART 1

HORSESHOE NAILS

Then

The rain fell in torrents, heating a staccato rhythm on the cobblestoned

street. It created rivers and oceans on the paving and formed a curtain

beyond which only vague shapes could be seen. The man waited beneath the

hissing gas lamp in the middle of the block. The rain ran off his broad-

brimmed hat and down the back of his neck. It was a hot, sticky rain; not a

bit of coolness in it, and he endured It stoically. He hitched the waterproof

leather briefcase under his arm, changing his grip for the hundredth time. Far

off to the south he heard booming; but whether of guns or of thunder, he

didn't know.

A drumming of hooves from G Street. The man turned expectantly; but it was

only a troop of cavalry that turned the Corner: horses stepping high, striking

sparks off the paving with their hooves. Leather straps and belts gleamed

wetly in the dusk and the metal of sabers and spurs and bits jangled like an

Arabian belly dancer.

He read their cap badges as they rode by: Third Pennsylvania. He raised his

arm and huzzahed and their captain saluted him smartly with his quirt.

He watched them fade out of sight as they vanished once more behind the

curtain of rain, headed for the Potomac bridges and who knew what fate? When

he turned his attention back to the street, the landau was there in front of

him. The nigh horse, no more than three feet away, blew his breath out and

rolled his eyes at him. Startled, the man took a step backward into a puddle,

while the driver, a shapeless lump on the lazyboard, pulled on his reins to

calm the beast.

The door opened and Isaac poked his bead out, smiling sourly. "Well, Brady,"

he asked in his broad New England accent, "will you climb in, or do you like

the rain so much?" Brady didn't bother to answer. He stepped into the cab and

sat beside the older man. The upholstery inside the landau smelled dank and

musty; the hint of mold in every breath. Everything in Washington smelled that

way. It was an awful town. What did people say about it? That it had all the

charm of a Northern city; and all the efficiency of a Southron one. Brady

shook the rain off his hat, and wiped his face with his neckerchief. The

carriage started with a jerk.

He saw Isaac glance covertly at the briefcase, and snorted. "Impatient,

Isaac?" he asked. His Indiana voice twanged like a Jew's harp. "My train

arrived two hours ago. You could have met me then, at the station."

"Ayuh," Isaac agreed readily. "Could have. Didn't."

Brady grunted and looked out at the passing houses, colorless and gray in the

pouring rain. They were headed toward Georgetown. Abruptly, the texture of the

ride changed. The bouncing and rattling gave way to a sticky, sucking sound.

The horses' hooves slapped the muddy road. Brady smiled. "I see they haven't

finished paving the streets yet."

"Ayuh. Nor finished the Capitol Dome, neither." Isaac looked at him, then

looked away. "Great many things still unfinished."

Brady let that lie and they rode awhile in silence. "Town's danged spy-crazy,"

said Isaac alter a while. "Too many comin's and goin's. Draws attention. I was

followed last week, I think. Naught to do with the Society, but the Council

thought 'twere best we not meet at the station."

Brady looked at him. That was as close to an apology as he was ever going to

get from the New Englander. He sighed.

"'Tain't important," he said.

Isaac leaned over and tapped the briefcase with his index finger. "But this

is," he said. "This is. Tell me square, Brady, and on the level. Is it what we

expected?"

Brady didn't answer him directly. He stroked the leather with his palm,

feeling the wetness. The metal clasps were cold to his touch. "Three weeks of

calculations," he said. Three weeks, even with Babbage engines, and six of us,

working in two teams around the clock. We used numerical integration and some

of that new theory that's come from Galois' papers. When we were done, we

switched over and checked the other team's work." He shook his head. "There's

no mistake."

"Then he must die."

Brady jerked his head around and looked at Isaac. The New Englander was drawn

and pale. The age-spots were dark against his parchmentlike skin. Brady nodded

once, and Isaac shut his eyes.

"Well, that be news should please some on the Council," he said, gazing on

some inner landscape. "Davis and Meechum. Phineas, too. His mills are idled,

with no cotton coming North."

Brady frowned. "Are they allowing their personal interests to-"

"No, no. They are guided by the equations, just as we. Slavery had to go. We

all agreed, even our Southron members. The equations. . . They showed us what

would come to pass if it didn't" Isaac shivered, remembering. "That was why we

. . . took measures." The old man's face closed up tighter. "They will see the

need for this action, as well."

He opened his eyes and fixed Brady with a stare. "And if they bow to necessity

with smiles and we, with sorrow; why, what difference?"

"Damnation, Isaac! It should never have come to this!" Brady slapped the

briefcase, a sharp sound that made Isaac blink. "Don't want his blood on your

hands, do you? Well, theah's blood enough already. This war-" "Was an

accident. A miscalculation. Douglas should have won. He knew how to make

deals. He could have ended slavery and made the South love him for it. Popular

sovereignty and the Homestead Act. That would have done for it."

"Maybe," Isaac allowed. "But Buchanan vetoed the Homestead Act out of

personal spite for Douglas, something we couldn't foresee. And we didn't know

then how determined Yancey and the other secessionists were. After that fiasco

at the Charleston convention, the election was thrown wide open, and the

Republican"

"That backwoods buffoon!" said Brady angrily. "His winning changed everything!

Panicked the South into secession. But how could we have calculated it? The

man failed at everythong he ever attempted. He failed twice in business; had a

nervous breakdown; was defeated for House Speaker. Then for re-election; was

defeated for land-officer, of all things. He ran for the Senate twice and the

vice presidency once and lost the nomination all three times. Hell's bells,

Isaac! He even lost the presidential election!"

"Not in the electoral college," Isaac pointed out. "And he did have a

plurality."

"The man is a statistical anomaly!" Isaac chuckled. "That's what really

bothers you, isn't it?" Brady framed a tart reply, then thought better of it.

Beating a dead horse wouldn't make it run faster. He slouched in his seat. "Be

that as it may be. The war was an accident, this is different!" He slapped the

briefcase again. "A calculated act; not a calculated risk."

Isaac nodded slowly. "'Though I doubt a corpse cares much whether 'twere done

in by accident or design. Still, needn't worry about yourself. We never act

directly. A word heah. A word theah. Washington's always been Confederate in

her heart. Someone will act."

"Aye. But we will bear the guilt."

"Why, so we will! Was there ever any doubt? Did you doubt it when you took the

Oath?" Brady looked away, out the window. "No." They were silent again,

listening to the carriage wheels rolling through the mud. The rain drummed the

roof of the landau.

"And what if he does not die?"

Isaac just wouldn't let it he. Brady scowled at him.

"And what if he does not die?" Isaac persisted. Brady sighed. He hefted his

briefcase, then dropped it into Isaac's lap. "Read it yourself. It's all

there. The secondary path from the fifteenth yoke. We have clandestine medical

reports on him and his whole family. And on Ann Rutledge, as well. His old law

partner, Billy Herndon, has been dropping sly hints to whomever will listen.

His wife is certifiably insane, save no one has the guts to say so aloud. It's

congenital in at least two of his sons. Damn!" He closed his eyes tight. His

hands clenched into fists. "I have never liked any task less than the reading

of those reports." He relaxed slowly and looked at Isaac. "There's no mistake.

He will go mad before his new term expires. Already he has . . . bizarre

dreams.

"And the madness, and the disease it springs from, will discredit his

reconciliation program."

"Aye. Leading to victory for the Radicals and probable impeachment. There will

be permanent military occupation of the South, stifling of technological

progress there, growing resentment among the whites, sporadic rioting and

racial pogroms, followed by repression and a new Rebellion in 1905 that will

be overtly supported by at least two European Powers. That, too, is in the

calculations.

Isaac smiled without humor. "Then, 'tain't so much a matter of blood on our

hands, but how much, and whose."

Brady chewed on his knuckle. The skin there was frayed, almost raw. Isaac

watched him thoughtfully for a moment, then turned his attention to the

window. The silence between them lengthened.

"Gloomy night," said Isaac finally, still gazing at the dark outside the

landau. "Fittin' somehow."

"We haven't built Utopia, have we, Isaac?"

Isaac shook his head. "Not yet. Give it time, boy. Give it time. Rome weren't

built in one day, neither. The Society's too small yet to move the world by

much; but it will be bigger someday, if we persevere." He turned and faced

Brady, his eyes sharp and piercing. "Just remember, Brady. Famines. Worldwide

wars. Weapons deadlier nor any Gatling gun and ironclad. It's all theah on the

charts. You've seen 'em. In less than a century there will be explosive shells

more powerful than 20,000 tons of guncotton, or of this new stuff, dynamite.

God's wounds! The Petersburg mine held only 8,000 pounds of black powder!

Imagine five thousand such mines exploded at once!' He shook his head. "I

figured those curves myself, Brady. They're exponential. If we've any hope of

tempering them in time, we must act; and act now!"

For Isaac, that was quite a speech. Brady stared at the older man and, with a

sudden rush of compassion, laid his hand upon his arm and squeezed. Isaac

looked at the hand, then at Brady. Then the driver called to his horses and

the landau pulled up before a modest Georgetown brick house. After a moment,

Brady released Isaac's arm and opened the door. He made to step out, but Isaac

restrained him.

"Theah's something else, isn't theah, Brady Quinn? I know you well, and you're

concealing something."

The wind blew the rain into the cab. Brady would not look at Isaac. "Don't

make me tell you, Isaac."

Isaac backed away from him. "What is it, Brady? Has it to

with the Society?" There was uncertainty in his voice, and the beginnings of

fear.

"Isaac, you've been like a father to me for twenty years. Please, don't ask

me."

Isaac squared his shoulders. "No. My life is in this work. I built the

Society, Brady. Phineas and I and, old Jed Crawford. We read between the lines

of Babbage's book. Saw what could be done. Saw what must be done. We laid out

the first ten yokes. If you have found something that-" He shook his head

suddenly, violently. "I must know!" Brady sighed and looked away from him. He

had known that this moment would come; had dreaded it. He had known that he

would tell Isaac everything. But that did not make it any the less unpleasant.

"Young Carson has developed a new algorithm," he said. "Based on a children's

game, of all things. It . . . Well, it changes everything after the twenty-

ninth yoke."

Isaac scowled, not understanding. "The twenty-ninth?. I don't know what you

mean. If everything alter the- No! Tell me, Brady!"

Brady told him and the old man stared, openmouthed. Brady closed his eyes

briefly in heartache, then he left the landau and walked to the front door of

the townhouse. He looked back once, through the rain, and saw the old man

weeping.

Now

Sarah looked at the window and decided that it was too damned dirty to look

through. Glancing around the empty room, she saw a rag in a corner. It was

probably just as filthy as everything else in the old house. There were mouse

droppings scattered about, cobwebs, fragments of plaster. In some places, the

ribs of the walls showed through the broken plaster.

With a sigh of disgust, she walked over and picked up the rag and shook it. A

spider crawled out, and she watched it go its way.

Just how long has this house been vacant?" she asked. "Five, six years." That

was Dennis, her architect. He was rapping on the walls, looking for the

supporting beams. He paused and studied the door flame; ran his fingers over

the miter joints and nodded in approval. "Good, solid work, They sure knew how

to build back then." The good old days," said Sarah absently. "When women knew

their place."

Dennis looked at her. "They still do," he said. "Just more places is all."

She snorted. Returning to the window, she ran the rag over it. The grime was

stubborn. It had had years in which to settle in. She managed to clear a

circle in the middle of the pane and peered out at Emerson Street. "Can we

refurbish the place? Bring it up to Code and all. That's what I need to know.

The neighborhood's going to be the next to boom, and I want to he here first."

She bad been late getting in on Larimer and Auraria. She was going to be first

here, by God. Let the other developers follow her for a change.

She could look straight across the street at the second-floor windows there.

Those houses had been built on the same basic plan as this one. One-time

mansions turned rental apartments. There was a man standing in one of the

windows, stripped to the waist, drinking something out of a can. He saw her

looking and waved an invitation.

She ignored him and craned her neck to the left, pressing her cheek against

the glass. She could just make out the dome of the state capitol, gleaming

gold in the afternoon sun. The downtown skyscrapers, though, blocked her view

of the mountains. No matter, she thought. The Brown Cloud blocks it for

everyone. She watched the traffic at the corner, counting cars-per-minute.

She stood away from the window and clapped the dust from her hands. Dennis had

left the room. She could hear him tapping away down the hall.

"How does it look?" she called. She found her clipboard and jotted a few

notes.

"Utilities look good," she heard him answer. "No computer ports, naturally;

but we can put those in when we upgrade the rest of the wiring."

She followed his voice down the hall and found him in one of the other

bedrooms. He was poking at a hole in the wall. "There's still piping in the

walls for the old gas mantles." He looked at her and shook his head. "This

must have been a swank place a hundred years ago, before they messed it up.

There's even a separate servants' stairwell down the end of the hall." He

pointed vaguely.

"I know. I've got a list of all the previous owners in my PC at home. One of

the old-time silver barons built the place; but the Panic came along a few

years later and he had to sell out."

"Easy come; easy go.

"But, you're right. The workmanship in this building was superb! If I could

find the sonofabitch who painted over the parquet flooring on the main

staircase . . ." That did make her mad. She loved good workmanship, no matter

what the job; and that staircase had been the work of a master joiner. This

area had once been upper class; though not so high-tone as Humboldt Island"

over by Cheesman Park on the "good" side of Colfax. It was funny how

neighborhoods went in cycles like that.

Dennis nodded. "I know what you mean. When they made this place into a

boarding house and subdivided the rooms, they paneled right over the original

walls. Can you imagine that? You should see the wainscoting! Here."

He pulled on a section of drywall and it came away. Bits of plaster and gypsum

fell to the floor, along with some nails and loose scrap of paper. The

original wall behind it was in bad shape. The wainscoting was partially

destroyed and there were holes in the plaster; but Sarah could well imagine

what it must have looked like when it had been new.

The papers on the floor caught her eye and she stooped and picked them up.

Habit. It was silly to think about tidying up a dump like this, but habits

were self-booting programs. She glanced at the scraps. A yellowed newspaper

clipping and a torn sheet of foolscap with a handwritten list of dates.

"What are those?" asked Dennis, brushing his hands and standing up.

"Just trash. looks like someone's crib notes for a history test and . . ." She

read the headline on the clipping. "An 1892 story from the old Denver

Express." She handed the foolscap to Dennis and read through the rest of the

news story'. "A gunfight," she told him. "Two cowboys on Larimer Street.

Neither one was scratched; but a bystander was killed. An old man named Brady

Quinn."

She frowned. Quinn? Now where had she seen that name before? It had been

recently, she was sure. It nibbled at the edge of her memory. Well, never

mind. It would come back to her eventually. Probably at three in the morning.

"Odd sort of crib notes."

"Hmm?" She glanced at Dennis. He was scowling over the foolscap. "What do you

mean?"

"Well, the entries here are in two different handwritings, for one thing. The

earlier items are in the old Spencerian style."

"Someone started the list," said Sarah. "Then someone else continued it."

"And this, up at the top. What does it say? Biological? Diological?"

She glanced where he pointed. "Cliological. Cliological something. It's

smudged. I can't make it out." "That's a big help. What's 'cliological?'" She

shrugged. "Beats me. I never heard the word before." "And the mixture of

entries is odd, too. Famous events and obscure events all jumbled together.

How does the nomination of Franklin Pierce, or the election of Rutherford

Hayes, or Winfield Scott's military appointments belong on the same list as

the election of Abraham Lincoln or his assassination, or the sinking of the

Lusitania? Or. . Hello!"

"What?" She moved behind him and read over his shoulder. He pointed. "Brady

Quinn murdered," she read.

"Yep, your friend Quinn is right in there with Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt.

And with Von Kluck's Turn, whatever that was. 1914. Must have been World War

I."

"No kidding? And 'Frederick W. Taylor, fl. ca. 1900. Who was be?"

Dennis shook his head. "There are a half dozen entries here that I never heard

of."

"Well, that's modern education for you. They don't teach things anymore that

our great-great-grandparents took for granted. Personally, I think it started

with Thomas Dewey's whole-word method of reading." She tapped Dewey's name on

the list with her fingernail. "English isn't Chinese and you can't teach it

that way. It just doesn't work. No wonder half the kids in this country grow

up functionally illiterate. My own teachers-some of them, anyway-were damn

near illiterate themselves."

"I'll bet they all had education degrees, though."

She snorted. "Which meant they knew all there was to know about teaching,

except the subject."

"When I was in graduate school," Dennis remembered, "the education prof across

the hall from us told me that that wasn't important." She looked at him and he

shrugged. "True story.

"That's the way folks are. 'If I don't know about it, it ain't important' Ask

any engineer about writing sonnets; or ask any poet about stress and shear.

You'll get the same answer. She wondered, as she often did, that her own life

had been so different."

Dennis chuckled and pointed to the list. "Or ask any architect about factor

analysis. There's a note at the bottom, where it's torn. 'Try orthogonal

factor analysis.'"

"Orthogonal factor analysis? Oh, I learned about that in sociology. It's a

statistical method they use to define socioeconomic groups. Each group is

defined by a cluster of mutually correlated traits in an n-dimensional space.

I think they use it in physical anthropology, too.

Dennis raised one eyebrow and looked at her. "Oh, yeah?" He studied the sheet.

"Each entry here is marked with a 1, 2, or 3. Maybe those are three

'orthogonal factors.'" He folded the list and tucked it in his shirt pocket.

"Well, maybe I'll check some of this out. Find out what the list means.

They took the servants' stairs to the main floor. It was dark in the stairwell

and their shoes crunched on dirt and broken plaster.

"Tell me," Dennis said on the way down, "if education is so lousy, how did you

get to be so smart?"

She stopped and looked at him. In the dimness the architect was only an

indistinct shadow. "Because I wouldn't let them cheat me!" she snapped. "I've

had to fight for everything I've ever had. Because of my sex. Because of my

color. I wouldn't accept a second-rate education!"

"I didn't mean to sound patronizing," Dennis said. "Christ, you know me,

Sarah. I had... Well, not the same problems, obviously; but at prep school,

they didn't expect the idle rich to want to tackle anything 'hard.'"

"Yeah, I know," she answered. "It ain't yo' fault yo' was bo'n white and

rich."

"Hey, I said I was sorry. It's just that you seem to know more things about

more things thin anybody else I've ever met."

"Jack of all trades; master of none," she snorted. "You're right, I'm sorry I

took it the wrong way." She turned away from him. "I guess I just have a bump

for curiosity."

But it hadn't always been that way, she remembered. Once, she had been as

content as her playmates to coast through school, and life. Putting in the

time, because the Law and her mother and her father said she had to. "It was

in the fifth grade, I suppose." She ran a finger along the dirty bannister.

Our class took a field trip to the Museum of Science and Industry. That was .

. . oh, more years ago than I care to remember." Oh Lord, the South Side of

Chicago. She could see herself careening wide-eyed from exhibit to exhibit; a

little girl in cornrows who could barely read. There had been an exhibit of

calculating machines, ranging from the old keyset mechanisms all they way up

to the latest in mini desktop. There had been a walk-through model of a human

heart. There had been a rock that had been brought back from mother world!

"It was like being doused with ice water," she told him. That trip had

awakened her with a shock; and even now, through the telescope of years, she

could feel the shiver of excitement she had felt then. "There was an enormous

and fascinating world out there, and my teachers were not telling me about it!

So..." And she shrugged self-consciously. "I explored it on my own. I began

cutting classes, stealing off to the public library; later on, even to the

University of Chicago library." She'd had to con her way in there: no one

would believe a little black girl had come there to read.

And she had read everything. African music, physics, law, medicine, Chinese

history, statistics, German philosophy, computers. Everything. Some of her

friends who knew what she was doing had asked her what good it all was. What

would she ever use it for? She had treated the question with the same scorn

she felt for the apathy behind it. Use it? She wasn't looking for training,

she was looking for an education.

She had passed all her school classes, of course. She made certain she took

all the tests. Most of her teachers, she was convinced, had deeply resented

her success, because she had achieved it in spite of them. But there had been

two...Ah, those had been teachers!

"Habits are hard to break, I suppose." Dennis' voice broke into her memories.

"Hmm? What do you mean?"

They had reached the ground floor, where it was light. She could see the smile

on Dennis' face. "How many seminars and classes have you taken in the few

years we've known each other?"

"Realty law. Creative writing. A dozen programming classes. I think the

hacking was the most fun. I don't know. I've lost count."

"See what I mean?" he said. "I admire you. You haven't stopped; you're still

stretching yourself. Sometimes I wish I had your curiosity about things. I

must have a score of books at home that I've always meant to read. I bought

them all with good intentions; but, I never seem to find the time for them. My

journals and technical reading seem to take up all my spare time.

"You can always make the time. It's a matter of setting your priorities."

Dennis ran his hand across his shirt pocket "Yes. I suppose curiosity is like

everything else. It comes with practice."

* * *

They paused on the sidewalk outside the building while Dennis sketched some

ideas on his pad. She knew better than to try and peek. He'd throw away a

dozen good concepts before he kept a single great one to show her. Over the

years she had learned to trust his judgment.

Sarah brushed at the dirt on her clothing. Cars lined the entire block, both

sides. She would have to do something about parking when she developed the

area.

Dennis tossed the sketchpad into the back seat of his Datsun. "Friday for

lunch?"

She nodded absently. She was wondering how much of the block she could buy up

before anyone else noticed what was happening and the prices jumped. Maybe she

could run it through a couple of dummy corporations.

"Got a name for it."

"Hmm? For what?"

"The project. Brady Quinn Place. We can tie in the historical aspect. The turn

of the century with the turn of the century. The 1890s meet the 1990s.

Solidness and elegance combined with efficiency and technology."

She thought it over. "Not bad," she admitted.

"Not bad? It's a natural. There's a real nostalgia in this town for that era.

Cowboys. Baby Doe Tabor. Mattie Silks. Sheriff Dave Cook."

"I'll think about it," she said. "Find out who this Brady Quinn character was.

We wouldn't want to use his name if he was only some two bit tin-horn."

"Why not? Mattie Silks was a madam."

"Ah, but in a woman, sleaze is respectable."

She drove her Volvo through the diagonal streets of downtown Denver, past the

steel-and-glass towers of the energy and telecommunications companies. She

wondered what would happen to such complexes when networking out of the home

became common. Her projected renovation included accessing each unit to the

DataNet as well as to a community satellite dish. The technoyups would love

that!

She had planned to take Colfax Avenue home because she liked to watch for

commercial property possibilities; but at the last minute she changed her mind

and cut down Speer to the Sixth Avenue Expressway. That was a straight run

west, nonstop practically to the Hogback, with the Front Range dead ahead the

whole way. It was a sight she never tired of.

A few years ago she had taken one of those executive survival courses. Rock

climbing. Shooting rapids. Living in the wilderness. From high tech to low

tech. She had learned how to handle knives and bows. For graduation, they had

dropped her off somewhere in the High Country with nothing but the clothes on

her back. She had learned a lot about who she was during those two grueling

days. And she had grown to love the mountains. They were her refuge when the

stress of business grew too great. She promised herself a few days in the High

Country after the Emerson Street project was finished.

The afternoon clouds were rolling over the mountains, so close she felt she

could touch them. She gauged the sky thoughtfully, estimating the chance of

rain, then she opened the sunroof anyway. What the hell. She liked the feel of

the breeze and, if it did rain, she could close It up fast enough. She was a

risk-taker from way back.

Later, in her home, sipping a brandy in front of the fire, Quinn's name

finally clicked. She remembered where she had seen it before. She set her

snifter to the side and pushed herself out of the sofa. A log in the fire

snapped, sending a wave of pine scent through the room. Feline P. Cat, her

Manx, followed her to the terminal desk and watched intently as she called up

a file and scrolled through it. When she finally found the entry she sought,

she nodded in self-satisfaction.

Once, a very long time ago, Brady Quinn had owned the house on Emerson Street.

He had bought it from the silver baron in 1867, and sold it in 1876 to a man

named Randall Carson. From there, through several intermediate owners, it had

come to her.

"That makes him some sort of 'ancestor' of mine," she told the cat. "Maybe

Dennis is right and we can use him as a hook for the project. If he is

anything more than a poor jerk who got caught in the crossfire of someone

else's argument."

Feline blinked his agreement.

"Maybe the files at the News or the Post can help me. What do you think, Fee?"

The cat yawned.

"You're right. The Express and the Times aren't around any more. Maybe the

Western History Room at the DPL has something. And the tax records at the City

and County Building." She jotted some notes to herself. She'd always hated

doing research during her reporter days. Now she was actually looking forward

to it. It was a break in the routine. When it's your job, she thought, it's

never fun. She decided to real-time the various repositories, since most of

the material she was interested in hadn't been databased into the Net yet.

Nobody was about to use up valuable bytes with hundred-year-old real estate

records!

When Sarah walked into the city room of the Rocky Mountain Ness the next

morning she saw Morgan Grimes hunched over his desk. She stepped off the

elevator and walked around the pillars past the reception desk, and there he

was. The city room was a study in mauve, burgundy, and gray, with the

reporters' desks arranged in "pods" of six. There was no one else in the room

except the copy editor, who glanced up briefly from her station at the head of

the U of copy desks before bending back to her work.

Morgan was talking on the phone, his face twisted in concentration, holding

the earpiece with his left shoulder while he tapped notes into his terminal.

When he saw her coming he said something into the phone, then covered the

mouthpiece with his hand.

"Yes, young lady, may I help you?'

"Stuff it, Morgan. I came to use the library for a while. Is that all right

with you?"

"Library," he groused. "It's a morgue, dammit. I don't care who says

different." He looked her over. "So that's all? Just using our morgue? Not

looking for your old job back?"

She laughed. "Not even on a bet. Give up the office suite, the Volvo, the

tailored dresses, the condo in Aspen? For what?"

"For the thrill," he answered. "For the glamour. The Front Page. All the

President's Men. That sort of thing."

"Sure, I remember the glamour. Obituaries. Press conferences. Media

'opportunities.' Staged demonstrations. Not to mention coolie wages,

unpredictable work hours, and last-minute assignments out of town. No,

thanks." She tried to peek at his VDT but he hit a button and it went blank.

"Uh-uh," he said. "That's a no-no."

"What are you working on Morgan?"

"The Pulitzer, of course.

She looked at him, unsure if he were kidding. Morgan Grimes had the

straightest face in the business and could wear sincerity the way most men

wore cologne. During the days when they had teamed up together, she had never

been able to tell when he was putting her on or not; a fact that he used

against her mercilessly. I wonder if he's still using the same access code.

She had cracked it years ago, just for practice; but she had never actually

used it to enter his files, Now, though, she thought about tapping into his

files through the Net. Leave him a sarcastic message. Teach him' not to be

cute with me. She thought she could hack it, even though the reporters'

terminals were not always connected to the Net. There were ways to mouse into

any system.

She looked around the city room. "Everybody out on assignment?"

"Uh-huh. Except Kevin. He's on another book promotion tour. should be hack

next week. I suppose you heard about his latest best seller."

"Yeah. Follow-up to The Silent Brother, isn't it? Easy life. Well, tell

everyone I stopped by and said hello."

"They will be thrilled beyond words. Actually, it has been good seeing you

again. You always were a pretty good..." "Don't say it, Morgan!"

"News-hen. The morgue's still where it always was; but everything's on discs

now, not in microfiche. That wouldn't bother you, though, would it?"

"Sure wouldn't," she said as she left. She swung her body with mock sassiness.

"I was born with a microchip on my shoulder."

Dennis' appointment was at 15:OO hours and he arrived at the offices of' the

DU history department precisely at 14:59. A series of doors opened off of a

central reception area. No one was at the reception desk, although an open can

of pop hinted at someone's imminent return. He looked around uncertainly until

a plump, moon-faced woman stuck her head out of one of the doors.

"Mr. French?" she asked.

"Yes, are you Professor Llewellyn?" He headed in her direction. "Thank you for

seeing me. l know how busy you folks are','

"Not at all. The semester is over now and I have some spare time. It's just

such a surprise when a non-student makes an appointment. Come in and sit

down." She guided him into her office. "Gwynneth Llewellyn is my name.

They shook hands. LLewellyn's grip was surprisingly firm. Dennis sat in a

worn, high-back chair, pulling up his pants legs so they wouldn't hag. He sat

erect, with his hands folded across his middle.

Llewellyn planted herself behind her desk and leaned forward on her beefy

arms. Her skin was pale, spotted red with freckles. Her cheeks were plump and

round. She reminded Dennis of someone's aunt and he half-expected cornbread

muffins and cocoa; so he was quite surprised when she took up a corncob pipe

and lit it.

She blew a smoke ring, gauging his reaction with a twinkle in her eye. "So

what can l do for you, Mr. French?"

He came right to the point. Neither his time nor the professor's was something

to he wasted. "I am trying to discover the rationale behind this list of

historical events." He reached into his vest pocket and pulled out the scrap

of foolscap that he and Sarah had found in the Emerson Street house.

He had spent all day Tuesday and Wednesday reading history and talking to some

people he knew at Metro and CU. Making time, he supposed Sarah would say. He

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INTHECOUNTRYOFTHEBLINDMichaelFlynnWhatifitwereallaplot?Whatiftherereallywereasecretconspiracyrunnningthingsbehindthescenes...andtheywereincompetent?ItisalittleknownfactthatoverahundredyearsagoanEnglishscien ist-mathematiciannamedCharlesBabbageinventedamachanicalcomputerthatwasnearlyaspowerfulasth...

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Michael Flynn - In the Country of the Blind

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