Harry Turtledove - The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump

Can I pick your brain for a minute?”

“Sure, Dave,” he answered. “What’s up?”

“You know those little musical sprites they import from Alemania?”

The mmisingers? Sure. What about ’em?”

“I’ve heard some people express concern that they don’t just learn new songs while they’re here—that they might be picking up other things which could be useful for Alemanic intelligence.” As far as I knew, there was nothing to that.

Minisingers aren’t spooks; you just take ’em to your Heeler and turn ’em loose. A lot of taverns have them for background music, things like that. But my madness had method to it. Ingenuous as all get out, I asked, “Would that be CBI business, Saul?”

“Intelligence by foreign Powers? No, we don’t touch that, Dave. You need to talk to Central Intelligence back at the capital,” he said.

“Thanks. Do you happen to have their number?”

“Sure. I’ve got it right here,” he said, and gave it to me. I wrote it down, thanked him again, and made my phone call.

Sometimes the indirect approach is best Once I was actually talking with a real live human being (or so I presumed—you never can tell with CI), things went better. I got connected to Henry Legion faster than I’d ever been transferred before.

“Good day, Inspector Fisher,” the CI spook said. His phone voice sounded more like his real voice than any natural person’s. I wondered if that was because he, like the phone imps, was a creature of the Other Side, so they could pick up the essence of his voice as well as what he said.

While I was wondering, he went on, “I thought I might hear from you again, but not so soon as this. What is the occasion of the call?”

“Somebody tried to Idll me last night,” I answered bluntly.

“The only reason I can think of for anybody wanting to do that is the toxic spell dump case. I want to get to the bottom of that, and you’re the only channel I have now.”

No denying Henry Legion was sharp; he pounced on that last word like a lycanthrope leaping onto a roast of beef.

“Now?” he said. “You previously had another source of information who has become inaccessible to you?”

“Inaccessible is just the word.” I know I sounded bitter;

I’d thought Charlie Kelly was a friend—oh, not a close friend, but somebody who wouldn’t let me down if things got tough. He’d shown me what that notion was worth, though.

Well, my loyalty to him stopped at the point where it was liable to get me killed. I told the spook, “You asked how I got wind of the danger of a Third Sorcerous War?”

“Yes?” Across three thousand miles, I could visualize his ectoplasmic ears springing to attention.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Before I tell you, I want your promise that you’ll let me know what’s going on. Everybody keeps saying that the more I know, the more dangerous it’ll be for me. I can’t think of anything a lot more dangerous than getting killed.”

“I can,” Henry Legion said. Maybe he really could; maybe he was just trying to scare me. But I was past being scared of—or by—phantoms, and didn’t answer. After a couple of silent seconds, the spook took another tack: “Why should you believe any promise I make? I am of the Other Side, and have no soul to stake on an oath.”

“Promise on your pride in your own wits and I’ll believe you,” I told him.

Another telephone pause. When it was done, Legion said,

“You’re not the least clever mortal with whom I have dealt Let it be as you say. By my pride in my wits, Inspector Fisher, I shall tell you what I know in exchange for your information—on condition that the secret go no farther than you.”

“Uh,” I said. I couldn’t think of a condition better calculated to make Judy want to wring my neck. “My fiancee is also involved in this case, and has been just about from the start. She knows about the threat of the Third Sorcerous War. I can’t promise not to tell her, but she doesn’t blab.”

Henry Legion let out a long sigh. “Sexuality,” he said, as if he were cursing. “Very well, Inspector Fisher, I agree to your proposed amendment, provided she agrees to tell no one.

Now speak, and withhold nothing.”

So I spoke. I told him about Charlie Kelly, and about the bird Charlie kept being too coy to name. And I told him what Charlie had said about the risk of war—and about how Charlie had hung up on me and bugged out of his office.

“Ah, Mr. Kelly,” the spook said. “Matters become less murky.”

“Not to me, they don’t,” I told him.

“Although of low rank himself” (Charlie was several notches above me, but I let that go) “your Mr. Kelly is wellconnected politically,” Henry Legion said. “He is the close friend and familiar—I use the word almost in the thaumaturgical sense—of a Cabinet subminister whose name I prefer not to divulge but who, I think, is like to be the source of his, ah, sensitive information. That matter can be—and shall be—rectified, I assure you.”

I didn’t care for the way he said rectified. I wondered if the anonymous Cabinet subminister was about to have the fear of an angry God put into him… or if he’d have to suffer what they call an unfortunate accident. But that; for me, was a side issue. I said, “I told you what I know. Now you keep your end of the bargain.”

At that point, much too late, I wondered how I was supposed to make him keep the bargain if he didn’t feel like it, But he said, “Perhaps this conversation would be better continued face to face rather than through the ether. You are on the seventh floor of the Westwood Confederal Building, is that not correct?”

“That’s right,” I agreed.

“Hang up the phone, then. I shall see you shortly.”

I dutifully hung up. Sure enough, a couple of seconds later Henry Legion materialized in my office—or rather, the top half of him did: the floor cut him off at what would have been his belly button if spooks had belly buttons. The soundproofing in the Confederal Building is pretty good, but I heard the woman in the office right below me let out a starded squeal, so I presume Henry’s legs end popped into being just below her ceiling.

The spook peered down at himself. He looked mistily annoyed, then said, “A three-foot error on a crosscountry journey isn’t bad. It’s not as if I were material.” He sounded like someone trying to convince himself and not having much luck. He pulled himself up through the floor so his ectoplasmic wing-tips rested on the carpet.

It’s a good thing he’s not material, I thought. Two different sets of matter aren’t designed to occupy the same space at the same time. The likeliest result of that would have been one big bang.

Once he was all in the room with me, his dignity recovered in a hurry. He draped himself over a chair, gave me a nod, and said, “By my pride in my own wits, David Fisher, I shall tell you what I can. Ask your questions.”

His wits were still working pretty well, I noticed: if I didn’t come up with the right questions, I wouldn’t find out what I needed to know. Well, first things first—“Who’s trying to loll me?”

Henry Legion’s indistinct features distinctly frowned. “Without further information, I cannot answer that with any more assurance than you possess yourself. I realize it is of the essence to you, but I trust you will understand it is not my primary concern.”

“Yeah,” I said grudgingly. Understanding didn’t mean I had to like it I tried something else; “If there is. God forbid, a Third Sorcerous War, who’s going to be in it? And whose side will we be on?”

“God forbid indeed,” the spook said. “As for who would begin the fighting if war came, again I cannot say with any certainty. The Confederation’s place would depend on the patterns of other belligerents; as you may know, some of our alliance systems overlap others.”