The Shadows of God - J. Gregory Keyes [83]
“Why me? Why didn't you take this to one of your Russian colleagues?”
“Oh—there is one who might have helped, though I rather fear her. But I did not have that option. Benjamin, I was on the tsar's ship when it fell. They spared my life only because I pretended to be with them, traitor to my tsar. I was convincing— even now he will not speak to me.”
“That upsets you,” he noticed, with some surprise.
“Of course it does. He thinks I betrayed him.”
“But you didn't?”
“No. I stole Swedenborg's formula. When the tsar escaped, I took advantage of the confusion to steal an airship. I tried, at first, to find him, but their pursuit proved too much a danger to me. I knew the English colonies were under attack by then, so I came here.” She turned back to him. “All of this wastes time. What do you see as missing?”
“Your other ‘angelic’ devices all have, at their hearts, an articulator. Though they vary in detail, all are premised on Sir Isaac's design. That is what the depneumifier attacks—it disrupts the chime and thus severs the contact. I thought at first all we would need here was a very powerful depneumifier, but that's not the case.”
“Are you saying you have no ideas at all?”
“I'm saying I was hoping to make these things go poof and vanish, but see no way to do so. Can't you recall anything this Swedenborg might have said that will help?”
“He wasn't present when I was there— one of his assistants was. They were expecting him, but I fled before he arrived. But I think …” She paused. “This prophet of theirs seemed necessary for the actual creation of the engines. Swedenborg was coming with the perfected formulas, and together they were going to —”
“Wait. The perfected formulas? These are not them?”
“I thought you understood that, Benjamin.”
“No, I most certainly did not.” He closed his eyes, trying to will the irritation away and unclog his mind for proper functioning. “You say Swedenborg needed this holy man?”
“And certain devices. But the prophet—the Indians called him ‘Sun Boy'—was the key.”
“Well. That is important. Did you know that the Indians of this country have a method of creating spirits by carving off bits of their own souls?”
Her glance told him she not only didn't know it, she didn't believe it either.
He shrugged. “It's true. I've examined the phenomenon.”
“What could that have to do with this?”
“I don't know. This talk of a prophet—ah, well. I wish Red Shoes were here.”
She didn't ask who Red Shoes was, though she was clearly curious. He left her so.
“In any event—it's almost as if there is no connection between these Swedenborgian engines and the aether. But if there is no interlocution—if they are not motivated by the malakim—how can these devices be ‘angelic'?”
She spread her hands.
“Well,” he murmured. “Let's leave that aside. If we cannot simply dissolve them, perhaps we can draw their teeth.” He spread the diagrams and pages of symbols out on the table. “The problem, again, is that I don't see what sort of teeth they have. Are you certain that these things exist? Or could it be that this Swedenborg is deluded, and has deluded you as well?”
“Swedenborg is not natural—he is strange, perhaps mad. But he is a genius. He believes these engines will function, and I believe him.”
“His notes speak of great conflagration, yet I see nothing here that resembles combustion. Very much the opposite, in fact. From what I can tell, this takes ash and puts it back together.”
“I … didn't understand that part.”
“I comprehend it, I just don't understand what it's supposed to do. The engine attracts the graphite—carbonis, he calls it here—which is present in many things. It crushes the ferments together and another substance—he calls it niveum— is formed.”
“Perhaps it is poisonous, this substance.”