Fiddlehead (The Clockwork Century 5)

When he’d exhausted the subject from several angles, he held his still-full, now-cooled cup of coffee untouched in his right hand as he waited for a response.

“I must say,” Douglass began slowly, “it sounds like a very fine mess. ”

“It’s not the first time people have wanted to kill me,” Gideon noted. “I refuse to be cowed. ”

But Douglass was less firm on the matter. “Perhaps you should be cowed by it, a little if not a lot. And I’m not perfectly confident that they’d prefer you dead. It’d be smarter to discredit you. If I were you, I’d be more worried about that. ”

Taken aback, Gideon set his coffee down too hard. It rattled, and all the small spoons quivered on the silver tray. “You think I should back down? Hide? Run back to Lincoln with my tail between my legs, until he gives me permission to speak?”

“No one can make that decision for you, but there’s good reason to consider a more cautious stance than the one you’re taking right now. When you left Tennessee, you risked no one but yourself and your family. If everything you’ve said about your machine and its calculations is true, then you’re gambling much more these days when you put yourself at risk. Upon your message could rest the fate of two nations, millions of people—including yourself and your family, a fact I wish to underscore. Let it not be said that I fruitlessly urged you on a path toward altruism. ”

“I give the world the fruits of my labor. That’s worth something, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but you don’t do so from a sense of duty. You do it because you prefer an audience, and because the more people respect your results, the more grant money you acquire in order to produce more results. You will change the world, Gideon Bardsley. Whether you give a damn about it or not. ”

“I’m trying to save it. They won’t let me save it. ”

“They, they, they. Another ‘they’ for you to blame. ” Douglass shook his head. “You’re so single-minded at times. Think broader. Think in another direction. That’s your forte, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but I don’t know what I’m thinking toward, not anymore. And what does it matter right now? No one will deign to hear me until Wednesday. ”

“Deign to hear you, yes—you say that like it’s the easiest thing on earth to waltz into Congress and make people listen. Lincoln pulled strings and called favors to put you on that podium next week, so it’s a pity you begrudge him the delay. He’s working for you, not against you. But since he can’t help you the way you want, right this moment,” Douglass continued, “you beat your head against the wall because you think your only path is blocked. But it isn’t. Lincoln’s right about taking time to craft your message, but he’s wrong that you’ll have to wait until Wednesday to have it heard. ”

Gideon’s unhappy fugue flickered, but he did not straighten up from his position in the chair. “How so?”

Frederick Douglass sighed. “Son, Congress isn’t the only stage in the nation. It’s not even the largest, not by a far cry. You don’t have to start there, and you don’t have to stop there, either. You need the audience, as much as you want it. You need to shine a brilliant light into the shadows, and teach people that things are being hidden. The governors are buying things and paying for them with blood, without the knowledge—if not yet against the will—of the governed. ”

“Ah. ” He understood. “You think I should go to the papers. ”

“Not just ours, but up and down the coast—to Baltimore and Philadelphia, Chicago, New York, and Boston. For that matter…” he pulled out his notebook and began jotting things down. “If you have that Southern woman in your camp—infernal Cleopatra though she may be—she might be useful. Once we’ve written up your findings and made your case in a straightforward, compelling fashion, she might be able to place the editorial in the Richmond papers, or Atlanta. You never know, she might have contacts in Houston. The Texians are a tricky lot, but they don’t like being exterminated any more than anyone else. You might find a more willing audience there than you’d expect. ”

It was a lot to consider, but Gideon considered it. “You’re right. I should bring the message to the people who would be most affected by it. I thought I should appeal to the authorities, but the authorities are very likely causing the problems in the first place. ”

Douglass smiled like a proud tutor whose student has finally seen the light.

“Which is why you can’t ignore them altogether. If you want to be heard, you can make yourself heard in the halls of government, it’s true—and you’ll have to take your case there eventually. But that case will be all the stronger when the masses stand behind it. Change happens two ways: from top to bottom, and the reverse. If one avenue is cut off, you must try the other. ”

Eight

“But Captain, what is it?” Maria asked.

And as the laundry fell, the workwomen sorted, and the crank and grind of the generators and washers drowned out all but the very nearest noise, Captain Sally leaned in close. She said, “They’re notes, from a half-abandoned backwater on the West Coast, in the Washington Territory. They were written by one of my nurses. She’s been sending them every few weeks like clockwork—observations, suggestions, and prescriptions for dealing with a poisonous gas. ”

Maria could hardly believe her ears. Was this the connection they’d all been seeking?

Sally continued. “It occurs naturally out there, near a volcano called Rainier. This gas has destroyed one city already, and it’s destroyed countless soldiers here on the fronts, because it converts to a substance that’s sold as a

narcotic. There are a hundred names for it, and a hundred names for the men who become addicted. ”

A loud shout pierced the workday commotion in the hot, disgusting incoming room, and Sally jerked to attention. Maria checked to make sure the satchel was fastened shut, and she slung it over her chest. “Was that Adam?” she asked. It was too loud to tell. Too many other things were going on around her.

But Sally didn’t know. A second shout led to a third—and soon the laundry commotion began to wane as the laundresses became curious about what was happening outside.

The captain took Maria by the shoulders. It felt like a funny gesture, coming from a smaller woman. “Now go to Washington, and raise some hell. ”

Then a gunshot shook the basement, and the laundry women screamed. “Go!” Sally said more urgently. “Not the way we came. Take that side door—over there!”

“But, Captain!”