Year's Best Scifi 3 Part 37

"I'm sorry," she said. She was crying again. "I knocked it over. I'm really not myself tonight."

"No one would be in your situation," I said.

She put her arms around me again, pressing close. I instinctively kissed hercheck, just barely-in what I instantly hoped, after the fact, was a brotherly gesture.

"Stay with me tonight," she whispered. "I mean, the couch out there opens up for you, and you'll have your privacy. I'll sleep in the bedroom. I'm afraid..."

I was afraid too, because a part of me suddenly wanted to pick her up and carry her over to her bedroom, the couch, anywhere, and lay her down, softly unwrap her clothes, run my fingers through her sweet-smelling hair and- But I also cared very much for Jenna. And though we'd made no formal lifetime commitments to each other- "I don't feel very good," Sarah said, and pulled away slightly. "I guess I had some wine before you came and-" her head lolled and her body suddenly sagged and her eyes rolled back in her skull.

"Here, let me help you." I first tried to buoy her up, then picked her up entirely and carried her into her bedroom. I put her down on the bed, gently as I could, then felt the pulse in her wrist. It may have been a bit rapid, but seemed basically all right.

"You're okay," I said. "Just a little shock and exhaustion."

She moaned softly, then reached out and took my hand. I held it for a long time, till its grip weakened and she was definitely asleep, and then I walked quietly into the other room. I was too tired myself to go anywhere, too tired to even figure out how to open her couch, so I just stretched out on it and managed to take off my shoes before I fell soundly asleep. My last thoughts were that I needed to have another look at the Stoltzfus farm, the lamp on her floor was beautiful, I hoped I wasn't drugged or anything, but it was too late to do anything about it if I was...

I awoke with a start the next morning, propped my head up on a shaky arm and leaned over just in time to see Sarah's sleek wet backside receding into her bedroom. Likely from her shower. I could think of worse things to wake up to.

"I think I'm gonna head back to Jacob's farm," I told her over breakfast of whole wheat toast, poached eggs, and Darjeeling tea that tasted like a fine liqueur.

"Why?"

"Closest thing we have to a crime scene," I said.

"I'll come with you," Sarah said.

"Look, you were pretty upset last night-" I started to object.

"Right, so were you, but I'm okay now," Sarah said. "Besides, you'll need me to decode the Amish for you, to tell you what you're looking for."

She had a point. "All right," I said.

"Good," she said. "By the way, what are you looking for there?"

"I don't really know," I admitted. "Mo was eager to show me something at Jacob's."

Sarah considered, frowned. "Jacob was working on an organic antidote to the allergen catalyst-but all that stuff is very slow acting, the catalyst takes years tobuild up to dangerous levels in the human body-so I don't see what Jacob could've shown you on a quick drive-by visit."

If she had told me that last night, I would have enjoyed the grapes and ham sandwich even more. "Well, we've got nowhere else to look at this point," I said, and speared the last of my egg.

But what did that mean about what killed Mo? Someone had been giving him a slow-acting poison too, which had been building up inside both of them for x number of years, with the result of both of them dying on the same day?

Not very likely. There seemed to be more than one catalyst at work here. I wondered if Mo had told Jacob anything about me and my visit. I certainly hoped not-the last thing I wanted was that decisive second catalyst to in some way have been me.

We were on the Turnpike heading west an hour later. The sun was strong and the breeze was fresh-a splendid day to be out for a ride, except that we were going to investigate the death of one of the nicest d.a.m.n people I had known. I'd called Corinne to make sure she and the girls were all right. I told her I'd try to drop by in the afternoon if I could.

"So tell me more about your doctoral work," I asked Sarah. "I mean your real work, not the cover for your advisors."

"You know, too many people equate science with its high-tech trappings-if it doesn't come in computers, G.o.d-knows-what-power microscopes, the latest DNA dyes, it must be magic, superst.i.tion, old-wives-tale nonsense. But science is at core a method, a rational mode of investigating the world, and the gadgetry is secondary.

Sure, the equipment is great- it opens up more of the world to our cognitive digestion, makes it amenable to our a.n.a.lysis-but if aspects of the world are already amenable to a.n.a.lysis and experiment, with just our naked eyes and hands, then the equipment isn't all that necessary, is it?"

"And your point is that agriculture, plant and animal breeding, that kind of manipulation of nature has been practiced by humans for millennia with no sophisticated equipment," I said.

"Right," Sarah said. "But that's hardly controversial, or reason to kill someone.

What I'm saying is that some people have been doing this for purposes other than to grow better food-have been doing this right under everyone's noses for a very long time-and they use this to make money, maintain their power, eliminate anyone who gets in their way."

"Sort of organized biological crime," I mused.

"Yeah, you could put it that way," Sarah said.

"And you have any examples-any evidence-other than your allergen theory?" I asked."It's fact, not a theory, I a.s.sure you," Sarah said. "But here's an example: Ever wonder why people got so rude to each other, here in the US, after World War H?"

"I'm not following you," I said.

"Well, it's been written about in lots of the sociological literature," Sarah said.

"There was a civility, a courtesy, in interpersonal relations-the way people dealt with each other in public, in business, in friends.h.i.+p-through at least the first half of the twentieth century, in the US. And then it started disintegrating. Everyone recognizes this. Some people blame it on the pressures of the atomic age, on the replacement of the cla.s.sroom by the television screen-which you can fall asleep or walk out on-as the prime source of education for kids. There are lots of possible culprits. But I have my own ideas."

"Which are?"

"Everyone was in the atomic age after World War II," Sarah said. "England and the Western World had television, cars, all the usual stimuli. What was different about America was its vast farmland-room to quietly grow a crop of something that most people have a low-leyel allergy to. I think the cause of the widespread irritation, the loss of courtesy, was quite literally something that got under everyone's skin-an allergen designed for just that purpose."

Jeez, I could see why this woman would have trouble with her doctoral committee. But I might as well play along- I'd learned the hard way that crazy ideas like this were pooh-poohed at one's peril. "Well, the j.a.panese did have some plans in mind for balloons carrying biological agents-deadly diseases-over here near the end of the war."

Sarah nodded. "The j.a.panese are one of the most advanced peoples on Earth in terms of expertise in agriculture. I don't know if they were involved in this, but-"

The phone rang.

McLuhan had once pointed out that the car was the only place you could be, in this technological world of ours, away from the demanding, interrupting ring of the phone. But that of course was before car phones.

"h.e.l.lo," I answered.

"h.e.l.lo?" a voice said back to me. It sounded male, odd accent, youngish but deep.

"Yes?" I said.

"Mr. Buhler, is that you?" the voice said.

"Ahm, no, it isn't, can I take a message for him?" I said.

Silence. Then, "I don't understand. Isn't this the number for the phone in Mr.

Buhler's car?"

"That's right," I said, "but-"

"Where's Mo Buhler?" the voice insisted."Well, he's-" I started.

I heard a strange clicking, then a dial tone.

"Is there a call-back feature on this?" I asked Sarah and myself. I pressed *69, as I would on regular phones, and pressed Send. "Welcome to AT&T Wireless Services," a different deep voice said. "The cellular customer you have called is unavailable, or has traveled outside of the coverage area-"

"That was Amos," Sarah said.

"The kid on the phone?" I asked, stupidly.

Sarah nodded.

"Must still be in shock over his father," I said.

"I think he killed his father," Sarah said.

We drove deep into Pennsylvania, the blacks and grays and unreal colors of the billboards gradually supplanted by the greens and browns and earth-tones I'd communed with just yesterday. But the natural colors held no joy for me now. I realized that's the way nature always had been-we romanticize its beauty, and that's real, but it's also the source of drought, famine, earthquake, disease, and death in many guises... The question was whether Sarah could possibly be right in her theory about how some people were helping this dark side of nature along.

She filled me in on Amos. He was sixteen, had only a formal primary school education, in a one-room schoolhouse, like other Amish-but also like some splinter groups of the Amish, unknown to outsiders, he was self-educated in the science and art of biological alchemy. He was apprentice to his father.

"So why would he kill him?" I asked.

"Amos is not only a budding scientist, Amish-style, he's also a typically headstrong Amish kid. Lots of wild oats to sow. He got drunk, drove cars, along with the best of them in the Amish gangs."

"Gangs?"

"Oh, yeah," Sarah said. "The Groffies, the Ammies, and the Trailers-those are the three main ones-Hostetler writes about them in his books. But there are others, smaller ones. Jacob didn't like his son being involved in them. They argued about that constantly."

"And you think that led to Amos killing his father?" I asked, still incredulous.

"Well, Jacob's dead, isn't he? And I'm pretty sure that one of the gangs Amos belongs to has connections to the bio-war Mafia people I've been telling you about-the ones that killed Mo too."

We drove the rest of the way in silence. I wasn't sure what to think about this woman and her ideas.

We finally reached Northstar Road, and the path that led to the Stoltzfus farm.

"It's probably better that we park the car here, and you walk the path yourself,"Sarah said. "Cars and strange women are more likely to arouse Amish attention than a single man on foot-even if he is English. I mean, that's what they call-"

"I know," I said. "I've seen Witness. But Mo told me that Jacob didn't mind cars-"

"Jacob's dead now," Sarah said. "What he liked and what his family like may be two very different things."

I recalled the hostility of Jacob's brother, another of Sarah's uncles, yesterday. "All right," I said. "I guess you know what you're talking about. I should be back in thirty to forty minutes."

"Okay," Sarah squeezed my hand and smiled.

I trudged down the dirt road, not really knowing what I hoped to find at the other end.

Certainly not what I did find.

I smelled the smoke, the burnt quality in the air, before I came upon the house and the barn. Both had been burned to the ground. G.o.d, I hoped no one had been in there when these wooden structures went.

"h.e.l.lo?" I shouted.

My voice echoed across an empty field. I looked around and listened. No animals, no cattle. Even a dog's rasping bark would have been welcome.

I walked over to the barn's remains, and poked at some charred wood with my foot. An ember or two winked into life, then back out. It was close to noon. My guess was this had happened-and quickly-about six hours earlier. But I was no arson expert.

I brushed away the stinking smoke fumes with my hand. I pulled out my flashlight, a powerful little halogen daylight simulation thing Jenna had given me, and looked around the inside of the barn. Whatever had been going on here, there wasn't much left of it now...

Something green caught my eye-greener than gra.s.s. It was the front cover, partially burned, of an old book. All that was left was this piece of the cover-the pages in the book, the back cover, were totally gone. I could see some letters, embossed in gold, in the old way. I touched it with the tip of my finger. It was warm, but not too hot. I picked it up and examined it.

"of Nat" one line said, and the next line said "bank."

Bank, I thought, Nat Bank. What was this, some kind of Amish bankbook, for some local First Yokel's National Bank?

No, it didn't look like a bankbook cover. And the "b" in this bank was a small letter, not a capital. Bank, bank, hmm... wait, hadn't Mo said something to me about a bank yesterday? A bank... Yes, a Burbank. Darwin and Bur bank! Luther Burbank!Partner of Nature by Luther Burbank-that was the name of the book whose charred remains I held in my hand. I'd taken out a copy of it years ago from the Allerton library, and loved it.

Well, Mo and Sarah were right about at least one thing- the reading level of at least some Amish was a lot higher than grade school- "You again!"

I nearly jumped out of my skin.

I turned around. "Oh, Mr.-" it was the man we'd seen here yesterday-Jacob's brother.

"Isaac Stoltzfus," he said. "What are you doing here?"

His tone was so unsettling, his eyes so angry, that I thought for a second he thought that I was responsible for the fire. "Isaac. Mr. Stoltzfus," I said. "I just got here. I'm sorry for your loss. What happened?"

"My brother's family, thank the Deity, left to stay with some relatives in Ohio very early this morning, well before dawn. So no one was hurt. I went with them to the train station in Lancaster. When I returned here, a few hours later, I found this." He gestured hopelessly, but with an odd air of resignation, to the ruined house and barn.

"May I ask you if you know what your brother was doing here?" I hazarded a question.

Isaac either didn't hear or pretended not to. He just continued on his earlier theme. "Material things, even animals and plants, we can always afford to lose.

People are what are truly of value in this world." '

"Yes," I said, "but getting back to what-"

"You should check on your family too-to make sure they are not in danger."

"My family?" I asked.

Isaac nodded. "I've work to do here," he pointed out to the field. "My brother had four fine horses, and I can find no sign of them. I think it best that you go now."

And he turned and walked away.

"Wait..." I started, but I could see it was no use.

I looked at the front cover of Burbank's book. This farm, Sarah's bizarre theories, the book-there still wasn't really enough of any of them at hand to make much sense of this.