Newton's Cannon (12 page)

“An apt and representative piece, I would imagine,” Ben replied.

“Oh, yes. As she says, ‘One of the most
extraordinary
poems ever writ in New England, moving, pathetic, so natural in its rhyme.’ Listen, here the verse itself is quoted.” He cleared his throat and read, in lamenting tones:

John had to stop reading, for he had begun to laugh. “Sister,
missed her
,” he chortled, wiping one eye. “Expired,
tired
!”

“
Very
moving,” Ben remarked. “Very pathetic.”

“Aye, pathetic indeed,” John agreed.

“Because see how cleverly it is written,” Ben continued. “To say that we've lost a wife, daughter,
and
sister, is to give the impression that we've lost three women, rather than one, which is
triply
pathetic.”

John frowned. “You
have
read this.”

Ben shook his head. “Why do you say that?”

“It's precisely what Mrs. Dogood claims, in the next paragraph.”

“Oh,” said Ben, innocently. “It just seems obvious, that's all. Do go on.”

John regarded him doubtfully for a moment. “Well, the long and short of it is, she gives a formula for how one can write one's own elegy.”

“What a useful thing to know.”

“Very useful. The most important thing is to choose the right person to elegize, it seems; someone who has been killed, drowned, or froze to death.”

“Well, of course. We can't go elegizing someone hung for stealing chickens.”

“Exactly.”

“Nor someone without real virtues,” Ben went on, “though I suppose one can
borrow
virtues for the deceased, if they didn't have an appropriate quantity.”

John frowned. “You
have
read this, damn you. Why did you let me go on, so?”

“You really think such rude nonsense is amusing?” Ben asked,
seriously. “Poking fun at heartfelt verse written by a sincere and grieving man?”

“Grief is no excuse for bad poetry,” John returned. “If he cannot grieve eloquently, let him at least do it silently. And yes, I think Mrs. Dogood's criticism
is
witty, wittier than anything else I've seen in that sheet of your brother's. Perhaps it's just that you don't appreciate well-turned irony, is all.”

Ben grinned. “I appreciate it more than
you
will in a few seconds,” Ben predicted.

“How is that?

“Because
I
am Silence Dogood, you butter-head.”

John just stared at him for a heartbeat or so. “
You
are Silence Dogood?” he managed to choke out.

“None other,” Ben replied, trying to seem nonchalant, though he knew his almost imbecilic grin must give that the lie.

“God take me for a fool that I never guessed,” John swore. “It has your mark all over it! Does your brother know?”

“You should have heard him and his Couranteers trying to guess who slipped her ‘correspondence’ under their door.”

“Whom did they guess?” John asked gleefully.

“Only the most prestigious men of letters were mentioned as possibilities,” Ben replied. “Quite flattering.”

“How can it be flattering when no one knows it was you?”

“Because
I
know,” Ben replied. “If James knew who really wrote those letters, he would
never
print them. This way I can have my ideas flattered and debated without ever suffering an attack to my person.” He did not add his worry that such an attack might be a physical one.

“I should want people to
know
that it was me,” John persisted. “I should want credit for my thoughts.”

Ben shrugged. “That is a pity, since I had thought Silence Dogood might need a partner in debate.”

“Oh, she will be debated, worry not about that,” John said. “Her jabs are so clearly and often aimed at members of the Selectmen.”

“Yes, we've already gotten letters heatedly disagreeing with the good widow. But I had thought rather that the two of us
might guide the debate—make it more clever, show the ridiculous elements on either side of the question.”

“But I would write under an assumed name?” John asked.

“Come, John Collins. It would be fun, don't you think?”

“Perhaps.”

“Think on it, John. I have no doubt it would be great sport.”

“I'll think on it. Meantime, have you taken down any more of those mathematical love letters?”

Ben held up his finger. “Ah.” He reached up to steady himself on the boom and to prevent its swinging as he turned his head to search behind him for a second sheaf of papers. He came up with a roll of them, tied up with a ribbon.

“A present for you,” he said, handing them to John.

“I wondered,” John replied. “You have so much to do these days …”

“Not too much to do you this favor,” Ben assured him.

“Still, I wonder if we shouldn't build a second ‘Franklined’ device,” John went on, as he undid the ribbon and let the letters uncurl in his lap.

“Please don't call it that or spread around that I've made such a thing,” Ben cautioned.

“Yes, yes,” John answered testily. “But won't you take credit for
anything
you do?”

“Why? If my design is copied, it's right back to the poorhouse for my brother and me.”

John wrinkled his brow. “I think that there is more to it than that. Writing under a false name, keeping your inventions secret …”

Ben stared hard at John, and it suddenly occurred to him that Trevor Bracewell had seen the both of them with the harmonicum.

“John …” he began.

“What?”

“After we went to the millpond with my harmonicum … did anything …
peculiar
happen to you?”

John nodded almost imperceptibly, and a shadow seemed to fall across his eyes. He sighed. “I was hesitant to broach … I wished to ask …” His contrived formality broke a bit, and he swallowed before going on. “Did it happen to you as well?”

“Trevor Bracewell?” Ben asked in a very quiet voice.

John's forehead wrinkled in a puzzled frown. “That name rings a bell,” he mumbled at last, “though as far as I remember the man in
my
dream had no name.”

“Dream?”

John nodded. “After we went to the millpond—later that night I had a dream, the most frightening I can ever remember. I was back down at the millpond, and a man started shouting at me to stop what I was doing, and then he took you by the neck— you were there, Ben—and he began to strangle you. I went to help you, and then …” John swallowed hard, and Ben realized that, though his friend was trying not to show it, he was still disturbed by his nightmare.

“Go on,” Ben said.

John chewed his lip. “Did you have a dream like this?” he asked.

Ben nodded. “I'll tell you mine in a moment,” he promised. “Go on with yours.”

John stared down at his lap, not meeting Ben's eyes. “Well, then there was an angel before me, all bright and with a flaming sword. It told me that God had condemned you, but that
I
might hope for redemption. But I … I didn't want you killed, so I tried talking to the angel. When that happened, he touched me with his sword, and I—” He lifted his shoulders and tried to smile. “—well, I think I dreamed I was dead. Worms were eating me, squirming out of my scalp. And I was in such a dark place …” His smile was very shaky, but he maintained it.

“Well,” Ben said. “My dream was not nearly so bad.” He related his encounter with Bracewell, but neglected an important point; that
his
encounter had not been a dream. He was certain of this, for the very next day he had seen the spot on the street where he had vomited. But he did not want John to know that.

“Have you had any since?” John asked.

“Dreams like that? No.”

“Do you think it was the harmonicum?” Before Ben answered, he went on in a rush. “Remember that pinkish light, which seemed to serve no other purpose?”

“Yes, of course,” Ben replied.

“Could that account for our dreams? Could we somehow have attracted nightmares from the aether?” John sounded sincere.

Ben bit back a skeptical remark and considered the question.

“I have read,” he began tentatively, “that Gottfried von Leibniz believes that matter resides in something he calls
monads
.”

“Yes—his word for ferments,” John said.

“No, only roughly,” Ben corrected. “And his theory is now largely discredited. Leibniz believed these monads to be alive, conscious—particles of the mind of God, perhaps.”

“Newton proposed something similar, did he not?” John asked.

“Not at all. Newton said that space and time are the
organs
of God, through which he perceives our actions. Leibniz held that substances themselves are animated by consciousness.”

John pushed back his hair and shot him a wry, skeptical grin. “Are you hypothesizing that those dreams were the revenge that the millpond got on us for meddling with its substance?”

“No, because I believe that Leibniz was in error,” Ben said. “Here, throw me that line; I'll want to tack, now.”

John did as directed, but the expression on his face made it clear that the conversation was not done. “It's not impossible,” John hesitantly offered.

“Not impossible,” Ben agreed, “just not very likely, I think. The evidence of science is that the world operates according to laws—laws of motion, affinity, sympathy. What Leibniz suggests is nothing more or less than what the ancients believed— that the world is a nonsensical place governed by the capricious whims of a million petty deities. All the advances man has made in science and magic stand against that.”

“Leibniz was no dolt.”

“No, he wasn't,” Ben agreed. “But he
was
wrong.”

John set his mouth in that tight line that indicated he remained unconvinced. “I have heard even you speculate on polytheism before,” he reminded Ben.

“I think that perhaps the creator of this universe is too remote to want our worship or care for our needs. I think there might be intermediate stages of perfection between ourselves and God, just as there are between the lower animals and ourselves.”

“Yes, arranged in Locke's great chain. But couldn't these ideas of Leibniz fit in with that?”

Ben leaned overboard and, with a deft motion, scooped a handful of water through the air, which spattered onto John.

“Hey!” his friend complained.

“In this water live a hundred kinds of fish,” Ben said, “some lesser and some greater—lower down or farther up the chain. But that is not to say that the water
itself
has anything to say. If I had thrown a fish on you, you would know it to be alive, eh?”

“I know only that you've gotten my sheets wet,” John snapped, brushing what drops he could from the paper. “And that if you have some better hypothesis, I would be pleased to hear it.”

“I don't know,” Ben said, suddenly irritated. “You may be right, in that particles from the aether may have made us ill, discomfited our minds so as to make us dream similar dreams.”

“And the man in both of our dreams?”

Ben smiled. “True. Then try
this
hypothesis. Let us suppose that there were another magician about, one well schooled in the arts. Might he not have perceived what we were doing, seen us as threats to his livelihood, and sent those dreams to haunt us?”

John nodded but looked unconvinced. “That sounds more like the old-style witchcraft than
real
magic.”

“I agree,” Ben said. “Science and alchemy are comprehensible because they can be logically and mathematically understood. And yet you were willing to propose as silly and unscientific a reason—”

“It was
you
who brought up these ‘monads’!” John snapped.

“To consider them and dismiss them. This is different; simply because you and I have not read of a science of dreams does not mean one does not exist. In France and Spain …”

“Or wherever these formulae come from,” John added, glancing down at the papers he still held. “This is strange stuff.”

Ben was glad that the subject had changed; he did not like deceiving John, but he just couldn't bring himself to admit aloud that his “dream” had been real …

Perhaps, he thought suddenly, he
couldn't
tell anyone. That was ridiculous, of course, because he had made the decision himself. And yet, what if John had the same dilemma? What if
both of them had suffered real encounters but could only speak of them as if they were dreams? Of course, John's must have been a dream, since Ben himself was in it …

He would have to think about this some more.

“What make you of those formulae, John? I've been working hard on my own mathematical skills, but much of this is still beyond me.”

“At least
something
is,” John grunted. He was scanning the pages, nodding every now and then. After a moment he pressed one out on his lap. “This section is relatively straightforward,” he said. “Do you understand this much?”

“It's calculus, describing a body in motion, is it not?”

“It is, but this object in motion is in orbit about some much larger body. My guess is that it is the sun itself.”

“And the smaller body is one of the planets.”

John shook his head. “I don't know. A lot of this section is missing—they seemed to have solved this part long ago, and now only summarize the argument. What most of this correspondence is about is a problem with affinity.”

“What do you mean?”

“They are trying to create a powerful attraction between two objects, a very specific attraction. You see this part here? It's almost exactly like Papin's theorem—the one that made warlock cannons possible.”

“The ones Marlborough uses against the French.”