The Difference Engine

"Of course."

"Things are not well with Britain. I don't need my British sources to tell me that, Oliphant. The papers suffice. The death of Byron…"

"Great Britain's political direction, Lucien—indeed, her ultimate stability as a nation—may even now be at stake. I need not remind you of the paramount importance of our two nations' continued mutual recognition and support."

"And the matter of this Miss Gerard, Oliphant? Shall I take it you suggest she is somehow pivotal in the situation?"

Oliphant took out his cigar-case and selected one of Beadon's habanas. His fingers brushed the folded text of Sybil Gerard's telegram. He closed the case. "Do you mind if I smoke?"

"Please do."

"Thank you. The matters which hinge upon Sybil Gerard are entirely British, entirely domestic. They may stand, ultimately, to affect France, but in a most indirect way." Oliphant clipped and pierced his cigar.

"Are you entirely sure of that?"

"I am."

"I am not." Arslau rose to bring Oliphant a copper ashtray atop a walnut stand. He returned to his desk but remained standing. "What do you know of the Jacquardine Society?"

"They are the approximate equivalent of our Steam Intellect Society, are they not?"

"Yes and no. There is another, a secret society, within the Jacquardines. They style themselves Les Fils de Vaucanson. Certain of them are anarchists, others in league with the Maria

Oliphant took a lucifer from a box emblazoned with a stippled image of the Bessemer, and struck it. He lit his cigar.

"You tell me that the woman you know as Sybil Gerard is of no concern to France," Arslau said.

"You think otherwise?"

"Perhaps. Tell me what you know of our difficulties with the Great Napoleon."

"Very little. Wakefield of Central Statistics mentioned it to me. The Engine is no longer functioning accurately?"

"Ordinateurs, thank the good God, are not my specialty. The Napoleon performs with its accustomed speed and accuracy in most instances, I am informed, but an outre element of inconstancy presently haunts the machine's higher functions… " Arslau sighed. "Those higher functions being deemed a matter of considerable national pride, I have myself been forced to peruse reams of the most abstruse technical prose in the Empire. To no ultimate avail, it now seems, as we've had the culprit in hand."

"The culprit?"

"An avowed member of Les Fils de Vaucanson. His name is of no importance. He was arrested in Lyons in co

"He confessed to le sabotage, then?"

"No. He would not confess to that. He refused, until the end. With regard to the Napoleon, he would admit only to having run a certain sequence of punch-cards, a mathematical formula."

Oliphant watched the smoke from his cigar spiral toward the high ceiling's ornate plaster rosette.

"The formula came from London," Arslau continued. "He obtained it from an Englishwoman. Her name was Sybil Gerard."

"Have you attempted analysis of this formula?"

"No. It was stolen, our Jacquardine claimed, spirited away by a woman he knew as Flora Bartelle, apparently an American."

"I see."

"Then tell me what you see, my friend, for I myself am very much in the dark."

The Eye. All-seeing, the sublime weight of its perception pressing in upon him from every direction.

Oliphant hesitated. Ash from his cigar fell u

Arslau fell silent. He seemed to look through Oliphant. At last he nodded. "We can arrange that."

"She is not, I take it, in custody?"

"Let us say that we are aware of her movements."

"You allow her apparent freedom, yet observe her closely?"

"Precisely that. If we take her now, and she reveals nothing, the trail goes cold."

"As ever, Arslau, your technique is impeccable. And when might it be arranged for me to meet with her?"

The Eye, the pressure, the pounding of his heart.

"This evening, if you so desire," said Monsieur Arslau of the Police des Chateaux, adjusting his gold-embroidered cravat.

The walls of the Cafe de l'Univers were hung with paintings, etched mirrors, and enamel plaques advertising the ubiquitous product of Pernod Fils. The pictures, if one could call them that, were either grotesque daubs, seemingly executed in a messy imitation of Engine-stippling, or queer geometric formulations suggesting the restless motion of kinotrope-bits. In some cases, Oliphant supposed, the painters themselves were present—or such he took them to be, these long-haired fellows in velvet caps, their corduroy trousers smeared with pigment and tobacco-ash. But the majority of the clientele—according to his companion, one Jean Beraud—consisted of kinotropistes. These gentlemen of the Latin Quarter sat and drank with their black-clad grisettes at the round marble tables, or held forth on theoretical matters before small groups of their peers.

Beraud, in an unseasonable boater and a brown suit of intensely Gallic cut, was one of Arslau's mouchards, a professional informer who referred to the kinotropists as members of "le milieu." He was fresh and rosy as a young pig, he drank Vittel and peppermint, and Oliphant had taken an immediate dislike to him. The kinotropists seemed to favor the absinthe of Pernod Fils; Oliphant, sipping a glass of red wine, watched the ritual of glass and water-decanter, of sugar-lump and trowel-shaped spoon.

"Absinthe is the bed of tuberculosis," Beraud said.

"Why do you suppose that Madame Tournachon would choose to appear tonight in this cafe, Beraud?"

The mouchard shrugged. "She is a familiar of le milieu, monsieur. She goes to Madelon's, also to Batiffol's, but it is here, in l'Univers, that she most nearly finds companionship."

"And why is that, do you think?"

"Because she was Gautier's mistress, of course. He was a kind of prince here, monsieur, it must be understood. Her relationship with Gautier has necessarily limited her contacts with ordinary society. He taught her French, or such French as she has."

"What sort of woman, exactly, do you take her to be?"

Beraud smirked. "She is perhaps attractive, but cold. Unsympathetic. In the ma

"When she arrives, Beraud—if she arrives, I should say—you are to take your leave immediately."

Beraud raised his eyebrows. "On the contrary, monsieur—"

"You are to go, Beraud. Take your leave." A measured pause. "Vanish."

The sharply padded shoulders of Beraud's brown suit rose at the word.

"You will instruct the cab to wait, and the stenographer as well. The stenographer, Beraud—his English is adequate? My friend—my very good friend. Monsieur Arslau—has assured me that this is the case… "

"Entirely adequate, yes! And monsieur"—getting up so quickly that he nearly overturned his bentwood chair—"it is she… "

The woman now entering l'Univers might easily have been mistaken for a modish Parisie