God wasnt the only one who knew, Grant thought bitterly. Desmond Fowlers clandestine program probably knew it, too.
It is thought, Lincoln continued, that there may be a secondary cause of afflictionsomething unrelated to the drug itself. He paused to watch Grants reaction, but Grant didnt give him one. But theres still so much we dont know.
Then tell me what we do know. Or tell me what your Fiddlehead knows, at least.
Lincoln looked down at the pages again, then withdrew a pencil from his satchel. He pressed a button to activate his wheeled chair and brought himself closer to the president, pulling up alongside his seat. The firelight warmed and brightened them both and made the brittle paper look brighter than a lampshade.
Lincoln circled one columns worth of information. You see this part, here? These are casualty figures from three skirmishes two
months ago. None of the field doctors reported any lepers, or any drug use among the men.
I see, Grant said. But he didnt.
The numbers are precisely what youd expect: Half of the men died from their wounds. Of those who remained, approximately half succumbed to known diseases or infection. These other menhe pointed at a secondary linewere too badly hurt to return to battle, but they did survive. Now, look at these figures, over here. He drew another circle. These are numbers from four other skirmishes around the same time. Two in northern Tennessee, one on Sand Mountain in Alabama, and one outside of Richmond.
Grant took a slow, deep breath and let it out again as he read the Tennessee casualty figures. Fifty percent dead from injuries. Two percent injured beyond further combat. Forty-eight percent
Forty-eight percent dead from what?
From necrotic injuries, inflicted largely by their fellow soldiers.
What on earth have those Southerners done?
Its not just the Southerners.
These are all Southern battlefields!
Most of the battlefields are Southern battlefields, Lincoln reminded him, using the gentle tone of someone who is dealing with a drunk. Grant didnt care for that tone, but he ignored it. Hed heard it from everyone, for years. And the Southern soldiers arent the ones chewing up our boys after the fact; these are our figures. Our men. That said, the Confederacys having problems toothe same problems, almost exactly. In fact, the only time the Fiddlehead balked was when we asked where the drug came from, North or South.
It didnt know?
It didnt say. Gideon says the question shouldnt have been phrased that way, since it might have come from someplace else. Something about contradictory absolutes, he said.
So where did it come from, do you think?
Lincoln shrugged, a gesture that made him look like a funeral suit sliding off a hanger. The Western territories? The Mexican Empire? The islands? The machine couldnt tell us the drugs originonly that the lepers will win the war.
Balderdash, Grant spit. Its utter balderdash, and you know I mean no disrespect.
Its science.
The war wont be won by the walking dead, Abe.
And why not? Before long, well have more soldiers dead than livingand when the dead outnumber us, the advantage is theirs.
After a frustrated, uncertain pause, Grant said, Your machine offers up more questions than answers.
Its vocabulary is limited. It can only work with what we give it.
It must be wrong.
Its frightening, but I dont believe its wrong. We cant win, and neither can the CSA.
The president laughed sadly. This was almost precisely what hed told Desmond Fowler not ten minutes before. Then what do you suggest we do?
The only thing we can do is stop fighting. Declare a cease-fire, call a summit. Explain the situation to Bragg and Stephenstheyre reasonable men, old men. And theyre tired of fighting too. He sat forward with some difficulty, and the firelight played across the sharp-cut angles of his cheeks. You can tell them that we do not ask their surrender, and do not offer our own. Explain the greater threat and extend a hand of brotherhood. Not North against South, but living against dead.
Grant shook his head. It would never work. Theyll never believe us.
They might. When we asked the Fiddlehead to tell us how the war would end, we had to estimate figures on the Southern sidewe didnt have the precise numbers of living, dead, sick, or wounded. It was funny, reallyor, rather, Gideon thought it funny: The machine accused us of lying to it.
Hows that?
It rejected our estimates as implausible, and supplied its own calculations. But we have every indication that the South suffers from the leper problem too, perhaps even worse than we do. We may get lucky: They may want a way out of the war as badly as we do, and if theyre aware of the threat in their own land, they might be open to a conversation.
Grant harrumphed and scowled into the fire, as if he were asking it for a second opinion. What if we could get Southern casualty reports? Send some spies out in search of accurate figures to feed into your machine. Thatd give us a better idea of what were up against, wouldnt it? Itd give us a hint about how open theyd be to a conversation, as you put it.