Giving Up the Ghost by Max McCoy Page A

surrender them, she must, eventually, to men of reason and steady disposition.”
    I wanted to punch him in the throat.
    â€œWhat explanation could there be?” Lawson asked.
    â€œNone of you are old enough to remember this, but in late August and early September of 1859 the entire telegraphic systems of the world were paralyzed because of a peculiar atmospheric condition,” Strong said. “The wires became hot, cells exploded, some devices did burst into flame. For three days, there was just noise on the line, and it was nigh to impossible to send a message. Batteries were disconnected, and yet current still flowed through the circuits. In truth, the lines were somewhat more usable when the cells were switched off. And there were lights in the sky, just as we see now.”
    â€œBut how?” Salisbury asked.
    â€œIt is the northern lights we’re seeing, rare for this latitude, but not unheard of,” Strong said. “In 1859, they were seen as far south as the Indian Ocean. In the Rocky Mountains, miners got up and went to work at midnight, believing dawn had come. In San Francisco, the lights were bright enough to read the smallest newsprint. And in New Orleans, crowds gathered in Jackson Square to alternately admire and fear the celestial display.”
    â€œI remember the lights,” I said. “I was eleven years old, and we lived near Memphis. My Tante Marie led me out in the fields to see the sky. But these lights seem different. There were no falling stars back then.”
    What I didn’t say is that Tante Marie had knelt beside me in the field and whispered in my ear that the mantle of fire in the sky was a sign that God’s judgment would wash the stain of chattel slavery from the land.
    â€œWhat caused them?” the man with the pencil asked.
    â€œThe theories were various,” Strong said. “Some believed that volcanic debris from a Pacific island eruption was responsible, others concluded that the display was the result of sunlight reflecting from icebergs in the far north, and some felt that it was caused by debris floating in the ether between the planets. They were, every one of them, wrong.”
    â€œWhat, then?” Salisbury asked.
    â€œThe sun,” Strong said, “the natural dynamo that is at the center of our solar system, and which exerts a powerful but unseen influence upon the earth. An English astronomer named Carrington, whose hobby was to daily count the number of spots on the sun, noted on the first day of the manifestation a series of spectacular geomagnetic explosions that sent waves of electro-magnetism hurtling toward our planet. A similar helio storm has not occurred until, apparently, now.”
    â€œThat is a fantastic story,” Lawson said.
    â€œAll the more fantastic because it has been proven true by science,” Strong said. “If only we could harness the electro-motive power of the aurora borealis, mankind would have a limitless source of cheap power. It is something I understand that Mr. Edison is hard at work on. Until that time, we must make do with our galvanic cells.”
    â€œWhat about the odd messages?” I asked.
    â€œYes,” Salisbury said. “I’m sure I copied the text correctly.”
    â€œBah! Your mind is tricking you into making sense of the noise,” Strong said. “It is a perfectly understandable human trait, but perfectly wrong. Somewhere in your brain, long was there that biblical verse and that message about Vicksburg tucked away, just waiting to bubble to the surface.”
    â€œI don’t believe both Salisbury and Mackie would have the same bubble just waiting to froth up,” I said.
    â€œCoincidence,” Strong said. “It means nothing.”
    â€œAnd the black train?”
    â€œI saw no other train,” Strong said.
    â€œBut sir,” Salisbury said. “We all of us saw it. And heard the cursed thing.”
    â€œIt wasn’t