Chapter 31: Study

“A mind is a terrible thing to waste.”

— UNCF (United Negro College Fund), campaign slogan coined in 1972; later credited to Forest Long of Young & Rubicam. UNCF was founded by Frederick D. Patterson, but the slogan belongs to the 1972 UNCF advertising campaign rather than to Patterson. Copyright/trademark used by UNCF.

There was no rain that night, so the crackling of the hearth was the only sound as Dean Theophilus Ashcombe and Silas Wolcott were going over the stacks of papers while choosing which texts were most important.

Schematics, anatomical diagrams, and hopes were all written in Silas’ hand.

Theophilus held one page depicting a repeating rifle unlike any weapon presently in production. It was more efficient with ammunition was more accurate and efficient at killing, but also easier to remove than the spray of musketballs.

He studied it in silence.

Silas sat nearby with a glass of Scotch in one hand.

“What do you think?” he asked.

Ashcombe adjusted his spectacles.

“I think whoever designed this would either revolutionize warfare or be arrested for frightening every military officer in Europe.”

Silas laughed.

“I was hoping for something slightly more technical.”

The Dean tapped the page.

“The mechanism is ingenious. If this is possible, it would permit a soldier to fire repeatedly without the laborious process of reloading after every shot.”

“I do believe that was the point,” Silas replied.

“You sound very certain.”

“I am,” Silas said unemotionally.

Ashcombe looked up. “Have you built one?”

“No.”

“Then how can you know?”

Silas hesitated before answering. He was confessing to something that could not be weighed, measured, or properly quantified. Science was built on logic and reason, but the Eldritch deity that had given him the gift of seeing into these things was not something that could be explained.

Then again, the Dean had said he would go into this unknown with him, so that was better than the alternative.

“I have seen one.”

That answer satisfied neither science nor reason.

“Go on,” Ashcombe encouraged.

“When the second Eldritch being contacted me, he showed me visions of many places and people. With the technology we have, I have been trying to reconstruct some of what I have seen.”

Ashcombe nodded in response and continued examining the pages. That would have to suffice for the moment.

They moved next to the anatomical sketches.

There the Dean became even more animated.

The diagrams showed organs with startling precision. Depictions of human muscles, arteries, methods of surgical intervention, and so on were all in these notes. There were techniques within the pages with precise details that neither physician nor surgeon presently practiced.

Ashcombe turned several pages with increasing astonishment.

“Good God.”

“What?”

“Some of these procedures would save thousands of lives.”

Silas leaned forward. “Do you believe they would work?”

He had not been sure when he wrote them down. While medicine was not the most important things he had seen in his visions, he had seen how humans had become undone by monsters and explosion, yet the medical physicians still did reconstructive work on their patients.

The Dean looked offended. “My dear fellow, I know some of these will work, especially with the healing powers of your blood.”

He tapped a drawing sharply.

“Look here. Improved sterilization procedures.”

Another page.

“And this. Methods for repairing injuries presently considered fatal.”