Eyes of the Calculor (21 page)

"A fox that can fly, Fras Camderine. It stands for something that is of great concern to me, and also to you. Let me tell you all about it."

The rest of their meeting took two hours, and at the end of it Martyne returned to his room with two scrolls, a small drawstring purse of silver, several memorized code words and names, and a lot of astonishing revelations. His life suddenly had direction, even

though his future was a lot less certain. The Dragon Librarian Service was the complete opposite of Balesha.

I he Reformed Gentheist preacher had been touring through the Commonwealth for some weeks, and had converted many souls to the path of enlightened balance taught by Jemli the Prophet. Her message was that many of the methods used in both the Commonwealth and the Dragon Librarian Service were blessed in the eyes of the Deity. The calculor, the beamflash tower system, the pedal trains, and the river galleys were all human-powered machines that did not use fueled engines. Fueled engines were evil, they destroyed the balance of the Deity in the world. The preacher was in Rochester to give the Dragon Librarian Service the good news.

The audience crammed into the main auditorium of Libris was not quite what he had expected of the Dragon Silvers and Golds of the legendary civil service of Dragon Librarians. One in the front row was picking his nose and fashioning an increasingly large ball from what he was finding. Another had constructed a tiny ballista from a ruler and stylus, and was firing his uniform's buttons back up into the audience behind him. He could not determine which one was producing the particularly loud farts from over to the left, but he had managed to identify the woman three rows from the front who said "Quack" every time he used a gerund.

"So will you commit yourselves to the Word of the Prophet?" concluded the preacher.

"Yes! Yes!" shouted his audience, flinging fragments of torn paper into the air.

"Will you sign the pledge to destroy all abominations, whether living or machine?"

"Kill! Kill!" responded his audience, flinging more paper into the air.

Several of them attempted to kill each other as the preacher's lackeys circulated copies of the pledge, and the Tiger Dragons were constantly intervening to restore order. Several refused to sign. One woman presented the lackeys with a pair of bare buttocks with an

eye drawn on each cheek in red ink, another leaped up onto his desk, insisting that he was the devil, that hell was a really a rather nice place, and that everyone should help him dig a tunnel down to it so that mortals could have free guided tours before deciding whether to be good or evil in life. At the end of the three longest hours of his life, the Gentheist preacher left Libris.

"I have heard that librarians here are peculiar, but I never, never expected that" declared the preacher as he strode away across the plaza with his assistants.

"Do those people really hold the Commonwealth together, Master?" asked one of his lackeys.

"If so, we have the Rochestrian Commonwealth conquered already. That crowd of idiots might have been a strain to deal with, but they were swallowing every word that I said like free beer. What a riot against their sinful rulers I have left behind us."

Back in Libris, Highliber Dramoren marched into the auditorium at the head of four Tiger Dragons and surveyed the rioting audience. He pointed. A man was seized, his arms were pinned, and he was frogmarched through the door. Once outside, he was stripped of his Dragon Gold uniform and forced into cotton pajamas and a straitjacket.

"It will be at least two hours before we have the last of them in the wagons and on the way back to the asylum," said Leometer, the deputy head of the Tiger Dragons. "As for cleaning and repairing the auditorium, who knows how long that will take?"

"Ah, but did you see how happy the Gentheist firebrand was?" replied Dramoren.

"I did. He certainly thinks that he has converted the rulers of the Dragon Librarian Service to the Word of the Deity with a single, inspired rally."

"Indeed."

They walked back into the auditorium and selected the man who was mining his nose. Jostled by the Tiger Dragons, the man dropped his ball of pickings, and became quite violent when they would not allow him to look for it. A few rows back the red eyes on the bare buttocks glared balefully down at Dramoren and Leometer.

"Only one thing worries me about this exercise," said Leometer.

"You think the preacher was suspicious?" asked Dramoren.

"No. It is the fact that he could so easily be convinced that this crowd of certified loons is the crowning glory of the Dragon Librarian Service."

"Actually I got the idea during last week's last meeting of the Council of Dragon Golds," Dramoren admitted.

/\ week after recruiting Martyne, Dramoren returned to the Toad and Tankard. His meeting was again in the soundproofed room, but this time with a man dressed as a Dragon Green Librarian. Upon pushing back the hood of his cloak, he revealed himself to have the tonsure of a monk. As Dramoren sat down, the monk began removing a number of elegant-looking brass stands and glassware objects from a wooden carrying case.

"Brother Leprasen, how long has it been?" said Dramoren once the door was closed.

"Nine years, Franzas," declared the monk, interrupting his work to shake the hand of the Highliber. "You seem to have aged and grayed rather faster than I have."

"And you have hair loss."

"Monastery-imposed hair loss, if you please."

"Can you visit Grandmother before you return to Euroa? She'd like that."

"On the way home, yes. But first I am charged to demonstrate this thing to you. What do you think?"

Dramoren scrutinized the instrument on the left of the table. It looked like a small, delicately made paddle wheel. It had been fashioned from foil and mounted on its side on a pin within a glass bulb. Half of it was shielded by a baffle.

"It has the look of a toy with an important principle behind it," said Dramoren guardedly to his cousin.

"Indeed it has. At the monastery workshops we have a decompression pump, and this was used to evacuate the air from the bulb before it was sealed. The thing is a stylized model of Mirrorsun in space."

"Very stylized. What does it tell us? It seems to just be sitting there and wobbling a bit."

"Just now the light is too dim, but fetch the lamp over from the wall and all that will change."

Brother Leprasen held the lamp's flame to a strip of metal held in a clamp.

"This is a strip of the increasingly rare magnesium," said Leprasen. "It represents the sun."

The metal caught fire, and began to burn with a brilliant white glow while releasing milky fumes into the room. To his astonishment, Dramoren saw that the paddle wheel within the glass bulb was turning.

"Light is theorized to be made of particles," said Leprasen. "They are quite tiny, but they do provide a slight pressure. Comets prove it with their tails, and this is yet more proof."

Dramoren bent across to watch the wheel spinning. He placed his hand in the path of the light and it slowed. Removing his hand set it spinning as fast as before. Presently the flame reached the clamp holding the magnesium strip and it winked out. Dramoren straightened.

"So simple," he said, shaking his head.

"This is one of two models we made with the aid of an old text. The other is back at Euroa, but this is yours. There are enough strips of magnesium for another ten demonstrations. Ordinary sunlight will suffice as well."

"Now I see why you predicted that Mirrorsun's rate of spin will increase, even before the latest eclipse."

"Yes, but since the eclipse we have been able to work out the total surface area of the paddles and make an estimate of the pressure of sunlight causing it to gather speed. This has in turn allowed us to calculate its actual mass as well. The figures need to be refined, but its lightness suggests that it is very thin yet immensely strong. Less than paper's thickness, we estimate, yet stronger than the steel in a gunbarrel."

"Were Mirrorsun to disintegrate, pieces might loop deep into

space, then fall to Earth. My own staff have calculated that it could happen. Could Mirrorsun material survive a plunge through the atmosphere?"

Leprasen held up a finger, then reached into the wooden carrying case again. What he drew out was a crumb of black material about the size of Dramoren's thumbnail.

"From 1708 GW until the assassination of Highliber Zarvora, Mirrorsun had been sending us presents from its celestial workshops. The smallest of the containers were a yard across and contained little calculors. The largest could have enclosed a moderately big palace. They contained flying machines powered by sunlight, and released them on the way down."

"I know, I have seen one of those shells. It was crumbling to dust."

"As all of them did. Something in the air seems to degrade the material, but using diamond-point tools we cut a few samples from one shell while it was fresh. This fragment is coated in lacquer to protect it. Others are sealed in evacuated flasks, along with an entire parachute. It is light, Fras, lighter than poorpaper yet stronger than steel. This sample took two monks working in shifts weeks to cut away."

"So a piece the size of a mayorate plunging to Earth would be something to worry about?"

"Cousin, I have been worrying about the prospect a great deal."

"Mirrorsun may not be made of such stuff," Dramoren suggested.

"Then again, it may be made of something even stronger," his cousin countered.

Leprasen started to pack the model back into its case, giving Dramoren some simple instructions for its operation as he worked.

"I hate to be bureaucratic, but could you please sign for this thing?" Leprasen said as he handed a scrap of poorpaper to Dramoren. "It's not as if I don't trust you, but I'm not abbot yet."

"As if we do not have enough things to worry about already," muttered Dramoren as he signed with a char stylus. "Have you heard that Jemli the Prophet wishes to visit us next year?"

"That long-haired troublemaker from the backblocks?" said Le-prasen.

"Go back four thousand years and that description could fit a certain Jewish carpenter who—"

"Yes, yes, and if Jemli the Prophet is willing to rise from the dead after three days I'll be sure to give her my undivided attention. Anyway, Franzas, she is Reformed Gentheist, not Christian."

"She is primarily Gentheist, but she has substantial Christian and Islamic followings as well. One of her messages is that fueled machines have been creeping back into use, and that they are evil in the sight of God. They once corrupted Earth and led to Greatwinter."

"So? Franzas, all major religions have a prohibition against devices outside nature's cycles."

"At the Council of Woomera in 1723 GW, the Christian Church of Supreme Knowledge defined the ban as applying to fuels that cannot be replaced. A steam engine can be fueled by wood but not by coal, for example. The Islamics are sure to follow that lead soon, and even factions of the Gentheists support the Council of Woom-era's decision."

"Those factions' members are currently being hunted down, imprisoned, subjected to intensive reeducation, and in some cases even burned at the stake on a pyre of totally natural brushwood. That sudden annihilation of all electrical devices seemed to vindicate Jemli the Prophet. She's at least consistent. Years ago she denounced Mayor Glasken, her own husband, over some steam and electrical engines."

"Aye, and to marry her boyfriend," added Dramoren.

"Be that as it may, her actions of smashing the steam engines then seemed prophetic of what happened last month, when all things electrical burned."

"So do you believe in her?"

"Oh, no. We at Euroa now have working electrical machines in mesh cages, and they are powered by monks on treadmills. As you know, they did not burn. Electricity from muscle, can that be evil? Can God's wrath be defeated by wire mesh? I say that Mirrorsun is experiencing malfunctions, and that is where the damage originates."

"If I were you, I would hide those machines, cousin. In a few months, or even weeks, you might have rampaging mobs smashing your physics workshops and roasting you over a brushwood fire."

Hawaii

■ he sailwing was almost at stall speed as its wheels made contact with the new wingfield of Hawaii Brink. The surface was rough, but the Dove's wheels were well supported and the aircraft rolled to a stop in safety. Still unsure of her feet after nineteen hours in the air, Samondel nevertheless demanded a tour of the tiny colony of twelve men and three women. There was a wingfield, a compression spirit store, shelters built from local vegetation, and even a newly planted field of sunflower seeds.

"We were expecting the Yarron Star" said the adjunct as Samondel examined the barrels of compression spirit that had been dropped by parachute during the preceding weeks.

"Yarron Star will be arriving tomorrow. By then I shall be fueled from these barrels and in the air. Be good enough to fill the tanks and haul the Dove around for ascent in fifteen hours. I shall be flying south."

"Saireme Airlord, there are no islands of usable size for over two thousand miles."

"True."

"I know little about wings, Saireme Airlord, but would the speed of the Dove be perhaps ninety miles per hour?"

"The Dove can stay in the air for thirty-five hours at cruising speed, Sair Adjunct. That other sailwing, the Gull: have it fueled and tethered to assist my ascent tomorrow. My navigator will be its flyer."

As soon as the adjunct was gone she beckoned to two gangers who were standing nearby. Both hurried over and dropped to their knees.

"Get up, get up," Samondel said, looking them over. Both were short but strong, still in their teens. "What are your names?"

"Barek, Saireme Airlord."

"Karian, Saireme Airlord."

"Sairs, will you volunteer to fly with me tomorrow? There is one chance in three that we shall all die."

"We would fly with you to hell, Saireme Airlord," declared Barek.

"If one could fly to hell," added Karian.

"Excellent. Wear trousers and a jacket, and bring a pint of water, an axhead, and shovel. Eat and drink well tonight, for thereafter we shall be hungry for a long time."

The following morning the Dove struggled into the air towed by the Gull. The Gull had just a full load of compression spirit, but the Dove was so overloaded that it could not have ascended or even sustained level flight unaided. They banked to the south, and began a shallow climb.

By the time the Yarron Star made its descent the Dove was long gone. The super-regal's captain carried the news that Airlord Sa-mondel had taken the experimental Dove on a test flight at Wind River's wingfield, then vanished. She was later found to have descended to refuel at the Oakland Waystation wingfield, then flown out to sea. The order was that on no account was she to be given any assistance.

After twenty-five hours the Gull returned, and Samondel's navigator reported that she had dropped the tether over empty ocean before flying on. When fifty hours had passed, all hope for the safe return of Samondel and the two gangers was abandoned. Prayers were said for their souls, then the Yarron Star returned to Mount-haven with the news that Airlord Samondel was dead.

Rutherglen, the Rochestrian Commonwealth

I he pedal train carrying Velesti reached Rutherglen on the same day that Martyne joined the Espionage Constables in Rochester. Rutherglen was within the Rochestrian Commonwealth, just over the Southmoor border. Passengers desperate for anything alcoholic after

the enforced temperance of countless Islamic waysides rushed straight from the immigration checkpoint to the nearest taverns, but Velesti was in no hurry.

"So, a Dragon Yellow from Griffith," said the immigration clerk.

"Yes," replied Velesti, reading the register upside down as he wrote.

"I see that you are staying some days in Rutherglen."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Research."

"And your area of expertise is theology?"

"Yes."

"But would you have done any other studies, arithmetic for example?"

"Yes."

It was not an admission that sensible people made in the Ro-chestrian Commonwealth in the September of 1729 GW. Even Dragon Librarians were known to be abducted, stripped, dressed in other clothing, and then sold on the black market as calculor components. The mistakes were eventually discovered, of course, but by then the criminals involved had taken their gold and vanished.

The clerk caught the eye of an office boy. He nodded once. The boy slipped out. Velesti was given her papers with all the right signatures and stamps on them, and she emerged from the paraline wayside into the streets of Rutherglen carrying a light backpack. She went straight to the unitech library after booking a room at a hostelry. It was after dusk before she emerged from her researches, and she made for her hostelry through streets and laneways that had been abandoned by the citizens of the provincial capital for their dinners. Light rain had added a gleam to everything in the golden light of the tallow streetlamps.

An hour later Velesti arrived at the door of a room in another hostelry, not far from the town gates. She pressed the latch, and the door opened. The room was empty, and there were no blankets on the bed. She dropped her pack to the floor, then left again, pulling the door closed behind her.

The stables of the inn were large enough to accommodate two dozen horses, although Velesti noted from the inn's chalkboard that only five stalls were currently occupied by travelers' mounts. From one of the fodder bays came the sound of snoring, and by the faint light of a single tallow lamp she could see two oblong whiskey jars lying in the straw. A faint jingle came from one of the shadowed stalls, then a man of stocky build in his mid-thirties stepped out into the lamplight. He was holding a cavalry flintlock, and the striker was cocked back. Velesti raised her hands.

"Noticed you on the pedal train," said Sergeant Bruse dey'Tremmier. "How did you find me?"

"Find you?" replied Velesti, her voice like the hollow boom of a small gong.

"You're too fyk-arse smart for your own good. Your name would not happen to be Frelle Disore, now, would it?"

"Yes."

The sergeant appraised her, noting the gun in her belt and her Dragon Librarian Service uniform.

"So, the Dragon Yellow. And this time you have a gun."

"Yes."

The sergeant was the most professional of the fifteen who had attacked Velesti and Elsile the previous July. He had been two decades in military service and was very good at staying alive. Having checked and secured all entrances to the stables except for the main doors and rendered the stableman drunk, he had saddled another guest's horse in preparation for a flight that would not be noticed until morning. He had killed hundreds of men in battles and brawls, and when any woman that he fancied did not respond to his overtures, he forced them upon her anyway. In spite of all this he had not so much as set foot in a magistrate's court until the attack upon Velesti Disore and Elsile Camderine, and he was feeling mightily resentful about that. He had been close to being commissioned as a lieutenant but now all his prospects were gone, and merely because of a stupid musketeer and a girl who had no right to be alive. He had watched as the young lieutenant had squeezed Velesti's throat, but had neglected to check for a pulse afterward.

The idiot had had his commission bought, so he had probably never killed anyone with his bare hands before. No wonder she had survived.

"So, here we are again," said the sergeant, his gun level and steady.

Velesti said nothing, but kept her arms up and perfectly still. Her eyes were wide.

"Come, now, what about 'Don't hurt me'? No tears this time?"

Velesti continued to regard him steadily, her face blank.

"So, you think that you have a chance because you have a gun. Take it out of your belt, slowly, give it here."

Velesti did not move.

"Give it here, slut! I'll kill you!"

Still Velesti did not move. The sergeant advanced slowly, his gun held before him.

"Just the slightest nudge of my finger and this bores into you. Understand that? Eh? Better to have me boring in, just you believe it. Who would have thought I would again lie between your legs? Think about that while I—"

He had reached out to draw the flintlock from Velesti's belt. Those skilled in martial arts know that a well-trained and totally confident fighter can move faster than an opponent can react to pull a trigger, provided that the gun is within reach. Velesti's left hand swept down to bat the gun aside while her right chopped down into the side of the sergeant's neck. With her right hand she seized his collar and chopped the edge of her left into his throat. Now her left hand slid under his right arm and she bent him over with a straight-arm lock before bringing her knee up into his face. Unconscious, and with his windpipe crushed, the sergeant collapsed with the gun in his hand still ready to fire. Velesti put a knee into his back and gripped his head in both hands. With a brisk twist she snapped his neck.

It might be fair to say that the sergeant's dead body did, technically, lie between Velesti's legs as she stepped over it to walk away, but it was not the sort of technicality that would have given him any comfort, or one that she cared about.

Velesti set out for her hostelry. On the street ahead were two figures walking very slowly, and spaced so that with their arms outstretched they could have touched the buildings on either side. Glancing behind her, she noted a third shadowboy, this one hurrying along as if to catch up. She did not vary her pace, and closed steadily with the two ahead of her, walking to the left of the gutter in the center of the street. They closed. At the last moment she stepped to the right as if to give way.

The shadowboy sprang for her. Velesti took his arm, dropped her weight, spun him, thrust her hip into his abdomen, and flung him over her back to crash down on his companion. Picking up his swagger stick she spun and slashed it down across the face of the shadowboy who had been following her, then brought it up backhand into his crotch. By now the first shadowboy was back on his feet with his flintlock out. Velesti's Morelac went off in his face, placing a shot neatly between his eyes. The man he had come down upon did well to merely collect the side of her boot in his throat. Although it did not quite crush his windpipe, he suddenly became far more interested in merely breathing than trying to abduct any girl, no matter how good her background in arithmetic might be. Dropping the swagger stick, Velesti stepped over the bodies of both the dead and the severely distressed, then continued on down the narrow street.

A light began to shimmer beside her as she walked through the drizzle that was again falling, and within moments the light resolved itself into a striding human figure. The more detail the figure gained, the less it glowed.

"The evening's compliments, Frelle Zarvora," said Velesti without turning.

"You look wet," replied the apparition.

"Rain has that effect on me."

Zarvora's hair remained bushy and dry as the raindrops plunged straight through it unimpeded.

"That was a remarkably quick and humane pair of killings," Zarvora observed.

"Does that disappoint you?"

"No, but it does surprise me."

"I am not a cruel person. I think of it as culling an unhealthy characteristic from the human species, while at the same time giving a strong incentive for potential offenders not to offend."

They approached the awning of a tavern, where several galley engine navvies stood drinking. The burly men began to whistle and call unseemly suggestions. Zarvora walked straight through them. They dropped their tankards and scattered, screaming with fear, into the rain sodden darkness.

"I trust you have not forgotten our arrangement," said Zarvora, folding her arms behind her back.