The set of engines which Toriman had spoken of so many years ago had been brought up from underneath the Yards. They presented something of a problem in that they were only about seventy-five percent complete and the principles upon which they were supposed to have run were totally beyond the grasp of Carolinian science. There were plenty of plans around, all in the odd script of the Builders, of course, and many of the more advanced theoretical works from the Black Libraries seemed to jibe with these blueprints.
So, after some twenty years of slipshod interpolation and simple guessing, the Admiralty produced a set of instructions for completing the engines. But since it was irrelevant whether or not the engines actually worked, the Admiralty and Syers spent much of their time on making the engines look as if they should work and in designing instruments that would confirm the sham.
The possible blast and radiation effects of the engines and their phony adjuncts had prompted Syers to locate them in as isolated a region as possible; but the Admiralty insisted that they be located within sight of the Yards and of the city that had grown up around them. They were finally located about seven miles down the coast. Their bulk combining with the testing shacks to produce an appropriately impressive and mysterious complex.
Syers had watched the test with his wife and a man from the Admiralty and all had been gratified by the show; the Sea steamed, the earth even up in the Techno-dominated hills shook, nearby glass was shattered, multiple blue-white flames cut through billowing smoke clouds. It was exactly what one would expect to see at the end of a seven mile long starship.
The Techno in charge of the engines and their testing was an intelligent young fellow named Marlet. Although motor vehicles were now quite common in and about the Yards, Marlet and many other Technos still preferred the horse-drawn carriages that Trebbly and his contemporaries had used. Marlet arrived early the next evening with his report. Syers, feeling somewhat self-satisfied after yesterday's success and a fine dinner, accepted the report with many belches and congratulations. Marlet did not seem to share the older man's delight.
"What's wrong, Marlet, old man? Been thinking about the possibility of more tests, fooling the People again and thinking they might find out? Forget it. My boy, I was very impressed by the display you and your men put on yesterday. I think that the People are convinced their precious ship has the power to get off the ground." Mar-let stood silently, fidgeting. "Well, then, what's the trouble?"
"As you said, sir, the special effects went beautifully, really tremendous. I have enough tapes and records to satisfy the most intelligent and suspicious members of the People that the engines are fully operational. You see, I set up this parallel rig too, just to let us know what the engines were really doing. Sir, it looks like they really do work."
Both men looked quietly at each other for a moment; Syers tried desperately to figure out an appropriate reaction. "So is that something to be ashamed of, Marlet? So they work, all the better; now they can never accuse us of deception—on this count at least. Why should it bother you?"
"I suppose that you're right, sir." Marlet raised his head and peered directly into Syers' eyes. "But, by Heaven, sir, it just doesn't seem right. That we should do such a slapdash job of putting those monsters together, and that we should just fake what we either didn't understand or have, and then that the whole package should work like the Builders did it themselves."
Marlet cast about for the words. "Sir, it's just too damn
right
to be true. Things shouldn't be working out like this."
"Never question fortune, my boy," said Syers in his most paternal tone.
Marlet settled down a bit. "Again, sir, I suppose that it's the unexpected real success. After all, we're in the business of deception . . . "
"The business of progress, son."
"Of course, but I am upset that Fortune, a lady who has shown us little favor in the past, should suddenly join our side."
Syers turned to a nearby window. Below them, more than eight miles to the southwest, lay the Yards; the barren concrete field that Limpkin had known was now aswarm with the People; cranes moved with stately grace about a growing tangle of steel. The ship was growing and even now, only fifteen percent complete, the eye thrilled to its grandeur and its incredible size; looking more closely, the eye soon found itself rocketing off on tangents of speculation, tracing the unbuilt wings and tail. "The
Victory,
my boy, as you can well see, has grown much bigger than any of us; she is clearly reaching into a realm that may lie far beyond our meager sensibilities, so who are we to question if Fate or Fortune or God Himself chooses to work in His or its own strange ways in our favor?" Syers assumed a look of mindless euphoria, such as the devout assume when repeating Scripture.
"Of course," said Marlet coldly, for he knew that the older man had lifted the passage word for word from one of Blyn's speeches to the People; Blyn had not believed it, Syers did. The Myth of the Ship had taken over his mind almost as completely as it had the minds of the People. Marlet knew that the Admiralty would call it treason, and indeed it would be, but Syers controlled all official communication with the capital; and even if Marlet did get word through, the powerful friends who had gotten Syers installed as director of the Yards in the first place would immediately quash any criticism.
Syers ordered the engines installed without modification and dismissed Marlet. Marlet left in a smoldering fury.
The young Techno felt that he was sitting on something fantastic, but exactly what he could not say. His colleagues chided him for being so suspicious of good luck; but it was the arrogant, second-handed prophetic attitude with which Syers treated his constant pleas for some sort of investigation into the engines and into the origins of the Yards that really inflamed him; Marlet was just as fanatically dedicated to the original mission of the ship as Syers had become to the Myth. Thus it is understandable that in an unusually dark and brooding drunken rage one night, Marlet took a thermite flare from a special effects shack and tossed it into Syers' house.
Syers' post was soon filled by Orwell Cadin, a thoroughly competent man whose abilities and frame of mind more than served to quiet any guilt feelings Marlet might have had. A perfunctory investigation of the fire was carried out, but since many others had also taken a dim view of Syers' position on the Ship, it never came anywhere near Marlet.
In fact, Marlet became almost proud of his service to the nation, and secretly shared the credit that Cadin received for restoring a business-like atmosphere to the Yards. So it was only natural that his growing self-esteem should readily accept a transfer to the highly secret Armories. The order arrived two months after the murder; it was signed by Dennis Hale, head of the Armories, and Marlet half-hoped that this powerful official had heard of his patriotic deed and appreciated its import. However, one can learn nothing of any successes that Marlet might have encountered at the Armories, for when he left the Techno riverboat at Kelph and boarded a coach for his new post, he vanished from human chronicles entirely.
Aside from the engines, the most puzzling thing that emerges is the fact that Marlet could disappear so completely into an arm of his own Government. It turned out that the Armories and the front organization, the Office of Procurement, were operating virtually without any supervision whatsoever.
In the eighty years or so in which the Armories operated as a separate agency, it would appear that the Office had simply been created and then immediately submerged from the sight of men. Toriman had given Limpkin comparatively little to go on in the creation of the rechanneling arm of the Admiralty; in fact, the General's instructions on this point were not only limited but also rather confusing in their omission of certain broad points of policy which anyone else would have considered absolutely necessary, while dwelling at great length on apparently minute details (such as the location of its base, the modification of which so upset Moresly).
In the absence of direct instructions, Limpkin had no choice but to turn over all management to Moresly; the only communications with the Government being a bimonthly progress report and the annual "Budget, Capability, & Necessity Report." The public at large, regardless of class, knew nothing of its existence let alone its function.
Left alone, the Armories formed a tight, closed society long before the Technos at the Yards even began to approach such an end. Leadership was centralized within the physical limits of the caves; the Admiralty saw a total of seven different signatures affixed to the reports and budget requests, and it saw four of these men appear in its offices on official missions. Of course, no one outside of the Armories had any way of knowing that all seven of the names and all four of the faces belonged to Moresly, Toriman's man.
The caves that actually made up the Armories had originally been part of a nation called the Aberdeen; its caves, tunnel, and vaults not only occupied the cliffs bordering the Tyne, but honeycombed the plains above the river for a distance of nearly ten miles inland. Formed in an era when nuclear warfare was enjoying particular popularity, its ambitious founders had proposed to construct an entire country below the ground. The Armories were as far as they got before internal strife and newly developed radiations made the tunnels useless: but this was many ages ago, when the weapons and concepts of the First World were still very much in evidence.
As weaponry and diplomacy reverted to more primitive forms, the Armories acquired enormous value as one of the outstanding fortresses of the age. It has been estimated that over a score of major wars had been fought with possession of the Armories as their sole object. The caverns had lately been occupied by the old Garilock Empire; Yuma, sensing the progressive senility of that nation, acquired the complex through the judicious use of Plague carriers. They in turn were followed by the Caroline and Moresly.
Under the successive hands of these many conquerors, the Armories had been expanded and strengthened in the best manner that the age would allow, into a construction that could have rivaled even the Yards. In its seemingly endless corridors could be found rolling mills, warehouses, machine shops, barracks; in short, all the ugly machinery required to give the caverns the name they went by.
Before the war with Yuma, most of the First World vintage glories of the Armories had passed into legend; many of the tunnels were by then either sealed off and forgotten, or the stresses of heavy-handed statesmanship and time had caved them in. While the Armories still retained enough of their former volume and appointments to make an impression on contemporary eyes, most of the caverns' riches lay walled up and protected behind tons of rock. It is easy to see, then, why Limpkin thought he was turning over a devastated shell to Moresly, the war having wiped out the only readily accessible portion.
Not only did the Admiralty grant or rather forfeit complete freedom to the Armories, but it allowed the front agency to operate in a similar manner. The Office of Procurement did maintain an office in the capital, but it was located in a run-down mansion in the secluded Knightsbridge section outside the city walls.
The behavior of the O.P. is quite enlightening when considered in conjunction with future events. While on the one hand it went to great lengths to isolate itself from the Government, it was constantly trying to integrate elements of the People into its ranks; these initiates were not told about the reality of the
Victory,
but they were drawn into what the Government often criticized as "overly frank relationships with members of the Techno class, thus defeating the aim of instillation of a sense of veneration in the People for members of the aforementioned class."
Organizing his People from the Yards, Rome also felt the need to keep in touch with the masses in the capital. A dispatch was sent back to his newly-appointed lieutenant, a man named Crownin who said that Tenn had sent him; at Rome's request, Crownin established his Palace of the People across from the Admiralty on George Street. Two years later, this Crownin was appointed as a "liaison officer" between the Office of Procurement and the People; again, it is strange that no one in the Government was puzzled by this curious arrangement or by the sudden move of the Palace of the People from its George Street storefront to an old mansion in Knights-bridge, right next door to the O.P. office. The conclusions to be drawn should have been painfully obvious, but if anyone had arrived at them they either kept them to themselves or met the same fate as Vennerian and Kort.
The night was one of singular beauty; the season was mid-spring and the gentle winds had polished the stars to a crystal finish. The man and woman stood upon a small hill to the east of the Yards; below them was another universe of light, for the
Victory
was glimmering quietly in the starlight. The city that had risen around the Yards, the only one in the World to be electrified, spread its carpet of light from the Tyne almost to the encircling mountains; the city's first name had been Georgetown in honor of the late monarch, but Trensing had renamed it Gateway.
It was the sixty-seventh spring of the Ship.
The two young people were both Technos, and sterling examples of the breed too. Both clearly reflected the slender grace and aristocratic bearing that had come to characterize that class in those days. At times, if you looked at them for very long, the black of their uniforms seemed to blend with the night sky and the silver trim gleamed in the starlight like far-off universes, leaving only their pale faces and hands to indicate mere mortal presence. The boy's face was of fine sharp features with deep-set eyes that reflected the complex glitterings of the Yards in their depths. The girl was also fine and fair, but her bearing was of a less earthly character than the man; while the man dreamed of the great ship below, the opal glow of her eyes appeared to drink in the limitless mystery of the welkin. And at times the warm breezes stirred her golden hair and entwined the strands about the galaxies and stars above.