Eyes of the Calculor (4 page)

"You should always check at the city constable's watchouse."

"Really? In future, we shall do that always. Now we are going to Rochester to see the sights."

"Rochester, eh? My Garren once went there. He were beaten up and robbed."

"Really? We must be careful."

Their accents were unusual to the girl, but their Austaric was easily intelligible. Minutes later the white form of a pedal train appeared on the paraline tracks, and the Titan's survivors gathered together as the long bentwood and canvas pedal train reached the wayside. The train's guards eyed the group carefully before deciding that they were harmless. They climbed aboard into the pairs of double cabins, settled into the benches, and prepared to push. The train's captain blew his warning whistle, then everyone aboard strained against the pedals as the brake blocks were released and the long, sleek train glided out of the wayside.

Seegan was alone in his cabin, and felt like doing anything but pedal for the two hours needed to reach Rochester. The Titan was gone, ripped from the skies by a disaster that should not have been possible. It had been built of independent modules, yet every system on the gigantic aircraft had failed. How? he kept asking himself. Sabotage? That was unlikely, as most of the Titan had been inaccessible. Somehow it had been just too big to crash, to be aboard the Titan was like walking on solid ground. He pushed listlessly at the pedals, thinking of the captain. He had gone down with the stricken giant, he had taken responsibility for the catastrophe that was none of his doing. Beyond the window slit the late winter sun was slowly climbing in the northeastern sky. The pedal train began to slow for the next wayside. They were to pass through Cooper and

the junction town of Elmore before reaching Rochester itself. Cooper wayside was even smaller than Stanhope, and there was only a single figure on the platform. A shuffling, weary figure, bowed with fatigue, all muddied and—the watch officer scrambled to open his cabin's hatch.

"Fras Terian, over here!" he called, even before the pedal train had stopped.

He raced back along the platform, then escorted the captain up to his cabin, talking loudly all the way.

"How many times have I told you, stick together when we go hiking. There are freebooters in this country, you were lucky you weren't robbed. The rest of us were worried sick about you. In here, there's a space in my cabin."

In all, the captain of the Titan had saved seven out of twenty-two who had been aboard, including all of the women and children. His stricken craft had taken almost three hours to crash, but he had been there until the very end. Now he did not even have the strength to pedal. He sat listlessly, watching the sky, trees, and pastureland.

"So, the crash was not too bad?" asked Seegan.

"No crash is good," Terian replied.

"But it was good enough that you survived."

"What can I say? I stood with my back to a bulkhead and waited. There were a few lurches, then everything wrenched and collapsed around me. I burst through the bulkhead, hit the one behind that, broke it too, and ended up in the control cabin. Everything was silent. The forward canopy was smashed, and there was a dead sheep beside me. The crash had frightened all the local humans away, so I crawled out and made for some nearby woodlands. Once I was under cover I got my map and compass out and set off for the par-aline."

"By the sound of it you are not badly injured."

"My right arm is broken, and probably a few ribs too. There is a lump on my head and my ankle is twisted."

"Ah . . . but better than being dead."

"Not so!" moaned Terian with a hand over his eyes. "/ lost the Titan."

"Don't take it so hard, there was nothing you could have done."

"It must have been sabotage, I was not vigilant—"

"Stop it! I am your commanding officer now, remember? Listen to me! The serving wench at the wayside said that all electrical machines in the town burned, apparently at the same time as the Titan was crippled. Did that happen at Cooper too?"

"Cooper is a privy pit with a ticket kiosk. They had no electrical machines. Seegan, I lost the Titan\ Nobody has ever lost a sunwing."

"I would imagine that all sunwings have just been lost, and I doubt that most people aboard were as lucky as us. We reach Elmore in a half hour; I wager that everything electrical has burned there as well, and the same will have happened in Rochester."

"But why? I don't understand."

"Mirrorsun; it has done similar things before. In 1708 GW it destroyed an army with some invisible power. Now it has decided that electrical essence machines are also annoying, so it has destroyed them too."

"But Mirrorsun built the Titan, out of things mined on the moon."

"Terian, I have a few facts, not every answer. What is certain is that you were not responsible for the Titan's, loss. Now, then, you were my commanding officer until recently and I need informed advice. What are we to do, Fras?"

Terian rubbed his eyes, then began to drag himself out of the miasma of self-pity, misery, shame, and pain where he had been wallowing. They were fugitives and refugees, but they were alive and free, and not entirely without friends.

"If our papers get us past the border post at Elmore, we must stay together and travel on to Rochester tonight. It is a big city, and if all electrical machines really have burned, there will be plenty of chaos for us to hide behind. The safe hostelry will welcome us."

"Terian, remember that none of this was your fault."

"That may be the truth, but history will be written by how I am judged."

The Rochestrian Commonwealth, Eastern Australica

In Rochester, the first official sign that the world had changed came within three minutes of the massive electromagnetic pulses from the sky that destroyed every circuit on the planet. Armed Dragon Librarians of the rank of Orange, Red, and Green hurried into the great, domed reading room of Libris, led by a Dragon Blue. The readers looked up uneasily, as did the duty librarian in charge. One student, Rangen, noticed that a new electric clock was trickling a streamer of smoke into the air. The Dragon Blue strode to the raised central desk and struck the gong for attention.

"The reading room will be cleared immediately!" she declared. "Gather your personal effects and leave."

The combined clattering, groans, and muttering of two hundred readers echoed up to the dome. Helicos and Rangen were a little slow in packing, and attracted the attention of a Dragon Green.

"Anything you can't carry by the second gong gets left here," he said firmly, his flintlock drawn and its barrel resting back on his shoulder.

"But, Fras, closing time is not until midnight," protested Rangen. "We have exams—"

"No readers allowed in the library, young Fras," replied the Dragon Green. "That's the order of the Highliber."

Nine minutes after the electric calculor had begun to smoke, there was not a single reader in the domed reading room. They were not ejected from the Libris grounds at once, however. The readers were made to form several queues in the plaza just behind the main gates, and the notes of every one of the annoyed and flustered readers were inspected at portable desks, by the light of lanterns. Dragon Green librarians questioned everyone about their courses and past studies, then they were allowed to go, although under the escort of Dragon Orange guards.

"Suppose it's the theft of some very rare book," said Rangen to Helicos as they stood waiting.

"Have you been stealing again to supplement your scholarship?" asked Helicos.

"Not from here," replied Rangen.

Rangen watched as other readers were cleared to go. Being a gifted student of mathematics who specialized in associative logic, he had a tendency to look for patterns in everything around him— particularly in the mundane backdrop of everyday life. He watched for any variation in the treatment of those being questioned, but there was none. Now he looked further afield. A student of ancient Anglaic dialects was marched away to the distant gatehouse by a Dragon Orange. They reached the gatehouse, walked beneath the arch, and turned left. Rangen listened to what several more students were saying as he neared the Dragon Green questioners. Economics, sciences, mathematics, law, history; there seemed to be no connection between the way that they turned at the gatehouse and what they studied— law left, but economics right—sometimes. All those taking history left. Those with mixed disciplines were turned in mixed directions.

Helicos reached the Dragon Green.

"Name and field of study?"

"Helicos Theon, University of Rochester, studying mathematics at the level of third year."

"But Fras, your notes are to do with Archaic Anglaic," he said as he examined the notes that Helicos had placed on his desk.

"I'm doing a short course of scholarly languages to assist my studies of ancient mathematical systems."

"Class C," the Dragon Green said to his scribe, then he turned back to Helicos. "You may go."

Helicos was already walking away beside a Dragon Orange when Rangen was chilled by a sudden suspicion. He began to unpack his notes very slowly.

"Name and field of study?"

"Rangen Derris, University of Rochester," began Rangen, who then dropped a sheaf of poorpaper to the flagstones of the plaza.

"Hurry, hurry, there's others who wish to be out of here," said the Dragon Green.

Rangen gathered up the notes, dropped some of them again—and

out of the corner of his eye saw Helicos guided to the right by his Dragon Orange escort. The door to the right did not lead to the street outside. Rangen stood up and spread the papers on the librarian's desk.

"Rangen Derris, student of languages," he said quickly and softly, desperately trying not to stammer.

"Your notes are from the same texts as that last student," observed the librarian.

"Why, yes. He is my friend; I am helping him with his Archaic Anglaic for some mathematics examination."

"So you must know some mathematics as well?"

"Not at all, that was why I chose languages, Fras Dragon Green. I have no talent for figures."

The librarian glanced along the queue of restive students behind Rangen, then shook his head.

"Class R," he said to his scribe, then indicated the gate to Rangen with his thumb.

The librarian did not notice that Rangen had suddenly become suspiciously efficient while repacking his notes. Rangen began walking, a Dragon Orange beside him.

"What is all this about?" asked Rangen as the gatehouse loomed nearer.

"If you think a Dragon Orange would be told anything, Fras, then you have obviously never worked in a library. Turn left, and proceed to the outer gate down that corridor. No loitering near the gate when you are outside."

Rangen stole a glance at the door to the right. Four Tiger Dragons stood before a closed door, and two of them had their flintlocks drawn.

Rangen was no more relieved when he cleared the outer gates of the library walls and emerged into the darkened streets of Rochester. Knots of students were gathered here and there, obviously waiting for friends to emerge. Rangen kept walking, noting the time on a nearby tower's ancient mechanical clock.

Mathematicians! The Dragon Librarians were taking mathematicians into custody. This had happened before, years before he was born. Mathematicians had been slowly culled from the universities,

streets, towns, schools, and even monasteries. They had worked for years in the first of the human-powered calculating machines, the mighty Calculor of Libris. Some had spent a decade in slavery before the early electrical essence calculors had been introduced. A few had been shot while trying to escape, and others had even been put in battle calculors and sent to war. Now it was happening again, but this time it was not a stealthy culling but the sweep of a mighty sickle that harvested everyone who could count with reasonable skill.

Rangen stopped at Wakefield's Electrical Essence Machineries, and was surprised to see lantern light inside. He glanced about for any suspicious watchers, then entered. He was immediately struck by the stench of burnt wax and paper insulation, and noticed sand strewn about on the floor and benches. Wakefield and two apprentices were gathered around a charred tangle that might once have been a bank of calculor relay switches.

"Fras Wakefield, I had an order for a custom relay rack due next week, I thought I'd check on it," Rangen called across the shop.

"Better come back next month, Fras," the artisan called back. "There was a freak lightning bolt. It roasted every circuit in my shop."

Much to Wakefield's surprise, Rangen thanked him and hurried away without so much as a single curse. Mathematicians were being taken behind heavily guarded doors by Dragon Librarians, and after electrical switches had suddenly burned to cinders and slag. Years ago the manual, slave-powered calculors had been displaced by electrical calculors, but now the reverse was happening. Rangen Derris was one of the few mathematicians in Rochester to have reached the correct conclusion before the Highliber's net ensnared him. He turned down a laneway, then another. Crouching down behind a pile of rotting garbage he discarded his notes. Next he took a knife to his clothing before rubbing it into the grime on the cobblestones.

Before long a filthy beggar emerged onto the street, leaning heavily on a staff made from splintery packing-case wood. A length of cloth covered one eye, and he had hacked his lush, neat beard down to an unkempt stubble. He watched as fifteen men and women wearing crests of the Guild of Accountants were marched past by

the city militia on the way to . . . where? The watchouse was not in that direction, but Libris was. A few late-night revelers cheered to see the accountants being marched away. Nobody paid Rangen any attention.

Rangen sat down with his back against a wall, placed a broken pottery bowl beside his feet and sat in silence. For now he was safe, but what next? If he tried to flee the city there would be guards, inspectors, and Dragon Librarians at every gate. If he got past them, there would be more guards, inspectors, and Dragon Librarians in every regional city and town. A copper coin clinked into his bowl.