The Half-Made World (25 page)

The Vessel hovered, apparently suffering the same indecision as Creedmoor.

He risked a glance at the pilot, trying to read the man’s intentions. Did he know who Creedmoor was? Had he followed him here from Kloan, or was this merely a chance encounter? It was useless. Creedmoor never could tell what, if anything, Linesmen were thinking.

He turned to the guards and shouted, “Busy day!” They smiled nervously.

He thought: the pilot wouldn’t open fire. That was for sure. The Line’s intelligence was at least the equal of the Guns’, and they would know what happened to those who brought violence into the presence of the Spirit of the House. If this was a chance encounter, the Vessel would move on soon enough. If, on the other hand, the pilot knew who Creedmoor was, then unless he was a fool—and Linesmen were dull, but they were not fools—he would simply wire back for assistance and wait, and soon Creedmoor would be surrounded. . . .

With no warning but a high buzzing whine, the gun in the Vessel’s undercarriage spun into action. It looked like a mosquito’s nasty blood-spike; it cursed in lead. The guards scattered into the gatehouse. William and the mad folk milled around in panic, the rope at their ankles tangling. Rocks burst and red dust flew in the air and Liv fell to the floor and Maggfrid fell protectively over her, knocking the wind out of her.

It had fired thirty, forty feet clear of the gatehouse. A warning.

A voice sounded from the Vessel’s loudspeakers. It echoed off the canyon’s walls. It distorted and boomed.

“
GIVE UP THE AGENT. GIVE UP THE AGENT. GIVE UP THE SLAGGING AGENT.
”

Creedmoor threw himself behind a rock. His heart pounded, and he felt old and weak and exposed.

“
GIVE UP THE AGENT.
”

The loudspeaker boomed, and Creedmoor’s master shouted in his ear:

—Now they will be looking for an Agent. The House will be on guard. You should not have dawdled, Creedmoor.

—Shut up. Let me think.

The loudspeaker boomed: “
I SEE HIM. GIVE THE BASTARD UP.
”

The Vessel opened fire. Lead cursed and roared and spat away on the other side of the rock, harming no one, echoing up and down the ravine’s high walls. A pointless, ill-tempered display of power. One or more of the mad folk was screaming. Creedmoor uncorked a bottle of Sloop’s tonic water and swigged down a mouthful of the acrid stuff. He waited with some curiosity to see if it would do anything for his nerves. It did not.

A whistling came down the canyon, subtle at first, then piercing. In the distance, the shutters on the House’s windows banged wildly open and shut; even over the noise of the Vessel, the rushing and clattering were audible. Red dust rose whirling into the air.

There was a strong sense of
pressure;
it began with a prickling of the skin and progressed quickly to the point where sinuses and eyeballs and teeth ached. Blood thickened; the veins in Creedmoor’s neck and head popped out, and his heart felt tight and heavy.

The Spirit in action! Creedmoor felt it rising, gathering. He hadn’t expected to see it in action; in fact, he had hoped quite fervently
not
to. But he couldn’t deny that he was curious. Hand on his hat, he poked his head over the edge of the rock.

Little whirlwinds of dust swirled up, so that it seemed that long red fingers reached toward the Vessel. It reared back like a spooked horse. It hung in the whirling air, its gun silent for a second, and Creedmoor was able to observe it closely. Insectlike, yes; quite similar also to the rubber and glass and steel gas masks that the men of the Line sometimes used. The wings that spun above it were a blur.

The Vessel spun on its axis under the whirring wing-blades and rose slowly out of the ravine, but it was too late.

The air was full of dust and roaring; the whistle was now a howl, rushing past Creedmoor’s ears as if he were falling. He clamped his hat brim down over his ears.

A fist of dust struck the Vessel from the sky.

With a dreadful noise, the Vessel’s blades buckled. The dust cloud burst around the Vessel’s blades and lost its illusion of form and solidity, dissipating upward into the blue sky. The Vessel spun down into the side of the ravine, where it tumbled into flame and broken metal. Its belly tore and clockwork guts tumbled out; toothed wheels and gears glowing red-hot rolled out into the canyon.

For a long moment, the billowing dust clouds over the canyon seemed to form a vast human shape, squatting protectively over the House. Dust swelled like sloped shoulders, heavy breasts, rolls of fat, thick haunches—
How
fat
it is,
Creedmoor thought,
how greedy, how old!

It burst. A rain of sharp rocks, whipped up by the winds, now fell, as if hurled, on the Vessel’s wreckage. That struck Creedmoor as spiteful.

The gate guards were shouting: “Who did this?”

“A machine of the Line?”

“Why would the Line attack us?”

“We’re
neutral
! What do they want?”

“They said there was an Agent of the . . .”

Creedmoor thought:

—They want an Agent. They won’t rest until they find one. So let’s see that they do.

He stood and cried out—“There he is! I see him!” And he vaulted the rock he’d been hiding behind and sprinted full-tilt through the howling winds and the dust and the sharp rocks toward where the mad folk stood, still bound by their ankle rope, cowering in a circle. One of them, the old woman, was messily dead—the Vessel’s gun had caught her as it spun and fell. “Your fault,” Creedmoor muttered. “Your fault, Spirit, not mine.”

He grabbed William by his shoulder. The poor bastard turned and smiled in relief to see Creedmoor standing behind him. He drew his silver-clasped knife and inserted it under poor William’s ribs.

He turned away, not wanting to look at William’s eyes, and saw that the Spirit’s rage was slowing abating. The form that squatted over the canyon was gone. The dust was settling. The shrieking winds subsided.

He waited for a tense moment for it to strike him down. It didn’t. It appeared distracted, exhausted, sated. . . .

The gate guards lifted their rifles again. Creedmoor reached into William’s rags and tore out the glistening silver blackness of Marmion: he held the weapon up and shouted, “I saw it! I knew I saw it! The Gun!
This
is the Agent! This Agent of the Gun brought that mechanical monster down on us!”

The gate guards lowered their rifles and shook their heads in awe.

“An Agent. A fucking Agent.”

“Here, trying to sneak in.”

“Dead. An Agent, dead . . .”

Creedmoor wound back his arm and hurled the weapon away into the rocks. “Filthy thing!”

Then he was ostentatiously and tearfully sick. The clever-looking blond woman, whose white dress was now tattered by the winds and the dust, came and stood beside him and encouraged him to breathe deeply. He took great sobs and told her,
“I never—I never—oh, I
killed
that man! Oh, what have I done?”
She patted his shoulder and told him he had done the right thing; he had done the brave thing; he had done the only thing a decent person could do; he should not be ashamed. He told her she was very kind.

The winds had settled and the canyon was silent.

The gate guards fanned out, looking for the weapon. They didn’t find it.

That night, Creedmoor was freshly showered and shaved, and fairly compensated—and in fact, feted, cheered, slapped manfully on the back by damn near every one of the House’s men, applauded and adored by its women, for he had saved the House from infiltration and done what few could boast: He’d killed an Agent of the Gun! It was pure luck, he said, pure good fortune. He went to bed drunk. And lying on a narrow bed in the little white-walled garret they’d found for him, he woke to a headache and a familiar voice. He rose on his arm; he leaned over the sleeping shoulder of that pretty young nurse. . . . There on the little nightstand, under the shuttered lantern, silver glinting in the moonlight, was his master. He looked Marmion in its yawning black barrel.

He reached out across the girl’s body and lifted the weapon. It was heavy, and at once his arm ached.

—Well done, Creedmoor. Here we are.

—Yes.

—We are pleased with you.

—An ugly business.

—What do you mean, Creedmoor?

—The killing. Ugly.

—No. Daring. Clever. Lucky. Ruthless. Be proud, Creedmoor. We like our servants joyful.

The girl murmured. He brushed his lips softly across her shoulder.

—Never mind.

—Forgiven. Forgotten. We are pleased with you.

—The Spirit will make trouble. Did you
see
that thing?

—It is strong, but we are cunning. Are we not? First murder the Spirit. Then seize the General. What he knows, Creedmoor, what he has seen! The weapon! Victory!

—Peace.

—Victory.

—What does it do?

—It can end the Line, Creedmoor. It can kill them. It can prick them like a bubble, it can wake us from them like a bad dream, quickly forgotten.

—Really? And you? Can it kill you, too?

—Shut up, Creedmoor. Go to sleep. Tomorrow we begin.

CHAPTER 15

LOWRY

The ground where Kloan’s boardinghouse had stood had been cleared. Now one large gray tent stood there, and one small one.

The large tent was used by Conductor Banks for meetings of senior staff. The small tent was for the telegraphy equipment. The neighboring buildings, including the Mayor’s house and the Smiler meeting room and the offices of a small transportation business, had been requisitioned by the Line, and were in the process of conversion to barracks. The trucks had been brought in and now slumbered along Main Street like great black primeval beasts.

Lowry worked in the telegraphy tent among his Signal Corps. They had formerly reported to Morningside; now they reported to Lowry. It was hot, crowded, noisy, and dark. Signals came in. The telegraphs chattered. The Signal Corps dutifully decoded and transcribed their utterances and presented them to Lowry, who either circulated the information to Banks, or ordered whatever response was necessary himself, in Banks’s name, and in the name of the Engines.