can maintain civilization. Without them, you will soon be looking down upon a frontier filled with barbarians and anarchy from your carefully conserved super-regals. Either we move now or we are lost."
"Oh, I agree, Saireme Samondel of Leover, otherwise I would not have pledged my super-regals to your venture, as well as commissioning two more. This will be a more difficult feat than winning the Great War, but at least we shall be fighting on the same side."
"We are on the same side, but there will be no fighting, Saireme Airlord. My feeling is that all of the islands were scoured clear of humans when the Call began."
"Ah yes, I had forgotten that matter," replied Sartov, nodding.
Within a quarter hour Samondel was eating a dinner that would soon restore her body weight to a something more normal for her. At the same time Sartov was giving a secret audience to Serjon and Bronlar.
"You will be flying revolutionary sailwings," said Sartov. "Each stretch will be twenty hours or more, and you will be flying alone."
"We always fly alone," replied Bronlar.
The Rochestrian Commonwealth, Eastern Australica
Being under martial law, the citizens of Rochester were being particularly quiet and well behaved. During the night all electrical machines had burned and melted. Then the Dragon Librarian Service began abducting everyone who could count. Some people had noticed that Mirrorsun had stopped twinkling. Streetside preachers of the Reformed Gentheist Church Against the Electrical Essence Heresy loudly proclaimed that the Deity had just indicated that He did not like electrical engines any more than steam engines. Martial law was declared, and soon the preachers were being moved on by the city militia. Those who stopped and began preaching again were arrested. Those who resisted arrest were shot.
In his administrative chambers in Libris, Highliber Dramoren
was pacing before a very nervous Dragon Green and flourishing a list of names.
"So let us go over it again," said Dramoren. "You signed off Rangen Derris as class R for Rejected, as opposed to class C for Calculor."
"Well, yes, I did just that, Highliber."
"Fras, Rangen Derris is not only a part-time edutor at the Department of Mathematics, he has topped the department's examinations five half years in a row. It is one hundred and thirty years since anyone else has done as well. He has even had papers on deductive logic published."
"His notes were all on languages, Highliber, and he said that languages were his field of study. He must have worked out what was happening and lied."
"Nobody else did."
"As you said, Highliber, the youth is truly exceptional and deductive logic is his greatest strength."
"Pah, and it is probably too late. The clever wretch probably bought a wig, shaved, then boarded a wind train wearing a skirt over a couple of oranges strapped to his chest and a pillow around his hips. No good will it do him, though. Every mayorate in the Commonwealth will soon be recruiting components for my manual calculor. We have depended on calculors for three decades, Fras. The need remains, even though the electrical calculors have melted, so we are returning to halls full of slaves with abacus frames. I want first choice of the best components."
The Kalgoorlie Empire, Western Australica
Jemli vil Amarana held high rank, yet was no more than a pawn in the politics of the Kalgoorlie Empire. Once she had been a mayor, but now she was merely the Kalgoorlie Overmayor's consort, cheated into surrendering her powers by the very man whom she had married. She had been promised the joint rule of a new alliance
known as the Kalgoorie Empire, she had even betrayed Mayor Glas-ken, her former husband. And all for what?
She was in her early forties and had given birth to two more children by her second husband, but now he had other women to divert him. She remained attractive, but was well over six feet tall and had unfashionably broad shoulders. She admitted to herself that perhaps the Overmayor had always kept the dainty courtesans that were so much more to his taste than her, but had maintained discretion until his position was secure. Jemli looked up at the portrait of herself as Mayor of Kalgoorlie, painted when she had just been widowed. A single year, that was all that she had had in power, and she still had her mayoral robes, locked away in a trunk. There had once been pageants in her honor, royal receptions, tours of the provinces, but now . . . She picked up a petition from eleven members of the Reformed Gentheist Church Against the Electrical Essence Heresy requesting her to speak at their prayer meeting. Jemli had ordered a few steam engines smashed as part of a coup against her first husband, and she still gave streetside sermons against fueled engines to keep from dropping out of the public eye. That's ecumenism for you, she thought as she began to read the petition.
"New world order . . . cast down the sinners . . . raise up the righteous ... lay waste the cities of iniquity with hellfire from heaven . . . Day of Judgment ... tax concessions for the Reformed Gentheist Church Against the Electrical Essence Heresy . . ."
Jemli quite enjoyed public speaking, so she reached for a goose quill and scrawled her acceptance at the bottom of the petition.
"Why not; at least it's an audience," she said to herself.
From somewhere close by there was a giggle. Obviously her husband with some courtesan, but Jemli was not jealous, in fact she was relieved to be left to herself. She tapped some figures into her desktop electric calculor. Relays clattered, display wheels spun—and there was a crackling sizzle before acrid fumes belched out of the ventilation grille. Jemli stood up and backed away.
"Shyte, it's never done that before!" she exclaimed softly.
Now she noticed that the new electrical clock on the wall was smoking too, in fact it was actually on fire. Hearing cries of alarm,
Jemli went to the window and looked down to the pedal sheds. The generator navvies were milling around outside and gesticulating while smoke poured from the open door. She walked out onto a balcony and looked over the walls of the Overmayor's palace to the city. Everywhere smoke was curling up into the night sky, lit from below by hundreds of small fires.
Electrical devices were burning, Jemli realized. Everywhere. All across the city. If all across the city, why not all across the continent? The tirade against electrical engines in the petition from the Reformed Gentheist Church Against the Electrical Essence Heresy was fresh in her mind. She could recall it practically word for word. Jemli became aware that her heart was racing. There was a sickly sweet taste in her mouth, the type that came when one had just been propositioned by some ambitious but desirable young man at a mayoral reception and had thought "Why not?" It was the feeling of intense anticipation, laced with uncertainty and even danger. The end of electricity—again. The universe had changed, barely a minute ago. Old rules no longer applied, new rules were waiting to be written. Old rulers were only on their thrones because nobody had thought to push them off. Yet. Returning inside, Jemli went to her study, where the calculor and clock were still smoldering. She pushed a decorative stud on the wall, then twisted it clockwise and pressed it again. There was a soft click. She slid a nearby panel aside.
Kelliana tumbled and giggled with the Overmayor on a pile of silk cushions as he sought to unlace her bodice from behind. The courtesan was lying facedown when the monarch suddenly rose clear of her.
"Hie, dummart, what do you think you're doing?" he demanded.
As Relliana tried to think what he might mean there was a blast, unbearably loud and percussive within the confines of the room. She rolled over and scrambled to her feet, trying to stuff her breasts back into her partly unlaced bodice as she backed away from the figure advancing through a cloud of gunsmoke with a flintlock raised. The last thing that Relliana saw was a flash from the left barrel of the
Morelac. It had been barely two minutes since the electrical machines had begun to burn.
With such an emergency as the clocks, calculors, and other electrical devices suddenly melting and burning it was not long before a lackey was sent to inform th
e Overmayor. He found the scene of a murder-suicide. Shrieking for the guards, he turned and fled. Jemli arrived with the first of those guards and watched attentively as the captain examined both bodies with care and an open mind.
"Powder burns on both of them," he concluded. "Both were shot from close range, the Overmayor between the eyes, the girl in the mouth. Both were standing when shot, facing the door, yet the girl's laces are undone and her breasts are hanging out. This Morelac was in her hands."
"I heard the shots," said Jemli. "Two shots."
"Someone walked in on them, someone with authority to be in this part of the palace and who knew where they were to be found. He shot them both, then tried to make it look like the courtesan was responsible. The bodies are still as warm as in life, so this happened only minutes ago."
"The lackey who found them must have come past very soon after the killings," said Jemli. "Did he see anyone?"
"He reported seeing nobody."
"How very convenient."
The captain's thoughts slid smoothly into a path in which everything fitted together very simply.
"He would not have been alone," replied the captain. "He had little rank or influence. By the Deity, look at what's inscribed on the Morelac's handle: 'Once the weapon of Lemorel Milderellen.' "
"That is mine!" exclaimed Jemli. "I reported it stolen months ago, it is a highly prized relic, a symbol of charisma and power."
"Aye, and I remember writing the report."
"The lackey worked for Sariach," Jemli pointed out.
That was no revelation. All the lackeys and officials of the palace worked for Sariach, and Sariach was the Overmayor's named successor. Overmayor Amarana had been in the very best of health, and would have had decades in office stretching ahead of him.
"These are very serious implications," said the captain, who was also within Sariach's chain of command.
"How loyal are the men of the palace guard?" asked Jemli.
"They are loyal to the Crown, but—"
"But who wears the crown, and with what right?"
The captain did not answer.
"Put the palace on invasion alert and have the overhand of the city militia proclaim martial law," said Jemli, gambling everything on the authority in her voice and bearing. "Have the lackey brought here, then send for Fras Sariach. Tell him that it is to do with the succession."
For a single, agonized moment the captain hesitated, his face alive with internal conflict. . . then he saluted.
It was now seven minutes since the electrical devices had begun to burn. Six minutes later Sariach arrived to inspect the scene of the tragedy that had elevated him to the highest office in the southwest of the continent. The bodies still lay where they had fallen, and present were the lackey who had discovered the deaths, six guards and the guard captain. Jemli was also there, the tall principal wife of the Overmayor. Sariach made to push past her, eager to check that the Overmayor was really dead.
Jemli's fist slammed into his abdomen, and he doubled over with a soft wheeze.
"That is for ordering this little rat to kill the Overmayor," Jemli said slowly and clearly. "Captain, have him bound, gagged, and locked in the south tower. Torture this lackey until he confesses to everything."
The guardsmen, the royal court, the militia—in fact, everyone— was more concerned with having a strong leader in a time of extreme uncertainty and danger than with questions of who actually had the right to the throne. The lackey was not suited to enduring torture, and had gathered that people suspected him of committing the murders by order of Sariach. He confessed accordingly.
By midnight over two hundred palace officials and courtiers had been arrested, along with the Overmayor's other wives and courtesans. Jemli donned her old mayoral robes and called a great meeting
of Kalgoorlie's citizens in the square before the palace. Rocked by the events of only four hours past, over a hundred thousand people crowded together to hear Jemli speak by the light of lanterns. She was familiar to them, as she had ruled before. The year of her rule had been a quiet, prosperous one for the may orate. She also had big lungs and a commanding voice; she sounded like a leader.
"Citizens, the Overmayor has been murdered."
Everyone knew this, of course, but they were there to hear it announced by someone in authority. Jemli knew that making the announcement gave her authority.
"Sariach was behind the plot, and he has been arrested. He will be tried by a martial law committee."
Now there were cheers. The Overmayor had not been unpopular, and people generally liked to see justice done.
"As your new Overmayor, it is my duty to warn you that the voice of the Deity has spoken to us all today."
Jemli enjoyed swaying crowds and she was very good at it; it ran in the family. After a major revelation she always allowed time for people to whisper to each other, to build up anticipation, to make them hungry for the answer that only she had. The voice of the Deity had spoken! Why had they not noticed?
"The Deity has cast heaven's fire down to burn all electrical engines. Those engines are hateful in His sight, but out of love and compassion He has allowed not a single one of us, His loving worshipers, to die in the conflagration."
There had actually been half a dozen deaths in the fires across Kargoorlie, but nobody was inclined to argue.
"All faiths—Gentheist, Christian, and Islamic—have prohibited engines that use fuel for two thousands of years. Those engines fouled the face of His creation and afflicted us, His people, with the blights of pollution, Greatwinter, and killing machines. For two millennia we lived happily without engines, but twenty years ago that evil band in the sky, Mirrorsun, struck down His angels. The electrical engines came back to scourge us."
She pointed up to the band that stretched across the sky, blotting out a strip of stars with darkness, and adorned by a splash of orange
light reflected from the sun that was currently shining on the other side of the planet. The ancients' vast and powerful machine was an immense distance away in orbit, and was thus a safe target for invective and any accusation that came to mind.
"Tonight the Deity has made it clear that electrical engines are no less hateful in His sight than steam engines. We must go forth and destroy all devices that burn electrical essence, whether in the deepest tunnels or shielded cages. The Deity will smile on you, He will send a sign of His blessing."
Jemli stepped down to a thunderstorm of cheering and applause. The captain of the palace guard was waiting with an escort for her.
"I have important orders to give," she said as she strode away with them. "I want five dozen runners and couriers lined up at the door to the Overmayor's chambers in a few minutes. See to it."
Jemli's seat of power was the center of a wide, semicircular desk of bloodwood. She sat back in the padded, comfortable chair, glowing with energy and excitement that was virtually sexual in intensity. In four hours she had risen from mistress of her own study to Over-mayor and Prophet. Although she had been quick with her planning and actions, one thought lingered before her like a divine vision. Surely she could not have risen so far and fast without the genuine favor of the Deity. The first of the couriers arrived.
"It is proclaimed that the beamflash signal tower service, which has been in decline since the advent of electrical machines, is to be restored under my control," Jemli said slowly as the scribes copied her words onto poorpaper. "Have this known in every city, town, and village."
After an hour of proclamations, declarations, and orders, Jemli had the captain called in. She told him to close the doors.
"Of all the people in the Kalgoorlie Empire, I know that I can trust you," she began. "You are to take a galley train west, to the capital of the Confederation of Woomera. I shall write out your orders and my message while you pack, and you must leave within the hour."
2 < - ^^
tetJLOF THE VICTIM
Rochester
Uramoren was the first of
the continent's leaders to be given the unbelievable news about the Call ceasing. The message had originated at Seymour, a large township at the edge of the Calldeath lands bordering the Commonwealth. After being relayed through the flashing signal mirrors of the Rushworth beamflash tower, forty-five miles to the north, it had been sent another fifty miles northeast to Rochester.
The Call had ceased in the Calldeath lands. There was no longer any trace of it.
"Confirmation, I want confirmation!" demanded Dramoren, snatching the chalkboard bearing the message from his lackey.
"Highliber, the—"
"Get out!"
Dramoren slammed the door on his lackey and depressed the OVERRIDE lever at his calculor console. Nothing happened. Suddenly he remembered: the electrical calculor had burned the night before. He stood up, strode to the door, and flung it open.
"Vorion!" Dramoren shouted as loudly as he could.
"Yes, Highliber?" Vorion replied from beside the door.
Dramoren looked down at him. "I want all references to the Call
ceasing. Now! Any new reports are to be sent to me as soon as they arrive."
"I have the current reports in this folder, Highliber."
Reports from Echuca and Darlington described moving Calls suddenly vanishing. Not stopping in the same place for the night but vanishing completely. Dramoren immediately sent out commands that the Bendigo and Inglewood beamflash crews check on the state of the Calldeath lands to the south of their towers, while putting in a request for confirmation at Seymour. Within a half hour the reports came back: the Call had ceased totally, and the Calldeath lands were safe to enter for the first time in two thousand years.
"An area the size of the Rochestrian Commonwealth itself has suddenly been opened up to human settlement," said the perplexed Highliber.
"Highliber, wonderful news!" exclaimed Vorion, clapping his hands together.
"Allow me to rephrase that. An area the size of the Rochestrian Commonwealth populated by heavily armed and very dangerous aviads has suddenly been opened up to human settlement."
Eyes of the Calculor Page 6
