Eyes of the Calculor

by Sean McMullen

  "Two months ago I heard this in Kalgoorlie," said Martyne, "except that the orator was the Prophet Jemli herself."

  "If the speaker knew that she would invite you up there to address the rally," said Velesti. "What are your personal thoughts on the matter?"

  "Theologically speaking, it is a shaky proposition for Christianity and Islam. Nothing about engines or fuel sciences appears in their foundation Scriptures; all of that is in latter-day amendments that postdate Greatwinter. However Gentheism was founded on the Greatwinter Revelations, about fifteen hundred years ago."

  "At the same time as the Christians and Islamics amended their own Scriptures," Velesti pointed out. "I have always believed that an ancient conspiracy is behind it all."

  "So have many others. The Christians burned doubters at the

  stake, the Islamics stoned them to death, and the Gentheists buried them alive in moist Mother Earth."

  "So, you are a closet doubter, Fras Martyne?"

  "Within the confines of a closet, and only between consenting adults, yes. Jemli the Prophet has developed a large and rabid following over a very short period, and she has done it by recruiting followers within other religions. Was she not once married to—ah, Mayor Glasken?"

  Velesti raised her eyes to the sky for a moment, then slowly turned to Martyne.

  "Yessss ... but she showed none of this theological zeal in all their years of marriage. She was certainly ambitious—in fact it was she who was the driving force behind John Glasken being appointed mayor. Sometime after the appointment she suddenly denounced him for condoning the steam engines in the underground university. She then became mayor in her own right, married a local warlord after a year, then was deposed by him, and he became mayor and went on to unify the west as overmayor. Poetic justice, if you ask me."

  "While I was in Kalgoorlie I heard that she went mad after her second husband deposed her as mayor. She began preaching against steam engines in markets, on street corners, even at the wind train terminus."

  "What is madness, if not a virtue for prophets? After Black Thirteenth, people remembered what she had been predicting: the demise of electrical machines, a great disturbance to the Call, the destruction of Mirrorsun, and the return of Greatwinter if humanity does not heed the Word of the Deity. She has scored well so far. The first two have come true, and Mirrorsun really is behaving strangely."

  "It is almost enough to make one a believer," said Martyne, looking up at the speaker and nodding his head.

  "Oh, I could declaim far more accurate prophecy."

  "Truly?" asked Martyne, turning away from the speaker to face Velesti.

  "Truly."

  "Then, Frelle Velesti, it is you who should be the Prophet."

  "True, and just now I predict trouble," replied Velesti, pointing to the edges of the crowd.

  Militiamen were gathering under the direction of an officer, and a Constable's Runner was endeavoring to keep a path clear past the university gates, which were almost blocked by now. There was a scuffle, and the Constable's Runner stumbled and fell. Two militiamen went to his aid, striking out with the butts of their muskets. Gentheists retaliated with swagger sticks. The rest of the militiamen advanced, but the crowd outnumbered them. Finding his men forced back, the officer panicked and fired his flintlock pistol at the Gentheist preacher. She clutched at her chest and toppled from the gargoyle.

  Martyne and Velesati dropped to the lawn as the panicked militiamen opened fire on the crowd. Students fell and screams filled the air as some ran, but others charged the militiamen with swagger sticks, knives, and sabers. The Constable's Runner began to blow his whistle, but was quickly set upon and run through. Other Constable's Runners arrived from all quarters, but by now looters had joined the fighting and were at work among the stalls, houses, and taverns near the gates. More shots were fired, then a single, strident voice cut through tumult.

  "That's an officer reading the Riot Act!" exclaimed Velesti. "Over to the fountain, take cover."

  Moments later there was a disciplined volley of musket fire, followed by another, then another. Now the crowd broke and fled in complete panic, some into the streets, some back into the university. They were followed by guardsmen in skirmishing order.

  "Dragon Librarian Service!" shouted Velesti, standing and spreading her hands wide. "Rank of Blue."

  An officer came hurrying over as his men passed by the fountain.

  "Did you see how it started, Frelle?" he cried as he reached her.

  "It seemed to be a peaceful rally, but emotions were running high," she replied. "The trouble started when the numbers blocked the gates."

  "May I have your name?"

  "Velesti Disore, Dragon Blue with Libris. This is Martyne Cam-derine, edutor of the university. Both of us are paremedicians. Can we help?"

  "Please, yes. There are fourteen dead and three times as many wounded."

  Martyne was the first to the Gentheist orator, who had a bullet wound high in the chest and had broken her arm in her fall. He cut a strip from his cloak and pressed it hard against the wound.

  "The ball missed your lung, you should be all right," he said as she looked up at him. "Hold this, press hard to slow the bleeding."

  "The Deity watches," she whispered.

  "Just lie still, if you move you will do more damage. Can you taste blood?"

  "No. Aviad agents, they, they . . ."

  "Don't talk, just breathe evenly."

  The girl grasped his wrist with her free hand, her eyes shining.

  "Healers are blessed in the eyes of the Deity, Fras Edutor."

  I he young Gentheist priestess lived and was exonerated at the inquest that followed, mainly due to the testimonies of Martyne and Velesti. The dead and wounded were mostly students and militiamen, and the magistrate declared that the riot had been due to the ill-organized nature of the rally and the fact that it had blocked a public thoroughfare. The priestess responded that the Word of the Deity had attracted a larger than expected and highly excitable crowd.

  "The Word of the Deity cannot be allowed to disrupt the public order in Rochester," the magistrate pointed out.

  "The Word of the Deity will soon be the new law in Rochester," predicted the bandaged priestess.

  "But meantime Commonwealth law is the law and it is my place and duty to administer it. I'm sure the Deity would not want more people to die in senseless riots."

  Quite sensibly the magistrate ordered that henceforth any religious rallies within Rochester must be confined to the premises of religious institutions. This did not stop further incidents, but they were less dramatic.

  Samoa

  I he islands of the Samoan archipelago were like luridly green jewels against the ocean as Samondel brought the sailwing around to land. On the ground were two strips of black with a brownish slash between them. White piles of coral marked the edges, and ten gangers stood waving palm fronds at the approaching aircraft. At the middle of the ascent strip was the Yarron Star, lying askew where a wheel had collapsed while it was landing. Samondel shed speed in the annoying, blustery wind that was blowing across the makeshift ascent strip. She hung just above the stall speed, keeping the stubby nose high, then passed so low over the Yarron Star that she heard one of the Swallow's wheels clip a wing. Then the rear wheels bit into the rammed scoria surface and the Swallow's nosewheel slammed down hard.

  The surface was less than ideal and the sailwing slid awkwardly as it lost speed, sending up sprays of scoria gravel and sand. Samondel could hardly believe that she was down safely, even when all motion had ceased. She hauled on the levers that shut down the compression engines while the gangers ran up, cheering. Her new navigator, Alarak, lowered the hatch and stepped out onto the wing-field. As she followed him, Samondel noticed that she had overshot the ascent strip, and that the rear wheels were buried almost up to the axles in volcanic gravel.

  "You should have circled," said Avoncor as they all stood looking at the wheels embedded in the surface.
"We could have had Yarron Star clear in five hours."

  "Five hours is nearly half of the distance to New Zealand," replied Samondel, "and a third of that to Australica. In any case, I am down. What work does the Yarron Star need?"

  "We're going to lever up the wing, then build a frame underneath and roll it to one side of the ascent strip using the engines and rolling logs. Another three weeks should have it fit to ascend."

  "Three weeks!"

  "We have to do our metalwork with axes and knives, and none

  of us are airframe guildsmen. But we'll clear the ascent strip by tonight, of course."

  "Then do that, and draw off enough compression spirit from the Yarron Star to get the Swallow back to Hawaii."

  The following day the Swallow ascended from the ascent strip named after Samondel, but instead of turning north she began a leisurely circuit of the wingfield. As the navigator watched she took a stick wrapped in paper from her jacket, and as she passed low over the ascent strip she flung it at the crippled Yarron Star.

  "Can you see if they found it?" she asked Alarak.

  "Yes, a group of them is gathered around whoever is reading it."

  "That should not take long. It only says T Lied' and 'Lake Taupo.' "

  "I know I have been saying this all the way from Hawaii, Sai-reme Airlord, but this is foolhardy."

  "Far be it from me to accuse my fellow airlords of being fools, but let us just say that political pressures are being brought to bear on this venture. We are currently consuming two-thirds of Mount-haven's entire compression spirit production in establishing and supplying these wingfields, and monopolizing super-regals that could be put to use in dozens of other good causes. If there is a crash before the next two super-regals are complete, the venture may be ended."

  "What can we do in New Zealand by ourselves?"

  "With two helpers I prepared a temporary ascent strip for super-regals on Samoa, Sair. You and I must do as much again."

  "And why Lake Taupo?"

  "According to this ancient publication entitled Five-Day Tours of the North Island, Lake Taupo is the biggest lake in the area, and no matter how overgrown towns, roads, and wingfields become, lakes are like islands: they stay much the same over the millennia, and they stand out against their surroundings."

  Lake Taupo, New Zealand

  Lake Taupo appeared to be deep, and was bordered by several flat stretches of land that were many times the length that was needed for a super-regal to descend.

  "Taupo, this is Lake Taupo," said the navigator, "but it is smaller than on the only map that we have. It is a volcanic area, and the volcano was marked as active."

  "Some eruption must have changed things," replied Samondel. "We are lucky that there is any lake at all."

  "You said islands and lakes do not change much with the millennia."

  "I was lying, but you should have caught me. After all, many islands once on the map are now underwater. The sea level has risen."

  The sailwing came down on the lake, on a skid that Samondel had had installed at Hawaii. They taxied rapidly along the surface, flinging two waves of spray aside.

  "Go for that wide, flat sandbar over there and beach us," said Alarak.

  "It's unusually flat, even for a sandbar."

  "I know; it may even be firm enough for an ascent strip in itself. Slower, slower, steady, shut down—no! Throttle up, we're sinking, the sandbar's floating^

  One wingtip was already in the water as Samondel gunned the engine and drove the Swallow through the layer of floating, brown pumice. The navigator slammed the hatch back and crawled out onto the opposite wing, trying to weight it down. The submerged wing came up too fast, the navigator slipped off into the water, and as he came struggling back up through the surface and floating pebbles he saw the Swallow smash its makeshift skid into the real beach. By the time he waded ashore Samondel was inspecting the broken skid.

  "Can you repair it?" he asked.

  "Chopping down bushes is about as much carpentry as I know," Samondel admitted. "Even then all my experience is from Samoa."

  "So what do we do?"

  "The wheels are undamaged. We can worry about repairs when the next super-regal catches up with us. For now, we should start looking for a suitable place to build it a wingfield."

  With Swallow tethered they stood in nearly complete silence on the shore, the only humans in a circle with a thousand-mile radius. Sa-mondel closed her eyes and listened to the cool, fresh air rushing in her nostrils. The navigator presently broke the serenity of the moment.

  "Sometimes I wonder if it is all worth it, Saireme Airlord. All this effort for a few animals."

  "Have you stopped to look around on Hawaii and Samoa, Sair Alarak?"

  "Well, yes."

  "What are your impressions?"

  "They are hot and steamy places, and their blood-sucking insects are delighted to see us. But I must admit that the fruit are wonderful, and the birds are better eating than anything in Mounthaven."

  "Already gangers and farmers are growing settled there. As soon as I noticed that, I made sure that women were included among the planters and tillers who were sent out. Even if another super-regal never leaves Mounthaven for the islands, those already there can support themselves and live like nobility. Let a year pass, and Hawaii and Samoa will be producing enough compression spirit to satisfy one super-regal per month passing through. This place will be exporting it."

  "But there are virgin areas of our own continent that are just as lush, and not nearly as dangerous and difficult to reach."

  "But those areas do not have a large and powerful civilization only a thousand miles to the west. The Australicans will not just sell us a few animals, they can trade ideas and artisans. They do things with wind and muscle, while we use compression and steam engines. Their way of life is slower, but more efficient. We can learn a lot from each other."

  "The last thing they tried to teach us was total war—with respect, Saireme Airlord."

  "The Mexhaven peoples would have also done that eventually. Come, we had better start collecting brushwood for a beacon pyre. You never know when we will have to attract attention at short notice."

  Rochester, the Rochestrian Commonwealth

  Dpring slowly matured in Rochester, and deciduous trees burst into leaf amid the eucalypti and other evergreens. In six weeks Velesti had put on somewhat more weight, all of it muscle, and had become an increasingly difficult opponent for Martyne as they sparred on the lawns of the university's cloisters. By early December Velesti had sat for assessment examinations at the university, and it had been determined that eighteen months of study in five subjects would be sufficient for her to be granted a degree. She would enroll in January, but in the meantime she continued her work in Libris.

  It was 1:00 a.m. as Velesti sat surrounded by piles of some of the rarest books in Libris, none less than nineteen hundred years old. As usual, the hologram of Zarvora stood beside her, peering down as Velesti flipped through the pages.

  "I was in an interesting riot recently," Velesti remarked as she turned the pages of a partly burned text on thermodynamics.

  "Excellent—there is nothing worse than a boring riot," replied Zarvora.

  "It was religious in nature. A Gentheist speaker had just told a rally that the destruction of the electrical machines was the work of the Deity."

  "Gentheists are very excitable. I was brought up as a Gentheist."

  "The Mechanists think you are a god, the Gentheists think you are a devil, the Christians think you are a machine but are theologically benign if you are powered by sunlight, and the Islamics wish you would go away and stop bothering them."

  "A view which you doubtless share."

  Velesti shook her head. "I do not mind your company; I just want to be free of you."

  "In a few months that should be possible. What then?"

  "That depends on what my current employer says. Speaking of Highliber Dramoren, here he comes."

/>   The Highliber was approaching, flanked by two armed Tiger Dragons. All three had their flintlocks drawn. They stopped as Zar-

  vora's hologram turned to regard them. The five figures stared at each other in silence for a time.

  "I was expecting this, Highliber Dramoren," said Zarvora. "Please send your guards out of earshot so that we can speak freely."

  Dramoren waved his guards back, then closed the gap between Velesti and the partly transparent figure beside her.

  "Highliber Zarvora?" asked Dramoren.

  "After a fashion, yes."

  "Are you a ghost?"

  "Yes."

  "Oh. My Dragon Librarians say that you have been appearing to Frelle Velesti. For weeks."

  "Velesti turns the pages so that I can read. I wish to study certain books that Libris holds."

  Dramoren looked at some of the volumes on the desk before Velesti.

  "These are all pre-Greatwinter books. My staff report that you appear twice a week, always in here and late at night. You read hundreds of books in just hours."

  "Yes."

  Dramoren took the chair beside Velesti. Unnervingly, Zarvora sat down in midair. Velesti reached out for another chair and dragged it over.

  "Sit down in that Frelle, you will not put him at his ease by levitating," she said as she folded her arms again. Zarvora obliged.

  "I can hardly imagine what you need from here," began Dramoren.

  "I like to read nice books. Being dead makes that difficult."

  "Oh. Highliber—"

  "No, you are now Highliber—of Libris, its books, its Dragon Librarians, and its rebuilt human Calculor."

  "Yes, but—"

  "I am a ghost. Do you mind having me for a client?"

  "Libris is for the use of scholars. You are a very unusual scholar, but a scholar nonetheless."

  "That is a very civilized attitude, the very template of what a

  Dragon Librarian should think. That is where the term Dragon Librarian Service comes from, did you know? Dragon for power and wisdom. Librarian for curator and keeper of knowledge, Service because we are all servants of the civilization that enriches and enhances our lives. How is your rebuilt Calculor performing?"