Souls in the Great Machine

by Sean McMullen

  Tarrin entered, carrying a blue arm band He walked across to Lemorel and asked her to hold out her arm. "This is an acting promotion," he declared as he pinned the cloth over her green arm band "According to our records you're a registered magistrate's champion and executioner. According to Libris internal regulations, only a Dragon Blue can act as captain. The Highliber wants a firing squad in a hurry and nobody else with the right qualifications can be found at such short notice." He raised his voice. "Before these witnesses I hereby elevate you, Lemorel Milderellen, to the temporary rank of Dragon Blue, until such time as the Highliber of Libris shall review your standing."

  The Marshal, the fuse lighter, and the rest of the firing squad gave three cheers amid swirls of fuse smoke. With each promotion the ceremony becomes less formal and more bizarre, Lemorel decided.

  The components were assembled into cell groups at the back of the Calculor hall. The area occupied by the desks of the Calculor was no more than the first quarter of the other end. They were in two separate groups, to the left and fight of the center. The Highliber paced impatiently between the two rows.

  "Bet it's a talk on some damn new configuration," muttered MULTIPLIER 8, and PORT 3A nodded wearily. Suddenly a side door opened, and two dozen Dragon Blues filed in carrying matchlock muskets. The fuses in the strikers were already alight and smoking. Even as the components were exchanging puzzled glances the four Dragon Green Librarians who took turns to operate the output registers were marched in. Their hands were bound and they were gagged. They showed signs of recent torture. "They be Dragon Colors," hissed ADDER 17.

  "They're senior Dragon Colors," observed MULTIPLIER 8. "They're tying them to the retaining rail," gasped PORT 3A. "They're going to shoot them," whispered FUNCTION 9.

  The Highliber gave another order, and the musketeer Dragon Colors formed into two rows of twelve, the front row kneeling.

  "Attend the Highliber!" shouted the System Herald. "System Officers, Dragon Colors, processing components, all souls who comprise the Calculor," Zarvora began, her words echoing from the stone walls. "You have been gathered to witness punishment on four Dragon Colors. These librarians, all trained and skilled, did conspire to degrade the performance of the Calculor. Their motives were based in neither greed, nor treason, but in pure sloth. When errors appeared at the end of long processing sessions, they contrived to falsely verify mismatched results, so that calculations would not have to be repeated.

  "You!" she barked, pointing straight at MULTIPLIER 8. "If you were a soldier and were found asleep on sentry duty what would the sentence be?"

  MULTIPLIER 8 glanced hopefully around, but there was nobody behind him. "I, ah, very severe," he spluttered. "Service in the Mayor's Calculor is no different from service in the Mayor's Army," continued Zarvora. "The sentence for dereliction of duty is the same, too." She turned to the musketeers. "Form to! Present arms!"

  The two lines of musketeers held their weapons out for the Highiiber to inspect. "Release guards!" The terrified prisoners struggled against their bonds as two dozen trigger bars clicked free.

  "Take aim!" shouted Zarvora, and the matchlocks came up in a silent swirl of blue fuse smoke. Although two of the matchlocks misfired in the volley that followed, four bodies hung from the retaining rail by their bindings as the smoke cleared. A Dragon Blue cut the ropes that held them; then two elderly, terrified attendants loaded them onto a book trolley and trundled them out through the side door. Zarvora addressed the gathering again.

  "I can tolerate a great deal from both Dragon Colors and

  components-amorous dalliances, the black market in luxuries, all that is officially forbidden in prisons but tacitly allowed. You are worked hard here, and I am not above rewarding good work. What I shall never tolerate, however, is meddling with the Calculor."

  She paced between the two groups with her hands clasped beneath her cloak. But for a slight swishing of cloth, there was silence. "Those Dragon Colors tampered with the system to make their work, and yours, easier," she said, pointing to the pockmarked wall and smears of blood. "For some months they made my own life a lot harder, however, and they have paid for it. Do not follow their example. You are dismissed, return to your cells."

  The components streamed out of the hall while Zarvora conferred with Lew tick's successor. FUNCTION 9 felt a nudge in his back.

  "Yes, MULT, what is it?" "The name's Dolorian," murmured a pretty Dragon Yellow. "Would you care for some voluntary duties with me, Fras FUNCTION? The Highliber tolerates it, you know."

  There was a separate assembly of Dragon Greens and Blues once the components had been herded out of the Calculor hall. Lemorel stayed with the Dragon Blues as they waited for the Highliber in the anteroom. Many were clearly distressed, as it was the first time that they had fired a shot in anger--or killed. When Zarvora returned she was much calmer.

  "As you may have gathered, we have just made an important breakthrough with the Calculor's reliability," Zarvora explained. "The Calculor is the most secure secret in all of the may orate Even courtiers who could tell you how many times the Mayor mounted his mistress last night could not give you more than a vague account of the nature and purpose of the Calculor. The Calculor is a strategic engine of immense power, it can multiply the wealth and power of Rochester a hundredfold and for that reason it must be kept the closest of secrets.

  "My machine is destined to become indispensable to the prosperity and security of Rochester. In a few days, after more testing, it will be declared operational and will be run continuously with three shifts of eight hours each. This will require both components and Dragon Colors to supervise them. All of you will be expected to work in shifts, but duty on the unpopular shifts will be rotated.

  "All of you are vital to the reliable working of the Calculor. That is why you have jumped decades of seniority in a few years. You have mathematical ability, and the Calculor will boost that ability in the same way that a bombard can allow one artillery crew to smash down a castle wall. You will have more to do with running the may orate than the Mayor himself, but breathe so much as an afterthought about it to any but your colleagues here and you will find yourself looking down twenty-four barrels instead of squinting down the sights."

  "Five days without a single error," said Zarvora as she presented Mayor Jeflon with a large silver key on a cushion. "We can trust the Calculor now, and put our faith in its results."

  The modifications to her office were complete, with all the mechanisms and controls installed and polished, and the dust cleaned up. The window had been repaired, and there was a strong smell of oil and wood polish on the air. Jeflon picked up the heavy key and looked at it doubtfully. Shelves of little silver animal caricatures stood ready to signal their messages, and colored velvet pulley cords hung down from the ceiling.

  "It goes into the slot here, Mayor," Zarvora explained, "then you give it a half turn clockwise." "I feel that I should give a speech," said Jeflon. "This thing is so important and ingenious. Its commissioning should be before the whole court, not with you as the only witness. Still, secrecy is our only shield at present. For the greater glory of Rochester, I accept the service of this machine."

  Jefton turned the key. A rack of gears moved, then moved again. "That's all there is to it?" asked Jeflon, who had been expecting a more diverting display. "Can't you make it move those mechanical animals, or ring the little bells?"

  "It's already busy with important work," explained Zarvora, holding out a tray with his goblet of wine. "I configured it to begin designing your new army as soon as you turned the key."

  They raised their goblets of wine and water, toasting the Calculor.

  "There will be no more errors, I trust?" said Jefton. "Felt dampers have been put on the transmission wires, and four FUNCTION components have replaced the dead Dragon Green operators. Willful souls make up the Calculor, but it has no will of its own."

  "A tame god, and ours to command!" exclaimed Jefton. "What is the name for those who r
ule the gods, Highliber?" "I cannot say, Mayor," replied Zarvora, staring at the coded patterns that the gearwheels displayed every few seconds--that only she could read. Jefton stared too, but his eyes were glazing.

  "Are you sure it can do all you promised?" he asked, nervous at his own incomprehension. "Very easily," she replied with a reassuring smile. Jefton continued to gaze blankly at the rack of gears, not yet aware that Rochester had a new ruler, and that he was now just another soul for the Great Machine to command.

  "I have the business of my may orate to attend now," Jefton declared, closing his eyes and shaking his head. "You will of course represent me at Lewrick's funeral and present the Shield of Honor."

  "It will be my pleasure," Zarvora replied, picking up a silver medallion rimmed with star points from the side of the keyboard. As Jefton was turning the key Lewrick's body lay at the back of the Calculor hall, guarded by six Tiger Dragons. The green and gold wattle pennon of Roch ester and the black and white striped pennon of Libris lay across his coffin, which was at the end of the curtained corridor that ran down the center of the Calculor hall, visible only to the guards in the corridor and the controllers in the two observation galleries. Although he had not lived to see the Calculor become operational he had been there on the day.

  When a person engaged in the most secret of projects is killed in the line of duty it is not easy to provide a funeral with full state honors. The Calculor's work continued as always, but a regular and distinct rhythm began to build up between Dexter and Sinister processors: Zarvora had programmed the machine to play a halt-step drumroll. Zarvora, Tarrin, and Griss stood in the rear gallery as a procession of Dragon Silver Librarians emerged from the far door, halt stepping along the corridor between the curtains, unseen by the components in either of the processors. These were followed by the ranks of Blue, then Green, then Red, all marching in single file past the coffin, with those who were particular friends of the dead System Controller placing a red flower on the lid as they passed, but without breaking step.

  Tarrin could see tears gleaming on many faces, and he dared not turn to look at Zarvora as she broke ranks with the other mourners and laid a sash with the Shield of Honor pinned to it along the length of the coffin. He looked down at the medal, which was like a small star on the lid. Lewrick was the first Dragon Gold to be given Rochester' shighest civilian award for the whole of the century. Poor Lewrick, he'd never have guessed it, Tarrin thought. Not even the Highliber had the Shield of Honor. In Dexter and Sinister processors the first of the Dragon Blue marchers were replacing the Dragon Red regulators who were on duty among the components, and these now marched down the corridor. Finally, with a Tiger Dragon escorting each of them, came five components who had been particularly close to Lewrick. All five were wearing blindfolds. When the last of the marchers had passed, the six Tiger Dragons returned their long-barrel Morelacs to their holsters and lifted the coffin, then marched out to the half-step rhythm of the Calculor. Tarrin heard the door below him thud shut, and the half-step rhythm vanished from the background sounds of the Calculor moments later.

  The Libris chapel was not large, and Lewrick's brief service was restricted to his immediate friends and relatives. After a short Christian service those who had not signed the Capital Secrets Act were escorted out. Five blindfolded components were escorted in as Zarvora walked to the lectern.

  "System Controller Lewrick died in the service of the Mayor, Libris, and the Calculor," she began in a steady voice that emphasized her odd, precise accent. "He died in the Calculor's defense, and as he died he gave me the clue that I needed to correct the last of the flaws in the machine's design. Lewrick was a good friend and colleague, and the first System Controller of the first Calculor. Not one aspect of its design or operation does not have his mark upon it. Goodbye, my friend. Sleep well."

  As a blindfolded Southmoor was escorted to the lectern a single thought was being shared by nearly everyone in the chapel. It was the first time that any of them had heard Zarvora refer to anyone as a friend.

  Ettenbar, a Southmoor component from Dexter processor, was able to speak passable Austaric by now, but for the service he had rehearsed some grammatically perfect lines.

  "I speak for the components of the great machine that is known as the Calculor. Although we are prisoners, the Calculor has enriched our lives. Not long ago I was a shepherd tending sheep and emus. Now I have risen to be a trainee FUNCTION. I have rank, authority, and important work. I live in com fort, I have many friends, and my Islamic faith is tolerated. Lewrick gave us our comforts. Lewrick wrote the prayer times of Islam into the Calculor's schedules. Lewrick made life for a component in the Calculor tolerable. If the guards were ever removed, many of us would not flee. Thank you, master, and goodbye."

  When I die what will they say of me, wondered Tardn as he and Vardel Griss walked to the coffin and placed two yellow roses amid the red flowers that covered the lid. Zarvora was last, with a black rose whose genes carried alterations dating back to the early twenty-first century.

  The service was the end of the funeral. The six Tiger Dragons carded the coffin down several floors and into the maze of passages under the mayoral gar dens that were the burial chambers for senior Dragon Librarians killed in the service of Libris. Tarrin and Griss still escorted the coffin, with Zarvora following. Behind her were a dozen more guards. The stone-lined corridors seemed to go on forever; the gilt lettering of hundreds of plaques gleamed in the lamplight as they passed. At last a lamp came into view ahead of them, glinting highlights off the silver buckets and trowels of the burial masons.

  The niche for Lewrick's coffin had already been cut into the rock. He was pushed in feet first and then the stone plaque was mortared into place by the masons. Tarrin seemed to come awake, suddenly realizing that his colleague was already behind the stone. He read the gold lettering, noting that Lewrick had been only forty-nine years old. He had seemed older. Now he was gone. Tarrin could not remember consciously touching the coffin. He lit a wax taper from a lamp's flame, inverted it, and let wax run down the plaque and pool at the projecting ledge. Zarvora raised her ring seal and pressed it into the soft wax. "Rest now, Fras Lewrick," said the Dragon Black softly; then she turned and strode back down the corridor.

  Those who made up the Calculor soon rediscovered a fact that had been well known nearly two thousand years earlier: while a computer center with a malfunctioning machine is the very embodiment of bedlam, a well-behaved computer is utterly boring. Figures and records arrived in oilcloth bundles sealed with impressed wax, and results were neatly written onto reed pulp cards by the output lackeys. Nobody understood the figures.

  News of neither the assassination attempt on Zarvora nor the execution of the Dragon Greens had been made known generally, and the rumors that did circulate were gilded by the factions to their own advantage. Conditions improved for the Cataloguing Department. Tarrin paid little attention to his duties in Cataloguing because the Calculor was now reliable enough to expand. The aim was two registers with a thousand components each, and a separate, experimental machine was to be set up to test new designs.

  Work commenced on improved coding tables for the parts of the beam flash network under Rochester's control. Those tables soon enabled the transmission rates to be tripled while lowering the error rates. The value of the tables quickly became apparent to other alliances, such as the Central Confederation and the Woomera Confederation. There were tests, then negotiations between the beam flash administrators of Griffith, Woomera, and Rochester. The tables exchanged hands for a sum reported to be over a hundred thousand gold royals, yet the administrators went home happy. The tables would quickly pay for themselves.

  In Cataloguing, it was as if Libris had returned to the rule of the previous Highliber. The backlog began to build up again, arguments about fine points of classification, categorization, and book numbering dominated staff meetings, and the practice of reading entire books to gain a good feel for the contents crept back.<
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  Bernard Wissant had become Deputy Ovediber to Tarrin when he had been appointed, but Peribridge, the previous Deputy, held the real power. They soon realized that Tarrin intended to rule them on the basis of their own reports, so those reports were falsified. Books incorrectly catalogued and returned for more work were counted twice or more, parts of multiple volumes were counted as separate titles, and the Backlog shelves were renamed "Updating."

  "She's frightened," Peribridge declared to Wissant as they drew up the monthly report for June. "These figures are a full restoration of our rights and autonomy."

  "Do you really think the Highliber has backed down?" Wissant asked, his voice quavering in spite of the smile on his face. Peribridge lay back in the enfolding leather armchair and drew her Toufel flintlock. It had a reliable mechanism, but was badly balanced. This did not matter to those who did little shooting. No more than a reliable discharge was needed for ceremonial volleys.

  "This had never been used in a duel, Fras Bernard, and I have no champion, yet I always get my way. The Highliber can do what she likes in the dueling chambers, but there are other places to die. Lewrick died on the floor of her inner sanctum."

  "And now the roof swarms with Tiger Dragons." "So? There are yet other ways. Libris runs by tradition, and that tradition cannot be swept away with a decree or two. It was established during Greatwinter itself, Bernard. It is older than our dating system."

  Certainly the office reflected that. The abandon stone floor was so worn that embedded steel bars showed through in places, yet frail, vulnerable books of the same age lined the shelves intact. The names of more than two hundred Chief Cataloguers were carved into slabs of blackstone on the south wall, each picked out in gilt. At the year 1192 GW there was an elaborate flourish. This was when Cataloguing had become a separate department.

  The Deputy read at random, noting that the names of the Overlibers reflected the way the language had changed. Wilson dij Soulfarer had been what was then called Sayer of Types from 97 GW to 105 GW. The year of his death was that of the Genthic Crusade. Rochester had fallen to the Gentheists, but had the Sayer of Types died in the fighting or been executed? Perhaps he had died in bed. Wissant doubted it.