Souls in the Great Machine

by Sean McMullen

  The moderator strode forward, calling for a medic ian and the seconds. Griss brushed at Zarvora's collar, where smoldering wadding from Coz's shot had lodged. The Mayor's champion was pronounced dead. The moderator collected the guns, gathered the judges together, and led them to his chambers beyond the white arches.

  "Wonderful, masterful, that was superb," Griss babbled, shaking with relief as if she had been in the duel. "I know I advised you to call short, but only a single pace!"

  Zarvora closed her eyes as Coz's body was lifted onto a stretcher. "Such a waste, Frelle Vardel. Still, I am alive."

  "And the winner, Frelle. You beat the Mayor's champion, you rule Rochester now. '

  "Rule Rochester? No, there will be more fighting before that. Fortunately I

  have a champion who owes me several duels."

  "A champion, Frelle Highliber? You need a champion?"

  "A champion, Frelle Tiger Dragon, a deadly champion." The razzle horn announced the return of the moderator and judges. They walked with visible tension, strain showing in their faces. Jefton appeared between two arches, face white, and flanked by five of his personal bodyguard.

  "As moderator in the duel between Mayor Jefton III of Rochester and High liber Zarvora Cybeline, I hereby declare the judges tied on a foul. Two of the judges maintained that because the moderator had instructed the Highliber to call the number of paces, she was obliged to call more than a single pace."

  A foul declared by a majority of judges would have had Zarvora executed for murder that very afternoon. Instead the vote was evenly split, and would have to be referred to the next meeting of the mayors of the Southeast Alliance in-eleven months. They would decide if any of the judges had been unfit to preside at the duel. If all were declared fit and proper judges, then the mayors would declare a winner on the basis of further deliberations.

  "Highliber Cybeline, you are to surrender yourself into the custody of the

  Marshal of Rochester. Have you anything to say?"

  "I hereby petition for an immediate meeting of the mayors of the Southeast Alliance," she said briskly.

  "Only the Mayor can answer such a petition," replied the moderator, turning to Jefton. "Denied," Jefton called confidently. "An extraordinary meeting of the mayors can only be called in times of great danger to the may orate This is no such time." '

  "Who shall act as Highliber?" Griss whispered urgently.

  "Who indeed?" answered Zarvora. "But tell Fras Tarrin TURING1 7ADA

  He will understand." Zarvora was led away by the Constable's Runners and Griss hurried to Libris with the news. A meeting of the Dragon Gold Librarians was called for that evening to decide who should act as Dragon Black while Zarvora was in custody. Sternley, the Head of Reference, was chosen for his seniority, according to tradition. Tarrin was left in charge of the Calculor.

  With Zarvora gone the pace suddenly changed dramatically for those working in and with the Calculor. There were no new schedule tables for the week to come, so work was suspended until the appropriate Dragon Librarians drew them up.

  When they were assigned, a sizable number of staff found themselves with nothing to do. Some did nothing. Lemorel asked Tarrin for control of the Islamic Calculor and set it to work on her thesis. Months of her planned work suddenly evaporated, but the edutors at the University were not to know. Another request to Tarrin for runners and lackeys to do reference work was welcomed with open arms--literally. The support staff at Libris had been suddenly starved of work with the Calculor taking so long to set up. A request for scribes to write up the results as they were processed also met with instant approval. Lemorel began to think in terms of submitting her thesis by the middle of January and writing "EdR" after her name by March.

  The unaccustomed surfeit of leisure time confused the other middle-rank librarians. Some were reduced to working two hours or less per day, and spent their time reading books, chatting in taverns, or even programming the Calculor to play other games besides champions. The Black Runners recorded an extraordinary increase in amorous affairs among librarians, especially at levels Red, Green, and Blue, yet the acting Dragon Black was too busy to read their reports.

  Lemorel experimented with the Islamic Calculor, pioneering methods to al low a single processor to check its own results by introducing calibrated process checks tied to checksum verifications. The Highliber would have been interested, but the Highliber was allowed no visits from the Dragon Librarians of Libris. Growing bolder, the bored Dragon Silver experimentally seized control of the beam flash node at Griffith one afternoon and changed some minor routing tables. Nobody noticed. She spent whole nights playing champions against the main Calculor itself when assigned to oversee the night shift. Somewhere within it was Nikalan, she knew that from the rosters, and the same rosters revealed that Glasken was currently asleep. She took great satisfaction from the knowledge that he slept alone.

  Outside Libris the effects of the Calculor's subtle failures were dramatic and alarming. First the beam flash decoding became scrambled. Felons were set free at random by mayoral order and wind trains were scheduled at one-minute intervals investigations revealed that sections of beam flash traffic were being decoded into random characters. Hand-coding and decoding would take an order of magnitude longer, and the traffic volume had grown enormously owing to the capacity of the Calculor for encoding and decoding.

  Within twenty-four hours Rochester was all but cut off from the rest of the southeast. Much of the life of the city was also guided by the wires and beads of the Calculor. The Constable could no longer check records of the felons in his custody and the jails soon filled with prisoners that the Calculor then set free at random. Tax records were found to be missing. The Calculor knew where they were, but to allow a human down that trail would take weeks of decoding and audits. Diplomatic messages were no longer being decoded, so that Jefton no longer knew what was being said in his own court. Freebooters from the Heathcote Abandon raided a customs post, and there were other troop movements on his borders that he did not understand.

  Thirty dray loads of sheep manure were delivered to the palace kitchen, while a herd of pigs was turned loose to ravage the palace gardens. The palace provisions for a week were delivered to the city stables, and Jefton had to send lackeys to a nearby tavern to buy his dinner. Jefton signed an appointment for the new Minister of Finance only to be told a day later that Atholart, his appointment, was a prizewinning stud goat. The news that the appointment had been officially commended by the Council of Envoys did little to comfort Jefton. He decided to visit Zarvora in her cell.

  "Rochester is plunging into chaos," ranted Jefton, infuriated. "How are you doing it?" "Rochester can no longer function without the Calculor, Mayor, and the tenance.Calcul r'But' 'requireSRochestermaintenanCe'will be mined. "I designed it so that only I can perform that main "Mayor, I have been walking a long and difficult tightrope for some time. I

  am weary of idiots like you jiggling the ends for their amusement. ", idiots I Did you say--"

  "Idiots, yes."

  "I could--"

  "Do what you like, but you will do it without the Calculor." Jefton ordered the Libris staff to restore the Calculor to full functionality. It took six hours for the Dragon Gold Consentium to explain to him why this was impossible without the Highliber's cooperation, and even then he was not sure that he understood. A group of edutors from the University was called in to inspect the Calculor, but after getting over the shock of the machine itself they declared that it could not possibly work. This enraged the desperate young mayor even more. When Tarrin declared that the edutors could not be allowed to go free now that they had seen the Calculor, Jefton was not inclined to dispute his decision. The edutors were added to the Calculor's trainee intake.

  Jefton was finally forced into action when Mayor Calgain of Tandara annexed the Hunter Triangle. This was a tiny slab of land at the south of Rochester, and Calgain declared that freebooters were using it as a base to raid his territor
y. It contained a registered customs post for a Tandaran par aline however, so this would no longer bring in revenue for Rochester. The breakdown of the service functions of the Calculor had by now caused sufficient chaos to justify calling an extraordinary meeting of the Alliance's mayors. Even the mayors themselves wanted the services restored, but like all such high-level meetings it took time to convene.

  A month after the Highliber's arrest Lemorel decided that Libris was sure to collapse back to half its current staff, and that those who had been promoted on the basis of mathematical skills alone might soon be looking for other work. Getting work as a magistrate's champion seemed a good option, and she decided to polish up her targe try skills in the Libris dueling chambers. The gun-lackeys were well trained and brisk, loading and cleaning the guns with efficiency, resetting the targets quickly, and carefully recording the scores. In spite of the echoing blasts and reek of sulphur, the atmosphere was one of calm concentration.

  One morning Lemorel arrived early and was surprised to find the Dragon Red Dolorian standing with a 20-bore matchlock. She glanced uneasily at Lemorel, who nodded affably and settled down to watch. When it was quite clear that she was not only to have an audience but one that outranked her, Dolorian turned to the target bale, standing square-on and squinting down the sights of her pistol with one eye. She pulled the trigger, then teetered back a few steps on her tower heels as the gun went off. The shot did not even strike the hay bale behind the target. A lackey emerged from his shelter, shaking his head and pointing to a fresh hole in the paneling behind the bale. The Dragon Red's eyes flickered to Lemorel again as she called for another gun. Brave enough to risk humiliation, concluded Lemorel approvingly.

  Dolorian was a career librarian of the old school, and was still a Dragon Red in spite of being over thirty. Her mathematics was weak, but she had a chance to achieve Dragon Green rank if she showed up well over the full range of subjects. Targetry was one of them. Her figure was sinuous yet very well curved, and she dressed to show it to full effect. While she wears weapons as jewelry she will remain a Dragon Red, Lemorel decided as she watched. Again Dolorian aimed, fired, and staggered back. Lemorel dived for the floor with her hands over her head as the ricochet whined above her. The gun-lackey emerged from his shelter and pointed to a groove in a marble archway some yards from the target.

  "Frelle Dolorian, that was atrocious," said Lemorel as she stood up and dusted her uniform. Dolorian gave her a cornered, desperate stare, then looked down at the flagstones. "Please take your boots off," Lemorel ordered.

  One did not disobey a Dragon Silver. Dolorian started for a moment; then, with a self-conscious grin, she sat down on a bench. Her boots reached all the way up to her tunic, and her tunic of the day was very short. With seeming concentration she began to unlace the boots. Her legs were gleaming white and bare beneath them. Lemorel looked down at her feet, then kicked off her own shoes.

  "Our feet are about the same size, Frelle Dolorian. Put these on. Lackey!

  Reload the Frelle's gun--no, bring her a twenty-five-bore, with flintlock action."

  The lackey jumped as if he had been whipped.

  "Frelle Milderellen, my wrists are too thin for the recoil from such a big bore." '

  Lemorel held out her own wrist. There was very little difference. "Six weeks of pushups and floor-bars and you won't know yourself, Frelle. Firstly, stand side-on, feet apart by a shoulder's width and a half. Bend the back knee for balance against the recoil. Your grip should be with two hands, while you get confidence. Squeeze the trigger: jerking it is the commonest mistake in beginners."

  The lackey brought a loaded pistol. Lemorel held Dolorian's hands and guided them down to a firing position. Her hands were warm and soft, while her breasts were as firm as rammed-cotton cushions. It was little wonder that she had an entourage of admirers.

  "Now, do it by yourself, and shoot this time."

  "But what about aiming?" "The Dragon Green test is dueler's freeform, not target shooting. You must hit through reflex, not squinting down the sights. There's no time for that sort of thing in a real duel. And keep your eyes open. You always close them when you shoot."

  Dolorian swept the gun down and fired. Through either genuine skill or chance the shot knicked the boundary between the inner circle and the bull. Her big green eyes bulged unblinking as she stared at the neat hole in the target through the dispersing powder smoke. It was her first shot to hit the target that morning. The lackey called "Bravo!" and clapped.

  "That suggests that my advice has some value," said Lemorel, turning back to her pupil. Standing with her legs bare and wearing flat, scuffed dueling slippers, Do lori an still seemed to have grown visibly in stature as she called for another gun.

  This time she hit the median circle. "I expected you to at least hit the target bale, but this is even more promising," said Lemorel as the smoke cleared. "You have to practice a lot more.

  Fifty shots per day at least."

  "But my hearing--" "Wear wax plugs, as I do." The flagstones were cold beneath her feet, and she stepped back onto a mat. "Lackey, another gun."

  Dolorian never bettered her first shot that morning, but she at least hit the bale or target paper every time. After seventy shots Lemorel called an end to the lesson.

  "But Frelle, did you not come here to practice?" "Ah yes," said Lemorel, drawing her twin-barrel and firing one side. The shot hit the bull slightly high. "Yes, I need a little practice, but not today. Could I have my shoes back?"

  They went out into the city together, to the markets at North Junction. Lemorel supervised while Dolorian bought two pairs of low-heeled goat-leather ankle boots and a pair of cloth dueling slippers. The selection of a proper pistol took somewhat longer. Dolorian traded her 18-bore ornamental matchlock for a 32-bore target flintlock. Lemorel insisted that 34-bore was the ideal caliber for her and that she would regret the choice as her wrists became stronger.

  "A heavier gun means more weight to take the recoil," she explained as they went through a gate to the green between the wall of inner Rochester and the lake. An open-air tavern was serving boating parties from the lake, and the day was bright, cool, and windless. They sat at a table, watching the light pedal trains rattle across the trestles and into the inner city. Dolorian took the new gun out of her woven shoulder bag and turned it over doubtfully.

  "This looks.." bulky and gross, if you'll pardon my saying so. To me it says "This person cares only about function and nothing about style."

  "On the contrary, Frelle Dolorian, to me it says that the wearer knows guns, and is someone to reckon with. Polish the metalwork. Oil the wood, rub in scent if you like, and have hot poker tracery burned into it. That will all personalize the gun, but the style is already there."

  Dolorian considered this, then decided that her new instructor was right. While she strapped the holster on and adjusted the straps Lemorel leafed through a book that had spilled from Dolorian's bag, The Highliber's Courtesan. She read the last few pages.

  As history it was mostly fabrication. Highliber Charltos had been 106 years old and suffering from dotard's sickness when he died in his sleep. The book had him being stabbed by a beautiful Dragon White wielding a poisoned hairpin in mid coitus. The only points in common with the truth were his name and title, and the fact that he died in bed.

  "It's a tasty little story," said Dolorian, by way of explanation rather than apology. "I'm told that Charltos was a mousy classics scholar whose idea of a wild time was a midnight sherry party with the Dragon Golds. Do you read many of these, ah, romances?"

  "Oh yes. There's nothing better than a mug of Northmoor coffee, an easy book, and a bed piled deep with cushions after a bad day in Libris--except for a man of talent in the bed, of course."

  "You should have any number of offers, what with working in the Calculor as a regulator." "That I do, but I pick and choose very carefully, Frelle. Once every so often I treat myself to a demi jar of frost wine and I treat myself to men in much
the same way. The act of love should not be a chore, and I go to some pains to make it special each time."

  "You have no one lover?"

  "I swore not to have one special lover until I reached Dragon Green in rank. With my looks and figure, Frelle, it's hard to get men to take me seriously. Were I a Dragon Green, men would be forced to admit that there was more to me than bottom, breasts, long hair, and a pretty face."

  Lemorel pondered this while Dolorian strode about awkwardly in the low heeled boots and struck poses to show off her new flintlock. A shunting engine rumbled across the trestles and the navvys whistled to a boatload of girls. A serving man brought two mugs of coffee.

  "Have you come across the comporicnt John Glasken?" Lemorel asked. "I only know them by their numbers, Frelle." "3084, and he's currently

  MULTIPLIER."

  "The one who has an embargo on him against dalliance?"

  "That's him. What do you think?" "He presents well, and plays the lutina passably. He's due for an upgrade to FUNCTION in two months. His body is impressive, but I've found that impressive bodies are too often guided by unimpressive brains."

  "He has a degree in chemistric."

  "Has he? Well, if the embargo comes off I shall keep him in mind."

  Lemorel considered her words.

  "One night long ago, Frelle Dolorian, I found myself in mortal danger. While I was fighting for my life I learned that my supposedly faithful lover had a tavern wench bent over a table with her skirts around her ears."

  "MULTIPLIER 3084?"

  Lemorel nodded.