Souls in the Great Machine

by Sean McMullen

  The Overhand raised his telescope and began examining the battlefield again, as if looking for something he had missed earlier. Captain Lau-Tibad did likewise with his twin ocular

  "Do you have the squadrons of lancers, archers, and musketeers I need?" the Commander asked without turning.

  "They await you within a day's ride, Commander," the Overhand replied, hastily lowering his telescope.

  "Good, then we leave. I must begin training your lancers before someone realizes that the battle calculor is a fickle ally."

  "But, Commander, what advantage will that be to us Neverlanders? We want food, caravan routes, and land."

  "And we shall get land, my puzzled Overhand. All the land from here to Rochester, and beyond." The gusty wind of a late-summer thunderstorm spun the tubular rotors of the wind engine Victoria as it rumbled into the par aline terminus at Peterborough. The sun was down and the lamps of the terminus were glowing brightly. Waiting on the platform was a squad of Woomeran musketeers and all the senior par aline officers of Peterborough. Zarvora Cybeline, Overmayor of the Southern Alliance and Highliber of Libris, was on this train. The gauge of the par aline track changed from seven foot to four eight and one-half inches at Peterborough, so she had to change trains. There was actually a chance she would spend a few moments with them on the platform.

  The Overseer of Yards, the Terminus Master, the Presiding Engineer, and the Logistics Supervisor stood around the door of the Great Western Paraline Authority coach as Zarvora stepped out. She hurried under the platform awning to where there was a salute followed by an inspection of the musketeers. The hood of her rain cape was thrown back to reveal her black hair, braided and pinned by silver or bile combs. Her face was pale and gaunt, and she seemed weary.

  "We had arranged for a band, Frelle Overmayor Cybeline," explained the Terminus Master, "but then this unseasonal storm began."

  "No matter, Fras," replied Zarvora. "This is no state occasion."

  "Did you have a good journey across the dry lands and Nullarbor Plain Kalgoorlie, Frelle Overmayor?" asked the Logistics Supervisor.

  "Yes. The broad-gauge coaches of the Great Western trains are like The Presiding Engineer gave a slight bow. "Frelle Overmayor, you will pleased to learn that the extension of the broad-gauge rails is now within miles of Morgan. Next week the broad-gauge wind trains will be able to run far as the Morgan yards and rail side The Great Western Paraline Authority be operational from Southeast Alliance territory, you will not have to trains here in Peterborough."

  "Good progress," she said, favoring him with a smile, "but rest gentlemen, that I shall always stop at Peterborough for a few words with The para lines stitch my overmayorate together as surely as the that transport its messages. Peterborough is a linchpin of both networks."

  They reacted with discreet smiles and sideways glances, and the Engineer drew breath for his carefully rehearsed reply. He was interrupted shouted curses and the sounds of a scuffle. The Overseer of Yards snapped fingers and pointed, and a lackey in parade uniform immediately dashed off the rain-lashed platform toward a crowd of gear jacks and riggers.

  "The usual problems with broad-gauge and narrow-gauge gear jacks over which system is better," he said with a shrug and a graceful flourish. trains' captains have orders to keep them in good discipline, but this still pens."

  "I cannot understand this," said Zarvora. "I have witnessed half a such fights on my many journeys between the Alliance and Kalgoodie. Why crews so emotional about the width of a par aline track? The Great give a fine ride, that is why I authorized the broad-gauge extended to but..."

  She was interrupted by the young lackey returning, his uniform of green and gilt braid now soaked.

  "Where are the captains, why hasn't that fight been stopped?"

  the Overseer.

  "It's the captains as is fighfin'," replied the lackey. The squad of musketeers was dispatched into the rain, and presently returned with the two disheveled, soaking-wet captains. Both were still each other and struggling against their captors as they approached Zarvora the group of officials.

  "It's flogs and fish plates and thus it's been for two thousand years!"

  the captain of the Alliance and Midlands Paraline's galley engine. His opponent bawled back defiantly. "Fishplates! Fishplates! Fish don't use plates! As for frogs, if I comes upon flogs on my track I squashes 'em."

  "Just as your overgrown brute of a wind farm damages all track work as it passes over."

  "Broad-gauge track work is all balks, transoms, and screw pins it can't be damaged."

  "It doesn't have fish plates "Replace your sleepers with balks and you don't need fish plates "Replace our sleepers with balks and it'd be easier for your poxy Authority to convert us all to broad-gauge rubbish."

  "And what's wrong with that? Mr. Brunel invented balk-and-transom track work twenty-one hundred years ago and--"

  "Pox take Brunel!" A scream of blind rage burst from the captain of the Great Western wind train, his standard reaction to any insult whatever to the memory of Isambard Kingdom Brunel. He did not so much break free of his musketeer captors as drag them with him until he was close enough to deliver a solid left hook to his rival's eye. The musketeers took some moments to restore order, and had to form a line between the officers, gear jacks riggers, and pedal nav vies of the two trains. Zarvora and the par aline officials remained beneath the shelter of the platform's slate shingle awning as the musketeers did their thankless work.

  When the captains began yet another exchange of insults, Zarvora interjected. "Are you two quite finished?" she demanded.

  The noise of the struggle faded into the hissing of the rain and the rumbling of the free-spinning rotors of the wind train.

  "He said my wind engines were fit only to grind corn."

  "He called my nav vies mice in a treadmill."

  "Rats in a treadmill!"

  "There! There! You heard him!"

  "He started it."

  "Both of you, stop it!" Zarvora shouted.

  Suddenly realizing that the most powerful ruler in the known world was angry enough to shout at them, the two captains came to their senses. "I have a wagonload of work waiting in Rochester, I have not seen my husband for six months, the Council of Mayors of the Southeast is waiting for me to preside over their annual meeting, and what do you two do? You, top-link captains of two of the most advanced and powerful machines in the world? You roll about in the rain trading punches and insults, and arguing about--what were they arguing about, Fras Overseer?"

  "Frogs and fish plates Frelle Overmayor."

  "Galley Engine Captain Songan, Wind Engine Captain Parsontiac, call your crews to attention." - :

  "In the rain, Frelle Highliber?" asked the Overseer. "In the rain, Fras Overseer." Zarvora entered the rail side operations room, where a fire burned in the grate and refreshments were laid out on one of the tables. She shrugged off her rain cape and accepted a towel from the Terminus Master.

  "What else can I get you?" he asked.

  "Good weather, sane engine captains, and my husband's company."

  "I didn't know that you were married, Frelle Overmayor," he remarked as she dried her tightly pinned and braided hair.

  "Sometimes I almost forget it myself, Fras Terminus Master."

  He smiled sympathetically. "I understand, Frelle Overmayor. Since the Unification there has been work beyond imagining for everyone." Tarrin Dargetty was escorting an important visitor through the complex of halls, corridors, book bays workshops, dormitories, and cell blocks that was the interior of Libris. Jefton was now merely the Mayor-Pretender, the deposed monarch of Rochester, but he still had status.

  "The place has changed since I was last here," observed Jefton, ducking under a pulley rack that was humming and swishing with taut wire cables.

  Those original systems of 1700 seem so old as to be unusable compared to what we have now," reflected Tardn. "The Highliber can run the Alliance quite smoothly from fifteen hundred miles
to the west in Kalgoodie."

  "And she runs it better than I could," Jefton said with a hint of annoyance. "Why should I even bother to sire an heir?" "There is more to running a may orate than collecting taxes, controlling the army, maintaining the roads and para lines and having the turds carted off to the farms. The people need a face for ceremonial occasions, a royal love life to gossip about, and a figurehead to complain to."

  Jefton shrugged his podgy shoulders, sending tremors across the rest of his generously fleshed body. "They can throw rotten fruit at felons in the stocks if they have anger to vent. What has this to do with me?"

  Tarrin did not answer, for they had reached a guarded door. The Mayor Pretender had to be signed into a register. Beyond that door, and the door behind it, was a balcony overlooking the Calculor hall. Jefton crossed to the edge of the balcony and looked down over the stone railing, overawed.

  "It has grown to fill the entire hall," he observed after a time. "Yes, and there is some dispute among the Libris planners on whether a floor should be added ten yards up for future expansions, or whether more calculors should be built elsewhere for specialized tasks."

  "This is impressive, but why did you bring me here?" Tarrin made a spiraling gesture to the Calculor, then gave a parody of the mayoral bow. "Would you be willing to sit on the throne of Rochester if the Highliber ruled you as Overmayor?"

  SOULS IN THE GREAT MACHINE

  In spite of his expanding waistline and general look of dissipation, Jefton had retained the sharpness of his mind. "She wants me as a figurehead? I'm to be restored as Mayor?"

  "As Mayor-Seneschal, actually. She has the same arrangement in Tandara, Yarawonga, some western castellanies, and the former Southmoor province of Finley."

  "I'm not sure I like the title of Mayor-Seneschal."

  "So you prefer Mayor-Pretender?" Jefton did not answer that, but glared away into the bustling complexity of the Calculor. Tarrin scratched at soup stains on the sleeves of his robes.

  "The tire is generally abbreviated to "Mayor," " Tarrin explained casually, not wanting to give Jefton the impression that anyone was desperate to have him back. "When the Overmayor is present you would be announced as Mayor Seneschal The title would be on all official documents and letterheads, but you could move back from your villa at Oldenberg and live in the mayoral palace. New rooms have been built for the Overmayor in Libris, you see."

  Jefton folded his arms on the rail and looked up at the skylights of frosted glass. "How often is the Overmayor actually in Rochester?" "No more than one week in nine. Most of her time is spent traveling the other may orates and across in the far west at Kalgooriie. She works a great deal with its mayor."

  Jefton's decision was visible before he spoke it. He suddenly stood up straight and threw his shoulders back in a pose of mayoral dignity that he had not allowed himself for many years. Tarrin heard joints popping.

  "I accept!" declared Jefton brightly.

  Tarrin was not surprised by the sudden change in mood

  "Well then, very good... Mayor Jefton," he replied, this time with a deep, formal bow.

  "Not yet, Fras Dragon Gold Librarian. There are papers to be signed, I know the procedures." "Now that you have agreed, the articles will be scribed up for a ceremony this evening. The Overmayor is currently visiting Rochester, so your status as

  Mayor-Seneschal will be law by the time you climb into bed tonight." Down below in the Calculor itself the shift change began, with flesh components diffusing in to relieve those who had just completed eight hours of work. Tarrin glanced down at the battered old clockwork on his belt, and checked the changeover against it.

  "Now you must excuse me, Fras Mayor, I have another pleasant duty to perform." "Nothing could be so pleasant as the scribing of my articles of office." "Oh, I'll order the work commenced as I am escorting you out." "Then please, get me oht of here."

  Lackeys with clipboards and slates bustled along with Tarrin and Jefton as they returned to the main reception lobby of Libris. Tarrin gave Jefton into care of a herald to arrange further details such as robes and forms of address.

  "Just what is that other pleasant duty you have scheduledT" asked Jefton they stood on the vast point-flower mosaic in the lobby.

  "Something very auspicious. The first public release of a ponent from the Libris Calculor." FUNCTION 9 had just returned to his private cell and was sitting alone Tarrin arrived. At thirty-five, FUNCTION 9 was not the oldest component Calculor, yet he was one of the longest-serving. As a FUNCTION he had advanced as far as he could. None of the younger recruits had overtaken his records in mental arithmetic, and he had even invented methods workings of the very Calculor in which he was imprisoned.

  The clanging of a swagger stick drawn across the bars brought his head from a book of pre-Greatwinter mathematics. He recognized Tarrin, the Controller.

  "You work diligently in your free time," observed Tarrin. "Free time is only for the free, Fras Controller," he replied with forbearance. "I have to survive within this rat race of a Calculor, and you introducing younger and faster rats."

  Tarfin clasped his hands behind his back and studied the component. TION 9 was well groomed, and dressed in clothing that paralleled the in the city. He had sewn the robes himself, or so the regulators reported. Hi intelligent, and definitely not broken in spirit, Tarrin mused to himself. and proud, but not a rebel.

  "May I come in?" Tarrin asked as FUNCTION 9 turned back to his book. "That depends whether you have the key," he said without looking up. FUNCTION 9's head jerked up as he heard the creak of tumblers. stepped into the cell, leaving the door open. His cloak was drawn aside to dis a flintlock in his belt. He sat down on the bunk and drew the pistol. it, he placed it on FUNCTION 9's writing desk.

  "Very nice, Fras Librarian, but please take it away. We components are: executed if guns are found in our possession. You should know, they're your rules."

  "But you are not a component, Fras Denkar Newfeld," said Tarrin as he drew a scroll from his sleeve. Taking the pillow from the cell's bunk, he placed the scroll on it. He stood up, bowed, and presented it to the still-seated component. FUNCTION 9 regarded him steadily, then slowly reached out and picked up the scroll between his thumb and forefinger.

  "The Highliber's seal," he observed as he broke the wax. "Hmm. Be it known to all the usual time-serving lackeys and their constable lap dogs that the guest of the Mayor of Rochester, designated as FUNCTION 9, is a free man, and is henceforth to be known as Fras Denkar Newfeld."

  "Not quite Overmayor Cybeline's words."

  "Except for the substance. So, is this a joke, then?" Tan'in produced another scroll, which was unsealed. "I have here your Articles of Release from the Calculor. You are the first to have the opportunity to sign them. In fact I only had them drawn up this morning."

  FUNCTION 9 unrolled the second scroll and read the Articles carefully. Tan-in ran his swagger stick along the bars again, then tried to balance it on the tip of his finger.

  "Insufferable legal babble," Tarrin said as he noted that FUNCTION 9 was reading the text for the third time. "In short it says that you must agree never to speak of the internal workings of the Calculor to anyone outside Libris under pain of death--without permission from the Overmayor. You must accept that you were mistakenly imprisoned here, and will consider the matter closed for a sum of three hundred gold royals. In her roles as both Overmayor and Highliber, Frelle Zarvora Cybeline expresses her regrets."

  "Regrets! She keeps me here nine years, the best nine years of my life, then gives me a bag of gold and throws me out on my ear with only regrets?" "What more do you want?"

  "Nine years of seniority at Oldenberg University. I'd be lucky to get work as an accounts clerk after moldering in here for nearly a decade."

  "So you don't accept your Articles of Release?" The scroll trembled slightly in FUNCTION 9's hands, and he felt the beginnings of tears welling in his eyes. Fight it down, don't show weakness in front of this ratty little librarian
, he thought as he smothered gratitude with anger.

  "Of course I do!" he exclaimed, snatching a quill from a clay grotesque on his writing desk. He checked the cut then scratched out his signature in neat, even loops at the bottom of the Articles.

  "One final scroll, now that you are Fras Denkar Newfeld again," said Tan'in. "This is an offer of employment that goes some way to restoring your lost seniority."

  Denkx read, then slowly looked up. His color and composure were both gone. "Now this really is some twisted little joke," he said in a clipped whisper. "You want to employ me as a Dragon Green Librarian in the embassy at Kalgoorlie? That's on the other side of the known world!"

  "It's a good salary, and they speak the same language."

  "I like it here. What about work in Libris?" "Ah now, in Libris we have no vacancies pending." Denkar replaced the quill. "No, thank you. Freedom by itself will do nicely." He picked up his pillow, placed the scroll upon it, and handed it back to Tarrin. Denkar had already picked the badges of Calculor rank and numbers from his uniform as they left the cell, leaving only patterns of thread. Several Dragon Red guards challenged Denkar, then saluted in amazement as Tarrin held up the scrolls. Denkar paused by the regulators' canteen.

  "May I?" he asked, gesturing to Tarrin's flintlock. Tarrin stared back at him for some moments, then reluctantly drew the pistol from his belt and handed it to him butt first. Denkar cocked the striker, then entered the canteen. Several regulators of Red, Green, and Blue rank were sitting around a table playing cards and drinking beer. Denkar gripped the gun with both hands and fired at a ceramic jug of black beer on the table. It shattered gouts of foam, and the librarians burst back from the table. A moment later nine ' guns were trained on Denkar's head.

  "Fras Tarrin, did he take you hostage?" gasped a Dragon Blue as she wiped the foam from her face with her free hand.

  "Lower your guns," replied Tarrin. "Do it! Fras Denkar Newfeld has been released by decree of the Overmayor."

  There was devastated, incredulous silence. Denkar savored the moment.