Souls in the Great Machine

by Sean McMullen

  To the south of Alspring was a gap in a rockry ridge known as Call Funnel, where a mercy wall had been built to save people in the grip of the Call from wandering south into the desert. At the center of the curved wall was a stone speakers' platform which was used for religious orations, reed pipe concerts, military re views, and public executions. It was known as the Red Stage, both for the executions held there and for the blood-red stone from which it had been cut.

  Lemorel strode the Red Stage alone, wearing robes of red ochre that were tied and bound to make her look as small and sharp as possible. She had selected her attire to seem both small and in need of protection, yet hard, sharp, and unkillable, like a saber ant. The veil below her eyes was of such a thin gauze that her face was quite distinct to those standing close by, but it allowed her voice to carry farther than the more mundane type. The nine thousand in her audience were the elite lancers and officers of her army.

  She started by congratulating them on conquering all of the Alspring cities in the six years since she had led her first band of Neverlander freebooters into the battle, then went on to rant against the Overmayor in the distant south. They were cheering spontaneously by the time she told them that they were all united as Alspring Ghans now, led by the Neverlanders. She reminded them that talk of other groupings was treason. To become an officer was to become a Neverlander, and to become a Neverlander was the highest honor of all.

  "I once told you that the Center would tremble at your name, and now it is true. I once told you that you would rule the cities that treated you with contempt, and now it is true. I once told you that nations would surrender at the mere dust of your approach, and now it is true."

  It was several minutes before the cheering, shouting, and discharging of muskets had subsided. Lemorel was patient; she was happy to see them exuberant. They had just won an exhausting race, but they were about to be told that they had to run several times farther.

  "Now you are mighty. Now you are rich. Now each of you has many invelwives to protect and you are all blessed in the sight of the Deity."

  She paused for emphasis. Her entire appeal to them had been based on headlong and unstoppable expansion, and not one expected that they would be told to go home and tend their newfound prosperity in peace.

  "Now I tell you that every overhand will soon be a prince. Every officer will be an overhand. Every lancer will be rich enough to live in a mansion and own a hundred camels. This very day I had word from my envoys that many cities and may orates to the southeast are begging to be our clients so that together we may subdue the sprawling lands beyond the red and rocky deserts, lands where the water never dries up and the grass is green all the year. Neverlanders, nomad lancers that are my mighty and invincible right hand, this day I shall begin to muster an army of a quarter of a million to sweep south--"

  The sheer scope of the adventure raised such euphoria that the rest of her oration was lost in deafening cheers and commotion. That afternoon Lemorel met with Overhand-in-Chief Baragania and the four logistics over hands who managed the care, feeding, supply and transport of her troops. Scribes had already produced renderings of the routes south from the caravan maps, and details of states beyond the deserts had been culled from maps mnrle.d north in hn of coffee "This is all soft, undefended land," she explained in a hoarse voice as her fingers brushed across the names of states that few of them had known existed until recently. "They rely on the desert to keep them safe, yet the desert can be as fickle and unfaithful as a Rochestrian suitor. This land can be crossed by an army of lancers, men able to live in the saddle, carrying all that they need to survive on a minimal number of spare camels. Our spearhead will be camel lancers, but horses will soon be provided by the Southmoors. Large herds are being moved to the northwest of the of the Balranald Emirate, by secret agreement. We shall get them here, north of the Barrier Grasslands."

  "And cities, great lady? Soft, rich cities like the great explorer Kharek promised to us?" asked a logistics overhand.

  "Rich, lazy cities, with no skill in our type of war."

  "But they have powerful machines and deadly weapons, Commander Lemorel," Baragania warned. "Their machines are easily bypassed, or even turned to our use. We shall use their wind trains and beam flash towers, just as we have built a superior calculor. As for their weapons, ours are better. We have camels that carry lancers, water, and supplies faster than an army can march, and our long and secret preparations will be a knife in their back."

  With a nod of heads the logistics over hands indicated that they were satisfied by her explanation. The discussion moved on to specific invasion scenarios, as modeled by the Glenellen Calculor. The figures were encouraging, and the group became eager. When they had finally gone, Lemorel sat alone with Baragania,

  who was one of the very few that she treated as anything like a peer.

  "How is Nikalan?" he asked as Lemorel rolled up her maps. "Improving, but still little more than a shell," she said after a moment, as if she had been struggling to recall a distant memory. "The finest physicians in Alspring agree that he has been allowed to do nothing but work on Glenellen's calculors for far too long. When Nikalan was wandering free with--" She exhaled, then inhaled again. "--with Glasken through the deserts to the Fostoria Oasis, he was forced to live a varied existence and his mind was slowly healing. He had lost a great love, and the trauma had unhinged his mind. When made to do nothing else but calculor work, his mind retreated again into a smooth, pure shell and he slipped further away from our world."

  Baragania watched her closely, noting that she now spoke more openly about Nikalan. Perhaps her own heart is healing itself?" he wondered.

  "And how are you, Commander?" he asked. "You came to our lands to rescue him, you conquered us during that rescue, then you found that he lives as if dead. This is the day of your greatest triumph, but are you happy?"

  "I am happy," she said after a pause to think the question through. "Could you imagine it, but one physician attending him employed a harlot who is especially good with very aged clients," she said, then giggled. "The woman actually coaxed a response from him. No less than three times, I have been assure She calls him a sweet little boy, even though he is about thirty-five. He can aga cut his own bread and pour juice for himself.." yes, the repairs to his mind a proceeding apace."

  "That is hardly a life."

  She dropped her gaze, then looked up at him again. There was still a measu of pain in her eyes. "I know, but can you suggest anything better? Baragania, he was the gc that set me on the road, but now that I have him I find that the road is me important. Nikalan was like a finely bred racing camel: superbly suited to ave specific course, but hopeless for use elsewhere. I bumped him once, and he fi to the ground and shattered. Had it not been me, it would have been someo: else."

  "But what drives you now, Commander? Why, in the moment of yo greatest triumph, are you not at the celebration?" "Why, you ask? Because there is work to do, preparing the strike south. The Overmayor is a fool. She built her entire power base on calculors and some Ion frail networks of para lines and beam flash towers. If I cut her precious infrastructures at strategic points, I can seize two-thirds of the continent in less than a ye It is like when I spied upon you and your Glenellen Calculor, many battles at You were so very vulnerable, I simply could not wait to engage you, lest some else realize how very easily you could be defeated.

  "My agents have organized joint operations with the Southmoors and h: infiltrated the beam flash and par aline networks. I have even been chipping aw. at the rightly Libris Calculor itself by financing civil actions to free its comp nents. In fundamentalist Gentheist circles my people have been dropping tilt about steam power being used in Kalgoodie. Baragania, what does all this sugg to you?"

  Months of campaigning with Lemorel had taught him to think as she d when the occasion required it. "The war with the Southeast and Woomera h already begun, but in a subtle way," he speculated.

  "Precisely, superbly obser
ved and reasoned, my friend. The war has begX I have insured that every single merchant who travels to Maralinga is a trus agent. Those same agents have been negotiating right-of-way across Kooree lan for my armies as well. Add all of that activity together, and it becomes a higl noticeable operation. All that it will take to alert the Overmayor is a blunder two, an accident, or even a traitor's word. We must move now. If we do not ta our enemies by surprise, they will be far too strong for us."

  The first of Zarvora's ancient rockets left Kalgoorlie amid a noisy festival honor of the glory of technology. The first stage was firmly bolted to a flatb truck and painted a bright green with red bands. Two galley engines pulled the flatbed and its attendant cars, while another five carried relief crews and the support equipment. It had been arranged that Denkar would stay in Kalgoorlie and provide calculor backup over the beam flash line as Zarvora required it. On the par aline platform Glasken was saying goodbye to Jemli, who was by now his business partner.

  "When the Golden Jar comes up, begin the bidding at a thousand royals." "A thousand! That's too much."

  "But don't go over fourteen hundred without asking me." "But you will be in Woomera, Glassy." "Use the beam flash "The beam flash It's a royal per thousand words!" "A royal, be buggered. Hey there, sonny, catch." "Glassy! That was a gold royal."

  "You don't make royals by skimping on coppers, you're too much of an accountant, Jemmy. Besides, I know about a few embarrassing matters that I can threaten to reveal if I have to. Beamflash me, all right?"

  Zarvora had been standing nearby with the galley engine's captain, checking the freight lists and timetables. Presently she walked along to the door of her personal carriage, where Denkar stood gazing at Glasken fare welling Jemli.

  "Don't they look the sweetest pair of lovers you ever saw?" he remarked.

  "Apparently she has a tongue like a machine-crossbow," replied Zarvora doubtfully.

  "Apparently she never flays Glasken with it."

  "I overheard him trying to persuade her to have an affair with Ilyire while he is away."

  "What?" "It makes sense. Ilyire is one of Glasken's... vassals, if I can use the term so loosely. Glasken probably feels he has control over whatever she gets up to while he is away. She is ambitious, Den. Although she professes hatred for librarians, she has been simpering about with the minor nobility at court and going out of her way to show off the results of her elocution lessons. Soon she will have a degree as well. Will she still want Glasken once she no longer needs him?"

  "Glasken is Glasken, he will never be short of women," replied Denkar, but now he was frowning. "Really? All his life he has left a trail of Frelles with the breath knocked out of them and their skirts about their ears, yet look at him now."

  "Without Glasken you'd have died in that explosion at the test range, like those five engineers. It left his left ear and back quite a mess."

  "I know. He saved my life so now I worry about him." Mayor Bouros' personal band began to play as the trains were made ready to go. Denkar and Zarvora touched foreheads in farewell.

  "Why Woomera?" Denkar asked yet again, shouting above the cheering and music. "I am unsure myself," Zarvora replied. "The ancients also used the Woomera site to launch rockets into space, so they may have known something about the location that we cannot even guess at."

  The train moved out of the rail side slowly and smoothly amid showers of petals and streamers, but the tumult died away rapidly once they were into the:! suburbs of the great inland city. Ettenbar was with Zarvora in the mayoral coach, finalizing arrangements for returning data to the electro force calculor via beam flash

  "These galley engines are an expensive way to move freight, Frelle Overmayor," he said as he watched the houses give way to fields and grazing cattle on group tethers.

  "The rocket has to be launched from a precise place at a precise time, little worrier. Expense is no object."

  "I could help better if I understood, exalted Frelle. If I understood, I would give my life to insure that your results were satisfactory." "And that is one of the reasons why I am telling you nothing. If you not know what results I hope to get, you cannot bend the actual results please me." '

  Ettenbar laughed and waggled his finger. "Very cunning, exalted Frelle, shame upon your suspicious nature." She pulled at a green tassel that hung from the ceiling, then spread of a launching gantry on the folding table. Moments later there was a slap just outside the door; then Glasken entered rubbing his cheek.

  "I swear, the train lurched just as I walked past her--" "Come in, Glasken, and sit down," said Zarvora. "In a week we shall in Woomera, and from there the rocket stages and support equipment will taken by mule cart to where the launching gantry has been assembled. the unloading and mule cart ride the rockets will be your responsibility. them as you would guard your life, guard them as you would guard your cles--"

  "--for the latter will surely be forfeit if there is any sort of accident," Glasken in quite a good parody of her tone and accent. Zarvora looked up and stared at him for a moment, neither smiling ing. "Fras Glasken, I think that we are beyond threats of that sort by now. would have said please if you had let me finish."

  "Your pardon, Frelle Overmayor. Where will you be?" "I shall ride ahead and insure that the gantry and other equipment is for the rocket's arrival. I shall be in charge of its assembly, arming, and launching. This is the most difficult and ambitious endeavor since the fall of the Anglaic civilization, Fras Glasken, and it is a thousand times more important than the Calculor of Libris."

  It was long after sunset, and the plains to the northwest of Woomera were illuminated by the glow of that part of the Mirrorsun band opposite the sun. This time the Mirrorsun glow was from sixteen bright points arranged in a square of twelve enclosing a square of four. It was a most intriguing spectacle, yet this night's display, like all the others, had no explanation. Many edutors had written erudite papers on the changing Mirrorsun configurations, but all remained pure speculation.

  Lamps outlined a structure that rose from the dimly illuminated plain like a huge weapon, and yet for all its size it seemed insignificant against the vastness of Mirrorsun in the sky above. Lanterns glowed and moved amid shadowed wood work structures, indicating dozens of people hard at work. A green flare arched up into the sky and began to fall.

  The ancient rocket ignited with a howling roar, and it shot up through the framework of the launching gantry like a thunderbolt out of a giant crossbow. It flew free from the apex rails and the glow of the brilliant gleam of its exhaust jet quickly dwindled as it ascended, leaving dark, dispersing exhausts to occlude the stars. Zarvora and her engineers and technicians watched together, raising their telescopes as the glow faded. When the rocket was barely a speck in the sky, the first stage burned out and separated and the second stage ignited. Presently the rocket was nothing more than a point of glow. There was a slight break as the second stage burned out and the third ignited.

  "It looks good, but it is out of our hands," said Zarvora to the sky. She turned to the horizon but did not use her telescope. The Range master continued to watch its progress through his own device, calling the reports out as he was given them.

  "Fourth-stage ignition reported from the downrange telescopes. The rocket is reported as little more than a moving star. It's too high to track reliably."

  Zarvora released her breath explosively. "Give the order "Transmit," to the four beam flash towers," she ordered, and added more softly: "Let us draw attention to ourselves."

  The Range master gestured to the nearby beam flash crew, who ignited a flare in the Ixansmission rig and began to send out the enigmatic order.

  "With respect, Overmayor, but whose attention do we wish to draw?" "I do not know, Fras Range master, but should my electro force beacon de vices in those beam flash towers begin to smoke and melt, we shall have been successful."

  "And the rocket, Overmayor?"

  "A complex and desperate gamble, Fras Range master."

&nb
sp; "And if it fails?" "We shall return here in a month or so and try again." She lifted her tele scope to her eye again, and focused toward the southern horizon. "Ah there, a signal from beam flash tower South," she said as she gazed through the eye piece. " "TRANSMITTER COILS BURNED THROUGH HOUSING

  AND

  MELTED." "

  "Overmayor, beamtlash West--" "Is reporting the same thing?" "Yes."

  "Then a Wanderer is interested in what we are doing. Let us hope that it is also.." enthusiastic. Too enthusiastic." High above the atmosphere the fifth stage of the rocket flew smoothly along its trajectory. When its fuel had been exhausted a fuse had burned through a tether and released a timer that ticked out the seconds. Hundreds of miles away in space, an ancient orbital fortress detected radio emissions on the ground and shot EMP bursts down until all four sources had been silenced. There had been more than one source, there might be more remaining, its AI command module decided. It remained on alert.

  The timer in the rocket's payload engaged the first setting, and a circuit closed. DIT DIT--DIT DIT. The circuit opened again. The transmission had taken less than two seconds. The orbital fortress had not fired, but it tracked the fifth stage as it moved along its ballistic curve. It had transmitted for a moment, and the fortress' control logic had tagged it as suspicious. DIT DIT--DIT DITJ DIT DIT, the signal commenced again, and the fortress spat a pulse adequate to silence it. A fuse burst, the timer ticked on, then the little radio transmitter began again with a new, heavier fuse.

  The fortress spat another EMP, but the coils of the transmitter in the were built to withstand a moderate pulse and the DIT DIT continued. Again the fortress fired at the tiny fifth stage, this time a sustained pulse. The circuit finally melted under the load and was silent, yet the fortress continued to follow it its beam of electromagnetic energy. Zarvora's rocket drew the beam across the limitless backdrop of space.." until it slashed across the band of the nanotech shield that orbited thousands of miles farther out. Circuits melted and died in their trillions, and the ribbon was cut right through. Each tiny slab of Mirrorsun's fabric was a separate, versatile machine, with a small amount of onboard intelligence and powered by solar radiation. The sum of all the parts was sentient.