Souls in the Great Machine

by Sean McMullen

  The sun was setting on the Dareton battlefield, and the sky above was clear with the promise of a chilly night. Beside a burned-out farmhouse in the red mud of Dareton the exhausted captain of the 105th Overmayor's Heavy Infantry leaned against a fence post and drained a mouthful of sour wine from a jug, then dropped it into the ashes. Two plucked chickens dangled from his forage belt, and he was wearing the grubby jacket of a Great Western Paraline conductor and boots looted from a dead Ghan lancer. His corporal-adjunct sat on a nearby wool bale, patiently reloading their muskets.

  "Captain Glasken, I still say that it is immoral to loot--" "For the last time, you rambling Southmoor ricebrain, there's a difference between foraging and looting. This is for the good of the Alliance war effort."

  "You stole that conductor's jacket at Morgan. That did not assist the war effort." "That's different, I don't like conductors and anyway, it's my size. What a nightmare, did you ever see so many lancers trying to kill you?"

  "Until Peterborough, Fras Captain, nobody has ever tried to kill me." "Can't even remember what I said."

  "You said "Wait for my whistle ye--," then you called their parentage into question." "Why not? Mine certainly is." "Six hundred and twenty dead or gravely wounded, Fras, and us with barely a scratch. We are certainly favored in the eyes of Allah."

  "Speak for yourself, look at my neck--and the piece out of my helmet. Cost me sixty-five silver nobles at Loxton. Hullo, there's the trumpet. One long, two short, long, two short. That's... regroup and report to the rail side

  Glasken took his musket back and shouldered it as they tramped back across the broken ground to the rally pennant. In the western sky the Mirrorsun band had partly eclipsed the new moon. It was much thinner than before, except for' three dishlike thickenings spaced about 40 degrees apart across the sky.

  CASUALTY Theresla was marched through the gates of Macedon in chains, with two aviad musketeers escorting her. Her beating was confident, however, and she even smiling enigmatically. The Mayor met her in the town square, where of the citizens had already been gathered. There was no doubt that this was be a public humiliation.

  "Always such a pleasure to meet with you, Mayor," Theresla declared as she walked up to him. "I came as fast as my chains would allow." "The Overmayor has closed the school estates where our children are being raised," he declared loudly, as much for the benefit of the crowd as "As her invel-sister you are to be held until our children are free."

  "The message that reached me was that the children can return they wish. Only their teachers are being held."

  "You know what I mean! Our children cannot return here until they puberty, else they would live as vegetables under a perpetual Call." None of Theresla's captors were particularly anxious to touch her, so was free to climb onto a low wall where all could see and hear her easily.

  "The sea creatures have a complex society," she began. "It is more advanced than ours in many ways, yet it is still driven by politics and There are groupings of like-minded thinkers, power struggles, factions, and duels. At least I think that they are duels. Most of their concepts are beyond Austaric speech and my vocabulary. To them, we are all creatures of the creatures with puny mental powers but mighty tools. They have legends of when humans hunted them and nearly drove them to extinction."

  "But we are not human," said the Mayor, climbing onto the wall beside her. "To look, who would know? The Overmayor is fighting a war against stupid but annoyingly strong forces. The sea creatures do not want to intervene in a war between factions of their old enemies. They wish both sides a quick trip to 'the Chasm'--of hell, I suppose. The avia ds of Macedon could fight for her, however, sabotaging Ghan positions when the Call sweeps over the battlefields."

  "There would be deaths," cried the Mayor, raising his arms. "I am opposed to anything that endangers the lineage and the genototem strength that we have cultivated so carefully."

  "So you prefer to play spouse-swapping in safety while your allies and benefactors are blown to pieces? You might find that the Ghans are less liberal about the movement of citizens than Overmayor Cybeline. When you find access denied to the school estates you will really squeal."

  "We have lived for two thousand years in hiding," retorted the Mayor. "We can do without the school estates, there are other ways."

  "But not as good as a null zone over Macedon." This was the stuff of aviad dreams and fairy tales: a null zone within the Calldeath lands, where children could be raised but that humans could not reach.

  The

  Mayor stared at her, his mouth hanging open.

  "What sort of desperate lie is this?" he sneered. "I am not desperate, but you are. As I said, the sea creatures are not a unified force, and the Phillip Bay dolphins are more sympathetic to us than the others. I have been negotiating a null zone over Macedon, and they are agreeable to it. There is a price, however, and that is aviad blood. Are you willing to fight for your children?" she demanded of the crowd.

  Within an hour Theresla walked free through the gates of Macedon. Behind her the Mayor had already set up a recruiting office in his chambers.

  Zarvora pondered the maps and charts that hung on the walls and littered the floors of a Libris hall that had been converted into her command headquarters. Vardel Griss, who was now her Overhand-in-Chief, was pointing to maps of the Great Western Paraline link to Kalgoorlie while Tarrin monitored a punched tape mechanism.

  "Our spies tell us that several miles of track have been torn up just west of Maralinga, but nowhere else," said Griss as she gestured with her swagger stick. "If we could coordinate an attack from the west, it would force the Ghans to put some of their strength into a second front, giving us a chance to regroup and advance."

  "Not a hope," said Zarvora.

  "But Overmayor--" "Tarrin, explain the problem." "It's one of strategy," Tarrin began. "The western may orates would depend on the par aline to move their troops across the Nullarbor. The Ghans are more mobile on their camels and horses, and the par aline is impossible to defend along its entire length. A few hundred Ghans could tie down ten thousand Kalgoorlians by a series of quick strikes on the par aline The desert would make slow traveling for an army using the road, and that army would be fighting heat, distance, and supply lines under constant attack by raiders appearing out of the desert."

  "Our spies also tell us that the Ghans are overextended in the west and fighting the Koorees as well," said Griss. "It could be a ruse, a feint. The Ghans pretend to be weak, we advance, then we get shredded. We're holding them in the west. We must be satisfied with that."

  Griss glared at him, but was unable to fault his reasoning. Feints were indeed a Ghan tactic. She turned back to the map.

  "You talk like we have already been defeated, Fras." "Strategically, we have," replied Tarrin in a flat detached voice. "Lemorel knows our strengths too well, and has hit us precisely where it hurts most. The time is right for a negotiated truce."

  "Pah! Tactically we have many advantages," said Griss defiantly.

  "Name one." ' "The Southmoors will not sanction beam flash communications, so Lemorel's commands move slower than ours. With transport, our par aline grid and galley trains are running far more efficiently than those in enemy hands."

  "But their cavalry is far more mobile and versatile," "But not invincible," insisted Griss. "They sent five brigades against us at Dareton, but our musketeers broke their charge with discipline and steady shooting."

  "And they've learned from that! A Ghan overhand was shot by Lemorel herself for what happened at Dareton. Now the Ghans use mobile brigades whose officers choose their own ground for each battle while the Southmoors fight from well-defended trenches."

  "We can move resources faster."

  "But our resources are limited."

  With the exchange played out, they turned to Zarvora, who was standing before a map of the southeast. "Griss is right, up to a point," she said slowly. "We can move faster, so we can choose the battlefields. From the par aline
at Robinvale we shall strike near Balranald, the weakest Emirate among the Southmoors."

  "Weak? What about the hundred and fifty thousand Ghan cavalry that are hitting us along the entire length of our border with Balranald?" asked Griss.

  "Ah no, Balranald's political ties with the other Southmoors have always been weak," Zarvora pointed out offhandedly.

  "If I were the Emir of Cowra, faced with an unreliable client in the northwest and a strong invader and ally in the same area, I would probably hand over everything north of the line between Balranald and the Central Confederation's border. We know that the Emir of Balranald has declared the city closed, which is unusual considering that we are nowhere near the place. He fears his Ghan allies."

  "Seize the land between the Confederation and Balranald, and the Ghans would be cut off from the Southmoors."

  "The Ghans would just invade the Central Confederation," warned Tarrin. "m truce--" "But the Confederation has a strong beam flash grid, as well as cavalry that's used to plains-country fighting," interjected Griss. "The Ghans do not want multiple fronts."

  "Yes, and a lot of Balranald territory is still controlled by its Emir," said Zarvora, tapping at that part of the map with her swagger stick. "If he and his subjects closed ranks against the Ghans, we could hold that strip indefinitely."

  "But if we lose that strip, a wedge will be driven right through our heart lands," said Tarrin. "The Ghans will be setting up their bombards on the shores of the Rochester lake moat itself within a week."

  Sondian was waiting under guard in the anteroom when Zarvora returned to her study. He stood and came forward as she reached her study door, and after turning the key in the lock she turned her back to the door and faced him.

  "The greetings of the day, Fras Sondian. What can I do for you?" "Why nothing, I know you are hard pressed. I came to offer help." "When I want a church, hospital, or market bombed during a Call you will be the first I contact," replied Zarvora in a light, cold voice. "Now go."

  "Some of my Aviad Radicals and their people have suffered terribly under the humans. They seek retribution, but I restrain them as best I can. How can we help in the war?"

  "Help? Your Radicals would commit a few atrocities of doubtful military value, then claim half my territory as a reward after the war. My answer was, is, and will always be no. Guards, see him to the gate."

  The Mirrorsun band around the Earth had been transformed into a thin cable anchoring three immense concave dishes--pale red disks that shone with dull and metallic light as they traversed the night sky and faded into the blue of day. Zarvora watched the band changing on each night that was clear. She was sure that her first and only successful rocket had been responsible, and she had a good idea of what was soon to happen. Mirrorsun was going to hit back at the Wanderer battle satellites, something that might allow an entirely new technology onto the battlefields of the southeast. Even before the invasion she had freighted electro force devices from Kalgoorlie to Rochester. With no warning at all, the elements of the Mirrorsun dishes rotated in unison and at precisely programmed angles, each of trillions of facets showing a reflective facet to the sun. One of the orbital fortresses had caused damage to its fabric months earlier, and thus they were all classified as requiring elimination. An area a quarter of the moon's face punched the sun's radiation back in a beam that focused on an orbital fortress that had just cleared a landmass and was over the Pacific Ocean. The fortresses had not been attacked in millennia and their self repairing and maintaining extensions had evolved vulnerabilities. Cooling vanes melted, pipes ruptured, internal circuits fried, and then the fortress detonated in a flash that lit up the Earth beneath it. The heavy shell continued to orbit amid the dispersing cloud of debris. An ancient comsat in geosynchronous orbit was next. A flickering change in direction of trillions of facets sent three searing cones of heat converging. The comsat became ash and vapor.

  So far no alarm had gone out. High above the north pole another fortress blazed brightly like a tiny, intense sun in Mirrorsun's beams, then exploded into an expanding sphere of debris and ionized gas surrounding the tough; dead shell. The Mirrorsun facets switched to above the south pole, where another fortress was passing the axis of rotation of the Earth. Its solar collectors melted and disintegrated first; then coolant burst through heat-weakened walls, systems failed, and the internal structure of the fortress blew into space thousands of shining fragments.

  By now the two other com sats on the far side of the earth were trying to poll the third. A malfunction was the first conclusion, but when they tried to a dead fortresses their alarms shrieked through space. The AIs of the surviving fortress satellites conferred briefly before the immense mirrors of Mirrorsun focused on the two com sats in turn. Their initial conclusion was an attack from immense laser projector on the Earth's surface.

  The fourth fortress was scanning the Earth when it became a bead of liance drawn across the night sky, and its AI fought to turn its weapons on:; bearings that were already melting. As it died the fifth fortress' AI was the configuration of the Mirrorsun band and it reached the correct conclusion. EMP pulse slashed across one Mirrorsun dish, but although it left a thin black line in its wake, it did not sever the fabric. The default setting of the units was now LOCK. The mirror focused more slowly, but the beams full on the fifth fortress. Its solar panels degraded and failed and the AI switchedI to battery backup. More pulses tore across the three dishes, leaving a tracery black scars. Huge areas of the mirror dishes went dead and their combined beam weakened.

  The sixth orbiter now joined the fight. Not being under attack, it played the full fury of its EMP cannons on the mirrors, analyzing the command Mirrorsun's fabric by the pattern of failures on its surface. The fifth fortress

  SOULS IN THE GREAT MACHINE

  off the attack, realizing that it was being aided. It began to rotate itself with an internal gyroscope, trying to spread the heat dispersal over more of its surface.

  Further out in space the cable that had seemed only an anchor for the three dishes had been far from passive. Like an immense particle accelerator it pumped a cluster of nanotech units up to 400 miles per second and spat them out into space. The sixth fortress was warned by its Doppler radar of the approach of the particles and it spun a cannister to pump a shield of particles to protect its flank. The nanotech units burst and sparkled in the cloud, yet they kept coming in an endless stream. Particle reserves fell to 50 percent, 40 percent, 30 percent. The AI realized that the stream was not self-directing, and it concluded that it could protect itself very simply. A moment later its ion rockets nudged it sideways in its orbit. Mirrorsun deployed a beam of focused sunlight that was a quarter of its former intensity. The fortress furled the arrays and began to rotate. Its AI noted that heat dispersal was tolerable, and that 90 percent of the solar cells had survived.

  Far across the face of the Earth the AI of the fifth fortress began to cycle through damage-assessment routines. Its solar arrays were gone, its external sensors fused and blinded; the EMP weapons were jammed and their batteries almost drained. It still had control of its engines, however, and it could use its reserves of fuel to reach the orbit of the band and self-destruct. Its AI was still comparing optimal trajectories when a cloud of nanotech particles slammed into its outer armor, vaporizing themselves as they flayed it open to the backup cloud only milliseconds behind.

  The sixth fortress nudged itself back into its original orbit as another cloud of particles hurtled toward it. They continued along their now harmless trajectory-then exploded! Debris intersected its orbit, raking the skin of the last fortress, tearing away armoring and solar arrays, and damaging one ion engine. Another cloud approached, and the orbital fortress pumped more shield particles out as it changed orbits again. The nanotech units exploded, absorbed by the cloud. The AI ran through an analysis: the resources of the Mirrorsun band were nearly infinite, while its own fuel and defenses would not last beyond the hour. It detached its armed engine module and f
ired it just before another wave of nanotech units pounded into the armored shell, destroying the AI.

  Mirrorsun noted the engine module moving to a higher orbit and it directed a new stream of nanotech units to intercept the new trajectory. The module slipped behind the Earth, then climbed to meet the band, slowly and under constant attack. Hours later it passed through the band, flaying it with EMP bursts and particle clouds, tearing at its fabric until it was reduced to orbiting nanotech rags. As the module began the fall from apogee its command chip noted that it would now pass through the top layers of the atmosphere on the descent to perigee. The hail of nanotech units continued, exhausting its protective particle clouds and smashing its remaining engines. Hours later the toughened cylinder plunged through the atmosphere, skipped back into space briefly, then dropped to earth, pulverizing itself in the Andes.

  Slowly Mirrorsun began to reassemble itself. A third of its fabric was but reserves were already being pumped up from the moon's surface. "Strange lights in the sky," Glasken observed as he lay on his drop cloth, "Something's changed with Mirrorsun, too. It looks tarnished and ragged."

  "The Wanderers have halos, Fras Captain, that is another point," said Ettenbar from where he too lay looking upward. "There! Look at Theten."

  Glasken snorted. "Well, so what? In a few hours we'll be dead, as likely not. What word of the Southmoors?"

  "The Call of this morning scattered them worse than us. Perhaps were set to a longer interval, so we were less affected."

  "We'd not have been affected at all without this prohibition on beam flash Call warnings." "Ah but that is vital to allow the people of Balranald to ally themselves with ourselves, who use beam flash communication." "I've never worked out why Islam prohibits Call warnings." "No, no, Islam prohibits nothing specifically to do with the Call. recognize that the Call is an unknown to be treated with respect until such as it is understood, that is where the prohibition on artificial Call warnings originates Were the Call discovered to be from a mundane source, why we moors would construct the finest beam flash grid in the world because our mathematics and len sware is the finest--"