Souls in the Great Machine

by Sean McMullen

  "All gone, Frelle Lieutenant," he cried. "Captain and Major, trapped with the bombards."

  "Out there? They're cut off?" "Lieutenant, you are the communications officer, the senior officer left here." He gave her as crisp a salute as he could manage. "Pleased to give orders, Frelle Lieutenant?"

  "Me? But my commission is administrative."

  "Orders, Frelle? Please? We are desperate. We want a leader with orders."

  Dolorian raised her head to survey the field of struggling men, gun flashes, drifting smoke and mud-encrusted corpses.

  "And I want a pile of cushions, my high-heeled boots, filtered coffee, and caramel cream chocolates."

  "Regrettably, Frelle, those things are not in supply here."

  "I want to die in bed, and of old age, preferably with company--"

  A shot kicked up the mud between them, and they crouched down again.

  "Ah, death, Frelle. Now I can accept that in your place. You give the order, I lead the attack." Dolorian could feel tears welling from her eyes and mixing with the mud on her cheeks. There was a heavy blast in the distance as a spiked bombard exploded. "Fras Major and Captain are destroying the bombards, Lieutenant." "Sergeant Ettenbar, if the Southmoors break through, the incendiary bombs in the spark flash wagons must be ignited. Meantime, I want an attack to relieve the bombard crews."

  Ettenbar smiled as he drew a double-barreled flintlock. "Your orders, my duty, Lieutenant. Might I suggest that a nurse's jacket and headband are in the captain's tent. Southmoors are chivalrous, a nurse would be treated with honor--"

  Dolorian reached out and' snatched the gun from him. "You'd look silly as a nurse, Sergeant." "No, no, Frelle, I mean--"

  "I lead the charge, you stand by to bum the spark flash wagons." The third bombard had just been spiked when another onslaught of Southmoors fell on the doomed position, but the Alliance men were well armed and the Southmoors could not coordinate their superior numbers. They were lancers, trained to fight from horses. Major Haman lit the fuse to the bombard's touchhole, then made a flying leap for the corner beside Glasken. The barrel jammed with 396

  SEAN Me MULLEN wadding exploded. The shattering blast left their ears ringing, and the Southmoor attack faltered. The line of white cavalry uniforms smeared with red mud and began to fall back.

  "That's all bombards, we have nothing they want," shouted Haman above the ringing in Glasken's ears.

  "They'll have the bridge up in ten hours, now that we can't blast it any more," Glasken replied. "Let 'em. We'll not last an hour, but main square could hold out for a couple more days. The Ghans don't know about spark flash wagons. I'm guessing pass us by, leaving a small force of bombards to pound us. Lieutenant Dolorian can call their numbers out to Overmayor for all time that's left." "Listen!" barked Glasken. "A Southmoor battle zuma." "Just tryin' to rally their men."

  "No!" exclaimed Glasken. "It's "Campbell's Farewell to the Red Caste,"

  the 105this march. That's Ettenbar!"

  "They're attacking to relieve us! Fools! The Southmoors will hit their wedge from both sides."

  "Major, we should break out and meet them. Major?" Glasken glanced around, but saw only bodies encrusted with red mud. One of them was probably the Major. A stray shot no doubt, he thought. Back in command of the encampment he blew his whistle in the code of the RALLY--CHARGE--AT MY SIGNAL. The men gathered as the rescue began to march over from the distant trenches.

  "We're to link up with 'em, then retreat to the main square. Ready..." Glasken blew his whistle and they began to scramble out of their trenches and stumble south over the broken ground and corpses. The Major was not however; he was away piling barrels together in the powder well, a smoking matchlock fuse between his teeth. At Glasken's final whistle he smashed the top of a barrel in with the butt of a musket, took the fuse from his teeth, and plunged his dagger into a calico bag of granulated gunpowder.

  "Good man, Johnny, now here's a sen doff to hasten ye," he said as he held the fuse above the black granules.

  To Glasken the blast was the earth lifting beneath his feet and a brief sensation of flying. It was a strangely serene feeling. Dolofian was picking herself out of the mud in Ettenbar's foxhole when explosion of the powder dump enveloped her like a thunderclap. Blood was streaming from a cut above her hairline where Ettenbar had clouted her with his heavy brass powder horn, and it was running into her eyes and mouth. She wiped her face, then pulled on her lance point helmet. Ettenbar had taken her saber, so she drew the Blantov 32 flintlock from her belt, slipped and stumbled over the muddy lip of the foxhole, and ran crouching into the battlefield.

  Smoke and sulphur fumes were billowing out from the explosion and dirt was still raining down from the sky. Groups of men were straggling and hacking at each other all around her, and there were no organized volleys of fire. Off to her left she could see a Southmoor pennant at which an officer was rallying his men, waving his saber and blowing a tambalA hundred yards, she estimated. Still feeling dizzy, she dropped to her knees, cocked the striker of the Blantov, then flopped forward into red mud that was cold, and acrid with human blood. Raising herself on her elbows she took aim, gripping the gun with both hands.

  "Must not aim high, must try to hit something," she whispered to herself. As Lemorel had taught her seven years earlier in Libris, she squeezed the trigger gently.

  The Southmoor officer toppled, shot through the neck. His men hesitated, then broke and scattered. Dolofian forced herself to stand, her head pounding, then stumbled dizzily through the mud and bodies to where her victim had fallen. She was alone. What to do, what--her whistle! It also marked her as an officer. She blew the three quick blasts for RALLY, and almost at once shapes began gathering around her in the dispersing smoke: bleeding, limping, battered musketeer infantry with broken saber blades and muskets with splintered butts. "Lieutenant Dolofian!" exclaimed a short bearded man. "Status, what status?" she cried, not knowing what to do next.

  The men shambled in closer, their weapons hanging limp, their eyes huge and round through masks of red mud. She noticed two bands on the sleeve of the bearded man. They were not listening to her or responding, she thought in despair.

  "Corporal, what status?" she shouted, almost sobbing. He pointed between her feet and she looked down to see that she was standing astride the body of the Southmoor officer that she had killed.

  "Frelle Lieutenant, that Southmoor--"

  "Well so bloody what?" she cried in exasperation. "I shot him. He's the enemy, isn't he?"

  "Frelle Lieutenant, he's an Overhand. You just broke their attack." The Southmoors were in too much disarray to mount another attack that day, so the Alliance troops had the battlefield to themselves. The medic ian found Glasken in a row of Alliance wounded behind their trenches. He was semiconscious and crying for black ale with no head and a proper chill. He revived when medicinal rye whisky was poured between his lips, and although he had no deep wounds, he had bad lacerations all down his left side.

  "Ettenbar, where is he?" Glasken spluttered. "Damn-fool ordering that attack. I'll have his balls for--" "Best hurry then, Fras Captain," said the medic ian "Sergeant Ettenbar is dying."

  Glasken was helped to somewhere midfield, where Ettenbar had fallen. His battle zuma was beside him in the mud. The medic ian said that he had been shot high in the chest, and that his lungs were filling with blood.

  "You bloody dummart!" sobbed Glasken, beating the mud beside Ettenbar with his fists. "I told you not to attack, I told you to defend the spark flash wagons."

  "The Frelle Lieutenant..."

  "Dolorian? Dolorian ordered the attack?"

  "Her order.." she tried to lead, but... I hit her. I led."

  "You what?" cried Glasken. He carefully raised Ettenbar's head to help clear the blood. "Can't... have lady endangered, Fras... bad form. Besides... she couldn't--" Ettenbar began coughing, and blood streamed from his mouth and nostrils. Just like the captain of the Great Western galley engine, Glasken realized. The wo
rds of the sergeant who had put him through basic training eight years earlier returned to him: once they bleed from the mouth, don't bother.

  "She... couldn't play the zurna."

  Glasken covered his face with his free hand. "In the Deity's name, Etten bar!" was all that he could think to say.

  Ettenbar coughed again, but more weakly. Glasken looked down to see that he was smiling, and his face was no longer contorted with pain. "Fras Johnny, may Allah..." Ettenbar began, but he could not manage another breath. Glasken lowered his friend's head to the mud, then sat back on his haunches.

  "I know, I know, old friend. Put in a good word for me in the afterlife, whether it is Allah, God, the Deity or whoever. I'll need it when I get there, and that's liable to be soon."

  With the Alliance bombards destroyed, the Alspring engineers resumed work on rebuilding the bridge. By evening they had the under structure and beams in place on the stone foundations. Dolorian reported to Oldenberg that the enemy was working through the night, laying planks by lantern light.

  There was talk of a ghost, a shadowy Southmoor who carded wounded off the battlefield. Glasken gave the story no credit.

  "Think what you will, Fras Captain," said Sergeant Gyrom, "but you were one of those he rescued." Glasken's eyes widened. "All this death about us, I'm surprised there's not more ghosts. Ach, now Lieutenant Dolorian's coming over. Why do I keep bumping into her?"

  "Wish she'd bump into me," he said, nudging Glasken's ann. "Should I leave?"

  "Yes. No! Yes... I suppose. Check if the medic ian wants for anything, then catch sleep."

  Dolorian and Glasken paced slowly around the spark flash wagon. Mirrorsun was glowing luridly bright through the dispersing clouds. Its configuration was like three large, bright eyes.

  "Fras Captain, I only want to apologize," she insisted. "Apology accepted, now leave me alone." "I don't have to grovel, Fras Captain." "Well don't."

  "I could have my pick of any man in your 105th!" she snapped, stamping her foot in the mud. "Sergeant Gyrom!" shouted Glasken. The sergeant hurried out of the medicians' tent and made his way to them through the Mirrorsun-tinted gloom. "Fras Captain?" he said as he stopped and saluted.

  "Sergeant, arrange for the Lieutenant to have her pick of any man in the 105th." Dolorian's temper flared, and she delivered such a slap to Glasken's face that she broke a fingernail and left a short, deep gash in his left cheek.

  "Sergeant, leave us!" shouted Dolorian as Glasken reached into his pocket and pulled out some circles of wadding paper to hold against the cut. "Fras Captain?" asked Gyrom. "Dismissed," grunted Glasken.

  Gyrom saluted smartly, turned on his heel, and left, decidedly glad to be away from them.

  "Both of us should feel ashamed," said Dolorian quietly when the sergeant had gone.

  Glasken grunted, but did not disagree.

  "Fras, why are you so cold to me?" she suddenly burst out.

  "You showed that you are cruel enough to dangle me on a string, then to let the string go."

  "So? You made passionate vows to any number of women, all the while courting others." "So they did not know about each other. That was all done in affection." "That was all lies, too. Over the past six years I've met fourteen girls who were at University with you. Your line was that you had been celibate for two years past before meeting each of them. Were you really at Rochester University for twenty-eight years? You would have had to have entered the university at four years old."

  "Very funny."

  "Perhaps... we could take up where we left off?" she ventured.

  "Oh ho, and to raise me to the level of MULTIPLIER 37, FUNCTION 12, FUNCTION 780, ADDER 1048, FUNCTION 9, PORT 97, MULTIPLIER 2114--and who was that short one with the bald head who liked to use pine scented bath salts? MULTIPLIER--no, FUNCTION 1680, he served in the original battle calculor with me so he must have been a FUNCTION. Then there was that Confederation ADDER, what was his number now? 3016 or 1630?"

  Dolorian stamped her foot with anger, but she had been standing in a puddle, and splashed them both. It reminded Glasken of Jemli as she fare welled him on Kalgoorlie's par aline terminus.

  "You know their numbers better than I do," Dolorian said sharply. "I had to watch as you sauntered past with them to the

  solitary-confinement cells. I had to listen while many of them boasted about it later. I had to shrug and shake my head when they asked what I thought of you. I had to look away to my book of conversion protocol codes when they winked and made droopy signs with their fingers."

  "Fras, I'm--" "Let me finish!" exclaimed Glasken, throwing his hands into the air. "I know that you were doing it to rub humiliation in my face, and for no better reason than to please Lemorel. For all of my dalliances, Frelle Lieutenant, I never once ever deliberately humiliated or hurt any Frelle that I bedded. You ought to know that, you quizzed a few about me. Your face actually frightens me, the form of your breasts makes me feel ill. In my long years of celibacy in a nightmare monastery I had to do no more than whisper your name to send my lusts yelping away in terror."

  Dolorian was unused to having to do the courting, and even less familiar with apology: being caught out was entirely beyond her experience. She hung her head, and the tear that ran down her nose and dripped from its tip was for genuine sorrow.

  "Your point is made, Fras Captain. I have always loved life, but now I feel I want to die. Good night." When she did not turn away, Glasken did so instead. Glasken's arms hung loose and limp, blood ran from the cut below his eye like a stream of dark tears.

  Glasken visited the medic ian to have two stitches put in his cheek, then returned to the command tent. Sergeant Gyrom entered sometime later, carrying a sheaf of poor paper Glasken looked up from the papers on his pin lamp-lit table.

  "I told you to catch sleep."

  "NC briefs from Rochester, Fras Captain."

  "Leave 'em with me."

  "If ye don't mind me sayin', Fras Captain--"

  "I probably will."

  "A ravagin' beauty is that Frelle Dolorian." "The word is 'ravishing," Sergeant."

  "I think she likes you, Captain. Tomorrow may be the end o' ye, and--"

  "That's true of every battle, Sergeant. The death rate is highest for captains ' "What I mean is that the Frelle Lieutenant... well, she's in the spark flash wagon and is cryin' a lot, and I'm sure it's over your cross words."

  Glasken stared up at him for a moment, his chin cupped in his hands, then he reached for his pack and pulled out a jar. "Share this among the men, and have a swig yourself. It may not make their last night on Earth as delightful as Frelle Dolorian undoubtedly could, but it's the best I can do for a few of you. Now leave me alone."

  Around 3 A.M. the Alspring mortar-bombards were in place, and they began to fire ranging shots into the Alliance square. Glasken woke from an exhausted sleep to the sound of the first mortar shell exploding, and he made his way to the power wagon, where a team was standing ready to pedal. Dolorian was already with them, the white bandage around her head seeming to hover in the blackness as it gleamed in Mirrorsun's light.

  "The final attack?" she asked. "No, but if they have the bridge repaired well enough to take the weight of a siege mortar then they must be pouring their lancers across too."

  "How long do we have?" "Oh, they'll keep us awake like this, then bring up the Southmoor heavy infantry. They'll do what the dismounted lancers could not and we'll be a minor entry in the history books by noon."

  "Perhaps a Call will come?" Dolodan suggested hopefully. "The Alspringers use mobile heliostat towers, they'll have warning to anchor down. Use the spark flash tell the Overmayor about the bridge being repaired. When the square begins to break tomorrow run to the medic ian I left a nurse's coat and headband with him for you."

  "Thank you, Fras Captain, but I'm sure the buttons would never fasten across my chest. Besides, I'm meant to be a soldier so I should act like one."

  Glasken sighed. "The offer's there, Lieutenant. Now go your p
ost." Dolorian did not turn away, but put a hand out to Glasken's arm. In the light of Mirrorsun, he could see that her face was clean, and that she was wearing her lipstick, ochre face powder, and ebony eye shadow below the bandage on her forehead. Without doubt, it was for him.

  "Thank you for caring, Fras Captain," she said gently. Glasken's shoulders slumped.

  "Very sentimental of me, Frelle Lieutenant," he said with his eyes downcast. Without another word she slipped a hand behind his head and drew him closer. Their shadows blended into one for a moment as they embraced and kissed. A chorus of hoots and whistles broke from the watching pedal crew on the power wagon; then they saw Glasken striding toward them as the distinctive form of Dolorian made for the spark flash wagon. There was a discreet snickering above the distant thump of mortar-bombards being test-fired by the enemy. Glasken put his hands on his hips.

  "Now there's only one thing I want to say to ye buggers before you get pedaling and that's--Mortar! Jump for it!" The explosive shell scored a direct hit on the wagon, flaying the crew with shards of iron and wood splinters. Dolorian picked herself out of the cold mud, her ears ringing. She scanned the roil of smoke, descending fragments, and running men by the light of Mirrorsun, after-images of the flash dancing before her eyes. Voices were calling for the medic ian

  "Captain Glasken!" she screamed. "Johnny." There was no reply, not even a groan. She climbed into the spark flash wagon, and in the darkness pulled a heavy switch across to BATTERY mode. After clenching her hands to steady them and taking several deep breaths, she began to key out her message.

  RAVENS WORTH OUTPOST OF 105TH TO ROCHESTER. RAVENS WORTH OUTPOST OF

  105TH TO ROCHESTER. POWER WAGON DESTROYED BATTERY MODE ONLY. NO POWER FOR RECEIVER.

  MESSAGE TO FOLLOW. AL SPRING ENEMY HAS REPAIRED BRIDGE.

  SURVIVING ALLIANCE FORCE IN 200 YARD SQUARE AROUND TRANS

  MITTER. ESTIMATE 150,000 ENEMY WITHIN 7 MILE RADIUS OF

  TRANSMITTER. 300 ALLIANCE SURVIVORS. AL SPRING AND SOUTH MOOR FORCES