Souls in the Great Machine

by Sean McMullen

  "Train. To Rochester."

  "With who?"

  "Darien. Darien vis Babessa."

  COHVERSIOH Peterborough had been badly mauled in the siege to dislodge the Alspring agents and sympathizers. Not a single building had escaped damage, yet it was still an important town--and thus became Zarvora's new headquarters. In spite of the ruins and devastation beyond the windows of the Mayor's palace, however, it was a handful of beam flash reports from far away that filled Zarvora and Denkar with dismay.

  / SEYMOUR BURNED, EXCEPT FOR TEN YARD CIRCLE AT TOWN

  CENTER. HUGE CHARRED CIRCLE. EVERYTHING DEAD. MARTIAL

  LAW DECLARED

  "There are more details, but the pattern fits everything we know about the way Mirrorsun attacks," Zarvora said. "So it was Tarrin," said Denkar with a scowl as he shook his head slowly. "The Acting Dragon Black of Libris was a spy for Lemorel. No wonder she got our defenses handed to her on a golden platter."

  "Not quite. The original plan must have been to capture me, but I reached safety. All he could do was sabotage and spy, but now he has an invincible weapon. He must have smuggled a spark flash wagon into the town and had it broadcast whatever that trigger code happens to be. He could annihilate any town or city like that."

  "Four wagons, Zar, not one." "Not so, Fras Husband. Research in Oldenberg has continued, although at a less franfic pace than at first. By the end of the year Tarrin will have a transmitter that will fit into a one horse gig and be powered by a single operator with a pedal generator. He could smuggle one into Kalgoorlie, here, anywhere. Look at this report: the central circle is only ten yards across. He must have found a way to fine tune what Mirrorsun can do with its weapon."

  "We're not defense Jess. exclaimed Denkar, appalled by her sudden depression "We can seal every road and par aline from the southern Calldeath lands to, to..."

  "To where? The Northmoors? The Carpentarians, who are subjects of the Alspring Ghans anyway? Disassembled transmitters could be carried on camel caravans across the deserts and we would have no way of knowing."

  "But not yet. Tarrin's position is weak." "Weak? Most of Woomera's territory is under Ghan rule, the Southmoors could be rallied within days, and the Southern Alliance would plunge into civil war if forced to choose between myself and Tarrin. Look at his demands. Full control of all beam flash towers, all para lines to be restored, his galley trains to be given total freedom of movement with no inspections."

  "No! Galley trains can carry the transmitters even at their present size and weight!" cried Denkar, appalled at the idea. "He could kill whole cities with what he already has."

  Zarvora had been fighting too many enemies for too long, and having victory snatched away after such a hard-fought war was nearly more than she could take. Tarrin knew her well, perhaps better than Denkar. He knew what would drive her to the wall.

  "You think we should fight for time?" she asked wearily.

  "Yes! Definitely yes!" Denkar shouted, frantically trying to revive the famed aggression in his wife.

  "But Tarrin is just another ruler, little different from me. Why kill thousands,

  even millions, just so I can be Overmayor?" "Because you have a vision and Tarrin is a damn lackey! I'd follow you to hell and back, Zar. Glasken fought odds of a hundred to one in your name, Dolorian faced Lemorel across the line of honor for you. They did that because they knew you would never break. Lead us, because as sure as the pigeon craps .... on the statue nobody else can!"

  Zarvora seemed not to hear. She sat staring at the messages, unmoving, her eyes unfocused. Denkar paced before her for a time, then went to a chalkboard and began drawing circles and figures. Suddenly Zarvora shook her head.

  "The circle of char is seven miles in radius, so its center could be observed in safety from the gallery of a nearby beam flash tower," she said.

  Denkar drew a tower symbol beside one of his circles. "Yes, yes, cunning.

  Tell Tarrin that you will accept his terms if he can put a char circle exactly nine miles south of the Culleraine tower."

  "We could watch in safety." "Not just watch. Mayor Bouros has developed a spark flash that fits into a single wagon. When Tarrin sends a four-wagon spark flash to Culleraine we can monitor the code and have a dozen wagon-sized units ready to--"

  "No!"

  "We could be ahead of Tarrin within a single dayF'

  "No! I'll not destroy my people to rule them." "Tarrin is a lackey, he has no guts for a fair fight. Look, you could have a gig-sized transmitter smuggled into Rochester or Oldenberg within a fortnight, ready for the code and your order."

  "My order. Precisely. Glasken has been abducted to Rochester. Could I kill him after he has fought so hard for me?" She stared at his chalkboard circles.

  "Tell me this: why Culleraine?" "We can observe it easily." "Then why Seymour?"

  "I--I don't know. It's Tarrin's most secure territory, he had to invite us to send observers after Mirrorsun's fire descended."

  "Precisely." Glasken's blindfold and gag were removed once he was within the wails of Libris. When he was finally unbound he found himself in the very induction room that he had been taken to in 1699. This time Tarrin was waiting to meet him, flanked by two Southmoor guards.

  "Welcome home, FUNCTION 3084," said Tarrin as Glasken rubbed his wrists.

  "I thought there's a new law against this sort of thing," replied Glasken. "Not for you."

  "What7 The Overmayor--" "Overmayor Zarvora has been assassinated in Peterborough. The Ghans took heart and renewed their invasion, so I was forced to sign a truce. I do not have the late Overmayor's talent to wage war."

  Glasken shook his head. The news was like a slap across the face. Zarvora had seemed unkillable. "So, why am I here7 I'm a good officer, but a pretty average component." "For your own safety, Glasken. The Ghans want you dead. Lemorel died in a duel fought over your questionable honor, you held up her advance at Ravensworth when victory was at her fingertips, and you called down the fire that annihilated two-thirds of her army in her very moment of triumph. How did you do it?"

  "The guards--"

  "Cannot speak Austaric. Tell me how to call the fire, Glasken. I can save the Alliance with that secret." Glasken scratched at the newly emerging stubble on his jaw as he thought over Tarrin's words. Victory at her fingertips, her moment of triumph: put together, the words said more than Tarrin had intended.

  "You rogered Lemorel." Tarrin went sheet-white, then lunged forward and backhanded Glasken across the face. The Southmoor guards moved in to seize Glasken, but he did not attempt to move.

  "You filthy defiler," ranted Tan'in. "I should hang you by your testicles and lower you headfirst into a vat of boiling bane gold What was the text of Lieutenant

  Dolorian's last transmission before Mirrorsun's fire?"

  "You mean you don't have it?"

  "There was a thunderstorm over Oldenberg on that night. Parts of the message were lost." Glasken stretched his legs and settled back in his chair, regarding Tarrin thoughtfully. Something about him was as suspicious as another man's trousers on the bedroom floor.

  "I don't know what Dolorian transmitted."

  "But you tupped the woman, you slept with her!"

  "Ah-ha: tupped, slept. Important words. Did you discuss beam flash traffic with Lemorel while you were rolling about under her desk--"

  Tarrin backhanded Glasken again. "She didn't put that last message in her transmissions log, probably because you were in such a hurry to bundle her out of her trews. There must have been pillow talk."

  "I was wounded, I soon fell asleep."

  "Lies!" Lies. You've never been wounded, you wouldn't understand. Even a flesh wound from a small-bore musket can leave you gibbering for days. I was blown up twice in the one day, I had nine gashes down one side and a piece of metal the size of your thumb pulled out of my leg."

  "But you were Dolorian's cormnanding officer, she must have briefed you," insisted Tan-in, pacing in circles with his hands clasped ov
er his head. "Think! The Alliance is hanging by your words."

  Glasken scratched his head, then carefully folded his arms. "Dolorian thought I was dead at the time. She typed that the Ravensworth bridge was repaired, and that the Ghans were pouting across."

  "I have the gist of that already. She added estimates of Ghan numbers, said your square was about to fall. What else? Something extra, some odd phrase?"

  "As the eunuch said to the abbess, I'd oblige if I could, but I can't." Tarrin met the fully reinstated Mayor Jefton in Zarvora's old study. Jefton looked about in distaste, for Tarrin had let the room slide into a chaos of files, scrolls, maps, and punched paper tape. Some Calculor display mechanisms and mechanical animals had fallen out of adjustment or were broken. Plates of food scraps and coffee mugs were all over the place, and Jefton shuddered at the mouse droppings and trails of ants. He cleared some files from a chair, dusted it with his fly-whisk, and sat down.

  "Glasken was no help with the text of that message, damn him," Tarrin reported.

  "Then just transmit combinations of what we do have until Mirrorsun sends the fire again," Jefton suggested. "We only lack a dozen or so letters."

  "No. Zarvora has new receivers from Kalgoorlie. If she overhears us bumbling about she'll suspect the truth and be down on us like a trainload of mortar shells."

  "Not so. All the combinations will take less than a day to transmit."

  "I order you to!" "Nobody gives me orders!" shouted Tarfin. "I gave you back Rochester. Don't forget that I am Highliber and Overmayor. You serve me, Fras Jefton, don't forget it."

  "And do not forget that Zarvora is still alive, whatever you told Glasken!" Jefton retorted sharply, sitting forward and gesturing with his fly-whisk. "You are no more Highliber or Overmayor than I am until you have Mirrorsun at your beck and call." He sat back and smiled accommodatingly. "Why not do as I say?"

  Tarrin smashed his fist down on the keyboard. A blow from Zarvora would have splintered the wood, but Tarrin's fist just bounced off. He gave a yelp and sat rubbing the reddened skin, his eyes tightly closed.

  "Well, why not?" asked Jefton again. "Because I may not have all the combinations, and I'm not good enough at codes and mathematics to be sure that what the FUNCTIONS and regulators tell me is true."

  Jefton sat back, impressed yet appalled by the admission.

  "Well, use the University's edutors." "Then everyone will have the full text. If they master the true code it will only take one rebel with one transmitter, and this city will be ash." "We could rule in safety from the Libris cellars." "But what would we rule, Mayor Jefton?"

  Across in Peterborough, Denkar reread the full text of Dolorian's last message before the char, then shook his head. He was striding down the platform with Mayor Bouros, who had arrived on the first galley train from Kalgoorlie since the par aline restoration.

  "Tarrin must be better at coding than I thought if he can make sense of this," he admitted. "Are you certain about the words?" "There was a little interference, but our filters and directional antennas are very fine, Fras Denkar. The duty operator is convinced she got the full text."

  "Poor Dolorian," said Denkar, handing the transcript back to Bouros. "There's something so sad, so compelling about her words." A lackey showed them to where the Firefly was standing, now repaired and rearmed. They inspected a guard of honor, and the galley engine's new captain "The track's repaired, so I can take ye as far as Maldon," the captain explained. "After that there's..." He swallowed. "There's narrer-gauge available."

  "Thank you, Captain. Have the line cleared, then wait until Overmayor Zarvora arrives. She will travel with us."

  "The Overmayor, Fras?"

  "The Overmayor, Captain. She insisted that no other engine but the Firefly should carry her." Practically bursting with pride, the captain left to get clearance for the line ahead while Denkar and Bouros waited in the control cabin. Mayor Bouros clamped his spectacles to his nose and read Dolorian's message again. As he finished he flicked the edge of the page. "I have seen this so many times that I'll soon be able to recite it, my friend."

  "Pah, I already can," said Denkar with an elaborate orator's flourish. He pro ceded to recite the full text.

  "Splendid work," said Bouros, applauding. "Ah, you never met her, Fras Mayor. She was very full of figure and had long, lustrous hair. She had style and a roving eye, yet she was discriminating."

  "You had a little dalliance with her perhaps?" inquired Bouros.

  "Quite a memorable dalliance. That was before the Overmayor and I met,

  of course." '

  "I... suspect you were once a component in Libris." Denkar considered, but felt no alarm. With so many components who had known him being liberated, it would be impossible to maintain the public version of his past for long. He turned away from Bouros to study the levers, dials, and pulley switches that controlled the galley engine, then patted the stopper in the speaking tube to insure that those in the pedal chamber could not eavesdrop. "I stayed in a prison with an open door for love of my jailer." "Hah, a strange and wonderful romance."

  "Poor Dolorian. Always poor Dolorian. When I first saw the incomplete transcript of her message, why my heart nearly broke. I wanted to rush across with an army to save her."

  "Ah, Fras, we all wished we could have gone to her side to fight the Ghans.

  Even I, who never laid eyes upon her. Name me anyone who would not have--" Denkar had slanamed both hands down on the gear exchange panel, then turned to stare at Bouros with his eyes protruding as if pushed from behind.

  "I cannot, Fras Mayor, and you are a genius!" he exclaimed, beaming as if he had just discovered one of Glasken's caches of gold.

  Bouros looked back doubtfully. "If you have some brilliant insight, my friend, then you are the only genius in here." Denkar grasped him by the shoulders and shook him as he spoke, his voice blazing with excitement.

  "Dolorian reached out and touched my heart, and yours--and Mirrorsun's! The greatest of the ancient calculors were said to be sentient, and the Mirrorsun band must be controlled by ancient calculors. It heard her transmission and saved her."

  Bouros sat dumbfounded for a moment, then dug a piece of chalk from his robes and began scratching on the cabin's floorboards. "The area of char is the same as that she defined the enemy to occupy in her message, with a circle at the center where she was said to be! Yes, yes indeed, Fras Denkar. The figures support you."

  Just then the captain returned with Zarvora behind him. Denkar waved them away from the figures on the floor.

  "Frelle Zar, you must have read my mind," he cried, spreading his arms wide over the figures like a priest performing a religious sacrament.

  Zarvora dropped to her knees beside Denkar and hugged him.

  "Darling Denkar," she cried. "Next time I ever talk about giving up, kill me!" "I--ah, so you have good news too?" replied her astonished husband. "Wonderful news. I decided to check certain matters in depth, so I sent a message through to the aviad town of Macedon. They sent observers to a border peak in the Calldeath lands that has a clear view of Seymour. With a powerful telescope they discovered Seymour to be untouched, although sealed off by units of the Alliance army. They also noticed the burned-out ashes of huge bonfires in practically every paddock."

  "A bluff, by Greatwinter!" exclaimed Bouros.

  "A bluff indeed, the cunning little rat!" added Denkar. "We were about to tell you the same thing." They explained their theory of Mirrorsun and Dolorian to Zarvora as the Firefly glided out of the station and rattled over the point work in the Peterborough shunting yards.

  "I have ordered a blockade of all may orates under Tarrin's control," continued Zarvora. "He will have trouble holding anything other than Rochester city for more than a day or two. I already have an army moving into place and I shall do what Lemorel did at Alspring: lay siege and bombard only the mayoral pal ace." '

  "Libris is close by," said Denkar. "We owe the people of the Calculor too much to risk their lives.
"

  Zarvora shook her head. "Starving Tarrin out could take years, and many others will suffer before he does." "There may be a better way," suggested Bouros. "Glasken is back in the Libris Calculor as a FUNCTION, according to reports. The aviad friend of his, Ilyire, is familiar with Libris and he knows Glasken by sight. Can you smuggle llvir, intn l.ihri Ovarmnvnr9"

  "Perhaps. Our double agent, Darien, is known to Ilyire. She could deliver the necessary papers and instructions and help him gain access to Libris. She goes by the name Parvarial Konteriaz when working for me, but her own name when about Tarrin's business."

  "Is she trustworthy?"

  "I think so--but so does Tarrin. She accidentally delivered Glasken into his hands." Denkar stood up and looked through the forward window slit as they rolled south. His right hand was waving beside his ear, as if trying to coax an idea out of his head.

  "Make ready to do all that we have discussed, but first get me to Phillip Bay and Theresla with one of the new spark flash transmitters on a wagon. Mind, it's vital that I not be delayed for genototem games at Macedon."

  Guided by Zarvora's other agents, Darien found Ilyire at a tavern in a hamlet just east of Echuca. Tales of his transformation had been filtering through to her over the months, but at first she suspected that he had merely been spreading rumors to lure her back. Now even Glasken had confirmed that Ilyire had lost his fanatical protectiveness and she was eager to give him another chance.

  The Bargeman's Jar was a low, rambling, ancient place that served as the hamlet's hostelry as well. Darien paused cautiously as she caught sight of the sign. She stared into a polished draper's plate to comb her hair and smear a film of scarlet onto her lips. In spite of the winter chill and mist she wore her traveling cape thrown back, and she even undid two buttons of her blouse.

  At the taproom she presented a card to the maid, but the girl could not read. She fetched the vintner, who laboriously worked out that Darien could not speak, that she wanted a private room, and that she wanted Ilyire sent there. As she sat waiting, a Call warning bell began to ring in the distance. Ten minutes to a Call. She reached down and wound her timer, then clipped her tether to a rail in the gloomy room. The latch of the door clacked. Ilyire entered.