Souls in the Great Machine

by Sean McMullen

  A forest of arms shot up. The Great Calculor of Libris thus came to an unceremonious end, with its components chopping away the desks, wires, frames, and mechanisms while others carried in boxes of relay units, plugs, and insulated electro force cables. Assembly began under Denkar's direction, and continued for several days until the first test calculations brought the relays clattering into life.

  With the help of the electro force calculors in both Kalgoorlie and Rochester, Zarvora composed a string of messages in the ancient ASCII code and keyed them through her spark flash transmitter to the Mirrorsun band. This established protocols to render exchanges impenetrable to eavesdroppers elsewhere. It was unrewarding work at first, with hesitant and confusing transmissions between two intelligences quite alien to each other. The band had to work in Japanese, then English, then extrapolate the English into Austaric. This was why it had taken so long between Dolorian's desperate message to Oldenberg and Mirrorsun's burning the greater part of the Southmoor and Alspring armies. Under Zarvora's tuition the standard of Mirrorsun's Austaric improved, yet the concept of life at ground level was difficult for Mirrorsun to comprehend. In the end it was Zarvora who provided the solution.

  Glasken peered through the curtains of his room in the Rochester mayoral palace. Four floors below, in the Courtyard of Triumph, the Overmayor was presenting medals conferred during the war. Ilyire stood behind Glasken, hearing only the cheering and band music.

  "Oi, there goes one of their secret agents, wearing a mask," said Glasken. "Can't see the medal from here." He turned back to Ilyire. "Come and see, you don't know what you're missing." "My place is here, Master." "Still guarding my back?" "It has enemies, Master." "And your back?"

  "I guard for guarding you." Glasken parted the curtains again and looked down to where Sergeant Gyrom was accepting medals from the Overmayor on behalf of himself and Dolorian's family. There was a medal for Gyrom as well.

  "What a life. I can't accept a bloody medal in public or go to my family for fear of Baelsha monks a-watch for me. How can I have a public invel-wedding to Varsellia?" He looked back to Ilyire, who was standing relaxed yet alert, his eyes always on the move for threats. "You don't have to be part of this, Ilyire." "But, Master, I am."

  Ilyire looked either hurt or guilty, Glasken was not sure which. He gave Ilyire a reassuring slap on the shoulder, forgetting how little his aviad friend really weighed. Ilyire stumbled, but Glasken caught him by the arm.

  "So, you want to live as a fugitive, protecting me because I am the only one 440

  SEAN McM to occupy your time,

  ULLEN

  that you wronged who is still alive! You really need Darien don't you?"

  "Master, is done what is done. I killed her, Master. Evil mistake, now only memory to love." Glasken looked through the curtains again. "Oi, the herald stumbled while backing away from the Overmayor! Bouros caught him. Now he's up again, but his hat's on backwards. Pompous fop." Glasken closed the curtains. "Ilyire, I admit I enjoy having you around to deflect the blades and bullets from my unworthy body, but I'm not selfish. If I bring Darien back from the dead will you promise to leave me alone and guard, say, Frelle Cybeline instead?"

  "Master, do not blaspheme."

  l'rOllUSe. "The dead are dead." "Promise I"

  "I promise."

  Ilyire closed his eyes, and Glasken knew that he was shutting out the topic. Ilyire opened his eyes again. Darien was standing with her hands pressed against her cheeks and her lips parted in an unfathomable expression. There was a gleaming medal on a green ribbon pinned above her left breast.

  "Master, master, you bring her back from dead," Ilyire babbled, but Glasken was gone.

  Darien held up a card in Glasken's writing.

  LOOK ArI?ER EACH OTHER. LOVERS ARE EASY TO FIND, BUT LOVE IS RARE. Glasken had slipped a message into the beam flash network to Macedon, asking the avia ds to watch for Darien on the Call tracks. The avia ds way was not to help humans passing through the Calldeath lands, but they owed Zarvora some favors.

  The shadowy figures from Baelsha kept watch around Libris for several days after the ceremony. A confirmed sighting of Glasken at Elmore eventually drew them south, but before they could close in on the fugitive a Call swept over the little rail side town and lured Glasken away. The monks followed the trailing edge of the Call, keeping the anchor less figure of Glasken in sight, but they broke off the pursuit upon reaching the Calldeath lands. Glasken was as good as dead.

  Zarvora watched the sky above Phillip Bay, while Theresla's dirk fang cats prowled about, guarding her. The sky was clear blue, with not a cloud or bird to be seen. She did not know what to expect, but Mirrorsun had agreed to this exact time and place. Thunder rumbled somewhere in the distance. Thunder from a andClearsilverSky! Thattwinoculars.had to mean something. She scanned the sky again with her brass

  When she finally caught sight of the object it was already quite low, and perhaps a mile away. A tiny white sphere was descendin beneath a red. oarasolshaped thing, like the seed of some feather down plant floating on the wind. It approached the horizon, stood out sharply against the waves, then splashed undramatically into the water.

  About forty minutes later several dolphins became visible towing what looked like a vast red tent through the waves. Behind it a scorched white sphere bobbed sluggishly on the dark water. Theresla was visible as a dark figure being towed by one of the dolphins. She waded ashore, white skin showing in places through her grease and blacking.

  "We must remove the fabric that broke the sphere's fall, it's smooth as glass and my dolphins are disturbed by it. They dragged it here only to get it out of their water."

  They hauled the white sphere from the water and carried it to the ruins of a nearby hut. Zarvora tapped an array of numbered studs near where the parachute had been attached and the top of the sphere hinged open. Inside were white,

  cube like packages, which she removed and began to put into her roll pack "What are these?" asked Theresla. "Devices to communicate better with Mirrorsun, a type of spark flash that nobody can spy upon. The cloth that broke its fall can generate electro force essence if left spread out in sunlight. Even the cords that attach it are electro force connectors. Mirrorsun and I are about to explore each other's worlds."

  Zarvora studied the markings on several of the boxes, then opened one and took out something like a bracelet. It was a plain, coppery color, but slightly flexible to the touch. A number of studs and square panels were inset.

  "This is for you," said Zarvora as she read instructions on a sheet of smooth, skin like material. "Hold out your hand." Zarvora cleaned the grease and lampblack from Theresla's left wrist with medicinal rye whisky and a cotton cloth. At the touch of a stud the band shrank and bonded with her wrist.

  "So this is the same as a spark flash transceiver the size of a wagon?" asked rheresla, holding her wrist up and regarding the unlikely-looking machine skep:ically. "Oh more, much more. It transceives sounds and pictures, and draws power

  it her from your blood or body heat. You turn it off thus, with this stud." "So I am linked to you wherever I go, Frelle Invel-Sister?" "And to Mirrorsun, just as I am to be."

  Zarvora attached her own bracelet, and they went through a few trials in local lode. Finally they changed mode to give Mirrorsun its first view of the Earth ore a human perspective.

  las ken had surrendered himself to the Call at Elmore, and wandered south in unresisting, mindless rapture, safe within the Call from the nursuin was rescued by the Macedon avia ds and escorted through the Calldeath lands. He came to his senses as if walking through an invisible curtain and found himself at the edge of a small town. It was a cool winter's morning with the sun bright in a cloudless sky. The place was a gaudy splash of terra cotta roofs, orderly and incongruous against the green fields and bush land of the Calldeath. There to meet him was Theresla.

  "This is a null zone like Rochester," she explained as they walked the streets, "except that we are within the Callde
ath lands." Glasken noted that Theresla spent a lot of time with her left hand up to her neck or shoulder. There was a strange-looking bangle on her wrist.

  "A pleasant town, and some pretty good wives he commented, trying to show enthusiasm as they walked.

  "Ah-hah, now here is Bishop Pandoral," she said as they met with a tall,

  lean, but kindly-looking woman. "What a trio we make: Bishop Lessimar Pandoral, Abbess Theresla, and Brother John Glasken."

  "My son, I have always followed your progress," said Lessimar, "mostly with pride."

  "Uh, thank you.." but why me?" "You are my son." "What?"

  "Your father lied to you, Glasken," said Theresla.

  "No, I checked the records." "The records were altered. Lessimar was being beaten by an angry mo has an aviad--just before a Call. She escaped to Macedon and a new life. Your father had the town records altered to show that you were the child of an adulterous liaison with Jolene."

  "The scrawny old goat!"

  Lessimar held out her arms, but Glasken's knees buckled. They finally em braced kneeling together in the dusty street. "Brother Glasken, they say you're as hard to kill as I am," said Lessimar with her arms around his neck. "I have always watched over you."

  "Always?" quavered Glasken.

  "Always. All those women, all that fighting and drinking--"

  "But at least I got my degree!" Theresla stood by for a time with her arms folded, her left wrist facing outward. Presently she wandered off with the Mayor as the crowd around the reunited mother and son grew bigger.

  "An impressive fellow," the Mayor declared. "A pity that he turned out to ..... be human. We could, ah, use him."

  "True. His hair tests as human and he is not as strong as most aviad men.,:!i::i:

  Although he has been trained to resist the Call in a limited way, he is as susceptible as any human."

  "Well, he should be a great asset to the humans, whenever it's safe for him to return."

  "He is Alpha Two Positive Gamma Negative."

  "His genototem? Well, that's no surprise. We must monitor his offspring among the humans to see if any turn out to be avia ds "His first is, Mayor. Gamma Negative, Mayor, remember what that means? With human women there is a significant chance that he can sire avia ds but any couplings he has with aviad women will result in aviad children. Exclusively."

  The Mayor's eyes suddenly widened, and his mouth hung open as he stroked his chin. "I... shall get the medic ian to draw up a little list, I think. Thank you, Frelle Theresla. Thank you well indeed."

  An hour later Theresla was packed and ready to leave. She called past Lessimar's house, where the preparations for an evening revel to celebrate Glasken's reunion with his real mother were under way.

  "You should stay for the evening at least," Glasken insisted as Theresla kissed him on the cheek and tweaked his mustache. "You're the real guest of honor here."

  "I am not one for revels, Fras. I am going north, to the Sydney Abandon. The cetezoids think of it as a holy place."

  Glasken was surprised. "The Sydney Abandon? We know it to be huge, but nothing connects it to the sea creatures."

  "All the more reason for me to go there. Take care, though. In the years ahead I shall be watching you."

  "I was afraid you might say that. Still, I'm not going anywhere with Baelsha bogeys after me. That will make it hard to see my family." "Do not fret, Glasken. Mayor Bouros will be off to see Baelsha's abbot in a fortnight, and he has some strong bargaining points for lifting the death order on you."

  "Aye now, that's fantastic news. Two weeks, you say? Good. I'll be able to leave for Kalgoorlie. I suspect that Varsellia does not want her invel-wedding over either the beam flash or the spark flash But what of you? When are you to leave?"

  "Fras Glasken, remember how you vanished as soon as Ilyire and Darien turned their backs upon you?"

  "Aye."

  "Well I shall do the same. Let us say goodbyes now. Quickly, a last Glasken grapple." "Look to yourself, and don't eat any strange mice," he said as they hugged each other.

  "And stay out of trouble- inkn It it m" f"' ,". ,..;.4 .--: * look here, the Macedon medic ian his lovely wife Vivenia--and their beautiful little daughter who is walking already! Hullo, hullo."

  The child cowered away from Theresla, who only laughed.

  "Fras Glasken, you will be staying some weeks in Macedon, I hear," began the medic ian "Vivenia and I were wondering--" "Fras Medician," interjected Theresla, "this man does not yet know the term 'genototem hospitality' or the difficulties you have had to keep inbreeding out of the aviad genototem. I could think of no better edutors than yourself and Vivenia, however. Why don't you all go for a walk in the gardens of the beam flash tower?"

  Theresla was gone before Glasken returned. She traveled swiftly north through the Calldeath lands, escorted by creatures that struck fear into the hearts of everyone else. Days later she emerged into the farmlands of humans, and changed into the robes of a Libris Inspector before entering the town of Seymour.

  Sondian's inner council was not pleased by Zarvora's near-absolute victory, and saw in it a real danger to their own interests. As they met in a fortified collective in the Calldeath lands near the Gambier Abandon they were grasping for ideas rather than reporting progress.

  "The bombings should continue," suggested Theta 9. "They keep hostility between the two species alive."

  "But do not build advantage for us," Sondian pointed out.

  "Some devices from Mirrorsun do reach us by sympathizers," said Beta 2. "Devices that cannot be disassembled and copied, and devices in very small quantities," scoffed Sondian. "Think! We have to do better than this."

  Delta 7 lifted a little globe of the world from the table and held it up before her. It was grimy and battered with the millennia, but the continents were still clearly visible.

  "Cross this gaggle of islands to the north of the continent and there is land for thousands of miles across, ah, China and Siberia," she said. "One more tiny strait and we reach the American continent with its flying machines and reaction guns. Remember what the monk with the spark flash implied? There are no avia ds there. A few of us could rule them."

  "Crossing the water is a major obstacle," Beta 2 pointed out.

  "There are hot-air balloons."

  "They can ascend for barely an hour, and are at the wind's mercy."

  "Macedon's engineers have developed a small, light, high-speed steam engine fired by oil--" "But it was still too heavy for the biggest balloon possible." Sondian raised his hand, one finger pointed upward. The others fell silent.

  "Put that engine in a light canoe, however, and it could outpace the fastest fish or cetezoid. A crew of six could carry it when there is land."

  "But Fras Sondian, it would take a decade to reach Mounthaven and Denver that way," said Theta 9, tracing the path on the little globe.

  "Well then, there is no time to lose," replied Sondian with a nod of approval to Delta 7.

  The eleven years that followed the end of the war saw things change beyond recognition yet remain very much the same on the surface. The avia ds isolated themselves in thriving towns and farms in the Calldeath lands, and Mirrorsun supplied a huge solar powered sailplane from its fabricators. Originally designed to cruise high in the atmosphere and generate ozone, the template had been altered to accommodate aviad explorers. Offshore islands were discovered and colonized, providing sanctuaries forever beyond the reach of humans. Zarvora remained the sole contact with Mirrorsun, and controlled the bounty from its fabricators with a very firm hand.

  The humans remained oblivious to all these developments, and life in their cities and may orates went on as before--more or less. Sparkflash technology was withdrawn and replaced with a few dozen small, sealed transceivers from Mirrorsun's fabricators. They were efficient, tight-band devices with a hundred channels each, but they could not be adjusted or duplicated. Zarvora would say only that skilled artisans built them in secret workshops. The wind and
galley trains continued to run, markets thrived, combustion engines remained anathema, and the electric calculors slowly increased in speed, efficiency and size.

  Sondian's expedition to the North American civilization vanished without a trace. In distant Mounthaven the wardens still put on jewel encrusted flight jackets and ascended in tiny gun wings to patrol their lands and duel with rivals. They were unaware that the Wanderers had been disabled, Mirrorsun was a total mystery to them, and there was not a single aviad on their entire continent. Half a world away, Sondian continued to recruit and train agents by the hundred and drew up new plans to destroy Zarvora's power and enslave the humans of Australia. The weapons and tiny aircraft of Mounthaven still featured heavily in his plans.

  One chilly winter's evening in 1719 GW, Zarvora alarmed her Tiger Dragon escort by slipping away from a diplomatic reception and vanishing into the streets of Griffith. Try as they might they could not find the Overmayor, and the woman she was visiting was dead. It had taken Zarvora eleven years to track her down.

  "It is true, I am a deserter," explained Torumasen, the former medic ian of Glasken's 105th. "I also brought Dolorian here, to neutral territory." He was wearing the medal won over a decade earlier but only presented minutes ago. They were standing in a small courtyard behind his house, the centerpiece of which was Dolorian's grave. A splendid, life-size, marble nude of the woman reclined on a red granite slab carved in the shape of a large bed, which was sheltered beneath a slate roof.

  "Very nice, but not quite what I had in mind for one of the two greatest heroes of the Milderellen Invasion," Zarvora decided.

  "It is what she wanted, Frelle Overmayor: to be remembered as beautiful, sensual and in her prime."

  "How could you know that?"

  "Because she did not die in the battlefield mud. I dragged her back to life, put her on a river galley and brought her here to Griffith. Dolorian lived thirty one days and was recovering, but.." alas, Milderellen's bullet had grazed a major artery and it finally burst. She died in a comfortable bed, asleep, and beside me. By then I had learned what she liked, Overmayor."