The Miocene Arrow
Page 1
The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied so that you can enjoy reading it on your personal devices. This e-book is for your personal use only. You may not print or post this e-book, or make this e-book publicly available in any way. You may not copy, reproduce or upload this e-book, other than to read it on one of your personal devices.
Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Tor Copyright Notice
PROLOGUE
1 - CORONATION
5 May 3960: Condelor
6 May 3960: Condelor
11 May 3960: Condelor
12 May 3960: Condelor
2 - ASSASSINATION
13 May 3960: The Yarronese border
16 May 3960: Pocatello
18 May 3960: The East Region frontier
23 May 3960: Pocatello
1 June 3960: Opal, In Yarron
7 July 3960: Forlan, Capital of Yarron
12 July 3960: East Bartolica
12 July 3960: The Yarronese border
12 July 3960: Western Yarron
14 July 3960: Middle Junction
13 July 3989: Condelor
14 July 3960: East Bartolica
15 July 3960: Opal
16 July 3960: Forlan
17 July 3960: Sheridan, North Yarron
3 - SOWING THE WIND
20 July 3960: North Yarron
26 July 3960: East Bartolica
2 August 3960: Western Yarron
5 August 3960: Middle Junction
20 August 3960
25 August 3960: Casper
29 August 3960: Condelor
1 September 3960: Kennyville, Yarron
2 September 3960: Casper Wingfield
3 September 3960: Laramie Mountains
7 September 3960: Casper
7 September 3960: The Road to Casper
4 - THE MIOCENE ARROW
7 September 3960: Casper Wingfield
15 September 3960: Casper
18 September 3960: Sheridan
23-24 September 3960: Casper Wingfield
29 September 3960: Condelor
24 November 2022:
11 December 2022:
21 December 2022:
2 January 2023:
15 January 2023:
5 - BROTHER GLASKEN
4 October 3960: Forian
5 October 3960: Casper
5 October 3960: Wind River
3 November 3960: Denver
6 - REAPING THE WHIRLWIND
24 April 3961: Bartolica
24 April 3961: Denver
18 April 3961: Wind River
4 May 3961: Condelor
6 May 3961: Condelor
6 May 3961: Wind River
6 May 3961: Eastern Yarron
7 May 3961: Vernal, Cosdora
7 May 3961: Condelor
12 May 3961: Vernal
7 - THE WINGS OF RETRIBUTION
14 June 3961
21 June 3961: Sheridan
3 July 3961: Condelor
7 July 3961: Wind River
9 July 3961: Bartolica
15 July 3961: Wind River
16 July 3961: Condelor
16 July 3961: Wind River
16 July 3961: Condelor
17 July 3961: Condelor
17 July 3961: Wind River
18 July 3961: Wind River
19 July 3961: Vernal
19 July 3961: Condelor
22 July 3961: Condelor
24 July 3961: Occupied Senner
25 July 3961: Condelor
8 - FAILING IN LOVE, AGAIN
24 July 3961: Wind River
26 July 3961: Wind River
4 August 3961: Wind River
5 August 3961: Wind River
10 August 3961: Condelor
13 August 3961: Condelor
17 August 3961: Vernal
19 August 3961: Condelor
20 August 3961: Condelor
20 August 3961: Condelor
9 - THE DOOMSDAY FLOCK
30 August 3961: Condelor
10 September 3961: Wind River
13 September 3961: Forlan
TOR BOOKS BY SEAN McMULLEN
Praise for Eyes of the Calculator: Book Two of the Greatwinter Trilogy - A Booklist Top 10 Adult Science Fiction Book of 2001
Praise for Souls in the Great Machine: Book One of the Greatwinter Trilogy
Praise for The Miocene Arrow
Copyright Page
For my father,
the archetypical
Scottish engineer
PROLOGUE
1 August 3956: North Dorak
Each time that any wing ascended in Mounthaven it was a minor pageant. The tiny aircraft, all with a span of less than thirty feet, formed the basis of the aristocracy and government in mid-fortieth-century America, and were the visible symbol of each airlord’s rule. Lamps gleamed on the dark surface of Canyon Lake as the Missouri Wellspring was readied for a night ascent. It was a floatwing regal with two compression engines, capable of carrying as many as four passengers for two hundred miles. The wing was from the North Dorak governor’s personal flock, and members of the diplomatic staff of Northmost lined the jetties in parade uniform. The wingcaptain accepted his commission for the flight from the Governor while his passengers looked on. His flight jacket’s giltwork and gems gleamed and glinted in the lamplight, highlighting him amid the other nobles on the jetty.
“Your first flight over oblivion?” murmured the Governor.
“Every flight is over oblivion, Sair Governor,” replied the young warden, who was eager to begin his first flight as a wingcaptain.
“Remember, when you fly over Callscour lands you fly over certain death. Take no chances.”
The wingcaptain and his passengers climbed aboard as a steam engine cart was wheeled up to spin the regal’s compression engines. They coughed, caught, and began to idle. The tasseled mooring ropes were cast off, and the floatwing drew away from the jetty to the sound of a brass band and orderly cheers from the onlookers. The adjunct fired a green flare. As it arced through the darkness the wingcaptain revved the compression engines up to full power and the floatwing began plowing through the glassy water, flinging spray behind it. Even under such ideal conditions this was a difficult ascent, and after a run of over two miles the regal was still on the water. The wingcaptain finally pushed the throttle forward to overboost. The floatwing lifted, bounced, bounced again, then clawed its way into the air. Now free of the water’s drag, it began to gather speed.
“He should have idled his engines for a while longer,” the adjunct said to the Governor. “Overboost can cause damage that- will not be obvious until he is flaying over death.”
“Perhaps you could have delayed the flare a little longer?” the Governor ventured.
“No, no, he would have taken that as an insult, and so he should. He has had a fright. Let us hope that he survives it and remembers the lesson.”
The distant floatwing turned northwest, with Mirrorsun’s light glinting off its wings; then it merged with the night sky and was gone.
Thirty thousand feet above the lake a huge, matte-black wing was banking, its navigator taking a bearing from the lights of Northmost. It was over half a mile from tip to tip, yet its engines were all but silent and its passage was marked only by the momentary eclipse of an occasional star.
1 August 3956: North Bartolica
There had been no completely dark nights since Mirrorsun had formed twenty
years earlier, in 3936. Its coppery glow always hung in the night sky, at the center of a band of darkness from which the stars had been sponged away. When the sun rose, Mirrorsun set, and when the sun set Mirrorsun enacted its own little dawn. To the people of what had once been North America, Mirrorsun was yet another mystery that had been added to plague their lives. The Call tried to lure them to oblivion every few days, the Sentinels spat hellfire at any vehicle larger than twenty-nine and a half feet, and they lived surrounded by land where the deadly Call practically never ceased. These were facts of life, and they had been accepted for two thousand years. At least Mirrorsun was harmless.
Mounthaven was an area in the Rocky Mountains, five hundred miles across and eight hundred miles from north to south. It was the biggest of the three Callhavens in North America, those three areas where the Call came every few days instead of almost continually. In many ways its society and technology were the most advanced on the planet … but not in all ways.
High above the mountains the Dorakian floatwing crossed North Bartolica briefly on its short but dangerous flight from Northmost to Kallision Lake in Alberhaven. Eighty miles of its ninety-mile flight would be over Callscour wilderness, where a forced landing meant certain death, yet floatwing flights were the only contact between the three million people of Alberhaven and Mounthaven’s fifteen million.
There was teeming life in the Callscour wilderness, but none of the creatures that lived there weighed more than twenty pounds. Anything larger would be lured west, mindlessly wandering away until it died of an accident, or reached wherever the Call led. On the frontiers of the Callhavens, however, the rich but diminutive Callscour wildlife spilled over and could be hunted and trapped by humans in something like safety.
Three Bartolican trappers sat in their hide listening to the floatwing pass overhead, its compression engines laboring to gain height.
“Brave fellas, them wardens,” said Zekin, looking in the direction of the sound and stroking the barrel of his carbine.
“That’s why we’re trappers and they’re nobles,” responded Jebaz, who was listening for trap bells.
“We’s brave too, but wardens is brave and crazy,” Lemas added, then took a pull from his flask of corn whisky.
“Talk like that’s liable to get you flogged for mouthin’,” said Jebaz, who was something of a royalist.
“Gah, the Regional Inspector never comes as far as the trap runs. Besides, there’s nothin’ wrong with bein’ a little crazy. Take Zekin, like. He’s brave as the airlord’s Inner Guard, but he’s got crazy ideas.”
The drone of the floatwing’s compression engines lingered in the distance.
“Have you ever wondered if there’s more than wardens and flyers up there?” Zekin said as he looked straight up at the stars. The other two chuckled. “I don’t mean all that angel and dragon shit, I mean folk from distant Callhavens with engines for drivin’ wings as like we never thought of.”
“Folk been talkin’ about other Callhavens for thousands of years, Zekin,” Lemas scoffed.
“Yeah, and when we got real good compression engines our wardens discovered Mexhaven and Alberhaven,” said Zekin.
“And nothin’ else in hundreds of years!” cried Lemas.
“Keep your damnshit voice down,” hissed Jebaz, “or we’ll be trappin’ nothin’ but demicoons who like to hear philosophy.”
For some minutes there was nothing but the diminishing sound of the floatwing in the distance.
“I seen ‘em flyin’,” said Zekin, who had been brooding on the subject. “Big as a warden’s gunwing, but silent.”
“Buzzards,” concluded Jebaz succinctly.
“Crazy,” added Lemas.
“I seen what I seen. They’s what made Mirrorsun twenty years ago. Mirrormen, they are.” He gestured to the sky so vehemently that the hide swayed.
“What should I drink afore I can see ’em too?” laughed Lemas.
Jebaz laughed too, Zekin did not. A trap clacked somewhere in the distance and all three men froze and strained for the direction of the jingling bells and the squealing, thrashing animal.
“West six,” Jebaz began, but the rest of his sentence died behind his lips.
There was another sound, something unlike anything heard in those mountains for two thousand years: the mosquito-whine of an electric motor. It was away in the distance and from above. A blot of darkness eclipsed stars as it passed overhead; then the whining stopped.
“I seen it, somethin’ big,” breathed Zekin, “flyin’ and all.”
“Seen nothin’,” chorused the other two, but what they had heard had been enough to make them click back the safety catches of their carbines.
“Got better eyes,” said Zekin. “Got eyes to aim at the next one and blast a hole in it so big you can plant your head in it and say ‘Well howdo in there Sair Mirrorsun Man.’”
“Meantime we got a trap to clear,” began Jebaz, desperate for normality to return.
Something crashed heavily into bushes in the distance. All three men looked around.
“Coon,” suggested Jebaz without conviction.
“Mirrorman hit a tree tryin’ to land,” said Zekin excitedly.
They waited for Lemas’ opinion, but he said nothing. In the silence another whine became audible high above them.
“It’s another, it’s another,” babbled Zekin, thumbing the safety catch on his own carbine. “It’s gonna be meetin’ with its friend what landed hereabout.”
Zekin raised his gun and aimed into the star-studded night sky. The whining grew louder, and seemed to move across from east to south. Jebaz and Lemas held their carbines ready, trembling with dread of the unknown.
“Say Zekin, we got no quarrel with no Mirrorman,” began Lemas nervously.
“Buckle it!” snapped Zekin.
Lemas saw it first, an eclipse of stars, a hazy outline in Mirrorsun’s light. He gasped and pointed, and then Zekin opened fire, blasting at the sky and working the slide action as fast as he could. As the firing pin finally clacked on the empty chamber the echoes of the shots died away among the mountains.
“The whinin’s stopped, I’se hit it!” exclaimed Zekin, hurriedly reloading.
“There, it’s fallin’ there!” shouted Lemas.
Something crashed into the trees to the east, and a large dark shape seemed to collapse down into the branches. Jebaz fired five shots into the forest where it had landed as Zekin reloaded.
“Big as a fir tree,” murmured Jebaz in wonder.
“Proof, this time I’se got proof!” said Zekin. “I’m a-takin’ one to town an’ sure as hell showin’ I’m not crazy.”
“Big as a tree,” echoed Lemas. “How we gonna carry that?”
“Don’t care, but we’re a-gettin’ it into town. Hey, for a fairshow like, and we can get its flyer stuffed. Come on—hey, and bring your trailpacks and Call anchors, you never know how far we may have to chase ’em.”
They climbed out of the hide and picked their way across the darkened ground. They knew the area well, so that the weak light of Mirrorsun was enough for them to move almost at a trot.
The shot that dropped Lemas boomed out like a thunderclap and echoed out across the mountains. He fell without a sound, a large hole in his forehead and the back of his head blown away. The other two trappers dropped at once, their reflexes honed by a lifetime of trap run feuds and skirmishes.
“Lemas!” Jebaz hissed.
“Dead,” said Zekin, who had a better view of the body. “Half his head gone! What they got for carbines? Cart cannons?”
They lay still for some time, but nothing moved or made a sound.
“Powder, I smell old-style gunpowder,” whispered Zekin.
“Mirrormen sure got old guns,” replied Jebaz.
“Mirrormen nothin’, them’s the Bromleys a-tryin’ to bag that thing we shot. Get ready, hat trick comin’ up.”
He raised his hat on a stick. Another booming thunderclap flashed bright from
the darkened bushes almost due east. Jebaz was ready and fired three shots back at once. He was rewarded by a cry of pain. He jumped up and ran, working the slide action of his carbine and firing as he went. Zekin jumped up too, but caught his foot on a root and fell almost at once.
Another shot boomed in the darkness, flashing out to the right of the two trappers and from beneath the tree where the first shape had fallen from the sky. Zekin lay still for some time.
“Jebaz!” whispered Zekin over and over. “You okay, Jebaz?”
Each time silence was the eloquent answer, and there was still the scent of gunpowder on the air. Zekin shifted his weight and another shot grazed the shoulder of his jacket. The flash came from the direction of the first shot. Whatever had killed Lemas was wounded but still shooting. Zekin raised his head and peered into the scrub, which was lit only by the dim glow of Mirrorsun. A shot from beneath the tree tore hair from his head as it whizzed past. Zekin considered. There were two of those things out there, and although they seemed to be using muzzle loaders shooting gunpowder, they could definitely see in the dark. He could shoot faster, but they could see to aim.
“You hang low now Jebaz,” Zekin called out, more to his conscience than to Jebaz. “I’ll get help while you pin ’em down. They can see real good, but their guns is shit. Remember that”
Rolling on his back, he fired a fusillade of shots, then leaped up and ran, dodging back to better cover. Another thundering blast cracked out behind him and a bullet whizzed past his head. Zekin dived for cover just as a second shot sought him. He crawled, wriggled, and scrabbled through the bushes, as if carbineers were shooting at him in broad daylight. He lost track of time, but slowly his panic and desperation subsided as he realized that he was no longer being shot at.
Lying very still and peering through a gap in a lightning-blasted tree, he strained to see movement. Nothing was coming after him. By the glow of Mirrorsun he watched two distant figures separate from the shadows of the forest and hurriedly gather in what seemed to be billows of black cloth. One was limping, yet they worked with efficiency and speed. They walked over to where Jebaz and Lemas were lying, as confidently as if it were broad daylight. Kneeling in the shadows, they began looting the bodies. Zekin saw one stand up and pull on a jacket. They were taking their clothes, he realized. Something about such personal theft enraged the trapper. He worked the slide action of his carbine and took aim for a long shot. The gun gave a click. No ammunition, and his pack was back with the intruders and dead trappers. By the light of Mirrorsun Zekin watched the figures pack the trappers’ gear away and drag the bodies onto a pile of trimmings left by loggers half a decade earlier. They piled together what seemed to be their own clothing and the black cloth beside the bodies; then there was a small flash and smoky flames began dancing and spreading.