Souls in the Great Machine Read online

  "These, ah, shootings... I presume that they were all done within the rules of the Disputes and Reconciliations Act of 1462 GW?"

  "Yes, Fras Inspector." The Disputes and Reconciliations Act was a legacy of the old Rivefina Empire, and had been meant to reduce the incidence of violence by channeling it and swathing it in rituals and regulations. The carrying of guns was not so much confined to the educated, administrative classes, it was required of them. Guns were the symbols of judgment and power, so that those who were expected to exercise power and judgment had to wear them and be proficient in their use. The ultimate appeal against a judgment was trial by combat, where either the disputants or their nominated champions would engage in a legal duel. The death penalty was automatic for anyone going outside the system of mediated duels, and there was a ruinous system of follow-up fines for their families. It was not often that disputes got to the dueling stage, but it was known to happen.

  "Ah, well now, why Libris?" Drusas ventured. "Why not some library in a closer may orate one that does not proscribe your family?"

  "I'm well known in the nearby may orates Libris is big enough and sufficiently distant for me to lose myself."

  That made a lot of sense to Drusas. "Dragon Orange," he said, then paused and stared intently at his brandy. "That makes a difference." Lemorel leaned forward, eager, ravenous. She would be like this if she were dueling with me, thought Drusas, flinching back. In a way that was precisely what she was doing.

  "I can't change the rules, but I can recommend candidates for the grading exams at Libris. You are a Dragon Orange, so you are in theory eligible to sit for Dragon Red at any time. Your Overliber would probably not approve, but if you get into Libris that hardly matters, does it?"

  "The minimum wait is two years, according to the regulations." "No, the recommended minimum is two years. There was a case in, ah, 1623 where a candidate had been unfairly kept as Dragon Yellow for forty-seven years. When the case was finally brought to the attention of the Regional Inspector, he was promoted to Dragon Red after only a few minutes as Dragon Orange. Your case is different, of course, but it would be possible for you to depart for a Dragon Red test at Libris as soon as you could pack your bags. Pass that test, and you would be promoted. Your former Overliber would still have your Dragon Yellow position to fill again, so everyone would be happy."

  He sat back and smiled magnanimously. Lemorel took an instant to comprehend that he was going to help her.

  "Fras Inspector, thank you--" "No thanks yet, please. I have to be convinced that you have at least a ghost of a chance of passing the tests. Now, how is your weapon craft--ah no, that could hardly be in question. Your subjects at the Unitech include mathematics, good, the Highliber likes that. Just a credit in Library History, and only a pass in Heraldry... but that may not matter. Lackey!"

  A gangling youth in his mid-twenties with thick, wire-frame spectacles clinging to his nose hurried up from behind Lemorel carrying a writing kit. He snapped the legs down, uncorked the ink jar, and presented Drusas with a selection of newly trimmed goose quills. The inspector chose one with a great deal of show and flourish, then began writing.

  "Do you have valid border papers?" he asked.

  "Yes, Fras Inspector, I can leave tonight." "Tonight? Well, so be it." He scribbled out notes as his lackey lit a tater in the fire and melted some wax for his seal. "Lackey, take this to the beam flash tower at the Unitech and have it transmitted tonight. Lemorel, this is for you."

  Only nine minutes after leaving the hostelry tavern Lemorel was packing in an upstairs room of Milderellen Fine Lenses and Clockwork. Petari Milderellen hovered anxiously at the door.

  "But the train leaves at five, Lem. You'll never have time to buy a ticket." "I met Jemli on the way home and sent her to the rail side to pay for a cell." "All this haste, you're sure to have forgotten something." "The next train leaves in a week, Dada, and I can't wait."

  She buckled the pack's straps and hefted it. Suddenly Petari caught her excitement "Well hurry then, run for the rail side I'll come after you in a minute." Lemorel clattered down the stairs with her heavy pack, barked her fingers on the doorframe, then jogged awkwardly down the street while struggling to get her arms through the pack straps. Petari rummaged in his shop, then bolted the door and ran after his daughter.

  "Lem, this is for you," he called as he caught up with her.

  It was a Morelac twin long-barrel 34 bore. Lemorel stopped, eyes wide with surprise. "Keep going, move," he panted, unconsciously holding the gun in front of her like a carrot before a donkey. "From the style of the filigree on the grip I'd say it dated from the late fifteen hundreds. It's a gift.." gunsmith owed me a favor.." made that tournament scope for the Mayor of Tocumwai. The bar rels ... finely wrought. He's replaced the original ram lock strikers with modern flintlocks."

  The gun was old yet stylish, and had a good name with librarians and administrators It was much heavier than the 25-bore pistol that she had shot her way to infamy with, and while not as expensive as the guns of the elite, it would suggest that she had gone to some trouble to find and refurbish a rare pistol with a name for accuracy.

  "Thank you for everything, Dada," Lemorel gasped. "You've really been good to me. I brought you just.." trouble and pain. Will you please--"

  "Flowers for the graves of your mother and Jimkree... I'll do it," he wheezed, his breath beginning to fail. "If the Highliber... has any contract work in lenses and clockwork.." mention my name. Oi, they're starting to pedal. Hurry now, goodbye Lem."

  The galley train was about the height of an average man and built of wax cloth over a wooden frame. It was shaped like a streamlined, articulated worm on wheels, and had a walkway with a light railing along the roof. Being human powered it accelerated slowly. Lemorel scrambled over the stone wl of the platform with Petari pushing at both her and the pack. She turned to give him a brief spasm of a hug, then turned and ran beside the accelerating train to where Jemli was waiting. Jemli gave her the boarding ticket and a small cloth pouch, and the sisters said goodbye as Lemorel stepped onto the train's roof. Jemli ran along beside the train, wishing her good luck until the platform came to an end. Lemorel dropped to one knee, gasping for breath and waving back. As the train rolled out among the houses of Rutherglen, the conductor showed her to a cell and she entered through the hatch in the roof. She settled into the seat and he zeroed the counter beside her pedals with a key.

  "Know the rules?" he asked through the hatch.

  "Two hours pushing and an hour to resl, for as long as the train is moving."

  "And any extra will be credited. Likewise you will be debited if you decide not to pedal. First stop in five hours." The train rumbled on through the town and Lemorel looked through her cell's shutter for her father's shop and the buildings of the Unitech. Easily visible was the lifeline of her hopes and ambitions, the beam flash tower.

  "Failed again," muttered Lemorel as she sat perspiring. "Didn't say goodbye to Dada, didn't kiss Jemli." They passed through the outer wall and into the countryside, roiling through vineyards and fields of tethered sheep and free-range emus. She knew the country well, but not from the angle of the par aline track. For some moments she stared at a large whitewashed barn with a bark and shingle roof. Such a large building, surely all the buildings in Rochester would be at least as big, she thought, even while a faint alarm began to clang at the back of her mind.

  Why was the barn familiar? Off to one side was a much smaller shed, where a farmer was pitch forking hay into a loft from his cart. It was close enough so Lemorel could see that his horse was tethered to a fence while the farmer had his own timer and anchor. That was foolish. If a Call came he would step straight off the cart, risking damage to his timer. If that happened, only a broken leg would save him. The shed was familiar too--she had seen it before, at night, by distant torchlight!

  With a sudden shudder of revulsion Lemorel slammed the shutter closed and gritted her teeth as she fought back a wave of nausea. She
doubled over. Horror seemed to crawl over her with myriad spiders' feet as the galley train swayed and clacked along the par aline Click, click, click, click, the counter unit between her legs reminded her that she was not pedaling. How long had she been like that, she wondered amid the flood of unwanted images. The more she pedaled, the faster the train moved, she told herself as she lay back in her seat and pushed hard against the pedals. Gears whined somewhere beneath her.

  "It must be Libris. It must be Libris. It must be Libris," she chanted softly to the clacking of wheels on rails.

  It was dark inside her cabin with the shutters closed, as dark as it had been that night in--"No! Think of something else, anything!" She felt for the little cloth pouch that Jemli had given her. Inside was a silver star with eight points on a fine, clamp-link chain, the sort of slightly tasteless jewelry that an unsophisticated teenage sister might be expected to give. Lemorel fingered the little star with a rash of nostalgia and regret. She was indeed trying to escape from two very bad years and regain lost innocence. She leaned forward for a moment and clipped the chain around her neck. As she settled back to pedal, the star sat cool and fresh against her skin.

  The Call that had torn Ettenbar, the Southmoor shepherd, out of his life and flung him into a new destiny bore down on Rutherglen about ten minutes after the pedal train had left.

  Vellum Drusas had been staring after Lemorel in the hostelry taproom when the Archbishop of Numurkah joined him.

  "Combining pleasure with business, Vellum?" said the Archbishop stridently as he laid a hand on his shoulder.

  Drusas gave a start, but did not spill his drink.

  "Ah James, the day's fortune to you," he said, half rising and kissing the ring on his finger. "It's been.." two years!"

  "Eighteen months. The harvest blessing at Shepparton."

  "How could I forget? Redsker decked his barn with gum mistletoe and dressed his field hands as vine sprites." The Archbishop took the seat beside him after dusting it with the tassels of his sash trail If dressed identically they might have been mistaken for twins.

  "So who was the Dragon girl?"

  "Oh just Lemorel, the local problem child. I've certified her for Dragon Red exams at Libris."

  "Lemorel? Lemorel Milderellen?"

  Drusas nodded. "My dear Vellum, she was the one who sent most of the Voyander household to meet the good Lord well before their allotted span ended."

  "It was a legal vendetta."

  "Oh but still, such an old and noble family and they made such wonderful honey wine--was it wise to send her to Libris?" "It might be the wisest course of all, dear Archbishop. She will soon get shot by someone's champion. Strange girl, very like the Highliber herself. Perhaps she might shoot the Highliber. I live in hope."

  "Come now, Vellum, that's hardly the Christian attitude," laughed the Arch bishop, wagging his finger.

  "Good Fras, you have no idea what that woman has done to the library service. Libris itself is being tom apart. The most worthy and noble senior Colors have been shot, exiled, or demoted."

  "Has anybody noticed their passing?" "James! How could you? The foundation stones of your cathedral do no more than sit quietly in their places, yet where would the rest of the building be without them?"

  "Oh I agree, but there's more to a building than foundations. Good Fras, you are still in your old position, so virtue must still have rewards." He sprawled back along the bench and regarded Dmsas through bushy eyebrows. "What are your plans for tonight? Not business, I hope?"

  "Well, there is the wine-tasting competition. Were you invited?" "Oh yes, a matter of course.." but I'm working. Such a creel life, dear Vellum. I have to ride out to the Broadbank estate to do some private buying for the Episcopal Consensus."

  Drusas' eyes widened and his heart pounded with anticipation. "Your dedication leaves me breathless," he said guardedly, aware that he was playing a large tish with a thin line.

  "I had hoped to enlist you as a taster, Fras Vellum, but seeing that you have a trophy to win--"

  "Fras James, what is a trophy beside friendship? I should be delighted to assist." '

  "We leave within the hour."

  "Splendid. Do you fancy a frost wine to keep the palate charged?"

  "Such temptation, you might be the Call itself. Get behind me, Homed One!"

  "Since when has the Call been from the Fiend?" The Archbishop frowned. "Fraenko's heresy has surfaced again. There's to be a Council of Overbishops to pronounce upon it. Of course I am merely an archbishop, but I can tell you that nothing will change."

  "So the Call is still meant to come from God?" "Yes and no. "Thou shalt not take pleasure from the allure of the Call' and "Thou shalt not despair at succumbing to the Call' will remain in the catechism. The Call is seen to be like the allure of a bottle of excellent wine: your own bad intentions maketh the sin, yet the bottle and the wine are blameless."

  "And what measure of sin is it?" "From me, oh, five silver nobles in the alms box and reciting the Miserablia twice a day for a week. Confess to one of the New Fraenkites and you might have to donate two gold royals to their campaign funds and spend a month in a hair shirt."

  "That's about the difference between masturbation and adultery." "So, you've had occasion to atone for both? Shame on you, and congratulations-"

  The Call rolled over the taproom. The Archbishop surrendered in a private, well practiced blaze of forbidden pleasure. Drusas was able to assure himself that he could do nothing about what he was feeling before plunging into the same reverie. They slowly stood and mindlessly walked southeast across the taproom. Farmer, Archbishop, librarian, serving wench, cook, and vintner: all crowded against the wall, unable to think to cross the room to the door in the northwest wall, so blind and unreasoning was their desire to walk southeast.

  Two blocks away the five strangers who had earlier considered Lemorel as potential quarry were safe in a coffeehouse. Being still during business hours, most people were indoors or safely tethered. A lamplighter was caught in the open, and he mindlessly turned southeast, walking through the streets and lanes, then out through the city gate. Moments after he passed, a Call timer tripped a release and the gate rumbled shut by itself. He walked across open fields, beside a dog that had trotted beside a certain Southmoor shepherd only hours earlier. Blood from the blackberry thorns was congealed in its fur.

  Even though he had joined the procession of death, the lamplighter was safe. At his waist a clockwork timer ticked steadily, already forty minutes into its one hour cycle. He was walking through a vineyard when the time expired and the -timer released a grapple on a strap. It snared a training post and he stopped, straining against his tether to walk southeast. The Call lasted three hours. It was after sunset when it finally passed, and the lamplighter shook his head, cursed, then reset his timer and began the trek back to town. In a way he had been lucky. The Call always stopped for part of the night, still holding its victims. He might well have remained in the cold, open fields until it moved on in the morning if it had not passed him by then.

  Thickening cloud blotted out the stars, adding to the gloom of evening, and there were no lamps lit to cast even a feeble glow at the street corners. A chill, misty drizzle discouraged people from venturing out of doors, and many retired to bed early. The strangers left the coffeehouse, winding their timers as they went.

  "Perfect timing for a Call," chuckled one as he untied their hired pony dray. "Aye, and such a surprising number of people will have been careless with their tethers," said the tall man.

  Jaas was a stores clerk from the rail side warehouse. He was unmarried, middle-aged, and lived alone, and had just reached home when the Call had rolled over him. He awoke in his house, cold, hungry, and in darkness. He spent ten minutes finding the tinderbox he had dropped three hours earlier, then lit a pottery thumb lamp By the smoky olive-oil flame he took a mutton and port sausage from the pantry, dragged his favorite chair to the table, and sat with his feet up. The shadows of his feet
made the caricature of a head on the wall as he carved off a slice of sausage. The shadow head had been his silent and faithful companion for years.

  "Why be a free man if ye can't dine casual?" he asked the shadow, and it nodded gravely as he rocked his feet. There was a knock at the door.

  "Call census!"

  "I'm here," he called.

  "Call census!" insisted the voice.

  "Fagh dummart," Jaas muttered, lowering his feet from the table and walking to the door. "Here I be, th' art satisfied--" As he flung the door open and stood outlined by his own lamp a fist slammed into his plexus, dropping him quietly and neatly. Within a minute he was gagged, bound, and tied in sack. Mabak left a broken tether strap clipped to an outside rail beside the firewood pile as the others loaded Jaas onto their dray. When the real census clerk came past he would conclude that Jaas was the victim of a faulty tether.

  Jemli's edutor was working late in his office to make up time lost to the Call. Expecting only his students, he called "Enter" at the knock on his door, and did not even turn to face his visitors. A tax collector's clerk on the abductors' list went the same way. For the last two there was no stealth. The dray was tied up outside the Constable's Watchhouse and three of the abductors entered. Their papers had the seal of Libris, a book closed over a dagger. The Constable himself was on duty, and his hands shook as he broke the seal and read the order. Two writhing bodies were carried out in sacks as the Constable wrote out "Escaped just prior to a Call without wearing tethers" against both of their names in the Watchhouse register.

  As the lamplighter began his rounds the pony dray had already left on the five-mile trek down the flat, fog-shrouded road to the river wharves at Wahgunyah. The real census clerks were busy on their rounds too, checking for missing citizens. They reported a terrible tragedy, five souls lost to the Call, and the Mayor of Rutherglen issued a proclamation about the proper use and maintenance of Call tethers and body anchors. This was shouted about for a half hour by the criers in the foggy streets. Christian, Islamic, and Genthic services were held in memory of the five, and prayers were said that they might be forced out of the Call by some fence, thicket, or mercy wall.