Empire of Unreason (27 page)

“Will you describe your experiment to us?”

EMPIRE OF UNREASON

Lomonosov hesitated. “It would be a lengthy explanation,” he said,

“and not quite to the topic…”

“A presentation for another time, then,” Adrienne inserted. “We
will accept the premise for the moment.”

Again Lomonosov looked relieved, and he continued. “Since we are
met informally, I will be brief. As I suggested, up until now, it has
been considered that there were two sorts of forces—those that
diminish in inverse proportion to the square of the distance and
those that do not. Those that do—like gravity—are considered to be
those created by God most necessary for maintaining the finite
aspect of the material universe. After all, if gravity did not diminish
with distance, all matter in the universe would quickly end stuck
together in a single mass. In contrast,
absolute
affinities are
considered to be operations of an
infinite
God—since God is all
seeing and all knowing, it follows that he cannot depend upon the
limited affinities for his existence and information. What I mean is
that if God depended, let us say, on light to conduct information
from that part of himself which occupies Jupiter to that part
resident here on Earth, he cannot be considered to have perfect
knowledge of everything at once—and this we know he has.

Likewise, the malakim—and, indeed, the animal spirit and the soul

—are considered to be composed of absolute affinities, being
nearer God than matter.”

“But you disagree with this?” Linne interjected.

“Yes, in two related ways. First, none of the affinities we know are
in truth absolute. Even the affinity of aetherschreibers diminish
incrementally with distance. Truly absolute affinities remain
hypothetical, not demonstrated. The related notion is that there are
actually a variety of affinities which fall between absolute and
limited. Some, for instance, diminish arithmetically with distance
rather than geometrically—these are the forces that mediate
between the so-called limited and infinite.”

“Like philosopher’s mercury?” Adrienne asked.

EMPIRE OF UNREASON

“Just so. I think—”

He was interrupted by an odd little yelp from Breteuil.

“Emilie?” Adrienne acknowledged.

“I am sorry, Mademoiselle. It is just that…” She glanced at Linne,
who nodded what looked like approval. “As you know,” Breteuil
continued, “Monsieur Linne and I have been working on a
taxonomy of the malakim—”

“I would have said you were dabbling in anatomy,” Elizavet
remarked, a bit languidly.

“Elizavet!” Adrienne said sternly. The tsarevna smiled, looking
thoroughly unreproved.

“Go on, Emilie,” Adrienne said.

Emilie blushed furiously, but go on she did. “We were examining
copies of Newton’s notebooks—the ones from Prague—and there
were notations in the margins on his observations on the animal
spirit. The passage itself, of course, was the key to godly science. It
was the equation that allowed devices to enable the malakim to
operate in matter. But the notes—they might have to do with this.”

She nodded at Lomonosov, “Forgive me, Monsieur Lomonosov. I
don’t mean to interrupt you—but it seems your hypothesis explains
those notations rather neatly. I think—it suggests to me a key to
mathematically describing the malakim. And, Mademoiselle, your
own notes—”

She broke off, suddenly worried that she had revealed something
she shouldn’t. But Adrienne was remembering suddenly—

remembering the equations she had begun long years ago, the ones
she had once seen nearly entire that promised to explain the nature
of her strange hand, the dwellers in the aether, of many things
hidden and unseen.

EMPIRE OF UNREASON

It was all coming together again—her old notes, Newton’s
experiments, Lomonosov’s insights. In a rush she felt intuitively
where it was going—back to those thoughts she had lost so long ago,
back to her hand, back to the nature of God and the world.

And she felt a sudden, almost hideous fear—not merely for herself
but for everyone at that table. She had begun this journey before,
alone, and she had been stopped. Subtly, by deceit and corruption,
but she had been stopped cold.

Surely they would be stopped again. This time, perhaps, in a more
assuredly final manner. She had told the seraph that she would not
relent because of fear of death—but could she take it upon herself
to doom the others?

She watched them, detached, as they began to excitedly discuss the
sudden conjuncture of ideas, and wished she had a good answer to
that.

6.

Ambassador

The explosion rattled the tower, and for a moment Franklin
thought it was broken, that it would collapse and take Nairne and
him with it. It also finally rattled some sense into his brain. Guns
and cannon were firing all around now—they might bring the flying
thing down, but they might well not. He knew something that
would do it for sure, and he should have been going for it this
whole time.

EMPIRE OF UNREASON

They went down the ladder quickly, jumping the last ten feet, and
pounded off through the chaos raging around them. The flying
machine was presently out of sight. Its attack might even be over,
but Franklin fervently hoped not. Though it seemed intent on doing
some damage, its primary purpose was undoubtedly
reconnaissance. The job might already be done—if the pilot had
some form of aetherschreiber or its demonic equivalent—but it
might not be. In any case, if a human flew the thing, he might be
intimidated enough to fly whence he came. Franklin didn’t want
that. If there was any chance of keeping information from reaching
the forces of the Pretender, it was worth taking.

But people kept getting in his way. The Cherokee were still firing
into the air, reloading, firing again, screaming at the tops of their
lungs. The Colonials weren’t doing much different. Franklin
wondered briefly how many of them would be killed by the hail of
their own bullets coming back to earth.

He pushed on through, finally reaching the wains, which as yet
were not completely unloaded. Cursing, he began searching
through the crates and bundles.

God slapped him, slapped him good, and for a few moments he
became one kinetic object amongst many, lifting, falling, colliding.

Then he was shaking his head, the bright smell of blood in his nose,
wondering if his skull or some other vital part was cracked and had
not yet gotten around to informing him that he was dying.

Of course. Destroy the supplies.
He had run to the very spot their
aerial attacker was most interested in. Why hadn’t they unloaded
the wagons and put their contents under cover? Yes, they wanted to
be able to move at moment’s notice, but they knew the Moscovados
had airships…

Stop thinking, you idiot, and look!

The wain had been blown onto its side, its contents strewn about.

Another few feet, and he would have been made confetti along with
everything else. As it was, the spilled cargo was easier to search
EMPIRE OF UNREASON

through. Grimly, Franklin tried to keep his gaze on its task and
away from the sky, but it was no easy thing, knowing he might as
well have an archer’s bull’s-eye on the top of his head.

He flinched at another explosion, and the wagon only a dozen paces
from him turned into flaming splinters. He was shielded from the
blast by the overturned carcass of the wagon he was hunting
through, but he still stumbled. Well, at least bull’s-eyes were not so
easy to hit as all that. Still, when your arrow was so large…

It took him a second to remember what he was doing, and a few
more to understand that he had fallen onto exactly what he was
looking for. Frantically, he set to unwrapping it from its canvas.

Above him, bullets cracked steadily against adamantium. The thing
must be hovering, steadying its aim, but he could not spare the time
to look.

Then he had it unlimbered, an odd-looking device shaped much
like a large tuning fork, his new and improved depneumifier. He
set it into operation by the twist of a key and pointed it upward.

Perhaps the flier—or the devil that powered the thing— sensed
something amiss; perhaps the fellow had decided he had
overstayed his welcome or run short of grenades. In either case,
the strange machine had started off again, gaining speed quickly.

Franklin aimed the depneumifier, feeling a bit silly, since it made
no obvious emission. But it hummed, not a bad sign.

The flying machine did not, as he hoped, suddenly plunge
powerless to earth. He remembered, with terrible clarity, what
Euler had told them: that the Moscovados had perfected flight that
did not depend wholly on the malakim for motivation.

But then, like a bird whose wings have seized, the machine stalled.

It continued to glide, but heavily, wiggling frantically, almost as if
trying to flap.

It passed beyond sight of the wall, and Franklin heard hoarse
cheers go up all around him. He realized that he was trembling so
EMPIRE OF UNREASON

violently he could barely hold his invention. Feeling quite faint, he
slowly, carefully placed it on the ground.

He did the same with his body.

Robert reached him a few moments later.

“You did it, Ben—or I suppose it was you. It’s smashed itself into
the trees at the edge of the forest. The margrave’s men are
galloping toward it full tilt, and Uncle Thomas sent some men, too.

Hurry up. Let’s go see it!”

“I think I can survive at seeing it second-or thirdhand,” Franklin
muttered, sitting on a crate and trying to shake the ringing from his
ears.

His friend looked suddenly concerned. “Are y‘ all right? Y’ weren’t
broken up by the grenado, were y’r?”

“No. Leastways I don’t think so. But I’m—I’m not cut out for this
sort of adventure, Robin. I’d hoped I was done with it.”

His friend clasped his hand tightly. “So y‘ say. But I’ve never
noticed you hate telling stories of our exploits abroad. Y’ won’t
flinch from enjoying these either, I reckon.”

“Maybe not—thirty years from now, when I’m a fat old man
surrounded by grandchildren. For now I’d be just as happy to make
up lies as live the damned truth.”

“We’ll sit here a minute. I reckon they might go to fightin‘—

Oglethorpe’s men and ours—so it may be best that we leave them to
work it out. And who knows, the thing may still have teeth. But
they’ll handle it, now as you’ve clipped its god-rotted wings.”

“You go, if you wish, Robin.”

“Nay. I’ll stay with you whilst you tell me what y‘ did.”

EMPIRE OF UNREASON

Franklin took a deep breath, and then another. For an instant, he
felt as if he were fourteen years old again, proudly displaying his
first scientific invention to his old friend, John Collins. Things had
seemed so simple then, the future so bright. He was to be famous, a
great scientific man, with the whole world at his feet.

Well, he had gotten that wish, but twisted up, the way the genü in
the Arabian stories might do it, for spite at being bottled so long.

Famous he was, but the world at his feet—the world he himself had
brought to pass—would have been better off stillborn and himself
happier as a printer back in Boston. Now Boston was all but
abandoned, his father dead of a distemper in Virginia, his mother a
widow there, living with his sister—a sister who would not speak to
him, much less write. And John Collins—whatever had become of
him? Dead, most likely. He had feared him killed by Bracewell, but
he had heard reports since that John had lived, to become best
friend with the bottle and finally to vanish in the insanity of the
battles against New France. He was, most likely, dead after all.

“Well?” Robert repeated.

He looked at Robert, a better friend than he deserved. “Ah. Tis an
improved version of my depneumifier.”

“Your exorcister? But you never explained how that worked.”

“You remember that Sir Isaac first designed the flying globes that
keep aloft the Moscovado airships.”

“I’ve a short memory, but not that short.”

“Then you know at the battle of Venice he showed he had the art of
unmaking them as well.”

“I thought his talos monster did that, somehow.”

“It did. The globes are structured of certain harmonies— both cages
for the malakim and engines that work on their energies. At Venice
EMPIRE OF UNREASON

he had his talos dissolve them.”