Eyes of the Calculor (28 page)

"You need to use more elbow strikes, and to concentrate on close-in fighting."

"I don't like being close to men."

"But you could hurt them a lot more."

"Hmm, point taken."

"I feel thirsty just now. What would you say to a beer?"

"I would say 'Afternoon's compliments, Frelle Beer.' "

At the gates of the university an orator in a green jacket was standing on one of the two stone gargoyles that guarded the gates. She was addressing several dozen students. Others dressed in green were handing out pamphlets to those passing by. Martyne and Velesti stopped to listen, although at some distance from the group.

"This is not about Islam, or Christianity, or Gentheism, this is about the Word of the Deity," cried the speaker, spreading her arms to the ground, where the god of the Gentheists was thought to dwell. "It is not our path to poison the sacred body of the Allcaring, we must care as we are cared for. Fueled engines poison the Deity, electrical machines torture the Deity's body, abominations disease the Deity. Do you care for your may orate?"

"Yes!" shouted those Gentheists planted in the crowd, plus a few genuine converts.

"Do you care for your world?"

"Yes!" came a more unified and louder response.

"Then go back to your temples, churches, shrines, mosques, and cathedrals, remind your clergy of the principles that your religions are founded upon. Fight for the purity of your religions, and fight for your world."

"Two months ago I heard this in Kalgoorlie," said Martyne, "except that the orator was the Prophet Jemli herself."

"If the speaker knew that she would invite you up there to address the rally," said Velesti. "What are your personal thoughts on the matter?"

"Theologically speaking, it is a shaky proposition for Christianity and Islam. Nothing about engines or fuel sciences appears in their foundation Scriptures; all of that is in latter-day amendments that postdate Greatwinter. However Gentheism was founded on the Greatwinter Revelations, about fifteen hundred years ago."

"At the same time as the Christians and Islamics amended their own Scriptures," Velesti pointed out. "I have always believed that an ancient conspiracy is behind it all."

"So have many others. The Christians burned doubters at the

stake, the Islamics stoned them to death, and the Gentheists buried them alive in moist Mother Earth."

"So, you are a closet doubter, Fras Martyne?"

"Within the confines of a closet, and only between consenting adults, yes. Jemli the Prophet has developed a large and rabid following over a very short period, and she has done it by recruiting followers within other religions. Was she not once married to—ah, Mayor Glasken?"

Velesti raised her eyes to the sky for a moment, then slowly turned to Martyne.

"Yessss ... but she showed none of this theological zeal in all their years of marriage. She was certainly ambitious—in fact it was she who was the driving force behind John Glasken being appointed mayor. Sometime after the appointment she suddenly denounced him for condoning the steam engines in the underground university. She then became mayor in her own right, married a local warlord after a year, then was deposed by him, and he became mayor and went on to unify the west as overmayor. Poetic justice, if you ask me."

"While I was in Kalgoorlie I heard that she went mad after her second husband deposed her as mayor. She began preaching against steam engines in markets, on street corners, even at the wind train terminus."

"What is madness, if not a virtue for prophets? After Black Thirteenth, people remembered what she had been predicting: the demise of electrical machines, a great disturbance to the Call, the destruction of Mirrorsun, and the return of Greatwinter if humanity does not heed the Word of the Deity. She has scored well so far. The first two have come true, and Mirrorsun really is behaving strangely."

"It is almost enough to make one a believer," said Martyne, looking up at the speaker and nodding his head.

"Oh, I could declaim far more accurate prophecy."

"Truly?" asked Martyne, turning away from the speaker to face Velesti.

"Truly."

"Then, Frelle Velesti, it is you who should be the Prophet."

"True, and just now I predict trouble," replied Velesti, pointing to the edges of the crowd.

Militiamen were gathering under the direction of an officer, and a Constable's Runner was endeavoring to keep a path clear past the university gates, which were almost blocked by now. There was a scuffle, and the Constable's Runner stumbled and fell. Two militiamen went to his aid, striking out with the butts of their muskets. Gentheists retaliated with swagger sticks. The rest of the militiamen advanced, but the crowd outnumbered them. Finding his men forced back, the officer panicked and fired his flintlock pistol at the Gentheist preacher. She clutched at her chest and toppled from the gargoyle.

Martyne and Velesati dropped to the lawn as the panicked militiamen opened fire on the crowd. Students fell and screams filled the air as some ran, but others charged the militiamen with swagger sticks, knives, and sabers. The Constable's Runner began to blow his whistle, but was quickly set upon and run through. Other Constable's Runners arrived from all quarters, but by now looters had joined the fighting and were at work among the stalls, houses, and taverns near the gates. More shots were fired, then a single, strident voice cut through tumult.

"That's an officer reading the Riot Act!" exclaimed Velesti. "Over to the fountain, take cover."

Moments later there was a disciplined volley of musket fire, followed by another, then another. Now the crowd broke and fled in complete panic, some into the streets, some back into the university. They were followed by guardsmen in skirmishing order.

"Dragon Librarian Service!" shouted Velesti, standing and spreading her hands wide. "Rank of Blue."

An officer came hurrying over as his men passed by the fountain.

"Did you see how it started, Frelle?" he cried as he reached her.

"It seemed to be a peaceful rally, but emotions were running high," she replied. "The trouble started when the numbers blocked the gates."

"May I have your name?"

"Velesti Disore, Dragon Blue with Libris. This is Martyne Cam-derine, edutor of the university. Both of us are paremedicians. Can we help?"

"Please, yes. There are fourteen dead and three times as many wounded."

Martyne was the first to the Gentheist orator, who had a bullet wound high in the chest and had broken her arm in her fall. He cut a strip from his cloak and pressed it hard against the wound.

"The ball missed your lung, you should be all right," he said as she looked up at him. "Hold this, press hard to slow the bleeding."

"The Deity watches," she whispered.

"Just lie still, if you move you will do more damage. Can you taste blood?"

"No. Aviad agents, they, they . . ."

"Don't talk, just breathe evenly."

The girl grasped his wrist with her free hand, her eyes shining.

"Healers are blessed in the eyes of the Deity, Fras Edutor."

I he young Gentheist priestess lived and was exonerated at the inquest that followed, mainly due to the testimonies of Martyne and Velesti. The dead and wounded were mostly students and militiamen, and the magistrate declared that the riot had been due to the ill-organized nature of the rally and the fact that it had blocked a public thoroughfare. The priestess responded that the Word of the Deity had attracted a larger than expected and highly excitable crowd.

"The Word of the Deity cannot be allowed to disrupt the public order in Rochester," the magistrate pointed out.

"The Word of the Deity will soon be the new law in Rochester," predicted the bandaged priestess.

"But meantime Commonwealth law is the law and it is my place and duty to administer it. I'm sure the Deity would not want more people to die in senseless riots."

Quite sensibly the magistrate ordered that henceforth any religious rallies within Rochester must be confined to the premises of religious institutions. This did not stop further incidents, but they were less dramatic.

Samoa

I he islands of the Samoan archipelago were like luridly green jewels against the ocean as Samondel brought the sailwing around to land. On the ground were two strips of black with a brownish slash between them. White piles of coral marked the edges, and ten gangers stood waving palm fronds at the approaching aircraft. At the middle of the ascent strip was the Yarron Star, lying askew where a wheel had collapsed while it was landing. Samondel shed speed in the annoying, blustery wind that was blowing across the makeshift ascent strip. She hung just above the stall speed, keeping the stubby nose high, then passed so low over the Yarron Star that she heard one of the Swallow's wheels clip a wing. Then the rear wheels bit into the rammed scoria surface and the Swallow's nosewheel slammed down hard.

The surface was less than ideal and the sailwing slid awkwardly as it lost speed, sending up sprays of scoria gravel and sand. Samondel could hardly believe that she was down safely, even when all motion had ceased. She hauled on the levers that shut down the compression engines while the gangers ran up, cheering. Her new navigator, Alarak, lowered the hatch and stepped out onto the wing-field. As she followed him, Samondel noticed that she had overshot the ascent strip, and that the rear wheels were buried almost up to the axles in volcanic gravel.

"You should have circled," said Avoncor as they all stood looking at the wheels embedded in the surface. "We could have had Yarron Star clear in five hours."

"Five hours is nearly half of the distance to New Zealand," replied Samondel, "and a third of that to Australica. In any case, I am down. What work does the Yarron Star need?"

"We're going to lever up the wing, then build a frame underneath and roll it to one side of the ascent strip using the engines and rolling logs. Another three weeks should have it fit to ascend."

"Three weeks!"

"We have to do our metalwork with axes and knives, and none

of us are airframe guildsmen. But we'll clear the ascent strip by tonight, of course."

"Then do that, and draw off enough compression spirit from the Yarron Star to get the Swallow back to Hawaii."

The following day the Swallow ascended from the ascent strip named after Samondel, but instead of turning north she began a leisurely circuit of the wingfield. As the navigator watched she took a stick wrapped in paper from her jacket, and as she passed low over the ascent strip she flung it at the crippled Yarron Star.

"Can you see if they found it?" she asked Alarak.

"Yes, a group of them is gathered around whoever is reading it."

"That should not take long. It only says T Lied' and 'Lake Taupo.' "

"I know I have been saying this all the way from Hawaii, Sai-reme Airlord, but this is foolhardy."

"Far be it from me to accuse my fellow airlords of being fools, but let us just say that political pressures are being brought to bear on this venture. We are currently consuming two-thirds of Mount-haven's entire compression spirit production in establishing and supplying these wingfields, and monopolizing super-regals that could be put to use in dozens of other good causes. If there is a crash before the next two super-regals are complete, the venture may be ended."

"What can we do in New Zealand by ourselves?"

"With two helpers I prepared a temporary ascent strip for super-regals on Samoa, Sair. You and I must do as much again."

"And why Lake Taupo?"

"According to this ancient publication entitled Five-Day Tours of the North Island, Lake Taupo is the biggest lake in the area, and no matter how overgrown towns, roads, and wingfields become, lakes are like islands: they stay much the same over the millennia, and they stand out against their surroundings."

Lake Taupo, New Zealand

Lake Taupo appeared to be deep, and was bordered by several flat stretches of land that were many times the length that was needed for a super-regal to descend.

"Taupo, this is Lake Taupo," said the navigator, "but it is smaller than on the only map that we have. It is a volcanic area, and the volcano was marked as active."

"Some eruption must have changed things," replied Samondel. "We are lucky that there is any lake at all."

"You said islands and lakes do not change much with the millennia."

"I was lying, but you should have caught me. After all, many islands once on the map are now underwater. The sea level has risen."

The sailwing came down on the lake, on a skid that Samondel had had installed at Hawaii. They taxied rapidly along the surface, flinging two waves of spray aside.

"Go for that wide, flat sandbar over there and beach us," said Alarak.

"It's unusually flat, even for a sandbar."

"I know; it may even be firm enough for an ascent strip in itself. Slower, slower, steady, shut down—no! Throttle up, we're sinking, the sandbar's floating^

One wingtip was already in the water as Samondel gunned the engine and drove the Swallow through the layer of floating, brown pumice. The navigator slammed the hatch back and crawled out onto the opposite wing, trying to weight it down. The submerged wing came up too fast, the navigator slipped off into the water, and as he came struggling back up through the surface and floating pebbles he saw the Swallow smash its makeshift skid into the real beach. By the time he waded ashore Samondel was inspecting the broken skid.

"Can you repair it?" he asked.

"Chopping down bushes is about as much carpentry as I know," Samondel admitted. "Even then all my experience is from Samoa."

"So what do we do?"

"The wheels are undamaged. We can worry about repairs when the next super-regal catches up with us. For now, we should start looking for a suitable place to build it a wingfield."

With Swallow tethered they stood in nearly complete silence on the shore, the only humans in a circle with a thousand-mile radius. Sa-mondel closed her eyes and listened to the cool, fresh air rushing in her nostrils. The navigator presently broke the serenity of the moment.