Of Machines & Magics (12 page)

“That is so.”

“One moment.” The mechanical bent, picked up a leaf which had blown into the street and popped it through a door in its chest. “Follow me.”

They followed it as it paced along on short legs, stopping every minute or two to pick up a piece of debris, a dead insect or to move a stick which was blocking the water flow in the gutters.

“Here is the house of Somta Pantel press the knob at the center of the door.” The street cleaner left them, it picked up a fallen scrap of paper and disposed of it, went on about its business.

Calistrope pressed the large knob at the center of the large black door. A chime full of rich overtones sounded within the house. Presently, the door opened and a stout man with flowing white hair and a curiously blank look stood there.

“Yes? Ah!” Comprehension flowed across his features. “Calistrope and Ponderos and Roli. They told me you would wish to speak to me. Please enter.” Pantel stood to one side to give them room and closed the door with a bang when they were all inside.

They stood in the hall, long and narrow and with a number of doors opening off each side, each one was a shiny black set in a frame of similar material. The walls were contrastingly white with a line of glow globes along each wall to provide a brilliant light.

“You wish to talk about moving worlds they said. How exactly can I help you?”

“The sun is shrinking and the world gets colder. At some time…”

“Yes, yes. The Freeze. The End of all things.”

“But it need not be so. Is there a place we might talk more comfortably?”

“There is of course. First, I wish to confirm that I am not about to be harangued by a visitation of religious fanatics.”

“Religious? No, no. I don’t think we could be described as such. Ponderos and myself are mages from Sachavesku, Roli is my apprentice.”

“So it’s magic, not religious zealots?”

Calistrope looked disappointed. “Magic is merely a word, a name. Anything that is not understood can be called magic.”

“Well it’s true enough. Come on then. This way.”

Somta Pantel led them down the hall to the last door on the right. He opened it and ushered them in ahead of himself. The room was large though its exact dimensions were difficult to make out because it was only dimly lit by seven large globes of various colors. They hung at head height and many—in fact, Calistrope realized, all but one of them—had tiny globes accompanying them. Several seconds later, as Pantel indicated chairs, Calistrope realized what he was seeing.

“This is an orrery.”

“Just so,” laughed Pantel, pleased that at least one of his guests recognized the contrivance. “Since we are to talk of moving worlds, I thought this must be the most appropriate place to talk about it.

And Calistrope began to see how large the room really was. Pantel was very wealthy or wielded great influence, so much horizontal space in Peronsade must be expensive.

“Bluta,” said Ponderos. “Neptorn, Juba, Earth, Sadtun, Marr. And what is that one? Ah yes, the cinder world.”

“Quite so. There used to be a ninth, you know? Merca. Very close to the sun, vaporized when the sun expanded, became part of the star itself. Relative to the far stars, each planet you see occupies its proper position.”

“And the sun itself?”

“Is turned off, it is easier to see the worlds. Pim,” he addressed a mechanical which evidently controlled the astronomical display, “Switch on the sun, low brightness.”

An irregular cloud, roughly spherical formed at the center of the orrery. Its nebulous outer edge seemed to brush the world of Marr.

“Now, what was it you wished to speak of?”

“The sun is shrinking and as it becomes smaller, the Earth will get colder.”

“Indeed that is so. Pim, take us forward a million old years.”

The dim red cloud began to collapse in on itself. The worlds became blurs as they moved and spun through astronomical distances in seconds. When the shifting stopped, the sun was a cold hard point of light at the center, the moonless Earth, which by chance, had stopped farthest from them, reflected a tiny gleam of off-white light.

“What temperature would there be on the Earth?”

“Three degrees,” sang the musical warble of the little automaton. “Three degrees above the ultimate chill.”

“It need not happen, you said.”

“No,” said Calistrope. “It need not. The world can be made to spiral back towards the center . To its old orbit or closer if needs be, so the sun will continue to warm it.”

Somta Pantel frowned. “What you say is true. When the sun grew old before its time and began to wax, the Earth was pushed out beyond Sadtun to save it. Doubtless, it could be sent back again.”

“It
could
be done?”

“I don’t doubt it. The engines must be restarted, the direction computed and thrust applied. Pim, how much thrust could be employed and for how long, to do what we have been discussing?”

“I cannot perform the computation so quickly nor alone.”

“I will have it done, my friends. Come back in… how long Pim?”

“Fifty thousand seconds.”

“Fifty—how long is that in hours?” Ponderos asked. “Or days.”

“About fourteen hours. Come back after your next sleep,” advised Pantel.

Calistrope stood up. “Thank you for considering what we had to say.”

“Not at all, gentlemen. It is an interesting idea, it has captured my attention.”

Calistrope noticed Pantel’s eyes again. There was the same silvery flicker between his eyelids that characterized the automata and his left hand, the Mage noticed, was made of the same many segmented fingers which the little mechanicals employed. As Somta Pantel aged he was replacing those parts which wore out with mechanical prostheses.

“Did you create these automata?” he asked.

Pantel smiled. “Indeed, yes. This community was built by them many years ago now. Without them, it would be just a primitive little hill fort, like many you see.”

“And the power used here; the lights, the heating, water…”

“Is galvanic. We drilled a deep well with a very clever machine. Water from the river falls to the hot rocks far below.”

“And rises as steam to turn the machines which make your power.”

“You know about this?” Pantel was surprised.

“I have read about it. Conducted a few experiments even. The steam generation, the principal, is said to be used in the water and air regeneration plants of course but galvanism, on this scale, it is a great achievement.”

“Thank you.”

“Also, I presume the hot water in the houses, the water washing the streets—these are, so to speak, by-products?”

“Exactly.”

“And the mechanicals, they are powered by galvanic fluxes? I take it you made them.”

“Every word is true,” he said then to the automaton he referred to as Pim: “Pim, will you show these gentlemen out? I have to think about the problem they have set me.”

Calistrope, Ponderos and Roli explored the small town. They took a light meal at a cafe which also served interesting liqueurs, an armorer sharpened their swords on a carborundum wheel, a map maker showed them maps on which Peronsade was shown but Schune was not—at least not at the location that the ants had marked.

Then it was time for a larger meal and since they were more refreshed than before, they stayed in the dining room of the
Gad Fly
as tables were rearranged and a small stage assembled.

The
Gad Fly
provided entertainment for its patrons.

The first performance was given by a conjuror, a talented young man who had an obvious following among the somewhat older women of the town. He made jewelry disappear and found it in unlikely places on the persons of the more mature ladies among the audience. While watching him carefully Calistrope absent-mindedly made a bowl of green cherries fade slowly away; Roli found the cherries later, in the left hand pocket of his tunic. They never did find where the bowl went to.

After the conjurer came a musician.
Diamante
, he called himself and he played a tall narrow harp with a round sound box between his feet. Diamante’s voice might have benefited from some training but the solos he played on his harp were the stuff of sheer fantasy. The man was simply lost to the world when he played, the end of each melody coming unexpectedly and leaving him as startled as his audience.

At length they retired to bed and were called early the next morning by a wake-up boy with a list of times and room numbers. Following breakfast, they made their way once more to the house of the roboticist.

“It is done,” Somta Pantel told them. “Come, watch.”

In the hall with the orrery, they sat once more and Pim made the model solar system follow its calculations. The Earth swung along its path, turning so that one face only confronted the misshapen sun. Gradually its velocity was slowed; as its primary shrank, so it fell slowly inwards, spiraling past first Sadtun and then Marr. Finally, it took up a stable orbit around the sun, which was now a dirty white point at the system center .

“Four hundred and twenty eight thousand years, Calistrope. In approximate terms, the Earth will have to be slowed by three leagues a second.”

“So it can be done.”

“I don’t see how. To bring about this change would require the same amount of energy that the sun squanders in something like one hundred days.”

“But the engines—it was done before!”

“True. Spread over almost half a million old years, it is possible to handle that sort of energy, but no one knows where these engines are. Nor can
I
see where so much energy can be found.”

“But the engines are here. Surely? You said—”

“No, Sir. They are not.
I
did not.”

“No,” Calistrope thought back over what had been discussed. “You didn’t. I inferred—wrongly. We mistakenly thought Peronsade to be the place where these engines are. Well, we must continue our journey.”

Ponderos visited the boot makers.

“Oh yes, Sir,” said the boot maker, inspecting the receipt. “Ready at the sixteenth hour. Tomorrow.”

“Today,” said Ponderos quietly.

“But—”

“Today.
Now
.”

“But I cannot make them while you wait.”

“What have you ready? In stock?”

“Well. How do feel about red leather?”

“No. It’s not my color.”

The boot maker opened a floor-to-ceiling cupboard filled with footwear. “Blue? Purple? No, I suppose not.” The pile of boots behind him grew as he sorted through the cupboard’s contents. “Aha. Green? A very dark green?”

“Not black?”

“No. I have no black ones.”

“Very well.”

The companions were let down the side of the cliff. On the bridge, the two mechanicals lifted their hands. “Fare you well,” said one.

“Thank you,” Calistrope replied and they resumed their journey.

At one point a distant vista was visible. The valley was very broad here with the river divided and subdivided into countless channels of racing waters. At the farthest reach of the eye and dwarfed by distance, a solitary mountain thrust upward from beyond the horizon.

Calistrope pointed. “Schune,” he averred. “The City of Schune is built upon the slopes of that mountain or perhaps in the foothills, we need not be obsessed with exactness for the moment but that is our destination.”

“Unless the map lies to us,” Ponderos was thinking of the journey which still lay ahead, a journey which he had been convinced until a few hours ago, was over. He was presently in a gloomy mood.

The remark irritated Calistrope for the sight—however distant—of their destination had cheered him and here was his friend pouring ice-water on his enthusiasm. “Ponderos, I am tempted to believe you were born a paranoid.”

“Oh no,” Ponderos replied with a shake of his head. “It is a habit I have learned from careful observation. In circumstances such as these, it is a most healthy attitude.”

“Nonsense,” Calistrope admonished. “The weather is fine, the view exhilarating. Look at these fine blooms along the wayside.”

“Flowers? Bah!” Ponderos sneered as he walked on, leaving Calistrope bending over a stand of blood-red blooms growing at the top of leafless rods behind him. “My stomach rumbles, Calistrope! I have just pampered it with fine foods and great wines, and now it protests at what is to come. There are times when I wish I was back in Sachavescu! There is small eating place in a cellar hard by Bart’s, do you remember it?”