The Alleluia Files (58 page)

Well, she hoped that they were, in fact, magnificent engineers, because as architects they were complete failures.

“What do you want to see first?” Reuben was asking. “The electrical engineering building? Or maybe we should save that for last. Those are the dorms, they aren’t interesting, but you might like the transmitting stations. Or the music rooms. You could record something. The engineers would fall on their knees every day thanking you for such a service.”

“Then let’s go to the music rooms,” she said.

Since the day was practically over, she expected most of the classrooms to be empty, but she was soon proved wrong. The engineering students, it seemed, were a dedicated breed, working on their theorems, their models, and their chemical combinations late into the night. Everywhere she and Reuben went, down each cluttered hallway filled with the peculiar mixed smells of electricity and alchemy, they encountered diligent students, arguing professors, excited interns, and abstracted technicians.
Those who actually noticed the visitors nodded or smiled in the most desultory fashion imaginable.

“Is there anyone here you still know?”

“Oh, many. Once a teacher comes to the Augustine school, it’s rare that he leaves for another place. Well, there’s nothing like it, in Ysral or Samaria, so where else would he go? But it’s been ten years and more since I’ve been here for more than a visit. They might not instantly remember my face.”

“Your face?” she said, teasing. “Such a beautiful one! How could they forget it?”

He grinned, and pushed open a doorway that led to a large, high-ceilinged room. In a semicircle around the far end there were four smaller rooms, separated from the main chamber by panes of thick glass. Inside each room were banks of machinery that looked only vaguely familiar to Lucinda.

“Recording equipment?” she guessed.

Reuben nodded. “Looks upgraded from the last time I was here. Probably by now they’ve got the tones so rich they sound better than the singer performing live.”

“Well, we think so, but most of our singers have been so wretched that it’s hard to tell,” said a cheerful voice nearby, and they turned to find a young woman standing behind them. She had wild hair pulled back in an inexpert bun, an array of tools and marking pens stuck in her pockets, and several unnoticed smudges across her smiling cheeks. Here was someone who loved her work more than she loved herself, Lucinda thought.

“I’m Alina,” she introduced herself. “What can I do for you?”

“I’m Reuben, once a student in this marvelous institution but now fallen to the lowly career of seaman,” the Edori introduced himself. Alina laughed. “And this is Lucinda. She’s an angel.”

“Really,” Alina said. “If you hadn’t told me, I could not possibly have guessed.”

Reuben grinned. “I was just telling her how superb your recording equipment is, and how much you all would appreciate having a track or two laid down by someone who really
can
sing. Am I wrong?”

Alina became quite animated. “Not at all! We’d love to have an angel’s voice on disk. In fact, I’m designing an experiment now that would compare the relative trueness of three different
recording media, but I haven’t found anyone whose voice seemed worth committing to posterity. Well, no, that’s an exaggeration, and I had just about decided to go with a speaking voice, since after all it doesn’t actually have to be a singing voice—but if you’d be willing to make a recording for me— three recordings—”

“Delighted,” Lucinda said, interrupting because she didn’t particularly want to hear all the details. “The same song, three times?”

Alina nodded. “Duplicating them as best you can.”

“I can do that. Where do I go?”

The next half hour was fairly tedious for the angel as the engineer set up her studios and explained to Reuben exactly what she was doing. Lucinda hummed to herself to quickly warm up her voice and mentally reviewed her repertoire. Well, she had no idea exactly how these engineers might use her recording, so it seemed unwise to perform, for instance, masses that called for rain or sunshine. Best would be a simple ballad, easy to sing, easy to reproduce multiple times.

“All right, I’m ready for you,” Alina called, and in a few moments Lucinda was installed inside one of the small glass chambers, looking out at Alina, Reuben, and a few students who had drifted in to watch. She couldn’t hear a word any of them said, for apparently the room was soundproofed, but she assumed they would all be able to monitor her performance. She watched Alina closely; when the woman gave her the signal to begin, she launched into her chosen melody.

It was a pretty love song, one that the residents of Angel Rock requested every time she gave a concert, so she knew it had the power to please. Nonetheless, she was a little surprised to see Alina stop her busy writing, the other students pause in their chattering to stare at her, and Reuben close his eyes as if to concentrate on every note. When she finished, there was a long pause before anyone in the outer room moved or spoke. Then there was a brief flurry of spontaneous applause, and a speaker inside her chamber clicked on.

“That was unbelievable,” Alina’s voice said, sounding a little tinny over the closed circuit. “Are you—I’ve never heard anything like that. Is that how all angels sing?”

“Pretty much,” Lucinda said with a laugh. “Some much better.”

“I can’t believe it,” Alina said. “Do you mind waiting while I play it back?”

“Not at all.”

In less than a minute her own voice recycled through the chamber, and Lucinda listened critically. No, nothing special; it was how she always sounded, perhaps not as good, because she’d neglected her formal rehearsals since she’d been in Sahala. As her recorded voice dipped into the second verse, she began softly singing the high harmony, a dazzling counterpoint that Gretchen had sometimes sung with her, but only when she was in an approachable mood.

Alina abruptly shut off the music. Lucinda closed her mouth.

“What’s that? Are you singing along?” the engineer asked.

“Sorry. Habit. I’ll be quiet.”

“No, it’s beautiful. Would you be willing to record a second track?”

“What do you mean?”

“The harmony to this music. If I play this piece back, can you perform your own harmony?”

“Oh, certainly. Two or three different harmonies, if you like.”

Even through the thick glass, Alina’s face seemed to glaze over with awe. “Really? Oh, would you? You don’t mind? Oh, this is wonderful.”

So Lucinda spent the next half hour decorating the little ballad with descant, mezzo, and contralto lines. By the time she was done, the outer room was filled with more than thirty people, all listening as raptly as if they had never heard music in their lives. Well, mechanics. She had always heard that they were strange and unsocialized creatures, more tuned to their machines and their mathematics than to basic human interactions. Apparently it was true.

By the time she was done singing the final part, she was famished. “Would it be possible to take a break for dinner?” she asked before Alina could ask her to perform again. “We’ve been traveling all day and—”

“Oh! Of course! You’ll eat with us, won’t you, in the mess hall? And are you spending the night? Where are you staying?”

Reuben and Alina worked out the details while a student freed Lucinda from the glass studio. “You have a magnificent voice,”
he told her diffidently. “Maybe you’ll sing for us again after supper.”

“I believe I’ve already committed to that,” she said with a laugh. “Something about recording the same song on different machines. I’m willing to do whatever she wants. But I’m really hungry.”

A group of about twenty-five ultimately accompanied them to another one of those nondescript buildings which proved to be a cafeteria. The food smelled heavenly and proved to be excellent. Conversation at the table all around them was lively but mostly impenetrable to Lucinda, since it primarily revolved around scientific and experimental topics. She concentrated on her food.

The shy young man who had released her from the studio was sitting on her left. “What is an angel doing at the Augustine school?” he gathered the courage to say. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

She smiled at him to give him heart. “I’ve been visiting friends in Sahala,” she said somewhat vaguely, not sure how much hard information she should give out.

His shaggy eyebrows went up. “Sahala. That’s where the Jacobites are staying, isn’t it?”

So perhaps it was not a secret after all. “Well, some of them,” she said. “The ones who are still alive, apparently.”

He nodded. “Two of them came here—oh, a month or two ago. Conran, I think his name was, and somebody else. Later Alina told me that Conran used to be a student here.”

“So I understand. What were they looking for?”

Instead of answering, he asked a question of the girl sitting across the table from him. “Rhea? When those Jacobites came here, what were they looking for? What did they call it?”

“Oh, the Alleluia Files,” she said.

Lucinda jumped, and her eyes flew to Reuben’s. It had not occurred to her that anyone would seek the elusive papers here. “And why would the Alleluia Files be at the Augustine school?” she asked slowly. Nearly everyone at the table had stopped holding their individual conversations, it seemed, and all had started listening to this one.

“Because Caleb Augustus founded the school,” Rhea replied. “And he was married to the angel Alleluia. And they haven’t found the files anywhere else.”

“And did you find them here?” Reuben asked quietly.

Rhea laughed. “Well, I didn’t I didn’t even know where to begin looking! What is this precious file, anyway? A book? A recording? A cryptogram? A formula? Does it even exist? I poked around in a couple old books, but I didn’t find anything, and I don’t think anyone else did, either.”

“Well,” said the boy next to Lucinda, but he never had a chance to complete his sentence. Someone down the table called out another question, which everyone attempted to answer at once, and the student’s voice was lost in the general commotion. In a few more bites, Lucinda had finished her food, and Alina led the way back to the recording studio.

It took another hour to complete the tasks that Alina requested, and Lucinda was starting to grow tired by the time they were done. It had been a long day, and she still was not sure
exactly
where they were sleeping although Alina had made a few references to “empty rooms in the dorm.” Which sounded a little uncomfortable, but it was only one night, after all; and she was not used to luxury in any case.

“Great. That was perfect. You can come out now, and I’ll play everything back tonight. Maybe tomorrow you can rerecord if there’s anything that didn’t turn out right.”

“Gladly,” Lucinda said, and waited for the door to be opened. She was just as surprised as Alina was when the same shy young man appeared to set her free.

“George. I didn’t know you were still here,” Alina said.

“Well, I—”

“Good. You can show them to the room where they’ll be staying tonight. I’ve got a lot to finish here,” Alina said, and turned her back on them to begin consulting her notes. Reuben grinned.

“Very single-minded, the engineers,” he said in a low voice. “George, my friend, do you care if we stop at the car and pick up our baggage? It will just take a minute.”

In a few moments they were back outside in the perfumed night air, under a sky so black that the stars looked humble. Lucinda took a deep breath and rolled her shoulders back.

“It never smells this sweet on Angel Rock,” she observed. “Not even in spring.”

“I was thinking,” George said, and stopped.

Inwardly, Lucinda sighed, but Reuben spoke in a kind voice. “Yes? Something you wanted to tell us?”

“Well. After those Jacobites came. All of us did a little looking, but no one found anything. Not really. But I was going through some of Caleb Augustus’s old papers.”

He halted again, as if his speech was complete, as if he had told them all he had to say. But Lucinda felt a rising excitement prickle along her spine, and she could tell by Reuben’s sudden stillness that he, too, was intensely interested.

But his voice was still soft, unalarming. “Yes?” he encouraged. “And you found something? Something that might lead us to the Alleluia Files?”

“Well. I’m not sure. It was a very old piece of paper. But I’m pretty sure it’s Caleb’s handwriting. We have plenty of examples of that,” he added. “Old manuals. Old notebooks. Things like that.”

“I’m sure you do,” Reuben said soothingly. “But this paper you found. It must have been very unusual. What was on it?”

“Well, I’m not certain,” George confessed. “I couldn’t read it. No one could. It’s not the old language, because there are about a dozen people here who can read that. It wasn’t a language any of us knew. I thought it might be a code, you know, and I tried to crack it, but I never could come up with the key.” He fell silent again.

“Well, I think I’d like to look at this mysterious piece of paper,” Reuben said pleasantly. “Lucinda? Wouldn’t you?”

“Indeed I would,” she said. All her exhaustion had evaporated, and she felt as nervous as a child before her birthday. “Could we go now or must we wait until morning?”

“Oh, no reason to wait,” George said. “I can take you there right now.”

They carried their suitcases with them to a long, narrow building that huddled close to the ground as if for warmth or comfort.

“Archives,” George explained briefly. The outer door was dense and heavy, and he struggled with it until Reuben added his considerable strength. Inside, the air seemed rarefied, unscented, filtered of all personality. Temperature and humidity controls, Lucinda guessed. She was almost afraid to exhale and poison the perfectly balanced atmosphere.

“Where did you find this paper?” Reuben asked in a low voice.

George pointed, then led the way down the main hall. “You don’t have to whisper,” he said in equally subdued tones, “but everybody does. There’s something so … quelling about this place.”

In a few minutes they had found the storage room he was seeking. Lucinda and Reuben seated themselves at a small table while George foraged through a file drawer constructed of some unfamiliar-looking metal. Although the light was perfectly adequate, the room felt shadowed; Lucinda kept looking over her shoulder for ghostly watchers. The strange excitement had not left her, though she scolded herself repeatedly.
An ancient piece of paper written in a made-up language. There must be hundreds of such documents in this place!
And yet hope and anxiety still played tag across her back. She was breathing too fast. It was the air; it was the late night; she was being ridiculous.