Eyes of the Calculor

by Sean McMullen

Rochester, the Rochestrian Commonwealth

  I he dragon Gold Chamber was the most secure and secret of rooms in Libris, other than the study of the Highliber himself. It had no windows, the lighting was minimal, there was half-inch-thick carpeting on the floor, the ceiling was covered with small cardboard and felt cones, and the walls were smothered with thick tapestries into which had been woven everything from abstract mathematical designs to portraits of past highlibers. Speaking in there was like having the words sucked out of one's mouth and smothered.

  The large, oblong table was entirely covered in burgundy leather, while the high-backed chairs were smothered in green felt and crushed velvet. There were fourteen chairs in the chamber, but today only six were in use. The Highliber, Velesti, Martyne, the Calculous System Controller, Rangen Derris, and Frelle Halen, the Dragon Gold in charge of the Espionage Constables, sat clustered at one end of the table, circulating a clipboard with several reports attached. Dramoren could not help but notice that reports with bad news tended to have the best calligraphy and illumination, and these reports almost glowed from the poorpaper.

  "Let me try to summarize my understanding of this situation," said Dramoren quietly, adjusting his skullcap, then pressing his fingertips very hard against his temples. "Fras Martyne Camderine, you recently smashed a smuggling underground for numerate people who would otherwise be destined for the Libris Calculor."

  "Yes, Highliber."

  "Fras Rangen Derris, you were running this underground."

  "Yes, Highliber."

  "Frelle Halen, since that raid you have reported a ninety percent reduction in new components recruited to the Libris Calculor."

  "Yes, Highliber."

  "Fras System Controller Hawker, since Fras Derris was inducted into the Calculor you have reported no less than five assaults or attempts on his life by very angry components."

  "Yes, Highliber."

  "Frelle Halen, where do most Calculor components come from?"

  "Certain, ah, criminal sources, Highliber."

  Dramoren sat in silence for a moment with his eyes closed.

  "Am I to conclude that the Libris Calculous primary supply of numerate components has been an underground operation designed specifically to keep them out of the Calculor?"

  Silence was their only response. Dramoren considered shouting at them at the top of his voice, but decided that his head was hurting far too much for that.

  "Who was your contact with the criminal sources, Frelle Halen?"

  "Frelle Velesti Disore, Highliber."

  "Frelle Disore, were you aware that Fras Derris was at the other end of your source of components?"

  "A mercenary contact named Frelle Julica was my informer. I had not originally employed her to find Rangen, she did that on her own initiative. She is a bright girl who—"

  "Answer the question! Were you aware that Fras Derris was at the other end of your source of components?"

  "Yes, Highliber."

  "Why did you not arrest him?"

  "There was no arrest order, Highliber, only a reward. I thought that a good supply of components was of more value than one brilliant component. I did not pocket the commissions, all that money went to Julica. She needs it because she is—"

  "Did you tell anyone else, Frelle Disore?"

  "No, Highliber."

  "So we are now getting one recruit for every nine that we used to get, and the single best recruit that Fras Camderine did manage to apprehend for the Calculor is unusable because the rest of the Calculor's components want to kill him—or at the very least hurt him a great deal!"

  "True, Highliber," responded Halen and the System Controller together.

  "Do any of you ever talk to each other?" demanded Dramoren at the top of his voice.

  "Fras Camderine and I discuss Baleshanto training—" began Velesti.

  "Shut up."

  "Yes, Highliber."

  "Get out. All of you."

  "Yes, Highliber," they answered together.

  /s the pleasantly warm days of January merged into the blazingly hot days of February, Samondel's life settled into a routine. She attended her lectures, and studied in the university library. Interminable talk with new friends in the university refectory, the student taverns, and even on the university lawns quickly improved both her Austaric and her grasp of Australican religious and political issues to a degree that the Mounthaven airlords could never have dreamed possible.

  All the while she was being watched, and her opinions and questions were noted carefully.

  By now Martyne had problems of a very different nature. "This morning I was watching you with a telescope, from the tower of the Gaudeamus Tavern!" cried Marelle, humiliated, furious and in no mood to hide it.

  "Watching what?" asked Martyne wearily. "Watching you and that half-naked, melon-breasted tart on the campus lawns just after sunrise. I wondered why you were so anxious to get out of bed early. You were flinging her through the air and then lying on top of her!"

  "I was teaching her to defend herself." "Well, she was not doing a very good job of it!" "How else was I to teach her, except by example?" "And what else do you teach her by example? All the things that / have been teaching you for the past weeks?" "Marelle, there were thirty others looking on." "Aye, and nearly all of them were nubile young whoopsicles with only a strip of black cloth between their tits and indecent exposure. I saw how they were ogling you."

  "They were just being attentive. It's Velesti's guild—"

  "Don't try to bring Velesti into this! And another thing! Over the past month you've been away eighteen days in total."

  "I was touring the rural monasteries, I had a seminar to give at Kyntella—"

  "Well, I checked on the Kyntella Monastery. It has been a ruin since 1497 GW."

  "The ruins are a place of pilgrimage."

  "The only pilgrimage that you have been making has been to the bed of that vixen with the huge tits and short black hair. What has she got that I don't have—apart from six fewer birthdays?"

  "A longer fuse on her temper?"

  Martyne fled from the tavern amid a shower of pots, mugs, and wine jars, not all of them empty. It was the evening of the first night of February, and there was now a cool, blustery wind blowing while clouds gathered in the sky. It was painfully obvious to Martyne that he would not be getting dinner from Marelle, so he called in at the Gaudeamus. No sooner was he through the door than he was hailed by a chorus of voices. It was five of Velesti's students, two boys and three girls.

  Martyne was pleased to join them, and was soon washing a flat-bread and bacon salad down with light ale. The other five had been drinking and talking for the better part of the afternoon and had been reduced to a rather serious state of frivolous philosophizing.

  "And just why should I worry about producing an heir for my father's dry goods importation agglomorate when Mirrorsun is spinning out of control?" asked Kenlen with a vague gesture to the rafters. "He wants a schedule for my courtship and marriage, can you believe that? I'm twenty, you know? But I'm expected to be an old man."

  "Mine is arranging a marriage for me when I return with my degree," said Rositana, swirling her hair out in a fan. "The merging of two great highland sheep dynasties. I refuse to be the paper on which some contract is written."

  "So how old are you?" asked Kenlen.

  "Twenty in three months. My mother's been forty ever since she was fifteen—that's when she was married. Life of luxury, but eleven

  children! Before I graduate I'll be in the Dragon Librarian Service, then let them try to barter sheep for my body. Say, Martyne, how do Highland shepherds find their sheep in the mountain forests?"

  "I can't say, I've never been to—"

  "Very satisfying."

  They all hooted with laughter, and Kenlen called to the jarmaid for another round.

  "My parents think the university edutors are chaperones," said Cherene, a thin girl with mousy brown hair. "I'm twenty-two, the oldest child of th
e family, yet they'd have hysterics if they realized that I had ever tasted wine."

  She put her head back and drank from a small jar of wine, then passed it to Rositana, who drained it, then tossed it over her head into the empty fireplace, where it shattered. The other drinkers in the taproom cheered.

  "If only they really knew about the edutors," said Rositana. "Like that it's only safe for female students to enter their offices in pairs."

  "I resent that," said Martyne with his mouth full, waving a fork in the air.

  "Present company excepted," called Rositana.

  "That's very generous of the sheep."

  "Baaa."

  "What do you think, Fras Martyne?" asked Bastirrel, who was twenty-one and fancied himself a more serious philosopher than the others. "You've seen life, when has a person seen enough?"

  "What have you done, Fras Edutor in Applied Theology?" asked Sembelia, who also had short, dark hair, and whose tunic featured a large orange star at each breast.

  Martyne sat back from his empty dish and thought for a moment. There was so much to say that could not be said, and so much more that he should not have to say.

  "I was in a monastery for five years, and I was ordained as a monk. I killed a man who raped and murdered my sister; in fact, I have killed eleven men in five incidents. I have worked as a wind train rotor-jack, a river galley rower, a mercenary guard, and sundry

  other jobs that I really cannot talk about. I have looked upon the salt ocean, walked the streets of distant Kalgoodie, stood beside the grave of the legendary Ghan princess Ervelle, slept with a mayor's daughter, serenaded a girl on a balcony with a lute—oh, and been wounded in a small but murderous battle that I may not speak of." He displayed the month-old wound to his left arm. "What else would you like to know?"

  There was silence. Martyne looked very, very tired after recalling his turbulent life.

  "Fras Martyne, I—I think that you have borne your long and incredible life very well," said Sembellia. "You are still good-humored and free of wrinkles and gray hair."

  "Aye, Martyne," said Rositana. "You could well be one of us."

  "I turned nineteen last September, generous Frelle," said Martyne.

  There was a more extended silence as the fact that Martyne was younger than any present dawned upon them. The moment was abruptly broken by the arrival of Velesti.

  "So, you survived being ejected by Glasken's daughter?"

  "As in Mayor Glasken?" asked Rositana.

  "She hit him on the shoulder with a full jar of clarek hermitage, but luckily it didn't break when it hit the cobbles."

  Velesti placed the sealed jar on the table. Martyne scowled at the jar, then at Velesti.

  "Well, don't just stand there, open it!" snarled Martyne.

  Later that evening Martyne walked through the university grounds, escorting Rositana back to Korvarin College. Mirrorsun was high in the sky, shimmering and twinkling through scattered cloud and turbulent air. Rositana stopped, staring up at the sky.

  "Do you really think it is the end of the world, Fras Martyne?" she asked.

  "The world has never ended, Frelle Philosopher. People's worlds have ended countless times, but the world itself has gone on. Live well or live ill, we shall all die."

  "I am the first girl from my province to attend this university, and I shall die with that carved into my headstone. Why did it take two thousand years?"

  "They probably thought you would miss lectures to graze on the lawns."

  Rositana aimed a roundhouse kick at Martyne's buttocks, but he caught her foot smoothly and stood holding her at leg's length.

  "Well, how long will this dose of humiliation last?' she asked, hopping on her other leg with her arms folded.

  Martyne released her.

  "So sad to think of all the talent and energy of highland girls being wasted for two thousand years," he said, looking up at the Mirrorsun again. "Are you serious about joining the Dragon Service?"

  "Oh, yes, I have applied already. There is a long waiting list, but I have two years of study to go, so there is plenty of time. Secure income, that gives women freedom."

  "That gives everyone freedom."

  "Will you sleep with me tonight?"

  "Well, it depends on how long it takes to prepare my tutorial questions on—will I whatT

  "Will you sleep with me tonight?" asked Rositana, standing beside Martyne and putting an arm around him as she looked up at Mirrorsun.

  "Lovely Frelle, I am honored, but, but, but... I have just been ejected from my former lady's favor in quite violent circumstances and—"

  "Martyne! Stop it! I said sleep with me for one night, not marry me. You are not the first, and besides, I like you—even though you have suddenly become a bit old-fashioned. Years from now, Fras Martyne, I shall be a Dragon Silver and you shall be dean of this university. When we meet at some fabulously important mayoral reception we could smile suavely at each other, and think, Ah, the summer of 1730 GW, what a splendid night. Or you could say, 'Frelle Rositana, why have I not seen you at training for the past twenty-five years?' Then I would think, Boring old zot, he never changes"

  "Putting it like that, you give me little choice," replied Martyne, putting an arm about her shoulders.

  "Diplomacy is my finest skill."

  "Then it's the Libris Diplomatic Corps for you."

  "My average is second-class honors, and the waiting list is years long for that particular Corps. My next option is the general Dragon Librarian Service, then an edutor post at some provincial university or academy, and lastly—"

  "Baaa!"

  "Never!"

  "Cheer up. Tomorrow afternoon you will be offered a cadetship exam at Dragon Orange level in Libris' Diplomatic Corps. Accept. It is three hours in length, beginning at one p.m."

  She gave a light, tinkling laugh.

  "I'll not be on the Orange lists for five years, three if I'm really lucky. I've applied for White."

  "Fact: The examination is scheduled for one p.m. tomorrow."

  "Public knowledge."

  "Fact: I was asked to give you a character reference by the Inspector of Cadets, in my capacity as a theological tutor. Not public knowledge—and I gave you a very good reference, as a matter of fact."

  Rositana stared at Martyne in Mirrorsun's light, both eyes and mouth wide open. She was a good intuitive judge of character, and this intuition told her that Martyne was neither joking nor lying.

  "Didn't you get a letter?" asked Martyne.

  She shook her head.

  "Oh dear. Now, given that you have a mere fourteen hours to prepare for the examination, and given that you have several hours of solid drinking behind you ... if I were you I would begin munching my way through a couple of pounds of chocolate coffee beans in preparation for fourteen hours of solid study."

  "But why?" she whispered. "I know the politics of the cadetship lists; I applied as a gesture of defiance rather than in real hope."

  "Well, that was a bit dim of you. There are too many bad dip-

  lomats being appointed as political favors, and the Dragon Librarian

  Service has adopted a covert program of reform."

  Rositana suddenly remembered something fairly important. "Martyne, I—I was serious about wishing to, well, you know—" "Frelle, how would I feel if you failed by some small margin

  because I wasted even an hour or two of your study time in bed?

  Up to your room, get to work. Go! Go!"

  I he following morning Martyne paid a visit to a house where he dropped a message, then he went straight to the paraline terminus and vanished from the city. Three hours later the Inspector of Cadets at Libris was paid a visit by Highliber Dramoren.

  "Make sure that an applicant for Dragon Orange named Rositana Seubel from Highlands castellany is on this afternoon's examination posting, and make sure that she is marked and passed on merit alone," Dramoren ordered.

  "Merit alone, Highliber?"

  "Yes.
The Espionage Police are involved, so be sure to take care."

  Uramoren was not sitting in his usual presiding chair at the weekly meeting of the Dragon Gold Librarians. It was occupied by an observer. This observer was the one person in Rochester who had a higher rank than that of Highliber. Out of courtesy and deference to Overmayor Lengina, Dramoren had given her the presiding chair and removed himself to the other end of the table.

  "And next we have a report from the Monastery of St. Roger at Euroa," said Dramoren. "Calculations regarding possible scenarios when Mirrorsun might burst cannot be completed under a minimum of twenty-six months, and even that is an improvement on earlier estimates. Instead Brother Nikalan has proposed that all resources be put into testing the strength of the Mirrorsun material in storage at the monastery."

  "I thought that was already being done," said Lengina.

  "The rig is complete, Your Highness, but the crossbar beam broke at sixty tons. Both it and the weight box need to be strengthened to carry up to five hundred tons."

  "One scrap of fabric can support five hundred tons?" exclaimed Lengina.

  "We do not know, Overmayor. However Brother Nikalan's cal-culor programs have calculated that a break at four hundred ninety tons is good news for us. The Mirrorsun band would then have the velocity to escape the gravitational pull of the sun completely."

  "It would never return," added the system controller.

  "Precisely. Once the strength of Mirrorsun fabric is known, we can calculate when it will burst, if it will be a danger to Earth, and when that danger is liable to materialize. That calculation will need no more than two months, with the Libris Calculor helping."

  "Jemli the Prophet predicted that Mirrorsun is being punished by the Deity for being an abomination, she says that it will be 'flung into the blackness, never to return.' How can she predict with prayer and visions what we have spent two million gold royals trying to do—so far with no answer?"

  "Overmayor, she has made no verified predictions so far," Frelle Halen of the Espionage Constables pointed out. "She has only interpreted events that have taken place and predicted what has not yet happened."

  "But people believe that she has foretold the future with accuracy," said Dramoren.