Exodus from the Long Sun tbotls-4

by Gene Wolfe

  “Bronze would be a lot stronger, Calde.” Swallow cleared his throat again. “Tougher, too. I mean real bronze. This is kind of hard to explain.”

  “Go ahead,” Silk told him. “I’ll make every effort to understand you, and it’s important.”

  “Let me start with iron, maybe that will make it clearer. You and I talked about iron. Casting it and so forth.”

  Silk nodded.

  “What people call iron’s really three different materials, Calde. The commonest is just soft steel, any steel that doesn’t have a lot of carbon in it. People call that tin when it’s rolled out as sheet metal, and sometimes it’s plated with tin. Most people have never seen a real chunk of solid tin.”

  “Go on.”

  “When you watched that blacksmith making horseshoes, that was what he was using. He probably called it iron, but it was really soft steel, iron with just a little touch of carbon. If there’s gobs of carbon in it, it’s cast iron, the melt we pour in the foundry. You can’t pound cast iron the way a smith does. It’ll break.”

  “I remember that you said it was brittle.”

  “That’s right, it is. It has lots of uses, but you can’t use it for armor or a hammer head, or anything like that.”

  Swallow took a deep breath. “Number three’s wrought iron, and that really is iron, though there’s generally some slag in it, too. We start with cast iron and burn all the carbon out, when we want some. It’s pretty soft, and it’ll take almost any amount of bending. Mostly it’s used for fancy window grills and that kind of a thing.”

  “You still haven’t told me anything about bronze.”

  “I thought this might help make it clearer, Calde. You see, there’s a couple dozen alloys people call bronze, because they look like bronze. Most have quite a bit of pot metal in them and no tin at all. Tin costs too much. Real tin.”

  Silk stirred impatiently.

  “That makes real bronze cost a lot, too. Real bronze, not the stuff you’d get if you bought a bronze figure of some god, is half tin and half copper.”

  “Is that all?”

  Swallow nodded. “It’s a pretty simple alloy, but it’s got marvelous properties. It’s tougher than steel and almost as strong, and you can hammer and weld it, and machine it easier than anything except cast iron. I know that because we still make some little parts out of it, sleeve bearings mostly, and the worms for the big worm gears. But when I was a boy, the older men said they used to cast heads out of it, and there were still some old taluses around with those bronze heads.”

  Silk leaned against the doorframe; he was already tired, had been tired before the parade had ended, and there was still the dinner tonight; he resolved to get an hour’s sleep before eight, no matter what happened. Aloud he asked, “Can you cast bronze — this real bronze — as well as brass?”

  “Better, Calde. We cast those worms I mentioned, and then machine the bearing surfaces, so I know. It would speed things up too, because the parts wouldn’t need so much cleanup. But it would be expensive, because of the cost of the tin.”

  “Have you got the tin? Here right now?”

  Swallow nodded. “Because we still use bronze for the worms and so forth.”

  “Then do it. Use it.”

  “I’ll have to up the price, Calde. I’m sorry, but I will. Even if you order two or three.”

  “Then up it.” Longing for the brown leather chair he had occupied earlier, Silk added, “We’ll talk about how much when we get back to your office. And don’t forget the double-thick thorax and front plates. Obviously you’ll need a little more for those, and the steel umbrellas — shields, I suppose you’d call them that Maytera suggested.”

  Mucor said, “The storm will pass over soon,” surprising everyone; then, “I’m tired.”

  “She ought to sit down,” Silk told Swallow, “and so should I, but first I must ask you about Maytera’s hand. She’s got it in her basket. Maytera, will you show it to him, please?”

  “Man cut,” Oreb remarked from his perch on the top of the screen. Silk was not certain whether he meant that Blood had severed it or that Blood himself had been killed — by him — as animals were as sacrifice.

  Maytera Marble had passed her basket to Swallow; he took off the white towel that had covered her now-lifeless right hand and held it up, in appearance the hand of an elderly woman. A short cylinder of silvery metal extended from its wrist. “I lost some fluid,” she told him, “but not very much. There are valves and things to control that. I’m sure you know.”

  He nodded absently.

  “But the tubes would have to be mended some way. The one that brings the fluid to move my fingers, and the one that takes it back.”

  Silk said, “We’d appreciate it very much, Director, if you would do everything you can for Maytera. She can’t pay you; but I may be able to, if it isn’t too much. If it is, I feel sure I can arrange for you to be paid.

  “Don’t worry about that, Calde.” Swallow returned the severed hand to its basket. “We’d be happy to do what we can for Maytera here as a counesy to you. We could rejoin those pressure and return tubes, though it’ll take delicate work.”

  Maytera Marble smiled, her face shining.

  “The load-bearing part’s no problem at all. Or I don’t think it should be. It won’t look quite as pretty as it did, though. Repairs never do.”

  “I won’t mind a bit,” Maytera Marble assured him.

  “The difficulty — pardon me, Calde.” Swallow closed the door, the only source of daylight on their side of the canvas screen. “Maytera, will you hold up your arm a minute? I need to show the calde something.”

  She did, and Swallow pointed. “Look down in here, Calde. Maytera, I want you to try to move your fingers. Pretend that you’re going to grab hold of my nose.”

  Minute glimmerings appeared in the shadowy interior of the stump of arm, pin-point gleams that reminded Silk oddly of the scattered diamonds he had seen beneath the belly of the whorl.

  “There! See that, Calde? Those are glass threads, like very fine wires, with light running through them. It’s fluid that powers her fingers, like she said, but it’s those twinkles that steer them. The twinkles are messages. They’re supposed to tell every joint in her hand how to move.”

  Hesitantly, Silk nodded.

  “Suppose you were to put a man on a hilltop twenty miles away, and tell him to ride as soon as he saw a lantern run up the flagpole of the Juzgado. It’s the same principle.”

  “I believe I understand.”

  “When ordinary wire like we use gets cut, you can fix it by wrapping the ends together. With glass threads like you find in chems, that won’t work. You’ve got to have a special tool they call on opticsynapter. We don’t have one here because we don’t use glass thread. We haven’t any way to make it.”

  Silk endeavored to ignore Maytera Marble’s disappointment. “Then we must locate one of these tools — and someone who knows how to use it, I assume — and tie the glass threads? Is that correct? Then you can complete the repair?”

  Swallow shook his head. “If she went around with her hand hanging from the glass string, it would probably break. We can do the welding right now, and we’d better. When you find an opticsynapter she can take off her hand in the usual way. The operator shouldn’t have any trouble fishing out the other end of the string.”

  “Where would we find one?”

  “There you have me, Calde. A doctor who specializes in chems should have one, but I don’t know of one here in Viron.”

  Chenille snapped her fingers. “I know somebody!”

  “Do you, dear? Do you really?” Maytera Marble’s voice, usually so calm, trembled noticeably.

  “You bet. Stony had one of those strings cut where our talus had shot him, and Patera Incus fixed it for him so he could move again. He had a gadget to do it with, and that’s what he said it was, an opticsynapter. I was watching him.”

  Silk turned to Blood’s emaciated daughter. “You we
re gone a few minutes ago, Mucor. Are you back with us? Please answer, if you can.”

  She nodded. “With the Flier, Silk. Women have him. They want to know about the thing that lets him fly.”

  “I see. Perhaps it would be wiser for us not to speak of that at present. I want you to search for Patera Incus for me, as well as Hyacinth and Auk. Do you know him?”

  After a silence that seemed long, Mucor said, “No, Silk.”

  “He was a prisoner in your father’s house for a while, at the same time I was. He’s an augur too, short, with a round face and prominent teeth. A few years older than I. I realize you don’t see things as we do, but that is how we see him.”

  Mucor did not reply, and Maytera Marble passed her working hand before Mucor’s eyes without result. “She’s gone, Patera. She’s looking for him, I think.”

  “Let’s hope she finds all three soon.” Silk glanced up at Oreb. “Has the man finished working over there? Joining the iron, or whatever you’d call it?”

  “No fire! No more!”

  “Thank you. Come along, Director. As interesting as all this is, and potentially valuable, I can’t spare more time for it. Your workman must begin Maytera’s repair. You and I can discuss our contract while he works. How many taluses could you build at the same time if you called back all of the employees you’ve sent home? Don’t exaggerate.”

  “I won’t. I just wish I had my charts here. The movement of parts, you know, Calde, and the time required to make them.”

  “How many?” Silk stepped around the screen into a clutter of metal tables, remembering at the final moment to smile at the leather-aproned craftsman at work there. “Good afternoon, my son. Thelxiepeia bless you.”

  “Four, Calde.” Behind him, Silk heard Swallow’s relieved exhalation. “I want to say five, but I can’t guarantee it. We could start a fifth, once the first four are moving along.”

  “Then the city will order four,” Silk decided, “with the double front plates I described, heads of real bronze, and the shields. We must consider armament, too, I suppose, and price. How long will four require?”

  Swallow gnawed his lip. “I’m going to say two months. That’s the best I can promise, Calde.”

  “Six weeks. Hire new people and train them — there are thousands of unemployed men and women in this city. Work day and night.” Silk paused, considering. “The city agrees to pay a premium of six cards for each day less than forty-five. You have my word on that.”

  Swallow licked his lips.

  From his perch on the screen, Oreb crowed, “Silk win!”

  Chapter 8 — To Save Your Life

  Repressing a shudder, Maytera Mint stepped over the dead man’s leg, the last to go into the guardroom. Over Hyrax’s leg, she told herself firmly. It was only Hyrax’s leg, and not a thing of honor; Hyrax, a near-homophone of Hierax, was a name often given boys whose mothers had died in childbirth.

  Now, Maytera Mint reflected, Hierax had come for Hyrax.

  “They, the — ah…” Remora began, and fell silent.

  “Soldiers.” Spider seated himself on a stool. “Soldiers got them.” He pulled up his tunic and thrust his needler into his waistband, let the tunic fall into place again, and wiped his hands on his thighs. “See how good they got shot, Patera? Dead center, all three. That’s soldiers’ shootin’.”

  “I would have thought that Hyrax’s body would warn Guan,” Maytera Mint ventured. She was looking down at Guan’s body as she spoke. “He must have seen it, exactly as we did.”

  Spider nodded. “That’s why he figured there wasn’t nobody layin’ for him. He figured they’d of moved it if they were, and he had a slug gun, didn’t he? I’d want to know more than feet in the door, wouldn’t I? So he went in careful and had a look around, see? That’s how I would of done, and that’s how Guan did. Then he set his gun down, probably stood it in the corner, and got that water. That’s when they got him, shot him from in back. See where he’s lyin’? He was watchin’ the door while he drank. He couldn’t shut it without movin’ Hyrax, and he hadn’t done that yet, but he was watchin’, only a soldier was in here with him that he didn’t know about, and that’s when he shot him.”

  “May I sit, too?” Maytera Mint had found another stool. “May His Emminence?”

  “Sure.”

  “We — er — arms? Should be armed.” Remora was poking about the guardroom. “Slug guns, hey? Slug guns for soldiers, um, chems. Chemical persons, eh? All of them. The slug guns of the, um, departed.”

  “They’re gone,” Spider informed him. “They all had slug guns. That’s Guan, Hyrax, and Sewellel. A slug gun’ll do for a soldier, and soldiers don’t like them lyin’ around.

  “I am sorry,” Maytera Mint told him. “Genuinely sorry. You must understand that. I sympathize with your grief, not just conventionally but actually.”

  “All fight. Sure.”

  “Nevertheless, I have won our bet. You pledged your word to give me honest answers to three questions. If you would prefer to wait, I understand. We may not have long, however.”

  “I might not,” Spider told her. “That’s what you’re thinkin’, isn’t it? Say it.”

  She shook her head. “I’m not, because I don’t understand the situation sufficiently. When you’ve answered my questions, I may. Here is the first. The Army is by no means alone in its possession of slug guns. All Bison’s troopers have them, as do many others. Yet you were entirely certain it was not one of Bison’s troopers who had killed Paca. Why was that?”

  Remora put in, “He’s answered already, hey? The — urn — accuracy. Precision.

  “Yeah, that. But we saw them, and the other boys shot at them. You said you heard shootin’ when we had you locked up. Well, that was what you heard. It was soldiers, two or three, maybe. If they’d known there wasn’t but five of us and me with no slug gun, they’d have shot it out, but they couldn’t be sure we didn’t have a couple dozen, that’s what I think. So they beat hoof figurin’ to chill us one at a time.” He sighed. “We ought to of stuck together, but I didn’t see it like that then.”

  “Thank you.” Maytera Mint laced her fingers in her lap as she considered. “If they have come to rescue His Eminence and me, there would be no reason for us to shoot them if we had slug guns to do it. That’s not a question, Spider. It’s a comment.”

  “It’s right enough, whichever it is. But if you’re tryin’ to find out who sent them or why, you’re not goin’ to get it out of me. I don’t know. The Army’s ours, the Ayuntamiento’s. All the soldiers are supposed to know about us.”

  “Possibly, um, councillor, eh?” Remora had carried over a stool. “Might not he have come to — ah — dubiety? You have, um, informers? Against the general’s forces, eh? Might not the councillor have come to fear that the calde, er, likewise? You?”

  “Maybe.” Spider rose, went to the door, and taking Hyrax’s wrists pulled him into the room. “But I don’t believe it.”

  “Nor do I,” Maytera Mint murmured as Spider shut the door and bolted it.

  “You gamble, eh? Put yourself at hazard. And us. If the soldiers you apprehend are concealed, hey? There are other, um, chambers? In addition to this in which we, er, presently?”

  “That’s the latrine,” Spider told him, nodding toward an interior door. “We got one of those portable jakes in there. The other’s the storeroom. Yeah, they could be in either one. Or locked out. I’ll take that for now.”

  He turned to Maytera Mint. “You got two more questions, General. You goin’ to ask them? Or you want more water and somethin’ to eat? You can eat first if you want to.”

  Observing Remora’s expression, she said, “Why can’t we eat while I ask? We’re adults.”

  “Swell. Patera, you’re the hungriest, right?”

  “I, er, possibly.”

  “Then you go in and get it. The door’s not locked. Go in there, have a look at the prog, and bring out whatever you and the general want. Fetch along some wine, too, an
d more water if you want it.”

  Remora gulped. “If they are, hey? Inside?”

  “They most likely won’t shoot you. Tell them they won’t have to shoot me, neither. Tell them all I got’s a needler. When we went up to that house, I figured a needler’d be plenty and leave a hand free. Besides, it’s what I usually pack.”

  “I shall emphasize the point, um, assuming.” Remora faced about and bowed his head.

  “Well, get to it. Open the shaggy door.”

  “He’s praying,” Maytera Mint explained. “He knows that he may be shot as soon as he does. He’s commending himself to High Hierax and offering the other gods what may be his final prayers as a living person.”

  “Well, make it quick!”

  “Thank you for answering my first question,” Maytera Mint said to distract Spider. “I agree that you’ve answered fully and fairly, as specified. My second may be a bit touchier. I want to point out in advance that it concerns no confidential matters of our city’s. Or of the Ayuntamiento’s, in so far as the two can be distinguished.

  “Before I ask, would you like to pray too? If there are soldiers in there, which you seem to think possible, they are more likely to shoot you than His Eminence. And if they shoot His Eminence, they will certainly shoot us as well.”

  Spider gave her a twisted grin. “How about you, General? You’re a sibyl. Why aren’t you prayin’?”

  She took out her beads and fingered them while she framed her answer. “Because I have prayed a great deal already during the past few days. I have been in danger almost constantly, and I’ve sent others into dangers far worse and prayed for them. I would only be repeating the petitions I’ve made so often. Also because I’ve told the gods again and again that I’m very willing to die if that is their will for me. If I were to pray, I would pray only that His Eminence, and you, be spared. I do so pray. Great Pas, hear my plea!”

  Spider grunted.

  “Furthermore, I don’t believe there are soldiers hiding in here. I think that what must have happened was that one of them was in here looking for something. He heard Guan come in and hid, then came out and shot Guan after Guan’s first and perhaps rather cursory examination failed to find him. Would the water have come from the storeroom?”