Souls in the Great Machine

by Sean McMullen

An incompetent robbery by means of the Calculor, or an attempt to frame the Archbishop? The data was encoded, so that the human lackeys did not understand the figures that they read and wrote on the orders of the Calculor. Thus the changes could have only been made through the Calculor--but who would do such a thing?

  Zarvora? Tarrin? Aside from them, there was only Lemorel herself. Tarrin was floundering badly in his attempts to program the Calculor properly, and Zarvora would not have neglected to change the checksum digit for the bank tally. A full inquiry by the Council of Mayors would result in the bank records being decoded and released to a team of clerks, and these would relate the bogus account to the Archbishop's. They would also discover the bungled changes and conclude fraud by persons unknown. Archbishop James would be declared an unfit judge, and the Highliber's case would be thrown open again.

  Lemorel looked from the keyboard to the rows of mechanical animals, then at the silver hens poised to peck at the paper tape. She unlocked the door, nodded to the guards, and made her way to the observation gallery above the Calculor. The machine was oblivious to the problems it was causing across the may orates of the Alliance and beyond. If it was given rubbish to process, it returned results that were rubbish. She walked to the data-exchange chambers, where lackeys and runners retrieved and copied data from miles of handwritten cards for the Calculor, then on to the Reference exchange, where runners were sent to the book stacks of Libris itself to answer the Calculor's questions. Such a grand concept, such a mighty tool.

  The main Reference Center in Libris was an immense domed cylinder, with the walls lined with book stacks that extended back beyond view. It was night, so there were no external readers working there, just runners on the Calculor's business. She stopped and gazed around, aware that she was standing within the memory of a vast brain. It was hers to command; should the Highliber lose her case, Tarrin would gladly give it to her.." yet only Zarvora could develop it and make it grow. Lemorel understood its usage, but not its design. She watched the runners going about their business all the way from the ground to the ninth floor. Some of their work was on her own thesis, yet if the Highliber was released she would quickly learn what had happened from the shadow logbooks that were updated at noon each day.

  The walk back to the Highliber's office seemed far longer than her tour of the entire Calculor. The Archbishop was discovered to have an association with the Wirrinya conspiracy in the investigations leading up to the extraordinary meeting of the Council of Alliance Mayors. True, the evidence was slim, not enough to have him tried for treason, but still enough to discredit his credentials to serve in Rochester. All decisions that he had made on matters of law subsequent to the Wirrinya conspiracy were invalidated, and this included his judgment in the duel between the Highliber and the Mayor's champion. It was disclosed that he had voted against the Highliber, but with his vote removed the verdict favored her two votes to one. Zarvora was freed immediately, and the Council of Alliance Mayors met a week later to declare Jefton a constitutional monarch. Zarvora Cybeline was to run the may orate as Prime Councillor--for life

  Lemorel received a summons to the Highliber's study in Libris not long after she had been freed. "I have been examining logs of certain recent work on the Calculor," Zarvora began ominously. "Tarrin's knowledge of checksums is limited, yet a certain transaction that he made, ah, outside the usual procedures, turns out to have had the checksum corrected."

  "Fras Tarrin is lucky to have loyal and competent staff, Frelle Highliber," Lemorel replied.

  "So am I. You cleaned up after Tan'in while acting as System Administrator."

  Lemorel swallowed. "Yes."

  "Why?"

  Lemorel swallowed again. "To strengthen your case with the Council."

  "Why?"

  "Curiosity, Highliber."

  "Explain." "The Calculor can do extraordinary things, yet I know nothing of its real purpose. If the tool is so very wonderful, the reason that you built it must be quite fantastic. I defended you to discover that reason. It is not to schedule trains and decode messages."

  Zarvora considered this while looking through Lemorel's personal file. "Your reason is hardly flattering and is not based on loyalty.." but I am grateful. How can I reward you? Promotion? Power? Wealth?"

  The Highliber was pleased. Lemorel felt as if she were melting with relief. "I would like to help you more directly, Highliber. In your absence I rede signed parts of the Calculor to reduce the need for checking and speed up processing Tell me more of your projects and I can design better ways to run them on the Calculor."

  Zarvora peered into a glass case where a brass orrery was standing. She moved a lever at the front of the case and it whirred and clicked into motion. "This is the year 3931 Anno Domini, that is, in the old Anglaic calendar," Zarvora said slowly as she watched the planetary motions being modeled by the clockwork. Greatwinter's Waning 1699 is 3931 AD, and the original Year of

  Greatwinter's Waning was 2232 AD."

  Lemorel thought carefully.

  "If you please, Highliber, but scholars have been arguing over those dates for centuries. How can you be so certain?"

  "It's nearly dark enough to use the observatory. Come with me."

  She slid the lever back and the orrery stopped. Her lackey Vorion hurried up to lock the study as they left. "Just before I was imprisoned the Calculor completed a massive project of sorting and correlating all the Greatwinter data known from all sources and texts. It gave me three possible dates, and using those dates and a number of preGreatwinter references to solar eclipses I did a series of double checks. One date verified to within minutes, and I was able to fill in the missing years. This is the year 3931 Anno Domini, there is no doubt about it."

  The observatory was an onion-shaped dome, whose sides hinged down like petals as the telescope rotated within to follow the movement of the sky. The eleven-inch refractor was driven by pulleys powered by weights deep below in Libris. A mechanical regulator within the observatory clicked out to the gears that drove the telescope. Zarvora spun a brass wheel and the instrument dipped until it pointed to a part of the sky opposite the vanished sun. While Zarvora adjusted the focus and checked the calibration of the alignment dials, Lemorel looked out over the city, bathed in the day's afterglow. The Wanderer star Cobleni was moving rapidly among the fixed stars. It reached the Earth's shadow and winked out.

  "The objective glass in this telescope was made in 1880 AD, yet here it is, still faithfully serving astronomy," Zarvora said as she selected an eyepiece.

  "Strange how a piece of glass could outlive so much, yet still be as good as it was the day it was made. It will probably outlive us as well."

  Lemorel continued to look out over the city. Midsummer was past, but the days were still long and hot. Water boys went about in the mayoral gardens,

  keeping exotic plants alive. Pleasure craft moved languidly on the waters of the lake, and music floated over from some distant beer party beyond the walls of

  Libris. An horlogue in the observatory beat out the eighth hour since noon. Zar vora clipped an eyepiece into position and stared through it.

  "Please observe," she said finally, standing beside the screen and folding her arms.

  Lemorel peered into the eyepiece, in which a faint, coppery star glowed steadily. It seemed dispersed, almost oval. "It's Mars, badly focused--but no, Mars is away over there. It's another planet, or perhaps a comet. Yes, a comet. That would account for the odd shape and fuzzy outline."

  Zarvora shook her head. "It is a reflection from the inside of a vast band encircling the Earth. The bright spot is from the sun's rays being focused by some sort of texturing on the inner curvature. Sometimes it appears as a starlike point, sometimes it is a thin bar of light."

  A shiver passed through Lemorel, although the night air was warm.

  "What is it? Something to do with the Call?" "Three weeks ago it was not visible, but now it has begun unfurling. Do you recall the output from that particularly l
ong Calculor run just before I was arrested? It was a date, December the twenty-seventh, 3931 AD, which is 1699 GW. It is the date of Greatwinter returning, the date of the band becoming active."

  Lemorel stared into the eyepiece again. The faint, fuzzy oval was unchanged. "Which theory of Greatwinter do you believe in?" asked Zarvora.

  "There are many theories. I favor a physical explanation rather than divine punishment. A failed experiment in the engineering of weather, perhaps."

  "An open mind, good. I shall tell you what I have pieced together. The entire world was heating up in the twenty-first Anno Domini century. Then the Call came. In the panic and anarchy that it caused, the stronger of the Anglaic nations fired things called nuclear winter bombs blindly, thereby generating dust that veiled the Earth and made summers like the coldest of winters."

  "So the Call caused Greatwinter--indirectly?" "Yes, but in that century the world was actually being threatened by a Greatsummer, could you believe it? One may orate Japan was its name, proposed to erect a huge, thin band between Earth and the moon, a shield to weaken the sunlight a little. Its plan was to send tiny machines to the moon where they would replicate themselves out of moondust. Hundreds of rockets were to seed the moon, but only one prototype had been launched by the time the Call arrived and shattered civilization. Ever since then the tiny machines from that single rocket have been building copies of themselves as well as the modular parts for that sun shield sending them out into orbit where they have been circling as a diffuse cloud. Now they are interlocking and unfurling into a vast band."

  "But the Earth is no longer warming up," said Lemorel.

  "Quite correct, Frelle, but the machines on the moon do not know that. We now have that band whether we want it or not."

  "So the Earth will cool." "Yes, Frelle Lemorel. In four hours' time we shall have a new year, 1700 GW and 3932 AD. The fuzzy star that you can just see will become plainly visible in a few weeks, and its nature will be deduced. 1699 is the last year of Greatwinter's Waning, 1700 is the first year of a new Greatwinter."

  Zarvora made a few observations, measurements, and drawings, then returned the telescope to the rest position. Lemorel helped her to close the dome.

  "It is the eve of the new year and century," said Zarvora as they stepped out onto the roof. "Do you plan to join in the celebrations tonight?"

  "I surely will, Highliber. It may well be the last such new-year revel. Tell me, though, what are all your studies of that band in the sky leading to?"

  "Just before Lewrick was shot I told him part of the answer: to be warned of a disaster is to gain great power."

  "And the other part?" "I am not totally without altruism, Frelle Lemorel. Greatwinter threatens civilization, and civilization is very much to my taste. I have been researching ways to prevent the worst effects of this second Greatwinter happening, and possibly to even stop it."

  "Does that involve the Call, and a strange abbess from beyond the deserts who eats grilled mice?"

  "So you have been reading my beam flash mail. The penalty for that is death."

  Zarvora did not sound as if she meant it.

  "I had official use of the master password, Highliber." "Not guilty, then, and case dismissed. As to the Call and the Abbess of Glenellen, yes, I have hopes of making use of them."

  The world had changed completely since Lemorel had walked into the observatory. She descended the external stone steps past the guards as Venus dipped below the horizon and a clock tower somewhere sounded half past the ninth hour. By the tenth hour she was walking the streets of Rochester. The holiday was in full cry, with dancers, drinkers, and rowdies seeming to have replaced the rest of the population. Dolorian was away in Inglewood and Lemorel did not want to be alone as the new century began. She bought a mask from a stall and removed her arm band of rank.

  By midnight she was at the University, where revelers were throwing each other into an ornamental pool. As the clock tower struck out the hour" there was a countdown, then a cheer as the new century began. Lemorel kissed several dozen revelers, and lingered with one young man who seemed unattached. They wandered back to his undergraduate lodgings, where they removed all but their masks and made love on his hard bunk. Not an act this time, she thought as they lay there. This is really me.

  With her lover for the night asleep, still masked, she slipped from the bed, dressed, and vanished from his life forever. Outside, the dawn was twenty minutes or so away, and she strode hurriedly through the streets and back to Libris. As she reached the roof she saw that the Highliber had returned there, too.

  "Come," Zarvora said, and they went to the base of the beam flash tower.

  The lift took them to the apex in a few minutes, and Zarvora led her up to the beam flash gallery's roof. "We shall see the new century first from here, Frelle Lemorel. See the glow on the horizon? It will be there. How was the city last night?"

  Lemorel hesitated, wondering if the Black Runners had been watching her. She decided that it could not possibly matter.

  "I went to the University and seduced a stranger. I... need to be taken at face value sometimes."

  "Are you still pining for your dead lover?" Zarvora's face was blank as she looked out to the brightening northeast.

  "I'm pining for a lost lover, Highliber."

  "John Glasken?"

  Outrage and revulsion surged through her. "Highliber!" she exclaimed angrily "Do not worry, I know of your liaison, but the official records have had the references sponged clean. I could not have one of my senior librarians having someone like him in her past, could I?" "Thank you Highliber, but..." "But?"

  "You offered me a reward yesterday. Now I claim it: Please don't release

  Glasken for your project to replace magnesium beam flash flares."

  "Granted," declared Zarvora once she had stopped laughing.

  "Thank you," said Lemorel, feeling very relieved. "How did you spend the eve night Highliber?" "I need to be alone a great deal, there is so much to think through," Zarvora replied--although I had company last night, she added in her mind.

  A brilliant bead gleamed on the horizon.

  "There, we are first. Look at the way the light moves down the beam flash tower, and at the land lighting up."

  They watched the dawn of the first morning of 1700 GW spread down to the rooftops and walls of the city below. Distant cheers of a few hardy revelers on rooftops floated up to them.

  "Because you did not stay for breakfast with your young man--yes, I know that it was a young man--perhaps you will eat with me," Zarvora offered as they descended the stairs to the gallery. "I have some matters to discuss about the Calculor."

  "Greatwinter calculations?"

  "Military calculations. There is to be a war." The word had a sh6eking urgency. "With the Southmoors?" "Tandara. I have been planning it for some time, and it underlay my dispute with Mayor Jefton. As you know, following my arrest Tarrin falsely implicated Archbishop James in that Wirrinya conspiracy, guessing that he had voted against me. After the Archbishop was disgraced and I was freed, Inspector Vellum Drnsas came to see me on a very urgent matter."

  Lemorel blinked at the name. "I know him, he's a friend. A librarian of the old school."

  "The old and conservative school. The Archbishop offered to make him Highliber."

  Drusas as Highliber. Lemorel gasped audibly. "When Drusas asked Archbishop James on whose authority he would do so, he cited the Mayor of Tandara. When James fell Drusas was anxious not to fall too, so he told me everything. Thus by tampering with the Archbishop's bank tally Tarrin accidentally uncovered a dangerous spy. The Mayor of Tandara knows of my intention to attack his may orate and he is both on his guard and making his own preparations. My preparations involve the Calculor and yourself, Frelle Lemorel Milderellen. The two of you are to build me a weapon that has not been seen on a battlefield for nearly two thousand years."

  COMBAT Being in charge might confer authority, but it did not create resources. Even with a do
zen edutors from the university in the FUNCTION pool and quite a few of Jefton's personal staff and guards added as menial components, Zarvora still did not have the processing power that she needed. Her biggest problem was that of recruiting Dragon Color staff. Dragon White, Yellow, Orange, and Red could be scoured from other may orates or from the University, but above that one needed either talent or years of experience. She and Lemorel had to work three weeks of eighteen hour days, but it was not until mid-January that the Calculor had finished designing the new calculor.

  "The tests took until the beginning of March," Lemorel told the meeting of Dragon Golds. "Now the battle calculor will be trained and put through its paces. It should take eight weeks."

  "We have four weeks," Zarvora interjected. "In four weeks the rail extension from Barhan to Cohuna will be complete. Add the Hunter Triangle par aline and Tandara has a huge loop of rail to supply any war that its mayor chooses to start. I've been in contact with the Mayor of Deniliquin. He thinks that there will be a showdown with the Southmoors over Finley very soon. Tandara will attack just then and seize the whole northwest. We must strike before that."

  Lemorel looked back at her figures and nodded reluctantly. "It could be done, Highliber, provided we had no serious problems at all."

  "There is the small matter of treaties," Griss pointed out. "We can supply weapons to our ally Inglewood, but no troops."

  "No troops, and only one weapon," said Zarvora. "One single, devastating weapon." Lemorel sat back, weary but triumphant. She could not match Nikalan or Mikki, but she had become a mother to a child that was their peer. She had built a new calculor and Nil(alan was to serve in it. He could not fail to be impressed, she was absolutely sure of it.

  Glasken quickly became a model component and was promoted to MULTIPLIER after only a few months. He was made to study to become a FUNCTION, a component with a number of special mathematical skills that could not be easily shared through a team. Components had two hours of free time daily after the extra work of cleaning the cells and passages, cooking, repairing damaged calculor equipment, and exercise. He used some of that time to study equations in probability and the theory of charts. FUNCTION components had a status only just below that of a Dragon Librarian, but were still prisoners. Finally he was made a trainee FUNCTION, which meant that he was apprenticed to a senior