by Felix Gilman
—While you were idle, Creedmoor, while you were adventuring, they gained on us.
—We’ll lose them again.
—Our Enemies close in around us. The world narrows as we reach its edge. We feel a trap, Creedmoor.
—Linesmen are too stupid for traps. Without their Engines, they are stupid. Simple bad luck is our only enemy.
—Ordinarily we are the bringers of bad luck, Creedmoor.
He caught up with the Linesmen a little after dark. They marched through the night holding buzzing electric torches, wheeling their heavy guns, heads down, wordless, implacable. He crept apelike through the branches above them and watched them go by—from a safe distance, of course. Linesmen did not, as a rule, look up; they were afraid of the sky. But still, they had devices, so it was safest not to go too near.
It was hard to count their numbers—the Linesmen but scattered among the oaks in groups of twos and threes. It was out of character. Generally, the Linesmen marched in columns, in accordance with their Manual of Operations.
—Discipline’s gone lax out here.
—They are far from their masters, Creedmoor.
—They become more like us.
—They are a rabble. They are machines, breaking down. Do not indulge in sympathy for them.
—Don’t worry. I haven’t forgotten how to hate. They’re moving fast. I’ve never seen them move so fast without their machines.
—They are loyal to their masters, Creedmoor.
—They know where they’re going. How do they know where they’re going?
—We do not know. A machine?
—Maybe. I guess maybe one hundred fifty of them?
—Their numbers decline. Still far too many to fight and be sure of the outcome. It depends on what devices they carry.
—Which one’s the leader? I could kill their leader.
—Another would take his place. And you might die.
—Cowardice doesn’t suit you.
—Go, Creedmoor. Find the General.
—I will. But not for you.
—We’ll see. Run, Creedmoor. Stay ahead of them.
He ran through the treetops. The Linesmen did not look up. Within the hour, there was the unmistakable scent, not far off, of fires, and cut timber, and cattle, and fowl, and iron, and women and children. And soon he came to the end of the oaks, and looked out through a curtain of leaves across a wide waterless moat and high walls and beyond that the low log roofs of New Design, its fires banked, sleeping in the moonlight.
—A handsome little town! Better than I imagined.
—This place is a mistake, Creedmoor. These people belong in the past. Recover the General, and let us leave them to rot.
Guards in the sentry posts overlooking the moat; in the gatehouse at the edge of the bridge; standing in the streets, leaning against the log walls, holding shuttered candles . . . for a place so utterly remote in both time and space from all the violence of the world, New Design was remarkably conscious of its own security. Old habits died hard, it seemed.
Creedmoor slipped past the guards soundlessly.
—That building’s the largest, yes, my friend? Oh, I’ve been too long in the wilderness, that shabby thing looks like a palace. I’ll bet that’s where their leader is. What do you say?
—We are here to take the General back; nothing more.
—Oh, but it’s been too long since I was in a town, even such a town as this; I have an urge to raise hell, my friend.
—No, Creedmoor. Have you forgotten Kloan? And—
—Stop me, then.
—Be quick, Creedmoor.
A rusted and ancient bar-and-bolt caught Creedmoor’s eye. It was on the door to a building not far from the center of town, small, not much bigger than a shack, built so that its rough walls formed an octagon—a church? A shrine? A prison?
He snapped the bolt between his fingers and scattered the parts in the mud.
Dust, must, old paper, stale sweat—nothing living or moving. Creedmoor was wary nevertheless as he stepped inside, eyes widening to black barrel-mouths in the windowless darkness. But it was only a kind of library. Crude shelves covered each of the eight walls, in uneven and off-parallel lines. They bore texts and ledger books and heaps of old pamphlets and newspapers.
Creedmoor ran his fingers along the dusty leather spines of works of political philosophy—military history—spiritual inquiry. Oh, how pathetic, how touching, a full shelf devoted to the Smilers’ uplifting pamphlets and parables; hard to imagine who’d think that flimsy ephemera was a treasure worth spiriting away to the world’s edge. There was even, brittle and moldering, a pile of copies of the Chain-Breaker, organ of the Liberationists. How many years was it since he’d seen those pages—those earnest humorless passionate righteous exhortations? It was almost embarrassing to look at them.
—This is meaningless, Creedmoor. Move on.
—In a moment. I’m curious. This is a strange little town.
—Do as we command, Creedmoor.
Most of the shelves were worthy stuff, heavy stuff, morals and politics and high affairs, but there was a shelf near the floor stacked with old romances and boys’ adventure books. The paper was old, near as old as Creedmoor himself, but the stories promised on the covers—well, he might have picked them up just last year, back when he last passed through down the market streets in Keaton City.
—Things don’t change much, do they? Everything gets older and more worn out, but how often do we see new ideas?
—Creedmoor.
—Not that I’d claim that that was a new idea, of course.
—No. You repeat yourself. Move on.
In the center of the room stood a lectern, bearing, as if it was a relic, a thick soft-leaved book. Creedmoor stroked his finger gently down the pages, leaving a trail of grime and sweat.
—Their Charter! That takes me back. Do you recall it?
—Creedmoor, move on.
—Of course, your kind were never thinkers, or builders. This was their sacred text. This was how they ordered relations among men. . . . What do your kind care for relations among men?
—Move on, Creedmoor.
Creedmoor stood, turning the pages, shaking his gray head.
—One hardly sees it these days, back in the world. When it does surface, it’s only to be mocked. And how easily mocked it is . . . how pious its sentiments! How naïve its hopes! Oh, how worldly they thought they were being. . . . They didn’t reckon with your kind, did they, my friend?
—The Line broke the Republic. The Line drove them out of the world. We would have made allies of them.
—But that, too, would have destroyed them—your touch is poison, my friend. Oh, but look here! I confess in my old age I grow sentimental myself, and I find these folk charming. Remember their recruiters, coming red-coated through town? In the open streets outside, disdaining the low dives in which I skulked! How different things might have been had I sobered up and paid my bills and gone blinking into the light to join them! I joined stupider causes, no doubt of that. But they were so . . . so sheeplike. And I wanted to be a wolf. Somehow they sickened me. And the girls, though kind, though decent, were so plain. . . . But I, too, was young, then.
—They’d have no use for you now, Creedmoor.
—To their credit! To their credit.
—You know what you are.
—What you made me, my friend.
—You came to us, Creedmoor.
—Did I? I don’t recall.
—They would drive you out like a rabid dog. We love you, Creedmoor. Move on or we will put the Goad to you again.
A shiver of rain passed across the town. Two watchmen splashed through the mud, lanterns drawing a soft golden haze across the night. Creedmoor held still and let them pass. He turned east. He stopped and sniffed the air.
—I smell him.
—Yes, Creedmoor. The General is here.
—They’ve taken good care of him, bless ’em.
; —He’s ours.
—So you say . . . There, in that building; and I smell blood, and medicines . . . a hospital?
—We spend too much time in hospitals.
—We surely do. Our war is no longer young or fresh.
—Go, then, take him back.
—Not just yet. I detect the scent of our mutual friend, the Doctor, young Mrs. Alverhuysen, poor Liv—she’s not too far away, over there. . . .
—Yes, Creedmoor. We know. We no longer need her.
—We owe her a visit, I think, and a warning. . . .
—Are you mad? She may raise the alarm. Go to the General.
—I think not, not just yet.
—Creedmoor, do as we command.
—No.
—Have you forgotten the Goad, Creedmoor?
—I have neither forgotten nor forgiven the Goad. But I do not fear it, not just at this very peculiar moment. You need me. There is no one else. You dare not touch me. I will act as I choose. You are only a voice in my head now. You are only a passenger. You are only a bad conscience, and I have long practice ignoring the voice of conscience.
—If you will not serve us, then we do not need you and we will destroy you.
—I know. And so I will serve you. But not just yet. The woman, first.
—One day things will be different.
—One day everything will be different. One day even you may be dead.
—Careful, Creedmoor.
. . . all this taking place in an instant, between one raindrop and the next, with the fleeting of a single black rain cloud across the moon. Moonlight fell again on Creedmoor’s lined face. The rain was slackening, uncertain—a squall of wind blew cold spray past him, and that seemed nearly the last of it.
—But not today, I suppose, and not by my hand. Someday a better man than me may do it.
BOOK FIVE
THE BATTLE OF NEW DESIGN
CHAPTER 47
RAISING THE ALARM
Liv sat upright in bed, her back against the cold wooden wall, her knees pulled up under the thin old bedsheet. She listened to the Mortons making love in their bedroom, a muffled anxious occasionally high-pitched noise that had kept her awake; and she watched Creedmoor climb silently in through the window. She was only briefly surprised.
He put a finger to his lips, nodded his head in the direction of the Mortons’ bedroom, and smiled.
She said, “Good evening, Mr. Creedmoor.”
“Hello again, Liv.”
“I’ve been wondering where you were. What now?”
He moved away from the window and leaned against the wall. She saw that his clothes were ragged and bloody, and his hair was matted, and he looked appallingly tired. He stank of blood, oil, acids.
“Who have you killed, Creedmoor?”
“A very hideous monster, Liv. No one in town. How did you come here, by the way? Have they mistreated you?”
“How dare you ask me that, Creedmoor.”
He shrugged.
“I spoke to their President, Creedmoor. I suggested they ally themselves with you, against the Line. I said that you could be reasoned with. They did not believe me. Was I right?”
Creedmoor shook his head and sighed. He rubbed his lined forehead with two fingers of his left hand. He gave her a strange sly sad smile, willful and resigned at once, like the smile of a storybook poisoner as it dawns on him too late that he’s drunk from the wrong cup, that he’s finally outwitted himself, that his time and his options are suddenly closed off, that it’s too late for cunning, that at last therefore he’s free. . . .
She felt sickened, suddenly close to tears. “Creedmoor—you went back to your masters. Didn’t you?”
“They found me, Liv. There was no choice. There’s never been any choice; we are the kind of creatures we are. In its way, it’s a relief.”
“You’re a coward, Creedmoor.”
“Yes. In any case, I came here to give you a warning. The Line are not more than an hour or two away. They know where this town is. They will be here before dawn. I confess the worst part of me looks forward to the scene. I do not know exactly what weapons they have with them. At least two motor guns and two light cannon. Fire, perhaps, and possibly earth-shakers, noisemakers, poison gas, screamers, barbed wire, nightmares. I thought you deserved not to die in your sleep, at least. I suggest you flee now. Or alert the town. Or you may follow me, if you choose. You know where I’m going.”
He vanished out the window.
By the time Liv had dressed herself and put on her watch and her hunting knife and followed him outside, there was no sign of him.
—The General now, Creedmoor.
—I disappointed her, I think. She hoped for better from me.
—Foolish of her, then. No time for self-pity, Creedmoor; go to the General.
—Yes.
Liv stood in the street, listening.
Creedmoor was gone, and the town was empty, silent, touched by a light whispering rain. It was warm, and the earth under her feet was soft.
He would have gone south, she thought, past Justice Woodbury’s house, past the little octagonal book repository, across the square muddy field they used for courthouse, forum, Speaker’s Corner—past all that to the long low building Dr. Bradley called a hospital, where the town held the General in secret trust. There was silence from that direction, as from all others—but then, Creedmoor had seemed in no mood for murder. Perhaps he’d steal the General away and be gone without bloodshed.
In the silence, she thought maybe she could hear the Line coming—that she could hear the muffled slap and slide of their boots in the mud—but it was surely only the rain.
The urge to follow Creedmoor was very strong, so strong that she stared almost longingly south into the night, into the rain, past Justice Woodbury’s house where golden light spilled from the windows—Woodbury woke before dawn to study his law books, she’d heard—and not only because the General would need her, which was a very respectable concern, but also for perverse and willful and reckless reasons that she didn’t care to examine too closely, under the circumstances. . . .
Instead, she did the responsible thing: She turned her back on them and turned decisively north, toward the President’s house.
—Something is wrong here, Creedmoor.
—Everything is wrong out here.
No sounds from the hospital—no screams, no moans, no raging of dying men—hardly much of a hospital at all! That, Creedmoor thought, would change when the Line caught up to this town. Soft candlelight glowed around the edges of the canvas-hung windows. Maybe even here someone feared to sleep in the dark. . . .
—I smell him. Don’t you? Or whatever dim bloody thing your kind has in place of scent.
—Yes. Creedmoor, there is something wrong in this place.
—You never used to be such cowards.
—Do not be reckless, Creedmoor. There is something other than scent—there are subtle vibrations—there are points of density and absence—We sense things. Our kin scream at us from all over the earth and our Lodge. We must make no mistake now.
—We’ll see how it goes, won’t we?
There was no door, only a black hole hung with tarpaulin. Creedmoor brushed it aside and stepped in out of the rain.
The room stretched away to the left and right—turning an L-shaped right angle on the left side—and it was cluttered with beds—rusting wire-frame beds, folding camp beds, heavy oak-built constructions—and curtains—of silk, canvas, cloth, sheepskin, woven reeds—and shuttered lamps and two flickering candles—and all but one of the beds was empty.
—There he is. In the bed in the far corner.
—Creedmoor, there are others here—awake and armed.
—Yes. I hear them. Oh well . . .
—They know we are here. They are listening to us speak.
Creedmoor spun, weapon extended, to stare into the darkness behind him. In the next instant, he cried out in anger and threw his arm across his t
hrobbing eyes, as a sudden, blinding light blazed across the room. Not firelight, not gaslight, either, but the cold white sparking neon of the Line’s dreadful machines.
He blinked the pain away. Black silhouettes resolved themselves into three figures—no, four—watching him, at the far end of the long room, thirty, thirty-five feet away, rifles leveled at him like the accusing fingers of so many witnesses. Rifles and heavy handheld glaring electric lights. As if to step in for his dimming vision, Creedmoor’s nostrils flared; whatever these men carried, there was no smell of the Line on them. Not that that made a difference to his sudden fury; they’d hurt him. They’d thought to trap him. . . . Creedmoor raised his own weapon, and the figure in the center of his accusers—long coated, wild haired, leaning with his left hand on a stick—his face gray and leathery and spotted with age, a smooth burn scar all down it, old, but fierce; Creedmoor saw the tension in the wiry fingers clutching that stick—and the old man’s right hand holding up. . . . And the old man opened his scar-twisted mouth and shouted:
“Stop! Kill me and you kill us all!”
Creedmoor slowed his hand, just for a second. Just long enough to see that the shape in the man’s right hand was—damn it!—another of the Line’s foul little toys—and if Creedmoor did not miss his guess, if he recognized rightly the intricate little hammers and sounders and cymbals and chambers of the horrible thing, it was a bomb.
Guards stopped Liv thirty yards from the President’s house. Strong arms, fur-clad, reached out from the shadows and seized her and covered her mouth.
They hid in the hills from the Line and Gun, she thought, they fought that way for years, of course they know how to hide, how to strike from the shadows.
One of them leaned in over her shoulder. His beard scraped her face and his breath was bad. He whispered: “What’s your business here?”
She whispered, too. “The Line is here. Maybe an hour away. I came to warn the President.”
“And how would you know that?”
“You must evacuate. You must evacuate at least the children. You must save the General. You must—”