Hood

by Laurence Dahners

  Tarc carefully separated the leads, switched them in his hands and touched them to the wires in reverse. As he’d expected, the bead didn’t light. Answering what he’d been wondering, the fuzzy stuff didn’t flow either. “The electricity can only go through the bead in one direction!” he breathed.

  Henry said, “Maybe the electricity goes through it either direction, but it just won’t make light unless it’s going a particular direction. Like a water wheel turning a sawmill. No matter which way the water flows, the wheel turns and the blade turns, but the teeth on the saw blade only cut wood one direction. Same thing, it only lights the bead when it’s flowing one way.”

  Tarc couldn’t tell Henry he’d sensed that electricity wasn’t flowing when the leads were reversed. Not without revealing his talent. Unable to think of a way to prove it, he sidestepped the point and asked a question instead, “What’re the little light beads called?”

  “We call them ‘leds’ because some of them have L-E-D written on them… Well, usually it’s written on whatever the led’s attached to. I’d heard they could make light, but I’ve never seen one do it.” (Author’s note: diodes are electronic one-way valves that only allow current flow in one direction—light emitting diodes [LEDs] are not exceptions to this rule).

  Tarc glanced up at Henry, seeing a look of awe on the man’s face. “I wonder…” Tarc paused to think, “what if we ran a pair of wires from Clancy Vail to Cooperstown?”

  Henry stared at Tarc, “That’s a hell of a lot of wire! Why would you even want do that?”

  “Imagine, I touch the wires together, then let go, briefly lighting up an led in Cooperstown.”

  “So…” Henry frowned, “So what? I don’t get it.”

  “So, it could signal something. ‘Bandits on the road,’ or something like that.”

  “To be worth all that wire, it’d have to be able to say something more than just ‘bandits on the road.’”

  “Okay, maybe it could spell things out. One flash would be ‘A,’ two flashes would be ‘B,’ etc.”

  “Geez. I’d surely hope there wouldn’t be any Zs in your message! It’d take forever to send twenty-six flashes.”

  Tarc lifted an eyebrow, “Not as long as it’d take a message to get there on horseback.”

  Henry shrugged, “Granted. But…” He frowned in thought, “For it to work you’d need to have some way to make your messages shorter. Also, how do you know when one letter stops and the next one starts?”

  “Maybe you could put a really long flash at the end of each letter.”

  “Or, a long gap between flashes.”

  Tarc looked up, “Wait, according to that notion we have four symbols. A short flash, a long flash, a short gap, and a long gap. With four symbols, I’d bet we can come up with a way to indicate each letter without having to do twenty-six flashes for Z.”

  “You could leave out some of the letters, like K and Z.”

  Tarc nodded, “An A could be one short flash, B could be one long flash, C could be one short gap—”

  Henry interrupted, “How’re you going to tell your short-gap ‘C’ from the short gap between A and B?”

  “Crap,” Tarc said with a frown. After a moment, he said, “Well, using short flashes for the first thirteen letters and long flashes for the last thirteen letters we’d be down to thirteen flashes for the longest letter rather than twenty-six.”

  “Fewer than that. Some letters could alternate short and long flashes.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Tarc said excitedly, “I’ll bet Kazy could come up with a system that’d be a lot shorter. She’s a genius with puzzles and math.”

  Henry lifted an eyebrow, “Then all we need is some rich guy that really wants to send messages from one town to another. Some guy with enough money to buy all that wire.”

  “And a supply of leds. Shall we check the rest of these to see if they work?”

  Henry nodded eagerly, “And try hooking the battery up the other way to the rest of my inventory.”

  They found that about half of Henry’s leds worked but they couldn’t get any of his other devices to do anything.

  As Tarc got up to leave, he said, “Maybe some of your electrical gizmos need a lot more electrons flowing through them than this battery can make?”

  Henry snorted, “I suppose you think I should buy a lot more copper and aluminum, huh?”

  “Of course,” Tarc said, deadpan, as he turned to go.

  ***

  Rrica stopped one of the guardsmen staffing the ghetto. “Do you know where Eva Hyllis is?”

  He pointed, “Third house on the right. But if I were you, I wouldn’t go in there. The people in that house are really sick.”

  Rrica’d encountered this sentiment before. People naturally tended to assume that sicker patients were more contagious. Trying not to sound like she was lecturing, she said, “No matter how sick they are, it’s not dangerous if there aren’t fleas to carry the plague from the sick people to you.”

  The man rolled his eyes and muttered, “Your funeral.”

  If Eva’d told him that, he would’ve believed it, Rrica thought with frustration. She started toward the indicated house. She snorted to herself, Of course, if Kazy’d told him that he would’ve really believed it. She glanced back over her shoulder at the guardsman, How old am I going to have to be before people have any confidence in what I say? She sighed, Of course, I could tell them I know this stuff because I read it in the books of the ancients’. She giggled, I could keep teaching them stuff right up till the moment they set fire to my stake.

  Rrica wiped herself down with alcohol, then opened the door of the house the guardsman had indicated and stepped inside. No one was visible. “Eva?”

  “In here,” Eva’s voice came from a second room.

  Most of the houses in the ghetto proper only had one room, so this one was relatively upscale. When Rrica stepped into the second room, the first thing she noticed was the reek of alcohol. Under that was a putrid smell.

  Eva and Ms. Rainey were attending a stricken woman. Rrica saw the woman’s groin was covered with a wet rag. She presumed it was soaked with the alcohol. It probably covered a buboe— responsible for the name “bubonic” plague—which they’d lanced. The buboes were abscesses that formed around the lymph nodes, usually in the groins and armpits. Draining them significantly increased the patient’s chance of survival, but exposure to the pus could be lethal. Therefore, they normally covered the bandage over the wound with a rag soaked in alcohol to keep the Yersinia pestis germs—which were the cause of plague—from getting out into the room with the pus.

  Everything would’ve been wiped down with alcohol before they lanced the buboe. Then cleaning up the drainage would have used a lot of alcohol as well. It was no wonder the room reeked of moonshine.

  Eva had just finished tying a soft rope around the woman’s upper arm. Now she stood. Rrica noticed one of Eva’s glass bottles full of saline hanging by a rope from a rafter. It had a coil of glass tubing coming down from it. Ms. Rainey was fitting one of their new rubber tubes over the end of the glass tubing. The rubber tube already had a cloth-covered needle on its other end.

  Rainey nodded up at Eva and Eva pulled a cork out of the glass bottle. Rrica saw fluid run down the coiled glass tubing toward the rubber tube but was distracted when Eva poured some powder into the saline through the hole the cork had come out of. “You’re giving her antibiotic through the IV?”

  Eva nodded, then put the cork back in the bottle. Rrica saw the saline had run all the way through the tubing and soaked the cloth that covered the end of the needle. Rainey looked up at Eva and Eva gave her a firm nod. Rainey bent over the distended veins at the woman’s elbow. Without hesitation, she pulled the cloth cover off the needle and stuck it into one of the big veins.

  Eva undid the rope around the woman’s arm, then stood and pulled the cork out of the bottle.

  Wondering how Rainey—without any training—had known where to insert the
needle to get it in a vein, Rrica opened her mouth to ask, then remembered that Rainey’s talent would’ve let her see the vein in three dimensions. She looked up at the bottle and saw the level of saline in it falling. “Are you going to give her the whole bottle of saline?”

  Eva nodded, “Her family fled when she got sick. She hasn’t had any water since last night. We’ve gotten her to drink a little, but she really needs to be rehydrated. Also, it’s a great way to give her antibiotic.”

  Rrica really wanted to ask whether the woman was going to make it, but the patient’s eyes were open so she couldn’t. Nursing her’s a task that wouldn’t take talent, she thought suddenly. “Um, do you need someone to stay with her?”

  Eva turned and studied Rrica appraisingly. “That’d be really helpful. You’ll need to wipe yourself and anything you touch with alcohol. Frequently. Be sure you take your prophylactic dose of doxycycline. We cleaned all the rats and mice out of this house two days ago, but there still might be some fleas hiding in her clothes and bedding. Her family did leave some clothes and sheets hanging outside. If you’ll bring them in, we’ll help you change her and her bed as soon as the IV’s done.”

  “Okay. Before I do that, I came to tell you that we’ve only found five new cases today. That’s down from twenty-five yesterday. Seven people died last night, but that’s down from thirty-three the night before. I think we’re making progress.”

  Eva nodded. “I think so too.”

  She looked exhausted.

  Chapter Four

  Tarc felt nervous as he and Roper walked into Realth. It seemed impossible that anyone in Realth could know he was responsible for the death of Philip, their previous king.

  If they did figure out he’d done in King Philip, you might think he’d be acclaimed rather than arrested, since Philip had been widely despised. However, deposing him had resulted in significant troubles in Realth while his successors battled for supremacy.

  At least the new king had struck down Realth’s laws against healing. So, if Eva ever returned this way, she’d be able to practice medicine. Otherwise, it seemed that the people didn’t like King Uray any better than they had the previous King Philip. He had a reputation for impulsive changes to Realth’s laws, capricious judgments, and, like the previous king, using temporary slavery as a punishment for breaking the law. Worse, as under King Philip, attractive young women often learned they’d broken a new law no one had heard of. They were then enslaved to King Uray himself rather than to the good of the city, as with those who broke other laws.

  Tarc would’ve stayed out of the city, but he and Roper wanted to tour Realth’s Museum of the Ancients again. They mainly hoped to find some clues to the use of electricity. Tarc thought it’d be great if they could find clues to any of the ancient technologies. Especially any that were similar to the ones he had in the underground facility back in Clancy Vail.

  After their tour of the museum, Tarc would return to his afternoon shift as a guard. Roper planned to stay in town trading with the local purveyors of ancient tech. Henry was hoping to find more lenses he could sell to people who had vision problems. So far, Tarc hadn’t told him how they’d been fitting people with corrective lenses in their clinic back home. If he told Roper they had lenses, Roper—being a trader—would want to know where they were coming from. Once again, Tarc found himself wondering whether he could get Daussie to make up a set of lenses that Tarc could sell Roper. Some of each kind of lens with more of the ones people most commonly needed. And, of course, whether Tarc could do it without divulging where the lenses had come from.

  While they waited in line to enter the museum, Tarc sent out his ghirit to listen in on the angrily whispered conversation of some people a little in front of them. “… when the king came around the corner unexpectedly. She tried to fade back into the crowd because she knew… You know, what he’d been doing to pretty young women. She wasn’t fast enough though. He pointed her out to a guard and she was promptly arrested for ‘wearing blue on a Wednesday.’ I swear, he’s inventing more and more ridiculous rules to justify arresting girls he fancies.”

  “What’d they say in court?”

  “She didn’t have a day in court. ‘King’s summary judgment,’ they called it.”

  “What’s she gonna do?”

  “Probably come home pregnant…” the man sighed resignedly. He shook his head, “And ruined. There’s nothing anyone can do…” Then, grimly, “Not if they’re crazy enough to want to keep on living.”

  Tarc felt sick to his stomach. This was exactly the kind of thing he’d shot the previous king for. Should I shoot this king too? If I do, is there any way to prevent another fight for succession? His shoulders slumped. Even if there is, whoever takes over will probably be just as bad. What I should do is go back, get Kazy and—

  Roper nudged him. “You look upset. What’s going on?”

  Tarc’s first instinct was to deny he was upset, but then he leaned close and whispered, telling Roper what he’d heard. “… makes me sick,” he finished.

  Roper looked at the whispering people in front, then, wide-eyed, he looked at Tarc. “You’ve got really good hearing.”

  Tarc shrugged acknowledgment, unable to say he’d extended his hearing.

  Roper said, “Makes you wish you could do something about it, doesn’t it?”

  Tarc nodded, wondering if Roper was a mind reader.

  Roper said, “Too bad the guy that shot the previous king isn’t still around. I hear he shot that fat bastard right on his own balcony.”

  Tarc shrugged morosely, “Didn’t do a damn bit of good. The new guy’s just as bad as the old one.” He shook his head, “Maybe worse.”

  Henry snorted, “Naw, this one hasn’t put your mother in prison.”

  Tarc snorted, “There is that.”

  “Hey, you’re a pretty good archer…” Roper trailed off thoughtfully.

  Tarc’s insides seized up at the thought that Roper’d put it all together. That he’d figured out who killed the previous king.

  Roper nudged him, “Be pretty funny if you could drop an arrow onto the palace grounds, somewhere close to this new king. It could have a note wrapped around it…”

  Tarc gave Roper a wide-eyed look.

  Roper was staring thoughtfully up into the sky. “The note could say…” he thought for another moment. “It could say, ‘Uray, Rape another woman and you’ll die the way Philip did.” Roper turned. Seeing the look on Tarc’s face, he slapped the young man on the shoulder, “Come on! I’m only joking.” He snorted, “Nice to think about though… Oh! The note could be signed, ‘Katniss.’”

  “Who the hell’s ‘Katniss?’”

  “Mythical archer girl of the ancients.”

  “Girl?”

  Henry shrugged, “If they were looking for a girl it’d throw them off.”

  “Henry, I don’t think anyone knows who ‘Katniss’ was. Just because you know ancient myths doesn’t mean everybody does.”

  “It could be signed ‘David’ then. The note’d be addressed to King Goliath. Uray’s a big guy so most people would get that reference.”

  Tarc rolled his eyes. It was time to pay their fee and enter the museum.

  But he kept thinking about Henry’s idea.

  ~~~

  Henry called Tarc over to look at a display. It was a huge object labeled “Electromagnet.” The description said that when electricity was applied to the device it became magnetic.

  Tarc asked, “Why would you waste electricity on that? Why not just use a regular magnet? One that’s on all the time?”

  “Read farther. They hung them from cranes. They could turn on the electricity and the electromagnet would grab all the steel and iron beneath it. Even big heavy things like one of their cars. The crane would then swing the car over to a new location where they’d turn off the electricity. All the steel and iron would fall right off.”

  “Oh,” Tarc said thoughtfully. “That sounds kind of cool, but I don’
t know what we’d use it for. Besides, look at the size of the wires going into it. The battery that supplied the electricity to that thing must have been enormous.”

  “They had other ways of making electricity. Things called generators. A lot of those were turned by waterwheels.”

  Tarc had continued reading the description. “Look at this,” he said pointing to a part of the writing. “It says electromagnets were simple. You just wrapped wire around and around a piece of iron.”

  “Oh. We should try that when we get back to the caravan.”

  Tarc said, “But if you wrapped wire around iron, the electricity would leak out of the wire into the iron.”

  “Yeah,” Henry said thoughtfully, “and if you wrapped layers of wire like it says, it’d leak from one loop of the wire to the next instead of going around the coil. I’ll bet magnet coils are one of the reasons they put insulation on wires.”

  Tarc could see that electromagnetic coils would be at least one good reason to insulate wire, though he thought there were probably others. He was also eager to try making their own electromagnet, though that’d depend on finding a good way to insulate wire. Unfortunately, he couldn’t think of any use for an electromagnet at present. Still, it’d be fun. And maybe if we saw it working it’d give us ideas.

  In another area, they came on a machine called a “simple printing press.” Tarc found it fascinating. It wasn’t as sophisticated as a lot of the ancient devices in the museum, but Tarc thought that might mean it’d be easier to build one. It had hundreds of little metal blocks, each one with a letter on it. They could be lined up on a tray so they formed an entire page of printing. Ink was brushed over the type, then sheets of paper were laid on top of the tray of type and pressed down with a block of wood covered in leather. When the paper was lifted off it’d have the letters written on it.

  “Henry, why aren’t we using this to print things?”