Clockwork Souls (6 page)

There were some loud shouts of approval, followed by a round
of hushing. No one wanted to wake up the white folks.

“Wait a minute,” someone said. “That part about ‘in
rebellion against the United States.’ What does that mean?”

“It means it doesn’t apply to us,” Davy said. “It only frees
people in the states still fighting. Maryland’s always been in the Union.”

No one spoke for a moment, and then another man said, “What
we doing out here then?”

“Because they’re going to have to free us, sooner or later.
It’ll take time, but if they’re going to get rid of slavery in the states that
rebelled, they’re going to have to get rid of it in the ones that stayed in the
union. We need to plan for it.”

That drew a lot of discussion, pro and con, but Jasmine wasn’t
listening. That proclamation, it freed ensouled automatons, but not the other
kind. That’s why Calvert wanted to be sure she didn’t make the new ones
ensouled. And why he was so willing to offer her freedom if she worked her butt
off. He figured the slaves were going to be freed in Maryland sooner or later—her
included—and he was building up a workforce to replace the humans. No wonder
he’d liked the idea of a “machine” that could make other machines. He was a man
who thought ahead.

She wasn’t just making him slaves to buy her own freedom.
She was ensuring he’d have slaves forever, even if they weren’t people.

Jasmine was surprised by how much that bothered her.

“What was that about the metalmen?” someone asked.

“The proclamation treats ensouled metalmen the same as other
slaves.”

“But they ain’t human. They’re just machines.”

“No, they’re not,” Jasmine said. “They may not be the same
as us, but they’re a lot more than machines.”

“Nothing personal, Jas. I know you make ’em and you do good
work. But why should something that’s made be treated the same as people who are
born?”

It was a good question and she didn’t have a good answer.
The metalmen thought and reasoned, certainly, but did they feel the same way
people did? She thought so, and she didn’t even know any ensouled metalmen,
just ordinary ones. But it was a gut feeling on her part, nothing she could
explain to anyone else.

Davy answered him. “The ensoulment process puts souls from
people who recently died into the metalmen. That’s why. It changes them from
just machines.”

Jasmine wanted to argue with that, too. The ones without
souls were still more than machines. But it was clear that didn’t make any
difference. The ordinary kind would take the place of human slaves, and the
slaveholders would continue to prosper. Calvert would continue to prosper. She
would make it possible, by making him a large number of mechanical slaves.

After the meeting, Jasmine sought out Benjamin. “You know
anything about ensouling metalmen?”

“I know old man Calvert don’t hold with it. If you’re
thinking of doing something with the ones you’re making, you’re just gonna make
him mad.”

“I just want to know more. I don’t even know how it works.”

“Well, the priest probably knows something, but if you ask
him you might as well tell Calvert, because he will for sure.”

Everyone knew of slaves who had gone to confession and ended
up in trouble with their owners, because the priest didn’t treat their
confessions with the same privacy accorded to the free. “Can you think of
anyone else?”

“They say some of the other churches believe in ensoulment, but
there ain’t any of them around here. I think your best chance might be Bess,
over on that place across the Patuxent.”

Bess was said to practice some kind of African religion.
Jasmine didn’t know what. She didn’t know much about Africa, except that she had
ancestors from somewhere there. What she knew about religion came from white
people, and given how different they acted from the way the priest talked,
their ideas about God didn’t impress her much. But they did leave her afraid of
what everyone condemned as pagan and primitive.

“Would meeting up with her be safe?”

“Safer than thinking about ensouling Calvert’s metalmen. You’re
already stepping over the line, child. Might as well go farther.”

“Don’t tell anyone I’m asking,” she said.

“I’m not a priest. I keep everybody’s secrets. Probably go
to my grave with a whole lot of ’em.”

The blacksmith on the place where Bess lived was
considered the best in Southern Maryland. Jasmine “discovered” a problem with
her drill—she had blunted it on purpose—and got permission to go visit him to
get a new one.

“You could probably fix it,” Calvert had said.

“Yes, sir, but it might fail again. And with all this work
to do. . . .”

The blacksmith said it would take him a couple of hours.
That gave Jasmine time to do some visiting. She’d brought some hair ribbons her
mother had made from sewing scraps to give to their cousins. Since it was cold
out, most folks were working indoors and could take some time to chat. By
visiting with first one cousin and then another friend, she gradually made her
way to Bess, whose main job was gentling horses.

Jasmine had brought a little homebrew with her. She’d been
told Bess liked her nip in the evenings. But she couldn’t keep her stomach from
fluttering and the first sight of Bess didn’t reassure her.

Bess was big—a head taller than Jasmine, who was considered
tall herself, and twice as wide. Her hair was close-cropped and silver,
contrasting with the blackness of her skin. Despite her obvious age, she had
few wrinkles, which made the scars on her face more prominent. Jasmine couldn’t
tell if they were marks made on purpose or from injuries.

The old woman looked amused when Jasmine presented the
homebrew. She opened the jar, sniffed it. “What you really after, girl?” Her
accent had a foreign sound to it.

Jasmine took a deep breath. “Someone said you might know
something about ensouling automatons.”

“That’s right. You that girl that makes the metalmen for the
Calverts. Is old Charles Calvert gonna defy the pope and ensoul his machines?”
Bess laughed, as if she knew that was ridiculous.

“I just heard about the proclamation, the one that frees
slaves, and it included ensouled metalmen. I know a lot about metalmen, but I
never met any with souls.”

“Frees those folks in the rebel states, but not us,” Bess
said.

“My brother thinks it means they’ll have to free everybody
sooner or later.”

“He may be right, but there’ll be a lot of suffering to come
before it happens. And maybe after. So you want to ensoul these metalmen you’re
making for Calvert, so that maybe he won’t be able to keep them if things
change?”

“No, no. I just want to know.” It wasn’t quite a lie. She
hadn’t made up her mind yet. Had she?

Bess laughed. She looked at Jasmine in a way that made her
feel like Bess’s eyes had cut open her skull and were peering down into the
basic workings of her brain.

“I haven’t decided to do anything,” Jasmine said, trying to
sound firm even though she was shaking. “I’m not even sure what difference
ensoulment makes.”

“Makes ’em something more than a machine.”

“But they’re something more than that now. The first ones I
made, they could only do the tasks I made them for—planting or harvesting or
cleaning. But the ones I’m making now can do many different things, even change
from what they were originally meant for. Right now I’m making one that will be
able to build metalmen on its own.”

“They’re still machines.”

“Do machines think? Because my metalmen can think.” She hadn’t
meant to say this, hadn’t even been sure she wanted to acknowledge it to herself,
much less anyone else. But she couldn’t help herself. The old woman was doing
something to her, she was sure of it.

“You some kind of god, child? Making creatures that can
think?”

“I just hook them up and give them the jolt that makes them
work. They make themselves into something more.” Jasmine hadn’t ever thought of
that idea before, but when she said it, it sounded true. Whatever Bess was
doing to her seemed to be helping her figure out why the idea automatons might
be kept as slaves bothered her so much.

“Hmm. You something unusual, child. Someone who can see more
than what everybody else does. I see it, too. The metalmen are more than
machines, ensouled or not. But most people, they ain’t gonna accept that
without a little woo-woo.”

“If I wanted to get some of mine ensouled, could you do it?”
There. She’d said the words.

“Not me, child. I speak to souls; I don’t move ’em around.
And since your metalmen actually belong to old Calvert, you’re treading on the
thin ice trying to do this.”

“But—”

“But you’re a young woman and you still think right and
wrong matter. And keeping something that can think as a slave is wrong—as both
you and I have reason to know. I can’t help you, but I know someone who can,
over on Somervelt’s Island.”

“Is this person some kind of magician or priest?”

“It ain’t even a person. Why would a person handle the
spirit side of things for metalmen?”

“Oh.” A metalman. It made sense, in a weird sort of way. “Is
it on some big place over there?”

“Nah. It don’t belong to nobody. Lives out in the woods,
with a few others of its kind. I hear they call it Preacher. It’s kinda crazy.
Dangerous, too, probably. Maybe more than me.” Bess laughed.

Jasmine felt a shiver run up her spine. She’d been
comfortable with this old woman for a few minutes, and now she was scared
again. She wanted to just leave, forget they’d had the conversation, but she
took a deep breath and willed herself to stay where she was. “So how do I find
this Preacher?”

“I like your guts, child. You don’t need to find it; it’ll
find you once it hears about all the metalmen you making. I’ll make sure of it.”

Jasmine could tell she was being dismissed. “I thank you for
your help.”

“You take care, child. You’re playing in murky waters here.
Freedom sounds like a wonderful thing, but it’s gonna be a long time before it
means for you and me what it means for white folks.”

Jasmine nodded and took her leave. It was only after she
picked up her drill and started for home across the river that she realized she
hadn’t mentioned Calvert’s promise of her freedom. Maybe Bess had just been
referring to the likely emancipation to come, but somehow she didn’t think so.

Jasmine had modified two harvesting metalmen to take over
cutting and shaping the metal for the housings. She focused her own work on
making a creature who could handle the design and building tasks she herself
performed. Could she really make something that could do things as well as she
could? Was that even a good thing? Did it make her less important, if a
mechanical creature could do her work? Had the man who had taught her the craft
felt that way about a colored slave who could do his work?

And would this Preacher metalman show up? And if it did,
would it be able to talk? She’d never made a metalman who could speak, wasn’t
sure she could figure out a way to give one vocal chords.

Benjamin dropped by to give her the latest news. Calvert was
going up to Washington City for a couple of weeks to do some business and
taking his sons and foreman with him.

“Wonder why he’d do that?” Jasmine asked.

The old man shrugged. “Probably trying to make sure he doesn’t
lose everything once this war ends. Anyway, things’ll be a bit more relaxed
around here for a while.”

“Not for me. I got too much work to do.”

“Easier to do the work when the boss man ain’t dropping by
every few hours to make sure you doing it.”

That was so true it made Jasmine wonder if Bess had somehow
engineered this, even though she couldn’t imagine how. If the woman had that
kind of power, how come she was still a slave?

Preacher showed up the day after Calvert left.

It was past sunset, but Jasmine was still in her workshop,
fastening hands with fingers on them onto her new metalman. This one was not
yet activated, but thunderstorms were common this time of year. Jasmine wanted
to finish hooking up the fingers before she took it to the tower to give it the
jolt of electricity that gave metalmen life. The tower—a narrow stone silo—housed
a length of iron attached to a lightning rod that reached higher than nearby
trees. Lightning almost always struck it during a storm.