Eyes of the Calculor (11 page)

"I need to do one last test," said the medician. "Can you fetch a pitcher of cold water and a facecloth?"

As soon as Harren was out of the room Torumasen took the band from his pocket. Written on its inner surface in precise, angular letters were words in one of the ancient languages: SERIES 2 PROTOTYPE. He slipped the band around Velesti's neck and pressed the ends together. Almost at once he noticed that it was growing warm. Very warm. Velesti did not move. Within moments the band was too hot to touch. It was going to kill her! Its mechanism had probably failed in the two thousand years since it had been fashioned. He wrapped a handkerchief around his fingers and tried to tear it away, but it was changing color and melting into her skin. All that he could do was gently replace her head on the pillow. He felt for a pulse, but there was none.

Torumasen slumped to the floor beside the bed. What else could he have expected? The device had been two thousand years old, of course it would malfunction. Velsti was dead, he had killed her. . . but at least he had been trying to help. Harren appeared at the door, holding the pitcher and a cloth.

"Glin, what is the matter?" he asked.

"I applied a—a medicinal band to her neck, but to no avail. She is gone."

The pitcher fell from his hands, to smash and splash water across the carpet as Harren ran forward. He flung himself on his daughter's lifeless body, sobbing and beating the pillow with his fists. Toru-masen slowly got to his feet, then took his friend by the shoulders and drew him away from the bed.

"Farewell, Velesti, it moved my heart to see you looking so beautiful," said the medician, gazing at the pale, gaunt, but strangely radiant face on the pillow before turning with his inconsolable friend and guiding him to the door.

Harren's wife, their son Reclor, Velesti's maid Julica, and the groom were gathered in the parlor when the two men returned downstairs. The circle of eyes was focused on Harren, but he said nothing as Torumasen helped him to a chair.

"Velesti is dead," the medician announced.

Harren's wife Elene cried out, then rushed to her husband's side and flung her arms around him. Julica fell to her knees, sobbing, but Reclor merely hugged his folded arms harder against his chest while his lips tightened to a thin, sharp line. The youth wore a medium bore flintlock at his right thigh. He was still too young to go armed in public, but ever since the attack he had strapped the gun on as soon as he returned home.

"Velesti has not suffered for many weeks," Torumasen explained. "Either through injury or revulsion, her mind probably fled to some dark corner within herself and slowly wasted away."

"But if her mind had fled, surely it might have crept back again," sobbed Julica, her eyes glistening as she wrung her hands.

"I have known that to happen. Folk have lain as dead for weeks, then returned to their senses for no obvious reason. Some reported that they heard their loved ones reading and talking to them, and that they journeyed toward the familiar voices through a strange and empty wasteland."

"I have been doing just that," cried Julica.

"But to return she had to want to return," explained the medi-cian. "I only—"

Suddenly a piercing shriek echoed out from somewhere above them. Everyone froze for a moment, then looked to each other as if to confirm that the sound had been real. A moment later they were scrambling for the stairs.

Velesti was on the floor beside the bed, trying to raise herself on her arms and shaking her head as if to clear it.

"She's alive!" cried Julica, standing with her hands pressed to her cheeks.

Velesti looked up into her eyes, then hauled herself to her feet and stood for the first time in two months.

"Misar?" the girl whispered.

"Vel, you should be in bed," said Harren, stepping forward and taking her arm.

Velesti twisted out of his grip, spun him around and pushed him away. Harren staggered, stumbled, and fell to the thick carpet. For a moment everyone stood back, staring as Velesti stood swaying beside her bed. Her eyes were huge and round in her gaunt face.

"Misar?" she rasped again.

"Who is Misar?" asked Torumasen.

"I don't know," replied Julica.

"One of those who ravished her?" suggested Elene. "Or perhaps a secret sweetheart?"

Velesti ignored them, slowly bringing her hands up and staring at them. She ran her fingers over her face, then down her neck and chest. As she felt her breasts she screamed again and collapsed. Julica darted forward and caught her.

"Velesti, do you know me?" pleaded Julica over and over as she helped her back to the bed. "Julica, it's Julica! You're safe now."

Velesti opened her eyes again and stared at her. Her lips moved soundlessly, and she frowned with concentration.

"Julica?"

"Yes, yes. Don't you remember me?"

"Julica . . . soure mie . . . ah—my sister?"

Julica flung herself across Velesti, now sobbing with relief as the others crowded around the bed.

"No, no, but as dear to me as a sister. I have been your maid for five years."

Julica now sat up, but immediately Velesti seized her arm and drew herself up too.

"Do not leave!" she said with a subtle but distinct accent, looking fearfully around at the others. "Who are these?"

"Your father, your mother, your brother Reclor, Parrel the groom, and Fras Torumasen, your medician. He brought you back from the dead."

"So weak," said Velesti, still clinging to Julica.

"You've not eaten for two months," said Julica. "It was all that we could do to get you to swallow a little soup."

"Food," said Velesti.

"Are you hungry?" asked Julica.

Even as they watched, the fear went out of Velesti's face, to be replaced by something else. Something hard, sharp, and very, very cold. She held her arms before her, rotating them and frowning as if displeased.

"Food, yes, I. . . need it," replied Velesti. "So weak."

A bed tray was fetched, and a bowl of mutton soup followed within minutes. Velesti grimaced as the liquid reached her cramped stomach, but kept eating. Torumasen discreetly questioned the girl, and observed how she spoke with her family. An hour later Velesti was resting and the medician was at the door, preparing to leave.

"I have seen cases like this before," said Torumasen. "She retains language, manners, and such skills as writing or using a spoon, but she has lost all other memories."

"She did not recognize us at all," said Harren, his arms around his wife.

"There has been damage within her head that has taken until now to heal. Look after her carefully, do not let her become agitated over anything for at least a month or she may revert to being a beautiful but dying sleeper again. In time, her memories will slowly start to return."

"Even of the attack?"

"The attack? Possible, but unlikely. It was so traumatic that she will probably try to hide from it for the rest of her life."

"So those murdering rapists will go unpunished?" asked Reclor, who was standing back in the shadows.

"Well, I too would like justice, but at least we have not lost Velesti."

Julica joined them, looking worried.

"She is alive, but her brain is scarred," concluded the medician. "Let her do whatever makes her feel secure, and gradually bring her back into normal life."

"Anything?" asked Julica.

"Anything. For now it is more important to have her feeling secure. Absolute comfort and security, that will give her the confidence to come out of her shell. Be loving and kind, but do not press yourselves upon her. I shall be back in a few days, but if she has a relapse you must call me at once. Meantime, I have given her a list of light exercises to do, to restore tone to her muscles and build up her strength. I have explained that she must concentrate on doing them, it will provide a focus for her as she recovers. Julica, you must be sure to help her with them, and encourage her to persist if she appears to be giving up. This is a very important duty for you. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Fras Medician, I shall be diligent."

Julica hurried back up the stairs as Torumasen left, but paused as she reached Velesti's door. She had raised her hand to knock when she heard a slow, creaking sound, followed by a soft thump. It happened again, and again. Julica knocked. The sound stopped.

"Yes?" came Velesti's voice.

"It's Julica, Vel. Are you all right?"

"Yes."

"Can I help?

This time there was a longer pause, but finally Velesti said "Yes."

Julica heard footsteps, and the bolt slid back. As the door opened Julica saw that her mistress was dressed in silk pyjamas and North-moor sandals, and had bound her hair into a makeshift ponytail. The room looked normal, and Velesti was now more steady on her feet.

"Sit on the edge," said Velesti, pointing to the bed, "and keep your legs up."

Julica did as she was told, then Velesti lay on the floor with her head just under the bed. Do whatever she asks, thought Julica, the medician had said something like that. Suddenly she felt the bed rising and she gasped with alarm.

"Sit still... or leave," grunted Velesti.

"But Vel, what are you doing? You're weak, you should be in the bed, not lifting—"

She caught herself, remembering what the medician had said about encouraging Velesti to do the exercises.

"Bed . . . too light," explained Velesti, pushing Julica up for the fifth time. "Need weight. You."

Julica clung to the edge of the bed, utterly astonished. Only two hours ago Velesti had been pronounced dead, and even after she had come back to life she had barely been able to stand. After eight lifts Velesti stopped to rest.

"Is that all?" asked Julica.

"Three repeats," panted Velesti. "Of eight."

"Oh. And then you rest?"

"No. Then there are other things to do. You can help."

To Julica, the exercises seemed onerous, even to a girl in good health, but then her mistress had come back to life under Toruma-sen's care so he obviously knew what he was doing.

Velesti began to push the bed up again. At the end of the exercise she was trembling like a frightened puppy and soaked in perspiration, but determined to go on. Two hours later she declared that she was finished. Velesti and Julica sat on the edge of the bed. Velesti was shivering, pale and haggard, but strangely alive with a cold, alien energy.

"And now will you sleep, Vel, darling?" pleaded Julica, almost in tears.

"Not until I eat," said Velesti. "Again."

"Oh, yes, whatever you say. There is some soup—"

"I want a steak."

"A steak. Yes, of course."

"And two eggs, carrots, lettuce, cheese, whole grain bread—and water, a pitcher of water."

It was two hours past midnight before Velesti was finally asleep, and even then it was on the floor, beneath blankets, and with an iron poker from the fireplace in her hand. Before dawn she was up again, back at her exercises.

Siding Springs Monastery, Central Confederation

Brother Tontare was not so high in status at the Siding Springs Monastery that he could requisition any telescope in the observato-rium whenever he wished. Whenever he had a project that he wanted to pursue, a project that required one of the really large, ancient telescopes, he had to convince the Director of Schedules of its importance. This was generally no easy task.

"Why do you need the forty-inch telescope to study a mere lunar eclipse?" the director asked. "There is nothing to be learned that we do not already know."

"Not the lunar eclipse by the earth but Mirrorsun. I want to watch Mirrorsun's shadow pass across the moon's surface."

"That happens nearly every month. The orbital mathematics are interesting, but were worked out soon after Mirrorsun assumed its present form, twenty years ago."

Brother Tontare opened his folder and handed a sketch to the director. As artwork it was nothing special. The monk had placed certain key craters accurately but had paid no attention to fine detail. The shadow of Mirrorsun was an almost straight line along the lunar surface, slashed hurriedly across the disk. On this sketch, however, there were also three odd serrations.

"The sketch was done three days from full moon, so that some of the detail that we are seeing is from the back of Mirrorsun, the side facing away from the earth."

The director scrutinized the drawing again. The three serrations were evenly spaced, and one was right on the very edge of the lunar

disk. Five more rough sketches with precise times appended showed more of the serrations. All had the umbra and penumbra clearly marked; Brother Tontare was precise with his observations.

"These have never been seen before," said the director. "Are you certain about them? Could they have been some distortion in the telescope?"

"I used the ten-inch waterwheel refractor, and have had the Regulator of Lenses and Mirrors check it subsequently."

The Regulator of Lenses and Mirrors was not known to be an idle dreamer, in fact he was one of the most cold, precise, pedantic monks in the monastery's observatorium.

"If this is a true and accurate observation, these shadows represent truly immense objects growing out of the back of the Mir-rorsun band. You should look into the mathematics of the shadows, then report back to me."

"Learned Brother, I already have," Brother Tontare insisted.

He went to the door and opened it, then called to someone waiting in the corridor. The stooped, haunted, but smiling figure of Brother Nikalan entered. He was leaning heavily on a cane, and looked more to be in his eighties than the fifty-five years of his real age. The director was never comfortable in Nikalan's presence. The man had a past, and was not entirely sane. He was not a virgin, he had traveled, been a slave in the original Libris Calculor, and he had even been a favorite of the notorious warlord Lemorel Milderellen. Nikalan's life had been everything that the director's had not. In mathematics, the tragic man was without peer.

Nikalan limped over to where the sketches were lying on the director's desk and bent over at an even more alarming angle to peer down at them.

"Ah, Mirrorsun's paddles," he said with animation, as if recognizing an old friend. "Very significant."

The director leaned forward at the word "significant." Science was not his forte, but political intrigue, hierarchical precedence, and anything that anyone else might find significant was something that he could understand.

"You say the serrations are significant, Brother Nikalan. Could you explain yourself?"

"The paddles may be significant, Brother. I cannot comment upon them."

"Brother Nikalan, you just said that they were very significant."

"Ah no, Brother. I paused, to imply a full stop after paddles. Very significant was a separate sentence."

"So the paddles are not significant?"

"I did not say that; I cannot know that. Neither can you."

It was well known that the director had his position because nobody else wanted it, and because he had few skills in mathematics and no patience for observational astronomy. The less that people understood about science, the harder Nikalan worked to force them to think. The Director of Schedules took this as a slight to his authority. In this, the director was correct.

"Tell me what makes you say the word 'significant,' " he said, his patience beginning to fray.

"These paddles, of course," replied Nikalan.

The director closed his eyes, took three deep, slow breaths and forced a blank, black calm into his mind. He could register a disciplinary complaint against Brother Nikalan, but that was a sure path to humiliation in a monasterial tribunal. He glared at Brother Tontare.

"Please leave us, Brother Tontare," he ordered.

With Tontare gone, the director felt a lot happier, although one could not have described him as actually being happy. Nikalan liked to make people think in the same way that drill sergeants liked to make recruits run long distances carrying muskets and wearing packs full of stones. The director's prospects of enduring the next few minutes without being made to look like an absolute idiot were not at all good, so he had decided that he could at least make sure that it did not happen in front of an audience. In a silent act of grudging surrender to his mathematical drill sergeant, the director began to think.

"Are the paddles telling us something?" he asked.

"Oh yes, is it not clear?" responded Nikalan.

"Not to me, Brother Nikalan, no. Suppose that you explain it to me."

"But I already have, here," said Nikalan, pointing to a dozen or so lines of figures.

The figures bore symbols that were used in astronomical calculations. The words "orbital velocity" and "significant positive anomaly" appeared beside "3%" and all of them were on the last line of the calculations. Clearly they were a conclusion.

Unaccustomed thought was producing the feeling of uncomfortable pressure within the director's head. What was orbiting faster than it should have been? The moon? Mirrorsun? The earth? The shadows were of the Mirrorsun paddles moving across the face of the moon, and the monastic astronomers knew things about the moon, like its size and how far away it was, and even how fast it orbited the earth. Were Mirrorsun's paddles making the moon orbit faster? He opened his mouth to voice this opinion, then closed it again. The speed of the moon could be measured at any time. The paddles could only be seen from Earth when their shadows were cast on the lunar surface, so the paddles were what was moving too fast. All that was visible on Mirrorsun's inner surface was the distorted reflection of the sun, otherwise it was just a featureless, dark band; one could not directly determine what speed it moved at. Suddenly the director had his conclusion.

"Mirrorsun is spinning faster than it ought to be," he announced, beads of perspiration visible on his forehead.

"Yes, very good," said Nikalan.

"And it is accelerating."

"Even better."

"Why is this important?" he asked before he could stop himself.

"Mirrorsun might break," replied Nikalan.

Mirrorsun might break. Mirrorsun had an area bigger than the combined landmasses of the earth. Even though it was thought to be no more than inches thick, its absolute weight would be truly immense. It was also said to be intelligent, to be controlled by an immense, ancient calculating machine actually capable of reasoning. It was a weapon too, it had destroyed an entire army just over two

decades earlier. Was it sick? Was it mad? Did those terms have any meaning for it? Would it endanger the earth?

"Were Mirrorsun to break, its fragments would fly away from the earth," said the director.

"But the dynamics of orbiting, flexible fragments of band are not well understood," replied Nikalan. "They could fly into highly elliptical orbits, with the aphelions near the orbit of the moon, and the perihelions below the surface of the earth."

Again the director had to think. A perihelion below the surface of the earth. This was clearly impossible, of course. The fragments would have to tunnel through solid rock at thousands of miles per hour. Yes, clearly impossible. The worst that might happen would be that a fragment of Mirrorsun the size of quite a large mayorate might slam into the earth. This would merely leave a large crater. A crater . . . farther across than the Director of Schedules had ever traveled in his entire life!!

"I am going to recommend to the abbot that every telescope in the monastery be turned upon the moon for the next eclipse," declared the director. "What is more, monks with portable telescopes must be sent to other mayorates in case of cloud. I shall also recommend that the observational monasteries at Cowra, Griffith, and Euroa be alerted to the danger and urged to make appropriate observations. It is vital to know whether the Mirrorsun band is rotating any faster at the next lunar eclipse."

"A very reasonable reaction," responded Nikalan.

The director dipped a quill into the inkwell and began to draft a note to the abbot. Nikalan stood peering over his shoulder, making occasional suggestions. After a half hour the Director of Schedules emerged with Nikalan, nodded to Brother Tontare and hurried off along the corridor. Tontare stood up and went after Nikalan as he shuffled slowly away in the opposite direction from the abbot's rooms.

"Was he sympathetic?" asked Tontare.

"Better still, he was actually frightened."

I he abbot read the note carefully the second time. The first had been just a scan for the general meaning and importance. "Craters the size of entire mayorates" had secured his undivided attention. He read it a third time before looking up.

"Observations by Brother Tontare, analysis by Brother Nikalan, recommendation by Brother Disparon," said the abbot. "A very young and junior observational monk, a much older and very peculiar analyst monk, and an administrative monk not known for expertise in either of the aforesaid fields. How do you account for this?"

"We are a team," replied Brother Disparon with some accuracy, "but the importance is in the conclusion."

"Oh, I agree, but do we really have to turn every telescope in all four of the Logistican Order's monasteries to the moon on the night of October the seventh? Why not two lesser instruments here, with a third at Euroa? That would give us an indication of whether we have to look more closely the following month if the matter looks to be serious."

"By which time we would have two moderately accurate observations, to which a highly accurate observation would then be added on November the fourth. Better to have a comparison between at least two highly accurate observations."

Now it was the abbot who was being forced to think, for Disparon knew his politics as well as Nikalan knew his mathematics. Three decades ago the great observational monasteries had missed both the mining activities of the ancient automata on the lunar surface and the first signs that Mirrorsun band was forming in a much lower Earth orbit. The order had been severely humiliated as a result. As a further result, the abbot of the time had been forcibly retired by the Christian Church of Supreme Knowledge, the order's parent body and the largest Christian church on the continent.