Eyes of the Calculor (32 page)

"I have completed analysis of projected calculation completion dates for key computations by the St. Roger Calculor, at its current level of performance."

"And they total?"

"One hundred five years."

"Reduce that to one hundred days by the next meeting. Contact the Highliber of Libris about additional resources and techniques. Captain Andebaret, anything to report from your eunuch guards?"

"Five monks have been caught either at or within the perimeter of the nun's subprocessor. They insisted that they were repairing equipment, but there was no repair scheduled on the register."

"Seven days of cold baths and scrubbing privy barrels. What else?"

"One monk was caught within the Dragon Librarians' dormitory, with—or does that does that read within—a Dragon Librarian by the name of Frelle—"

"Thirty days of cold baths and scrubbing privy barrels, and deport the Dragon Librarian to Libris with a complaint."

"The monk was Brother Varlian."

The abbot winced.

"Brother Varlian, we can't spare you for thirty days of scrubbing privy barrels. Make that thirty strokes of the cane on your bare buttocks followed by one cold bath in salt water. Project Master Brother Pallock?"

"Stores are running down at a rate of fifteen percent faster than supplies can be—"

"Import the shortfall from the regional cities and send the invoices to Libris. Anything else?"

"No," chorused the project masters.

"Next meeting, this time plus seven days. Dismissed."

Bendigo Abandon, the Rochestrian Commonwealth

Dhadowmouse was feeling edgy about the slow speed of the wind train. The winds had been weak and variable for most of the day, and the final short stretch to the Bendigo Abandon had taken five hours. Frelle Sparrow was keeping the children amused, but he did not like the party to be near the same humans for too long. The pair of them could certainly pass for a young husband and wife, but two of the children they were escorting were eleven years old. This meant that they could help to carry the babies, but they looked too old to be children of such a young couple.

"This is pathetic, we could walk faster," said Shadowmouse as he watched the gathering dusk.

"Our contact will wait for as long as it takes," replied Frelle Sparrow.

"The contact does not worry me. It's the yokel passengers who have been trying to be friendly ever since Rochester."

"You see spies everywhere. Look, if we were going to be arrested it would have happened long ago."

"True, but I still have the feeling we're being watched."

The sky was dark but clear as they arrived at the Bendigo Rail-side. From an unimportant loading point for farmers, it had suddenly become a major gateway for people moving into the former Calldeath lands. Most of the town was tents and vendors' stalls, and even at night the market was open and everything from muskets to horses could be bought. The prices were inflated, but they reflected what people were willing to pay. Shadowmouse bought a handcart and tent, then led his family through the dusty, bonfire-lit streets as if searching for somewhere to make camp for the night.

Eventually they reached the outlying woodlands and stopped at a marker cairn. A man stepped out of the darkness and sauntered over.

"We're hunting possums here, will ye be stayin' long?" he drawled.

"Tell us of a stretch of flat, clear ground and we'll be on our way, friend," replied Shadowmouse.

"There's two horses with saddlebags for the babies," the man now hissed, his drawl gone. "How many are there?"

"Two girls, three babies."

"That's seven on two, but you're mostly small. Frelle Finch is just down that track with your horses and her pony. Go, I'll take the cart."

They took only seconds to get mounted and riding, with dark cloaks thrown over their clothing. Frelle Finch led them along a track that seemed little more than a series of less dense patches of bush-land, but at least there was no danger of meeting anyone else.

"How much longer?" asked the girl behind Frelle Sparrow after only ten minutes.

"About five hours," she hissed back.

The girl groaned.

"We had to build the wingfield far from humans," said Frelle Sparrow, "you know what humans think about engines—and aviads."

There was a distant, echoing pop. All three adults stiffened at once.

"Fras Possum, hunting his namesakes," said Frelle Finch.

There was another pop, then another, and another.

"Sounding bad," said Shadowmouse. "Those were large-bore muskets."

Frelle Finch increased the pace and they rode on in silence. Shadowmouse took the rear, with a girl riding in front of him. He kept his flintlock cocked and drawn. After the first hour there were no more distant shots, and at the third hour they reached a range of wooded hills.

"The wingfield is only an hour away, we've made good progress," Frelle Finch explained. "The hills reflect the sound of the kitewings' compression engines into the wilderness."

"But humans are pouring into the wilderness all the time," said Frelle Sparrow. "We saw at least a thousand settlers at the Bendigo Railside."

"Yes, but we have agents among them, listening for rumors of strange sounds and flying machines. So far there have been none."

"You should move farther away."

"This is five hours from the paraline. A wingfield on the coast would be ideal, but would you like to bring the children on a seven-day ride instead, hunted all the way?"

The wingfield was just clear, level ground beside the hills, but they were quickly met by two darkly dressed figures on ponies. The exchange was brief and terse.

"Finch?"

"Finch and escorts."

"Children?"

"Two, with three babies."

One of the men blew a sharp note on a whistle, then led them along the flat field. There was a faint scent of burning wood on the air, and Shadowmouse could hear a muffled chuffing in the distance.

"A still night, sound will carry," said one of the men to Frelle Finch.

"At least the babies didn't cry, they like the motion of horses."

Shadowmouse had never been all the way to the wingfield before, but there was disappointingly little to see. The chuffing got louder, then they were told to dismount. A mixture of some type of oil and alcohol was strong on the air, and what had seemed to be a grove of squat trees in Mirrorsun's light turned out to be a wide, low building. They were herded into a small, narrow room. The door was closed behind them, then Frelle Finch opened another door.

Two lamps lit the kitewing, whose engine was muffled by a long baffle pipe as it warmed up. A woman who was even shorter than the two girls was waiting beside the wing, and one of the ground crew hurried over with fleece-lined leather jackets. The babies began crying as they were strapped into their streamlined travel boxes, but noise no longer mattered by now.

"Pleased to introduce Frelles Coralen and Patrelle," said Frelle Sparrow to the flyer, who responded with a brief bow then took the girls by the arm.

"Do you know what is about to happen?" she asked.

"We're going to fly," said Patrelle.

"Do we fly in that?" asked Coralen, pointing to the kitewing.

"Yes, for four hours. Soon there will be no more humans hunting you, you will be in the Mayorate of Avian."

Shadowmouse watched as the flyer strapped the girls flat onto the lower wing, each behind a stubby windshield.

"Four hours is a long time for the babies to be unattended," said Frelle Sparrow.

"They come down just before the coast to refuel," said Frelle Finch. "That wingfleld is more secure."

"And then?" asked Shadowmouse.

"It is ninety minutes over the salt water to King Gate wingfleld." She seemed to gaze away into some vision. "One day I shall be a flyer, like her. I've been up once, and I have even worked the kite-wing's controls during ground tests. Terian says that I can qualify as a flyer when I turn eighteen."

Shadowmouse felt a twinge of envy. The flyer climbed onto the lower wing and lay flat, strapping herself behind her controls. Then the lamps were snuffed and the huge doors were pushed open. In Mirrorsun's light they could discern the flat expanse of the ascent strip as they walked outside. The baffle pipe was removed and the flyer opened the compression engine's throttle. The kitewing rolled out under its own power and continued straight down the ascent strip, the note from its exhaust steady but shatteringly loud to Shadow-mouse, who had gone days keeping his charges as quiet as possible. Suddenly the woodland on the edge of the wingfleld was lit up by a string of flashes.

The kitewing was saved by its very strangeness. The humans had never seen anything move so fast, had never seen a kite as big as a house, and had certainly never seen anything that size lift from the ground. The aviads were already returning fire as the kitewing's ungainly form rose, to be quickly lost against the dark sky.

"I knew there were too many friendly strangers about!" said Shadowmouse as he frantically reloaded in the darkness. "They must have been stalking us, even on the wind train."

"Fras Possum, those shots," said Frelle Finch.

There were two long blasts of a whistle.

"Fall back to the sheds!" shouted Frelle Finch.

Shadowmouse estimated that there were a dozen aviads gathered around him and lying flat in the grass. Fras Terian was giving orders.

"Forty or fifty humans," he estimated as bullets whizzed overhead. "Southwatch and Westwatch have whistled in, Eastwatch is silent."

"That means they followed us as we brought the children," said Shadowmouse.

"Trout, Wombat, proceed to Eastwatch and hold there. The rest of you, go with Finch."

Frelle Finch led them crawling to a scatter of low, bushy mounds. The human party had been working its way along the edge of the wingfield when the kitewing had ascended, startling some of their number into shooting and giving the aviads the alarm that the dead guard at Eastwatch had not been able to provide. A string of shots rattled out from where the kitewing had been housed, and was returned by a dishearteningly large number of flashes from the approaching humans. Shadowmouse could feel the body heat of Frelle Finch, who was lying beside him.

A fire began amid the woods, and there was a cheer from the humans as they hurried past, crouched over.

"Get down," hissed Frelle Finch. "Chain bombs."

A moment later there were five massive blasts, and a huge plume of flame erupted from the woodland. The aviads raised their heads to see the surviving humans outlined against the glow. They opened fire.

The humans lost fully half of their number in no more than seconds, but after that the fighting was both horrific and desperate. The aviads had better night vision and quicker reactions than the humans, but the humans were battle-hardened veterans. The surviving leaders rallied their men and charged back at the aviad position before the enemy could reload for another volley. Sabers flashed in the firelight against bayonets and skirmish knives. Shadowmouse parried with his empty musket, then cut with his saber at a human outlined by the fire. Frelle Sparrow fired her pistol past Shadow-mouse at another shape, then Shadowmouse found himself in a fencing duel with a skilled opponent. Shadowmouse parried against a

head cut, noted that his opponent was strong but had a much heavier saber, did a rotating half-parry, then lifted his leading foot and dropped into a lunge. The point of his saber found his opponent's throat.

Shadowmouse crouched, glancing around, saw a human with his foot on a body and thrusting down with a bayonet. He chopped his saber into the man's back. The other humans were now bunching together, their sabers and bayonets raised but defeat in their posture. Four humans faced three encircling aviads as Fras Terian came striding out of the burning ruins, his jacket smouldering and a double-barrel flintlock pistol in each hand. Shadowmouse, Frelle Sparrow, and one of the kitewing artisans had survived.

"Frelle Finch?" asked Terian.

"Under him," said Shadowmouse, with a wave of his saber. "I was not fast enough."

Terian put a pistol into his belt, then heaved the human's body off Frelle Finch and dragged it clear. He knelt beside the girl and felt for a pulse at her throat. He brushed a strand of hair from her face, then stood up and drew his other pistol again. The humans looked apprehensively from the body to Terian. The fire roared in the background, drawing a soft wind over them. Terian fired the four barrels of his two guns in rapid succession, and the screams of the humans were quickly silenced.

"My daughter," explained Terian, kneeling beside the girl's body again.

Forty-eight humans had died in the fight, for the loss of eleven aviads. Of the remaining humans, three were shot down as they guarded the horses and tracker terriers, and two more were killed as they tried to flee past Eastwatch. The terriers had been trained from birth to hunt aviads, and they barked and lunged as Terian turned on them. There were two more shots.

Terian called in the guards, and together with the others they stripped the humans of their weapons. The aviad bodies were tied to some of the horses, and barrels of compression spirit were loaded onto the others. What could not be carried was set ablaze, then they set off for the south. Each aviad was leading a line of packhorses.

Shadowmouse and Frelle Sparrow watched them ride out of the reach of the firelight.

"So, again we delivered our charges," said Frelle Sparrow.

"And lost all this," replied Shadowmouse. "She was only seventeen, did you know that?"

"Frelle Finch?"

"She wanted to fly. Now she's dead, tied to a horse and going to a hidden grave."

"But you have seen death before, Shadowmouse. You even killed the human who killed her. She's been avenged."

"It was not enough. Someone betrayed us, and I am going to go on a rat hunt."

They began riding, and were soon lost to the fire's glare amid the trees.

"I have noticed that those with glorious dreams are the ones that die first," said Frelle Sparrow after a time.