The Myst Reader (38 page)

It was the first direct question of that type Kedri had asked him, and for a moment Aitrus wondered if he might not simply ignore it, or treat it as rhetorical, but Kedri, it seemed, was waiting for an answer.

“Well, Guildsman? Have you
no
opinion on the matter?”

Master Telanis came to his rescue.

“Forgive me, Master Kedri. Guildsman Aitrus might well have an opinion, but I am sure he would be the first to admit that at twenty-five he is far too young and inexperienced to express it openly. However, if you would welcome the opinion of someone of greater years?”

Kedri laughed. “Oh, I know
your
opinion, Master Telanis. I simply thought it would be refreshing to seek a different,
younger
view on things.”

“Oh, come now, Kedri, do you really think our Masters on Council would be in the least interested in what a young guildsman—even one as brilliant as Aitrus here—has to say? Why, Lord Tulla is near on eleven times young Aitrus’s age! Do you think
he
would be interested?”

Kedri bowed his head, conceding the point.

“Then let us proceed with more important matters,” Telanis continued quickly, before Kedri might steer the conversation back onto more tricky ground. “Normally we would take bore samples at this stage, but as you are so keen to see us in action, Master Kedri, I have decided to waive those for once and go direct to drilling.”

The news seemed to cheer Kedri immensely. “Excellent!” he said, rubbing his hands together. “Will we need proective clothing of any kind?”

Master Telanis shook his head. “No. But you will need to be inside the second craft. When we drill, we drill!”

 

 

§

 

 

The node-gate was closed behind them, its airtight seal ensuring that not a single particle of rock would escape back down the tunnel. The temporary camp had been packed up and stored; the sounding capsule attached to the back of the second excavator, which now rested against the back wall of the node, slightly to the left of the bore-site. Two large observation lenses had been mounted on the ceiling to either side of the site, high up so that they’d not be hit by flying rock.

All was now ready. Master Telanis had only to give the order.

Aitrus was in the second vehicle, standing at the back of the chart room behind the Observers, who looked up at the big screen, watching as the excavator was maneuvered into place.

In operation it seemed more like something living than a machine, its sinuous, quiet movements like those of a giant snake.

Aitrus looked on with quiet satisfaction. He had first seen an excavator in action when he was four—when his father, a guildsman before him—had taken him to see the cutting of a new tunnel between the outer caverns.

Kedri, in particular, seemed impressed. He was leaning forward, staring at the screen in fascination.

“In place!” Master Telanis called out, his voice transmitted into the chart room where they sat. A moment later a siren sounded, its whine rising and then falling again.

The snout of the excavator came around and seemed almost to kiss the bore-mark on the rock face, so gentle was its touch, but the great drill bit had a brutal look to it, and as they watched, they saw the cooling fluid begin to dribble down the thick grooves of the drill.

Slowly the drill began to turn, nudging blindly into the rock, the mechanical whirr of its slow spiral accompanied by a deeper, grinding sound that seemed to climb in pitch as the bit whirred faster and faster until it was a squeal, great clouds of dust billowing out from all around it.

The noise was now deafening, the vibrations making the second excavator ring like a struck bell. Slowly the great sphere of the node filled with dust, partly obscuring their view. Yet every now and then they would glimpse the excavator again, each time buried deeper and deeper into the rock, like some ferocious, feral animal boring into the soft flesh of its victim.

From time to time there would be a clang or thud as a large fragment of rock struck their craft, but there was no danger—the excavators were built to withstand massive pressures. Even a major collapse would merely trap the machine, not crush it.

After a while, Kedri turned and looked to Aitrus. “It’s a fearsome sight,” he said, raising his voice above the din.

Aitrus nodded. The first time he had seen it he had felt a fear deep in the pit of his stomach, yet afterward, talking to his father, he had remembered it with wonder and a sense of pride that this was what his guilds-people did.

Perhaps it was even that day when he had decided to follow his father into the Guild of Surveyors.

“Watch the tail,” he shouted, indicating the screen as, briefly, the excavator came into view again. It was almost wholly in the rock now, yet even as they watched, the tail end of the craft began to lash from side to side—again like a living thing—scoring the smooth-bored wall of the tunnel with tooth-shaped gashes.

“Why does it do that?” Kedri shouted back.

“To give our men a purchase on the wall. Those gashes are where we begin to dig out the collar. It makes it much easier for us!”

Kedri nodded. “Clever. You think of everything!”

Yes
, Atrus thought,
but then we have had a thousand generations to think of everything.

 

 

§

 

 

In the sudden silence, the excavator backed out of the hole, its segmented sides coated in dust, its drill head glowing red despie the constant stream of coolant. Inside the node the dust was slowly settling.

“Can we go outside and see for ourselves now?” One of the other Observers, Ja’ir, a Master in the Guild of Writers asked.

“I am afraid not,” Aitrus answered him. “It is much too hot. Besides, you would choke on the dust. Even our men will have to wear breathing suits for a while. No, first they will have to spray the node with water to settle the dust. Then, once the drill bit has cooled a little, we shall start pumping air back into the node from outside. Only then will they start the clearing up process.”

“And the next stage of drilling?” Kedri asked, turning fully in his seat and leaning over the back of the chair to stare at Aitrus.

“That begins almost at once, Master,” Aitrus answered. “Look.”

Even as he spoke, a door opened in the side of the excavator and two young guildsmen stepped out, suited-up, air canisters feeding the sealed helmets they were wearing. They were both carrying what looked like spears, only these spears were curved and had sharp, diamond tips at the end.

“They’ll set the Cycler up straight away. We should be able to start the second stage of drilling as soon as that’s done. Meanwhile, the rest of the men will begin the clearing up operation.”

As the two suited guildsmen began to put together the great cutting hoop of the Cycler, two more stepped out, trailing flaccid lengths of hose behind them. Getting into position in the center of the platform, one of them turned and gave a hand signal. Almost at once the hoses swelled and a jet of water gushed from each, arching up into the ceiling of the great sphere. As the two men adjusted the nozzles of their hoses, the fountain of water was transformed into a fine mist that briefly seemed to fill the node.

It lasted only a minute or two, but when the water supply was cut, the node was clear of dust, though a dark paste now covered every surface.

Aitrus smiled. “If you ever wondered what we surveyors do most of the time, it’s this. Cleaning up!”

There was laughter.

“You talk as if you dislike the job, Aitrus,” Kedri said with a smile.

“Not at all. It gives me time to think.”

Kedri stared at him a moment, a thoughtful expression in his eyes, then he turned back, leaving Aitrus to wonder just what was going on inside the Legislator’s head.

 

 

§

 

 

The four Observers stepped out from the excavator, their movements slightly awkward in the unfamiliar protective suits Master Telanis had insisted they wear. Kedri, as ever, led the way, Aitrus at his side as they stepped over to the tunnel’s mouth.

The Cycler had done its job several times already and the cadets had already chipped out a section twenty spans in length and sprayed it with a coating of D’ni stone. Further down the tunnel, they could see the dark O of the central borehole running straight into the rock and, surrounding it like some strange, skeletal insect, the Cycler, encased in its translucent sheath.

Two brightly glowing fire-marbles the size of clenched fists were suspended from the ceiling. In their blazing blue-white light a number of cadets loaded rock onto a mobile trailer.

“This is more like it,” Kedri said, with an air of satisfaction. “This is just how I imagined it.”

They walked slowly toward the lamps. Surrounding them, the finished section of the tunnel had the look of permanence. Moving past the young guildsmen, they approached the rock face, stopping beneath the anchored feet of the Cycler.

They looked up, past the sleek engine of the Cycler to where its great revolving hoop was at rest against the face. The transparent sheath surrounding the Cycler was there to catch the excavated rock and channel it down into a chute that fed straight into the central borehole. From there the cadets would collect it up, using great suction hoses, and feed it into the pulverizer.

Kedri looked to Aitrus. “You remember your promise, Aitrus?”

“I have not forgotten.”

“Then what are we waiting for?”

Aitrus turned and signaled to his friend, Efanis, who was working nearby. At once, Efanis came across and, positioning himself at the controls of the Cycler, gave two long blasts on the machine’s siren.

Kedri made a face. “Yours must be the noisiest of guilds, young Aitrus. It seems you do nothing without a great blast of air beforehand!”

Aitrus smiled. It was true. If anyone was up there, they would surely hear them long before they broke through to the surface.

“If you would make sure your masks are kept down, Masters,” he said, looking from one to another. “It should be perfectly safe, but if the sheath was to be punctured your headgear should protect you.”

“Cautious,” Kedri muttered. “Ever cautious!”

Slowly the great cutting-hoop of the Cycler began to spin, slowly at first, then faster, at first only skimming the surface of the rock, whistling all the while. Then, abruptly, the whole top of the Cycler seemed to lean into the rock face, a great grinding buzz going up as if a thousand swarms of bees had all been released at once.

Chips of rock flew like hailstones against the clear, thick surface of the sheath. Slowly the arm of the Cycler raised on is hydraulics, moving toward the horizontal as the spinning cutting hoop bit deeper and deeper into the rock, carving its great O, like the outer rim of an archery target.

In less than three minutes it was done. Slowly the machine eased back, the hoop slipping from the rock, its surface steaming hot. As the Observers turned, four of the young Surveyors wheeled the great metal hoop of the brace down the tunnel toward them. They had seen already how it was mounted on the cutting hoop, then pushed into place.

So easy it seemed, yet every stage was fraught with dangers and difficulties.

As the guildsmen took over, removing the covering sheath and fitting the brace, Kedri and his fellows stood back out of their way. Only when they were finished and the brace was in place did Aitrus take them through, past the base of the Cycler and into the central borehole. It was darker here, but the piles of rock stood out against the light from outside.

Aitrus pointed to two machines that stood to one side. The first was recognizably the machine they used to gather up all the fragments of rock, a great suction hose coiling out from the squat, metallic sphere at its center. The second was small and squat, with what looked like a deep, wedge-shaped metal tray on top.

Ignoring the rock-gatherer, Aitrus stooped and, picking up one of the larger chunks of rock, handed it to Kedri. “Well, Guild Master? Do you want to feed the compounder?”

Kedri grinned and, taking the rock over to the machine, dropped it into the tray.

“What now?” he asked, looking to Aitrus.

In answer, Aitrus stepped up and pressed a button on the face of the fusion-compounder. At once a metal lid slid across over the tray. There was a low, grinding sound, and then the lid slid back. The tray was now empty.

“And the nara?”

Aitrus crouched and indicated a bulky red cylinder that rested in a mesh cage on the underside of the machine.

“The nara is kept in there,” Aitrus said, “in its basic, highly compacted form, until we need to use it.”

“But surely it would just…solidify!”

Aitrus nodded. “It does. The cylinder is just temporary; a kind of jacket used to mold the nara into a storable form. When we have enough of the nara, we load up another machine with the cylinders. In effect, that machine is little more than a large pressure-oven, operating at immensely high pressures, within which the cylinders are burned away and the nara brought back to a more volatile, and thus usable, state.”

“The sprayer, you mean?” Kedri said, staring at Aitrus in open astonishment.

Aitrus nodded.

Kedri crouched, staring at the bright red cylinder in awe, conscious of the immense power of these simple-seeming machines, then, like a school-boy who has been briefly let off the leash, he straightened up and, looking about him, began to gather up rocks and feed into the machine.

 

 

§

 

 

That night Master Telanis took Aitrus aside once more.

“I hear our friends enjoyed themselves today. That was a good idea of yours to let them operate a few of the less dangerous machines. They’re bookish types, and such types are impressed by gadgetry. And who knows, even something this small may serve to sway them for the good.”