Scan McMullen - Souls in the Great Machine

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souls in the great machine

Sean McMullan

GREAT MACHINE

In Sean McMullen's glittering, dynamic, and exotic world two millennia

from now, there is no more electricity, wind engines are leading-edge

technology, librarians fight duels to settle disputes, steam power is

banned by every major religion, and a mysterious siren "Call" lures

people to their death. Nevertheless, the brilliant and ruthless

Zarvora intends to start a war in space against inconceivably ancient

nuclear battle stations.

Unbeknownst to Zarvora, however, the greatest threat to humanity is

neither a machine nor a force but her demented and implacable enemy

Lemorel, who has resurrected an obscene and evil concept from the

distant past: Total War. Souls in the Great Machine is the first

volume of Sean McMullen's brilliant future history of the world of

Greatwinter.

SOULS

IN THE

GREAT

MACHINE

TOR BOOKS BY SEAN MCMULLEN

The Centurion's Empire Souls in the Great Machine This is a work of

fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are

either fictitious or are used fictitiously.

SOULS IN THE GREAT MACHINE

portions thereof, in any form.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Edited by Jack Dann

A Tor Book

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.

175 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10010

Tor Books on the World Wide Web:

http://www.tor.com

Tor is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McMullen, Sean.

Souls in the great machine / Sean McMullen.--lst ed.

p. em.

"A Tor book."

ISBN 0312870558

I. Title.

PR9619.3.M3268S6 1999

823c21 99-21934

CIP

First Edition: June 1999

Printed in the United States of America

0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 To

Jack Dann, who has made so many things possible in Australia

PROLOGUE

The girl moved with the calm confidence of a thief who knew that she

would not be disturbed. The crew of the three-hundred-foot tower had

deserted the beam flash gallery at its summit, and the great eye of

their receptor telescope stared blankly at a tower on the eastern

horizon. Although mounted to look perpetually east for signals from

the Numurkah tower, the communications telescope could be moved through

a few degrees for adjustment and servicing. Unclamping the control

wheels of the telescope, she spun them, slowly turning the glass to

where the moon was rising. A reciprocating clock on the wall tinkled

as it reached 9:45. The calendar wheels beside it declared that it was

the 26th day of September in the Year of Greatwinter's Waning 1684.

The lunar surface was the familiar jumble of craters and mountains,

along with a faint tracery of ancient strip mines. A few deft twists

detached the standard eyepiece, but her own array of lenses and caliper

screws took longer to install and adjust. The clock rang out the tenth

hour past noon. The moon was 5 degrees above the horizon when she

finished.

The increased magnification gave a washed-out image that danced in the

air currents. Because the moon was a little past full there were

shadows near the edge, exactly where she needed them. She adjusted

movable crosshairs within her eyepiece, glanced at the clock, then

measured the length of a shadow cast by the cut of a strip mine. She

gasped, then fought down her excitement.

She repeated the measurement, then made it again with her other eye.

The readings were identical. The clock announced 10:15. She scrawled

down the figures selected another shadow, and took more measurements.

By 10:30 the elevation was nearly 10 degrees. Time seemed to

accelerate as she measured a third strip's shadow--and suddenly one of

the wheels raising the telescope reached its maximum elevation and

jammed. The vista of lunar strip mines slid out of the field of the

eyepiece.

She was aching to look back to her measurements as she lowered the tele

scope, reinstalled the standard eyepiece, and focused on the beam flash

gallery at the summit of the Numurkah tower. Some rough calculations

verified what she had already worked out in her head: the first of the

three strips that she had measured was significantly deeper than it had

been a year ago.

With a final glance around the beam flash gallery, she left for the

stairwell and began the long descent. All the way down, her mind was

racing with the implications of a 5 percent deepening in a scratch on

the lunar surface. Walking into the deserted streets of the river

port, she paused to look up at the moon. It was such a momentous

discovery, yet she could tell no one. Her entire life was becoming a

catalogue of secrets she could not share.

"Fantastic, even after two thousand years their machines still work,"

Zarvora Cybeline said aloud; then she turned to the jumble of moonlit

buildings that was the Echuca Unitech's library. "Time to build my own

machine."

CHAMPIONS

Fergen had not noticed a suspicious pattern in the pieces on the board

by the seventh move. Champions was his best game and he had even its

most exotic strategies and scenarios memorized. The Highliber advanced

a pawn to threaten his archer. The move was pure impudence, a lame

ploy to tempt him to waste the archer's shot. He moved the archer to

one side, so that his knight's flank was covered.

The Highliber sat back and tapped at the silent keys of an old

harpsichord that had been cut in half and bolted to the wall of her

office. Fergen rubbed plaster dust from his fingers. All the pieces

were covered in dust, as were the board, the furniture, and the floor.

The place was a shambles. Wires hung from holes in the ceiling, partly

completed systems of rods, pulleys, levers, pawls, gears, and shafts

were visible through gaps in the paneling, and other brass and steel

mechanisms protruded from holes in the floor. Occasionally a mechanism

would move.

Fergen gave the game his full attention, but Highliber Zarvora tapped

idly at the harpsichord keys and seldom glanced at the board. A rack

of several dozen marked gearwheels rearranged their alignment with a

soft rattle. The mechanisms were part of a signal system, the

Highliber had explained. Libris, the mayor ai library, had grown so

big that it was no longer possible to administer it using clerks and

messengers alone.

The Highliber leaned over and picked up a knight. With its base she

tipped over one of her own pawns, then another. Fergen had never

realized that she had such small, pale hands. Her knight toppled yet

another of her pawns, then turned as it finally claimed an enemy piece.

Such a tall, commanding woman, yet such small hands, thought Fergen,

mesmerized. The knight knocked another of its own pawns aside; then

his king fell.

For some moments he stared at the carnage on the board, the shock of

his defeat taking time to register. Anger, astonishment, suspicion,

incomprehension, and fear tore at him in turn. At last he looked up at

the Highliber.

"I must apologize for the surroundings again," she said in the remote

yet casual manner that she used even with the Mayor. "Did the mayhem

in here disturb your concentration?"

"Not at all," replied Fergen, rubbing his eye. Behind it the early

symptoms of a migraine headache were building. "I could play in a cow

shed and still beat anyone in the known world in less than fifty moves.

Do you know when I was last beaten at champions?"

The question had been rhetorical, but the Highliber knew the answer.

"1671 GW."

She tapped again at the silent keyboard. The little gears marked with

white dots clicked and rattled in their polished wooden frame.

"And now it's 1696," he said ruefully. "I've played you before, but

you never, never made moves like these."

"I have been practicing," she volunteered.

"You take a long time between moves, but oh, what moves. I have

learned more from this game than my previous hundred. You could take

my title from me, Highliber Zarvora, I know mastery when I see it."

The Highliber continued to tap the silent keys and glance at the row of

gears. The same slim, confident fingers that had harvested his king so

easily now flickered over the softly clacking keys in patterns that

were meaningless to Fergen.

"I am already the Highliber, the Mayor's Librarian," she said without

turning to him. "My library is Libris, the biggest in the world and

the hub of a network of libraries stretching over many may orates My

staff is more than half that of the mayoral palace. Why should your

position interest me?"

"But, but a Master of the Mayor ranks above a mere librarian,"

spluttered Fergen.

"Only in heraldic convention, Fras Gamesmaster. I enjoy a game of

champions, but my library means more to me. I shall tell nobody about

your defeat."

Fergen's face was burning hot. She could take his position, but she

did not want it! Was an insult intended? Were there grounds for a

duel? The Highliber was known to be a deadly shot with a flintlock,

and had killed several of her own staff in duels over her

modernizations in the huge library.

"Would you like another game?" asked the Highliber, facing him but

still striking at the keys.

"My head.." feels like it's been used as an anvil, Frelle Highliber."

"Well then return later," she said, typing her own symbols for /

CHAMPIONS: ELAPSED TIME? / then pressing a lever with her foot.

Fergen heard the hum of tensed wires, and the clatter of levers and

gears from within the wall. "I could teach you nothing," he said in

despair.

"You are the finest opponent that I have," replied the Highliber. "I

think it--"

She stopped in mid-sentence, staring at the row of gears.

"You will excuse me, please, there is something I must attend to," she

said, her voice suddenly tense,

"The gears and their dots have a message?"

"Yes, yes, a simple code," she said, standing quickly and taking him by

the arm. "Afternoon's compliments, Fras Gamesmaster, may your headache

pass quickly."

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soulsinthegreatmachinebySeanMcMullanGREATMACHINEInSeanMcMullen'sglittering,dynamic,andexoticworldtwomillenniafromnow,thereisnomoreelectricity,windenginesareleading-edgetechnology,librariansfightduelstosettledisputes,steampowerisbannedbyeverymajorreligion,andamysterioussiren"Call"lurespeopletotheirde...

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