New Writings in SF 19 - [Anthology] Read online

  ‘Are you all right, sir?’ asked Suko, alarm in his voice. The young apprentice warrior had an anxious hand stretched towards the older man’s shoulder, but had not quite dared break taboo and touch him. Araman brought his still unsteady gaze to the young man’s face and saw genuine concern. He waited, feeling his strength slowly returning. After a moment he was able to stand unaided and moved away from the wall. ‘Yes, quite all right,’ he said aloud, wondering what had made him that ill without warning.

  ‘Ware the wagon!’ called a loud voice as they resumed walking down the steep tunnel slope. Araman raised his head and saw a four-wheeled wooden mining cart just ahead, a small man crouched on a fragile platform at its head. The driver had stopped his vehicle when he saw Araman leaning helpless against the tunnel wall, Suko unable to support his sacrosanct body.

  The two men stepped to the right and mounted the narrow shelf that paralleled the twin tracks on which the cart rode, bending to avoid the low ceiling. The driver released the brake and the long wooden tongue that extended ahead of the cart slowly urged it into motion. The tongue was attached to a tilted metal bar that disappeared through a sealing flap into a twelve-inch bronze pipe, centred between the rails. Some force within the pipe pulled the slanted bar and the attached ore-filled cart up the sharp slope towards the surface.

  Suko shook his head in bewilderment as they walked to the head of the mine, where four sweating men with picks, hammers and wedges were dislodging the rich copper ore. Two others with shovels moved it back out of the way, accumulating a pile for the cart. They were also sweating profusely. Araman stepped to the opposite side of the tunnel, where a smaller pipe made of hollow reed lay just outside the tracks and placed a hand over the open end. To his experienced touch the airflow seemed weak; he made a note to have the leather ring on the piston replaced when they returned to the surface.

  ‘Master, I can understand why the fresh air flows down into the mine,’ said Suko respectfully as Araman straightened up. ‘I have seen the device you made and understand how the air-tight piston and the flaps that open and close cause the air to be pushed into the reed pipe. But I cannot understand why the piston in the bronze one pulls the cart with such force, when the pumping device on the surface pulls air out of the pipe!’

  Araman smiled slightly. He had tried to explain the vacuum principle to Suko before, with little success. Forced air pumping was close enough to moving air by a fan for the younger man’s comprehension, but the great power supplied by the weight of air behind a piston and a vacuum in front was beyond him.

  ‘Do not concern yourself now; you will learn these mysteries when you have finished your time as a warrior and enter your second period of studies,’ Araman said kindly. He bent to examine some of the fresh ore, then moved to the head of the cut. The workmen respectfully moved aside, glad enough for the chance to rest. He examined the wall carefully, moving slowly across the widening face. The information he had been given was correct; the copper vein was dividing and they would shortly have two crews at work. This was good news, but it also brought problems. One crew supplied all the ore the cart could haul away in half an hour and that was the minimum time needed to restore the vacuum after each run. If they doubled the output ... and suddenly he had an idea, and smiled as the elegant simplicity of it made success seem certain. For doubled output they would use double carts; a second could be attached to the first. The vacuum would need to be increased for the heavier load, but that was a relatively simple matter of installing another pump parallel with the existing one. And the second pump was already under construction, it having been ordered by the Avatar Bulgaruh for the second mine just getting started around the shoulder of the copper mountain. That would mean putting his foundry crew to work building a third, but they were experienced now and should be through within two weeks ...

  Araman turned away and started back for the surface, his mind busy with plans. Suko hurried after him, walking a respectful distance behind.

  Half-way up the three hundred feet of steep slope to the surface they met the cart returning, its descent slowed by the hidden piston creating anew part of the vacuum that had propelled it upward. They again mounted the ledge to let it pass. Araman found himself slightly winded when at last they reached the surface and stepped out into the bluish light of Great Zulsto, now starting to sink towards the horizon. He automatically made the placating gesture owed the greatest of gods, then gave the duty crew orders to examine the airpump piston at shift change; he expected them to find a split in the greased leather.

  An errant breeze whipped around the shoulder of the mountain, bringing him a blast, of heat from the foundry. He glanced at the long, low, open-sided building, where a busy roar of fans and clanging of hammers testified that the bronze being produced was assuming the shape of swords, ploughs, pipes, and many other useful articles. Establishing the foundry at the mouth of the mine had been his idea also. The Great Avatar had not liked seeing the weapons shop move from his City of God to the outlands, but the time saved in ore transportation had almost doubled output. The comparatively small quantities of tin needed for bronze production were easily brought in by cart. Soon they could satisfy even Bulgaruh’s voracious appetite for new weaponry, and then perhaps get on with the task of producing the far more productive tools needed by the farmers and artisans.

  Araman detoured around the giant balobeast just outside the mine entrance, patiently trudging in an endless circle whose radius was determined by the long beam it pulled. He walked to the circle’s centre to examine his first major invention. The great gear wheel, which the balobeast’s huge muscles and the leverage of the long beam spun at a steady rate, was showing signs of wear; in another month it would need replacement. The two smaller reduction gears connected at either side, one of which powered the mine air pump and the other the vacuum piston, were even more worn, but he had spares in stock for them; the larger power wheel would have to be a new casting.

  Araman walked clear of the circle while the balobeast was on the opposite side and turned towards the foundry. From two basic ingredients already well known, air and bronze, he had created a production system that would soon make the Annish the richest people in the world. No one else could produce tools and weapons on this scale. Their one weakness was a lack of tin and the Great Avatar was worried about the trade agreement with the Isoldug tribe that supplied it. Araman knew Bulgaruh was seriously thinking of turning on them and taking their mines by force, but he hoped to persuade him out of that idea. The thought of turning peaceful trading partners into subjects did not appeal to him.

  The Master Engineer walked towards his small office, where he kept two other apprentice warriors busy drawing plans for new projects. He was still some distance from the door when a dusty riding balobeast topped the last rise on the road to the City of God; the rider was pushing the animal hard. Araman paused and after a moment was able to identify the small form. Apprehension clutched at his heart; it was his twelve-year-old son, Pero.

  The youngster spotted his father at the same time and whipped his mount into a jarring trot. A moment later he slid to the ground and rushed through the formality of kneeling at his sire’s feet.

  ‘What brings you here in such haste, first-born?’ Araman asked gently as the boy rose and rushed to embrace him, a privilege accorded only to those of equal blood.

  ‘Father!’ the boy gasped, terror lingering just beneath the surface of dark brown eyes. ‘It’s—it’s mother! She—she read your papers yesterday, several of them, and this morning ... she turned them over to the Avatar Bulgaruh! The temple guards came to arrest you for sacrilege! We must flee!’

  Araman felt his breath catch in his throat. His private papers, on which he had lavished his most intimate thoughts ... ideas on forms of government, social order, religion, the office of Great Avatar ... thoughts never meant for public display. Most were less than reverential of existing institutions and the one on religion could cost him his head. To state flatly tha
t Great Zulsto was not King of all the Heavens, that faint Zan, so pale and wan in the distance, was actually much larger ... blasphemy of that sort he kept to himself, no matter how often his calculations proved him correct. And to think that he had personally taught his wife, Kristella, to read!

  Araman’s attention returned to his son, waiting impatiently on his father’s will. ‘Do you know why your mother turned my papers over to Bulgaruh?’ he asked.

  The boy’s face clouded. ‘She was praying to Great Zulsto this morning when she began crying, saying she was wicked to keep the truth from him, that her children would be eaten by demons. I did not know what she meant, but later I saw her leave your workroom with many papers and at noon the temple guards came and took all the rest. I hid and came to warn you.’

  So the final break had come, sooner than he had thought possible and far ahead of the time he would have preferred. Now his voice was between fleeing and taking a chance that enough soldiers would follow him to make victory over Bulgaruh possible.

  ‘Suko!’ he called to his aide and gave fast but clear instructions. Suko nodded and left; his memory for battle orders was far better than his understanding of vacuums. Araman dispatched a nearby slave to summon the local commander and began planning the coming campaign in his head. Bulgaruh’s first objective would be to seize the foundry; the ability to produce weapons would determine the winner if the two sides were even in numbers. This garrison must be sworn to him and left here. The closest regiment of whose loyalty he could be certain was stationed along the east border, a day’s march to the south. His friend Tantriken commanded a small army now on its way back from a victorious campaign against the barbarous Killikazees to the north and if they started a forced march that army could be inside the borders tomorrow ...

  * * * *

  By the time the blue ball of Zulsto sank below the horizon, bringing on the cooler breezes that distant yellow Zan was unable to warm, Araman was ready to leave. He had decided to ride to Tantriken and confirm his loyalty himself, though he had already sent word to the other generals whose support he expected that Tantriken had declared for him. He felt certain that his forces would almost match those of Bulgaruh.

  Araman had had little time to think about Kristella, but her dark, tormented face began to haunt him as he and a select personal guard rode hard for the north, their way clearly lighted by the faint yellow rays of Zan. Pero had wanted to come, but he was still a little young for such hard riding. Araman had long known that his wife was deeply troubled in mind about his beliefs. On the few occasions when he had tried to explain some of his theories she had protested immediately when his words went against the sacred dogma. The proofs of mathematics meant nothing to her. She believed implicitly in a longer life after this one and in the divine power of the Great Avatar to send her soul to heaven or to the jaws of demons.

  A few days past Kristella had walked into his workroom, where he had suspended a large yellow, smaller blue, and very tiny green ball on movable strings hanging from the ceiling. She seemed interested when he explained that with these he could illustrate how the world, Zulsto and Zan moved through the heavens, bringing on the seasons. He showed her how their round home swung in a constant circle around Zulsto and how Zulsto itself swung in a larger, much slower circle around Zan. He pointed out that all three bodies were aligned in a single plane, the reason Zan disappeared for a time each year when Zulsto came between their world and the more distant star. He showed her how their globe turned on its axis 180 times during each great circle around Zulsto, bringing day and night, and how the blue sun itself swung around the larger Zan only once in every eight years.

  Kristella watched intently and Araman honestly thought he was getting through to her. Then she pointed with a shaking finger and asked, ‘Do you mean that weak Zan is larger than Great Zulsto? And that our—our world turns?’

  ‘Both are true. That is why Zan disappears below the horizon ahead of Zulsto during the spring, when the world is here’—he positioned the small green ball ahead of Zulsto and swinging towards Zan in its orbit—’and Zulsto disappears first during the fall, when our world is here,’ he swung the green ball to the opposite side of Zulsto, moving away from the larger yellow sun. ‘And when we are furthest away from Zan and drawing most of our heat from Zulsto, we have winter. When we are warmed by both Zulsto and Zan,’ he moved the green ball in its circle around Zulsto, until it was between the two suns, ‘we have summer.’ He stopped, reasonably certain that this simple, graphic explanation of the seasons and the reason Zulsto and Zan alternated in disappearing first below the horizon, had made his point clear.

  Araman’s wife of fifteen years only looked troubled and said, ‘But—but anyone can see that Zan is much smaller than Zulsto and everyone knows small Zan disappears each year when it is swallowed by Zulsto, to have its dim fires renewed in the belly of the Great God! And each day we see both Gods moving across the sky, swift Zulsto outpacing weak Zan, as it has always been. How can you say these things?’

  Araman sighed and gave up; she had not understood a single word. For a mad moment, before he realised his wife’s faith in what she had been taught was invincible, he had been considering telling her some of his other thoughts. He had wanted to explain his conviction that diseases were brought to men by the bites of small poisonous creatures, not visitations by the gods. He wanted to tell her that he and Bulgaruh had studied together as children and the Avatar had no supernatural powers. Ambition had caused the portly young man the child had become to enter the priesthood, ambition had driven him relentlessly up the ranks until he reached the top and became Zulsto’s living representative among men. But he could hardly condemn Bulgaruh for that; Araman was equally ambitious. He had taken the secular route, twenty years in the army, a general’s rank, and automatic appointment as district administrator on retirement. Now as Minister of State he was the highest secular official in the country, but still subject to the authority of the Avatar.

  Araman knew the people revered him for his many contributions to their welfare; they did not fear him as they did Bulgaruh. Araman had brought the Annish the greatest prosperity they had known; Bulgaruh held their souls in thrall.

  Above all else Araman had wanted to tell Kristella that a man should be free to think and act for himself, not accept direction for every waking thought and action from the priests, but that would have been more than she could take. In the end he had said nothing and she had left his workroom disturbed but quiet. He had not dreamed she would betray his impious thoughts to Bulgaruh.

  In a way Araman was glad this irreversible break had occurred. It had long been his conviction that people who knew the truth could act in a sensible manner. Religion was essentially an irrational institution, where faith held supremacy over reason. Bulgaruh and all other dictators, whether cloaking themselves in the guise of the church or ruling with naked force, always justified their actions with claims that ignorant people could not rule themselves. Araman had slowly come to the opposite conviction and now yearned to put his theories on democratic rule into practice. If he and his partisans were successful they would learn if he was right. Araman intended to take away all secular power from the priesthood and entrust it to the hands of professional administrators. They in turn would be elected by the people, who would retain the power to remove them from office. It was Araman’s belief that the present exercise of power, from the top downward, did not inspire the people to their best efforts; a two-way flow would result in far more creative contributions at the lower levels of society.

  Both men and mounts were exhausted by the time faint Zan sank below the horizon, bringing on the pitch blackness of a cloudy night. They rested for six hours without making a real camp and when mighty Zulsto rose in blue splendour they were already in their saddles and riding. Before Zan edged over the horizon four hours later they had found Tantriken.

  The short and hardy general, soon to leave the soldier class and follow Araman into administrative serv
ice, needed little convincing. It was almost as if he had been expecting a revolt against the Avatar and found it only natural that Araman had chosen to lead it. Tantriken swiftly made truth of Araman’s message to the other generals that he was on the side of revolution. His first act was to call a staff meeting to plan strategy. There was no question of the loyalty of his men; soldiers followed where generals led.

  After that events moved at dizzying speed. Spies were dispatched to remove the wives and children of higher officers from the city. Tantriken’s army bivouacked where it was until an attack could be co-ordinated with the other field commanders, after their pronouncements of loyalty came in. Two thousand men were sent to reinforce the garrison at the foundry. Araman explained the new fighting tactics he wanted adopted to all senior officers and they began drilling their troops. The Master Engineer then started work on the details of the logistics plan that would win the war for them, if that were possible. For the moment he put aside the possibly more difficult task of convincing the bulk of the people, afterwards, that their system of religion was a fraud and their government poor.