Devices and Desires (39 page)

“This,” the foreman was saying, “is your standard production center lathe; it’s what we use for general turning, dressing
up castings, turning down diameters, facing off, all that. Driven off the overhead shaft by a two-inch leather belt; four
speeds on the box plus two sizes of flywheel, so you’ve got eight running speeds straight away, before you need to start adding
changewheels. Spindle bore diameter one and a half inches; center height above the bed twelve inches; length between centers…”

Falier smiled appreciatively. It was just a machine. He’d seen loads of them, spent hours standing beside them turning the
little wheels, reading off the scribed lines of the dials, dodging the vicious, sharp, hot blue spirals of swarf flying out
from the axis of rotation like poisoned arrows. Ziani, now, he’d loved the big machines, the way a rider loves his horse or
a falconer his falcons. To him, backlash in the leadscrew was a tragedy, like a child with a terminal illness; a snapped tap
or a badly ground parting tool was the remorseless savagery of the world directed at him personally. There was a certain manic
quality about the way Ziani had loved his work which Falier had always found vaguely disturbing. A Guildsman should be a part
of his machine — the bit on the end of the handle that turned it a specified number of turns. Passion had no part in it. Looking
back, you could see he was likely to come to a bad end.

“And over here,” the foreman went on, “you’ve got your millers; verticals that side, horizontals this side. Tool racks here;
you can see they’re all arranged in size order, slot drills on the top row, end-mills next row down, bull-noses and dovetail
cutters, flycutters, side-and-face, gang-mills, slotting saws. Collets and tee-nuts here, look, vee-blocks, couple of rotary
tables…” Falier kept himself from yawning; a lesser man would’ve given in, because the foreman wasn’t looking at him. He felt
like a prospective son-in-law meeting the whole family, right down to the last seven-year-old third cousin.

“Anyhow,” the foreman said, “that’s about it, the grand tour. If there’s anything I can help you with, anything you want to
know, just ask.”

“Thanks,” Falier said — his mouth had almost forgotten how to shape words during the long, slow circuit. “It’s going to be
a pleasure working here.”

The foreman smirked. Falier decided he loathed him, and that he’d need to be got rid of, sooner rather than later. No big
deal. “That just leaves your office,” the foreman said. “This way, up the stairs.”

The ordnance factory was an old building — ever since Falier could remember they’d been on the point of pulling it down and
rebuilding it from scratch, but the moment never quite came. Before the Reformation it had been a religious building of some
kind, a temple or a monastery. It had been gutted two centuries earlier, all the internal walls demolished to make the long,
high halls and galleries for the rows of machines, but four towers still remained, one at each corner. Bell-towers, Falier
had heard them called. Three of them housed cranes and winches, for lifting oversized sections of material. The fourth one
was the senior foreman’s office. Falier had been here once, to see Ziani. It was empty now, apart from a single chair and
a bare table (not the ones that had been there the last time he’d seen it; every last trace of Ziani had been purged). There
was no door; you looked out and down onto the factory floor, spread out in front of you like a vast, complex mechanism.

The foreman went away, leaving Falier sitting in the chair looking at the table. He was wondering what he was supposed to
do next when a boy, about twelve years old, appeared in the archway and asked if there was anything he wanted.

Falier frowned. “Who are you?”

“Bosc,” the boy replied.

“Right. What do you do around here?”

The boy thought for a moment. “What I’m told.”

“Good. In that case, get me fifty sheets of writing paper, a bottle of ink and a pen.”

That was all it took, apparently; Bosc came back in a surprisingly short time with everything he’d asked for. “Thanks,” Falier
said. “How do I find you when I need you for something?”

“Yell,” said Bosc, and went away.

Fine, Falier thought. He spread out a sheet of paper, and began writing down the things he knew he’d need to remember, before
they slipped his mind. He’d covered three sheets and was crowding the foot of a fourth when a shadow cut out his light. He
looked up. Bosc was back.

“Letter for you,” he said, and he brandished a small, folded square of parchment, presumably in case Falier wasn’t inclined
to believe him without tangible proof.

“Thanks,” Falier said. “You can go.”

Bosc went. There was nothing written on the outside, so he unfolded it. He saw writing, and folded it back up again. He yelled.

Bosc came back, almost instantaneously. Presumably he sat on the stairs when not in use, like an end-mill on its rack.

“Who brought this?” Falier asked.

“Woman,” Bosc replied. “Odd-looking.”

Falier felt muscles tighten in his stomach and chest. “Odd-looking how?”

“She was big and old and fat, her face was sort of pale pink, and she was wearing a big red dress like a tent,” Bosc said.
“She talked funny.”

“Thanks,” Falier said. “Go away.”

He counted up to twenty before unfolding the letter again. That handwriting; at first sight, you thought you’d never be able
to read it.

Falier —

The woman I’ve given this to reckons she can get it to you discreetly. Apparently, they’re good at it, years of practice.
For your sake, I hope it’s true.

In case she’s lying or overconfident: to whom it may concern. Be it known that I, Ziani Vaatzes, am writing to Falier Zenonis
for the first time since my escape from the Guildhall. He has not been in touch with me since he visited me in prison, and
he had nothing to do with my escape or subsequent defection. I’m writing to him because he’s my oldest friend in the world,
and about the only person in Mezentia who might just read this, rather than throw it straight on the nearest fire. I have
information that will prove of great value to the Republic, but what good is it if nobody’ll listen to me?

There; I hope that’ll help, if they intercept this. If not, I’m very sorry for getting you into trouble. I don’t suppose you’ll
be able to forgive me if that’s happened, but you’re the only one I could think of. If you’ve read this far, thanks, Falier.

I’m a realist. I know I can’t buy my way back home, not after what’s happened. I know that even if what I’ve found out turns
out to be as useful as I know it is, and the Republic’s saved huge quantities of money and lives, it won’t do me any good.
But just because I’m here and I did what I did to stay alive, that doesn’t change everything about me. I still believe in
the important things: the Republic, the Guild, all the really big stuff. Also, I’m hoping there’s still a chance that if I
can do something for the Republic, it might make things easier for Ariessa and Moritsa. If there’s anything I can do, that
way, it’s worth it, no matter what. And if that’s out of the question, Falier, maybe you could use it to do yourself a bit
of good; you couldn’t let on you’d got it from me, of course, but I’m sure you can think of something. You always were a smart
lad.

Falier, I don’t know how much you know about diplomacy and foreign affairs and stuff, but it looks like there’s going to be
a war soon between Eremia Montis (that’s where I am now) and the Republic. Naturally, the Republic will win. But the problem
will be storming the capital city. City; it’s more like a gigantic castle right on top of a mountain, really hard to get to
at the best of times. Trying to attack this place head on would cost millions of thalers and thousands of lives, and it’d
take years; but I know a better way, quick, easy and cheap. Piece of cake. It’s like this…

Falier read the rest of the letter slowly, trying to visualize what Ziani was talking about. He wasn’t very good at that sort
of thing; he preferred it all down on paper, diagrams and charts and plans, with someone to talk him through them and explain
what he couldn’t understand. The general principle was simple enough, though, and someone who knew about this sort of thing
would be able to follow it. His instincts told him that Ziani’s system would work, considered as a piece of engineering; assuming,
of course, that the whole thing wasn’t false — a trap, a mechanism designed to inflict harm at long range, a weapon. He was,
of course, the only man in Mezentia who knew Ziani well enough to form an opinion about that.

There was no fireplace in the office. To burn the letter, he’d have to go down the stairs (past Bosc, presumably) and walk
into the west gallery, where the forges were. He’d have to go up close to one of the forge hearths — only authorized personnel
allowed within ten feet — and lean across and drop it into the flames, with the smith and his hammermen watching. Or he could
take it home with him (that’d mean either hiding it somewhere, or carrying it around in his pocket all the rest of the day)
and burn it there. Or he could keep it.

He looked down at the folded paper in his hands, just in case it had all been a hallucination; but it was still there.

The woman;
big and old and fat, her face was sort of pale pink.
He knew enough to guess that she must’ve been a merchant, Eremian or Vadani. If she’d opened the letter and read it (no seal,
of course, to tell if she had or not; that’d have been too much to hope for) — even if she was discreet, suppose she was caught
and questioned. It’d all come out, and if he burned the letter it’d probably be worse, because he’d have disposed of Ziani’s
pathetic attempt to protect him — pretty well worthless, of course, but better than nothing, perhaps. Or Bosc; had he read
it? Could he read? Fucking Ziani, might as well have stuck a knife in his neck. Or maybe, just maybe, this wodge of paper
was a magic carpet that could carry him to places he’d never even dreamed of reaching. That was the cruelest part; not the
despair, but the hope.

No door on his office. Cursing, he sat down and pulled off his left boot, trying to keep his movements slow and casual. In
this place, people must be forever getting swarf and filings in their boots, having to take them off and put them on again.
He slipped the letter into it and replaced it, lacing it up a little tighter than usual. If ever I see Ziani again, he promised
himself, I’ll make him wish Compliance had caught up with him first; even if it’s power and wealth and glory, I’ll skin him
alive.

He stood up. He would have to spend the rest of the day walking round with the sharp corners of the letter digging into the
sole of his foot, not daring to limp or wince. He felt like a dead man; heir to an incredible fortune, maybe, but too dead
to enjoy it. Screw Ziani for trying to do the right thing. No surer recipe for a killer of men and sacker of cities than a
subtle blend of altruism and stupidity.

All day, he felt as if people were staring at him. Which of course they were, since he was the new boss, and he was stalking
round the place as though his knee-joints had been soldered up.

The first dozen ships docked at Lonazep early on a cold, gray morning, before the sea-frets had cleared. Nobody was expecting
them; they were early, or the memo had got lost on someone’s desk. They slid into existence out of the wet mist and cast anchor.
Only a few old-timers had seen anything like them before.

For one thing, they weren’t built of wood, like the honest fishing boats and merchantmen of Lonazep. Instead, they looked
to have been contrived out of long strips of thick yellow rope, twisted out of straw and stitched together. They shifted,
stretched and sagged like living things with every movement of the water. It was hard to see how they stayed afloat at all.

Furthermore, they were enormous. An ordinary trading coaster could have sailed under the prow of any one of them without fouling
its mast-head. They were so tall that nobody on the quay could see beyond the chunky rope rails, and this gave the impression
that there might not be anybody on board them at all; that they were ghost ships, or curious sea-monsters pretending to be
ships in order to get close enough to attack.

After an unusually long time, they started lowering boats, which were crammed dangerously full of men. They were all wearing
round steel helmets painted black, with tall horsehair plumes that nodded and swayed, grossly exaggerating the movements of
the heads inside them. The boats were twice the size of the Lonazep herring and tuna boats, not much shorter than the whalers,
and substantially broader in the beam; they too were made of rope, but they were powered by oars rather than sails, and they
moved across the water alarmingly fast, like spiders climbing a wall.

A group of men bustled out of the customs house, trotting down the cob so as to get there before the first boat landed. In
front was the harbormaster, followed by his inspectors and clerks, with four anxious-looking guards in no great hurry to keep
up. As he scuttled, the harbormaster kept glancing down at a sheet of paper in his hand, as if he was on his way to an exam.
He made it to the top of the steps with seconds to spare, as the first horsehair plume came up to meet him.

The face under the helmet was the same brown color as the Mezentines’, but it was bearded, long and thin. The top of the harbormaster’s
head came up to its chin.

The harbormaster was apologizing (communications breakdown, wasn’t expecting you for another fortnight, please forgive the
apparent lack of respect) but the man in the plumed helmet didn’t seem to be paying much attention. He was looking about him,
at the square stone buildings and the beached ships, as if to say that this wasn’t up to the standard he’d come to expect.

“We’re the advance party,” he said, in good Mezentine. “We caught the morning breeze. The rest’ll be along later today.”

The rest… The harbormaster’s face sagged, as though his jaw had just melted. The dozen rope ships all but filled the available
space. “The rest,” he repeated. “Excuse me, how many would that —”