The Centurion's Empire (57 page)

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."

Fergen rubbed his arm as the Highliber's lackey showed him out. The woman had all but lifted him from the ground!

Amazing strength, but to Fergen no more amazing than her victory at the champions board.
Zarvora slammed aside a small wooden panel in the wall and pulled at one of the wires dangling from the roof. After a
moment a metallic twittering and clatter arose from the brass plate set in the recess.

"System Control here, Highliber," declared a faint, hollow voice.

"What is the Calculor's status?" she snapped. "Status HALTMODE," replied the distant speaker. "What is in the
request register at present?"

"MODE: CHAMPIONS; COMMAND ELAPSED TIME?" "And the response register?" "46:30.4, Highliber."

"Forty six
hours
for a twenty-minute game of champions, Fras Controller?" shouted Zarvora, her self-control slipping
for a rare moment. "Explain."

There was a pause, punctuated by the rattle of gears. Zarvora drummed her fingers against the wall and stared at a slate
where she had written 46:30.4.

"System Controller, Highliber. Both Dexter and Sinister Registers confirm the figure."

"How could both processors come up with the same ludicrous time?"

"Why . . . yes, it is odd, but it's the sort of error that even skilled clerks make sometimes."

"The Calculor is not a skilled clerk, Fras Lewrick. It is a hundred times more powerful at arithmetic, and with its
built-in verifications, it should be
absolutely
free of errors. I want it frozen exactly as it was during that last calculation."

'That's not possible, Highliber. Many of the components from the correlator were exhausted by the end of the game.
They were relieved by components from the spares pool."

Too late, thought Zarvora. "We shall run a set of diagnostic calculations for the next hour," she said. "Do not change
any tired components. If some fall over at their desks, mark them before they are replaced."

"Highliber, the Calculor is tired. It's not wise."

"The Calculor is made of people, Fras Lewrick. People get tired, but the Calculor merely slows down."

"I'm down inside it all the time. It has moods, it feels—"

"I
designed
the Calculor, Lewrick! I know its workings better than anyone."

"As you will, Highliber."

Zarvora rubbed at her temples. She too had a headache now, but thanks to the long vibrating wire beneath the brass
plate, her discomfort remained unseen.

"You are trying to tell me something, Fras Lewrick. What is it.. . and please be honest."

"The Calculor is like a river galley, or an army, Frelle Highliber. There is a certain . . . spirit or soul about it. I
mean, ah, that just as a river galley is more than a pile of planks, oars, and sailors, so too is the Calculor more than just
a mighty engine for arithmetic. When it is tired, perhaps it sometimes lets a bad calculation through rather than
bothering to repeat it."

"It is
not
alive," she replied emphatically. "It is just a simple, powerful machine. The problem is human in origin."

"Very good, Highliber," Lewrick said stiffly. "Shall I have the correlator components flogged?"

"No! Do nothing out of the ordinary. Just check each of the function registers on both sides of the machine as you run
the diagnostic calculations. We must make it repeat its error, then isolate the section at fault. Oh, and send a jar of
tourney beer to each cell when the components are dismissed. The Calculor played well before that error."

"That would encourage the culprit, Highliber."

"Perhaps, but it is also important to reward hard work. The problem is a hole in my design, Fras Lewrick, not the
component who causes problems through it. We could take all the components out into the courtyard and shoot them, but
the hole would remain for some newly trained component to crawl through."

Libris was Rochester's Mayoral library. Its stone beamflash communications tower was over six hundred feet high and
dominated the skyline of the city. The Highliber of Libris was second only to the Mayor in power, and she controlled a
network of libraries and librarians scattered over dozens of mayorates and thousands of miles. In many ways the
Highliber was even more powerful than the Mayor. There was no dominant religion across the mayorates of the
Southeast, so the library system performed many functions of a powerful clergy. The education, communication, and
transport of every mayorate in the Southeast Alliance was under the discreet but firm coordination of the Highliber of
Rochester.

Rochester itself was not a powerful state. In fact, the other mayorates of the Southeast Alliance deliberately kept it as no
more than a rallying point, a political convenience. Neighboring mayorates such as Tandara, Deniliquin, and
Wangaratta held the real power, and wielded it shamelessly in the Councilium Chambers at Rochester. Mayor Jetton of
Rochester was the constitutional Overmayor of the Councilium, but in practice he was of little more consequence to his
peers than the servants who scrubbed the floor, dusted the tapestries, and polished the broad, red rivergum table at which
the meetings were held.

Libris was the very reason that Rochester was kept weak. A powerful mayorate controlling the vast and influential
library network would quickly become strong enough to rule the entire Alliance. The Councilium was wary of that.
Zarvora had been appointed recently, replacing a man eighty years her senior. She had become a Dragon Silver at
twenty-four, and after two years had jumped the Dragon Gold level to be appointed Dragon Black—the Highliber's rank.
There had been some luck involved: Mayor Jetton also happened to be young and ambitious, and was weary of elderly
men and women telling him what he could or could not do. Zarvora offered him the chance to make Rochester powerful,
and outlined some radical but plausible ways of doing it. He proposed her name to the Councilium, giving her the chance
to address the Mayors in person. She promised to make both Libris and the beamflash network pay for themselves within
three years or resign. The Mayors were impressed and appointed her.

Zarvora became Highliber in 1696 GW, and massive changes followed. The Tiger Dragons, Libris's internal guard, were
tripled and a branch of them was turned into the Black Runners, a secret constabulary. Parts of Libris were rebuilt and
extended, and staff and books were moved into other areas. In the workshops of the expanded library, artisans toiled
through twelve-hour shifts, day after day, month after month, making strange machinery and furniture. Carpenters,
blacksmiths, and clockmakers were recruited from far afield, and the edutors at the University were contracted to solve
odd problems in symbolic logic. Large areas of Libris were sealed from outside scrutiny.
Zarvora explained that Libris had become too big to govern manually, and that a vast signaling and coordinating division
of clerks, lackeys, and librarians had been set up to

manage its books and coordinate its activities. Indeed, the efficiency of Libris's activities improved dramatically in only a
few months, and by the end of 1696 GW, the Mayor could see real savings set against the Highliber's expenses.
There were also drastic changes in the staffing of Libris. Examinations for Dragon Red and Green were changed to favor
candidates with mathematical and mechanical backgrounds, rather than those with just knowledge of library theory and
the classics. No recruit was older than thirty-five, and several accepted options to study further at Rochester's University.
The changes did not go uncriticized, but the Highliber was dedicated and ruthless. She lobbied, fought duels, had
officials assassinated . . . and even had the more numerate of her opponents abducted for a new and novel form of forced
labor. When those obstructing her had been outside Libris, it had been necessary to arrange other means to push them
aside. In the case of Fertokli Fergen, Master of Mayoral Boardgames, she had used humiliation.