Eyes of the Calculor

Book 3: Greatwinter Trilogy

by Sean Mcmullen

Genres: Science Fiction

Synopsis

In Sean McMullen's glittering, dynamic, and exotic world two thousand years in the future, librarians fight duels to settle disputes, there is no electricity, fueled engines are banned by every major religion in Australica, humanity has split into two species, and intelligent cetezoids rule the oceans.

In space, the enigmatic Mirrorsun has begun to spin. Immense solar sails are pushing vast amounts of energy into its ancient orbital band, energy that could tear it apart--or be directed down at Earth. Already the hypnotic Call has ceased, and all electrical machines have been reduced to molten metal. A religious prophet has risen and is attempting to bring together the entire continent of Australica under her rule.

Meanwhile, her diesel-powered sailwing shot down by religious fanatics, the American princess Samondel is forced to set aside her trade-seeking mission and disguise herself as a student. Her only friends are a disgraced monk who is a member of the secret police and a beautiful young librarian who is a dangerous and unstable psychopath. From these unlikely friendships she must form an alliance between two continents and two species, and prevent ultimate war.

Fundamentally, unexpectedly, things are changing everywhere. As catastrophe looms and civilization begins to crumble, the Dragon Librarians of Australica have just one means left to hold their world together: to kidnap every numerate person on the continent and rebuild their out-of-date human-powered computer--the Calculor.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Release date: December 7, 2003

Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

Print pages: 592

Sample

1

TOUCH OF APOCALYPSE

Twelve miles above Eastern Australica

Relations between Earth's intelligent species had been less than satisfactory for a very long time. For several hundred years humans had hunted whales and dolphins so intensively that many of their clans, attractens, and associons were wiped out. Those memories were fresh and raw when the humans managed to revive a cetacean warrior from a civilization older than the human race itself, a warrior skilled in the ways of warfare that had unleashed an undersea Armageddon nine million years earlier. There is nothing like a common enemy to inspire unity, and humanity was certainly that. The Call, a mind weapon, began to sweep over the land, permanently blanketing some areas, especially near the coast. Lured to the sea to drown, or held starving in a mindless reverie, the human population declined by nearly three orders of magnitude. The cetezoids could easily have wiped Homo sapiens from the earth, but then there would have been no common enemy left. Humanity was suffered to survive through sheer political convenience.
In the dying years of the Anglaic civilization, however, one last and desperate attempt was made to counter the cetaceans' weapon. Noting that birds were not affected by the Call, some of the last genetic engineers on the continent of Australia added tracts of bird DNA to the human genome. Overseas, frightened and confused armies flung nuclear weapons at each other, then chaos descended in the form of a nightmare winter that lasted centuries. As the world warmed again it was noticed that some people were immune to the Call, people who were also lighter, stronger, faster, and generally more intelligent than humans. These bird-people, the aviads, were slaughtered whenever they were recognized, and the genocide continued for two thousand years. Slowly, unobtrusively, the aviads began to organize their own nations in areas permanently blanketed by the cetezoids' Call, and their hatred for humanity was no less intense than that of the cetezoids. Within the Calldeath lands they were safe, secure beyond the reach of humans and their predilection to annihilate anything superior than themselves.
Then, on the 13th of September, A.D. 3961 the Call ceased to exist. Completely. Humans were free from the Call weapon that had ravaged their numbers and rendered vast areas of land uninhabitable for two millennia. The aviads of the continent now known as Australica were suddenly at the mercy of a human population a thousand times its number.
Fortunately this happened just as the only member of Earth's newest intelligent species decided to annihilate all electrical machines on the face of the planet. This was not entirely coincidence either, for the fourth intelligence had once been an aviad.
* * *
The sunwing Titan was a half mile in wingspan but barely fifty feet in length. It was pure wing, nothing more than a wing powered by electrical motors driven by direct or stored sunlight. Two thousand years earlier it had been designed to cruise the stratosphere forever, regenerating ozone to restore the delicate balance of Earth's atmosphere, never landing, self-repairing. It was an island of habitat in the sky. An air pressure of just below that of sea level was maintained by pumps to strengthen the Titan's structure, and waste heat provided warmth for the cabins were where maintenance crews had been meant to live. The aviads had boarded the Titan, removed the ozone generators, and learned to steer it. Aviads could now cross human territory without fear of lynch mobs, torture, and inquisitions. They could even cross oceans.
The Titan was cruising twelve miles above southeastern Australica on the 13th day of September 1729 in the Greatwinter calendar of Australica, and 3961 in the Anno Domini calendar of North America. There were twenty-two aviad souls aboard the huge wing: three crew and nineteen passengers.
Captain Raffe Terian seldom steered the Titan. As captain he tended the running and security of the town-sized wing, managing the provisions, waste disposal, security, and maintenance of the living areas. He had a bridge from which he could adjust the course, but in practice this was little more than his office. This trip was quite routine, it was merely to transport aviad refugees from the humans' Carpenteria mayorate of the far north to Tasmania Island, where the mayorate of Avian was barely six years old. It was ironic that so many aviads were often born to human parents, so that the humans who hated them were their best source of recruits. Terian noted that they were above the Cenral Confederation's lands, but borders made little difference at a height of twelve miles. Even crawling along at an airspeed of just seventy miles per hour they would be above Tasmania Island in twelve hours.
"It is hard to believe that there is a battlefield down there," said Watch Officer Varel, standing at the observation plate with her arms folded behind her back.
"The Central Confederation and the Southmoors, I believe," replied Captain Terian. "It is nice to see humans killing each other instead of us."
"With respect, Fras, I never like to see anyone killing anyone," retorted Varel.
"Spoken like someone shielded from the tender attentions of a human mob, Watch Officer. What has been your background with humans?"
"I have been shot twice and raped once during the course of recruiting five dozen aviad brethren from among the humans. I have also killed eleven times."
Terian shook his head. "After all that, you still have a trace of compassion for the human exterminators?"
"They are just afraid of us, Fras Captain. Aviads are so much better in so many ways."
"That does not make it any more pleasant to be killed by them. Some factions say we should kill them all—"
The console before the captain suddenly hissed, then billowed acrid smoke. The light strips blackened and failed too, but clear panels in the roof allowed light from Mirrorsun to illuminate the interior of the Titan. Everything electrical had smoked, melted, or exploded at the same instant.
"What in all hells has happened?" demanded Captain Terian, fanning at the smoke between him and the ruined console.
"The nearest engine pod is trailing smoke, Fras Captain," reported Varel, staring through a roof panel. "Its propeller is just spinning unpowered."
"Get up to the navigation bubble, check if any others have failed."
Watch Officer Seegan burst into the bridge as Varel was climbing the steps. He reported that there was smoke everywhere, and that the passengers were beginning to panic.
"All engine pods are trailing smoke, Fras Captain," called Varel from the navigation bubble. "Some propellers have jammed, others are just spinning unpowered."
"All?" cried the incredulous captain.
"All that I can see from here."
"Then we are going to lose the sunwing."
By now the smoke was dispersing, but in the distance someone was having hysterics and screaming that they were all going to die.
"Even with total loss of power this thing will take over two hours to glide to the ground," Terian pointed out as he hurriedly thought through some figures he had learned for an examination years earlier. "That gives us space to breathe."
"Fras Captain, breathing could actually be a problem; we are also losing air pressure," reported Seegan, staring at a large mechanical dial. "We will be dead ninety minutes before the air can be breathed."
Terian closed his eyes and put his hands over his ears as he thought for a frantic moment.
"Perhaps not," he decided. "Draw your guns, come with me."
Although there had been safety drills aboard the Titan, there was no precedent for total failure of all electrical systems with no warning whatsoever. They were at twice the height of Mount Everest, although none of them knew of Mount Everest as anything more than a folktale.
The first thought of the passengers was to escape from the smoke, and the evacuation drills had made the location of the parachutes common knowledge. One of the musketeers strapped on a parachute, then led a group of passengers to the ferry bay of the Titan. The ramp was normally released by electrical relays when at lower altitudes, but now the switches remained firmly locked. Selecting an area of the low, sloping roof, the musketeer began slashing at the tough fabric. The already depleted air rushed out all the more quickly, sucking acrid smoke and fumes from the sunwing.
Eight of the passengers tumbled out through the hole, but within minutes five of them were dead, suffocated as they hung from their parachute straps in the rarefied air. Three others knew that survival depended upon reaching breathable air quickly, and did not open their parachutes. By the time they had reached denser air, however, they were dead from the wind chill. They had been dressed for the warm, comfortable cabins of the Titan.
Back aboard the crippled sunwing another three had died, suffocated by the smoke, but the captain had been quick to grasp what options were available for those aboard the doomed craft. Crippled the Titan might be, but it was descending in a long, shallow glide and would take a very long time to hit the ground. He and the two officers left the smoking control deck, shouting for all that could hear to make for the captain's cabin, and to ignore the parachutes. He got a mixed reception from the passengers, and even his authority could not convince them that true safety did not lie with immediate escape. The captain seized a woman who was leading her two children aft, shouting at her to come with him. A confused man knocked him to the deck and tried to lead the family away. Watch Officer Varel shot the man dead.
Fifteen minutes after the catastrophic failure, three more passengers on the Titan were dead, asphyxiated in the corridors whose air pressure had by now become equal with the rarefied atmosphere outside. After half an hour the sunwing had shed six miles of its height and was down to thirty thousand feet. In the captain's cabin, two men, three women, and two children were huddled together in the increasing cold, yet they could still breathe. The cabin was air-tight, and had contained no electrical devices. Through the single forward observation plate they watched as detail on the Mirrorsunlit ground gradually grew more distinct. They moved little. One of the crew, a monk of the Avianese Gentheist Church, talked them through meditative breathing exercises. They were down to eighteen thousand feet at the end of the first hour. Slowly the captain bled the air from the cabin, and breathing became more difficult.
"I thought the idea was to save air," said the mother of the children.
"The Titan is descending more slowly in the denser air, so I don't know how long it will take to reach a level safe for parachuting."
"What do you mean?"
"The pressure in here is that of two thousand feet above the ground, and we are nine times higher. The air outside can be breathed but it is very thin. Decompression sickness will soon kill us if we open the door and jump now, so we need to slowly accustom our bodies to the lower pressure."
"And if we are approaching the salt water before we are accustomed?"
"Then we take a chance and jump anyway."
After two hours they were a mere mile above ground.
"We are over Southmoor territory," said the captain. "Not a good place to jump."
"Fras Captain, will we reach the Rochestrian Commonwealth?" asked the watch officer.
"Yes. In ten minutes, I estimate. Now listen to me, and listen carefully. The pressure outside must be nearly the same as in here, so I am about to open the door. Go to your cabins and collect all your money and papers. Put on the heaviest clothing and boots that you have, then come back here for your parachutes."
The air outside the cabin was cold but breathable as they emerged, but Captain Terian discovered another problem. There had only been twelve parachutes aboard the Titan. Eight had been taken by those who had jumped at twelve miles.
The passengers quickly returned, dressed in coats and boots. The officers shed their jackets for bush coats.
"The mother, Watch Officer Varel, Frelle Tarmia, and yourself will have parachutes," the captain said to Seegan as he helped him into a parachute's harness. "You and Varel can hold a child each as you jump."
"That is only six of us, Fras Captain."
"I know. You will have to look after the group on the ground. Get them to Rochester and the safe house."
"You are going down with the wing?"
"In the absence of any realistic suggestions to the contrary, yes. I hereby surrender my authority to you, beginning when the Titan crashes."
Two hours and forty-five minutes after the invisible pulse of electromagnetic energy had crippled the Titan, the captain helped the six other survivors out through the rent in the sunwing's fabric made by the musketeer. In another five minutes all six were alive and gathering together on the ground in the darkness while the sunwing glided on, trailing smoke from the central section. Aboard the Titan, the fires set by the captain consumed sensitive documents and maps while he exchanged clothing with one of the dead passengers.
The ground was very close as the captain selected a bulkhead and put his back to it. A minute went by, another, then yet another. With a ground speed of fifty miles per hour, the Titan scraped trees, fences, and bushes, then ploughed into lush grass and rich soil. Branches, posts, and rocks gouged through living cellulose spars, ribs, and fabric. Bushes and small trees were torn from the ground, and electrical engines were ripped from their mountings and went tumbling across the fields. Then there was silence and stillness.
The full span of the Titan lay like a crumpled blue ribbon across the green pastures of the northern Rochestrian Commonwealth, still complete to a distant viewer, but internally shattered, with its belly torn out. Over two dozen sheep had died as they slept, shepherds had run screaming, mothers in nearby hamlets had dragged their children under the beds, the Kyabram town militia had been called out, and every dog that had been under the Titan's glide path was barking hysterically. It was dawn before anyone dared to approach the immense wreck, and it was to be several days before it had been completely explored. No survivors were found.
Some distance away, Watch Officer Seegan quickly gathered the survivors together and had the parachutes bundled and buried. He led his charges across a field, then along a hedge-fringed lane, walking for a dot on a line map that he had salvaged. As they hurried through the darkness, they rehearsed their story and roles.
"So who are we?" Seegan asked the youngest child for the third time.
"We're hikers, returning from a picnic."
"And where do we come from?"
"The Central Confederation. We're going to the paraline wayside, to take the pedal train to Rochester."
"Good, good. And what do you say if anyone asks you if you saw the huge flying thing?"
"My mother told me not to talk to strangers."
"Excellent, you have it."
By now they had turned onto a cattle track and were picking their way wearily among the muddy puddles and piles of droppings.
"How much further?" asked the child peevishly.
"According to the map five miles, but walk slowly; we want to arrive after dawn. Now try to look as if you enjoy this sort of thing. Remember, everyone, we are aviads and this is a human mayorate. The actual killing of aviads has been illegal in the Rochestrian Commonwealth for the past twenty years, but a lynch mob of yokels will not bother about fine points of legislation."
It took many hours of hard and determined tramping to reach the wayside. The dot on the map that denoted Stanhope wayside was transformed into an earth and timber platform, a rain shelter, the wayside master's cottage, some sheep pens, and a dozen cottages. As the sun rose the children sat sullenly, huddled together for warmth. The adults bought tickets and bread at the wayside kiosk.
"Did you see that thing that flew over?" asked the serving girl.
"The long thing, trailing smoke and flames, yes, we did, from our camp," replied Watch Officer Seegan.
"I was so frightened. My Garren and I, we were awake and, well, we were awake. He grabbed his birdshot musket and set off after it with the Stanhope town militia. Garren's so brave."
"But it was flying. How could they catch it?"
"Oh, it crashed. You can just see the wreck from the town's lookout tower."
"Oh. Does he think it might be dangerous?"
"Silly, it's not alive," the girl giggled. "It's like a paraline train, just a machine. Except that it's pushed by forbidden engines, not honest muscle. Garren says they might capture evil heretics in the wreck and turn them over to the Gentheist church."
"Ah, yes. Good, good."
"They're bird people, those aviads. Dirty folk, they sleep in big nests made of twigs, and lay eggs."
"Really? I have never met any."
"Strange things happenin'. Why, a couple of hours before that thing crashed, the wayside master's new clock and desk calculor both burned, and at exactly the same time, too. Both powered by electrical essence, they were. Electrical essence is really lightning, you know. What I says is that lightning is always lightning, you just can't tame it. My, we were runnin' about with pails of sand and water, he were lucky that the cottage didn't burn down."
"How amazing! We were far from all that. Close to nature. That is the saying of all hikers: Close to nature, close to Deity."
"Aye, yes, that's good. Where are you folk from? You don't sound like locals."
"Hah, you are very observant. We are from the Central Confederation, on a holiday. The Confederation Guild of Accountants Hiking Club. See, my papers."
"Oooh. Sorry, like, I don't read."
"We have just hiked from Kyabram. Lovely city."
"You hiked from Kyabram? Gor, you're lucky to still be alive and carryin' your purse. Dangerous country, freebooters, you know."
"Really? We were not told."
"You should always check at the city constable's watchouse."
"Really? In future, we shall do that always. Now we are going to Rochester to see the sights."
"Rochester, eh? My Garren once went there. He were beaten up and robbed."
"Really? We must be careful."
Their accents were unusual to the girl, but their Austaric was easily intelligible. Minutes later the white form of a pedal train appeared on the paraline tracks, and the Titan's survivors gathered together as the long bentwood and canvas pedal train reached the wayside. The train's guards eyed the group carefully before deciding that they were harmless. They climbed aboard into the pairs of double cabins, settled into the benches, and prepared to push. The train's captain blew his warning whistle, then everyone aboard strained against the pedals as the brake blocks were released and the long, sleek train glided out of the wayside.
Seegan was alone in his cabin, and felt like doing anything but pedal for the two hours needed to reach Rochester. The Titan was gone, ripped from the skies by a disaster that should not have been possible. It had been built of independent modules, yet every system on the gigantic aircraft had failed. How? he kept asking himself. Sabotage? That was unlikely, as most of the Titan had been inaccessible. Somehow it had been just too big to crash, to be aboard the Titan was like walking on solid ground. He pushed listlessly at the pedals, thinking of the captain. He had gone down with the stricken giant, he had taken responsibility for the catastrophe that was none of his doing. Beyond the window slit the late winter sun was slowly climbing in the northeastern sky. The pedal train began to slow for the next wayside. They were to pass through Cooper and the junction town of Elmore before reaching Rochester itself. Cooper wayside was even smaller than Stanhope, and there was only a single figure on the platform. A shuffling, weary figure, bowed with fatigue, all muddied and—the watch officer scrambled to open his cabin's hatch.
"Fras Terian, over here!" he called, even before the pedal train had stopped.
He raced back along the platform, then escorted the captain up to his cabin, talking loudly all the way.
"How many times have I told you, stick together when we go hiking. There are freebooters in this country, you were lucky you weren't robbed. The rest of us were worried sick about you. In here, there's a space in my cabin."
In all, the captain of the Titan had saved seven out of twentytwo who had been aboard, including all of the women and children. His stricken craft had taken almost three hours to crash, but he had been there until the very end. Now he did not even have the strength to pedal. He sat listlessly, watching the sky, trees, and pastureland.
"So, the crash was not too bad?" asked Seegan.
"No crash is good," Terian replied.
"But it was good enough that you survived."
"What can I say? I stood with my back to a bulkhead and waited. There were a few lurches, then everything wrenched and collapsed around me. I burst through the bulkhead, hit the one behind that, broke it too, and ended up in the control cabin. Everything was silent. The forward canopy was smashed, and there was a dead sheep beside me. The crash had frightened all the local humans away, so I crawled out and made for some nearby woodlands. Once I was under cover I got my map and compass out and set off for the paraline."
"By the sound of it you are not badly injured."
"My right arm is broken, and probably a few ribs too. There is a lump on my head and my ankle is twisted."
"Ah…but better than being dead."
"Not so!" moaned Terian with a hand over his eyes. "I lost the Titan."
"Don't take it so hard, there was nothing you could have done."
"It must have been sabotage, I was not vigilant—"
"Stop it! I am your commanding officer now, remember? Listen to me! The serving wench at the wayside said that all electrical machines in the town burned, apparently at the same time as the Titan was crippled. Did that happen at Cooper too?"
"Cooper is a privy pit with a ticket kiosk. They had no electrical machines. Seegan, I lost the Titan! Nobody has ever lost a sunwing."
"I would imagine that all sunwings have just been lost, and I doubt that most people aboard were as lucky as us. We reach Elmore in a half hour; I wager that everything electrical has burned there as well, and the same will have happened in Rochester."
"But why? I don't understand."
"Mirrorsun; it has done similar things before. In 1708 GW it destroyed an army with some invisible power. Now it has decided that electrical essence machines are also annoying, so it has destroyed them too."
"But Mirrorsun built the Titan, out of things mined on the moon."
"Terian, I have a few facts, not every answer. What is certain is that you were not responsible for the Titan's loss. Now, then, you were my commanding officer until recently and I need informed advice. What are we to do, Fras?"
Terian rubbed his eyes, then began to drag himself out of the miasma of self-pity, misery, shame, and pain where he had been wallowing. They were fugitives and refugees, but they were alive and free, and not entirely without friends.
"If our papers get us past the border post at Elmore, we must stay together and travel on to Rochester tonight. It is a big city, and if all electrical machines really have burned, there will be plenty of chaos for us to hide behind. The safe hostelry will welcome us."
"Terian, remember that none of this was your fault."
"That may be the truth, but history will be written by how I am judged."

The Rochestrian Commonwealth, Eastern Australica

In Rochester, the first official sign that the world had changed came within three minutes of the massive electromagnetic pulses from the sky that destroyed every circuit on the planet. Armed Dragon Librarians of the rank of Orange, Red, and Green hurried into the great, domed reading room of Libris, led by a Dragon Blue. The readers looked up uneasily, as did the duty librarian in charge. One student, Rangen, noticed that a new electric clock was trickling a streamer of smoke into the air. The Dragon Blue strode to the raised central desk and struck the gong for attention.
"The reading room will be cleared immediately!" she declared. "Gather your personal effects and leave."
The combined clattering, groans, and muttering of two hundred readers echoed up to the dome. Helicos and Rangen were a little slow in packing, and attracted the attention of a Dragon Green.
"Anything you can't carry by the second gong gets left here," he said firmly, his flintlock drawn and its barrel resting back on his shoulder.
"But, Fras, closing time is not until midnight," protested Rangen. "We have exams—"
"No readers allowed in the library, young Fras," replied the Dragon Green. "That's the order of the Highliber."
Nine minutes after the electric calculor had begun to smoke, there was not a single reader in the domed reading room. They were not ejected from the Libris grounds at once, however. The readers were made to form several queues in the plaza just behind the main gates, and the notes of every one of the annoyed and flustered readers were inspected at portable desks, by the light of lanterns. Dragon Green librarians questioned everyone about their courses and past studies, then they were allowed to go, although under the escort of Dragon Orange guards.
"Suppose it's the theft of some very rare book," said Rangen to Helicos as they stood waiting.
"Have you been stealing again to supplement your scholarship?" asked Helicos.
"Not from here," replied Rangen.
Rangen watched as other readers were cleared to go. Being a gifted student of mathematics who specialized in associative logic, he had a tendency to look for patterns in everything around him—particularly in the mundane backdrop of everyday life. He watched for any variation in the treatment of those being questioned, but there was none. Now he looked further afield. A student of ancient Anglaic dialects was marched away to the distant gatehouse by a Dragon Orange. They reached the gatehouse, walked beneath the arch, and turned left. Rangen listened to what several more students were saying as he neared the Dragon Green questioners. Economics, sciences, mathematics, law, history; there seemed to be no connection between the way that they turned at the gatehouse and what they studied—law left, but economics right—sometimes. All those taking history left. Those with mixed disciplines were turned in mixed directions.
Helicos reached the Dragon Green.
"Name and field of study?"
"Helicos Theon, University of Rochester, studying mathematics at the level of third year."
"But Fras, your notes are to do with Archaic Anglaic," he said as he examined the notes that Helicos had placed on his desk.
"I'm doing a short course of scholarly languages to assist my studies of ancient mathematical systems."
"Class C," the Dragon Green said to his scribe, then he turned back to Helicos. "You may go."
Helicos was already walking away beside a Dragon Orange when Rangen was chilled by a sudden suspicion. He began to unpack his notes very slowly.
"Name and field of study?"
"Rangen Derris, University of Rochester," began Rangen, who then dropped a sheaf of poorpaper to the flagstones of the plaza.
"Hurry, hurry, there's others who wish to be out of here," said the Dragon Green.
Rangen gathered up the notes, dropped some of them again—and out of the corner of his eye saw Helicos guided to the right by his Dragon Orange escort. The door to the right did not lead to the street outside. Rangen stood up and spread the papers on the librarian's desk.
"Rangen Derris, student of languages," he said quickly and softly, desperately trying not to stammer.
"Your notes are from the same texts as that last student," observed the librarian.
"Why, yes. He is my friend; I am helping him with his Archaic Anglaic for some mathematics examination."
"So you must know some mathematics as well?"
"Not at all, that was why I chose languages, Fras Dragon Green. I have no talent for figures."
The librarian glanced along the queue of restive students behind Rangen, then shook his head.
"Class R," he said to his scribe, then indicated the gate to Rangen with his thumb.
The librarian did not notice that Rangen had suddenly become suspiciously efficient while repacking his notes. Rangen began walking, a Dragon Orange beside him.
"What is all this about?" asked Rangen as the gatehouse loomed nearer.
"If you think a Dragon Orange would be told anything, Fras, then you have obviously never worked in a library. Turn left, and proceed to the outer gate down that corridor. No loitering near the gate when you are outside."
Rangen stole a glance at the door to the right. Four Tiger Dragons stood before a closed door, and two of them had their flintlocks drawn.
Rangen was no more relieved when he cleared the outer gates of the library walls and emerged into the darkened streets of Rochester. Knots of students were gathered here and there, obviously waiting for friends to emerge. Rangen kept walking, noting the time on a nearby tower's ancient mechanical clock.
Mathematicians! The Dragon Librarians were taking mathematicians into custody. This had happened before, years before he was born. Mathematicians had been slowly culled from the universities, streets, towns, schools, and even monasteries. They had worked for years in the first of the human-powered calculating machines, the mighty Calculor of Libris. Some had spent a decade in slavery before the early electrical essence calculors had been introduced. A few had been shot while trying to escape, and others had even been put in battle calculors and sent to war. Now it was happening again, but this time it was n