The Clockwork Oracle
February
Silly Love Songs
“I'm sorry but...but...I love you.” Shasha'iti craned her neck to look up at Menkauras, bracing herself against his reaction. He was tall and handsome, fleet of foot and strong of arm, and she was hardly the only girl in the village whose heart he stirred. It was not his looks that drew her eye though, but his joy. He seemed to bring the sun with him wherever he went. Rays of light bursting through dark clouds. Sometimes he would even buy her crafts or put money in her beggar's cup. She'd tried to hide her feelings, of course. But they grew stronger every day, until at last he'd caught her staring and came to ask why.
His friends burst into laughter. One of them had a girlfriend with him, who tittered merrily. “Seize the day, Menk!” Djosa'ar said. “She'll be a fertile field for you, and produce a fine crop of strapping sons,” he said over laughter. “You'll be the envy of every man!” Menkauras' face contorted into a visage of humiliation and anger.
“Plus, her wedding dress would cost
half as much as one for any other girl!” one of the other boys said.
“Shut up!” Menkauras said, but that only made his friends laugh harder. “Thank you
so much for making me the laughingstock of the whole village!” he said to Shasha'iti. “I don't
want your love! Stop staring at me! Just—just stay
away from me, you little freak!” he shouted, reaching down to shove her hard. She flew off of the crude cart she used to get around and landed hard on her back. “I don't ever want to see you again!” he shouted, then spun on his heel and stormed off. Laughter and cheers from his friends, now at her expense.
“Come on Menk, you're passing up a great opportunity!” Djosa'ar said, turning to follow him, the others in tow. “You'll not find a more faithful wife in all the land! Who'd want to cuckold you with her?” More laughter.
“I said, shut UP!”
Shasha'iti rolled over and let her shoulder-length wavy black hair hide the tears. The stumps of legs she'd been born with were worthless for locomotion, so she dragged herself back to her cart, clawing at the rough cobblestones with her fingers. People passing on the street crossed over to the other side, pointedly ignoring her.
…
Shasha'iti peered over the side of her cart, down the sheer limestone face, and into the glassy-smooth surface of the water below. Shadowed by the walls of the old quarry, the water looked like an obsidian mirror, with only the smallest of ripples to disturb its tranquility. Shasha'iti could just make out her face peering over the darkened reflection of the cliff she was perched on. Olive skin and full lips, and gray eyes like most of the girls of her village. But her features were twisted in a way that made one eye slightly higher than the other, and an elongation of her skull that made the back of her head protrude more than others'. She would never be beautiful, even in her dreams.
“Is that Half-Girl? What is
she doing here?” a feminine voice said. Shasha'iti turned to see a group of teenage girls, close-fitting swim-dresses clinging to their lissome figures.
“Maybe she wants to push herself off and die!”
“Oh, gods and goddesses, that would be
hilarious! Do it!”
“Do it! Do it!” they chanted.
Shasha'iti turned away from them. Her gaze was drawn down to the water by an irresistible gravity. Peace. The cool water promised peace...an end to pain. Forever. A strange buzzing in her ears started soft, then rose to drown out the girls' chanting and squeals of malicious delight.
Why not? Her mind flitted to the many beautiful things in the world. Fields of wheat waving on a sunny day. Butterflies flitting through soft breezes by day, fireflies by night. The spread of diamond stars across a clear night sky. The Mother and Daughter, gibbous and orange-tinted, ascending into twilight on a Harvest evening, their shrouded mystery beckoning with the promise of magical, celestial lands awaiting exploration. And yet...the Moons, like everything else beautiful and wondrous...were impossibly out of reach. The
real world was echoed in the girls' chants...in the cutting words and kicks and turned-away faces and quickened steps by which she was either hurt or ignored. There was only one land of mystery Shasha'iti could
really go to, and it awaited her below.
The limb of a creamy white globe appeared from behind the reflected rock face over her head. Shasha'iti blinked in momentary confusion. It was too big to be the Mother, and moving too fast. Then she realized that the girls' chanting had not been drowned out by the hum, which she now realized was not a ringing in her ears. Instead, their voices faltered one by one. Shasha'iti raised her head, and gaped in awe.
The airship's undercarriage was shaped like a stylized, elegant bird. Its body hung from gilded wings that arced up around the sides of the soft white sphere, where their tips attached to its horizontal axle. The sphere spun in a blur, providing additional lift to the vessel via the magnus effect. At the wingtips, clusters of rearward-pointing blades glowed with bright blue halos, ionizing the air so that the magnetic coils they surrounded could hurl the charged particles, providing thrust.
A Citadel airship? Here? The majestic vehicle soared toward the fairgrounds, slowing as it approached its destination. The other girls squealed with delight and ran for the village to change into their best clothes. They had fantasies too: perhaps it was carrying a high-born son who could not find the girl of his dreams among the Citadel beauties. Pining for true love, he set out to search the length and breadth of the land...
Shasha'iti glanced back down at the water. It could wait. With one hand she shifted the tiller that controlled the front wheels, while she used the other to push herself away from the cliff. Aiming her cart toward the fairgrounds, she straightened the tiller and pinched it between her leg-stumps so she could push herself across the ground with rag-wrapped hands. The village was already empty by the time she reached it. Her eyes stole glances at the airship as it slowed and began its descent. The sphere's rotation gradually stopped, then started to spin lazily in the other direction. Now instead of providing lift, the magnus effect would generate negative buoyancy, so that the airship could land without mooring lines and a ground crew to ease it down. With all the grace its appearance would lead one to expect, it settled gently onto its landing gear.
Finally reaching the fairgrounds, Shasha'iti rolled slowly forward, trying to keep the squeaks of her cart's hand-carved, and not-quite-round wheels from drawing attention. A gangway opened with a hiss of pneumatic pistons. A squad of clockwork soldiers clanked down the steps in perfect unison, then faced and turned and formed up. They watched the crowd with inscrutable glass lenses set in sleek, featureless brass faces. Behind them, a man in fine robes and a blue sash bearing the gold and sapphire escutcheon of the Oracle of the Citadel descended the stairs with practiced elegance.
The Castellan! someone breathed in a hushed whisper.
Shasha'iti steered around the back of the crowd, aiming to get a better view of the airship. Every now and then she got a scowl, but for the most part they were too entranced with the airship and the man who came out of it to give her much notice. By the time she passed the crowd's edge, the Castellan had called the young people of the village forward and was well into some kind of recruitment speech. Shasha'iti paid little attention. Instead, she pushed herself toward the nearest segmented leg of the airship, fascinated by the hydraulic hoses that fed whatever mechanisms that enabled it to unfold from the airship's belly. She could feel scowling eyes upon her. Someone hissed at her to get away before she was spotted, but she ignored them. No matter what anyone did to her afterward, when would she ever get another chance to examine a Citadel airship up close?
“Come,” the Castellan said, and another clockwork man came down the airship's stairs, carrying a large box with table legs...and a little chimney? The box was finely carved, with etched fittings and swirling inlays of brass. The chimney was also of brass, topped with an opening of spreading petals. It was intriguing enough to draw Shasha'iti's attention. The Castellan gave a gesture. The clockwork man set the box down and lifted the lid away to reveal a shallow bowl of thick metal affixed next to a small brass burner with blue flames dancing behind its filigree grate. “Come, feel the bowl, and tell the others what you feel,” the Castellan said, waving a young man over. As he approached, Shasha'iti noticed that it was Menkauras. She felt a stab of pain an the sight of him, but could not pull her eyes away. He touched the edge closest to him, and pulled his had away.
“It's hot!”
“Is it now? Go on, feel the rest of it.” Gingerly, Menkauras felt the rest of the plate. As his fingers crossed to the side nearer to the flame, his features knit in confusion. “It's cold...colder near the fire.”
“Good. Now, can you think of an explanation?” the Castellan asked.
“Maybe this is some kind of special metal?” Menkauras said. The Castellan kept a neutral expression, looking to the other candidates in turn.
“Maybe it's something about the fire? It's magic or something?”
“Yeah, it's a fire that only heats things far away from it!”
“Or maybe the fire makes air blow over the plate and curve under on the other side, heating it there!”
While the others chimed in with their answers, Menkauras spotted Shasha'iti out of the corner of his eye, did a double-take, then gave her a hard look. He tossed his head to silently communicate 'Get out of here!' but he was too late. The Castellan followed his gaze.
“You there! What are you doing!” he demanded in an imperious tone.
“I'm just looking at your airship. It's not like I can hurt it. Can't you just ignore me?”
“Interested in machines, are you?” He walked over to her, swiveling down the monocle on his gilded circlet to inspect her through its lenses. “Do you have an answer for our little conundrum?”
“What, that?” Shasha'iti said, flicking her eyes over at the metal bowl. “You had your man turn the plate just before he closed the box and brought it out.” The Castellan clapped with white-gloved hands.
“Well. I suppose you might just do.”
“...For what?” Shasha'iti asked.
“For what? Weren't you paying attention? The Oracle of the Citadel is dying. We must find a suitable replacement. If you are selected, you would need to come to the Cidadel to live. You would not be able to return, even to visit. But as Oracle, you would be able to send a healthy stipend back to your family, a hundred gold pieces every year, for as long as you serve. All of your own needs would, of course, be taken care of. Do you have a family here?”
“We are her parents,” a couple said, pushing their way to the front of the crowd.
“No you're not,” Shasha'iti snapped. “As soon as you could, you shoved me out into the streets to beg. You don't even
look at me when you pass by.” She turned back to the Castellan. “If I became the new Oracle, could I learn how to read books? Would I be allowed to make things? Would you ever...really...choose me?”
“My dear young lady, if you become the Oracle, you will have access to the entire amassed knowledge of our civilization! You will be able to learn in ways that make 'reading books' hopelessly primitive by comparison. The machines and foundries of the Citadel will be at your command, and you will be able to
make things--
wondrous things, for the benefit of all humanity! And yes. It is possible that you could be chosen. This is not a contest of beauty or strength, but of mental suitability. The current Oracle is...not so unlike you.”
“And if I become the Oracle...I won't ever have to come back? Ever?”
“It is a lifetime appointment. It would not be
possible for you to come back. Ever.” The utter finality in the Castellan's voice made a couple of the other contestants exchange looks with their families, then break away from the group and run back to their embrace. Shasha'iti's eyes went wide with longing.
“Can I try?”
“Yes dear. You can try. Come.”
There were other puzzles to be solved. Sequences of numbers for which a next number had to be chosen. A challenge to be the first to build a series of gears reaching from a crank to a geared axle at the top of a brass framework, from a set of different sized gears and axles. A challenge to build a “perfect structure” from gumdrops and toothpicks. Some Shasha'iti won, others she lost. When the others built houses or bridges with square frameworks, Shasha'iti noticed that they seemed floppy, and her first attempt also. Feeling and experimenting, she made a triangle, and that held firm. So, she started building a tower of triangulated framework when the timer rang, ending the contest. She fretted at the incompleteness of her structure, and the smug looks and completed works of the others.
The Castellan pulled something out of his pocket: a box containing a set of steel weights. He came to each structure in turn, testing them for the weight they could bear. Their unbraced squares collapsed easily. Then, as if he'd saved hers for last, he came to Shasha'iti's. Plucking out a couple of toothpicks and gumdrops of an unfinished triangle to provide a flat surface, he set the smallest weight on top of it. The tower wobbled a little, but it held. Then he lifted that free, and set the second weight on it. Shasha'iti clenched her teeth nervously as the tower swayed. Then a toothpick pulled lose from a gumdrop, and the weight fell. Her tower stood for a moment with a forlorn lean, before it finally tipped over.
“Well done, young lady.” the Castellan said to her, then turned to address the whole group. “There is one more test. This is the most important of all. Fail it, and you cannot become the Oracle, no matter your performance on the others. But first, you, you, you, and you may return to your families,” he said, selecting out those who had fared most poorly on the other tests. Then he turned to the clockwork man. “Go and fetch the mindwave apparatus.” The clockwork man went back into the airship and returned with a folding table, which he set up, then returned for a large suitcase. Opening it, he extracted four brass and wood clockwork ants, each the size of an adolescent kitten. Then he brought out leather caps festooned with liquid-filled vials, each with a copper wire emerging from its far end. The wires gathered together into a cable that went to a wooden box equipped with a small knife switch and a delicate-looking wire mesh antenna atop a copper rod. Finally, the clockwork man brought folding chairs and set them up next to each apparatus and its ant.
“Please sit down. This next part will hurt a little, but I assure you there will be no lasting injury.” Shasha'iti pushed herself to the nearest chair. Now she faced a new puzzle: how to climb into it without tipping over. The Castellan noticed, gave an unconscious, fastidious glance at his white gloves, then turned to the clockwork man. “Would you kindly help her into her chair? Careful, she is fragile.” Shasha'iti tensed as jointed brass fingers reached for her, but she was quickly and efficiently lifted into the chair. The Castellan carefully seated the caps on each head, adjusting the placement of the protruding vials, securing the caps with their chin-straps. “Now, try not to flinch,” he said, then started delicately twisting the vials to poke electrode needles into the scalps of their wearers.
Don't flinch! Shasha'iti thought, willing herself to stay as still as stone. To her relief, the needle-pricks were not so bad.
What does this have to do with being the Oracle? she wondered.
“Alright. Now I would like each of you to just relax. Focus your attention on the mechant in front of you and try to make it move. It's alright if it doesn't happen right away, just take your time. There's a switch on the box that your cap is plugged into. Flip it, and begin.”
Shasha'iti activated her box, and heard a soft hum. She stared intensely at her ant and willed it to move. It refused to budge.
Come on! Come on! Time passed, and Shasha'iti's heart to began to pound.
Whirrr-rr-rr. Menkauras' mechant hesitantly lifted a leg. Tentatively, the leg moved forward in jerky motions, setting its little articulated foot down on the felt tabletop. Shasha'iti's eyes glanced over at it, and a spike of fear stabbed through her. She turned back to hers, mind racing.
Mooooooooooove!!! Now the other front leg of Menkauras' mechant rose and started to move forward. A pall of doom fell over her, cold like quarry waters. His mechant was slowly pulling itself toward him with its front legs, their motions shivering like her own arms on a winter day, dragging her cart through snow. Two of the others' ants started to twitch as well, though one girl quit in teary frustration.
Alright. Trying to force
the ant won't work. That's not what this is, anyway...is it? I'm supposed to communicate
with the ant. Become
it, be its brain...right? Shasha'iti closed her eyes and started breathing slowly and deeply to relax. In her mind's eye, she projected the ants and other insects she'd watched in the meadows...how they moved. Ants were too small, their leg movements too fast for her to observe directly, but she'd seen emperor beetles walk. They lifted three legs at a time, two on one side, one on the other, standing on the rest as a triangular base.
“Alright, why don't we have you two move on to the next stage,” the Castellan's voice said. She heard him pick up a mechant and set it aside, then move another into position. “Lets see which of you can generate the strongest rapport with the mechant. Try to make it come toward you, and keep it from going to the other person. Begin.”
The beetle would then move the three lifted legs forward, set them down, pick up the other three, move them forward, repeat. She pushed the hesitant whirrs of the other mechant—and the growing cheers as people gathered round to watch and root for one competitor or the other—out of her mind. Shasha'iti tried to visualize herself with an ant's body. Her arms were its front legs, her leg-stumps its rear legs. The middle legs she just had to imagine protruding from her ribcage.
The cheering grew louder, and she could tell that Menkauras was winning. She redoubled her concentration as cheers and back-slaps announced his victory. She visualized three of “her” six legs lifting in unison.
Whirr! Move them forward, set them down.
Whirr-rrr! Lift the other three legs.
Whirr! Whirr-rrr! The cheers faded into gasps as Shasha'iti's mechant started marching toward her in regular cadence. Somehow she just
felt that it was nearing the edge of the table. She stopped the ant and lifted three legs. This time, she moved two on the right side forward, the one on the left side back before setting them down. Lifted the other three. Moved the standing leg on the left forward, the other two back. Lift three legs. Repeat.
Whirr! Whirr-rrr! Whirr! Whirr-rrr! Like the hand of a clock, the mechant rotated with each repetition of the procedure until it was facing back toward open table.
That's when Shasha'iti noticed the silence. She opened her eyes to see everyone, including the Castellan staring at her. “Well
done!” the Castellan said, but his hands were the only ones clapping. “Young man, why don't you come sit opposite her,” he said. “We'll do this just like the last time.” He lifted the mechant, turned it sideways, and set it on the table halfway between Shasha'iti's chair and the one Menkauras was sinking into. He met her eyes, a confusion of emotions playing across his face. “Each of you will try to bring the mechant to you. Ready? Begin.” Menkauras' eyes turned to his family, then back to Shasha'iti. In them, she saw the old kindness she'd seen when he'd buy one of her crafts or put money in her beggar's cup, the kindness that made her fall in love with him.
“Go on. Be the Oracle. You're better at this than me anyway,” he said, gesturing at the mechant. “I hope...I hope you'll be happy.” With his other hand, he started to undo the chinstrap of his cap.
“I hope so too. Thank you.”
“Well then! It seems we have an Oracle!” the Castellan said. Leaning down to her, he said in a quieter voice, “You established a better rapport with the mechant than any of the candidates from other villages. And it seems you also have a certain freedom from attachments to things left behind that they lack.” He gave her a brief smile, then rose to address the crowd. “A round of applause for all of our applicants!” While the crowd cheered, the Castellan gestured to his clockwork man, who started efficiently packing up the equipment and bringing it back aboard the airship. “What is your name, my dear?”
“Shasha'iti, sir.”
“A lovely name. I'm afraid we must be on our way to the Citadel as soon as possible. Would you like a moment to say your goodbyes?”
Shasha'iti looked into Menkauras' eyes. She knew that any more than the briefest farewell would only serve to embarrass him in front of his friends...and the girls. “Goodbye. I hope you'll be happy too.” She turned to look up at the Castellan. “I'm ready.”
“Take her and strap her in for takeoff.” The clockwork man came for her, lifting her as if she was weightless. With mechanical precision he turned toward the gangway.
“Uh...sir...” Shasha'iti said, pointing at her cart. It had taken her more than a month to make, as she'd had to learn how in the doing.
“Oh, you won't be needing that anymore, young lady. I'll radio ahead to the Citadel. When we arrive, you will have an autochair waiting for you. I promise you, you will never miss your cart.”
Once the airship reached cruising altitude, Shasha'iti was unstrapped and subjected to a beehive of activity. Taken back to a passenger stateroom, she was bathed, the threadbare potato sack with ragged neck and arm-holes she wore for a dress replaced with a satin slip and a fine, emerald green gown she'd picked from the selection prepared for a female Oracle-designate.
As the airship descended through the cloud deck, the seamless view of gauzy white broke up to reveal the Citadel. Shasha'iti stared through the airship's beveled forward windows in awe. The Citadel was larger than she had imagined any building could possibly be. Her eyes tried to take in innumerable slanted windows over gardens, flying buttresses, gleaming brass and cast iron, air shafts, mirror arrays, whirling helices of gracefully-curved blades spinning atop slender towers. The city was a single, organic whole, and though she had no idea of its workings, she could sense the presence of exquisite, integrated design.
After a radio conversation between the pilot and someone at the Citadel containing jargon that she could not quite fathom, the airship swerved and dipped down to a hangar opening in a vast, organically-curved wall. The vessel flew slowly inside, and settled down onto the tarmac. As promised, an elegant contrivance awaited her. A polished hardwood chair carved in elaborate knotwork arabesques rendered fractally within the carving by thin inlaid ribbons of brass. It was upholstered in red velvet, and sat on two large wheels, with a third, an actuated caster wheel, in back. Mounted to the back of the chair was a complicated engine of brass and copper, tanks and pipes and intricate machinery. She was set gently into the chair and strapped in.
“Control is simple. You just move this lever forward,” the Castellan said, pointing to a wood and brass joystick that was a work of art in itself, “to go forward, back to reverse, and side to side to turn. Take it slowly at first.” Shasha'iti pushed the lever forward, and squealed with delight as the autochair took off across the tarmac. He watched her race back and forth and around in circles with a Da Vinci smile. Finally, she whirred back to him and came to a stop.
“This is
wonderful,sir!”
“I am glad you are pleased. Soon, it will get even better. But for now, come. It is time that you saw your City.” The Castellan took her through a wonderland of galleries and colonnades and graceful, soaring arches. Fountains and pools and gardens, and libraries with more books than she had ever imagined could exist. Elegant men and women in robes and gowns of beautiful fabrics in vibrant colors. Lunch in a fine restaurant, incredibly delicious foods, arranged to be a work of art as much as a meal. Then,
dessert.
“Now it is time for you to see some of the systems that make all of this possible.” The Castellan showed her vast greenhouses and gardens behind south-facing windows. Some of them produced exotic foods and flowers from distant lands that could only be grown in the Citadel due to systems that controlled temperature as needed.
“So...it never gets too hot in the summer, and freezing cold in the winter?” she asked.
“No dear. The Citadel is designed to maintain comfortable temperatures at all times.”
Rolling down a path through an arboretum, a brassy shine caught her eye. She looked closer, and saw a mechant probing the soil around a tree with a proboscis fitted to its head. “Look! It's one of those ants!”
“Mechants maintain the Citadel. You will see several different kinds as we continue.”
“Does...the Oracle control them? Is that why you had us try to control one as a test?”
“Very good. Yes. Part of the time, anyway. For the most part, they operate automatically, controlled by algorithms programmed into miniature computing machines in their heads. Each mechant contains only a tiny part of the whole. They pass information to each other and process it collectively. Their computational capacity is supplemented by the Analytical Engine. The Oracle oversees the process, and when necessary, institutes changes in the algorithms.” Seeing the confused look on Shasha'iti's face, he smiled. “Don't worry. You will understand in time. For now, there is much more to see.”
He took her to a lift that rose through the dizzying heights of the Citadel, showing her air shafts that pulled warm air up and out of the city so that it would not overheat, while cooler air was pulled in through openings near the base of the building. Through a high observation window, he pointed to one of the spinning helical sets of blades she'd seen from the airship, and explained that the blades caught the wind, and the wind made them turn. This turning was used to generate a power called 'electricity' that was useful for many things, including the mysterious globes of light she had seen throughout the city. She had just assumed that the light-globes were magic, but the idea of a
knowable power that clever people could understand and harness and gather from the wind stirred even greater awe.
“Sir, you said...that I would be able to learn things in ways that would make books seem crude. Could you show me how? There's
so much I don't know! How can I be an Oracle if I don't understand what 'algorithms' and 'electricity' are?”
“Patience dear. Your training will begin soon enough.” Next he took her down to subterranean galleries beneath the Citadel. Some of them were filled with vast mushroom and fungus gardens. Some treated the city's waste in conjunction with compost pits and worm farms, turning it into nutrient-rich soil. Others produced medicines and needed chemicals, and others were grown as gourmet foods. He showed her a series of underground lakes, and explained how air from the intake openings of the Citadel was drawn across the cool waters and circulated up into the city. Rates of air circulation were controlled by opening and closing valves in the air shafts. The structure of the Citadel itself and the water of its pools and fountains served as a thermal ballast, absorbing heat from the sun during the day and radiating it at night.
Finally, he took her to another enormous underground chamber, this one filled with massive machines. There were huge metal pipes that emerged from the bedrock and fed into gigantic metal drums that made a constant roar. These he called 'turbines.' Water was pumped down, far, far into the Earth where the rocks were naturally hot. There the water boiled and turned to steam, and its pressure turned the turbines similar to the way the wind turned the helix blades: more 'electricity' for the Citadel. There were hisses of steam and gurglings of water and byzantine tangles of pipes. The Castellan explained that excess heat from the power plant was used to catalyze chemical processes, to heat water for the citizens, and to help keep the Citadel warm in winter. Once the steam was condensed back into water, it was pumped back down into the ground to repeat the cycle anew. It seemed that nothing was wasted, that all was integrated into the Citadel's great plan.
Shasha'iti was giddy with the wonder of it all. “Can I see the Oracle now? I would
so love to meet him!”
“Not yet dear. It is not quite that simple. Come, it is time for you to have your dinner and get a good night's sleep. I'm sure you will find that you are exhausted, once you've had a chance to relax. Your training will begin in the morning.” Following him through the maze of pipes back to the lift, Shasha'iti noticed a tank with a gaping hole in it. Hundreds of mechants of a type she hadn't seen before crawled over it. Those at the edge of the hole seemed to be working at it with their mouthparts, bright flashes like lightning in miniature and showers of sparks, hisses and crackles like drops of water on a griddle. After a few minutes of work a mechant at the edge would click its mandibles in a staccato rattle, then turn and crawl over the bodies of the others and walk back along a line of mechants heading to and fro from...somewhere. Another mechant would click and step forward to take its place.
“What happened there? What are they doing?”
The Castellan's features turned grim. “That boiler overheated. There was too much pressure, and it blew. The mechants are repairing it. They have coils of new metal inside, and they sinter it to the edges of the hole in layers. When one runs out of metal, it goes back and gets a new coil. They will rebuild the broken wall, and the boiler will be as good as new.”
“But how did that happen? I thought the Oracle monitored everything. Why would he let there be too much pressure?”
“He does...he should. As his health fails, so does the health of the Citadel.”
“...Oh.”
On the way to her room, the Castellan seemed subdued. Now that she knew what to look for, Shasha'iti started seeing more signs of trouble. A crack in an arch that was not being attended to. Light-globes that had been allowed to die. A pile of mechants lying randomly around an unfinished repair, is if they'd lost interest and walked around randomly until they ran out of power.
“Do you love the Oracle? Are you going to miss him?”
“It is...not that simple.”
“Something's bothering you. Can I help?” Shasha'iti asked. The Castellan walked beside her in silence for awhile.
“I am sorry dear. Not everything in the Citadel is beautiful and wonderful. Thank you for letting me see it through your eyes. I hope...that you will be happy as our Oracle.”
“I hope so too. I will try my best to be a good one.”
A servant opened a tall, carved hardwood door for them as they approached, revealing the most magnificent room Shasha'iti had ever seen. A hardwood parquet floor with a spectrum of different wood tones cut and placed to form intricate arabesques, velvet curtains standing open beside panoramic windows that offered a splendid view of farmlands and forests, richly paneled walls, and a marble fireplace with a finely-wrought silver control knob that would turn it on and off. There was a bathroom with a marble bathtub and sink, and a cozy dining area. Servants brought her another sumptuous meal, and as the Castellan promised, her eyelids grew heavy.
“Please help her get ready for bed,” he said to a maidservant. “Good night, dear. When you wake up, your new life will truly begin.” There was a hint of foreboding in his voice that made Shasha'iti's eyebrows knit in concern.
Well. Maybe he's just worried that I might not be able to be an Oracle. It can't be easy. Even if it isn't all wonderful, it has to be better than what I had before, right? At least here, I can help do wonderful things. And I'll get to learn about 'electricity' and 'turbines' and 'algorithms' and 'Analytical Engines' and maybe things he hasn't even shown me yet!“Goodnight sir,” she said, yawning again. “It's alright if everything's not wonderful. If there are bad things, maybe I can help make them better as the Oracle. I know it'll be hard work. I don't mind that.” The Castellan gave her a bittersweet smile.
“You have a good heart. I think you will be a splendid Oracle.” On impulse, he bent over and kissed her on the forehead. Shasha'iti stared at him in shock, her hand going up to touch the spot as if to make sure it was there. Then her face broke into a smile, her offset eyes sparkling with joy. She didn't understand why he seemed to be trying to hide pain.
The maidservant slipped out into the hall, where the Castellan waited with a doctor carrying a small brass canister. “She's asleep sirs,” she said in a whisper, opening the door for them. The Castellan followed the doctor inside. The doctor walked up to Shasha'iti's bed. Turning a knob on the canister to start gas flowing, he placed a rubber cup over Shasha'iti's nose and mouth. Her eyes flickered open, then wide for a moment in surprise and fear, then fluttered closed again.
Shasha'iti awoke feeling dizzy. Blurry vision slowly cleared, revealing a strange, stark white ceiling in place of the artfully painted one of the room she'd fallen asleep in. She used her arms to heave herself into a seating position. A smaller, utilitarian bed in place of the sumptuous one of the night before.
Huh? Her hair did not brush her cheeks and shoulders. She reached up a hand. Her fingers brushed against cool glass. A cylinder...like the ones on the cap for the mechant test. She followed it down. Instead of a leather cap, her fingertips found smooth metal.
“Oh, you're awake,” a friendly feminine voice said. With a jolt, Shasha'iti turned to see a woman in a white smock, her blond hair pulled back into a neat bun. “Don't touch that, please. You'll need to be careful for awhile. Castellan, she's ready for you now,” the nurse called out. The Castellan came in.
“Fetch a mirror for her, would you?” he said to the nurse, then turned to Shasha'iti. “I am sorry we surprised you like this. I had hoped that we could accomplish the surgery without you having to be afraid. I know it was not something I could explain to you in a way you could understand, and where there is no understanding, there is fear. The testing cap you used in the village is a very limited contrivance, like the cart you had, in comparison to your autochair. In order for you to be the Oracle, the electrodes—the needles—needed to be inserted through your skull and directly into your brain, to form a permanent connection. How do you feel?”
“I...don't feel...any pain...it itches a little... Is there anything else you're going to do to me? You can tell me. I'll try to understand.” The nurse returned with a hand-mirror and held it up for her. A brass skullcap now covered her entire head, an array of the glass vials protruding from it, their wires gathered together into a cable ponytail that she only now noticed was draped over her right shoulder, leading to a jack at her waist.
“Now that your interface is attached, you will have the means for understanding. The itching should go away soon. Nurse, could you please help her into her autochair?”
Seated and strapped in, Shasha'iti reached for the control. “The controller is gone!”
“You're going to control it directly from now on. Do you see the hole there where it was?” Shasha'iti looked, then picked up the jack. The same size. She gave the Castellan a questioning look.
“Yes. Go ahead, plug it in. Good. Now, try to make your chair move forward. It will take practice, and getting used to.” The chair moved in fits and starts at first, but quickly became easier. Soon, she could move where she wanted without even thinking about it.
“Good. Please follow me.” Her day was a whirlwind of activity that passed in a blur. She was introduced to a great bank of solenoid relays he called 'electric memory.' When her jack was plugged into it, she suddenly started
remembering things she had never known before. The workings of the Citadel's technologies, the sciences that brought them about, mathematics and methodology. As she filled her mind with its contents, technicians fed giant rolls of punch-tape into a reader that drew them through rapidly. This would re-set the relays, and she could start again. She learned to control multiple mechants. Connected to an array of complex interlocking gears and levers called a 'difference engine,' she discovered an ability to do sums—not just addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, but
complicated calculations that no one from her previous life could have fathomed—appearing suddenly as a department of her mind, jarring, like looking down and finding out she had a third arm.
“Enough for today,” the Castellan said. “I think it is time for you to see the Oracle.” Dizzy from the explosion of new knowledge, Shasha'iti followed him in silence to a lift that went down into the very core of the Citadel. The Oracle's chamber was a sphere connected to the rest of the Citadel by long beams with sharpened edges like giant sword blades, designed to be impossible to climb across, except by mechants with magnetized feet. It was accessible only by a long, narrow bridge guarded by mechants large enough for Shasha'iti to ride. These had oversized, serrated mandibles on large, blunt heads bristling with other armament. The Castellan touched a copper panel that read his bio-electric signature, and caused a thick iron door to slide upward with a clanking of heavy gears.
Inside, Shasha'iti was confronted by a towering brass framework filled with gears and relays beyond number, a calculation-and-memory machine bigger than all of the buildings of her village put together. The structure glistened with the movement of its gears, and a horde of mechants of different sizes and shapes that crawled over and through it, tending to its needs.
“This is the Analytical Engine,” the Castellan said. “Originally, we had intended that it, and the mechants would be able to operate the Citadel by themselves. Despite our best efforts, they were insufficient. The Engine could govern most routine maintenance and operations, but it could not cope with the unexpected. It cannot invent. It is not capable of imagination or visualization. Perhaps some larger, more sophisticated Analytical Engine might be capable of those feats someday, but it is far beyond our ability to build. To provide the intangibles of imagination, invention, creativity, a human mind was needed.” As he spoke, the Castellan led her through a passageway through the banks of gears and relays, a narrow canyon between walls of intricate machinery.
“But...why make everything automatic? Why not just have people do stuff?”
“Industry is dangerous, dear. Before the Analytical Engine and the Oracle, people often died doing the work they now perform. People make mistakes, their attention lapses. In the prior age, a boiler explosion would have killed a dozen men or more. That damaged boiler you saw 'killed' only mechants when it blew. If the Oracle were not dying, that accident would never have happened in the first place.”
They exited the metal canyon, coming face to face with another wall of gears and relays. Shasha'iti's eyes looked up, and up. There in the midst of it was a human form swathed in hoses and wires. Atop his head was a brass cap just like the one she now wore. She stared at his pale face, numb with shock.
“But...he's
young!”
“Not many years older than you are, dear.”
“He's dying?
Why?”
“We do not know. Our greatest doctors and biologists can find no medical reason. The Oracle himself cannot assist us. Or won't. Our queries to him on the issue go unanswered.”
“Can I talk to him?”
“I'm sorry, it does not work that way. He did not talk, even before he became the Oracle. He was a small boy when he was chosen. He is what we call a savant. After hearing the most difficult piece of music once or twice, he could play it flawlessly. Briefly expose him to a city or forest, then take him away from it, give him paper and pencil, and he could draw it in every detail. He could guess the number of farthings in a jar, or calculate pi to a hundred digits in his head in an instant. But he could not say the numbers, only write them down. Nor could he dress or feed himself, or even notice the presence of a person. I said that he was like you, Shasha'iti. His parents...sold him to a traveling show,” the Castellan said, his words dripping with concept. “His life there could not have made him more eager to reach out to humanity. I would like to think that we have given him a happier life. We can communicate with him only through the Analytical Engine, by feeding a punch-tape into its reader. A mathematical statement of a problem. Ordinary conversation can't be translated into something the Engine and Oracle can respond to. Perhaps when you are Oracle it will be different...”
“So...no one ever just
talks to him? It's always, 'Solve this problem for us?'” Shasha'iti stared up at the young man's face, horror dawning in her expression as she began to imagine what his life had to be like.
“The Oracle's talents are many, but the art of companionship is not one of them,” an unfamiliar voice said. Shasha'iti tore her eyes away from the Oracle and back down to the human level. Standing in front of the wall of machinery was a group of elderly men and women with hard-lined faces and fine robes like the Castellan's.
“Shasha'iti, this is the Committee. They are the governing body of the Citadel,” the Castellan said. “This is First Speaker Jor'al Thoran,” he said, introducing the man who had spoken, then worked his way through the others.
“So this is our new Oracle. How soon will she be ready?” Jor'al asked.
“She is doing extremely well in all of her lessons. She will be ready...” the Castellan said, giving her a look that turned to thinly-veiled pain when he saw her expression. “...As soon as she's had a chance to process what she's seen here.”
“So you're...just gonna un-hook him and let him die...throw him away and put me in his place?”
“There is nothing more to be done for him,” Jor'al said. “His decline has no discernible medical cause. If it is allowed to continue much further, many lives could be lost. The Citadel itself could die, and with it our entire civilization. One life is not too much to pay for the many lives that have already been saved, and the many more that you will save, as Oracle. With the computational resources of the Analytical Engine, perhaps you will be able to find the solution. In his case, we cannot even ask the question in a way that he will answer.”
“You can't talk to him. But maybe
I can,” Shasha'iti said, unplugging her jack from her autochair and holding it up.
“To what end? In the unlikely event you were able to talk to him, and were somehow able to find a cure,” Merasta, the Speaker for Medicine said, “what would become of you if he is restored to a full life span? From the Castellan's reports, you would have no reason to want to return to your village. The Citadel does not need two Oracles.”
Shasha'iti's eyes returned to the Oracle. “You might. I think I know why he's dying.”
“What? How could you?”
“Because I've already been there.”
“What are you talking about, girl?” Jor'al snapped.
“Please. Connect me. Let me try to talk to him.”
“The system was not designed to have more than one Oracle connected. We don't know what could happen. We could lose you both!” Merasta said.
“The Castellan just told me that it wasn't designed to have
one Oracle connected, at first. It was supposed to be just the machine,” she said, gesturing at the Analytical Engine all around them. “After all that he's done for you, doesn't he deserve a chance? Doesn't he deserve everything you can do for
him?”
“It isn't worth the risk,” Jor'al said. “How soon can we begin the replacement procedure?” Shasha'iti swallowed, taking a moment to gather her courage.
“Sir. You said the Citadel itself could die. Do you think it is worth the
risk, to teach me to hate you, then put everything, including your lives, into my hands? Let me talk to him.”
“Foolish girl! We do not need
you. We raised you up from nothing, and we can throw you back down,” Jor'al said.
“First Speaker, I am afraid that may not be the case,” the Castellan said. “We have no guarantee that the next best candidate will be as compatible with the implants, or as capable with them as Shasha'iti is. It will take days to find out. I should also point out that all the others have families and homes. We do not know what effects homesickness could have in an Oracle. If she is correct, any other Oracle might also begin to die after a few short years, perhaps less. We have never replaced an Oracle before. We have no guarantee that we can just...go through Oracles like water.”
“Are you sure you want to do this?” the Castellan said. Shasha'iti had been strapped into a harness and hoisted up, face to face with the Oracle. There was a new splice put in, next to the link where the Oracle's own jack was connected to the system.
“I'm sure,” Shasha'iti said, sliding her jack into place. With a sudden jolt, everything went black, as if someone had just grabbed her by the back of her head and yanked her out of the world. She could feel...sense...see...
nothing. At all. No body. No self.
I'm here...I'm here... she thought, struggling to fight down panic, to keep from telling a now non-existent hand to yank her jack back out. A wink of light. Another. And another. Small golden sparkles started to flash in front of her. A pattern...if she could just make it out. Slowly...slowly...they resolved...into the angular facets of cogs. Turning, turning, meshing... Cogs and wheels and levers and cams, belts and pendulums...turning, shifting, ticking, calculating.
She had to scramble out of the way to keep from being crushed between two large gears. Then she was falling, running...her six legs whirring...dodging, catching herself, running along the teeth of a gear that spun faster and faster, pulling her back to the teeth of its counterpart. Diving off...falling through blackness and brass, snagging a jointed foot on a copper wire to break her fall. A jolt of sparks, and falling again...
She hit a floor of cracked, hot stone, suddenly back in her potato sack dress. “Hello? Oracle?” No answer but the clicking of gears and hissing of steam. Over there, a wall of embossed brass...and a door at the top of a set of round stairs. Painfully, she dragged herself across the jagged rock, clambering up the brass steps with bloodied hands. The door, embossed with equations and geometric diagrams, opened with a soft whoosh. Inside, a cavernous throne room. Against the far wall, like a megalithic statue carved from a cliff face, a titanic figure of sparkling brass seated on a throne bigger than her village lord's house. Shasha'iti dragged herself across the red carpet to the base of the throne.
“Oracle?” Upon closer inspection, the man on the throne was made of millions of tiny gears, interlocked and turning. His crown bore rays of bundled copper wire that spread out into the brass of the wall, star-spangled with glass insulators and copper coils and spark gaps. There was a rattle of taps and clicks, and a sheet of paper emerged from a slot at the base. Shasha'iti picked it up. It was thick and stiff, riddled with tiny, perfectly rectangular holes. Somehow, she was able to read it.
“Undefined signal error. State your problem,” it said over and over again. Next to the slot was typewriter of brass, with letters, numbers, and an exhaustive selection of mathematical symbols.
“No. I don't want to talk to the Analytical Engine. I want to talk to the Oracle.” Another sheet of punch-tape.
“Undefined signal error. State your problem.”
Prang! a gear broke loose from the enthroned figure, bounced off the floor with a ping, then bounced again and rolled to a stop. Now that she looked around, Shasha'iti could see a sprinkling of fallen gears and parts all around her.
“Please, I want to talk to the Oracle.”
Pingpingping! More gears broke free, one of them bouncing off of her head. “Ow!”
“Undefined signal error. State your problem.”
“I don't
have a problem. I'm here to help
you!” The throne room shook, and the clockwork king's right arm shattered into a rain of broken gears.
“Undefined...signal...” Shasha'iti sighed.
This is some kind of dream...it represents the Oracle...he's getting worse! She crawled over to the typewriter.
Scanning the keys, she started typing: “Oracle minus Analytical Engine.” Enter! “The Oracle--
minus the Analytical Engine!” she shouted. Another earthquake shook the throne room. Gears rained down from the statue, and chunks of brass ceiling fell to the cracked stone with the deafening ring of shattering church bells. A crack formed in the base of the throne between the gear-king's shins. More cracks joined it and spread, until a piece of the throne fell, revealing a dark hollow inside. Pelted by falling gears, Shasha'iti scrambled to drag herself inside.
Flickers of light from broken light-globes gave flashes of an opulent chamber fallen into decay.
ZZZ-zzzz! A ghostly mask of cracked porcelain loomed out of the darkness, staring her down with empty eyes.
“Who are you?! What do you want? State! Your! Problem!” Shasha'iti shied away from the apparition. A stroboscopic flash of light revealed brass arms and legs and ribcage, held loosely together by copper wires and belts and pulleys, all suspended by wires descending from the darkness above.
“I don't want to make the Oracle solve something for me. I want to try to help
him. Please, let me speak to him.”
ZZZ-zzzzz! Another marionette descended, dancing disjointedly on its strings. “He doesn't want to talk to
you! If you bother him, he'll
unmake you!” Shasha'iti shuddered.
“Go away!” another marionette said, swinging toward her out of the inky black. “Undefined signal!”
“Go away! Don't come back until you can State! Your! Problem!” another said, shooing her away with clumsily flailing limbs.
“The Oracle is dying!” she said, flinching away.
“Yes! Isn't it
beautiful?” a marionette with a shrieking female voice said, giving a laugh of eldrich merriment that sent a shiver up Shasha'iti's spine.
“You're...that woman,” Shasha'iti breathed in a moment of chilling recognition.
“We're the
Committee! We run everything! For us! For us! For us!” the marionettes chanted, and Shasha'iti could see that each mask was a twisted parody of one of the Citadel's rulers. With a rattling of gears and the electric crackle of solenoids snapping into place,
memories appeared in her mind. Problems stated and solved. How to wring the most out of the peasantry without sparking rebellion. How to identify and eliminate dissenters before they could begin to cause trouble. How to arrange international trade so as to extract maximum wealth from other countries and keep them economically weak and dependent on the Citadel. How to spark a coup d' etat against a troublesome foreign ruler. How to quietly get rid of an inconvenient woman who could cause a scandal. How to replace a broken Oracle.
“OoOooOOOooooohhhh! You're here to take his place, aren't you! How lovely! You'll make a fine Oracle. All of the knowledge of the Citadel, yoursyoursyours, yes!” A flicker of light. At the far end of the room, a chair. In it...something...barely visible in shadow.
“No! I want to help him!” Shasha'iti said, and started dragging herself, hand over hand, toward the chair. Trills of fingernails-on-chalkboard laughter.
“No one wants to help
him! When he's dead, his throne will be yours! Won't that be lovely?
He is your Problem! He has to
die! Diediediediediedie! EheheheHEHEheHehEeeeEEee!”
“
No!” Shasha'iti snarled through gritted teeth, dragging herself onward, shrugging off the clinging, clawing hands of the marionettes.
Hiss of steam and whirr of gears as bank after bank of the Analytical Engine came to life around them. The Castellan looked around nervously. “What's happening?”
“His vitals are getting weaker!” a technician watching a bank of gauges said.
“What happens if he dies while she is still connected?” The technicians looked at each other, then to the Castellan with worried expressions.
“We don't know sir. She could just take over...her mind could be...pulled into death with him.”
“What if we disconnect her?”
“It's never been done sir. Not with a full immersion like this. Do you want us to sever the link?”
“Not yet. Perhaps this is...perhaps she's doing something. Give her a chance.”
“Let me
go!” Shasha'iti cried, struggling to pull away from the marionettes' spidery hands.
“He'll be dead soon! Just like you want! Just like
everybody wants!” their sing-song voices said in unison. Their heads turned simultaneously toward the chair. “Die! Die! Do it! Do it! Do it!” Now Shasha'iti was close enough to see the curled up form of a little boy in the chair. His face was buried behind his folded up legs, arms wrapped around his knees, holding himself into the tightest ball he could. She swore she heard a faint sob.
She dug her fingers into the carpet, pulling harder, faster. The marionettes' hands seized her arms, her neck, her ragged burlap dress.
ZZZZZZZZ! Their puppet-strings pulled them skyward. “Nooooooo!” Shasha'iti cried, her hands plucked from their grip on the carpet to flail helplessly in the air.
'Do it...' They're not just his projections anymore...they're mine too. Whirrrrr. CLICK. Shasha'iti turned to the empty eyes of the Merasta marionette. “I
unmake you!”
Cracks spread across the white mask, and it came apart in a shower of crumbling pieces. Cables snapped, twanging as they eroded from existence. Shasha'iti turned to the next, and the next. “I unmake you! I unmake you!” Clutching hands snapped and popped apart, and Shasha'iti was falling through space. She landed on motorized legs of iron, pistons and shocks smoothly hissing as they cushioned her fall. Kneeling at the throne to put her head on a level with the Oracle's, she reached out and gently touched him.
“I'm not here to replace you. I want to help you.” The little boy's head rose, looking at her with sad eyes that saw her, noted every minutest detail, yet couldn't put them together into the concept of 'fellow human being.' His lips twitched, but could not form words. The room convulsed, walls and ceiling of brass groaning, on the verge of collapse. Shasha'iti looked into his eyes, compassion swelling in her heart.
“You can connect to me. Like I'm a new bank of memory. I can connect to you the same way,” she said, closing her eyes briefly in concentration. There.
SNAP! Solenoid relays closed in unison, creating a new circuit. Shasha'iti and the Oracle screamed together as lifetimes of pain and loneliness poured into each, from the other. Shasha'iti remembered beatings for failing to 'perform' well enough for an audience that despised him as a freak, living in the prison of his own mind, unable to understand the two-arm-two-leg-things that gave pain. She felt him remembering the girls gleefully chanting for her to kill herself, days of shivering hunger and an empty begging cup. Compassion and understanding flowed from her like a river. And then...cracking...breaking...hatching...the shell that had trapped him all his life, falling away. Compassion...started flowing back.
“Disconnect her,” the First Speaker said.
“Please sir, just a little bit longer,” the Castellan said.
“You said it yourself. She can't be replaced. Disconnect her.”
“Hoist me up,” a technician said.
ZZZZ-zzzzz. Suspension cables hummed as the technician was lifted toward Shasha'iti and the Oracle.
Whirrrrr. CLICK.
“What was that?” the Castellan said. “That's an output state isn't it? A completed calculation?”
SNAP!“Memory relays?”
“Sirs, I think the Oracle has opened a full link with her!”
“We're getting an increase in his brainwave amplitude...heart rate...nutrient intake...” the technician monitoring the gauges said. “Whatever she's doing, I think it's working!”
Before Shasha'iti's eyes, the little boy blurred into a young man. He sat up, taking her in with eyes full of curiosity and wonder. "You're a girl." He tilted his head slightly so that his eyes matched the offset tilt of her distorted features. "Why are your eyes like that?"
"It's how I was born," Shasha'iti said, feeling a familiar fear start to build inside.
"You don't like it..." the Oracle said. His face scrunched in an expression of mental struggle. "Here, you can make yourself look any way you want. Do you want to look different?"
"If I did that...I would be a pretty lie."
"A lie? To me?" More confusion. "You think
I wouldn't like you? But..." he reached out a hand and stroked her cheek. "...you're so
beautiful!"
“Well then. Perhaps we won't be needing her for much longer,” Jor'al said.
Clickclickclickclickchitterchitter The Castellan looked down and saw a delicate mechant snapping its mandibles and moving its mouthparts rapidly. The oversized parabolic dishes on its head marked it as a Monitor, a type designed to listen to the operation of the Analytical Engine and other machinery for the subtle sounds of worn gears or other harbingers of mechanical failure. A chatter of mechanical clicks and scrapes spread through the other mechants, until the Analytical Engine itself began to churn again.
The door hissed open, and a pair of the massive Oracle Guardian types entered, their heavy footfalls clattering like horses' hooves. One aimed its head at the technician near Shasha'iti, the other at the First Speaker. The Castellan raised an eyebrow. "Speaker, I am afraid that you might have things exactly backwards."