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TERRA NOVA
Prologue
:
The Testing Site. A Sacriice
is Made. The Light.
The men shivered in the cramped quickstone
building. The generators were not putting
off enough heat to keep the freezing wind
out. The wireman’s teeth chattered as he
looked at his partner. The coldest months in
northern Vinlandia were terrible, but here,
less than a week’s travel from the Unknown
Region, it felt as if all the cold in the world
had been scraped up and packed under his
snow-clothes.
Skraeling children
The atomcrafter fumbled for something in
his coat pocket, and despite the thick mittens
managed to pull out his eye-shield. The
wireman remembered the printed manuals
they had been given. He picked up his own
eye-shield and ixed the heavy black glass to
his face. The freezing leadglass burned his
temples and cheeks.
The atomcrafter’s face remained still and ixed
on the narrow window.
It was almost time.
Suddenly, the tundra was engulfed in an
indescribeable light.
Empyrean
, he quickly
thought.
This is what the light of God looks like
.
He watched the silent light grow larger and
larger, and became aware of a sound at the back
of his consciousness. The low quickstone building
was being pelted with ice and dirt. It sounded
like rain.
The wireman watched as the other man
pulled up the connection and turned on the
signal-light. Two miles away, at the heart of
the experimental area, another generator
began to run. The wireman tried to look out
at the bleak windswept plain, but he found
his gaze drawn back to the atomcrafter’s
hand. It was still on the light-switch. The
wireman could not turn his eye. He thought
perhaps he could go out and wave down
the Skraeling who was assigned the duty of
starting the generator. Wave him down and
tell him to shut it off.
“Oh,” he said. It came out like a cough. “Oh. Oh.”
He looked at the atomcrafter. “Do you know what
we have done?”
The atomcrafter turned to him. “Yes,” he said.
“We have unlocked the last of God’s secrets.”
1
ANGLICA
The Men Plan. Business
Expenses. Sand Hill.
“Well, the back country is pretty
well gone. Too much dead wood.
We mightn’t be worrying if the
town could scrape together the
coin for a gas-winch to yank ‘um
out.”
Woodern laughed to himself
at the idea of what His Lord
Garret would be doing right
now. Probably sitting back in
his high-chair and sending
one of his slaves into town to
wire Sand Hill for a half-dozen
shiny new gas-winches.
Aye,
he
thought.
If we wait a month for
his slaves to clear out his land,
he might sell us one or two.
The two men stood on the back
porch looking down to the
expanse of loodplain. As Woodern
had said, the trees carried here
by the lood had turned the ield
into an impassable no-man’s
land. When the land had been
underwater, the uprooted trees
had sunk halfway into the liquid
dirt. Now that the ground had
dried, the dead trees stuck out
like rotten teeth.
At the price he paid for them,
Woodern added.
“Or we could get a moben. They
have one over in Pinefall-”
“Hmph.” The old man’s distaste
was evident. “And have it fall
apart under a log? No, a gas-
winch is just the thing we need to
take ‘um out.”
The Engine-Monitor.
The Damaged Card. An
Unexpected Trip.
Darton hated going to the bank. Mr. Climmett,
the Engine-Monitor, always looked at him like
he was some Bayoun come to make off with all
the hard coin. Even though Darton had all the
right punch cards from his master and came
into the bank at least once a month, they still
acted like he was doing something wrong by
being there.
“Not with the engine, my lord. Just with this
card.” He waved the damaged card again.
“Well, it should be a problem no longer,”
Darton’s master intoned as he plucked the
punch card from the Engine-Monitor’s hand.
Mr. Climmett, unaccustomed to such behaviour,
actually held on to the card when Darton’s
master tugged on it. Realisation sprang to the
Engine-Monitor’s face and he quickly let go.
And every visit was the same. He presented his
master’s identity card and the notarised proof-
of-bearing to the clerk, who squinted at the
proof and fed the identity card into the bank’s
Patron Engine. That engine was in turn wired
to the much larger Accounting Engine housed
in the barred and gated building next door. The
Engine-Monitor would invariably come over and
ind some law, real or imagined, with the punch
cards Darton carried.
Darton’s master inspected the card and handed
it to him. “Burn this.” He turned back to the
clerk behind the counter. “I am afraid that
there has been a change of schedule. I have
just received a wire from Adamstown. I will be
leaving today. Please wire this to the Archer
Bank there.” He pushed a slip of paper across
the counter. The clerk read it carefully.
Today the problem was a slight tear in one of
the transaction cards. Mr. Climmett waved the
damaged card in front of Darton’s face. “Won’t
put it in. The Engine will jam.” The Engine-
Monitor glared at him. “You can’t put a torn
card in an Engine.” The man continued to scowl.
Darton, to his credit, refrained from pointing
out that the transaction cards were stamped by
the bank and it was their obligation to replace
them. He looked around the room for support.
His eyes met those of the guard who stood
next to the Patron Engine, musket held to the
shoulder. The guard’s face remained impassive.
“Ah, three thousand then, sir? Very good.
Uh, right away, sir.” The clerk turned to Mr.
Climmett. In theory, an Engine-Monitor was
nothing more than a specialised janitor. Here,
however, where trained Enginemen were rare,
Mr. Climmett dominated the bank. The clerk
could feed a punch card into the Engine’s hopper
easily enough, but without expert oversight one
risked upsetting the delicate machines. A single
mistake could alter or erase a patron’s inancial
records.
Darton wondered if they were all as foul-
tempered as Mr. Climmett. His thought was
interrupted by the Engine-Monitor’s lustered
mumbling. The man clearly wanted to continue
lecturing him, but knew well enough not to
delay such a distinguished customer. He hurried
over to the Patron Engine where the clerk was
waiting nervously.
The Engine-Monitor began to demand that
Darton pay to have the card replaced when
he suddenly stopped in mid-harangue. Darton
turned to follow the man’s gaze and found
himself face-to-face with his master.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Climmett. Is there a
problem with the Engine?”
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