Chapter 6
The Weapons Research Station was in the south-western outskirts of Ro-Atabri, in the old manufacturing district of Mardavan Quays. The area was low-lying, drained by a hesitant and polluted watercourse which discharged into the Borann below the city. Centuries of industrial usage had rendered the soil of Mardavan Quays sterile in some places, while in others there were great stands of wrongly-coloured vegetation nourished by unknown seepings and secretions, products of ancient cesspools and spoilheaps. Factories and storage buildings were copiously scattered on the landscape, linked by deep-rutted tracks, and half-hidden among them were groups of shabby dwellings from whose windows light rarely shone.
The Research Station did not look out of place in its surroundings, being a collection of nondescript workshops, sheds and shabby single-storey offices. Even the station chiefs office was so grimy that the typical Kolcorronian diamond patterns of its brickwork were almost totally obscured.
Toller Maraquine found the station a deeply depressing place in which to work. Looking back to the time of his appointment, he could see that he had been childishly nai’ve in his visualisation of a weapons research establishment. He had anticipated perhaps a breezy sward with swordsmen busy testing new types of blades, or archers meticulously assessing the performance of laminated bows and novel patterns of arrowheads.
On arrival at the Quays it had taken him only a few hours to learn that there was very little genuine research on weapons being carried out under Borreat Hargeth. The name of the section disguised the fact that most of its funds were spent on trying to develop materials which could be substituted for brakka in the manufacture of gears and other machine components. Toller’s work mainly consisted of mixing various fibres and powders with various types of resin and using the composite to cast various shapes of test specimens. He disliked the choking smell of the resins and the repetitious nature of the task, especially as his instincts told him the project was a waste of time. None of the composite materials the station produced compared well with brakka, the hardest and most durable substance on the planet — and if nature had been obliging enough to supply an ideal material what was the point in searching for another?
Apart from the occasional grumble to Hargeth, however, Toller worked steadily and conscientiously, determined to prove to his brother that he was a responsible member of the family. His marriage to Fera also had something to do with his newfound steadiness, which was an unexpected benefit from an arrangement he had plunged into for the sole purpose of confounding his brother’s wife. He had offered Fera the fourth grade — temporary, non-exclusive, terminable by the man at any time — but she had had the nerve to hold out for third grade status, which was binding on him for six years.
That had been more than fifty days ago, and Toller had hoped that by this time Gesalla would have softened in her attitude to both him and Fera, but if anything the triangular relationship had deteriorated. Irritant factors were Fera’s monumental appetite and her capacity for indolence, both of which were an affront to the primly sedulous Gesalla, but Toller was unable to chastise his wife for refusing to amend her ways. She was claiming her right to be the person she had always been, regardless of whom she displeased, just as he was claiming the right to reside in the Maraquine family home. Gesalla was ever on the look-out for a pretext on which to have him dismissed from the Square House, and it was sheer stubbornness on his part which kept him from finding accommodation elsewhere.
Toller was pondering on his domestic situation one foreday, wondering how long the uneasy balance could be maintained, when he saw Hargeth coming into the shed where he was weighing out chopped glass fibres. Hargeth was a lean fidgety man in his early fifties and everything about him — nose, chin, ears, elbows, shoulders — seemed to be sharp-cornered. Today he appeared more restless than usual.
“Come with me, Toller,” he said. “We have need of those muscles of yours.”
Toller put his scoop aside. “What do you want me to do?”
“You’re always complaining about not being able to work on engines of war — and now is your opportunity.” Hargeth led the way to a small portable crane which had been erected on a patch of ground between two workshops. It was of conventional rafter wood construction except that the gear wheels, which would have been brakka in an ordinary crane, had been cast in a greyish composite produced by the research station.
“Lord Glo is arriving soon,” Hargeth said. “He wants to demonstrate these gears to one of Prince Pouche’s financial inspectors, and today we are going to have a preliminary test. I want you to check the cables, grease the gears carefully and fill the load basket with rocks.”
“You spoke of a war engine,” Toller said. “This is just a crane.”
“Army engineers have to build fortifications and raise heavy equipment — so this is a war engine. The Prince’s accountants must be kept happy, otherwise we lose funding. Now go to work — Glo will be here within the hour.”
Toller nodded and began preparing the crane. The sun was only halfway to its daily occlusion by Overland, but there was no wind to scoop the heat out of the low-lying river basin and the temperature was climbing steadily. A nearby tannery was adding its stenches to the already fume-laden air of the station. Toller found himself longing for a pot of cool ale, but the Quays district boasted of only one tavdrn and it had such a verminous aspect that he would not consider sending an apprentice for a sample of its wares.
He had barely finished putting rocks into the crane’s load basket when there came the sounds of harness and hoofbeats. Lord Glo’s jaunty red-and-orange phaeton rolled through the station’s gates and came to a halt outside Hargeth’s office, looking incongruous amid the begrimed surroundings. Glo stepped down from the vehicle and had a long discussion with his driver before turning to greet Hargeth, who had ventured out to meet him. The two men conversed quietly for a minute, then came towards the crane.
Glo was holding a kerchief close to his nose, and it was obvious from his heightened colouring and a certain stateliness of his gait that he had already partaken generously of wine. Toller shook his head in a kind of amused respect for the single-mindedness with which the Lord Philosopher continued to render himself unfit for office. He stopped smiling when he noticed that several passing workers were whispering behind their hands. Why could Glo not place a higher value on his own dignity?
“There you are, my boy!” Glo called out on seeing Toller. “Do you know that, more than ever, you remind me of myself as a… hmm… young man? “He nudged Hargeth. “How is that for a splendid figure of a man, Borreat? That’s how I used to look.”
“Very good, my lord,” Hargeth replied, noticeably unimpressed. “These wheels are the old Compound 18, but we have tried low-temperature curing on them and the results are quite encouraging, even though this crane is more-or-less a scale model. I’m sure it’s a step in the right direction.”
“I’m sure you’re right, but let me see the thing at… hmm… work.”
“Of course.” Hargeth nodded to Toller, who began putting the crane through its paces. It was designed for operation by two men, but he was able to hoist the load on his own without undue effort, and directed by Hargeth he spent a few minutes rotating the jib and demonstrating the machine’s load-placing accuracy. He was careful to make the operation as smooth as possible, to avoid feeding shocks into the gear teeth, and the display ended with the crane’s moving parts in apparently excellent condition. The group of computational assistants and labourers who had gathered to watch the proceedings began to drift away.
Toller was lowering the load to its original resting when, without warning, the pawl with which he was controlling the descent sheared through several teeth on the main ratchet in a burst of staccato sound. The laden basket dropped a short distance before the cable drum locked, and the crane — with Toller still at the controls — tilted dangerously on its base. It was saved from toppling when some of the watching labourers threw their weight on to the rising leg and brought it to the ground.
“My congratulations,” Hargeth said scathingly as Toller stepped clear of the creaking structure. “How did you manage to do that?”
“If only you could invent a material stronger than stale porridge there’d be no.…” Toller broke off as he looked beyond Hargeth and saw that Lord Glo had fallen to the ground. He was lying with his face pressed against a ridge of dried clay, seemingly unable to move. Fearful that Glo might have been struck by a flying gear tooth, Toller ran and knelt beside him. Glo’s pale blue eye turned in his direction, but still the rotund body remained inert.
“I’m not drunk,” Glo mumbled, speaking from one side of his mouth. “Get me away from here, my boy — I think I’m halfway to being dead.” Fera Rivoo had adapted well to her new style of life in Greenmount Peel, but no amount of coaxing on Toller’s part had ever persuaded her to sit astride a bluehorn or even one of the smaller whitehorns which were often favoured by women. Consequently, when Toller wanted to get away from the Peel with his wife for fresh air or simply a change of surroundings he was forced to go on foot. Walking was a form of exercise and travel for which he cared little because it was too tame and dictated too leisurely a pace of events, but Fera regarded it as the only way of getting about the city districts when no carriage was available to her.
“I’m hungry,” she announced as they reached the Plaza of the Navigators, close to the centre of Ro-Atabri.
“Of course you are,” Toller said. “Why, it must be almost an hour since your second breakfast.”
She dug an elbow into his ribs and gave him a meaningful smile. “Yoirwant me to keep my strength up, don’t you?”
“Has it occurred to you that there might be more to life than sex and food?”
“Yes — wine.” She shaded her eyes from the early foreday sun and surveyed the nearest of the pastry vendors’ stalls which were dotted along the square’s perimeter. “I think I’ll have some honeycake and perhaps some Kailian white to wash it down with.”
Still uttering token protests, Toller made the necessary purchases and they sat on one of the benches which faced the statues of illustrious seafarers of the empire’s past. The plaza was bounded by a mix of public and commercial buildings, most of which exhibited — in various shades of masonry and brick — the traditional Kolcorronian pattern of interlocked diamonds. Trees in contrasting stages of their maturation cycle and the colourful dress of passers-by added to the sunlit chiaroscuro. A westerly breeze was keeping the air pleasant and lively.
“I have to admit,” Toller said, sipping some cool light wine, “that this is much better than working for Hargeth. I’ve never understood why scientific research work always seems to involve evil smells.”
“You poor delicate creature!” Fera brushed a crumb from her chin. “If you want to know what a
“No, thanks — I prefer to stay where I am,” Toller replied. It was about twenty days since the sudden onset of Lord Glo’s illness, but Toller was still appreciative of the resultant change in his own circumstances and employment. Glo had been stricken with a paralysis which affected the left side of his body and had found himself in need of a personal attendant, preferably one with an abundance of physical strength. When Toller had been offered the position he had accepted at once, and had moved with Fera to Glo’s spacious residence on the western slope of Greenmount. The new arrangement, as well as providing a welcome relief from Mardavan Quays, had resolved the difficult situation in the Maraquine household, and Toller was making a conscientious effort to be content. A restless gloominess sometimes came upon him when he compared his menial existence to the kind of life he would have preferred, but it was something he always kept to himself. On the positive side, Glo had proved a considerate employer and as soon as he had regained a measure of his strength and mobility had made as few demands as possible on Toller’s time.
“Lord Glo seemed busy this morning,” Fera said. “I could hear that sunwriter of his clicking and clacking no matter where I went.”
Toller nodded. “He’s been talking a great deal with Tunsfo lately. I think he’s worried about the reports from the provinces.”
“There isn’t really going to be a plague, is there, Toller?” Fera drew her shoulders forward in distaste, deepening the cleft in her bosom. “I can’t bear having sick people around me.”
“Don’t worry! From what I hear they wouldn’t be around you very long — about two hours seems to be the average.”
“
“There’s nothing for you to fret about,” Toller said reassuringly, even though — as he had gathered from Glo — something akin to a plague had begun simultaneously in eight widely separated places. Outbreaks had first been reported from the palatine provinces of Kail and Middac; then from the less important and more remote regions of Sorka, Merrill, Padale, Ballin, Yalrofac and Loongl. Since then there had been a lull of a few days, and Toller knew the authorities were hoping against hope that the calamity had been of a transient nature, that the disease had burned itself out, that the mother country of Kolcorron and the capital city would remain unaffected. Toller could understand their feelings, but he saw little grounds for optimism. If the ptertha had increased their killing range and potency to the awesome extent suggested by the dispatches, they were in his opinion bound to make maximum use of their new powers. The respite that mankind was enjoying could mean that the ptertha were behaving like an intelligent and ruthless enemy who, having successfully tested a new weapon, had retired only to regroup and prepare for a major onslaught.
“We should think about returning to the Peel soon.” Toller drained his porcelain cup of wine and placed it under the bench for retrieval by the vendor. “Glo wants to bathe before
