The Court of the Air

Sun Gate that didn’t try and take you on?’

Coppertracks scanned the lines of Simple. ‘There is an anomaly in this record. It is my understanding there should be a softbody blood identification attached to the file?’

‘There is,’ said Binchy, tracing the pictograms. ‘It’s … Circle, it’s gone. But it was in there once, look, the surrounding maths has been set up. If it had never been entered that part of the record would be blank.’

‘But they took another blood sample from me only last year,’ said Molly. ‘Pre-registration for my voter franchise. Some cheap penny-cure surgeon — my arm bled for a week. Why would the sample not be in my records?’

Binchy whistled. ‘Nora! If we were caught in here we’d get the boat for sure, but this, this is altering a record — a capital offence. Some card scythe has written an engine ripper to go into the system and monkey with your files, Molly.

‘That sounds blessed bad,’ said Commodore Black.

‘Cardsharps write them for excitement or for mischief,’ said Binchy. ‘Let’s do a little nosing about. See if our friend has left a trail.’ His fingers dashed across the keyboard, another punch card thumping out a few minutes later. It was loaded up and Binchy nervously tapped his fingers while he waited for the Rotator to catch up with the latest instruction set. New symbols began to flow down the engine bank, a column at a time.

‘It looks like the deletion is a side-effect of an illegal search. The engine ripper had to slip in through the back door to escape being noticed by the engine control and it broke the record it was poking for. Someone was doing a hunt for certain blood types and yours was a match.’

‘Blood, mortal blood,’ said the commodore. ‘It always comesback to that. The poor devils left on the streets by the PittHill Slayer as empty husks, and now Nickleby has draggedus into his hare-brained quest for the truth as always. PoorMolly with a thirsty vampire on her trail and me just wantinga few miserable years of peace to enjoy what little life have left.’

‘Your theory may have some merit, Jared softbody,’ said Coppertracks. ‘Excuse me, if I may.’ He rolled up to the keyboard and began to write a new card. Binchy watched with anticipation; the steamman’s iron fingers were almost too large for the ivory keys. Molly guessed Coppertracks would normally have used one of his drone bodies for this sort of work — but bringing his entire retinue along to Greenhall would have attracted far too much attention.

Binchy removed the completed card and stared at the hundreds of fine holes Coppertracks had punched. ‘Some sort of poke, yes?’ He slid the card into the transaction engine’s feeder.

‘I would like to see how many other files share a similar anomaly to Molly’s record,’ said Coppertracks. ‘This will cross-reference the null field maths and produce a table of matches.’

Symbols started raining down the rotator. Binchy traced the lines of pictograms with a finger, mouthing silently to himself as he translated the Simple. Next door to him, Coppertracks’ mind danced with tendrils of energy as the steamman did the same.

The cardsharp’s lips pursed and he slumped down on the station’s chair. Coppertracks was silent in contemplation.

‘What is it?’ asked the commodore. ‘Aliquot Coppertracks, what has your talent with these blessed thinking contraptions revealed? Don’t be silent so, you’re scaring the lass.’

‘You bleeding tell her,’ said Binchy. ‘Please.’

‘Come on,’ Molly demanded. ‘Have you found out who my parents are, old steamer?’

‘Not that,’ said Coppertracks. ‘Dear mammal, something else links these records.’ The steamman pointed to the rotator board. ‘This is the missing blood field. And adjacent to it are the Ham Yard investigation summary notes. Molly softbody, there are over seventy names on this list, and everyone else whose record shares your anomaly has either been murdered or has been reported missing. I still don’t know why you are being hunted, but whatever the reason may be, I think you are the last one left alive.’

Deep in the bowels of Greenhall’s engine halls something that had been sleeping for over a year roused from its slumber. It checked its own integrity for signs of tampering and found no alterations. Then it moved through the switches and valves, tentatively searching for signs of other watchers. Nothing. So it had successfully remained hidden where it had burrowed in. True emotions were beyond the thing but it noted something akin to self- satisfaction. Not that the presence of the cardsharps’ primitive sentinels worried it, those it could handle. It was the other things that moved through the wilds of the system it needed to avoid, breeding and replicating on old transaction engine drums which had been upgraded and replaced, but wisely never quite retired for fear of breaking chains of structure in the legacy systems. These things it feared. Nests of clever malevolent mathematics which would gladly consume it and make it part of their collective.

Now then. Something had tugged it back awake. One of the invisible threads it had spun, tripwires to warn it of possible discovery. One line in particular called out to it. Follow it back. See what was blundering about. Ah, the last active file was being accessed. So, only one left now. Its creator had been busy while it slept. A ripple of simulated amusement; it seemed the business of removing the targets had provoked a little curiosity in someone.

The query was good by Jackelian standards, but it still reeked of inelegance — long where it should have been short. Trace the operator function. A head of department — except the head of department had not been recorded entering Greenhall today. Well, it could hardly expect whoever was responsible for this to fly under their true colours, could it — so analyse the pattern signature of the instruction set, match for similar queries, cross- reference back to operator access, re-trace the operator function. An engine man on the payroll, a cardsharp. Copy the staff file, home address, good.

Now there was a second query under the same operator account, but this one had never been composed by a softbody mind, never in a thousand years. Not a line of wasted Simple in the search — elegant, beautiful, like the peal of a perfect bell. Briefly it regretted it could never meet the author of this punch card. A steamman, obviously; and a creature with some style about him too. What a waste it would be to have such an intelligence terminated. The steamman should have kept his olfactory array safely out of its creator’s business. Too late for regrets now.

In one of Greenhall’s many crystalgrid towers, a hand dipped lazily down into a deck tray and fished out the next card in the queue. It was easy duty, this tower only dealt with automated requests. Flour supplies at Fort Downdirt running low — restock now; automatically coded up by the transaction engines. No need to try and interpret some old woman’s shakily written ink-stained birthday greetings to her son like the public station operators had to. Which was just as well for the man. Because if the card runner had translated the cryptic message on the punch card he was handling and tried to report it, his corpse would have been found drifting in the sewage of the Gambleflowers the next day.

Chapter Fifteen

Oliver was at the bottom of a sea. Sometimes he would rise towards the surface and the press of the depths would ease. He would be close enough to the light to hear the voices. A strident tone, someone complaining. ‘I’m an architect — not a vet.’

Then it was gone. At other times he would hear singing. Strange melodies, inhuman but perfect. Not words though. Some sort of code. Then he would sink again into a hall of perfect blackness. It was peaceful, timeless, until a white dot appeared at the end of the hall. It grew bigger, taking form — unpleasant form.

The Whisperer.

‘Oliver,’ it hissed. ‘Can you hear me?’

‘This isn’t a dream,’ said Oliver. ‘I’m not dreaming.’

‘Focus on me, Oliver. Stay with me, you’re in a coma. Your body has nearly died twice in the last week.’

‘I feel so light, Nathaniel, like I might float away.’

‘You’ll float away forever, boy. You’ve been poisoned. Thetwo slave hunters from Cassarabia had some kind of toxin gland in their teeth — the architects think it originates fom a poisonous eel.’

‘Architects?’

‘You’re in the Steammen Free State, the mountains of Mechancia. King Steam’s own surgeons are trying to