As she spoke, Timor slipped his hand around her fingers. She felt a warning squeeze.
But Vendacious did not seem upset by the question. His voice came breezily, “The diagnosis was obvious. I’ve preserved the remains, however. You are welcome to inspect.”
Timor’s hold was still tight.
“There’s no immediate need,” she replied.
Tycoon made an impatient noise. “That’s good.” He said, “You are not the boss of us, Ravna Bergsndot. I’ve brought you here to discover if
It was a bumpy start to their factory tour, but Tycoon’s mood seemed to shift as often and as fast as sunlight and clouds. They went into the hall and climbed up to a long platform that ran the length of a production line. Tycoon insisted that Ravna walk with him, at the front of the group. Now the eightsome sounded very much like Scrupilo, the proud engineer, pointing out this detail and that, full of opinions about everything. His snouts swept the length of the hall. “This is twelve hundred meters long, with two thousand Tines working at full shift. This is one of the older halls, so it is not wired for electricity. All the main power still comes from steam engines. And yet, I’ll wager you have nothing so grand as this single factory up in your Domain.”
Okay, he was even more a braggart than Scrupilo. Still, this was preferable to some of Tycoon’s other moods. “You’re quite right, sir,” she said, and that was the truth. The far end of the hall was almost lost to sight. All of Scrupilo’s North End operation would have fit in this one building. She could see no coherent packs on the floor below, but Tines were crowded almost shoulder to shoulder at work points long the line. The activity was rapid and intricate, unceasing, like the sweatshops that the Princesses had overturned. She tried to think of something nicer than that to say—perhaps an admiring question.
From behind them, Timor piped up, “They’re cuttlefish!”
Tycoon shrugged. “In Interpack they’re called—” and he gobbled a simple chord. “It means small swimmers with eyes on the sides and grabbers streaming from one end. This particular variety can remember and repeat simple phrases. I use them to carry short messages, when no packs are at the destination.”
Ravna leaned a little further out and looked straight down. Yes, the critters had enormous glassy eyes. Their tentacles were long and moving all the time. And Tycoon didn’t seem to have anything more to brag about them! Interesting. She brought her gaze back to the assembly line itself. “What are you making in this factory?”
“Today? Today, this line is set up for rain gutterage gardenware. Hmmph.” He was making little annoyed sounds at himself, as if realizing that this did not fit his grand image. He turned a head and rattled Interpack at his radio singleton. A question, it sounded like to Ravna. The singleton was silent for several seconds, but when it replied, its gobbling was much more musical than normal Interpack. Ravna realized that it was chanting numbers stacked into chords. Tabular data. Tycoon summarized in Samnorsk: “Ta reports two hundred tonnes of product per day, five thousand rain gutters per hour. Still to run four more days on this lot.” Somewhere Tycoon must have a radio singleton stationed with an army of clerks. “The rain gutters are mainly for use within the Choir region. Nowadays internal sales are my greatest source of income, certainly of raw materials. But in four days, we’ll be making something else here. Productivity. Flexible productivity!”
“Yes, sir,” said Ravna. “We saw all manner of your goods while we were in the Wild Principates.” That was flattery, but again the absolute truth—and another mystery resolved. “But how do you design the actual steps to be performed, the—” Workflow was the term she would have used if she were dealing with
Tycoon waved airily. “That is where my genius for detail work comes into play. There is the high-flying inventor part of me and then there is my interest in the smallest detail”—Two of him had been looking back as he spoke, and now suddenly he was off on a new topic.—“Timor! You are delaying me!”
Tycoon had separated Timor from Ravna when they entered the hall. Since then, the boy had been limping along behind the Ta singleton. “Sorry,” he said, hustling forward.
“Where is your rickshaw?” said the eightsome.
“Um, back at—oh, there’s another one.” Timor pointed at a small utility wagon by the outer wall.
Tycoon reached out a member and snagged the little red wagon, dragging it back to Timor. “Get in. I won’t have you holding things up.” Two of him glanced at Ravna, “Normally I have a servant to take care of this, but there isn’t room for one with this crowd.” He waved at the various packs accompanying them—and then seemed to notice Jefri. “You!” he said. “Come over here and pull this wagon.”
“Yes, sir.” Jefri gave a Tinish bow and came forward. Ravna thought she saw a smile hiding just below his solemn manner.
“Now, where was I?” Tycoon said, proceeding along the walkway. “Yes. Details! In fact, I’ve discovered an assistant for that. Timor is quite good at detail planning, better than any pack besides myself. He’s even devised methods for planning the planning. Quite remarkable.”
Ravna glanced at Timor, now riding along in the little wagon. Timor looked back, smiling hesitantly. “I hope it’s okay, Ravna. It’s the sort of thing you do, but you do it so much better.”
She grinned. “That’s only when I have
As Jef pulled Timor along, the boy pointed out features of the factory floor, where intermediate parts were brought through side doors, how the racks on the steam-powered main line held the parts so that simple Tinish actions could complete each assembly step. For a wonder, Tycoon kept quiet, letting someone else do the bragging.
Jefri nodded, looking down into the mob. Finally, he glanced at Tycoon. “Everyone is working so closely. I don’t see a single pack.”
The question and tone were very polite, but Ravna held her breath.
Tycoon walked along for several seconds, not replying, maybe waiting for Timor to answer. When the eightsome finally spoke, he seemed to ignore the question: “You know, I pioneered the factory line. I had the original idea back in the Long Lakes even before I fissioned. Then I actually implemented the invention when I moved to East Home. The easterners are open-minded; they even had a primitive form of the idea. You see, most work doesn’t need a full mind. In fact, if you really had to think about what you’re doing, you’d go mad with boredom. So I thought to myself, why not take the idea of a sentry line and make it a just a little more complicated, having each member do some simple, repetitive task?”
Ravna nodded. “We have something similar in the Domain. Street diggers work as a large team, then when they’re done with their shift they revert to separate packs, and collect their pay—and enjoy the rest of the day.”
Tycoon made an irritated noise. “As I said, primitive forms of the idea have always been around. I raised it to a high art at East Home. I’m sure you in the Domain heard of me there. The problem was, there were those bothersome labor guilds, and the local aristocracies had to be bought off—”
“And your other inventions were becoming too grand for a place so small as East Home.” That was Vendacious’ voice coming out of Ta.
“Yes, yes. I’m not forgetting you, Vendacious. Your, um, advice about my other inventions was indispensable even then. I had to find larger pools of labor, without petty squabbling—and out of the view of Woodcarver’s Domain.”
Ahead, the walkway opened into a kind of terrace, wide enough so that—if the two gunpacks stayed at the ends of it—all the rest of their party could stand together. Tycoon stopped there, and some of him walked to the edge of the terrace, waving for Ravna to follow. “Here in the Tropics is the place for my ideas. The workers can be molded into whatever form fits my purpose. No northern factory could function with this perfection.…” His heads tilted slyly at her. “You really can’t hear it, can you?”
There was a
