B00dw1duqa ebok, p.21
B00DW1DUQA EBOK, page 21
He wanted to say something, do something to acknowledge his boyhood friend. A smile, a wink, anything. But he dared not. Connor was playing a dangerous game, laying this careful trail. He mustn’t do anything to give that away. He had to play along.
The older master stroked the lobe of his left ear between finger and thumb, thinking. Finn counted seven rings on his finger. First Wheel, very powerful. Only one step away from the Inner Wheel itself, the ultimate masters of Engn. Connor, he could see, wore five rings. He’d gone a long way in a short time. Did he also have Diane’s ring hidden somewhere about him? It wasn’t on his fingers, at least.
‘Very well,’ the older master said. ‘Let him eat and sleep or he’ll be useless. Tomorrow set him to work. The expansion works are progressing too slowly. But we can’t afford any more mistakes, understood?’
‘Yes, Master.’ Connor turned and with a nod of his head indicated that Finn should follow him. Finn said nothing and followed. Connor led him past the blue shelves and into a hall of orange books. At the far end of this, where three halls met, there was a raised wooden platform with a chair upon it and a rail around its edge. Three steps led up to it. Another master sat there, also scarlet, ticking off something on a roll of paper and occasionally glancing up at the activity in each of the halls. Connor nodded at this figure but didn’t stop. He led Finn towards the shadows at the end of one of the bookcases. There was a low doorway there, leading to a bare room lined with low, wooden beds. All but two or three were occupied.
‘Sleep here,’ said Connor.
Finn nodded but didn’t reply. He didn’t dare speak in case one of the people in the beds was awake. Connor turned and led him through another doorway, into a long, narrow room. This was clearly where people ate: long tables stretched up and down, with wooden benches like those in the Refectory. This room, at least, was deserted. Finn glanced up at Connor and could resist speaking no longer.
‘Connor. Isn’t it strange? I mean, here we both are.’ The image of the Ironclads taking Connor away came to Finn. That terrible day he’d lost both his friends. It was only four years ago, but it seemed like a distant, ancient memory.
‘Eat in here,’ said Connor. ‘The others will tell you when. Understand, boy?’
‘But Connor, I…’
‘Enough. You have your orders. You will begin work tomorrow.’
‘Yes, Master. Only, I don’t know where to go or what to do.’
Connor stepped closer to Finn so that he was only inches away. He sounded angry when he spoke again. ‘You will be shown the way, boy. Do what you are supposed to do and all will be well. Understand?’
For a moment, the briefest moment, it was the old Connor standing there. A look of recognition in his eye. Then the stern, master’s scowl returned and Connor turned and stomped away.
Finn watched him go, wondering if he’d imagined it.
Chapter 21
Finn slept deeply in his wooden bed, and could have slept for twice as long, but a shake roused him from his slumbers. It seemed to be the start of a shift; people stretched and yawned and dressed all around the room. Finn did likewise, then followed the others into the long room where food had been set out: wedges of bread and cheese with hot tea to drink. He ate, feeling more and more hungry with each mouthful. There were no masters in sight. Finn looked around, hoping to pick out a friendly face, but he saw no-one he knew.
‘I’m Aelth. You’re to come with me.’
The blond-haired man from the night before had walked up behind him and now strode off without waiting. Finn rose and followed, his mouth crammed full of bread and cheese. Aelth led him back to the blue shelves.
‘What is this place for?’ asked Finn. ‘I mean, I don’t know what to do.’
Aelth glanced aside at him. ‘Runners come in from all over Engn with the code numbers of the drawings they need. Each mechanism, each component, each detail has its own master drawing, see. It’s our job to transcribe the required design at full size onto one of the rolls of paper. Then a runner can take it away to where it’s needed and a new part of the mechanism can be built. Or a worn-out part repaired. But any mistake, however small, can be disastrous. Got it? The whole mechanism depends on us transcribing the designs correctly.’
Finn nodded. He thought about the self-governing valves. Was the design for those somewhere here? Was it possible, then, that a simple mistake had been made in the copying of that design, perhaps years ago? That the valves really were, or should have been, fully functional? But surely someone would have noticed?
‘Watch,’ said Aelth.
A runner arrived holding a slip of paper, out of breath. Aelth took it, examined it, then showed it to Finn.
‘It’s a D code, see? That means structural, so it’s in the blue books, one for us. Red is wiring, black water and steam, green for the timing controls and so on. It’ll all make sense soon.’
‘So you dial this code into the book shuttle?’ said Finn.
‘That’s it. But first you dial in your own code, so they know who has pulled which design, then the code for the drawing. The machine gets it, you transcribe it, then you put the book back. Think you can do it?’
‘I don’t have a code.’
‘You just use the one they gave you when you arrived.’
‘I don’t have it. I mean, they didn’t give me one.’
Aelth looked puzzled for a moment, as if Finn was a contraption he’d never come across before.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Well, yes.’
‘Everyone has a number.’
‘So I’ve heard. But I don’t.’
‘Are you sure you’re even supposed to be here?’
‘Well, I don’t know really. I think so.’
Aelth examined Finn closely. ‘Well, we’d best see if we can get that sorted out first.’
He led Finn back past the blue shelves towards the raised wooden platform. Another scarlet-robed master sat on the chair, ruffling through a sheaf of papers. They stood and waited at the foot of the stairs for the master to look up. The wood of the steps was worn smooth, almost shining, by the passage of so many feet. Finn wondered what, exactly, he was really supposed to be doing here. What Connor’s plan was. Perhaps the idea was to sabotage some vital piece of the design. He could see how that might work. It wouldn’t have to be much. Some tiny but vital detail transposed or confused. An easy, innocent mistake and one of the bigger mechanisms could be made to flood or explode. Finn imagined fires spreading, explosions triggering further explosions like a chain of firecrackers. It would be dangerous, though, very dangerous. How would they destroy the mechanism without endangering everyone inside?
The master rammed a wad of papers onto an iron spike on his desk, then looked down at them.
‘Yes?’
‘Master, this boy has no number,’ said Aelth.
The master looked at Aelth, and then at Finn. He scowled.
‘That’s impossible. What happened to it, boy?’
‘I was never given one,’ said Finn.
‘Of course you were given one.’
‘Then no-one told me it, Master.’
The master stood and descended. Finn though he was going to strike him, but instead he pushed past and strode away to converse with a master in white some distance away. The two conversed for some time, their heads nodding. Finn couldn’t tell if they were arguing or laughing together. Eventually, the master came striding back, a slip of paper in his hand.
‘Here’s your new number, boy. I had to go to a lot of trouble to get it. Don’t lose this one as well.’
‘I ... I won’t, Master.’
‘Make sure you don’t.’
Finn and Aelth made their way back to the blue shelves. Aelth spoke when no-one else was close enough to overhear. ‘How did you manage to lose your old number? That’s only supposed to happen when you die.’
‘Like I said, I didn’t know I had a number,’ said Finn. ‘That’s the truth. But there was an accident yesterday. I don’t know, perhaps they thought I was dead.’
‘You’ve been lucky, then. If you haven’t got a number it’s usually easier for them just to kill you to keep the records straight.’
‘Really?’
‘Really. Tell me: that master last night said he knew you. Was he a friend?’
Finn wondered what to say. ‘We just grew up in the same village. We didn’t know each other very well.’
‘I see.’
‘Why do you ask?’ said Finn.
‘Oh. No reason.’
Back at the tables, Aelth showed Finn how to operate the book-engine. Finn tried it for himself, dialling in the codes then pulling on the lever. The lever refused to budge.
‘You have to wait until the machine is idle,’ said Aelth. ‘It can only store two codes, the current and the next. It’s locked out at the moment. If it had three codes it would go haywire.’
‘What would it do?’
‘Best you don’t find out.’
When the machine was ready, Finn pulled the lever again. This time, the shuttle clattered up and across its cradle of rails, billowing steam, to pluck out a volume in the high, far corner of the bookcase.
Once he had the book in his hands, Finn crossed to the nearest table to set to work copying the required plan. It was very simple: a right-angle shaped piece of metal that looked like it slotted into something. He copied out the design carefully, drawing it life-size by using the scale marked on the drawing in the book. His first two attempts went badly wrong. On the first, he scored holes in the thin, crinkly paper, right through to the wooden table. On the second, his calculations went wrong and two lines that should have met didn’t. The black-haired woman, working next to him, glanced across to give him an instruction as he worked on his third attempt.
‘Don’t smudge your lines as your draw. Rotate the paper if you have to.’
‘OK.’
‘Check that angle is ninety degrees. If you draw it wrong they’ll construct it wrong.’
‘OK.’
His third attempt, when he finished it, looked perfect to Finn. The woman - Ciara - cast a glance over it and nodded her head. It would do. Finn rolled up the design into a tube and a runner came to take it from him. Finn heaved the great blue book back to the shelf and typed in the code to return it to its correct slot.
His next design was more complicated, a spiral-shaped structure, part of a pump, perhaps. This time he only took two goes to copy it accurately and Ciara only had to correct him once. He worked like that for eight hours, the only respite the walk to and from the bookshelves. He soon learned to make the most of that, walking slowly, taking his time to wait for the shuttle. Back at the table, he worked methodically and was soon copying the blueprint designs without mistakes.
Occasionally, he looked up from his work and flexed his right hand to relieve the cramping pain from holding the steel pen. He took the time to study the others around him, just as he had back in the Valve Hall. Apart from Ciara and Aelth, three others worked at their table: a woman and two men, all of them much older than Ciara and Aelth. They looked like they’d worked there for many years. Aelth had introduced them as Maeve, Garvin and Colm. Maeve looked up to meet his gaze now, her eyes narrowed as if trying to remember something. She seemed to study Finn for a moment. Then she scowled and looked back down to her plan.
They all kept themselves to themselves as they worked, never speaking, only stopping occasionally to stretch fingers or backs. As far as Finn could tell, they each copied their designs flawlessly. Ciara, despite her age, appeared to be responsible for all of their work. Each time one of the others completed a piece they would show it to her and she would approve it or tell them what needed fixing. Clearly she was a in a position of some power. Finn thought about that as he worked. If one of the others introduced a deliberate flaw into their work, she would know about it. If, on the other hand, she made a mistake, deliberate or otherwise, no-one would know. No-one checked her designs.
He also noticed she and Aelth communicating silently, flashing glances full of meaning at each other, indicating someone or something with a nod of a head. One of the masters strolling by or some detail of a diagram. It was subtle, but clear if you looked carefully. Perhaps they were just a couple. Or perhaps they were scheming, waiting for the opportunity to act. Perhaps they were wreckers. On the other hand, they might have been placed there by the masters to keep a close eye on everyone. He had to bide his time, find out more about them all.
One evening, trudging back to the side-room where their wooden beds were laid out in a line, Finn found himself walking alongside Aelth once more.
‘So, how long have you worked here?’ Finn asked, trying to sound as if he wasn’t really that interested. He stretched his fingers, staring at them as if they were what really occupied him.
‘Oh, a year or two now.’
‘Were you somewhere else before this?’
‘Why do you want to know?’
Finn shrugged, as if it didn’t matter. ‘Just wondered. I used to be in the Valve Hall; I wondered if you’d been there too.’
‘No, never. I think Maeve said she’d been there once.’
Finn glanced around, No-one else was near. Over the clatter of the shuttles, no-one else would be able to hear them.
‘Assembling the valves?’
‘No, delivering a blueprint. Sometimes when there isn’t a runner handy we have to take them ourselves.’
‘But in the Valve Hall they just assemble the parts already made by someone else.’
Aelth shrugged. ‘Maybe they wanted to check something was correct, then.’
‘So Maeve and the others, Garvin and Colm, they were already here when you came?’
‘Yeah. Been here years those three. So long they’ve become sloppy. That’s why the masters made Ciara their supervisor.’
‘You mean they make mistakes? In the diagrams?’
Aelth looked at him for the briefest moment, eyes narrowed. Finn could see he was wary. ‘There was trouble some time back, some mistakes were made. That’s when they appointed the table supervisors.’
‘Ciara.’
‘Yeah, Ciara.’
‘She seems very smart.’
‘Yeah. I suppose so.’
Weeks went by. They gave Finn more and more complex diagrams to copy out. Ciara rarely had to correct him at all. He began to settle in. At first he constantly expected the Ironclads to come for him and drag him away. Either that or he feared one of the boys from the Valve Hall arriving, Graves or Croft or Bellow. In the lead flashing of the skylight, outside on the roof, he had scratched a message. Don't believe the masters. The postern gate is the escape. Sometimes he regretted that, fearful that one of the others would see it and follow him. He wasn’t sure which would be worse: that or the Ironclads.
But no-one came and, slowly, he became more relaxed. Ciara, Aelth and the others were friendly enough, although no-one talked that much. They weren’t like the boys back in the dormitory at least. Most of the time he was left alone, which suited him fine.
As he worked away each day, he thought more and more about what he was supposed to do. It looked like Connor had gone out of his way to ensure he, Finn, worked in the Vault. You will be shown the way, boy. Do what you are supposed to do and all will be well. Wasn’t it likely, then, that he’d placed Finn at this particular table for a reason? One or more of the five must be wreckers. Finn studied them all as casually as he could, but came to no conclusions. He longed to talk to one of them about it, but didn’t dare. Not yet. One word to the wrong person and the Ironclads would come for him. He surely wouldn’t be able to escape again.
He sometimes thought about making a deliberate mistake, something small but dangerous. But the problem was knowing what change to make. They transcribed plans for individual components of the machinery so it was hard to know what was a vital piece and what wasn’t. Also, it was impossible to know which were real, working components and which were dummies like the valves. And what would Ciara do if he did introduce a fatal flaw? Would she correct him or let his mistake through? But if she did that she’d be just as much to blame as he was. He tried to catch her eye as he showed her each completed plan, to hint that he was ready to act, but she never appeared to notice.
Eventually, he stopped paying so much attention to the others’ work, stopped looking for deliberate mistakes, and consigned himself to waiting for the right moment. He saw Connor occasionally, sitting on his wooden platform, or strolling round the room. They didn’t speak. But perhaps there would be a sign when the time was right. He just had to be patient.
He could see Connor, now, if he glanced down the hallway, discussing something with the older master in the white robes. It had been a busy day in the vault, runners scurrying around constantly, carrying completed plans off into the workings. Thankfully Finn’s shift was nearly over. He felt light-headed with hunger.
He rolled up the plan he’d just finished, an intricate locking mechanism with some very detailed slots inside. Somewhere in the room, presumably, was the design for the key that fitted it. He looked around for a runner to take his design, but none was there. Ciara, rolling up her own scroll of paper, saw his confusion.
‘No runners around,’ she said. ‘We’ll need to take them ourselves.’
‘Where to?’
‘Both these need to go to the Foundry.’
‘I don’t know where that is.’
The truth was, he didn’t want to go outside. He hadn’t left the Vault since he’d arrived. He felt safe there. He didn’t want to meet up with any more Ironclads.
‘I’ll show you,’ said Ciara. ‘Then you’ll know for next time.’
She turned and strode off, away towards the stairs. Finn looked around, unsure whether he was even allowed to follow her.
Maeve watched him from across the table, seeing his confusion. ‘Go on, go after her. Then you’ll know the way.’
