03. Masters of Flux and Anchor (35 page)

"No, although perhaps someday you'll eat your laughter. But we do know how hot peat and coal can get. Many Anchors have it—Mareh is full of the stuff. There is a lot of it as well in the new areas. We will dig it out with machines now being manufactured in our western factories."

"That'll take tons," another Judge pointed out. "How will you get it to your turbine or whatever the hell you called it?"

"The very same principle. In the van Haas collection is a toy that is quite clever. It's a small vehicle that runs on steam directly turning the gears that turn the drive wheels. It chugs around on tracks, and it can pull quite a toy load, It was either a toy or another instructional model, but there seems no reason why that scale has to be the limit. Again, tricky and dangerous testing, and a fairly long time to lay tracks, but we first have to lay them only two hundred and twenty kilometers from the main source of peat and coal to the capital. There it feeds our generator, powers our city, and eventually powers our broadcast and receiving tower as well."

"Incredible." one of the Judges said. "I thought the ancients just relied on Flux like super wizards, but this is really advanced!"

"The coal and peat will eventually be limited, but by then we should have many other ways to get our power. And these steam cars will run on wood as well as coal, I feel certain."

Tilghman was fascinated. "How long would something of this magnitude take with what we have now?"

"Mining could begin as early as three months from now. We have the equipment, and the new men can he put to work there. A working turbine and generator system is far more complex. We have the theory and the plans, but it might be three to five years to get a basic system up, seven to ten to produce really adequate power for both the new city and the broadcast system. The same thing goes for the steam vehicles—three years to build, test, and produce, another two for laying down the track and that's not going to be easy. Much as I hate to do it, we can still use amplified Flux west of Nantzee to duplicate rails and cross-beams that require precise size standards, as we are now doing with the housing kits. Still, I feel that within a decade we can criss-cross the new land with at least two rail lines and have full, steady broadcast communication."

Tilghman and the others nodded, impressed. The Chief Judge looked over at Matson. Many still had strong reservations about him. but as he himself had predicted they needed every outsider they could get who was not automati¬cally against them. "Mr. Matson, you had some objec¬tions to this in your status of observer?"

"Just one. The rail thing I don't know much about but I can't see any but good from it, but the broadcast system tells me that ten years from today the Gates of Hell will be opened, and without even a risk to the Seven. You just take the remote control devices, or improvements on them, that you used for the big project, set them to trigger at a specific signal, and that's that. They all key in the combi¬nations at once, and there we are."

"Impossible!" Sligh retorted. "The broadcast system does not go far in Flux. The amount of power required for a worldwide broadcast is beyond any hope of genera¬tion even if it did. There is no danger. We have already tested and retested this."

Tilghman looked at Matson. "Do you know something we don't?"

"I will tell you that it's possible, that's all. And what's possible will be done. In ten years. I tell you. whatever is on the other side of those Gates will be here."

"Over my dead body!" Champion snapped.

"Very likely." Matson agreed.

The conference in Holy Anchor did not go well. The Fluxlords, fearful of their loss of power and control, were determined to attack New Eden, but they hadn't a prayer without the combined support of the Church and the Anchors, who were used to dealing in an Anchor environ¬ment. The Church, too, was upset, but the scars from the old Empire ran deep, and memories of the massive losses and inconclusive ending to the struggle produced a great deal of reluctance to commit themselves again to a massive military campaign estimated to cost up to a million lives. They'd have to go entirely in Anchor against a foe whose approaches could be guarded by amplifiers and whose terrible  weapons  had been  so  well  demonstrated at Bakha.

The greatest shock was from the Anchors themselves, many of whom found the weakening of Flux an excellent idea and some of whom, although a minority, were tempted by the landscaping program themselves. There was never any love lost between Flux and Anchor, and old hatreds and suspicions ran deep.

Mervyn had expected far more, particularly from the female leaders, almost all of whom found New Eden extremely repulsive, but he received backing from only a small fanatical handful within the large groups. Like the others, they were fearful that they could not succeed in an attack on an area as vast as New Eden now was, and they seemed far more concerned with protecting what they had than in stamping out what they had not.

The most damaging argument was that New Eden was not any longer, or in the foreseeable future, a threat to the rest of World. It was still only six percent of the inhabit¬able area, only a seventh of the Anchors, and, after a strong expansionist period, it by necessity had to turn inward to build and develop what it had. It was also forcefully argued that their technology and development would be entirely Anchor-oriented, and that they would be even less a threat to Flux in the future. New Eden itself sent a message saying as much, and also stating categorically that the landscape program could not be implemented much beyond its present extent without serious risk to World's overall climate and perhaps other conditions as well.

Mervyn and many others argued with equal force that, while New Eden was in fact opposed to the opening of the Gates, its research into communications and alternate power sources would bring the means of such an opening within reach of the Seven within a few years. Flux was inade¬quate as a power source or transfer medium, but the New Eden scientists were learning—or re-learning—fast, and while refusing to go into details the stringers affirmed that such a communications system was not only possible but probable.

This was countered by the bulk of leaders who, it was found, didn't really believe in the existence of the Seven, considering it an old tale designed to reinforce control by the Church in its areas. When named as one of the Seven, Zelligman Ivan himself appeared and did a virtuoso perform¬ance mocking the very concept.

All of this was most disturbing to the Nine, who saw and felt the hidden strings of the Seven in much of the attitudes and fears reflected in the group. Clearly the Seven and the Nine agreed on New Eden's potential, but the Seven wished that potential fully realized.

In the end. what they decided upon was not war but a policy of containment and watchfulness. New Eden could survive and prosper, but it must not expand its borders. An attack on any remaining Anchor was to be considered an attack on all remaining Flux and Anchor and would auto¬matically trigger war. Otherwise New Eden could continue, and even export its technology. While uniformly deploring the theology and morality of the place, a pragmatic approach was prudent to keep it from spreading.

Mervyn gave a stirring speech before the final adoption of the agreements, reminding them of his prior warnings and stating flatly that if New Eden were given the time it would become invulnerable. He pointed to the large Church leadership and the female wizards and warned them that it was their future they were seeing in New Eden. He made them uncomfortable, but the issue had already been decided.

About the only accomplishment he made was in getting copies of the Haller journal to Ivan and to Gabaye and Stomsk as well, both of whom were also present and active behind the scenes. As Haller's great-great grand¬son, he thought he had the right and the duty to show them what had happened. They were fascinated, but undeterred. They were completely amoral and egocentric. To them, only what they did or what happened to them was important or even relevant. They were willing to open the Gates no matter what the consequences because they were bored or wanted something different. Absolute power had so jaded them that they were willing to risk their own lives and the possible annihilation of humanity just to see what happened.

The Nine could do nothing now on their own against New Eden, although they now granted Mervyn's point, previously rejected, that it was the real threat. Their power was in Flux, not Anchor, and New Eden had effectively placed itself outside their control. They would guard the Gates they could. As for Mervyn. he was beginning to come around to Matson's point of view. As hopeless as it sounded, they had better prepare to defend World from invasion from an enemy they didn't know, couldn't understand, and which was as technologically far ahead of them as man was from the horse.

16

MAJOR STORM WARNINGS

New Eden had changed a lot in the six and a half years since Matson had moved there. Anchor Logh, called sim¬ply North Borough, was still agricultural, but it was now a backwater save the science and technical research complex in the old temple, and even that was mostly a library and university-style facility, as were the other three. The popu¬lation had shrunk from more than a million to now just under a hundred and eighty thousand, and that counted the soldiers on permanent duty there. It was amazing now quickly the old capital had become a provincial backwater, and how quickly it had gone to seed.

As he'd predicted, it had taken Sligh's group almost three years to perfect the steam boiler and generators, but once that had been done production proved easy, particu¬larly when the shortcut of Flux was used for mass production. Determining a proper weight-size ratio for the steam vehicles before producing one had permitted the production of and laying of track almost from the time of the decision, and in fact a rail line was already in full operation using horse-drawn cars and spring-assisted hand¬cars long before the first steam engine was placed on line. The new capital city of New Canaan rose from the plains between the Hellgate and the Great Sea in record time, using timber from the virgin forests and rock quarried from the canyons and fissures to the northeast. By the end of five years there was a single-track rail line from New Canaan to West Borough, the former Anchor Nantzee, and they were hard at work on the northern line, first to North Borough and then to the former Anchor Bakha. The Great Sea blocked direct access to Nantzee, but eventually a rail line down the shoreline was in the plans, and a study group was looking at the feasibility of large ships, possibly wind-powered, that would be even cheaper and more effi¬cient in that direction.

The bulk of the men with nonessential skills were put into mining and construction; the women's role was broad¬ened again so that they did almost all of the agricultural work, and a clear division of labor was developing.

New Canaan still wasn't luxurious, but it was serviceable. Long lines of poles connected it through telegraphy with many of the centers of civilization, and while the streets were still mostly dirt and the buildings more utilitarian than homey, it was taking on the look of a growing and bustling boom town.

During this period Matson had arranged for stringer aid in the telegraphy system and had established a network of trails and regular trade and supply routes which were handled by New Eden locals but under stringer supervision. Matson had to admit to himself that as much as he had doubts about the people and the system, he found this new land an invigorating challenge and was somewhat caught up in the excitement of the pioneer experiment. The fact that they had cut the stringers in, in exchange for exclusiv¬ity on some technology, seemed to satisfy all and was a very smart move on New Eden's part.

Matson himself had chosen to live in a log cabin about five kilometers north of the town itself. It was a spacious but single-room affair with fireplace, hand-hewn furniture, and. incongruously, an electric line going in, a telegraph line spliced in. but with no indoor plumbing. He did have a well, with a creaky hand pump in the front yard, and that was all he needed.

After all his services and all this time, no one in any way questioned him. He was quite well known, and en¬joyed official protection. Even Cassie and Suzl had warmed to him to a great degree, which he found gratifying al¬though he couldn't explain to himself why. Cassie's twins. Candy and Crystal, were well past puberty now and they were startling in that both differed from each other only in their tattoos and their fingerprints, which were direct opposites. Both also were almost physical carbon copies of their ageless mother except for higher-pitched voices and thicker lips. The pair were very close, often seeming to be thinking the same thoughts, and one often completed the other's sentences.

They had been raised as upper class Fluxgirls. so they had no education to speak of and had learned how to behave and how to sew, cook, clean, host functions, and that sort of thing. They were, however, far brighter than Fluxgirls were supposed to be, and experts at concealing it except around the home. They did. however, have the Fluxgirl's curse, as Matson thought of it, in that no matter how smart they were their bodies increasingly ruled their minds. In the end it was that, and not any fancy condition¬ing or machines or spells, differentiating the sexes and their roles in the present and developing New Eden.

Cassie and Tilghman had "loaned" him the twins when they were fourteen to come out, every once in a while and straighten up his place and do housekeeping chores. He liked them a lot, and they began to let down the guard on their intelligence around him and ply him with questions to which there were no answers in New Eden—except from him—and he discovered their innermost fear. So far, they shamelessly admitted, they had been able to satisfy them¬selves on each other, since each knew exactly what the other liked, but the tension and pressure was still building, and they knew they would soon have to be married off. They feared being married off to different men and separated.