Eyes of the Calculor Read Online Free PDF
Author: Sean McMullen
forward canopy was smashed, and there was a dead sheep beside me. The crash had frightened all the local humans away, so I crawled out and made for some nearby woodlands. Once I was under cover I got my map and compass out and set off for the par-aline."
"By the sound of it you are not badly injured."
"My right arm is broken, and probably a few ribs too. There is a lump on my head and my ankle is twisted."
"Ah . . . but better than being dead."
"Not so!" moaned Terian with a hand over his eyes. "/ lost the Titan."
"Don't take it so hard, there was nothing you could have done."
"It must have been sabotage, I was not vigilant—"
"Stop it! I am your commanding officer now, remember? Listen to me! The serving wench at the wayside said that all electrical machines in the town burned, apparently at the same time as the Titan was crippled. Did that happen at Cooper too?"
"Cooper is a privy pit with a ticket kiosk. They had no electrical machines. Seegan, I lost the Titan\ Nobody has ever lost a sunwing."
"I would imagine that all sunwings have just been lost, and I doubt that most people aboard were as lucky as us. We reach Elmore in a half hour; I wager that everything electrical has burned there as well, and the same will have happened in Rochester."
"But why? I don't understand."
"Mirrorsun; it has done similar things before. In 1708 GW it destroyed an army with some invisible power. Now it has decided that electrical essence machines are also annoying, so it has destroyed them too."
"But Mirrorsun built the Titan, out of things mined on the moon."
"Terian, I have a few facts, not every answer. What is certain is that you were not responsible for the Titan's, loss. Now, then, you were my commanding officer until recently and I need informed advice. What are we to do, Fras?"
Terian rubbed his eyes, then began to drag himself out of the miasma of self-pity, misery, shame, and pain where he had been wallowing. They were fugitives and refugees, but they were alive and free, and not entirely without friends.
"If our papers get us past the border post at Elmore, we must stay together and travel on to Rochester tonight. It is a big city, and if all electrical machines really have burned, there will be plenty of chaos for us to hide behind. The safe hostelry will welcome us."
"Terian, remember that none of this was your fault."
"That may be the truth, but history will be written by how I am judged."
The Rochestrian Commonwealth, Eastern Australica
In Rochester, the first official sign that the world had changed came within three minutes of the massive electromagnetic pulses from the sky that destroyed every circuit on the planet. Armed Dragon Librarians of the rank of Orange, Red, and Green hurried into the great, domed reading room of Libris, led by a Dragon Blue. The readers looked up uneasily, as did the duty librarian in charge. One student, Rangen, noticed that a new electric clock was trickling a streamer of smoke into the air. The Dragon Blue strode to the raised central desk and struck the gong for attention.
"The reading room will be cleared immediately!" she declared. "Gather your personal effects and leave."
The combined clattering, groans, and muttering of two hundred readers echoed up to the dome. Helicos and Rangen were a little slow in packing, and attracted the attention of a Dragon Green.
"Anything you can't carry by the second gong gets left here," he said firmly, his flintlock drawn and its barrel resting back on his shoulder.
"But, Fras, closing time is not until midnight," protested Rangen. "We have exams—"
"No readers allowed in the library, young Fras," replied the Dragon Green. "That's the order of the Highliber."
Nine minutes after the electric calculor had begun to smoke, there was not a single reader in the domed reading room. They were not ejected from the Libris grounds at once, however. The readers were made to form several queues in the plaza just behind the main gates, and the
"By the sound of it you are not badly injured."
"My right arm is broken, and probably a few ribs too. There is a lump on my head and my ankle is twisted."
"Ah . . . but better than being dead."
"Not so!" moaned Terian with a hand over his eyes. "/ lost the Titan."
"Don't take it so hard, there was nothing you could have done."
"It must have been sabotage, I was not vigilant—"
"Stop it! I am your commanding officer now, remember? Listen to me! The serving wench at the wayside said that all electrical machines in the town burned, apparently at the same time as the Titan was crippled. Did that happen at Cooper too?"
"Cooper is a privy pit with a ticket kiosk. They had no electrical machines. Seegan, I lost the Titan\ Nobody has ever lost a sunwing."
"I would imagine that all sunwings have just been lost, and I doubt that most people aboard were as lucky as us. We reach Elmore in a half hour; I wager that everything electrical has burned there as well, and the same will have happened in Rochester."
"But why? I don't understand."
"Mirrorsun; it has done similar things before. In 1708 GW it destroyed an army with some invisible power. Now it has decided that electrical essence machines are also annoying, so it has destroyed them too."
"But Mirrorsun built the Titan, out of things mined on the moon."
"Terian, I have a few facts, not every answer. What is certain is that you were not responsible for the Titan's, loss. Now, then, you were my commanding officer until recently and I need informed advice. What are we to do, Fras?"
Terian rubbed his eyes, then began to drag himself out of the miasma of self-pity, misery, shame, and pain where he had been wallowing. They were fugitives and refugees, but they were alive and free, and not entirely without friends.
"If our papers get us past the border post at Elmore, we must stay together and travel on to Rochester tonight. It is a big city, and if all electrical machines really have burned, there will be plenty of chaos for us to hide behind. The safe hostelry will welcome us."
"Terian, remember that none of this was your fault."
"That may be the truth, but history will be written by how I am judged."
The Rochestrian Commonwealth, Eastern Australica
In Rochester, the first official sign that the world had changed came within three minutes of the massive electromagnetic pulses from the sky that destroyed every circuit on the planet. Armed Dragon Librarians of the rank of Orange, Red, and Green hurried into the great, domed reading room of Libris, led by a Dragon Blue. The readers looked up uneasily, as did the duty librarian in charge. One student, Rangen, noticed that a new electric clock was trickling a streamer of smoke into the air. The Dragon Blue strode to the raised central desk and struck the gong for attention.
"The reading room will be cleared immediately!" she declared. "Gather your personal effects and leave."
The combined clattering, groans, and muttering of two hundred readers echoed up to the dome. Helicos and Rangen were a little slow in packing, and attracted the attention of a Dragon Green.
"Anything you can't carry by the second gong gets left here," he said firmly, his flintlock drawn and its barrel resting back on his shoulder.
"But, Fras, closing time is not until midnight," protested Rangen. "We have exams—"
"No readers allowed in the library, young Fras," replied the Dragon Green. "That's the order of the Highliber."
Nine minutes after the electric calculor had begun to smoke, there was not a single reader in the domed reading room. They were not ejected from the Libris grounds at once, however. The readers were made to form several queues in the plaza just behind the main gates, and the
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