When he had pushed each carefully selected programme card into the input slot, each in considered order, he punched a brief sequence of buttons on the numbered keys wired up to the cleaning machine’s analytical engine.
The man closed the lid on the engine and resealed the construct’s body. He replaced the twisted screws which held the hatch in place. He rested his hands on the construct’s lifeless body for a moment. He heaved it upright, stood it on its treads. He gathered his tools.
The man stepped back into the center of the room.
“Um…‘Scuse me, squire,” he yelled.
There was a moment of silence, then Isaac’s voice boomed out.
“Yes?”
“I’m all done. Problems should be over. Just tell Mr. Serachin to load up the boiler with a bit of juice, then switch the old thing back on. Lovely models, the ekbs.”
“Yeah, I’m sure they are,” came the response. Isaac appeared at the railing. “Is there anything else I need to know?” he asked impatiently.
“No, guv, that’s about it. We’ll invoice Mr. Serachin within the week. Cheerio, then.”
“Right, bye. Thanks very much.”
“Don’t mention it, sir,” the man began, but Isaac had already turned and walked back out of sight.
The repairman walked slowly to the door. He held it open and looked back at where the construct lay face down in the shadows of the big room. The man’s eyes flickered momentarily upstairs to check that Isaac was gone, then he moved his hands to trace out some symbol like interlocking circles.
“Virus be done,” he whispered, before walking out into the warm noon.
Chapter Twenty
“What am I looking at?” asked Yagharek. As he held the diagram he cocked his head in a shockingly avian motion.
Isaac took the sheet of paper from him and turned it the right way up.
“This, old son, is a crisis conductor,” Isaac said grandly. “Or at least, a prototype of one. A fucking triumph of applied crisis physico-philosophy.”
“What is it? What does it do?”
“Well, look. You put whatever it is you want…tapped, in here.” He indicated a scrawl representing a belljar. “Then…well, the science is complicated, but the gist of it…let’s see.” He drummed his fingers on the desk. “This boiler’s kept very hot, and it powers a set of interlocking engines here. Now, this one’s loaded up with sensory equipment that can detect various types of energy fields-heat, elyctrostatic, potential, thaumaturgic emissions-and represents them in mathematical form. Now, if I’m right about the unified field, which I am, then all these energy forms are various manifestations of crisis energy. So the job of this analytical engine here is to calculate what kind of crisis energy field is present given the various other fields present.” Isaac scratched his head.
“It’s fucking complicated crisis maths, old son. That’s going to be the hardest part, I reckon. The idea is to have a programme that can say ‘well, there’s so much potential energy, so much thaumaturgic, and whatnot, that means the underlying crisis situation must be such-and-such.’ It’s going to try to translate the…uh…mundane, into the crisis form. Then-and this is another sticking point-the given effect that you’re after also has to be translated into mathematical form, into some crisis equation, which is fed into this computational engine here. Then what you’re doing is using this, which is powered by a combination of steam or chymistry and thaumaturgy. It’s the crux of the thing, a converter to tap the crisis energy and manifest it in its raw form. You then channel that into the object.” Isaac was becoming more and more excited as he talked about the project. He could not help himself: for a moment, his elation at the massive potential for his research, the sheer scale of what he was doing, defeated his resolve to see only the immediate project.
“The thing is, what we should be able to do is change the form of the object into one where the tapping of its crisis field actually increases its crisis state. In other words, the crisis field grows by virtue of being siphoned off.” Isaac beamed at Yagharek, his mouth open. “D’you see what I’m talking about? Perpetual fucking motion! If we can stabilize the process, you’ve just got an endless feedback loop, which means a permanent font of energy!” He calmed in the face of Yagharek’s impassive frown. Isaac grinned. His resolve to focus on applied theory was made easy, even pressing, by Yagharek’s single-minded obsession with the commission in hand.
“Don’t worry, Yag. You’ll get what you’re after. As far as you’re concerned, what this means-if I can make it work-is that I can turn you into a walking, flying dynamo. The more you fly, the more crisis energy you manifest, the more you can fly. Tired wings are a problem you won’t face no more.”
There was a troubled silence at that. To Isaac’s relief, Yagharek did not seem to have noticed the unfortunate double-meaning. The garuda was stroking the paper with wonder and hunger: Yagharek murmured something in his own tongue, a soft, guttural croon.
Eventually he looked up.
“When will you build this thing, Grimnebulin?” he asked.
“Well, I need to actually knock together a working model to test it, refine the maths and whatnot. I reckon it’ll take me a week or so to put something together. But that’s early days, remember. Very early days.” Yagharek nodded quickly, waved away the caution. “You sure you don’t want to kip here? Are you still going to wander round like a ghul and spring on me when I least suspect it?” asked Isaac ironically.
Yagharek nodded.
“Please tell me as soon as your theories advance, Grimnebulin,” he asked. Isaac laughed at the polite bathos of the request.
“Certainly will, old son, you have my word. As soon as the old theories advance, you get to know.”
Yagharek turned stiffly and walked towards the stairs. As he turned to say goodbye, he caught sight of something. He was still for a minute, then walked over to the far end of the walkway’s east-facing side. He indicated the cage containing the colossal grub.
“Grimnebulin,” he said. “What does your caterpillar do?”
“I know, I know, it’s grown like fuck, hasn’t it?” said Isaac, strolling over. “Tremendous little bugger, eh?”
Yagharek pointed at the cage and looked up questioningly.
“Yes,” he said. “But what does it do?”
Isaac frowned and peered into the wooden box. He had moved it so that it faced away from the windows, which meant that its interior was shadowed and unclear. He squinted and peered into the darkness.
The massive creature had crawled to the furthest corner of the cage and had somehow managed to climb the rough wood. Then, with some organic adhesive it exuded from its arse, it had suspended itself from the top of the box. It hung there, pendulous and heavy, swaying and rippling slightly, like a stocking full of mud.
Isaac hissed, his tongue jutting from between his lips.
The caterpillar had tightened its stubby legs, curling them in tight towards its underbelly. As Isaac and Yagharek watched, it jack-knifed at its centre and seemed to kiss its own tail end, slowly relaxing until it hung deadweight again. It repeated the process.
Isaac pointed into the dimness.
“Look,” he said. “It’s smearing something all over itself.”
Where the caterpillar’s mouth touched flesh, it left infinitely thin glistening filaments, which stretched out taut as it moved its mouth away, adhering where they touched its body again. The hairs at the creature’s hind end were flattened against its body, and they looked wet. The enormous grub was slowly smothering itself in translucent silk, from the bottom up.
Isaac straightened up, slowly. He caught Yagharek’s eye.
“Well…” he said. “Better late than never. Finally, what I bought it for in the first place. The thing’s pupating.”