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“You still haven’t told me anything about bronze.”
“I thought this might help make it clearer, Calde. You see, there’s a couple dozen alloys people call bronze, because they look like bronze. Most have quite a bit of pot metal in them and no tin at all. Tin costs too much. Real tin.”
Silk stirred impatiently.
“That makes real bronze cost a lot, too. Real bronze, not the stuff you’d get if you bought a bronze figure of some god, is half tin and half copper.”
“Is that all?”
Swallow nodded. “It’s a pretty simple alloy, but it’s got marvelous properties. It’s tougher than steel and almost as strong, and you can hammer and weld it, and machine it easier than anything except cast iron. I know that because we still make some little parts out of it, sleeve bearings mostly, and the worms for the big worm gears. But when I was a boy, the older men said they used to cast heads out of it, and there were still some old taluses around with those bronze heads.”
Silk leaned against the doorframe; he was already tired, had been tired before the parade had ended, and there was still the di
“Better, Calde. We cast those worms I mentioned, and then machine the bearing surfaces, so I know. It would speed things up too, because the parts wouldn’t need so much cleanup. But it would be expensive, because of the cost of the tin.”
“Have you got the tin? Here right now?”
Swallow nodded. “Because we still use bronze for the worms and so forth.”
“Then do it. Use it.”
“I’ll have to up the price, Calde. I’m sorry, but I will. Even if you order two or three.”
“Then up it.” Longing for the brown leather chair he had occupied earlier, Silk added, “We’ll talk about how much when we get back to your office. And don’t forget the double-thick thorax and front plates. Obviously you’ll need a little more for those, and the steel umbrellas — shields, I suppose you’d call them that Maytera suggested.”
Mucor said, “The storm will pass over soon,” surprising everyone; then, “I’m tired.”
“She ought to sit down,” Silk told Swallow, “and so should I, but first I must ask you about Maytera’s hand. She’s got it in her basket. Maytera, will you show it to him, please?”
“Man cut,” Oreb remarked from his perch on the top of the screen. Silk was not certain whether he meant that Blood had severed it or that Blood himself had been killed — by him — as animals were as sacrifice.
Maytera Marble had passed her basket to Swallow; he took off the white towel that had covered her now-lifeless right hand and held it up, in appearance the hand of an elderly woman. A short cylinder of silvery metal extended from its wrist. “I lost some fluid,” she told him, “but not very much. There are valves and things to control that. I’m sure you know.”
He nodded absently.
“But the tubes would have to be mended some way. The one that brings the fluid to move my fingers, and the one that takes it back.”
Silk said, “We’d appreciate it very much, Director, if you would do everything you can for Maytera. She can’t pay you; but I may be able to, if it isn’t too much. If it is, I feel sure I can arrange for you to be paid.
“Don’t worry about that, Calde.” Swallow returned the severed hand to its basket. “We’d be happy to do what we can for Maytera here as a counesy to you. We could rejoin those pressure and return tubes, though it’ll take delicate work.”
Maytera Marble smiled, her face shining.
“The load-bearing part’s no problem at all. Or I don’t think it should be. It won’t look quite as pretty as it did, though. Repairs never do.”
“I won’t mind a bit,” Maytera Marble assured him.
“The difficulty — pardon me, Calde.” Swallow closed the door, the only source of daylight on their side of the canvas screen. “Maytera, will you hold up your arm a minute? I need to show the calde something.”
She did, and Swallow pointed. “Look down in here, Calde. Maytera, I want you to try to move your fingers. Pretend that you’re going to grab hold of my nose.”
Minute glimmerings appeared in the shadowy interior of the stump of arm, pin-point gleams that reminded Silk oddly of the scattered diamonds he had seen beneath the belly of the whorl.
“There! See that, Calde? Those are glass threads, like very fine wires, with light ru
Hesitantly, Silk nodded.
“Suppose you were to put a man on a hilltop twenty miles away, and tell him to ride as soon as he saw a lantern run up the flagpole of the Juzgado. It’s the same principle.”
“I believe I understand.”
“When ordinary wire like we use gets cut, you can fix it by wrapping the ends together. With glass threads like you find in chems, that won’t work. You’ve got to have a special tool they call on opticsynapter. We don’t have one here because we don’t use glass thread. We haven’t any way to make it.”
Silk endeavored to ignore Maytera Marble’s disappointment. “Then we must locate one of these tools — and someone who knows how to use it, I assume — and tie the glass threads? Is that correct? Then you can complete the repair?”
Swallow shook his head. “If she went around with her hand hanging from the glass string, it would probably break. We can do the welding right now, and we’d better. When you find an opticsynapter she can take off her hand in the usual way. The operator shouldn’t have any trouble fishing out the other end of the string.”
“Where would we find one?”
“There you have me, Calde. A doctor who specializes in chems should have one, but I don’t know of one here in Viron.”
Chenille snapped her fingers. “I know somebody!”
“Do you, dear? Do you really?” Maytera Marble’s voice, usually so calm, trembled noticeably.
“You bet. Stony had one of those strings cut where our talus had shot him, and Patera Incus fixed it for him so he could move again. He had a gadget to do it with, and that’s what he said it was, an opticsynapter. I was watching him.”
Silk turned to Blood’s emaciated daughter. “You were gone a few minutes ago, Mucor. Are you back with us? Please answer, if you can.”
She nodded. “With the Flier, Silk. Women have him. They want to know about the thing that lets him fly.”
“I see. Perhaps it would be wiser for us not to speak of that at present. I want you to search for Patera Incus for me, as well as Hyacinth and Auk. Do you know him?”
After a silence that seemed long, Mucor said, “No, Silk.”
“He was a prisoner in your father’s house for a while, at the same time I was. He’s an augur too, short, with a round face and prominent teeth. A few years older than I. I realize you don’t see things as we do, but that is how we see him.”
Mucor did not reply, and Maytera Marble passed her working hand before Mucor’s eyes without result. “She’s gone, Patera. She’s looking for him, I think.”
“Let’s hope she finds all three soon.” Silk glanced up at Oreb. “Has the man finished working over there? Joining the iron, or whatever you’d call it?”
“No fire! No more!”
“Thank you. Come along, Director. As interesting as all this is, and potentially valuable, I can’t spare more time for it. Your workman must begin Maytera’s repair. You and I can discuss our contract while he works. How many taluses could you build at the same time if you called back all of the employees you’ve sent home? Don’t exaggerate.”
“I won’t. I just wish I had my charts here. The movement of parts, you know, Calde, and the time required to make them.”
“How many?” Silk stepped around the screen into a clutter of metal tables, remembering at the final moment to smile at the leather-aproned craftsman at work there. “Good afternoon, my son. Thelxiepeia bless you.”