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“I am from Mainframe. This is where we live, we Crew. It is our director, it shelters us and we repair it as it directs, when repairs are needed.”
“A real place.” The newcomer sipped brandy.
“Mainframe is where we live. Viron is where you live.”
“If you live there, why are you shaggy flying over here all the time making it rain?”
“Because Mainframe directs it. It is the director of the Whorl, not ours alone. If rain did not fall, you Cargo would perish. Or if too much falls. Mainframe has many sources of data. We are one, not the least.”
“You want some red?” The newcomer offered his tumbler. “You still feel like fainting, it might be good for you.”
“No, thank you.”
“All right, what’s this about cargo? Like on a boat?”
“You people, the animals, and the plants. It is the same as a boat, yes, because we are in a boat, we as well as you.”
“We’re the cargo?” Staring up at Sciathan, the newcomer tapped his own chest. “Me, and everybody I know?”
“That is it with precision.” Sciathan nodded emphatically. “Abanja and Siyuf also. So you see that I would not chill Auk. It is our duty to preserve the Cargo, not to chill it.”
“Mainframe told you to do this?”
“To preserve the Cargo? Yes, always.” Sciathan’s voice dropped. “It is increasingly difficult. The sun no longer responds well, not even so well as in my father’s day. Heat accumulates, another difficulty, because the cooling no longer functions efficiently. Mainframe may be compelled to blow out the sun. Is that how you say it? Interrupt its energy. It has warned us, and we have done what we can to be ready.”
The newcomer put down his tumbler. “You’re getting me dizzy enough without this.” He rose, stepping to the small barred opening in the iron door. “Hey! Peeper!”
“You think that I am deceiving you. You will seek to have me removed.”
The newcomer turned to face him. “Cost me two cards to get this pad, and now I scavy you’re cank. It’s getting too hot, you said. The whole whorl’s getting too hot.”
Sciathan nodded. “There are other difficulties, but that is worst.”
“So you’re going to shut off the cooling—”
“No, no! The sun. Until the Whorl can be cooled. I will not do this, you must understand. I could not. Mainframe must, if it must be done. It will be a terrible darkness.”
“Cause the whorl’s getting too hot.” The newcomer strode to the window. “You take a look out there. That’s snow.”
“You will not credit me.” Sciathan sighed, studying the newcomer’s coarse, bearded face for some sign of belief “I ca
“It had to make winter. Mainframe had to make it?” The newcomer pointed to the window. “I always figured winter was just natural.”
“Nature is a useful term for processes that one does not understand,” Sciathan told him wearily. “Once already the sun has blown out because Mainframe was trying to make this winter. This was not intended.”
“Yeah. I heard about that.” The newcomer sounded less argumentative. “Then the sun came back, only real bright for a minute. It set fire to some trees and stuff. A cull I know asked Patera about it. Calde Silk. He said it was another god talking and he knew which one, only he didn’t say.”
“It was not a god,” Sciathan asserted. “It was the sun’s restarting. Restarting must be at maximum energy.”
“Anyhow, that’s not why you’re here.” The newcomer pulled his tunic over his head, revealing a red wool undershirt that he removed as well. “Mainframe told you to find this cully Auk.”
The warder’s face appeared in the opening in the door. “What you need?”
“I want you to go to Trotter’s for me,” the newcomer told him, and handed him two cards. “You tell him any friends of mine that come in, the first one’s on me. Have him tell ’em I’ll be back real soon, and I’ll see ’em at the Cock. You got it? You got to go straight away.”
“Sure. You too hot in there?”
“I got a itch is all. You tell Trotter, then maybe I’ll have another little job for you.”
When the warder had gone, Sciathan began, “Is it known here… I do not wish to offend religious sensibilities.”
“You won’t,” the newcomer told him, “cause I ain’t got any. I got religion, and that’s different.”
“Is it known that all the gods are Mainframe?” Sciathan awaited an explosion with some anxiety; when it did not come, he added, “Equally is Mainframe all gods. Mainframe in its aspect of darkness, which in this tongue is termed Tartaros, issued my instructions.”
After knotting its sleeves around one of the bars, the newcomer pushed his undershirt out the window. “You know, I wish you’d told me that sooner, Upstairs.”
He picked up his fork, bending its tines with powerful fingers. “What’s your right tag, anyhow?”
“I am Sciathan. And you?”
“I ain’t going to tell you, Sciathan. Later I will, only not now, cause I scavy it might slow us down. You know where the keyhole is in this door? About where it is, anyhow?”
Sciathan nodded.
“Dimber. Look here. See how I twisted the one fu
Sciathan accepted the fork. “You are saying this will open the door. You ca
“Sure I do. I seen the key when he was letting me in, and I know how these locks work. I know how everything works soon as I see it, so get cracking. I don’t want to keep ’em waiting outside.”
Slowly, Sciathan nodded again. “Then you will be free, and I free to pursue my search for Auk, but clothed as I am, and ignorant of the customs of this city.”
“We’re going to take care of you,” the newcomer told him briskly. “Clothes and everything, and we’ll teach you how to act, all right? Do it!”
Standing on tiptoe, he was able to thrust his arm through the space between two bars. The strangely bent tine scratched the door for the lock plate, then scratched the lock plate for the keyhole. “I am fearful that I may drop it,” he told the newcomer, “but I will try to—” He had felt the bolt retract. “It is unlock!”
“Sure.” As Sciathan withdrew his arm, the newcomer pushed the door open. “Come on. There’s a couple mort troopers on the outside door already, so we best bing. Wrap that blanket so they can’t see your kicks.”
He led Sciathan along the corridor and down a stair to a massive iron door. “They ought to of had ’em inside too,” he whispered, “only they figured it was all rufflers and upright men, so nothing would happen. It don’t matter what’s afoot, it gets queered when some cully figures nothing’s going to happen.”
“I understand this,” Sciathan told him; and wanted to add: Yesterday that was I.
“Only that’s the way I’m figuring too, ’cause I got to. They’ll have slug guns out there, and if we beat hoof they’ll pot us sure. So we’re going to walk easy going out, and just keep going till we’re ’cross the street. And maybe nothing will happen. If they holler or say something, don’t you stop or even look back at ’em. You got it?”
“I will try. Yes.”
“Dimber.” The newcomer pressed his ear to the iron door. “Long as you do, you don’t have to worry. We’ll take care of the rest.”
There followed a lengthy silence; at last the newcomer said, “Pretty quiet out there. Get set.”
The motion of the door seemed much too quick as Sciathan stepped, half blinded by winter sunlight, through the doorway at the newcomer’s side. From the corner of his eye he glimpsed the towering woman whose thick sand-colored greatcoat his blanket brushed.