Chapter Three: Peace In A Crowded Park
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originalsam_backupChapter Three: Peace In A Crowded Park
Jack had thought that Graveworthy's interest was just the polite restraint that most people, when confronted by wooden projectiles, didn't have the presence of mind to show. When he came back from class two days later, however, he found Graveworthy sitting on the steps of his dormitory hall and smoking cigarettes with some of the other second-years while they sang an old Harvard anthem about the strength and prowess of their "engines". He stopped in front of the steps and a few of the more fearful second-years scattered. The rest looked to Graveworthy, who stood and offered his hand.
"Mr. Baker, your colleagues have been entertaining me," he said. "I had no idea engineers had such a sense of humour."
"We try, sir," Jack said, passing through the seated students. "Would you like to come in?"
"Very much. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen," Graveworthy said to the assembled students. "Your hymns are appreciated."
Jack led the way down the dim corridor to his rooms, unlocking the door. "I don't usually encourage them to sing that kind of thing in front of outsiders. No offense meant."
"None taken, but I'm curious as to why? I enjoyed myself thoroughly. What's the song about Rail Ridin' Red?"
"She was a beautiful red-headed rail-ridin' fool," Jack replied with a dry smile. He laid his keys on the worktable and unbuckled the book-sack from his shoulder, shrugging out of his jacket and hanging it over the chair. "How can I help you?"
"I've not come for help, in particular," Graveworthy replied. "Merely to see what you're working on now. How is the sorting machine coming along?"
"Oh, I've laid it to rest for now. The Shakespeare Machine's been reworked though. Look at this," Jack said, placing a coin in the box, the top part of which had been removed. The book, lantern, and screen were gone; in their place was a small arm similar to the ones on the sorting machine. There was a clunk as the box dropped, and a small bar of chocolate wrapped in paper went sailing through the air. Graveworthy, to Jack's surprise, put his hand out and caught it easily.
"I bought a cheap copy of Shakespeare and wrapped the chocolate in pages from it instead," Jack said, as Graveworthy fiddled with the wax sealing the bottom of the wrapper. He unfolded it and smiled.
"Sonnet thirty-three," he said, as Jack bent to tighten an errant bolt. The chocolate wasn't supposed to behead people. "Quite lovely. Full many a glorious morning have I seen flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye."
His voice took on a certain additional depth as he read, and Jack found himself momentarily distracted.
"Kissing with golden face the meadows green, gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy...quite apt, too, I suppose."
"You have a nice reading voice," Jack said, bending to his machine again. "I suppose that's part of the job."
Graveworthy chuckled. "Writing isn't a job, Mr. Baker, it's a life."
Jack straightened and rested his wrists on the framework, cocking his head slightly, inviting him to continue.
"Of course there are people who do write for a living -- people who put in their two thousand words and go home at the end of the day. They have...hobbies, passions, things that their writing supports." Graveworthy gestured at the machine. "Just as there are engineers who don't live for their machines. For me, reading is like -- blinking. It just happens, whether I want it to or not."
Jack wondered if there were engineers who didn't live for their machines; it took a special kind of mind to want to be an engineer. Then he thought of Larsson, who seemed more interested in being a boss than his mechanical studies.
"I suppose you've got to be born with that kind of passion," he said. "I feel sorry for anyone who isn't."
"Really? I rather envy them." Graveworthy took a bite of chocolate and, it seemed to Jack, hastily changed the subject."I suppose with chocolate there's considerably less fire hazard, eh?"
"Oh, I could have fixed that. Clare suggested the chocolate. She thinks more people would pay for food."
"Pay is important?" Graveworthy raised his eyebrows.
"Not to me, but the machines would cost money to build and maintain. You've got to have a durable case to make sure nobody breaks in, and someone will have to check every month or so to stock it and keep the parts in order. I don't mind breaking even but I can't really afford to operate at a loss," Jack replied.
"Clare's a bright young woman," Graveworthy said. "A few strategically placed machines and you could do far better than breaking even. A contraption like this could make a man's fortune."
"School would take its cut. Any work done by students is the intellectual property of Harvard."
"Seems rather unfair if it hasn't anything to do with engines," Graveworthy said.
"Well, all the parts come from scrounged scrap on the campus, and they do feed and shelter me. Plus they leave me be to make it...they don't look over my shoulder all the time."
"Like me?" Graveworthy grinned. Jack, who had been toying with a hammer, raised his head quickly.
"Not at all, sir," he said, distressed. "I don't know why you're here or anything, but you're welcome to visit anytime."
"Don't worry so much. You're not carrying Harvard's reputation on your shoulders -- not with me, at any rate." Graveworthy bent to peer into the guts of the machine. "I'm just a curious man with an abundance of time on his hands. This partnership intrigues me -- yours and Ms. Fields'," he added, seeing Jack's perplexed look. "The marriage of ingenuity and imagination, witnessed and consecrated by these...amazing machines."
"I think you might have the wrong idea about me and Clare," Jack said slowly.
"I don't imply anything improper -- I was speaking metaphorically," Graveworthy answered.
"That's what worries me. I don't deal in metaphors, not very often."
"My apologies. But allow me to make it up to you? I came here today with the idea of commissioning you to produce a device for me. Are you interested in freelance work at all?"
"You'd be paying the school," Jack replied.
"Are you averse to the work?"
"No, I'd do it for free," Jack answered. "What is it you want built?"
"It's a particular labour-saving device for writers," Ellis began. "Have you ever encountered an autoscribe?"
"One of those boxes that takes down what you say?" Jack asked. "It's got a quill inside it, right? Clare showed me one once. Nobody can tell me how they work."
"Well, they don't know. It's Created, after all."
Jack snorted derisively, wiping grease off his hands on a rag.
"What interests me is the idea that a mechanical version could be constructed," Graveworthy continued. "The autoscribe takes a great deal of skill and focus to maintain, which can be quite exhausting and destroys the advantage of having something else recording one's words in the first place."
"I..." Jack pursed his lips. "Well, I could dismantle one, but all I can think is a series of wire...loops..." Jack trailed off, his mind working furiously. "That you could twiddle to move a quill, but..."
He turned to his worktable, where a pile of old scrap paper was gathering dust in one corner. He shook off the top sheet and picked up a narrow, elongated tube. Graveworthy watched him with interest as he sketched out a squarish box on the page.
"It's a self-inking pen," he said, without looking up. "I based it on the kind you buy in shops, built it out of grease-feeds for engine wheels."
"Your own design?"
"Cheaper and just as useful," Jack muttered. "It blots more, that's all."
"Try shaking it on blotting paper at the end of a line," Graveworthy suggested. "Why don't you use pencils?"
"I will when I have something worth correcting," Jack replied, tapping the pen on another sheet of paper. He sketched out another few lines, adjusting to include a delicate flick of the pen every so often. By the time he looked up again to thank Graveworthy for the suggestion, his rooms were empty.
Outside, youthful voices raised in song again, this time about the track they'd laid and the dues they'd paid for it. Jack shook his head, snorted, and bent back to his sketches. After a while, his left hand reached out and picked up a bundle of stiff straw filaments, tapping them idly on the pitted workbench.
***
PRELIMINARY MECHANICAL AUTOSCRIBE PROSPECTUS (DISCARDED)
JACK BAKER
ARCHIVES OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY FOR ENGINEERS
The mechanical Autoscribe consists of a self-inking pen with the ink-retardation mechanism removed (See appendix 1 for process) to allow for steadier ink flow. Pen is suspended by wire loops at point, shaft, and end which connect ot gears mounted on exterior of the scriptbox (fig. 1). Paper is auto-fed beneath the pen using a crank mechanism (fig. 2) which counts scriptbox gear rotations and advances after an average number or revolutions set by calibration during installation.
Scriptbox gears connect to a series of softwood tabs (fig. 3) which continually adjust height and position based on vibrations generated by a bundle of motion-sensitive reeds (see fig. 3 inset) into which words are dictated.
KNOWN ISSUES:
Device is inherently delicate and requires careful calibration. Not moveable nor efficient to use.
Pen requires continual replacement. Removable ink bladder recommended.
Motion-sensitive reeds do not, in fact, work. Operating by manual tab manipulation appears more effective and accurate.
Revisions will be made.
***
The same Sunday morning that Jack wrote up his first report on the Autoscribe, Clare was sitting on a cushion on a low wooden bench in the Creationist Temple in Boston, waiting for the last thick, heavy drumbeat notes to die out and the resident Lecturer to take his place at the pulpit.
The Lecturer rose when the noise had died down, the last vibrations of the drum lost in the whispering noise of hundreds of Creationists shuffling their feet, asking their companions for mints, and unfolding or re-folding the little paper sheets that were handed out at the entryway. He adjusted his glasses on his narrow, pointed nose, peered over the rims at the students in the first few rows, and cleared his throat.
"Good morning," he said, and the crowd rumbled an incoherent greeting back at him. "As many of you know, we are entering a time of great contemplation, with the winter sweeping in and the natural works of God's Creation sinking deep into the earth to await spring. At this time next month the snow will be on the ground, and our thoughts will turn towards comforting things -- fires on the hearth, strong warm drinks to stave off the chill, heavy blankets on the bed, and suchlike. It is now that I wish to draw your attention in quite a different direction, that you may have rich fodder for thought when the time of contemplation begins."
"Windbag," sighed Michael, a fellow student who happened to be sitting next to Clare. She elbowed him, but she grinned too.
"Today I would like to speak about the asceticism of orthodox Creationism, and the concept of abstinence, both in personal affairs and in religious observance."
Clare sniggered.
"Someone in congregation must have got herself in trouble," she whispered to Michael.
"Why do you say that?" he asked.
"Personal abstinence? Honoured more in the breach than the observance, wouldn't you say?"
His eyes glinted. "Maybe it wasn't a student."
"Who else would...?"
Michael cast his eyes upwards, to the row on row of private boxes and narrow balconies that clustered the walls of the Temple like swallows' nests. The wealthy of Boston's Creationist congregation, the politically savvy, and the cream of any visiting foreign party occupied the lofty perches, looking down on the students and Lecturer from the heights.
"What have you heard?" Clare asked under her breath.
"Nothing I'd talk about in the Temple," Michael replied, while the Lecturer read a passage from the Edicts.
"Buy you lunch if you tell me outside," she said.
"It's a Sunday!"
Clare rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to the Lecturer, knowing it would make Michael more insane not to tell than it would make her insane not to know.
"Humility and willingness to serve are tenents of the faith quite as important as any formal training or certification as a Creationist. When we abstain one day a week, as the orthodox adherence to the Edicts requires, we discover not only our own reserves -- our skills and abilities to overcome a world without Creation -- but also our humility; how very little we matter in the world, and what a great gift we have been given," the Lecturer said, fingers tapping the edge of the pulpit. "Likewise, when we abstain from rich food and other pleasures of the body, we discover how rare and special they may be on the occasions we allow ourselves to indulge. A true Creationist does not frown on pleasure of any kind, but lives a simple life that he may better appreciate those pleasures. Or she, of course," he added, smiling down at Clare. She folded her hands in her lap and tried to look abstemious.
"In common agreement between all people, Creationists are governed by laws meant to preserve social order. This was the founding basis of the great union created by the refugees who fled to these shores when they were persecuted as witches in the old world," he continued. "We can preserve peace and order in our own lives by adhering to the Edicts and to the rules we create out of good sense. In the words of Father LaRoche..."
"Someone must really have ticked him off," Clare said. Michael fidgeted. "You know, really, I'd rather not know. It'll be so much more fun to imagine who it could have been. I bet it was the Headmaster. Someone caught him chasing the students."
Michael shifted his weight slightly, the bench creaking beneath them.
"Or maybe the mayor's been visiting prostitutes," she said, and Michael choked. "I bet that's it. It'll be all over the papers tomorrow -- "
"Shh," said a voice behind her, and she turned to see one of the professors looking at her sternly. She contented herself by theorising that he'd probably been found passed-out drunk on a sidewalk and was the real reason they were all being lectured on living purer lives.
Suddenly everyone was standing, and Clare rose to her feet, snatching up the songbook off her lap and following the other students down the aisle and into the crisp, sunny morning.
"One thing to be said for our Temple man, he does give nice short lectures," she said conversationally, turning slightly so that Michael would hear her.
"Very pointed," agreed a much deeper voice, and she whirled on the steps of the temple to discover Graveworthy standing just behind her. "I'm sure he made many people rather anxious today, however."
"Mr. Graveworthy, it's a pleasure," she said, smiling. "Did you attend services today?"
"Well, as a gentleman I'd rather be down on the floor with you and your companions, but as visiting foreign dignitary I was the guest of a wealthy man who insisted that I be highly visible in his box. It's a form of selling oneself, I suppose, but not unpleasant," he mused. "Are you dining at the school, or will you allow an older man to walk you through the Commons and buy you a hot sausage?"
"Michael?" Clare asked, but Michael shook his head.
"Tell you later. See you later. Stop by my rooms!" he called, as he walked away.
Clare smiled and took Graveworthy's proferred elbow, earning herself a disapproving glare from the Lecturer as he emerged from the Temple.
"If you're not careful, I'll start to think you're following me," she said, falling into rhythm with his slow, easy gait. "The Lecture today wasn't a warning to an eminent author not to pursue charming young women, was it?"
Graveworthy smiled. "I suspect there were certain barbs aimed at me, but my interest in you is purely mercenary, I promise you. I'm simply using you to get to Mr. Baker."
"I suspected as much," she laughed. "You want something from him, don't you?"
"You're very astute. I've actually asked him to build me something, which unless I miss my mark he is probably slaving away on as we speak." They passed the gates of the graveyard, and he let his fingers drift out to touch an hourglass carved into the stone supports. "Time flies," he murmured.
"I think our founding fathers must have had a good sense of humour," Clare said. "They can't always have gone around being sober and historical. Father LaRoche wasn't."
"I believe you're right. Still, they must have been great thinkers, your ancestors. I believe Creationism would have died out were it not for the Americans."
Clare pursed her lips; she'd come close to blithely requiring that they weren't her ancestors, something normally she wouldn't speak of to anyone but Jack or her godparents. She glanced up at the much taller man, but his face was a gentle blank slate.
"Who can know," she said instead, stepping into the road behind a horse-drawn cart and crossing to where the wide, grassy expanse of Boston Commons began. Peddlers' carts lined the packed-gravel paths, some with Protestant Creationists standing nearby to keep the fires going or the ice cold. Many of them wore pale, bland clothes and wide-brimmed hats to hide their eyes. "I don't think you've particularly answered my question, Mr. Graveworthy."
"Which question was that, Ms. Fields? Would you care for a sausage or an ice cream? Or perhaps some sugared almonds?"
"No ice cream, thanks," she said, as he paused in front of one cart.
"You observe the orthodoxy -- are you forbidden to support Protestants?" he inquired, purchasing a bowl of chocolate ice cream for himself.
"Students are required to be orthodox. I don't mind Protestantism, but it's trouble for me to be caught fraternizing, and anyway I don't want something cold. I'm not really very hungry," she said, though the smell coming from one of the sausage carts was making her mouth water. He gave her a sardonic look and passed a few coins across the heated tray, gesturing for the man to give her the bun with the sausage cradled in it.
"Mustard, miss?" the vendor asked. At her nod he sprinkled some mustard powder onto the greasy bun and passed it over.
"Thank you," she said to Graveworthy, who had found a nearby tree to lean against. The ground was strewn with leaves, but his particular tree was still a riot of orange and yellow, stretching across the grass like a giant ragged parasol.
"My pleasure. I've often come here, since I arrived. I find it peaceful. Everyone walking serenely through the well-trimmed grass, enjoying their day, anticipating a nice Sunday supper."
She watched as he licked a droplet of cream off his spoon. "I find that hard to believe, Mr. Graveworthy."
"Why is that?"
"Because I don't think you're a man who craves peace in a crowded park."
He frowned, the ice cream forgotten in his hands. She took a bite of her sausage, licking mustard powder off her fingers.
"I think you look at the park and see all the trouble and politics broiling underneath," she continued. "I think you see the Orthodox abstaining Creationists eyeballing the Protestants, and both eyeballing everyone else, and the parents who make their kids wear their most uncomfortable clothing and don't let them play in the grass -- "
"And the beggars," he said, silencing her. "Who aren't going home to a nice Sunday supper. And the pickpockets, and the carters whipping their horses to get them home from the morning market."
"So why tell me lies about tranquility?" she asked. He set the bowl on a tree branch and shoved his hands in his pockets.
"Why do you think?" he asked. "That's not clever, by the way. I'm deeply curious as to what you think my motivations are."
"You're the brilliant writer, not to mention older than me. I don't pretend to school my elders."
"Except when calling them liars?" his lips quirked slightly. "It's easy to test Jack Baker, Ms. Fields. He's the most innocent kind of genius, and I mean that in a flattering light. You are a little trickier. I don't just want something from him, you see; I want something from him that I can't get without you, or at least I suspect I can't."
"And what's that?" she demanded, feeling just a little offended.
"I can't say just yet. Rest assured, it's no disrespect to you. But I think I've worn out my welcome for now -- and it is rather crowded and sad, in the Commons."
He gave her a strange half-bow, more an inclination of the head and a sweep of one arm, and brushed past her as he walked back towards the road. She didn't follow him, though she half wanted to; it would be inconvenient to run in her heeled shoes, and she still had half of her lunch in one hand. She shifted it from right to left, and in so doing discovered that there was something stiff in her breast pocket.
She reached in, careful not to get grease on her coat, and discovered a pale square of card. Graveworthy's name was printed on it, as well as an address at one of the nicer hotels in Boston. On the back was a handwritten address, somewhere near the booksellers' district on Summer Street.
Clare was not entirely sure she was as fond of Ellis Graveworthy as she had been on first meeting. She couldn't recall that he had actually answered any of the questions she put to him, and she didn't like being tested by strangers. She might have to warn Jack that he was trouble. Jack needed someone to protect him, after all.
***
"Clare, I do not need anyone to protect me."
Jack crouched by the edge of the roof, a makeshift rope harness looped over both his shoulders and around his chest, tied on the other end to a chimney. Clare, seated on the ridgepole, sighed and threw a slice of apple at him. It bounced off his neck and tumbled to the ground below.
"You need someone to make sure that opportunists don't take advantage of you," she said.
"He's not taking advantage of me. I'm not a fool, I'm just more -- "
" -- gullible?"
" -- trusting," he finished, unfolding a small metal box and propping it on the slanting roof using two telescoping legs to keep it level. "Will you light me?"
Clare lifted an eyebrow. Jack pointed to the small pile of tinder in a low-slung shelf under the main mechanism. She sighed and set down her apple, grasping the rope attached to his harness and easing her way across the roof.
"Is this what Graveworthy asked you to build?" she inquired, spreading her fingers over the box and concentrating. The wood smoked, then sparked.
"No, that's gone belly-up." Jack unfolded what looked like a metal arm, locking it in place and loading an egg into one end. "You know the chocolate-flinging machine?"
"Yes..."
"Well, I thought, instead of trying to keep it from flinging it so far, why not try to make it fling something as far as possible? If you got really accurate you could use it to send notes across campus and things."
"Don't they have those already? They're called catapults."
Jack rolled his eyes. "Catapults have no accuracy. Now, with this, you can control exactly how much tension goes into the arm, through the valve that controls the steam that goes up into here and -- "
"Okay, okay, you're not an idiot, sorry I brought it up," Clare said irritably. "I just think you should be careful with Graveworthy, that's all."
"He's probably just bored, and thinks you're fun to play with," Jack said. "He could do worse."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing," he said absently, holding his collapsible spanner in his teeth while he loosened a spigot and secured a handful of leather straps by buckles to the platform. Steam billowed up through a glass pipe. He took the wrench out and stuck it in a back pocket. "I mean, you're smart and pretty, that's all."
Clare was glad Jack was absorbed with his machine; she didn't like it when people saw her blush.
"Okay, that's ready to go," he finished, leaning back. "The amount of pressure is pretty precise."
"So where's it going to hit?" she asked.
"I'm just calibrating right now. If I can get a steady array of hits with adjusted pressure, I can map out the rest mathematically."
"And eggs?"
"They're reasonably uniform, cheap, and they won't kill anyone if they hit them," he replied. Clare looked out across the campus, locating the most likely crash site for the egg: the window of a third-year classroom. She could just about see Larsson's head bent to a drafting table nearby. Jack was a peaceful man, but he was also a patient one -- especially when it came to revenge.
"Ready?" he asked her. "Payload away!"
"There's got to be a better battle cry than that," she said, even as he flicked a lever that released all the buckles at once. The arm lifted and flung the egg straight through a great gout of hot steam; it described a perfect arc through the air but fell well short of its mark. A pair of students walking near to the touchdown site stopped and stared at the exploded egg, then looked up at a nearby tree. Clare giggled. Jack took out a notebook and began making calculations.
"I promise I can look after myself," he said as he wrote. "I appreciate the thought and all, but I'm pretty sure he's harmless."
Clare wasn't sure, but she knew when not to press the point. Besides, they had eggs to fling, and Jack would need all his concentration if he was going to nail Larsson right in the side of his big, annoying head.
Chapter 2 | Chapter 4
Jack had thought that Graveworthy's interest was just the polite restraint that most people, when confronted by wooden projectiles, didn't have the presence of mind to show. When he came back from class two days later, however, he found Graveworthy sitting on the steps of his dormitory hall and smoking cigarettes with some of the other second-years while they sang an old Harvard anthem about the strength and prowess of their "engines". He stopped in front of the steps and a few of the more fearful second-years scattered. The rest looked to Graveworthy, who stood and offered his hand.
"Mr. Baker, your colleagues have been entertaining me," he said. "I had no idea engineers had such a sense of humour."
"We try, sir," Jack said, passing through the seated students. "Would you like to come in?"
"Very much. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen," Graveworthy said to the assembled students. "Your hymns are appreciated."
Jack led the way down the dim corridor to his rooms, unlocking the door. "I don't usually encourage them to sing that kind of thing in front of outsiders. No offense meant."
"None taken, but I'm curious as to why? I enjoyed myself thoroughly. What's the song about Rail Ridin' Red?"
"She was a beautiful red-headed rail-ridin' fool," Jack replied with a dry smile. He laid his keys on the worktable and unbuckled the book-sack from his shoulder, shrugging out of his jacket and hanging it over the chair. "How can I help you?"
"I've not come for help, in particular," Graveworthy replied. "Merely to see what you're working on now. How is the sorting machine coming along?"
"Oh, I've laid it to rest for now. The Shakespeare Machine's been reworked though. Look at this," Jack said, placing a coin in the box, the top part of which had been removed. The book, lantern, and screen were gone; in their place was a small arm similar to the ones on the sorting machine. There was a clunk as the box dropped, and a small bar of chocolate wrapped in paper went sailing through the air. Graveworthy, to Jack's surprise, put his hand out and caught it easily.
"I bought a cheap copy of Shakespeare and wrapped the chocolate in pages from it instead," Jack said, as Graveworthy fiddled with the wax sealing the bottom of the wrapper. He unfolded it and smiled.
"Sonnet thirty-three," he said, as Jack bent to tighten an errant bolt. The chocolate wasn't supposed to behead people. "Quite lovely. Full many a glorious morning have I seen flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye."
His voice took on a certain additional depth as he read, and Jack found himself momentarily distracted.
"Kissing with golden face the meadows green, gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy...quite apt, too, I suppose."
"You have a nice reading voice," Jack said, bending to his machine again. "I suppose that's part of the job."
Graveworthy chuckled. "Writing isn't a job, Mr. Baker, it's a life."
Jack straightened and rested his wrists on the framework, cocking his head slightly, inviting him to continue.
"Of course there are people who do write for a living -- people who put in their two thousand words and go home at the end of the day. They have...hobbies, passions, things that their writing supports." Graveworthy gestured at the machine. "Just as there are engineers who don't live for their machines. For me, reading is like -- blinking. It just happens, whether I want it to or not."
Jack wondered if there were engineers who didn't live for their machines; it took a special kind of mind to want to be an engineer. Then he thought of Larsson, who seemed more interested in being a boss than his mechanical studies.
"I suppose you've got to be born with that kind of passion," he said. "I feel sorry for anyone who isn't."
"Really? I rather envy them." Graveworthy took a bite of chocolate and, it seemed to Jack, hastily changed the subject."I suppose with chocolate there's considerably less fire hazard, eh?"
"Oh, I could have fixed that. Clare suggested the chocolate. She thinks more people would pay for food."
"Pay is important?" Graveworthy raised his eyebrows.
"Not to me, but the machines would cost money to build and maintain. You've got to have a durable case to make sure nobody breaks in, and someone will have to check every month or so to stock it and keep the parts in order. I don't mind breaking even but I can't really afford to operate at a loss," Jack replied.
"Clare's a bright young woman," Graveworthy said. "A few strategically placed machines and you could do far better than breaking even. A contraption like this could make a man's fortune."
"School would take its cut. Any work done by students is the intellectual property of Harvard."
"Seems rather unfair if it hasn't anything to do with engines," Graveworthy said.
"Well, all the parts come from scrounged scrap on the campus, and they do feed and shelter me. Plus they leave me be to make it...they don't look over my shoulder all the time."
"Like me?" Graveworthy grinned. Jack, who had been toying with a hammer, raised his head quickly.
"Not at all, sir," he said, distressed. "I don't know why you're here or anything, but you're welcome to visit anytime."
"Don't worry so much. You're not carrying Harvard's reputation on your shoulders -- not with me, at any rate." Graveworthy bent to peer into the guts of the machine. "I'm just a curious man with an abundance of time on his hands. This partnership intrigues me -- yours and Ms. Fields'," he added, seeing Jack's perplexed look. "The marriage of ingenuity and imagination, witnessed and consecrated by these...amazing machines."
"I think you might have the wrong idea about me and Clare," Jack said slowly.
"I don't imply anything improper -- I was speaking metaphorically," Graveworthy answered.
"That's what worries me. I don't deal in metaphors, not very often."
"My apologies. But allow me to make it up to you? I came here today with the idea of commissioning you to produce a device for me. Are you interested in freelance work at all?"
"You'd be paying the school," Jack replied.
"Are you averse to the work?"
"No, I'd do it for free," Jack answered. "What is it you want built?"
"It's a particular labour-saving device for writers," Ellis began. "Have you ever encountered an autoscribe?"
"One of those boxes that takes down what you say?" Jack asked. "It's got a quill inside it, right? Clare showed me one once. Nobody can tell me how they work."
"Well, they don't know. It's Created, after all."
Jack snorted derisively, wiping grease off his hands on a rag.
"What interests me is the idea that a mechanical version could be constructed," Graveworthy continued. "The autoscribe takes a great deal of skill and focus to maintain, which can be quite exhausting and destroys the advantage of having something else recording one's words in the first place."
"I..." Jack pursed his lips. "Well, I could dismantle one, but all I can think is a series of wire...loops..." Jack trailed off, his mind working furiously. "That you could twiddle to move a quill, but..."
He turned to his worktable, where a pile of old scrap paper was gathering dust in one corner. He shook off the top sheet and picked up a narrow, elongated tube. Graveworthy watched him with interest as he sketched out a squarish box on the page.
"It's a self-inking pen," he said, without looking up. "I based it on the kind you buy in shops, built it out of grease-feeds for engine wheels."
"Your own design?"
"Cheaper and just as useful," Jack muttered. "It blots more, that's all."
"Try shaking it on blotting paper at the end of a line," Graveworthy suggested. "Why don't you use pencils?"
"I will when I have something worth correcting," Jack replied, tapping the pen on another sheet of paper. He sketched out another few lines, adjusting to include a delicate flick of the pen every so often. By the time he looked up again to thank Graveworthy for the suggestion, his rooms were empty.
Outside, youthful voices raised in song again, this time about the track they'd laid and the dues they'd paid for it. Jack shook his head, snorted, and bent back to his sketches. After a while, his left hand reached out and picked up a bundle of stiff straw filaments, tapping them idly on the pitted workbench.
***
PRELIMINARY MECHANICAL AUTOSCRIBE PROSPECTUS (DISCARDED)
JACK BAKER
ARCHIVES OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY FOR ENGINEERS
The mechanical Autoscribe consists of a self-inking pen with the ink-retardation mechanism removed (See appendix 1 for process) to allow for steadier ink flow. Pen is suspended by wire loops at point, shaft, and end which connect ot gears mounted on exterior of the scriptbox (fig. 1). Paper is auto-fed beneath the pen using a crank mechanism (fig. 2) which counts scriptbox gear rotations and advances after an average number or revolutions set by calibration during installation.
Scriptbox gears connect to a series of softwood tabs (fig. 3) which continually adjust height and position based on vibrations generated by a bundle of motion-sensitive reeds (see fig. 3 inset) into which words are dictated.
KNOWN ISSUES:
Device is inherently delicate and requires careful calibration. Not moveable nor efficient to use.
Pen requires continual replacement. Removable ink bladder recommended.
Motion-sensitive reeds do not, in fact, work. Operating by manual tab manipulation appears more effective and accurate.
Revisions will be made.
***
The same Sunday morning that Jack wrote up his first report on the Autoscribe, Clare was sitting on a cushion on a low wooden bench in the Creationist Temple in Boston, waiting for the last thick, heavy drumbeat notes to die out and the resident Lecturer to take his place at the pulpit.
The Lecturer rose when the noise had died down, the last vibrations of the drum lost in the whispering noise of hundreds of Creationists shuffling their feet, asking their companions for mints, and unfolding or re-folding the little paper sheets that were handed out at the entryway. He adjusted his glasses on his narrow, pointed nose, peered over the rims at the students in the first few rows, and cleared his throat.
"Good morning," he said, and the crowd rumbled an incoherent greeting back at him. "As many of you know, we are entering a time of great contemplation, with the winter sweeping in and the natural works of God's Creation sinking deep into the earth to await spring. At this time next month the snow will be on the ground, and our thoughts will turn towards comforting things -- fires on the hearth, strong warm drinks to stave off the chill, heavy blankets on the bed, and suchlike. It is now that I wish to draw your attention in quite a different direction, that you may have rich fodder for thought when the time of contemplation begins."
"Windbag," sighed Michael, a fellow student who happened to be sitting next to Clare. She elbowed him, but she grinned too.
"Today I would like to speak about the asceticism of orthodox Creationism, and the concept of abstinence, both in personal affairs and in religious observance."
Clare sniggered.
"Someone in congregation must have got herself in trouble," she whispered to Michael.
"Why do you say that?" he asked.
"Personal abstinence? Honoured more in the breach than the observance, wouldn't you say?"
His eyes glinted. "Maybe it wasn't a student."
"Who else would...?"
Michael cast his eyes upwards, to the row on row of private boxes and narrow balconies that clustered the walls of the Temple like swallows' nests. The wealthy of Boston's Creationist congregation, the politically savvy, and the cream of any visiting foreign party occupied the lofty perches, looking down on the students and Lecturer from the heights.
"What have you heard?" Clare asked under her breath.
"Nothing I'd talk about in the Temple," Michael replied, while the Lecturer read a passage from the Edicts.
"Buy you lunch if you tell me outside," she said.
"It's a Sunday!"
Clare rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to the Lecturer, knowing it would make Michael more insane not to tell than it would make her insane not to know.
"Humility and willingness to serve are tenents of the faith quite as important as any formal training or certification as a Creationist. When we abstain one day a week, as the orthodox adherence to the Edicts requires, we discover not only our own reserves -- our skills and abilities to overcome a world without Creation -- but also our humility; how very little we matter in the world, and what a great gift we have been given," the Lecturer said, fingers tapping the edge of the pulpit. "Likewise, when we abstain from rich food and other pleasures of the body, we discover how rare and special they may be on the occasions we allow ourselves to indulge. A true Creationist does not frown on pleasure of any kind, but lives a simple life that he may better appreciate those pleasures. Or she, of course," he added, smiling down at Clare. She folded her hands in her lap and tried to look abstemious.
"In common agreement between all people, Creationists are governed by laws meant to preserve social order. This was the founding basis of the great union created by the refugees who fled to these shores when they were persecuted as witches in the old world," he continued. "We can preserve peace and order in our own lives by adhering to the Edicts and to the rules we create out of good sense. In the words of Father LaRoche..."
"Someone must really have ticked him off," Clare said. Michael fidgeted. "You know, really, I'd rather not know. It'll be so much more fun to imagine who it could have been. I bet it was the Headmaster. Someone caught him chasing the students."
Michael shifted his weight slightly, the bench creaking beneath them.
"Or maybe the mayor's been visiting prostitutes," she said, and Michael choked. "I bet that's it. It'll be all over the papers tomorrow -- "
"Shh," said a voice behind her, and she turned to see one of the professors looking at her sternly. She contented herself by theorising that he'd probably been found passed-out drunk on a sidewalk and was the real reason they were all being lectured on living purer lives.
Suddenly everyone was standing, and Clare rose to her feet, snatching up the songbook off her lap and following the other students down the aisle and into the crisp, sunny morning.
"One thing to be said for our Temple man, he does give nice short lectures," she said conversationally, turning slightly so that Michael would hear her.
"Very pointed," agreed a much deeper voice, and she whirled on the steps of the temple to discover Graveworthy standing just behind her. "I'm sure he made many people rather anxious today, however."
"Mr. Graveworthy, it's a pleasure," she said, smiling. "Did you attend services today?"
"Well, as a gentleman I'd rather be down on the floor with you and your companions, but as visiting foreign dignitary I was the guest of a wealthy man who insisted that I be highly visible in his box. It's a form of selling oneself, I suppose, but not unpleasant," he mused. "Are you dining at the school, or will you allow an older man to walk you through the Commons and buy you a hot sausage?"
"Michael?" Clare asked, but Michael shook his head.
"Tell you later. See you later. Stop by my rooms!" he called, as he walked away.
Clare smiled and took Graveworthy's proferred elbow, earning herself a disapproving glare from the Lecturer as he emerged from the Temple.
"If you're not careful, I'll start to think you're following me," she said, falling into rhythm with his slow, easy gait. "The Lecture today wasn't a warning to an eminent author not to pursue charming young women, was it?"
Graveworthy smiled. "I suspect there were certain barbs aimed at me, but my interest in you is purely mercenary, I promise you. I'm simply using you to get to Mr. Baker."
"I suspected as much," she laughed. "You want something from him, don't you?"
"You're very astute. I've actually asked him to build me something, which unless I miss my mark he is probably slaving away on as we speak." They passed the gates of the graveyard, and he let his fingers drift out to touch an hourglass carved into the stone supports. "Time flies," he murmured.
"I think our founding fathers must have had a good sense of humour," Clare said. "They can't always have gone around being sober and historical. Father LaRoche wasn't."
"I believe you're right. Still, they must have been great thinkers, your ancestors. I believe Creationism would have died out were it not for the Americans."
Clare pursed her lips; she'd come close to blithely requiring that they weren't her ancestors, something normally she wouldn't speak of to anyone but Jack or her godparents. She glanced up at the much taller man, but his face was a gentle blank slate.
"Who can know," she said instead, stepping into the road behind a horse-drawn cart and crossing to where the wide, grassy expanse of Boston Commons began. Peddlers' carts lined the packed-gravel paths, some with Protestant Creationists standing nearby to keep the fires going or the ice cold. Many of them wore pale, bland clothes and wide-brimmed hats to hide their eyes. "I don't think you've particularly answered my question, Mr. Graveworthy."
"Which question was that, Ms. Fields? Would you care for a sausage or an ice cream? Or perhaps some sugared almonds?"
"No ice cream, thanks," she said, as he paused in front of one cart.
"You observe the orthodoxy -- are you forbidden to support Protestants?" he inquired, purchasing a bowl of chocolate ice cream for himself.
"Students are required to be orthodox. I don't mind Protestantism, but it's trouble for me to be caught fraternizing, and anyway I don't want something cold. I'm not really very hungry," she said, though the smell coming from one of the sausage carts was making her mouth water. He gave her a sardonic look and passed a few coins across the heated tray, gesturing for the man to give her the bun with the sausage cradled in it.
"Mustard, miss?" the vendor asked. At her nod he sprinkled some mustard powder onto the greasy bun and passed it over.
"Thank you," she said to Graveworthy, who had found a nearby tree to lean against. The ground was strewn with leaves, but his particular tree was still a riot of orange and yellow, stretching across the grass like a giant ragged parasol.
"My pleasure. I've often come here, since I arrived. I find it peaceful. Everyone walking serenely through the well-trimmed grass, enjoying their day, anticipating a nice Sunday supper."
She watched as he licked a droplet of cream off his spoon. "I find that hard to believe, Mr. Graveworthy."
"Why is that?"
"Because I don't think you're a man who craves peace in a crowded park."
He frowned, the ice cream forgotten in his hands. She took a bite of her sausage, licking mustard powder off her fingers.
"I think you look at the park and see all the trouble and politics broiling underneath," she continued. "I think you see the Orthodox abstaining Creationists eyeballing the Protestants, and both eyeballing everyone else, and the parents who make their kids wear their most uncomfortable clothing and don't let them play in the grass -- "
"And the beggars," he said, silencing her. "Who aren't going home to a nice Sunday supper. And the pickpockets, and the carters whipping their horses to get them home from the morning market."
"So why tell me lies about tranquility?" she asked. He set the bowl on a tree branch and shoved his hands in his pockets.
"Why do you think?" he asked. "That's not clever, by the way. I'm deeply curious as to what you think my motivations are."
"You're the brilliant writer, not to mention older than me. I don't pretend to school my elders."
"Except when calling them liars?" his lips quirked slightly. "It's easy to test Jack Baker, Ms. Fields. He's the most innocent kind of genius, and I mean that in a flattering light. You are a little trickier. I don't just want something from him, you see; I want something from him that I can't get without you, or at least I suspect I can't."
"And what's that?" she demanded, feeling just a little offended.
"I can't say just yet. Rest assured, it's no disrespect to you. But I think I've worn out my welcome for now -- and it is rather crowded and sad, in the Commons."
He gave her a strange half-bow, more an inclination of the head and a sweep of one arm, and brushed past her as he walked back towards the road. She didn't follow him, though she half wanted to; it would be inconvenient to run in her heeled shoes, and she still had half of her lunch in one hand. She shifted it from right to left, and in so doing discovered that there was something stiff in her breast pocket.
She reached in, careful not to get grease on her coat, and discovered a pale square of card. Graveworthy's name was printed on it, as well as an address at one of the nicer hotels in Boston. On the back was a handwritten address, somewhere near the booksellers' district on Summer Street.
Clare was not entirely sure she was as fond of Ellis Graveworthy as she had been on first meeting. She couldn't recall that he had actually answered any of the questions she put to him, and she didn't like being tested by strangers. She might have to warn Jack that he was trouble. Jack needed someone to protect him, after all.
***
"Clare, I do not need anyone to protect me."
Jack crouched by the edge of the roof, a makeshift rope harness looped over both his shoulders and around his chest, tied on the other end to a chimney. Clare, seated on the ridgepole, sighed and threw a slice of apple at him. It bounced off his neck and tumbled to the ground below.
"You need someone to make sure that opportunists don't take advantage of you," she said.
"He's not taking advantage of me. I'm not a fool, I'm just more -- "
" -- gullible?"
" -- trusting," he finished, unfolding a small metal box and propping it on the slanting roof using two telescoping legs to keep it level. "Will you light me?"
Clare lifted an eyebrow. Jack pointed to the small pile of tinder in a low-slung shelf under the main mechanism. She sighed and set down her apple, grasping the rope attached to his harness and easing her way across the roof.
"Is this what Graveworthy asked you to build?" she inquired, spreading her fingers over the box and concentrating. The wood smoked, then sparked.
"No, that's gone belly-up." Jack unfolded what looked like a metal arm, locking it in place and loading an egg into one end. "You know the chocolate-flinging machine?"
"Yes..."
"Well, I thought, instead of trying to keep it from flinging it so far, why not try to make it fling something as far as possible? If you got really accurate you could use it to send notes across campus and things."
"Don't they have those already? They're called catapults."
Jack rolled his eyes. "Catapults have no accuracy. Now, with this, you can control exactly how much tension goes into the arm, through the valve that controls the steam that goes up into here and -- "
"Okay, okay, you're not an idiot, sorry I brought it up," Clare said irritably. "I just think you should be careful with Graveworthy, that's all."
"He's probably just bored, and thinks you're fun to play with," Jack said. "He could do worse."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing," he said absently, holding his collapsible spanner in his teeth while he loosened a spigot and secured a handful of leather straps by buckles to the platform. Steam billowed up through a glass pipe. He took the wrench out and stuck it in a back pocket. "I mean, you're smart and pretty, that's all."
Clare was glad Jack was absorbed with his machine; she didn't like it when people saw her blush.
"Okay, that's ready to go," he finished, leaning back. "The amount of pressure is pretty precise."
"So where's it going to hit?" she asked.
"I'm just calibrating right now. If I can get a steady array of hits with adjusted pressure, I can map out the rest mathematically."
"And eggs?"
"They're reasonably uniform, cheap, and they won't kill anyone if they hit them," he replied. Clare looked out across the campus, locating the most likely crash site for the egg: the window of a third-year classroom. She could just about see Larsson's head bent to a drafting table nearby. Jack was a peaceful man, but he was also a patient one -- especially when it came to revenge.
"Ready?" he asked her. "Payload away!"
"There's got to be a better battle cry than that," she said, even as he flicked a lever that released all the buckles at once. The arm lifted and flung the egg straight through a great gout of hot steam; it described a perfect arc through the air but fell well short of its mark. A pair of students walking near to the touchdown site stopped and stared at the exploded egg, then looked up at a nearby tree. Clare giggled. Jack took out a notebook and began making calculations.
"I promise I can look after myself," he said as he wrote. "I appreciate the thought and all, but I'm pretty sure he's harmless."
Clare wasn't sure, but she knew when not to press the point. Besides, they had eggs to fling, and Jack would need all his concentration if he was going to nail Larsson right in the side of his big, annoying head.
Chapter 2 | Chapter 4
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no subject
Date: 2009-08-16 07:15 pm (UTC)Ellis being enigmatic, and obviously aware of that, as well as Clare's straightforward suspicion works in stopping him being irritating with it.
And I love the religious politics/scism. This is why Jews hired Catholic maids.
I was confused by the line: she'd come close to blithely requiring that they weren't her ancestors
Do you mean "replying"?
Also, there's an ot instead of a to in the prospectus. I'd assume, reading a published version, that it was deliberate, but I mention it in case it's not.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-16 10:47 pm (UTC)