Eyes of the Calculor Read Online Free Page B

and put his back to it. A minute went by, another, then yet another. With a ground speed of fifty miles per hour, the Titan scraped trees, fences, and bushes, then ploughed into lush grass and rich soil. Branches, posts, and rocks gouged through living cellulose spars, ribs, and fabric. Bushes and small trees were torn from the ground,
    and electrical engines were ripped from their mountings and went tumbling across the fields. Then there was silence and stillness.
    The full span of the Titan lay like a crumpled blue ribbon across the green pastures of the northern Rochestrian Commonwealth, still complete to a distant viewer, but internally shattered, with its belly torn out. Over two dozen sheep had died as they slept, shepherds had run screaming, mothers in nearby hamlets had dragged their children under the beds, the Kyabram town militia had been called out, and every dog that had been under the Titan's glide path was barking hysterically. It was dawn before anyone dared to approach the immense wreck, and it was to be several days before it had been completely explored. No survivors were found.
    Some distance away, Watch Officer Seegan quickly gathered the survivors together and had the parachutes bundled and buried. He led his charges across a field, then along a hedge-fringed lane, walking for a dot on a line map that he had salvaged. As they hurried through the darkness, they rehearsed their story and roles.
    "So who are we?" Seegan asked the youngest child for the third time.
    "We're hikers, returning from a picnic."
    "And where do we come from?"
    "The Central Confederation. We're going to the paraline wayside, to take the pedal train to Rochester."
    "Good, good. And what do you say if anyone asks you if you saw the huge flying thing?"
    "My mother told me not to talk to strangers."
    "Excellent, you have it."
    By now they had turned onto a cattle track and were picking their way wearily among the muddy puddles and piles of droppings.
    "How much further?" asked the child peevishly.
    "According to the map five miles, but walk slowly; we want to arrive after dawn. Now try to look as if you enjoy this sort of thing. Remember, everyone, we are aviads and this is a human mayorate. The actual killing of aviads has been illegal in the Rochestrian Commonwealth for the past twenty years, but a lynch mob of yokels will not bother about fine points of legislation."
    It took many hours of hard and determined tramping to reach the wayside. The dot on the map that denoted Stanhope wayside was transformed into an earth and timber platform, a rain shelter, the wayside master's cottage, some sheep pens, and a dozen cottages. As the sun rose the children sat sullenly, huddled together for warmth. The adults bought tickets and bread at the wayside kiosk.
    "Did you see that thing that flew over?" asked the serving girl.
    'The long thing, trailing smoke and flames, yes, we did, from our camp," replied Watch Officer Seegan.
    "I was so frightened. My Garren and I, we were awake and, well, we were awake. He grabbed his birdshot musket and set off after it with the Stanhope town militia. Garren's so brave."
    "But it was flying. How could they catch it?"
    "Oh, it crashed. You can just see the wreck from the town's lookout tower."
    "Oh. Does he think it might be dangerous?"
    "Silly, it's not alive," the girl giggled. "It's like a paraline train, just a machine. Except that it's pushed by forbidden engines, not honest muscle. Garren says they might capture evil heretics in the wreck and turn them over to the Gentheist church."
    "Ah, yes. Good, good."
    "They're bird people, those aviads. Dirty folk, they sleep in big nests made of twigs, and lay eggs."
    "Really? I have never met any."
    "Strange things happenin'. Why, a couple of hours before that thing crashed, the wayside master's new clock and desk calculor both burned, and at exactly the same time, too. Both powered by electrical essence, they were. Electrical essence is really lightning, you