Jack L. Chalker Soul R

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she'd already survived. If that old spark could be rekindled after her first
horrible experience, it was not likely to be extinguished by the usual
methods; but the further conditioning would serve to make her instinctively
act as this society thought she should. That was good for the safety of them
both.
Finally, the Committee got around to the nub of the problem.
"Gentlemen, this new land is so vast we must have near-instant communications.
We must know when we're being invaded, not three weeks after the fact. We must
be able to coordinate schedules, goods, food. We need faster means of
transportation and we need instant communications. Dr. Sligh?"
"I have put our best minds on these projects," the scientist replied, "and we
have solutions, but they are not immediate ones. I fear. Communications is
easier. You can imagine our chagrin when we discovered, after working there
for over twenty-five years, that the intercom system in the old temples is
wireless! A signal is broadcast and it travels by the easiest and best route
to the assigned destination. A large system could broadcast through the air to
every corner of the land from its center and vice-versa. It is a matter of
power. We have the diagrams and small systems with which to build it, but we
have no sufficient power source as yet. The ancients depended far too much on
Flux, but they knew exactly how to use it. We do not. and unless someone wants
to suggest opening the Hellgate we can't get to it anyway."
There were chuckles all around at that.
"However, in the historical library in Holy Anchor, of all places, are many
books with basic principles apparently dating back far before Flux. They are
elementary physics books, possibly teaching aids for the young, but they are
most fascinating. We know the principle of the storage battery even the city's
Flux-gained electricity comes from there. We know that steam under pressure
will generate great force, and from those books we have the principle of what
they call the turbine. They will be tricky to build and trickier, and very
dangerous, to test."
"Where are you going to get the steam boil the Great Sea?" one Judge cracked.
"It must be there for some reason." They all roared.
"No, although perhaps someday you'll eat your laughter. But we do know how hot
peat and coal can get. Many Anchors have it Mareh is full of the stuff. There
is a lot of it as well in the new areas. We will dig it out with machines now
being manufactured in our western factories."
"That'll take tons
," another Judge pointed out. "How will you get it to your turbine or whatever
the hell you called it?"
"The very same principle. In the van Haas collection is a toy that is quite
clever. It's a small vehicle that runs on steam directly turning the gears
that turn the drive wheels. It chugs around on tracks, and it can pull quite a
toy load, It was either a toy or another instructional model, but there seems
no reason why that scale has to be the limit. Again, tricky and dangerous
testing, and a fairly long time to lay tracks, but we first have to lay them
only two hundred and twenty kilometers from the main source of peat and coal
to the capital. There it feeds our generator, powers our city, and eventually
powers our broadcast and receiving tower as well."
"Incredible." one of the Judges said. "I thought the ancients just relied on
Flux like super wizards, but this is really advanced!"
"The coal and peat will eventually be limited, but by then we should have many
other ways to get our power. And these steam cars will run on wood as well as
coal, I feel certain."
Tilghman was fascinated. "How long would something of this magnitude take with
what we have now?"
"Mining could begin as early as three months from now. We have the equipment,
and the new men can he put to work there. A working turbine and generator
system is far more complex. We have the theory and the plans, but it might be
three to five years to get a basic system up, seven to ten to produce really
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adequate power for both the new city and the broadcast system. The same thing
goes for the steam vehicles three years to build, test, and produce, another
two for laying down the track and that's not going to be easy. Much as I hate
to do it, we can still use amplified
Flux west of Nantzee to duplicate rails and cross-beams that require precise
size standards, as we are now doing with the housing kits. Still, I feel that
within a decade we can criss-cross the new land with at least two rail lines
and have full, steady broadcast communication."
Tilghman and the others nodded, impressed. The Chief Judge looked over at
Matson. Many still had strong reservations about him. but as he himself had
predicted they needed every outsider they could get who was not automatically
against them. "Mr. Matson, you had some objections to this in your status of
observer?"
"Just one. The rail thing I don't know much about but I can't see any but good
from it, but the broadcast system tells me that ten years from today the Gates
of Hell will be opened, and without even a risk to the Seven. You just take
the remote control devices, or improvements on them, that you used for the big
project, set them to trigger at a specific signal, and that's that. They all
key in the combinations at once, and there we are."
"Impossible!" Sligh retorted. "The broadcast system does not go far in Flux.
The amount of power required for a worldwide broadcast is beyond any hope of
generation even if it did. There is no danger. We have already tested and
retested this."
Tilghman looked at Matson. "Do you know something we don't?"
"I will tell you that it's possible, that's all. And what's possible will be
done. In ten years. I tell you. whatever is on the other side of those Gates
will be here."
"Over my dead body!" Champion snapped.
"Very likely." Matson agreed.
The conference in Holy Anchor did not go well. The Fluxlords, fearful of their
loss of power and control, were determined to attack New Eden, but they hadn't
a prayer without the combined support of the Church and the Anchors, who were
used to dealing in an Anchor environment. The
Church, too, was upset, but the scars from the old Empire ran deep, and
memories of the massive losses and inconclusive ending to the struggle
produced a great deal of reluctance to commit themselves again to a massive
military campaign estimated to cost up to a million lives. They'd have to go
entirely in Anchor against a foe whose approaches could be guarded by
amplifiers and whose terrible weapons had been so well demonstrated at
Bakha.
The greatest shock was from the Anchors themselves, many of whom found the
weakening of
Flux an excellent idea and some of whom, although a minority, were tempted by
the landscaping program themselves. There was never any love lost between Flux
and Anchor, and old hatreds and suspicions ran deep.
Mervyn had expected far more, particularly from the female leaders, almost all
of whom found
New Eden extremely repulsive, but he received backing from only a small
fanatical handful within the large groups. Like the others, they were fearful
that they could not succeed in an attack on an area as vast as New Eden now
was, and they seemed far more concerned with protecting what they had than in
stamping out what they had not. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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