Eyes of the Calculor by Sean McMullen

of over a thousand people, and work was already under way to restore the beamflash tower after two decades of neglect. All but the guards on the engines were called to the base of the tower, where Jemli addressed them from one of the lower balconies. The theme was again the evil of electrical machines, the cessation of the Call, and the virtues of killing aviads. The onlookers cheered more lustily than those at Kalgoorlie, more because they were in the middle of the desert and starved for entertainment than because the prophet had an inspiring message. Jemli and the administrator in charge of the tower then walked back to the platform and stood a long time in discussion. The Overmayor was a head taller than he, even though the man was the same height as Martyne. Then, to the cheers of most of the railside, the galley engines rumbled away toward the eastern horizon.
    Martyne had no cause to complain. He was nearly four times farther east than those who had remained at Coonana with the first shift change. He began a tour of the railside. There was a small temple to a Ghan saint who was buried there, with an inscription thanking Mayor Glasken of Kalgoorlie for locating her body in the wilderness. The area near the beamflash tower was cordoned off and under guard, but the market was open for the navvies who had just arrived. Martyne bought two flintlocks with damaged stocks, then found a suitable piece of wood at the railyard and settled down to begin carving new stocks while he awaited the next commercial wind train east.
    The Central Confederation, Eastern Australica
    IVIartyne's destination was Griffith, the capital of the Central Confederation. In Griffith, on that same day, the house of Disore was in
    mourning. It had been in mourning for two months. Glin Torumasen had been away at a war with the Southmoors for that time, but with the loss of all electrical essences within the known world, the war had wound down to a general demobilization. There would, of course, be more wars in the future, but for now there was a need to adjust to the vastly degraded communications that resulted from the loss of all radios and telegraphy.
    "It was well before the Call ceased and the electrical essence devices melted," explained Harren Disore as the two men entered the bedroom. "Velesti had just passed her Dragon Yellow Librarian examinations and was walking home with her best friend, Elsile. Elsile was a Dragon Orange. With the war still raging, there were a lot of musketeers and lancers all over the city."
    "And she was attacked?" asked Torumasen. "But she must have been wearing a Dragon Librarian uniform. Surely that would have deterred them?"
    "The Dragon Librarians have lost a lot of authority in the Central Confederation over recent years. Besides, the penalty for rape is the same, whether the victim is a librarian or otherwise. Velesti wore no gun because she worked in a theological library. There was about a dozen and a half of them, mostly commoner musketeers, but three officers have been named also. She and Elsile were surrounded and gagged with so little fuss that nobody raised the alarm. They were then dragged off to a stable where they were ravished and degraded for hours. Elsile was murdered before they left. Velesti lost her mind."
    Torumasen shook his head. "She always had a slender, delicate figure, and an even more delicate disposition."
    "The experience turned her brain. Sometime before dawn the musketeers decided that they had done with them and it was time to leave. Apparently they set the stables afire and made their retreat, but luckily for my daughter, two passing lancer captains and their ladies noticed the flames. They broke in, thinking to.save trapped horses. Instead they found Velesti in the straw, clothed only in blood and excrement, and quite without wits."
    "Yet she was still able to identify her attackers?"
    "No. At that moment one of the musketeers returned to fetch a saber that he had dropped, and he was