L. Modesitt - Magi'i of Cyador

There is no one near the postern gate as Lorn quickly changes into his student whites, leaving the blues and the blue boots in the basket tucked behind the small tree. He readjusts the square of cloth in his belt wallet to ensure the coins are muffled, and then walks briskly through the garden and up the steps.

“You’re late, Lorn.” His father stands at the top of the steps. “Your mother is worried. It would be kinder if you let us know when you’re going out.”

“Yes, ser. I’m sorry. I know. I lost track of time. I didn’t expect to be so late.” Lorn’s statements are all true, and hemakes sure he doesn’t look anywhere close to the billowing smoke that rises to the southwest of them.

His father’s nose wrinkles, and he shakes his head. “That’s a merchanter scent, isn’t it?”

Lorn tries to look bewildered.

“Don’t dignify it with a falsehood, Lorn.”

“Yes, ser. I mean it is. A merchanter fragrance.”

“Do you know what you’re doing? What if …?” His father doesn’t finish the question.

“I’ve been careful about that. There won’t be any child,” Lorn says absolutely truthfully.

“Lorn …” His father shakes his head again. “I trust you have not attempted a chaos compulsion with the girl.”

“No, ser. I wouldn’t do such with her.”

“Chaos compulsions are odious, and over time, they weaken those who use them, and make them susceptible to the compulsions of others.” Kien’s voice is stern.

“I have not with her, and I will keep your advice, ser.”

“Good. Would that you will be so amenable to showing greater interest in your studies. If not, perhaps a time in the lancers will settle you down … though this is not the best time.”

Lorn knows he cannot manifest any greater interest in his studies, although he has come to enjoy learning for its own sake, feeling the sense and the power involved in transferring chaos from the tower outlets to the firelances, and in seeing just how much’chaos he can press into each weapon. He also is less than enthused about the thought that he could be posted to the frontiers and use a lance or blade in earnest, even if his skills with the blade are among the best among the students, including those like Dettaur who had been born with a blade in his hand. Using a blade in earnest would definitely increase the odds of an earlier demise than Lorn would wish.

“Vernt was right, then … about the barbarians?” he asks his father.

“There have been more attacks than in any time in memory-or in the records,” his father admits. “And they haveeven used archers in the far northwest.” A faint smile appears on Kien’elth’s thin lips. “All the attacks have been repulsed, and most of the barbarians killed.”

“But they keep attacking?”

“Yes … Enough … we can talk about it at dinner. After you wash off some of that scent. I’ll tell your mother that you’re here.”

“Yes, ser.” As he hurries toward the wash chamber, Lorn can sense his father’s unease, as though there is far more left unsaid. Yet, Lorn does not wish to push, not when he has apparently misdirected Kien’elth’s inquiries about his actions of the afternoon.

THE CORE OF a fully functioning tower maintains an isochronic/isotemporal barrier of approximately nine hundred nanoseconds. This temporal “dislocation” effectively provides the points of energy polarity which generate the raw power fed to the converter system …

The dislocation also provides a barrier against the operating impingement of the physical energy transfer/generation/entropy laws of the spatio-temporal coordinates of the systems hereafter described …

This impingement effect is illustrated by more than ten local years of observation. No tower in which the isochronic/ isotemporal barrier has failed [failure being defined as a barrier separation of less than 150 nanoseconds, with an error margin of three percent] has ever functioned again in the spatio-temporal coordinates in which this world is currently situated ….

Tower cores have been run continuously without shutdown for the operating life of a Mirror Ship. The longest known continuous operation documented prior to the spacetime shift translocating the colonizing/planoforming expedition … was eighty-seven elapsed standard Anglo-Rationalist years.

Given that a standard storage cell [model CD-3A] discharges power at the same amplitude as before the transspatio-temporal shift, but for more than quadruple the previous duration, and that power amplitude requirements/ discharges from various powered end-use equipment [i.e., electrocell carriers, motor/dynamos, laselectroburst rifles, antipersonnel electrolasers] varies by user, locale, and even spatio-temporal planetary locales, accurate determination of tower core life is unlikely.

Consequently, despite considerable depletion of technical personnel and transport equipment, in the interests of pragmatism and maintaining a viable colonial structure with the infrastructure necessary to adapt to the local parameters and paradigms, as described in Section IV, the remaining tower cores have been located in physical circumstances that would appear as most conducive to their continued and uninterrupted operation …

Maintenance can be accomplished on the secondary systems [see Section V], as well as the energy transfer and conversion systems, since these are located outside the core, and the power transfers are accomplished by field manipulations and impingements. Such maintenance should be held to an absolute minimum, however, since macular cellular degeneration has already been observed among personnel with high exposure within the operating confines of the basic system, in contravention of previously established principles and tolerances …

Overview

Maintenance Manual [Revised]

Cyad, 15 A.F.

LORN GRINS AS he peers into Myryan’s chambers. “How’s the studious healer?”

His younger sister looks up from the old and cushioned maroon armchair she had claimed years earlier from the second-floor sitting room when their parents had considered sending it down to the first-floor servants’ quarters. She has a black leatherbound book in her lap, and her green-trousered legs are slung over one arm of the chair. She pushes a shock of black and wavy curls back off her high forehead. “Lorn …” She grins back. “You’re full of horse dung. Jerial’s the studious healer, and we all know it.”

“You’re the natural one, though.” He slips through the door and closes it gently behind him, dropping easily into the straight-backed chair that has been turned out from the writing desk. He ignores the half-written note on the leather desk pad.

“What were you doing yesterday?”

Lorn shrugs, half-embarrassedly. “Everyone knows. I was with a girl.”

“She wears a nice scent, even if it is a merchanter fragrance. Who is she?” Myryan offers a knowing smile.

“A merchanter,” he responds.

“She’s more than that,” Myryan says. “Are you-”

“Don’t ask … please?” Lorn offers a truly embarrassed smile, hoping his expression displays enough chagrin.

“I won’t … since you asked.” Her amber eyes smile with her mouth. “But only since you asked. Jerial would have asked anyway. Is that why you’re here?”

Lorn ignores the question and asks Myryan, “You’re worried about Ciesrt, aren’t you? That father will consort you two?”

“How observant.” She shakes her head. “I’m not mad atyou, Lorn. Father doesn’t see it, and consorting is one thing where what mother thinks doesn’t matter.”

“Consorting is political.” Lorn shrugs again. “We know that. It doesn’t matter whether you like someone.”