William Gibson - The Difference Engine

Mallory tugged hard at his beard, his map forgotten in his hand. A vision came to him of earthworms churning in catastrophic frenzy, till the soil roiled and bubbled like a witches' brew. In years, mere months perhaps, all the monuments of slower eons would sink shipwrecked to primeval bedrock…

"Sir? May I be of service?"

Mallory came to himself with a start. A white-coated clerk was confronting him, staring into his face with bespectacled suspicion. Mallory glared back, confused. For a divine moment he had poised on the brink of revelation, and now it was gone, as miserably inglorious as a failed sneeze.

Worse yet. Mallory now realized he had been muttering aloud again. About earthworms, presumably. Gruffly, he proffered his map. "Looking for Level 5, QC-50."

"That would be Quantitative Criminology, sir. This is Deterrence Research." The clerk pointed at a shingle hung above a nearby office door. Mallory nodded numbly.

"QC is just past Nonlinear Analysis, around the corner to your right," the clerk said. Mallory moved on. He could feel the clerk's skeptical eyes on his back.

The QC section was a honeycomb of tiny partitions, the neck-high walls riddled with asbestos-lined cubbyholes. Gloved and aproned clerks sat neatly at their slanted desks, examining and manipulating punch-cards with a variety of specialized clacker's devices: shufflers, pin-mounts, isin-glass color-coders, jeweler's loupes, oiled tissues, and delicate rubber-tipped forceps. Mallory watched the familiar work with a happy lurch of reassurance.

QC-50 was the office of the Bureau's Undersecretary for Quantitative Criminology, whose name, Oliphant had said, was Wakefield.

Mr. Wakefield possessed no desk, or rather his desk had encompassed and devoured the entirety of his office, and Wakefield worked from within it. Writing-tables sprang from wall-slots on an ingenious system of hinges, then vanished again into an arcane system of specialized cabinetry. There were newspaper-racks, letter-clamps, vast embedded cardfiles, catalogues, code-books, clacker's-guides, an elaborate multi-dialed clock, three telegraph-dials whose gilded needles ticked out the alphabet, and printers busily punching tape.

Wakefield himself was a pallid Scot with sandy, receding hair. His glance, if not positively evasive, was extremely mobile. A pronounced overbite dented his lower-lip.

He struck Mallory as very young for a man of his position, perhaps only forty. No doubt, like most accomplished clackers, Wakefield had grown up with the Engine trade. Babbage's very first Engine, now an honored relic, was still less than thirty years old, but the swift progression of Enginery had swept a whole generation in its wake, like some mighty locomotive of the mind.

Mallory introduced himself. "I regret my tardiness, sir," Mallory said. "I found myself a bit lost in your halls."

This was no news to Wakefield. "May I offer you tea? We have a very fine sponge cake."

Mallory shook his head, then opened his cigar-case with a flourish. "Smoke?"

Wakefield went pale. "No! No thank you. A fire hazard, strictly against regulations."

Mallory put his case away, chagrined. "I see… But I don't see any real harm in a fine cigar, do you?"

"Ashes!" Wakefield said firmly. "And pneumatic particles! They float through air, soil the cog-oil, defile the gearing. And to clean the Bureau's Engines—well, I needn't tell you that's a Sisyphean task, Dr. Mallory."

"Surely," Mallory mumbled. He tried to change the subject. "As you must know, I am a paleontologist, but I have some small expertise in clacking. How many gear-yards do you spin here?"

"Yards? We measure our gearage in miles here. Dr. Mallory."

" 'Struth! That much power?"

"That much trouble, you might as easily say," Wakefield said, with a modest flick of his white-gloved hand. "Heat builds up from spinning-friction, which expands the brass, which nicks the cog-teeth. Damp weather curdles the gear-oil—and in dry weather, a spinning Engine can even create a small Leyden-charge, which attracts all manner of dirt! Gears gum and jam, punch-cards adhere in the loaders… "Wakefield sighed. "We've found it pays well to take 'every precaution in cleanliness, heat, and humidity. Even our tea-cake is baked specially for the Bureau, to reduce the risk of crumbs!"

Something about the phrase "the risk of crumbs" struck Mallory as comic, but Wakefield had such a sober look that it was clear no jest was intended. "Have you tried Colgate's Vinegar-Cleanser?" Mallory asked. "They swear by it at Cambridge."

"Ah yes," Wakefield drawled, "the dear old Institute of Engine Analytics. I wish we had the leisurely pace of the academics! They pamper their brass at Cambridge, but here in public service, we must run and re-run the most grueling routines till we warp the decimal-levers."

Mallory, having been recently to the Institute, was up-to-date and determined to show it. "Have you heard of the new Cambridge compilers? They distribute gear-wear much more evenly—"

Wakefield ignored him. "For Parliament and the police, the Bureau is simply a resource, you see. Always on demand, but kept on a tight lead for all of that. Funding, you see. They cannot fathom our requirements, sir! The old sad story, as I'm sure you know. Man of science yourself. I don't mean to be disrespectful, but the House of Commons can't tell true clacking from a wind-up cooking-jack."

Mallory tugged his beard. "It does seem a pity. Miles of gearing! When I imagine what might be accomplished with that, the prospect is breathtaking."

"Oh, I'm sure you'd catch your breath soon enough. Dr. Mallory," Wakefield said. "In clacking, demand always expands to overmatch the capacity. It's as if it were a law of Nature!"

"Perhaps it is a law," Mallory said, "in some realm of Nature we've yet to comprehend… "

Wakefield smiled politely and shot a glance at his clock. "A shame, when one's higher aspirations are overwhelmed by daily practicalities. I don't often have the chance to discuss Engine philosophy. Except with my soi-disant colleague, Mr. Oliphant, of course. Has he, perhaps, told you of his visionary schemes for our Engines?"

"Only quite briefly," Mallory said. "It seemed to me his plans for, er, social studies, would demand more Engine-power than we have in Great Britain. To monitor every transaction in Piccadilly, and so forth. Struck me as a Utopian fancy, frankly."

"In theory, sir," Wakefield responded, "it is entirely possible. We naturally keep a brotherly eye on the telegram-traffic, credit-records, and such. The human element is our only true bottle-neck, you see, for only a trained analyst can turn raw Engine-data into workable knowledge. And the ambitious scale of that effort, when compared with the modest scale of the Bureau's current funding for personnel—"

"I'm sure I wouldn't care to add to the pressing burden of your duty," Mallory broke in, "but Mr. Oliphant did indicate that you might help me to identify a criminal at large and his female accomplice. Having completed two of your request-forms in triplicate, I dispatched them in by special messenger… "

"Last week, yes." Wakefield nodded. "And we've done our best for you. We're always happy to oblige gentlemen as peculiarly distinguished as Mr. Oliphant and yourself. An assault, and a threat of death against a prominent savant, is a serious matter, of course." Wakefield plucked up a needle-sharp pencil and a gridded pad of paper. "But a rather commonplace business, to attract Mr. Oliphant's specialized interests, isn't it?"

Mallory said nothing.

Wakefield looked grave. "You needn't fear to speak frankly, sir. This isn't the first time that Mr. Oliphant, or his superiors, have called on our resources. And, of course, as a sworn officer of the Crown, I can guarantee you the strictest confidentiality. Nothing you say will leave these walls." He leaned forward. "So. What can you tell me, sir?"