Yet we know the ancients used devices with the capacity to replenish themselves. We do not know how that was done, but how else can we explain such long-lived devices as the Mirror, Yalkara's protected fortress of Havissard, or contrivances that used such prodigious quantities of power as Rulke's legendary construct?
The field, the weakest of the five elemental forces, is the only one we mancers have ever been able to tap. Nonetheless, much can be done with it. My Special Theory enables us to understand the diffuse force, and perhaps create a controller apparatus to tap it safely. Instead of all power being drawn through the mancer, with its limitations of frail flesh, the mancer simply senses the field and draws just enough power to channel the flow, via the ultradimensional ethyr, directly into the controller. The controller can then transmit it to power the contrivance, whether this be a mechanical cart, a pump or any other mechanism required.
Being a humble theoretician, I will leave the design of such devices to those with the aptitude and interest in such things. Suffice it to say that any such device should comprise the following components…
Tiaan knew all about such devices; that was her work. She skipped forward a few paragraphs.
The process may generate a shifting aura about the crystal powering the controller, perhaps mimicking the aurora-like field about the node from which the power was drawn. A nearby sensitive might be able to detect this aura, though in normal use it is expected to be insignificant…
Tiaan put the book down. This was the very document wherein Nunar first set down the principles of controllers, nearly a hundred years ago. Her theory had enabled the construction of clankers and certain other secret devices, without which the war would have been lost long ago.
She ploughed on. Nunar went on to speculate about a General Theory of Power, which would deal with nodes themselves, the several different strong forces they were expected to be made of, how they related to each other and, finally, how such prodigious forces might be tapped. Nunar noted, however, that nodal forces might never be tapped safely. She also mentioned the holy grail of theoretical mancers, the Unified Power Theory, which would reconcile all the forces mancers knew of, weak and strong, in terms of a single field. Nunar closed the section by stating that such a theory seemed as far off as ever.
Tiaan hid the book behind a loose brick in the wall, under her bed. It seemed no use at all. She dozed briefly, her head crackling with fractured crystal dreams, to wake with the answer in her mind. She must design a device to test the faulty hedrons and read what had happened to them. Only then could she find a way to solve the problem. Sitting up in bed, Tiaan reached for slate and chalk and began sketching.
She had just completed a rough sketch, and blown out her candle, when Tiaan heard the rattle and groan of a clanker coming up the road. It had to be Ky-Ara returning. Since it was practically dawn, she dressed and went out.
A sleepy attendant with a lantern was opening the side gate as she arrived. Gi-Had was there too. He must have returned in the night. Tiaan watched the monster emerge from the dark. The clanker had covered lanterns on the front, a broad, segmented body made of overlapping plates of armour, and four pairs of mechanical legs driven by ingenious gearing. It was large enough to carry ten people and all their gear, though in bone-shaking discomfort. The shooter's platform on top, with its mechanical catapult and javelard, was empty.
The clanker clumped into the shed and stopped. The mechanism creaked and groaned, then there was silence save for the whine of the twin iron flywheels that stored power in case the field was interrupted momentarily. The flywheels would still be going at dinnertime, slowly running down.
The back hatch opened. A slim young man climbed out, pack in one hand, a satchel in the other. He stretched, gave the machine an anxious pat on the flank and turned around.
Ky-Ara was not overly tall. His lean, handsome face was marred by a weak jaw. A shock of wiry hair stood out in all directions. His dark eyes were red-rimmed. There was a smudge of black grease across one cheek. Despite all that, Tiaan rather liked the look of him.
'It's good to have her whole again,' Ky-Ara said to Gi-Had, avoiding Tiaan's eye. 'After the controller died… I thought I'd never drive her again.'
His face crumbled. The bond between clanker and operator was intense, almost like that between lovers, and a threat to it had been known to cause mental breakdown. Ky-Ara looked close to one now. Tiaan felt for him.
'It's been hard work getting used to the new controller,' he continued. 'I've got a shocking headache. Despatch for you, surr!' He handed the satchel to Gi-Had.
'Thank you.' The overseer turned away to open it. He began to read a document, frowning as he did.
'What happened when it failed?' Tiaan asked Ky-Ara.
The operator's top lip quivered but he mastered himself. 'We were heading up the coast from Tiksi. Everything had gone perfectly. We were passing out of the aura of the Lippi node towards the Xanpt node. That's a really strong one…'
'So I believe,' said Tiaan. She liked the shape of Ky-Ara's mouth. A wonder she hadn't noticed him before.
'I had the controller helm on, sensing out the Xanpt field in advance. Sometimes it can be tricky shifting from one to another, and I didn't want to get stuck between fields. The flywheels won't drive her weight for that long.'
He looked sideways at Tiaan. She nodded.
'The Lippi field began shifting wildly: sometimes strong, at other times hardly there at all. The fields grew harder and harder to visualise; I couldn't tune either of them in.' His voice cracked as he relived the awful scene. 'I began to think that the Lippi field was going, though the two clankers ahead of me seemed to be having no trouble.' Ky-Ara went pale and had to sit down.
'What happened then?' Gi-Had prompted after a long silence.
'I lost it. Both fields were gone! The hedron was dead and there was nothing I could do about it. If it had happened in battle…' He shivered. 'I took the controller out, got a lift back to Tiksi on a cart and sent the controller up the mountain.'
'I have it in my workshop,' said Tiaan. 'I can't work out what's happened. The crystal is completely dead.'
Ky-Ara looked distressed, like a lost boy. 'If that's all,' he said, cradling the controller in his arms, 'I'll go to my quarters. I haven't slept for two nights.'
'Yes, thank you, Ky-Ara,' said Gi-Had. 'I know you've done your best. It must have been difficult for you.'
The young man went out. Tiaan's dark eyes followed him thoughtfully.
'You're wondering if he might be the one?' Gi-Had's rumble broke into her thoughts, startling her.
Tiaan flushed. She had been thinking exactly that. Also thinking that, if she must mate, why not with a clanker operator? There were many similarities in their lives and work, and if they did not get on, he would be away most of the time. If nothing came of it, no one could say that she had not done her duty.
'Yes,' she said softly.
'Strange folk, clanker operators. Their machines always come first – you know that.'
It didn't require an answer. He shook out the rolled despatch, scowling ferociously. 'Bad news?' she asked.
'Another problem. A worse one.'
'Oh?' said Tiaan warily.
'More clankers wiped out, on the coast well north of Xanpt. Each time, the enemy knew just where to find them.'
'Clankers are pretty noisy,' said Tiaan.
'Not these ones.' Gi-Had looked over his shoulder. The attendant was a long way away but the overseer lowered his voice anyway. 'They were using a new development, a Sound Cloaker! You can't hear them move. And no one knew where they were going.'
'But that means,' said Tiaan, 'the enemy has a way of finding them. Using the Secret Art -'
Gi-Had spun around. 'Oy, you, clear out, now!'
A large bald man touched his brow then slouched off. It was Eiryn Muss, a halfwit who had a lowly place at the manufactory. He was always shambling about, peering over people's shoulders.