“It is the trend.” Mari gestured toward the east. “A few months before I graduated from the academy, Professor S'san took me to a sealed storeroom.” S’san had refused to say where they were going or why, and Mari strongly suspected that what she was doing wasn’t permitted, based on the number of locks on the nondescript door keeping that room secure. “Inside I was shown a shelf of far-talkers. On the right end was a far-talker like we use today, about as long and thick as a lower arm, with an extendable antenna. On the left end…” She paused at the memory. “A far-talker that seemed to have been machined or molded from one piece of material. I’m not sure what. It was the size of my palm. It weighed less than a deck of cards. And according to the specifications listed below it, it had several times the range of our current far-talkers and battery life good for days of continuous use.”
Talis stared at her. “That sounds impossible. That small, that light, and that kind of performance? How could you even build that?”
“I don’t know. It didn’t look like you could take it apart, so I don’t know how it was built. And between that ancient one on the left and a current far-talker on the right were a series of far-talkers, each model larger and heavier than the one that came before, and each one with worse performance.”
“Mari, blazes, you know what that has to mean?”
“Yes. And it’s not just far-talkers. Complicated devices like electronics are regressing, getting less sophisticated and less reliable. Most Mechanics don’t realize it, because it’s happening too slowly, but seeing all of those together brought it home.”
“Like we’re forgetting how to build certain things, or losing the ability to build them,” Talis whispered, his eyes on the Senior Mechanics climbing the cliff. “The rugged, simple things like locomotives are still working well, but we’ve all seen the problems with complex stuff. And those problems feel like they’re getting worse at an accelerating rate, as if it’s all falling off a cliff.” He turned to stare at her. “The Guild has to be working on it. Our leaders can’t be ignoring whatever’s causing the problem. The Senior Mechanics can be hidebound and stupid, but this is too important to ignore. How old was that first far-talker model?”
Mari shook her head. “There weren’t any dates on any of them. I recognized the current one, and the one before that because I’ve seen a couple of those that are somehow still working, but there’s no telling how old that first one was.”
“Something’s broken,” Talis whispered. “What do we do?”
And he looked at Mari.
“I…don’t know yet,” she said. What was the matter with people? Talis had a couple of decades of experience on her, and he was looking to her for an answer to this? Why did you show me that display, Professor S’san? You wouldn’t tell me. “Draw your own conclusions, Mari.” For once couldn’t you feed me one blasted answer, so I’d know what to tell people like Talis?
“Keep me in mind,” Talis said, then headed toward the cliff.
Mari waved to Alain to let him know he could come on, then started ahead herself. By the time she and Alain had worked clear of the wreckage near the cliff, most of the other Mechanics had already started the steep climb. Mari felt a light touch as she stared at the pile of rocks she would have to climb up and looked over to see Alain pointing at the places where the timbers anchoring the trestle had been broken. Mari bent to look closely. The impressions forced deeply into the wood weren’t of rope or wire. They seemed to have been made by gigantic claws. How did the other Mechanics miss this? Or maybe they didn’t. Maybe they chose to miss it. Maybe they didn’t see anything that didn’t match their own predetermined theories. “I guess we can’t rule out anything at this point, can we?”
Alain looked thoughtful. “One possibility can be eliminated. The rulers of Ringhmon could not have done it in revenge for what happened to their Hall of City Government. They would not have had time to get here before the Mechanic train.”
“True.” Mari felt a tightness in her chest. Unless somebody helping the rulers of Ringhmon had far-talkers. Unless the wreck had been set up by some of the people on the train with me, in the last car. Was that why the Guild cargo shipment from Ringhmon was cancelled? Too valuable to lose while disposing of an inconvenient Master Mechanic with a big mouth and too much knowledge of things people weren’t supposed to know? I need to ask some questions where no one else can hear.
She nodded to Alain. “Give me a good head start up the cliff,” she whispered.
He nodded back, not asking the question in his eyes.
Mari walked to stand beside Talis, the only other Mechanic still on the beach, and waved upward. “Shall we?”
Talis didn’t appear thrilled at the prospect. “It didn’t look as bad coming down, did it? Maybe because we couldn’t see the bottom too well. But that moon’s lighting up the top just fine.”
They started up, climbing close to each other. Mari tried to think through what to ask, wishing she hadn’t already been ordered to say nothing about possible non Guild Mechanics. She couldn’t mention that unless she already knew someone would be willing to talk to her. But that left a big topic available for opening a conversation. “Talis, have you ever seen a Mage do something that you couldn’t explain? Something real?”
The other Mechanic stopped moving for a moment, his face gone to stone, then did a search of the immediate surroundings to make sure they wouldn’t be overheard. “Put it out of your mind, Master Mechanic Mari. It didn’t happen.”
“But if I saw— ”
“No. I told you. You saw nothing.”
Mari felt her temper rising. “Facts cannot be ignored.”
Talis shook his head. “There are facts and there are facts. There is truth and then there’s truth. As far as the Guild is concerned, whatever you thought you saw, you didn’t see. No one ever sees a Mage actually do something. That’s all there is to it.”
She stared at him. “How can we follow such a policy?”
“I don’t know what the Guild’s thinking is, but you and I don’t have any alternative! Do you want to be kicked out of the Guild and imprisoned at Longfalls? That’s your choice. Beat your head against a wall and accomplish nothing, or keep your head down and continue doing good work as a Mechanic.”
Mari looked at the rocks before her, silently absorbing the information. “Do all Mechanics know this?” All but me, anyway.
Talis shrugged as best he could while climbing. “Not until they get out in the field. After that, most know something to a greater or lesser extent, depending on experience. Some are so diligent about avoiding Mages that they never learn anything to shake their confidence that Mages are total frauds. Then you’ve got the oldtimers like Saco up there,” he pointed up at one of the Senior Mechanics far above them, “who I think have honestly convinced themselves that they’ve never seen anything. Their brains are like lance-thick armor plate. Totally impervious to anything they don’t want to see.”
“Why wasn’t I told?”
“How do you tell somebody something that no one’s supposed to know? Something that isn’t even supposed to be real? Besides, I think most Mechanics learn like I did, by running into something we couldn’t explain and then when we asked, being firmly told to forget about it.” Talis paused, then spoke forcefully. “And like you’re learning about it. For your own sake, Master Mechanic, forget about it.”
“Thanks. I do appreciate the advice.” Mari stopped short of saying she would follow it. There was so much to take in, so many things that clashed with what she had been taught. Did you set me up, Professor S’san? Trained me not to settle for easy answers, insisted on the importance of truth in our work and our actions, and then sent me off to tangle with a system which denies truth?