“I feel so warm and happy knowing how much the Senior Mechanics care.”
He turned his head to face her. “Oh, they’re worried about you, Mari,” Calu assured her. “But what they’re worried about is what you’re doing. This is serious.”
“I know. They tried to get me killed, remember?”
“I guess I was hoping you were wrong about that.” Calu thought for a moment. “As far as I can tell without asking, they don’t know about Alain. They think you’re alone, but they’re obviously worried about some other Mechanics joining up with you. They kept coming back to that, where your friends were and whether or not you’d be going to see them.”
Mari sighed again, shaking her head. “I hope nobody gets in trouble just for knowing me. Did you tell them that you’re a friend of mine?”
He gave her a sidelong wink. “I told them I used to know you. I figured they’d hear that quickly enough, anyway. I said it had been a long time since I’d seen any letters from you, though, which was true enough.”
“Calu, I don’t know how to thank you for telling me all this, but please don’t stick your neck out anymore.”
He made a face. “I’m not sure how much more I can do. The Senior Mechanics said we’ll be getting a list of Mari’s known friends soon, so I guess at that point they’ll really get suspicious of me.”
“My friends?” Mari leaned her forehead against the books in front of her. “Why do they have to be singled out?”
“You’re not doing it, Mari, and I’m the only one of them who actually knows anything, right?”
“At the moment, yeah, but I got that weapon from Alli.”
“Uh-huh.” Calu made another face. “You didn’t know it might get her in that much trouble, and you needed that weapon. Alli’s a big girl, Mari. She can take care of herself. And if she needs help, I’ll find a way to get to her.” He paused again. “Can you tell me anything more about what you’re doing?”
“You know where I’m going,” Mari said, “and that’s probably more than you should know for your own protection.”
“Yeah, but what are you going to do, Mari? What the Guild is doing to you is wrong, the way innovation and technology are being suppressed is wrong, hiding the truth about Mages and these guys you call Dark Mechanics is wrong. Something has to be done.”
She stared at the books before her, gaze unfocused again. “I don’t know. I need to talk to Professor S’san. I need to learn more. I can’t make decisions without more data, without having a better idea of what the results will be and what outcome I need to aim for. And to be honest, I’m not sure what I can do even once I find out what I need to know.”
“Something has to be done,” Calu repeated. “Did you know the long-distance far-talker in the Umburan Guild Hall is busted? I didn’t mention that at the inn. They haven’t been able to get it working for over a month now.”
A Guild Hall long-distance far-talker broken and unrepairable. Mari shook her head in amazement. “A while back I heard the far-talker at another Guild Hall was out of commission for a couple of weeks. A month?”
“Yup. The Guild Hall in Umburan is dependent on written communications. We got that report on you by courier from the Guild Hall in Pandin.” Calu gave Mari a look as if he didn’t expect to be believed. “They’ve told us here in Umburan to be ready to shift to continuous wave communications for good. You know, not voice, but that dot-dash code. The gear’s less complicated. Did you ever meet a Mechanic named Yasmin? Yasmin of Westport. She’s pretty sharp. Just one step shy of Master status herself. Anyway, her specialty is stuff like far-talkers. She came up with this idea for getting Umburan’s big far-talker working, but when she presented it to the Senior Mechanics they took her notes and plans and told her to forget it. Yasmin was really unhappy.”
“I’ll bet,” Mari agreed. “I know how she feels. Do you know why the Senior Mechanics killed her idea?”
“Because it involved a design change for some of the circuits. Innovation. All she wanted to do was alter some circuits to get the equipment working again, but that’s prohibited. It’s by the book or we don’t do it at all.”
Mari nodded slowly. “The Guild doesn’t want change, but something has to change. Something big has to change.”
“There’s plenty of Mechanics who believe that, or are worried about it, but they can’t get organized. They need a leader.” Calu glanced at Mari again.
“Don’t look at me! Why do people keep doing that? Why have people always been doing that?”
“There must be a reason.” Calu grinned lopsidedly. “When you decide what to do, you’ve got your gang backing you up.”
“Thanks. I’ve got a general, too. No army, but I’ve got a general.”
“Really? I wish I had a general.” Calu grinned again but the expression shifted back to a serious look. “The Guild Hall here could find out that I’m a known friend of Mari any day now, and then meeting with you will be too risky because they’ll probably put a watch on me. You need to get out of Umburan as soon as possible. Avoid Guild Halls and see what this professor can tell you. I’m going to pretend I’m a naïve young Mechanic who believes that garbage about the Guild wanting to help you, and maybe that way I’ll be able to find a little of what the Guild is doing and maybe lead them astray from finding you.”
“Calu, please don’t,” Mari said. “If they find out you’re doing that you could get in serious trouble.”
“What was that? I don’t copy you.”
Mari tried to glower at him despite the elation his friendship brought her. “Alli will kill you if you get hurt playing spy against the Guild. Then she’ll kill me for letting you get hurt. For both of our sakes, be careful.”
He nodded. “Will do. Say hi to Alain for me. Tell him I’m counting on him to keep you safe.”
“Calu…thanks. For everything. I was so afraid of what you might think of him.”
“Alain? That guy will die for you, Mari. How can I dislike somebody like that?” Calu swung one hand out low toward her. “Good luck. Get the blazes out of this city.”
“All right.” She clasped his hand tightly for a moment. “See you. Stay safe. Don’t take any risks.”
“Yes, Lady Master Mechanic. I won’t be anything like you.”
She stuck her tongue out at Calu, he grinned once more, then Mari turned and walked out of the bookstore, trying to calm her nerves.
Alain waited until she rejoined him. “You are more worried now,” he said.
“Yeah. I’ll tell you everything he told me, but first we need to see how fast we can get out of Umburan.”
Another nerve-wracking day later, passage out of Umburan was reopened to civilians. There was a Mechanic rail line running southeast to Pandin, but given what Calu had told them that was simply too risky at this point. Instead, Mari and Alain stood in a long line to purchase tickets on one of the horse-drawn coaches making regular runs between the cities. The coach was noisy, cramped, bumpy and slow. Mari endured it, feeling guilty for forcing Alain to put up with the trip as well. She had noticed how uncomfortable he remained with human contact. Most human contact, anyway. He was getting much more comfortable with her touch, which was one of the few bright lights in her life at the moment.
But even the most tedious trip ends eventually. It was late afternoon when they reached Pandin. Mari stepped off the coach, wondering if her body would ever stop feeling stiff again. If she wasn’t being put through heavy physical stress like hiking through a snowstorm, she was being forced to sit inactive in a hostel room or a crowded coach for hours on end. Her muscles kept getting completely different workouts and were expressing their confusion in uncomfortable ways. “You know what, Alain?” she whispered. “Life as a common is no fun at all.”