Hand to Mouth

From Wormhole Sci-Fi MUD Homepage

A short story by 'Artoo'

Keem waited patiently. How could he do otherwise? The rewards for success could be great - and the reward for the careless remained the same as ever, he was sure.

A change in the deep, pulsing rhythm would come at last. Meanwhile, he had no option but to make himself as comfortable as possible, and play the mind games every engineer knew.

Keem was only part-way through his mental recitation of "the properties of elements" when the thrumming died away. There was a final whine, and then just the clanking of a few servitors moving about.

Even the facs needed a rest sometimes. At such times, the smaller machines came out of hiding and moved to and fro, fussing over the fixtures like bridesmaids. With most of the machinery now idle, Keem was safe to leave his hiding place. (It was an engineers' trade secret that the facs' machines were not actually malevolent, merely insensitive and very strong.)

As a servitor rolled closer, Keem reached for the produce he had gathered; this fac made fabrics, and Keem had managed to steal fifteen tightly rolled bundles of the stuff. He had cut some of the fabric into strips while waiting for the fac to pause. Now, as a servitor paused to squirt oil into the vitals of the huge machine upon which he perched, Keem tied the bundles onto projections on the servitor's casing.

As Keem had expected, one by one the bustling servitors finished their assignments and returned to their lair. Keem ensured that 'his' servitor was kept busy by the simple expedient of throwing gravel onto the floor in front of it. Servitors were obsessive about cleanliness.

The fac grew quieter as the other servitors completed their assignments, but Keem was able to lead his chosen machine, still noisily sucking up the dirt he threw in front of it, back towards door where he had entered the complex. The small group of villagers who were still waiting outside were most impressed to see Keem leading the creature. He 'fed' it a handful of pebbles, and while it struggled to ingest these he climbed upon its back to remove the rolls of fabric. He threw these to his audience, and one of the local engineers scowled in response. Keem's trick had enabled him to steal many times what most engineers could have made off with.

The local chief was pleased to receive his due of one bundle of fabric in three. Unlike many engineers, Keem always paid his taxes. Freelancing was for fools; going inside a fac was dangerous enough without setting the locals at your throat as well.

Of the remaining ten bundles, Keem traded nine for various goods, plus a hot bath and a bed for the night. One was quite enough to carry anyway. The next day, he would ride the subroute in search of a new fac. Neither of the local engineers he asked knew where it might lead (or they chose not to tell him) but Keem was undeterred.

The next day dawned bright and clear. Keem enjoyed the sunshine while he could as he might be riding the subroute for hours, shut away from good and bad weather alike. He sat on the lip of a stonecrete structure not far from the fac. The stonecrete was shaped rather like a well, though there was no water at the bottom. About halfway through the morning came the waft of musty air that he had been waiting for. The subroute was moving, and it was time for Keem to gather his belongings. Soon the villagers could detect it as well, as a distant rumbling that rattled their crockery. Some of them waved to him and wished him well. This was not surprising because he had stolen far more from the fac than he had hoped to, and had let most of it go for next to nothing as a result. For now, at least, they treated him like one of their own.

Keem hoped the subroute would take him back to the north. These were decent people, but their facs were poor; small complexes which mostly produced a dull, limited range of wares. They even had to grow their own food here.

Several youngsters had come right up beside Keem and lay full length on the sun-warmed stonecrete, to look downwards and see the subroute carriages roll past. Whenever an engineer rode the subroute, there were always a few people who secretly hoped he would misjudge his leap, scream and fall between the hurtling carriages. Keem knew he would disappoint them. This close to the fac he could expect slow-moving traffic. Among those who came to see him off, Keem noticed the youngster who had been shadowing him since his arrival. He recognised the look in the kid's eye; another one who wanted to be an engineer. And good luck to him, but Keem wasn't looking for an apprentice. Let one of the locals show him around their poor little facs. There wasn't anything particularly dangerous in them, if the kid could keep his hands to himself.

The moment arrived, and Keem gave a final wave to the villagers... and leapt. No problem. He landed atop a huge, drum-shaped carriage; clearly empty, from the way it boomed as he struck it, scrabbling for handholds. There was a second 'boom', and Keem knew another passenger had boarded. One of the local engineers? No. The kid, damn him. Already it was impossible to return, and the darkness was closing in. The subroute's speed was picking up. There was nothing Keem could do that would get the kid back to his family any time soon.

As always, it was almost impossible to keep track of the passage of time. The kid must be petrified, Keem thought, but he was too angry to try to find him. He lay still in the racketing darkness, palms down, ready to grip if he felt himself beginning to slide.

Something nudged against his leg, alarming him. His first panicked thought was that it might be one of the 'patrol servitors' some engineers claimed to have encountered, looking for intruding engineers and striking them dead with a bolt of lightning. Keem doubted stories of the subroute being patrolled, but perhaps the people who disappeared didn't simply fall off? Perhaps... but no. It was the kid. Hands clutched at his leg, and felt their way up his body. The kid put his mouth close to Keem's ear, and yelled something. He didn't know the silent darkspeak.

'He's going to sit up,' Keem thought. 'He hasn't got the sense not to move around, and he tries to make himself heard on the subroute. He's going to sit up.' Raising yourself more than a hand's breadth from the carriage could bring you into contact with the rock wall above, something which was bound to be fatal. Keem took a ceramic jar from his pack. He had received it in trade the day before, but he wasn't particularly attached to it. He knew the fac that made them, anyway. As Wender had once done with him, he pushed the jar into the kid's hand, making him grip it by the rim. Then he gently encouraged the kid to raise his arm. Struck by some unseen projection, the jar shattered, showering both the stowaways with fragments. Keem grinned in the darkness as he felt the kid flinch. The message was clear; that could have been your head.

While they were hurtling through the darkness with nothing better to do, Keem started to teach the kid the darkspeak alphabet. The kid probably couldn't read, but he soon figured out that he was being taught a sequence of taps, squeezes and scratches. He had soon learnt most of the fifty basic wordlets. Smart kid!

Presently, the kid halted the lesson, offering instead to share a small loaf of bread and a hunk of cheese. Keem refused, firmly pressing the offering back on the youngster. Eating a meal prepared by the apprentice indicated, in the engineers' tradition, that he was accepted for training. Besides, the food must have been in the kid's pocket for hours, and was probably covered in all kinds of fluff and debris. Keem delved in his own pack for something to eat.

Finally, the wind blast grew less severe and the din seemed more tolerable. The subroute was slowing. Keem jogged the youngster into alertness; arrivals were nerve-wracking for even the most experienced engineers. At journey's end, subroute carriages had a habit of doing strange things. Open-topped carriages were the worst. An unwary stow-away might be deluged with rocks or junk, or he might be tipped out onto a heap of refuse, or the materials that some facs gathered. Keem preferred the drum-shaped carriages, despite the fact that they were harder to ride on, because they were less prone to such extremes.

The carriage was moving in fits and starts now. There was just enough light to make out what was going on as each carriage in turn came to a halt underneath a spigot, which a foul-smelling liquid gushed into the drums. Keem kept the boy well away from this, and looked for handholds with which they might disembark. He found a set of iron rungs built into the wall of the tunnel, and pointed them out to the kid. It was a simple matter to reach for them as their carriage rolled past, and make their way up.

As they climbed, they left the noise of the subroute behind. Keem was able to caution the kid that they weren't out of danger yet. Subroutes only ever stopped at facs, and you were never entirely safe while you poked around inside one.

Keem paused at the top of the ladder. Above them was a heavy steel grid of typical subroute design, but that was no reason to get careless. The kid had enough sense not to ask what was delaying them. As he had done so many times before, the engineer pressed his face up against the bars and peeped through, looking for servitors, moving fac parts or anything else that might harm them. He was more cautious than most, remembering how Wender had skilfully avoided or tricked a whole host of machines, only to be caught in a sudden blast of steam that left him crippled.

Here, there were jets of flame, but they were all far above in a high latticework construction which was open to the sky. A massive servitor occasionally rumbled past. Not enough to deter an engineer from entering the fac, though two other considerations might do so. Firstly, the heavy steel grid which barred their way seemed to have been in place since the beginning of time; secondly, they could see nothing of value beyond.

Should they go back down to the subroute, and ride to a new destination? Certainly, this fac didn't seem to produce anything useful. Just the foul-smelling liquid that had been poured into the subroute carriages. Some facs produced the goods that fed and clothed mankind, while others produced things that only other facs found useful. That was the way of things.

Rather than trying to force the steel grid open, Keem and the kid went back down the ladder. The subroute carriages had gone, and no others were coming. The kid asked how he knew, but Keem did not reveal the trick; that fast-moving subroute carriages pushed the air ahead of them, making a breeze that could warn of their approach many heartbeats before they appeared. The two explorers dropped down from the last of the rungs, and stood in the little puddle of light. The floor of the tunnel was composed of bat shit and half-rotted refuse. The two massive iron rails of the subroute protruded, kept clean by the frequent traffic.

"Master..." the kid began, but Keem interrupted him. "I'm not your master, boy."

Overlooking this setback, the kid went on. "I think I can see another way out." Perhaps he was unaware of the protocol that an apprentice should not claim to have more knowledge than their master. Anyway, he had spotted a branch off the tunnel. A second set of rails forked away from the main track, pitted with rust and in some places covered entirely with refuse. Keem led the way as they stumbled off up the dark tunnel.

Feeling his way one slow step at a time was nothing new to Keem. Perhaps the boy sensed this; he didn't make a fuss.

"What do they call you, boy?"

"Obbert, master."

Keem let the 'master' pass without comment this time. He didn't dare speak too much in case he missed some vital detail, or failed to hear an approaching servitor. They went on in this manner for perhaps two thousand heartbeats before Keem's outstretched hand connected with something. Massive, solidly built but neglected. Keem felt his way around the obstruction. There was a thud, and Obbert bit back a curse as his shin found some low projection.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Subroute carriage."

The remains of one, anyway. Much of the metal had rotted away. The time required for such a process was unimaginable. To the kid, the find posed a great many unanswerable questions. Keem ignored this babble and felt his way around the obstruction. Beyond, he found a second carriage. If anything, it was in a worse state than the first, collapsed entirely at the far end. Obbert proposed several fantasies which might explain subroute carriages going to waste; they had been forgotten; they had been stolen by an ambitious engineer; they had collided together and got stuck in the tunnel. Keem told the boy that he should not think of facs, servitors or the subroute in the way he thought of people or animals, but he would not be deterred.

"How can we be sure that the subroute is a single thing? Each string of carriages might have a mind... or it might be controlled by all of the facs, or by each one as it enters their territory..."

Keem snorted.

"What is your opinion, master?"

"I think you talk too much, boy. And what difference would any of those schemes make to us?"

"Well none, perhaps, but don't we need to understand as much about our situation as possible?"

"Not if it doesn't help us, boy. While you've been telling stories, I may have found us a way out. Come over here."

Obbert's shin found another obstacle; the boy had a lot to learn about moving in the dark. Still, when he reached the narrow passage that Keem had found, he could smell fresh air, with a hint of sea salt.

The passage was just large enough to walk in, though Keem still felt his way carefully. It sloped upwards, he thought, and perhaps curved to the left. After a thousand or more heartbeats he came to an iron door. It was in no better condition than the subroute carriages, and was easily shoved aside.

"Normally, we avoid damaging the facs at all," Keem told the boy. "Why do you think that is?"

"Because the facs are our providers," Obbert said, "Damage a fac and it might stop producing items."

"A fool's answer," said Keem, then softened, "but not uncommon among villagers. The facs are all but eternal, as you will learn. Their servitors repair any damage they suffer, and they in turn repair the servitors. So why am I reluctant to damage the fac even though I know it can be restored?"

Obbert was silent for a moment. Keem considered this an improvement. Finally: "Because you don't wish to attract the attention of a servitor."

"Clever boy."

Beyond the door was a room. The floor was uneven, covered with junk and fallen plaster. The room had several passages leading off from it, one of them illuminated by a faint smudge of light. Through this, a passage led them to the outside. Another decrepit door had to be forced aside, but Keem explained that he didn't expect to run into any servitors in such a neglected place.

They emerged from the side of a small stonecrete structure, set into a hillside, not far from the wire fence that marked the edge of the fac's territory. Wheeling above the nearby dunes, gulls shrieked at the newcomers.

Surveying the landscape, Keem expected that they would have to retrace their steps and ride the subroute again, but not today. Not until they had rested. For now, they enjoyed the warmth of the sun after their confinement. Obbert ate the last of his bread and cheese. As Keem had expected, it was covered in fluff.

"Where do you suppose we are?" he asked.

"Eh? Nowhere."

"Everywhere must be somewhere."

"Look around you, boy. Nobody to give it a name, is there?"

"There might be someone..." Obbert stood and looked for signs of habitation, but found none.

"This fac's near useless, see? It makes that glop we saw poured into the subroute carriages - nothing folk really need. You'll find nobody living around here."

"If there's nobody to say otherwise," Obbert reflected, "then I shall name the place: Obbertstown."

Keem got to his feet. "Well if you'll permit me, your mayorship, I'll be off to gather some driftwood from your beach."

Keem struck a flat pebble against a piece of the ruined iron door frame. Sparks fell on a mound of dry grass and seaweed which, reluctantly, began to burn.

"Why don't we take a burning brand when we travel in the darkness?" Obbert asked.

"Facs and servitors don't like fire. We don't go unnoticed if we enter their territory with a light - and travelling on the subroute would blow out your firebrand."

"How do the servitors see to do their work?"

"They just do," Keem replied, feeling it was a phrase he might be using a great deal in the near future.

As night fell, the weather deteriorated. A steady drizzle began, so Keem and Obbert retreated into the mouth of the tunnel. Their fire still burned in the entrance, the salt-soaked wood giving off bright yellow flames.

"What shape is Britternile?" Obbert asked suddenly.

"Do you think I have the answer to everything, boy?" Keem was scornful. "And would knowing that put better clothes on your back, hmm? More food in your belly?"

The boy shrugged, but his expression showed that he still pondered the matter.

Keem regarded his last bolt of fabric. It could surely have bought him the favours of a pretty girl, if he were in one of the larger villages. Easy come, easy go, he decided, and spread the material on the filthy floor so he could lie down.

Sleep came easily to Keem, leaving him feeling refreshed. In the morning, Obbert looked less well rested, and was probably missing his own bed. Good, thought Keem. Let the kid think hard before he commits himself to the life of a wandering engineer.

After a meagre breakfast they explored their surroundings. Beyond its fence the fac still rumbled and belched occasional gouts of flame. They didn't bother to venture inside, having no use for the substance it produced. Obbert found a bird's nest and stole the eggs, but they had nothing to cook them in, and had to drink them down raw. Keem got water from a stream, and they were ready to leave the desolate piece of coast. They retraced their steps from the previous day, Obbert being impressed by Keem's ability to find his way while underground. "It's nothing but paying attention when we came through the first time," Keem explained, "You'll learn the habit soon enough, if you want to be an engineer." He was surprised to find himself warming to the idea of taking an apprentice.

They waited in the vault beneath the fac, and soon the subroute was on the move again. They climbed the ladder they had used the day before, and jumped down onto the top of another cylindrical carriage. Once again, the din and the darkness of the subroute enveloped them,and they left their destination to fate. It seemed, if anything, a longer journey than the last. Keem was disappointed (though not surprised) that they did not arrive back at Obbert's local fac. He was still minded to return the boy to his village, if only to make it clear that he had not led the youngster astray.

Keem recognised the place where the subroute eventually came to a halt, unusual in that it was quite well lit. He didn't tell Obbert this, though, in case it would make the youngster careless. "Your turn to lead the way," he said, "Lets see if you can find your way around a fac without upsetting a servitor."

Obbert was aghast. Surely his master joked! All right, he wasn't a proper master, since he hadn't actually sought to take on an apprentice... but he didn't really want to be rid of him so badly, did he? In the space of a dozen heartbeats, he imagined as many horrid deaths at the hands of a fac and its servitors. Drenched in molten iron... decapitated by some fast-moving servitor... suffocated by fumes... Obbert swallowed hard, and started up the ladder into the complex. Like the previous fac, there was an iron grid at the top of the ladder. Were all the facs the same in some ways? Why might that be? He didn't know. The hinges on this grid weren't too badly corroded, and it was easy to push open - frequently used, perhaps?

Obbert hadn't taken enough time to look around; he was still only halfway out of the ladderway when he realised that a servitor was bearing down upon him. For a second he was paralysed by indecision. The servitor advanced remorselessly, not a spidery one of the kind that Obbert had seen before, but a squat thing which carried a load of shiny metal tubes. It would squash him like an insect, he realised, if he remained where he was. He tensed himself to spring aside, but that instant he felt his ankle gripped from below. Keem hauled him back down into the ladderway, and the servitor passed above, forcing the iron grid back into place as it went. It closed with a resounding clang.

"Careful, now," said Keem, trying not to make too much out of Obbert's close call in case it unnerved him. He smiled and added, "Ready for another go?"

Obbert was ready for another attempt. He felt humiliated that his first attempt to break into a fac had ended after less than fifty heartbeats, with him being rescued by his master. Again, he took up a position at the top of the ladder, this time pausing to look both ways. There were servitors about, but it was simple enough to learn their pattern. If you waited until the little servitor with the mesh basket on its back had been past, you had a good three hundred heartbeats before anything else came along. Obbert took advantage of this, and left the ladder to look around briefly, returning before the little servitor arrived. Keem didn't hurry the boy - patience was something to encourage.

While they were waiting for the servitors to pass, Keem quizzed the boy.

"So what does this fac make?"

"Iron bars, master. The size of great branches."

"And what might they be for?"

Obbert had to admit that he didn't know.

"Good," said Keem. "Me neither. I've seen them loaded onto the subroute by the dozen, but at other times they're just piled in a yard outside."

Keem explained that they would seek refuge on the top of one of the fac's fittings, rather than returning to the ladderway when a servitor approached. He left Obbert to choose the site, though he kept a close eye on him.

In small stages, they were able to make their way through the fac, always observing the patterns in which the servitors moved, and staying clear. They soon reached a vast metal door, which rattled open whenever a servitor approached. Obbert was about to dodge through when Keem caught his arm.

"Want anything from in here?"

Obbert frowned. "There's nothing here that we need."

"Maybe not, but we could use something to eat, couldn't we?"

Obbert hadn't seen anything to eat, and said so.

"It looks like we'll go hungry, then," Keem said. "Unless, of course, there's something here that we might trade for food?"

Thus prompted, Obbert studied the produce in a new light. The iron bars were too heavy; he and his master would struggle to carry more than one between them, and who would want one?

Obbert regarded a servitor carrying a bulky load of grey iron sheets. They didn't look too heavy. Perhaps someone could make a storage shed with them, or even a house if he had enough. Yes, someone might thank them for a few of the thin iron sheets.

Keem followed his gaze, or perhaps read his thoughts. "Aye, a few of those might set us up."

It was a simple matter to reach down and lift one of the sheets from the pile on the servitor's back. They managed to take half a dozen while the servitor paused to allow a larger one to pass. Obbert was reaching for another, but Keem stopped him. He explained himself while they waited for the fac to settle down after the theft; Never take too much, and never - ever - take the last item in a pile. Any theft could change the routine of the fac, and a particularly audacious theft might cause servitors to act differently. Although they would not act out of malice, they might run down an engineer as they worked to replace the produce which had 'vanished' as far as they were concerned. The normally accepted principle was that one item could safely be taken for every ten that were left.

The servitor they had robbed did not seem upset, Obbert thought. It moved off out of sight, and passed them again some time later with more cargo.

"Time to go," said Keem, and they allowed a large, slow-moving servitor to lead them outside, carrying the plunder between them. Half a mile away was a small village where, predictably, many of the buildings had roofs made from thin iron sheets of the kind that Keem and Obbert had stolen. They carried the metal beyond the reach of any inquisitive servitors, leaving it propped against a tree.

Keem led the way to a ramshackle house on the opposite side of the village, nodding to a few acquaintances. Obbert wanted to go and talk to the boys of his own age, but he held himself in check, trying to act like a worldly engineer who sees new villages every day.

At Keem's objective, the door was opened before he had a chance to knock. A shabby-looking man was revealed, but he had a bright, open smile. Keem made introductions; "Dulon, this is some half-witted urchin who thinks being an engineer is a glamorous profession."

Looking around Dulon's home, it became clear that he was one of the traders who made a living by distributing the items that engineers found for them. Obbert accepted a glass filled with a scalding hot liquid, but he didn't like the taste much.

"So," said Keem, "He's just got his first plunder from a fac, and he's here to negotiate a price for it." He winked at Dulon.

"Welcome, Obbert," Keem's friend said. "And what do you have for me?"

"Six sheets of iron, Sir."

Keem coughed. "Six? Surely you mean four. There's taxes to pay, Obbert..."

"Er... four sheets of iron, such as you have for a roof."

"Ah," Dulon mused as he poured himself another drink, "but that's the problem, isn't it? As you must have noticed, everybody in the village already has a roof made from the thin iron."

"Oh," said Obbert. He turned to his master, but Keem was staring out of the window.

"I tell you what I'll do," Dulon pondered. "Seeing as you're a friend of Keem's, I'll take them off your hands. Now let's see..."

Eventually, the price for the four iron sheets was agreed. Obbert and Keem left Dulon's house with a bag of salt, two handfuls of nails, a cheese, a pocket knife and a device which Dulon said was meant for killing mice.

Obbert babbled contentedly as they made their way back through the village, looking for a household that might offer them a bed for the night. "We were fortunate, master..."

"Fortunate?"

"That Mister Dulon was willing to accept the iron sheets."

"Nonsense. He loads them on his cart and takes them down the valley to Brookmere. Some get used there, and others go further still. Either way, he gets a good price."

"He does?" Obbert's heart sank.

"Oh yes. He could have paid four times what he gave you."

Obbert kicked a stone out of his path "Then why didn't you say?"

"Because experience is never cheap, Obbert."

It was the first time he had called him anything other than 'boy' or 'lad'. Obbert stopped in his tracks, and looked at Keem, who smiled.

"You'll do," said the old engineer. "Oh yes, you'll do."

ENDS