The Book of Koli (Rampart Trilogy #1) - M. R. Carey Page 0,40

there is here, and we had ways – limited, but reliable – of making more.”

“You could make tech?” That thought was astonishing to me, but seeing there was more tech in Ursala’s tent than in the whole of Mythen Rood I was ready to believe it.

“Make it, or change it to suit our needs.”

“Where did you get that knowing, Dam Ursala?”

“The same place you get yours. From our parents, and people of their generation, who got it from the generation before, and so on. The difference was that we were in better shape to start with. The world went through some bad times many years ago. Bad times that turned into worse times, and then worse still. When they were getting really bad, a lot of precious things – equipment, information, personnel – were evacuated from the mainland in the hope that they’d survive. Some of them ended up in Duglas, and we kept them safe there for as long as we could. For centuries, actually. Our records go back a long way.

“But Duglas fell in the end, and her people were scattered. I’m part of that diaspora. The last part, possibly. Certainly nobody ever answers when I call.”

“But could somebody go there?” I tried not to let my hopefulness show in my face or my voice, but it was hard to hide. “I mean, there might be tech there still that was left when… when whatever happened…”

I let them tail off, for Ursala was shaking her head again before I even got through them. Her face was stern, like she wanted to put that thought a long way out of my mind. “Nothing was left standing,” she said. “And nobody was left alive. If I thought there was any chance of either, I would have gone back myself. Or I would have tried at least, though it’s not a journey I’d undertake lightly. For one thing, it’s across thirty miles of ocean.”

“What’s Ocean?”

“Like a forest, but made of water. And with things in it that you don’t want to meet.”

I tried to imagine that, but couldn’t. Mostly the water I’d seen was puddles after rain. Howsoever deep they were, they weren’t so bad that you couldn’t wade across them – or walk around them, if you wasn’t sure how deep they was in the middle. There was also the lake at Havershar, where we would fish in Spring and Falling Time. You could cross Havershar in half an hour, in a little corkle boat that was light enough to carry on your back. I thought if Ursala only pointed me in the right direction I might prove her mistaken.

Right now, though, I just stopped making pretence and asked straight out. “Do you know anywhere else I could find some tech?”

“No, I don’t,” Ursala said with some considerable force behind the words. “It’s been so long, most of it is in pieces now, or rusted away, or buried, or in the hands of people like the Vennastins. And though I’m in your debt, Koli, such equipment as I have myself I need to keep. I can’t work without it.”

That was me done then. I didn’t have no other idea in mind for what to ask. But I seen from Ursala’s face she was thinking on something. I had a hope, and though I was fixing to thank her for the tea and the raisin cake and get myself out of there, I stayed where I was and waited.

“Have you ever operated any of the tech from the old times?” she asked me. Like as you might say, did you ever put a ladder up against the moon and climb up there, when it was full and the light was good?

I laughed, thinking she meant it as a joke. “No, Dam Ursala, I did not.”

“Then did you watch closely when someone else was using it? There’s a point to the question, Koli. Don’t laugh.”

“No,” I said again. “I mean, I seen the Ramparts at work oftentimes. But not what you’d call close.”

“Let me show you something then.”

She picked up the computer and tilted it so I could see the moving, changing pattern that was on it.

“That’s very pretty,” I said.

“Isn’t it?” Ursala said. “Now watch.”

She touched her hand to the edge of the computer, and of a sudden the pattern was gone. The picture had turned black as night, and at the same time there was a sound like a dead twig snapping. It happened so quick it brung me bolt