The Warring States (The Wave Trilogy) - By Aidan Harte Page 0,8

the cave. The furnace sat on a raised platform beneath a bramble of tubes that stretched to the ceiling and tangled into ever-darker, more intricate knots. The far wall was lost in the gloom; it was only when they got closer, and their eyes had adjusted to the crepuscular light, that they could see it was moving, albeit with glacial slowness.

Varro collected a lubricating yellow syrup from taps that punctured the wall’s metal surface. He was more human than Flaccus; he treated the Cadets like fellow explorers, and took for granted that they shared his curiosity. As he tended to ramble, his classes were an oasis of calm in their crowded schedule, not to mention a chance for some of the Cadets to indulge in games of correspondence chess.

Varro was working the bellows when he suddenly pointed and shouted, ‘You! What’s your name?’

‘Sixty, Sir.’

‘And were you named for your father? The Grand Selector may prefer numbers to people, but he’s not the one asking. Come, lad, your real name.’

‘… Torbidda, Sir.’ He felt exposed before his fellow students; there was safety in anonymity.

‘Torbidda, is it? And how many elements are there?’

‘Ninety-two occur naturally. We’ll make more eventually.’

‘Ninety-two? Flaccus told you that, I suppose. Does that sound like the name of God? We’ll make more, you say, as if it’s a simple thing – it’s easier by far to create a new letter in the alphabet! What would we do if we found it? It would remake all texts. What babble was wrought leaping from Four to Ninety, and you blithely propose to go on? To rebuild the Tower until God throws it down again and sends a more lasting Flood so that we remember the lesson this time—’

This mystical tangent set eyes rolling.

‘Didn’t God die in Forty-Seven, sir?’ said Leto.

Varro erupted with laughter that filled the cave. ‘Oh, very good. What’s your name? And don’t give me a blasted number.’

‘Spinther, sir,’ said Leto loudly.

‘Ah! I knew your father. Well, yes, a certain priestly deity was a casualty of the Re-Formation. But I’m not referring to the idol of those paper-shuffling clerics. Our prey’s an older beast, and killing Him would be a great deed, great indeed. Perhaps one of you will manage it.’ He looked fondly into the furnace. ‘Where was I?’

‘The elements, sir?’

‘Ah, yes!’ Varro threw the bellows aside and picked up a beaker of water that reflected the dangling lights like falling stars frozen. ‘When speaking of primordial matters, best not multiply explanations. Simplify. This glass is the world. This glass is each of you. You are not numbers! You are water! You are air!’

He cast the water on the pipes and it hissed and bubbled and steam wafted up. ‘Look, children: the ghost flees! Catch it, and we’ll have power to move mountains. Air and water are God’s initials, the Aleph and Beth of a world at war. Fools like Flaccus will count the stars and list the elements and remain blind to the larger pattern. The Wave, children! It is majestic and merciless, and it is everywhere, even in the elements. Consider the valence of ordered atoms. It flows up – one, two, three, four, and down, three, two, one – and up again. As below, so above. As above, so below.’

There was a long, embarrassed silence during which Varro collected himself. ‘So,’ he said, ‘that’s what we’re about today: extracting oxygen from water. You’ll see the bitch holds on as fiercely as a mother does her child. Find a station. Take a beaker.’

The Cadets went about the experiment noisily, everyone competing to impersonate the old man’s eccentric manner. Torbidda tried to play along, but it wasn’t easy.

This was just a basic alchemical exercise, yet his hand trembled and his heart pounded. Frustrated at the sluggish pace of Flaccus’ teaching, he’d begun to study independently, and his grasp of Wave Theory was now sufficiently advanced to recognise that Varro’s hints of some grand hidden tapestry were at the very heart of the Bernoullian art. But though Torbidda might be suddenly conscious of the gravity of their search, he was in the minority. Cadets with a family background in engineering had more conservative ideas about the limits of Natural Philosophy, and Four spoke for these: ‘No wonder they keep this relic buried down here,’ he said loudly.

‘He’s the last Naturalist in any position of influence.’

‘But they say Bonnacio is one of his protégés,’ Torbidda said mildly. They were back in the refectory, and Torbidda was keeping his