Unthinking, unfeeling machines could not converse. Language was the province of human beings, a gift from God to Adam that he might praise his Creator and bestow names upon everything in His garden.
Jax retreated into the shadows of the cooking tent, his head and heart filled with unease. The captive kept up his protests, shouting to any who would listen, like a minister without a flock. He looked around the camp, from one Clakker to the next, as though addressing them. The human captain overseeing their advance ambled through the camp. The Frenchman saw the crowd of Clakkers parting like the sea before a biblical prophet and spoke more rapidly, as though he saw his doom approach.
His gaze flitted across Jax’s cooking tent. The look on his face reminded Jax of the rogue servitor Adam, formerly Perjumbellagostrivantus, whose execution in Huygens Square he had witnessed in the autumn. Adam’s face had betrayed nofear, no terror, for mechanical bodies were incapable of expression in the human mode. But he’d had Free Will, and maybe even a soul, and surely feared the snuffing out of his candle just as this man did now. Just as Jax had feared every moment since he went on the run.
Now he’s saying that New France is a friend to our kind. That we should throw off our shackles and join with those who would stand firm against our oppressors. He says, oh, this is good, he says there’s a network of secret canals just ready and waiting to whisk us to freedom.
The servitor carrying the firewood stalked off again, its talon toes stabbing the frozen earth like accusations.
In other words, the usual lies.
Moderately incensed, Jax said,
They’re not lies
.
And then realized, in the silence that fell upon the conversation among his kin, that he’d just drawn attention to himself. They waited now for him to explain. Perhaps he knew something about the
ondergrondse grachten
?
It was through miscalculations like this, he knew from bitter experience, that rogues gave themselves away.
They can’t be lies,
he improvised.
They believe in us, otherwise why would the French have stood against our makers for hundreds of years?
The nearest Clakkers rattled with mechanical laughter. One of his kin said,
Do you honestly believe that if our inventor had been a Frenchman, things would be any different today?
Perhaps they would be
, said Jax.
The soldier said,
Humans are the same all over the world. Doesn’t matter who’s on top of the pile and who’s crushed at the bottom.
They affect enlightenment because it’s politically expedient
, said another.
It gives them the aura of moral rectitude, of inhabiting some mythical ethical high ground.
(
But they’ve harbored rogues
, Jax wanted to say.
I’ve spoken with Catholic sympathizers and canalmasters of the
ondergrondse grachten.
I’ve worked with a former advisor to the king of France himself. They want to change the world!
)
Instead he said,
What about Queen Mab? They say she lives in the northern reaches, among the white bears and seals. That’s French land, isn’t it? They must have granted it to her.
First, that’s Inuit land, not French. Second, that’s a fairy tale! Have you taken damage to your head? And anyway. Even if she were real, they couldn’t stop her if they wanted to.
Still the Frenchman kept up the stream of patter. The dry winter air rasped his throat. His gaze drifted to the officer. Still wide-eyed, his expression changed. The terror became something else. Jax had seen something similar on Berenice’s face at the moment their ploy to enter the Forge had worked: triumph.
Jax launched himself from the tent at the same moment.
The Frenchman’s free hand darted to the tomahawk at his belt. The weapon was out and spinning toward the officer faster than Jax thought possible for a human.
The officer’s personal army of Clakkers was, naturally, faster still. They leaped to intercept the ax, to shield the officer, to pull him aside. But though many were
Jax retreated into the shadows of the cooking tent, his head and heart filled with unease. The captive kept up his protests, shouting to any who would listen, like a minister without a flock. He looked around the camp, from one Clakker to the next, as though addressing them. The human captain overseeing their advance ambled through the camp. The Frenchman saw the crowd of Clakkers parting like the sea before a biblical prophet and spoke more rapidly, as though he saw his doom approach.
His gaze flitted across Jax’s cooking tent. The look on his face reminded Jax of the rogue servitor Adam, formerly Perjumbellagostrivantus, whose execution in Huygens Square he had witnessed in the autumn. Adam’s face had betrayed nofear, no terror, for mechanical bodies were incapable of expression in the human mode. But he’d had Free Will, and maybe even a soul, and surely feared the snuffing out of his candle just as this man did now. Just as Jax had feared every moment since he went on the run.
Now he’s saying that New France is a friend to our kind. That we should throw off our shackles and join with those who would stand firm against our oppressors. He says, oh, this is good, he says there’s a network of secret canals just ready and waiting to whisk us to freedom.
The servitor carrying the firewood stalked off again, its talon toes stabbing the frozen earth like accusations.
In other words, the usual lies.
Moderately incensed, Jax said,
They’re not lies
.
And then realized, in the silence that fell upon the conversation among his kin, that he’d just drawn attention to himself. They waited now for him to explain. Perhaps he knew something about the
ondergrondse grachten
?
It was through miscalculations like this, he knew from bitter experience, that rogues gave themselves away.
They can’t be lies,
he improvised.
They believe in us, otherwise why would the French have stood against our makers for hundreds of years?
The nearest Clakkers rattled with mechanical laughter. One of his kin said,
Do you honestly believe that if our inventor had been a Frenchman, things would be any different today?
Perhaps they would be
, said Jax.
The soldier said,
Humans are the same all over the world. Doesn’t matter who’s on top of the pile and who’s crushed at the bottom.
They affect enlightenment because it’s politically expedient
, said another.
It gives them the aura of moral rectitude, of inhabiting some mythical ethical high ground.
(
But they’ve harbored rogues
, Jax wanted to say.
I’ve spoken with Catholic sympathizers and canalmasters of the
ondergrondse grachten.
I’ve worked with a former advisor to the king of France himself. They want to change the world!
)
Instead he said,
What about Queen Mab? They say she lives in the northern reaches, among the white bears and seals. That’s French land, isn’t it? They must have granted it to her.
First, that’s Inuit land, not French. Second, that’s a fairy tale! Have you taken damage to your head? And anyway. Even if she were real, they couldn’t stop her if they wanted to.
Still the Frenchman kept up the stream of patter. The dry winter air rasped his throat. His gaze drifted to the officer. Still wide-eyed, his expression changed. The terror became something else. Jax had seen something similar on Berenice’s face at the moment their ploy to enter the Forge had worked: triumph.
Jax launched himself from the tent at the same moment.
The Frenchman’s free hand darted to the tomahawk at his belt. The weapon was out and spinning toward the officer faster than Jax thought possible for a human.
The officer’s personal army of Clakkers was, naturally, faster still. They leaped to intercept the ax, to shield the officer, to pull him aside. But though many were
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