Biter followed the thing down into the guts of the cave. She hadn’t wanted to follow it, but orders were orders. They had left Brik outside, guarding the sealed entrance, standing in the mist of the waterfall. It would annoy him, and he would be complaining again about being wet once they returned. All three of them had disguised themselves by wearing the long, rough, hooded cloaks of the city inhabitants.
But she didn’t trust this thing she followed. It could see in the dark, like her. She also didn’t like that her hands, her forearms and the bottoms of her legs were like this thing. Blue plasteel. This thing was green. Its entire body was droid. It was said that it had walked here from the central tower city of glass where it lay in the storms beyond the world’s end.
Biter studied the few wooden beams that remained along the cave ceiling. They had been strung level, from brackets and bolts of poured cast metal. Much of the wood that remained was dry and rotten, and most of the beams had fallen a long time ago.
She followed Adam’s lead and stepped over a beam as he did. ‘He’? She wasn’t sure. His voice was light. It wouldn’t need to be anything. It was a droid with a large camera eye too high in its forehead. It wasn’t tall. About the same height as her and Brik, who had come with it. They were, nondescript, it was said. Small enough to be considered the wiley young of the city out past curfew avoiding the guards and soldiers and trying to find what mischief there may be left in a city surrounded by an army. She always scouted and reported any changes with the patrols of the occupying force with Brik as her overwatch, but this was the first time she had come out with the thing.
She didn’t know why she didn’t like it. She thought that maybe it was because she didn’t understand what it was. It was like working with a person that she couldn’t read. She could always sense what a person would do, what their motivation would be in the next instant. Were they bold? Reckless? Cowardly? This thing she could not read at all. She didn’t like it because she could not anticipate how it would behave when things got bad. And things often got bad.
“Too many of the beams have fallen.” She said. “This cave has been sealed off for a long time. We won’t be able to move it.”
“Approximately four hundred years if my atmospheric sensors are still within calibration. I passed through many storms in my travel here. There is a small probability that some sensors have been damaged. Not much further now. We are approaching a decrease in void space.”
And Biter didn’t like how the thing spoke.
They followed the narrow cave passage around a few more rugged curves in the stone and came to the end of the path. The entire floor of the naturally occurring cave had been laid with cobblestone on sand. It would have taken as much work as the underpinnings in the rock ceiling and stringing all the beams. Moving a gargoyle wouldn’t have been an easy undertaking, and the two that had attempted it hadn’t had an easy end.
They lay pinned under the gargoyle. It looked to Biter that, yes, they probably had been here about four hundred years. One had been entirely crushed. The other had lasted some time. The long death must have been pure excrutiation. Their legs had been trapped under the gargoyle, and their upper skeleton laid back against the cave wall.
The gargoyle, the statue of fine metal, lay across both skeletons, face down.
“Why would they do this?” Adam asked in that melodious, soft voice.
“Thieves,” Biter said. “The rusted chisels, hammer and saws on the floor. They began to cut it, and something happened, or it fell. They would have traded the metal.”
“The automated self-defence mechanism of the avatar would have been activated at the first attempt to damage it. It would have immediately animated itself. A high probability it would have struck them. Breaking bones, damaging them.”
“Looks like it,” Biter replied. “A bad way to go, especially for the one that lived for a while. Could have lived for quite a while.”
“What would they have done with the metal?”
“Once they knew they could cut it up, they would have stolen a crucible and coal and built a fire in the mouth of the cavern. Ran it during the day, early in the moring. The mist from the waterfall would have concealed most of the smoke. It’s what my plan would have been. Break it into chunks to melt down and sell as bricks. It would have made them rich.”
“Well, we thank their industriousness,” Adam said, canting his head as he studied the skeletal remains. “If it would have been for them, we wouldn’t have an avatar still hidden away from the Councillor for Andoria to pilot.”
“It will take a long time to re-anchor and cart in new beams not to mention the possibility that we’ll be noticed. It will take a great deal of work to get it back to the cave entrance so the tower signals can reach it.”
Adam bent and grasped the metal figure. Far too heavy to stand up, Biter thought. Adam stood; the sound of whining servos filled the room; his green plasteel feet cracked the cobbles, and he stood, bringing the metal statue straight up to stand.
Biter shook her head in wonderment. “Remind me never to choose a fight with you.”
“Of course.” It replied. “Yes. This avatar would have been removed and hidden hundreds of years before the Ambassador and his men used the tug balloons to sling the others away from their pedestals along the waterfall.”
“It looks like it. Are you going to carry it back out to the mouth of the cave?”
“No. That is beyond my physical abilities. But yes, we need to transport it back there and reposition it in the falls so it may begin a recharge cycle.”
“Is it going to work?”
“My scans show it fully operational.”
“You are very strong. We may not need beams and anchor points. What about a balloon dolly? I think that would work. Much easier to sneak one in here. Are you strong enough to walk the gargoyle along on a stone dolly?”
“The only way to know would be for me to attempt it. I don’t know what a stone baloon dolly is.”
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“Ok. We’ll get one.”
Biter was right; Brik was complaining more than his normally annoyed and worrying self was by the time they got back to the entrance and made the climb to the top of the waterfall.
They stood in the cleft of the rocks to the right of the dam. They would stay clear of the funicular rail cars. The soldiers had taken them over, so any travelling they did had to remain secret. This forced them to climb the tumbled stone block on either side of the waterfall to the top of god’s table and to where the observatory stood over the city.
From where they stood now, the city lay to their back far below them, dark due to the imposed curfew. To their front was the marshland that surrounded the Sisters Observatory. The marshland was no longer a marsh, for the Peoples Army had increased the height of the dam at the top of the falls, and the entire plateau continued to fill with water. The marsh was a small lake now, and it continued to fill deeper.
“And they know they will flood the entire city?” The High Priestess asked, or, as Biter realized, the old High Priestess. Waterwalker was the new high priestess from inside the Observatory now, wasn’t she?
“Yes.” Long Molly replied. She stood towering over them all and studied the Observatory. Her long metal bow was slung across her back. “We have heard them talking. Our people tell us everything the soldiers say. And they know they will destroy the city.”
“It is a sad thing to pull down the last tower and destroy a city.”
“If the volume of water can be decreased, the buildings may remain standing,” Adam said from inside the concealing hood of the cloak.
“Has he already reported that?” the high priestess asked.
“Yes.” Long Molly replied. “We are starting to create burms and trenches closest to the river. We have already had everyone begin moving everything to the higher floors of the sturdiest stone buildings.”
“Thank you again, Adam, for coming to help us.”
The droid gave a little bow.
“I know the travel would have been difficult for you. I thought it was impossible, actually.”
“I was able to construct a solar recharging system from supplies and materials in the space station.” He dropped his hood back to reveal it was lined with a metallic-like mesh weave. “I can recharge in the daylight while staying functional. I watched my perimeter while posing to sit. I would have moved on if anyone was detected. But no one happened by me. Now, here, I am relinked with the tower observation system, so I have an easier time avoiding anyone. I can use the satellite viewing system for my travels here, therefore less of an opportunity for discovery.”
“Very good.” The High Priestess said.
“And yourself, Ma’am.” The droid continued. “You have also made your own way here. How were you without being detected?”
“Kalla and I used the lower level exit from the pyramid into the canal and came on a barge. I pretended I was an old near blind worshiper with my beloved great-granddaughter.”
“That may soon no longer be an option. The soldiers control more things all the time. We are hearing that they will start setting up floating inspection stations all along the canal. The entire canal system. All the way to Baal.”
“Yes. And they complete more of their preparations up here.”
They watched the bargemen and soldiers at work across the water. Even though it was night, the soldiers never ceased their preparations to pull down the tower. They had disassembled and reassembled the barges on the top marsh after using the funicular cars to move them to the top of the waterfall. Then, they had brought up the portions of the tether they had scavenged from the eastern and central towers. They could see some barges worked on the locking pins to connect the portions of the tether in the water. The rest of the barges they were using to move stone to increase the dam height.
“Will that work Adam?” Brik asked.
“How long will it take to get the city inhabitants to safety?” Adam asked.
“It worked for the last two towers, didn’t it?” Biter snapped.
“Wait.” Long Molly interjected. “Why?” Molley asked Adam.
Kalla held the hand of the old High Priestess. Biter always forgot she was there, because she considered her just a child always until Kalla spoke. Once Kalla spoke, no one presumed she was just a child.
Biter was told that Kalla had been studying under the High Priestess in the pyramid. It was told the girl was growing to become fantastically intelligent.
“They are going to connect the tether to the base of the colonm of natural rock that the observatory is carved from. But they will have to wrap the tether right around the base, or it will fail. They can’t anchor it because nothing they can do is strong enough. It looks like they will attempt the anchor. That will take more time once it fails. Also, they have to make the pins for the tether out of the actual tether. These pins they have brought are not strong enough. They will bend and break. Once they move past these two mistakes they are making, they will be quicker and quit wasting time with the metal foundry and mining. The manpower on the mining and foundry will be applied to the damn and tether. Therefore, the progress will quicken. Especially once they discover the clockworks they have the new High Priestess commanding for them are able to manipulate the tether weave. I don’t think they will be able to dam the river here, then release the water to put enough weight on the other line they build even if all the barges are used, and they are filled with rock and floated on the lake, and the water is suddenly let go. But Adam, and I, think they will sacrifice the city and the barges. They will break the damn and let the barges loaded with rock fall down the waterfall into the city. If they bind the rock into the barges and make the tether lines long enough to hang down the waterfall…, that should put enough tug on the tether line for them to be successful in destroying the tower.”
Kalla gave a sad smile up to the high priestess.
“So I have determined that one key is to delay them from discovering the clockworks are able to manipulate the tether weave.” The high priestess said.
“And how would you have us do that?” Long Molly asked.
“I will have to get back to you on that.”
No one said anything for a long while. The words of Kalla illustrated the scene they were watching, the men, the torches, the boats, and the soldiers that surrounded the city below, a ring of campfires out on the lower plain and across from them on the flooded marshland.
“We will start making preparations for everyone to leave the city. We have to be very quiet about it, though. If they learn about what we plan…” Long Molly said.
“Tell us about the drone?” The High Priestess asked. “You said you left it in the central tower along with the two bird brains. Big Crunch had helped get them there.”
“Yes,” Adam replied.
“And it still hadn’t succeeded in connecting to the preserved minds? Could you detect if any progress was being made?”
“No. It and the bird avatars seemed to have gone to sleep or into a regen cycle. I was unable to make contact with them once they accidentally stunned themselves. I left them and the station in the protection of my brother. They will not be disturbed.”
“So the work we did to get them to the north may have been fruitless?”
“That is yet to be undetermined. There seems to be a realm of existence or phase of preservation that I am unaware of. I have been recently learning many new concepts of dreams, luck, motivation, belief and hope. Even without being able to experience their concepts, I think I am starting to understand what they are. I have begun to attempt the process of ‘having hope’.”
“And stone balloon dollies,” Biter added.
“Yes. And those too.” Adam replied.
“What about the Empress and my agent? What do you and the professor see? Have they made it on the barge travelling east? The last barge out of here? The largest one in their flotilla they use to transport the airship and its docking tower?”
“Professor Adoria Seelo says hello to you, High Priestess, and she says the orb is still being carried by the Empress still wearing the guise of an Accolade, and she has met up with your agent. Yes. They are on a large barge and are floating downstream towards Central City. She says they are playing lots of cards.”
“Cards?”
“It seems they are confined to a large cabin on the ship and are continuously playing card games.”