The first large convoy of common people was preparing to shove off within the month; a contingent of engineers and scientists had already left with enough personnel to more than double Trebbly's force.
Within six months of Limpkin's return, two remarkable events took place. A small dam, not more than fifty feet across, was actually completed; equally amazing, its miniature hydroelectric plant worked. Then, with some secret help from Moresly's rapidly expanding force, a telegraph line was strung from the capital to Kelph on the Tyne, the main jumping-off spot for the Yards.
The day after the line was finished, a ball was held on the grass at Palace Park—the weather being exceedingly mild for that time of year—the first one so staged in over a century. Limpkin with his inherited collection of psychological studies made the most of the affair: speeches by all the great men involved in the project, fireworks, dancing. At midnight George, with his Council in attendance, mounted a pavilion and slowly tapped out the word "begin" over and over on an ancient telegraph key. A crude electric light displayed the dots and dashes to the watching crowd until it burned out halfway through the sixth "begin." Miles away, at a dock at Kelph, a fast galley saw another light blink out the word; it shoved off for the Yards, its captain carrying the order to Trebbly.
Almost exactly a week later the order reached the Yards and the first section of the
Victory
's keel was lifted into place. Four years after that, the entire keel was finished.
A grand ceremony was held in the Yards and in the Caroline Empire (for so it was now named) to celebrate the completion of the keel. But the whole thing was turned into a rather dismal affair when George XXVIII, who had been lapsing in and out of insanity for the past couple of years, died. And to compound the genuine sorrow that the nation felt for the kindly half-wit, Sir Henry Limpkin, O.O.C., D.S.C., K.O.S., followed the monarch soon afterward. The Council assumed rule of the Empire until George's son Clement came of age and as its first official act made Limpkin the Viscount of Westwatch; his widow said that she was overcome with the sympathy that the nation and the Government had displayed, and promptly ran off to New Svald with a cavalry officer twenty years her junior.
According to Limpkin's will, he desired that a young man named Trensing should become head of the Admiralty. This nettled Moresly quite a bit, for he had expected Limpkin to follow the General's instructions and leave the appointment of Office of Reconstruction heads to the Office of Procurement. But considering the essentially covert nature of his Office and the then-rampant sympathy for Limpkin, his vehement objections were not heard outside of the higher government circles.
Although Trensing's lens-like spectacles and artificial arm (the real one had been lost, along with his family, in the Fairmont Massacre twelve years before) repelled most people, no one could deny his administrative competence. Trensing won even Moresly's grudging admiration when he took over the funeral duties and combined them with those of George; he ended up managing the resulting carnival and drained every last ounce of emotional value from it.
Trensing fully approved of the symbolic way station of Bloody Ford, but it seemed to him that a terminus was needed at the Yards themselves. The ship was still too alien to most people and battles were out of the question in that deserted land. In lieu of the triumphant sorrow with which victors always regard the scenes of their victories, he placed sorrow alone.
So, on a bright day in the middle of spring, when the trees and flowers were beginning their annual struggle against the poisons of the World's air and soil, George XXVIII, Sovereign of the Caroline, Commander of the Armies, Patron of the Arts and Sciences, and Rebuilder of the World, was carried to Kelph upon a huge flatbed trailer. Behind him, on a bier about three feet lower, rode the coffin of the Viscount Limpkin of Westwatch. The trailer was pulled by the ancient truck that Limpkin had sent running about the countryside before the Myth of the Ship was generally known.
At Kelph the coffins were unloaded and placed on board one of the five galleys that had made it back from Bloody Ford. A thirty gun salute was fired from a battery of nine newly cast, rifled cannon; the assembled masses were heartened when only one of the guns blew up during the ceremony. A mausoleum had been built for George just within the northern edge of the Yards. It was made from the steel that had lain beneath the Yards for thousands of years; engraved upon its three foot thick outer door were George's accomplishments, or rather most of the noteworthy things that happened during his pleasantly muddled rule and that sympathy demanded be attributed to George. A little to the east a smaller tomb was built, this of stone from the Yards themselves, and here Limpkin was laid to rest, at the right hand of his king. It was all most effective for the mob of People who had even then come to live by the Yards. A city was growing for the People—as they were now called by the Technos—a thousand little prefabricated houses, each with its own neat, sterile plot. Over to the north and east, among the foothills of the mountains that ringed the Yards and separated them from the Barrens, the houses of the Technos—as the technical elite were now called by the People—were being built, looking down from their rugged heights upon the vast ship that was taking shape under their direction. All classes came to weep, some more for show than others, and bid farewell to the Great Men. Trebbly, observing the rites from his home on Mount Dethmet, smiled approvingly; now he could tell the People to work for the ship
and
for the memory of George
and
for the memory of the Viscount Limpkin. But, as he peered through a telescope, he could not help but feel a perplexing kind of fear, for the People thronged the larger of the two death buildings almost without exception, while his Technos had congregated in a solemn mass of black around Limpkin's grave, their silver insignia flashing in the dark universe of their uniforms. Of course, the explanation was that not many of the People knew anything about the role of Limpkin in the building of the ship. Trebbly turned from the window, for his maid had just finished preparing lunch; he wondered who had mourned over poor Toriman's resting place.
There had been a great flotilla of boats to follow the funeral barge down the Tyne; the capital, as a result, was comparatively deserted. Perhaps the only man of any public stature left in the city was Philip Rome, now Sir Philip. Both Rome and the People had heartily accepted the engineered meaning of Bloody Ford, and instead of returning to his original profession, he had become what is known as a Leader of the Masses. With subtle Government assistance, and quite without his consent, he found himself recruiting people to work at the Yards. For several years he had done this happily, his stature growing with the legends about the Ford Battle. But the Government, Trensing especially, had decided that he was becoming a trifle too legendary and had ordered him to the Yards to join his People. The day after the Government directive arrived, a silent messenger, dressed in military attire, delivered a handwritten note summoning him to Caltroon; at that moment, George and Limpkin were being buried more than a thousand miles away.
Rome had never really heard of General Tenn, who had invited him to that mysterious stone pile, but he seemed to vaguely recall someone of that name in the war news from Yuma. Anyway, the stationery was of the finest vellum and the coat of arms at its head, a mailed fist and pegasus, was most impressive.
At about eleven an open landau arrived at his house. As the elegant coach trotted through the warm night air, Rome leaned back and gazed at the welkin, trying to guess which star Home orbited about. The town walls were soon passed with little trouble, municipal security being much slackened in those days, then down along the River Road, and up to the northwest where Mount Royal hid half the night sky with its bulk. Rome looked up intently and soon he could make out the denser blackness that must be the Castle. They drew nearer and he could see that the only lights in the place were in the Great Keep.
The landau let Rome off at the main gate, and he walked through the opened gate unchallenged. Up on the deserted battlements the flags of the Caroline, of some military unit, and a personal ensign, probably the General's, hung limp in the tranquil night air.
He moved through the outer courtyards, through the inner wall and neglected gardens, his way guided by smoking torches. A liveried servant was waiting for him at the door of the Great Keep; Rome was most flattered by the treatment he was getting. Not only that, but it appeared that Caltroon had been opened up just for him; obviously, this General thought a great deal of him.
The servant led Rome through many rooms and halls until he was finally ushered into the General's study. Rome had heard of this vast, cathedral-like room from his friends in high places, and it was said that in this room George XXVIII had proposed the idea of the Ship to the Viscount Limpkin and some obscure general named Toriman. Great things had been transacted in front of its fireplace and Rome felt that he was about to be let in on one of them.
As he approached the roaring fire and the opulent desk that was placed before it, he noticed the empty shelves and map trays that lined both sides of the room; yes, here the Ship and all that she would become had been born.
General Tenn was seated in front of the fire and rose to greet Rome. The engineer was immediately struck by the intensely military bearing of the man, the aura of command and authority that surrounded him. His gaunt frame towered some five inches over Rome, the battered face patterned with a network of scars and wrinkles. There was a gray patch over his left eye, but it failed to cover a hideous scar that crept down the General's cheek. A shaved skull and bull neck completed the splendidly martial appearance of the man. Rome was properly awed.
The General introduced himself pleasantly, offered Rome some wine and then a chair; the General wasted little time on preliminaries, however, and soon broached the point of the audience.
"Sir Philip, I hope that you will forgive the appearance of Caltroon, but my duties seldom allow me to be home. I will only be here for another day or two, and that is why I found it necessary to call you here, even though you were scheduled to leave for the Yards. I hope you are not inconvenienced."
The idea of such a man asking him if he was inconvenienced took Rome by surprise, but he hid it as best he could. "No trouble, sir. Your summons sounded urgent, so I thought it best to come. The Yards will not move and I guess that our late Sovereign will still be there to receive my homage when I arrive."
Tenn smiled thinly and nodded. "Well put, Rome. Now it is quite evident, even to the most obtuse eye, that you have become something of a leader among the people."
"I hope that I'm not flattering myself if I say . . . "
"No, of course you're not. You are every bit the leader you think yourself to be; if not you would not be here." Tenn looked at Rome, the firelight glinting off a large signet ring. "Tell me, what do you think of the Government and the Technos?"
Rome mulled it around for a while. "The Government has been most kind to me, sir, and has followed a very wise and daring course in their building of the Ship. As for the Technos, I cannot say; they seem to be competent enough in their direction of the building. But never having been to the Yards, I would rather not pass judgment."
Tenn flicked open a folder that was sitting beside the decanter. "Did you know that the Technos come almost exclusively from the top social and economic tenth of the nation, with ability counting for almost nothing?"
Disturbed by this, Rome asked Tenn if he were sure of his figures. "They are correct," said the General. "They must be, for you, yourself are living proof; if ability and leadership meant more than family fortunes, then why have you not been absorbed into the Techno class?"
Confronted with such irrefutable evidence, Rome asked the General to continue. "You say that you have never been to the Yards, Rome. I have." Tenn looked as if he were somehow wrestling with himself over just what he should tell Rome; he spoke slowly, choosing his words with great care. "My duties in the Army have taken me to the farthest outposts of our civilization. I've visited the Yards several times, twice before George and the Viscount Limpkin even conceived of the Ship, and a few more times since. Frankly, Rome, what I have seen disturbs me."
"The Ship?"
"Oh no, hardly. The Ship is coming along beautifully. A trifle more beautifully than some would like." Tenn gestured earnestly to Rome. "You see, my loyalty is to the Army, not to the Government or the immortal masses or any synthetic class divisions that anyone has dreamed up. I am really at a loss to explain the purpose behind the Technos and the People being split apart for any reason other than that of dominion by the former.
"At any rate, my uncommitted status has allowed me access to information and freedom from restriction that . . . " Rome thought that the General looked like a man who was about to betray somebody. "Rome, it appears to me that the Technos, or whatever you care to call our new rulers, have taken over the idea of the Ship and perverted it. They mean never to complete the Ship."
Rome was astounded. "The Government would never permit such a thing!"
"I know. I said the same thing when the possibility first presented itself and was then confirmed by my studies."
"But what could they hope to accomplish with this trickery?"
"I can speak only from personal observation and conjecture, but it seems that the Technos are using the Ship as a part in a deception. They plan to use it like a carrot, dangling the prospect of escape from this godawful planet to stimulate the masses into productive action—give them a great Cause to work for and all that. But while all of us out there are breaking our collective backs just so our sons may see a better world, the Technos divert a portion of the products and rechannel it back into the country itself. The theory is that as this World grows finer and finer through the work we inadvertantly put into it, we will grow less interested in the Ship. Ultimately, we will forget her entirely, turn around, and find that we have built another Home without even knowing it."