Magic test, p.12
Magic Test, page 12
part #3 of AI Diaries Series
“Getting in touch with your artistic side?”
Setting my nonfunctional juice press down in the grass, I began examining the various gouges, knives, and cutters. The brass ring on the blade of the first cutter I picked up slid easily off the handle, and removing the blade, I saw that it had only been sharpened a couple times at most. The other tools were in equally good condition, and the handles were turned from a fine grained hardwood, I believe cherry.
“You have an eye for quality craftsmanship,” the booth’s owner said, timing his pitch perfectly. “Those blades are hand forged by a master on one of our sister worlds and are imported specially by the woodblock printers association. If that set wasn’t missing the middle knife, it would be worth three gold easy.”
“Three gold?” Repeating prices to salesmen was getting to be a habit with me that I’d have to watch.
“Like I said—if,” the seller reminded me. “Are you in the printing business?”
“My daughter,” I said, pointed in the direction of eBeth’s vanishing back. “She and her partners are running a letterpress with metal type, but they paid somebody else to prepare the woodblocks for illustrations in the one booklet that included artwork.”
“And you’re thinking of encouraging their artist to learn carving? It will take a while before he’ll see a benefit from using the best tools,” the man said slowly. “I have a beginner’s set here somewhere that I could let you have for two silver…”
“The boy is a fast learner and who knows if I’ll still be around to buy him a new set when the time comes.”
“How about this? I’ll sell you the professional set, missing the middle knife, for one gold, and I’ll throw in the beginner’s set for free. And they’ll have to run the pages twice, you know. It will be impossible for an amateur carver to get the relief height to come out consistently the same as metal type.”
“Can’t we just sand or plane the back of the woodblock down after the fact until the height is correct?”
“If your eye is that good,” the man said. “Take your cuts off the end grain and the blocks will hold up for thousands of impressions.”
I was glad that eBeth wasn’t there to see me paying a gold piece that was worth thirty-six hundred copper coins after my complaining about her purchases, and I loaded both sets of carving tools into the cider press. I’d give Monos the cheap set to practice with when we got back and set aside the good set for when I thought it would make a difference. But did that mean I had to buy Naomi something as well? I asked Bob.
“It’s hard to imagine she wouldn’t feel a little left out if you give her best friend a present,” he told me. “You said that the boy has an artistic streak. What’s her special thing?”
“She’s smart, and a good student as well. She’s probably the best English speaker on the planet, Earth expatriates and AI excluded,” I qualified my statement.
“How about a dictionary?”
“I take it you’ve never read Thackeray’s Vanity Fair.”
“Was it published before I was born?”
“Before your grandfather was born, your great-grandfather too, most likely.”
“And was it on any of my reading lists in school?” Bob continued with the interrogation.
“Probably not.”
“Then I haven’t read it, and neither has anybody else my age.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” I protested. “It’s a classic.”
“Do I look like I’m wearing contact lenses?”
“What does that have to do with it.”
“People with glasses or contacts read classics.”
“I withdraw my observation. I only meant to say that giving a dictionary to a young woman can backfire in spectacular fashion.”
“How about a puppy?” Bob suggested.
“She lives at home so I’d have to clear it with the family first. I was thinking more in line with something I could buy at the fair.”
“Then let’s find the kids and establish surveillance. Eventually she’ll slip up and show an interest in something.”
“She’s not a criminal, Bob,” I told him, and then let the conversation drop because we had caught up with eBeth, who was waiting at the edge of the path for the slow-moving bus. To my surprise, Monos and Naomi were riding up front with Peter. I tried to ignore the fact that the boy was the one steering.
“Just a quick stop, folks,” Peter promised the paying customers. He blew off the excess boiler pressure with a long whistle, set the brake, and hopped out to open the luggage compartment. Naomi forced the boy to follow before he could attempt to hijack the bus.
“Did you two get tired of the rides already?” I asked, after stowing the cider press below the bus.
“We ran out of money,” Naomi explained.
“I thought eBeth gave you each twenty copper from your earnings,” I said. The lion’s share of the income from MeAN Publishers was earmarked for paying down the cost of the equipment, and while mail-order sales were highly profitable, they were also selling pamphlets through distribution, which demanded a deep discount and involved long delays before payment.
“I lost most of it,” Monos admitted sheepishly. “Naomi wanted the stuffed bunny for her little sister and the game looked so easy. I still don’t understand why I couldn’t win.”
“He came so close that we kept trying,” Naomi spoke up in the boy’s defense. “It’s almost like they were cheating somehow, but it was a simple ring toss. The woman running the booth dropped the wooden ring over the post after every three throws just to show it could be done.”
“That’s a classic scam,” Bob told us, standing a little straighter after having gotten rid of the box of china. “You bring us to the booth and I’ll get your money refunded.”
“I’m going to go around a few times with Peter and see the fair,” eBeth announced. “Mark, advance them another twenty coppers and I’ll pay you back.”
Peter and eBeth climbed into the bus and he inched forward the lever that allowed steam to enter the cylinder and force the piston outwards. As soon as the bus began to move forward without breaking traction, Peter eased open the valve feeding the cylinder, and the vehicle rapidly picked up speed.
“It’s this way,” Monos declared, and surprised me by grabbing my hand and pulling me in the direction of the midway. The rides were much smaller than those at Earth fairs, and without amplified equipment for playing back sound recordings, the noise was limited to screaming children and a steam organ. I couldn’t help doing a quick structural analysis on the wooden rollercoaster as we passed, and despite the fact that it had obviously made it through the first nine days of the fair, I wasn’t crazy about the safety margins.
“There it is,” Naomi told Bob, pointing at a garish booth with large stuffed animals decorating the façade. “It’s four copper for three tosses, and Monos spent all that we had left after riding the roller coaster twice.”
“You two stay here and leave this to the pros,” Bob said. He squared his shoulders and set off for the booth, which was run by an imposing woman who I have to admit looked tougher than either my companion or myself. “What do you think, Mark. Good cop, bad cop?”
“They don’t have any cops on this world, not in the Earth sense,” I told him. “The cities have public safety employees and probably some detectives, but they never had an industrial revolution here and the society is a lot more stable than you’d think. There’s a circuit court that can deputize locals if they need enforcement, but it rarely comes up in rural areas.”
“So what’s the plan?” he asked, pulling me to a stop before we got within earshot of the booth.
“I doubt she understands English, Bob, so we can talk in front of her. And my plan is to play ring toss.”
“Step right up!” the barker cried the moment we made eye contact. “Three throws for four copper. Win a prize for every ring you make. Just watch me.”
Standing right next to the target, she rapidly tossed three rings onto the post, though given her arm extension, dropping them straight down would be a more accurate description.
“That’s the scam,” Bob informed me. “The holes in those rings are just a hair wider than the post. It’s almost impossible to land one while standing in front of the booth.”
“I’ll give it a try,” I told the woman, slapping the coins down on the counter. She retrieved the three rings, carefully keeping her body out of my line of sight so I could see that I was receiving the same rings that had fit on the post.
“Make sure that the stuffed animals are the prizes,” Bob advised me. “Sometimes they do a bait-and-switch and give you some trash prize that’s not on display.”
“I can win three of these with my three tosses?” I asked, pointing up at the stuffed animals above the counter.
“You pick ‘em,” she said. “I run an honest operation.”
I accepted the three wooden rings she pressed into my hands, though given the size of the hole, they looked more like solid wheels for a toy wagon than hoops for a ring toss game. I held two of them in my left hand and weighed the one in my right while calculating the necessary vectors. Then I flipped it in the direction of the post in a high arc, end-over-end, and it rattled home, making a sound like a ratchet.
“Hey, what kind of throw was that?” the barker demanded.
“The sign doesn’t say anything about how I throw,” I retorted, lining up for a second shot.
“Well, I do,” the woman said, interposing herself between the counter and the post. “Either toss like a normal person or pick up your four copper and go.”
“Bob, take down a bunny,” I instructed my companion, and he did so with a grin. “Now, I have two more tosses,” I continued, using my most authoritative voice on the proprietress. “If you object to my technique, I won’t repeat it, and if you object to my presence, I’ll throw both rings at the same time to get it over with. How does that suit you?”
She looked at me suspiciously, but greed won out over caution, and she said, “Throw them both at once.”
I held the two rings together and cast them directly at the post with just enough angle so that when the first ring was trying to bounce off, the second ring was glancing off the top of it, causing the first ring to settle on the post and drop home. The barker gaped at the post, then turned to me angrily and said, “You cheated.”
“Takes one to know one,” Monos heckled her, and I realized that the children had ignored our instructions and followed us to the booth.
“Which animal do you want?” Bob asked the boy.
“I’m too old for stuffed animals, but Naomi has two little sisters, so maybe another bunny.”
“Make it a cow,” she said. “Sarah is at the cow age.”
After my ring-toss heroics, I could do no wrong in the eyes of the kids. Rather than going on more rides, they elected to stay with us as I homed in on Sue’s location transponder to make sure she wasn’t spending me into the poor house. We reached her just as she was leaving a cabinet-maker’s booth with a large wooden chest.
“Here, let me carry that,” I said. Even though we were no longer undercover, it wouldn’t accomplish anything for my second-in-command to show off her super-human strength. “Is this full of patterns?”
“Half-full,” she admitted.
“You couldn’t get a cardboard box?”
“It’s furniture,” Monos informed me. “It goes at the foot of your bed.”
“It’s a hope chest,” Sue said, adding for the benefit of the children who thought we were already husband and wife, “I didn’t have one before we got married so I’m playing catch-up.”
Twelve
“Hurry up or we’ll be late to the first official town meeting,” Sue said impatiently.
“It’s this necktie,” I complained, undoing the knot and starting over again. “I think it’s defective.”
“I told you to tack one of eBeth’s instruction sheets on the wall,” she said, stepping forward and taking up the ends of the tie. I dropped my hands to my sides in relief. “Is your memory giving you problems again? Have you been keeping an eye on your magic emanations dosimeter?”
“I remember the instructions perfectly well, and I helped Monos when he carved the woodblocks for printing. It’s just different somehow when I’m in a hurry and you’re in the room.”
My second-in-command completed the knot before I finished speaking, snugged and straightened the tie, then stepped back to observe her work.
“Your shoes are almost too shiny,” she said. “The villagers are going to think you’re trying to show them up.”
“Townspeople now, not villagers,” I reminded her, “and I hope they know me better than that. We better get moving. The Ferrymen’s temple is probably going to be packed.”
“Are Delilah and Athena watching the café?” Sue asked as we headed downstairs.
“I told them to close during the meeting so they could attend. This is a big deal for Covered Bridge, changing from a village to a town. It’s a story they can tell their children.”
“Maybe,” she said doubtfully as we exited out the front and started for the temple. “None of the women in my weaving circle seemed very excited about it.”
“I just hope the council of elders doesn’t blame us for forcing the change,” I said. “I didn’t even realize that Kim and Justin had over a hundred people working in their mail-order operation until I asked them about it yesterday. It’s no wonder Paul has to send the bus farther and farther from town to find lodging for his workers.”
“We may have been the catalyst, but some of the growth in town has little to do with us, at least not directly.” Sue looked back over her shoulder and frowned. “I wonder why there aren’t more people out walking to the Ferrymen’s temple for the meeting?”
“Because we’re late,” I surmised. “Bob is going with Lilith, it’s sort of their first date, and Pffift had some things to do out at his warehouse, but he said he would ride in with Hosea because he’s interested in how humans govern themselves. I hope eBeth and Peter show up. They’re both old enough to vote if they were back on Earth.”
“Isn’t that Saul entering the temple? Do you think he came in for the meeting?”
“That did look like his bald spot. He owns a place on the lake so that makes him a resident. If the meeting’s already begun and there aren’t any seats available in the back, let’s just stand rather than making people move for us.”
“I’m beginning to think that you may be the most excited sentient in town,” Sue said with a laugh. “I hope you aren’t disappointed if our friends and neighbors don’t share your sense of drama.”
I picked up the pace without replying, and two minutes later we reached the Ferrymen’s temple at the top of the hill. I could hear a number of loud conversations going on within. I hesitated at the doors after hearing my name bandied about in the general noise, but Sue took a hold of my arm and dragged me inside. The hubbub died as abruptly as a snuffed candle.
“Would everybody please take a seat so we can begin?” Palti requested from the small stage at the front of the room. Sue and I hurried past the indoor garden and had no problem finding seats together in the back row, since the hall wasn’t even at a quarter of its capacity. “We all know each other, and I haven’t quite finished reading through the new rulebook for town meetings that the county commissioner sent me, so we’ll proceed as we always have. I see a hand.”
“Johan, ma’am. I’ve never been to a meeting here.”
“So I was wrong about all of us knowing one another. I take it from your mismatched forearms that you must be one of the employees at the boiler-works who swings a hammer all day long. And my name is Palti, we don’t stand on formalities at meetings.”
“I’m a foreman at the boiler-works, and my co-workers asked me to come and represent them.”
“I’m Dvora, and the pickers and packers at the Healing Herbs distribution center delegated me to speak for them,” a small woman sitting next to Johan spoke up.
“Excellent, glad to have you both here,” Palti said. “Everybody who lives in our community is welcome to participate, and I’ll give you a quick rundown on how we operate. In the past, we held a lottery every year at the Ferrymen’s Day festival to choose a secretary for meetings. I drew the short straw the last time around. But the recently completed county census determined that we now have the population to incorporate as a town, and the council of elders put in the paperwork, which has already been accepted.”
“Why did they do that?” somebody moaned loudly.
“Moving to an executive form of government means that the elders won’t be constantly bombarded with complaints about cows getting loose and smoky chimneys, Hosea. If you’re interested in standing—”
“Not me,” the farmer hastily interrupted. “I was just curious.”
“Very well,” Palti said, looking over the crowd to see if there were any other dissenters. “We all know that the rapid changes in this town are due to the presence of Mark and his team, so before we continue, I’d like to invite him to come up here and answer any questions you may have. Mark?”
I pointed my finger at my own chest to make sure she was in fact calling me out and it wasn’t some sort of glitch. The people in the room actually gave a little cheer when I stood up, and there was a brief chant of, “Mark, Mark, Mark.” I made my way to the front of the room and stood beside the so-called Ferryman’s Body, a battery-powered video editing station and projector. Artisans all over Reservation used the alien equipment to practice their self-documentary skills for producing authenticity videos to accompany exports of hand-crafted goods.
“Thank you, Palti,” I said to the miller’s wife, before turning to address the assembly. “As you all know by now, my team members and I are not from this world, and with the exception of eBeth and Peter, we aren’t even human. That said, we are bound by the rules of our League and we try to act in accordance with your best interests.”
