Killing Time

By Tiel Aisha Ansari

Novella chronicling the construction of a giant clock, and its consequences for humanity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tiel Aisha Ansari
• Release date: Feb 20, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458102508

Tiel Aisha Ansari

I am not a poet. I am a scribe of Allah.

Book preview

KILLING TIME

by Tiel Aisha Ansari

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2011, Tiel Aisha Ansari

Smashwords Edition License Notes

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The cover image is adapted from a public domain image from Wikimedia Commons. The original is located at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mouvement_horloge.jpg

The city council of New Ys meets in a room overlooking a slaughterhouse. The windows are closed against the stink of blood and offal and the fitful lowing of cows waiting for the fatal bolt. Outside on Commercial Street, barefooted workmen are laying new cobbles on top of old cobbles half-sunk in glutinous black lakeshore mud.

New Ys is built on mud. The councilors have surreptitiously changed their shoes upon entering the hall, before climbing the pink marble stairs to the mezzanine. Too, too gauche, to leave dirty footprints, smudge the gleaming brass handrails, stain the carpet with its design of peacocks sacred to a vanished empire.

From the corniced windows they look past the abattoir, at the lake mottled with spring sunshine. There are radiators hissing gently in every corner of the room and occasionally the pipes thud or clang. There is no furniture: the council meets standing and gets things done quickly.

Is he here yet?

What's it about?

The Mayor of New Ys has called a special session, summoning these men from their busy rounds. They don't appreciate interruptions. They tolerate the Mayor because he's willing to stand up in front of crowds; he thrives on it, loves the drunken rush and swell of public feeling, while these men prefer to remain out of sight.

Winston and Culver meet at a window. Winston carries a fur-lined overcoat on his arm. Culver wears his, uncomfortable in the heated room but wanting to display the stylized locomotive jacquard-woven into the lapels and repeated on the cuffs. Culver owns, not the railway itself, but the terminal building and the land around it. He's an extremely wealthy man.

So I heard old Thus-and-Such brought an architect from Avakiore.

I heard he was an engineer, says Winston. Culver likes to brag that he has ears in the Mayor's office, but it means nothing. Theophilus Sumpter doesn't keep secrets, it's not his style.

Barlow joins them. Have you heard the latest census figures?

Culver nods, Winston shrugs. He doesn't pay attention to official figures; every day he sees what he needs to, people streaming into New Ys by rail, by boat, on foot. Winston builds cheap tenements in the lowest part of the floodplain and lets his tenants pack in as many sublettors as the floors will hold. He can't keep ahead of the demand. Half these people are dreamers who think they can get money just by being near it (and in New Ys, you are nowhere far from money), and most of those who are willing to work have nothing to offer but a strong back. But that's all right: New Ys needs strong backs to drain her waterways, fill her marshes, and sink the deep pilings that support banks and mills and railway stations.

Gentlemen! Gentlemen! Mayor Sumpter bounds into the room. He's short, round and red-faced, relaxed and affable on his home ground, City Hall. A young woman with low-heeled shoes and mouse-colored hair follows him with an armful of papers. She takes up station by the door, head down. Sumpter circulates, pumping hands and slapping shoulders.

Delighted, delighted! So glad you all could come! You won't be disappointed, believe me. This is a great day for all of us, for New Ys! The future, gentlemen!

He gestures. The secretary circles the room noiselessly, handing a packet of papers to each councilor. Pages rustle before their uncomprehending eyes, thick with lines, arrows, arcs. There's very little text. These are blueprints of some kind, but no-one in the room has seen anything quite like them.

Finally it's the banker Barlow who says, "What is it?"

Ah! Sumpter claps his hands. Where he's standing has suddenly become the head of the room: everyone's looking at him. Ah! Gentlemen, this is what will make New Ys famous!

He speaks briefly about history that's familiar to most here: the founding of the Republic of Traillia in the previous century, the growth of commerce across the new country. New Ys on its lake, natural junction between the eastern waterways and the railroads that open the west. Goods and money pumped both directions. We are the beating heart of Traillia, says Sumpter. Not only because of our most fortuitous location. Because we work, gentlemen, we work. No gold or grain moves from the western provinces to Avakiore, Damirae, New Antichorus, unless New Ys moves it. No fine cloth, glass or china goes west unless handled by New Ys!

He doesn't dwell on New Ys' unglamorous local industries, the slaughterhouses and tanneries. The lake water is unsafe to drink for leagues offshore. New Ys is less than seventy years old.

But this is all old news. Now his voice slows and deepens, and he leans forward, drawing the other men into confidence with him. It's a trick they respond to, even as they