Engn II

IX

IX“It cuts out there,” said Whelm. “To be honest, I'm surprised we got as much as we did. It must have been a section from the master's personal diary, his recorded thoughts and recollections overlaid onto the pictures.”

“It's amazing,” said Finn. “That was the Inner Wheel, where I was judged. But it was ancient when I went there. I remember all those carved stone faces reaching up into the shadows. Hundreds of them. I knew Engn had been there for a long time, but that must have been centuries and centuries ago.”

“I heard of people who spent their days copying spindles,” said Whelm. “Just duplicating old ones onto new ones, one after the other for their entire lives. I suppose they must have been doing it to keep those ancient recordings readable.”

“It's odd, though,” said Finn. “That master. Adage. I thought I recognized him from somewhere.”

“You saw his face carved above one of the thrones,” said Diane.

“No, they were all worn away. And it's more recent than that. I've seen him somewhere else.”

“Or it's just possible you've imagined it.”

Finn nodded. Perhaps she was right. “But the recording: it proves it, doesn't it? All those secrets. The Directory. The secret purpose of the machine. Connor must have discovered all this and collected together the ancient recordings so we would know what we must do. You see, don't you?”

She looked troubled by what she'd witnessed. But he could see she wasn't yet convinced.

“Perhaps. Show us the next readable section, Whelm. Perhaps it will tell us none of this matters any more. That it's ancient history. Perhaps, I don't know, Connor did all this to make sure we came and found him when we were in Engn.”

Whelm returned his attention to the machine. He held up a magnifying glass, turning a brass wheel on the machine with great care as he did so, lining up a fine metal tip to a precise point on the slim metal spindle. Finally, he sat back.

“Okay, here's the next section. Impossible to say whether we'll have something before the encryption kicks in.”

Lights glowed and, once again, images swirled and flickered in the glass orb while Adage's crackly voice spoke from the machine…