Free The Books of the Wars by Mark Geston Page B

superstition, and closer to your work."
    Moresly suddenly rose from his chair and made as to leave. His tone was that of ice. "Sir Henry, if this is to be my Office, run by myself in the manner that the General prescribed, then I must demand that this issue be settled according to the original plans. In my view the best possible location for the Office of Procurement is still the Armories and if you feel so strongly about it you can hire someone else whose methods are less exacting than mine."
    Limpkin stared at the man, not knowing what to do. Then it seemed to him that they were quibbling over a trivial point; Moresly was obviously a good, competent man, as was everything connected with the late General's plans and operations. To lose him over a detail would be stupid, Limpkin told himself, but beneath it lay a fear that the lightest interference with Toriman's divinely inspired scheme might botch everything, as Moresly said. "Hardly any need to do that, Moresly," he said in as conciliatory a tone as his professional dignity would permit. "If the Armories mean that much to you and if you honestly think that the efficiency of your new Office will suffer if it is not there, then the Armories are yours."
    Moresly continued to look like outraged Justice. "My thanks, Sir Henry. I'm sure the General would approve of your decision."
    Limpkin rose, trying to look as miffed as his new subordinate, but not bringing it off as well. He handed Moresly a letter of authority from George XXVIII authorizing the establishment of his Office, its immunity from normal Governmental procedures, and a blanket requisition for anything that might be needed to put the Armories into proper condition. The two men shook hands and Moresly departed.

XII
    The riverboat Kestral tied up at the wharf and Limpkin stepped off into the Yards.
    They had passed Gun Hill yesterday and the civil servant had thought that its monumental dimensions would have insulated him against the impact of the Yards. The Hill was a vast mound a mile in diameter at the base, rising gradually to a height of just over two hundred feet. He had viewed it through a heavy telescope; it was now overgrown with vegetation, but the trees and grasses failed to conceal the two structures at the top. Placed a quarter of a mile apart, they nevertheless crowded the Hill with their incredible bulk. One of the crew had told him that they had, indeed, once mounted great siege guns and that they had been instrumental in the defeat of the Dark Powers.
    Vast hydraulic cylinders, ten feet in diameter by Limpkin's reckoning, studded the machines; pipes and fittings of every conceivable shape and size ran along the bases of the mounts, climbed up their sides and ended, twisted, in empty air. Shell carriages, big as First World trucks, stood scattered all over the Hill, their chrome steel bodies rusting into dust.
    The Hill had been the first of the great First World relics that Limpkin had ever seen. They had drifted past the Hill as the sun was falling behind the western mountains and it seemed as if the guns'fire were still scourging the evil darkness there. Limpkin had moved into a near dream and found himself listening for the thunder of the guns' report and watching for the yellow-white flash from their muzzles; all the tales of his rural youth flooded back to him. He was moving through a land which did not exist for most of the World; the Dark Powers, the Builders of the Yards, the whole lot of it belonged to another creation.
    As they had passed from under the Hill's shadow, a grassy plain reaching all the way to the distant mountains unrolled itself on the western bank. Limpkin had felt a sadness descend upon him, and he noticed it in the wrinkled expressions and staring eyes of the Kestral 's crew.
    When the Powers had finally been defeated a millennium ago and thrown back past the western peaks, a final stand had been taken by their most powerful elements. The Battle of the Westwatch was