It had been Pentuary too when it happened, sixteen years before. Iolanthe, Augie, Yuah, and Dorah were sitting in a circle on the floor around Master Akalos, who was making them recite the names of the books in the Modest Scriptures. That two of them were the children of aristocrats and two were the children of servants made no difference to Master Akalos. That three of them were Kafirites and one of them was a Zaeri did, and the tutor gained a perverse delight in drilling them on the set of scriptures that the Zaeri did not believe in. Terrence, who was watching from beyond the door, could see the queer laughter hiding behind the man’s eyes. Both twelve-year-olds, Terrence and Enoch, had finished their lessons for the day. Enoch had hurried off to his chores in the stable, while Terrence had made himself a sandwich.

He leaned against the doorframe and took a bite. From this location he could see both the other children at their studies through the door and the carriage sitting in front of the house through the open window. His mother’s friend, Simon Mudgett, was visiting again. His carriage was out front, the horses still harnessed. He squeezed the last two or three bites together into his mouth.

“Julien, Wind, March, Magic, Raina, Egeria, Dallarians, Zaeri…” the four children recited, almost together. Iolanthe missed Raina and went right from Magic to Egeria. Yuah was determined to recite the loudest. Augie was moving his mouth without actually saying anything at all. All of them were casting envious glances at the scant breeze blowing in through the window.

Then Terrence saw a movement out of the corner of his eye. It was his father down the hallway. Quickly heading down the hall after him, Terrence saw the shotgun in his father’s hand. This was a great opportunity. Terrence liked shooting as much as any boy. But his father was going the wrong way. He was headed up the stairs. Had he already been shooting? Was he going to clean his shotgun now?

Terrence followed, now just a few feet behind his father, and as the elder Dechantagne opened the door to his wife’s bedroom, Terrence followed right on in. Then it was as if everything was in slow motion. Terrence’s mother was in bed, the bedclothes covering only the bottom half of her naked body. Next to her was Simon Mudgett.

With agonizing slowness, Lucius Dechantagne raised the shotgun to his shoulder and fired. A red spray blossomed from the bare chest of Iphigenia Dechantagne, covering the bed in blood. A second shotgun blast hit the bed just to her left, but Mudgett was already on the floor running for the window. The snap of the shotgun being opened was drowned out by the crash as he broke the glass from the already open pane, crashing through and falling naked and bloodied from the sloped roof to the grounds below.   Terrence’s father snapped the weapon shut again, having replaced the two shells. He walked to the window, only to find nothing to shoot at. He turned around to find his wife, her mouth and eyes wide open as she gurgled a few last dying breaths and his twelve year old son, his face gone white, staring at each other. He shot his wife once more in the chest, turned and gave the boy a long look, and then turned back and shot her in the head, leaving a corpse that no longer at all resembled a living human being.

Iolanthe Dechantagne sat in her parlor and sipped her tea. Across the table her guest mirrored her activity. He was a tall sandy-haired man with deep-set, intelligent, blue eyes. His pin-striped suit was carefully tailored and his paper collar was tight around his neck. As he sipped his tea, he nodded appreciatively.

“Very nice. An Enclepian blend, if I’m not mistaken.”

“You are quite right, Professor Calliere,” said Iolanthe, her aquamarine eyes sparkling. “Not many people can pick it out so easily.”

“Well, I’ve made more than a few trips to Nutooka. Collecting specimens for the university, you know.”

“How is your work going?” Iolanthe didn’t need to feign interest. She found all knowledge interesting and it usually proved valuable as well.

“Oh, zoology is nothing but a hobby of mine.” Professor Calliere set down his teacup and leaned forward. “Not that I haven’t made a few interesting discoveries. But no, my real work is in the mechanical engineering lab. I just filed a patent on a very important invention and I expect to be able to live quite comfortably off the proceeds for the rest of my life.”

“You won’t stop your work?” asked Iolanthe with one arched brow.

“Of course not, but this will allow me to concentrate on my next project without having to worry about day to day finances. Money is so… bourgeois.”

“Careful now Mr. Calliere. People will think you are a socialist.”

He chuckled. “Of course not. I just prefer to have somebody else deal with the tiresomeness of money.”

“So what was this very important invention?”

“Brakes. Brakes for trains.”

“Don’t trains already have brakes?” wondered Iolanthe. “It seems that all the trains I’ve ridden on did eventually stop.”

“Yes, but the old brakes must be worked manually. My brakes are pneumatic, which is to say, they work on air power. They will be much safer and will allow trains to operate with a single brakeman instead of several. Best of all, engineers won’t have to start stopping so soon, so travel speeds will actually increase.”

“Professor Calliere, you amaze me. Brakes that actually make a train travel faster?” Iolanthe set down her own teacup and reached for a tiny cress sandwich. “Try one of these.”

“My next project is far more advanced,” Calliere paused to bite into the sandwich. “Mechanically speaking, I mean. I already have my assistant Mr. Murty doing the groundwork.”

“Oh? And just what is it?”

“It’s a calculating machine. It’s actually an expansion of a device I built several years ago. This one will be far more complex.”

“What exactly do you mean, ‘a calculating machine’?” asked Iolanthe.

“Just that. It will be a machine, steam powered of course, which adds and subtracts, multiplies and divides large numbers, both large in the sense of being very big numbers and large in the sense of there being a great many of them. It will calculate and it will do it hundreds of times faster than a human being. It will be a marvelous test of mechanics.”

“It will be more than a mechanical test,” said Iolanthe. “I can imagine that there will be quite a few applications for such a device.”’

“Really? Like what?”

“Well for one thing, you could calculate artillery trajectories, taking into account force and angle and such.”

“My dear Miss Dechantagne, I had no idea you were so well versed in the art of artillery.”

“My brother is an artillery officer.”

“Indeed. And may I say how attractive it is to see a woman who has such a keen intellect beyond the usual fields of art, music, and literature.”

“You may,” said Iolanthe.

Calliere looked toward the ceiling and stroked his chin thoughtfully.

“Yes. Charts. Tables. Artillery. Latitude and longitude. Train schedules. Surveying. Yes, this bears thinking about. I need someone to create a mechanical language. I may know just the person…”

“Professor?”

“Hmm? Yes?”

“This machine will be quite expensive, will it not?”

“I will need a bit of capital for the work. I was going to go to the University for the funds.”

“No need.” Iolanthe smiled and poured more tea into the man’s cup. “I will finance it for you.”