The Bookman - Lavie Tidhar [45]
Lights winked into being above a small display table. Orphan looked, and saw a duck squatting on the table.
"Do have a look," the Turk said. "There are some seeds beside it."
Orphan rose. The duck, of course, was a mechanical duck, and though it might once have been lively it now looked like the rest of these forgotten mechanical curiosities, worn down by the passing of the years. The duck looked up at him, and its beak opened and closed weakly.
"Feed it."
There was, indeed, a small store of seeds beside the table. He took some in his hand and put his open palm before the duck's beak. The duck pecked at them without overdue enthusiasm. The seeds disappeared inside it.
"Watch," the Turk said. "It is marvellous."
Orphan watched. For a while, nothing seemed to be happening. Then, with a soft "poop" sound, the duck raised its behind and delicately deposited a small smear of excrement on the table.
"Bravo!" the Turk cried. "Do you know, Voltaire once said that, without Vaucanson's duck, there would be nothing to remind us of the glory that was France?" His head shook sadly, and he said, "Gone now, of course. They are all gone, and only I remain…"
Orphan, unable to decide if he was amused or disgusted, returned to his chair.
He reached for the board and found a piece. "Pawn to H3," Orphan said.
"Bishop takes E2," the Turk said, his hand moved, and Orphan's white knight was no longer on the board. "Do pay attention."
"Queen takes E2," Orphan said, removing in his turn the Turk's bishop. "You were saying?"
"Knight to F4," the Turk said, unperturbed. His knight was now threatening Orphan's queen. "So, what did you think of the duck?"
The lights above the duck's display dimmed and disappeared. "Interesting," Orphan said.
The Turk sighed. "Once it was the grandest attraction!" he said. "Even now… even now people come to see the duck. To marvel at its ingenuity."
"Queen to E1," Orphan said, rescuing the queen. He stared at the board for a long moment. "What was Vaucanson's project?"
"Knight to D4," the Turk said. The black knight stood now between the white bishop and pawn. "Louis was sick. Already, in his time, France was in decline as the power of les rosbifs' unholy lizards grew. And so, as you may have already gathered for yourself, wherever there is opposition to Les Lézards, a certain shadowy presence makes itself known…"
"The Bookman," Orphan whispered. And he thought, always, it is the Bookman. Wherever he turned, the Bookman had been and gone, leaving only a ghostly outline in its wake.
"Perhaps that is so," the Turk said. "I have lived for many years, but even I do not understand the exact circumstances. The Bookman almost never deals directly. I only suspect his influence. Play."
"Bishop to B3."
"Knight takes H3," the Turk said, removing Orphan's pawn. "Check."
"Tell me what you have to tell me!" Orphan said. Anger made him raise his hand as if he intended to wipe clear the pieces off the table.
The Turk only stared at him, as mute as a doll.
"King to H2," Orphan said at last.
The Turk chuckled. "Good, good. You truly fascinate me, Orphan. You may only be a pawn, at the moment – but what you may yet turn into!"
"The project?"
"Of course." The hand moved again. "Queen to H4. You see, Louis, a dying man, was deeply, intensely interested in life. What, after all, was life? If man is a machine, could he not then build a machine to simulate life? To live life?"
"Vaucanson set out to build a simulacrum," Orphan said.
"Correct! Very good!"
Absent-mindedly, Orphan moved. "G2 to G3."
His pawn now threatened the Turk's queen.