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Rangen kept walking, noting the time on a nearby tower's ancient mechanical clock.
    Mathematicians! The Dragon Librarians were taking mathematicians into custody. This had happened before, years before he was born. Mathematicians had been slowly culled from the universities,
    streets, towns, schools, and even monasteries. They had worked for years in the first of the human-powered calculating machines, the mighty Calculor of Libris. Some had spent a decade in slavery before the early electrical essence calculors had been introduced. A few had been shot while trying to escape, and others had even been put in battle calculors and sent to war. Now it was happening again, but this time it was not a stealthy culling but the sweep of a mighty sickle that harvested everyone who could count with reasonable skill.
    Rangen stopped at Wakefield's Electrical Essence Machineries, and was surprised to see lantern light inside. He glanced about for any suspicious watchers, then entered. He was immediately struck by the stench of burnt wax and paper insulation, and noticed sand strewn about on the floor and benches. Wakefield and two apprentices were gathered around a charred tangle that might once have been a bank of calculor relay switches.
    "Fras Wakefield, I had an order for a custom relay rack due next week, I thought I'd check on it," Rangen called across the shop.
    "Better come back next month, Fras," the artisan called back. "There was a freak lightning bolt. It roasted every circuit in my shop."
    Much to Wakefield's surprise, Rangen thanked him and hurried away without so much as a single curse. Mathematicians were being taken behind heavily guarded doors by Dragon Librarians, and after electrical switches had suddenly burned to cinders and slag. Years ago the manual, slave-powered calculors had been displaced by electrical calculors, but now the reverse was happening. Rangen Derris was one of the few mathematicians in Rochester to have reached the correct conclusion before the Highliber's net ensnared him. He turned down a laneway, then another. Crouching down behind a pile of rotting garbage he discarded his notes. Next he took a knife to his clothing before rubbing it into the grime on the cobblestones.
    Before long a filthy beggar emerged onto the street, leaning heavily on a staff made from splintery packing-case wood. A length of cloth covered one eye, and he had hacked his lush, neat beard down to an unkempt stubble. He watched as fifteen men and women wearing crests of the Guild of Accountants were marched past by
    the city militia on the way to . . . where? The watchouse was not in that direction, but Libris was. A few late-night revelers cheered to see the accountants being marched away. Nobody paid Rangen any attention.
    Rangen sat down with his back against a wall, placed a broken pottery bowl beside his feet and sat in silence. For now he was safe, but what next? If he tried to flee the city there would be guards, inspectors, and Dragon Librarians at every gate. If he got past them, there would be more guards, inspectors, and Dragon Librarians in every regional city and town. A copper coin clinked into his bowl.
    "Blessings of the Deity upon your house," said Rangen in a mixture of foreign accents.
    Presently he fell asleep.
    In the morning he awoke, and was dismayed to find that the past night had not just been a particularly harrowing dream. Again he sorted through his alternatives. If he fled to the frontiers, there would be bounty hunters waiting for anyone numerate enough to complain if they were not given the right change by a vendor. He would be safe enough in the wilderness, but he would not last long. He had only slept outdoors twice. Once had been when he had been too drunk to find his college after a revel and had spent the night in a flower bed in the university gardens. The past night had been the second time. Another copper landed in his bowl.
    "Blessings of the Deity upon your house."
    He had some silver