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eBook Category: Science Fiction Hugo Award Winner, Nebula Award(R) Winner
eBook Description: Two old mathematician friends are presented with a 140-year-old mystery when three chests found beneath a farmhouse in New Zealand contain journals and equipment associated with the first computer ... the infamous Analytical Engine of Charles Babbage.

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: Analog, 1993
Fictionwise Release Date: March 2001

This eBook is also available in the following bundle(s):

• Double Award Winners Bundle

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Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: eReader (PDB) [66 KB] , ePub (EPUB) [52 KB] , Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [51 KB] , Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [205 KB] , Palm Doc (PDB) [56 KB] , Microsoft Reader (LIT) [61 KB] , Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [120 KB] , hiebook (KML) [145 KB] , Sony Reader (LRF) [78 KB] , iSilo (PDB) [46 KB] , Mobipocket (PRC) [58 KB] , Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [85 KB] , OEBFF Format (IMP) [78 KB]
Words: 16893
Reading time: 48-67 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Portable Document Format (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

The storage space was no more than waist high, with a hard dirt floor. I followed the lantern light, to where a wooden section at the far end was raised a few inches off the ground on thick beams. On that raised floor stood three big tea-chests. The lantern threw a steady, powerful light on them.

"I told you you'd see just what I saw," said Bill. "These have all been out and examined, of course, but everything is very much the way it was when I found it. All right, hardware first."

He carefully lifted the lid off the right-hand tea-chest. It was half full of old sacks. Bill lifted one, unfolded it, and handed me the contents. I was holding a solid metal cylinder, lightly oiled and apparently made of brass. The digits from 0 through 9 ran around its upper part, and at the lower end was a cog wheel of slightly greater size.

I examined it carefully, taking my time. "It could be," I said. "It's certainly the way the pictures look."

I didn't need to tell him which pictures. He knew that I had thought of little but Charles Babbage and his Analytical Engines for the past few weeks, just as he had.

"I don't think it was made in England," said Bill. "I've been all over it with a lens, and I can't see a manufacturer's mark. My guess is that it was made in France."

"Any particular reason?"

"The numerals. Same style as some of the best French clock-makers--see, I've been working, too." He took the cylinder and wrapped it again, with infinite care, in the oiled sacking.

I stared all around us, from the dirt floor to the dusty rafters. "This isn't the best place for valuable property."

"It's done all right for a hundred and forty years. I don't think you can say as much of most other places." There was something else, that Bill did not need to say. This was a perfect place for valuable property--so long as no one thought that it had any value.