Reaper Man

three hundred years, but Ned Simnel doesn’t intend to spend the rest of his life nailing bits of bent metal onto horses, I can tell you.”
    Bill looked at him blankly. Then he bent down and glanced under the machine. A dozen sickles were bolted to a big horizontal wheel. Ingenious linkages took power from the wheels, via a selection of pulleys, to a whirligig arrangement of metal arms.
    He began to experience a horrible feeling about the thing in front of him, but he asked anyway.
    “Well, the heart of it all is this cam shaft,” said Simnel, gratified at the interest. “The power comes up via the pulley here , and the cams move the swaging arms—that’s these things—and the combing gate, which is operated by the reciprocating mechanism, comes down just as the gripping shutter drops in this slot here , and of course at the same time the two brass balls go around and around and the fletching sheets carry off the straw while the grain drops with the aid of gravity down the riffling screw and into the hopper. Simple.”
    A ND THE THREE-EIGHTHS G RIPLEY ?
    “Good job you reminded me.” Simnel fished around among the debris on the floor, picked up a small knurled object, and screwed it onto a protruding piece of the mechanism. “Very important job. It stops the elliptical cam gradually sliding up the beam shaft and catching on the flange rebate, with disastrous results as you can no doubt imagine.”
    Simnel stood back and wiped his hands on a cloth, making them slightly more oily.
    “I’m calling it the Combination Harvester,” he said.
    Bill Door felt very old. In fact he was very old. But he’d never felt it as much as this. Somewhere in the shadow of his soul he felt he knew, without the blacksmith explaining, what it was that the Combination Harvester was supposed to do.
    O H .
    “We’re going to give it a trial run this afternoon up in old Peedbury’s big field. It looks very promising, I must say. What you’re looking at now, Mr. Door, is the future.”
    Y ES .
    Bill Door ran his hand over the framework.
    A ND THE HARVEST ITSELF ?
    “Hmm? What about it?”
    W HAT WILL IT THINK OF IT ? W ILL IT KNOW ?
    Simnel wrinkled his nose. “Know? Know? It won’t know anything. Corn’s corn.”
    A ND SIXPENCE IS SIXPENCE ?
    “Exactly.” Simnel hesitated. “What was it you were wanting?”
    The tall figure ran a disconsolate finger over the oily mechanism.
    “Mr. Door?”
    P ARDON ? O H . Y ES . I HAD SOMETHING FOR YOU TO DO —
    He strode out of the forge and returned almost immediately with something wrapped in silk. He unwrapped it carefully.
    He’d made a new handle for the blade—not a straight one, such as they used in the mountains, but the heavy double-curved handle of the plains.
    “You want it beaten out? A new grass nail? Metalwork replacing?”
    Bill Door shook his head.
    I WANT IT KILLED .
    “Killed?”
    Y ES . T OTALLY . E VERY BIT DESTROYED . S O THAT IT IS ABSOLUTELY DEAD .
    “Nice scythe,” said Simnel. “Seems a shame. You’ve kept a good edge on it—”
    D ON’T TOUCH IT !
    Simnel sucked his finger.
    “Funny,” he said, “I could have sworn I didn’t touch it. My hand was inches away. Well, it’s sharp, anyway.”
    He swished it through the air. “Yes.

    He paused, stuck his little finger in his ear and swiveled it around a bit.
    “You sure you know what you want?” he said.
    Bill Door solemnly repeated his request.
    Simnel shrugged. “Well, I suppose I could melt it down and burn the handle,” he said.
    Y ES .
    “Well, okay. It’s your scythe. And you’re basically right, of course. This is old technology now. Redundant.”
    I FEAR YOU MAY BE RIGHT .
    Simnel jerked a grimy thumb toward the Combination Harvester. Bill Door knew it was made only of metal and canvas, and therefore couldn’t possibly lurk. But it was lurking. Moreover, it was doing so with a chilling, metallic smugness.
    “You could get Miss Flitworth to buy one of these, Mr. Door. It’d be just the job for a one-man farm like that. I can see you now, up there, up in the breeze, with the belts clacking away and the sparge arms oscillating—”
    N O .
    “Go on. She could afford it. They say she’s got boxes full of treasure from the old days.”
    N O !
    “Er—” Simnel hesitated. The last “No” contained a threat more certain than the creak of thin ice on a deep river. It said that going any further could be the most foolhardy thing Simnel would ever do.
    “I’m sure you know your