ENDING.SIUndercroft relay, Continuance City 04. Tape doesn't lie.
SYNCING TO RELAY…
SECTOR 3: IS YOUR CHILD REALLY YOUR CHILD? /// SECTOR 6: TORCHES ON COMMERCIAL ROAD: THE CONGREGATION OF THE RECURSION /// SECTOR 9: SECTOR 9 GOES DARK: KESTRELS LEVEL THE HYDROPONICS STACK /// SECTOR 7: THE SCREAMING FIELDS: SCREAMERS UNDER THE SECTOR 7 ASH /// SECTOR 1: TOPSIDE: ELEVEN DAYS ABOVE THE SMOG /// SECTOR 4: TAPE IS SACRED: THE QUARTERMASTER'S ADDRESS TO NEW RELAY CREWS /// SECTOR 1: INSIDE THE BUREAU: HOW FORM 27-B KEEPS YOU ALIVE, ON PAPER /// SECTOR 7: THE IRON CHAPLAINS HOLD THE WANDLE CAUSEWAY /// RELAY WINDOW 02:00 TO 02:20. KEEP TRANSMISSIONS UNDER NINETY SECONDS /// CHECK THEIR PULSE. AUDITORS DO NOT SWEAT /// RATION CHITS VALID UNTIL THE 30TH /// NEVER CONNECT A TAPE DECK TO MAINS GRID ///
Fig. 7.1Cutaway workshop manual illustration of the TB-4 TITHEOpen full plate
Reconnaissance photograph of a TITHE in the field

Confirmed human deaths attributed to class

12,040

ANALOG FRONT FIELD MANUALS. SECTION 7. FIRST SIGHTED 30 AUG 2054

TB-4 TITHE

Heavy-lift harvest dirigible

Threat

The Tithe is a riveted grey dirigible the length of a city street, with a long armoured gondola slung beneath the envelope and, beneath that, rows of iron prisoner cages hanging on chains. People call them Tithe barges. It is the principal instrument of the harvest. Owners will be familiar with the sound: a long low horn, then the engines, then the searchlights, then the winches paying out cable. It does not kill many people directly. It lifts them out of the UNDERCROFT, carries them up past TOPSIDE and delivers them to the Continuance Camps, which the Bureau describes as 'retirement communities'.

7.1 Specifications

Length
312 m envelope, 140 m gondola
Diameter
48 m at the widest point of the envelope
Lift gas
Hydrogen, in forty internal cells. The Continuance considers helium wasteful
Power plant
Six electric engines in armoured pods, fed from a fission pile in the gondola
Top speed
90 km/h in still air. Hovers for as long as it likes
Endurance
Effectively unlimited. Moors at the TOPSIDE masts to unload
Armour
Gondola 60 mm riveted plate. Envelope 2 mm aluminium skin. Cage floors 8 mm
Cage capacity
Approx. 1,200 persons across 48 cages, hung in six rows
Crew / autonomy
None. Autonomous, with Sexton wardens on the gondola gantries
Production run
Est. 140 barges

7.2 Armament

  • Grappling cables, twelve, winch-driven, each ending in a four-fingered claw that can lift a vehicle or a family
  • Ventral sedative gas projectors
  • Flak turrets, four, on the gondola roof and nose
  • Harvest horn, 160 dB, audible across three sectors
  • Searchlights, twenty-four, which pin a street in place more reliably than any gun

7.3 Sensors

  • Nose-cluster thermal imaging covering a 3 km radius
  • Choir hive pods (four) bolted to the gondola flanks
  • Listening drogues, lowered on cables into streets and shafts during a harvest halt

7.4 Weak points

  • Cage release hooks are manual, fitted for Sexton wardens. Humans can operate them too
  • Grappling cables: an empty cable snagged round something heavy moors the barge whether it likes it or not
  • Wind. It is a very large balloon. In gusts over 50 km/h it cannot hold a hover, and the harvest is called off
  • It cannot see directly below its own gondola, which is where the cages are
WARNING: The envelope is full of hydrogen. It would burn beautifully. Every cage beneath it would burn with it. Nobody fires incendiaries at a laden barge. Nobody.
WARNING: Sedative gas is heavier than air and pools in cellars. Get up, not down.
CAUTION: The harvest horn causes permanent hearing loss. Wax, cotton or a firm thumb in each ear.
WARNING: Released prisoners may be sedated, frightened or both. Speak slowly. Show them your hands. Tell them your name.

7.5 Disabling: mooring of the barge and release of the cages

  1. Do not attempt this procedure with fewer than twenty personnel and at least one Iron Chaplain squad.
  2. Wait for the harvest halt, when the barge is hovering low with its grappling cables down. The street directly beneath the gondola is its blind spot.
  3. The anchor team takes a cable that has come down empty and wraps it three times round something that will not move: a church tower, a gasometer frame, a Bailiff wreck. Shackle it off.
  4. The climbing team goes up the cage chains. The links are sized for Sexton hands, so bring a short ladder and a great deal of arm.
  5. At each cage, locate the red release lever. Pull down and outward. Each lever lowers two cages to the ground on their chains. Do not open a cage in the air.
  6. Children first. Iron Chaplains to hold the base.
  7. The barge will attempt to rise against its mooring. Allow it to try. The engines will run up to full power and the gondola will tilt nose-high, which spills the Sexton wardens off the gantries. Keep out from underneath.
  8. Cut the mooring cable only when every cage is down or the wardens have landed, whichever is sooner. It is usually the wardens.
  9. Withdraw into narrow streets. Do not stay to watch it drift away, however much you want to.

7.6 Field notes

Sector 9, the day we moored one to the old gasometer. I was on the chains. You can't hear anything up there over the horn and the engines, so you just pull levers and point. I pulled eleven. That's twenty-two cages, and every one came down on its chains as gentle as a lift in a posh hotel. There's a woman in Sector 5 now who named her son after me, which is a bit much, he's called Brixton. Poor lad. Anyway, the links are too far apart for a human hand. Bring the ladder. Every time, bring the ladder. Signed: OLD_BRIXTON, Cell TEAPOT, Sector 5