Ian McDonald - Ares Express

Kilometres later, she would also be amazed about how simple the choice of items was. Two hundred and twenty-seven dollars rolled up in a waterproof can. A jingle of change, though it was heavy and rolled too easily out of pockets. A torch. An all-weather lighter. A pen and a little paper. A fistful of tampons. A leather-bound copy of The Evyn Psalmody that Grandmother Taal had marked up in red highlighter. A Bakelite cat—quite small, but dense—that she knew would never forgive her if she left it behind. Some glue, and a small screwdriver. Shampoo. Water purifying tablets. BootsT-shirtslongpantsshortpantsposh frock(in case) gloves good socks. A long-fingered comb. A gold filling, to sell. Sachet mint tea, sachet ersatz coffee (appropriated from Stuard country). Tin mug. Spoonknifefork, folding. A whistle, in case she really couldn’t trust Serpio. A decent blade, partially ditto. A little solar wireless. Something unimproving to read. Remembering the advice of the green man of Inatra, a toothbrush and at least one change of underwear. Her charm, to watch over her. An emergency spell, a sixth birthday special from Psalli, purchased with many frissons and some guilt from Mammy Wulu the Budget Witch of Belladonna Main.

It all looked very small in the bottom of her black everything-proof bag, precious little eggs in a dark nest. But it had been easy. Just reach out and take it. The thought had been put in long before. Some quarantined fold of her mind had been planning this for years.

Something else. Oh yes. Her smelly sleepsack. And food. It might be a while before she got something to eat.

Voices and distant whistlings from beneath her porthole told her Catherine of Tharsis ’s people were still abroad, trying to search the other trains for the runaway fiancée before they pulled out. She listened a second at the hatch of her cabin, then darted swiftly down the dark wood-lined corridor to the Domiety refectory. As ever, Sle and Rother’am had left all the stuff with no meat or that was in some way healthy. It all went into four greaseproof paper bags, and, with six bottles of oxygenated water, into the bag.

Those ten items suddenly made it heavy enough to root her to the spot.

The bright certainty was fading. One moment more of this greasy, scored wall panelling, that ingrained sweat of hot fat and onions, those smeary framed photographs of Great Trains passing over Photogenic Terrain, that phlegmy rattle of the neon wireless on the window-sill, those cheery plastic condiment bottles in the shapes of smiling vegetables with their crusted necklaces of dried drips, and she would be trapped forever. Pickled like a festal egg.

“Sweet?”

Too slow. You lost it.

Cock piss bugger bum balls. It had to be Romereaux, standing in the doorway with his mouth open in a way that told her without words he had worked it all out in one glimpse.

“Don’t.” She held up a warning finger.

“Sweet, where are you…”

“Don’t say another word.”

She backed away from him.

“Don’t try and stop me, don’t try and talk me out of it. I’m not marrying Stainless Steel Kitchen. I’ve got a life waiting for me.”

“Sweet, I just wanted…”

“Shut.”

“Wanted to say…”

“Up. Shut up.”

“To say, good luck.”

It was so wrong a thing for him to say that she was halfway to the door before the double-take hit. She turned.

“What?”

“Good luck.”

“You’re supposed to try to stop me. You’re supposed to have arguments about how hurt everyone will be, and the honour of the family, and the disgrace I’ll bring on everyone and they’ll all have to go round with their hair uncut for three years. When that doesn’t work, you’re supposed to ask me if I know what I’m doing and do I know where I’m going and that it’s a big wild world out there and I’ll get very hurt very fast, and I’ll come crawling back like that . And when I say I’ve got it all sorted, you’re supposed to go all soft and say you’ll miss me and that you’ve always really loved me, and that you had this brilliant plan to buy out the contract and we’d have our own train and go off in a cloud of steam into the sunset and we’ll found our own Domiety and one day they’ll name a station after us and that’ll stop me for ten, maybe twenty seconds—if you’ve played it right—and I’ll say something like, well, I always loved you too, like for years, since you were this size and I was that size and all those years, we never knew it, and now it’s too late because I’ve got to go, I’ve got a life waiting for me, and I turn around and walk right out of here and that’s it.”

“Um, no.”

“What do you mean no?”

“Like, no.”

“I mean, you did love me, and you could never tell anyone about it, right?”

He sighed from his cheeks.

“Well, that time, by the pool?”

“What about it?”

“Well, I wanted to…”

“So did I.”

“But I didn’t really…love you.”

“Oh.”

“I wanted you. But that was just…wanting.”

“I see.”

“Sorry.”

“Well, I suppose I’ll go then.”

“Yes. Go on. Go on then. Get out of here. Get wherever you’re going, and don’t come back. There’s too much of you for this place, always going somewhere but ending up nowhere. You’re too good for Stainless Steel Kitchen. You should have maharajahs and riverboat gamblers and Belladonna assassins and interplanetary ambassadors. You should have canal barges and silk-lined airships and gold-plated Praesidium Sailships and big low cars with bars in the back seat. There’s stuff out there that’s worthy of you, and if you don’t go you’ll never find it. So get out of here.”

She turned in the corridor. She told herself it was because she wanted to ask a final favour, but they both knew it was for a final meeting of eyes.

“Romi.”

“Go on. What is it?”

“Can you cover for me?”

“I think I can do that.”

She told herself she must not look back again, but she did it anyway because she knew she was perverse. Romereaux was gone.

Having exhausted all other possibilities, the searchers were returning home for the fingertip scrutiny of crannies and hidey-holes. Sweetness slipped past the denim-clad arses of Sle and Rother’am cooeeing up an airco duct, but Tante Marya patrolling the undercarriage stopped her dead. One glimpse at her face promised a punishment worse than marriage to the Stainless Steel Kitchen. She was head of the Domiety. She had made the match. The shame would be excoriating.

Sweetness ducked down under the porthole as she heard feet clang on the metal steps. She pressed herself hard against the sun-warmed wood. Marya Stuard’s face deformed itself against the glass as she tried to squint out every possible line of sight. Clang clang clang. Away again. But she was out there, between herself and the things Sweetness deserved.

The ripe fanfare of the calliope almost tricked a yelp of surprise from Sweetness. Bite it off, bite it off. Again, the steam organ tootled a riff.

“There she goes, there! Look!”

Romereaux.

“Look, there, going east! Somebody stop her, she’ll be away!”

Feet clattered in the corridor. The opposite door slammed open, the same feet rattled down steps.

“Where where where?”

Again, the calliope parped the alarum. Sweetness dared a peek. Tante Marya was ducking under the carriage—a heinous sin, which every child was warned off on pain of gravest censure. She flung open the door, was down the steps and running. Now one look back. And there was Romereaux, a tiny silhouette standing on the saddle of the big steam calliope, asbestos-gloved hand pointing in exactly the wrong direction.