China Mieville - Railsea

When at last the Tarralesh pulled away, it left behind it an empty & immobile train, a big chunk of nu-salvage for someone to pick clean. On its roof the last of its crew, allowed by laziness to live, mourning, cold, marooned.

“What a day, eh?” Robalson said.

“What’ll happen to them?” Sham could not turn to look at him.

“Someone’ll probably come for them, maybe, when they don’t turn up where they’re expected,” Robalson said. He shrugged. He wouldn’t meet Sham’s eye. “Don’t look at me like that,” Robalson muttered. Sulkily put down a bowl.

“What did you do to those last ones?” Sham said. “I could hear …”

“Plank,” Robalson said. He made walking-finger motions. “They was the officers. I said don’t look at me like that. You know we lost six people? If they’d just surrendered we wouldn’t have had to do any of that.”

“Right,” said Sham, & turned back to the window. He felt like crying. He shivered. “What was under the plank? Where’d you do it?” When there was no answer, he said, “It was more antlions, weren’t it? Centipedes?” Robalson was already gone.

Sham hunted for paper as carefully as once his crew had hunted moldywarpes. Found a scrap of drawer-liner. Kept looking. Found at last a discarded pencil stub. Had to chew-sharpen it. He wrote:

“Please! I am a captive in the train Tarralesh . It is pirates. They have guns. They are a pirate train. They are making me show them the way to a secret if I don’t do it they will drop me into the railsea & maybe an antlion trap or something. My name is S. a. Soorap training under Capt. Naphi of the Medes . Please can you help me. Please also tell Troose yn Verba & Voam yn Soorap of Streggeye that I have not run away & that I will come back! The Tarralesh wants to Do Harm to two young Manihiki travellers & also to me please help!! West & North is all I know where we are going. Thank you.”

Sham leaned into the dark, chattered, beckoned until Daybe came in. Sham twisted up the paper very tight & tucked it into the tracer still secured to the daybat’s leg.

“Listen,” he said. “I know this is going to be hard. You came to find me. & you don’t know how much that meant. But you know what I need you to do now?” He swept out his arm, hard, in the direction they had come. “I need you to go back. Fly back. Find someone. Find anyone.”

The bat stared at him. Intimidated by the night. It huddled, licked him, met Sham’s eyes. His heart breaking, Sham started the long process of persuading it, intimidating it, frightening it if he had to, into flying away.

ANOTHER CARRIAGE WAS GONE, TAKEN SKYWARD IN vengeful & tremendous owl claws. Caldera had pressed the release, as the owl had flown. Just in time but at the right time, restraining herself until those strigine talons were directly over the track on which the Shroakes’ engine had still raced, the last to be dragged up, gunning it so the train lurched forward as the carriages fell & with sparks & terrifying bangs slammed wheels-down back onto the rails. One more moment, they’d have been too high, or too far to one side or the other, & the whole vehicle would have been lost.

The Shroakes, gasping & owl-eyed themselves, had watched the metal tons of what had been their rearmost carriage hauled off into skyborne silhouette, viciously pecked as it went, & shedding shredded metal. It looked like straw & gossamer as it fell, & landed with booms & made the earth shudder.

At last they pushed on, under a huge night, in the deeps of which upsky predators made sounds. The Shroakes—

—but wait. On reflection, now is not the time for Shroakes. There is at this instant too much occurring or about to occur to Sham ap Soorap.

Look: Sham has just sent away his own, furred, little-winged friend. Once bloodstained, a poor tryer at medicine, an aspirer to salvage-hunting, & now a locked-away captive in a pirate train.

This train, our story, will not, cannot, veer now from this track on which, though not by choice, Sham is dragged.

Later, Shroakes. Sham is with pirates.

WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH YOU?” ROBALSON WAS always shirty with Sham when Sham was sad. & the morning after Sham had finally persuaded Daybe off into the dark, he was very sad.

They were in wildlands now, oddlands, & the railsea was punctuated with anomalies. Hillocks of bridges, rotators to swivel an engine amid a starburst of rails, a multiply-holed island. Salvage. & not all old arche-salvage. Wrecks. Ranging in size from tiny scout carts to large, now-skeletal vehicles. Overgrown, weather-stripped, rusted, cold. A train boneyard.

“Someone’ll probably come for them,” Robalson had said about those stranded merchants. Sham wondered. You never knew. That night, alone, he watched the birds, none of which would come to him when he waved. He had a bit of a sniff because his heart hurt that Daybe had gone, & now he had not a single friend on this train.

& then the next morning, he looked out again & gasped. Sham held his breath, he bit his lip so that he wouldn’t scream in delight. Because at the horizon, like a miracle, as if he had conjured it, called for it, which perhaps his beautiful bat friend had, he saw a Manihiki ferronavy train.

It moved hard, fast & well. These were some railsailors. It was perhaps three miles off. Approaching on interception course. It ran up pendants, that Sham, a trainsman now, could read. Prepare , they said, for Inspection .

AMONG THE FLURRY of feet & anxious preparations, Robalson stuck his head around the door.

“You,” he said. “Shtum. Not a word. I’m right outside. You make a sound …” He shook his head. “The captain’s waiting for an excuse. So you make a sound &—all sorts of stuff’ll happen.” He made a close-your-mouth motion & went.

“Attention Tarralesh .” An amplified voice boomed from the Manihiki train. “Prepare to receive visitors.” Sham watched it draw near on close rails, set down a cart of splendid speed & modern appearance, full of uniformed officers. He leaned, he waved, he yelled, out of the window.

Had they seen him? What cock-&-bull story was the captain offering? Had they swept away all the appurtenances of the pirate’s life? Sham heard stamping on the deck above. He did not know when he would be safe to yell. Someone was approaching down the corridor. He hesitated. He could hear a roaring argument. Sham could not make out anything, until the shouters stopped outside his cabin & his heart went into his throat & abruptly the door flew open & a tall officer in the Manihiki navy, a captain in smart black uniform, brocaded & gilded & polished-buttoned, was standing before him, yelling back at Elfrish & Robalson. The officer pointed at Sham & yelled, “ That boy, that’s who I’m talking about. So bring him out. You have a lot of explaining to do.”

“THEY BEEN KEEPING ME PRISONER!” Sham shouted as he ran after the officer. “Don’t be fooled, sir, they’re pirates! Sir! Thank you for rescuing me!” Elfrish struggled to shut him up, to put a hand over his mouth, but Sham was moving too fast. “They want me to lead them to a secret, sir, & I don’t even really know what it is or where, but they think I recognise things & they’ve had me here for days & they’re breaking the law—”

They were outside, in creepier railscape still than Sham had seen. Ahead, the rails wove between scrubby rock hills, & into them, into brief dark tunnels overlooked by leafless trees. There were other Manihiki officers on the deck. “Captain Reeth,” they barked as Sham’s rescuer appeared.

Reeth made some imperious gesture. He was tall & looked down at everyone. He gestured for Sham to come closer. Sham breathed out, shuddering, in relief.