China Mieville - Railsea

IT WAS EASIER than he’d thought it would be to insinuate himself onto the cart sent to investigate. Sham ran about on inventy errands as if by Fremlo’s instruction, &, still buoyed up by adrenaline from his foiled animal rescue, got behind Hob Vurinam lining up for duty & jumped into the swinging cart as if ordered. Muttered something about first aid.

Shossunder, still on the main deck, raised an eyebrow, but obviously thought it beneath him to complain. Thank the Stonefaces for the cabin boy’s pride, Sham thought. Second mate Gansiffer Brownall leaned from the cart as it puttered toward the wreck & yelled into a loudhailer. “Anyone there? Ahoy!”

Ain’t no one alive in that , Sham thought. That’s medical knowledge right there , he added to himself. That’s as mashed as if an angel’s had at it .

The sideways engine had no chimney: not steam-powered then. The first carriage bulged with machine remnants. It was scrunched up. Its portholes were blocked & broken. A thornbush had grown its sinewy way all the way through the carriage.

The crew was hushed. They creaked slowly closer through flat light. Ginger-pelted & multicoloured daybats rose in congregation from where they’d been fiddling in the ruin. They circled, complaining, swept out to the nearest island.

Technically, this might be salvage. No one living on the remains? Then anything the crew found & could carry was theirs. But glad as Sham was of all the drama, that would be nu-salvage. What floated his boat, what rung his bell, what he pined for, was the glamour of arche-salvage. The most incomprehensible & ancient remains.

Little animals bustled through the grass. The Medes loitered in the distance, the rest of the trainsfolk staring as the jollycart ghosted to a stop, nudging the dusty engine.

“Now,” said Brownall. “Volunteers.” The crew eyed her. She pursed tattooed lips & pointed. “Can get in from here. No one asks you to touch the ground.” They checked weapons. “Vurinam,” Brownall said. The trainswain bounced on his toes & took off his battered hat. “Teodoso. Thorn & Klimy, Unkus Stone, here with me. The rest of you, double-line. In you go. Top to bottom. Anyone, anything, let’s find it. Where you off to?” She said that last to Sham, as he stood with the others as if to board.

He was busy being staggered by his own uncharacteristic behaviour. “You … said we was going in …”

“Soorap, don’t bugger about,” she said in the melancholy accent of the island of Clarion. “Did I moan about you being on the cart? I don’t notice? Didn’t know you had the front, boy. Don’t push your luck. Aft.” She pointed. “& …” She put her fingers to her lips.

One by one the cautious hunt descended through a window-turned-trapdoor. “You’re lucky you’re not walking back,” Brownall said to Sham. He gnawed his lip. She wouldn’t. The very idea, though, that thought of one foot after the other, careful on the dusty ties, avoiding the terrible earth, all the way back to the train, made him swallow.

So he waited. Stared out to railsea & back at the ruin. Jens Thorn threw rusty screws at a distant signal box. Cecilie Klimy took bearings for the Stonefaces knew what reason with an intricate sextant. Unkus Stone sang to himself & carved at scrap. His voice was lovely: even Brownall didn’t tell him to shut up. Stone sang an old song about falling on the dirt & being rescued by an underground prince.

The daybats settled. A couple of shaggy rabbits watched the crew, & Sham raised his little camera, the best that Voam & Troose could afford, that they’d presented to him with a delighted tadah !

“Ahoy!” Hob Vurinam’s head poked from a horizontal porthole. He shook his head & dust rose from his hair.

“& so?” shouted Brownall. “Situation?”

“Well,” Vurinam said. He spat over the edge of the train. “Nothing. Been here like a million years. Engine’s already been gone through. More than once.”

Brownall nodded. “& the last carriage?”

“Well,” Vurinam said. “About that. You know you was saying Sham Soorap had to stay put?” Vurinam grinned. “Might want to rethink.”

SHAM STRUGGLED THROUGH A ROOM ASKEW. HIS FLOOR had once been a wall. He picked a cramped way past his comrades.

“See the problem?” Vurinam said. There was a door, now by the ceiling, flapping a few inches on its hinges. “It’s wedged,” Vurinam said. “& we’re all a bit big.”

It didn’t seem right. Most of the time the crew kept on about Sham being big for his age, & he was. He wasn’t the youngest on the Medes , nor the smallest, nor lightest crew-member. Yehat Borr was three foot something, muscled & bear-strong. Could do handstand press-ups. Throw harpoons almost as far as Benightly. Turn upside down dangling from a rope. But what Sham was was the smallest & lightest who happened to be right there, right then.

“I ain’t even supposed to be here.” Sham hated how his own voice suddenly quavered to his own hearing. But he was here, wasn’t he? Snuck on in a sudden pining for excitement, & the universe had called his bluff. His job was to apply bandages & brew tea, thanks very much, not to haul arse into sealed-off wrecks.

Oh Stonefaces , he thought. He didn’t want to go into the cabin—but how he wanted to want to.

“I told you,” someone mumbled. “Leave it, he ain’t going to …”

“Come on,” said Vurinam. “You like salvage, don’t you?” He met Sham’s gaze. “What do you say?”

All his crewmates were looking at him. Was it shame or bravery that made Sham say yes? Ah, well. Either way.

HE GRIPPED, HE HAULED. He kicked. Just like exploring deserted buildings in Streggeye, he told himself. He’d done that. Not that he was brilliant at it, but he was better than you might think. He was shoved at, feet & bum, wriggled, held his breath, scraped through the gap.

Beyond the door it was dark. The windows in what was now the car’s ceiling were shuttered. Rods of dusty light extended from holes, picked out patches of ground, mildew, paperscraps, cloth.

“Can’t see much,” Sham said. He scrabbled, bolder, was over & in & down with a thud. Well , he thought cautiously, wiping his hands. This ain’t so bad .

“Here we go,” he reported. “What’s here?”

Not much. The back of the carriage was crushed, rammed from outside, long ago. Sham’s eyes adjusted. The paper litter was still speckled with stubs of writing, too small to make sense. There were ash-piles.

“It’s all rubbish,” he said. The windows at his feet were open to the ground. He shivered to be so close to earth.

No surprise, of course, that this made Sham wonder about his father. Thoughts trundled as slow as an old goods vehicle through his skull. Was this how it had looked when his father’s train went down? There had been no survivors & no word. Sham had imagined the train many times—an elongated, wheeled crypt. He had not, however, envisaged it on its side, like this. A failure of his imagination he now rectified. He sniffed.

Sham shuffled through junk. When he was a kid, he’d played salvors many times. & here was, in the most trashed sense, salvage. The ruins of a chair. Shards of an ordinator. The splayed rods of a mangled typewriter. He swished his feet through debris.

Something thunked & rolled out of rags. A skull.

“What is it?” Vurinam shouted at Sham’s yell.

“I’m alright,” Sham called back. “Just a shock. Ain’t nothing.”

Sham looked at the skull, & its eyeholes watched him back. It watched him, too, from a third eye, neat hole bang centre of its forehead. He kicked the rag-shreds away. There were other bones. Though not enough, Sham thought with his new, very slight, insight, for a whole body.