David Weber - Hell's Gate

Jathmar exhaled explosively as he tasted her emotions through his own bond with her, and she smiled at him before she turned back to Jasak.

"I think you may be onto something," she said. "I can't feel Skyfang's emotions the same way I could a person's, but I am getting at least a little something from him, and it's a lot different from what I felt from Windclaw."

"Good," Jasak sighed, then grimaced. "I'm glad to hear we may not have to worry about the way other transports react to you, Shaylar. All the same, would you please not do things like that?" He jerked his head at the hand she still had on Skyfang's leg. "I'm sure Jathmar would feel better if you'd at least consult with him before you rush in to test one of my theories, and?" he looked at Jathmar again across her head and grinned crookedly "?I know damned well that I would."

"Now that's impressive."

Division-Captain chan Geraith stood with his hands on his hips, watching as one of his Bisons snorted up the loading ramp onto the massive flatcar under a floating banner of black smoke and the careful direction of the loadmaster. The Bison?technically, the Transport Tractor, Mark I, Model B?was based on the same powerplant as the next to largest of the Trans-Temporal Express's bulldozers, although its suspension and caterpillar tracks had been substantially modified in an effort to allow for greater speed over even rougher terrain. It wasn't an actual transport unit itself, but rather designed to tow a capacious wheeled or tracked trailer, and despite its funnel, it was sleek, low-slung, and powerful looking.

It was also dwarfed by the flatcar it was busily climbing onto. Indeed, two more Bisons were already in place on the same car. TTE employees were tightening the tie-down chains on the second of them even as the third clanked into position, and there was still going to be almost enough room for a fourth, he realized.

"You think so, Division-Captain?"

chan Geraith turned his attention from the flatcar to the man standing beside him. Train Master Yakhan Chusal of TTE's Directorate of Operations was the sprawling transportation giant's senior train master. He'd been overseeing the loading of TTE freight trains for almost thirty years, and his eyes were rather more critical than the soldier's.

"Yes, I do," chan Geraith said. "I never realized you had flatcars that size. Oh, I've seen pictures of the special, articulated cars you use to transport ship hull sections, but I'd never realized you had standard cars this big."

"I wish we could make them even bigger," Chusal replied with a grimace. "They're just barely large enough for our biggest steam shovels as it is, and you can't put a shovel on an articulated car and get it through some of the mountains we've got to transit on this run. Some of the curves are way too sharp, not to mention the little question of whether or not the trestles would stand the weight. In fact, I understand Engineering had to turn down a new shovel design because we couldn't guarantee that we could transport it."

"You mean you need a flatcar that size for one steam shovel?" chan Geraith demanded in an almost shaken tone.

"That's right." Chusal shrugged. "In fact, we have to break them down into two loads, even with cars that size. Which, of course, means we need big damned cranes?which we also have to ship out?to put them back together again at the other end. When you've got to dig your way through a godsdamned mountain range, or dig a frigging canal, you need a really big shovel. Well, we've got them."

chan Geraith shook his head with a bemused sort of expression. Before his own recent experiences with the experimental mechanization program, he probably wouldn't have been as impressed as he was. Now, though, he'd had far more firsthand experience with incredibly powerful and yet sometimes frustratingly fragile heavy machinery.

"I guess we're lucky TTE's got as much rolling stock as it does," he said after a moment, and Chusal snorted.

"Depends on how you look at it, Division-Captain. Our charter from the Portal Authority requires us to maintain a fifteen percent reserve over and beyond our normal operational and maintenance requirements. Frankly, it's always been a pain in the ass for the bean-counters, and I've got to admit that there have been times when I was royally pissed to have that many cars?and engines?basically just sitting in sheds somewhere. But there wasn't much luck to it. And," his expression darkened, "I don't think the reserve's going to be big enough after all."

"You don't?"

chan Geraith's eyes narrowed. Short of TTE's Director of Operations, Chusal was undoubtedly the most knowledgeable person, where the Trans-Temporal Express' rails were concerned, in any of the many universes Sharona had explored. If he thought there were going to be bottlenecks, then chan Geraith was grimly certain that there were.

"Well," Chusal looked away, shading his eyes against the afternoon sun with one hand while he watched the loading activities under the sky of autumn blue, "I can't say for certain, of course. But unless this new government does go through, and unless it budgets one hell of a lot more money for the line after it does, there's no way we're going to be able to meet the transport requirements we're facing. We're transferring engines and cars from every other trunk line to the Hayth Chain, but just getting them where we need them is going to be a royal pain. I've been sending them out basically empty, or half-empty, at least, just to get them where we're going to need them down the road."

"How bad is it, really?"

"Honestly?" Chusal looked up at the considerably taller Ternathian officer with a thoughtful expression, as if considering whether or not chan Geraith really wanted to know the truth, then grimaced. "The biggest problem's going to be the water gaps. There's a six thousand-mile voyage to cross Haysam to get to Reyshar, and another nine hundred-mile cruise between Reyshar and Hayth. Then there's another eleven hundred miles of water between Jyrsalm and Salym. We're going to have to detrain all of your people, all of your horses, all of your equipment, at each water gap, load it onto ships and sail all of it across the gap, then load it back onto another set of cars, and haul it to the next water gap. Then repeat the process."

It was chan Geraith's turn to grimace, although he wasn't really all that surprised. He could read a map, after all.

"I can't say I'm looking forward to the process," he said after a moment, "but surely it's one you've had to deal with before."

"Oh, yes. Of course we have." Chusal nodded. "We have to deal with it constantly, in fact. Unfortunately, we've never had to deal with it on quite this scale before, Division-Captain. Moving whole armies, not to mention all the ammunition and other supplies they're going to need?and all the coal our engines and steamships are going to need, if we're going to go on moving all that other stuff?simply devours rail capacity. And, obviously, shipping capacity between ports.

"Haysam and Reyshar are pretty well provided with freighters and passenger liners we can conscript for the military's needs, since everything moving in and out of the home universe has to pass through both of them. But we haven't needed anything like this sort of transport capacity in the Hayth Chain before. Sealift's going to be a real problem in the move between Salym and Traisum, and then there's the rail ferry across the Finger Sea in Traisum itself to consider, at least until they get the bridge built.

"That's all bad enough, but we've never had to assign the Hayth Chain anywhere near the rolling stock we're going to need now on the outbound side of Hayth. That's why I've been sending so many perfectly good engines and freight cars out empty. And it's also why every heavylift freighter in both Haysam and Reyshar has been withdrawn from regular service and assigned to hauling those engines and cars across the water gaps. Which," he added sourly, "has created a monumental bottleneck in commercial cargo service."