Harry Turtledove - A Different Flesh

Everything about them will be the same, except for what pulls the waggons."

"And, Richard, with all respect, everything about iron and wood is the same, except when I need to start a fire. I've spent a lifetime learning to care for elephants; what good will that do me in dealing with your boiler there?"

"A child could manage the throttle. And we have a whole new kind of boiler in the Iron Elephant, with tubes passing through it to heat the water more effectively. And the cylinders are almost horizontal; they work much betoer than the old vertical design did." Trevithick glowed with enthusiasm, and plainly wanted Preen Chand to catch fire too. "Why, on level ground, with the extra power the new system gives, we can do close to thirty miles an hour, practically flying along the ground!"

Had Stephenson named the figure, Preen Chand would have cal ed him a liar on the spot. He did not think Trevithick a man given to exaggeration, though. Thirty miles an hour He tried to imagine what the wind would be like, whipping in his face: as if he were on a madly galloping racehorse, but for some long time, not just the few minutes the beast would take to tire.

"How about that, Preen?" Stephenson put in, nudging him in the ribs.

"Only way you'd get Caesar and Hannibal moving that fast'd be to drop

'em off a roof."

Preen Chand grunted. He thought of the stationmaster's boasts about how much he could cut back his operation. The elephant driver smiled sardonically at Trevithick's naivete. Everything would be the same, would it?

"Thirty miles an hour is a marvelous speed, Richard; it is most marvelous indeed. But that is unloaded, I take it. What can your steam engine", he would not call it the Iron Elephant, not even for politeness' sake, "do pul ing a load of, say, fifty tons?"

"Tel him, Mr. Trevithick." This time the engine handler was the recipient of Stephenson's conspiratorial elbow.

He did not seem to notice. The gleam in his eyes turned inward as he calculated. At last he said, "That is a great deal of weight. Does your team real y pul so much?" For the first time, his voice held a trace of doubt.

"They can, yes," Preen Chand said proudly.

"Truth to tell, I hate to wonder if the machinery could stand it.

But I think we should be able to do something on the order of three miles an hour, not counting stops for water or for any breakdowns that might happen."

"Three miles an hour? Is that all?" George Stephenson sounded more betrayed than disappoinoed.

"If that." Trevithick looked amused. "Now you see why I tend to put more stress on the engine's top speed."

Preen Chand, though, was still impressed, and worried. His beloved elephants were faster, but they were only flesh and blood. They had to rest, where the steam engine could go on and on and on. And yet, he thought, if I can show everyone how the elephants outdo this stinking contraption"Richard, load your train up, and I will load mine, and I will race you from here to Carthage."

"A race, eh?" Trevithick's bright eyes glowed. "How far is this Carthage place from here?"

"Fifty-three miles, a-tiny bit south of west. The railroad ends soon after it."

"Hmm." Preen Chand watched the engine handler go into that near-tranoe of conoentration again. When he emerged from it, he gave the elephant driver a respectful look. "That will be a very close thing, Preen. You know how embarrassing, and I mean financially as well as in the sense of a blow to my pride, it would be for me to lose?"

Preen Chand returned a bland shrug. "You've come all this way from Plymouth, Richard, to show off your ironmongery. How embarrassing would it be for word to get out that you refused a challenge from your competition?"

Trevithick laughed out loud. "You misunderstand me. I have no intention of refusing. When shall we start?"

"Tomorrow morning?"

"What?" George Soephenson let out a howl. "You're eastbound for Cairo tomorrow morning, Preen! What about your precious schedule?"

"Wel , what about it? If this steam engine comes in and replaces Caesar and Hannibal, then I will have to do as you suggested before and find other work, so it will not matter if the company fires me. But if elephants are better than machinery, the company should know that too.

They will thank me more for finding that out than they will be angry with me for being late. And besides, George, why should you worry?

Don't you own the town hotel?"

Stephenson suddenly looked crafty. "Well, yes, now that you mention it, I do."

"Here is a man who thinks of everything," Trevithick said admiringly. "I wonder if I ought to race against you after all, no, my friend, only a joke. But tomorrow morning will be too soon. We will have to load up waggons so both our trains carry equal weight....

George, you live i here, unlike either Preen or myself. Can you hire some sims from the locals to help the ones at the station here with that work?"

"Reckon so." Stephenson gave Trevithick a sidelong glanoe. "So long as I ain't payin' for it, that is."

Preen Chand gulped; he was never going to be rich on an elephant driver's salary. But Trevithick said, "I'll cover it, never fear.

What I don't make up on bets will come back in the long run through the ballyhoo this race will cause."

"Whatever you say. All I know is, you can't put no bal yhoo in the bank. Them folks are partial to gold."

"Who isn't?" Trevithick chuckled.

Preen Chand went back to the other side of the station to stop the unloading of his train, the less that came off, the less that would have to be put back tomorrow. The straw boss who oversaw Stephenson's gang of sims looked at him as if he were crazy. "First you was in a hurry to unload and now you want them put back. Can't you make up your fool mind?"

"Truly I am sorry, Mr. Dubois." Preen Chand had always thought the straw boss more capable than Stephenson, and treated him accordingly.

Dubois only grunted in disgust, then turned and shouted to the dozen sims that were unloading sacks of grain from the waggons. He gave hand signals to back his oral instructions. Sims could fol ow human speech, but had trouble imitating it. They much preferred to use gestures, and many overseers gave orders both ways, taking no chances on being misunderstood.

That care paid off now. One of the sims gaped in disbelief at the overseer. Its long, chinless jaw fell open to reveal yellow teeth bigger and stouoer than any man's. It ran a hand over what would have been a human's forehead, but was in the sim only a smooth slope behind bony browridges.

Back, it signed, adding the little gesture that turned the word to a question. Preen Chand usual y had some trouble following hand-talk, but the sim made the sign so emphatic, the way a man might shout an objection, that he understood it with ease.

Back, Dubois signed firmly. Put bags back.

The sim scratched its hairy cheek, let out a wordless hoot of protest.

It signed, Bad. Very bad. Work all gar e. From its point of view, Preen Chand supposed it had a point. But under Dubois's uncompromising eye, it and its comrades began putting the produce back aboard the train.

"What are they doing, Preen?" Paul Tilak demanded. "That should go in the warehouses here, look at the bill of lading. And why were they so slow getting here in the first place? Where was everyone, and why is everyone so excited?"

Very much the same set of questions, Preen Chand thought wryly, that he had thrown at George Stephenson. They had the same answer, too: "Steam engine."

"Damnation!" Tilak shouted, so loudly that Hannibal let out an alarmed snort and swung its shaggy head to see what was wrong with its driver.

"It is all right, real y it is," Tilak reassured him. The elephant snorted again, doubt ful y, but subsided.