Harry Turtledove - A Different Flesh

"These accursed engines will be the ruination of us," Tilak said.

"I hope not."

"Of course they will." Tilak was gloomier by nature than Preen Chand. He noticed Dubois's gang of sims again.

"What are they doing, Preen?"

Preen Chand told him. Tilak's jaw dropped. He frowned.

"I do not know if we can beat this Trevithick, Preen, if his machine performs as he says it will."

"He does not know if he can beat us, either, which makes for a fair trial. Cheer up, Paul. Even if we lose, how are we worse off?

What will happen? The company will buy engines, just as it would without any race at all. But if we win, perhaps they will not."

Tilak looked unconvinced. Before the argument could go further, the passenger who had bothered Preen Chand from the coach window now grabbed him by the arm. "See here, sir Do I understand you to mean that this train will not proceed to Cairo, but rather is returning to Carthage?"

"I am afraid that is correct, sir." As gently as he could, Preen Chand shook free of the man's grasp. "I am so very sorry for any inconvenience this may, "

"Inconvenience?" the man exclaimed.

His face was al most as red as his waistcoat. "Do you know, sir, that I stand to lose out on a very profitable investment opportunity if I am delayed here?"

That was too much for Preen Chand. The deference that was part of his railroading persona went by the board. He stuck his face an inch from the pasnger's nose and bel owed, "God damn you to hel , do you know that I stand to lose out on a job I have loved for twenty-five years and that my father and grandfather held before me. I piss on your investment opportunity, and for a copper sester I'd black your eye, tool" Tilak quickly stepped between them before they could start a fight. The passenger stamped away, still yelling threats.

Preen Chand looked toward his beloved elephants. The ostlers had set out big wooden tubs of water for them.

"Derrl" he shouoed to Caesar "Splash!" He thrust out his arm, pointing to the obnoxious fellow with whom he'd been quarreling. Caesar snorted up a big trunkful of water and let it go in s a sudden shower, that drenched Preen Chand. Tilak and Dubois got wet too, and hopped back swearing. The fellow the elephant driver had intended to soak got off unscathed.

"It has been that kind of day," Preen Chand sighed. "Fetch me a towel, please, someone."

Instead of starting the next morning, as Preen Chand had proposed, the race did not begin until three days later. Part of the delay was from loading waggons so that the elephants and the steam engine would pul about the same amount of weight. The rest came from dickering over conditions.

Since the flesh-and-blood elephants were ready at once, while the Iron Elephant had to build up steam, Trevithick wanted Preen Chand not to start until the engine could move. This the elephant driver indignantly refused, on the grounds that the start-up delay was an inherent part of the mechanical device's function. Public opinion in Spring field backed him, and Trevithick gave way.

But Preen Chand had to yield in turn on the load the Iron Elephant would have to haul. He wanted the weight of the waggons added on to that of the engine and coal-waggon.

Trevithick, though, neatly turned the tables on him, pointing out that the Iron Elephant natural y got lighter as it traveled and consumed its fuel. The coal, he said, should count as part of its initial burden. He won his point.

Most of Springfield was there to see the race begin. The Iron Elephant was on the regular westbound track; Caesar and Hannibal took the track usually reserved for eastbound trains. Trevithick doffed his dapper cap to Preen Ghand.

The elephant driver returned a curt nod. Trevithick was not a bad sort.

If anything, that made matters worse.

The mayor of Springfield cried, "Are all you gentlemen ready?" He held a pistol in the air. It would have taken more pul than a steam engine or a couple of hairy elephants put out to keep His Honor away.

Hearing no objections, he fired the starting gun. Caesar's ears flapped at the report. "Mal -mall!" Preen Chand shouted. Behind him, he heard Paul Tilak give Hannibal the same command, and emphasize it with a whack of the elephant goad.

The hairy elephants surged forward as far as their harness would al ow.

Then, grunting with effort, they lowered their heads, dug in their big round feet, and pulled for al they were worth. Fifty tons of dead weight was a lot \ even for such powerful beasts to overcome.

From the other track, Preen Chand heard the clatter of coal being shoveled into the Iron Elephant's firebox. He did not look over. He knew his train would get rol ing first, and inoended to wring every inch out of his advantage.

"Mall-mal !" he shouted again.

The spectators started to slide out of his field of vision.

"We're moving!"" he and Tilak shouted in the same breath.

"Mall-mal !" In his urgency, Preen Chand used the anhus on Caesar.

The elephant shook his head reproachfully.

Each step Caesar and Hannibal took came more easily than the one before.

Horses paral eled the twaek, as riders came along to watch the race.

Preen Chand kin d back over his shoulder. The Iron Elephant stil had not moved "We may do this yet" he called to Paul Tilak. He hoped so. He had bet as many big silver denaires as he could afford, and perhaps a few more, on the great animal straining beneath him.

"We shall see," was all Tilak said. As far as Preen Chand knew, he had not made any bets for the elephants. Hie had - not made any against them, either. Had he done so, Preen Chand would have kicked him off Hannibal even if it meant putting an unschooled oxherd aboard the beast.

He had already filed one brakeman, he wanted no one with him who had a stake in losing.

Buildings hid the Iron Elephant as Caesar and Hannibal pul ed their train round a curve. They had made a good quarter of a mile and were approaching the outskirts of town when Tilak said, "The machine is coming after us."

Preen Chand looked back again. Sure enough, a plume of steam and smoke was rising above the train station. The elephant driver grunoed, sounding very much like Caesar. "Whatever Trevithick does, we are stil faster, so long as we are moving. What worries me is that he will go al night."

"Do you want us to try that?" Tilak asked.

"No," Preen Chand said regretfully; he had thought long and hard about it. "If we do, Caesar and Hannibal will be worth nothing tomorrow. Even as is, I am not sure they will be able to match today's pace. And I am so afraid they will have to. If Trevithick's engine works as he hopes, we will have to catch him from behind."

Soon they were out among farms once more. Cows and sheep stared incuriously as the hairy elephants tramped past. Rifle-toting farmers guarded their stock. Even so close to Springfield, sims were a constant nuisance. They might not have the brains of humans, but they were too clever to trap.

Preen Chand decided he was going to get a stiff neck if he kept turning around to look back, but he could not help it. He had to see the Iron Elephant in action. Here it came, with its train behind it.

He put a spyglass to his eye for a better view.

He thought it even uglier moving than stationary. Shafts connected to its pistons drove small gears at either side of the back of the engine.

Those, in turn, meshed with larger gears in front of them, and the larger gears joined with the ones on the outside of the engine's four wheels. Smoke belched from the stack as the contraption crawled along.

Even from close to half a mile away, Preen Chand could hear it chug and wheeze and rattle. It reminded him more of a flatulent iron cockroach than an elephant.

When he said that out loud, Tilak chuckled, remarking, "The farm animals would agree with you, it seems."