The Iron Ship (61 page)

Every side of the dock was lined with people, thousands of people. They stood by the water twelve deep, hung from every window around the basin. They lined the hill above. They cheered again as the
Prince Alfra’s
full length emerged from its housing. The ship answered with a two-note hoot of its whistles, scaring up a screeching storm of seagulls.

The great ship filled the basin one end to the other, but Captain Heffi’s steersman had it turn smoothly, its paddlewheels churning in opposite directions until the prow pointed out on the canal; that would take them to the main Lemio-Var shipway then on to the locks. Puffing clouds of brilliant white shot with blue light, the
Prince Alfra
made its way slowly along the waterway. This too was lined with people. Music played everywhere, each source attempting to outdo the other. A wall of noise louder than the loudest day of the ship’s construction pushed the iron ship all the way to the Slot.

At the head of the first lock, on a specially built platform, Prince Alfra himself and the royal family looked on. The lockmaster left his offices to take the toll himself in a ceremony of ridiculous complexity. Then the first gate opened, and the ship cruised into the uppermost dock. At the top of that watery stair, Trassan felt like a king. All of Lockside Karsa was below him, houses clinging to the walls of the locks and high wharfs, a flotilla assembled below upon the muddy ocean to greet them. The iron ship was the largest vessel ever to descend the locks, and even these mighty works appeared modest in comparison.

Twenty minutes each lock took, and the crowd never stopped cheering. Only when they reached Lock Five, where Lowhouses marked the last permanently dry part of the city docks, did the noise abate a little.

The tide was in, an inundation of the middle sort. Bottomquay was covered and they did not have to descend the last three locks, but exited instead from Lock Four directly. The vessel proceeded with care past the tower marking the position of the submerged locks. Ships of wood and floatstone crowded them, some large craft in their own right, but the
Prince Alfra
dwarfed them all. A narrow corridor of muddy water was their way free. Once past the impediments of ship and submerged lock, steam came quicker from the funnels and the great ship surged forward, leaving its suitors behind.

The
Prince Alfra
performed a long loop about Slotbay. From the clifftops of Growling Point the guns of the battery popped a rippling salute. Captain Heffi came up to the top deck. Beaming as he performed complicated bows to Trassan and Arkadian Vand, he pronounced, “Goodfellows, I have the pleasure to inform you that we are now at sea. All three engines are operating at peak efficiency, Goodfellow Kressind, Goodengineer Vand.”

Trassan caught Katriona’s eye. She leaned into her husband and smiled at him broadly.

All aboard the ship cheered, drowning out the band still playing on the main deck.

Vand gripped Trassan’s elbow hard. “Well done, young man,” he said into Trassan’s ear. “Now the hard work begins. Two weeks’ sea trials, no more. You are to depart on the Twentieth of Little.”

“We should be leaving this week.” Trassan tensed at Vand’s contact. Relations between them had been difficult since the accident. Vand had dismissed the incident, but Trassan held the elder engineer responsible, and had become wary of his pride.

“Patience, Trassan. A week won’t matter. It might be better for us.”

“It’s better for Persin. We’ll lose our advantage.”

Vand grinned ferally. “He’ll never beat this ship, Trassan. Persin is not due to leave for ten days. Imagine the look on his face when you steam right past him. Two weeks, my boy. Two weeks.”

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

Modalmen

“H
O, HO
! D
OWN
down, lay it down!” sang the workgang. “Ho, ho! Hammer swing, slam it in!” A row of hammers fell as one onto rail spikes, beating them into wooden sleepers and cinching the rails tight. A gaugeman checked the width. Already, four more lengths had been set out ahead, reading for spiking. To the sides of the track iron web weavers worked, laying out three offset rows of iron pegs joined by wires in a diamond mesh pattern. The railway was progressing along a stony ridge that ran for seven or eight miles. On one side was a dry valley, on the other a series of broken hillocks, too uneven for rails. In those places beyond the wire web nothing moved but dust. But on the ridge life held sway; a desert empty for millennia was filled with human activity.

Tuvacs and Julion walked their cart up the line. The four dogs pulling it did so with their heads down, tails and ears low. A gentle breeze blew from the south, ruffling the dogs’ fur around their harnesses and bringing the threat of returning winter.

“This lot are bored stupid,” said Julion, nodding at the dogs.

“So am I,” said Tuvacs.

Julion stopped the cart. Tuvacs went round the back, hauled off a tall tin water pail and dumped it onto the rocky ground by the railway. The track stood proud of the ridge on ballast hacked from the desert rocks and ground in a steam crusher back at camp. Only in a few places was such an extravagant amount of stone expended in levelling the ground, mostly the sleepers were laid straight onto the flattened sand, but here terrain was uneven, and required greater care. Work was slow.

“My head is killing me,” said Julion.

The gangmaster was a cheerful man of mixed Farthian and Hethikan extraction, straight-nosed and dark-skinned. He overheard them and shouted back, “Lot of glimmer in these parts, that’ll be it. Gives a mean headache, but it’ll make us all rich, once we get this stretch laid!”

“Not you,” muttered Julion. “And not I either, selling water. What by the gods does Boskovin think he’s doing?”

Tuvacs leaned against the stationary cart and put his hands under his armpits to warm them. Longdark was gone, the first week of Little well underway and the sun came a little earlier and a little stronger every morning. But it was still cold. Julion had to smash the ice on the water pitcher before doling it out. Dirty snow, grubbied by blown sand, patched the rolling landscape.

The air had a desert’s clarity, and Tuvacs could see for miles. A brilliant glare shone off a field of glassed desert to the north east, but it could be endured for a time, and Tuvacs scanned the wide horizons. He frowned, and took a step forward.

“Hey,” said Tuvacs. “Look over there.”

“What is it?” said Julion.

“Something in the sky, a dust cloud.”

“Can’t see anything.”

“It’s past that glass field.”

“Too bright to see,” said Julion dismissively.

The gangmaster joined them and looked where Tuvacs pointed for a moment. “A dust storm. They’re not unusual this time of the year. When they get up, they can be a real bitch. Not as bad as the Sisters back home, as I say. Best ignore it. It don’t belch fire.”

“I know what a dust storm is. If it’s a dust storm,” asked Tuvacs, “why is it moving against the wind?”

The gangmaster spat into the sand. “Beats me. My job is laying the rails. Yours is delivering water as per my contract with your master. Meteoromancy is beyond the pair of us.” He grinned with a set of perfect teeth. “We’ll leave the weather forecasting to the magisters.”

“Cock,” muttered Julion as he walked off. “On, Rusanina.” She yawned, exposing a long pink cavern of a mouth. A short yip had the dogs pulling again. They stopped twenty yards on. Tuvacs pulled another tall container of water from the cart, dumped it on the ground, broke the ice, moved on. They outpaced the track gang, then those laying the sleepers, heading on to where other work crews topped barrowfulls of pulverised rock into heaps and raked them out. Past that were red rags tied to sticks laid out by surveyors. Engineers watched critically, levelling the gravel or calling for more. Further on still, others prepared the railbed as the railway’s six guards watched the desert nervously.

All the while, Tuvacs’ eyes returned again and again to the banner of dust against the sky, the thick column at its head was moving toward them. He looked at the guards, counted them for the hundredth time. Six did not seem enough out here, not by a long measure.

N
IGHT FOLLOWED DAY
in the usual order, quickly at that time of year. The days had yet to equal the duration of the night.

Dark was when Tuvacs did most of his work. In his boxcar, the side down, selling liquor and the occasional finer beverage at a healthy—Boskovin’s word, he preferred ‘obscene’—mark up to the rail workers.

At morning’s second bell, as per their agreement with the rail company, he stopped serving, and closed the shutters in the face of many drunken protests. He left it twenty minutes, until after the most determined drinker had stopped hammering upon the wood, to go outside and douse the fires in their bowls and encourage the remaining men to go home in case they pass out and freeze to death. Even in summer, desert nights were cold, and they were a long way from summer.

Tuvacs was packing up the boxcar when Boskovin came to see him.

“Hello, hello my boy!” Boskovin climbed aboard. A solitary paraffin lamp lit Tuvacs’ work space. All the lights outside were off, and consequently Boskovin’s sagging patrician features were cast in a web of shadow. On a man who was more imposing, it might have been sinister. Or on a man who was less drunk. As it was, Boskovin had the appearance of a drunken pantomime devil comically trying to act sober. “Is business good?” he took a swig from a bottle in one hand, black in the low light.

“Not bad boss,” said Tuvacs. “The rail workers are drinking double. And they’re happy to pay for it. This place has them on edge.”

“It’s the glimmer!” said Boskovin, absurdly portentous. “Out here. Very disturbing. It’s the whispers you see. I find this helps.” He sloshed the wine around in the bottle.

“I find it doesn’t. I don’t hear anything, just the headache.” He nodded at the bottle. “That makes it worse.”

“You’re lucky! They are there, all around, if only you listen carefully enough...” His head jerked from side to side, a flicker of fear on his face. He rallied himself with obvious effort. “Still, it warms you. Would you like to share it with me? It is from my personal supply. Good wine gives no headache.” He moved closer. Tuvacs finished placing his last bottles into a rack built into the wall and pulled across the thin steel cover. The chances of a break-in were unsurprisingly high. He padlocked it in place.

“Clever to think of that,” said Boskovin. He took another gulp of wine. His breath was sour, his cheeks red. “A clever boy, an exceptional boy. I was lucky to find you.” An expression settled upon Boskovin’s face that Tuvacs did not like.

“Thank you.” Tuvacs took up his rubbish pail and waited for Boskovin to move to one side. He did, eventually. He kept his stare fixed upon Tuvacs.

“A very, very clever boy.”

Tuvacs hoiked the bucket out to the camp midden, past the last tent, and tipped it out. A faint line of light played over the Twin’s black surface. Tuvacs blinked, and frowned, focusing more intently. The second world was so large its motion was clearly visible as it rushed for the horizon. Seeing nothing untoward, he dismissed the light as his imagination.

When he went back, Boskovin was still in the boxcar.

Tuvacs went through the last few motions of closing up the saloon. Money he dumped into a large leather purse, tied the drawstring and handed it to Boskovin. A minor earth tremor shook the boxcar on its temporary siding. Bottles clinked. When it finished, Tuvacs checked the brake. Dogs barked in the disturbance, falling quiet one by one.

“Brake’s still tight,” he said.

“Yes,” said Boskovin. He took a step towards Tuvacs. His breath came heavy. The coins in the sack chinked as he placed them onto the counter.

Boskovin touched the nape of Tuvacs neck tenderly, fingers slid around it, and he gripped it, a gentle version of the avuncular clasp he used when making a point or a joke. Only this was not so avuncular.

Another hand came at Tuvacs’ waist. His eyes fixed upon the boy’s, Boskovin grasped Tuvacs’ belt, pulling the tongue free of loops and buckle. Tuvacs’ trousers loosened. Tuvacs put his own hand over the belt to stop it being drawn free.

“Please, Boskovin.”

Boskovin’s hand pushed its way into his trousers, cold fingers wriggling into the thatch of hair there.

“This is not for me,” said Tuvacs. “I am not interested in men that way.”

Boskovin looked down. Slowly his gaze slid up Tuvacs’ body, settling upon his face. He pursed his lips in amusement. “This little soldier here says otherwise. I believe he stands to attention.” Boskovin chuckled, a soft purring laugh. Stale wine wafted up Tuvacs’ nostrils. “We won’t do anything you don’t want to.”

“I don’t want any of it.” Tuvacs was angry, partly because of his sex’s reaction to the touch. He seized the man’s hand and pulled it firmly from his trousers. “Like I said, I am not interested.”

“I won’t think anything less of you. Give it a try, boy. We can stop any time you want.”

Tuvacs pulled away and turned around. Boskovin’s hands gripped either end of Tuvacs’ unfastened belt, trapping him.

“Just like I could have stopped at any time when I went into the Drum. Like I could have turned and walked away before I paid your fee,” Boskovin continued. “Like I could have left your sister to fend for herself.”

“No man owns me.”

“No, no, no, dear boy. I don’t own you.” Boskovin let go of one end of Tuvacs’ belt and tugged it free of the loops. “But then, perhaps I do.”

“No.” Tuvacs gripped Boskovin’s hand, hard now. He had laboured since he was small. Six months of hard work in Farside and a decent diet had seen his strength flourish. Boskovin drew in a sharp breath in pain. “This goes no further. I have a girl. I am to be a father.”

Boskovin’s face changed, from lusty to threatening to sad, a drunken gurning that revolted Tuvacs.

“Tuvacs, you do not know what regard I hold you in,” Boskovin wheedled.

“I can guess. Now let me pass. I will not let you force me. I will stop you. Don’t think to threaten me with my contract. There is no law out here.”