Black Light Express

by Philip Reeve

  *

  The Damask Rose was taking good care of her prisoner. Whenever Chandni wasn’t asleep, the train lit holoscreens in her little cell so that she could watch the news stories, and every few hours the maintenance spider would reach down through a hatch in the ceiling to give her food and drink. She was not uncomfortable, but she was bored and growing nervous about what Threnody would do with her. It seemed to her that she had been forgotten, and that when she was remembered, she would most likely be stuck in the freezers. Threnody might not want to do it, but her family would make her; Nilesh Noon and Kala Tanaka were out there, smiling on the news with her, and they had never liked Chandni. They would advise Threnody to freeze her, and Threnody would give in, because Threnody liked having someone telling her what to do — Chandni knew that, because for a little while she had been the someone.

  She needed to escape, but she was not sure how. Soon after they reached Khoorsandi she had asked the Rose if she could go to the bathroom, and the hatch in the ceiling had opened and the spider had passed her a bucket. The train wasn’t stupid, and she didn’t trust Chandni any more than her other passengers did.

  She lay on her back and pretended to rest while she studied the ceiling hatch, but she couldn’t see a way out there. It opened from above, and, even if it could be persuaded to open from below, it led only to the narrow crawlspaces between the ceiling and the carriage roof that were the spider’s domain. The spider came fitted with a lot of cutting and welding equipment and was linked to the mind of the train; she doubted she could take it in a fight.

  So she slept, and ate, and watched the newsfeeds construct their card houses of speculation about the new gate. And sometimes she reached behind as if to rub her back and touched the Kraitt knife hidden there. It gave her a small feeling of control. She would get out of this. It was just a question of waiting for the right moment.

  43

  Zen gasped, looking around him at the cold white lawns, the topiary towering up into the quickly falling snow. He had grown used to far stranger places; it was arriving here so suddenly that had startled him, as if the hotel suite on Khoorsandi had been just a dream, and he had suddenly woken up in this winter garden.

  “It isn’t real,” said Threnody, who was standing beside him.

  She wasn’t real, either. She was just an avatar, and whatever software ran this simulation was using old scans of her, so that she looked as she had looked when he first knew her on the Noon train, sleek perfect clothes and shiny blue hair like the plumage of a kingfisher. Just a simulation, he thought, and so am I. If he concentrated hard he could tell that the real Zen Starling was still standing in the suite on Khoorsandi, holding the interface’s hand.

  It was a good simulation, though. He couldn’t see anything to tell him that the enormous garden wasn’t a real garden on some planet somewhere. Even his breath made plumes in the snowy air. But the air did not feel cold, and the snow did not settle on him, nor Threnody, nor on any of the Guardians who now came gliding toward them down the long white aisles between the hedges.

  He knew some of them. Mordaunt 90 looked just like its interface, and wore the same tattered clothes that its interface had worn during their adventures on the Web. Anais Six was as tall and blue and antlered as the last time Zen had seen it. The others he had never met before, but he had seen their images all his life, on data shrines and ads, in threedies, and in the holostickers that came free with breakfast cereal. There was the Shiguri Monad, a peacock with a thousand actual eyes on its billowing tail, and Indri, who looked like a beautiful woman and a beautiful cat at the same time. Ombron and Leiki were many-sided shapes whose planes constantly shifted and rearranged themselves. That cloud of blue butterflies that sometimes gathered into a human shape was Sfax Systema, and those blurred elfin figures, half glimpsed behind the snow, had to be the avatars of the mysterious Vostok Brains. Through the hedges something unseen raced like a hypersonic squirrel — that would be shy, eccentric Vohu Mana. They were all there, all watching him with their golden eyes that opened like K-gates into worlds of pure intelligence, but for some reason Zen felt no need to kneel. These were the gods of his age, but he knew things about them that few other humans did. He knew that they were liars.

  The Twins were the last to arrive: two barefoot girls, one black, one white, sharing a single elaborate hairstyle.

  As if their arrival was the cue to break the silence, Mordaunt 90 said, “Zen, Threnody. We have been discussing your new gate, and we find that we are divided. Some of us think it should be allowed to stay open—”

  “Only you think that, Mordaunt 90,” said the peacock, in the voice of a grouchy cartoon bird.

  “While some of us think it should be shut, and the secret of the Web of Worlds preserved,” Mordaunt 90 went on.

  “And some of us think everyone involved in its opening should be killed stone dead,” said the Twins, smiling sweet, dimpled smiles.

  “You can’t close it,” said Zen. “Everyone has seen it. Everybody knows it’s here. They’ve seen the Neem, and the images from our headsets that we made while we were on the Web. They’ve seen that Mordaunt 90’s interface came through with us. You can’t keep it a secret anymore.”

  “So what do you think we should do?” asked Ombron.

  Threnody said, “With your permission, Guardians, we want to begin trading through the new gate, with all the new worlds of the Web. My family has lost much of its power, thanks to the Prells. But Khoorsandi is still ours, and we can make it the hub of a great new trade route.”

  Shiguri chuckled. “That would be a tough blow for the Twins’ pet Prell! Old Elon has waited all his life to become Emperor, and now he’ll find Grand Central isn’t the center of things after all, and the Noons control the gateway to a whole new Empire!”

  “Birdbrain,” sniffed the Twins.

  “But where will that leave us?” asked Sfax Systema. “What will humans think when they find out what happened to the Railmaker?”

  “Perhaps they won’t,” said Zen. “We won’t tell them. You can say the Railmaker was already dead when you discovered the K-gates. And you kept the truth from us about the other gates and the other races because you thought we weren’t ready to know such things.”

  “You aren’t ready,” muttered Vohu Mana, from the bushes.

  “You can say that you have decided the time is right, so you’ve opened a new gate, and chosen Zen and me to be the first through it,” said Threnody.

  Indri purred. “How sweet! They think they can bargain with us…”

  “If we did what they suggest, we would save face,” said Mordaunt 90. “It is time to tell the truth, or part of it. My interface has traveled among these alien races. We need not fear them. It is time to let humanity meet its neighbors.”

  “Time for instability, you mean?” scoffed Sfax Systema. “You know how cruel humans were to one another, before they had us to guide them. Imagine what wars and terrors they’ll unleash when they meet other species!”

  The golden man turned to Anais Six. “You agree with me,” it said. “I know you do! Is that not why you let Raven stumble upon the secret of the K-gates…?”

  “I was foolish,” said Anais Six, blushing a deeper blue.

  “This is all Anais Six’s fault, when you come down to it,” grumbled Indri. “If it hadn’t let its lover Raven go poking around in the Deep Archives…”

  “Someone else would have found out, sooner or later,” said Shiguri, unexpectedly taking Mordaunt 90’s side. “Even we cannot keep secrets forever.”

  “Yes we can,” said Sfax Systema firmly. “We will announce that the new K-gate is just a clever hoax. The images that the Damask Rose and her passengers have released into the Datasea will be found out to be hoaxes too: fantasy creatures, generated in clever virtual environments. Luckily the one creature they brought back with them, this Neem, is made up of insects almost identical
to the Monk bugs that infest human worlds. We shall explain that they are Monk bugs, wearing a suit designed by Raven. We shall show the news sites how this whole affair has been a plot by Threnody Noon, a clever and ambitious young woman trying to improve the fortunes of her family. We will block up the new K-gate, saying it is dangerous. And in a few weeks some new crisis will arise, and humans will forget all about events here on Khoorsandi.”

  The other Guardians murmured their agreement. Even Shiguri gave a feathery shrug and said, “Very well. It’s for the best, I suppose.”

  “And what about us?” asked Zen. “Me and Threnody and Nova, and the Rose? If we promise to keep your secret, will you believe us?”

  “Of course we won’t,” said the Twins.

  “You will be taken to Desdemor,” said Mordaunt 90. “You can live quietly there.”

  “As your prisoners?” said Zen.

  Mordaunt 90 smiled a sad smile. “As our guests.”

  “So it is decided?” asked Anais Six. “We are all in harmony again, and all agree?”

  “No,” said the Twins, in unison. “We don’t agree. We have a better idea.”

  44

  So they’re tearing down the i-link at bat-out-of-hell kind of speeds, and this is the strangest train Laria Prell has ever ridden. It’s called the Sunbird, and she thought it looked odd as soon as she saw it waiting in the tortoiseshell station under the palace back on Central. A long silver loco, its sleek hull almost featureless, with no weapons turrets or war-drone pods, but maybe that’s a good thing on a diplomatic mission, shows that they plan to talk, not fight. But that outward strangeness is nothing next to the way it behaves once it’s on the move. It doesn’t sing, it doesn’t talk, it’s almost as if it isn’t intelligent at all — except it must be, because everyone knows that the K-gates only open for trains with brains; every time someone has tried to take a simple low-tech shunting engine from world to world it’s just kind of bounced off the energy curtain under the gate’s arch, or else passed through it like it’s mist or something and stayed on the same planet. So the Sunbird, swooshing effortlessly through gate after gate, must have a mind and a personality of its own. For some reason it just doesn’t want to talk or sing, and Laria Prell has never known a train like that before.

  But then she’s never known a mission like this one, either. She still doesn’t buy this story of a new K-gate, but the news from the Fire Station gets stranger each time her headset updates. Now the newsfeeds are claiming that Threnody Noon herself has come through the new gate with a kid named Starling and a giant armored spider. They’re streaming some astounding footage — alien stations where the streets are full of monsters, great luminous whale things swimming in midnight seas. It’s all a hoax, Laria tells herself, but what’s the point of it? She warns her little squad of CoMa to stay frosty, but she has no idea what they’re supposed to do when they hit the end of the journey.

  The Mako brothers keep to their own car at the rear of the train, only leaving it to visit the fully automated dining car — they seem to have a liking for sweet things: fancy cakes, sugary piles of pastel-colored dessert that they eat with long spoons, sitting in silence on either side of a dining table like each other’s reflections.

  “Who are they?” she asks her second-in-command, a tough old CoMa sergeant called “Panic” Button. “Where did Uncle Elon hire them? Why does he trust them so much?”

  “The family has always employed twins,” says Button placidly. “After the old Emperor was killed, your uncle Elon felt he needed more effective bodyguards. I don’t know where they came from. Some backwater world, I suppose.”

  “But the way they treat him,” says Laria. “It’s like he’s working for them…”

  “I expect that amuses your uncle, Lady Prell. Folk always say he has no sense of humor, but that’s not true. He just laughs at different things than other people.”

  As the Sunbird begins its run-up toward the K-gate that will take it to Khoorsandi, Laria goes to visit the brothers in their carriage. It is one long compartment and it smells like a locker room. Balled-up socks trundle across the floor as the train sways. The Mako twins seem to have no interest in personal hygiene, although they are both busy cleaning silvery pistols that look clean enough to Laria already.

  “What is the plan?” she asks. “When we get to Khoorsandi?”

  The Mako boys don’t look up. “That’s for you to decide, Lady Prell…” says the one named Shiv.

  “Isn’t it?” asks the one named Enki.

  Laria knows which one is which because Shiv has a little letter S tattooed on his forehead, Enki an E. Unless — and she would not put this past them — they have been tattooed with each other’s initials, just to confuse people. In all other ways they are identical. The shifting light in the carriage reveals odd bumps beneath their bald scalps, as if some high-end hardware has been built directly into their skulls. Laria says, “I don’t think it is for me to decide. I think my uncle put you in charge. I think he has given you some mission that he hasn’t told the rest of us about.”

  The Makos both look up at her then. It never stops being eerie, the way they manage to make the exact same movements at the exact same time.

  “When we get to Khoorsandi,” says Enki, “you will remain on the train. Everything will be taken care of.”

  “The same way you took care of Kobi Chen-Tulsi?” asks Laria.

  They look thoughtful. They stop echoing each other’s movements. Shiv goes back to cleaning his spotless gun; Enki stands and comes close to Laria, looking down. His breath smells of almonds and mangoes and star anise. He says, “Sometimes, when a person is causing a problem, the simplest way to solve it is to kill that person. The Guardians do not like to admit this truth. Your uncle, the Emperor, cannot admit this truth. Threnody Noon and her companions have managed to make themselves celebrities. If the Emperor killed them, it would look very bad; he would not be popular.”

  “But if the Emperor had a servant…” says Shiv, putting his gun away and standing up, coming to stand beside his brother.

  “Or two servants…”

  “And these servants took matters into their own hands…”

  “Went rogue, so to speak…”

  “Exceeded their orders…”

  “Then the fault would rest with those servants…”

  “No one could blame the Emperor, or the Guardians…”

  “They would all agree what an unfortunate tragedy it was…”

  “But the problem would still be solved.”

  And with a loud un-bang the Sunbird is through the gate, and the twilight of the volcano resort spills through the windows. The Mako brothers exchange one of their looks.

  “You will remain on the train,” they tell Laria Prell. “We will go into the city and do the things that need doing.”

  45

  The volcanoes spoke. They opened their hot red throats and roared. They built towers of smoke and decked them with multicolored lightning. The dry plains west of the Fire Station stretched and yawned, and fans of lava sprayed into the sky.

  Nova looked down on it all from the balcony of the suite where Zen and Threnody still stood entranced beside the interface. It was very impressive; she could see why Fire Festival was such a big tourist attraction. But as she scanned the view, watching volcano after volcano bloom, the fiery light shone suddenly on a train that was snaking down the line from Khoorsandi’s original K-gate.

  The Damask Rose spoke to her in the same instant. “Nova? A new train has come in; some kind of Prell wartrain I think. It’s a strange one; it won’t talk to me. But I’m getting a message from its commander. She wants to speak with Threnody.”

  “Threnody’s busy,” said Nova, glancing back at where Zen and Threnody still stood holding the interface’s hands, like sleepers sharing the same dream. “I’ll talk to her.”

  The
Rose patched the message through. It was coming from a wall screen in one of the dingy cabins of the Prell train. A large, pale young woman in Prell CoMa uniform said, “Empress?”

  “I’m Nova,” said Nova. “I can take a message.”

  The young woman looked doubtful. “You’re the Motorik who was with her on that train…”

  “Oh, we’re great friends, me and Threnody. We tell each other everything.”

  The face on the screen seemed to come to a decision. “Then tell her this, Motorik. I’m Laria Prell; I met Kobi Chen-Tulsi on Broken Moon. The men who killed him are here with me. They are my uncle’s servants, but they don’t act like servants, they act more like… There are two of them, the Mako brothers. They are very… they have already left the train. They are coming to find Threnody Noon, and the Starling boy, and you too, I suppose. They are on their way to kill you.”

  “How rude,” said Nova, flinging her mind into the hotel’s security cameras and then into others out in the busy streets. Yes, there were two men coming up the steps from the station, moving purposefully through the festival crowds. Bald heads and brown coats and distinctly unsettling. “Why are you telling us this?” she asked Laria Prell.

  The face on the screen reddened. “It is not right,” Laria said. “It isn’t honorable. And Kobi would have wanted me to warn her.”

  “Thank you,” said Nova. “You’ve done a good thing. We’ll be ready for them. I don’t think two men can do much harm.”

  Laria Prell looked as if she was about to disagree, but her face suddenly froze and crumpled as the holoscreen went out. All the lamps died at the same moment. The cameras Nova had been hacking went out too. She looked into the data raft, then got out fast. Something very strange was spreading through it, shutting down site after site, system after system. It spread quickly, pushing its way through firewalls, leaking out of the raft into the deeper Datasea where the Guardians swam.