Railhead

by Philip Reeve

  “Are you coming with us?” Zen asked him. “If you stay here, you’ll be in trouble with the Noons. We have a train. We can get you away.”

  Kobi shook his head without looking up. “No thanks, Tallis, or whatever you said your name is. I’m staying here.” He found a first-aid kit from somewhere and started dabbing nervously at Threnody’s wound. Then he did look up, just for a moment. “I know you think I’m just a spoiled rich boy. I know you think this engagement between me and Thren is just a business alliance. That’s what Thren thinks too. But I do care about her. I’m not going to leave her.”

  Zen looked at Threnody, and saw that she shared his surprise.

  Kobi said, “You’d better go. Railforce will be on their way. We’ll tell the Bluebodies that you hijacked the ship and crashed it and escaped.”

  That set Zen moving. He took Nova’s hand and they scrambled out through the broken hatches, into the mud of a drainage culvert on the edge of Sundarban City. A drone buzzed over, making them cower, but it was only some farmer’s crop-bot, come to survey the damage this unexpected arrival had done to his sorghum. Distantly, across the fields, they could hear other drones approaching.

  They splashed through the mud to the culvert’s end where a pipe took it under a road, scampered through the crops in a neighboring field, found their way between barns and tractor sheds to a road that ringed the city. The road surface glowed gently, releasing some of the sunlight that it had stored during the day. Floaters and ground-cars were stopping there, passengers emerging to gawk at the smoke rising from the site of the shuttle crash. The crackly rumble of jet engines rolled along the margins of the sky. Zen pushed Nova into one of the empty cars and climbed in after her. Nova did something with her brain and the car woke.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  Zen had no idea where Kobi had landed them. “Into the city,” he said.

  The car did a neat U-turn and set off up an exit ramp as the searchlights of the drones came sweeping across the fields.

  35

  “Flex?”

  “Mmmm?”

  “Flex?”

  The voice of the Damask Rose pushed its way into Flex’s thoughts. He was clinging to the old loco’s hull, sketching in figures and shapes with sweeping gestures of his paintstick while a maintenance spider trained a work lamp on him and another held his bag of colors. These Fosses weren’t quite as big as modern trains, so he hoped his supplies would hold out. If not, perhaps he could persuade the 3-D printer in the dining car to turn out some pigment for him.

  The Hive Monks’ strange myths had crept into his head and shown him what he needed to draw along the curved and streamlined flanks of the Damask Rose. Angels. Angels spilled from the single big lamp on the old loco’s prow as if from a shining doorway. Insect angels and human ones; angels that looked like dogs and grasshoppers and fish; angels that looked like winged trains and flying kettles. Angels with the wings of eagles, angels with the faces of clocks. Angels in business clothes, angels in ball gowns, angels in nothing but their birthday suits and mismatched stripy socks. Angels strewing roses; angels eating bhajis, dancing down the train’s sides in a wild fly-past, all laughing with amazement to find themselves a part of Flex’s masterpiece.

  If the paint held out, thought Flex, he would carry the procession right down the carriages, too; he’d always wanted to paint a train from end to end. He drew a big angel along the side of the engine compartment, a tall, strong angel, based on Myka Starling, with wide hips and big arms and a kind, handsome face.

  And then the train’s voice. “Flex?”

  “Mmmmm?”

  “Zen Starling has been gone for more than fifteen hours.”

  “Is it that long?” It was like that when you were working, when it was going well. Time didn’t matter. Then he remembered where he was, and what Zen had gone to do. “Oh…” He switched off the paintstick and jumped down onto the ballast beside the tracks.

  “Also,” said the train, “I am picking up news bulletins in the local data raft. A space vehicle has crashed on the edge of the city. A search is in progress for two fugitives. One is a young man, the other a Motorik, gendered female.”

  “Oh no,” said Flex.

  “Do you think that is Zen and the Motorik he was attempting to salvage?”

  “Bit of a coincidence if it isn’t, don’t you think?” asked Flex. (He didn’t mean it sarcastically. He liked the careful, logical paths trains’ brains took, the mental rails their thoughts ran down.) “At least they haven’t been caught yet. We should do something . . .”

  “What should we do, Flex?”

  He leaned his face against the train’s side. During his first days in Cleave he had sometimes snuggled up against trains in the engine sheds for warmth. The feel and smell of them was his happiest memory from those times, and always comforting. It didn’t give him any answers, though. Poor Zen! Out in the station city somewhere, hunted by drones and Bluebodies and who knew what. How could Flex help? He was just a painter of trains. He didn’t even know his way through the tunnels, not here on Sundarban.

  “There is a lot of discussion on official emergency frequencies,” said the train. “Railforce troops are being ordered to the outbound platforms.”

  “Not to platforms on this line?” asked Flex, suddenly afraid the Bluebodies might come marching along the tunnel to arrest him.

  “It does not seem to have occurred to them that we may be here,” said the Damask Rose. “I believe they are trying to make sure that Zen does not get out on any of the other lines. Units are being deployed throughout the city.”

  “Oh, Zen!” sighed Flex. Who would have thought that one young Thunder City thief could gather so much trouble to him?

  A rustling sound nearby made him look up. The Hive Monks had come out of the train and stood looking at him. Well, Flex supposed they were looking at him. The eyeholes of their masks were aimed at him, but they must have each had about a million eyes so they were probably looking everywhere.

  “We heard the train speak,” said Uncle Bugs.

  “Your friends are in danger,” said one of the other Monks, as if it thought Flex might not have understood. “We must leave without them, and seek the Insect Lines.”

  “No!” said Flex, and the train let out a long and disapproving, “Psssscccchhhh…”

  “I told them you would say that,” said Uncle Bugs.

  “I can’t leave Zen behind. He’s part of my hive,” said Flex, trying to help them understand. But he didn’t think they would. Hive Monks left parts of themselves behind all the time; individuals weren’t important to them.

  “I will not leave without Zen Starling,” said the Damask Rose.

  “But you have the painter,” said Uncle Bugs. “Zen Starling means nothing to you.”

  “He is brave,” said the train. “He came all this way to save his friend. I will not leave without him.”

  The Hive Monks rustled together for a moment with the others. Then Uncle Bugs turned to Flex. “We will help you to find him.”

  “How?” said Flex. “They’re out in the city somewhere, and the Bluebodies are crawling all over, looking for them. I don’t even dare try to contact them in case the Bloobs pick up the signal. They could be anywhere.”

  The Hive Monks swayed. They whispered like dry reeds, nodding their misshapen heads. They seemed pleased with themselves. “We are Hive Monks,” they whispered. “We can go anywhere.”

  Later, when they had gone, the train spoke again.

  “Flex?”

  “Mmm?”

  “Flex?”

  “Yes?”

  “I really like the angels.”

  36

  Parts of the city were just like the Ambersai Bazar. Zen and Nova moved through streets of jangling pachinko parlors and stir-fry mollusk bars, streets glowing with neon,
filled with the rumble of K-trains crossing the viaducts, whose supporting pillars flickered with advertising slogans and luminous graffiti. It was not somewhere they could hide for long, but they would last longer there than anywhere else.

  They had abandoned the car after a few minutes. Zen had never stolen a whole car before, but he knew the best rule was not to keep hold of it for long. They had jumped out under a railway bridge and let the car keep going while they doubled back through streets of sleepy bio-bungalows, through light industrial zones where 3-D printers whirred and hummed behind the paper walls of factory units.

  He wanted to contact Flex and the Damask Rose. He had been gone far longer than he’d promised, and it was going to be hours yet before he could get back to where the old train waited. He needed to message it,but he knew he mustn’t. The local data raft would be full of watchbots, all waiting to home in on him and pinpoint his position for the Bluebodies’ drones. So he did not contact Flex, but he did let Nova link her mind to the city’s information feed for just long enough to download a map.

  The news was bad. His way into the Dog Star Line tunnels was on the northern side of the city; the shuttle had crashed on the south.

  So they pushed through the crowds in the neon streets, hoping to get clear across before the Bluebodies sighted them. On the screens they passed, the newsfeeds were streaming video of the wrecked shuttle.

  Zen became a thief again, as if the Ambersai ambience had triggered his old skills. It felt comforting to be doing something he was good at, slipping things from the stalls he passed as if he were invisible. He stole Nova a coat with a hood to cover her holed tunic and shadow her face. He stole steamed ginger dumplings for them both. At a novelty gene-tech booth called Pogonometry he stole himself a mustache-symbiont, a hairy critter designed to cling to his upper lip, where it would live on sweat and dead skin. It turned out to be a cheap knock-off, though, and after half an hour it turned ginger and wandered off up his cheek like a lost sideburn. He gave that to Nova too, but it didn’t suit her either.

  He kept looking at her as they walked. He kept asking her, “Are you all right?”

  “I think so. I am now. Thank you for coming back for me.”

  “I would have come sooner. Raven wouldn’t let me. He wanted to leave you up there.”

  “I am only a Motorik,” said Nova.

  “It’s not that. It’s just how Raven is.”

  They went on in silence for a while, down a lonely street that ran beside a freight line. After a while Zen said again, “You are sure you’re all right?”

  “Yes, Zen.”

  “That hole it made in you—that did no harm?”

  “It did. I was shut down for a long time, I think. But there was plenty of sunlight up there to power me, and my whole body is made from self-repairing compounds.”

  “I wish mine was,” said Zen. He was covered in bruises from the shuttle crash, shaky with stress and adrenalin.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said.

  “What for?”

  “For bringing you into danger.” She looked earnestly at him, her face flickering in the light from a passing train. Like the heroine of one of her old movies. “When I was up there, and I thought I’d never see you again, I felt as if my heart would break. My heart is not made from self-repairing compounds, Zen Starling.”

  The train was gone, but he could still see her, striding along beside him in the sodium glow from the trackside lamps. The smell of space clung to her, rich and smoky. What was this that he was feeling? It frightened him, whatever it was. He was almost relieved when she suddenly said, “We’re being followed.”

  Zen looked back. He couldn’t see anyone, but he knew that Nova had sharper ears and better eyes than him.

  “There are three of them,” Nova said. “I don’t think they’re human.”

  He pulled her into the doorway of a warehouse and took out his gun. “Motorik?”

  Nova shook her head. “Hive Monks.”

  Zen laughed with relief, and stepped out of the doorway. He couldn’t be sure that these were his Hive Monks, but it seemed likely; Hive Monks didn’t usually go about in threes.

  “We have found you!” whispered the Monks, hurrying along the street so quickly that they seemed in danger of disintegrating altogether. Zen laughed again. He had never been so glad to see a few million mutant insects.

  “We look for you; we find you!” rustled Uncle Bugs, reaching out to pat and stroke Zen’s clothes while Zen fought down the urge to flinch away. “The train scanned the newsfeeds, told us the Empire was hunting for you. We were worried for you, Flex and the train and we. So we set out to search. No one sees Hive Monks. No one stops us or questions us. We are only Hive Monks.”

  “Thank you,” said Zen. Feeling ashamed that a pile of beetles would go to such trouble to help him. Wishing the Hive Monks did not disgust him so.

  “There are police-bodies everywhere!” said one of the other Monks. “Railforce, eugh! At the station, on the streets.”

  “There are many, many that way,” said Uncle Bugs, pointing along the street in the direction that Zen and Nova had been going. Zen could see the searchlight beams there, where drones cruised to and fro above the city center.

  “You must hide,” urged the other Monks.

  Zen shook his head. “We must keep going. Sooner or later they’ll start wondering how I got here, and that will lead them to the Dog Star Line and the Damask Rose. We haven’t got time to hide. We have to keep moving.”

  “You keep moving and hide,” said Uncle Bugs. “We hide you. You hide in us.”

  Zen didn’t know what he meant at first. Then he understood, and wished he hadn’t. “Oh no!” he said. “No, no, no, I’m not doing that …”

  But what other choice was there?

  *

  Nova broke the locks on the doors behind them, and let them into an arch-roofed vault much like Flex’s place in Cleave, except that this one was piled with drums of chemicals. A burglar alarm asked tetchily who they thought they were and told them it was going to inform the police, but it was a cheap model and Nova got her mind inside it and calmed it down. The Hive Monks were already losing their human shapes, dissolving into boiling, glittering mounds of insects, empty robes crumpling like the clothes of melted snowmen. Zen’s mouth felt dry. This was going to be awful.

  But the insects held no terrors for Nova. She stepped close to the edge of one of those seething heaps. Bugs poured up her legs in dark shining streams, twining around her thighs, her torso, spiraling down her arms and out along her outstretched hands until her fingers were mittened with them. And still they kept coming, scrambling over one another, the winged females fluttering. They covered every part of her body and limbs, then piled themselves up to cover her head too. When she was entirely clothed in insects, she went carefully to where the fallen robe lay, picked it up, and pulled it over herself. The armature she folded up and stuffed inside the robe. She held the wasps’ nest mask against the front of her head and the bugs pulled it into place. When she turned to face Zen she was a Hive Monk—slightly larger than average, but who bothered to look at Hive Monks? Hive Monks went where they pleased.

  “But not out of the city,” said the mound that had been Uncle Bugs. “If police bodies see us leaving the city they shall say, ‘Oho, Monks stay in the stations, usually,’ and there will be questions and maybe pokings with sticks, and they find you hidden in us. So we must go down through the stations to the old platforms. The train will meet us there. We have discussed this all with the train and Flex. The train will be there in one hour. We must find our way by then.”

  “I can take us there,” said Nova, slightly muffled, from behind her Hive Monk’s paper face. “I have maps of the station in my head.” She tried moving about. The burlap robe was too short on her: her bug-covered feet showed under the hem.

  “Crouch down
a bit,” Zen told her. “Bend your knees. And don’t walk so smoothly. Walk like a drunk person balancing a glass of wine on their head and trying not to spill any.”

  He eyed the nearest mound of insects, trying to will himself to step into it.

  “The covering of insects is not solid,” said Nova cheerfully. “Plenty of air gets in.”

  “What do you know? You don’t need to breathe! They’ll get into my mouth.”

  “No they w—” she said, and broke off spluttering. “Pleugh, eugh!”

  “I hate bugs!” said Zen. The thought of all those little feet creeping over him was making him sweat and tremble. But he looked at Nova, lurching and lumbering around the warehouse in her version of a drunkard’s walk, and knew it was the best disguise he had ever seen.

  So he shut his eyes, clamped his mouth tight, clenched his teeth, made bitter-lemon faces as he tried to squeeze his nostrils closed. And the rustling tide of bugs flowed up his body and engulfed him.

  It was not how he had imagined it would feel at all.

  It was worse.

  37

  Hospitals, questions, the harsh white light in poky little offices where policemen and Noon security officers made Threnody go through her story again. “He’s not really Tallis Noon. He was an imposter. He came aboard the Noon train at Adeli; Auntie Sufra took a liking to him… And a few days after he came on board, well, the train reached Spindlebridge…”

  They took Threnody in a ground-car to the control tower near the central platforms. Kobi kept telling them that she was tired and that she ought to be allowed to go home and rest, but they said Rail Marshal Delius wanted to speak with her. Drones from the news sites buzzed in swarms above the doorway as they hurried her inside.