by Neil Enock
The rails were a recent addition, running along the Girdle’s upper surface. Threads of hard-earned metal sitting beneath the bright sun, steam trains hurtling in both directions. Completed barely two decades ago, it had been meant to bring order and prosperity, to unify the settlements.
Instead, it had devastated them, the inhabitants flocking to the bright lights of the six Solar Cities, with Girdle City the brightest light of all. All along the route rural stations lay neglected, forlorn, migrants demanding higher pay and leaving whole crops to wither at a capricious whim. Leaving hardened men to exploit what little was left.
If the fishermen deserted the seas, Henson grimly thought, the Cities would starve for sure.
Reaching the front of the passenger coaches, he pulled back a curtain and found himself in first class.
The seats, the luggage racks, the soot-speckled windows, all were the same either side of the arbitrary divide. The only difference — and what the higher fare paid for — was fewer people. First class meant not having to scrum with everyone else.
Owlish eyes stared up at him from the section’s only occupant, a thick tome hiding half a round face, before dropping to reveal an inquisitive smile.
“I’m sorry,” Henson said, turning to go.
“No, no, please, join me, sir.”
Henson hovered, uncertain. There hadn’t been a single available seat in the carriage he had just come through, people and luggage crowding even the thin central aisle between the wooden benches. “I don’t have the right ticket,” he admitted.
“Never mind that!” the owl replied. “If the inspector comes by, I’ll gladly upgrade a fellow scholar of the line.” He beamed, lowering the book to his lap.
Henson eyed him coolly. “What makes you think I’m a scholar?”
“Well now. The cut of your coat, dusty though it is. Girdle City tailoring, I’ll warrant. And if not a scholar, at least an explorer, an adventurer, someone interesting? Plus, you have so little baggage — just that little satchel? Obviously not one of the usual farm workers.”
The owl’s tilted head, his close scrutiny, made Henson uneasy.
“You don’t trust me, sir?” the owl continued. “The way you pat the gun at your hip… Reassured by its presence? No killer thankfully, otherwise I would not be so generous with my invite! If you were a killer, sir, you would not need to feel for your weapon. You’d know it was there and that thought alone would give you the reassurance you seek. So, yes, an adventurer. One not averse to traveling in dangerous lands?”
Henson half-considered joining the third-class passengers. There, people stood or squatted with their wares and even animals. Usually for only one stop. The people who traveled third class never had far to go.
Or perhaps he could share the steps with the ragtag urchins, his legs dangling out over the tracks as they clattered by, faces and clothes darkened by smuts.
But what harm could this softly spoken man do? Even if he was too damned inquisitive by half.
He stretched out a hand. “George Henson.”
“Marcus Cairn. Um, Professor Marcus Cairn.” The shake was limp, but at least it was dry.
“And what are you a professor of, Mr. Cairn?” Henson said, taking a seat across from him.
“Why, the Girdle, of course! What else is there to investigate?”
Henson looked out of the grimy window. They were on a stretch of the line with sea to either side, blue waters sparkling in the sun. When he turned back, his smile was firmly in place.
“What indeed.”
“Have you ever been inside?” the professor asked.
Drumming his fingers on the wooden bench, Henson nodded. To admit he had would not be all that unusual. To suggest he hadn’t would contrast too strongly with his appearance, the clues the professor had already picked up. It would peg him as a liar.
“Remarkable, is it not?” the professor said. “That tunnel, stretching into the distance, blacker than the blackest night. One wonders what the Ancients used it for.”
Henson stared at him in genuine surprise. “Surely that is the least of its mysteries. The trains?”
“Ah yes, the trains that we have so clumsily replicated, that we have perched even more clumsily on top of their great structure, as if to claim it for our own.” The owl looked wryly amused. “And yet their tunnels have no tracks and the carriages we find below have no wheels. Sparking dreams and myths of a cavern somewhere, a treasure trove of Ancient, pristine, everlasting wheels!”
Henson laughed uneasily. That had been the legend that had set him on his path; exploring the more remote stretches of the Girdle, looking for whatever could be removed, reused, sold. Which, it turned out, had been precious little.
The professor, his eyes magnified by the thick lenses in his glasses, scrutinized his fingertips, running a thumb along their edges. “There are those, this scholar included, who think the example set by those magical trains has skewed our redevelopment. The Girdle has thrown down a gauntlet. Man might regress as far as basic agriculture, but by damn he won’t forget the trains!
“It is a challenge we should not have risen to. We should be focused on better plows, not steam engines. Fishing boats, not rails. Nails, not guns, which require the scavenged tubes of the Ancients because we are incapable of metal work to that degree of sophistication. Even our trains depend upon Ancient vessels being converted into the boilers we cannot create ourselves.”
“It’s only a matter of time—”
“Is it?” the professor interrupted. “You think we can reclaim what has been lost? You assume the Ancients ran this planet as a self-sufficient settlement?”
Henson’s stare widened. The academic licked his plump lips and continued. “There are those who think the underground, trackless railway is a mere by-product. That it was never intended as a means of daily transportation, as we use our steam trains. That it was merely a way of accessing the workings of the Girdle’s true purpose: the second, thinner tunnel.”
Henson felt bile rise in his parched throat. “Second?” he croaked.
“Yes.” The professor nodded. “The second tunnel. Fewer people know about that one. But you do, don’t you, Mr. Henson?”
“Another train track?” he asked, recovering.
“Too narrow for that. Too packed with machinery. Perhaps it is a good thing it is not so easily broached. It would be a shame for it to be torn apart by mere scavengers before we can attempt to understand what it is.”
The professor inclined his head once again. Held out his hand. “May I see your weapon, Mr. Henson?”
Henson looked down to white knuckles clamped over his holster, fingers clipping and unclipping the leather fastener. He hadn’t even realized he was doing it.
And now this scholar was asking him for his gun…
“Careful,” he said, reluctantly handing it across the narrow divide. “It’s loaded.”
“Interesting…” muttered the professor, poring over the device, fingers carefully exploring every facet. “The trigger mechanism is your own design?”
Henson nodded. He’d paid a small fortune for the eight-inch length of smooth, Ancient pipe. Everything else — even the gunpowder — he’d had to learn to make himself.
It was the price of the indestructible metal barrels that meant such guns were few and far between. And would stay so, until they learned to work Ancient materials, or at the very least, dismantle their machines to liberate more of the precious tubes.
The professor handed the weapon back, casually, nonchalantly, as if it were no more than a plaything in which he had lost interest.
“So, the second tunnel. My own theory is that it — indeed the whole Girdle — is a scientific experiment. As big as the Ancients could possibly make it: the size of a whole planet. A gargantuan device powered by the Solar Cities.”
“An experime
nt? To do what?”
The professor shrugged, his rounded shoulders hiccupping. “We lack the knowledge to even contemplate the workings of the machine, let alone what it was built to prove or disprove. And we may never know. You see, to understand their experiments we would have to become the Ancients. And I don’t think they lived here.”
“But … where then? Are we not descended from them? And what about the City buildings, their homes, now ours?”
Another shrug. “Left behind. Temporary accommodation. As for us, well yes. Descended we must be. But from the scientists, or from the equally discarded workforce that constructed their device?”
The professor settled back into his seat, flipped out his bulky pocket watch, tapped the glass surface and peered out of the window, though there was nothing to see but the dazzling blue waters. “Either way, the Girdle is too big a thing for this planet, too big for the pitiful population the thin strip of land and adjoining islands can bear. So I think they set it up, left it running, and left our ancestors behind at the same time.”
“The experiment is still running?”
“Probably not.” He smiled. “Perhaps our ancestors weren’t supposed to be here. Perhaps they — we — are not guardians but strays, here by accident. Either way, our scavenging down the years is likely to have disrupted the operation.
“But maybe it was only designed to run for a dozen, fifty, a hundred years. Who can tell?”
Henson sat mulling over the professor’s words. The accusation of “scavenger” needled him, but was there any truth to the rest of it?
“An interesting hypothesis,” he admitted. “But no more than that, surely? Do you have any proof? Is that why you have traveled so far from the cozy comfort of Girdle City’s libraries, in search of verification?”
The barb wrought a sour look from the professor. “My own area of expertise is a little narrower than the entirety of the Girdle. And yes, Mr. Henson, I suppose it is just a theory. I’m particularly interested in Ancient tools. The off-cuts and spares — like those that form your gun — are limited and nearly depleted, though men such as yourself continue to search the length and narrow breadth of the Girdle for them.
“We know we cannot break down their devices; that no amount of force or fire seems to make the slightest dent on the metals they used. But we also know that the Ancients put them together. We think it is some sort of magnetic coupling. Finding a device that allows us to dismantle the Ancient machines… That would be very valuable indeed.”
Professor Cairn checked his pocket watch again. “Well, Mr. Henson, it’s been a pleasure, but I need to be ready for my departure.”
Henson nodded, then frowned. “Girdle City won’t be for another couple of hours yet.”
“Indeed. However, there will be another stop before then.”
“It’s not scheduled—”
The wheels of the Girdle train shrieked demonically. Curses and luggage flew forward from the carriage behind, and Henson lurched in his seat. Professor Cairn, with his back pressed to the bench, watched indulgently.
“There. My stop.”
Through the window, Henson caught a glimpse of a man carrying luggage. His luggage! That box was the fruit of nine months of hardship, of sacrifice. He sprang up, reaching for the pistol at his waist, then froze.
The professor’s easy grin had slipped, and, in its place, a snub-nosed device had appeared in his pudgy hands. Something had hardened about him, as though he had dropped a mask.
“Please, take a seat, Mr. Henson. These men are friends of mine, and I’d rather you didn’t do anything foolish.”
Henson fought against the tension. Small though the gun was, it was pointed at him from barely an arm’s length away. Impossible to miss. He considered making a grab for it, but that was an awfully desperate measure, a last ditched, life-already-forfeit action. Slowly, carefully, he sat, his hands raised in front of him, well away from his gun belt.
“Good, good. And now, if you please, slide your satchel toward me.”
There seemed little point in arguing. Especially as he could hear shouts of protest from within the carriage, along with sudden gasps and yelps as that protest was roughly stifled.
He slid the satchel across the floor with an outstretched foot, eyes locked on the professor’s. Waited until those eyes wandered, until a hand fumbled blindly for the strap.
But the owl’s gimlet gaze — and aim — didn’t wander.
Not until the curtain was tugged aside and a dust-streaked figure appeared, scarf wrapped around his — no, her — head. Professor Cairn — if that really was his name — pushed the satchel toward her. “Check it.”
She hoisted it up, flipped it open and turned it upside down, resulting in a clatter of Henson’s most precious possessions. Her booted foot rummaged through them, crushing the pages of his notebooks disparagingly, before she pounced on the dull gleam of a hip flask.
The professor shook his head. “Leave the man his liquor, Marie-Anne.”
There was a fierce wordless battle, before she averted her eyes and tossed the flask through the air. Henson clumsily caught it, catching a scowl in the bargain.
“Ah,” the professor said, nodding down the carriage. “Here comes the trunk.”
Henson’s heart sank as another ragged figure appeared. This one was a good foot taller than the woman, two feet taller than the professor. An ox of a man, carrying the heavy box on his own. Cringing second class passengers shrank away from him as he passed, cowered in fright as he dropped the trunk to the carriage floor.
Henson heard it crush the things that had once lived in his satchel and winced.
“Careful Sam!” the professor admonished. “What’s in it?”
“Locked,” Sam replied thickly.
The professor turned to the owner of the box. “Open it,” he ordered.
Henson wavered, until the gun wagged. Reluctantly he fished the key from around his neck, slotted it into the lock, heard it click.
He was about to raise the lid when a slim boot slammed it back down, stopping him in his tracks. “Uh-uh,” Marie-Anne said. “Back to your seat, mister.”
He sat, cursing silently as the stout lid was swung open and the three of them crowded around, Marie-Anne on her knees as though praying before an altar. Even through the scarf Henson could tell she was beaming. “Pay dirt, Prof.”
The professor gave a small bow. “I thank you for that, sir. I’d ask the source of such glorious bounty, but doubt you’d be willing to tell and time presses. Never mind. Our paths may cross again Mr. Henson, and if they do kindly show me the same respect I have shown you.”
As he turned to leave Henson drew his pistol, hesitated for the briefest of moments as he tried to recall the last time he’d checked it was primed, before savagely pulling the trigger.
There was a flat clunk as something misfired. The steel wheel didn’t spin, didn’t strike the pyrite block, didn’t send a shower of sparks leaping toward the powder charge. A flat clunk, with no explosion, no speeding bullet.
The professor looked balefully over his shoulder, his hand restraining his companions, holding back the anger in Marie-Anne’s eyes, the dull hate in Sam’s.
“I’m disappointed, Mr. Henson. And more than a little surprised. In the back as well! Perhaps you’ll become a killer yet. But not today and not if you let an old fool tamper with your gun. Sam, take the box. Marie-Anne, relieve Mr. Henson of his weapon.”
The girl stooped to the discarded satchel, seized the powder pouch, the spare musket balls, the bottle of oil, even his tinderbox, before triumphantly grabbing the precious gun from Henson’s immobile hands. The rest, the notebooks, the hand drawn maps, she kicked savagely under the bench.
“My apologies, Mr. Henson,” the professor said. “It is best not to upset Marie-Anne. Such a temper! Good day.”
Slumped i
n his seat, Henson watched through the train window as they climbed down from the carriage and were joined by two more men, the five of them heading toward a waiting fishing boat, the professor walking sedately, the others giddy with excitement.
Some catch they’d landed today, he thought bitterly.
He leaned back on the hard wooden bench and sighed. Uncapped the returned hip flask and took a small sip, wetting his lips. He didn’t drink deeply; it was too potent a brew for that. Whatever they had done to stop the Girdle train in its tracks, it might be a while before it started up again, especially if the repairs were more than the onboard engineer could manage. It could be a long wait.
The contents of the stolen trunk he’d found in a building buried by drifting sands, at the tip of a spit of land miles from the Girdle. More pieces of Ancient metalwork than he’d managed to scavenge over the preceding four years, a treasure that would be sorely missed. And yet…
His fingers fluttered to his inner pocket. He checked there was no audience, that the gang hadn’t changed their mind and come back for more plunder, before extracting a gleaming tool, staring at it in wonder, still somehow miraculously his. It was this slim silver wrench that had allowed him to carry the piping away, the gentle click as it was applied to each section, releasing the locking mechanism within.
A device far more valuable than the simple pieces the professor had stolen.
Henson had thought to demonstrate the tool before the rich men and scientists of Girdle City, constructing and dismantling the parts in his trunk. Thought to auction it to the highest bidder, setting him up for life; no more scraping in the dust for things the Ancients had thrown away.
Such a foolish daydream. To swap this for a mere sack of coin? The professor had taught him a valuable lesson. Why, with this tool a man could build a new world! Build and rule. With all those Ancient treasures lying barely twenty feet below the endless train tracks, what couldn’t he achieve?
He slipped the wrench back into his chest pocket where it nestled next to a heart gone cold with the grim determination to never let anyone stand in his way again.
