On the Train

by Harry Turtledove

  “I can see it! The station’s just ahead!”

  Willin bounced up and down on his bench. “Station! Station’s here!”

  Eli scooted over quickly to put a firm hand around Rinatta’s waist. The child was leaning so far out now, Eli was afraid she might go tumbling into the dirt below.

  “I can’t see!” wailed Willin.

  Without being prompted, Rinatta made room for her brother. Apparently, her excitement over their arrival made her forget to be snotty.

  Willin looked out, but the mules must have been kicking up too much dust for he quickly sat back down, rubbing his eyes. “No Train,” he reported.

  Eli gave him a hug. “It’ll come soon. And it won’t leave without us!”

  She took a peek out the window as well. The jungle had been cleared, leaving the earth bare and red. There was a bend in the road ahead, and coming up on their left was the station. There was a town just behind it. Sao Lindros, that’s what it was called. All her life, Eli had seen it as a dot on a map—the closest connection to the real world, yet so unreachable. And here she was. She noticed buildings of all different sizes, all made out of dark, red-brown bricks. Clay, thought Eli. That’s why the dirt is red here. Most of the buildings had thatched roofs, like in Ugara, but Sao Lindros roofs were mostly dome shaped, instead of rising to a point. Beyond that, she could see the station platform! And beside it, the Railroad, always the Railroad.

  As they drew up in front, Eli could see people standing under covered awnings, already waiting for The Train to come. Some were leaning against pillars, fanning themselves and trying to keep in the shade. Piles of bags and luggage huddled together in little groups, like bunches of colorful mushrooms. How long had these people been there? Eli wondered how much longer they would have to wait for The Train.

  Fortunately, she did not have to hold on to this worry for long. It took her a moment to realize that the coach had stopped. Yet she still felt a strange swaying sensation, as if her body were still moving. Then a familiar quiver began to pass through her.

  Eli flung open the door to the cab and kicked the stepladder to the ground. Leaping out, she turned to see her Train.

  This Train was black with a red underbelly. Even the huge wheels and gears that rushed beneath it were red. Two big lamps were positioned on either side of the engine, sending crisscrossing beams of light onto the track. Gusts of white clouds poured out of its smokestack and streamed over the tops of the passenger cars that followed. Windows flashed by, suddenly replaced by large boxcars and freight containers. The sides of these cars were plastered with posters, still too far off to examine properly.

  The whistle shrilled at an almost ear-splitting pitch. Some of the folks gathered on the platform covered their ears, but to Eli it was a welcome cry. She loved the intensity of this salutation and would not have wanted it any other way. Yes, this was her Train!

  “That our Train?” Willin’s voice came from behind her.

  Wrenching her eyes off the great locomotive, Eli saw the children standing up in the carriage. She held out her hand to help them clamber down.

  “ ’Course it’s our Train!” Rinatta was scoffing. “There’s only one Train in the world. It just goes around and around.” She hesitated, then looked up for confirmation. “Right, Eli? One Train.”

  “I don’t know the answer to that,” she replied honestly. “I’ve been watching The Train come down the Railroad for all sixteen years of my life. And I’ve heard enough different stories and ideas about it to fill each of those years. Some folks’d tell me that there’s just one Train, but it can change itself around, like a snake that sheds its skin. Others say, they all look different, so they all must be different. If you wait long enough, you’ll see an old Train pass through again. But I don’t think anyone in Ugara is old enough to have seen that happen yet.”

  “It’s magic,” Rinatta explained loftily to her brother.

  “Well, I don’t know about that either. There’s a few folks in Ugara who can use little bits of magic. Mostly midwives and the healing woman. Out on the Railroad, there should be lots of parts that make much more magic than we do. Where people use it every day, for everything! But I’ve also heard there’s parts that make none at all. So I don’t see how The Train could still run there, if it’s all magic. Some parts of it must take real work.”

  Both children nodded. The mystery of The Train (or Trains) was easily accepted by the young. They could appreciate the wonder, rather than trying to pick it apart. Eli felt relieved. If she thought too much on it herself, her head might burst. Or, worse, she might wake up back in her hammock bed in Ugara.

  But no, this wasn’t a dream. It was real. The Train’s wheels and gears groaned and squealed as it pulled into the station in front of them.

  “Quickly, children, we must get our things.”

  The Baroness Vasri climbed out of her carriage and began unwrapping the fastenings that secured their luggage in back. Terhan, the mule driver, hovered next to her, but she made no room to accept any help. Her sleeveless shirt showed off her long, muscular arms, which lifted the two heavy cases with ease.

  Eli let Terhan unload the smaller bags from their carriage. She herded the children over and helped both to slip the straps of a small rucksack over their shoulders. Hoisting her own onto her back, she then maneuvered a wheeled case with a handle in front of her.

  Sela, the Baroness’ servant, emerged at last from the other carriage. She surveyed the scene with her narrow, dark eyes, and gave Eli a curt nod of satisfaction. She did not offer to carry any of their belongings herself, nor did the Baroness ask her to. Sela was far too small and frail, her gray hair pinched up into a bun at the back of her head. When she stood next to the Baroness, they made a strange pairing. The Baroness was extremely tall for a woman, yet her body was thick and stocky, with almost no neck at all. What Sela lacked in height, she did not make up for in girth either—she was straight and bony as a dried stalk of sugarcane. Yet she had served the Baroness for decades and was closer to her than any other member of their household.

  “This way,” ordered the Baroness, already striding toward the station.

  “You may return home now. We won’t be needing any more assistance.” Sela murmured to their drivers. Terhan and his brother nodded and returned to their mules, automatically accepting the order.

  The group made their way toward the platform, the children darting ahead and then coming back to check on the three shuffling women. Little clouds of red dust puffed out from the wheels of Eli’s luggage.

  A small hut had been constructed directly in front. The man leaning out its large window grinned toothily at them. “You folks needing some tickets?”

  The smile faded as his eyes drifted back and forth between the Baroness and Sela’s expressionless faces. After that, he did not even look at Eli or the children.

  “We require five first-class tickets,” said the Baroness.

  “You can pay?” The man’s mouth fell open in shock. It was enough that anyone should be able to afford a first-class ticket, let alone five. Eli doubted the ticket-seller could even afford a ride in third-class—if he had ever set foot on The Train at all. His world probably ended here, at the edge of the platform.

  “I trust this should suffice.” The Baroness unbuckled her case and drew out several canvas pouches, wrapped with gold twine. She untied one and poured some of its contents into her palm.

  Small crystals spilled out, catching white, pink, orange shimmers in the sun. Eagerly, the man extended his hand and the Baroness allowed him to pick one up. He turned over its rough edges, admiring its size, then held it up to his lips and gave it a tentative flick with his tongue. His look of surprise changed to one of awe. Eli knew it must be good—she had never seen salt crystals so pure.

  “Those will be just fine, ma’am,” he stuttered as she passed him the bags. From the back of his hut, he pulled out a sheet of printed paper. He folded it along several creases and punched out five s
ets of tickets. The Baroness accepted hers, then stepped aside for Sela and Eli to take their own. The man looked uncertainly at the children, and then passed their tickets out as well. “Just head straight through the gate. Only passengers go on from there,” he said.

  Eli intercepted the children’s tickets, but let them take a good look before she put them away. “I’ll hold them until we get on board,” she told Willin and Rinatta. “We can’t lose these. They’re too important.”

  “What does it say?” demanded Rinatta, screwing up her eyes as she stared at all the letters that covered both sides of the ticket.

  Eli looked down and found she was not sure. The typed print was small and squiggly, and completely unfamiliar. What’s more, the scripts seemed to change. Every few lines looked different; some marks were long with lots of loops, others were short mixed in with flicks and dashes.

  Suddenly, Sela spoke. “First Class Ticket. Carriage 6. Compartment 15. Seat 3. Your seat numbers will be different, of course.”

  “How come it’s all funny-like?” asked Rinatta. She certainly couldn’t read yet, but at least she knew most of her alphabet.

  “Ugaran is not used on the Railroad. It is a nothing tongue, used in a nothing place. Sao Lindros is not much better, but at least you can move away from here.”

  Rinatta took this in solemnly. “So nobody’s gonna know what we say?” she asked.

  “Everyone on The Train uses the same words. They come from all over and speak from all over, so there had to be one way to communicate with each other. Like this. When you meet someone new on The Train, you will say ‘Kei kei’ and give a little bow. That means ‘hello.’ ”

  “Kei kei,” Rinatta echoed, copying Sela’s bob of the head.

  Eli was sure her face must look as shocked as the ticket-seller’s had when asked for five tickets. She would never have guessed Sela knew so much about the Railroad.

  The Baroness did not seem surprised, but she was clearly growing impatient. “Enough, Sela. You can teach them Traintalk later.”

  Traintalk? What is Traintalk and when did Sela learn about it? wondered Eli as the Baroness hustled them along through a turnstile gate. Its metal bars shifted as each of them passed through.

  “All aboard! All aboard, Sao Lindros!” someone was calling.

  Yellow arrows marked the way to The Train. The other passengers were already lining up, showing their tickets to a conductor in a blue uniform with a high collar. There weren’t too many people, most of them much older than Eli. She noticed a tired-looking man with dark skin and a thick beard, two women wearing colorful wraps. What had brought them to The Train? How far could they travel?

  Another conductor noticed their party and hurried over. “First-class?” he asked in a halting voice. Eli realized he was not speaking Ugaran, but she could still understand him. Evidently in Sao Lindros they spoke something still pretty close to her own words, not different enough to be called a separate language. She wasn’t completely out of her element yet. She could see his hair, damp with sweat under his blue cap. His jacket and long pants were much too heavy to be wearing under the beating sun.

  “You don’t need to wait in line, ma’am,” he told the Baroness.

  He ushered them toward the front of The Train. At least Eli could recognize numbers printed on the sides of the cars. Nine, eight, seven, six!

  The black doors were already open. A portable step had been secured to the platform to let them climb in.

  Willin grabbed at her hand and squealed in delight. “We’re here!” He and Rinatta looked ready to tear inside and own the place.

  “Hold on, hold on, let me get in first.” Eli fumbled with her wheeled luggage, not looking forward to lugging it up the steep steps. A ramp would have been far more convenient. Why couldn’t they have had that?

  Someone tapped her on the shoulder.

  Eli jumped. A gangly young man, close to her own age, stood beside her, even though she had not noticed his approach. He was dressed in all black, except for his tan ankle boots which were made out of a soft-looking leather. His hair was a sandy brown, tied back in a short ponytail. He grinned at her and said something she could not understand.

  Still feeling startled, Eli shook her head at him.

  He repeated his words to her. They had a clipped and easy sound to them, but she couldn’t follow. Then he gestured to her bag and pointed to himself. He held out his hand expectantly.

  “The boy wants to help us with our luggage,” Sela translated.

  “No one touches our things,” the Baroness snapped, glaring at him. “Bou.” Clearly, that meant “no.”

  The young man shrugged his shoulders and tossed the Baroness a placating smile as he backed off. He sidled further down the platform and out of sight.

  “You didn’t have to run him off,” sighed Sela. She was the only one who dared speak so straight to the Baroness. “He was probably just looking for money.”

  “It makes no difference,” said the Baroness. She hoisted her own bags up without great difficulty.

  “I’ll keep an eye on the children for a moment, Eli. You get the rest of the things up,” Sela offered.

  “Thanks,” muttered Eli. She tugged her luggage up one step at a time and entered The Train.

  The floor was carpeted, thick and green, reminding Eli of the moss that grew over the Railroad ties back home. The wheels of her bag sank into it. Awkwardly, she followed the Baroness down a long aisle, shame-faced at how her bag dragged uncooperatively with each step.

  The Train was even grander than she could have imagined. Glossy wooden paneling alternated with glass windows that led into individual train compartments. Inside, Eli glimpsed huge plush chairs, upholstered in the same green as the carpet. Other passengers were turning their heads to look at the new arrivals. Eli ducked her head down and kept her eyes on the floor. She realized her wheels were leaving little track marks in the carpet. Behind her, she could hear Willin and Rinatta creating their own scene, gleefully exclaiming over everything they passed.

  The Baroness stopped. “Here. Compartment fifteen. Eli, this is for you and the children. Sela and I will be across from you in number seventeen. Please get them settled in. You shall remain here until the dinner meal is served. I will return to bring you to the dining car.”

  Of course. The Baroness would not let herself be trapped in a confined space with her son and daughter for any great length of time. And they would be on The Train far longer than any carriage ride. It would be up to Eli to keep them occupied. The Baroness did not wait to see them in; she disappeared into the opposite compartment without offering further instructions.

  Eli noticed her compartment door had shiny gold handles, shaped like flower blossoms. Cautiously, she turned the knob.

  Everyone inside turned to look at her.

  The compartment was small, but already held three other occupants. A man and a woman were seated comfortably together on the side with an empty seat. Eli saw that they were a couple. They both shared the same plumpness and rosy cheeks. The woman’s ash-blonde hair was streaked with silver threads; although the man was mostly bald, his beard was graying in uneven patches. The other side of the car had three seats, all of which were taken by a stern-looking man with a hooked nose. He sat with his back against the window, his long legs stretched across the other two seats. As Eli entered, the man tucked up his legs, almost suppressing a horrified look as Willin and Rinatta both poked their heads in behind her. Eli did not blame him—surely no one would appreciate having a Train ride interrupted by the presence of these two rambunctious little ones.

  At that moment Rinatta let out a moan. “We don’t have to stay here, do we? I don’t like it!”

  “Rinatta, stop! You’re being rude!” Eli hissed, flushing.

  Fortunately, none of the companions seemed to understand. In fact, the plump woman actually began to smile. She spoke in what Eli was beginning to recognize as the clickety-clack sound of that Traintalk again.

&nb
sp; Eli shook her head to show she didn’t speak Traintalk. The woman raised her eyebrows, then got to her feet. She gave Eli a comforting pat on the shoulder and then pointed to the wall above the seats. An enormous brass rack was secured to it for storing luggage. Underneath the thick bars, Eli saw numbers printed above each headrest.

  “Oh!” She took out their tickets and looked for the numbers. At least she could recognize those. They needed seats one, two, and three. The stern man was sitting in seat number one. “Um—” Eli hesitated, unsure of what to do.

  The woman quickly realized her dilemma. She turned to the man and pointed at their tickets, speaking rapidly.

  “Sim.” The man was nodding resignedly. He moved to the opposite side of their compartment, filling up the rest of the row. Eli realized he had simply been taking advantage of the empty seats and giving the couple more space as well. Now every spot was taken.

  “I’ll sit in the middle and you two can take turns in the seat next to the window,” Eli decided. “Willin, you go first. Hop on up.”

  She expected Willin to be overjoyed, but instead he burst into tears. “Noooo, Eli. Noooo,” he sobbed, tears suddenly pouring down his cheeks. Rinatta, who had been pouting for a few minutes, took one look at her brother’s face and abandoned any attempts to keep herself together. “I wanna go home,” she wailed, and she started to cry too—loudly, to make sure her sobs could be heard over Willin’s.

  So much for trying to keep things fun. They were overwhelmed. Eli couldn’t be cross with them, even though she dreaded what kind of first impression this double meltdown was making on their new travel companions. She put Rinatta onto a seat and then sat down with Willin on her lap. She wrapped her free arm around Rinatta, who usually pushed away from any type of hug.

  “I know it’s scary. It’s a whole new world. I’m scared, too. It’s all right to be a little bit scared at times like this,” she reassured them, annoyed at the squeak in her own voice.