On the Train Read online

  And life went on whether or not you would remember a particular moment, a particular day, fifty years from now. Regardless of whether it stuck in your mind, you had to go through it. No, you had to get on with it. It seemed to go better when you tried to make things happen and didn’t just let them happen. Maybe it didn’t—how could you know for sure?—but it seemed to.

  Here in Dongorland, the people got what answers they had from magic. That had seemed pretty wonderful to Javan the first time he came here. Dealing with the smiling salamander in the grill and the blue-green elemental in the ice chest was different from fiddling with a gas burner or an electrical cooling unit, all right.

  But the people of Dongorland, from everything Javan had seen on The Train and out the window, were just that—people. They fell in love and fell out of love. They quarreled. They made up. They did what they could for themselves and for other people they cared about. They had different tools, but they used them for the same reasons and to get the same kinds of things people everywhere else craved.

  In fact, if you listened to the folk of this magic land, even the elementals dwelling deep within the underground stone quarreled the same way people did. And here, far above, the people were still busy cleaning up after them.

  Javan did his best to explain some of that to Luisa as they were settling down for the night and trying to get Irini to settle down, too. She gave him a peculiar look. “Did you let them put any mushrooms in your supper?” she asked.

  People from nonmagical cities said Dongorland mushrooms could fill your head with mystical visions. People from Dongorland didn’t say that was true. They didn’t go out of their way to deny it, though. And they charged more for mushrooms than growers anywhere else had the nerve to ask.

  “No mushrooms,” Javan answered. “I got to thinking about things, that’s all.”

  “Well, think about ways to make this baby quit wiggling and go to sleep,” Luisa said irritably. She didn’t care about what life meant or whether people in Dongorland were fundamentally different from people in Pingaspor or Namila. She cared about getting a good night’s sleep, or at least a halfway decent night’s sleep.

  And most of the time Javan felt the same way. But every so often, if you kept going around and around on The Train, how could you not wonder what the point of it was and whether it had any point at all? Javan chuckled softly.

  “What’s funny?” Luisa asked through Irini’s whimpers. Her tone warned that, whatever it was, it had better be good.

  “Oh, nothing, not really.” Javan reached for his daughter to see if he’d have any better luck quieting her down. How could you expect your moment of wondering about what things meant to coincide with your spouse’s? You couldn’t, and Javan’s and Luisa’s didn’t.

  Eventually—very eventually—Irini did go to sleep, which meant Javan and Luisa got to go to sleep, too. Javan pried his eyelids open the next morning with two small cups of snarlingly strong coffee. It wasn’t a morning where tea would turn the trick.

  Fueled by the liquid brain cells, Javan took his questions to Siilo. Yes, he knew Siilo wasn’t the most introspective man ever born, which was putting it mildly. But he couldn’t very well ask his own father, not here halfway around the world. So he tried Siilo instead.

  The old man must have been fond of him, too, because he didn’t just walk away or laugh in Javan’s face. He did say, “Not something I care about much.” He was trying to steer Javan away from those shoal-filled waters.

  Javan didn’t want to be steered away. “Do you ever think about these things?” he asked.

  “Little bit, maybe.” Siilo’s face said he didn’t care to admit even so much.

  “And?” Javan prompted.

  “I get on The Train, I’m a kid, younger than you when you board, like I tell you before,” Siilo said, his weathered features softening as he stared back across the years. “I want to get out of my home city bad, bad, bad. So bad I lift this and that to help me make my fare, you know? They yell ‘All aboard!’ and I jump on! You bet I do! So my city want me gone, too, or else they want me back.” His laugh held little mirth. “They not find out I lift stuff before I go. Then they forget about me, I hope.”

  “And?” Javan said again.

  “And I still riding, all these years later.” Siilo sounded proud of himself, and why not? “I get to be snack-seller’s helper, same way like you. Then I do my own selling, not work for nobody else no more. I get along. But I not sharp operator like you, get whole bunch of people working for me.”

  “Feh!” Javan still didn’t want to think of it that way. “What about the other things, the things that don’t have to do with work?”

  “What about ’em? Not much time for ’em,” Siilo said. “I have friends. I have lady friends, too, sometimes. Not like you and Luisa—no brats I know about. But when I young, pretty girls like me fine, oh, yes. Even now…It can happen, a pretty girl feel sorry for me and my white whiskers and my wrinkles, want to make old man feel good a little while. And you know what?”

  Javan took his cue: “What?”

  “Does still feel good, even once you get old,” Siilo said. “Nothing better, for sure. So I keep going. Why not? Sooner or later, they plant me at Liho or Thargorond or some place like that. Or they chuck my carcass into ocean from way up high. Or they cut me in cubes and grill me for snacks. Who knows? Who cares?”

  “They won’t grill you. You’re too tough and stringy,” Javan told him.

  “Could be. But you never can tell. Maybe I cook up nice. You see pigs like that sometimes.” Siilo scrunched up his face and gave an alarmingly convincing grunt. Then he went on, “But even after I gone, somebody like you show how to make super extra delicious snacks, he spice them the way I do, the way I learn you. I get remembered a little bit. How much more you can hope for than you get remembered a little bit after you gone?”

  “I don’t know,” Javan said slowly. Sure enough, you got on The Train when they yelled All aboard! You rode as long as you could. You saw what you saw. You did what you did. If you were lucky, they remembered you—a little after you were gone.

  Was there anything more to it than that? One more thing Javan didn’t know. He might find out. If he did, he hoped he wouldn’t for a long time. When he did—if he did—he guessed it would be too late to do him any good. But he wasn’t what you’d call sure about that, either.

  “Too much waste time,” Siilo said. “Back to work!”

  “Back to work,” Javan agreed.

  ***

  Introducing

  Rachel Turtledove

  Harry Turtledove

  Like her two sisters, Rachel grew up in a house where both her parents were writers. Most of what I write is science fiction and fantasy; so is a good part of what Laura does. It’s not surprising, then, that Rachel went to her first sf convention (a Loscon) when she was six months old.

  It’s also not surprising that—again, like her sisters—she grew up to be a good writer herself. Genetics? Environment? Some of both, probably. I have a first cousin who was a published author and an uncle who was a technical writer, while Laura’s younger brother has also sold several fantasy novels and short stories. And the girls all grew up in a house where the printed word was taken seriously. “Books are your friends,” we told them, and they believed us.

  Reading L. Sprague de Camp’s Lest Darkness Fall got me interested in Byzantine history and changed my life. Reading Peter Beagle’s The Folk of the Air turned Rachel toward Japanese history and culture the same way. Writers are dangerous people. They can turn your life around, and you don’t even realize till afterwards that they’ve done it.

  Rachel went to the University of California, Riverside, focusing on Japanese history and literature. She studied abroad in Kyoto for several months, and traveled to Tokyo and Hiroshima. After she returned to UCR, she earned her bachelor’s degree, covering herself in academic glory (yes, I’m her father, so I get to brag).

  About a month after
she got to UC Riverside, she noticed a fellow who was in her dorm. And Jason noticed her, too. They clicked, quietly and firmly, and they’ve been together for the last seven years, and married for three of them now. As someone who was lucky enough to have this happen to him, I know how precious it is.

  They live in Northern California these days, in the East Bay. Rachel takes after her mother (who, as well as being a writer, is also an elementary-school librarian) in being patient and understanding and really good with kids. She’s teaching preschool and having a terrific time.

  When Arc Manor/Phoenix Pick asked me to pick a younger author to work with me, I asked all three of my daughters if they wanted to do that. Rachel was the one who had the interest and the time to take a shot at it. She was up very late meeting her deadline, but she did it. “First Passage,” then, is her first published story. I doubt very much it will be her last one, and I don’t think that’s just a father’s pride talking.

  ***

  Book Two

  FIRST PASSAGE

  RACHEL TURTLEDOVE

  The Railroad ran behind Eli’s backyard, but The Train never stopped. The closest station was a week’s worth of travel by coach, half a month’s journey by foot. Eli had never taken The Train, but she knew its Road quite well.

  In a bed of gravel, two lines lay next to each other. East and west to travel the world. The rows of wooden ties stretched on and on in both directions, each one laid just a footstep apart from the next. At night, Eli would climb the ridge behind her parents’ old house and walk along the track from one beam to the next. White and gray, the gravel shone like broken bits of moon at her feet. She knew which of the planks were old and soft, where the wood had begun to feel like rot, yet not crumbly enough to warrant replacing. Workers delivered new beams as needed, but even those quickly developed their own sense of softness. Moss dressed the wood, spreading out of knots and grooves in a lacy patchwork. In the moist air, it would keep growing forever, if not for the passage of The Trains.

  When a Train passed, it ripped along the ground. It would begin as a tremble in the distance, quickly moving closer, faster and faster. In real towns, ones closer to the stations, Eli knew that The Trains kept to a firm schedule. But out here, those arrivals and departures were a mystery. There was barely enough time for people to scramble out of their houses. Neighbors in Ugara lived too far apart to shout the news to one another, but the rumbling earth was a simple enough way to broadcast an approach. People would drop what they were doing and run toward the base of the embankment that carried the tracks. Staring up at The Train, they would point and shout out, trying to remember details to boast about to friends unfortunate enough to miss out on the rare sight.

  The best Trains were the few that passed by at night, during one of Eli’s walks. Most folks were asleep in their beds, often too tired to untangle themselves from their mosquito netting and run out into the humid dark. Most nights, nothing came. There could be weeks or even months of nothing but walks with empty tracks. But if she was lucky, Eli would begin to feel a quiver in the air quite unlike wind. Then, a whistle would sound.

  Sometimes the whistles were deep, long hoots unfolding through the stillness; sometimes, a series of single-noted shrieks blasted out. Sometimes, it was merely the clanging of a bell. Sometimes, it was a mournful wail, wavering in tones—short, then long again—as if several horns were being sounded at once. With each note, Eli’s breath would jam up in her chest, her body tense with listening.

  She always had plenty of time to get off the tracks before The Train came.

  Settling herself on a tree stump or in a patch of dewy grass, she would watch as it thundered by. The Trains looked different at night. Oh sure, they always looked different. It seemed as if no one in Ugara had ever seen the same train twice. People said that all along the Railroad, too. But at night! Trains turned into long, snaky black bodies, streaming down the tracks, almost impossible to see where one car ended and another car began, except for the lights. Each Train had different lights to guide its way. One might have three yellow beams mounted from its engine. Another had strange blue lanterns, with glowing dots of light inside them that swirled and shimmered, possibly magic! Eli remembered one in particular with narrow red headlights, racing toward her out of the black like demon eyes. Part of her wondered if they had been eyes. And a few times, she was able to catch a glimpse of bright rooms inside The Trains and wondered what it would be like to ride herself.

  In a week’s time, it would finally be her turn.

  It was silly to waste the night coming up here. She had told Baroness Vasri she needed to return home to pick up a few things for the journey and say goodbye to her parents. It had been easy enough to fill her rucksack with extra clothes and bathing supplies. As usual, Mother tried to weigh her down further with food—flatbread wrapped in foil paper and small tins of sauces, mint and coconut, to remind her of home. Eli had protested, “The Baroness told me I didn’t need to bring anything to eat,” but her mother dismissed that with a cluck of her tongue.

  “Who knows what foods they make on The Train? No one here,” her mother chided. “Maybe it make you sick. Maybe it make you shit for days. Who will look after the children then? You think their mother will change nappies on The Train?”

  That had made them both laugh, just picturing the Baroness changing a nappy. Eli grinned just remembering it.

  But the real reason she had come back was to climb the ridge once again and look at the Railroad. It stretched out before her, as always. East and west to travel the world. To be sure, she would only be going a little ways, but it would be farther than she had ever gone before. Would the Railroad look different after she had traveled on it? Would she look different?

  She sat down, shivering even though it wasn’t cold. She sat through the night, but, as usual, no Trains came. It didn’t matter; hers was out there, somewhere up that line.

  In the morning, she rejoined the Baroness’ family. Slowly, they began heading east.

  Eli had been so anticipating her first passage on The Train, that she hadn’t prepared herself for the grueling carriage ride to the station—trapped in a cab with the Baroness’ two small children.

  As usual, four-year-old Rinatta and three-year-old Willin were left in her charge. The Baroness followed in the carriage behind with Sela, her personal servant. Willin, only recently three, had entered into his own stage of obsession over The Train, and was ecstatic at the chance to ride. Any enthusiasm Rinatta held for their journey was deeply hidden by her scorn for anything her baby brother loved.

  Looking at the tiny carved train Willin clutched in his hand at all times, she sneered, “Trains are for babies.”

  Willin, determined not to be babyish in any way, protested, “No, they’re not.”

  “Oh, yes they are!”

  “No! They’re not!”

  “Yes! They! Are!”

  “Nu-uh!”

  “Uh-huh!”

  And once started, the back-and-forth battle quickly reduced to barbaric grunting and hair pulling. Eli did her best to sort them out.

  “Rinatta, stop teasing your brother. Willin, let go of her braid.” Eli helped pry his fingers off one of his sister’s strips of dark hair.

  Rinatta, her hair now freed, tossed her braids and could not resist whispering one last quip. “You are a baby. You’re not even toilet-trained.”

  “Enough!” Eli thundered before hell broke loose again. “Willin is learning just fine for his age. And don’t forget you still wear a bed-time nappy, Rinatta.”

  It was certainly faster to change his wet nappies than having to stop every few hours for Rinatta to take care of business on the side of the road. She needed to go but didn’t appreciate the outdoors as a place to do it, and whined endlessly. Eli looked forward to getting to The Train, where the Baroness had promised there would be whole cars converted into washrooms.

  Traveling for a week and mostly having to sleep sitting up did not agree with Eli. The n
ovelty also wore off for the children, and they became fussy and bored. At least on The Train Eli hoped she would be able to take them to stretch their legs and explore. In the carriage, she could entertain them with singing songs and clapping games for only so long. She wondered how the Baroness and Sela were passing the time, but she rarely saw them, even when they stopped at night to make camp.

  The Baroness was a strange woman. Eli had decided that shortly after entering her service, and nothing came along to change her mind. It wasn’t only that she had no interest in her children. Eli assumed that was normal for a woman so busy and so rich, who had moved into a nothing-town like Ugara. Yet she had waited late into her life to have Rinatta, followed quickly by the birth of Willin. Eli knew from her mother, one of Ugara’s chief midwives, that a pregnancy at that age often took careful planning. So part of her must have decided she wanted them after all?

  The townsfolk had whispered and wondered about the Baroness ever since she moved onto one of the plantations. No one knew anything about the late Baron—if there had even been one. Neither the Baroness nor baby Rinatta had arrived wearing the white robes of mourning. Willin came along a few months later. Eli figured that stuff wasn’t her business anyway. The kids were there, so she would take care of them.

  “Are we there yet?” groaned Rinatta, pulling Eli from her thoughts. She had to give the child credit. For all their days of travel, she had heard that question only a few times.

  Suppressing a smile, she said, “Why don’t you look out the window and tell me what you see?”

  Rinatta crawled across the seat to roll up the leather window covering. She stuck her head out of the opening and then let out a wild shriek.