Gods of the Greataway (25 page)

Mentor said, “Let’s get back to Earth. I’m going to throw up.”

“For a clone of mine you don’t —” began Zozula irritably, but Manuel dug him in the ribs. The Girl was dozing, her body twitching restlessly, and she was mumbling to herself. Manuel took her hand and slid his arm around her elephantine body as far as he could, comforting her.

“She’s not well,” whispered Manuel. “Her body isn’t strong enough for what she wants to do, and her heart isn’t strong enough for her body. She needs to rest, but you won’t let her.” Gently he stroked the Girl’s hair and began to sing a lullaby from his childhood, softly, drawing a sad nostalgia from the words of long ago:

And the Girl’s eyelids fluttered open and she smiled. Then she slept again, more easily now. Zozula sniffed. Mentor started as Silver went stumping by with an expression of urgency, the parrot clinging unsteadily to his shoulder. There was some kind of commotion at the back of the carriage; then shortly afterward Silver returned to the cab. A sudden explosion startled everyone. Conversation ceased. The Train rushed on, faster than ever, swaying wildly. A light bulb came loose and dropped to the floor, shattering. The sliding door crashed open.

Silver stood
there. There was a wild excitement in his face. “We’ve run through a signal, shipmates! There be detonators on the tracks but we can’t pay them no heed — not us. We needs must keep a-going, leastways if we don’t want yonder black stoker to blow us all to Kindgom Come — that’s the short and the long of it!”

“But … The signal must have been against us for a
reason.”
A Neanderthal woman spoke quietly to Manuel.

Little brown Bambi overheard her. “Everything will turn out fine in the end!” she said gaily. “It always does. Except just once …” And she went quiet, suddenly quiet, remembering one Dreadful Thing that she always tried to forget and that she’d never told anyone.

Another detonator went off. “How realistic can you get?” Zozula’s comment was in tones of the utmost cynicism.

Silver flipped a small seat out of the wall and sat on it, swaying, regarding the passengers with a strange intensity. “ ’Tis a mighty dangerous thing we do, to be sure. His gaze wandered to Zozula, who stared back blandly, with a faint smile. The wheels screamed as the Train hit a curve.

“Very convincing,” said Zozula.

Suddenly the noise stopped, as though switched off. Manuel grabbed his seat as the Train seemed to rise into the air. Somebody screamed, and Sir Charles exclaimed, “By God —” pulling himself to his feet. The carriage tilted abruptly and he fell, smashing his head against a steel seat support. Now the carriage tilted end over end and Manuel ducked as Silver’s crutch came skimming overhead. Beside him, the Girl was falling toward the roof. People were screaming. Bodies tumbled in all directions, arms thrashing, legs kicking. A series of shuddering crashes jolted the carriage. Manuel hung onto his seat, letting it all happen around him, hanging onto the Girl’s waist. Then, his grip broken by her weight, he too fell, landing heavily on his back, the Girl on top of him. The carriage came to rest on its roof. For a shocked instant there was silence.

And Silver still
sat on his seat, now upside down. Manuel followed his gaze. Above him Zozula sat, unmoved also, seeming to hang impossibly from the upside-down seat, regarding Silver steadily.

Silver said into the stunned quiet. “Ye be the queerest passenger I’ve ever sailed alongside, and that’s a fact.”

“Not so queer as you, I’ll be bound.” Zozula’s smile held no joy. He twisted around and, holding the seat, lowered himself until he stood beside Manuel. “Where’s Mentor?” he asked.

“He’s all right.” Manuel helped the Girl, shocked from her catastrophic awakening, to her feet. “The door’s open over there, see? Let’s go and find out what’s happened.”

“If we can believe what we see.” Zozula picked his way through the milling, chattering crowd of passengers, following Manuel to the door. On the way he passed Sir Charles, who was staring incredulously at the blood that was smeared, wet and warm and red and
real,
on his hand where he had touched his head.

M
anuel stepped
down onto pale sand that felt insubstantial under his bare feet. He turned and helped the Girl out, saw Mentor emerge with Zozula, then walked away from the upturned carriage. He had the strangest feeling that he was walking on top of a flat cloud. The sand stretched into the distance, rising slightly to the horizon, featureless and smooth. The whole scene was bathed in a soft light with no visible source.

The carriage lay stark and black and wrecked. Bodies lay all around. Some of them moved, others were motionless and the force of their impact had half buried them. Manuel ran to one of them, a woman who lay twisted, her blood staining the sand. She whimpered softly as he turned her into a more comfortable position, straightening her legs and heaping sand into a pillow for her head. Nearby the Locomotive stood unscathed, majestic, making quiet steamy sounds of impatience. A cowled head looked out of the cab in silent contemplation.

“Water …” The woman’s voice was so faint that Manuel had to lean close.

“I’ll get you some. You’ll be all right.” He hurried up to Silver, who leaned against the carriage side, smiling.

“I reckon ye be wastin’ yer time, lad.”

“Just a glass of
water, that’s all. Where can I get some?”

Zozula approached. “I don’t think you can help, Manuel. I don’t think anyone can.”

“We can’t just leave her lying there! And what about all the others?” Too much death, too much horror. He seemed to hear the woman’s voice in his mind, pleading. He looked around frantically. The other passengers from Manuel’s carriage had by now climbed down and were wandering irresolutely among the bodies, occasionally dropping to their knees to feel a pulse or murmur a word of encouragement.

Manuel ran to the Locomotive and clambered up the steps. The cab was quiet, the gauges still. The fireman still gazed out of the window, his back to Manuel. When the boy tapped him on the shoulder, he didn’t move, but Manuel jerked his hand away, fingers tingling with a strange, psychic shock — not heat, not cold, but some sensation unlike any he’d ever felt before. He couldn’t bring himself to touch the fireman again; neither could he speak to him. The hooded creature’s very presence aroused a superstitious dread, the sight of his back was a hideous menace. Manuel swallowed, shivered and looked for water. He found a tap set into the tender, ran a trickle of brown, lukewarm water into a dirty cup and quickly left.

The woman was gone. The sand was smooth, as though she’d never been there.

The Girl stood nearby, with Zozula and Mentor.

“Where did she go?”

“I …” The Girl gulped. “I wished her away, Manuel. I couldn’t watch you upsetting yourself. I’d wish all the others away, too, but I can’t spare the psy.”

“But she was dying!”

Zozula took Manuel’s arm. “She wasn’t real, son. None of them are. Neither is the crash real. It’s all staged, all circumstantial evidence to reinforce people’s belief in the Skytrain. Soon they’ll start putting it all together again, and we’ll be on our way.” Indeed, breakdown cranes had already arrived and were swinging the carriages back into position.

“There’s a track … rails — look!”

“Why not?” Zozula smiled. “It doesn’t take much imagination. Look around you, Manuel. This place is an empty stage with a minimum of props. Just sand, track and Train. And a few bodies to occupy people’s attention.”

“It’s cruel.
Why do they have to use death to convince us?”

“Maybe it’s the one thing everyone believes in.”

Farther away, Silver was directing a crane, his crutch planted firmly in the sand, waving imperiously with his free hand and uttering a string of nautical oaths. Overhead, a boom swung ponderously and hooks were guided into position, engaging with projections on the upturned carriages. A railroad engineer might have objected to the methods used, but they were convincing enough for the passengers, who gathered around Silver, offering suggestions and encouragement.

Away on the horizon, the rim of sand became blurred.

Manuel saw the little brown girl standing nearby and joined her. She gave him a quick glance from doe eyes and said, “Isn’t it just awful? But it’ll be all right soon, you just see. Look, they’ve got our carriage back on the rails already.”

“So what’s going to happen about all the dead people?”

And Bambi said, “I don’t see any dead people.”

Manuel thought:
Maybe it’s me. Maybe this scene is designed to give everyone what he needs to see — and for some reason I need to see cruelty. But haven’t I seen enough, Belinda?

Silver went hurrying toward the Locomotive, swinging along energetically, leaving no trail in the sand. “All aboard, shipmates! Look lively, now!”

“But …” Manuel looked around in bewilderment. Bambi was already climbing into the carriage. The cranes were gone. The sand was taking on the texture of mist. The Train, tidy and straight, stretched into the distance.

And descending the slopes from the horizon, moving diagonally toward the Train, came a vast multitude. Thousands upon thousands of people, clad alike in drab clothing, converging silently upon the Train. The sight of them, unhurried and relentless in their advance, sent a shiver down Manuel’s spine and looking around, he saw Silver leaning from the cab, watching them, too. Silver saw him and motioned him urgently to get on board. Manuel paused, uncertain, wondering who all these people could be, and almost curious enough to find out …

*

The phenomenon
known as the Lost Army of the Greataway has been observed many times. It was first documented around 92,700C during the short years of the Outer Think before the war with the Red Planet. In the words of Psycaptain Go: “We had paused for revitalization — not more than five Earth minutes, I should say. We hung in a convenient Pocket and joined hands. Pride and Speedy were tired, although I could probably have gone on. Perhaps we relaxed the Sac [Invisible Spaceship]; I’m not sure. Anyway, suddenly, there they were, looking in. Hundreds of them, humans in the middle of Nothingness, just hanging there with limbs loose like dangling puppets. I must have clenched up with shock, because the Sac began to turn opaque and the faces faded. Since we were revitalizing, it was not convenient to ask the others if they’d seen what I’d seen. But Pride and I are empathetic, to a degree, and I sensed some surprise there. The situation was extremely dangerous because I’d lost concentration and, as I say, the others were tired. We had a drogue and a great responsibility, and here was I, unable to get these faces out of my mynde! The faces were expressionless only on the surface — because, behind that blankness, I sensed an unvoiced Need, almost, I think, a Question. In some unimaginable way, all those suspended people
wanted in
. We couldn’t take anyone, of course; to break the Sac, even in a Pocket, would have been fatal. So I tried to shut my mynde to them — one face in particular, that of a child of about five physical, occupied a portion of my mynde for months afterward, impairing my efficiency — and in due course I was able to Think again, if sporadically. Who were those people? Were they memories of all the faces I’d ever seen, dredged from my mynde by some quirk of the Greataway? I don’t think so, because Speedy remembered seeing the child, too. Were they the faces of the human dead? Such a notion is overly superstitious and also unlikely. The human dead over the ages are numberless, but there was a feeling of
finiteness
about the number of the people I’d glimpsed. And I saw no alien dead. So it remains a mystery, I’m afraid, and likely to remain so. Current theory precludes any rupture of the Sac.”

So said
Psycaptain Go, a long time ago.

Knowing nothing of this, Manuel decided to board the Train. It is probably fortunate that he did.

S
ilver
sat on his folding seat, leg outstretched, regarding his passengers benevolently. “We met a deadly test, shipmates, and we showed our true colors.” There was a roar of acclamation from his audience—and none were more enthusiastic than the Pirates, who set up a cry of yo-ho-ho! as they milled around at the rear of the carriage. Manuel noticed that Mentor had changed his seat. Now he sat several rows behind them, quite close to the Pirates. These rowdies were now stamping and yelling, and the rest of the passengers began to take up the cry.

“Splice the mainbrace!” shouted Silver suddenly. “Up spirits, me lads!”

“How lovely,” said Bambi.

Silver produced a large bottle of dark rum; others were handing around foaming bottles of champagne. Zozula and the Girl refused their bottles, passing them on. Mentor drank. Manuel held his for a second, looking longingly at the cool, bubbling liquid spilling down the neck, then handed it to Blondie Tranter, on receiving a sharp glance from Zozula. Silver drank ostentatiously, throat working, then jerked the bottle from his lips with a sucking noise and began to sing.

“Broach me a bottle of Old Jamaica.”

And the passengers joined in, “Heave-ho! and down she goes!”

“Drink with the Devil and meet your Maker!”

And the response
roared back, “Heave-
ho!
and down she goes!” And on the
ho!
Silver slammed his crutch against the wall, raised his bottle and drank again. Somewhere in there Sir Charles could be heard saying “… finest body of men it’s ever been my pleasure to …,” while beside Manuel, Blondie Tranter gulped down her champagne, a fair quantity bubbling down her chin and over her breasts, like a mountain stream over smooth boulders. Manuel laughed. The fun was infectious, and it seemed to him that Zozula and the Girl were spoilsports, sitting there disapproving like old Chine himself. He grinned at Blondie and she grinned back, and just for a second he was far away, remembering his childhood and Horse Day celebrations, the people of Pu’este all drinking kuta, laughing with one another, dancing in strange costumes that were obscurely frightening — just as these strange passengers were — but all the more fun for being scary.