Railsea (39 page)

“S
O,
”
SAID
S
HAM
. “Changed your minds?”

The crew of the moletrain
Medes
, hitchers of rides on the backsides of celestial dead, had made a fire at the end of the line. They were singing & eating, telling each other stories.

It was night beyond their firelight. More than once they heard what might be people around them, trying to be quiet. They stationed guards, but they were not much concerned.

“The last head controller is currently being dissipated into fish-poo,” Fremlo said. “I think the rest of the board is a little disoriented, don’t you?”

Sham nodded his damp head. With it wet he had realised how long his hair had grown. “I thought,” he said to Sirocco, “that you were going back.” He huddled in his towel.

“Know what happened?” Sirocco said. “Funniest thing. There I was, taking the angel apart. We’d hauled out loads of the bloody thing, & it suddenly occurred to me that with a little tugging of this, & a replacement of that with the other, I could start it up again. That’s sort of the key to salvaging: you don’t need to understand it. Anyway.

“So after a while & a few false starts, we get it moving. & we’re thinking about how to back up the moletrain so we can get the angel going forward, move them in tandem, get the angel-chassis back into the railsea. When someone says, I can’t even remember who it was …”

“It was you,” Benightly said to her.

“Can’t even remember,” Sirocco said. “Someone says, maybe we should just have a little quick look-see check how that lot’s getting on over the bridge. Took a vote, easy pass. Backed our way up, through that tunnel, heard a commotion. Here we are.” She dusted her hands in a
job-done
motion.

Here you are
, Sham thought.
Here you are indeed
.

“Tomorrow,” Sirocco said, “we start again. Back again. I mean, forward again—back to the railsea. & now you can come back with us.” She pushed her stick into the fire, roasting her supper. Sham took a bite of his own. He looked at the Shroakes in the flickering light. Caldera met his eyes. “Not,” Sirocco said, “that you’re going to. Come back I mean.” She smiled.

“Take a message for me?” Sham said. “To my family?”

“Of course,” Sirocco said. “What’s
your
plan, Sham?”

Sham stared at the fire.

For the railsea, most things would stay the same. Angels, on automatic, long-ago-programmed loops, would continue to police the rails. A few getterbirds would ply back & forward from the dead HQ, delivering automatic surveillance that would be filed against the end of the universe. The debt that the trainsfolk accrued would rise, owed this fossil company, compounding with interest into a sum ever more meaningless.

But thanks to Mocker-Jack, the angel that guarded the bridge was gone. & with the ministrations of the salvor, so was the corpse-blockage. It might take time—it might take years—but the crew of the
Medes
would not be the last visitors. The way was open.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said. “First I was thinking about updivers. I bet you’ve got suits, Sirocco? I wonder what’s up there.” He raised his eyes at the mountain silhouettes around them. “& then I was thinking, if you had suits to go up, you could use them to go down, too.” He jerked his thumb behind him, at the water. Sham listened to the huffy repetitive investigations of the water on the shore.

“Then I was thinking. Why change direction? I been heading this way so long.” He looked at Caldera. “I want to go where your mum & dad wanted you to go,” he said.

“Excuse me?” said Dero.

“What?” said Caldera. “We’re here.”

“They were so keen to learn from the Bajjer,” Sham said. “Their myths & stuff, yeah, but it’s a long way to go for stories, no matter how good. So I was thinking, what other sort
of thing could you learn from them, &
only
from them, hands on?”

The Shroakes stared. Their eyes grew ever wider & more fascinated.

“You remember that last carriage your parents left behind?” Sham said. “Near the bridge? The one that looked weird? I been thinking about it. Can’t get it out of my head. I think that’s what they wanted to happen. Seeing this place gives me an idea.”

DAYBAT

(Vespertilio diei)
Reproduced with permission from the personal collection of Sham Yes ap Soorap
.
Credit: China Miéville
(illustration credit 9.1)

N
O CLATTERNAMES, NO SWITCHES, NO THUD OF
wheels on rail. No rails nor wheels to thud them. Sham shouts in a new motion.

There have been goodbyes. The last rail of the railsea is long out of sight. Sham revels in crashing splash. He whoops in spray.

It took days & efforts & expertise to return to the senior Shroakes’ last carriage, to investigate Sham’s hunch, & to finish what, they discovered, had been started.

Its ceiling had been turned into its sealed underside. Its body made to taper, wedge-shaped & streamlined. Full of air-filled chambers. Housing was ready for a stripped-tree mast. Rope & stiff cloth was in a lockbox, at which Sham stared with recently acquired expertise.
Why should sails only work on trains?
he had demanded.

Over the water the upsky is thinner. The sun makes rainbows through the spray. They bob in enormous damp space. Daybe scuds, & Sham staggers. His rail-legs are no help on
this new deck. On this floaty upside-down water train.
We have to give this thing a better name
, Sham thinks.

Caldera & Dero look up from where they’re working the sail. Sham remembers Bajjer techniques & shouts instructions. Canvas billows, a boom swings & their vessel rushes through the water. Going they know not where.

Sham lifts the hatch in the deck to the little kitchen & the cabins below, rebuilt upside-down rooms. He pauses at the top of the ladder, watches Naphi.

The captain, last member of the crew, stares over the side at a silver-skinned throng of fish. Stares past them thoughtfully. Stares intently, leaning over to stare deep into the water’s dark.

Sham smiles.

With hugest thanks to Mark Bould, Nadia Bouzidi, Mic Cheetham, Julie Crisp, Rupa DasGupta, Maria Dahvana Headley, Chloe Healy, Deanna Hoak, Ratna Kamath, Simon Kavanagh, Jemima Miéville, David Moensch, Bella Pagan, Anne Perry, Max Schaefer, Chris Schluep, Jared Shurin, Jane Soodalter, Jesse Soodalter, Mark Tavani, Evan Calder Williams & all at Macmillan & Del Rey.

As always, I’m indebted to too many writers & artists to list, but particularly important to this book are Joan Aiken, John Antrobus, the Awdrys Sr. & Jr., Catherine Besterman, Lucy Lane Clifford, Daniel Defoe, F. Tennyson Jesse, Erich Kästner, Ursula le Guin, John Lester, Penelope Lively, Herman Melville, Spike Milligan, Charles Platt, Robert Louis Stevenson & the Strugatsky Brothers.

C
HINA
M
IÉVILLE
is the author of several books, including
Un Lun Dun
,
Perdido Street Station
,
The City & The City
,
Kraken
&
Embassytown
. His works have won the Hugo, the British Science Fiction Award (twice), the Arthur C. Clarke Award (three times) & the World Fantasy Award. He lives & works in London.