Railsea

like a, um, & it knows where this thing is.” Naphi’s face gave away nothing. On Sham plunged. Talk-tunnelled through the captain’s dirt-cold silence like a conversation-mole.

“I thought maybe it might interest you.” He gave a rambling & rattling description of what that odd thing did. “After what I heard—I was in the pub, Captain. It’s been an honour serving with you & I was hoping maybe you might let me do it again.” Let her think he was a brownnoser, & ambitious. Fine. “& I thought this might be of, like of help, you know.”

The captain tugged at the bat’s leg, hard enough to make Daybe squeak & Sham wince. Naphi looked intent. She was breathing a little faster than a moment ago.

“Did your friend tell you,” Naphi said, “where such items might be obtained?”

“She did, Captain,” Sham said. “Scabbling Street Market, it’s called. It’s on …” He hesitated, but where else did one get the cuttingest-edge salvage? “On Manihiki.”

Oh, she looked up at him then. “Manihiki,” she said. The most gentle & sardonic ghost of a smile haunted her lips for a few seconds. “Out of the goodness of your heart, you bring me this.” Still her mouth was haunted. It twitched. “How enterprising. How enterprising you are.

“This might be of use, true, Soorap,” she said at last. He swallowed. “It’s a possibility,” she said, “to be pursued.” She stared into space. Sham could almost see the train of her mind grinding over plan-rails.

“So,” he said carefully, “I just thought you might want to know there are those things on Manihiki. & if you’re travelling again, you know …”

“How did you find me, Sham ap Soorap?”

“I just heard you might be here,” he said. Was she having a tryst? he thought. He had barely stopped to wonder how badly he was intruding. “Someone said you were—”

“That I was meeting someone?” she said, & with that perfect timing, a person behind Sham said Captain Naphi’s name.

He turned, & it was not the secret lover he had momentarily imagined. It was Unkus Stone.

TWENTY-FIVE

AFTER THE SHOUTS OF GREETING, SHAM’S HAND still on the older man’s back, he realised Stone was limping, badly. That he supported himself on sticks.

“How did you even get here?” Sham said.

“Got better,” Stone said. He smiled, but it wasn’t what he wanted it to be. “Thumbed a ride on a Streggeye-bound carrier. A mail train. Legs gammy or not there are things a trainsman like me can do.”

“Hello, Stone,” Naphi said.

“Captain Naphi.”

The silence became excruciating.

“Should I go, Captain?” Sham said. But I’ve only just got started, he thought. I had you all interested in my salvage! We was getting somewhere! Next thing we’d have been going somewhere!

“What are you here to tell me, Stone?” said the captain.

“Rumours,” Stone said. He met Sham’s eyes & glanced at the doorway, inclined his head.

Sham got the message. Despondently he turned & walked towards the door. He tried to strategise as he went. But there was a scraping sound, & the captain said his name. She had pulled another chair into place.

“If it’s rumours,” she said, “I’d not be so foolish as to think that any trainsperson wouldn’t soon hear it anyway.” She pointed, with her bone-&-metal-&-wood finger. “& I’d not be so mean-spirited,” she said, “as to make her, or him, wait any longer than necessary.” Sham bowed thanks, heart racing & sat. “So. I appreciate you being the conduit of whatever it is you’re conduiting, Mr. Stone.”

“Well,” said Stone. Coughed. “We’re being followed,” he said.

“Followed,” said Naphi.

“Right. Well, you are. Or were. See, Captain, I was in bed for a long time, back on Bollons. But after a while, I got up.” He shifted. “Did a few odd jobs. Got to know the nurses. Some of the people around. Got to hobbling myself around the area. Got to knowing the byways, & the—”

“Do please,” said Captain Naphi, “expedite this journey relevance-ward.”

“So one of the fruit-sellers I knew was asking me who were my friends.” Stone almost stuttered in his efforts to speak quickly. “He says there’s people asking about what happened to me. To us. Asking for information. Said they’d heard something from someone, from a woman who’d heard about something we’d found …” He shook his head & shrugged. Sham swallowed, & shrugged, too. I don’t know anything about that either! he managed not to yell. “They were asking about our journey. The wreck. About the crew. Asking about you, Captain. First I thought it was all nothing.”

“But,” Naphi said.

“But. See, when I got on that mail-train to come back, after a couple of days, there’s a little train behind us. Miles off. A smart engine, a single-car & whatever it’s burning’s not putting out much exhaust that I can see. Top-notch quality. I know a good vehicle when I see one, & it should’ve been going a mad clip. But it stayed the same distance behind us. For way too long.

“Even then, I might not have thought anything of it. It was gone after a while. Except I saw it again. & not only that.

“We were in a plain. No hills, forests, nothing. Nowhere to hide. I saw it again, & then there was another. Keeping their distance.”

“Following you,” the captain said. “Even assume that were true, surely everyone knew where you were going?”

“They knew where I said I was heading, Captain. & I was going there. But maybe they thought I was going somewhere else. Like they thought we had a plan.”

“Thank you, Unkus Stone,” the captain said at last. She nodded. “Well. Well, whatever our peculiar tails think they know, they’re bound to disappointment. After all I’ve no secrets to give them.

“Well.” Naphi sat up & sniffed. “Rumours must have eddied around us. Rumours & wrongnesses. If they decide to, whoever our unwanted disciples are won’t have much difficulty finding out where we’re going next. & going again I am. Would you like to accompany me?”

“Another voyage already, Captain?” Stone said. “It would be an honour.” He swallowed. With his legs as they now were, Stone wouldn’t be first choice for many crews. Naphi was going a mile for him that many would not. “So we going back down south?” Stone said. “More great southerns to find?”

“Of course. That is, after all, our job. But perhaps this will be a long trip, this one. You never know where we might end up, or by what route we might have to go.”

But seeing her eyes, seeing how the captain stared at the mechanism clipped to Daybe’s leg, Sham in fact suspected he did know. Did have a good idea of where any detours might take them. & the excitement battered on the inside of his chest. At that moment it felt in his ribs just as he imagined it would if Daybe was flying around in there.

TWENTY-SIX

DID WE—?

The maintenance of a log is indispensable. A good officer will be diligent, & treat any such document, whether typed into a digital machine, handwritten on fine paper, tugged into the knot-writing of the northern railsea, or whatever, like the external memory it is. Focusing on what was done & what followed should clarify causes & effects.