The handle of the locked connecting door ratcheted back and forth.
'Gregor?' It was Crezia.
'What are you doing locked in there?' she called through the door.
'Just discussing things with Aemos/
They're serving hot punch in the salon. I thought we might mingle/
'In a minute/1 called out in reply. There was a lurch and the train started to move again.
I looked at Aemos. 'The things we've spoken about… they don't go any further. Not yet. Crezia doesn't need to know, neither does Eleena, come to that.'
'My lips are sealed/ he said.
We came out of the blizzard and down a comfortable gradient into Locas-tre. It was nearly midday. The bad weather lurked like a grey wall behind us, veiling the Uttes, but reports suggested it was moving into the valley.
At Locastre, the porters announced a ninety minute stop.
I told Eleena to make sure the express didn't leave until Aemos and 1 were safely back.
Locastre occupies a cleft valley gouged by glaciers. The old buildings are dark grey – granite stands in for the traditional Gudrun ouslite used in the lowlands – and the altitude and climate is such that pressurised, heated tunnels of armourglas sheath the streets. I hired a servitor litter and had it scurry me through the warm, damp street tunnels, as ominous squalls of snow peppered the transparent roof above.
Outside the office of the Astropathic Guild, I told it to wait and left my credit bar locked into its fare-meter as good faith. It settled low on its spider-limbed chassis, venting steam from its hydraulics.
There was a message from Nayl waiting for me in the Aegis account. He had made good time, and was already in New Gevae. Passage off-world had been arranged with a freighter called the
Nayl's communique was in Glossia and I phrased my reply the same way. Weather permitting, we would be in New Gevae in two days. On arrival, I would arrange a meeting with him.
'Is that all, sir?' asked the adept attending me.
I remembered Crezia's comments over dinner about Nayl being trustworthy. I added another line, suggesting that the situation reminded me of the tight spot we'd been in on Eechan, years before, facing Beldame Sadia.
'Send it, please/ I said.
Up at the station, the express sounded its horn.
The express rumbled up into the Central Atens, chased by the weather. Despite the fact that we were now scaling some of the steepest and longest gradients in the route, the locomotive was running at full power, trying to outpace the snows for as long as it could.
The main range of the Atens, through which we now travelled, included the greatest mountains on Gudrun: Scarno, Dorpaline, The Heledgae, Vesper, Mount Atena. Each one dwarfed the peaks like Mons Fulco that we had encountered earlier. They seemed as dark and cyclopean as tilted continents.
They were also beautiful. Peerless tracts of blue-white ice, unblemished leagues of snow, sharp sunshine that almost twinkled like starlight in a vacuum.
Until, before nightfall, it all vanished. Freezing fog and vapour descended like a stage curtain, sealing out the light and dropping visibility to a few dozen metres. Then snow began to flutter again and our speed decreased. The weather had caught up with us.
'Gregor?' I had been watching the snowstorm. 'Come in here/
Crezia beckoned me through the connecting door. Medea was awake.
The cyberskulls hovered back to give me room as I sat down beside her cot. She looked tired and drawn, faded almost. But her eyes were half open and she managed a thin smile as she saw me.
'Everything's okay. You're in safe hands/
Her mouth moved, but no sound came out.
'Don't try to speak/ Crezia whispered.
I saw curiosity in Medea's eyes as she focused on Crezia.
'This is Doctor Berschilde. A good friend. She saved your life/
'…long…'
'What?'
'How long been sleep?'
'The best part of a week. You were wounded in the back/
'Ribs sore/
'That will pass/ said Crezia.
'They… they get us?'
'No, they didn't get us/ I said. And they're not going to get us either/
Shrouded by the bitter blizzards and maintaining no more than sixty kilometres an hour, we journeyed on across the roof of the world. I ventured out into the public areas and even to the salon a few times, and found that diverting entertainments had been laid on: buffet meals, music, card schools, a regicide tournament, screenings of popular hololithic extravaganzas. Uniformed Trans-Continental personnel were out in force, keeping everybody happy and volubly disseminating the notion that being caught in an Atenate icestorm was all part of the romance of the famous rail line.
And not a potentially lethal misfortune.
If the locomotive derailed, or the power plant malfunctioned, and the train became stranded in the midst of a blizzard that lasted more than a couple of days, we'd freeze to death and they'd have to wait until spring to dig us out.
Of course, in the nine hundred and ninety years of the Trans-Atenate Express's operation, that had never happened. The train had always got through. It was a remarkably secure form of transport, given the terrain it crossed.
But there is a first time for anything, as people can be forgiven for thinking. Years of experience warned the train staff to start reassuring and distracting the passengers the moment weather closed in, or they'd have a panic on their hands. The idle rich can be such worriers.
* * *
We came to a halt four times before dawn the next day. The first time was at about ten in the evening. The tannoy informed us that we were waiting for wind speeds to ease before crossing the Scarno Gorge Bridge and that there was no cause for concern. Less than five minutes later, we were on our way again.
I was still awake at one when we gently coasted to a stop again. I felt uneasy, and after fifteen minutes, tucked the autopistol into my belt, strapped Barbarisater to my hip and covered them both with Aemos's long green over-robe.
The hallway was dark, the lights dimmed to an auxiliary amber. Little green cue lights glowed on the staff-only monitor display that was set in the panelled wall at the end of the car.
I heard someone coming up the spiral stairs from the car's lower deck and turned to see a steward who regarded me quizzically.
'Is everything all right, sir?' he asked.
'That was my question. I was wondering why we'd stopped.'
'It's just routine, sir. We're just coming over the Scarno Gradient and the Master Engineman has ordered a check of the braking elements in case of excess icing.'
'I see. Just routine.'
'Everything's perfectly safe, sir/ he said with well-rehearsed assurance.
