Chapter Text
The world was white outside the porthole. Calm, soft, covered in a milky dreamscape that stretched for as long as the eye could see. Kim leaned his temple against the cold, smooth surface. It was comforting, somehow, the way that it didn’t matter whether or not he had his glasses on; the world outside was just as unfocused and fuzzy. The tempered glass vibrated against his cheek, ever so slightly – the constant movement of a combination of rotors and sails supporting the balloon envelope that held the whole thing aloft.
The overwhelming excitement of being on an aerostatic had subsided, finally, after several hours. In that time, he’d gone through the entire craft from stem to stern, looking into every possible place he was allowed, and once, with Trant’s help, one where he was not; the man was surprisingly good at picking locks. He’d filled a whole notebook already and started on a second, and twelve new photographs were gently pressed between the unused pages. He felt embarrassingly calm and content, like a toddler that had worn itself out with playing. So had Harry, who was sleeping face-down on the table opposite, snoring deeply after having followed him into every nook and cranny, just as excited to learn new things. Kim gave him a fond smile and looked out the window again.
To his left sat Jean, folded up like a big spider, knees drawn up to his chin. He was dozing, a rare look of relaxation on his face. Judit was leaned against him, sleeping as well. About half an hour ago, Kim had watched Jean slowly and carefully first disentangle himself from her, take off his jacket, drape it over her and then proceed to snuggle down with her again. Watching it out of the corner of his eye, it had been hard not to smile, and Kim hoped he’d succeeded. Jean had looked embarrassed enough just doing it. The fifth chair, on Harry’s right, was occupied by Trant, engrossed in a thick book – the third so far since they left Revachol. He kept flipping between them, unable to choose one to focus on.
Kim was on the brink of dozing off himself when a crisp, professional voice cut through the relaxed atmosphere, jerking several other passengers awake.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we’re approaching the near-pale. Time to prepare.”
All drowsiness forgotten, Kim leaned over and shook Harry’s shoulder gently. He grunted and tuned over, looking at Kim with bleary eyes.
“Whu-?”
“Transit time.”
“Oh, fuck!”
Harry went from deep sleep to awake and extremely nervous in about two seconds flat, which seemed like some sort of record even considering how disturbed his sleeping patterns were normally. Trant laughed pleasantly and patted him on the shoulder.
“Calm down, Harry. I’m sure you’ll get through this swimmingly. Everyone remembers their training?”
Kim sat up straight and adjusted his glasses. “Yes.”
“I sure fucking hope so,” Harry muttered, furiously patting his pockets for the notes he’d made sure to bring if he would forget his Volta do Mar.
Kim gave him what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “Just breathe and concentrate on the words. Like we practiced.”
Harry nodded nervously.
The stewards were walking around, making sure everyone was awake and prepared. If there was one thing entroponetics had established, it was that passing the pale without being awake, without a conscious shield against the onslaught of absence, was more likely to result in permanent brain damage by at least a factor of ten.
“One minute to porch collapse,” the announcing voice declaimed. “Please remain calm.”
Kim let his breaths come measured and regular, not too slow, not to fast, cycling in a four-beat pattern of in, hold, out, hold as he started to repeat his own Volta in his head.
Ecco mormorar l'onde
e tremolar le fronde
a l'aura mattutina e gli arboscelli,
e sovra i verdi rami i vaghi augelli
cantar soavemente
e rider l'oriente…
“Entering near-pale. Please remain calm.”
The voice in the speakers disappeared, all unnecessary communication cut off to reduce the pale interference. Despite that, Kim could hear the soft murmur of randomness as it poured into every part of the aerostatic that could possibly support a waveform – whispering along the taut lines of the balloon envelope, singing in the thin metal of the hull, a susurrus of numbers, voices, information. All around them people were hunched over, concentrating, heads bowed in silent prayer.
Kim afforded himself a short glance at the others. Harry was sweating, mumbling to himself with eyes screwed tightly shut. They’d been practicing Voltas together nearly every day since they found out about the assignment, and he’d taken to them the same way he took to all new information, eager and stochastic, tempered by the mixed trepidation and elation he felt at the thought of a pale passage. He was still unsure of the extent that it might have contributed to his amnesia, but all evidence pointed to it having been at least a contributing factor. Re-exposure was probably not a good idea. Kim had been very much against it to begin with, but as soon as it was clear that the assignment was the kind you didn’t say no to, he’d pivoted to drilling the Voltas into Harry’s head, trying to prepare him in any way possible.
What with concentrating so much on what Harry was doing, he felt his own concentration slipping. As if the clouds had begun seeping through the walls of the aerostatic, greyish white tendrils started snaking between the tables, covering the floor in an opaque mist. Everything the mist touched it leeched, starting with colour, then form, then meaning and matter entirely. The pale tendrils touched along his boots, then his legs, tugging at the edges of the fabric, dissolving it slowly. He could hear the large number station again, a male voice calmly rattling off a string of numbers, a sequence without apparent meaning. They must be passing over a repeater station. Kim tried to remember the words of his Volta, to have them cut through the interference.
Ecco già l'alba app… appare
e si… ah. Specchia nel… speccia nel mare
e rasserena…
He trailed off, unable to remember the words – then suddenly, he felt Harry’s hand in his, grounding him. A deep breath – in, hold, out, hold. When he opened his eyes again, the grey mist was gone, the intrusive murmur receded. He held on to Harry, breathing, counting, reciting.
There was no way of knowing how long time it took. Technically, it took no time at all, since time stopped working, but it was all individual. He’d heard that for some people, a passage felt near instantaneous, while it lasted hours for others. Some people had no memory of it at all while some emerged on the other side with days or months of memories of things that never happened. Fewer now that automatisation was on the rise, but there would always be people like them – the ones that needed to go from place to place for some reason or other.
After an uncountable amount of time, the crisp, clear voice returned in the speakers.
“Porch collapse cleared. We have re-entered reality. You may now move freely in the cabin.”
There was a general murmur of relief, mixed with some confusion and raised voices. Kim ignored it, concentrating on massaging the stiffness from his fingers. Trant stretched, cracking his knuckles, back and neck in one swift, eye-watering move.
“There we go! Not too bad. Onwards, then!”
Jean shuddered. “That wasn’t bad? That was fucking brutal.”
“Oh no, not at all. I’ve experienced much worse.”
Harry wiped sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt and collapsed back in the chair. “Thank fuck that’s over! When do we land in Ubi Sunt?”
“Oh, we don’t.” Trant smiled. “Nobody goes to Ubi Sunt? directly, Harry. It’s… too unstable. So we go to Vesper first, and then onwards from there.”
“How?”
“By train.”
Harry sat up again, intrigued. “Train? But… it’s surrounded by pale. Right?”
Trant wiggled his hand. “Sometimes. Think of it like this!” He took out a pad of papers and a pencil, and started sketching. “You have a peninsula, long, narrow, and full of little hills and mountains. Yes? All of it surrounded by a shallow sea. A very shallow sea, with quite a powerful and irregular tide. Possibly the adjacency to the pale influences it somehow, it’s a debated topic. In any case, this means that all those hills and mountains of the peninsula of Ubi Sunt? converts to islands as the tide rises, and when it does, it brings the pale with it, surrounding the islands. Cutting them off completely.” He swiped his hand over the sketch. “The only way they found to navigate this is building a network of train tracks all along the peninsula. The tracks are subject to a lot of wind and weather, but are never submerged, so it’s a functional system as I understand it – maintained and replaced meticulously as not to rust.”
Harry stared at the sketch. “Why the hell do people still live in all of that?”
“The area around Ubi Sunt? is… anomalous, even by pale standards,” Trant said.
“How so?”
Jean groaned audibly. Kim concealed a smile. He didn’t mind Trant monologuing; he was entertaining, for the most part, and Kim liked learning new things. If Trant picked up on Jean’s inelegant protest he showed no sign of it.
“Well, prevailing theories on the pale do of course think that it’s a form of rarefied information. But there’s also the question of the alternative memories.”
Harry perked up at that. Kim gave him a glance. He was always a slightly wary about his interest in eneroponetics, but nowadays he seemed stable enough to handle it, most of the time.
“What’s that?”
“Well, there have been several recorded instances of the pale producing memory artefacts that strictly did not take place. Memories of alternative timelines, you could say, although that is not technically correct. Again, I’m not an entroponeticist, mind you. But Ubi Sunt? is know for its high frequency of these kinds of artefacts. Apparently, it quite affects the population.” He tried to find the words. “It gives rise to traditionalism and a sort of… well. People live as much in the past as in the present. Hence its alternative name, The Islands of Nostalgia.”
“Or the Islands of Joy, or the Islands of Forgetfulness.” Judit looked up from the packet of notes they’d been given before taking off. “There’s a lot of names, ranging back thousands of years.”
Trant nodded. “Indeed. Ubi Sunt? has always been pale-approximate, as far back as recorded history goes, and always somewhat… shrouded in mystery, as a result.”
Jean snorted. “Huh. Well, better keep far fucking away from that shit, then. We don’t want to get bogged down by what-ifs. We got a job to do.” He gave Harry a glare. “That means no running after shiny things, shitkid.”
Harry gave him a sour look. “I’m not a goddamn kid that needs babysitting, Vic.”
“You could have fooled me with-”
Judit leaned in between them, pointedly cutting off their eye contact, and opened up the file. “Refresh my memory, Trant. What can we expect when we get there? The brief was frustratingly… brief. Vague.”
Kim nodded and leaned forward as well. All they knew was a few details of the victim: a prominent Moralintern official from Sur-la-Clef, found dead on the shores of Inishmore, the largest of the Ubi Sunt? islands – or peaks, however you looked at it. The request, or rather, order to investigate had come from the International Collaboration Police, and as such, was impossible to refuse.
“Yes. Some more details would be useful. Such as why we were sent. Was their own police force not able to make a cohesive investigation?”
“Ubi Sunt? doesn’t really have a police force. It’s mostly policed by the ICP by way of Vesper.”
“So why didn’t they send anyone?”
Trant fiddled with the papers. “I’m not sure. I get the idea that they thought it was too complicated. Perhaps too political, to immediate.”
Kim adjusted his glasses, looking at Trant’s hands. As always, it was hard for him to read faces, but there was something subtly wrong in Trant’s body language. As he so often did nowadays when it came to assessing intent, he gave his partner a glance. Harry was watching Trant too, head tilted to the side, that look on his face that told Kim that he was listening to something on the inside of his head as well. Kim made a mental note to talk to him about it.
“Corruption?”
“Perhaps. In any case, they wanted someone more… unaligned. Uninvolved. A neutral party.”
Kim couldn’t help but make a little disbelieving noise. “And they choose us?”
Trant laughed. “Don’t sound so surprised. After that business with the phasmid, and the fact that Harry is one of the most prolific detectives in the history of the RCM…” He shrugged. “Our little task force is becoming something of a talking point in Vesper, as I understand it.”
“They do love detective stories,” Judit smiled. “It would tickle people’s imagination.”
“Exactly. So maybe this is a way of making sure people see that whatever happened is taken good care of.”
“Didn’t make Pryce happy, that’s for sure,” Jean muttered.
Trant coughed. “Well, he did get saddled with a month of backlog and only Torson and McLaine to handle it.”
All of them went silent, contemplating Pryce’s situation.
“They’ll be fine,” Harry supplied eventually, sounding extremely unconvincing. “He can ask Berdyayeva for backup. What else about the case, then? Any theories, any suspects?”
“Nothing, I’m afraid,” Trant sighed. “The man disappeared from his place of work without a word. A soon as his colleagues realised, they started looking for him. He was traced to Ubi Sunt?, and was found down by the shore about a week ago, dead – and that’s it. The body is still there, hopefully preserved somehow. There’s been no investigation of the crime scene, no autopsy, no interviews.”
“Any more info on the victim?”
Again, there was that subtle hint of something wrong. Kim frowned. If the man was important enough that any deviation from his normal routine was immediately noticed, but anonymous and powerful enough that he could pass several borders without being stopped… Trant grinned apologetically.
“No. Not really. I tried to dig a bit, but…”
Jean sighed. “I take it this guy was a really high ranking official?”
“It seems so,” Trant grimaced. “I can’t even find out how high ranking. Which makes me suspect he was a party member. An important one.”
Jean buried his face in his hands and groaned. “Host above, Trant…! Why did you have to wait until after we passed the fucking pale before you told us this?”
“Because you probably would have balked if I told you before. I’m sorry, Jean.”
“You bet your goddamn beige ass I would!” Jean glared at him. “So tell me, what’s the fucking consequence here if we don’t get this done? Demotion? Dishonourable discharge? Summary execution?”
“I’m sure it won’t be as bad as all that,” Trant tried. “But, ah, a quick and competent handling of this would be very preferable.” He gave them all an unconvincing smile. “So. We’ve a couple hours to Vesper. I’d suggest everybody get some more sleep until then, right?”
Jean glared at him. “Yeah, you really put me in a sleepy mood now, Heidelstam. Great work.”
Trant winced at the use of his last name, something Kim filed away for later analysis.
There hadn’t been enough money for cabins, but there was a sort of communal sleeping area for the second-class passengers. It had a row of bunks, lined all along the curved inner wall, stacked on top of each other two and two; and to Kim’s delight, actual hammocks, strung up like rows of comfortable nests, swinging with the movements of the hull. Harry gave the hammocks a long, hard stare, comparing the length and width of them with his own broad frame, and then chose a bunk, giving Kim a forlorn look as he fluffed the pillow. Kim chuckled.
“Even if I could fit in there with you, it’d be a very bad idea.”
“I know, I know.” Harry gave his fingers a quick brush with his own. “I just… I kinda thought it’d be romantic, sleeping together on an aerostatic.”
“It would be. Some day.” Kim sincerely doubted that either of them would ever have the funds to pay for a first-class ticket to anything let alone an aerostatic, but it was a nice fantasy.
Kim curled up in the hammock, pulling the covers over his head to block out the light. It was close enough to Harry’s bunk that if they reached, their fingertips could brush against each other again. The gentle rocking lulled him into a deep sleep within minutes.
They managed to get a few hours of sleep before the aerostatic docked. Kim felt bleary-eyed and a bit disoriented as they walked out on the tarmac, in addition to the light nausea he always felt from riding in lifts; something about the fast vertical movement made his stomach turn in a way horizontal speed never did, and he had to breathe deep through his nose as soon as they got off. The air was surprisingly light and fresh, with none of the perpetual smog that laid like a blanket over Revachol.
After retrieving their luggage and clearing customs – a very easy affair after Trant waved a couple forms filled with important looking stamps and signatures around – they took the bus from Advesperacit to the Vesper/Ubi Sunt? border. The border crossing took a bit more time, mostly because they had to wait for a line of lorries going the other way, carrying what looked like live sheep.
“Slaughter season, yeah,” one of the border guards replied when Harry asked about it. “About the only thing the Ubis produce that’s worth a damn.”
True to form, Harry couldn’t resist probing deeper into a conversation. “You don’t like them?”
“Weird folk, is all. Fucking simple, all of them. Can’t get a ride outta them at all, you know.”
Harry frowned. “Why would you?”
“Look, no need for that,” the border guard said defensively. “Just saying they’re too fucking calm, is all. Don’t trust no one who never gets angry.”
“The reverse is usually truer, in my experience,” Kim cut in sharply.
The man looked Kim up and down dismissively. “Whatever. I wouldn’t expect a foreigner to understand.”
Kim put a hand on Harry’s chest without looking just as he took a step forward. The man gave Harry a quick glance and took a few steps away, glaring at them from a safe distance. Kim patted Harry’s chest and lowered his hand with a snort.
“Please don’t do anything that might jeopardise our crossing. For once, foreigner just means not from here – which I am not.”
“I guess. Sorry.”
Kim nodded. He was quite sure that it was a combination of both that and the garden variety racism, but he didn’t want to get into it. In any case, Harry seemed to accept the premise, giving the guard one last stink eye before returning to look at the passing caravan, bleating its way towards a distant Vespertine slaughterhouse.
As soon as they were safely across the border, the bus took them the last kilometre and deposited them in the middle of a green field. The driver helped them off with the luggage and waved a hand at the buildings and the train tracks before getting on again.
“Gortlea station, end of line. You gotta time table here somewhere, there should be another bus back twice a day. Have a good one.”
Since there was little else to do, Kim watched the bus disappear in the distance before looking at the surroundings. The station was small, consisting of little more than a goods depot and a combined ticket booth and waiting hall, furnished with a couple wrought iron benches, a half-empty vending machine with ancient-looking candy and a dilapidated pinball machine. While Trant went and bought tickets from the bored station manager lounging inside the tiny office beyond the ticket booth, Kim gave the machine a single, disdainful look and went to look for the train.
There was only one track, ending in a passing loop just beyond the little platform. A three-legged water tower leaned its long nozzle over the tracks, and thick-leaved plants with tiny purple and white flowers grew between the sleepers underneath the drip, their subtle fragrance mingling with the smell of sun-warmed wood and iron. Harry was crouched down, fingers digging curiously among the leaves; then he picked a couple of the bright blooms. They looked small and fragile between his large fingers before he put one in his lapel.
Trant looked at the track, a familiar look of academic curiosity in his eyes. “Narrow-gauge railway,” he said thoughtfully. “Interesting. This isn’t the same gauge as interisolary standards – more like the old Dolorian tracks. I wonder why?”
Kim cocked his head to the side and looked at the track as well. “Tradition? Or some technical reason, perhaps. They look more like the tram rails in Revachol than anything. But no power lines,” he added, after looking around. “In fact… there’s very little wiring here at all. Just this one.”
He pointed to the single line, supported by sturdy poles, that followed along the tracks. After sending off an offshoot into the station building, it continued along the road towards Vesper and disappeared in the haze. Trant followed the line of his finger, then turned and traced it the other way towards Ubi Sunt?.
“Indeed. Curious. Is it a telephone line?”
“No idea.” Kim squinted and shielded his eyes from the sun. Something was moving on the Ubi side – something metal glinting in the sun, accompanied by a distant smell of smoke and a chuffing sound. There was a shrill sound – a whistle. “Harry, I think the train is coming. Come up.”
Harry clambered up on the platform. Before waiting with the others, he threaded one of the little flowers in the zipper of Kim’s jacket.
The train puffed into the station, bringing with it the scent of hot metal and oil, and something else, an acrid smell. It came to a slow rest, and an elderly couple and a young man got off and started to walk the road toward Vesper with a few disinterested glances at the group. Kim looked on with interest as a young man in overalls jumped off and started uncoupling the engine from the two cars, allowing the engine to make the passing loop and return to what now was the front of the train. When it was all connected again, a sturdy man in his sixties climbed off and waved at them.
“Ye lot the only ones for today, then?”
“It seems so,” Kim said, and looked around. They were still the only ones on the platform.
“We’ll be travelling light, then. All the way?
Kim took out his notebook. “To wherever ‘Inishmore Strand’ is, I suppose.”
“Right by the edge of the forest, then. Aye, we’ll get ye there no worries. All aboard!”
While Harry, Trant and Judit started to carry their luggage into the single passenger car, and the young man in the overalls and the station manager started unloading the boxcar, Kim couldn’t help but give the engine a good look over. It was a little thing, chubby, burnished black iron with red details.
“It’s very small for a train.” He looked up at the driver, who was watching him with an appreciative look in his eyes. “It’s coal powered? I thought I smelled something…”
The driver nodded. “Aye. Ye got a good nose on ye.” He tapped the side of the engine. “When everything else breaks down, she’ll see ye right just as long as we’ve got coal and water. And she may look small to ye, but she can pull fifteen full cars without breaking a sweat. It’s the best way to get across the shoals, lad, light and fast.”
Kim supposed it made sense. If it ran on what’s basically a series of shoals, if would have to be light enough not to disturb it. Kim leaned in and ran his hands over the side of the engine. The whole thing felt ancient, in a strange way. Ancient and beautiful, there was no denying it. Whoever had designed the little train had put in far more work into the cast iron frame that was necessary for mere propulsion. There was intricate scrolling, a vines-and flowers design, and… yes, little figures, wide-eyes animals of some indeterminate kind, peeking out between them. He traced the scrolling lightly, feeling the lines under his fingertips. Harry came up and leaned in as well, peering at the little animals.
“It looks awesome!”
“It looks like shit,” Jean retorted and crossed his arms, luggage still at his feet. “I don’t trust that rustbucket to get us anywhere.”
The driver snorted. “Well, ye best make yerself comfortable on that bench there, then, sonny. Yer not getting over there any other way.”
Trant put his arm around Jean’s shoulder. “Come on, Jean. It’s just a small trek to the first island, then two more, even shorter to the main island.”
“It’s not the length of the treks that’s the issue, Trant,” Jean muttered. But he didn’t shrug off Trant’s arm. “It’s sitting in that fucking antique that’s the issue.”
“I’m sure it’s perfectly safe. Isn’t it?”
“If it makes ye happier, lad, I service her weekly,” the driver said and rolled his eyes. “My pappy did the same, and his pappy too. Ain’t nothing wrong with this old beauty.”
“See?” Trant picked up Jean’s bag and steered him towards the passenger car. “Perfectly safe. Come on, we can pick up that game of Pinochle to pass the time.”
Jean groaned, but didn’t protest. Kim gave them a sidelong glance as they climbed into the car. Harry was watching them as well, a sharp look. Kim wondered if he’d noticed the same things Kim had: the constant proximity, the calming touches, the mild assurances and gentle jokes; all of it amplified now what Jean was more irritated with Trant than usual. Harry shifted his attention to Kim, suddenly, like he knew what he was thinking, and made a complicated eyebrow motion and non-committal little sound. Kim raised a single eyebrow back in confirmation.
Jean stuck his head out the window and whistled to them. “Hey! Are we going or what?”
Kim gave him a thumbs up, but before they could get on, the driver jerked his head towards the engine. “Fancy a ride up here, lad? Not much room, but ye seem to be the sort to appreciate it.”
Kim couldn’t stop a grin. The driver returned it, then climbed onboard and gave Kim and Harry a hand up. Well inside, he clapped his hands and gestured at Kim.
“Best keep to the back, there, lads. Don’t want ye burning yourself or getting caught on anything.”
Kim nodded and flattened himself against the far wall, looking at as much of the inside of the engine as he could possibly see at once. The young man in the overalls was done with loading the boxcar and topping up the water tank, and joined them without a word. He flipped open the door to the firebox, threw in a few scoops of coal, closed the door, then did it a few more times until he seemed satisfied. He gave the manometer on the ceiling a look and nodded at the driver.
“All right then.” The driver looked out the window for a second and pulled on a chain. The shrill sound of a whistle resounded through the engine, and he pulled on one of the biggest levers. The train started moving, slowly.
“So is this standard for Ubi Sunt? This… level of technology.” Kim made a gesture that encompassed the station, the tracks, the train and the general lack of modern civilisation.
The driver nodded. “Aye, it is. Us Ubis are traditional folks, and the farther out ye get, the more traditional they become. Us inlanders are a bit more Vespertine than the outlanders, ye might say. Ain’t many wires on the islands, if any. They break, ye see. They make do with steam and wind power, and good old fires. Very backwards, if ye ask me, but each to their own. They tend their sheep and go about their days, and that’s about it.” He pointed at the poles. “Telegraph, see? Them’s the only wires that work right, and even then, when the fog rolls in it’s a crapshoot. But at least it’s more reliant than the telephone.”
The little train started picking up speed, moving faster and faster along the narrow tracks, down towards the shoreline, but the distant peaks looked no closer, shrouded in mists and water vapour. The young fireman gave Harry a disdainful look as he bent to look out the window, getting in his way in the little compartment. Kim kept diligently to the back, watching the driver work.
“So… no telephones, no electricity? What about radio?”
“Nope. They tried once, on Inishmore, but… let’s just say whatever was supposed to come out of those things wasn’t what actually came out.”
Kim tried to imagine it – listening to the radio that close to the pale. Like the passage on board the aerostatic, only in place of whatever transmission you were wanting to listen to. All that interference. Just like being trapped in Ruby’s compressor, assaulted from all sides by memories, numbers, random snippets of conversation. He shuddered.
“I see. So that’s why the poles, then?”
“Aye. Even the telegraph goes awry when ye send it though the air. But that wire manages, for the most part. Except when it doesn’t.”
“Let’s hope our communication with the village went through, then,” Kim frowned. “I need to ask Trant if he received any conformation that we were expected.”
The driver chuckled. “Don’t ye worry. There’ll be someone can take ye in guaranteed. We ain’t the sort of folk to turn a traveller away.” He stretched his back. “Now, make yerself comfortable, we’ve about an hour and a half to yer stop. Yer welcome to stay up here all the way, lad,” he added to Kim. “If yer curious. No shame in tapping out in bit, though. Dancing on the foot plate takes it out of ye if yer not used to it. We’ll do a few stops.”
Kim gave a Harry a look. He was leaned out of the window, letting it whip in his hair as he stared out towards the quickly approaching coastline. “I think we’ll stay here a little bit, then. Thank you.”
“No problems.” The driver pulled off the heavily padded glove and reached out a strong, wiry hand. “Name’s Tom McGowan, by-the-bye. Nice to meet ye.”
Kim shook it. “Kim Kitsuragi. Harry Du Bois,” he added, when Harry didn’t, distracted by the view.
The driver gave Harry an amused glance and nodded. “Onwards, then.” He adjusted a couple of the levers a little, sending the steam train across the coast line and out into the shoals.
Soon, the coastline disappeared behind them, as did the peaks ahead, now that they were at a lower altitude, leaving them in a tan and green emptiness, bisected by the railway cutting a straight line across: sand and tracks and the empty sea floor, stretching out into infinity on both sides. Kim leaned out the window, watching for anything that broke the monotony. There were tide pools here and there, frequented by flocks of birds picking off unlucky fish and trying to catch the masses of crabs scuttling across the sand. He could see their bigger cousins digging along the railway. The elevation of the tracks wasn’t that much more than two or so metres, a soft rise from the flat seabed to the more solid strip of land that made up this part of the peninsula. He turned to the driver.
“What happens if the tide comes in?”
McGowan shook his head. “Don’t. Bad luck to talk about it out here.”
That was answer enough, Kim supposed. It didn’t even have to be that deep, just the fact that when the water came, it brought the pale with it.
After about half an hour, they came to the first sign of the line of peaks that made up Ubi Sunt? proper. The islet was a single spire of rock, jutting from the sand with a spiralling series of steps cut into the stone. On top of it was what looked like a lighthouse, but instead of a light, the top of it held an antenna array, bristling like a hedgehog from the red and white painted stone walls. There was no one waiting on the beach and no semaphore to indicate a passenger, and the train passed by without slowing its steady pace. As they passed underneath it, Kim could see the silhouette of someone standing on the top of the tower, a red raincoat with its hood up. The face was shrouded by the depths of the hood, but he fancied he could feel the eyes following them all the way until the tower receded in the distance, swallowed by the haze. He turned to McGowan again.
“A repeater station?”
“Aye. Powerful lonely job, that. They’d never get me to man one of those things, not in a million years. Suppose they have it better than most do, though, since the pale ain’t there all the time. Still.”
“Isn’t there the risk of pale exposure for you, too?”
“Aye. There is. But less.” He gave the disappeared repeater station a nod. “Thanks to that lot, we have a fair inkling of how the tides moves. I’ve only been caught out once.”
“How was it?”
The driver didn’t answer at first. “It was… strange,” he said eventually. “Everything just… disappeared. The train at first, then… myself.” He stopped and stared forward, hand on the lever. Then he shook himself off like a dog. “No. Bad luck.”
The fireman gave Kim a sour look, and he regretted pushing the matter. They continued in silence, passing increasingly large islets, and after another quarter hour, the ground underneath the racks started to become more and more solid stone and earth rather than sandy shoals. As they made a stop to pick up two young girls and their grandmother, Kim and Harry made their excuses and joined the rest of the task force in the passenger car.
The back of the car had a little balcony where you could stand and observe the world passing by. However, the novelty of it was disturbed by a perpetual drizzle, slow and almost imperceptible until it soaked through your clothes, running in little rivulets inside your coat. Kim was pleased that he’d had enough foresight to switch to the waterproof RCM tarpaulin cloak rather than his bomber jacket. The train puffed along the tracks, passing hills and valleys, little farmsteads and thickets of trees. It seemed like nothing but endless nature – no towns or cities in sight. In truth, he could barely call the small collections of houses they passed villages, either, but it was hard scaling down from one of the largest cities in the world. Maybe this was what a normal-sized village was, who knew. Harry was ecstatic, pointing out animals and cool rock formations. His enthusiasm was mirrored by Trant, who went into tirades over very little thing Harry pointed out until Jean growled at them to shut up and let him rest.
After a while they left the hills behind, passed over to Inishmore, and into a forest. It was like nothing Kim had ever seen before. The trees were immensely tall, tall enough that their canopies were mostly shrouded in fog, and the train passed underneath and between them like a darning needle threading a particularly complicated sock. Eventually, they came to a stop in what looked like the middle of nowhere. It wasn’t even a station, just a sign and a shingled roof, erected on four sturdy poles – little more than a cover from the light drizzle.
“Inishmore Strand,” McGowan hollered from the engine. “Off ye go!”
They unloaded their gear and stood underneath the roof to get away from the wet.
McGowan jumped off and gave Kim a firm handshake. “Well, this is it, lady and gents. Yer stop. I’ll be going out to the terminus and then back to Gortlea, but I guess ye’ll be staying a while?”
Trant adjusted the strap on his duffel bag and beamed at him. “Most likely, yes. At least a night.”
“Well, I’ll see ye if I see ye, then.” He moved to jump up into the train again, then hesitated. “Hey, uh. If ye don’t mind me asking a favour… yer all cops, right?”
Judit grinned. “What gave us away?”
McGowan pointed to the rectangles on Judit’s uniform. “I haven’t seen marks like that before, but ye got the look of coppers sure enough.”
She laughed. “Well, you’re correct. What’s the favour?”
McGowan leaned on the side of the train, running his hand across the scrollwork. There was a soft pattering as the perpetual light rain drummed against the black iron. “Well then, ma’am. It’s my youngest daughter, ye see. She went to the outer islands a while back and I haven’t seen her since.”
Kim could see Harry perk up like a bloodhound getting the scent, and pulled out his notebook.
“Frances is her name,” McGowan continued. “If ye see her, can ye tell her to come home?”
Harry nodded. “What’s she look like?”
“As detailed as you can, please,” Kim added and flipped to a fresh page.
“She’s seventeen. Tall and broad, like her mum. Short black hair with blue streaks. She had her big backpack, one of them long ones, for camping. It has a patch on it, her favourite artists – Halcyon Malignance. Some rock and roll thing. And her hat, a big thing. All black, like she likes.” He chuckled. “She always dresses all in black, my girl. She came late in my life, but she’s my dark little joy, I’ve always said.”
Kim wrote the description down. “We’ll keep an eye out. How long has she been gone?”
“A month now. She was supposed to be gone a few weeks, sure, but… it’s getting long and we haven’t gotten a telegram even. She promised she’d wire, ye see.”
Harry patted his shoulder. “We’ll do our best.”
“That’s all any of us can ever do, isn’t it? Appreciated, in any case. Good luck to y’all.” McGowan hauled himself up the steps and gave them a last wave before getting the train moving again.