units.
Unaha-Closp went into the train.
“Unpleasant little machine, that," Xoxarle said to Aviger. The old man nodded vaguely. Xoxarle had noticed that the man looked
at him less
when he was speaking to him. It was as though the sound of his voice reassured the human that he was still tied
there, safe and sound, not
moving. On the other hand, talking—moving his head to look at the human, making the occasional
shrugging motion, laughing a little—gave him
excuses to move and so to slip the wires a little further. So he talked; with
luck the others would be on the train for a while now, and he might
have a chance to escape.
He would lead them a merry dance if he got away into the tunnels, with a gun!
“Well, they should be open," Horza was saying. According to the console in front of him and Wubslin, the doors in the reactor
car had never
been locked in the first place. “Are you sure you were trying to open them properly." He was looking at the
engineer.
“Of course," Wubslin said, sounding hurt. “I know how different types of locks work. I tried to turn the recessed wheel; catches
off… OK, this
arm of mine isn’t perfect, but, well… it should have opened."
“Probably a malfunction," Horza said. He straightened, looking back down the train, as though trying to see through the hundred
meters of
metal and plastic between him and the reactor car. “Hmm. There’s not enough room there for the Mind to hide, is
there."
Wubslin looked up from the panel. “I wouldn’t have thought so."
“Well, here I am," Unaha-Closp said testily, floating through the door to the control deck. “What do you want me to do now."
“You took your time searching that other train," Horza said, looking at the machine.
“I was being thorough. More thorough than you, unless I misheard what you were saying before I came in. Where might there
be enough
room for the Mind to hide."
“The reactor car," Wubslin said. “I couldn’t get through some of the doors. Horza says according to the controls they ought
to be open."
“Shall I go back and have a look, then." Unaha-Closp turned to face Horza.
The Changer nodded. “If it isn’t asking too much," he said levelly.
“No, no," Unaha-Closp said airily, backing off through the door it had entered by, “I’m starting to enjoy being ordered about.
Leave it to me."
It floated away, back through the front carriage, toward the reactor car.
Balveda looked through the armored glass, at the rear of the train in front, the one the drone had been looking through.
“If the Mind was hiding in the reactor car, wouldn’t it show up on your mass sensor, or would it be confused with the trace
from the pile." She
turned her head slowly to look at the Changer.
“Who knows." Horza said. “I’m not an expert on the workings of the suit, especially now it’s damaged."
“You’re getting very trusting, Horza," the Culture agent said, smiling faintly, “letting the drone do your hunting for you."
“Just letting it do some scouting, Balveda," Horza said, turning away and working at some more of the controls. He watched
screens and
dials and meters, changing displays and readout functions, trying to tell what was going on, if anything, in the
reactor car. It all looked normal, as
far as he could tell, though he knew less about the reactor systems than about most
of the train’s other components from his time as a sentinel.
“OK," Yalson said, turning her chair to one side, putting her feet upon the edge of one console and taking her helmet off.
“So what do we do
if there’s no Mind there, in the reactor car. Do we all start touring round in this thing, take the transit
tube, or what."
“I don’t know that taking a mainline train is a good idea," Horza said, glancing at Wubslin. “I considered leaving everybody
else here and
taking a transit tube by myself on a circular journey right round the System, trying to spot the Mind on the
suit mass sensor. It wouldn’t take too
long, even doing it twice to cover both sets of tracks between stations. The transit
tubes have no reactors, so it wouldn’t get any false echoes to
interfere with the sensor’s readings."
Wubslin, sitting in the seat which faced the train’s main controls, looked downcast.
“Why not send the rest of us back to the ship, then." Balveda said.
Horza looked at her. “Balveda, you are not here to make suggestions."
“Just trying to be helpful." The Culture agent shrugged.
“What if you still can’t find anything." Yalson asked.
“We go back to the ship," Horza said, shaking his head. “That’s about all we can do. Wubslin can check the suit mass sensor
on board and,
depending on what we find is wrong with it, we might come back down or we might not. Now the power’s on none
of that should take very long
or involve any hard slog."
“Pity," Wubslin said, fingering the controls. “We can’t even use this train to get back to station four, because of that train
in station six
blocking the way."
“It probably would still move," Horza told the engineer. “We’ll have to do some shunting whichever way we go, if we use the
mainline trains."
“Oh, well, then," Wubslin said, a little dreamily, and looked over the controls again. He pointed at one of them. “Is that
the speed control."
Horza laughed, crossing his arms and grinning at the man, “Yes. We’ll see if we can arrange a little journey." He leaned over
and pointed
out a couple of other controls, showing Wubslin how the train was readied for running. They pointed and nodded
and talked.
Yalson stirred restlessly in her seat. Finally she looked over at Balveda. The Culture woman was looking at Horza and Wubslin
with a smile;
she turned her head to Yalson, sensing her gaze, and smiled more widely, moving her head fractionally to indicate
the two men and raising her
eyebrows. Yalson, reluctantly, grinned back, and shifted the weight of her gun slightly.
The lights came quickly now. They streamed by, creating a flickering, strobing pattern of light in the dim cabin. He knew;
he had opened his eye
and had seen.
It had taken all his strength just to lift that eyelid. He had drifted off to sleep for a while. He was not sure for how long,
he only knew he had
been dozing. The pain was not so bad now. He had been still for some time, just lying here with his broken
body slanted out of the strange, alien
chair, his head on the control console, his hand wedged into the small flap by the
power control, fingers jammed under the fail-safe lever inside.
It was restful; he could not have expressed how pleasant it all was after that awful crawl through both the train and the
tunnel of his own pain.
The train’s motion had altered. It still rocked him, but a little faster now, and with a new rhythm added as well, a more
rapid vibration which
was like a heart beating fast. He thought he could hear it, too, now. The noise of the wind, blowing
through these deep-buried holes far under
the blizzard-swept wastes above. Or maybe he imagined it. He found it hard to tell.
He felt like a small child again, on a journey with his year fellows and their old Querlmentor, rocked to sleep, slipping
in and out of a dozing,
happy sleep.
He kept thinking:
I have done all I could. Perhaps not enough, but it was all I had in my power to do.
It was comforting.
Like the ebbing pain, it eased him; like the rocking of the train, it soothed him.
He closed his eye again. There was comfort in the darkness, too. He had no idea how far along he was, and was starting to
think it did not
matter. Things were beginning to drift away from him again; he was just beginning to forget why he was doing
all this. But that didn’t matter,
either. It was done; so long as he didn’t move, nothing mattered. Nothing.