moving." He hauled at the engineer’s arm. Wubslin turned quickly
and hit Horza across the face with his free hand. Horza was thrown back over
the floor of the control deck, more amazed than
hurt. Wubslin turned back to the controls.
“Sorry, Horza, but I can get it round that bend and out of the way. You get out now. Leave me."
Horza took his laser rifle, stood up, watched the engineer working at the controls, then turned and ran from the place. As
he did so, the train
lurched, seeming to flex and tighten.
Yalson followed the Culture woman. Horza had waved at her to go on, so she did. “Balveda!" she shouted. “Emergency exits;
go down;
bottom deck!"
The Culture agent didn’t hear. She was still heading for the next carriage and the access ramps. Yalson ran after her, cursing.
The drone exploded out of the floor and raced through the carriage for the nearest emergency hatch.
That vibration! It’s a train! Another train’s coming, fast! What have those idiots done. I have to get out!
* * *
Balveda skidded round a corner, threw out one hand and caught hold of a bulkhead edge; she dived for the open door which led
to the middle
access ramp. Yalson’s footsteps pounded behind her.
She ran out onto the ramp, into a howling gale, a constant, gustless hurricane. Instantly the air around her detonated with
cracks and sparks;
light glared from all sides, and the girders blew out in molten lines. She threw herself flat, sliding
and rolling along the surface of the ramp. The
girders ahead of her, where the ramp turned and sloped down to one side, glittered
with laser-fire. She got half up again and, feet and hands
scrabbling for purchase on the ramp, threw herself back into the
train fractionally before the moving line of shots blasted into the side of the
ramp and the girders and guard rails beyond.
Yalson almost tripped over her; Balveda reached up and grabbed the other woman’s arm.
“Somebody’s firing!"
Yalson went forward to the edge and started firing back.
The train gave a lurch.
The final straight between station six and station seven was over three kilometers long. The time between the point the racing
machine’s lights
would have become visible from the rear of the train sitting in station seven, and the instant the train
flashed out of the dark tunnel into the
station itself, occupied less than a minute.
Dead, body shaking and rocking, but still wedged too tightly to be dislodged from the controls, Quayanorl’s cold, closed eye
faced a scene
through sloped, armored glass of a night-dark space strung with twin bright lines of almost solid light, and
directly in front, rapidly enlarging, a
halo of brightness, a glaring ring of luminescence with a gray, metallic core.
Xoxarle cursed. The target had moved quickly, and he’d missed. But they were trapped on the train. He had them. The old human
under his
knee moaned and tried to move. Xoxarle trod down harder on him and got ready to shoot again. The jetstream of air
screamed out of the tunnel
and round the rear of the train.
Answering shots splashed randomly around the rear of the station, well away from him. He smiled. Just then, the train moved.
“Get out!" Horza said, arriving at the door where the two women were, one firing, one crouched down, risking the occasional
look out. The air
was whirling into the carriage, shaking and roaring.
“It must be Xoxarle!" Yalson shouted above the noise of the storming wind. She leaned out and fired. More shots rippled over
the access
ramp and thudded into the outer hull of the train around the door. Balveda ducked back as hot fragments blew in
through the open door. The
train seemed to wobble, then move forward, very slowly.
“What—." Yalson yelled, looking round at Horza as he joined her at the door. He shrugged as he leaned out to fire down the
platform.
“Wubslin!" he shouted. He sent a hail of fire down the length of the station. The train crept forward; already a meter of
the access ramp was
hidden by the side of the train’s hull near the open door. Something sparkled in the darkness of the distant
tunnel, where the wind screamed
and the dust blew and a noise like never-ending thunder came.
Horza shook his head. He waved Balveda forward, to the ramp, now with only about half its breadth available from the door.
He fired again;
Yalson leaned out and fired, too. Balveda started forward.
At that moment a hatch blew out, near the middle of the train, and from the same carriage a huge circular plug of train hull
fell clanging out—
a great flat cork of thick wall tipping down to the station floor. A small dark shape dashed from the broken
hatch, and from the great circular hole
nearby a silver point came, swelling quickly to a fat, bright, reflecting ovoid as
the wall section hit the platform, the drone whizzed through the air,
and Balveda started forward along the ramp.
“There it is!" Yalson screamed.
The Mind was out of the train, starting to turn and race off. Then the flickering laser-fire from the far end of the station
switched; no longer
smashing into the access ramp and girders, it began to scatter flashing explosions of light all over the
surface of the silvery ellipsoid. The Mind
seemed to stop, hang in the air, shaken by the fusillade of laser shots; then it
fell sideways, out over the platform, its smooth surface suddenly
starting to ripple and grow dim as it rolled through the
rushing air, falling toward the side wall of the station like a crippled airship. Balveda was
across the ramp, running down
the sloped section, almost at the lower level. “Get out!" Horza yelled, shoving Yalson. The train was away from
the ramps
now, motors growling but unheard in the raging hurricane which swept through the station. Yalson slapped her wrist, switching
on her
AG, then leapt out of the door into the gale, still firing.
Horza leaned out, having to fire through the girders of the access ramp. He held on to the train with one hand, felt it shaking
like a frightened
animal. Some of his shots smacked into the access ramp girders, blasting fountains of debris out into the
slipstream of air and making him
duck back in.
The Mind crunched into the side wall of the station, rolling over to lodge in the angle between the floor and the curved wall,
its silver skin
quivering, going dull.
Unaha-Closp twisted through the air, avoiding laser shots. Balveda reached the bottom of the ramp and ran across the station
floor. The fan
of shots from the distant foot tunnel seemed to hesitate between her and the flying figure of Yalson, then
swept up to close around the woman in
the suit. Yalson fired back, but the shots found her, made her suit sparkle.
Horza threw himself out of the train, falling to the ground from the slowly moving carriage, crashing into the rock floor,
winding himself, being
bowled over by the tearing blast of air. He ran forward as soon as he could get to his feet, bouncing
up from the impact, firing through the
hurricane toward the far end of the station. Yalson still flew, moving into the torrent
of air and the crackling laser-fire.
Light blazed around the rear of the train, now heading at a little over walking speed from the station. The noise of the oncoming
train—