Politician by Piers Anthony
And we did see. The train rounded a turn, and there before us was a phenomenal cleft of a valley, dropping away from the mountain we were on, and the much higher mountain beyond. The tracks were mounted on a bridge that seemed to have no support; it was, in fact, a “hanging bridge” anchored in the rock at either side, and it looked precarious. Beyond it was the mouth of the tunnel through the mountain, seeming too small to hold the train, but, of course, that was just perspective.
We moved out on the bridge. Hopie peered down, made a little moan, and grabbed my hand tightly. Indeed, as the ground dropped precipitously away from us, it seemed we were flying. We feared the weight of the train would snap the cords of the bridge and send us hurtling to doom below. But the bridge held, and soon we were steaming into the tunnel, which expanded to take us in.
Inside, lights showed not the smooth, rounded walls I had anticipated, but rough-hewn rock—what remained after the tunnel had been irregularly blasted from the layers of the mountain. It was, in fact, a cave—a man-made cave without stalactites, crudely rounded at top and sides, just wide enough for the train. It seemed delightfully interminable, the spaced lights going by in blurs of brilliance. I was fascinated, and so was Hopie, who continued to squeeze my hand tightly. “I hope we don’t run out of steam here,” she whispered.
At last we shot out into the light again, and into a wooden tunnel. The beams rose vertically above the height of the train, then across the top, braced by substantial corner boards set at a forty-five-degree angle. “What—” Hopie asked, startled.
“Protective snowshed,” Casey explained nonchalantly. “Set up where the drifts get bad. Without those, the trains could not move in winter, ‘cause the pile-up gets too heavy for the snowplows.”
“Gee,” Hopie said, staring raptly out.
We chugged on across the state line into Equality, seeing the sheep grazing the slopes. “You can still see some of the old ruts where the wagons of the Oregon trail passed,” Casey said. It was evident that he knew every bit of scenery along this track. “Further along we’ll see Grant Teton National Park, about as pretty a spot as exists, and then Yellowstone. You ever see a geyser, girl?”
“Daddy, can we stop and see a geyser?” she demanded immediately of me. She was really excited.
I was about to answer when Shelia rolled up. The vision extended only to the exterior view; inside remained mundane. “Train approaching, boss,” she said.
“Passing from the other direction? We’ve seen those before.”
“Overtaking us from behind,” she said grimly.
“Hey, there’s no train scheduled now,” Casey said.
“We know,” she said. “That’s why we’re suspicious.”
“Notify Coral,” I said. Then, to Casey: “Can this train take evasive action?”
“She can leave the tracks, sure,” he said. “But she’s liable to get lost if she does. If that other train means trouble, she can follow us, anyway.”
“Can we outrun her?”
“We’re already doing max; the Spirit’s a tourist train, not a racer. That other’s got a heavier engine or a lighter load, or she wouldn’t be overhauling us. You figure trouble?”
“It’s a distinct possibility,” I said. “Our enemy knew he had failed to kill me when the Phis blast missed me. It seems logical that he would try something more direct.”
“I never heard of no train-robbery from another train,” he said, scratching his head. “Usually it’s horse-mounted men who board and—”
“My enemy didn’t happen to have any horses handy in this area,” I said, smiling briefly. “It must have been easier to rent a spare train in Yenne, hustle some thugs aboard with their weapons, and take out after us in this isolated stretch where help will be slow arriving. It may be a jury-rigged effort, but we can be sure they believe they can do the job. Let’s assume the worst and plan our defense accordingly. Suppose we turn up the gee-shields and rise quickly?”
“They can do the same,” he said. “Can’t get away that way.
“Suppose we drop lower?”
He shook his head. “I wouldn’t, sir. We’re at five bars now; this old train was built to take as high as eight, but I wouldn’t trust her beyond seven now, and I’d feel nervous much beyond six. You’d be asking for implosion.”
“So we could escape then but die in the process?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I regret getting you folk of the train crew into this,” I said.
“Just you figure out how to get us out of it!”
I held a quick council of war with Spirit and Coral. Spirit and I had both had battle training and experience in the Navy, and Coral was generally knowledgeable about in-close violence. Together we decided on our strategy for defense. We knew we didn’t have much time, but we thought we could manage it.
There was a lot of work for Mrs. Burton to do in a hurry. First she had to go over the nether restaurant of the dining car, borrowing the train’s supply of emergency sealant to shore up the car’s interior doors, rendering it into a kind of space capsule. Then she rigged a temporary remote control system for the engine; it was crude, but it would enable a person inside the restaurant to trigger an unusual event. Then she went to the engine to set up that event, while the rest of us retreated to the restaurant. The windows were limited here, but we had an in-train video system that enabled us to view the rest of it or to peer out the dome windows of the restaurant above. We were all there, with the remaining personnel of the train, united by the common threat.
Hopie and Casey and I peered back, and now as the track curved we saw the pursuing train, steaming up the grade, definitely closing on us. “We’ll pick up speed as we start down the other side of the Divide,” Casey said. “But so will she. The grade don’t make no difference for this. She’ll catch us, sure.”
“Grade?” Shelia asked.
Hopie glanced at me and winked. “Come here, Shel,” she said. “Look out the window. See the mountains out there? The snow? We’re crossing the Great Divide, and it’s been an awful climb, but now we’re almost at the top, about to start down the other side. We old railroad hands call the slope the grade.”
“Oh,” Shelia said, nonplused. It was evident that she did not see the mountains or the snow outside.
Casey smiled. “Most folks are mundane,” he murmured. “That’s their curse. They don’t even know what they’re missing. You and your little girl’re the first real folk I’ve met in a long time, Gov’nor.”
“We’re very rare species,” I agreed.
“She sure favors you. I’d a known she was your kid right away, even if you hid her in a crowd. Bloodlines run true.”
“That must be so,” I agreed. I decided it would not be politic to inform him that Hopie was adopted.
The enemy train heaved within a train length of us. “Mrs. Burton,” I said into the com, “is it ready yet?”
“Not yet, boss,” she replied, sounding harried. “This monster’s safety-cocked every which way, and I don’t have the tools for a simple bypass. It’ll be chancy.”
“Do what you can. How much time do you need?”
“A good half-hour yet, boss, and then it’s not sure.”
“Very well. We’ll try to get you that half-hour. Engineer?”
“Sir?” the other engineer responded. His name, naturally, was Jones.
“Start putting out that smoke—all you have left—in the next half-hour.”
“Gotcha, sir,” he agreed. Mrs. Burton had explained the reason to him.
We peered forward and watched the smoke. It started pouring out thickly, the volume seeming much greater than before. Because it was merely a coloring agent it could be intensified at will, but there was only so much color available. Jones was now dumping it in, expending the trip’s supply in a short time. The cloud of smoke thinned as it carried to the rear but was now so thick at the start that this merely expanded it. Soon it was larger than the train, drifting just above us and sli
“Okay, Casey,” I said. “Put us in it.”
Casey got on the com. “Okay, mate; damp her down and up the nulls; guide her in steady.”
“I wish someone was watching this,” Jones muttered back.
“Someone is,” I pointed out. “The enemy train.”
“Hang on,” Casey said. “Reality’s ‘bout to take a beating.”
Hopie and I smiled and took firm hold on the anchored furniture, as did the others in the chamber.
The big propulsion-wheel fans damped down. The train slowed immediately and began to fall, as it depended on forward velocity to maintain its elevation. Then the gee-shields increased their effect, and we lost weight. Soon we were in free-fall, dead in the atmosphere and moving up toward our own voluminous cloud of smoke. It was a perfectly simple maneuver in the atmosphere of Jupiter, but to those of us who were watching it through the vision of old Earth, it was fantastic.
First our train slowed on the track, and the enemy train overhauled us rapidly. Then, just as the other was drawing up beside us, its passenger cars illuminated from inside so that we could see the armed men peering out at us, aiming their lasers, we left the track and floated into the sky. Hopie gave a little sigh of amazement, locked into the vision, and I was startled myself though I had known exactly what to expect. As it was, one laser beam angled in through the window, but after passing through the thick, glassy panes of each car, it lacked its originally punishing force. Glass may pass a laser beam through, but it tends to diffuse and deregister it, causing it to become more like ordinary light. Which is not to say a person can’t be hurt by a laser through a window, just that he will be hurt less.
We left the other train below. We maneuvered on the small wheel fans of the cars, angling them down to provide propulsion. Slowly we ascended into our great cloud of smoke. I took a last look at the snowy mountains beneath, bidding adieu to the remnant of my vision. I saw the enemy train blundering on ahead, caught by surprise by our maneuver. It had no special equipment, such as a flatcar-mounted cannon, fortunately. Such weapons existed, and they could be devastating, but they were hardly available to illicit assassination squads on short notice in the outlying districts. So this enemy could not simply blast us out of the atmosphere, and, in fact, could not fire any solid projectile at us, because any attempt to do so through the windows would cause the cars of that train to leak and perhaps implode. The men inside were confined to lasers which, as we had seen, were relatively ineffective in this situation.
Then the cloud enveloped us, and darkness reigned outside. We had disappeared into our smoke.
“We got away from them!” Hopie exclaimed happily.
“Not exactly,” I said. “We have smoke for only half an hour, and when it dissipates, we’ll still be out here, and so will they.”
“What will they do then?” she asked, worried.
“They’ll board us. We’re like spaceships; the locks can be mated and used anytime the pressure is equal on both sides.”
“Maybe we’d better phone for help, then.”
We had already checked that. “They’re jamming the broadcast.”
“Can’t we stop them?” She didn’t have to ask what they would do once they got aboard our train.
“We could laser them down as they entered,” I said. “If we could guard every lock. But they’ll mate the whole train and could cross through any of a dozen locks. They’re bound to get in sooner or later.” I was answering her questions seriously, because at thirteen she was old enough to understand, and I didn’t want her to be exposed to combat conditions without being prepared.
She was taking it well enough so far. “So we’re holed up in here, in this sealed chamber, where they can’t reach us, anyway?”
“That’s part of it.”
“But won’t they just pry open the door and—?”
“Yes. That will take them a little while, however, because they won’t have heavy-duty equipment.”
“But after that little while—”
“They would be in,” I concluded. I suffered a momentary vision of one of the times in my own youth when pirates had boarded our refugee bubble, when Spirit and I had bracketed Hopie’s present age. Violence, rape, and murder had ensued. This was not a vision I cared to share with my daughter, and I intended to protect her from ever experiencing it.
She glanced at me cannily. “But you’re cooking something, aren’t you?”
“I think you’d rather not know, honey.”
“I think I’d rather not not know, Daddy,” she countered. “I’m scared.”
She spoke for those other than herself. It seemed better to reassure them all, especially Megan, who was sitting pale and tight-lipped. Again I was reminded that these were not combat personnel. Only Spirit and I had been toughened to this sort of thing, and Coral could handle it. The others were in trouble. “Mrs. Burton is arranging to shunt some steam inside,” I said.
“Steam?” She didn’t grasp the relevance.
“It will make them uncomfortable,” I explained.
“Oh.” She still didn’t get it but did not pursue the matter further, and the others who did comprehend did not comment.
Our time passed. The other train could not connect to us because it could not see us. To enter the cloud blind would be to risk a collision that could cause both trains to implode, and obviously they didn’t want to perish with us. But we knew they were outside, waiting.
Our smoke thinned. “Are you ready, Mrs. Burton?” I asked on the com.
“Not yet, boss. This thing’s tough!”
“But our smoke is dissipating.”
“Don’t I know it!” she retorted. “But this baby’s a stinker. I’ve got to have more time.”
The enemy train was coming into view as the smoke continued to fade. “Casey, how sure are you about the implosion resistance of this train?”
Casey shook his head. “Not sure at all, Gov’nor. She’s pretty old.”
“Then the other train won’t be sure, either.”
“For sure. We all get nervous about going down.”
“So if we go down, they may not.”
Casey swallowed. “I’d sure rather go up, Gov’nor!”
I angled my head, peering up. “That contrail—isn’t that a high-velocity plane?”
Spirit glanced up, nodding. “Navy surplus dual element fighter,” she said. “I’ve been watching it.”
I raised an eyebrow. “It was there before the smoke?” “Dual element” meant that it functioned in either space or thin atmosphere.
“Affirmative. Circling above us.”
“So if we rise, we’ll get strafed.”
“Seems likely,” she agreed. “And one bullet through our seal—”
“I got the message,” Casey said. “They figured to drive us up, then hole us. We can’t go up.”
“We can’t go up,” I agreed. “They can’t come down this deep, but they don’t need to, as long as that other train’s here. We must go down—until Mrs. Burton’s ready.”
“I hope she’s ready soon,” he said fervently. Casey was no coward, but the notion of implosion had him green about the gills. I suppose those who travel in atmosphere all their lives feel about implosion the way we who have traveled much in space feel about sudden depressurization. We all have our peculiar horrors. Still, I remembered the way that city-bubble had gone down during the storm a dozen years before, and I knew I was not immune to that fear.
The enemy train drew alongside us again, ready to lock on. We dropped suddenly as our gee-shields moved to quarter-gee. It took the enemy a moment to reorient; then it dropped, too, but we dropped faster. It took them another period to phase in on our rate; then they closed again.
The alarm klaxon went off on our train: pressure had reached six bars. Everybody jumped, and Casey stiffened. “God, I’m not a praying man, but if they don’t stop soon, we’ll have to.”
The enemy train slowed its descent,
“Resume forward motion,” I ordered the engineer.
“Gotcha, Gov’nor.” He sounded just like Casey. The train commenced forward motion, and as the vanes took hold, the gee-shields eased, allowing trace gravity to return. That was a comfort.
But the enemy matched velocity and closed again. We had gee but not freedom. “Ready yet, Mrs. Burton?” I inquired, keeping my voice calm.
“Almost,” she replied. “I’ve got the bypass, but I don’t have the stuff I need for the release. I’ll have to rig a mechanical release, and that’ll take time.”
“We’re down about as far as we dare go,” I said. “If we go too far—”
“I know, boss. But without a remote-control unit—”
“Well, rig your chain,” I said. “Then get over here as fast as you can—you and Jones. They’re about to lock on and board.”
“We can let them board at the tail end,” Spirit pointed out. “There are five cars back there we won’t be using. One guard at the back of the diner can hold them off for a while.”
“And we can concentrate our force at engine, travel car, and diner,” I agreed. “Between us we have six lasers; two lasers per person, one person guarding the rear, one the engine, and one the travel car.”
“Three, right,” Coral said. “But you not one of them.”
“But I’m trained,” I protested.
“You the king. You die, all dead.”
She was right. My life could not be risked any more than that of the king in a chess game. It was the single non-expendable piece.
The locks were four-way affairs, actually almost separate units, which clamped to the ends of the connected cars to provide access from either side and/or an open passage between cars. They could be closed, but we had the car access open for our own convenience. This meant that the enemy train could connect by one lock between each two cars, for, of course, it could tie in on only one side of us or the other. We had, in effect, a series of T-connectors to guard, with the enemy coming through the stem of the T.