with whom he shared his billet were awake, gone, packed. The room’s narrow window opened over the Primary Concourse, and Lowry knew at once, from the sounds of the machines and crowds, that the Engine had returned. There was no shouting, no cursing, no talking at all; in the presence of the Engine, the Station’s personnel worked in near-silence, in respect or terror or awe. Lowry had been born and raised in the basement levels of Angelus and was as attuned to its crowd noises and machine noises as it was possible to be.
And the thing itself waited on the Concourse below, its metal flanks steaming, cooling, emitting a low hum of awareness that made Lowry’s legs tremble. . . .
Quick calculation: He’d slept for rather more than sixteen hours. He was due to report to the staff of the Engine some two or three hours ago.
He dressed, ran out into the corridor, and threw himself in stumbling terror down the dormitory’s concrete staircase, still fumbling with his spectacles, and stepped out onto the crowded wide-open Concourse, where he was obliged, under the eyes of Authority, to walk, never to run, and to show the proper indifference to his own individual fate.
Two great busy Halls with roofs of iron girders and dirty green glass processed the Engine’s passengers and crew. One Hall handled civilians and outsiders who’d purchased passage; one handled military personnel. Lowry reported to the latter. He waited, in agony, under the eye of disapproving clock faces, in a queue that zigzagged back and forth across the floor’s greasy tiles in much the same way that the Line ran across the continent. He presented his papers at the counter and said, “Sub-Invigilator (Third) Lowry, reporting.”
Behind the counter sat a woman with a tautly wound bun of steel-gray hair, a long sharp nose, distant eyes. She studied a roll of typed paper and said, “No.”
“What?”
“No.”
“I said Lowry, woman. I have orders to go east with the Engine to Archway. See here?” He pointed at his papers.
“See here?” The woman pointed at her papers, under I for Invigilator (Sub) (Third), where his name significantly did not appear. Her finger was stub-nailed and abominably stained with black ink.
“There must be some mistake.”
That was impossible, of course—the Line made no mistakes. He said, “I mean, I must have made some mistake,” in case anyone important was listening.
She shrugged and bent down over her paperwork. Lowry saw that she kept three steel pens shoved into the back of her hair, one of which was leaking; they looked like loose wiring, or vents for internal machinery.
He pressed his face up against the grille in the glass and whispered, “Please.”
She looked up at him with blank contempt, sighed, and waited for him to go away—which, after what felt like hours, he did.
He pushed through the crowd, which parted nervously around him. Part of his mind was trying to calculate causes—had he been removed from service for his tardiness? Had the Auburn Report, despite his best efforts, contained unacceptable traces of pride? Had he spoken blasphemy in his sleep? Had he contradicted, without remembering it, some superior officer, had he—? Part of his mind was trying to calculate consequences: Should he fear only for his career, or also for his life? Most of his mind was blank.
“Sir?”
He didn’t hear it at first.
“Sir?”
The gray-haired woman was calling him. He slumped back to the counter, numbly expecting further humiliation.
“Sir.” She sounded suddenly anxious, apologetic, and that made him stand up a little straighter. He leaned forward and snapped, “What?”
She handed him a short telegram. “Sir, I apologize, I . . .”
“Shut up,” he said.
He read the telegram. It didn’t take long, and it left him entirely confused.
“Kingstown,” he said. Far to the West—indeed, the Line’s westernmost point. At least two weeks away. The Angelus Engine was going east, which meant that he would have to wait for the Archway Engine to pass through, which would take him only as far as Harrow Cross, from where perhaps the Harrow Cross Engine would take him west to . . .
“My apologies, sir,” the woman said. “In all the rush, sir, I forgot—”
He smiled at her, baring bleached teeth. “What’s your name, woman?”
The telegram said:
FOR SUB-INVIGILATOR (THIRD) LOWRY OF THE ARMY OF
THE ANGELUS ENGINE:
KINGSTOWN STATION
SETTING ASIDE ALL OTHER BUSINESS
WITHOUT DELAY
It was unsigned.
CHAPTER 4
ANCIENT HISTORY
Creedmoor left the riverboat that same night. He leapt from the boat’s stern and landed knee deep in riverbank mud, among reeds and turtles and toads and snakes.