Jamestown was on the coast of New Britannia, and the few times Joel had ridden the springrail, it had been to go to the beach. Once with his father, back when times had been better. Once a few years after, with his mother and grandparents.
That trip hadn’t been as fun. They’d all spent the time thinking of the one they’d lost.
Regardless, Joel had never actually crossed the waters. My first time visiting another of the isles. He wished it could be under more pleasant circumstances.
The track stood elevated by a series of large steel pillars, their bases plunging into the ocean. The water was relatively shallow between islands—perhaps a hundred feet deep—but even still, constructing the springrail tracks had been an enormous undertaking. New tracks were continually being laid, connecting the sixty isles in an intricate web of steel.
Up ahead, he saw a junction where five different tracks met up together. Two headed southwest, toward West Carolina and beyond, and another curved southeastward, probably heading toward the Floridian Atolls. None of them went directly east. There was talk of building a springrail line all the way to Europe, but the depths of the ocean made the project difficult.
Their train hit the loop of track that ran in a circle around the inside of the junction. They rounded this, Joel watching out the window, as the engineer threw a lever that raised a hooked contraption above the train. The hook tripped the proper latch, and a few seconds later they were shooting southward toward East Carolina.
Fitch and Harding settled back for the trip, Fitch looking through a book, Harding scribbling notes to himself on a pad. The earlier sense of urgency now seemed an odd counterpoint to their relaxed attitudes. All they could do was wait. While the isles were relatively close to one another, it still took several hours to cross the larger swaths of ocean.
Joel spent the time sitting and watching the ocean waves some fifty feet below. There was something mesmerizing about the way they crashed and churned. As the minutes passed, the train began to slow, the gears methodically running out of spring power.
Eventually, the train stopped, sitting still on its track above the water. The car shook, and a distant clink sounded as the second gear drive was engaged. Motion started again. By the time Joel spotted land, almost exactly two hours had passed from the time they left Armedius.
Joel perked up. What would East Carolina look like? His instincts told him that it wouldn’t be all that different from New Britannia, since the two islands were next to one another. In a way, he was right. The green foliage and bushy trees reminded him a lot of his own island.
And yet, there were differences. Instead of concrete cities, he saw forested patches, often dominated by large manor houses that seemed to be hiding within the thick branches and deep greenery. They passed no towns larger than a couple dozen buildings. The train eventually began to slow again, and Joel saw another scattering of homes ahead. Not a town, really—more a set of wooded mansions distant enough from one another to feel secluded.
“Is the entire island filled with mansions?” Joel asked as the train descended.
“Hardly,” Fitch said. “This is the eastern side—a favorite spot for country estates. The western side of the island is more urban, though it doesn’t contain anything like Jamestown. You have to go almost all the way to Denver to find a city as magnificent.”
Joel cocked his head. He’d never considered Jamestown magnificent, really. It simply was.
The train clinked into the station and stopped. Not many people got off, and most who did were police. The train’s other occupants were apparently heading for the western side of the isle, where the train would soon continue.
Joel, Fitch, and Harding left their coach and walked into a muggy heat as workers began to change the spring drums atop the waiting train.
“Quickly now, men,” Harding said, rushing down the steps and out of the station. His urgency seemed to have returned now that they were off the train. Joel followed, once again carrying Fitch’s scrolls and books, though he now had a large shoulder bag, borrowed from one of the police officers.
They crossed a gravel-strewn road, passing beneath the shade of the train above. Joel expected to take a carriage, but apparently the mansion in question was the enormous white one that stood just down the road. Fitch, Harding,