More soldiers are coming now, bringing with them some kind of sled to pull Red back with them. They struggle to get his dead weight onto the sled, and then they’re dragging him away toward the train. The woman who had been searching the trees goes with them, whatever concern she might have had disappearing as she keeps pace with the others. Their excited shouts fade into the distance as they go.
I don’t move a muscle until they’re well out of earshot. Then I shift forward in the branch and survey our surroundings one more time. The other campsites are farther away, and there are no signs of Ghosts nearby. It seems like Red’s capture has gotten everyone at the station worked up, with soldiers swarming back and forth to the train as Red is loaded into one of the metal carriages.
Still, I wait a few more minutes before I finally drop to the ground, making no sound more than a soft hush against the dirt.
Jeran’s already down, his figure barely perceptible among the ferns. I don’t even notice him until I see his hands moving in the darkness. “For a second, I didn’t think they’d take him back,” he signs as he brushes leaves from his shoulders. Behind him, Adena emerges from the shadows without a sound.
“They would have,” Adena answers, her fingers moving rapidly. “I’ve seen them carefully load up Ghost corpses to take back with them. No Karensan patrol would be instructed to leave behind something that can be studied.”
Something that can be studied. I think of the vision of the glass chamber I’d seen in Red’s thoughts. When they get him back to the lab complex, the first thing they’ll want to do is find a way to establish the link between him and the Federation. Make sure he obeys the right people and never tries to escape again.
“I don’t know how that train works,” I tell them, nodding in the direction of the station, “but smoke is starting to pour from its front.”
Jeran nods at me. “Do you still feel his pull?” he signs.
Even unconscious, Red’s mind sends a faint, steady pulse that touches my thoughts, just as when he’s asleep or dreaming.
“Yes,” I sign.
Jeran looks off toward the train station. “Let’s go, then.”
The night has set in fully now, so that the only light floods from the station lanterns and the train itself. Steam pouring from its chimney drowns it in a fog that hides the silhouettes bustling around its base. Good. It’ll help us hide too.
We steal closer to the station under the cover of darkness until we’ve reached the long line of carriages sitting on the tracks, and then slide underneath them to wait for soldiers to hurry past. They must be in the process of laying down more tracks, I realize, given the steel and wood piled high on the side of the station. And then it occurs to me that they’re doing this because they’re preparing for the day when Mara falls, so they can continue expanding their world into ours without interruption. The realization leaves me cold.
Finally, we see an opening as soldiers step away from the train. A whistle blisters the air with its shrill shriek, and for an instant, my heart jumps in the way it does when a Ghost is near. Then Adena is tapping my shoulder quietly and gesturing at the carriage nearest us, now loaded with wooden crates.
“They’re about to move,” she signs, before we steal out into the shadow cast by the train on the side facing away from the station. Through the sea of steam obscuring the ground, we make our way along the side of the train until we find the nearest carriage with its door slid open. Jeran pulls himself up into it without missing a beat, then reaches down to grab Adena’s arm. He hoists her up. When he reaches to help me up, the train jerks forward. The movement makes me stumble as I land inside with them. We readjust our footing as the train begins to pick up speed, then push ourselves back into the darker recesses of the carriage, where the scent of wood and pine and metal fill the space.
I’ve been in wagons and on horseback. But seeing this enormous contraption of steel move from a crawl to a steady roll to a roar is like something out of a bad dream. The stench of black smoke makes my eyes water. The train station behind