Inverted World (9 page)

There was a general air of anxiety amongst the guildsmen working on the site, and I asked Malchuskin the cause of this.

“It’s time,” he said. “It’s taken us twenty-three days since the last winching to lay the tracks this far. On present estimates we’ll be able to winch the city tomorrow if nothing else goes wrong. That’s twenty-four days.

Right? The most we can winch the city this time is just under two miles …but in the time we’ve taken to do that the optimum has moved forward two and a half miles. So even when we’ve done this we’ll still be half a mile further behind optimum than we were at the last winching.

“Can we make that up?”

“On the next winching, perhaps. I was talking to some of the Traction men last night … they reckon we can do a short winch next time, and then two long ones. They’re worried about those hills.” He waved vaguely in a northern direction.

“Can’t we go round them?” I said, seeing that a long way to the north-east the hills appeared to be slightly lower.

“We could … but the shortest route towards optimum is due north. Any angular deflection away from that just adds a greater distance to be covered.”

I didn’t fully understand everything he told me, but the sense of urgency came across clearly.

“There’s one good thing,” Malchuskin went on. “We’re dropping this crowd of tooks after this. The Future guild has found a bigger settlement somewhere up north, and they’re desperate for work. That’s how I like them. The hungrier they are, the harder they’ll work … for a time, at least.”

The work continued. That evening we didn’t finish until after sunset, Malchuskin and the other Track guildsmen driving on the labourers with bigger and better curses. I had no time to react one way or another, for the guildsmen themselves, and I, worked no less hard. By the time we returned to the hut for the night I was exhausted.

In the morning, Malchuskin left the hut early, instructing me to bring Rafael and the labourers across to the site as soon as possible. When I arrived he and three other Track guildsmen were in argument with the guildsmen preparing the cables. I set Rafael and the men to work on the track, but I was curious about the dispute. When Malchuskin eventually came over to us he said nothing about it but threw himself into the work, shouting angrily at Rafael.

Some time later, when we took a short break, I asked him about the argument.

“It’s the Traction men,” he said. “They want to start winching now, before the track’s finished.”

“Can they do that?”

“Yes … they say that it’ll take some time to get the city up to the ridge, and we could finish off here while that’s going on. We won’t allow it.”

“Why not? It sounds reasonable.”

“Because it’d mean working under the cables. There’s a lot of strain on the cables, particularly when the city’s being winched up a slope, like the one before the ridge. You’ve never seen a cable break, have you?” It was a rhetorical question; I didn’t know before this that cables were even used.

“You’d be cut in half before you heard the bang,” Malchuskin finished sourly.

“So what was agreed?”

“We’ve got an hour to finish, then they start winching anyway.”

There were still three sections of rail to lay. We gave the men a few more minutes’ rest and then the work started again. As there were now four guildsmen and their teams concentrated in one area, we moved quickly, but even so it took most of the hour to complete the track.

With some satisfaction, Malchuskin signalled to the Traction men that we were ready. We collected our tools, and carried them to one side.

“What now?” I said to Malchuskin.

“We wait. I’m going back to the city for a rest. Tomorrow we start again.”

“What shall I do?”

“I’d watch if I were you. You’ll find it interesting. Anyway, we ought to pay off these men. I’ll send a Barter guildsman out to you later today.

Keep them here until he arrives. I’ll be back in the morning.”

“O.K.,” I said. “Anything else?”

“Not really. While the winching is taking place the Traction men are in charge out here, so if they tell you to jump, jump. They might need something done to the tracks, so you’d better be alert. But I think the tracks are O.K.

They’ve been checked already.”

He walked away from me towards his hut. He looked very tired. The hired men went back to their own huts, and soon I was left to my own devices.

Malchuskin’s remark about the danger of a breaking cable had alarmed me, so I sat down on the ground at what I considered was a safe distance from the site.

There was not much activity in the region of the stayemplacements. All five of the cables had been connected up, and now ran slackly from the stays across the ground parallel to the tracks. Two Traction guildsmen were by the emplacements, carrying out what I presumed was a final check on the connections.

From the region of the ridge a group of men appeared, and walked in two orderly files towards us. From this distance it was not possible to see who they were, but I noticed that one of their number left the file at approximately one hundred yard intervals, and took up a position at the side of the track. As the men approached I saw that they were militiamen, each equipped with a crossbow. By the time the group reached the stayemplacements only eight of them were left, and these took up a defensive formation around them. After a few minutes one of the militiamen walked over to me.

“Who are you?” he said.

“Apprentice Helward Mann.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’ve been told to watch the winching.”

“All right. Keep your distance. How many tooks are there here?”

“I’m not sure,” I said. “About sixty, I think.”

“They been working on the track?”

“Yes.”

He grinned. “Too bloody tired to do any harm. That’s O.K. Let me know if they cause any trouble.”

He wandered away and joined the other militiamen. What kind of trouble the labourers would cause wasn’t clear to me, but the attitude of the Militia towards them seemed to be curious. I could only presume that at some time in the past the tooks had caused some kind of damage to the tracks or the cables, but I couldn’t see any of the men with whom we’d been working presenting a threat to us.

The militiamen on guard beside the tracks seemed to me to be dangerously near the cables, but they showed no sign of any awareness of this. Patiently, they marched to and fro, pacing their allotted sections of the track.

I noticed that the two Traction men at the emplacements had taken up a position behind metal shields, just beyond the stays. One of them had a large red flag, and was looking through binoculars towards the ridge. There, beside the five wheelpulleys, I could just make out another man. As all attention seemed to be on this man I watched him curiously. He had his back towards us as far as I could make out at this distance.

Suddenly, he turned and swung his flag to attract the attention of the two men at the stays. He waved it in a wide semicircle below his waist, to and fro. Immediately, the man at the stays with the flag came out from behind his shield and confirmed the signal by repeating the movement with his own flag.

A few moments later I noticed that the cables were sliding slowly across the ground towards the city. On the ridge I could see the wheel-pulleys turning as the slack was taken up. One by one, the cables stopped moving although the major part of their length still ran across the ground. I presumed this was the weight of the cables themselves, for in the region of the stays and the pulleys. the cables were well clear of the ground.

“Give them the clear!” shouted one of the men at the stays, and at once his colleague waved his flag over his head. The man on the ridge repeated the signal, then moved quickly to one side and was lost to view.

I waited, curious to see what was next … although from all I could see nothing was happening. The militiamen paced to and fro, the cables stayed taut. I decided to walk over to the Traction men to find out what was going on.

No sooner was I on my feet and walking in their direction than the man who had been signalling waved his arms at me frantically.

“Keep clear!” he shouted.

“What’s wrong?”

“The cables are under maximum strain!”

I moved back.

The minutes passed, and there was no evident progress. Then I realized that the cables had been slowly tightening, until they were clear of the ground for most of their length.

I stared southwards at the dip in the ridge: the city had come into sight. From where I was sitting, I could just see the top corner of one of the forward towers, bulking up over the soil and rocks of the ridge. Even as I watched, more of the city came into view.

I moved in a broad arc, still maintaining a healthy distance from the cables, and stood behind the stays looking along the tracks towards the city.

With painful slowness it winched itself up the further slope until it was only a few feet away from the five wheel-pulleys which carried the cables over the crest of the ridge. Here it stopped and the Traction men began their signalling once more.

There followed a long and complicated operation in which each of the cables was slackened off in turn while the wheelpulley was dismantled. I watched the first pulley removed in this way, then grew bored. I realized I was hungry, and suspecting that I was unlikely to miss anything of interest I went back to the hut and heated up a meal for myself.

There was no sign of Malchuskin, although nearly all his possessions were still in the hut.

I took my time over the meal, knowing that there were at least another two hours before the winching could be resumed. I enjoyed the solitude and the change from the strenuous work of the past day.

When I left the hut I remembered the militiaman’s warning about potential trouble from the men, and walked over to their dormitory. Most of them were outside sitting on the ground, watching the work on the pulleys. A few were talking, arguing loudly and gesticulating, but I decided the Militia saw threats where none existed. I walked back towards the track.

I glanced at the sun: it was not long to nightfall. I reasoned that the rest of the winching should not take long once the pulleys were out of the way, for it was clear that the rest of the tracks led along a downhill gradient.

In due course the final pulley was removed, and all five cables were once again taut. There was a short wait until, at a signal from the Traction man at the stays, the slow progress of the city continued… down the slope towards us. Contrary to what I had imagined, the city did not run smoothly of its own accord on the advantageous gradient. By the evidence of what I saw the cables were still taut; the city was still having to pull itself. As it came closer I detected a slackening of tension in the manner of the two Traction men, but their vigilance didn’t alter. Throughout the operation they concentrated their whole attention on the oncoming city.

Finally, when the huge construction was no more than about ten yards from the end of the tracks, the signaller raised his red flag and held it over his head. There was a large window running across the breadth of the forward tower, and here one of the many men who stood in view raised a similar flag.

Seconds later, the city halted.

There was a pause of about two minutes, and then a man came through a doorway in the tower and stood on a small platform overlooking us.

“O.K… . brakes secured,” he called down. “We’re slackening off now.”

The two Traction men came out from behind their metal shelters, and stretched their limbs exaggeratedly. Undoubtedly, they had been under considerable mental strain for several hours. One of them walked straight over to the edge of the city and urinated against its side. He grinned back at the other, then hauled himself up on to a ledge and clambered up the superstructure of the city itself until he reached the platform. The other man walked down past the cables—which were now visibly slacker—and disappeared under the lip of the city itself. The militiamen were still deployed in their defensive formation, but even they seemed to be more relaxed now.

The show was over. Seeing the city so near I was tempted to go inside myself, but I wasn’t sure whether I should. There was only Victoria to see, and she would be occupied with her work. Besides, Malchuskin had told me to stay with the men, and I thought I ought not disobey him.

As I was walking back towards the hut, a man came over to me from the direction of the city.

“Are you Apprentice Mann?” he said.

“Yes.”

“Jaime Collings, from the Barter guild. Track Malchuskin said there were some hired men here who were to be paid off.”

“That’s right.”

“How many?” said Collings.

“In our crew, fifteen. But there are several more.”

“Any complaints?”

“What do you mean?” I said.

“Complaints … any trouble, refusal to work.”

“They were a bit slow, and Malchuskin was always shouting at them.”

“Did they ever refuse to work?”

“No.”

“O.K. Do you know who their squad leader was?”

“There was one called Rafael, who spoke English.”

“He’ll do.”

Together we walked over to the huts, and we found the men. At the sight of Collings, silence fell abruptly.

I pointed out Rafael. Collings and he spoke together in Rafael’s language, and almost at once one of the others shouted back angrily. Rafael ignored him, and spoke to Collings, but it was clear that there was a lot of animosity. Once again someone shouted, and soon many of the others had joined in. A crowd gathered around Collings and Rafael, some of the men reaching through the packed bodies and jabbing at Collings.

“Do you need any help?” I shouted over the row at him, but he didn’t hear. I moved closer and shouted the question again.

“Get four of the Militia,” he called out in English. “Tell them to keep it low.”

I stared at the arguing men for a moment, then hurried away. There was still a small group of the Militia in the area of the cable-stays, and I went in that direction. They had evidently heard the noise of the argument, and were already looking towards the crowd of men. When they saw me running over to them, six of the men started out.