5. Stopped

The great train has stopped. All the power they thought they had seems to dissolve in the air with the last of the steam. The passengers hold themselves still, as if afraid that their movement will draw the attention of all the curious, watchful, hungry things outside. The crew keep the curtains closed. Best not to see or be seen. Best not to think of how small they are; how the train, stopped out here in the vastness, is not as great as they tell themselves, as they boast to the passengers. All boasts are meaningless here. All promises waiting to be broken.

Marya, at the window of her cabin, holds her father's letter in her hands, and although the train no longer moves she has to force the words to be still. She cannot understand all the details, but there is enough here to clear his name—to show that he had desperately tried to get the Company to understand the danger the train was in—that it was causing. This, together with the signature on the glass, must surely be enough. When they reach Moscow, she will follow her father's lead and go straight to the newspapers. Or perhaps, if the Professor really is Artemis, she could persuade him to take up his pen once more.

Ifthey reach Moscow, she thinks.

Her father had tried to stop the train from running. He had known it wasn't safe.

I cannot in all good faith keep silent,he wrote. What I have seen weighs on my mind more heavily day by day.

She leans her forehead on the glass.

Henry Grey, his movements clumsy in his borrowed suit and helmet, fits the key into the first door. What if the engineer had never set the combination at all? What if all this was for nothing? He closes his eyes. To be so close, only to let it slip away… "Two clicks to the left and five to the right"—and the door opens. He steps into a small space, shuts the door behind him. Now, the outside door. "Four clicks to the right and six to the left." A thud of machinery, and it is done, the door is opening, he is stepping down, his feet, in their thick boots, touching untouched ground.

An explorer into Eden.

Weiwei, rushing headlong through the carriages toward the storage car, toward the skylight, toward where she knows, instinctively, the stowaway is fleeing. How fast can Elena run? Fast. Much faster than Weiwei can, and here, blocking her path, a crowd around a window in the crew mess.

"There—there she is."

They are watching a slow-moving figure in a suit and helmet, a long cord attaching her to the train. The Captain, carrying glass vials and a measuring stick.

"It shouldn't have been her," mutters one of the engineers.

"She insisted. Wouldn't ask anyone else to take the risk, she said."

No one asks—What if the water is too deep for the train? What if it is tested and found to be unsafe? Better to keep silent and pray to the gods of the rail. And Weiwei thinks, as she tries to wriggle past, unseen—there is still pride in their voices. They still revere their Captain, still want to believe that she will make everything right.

"Miss Zhang." A voice stops her in her tracks. She closes her eyes, and considers just keeping on running, but the Crows are in her way. "Where are you running to so fast?"

"There is no need to worry." They look down on her. "The Captain is protected by the gunner, she will be quite safe."

But the Crows are not quite managing to hide the worry from their own faces. They are losing control, she thinks.

"Urgent errand for a passenger," she says. "Need to get through to the storage car. A passenger from First Class."

They look at her for a moment longer than necessary, then part to let her through, but then Alexei is calling her urgently, and she has to stop herself from sobbing in frustration. "This way, look," he is saying, but she doesn't, she looks back at the opposite side, and so she is the only one who sees another figure leap awkwardly from the train, weighed down by jars and nets and boxes.

Henry Grey.

She hesitates. Then she sees a sudden movement closer to the train. A flash of blue, of matted hair and pale skin, and then it is gone, and she knows she has failed and she feels her legs threatening to give way beneath her. Elena is thirsty and panicked—if Grey sees her before she reaches water she will not be able to hide herself. He will catch her in his nets like one of his specimens. He will trap her and keep her behind glass.

Marya isn't sure where she is going, only that there are no safe hiding places in her own cabin. Her father had warned the Company and been ignored. Not just ignored—scapegoated, ruined. They will know the letter is missing. They already suspect her. She must make it difficult for them to catch up.

I cannot in all good faith keep silent.

And Suzuki,she thinks. Suzuki must have known it too, but he didn't speak up. She feels her chest tighten. Why hadn't he defended her father? And had he known that she would come here, that she would find this letter? Did he know who she really was?

Her feet carry her into the saloon car.

"There you are! You must come and join us, we have taken to gambling to distract ourselves, it is the only way." The Countess beckons her over, and she goes to sit by her side, picks up the cards she is given, looks at them without seeing.

When no one is looking, she takes the letter from her bodice and slips it as far down the side of her chair as it will go.

After a while, Sophie LaFontaine looks up from her cards and says, "But where is Dr. Grey?"

Weiwei has banged on the window, shouted the alarm, there is confusion all around her.

"Who is that—"

"How did they get out?"

"How did they get a suit?"

"Henry Grey," she says, her voice sounding as if it is coming from very far away. "The naturalist. I've seen those jars in his cabin."

She sees the color drain from Alexei's face.

"He's going to get the Captain killed."

"He'll be killed himself…"

How long has it been, now? How far could Elena have got? The walls of the train seem to be softening like treacle and she feels hollow inside. When did she last eat? She can't remember.

"Let me go out. I will fetch him back." She will catch him and keep him away from Elena, that is all she can do now. She tries to ignore the little voice that says, Or you can leave him to take his chances. You can find Elena. You can beg her to come back.

A moment of silence, then uproar again as they all start arguing.

"Don't be ridiculous, Zhang, I'll go." Alexei is looking at her as if he's seen a ghost. "We don't have another cord, it's far too dangerous."

"No. She is right." Petrov and Li, silencing the arguments. "We cannot allow our chief engineer to leave the train at this delicate time, but Miss Zhang has proved herself to be quick and resourceful. Her size and speed will give her an advantage." They turn calculating eyes upon her, their thoughts so easy to read it is almost laughable, and she would be angry at how little they value her safety, but for it being the only thing that will let her out.

"Though we would not, of course, ask her to take such a risk unless she is sure—"

"Of course she's not sure, she doesn't know what she's talking about." Alexei's voice rises.

"Please," she says. "We are wasting time."

It takes three of them to help her into the suit. It is far too big, it weighs her down, makes it difficult to breathe. Through the smeared glass of the helmet she sees Alexei—silent, retreating; miserable.

"You don't have to do this," he says. "They can't ask you to, they have no right." His voice is muffled. The helmet makes everything seem far away and not quite real.

She wants to say something to reassure him but the panicked hammering of her heart makes it hard to think. How long has it been now? Has he seen her? Or has she vanished into the water, into the woods? The Crows are watching her, their hands clasped in front of them.

"If the Professor knew…" says Alexei, his voice cracking.

"We'll tell him about it afterward," she says. "It will make a good story."

"Don't lose sight of the rail," he says. "Without the cord you're on your own. You can't trust the landscape. Only the rail. Do you understand? Just keep the rail in sight. And if you haven't found him by the time the sun gets to the top of those trees"—he points out of the window at the highest birches—"you come back, is that clear?"

She nods, clumsily, and he steps toward her, then seems to think better of it. "Just come back."

The others help her to the first of the locked doors, open it for her with a gallantry that makes her want to laugh. She is handed the key, she hasn't put her gloves on yet. And then the door is closing and they are watching her as it shuts with a heavy thump. She puts the key in the outer door and with a prayer to the god of the rail she steps down into the Wastelands.