He'd been prepared to pull every string in sight when he heard about the decision to send the Third Dragoons forward to Fort Salby. He'd wanted that train, and he'd been determined to have it. But he hadn't had to pull any strings in the end, because Yakhan Chusal knew who TTE's best engineer was. So at least?
"Green flag!" Tarku announced suddenly.
"At last!" Jalkanthi replied, and cracked the throttle.
Steam hissed, and the enormous, powerful engine shuddered, trembling like a living creature. The ten huge drivers, each of them almost seven feet high, began to move?slowly, at first, with a deep, strong chuff, spinning on the steel rails as they fought the incredible inertia of a train over two miles long. Then, behind 20887, the second, identical engine hissed into motion as well, drive rods stroking, and the massive drag began to creep slowly forward. Jalkanthi propped one elbow on the window frame as he leaned out of the cab and felt the incredible mass of the train behind him. Thirteen thousand tons, Train Master Sheltim had told him. Most people would have found that hard to believe, but this was the TTE. It routinely hauled loads that massive?or even larger?down the ribbons of steel which stitched the endless universes together.
The vast semicircle of the Larakesh Portal loomed ahead of him. Beyond it, he could see the high mountain plateau of South Ricathia and the thriving city of Union.
He'd always thought calling it "Union City" was more than a little silly. For one thing, Union was really no more than an extension of the vast sprawl of Larakesh into the universe of New Sharona. At the time it had been founded, the newborn Portal Authority had felt it was imperative to establish a new, independent city with its own government beholden to no existing Sharonian government, even a purely local municipal one.
Since then, practices had changed?most other portals the size of Larakesh had spawned single cities, with quite efficient unified governments, which sprawled across their thresholds?but Union City had been a special case on several levels. Not only had it been the first extra-universal city Sharonians had ever established, but the Portal Authority, at Harkala's suggestion (although it was widely rumored that the original idea had come from Ternathia), had been granted ownership of the massive South Ricathian gold fields. The vast majority of the authority's operating revenues over the ensuing eighty years had come from the exploitation of those gold deposits?whose location, of course, had been easy to project from Sharona's own experience?which had neatly absolved the governments which had established it from any requirement to provide it with long-term funding. And, Jalkanthi knew, it had also avoided a situation in which those governments which made disproportionate contributions to the Authority's budget would have acquired an equally disproportionate amount of clout with the authority Board of Directors. That was why he tended to believe the rumors about Ternathia's behind-the-scenes involvement in creating the arrangement in the first place.
Rather than develop and mine those deposits itself, however, the Authority had chosen to lease the mining rights for a percentage. Union City had been built largely for the specific purpose of overseeing and accommodating that exploitation.
Still, "Union City" had been a silly choice of names, whatever the Authority's reasoning, given the fact that the one thing exploration of the multiverse hadn't done was to unite all of Sharona. When Jalkanthi had been much younger, his grandfather had told him how so many people had hoped that the abrupt appearance of the Larakesh Portal truly would bring their own world together at last. The old man had cherished the dream of a restored Ternathian Empire as a worldwide bastion of freedom and just governance, both welcomed back to the many lands it had voluntarily freed and extended beyond them, as well, and he'd scarcely been alone in that.
Unfortunately for those dreams, Sharonians had been too attached to their nations and their national identities. And, his grandfather had grudgingly admitted, the Portal Authority had done too good a job of administering the portals in everyone's name. There'd been no need to create a true world government, and so "Union City" had remained no more than a name. No more than an unfulfilled promise, in the eyes of people like his grandfather, at least.
But maybe that's going to change at last, Grandpa. And it looks like we may even get the Empire back, just the way you wanted, Jalkanthi thought as the endless train of passenger cars, freight cars, and flatcars loaded with the tools of war moved steadily forward. Thick black smoke plumed from the funnels of both Paladins. Steel drive wheels flashed, and the trucks of the cars behind banged, grated, and squealed with ear-stabbing shrillness, then began to sing as they moved faster. Buffers rattled and banged thunderously as the double-headed train crossed the switches, swinging onto the mainline.
Jalkanthi watched the familiar landmarks, watched the front end of his own streamlined engine cross the portal threshold. Unusually for portal connections, Larakesh and Union City, although they were almost six thousand miles "apart" in their respective universes, were in the same time zone. Of course, what was fall in Larakesh was spring in Union City, and the sun was at a totally different angle, whatever clocks and watches might say. But Jalkanthi was accustomed to that. He was more concerned with getting through the vast Union City side of the enormous Larakesh Central yard and its innumerable sidings?the biggest and busiest rail terminal in the entire known multiverse, by any standard of measurement?and out into the Ricathian countryside, where he could open 20887's throttle wide.
Not much longer now, he told himself, caressing the smooth bronze lever like a lover. No, not much longer.
Chapter Forty-Three
Sarr Klian tried not to swear out loud.
It wasn't easy.
"So, Master Skirvon," he said instead, "as I understand it, then, my instructions from Two Thousand mul Gurthak are to defer to your judgment where any contact with these people is concerned?"
"I suppose you could put it that way," the senior of the two civilians who'd arrived at Klian's fort that morning replied. "Obviously, Five Hundred, no one is going to try to take away or undermine your military authority," he hastened to add, which softened Klian's frustration quite a bit. "But, as you yourself so cogently suggested in your dispatches to Two Thousand mul Gurthak, it's clearly essential that we get a civilian diplomatic presence established here as quickly as possible." He smiled. "Men in civilian suits and carrying briefcases are much less threatening than men in military uniforms carrying arbalests," he pointed out.
"I couldn't agree more," Klian said. It was, after all, as Skirvon said, exactly what he himself had asked for. But mul Gurthak's orders seemed to imply that Skirvon did have authority, even in purely military matters. Klian didn't like that a bit. Besides, there was something about this Skirvon and his sidekick that … bothered the five hundred. He couldn't quite put a finger on what it was, and he couldn't help wondering if a part of it wasn't that he resented having any of his own authority supplanted by a "mere civilian." He hoped it wasn't, but he couldn't be certain.
And I truly don't think that's what it is, either, he thought grimly. In fact, he looked back down at the message crystal from mul Gurthak, I'm pretty damned sure it's at least as much the tone of mul Gurthak's orders and dispatches as anything about these two.