A shout sounded from further down the dining car. Harriet looked up in time to see that one of the children had broken free from his parents and was barreling down the aisle like an out-of-control tumble-ox, bouncing off seats and tables and setting crockery clattering like approaching alarm bells. Harriet shot out an arm as the boy rushed past, snagging him and bringing him to a halt. She looked up to see the boy’s mother hurrying after him, her face as flushed as fire-bloom.
“Forgive me,” the woman said. She had runny egg down her gown, Harriet noticed, and a buttery handprint planted firmly on her jacket sleeve. “He just can’t sit still.” If anything, her face was turning even redder.
“Ha!” Bertrand said. “Nothing to forgive. You should have seen Harry when she was little. Bouncing around like a Martian slug fly. Couldn’t stop her…” He trailed off as he noticed Harriet glaring at him. “Anyway,” he rallied. “No harm done, eh?”
Harriet held her withering glare for another second before turning to the woman. “Don’t worry. I’m Harriet George. Where are you traveling to?”
The woman got a good grip on her son’s hand. “Mr. and Mrs. Edgeware.” She shot a look at her son. “And children. This one is Marcus. Eleanor is back at the table. For now. We’re on holiday. We’re going to the Louros Hotel.”
“To the ball?”
“Oh, good gracious no!” Mrs. Edgeware laughed. “That’s not the kind of event people like us are invited to. We’re just staying at the hotel. My husband has a fascination for Ancient Martian ruins. We’re hoping to take a submersible trip around the more impressive submerged buildings. I have heard that some are large enough that a submersible can slip inside. You can still see the decorations on the walls.” She leaned closer. “I must admit, though, that the timing is not entirely coincidental. I am hoping to catch a glimpse of Sir Lancelot Coverdale. I hear he is attending the ball. It will drive my sister wild with envy. She has such a tendre for Sir Lancelot, even though she’s never met him. She reads all about him in the newspapers, you see. Oh.” She looked up. “I see your breakfast has arrived. I shall leave you to it. Once again, thank you for capturing my little runaway.”
“Sir Lancelot Coverdale, eh?” Bertrand said, once the woman and her child had returned to their table. “I once almost arrested his father. By mistake!” he added at Harriet’s raised eyebrow. “He took it rather well. Considering.” He leaned back to let the automatic waiter set out their breakfast. “So, were you going to eat those cakes, do you think?”
Harriet glanced around the carriage again. The dangerous-looking trio had disappeared. They must have left in the confusion. Harriet cursed herself. Watch them, she’d told herself. Then she’d gotten distracted. Blast it! She couldn’t afford to let that happen. She reached absently for a seed cake.
“Oh,” Bertrand said. “Oh well.”
By the time they reached Candor City in the early hours of the next morning, Harriet had learned two things. Firstly, although she had always wanted to see more of Mars, she didn’t want to see more of this particular part of Mars. The strip of British Mars over which the Clockwork Express ran, from the high Pavonis plain, along the precipitous north coast of the Valles Marineris to Candor, was given over almost entirely to farmland and small towns. It made sense, Harriet supposed, but every time she glimpsed the bustling, tangled wilderness on the horizon, she felt the kind of sharp longing that left her shaking. When she and Bertrand had taken an airship to the Great Wall of Cyclopia and the dinosaur-infested wilderness beyond in pursuit of The Glass Phantom, the feeling of liberation and freedom had been almost overwhelming. I have to get this right. As an agent of the British-Martian Intelligence Service, she might be sent anywhere on Mars or even Earth. As a single young lady, or, worse, a married woman, she might never leave Tharsis City again.
The second thing that Harriet had learned was that, despite the comfortable mattress and the gentle lulling of the spring-powered train, she simply couldn’t sleep. It was the way the bunks were arranged, she’d decided sometime well after midnight. They were side-on, so that every time the train slowed, Harriet felt like she was going to roll out of bed. Somewhere near two o’clock in the morning, Harriet managed to manhandle the mattress off the bunk and onto the floor only to find that the cabin was a good foot too narrow to accommodate it the proper way around.
By the time Bertrand finally knocked on the door with a cheery shout of, “Wake up, sleepyhead,” Harriet was ready to strangle someone. She dressed quickly then slid back the door. Bertrand stood outside, beaming widely.
“Haven’t slept so well for months,” he burbled, in a peculiarly irritating way, Harriet thought. “Not to speak ill of the heavily pregnant, but your sister does snore rather these days. I say, you look a bit rough.”
Harriet shot him daggers.
“I, ah, I’ll let you get ready, shall I? We’re only half an hour from Candor.”
It took the full half hour to get respectable, and even then, Harriet thought she looked like a storm-tossed hedge. It was not a good look.
I’ll sort myself out when we reach the hotel, she told herself. After all, the ball wasn’t until the evening and it wasn’t yet dawn.
The train decelerated hard as it came down the slope toward Candor. Harriet stumbled awkwardly along the corridor, dragging her luggage behind her and muttering under her breath.
A door in front of her opened at exactly the wrong moment. An elegant, middle-aged lady stepped out without looking. Harriet lost her footing and tripped right into the lady.
She pushed herself upright from the door frame and took a step backward.
“I do beg your pardon,” she managed.
“Well, really!” the lady exclaimed. “How utterly disgraceful.”
“It was hardly my fault!” Harriet said, bristling. “I wasn’t the one who stepped out into the corridor without looking!”
A man—the lady’s husband, Harriet supposed—emerged behind her. Cold, hard eyes stared down at Harriet. She had to repress the urge to shudder.
Bertrand’s hand closed on Harriet’s shoulder, easing her back. “You must accept our apologies,” he said easily. “Our fault entirely. This train won’t stand still, eh? If there is anything we can do to make up for the inconvenience.”
The elegant lady turned her face away, as though the very act of looking at them was too much to bear.
“That will not be necessary,” the man grated. Then, with a stiff nod, he took his wife’s arm and escorted her down the corridor.
“What are you doing?” Harriet hissed. It was bad enough to be treated with contempt by that woman, but to have Bertrand apologize on her behalf when she wasn’t to blame was humiliating. “She was the one who stepped out!”
“Didn’t you recognize them?”
Harriet shook her head. “Why should I?”
“That was Colonel Fitzpatrick. Don’t you read the newspapers? He’s just returned from Earth. They say he’s killed a hundred men in the war against Napoleon, and just as many in duels.”
Harriet glared at Bertrand. “Well, I’m not scared of him.”
“I am. And you’re not the one he would have challenged to a duel.”
“Oh, please. Dueling is illegal, and you’re a policeman. You could have arrested him.”
“Only if he didn’t shoot me first. Come on, Harry. Let’s just enjoy the trip. I’ve never been to Candor City before. Let’s see the sights!”
Unlike many of Mars’s cities, Candor wasn’t built on Ancient Martian ruins. It had grown as a fishing port here where the cliffs that bordered the Valles Marineris for hundreds of miles gave way to gentle hills and sheltered harbors. The Clockwork Express tracks swooped down low into the tangle of tall, twisted native Martian houses close to the docks. On the hilltops above the native Martian quarters and the docks, well-ordered lines of Earth-style houses would, when it was light, look out over the Valles Marineris. At this hour, though, only the glow of friction lamps lit the train station. Around them, most of the city was in darkness.