Dreadnought (The Clockwork Century 2)

Captain MacGruder was the second to pull himself up and dust the glass fragments from his pants. “What is it, man?” he asked, even as he went to the window to see for himself. His motion startled the rest of the car into action. One at a time, he was joined by everyone present, or at least those who were able to haul themselves up on the seats and lean their faces into the white outdoors.

It wasn’t snowing here, on this side of Provo.

The sun beat down from directly above, uncut or dimmed by any shadows, anywhere. The air was cold enough to preserve meat, and the snow was thick enough on the ground to swallow ankles—with a crystalline crust on every surface, giving all of it a mirrorlike sheen that made the afternoon blaze all the brighter.

Hands rose to foreheads, shading squinting eyes against the unexpected light.

The captain said, “Is that them up there?”

And the lieutenant joined him, also shadowing his eyes against the glare. “It’s the Shenandoah. They passed us by a ways, it looks like. ”

“Half a mile or more. More, I think,” he said.

Mercy could see it then. The back end of the Rebel vessel and the curve of its length on a track, motionless, and distant enough that it looked small.

“They didn’t blow the tracks,” she said. “They could’ve blown the tracks, but they didn’t. ”

Jasper Nichols said, “Maybe they tried. Maybe they couldn’t. ”

“I didn’t hear any explosions,” said Theodora Clay, who was suddenly right beside Mercy, her head and shoulders out the window, straining to see, same as everyone else. “Look at them. They’ve just . . . stopped. ”

The captain murmured, “I wish I had a glass. I can’t see a damn thing, between the sun and the snow. It’s all so bright, I can’t . . . it’s giving me a headache already. ”

Mercy said, “Maybe Ranger Korman—” But she cut herself off and said, “Wait a minute. Where’d he go?” because it’d be just as simple to go get him herself.

The Texian was easy to find, because he’d been on his way to rejoin the first car when Mercy opened the rearmost door and stepped onto the platform. It struck her as odd to find the train stationary, but she was pleased to walk so easily; and when she saw Korman’s face on the other side of the second car’s window, she smiled at him with relief.

“Ranger Korman!” she said when he opened the door to join her on the coupler.

He did not greet her back, but said, “What’s going on up there? Can’t you see the train?”

“Yes and no,” she told him. “You seem to be carrying all sorts of interesting toys; you got anything like a spyglass hidden in that waistcoat of yours?”

“Yup,” he told her.

“Well then, bring it out if you’ve got one,” she said. “There’s something funny about the Shenandoah. Just sitting there on the track. They aren’t stuck in the snow, are they?”

“I can’t imagine,” he replied, and he reached for the ladder that rose beside the rearmost door of the first passenger car. As he climbed, he added, “This isn’t enough snow to bog down anything with the power to move that fast. Though now that we’re stopped, it’ll be a pain in the ass to get started again. ”

“I’m coming with you,” she said, understanding that he meant to get a better look from the roof.

“Suit yourself,” he told her without looking back, and without offering to help her.

Within seconds, she was standing beside him on top of the first passenger car roof. Lieutenant Hobbes called out from below them, “Hey, up there. Is that you, Mrs. Lynch?”

She called back down, “Me and Ranger Korman. We’re just taking a better look. Hold your horses, we’ll tell you what we see. ”

The ranger pulled out a long brass tube, and while fiddling with the adjusting screws, he pointed it at the Shenandoah.

After perhaps twenty seconds of examining the scene in this manner, he switched the device to the other eye. Mercy couldn’t imagine that this would make any difference, but she didn’t say anything; she only stood there and shivered, holding her cloak up around her shoulders tightly, and breathing in air so brittle and cold that it made her chest hurt.

Then he made a noise that sounded like, “Hmm. ”

It was the sound a doctor made when he found that things were undoubtedly worse than suspected, but knew that it wouldn’t do anyone any good to worry the patient. Mercy knew that sound, and she didn’t like it one little bit.

“What do you mean by that?” she asked.

He did not move the glass. Only upon shifting to get up into his personal space did she realize he was holding it half an inch away from his eye, surely to keep the metal from freezing to the soft spots around it. He only said again, “Hmm. ”