I was fascinated by what I heard. I hadn’t realized before the extent to which the Navigators were in touch with the practicalities of the system. Nothing specific had been said, but there was a general feeling amongst some of the guildsmen that the Navigators were a group of ageing fuddy-duddies out of touch with reality. Advanced in years some of them certainly were, but their perceptions had not faded. Looking round at the mostly empty guild seats, I reflected that perhaps more guildsmen should attend the Navigators’ meetings.
There was more business to deal with. The report that Denton and I had made of the terrain to the north was presented by Navigator McMahon, with the added information that two further five-degree surveys were presently being conducted and that the results would be known within a day or two.
The meeting agreed that the city should follow the provisional route marked by Denton and myself until any better route was devised.
Finally, the subject of the city’s traction was raised by Navigator Lucan. He said that the Traction guild had come up with a scheme for moving the city slightly faster. Re-gaining ground on optimum would be a major step towards returning the city to a normal situation, he argued, and there was agreement to this.
The proposal, he said, was for the city to be put on to a continuous traction schedule. This would involve a greater liaison with the Track guild, and perhaps a greater risk of cables breaking. But he argued that as we were now short of much valuable rail stock after the burning of the bridge, the city would have to make shorter hauls. The Traction guild’s suggestion was to maintain a shorter length of track actually laid to the north of the city, and to keep the winches running permanently. They would be phased out for periodic overhaul, and as the gradients of future territory were largely in our favour we could keep the city running at a speed sufficient to bring us back to optimum within twenty or twenty-five miles of elapsed time:
There were few objections to this scheme, although the chairman called for a detailed report. When the vote was cast the result was nine in favour, six against. When the report was produced, the city would transfer to continuous running as soon as could be managed.
8
I was due to leave the city for a survey mission to the north. In the morning I had been called away from my work on the tracks, and Clausewitz had given me my briefing. I would leave the city the next day, and travel twenty-five miles to the north of optimum, reporting back on the nature of the terrain and the positions of various settlements. I was given the choice of working alone or with another Future guildsman. Recalling the new and welcome acquaintanceship with Blayne, I requested that he and I work together, and this was granted.
I was eager to leave. I felt no obligation to remain on the manual work of the tracks. Men who had never been outside the city were working well as teams, and more progress was made than at any time we had employed local labour.
The last attack by the tooks now seemed a long way behind us, and morale was good. We had made it to the pass in safety, ahead was the long slope down through the valley. The weather was fine, and hopes were high.
In the evening I returned to the inside of the city. I had decided to talk over the survey mission with Blayne, and spend the night in the Futures’ quarters. We would be ready to leave at first light.
Walking through the corridors, I saw Victoria.
She was working alone in a tiny office, checking through a large batch of papers. I went inside, and closed the door.
“Oh, it’s you,” she said.
“You don’t mind?”
“I’m very busy.”
“So am I.”
“Then leave me alone, and get on with whatever it is.”
“No,” I said. “I want to talk to you.”
“Some other time.”
“You can’t avoid me for ever.”
“I don’t have to talk to you now,” she said.
I grabbed at her pen, knocking it from her hand. Papers fell on the floor, and she gasped.
“What happened, Victoria? Why didn’t you wait for me?”
She stared down at the scattered papers, and made no answer.
“Come on… answer me.”
“It’s a long time ago. Does it still matter to you?”
“Yes.”
She was looking at me now, and I stared back at her. She had changed a lot, seemed older. She was more assured, more her own woman… but I could recognize the familiar way she held her head, the way her hands were clenched: half a fist, two fingers erect and interfolded.
“Helward, I’m sorry if you were hurt, but I’ve been through a lot too. Will that do?”
“You know it won’t. What about all the things we talked about?”
“Such as?”
“The private things, the intimacies.”
“Your oath is safe… you needn’t worry about that.”
“I wasn’t even thinking of it,” I said. “What about the other things, about you and me?”
“The whispered exchanges in bed?”
I winced. “Yes.”
“They were a long time ago.” Perhaps my reaction showed, for suddenly her manner softened. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be callous.”
“O.K. Say what you like.”
“No… it’s just that, I wasn’t expecting to see you. You were gone so long! You could have been dead, and no one would tell me anything.”
“Who did you ask?”
“Your boss. Clausewitz. All he’d say was that you’d left the city.”
“But I told you where I was going. I said I had to go south of the city.”
“And you said you’d be back in a few miles’ time.”
“I know,” I said. “I was wrong.”
“What happened?”
“I… was delayed.” I couldn’t even begin to explain.
“That’s all. You were delayed?”
“It was a lot further than I thought.”
Aimlessly, she began shuffling the papers, making them into a semblance of a tidy pile. But she was just working her hands; I’d broken through.
“You never saw David, did you?”
“David? Is that what you called him?”
“He was—” She looked up at me again, and her eyes were brimming with tears. “I had to put him in the crèche, there was so much work to do. I saw him every day, and then the first attack came. I had to be on a fire point, and couldn’t — Later we went down to the—”
I closed my eyes, turned away. She put her face in her hands, started to cry. I leant against the wall, resting my face against my forearm. A few seconds later I started to cry too.
A woman came through the door quickly, saw what was hap’ pening. She closed the door again. This time I leant my weight against it to prevent further interruptions.
Later, Victoria said: “I thought you would never come back. There was a lot of confusion in the city, but I managed to find someone from your guild. He said that a lot of apprentices had been killed when they were in the south. I told him how long you had been gone. He wouldn’t commit himself. All I knew was how long you’d been gone and when you said you’d be back. It was nearly two years, Helward.”
“I was warned,” I said. “But I didn’t believe it.”
“Why not?”
“I had to walk a distance of about eighty miles, there and back. I thought I could do it in a few days. No one in the guild told me why I couldn’t.”
“But they knew?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“They could have at least waited until we’d had the child.”
“I had to go when I was told. It was part of the guild training.”