Behind was a string of passenger cars built around the same four-fold symmetry, engaging with the same rails.
‘That’s the… ?’
‘… Chasm City Zephyr,’ Quirrenbach said. ‘Quite a beast, isn’t she?’
‘You’re telling me that thing actually goes somewhere?’
‘It wouldn’t make much sense if it didn’t.’ I gave him a look so he continued, ‘I heard that they used to have magnetic levitation trains running into Chasm City and out to the other colonies. They had vacuum tunnels for them. But they must have stopped working properly after the plague.’
‘And they thought replacing them with this was a good idea?’
‘They didn’t have much choice. I don’t think anyone needs to get anywhere very quickly nowadays, so it doesn’t matter that the trains can’t run at the supersonic speeds they used to attain. A couple of hundred kilometres per hour is more than sufficient, even for journeys out to the other settlements.’
Quirrenbach started walking towards the back of the train where ramps led up to the passenger cars.
‘Why steam?’
‘Because there aren’t any fossil fuels on Yellowstone. Some nuclear generators still work, but, by and large, the chasm itself is about the only useful energy source around here. That’s why a lot of the city runs on steam pressure these days.’
‘I still don’t buy it, Quirrenbach. You don’t jump back six hundred years just because you can’t use nanotechnology any more.’
‘Maybe you do. After the plague hit, it affected a lot more than you’d think. Almost all manufacturing had been done by nano for centuries. Materials production; shaping — it all suddenly got a lot cruder. Even things which didn’t use nano themselves had been built by nano; designed with incredibly fine tolerances. None of that stuff could be duplicated any more. It wasn’t just a question of making do with things which were slightly less sophisticated. They had to go right back before they reached any kind of plateau from which they could begin rebuilding. That meant working with crudely forged metals and metalworking techniques. And remember that a lot of the data relating to these things had been lost as well. They were fumbling around in the blind. It was like someone from the twenty-first century trying to work out how to make a mediaeval sword without knowing anything about metallurgy. Knowing that something was primitive didn’t necessarily mean it was any easier to rediscover.’
Quirrenbach paused to catch his breath, standing beneath a clattering destination board. It showed departures to Chasm City, Ferrisville, Loreanville, New Europa and beyond, but only about one train a day was leaving to anywhere other than Chasm City.
‘So they did the best they could,’ Quirrenbach said. ‘Some technology had survived the plague, of course. That’s why you’ll still see relics, even here — servitors, vehicles — but they tend to be owned by the rich. They’ve got all the nuclear generators, and the few antimatter power-plants left in the city. Down in the Mulch it’ll be a different story, I think. It’ll be dangerous, too.’
While he talked I looked at the destination board. It would have made my job a lot easier if Reivich had taken a train to one of the smaller settlements, where he would have been both conspicuous and trapped, but I thought the chances were good that he’d have taken the first train to Chasm City.
Quirrenbach and I paid our fares and boarded the train. The carriages strung behind the locomotive looked much older than the rest of it, and therefore much more modern, salvaged from the old levitating train and mounted on wheels. The doors irised shut, and then the whole procession clanked into motion, creeping forward at a walking pace and then gathering speed laboriously. There was an intermittent squeal of slipping wheels, and then the ride became smoother, steam billowing past us. The train threaded its way through one of the narrow-bored tunnels faced with an enormous irising door, and then we passed through a further series of pressure locks, until we must have been moving through near-vacuum.
The ride became ghostly quiet.
The passenger compartment was as cramped as a prison transport, and the passengers seemed subdued to the point of somnolence, like drugged prisoners being carried to a detention centre. Screens had dropped down from the ceiling and were now cycling through adverts, but they referred to products and services which were very unlikely to have survived the plague. Near one end I could see a huddle of palanquins, grouped together like a collection of coffins in an undertaker’s backroom.
‘The first thing we’ve got to do is get these implants out,’ Quirrenbach said, leaning conspiratorially towards me. ‘I can’t bear the idea of the things still sitting in my head now.’
‘We should be able to find someone who’ll do it quickly,’ I said.
‘And safely, too — the one’s not much good without the other.’
I smiled. ‘I think it’s probably a little late to worry about safely, don’t you?’
Quirrenbach pursed his lips.
The screen next to us was showing an advert for a particularly sleek-looking flying machine, something like one of our volantors, except it seemed to have been made out of insect parts. But then the screen flashed with static and a geisha-like woman appeared on it instead.
‘Welcome aboard the Chasm City Zephyr.’ The woman’s face resembled a china doll with painted lips and rosy cheeks. She wore an absurdly elaborate silver outfit which curved up behind her head. ‘We are currently transiting the Trans-Caldera Tunnel and will be arriving at Grand Central Station in eight minutes. We hope you will enjoy your journey with us and that your time in Chasm City will be both pleasant and prosperous. In the meantime, in anticipation of our arrival, we invite you to share some of our city’s highlights.’
‘This’ll be interesting,’ Quirrenbach said.
The windows of the train carriage flickered and became holographic displays, no longer showing the rushing walls, but an impressive vista of the city, just as if the train had tunnelled through seven years of history. The train was threading between dreamlike structures, rising vertiginously on either side like mountains sculpted out of solid opal or obsidian. Below us was a series of stepped levels, landscaped with beautiful gardens and lakes, entwined with walkways and civic transit tubes. They dwindled into a haze of blue depth, riven by plunging abysses full of neon light, immense tiered plazas and rockfaces. The air was thick with a constant swarm of colourful aerial vehicles, some of which were shaped like exotic dragonflies or hummingbirds. Passenger dirigibles nosed indolently through the swarms; scores of tiny revellers peered over the railed edges of their gondolas. Above them, the largest buildings loomed like geometric clouds. The sky was a pure electric blue woven with the fine, regular matrix of the dome.
And all around the city marched into terrible distance, wonder upon wonder receding as far as the eye could see. It was only sixty kilometres, but it could have been infinity. There appeared to be enough marvels in Chasm City to last a lifetime. Even a modern one.
But no one had told the simulation about the plague. I had to remind myself that we were still rushing through the tunnel under the crater wall; that in fact we had yet to arrive in the city itself.
‘I can see why they called it a Belle Epoque,’ I said.
Quirrenbach nodded. ‘They had it all. And you know the worst of it? They damn well knew it. Unlike any other golden age in history… they knew they were living through it.’