“Yes, let’s take a look at the other side of the cars.” He paused a moment. “Lufren and Torhm will come out and see to the pastries. We can go ahead. Voice Yanamar expects another hour to go before they break for the overnight trip.”
Kelahm tucked the two names away his memory, and noted Istin had just completed another lightning fast communication with their boss inside to ensure the campaign stop continued to run smoothly.
“Okay. Let’s go then,” he said, and they meandered down across the rails to the other side of the train station. The campaign train with its small private engine and car remained undisturbed.
Istin frowned at it.
“What?”
“We should’ve had the new engine here by now.” Istin’s frown deepened. “The new one’s bigger and can haul more cars. There’s some more campaign supplies coming with it, and it’s got a much better paint job, too.”
In the waning afternoon light, Kelahm examined the engine in front of them. It looked pristine with clean lines and, to his eyes, a fine coat of road-worthy gray paint, but Istin slapped the side of the machine with irritation.
“This’s supposed to say, ‘Elect Kinlafia Now’ on one side and ‘Darcel Kinlafia for Parliament’ on the other. We’ll update the slogans as soon as he wins, of course.”
“Of course,” Kelahm agreed though it hadn’t occurred to him that anyone would bother to paint political slogans onto a train engine at all. A check of his extended senses gave him no warnings of ill intent, but a thrumming vibration in the railway and the distant shriek of a whistle announced an inbound train.
“Do you suppose that’s it?”
Istin cocked his head slightly, and his eyes glazed for a few moments. Not safe, Kelahm’s instincts screamed, but the young Voice of course couldn’t hear him. He was instead communicating with someone assigned to the railway.
“No.” Istin scowled. “Not it. That’s the train the railway rerouted our engine for. Diplomatic priority, even though we submitted our timetable first.”
A magnificent, if unadorned engine squealed to a halt at the Whitterhoo Station trailing three unusual carriage cars and the normal motley of freight.
Istin Leddle groaned and trailed unwillingly behind him as Kelahm chan Helikos hotfooted up to the train station to see who might disembark.
“Don’t talk to them!” Istin called after him. “It only makes them more curious!”
No one had left the newly parked train before Kelahm arrived on an empty platform and discovered he wasn’t the only one with a sense of curiosity. He stopped quickly and his eyebrows rose as a dolphin’s left eye, set on the side of a long gray face, examined him from one of the windows. What Kelahm had at first taken to be normal carriage cars were actually filled with water and glassed in. The cetacean flipped in place as Istin arrived beside him, and another pair of small dolphins took to examining Whitterhoo from the large window in the next aquarium car.
The young Voice scanned all three and breathed a heavy sigh of relief. “Thank the Gods, it’s just dolphins and porpoises. At least they can be reasoned with!”
“Really? You’re a Cetacean Speaker?” That hadn’t been in the file Kelahm had seen on this particular Voice, but the Imperial Guard had no reason to give him full details if Istin was Talented beyond his publicly-acknowledged exceptional Voice Talent.
Not unless they had some reason to classify Istin as a potential threat, at any rate.
“No. I just did an internship at a cetacean embassy.” Istin waved off the suggestion. “They’ll have brought an interpreter with them. All the cetaceans hear just fine. It’s the listening I’m worried about. Just be glad there isn’t an orca,” he added darkly.
The Voice took his fist to the freight cars and began banging on each in succession until a weary young Cetacean Speaker climbed out of a car stacked high with dried cod. The young woman looked distinctly unwell and stepped gratefully off the train onto the platform.
“I am never, ever volunteering for one of these trips again!” She declared. “Just like being on a boat, my ass!” In spite of the green tinge to her own skin, the young woman turned back to her freight car and began hauling out stacks of dried fish to present to the dolphins and porpoises enjoying the afternoon sun in their cars.
“Trainsick?” Istin inquired.
“Yes!” She groaned. “And we were supposed to be in port and back in the ocean yesterday.”
“Oh?”
Kelahm gave the Voice a sidelong glance. Somehow he suspected Istin already knew what the cetacean train’s listed schedule had been.
“Yeah.” The Speaker sighed heavily. “I’m Forminara Pelgra, by the way.” She paused a bare moment for a formal introduction. “These are Nnnnmmmll, Llllooouooo, and Mmmmunnnll. But they’ll try talking to you even if you don’t get the pitch right. And don’t worry about memorizing the names, if you see them again, they’ll probably have picked other human names by then.”
“Those aren’t human names,” Istin pointed out.
Forminara shook her head. “I know, I know. But they like the sound of those letters, and they are human letters. There was this orca, and-”
“Never mind,” Istin interrupted. “I understand; I’ve met orca.”
One of the dolphins squealed something that sounded like laughter.
“Oh. And they’d like you to know my nickname is Sings Badly. It’s a joke.”
The dolphin’s musical response raised a blush on Forminara’s face.
“Okay, not totally a joke, but,” she added defensively, “I’m getting better.
“Say, have you seen any porters around here? We’re supposed to have a load of fresh fish at this stop, and there’s also supposed to be a politician they wanted to meet. Have you ever heard of a Darcel Kinlafia?”
* * *
Her husband knocked lightly on the wood frame doorway of the tidy office Shalassar Kolmayr-Brintal kept for herself at the Cetacean Institute. Once he wouldn’t have needed to draw her attention so overtly. But Shalassar was a Cetacean Ambassador and founder of the Cetacean Institute in Shurkhal-work that continued even as she grieved for the loss of their daughter-and Thaminar Kolmayr tried to shield her from the overflow of his own mourning while she was working. Even so she felt the pain that mirrored her own and sensed him searching for a light topic for their luncheon conversation.
“Should we support Darcel Kinlafia, do you think?”
Shalassar looked up from the piled correspondence on her desk. She’d forgotten for a moment that the lean, tough man who served as her rock was there in the room instead of pulsing support through their marriage bond from their seaside home.
Grief could black out her world like that. Still.
Thaminar knew her well. He lifted the net bag with their bowls of marinated grilled beef and expertly spiced vegetables and cracked the fitted lid to waft the welcome smells of comfort food. Her stomach growled in response, and Shalassar reluctantly moved back from the desk, her mind shifting away from the pain of their lost Shaylar and back to the present.
Lunch called and the lapping tide outside her window marked the never ending pulse of time passing by, whether she wished it to or not. She followed her husband to the break room for a late lunch, thinking about Darcel Kinlafia as the present political candidate instead of as Shaylar’s past colleague.
“Darcel has a chance to win, you think?” she asked him, settling into the comfortable chair at the break room table.
“Yes. The news reports say he’s well ahead. Not our district, but some of the letters, from-” He waved at the wall behind her indicating the green star flag hanging over the covered dock on the other side of her office, not visible at all from where they sat in the break room. “-are asking if they should vote for him.”
“Oh, them.”
The green star flag had been adopted by families who’d lost a child to Arcana, but this one was special. It was the very first green star flag, made to memorialize Shaylar Nargra-Kolmayr. The other survey crew families had needed something too, so the flag had become the banner of a small group of families united by grief. But then, last month, the size of the group had exploded when all Sharona learned the war had been reignited by Arcanans attacking under cover of a truce they’d sought.