The Note Ahead

The black route thinned to a line beneath Mercy’s wheels, and the next eastern signal blinked from a fragment beyond the gap.

Oliver eased the throttle down. The steel track ended at a sheared edge of stone. Across the open space, the fragment turned slowly, its near side crowded with broken walls and a narrow tower. The signal shone from high on the tower, a pale point that held steady while the land moved around it.

“Can we reach it?” Nadia asked.

“Not on these rails.” Oliver leaned over the gauge. White and red still ran beside Mercy, each on its own line. The black mark approached the edge of its glass, then continued as a fine stroke toward the fragment. “The route says we can get closer.”

Tirra stood beside the engine, boots just inside the black line. “It doesn’t say what’s on the other side.”

“Nothing does.” Oliver checked the brake and the gap again. The two fragments were close enough for a jump, if gravity chose to hold them together. It had made no such promise so far.

The whistle cord shifted under his hand as the engine settled. He had not touched it. A low tone came through the cab floor, faint but steady, and stopped when the engine’s vibration died.

Nadia turned toward the whistle. “That’s the sound from before?”

“I think so.” Oliver lifted his hand from the cord. The tone returned, barely louder than a wheel ticking against its housing. He watched the gauge. The black mark trembled, but none of the colored lines moved.

Tirra crouched and placed her palm on the rail. “It’s coming from ahead.”

Oliver climbed down. He drew the whistle cord once, sounding the same low note he had used by the sorting chamber. The whistle’s note crossed the gap and faded. A second tone followed it from the black route, lower and longer. It came from beyond the broken track.

Nadia walked to the engine’s front. The crack in the brass panel caught a strip of light. She kept her fingers away from it. “The fragment’s still moving. We can’t wait for a clearer answer.”

Oliver looked from the signal to the unbroken black line on the gauge. He wanted a reading he could trust, the kind that put a number beside a danger. The gauge gave him no such thing. He could stop here and let the signal keep blinking without them, or take Mercy over a gap the track did not cross.

“Can the black route hold the engine?” Nadia asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Then test it before you put the whole train over.”

Oliver went to the front coupling. A short length of track ran between Mercy’s wheels and the edge. He uncoupled the engine’s small inspection trolley, a battered four-wheel frame used for carrying tools, and set it on the rail. It weighed little. If the route could not hold it, the trolley would go first.