The Celestial Steam Locomotive (The Song of Earth)

by Coney, Michael G.

  Nine years and two months from the beginning, the boy had gained enough psy to build cylinders, pistons, connecting rods and valve gear. He was now a man, had patience and had come to terms with his existence. He knew he would complete the work in the end, and he therefore built carefully and well, expending a wealth of psy on detail, so that it became doubly difficult for any vandal to smallwish the thing away. Some of the Dream People even became interested enough to dig into the history of the period themselves and began to arrive with their own ideas. There was little confusion. They were all working toward a common goal, and that goal was beauty. They built a boiler of riveted copper and filled it with copper tubes, and each joint was perfect. They built the tender to match the engine, slab-sided and six-wheeled. They put on boiler fittings of the finest workmanship, and the chimney was a thing of love. Next came the painting and the embellishments: the gauges, the handrails, the whistle and the bell.

  Finally they lit the fire and watched the boiler pressure rise, and stood around as the boy (who was now an old man) hauled on the regulator. Steam hissed into the cylinders, the piston rods slid smoothly and, with not so much as a smallwish from anybody there, the Locomotive moved forward with a sound and a smell that touched every Dream Person with magic.

  History records that the old man died two days later, his life’s work complete. He was sure that he had created the ultimate work of art, and there was not a Dream Person present at that inaugural run who would not have agreed with him.

  In one respect alone he failed. He had been unable to give the Locomotive a name. No mere word seemed adequate to express the feelings that the Locomotive aroused in its admirers.

  In due course the Locomotive did acquire a name—one that was totally suitable—but nobody ever knew quite how or when it happened...

  Meanwhile, the Dream People couldn’t leave the Locomotive alone, of course. It had captured their minds. They smallwished more track and a long train of carriages to go with it. They drove it around and held parties on it. And after a while they began to find the track too confining and the Earthbound journeys too simple.

  So its travels gradually became more outlandish, until, one forgotten day, it transcended the realms of the Rainbow and ventured into a dimension of the Greataway, sustained by the imagination of its passengers.

  It had, in fact, become a figment of the Outer Think.

  “There is a strange beauty in this monster,” said Manuel, comparing the Locomotive with storms and hills and Belinda, his own yardsticks. The smell was of sulfur and hot oil and pounding metal, of smoke and steam. It touched something deep in his inherited memories and made him a little sad.

  “Greetings, travelers.” A tall man stood before them, pink-cheeked and ageless, wearing a dark suit and a curious hat, tall and glossy black. “You wish to ride?”

  “Yes.” Zozula watched the man uncertainly. Like the Locomotive, he might not be real at all; he could be a smallwish—the Composite Stationmaster. “Are there many passengers aboard?” he asked.

  “More all the time.” The stationmaster shook his head slowly. “I honestly don’t know what the world’s coming to, I really don’t. Can you believe so many people are tired of life?”

  “We’re not staying on. We have a particular destination in mind.”

  He smiled sadly. “So they all say. Nobody will admit they’re taking the final trip. Nobody likes to admit that after they’ve done it all, there really is nothing more to do. Mark my words, you people, nobody ever gets off the Train.”

  And with these portentous words he nodded to them, touched his hat and withdrew once more to his place among the pillars.

  Zozula led the others forward. As he walked past the Locomotive he noticed for the first time a brass nameplate attached above the central splasher.

  It read: SHENSHI.

  For the moment he couldn’t remember why that name sounded familiar, but the sight of it was oddly comforting to him.

  The Captain was a Specialist

  Captain! Captain, burning bright,

  In eternal cosmic night.

  —Kiwi Lambella, 93,404–93,458

  The Song of Earth spans a huge slice of time, from the human viewpoint. It starts with legends dating from the year 1 Paragonic, when Starquin, the great Five-in-One, arrived on Earth. It continues through the year 250,746,523 Paragonic, supposed to be the crucial year of the Penultimate Ice Age, which became the year 1 Cyclic.

  Somewhere around the 52nd millennium, Mankind developed written records and, shortly afterward, crude computers and their data banks, which were to culminate in the Rainbow. So the later legends and songs became supported by fact.

  And the knowledge and the songs accumulated up to the present day.

  Since it covers such a vast span, it is not possible to tell the whole story in sequence. It is necessary to digress and explain from time to time. Thousands of years ago, a few of the remaining humans held a Great Telling. They spoke for a century and a half, yet covered a mere fraction of The Song of Earth.

  They sang of Manuel and the Girl, however; that much is essential. Then it became necessary to explain what happened previously, at the end of the great Age of Resurgence, which lasted 17,000 years and culminated in the discovery of the Greataway and the Outer Think and in the short life of the Invisible Spaceships.

  If that had not been explained, how could the listener know how longevity came about? How could they know that the Inner Think, which preserves youth, is actually due to a small parasite living in a substance called bor... ?

  And so the minstrels sing of Captain Spring.

  Her story happened long ago, even before the discovery of the Greataway, at a time when Earth’s powers were at their height and the solid ships were like dust across the Galaxy, and it seemed that the Age of Resurgence would never end.

  The trouble broke out a million light-years from Earth, which was a long way in those days, when there was no Outer Think and travel took time. A crewman went mad and ran screaming through the corridors of the Golden Whip. Nobody knew what drove him mad. The Red Planet was not even heard of in those days, and the crew’s quarters were designed to give every pleasure. Just maybe, he thought of home...

  He burst into Captain Spring’s quarters, found her spraying on her night wear and flung her to the floor, slavering like an animal.

  Reflexively, she killed him, cuffing him as he descended on her and breaking his neck.

  There was trouble. The law dictated that an inquest be held, and Captain Spring was unable to sit on the panel, due to conflict of interest. After all, she did have to justify killing a man.

  “Were you at any time in any danger?” asked the examiner, who was the first lieutenant.

  “No,” she admitted.

  “Then perhaps you’ll explain to the court why you killed this man.”

  Her hands curled on her knees, an involuntary movement that did not escape the notice of some people. She sat in the ship’s koting room, the biggest cabin on the ship and the only one big enough to accommodate the audience. She sat on a chair, dressed in candy-stripe, outwardly calm—as befitted the captain of the Golden Whip—inwardly raging at the indignity of it all, at the fact that she should, in effect, be on trial. And her hands curled on her bare knees, and the nails dug into the flesh. She was a big rangy woman, beautiful, with the slanting eyes of a Polysitian, although she was not of that race. Her hair was a russet mane, her movements as she stroked it back were slow, and heavy with suppressed power.

  People watched her, this superb and beautiful woman, with contempt and not a little fear.

  She said, “It was a reflex action.”

  “A reflex action. A reflex action.” With heavy emphasis the examiner turned from her and stared at the panel, making sure they had taken the point. “Our captain says she killed a man reflexively. That is an alarming admission.”

  Spring’s eyes were amber and steady, betraying none of the shame and confusion she felt. She looked
over the audience—people she’d been in command of until nine hours ago—and caught sight of Perry, the ship’s cook. He smiled back at her with sympathy, a small tubby man dressed traditionally in white, although his job was more a combination of mechanic and agrologist. Don’t let them get to you, girl, he thought.

  Spring looked back at the examiner. “I killed him in the same way that you might, if you happened to be holding a loaded gun and somebody jumped you unexpectedly.”

  “But you had no weapon but your bare hands.”

  “Are you criticizing me for my strength?”

  “Certainly not.” The first lieutenant backed adroitly out of the trap. “I was merely suggesting that your analogy might not be appropriate.” He smiled, a thin smile. “Even you must admit that it is unusual for a man to be killed by a slap across the face, as you claim.”

  “Even me?” Suddenly she rose to her feet, a lithe movement that took her to his side, so that she towered over him, a head taller—and he was no runt. “We are here to determine the cause of death,” she said, her voice low music with just a hint of menace, “and I’ve told you what happened. It seems you doubt my word. Perhaps you would like me to prove it...” And she raised her hand, and the audience gasped. The first lieutenant flinched...

  Later he said to the chief navigator, “We should have locked the bitch up permanently. She’s inhuman—she’s a danger to us all. A woman who kills without thinking is no captain for a ship.”

  “This is a cruiser. There have been hostile craft. She has the reflexes she needs, wouldn’t you say?” The navigator’s face was darkly spiteful. “Are you saying you could do a better job, First?”

  “Well... Of course you’d support her. I mean, you’re—”

  “Don’t say it.” The navigator, a small gray person of indeterminate sex, trotted off with an odd jerky gait, head nodding.

  The first officer made for the bridge. For a while he was in charge. Captain Spring was in the sickbay undergoing physical and psychiatric examination, as prescribed by the panel, this being the most the first officer could achieve without laying himself open to charges of mutiny.

  Elsewhere, Perry the cook was discussing the matter with two biologists. “You can’t condemn a person for fulfilling the dictates of their genetic makeup,” he was protesting. “It’s a matter they have no control over.”

  “You can say that about any murderers.”

  “Any murderers?” The cook flushed. “Your trouble is, you’re scared of her. She’s bigger and stronger and better than you, and you don’t know how to handle it. You accept the other Specialists, like the navigator, because their purpose doesn’t require them to be fast and clever—dear God, can’t you see how primitive your prejudice is? It’s simple physical fear, and you try to make all kinds of excuses for it. Try thinking about the hurt and the loneliness you’re causing when you all avoid her. Try remembering she’s as much a human being as you or I. Her only difference is that she has a little bit extra. Two extra chromosomes, that’s all, planted there by people like you. And you’d throw her in the brig for that? You bastards. Everyone on this ship’s been waiting for the chance to bring her down!”

  Later he visited the sickbay.

  Spring lay on a couch, chest down, one leg drawn up beneath her supple body, the weight of her torso propped on her elbows. Despite himself, Perry thought it was a jungle posture. He sat beside her. She looked up from beneath that weight of hair, looked at him with those eyes. She was crying.

  He wanted to stroke her. “What did the doctor say?”

  “He wants me to stay here for a few days for observation. I think everybody wants that. He says it’s not because of me, you understand? Not because of what I am. But because of the shock to my system. I might overreact at the controls, that’s what he says. The liar.”

  “I wish the Enemy were around. I’d like to see how the first would handle them.”

  “Perry... that’s not all. I... For a while there, in the koting room, I was glad I was different. You know what I mean? I despised them all. What kind of a way is that, for a captain to think of her crew?”

  “They were acting stupidly.” He looked away from the intense blaze of those amber eyes.

  “No. I despised them because I thought I was better. I was suddenly proud of what I am, seeing them all sitting there so small and slow and weak. I wanted to get up and walk among them and stare them in the face.” She moved on the couch, an involuntary twitch, and he saw the muscles of her thigh harden. “I think I wanted to harm them, Perry. I felt murderous. Maybe I still do...” She shook a hank of hair out of her eyes, and he shivered with the effect of her beauty.

  “What in hell is this? I said no visitors!” The psychiatrist stared down at them angrily.

  “I was just going.” Perry stood. “I’ll drop by later.” And as he turned to leave he caught sight of something glittering at Spring’s ankle.

  She was chained to the couch.

  Outside the door, beyond range of her hearing, he said to the psychiatrist, “What are you people trying to do to her?”

  “She needs therapy. She’s overexcited, you know. Her kind of people... we don’t know a lot about them. They can be unpredictable, unreliable—you know what I mean?”

  “No, I don’t. What I do know is that the authorities thought her reliable enough to give her command of a ship. This ship.”

  And the ship shook.

  Grabbing for support as the alarm blared out, Perry shouted, “Release her right now! We need her at the controls!”

  “I have my orders.” As running crewmen began to fill the corridor, the psychiatrist retreated to the sickbay. “I tell you this—I feel a hell of a lot safer now that the first is on the bridge, instead of that creature in there!”

  They gave the planet the name Talk-to-Yourself, but that was much later and it never was the official name. At the time of the Golden Whip’s crash landing it was known as C31674/5 and the crewmen, stepping out onto the Earth-type ground, called it Salvation. It was to become the most important alien world in the history of Mankind, and its inhabitants would walk with men forevermore.

  They radioed for help by fastcall and found a ship in the vicinity. It would be with them in six standard months. They had plenty of food for the hundred or so people on board, and even if they hadn’t, there were plenty of edible-looking fruits hanging among the lush vegetation, which, after testing, would probably provide unlimited food.

  And there was the river, deep and swift, on the bank of which they camped. Fishlike creatures leaped from time to time. There appeared to be no insects, no predators.

  “Paradise,” said somebody, and they settled down to await rescue in comfort.

  Within a couple of days, discipline had relaxed sufficiently for Perry to visit the sickbay again. The aseptic room, tilted strangely in the absence of artificial gravity, was empty. The chains hung from the foot of the bed, the leg-irons broken. Spring was gone.

  “What have you done with her?” Perry confronted the psychiatrist and the first officer. A tent had been set up in a clearing beside the river. The sun warmed the ground and people lay around talking and laughing.

  The psychiatrist took Perry aside. “She went berserk. She broke her chains and ran, yesterday.” The first stood by, nodding. “It’s better that people shouldn’t know,” said the psychiatrist. “We have enough problems right now. And the first is capable of handling things.”

  “But she’s the captain!”

  “She’s been relieved of command, due to mental instability.” The first’s voice was sharp. “I don’t want to have to give you a direct order, Cook, but I’d look on it as a favor if you kept your mouth shut for a while.”

  “Why? We have to get a search party organized, don’t you understand? She could be lying injured out there!”

  “She’s in her element. She’s an animal, isn’t she? Any search party going out into that jungle will have to be heavily armed.” The first glanced around
at the crew. He knew they had no love for Spring. He smiled. “Maybe that’s not a bad idea, after all.”

  Perry heard himself say, “Forget it.” He found himself a tree and sat down against it, watching the dappled sunlight dancing over the ground while he thought of Spring, his captain. Inside him was a huge hurt because she’d run off without consulting him first. Over the months they’d had many discussions, the cook and the captain, and Perry had always thought these had been for Spring’s benefit, to assist her in dealing with the full-blooded humans who formed the majority of the crew. Now he began to realize how much benefit he’d got from the talks, too.

  The forest sang to Spring. It sang a song of light and darkness, of youth and strength and simple things. Spring awakened, yawning, and stretched. Her arms were powerful motors, her fingers steel claws. She stood, a movement of fluid grace. The jungle vegetation rustled while she listened and sniffed, but she detected no menace, nothing but the breeze.

  She snapped off a stem and drank dew from a cup-shaped leaf. She stepped quietly through the lush growth and soon arrived at the riverbank, where bright flapping things, blue bats, hovered above the river and drank from its surface. Spring tensed, the muscles of her calves bunching, then flung herself out and down, cutting the water in a clean dive. Bats scattered, and the ripples widened, and the river flowed on.

  Spring slid beneath the surface, parting water plants and investigating rocky little caverns in the riverbed, watching big fish retreat, watching shoals of smaller fish dividing to swim around her. None of these creatures was frightened. Spring surfaced, blowing water... And swallowed some.

  The partnership of Macrobes and Man had begun.

  Now the ship seemed a long way off and, like the indignities of the past few days, unimportant. Strength and confidence flowed through Spring like brandy. She swam rapidly to the other side of the river and clambered onto the bank. Hearing a rustling, she climbed a tree, peering down from among the foliage.