Her begum could not but obey, because Akbar was her wife but also her emperor, and might not be gainsaid. So Akbar's begum went to her rooms in the palace at Fatehpur Sikri and began gathering her things into trunks, weeping all the time.
"What ails thee, sahiba?" asked Birbal, who liked the pretty, clever wife of her emperor, and loved Akbar well but was not blind to her faults.
The begum explained that Akbar was displeased with her and had said she must go away from the darbar. In the morning she would return to her father's house, which was on a world named Athāfi, fifty light years distant, and it grieved her greatly to go.
"Listen to me," Birbal said. "You must tell Akbar that you will depart in the morning as she wishes. You ask only that you may take some dear thing, some token, to remember her by. Will you ask her for this?"
Akbar's begum was doubtful, but she sent this message to Akbar and received a reply that she might take whatever item she liked best from the palace, if she would only take it and get out. "That is very good," Birbal said, when she heard of this. "Sahiba, leave the rest to me."
Akbar's begum was still doubtful, because afterwards Birbal returned to her place among the navaratnas, carrying a glass of sharbat to her emperor. But the begum resolved to have faith. In the morning she took passage on a great ship bound for the stars. The journey was a long one over many hours, but at last they made orbit around Athāfi and the begum and her luggage took a shuttle to the surface of the planet below. When they reached the begum's father's house, he said, "Dear, I am so pleased to see you, but why have you come at such an odd time?"
"I will explain everything later," she said. "First we must make arrangements for the emperor's stay."
Akbar woke up not so very much later, with an aching head -- from the drugged sharbat Birbal had given her, and from the ship's jump into faster-than-lightspeed, which one should not experience while asleep for fear of just such an aching head. "Why, my wife," Akbar said, growling like an injured bear, "am I here in your father's house, on the world of Athāfi?"
"You sent me away," Akbar's begum said. "And you said I must take with me from the palace whatever was most dear to me. You are what is most dear to me, so you are what I brought."
Akbar was full of anger at having been made a fool of thus, and ready to make further edicts, perhaps exiling her begum from the empire altogether, or having her begum and her begum's father and all others in the household hanged from crosses.
But when she imagined the time it would take, and the inconvenience, the humour of the thing struck Akbar at last. When she had laughed and apologised to her begum for her foolish actions, she said, "Tell me, my wife, was this Rani Birbal's idea?"
The begum agreed that it was.
"Then let my clever Birbal handle the empire for a little while," Akbar said.
She called for a messenger to take a fast packet ship to Earth, to say that the navaratnas and deputies must tend to themselves for some short period. Akbar and her begum spent a pleasant time on Athāfi, and their journey back to Fatehpur Sikri was slow and meandering: for even an emperor may have a holiday, and Akbar had much apologising left to do.
Alnwick
“Queerness as the vanguard of transformation," the woman with the pink hair was saying, “that’s what it’s about. Whereas Deepika’s latest is more about conformity with the establishment. She’s this odd little government flunky. I’d think it were performance art if it weren’t so sad. Meg, or Megan or something."
It was the fault of her shoes, Meg thought. Sensible ballet flats with soles that made no sound on the floor tiles. Or else the fault of the damn Victorian architect who’d built this house back in the year whatever and attached the bathroom to the kitchen, of all things, so you went off to hide from your girlfriend’s tiresomely political friends and found yourself listening behind the door to their opinion of you.
“It’s just" – that was Pink Hair again; Meg shut down the uncharitable interior voice wondering what profession allowed a thirty-five-year-old woman that particular shade of neon – “I never expected it of Deepika. Picket fences and homonormativity."
And that, Deepika, Meg thought, is your cue to leap to my defence – and perhaps it was for the best, that that was when the message came, the crystal at her throat lighting up into magnesium brilliance. Meg put her hand to it, read the information scrolling across her retinas, and after that there was no choice: she strode into the kitchen on those silent footsteps and started hunting frantically for her handbag and keys.
“Meg!" Deepika turned from the other doorway. “Meg, what is it?"
“I have to go to work," Meg muttered, “my coat, where the hell is…"
“Here," Deepika said, holding it out for Meg to put her arms into it. “Meg, what is it? No, just wait," she added, as Meg started to pull away. “The last Tube has gone, I’ll call you a taxi. What happened?"
“It was a train," Meg said, her eyes blurring. “There’s been a derailment on the east coast line near Alnwick. One of my ship’s engineers was on board."
“Shit," Deepika said, feelingly, and picked up the phone. “I’d like a taxi as soon as you can – just across from Belsize Park. Yes, please. Thank you."
“Where’s Alnwick?" Pink Hair asked, looking at the whole scene with interest. She had put her wineglass down on the table laden with party nibbles and was chewing her hair. Meg wanted to strangle her. She resisted the urge and threw off her shoes, looking for proper winter boots.
“In Northumberland," Deepika answered, while Meg peered at the data scrolling across her pad, waiting for the woman to ask, where’s Northumberland?
“Your ship?" – that was another one of Deepika’s friends, Anna or Annelise or something. “You have a ship?"
“Halley," Meg said, lacing up her boots, thinking, odd little government flunky. “The faster-than-light deep space exploration craft Halley. Perhaps you’ve heard of it?"
“Halley," Anna-or-Annelise said, in wonderment. “Halley. Deepika, you never said…"
I’ve told them all about you, Deepika had said. Meg touched the crystal at her throat so it returned to its dormant state, picked up her bag and went out. “The taxi will honk," Deepika said.
“I’d rather wait on the pavement," Meg said, but Deepika grabbed her arm.
“We’ll talk later," she promised, her eyes fierce, and then gestured. “Meg. You said, Alnwick. Does that mean—"
“Yes," Meg said, flatly, and when she stamped down the front path the taxi was waiting. “Whitehall," she said softly to the driver, and they set off. Meg clenched her hands into fists, breathed, and watched the lights of the city slip past the windows.
___
The security guard on duty gave Meg a sympathetic look at the door, which probably said everything she needed to know about what was going on inside. In the department, the main lights were still off – civil service energy-saving measure, clearly – so all work was being done by anglepoise lamps and LEDs. The rapidly moving shadows of her people made it look faux-spooky, like a sleepover or children’s party. Meg slammed her handbag down on her desk, and noticed for the first time she was wearing a Halley ID badge over a pink party dress and a pair of snow boots. London had turned cold in the last week, so the newspapers had made jokes about the Halley crew seeking better climes. “Right," she said, her voice carrying. “What the hell happened?"
The room fell silent for a moment, and then Adrienne – Meg’s closest friend and colleague here in Interstellar Science and Exploration – sighed and angled a lamp towards them both. "Well," she said, with a studied calm, "it sort of fell out of the sky."
Meg's heart hit her ribcage. "Halley?"
"No, for heaven's sake. A supply pod." Adrienne snapped her fingers and the holograph appeared at Meg's eye level; Adrienne twisted her wrist and rotated the image, showing Meg the fluid lines of the thing, pyramid-shaped but with no sharp points. "It's about the size of a transit van, I suppose. Something happened – we don't kno
w what – and instead of going up from Leith to Halley, it, er. Came back down."
Meg's mouth was open. "On top of the train?"
"Not on top of the train," Adrienne said patiently. "But pretty close, hard enough to jolt the track. The train derailed maybe another half-mile down the line, near Alnwick."
Meg sat down on the edge of her desk. "Okay. I'm calm. Look at me, I'm exceptionally calm. What have you done about the pod?"
"A team of investigators are flying out at dawn. It was an unmanned shuttle – they'll get the flight recorder and recover what they can of the cargo."
"Okay, good." Meg took a breath. "What do we know about" – she picked up the sheaf of notes presumably being prepared for the minister – “Campbell? The boy on board the train."
“He’s a light-field engineer, one of the core team," Adrienne said, shrugging. “They’re all on furlough, you know – three weeks till launch preparations begin in earnest. It was the King's Cross to Edinburgh train, we think he was visiting his parents."
"Oh, God," Meg said, picturing them waiting for him at the station, then lifted her head. "The last Friday train, due in – midnight, I suppose?" She glanced at her watch; it was coming up on two in the morning, and Saturday, now. “Adrienne, get a team and a report together, what happens if we have to do this launch without him, what are our options, that kind of thing."
“We can’t," Adrienne said, “not in three weeks – the training alone would be prohibitive, and the Halley light field, it’s attuned to the minds of the particular—"
Meg waved her silent. “Just do it, Adrienne, please? Best options no matter how bad they are. In the meantime – what’s that?"
That slowly resolved itself into an image, blurred on the white projection wall. “Ms Tripathi, is that you? Good evening."
“Good evening, Minister," Meg said, and bit down the hysterical laugh. Apparently Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for Interstellar Science and Exploration chose to sleep in natty blue-and-white striped pyjamas. As though reading her mind, he glanced down at himself on the screen, then lifted his hand. “Transparency in government is everything, Ms Tripathi."
“Yes, Minister." Meg allowed herself a very quick smile; it seemed like there might not be many in her immediate future.
“What can you tell me so far?" he asked.
Meg counted off on her fingers. “One. It was an unmanned shuttle accident that caused the derailment. Two. One of Halley’s launch crew was definitely on board, a Scottish light-field engineer named Leonard Ansari-Campbell, who may be injured, or" – she hesitated – "worse. Three. The train derailed near Alnwick."
“Has anyone else been hurt?" the minister asked, and Meg sighed for their collective human decency; she ought to have asked Adrienne that first. “We don’t know, Minister. Although I suspect our paucity of news is good news."
“Is it possible that I’m closer to the site than you are?" the minister asked.
“Closer in distance but not in time," Meg said, shaking her head. The minister’s constituency was on the Sefton coast, not far from Camell Laird where Halley had been built. “It’s a direct route up from London. In fact" – she made the decision – “I’ll go up there myself."
“You don’t want to attract media attention," Adrienne said from beside her, but Meg was thinking of that already.
“I’ll take the first scheduled service up," he said. I believe the line is open as far as Morpeth."
“Good luck, Meg," the minister said. “Keep me informed. And let’s try and keep this from the newspapers as long as we can, please? Particularly" – his expression stilled for a moment, becoming unreadable – “the issue of the Alnwick coroner's sinecure."
Too late, Meg realised why he had been asking about other deaths. “Yes, Minister," she said, and was grateful for the cup of coffee Adrienne placed straight into her hands.
The first scheduled service of the day from King’s Cross turned out to be at 5.15am. Meg called for another taxi and went home to dress more suitably for her day, discarding the pink-sequinned dress in the bathroom. “About last night," Deepika tried, perched on the counter top, but Meg shook her off.
“Not now," she said. “I have to go up north. I don’t know when I’ll be back."
“To Alnwick," Deepika said, and Meg nodded, taking a minute to stand still in the quiet kitchen. Deepika had clearly been awake since Meg's departure; it was clean and tidy in here now, with dishes gleaming in the rack, and no other sign of the party.
Meg sighed, relaxing a little. “I need to see my engineer, and perhaps" – she gestured – “keep it a little quiet, if I can. Try and avoid any inquiries into the sinecure list."
“That sounds ridiculous," Deepika said, and Meg took a deep breath.
“If it gets out," she said clearly, “if some journalist figures out the right sort of questions to ask, and why wouldn’t they, about Halley and Campbell and Alnwick, then there won’t be a launch whether or not we have a full complement of light-field engineers. The scandal will kill us. So don’t tell me it sounds ridiculous."
"Oh, not at all," Deepika said, with a crackle of anger, "not at all ridiculous, nor political. Meg, for what it's worth, I'm sorry you had to overhear those things last night. And I'm sorry if" – she overturned her palms – “it turns out the mission, everything you've worked for…"
She trailed off, but Meg softened at her obvious sincerity. “Yeah. That’s why I’ve got to go."
Deepika nodded, then said, “You won’t have time to get breakfast at the station. Let me make you something."
By the time yet another taxi arrived, she’d done two rounds of ham and cheese with chutney and a little sprig of parsley, the way Meg liked it. Meg kissed her goodbye and meant it, and ate the sandwiches three hours later as the train crossed the Tyne, feeling fragile and exhausted in the dawn light.
___
There were train carriages strewn in the fields. From her perch on the bonnet of a jeep, Meg counted five of them, some still coupled, others strange islands in the burnt-off stalks and snow. It made Meg's stomach turn horribly to see them like that, at perpendicular angles to how the world ought to be. "Can I help, or will I be in the way?" she asked, watching as ambulances drove down the farm tracks, wheels spinning in the mud.
"Wait till they get through the side, miss, it won't be long," said the voice from next to her, warm and Geordie. Meg had arrived at Morpeth to find the tiny station hushed and intensely active, passengers being herded away from the misty platforms, and had not wanted to interrupt. But the first of the local constabulary she met had recognised the crystal at her throat, and not very long after that she had been brought up here along the route of the old Great North Road, the snow vivid on the trees. "It won't be long," PC Throckley said again. "That carriage is the last one they got to. In the dark, you know."
"Oh," Meg said, a little weakly, trying to imagine what it had been like for the passengers waiting for hours in the pitch rural blackness, while distant lights flickered across the landscape and emergency response vehicles fought through the snow and mud. Down on the railway line, a group of emergency workers were using a cutting torch on a train carriage as though it were a tin-opener. The noise stopped, a paramedic in green and high-visibility yellow shouted into the crack, "You're all right, you're going to be all right!" before cutting began again.
"You're here from the ship and all," Throckley said, in wonderment, and Meg turned to him sharply.
"From London, actually," she said, anxious to correct his misconception. "I'm just a civil servant, I'm here to report back to my department. I'm not that exciting, really."
"No, it's grand," Throckley said, gesturing upwards, "it's exciting all right" – and then with a welcome, harsh sound, the torch cut through the metal. Throckley started forwards and Meg scrambled to her feet to follow him, slipping and sliding on the mud on the way downhill, and as they reached the flat ground, one of the rescue workers reached inside the hole and yelled:
<
br /> "Five to come out!"
It took a few more minutes, but the hole was enlarged, paramedics rushed down to the site and started unfolding stretchers, and a first passenger – ambulatory, Meg noted with some relief – was helped out. The second one had to be carried. Meg reached out to steady a paramedic skidding in the mud, and helped him unfold the stretcher. Up the hill there were vehicles disgorging more people, and for the first time, Meg realised that some of the workers were wearing dressing-gowns under the high-vis. "Leave the inside to the professionals, miss," Throckley said to her, but when the remaining passengers were brought out from that jagged-edged hole in the railway carriage, Meg got a whiff of musty air and darkly organic smells, dissipating fast in the metallic tang of snow. The last passenger to be brought out was a young man with curly hair, on his side on another stretcher, and Meg watched as a rescue worker squeezed his hand on the journey up to the waiting ambulances.
"All right," she said, turning to Throckley. "Constable, if that's everyone, and there were" – her voice betrayed hope and trepidation – "no fatalities?"
"No. At least" – there was an echo of that hopefulness in Throckley's voice – "not yet."
Meg nodded. "I'd be grateful if you'd give me a lift to Alnwick or wherever the injured have been taken."
"So you're here to make sure they still go up into space?" Throckley said, still hopefully, as the wheels bounced beneath them in the rutted ground. "Will they still go, after this?"
"Perhaps," Meg said, remembering suddenly why she'd come in the first place, and the coroner in Alnwick. It seemed a petty concern out here in the snow. "What is that?"
Her attention had been caught by a point in the sky above the supply pod wreckage, keeping pace with them like a star but bright and visible even against the morning light.
Throckley chuckled. "That's your ship, miss," he said, taking a hand off the steering wheel to wave at it, and Meg remembered his earlier gesture upwards. "You've never seen it?"
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