Railhead by Philip Reeve

Author:Philip Reeve [Reeve, Philip]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Space Opera, Switch Press, robots, science & technology, Science Fiction, transportation--railroads & trains, Sci-Fi, 9781630790493, 9781630790486
Publisher: Switch Press
Published: 2016-03-31T23:00:00+00:00

*

When Threnody finally made it down from Spindlebridge—shocked, tearstained, weary—she went straight to the family estate in the mountains. She would rather have gone back to Malapet, to her mother and the comforting boredom of home, but the journey would take weeks with the Silver River Line shut down, and anyway, Priya said it was too dangerous to travel. She had convinced herself that their uncle Tibor had been responsible for the disaster on the Spindlebridge. Now she was camped out in the luxurious crescent-shaped hunting lodge at the heart of the estate, surrounded by lawyers and paparazzi drones and Corporate Marines and Railforce officials, having noisy meltdowns about Tibor’s treachery. When she saw Threnody, she said, “What are you doing here? You should be with your fiancé, while he recovers from his injuries…”

“What about my injuries?” asked Threnody, who had sprained a wrist during the crash. “And if you think I’m still marrying that fool Kobi—”

“Of course you are marrying that fool Kobi!” shouted her sister. (Threnody was shocked. Priya had always been so quiet and sort of dull before. Becoming Empress seemed to have given her a temper.) “I know you never thought him much of a catch, Thren, but things are different now. I need that marriage! I need the support of the Chen-Tulsis. So go to him, and don’t do anything that might give his people an excuse to break off your engagement.”

Threnody did not try to argue. She was slightly afraid that, if she did, Priya might start to think that she wanted to be head of the family too, and have her poisoned or drowned or something, like some unlucky princess in a historical threedie.

So she went to find Kobi at his family’s house, where he was recovering from his injuries. The Chen-Tulsis had spent a lot trying to make the house look grand, but the money had been wasted, because it was on quite the wrong side of the city, too far from the K-bahn and too close to the spaceports. The thunder of shuttles taking off to fetch survivors from the Spindlebridge drummed across the landscaped grounds, and by night the glare of rocket exhaust reflected in the ornamental lagoon where the gene-teched coelacanths swam. Threnody thought it was a depressing place. But Kobi was pleased to see her, and she felt warily pleased to see him. He seemed quieter than before, and weaker, and nicer. Threnody supposed that being mauled half to death by heritage megafauna would do that to a person.

She walked in the grounds with him, half listening to him talk while she used her headset to scan the data raft for news of her cousin Tallis. She was in mourning for her father and his family, but she could only summon up a sort of general sadness for them—she hadn’t met most of them till she boarded the Noon train; they had been strangers, really. Tallis, for some reason, had been different; she needed to know what had be-come of him.

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