Railhead by Philip Reeve Page A

existed.
    “I’m glad you’re all right,” she told him. “I’m sorry to have to drag you here, but this is a serious business…”
    “It was a trainkiller,” said Malik. “It cut straight through our firewalls, killed my data diver…”
    “I read your report.” Delius sat down on a gray sofa and patted the cushion beside her, inviting him to sit down too. Malik stayed standing. She said, “Our technicians went through what was left of your train’s systems. They found no trace of any virus.”
    “If he can design a virus like that,” said Malik, “he can design it to leave no trace.”
    “Mmm,” said the Rail Marshal, with a half smile, but he knew that she didn’t believe him. He noticed that she’d had her scar fixed the half-moon scar on her forehead from that firefight on Bandarpet .
A pity
, he thought.
Old soldiers should wear their scars with pride.
    “You were supposed to be on a routine patrol of the trans-Chiba branch lines—” she started to say.
    “I was. I was in Ambersai when I detected Raven’s Motorik, trailing a kid in the Bazar.”
    “Yes…” Lyssa Delius was embarrassed. Her smile looked like pain. “Yanvar, this theory of yours, that Raven is still at large—”
    “It’s more than a theory.”
    The Rail Marshal sighed. “Our data divers have spoken to the Guardians. They know nothing of Raven.”
    “They told you that?”
    “Not in so many words—you know how they are—but if he was still out there, they would tell us.”
    “Raven knows how to evade them,” said Malik. “They think that because he does not operate in the Datasea anymore, he is no danger. But he is.”
    “Oh, Yanvar,” said the Rail Marshal gently. “If you would report in more often, go to the right parties, meet people, you would probably be
General
Malik by now. Railforce needs good people like you, here on Grand Central. But you’re always out on the branch lines, chasing this… this…
ghost
. Raven is dead. We killed him, Yanvar. Twenty years ago.”
    “Raven is no ghost. He’s planning something. He made contact with this kid from Cleave, a small-time thief named Zen Starling. I brought the boy aboard the train for questioning. That’s when the trainkiller hit.”
    “And where is this boy now?”
    “He escaped,” said Malik.
    “You have searched Cleave?”
    “He’s not in Cleave.”
    “Then how did he leave? Bearing in mind that your train was blocking the tunnel that leads to Cleave’s only K-gate?”
    “There is a second K-gate there. Cleave-B, on the old Dog Star Line. That’s how Raven moves. That’s where he hides.”
    “And do you have any actual—”
    “There is no
evidence
, Lyssa. But I know it’s true. If you give me another train, and let me take it onto the Dog Star Line…”
    She looked away, sighing. When they were kids she would wait in the shadows with Malik, simmering with giggles, until the K-train passed. Then they would scurry back to the rails and find the coins they’d balanced there transformed: crushed thin as leaves by the weight of the wheels, and scoured to a high shine. Some similar change had come over Lyssa Delius in the forty years since then. She was no longer the girl he had grown up with. They were not alike anymore, he realized. Age and ambition had smoothed the hard edges off her; she was happy here in this civilized city, playing politicians’ games. But Malik was made of hard edges: a violent, vengeful man. He wanted to hurt people, and he needed a war to let him do it. He needed a train.
    “Let me hunt Raven down.”
    Lyssa Delius looked at him, and he knew what she would say before she said it. “I’m sorry, Yanvar. No more ghost hunting. Your team has already been reassigned. If it wasn’t for me—if I hadn’t put in a good word for you—you would be facing serious punishment. As it is, you will take six months’ leave, and report for psychological evaluation.”
    She stopped in surprise as a sudden clattering sound