Railhead by Philip Reeve Page B

filled the room like gunfire. Malik looked behind him. One of those wheeling flocks of parakeets had mistaken the window of the Rail Marshal’s office for empty sky and flown straight into the diamondglass.
    “Our magnetic field must be on the blink again,” said Lyssa Delius. “You see, Yanvar? That’s the trouble with peacetime. The Emperor keeps cutting our funding. We can’t even afford bird repellers, let alone to keep you out there, wrecking K-trains, following this
hunch
…”
    Malik went to the window. Dead birds were tumbling toward the treetops, leaving the glass smeared with blood and feathers. He took the Railforce badge from the breast of his jacket and set it carefully on the sill.
    “I’ll find Raven on my own,” he said.
    Lyssa Delius called his name as he walked to the elevator. He did not look back.

10
    That night, Zen was woken by the wind howling around the glass blade of the Terminal Hotel. The suite Carlota had put him in was roughly the size of Cleave. His bed was about as big as the apartment on Bridge Street. He lay in it and listened to the wind, and the boom of the surf, and the hooting of the rays. He found a headset in the drawer of the bedside table, ripped open the plastic bag it came in, and clipped it on, but the local data raft was empty.
    Not only was Desdemor not on the Network anymore, it wasn’t even connected to the Datasea. Zen had never imagined that anywhere could feel so lonely.
    When dawn came the sky was full of broken, hurrying clouds and the canals shone like wet lead. Zen went down to breakfast. Nova was alone in the hotel’s huge restaurant, trying to decide which corner of a triangle of toast to put into her mouth first. A holomovie hung in front of her like a curtain of light: something so old that it wasn’t even in color, let alone 3-D, and all the actors were white. Their strange voices filled the big room with words Zen couldn’t understand. A man was saying, “The problemshathreeliddlpeeple doanamowndooahilluhbeansh in thish crazy world…”
    “I like old movies,” Nova said.
    “Can’t you just stream them straight into your brain?”
    “Yes, but they’re better this way. This one was made on Earth, thousands and thousands of years ago, before the Guardians opened the K-gates and brought us to the stars.”
    The Guardians brought
us
to the stars, not you, robo-girl
, thought Zen. He said, “Since when do Motorik eat toast?”
    “I can process organic material to supplement my power supply,” said Nova, as if she were quoting from her own instruction manual. She nibbled the toast carefully so that the crumbs did not fall on her clothes. “It’s a special modification. Raven says he likes company when he’s eating, and not the sort of company that just sits and watches.” She looked away from him suddenly, as if she’d heard something. All Zen could hear was the rain on the windows, the booming sea—but Motorik ears were sharper than human ones.
    “The K-gate just opened,” she said. “Raven is back.”
    “Where has he been?”
    “I don’t know. He goes to lots of places.”
    “Why? What does he do there?”
    She shrugged, eyes on her movie. “I don’t know.”
    Raven came into the breakfast room a few minutes later. He made no attempt to explain where he had been, or why, just said, “So are you settling in, Zen? Nova looking after you? I thought it would be nice for you two kids to spend a bit of time together. I worry about Nova, you know. She tells me not to, but I do. She needs someone her own age to talk to.”
    Nova blushed.
    “Is that why you brought me here?” asked Zen. “I thought there was something you wanted me to steal.”
    Raven frowned a little, as if hurt that his guest did not want to make small talk. “Well, yes…”
    “So what is it?”
    “Oh, only a little box. About so big.” Raven held up his hand, thumb and forefinger spread three inches apart.
    “What’s in this box?”
    “Nobody