Muzta laughed, as if his friend had told a foolish joke.
"When I was young I rode behind you at the great battle of Onci and saw your personal strength
lay
low a dozen Merki. It was not my
father,
it was you who planned the defeat of the Merki to the south. It was you and your brilliance that saved the Tugar horde from oblivion.
"I can find ten thousand brawling fools like Magtu to swing a sword or draw a bow. But I can only find one mind such as
yourself
."
"Onci was more than a circling ago," Qubata said.
"The Merki might come again," Muzta replied, "for this pox drives them as well. Hunger might send them north into our grazing grounds. I would turn upon them myself if I thought we had the numbers to defeat them and hold their grounds for our own clans."
"And beyond the Merki are the southern hordes," Qubata said. "We have divided the world after Onci. It would be foolish to start a war yet again, for surely the southern clans would respond."
"But if war does come I need your brilliance. Your sword arm is meaningless to me—it is your mind that I cherish, my old friend."
Muzta placed both hands on the shoulders of the graying warrior and shook him affectionately.
"Let's go back for the feast," Muzta said, both of them now slightly embarrassed by the outward display of love that each held for the other.
"It is not the Merki I worry about now," Qubata said as the two walked over to where their mounts waited.
"The Yankee cattle have you that worried?"
"With their thunder makers they can kill the same as a Merki arrow.
Tula's nephew was a fool for sacrificing a warrior just to see how far their weapons can shoot. It might give all the Rus the wrong idea."
"But to stand against
all our
horde? They would be madmen," Muzta replied.
"We have chosen to forget, my Qarth, that cattle have feelings, perhaps as strong as ours. Our forefathers planned well with the injunction that only two of ten be harvested, since all would cling to the hope that they would not be selected. That we spare breeding stock, and cull out the weak, the
deformed,
and older ones, taking only the prime cuts for the moon feasts, was a great wisdom.
"But this pox makes them desperate, and these Yankees might upset the time-honored arrangement that has kept order with the
Rus,
and for that matter with cattle all around the world. One or the other factor could create a great danger.
"The only wise thing Vulti did was to order the rulers of Rus to destroy the Yankees now. Let us hope that has been done, for they sound defiant and could be desperate, and such things make cattle dangerous."
Muzta thought back to what had happened in the city the night before. Perhaps Qubata was being overly cautious. But there was little that could be done, he thought, before they arrived in Rus. If there was a worry now it was still this strange pox. He could only hope that it would not destroy next winter's feeding.
"My Qarth, we must consider as well the prospect that all the cattle around the entire world might become infected, or that this Yankee way of thinking may spread ahead of us," Qubata said quietly.
Muzta looked over at his friend. So often his thoughts would be voiced by Qubata only a moment later, as if at times their minds had been strangely linked.
"Then we die," Muzta said dejectedly.
"My lord, we must learn to think," Qubata replied sharply. "Before the coming of the cattle we lived by gathering our own food and by hunting. Now we have become dependent on the cattle as our one source of food, never dreaming that it would sicken, or rebel. But the cattle
has
brought us the horse, and if need be we should sweep up its hooved meat, drive it along with us, and breed it so that it can replace the meat of the cattle."
"But there is barely even enough food for the cattle.
Only the nobles eat of such things, and we take the rest."
"Then it is time that we learn how to raise this meat," Qubata replied.
"You believe the situation is that bad?" Muzta asked softly.
"I believe it is bad enough," Qubata replied sharply, "that I think we should learn even to eat of our horses."
"Never!"
Muzta roared. "There are hardly enough for our own mounts and for the wagons of the families. Would you reduce us again to wandering the world on foot? Better to die! The horse is above cattle, it is wrong to eat of it, even when it is old and can no longer serve us."
"My lord, I think we might be considering even more drastic action before this crisis is past."
Muzta fell silent, unable to respond.
Reaching their horses, the two mounted, taking the reins from their waiting attendants. They started back down the hill. Suddenly Muzta reined in his horse and looked back at the attendants.
"Send somebody back here to pick
this
cattle up," Muzta shouted, pointing to the human corpse lying in the snow. "We shouldn't waste perfectly good food."
"All right, Malady, give her the throttle,"
Ferguson shouted.
Andrew was tempted to stand back, but realized that it would be seen as a lack of faith in
Ferguson's engineering ability.
An expectant hush fell over the crowd of Suzdalians, to whom Kal had granted an hour's break so that they could witness the ceremony.
The engine had already been tested the night before, to make sure that everything worked. The worst part had been when
Ferguson had the engine raised up on
blocks,
the firebox stuffed to near overflowing, and then poured on a full head of steam.
Andrew had ordered him to step away—an accident could kill one of the most important men in all of Rus. The youthful engineer, confident of his work, had protested until his commander's stern gaze had forced him to withdraw.
The machine had passed the load test with flying colors, but it still made Andrew nervous when Malady pushed the throttle down.
Puffs of smoke bellowed out from the locomotive, hissing steam escaped, and then, ever so slowly, the drive wheels started to turn.
With a lurch the engine chugged forward, the two hopper cars and single flatbed behind it moving in unison. Andrew and the other dignitaries shifted to maintain balance on the flatcar. Stunned at the sight, the Suzdalians stood with open-mouthed amazement, while the scattering of Yankees, assigned to design and build the railroad, broke into wild cheers.
Malady hauled down on the steam whistle, which shrieked merrily as the engine started to build up speed, and in an instant the hundreds of laborers shouted wildly in triumph.
"You Yankees!"
Kal roared, while pumping Andrew's hand.
"It's a start," Andrew said, feeling delighted at this major step.
Pulling out from the dock, the engine chugged past
Fort
Lincoln
, gathering speed. As it reached the first turnoff, the Suzdalian switchman waved that the way was clear. The engine roared past the turnoff to Suzdal and started up the mill-stream hill.
"Fifteen miles an hour at least,"
Ferguson shouted joyfully, like a schoolboy with a new toy. "Now that we've got better steel for the boilers, and proper lathes and cutting tools to turn out better cylinders, I'll get twice the horsepower out of the next engine!"
"Let's just hope this one holds together," Emil said nervously.
"Why, the
Waterville
is the best damn locomotive on the planet!"
Ferguson roared, and Andrew could not help but laugh in appreciation of
Ferguson's joke.
The entire contraption looked like nothing more than an oversized toy, with its two-and-a-half gauge and diminutive engine and rolling stock. The engine itself was just an open platform with a boiler bolted on top, powering the small three-foot drive wheels, which were the largest the foundry had been able to turn out to date.
Reaching the base of the mill-stream hill, the engine started up the five percent grade and visibly slowed with the effort. Puffing and steaming, the engine continued on, and
Ferguson left the flatcar, leaping onto the wood tender and then to the engine platform.
"I wish that boy wouldn't go near that thing," Kathleen whispered nervously.
Malady and
Ferguson appeared to argue for a moment, and finally Jim took the throttle and hauled it all the way down.
Billowing clouds of smoke swirled up, and the engine, picking up steam, roared and strained against the grade and the load behind it. Bouncing over the rough-laid track, the gathering on the flatcar clung to one another, desperately trying to keep their feet.
Cresting the first major grade,
Ferguson still held the throttle down as they roared past Captain Houston's sawmill, its Suzdalian operators shouting with delight and fear at the sight of the new Yankee wonder.
The next grade came, and upward the engine pushed, swaying and rocking over the track, and Fletcher's grain mill quickly disappeared from view. Passing Mina's first foundry and forge, which was working full-blast, they continued on up the hill. Another three miles they pressed on, coasting through open fields, where the forest had already been given over to the charcoal works, so that now only the stumps of the once mighty trees remained.
Rounding a bend in the hill,
Ferguson
laid
on the whistle and lifted the throttle up as a rough-planked station came into view. The engine came to a halt.
Gasping, Emil looked around.
"That boy was nearly the death of us all," the old doctor complained, climbing down off the flatcar.
"He might be the salvation of us all," Andrew replied, leaping down beside Emil and then extending his hand to Kathleen.
"That was certainly exciting!" she said good-naturedly as
Ferguson, with youthful exuberance, came bounding up to them.
"I figure near twenty miles an hour on the flat," he announced triumphantly.
"Just take it easy going back down the hill," John Mina cautioned, brushing the soot off his uniform.
"The track on the hill's been graded well," Jim
said,
a slight defensive tone to his voice.
"Just listen to John," Andrew replied, like a father settling a disagreement between two sons.
Malady, who was now back at the throttle, edged the train forward, pulling under a low bridge from which hung a heavy planked chute that extended up to a large boxlike structure made out of logs. The first hopper coming to rest under the chute, a Suzdalian waved to several men standing atop the large blockhouse structure. Where they pushed open a door above the chute, a torrent of ore came roaring down, filling the first hopper in seconds. Slamming the door shut, they waited until the second car was in place, and the next load was dropped in.
"Nearly twenty tons," Mina said triumphantly.
"And when the
Bangor
gets finished we'll be hauling fifty, maybe a hundred tons a load,"
Ferguson interjected.
Smiling, Andrew shook their hands, this small sign of praise filling the two with a glow of satisfaction.
"How long before we get the line up to the coal field and the coke ovens?" Andrew inquired.
"Two months," Mina replied.
"But you've laid four miles of track up there already—last week you said it would be done before the next full moon," Andrew stated.
"It's this early thaw,"
Ferguson replied, coming to Mina's defense. "Sir, we surveyed the route when the ground was snow-covered. There's some marshy ground that'll have to be filled. We found that out last week, after that heavy rain loosened things up a bit."
"And since we laid track in winter, there'll be an awful lot of repair work once this ground softens up," Mina interjected.
Andrew looked over at Kal.
"Once the full thaw hits, I plan to have five thousand working on filling and grading above and beyond the two thousand now working on the line. My cousin Gregory is lining up the work crews now," Kal stated.
Andrew could never stop being amazed at this man. He seemed to have a genius for organization. Though it had been a rough start, it seemed as if all the Suzdalians were imbued with the desire to do anything required.
Andrew looked away from the group as the
Waterville
,
disconnected from the rest of the train, pulled off to a siding and turntable.
A gang of workers pushed the engine around, and the engine drifted back down the siding, switching in ahead of the train, and backing it to the cars coupled up for the run back down the hill.
"AH aboard!"
Malady cried, overjoyed at being back in his old profession.
The party boarded, Weiss looking nervously at the two heavily laden ore carriers now in front of them.