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/> The nurse added, “And they’re made for assault. Look at their guns. ” She pointed, jamming her knuckle against the breath-?slick glass.
Theodora Clay tried to follow the indication and agreed. “Yes, I see two Gatling-?form spritzers mounted above each front axle, and small-?caliber repeating cannon on the rear axle. ”
Mercy looked at her with a puzzled frown. “You know something about artillery, do you?”
She said, “A bit,” which was such a useless contribution to the conversation that it may as well not have been offered at all.
“All right. Do you think we’re in range?”
“Depends on what you mean by that. They could likely hit the side of a barn at this distance, but they couldn’t hit it twice in a row, not at the speeds they’re coming. ” Miss Clay looked back down at her aunt and said, “But we should do what Mercy’s been telling everyone. Get your luggage, Aunt Norene. ”
“I’ll do no such thing!”
Miss Clay gave the old woman a scowl. She said, in a level, angry voice, “Then go help other people get their luggage out and sorted, if you’re too much a soldier to cover your own hide. ”
Mrs. Butterfield sniffed disdainfully and flounced out of her compartment into the aisle. Once there, she immediately spotted the widower trying to wrangle his two boys, and set to assisting him.
Miss Clay returned her attention to the window and said, almost to herself, “They’re gaining. Not by much, but they’re gaining. ”
Mercy was still looking after Mrs. Butterfield and could therefore see out the other side of the train. She said, “And they’ve got friends, coming at us from the north. ”
“Goddammit,” said Miss Clay. Mercy wasn’t sure why the blasphemy surprised her. “How many do you think that makes?”
“I haven’t the foggiest. I can’t see very far the other way,” she said, though she dashed across the aisle and leaned her face against the window. There, she could spot at least three, and a dust trail that might indicate a fourth somewhere just beyond her range of vision. “Maybe the same number?”
She returned to Miss Clay’s side and gazed hard at the vehicles.
Theodora said, “They’ve got a little armor plating, but nothing that could withstand anything like the antiaircraft cannons on our engine. ”
“They look fast, though. Maybe they think that if they can catch up fast enough, we won’t have much time to fire at them. ”
“Then they’re idiots. Jesus, they’re coming right for us!”
But Mercy said, “No, not right for us. ” The formation of machines was forking, spreading out and lining up. “Look what they’re doing. They’re going for the engine and the caboose. ”
“Whatever for?”
“Well, they know we’ve got passengers aboard,” Mercy pointed out. “And they don’t give a shit about the passengers. They want something else. Something at the front, or the rear. ” She felt like she was stating the obvious, and the longer she watched, the more obvious it became—the machines were deliberately parting to ignore the middle cars.
“You say that like they’re reasonable human beings,” Miss Clay spit.
“They’re every bit as reasonable as the boys aboard this train,” she said stubbornly. “Thinking less of them than that’ll get you killed. ”
Theodora looked like she would’ve loved to argue, but she heard her aunt bullying and bossing out in the aisle and changed her mind, or her tactic, at least. She said, “Leaving room for error, if all the passengers holed up in the middle cars, they might be safest. ”
“You might be right. ”
The forward door burst open and Cyrus Berry came squeezing through it, followed by Inspector Galeano and Pierce Tankersly, then Claghorn Myer and Fenwick Durboraw, two other enlisted men whom Mercy had seen coming and going along the train.
Mercy said, “But not yet—we’ve got to let the soldiers sort themselves out. ” She cried, “Mr. Tankersly!” and summoned him over.
In a few fast words, she explained her guess and Miss Clay’s idea. He nodded. “That’s a good plan. I’m going to put you in charge of it. ”
“What?”
“We’ve been split into squadrons fore and aft, and we’re migrating that way now. Do you have a watch?”
“Not on me,” she confessed.
