Inverted World by Christopher Priest Page A

In a while he returned.
    “We’ll wait another hour, and if no one’s come by then we’ll second some men from one of the other guilds and start work. We can’t wait any longer.”
    “Can you do that, use other guilds?”
    “Hired men are a luxury, Helward,” he said. “In the past the track-laying was done by guildsmen alone. Moving the city’s the main priority and nothing stands in the way. If we had to, we’d have everyone in the city out here laying the tracks.”
    Suddenly he seemed to relax, and lay back on the ground and closed his eyes. The sun was almost directly overhead and it seemed hotter than usual. I noticed that over to the north-west there was a line of dark clouds, and that the air felt stiller and more humid than normal. Even so, the sun was still untouched by clouds and with my body still sore from its beating I would rather lie here lazily than be working on the track.
    A few minutes later Malchuskin sat up and looked northwards. Coming towards us was a large band of men, led by five of the Barter guildsmen wearing their regalia of cloaks and colours.
    “Good … now we start work,” said Malchuskin.
    In spite of his barely concealed relief there was much that had to be done before work could begin. The men had to be organized into four groups, and an English-speaking one appointed leader. Then bunks had to be allotted in the huts, and their possessions stowed away. Maichuskin looked optimistic throughout all this, in spite of the additional delays.
    “They’re looking hungry,” he said. “Nothing like an empty belly to keep them working.”
    They were indeed a dishevelled lot. They all had clothes of sorts but very few had any shoes, and most of them wore their hair and beards long.
    Their eyes were deep-sunken in their faces, and several sported stomachs swollen by lack of proper food. I noticed that one or two walked with discomfort, and one had a mutilated arm.
    “Are they fit to work?” I asked Maichuskin quietly.
    “Not properly. But a few days of work and a proper diet, and they’ll be O.K. A lot of tooks look like this when we first hire them.”
    I was shocked by the condition they were in, and reflected that the local standard of living must be as bad as Maichuskin had made out. If this were so I could better understand the way resentment grew against the people of the city. I supposed that what the city gave in return for the labourers was a long way beyond what they were generally accustomed to, and this gave them a glimpse of a better fed, more comfortable life. As the city passed on, they would have to revert to their former primitive existence, the city meanwhile having taken of the people’s best.
    More delays, as the men were given food, but Malchuskin was looking more optimistic than ever.
    Finally, we were ready to begin. The men formed themselves into four groups, each headed by a guildsman. We set off for the city, collected the four track bogies, and headed south down the tracks in grand style. To each side of the rails the militiamen continued their guard, and as we crossed the ridge we saw that down in the valley we had recently vacated there was a strong guard around the track buffers.
    With four track-teams now at work there was the additional incentive of competition I had noticed before. Perhaps it was too early for the men to respond to this, but that would come later.
    Malchuskin stopped the bogie a short distance before the buffer, and explained to the group leader—a middle-aged man named Juan—what had to be done. Juan related this to the men, and they nodded their understanding.
    “They haven’t the vaguest idea what they’ve got to do,” Malchuskin said to me, chuckling. “But they’ll pretend to understand.”
    The first task was to dismantle the buffer, and move it up the tracks to a position just behind the city. Malchuskin and I had only just started to demonstrate how the buffer was dismantled when the sun went in abruptly and the