Railhead by Philip Reeve

and so silently that it was as if it had simply vanished. Zen smelled the perfumed air of the Noon train. He looked past Threnody into the pillared carriage.
    “It’s beautiful!”
said Nova, in his head.
    “It’s beautiful,” he agreed, aloud. At first he was not sure why he felt sad and then he knew. Just for a moment, he had believed that he was really Tallis Noon, and that this beautiful girl was really welcoming him aboard this beautiful train. That would have suited him pretty well. It was the life he’d have had if his mother had never stolen him from the Noons.
    But there was no point feeling sorry for himself. No one was going to hand him riches on a silver plate. He was going to have to take them for himself. He was good at that. He was going to rob these people, and get away clean.
    He stepped into the train.

15
    He had arrived at a good moment. Later he would wonder if Raven had arranged that somehow, but probably it was just luck. Most of the imperial family and their guests were at the picnic, on one of those wooded mountaintops that rose from the fog-sea. Zen had a chance to see the central carriages of the Noon train empty, except for the Motorik staff and the silent cleaning machines, which didn’t count. Threnody’s voice echoed as she led him from one carriage to another: carriages walled with gold mosaic, with livewood bark, with horn. Carriages of glass, like rolling greenhouses, filled with moss and small trees, where pretty dragonflies darted and hovered.
    None of these carriages looked much like any train Zen had seen before. They were no wider than a usual train—just twenty feet wall-to-wall—but they had been decorated by the best designers on the Network, and the best designers on the Network knew how to make a twenty-foot-wide carriage look much bigger. Only the rows of windows told you that you were not in a luxurious house, and even the windows were mostly curtained, or screened with blinds. Some of the carriages were open-plan, with chairs and tables dotted across an expanse of carpeted or livewood floor. In others, you walked along corridors, past the doors of smaller, private rooms. Floors of marble, ceilings of biotech tortoiseshell and mother-of-pearl, stairways spiraling to bedrooms and observation domes on upper decks.
    Threnody led him up one of the stairways, to the cabin that was to be his. “It’s one of the smaller guest compartments, I’m afraid. I hope you like it. The bedroom is in there… Bathroom over here… Put the bags down, Nova, and report to the Motorik section, carriage fifty-nine.”
    Nova did as she was told. As she walked away along the train, her voice came whispering into Zen’s head again.
“Keep your headset on. If you need me, all you have to do is whistle. You know how to do that, don’t you?”
    Threnody waited while he unpacked a few of his things. Then they returned to the lounge carriages, the garden carriages. He tried to tell Threnody about his travels—he had prepared a whole store of anecdotes—but she preferred to talk about the family and the various friends and relatives who were traveling with them. “The Albayek-Noons from Seven Badger Mountain are on board—they’re always fun, though Ruichi is giving himself terrible airs now that he’s signed the engagement contract with the Foss boy. And Uncle Tibor was here, but he’s gone back to Grand Central…”
    “So how many passengers altogether?” asked Zen.
    “About nine hundred, at the moment, I think.”
    That was good, he thought. With so many guests coming and going, who would worry about one extra? And they had so much stuff that they probably wouldn’t even notice when he helped himself to the Pyxis. Maybe he could grab a few things for himself while he was at it, fill his pockets with ornaments before he left, just in case Raven didn’t pay up…
    “Which carriage is the art museum in?” he asked. (He already knew, because Raven had made him study 3-D maps of the