Steampunk!: An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories by Kelly Link Read Free Book Online Page A

the biggest. Great whips of light jump out and held that train sure as the One God's hand might. Inside, the engineer seemed like he were made of wax—he weren't moving that I could see. The Glory Girls boarded the train. There weren't but bags of letters on it, so they didn't take nothing, only changed 'round the engineer's clothes till he wore his long johns on the outside and his hat 'round backward. When the light charge stopped holding and the train lurched forward again, he looked a might confused at his state. We laughed so hard, I thought the miners would hear us down below. But the drills kept up their steady whine, oblivious. And the best part yet? Somehow in my tinkering, I'd drawn out the length to a full eight minutes. I'd made her better. I'd bested time.
    The pigeon were on the windowsill of my workhouse when I get back. I unrolled the note tucked into her mouth. It were from the chief, telling me when and where to make our rendezvous, saying I'd best not miss it. I tossed the note in the stove and got to work.
    By the time we hit the 6:40 the next Friday, I'd taken her to a full ten minutes.
     
    The Right Reverend Jackson - to say there were a fine line between saint and sinner, and in the long days I spent with the Glory Girls robbing trains and falling under the spell of the Enigma Apparatus, I guess I crossed well over it. Before long, I'd almost forgot I'd had one life as a Believer and another as a Pinkerton. I were a Glory Girl as much as any of 'em, and it felt like I'd always been one. Truth be told, them were some of the happiest times I'd had since I'd walked with John Barks. Like being part of a family it were, but with no Mam to sigh when you forgot to burp the baby and no Pap to slap you when your words was too sharp for his liking. Mornings we rode the horses fast and free over the dusty plains, letting the wind whip our hair till it rose like crimson floss. We'd try to best each other, though we all knew Josephine were the fastest rider. Still, it were fun to try, and nobody could tut-tut that we was unladylike. Fadwa worked on my marksmanship by teaching me to shoot at empty tins, and while I weren't no sharpshooter, I done all right, and by all right, I mean I managed to knock off a can without shooting the horses. Josephine taught me to dress a wound with camphor to draw out the poisons. Amanda liked to sneak up on each a-one and scare the dickens out of us. Then she'd fall on the ground, laughing and pointing. "You shoulda seen your face!" and hold her sides till we couldn't do nothing but laugh, too. At night, we played poker, betting stolen brooches against a stranger's looted gold. It didn't matter nothing—if you lost a bundle, there were always another airship or train a-comin'. The poker games went fine till Amanda lost, which she usually did, bein' a terrible card player. Then she'd throw down her cards and point a finger at whoever cleaned up.
    "You're cheating, Colleen Feeney!"
    Colleen didn't even look up while she scooped the chips toward her lap. "That's the only way to win in this world, Mandy."
    One night, Colleen and me walked to the hills overlooking the mines and sat on the cold ground, feeling the vibrations of them great drills looking for gold and finding nothing. Stars paled behind dust clouds. We watched a seeding ship float in the sky, its sharp brass nose glinting in the gloom. "Seems like there ought to be more than this," Colleen said after a spell.
    If John Barks were there, he'd say something about how beautiful it was, how special. "It ain't much of a planet," I said.
    "That's not what I meant." She rolled a dirt clod down the hillside. It broke apart on the way down.
     
    It come about by accident that first time. I'd been experimenting with the Engima all along, stretching out the time by seconds, but I couldn't break past ten minutes. It were all well and good to lock the Engima on a train and stretch the Glory Girls' time on it; what I wondered were if we,