What seemed like a long time later, but what couldn’t have been more than five or six hours because none of us got hungry or tired, the tunnel ahead of us began to lighten. With something to focus on, our speed became apparent, and it was fast. We streaked toward the ambient glow in the tunnel ahead, and it seemed we would never slow in time to avoid streaking through the station. As it turned out, there was plenty of time, and the platform slowed as smoothly as it had accelerated to whatever ungodly speed it had attained on our journey.
The platform came to a silent stop next to the terminal, and the soft, warm light under my feet winked out. “I guess that’s it,” I said with a chuckle. “The ride has come to a complete stop.”
“Yeah, and the seat belt sign is extinguished. It’s now safe to move around the cabin,” laughed Sig.
The natives of Osgarthr looked at us as if we’d lost our fool minds, which made us laugh all the harder.
“Come on,” said Farmathr with considerable impatience, while stepping off the barge. We unloaded our goods to the platform between the tracks but didn’t follow Farmathr as he started toward the stairs. “It’s this way,” he said. “It’s an exact duplicate of the other terminal.”
“Tell me about this back way. Where does it start?” I asked.
He turned back to us, torso stiff, jaw clenched. “Why? Does it matter?”
“It might.”
He pointed at my chest with a bony index finger that shook with strong emotion. “I’m the one risking his life to help you.”
“And we appreciate that,” said Jane. “But we still need to ask—so we can make plans.”
He snorted and lifted his arms and let them fall. “Are you even familiar with the geography of this continent?”
Veethar nodded. “In a broad-brush sense.”
“Fine.” Farmathr dragged his hands through his hair but succeeded only in making the snarls worse. “Do you know Tohupur Uhrvaridnar Vik?”
The words meant “tip of the arrow inlet,” and Veethar said, “Do you mean the inlet on the western coast that looks like an arrowhead?”
“That’s the one. If you make a straight line east, following where the arrowhead points, you come to a small section of foothills guarded on both sides by sheer mountain faces. Do you know it?”
“Roughly.”
“That’s where it starts.”
“And where is the next FTTN terminal down the line from here?” I asked.
Farmathr turned to me, jaws clenched. “North of there. A day, maybe.”
“And how many days from here?”
He shook his head. “I’ve already said. Ten days.”
“We should—”
“But travel from the other stronghold is more difficult than from this one. There are dangers—”
“Yes?” asked Meuhlnir, looking down at his feet.
Farmathr’s mouth snapped shut with an audible click of teeth. “Fine,” he grated. “It will take the better part of another day to reach the next terminus. If the barge works.”
Meuhlnir held up his hand, gesturing toward the twin platform across the terminal. “No better time to find out than now.”
Shaking his head, Farmathr stalked over to the other platform and put his foot on it, as if he were a boy testing the water of his favorite swimming hole. Warm yellow light glowed from the floor of the platform, and Farmathr sighed as if he’d been hoping for another result. “Shall we go now, or would everyone prefer to rest?”
“Now’s good,” I said, and we piled onto the platform. Only Keri and Fretyi seemed to object, and their complaints were limited to sleepy whining.