“Who are you?” he said.

“Apprentice Helward Mann.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’ve been told to watch the winching.”

“All right. Keep your distance. How many tooks are there here?”

“I’m not sure,” I said. “About sixty, I think.”

“They been working on the track?”

“Yes.”

He grinned. “Too bloody tired to do any harm. That’s O.K. Let me know if they cause any trouble.”

He wandered away and joined the other militiamen. What kind of trouble the labourers would cause wasn’t clear to me, but the attitude of the Militia towards them seemed to be curious. I could only presume that at some time in the past the tooks had caused some kind of damage to the tracks or the cables, but I couldn’t see any of the men with whom we’d been working presenting a threat to us.

The militiamen on guard beside the tracks seemed to me to be dangerously near the cables, but they showed no sign of any awareness of this. Patiently, they marched to and fro, pacing their allotted sections of the track.

I noticed that the two Traction men at the emplacements had taken up a position behind metal shields, just beyond the stays. One of them had a large red flag, and was looking through binoculars towards the ridge. There, beside the five wheelpulleys, I could just make out another man. As all attention seemed to be on this man I watched him curiously. He had his back towards us as far as I could make out at this distance.

Suddenly, he turned and swung his flag to attract the attention of the two men at the stays. He waved it in a wide semicircle below his waist, to and fro. Immediately, the man at the stays with the flag came out from behind his shield and confirmed the signal by repeating the movement with his own flag.

A few moments later I noticed that the cables were sliding slowly across the ground towards the city. On the ridge I could see the wheel-pulleys turning as the slack was taken up. One by one, the cables stopped moving although the major part of their length still ran across the ground. I presumed this was the weight of the cables themselves, for in the region of the stays and the pulleys. the cables were well clear of the ground.

“Give them the clear!” shouted one of the men at the stays, and at once his colleague waved his flag over his head. The man on the ridge repeated the signal, then moved quickly to one side and was lost to view.

I waited, curious to see what was next… although from all I could see nothing was happening. The militiamen paced to and fro, the cables stayed taut. I decided to walk over to the Traction men to find out what was going on.

No sooner was I on my feet and walking in their direction than the man who had been signalling waved his arms at me frantically.

“Keep clear!” he shouted.

“What’s wrong?”

“The cables are under maximum strain!”

I moved back.

The minutes passed, and there was no evident progress. Then I realized that the cables had been slowly tightening, until they were clear of the ground for most of their length.

I stared southwards at the dip in the ridge: the city had come into sight. From where I was sitting, I could just see the top corner of one of the forward towers, bulking up over the soil and rocks of the ridge. Even as I watched, more of the city came into view.

I moved in a broad arc, still maintaining a healthy distance from the cables, and stood behind the stays looking along the tracks towards the city. With painful slowness it winched itself up the further slope until it was only a few feet away from the five wheel-pulleys which carried the cables over the crest of the ridge. Here it stopped and the Traction men began their signalling once more.

There followed a long and complicated operation in which each of the cables was slackened off in turn while the wheelpulley was dismantled. I watched the first pulley removed in this way, then grew bored. I realized I was hungry, and suspecting that I was unlikely to miss anything of interest I went back to the hut and heated up a meal for myself.

There was no sign of Malchuskin, although nearly all his possessions were still in the hut.

I took my time over the meal, knowing that there were at least another two hours before the winching could be resumed. I enjoyed the solitude and the change from the strenuous work of the past day.

When I left the hut I remembered the militiaman’s warning about potential trouble from the men, and walked over to their dormitory. Most of them were outside sitting on the ground, watching the work on the pulleys. A few were talking, arguing loudly and gesticulating, but I decided the Militia saw threats where none existed. I walked back towards the track.

I glanced at the sun: it was not long to nightfall. I reasoned that the rest of the winching should not take long once the pulleys were out of the way, for it was clear that the rest of the tracks led along a downhill gradient.

In due course the final pulley was removed, and all five cables were once again taut. There was a short wait until, at a signal from the Traction man at the stays, the slow progress of the city continued… down the slope towards us. Contrary to what I had imagined, the city did not run smoothly of its own accord on the advantageous gradient. By the evidence of what I saw the cables were still taut; the city was still having to pull itself. As it came closer I detected a slackening of tension in the manner of the two Traction men, but their vigilance didn’t alter. Throughout the operation they concentrated their whole attention on the oncoming city.

Finally, when the huge construction was no more than about ten yards from the end of the tracks, the signaller raised his red flag and held it over his head. There was a large window running across the breadth of the forward tower, and here one of the many men who stood in view raised a similar flag. Seconds later, the city halted.

There was a pause of about two minutes, and then a man came through a doorway in the tower and stood on a small platform overlooking us.

“O.K… brakes secured,” he called down. “We’re slackening off now.”

The two Traction men came out from behind their metal shelters, and stretched their limbs exaggeratedly. Undoubtedly, they had been under considerable mental strain for several hours. One of them walked straight over to the edge of the city and urinated against its side. He grinned back at the other, then hauled himself up on to a ledge and clambered up the superstructure of the city itself until he reached the platform. The other man walked down past the cables — which were now visibly slacker — and disappeared under the lip of the city itself. The militiamen were still deployed in their defensive formation, but even they seemed to be more relaxed now.

The show was over. Seeing the city so near I was tempted to go inside myself, but I wasn’t sure whether I should. There was only Victoria to see, and she would be occupied with her work. Besides, Malchuskin had told me to stay with the men, and I thought I ought not disobey him.

As I was walking back towards the hut, a man came over to me from the direction of the city.

“Are you Apprentice Mann?” he said.

“Yes.”

“Jaime Collings, from the Barter guild. Track Malchuskin said there were some hired men here who were to be paid off.”

“That’s right.”

“How many?” said Collings.

“In our crew, fifteen. But there are several more.”

“Any complaints?”

“What do you mean?” I said.

“Complaints… any trouble, refusal to work.”

“They were a bit slow, and Malchuskin was always shouting at them.”

“Did they ever refuse to work?”

“No.”

“O.K. Do you know who their squad leader was?”

“There was one called Rafael, who spoke English.”

“He’ll do.”

Together we walked over to the huts, and we found the men. At the sight of Collings, silence fell abruptly.