IXThey were two days into the crossing of the great grass plain. Finn, squinting out through the back of the moving engine, could see the mountains of his home shrinking away, melting into the horizon. Up ahead, the track led straight west, directly towards Engn. He'd seen no villages out there, no people at all apart from another troop of ironclads on the road yesterday, heading out to the mountains. Only an occasional Switch House, relaying messages to and from Engn, broke the monotony.
He closed his eyes again. The hours and days passed in a daze. He lost track of time and of where he was. Sometimes he thought he was back in the Switch House, the engine's air holes the line-of-sight ports. He would jerk awake thinking there was a message to route, or that Mrs. Megrim had shouted someth
