Chapter 25: Orion, Observed

The Celestial Arrow arrived in Zurich at seven minutes past seven in the evening, which was twelve hours and twenty-three minutes behind the printed schedule, though the printed schedule had ceased to be relevant to anyone aboard somewhere above the Gotthard in the small hours of the previous night.

The platform was lit with the particular harshness of Swiss railway stations in January — fluorescent and efficient and uninterested in the emotional condition of arriving passengers — and the train nosed into it with a mechanical sigh, as though it had been holding its breath since the snow.

Blackwell stepped down first. Not because he had arranged to, but because his compartment was the closest to the forward doors and he had been standing in the corridor with his single bag for eleven minutes before docking, watching the city accumulate itself through the scratched window — the suburbs, the bridges, the river holding a pale last light that the sky had mostly surrendered. He stepped onto the platform and stood to one side of the door and watched.