Vladivostok

On the seventh morning, the train was due into Vladivostok at 06:15 Moscow time, which was 13:15 local time. Polly woke at first local light, sometime around five.

Through the window, the forest had given way to low rolling hills and grass. The Pacific was somewhere ahead. She could feel it, the way you can feel a large body of water before you see it.

The last station before Vladivostok was Ussuriysk. The train stopped for fifteen minutes. Polly hopped down. A woman was selling smoked fish from a folding table. The fish were silver. The eyes were still clear. Polly tried a small piece. The woman wrapped it in newspaper and accepted no payment. Some markets work this way.

The Pacific appeared on the right side of the train at around eleven local time. It was grey and bright.

Vladivostok arrived all at once. The city is built into hills that come down to the sea. The train tunnels through one of those hills. The end of the line is on the harbour. The buffer at the end of the tracks is forty metres from the water.

The train made its final stop. The clock above the compartment door, on Moscow time for seven days, read 06:23. The local clock at the station read 13:23.

Polly hopped down to the platform. Vladivostok was a port city of low stone buildings and steep streets. The air smelled of fish and rust and salt.

At the end of the platform there was a small white obelisk. The inscription read KILOMETRE 9,289. The end of the line.

Polly stood at the obelisk for a long minute. Seven days. Half a billion years of Ural rock. Twenty-five million years of Baikal. One crane. Eight time zones, of which the train had observed only one.

She stretched her wings. The Pacific was just past the harbour wall. She lifted from the platform, climbed over the cranes of the container port, and out over the bay.