Chapter 3

The train left the station in Zürich at 0800. Darwe was aboard and in character for her cover. Her hair had been lightened only a shade, leaving it on the darker side of medium brown, and she wore brown contact lenses. She had been immersed in High Alemannisch Schwyzerdütsch of the Zürich dialect for the past week she had spent in Switzerland. After her final memory lesson with Miria she found that she was thinking in Highest Alemannisch Schwyzerdütsch of the Glarus dialect without even realizing it. For this leg of the journey she had a seat in a common passenger car of the commuter train. The trip was uneventful, though Darwe wished that she had a window seat so she could have better seen the alpine views flying past. When the train pulled into the station at Glarus, Darwe got off the train and made her way thru the town to her hotel, only a few blocks from the station. She checked in, using the ID chip of one Annika Mosel. This was one of several identities they had created for the mission, some integral to the plan, some in place only in case of an emergency or aborted mission. Darwe spent a very quiet and uneventful night at the hotel, and when she emerged the next morning it was as Isolde Giesel. Her hair was a natural looking medium blonde. Her contacts had been removed and her naturally blue eyes along with her light skin made her look every bit an Alpine resident. She wore a stylish but somewhat conservative business suit, and carried the accoutrements of a reporter: vid/sound/holo recorder with a built in media interface, along with her press credentials. A few weeks earlier a dummy corporation purchased a small but long established newspaper, and "Isolde" had been named lead reporter only days earlier. Darwe returned to the train station and boarded the train that would take her all the way to Berlin.

This was the sort of train one took to enjoy the trip, not just to get to one's destination as quickly as possible. Although the train was a modern mag-lev type, it was dressed up to appear as an old style 20th century train, complete with the rhythmic clacking of simulated tracks. The train also matched the low speed of those older trains, making sightseeing a large part of the appeal. Darwe was drinking in the view herself in her cabin. Since paying for a private sleeping car just for one would have been out of character for her cover story, she had purchased a ticket that had her bunked with another passenger. A member of Darwe's team had infiltrated the ticketing department at the station and ensured that the person assigned to Darwe's room was thoroughly background checked to prevent an enemy agent from being slipped in. Beyond the fact that this woman wasn't a spy Darwe knew nothing, however. They had decided it would be more convincing if she actually met the person without knowing their details; no possibility of a slip up that way. Darwe allowed to close her eyes and rest for a few moments after she had boarded the train. The train would not leave for another ten minutes, and her cabin mate had yet to arrive. She had not been alone for more than a moment in months, and in a way she relished the time with herself that she had on this mission. She could not let herself be distracted from the task at hand, however.

There was a knock on the sliding wooden door, then it was unlocked with a key and slid open to reveal a young woman. Darwe rose and greeted the girl, and she was a girl, for she wasn't more than a teeneager. "Hello," she said with a smile, in perfect Highest Alemannisch Schwyzerdütsch. "Let me help you with your suitcase." The girl smiled in return and let Darwe maneuver the large case into the cabin. As Darwe stowed the case she took a closer look at her roommate. The girl was tall, skinny in the way of a teenager who will soon get curvier. Her hair was light blonde, and she was quite pale with a dusting of freckles on her nose and cheeks, framing her sky blue eyes. She wore comfortable traveling glothes; loose fitting pants and a snugly fitting t-shirt which left no doubt that her perky little breasts were not restrained by a bra. "I'm Isolde Giesel," said Darwe with a genuine smile.

"Hi! I'm Sabinne Züvakskiy," replied the girl, her own German an almost exact match to the dialect Darwe was now thinking in. As they finished stowing the rest of Sabinne's things the train's whistle blew, and within a moment they were underway, complete with rythmic clacking of nonexistent train tracks, increasing in tempo as they picked up speed, though they stopped accelerating when the train was traveling a mere fraction of the speed of the modern express train Darwe had been on the day before. They sat in small seats built specifically for sightseeing, and as it happened the seats faced each other, Darwe facing forward, and Sabinne looking back. "Are you on all the way to Berlin?" asked Sabinne.

"Yes, I am a reporter for Fridolin. I am going to cover the executions."

"Ugh, I still can't believe they are going to do that. It is disgusting. I'm sorry you aren't going for a more happy occasion. As for me, I am off to University! I am finally leaving home and starting my own life," said Sabinne with an obvious sense of glee. "I mean don't get me wrong, home is great, but I am so ready to make my own decisions now." And with that they struck up a lively conversation, Darwe all the while regretting that she had to lie to this earnest young woman by keeping to her cover story. She learned that Sabinne was about to begin her studies at Technische Universität Berlin, where she was going to major in biology. She was seventeen years old, and came from a fairly typical family. A household of one man and six co-wives, and of course all the children that entailed. The family owned a successful resort just outside of Glarus, and were wealthy enough to employ six concubine servants to augment the household. Although Sabinne was the eldest of six, there was a boy among the younger siblings, who would inherit the resort. Sabinne's consolation prize was a first class education, at which point she could look for employment or indenturement to a noble house. For her part Darwe spoke of her fictional life as a newspaper reporter, though the miscellaneous interests they spoke of were her own, such as music, art, and books. After a while Sabinne compained that facing backwards was making her dizzy, so she moved to sit on the bench next to Darwe. A lull in their conversation came as Sabinne grew drowsy, helped along by the hypnoticly rythmic clacking of the train. Presently she fell asleep, her head resing on Darwe's shoulder. Darwe allowed her to sleep, enjoying the intimate contact with Sabinne. As she enjoyed the passing landscapes she gradually shifted her arm to put it around Sabinne as she napped.

It was nearly an hour before Sabinne woke up, momentarily disoriented as to her surroundings. Then she remembered where she was and why she had awoken in the arms of a strange woman. Sabinne smiled as she made eye contact with Darwe. She found herself quite attracted to "Isolde", who seemed much older and more mature, even though she couldn't have been more than a few years her senior. She exuded a quiet confidence unlike anything Sabinne had encountered before, and she found it most complelling. It was now late afternoon and they decided to eat together in the dining car. They made their way forward several cars to reach the dining car, and they were quickly seated at a table with a window facing out the opposite side of the train than their sleeping compartment, which was nice in that it gave them very different views. Sabinne made sure to sit facing forward so as not to get dizzy again, and as they perused the menu Darwe ordered a bottle of the finest champagne for them. At Sabinne's questioning expression Darwe said, "It sounded good, and we should toast to a pleasant journey. We will both be very busy when we get to Berlin, so we should enjoy the trip as much as we can." Their food took longer than they hoped to arrive, and as a result they had finished off the champagne before the food came. Since they were both feeling the effects of the alcohol already they opted for tea once the food was served. They chatted all thru their meal; it was one of those rare times when you feel as if you know someone very well even though you just met them. Darwe again lamented that she could tell Sabinne virtually nothing of her real life, but she at least kept her interests and tastes genuine. After dinner they returned to the sleeping compartment and watched the sun set outside their westward facing window. Without either of them conscioulsy thinking about it, Sabinne again sat close by Darwe, who put her arm around the young girl. In the post Jubian world, virtually all women had sapphic relationships and Sabinne had never considered anything else, save for breeding sessions with some stud or another so she could have children someday. While she had experienced a few crushes on girls, she had never been in a relationship before. There was just no privacy at the resort and resorters were too transient for romance. Yet this woman stirred deep longings within her. She saw a successful young woman who somehow was so much further along in life than she was. She wanted this for herself, and she found it incredibly atttractive in Isolde, not that she was anything but stunning looking anyway. After the sun rapidly set as it does in the mountains, it darkened in the small cabin, and they did not turn on any lights.