For the next three days, Annan was not quite losing sleep or skipping meals, but he was beside himself with impatience.
Olmedo could not understand it.
She had rarely seen Annan so invested in anything.
"All this for that steam engine? What's it good for?"
"It can speed up our transportation."
"Didn't we build a road? We also have a port and a tunnel under construction."
"This is different." Annan shook his head. "Imagine a ship that could travel at 100 to 200 li an hour and carry 1,000 tons of cargo in one trip—that's two million pounds—or several thousand people. What would you think?"
"You're saying the steam engine can do that?"
"Exactly!"
Annan eagerly tore off a sheet of white paper and drew a picture.
"Is that... a snake?"
"These are railway tracks. They support the train, the way seawater supports a ship." Annan added an engine and carriages to the tracks. "This is the train—the ship I was talking about. The engine pulls the carriages behind it along the tracks."
"How big would a steam engine have to be to pull that much cargo?"
"Not very big."
Olmedo trusted Annan, but she could not believe a nonmagical machine could pull something so enormous.
Annan did not blame her. People could not imagine what they had never seen.
"You'll understand once we build it."
Annan pictured the Free City of the future, with all kinds of transportation. People could come whenever they wished by ship, train, airship, or Portal.
The Free City already had considerable influence. People had heard of it in many places across Middle Earth, at least outside the most remote regions. But hearing about it was not enough; they needed to see it. That was what Commercial Street was working toward, and the best way