Living Hell

by Catherine Jinks

  We didn’t have much time.

  ‘Dygall!’ I cried, as I danced ahead of the others. But I didn’t have to explain myself. Dygall nodded; he understood our predicament. To escape, we needed to round the nearest corner, at the tube junction. Before we did that, however, I would have to make sure that our way was clear while Dygall watched our backs, pressure flask at the ready.

  Please, I prayed, to whoever – or whatever – had preserved us so far, please don’t let there be anything, PLEASE.

  And there wasn’t. The tube was empty, except for the usual scattering of samplers and scent pellets. I slapped Merrit’s shoulder, ‘Now!’ I barked. We tumbled onto the platform and ran, with Dygall bringing up the rear. Fear made us fast – too fast – despite the unevenness of the floor. We had a hard time braking when we reached the next junction; Merrit ploughed into me, skidding, and nearly pushed me into the street.

  ‘Ow!’

  ‘Sorry!’

  ‘Cheney, quick!’ Dygall moaned.

  I checked twenty-fourth; it was clear. But the door to the stair shaft was sealed shut.

  We had to keep going.

  I ran straight for the junction up ahead, all the while thinking hard. If we couldn’t use the stair shaft on twenty-third, I decided, we would have to turn down a street. On the long, empty sweep of the tube platform, we were sitting ducks. We would have to dodge about a bit. Maybe hide in a compartment . . .

  Luckily, there was no need to find a compartment. The stair shaft on twenty-third was open. I dived straight into it, and didn’t ask anyone to wait while I checked the door on A deck. I just slid down the stairs with my sword held straight out in front of me, ready to skewer anything that might be lurking at the bottom. With the force of my accelerating weight behind it, I figured that my blade would pretty much pierce whatever the ship might throw in our direction.

  I landed awkwardly, because both hands were full. Otherwise, nothing went wrong.

  There were no OTVs or street shuttles in sight.

  ‘Quick!’ I sprang up, narrowly avoiding Merrit. She and Inaret had come down separately, Inaret fetching up against Merrit’s back. Haemon and Dygall arrived a split second later, much too quickly. As they collided, Dygall dropped the flask.

  We all stood motionless, watching it roll, not daring to breathe. But it didn’t lose its lid.

  Before it had even stopped moving, Dygall pounced on the gently rocking cylinder.

  ‘Okay, wait.’ I waved them towards the wall, and plastered myself against it too, shuffling along sideways until I reached the open hatchway. From there, I could see part of the street outside. There were some nasty black stains on the pink-and-yellow floor, but nothing moved. Carefully, I poked a very small portion of my head through the yawning space – and jumped at a sudden explosion of noise.

  Of barking.

  It was Bam.

  ‘Is that -?’ Dygall began. I had knocked myself while jerking back into the stair shaft. Rubbing my temple, I opened my mouth to reply. Bam, however, was quicker than I was. He surged past me, his tail lashing.

  Haemon squeaked, and clamped himself to my leg.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I gasped. ‘It’s – it’s just Yestin’s dog . . .’

  Yestin. I caught Dygall’s eye, and he looked away. What had happened to Yestin?

  ‘Yestin’s dog?’ Merrit was astounded. ‘You mean that’s Bam?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But -’

  ‘There’s no time, Merrit,’ I warned, and gently disengaged Haemon. ‘Keep behind me,’ I told him, licking my dry lips. ‘It’s all right. He won’t hurt you, see? He wants to be friends.’

  ‘Cheney, what have you got there?’ Dygall was focused on the grenade in my hand. ‘What did he give you?’

  ‘Later.’ I pushed on, into the street, making for the tube once more. But Bam was ahead of me. He skipped past, bounding onto the tube platform. When I didn’t follow him – when I stopped at the corner – he trotted over to sniff at my heels while I took my usual precautions.

  It didn’t really surprise me that the tube was clear. Somehow, that was obvious from Bam’s demeanour.

  ‘Okay,’ I said, gesturing at the others. We scurried along, unable to catch up with Bam, who seemed to have a knack for moving quickly over the fleshy hillocks and corrugations of the floor. He didn’t even pause at the next junction. I did, though.

  Again, our path was clear.

  It occurred to me, as I pursued Bam, that he had some kind of inbuilt warning system – that he was, in essence, a miniature probe, with all of a probe’s ‘alert’ capabilities. This became increasingly obvious the further we went. Bam would spring carelessly past a junction, which, upon inspection, would prove to be empty of danger.

  I was just about to make some comment about this when his behaviour changed.

  He stopped, and began to bark.

  CHAPTER

  NINETEEN

  I pulled up short, naturally. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw the others follow suit. There was nothing behind us except a cloud of soaring scent pellets.

  ‘The Bridge,’ Merrit murmured in my ear.

  She was right. We had returned to the Navigation area. How long ago, I wondered distractedly, had I actually left it? One hour? Two hours? I had no idea.

  Bam was getting annoyed. He had planted himself in the middle of the next junction, and was barking at an unseen menace down the street.

  Unless I was mistaken, that menace lay very close to the Bridge.

  ‘Cheney?’ Dygall was hoarse and out of breath. I flapped a peremptory hand at him. Now Bam was growling, and I didn’t know what to do. Would something attack him?

  A street shuttle, perhaps? Should we retreat to the nearest stair shaft? If anything reached him at the junction, it was bound to spot us. All it had to do was look to its right.

  I was about to turn tail when Bam suddenly disappeared. He charged off down the street, barking furiously. To my surprise, his barking wasn’t cut short. It went on and on.

  I gazed at Merrit, seeking some kind of explanation.

  ‘Maybe – he’s not a threat?’ she speculated, quietly.

  ‘Because he’s not human?’

  It made sense. But I was human, so I didn’t imitate the dog. Instead, I advanced with great caution, millimetre by millimetre, until my right eye socket had barely cleared the corner in front of me.

  What I saw made my heart turn over.

  The door to the Bridge was still untouched, but it wouldn’t be for long. There was a lot of activity outside it. One street shuttle was clamped against it already (excreting acids, perhaps?) and another lay in wait nearby. I also spotted an On-board Transport Vehicle, and innumerable samplers whirring around like giant insects.

  Withdrawing, I sagged against the wall.

  ‘Well?’ Dygall croaked. I lifted a finger to my lips; we couldn’t afford to make any noise, despite the dog’s clamour. Clearly, all those transformed vehicles had enraged him. I had seen him dashing about between them, snapping first at one, then at another. But they seemed unaware of his presence.

  ‘Get back,’ I mouthed, gesturing at Dygall. ‘Back.’

  Though he frowned, he did as he was told. So did the others. We retraced our steps to the previous junction, where I glanced down the street, looking for an undamaged door. The only burnt one, I noticed, was at the far end, near the port tube.

  ‘Here,’ I said, and headed for the closest compartment. Its door was shut, but I knew what lay behind that door: a kind of storeroom, full of mimexis backup hardware, guidance equipment, spare parts and so forth. There wouldn’t be much space, but I didn’t need much space.

  Just enough for five small people.

  ‘Take this.’ I handed Merrit my grenade. ‘Put Inaret down, and take care of this. Haemon? Give me that bottle. Dygall – keep an eye out.’

  I poked the neck of Haemon’s bottle between the two door panels and used it as a lever, pushing open a hole big e
nough for my free hand. Then I braced myself and shoved as hard as I could.

  Slowly, the taut mass of muscle tissue yielded.

  ‘Merrit,’ I grunted, ‘can you see inside?’

  She stooped and peered, nervously.

  ‘It’s dark . . .’ she mumbled. ‘Hang on.’

  Before I could stop her, she pushed a hand through the hole, triggering some kind of organic biosensor. Immediately, the storeroom was flooded with light.

  ‘Merrit!’

  ‘It’s okay,’ she reported. ‘I mean – there’s nothing to worry about.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I’m sure. But what are you -?’

  ‘Right, then.’ So far, so good. ‘Just help me, will you? We need to get in. Pass that thing of yours to Inaret – Inaret! Don’t you drop it, baby!’

  Without uttering another word, Merrit surrendered the grenade and inserted one shoulder into the hole, throwing her entire weight against the other door panel. Struggling together, we managed to force open a space big enough to crawl through. ‘In!’ I gasped. ‘Everybody in! Haemon!’

  But Haemon hung back. He didn’t want to go first. It was Dygall who led the way. Haemon and Inaret went after him, though Inaret was very reluctant. Then I stuck one leg through the hole, and Merrit did the same.

  ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘on the count of three -’ ‘We both jump in,’ she interrupted. ‘I get it.’

  ‘One. Two. Three.’

  We hurled ourselves into the storeroom as the door panels, released of our combined pressure, sprang back to their former positions. Merrit’s foot was caught – she wasn’t fast enough – but it didn’t really matter. The panels were far softer than they had been, and we were able to jerk her free.

  ‘Can you move your toes?’ I demanded. ‘Are they broken?’

  ‘No . . . ah . . .’ She was sitting on the floor, rubbing her ankle furiously and blinking back tears. Inaret’s bottom lip began to quiver in sympathy.

  ‘Oh no,’ the little girl whimpered.

  ‘It’s all right.’ Merrit flexed her foot, grimacing. ‘It’s okay, Ret, I’m fine. Really.’

  Reassured, I turned to Haemon. ‘Listen. Haemon. I need your help. Are you listening?’

  Mutely, he nodded. His skin was streaked with a white crust of dried gunge. My own face felt stiff under the same coating. Even my eyelashes were sticky.

  ‘Okay.’ As my gaze roamed the walls enclosing us, I tried to collect my thoughts. There were lots of loose items in that room, stacked up on open shelves that now looked like gullets. Some of the items might prove to be useful, I decided. ‘Everybody listen. I saw lot of things hanging around outside the Bridge. An OTV, a couple of street shuttles -’

  ‘We should go upstairs again,’ Dygall interposed.

  ‘Wait. Just wait. Just think.’ I surveyed the faces around me. ‘Why would they all be hanging around that door? Hmm?’

  A brief pause. Everyone wore tired, blank expressions – except Merrit. She cleared her throat.

  ‘Because somebody’s in there?’ she suggested.

  ‘Exactly. This immune system isn’t interested in empty rooms. Why should it be?’ I peered up at the access panel in the ceiling. ‘But before we do anything, I want to make sure. I want to make absolutely sure that it’s worth doing.’

  ‘That what’s worth doing?’ Dygall inquired uneasily.

  I looked him straight in the eye. ‘We’ve got weapons, Dygall,’ I said, keeping my voice steady only with a tremendous effort. ‘We can’t just walk away and leave whoever’s stuck on the Bridge.’

  There was a general intake of breath, and a shifting of bodies. Merrit whispered, ‘But Cheney . . .’ before trailing off. Dygall, who was standing over me, wrapped his arms tightly around his Dewar flask.

  Inaret stuck her thumb in her mouth.

  ‘Arkwright might be in there. Mum might be in there.’ I had to wait for an instant before continuing. I had to banish an image of Mum from my mind. ‘Whoever is in there, we need them. We all need each other. If we don’t help each other, we don’t have a chance. Do you see what I’m saying?’ Looking around, I searched for the right words. ‘Everyone’s important, not just some people. Look at Haemon. He’s only small, but we wouldn’t be here now if it wasn’t for him. That’s why we can’t leave anyone behind.’ Seeing Inaret’s frightened expression, I hastened to reassure her. ‘I’m not suggesting we should charge in like idiots. First we have to make sure I’m right. That’s why I need you, Haemon.’ And I pointed at the ceiling. ‘You’re small. You might still fit in the air duct. If there’s enough room, you can crawl across the street and check the Bridge. See if there’s anyone in there. I mean . . . anyone alive.’ Gazing up into Haemon’s face (because he, too, was standing, while I was crouched beside Merrit), I noticed with a pang his missing tooth, and all the baby fat in his cheeks. He was so little. So fragile. He didn’t deserve this.

  None of us did.

  ‘Look, Haemon,’ I said, rising and clasping his shoulder, ‘Inaret’s smaller than you are, but she can’t do this. She doesn’t know her way around the air ducts, not like you. You’re the only one – we’re relying on you.’

  He swallowed, and nodded.

  ‘It’ll be okay,’ I assured him. ‘You’ll be safe up there – safer than here. All you have to do is reach the access panel in the Bridge, and see if anyone’s hiding inside. Then come straight back. Can you do that, Haemon?’

  ‘Yes,’ he replied, in a tiny voice.

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Okay.’ I glanced around, scanning the shelves for something that I could climb onto. Multispectral scanner? No. Suction cleaner? No. There was a polymer box of lenses, but it wouldn’t support my weight.

  And then I blinked.

  ‘Is that a step-ladder?’ I exclaimed.

  It was. A genuine step-ladder. Using it, I was able to unseal the access panel, and Haemon was able to climb into the air duct. He reported that, though narrow, it wasn’t too narrow for his skinny frame.

  ‘I won’t be able to turn around, though,’ he told me, gazing down from the top of the step-ladder. ‘Does that matter?’

  ‘I guess not. Not if you can move backwards.’

  ‘I can move backwards.’ For a moment he hesitated, then he pulled himself up through the access hole. Merrit called after him: ‘The minute it gets too narrow, Haemon, don’t keep going! Don’t get stuck!’

  A short, muffled reply; I couldn’t make out what Haemon was trying to say. Once he’d vanished into the air duct, I clambered up after him, until I was peering down the murky tunnel, watching his boot-soles slowly recede.

  I positioned myself there because (I have to admit it) I was worried. I didn’t like sending that poor kid down an air duct all by himself. Who knew what might be hiding at the other end?

  ‘You do realise,’ Dygall remarked, ‘that if anything decides to burn through the door here, there’s no way out. Did you think of that?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ I said shortly. ‘We’ve got weapons. We can fight.’

  Dygall grunted. Merrit said, ‘There’s a lot of stuff in this room. Maybe we can find something else to fight with.’

  ‘Good idea.’ My collar-spot was illuminating my last glimpse of Haemon’s busy backside. ‘Dygall, you watch the door while Merrit does a search.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Merrit picked up a suction cleaner and examined it closely, from every angle. ‘I don’t suppose this would be any good,’ she said. ‘I mean, I don’t suppose the suction’s strong enough to disembowel anything.’

  ‘Not on this ship,’ Dygall growled. ‘It would be against the safety regulations.’

  ‘Speaking of safety regulations . . .’ I craned around to check on Inaret. ‘Would someone else take charge of that thing Inaret’s holding? You can pass it up to me, if you want.’

  It was passed up to me. I wondered if I should stick it in a pocket, before deciding not to. I might
forget it if I wasn’t holding it. I might fall on it or something.

  Meanwhile, Merrit scrabbled through the objects on the shelves, and even tried a few stowage lockers (or the honeycomb-like things that had once been stowage lockers), without success. Before their metamorphosis, these lockers had probably been locked. Now they were sealed beneath a waxy layer that we might have been able to scrape away with our scissors, if we’d had the time.

  Unfortunately, we didn’t have the time.

  ‘Here’s one of those polymer masks we used last Christmas,’ said Merrit. ‘What could that be doing here? Why wasn’t it recycled?’

  ‘Its probably Yestin’s,’ I observed, and felt a pang in my gut. Yestin. ‘He might have hidden it. He was always hiding things away, in case he ever needed them for one of his robots. He hated recycling. His mum once told me she had to clear loads of stuff out of his room every week.’

  ‘There’s a funny metal thing too. I don’t know what it is.’

  ‘Is it sharp?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Then we don’t need it.’

  ‘Oh look,’ said Merrit, pulling down a plastic bottle. ‘This must be so old. It’s got a sticky label on it. This is practically antique.’ She read the label aloud. ‘Methylated spirits. What does that mean?’

  ‘Methylated spirits!’ Dygall’s voice was sharp. ‘Give me that!’

  ‘What’s methylated spirits?’ Merrit asked me, as she held the bottle out of Dygall’s reach. ‘Is it dangerous?’

  ‘It’s flammable!’ Dygall exclaimed. ‘Give it here!’

  ‘I think it’s some kind of solvent.’ Vaguely, something stirred in my memory, but I couldn’t pin it down. ‘Dygall! What’s the matter with you?’

  ‘It’s a fuel!’ He was dancing from foot to foot. ‘It’s ethanol and methanol, mixed together!’

  ‘Really?’ Merrit frowned. ‘That would have to be against the safety regulations.’

  ‘We can make a Molotov cocktail with this stuff!’ Dygall cried. As we stared at him, confused, he tried to explain. ‘We get Haemon’s glass bottle,’ he said, pointing at it, ‘we pour the methylated spirits in there, we soak a piece of rag in the same stuff, cork the bottle with it, and then, when we light the rag, and throw the bottle, it’ll smash in a great big ball of flame! They used to do it all the time, on Earth! Only they used different stuff, like petrochemicals.’