Worldshaker 01; Worldshaker

by Richard Harland

  He nodded. Riff breathed in and clapped her hand over mouth and nose. Col did the same. The smoke rose in billowing plumes of brown and grey, with flurries of red sparks.

  For the next five minutes, he concentrated on survival. The smoke blinded him, the sparks pricked his skin. Four times his lungs were ready to burst, four times he ran left and leaned out, gasping for air. He had to will himself to turn and plunge back in.

  Not once did Riff glance over her shoulder to check on his progress. It was for him to follow. There were no second chances in this world, he realised.

  After the smoke and ladders, they walked up a sloping ramp in the shadow of an immense cylindrical tank, like the one Col had seen before. The curving sides of this tank were covered by a kind of scaffolding, on which balanced a multitude of Filthies.

  “What are they doing?” Col asked.

  “Cookin’ food. Heatin’ water.”

  “How?”

  “Against the sides of the boiler.”

  “It’s a boiler?”

  “Yeah. Hot enough to burn yer skin off.”

  There was a cry of “Look out!” as a metal pan came clattering down. It bounced from one level of scaffolding to another, passed Col and Riff and disappeared into the depths below.

  “Who did that?” hollered Riff.

  A guilty face peered down from a level above. “Sorry. It was empty.”

  “Lucky for you.”

  Col shook his head. “What a madhouse!”

  Riff transferred her anger to him. “Think so, do yer?”

  “I mean, everyone living on top of each other. It’s chaos.”

  “Phh! You don’t see what’s in front of yer eyes. Look again, Col-bert Porping-tine.”

  Col looked and saw the Filthies passing heated pans along from hand to hand. To change position, they had to climb over one another on the scaffolding. Impossibly precarious! A hundred times it seemed that someone would burn themselves on the boiler or lose their footing or drop another pan – but nobody did. At the last minute there was always another Filthy to lend support, to catch an arm or grip a shoulder. The whole operation continued at amazing speed.

  “Do you see now?” Riff demanded.

  Col shook his head. It must be only by luck that there were no accidents. It surely couldn’t be all calculated and intentional.

  “We gotter co-operate because of livin’ on top of each other,” said Riff. “We gotter be better organised than your lot, else we’d never survive.”

  Col didn’t want to see it, but in the end he did. There was a pattern to the chaos, a pattern so complicated it was almost beyond comprehension. The actions of every Filthy fitted in with the actions of everyone else. It was like a dance where the dancers were all perfectly practised in their steps.

  Once he’d seen it, he saw it everywhere. They moved on up through a series of floors where people were washing clothes, and he saw how some did the sorting, some the scrubbing, some the rinsing, some the hanging up to dry. Bundles of clothes flew back and forth through the air almost faster than the eye could see. The clothes were mere rags, but the system was incredibly slick and smooth.

  He felt dizzy just from watching them. He could no more imagine being able to wash clothes like the Filthies than he could imagine being able to fight like Riff. Their abilities seemed superhuman.

  After the clothes-washing floors, Riff led him through a maze of zigzag pipes. She pointed to small nozzles that stuck out here and there.

  “Don’t get caught in front of these,” she warned.

  Avoiding the nozzles, they stepped high or crouched low or sometimes crawled flat on their bellies.

  “What was that about?” he asked when they emerged.

  “Steam. That’s where your lot shoots steam at us.”

  Col remembered Sir Mormus’s explanation for the steam. “To ginger you up.”

  “Don’t be stupid!” Riff snapped. “They make us work by controllin’ the food. All the steam does is slow us down. They do it ‘cos they enjoy hurtin’ us.”

  Col had no answer. “So why don’t you stay away from the nozzles?”

  “Ain’t you worked it out yet? There’s nowhere down here that’s not dangerous.” Riffs eyes flashed. “You know your problem?”

  “What?”

  “You only look at one thing at a time. If you want to survive, keep yer mind wide and yer senses open. Don’t concentrate, be ready in all directions.”

  For the rest of the journey, Col tried to keep his mind wide and his senses open. Perhaps he improved a little.

  Climbing higher, they came to box-like frames of girders and struts. Every surface was slippery with gobbets of yellow grease. Col looked ahead and saw where they had to cross from frame to frame – and the only bridge was a single girder.

  “I can’t do it,” he groaned.

  “You can. Take a run-up. Watch me.”

  Riff accelerated towards the girder, held her arms out to the sides, bent at the knees and skated across. The grease under her feet created an ideal sliding surface. On the other side, she caught hold of a strut and brought herself to a stop.

  “The faster the better,” she encouraged Col. “Don’t look down.”

  He had no choice. He ran full pelt, extended his arms, bent at the knees and skated. Only momentum kept him upright. He tilted to the right, corrected to the left, over-corrected to the right. Too far! The gulf gaped below him.

  Just in time, he caught hold of the strut.

  No word of approval from Riff. She turned immediately on her heel and set off again.

  Overhead, huge beams rocked back and forth to a mighty rhythm. They must be close to the underside of Bottom Deck, Col guessed, though nothing was clearly visible in the murk.

  “Not far to our meeting place now,” Riff told him. “The rest of the Council should be there by now.”

  “Already?” One small corner of Col’s mind remained capable of calculation. “How could they get there before us?”

  “Oh, they’ll have taken the short cuts.”

  “What did we take?”

  “The long way round. Short cuts’d be too hard for yer.”

  So this was the easy route? Col’s mind boggled at the thought.

  ∨ Worldshaker ∧

  Twenty-Nine

  The meeting place was an outsize hammock slung like a spider’s web in the space between two enormous flywheels. Rotating at high speed, the flywheels threw off a wind all around, but the space between was as still as the eye of a storm. Col had grown used to shouting to be heard above the constant noise of Below. Only in the meeting place was it possible to talk in a normal voice.

  At Riffs prompting, he leaped forward into the hammock and rolled to the bottom. The members of the Council were ranged along one side, leaning back comfortably, feet braced against the ropes. They stared down at him with inquisitorial eyes.

  “Stay where you are,” snapped a tattooed girl with close-cropped hair as he struggled to rise.

  There were six of them including Riff. They were all similar in build, thin and wiry and muscular. Most seemed to be in their late teens or early twenties, except for one woman in a red headband, who could have been thirty.

  A boy with a bandaged leg ordered Col to explain what he was doing Below. It seemed that the Revolutionary Council already knew the story of his previous encounters with Riff. He told them about dropping the book down the food chute, the fight with Lumbridge, then falling down the chute himself. They listened in silence, only snorting with amazement at some of the details. Riff passed the book around for the Council members to examine.

  Then they shot questions at him, which he answered as best he could. The questions came from them all equally, and Col had the impression that no one outranked anyone else.

  “So you think Riff owes you a favour,” said Red Headband at last. “What favour do you want?”

  “To go back up on the Upper Decks.”

  “Yeah, and how do you expect us to d
o that?” asked a boy with a high, domed forehead and cold, assessing eyes.

  Riff spoke up. “There is a way, Shiv.”

  “For him but not for us?”

  “For us when they want new Menials.” Riff shrugged. “You know how they use a hook to haul us up. So they could do the same with him. All we gotter do is put him where they can see him.”

  “Right.” The boy with the bandaged leg nodded. “Somewhere high, near one of their cages.”

  “Okay, we could,” said a young man with a stubbled chin. “I still don’t see why we should.”

  Riff exchanged glances with him. “I made a promise, Padder.”

  Red Headband cocked an eyebrow. “Nothing personal in this, is there?” She looked from Riff to Col and back again. “You and him?”

  “Course not,” Riff bit back at once.

  The young man called Padder scowled. “I heard you already fought Sculler for him. You done him enough of a favour.”

  “I fought Sculler ‘cos he refused my orders,” said Riff. “That was for me.”

  Red Headband grinned. “Mind, he’s not bad-lookin’. Except them stupid clothes. I daresay, if yer took off his clothes…”

  “Shut yer face, Fossie!” Riff was furious.

  Padder growled threateningly. “Yeah, shut up. Looks has nothin’ to do with it. He’s a one of ‘em.”

  Again he exchanged glances with Riff. There’s something between them, Col thought, and his heart did an odd sort of flip-flop. Were they somehow partnered? Yet Riff was only fourteen. On the Upper Decks, no one could think of getting engaged until eighteen, or married until twenty-one.

  “Lettin’ him live is enough of a favour,” Padder said. “Let him find out what it’s like to live down Below.”

  Col grimaced. “I wouldn’t last long. You might as well kill me straight off.”

  The girl with tattooed arms and close-cropped hair spoke up. “That’s true. He wouldn’t last a day down here.”

  There was a moment of silence. Then the boy with the bandaged leg made a suggestion. “We oughter trade him. If they want him up there, they gotter give us somethin’ in return.”

  “Like what, Zeb?” asked the tattooed girl.

  “Dunno. More food. Less steam.”

  “Phuh!” The cold-eyed boy called Shiv made a spitting sound. “They’ll go back on their word, soon as they get what they want. They’ll punish us with more steam, less food.”

  “We could make the talks last a long time,” said Zeb, no longer so confident.

  “Yeah, and they’ll make the punishment last a hundred times longer,” said Shiv. “We can’t trust ‘em.”

  Col spoke up. “You can trust me.”

  Fossie looked at him curiously. “What can you do?”

  “I’ll be Supreme Commander one day. Then I’ll make it an order no steam ever again.”

  They all burst out laughing.

  “You don’t believe me?” Col appealed to Riff, who was laughing along with the rest. “I told you, remember? I’m next in line after my grandfather.”

  But Riff wouldn’t back him up. “When? Ten, twenty years?”

  “Maybe. When my grandfather retires.”

  “And we’ll all be dead by then,” said Padder.

  Col was about to say Don’t be ridiculous, until he remembered. No one Below lived much past the age of thirty.

  “Anyway, we have bigger plans,” said the tattooed girl.

  “Hush, Dunga.” The others frowned and shook their heads at her.

  Then they began whispering among themselves, in voices too low for Col to hear. Deciding what to do with me, he thought, and his throat tightened.

  Finally, there was a general nodding of heads.

  “Okay, it’s agreed.” Riff addressed Col. “We’ll help you get back to the Upper Decks, on one condition.”

  “What?”

  “You have to help one of us get up there too.”

  This was unexpected. “How?”

  “You go to a food chute afterwards and let down a rope.”

  Col fumbled for excuses. “I don’t know where there’s a rope that long.”

  “You’ll find one,” said Riff.

  “What would this person do?”

  “Explore the Upper Decks,” said the boy called Shiv.

  “Be a spy, you mean?”

  “That’s our business.”

  Col didn’t trust them. What had they been whispering about before? What were their bigger plans?

  “Only one person?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  He pointed to Riff. “Her, then.”

  “Exactly what we were thinkin’.” Riff grinned. “Me.”

  Her willingness increased his suspicions. “But two weeks ago…all you wanted was to get back Below.”

  “‘Cos I thought I was stuck up there. It’s different now.”

  “Will you do it?” Shiv demanded. “Yes or no?”

  Col nodded. “Yes.”

  Riff leaned forward, eyes boring into his. “Give us your word. Give me your word.”

  “I give you my word.”

  “Okay.” She extended a hand and helped him to his feet. He stood swaying as the hammock rocked back and forth.

  “Let’s hope you don’t regret this, Riff,” said Dunga.

  “He’ll do it,” she answered. “You’ll see.”

  ∨ Worldshaker ∧

  Thirty

  The plan was simple: to put Col on display where he could be spotted from above. The officers on watch would do the rest. The six Council members led Col to the nearest viewing bay.

  Higher and higher they climbed, through a zone of foul-smelling gas. Huge dark shapes moved in the fumes: cogged wheels, interlocking shafts and sliding rods. Above them, Col could see the roof of Below, which was also the underneath of Bottom Deck.

  They went up the side of a greasy black chimney, dodged a cascade of boiling water and climbed a ladder to a platform at the top. The platform was the only thing that stayed static in a world of moving parts.

  “It’s up there.” Riff pointed and spoke into Col’s ear above the noise. “Where they lower the hook.”

  “Can’t see it.”

  “Nah, not yet. You go up on that.”

  As she spoke, a great metal beam rose in front of them. It swept past the platform with a mighty swoosh, spraying droplets of oil in its wake.

  “That?”

  “Yeah, you won’t fall off. Pretend you’re escapin’ from us.”

  “We’ll shout like we’re chasin’ you,” added Fossie in Col’s other ear.

  In the next moment, the beam plunged down with a further swoosh.

  “Lock your hands together.” Riff demonstrated. “Like this.”

  Col interlaced the fingers of both hands.

  “Now arms above your head.”

  No sooner had he raised his arms than the Filthies took hold of him and swung him off the ground.

  “Hey!” he protested.

  The beam was coming up again. They rocked him back, then flung him forward as if tossing a log.

  Swoosh!

  He sailed helplessly though the air – then crashed against the ascending beam. As his locked hands looped over a projecting spur of metal, he was jerked so suddenly upwards that his stomach was left behind.

  Up, up, up, passing dark shapes in the fumes. He almost blanked out from the acceleration. The beam soared to the top of its arc, then reversed direction and dropped back down. For a second time, Col’s stomach stayed behind.

  He caught a blurred impression of the Council members watching from the platform. He went past them on the way down, then again on the way back up.

  He twisted his head as he approached the top of the arc once more. Yes, there was the wire cage suspended beneath Bottom Deck. Inside, an officer stared down through the mesh of the floor.

  Had he spotted Col? The beam reversed direction before Col could call out for help.

  “Remember yer promise!�
�� cried Riff as he went past.

  Down again, then up again. Now the officer had disappeared. Was that good or bad?

  Col was starting to feel nauseous. He had no way to return to the platform: if he wasn’t hooked up from above, he would be stuck on the beam forever. Or at least, until he let go and fell to his death…

  Then he noticed that the Filthies were shaking their fists, howling abuse at him. He was so dizzy, it took him a few seconds to understand they were putting on a show.

  Raising his eyes, he saw that half a dozen officers had now appeared inside the viewing bay. They held out a long rod through the open door of the cage. And something was being lowered towards him on a cable, some shining, curved device: the hook!

  He never grasped exactly how it worked. It must have been more like Mr Gibber’s tweaker than a simple form of hook. He only heard a snap like a trap springing shut. At the top of his arc, he was suddenly gripped round the waist in a ring of metal.

  Then the beam went down, the hook took his weight and his interlaced hands were left holding nothing but air.

  The officers hauled him up a few feet at a time. He heard the rattle of a ratchet and a voice calling: “Pull! And – pull! And – pull!”

  He’d survived. That was all he could think as he rotated on the end of the cable, head down, feet up. The Council members had finished their pretence of pursuing him and were no longer visible.

  Louder and louder came the sounds of the ratchet and the officer’s voice. Then strong hands clamped round his arms and legs. He was pulled up over the sill and onto the wire mesh floor of the viewing bay.

  With another metallic snap, the hook opened to release him.

  He rolled over, eyes filling with tears of relief. The officers stood round in a respectful half-circle. He wanted to blurt out words of heartfelt gratitude. But he owed it to Sir Mormus to maintain an attitude of appropriate dignity.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I shall recommend your prompt action to my grandfather. Who spotted me first?”

  They made no reply. What was wrong with them? Col blinked and took another look.

  The expression in their eyes wasn’t respect, but revulsion.