‘I came with Mrs Brown and her bodyguard,’ she said. ‘I wanted to see Siberia but I guess that’s not going to happen now.’
‘Ah, so you’re with the android,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen him about the place. He’s a fine piece of hardware, he is. You must be the young lady what ‘ad the run-in with Sidney this afternoon.’
‘Good grief, does everyone in town know about that?’
‘Most people around here make it their business to know what Sid the Kid gets up to,’ he said, blowing a smoke ring. ‘He gets away with murder, quite literally! I’d say you’d been pretty lucky.’
‘Well I don’t feel lucky. Thanks to him I’m probably going home. I thought I was going to like Siberia but I don’t think much of it so far.’
‘Well, that’s ’cos you ain’t seen the best of it,’ he said. He reached into his pocket and spread a sheaf of grubby postcards on the table. They showed a variety of snow-covered scenes: mountains, trees heavy with white crystalline frost and icy lakes. ‘This is what Siberia’s all about.’
She ran a finger lightly over a picture of a snow-capped mountain. It seemed to gain a new intensity as she gazed at it – as though it was a living window through which she could climb. She imagined she could hear someone chanting, a hypnotic voice that seemed to pull her towards the picture. As soon as she lifted her finger the chanting stopped and the picture returned to being a faded and cracked photograph. She realized Bulldog had been talking.
‘I’m sorry, what did you say?’
‘I said Siberia’s a beautiful place, but terrible too. It’s minus sixty in the winter and as dark as a witch’s armpit, with frozen lakes that can swallow a rig whole.’ He exhaled another plume of smoke. ‘But give me a clear day in the mountains with the smell of diesel in the air and any rigger’ll tell you it’s the best place on Earth.’
At that moment the door to the dining room swung open and Verity and Calculus walked in together. India could see right away that Verity knew all about her encounter with Sid. She looked as dark as thunder.
‘India, are you all right?’ she said. ‘Calculus told me all about it. I could kick myself for leaving you alone. Sid could have killed you on the spot!’ She turned her eyes skywards and groaned. ‘And they’re expecting us at Trans-Siberian to tell them what we know about Ironheart.’
‘Ironheart, eh? said Bulldog. ‘There’s a fair few riggers have died chasing that dream.’
Verity turned sharply to glare at him.
‘This is Captain Bulldog,’ said India quickly. ‘He’s a free rigger!’
‘Pleased to meetcha!’ said Bulldog, extending a giant hand.
‘Well it’s not mutual, Captain,’ she said, folding her arms, ‘and this is a private discussion so, if you don’t mind?’ She raised an eyebrow and Calculus moved to stand at her shoulder.
Captain Bulldog pulled back his unshaken hand and grinned. ‘Of course, of course, just on my way anyhow I’ll say this, though. If you go looking for Ironheart you’d best be careful on account of what’s there.’
‘Why?’ said Verity suspiciously. ‘What is there?’
‘The thing you want most in the world,’ he said. ‘Whatever that is. Gold, diamonds, precious relics. They say it was the last resting place of the Siberian crown jewels. Others say it holds all the lost knowledge of the ancient world or technology a hundred years ahead of what we have now Whatever you’re looking for, Ironheart will promise it. But it’s the song of the siren. It’ll lure you in, but it always ends in death.’
Verity snorted. ‘That’s just rigger talk, Captain,’ she said. ‘I don’t pay attention to superstition and rumour.’
‘Izzat so?’ he said. ‘Well, here’s some hard facts. There’s something at Ironheart that Lucifer Stone wants badder ‘n anything in the world, and him and his boy are as crazy as a pair of cornered snakes. If I were you, I’d watch my step! Good day, ladies.’ He pulled on a fur hat that made him look like an overstuffed teddy bear and strode out of the dining room.
Calculus watched him go. ‘It may have been unwise to engage that man in conversation,’ he said. ‘It is possible that he is not entirely trustworthy.’
Verity frowned. ‘India, what the hell were you thinking? That man was a pirate!’
‘Well you were the one who blurted out about Ironheart,’ said India. ‘In any case he was just being nice.’
‘There is no such thing as “nice” in this town, India,’ said Verity. ‘Didn’t your adventure this afternoon teach you that? You don’t talk to anyone about our business, not unless you want to get robbed or cheated or murdered.’ She took a deep breath and rubbed her palms over her face. ‘Well, that’s it then,’ she said. ‘By now Sid will have given his father the journals so we might as well pack up and go home.’ She looked around the dining room. ‘This place seems OK, we’ll stay here tonight. Tomorrow I’ll see if we can get you a cheap passage back to England on a freight ship.’
India felt sick with disappointment. She looked away out of the window so that Verity and Calculus wouldn’t see the tears welling in her eyes and felt for the pendant at her neck. She wondered what Bella was doing at that moment.
‘What is that, India?’ said Calculus.
‘It’s nothing,’ she said wiping her sleeve across her face. ‘Just got something in my eye, that’s all.’
‘No,’ said Calculus, ‘I meant around your neck.’ He pointed to her pendant. ‘May I see it?’
‘OK.’
He removed it carefully from her neck, without touching the metal. ‘Where did you get this?’
‘My dad made it,’ she said. ‘He gave it to me just before he came back here for the last time. He said it was my own piece of Siberia.’
Calculus passed the palm of his hand back and forth over the metal. ‘Curious,’ he said. ‘Iron and nickel mostly, with traces of chondrites in the outer layers. This is meteorite iron.’ He turned it over and held it up to peer along its edge. ‘It’s made of two pieces of metal pressed together,’ he said. ‘And there’s something in between them.’
‘Here, let me see.’ Verity took the pendant from him and laid it carefully on the table. She pulled a small jeweller’s eyeglass from her bag and began to examine it. ‘There’s a pair of jumper pins on the upper edge,’ she said to Calculus, pointing to two tiny brass specks. ‘And there’s definitely something sandwiched in between the two metal pieces.’
‘A micro-controller?’ said Calculus.
‘I’m betting it is,’ said Verity with excitement. She took out a pair of tweezers and turned the pendant over. ‘India, it looks like your dad went to a lot of trouble to hide something in here.’
‘What sort of thing?’ said India. She had worn the pendant for several months without noticing anything unusual about it.
‘Possibly an integrated memory chip,’ said Calculus, ‘a storage device used by old-fashioned computers. They were very common once.’
India watched closely as Verity rummaged in the bag and pulled out a battered-looking black box with a small meter on the front and a pair of brass terminals on the top. She took out several pieces of wire and some crocodile clips and proceeded to connect the brass terminals to the pendant. The needle on the meter didn’t move.
‘The chip must have deteriorated over time,’ said Calculus. ‘It will need something to kick-start it.’
Verity nodded. ‘OK, give me a spark, Calc, but gently. No more than thirty milliamps.’
The android took the pendant carefully between his finger and thumb. There was a small snap as a spark jumped from his fingers to the surface of the metal. For a moment, nothing happened, then the needle on the meter flickered to life.
‘I have an output,’ said Calculus. ‘It’s a coherent data stream, there’s information here.’ The meter continued to flicker and Calculus was silent. At last he spoke again. ‘It’s another journal.’
Verity punched her fist into an open palm. ‘Hot damn, this could be what we were looking for a
ll along!’ India, do you realize what this means? I’ll bet those other journals were just a red herring and all the information about Ironheart is stored here.’
‘What does it say?’ said India.
‘I’m not sure,’ said Calculus. ‘The message is encrypted.’ He held the pendant close to his visor. ‘I will need some time to decipher it.’
‘How long?’ said Verity, checking her watch. ‘Trans-Siberian are expecting us in half an hour.’
‘That would be difficult even for me,’ said Calculus. ‘It is a complex cryptograph with over fourteen trillion possible combinations. Simply to count them would take a human being four hundred and forty-two thousand years, six months, twenty-eight days and—’
‘All right!’ said Verity. ‘I get the point. Just get it done as quickly as possible. We’ll need it soon if I’m going to strike a bargain with Lucifer Stone.’
India’s heart began to beat faster as the prospect of a Siberian adventure opened up before her once more. ‘Why would Dad have gone to all this trouble to hide this information?’ she said.
‘Perhaps because he knew he might not come back,’ said Verity. ‘And because he knew that what was at Ironheart was very valuable.’
‘Or very dangerous,’ offered Calculus. He disconnected the wires and handed the pendant back to India. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘I have recorded the data from the microchip. Keep hold of it safely. If word gets out about this I think Sid might try to pay you another visit.’
CHAPTER 8
AN UNPLEASANT ENCOUNTER
The sun was low in the sky by the time they left Mrs Chang’s and a bitter wind blew off the river. They marched through the streets to the eastern edge of town and the black, granite offices of the Trans-Siberian Mining Company. At the bottom of the front steps they stopped to look up at the two gas flames billowing like orange silk on either side of the oak doors.
‘Stone keeps them burning because he can afford to,’ said Verity. ‘He likes people to remember who has all the wealth and power around here.’
India, who was used to never feeling warm in their dank London cottage, was shocked by the waste of fuel.
Inside, the building smelled of waxed wood and polished brass. Verity marched up to a fat guard, who was seated behind an ornate desk, cleaning his ears with a pencil. ‘I need to see the Director immediately,’ she said, flashing her business card at him and leaning across the desk menacingly. ‘I have some important information that he’s going to want to hear straight away.’
The guard inspected the end of the pencil and then peered suspiciously at Calculus. ‘No weapons in the building,’ he said flatly. ‘That means the gun and the robot.’
‘Actually,’ said Calculus, ‘I’m an android.’
‘It’s a very different thing altogether,’ added India helpfully.
Verity tapped her foot impatiently. ‘When can we see Mr Stone?’
The guard curled his lip. ‘When the Director shares his diary with me I’ll be sure to let you know. In the meantime, wait over there.’
They sat in the lobby on hard chairs and watched the guard scraping grease from under his fingernails with a paper clip. One entire wall of the entrance hall was taken up with a map of Siberia. It was studded with small flags bearing names that crackled with the promise of adventure: ‘The Grace Under Pressure’, ‘The Lone Wolf’, ‘The Ice Queen’. The flags gradually thinned out towards the East until there were none left at all. India wondered where on the map Ironheart might be.
Finally, after await that felt like hours, they left Calculus in the lobby while another guard ushered them up the stairs and along a corridor, then up a spiral staircase to a flat rooftop. As they emerged into the icy brightness a gunshot scattered a flock of gulls into the air.
‘Splendid shot, Mr Director, well done, sir.’
A group of well-dressed men and women at the far end of the roof applauded politely. They were drinking some kind of golden spirit from balloon-shaped glasses and some of them appeared to be quite drunk. In the centre of the group stood a short but enormously broad man, holding a smoking shotgun. He wore a floor-length fur coat, tied with a thick leather belt and had shaggy black hair with one furry eyebrow that ran right across his forehead. His beard was plaited into black ropes and there were pieces of bone tied into the ends. He looked like a story-book troll that had crept out from under a mountain.
‘Not bad, if I say so myself His voice sounded as though he liked to gargle with gravel every morning. ‘That’s nine hits in a row. Who’ll stake me a hundred gold Crowns I can’t make it a straight ten?’
As they drew closer India’s blood froze. Standing to one side, wearing the same furious look she had seen in the alleyway, was Sid the Kid. She felt his stare on her like a beam from a cold lighthouse.
The Director turned towards them. ‘You’ll be that Brown woman, I daresay.’ He spat on his hand and held it out to Verity. ‘Lucifer Stone.’
The hand was black and grimy but if Verity was dubious about taking it she never let it show.
‘How was your trip to London?’ he said with a smirk.
‘It’s an honour to meet you at last, Director,’ she said, ignoring the sniggers from the group. ‘I hear a lot of talk in the Northern territories about what you have achieved here.’
India noticed how all the men followed Verity with their eyes.
‘I’m proud of this town, Mrs Brown,’ he said. ‘Twenty years ago there was nothing here but a few reindeer herders. Everything you see here has been forged from the mountains with my own hands.’
Verity looked impressed. ‘Well, with all that going on, it’s a wonder you can still find the time for target practice.’
Stone puffed out his chest. Something in the way he brandished his gun reminded India of Mehmet. ‘This is still a frontier town, Mrs Brown, and I like to keep my skills sharp. Let me show you!’
At the far end of the roof stood a large contraption on wheels that looked like an old-fashioned catapult, designed for bashing down castle walls. Stone gave a signal and a man in overalls wound a handle which pulled back a flexible metal arm until it nearly reached the ground. He took a large green fruit from a pile and placed it into a basket at the end of the arm.
‘Watermelons,’ explained Stone. ‘We have them specially imported. Nothing explodes like a watermelon when you shoot it.’ He looked around. ‘Except maybe a man’s head, no?’ The group laughed on cue. He hoisted the gun to his shoulder. ‘Pull!’
The steel arm snapped to attention and the melon was flung in a high arc away from the roof. The gun blasted once and the melon burst into pink mist, casting a thousand fragments of red flesh into the street below. Everyone applauded again.
‘Bravo, Mr Director,’ said Verity.
India didn’t clap. She didn’t think there was anything special about being able to hit something the size of a watermelon.
‘That’s a bit of a waste, isn’t it?’ she said, earning a scowl from Sid. Verity flashed her a warning look, as Stone’s eyebrow formed a thick V shape.
‘Mr Director,’ said Verity quickly, ‘may I introduce my, er, business associate?’
Sid sneered and whispered something into his father’s ear. Lucifer Stone examined India closely. ‘Ah yes, the daughter of John Bentley if I am not mistaken. You seem to have inherited your daddy’s unfortunate habit of speaking first and thinking later. I assure you our watermelons aren’t wasted.’ He walked to the edge of the roof. ‘I combine my shooting practice with my welfare programme. Look!’
In the icy courtyard below was the most wretched group of men, women and children that India had ever seen. Despite the cold, they crawled on their hands and knees to pick up the shattered pieces of fruit from the filth and cram them into their mouths.
India’s hand went to her mouth. She knew what it was like to go hungry and she understood how it could drive you to do just about anything. ‘That’s horrible,’ she said. ‘Why are you tormenting them? Why don’t y
ou just give them the fruit?’
Stone’s eyebrow creased even further and silence descended on the group. He leaned towards India until she could see the dense crop of blackheads on his nose. From the corner of her eye India saw Verity reach for her gun before remembering it wasn’t there.
‘Because, Miss Bentley,’ he growled, ‘where would be the sport in that?’ He turned and tossed his gun to an assistant. ‘Don’t feel too sorry for them, they are just primitives. They’ve been drifting into Angel Town for months now although heaven only knows why.’ He went to the edge of the roof and glared down at the crowd who were now gazing up expectantly, waiting for the next melon. ‘Vermin!’ he roared. ‘If I had my way I would exterminate the lot of you.’ He turned away and pulled on his overcoat. ‘Come, Mrs Brown, walk with me and we can talk business. Dr Cirenkov, please join us!’
A severe-looking woman in a black suit stepped forward. India noticed, uneasily, that Sid followed too, walking a few paces behind.
‘Dr Cirenkov is my chief scientist here,’ said Stone. ‘It’s her job to make sense of what you tech-hunters bring me. She has a genius for taking things apart to find out how they work.’
The doctor stretched her mouth into a thin-lipped smile that didn’t reach her eyes and bowed low. Her sinuous movements and cold-blooded expression reminded India of a reptile. ‘I saw your bodyguard in reception, Mrs Brown,’ she said in a clipped accent. ‘He is a very impressive machine, would you consider selling him to us? You could name your price.’
Verity raised her eyebrows. ‘Really, Doctor? I’m surprised you’d be interested in such a relic. He’s highly unreliable and well past his best. In any case, surely the great Lucifer Stone has no need of a bodyguard?’
‘My need is not for a bodyguard, it is for an army,’ said Stone. ‘The doctor wants to take apart the metal man so we can learn to build others just like him. With an army like that, Trans-Siberian would be unstoppable.’
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