by Philip Webb
“What’s Erin doing with Dad?”
“Look, you wouldn’t believe what a load off my mind it is to see you’re in one piece, but I ain’t gonna fill you in on everything what’s happened since you went AWOL, OK? There just ain’t no time for that.”
“Who’s Maleeva?”
“Hey, enough! You’re doing my head in! Right now we’re in the worst fix ever, OK, and I’m trying to think!”
“Sorry,” he whispers. “What’s all this yellow stuff?”
“Wilbur!”
He floats clear of me, looking all set for a sulk.
“Actually, don’t touch them yellow bits.”
“Why not?”
“It’s … Never mind.”
On the screens, I watch the Aeolus coming closer, then the docking tentacles reaching out.
“Cass, what are we doing here?”
“You really don’t know?”
He shakes his head. “I mean, I dreamt about coming to the ship, but –”
“Look, it don’t matter right now how we got here. We just need to figure out how to get back, OK?”
The docking hole pops open, and just beyond it I can see the ridged walls of the ship proper. I try to picture the layout. I try to think back … The Aeolus is silent, saying nothing. Should I try and speak to it? I figure the best thing to do is get to the bridge, keep Wilbur close – minimum of fuss. Not that I’ve got a clue how to reset the shuttle if we get there, but I’ll jump that hurdle when I have to …
I push through into the ship, dragging Wilbur with me. The silence, the gloomy vault, the flickering sleeper pod lights like rows of blue candles – it all puts me in mind of a church. A lost altar tumbling through the sky.
I bundle Wilbur toward the airlock hollow where the suits are stashed. Getting into them is easier than I think. But the way the helmets snap home, and the sleeves and gloves puff up to just the right size, and how the whole suit closes round you – it all puts me on edge. ’Specially cos the ship ain’t saying a word. Like Erin says, it only speaks when it’s got something to say. Which means it’s happy for us to go to the bridge.
I touch the scab thing that works the airlock, and in the blink of an eye we’re on the far side facing the main shaft that leads to the bridge.
I tether up to Wilbur and drift into the passageway with its torn hull and views of the night – the dreamy silence of space. I can hear Wilbur’s gasps over my helmet speaker as the curve of the Earth swings into view.
It takes a while to get to the far side cos I ain’t that great at aiming the cable gun in the suit forearm. My first few efforts glance off the walls, but finally the barbed end hits home and we reel ourselves to the busted airlock at the far end, then through the wormhole tubes to the bridge.
Everything is just like before – the burnt bits of ship flesh, the gaping hole where Halina’s shuttle was docked, the hairpin tunnels, and finally the bubble screens of the bridge.
I stare at the gash where Erin stuffed her arms. The innards squish about a bit. It ain’t like I’m squeamish, but the idea of rummaging around in there ain’t exactly inviting. ’Specially when I don’t have the foggiest how to do this shuttle resetting lark. I try to think back, but there ain’t much to remember. Erin just went in up to her elbows and did it. So maybe it ain’t that hard …
“Can I try?” offers Wilbur.
“No way! Stay back and don’t touch nothing.”
“I was just trying to help.”
“Yeah, well, you done enough helping …”
OK, well, might as well just go for it. I plunge both arms in. The stuff gives way, and it’s sloppy and warm like offal. Which is weird, cos how would I know what it feels like if I got gloves on? But then I cotton on that the gloves ain’t there no more, and my bare fingers are squishing right into the gunge. In a panic I try to pull them out, but they’re locked fast.
“Augh!”
“Cass! What’s wrong?”
I force myself to calm down. “It’s OK. Just getting the hang of it.”
Now what?
And just as I’m getting my breath under control, something proper freaky happens. It starts with something brushing against my fingers – coming in, then flitting away again. Like something wary, sniffing me out … Suddenly two ripples of static shoot through my arms, up past my shoulders, into my head … They meet there and merge, and together they make like a shadow in my mind – a shadow that ain’t got nothing to do with me. Whatever it is, it just sits there for a bit, and I’m thinking about a million things all at once. Except it ain’t really me doing the thinking. Cos it’s like the shadow thing is just rummaging through my brain, the way we scav an empty house, picking through the contents, keeping some, chucking away others. It’s the ship, or the smart bit, the bit the ancients made up front before pouring it into this floating bag of flesh. Its mind or its ghost or whatever. What else can it be? And the way it races from my right eye to my left and back again, I get the feeling it’s trying me on for size, checking the view … And by all the laws of what’s normal, I should be screaming right about now. Except I can’t, cos my terror’s all caged up and it can’t get out.
Then, right out the blue, the ship speaks to me.
FOR EVERY FLINDER, A SLEEPER
“Cass Westerby, I cradled your mother as she fell.” Its voice echoes round my helmet. I stop breathing.
“She accepted her death. That is rare.”
“Cass, what’s going on?” shouts Wilbur.
I try to turn round to him but I’m stuck. OK, be strong, be cool, just speak to it.
“What d’you know about her dying?” I go.
“I know the faces of all those who have lived and died on the Earth. Through the flinders, I have seen their dreams. I have listened to them as they called up to the sky.”
“What else about her?” I whisper.
“Cass, don’t listen to it!”
“I know this. That she found comfort in the shapes and smells of trees. That she was a storyteller and treasured her skill. That she thought of her children as she gave herself up to the dark.”
Right then it goes rifling through my memories of Mum. And I know it’s telling the truth.
“Cass!”
“Take it easy, Wilbur. It’s all right. It ain’t gonna hurt us.” Then to the ship I go, “How do I reset the shuttle?”
“Think of the place you wish it to go. Reach out with your mind.”
I close my eyes. The innards wraps themselves tighter around my fingers. I think of London, the Thames. I picture the bridges and the black surface of the water at night, by the Jubilee tunnel – where Erin took us before.
“It is done,” goes the ship.
The ghost shadow whips away in an instant and is gone. The innards loosen and I can feel the gloves growing back. I pull free from the hole, and tentacles of slime whiplash into my helmet.
I turn to Wilbur. He’s breathing hard and he’s gone all white and trembly, so I bring him close till our faceplates touch.
Then the ship goes, “Forty-nine flinders for forty-nine sleepers. They must all return here.”
Suddenly I feel so simple and so tiny next to this voice, cos it’s older than the world. But I figure I’ve got to keep it talking while we get back to the shuttle.
“So what’s so special about forty-nine? Can’t you make do with forty-eight?”
“Together they are strong. Together they are one. Wilbur knows.” Its voice is so calm, so cold.
I do a finger-down-the-throat sign to get him to puke up the flinder or lose it somehow. He shakes his head for a no-go. I pull him back toward the main shaft.
“You must complete the forty-nine, Cass Westerby.”
“That’s what we’re gonna do,” I go. “Just as soon as we get back to London and find the others.” I can hear just how bonkers that sounds – cos how am I going to fool this ancient ship? I think about Halina battling with it, and I know it ain’t just gonna let us go. Not after i
t’s waited five thousand years to recover the missing flinder.
I swing Wilbur out through the busted airlock into the main shaft. I can see he’s itching to speak, but I cut him off with a look. I hold my arm out steady and aim the cable gun toward the far airlock …
“The flinder must stay.”
… and fire. The cable loops out to the far end and … bull’s-eye!
“All right, but how do we get it back out of Wilbur?”
“It is with him now. For all the remainder of his life.”
I clench my teeth. “But he can’t stay here. He’s got a life in London.”
“The flinders cannot be allowed to fall to Earth. Disaster will reign. They must stay here, in the trail of the heavens. For every flinder, a sleeper.”
Inch by inch I reel us both in. I know there’s no point in reasoning with it, cos it’s got to be as mad as a box of frogs. But why is it even talking to me? That’s the chilling thing. Halina said she fought with it. Why isn’t it stopping me from heading back to the sleeper side?
We make it through the far airlock and into the sleeper chamber. I ditch my suit and help Wilbur with his. We’re nearly home and dry.
“Thing is, you ain’t gonna set the sleepers free even if you repair things up here, are you? Not ever. That’s what Halina said. Except you never told her why.”
Wilbur butts in, “Cass, what about the –”
I show him a furious cut-throat sign, so he buttons it.
“The sleepers will have their lives on the world. But not until the time is true.”
Suits back in their slots, nice and tidy, like we ain’t really in the biggest rush ever to bail out of this floating madhouse.
“Wow, that’s a bit on the woolly side, innit? So when we talking? A million years? Two million? Or just when you’re good and ready?”
The ship don’t answer.
I feel Wilbur’s hand suddenly clench mine. And maybe he’s trying to get me to go a bit more “softly softly,” but I can’t help it – I’ve got to keep the Aeolus talking. And it ain’t that far now to the shuttle entrance …
“So after Halina went AWOL, you sure took your time waking anyone up to find her flinder, eh? I mean, if it’s so important to repair the ship and get all the flinders up here, why leave it so long?”
It don’t answer straightaway. And somehow I know I’ve asked the killer question. Cos my scalp goes cold like the devil just touched it.
“Four thousand eight hundred and seventy-two years is not so long to find the right sleeper. The One will complete the forty-nine. The flinders will be strong again. Together we will end war, end disease, end suffering …”
I remember Halina’s warning, Never trust it.
Just right then, Wilbur pulls away from my grasp, and he’s trying to reach a conker that’s strayed out of his pocket. It tumbles away from his outstretched fingers. And even as I’m looking at him, the ship walls are moving.
“Wilbur!”
I snatch at the hem of his coat as these petals of skin sprout out of the wall. He fumbles hold of the chestnut, and I can see the relief on his face, but now he’s spinning away from me, and his smile dies.
“Wilbur! God almighty! Don’t touch the walls!”
But how can he stop himself touching them?
“Cass!”
The petals rear up. They’re huge and pulsing with veins, and as they fold toward him, the edges split into spiked tentacles.
“He must stay …,” goes the ship, calm and deadly. “He is The One.”
I’m in a frantic scramble to get to him, but I’m drifting away, so slowly, and none of my flailing about gets me any closer. The tentacles latch on to his coat, his trouser legs, his boots. And slowly, the ship gathers him in. Behind him, in the middle of the petals, a hole opens up.
“You must return alone, Cass. You must bring the last two sleepers, bring Erin and Peyto. All the flinders must be together. Or this vessel will burn. Wars will turn the Earth to dust. Wilbur must stay …”
“He ain’t a sleeper! He belongs with me back home! Let him go!”
“Halina is dead. For every flinder, a sleeper.”
At last I brush into the far wall, and know it’s my only chance to get to him. I jam my heels into the wall, coil up and spring away, and now I’m charging across the chamber toward the closing petals.
“Cass! Don’t leave me!”
I slam into the tentacles. They’re strong – whipping about like eels – and they mesh together like a cage between me and Wilbur. I reach in and grab his lapels. And he’s looking right back at me, crying his eyes out.
“WILBUR!”
The hole closes around him.
“LET HIM GO!”
I tug at his coat with everything, but there’s a ripping sound, and the lapels just come away in my hands and I’m catapulted away. Only his face is free now, yelling at me. Then the hole seals shut and the petals wither away and there ain’t nothing left of him.
“WILBUR! CAN YOU HEAR ME?”
Nothing.
I clatter into the edge of the shuttle entrance. And I grab on to the lip of the hatch so I can throw myself back to where he’s buried. But as I launch away, something grabs hold of my ankle.
And that’s when I remember that the shuttle ain’t empty.
The Okhotnik warrior is right there, all eyes wide open. Its steel fingers snip together as I try to batter my way free. Then it just flings me into the shuttle. I spin to face the chamber wall and …
Rushing, squealing air.
Black.
Why can’t I see anything?
Pain.
Wilbur? Where’s Wilbur?
Am I outside?
WILBUR?!
Breathe.
It’s OK. Breathe.
Actually, it ain’t OK.
It’s a very long way away from being OK.
Black lumps dancing in front of my eyes. Like in the bridge.
Except you ain’t in the bridge anymore, you spod …
Sirens ripping through my head.
How come I’m in the shuttle? I don’t remember being strapped into a chair harness. In a panic I wriggle free and right through a floating sheet of my own blood. My mouth is thick with it, spinning it out like ribbons. I try to call Wilbur’s name, but I just choke up a load more blood and spit. And past the tightening hole of the hatch door, I spot the Okhotnik as it floats deeper away into the ship. The hole closes up, and even though I thump at it with everything, it won’t budge. Then the engines start shuddering and rumbling, and there ain’t no point in hammering at the hatch. Cos the shuttle ain’t docked no more. On the screens, I watch the ship grow smaller, and I can’t scream or shout cos that ain’t gonna change matters now. And I can’t believe I’ve lost him, my little brother! He’s gone!
And then I remember what reentry is like.
And then I remember I ain’t strapped in.
And then I remember the hull is busted. Critically busted.
I kick off the ceiling and dive toward the chair harnesses. But even as I fumble for the flailing belts, a storm punches in around me. A shrieking hurricane tearing at my skin. Somewhere near the chairs there’s a pinprick of light, hot and white and shivering and swelling. The sky trying to come in. And the shuttle fighting it back.
I’m clawing myself away from the hole, but it’s getting bigger. And the shuttle is actually shrinking. Like it’s being eaten away and it’s trying to surround me. Fire and foam.
Then a cold liquid swills into my eyes, my throat, my lungs. And I think it’s the sea.
THE KEY TO EVERYTHING
Not the sea. Too quiet, too still. Cold glue presses into my mouth, and I can’t breathe, though that don’t faze me, cos somehow I don’t need to breathe. Far away, at the corner of my eye, I see a rage of light, but it can’t touch me cos I’m all curled up and safe. All my worries and struggles are gone. Somebody speaks, but I ain’t listening – the words drift about my head, never settling. And
I figure this somebody is trying really hard to unravel me, spark me into action. But I don’t want to move, cos being tucked away here in the dark where you can’t even remember your own name is bliss. The voice ain’t giving up that easy, though – it keeps picking away at me, trying different words. I know I’ve heard it before, riling me, chivying me along. Who is it? And it’s a jolt when I cotton on that I’m alone, and there ain’t no one else it can be. The voice deep down inside that drives me on, no matter what, is mine. And all my worst terrors charge back at once …
Wilbur. I’ve always been the one to look out for him, to keep him safe on every scav shift, while London crashes round our ears, wall by wall, like a city of cards. I’ve got to get him back! The stab of losing him pumps my heart, and drags me to my senses … Then out of the darkness – wobbling amber, the crackle of flames, and a voice shouting.
Arms reach in to take me, and someone wipes the muck off my face.
It’s Peyto.
I must be dreaming, cos how is he here? His eyes search over me, looking for signs of life. Then the struggle to breathe kicks in, and I strain for air, choking for life.
“Cass, you’re OK, you’re OK. I can’t believe you made it back! Say something. Where’s Wilbur?”
I clutch on to him and cough up some of the cold glue.
“He’s still there. I’ve got to go back …”
“And we will. We’ll find a way. Can you move?”
“My head feels top-heavy …”
I try to take in where I am. A glowing mess lies all around me, and from it runs a furrow of molten earth that stretches away like a burning road. I see all this through some kind of liquid glass that slides over my face, and as I reach up to wipe it off, I find that my fingers, untouched by the fire, are slathered with the same heavy stuff – and it creeps more than it oozes, covering my skin in sluglike waves.
Peyto is shining in the firelight, dripping in the same gloop as me, though there are wisps of smoke rising from his shoulders, and his jacket is scorched black.
“Come on, Cass, it’s not safe. We’ve got to move.”
He pulls me up banks of smoking earth, and as the gloop falls away from us, I feel the heat for the first time – warping and roasting the air.