Six Days

by Philip Webb

  Over the fields, jeeps bounce toward me, headlights spiking through the storm darkness, and there, at the edge of the road, are Peyto and Erin, not moving anymore, closed on all sides by soldiers pointing their guns and shouting. But high above the drone of distant engines, I hear the sound of Erin calling, chanting, summoning the shuttle. I’ve stopped singing, so it’s going to her instead …

  Something thuds into me and scoops me up. Then I feel the hard, alien movement of Maleeva running – chasing the surge of bursting earth ahead of us. To free up my hands, I stuff the flinder into my mouth, and it’s hot under my tongue, knocking against my teeth. I claw at Maleeva’s frame as her head flops inside its cage. A rocket fizzes through the rain, snaking in low, blasting into the side of the shuttle, and it’s so close I hear cinders hissing into the grass. One gigantic stride – maybe that’s all she’s got left. All the gearings of Maleeva’s frame go loose and we’re sailing toward the shuttle as it banks away from the jeeps. She hits it on all fours, locking to the surface, and I tumble away, flailing for the entrance hole, feeling it shrink as I snatch at the lip with my fingers. The shuttle careers sharply to one side and I’m sure the thing is gonna capsize and crush me into the ground, but somehow it stays upright and I throw myself in through the hole. Above me, Maleeva’s arms reach for the opening, skittering off the hull, and I grab at her, knowing I’m too late, that the hole is too small to let her in now. That’s when I gob the flinder into my hand and hold it back up toward the open sky. It’s just blind action. I ain’t got a clue if it’ll stop the closing hatch or if my hand is gonna be snipped clean off. But as I stare at my fist trembling against the gray sky, the hatch suddenly sweeps open again and Maleeva crashes in on top of me. And I feel the roar of the engines gather, swallowing me up as we thunder skyward.

  There ain’t no time to strap in – we both get dumped to the floor. I can’t even see Maleeva, cos I’m wrenched over so hard, I figure my spine’s going to push through my ribs. Finally, the engines die away and gravity lets go of us and I splay out into weightlessness. It’s only then that I can see if our gamble has paid off or not, cos it’s gonna be curtains if we get up there empty-handed. I spin round and round trying to see it. Nothing. Then wafting out of the shadows like a drowned ghost comes the thing that’s gonna keep us both alive – Halina’s suit.

  Peyto’s flinder drifts past my face. It reaches out its two tentacles and gently clasps me round the neck. And it’s my flinder now … I feel it choose me – the way the tentacles brush my skin as they reach together. Then I think about what I’ve just done – how Peyto and Erin have probably been captured by now.

  Maleeva grabs the suit. “Hurry, Cass.”

  Her voice box cuts in and out. Her skin is wet and pale. I try and blot out what’s happening on Earth. There ain’t nothing I can do. I’ve got to get my head straight – in a few minutes the shuttle is gonna dock and the hatch doors’ll open on the bridge side, where there’s no air.

  And so the first part of my plan is put to the test. There may be just the one suit, but if it’s like the others, it’ll change to fit the size of the body that puts it on. And so me and Maleeva become one. I embrace her so her head’s resting against my chest. Then she clutches me, leaving my arms free. I jam my feet into the storklike joints of her frame, and in tandem we wriggle into the suit. I hinge down the helmet, snap down the seals, and wait for docking. I’ve got to hold tight to my plan, stay sharp. Cos when I set foot on the ship, it’s all gonna kick off straightaway – all-out war.

  I whisper to Maleeva, “Can you breathe OK?”

  Little patches of mist collect on the inside of the helmet from my breath.

  Maleeva don’t answer straightaway and from the moment she speaks, I know something’s badly wrong. “I was b-born in a village near Gori at the f-foot … of the Caucasus Mountains,” she slurs.

  “What? Hey, Maleeva, hold it together!”

  “My father was a t-trader – a man who brought goods … from the B-black Sea ports.”

  “Maleeva! This ain’t no time to flake out!”

  “M-my mother was a general’s … daughter, a hunter, t-trained from an early age to kill …”

  There’s a jolt as the shuttle docks, then the hatch opens and there’s the bridge area, with its tides of litter, like the hold of a sunken boat. I scan for the Okhotnik.

  “I had t-two brothers. B-both joined the … New Russian Army – they were … killed in the first w-w-wars to protect our land from … people in the east … invading Mongols.”

  Her voice slows down – it’s her battery giving out. The last push to get onto the shuttle has finished her. She’s dying.

  “Hang in there, Maleeva! You hear me?”

  As I thrust into the ship, her grip around me loosens.

  “When I-I was a ch-ch-ild my mother took me hunting … in the mountains. We stalked bears and d-deer … s-sometimes sleeping under the sky …”

  “Don’t go to sleep! Come on, fight it!”

  I fling myself through the passageways of the bridge. I don’t know what I can do for Maleeva now – there ain’t nothing to do but stick to my guns.

  The Aeolus don’t say a word. Maybe it’s pondering choices. But right now choices are few and far between. Halina may have fought with it, but she’d have been too scared to try and destroy it outright. The lives of all the sleepers, including her son, would’ve held her back. But me, I’m going all out.

  “You know I ain’t gonna reset the shuttle until all the sleepers are awake,” I go at last. “And you can’t reset it on your own. Which means you can’t get Peyto and Erin up here to make them sleepers. And without Erin’s flinder, you can’t repair yourself. It’s over. You got to do what I say.”

  Then the ship speaks to me. Its calm, sad words fill the helmet.

  “You have come, Cass. But this is not the way.”

  “OK, listen up,” I go, trying to keep my voice strong. “I’m coming to get Wilbur and if I so much as get a sniff of that Okhotnik on the way, I’m gonna bail out into space with my flinder.”

  “I will not harm you, but you cannot take Wilbur.”

  “Nope. Wrong answer. And I ain’t just here for Wilbur. You ain’t got no choice – you’ve got to free everyone, let them return to Earth. Cos if you don’t, your precious hoard of flinders is gonna go up in smoke with you. You’ve held them with you too long to let them die with the sleepers, ain’t that right?”

  “If I die … it is of no consequence. But the flinders must not be scattered on the Earth. It is too soon. They must become strong. They must become one. They must watch from the sky. Together, through them, the sleepers can throw out a net of dreams to heal this world, banish the ills that plague it.”

  “Everyone’s coming to Earth or we all die up here. It’s up to you.”

  “Wilbur cannot leave. His command of the flinder makes the forty-nine strong. Wilbur will not leave.”

  “He weren’t never meant to be up here in the first place. He’s got a life and a family back on the ground. You forced him to be a sleeper.”

  “Sleepers cannot be forced. They must choose with a free will.”

  “A free will?” It really is all-out bonkers. “You snatched him out my arms and swallowed him up! How’s that his choice?”

  “I had to let him see. I had to show him the dream of the ancients. The flinders must become one. He knows.”

  For a moment, I remember the flinder echoes, the spiders weaving together, the web pulling my fingers together. The flinders must become one. It’s like the spiders was trying to show me something. A weaving of flinders somehow … like the flinders are shattered parts of something … something stronger. And I think about Wilbur – how his head never was in the real world, the world of scavs, how he was always up in the clouds, buried in stories and dreams and things from London what happened years ago. I think about him giving himself that black eye the night we first crossed the river. And the way he clung to the minute hand at
Big Ben … Maybe he did choose the life of a sleeper – to travel through time, like Captain Jameson, but forward instead of backward.

  But then Halina’s words come back to me. Never trust it.

  I clamber through the honeycomb of tunnels to the main shaft that leads to the sleeper side. A ray of Earth light punches in from the hull breach as I hang back, trying to see if it’s clear ahead. Gas streams past the edge of the hole where the littlest torn threads are glowing like bulb filaments. The ship swings round a backdrop of stars and in the wheeling light, there are things like chunks of ruby, uncut, the size of fists.

  “Once we g-got … caught in a b-blizzard and we made a snow hole to shelter … sc-scooping out a space just big enough for the two of us … like winter animals …”

  “Maleeva, we’re nearly there. Hold on!”

  But the truth is, I ain’t got a clue what I can do for her when I get across to the sleeper side. Without a battery she’s never gonna make it.

  “Cass, I will not let you endanger this vessel and its cargo. I have seen your plan. I watched it grow in your mind.”

  “But that don’t matter, does it? Cos you can’t stop me.”

  At the edge of the shaft, I try to line up the cable gun on my forearm. It ain’t easy – Maleeva’s gone as limp as a wrung chicken, and my body feels too chunky, what with the both of us stuffed inside the suit.

  I fire the cable, watching it trace out a line to the far airlock, and out of nowhere, my view ahead gets blocked by a sight so awful I start yelling. The Okhotnik! It looms up like it’s going to grab me, and I chuck out my arms to fight back. But then it just hangs there like a busted puppet and I cotton on at last. It ain’t got a suit on. It’s frozen solid, twinkling in the Earth light rays – covered in a fur of blood crystals, spikes of flesh bursting out of its eye sockets and mouth. I try and get my breathing under control. How’s it even got here? An accident? Did it top itself? Did the ship egg it on?

  I feel Maleeva’s head stir. “I-I awoke first, pushing through the snow. It was calm, c-clear … so c-clean. A hare hopping through the s-snow below me … white fur …”

  And then it twigs. The Okhotnik’s frame has got to work like Maleeva’s. I can save her! I latch on to the gently somersaulting body and start rooting for the battery. It’s in the same place – an armored box strapped to its thigh. I fiddle with the catches and rip it free.

  “Listen to me, Cass,” goes the ship. “You cannot win. You will not win.”

  But I ain’t listening – I just reel myself in toward the airlock. And as I reach level with the hull breach, it’s like a dream, cos I’ve run through all the ways this can pan out.

  “You must send back the shuttle for the last flinder,” it warns. “Already the atmosphere is too close. You must do this or you will die, your brother will die …”

  I wriggle my legs, trying to snap Maleeva into life. “Come on. You was on the mountain in a snow hole with your ma. You saw this white hare. What then?” But Maleeva’s gone silent on me now.

  And in the deep quiet of space, I feel another nip from the countdown cuff. There’s only one tiny freckle of time left. One hour to go.

  At last I reach the airlock, untether the cable gun, and wait for the bubble to let me through to the sleeper chamber. All the while I watch the walls for tentacles. But there ain’t no hitches. Maybe I got it worried now. Cos it must know – one hint of an attack and I’m off into the great outdoors and there ain’t no way to recover my flinder once I’m gone. It’s got to play by my rules.

  Once I’m safely on the sleeper side, I rip off the suit and pull Maleeva clear. She looks terrible, but she’s still alive – I can see the ribs of her frame gently working each breath. I fumble with her dead battery. Out with the old, in with the new. It snaps home perfect.

  “Maleeva! Can you hear me?”

  Nothing. Her wasted body nudges against the tethers of the frame. Her eyes are open, but there ain’t no one home …

  “Maleeva?”

  I reach out to touch her face.

  And then the stalks on her head-frame blink for her. Her fingers flex …

  “Jeepers creepers, you had me squitting it there. You OK? Can you hear me? Maleeva?”

  She seems to gaze at me for a moment, except maybe it’s just the way her head’s angled, cos it’s hard to tell if there’s any life in them eyes.

  Her voice box crackles into life. “You saved me, Cass …” The words are so flat, she almost sounds disappointed.

  “Yeah, good job that Okhotnik was floating about, eh? Reckon you shouldn’t go nowhere without a spare.”

  “What?”

  “Your battery pack – it was running low. I swapped in a new one from the warrior – he ain’t gonna need it any time soon …”

  “He was dead?”

  “As a dodo. Just spinning about near the hull breach without a suit on … which was pretty handy when you think about it …” My words trail off as it dawns on me how that’s just too good to be true. Like it was planned.

  “Oh, Cass …”

  And I’m looking right into her eyes when the ship strikes. A tentacle shoots past my shoulder and slams into Maleeva’s forehead. It pulses as it latches on to her, spreading its skin over hers.

  “No! Maleeva!”

  I try to pull her clear of the tentacle, but it’s stuck firm. Then her chest heaves and I can hear air rushing into her lungs.

  “I can feel it, Cass. The ship – its spirit. It’s coming for me …”

  “Hold it back! Fight it!”

  But I remember the way the ship rummaged through my thoughts, the way it peered out my eyes, like it was looking out the windows of a house. I know its spirit can move. From one shell to another … I tear at the tentacle, but it grows between my fingers, sending out blue veins that race across her cheeks, into and under her skin. It spreads so fast, snaking round and round her head, under her ears, over her lips, into her nostrils. And all the while the tentacle pulses and pumps and glows with a dim blue light.

  “Maleeva! Hold on! I’m gonna get you free!” But even as I say it, I feel the ghost of the ship rippling past my fingertips, ancient and hungry.

  She looks at me then, and for the first time, I see life in her face. Proper real life. Cos her eyes move in their sockets to find mine.

  “Remember me, Cass,” goes the voice box. “When I’m gone.”

  A great spasm shoots through the frame, and all the little motors in her joints whir at once. Then everything goes loose in my arms. Like she’s dead.

  “Maleeva!”

  I stroke her cheek. It’s all scaly and cold where the tentacle skin has spread across her face. Two tears of blood leak out of her eyes. The red runs round her eyelids and off the ends of her lashes.

  And then her lips move. The words of her true voice call out, lost after all this time. Except it sure ain’t Maleeva doing the speaking.

  “I am reborn – the Aeolus, ninth pioneer ship of the Homefleet. Maleeva is mine until the forty-nine are complete.”

  I’m too stunned to move. I watch as the tentacle stretches, then snaps, leaving two little horns glued to Maleeva’s head, twisting and writhing.

  “Where’s Maleeva?” I gasp. “What have you done with her?”

  “She is … with me still.” The eyes gaze at the steel-clad fingers as if for the first time, as they reach up to stroke Maleeva’s forehead. “In here. Inside this vessel of bone.”

  “You’ve stolen her body?”

  “Borrowed, not stolen.”

  It flexes Maleeva’s fingers like it’s testing their strength.

  “Forgive me,” it goes.

  “What?”

  “You leave me no choice. It is just a small hurt. But I must …”

  Then it brings the armor-plated fists together and swipes upward. The attack is slow, like it’s deliberately taken the pace off. But even though I see it coming, there ain’t no way to dodge it. Cos I’m just floating there – a sitting duc
k. The punch lands. Straight into my chops …

  Crunch!

  Spinning … over and over … the lights streak past … no sound … no pain …

  No, wait. Here comes the pain. In jagged waves.

  Then nothing.

  Black ‘n’ gray ‘n’ buzzy.

  Like a hornet swarm gathering in the summer. Man, how long ago was summer? When things was just normal …

  As my eyesight comes back, it’s like I’m looking through a wodge of frogspawn. But slowly it clears.

  My tongue’s all warm and it feels wrong. Bits of broken glass in my gob. I cough. And out comes a tooth – in pieces – together with a whole wad of blood ‘n’ spit. The hole at the back of my jaw feels hot and slushy.

  And then I remember Maleeva. Except it ain’t Maleeva no more, is it? It’s the Aeolus. And it’s gone. But gone where?

  I just float in a haze, staring as the chamber walls pass me by, all speckled and veiny. I’m trying to think, but I’m as slow as a slug race. And the blood on my cheeks is all dry and flaky … Dry? That means …

  God, how long have I been out cold? I look at the countdown cuff – the marks are all gone now. So less than an hour left. It’s just minutes now, but how many?

  Slowly, bit by bit, my poor battered bonce puts it together. And the pieces of my shattered plan fall down around me. Cos if the ship’s got a body now, then there’s only one place it’s gone. The bridge. I twist round in search of Halina’s suit. It’s nowhere to be seen.

  That’s it. I’ve lost.

  If it’s gone to the bridge, then it can use Maleeva’s hands to reset the shuttle. Which means the shuttle’s going back for Erin – and the last flinder.

  For a moment, I gaze at the living walls around me – only empty flesh now that the ship’s soul has escaped into Maleeva. It just waited for us to come.