Terra Nova

by Shane Arbuthnott

  Something crossed her vision. The airships had all been chasing her, as she’d hoped they would, but one was veering away now. The prow turned and pointed straight at Legerdemain. The immense steel umbilical was between the ship and the spirit, shielding him, but it wouldn’t be for long. Molly began to curse.

  “This is needless,” Howarth said, and he descended through the hole she had made in the awning. “You should stop before—”

  Molly didn’t let him finish. She leapt up and grabbed the lip of the awning, pulling it down hard so it fell across Howarth. As he struggled to break free, she jumped on him and scrabbled at his shoulders, reaching through the hole in the awning to access his antigravity pack.

  “Get off,” he said, his voice finally showing some frustration. Molly found a buckle and snapped it open. He batted at her, but the heavy awning tangled his arms. Molly found another buckle and reached down and yanked at the pack, pulling it free and rolling away.

  “Don’t mind if I borrow this, do you?” she asked. There was a small dial on the bottom of the pack. She turned it and saw the pack’s straps float up, unimpeded by gravity. Molly clasped the pack to her chest and jumped.

  She and the pack went straight up, sailing beyond the top of the buildings. One of the spotlights swung past her, blinding her for a moment, and when she could see again, she was only a few feet from the hull of one of the airships. She hit it, tumbling upward along its curve as she scrabbled for something to hold on to. But the hull was smooth metal, with no gaps she might use. Her fingers finally closed around a cleat on the deck, and she came to a stop. The spotlight shone down on her from the small forecastle just a few yards away. She could hear the crew shouting, feet pounding toward her.

  She turned and looked out. The airship that was heading for Legerdemain was above them, drifting around the umbilical. It’ll have a clear shot in a moment. She aimed and jumped, soaring straight through the air.

  She hit the second ship’s hull hard. The pack in her arms spun loose. She snatched at its straps, but it sailed away from her, floating weightless through the air. As it moved away, gravity found Molly again. She wrapped an arm around the ship’s railing before she could fall, then pulled herself up and over, onto the deck.

  She’d only ever seen the black airships from below. She knew from their shallow hulls that they were built strangely, but from above she could see that they were constructed more like submersibles than airships. The top had a small deck, circled by a railing, but other than a few crew members manning the spotlight at the forecastle, there was nothing there save for a few access points to the lower decks. No sails, no visible engine.

  The crew at the forecastle hadn’t noticed her—and she wanted them to—so she ran for the prow as quickly as she could, shouting. As she drew closer, she realized that the forecastle was actually a cabin. There were windows all around its perimeter, and through them she could see a dozen people. She ran straight at the cabin and banged against the windows, setting every head inside turning toward her.

  In the middle of the cabin there was a chair on a raised dais, and Arkwright was sitting on the chair.

  Molly was at the side of the cabin now, and he was turning toward her, but he was moving so slowly that his eyes hadn’t found her yet. He’d looked like a cadaver before, but now…She shuddered. He looks like a strong wind would tear him apart. His skin, stretched tightly over his bones, was gray and peeling, and his mouth hung open. The whites of his eyes had turned yellow, and the green glow of his veins glimmered sickly on the metal of his chair. Molly stared for a moment, until his eyes found her. She leapt back, heart hammering. The hunger in those eyes was so strong, so eager, that she had to look away.

  The crew was running toward the hatch at the back of the cabin now, coming out to catch her. Got their attention, I guess. She pulled herself back and looked to the sky. Legerdemain was in clear view, beating his great wings and keeping the wind below flowing, but no one seemed to be focused on him anymore.

  Okay. Now what?

  She looked around. There were no lifeboats that she could see, and if the ship held more of the antigravity packs, they certainly weren’t kept on deck. She looked down, but the nearest airship was so far from her that even if she managed to land on it, she would break every bone in her body—and she couldn’t count on using the wind to save her, not with the agents able to pull it from her grasp. Where do I go?

  Her eyes landed on the umbilical, and she was running even before a plan had fully formed in her mind.

  There was a cable car just below them on the umbilical. It was one of the old ones, held on with straps that wrapped all the way around the giant cable’s circumference. She sped up, aiming for the car.

  She heard the crew behind her, feet beating against the metal deck plates. Molly reached the far railing and jumped, sailing out into the air, curving toward the cable car.

  She landed on its roof with a bang and steadied herself before looking up. The airship was just above, a dozen crew members hanging over the railing. And it was moving toward her again and away from Legerdemain.

  Good. She lay across the roof of the cable car and stretched her arm down to pull the door open. She swung herself inside and examined the machinery. There were five wheels, pressed against the umbilical but jutting through into the interior of the car, all attached to a central engine. From the way the engine gurgled and murmured, Molly guessed it was aqueous. She took hold of its lever.

  “Sorry for this,” she whispered to the engine as she pulled the lever down full. The cable car jumped to life, speeding downward so fast that even Molly, used to life aloft, felt a lump rise in her throat. As they descended, she pried at the engine with her fingers. The faceplate came off, and she found the trap holding the spirit inside. She leaned out the door and watched the ground rushing up at them. When they were only a few yards above the base of the umbilical, she turned and began yanking out cords. The engine quickly let go of the wheels, putting them into genuine free fall. Molly kept pulling at the engine’s interior until the trap cracked open and something short and scaly, with huge wet eyes, tumbled out onto the floor of the cable car. Molly gathered it up, moved to the door and leapt free just as the car collided with the ground. She hit the pavement and rolled, coming up bruised and dizzy but still moving.

  “Can you move?” Molly asked the spirit. “Can you get away?”

  It gurgled at her but didn’t seem to understand. She wondered how long it had run that old cable car. The airships were still descending, and all three spotlights had found her again. She checked her position against the docks above, then bolted through the crowd, carrying the spirit with her.

  All around her, clusters of Disposal agents struggled with Unionists and patients from the sanatoriums, spirits flitting in to help from time to time. Disposal was clearly winning the fight—they were better trained and better equipped. Still, Legerdemain’s winds were at least keeping the agents from employing the worst of their weapons. But as the airships drew closer to the ground, following Molly, Legerdemain’s winds began to falter.

  Molly finally cleared the outer edge of the crowd, pushing past a Disposal agent who saw her and recognized her for just a second before she hurtled past. She kept running, between the buildings at the outskirts, down a southern street. Up ahead she saw the intersection she was aiming for.

  Just a little farther.

  She looked up just in time to see boots coming down at her, and she stopped short. One of the flying agents landed in front of her, settling back into gravity. Molly kicked out at her before the antigravity pack lost its effect completely, and the agent went sailing several yards away. Molly ran on, trying to measure the distance to the intersection. Twenty yards. The airships were just above her, one so low it was scraping the brick walls of the buildings. Ten. Five.

  Agents dropped down all around her, and she had to stop. She was still cradling the small spirit in her left arm, and she raised her right in a fist, but even s
he knew it was useless. Some of the agents chuckled.

  “Come with us now,” said a broad-shouldered woman with short hair and a scar across her lips. “We’re under orders not to hurt—”

  The ground beneath them shook. The agents stumbled but kept their feet.

  “What was that?” another agent asked. He had his answer a moment later when Loam burst out of the street at the intersection, only a few yards away. The spirit towered over them all, glimmering with golden vines. It pounded the street with its feet, and the earth shifted sideways. This time everyone, even Molly, fell to the ground.

  They all watched, frozen, as Loam’s huge eyes turned upward to the airships just above them. Molly could feel the gravity change, her body becoming heavier, but she knew the worst of it was focused far above, on the airships. The metal hulls groaned, and a length of railing fell down so fast that it embedded itself in the cobblestone street. Molly scrambled away, the agents too distracted to stop her. At the side of the road, she gently put down the aqueous spirit and turned her eyes skyward.

  The whine of the gravitic engines rose in a crescendo until they were screaming with effort, and then all three ships began falling at once. The lowest one tipped sideways and crashed into the street nose first. The second trembled and stayed even, but Loam pulled it inexorably, until the ship’s engines finally broke from the strain. It plummeted straight down, its hull cracking over the edge of the first ship.

  The third airship—the one that Arkwright inhabited—was still in the air. It was caught in Loam’s grip, but it was fighting, and it wasn’t falling. It must have stronger engines, Molly thought. I should have known. Arkwright wouldn’t want to risk himself. What do we—

  A hammer of wind came down on top of the airship, and it dropped several yards lower, almost touching the roof of one of the buildings. Legerdemain swooped in, great wings flashing, calling out with a sound like thunder that set Molly’s bones humming.

  The winds around the airship broke up almost as soon as they appeared, but Legerdemain was relentless. He poured hurricane winds down on the ship faster than it could dissolve them. As the ship sank lower, Loam’s golden lights flared brighter, the gravity around Molly increased and finally the airship was crashing down. Molly whooped, but at the same time she saw something dark pivot on the airship’s port side. Cannon!

  At the same moment she recognized the dark shape, it spat fire. A metal ball soared through the air and straight through one of Legerdemain’s wings. The spirit’s rumbling cry turned to a piercing shriek. His wing crumpled, and he fell, landing on the roof of the building across the street and then sliding off into the alley beyond.

  “LEGERDEMAIN!” Molly cried, and she could feel his pain under her skin. She ran across the road blindly, tripping over one of the stunned agents, clambering clumsily over the rubble the crashing airships had thrown everywhere. She banged off the corner of a building and into a narrow alley. At the end of the alley she could see the curve of Legerdemain’s belly, turned up to the sky. She put her hand on the bricks of the building next to her, and she could feel them vibrating with Legerdemain’s cries, just as she herself was.

  She stumbled forward and placed her hands against his cool skin. He was stretched out in the alley, his vast body filling the narrow space. His one unbroken wing strained upward, still reaching for the sky, while the other lay crumpled beneath him. He cried out again and again, and then Molly was crying out too, the pain too much for either of them to endure. She collapsed against him, shouting into the night until her throat was ragged.

  Legerdemain’s flank heaved against Molly, moving in and out with his breath. “Oh, Legerdemain, I’m so sorry,” she wheezed. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  She opened her eyes, though all she wanted to do was curl up against him. Ahead of them, down the alley, there was still dust drifting through the air. She couldn’t see Loam, but the Disposal agents were still lying on the street where they had fallen. Why aren’t they coming to finish us off? They weren’t unconscious—she could see them moving, shifting on the ground, sometimes rising a few inches before falling back, like they were struggling against an unbearable weight. Loam. Loam must be holding them down.

  That means we have time.

  She forced herself to her feet, though her connection to Legerdemain was so strong that she felt she was dragging a broken wing behind her. She moved along the spirit’s body, leaning against him. His eyes roiled like storms, full of anger and panic, and as she looked into them, Molly fell to her knees again and pressed her cheek against his.

  “I’m…I’m so…” she stuttered, but she couldn’t even get the words out. She sank into his panic and pain, and for a moment she felt nothing else.

  I need to help, she thought. There must be something I can do.

  She dragged herself back up out of the feeling, pressing her back against the bricks of a building to steady herself. What can I do?

  She heard Loam’s booming footsteps from the next street over, and the answer came to her. Loam was almost dead, but the spirit world healed it. I healed there too. I need to get Legerdemain to the other side. She stood up straight and walked past the end of Legerdemain’s nose, whimpering slightly as she stepped over the crumpled tip of his wing. She gave herself a few yards of space and then called the wind.

  The storm that had been under Legerdemain’s command had dissolved, but the winds that had made it were still nearby, spinning between the buildings. Molly brought them all in, every gust and stream that could hear her call. They came rushing through the alley, skittering along Legerdemain’s skin and nearly knocking her over. She braced herself, raised her hands and set to work.

  It was hard, in the closed space of the alley. She set the winds spinning in a tall oval with its peak above the roofs of the buildings. She kept adding wind after wind, blinded by their light, uncertain how long she had been working at it. Her arms were trembling, and it was hard to catch her breath. She stumbled and fell to her knees, but she continued to work the winds.

  And finally, with a thump that she felt in her bones, the winds became a font, a black tear forming in the center of the oval.

  Molly turned and looked back at Legerdemain. His eyes were on the font, watching it. His one wing beat against the walls, trying to push him forward, but it couldn’t move him. He couldn’t get to the font.

  Molly rose to her feet, took a long, shuddering breath and closed her eyes. She felt the font above her, its winds spinning endlessly. She raised her hands and pushed.

  The font drifted forward, touching Legerdemain’s nose, and she heard the spirit exhale, relaxing. The font passed over him, first his narrow head and then the greater bulk of his shoulders, his body, his wings. His tail pressed down into the ground, pushing him up and through, and then he was gone. Molly’s connection to him suddenly vanished. She stopped pushing and fell flat to the ground, exhausted.

  She breathed in and out. Without Legerdemain’s anguish so close and so heavy, she felt life flowing back into her. She was tired, but she knew this wasn’t done. She forced herself up and looked around.

  I still need to get Arkwright before it’s too late.

  She thought about dismantling the font, but there was no time. She started running lightly down the alley toward the airships. Back on the street she saw Loam hunkered down just beside the Disposal agents. There were at least twenty of them, all pinned to the ground. Loam turned to her, and she nodded to it before turning to look back toward the base of the docks.

  The struggle was still going on. But the storm had faded, and the Disposal agents were letting off shots of iron filings into the air. Spirits were screaming and retreating into the safety of the streets. And without their help, the people wouldn’t hold out for long.

  Where’s Da? Where’s Rory?

  She looked over to the stage. Many of the journalists were still there, still filming with their cameras. Rory was there too, trying to put on a camera of his own. Her audience was waiting,
but if she didn’t hurry, she knew Disposal would shut the cameras down.

  Not over yet. But it will be soon.

  SEVENTEEN

  Arkwright’s airship was beyond Loam, lying on the street with its prow buried in the wall of a building. She ran and leapt up to its deck, pounding across it until she reached the small cabin at the front.

  Through the windows she saw wreckage—navigation equipment and spiritual machinery all jumbled together. The chair where she had seen Arkwright was tipped over and empty.

  She peered in through the glass, wiping dust away. There were people there, though none looked to be conscious. And there was Arkwright, his glowing veins creating a pocket of green light in the wreckage. His eyes turned and fixed on her.

  There was no expression on his face. He simply sat, watching her. I don’t think he can even move, she thought. She tried the door, but it seemed to be locked. She raised her foot and kicked at the window, but it didn’t crack no matter how hard she hit it.

  She went around the ship, trying each of the access hatches to the lower decks, but none would open. She went back to the window and stared in at Arkwright, then turned to look back toward the umbilical, where people were still fighting, still falling.

  He’s in there, helpless, and I can’t even get to him. But if I don’t, the fight won’t end until Disposal has finished us all off. She kicked at the door, the metal plates ringing. How do I get through a solid metal door?

  She turned and looked at the glimmering winds of the font she had created, just visible over the roof of the building next to her. There is no metal door on the other side. She took one more look at Arkwright and started running.

  As she went, she carefully counted steps and direction. Twenty paces, down off the hull, another ten, now turn here. The font was still open but flexing uncomfortably in the confined alleyway. Molly ran for it and jumped through.