Liberator

by Richard Harland

  ‘Hi, Wicky Popo!’ Col grinned. ‘This is better than the old days, isn’t it?’

  Wicky Popo stopped weeding and rose up with his trowel in his hand. Col couldn’t interpret the expression in his sad, soulful eyes, though he doubted there was any spark of recognition. He felt suddenly uncomfortable, and wished he hadn’t intruded.

  As he stood there, he became aware of a clamour of voices in the distance. He looked round and saw that the other three members of the expedition had got into an argument.

  He raced back at top speed. Septimus, Orris and the Professor were waving their hands defensively, protesting innocence, while two men shouted at them. The two men wore the red armbands of Shiv’s security force and carried wooden clubs.

  Col was shocked to realise that only one of the two was a Filthy. The other was a convict from Botany Bay, dressed in the distinctive brown hessian uniform with a number on the back.

  They swung towards Col and raised their clubs as he ran up.

  ‘Here’s another of ’em!’ said the convict.

  Professor Twillip turned unhappily to Col. ‘They don’t want us examining the Menials.’

  The Filthy growled, ‘We don’t want you on Garden Deck at all.’ He indicated the Menials on the bench, who were now wide awake but otherwise perfectly passive. ‘These were once people like us. Somebody’s family, somebody’s parents. Until your lot changed ’em.’

  The convict spat with contempt. ‘No Swanks allowed on Garden Deck.’

  ‘Is that an order from Council?’ Col asked.

  ‘Council?’ The convict tapped his red armband. ‘It’s an order from Shiv.’

  ‘We prevent trouble,’ added the Filthy.

  ‘We’re not making any trouble,’ said Septimus.

  ‘No? You’ve made plenty already.’ The Filthy waved his fist in Septimus’s face. ‘Sixty-four killed, thanks to you and your lot.’

  It took Col a moment to realise that he meant those killed in the attack on Botany Bay. The Filthies blamed the Swanks for the handwritten note pinned to the door in the barracks. One Swank, all Swanks . . .

  ‘Was it you?’ the Filthy demanded, and jabbed his club into Septimus’s chest.

  ‘Me what?’

  ‘Wrote that note.’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘I reckon you’re lying.’ The Filthy turned to the convict. ‘Don’t you reckon he’s lying?’

  They were working themselves up into a senseless rage. Col stooped and collected the three medical texts.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he said to the others.

  They made their escape without another word. The two security-force men followed them all the way to the exit.

  ‘Next time it’s a beating!’ the convict shouted as a final threat.

  Orris shook his head as they walked off. ‘I don’t understand what’s happening,’ he muttered. ‘I thought we were all on the same side.’

  ‘It’s the red armbands,’ Septimus told him. ‘They’re different.’

  Col said nothing, but he was thinking about the convict. Shiv must have extended his recruiting for the security force beyond their own juggernaut. And the Botany Bay convicts hadn’t even been present at the time of the Liberation. It was an ominous development.

  Just how ominous Col was to discover over the next few days.

  The loading of coal proceeded at a slow pace. In quiet times or in the middle of the night, the rattle of buckets could be heard, very faint and far away.

  Col didn’t get to go outside Liberator again. But he did leave the library to visit the other Swank ghettoes – and everywhere he heard the same story of heightened aggression from the Filthies. On top of the betrayal of the Botany Bay attack, they were now edgy and tense over the approaching Imperialist juggernauts. The Swanks had grown used to being avoided and rejected, but this was something more: verbal abuse and small acts of bullying and persecution. Only the bolder spirits still dared roam beyond the safety of their own ghettoes.

  Moreover, the red armbands seemed to be increasing in number, and more and more of them were convicts. Col couldn’t understand why convicts had been allowed on board at all. It was even worse when Filthies with red armbands began carrying rifles. What did it mean? The Revolutionary Council had backed Riff’s stand against arming the security force. Had she been outvoted? Or had the new crisis situation made her change her mind?

  Three days after the Botany Bay attack, the first refugees came seeking shelter in the Norfolk Library. They were a group of eight officers who had been living in a suite of administration offices on Forty-Ninth Deck. One of them was bleeding from cuts to his cheeks and forehead. Col knew him by name as Warrant Officer Trockett.

  ‘It’s not safe on Forty-Ninth Deck any more,’ said Trockett.

  ‘We’re getting blamed for the latest act of sabotage,’ said a Chief Petty Officer called Chibling. ‘We’re hoping you can take us in.’

  ‘I’m sure we can,’ said Col.

  ‘Hrrrumph!’ said Gillabeth.

  Col turned to his sister. ‘We have space, don’t we?’

  ‘Of course we do.’ Gillabeth’s Hrrrumph wasn’t the same as a No. ‘I’ll just have to rearrange my arrangements.’

  The officers entered the library carrying tins, bags and cartons of food – and not much else. They looked as though they had left their ghetto in a desperate hurry. The last one in made a point of closing and locking the door behind him.

  ‘Tell us what happened,’ Col said.

  They sat at the central table. Few officers had stayed on after the Liberation; as the most visible agents of oppression, they weren’t exactly popular with the oppressed. This group had played a vital role in teaching the Filthies how to operate the juggernaut’s equipment, but apparently their contribution was now forgotten.

  ‘The first we knew was when they came to interrogate us,’ said Chibling. ‘Early this morning.’

  ‘Two of them were Council members,’ Trockett put in. ‘And two red armbands.’

  ‘Someone had discovered the wireless telegraph offices smashed up,’ added another warrant officer called Pollard. ‘And because we were close by on the same deck, we were the prime suspects.’

  ‘But they left without accusing anyone.’ Trockett took up the thread. ‘It was another gang that came along and attacked us later.’

  ‘Twenty or thirty of them,’ said Pollard. ‘More red armbands.’

  Col pictured the administration offices with their large windows fronting onto the corridor. ‘You wouldn’t have had much protection.’

  ‘They started by breaking the windows,’ said Trockett, and pointed to the cuts on his face. ‘I got these from flying glass.’

  ‘We moved filing cabinets to make a defensive wall,’ Pollard went on. ‘We thought they were going to jump through the windows, or start shooting. But they just leaned in with clubs and rifles, and wrecked everything within reach.’

  ‘We can’t go back there.’ Chibling shook his head. ‘We really can’t.’

  Gillabeth stood up with a snort. ‘I said I’d make space for you, didn’t I? We’ll need to find more mattresses, though.’ She clapped her hands. ‘A raid on some of the unoccupied bedrooms. Volunteers, please.’

  Col backed away as she singled out her volunteers. Later he would help, but right now he wanted to see what had happened in the wireless telegraph offices.

  ‘I’ll be back soon,’ he said to no one in particular, as he slipped out through the door.

  Forty-Ninth Deck was five levels above the Norfolk Library, and the wireless telegraph offices consisted of four interconnecting rooms with large windows, not unlike the administration offices. It took Col twenty minutes to reach the place, detouring to avoid Filthies on the stairs and in the corridors.

  As soo
n as the coast was clear, he approached the nearest window and peered in through the glass.

  The first thing he noticed was the absence of winking red and green lights on the cabinets inside. The wireless telegraph equipment was dead and out of action.

  The second thing he noticed was that there were people in the first room – two shadowy figures deep in conversation. One had hair that was black in some parts and blonde in others: Riff! But the other had jet-black hair, and he cursed his luck. He couldn’t talk to Riff while Lye was there.

  He was about to step backwards when Riff glanced up and caught sight of him. Her eyes widened, and she said something inaudible through the glass.

  In dumb show, he pointed to his ears, shrugged and made to move away again. She raised a peremptory hand and signalled for him to come inside.

  He had no choice. Reluctantly, he nodded and went in through the doorway. Riff and Lye were standing by the desks where the operators normally sat with their headphones and telegraph keys.

  ‘Go on, take a look.’ Riff swung an arm to indicate the damage. ‘Did a good job, didn’t he?’

  Col surveyed the room. Ripped-out wires dangled from the backs of cabinets, trampled glass and metal fragments littered the floor. Even the telegraph keys had been bent out of shape, and the headphones smashed and shattered. It was as if a hurricane had passed through.

  ‘He must have been here half the night,’ said Lye.

  ‘What about the other offices?’ Col asked Riff.

  ‘The same.’

  ‘Impossible to repair?’

  It was a stupid question: anyone could see that the equipment was impossible to repair. Riff glared at him.

  ‘You know what this means?’ she demanded.

  ‘You can’t intercept messages between the Imperialist juggernauts.’

  ‘So we can’t tell where they are. We can’t tell when they’re coming close.’

  ‘The saboteur must’ve known.’ Lye addressed herself exclusively to Riff. ‘He knew where to strike the most effective blow.’

  Riff knitted her brow thoughtfully. ‘How?’

  ‘Other Swanks would’ve told him. His secret supporters.’

  Col tried to deflect the discussion. ‘How long do you think before the other juggernauts arrive?’ he asked Riff. ‘Gansy must have some idea.’

  Riff shrugged. ‘Five days. A week.’

  ‘We’ll have loaded all the coal we need in a week,’ Lye insisted. She stood very close to Riff, claiming attention.

  ‘It could be less than a week, though.’

  ‘Haven’t we paid the price for that coal? Sixty-four dead! We’ve paid the price in blood!’

  Lye seemed very eager to win Riff to her point of view, but Riff was not easily persuaded. Col stood on the sidelines, watching every expression on Riff’s face. Signs of yielding, signs of resistance . . .

  ‘We’re not cowards, are we?’ Lye’s cheekbones burned with white spots of anger. ‘We can’t let the tyrants chase us and frighten us!’

  The talk went round and round in circles. Col prayed it would turn into an outright quarrel. Then Lye would leave and he could talk to Riff on her own.

  I can outlast you, he thought. You won’t drive me away.

  In the end, he spoke up himself. ‘The Imperialist juggernauts are more dangerous than anyone realises. They’re far better armed than us.’

  Riff turned to him, one eyebrow raised quizzically.

  Lye lashed out with sudden violence. ‘What’s he still doing here? We’re discussing Council business! We don’t want a Swank listening in!’

  Riff sucked in her cheeks. For a moment Col thought she was going to take his side, but she said nothing.

  ‘The other juggernauts have a whole lot of weapons we don’t,’ he said.

  ‘They’re all puff and no blow!’ cried Lye.

  Riff looked from one to the other . . . and finally responded to Lye. ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘You remember the Liberation? How quickly the Swanks gave in? All we had to do was stand up to them, and they collapsed. It’ll be the same with the other juggernauts.’

  Riff wasn’t convinced. ‘Queen Victoria chose to surrender. That’s what stopped the fighting.’

  ‘I persuaded her to surrender,’ said Col.

  Lye focused all her intensity on Riff. ‘They had no guts for a real fight. Pampered parasites! You just have to look at them to see.’ She didn’t actually look at Col, but it was obvious whom she meant. ‘The way they comb their hair, the way they dress, the superior way they talk. So full of their own self-importance. As if anyone cares. Phuh!’

  She raised a hand and blew an imaginary speck of dust off her palm. She made sure that her hand was pointing in Col’s direction.

  Col felt his face turn red. He stared into Riff’s eyes, but there was nothing for him there. She had to be aware of what Lye was doing, yet she didn’t intend to come to his defence.

  Enough! He spun on his heel and marched off.

  ‘Oh, he’s going already.’ Lye’s mocking voice echoed in his ears on the way out. ‘Why do you even bother with him?’

  There were more refugees the next day. The groups in the smaller ghettoes were starting to feel vulnerable. They came with tales of jeers and threats and bangings in the night; of garbage left piled against their doors; of sinister stick-figure drawings on the walls outside.

  ‘Someone’s behind it all,’ said an elderly woman driven out from a workshop on the manufacturing decks.

  ‘The red armbands,’ said her husband. ‘They stir up the trouble.’

  ‘But who’s behind them?’

  Gillabeth was in her element, telling everybody where to go and what to do. She let others look after the consoling and sympathising; her task was to fit a growing number of people into a diminishing amount of space. Bookcases were pushed back, aisles created or closed up. Col had to transfer his mattress and belongings to another aisle altogether.

  When four female supervisors from the Nursery Rooms came asking for refuge, Gillabeth decided that the central table had to be shifted to the side of the room. Septimus and the Professor objected.

  ‘You can’t!’

  ‘It’s always been in the centre!’

  Gillabeth refused to listen to arguments. She grabbed one end of the table, but it was too heavy to shift on her own.

  ‘Help me,’ she ordered.

  Septimus helped – under protest.

  ‘I don’t see the point,’ he complained. ‘The table takes up the same amount of space wherever you put it.’

  Gillabeth let out a whoof of exasperation. ‘The point is that it gets in the way when it’s in the centre. And people can sleep under it more quietly at the side.’

  ‘Sleep under our table?’

  ‘Just shut up and push.’

  Heaving and hauling, they slid the table across the library. Antrobus followed step for step, keeping an eye on his special pen and bottle of ink. Several sheets of paper wafted to the floor, but the pen and inkbottle remained in place. Septimus stooped to gather the fallen sheets of paper.

  ‘You’re a bully,’ he told her.

  ‘And you’re an intellectual egghead.’

  ‘I—’

  ‘If you don’t like it, I can let people sleep on top of the table too.’

  She dusted her hands triumphantly, and bustled away to the next job.

  Col, who had observed the whole scene, came across. He lifted up his baby brother and set him down beside his pen and inkbottle.

  ‘Don’t worry about Gillabeth,’ he said to Septimus. ‘She’s always been like that.’

  ‘She’s amazing.’

  ‘Uh?’

  ‘So much drive and energy.’ Septimus was still gazin
g after her. ‘Do you know what I think? Not that I’m an expert on people.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I think she doesn’t have enough to do.’

  ‘She seems sort of busy now.’

  Col meant it as an understatement, but Septimus shook his head. ‘Not really. Not for her. She needs ten times more work than most people. A hundred times more than me.’

  ‘You do plenty of work with your books.’

  Septimus brushed over the praise. ‘I’ve been watching her. She’s been looking for things to do for weeks. Trying to make tasks for herself.’

  ‘Well, she has a task now.’

  ‘Yes, but one library isn’t big enough for her. She’s so competent and capable. She needs, I don’t know . . .’ Septimus spread his arms. ‘A whole juggernaut to run.’

  Col grinned. ‘I don’t think the Filthies would like that.’

  Septimus spread his arms wider again. ‘A fleet of juggernauts.’

  ‘And the Imperialists definitely wouldn’t like that.’

  Septimus wasn’t grinning. ‘You see, I do things in my head because I’m an intellectual egghead. But she has to do things in the world. And when she can’t . . .’

  ‘It makes her angry and bossy.’ Col was beginning to get the idea.

  ‘And frustrated. She ends up driving herself mad over things that aren’t worthy of her. Too much energy turned in on little bits of arranging and tidying. I bet she’d be a different person if she had real scope for her powers. She’s wasted as she is now, that’s what I think.’

  Col followed Septimus’s gaze across the room, to where his sister was taking out her frustration on a mattress. With one foot she kicked it into place, while simultaneously unpegging somebody’s clothes from a washing line between the bookcases.

  Real scope for her powers. Perhaps Septimus was more of an expert on people than he was. All the time he’d been growing up, Gillabeth had seemed relentlessly critical and disapproving. But she’d been trapped in the limited role of an Upper Decks female then . . . and she was trapped by other limits now . . .

  Gillabeth finished unpegging the clothes and re-positioning the mattress. Then she began folding the clothes in a neat pile, while simultaneously unfastening the clothesline.