Liberator

by Richard Harland

  When he opened the door, a foot thrust forward immediately into the gap. Col planted his own foot to stop the door opening further. He found himself looking into the eyes of a young Filthy: a girl with a red armband. An older female Filthy stood behind her, and a convict also sporting a red armband.

  ‘We want to look,’ said the girl.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Inside.’

  ‘It’s too late now, everyone’s asleep,’ said Col. ‘Come back in the morning.’

  For some reason, the girl’s attitude sent warning signals, while the pair behind were downright menacing. They’re here to cause trouble, said a voice at the back of his mind.

  ‘We’re coming in now,’ growled the convict, and pushed forward to take over from the girl.

  But the moment the girl withdrew her foot, Col slammed the door shut. He gripped the handle with both hands to stop it from turning.

  ‘What’s going on?’ ‘Who is it?’ People in the library were rousing up and calling out.

  The handle jiggled, the whole door shook.

  ‘Let us in!’ a male voice cried.

  ‘Or else!’ added a female voice.

  Col addressed the solid wood of the door. ‘In the morning.’

  In the next moment, Gillabeth had come up beside him. She reached for the key and twisted it in the lock.

  ‘There,’ she said. ‘No visitors tonight.’

  The visitors didn’t leave for a long while. They shouted threats, they kicked and rattled the door. Gillabeth turned to the library’s residents, who were now all awake and standing in a half-circle, watching with wide eyes. She put her finger to her lips, and nobody answered the threats or made any sound at all.

  Finally, it grew quiet again. Col didn’t feel like opening the door to check outside, in case they were still waiting, and Gillabeth made no move to check either. The library’s residents sat down on bare floor or mattresses. A few talked among themselves, but their eyes kept returning to the locked door. It was obvious there would be no more sleep tonight.

  ‘I could tell jokes,’ Orris offered. ‘I’ve been practising some recently. I think they ought to cheer people up.’

  Under any other circumstances, the idea of Col’s gloomy father telling jokes would have been laughable – but nobody cracked a smile.

  ‘I don’t want to be cheered up,’ said Quinnea.

  ‘Some of them are rather funny.’

  Quinnea shook her head. ‘No thank you, dear.’

  An hour later, the visitors returned with reinforcements. A score of yelling voices and stamping feet could be heard approaching along the corridor.

  ‘Mattresses!’ cried Gillabeth. ‘Quickly!’

  Septimus helped her with the first mattress. They hauled it across, stood it on end and set it up against the door, just as the attackers arrived. There were roars of abuse and a tremendous battering against the wood.

  Inside the library, others caught on to Gillabeth’s plan and shifted more mattresses. They propped them against the door, two, three, four layers thick. Some of the officers from Forty-Ninth Deck stayed leaning against the final layer, arms outspread, keeping the mattresses in place and upright.

  The violence against the door was ten times greater than before, yet muffled by the padding of the mattresses. The sounds were surely too sharp and loud for fists.

  Col frowned, and shouted across to Gillabeth. ‘Listen!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Those are rifle butts!’

  Gillabeth nodded. ‘They’re armed, then.’

  ‘They might start shooting through the door.’

  ‘Through the door and the mattresses?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  Col more than half expected Gillabeth to dismiss the possibility with a snort, but she didn’t.

  ‘Fall back!’ she ordered. ‘We need more protection in case they start shooting.’

  She was in her element, like a general addressing troops. The officers from Forty-Ninth Deck dropped back at once, and the mattresses stayed upright by themselves.

  Then she set everyone to shifting bookcases. She created a barrier right across the library, leaving a small gap in the middle for the defenders to look out. She protected that gap with a shield of heavy books stacked up to shoulder height.

  Professor Twillip blanched. ‘But those are books! Think what a bullet hole could do! Words lost! Whole sentences made meaningless! Septimus!’

  But Septimus was already helping to build the shield of books. In the end Professor Twillip gave in and involved himself in the selection of less precious volumes. Unfortunately, he was often sidetracked into reading what he was supposed to be selecting.

  The battering on the door continued. The panels had probably cracked in many places, but the mattresses kept the door from disintegrating. There was still no shooting, just an ever-rising tide of jeers and catcalls. The residents waited, crowded in behind their barrier of books and bookcases.

  ‘Why us? Why now?’ Orris pondered aloud. ‘What have we done?’

  Mr Gibber tapped the side of his nose with one finger, and directed his gaze towards the ex-royal couple nearby. ‘There’s your answer.’

  ‘We’re being attacked because of Victoria and Albert?’

  ‘They’re the symbol of the old regime, so they’re a special target.’

  Mr Gibber kept his voice down, but not so low that Victoria and Albert couldn’t overhear.

  ‘It’s because of us?’ Victoria whirled round with a look of distress. ‘What should we do?’

  Mr Gibber licked his lips. ‘Not for me to say.’

  ‘Should we leave?’

  ‘No.’ Col intervened. ‘You’re with us. You’re my responsibility.’

  ‘We could go back to the Imperial Chapel.’

  ‘Absolutely not.’

  ‘I didn’t say you should leave.’ Mr Gibber smirked and backed down at the same time. ‘Did I ever say—’

  ‘What’s that?’

  A new noise had started up directly over their heads. A pounding of feet, a thumping of heavy objects.

  ‘They’re on Forty-Fifth Deck,’ said Septimus.

  ‘What are they trying to do?’ muttered the notary from Thirty-Seventh Deck. ‘Attack from above?’

  ‘Impossible,’ said Gillabeth decisively. ‘Every floor of this juggernaut is solid steel. They’ll never break through.’

  Nonetheless, they carried on as if they could.

  Then the lights began to flicker: on-off, on-off, on-off. Col stared as white faces jumped in and out of existence all around him.

  ‘Don’t be afraid!’ he cried in the firmest voice he could summon. ‘Lights and sounds won’t hurt us! They’re trying to make us panic!’

  Clinging to one another for support, the library’s residents fought down panic. For as long as they could remember, the night-time lights and daytime lights of the juggernaut had been a constant of their lives. To have that constant cut away was more than disturbing, it was traumatic.

  Still they endured and held on – all except Quinnea. She didn’t panic, exactly, but went into a state of trembling paralysis. It was as though all her reactions were happening so fast, so simultaneously, that they cancelled each other out. Only her eyeballs continued to move, fluttering unfocused in every direction.

  ‘Come on, my dear,’ Orris appealed. He began patting her cheeks, more and more briskly. ‘It’ll soon be over.’

  ‘Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh,’ said Quinnea, as the haircombs fell out of her hair. ‘Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh! ’

  The last Oh must have marked some kind of watershed because she drew away from her husband’s patting, and suddenly found her voice.

  ‘I wish the other juggernauts would hurry up and co
me,’ she said.

  Col and Orris exchanged glances. Orris tut-tutted. ‘You mustn’t say that. We’re not on the reactionary side.’

  ‘Whose side are we on, then?’ Quinnea raised her eyes to the pounding and thumping overhead. ‘Theirs?’

  Orris’s shoulders slumped. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘At least the other juggernauts would make them behave,’ said Quinnea. ‘The way it used to be. More civilised.’

  Orris had no answer, and nor did Col. They believed in the Liberation, but not in this. On the other hand, Col remembered how the Governor of Botany Bay had called them ‘a disgrace to the human species’. The Imperialists regarded Swanks as traitors to the old cause and the Filthies regarded them as traitors to the new. They were on nobody’s side but their own.

  ‘It’s just a few hotheads,’ Orris said at last, completely without conviction.

  Quinnea sniffled. ‘I wish we’d left the juggernaut when everyone else did.’

  There were murmurs of agreement from several Swanks nearby. Being persecuted, they couldn’t help but hate their persecutors.

  That night, though, the persecution didn’t go beyond psychological warfare. The attackers weren’t prepared to start shooting – yet. The on-off lights and jeering and thumping went on for hours, or what seemed like hours, but nothing worse happened. And in the end, the thumping died down and the jeering faded away.

  When the daytime lights came on and stayed on, they knew they’d survived.

  Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. They waited a long while in blessed peace and silence. Finally, Gillabeth commanded an opening to be made in their defensive barrier.

  Septimus and the officers dismantled the shield of books. Then Gillabeth went through, followed by Col, followed by Septimus. Antrobus slipped out before anyone could stop him and toddled along at their heels.

  The library looked like a battlefield. Books, chairs, clothes and personal possessions lay tumbled about everywhere. Col and Gillabeth went and pressed their ears against the wall near the door. Not a sound. They stayed listening a long time, then slid back the mattresses to partly uncover the door.

  The wood was smashed but the lock still held. Col opened up and peered out. The attackers had gone, the corridor was empty.

  ‘All clear.’ He drew back, relocking the door. ‘What now?’

  ‘Sleep,’ said Gillabeth, decisive as ever. ‘Look at him.’ She meant Septimus, who was yawning and swaying on his feet. She turned to address all the residents as they emerged from behind the barrier. ‘Sleep for everyone. Till noon.’

  They needed no further encouragement. Dog-tired, they flopped down on the nearest mattress, regardless of whose it was. Many of them squeezed up two or three together on a single mattress. Soon they were fast asleep.

  When they awoke, five hours later, they discovered that Victoria and Albert had disappeared.

  It was Professor Twillip who raised the alarm. ‘I’m sure that’s where they were,’ he said, pointing to the empty mattress. ‘Next along from me.’

  Gillabeth organised a search, hunting for Victoria and Albert or clues to their disappearance. Nothing. They had vanished without a sound while everyone slept. Strangest of all, the door was still locked on the inside.

  ‘It’s like Dr Blessamy all over again,’ said Mr Gibber.

  Col had only one faint hope. He remembered how Victoria had felt guilty about bringing trouble upon the Norfolk Library. Could she have followed through on her idea of returning to the Imperial Chapel? That didn’t account for the locked door, of course. But then neither did the other explanation, of abduction by the red armbands.

  ‘I’ll search outside,’ he announced. ‘I’ll check the Imperial Chapel.’

  He made his way up to the Imperial Chapel, one deck above the library. He crossed paths with a few Filthies, but only individuals, not a pack. They ignored him as he ignored them.

  It was a different situation around the chapel, though. Gangs of red armbands lounged about, including convicts. Col bit his lip when he saw that even the convicts now carried rifles.

  He walked fast, head lowered, and passed a couple of groups before anyone thought to challenge him.

  ‘Hey, where d’you think you’re goin’?’

  He walked on as though he hadn’t heard. Then came a bark of command that he couldn’t disregard.

  ‘Stop right there!’

  He stopped and raised his head. He had managed to get within twenty paces of the Imperial Chapel – and he could see at a glance there was no point going any further. The entrance had been sealed off with a barricade of wooden posts and ropes. Two red armbands stood at either end of the barricade.

  ‘Oh!’ He feigned surprise. ‘Victoria and Albert don’t live here any more?’

  ‘Nah. Clear off.’

  They pointed their rifles at him. Col turned right around and marched back the way he’d come.

  The situation had deteriorated a stage further. However, his immediate concern was with Victoria and Albert. If they’d tried to go back to the chapel and red armbands had turned them away, where else might they have gone? Their old living quarters, perhaps? Some unoccupied corner of the Imperial Staterooms?

  He had to check out every possibility. He descended two levels to Forty-Third Deck and headed towards the staterooms by side routes and lesser corridors.

  He was one corridor away from the Imperial Dining Room when he heard a strange kind of laugh coming from behind a door. It was a female cackle, high in pitch, almost girlish. He couldn’t believe that Victoria would ever laugh like that, but it wasn’t the laugh of a female Filthy either.

  He rapped on the door. ‘Hello?’

  No response.

  Common sense told him to leave and forget it, but his curiosity was aroused. He turned the handle and opened the door just a fraction. In the same moment he peeped in, another door slammed shut at the other end of the room.

  He stuck his head in a little further. Whoever she was, she’d left in a hurry.

  The room was a long pantry, with cupboards, shelves and serving counters. Crockery was stacked on the shelves, along with wineglasses and decanters, place- mats and folded serviettes.

  The bottles and flasks on the floor, however, were not normal supplies in any pantry. Col’s nose caught the pungent smell of kerosene and other chemicals. He stepped forward to take a closer look.

  There were about twenty bottles clustered together, along with a handkerchief and tinderbox. The bottles included cleaning fluid, cooking oil and kerosene. The word INFLAMMABLE was printed in big letters on many of the labels. The handkerchief had been twisted into a long roll and dowsed in kerosene.

  He kicked the tinderbox away, although it could hardly start a fire without a human hand to strike the spark. No doubt the handkerchief would have served as a fuse, inserted into the top of one of the bottles. He picked it up by one corner. It was pink with a border of lace – clearly the handkerchief of an Upper Decks lady.

  He had uncovered the next act of sabotage! In another minute, the saboteur would have struck the spark and the fire would have spread and engulfed many rooms. He had interrupted her just in time.

  Her. No wonder the investigation had never made any progress. Everyone had automatically assumed that the saboteur was male. Whereas a female . . . what Upper Decks lady could have the will and capacity to commit such ruthless acts?

  Obviously, the one who owned the handkerchief.

  He didn’t think of the danger, he didn’t consider what had happened when Council member Zeb had stumbled across this saboteur once before. He took off in pursuit, racing to the door at the other end of the room.

  On the other side of the door was a drawing room, deserted and unused, with velvet chairs and glass-topped tables. Col ran on to a further door and came out
suddenly into a main corridor.

  Left or right? Pausing a moment, he thought he detected faint footfalls to the right. He sped on down the corridor and around the first corner. Yes, he had heard footfalls. There ahead of him were two familiar figures walking along. He recognised them instantly, even with their backs turned. His sister Gillabeth and baby brother Antrobus!

  Gillabeth? The female saboteur? Could it be?

  He was shocked – but then, he had been shocked three months ago, when Gillabeth had been exposed as his secret enemy, organising the campaign of school bullying against him. It was impossible to understand her motives. Why she would act against the Filthies was no more or less mysterious than why she previously acted against her own family. She was capable of anything.

  A million thoughts whirled through his head as he ran up. Gillabeth was holding Antrobus by the hand, and it was Antrobus who stopped and turned first. His big, solemn eyes were brimming with unuttered thoughts.

  ‘What’s this?’ Col held out the kerosene-soaked handkerchief. ‘Is this yours?’

  Gillabeth turned with a frown. ‘Phh! Kerosene!’

  She pushed it away. It slipped from Col’s fingers and fluttered to the floor.

  ‘Yes, it’s a fuse to start a fire. What do you know about it?’

  Gillabeth’s eyes narrowed. ‘Are you accusing me of something?’

  ‘I found it in a room back there.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I think you came out of that room.’

  ‘You think.’

  ‘What are you doing here, then?’

  ‘What are you accusing me of?’

  Col pointed to the handkerchief on the floor. ‘That belongs to the saboteur.’

  ‘And you think it’s mine? Don’t be stupid.’

  ‘Prove it.’

  ‘You prove it. I don’t have to justify myself to you.’

  ‘I want to believe you.’

  ‘Believe what you like. You’d only have my word for it, anyway. Come on, Antrobus.’

  Antrobus had dropped down on all fours and was making a close study of the handkerchief. Gillabeth flapped her hand, but he showed no inclination to take it. Observing his baby brother, Col came up with an idea.