The impact slowed the Romanov more, perhaps because the mangled metal snagged on its caterpillar tracks.
Beyond the loaders were pyramids of coal, and again both juggernauts powered on regardless. They didn’t go over the top but simply bulldozed the pyramids aside. Liberator had the more difficult passage and a greater mass of coal to push through. By the time they emerged from the pyramids, the Romanov had made up for lost ground.
‘Sdavaisya! Sdavaisya! Sdavaisya! ’
The gold flag of the Russian Imperial family flew out behind; electricity crackled between its masts. Now its prow was level with Liberator’s middle funnels – and it was gaining all the time. Col couldn’t see the Grosse Wien on the other side, but he was sure it wouldn’t have been left behind.
What was their plan? They seemed in no hurry to use the special weapons of which Septimus had talked. Rather, they were trying to box Liberator in and force it to a standstill. And they had almost succeeded.
Only one way of escape remained – and Liberator took it.
With a sudden lurch, the great juggernaut slewed again to the right. Col clung to the barrier as the scenery swung around him. The Romanov was slower to change direction, moving further away.
Now Liberator approached the chain of hills at the back of Botany Bay. They rose like a green sloping wave, as high as the Bridge of the juggernaut itself. No gaps, no breaks, no valleys. The juggernaut couldn’t bulldoze through so much solid rock; it would have to go up and over.
‘Straighten course!’ Col yelled a warning, though there was no one to hear. ‘Straighten course!’
But the hills were too close and the juggernaut was travelling too fast. They needed to meet the slope head on, but they were approaching at an angle. Liberator was still in the middle of its turn when the prow began to lift.
He felt the tilt under his feet. As Liberator reared up at the front, so it also canted over to the left.
For Col, it was as though the whole world was coming unhinged. He had lived all his life on the juggernaut; it was his base and foundation, his measure of stability. It couldn’t lose balance and capsize. It just couldn’t.
Still the tilt increased. The platform dropped down on Col’s side and up on the other. He felt as if he was about to be tossed out over the barrier.
The ground was far, far below. As the juggernaut listed further away from the vertical, Col looked down not on spreading tiers or grey metal decks but on the dense green vegetation of the coastal fringe. He was hanging over a sheer dizzying drop of a thousand feet.
He turned away, squatted on his heels, leaned with his back against the barrier – and immediately wished he hadn’t. The other side of the platform towered over his head. He gazed up at the sky and the clouds seemed to be falling on top of him. When he looked away, his eyes met the impossible sight of the juggernaut’s funnels angled at forty-five degrees.
Still Liberator struggled to heave itself up over the hills. The turbines laboured on with a thunderous roar . . . and there were other, more ominous, noises too. A thrumming whistle – could that be the sound of the rollers becoming airborne on the uphill side, spinning round and round without friction? And that low, grating vibration – surely the rollers on the downhill side skidding and digging deeper and deeper into the ground. As far as Col could tell, Liberator had lost all forward momentum.
Then came the very worst sound: a terrible creaking throughout the juggernaut’s vast body, every metal beam and wall and joint straining under unnatural stress. Liberator hung suspended at the tipping point.
Col had the sense that he was going over backwards. He closed his eyes – or they closed themselves. Any minute now, the slow, inevitable fall would begin and the whole weight of the juggernaut would come down like a mountain on top of him. At least it would be quick.
But it didn’t happen. Liberator was moving forward again. He felt the change of angle as its prow came over the top of the hills and started to level out. With another mighty creaking of metal, its weight shifted and it tilted gradually back towards the vertical.
Col had slid unawares from a squatting position to a sitting position. He opened his eyes and gazed up at the bands of cloud passing across overhead.
In his mind he was still off balance . . . but finally the reality sank in. The juggernaut had returned to an even keel and was picking up speed. They had made it!
He hauled himself to his feet and looked out over the barrier. The tops of the hills were relatively flat, a high plateau covered with patches of forest. The small gullies and gorges were no obstacle at all to Liberator.
Col was more worried about what lay behind than what lay ahead. He looked back and, yes, there was the Romanov. Only the tips of its masts were visible above the hills, still crackling with flashes of electricity, brighter than ever against the darkening sky. It hadn’t yet climbed the slope.
Did it intend to? Col watched for a few minutes and decided that the Romanov had come to a dead stop. The Russians dared not risk their juggernaut on so steep a gradient!
If only the Austrians had given up too . . . He rushed across to the other side of the platform.
No such luck. The Grosse Wien had already climbed up onto the plateau. It followed them a few juggernaut-lengths to the rear, a few juggernaut-breadths to the right. Col groaned. Something told him that the sinister dome-shaped shell wouldn’t be so easy to shake off.
The sun set and twilight dimmed to darkness. The sky was too cloudy for moon or stars. Still the pursuit went on. Liberator veered to the left and veered to the right, but the Grosse Wien shadowed every move. In the end, there was nothing to do except travel on in a straight line.
The dull black shell of the Austrian juggernaut was invisible in the blackness of the night. What was visible were the gouts of fire that rose from its onion-shaped funnels. Every few minutes, a glowing blob of bright red and yellow formed at the top of a funnel, then shot suddenly skyward.
The Grosse Wien also continued to blast its horn at irregular intervals. The wavering sound was even more unearthly by night, as mournful as the baying of some great beast.
Col stayed watching for what seemed like hours. The distance between the two juggernauts hardly varied. No doubt the Grosse Wien was sending wireless telegraph messages to all the other juggernauts. The Imperialists were obviously determined to hunt down the one liberated juggernaut, no matter how long it took.
He’d hoped Riff would come up and talk to him on the platform, but either she was too busy or she had forgotten, or she had never intended that in the first place. He must have read too much into her suggestion.
His thoughts turned to his family and friends in the Norfolk Library. Would they understand what was happening? Perhaps Mr Gibber would be able to gather news for them . . .
He would have liked to return to the library, but when he crossed to the turret and peered down from the top of the staircase, there were still two dozen Filthies on the Bridge. They were less frenetic now, going about their tasks with grim determination. Four of the Council members were engaged in discussion around Gansy’s map-desk at the back. Col had no chance of sneaking past unnoticed.
Instead, he went back to watching the pursuit. Endless blobs of fire rose from the Grosse Wien’s funnels; again and again, he heard the baying of its horn. It was nerve-racking and monotonous at the same time.
After a while, he found himself a sheltered corner at the back of the platform, between the turret and the barrier. He curled up and fell into a fitful sleep, full of uneasy dreams.
In one, he stood before Victoria, who seemed to be conducting his marriage ceremony. But it wasn’t in the Imperial Chapel, and Victoria wore a sunflower in her hair, a chain of poppies round her neck. He turned to his bride
– and instead of Sephaltina Turbot, it was Riff.
‘We’re getting marr
ied,’ he said in wonder.
‘Phuh! Who needs to get married?’ Riff made a rude noise. ‘We’re getting partnered.’
He was roused by someone shaking his shoulder. The world all around was lost and hidden, not only in darkness but in a thick, enveloping mist. He felt damp and cold and stiff. At first he could hardly see the face of the person kneeling beside him. But he recognised her when she bent closer to give him another shake.
‘I’ve been searching all over the platform for you,’ said Riff.
She had come after all! Still under the influence of the dream, his heart leaped and he grinned with delight.
‘What have you got to be so happy about?’ she demanded.
‘You’re here. I’m . . .’
Then he saw she was scowling, and came back to earth with a bump. Too much had happened; things could never be simple between them again. Don’t let it show, he told himself.
He changed his tone. ‘You were looking for me?’
‘Who else? What sort of dumb question is that?’
‘We’re in a mist, then.’
‘Yes, inside a cloud. It’s our best chance to escape.’
‘The Austrians are still after us?’
‘Same as ever. We think they’re following us mainly by sound. They can’t see us in this mist, and they can’t see our track along the ground.’
‘You have a plan to escape?’
‘We’re going to surprise them with a sudden burst of speed. Lye is ready for a supreme effort down Below. We’ll get as far ahead of them as we can, then swerve, stop and shut down our engines. If we’re lucky, they’ll keep on accelerating and shoot past us.’
‘Chasing a phantom?’
‘Yes, they won’t expect us to stop dead. When they can’t hear our engines, they’ll think we’re too far ahead to hear.’
‘It might work.’
‘Thanks for the enthusiasm. It has to work.’
‘No, I mean, it’s a good plan.’
And it was – the best possible plan in the circumstances. Col couldn’t focus on practicalities, though. He could tell from Riff’s voice that she had recovered her old energy, but had she recovered her old feelings for him? He hardly dared hope it.
‘Who thought up the plan?’ he asked.
‘Me and Lye. She proposed the burst of speed. I had the idea of stopping and shutting down the engines.’
Me and Lye. So nothing had changed. Although Riff had come up to tell him about the plan, it was a plan she had worked out together with Lye. He couldn’t help the bitterness that welled inside him.
‘She caused all this in the first place,’ he said.
‘What? Who?’
‘Lye. She kept Liberator loading coal at Botany Bay when we should’ve left long ago.’
‘Hmm. That was Shiv and Lye together.’
‘Shiv just goes along with what Lye wants.’
Another pause for thought. ‘Maybe. It was a bad decision.’
‘It was stupid and perverse and arrogant.’
‘No, just bad.’ Riff clicked her tongue. ‘What is it with you and her?’
‘With her. She hates me.’
‘Well . . . she says you keep leering at her.’
‘What? She says that to you?’
‘She thinks you’re always watching her and touching her in your mind. She says you make her skin crawl.’
‘She’s mad.’
‘It’s not true?’
‘No! How could you listen to her?’
‘Okay, okay. Calm down.’
‘What about my side of the story? You never asked me.’
‘Let’s change the subject.’
‘You brought it up.’
‘No, you did.’
‘How could you believe her? You’d have to be as mad as her!’
‘Enough!’
Riff jumped to her feet and stalked off into the mist.
Col sat there nonplussed. He stared at the blank nothingness before his eyes, but she had vanished as if into another world. He listened for the sound of the turret door swinging open and slamming shut, yet no sound came to his ears. She must be still on the platform somewhere.
Was she punishing him? Was she angry with him on behalf of Lye? Or some other reason? Let her go, he told himself.
He maintained that resolution for about thirty seconds.
‘Come back,’ he called out. ‘We can talk.’
No reply. There was only the drawn-out note of the Grosse Wien’s horn, very faint and muffled. It had never sounded more mournful. A strange sense of loss swept over him. He stood up and flexed stiff muscles.
‘Where are you? Riff?’
He walked back and forth with his arms spread wide. Why wouldn’t she answer?
‘Riff!’ he cried. ‘Riff!’
He covered every part of the platform, and touched nothing more substantial than the mist. How could she have disappeared? He came back to the turret and found the door shut. When he tested the handle, it gave a loud, metallic creak – he couldn’t have failed to hear that. His bewilderment was beginning to change to panic.
Then his sweeping hands made contact with her. She was leaning out over the barrier at the back, only a few paces away from where he’d been sleeping. He had started his search too far away.
‘There you are!’
He took her by the elbows and turned her towards him. She didn’t resist.
‘Why didn’t you answer?’ he demanded.
‘Sometimes I don’t know who you are.’ She wasn’t angry but quietly reproachful. ‘You act like a stranger.’
‘What? Why?’
‘Of course I never believed Lye.’ She shook her head at him, and tiny drops of water flew out from her damp hair, sprinkling his face. ‘What do you think? I told her it was all in her imagination. I’ve been standing up for you. I never believed that nonsense for a moment.’
‘Oh. I didn’t know.’
‘You should’ve known. You should’ve trusted me.’
‘Yes,’ he agreed.
‘It’s pathetic. We’re in a life-or-death situation, the whole juggernaut, and all you can think about is your little private feud with Lye. It’s so petty.’
He wished he could see the look in her eyes, but the mist obscured the pale oval of her face. ‘I’ve never changed from loving you,’ he said.
Riff only snorted. ‘Let go of my arms.’
He realised he was still holding her by the elbows, and released her.
‘Do you . . .’ He faltered. ‘How do you feel about me?’
For a long moment, she didn’t speak, and he waited in agony. Her answer might be far worse than any physical slap.
‘Depends,’ she said at last. ‘So you’ve never changed from loving me?’
‘I can’t stop.’
‘And this is the real you talking now?’ She reached up and touched the side of his face. ‘Not a stranger?’
He nodded. She ran her fingertip down his cheek and over his chin. He couldn’t have spoken to save his life.
‘Then I’m the same,’ she said. ‘I can’t stop either.’
He replayed her words over and over in his mind, and every time they sounded sweeter. It was a moment of pure joy, running through him like sunlight and honey.
He wanted it to last forever, but a deep rumbling sound from below interrupted. Riff listened and left the moment behind.
‘Ah, that’s the engine-room.’ She refocused her attention on practical matters. ‘Lye’s preparing for our burst of speed.’
Even the mention of Lye’s name no longer bothered Col. ‘Do you have to go?’
‘I’m needed on the Bridge. I should be there already.’
She drew away without another word and vanished into the mist. This time he heard the creak of the turret door opening, then the clang as it slammed shut.
He leaned against the barrier and looked out, as Riff had been looking out before. He still felt the sensation of her fingertip on his face, like the lingering ghost of a touch.
How could he have got it so wrong? He had been on the brink of the greatest mistake in his life. Blind, blind, blind! He’d declared their relationship dead, he’d been trying to crush it in his own heart – and all the time Riff had never had any doubts about it!
Looking out over the barrier, he saw a dim, dull glow through the mist. It was a blob of fire from one of the Grosse Wien’s funnels, reduced to the merest hint of red and yellow. Impossible to tell how near or far, but he guessed the Austrians were following at the same distance as before. Luckily, Liberator’s funnels emitted no telltale light.
Riff didn’t even know how badly he’d failed her. Long, long ago, she’d asked for his trust, and instead he’d given up on her. He’d lost faith and betrayed her in his mind, because he’d been afraid of getting hurt. He was a coward as well as a traitor. He could hardly forgive himself – and yet somehow, miraculously, he was already forgiven. I can’t stop either, she’d said.
The rumble of the engine increased, until all at once the juggernaut surged forward. Col felt a tiny tap between his shoulder blades, then another on top of his scalp. Wetness?
He tilted his head and looked up. Though he could see nothing in the mist, he guessed that droplets were falling from the overhead wires, shaken down by the vibrations as Liberator accelerated. When another drop fell on his cheek, the wet spot was like a benediction.
The world that had seemed so tangled and fraught had become suddenly very simple. His fears and despairs, his self-inflicted torments over Riff – all dissolved and gone away!
Faster and faster the juggernaut accelerated. A drop of water fell into his open mouth and trickled back over his tongue. It was cool and delicious.
Liberator Page 18