Liberator

by Richard Harland

  The gap between the two juggernauts widened. Minute after minute went by, and still the Austrians hadn’t realised they were falling behind. Col stared out in the direction of the glows from the Grosse Wien’s funnels, which dimmed and faded until they were completely lost in the mist.

  It couldn’t last – and it didn’t. Suddenly the Grosse Wien blew a new kind of blast on its horn: loud and long like a bellow of rage. Now the Austrians would be taking action to catch up.

  Still Liberator was outrunning the pursuit. Col felt the wind of their speed in his hair and the damp strands of mist blowing across his face. But the juggernaut was shaking itself apart. After a few minutes, ominous hissings and wheezings rose from the depths below. He couldn’t imagine what conditions were like for those working among the boilers and turbines.

  Time for the next part of the plan, he thought.

  Even though he was expecting it, he was still thrown off balance by the sudden change of direction. He clung to the barrier as Liberator swung to the right. Thirty seconds more – then the gears disengaged and the engines cut out. The rollers rolled on under their own momentum, slower and slower, until the juggernaut came to a halt.

  In the lull that followed, the only sound was the approaching thunder of the Grosse Wien. The glows of red and yellow loomed through the mist again. The Austrians were travelling along to the left, pursuing at tremendous speed.

  Col held his breath. They were barely three hundred yards away. But so long as he couldn’t see their hull, presumably they couldn’t see Liberator either.

  Another angry blast of the horn rang out – and the Grosse Wien rumbled on past. They were chasing their idea of where Liberator had gone.

  He let go of the barrier and brandished his fists in silent triumph. His knuckles were white from gripping so hard. He wondered if the Filthies were celebrating on the Bridge, and wished he had someone to celebrate with.

  Gradually, the glows diminished and vanished. The next blast of the horn was muffled and faraway, swallowed up in the heavy air.

  If the Austrians were smart, they would stop and wait until they were able to see Liberator’s track again. He hoped they weren’t smart, and that they would overshoot by a hundred miles.

  After a while, Liberator restarted its turbines. It was the quietest possible noise, a low thrum of minimal power. The rollers turned and the juggernaut moved forward slowly and cautiously.

  Col nodded to himself. They would need to keep swerving away from the place where they’d last been sighted. And then? Probably a wide loop that would bring them back to the coast far away from Botany Bay. Once on the ocean, they could easily lose their pursuers.

  The only problem was the lightening sky. Already the mist was grey rather than black, with a strange depthless pallor. It was like swimming in some murky liquid.

  What would happen in the full light of morning? The mist would still hide them, but not as well as darkness and mist together. And then, how long before it dispersed?

  For the next twenty minutes, the juggernaut moved quietly onward. Little by little, the mist changed from grey to white. It grew patchy too, dense in some parts and thin in others. Col shivered as long streamers floated eerily around him. A breeze sprang up, sighing and whispering with a soft swishing sound.

  The breeze was a threat if it blew away the cloud.

  After twenty minutes, the engines were suddenly cut again. What now? Liberator slowed and rolled to a halt. Col strained his ears, and heard what some Filthy with very sharp hearing must have heard. The rumble of another juggernaut’s engines!

  His heart sank. The Austrians must have realised their mistake, turned and come back on a different route. By chance, their route had intersected with Liberator’s route.

  He looked for a telltale glow of fire from the funnels, but there was only the white mist. Perhaps the fire hardly showed out in the daytime. No blasts of the horn either.

  Where was the rumble coming from, exactly? The mist multiplied and confused the sound. Col ran to the front of the platform and stared this way and that. Louder and louder – the Grosse Wien’s engines were roaring as never before. To the left? To the right?

  Straight ahead!

  The other juggernaut was rushing towards Liberator on a collision course!

  The Filthies on the Bridge were already aware of the danger. Hiding in the mist was no longer an option. Liberator’s engines surged into life again.

  But acceleration was a slow process for a mechanical mountain weighing three million tons. Liberator lurched forward and made a half-turn to the left.

  The approaching noise seemed to surround Col and tower over him. A mind-numbing roar accompanied by clanking, grinding sounds – wait a minute! That wasn’t right! A doubt entered Col’s mind –

  – and was confirmed one heartbeat later. The shape that loomed through the mist was the wrong shape, too high and block-like for the Grosse Wien. When he glimpsed colour as well, he knew for certain. Khaki!

  It was the Russian juggernaut, the Romanov. The Russians must have found an easier place to climb over the coastal hills.

  He let go of the barrier and backed away – a mistake, because he had nothing to hang on to when the two juggernauts collided.

  At the last moment, the mist dissipated, driven away by the immense onrush of metal on metal. For a split second, Col saw with perfect clarity every detail of the Romanov’s prow and masts and birds’ nests.

  Then the crash.

  It jarred through him as though someone had taken a hammer and struck the end of every bone in his body.

  It pealed out with a clang and a crunch and a screech of tearing metal.

  It rattled his teeth, and sent him sprawling face-first across the platform. The reverberations in the deck shuddered through his hands, his chest, his cheekbones.

  He rolled over and saw the Romanov swinging away under the force of the impact. Its prow had struck Liberator’s side amidships. Violent flashes of electricity fizzed and sputtered in the tangle of wires between its masts.

  Col’s ears were ringing and his legs were like jelly. By the time he finally staggered to his feet, both juggernauts had slewed to a stop. He propped himself up against the barrier and surveyed the damage.

  Two of Liberator’s funnels leaned to the left, and a third had collapsed and toppled down over the upper terraces of the superstructure. The Romanov’s main segment had separated from its trailing segments, and many of its masts had snapped, now held up only by the tangle of wires. The electricity that had fizzed in the wires seemed to have died away. The juggernauts were roughly side-by-side: three hundred yards apart at the front and twice that distance at the rear.

  Then Russian officers appeared on the deck of the Romanov. They shouted and gesticulated one to another. Obviously the collision had taken them completely by surprise.

  Col didn’t try to hide and he was soon noticed. The officers shook their fists and hurled what sounded like Russian curses in his direction. Then they disappeared.

  Three minutes later, a force of fifty or more armed officers emerged on deck. Col ducked as they raised rifles to their shoulders and started shooting.

  The crack!-crack!-crack! of rifle fire came faster and faster, and the tang! of bullets hitting metal plate, the whizz! and zing! of ricochets. They seemed to be wasting a great many bullets on just one person.

  He scuttled along to a different part of the barrier. If he stuck up his head for only a moment, they wouldn’t have time to take aim at him. At least, he hoped not.

  He took a deep breath and looked out. The Russians were still shooting, but he was no longer the main target. Filthies had taken up position in the sorting trays all along the flank of Liberator. They were mostly hidden behind their cover, but he could see the flash of their rifle fire.

  They seemed to b
e giving as good as they got. So long as the Russians didn’t start using special weapons . . .

  Col ducked down again and moved to a further part of the barrier.

  When he rose for another look, he saw that the Russians had started using special weapons. At the very moment he popped up his head, a glass sphere was fired from the Romanov’s deck. It arced through the air and crashed down on one of the sorting trays. Immediately, an evil-looking cloud of yellow gas spilled out.

  There was no more rifle fire from that particular tray. The cloud expanded and spread, wider and wider.

  But Col had stayed watching too long. A bullet whistled past so close that he felt the wind of it on his cheek. He dropped down in a hurry and moved on to a new vantage point. He counted to twenty before sticking his head up again.

  The situation had changed – thanks to the breeze. The cloud of yellow gas had continued to spread, but not where the Russians would have wanted. Now it was drifting back towards the Romanov.

  Col heard cries of panic, saw officers dropping their rifles and pulling out handkerchiefs to cover their mouths and noses. Then a megaphone voice boomed out – the same megaphone voice he had heard from the Romanov at Botany Bay. This time it didn’t sound so much like a threat against Liberator, more like an order to the Russian officers themselves.

  He dropped down below the barrier again. When he next looked out, the officers had gone and the Romanov’s deck was deserted.

  The first round of fighting was over. It was a stalemate so far, but Col knew that wouldn’t last. All the advantages were on the Russian side.

  He stayed watching a long while. The cloud of yellow gas dispersed, but the officers didn’t return. No doubt the Russian leaders were working on a more calculated strategy for their next move.

  As the sun climbed higher, the mist also dispersed. Leaning over the barrier, Col had a clear view a thousand feet down to the ground. It was like looking into a canyon, with the juggernauts so close at the top and the ground so far below.

  At the bottom, the skidding tracks of both machines had carved through the natural scenery. What remained was a multi-coloured patchwork of grassy mounds, bushy hollows, dry gullies and clumps of trees. A lake of scummy grey sludge had formed around Liberator’s rollers at the back, presumably leaking from the juggernaut’s own bilge.

  Col groaned at the sight of the damage. Steam and smoke trickled out from a dozen places low on Liberator’s hull, which had been completely staved in. By comparison, the Romanov’s flat prow appeared relatively unharmed. The Russian juggernaut was immobilised only because its caterpillar tracks had broken away from the wheels over which they ran.

  Looking down at the two hulls, Col thought of the two engine-rooms – and the two populations of Filthies. No doubt the Romanov had its own Below and its own workforce of long-suffering slaves. No doubt the Russian Filthies were still trapped among the boilers and turbines, as Liberator’s Filthies had once been.

  He wondered if the Russian Filthies ever dreamed of revolution . . .

  According to Professor Twillip, every European nation had developed its own slave class to labour in munitions factories during the Fifty Years War. And the same slaves had been put to a new form of slavery in the Imperialist juggernauts constructed after the war. Wouldn’t the Russian Filthies hate their oppressors every bit as much as Liberator’s Filthies had done?

  But if they had no Riff to inspire them . . . They couldn’t know that one group of Filthies had already triumphed over their oppressors. There they were, so close to the one liberated juggernaut ruled by people like themselves – yet, closed off behind impenetrable walls, they might as well have been on the other side of the world. And the cruellest twist of fate was that they wouldn’t even know why they’d been made to work the engines so hard – in order to overtake and overpower people like themselves.

  If only there was some way to get a message to them . . . Col racked his brains in vain. He was still pondering the problem when the Grosse Wien hove into view half an hour later.

  Obviously the Russians had been communicating with the Austrians by wireless telegraph. Was this the signal for an all-out attack?

  However, the Grosse Wien slowed as soon as it made visual contact. Keeping its distance, it circled to the right and came to a stop a quarter of a mile away.

  Col watched and waited until he grew bored. Nothing was going to happen yet. He wondered what was happening in the Norfolk Library. ‘Don’t do anything until I get back,’ he’d told them – how long ago? Were they still looking after Sephaltina?

  He walked across and entered the turret. Kneeling at the top of the metal staircase, he peered down into the room below. There was no sign of the Council around the map-desk – or anywhere else. In fact, only a few operators remained on the Bridge. Now was his opportunity.

  He descended the stairs nonchalantly, as if he had every right to be where he’d been. He was halfway to the exit at the back of the Bridge when one Filthy stepped forward and blocked his escape.

  ‘Been taking the air up there, have you?’

  She had red hair that stuck out in spikes around a crinkled, puckish face. A scar in the centre of her forehead lifted her eyebrows and gave her an oddly quizzical expression. In spite of her challenge, she didn’t seem particularly hostile.

  ‘I’ve been keeping watch. The Austrian juggernaut is a quarter of a mile away.’

  ‘I know. Who asked you to keep watch?’

  Col didn’t intend to get Riff into trouble. ‘Nobody.’

  ‘Hmm. How long have you been up there?’

  ‘Since Botany Bay.’

  Wry quirks and creases came and went on her face. ‘You must’ve had quite a ride. Was it you they started shooting at?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So you must be a hero.’ She didn’t mean it, yet there was no malice in her irony. ‘You’d better take your bravery off home, then.’

  Col turned to go, then paused with a question. ‘Where is everyone?’

  ‘Yes, it is very quiet here, isn’t it?’ Again, the quizzical eyebrows. ‘They’ve been called away to an emergency general meeting.’

  ‘In the Grand Assembly Hall?’

  ‘Of course. Big decisions to be taken. Shiv’s security force has been going round to announce it.’ The twist of her features suggested that she didn’t exactly approve of Shiv or his security force. ‘Unfortunately, some of us still have to run the Bridge.’

  ‘What are they deciding?’

  ‘Ah, now there you have me. I won’t know till they decide it.’

  ‘I meant . . .’

  ‘Why don’t you go and find out?’

  Col changed his plans on the spot. Not all Filthies were against him . . . and in a time of crisis like this . . .

  ‘Right, I will,’ he said.

  By the time Col reached the Grand Assembly Hall, the meeting was already under way. The crowd was small, but densely packed towards the front of the hall. Col stepped swiftly across the open space and mingled in at the back of the throng. Luckily, all their attention was focused forward.

  A furious discussion was going on at the front of the hall. There was a smell of stale sweat in the air, and a tension so thick it could have been cut by a knife. Everyone looked drawn and tired. Unlike Col, they’d had no chance to snatch any sleep during the night.

  ‘We have to attack before they attack us!’

  ‘We’ll go down fighting!’

  ‘If they use more gas bombs against us . . .’

  ‘The scum! The evil, murdering scum!’

  ‘How do we fight against gas?’

  Lye, Shiv, Padder, Gansy and Riff were all there, trying to make their voices heard above the noise. Riff dragged a chair into place and climbed up on it.

  ‘Never surrender!’ she
shouted. ‘Never! But we have to use our heads. No suicidal charges. We’ve already seen their gas bombs. We have to find out what else they’ve got.’

  ‘How can we?’ a voice shouted back. ‘Unless we attack them!’

  ‘We find out the same way the Council has always found things out. Right?’ Riff appealed to the other Council members. ‘There are people on board who can research those other juggernauts. If we put them to work . . .’

  ‘She means Swanks,’ another voice interrupted, in a tone of disgust.

  Col was dying to speak out and tell them that Septimus and Professor Twillip had already done the research. But the crowd’s angry mood made him think twice about attracting attention.

  ‘We don’t have time for grudges,’ said Riff. ‘We need all the help we can get.’

  ‘I wouldn’t trust their help,’ snorted Padder. Even Riff’s own brother wouldn’t support her.

  ‘We have a better plan,’ cried Lye, and rose up suddenly as high as Riff. She had found and mounted another chair ten feet away. She looked once at Riff, then turned to address the crowd. ‘Airborne assault. Shiv and I have discussed it. We shoot ropes across from our superstructure to their superstructure. Then our assault troops slide across on the ropes.’

  ‘Where do we get the ropes?’ Gansy asked.

  ‘Plenty of coils of rope on Fourth Deck. All we need are grappling hooks to go on the end.’

  ‘The manufacturing decks can make them,’ put in Shiv. ‘Bits of metal welded together. It’ll be easy to snag the hooks in all those masts and wires on top of the Russian juggernaut.’

  Riff had a thoughtful expression on her face. ‘They’ll bring up a thousand defenders before we get a hundred attackers across.’

  ‘We’ll take them by surprise,’ Lye answered. ‘It’s better than a suicidal charge, isn’t it?’

  Riff nodded. Obviously she wasn’t opposed to the plan in principle. ‘How would we shoot the ropes across?’

  ‘We’ll work it out. Some sort of spring or bow.’