Liberator

by Richard Harland

  She inspected the team one by one, clanking as she moved along the line. She was obviously the leader of all the svolochi. Perhaps she thought Col was a leader too; at any rate, he was the one she chose to question.

  ‘Romanov,’ she said, and spread her arms to take in everything around them. ‘Romanov.’ Then she prodded Col in the chest and raised an eyebrow.

  Col understood that she wanted to know where the outsiders came from. ‘Liberator,’ he said, and pointed with both arms, trying to convey the idea of a place beyond the walls of the Russian juggernaut. He added a dumb show of shielding his eyes and pretending to stare into the remote distance.

  Babya turned to the svolochi behind her. For the first time, Col noticed that some of them carried the rifles that had been taken from the team. They held them at arms length, very gingerly. Babya pointed first to the rifles, then to Col.

  He could only guess. ‘Yes, they belong to us.’ He stuck out his chest, miming pride and power.

  Babya nodded, and said something to her followers. At once, the whole assembly moved off with Babya and the team in the middle.

  They made their way past alternating niches and buttresses. The buttresses were stamped with a double-headed eagle and the date 1857: the symbol of the Tsars and the date of the Romanov’s construction. Many of the symbols had been defaced with scratch-marks.

  Three turns brought them into another open space, and an even larger crowd of svolochi. Here, the light was orangey-red, radiating from open trays of glowing coals. Great cast-iron blocks towered up like black cliffs all around.

  The whish-gaah! sounds were louder here, and seemed to come from somewhere deep within the blocks. Intricate pipes zigzagged like veins over the front of the metal. As far as the eye could see, the cliffs had no summits and the space, no roof; it might have been a dark night sky overhead.

  Col was still trying to make out a roof when somebody caught him by the shoulders and swivelled him round to look where everyone else was looking. Two large pipes sloped up at an angle of 45 degrees in front of a featureless black wall. He recognised at once that these were the same corrugated pipes that came out beneath the Romanov’s underbelly – and presumably ascended all the way to the Romanov’s Upper Decks.

  Babya took a rifle from one of the svolochi, beckoned Col forward and walked out in front of the crowd. When Riff tagged along uninvited, nobody tried to prevent her. They halted twenty paces away from the pipes.

  There were human figures going up inside one pipe, coming down inside the other. They appeared as mere grey shadows through the semi-transparent membrane.

  Babya handed the rifle to Col. ‘Pokazhi,’ she said.

  She made gestures that at first he didn’t understand. Something to do with the rifle and the grey shadows?

  ‘I think she wants you to shoot one of the officers in the pipe,’ said Riff.

  ‘What?’

  ‘To demonstrate the use of the rifle.’

  ‘What if they’re Menials?’

  ‘More likely officers.’

  Col focused on three shadows coming down in the near-side pipe. He could see them clearly enough to put a bullet through their heads.

  He clicked off the safety catch, raised the rifle to his shoulder and took aim at the first of the three. The officer

  – if it was an officer – had no suspicion, no sense of danger. He was an easy target through the membrane.

  Col had his finger on the trigger, yet his finger refused to move.

  It’s an officer, he told himself. An officer, not a Menial.

  But there was more to it than that. He pictured the bullet arriving out of nowhere, splattering the man’s brains. Even a Russian officer didn’t deserve to die without warning.

  ‘Hurry up,’ Riff urged.

  Already the first shadow was disappearing out of sight, where the pipe angled down through the floor. Col switched his aim to the second shadow. Still he couldn’t bring himself to squeeze the trigger.

  ‘I can’t shoot an innocent man,’ he muttered.

  Riff snorted. ‘Think what they do to their Filthies. Think what they do to make Menials.’

  ‘I mean, that particular man. I don’t know what he’s done wrong.’

  The second shadow followed the first below floor level. Babya grunted with impatience.

  ‘It’s our only chance,’ Riff hissed. ‘The mission’s finished if you don’t demonstrate the rifle.’

  Col redirected his aim to the third shadow. But Riff’s words made it even more difficult. To kill someone just as a demonstration seemed like the worst kind of murder.

  He tilted the rifle barrel and fired harmlessly above the pipe. The bullet hit the wall with a loud tang! and went singing off through the air.

  The shadow in the pipe stopped and turned. The second shadow came back into view, then the head and shoulders of the first.

  ‘That won’t do it!’ Riff exploded. ‘Give it here!’

  She reached out to take the rifle, but Col wouldn’t let go. Babya, losing patience, turned to walk away.

  Meanwhile the Russian officers were doing something inside the pipe. Naturally they recognised the sound of a rifle shot. Three tiny vertical slots opened up in the membrane, and three eyes looked out.

  The men exchanged shouts of outrage and amazement. Col couldn’t understand their words, but he understood their reaction. What they saw were two Filthies with a rifle who had just taken a shot at them.

  In the next moment, the tips of three rifles poked out through the slots.

  ‘Down!’ he yelled.

  He gave Riff a violent push that knocked her to the ground, and dived to the ground himself.

  In the same split second, the officers fired. Their shots passed over the top of Col and Riff, and struck Babya instead.

  Tang! Tang! Two of the bullets ricocheted from her metal ornaments. The third smacked into the back of her skull. She toppled forward, spasmed and lay still.

  A great gasp rose from the svolochi. A thought flashed across Col’s mind: who would they blame most? The officers responsible for the fatal shooting or the outsiders who had brought trouble upon them?

  ‘Come on!’

  He heard Riff’s scream and jumped to his feet before the officers could take fresh aim at him. Three paces only he ran, then flung himself down behind Babya’s lifeless body.

  Another volley of shots rang out. Babya’s body jerked this way and that. Col felt the wind of one bullet brush across his hair.

  He threw a glance towards the svolochi. Riff was already among them, shouting, ‘Like this! Safety catch off! Like this!’

  He realised that he still had a rifle himself. No question of cold-blooded murder now. He looked out over the top of Babya, took aim at the middle shadow and fired.

  The officer crumpled and fell. In his fall, he collected the officer beneath him in the pipe, and both tumbled down below the level of the floor.

  The officer above took a wild shot, and there was a roar of pain from someone in the crowd. A moment later, the svolochi started to shoot back. First one crack! then another, then a whole barrage of gunfire.

  The svolochi might not have learned to shoot straight, but they compensated by sheer volume of firepower. The last officer fell a short distance, then stuck. Bullet after bullet ripped into the pipe all around him. At least a few must have hit their target.

  ‘Enough!’ Riff yelled and waved her arms. ‘Stop now!’

  They didn’t understand the words, but they grasped the message. The gunfire died away. In the silence, the whish-gaah! of the machinery sounded loud and strangely echoing.

  Then the whole crowd surged forward around their fallen leader. A young boy no older than Unya was one of the first to reach her, to kneel and look into the dead, staring eyes. Oth
ers looked at the back of her skull, half blown away.

  Col got to his feet and stepped back as the crowd pressed forward. The boy extended two fingers and gently lowered Babya’s eyelids over her eyes. Tears rolled down his face, and many more faces besides.

  They didn’t speak their grief, however – they sang it. One voice began and another joined in, then more and more, each taking a part as in a choir. It was haunting and beautiful and heartbreakingly sad.

  Louder and louder rose the lament. Col had the impression that faraway voices were responding from every chamber of the engine-room. He had hardly known Babya, but the song crept into his bones and filled his heart to bursting.

  Then a different sound cut across the song like a knife.

  Wooo-waaaa-wooo-waaaa-wooo-waaaa-wooo-waaaa!

  It was the blare of sirens. Jarring, harsh, hateful, incongruous . . .

  The svolochi looked up at the towering cast-iron cliffs all around. Col followed the line of their gaze, but couldn’t see the sirens. What he saw was a movement of wires and levers alongside the vein-like pipes that zigzagged over the metal. Then lids popped open and vents appeared. The svolochi held their breath, and so did Col.

  Something was emerging from the vents . . . a yellow, spreading gas, as sinister as the hiss that accompanied it.

  Col remembered that gas. The Russians had lobbed it over in glass spheres after the collision of the juggernauts. Obviously, they used it as a means of controlling their own Filthies, as well as against external enemies.

  When the breeze had carried the gas towards the Romanov, the Russian officers and troops had fled. But the svolochi didn’t flee – didn’t try to protect themselves in any way. Instead, they stood staring up at the vents and raised their voices in a new kind of song. No lament this time, but a song of defiance, thrilling and terrible.

  It was magnificent, swelling the heart and stirring the blood. But how could they defy a gas?

  Voice by voice, it multiplied. Col saw Unya nearby, puffing out her chest and putting her soul into every note. The song rose until it drowned out even the blaring sirens.

  A hand plucked suddenly at his elbow. ‘We have to show them what to do!’ cried Riff.

  Col had no idea what to do, but he ran after her in the direction of the corrugated pipes. She seemed to have it all worked out. Dunga, Cree, Orris and Jarvey ran too.

  She stopped at the place where the last officer had fallen and the membrane of the pipe had been shredded by bullets.

  ‘Where it’s weakened!’ She pointed to the bullet holes. ‘Tear it open!’

  She inserted her fingers into one hole and pulled. It was harder than it looked, even where there were several holes close together. The fabric of the membrane was much tougher than any ordinary cloth.

  The others used their fingers like Riff, but Col used his rifle. He pushed the barrel in through a hole, all the way up to the trigger guard. Then he worked it back and forth like a saw, extending the rip.

  ‘Good!’ cried Riff, observing his success.

  ‘Look at this!’ cried Orris. ‘Even better!’

  He was referring to Unya, who had come up to join them. She wasn’t using her fingers or a rifle, but her filed and pointed teeth. She knelt by a cluster of holes, between Col and Orris, and enlarged them by gnawing with her teeth.

  Col redirected his own rip downwards, to meet up with Unya’s.

  Riff swung to face the svolochi. ‘Here!’ She waved her arms frantically. ‘Over here! Escape-route!’

  The svolochi saw what was happening and started to move. Their singing rose to a thunderous volume as they marched across. The yellow gas continued to spread through the air, thicker and thicker, but still above the level of their heads.

  In another minute, Col’s sawing and Unya’s gnawing met up in the middle. Riff pulled the flaps apart and the hole was just big enough to squeeze through. She entered the pipe, and Unya slipped in behind her.

  Col was next, then Orris and the rest of the team. Behind them, the whole crowd of svolochi pushed eagerly forward.

  We’ve done it! thought Col in jubilation. His plan had worked after all. This wasn’t just an escape route but a route to the Upper Decks. They had started a revolution!

  Going up in the pipe was an extraordinary experience. The rungs inside were like the steps of a staircase. As the svolochi behind the team surged upwards, they propelled those ahead of them faster and faster. Col’s feet hardly seemed to touch the rungs. It was less like climbing a staircase, and more like being carried up in a steam elevator.

  How long it lasted, he could never have guessed. It seemed to take only a minute, yet there were many hundreds of rungs. The light coming in through the semi-transparent membrane was a dim grey blur.

  When the light changed to layers of brightness and darkness, they were almost at the top. In another moment, the pipe came to an end and they emerged all at once into a kind of lobby.

  Col staggered and jumped out of the way as the human tide streamed out behind him. They had arrived at the lowest level of the Romanov’s Upper Decks.

  Three Russian officers stood gaping in disbelief. All had fine thick moustachios, white uniforms with epaulettes and peaked caps with gold braid trimming. They backed away towards a set of glass doors, fumbling to draw their pistols from their holsters.

  Riff launched into instant action. She chopped one officer to the side of the neck, tripped another and punched the third in the solar plexus.

  As they lay gasping or unconscious on the ground, she knelt and stripped them of their pistols. She kept one for herself and passed the others to the two nearest svolochi.

  Unya whistled in admiration and flourished her arms in imitation of Riff’s moves.

  Col looked around. More and more svolochi were arriving all the time, still singing their song of defiance. They flooded out across the lobby, momentarily without direction.

  ‘That could be a Russian steam elevator,’ said Orris.

  He was pointing at the glass doors towards which the officers had tried to retreat. The glass was etched with fancy designs; on the other side, Col could see a grille of intersecting metal struts. It was quite unlike the curtains and swing doors of Liberator’s elevators. But Orris’s idea was a good one: for the purpose of rapid transportation, the top of the pipes would surely need to be near the bottom of an elevator.

  ‘Let’s take a look,’ cried Cree.

  She swung open the doors and tugged at the grille in vain. Jarvey, coming up behind, worked out the trick of it. He slid the struts sideways, to reveal a large platform between vertical rails, with chains and cables hanging down. It was unmistakeably a steam elevator, far larger than any on Liberator.

  The crowd pushed forward with a cheer. Cree and Jarvey were carried in by the surge, but the rest of the team were left standing. There was no more room on the platform.

  ‘It’s okay!’ Riff called out to Cree and Jarvey. ‘You take the first lot up!’

  ‘We’ll send it back down when we get off at the top!’ Cree called back.

  Jarvey, meanwhile, had located the lever that controlled the elevator. He raised it to the Up position, and the platform jolted and started to ascend. The svolochi in the lobby continued to whoop and cheer long after the svolochi on the platform had disappeared behind clouds of billowing vapour.

  Col, Riff, Dunga and Orris gathered together – along with Unya, who seemed to have attached herself as a new member of the team.

  ‘We need to find another way up,’ said Col. It was obvious that one elevator could never cope with the numbers still emerging from the pipe.

  ‘There has to be a staircase nearby,’ said Riff, and led the way out from the lobby.

  They found themselves in a corridor with burgundy-coloured carpet and wood-panelled walls. Unya must have caug
ht on to the plan; she shouted back in Russian to the crowd in the lobby, and a horde of followers streamed after them.

  They discovered a staircase round the very first corner. Similar yet different to Liberator’s staircases, this one went up in a spiral, with brightly painted woodwork on either side. Archways led out onto each level of deck, while the staircase kept spiralling upward.

  Around and around they went, past deck after deck. The svolochi pushed up behind them. There was no one on the stairs and no one on the floors when they looked out. The Romanov’s Upper Decks seemed surprisingly deserted.

  After five floors, Orris was wheezing and panting.

  ‘I’m . . . not as young as . . .’

  His mouth was wide, his complexion an unhealthy shade of puce.

  ‘I’ll stop and wait with you,’ said Col at once.

  In the end, the whole team stopped and Unya too. They left the staircase by the next archway, while the svolochi continued their upward rush.

  ‘Dozens of decks above this,’ said Dunga.

  ‘We could look for another elevator,’ Col suggested.

  Everyone liked the idea. There were many elevators on Liberator, so no doubt the Romanov was similarly equipped.

  ‘Look for glass doors,’ ordered Riff.

  They set off as soon as Orris recovered his breath. Riff with her pistol and Col with his rifle marched at the front.

  The deck they were on was even more lavish than the one lower down. The wood panelling here was more highly polished, and the carpet was like velvet under their feet. There were ornate mirrors on the walls, and the symbol of the double-headed eagle on every door.

  In one corridor, the team passed a group of Russian Menials, instantly recognisable by their hunched posture. They wore elaborate harnesses of leather straps that buckled around their waists and over their chests and shoulders.

  ‘Mi na vashei storone!’ Unya called out to them.

  They gazed at her with blank expressions, then went back to their cleaning and polishing. Each was tethered to a separate doorknob.