Now that she knew what to look for, she could see many little corpses scattered along the side of the corridor, like a drift of dead leaves. A stocky glim with a face-mask and gloves was sweeping them up.
“That’s where the ink-flu comes from,” the woman said. “Those things.” She shuddered. “Ah. It makes my skin crawl, just to look at them. And people used to wear them in their hair.”
“The smarachts?” Isabeau watched as the glim swept together a pile of tiny, glittering bodies.
“They should never have been allowed in here.” The woman sniffed disdainfully. “I don’t know what the customs people were thinking, letting the creatures in in the first place. The bio-laws have gotten way too lax in this place.”
A skinny clerk overheard her. “Nonsense,” he said. “It’s all just hysteria. People need to blame something, so they blame the poor smarachts. Ink flu spreads via weaponised fungi. There’s no way the birds could be involved. It’s biologically impossible.”
“So why are they poisoning them all then?” The woman glared at the clerk.
He lifted his shoulders in a wry shrug. “To make people feel better? I don’t know.”
Seeing that the woman’s attention had been diverted, Isabeau hurried away.
¤¤¤
Back in the can, Isabeau tried to forget the dead smarachts, focusing instead on dishing out food to herself, Ndlela, Tomas, and Danger.
Ndlela was in a cheerful mood. While she was gone, he and Tomas had gone out on what Tomas called a “recci” with Danger.
“To the toilet,” Ndlela said. “And to check out the layout of this area.”
He was getting the hang of moving about while using the diadem. That was good, because she’d underestimated just how difficult the blindfold made things for them. They’d had more than one argument as Ndlela had bumped a toe or his head while Isabeau tried to guide him on their way here.
“Do you think it’s safe to go out yet?” Ndlela said, wiping sauce off his chin.
“You got some on your shirt, too.” Isabeau watched as he dabbed ineffectually at himself.
“Ah, never mind.” Ndlela gave his shirt a last wipe. “You coming?” he said to Tomas.
“You guys shouldn’t be going out.” Tomas was lying down again, curled up on his side. “It’s not safe out there.” He sounded more than half asleep. Isabeau thought that the outing to the toilets had taken more effort than Tomas had been willing to admit.
“But we need to see what Missy’s doing,” said Isabeau. “You agreed.”
“No, I didn’t.” Tomas drew his jacket tighter around himself.
“I think Isabeau’s right,” Ndlela said, and Isabeau gave him a grateful look. “Missy really is a dangerous woman, and the least we can do is figure out what she’s up to.”
“You said that she’s probably up to no good with that pod-ship,” Isabeau reminded Tomas. He’d made her tell him everything again, from exactly what she’d overheard Elke say about Missy Cloete, to a close description of the airlock, and everything Balthazar and Sparks had told her about the pod-ship.
“If it is Missy, and she’s really doing something with that airlock, that’s where we should start,” said Ndlela. “If we can find where’s she’s hiding, Sparks and Dolly can’t ignore that. They’ll have to take us seriously.”
“I still think you should go straight to Dolly,” Tomas said. “Go to her now.”
“But we’re not ready to do that yet,” said Isabeau. “We need to have something solid, something she’ll listen to.”
Tomas must have heard the stubborn tone in her voice because he sighed, and when he spoke again, his voice was weaker. “Okay, whatever, but take Danger with you. He’ll keep you safe.”
“We can’t leave you here alone without Danger to help you,” said Ndlela. “What if you need to go somewhere?”
“I’m not going anywhere,” said Tomas. “And I’ll feel a whole lot better if Danger was with you.”
Isabeau looked uncertainly at Tomas. It was true, he looked exhausted.
“Come here, boy.” Tomas pushed himself up into a half-sitting position. The big gardag loped over to him and stuck his head into Tomas’s chest.
“Don’t let them get into any trouble, okay?” Tomas kissed Danger lightly on the armour plating that covered his head and rested his forehead there for a moment. “Okay. Here.” He pulled the diadem off and held it out.
“You sure?” Isabeau hung back.
“You going whatever I say, aren’t you?” said Tomas. “So at least, take this, and let Danger look after you.”
Isabeau silently accepted the diadem and handed it to Ndlela, who put it on.
For a moment he and Isabeau hesitated in the doorway.
“We’ll be quick,” said Isabeau.
“We’ll be careful,” said Ndlela.
Tomas waved them off wordlessly.
“Let’s go,” said Ndlela.
Isabeau suspected that he felt just as guilty as she did about Tomas. But they had to do this, didn’t they? And Tomas couldn’t come with them.
With the diadem linking him to Danger, Ndlela could move with a lot more confidence. Danger walked next to him, pressed against his leg, and Ndlela always kept one hand on the gardag’s head.
Isabeau soon stopped worrying that Ndlela would bump into things, or trip. Ladders were more of a challenge, and there were quite a few of those as they worked their way along the shell-cavity to Works level, but at last they reached the hatchway.
Ndlela made them wait for almost a full minute while he and Danger listened and sniffed.
“Okay,” he said at last. “There’s somebody working up the corridor to the right, but mostly this place is pretty quiet. Where do we go now?”
Isabeau led the way to the airlock access room. To her disgust the lock on the door was still broken.
“They really don’t take it seriously, do they?” She wiggled the handle. “I mean, look at this. They could at least have fixed the lock.”
After a last glance up and down the corridor, the three of them went into the locker-lined room.
“Wow.” Ndlela stood in the middle of the room, while Danger obligingly looked around, so he could see every bit of it.
“This is the air-lock.” Isabeau pointed. “And this is the button that starts the pump, if you want to go out through the airlock. And these are the space suits.” She opened a locker door.
“Cool!”
“Can you smell anything?”
Ndlela nodded. “Definitely. I bet you can smell it too. Disinfectant. Pretty strong.”
“Can you follow it? Is it a trail?”
“Let’s try.”
Danger didn’t need any encouragement. He flicked an ear and headed out the door.
“He seems pretty sure of himself,” said Isabeau, but Ndlela held up a hand to quiet her.
“Not so loud,” he whispered. “There are people in those workshops along there.”
Danger led them around a corner to an access hatch.
“You sure we should go in there?” Isabeau hung back. She wanted to find Missy, but she didn’t want to run right into her.
“Danger thinks it’s fine. She’s not in there now; we’d have heard her if she was.” Ndlela opened the hatch. “Come on.”
They didn’t have to go far. They found what they were looking for just a few feet along.
“Wow.” Ndlela’s voice was hardly above a whisper, but it made Isabeau jump all the same, and look over her shoulder to see if anyone was near.
“This must be where she’s been sleeping.” Ndlela edged deeper into the space.
“Don’t go in there.” Isabeau wanted to hold him back. She angled her colltorch so that the beam illuminated the small clearing among the wires and ducts. The signs of recent occupation were clear. Isabeau didn’t need Danger’s nose to tell her that.
A bundle of blankets made a nest in one corner. A bag full of food wrappers lay on its side, spilling crumbs and b
its of paper. Near the back she could just make out boxes of dried bisc and a line of water bottles, some of them full.
“She’s been stockpiling food. Look at all of this.” Ndlela lifted the edge of a sheet of plastic, revealing a row of bags, all filled with tins and boxes.
“Is all of that food?” Isabeau leaned closer, but the labels were in strangeside script.
“I’m pretty sure. Lots of bottled water too.” Ndlela turned his head, as if he could see, although all his visual input was coming from the gardag. “Danger can smell her. Not disinfectant. Human.”
Danger was sniffing at something in among the wires near the bed.
“What’s that, boy?” asked Ndlela.
The gardag stuck his nose into a crevice, then backed out and dropped something on the floor, looking at the children, and then back at the object so that Ndlela could use his eyes.
“I think it’s a knife,” Ndlela said, and Isabeau focused the beam of her colltorch on it.
The light pooled on a piece of metal, one end wrapped with mech-tape. The other end had been sharpened to a point. It was a nasty-looking weapon. The children stared at it for several heartbeats.
“Danger, can you put it back?” Ndlela said at last. “Just where you found it.”
The gardag did so.
Isabeau looked uneasily at the nest of blankets. You could almost make out the imprint of a body there, see how somebody might curl up, pulling the blanket over themselves for warmth. “Look.” Her colltorch picked out a gleam of metal. “What’s that?”
She reached out and lifted the blanket, then couldn’t help a little moan of surprise.
Ndlela cursed under his breath. “Jeez. Look at that.”
Five more knives, all hand-made, all viciously sharp.
Isabeau swallowed. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Right.” To her relief, Ndlela agreed readily. “Let’s go.”
They backed out of the space, back into the corridor.
All at once, Isabeau felt exposed. Somebody could come around a corner at any moment. “Ndlela.” She touched her brother’s arm. “Can we go back?”
Ndlela didn’t need any encouragement. He nodded, and they headed for their hiding place in the cargo-can, neither of them speaking.
¤¤¤
They got back to the can without encountering anyone. Once there, it didn’t take them long to start arguing.
“We’ve got to tell Dolly,” Ndlela insisted. “You saw those knives!”
“Knives?” Tomas pulled himself up till he was sitting, leaning against a crate. “What are you talking about?” He seemed blurred with sleep and moved stiffly.
“Here,” said Isabeau. “We got you some water.” She gave him a bottle they’d filled on their way back.
Tomas took it and drank a little. Isabeau noticed that he sipped each mouthful carefully, as if it hurt to swallow.
“We found where Missy’s been sleeping,” Isabeau told Tomas. “She’s got all these home-made knives there.”
“We have to tell Dolly,” Ndlela repeated.
I know,” said Isabeau. “But how do we tell her without getting caught ourselves?”
Ndlela was baffled. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, how do we tell Dolly without her putting you and Tomas back in the lazaretto, and me to that crèche place they were going to lock me up in?”
“Oh.” Ndlela frowned. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“I know you haven’t.” Isabeau sat down and wrapped her arms about her knees. “I don’t know about you, but I’m not going to let myself be bundled off with a bunch of children and nurses for who knows how long. And I bet you don’t want to go back to that lazaretto.”
They brooded on the problem.
Tomas let his head tilt back, and once again Isabeau wondered whether he was asleep. It occurred to her that Tomas would probably be better off in the lazaretto, where he could get the medicine he needed, but she wasn’t sure how he’d react to that suggestion.
“We can’t just leave it,” Ndlela said at last. “Who knows what she’s up to in there.”
“I know.” Isabeau pulled a long thread from the hem of her trousers and twisted it around her fingers. “And anyway, we still don’t know if she had anything to do with Noor and them disappearing.”
“You think she did?” asked Tomas.
Isabeau shrugged and broke the thread off short. “I don’t know. You guys have any better ideas?”
“Nope.” Ndlela slumped back against the wall of the can.
Tomas didn’t answer.
“I think,” Isabeau said slowly, “that we need to find out more. About Missy, I mean. Maybe we can watch her, without her seeing us. I mean, now that we’ve got Danger to help us.”
“Hmm.” Ndlela turned his blindfolded face towards her. “That’s actually not such a bad idea.”
Tracks Across Gremium
Meisje pushed her nose against the grating and whined.
“Forget it,” said Argent. “They won’t let us in there.”
The train had reached its destination, and they’d disembarked, only to find themselves cut off from the part of the platform where the cargo was being offloaded.
Meisje pawed at the grate. If there was a scent trail it would be out there, on the platform beyond the grate.
“Come.” Argent tugged at the leash. “We can’t go there. We have to go around to the main concourse. There’s no way out of this place except through there.”
Meisje’s ears came up, and she allowed Argent to pull her away. She let him lead her to a checkpoint where an official looked at Argent’s papers and waved them through.
Meisje sniffed the air uneasily. This place was unlike anywhere she’d ever been before, but it felt just like the Babylon Eye, that same profound hollowness beyond the visible surroundings. It smelled old, of thousands upon thousands of passing feet, cargo-cans, oil, algae, and dust. Her nose lifted, testing, tasting something more complex, borne by a slight movement of air, but Argent was leading them away from this current of scent. Meisje took the leash between her teeth and tugged at it.
“What?”
She tugged again.
Argent stared down at her, eyebrows raised. “How can you possibly—”
Meisje gave a muffled bark and tugged at the leash again. Argent glanced around, noticing the looks they were attracting from passers-by. “Oh, very well,” he grumbled.
Meisje led the way, moving always into that airy trickle which soon grew into a breeze. They reached a door. Meisje could hear as well as smell the enormous space beyond.
Argent pulled at the leash, and this time Meisje paused willingly.
“Found the trail yet?”
Meisje signalled no even though she knew he did not understand, and stepped through the door, with Argent on her heels. She winced at the onslaught to her senses.
The sharp clang of a nearby hammer distorted her hearing with every blow. A storm of scent enveloped her, bewildering in its complexity. Some strands were familiar—sweat, water, steam, oil, but many were things she’d never encountered before. Pungent, acrid, chemical, spicy, each scent crowded her with its hints and suggestions. Blood, or rot, or fire? Her hackles rose, and she opened her mouth so that her tongue and palette could sample the air.
Argent tugged at her leash but she hunkered down, testing, testing, until the scent-storm separated into something she could understand.
There. That was human sweat. And those were plants, many plants, some flowering. There. That was steam from a train, laced with something chemical she’d never smelled before. That was oil, and that was the stench of over-heated metal. That was food, spoiled food, long rotten, and that was water.
Meisje lowered her nose and moved along the concourse.
Here. The stone paving showed no mark visible to the eye, but to her nose the scents were like a pulsing road, the route most people followed across the concourse.
The space opened out aroun
d them as they moved on. Meisje, focused on the scent trail, was only dimly aware of gigantic figures rising above her, with staring faces and reaching hands. Humans crowded round on all sides. Some looked rather like the can-workers in the Eye, and some wore uniforms almost like the custom officials on the Ishtar Gate.
Argent kept approaching officials and asking them things in a language Meisje didn’t understand. She could see that they often didn’t understand Argent either, although he didn’t seem to notice this.
Every time he spoke, he pulled himself up and made his voice tight and commanding, ignoring their polite attempts to placate him. He angered them, and yet seemed strangely unaware of this fact.
Argent’s apparent recklessness made Meisje deeply uneasy. Some of these people were fighters, and it was just a matter of time before one of them did something impulsive.
She opened her mouth and shook her head in frustration at the confining muzzle. How could she get him to take it off?
A sharp bark got his attention.
“You found something?”
She signalled no, and then pawed at the muzzle, looking at him significantly. Would he understand?
“Oh, no you don’t. Argent gave a humourless smile. “That thing stays on.”
Meisje sank down into a crouch and pawed at the muzzle again. Argent tugged at the leash, but she only pawed at the muzzle again, and whined loudly.
“Forget it,” said Argent. “I’m not taking that off. Remember this?” He pulled the cord from around his throat. “You know what happens if I press the button.”
Once again Meisje pawed at the muzzle, never breaking eye-contact. She whined piteously, letting her ears droop and her body shiver, tucking her tail between her legs. People were starting to stare. A passing can-worker said something to Argent that brought a flush of colour to his cheeks.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Argent’s lips were thin with exasperation.
Meisje blinked up at him.
They were certainly attracting attention. People were turning to look and commenting.
Abruptly, Argent crouched down in front of her. “Very well,” he said in a furious undertone. “You win. Damn you. But I mean it about the kill switch. You try to run away or do anything to hurt me—I won’t hesitate. Understand?”
The Strange Page 28