‘You did it,’ he told Curtana, when he had seen another two grappling lines be deployed. ‘You got us here. You got us to Spearpoint.’
‘We’re not touching dirt yet,’ she said, as irked as if he had broken some sacred taboo of airmanship.
‘You can’t take any pleasure in this, can you? I suppose if you still had the ship in one piece it might be different.’
‘I’ll worry about Painted Lady. You worry about the sick men and the Serum-15. I want the crates ready to be lowered in sixty seconds. The mission’s not over until we’ve delivered our cargo. Understood?’
‘Of course.’
Those able-bodied airmen who were not already manning the windlasses were beginning to gather in the gondola, some of them bearing stretchers, others hefting the cupboard-sized medicine crates, ready to lower them down through the belly hatch as soon as they were over solid ground. The medicine crates, Quillon realised, were one of the few commodities that hadn’t already been thrown overboard to lighten the load. He took a crate himself and stood back from the belly hatch as an airman let it hinge down, revealing a rectangle of distant rooftops. The Skullboys were still down there, still firing guns and rockets, but it would take extraordinary luck for one of them to find that tiny open door in the gondola’s underside. Nonetheless Quillon kept well back from the edge, willing time to pass more quickly. The rooftops were sliding by, but the rate at which the airship was being hauled in was agonisingly slow.
Then, suddenly, the black wall of the ledge began to hove into view, and as suddenly again they were over the buckled railing, the gondola’s lowered hatch almost scraping the top of it as they came in. Whatever altitude she had been at when the grapples were fired, the tautening lines had brought the gondola almost level with the square. They were passing over a seething mob of people now, hands reaching up to grab at anything that came within reach. The roar from the crowd was overwhelming, but there was more to it than simple jubilation. There was something frayed and desperate about it, something that could turn the crowd into a frenzied, indiscriminate mob at the tiniest provocation.
Now ropes were being dropped down from the gondola and engine struts to augment the grapples. The airship came to a sudden halt, almost knocking Quillon off his feet and through the open hatch. Either the windlasses were tight or the envelope had jammed against the surrounding buildings. He supposed that it didn’t matter much now. With the anchor lines tight and the gas cells still providing some lift, the gondola was safe for the time being.
The crowd was clearing around a party of red-hatted militia approaching the belly-hatch. They had guns, aimed at the sky, but ready to be brought to bear on anyone hindering their progress. Behind them, clearing a wider swathe, came a steam-powered truck with another group of armed men riding on its running boards. The militia cleared a circle under the gondola, forcing back the crowd with threatening jabs of their guns. The crowd capitulated without much fuss, even clearing a path of their own volition to allow the truck to halt just beneath the open hatch.
Curtana emerged from the bridge, grabbed a loaded double-barrelled pistol from the armoury rack, tugged back its paired flint-tipped hammers and swung down onto the ladder, holding on with one hand and grasping the pistol in the other. She tried to say something to the red-hatted men, but she couldn’t make herself heard over the crowd. Gritting her teeth, she aimed the pistol at the sky, angling her shot so that it would skim past the envelope. She fired.
The crowd subsided into an uneasy, belligerent silence.
‘I’m Captain Curtana. Where’s Tulwar?’
One of the red-hatted men spoke up. ‘Tulwar can’t make it.’
‘He was meant to be here.’
‘He’s having medical issues. He said to bring you to the Red Dragon Bathhouse.’
‘Just like that? On trust? Us not knowing who the hell any of you are?’
‘My name is Kargas,’ said the red-hatted man. ‘You’ll have to be satisfied with that for now. Do you have the medicines?’
‘Got the advance supply here,’ Curtana said. ‘It’ll have to tide you over for now. I take it you’ve got a distribution plan in place?’
‘Tulwar’s got it all worked out,’ Kargas said. ‘There are local bosses for every district, every quarter. They’ve all been allocated consignments, depending on how many people are under them. No one goes without.’
‘So there’ll be no skimming, and none of the medicines will ever turn up on the black market?’ Curtana said.
‘I won’t make promises I can’t keep. This is a city without a government. Things get porous. All I can tell you is that if you hand over those medicines, Tulwar and the rest of us will do our damndest to make sure most of them get to the people who need them.’
‘You think I came halfway around the world for that half-assed plan?’
‘We’re doing the best we can.’
‘I think we should take the man at his word,’ Quillon said in a low voice. ‘There’ll never be absolute guarantees, so he’s just being honest with us. At some point we just have to decide to trust someone.’
Curtana still looked dubious. ‘I’ll need some assurances on my side.’
‘Go ahead,’ Kargas said.
‘Got a lot of injured people here. I want them taken somewhere to rest and be looked after. Any hospitals still open for business?’
‘Hospitals are ... not doing too well. Most of them don’t have lights, power, hot running water or anything much resembling trained medical staff. Frankly, your people would be just as well off at the bathhouse. They can be treated there, and it’s safe and clean.’
‘I’ve been there,’ Quillon confided in a near-whisper. ‘I can’t vouch for the safe part, but it looked clean enough.’
‘You got any more of those trucks?’ Curtana called down.
‘Two more waiting to move in as soon as this one’s loaded,’ Kargas said.
‘I’ll send down four crates as a goodwill gesture, but that’s your lot until all my injured are on that first truck, along with my doctor.’
‘We need those medicines.’
‘And you’ll get them, as soon as I’m convinced that my people are safe. I’m sorry some Spearpointers got hurt when we grappled in, but if anyone even lays a finger on one of my crew I’ll smash the rest of the crates before you can blink.’
‘Your people will be safe. But just give us the medicines as quickly as you can.’
Curtana nodded at Quillon. ‘Lower down the injured. And get someone to bring Kalis and Nimcha. Are you all right about going with them, Doctor?’
‘I have to deal with Tulwar sooner or later.’
‘Make that two of us,’ Meroka said, pushing alongside him.
‘Send word back as soon as you get to the bathhouse,’ Curtana said. ‘I’ll join you as soon as the ship’s secured.’
‘Ever the captain,’ Quillon said with a ghost of a smile, hoping she’d take it for the compliment he intended.
Even with the best of preparations, it was not an easy matter to lower the injured airmen onto the back of the truck. The militia did their best, as did Quillon and the rest of the able-bodied crew, but there was no way to avoid causing some discomfort. If anything, though, their grunts and groans at least served to demonstrate that Painted Lady had paid a heavy price to deliver her cargo. Quillon hoped it would convince the Spearpointers that they had not been alone in their suffering, even if Swarm’s time of hardship had come late in the day.
Before leaving the airship he shrugged on a heavy coat, disguising - as best he could - his wing-buds. He put on airmen’s goggles and his hat. Then he shimmied down the ladder and helped with the arranging and securing of the stretchers, satisfying himself that none of the broken limbs had suffered any grave displacement during the unloading process. Meroka came next. Then came Kalis, wearing an airman’s coat and a hat to hide her tattoo, little about her to mark her as being anything other than an ordinary member of the crew. Meroka helped her
down, and then both women assisted Nimcha. Then came the four crates Curtana had promised. Kargas levered the lid off one and inspected the straw-packed vials of Serum-15.
He lifted one of the vials up for inspection. ‘I’m no doctor—’
‘But I am, and the medicine’s real,’ Quillon said. ‘It needs five-to-one dilution, but once that’s done you can use it the same way you’d use Morphax-55.’
‘That’s a Spearpoint accent.’
‘Neon Heights,’ Quillon said. ‘Isn’t that reason enough to trust me?’
‘That would depend on how you ended up with Swarm.’
‘The same way you got mixed up with Tulwar, I suspect - something that worked for me at the time.’
‘Who’re the women with the kid?’
‘Friends of mine,’ Quillon said, as Kalis turned to look at Kargas with fierce interest. ‘Who also happen to be patients under my care. Now can we get on to this place you mentioned? The bathhouse?’
Kargas gestured at the driver, who eased the hissing machine into motion and began to carve a path through the crowds. Quillon looked back at the gondola, meeting Curtana’s eyes for an instant, a world of understanding passing between them. It was entirely possible that they would never meet again, given what had happened to Spearpoint. Things had become porous. But neither owed anything to the other. Quillon had served the ship, and Curtana had fulfilled her part of the bargain by getting them this far. If they parted now it was as equals and friends, bound by comradeship and shared experience rather than duty and obligation. He hoped they would meet again, and soon. But he knew they could not count on it.
As the truck worked through the crowds, Tulwar’s militia had to keep fighting off people who were trying to climb aboard for the medicine, jabbing at them with the butts of their rifles, or firing warning shots just above their heads. Once, a claw of a hand closed around Quillon’s sleeve and threatened to pull him into the mass. Kargas seized him, his quick reflexes probably saving Quillon’s life.
‘They’re not bad people,’ Kargas said, as he pulled Quillon back from the brink, ‘but they’ve been through hell.’
‘If I’d been in Spearpoint when the storm hit, I’d be down there with them now.’
‘If you’d lasted this long,’ Kargas said. ‘It’s been difficult. We’ve all lost good friends, people whose zone tolerance wasn’t great to begin with. It hit them worst of all.’
‘Things will get better now,’ Quillon replied.
‘For the time being. Don’t get me wrong: we’re grateful for any assistance. But medicines will only last so long, and then we’ll be back where we started. For a while we held out hope that the zones were going to revert, snap back the way they used to be. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to believe that’ll ever happen now. This is starting to feel like something we have to get used to.’
Quillon tried not to glance at Nimcha as he spoke. ‘We’ll do what we can.’
As they pushed towards the edge of the square, away from the shelf’s edge, the other two trucks were moving to receive the rest of the medicine. Quillon looked back to see one of them park under the gondola, the crates being handed down via an efficient chain of arms from man to man. It was only now that he saw exactly what had become of Painted Lady, how precariously, with what devastating finality, she had come to rest. The envelope was jammed between buildings, the armoured fabric tearing back along the sides to reveal grotesque anatomical mysteries: the circular stiffening rings, the riblike scaffolding of lateral spars, the soft and vulnerable interior of lifting cells, strung out along her gashed length like a chain of dark lungs, some of them still inflated, others sagging and useless. The engine struts, long since unburdened of engines, were buckled back from the gondola at almost ninety degrees. The empennage, the great bulbous flaring of her tailpiece, was still jutting into space. The empennage was on fire.
The empennage was on fire.
Quillon must have realised it in the same instant as the crowd. He had not thought it possible that the roaring mass could make any more noise than it was already producing, until he heard the screams. The people began to surge away from the airship, bright tatters of burning fabric already beginning to rain down on them, the flames consuming more and more of Painted Lady’s tail. At first there was room for the people to move, but then some began to fall, and in the confusion others trampled and tripped over them, and then there was only a swarming, squirming chaos. By that point the airmen in the gondola must have known what was happening. Quillon saw them exiting the side doors onto the railed balcony. They were moving quickly but without obvious panic, lowering ladders and ropes, some of them climbing down, others taking their chances and jumping. The flames had all but skinned the empennage now, leaving only a burning skeleton outlined against the darkening sky, the spars and struts picked out in a flickering blue-orange nimbus. The flames were steadily working their way forwards, already beginning to lick at the envelope immediately over the rear part of the gondola. The medicines were still being lowered down from the belly-hatch: more hastily now, almost being thrown from man to man, but still with order and discipline. The first truck was almost loaded, the second waiting to move into position. The rear quarter of Painted Lady was beginning to sag as the heated metal lost integrity. Curtana kept appearing at the top of the hatch, lowering crates to the man below her. ‘Get out,’ Quillon mouthed to himself. ‘This isn’t worth dying for.’ Each crate was precious, but a few more wouldn’t make any practical difference to the welfare of the Spearpointers.
Not that Curtana appeared to see it that way. They were lobbing the crates down now, one after the other, but she wasn’t going to leave the job unfinished. For all that he had his injured to look after, for all that he felt protective of Kalis and Nimcha, the only place he wanted to be was back in the gondola, either helping her or throwing her out through the hatch with the crates.
Above the roaring and screaming of the crowd came a new and entirely inhuman sound of distress, an agonised metallic groaning. The rear quarter of the ship was breaking off completely. He watched the spars buckle and snap one by one. Then it was falling, slow as a dream, dropping away into the void beyond the edge of the shelf. He wondered if it might fall onto the Skullboys and for a moment hoped that it would. Then he thought of them writhing in fire and knew there were things he would not wish even on his enemies.
The rest of the airship, suddenly unbalanced, tipped forwards, bringing the gondola closer to the ground. But the buildings were still pinning the envelope in place, at least until the fires took the rest of her. He couldn’t see the hatch now that the angle of the gondola had changed - the crowd was in his way. But the fires were already wreathing much of the envelope and beginning to lick down onto the metal plating and armour of the gondola.
‘Get out,’ he said again.
And then the truck swerved between buildings and the city snatched the burning airship from view.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Now that night was falling the city turned dark, with only the occasional fire or feebly burning light to suggest that anything resembling civilisation still had a hold on Spearpoint. They were driving through what had once been Steamville, before the storm rendered the old boundaries moot. Meroka had borrowed or wrestled a rifle from one of the militiamen and was jabbing it at every shape or shadow they passed. The majority of citizens had retreated indoors with the setting sun, leaving the streets to gangs of nocturnal scavengers and vastly outnumbered militia. Every other house or building appeared to have been gutted by fire, and there were wrecked steam-cars and -carriages on every street. The corpses of dead horses lay rotting under foul blankets, abandoned where they had fallen. There was a vile sewer smell in the air, enough to make Quillon want to gag. Part of him hoped he would never get used to it, because he did not ever want to feel that this was a normal condition to live in.
As far as he could judge, most of Spearpoint was like this. There were a handful of enclaves where elec
tricity could still be made to work, and fewer still where anything like the technology of the Celestial Levels was still theoretically workable. But electricity was power, and power needed to be generated, and that required an able workforce. In the near-anarchy now prevailing throughout much of Spearpoint - the parts that weren’t already anarchic no-go zones or urban battlegrounds on the edge of the Skullboy incursion - it was almost impossible to organise and motivate people to do their old jobs. That might change when the medicines became more widely available, and people no longer had to contend with the debilitating, mind-fogging effects of zone sickness. Until then the best that Steamville could manage was a few isolated blocks where basic power and amenities had been re-established. The Red Dragon Bathhouse was one such place, helped no doubt by the fact that it possessed its own steam supply. Apart from now being the only illuminated building on the street, it hadn’t changed in any visible way when the truck delivered them to the main entrance. There were still people hanging around in front of it, drawn like flies to light. The paper lanterns were still burning, casting pastel ovals across the pale-green frontage. With all the dead horses lying around, Quillon didn’t suppose that tallow was in short supply.
Kargas and the other militia established a cordon around the entrance, allowing the injured men to be stretchered inside, Kalis and Nimcha to enter unmolested, and for the crates to be safely unloaded. Quillon adjusted his coat before he stepped off the truck. There had been enough gloom under the gondola that he had not felt conspicuous, but he was certain now that the bulges of his wing-buds were showing through the fabric. Someone even pawed at his back as he walked up to the bathhouse’s portico, but whoever it was got a rifle butt in their face - possibly administered by Meroka - for their troubles. Quillon hoped they had just been after the coat, rather than curious as to what lay underneath it.