"Tumblers," Theo muttered.
"What, those silver things?" asked Wren. "No, those are bombs. You can tell by the way they go off, bang! You told me you used to fly Tumblers."
Theo nodded.
"You mean those things have pilots? But they'll be blown to bits!"
286
Another nod.
"Then how come ... ?"
"How come I'm not dead?" Theo shook his head and would not look at her. "Because I'm a coward," he said. "I'm a coward, that's why.
The Requiem Vortex prowled through the veils of smoke and ash that hung above the coast. Panic had broken out among the clustered towns and cities there, who all assumed the Green Storm fleet had come for them. Some were running for the shelter of the desert; some inflated buoyancy sacs and splashed into the sea; some took advantage of the confusion to try to eat their neighbors. Benghazi and Kom Ombo launched clouds of fighter airships, which were torn apart by the faster, fiercer Fox Spirits and by flocks of Stalker birds.
A gas cell had exploded somewhere near the Requiem Vortex's stern, and spidery Mark IV Stalkers were crawling around on the sheer sides of her envelope, training extinguishers on the blaze. There was damage to the steering vanes too, and frantic voices echoing from the speaking tubes claimed that the rear gondola had been destroyed.
The Once-Borns on the bridge were pale and tense; Grike could see their faces shining with sweat in the hellish light that blazed in through the windows. Beneath her steel helmet, Oenone Zero was weeping with fear. The radio crackled out distress calls and damage reports from other ships: The Sword Flourished in Understandable Pique had been rammed amidships and was going down in flames; the
287
Autumn Rain from the Heavenly Mountains was rudderless and drifting into the flank of Benghazi. Someone aboard a doomed corvette kept screaming and screaming until the signal suddenly cut out.
The Stalker Fang ignored it all. Standing calmly beside the helmsman, she gazed out at Cloud 9 as it drifted slowly away from its parent city.
"Follow that building," she said.
The ships that had attacked Brighton had quickly veered away to tackle other targets, but the raft resort's troubles were not over. Its engine room was in flames, and half its paddle wheels were wrecked. It had slipped its moorings as the attack began and was now adrift, trailing black smoke and saffron flame, leaking burning fuel. Everyone who could have taken charge was either dead or at the mayor's party.
In all the confusion, no one paid any heed to the alarms jangling inside the Pepperpot, not until the Lost Boys overpowered the last of their guards and came swarming out to join the fun. From the engine rooms and the sewage farms of the undertier and the stinking filter beds beneath the Sea Pool, the slaves of Brighton saw their chance and rushed to join them. Arming themselves with wrenches and pool rakes and meat tenderizers, they swarmed up the city's stairways, looting antique shops and setting fire to art galleries. The good-natured actors and artists of Brighton, who had spent so many dinner parties agreeing with each other about what a terrible life the slaves led and organizing community art projects to show how they shared their pain, fled for their lives,
288
spilling out of the city aboard overloaded airships and listing motor launches.
Indeed, so much was happening, and so dense a pall of dirty smoke hung above the battered city, that hardly anyone had noticed Cloud 9 was no longer attached to the rest of Brighton.
289
29 The Unexploded Boy
***
wren and Theo, waiting for the battle to subside, sat down in the shadow of the big statue, their backs to the plinth that it perched on. A few glasses of punch had been abandoned there earlier in the evening, and Wren drank one. How long had this nightmare been going on? Five minutes? Ten? It seemed a lifetime. Already she had learned to tell the high yammer of the Ferrets' machine cannon from the throatier stutter of the Storm's guns. The rockets were harder to tell apart, but she always knew when a Tumbler went off, because Theo would jump and hunch his shoulders and squeeze his eyes shut.
"Do you want to tell me about it?" she asked. "These Tumbler things?"
"No."
"You might as well. There's not much else to do."
290
Theo flinched at the distant sounds of another Tumbler salvo exploding on the skirts of Kom Ombo. Then, in a soft voice that she could barely hear over all the noise, he told her of his brief career as a flying bomb.
"It was back at the start of the Battle of the Rustwater," he said. "Enemy suburbs had broken through all along the line, and the fleet was falling back toward the western borders of Shan Guo. None of us were expecting to go into action. Then the order came in; this place called the Black Island had to be held for a few hours more, because some surgeon-mechanic from the Resurrection Corps was digging up a valuable artifact that mustn't be allowed to fall into townie hands...."
Theo could still feel in his belly the sudden, sickening motion of the carrier going about, and the panic in the companionways as Tumbler pilots scrambled for their ships.
"The waiting was worst," he said. "Strapped into our ships, hanging there in the racks in the Tumbler bay with the doors open under us. You could see the guns going off below. Then the order--'Tumblers away!'--and we went for it."
They went for it, releasing their clamps, and then the long fall, down and down, slaloming between the lovely, deadly blasts of enemy rockets. The earliest Tumblers had been automatic, fitted with Stalker brains, but Stalker brains couldn't zigzag through ground fire the way a human pilot could, and why waste Stalkers when there were young men like Theo, eager for glory and ready to die in the name of The World Made Green Again?
"The target was a city called Jagdstadt Magdeburg," he told Wren. "I hit somewhere on the middle tiers; I thought I
291
was heading for an armored fort, but it turned out to be just a thin plastic roof over some sort of farming district. I landed in a great deep pile of silage bales. I suppose that's why I wasn't killed, just knocked out for a minute or two. I suppose that's why the Tumbler didn't blow. They're supposed to go off automatically when you hit, but there's a manual override in case of a failure like mine, and I reached for it as soon as I came to, but I couldn't... I couldn't bring myself to ..."
"Of course not," said Wren softly. "You'd missed your target. You couldn't blow up workers. Civilians. It would have been murder."
"It would," said Theo. "But that's not what stopped me. I just didn't want to die."
"Bit late to decide that, wasn't it?"
Theo shrugged. "I just sat there and cried. And after a while, they came and defused my Tumbler and dragged me out and took me away. I thought they were going to kill me. I wouldn't have blamed them. But they didn't.
"All my life I'd been hearing stories about the cruelty of the barbarians, the way they tortured prisoners, and maybe some are like that, but these ones tended me like I was one of their own sons. They fed me, and explained how sorry they were that they'd have to sell me as a slave. They couldn't afford to keep Green Storm prisoners aboard, you see, for fear we'd band together and revolt. But I wouldn't have revolted. They'd made me realize how wrong the Storm are. How stupid it all is, this fighting."
He looked up at Wren. "That's why I gave up on the Storm. And now, when they catch me and they find out what I am and what I did, they're going to kill me."
292
"They won't!" promised Wren. "Because we won't let them catch you! We'll get away somehow...."
A growl of engines drowned her out. She stood up cautiously and looked out across the gardens. A huge, battle-scarred white airship was shoving her way in through Cloud 9's rigging.
"Great gods!" said Theo, looking over Wren's shoulder. "That's the Requiem Vortex] That's her ship!"
Snub-nosed projectors mounted on the airship's engine pods swiveled this way and that, effortlessly blasting any Flying Ferret that came within range. The Visible
Parity Line and the Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka-Dot Machiney were smashed apart by rockets, showering shreds of balsa wood and singed canvas over the crowds who cowered on the Pavilion lawns. An ornithopter called Is That All There Is? fluttered around the airship like a gnat pestering a dinosaur, but it could not pierce the reinforced envelope, and after a few seconds a flight of Stalker birds found it and ripped it into kindling. Damn You, Gravity! plunged toward the airship's gondola in a desperate attempt to ram it, but more rockets battered it aside, and it went plowing through the flank of one of Cloud 9's outer gasbags. The Pavilion shuddered, the screaming guests on the lawn began to scream still louder, and the whole deck plate tilted steeply as some of the gas that had been supporting it went spewing into the night.
Orla Twombley and the other surviving Ferrets, realizing that they could do no more, turned tail and sped away.
Wren shielded her face against the dust and smoke as the Requiem Vortex swung her engine pods into landing position
293
and touched down on the lawns of Cloud 9. Party guests who had fled the Pavilion earlier now came fleeing back past Wren and Theo's hiding place, or stood their ground and fashioned flags of surrender out of shirtfronts and napkins. Redcoats hared through the shrubbery flinging down their weapons and trying to rid themselves of their fancy uniforms. Machine guns nattered among the ornamental palms. From the open hatches of the warship's gondolas spilled spiky armored shapes.
"Stalkers!" yelped Wren. She'd never seen a Stalker, had never really quite believed in Stalkers, but something about the way those armored figures moved was enough to convince her that they were not human and that she very much wanted to be far away from them. She started to run, calling out to Theo to follow her. "Come on! We'll cut back through the Pavilion to the boathouse!"
The stairways of the Pavilion were deserted now. Wren and Theo climbed them quickly, stumbling over abandoned party hats and trampled bodies. On the sundeck where Shkin had sold her to Pennyroyal, Wren slipped and went crashing down. The Tin Book, jammed in her waistband, grazed her spine and dug painfully into her bottom. She thought she could feel blood running down inside her trousers as Theo helped her up. She wondered if she should try to get rid of the book, or surrender it to the Storm and beg for mercy. But the Storm had no mercy, did they? She'd seen pamphlets and posters since she'd been in Brighton, headlines in the foreign-affairs pages of the Palimpsest about MORE MOSSIE ATROCITIES and FURTHER BEASTLINESS BY THE GREEN STORM. If they found that Wren had the Tin Book ...
294
From the entrance to the ballroom, they looked back across the lawns. The battle was over, and Stalkers were moving about down there, herding crowds of captive guests ahead of them. "I wonder if Shkin's down there," said Wren.
"And what about Boo-Boo?" said Theo as they pressed on, crossing the ballroom, where the lights on the walls and ceiling had failed and broken glass crunched underfoot. "What about Pennyroyal?"
"Oh, he'll be all right." said Wren. "I bet it was him who brought them here. Shkin said he was looking for a buyer for the Tin Book. That's just the sort of thing Pennyroyal would do, sell his own city for a profit...."
They passed the film room, where the projector was still rattling away. By its light Wren glimpsed a movement on the spiral staircase. "Cynthia!" shouted Theo.
Their fellow slave came running down the stairs, her party costume flickering softly with the reflected colors of the film loop. What she had been doing up there Wren could not imagine. Perhaps she had got flustered and run the wrong way when everybody was fleeing from the ballroom. Or maybe Mrs. Pennyroyal had sent her back to fetch something; she was carrying something shiny in one hand.
"Cynthia," said Wren, "don't be frightened. We're leaving. We'll take you with us. Won't we, Theo?"
"Where is it, Wren?" snapped Cynthia.
"Where's what?" asked Wren.
"The Tin Book, of course." Cynthia's expression was one that Wren didn't recognize: cold and hard and intelligent, as if her face were under new management. "I've already checked Pennyroyal's safe," she said. "I know it was you who
295
took it. I've known you were up to something ever since you came aboard. Who are you working for? The Traktionstadtsgesellschaft? The Africans?"
"I'm not working for anybody" said Wren.
"But you are, Cynthia Twite," said Theo. "You're with the Green Storm, aren't you? You killed Plovery and the others. It was you who cut Cloud 9 adrift!"
Cynthia laughed. "Ooh, you catch on fast, African!" She made a polite curtsy. "Agent 28, of the Stalker Fang's private intelligence group. I was rather good, wasn't I? Poor, silly Cynthia. How you all laughed at me, you and Boo-Boo and the rest. And all along I have been working for a different mistress, for one who will Make the World Green Again." She held her arm out stiffly toward Wren. The shiny thing in her hand was a gun.
Numbly, Wren fetched the Tin Book out from beneath her tunic and held it up for Cynthia to see. Cynthia snatched it and stepped back. "Thank you," she said, with a trace of her old sweetness. "The Stalker Fang will be delighted."
"She sent you here to find it?" asked Wren, confused. "But how did she know ... ?"
Cynthia beamed. "Oh, no. She believed it was still in Anchorage. She sent an expedition to the place where Pennyroyal said Anchorage went down, but there was nothing there. So I was placed aboard Cloud 9 to spy on him, in case he knew what had really become of it. I could hardly believe my luck when I heard that you had brought the Tin Book itself aboard! I sent a message to the Jade Pagoda at once, and orders came back telling me to leave it safe in Pennyroyal's office until help arrived. It is important. It may
296
be the key to a final victory. My mistress does not want it copied, or sent by the usual channels. She is coming to fetch it in person. That is her ship out there on the lawn." She looked down fondly at the Tin Book. "She will reward me well when I give it to her."
The gunfire from the gardens had ceased. Wren could hear voices out on the sundeck, shouting orders in a language she didn't recognize. She stepped toward Cynthia, wary of the gun in the other girl's hand. "Please," she said, "you've got the Tin Book. Can't you let us go? If the Storm catch Theo ..."
"They will kill him like the coward he is," said Cynthia calmly. "I'd do it myself, but I'm sure my mistress will want to question you both first and find out how much you know about the book."
"We don't know anything about it ' ." cried Theo.
"That's your story, African. You may decide to change it once the inquiry engines get to work on you."
"But Cynthia ..." Wren shook her head, still numb with the shock of Cynthia's betrayal. "I don't suppose Cynthia's even your real name, is it?"
The other girl looked surprised. "Of course it is. Why shouldn't it be?"
"Well, it's not very spy-ish," said Wren.
"Oh? What's wrong with it?"
"Nothing, nothing ... just--"
A bulging suitcase, dropped from the gallery above, hit Cynthia on the head and burst open, scattering gold coins, jewelery and valuable-looking bits of Old Tech. "Oh--" said the girl, crumpling. Her gun went off and punched a hole in
297
the ceiling somewhere above Wren's head. Theo grabbed Wren and tugged her backward, afraid that there might be more luggage to follow, but when they looked up, they saw only the round, pale face of Nimrod Pennyroyal peering down over the banisters.
"Is she out?" he asked nervously.
Wren went to stoop over Cynthia. There was blood in the girl's hair, and when Wren touched her neck she could feel no pulse, but she didn't know if she was feeling in the right place. She said, "I think she might be dead."
Pennyroyal hurried down the stairs. "Nonsense--it was only a playful little tap. Anyway, she's an enemy agent, isn't she? Probably would have killed the pair of you if it weren't for my quick thinking. I was just upstairs, gathering a few valuables, and I heard you talking." He chuckled as he prized
the book from Cynthia's fingers. "What a stroke of luck! I thought I'd lost this. Now come along, help me gather up the rest."
Wren and Theo began to do as he asked. Pennyroyal, perhaps afraid that they would try to rob him, picked up Cynthia's gun and held it ready while he stuffed coins and statuettes and ancient artifacts back inside the case and sat on the lid to force it shut. The shouting outside drew nearer as Green Storm soldiers, attracted by the sound of the gunshot, converged on the ballroom. "There!" said Pennyroyal. "Now, ho for the boathouse! I tell you what, if you help me carry this lot, you can both come with me. But hurry up!"
"You can't just leave," protested Wren, trailing after him through the listing corridors while Theo stuggled along with
298
the suitcase. "What about your people?"
"Oh, them," said Pennyroyal dismissively.
"What about your wife? She's probably a prisoner by now...."
"Yes, poor Boo-Boo ..." Pennyroyal pushed open a door and led them out into the gardens at the rear of the Pavilion. "I shall miss her, of course--terrible loss--but time is a great healer. Anyway, I can't risk my neck trying to rescue her. I owe it to the reading public to save myself, so that the world can hear my account of the Battle of Brighton and my heroic stand against the Storm...."
They hurried through the gardens, Pennyroyal in the lead, Wren and Theo taking turns with the suitcase. The Storm's troops had not reached this part of Cloud 9 yet; nothing moved among the cypress groves and pergola-covered walks. Smoke drifted from the wreckage of the Flying Ferrets' aerodrome, but the Green Storm must have thought Pennyroyal's boathouse an unworthy target, for it still stood unharmed among the trees, bulbous and comical, specks of firelight glinting on its daft copper spines.