Mothstorm

by Philip Reeve

  ‘Oh, that,’ replied Dr B., somewhat dismissively. ‘Some foolish missionary has gone missing out there. A garbled distress message from his ship, the New Jerusalem, was picked up by the aetheric telegraph office at the Jupiter station. There was a report that an alchemical flare had been sighted in the portion of space where Georgium Sidus roams, and so the Io Observatory was requested to take a look at the place. No other flare has been seen, however.’

  ‘Great Heavens!’ declared Father, startling us all. ‘Did you say the New Jerusalem? But that is my old friend Cruet’s vessel! The Reverend Shipton Cruet, who was up at Oxford with me – I have spoken of him often, Emily. He went on to study Alchemy, before taking Holy Orders … ’

  ‘I believe Cruet was the unfortunate gentleman’s name,’ said Sir Richard.

  ‘But I thought Shipton had a parish down in Cornwall!’

  ‘I gather he gave that up,’ said Sir Richard. ‘According to the reports, he set out for Georgium Sidus more than a year ago, saying that the Lord had spoken to him in a dream and was calling him to spread the gospel upon that lonely planet. Alas, he was never heard from again, except for the distress message a few months ago. The only words the Jupiter station was able to pick up were: “Great danger … imperative that –”. Then nothing.’

  ‘Oh, poor Shipton!’ said Father.

  ‘It was an ill-advised venture,’ declared Dr Blears in a self-satisfied way which made me wish to punch him on the nose.

  ‘It is his little daughter I feel sorry for,’ said Ulla. ‘She is no older than Art. It was hardly fair of Reverend Cruet to carry her with him into such wild and perilous portions of the aether.’

  ‘Poor Shipton’s wife passed away some years ago,’ said Father. ‘He had no other relations. Perhaps he could not bear to be parted from the child. Oh, I wonder what befell them out there?’

  ‘I expect they were eaten by monsters, or savages, or fell victim to some hideous alien disease,’ said Myrtle, who is always ready to rally round with words of comfort. ‘We must pray that their faith in GOD gave them strength, and that the end came quickly.’

  ‘Well, it cannot have come that quickly,’ I said, ‘or they would never have had time to send out a distress message and light a flare.’

  ‘I cannot imagine who he thought would go to their aid, so far outside the bounds of civilised space,’ observed Dr Blears.

  ‘“Great danger … imperative that –”’ said Mother, rehearsing the words of Reverend Shipton’s final message to herself. ‘Those do not sound to me like phrases from a distress call. Sir Richard, has it occurred to you that perhaps Reverend Cruet was not asking for help, but sending us a warning?’

  ‘Great Scott!’ said Captain Moonfield. ‘You mean to say, ma’am, that there may be a connection between this space-cloud and the disappearance of the missionary gent?’

  ‘It could be,’ Mother mused. ‘It could be that his message was intended to warn us of some peril which is fast approaching us across the interstellar gulf. Perhaps its nature has already become apparent upon Georgium Sidus.’

  ‘Ridiculous!’ said Dr Blears nervously.

  ‘I know only this,’ said Mother, wheeling round to stare at him. ‘Thanks to you, sir, and the Pudding Worm, our Christmas here at Larklight has been quite spoiled. So why should we sit about moping when we might be up and doing? If we proceed swiftly to Georgium Sidus to take a proper look at this space-cloud, we may still be home in time for Christmas Day. And we can pick up another pudding along the way, and perhaps rescue Reverend Cruet and his daughter and bring them home to share it with us!’

  ‘Now, steady on!’ warned Captain Moonfield. ‘I’m as keen to rescue the padre and his girl as anyone, and no one likes Christmas Pudding better than me, but it would take the Actaeon months to reach Georgium Sidus. We would be lucky to be home in time for next Christmas!’

  Mother looked thoughtful. ‘Your ship seemed well built,’ she observed.

  ‘None better, ma’am. The finest in the fleet. But she cannot zip about the heavens in the way you seem to think.’

  ‘Dear Captain Moonfield!’ said Mother. ‘Once upon a time I shared with a certain gentleman a few little alchemical recipes of mine which enabled him to change the course of England’s history in all manner of ways. I often wonder whether I was right to do so – especially when I hear of the nefarious things your Government has been getting up to.’ (Here she paused to shoot Dr Blears a look of such icy disapproval that he hid his face again behind that case of his.) ‘But as it is Christmas, and an old friend is in danger, and as that cloud is so very unsettling, I think it may be time to pass on a few more of my secrets. With a little help from me, your chief alchemist should be able to get us to Georgium Sidus and back quite briskly.’

  ‘What is the lady saying?’ asked Dr Blears, turning for help to Sir Richard. ‘Can she be quite right in the head?’

  But Captain Moonfield, who had more faith in Mother, said at once, ‘Topping! You’re a good sport, Mrs Mumby! I’ll go and tell Mr McMurdo you’ll be coming aboard!’ And he put on his hat and hurried out before Dr Blears could remind him that he would need written orders from the Admiralty before embarking upon a round trip to Georgium Sidus.

  ‘What about me, Mother?’ I cried excitedly. ‘May I come too?’

  ‘Certainly not, Art,’ she said. ‘You must stay here with Myrtle and your father.’

  ‘But I’m coming with you, dearest!’ protested Father. ‘I absolutely insist upon it! Shipton Cruet is my oldest friend, remember – and anyway, I should love to take a squint at the unknown flora and fauna of Georgian space.’

  ‘And I shall come too!’ said Myrtle firmly, much to our surprise. ‘I do not intend to be left here all alone like some old maid. I shall show Mr Jack Havock that I am quite as daring and adventurous as he, even though I have somewhat more regard for the conventions of society.’

  And so it was, dear reader, that just when we had prepared ourselves for a week of over-eating, parlour games and festive indolence, we found ourselves embarking instead upon a space gunboat bound for the Unknown Perils of an Uncharted Sphere!

  Myrtle may say what she likes about our life at Larklight, but it is seldom dull.

  Chapter Four

  A Digression, Wherein Jack Havock Passes a Troubled Hour Aboard His Brig, Sophronia, and Is Set Upon the Right Path by a True Friend.

  And now I think I must leave off telling you of my own adventures for a while, because I am sure you’re all agog to learn where Jack Havock had taken off for, and what had become of him since he stormed out of Larklight in such a fearful bate.

  I am always a bit suspicious of books written in the Third Person; that is to say, the ones where the author is forever telling us, ‘Then Buggins did such-and-such a thing’ or ‘It seemed to Muggins that … ’ or ‘Fuggins felt as if … ’, etc. ‘How do you know what they did or felt?’ is what I always want to ask. But I assure you that what follows is based only on what I heard later from the Sophronias who were there, and it is just as true as everything else in this book.

  (Nipper helped me with the soppy bits.)

  Jack Havock had no idea where he was bound when he first stormed back aboard the Sophronia and shouted to Ssilissa to start the engines. ‘What course, Jack?’ she asked, but he replied rudely, ‘Any course you care for. Just away from here!’

  And so, flapping her aether-wings and spewing alchemical fire from all her exhaust-trumpets, the Sophronia soared up, up, up until she was high above the Plane of the Ecliptic, where the aether is clear and clean and the passing icthyomorphs wear mild and thoughtful expressions, like country vicars.

  ‘Now what?’ asked Mr Munkulus, while the others flew about fixing small leaks and attending to all the bits of the old ship which had been damaged, spoiled or lost during her breakneck journey.

  But Jack gave no reply and issued no orders. He just went up on to the star deck and sat in the thin, chill aether there and watched the unchanging s
tars. He had never felt so lone and lorn, not even when he was a boy-prisoner in the halls of the RXI. He wanted to set course for Venus and fly straight to his family, but he did not want to go there without the serum that would cure them, and how could he get hold of that? Even in the depths of his anger he still knew that he couldn’t assault London and besiege the Institute until they handed the potion over. Against the might of Britain, what would he and his alien crew and their old aether-ship really do? ‘How could I have been so stupid?’ he asked himself. ‘How could I let myself get snared into working for that Empire of Lies?’

  (And while you may think him a jolly poor sport for being so beastly about our empire, you must admit that he had a point: it had been dashed rotten of us to turn his family into trees and not let on.)

  Meanwhile, below decks, his loyal crew was beginning to fear for him, for they knew that the human form is not designed to breathe the thin aether of those lofty seas for long. And they were wondering, too, what they might do to make him feel a bit more chipper. Now and again Mr Grindle would say, ‘Go on, Munkulus, climb up and have a talk with him.’ And Mr M. would say, ‘Can’t you see he wants to be left alone a while?’ And then after a bit Mr M. would say, ‘Go on, Nipper, you go above and see if you can bring him out of his brown study.’ And Nipper would cry, ‘But I don’t know what to say!’ And the Tentacle Twins would trill and twitter and blush mournful shades of lilac and pale blue, and even the tootlings of the hoverhogs seemed to take on a melancholy note.

  At last Ssilissa, who had been very quiet and very thoughtful ever since Jack bellowed at her, said, ‘Oh, you are all sssuch cowards! Let me talk to him!’ And she ran to the companion ladder and up on to the star deck and went to where Jack stood all alone, his back to her, gazing out upon the silences of space.

  ‘Jack, we are all wondering what we are to do,’ she told him.

  ‘And I’m wondering the very same thing, Ssil,’ he agreed. ‘I’m wondering if the best thing is not to just turn pirate again and thump that old empire of theirs until they howl. And no more gentleness this time, neither. No more boarding ships and scaring the crew until they give us what we need. From now on we’ll kill ’em all and take it. There’ll be no quarter given nor asked for. We’ll smash their traders and merchantmen out of the aether, and when they send warships after us we’ll give them broadside for broadside till they knock us down!’

  Ssil said nothing at all to that. She had already noted how Jack had hauled down the British ensign which once flew at the Sophronia’s jack mast and had raised his old flag in its place: the three-eyed skull and crossed white bones on a field of black.

  ‘But what of Myrtle?’ she said at last. ‘Will you ask her to love a pirate and grieve for you when the Government hunt you down at last?’

  ‘She may love whom she pleases,’ said Jack. ‘Did you not see? I gave her the choice to come with us and she chose to stay. She chose to remain with her father, who is a fellow of the Royal Xenological Institute, and her mother, who has been meddling in the affairs of others since the worlds began and gave the British the means to conquer them all in the first place. Very well. Myrtle has chosen. Let her stay with them. She will not care that I am a pirate again. No one will. No one cares for me at all.’

  ‘Oh, that is not true, Jack!’ said Ssil, almost in tears, for had she not loved him very dearly since their earliest acquaintance? ‘We all care about you and would follow you anywhere, into whatever danger!’

  Jack hung his head. Her words had touched him, and he knew that he had been unjust in saying what he had. He knew his crew loved him, and knew that he was lucky to have them. And he looked at Ssil standing there, lit by the light of the distant stars, and he began to think that she really was very pretty, as blue lizards go, with her black-in-black eyes a-swim with tears and her head-spines stirring gently in the tides of that high place. And he said gruffly, ‘Oh Ssil’, and drew her to him, and kissed her.7

  For just a moment Ssil returned Jack’s kiss. Then she broke free and turned away, and when he tried to come after her she flicked her tail at him, which made him keep his distance and also served as a reminder of just how un-alike they were: he an earthly boy, she a lizard hatched from an unknown egg found embedded in the ice of a far-wandering comet.

  ‘No, Jack!’ she said. ‘I love you, but it cannot be. You are an Earthlet, and I do not know what I am, or in what distant part of space or remote era of antiquity my race was born. Myrtle Mumby is the one for you. I knew it the first day she came aboard the Sophronia. Go back to Larklight, Jack, and make things straight with her. I will steer any course you want, and fight at your side against the whole British Navy if you ask it, but first you must see Myrtle once more. You must not leave her with the memory of your anger.’

  She looked lovelier than ever to Jack as she said that, but he knew that she was right. ‘Very well,’ he said. And he took her hand and squeezed it, and they went back inside together, almost stepping on the eye-stalks of Nipper, who had been watching all this through the half-open hatch.

  ‘Ssil is setting us a course back to Larklight,’ he said. ‘The rest of you, clear for action. For if HMS Actaeon is still there, I mean to take, sink or burn her.’

  Now, if this were an Italian opera, that is exactly what would have happened. I mean, the Sophronia would have arrived back at Larklight just as we were all setting out aboard the Actaeon, and Jack would have blasted her to matchwood, never guessing that Myrtle and yours truly were on board. (Not only that, but Myrtle would have got to sing a tragic aria before she expired – it is almost too horrible to contemplate.)

  Luckily for us this is no opera but a True Story, and true stories are never quite as neat as operas. By the time the Sophronia came swooping back down to Larklight’s mooring platform the Actaeon was gone. At first Jack was relieved, thinking that at least he would be able to pour forth his spiritual anguish to Myrtle without having to engage in a messy and inconvenient exchange of cannon fire first. But when he knocked upon the front door, old Raleigh opened it only to tell him that the Mumbys were not at home. And when he pushed past the auto-butler and walked in, crying ‘Myrtle!’, he found that the house was empty.

  But on the hallstand, Mother – unknown to Myrtle or Father or me – had left a little pile of gift-wrapped presents, one for every member of the Sophronia’s crew. And propped against them was a note:

  Chapter Five

  Of Our Voyage to King George’s Star and What We Found There.

  If anyone else had written such a note, it would have been the merest whimsy. Every aethernaut knows that even at alchemical speeds it would take weeks to reach Georgian space. But Mother is not one to let such trifling matters as the Laws of Nature stop her from doing what she pleases, and whichever combinations of elements she caused Chief Alchemist McMurdo to burn in the Actaeon’s great alembic worked like an absolute dream. We fairly roared along the Golden Roads, and I believe we touched speeds at which no earthly ship has ever travelled.

  Captain Moonfield’s crew were very obliging and showed us all over their vessel. I must say, she seemed to me to be a cut above the dear old Sophronia. There were no space-damp planks or rusty cannon upon her ordered, whitewashed gun decks, and certainly none of the washing lines and other clutter which make the Sophronia look so like a flying curiosity shop. Aboard the Actaeon there was a place for everything, and everything was in its place, since the ship was fitted with a gravity generator, which stopped untethered items drifting about in mid-air the way they do aboard the Sophronia. The aethernauts in their tarred straw hats and blue uniforms went about their duties as efficiently as automata, but not without a little friendly joshing and the whistling of merry space shanties, for Captain Moonfield ran a happy ship.

  Up on the bridge, which was a perfect Aladdin’s cave of gleaming brasswork and fitted with all the latest instruments, Captain Moonfield and his officers pored over their charts, breaking off sometimes to listen to the anxious-sounding reports
of Mr McMurdo, which issued from time to time from a speaking tube which ran between the bridge and the wedding chamber. ‘We’re gaeing too fast, Captain!’ the ship’s alchemist would cry in an agitated manner and a strong Scots accent. ‘I dinna ken what this Missus Mumby has poot in mae alembic, but the engines willnae take the strain!’ And then we would hear Mother’s voice say blithely, ‘Courage, Mr McMurdo; we are quite safe, I am almost sure of it.’

  Reassured, I peeked round Captain Moonfield at the charts spread out upon the table, weighted down at their corners with compass dividers and other tools of astral navigation. Naturally, the charts were almost entirely blank, for Georgium Sidus swims in that portion of space where No Man Has Gone Before, and all our knowledge of it comes from the astronomers. They have told us that it is a bluish-green ocean world with a great number of moons. Beyond it, towards the edge of the Sun’s domain, circles another planet: icy Hades with its great companion-moon. There our knowledge ends; there is the outermost limit of the reach of science.8

  You may imagine how excited I felt and how pleased Father was at the prospect of travelling into that wilderness and seeing all the unknown forms of life which must inhabit it.

  As for Myrtle, I believe she spent the entire journey in her cabin, where she sat gazing from a porthole and confiding her innermost feelings about Jack to her precious diary. But so swiftly did Mother convey us across the Heavens that she had barely time to fill one volume before we had arrived. I rose from my bunk on the morning of the day after we had left Larklight and found the golden glow of Alchemy already starting to fade outside my porthole and the wild song of the engines subsiding to a harmonious warbling as the vessel slowed.