Mothstorm

by Philip Reeve

  At that they set up a great hissing and flapping of tails, which I suppose was their way of applauding. I was about to point out that this display of emotion was hardly ladylike, but I was distracted. For behind the crowd of armoured she-Snilth and the meek males who had joined with them upon the quay, I now beheld the ragged forms of sailors and officers from the Actaeon, making their way down from the lofty galleries where they had been put to work. The crowd of Snilth parted to let a few of them through. One of them was Sir Richard Burton, and beside him walked my own dear father!

  17

  ‘Oh Papa!’ I cried and ran to him, though I restrained myself from hugging him, since he was very much befouled with slime and moth dust and I should have feared for my dress. But Ulla hugged Sir Richard and then hugged Father, and I believe she would even have spared a hug for Dr Blears, who stood scowling behind them, except that that gentleman cringed away from her.

  ‘Well, Miss Mumby,’ he said, looking me up and down in a nasty, sneering sort of way. ‘I hope you can see now that I was right to be suspicious of your friend Jack Havock. For are these savages not the very image of the wench who practises Alchemy aboard that ship of his? No doubt she was an agent of the Mothmaker, sent ahead to soften up our empire from within, and Havock is her willing accomplice!’

  ‘Oh, what stuff!’ I declared and went so far as to stamp my foot. (I would never have dared speak to a gentleman in such a fashion before, no matter how provoking he was—what has happened to me this year? I wonder.)

  Just then, I was interrupted by a horrid, hissing voice which seemed to come from all about us. I presume the Mothmaker had installed some form of speaking trumpet in the fabric of this world she had made, and that what we were hearing was her voice, booming commands at us from her distant house. I squeaked and covered up my ears, and yet I could still hear it. Around me, several of the Snilth ladies copied my actions, and one or two had a go at swooning, though they were not yet very good at it, and the equally inexperienced males who tried to catch them were knocked down by their weighty, armoured forms.

  ‘She is ordering more shipss into battle!’ cried Ssoozzs, taking my hand and speaking with great earnestness. ‘The firsst fleet which she sssent out has been defeated by the Children of the Yellow Sun. Now a sssecond is to be disspatched! We are to join it!’

  ‘We shall not go!’ declared one of her friends.

  ‘We cannot!’ hissed a third. ‘It would be mossst unladylike!’

  ‘But you must!’ declared Mrs Burton forcefully. ‘For think: if you disobey her order, she will learn of your rebellion and it will be crushed before it can spread any further!’

  Some of our Snilth friends, seeming to agree with Ulla, turned towards the ships which waited empty at the quay and made as if to start up their boarding ramps. Others, who had travelled further down the road which leads to good manners, hung back and looked wistfully towards their meek little Snilth males, as if hoping that they might protect them. But suddenly, from amid the ragged band of British tars assembled on the ramps and stairs behind the quay, the voice of Mr Cumberbatch shouted lustily, ‘Here’s the chance we’ve waited for! Up and at ’em, lads!’

  The sailors rushed forward in a tattered, howling wave which caught the Snilth quite by surprise. One or two, it is true, snatched up their bagpipes and pumped darts into the oncoming ranks, but most simply dithered. ‘Oh, surely you would not strike a lady,’ I heard Ssoozzs cry, as Dr Blears brandished his fist at her. But I am afraid he would and he did; poor Ssoozzs fell before him, and so did Alsssor, struck down as he stepped nobly forward to defend her.

  ‘But they are on our side!’ I cried, thinking it a very poor show that our sailors should set such an example to creatures who seemed honestly desirous of learning gentleness. But I got no reply; instead, I was snatched up by two sailors as if I were a parcel, and the last sight my Snilth pupils had of me must have been my boots kicking in a perfect froth of crinolines as I was carried aboard the fish-ship.

  ‘Leave me!’ I remember crying, as I struggled against their burly, tattooed arms. ‘My place is with those good Snilth!’

  ‘No, Myrtle!’ said Father. He was running at my side, and indeed it seemed that it was he who was responsible for ordering those tars to abduct me. ‘Your place is with me, and with GOD’s help we may together find Art. Then we must carry out your mother’s instruction.’

  ‘Mother?’ I cried.

  ‘We both heard what she said as she perished, Myrtle,’ said Father, instructing the sailor men to set me down in some out-of-the-way corner of the Snilthish vessel. ‘She told you to go to the Tin Moon.’

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed, struggling to rise. ‘But why?’

  Father gently restrained me. ‘It is one of the oldest and strangest objects known to man. We know that it is artificial, but who built it and what its purpose was, no one has ever understood. I have been thinking a great deal about it while we were captives in this dreadful place, and I wonder if perhaps it may not be something to do with your mother. I think that we shall learn some secret there that will help us to defeat the Mothmaker. And perhaps we may find some clue as to what has become of Emily herself—for I refuse to believe that someone as strong and as wise as she can be truly dead.’

  I strove again to rise, but by then the ship was moving. Mr McMurdo, complaining loudly about the strangeness of the Snilth’s Alchemy, had nevertheless contrived to start the alembic working, and with Mr Cumberbatch at the helm the fish turned cumbrously about and flew into the silver skies outside Snil-ritha. I ran with Father to a window and looked out. Many other ships were also crossing the emptiness at the heart of Mothstorm, and at first, when I saw them, I thought that they had been sent to stop us. But the Mothmaker, it seemed, knew nothing of our leaving. These were warships, soaring out in squadrons through holes that opened for them in the moth walls.

  I looked back then and saw Mothstorm, the house, hanging in the void beyond us, and I fancied that it turned our way, as if it were a great misshapen head and its windows were the Mothmaker’s many eyes.

  ‘Poor Reverend Cruet!’ I said, cowering. ‘We are leaving him behind at her mercy!’

  ‘Alas,’ said Father, ‘would that there were some way we could bring him with us. But he would never have come. The Mothmaker has turned his wits; her hold upon him is too strong.’

  ‘And Alsssor and Ssoozzs and their friends,’ I whispered. ‘Will they be all right? How will they fare without me to teach them manners?’

  ‘They must fend for themselves,’ said Father. ‘And we must fend for ourselves and somehow find our way to Mercury and the Tin Moon.’

  Then Mr McMurdo did something inventive to the ship’s alembic, and the engines fairly howled, driving us at full speed towards the torrent of moths which walled in that world of the silver sun.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Fond Reunions upon the Field of Battle, a Voyage to Mercury Is Proposed and a Gentleman of Our Acquaintance Receives a Kick up the Fundament, Which He Thoroughly Deserves

  Having admired the view awhile, Jack recalled that the Sophronia was powerless and being drawn into Jupiter’s crushing gravitational embrace. He yelled through his speaking trumpet at the nearby ships, until that armed merchantman with our friends the Threls aboard heard him and came swooping to our rescue. The Threls flung out strong, knitted tow-ropes, and soon we were being dragged across the battlefield to the region where the British fleet was regrouping in the orbit of Querp.23

  Even though we were up-wind of Querp, a certain cheesy whiff hung in the aether, but there was so much to look at as we plunged among that shoal of tattered ships that I scarcely noticed it. I was jolly glad to see the many lifeboats being towed in by space tugs, bearing the crews of ships which had been lost during the battle. Aetheric rowing boats were pulling to and fro among the swirls of floating debris, magnanimously rescuing moth-wrecked Snilth. But none of them were Ssilissa or Miss Thsssss, and we had to assume that either they had both peri
shed in the open aether, or that Miss Thsssss had managed to drag her prisoner aboard a passing moth and escape back to the Mothstorm with the rest of the first Snilth fleet.

  So there was an air of melancholy aboard the Sophronia, and indeed there seemed little sense of triumph in the fleet: no huzzahs ringing from ship to ship or bunting decking the yardarms. For all eyes were turned towards that ugly stain which besmirched the aether: the horrid immensity of the Mothstorm! I think every one of us believed that the insects in that swarm would soon be descending again upon the Jovian aether to complete the conquest that their advance guard had begun.

  ‘How can it move so fast?’ asked Charity, watching wide-eyed as the cloud drew nearer.

  ‘Something within it must be moving at alchemical speeds,’ said Jack, who had left his place at the helm to come and stand with us upon the star deck. ‘Some great engine within that cloud is carrying them along with it. They’ll be upon us within the hour.’

  ‘Perhaps Thunderhead will save us again?’ suggested Grindle hopefully.

  Mr Munkulus shook his head. ‘The Snilth have learned to keep out of his reach. As long as they keep well away from Jupiter, he will not be able to harm them.’

  And yet, as we stood and stared, we started to realise that that golden cloud was not heading towards us at all. It was veering away, as if the great general who controlled it had decided that it was not worth throwing more of her minions into the fight for Jupiter and its moons.

  You should have heard the shout of relief which went up from the assembled ships as word spread among the sailors that we were not to face the moths again. ‘We’ve beaten them!’ cried an officer, scooting past the Sophronia in a solar punt. ‘We’ve shown ’em we can sting and they are steering clear of us! Huzzah, and God Save the Queen!’

  But Jack Havock still looked grim. ‘Nip,’ he said, ‘skip below and bring me my copy of Crevice.’

  The land-crab (who was much recovered from his cutlass wound and sported a large patch of sticking plaster on his shell) did as he was asked and was soon back aloft with Crevice’s Almanac clutched in his pincers. Jack took it and leafed through the useful maps which Mr Crevice has provided, showing where each and every planet lies at each season of the year. He frowned a moment at the map marked November 1851– January 1852, then snapped the volume shut and looked up at the rest of us with a strange expression on his face.

  ‘It looks like we have persuaded ’em that Jupiter’s not worth the taking,’ he said. ‘They’re ignoring us and heading for a greater prize.’

  ‘The asteroids?’ asked Colonel Quivering.

  ‘Mars?’ suggested Charity.

  Jack shook his head. ‘The asteroids are barely worth their time, and Mars is right on the far side of the Sun at present. No, the course they’re on will take them straight to Earth, and at the speed they’re travelling I’ll warrant it won’t be long before they get there.’24

  There was silence for a moment as the awful import of his words sank in.

  ‘What are we to do, Jack?’ I asked.

  Before he could reply, a shout went up from our friends the Threls. From the star deck of their ship they had been scanning the heavens for further signs of moth attack, and now they were all pointing excitedly to the distant flanks of the Mothstorm and leaping up and down in a most passionate and warlike manner. We looked at once to see what had so exercised them and beheld a tiny silver dart streaking out of the storm.

  ‘A Snilth ship!’ shrieked Charity.

  ‘And coming this way!’ I declared.

  Of course, we were not the only ship, or even the first, to spot this fresh threat. All about us ships were manoeuvring and running out their guns, hoping to have the honour of getting in the first shot. On a hundred star decks a thousand elegant naval gentlemen unfolded their telescopes and trained them on the approaching ship, and on the Sophronia’s star deck Jack Havock did the same. And all of them saw the same thing at the same instant.

  ‘Hold your fire! Hold your fire!’ the shout ran through the fleet. ‘She flies a British flag!’

  It was true. After a while I managed to persuade Jack to lend me his glass, and I saw it for myself. Upon one of the spines which sprouted from that ship’s strange armour flew a tattered, stained and ragged British ensign.

  ‘It must be the flag from the Actaeon!’ I reasoned. ‘Our friends have stolen that ship and escaped in her! Oh Jack; Myrtle and Mother may be aboard her!’

  The fleet scintillated with signal lamps, all twinkling and blinking to ask the same question: was that fish-ship friend, or was she foe? And back came the flashed response: the officers and men of the Actaeon were reporting again for duty and requested permission to come alongside the flagship!

  ‘You’re right, Art!’ cried Jack, with a laugh. ‘I knew those mothfolk could have no prison which would hold your mother for long! She’ll tell us how to stop this thing! Let’s hurry now and greet them!’

  He hailed the Threls, who relayed his message down to their human alchemist, and soon the Sophronia was being towed through the fleet. A few self-important officers on other ships tried to stop us going near Admiral Chunderknowle’s flagship, but Colonel Quivering barked so fiercely at them that they let us by, and we drew alongside HMS Unflappable as the fish-ship came in.

  Naturally the Unflappable’s snooty officers and prideful tars objected terribly to having an old hulk like the Sophronia moored to them, but Captain Moonfield stood beside the admiral on their poop, and he must have explained who we were. They grudgingly ran out a gangplank and let us go aboard, with Colonel Quivering and his antiquated warriors marching behind us like an honour guard.

  Meanwhile, on the Unflappable’s other side, the great Snilth fish drew up, and down her gangplank came walking Mr Cumberbatch, Dr Blears, Midshipman Bradstreet and several other of the Actaeon’s officers, along with the Burtons and my own dear father and Myrtle.

  ‘Father!’ I cried, bounding across the Unflappable’s star deck to greet him, and the fact that the flagship had its own Trevithick generators and operated under British Standard Gravity seemed not to matter for a moment: I leapt into his fond embrace as if there was no gravity at all. ‘What ho, Myrtle!’ I said, and I felt quite pleased to see her again, which just goes to show that it is true what they say: absence really does make the heart grow fonder.

  Yet still I kept searching among the faces of those who had emerged from the fish-ship, and still I did not find the one I was looking for. Where, I wondered, was Mother? And a Dreadful Sense of Foreboding began to steal over me.

  ‘Oh Art!’ said Father. ‘I am so relieved to find you safe and well!’

  ‘But where is Mother?’

  ‘We had feared you lost upon Georgium Sidus … ’

  ‘Well, I was, but it is quite all right. Where is Mother?’

  ‘Art,’ said Myrtle, with two tears starting to cut channels through the silvery moth dust which smeared her cheeks. ‘I am afraid that you must brace yourself for some rather terrible news … Our mother is dead.’

  You may well imagine how this affected me! I reeled backwards, and might have fallen had Jack not supported me. But before I could speak, Father assured me, ‘Don’t worry, Art! We have reason to believe that her condition may be only temporary!’

  ‘Temporarily dead?’ cried Dr Blears, turning from a hurried conversation with Admiral Chunderknowle to peer quizzically at us through his spectacles. ‘What mawkishness is this?’

  ‘Before the Mothmaker overcame her,’ said Myrtle, ‘she told me that we must travel to the Tin Moon.’

  ‘We presume that she means the Tin Moon of Mercury,’ Father explained excitably. ‘It is one of the oldest and most mysterious bodies in the Solar System, and perhaps it is connected somehow with your mother and her ancient race. We must do as she said and travel there with all haste. If we can restore her to life, I’m certain she will be able to think up a way to defeat the Mothmaker.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ objected Dr B
lears. ‘Balderdash and flapdoodle, my dear sir! We cannot afford to dispatch a ship on some wild-goose chase to Mercury, when every last one is needed to defend England! For Admiral Chunderknowle has just told me that it is for Earth that those Godless insect-herders are now bound, and I have no doubt they mean to assail the very heart and seat of the Empire! Besides, it would take months to get there!’

  ‘Not in the Sophronia,’ I cried angrily. ‘Why, she has been all the way to—ulp!’

  I added the last bit, you understand, because Jack abruptly clamped his hand over my mouth. He saw at once what I in my grief and anger had neglected to think of: that if Dr Blears knew of the speeds the Sophronia could now reach, he would commandeer her at once and go flying off to Earth, or at least demand that we hand over the special mix of alchemical powders which had been Ssilissa’s Christmas present from Mother.

  ‘What Art means to say,’ he explained, ‘is that he’s sure the Sophronia could be spared, if only you could loan us an alchemist to work her.’

  ‘What!’ growled Dr Blears, looking most displeased to see Jack there. ‘I thought you had an alchemist already, Captain Havock. A blue creature, as I recall, of the very type who now threaten us all!’ He turned to the Unflappable’s officers and marines, crying, ‘Clap him in irons! He’s a rebel and a pirate, and his alchemist is a blue-skinned spy for the Snilth!’

  ‘I say,’ exclaimed Captain Moonfield (who was standing near and heard him), ‘that’s not fair, sir! Jack Havock saved my bacon out there in the trans-Georgian aether, and Ssil’s a sweet girl, quite above suspicion!’