Larklight

by Philip Reeve

  She ordered the poor old servants to set to work and clean the whole house from top to bottom (not that Larklight really has either). When she saw that they were not up to the job, she took charge herself. She tidied away everything that could be tidied. She straightened the chairs and plumped the sopha cushions and made up a bed in the guest room. She polished the looking-glass and dusted the gas mantles, and cleaned the ornate frame of the portrait of Mother3 which hangs in the drawing-room. Then she made me go down to the heart of the house and switch off the gravity generator.

  I had never quite liked the heart of Larklight. When you got right down inside, away from the windows and the living quarters, it was rather sombre and spooky. Odd winds blew at you from nowhere, and sometimes strange noises issued from dusty, disused rooms. The tiles on the floors formed patterns that were too complicated to make out, and seemed to change when you weren’t looking. It all felt very old, somehow, as if thousands of years of time had soaked into those dank stone walls. Which was impossible, of course, for it is less than two centuries since human beings ventured into space.

  The gravity generator was housed in the very centre of the house, in a chamber which we called the boiler room. It was not a proper gravity generator, alas, such as are made in dear old England by Arbuthnot & Co. or Trevithicks. Ours was a thing of antique and unearthly design, all wheels and levers and flutes and cones and giant, spinning spheres, and honestly you would not believe that a house the size of Larklight could require such an enormous and complicated machine just in order to keep everybody’s feet upon the carpets. It kept going wrong too, and great portions of it seemed to do nothing at all, but sat unmoving, covered in the dust of ages. I always presumed that one of Mother’s forebears must have bought it from a Jovian scrap dealer, and I dare say they paid him too much for it.

  I reached out and turned the adjustor dial until the arrow pointed to zero BSG4.

  The generator hissed and sighed and grumbled, and I became weightless and floated out to get enmeshed in all the tangly pipes and ducts which wriggle about the boiler room ceiling (I think they have something to do with the plumbing). By the time I had freed myself and swum back up the stairwells to the living quarters, every muffin crumb and crust of bread which we had dropped those past six months had floated out from its lurking place in the rugs and carpets and the obscurer corners of the wainscoting. Entering the dining-room was like flying through a hailstorm of stale toast. But it was all part of Myrtle’s master plan. Holding down her billowing crinoline with one hand she flapped her way over to the big hutch in the corner of the pantry and let loose the hoverhogs.

  Hoverhogs come from the great gas-world Jupiter, where they scoot about in the upper atmosphere and suck up insects and airborne plants. But they seem to be just as much at home in Larklight, where they scoot about our living quarters and snuffle up drifting crumbs and bits of fluff. They look rather like pigs, except that they are mauve, and about the size of hot-water bottles, and instead of legs they have flippers, which they use to steer. They propel themselves through the air by a method which Myrtle says I am not to mention because it is simply too crude, so I won’t, but if you study the accompanying picture carefully I think you will see what it is.

  The rotten-eggs smell of the hoverhogs’ exhalations was still hanging in the air when I awoke next morning. My bedroom felt cold, but then it usually does, because that side of the house turns away from the Sun during the night hours. For a while I snuggled down under my counterpane and tried not to think about getting up. Then I remembered. Today was the day when Mr Webster was to arrive! I leaped from my bed and tried to propel myself through mid-air to the wash-stand in the corner, forgetting that I had switched the gravity generator back on before I turned in.

  As I lay there on the floor, dazed by my fall, I happened to glance up at the windows. My bedroom curtains are a bit holey where the space moths have nibbled them, and through the holes I could usually see the inky blackness of the aether. But this particular morning the blackness had been replaced by a dull greyish white.

  I opened the curtains and looked out at nothing at all.

  I had heard of fog, and read about it in Sir Walter Scott, et cetera, but I had never heard of fog in space. I heaved the window open and stretched out my hand to touch it. It was springy and slightly sticky to the touch. I could not push my fingers through it. I was sure that the fog Sir Walter Scott wrote about was not like that.

  Suspecting that something odd had happened, I pulled on my clothes as quickly as I could and went hurrying up the stair to Myrtle’s room. She was awake, and just about to break the ice on her wash-stand with a toffee hammer when I burst in on her. Her curtains are in better shape than mine (she darns the holes), so she had not yet noticed the mysterious fog. When I told her about it she said, ‘Oh, what rot; whoever heard of fog in space?’ Then, ‘And can’t you knock, you little beast?’

  I threw back the curtains triumphantly, and sure enough, Myrtle’s window looked out upon the same ghostly, smoky whiteness as my own. The only difference was that her room had already revolved into the sunlight, and so the fog outside glowed with a pearly sheen. It looked very pretty, but as we stood admiring it something moved past beyond it, casting a great spiky shadow.

  ‘Eeeeeeeeeeek!’ exclaimed Myrtle, jumping backwards.

  I felt a little like saying ‘Eeeeeeeeek!’ myself, but seeing Myrtle so afraid reminded me that I was British, and must be brave. I took out my penknife, which I always keep in my pocket, along with a clean handkerchief and a box of lucifers. Opening Myrtle’s casement, I leaned out far enough to dig the blade into the fog. It was a little like cutting through a woollen rug. I sawed away at it while Myrtle hopped nervously from foot to foot in the room behind me, occasionally squeaking, ‘Art, take care!’ and ‘What is happening?’

  Eventually I managed to cut a triangular hole about three inches across. I put the cut-out triangle of fog in my pocket and set my eye to the hole.

  From Myrtle’s window you can usually look down to the roof of my little turret bedroom, then down again, (or is it up?) to all the roofs and windows of the main living quarters. But I could not see any of them. The whole house was being wrapped up like an Egyptian mummy in thick white ropes and ravellings of the clingy fog substance. Creeping about upon these strands, plucking and weaving and spinning out yet more, were …

  ‘Spiders!’ I said, scrambling hastily back into the room.

  ‘Oh, how horrid!’ exclaimed Myrtle, who dislikes almost all types of creepy-crawly (although she does have a soft spot for cheesy-bugs). ‘Art, you must dispose of them! Quickly, arm yourself with a well-furled newspaper …’

  So saying, she thrust a rolled copy of the Times into my hand. I hadn’t quite the heart to tell her that the spiders I had just glimpsed had bodies as large as elephants’, and legs as long as trees.

  ‘I am going to fetch Father,’ I said manfully, closing the window tightly. ‘You must stay here, Myrtle, and try to be brave.’ Then I walked calmly out of her room, and ran pell-mell along the landing to my father’s room. I thought I could hear scrabbling noises coming from the roof above, which made me run faster. I was in such a state of funk by the time I reached Father’s door that I almost neglected to knock before I opened it.

  Father was already out of bed, standing at the web-fogged window in his nightshirt and dressing-gown. ‘Art,’ he cried. ‘Whatever is going on?’

  I was too out of breath to reply at once, and before I could find my voice I heard the front doorbell ring, and the stumping footsteps of an auto-servant going to answer it. ‘They mustn’t open it, Father!’ I gasped.

  ‘It’s quite all right, Art,’ Father promised, pushing past me and out on to the landing. ‘I dare say it is only Mr Webster. He is rather earlier than expected. I presume this vapour outside was generated by his ship’s chemical wedding; a mist from Alchemical Space, no doubt. Fascinating …’

  ‘It’s not mist, Father. It’s web,’ I
wailed, but Father was already hurrying away along the landing to his dressing-room. ‘It’s …’

  A servant, the black-boilered auto-butler we called Raleigh, came stomping up the stairs and his mushroomshaped tin head swung round to address me. ‘A Mr Webster to see your father, master Arthur.’

  I ran to join him at the top of the staircase, staring down into the hall. The front door was standing open. As I watched, an enormous, many-jointed leg reached in through it; then another. The legs were white, and looked as if they had been carved from polished bone.

  ‘Father!’ I shouted.

  ‘Yes, yes, Arthur,’ I heard him call from the dressing-room. ‘I shall be there in a moment. You must ask our visitor to wait in the withdrawing-room. Perhaps he would like to join us for breakfast.’

  Down in the hall, the monstrous spider squeezed its white, prickly ball of a body in through the door with a faint scraping sound. A cluster of black eyes glittered like wet grapes at the front end. Above them a shabby brown bowler hat was perched upon its spines. Beneath, hairy mouth-parts twitched and fidgeted. It tilted itself upwards, and saw me staring down at it.

  ‘The name’s Webster,’ it said, lifting its hat with one huge claw. ‘I’m expected.’

  It spoke in a rather common way, and did not sound friendly. I looked down at the newspaper Myrtle had provided me with. It was a good, thick newspaper, but it didn’t look as if it would have any effect at all on Mr Webster. I cast it aside, said to Raleigh, ‘Throw him out!’ and shouted again, ‘Father!’

  ‘Oh, blast these collar studs!’ said Father’s voice through the half-open dressing-room door.

  I waited on the top stair and watched hopefully as Raleigh clumped back down, machinery grating and clanking inside him until the wax cylinder with the correct phrase on it dropped into place. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ he said, ‘I’m afraid I must ask you to leave …’

  Just then, the gravity failed. Had the generator gone wrong again, or had some sneaky spider crept down into the boiler room and switched the adjustor dial to zero? I clung to the banisters and watched helplessly as Raleigh bobbed into the air like a fat metal balloon. A blow from Mr Webster’s clawed forefoot slammed him against the wall, and his head fell off and went tumbling slowly through the air. Mr Webster heaved himself forwards into the hall, smashing the hat-stand into a spray of up-tumbling splinters. His black eyes were still fixed on me, glittering with triumph. He said, ‘Grab ’em all, lads.’

  More of the white spiders, smaller than Mr Webster but still much, much too big, came pouring into the house. The lack of gravity did not trouble them, for they were just as happy to walk on the walls or ceiling as the floor. They scuttled through the archways of their master’s legs towards the stairs. I flapped my way towards the dressing-room, shouting for Father. He came floating out on to the landing, bare-legged, with his shirt-tails billowing and his collar half on.

  ‘I say!’ he cried, staring past me at the leading spider, which had not troubled itself to climb the stairs but had come straight up the wall instead, its claws digging into the wallpaper. ‘What a magnificent brute! And unknown to science, unless I’m much mistaken! Quickly, Art, fetch me a net and my very largest preserving jar …’

  ‘Mr Webster is a spider!’ I exclaimed. ‘There are lots more spiders downstairs!’

  ‘Now come, Art,’ Father chided, adjusting his spectacles to peer up at the beast as it came creeping towards us across the ceiling. ‘It is hardly a spider. There is some superficial resemblance, to be sure, but you will observe it has at least twelve legs, whereas our earthly arachnidae have only eight …’

  That was as far as he got, for at that moment the creature flung itself down upon him. I kicked it a few times, but it barely noticed, and its only reaction was to lash out with one of those twelve legs, catching me a blow which sent me tumbling back along the landing to the top of the stairs. Other spiders were coming up; I could see their black shadows jerking, all spindly in the gaslight. I heard Father shouting, ‘Arthur, old chap, look to your sister! Keep Myrtle safe; I –’ And then his voice was muffled into silence.

  I looked back. The spider had lifted Father up inside the cage of its legs and was spinning him there like a bobbin, wrapping him from head to foot in those same white winding-sheets which had blinded Larklight’s windows.

  ‘Father!’ I shouted, but there was nothing I could do, only obey his last command. I kicked and flapped and propelled myself back the way I had come, and the landing behind me was full of the skinny, dancing shadows of the spiders. Ahead, our hoverhogs blundered along in a chuffling scrum of pink bottoms and curly tails, squealing piteously. I suppose they had scented the invaders, and broken out of their hutch in a panic. They darted up an air duct, seeking safety in the shadows there, and I would have dearly loved to have hidden there too, but I had promised to save Myrtle, and so I swam onwards.

  Outside the linen closet I saw two servants bobbing about, still struggling with the blankets which they must have been folding when the gravity went off. ‘Spiders!’ I shouted at them. ‘Dust! Get rid of all those cobwebs!’

  I knew they could not stop the invaders, but I hoped they might at least slow them down. As they obediently extended their broom and feather duster attachments and turned out to face the spiders I grabbed hold of the picture rail and hauled myself along it to the door of Myrtle’s room.

  ‘Oh, knock, Art!’ she cried. ‘How many times must I tell you? It is not difficult!’

  Just then a great crashing and clattering came echoing along the landing. I suppose it must have been the sound of the spiders overcoming the two servants I had sent to bar their way.

  ‘Whatever is that dreadful din?’ demanded Myrtle. ‘I suppose you have noticed that the generator has failed again! And where is Father?’

  It was then that I realised our father was most probably dead – that the spiders had eaten him, and would eat us too if we did not make our escape.

  I took Myrtle’s hand. ‘We must make our way to the lifeboats,’ I said, as I dragged her to the door. ‘I am afraid that something rather disagreeable has happened.’

  Chapter Three

  In Which We Make Good Our Escape, but Find Ourselves Cast Adrift Upon The Uncaring Aether.

  It took me somewhat longer than I had hoped to fetch Myrtle from her room, for she insisted upon packing a small carpet-bag with clean linen and a hairbrush, then going back for her diary, in which she is forever scribbling, and then her precious locket, which Mother gave her, and inside which there is Mother’s portrait. As I waited for her at the open doorway I could hear the sounds of the dreadful spiders scattering and clattering the broken pieces of our auto-servants farther along the landing, and I began to realise that not all these brutes were as intelligent as their master, Mr Webster. They must have imagined the auto-servants to be living, armoured creatures, and were searching for meat inside the metal casings! It was lucky for us, otherwise they would have been upon us long before Myrtle was ready.

  Of course, there was no question of going back past them and down through the hall, which was the quickest way to the lifeboat house. Luckily, I had spent many hours exploring the nooks and byways of Larklight, and I knew of an alternative route. I opened a small doorway opposite Myrtle’s room and we swam quickly up a spiral of wooden stairs, strung across with the cobwebs of proper, British spiders.

  Myrtle complained all the way to the top. ‘Whatever are we doing in this horrible place? What has happened, Art? Where is Father?’

  I could not even begin to explain, so I stayed quiet and kept a firm hold on my sister’s hand. The stairway let us out into the library. There was another stairway at the far side which I knew would take us almost to the door of the boathouse, but as we clawed our way along the bookcases towards it Myrtle gave a shriek and I looked up to see one of Mr Webster’s friends scuttling across the library ceiling, having prised open a skylight to climb in. It tried to plunge upon us, but I was wise to its tricks after
what had befallen poor Father, and I propelled Myrtle forcefully out of its way. It tumbled past us, all its long legs flapping and flailing, and I snatched up a great bound volume of journals from a nearby shelf and struck it as hard as I could upon its spiny head. ‘Unk!’ it grunted, and drifted away, curling up its legs, quite insensible.

  As I started to steer Myrtle towards the stairs I noticed that the volume I had chosen was filled with bound-up back numbers of the Times, so I suppose she had been right after all when she told me to arm myself with a newspaper.

  We saw no more of the spiders as we flew down the stairs to the lifeboat house. We knew the lifeboats well, for Father had made us practise in them lest there should ever be a fire at Larklight. They were barrel-shaped objects, squatting on spring-loaded projector plates in the middle of the shadowy boathouse. We checked about nervously for spiders before we heaved open the hatch of the nearer one and pulled ourselves inside.

  ‘Are we to wait for Father?’ wondered Myrtle, but she was looking very solemnly at me, as though she already knew the answer.

  I shook my head.

  ‘Were there a very great number of those awful creatures?’ she asked.

  I nodded.

  ‘And did they devour him?’ Myrtle whispered.

  I shrugged, and shook her away when she said, ‘Poor Art! Then we are orphans!’ and tried to hug me. All I knew was that Father had asked me to keep Myrtle safe, and that I would be failing in my duty if I lingered for a moment longer in this spider-infested house. I strapped myself into one of the lifeboat’s lumpy leather seats and made sure that Myrtle had done likewise before I pulled the lever marked ‘Launch’.

  There was a small window of reinforced Martian crystal in the nose of the lifeboat, and through it I saw the boathouse door slide open. Beyond it, where I had expected space and stars, lay only whiteness. In my eagerness to leave I had quite forgot that Larklight was entirely encased in cobwebs! But it was too late now to stop the launch. Our little vessel shook as machinery grated somewhere beneath us. Then the great coiled spring under the projector plate was released, and we felt ourselves squashed back into our seats as the lifeboat was shot out through the open doorway like a shell from a gun. There was a faint resistance as we struck the cobwebs; then they gave way with a soft tearing sound, and we were through them, and tumbling away from Larklight in a billowing of torn threads.