by Philip Webb
We tumble over the lip of the hollow and down into a pit of slurry so shattering cold I can’t even find the breath to yell. We help each other up onto a little island and lie there gasping. It takes me a while to recognize where we must be – the maze of slag heaps and mud channels that leads to the river. The south side.
I peer back at the crater glow as it shivers up into the sky, and I stroke my face, feeling for wounds.
“I didn’t even feel any heat,” I go.
He pulls at the gloop hanging from his arms. “Thermal-protection gel – the shuttle makes it in an emergency reentry. I had to cover myself in it before I could get anywhere near you. Without it, you’d have gone up in smoke.”
“But where’s the rest of the shuttle?”
Peyto gapes at me like I’ve lost the plot. “There is no shuttle left, Cass. It reassembled when the damage went critical, making the stuff it needed out of what was left. But you were burning up all the way down. You were lucky it lasted as long as it did.”
I look at the glowing mess that was the shuttle, and it hits me. Cos there ain’t no way back to Wilbur now, is there? But then I remember Halina – the shuttle she came down in … And the way my hope hangs on a thread nearly makes me sick again.
Peyto winces as he pulls off his jacket.
“You’re burned! Let me see!”
“It’s OK.”
“Let me see!”
He hauls me to my feet. “We don’t have time, we have to get away from here. The whole of London would have seen you come down …”
He takes my hand and drags me along a trench. “The tunnel is close by – we were heading that way to take the dinghy.”
“You knew I was coming?”
He frowns at me. “No, how could we? We just saw this fireball in the sky hurtling toward us. I mean, I saw it change shape and that’s when I knew it was the shuttle. It was trying to make a controlled descent.”
“You call that controlled?”
I sneak a sidelong glance at him and there’s a look on his face. Disbelief that I’m even alive.
“Where’s Erin?” I go.
“She’s around here somewhere – we were all split up in the rush to get to you. Maleeva’s with us, your father, too. I can’t call out – there are troops this side of the river now, lots of them. All we can do is head for the tunnel. I think it’s this way …”
I stumble after him, trying to get my head in gear. How long was I up there, on the ship? An hour? Two hours? Something’s not right – I feel like I’ve slipped through time … My watch face is cracked and filled with mud. I check the countdown cuff – three bands left. Already the third band is shorter than the others. Less than three days to go …
“Peyto, wait! How did you get back? We must be at least twenty miles from that Vlad HQ.”
“Maleeva – she carried me on her back practically the whole way. I’d never have kept up with her otherwise. It was chaos – loads of soldiers heading back to the Vlad base. By the time we got to the scav zone, it was deserted, all the bridges unguarded. When we got to Elephant and Castle, we thought we’d be too late, but the Okhotnik guards were just unconscious – hanging limp in their frames. All the scavs were getting ready to leave in case the Vlads came back. We found Erin and your dad, and came here to try and cross the river again.”
“The other shuttle … You know where it is?”
“Not for certain. Arbor Low – that’s where my mother was buried. We found maps in the museum. It’s about two hundred miles north of here. Her shuttle has to be close by.”
He grabs me down into the shallows as a helicopter sweeps overhead. Its searchlights pan across the mud holes, then it pulls away. Somewhere, over the clatter of blades, I can make out men shouting, dogs barking.
“It’ll be light soon,” mutters Peyto. “Too dangerous to cross the river. Come on!”
He snatches my hand and drags me on. Ahead, I recognize the shape of one of the slag heaps, the way it’s nearly tipping over, the loops of barbed wire snagged in the overhang. The tunnel mouth is so close now – I can see where runoff water from the bog is gathering toward it.
Then the mud gives way and, as we slither down toward the tunnel mouth, I see Maleeva and Erin and Dad all lowering the dinghy into the water.
Somehow they drag us out. Dad hovers over me, heaving with the effort, all the mud and water streaming off his coat. For a moment I only see his dark face and I figure he’s livid. Cos I ain’t got Wilbur with me.
But then he grabs me into his arms and hugs me so hard I reckon he’s gonna squeeze the life out of me.
His voice is hoarse. “I thought I’d lost you. I thought I’d lost you both.”
“Wilbur – he’s alive, Dad. I know he is. And we’re gonna get him back, I swear.”
“You came back,” he goes. “You came back to me.”
There’s some quip on my tongue, something about who else am I gonna come back to? Except I can’t say it. And when we pull back, it’s only cos we’re as soaked as sewer rats that you can’t see the tears. Still we stare at each other. And it is pretty full-on amazing how we’ve ended up here, in each other’s arms. My dad and me.
And it’s Erin that breaks the spell between us. “Those troops will be here any minute,” she says.
Maleeva points back to a cluster of flashlight beams near the top of the slope. “They’re here now.”
THE LODESTAR
We launch the dinghy and pile in. Peyto and Maleeva take the paddles, steering us deeper into the tunnel. For a minute or so, no one speaks as we slip along toward the north bank. Behind us I watch the bobbing flashlights at the tunnel entrance, but the barking gets fainter – there ain’t no one following, so maybe they didn’t see us or the dinghy …
At the far end, Peyto anchors up with the grapple hook. We all look at each other. From here it’s either take our chances on the surface or carry on into the tunnel system. I look into the black reaches of the old Underground. Even with the whole Vlad army searching for us, I ain’t got a good feeling about hiding out down there.
“We need to figure stuff out,” I go. “There ain’t no point charging off into the North Wilds to find the other shuttle till we know what we’re gonna do. We don’t even know for sure where it’s hid.”
Erin shakes her head. “No, first I want to know what happened on the ship.”
For a moment I stare at her, and it hits me that what she wants more than anything in the world right now is what the ship wants. Otherwise, in less than three days, all her family’s gonna die. Cos the ship needs all forty-nine flinders on board to fix itself. Which means she needs Wilbur to stay where he is. She holds my gaze and I know I’m right.
Peyto goes, “What’s the matter?”
“The ship took hold of Wilbur for a sleeper,” I answer, not taking my eyes off Erin.
“It’s just till the ship’s repaired,” goes Erin.
“No, it ain’t! It grew some tentacles and swallowed him right up, and it ain’t gonna let him go without a fight. It wants all forty-nine sleepers up there full-time. It’ll repair the ship and keep you all there, the way it’s always kept you there.”
“How do you know that?”
“Cos it told me, Erin. It reckons with all the sleepers up there, it can stop wars and illnesses and every bad thing that happens! It ain’t just a bit broken, it’s mad! And while we’re at it, Halina told me never to trust it neither. She was pretty pigging clear about that.”
“We have to think calmly,” goes Peyto. “Maybe there’s a way to bargain with it.”
“Oh, yeah? I can tell you, it ain’t in the bargaining mood. It used the Okhotnik to force me off the ship! That don’t sound like grounds for haggling to me!”
“But we can’t leave Wilbur up there,” goes Peyto.
“Too pigging right.”
“Maybe it’ll let Wilbur go if we find another sleeper.”
“No way. It’s got some cracked idea that Wilbur’s a perfe
ct match for that flinder. It said he was The One. And now that he’s gone and swallowed the thing, it ain’t exactly gonna be easy to do a handover.”
“So what do you suggest, then, Cass?” says Erin. And her voice is cold.
“We’ve got to fight it!”
“Are you crazy? Just how exactly are you going to win?” goes Erin. “In case you’ve forgotten, Halina fought it and lost! If you go up against it now, then everyone on the ship will die! Including Wilbur! And what if it’s right about all forty-nine flinders holding back wars? If the flinders are destroyed, your world is going to be even more terrible than it is already!”
For a moment, we’re all too stunned to say a word. I ain’t on board with the whole “end of the ship, end of the world” idea. Sounds like a smoke screen to me. To make us do what it wants. But what if I’m wrong? I’ve seen the flinders’ power all right. Maybe if they ain’t up there overseeing things, the world will blow itself to bits.
“There has to be a way,” says Peyto at last. “We have to offer it what it wants. It needs all the flinders if it’s going to repair itself. Otherwise it will crash.”
“You’re sure about that?” I go. “It ain’t just bluffing?”
“Positive,” says Erin. “There’s absolutely no doubt – from a planet this size, the ship should’ve set the orbit at something like four hundred miles. But with the bridge damaged, the orbit must have been degrading, maybe just by tiny amounts, but over thousands of years, that adds up. The ship’s less than thirteen miles now – that’s critically close to the atmosphere. It’ll fall out of the sky unless it repairs its navigation systems.”
I look at Peyto and he nods.
“We have to find the other shuttle and go back to the ship, no matter what happens when we get there,” he goes at last. “We’ve got no choice.”
Dad ain’t saying a word. He don’t meet my gaze. It’s like he’s shutting all this out, cos he’s only just found out about the ship and the shuttle and Gramps getting killed. And now what with Wilbur … It’s too much for him.
“Every second we argue about it is a second wasted,” adds Erin.
I stare at the floor of the dinghy. And I know they’re right, but I don’t like it. Cos if we give the ship what it wants, then Wilbur ends up staying, asleep – forever for all I know.
Then Maleeva speaks. “We can still try to bargain with it when we get there.”
“Oh, yeah?” I snap. “Who’s gonna volunteer to take Wilbur’s place, then?”
She swivels her head to face me. “I will. I’ve got nothing to lose.”
No one says a word.
I stare at her, and of course there’s no way to read her. She’s a total blank.
At last she nods toward the Underground system. “Maybe we can cross London in these tunnels, lose the soldiers, then make our way north.”
Dad shakes his head. “We’ll never make it overland to this Arbor Low in time. It’s two hundred miles. Besides, the Vlads will have all the roads covered. The only way is by sea.”
I gawp at him. “In this? I’d rather take my chances on the road.”
“We can float down the river to Gravesend. There are trading villages I know down there. Maybe we can get passage with one of the fishing boats.”
“Then what?” goes Peyto. He pulls a torn map from his pocket and lays it out on his lap – the coastline of England. “I mean, even if we make it round here to the top of something called …” He peers at the map. “… the Wash, it’s still a hundred miles overland.”
“No, that’s an old map. That’s the way the coast used to be before the seas rose. London has been protected with the Great Barrier, but lots of land ended up underwater, especially places around the Wash. I wouldn’t know where the coast is now – maybe the sea’s gone in as far as Lincoln. Then by land it’s maybe fifty miles, or less.”
That clinches it. It ain’t exactly the most promising plan in the world, but I know there ain’t a better one right now. Each of us nods in turn.
Carefully we drag the dinghy up the slope to the north bank. I scout about a bit, looking for signs of Vlad troops. There’s a proper commotion going on south of the river – I can see flashlights flickering near the water, and there’s a helicopter searchlight hovering over where the shuttle crashed down. There’s still a red glow rising from the slag mounds.
It don’t take long to manhandle the dinghy through the sludge to the river’s edge. No one says a word. We just pile in, push out into the current, and drag the tarpaulin sheet over our heads. For ages, we hug the bank, trying to blend into the drifts of junk. It’s way too dangerous to go any deeper cos we’ll stick out too much to the guards manning the bridges. For what seems like hours we limp downriver with the current.
Finally, as it starts to get light, I peel back the tarpaulin. We’re flitting past the edge of an abandoned dock. Cliffs made from rusted-together ship containers soar above us – the nesting place of a million seabirds. The far bank is gray in the morning mist, but I can see the towers of cranes and unscavved oil refineries, and a couple of half-sunk tankers.
“No bridges,” says Maleeva at last. “Maybe we should head to the south side before the river gets too wide to cross.”
Everyone nods, and so we paddle out to where the river is quickest, and pretty soon we’re flying along with just two sticks and a bit of rubber between us and a watery grave.
I just sit in the prow of the dinghy, under the tarpaulin, looking out for danger. And it’s a hairy old business just trying to keep us from tipping in the drink. A couple of times for sure I reckon we’re headed for one of the huge concrete-and-steel islands that rear up ahead, but somehow we scrape a way between them.
After that, the river widens right out into a clear stretch and the banks are too far away for anyone stationed there to see us. We’re all wet and freezing and I’m mighty relieved when the old man pipes up that we’re pretty close to Gravesend and that we should pull into the southern bank. Up ahead, for the first time in my life, I can make out the vast gates of the Great Barrier straddling the estuary, holding back the sea tides. On a rise of land to the north sit the massive power stations with their chimney stacks and cooling towers, belching steam and fumes, like castles on fire.
We steer closer to the shore, where the road is mostly washed away. Up close, all there is to see is a stretch of old warehouses and crumbling docks.
“Do people live here?” asks Peyto.
Dad shakes his head. “Traders pinch what they need, but they won’t live in these buildings. They’ve built their own place where Gravesend used to be, just east of here.”
I point downriver. “We can’t get closer than this?”
“No, it’s too dangerous to float near the Barrier. It’s best if we go on foot from here.”
We come ashore and scupper the dinghy in the shallows with some rocks. Then it’s up onto the ruined road toward Gravesend. Dad leads the way through deserted streets up to the first stepped ramparts of the Great Barrier. I’m mighty glad we’ve ditched the dinghy, cos the river seems to speed up and boil as it thunders over a weir and into a cauldron of white water. Pipes the size of houses are sucking the Thames into a stairway of concrete sluices and locks and dams and towers that beggars belief. For a moment I stand there feeling the roar of the turbines and the cold misty spray on my cheeks.
We traipse maybe a hundred feet up the gantries and steel stepladders while all around us bits of loose foam waft in the breeze. At the top of the Barrier, where the river gets dumped into the sea, I catch a sharpness of salt and seaweed in the wind. I think then about what would happen if a crack was to branch up from the riverbed, if the dam was to topple. The crushers and the Vlads and the ruins would be washed away – Elephant and Castle, the meeting house, all the scav settlements …
Dad points to a muddle of piers built into the estuary and, farther on, a couple of dozen round huts caked with mud and draped with sheeting. A few of them trail smoke from holes
in the roofs.
“Gravesend.” When Dad looks at me then, there’s just the hint of a smile, despite everything. “I was born in one of them black-houses.”
“You think they’ll help us?” asks Peyto.
“Maybe, son. They’ll do what they can, I’m sure.” Dad glances at Maleeva. “Even so, they’re wary of strangers … I’m sorry, but it’s best if you lie low for now.”
Maleeva is stood apart from us, picking at the flowers in her hair. One by one she throws out the wilted ones. “It’s all right. I understand. Where shall I meet you?”
“Keep to the ruins and follow the bank. You’ll come to a headland and an abandoned village called Allhallows. You’ll know it by all the seabirds that live there. We’ll come and find you whether we get passage or not.”
She nods and heron-steps away toward the wreckage of the old town. And never mind the bulk of her frame, she moves so easy – within just a few strides she’s gone.
Down in the settlement, it’s quiet – just some goats, a couple of tied-up dogs, and an old man mending nets by the water’s edge.
“Where is everyone?” I go.
“Probably out fishing or on a trade run up to Medway,” Dad says. “Stay outside for a minute. I just want to see how things lie here first.”
He ducks past the reed matting at the entrance to one of the black-houses, then a short while later he ushers us all in.
Inside it’s smoky and dingy and smells of fish heads. But, sweet Lord, it’s cozy and dry! Nets and pans hang from the roof, and the fire is set in a well of cobbles and full to the brim with crackling driftwood. A beefy old dear in a shawl introduces herself as Irene and makes a big fuss of us as we file in.
“Goodness but you’re soaked! Somewhere I’ve got some extra shirts and long johns. Now, I’m guessing I’ll have takers for bread and chowder?”
In the gloom at one end of the house, where Irene has her animals corralled up, we get changed out of our wet underclothes. Me and Erin get dressed behind some sacks of grain, and she’s so clueless on all the fastenings and buttons of these fresh clothes that I’ve got to give her a hand. When we’re done, she looks at me and then she tosses her flinder in the air. Right at the top of its arc, the tentacles spring out and encircle her throat.
