Ndlela wanted to laugh. Typical Isabeau, one moment angry as a kicked cat, the next all concern and attention.
“I’m fine, but Alex told me I’m not supposed to look at bright lights. So, the whole time I’ve been out here, I’ve been keeping my eyes down. Not looking up at all.”
“Wow. So, you haven’t seen— Huh.” Isabeau stared at Ndlela. “That’s probably why you didn’t get lost like I did. It’s because I was looking at the light-pictures that I got off the track, and then I couldn’t find my way back again.”
“But you saw Mom?” Ndlela couldn’t make sense of it.
Isabeau nodded vigorously. “Huge. Like the solluster.”
Ndlela must have looked as blank as he felt, because she quickly continued. “The stars move about, just like the solluster does, but there’s like a million billion more of them, and they fill the whole of the sky all around the Eye.” Isabeau tilted her head back as she spoke, as if she could see out through the ceiling. “Billions and billions of them, all different colours. And if you look at them just right, it’s like your eyes sort of—click in—and then you can see things. Not like pictures of things, real things that move, but made out of stars.”
“And you saw Mom?”
“Yes. And the gardags. Xun. And Meisje, racing across the sky— It was beautiful. But Mom was the best. She was looking at me...” Isabeau’s voice lost some of its excitement. “And then I realised I was lost.”
“And your oxygen?”
Now Isabeau looked embarrassed. “I guess I forgot to check whether the oxypack was charged before I put it on. They’re supposed to be fully charged!” She sounded aggrieved.
Ndlela was tempted to reprimand her for her carelessness, but now was not the time for a safety lecture. “So, what do we do now?”
Isabeau looked surprised. “I guess we— Oh.” She bit her lip as realisation dawned. “We can’t go back. Not without more oxygen. But—” She whirled around. “Maybe they’ve got some oxypacks stored in here?”
It was a good idea, but a thorough search of the control room revealed nothing but some paper manuals, a box of tools, and several comic books.
“I think that when they use that ship to do inspections, one person has to stay in here and watch them remotely,” Ndlela said, paging through the manuals. They were all in strangeside script.
“Oh!” Isabeau’s face lit up as if she’d swallowed a lantern. “I know— Oh Ndlela, I know what we could do!” Her gaze rose to the hatch above them.
“No!” Ndlela caught both her hands as they rose. “No, Issy, are you utterly crazy?”
“But why not!” Isabeau tried to pull her hands free. “It’s perfect. We could fly the pod-ship to the hatch, and then—”
“And then?” Ndlela kept his grip on her wrists.
“Well— We could— We could somehow get out of the ship and into the hatch. We both have suits. It would only take a few seconds. I wouldn’t need much air.”
“We’re not doing it, Issy. There’s no way.” Ndlela let go her hands. “It’s not like a beach-cart that we can just drive along. We’ll probably end up crashing into those wires Tomas told us about. It’s a flippen space ship. It flies. It— We don’t know the first thing about it. We couldn’t even get it started.”
“What about those manuals!” Isabeau said with an air of victory. “We could figure it out.”
“No, we could not. Those are all in strangeside, and I don’t even know if any of them are for the ship. I think it’s some kind of safety procedure thing, going by the diagrams.”
“Oh.” Isabeau picked up one of the manuals and opened it, then dropped it again. “But I still think we should at least look in the ship.”
“Whatever for?”
“Well,” Isabeau folded her arms. “Missy Cloete was carrying a pack, wasn’t she, when we saw her going into the airlock room. I bet she didn’t have it with her when she came out.”
Ndlela thought she was probably right.
“So,” Isabeau continued, in her most aggravatingly reasonable tone, “she must have been bringing stuff here. And I don’t think she was bringing comic books, do you?”
“That’s true.” Ndlela said reluctantly.
He considered the hatch.
It had been impossible to open the interior hatch of the airlock until the exterior hatch was closed and the airlock pressurised. It seemed unlikely that the designers of this place would put a hatch in the ceiling that would open straight into the void. They’d surely have some fail-safes in place.
“She must have gone into the ship. She simply must have,” said Isabeau.
Isabeau was right. That was the only explanation. Assuming, of course, that Missy did come out here at all. He reached up and took hold of the handles on the edge of the hatch, and, with a silent prayer, twisted.
The thing came loose with surprising ease. A series of clicks, and Ndlela found himself holding the bottom end of an extending ladder.
“So clever!” said Isabeau. “Pull it down.”
Ndlela let the ladder drop all the way to the floor. “I go first,” he said, and before Isabeau could object, he pulled himself up through the hatch.
“Oh!” One glance was all he had before he let go of the ladder and slapped both hands over his eyes.
“What’s wrong?” Isabeau’s voice came from below, shrill with worry.
“No, it’s okay.” Ndlela edged down the ladder, keeping his eyes down. “It’s just that the whole thing’s transparent. Like a bubble. All I could see was those lights. I can’t go up there with my eyes like this.”
“You okay?”
“I think so.” Ndlela blinked, then looked around the control room. “No, I think it’s fine. Doesn’t hurt, anyway.”
“Well, I’m going up there.”
Before he could even think of stopping her, Isabeau was up the ladder. “Oh, cool!” Her voice came down through the hatch, and he could hear her moving about.
“Don’t go touching anything!”
“How can I not touch anything? Can’t exactly float, can I!”
It was true. Ndlela, distracted, looked down at his feet. He’d not even noticed that they had gravity again. How did it work? There must be a way to generate a gravity field in an area as small as this control room.
“Don’t touch any buttons, then,” he called out belatedly. “Or any levers, or anything that looks like it might make something happen.”
“Hah!” Isabeau must have moved away from the hatch, as her voice was muffled. “I thought so.”
A moment later she was down the ladder, brandishing a tin in his face. “Look! I told you! She’s been stocking up. I found a whole box of things stuffed in under one of the seats. Hidden away, otherwise Sparks would have seen it when he did his inspection.”
“What?” Ndlela took the tin and looked at it. The label showed some kind of fish, but he could not read the script. Isabeau was up the ladder again.
“You hungry?” she called down, amid a rustling of paper. “There’s water bottles too.”
When Isabeau came down again her hands were full of bottles and tins.
They settled on the floor of the control room. Isabeau pulled a tab on one of the tins, while Ndlela opened a box of crackers.
He hadn’t realised how hungry he was until he started eating. It was an odd meal. Everything was either salty—the crackers, or salty and oily—the fish in the tin. It was difficult to eat without making a mess, since they had neither plates nor cutlery.
When they’d eaten the last of it, brushed the crumbs off themselves, and bundled the wrappings and tins into what they hoped was a rubbish bin, they sat looking at one another.
“What now?” Isabeau said at last.
“We can’t go back.” Ndlela kept his voice matter-of-fact. “We don’t have enough oxygen. And we can’t use that ship up there.”
Seeing the ship must have convinced Isabeau, because she didn't argue.
“I thought I’d try
that radio.” He nodded at the headset.
“Do you know how to use it?”
“No. But we can try.”
They took turns, placing the headset over their ears, and pressing the various buttons that, as far as they could tell, related to the radio, but nothing happened at all.
“Maybe things are sinister down there,” Isabeau said at last.
“I don’t think that would matter, out here,” Ndlela said thoughtfully. “But maybe it would mean they couldn’t receive any signals we sent.”
He reluctantly hung the headset back on its clip.
The food had given him a surge of energy and hope, but that was rapidly bleeding away. He was already wondering about the oxygen levels in the control room. Was it replenished from inside the Eye somehow? Or would they use it up, if they stayed here too long? He decided not to share that particular thought with Isabeau.
“I guess we’ll just have to wait,” said Isabeau. “Balthazar will see there are suits missing.”
“How often do they check that airlock?” Ndlela said, reluctant to squash her newfound hope.
She slumped down again. “I don’t know.”
Then her eyes widened. “Oh. I forgot all about Tomas. What about him? We never told him we want him to go back to the lazaretto.”
“I sent Danger back to him with the diadem.”
“You did? Oh, good. At least he’s not alone. And if he’s got the diadem, he can go to Dolly. He might already have done that.”
Ndlela just grunted in reply. Tomas hadn’t seemed strong enough to go on any expeditions, diadem or not. And what if he did try, and collapsed? Ndlela’s throat tightened, and he felt a burn of guilt all through his body. He should never have left Tomas all alone, weak and sick, without even a pillow or a blanket. But he didn’t speak his thoughts aloud. Isabeau had enough to worry about already.
They stood looking at the useless headset.
At last, Isabeau voiced both their thoughts. “Missy Cloete might come again. It’s still a long time before morning, isn’t it?”
“I’m not sure,” said Ndlela. “It might be nearly morning by now.” But his voice lacked conviction. “We’ll just have to hide, if she comes.”
“Where?” Isabeau looked around the tiny space. “In the toilet?”
Ndlela shrugged. “If we have to.”
Isabeau frowned. “But what about those filament things? Tomas said that she’d take them out, if she tried to fly the pod-ship away from the Eye. Shouldn’t we try to stop her?”
“But how?”
“Maybe if we told her what might happen, that everyone on the Eye would be trapped...” Isabeau pulled a wry face. “She wouldn’t listen, would she?”
“Why should she believe us?” said Ndlela. “She’d just think we’re trying to trick her. And maybe she wouldn’t even care, as long as she believes that she might still get away.”
“That’s true.”
After a moment they both sat down, Ndlela on the floor, Isabeau on the swivel chair.
After a long pause, Isabeau spoke again. “Ndlela— Are you sure about your eyes?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, are you sure those lights would hurt you? They’re really not that bright.”
Ndlela shrugged. “Better safe than sorry, right?”
After a short silence, Isabeau spoke so softly that Ndlela could hardly hear her. “It’s just that— I can see her again. Mom.”
“What?”
“I can see her in the lights. Out there, through the window.” Isabel’s voice wobbled. “I just want to know— If you can see her too— Maybe I’m not crazy after all.”
Ndlela took a deep breath and let it out. After all, by now he’d glimpsed the lights so many times his eyes were probably already damaged. He might as well go all the way.
“You’re right. I’ll look.”
“You’re sure?”
In answer, Ndlela got up and turned to the window. He leaned his forehead against it and looked out.
At first, all he could see was the dark bulge of the Eye stretching away to its curved horizon, oddly close.
Stars shone in the velvet emptiness above, more stars than he’d ever seen. A blaze of them, bright enough to cast sharp shadows.
He blinked, testing, but felt no pain.
“Do you see her?” Isabeau had come to stand beside him. She was gazing up at the sweep of void visible between the top of the window, and the curved horizon of the Eye.
Ndlela could see why Isabeau had mentioned the solluster. The stars were like jewels. Strings of sapphires, winking emeralds, soft amber dots like distant candle flames, sparkles of amethyst and ruby. They moved as stars never did, like a vast cloud of drifting fireflies, making him aware of the depth of space he was gazing into.
He blinked, and the lights resolved into an image.
A web of cogs arched in the void, an enormous machine, interlocking clockwork, a pump, pistons, no—a living creature flicking its tail as it swam past.
Jaekelopterus rhenaniae.
The name came rising out of his past. Once upon a time, when he’d been Isabeau’s age, he’d been obsessed with that ancient marine creature.
“Do you see her? You see her, don’t you?” Isabeau’s voice breathed in his ear.
“See who?”
“Mom, of course!”
Ndlela tore his gaze from the mesmerising sight and looked at his sister. “What?”
“Mom!” Isabeau pointed. “Don’t you see her? There’s her eye and look! You can’t miss her now, she’s so clear!”
Ndlela looked again, but this time the lights resolved themselves into a gigantic multi-jointed, translucent beast. He nearly laughed when he recognised it, a brine shrimp, blown up to monstrous size.
“That’s not what I see,” he said carefully.
“But—” Isabeau sounded near to tears again.
“That doesn’t mean you’re crazy, Issy. I think those lights are somehow— I don’t know how to explain.” The lights had reshaped again, and now he could, in fact, see a face, but it was not his mother’s.
Noor gazed down at him, with one arm around a younger version of Isabeau. The two of them looked infinitely sad, and infinitely vast, floating up there in the void.
He forced himself to look away.
“I think it’s like a kind of hypnotism,” he said when he had control over his voice. “You see what your mind shapes the lights into, not what’s really out there.”
“You think?” Isabeau flattened her hands on the window and pressed her forehead to the glass. “It looks so, not real, exactly, but it looks so real.” She pulled away. “They look alive. Do you know what I mean?”
Ndlela nodded. “I know, but maybe it’s not good for us to look at them too much.”
To Ndlela’s surprise, Isabeau nodded. “I’m pretty tired,” she said. “I think we should try to get some sleep.”
“Good idea.” Ndlela pulled at the collar of his clinging suit. “And let’s get out of these things.”
Noor and the Menha
Someone was shouting so close to Elke’s ear that she couldn’t hear the words. She fell, was dragged, scraped over something. The voice talked on and on. A woman’s voice, urgent, angry and demanding, but Elke couldn’t focus on anything but her need to breathe.
Her mouth was open, but her ribs seemed to be caught in a vice, and she couldn’t expand them, couldn’t pull air into her lungs.
Somebody rolled her on her side and held her shoulders as her chest contracted. Fluid gushed from her mouth, burning as it came. She spasmed in a cough that tore her throat, on and on until, at last, she breathed, gasp after gasp.
Her stomach clenched and she retched again. Thin, burning fluid ran from her nose and mouth.
“That’s right. Get it all out.”
Something warm and damp passed over her face, and for a confused moment, Elke thought that it was Meisje, licking her.
She opened her eye
s.
A woman knelt over her, dipping a cloth in a steaming bowl. She wore the green tunic of a medic, but she had the chin-tattoo of a slave. Before Elke could think what to say, the medic-woman took hold of Elke’s jaw and wiped her face again.
The overseers were standing around, looking uncertain. One of them said something, his voice driving into Elke’s head like a rusty spike. The medic snapped out a curt a response and turned back to Elke. “Lie still.”
“Is she going to be okay?”
Elke tried to look behind her. “Noor?”
Noor leaned over her. “Hey.” Her face was worried, but her lips curved into a smile. “Thought we’d lost you for a while there.”
“How—” Elke lay back, too weak to resist the medic’s restraining hands.
“Elke, this is my mother.” Noor nodded at the medic. “Thandeka.”
Elke blinked at the medic, taking it in. Yes. This was the woman in the photograph. Thinner, more care-worn, and most of her hair was gone, but she radiated that same quiet confidence.
“Hello.” Thandeka wrung out the cloth. “How are you feeling?” She frowned at one of the overseers, who had started up his complaint again.
“Not too bad,” Elke managed. Her lips were dry and talking hurt her throat. “My head feels like it’s going to fall off, but I guess it won’t?”
“Let me just deal with these goons,” Thandeka said, nodding at the overseers. “Then I can have a proper look at you.”
She rose to her feet, pulling a piece of paper from a pocket. One of the overseers took it and looked it over as Thandeka watched, hands on hips.
They argued back and forth for a while, the overseer growing increasingly uncertain. Thandeka spoke in short phrases clarified by hand gestures. She was clearly in control of the situation despite her tenuous grasp of the language.
“She’s threatening to report them for damaging you,” Noor said to Elke, speaking softly. “That paper she’s waving about is an authorisation to move you to the infirmary.”
At last one of the overseers threw up his hands and nodded in exasperated agreement.
“Good. That’s that, then.” Thandeka turned back to Elke. “We’ve agreed to a compromise. I have to ask the harbour master. If he says okay, we can take you to the infirmary. They’re going to carry you up to the harbour, so get yourself ready.”
The Strange Page 36
