A Darkling Plain (47 page)

"Where is the transmitter?"

The Engineer looked curiously at him. Naga had the uneasy feeling that she could sense the swirl of guilt and fear behind the stern face he wore. She said, "There is no transmitter here, sir."

"Then how do you talk to your orbital weapon?"

The way her eyes widened made Naga wonder, just for a moment, if he had been wrong. The Londoners started to murmur together, until his men cuffed and threatened them into silence.

The Engineer said, "They are surprised, General, because they all believed it was you who controlled this new weapon. Certainly we do not. We have no quarrel with anybody; we are simply building a new city for ourselves."

"Ah, yes, your floating city! I did not believe that story when your agent came babbling of it at Batmunkh Gompa, and I do not believe it now. Shut those barbarians up!" he bellowed, rounding on his men. The barbarians stared fearfully at him. A little boy started to cry, and was quickly hushed by his mother. Naga felt ashamed.

When he turned back to the lady Engineer, she was holding out a thin, lilac-veined hand to him. "Come and see for yourself...."

The attack ship
Hungry Ghost
hovered over the smoldering wreck of the
Archaeopteryx
and made certain there were no survivors, then veered away toward the southwest to investigate the movements that the crew of
Avenge the Wind-Flower
had reported before that lasso of electricity had

jumped out of the debris field to snare them. The
Hungry Ghost's
captain took his ship higher, not wanting to meet the same end. Almost at once he saw the mounds of wreckage below him shifting and slithering. He stared down at the movements, not really understanding, until an old track tumbled sideways to reveal the scarred, armored carapace shoving along beneath it.

The suburb's lookouts saw the ship above them at the same instant. Silos yawned open in its armor, and a flight of rockets tore through the
Hungry Ghost,
blasting her engine pods off, smashing the gondola in half, ripping off a tailfin. Smoldering, sagging, she drifted downwind, while Harrowbarrow plowed onward below her.

"Damn it! That's all we need!"

Wolf Kobold's angry shout made Wren cringe. She was sure that Harrowbarrow must be near the western end of Electric Lane by now, and she had been waiting and waiting for the first sprite to strike. When it did, Wolf would know that she had betrayed him. But for the moment, it seemed, she was still safe. He saw her flinch and came to stand with her, in the corner of the bridge where she had gone to get out of the way of his men.

"Nothing to worry about, Wren," he said. "It seems my forward rocket batteries just shot down a Green Storm warship. The savages are in London already."

"Oh!"

"Don't worry!" He laughed at the look of dismay upon her face. "We have dealt with the Green Storm before. My

lookouts say that these ships are old; a ragbag of freighters and transports. Naga clearly doesn't think your London friends are worth sending a real unit to deal with. We shall crush them easily."

He shouted instructions at Hausdorfer, and the navigator shouted in turn down the speaking tubes beside the helm. The suburb increased its speed, and shocks came trembling through the deck and walls of the bridge as it butted massive chunks of rusting metal aside and track plates and sections of old building went tumbling over the hull or were crunched and crushed beneath the heavy tracks. Wren braced herself against the chart table. Wolf Kobold put his arm around her. "It will be all right," he promised. "In an hour we'll be there. Thank you for this shortcut, Wren. I won't forget it."

Maybe there would be no sprites, thought Wren. Or maybe they were striking Harrowbarrow's hull already, dozens of them, doing no harm at all against its thick armor. Maybe all she had achieved by her ruse was to ensure that New London would be devoured even sooner.

And would it really be so bad if it was? It would serve the Londoners right for what they'd done to her. And good might come of it. She imagined Harrowbarrow growing strong and glorious on Dr. Childermass's technology; a hovering city many tiers high. And she could be chatelaine of it all. Perhaps Wolf would make her Frau Kobold, lady mayoress of his new city. After her time in the debris fields the thought of a life surrounded by his tasteful furnishings and books seemed quite attractive. And she would tame him, make him treat his workers and his captives fairly....

"We're entering your valley, Wren," said Wolf warmly, listening to another report from Hausdorfer, who was taking a turn at the periscope. "The way is clear ahead, just as you promised."

Theo and Jake ran through some trackless tangle of debris, pushing past wires and hawsers, girders, fallen tier supports like felled redwoods. Their clothes were singed and charred by the fires they had escaped from as the
Archaeopteryx
came down. They did not know where they were, or where they were going, and they could not hear each other speak because of the immense din of engines and scraping, grinding, tearing, squealing metal, which seemed to come from all around them, and from the sky above them, and up through the ground beneath their running feet.

A cleft between two rubble heaps ahead. A sort of path-- or more likely just a streambed, where water sluiced down off the heights of the wreckage when it rained. Jake ran toward it, shouting something. Theo started to hurry after him and then glimpsed a sign in the debris, half hidden by the scales of rust that were avalanching down the sides of the heaps as they shook and shifted under the weight of the nearby suburb. A crude skull and crossbones. DANGER.

Theo remembered something Wren had told him about Electric Lane.

"Jake!"

Ahead of him Jake was stumbling out through the cleft into a broad, fire-stained valley. "Watch out!" Theo hollered over the noise that made it impossible to hear even his own

thoughts. "Come back! The lightning will get you!"

"What?"

Something got Jake, but it wasn't lightning. An immense steel snout burst out from the steep wall of wreckage that formed the far side of the valley. Jake started to run back toward Theo, and a segment of clawed steel track came down on him like a giant's foot; a wheel two stories tall rolled over him and on, and then another and another. The suburb's engines whinnied and growled as it dragged itself free of the wreckage and started to turn, making ready to speed east along the valley. Only a small suburb, but from where Theo stood it seemed world filling: an armored escarpment pocked and pitted with tiny windows, gun slits, air vents, hatch covers, and a stitchwork of rivets; people inside it somewhere all unaware of the boy they had just squashed beneath their tracks.

Theo scrambled backward as the wreckage he stood on began to slide and toss, churned into restless waves. He tried running, but the broad, flat fragment of deck plate he chose to run across began to tilt steeper and steeper, until he was climbing a hill, crawling up a cliff, struggling to keep a fingerhold upon a sheer wall. He fell, struck some other piece of wreckage, windmilled, tumbled down the valley's side, and landed hard in mud and water at the bottom.

He lay there shivering, glad of the brackish water seeping through his clothes because its cold touch told him he was still alive. "Thank God!" he whispered. "Thank God!" And then, opening his eyes, realized that there was not as much to be thankful for as he had thought.

The stunted trees that grew around the edges of the pool he lay in were charcoal statues. Beyond them was Harrowbarrow. A steel tsunami, rolling straight toward him, tumbled debris foaming and frothing ahead of it. Theo pushed himself up and started to run, but from the wreckage ahead of him an immense brightness burst, crackling overhead, flinging his jittery shadow on the rust flakes at the edge of the pool.

Electricity, in blinding skeins, tied Harrowbarrow to the valley walls. Lightning tiptoed across its metal hide, licked in through windows and silo mouths, set fire to scraps of vegetation clinging to the tracks and bow shield. The engine roar faltered and failed, and in its place was a crackling, crinkling, cellophane noise, like God crumpling his toffee wrappers.

In the dancing blue light Theo splashed through the shallows and flung himself at the only thing that was not made of metal--a boulder, dredged from the earth by London's tracks. He scrambled onto its dry top, praying that his movements and his wet clothes would not draw the surging electricity down on him. Above his head the sky was hidden by a cage of blue fire; Harrowbarrow was scrawled with scribbles of light. Sparks chased through the debris around the boulder's foot, and the wet mud fizzed. A tree caught fire with a
woof
and burned like a match.

Then, abruptly, the storm ceased. A few last sparks, yelping like ricochets, arced across the gaps between Harrowbarrow and the valley walls. Wreckage slithered down around the suburb's tracks with a sliding clatter. Smoke shifted

slowly, smelling of ozone. Theo remembered to breathe.

Harrowbarrow lay silent, motionless, its armor scarred by smoldering wounds where the sprites had touched.

"Wren?" said Theo into the silence. "Wren?"

***

G eneral Naga stood on the sloping floor of the Womb and looked up at New London. He could see himself reflected in the long curve of the tiny city's underside, and again in one of those strange, dull mirrors that hung beneath it. Why would anyone build such a thing? Could Natsworthy have been telling the truth? Did the Londoners believe that this contraption would actually
fly?

He tried to force his doubts aside. He was a soldier--he was used to doing that; but today, for some reason, the doubts stayed, nagging. If this mad city was really all that London's Engineers had been building, then where was the transmitter that controlled the new weapon? Had Oenone been telling him the truth too? Had he shamed and struck her for no reason?

The soldiers he had sent aboard New London were

returning, climbing down one of the steep boarding ladders. The young signals officer he had put in charge of the search ran across the oily floor and saluted. "Excellency, we have found no sign of a transmitter. Certainly nothing powerful enough to reach the orbital weapon."

Naga turned away. He shut his eyes and saw Oenone smile her small, shy smile and say, "I told you so."
What now?
he thought.
What now?

"Should we destroy the barbarian suburb?" asked the signals officer.

Naga looked at it. All mobile cities were an abomination; the world must be made green again. But today, for some reason, he could not bring himself to give the order. He was glad of the distraction when another man came racing into the Womb, shouting, "General Naga! The
Hungry Ghost
has been shot down! There is something approaching from the west!"

Naga unsheathed his sword and strode outside into the glum, gray daylight, soldiers and frightened Londoners crowding out behind him. Faintly, over the rust hills and the rubble heaps, he heard the screel of C50 Super-Stirling land engines.
Thank Gods,
he thought.
A harvester suburb!
At last; something he could destroy without a qualm. He turned to the waiting officer to order an air attack, but before he could speak, the engine sounds cut off abruptly, and in their place there rose a crackling, a lashing.... He turned and shaded his eyes and saw the western skyline fizz with lightning.

"Sprites!" one of the Londoners shouted. "They must have come straight through Electric Lane, the poor devils! They've been struck!"

***

On Harrowbarrow's bridge the smoke stirred slowly, tying itself into gentle knots. Wren lay on her back on the floor and watched it. The dull red emergency lights flickered. Someone groaned. She began to hear other voices: cries and angry shouts coming from other parts of the suburb. No engine noise now to drown them out.

She tried to work out if she had been injured. She didn't think she had. Someone had crashed into her, and she had fallen to the floor; perhaps she had been unconscious for a few seconds. She was shaking, and her head was full of memories of the things she had just seen--the sparks spewing from failing instruments and exploding control panels; the helmsman screaming as the metal wheel he was gripping became a mandala of blue light.

She supposed her plan had worked. She supposed she should feel pleased with herself.

Wolf Kobold stumbled to his feet. There was blood on his face, black in the red light. "Up!" he shouted hoarsely. "Everybody up! Get up! I want the emergency engines online at once! Hausdorfer, get down to the engine districts and bring me a damage report! Lorcas, pull us out of this damned lightning swamp.... Zbigniew, organize scouting teams; get them out
now, now!"

"But the lightning--"

"Whatever it was, it's gone; spent for the moment. We mustn't let this delay give the Londoners time to escape."

Zbigniew started shouting orders into the speaking tubes, while Lorcas dragged the dead helmsman's body from the wheel and flung it to the floor. Wren started to edge toward

the companion ladder amid the sounds of Kobold's dazed men stirring, groans and frightened questions, curses. Someone asked in Anglish, "What in the name of the Thatcher has happened?"

"Her," said Hausdorfer. He was on his feet, gripping the back of Kobold's chair for support. He was pointing at Wren, his hands shaking almost as much as hers. "She led us here!"

Kobold looked at her. "No."

"It was her, Wolf!" growled Hausdorfer, unbuttoning the holster on his belt. "Think with your head, not your heart. She knew this would happen! She hoped to fry us and protect her friends!"

"No," said Wolf again, but Wren saw his face change as he struggled to keep on believing she was innocent, and failed.