None of us did.
‘Look, Haemon,’ I said, rising and clasping his shoulder, ‘Inaret’s smaller than you are, but she can’t do this. She doesn’t know her way around the air ducts, not like you. You’re the only one – we’re relying on you.’
He swallowed, and nodded.
‘It’ll be okay,’ I assured him. ‘You’ll be safe up there – safer than here. All you have to do is reach the access panel in the Bridge, and see if anyone’s hiding inside. Then come straight back. Can you do that, Haemon?’
‘Yes,’ he replied, in a tiny voice.
‘Now?’
‘Yes.’
‘Okay.’ I glanced around, scanning the shelves for something that I could climb onto. Multispectral scanner? No. Suction cleaner? No. There was a polymer box of lenses, but it wouldn’t support my weight.
And then I blinked.
‘Is that a
step-ladder
?’ I exclaimed.
It was. A genuine step-ladder. Using it, I was able to unseal the access panel, and Haemon was able to climb into the air duct. He reported that, though narrow, it wasn’t too narrow for his skinny frame.
‘I won’t be able to turn around, though,’ he told me, gazing down from the top of the step-ladder. ‘Does that matter?’
‘I guess not. Not if you can move backwards.’
‘I can move backwards.’ For a moment he hesitated, then he pulled himself up through the access hole. Merrit called after him: ‘The minute it gets too narrow, Haemon, don’t keep going! Don’t get stuck!’
A short, muffled reply; I couldn’t make out what Haemon was trying to say. Once he’d vanished into the air duct, I clambered up after him, until I was peering down the murky tunnel, watching his boot-soles slowly recede.
I positioned myself there because (I have to admit it) I was worried. I didn’t like sending that poor kid down an air duct all by himself. Who knew what might be hiding at the other end?
‘You do realise,’ Dygall remarked, ‘that if anything decides to burn through the door here, there’s no way out. Did you think of that?’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ I said shortly. ‘We’ve got weapons. We can fight.’
Dygall grunted. Merrit said, ‘There’s a lot of stuff in this room. Maybe we can find something else to fight with.’
‘Good idea.’ My collar-spot was illuminating my last glimpse of Haemon’s busy backside. ‘Dygall, you watch the door while Merrit does a search.’
‘Okay.’
Merrit picked up a suction cleaner and examined it closely, from every angle. ‘I don’t suppose this would be any good,’ she said. ‘I mean, I don’t suppose the suction’s strong enough to disembowel anything.’
‘Not on this ship,’ Dygall growled. ‘It would be against the safety regulations.’
‘Speaking of safety regulations . . .’ I craned around to check on Inaret. ‘Would someone else take charge of that thing Inaret’s holding? You can pass it up to me, if you want.’
It was passed up to me. I wondered if I should stick it in a pocket, before deciding not to. I might forget it if I wasn’t holding it. I might fall on it or something.
Meanwhile, Merrit scrabbled through the objects on the shelves, and even tried a few stowage lockers (or the honeycomb-like things that had once
been
stowage lockers), without success. Before their metamorphosis, these lockers had probably been locked. Now they were sealed beneath a waxy layer that we might have been able to scrape away with our scissors, if we’d had the time.
Unfortunately, we didn’t have the time.
‘Here’s one of those polymer masks we used last Christmas,’ said Merrit. ‘What could
that
be doing here? Why wasn’t it recycled?’
‘Its probably Yestin’s,’ I observed, and felt a pang in my gut. Yestin. ‘He might have hidden it. He was always hiding things away, in case he ever needed them for one of his robots. He
hated
recycling. His mum once told me she had to clear loads of stuff out of his room every week.’
‘There’s a funny metal thing too. I don’t know what it is.’
‘Is it sharp?’
‘Not really.’
‘Then we don’t need it.’
‘Oh look,’ said Merrit, pulling down a plastic bottle. ‘This must be so old. It’s got a sticky label on it. This is practically
antique
.’ She read the label aloud. ‘
Methylated
spirits
. What does that mean?’
‘Methylated spirits!’ Dygall’s voice was sharp. ‘Give me that!’
‘What’s methylated spirits?’ Merrit asked me, as she held the bottle out of Dygall’s reach. ‘Is it dangerous?’
‘It’s
flammable
!’ Dygall exclaimed. ‘Give it here!’
‘I think it’s some kind of solvent.’ Vaguely, something stirred in my memory, but I couldn’t pin it down. ‘Dygall! What’s the matter with you?’
‘It’s a fuel!’ He was dancing from foot to foot. ‘It’s ethanol and methanol, mixed together!’
‘Really?’ Merrit frowned. ‘That would
have
to be against the safety regulations.’
‘We can make a Molotov cocktail with this stuff!’ Dygall cried. As we stared at him, confused, he tried to explain. ‘We get Haemon’s glass bottle,’ he said, pointing at it, ‘we pour the methylated spirits in there, we soak a piece of rag in the same stuff, cork the bottle with it, and then, when we light the rag, and throw the bottle, it’ll smash in a great big ball of flame! They used to do it
all the
time
, on Earth! Only they used different stuff, like petrochemicals.’
‘Petrochemicals!’ Merrit shuddered. We all knew about petrochemicals. They were a major cause of our having to leave Earth in the first place.
‘Yes, but what’s it going to smash
against
?’ I fretted, turning the proposal over in my mind. ‘There aren’t any really hard surfaces around here any more. And how are we going to light it? With what? An electrical current?’
Dygall stopped jiggling.
‘An exposed electrical current is going to be hard to engineer,’ I continued. ‘We’d have to rip apart that suction cleaner. Or maybe wire up that photovoltaic battery -’
‘What we need is a match,’ said Dygall, scowling. I couldn’t believe my ears.
‘A
match
?’ I echoed. ‘What are you
talking
about?’
‘A match.’ Dygall sounded defensive. ‘You know. One of those bits of wood with the combustible caps -’
‘Are you out of your
mind
?’ Bits of wood? Combustible caps? ‘Where do you think we are, the Wild West?’
‘I was just saying -’ .
‘Next you’ll be asking for one of those – what were they called? – those cigarette lighters!’
Merrit began to giggle hysterically. Dygall rounded on her.
‘Shut up!’ he snarled.
‘Listen, Dygall . . .’ I tried to suppress my irritation. ‘You know an exposed flame is the biggest risk this ship ever had to face. You know the whole place was
drenched
in retardant – triple-insulated, friction-proofed, you name it. There were inbuilt moisture beads everywhere -’
‘I know, I know.’ Dygall waved my protests aside. ‘But we’re not
cavemen,
Cheney! We’re civilised people! We should be able to make
fire
!’
‘Not on this ship,’ I said. ‘Even the rags are fireproof – if you can
find
any rags. All our rags are supposed to be recycled.’
‘Then how in the
hell
are we going to survive?’ Dygall shouted. ‘Will you tell me that? Huh?’
Survive. It was a terrible word. In the silence that followed, I struggled with some sort of answer, while the full horror of our predicament threatened to overwhelm me. I was confounded.
But Inaret wasn’t.
‘You could use hair,’ she suddenly piped up.
We all gawked at her in amazement. It was so long since I’d heard her talk, I’d almost forgotten that she could.
‘You can set fire to hair,’ she added awkwardly. ‘Hair isn’t fireproof. I set fire to my hair with a multispectral scanner, once.’ She nodded at the scanner on the shelf. ‘It was on a laser setting.’
Dygall, Merrit and I exchanged astonished glances. I noticed the way Merrit’s hand rose hesitantly to her own long, black plait, which was wound around the back of her head.
‘She’s right,’ said Dygall. ‘Merrit, where are those scissors? We could use
your
hair. It would make a great wick. The bit at the top – it’ll fit perfectly into the neck of this bottle.’
Merrit caught her breath. She can’t have liked what she was hearing. Before I could offer any words of encouragement, however, I became conscious of a tremor in the duct lining. It was the first movement I’d felt for a good while. Though faint, it suggested that Haemon might be on his way back, and I squinted down the shadowy passage, while below me Dygall scurried about, constructing his Molotov cocktail.
He was hacking through poor Merrit’s hair when I announced that Haemon was, indeed, returning. That much was obvious from the way the air duct wobbled about.
‘Okay,’ I said, carefully climbing down the step-ladder. With a sword in one hand and a grenade in the other, I couldn’t afford to lose my balance. ‘Here we go. We’ll know in a second.’ Glancing at Dygall, who was stuffing Merrit’s plait into the bottle, I demanded, ‘Is anyone watching the door?’
‘I am,’ said Merrit quietly. Her face was expressionless. Her hair, clipped off level with her earlobes, had fanned out into a kind of crooked pageboy cut. She picked up Dygall’s Dewar flask, which had been left on the floor. ‘Don’t worry, I’m keeping an eye out.’
‘Here he comes.’ With one boot pressed against the lowest step, I held the ladder steady on that choppy, flexible surface. Then, seeing Haemon’s feet emerge from the access hole, I slipped the tiny grenade into my front pocket, to free up my left hand. ‘You okay, Haemon?’
‘Yeah . . .’ Slowly, centimetre by centimetre, he backed into view. He was an awful mess – gluey, creased and ruffled – but he seemed unharmed. ‘I’m okay.’
‘Did you see anyone?’
‘Yes.’
‘You
did
?’
He nodded. I helped him down the ladder, grabbing him whenever he threatened to slip. ‘How many are in there?’ I asked.
‘Just one.’
‘Alive?’
Haemon hesitated. Reaching my level, he turned to face me, his brow furrowed. ‘I – I couldn’t get the panel open,’ he faltered. ‘It was hard to see through . . . all cloudy and spotty . . .’
‘But you
did
see someone?’
‘Yes.’
‘Was he on the floor?’ Merrit inquired. It was a good question.
Haemon shook his head.
‘He was sitting at the Interface Array,’ came the answer. ‘I called, but he didn’t hear me.’ After a moment’s consideration, Haemon added, ‘I don’t really know if it was a he or not. I couldn’t tell. I could only see his back, and the top of his head.’
‘So he was sitting up?’
‘Yes.’
‘Was he moving?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe. I couldn’t see his hands.’
‘If he was sitting up,’ said Merrit, in a small, tired voice, ‘he has to be alive. Everyone else I’ve seen . . .’ She trailed off, but I knew what she meant. Acid attacks and liquefaction didn’t allow you to remain upright. Neither did an On-board Transport Vehicle.
I swallowed twice before speaking.
‘Okay,’ I muttered. ‘Well, that’s it, then. Someone’s on the Bridge. We can leave him there, or we can try to save him.’ I looked steadily from face to face, registering the smudges, the cracked lips, the bloodshot eyes. Dygall was holding the scanner in one hand and his Molotov cocktail in the other. Merrit was clutching our pressure flask. I had a sword and, as a last resort, a grenade.
Even Inaret had a pair of scissors.
‘I saw two shuttles and an OTV,’ I continued. ‘That’s pretty much one on one. But we have to move fast, before more of them come. Before they find
us
.’ I flexed my shoulders. ‘What do you think?’
Haemon sighed. Merrit said, softly, ‘I guess . . . you know, if
I
was in there . . .’ She didn’t finish the sentence, just smiled a hopeless, tremulous smile.
Dygall stuck out his jaw.
‘The more we kill,’ he spat, ‘the better it’ll be.’ And he raised his homemade incendiary device. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s do it. Let’s get those bastards.’
Before we could move, however, a noise from outside the door made us jump.
It was Bam. Yapping.
‘Oh shit,’ hissed Dygall, all colour disappearing from his freckled features. ‘You don’t think -?’
‘Shh!’ I was listening. The yapping had stopped. ‘Bam?’ I said loudly.
Another yip.
‘That sounds different,’ I murmured. ‘It doesn’t . . . it’s not the same as it was before.’ I shot a quick look at the ceiling, then at Haemon. ‘Haemon, can you hop back up and check the street? See if there’s anything – you know – outside? If there isn’t, we’ll head for the Bridge.’
Haemon nodded wearily. He climbed into the air duct as Dygall, Merrit and I ranged ourselves in front of the door.
I couldn’t see any discolouration, or smell any evil smells. But my heart was still knocking against my ribs like a frantic animal in a cage.
‘Inaret?’ I said. ‘Baby, you get up there too.’
‘Huh?’ She goggled at me.
‘Into the air duct, okay?’
‘But -’
‘Do as you’re told, Ret!’ Merrit said, sharply. ‘It’ll be safe up there.’
‘But I don’t wanna leave you!’ the little girl whined.
‘You’ll be with Haemon,’ I told her, trying to be patient.
‘You won’t be alone. Come on, be good.’
‘But I’ve got my scissors!’ she protested, at which point Dygall whirled around and snarled at her like a hungry beast.
‘Get up there!’ he yelped. ‘
Now!
’ It worked. Poor Inaret shrank away from Dygall before scuttling over to the step-ladder, and climbing into the air duct. I couldn’t spare her much sympathy. I was far too scared.
‘This might take a while to catch alight,’ Dygall remarked, waggling his bottle at me. ‘And we don’t want to be too close when it does.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning Merrit should chuck the oxygen first. If anything is out there.’
I shook my head. ‘No,’ I replied. ‘The first assault will be on the door. Acid. When the shuttle burns a hole, I’ll stick my sword through it. Nothing easier.’
‘Yeah!’ Dygall’s savage pleasure was ugly to behold. There was something almost unhinged about it. ‘See how it likes
that
.’