Link Arms with Toads! (7 page)

Keeping his back to her, he confessed: “We were hoping you wouldn’t come until we’d finished. I wanted to spring a surprise on your masters. A way of getting our revenge. You said we’d never be able to do it, you hurled insults. The Commission wounded us, Ms Sting, I can tell you.” He glanced over his shoulder. “We are not all simpletons, you know. I have standards, like any other councillor.”

“
Well, your municipality has a reputation for incompetence. So many other projects have been mismanaged…”

He swivelled in his chair, so forcefully he completed a full turn, his words phasing in and out of audibility as he passed her. “So that is your justification? Past mistakes have nothing to do with me!” He made a second attempt, ending up at right-angles to her. “I was appointed only at the commencement of this scheme.”

“
I appreciate that. As you seem so confident, perhaps you will show me the finished plans for your colony?”

He tapped the bulge beneath his shirt. “A map of the settlement has been prepared. It’s supposed to be a secret, which is why I keep it next to my body at all times. You may view it, but I would prefer to restrict access until the end of your appraisal.”

“
This is rather eccentric. Will I also be dissuaded from asking how many colonists you intend to sustain?”

He was dismissive. “Oh, all of them…”

Melissa sighed. “Yes, of course. What I meant was how many citizens do you intend to establish in your first settlement? Do they constitute a representative sample of your electorate? A breakdown of figures would be useful, based on social status, educational qualifications and ethnic origin. Do you possess such figures?”

“
I object to your patronising tone, Ms Sting. It is you who fail to understand. As an egalitarian authority, we protect the interests of all our people. We intend to settle everybody.”

Before Melissa could protest at this absurdity, shouts from outside interrupted her. A sputtering grew louder overhead. She glanced up and saw, through the broken ceiling, an aeolipile descending through a bank of dark cloud. There was something wrong with its engines: the globe was tipping over, dragging the capsule at an unnatural angle. She jabbed at this sight with her umbrella, just as the contraption vanished from her field of vision. “One of yours?”

Alleneal was at her side in an instant, fists clenching, flecks of spittle creaming his words. “An intruder, Ms Sting! I’ve given orders to shoot down all aerial spies. Where are the municipal troops? They ought to be on standby. Come with me: hurry!”

She followed him out of the building. On the steps, a ragged group of men were gathering, shouldering various firearms. Melissa was amused to note the age of the weapons: bolt-action rifles and shotguns from the last century. Some guards even held blunderbusses and muskets. “Get into line!” cried the councillor. “Take aim!”

The aeolipile vanished behind the Anglican Cathedral but bobbed up a minute later, reeling towards its Catholic counterpart like a convert. The capsule crashed against the edifice, showering stained glass over a malnourished procession of worshippers. Then the whole thing lifted and changed course again, coming back towards Colmore Circus. Waving a used handkerchief, Alleneal screamed: “Fire!”

Melissa clamped hands to ears, an unnecessary precaution. The guns jammed or misfired, bullets rolling lamely out of barrels. A mob filled Victoria Square. While excited faces peered upwards, pickpockets worked on the gullible, lifting empty wallets and cancelled food vouchers. The aeolipile, a common sight in most towns, seemed a novel diversion here, as if the hydrogen-filled spheres had never eclipsed Birmingham’s moon. The weight of past centuries suddenly pressed on her: this scene was an example of primitive street theatre.

Reinforcements arrived from the Town Hall. A ballista complete with rocket-powered harpoon was hoisted onto the roof. Rusty pulleys strained to lift the device, which was positioned on a balustrade. The aeolipile, oblivious of the danger, tumbled towards the Science Museum. By the time it reached Cornwall Street, the ballista was primed. Without waiting for the councillor’s orders, the engineers released the mechanism, sending a bolt of blue flame in a steep arc toward the invader. Melissa thought it was climbing too rapidly, but the engineers had calculated well: dipping suddenly, as if pulled by an invisible hand, the harpoon caught the apex of the orb and lodged in the fabric.

The explosion was followed by an exuberant cry, which Melissa found more startling. It was emanating from the mouth of Alleneal Asherley. For the first time since she had arrived, the city was illuminated properly. The aeolipile did not fall at once: the burning envelope peeled away and exposed the skeleton, a delicate lattice. Too beautiful for these skies, she thought glumly. The councillor was bellowing into her ear: “Keep our secrets safe, we will! Bloody foreigners!”

She ignored him and frowned as the capsule broke free and plummeted to the ground. A wild cheer went up from the crowd. Wisps of ultramarine fire dispersed on the greasy air. Melissa angled her umbrella to protect herself from the soot and molten shards.

“
There might be survivors,” she pointed out. “I suggest we find out immediately. My car is parked over there.”

“
Good idea, Ms Sting. We need live prisoners.”

Melissa pushed her way through the crowd to the spot where she left her convertible. She had expected the hubcaps to be missing, but it was the rest of the vehicle that was gone. She discarded her brolly with a scowl. When the councillor reached her side, panting loudly, he betrayed a perverse pride. “Best thief in the country, the Brummie opportunist!” Melissa glared at him as her four hubcaps span like buttons and came to rest, one by one, with a mocking rattle.

(iii)

They travelled in the councillor’s limousine, with two bodyguards and a chauffeur, to the site of the crash. Glowing bolts from the balloon had embedded themselves in the pitted road. Tyres squealing, they clattered up Newhall Street, the limousine protesting at each gear change. The vehicle had been requisitioned from the mayor, Alleneal explained. As she wiped her window with a sleeve to peer out, he added, “Everybody makes sacrifices for the cause. We’re a proud race.”

The frame of the aeolipile had been scattered over a wide area, but the capsule had come down in the middle of Church Street. Men in woolly hats were stooping over the pod, working at the shell with crowbars and chisels. In their striped and colourful headgear, they resembled mutant bees collecting pollen. They fled when the limousine pulled up, gaining the safety of doorways. Melissa jumped out and approached the craft. It had been completely stripped. At the heart of a bare frame, two figures sat strapped into smouldering chairs.

They were relatively uninjured, blinking in surprise. Ordering them cut free, Alleneal turned to Melissa. “Now we’ll learn what our enemies are up to. A happy accident, Ms Sting!”

“
They require treatment. Aren’t you going to call an ambulance? The Commission disapproves of punitive neglect.”

“
You have no authority on matters of provincial security. They are spies and will be treated accordingly.” Reaching into the web of struts, he slapped one of the occupants on a blistered cheek. “Why did you enter our airspace? What was your mission?”

“
Engine failure,” the figure mumbled. “Blown off course.”

Melissa recognised the accent as educated Cardiffian. It was common knowledge the Welsh capital was having difficulties with its propulsion units. Alleneal was dangerously paranoid, she concluded. And yet she was powerless to restrain him as he instructed his bodyguards to arrest the aeronauts. While she debated what action to take, a Black Maria arrived and the hapless prisoners were bundled into the rear. Triumphantly, the councillor returned to the limousine.

The woolly-hatted men started to emerge onto the pavement. She did not relish being left alone in their company, so she climbed in beside Alleneal. The chauffeur trundled onto Edmund Street, heading back to the Council House. The return journey seemed to take longer. She tapped her fingers on a knee and asked the councillor, “How did you know it wasn’t your own aeolipile? It was unmarked.”

“
A straight answer, Ms Sting. We don’t use them.”

Staring at him in disbelief, she realised he was serious. “Then you have developed a new kind of launch vehicle? This is remarkable. What is it called? Can you describe it to me?”

He rubbed his unhealthy eyes. “It is simple, Ms Sting, the guiding principle of all we seek to accomplish.”

Reluctant to divulge more, he lapsed into an affected gloom. Before they reached the square, his natural enthusiasm broke through again. “We showed those liars and saboteurs! You can’t mess with our council. Might as well slit your own perfumed throat.”

“
Waste of hydrogen, though,” said Melissa.

“
An academic point, Ms Sting. We have no interest in such fuels. We use gunpowder to achieve our objectives.”

This was too much for her. He was plainly testing her patience. “In the past hour,” she protested, “you’ve made a number of fatuous claims. Unless I’ve misheard, you intend to transport the entire population of Birmingham through space with the aid of firework propellant. I warn you not to insult my intelligence.”

Alleneal tapped his nose. “Be patient, Ms Sting. I will personally conduct you on a tour of our facilities and explain every aspect of our lunar bid. When you study our moon-buggies you’ll be convinced. A whole fleet of them! It will verify everything.”

“
When does this tour begin?” she demanded.

“
I have urgent business with my fellow councillors this afternoon. It is vital to interrogate the intruders.”

“
You’re not going to provoke a war with Cardiff?”

He waved aside her fears. “Our citizens are not capable of fighting anyone other than themselves. I simply wish to determine whether we have managed to keep our preparations secret. With access to our ideas, rival councils can accelerate their own programs.”

Melissa accepted this. She examined her hair. Although the internal heaters were blowing warm air into her face, her auburn locks refused to dry. The water had a peculiar adhesive quality. She wondered if exposure to the local rain was the source of the councillor’s skin complaint. His cheeks were suggestive of selenic landscapes, repellent yet fascinating, brutal as the geology of Emmental. His rinded lips curled, rupturing the illusion. She tumbled out of his orbit.

“
I’ve arranged for you to stay in one of our safest hotels,” he was saying. “My chauffeur will collect you tomorrow morning. Remain in your room, Ms Sting. Some odd people about.”

She considered this advice. At the Council House, he left her alone in the back of the limousine. It proceeded down Hill Street and into the Chinese Quarter. Eventually, the chauffeur pointed out the façade of the Arcade Hotel. This was supposed to be one of the smarter areas, but the desolation was merely more pretentious. Eroded theatres and nightclubs exhibited scars and graffiti like drunken sailors; fractured restaurants bled steam like dying turbines. It was an extra worry to be guided into the hotel lobby by the chauffeur: she might have to come to his aid. He fled before she could refuse him a tip.

Her room was at the top of the building. Long and narrow, it seemed a microcosm of the city’s mentality. Insects scuttled when she turned on the light; the furniture bristled, a wooden conspiracy of puritans; a sagging bed took her weight with a nasal moan. Her report would stress the apparent running down of infrastructure to pay for the moon project. She had encountered diversion of council funds before, most notably in Leicester and Norwich, but never on such a massive scale. Did Alleneal really enjoy the support of his people?

If he was trying to distract her with ludicrous statements, he had succeeded only in making her more determined to carry out her task. She was eager to verify his claim that Birmingham had an alternative to the aeolipile. These were standard equipment for space travel. Other methods of reaching extreme altitudes existed, but they were more expensive and less efficient. At the beginning of the century, when state-funded space programs were overtaken by private enterprise, a large number of designs had taken to the skies: the astroplane, the roton, the scramjet. But the aeolipile rendered them obsolete, a single-stage craft that carried its fuel in an inflatable envelope, using it in this form to elevate itself into the stratosphere before conventional rockets cut in to complete the escape of the planet’s gravity.

Like so many achievements in aviation history, the aeolipile was an invention of two brothers, Hans and Eric Pfaall. A giant hydrogen bubble mounted on pivots, it made use of the Magnus Effect: the tendency of an object moving sideways to rise when rotated along its horizontal plane, depending on the direction of the lateral movement. Engines protruding at right angles from the envelope took power directly from the enclosed gas, mixing it with oxygen in a combustion chamber. To protect the crew from a possible explosion, the capsule was fitted with parachutes and slung under the sphere on cables, at a safe distance from the fuel. As the aeolipile rose and the globe deflated, the capsule was gradually winched closer. When the orb attained its service ceiling, the remaining hydrogen was pumped into the capsule, which disengaged and blasted off into orbit. The Pfaall brothers had been killed in a prototype, but the apparatus was highly reliable.

The device was such an integral part of astronautics it was assumed every council involved in the lunar colony competition would use them to carry equipment and materials into space for the construction of orbital stations. Portsmouth and Leeds had recently started work on their bases. Newcastle and Oxford had completed this stage and were already preparing for the next step of establishing a foothold on the surface of the moon. Melissa could envisage no other way of doing it, but Birmingham Council expected her to believe that gunpowder, clumsiest of propellants, was an alternative. She wondered if this was becoming a typical Brummie fiasco, comparable to the abortive Olympiad bids.