Living Hell (21 page)

I wept and moaned. ‘Please, I’ve got a sword, let me cut it off,
please
!’

‘Stay back!’

‘
Please!

’ ‘STAY BACK!’ He rolled something towards me: a small, grey, pen-shaped thing, about the size of my thumb. ‘Take – take this . . .’

I gaped at him stupidly.

‘Don’t . . .’ He grunted, and shifted his weight before continuing. ‘Watch the red switch,’ he wheezed. ‘It’s got a timer on the fuse . . . thirty seconds . . .’

‘What . . .?’

‘Listen.’ Another cough. He was sagging. Gasping. His tongue was so swollen that his speech was hard to understand. ‘It’s an explosive . . . for breaking rock. From GeoLab. You have to . . . take it to . . . Depot . . . God . . .’

I picked up the hard little object, holding it gingerly. ‘But -’

‘Won’t rupture . . . hull, but . . . oh God . . .’ Each word was forced out like the cry of a man being stabbed. ‘Depot’s where . . . RARs . . . it’s making new leucocytes . . . got to be stopped. Destroyed. No more new RARs . . .’

‘You mean
blow it up
?’ I squealed.

‘Like a spleen . . .’ he sighed, and then he . . .

Well, I suppose you could say he died. Something split. There was a gush of blood-streaked fluid – a great spout – and I screamed, and would have run to him (at least, I think I would have; I was in such a state of confusion and despair, I didn’t know what I was doing) but I was stopped. Dygall had left the stair shaft. He grabbed a handful of my suit, and yanked me away.

‘No!’ he yelled. It was a shriek of abject fear. ‘Get back!’

Merrit was still in the stair shaft. She had been keeping the kids there – a smart thing to do. I’m so grateful. So grateful that neither Haemon nor Inaret saw what I saw.
No one
should have to see something like that.

When I glimpsed their terrified faces, huddled in the shadows, I came to my senses. I realised that I was carrying a sword in one hand and some sort of mining grenade in the other. I also realised that, not ten metres behind me, someone was liquefying – erupting – under the attack of a mutant street shuttle.

This wasn’t a good place to be.

‘Quick!’ I bawled. ‘Out!’

I had to look back, because it was my job – my responsibility. The street shuttle was beginning to detach itself from the corpse of the man it had killed. One long, flexible hand-grip was uncoiling itself from around his neck.

We didn’t have much time.

‘
Dygall!
’ I cried, as I danced ahead of the others. But I didn’t have to explain myself. Dygall nodded; he understood our predicament. To escape, we needed to round the nearest corner, at the tube junction. Before we did that, however, I would have to make sure that our way was clear while Dygall watched our backs, pressure flask at the ready.

Please
, I prayed, to whoever – or whatever – had preserved us so far,
please don’t let there be anything,
PLEASE
.

And there wasn’t. The tube was empty, except for the usual scattering of samplers and scent pellets. I slapped Merrit’s shoulder, ‘
Now!
’ I barked. We tumbled onto the platform and ran, with Dygall bringing up the rear. Fear made us fast – too fast – despite the unevenness of the floor. We had a hard time braking when we reached the next junction; Merrit ploughed into me, skidding, and nearly pushed me into the street.

‘Ow!’

‘Sorry!’

‘Cheney,
quick
!’ Dygall moaned.

I checked twenty-fourth; it was clear. But the door to the stair shaft was sealed shut.

We had to keep going.

I ran straight for the junction up ahead, all the while thinking hard. If we couldn’t use the stair shaft on twenty-third, I decided, we would have to turn down a street. On the long, empty sweep of the tube platform, we were sitting ducks. We would have to dodge about a bit. Maybe hide in a compartment . . .

Luckily, there was no need to find a compartment. The stair shaft on twenty-third was open. I dived straight into it, and didn’t ask anyone to wait while I checked the door on A deck. I just slid down the stairs with my sword held straight out in front of me, ready to skewer anything that might be lurking at the bottom. With the force of my accelerating weight behind it, I figured that my blade would pretty much pierce whatever the ship might throw in our direction.

I landed awkwardly, because both hands were full. Otherwise, nothing went wrong.

There were no OTVs or street shuttles in sight.

‘Quick!’ I sprang up, narrowly avoiding Merrit. She and Inaret had come down separately, Inaret fetching up against Merrit’s back. Haemon and Dygall arrived a split second later, much too quickly. As they collided, Dygall dropped the flask.

We all stood motionless, watching it roll, not daring to breathe. But it didn’t lose its lid.

Before it had even stopped moving, Dygall pounced on the gently rocking cylinder.

‘Okay, wait.’ I waved them towards the wall, and plastered myself against it too, shuffling along sideways until I reached the open hatchway. From there, I could see part of the street outside. There were some nasty black stains on the pink-and-yellow floor, but nothing moved. Carefully, I poked a very small portion of my head through the yawning space – and jumped at a sudden explosion of noise.

Of
barking
.

It was Bam.

‘Is that -?’ Dygall began. I had knocked myself while jerking back into the stair shaft. Rubbing my temple, I opened my mouth to reply. Bam, however, was quicker than I was. He surged past me, his tail lashing.

Haemon squeaked, and clamped himself to my leg.

‘It’s all right,’ I gasped. ‘It’s – it’s just Yestin’s dog . . .’

Yestin. I caught Dygall’s eye, and he looked away. What had happened to Yestin?

‘Yestin’s
dog
?’ Merrit was astounded. ‘You mean that’s
Bam
?’

‘Yes.’

‘But -’

‘There’s no time, Merrit,’ I warned, and gently disengaged Haemon. ‘Keep behind me,’ I told him, licking my dry lips. ‘It’s all right. He won’t hurt you, see? He wants to be friends.’

‘Cheney, what have you got there?’ Dygall was focused on the grenade in my hand. ‘What did he give you?’

‘Later.’ I pushed on, into the street, making for the tube once more. But Bam was ahead of me. He skipped past, bounding onto the tube platform. When I didn’t follow him – when I stopped at the corner – he trotted over to sniff at my heels while I took my usual precautions.

It didn’t really surprise me that the tube was clear. Somehow, that was obvious from Bam’s demeanour.

‘Okay,’ I said, gesturing at the others. We scurried along, unable to catch up with Bam, who seemed to have a knack for moving quickly over the fleshy hillocks and corrugations of the floor. He didn’t even pause at the next junction. I did, though.

Again, our path was clear.

It occurred to me, as I pursued Bam, that he had some kind of inbuilt warning system – that he was, in essence, a miniature probe, with all of a probe’s ‘alert’ capabilities. This became increasingly obvious the further we went. Bam would spring carelessly past a junction, which, upon inspection, would prove to be empty of danger.

I was just about to make some comment about this when his behaviour changed.

He stopped, and began to bark.

CHAPTER
NINETEEN

I pulled up short, naturally. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw the others follow suit. There was nothing behind us except a cloud of soaring scent pellets.

‘The Bridge,’ Merrit murmured in my ear.

She was right. We had returned to the Navigation area. How long ago, I wondered distractedly, had I actually left it? One hour? Two hours? I had no idea.

Bam was getting annoyed. He had planted himself in the middle of the next junction, and was barking at an unseen menace down the street.

Unless I was mistaken, that menace lay very close to the Bridge.

‘Cheney?’ Dygall was hoarse and out of breath. I flapped a peremptory hand at him. Now Bam was growling, and I didn’t know what to do. Would something attack him?

A street shuttle, perhaps? Should we retreat to the nearest stair shaft? If anything reached him at the junction, it was bound to spot us. All it had to do was look to its right.

I was about to turn tail when Bam suddenly disappeared. He charged off down the street, barking furiously. To my surprise, his barking wasn’t cut short. It went on and on.

I gazed at Merrit, seeking some kind of explanation.

‘Maybe – he’s not a threat?’ she speculated, quietly.

‘Because he’s not human?’

It made sense. But I
was
human, so I didn’t imitate the dog. Instead, I advanced with great caution, millimetre by millimetre, until my right eye socket had barely cleared the corner in front of me.

What I saw made my heart turn over.

The door to the Bridge was still untouched, but it wouldn’t be for long. There was a lot of activity outside it. One street shuttle was clamped against it already (excreting acids, perhaps?) and another lay in wait nearby. I also spotted an On-board Transport Vehicle, and innumerable samplers whirring around like giant insects.

Withdrawing, I sagged against the wall.

‘Well?’ Dygall croaked. I lifted a finger to my lips; we couldn’t afford to make any noise, despite the dog’s clamour. Clearly, all those transformed vehicles had enraged him. I had seen him dashing about between them, snapping first at one, then at another. But they seemed unaware of his presence.

‘Get back,’ I mouthed, gesturing at Dygall. ‘Back.’

Though he frowned, he did as he was told. So did the others. We retraced our steps to the previous junction, where I glanced down the street, looking for an undamaged door. The only burnt one, I noticed, was at the far end, near the port tube.

‘Here,’ I said, and headed for the closest compartment. Its door was shut, but I knew what lay behind that door: a kind of storeroom, full of mimexis backup hardware, guidance equipment, spare parts and so forth. There wouldn’t be much space, but I didn’t need much space.

Just enough for five small people.

‘Take this.’ I handed Merrit my grenade. ‘Put Inaret down, and take care of this. Haemon? Give me that bottle. Dygall – keep an eye out.’

I poked the neck of Haemon’s bottle between the two door panels and used it as a lever, pushing open a hole big enough for my free hand. Then I braced myself and shoved as hard as I could.

Slowly, the taut mass of muscle tissue yielded.

‘Merrit,’ I grunted, ‘can you see inside?’

She stooped and peered, nervously.

‘It’s dark . . .’ she mumbled. ‘Hang on.’

Before I could stop her, she pushed a hand through the hole, triggering some kind of organic biosensor. Immediately, the storeroom was flooded with light.

‘Merrit!’

‘It’s okay,’ she reported. ‘I mean – there’s nothing to worry about.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘I’m sure. But what are you -?’

‘Right, then.’ So far, so good. ‘Just help me, will you? We need to get in. Pass that thing of yours to Inaret – Inaret! Don’t you drop it, baby!’

Without uttering another word, Merrit surrendered the grenade and inserted one shoulder into the hole, throwing her entire weight against the other door panel. Struggling together, we managed to force open a space big enough to crawl through. ‘In!’ I gasped. ‘Everybody in! Haemon!’

But Haemon hung back. He didn’t want to go first. It was Dygall who led the way. Haemon and Inaret went after him, though Inaret was very reluctant. Then I stuck one leg through the hole, and Merrit did the same.

‘Okay,’ I said, ‘on the count of three -’ ‘We both jump in,’ she interrupted. ‘I get it.’

‘One. Two.
Three
.’

We hurled ourselves into the storeroom as the door panels, released of our combined pressure, sprang back to their former positions. Merrit’s foot was caught – she wasn’t fast enough – but it didn’t really matter. The panels were far softer than they had been, and we were able to jerk her free.

‘Can you move your toes?’ I demanded. ‘Are they broken?’

‘No . . . ah . . .’ She was sitting on the floor, rubbing her ankle furiously and blinking back tears. Inaret’s bottom lip began to quiver in sympathy.

‘Oh no,’ the little girl whimpered.

‘It’s all right.’ Merrit flexed her foot, grimacing. ‘It’s okay, Ret, I’m fine. Really.’

Reassured, I turned to Haemon. ‘Listen. Haemon. I need your help. Are you listening?’

Mutely, he nodded. His skin was streaked with a white crust of dried gunge. My own face felt stiff under the same coating. Even my eyelashes were sticky.

‘Okay.’ As my gaze roamed the walls enclosing us, I tried to collect my thoughts. There were lots of loose items in that room, stacked up on open shelves that now looked like gullets. Some of the items might prove to be useful, I decided. ‘Everybody listen. I saw lot of things hanging around outside the Bridge. An OTV, a couple of street shuttles -’

‘We should go upstairs again,’ Dygall interposed.

‘Wait. Just wait. Just
think
.’ I surveyed the faces around me. ‘
Why
would they all be hanging around that door? Hmm?’

A brief pause. Everyone wore tired, blank expressions – except Merrit. She cleared her throat.

‘Because somebody’s in there?’ she suggested.

‘Exactly. This immune system isn’t interested in empty rooms. Why should it be?’ I peered up at the access panel in the ceiling. ‘But before we do anything, I want to make sure. I want to make
absolutely sure
that it’s worth doing.’

‘That what’s worth doing?’ Dygall inquired uneasily.

I looked him straight in the eye. ‘We’ve got weapons, Dygall,’ I said, keeping my voice steady only with a tremendous effort. ‘We can’t just walk away and leave whoever’s stuck on the Bridge.’

There was a general intake of breath, and a shifting of bodies. Merrit whispered, ‘But Cheney . . .’ before trailing off. Dygall, who was standing over me, wrapped his arms tightly around his Dewar flask.

Inaret stuck her thumb in her mouth.

‘Arkwright might be in there.
Mum
might be in there.’ I had to wait for an instant before continuing. I had to banish an image of Mum from my mind. ‘Whoever
is
in there, we need them. We all need each other. If we don’t help each other, we don’t have a chance. Do you see what I’m saying?’ Looking around, I searched for the right words. ‘Everyone’s important, not just some people. Look at Haemon. He’s only small, but we wouldn’t be here now if it wasn’t for him. That’s why we can’t leave anyone behind.’ Seeing Inaret’s frightened expression, I hastened to reassure her. ‘I’m not suggesting we should charge in like idiots. First we have to make sure I’m right. That’s why I need you, Haemon.’ And I pointed at the ceiling. ‘You’re small. You might still fit in the air duct. If there’s enough room, you can crawl across the street and check the Bridge. See if there’s anyone in there. I mean . . . anyone
alive
.’ Gazing up into Haemon’s face (because he, too, was standing, while I was crouched beside Merrit), I noticed with a pang his missing tooth, and all the baby fat in his cheeks. He was so little. So fragile. He didn’t deserve this.