Terminal World (62 page)

‘It took Tulwar until now to tell us this?’ Meroka asked.

‘Tulwar didn’t know,’ Ricasso replied. ‘Surveying the airspace around Spearpoint hasn’t exactly been the highest priority - not when people have been dying in droves, and Spearpoint’s been under attack on two fronts. They’ve only just been able to make some measurements out there. Unfortunately, they’re bad news for us.’

He pressed his belly to the chart table and ran a finger over the map of Spearpoint. It was an old one that Quillon and Meroka had done their best to bring up to date, their annotations a scribble of bright-red ink over faded black and sepia.

‘At our preferred altitude,’ he continued, ‘we’ll hit a boundary ten leagues out. Beyond the boundary, wrapping Spearpoint from all directions, is a low-state zone, roughly equivalent to the old Horsetown.’ He met Quillon’s eye. ‘You’ve been through it, so you’ll know exactly how much works in Horsetown.’

‘Almost nothing that isn’t made of meat.’

‘Simple machines, that’s all. Iron clocks, waterwheels, flintlock pistols. Internal-combustion engines, air-cooled or gas-powered machine guns, sensitive navigation devices - not so much.’

‘Could we race through and hope it doesn’t affect our engines before we get out the other side?’ Quillon asked.

‘Doesn’t work like that, I’m afraid. There are some latency effects, so we wouldn’t lose all power immediately after crossing the boundary. But even if we hit the boundary at maximum speed, we still wouldn’t get more than a few leagues into it before we lost engines. Guns would follow shortly afterwards.’

‘Does it reach all the way to the ground?’ Curtana asked.

‘No,’ Ricasso said. ‘At least not according to Tulwar’s information, which even he admits isn’t necessarily accurate. We could come in very low, and still retain engines. But then we’d be at the mercy of those ground emplacements. They’d rip us to pieces.’

‘Even if we got through, there’d still be the main formation behind us,’ Curtana said.

Ricasso shook his head. ‘Not a hope. We just don’t have enough escort strength to protect them, or even enough airspace to guard the unarmed ships from below. We have civilians to think of, not to mention the reason we’re doing this in the first place.’

‘The reasons,’ Quillon corrected under his breath.

‘Quite.’ Ricasso nodded.

‘All right,’ Curtana said. ‘If not down, then what about up? Can we come in over the top?’

‘Just as impractical, I’m afraid. The low-state zone extends well above our normal ceiling.’ Before she could raise an objection he said, ‘Yes, I know
Painted Lady’s
flown higher than almost every other ship in Swarm, and I don’t doubt she could do so again. But one ship’s simply not enough, and I won’t risk all the medicine in one hold. Besides, high altitude brings its own risks. You’d be exposed to angels and anything else capable of flying around up there.’

‘So in other words,’ Meroka said, ‘we’re screwed whichever way we come in. May as well turn tail now and head back to the Bane. Is that what you’re saying?’

Ricasso stood back from the table. ‘No, I’m saying that the only option open to us may strike you as rather unpalatable.’

‘Which would be?’

‘We push on. Three ships go first, with the processed serum stocks divided between them. The unprocessed stocks remain aboard
Purple Emperor
for now, until it’s safe to bring her in.’

‘Cross the boundary and eventually lose all power and weapons,’ Curtana said.

‘But we’ll still be
airborne,’
Ricasso answered. ‘Hydrostatic lift doesn’t depend on any clever gadgetry; the ships will still fly.’

‘Drift, you mean. The whole point of a dirigible is that it’s
dirigible
. You get to choose which way it goes, and how fast.’

‘That will be decided for us,’ Ricasso said. ‘The prevailing wind happens to be on our side. Even if we lose all power, the ships will keep moving in the right direction.’

Curtana looked offended. ‘We’re pilots, not balloonists. Leave that to the Skullboys.’

‘I’ve done some ballooning recently. It has its attractions.’

‘And look how well that ended.’

He smiled at Curtana. ‘Thank you, my dear, for that frank assessment. I’ll remind you that we’re airmen above all else. And all we have to do is get the laden ships down on that ledge.’

‘You mean crash.’

‘That will depend on the skill of those involved, wouldn’t you agree? There are twisty thermals near Spearpoint, which would be a problem even if we had engines. We can also expect to encounter resistance from the occupying elements, not to mention the hostiles around Spearpoint’s base.’ He flashed a challenging smile. ‘But I have the utmost confidence in my captains. The question is, do they have confidence in themselves?’

Curtana rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, don’t start that again. You got me to fly into the Bane. That was bad enough, but at least I stood a slender chance of having a ship at the end of it.’

‘Land her gently enough and you’ll still have a ship.’

‘I’ll have a gutless skeleton, if I’m lucky. No engines, no guns. Just a heap of metal and skin and gas. That’s not the way
Painted Lady
was meant to go. Down in flames, maybe. But ending up like some paralysed cripple?’ Curtana looked away disgustedly, as if they were discussing the betrayal of a close friend.

‘If we do this one thing,’ Ricasso said, looking around the room for support, ‘then everything changes. Everything. Not just Spearpoint, not just Swarm, but the entire landscape of our world. Who knows if we’ll even want ships when the dust has settled? Maybe we’ll have found something else to care about.’

‘You’d have thrown someone overboard if they’d spoken like that a year ago,’ Curtana said.

‘I’d have been right to. But that was then and this is now. They’ve lost their city. What do a few ships matter, set against that?’

She looked amazed. ‘Fear and panic, you’re actually serious. What did you and Doctor Quillon actually see on that ballooning trip? The face of God?’

‘Very nearly,’ Ricasso said.

‘How long until we hit the boundary, at our present speed?’ Quillon asked.

Ricasso looked at his paperweight. ‘Tulwar doesn’t know exactly where the limit is; his information wasn’t that detailed. We might hit it in an hour, maybe two. The lead ships will need to climb, since they’re going to lose dynamic lift as soon as the engines conk out. The wind will carry them on, but the ships will be sinking all the while. Apart from venting gas and dropping ballast - neither of which they can carry on doing for ever - they’ll have no control over that descent rate, so they’ll have to make sure they’re high enough at the start not to miss Spearpoint completely.’

‘I’m liking this more and more,’ Curtana said. But in her face Quillon could already see a hardening resolve; calculations of static and dynamic lift whirring behind her eyes, sums she had been doing all her adult life, as effortlessly as breathing.

‘And then?’ Quillon asked. ‘How long will it take the ships to pass through?’

‘Again, I can’t say with any certainty. The total passage shouldn’t last longer than two hours. Why?’

‘There’s not enough time for antizonals. It’s hard enough calculating the right dosage when you don’t know the conditions in advance. But even if I got the dosage right, the drugs would still be in our systems when we come out on the other side.’

‘There are corrective drugs,’ Ricasso said.

‘Only suitable for a small adjustment, to refine a dosage or to negate the residual effects of an earlier treatment. It’d be madness to use them at the necessary concentrations. And Serum-15 won’t be any more use to us right now.’

‘So this thing that’s already going to be incredibly difficult,’ Curtana said, ‘we’ll be doing while under the effects of zone sickness?’

‘I can order the dispensing of a low-strength, broad-spectrum antizonal as soon as we hit the boundary,’ Quillon said. ‘It won’t offset all the effects, and the benefits will begin to fade within about half an hour, but it’ll still be better than nothing.’

‘It’ll have to do,’ Ricasso said. ‘The transition shouldn’t be too severe, anyway. We’re only talking about a small change, aren’t we?’

‘We’ll know when we hit it,’ Quillon said.

After a mildly combative three-way argument between himself, Curtana and Agraffe, Ricasso reluctantly agreed to return by boat to
Purple Emperor.
It was safer there - marginally, at least - and there was much for him to do in connection with the unprocessed Serum-15 reserves that the larger ship still carried, those that had been salvaged from Spatha’s sabotage.

Swarm’s assault on Spearpoint would be led by
Painted Lady, Cinnabar
and
Iron Prominent
, while the other ships held back on the safe side of the zone boundary. But as the lead ships climbed into the cold air of the low stratosphere, edging perilously close to their operational ceiling, all of Swarm followed their ascent.
Painted Lady
and some of the other escort ships were used to climbing to these altitudes, but for many of the larger ships it was the first time in years that anything like this had been asked of them. It was as much of a challenge for the crews and citizens as it was for the labouring engines. Few of the gondolas were pressurised, so it was necessary to break out oxygen bottles and masks to alleviate the effects of the thinning air. Children, the elderly and the sick were permitted to breathe continuously, but the adults had to ration their intake, using the masks just enough to stave off hypoxia. Anything else would have been entirely impractical in any case. Orders still needed to be shouted; intense conversations still needed to take place. More so than at any other time, in fact, for the higher Swarm went the more there was to go wrong; the more that needed immediate repair. The thinning air began to affect engine power, requiring the manual adjustment of fuel-to-air mixtures. Airmen had to climb out onto icebound engine struts, working gloved and goggled to alter carburettor settings. Fuel lines and seals turned brittle, requiring immediate repair. One man was lost overboard as he slipped on ice; another suffered severe burns to his hand when he removed his glove and touched freezing metal. Other men came back inside hypothermic or frostbitten, and yet there were always volunteers ready to go back outside and continue the work. Most of the ships had some power in reserve, so they could keep climbing even when an engine or two was lost to the cold, but this was not always the case. With painful inevitability, elements of Swarm began to drop back, unable to maintain the climb. They would have to look after themselves from now on; the other ships had enough worries of their own.

Quillon spent the climb making sure all the other ships were informed of his orders regarding the antizonals, regardless of whether they would be making the crossing now or later. His instructions were simple enough - the dosage per person was small, and could easily be met with the normal supplies carried aboard each ship - but as the orders were relayed from ship to ship, there was still surprising scope for confusion. Queries were flashed back, doubting that the original order had been received correctly. Even after Quillon had reissued his instructions, he still had a handful of outstanding requests for confirmation to deal with. It was only when he had dealt with these that it occurred to him he still had to dole out the drugs for the crew of
Painted Lady
. All the while he was engaged in examining his own faculties for evidence of sudden-onset zone sickness.

Curtana found him in the chart room. She had been breathing oxygen and a black mark encircled her mouth where the mask had dented her skin.

‘Thought I’d let you know that we’ve levelled off. We’re at four leagues now. This is as high as we go without popping rivets.’

‘How many ships made it up this far?’

‘Sixty-five, last count. A few stragglers may still catch up, but I’m not counting on it. It’s still going to be hard. I’ve got men outside nursing every engine. We’ve been firing the guns just to keep the barrels from icing up.’

‘They won’t be much use to us once we cross over, will they?’

‘Nothing will happen instantly. It’s all going to come down to percentages and training.’

‘The zebra finches seem to have gone very quiet.’

‘They’re dead,’ she said bluntly. ‘Or unconscious, anyway. It’s probably the altitude rather than zone sickness. Trouble is, our instruments are freezing up just as quickly as everything else. We’re not going to have much advance warning.’

‘We’ll just have to do our best.’

Curtana noticed the wooden box set on the chart table before Quillon, with his mask and oxygen bottle still inside it. ‘If you’re trying to prove something, it isn’t necessary. We need you to be sharper than any of us.’

‘I’m not trying to prove anything.’ Quillon smiled awkwardly, aware that they were having a conversation that would have been impossible only a few weeks earlier. ‘I just don’t feel the altitude or cold the same way you do. And no, I’m not deceiving myself. I’ve been scrupulous in testing myself for zone sickness, so I know I’m not missing anything. My faculties are undiminished.’

‘It must feel like coming home.’

‘I don’t think it could ever feel like that.’ He paused and touched the unopened box. ‘If I sense I need it, I promise I’ll take the oxygen.’

‘Won’t be long now. Soon after we hit the boundary we’ll start to sink back down into thicker air.’

He passed her a glass vial. ‘Here are the pills, enough for the entire crew, including Meroka. Make sure no one takes anything until I give the order, and make doubly sure no one takes more than one pill. Can I entrust you with that?’

‘Of course. I’ve already stationed Meroka in the underbelly turret, but I’ll make sure she gets her dosage. And Nimcha and Kalis?’

‘I’ll attend to them myself. They have somewhat different requirements.’ He was silent for a moment. ‘This isn’t going to be easy, is it? Even with the three best ships in Swarm, and the best crews in the world running them, there’s no guarantee that we’ll get through.’