Chaos Walking: The Complete Trilogy (131 page)

He keeps his eyes on me and makes a flick of his knife. The Spackle lurches forward in surprise, his arms suddenly free. He looks round for a minute, wondering what’s coming, till his eyes fall on mine–

And in an instant, I try to make my Noise heavy, try to make it loud, and it
hurts,
like a muscle I ain’t used in too long, but I try to hit him hard with everything that’s true about what we
really
want, whatever the Mayor mighta said, that me and Viola, we
do
want peace, that we want this all to be over and–

The Spackle stops me with a hiss–

I see myself in his Noise–

And I hear–

Recognishun?

And words–

Words in my language–

I hear–

The Knife.

“The Knife?” I say.

But the Spackle just hisses again and breaks for the door, running away and away and away–

Taking who knows what message back to his people.

{V
IOLA
}

“The
nerve
of it,” Mistress Coyle says through clenched teeth. “And how the army was
frothing
around him. Just like the worst days of when he ran the town.”

“I wish I could have at least had the chance to speak to the Spackle,” Simone says, back after an angry cart-ride through town with the other mistresses. “Tell them all humans aren’t alike.”

“Todd said he was able to get across what we really wanted,” I say, coughing badly. “So we have to hope that’s the message that gets through.”

“It if does get through,” Mistress Coyle says, “Prentiss will claim all the credit for it.”

“This isn’t about who scores the most points,” Bradley says.

“Is it not?” Mistress Coyle says. “Do you really want that man in a position of strength when the convoy arrives? Is that the settlement you’re after?”

“You say that as if we have the authority to relieve someone of duty,” Bradley says, “as if we can just waltz in here and impose our will.”

“Well, why can’t you?” Lee says. “He’s a murderer. He murdered my sister and my mother.”

Bradley makes to respond but Simone says, “I tend to agree,” weathering the shocked thunder of Bradley’s Noise. “If his actions are endangering the lives of everyone–”

“We’re
here,
” Bradley interrupts, “to establish a settlement for almost five thousand people who deserve to not wake up in the middle of a
war
.”

Mistress Coyle just heaves a heavy sigh like she wasn’t listening. “Better go out and start explaining to the people why it wasn’t
us,
” she says, heading out of the little healing room, “and if that Ivan says anything, I’ll smack his hick face.”

Bradley looks over to Simone, his Noise full of askings and disagreements, full of things he needs to know from her, pictures of her popping out all over, pictures of how much he wishes he could touch her–

“Would you stop that, please?” Simone says, looking away.

“Sorry,” he says, backing up a step, then another, then leaving the room without saying anything more.

“Simone–” I say.

“I just can’t get used to it,” she says. “I know I should, I know I’m going to
have
to, but it’s just . . .”

“It can be a good thing,” I say, thinking about Todd. “That kind of closeness.”

(but I can’t hear him any more–)

(and he doesn’t feel close at all–)

I cough again, bringing up ugly green stuff from my lungs.

“You look exhausted, Viola,” Simone says. “Any objections to a mild sedative to help you rest?”

I shake my head. She goes to a drawer and takes out a small patch, sticking it gently under my jaw. “Give him a chance,” I say, as the medicine starts to take hold. “He’s a good man.”

“I know,” she says, as my eyelids start to droop. “I know.”

I slip into blackness, the blackness of sedation, feeling nothing at all for a long while, relishing the emptiness of it, just blackness like the black beyond–

But that ends–

And I still sleep–

And I dream–

I dream of Todd–

Just there, out of reach–

And I can’t hear him–

I can’t hear his Noise–

I can’t hear what he’s thinking.

He stares at me like an empty vessel–

Like a statue with no one inside–

Like he’s dead–

Like oh god no–

He’s dead–

He’s
dead
–

“Viola,” I hear. I open my eyes. Lee’s reaching over to wake me, his Noise full of concern, but something else, too–

“What’s happened?” I say, feeling the fever sweat pouring off me, how soaked through my clothes and sheets are–

(Todd, slipping away from me–)

I see Bradley standing at the foot of my bed. “She’s done something,” he says. “Mistress Coyle’s gone and done something.”

[T
ODD
]

It’s a small sound and I shouldn’t be able to hear it, not thru the sleeping Noise of most of the camp.

But it’s a sound I reckernize.

A
whine
.

In the air.

Boy colt?
Angharrad says nervously as I leave my tent and head into the dusk that gets colder with every passing day.

“It’s a tracer,” I say to her, to anyone, shivering a little, looking round for the sound, seeing the men from the army who are still awake start to look for it, too, till there’s a surge in their Noise as they see it arcing up in the air in a wobbly kinda way from the dry river bed near the bottom of the falls. It’s heading north, north to where some of the Spackle army are most likely hiding in the hills–

“What the hell do they think they’re doing?” The Mayor’s suddenly by my side, eyes fixed on the tracer. He turns to Mr O’Hare, who’s come bleary-eyed outta his own tent. “Find Mistress Braithwaite. Now.”

Mr O’Hare goes running off half-dressed.

“A tracer is too slow to do any real damage,” the Mayor says. “This must be a diversion.” His eyes drift to the damaged zigzag hill. “Would you please call Viola, Todd?”

I go to my tent to get the comm and as I’m coming out we hear the distant
Boom
of the tracer hitting some trees to the north somewhere. But the Mayor’s right,
oxes
could outrun a tracer so it’s only serving one purpose.

Diverting the attenshun of the Spackle.

But from where?

The Mayor’s still looking at the rough edges of the hill where the Spackle came from, a hill an army can’t march down no more–

Or up–

But one person could–

One person could climb up over the rubble–

One person without Noise–

The Mayor’s eyes go wider and I know he’s thinking it, too.

And that’s when it happens–

From the very tiptop of the zigzag hill.

{V
IOLA
}

“How did she do this?” Bradley says, as we watch the tracer arc through the sky on the viewscreens in the healing room, Lee watching it through Bradley’s Noise. “How did she arrange this without us knowing?”

My comm beeps. I answer immediately. “Todd?”

But it’s not Todd.

“I’d point a probe at the hilltop right now if I were you,”
Mistress Coyle says, smiling back at me from the screen.

“Where’s Todd?” I cough. “How did you get a comm?”

A sound in Bradley’s Noise makes me look. I see him remembering Simone in the spares cabinet, fiddling with two more comms, but telling him she was just doing an inventory. “She wouldn’t,” he says. “Not without telling me?”

“We should look at the hilltop,” I say.

He presses a screen for control access, then steers a probe over to the hilltop, flipping it to nightvision so everything turns green and black. “What are we meant to see?”

I’m getting an idea. “Check for body heat.”

He presses the screen again and–

“There,” I say.

We see a lone figure, human, slinking down the hill, sticking to the underbrush, but moving quickly enough that it’s clear it may not matter much if they’re seen.

“That can only be a mistress,” I say. “They’d have heard a man doing that.”

Bradley dials the probe up a bit so we can see the lip of the hill, too. Spackle are standing along the ragged ridge, looking north to the forest where the tracer hit.

Not
looking down to the mistress fleeing beneath them.

And then the screen is filled with a single flash, the heat sensors overloading, and a second later we hear the
boom
come roaring through the speakers on the probe.

Which is when we also hear the huge cheer from outside the ship.

“They’re
watching
?” Lee says.

I see Simone in Bradley’s Noise again, along with a number of rude words. I pick my comm back up. “What did you do?”

But Mistress Coyle is no longer there.

Bradley dials the screen for a comm to broadcast outside the ship. His Noise is really rumbling, getting louder and more decisive by the second.

“Bradley,” I say. “What are you–?”

“Clear the immediate area,” he says into the comm and I can hear it booming around the hilltop outside. “The scout ship is taking off.”

[T
ODD
]

“That bitch,” I hear the Mayor say, reading the soldiers around him. The square’s in chaos. No one knows what’s happened. I keep trying to call Viola but the signal ain’t getting thru.

“Usually when a man calls a woman a bitch,” a voice calls over from a cart pulling up near us at the edge of camp, “it’s because she’s doing something right.”

Mistress Coyle smiles back at us, looking like the dog who found the slop bucket.

“We’ve already sent a message of
peace,
” the Mayor thunders at her. “How
dare
you–?”

“Don’t you talk to me about
daring,
” she thunders right back. “All I’ve done is show the Spackle that those of us without Noise can attack any time, even in their own backyard.”

The Mayor breathes heavy for a second, then his voice becomes scarily silky. “Are you riding into town all alone, Mistress?”

“Not alone, no,” she says, pointing at the probe that hovers above the camp. “I have friends in high places.”

Then we hear a familiar distant
booming
on the far hilltop to the east. The scout ship’s rising slowly into the air and Mistress Coyle’s a beat too late hiding the surprise on her face.

“Were
all
of your friends in on your little plan, Mistress?” the Mayor says, sounding happy again.

My comm beeps and this time Viola’s face pops up. “Viola–”

“Hold on,”
she says.
“We’re on our way.”

She clicks off and I hear a sudden new uproar from the army around us. Mr O’Hare is coming into the square from the main road, pushing Mistress Braithwaite before him in a way she ain’t taking kindly to at all. At the same time, Mr Tate’s coming back round the foodstore with Mistresses Nadari and Lawson and he’s holding a rucksack out at arm’s length.

“You tell your men to get their hands off those women,” Mistress Coyle orders. “Immediately.”

“They’re just swept up in the spirit of things, I assure you,” the Mayor says. “We’re all allies here, after all.”

“Caught her right at the bottom of the hill,” Mr O’Hare’s shouting as he gets closer. “Red-handed.”

“And these two were hiding explosives in their quarters,” Mr Tate says, handing the bag to the Mayor as he reaches us.

“Explosives we used to help
you,
idiot,” Mistress Coyle spits at him.

“It’s coming in for landing,” I say, putting a hand up to my eyes to shelter ’em from the wind as the scout ship starts its descent. The only place it’s got to land is on the square and that’s full of soldiers, already scrambling to get outta the way. There don’t seem to be too much heat or nothing coming off it but it’s still ruddy huge. I turn round to get my face away from the rush of air as it makes contact with the ground–

And when I do, I glance back up to the zigzag hill.

Where there are lights gathering–

The door of the scout ship drops open before it’s even fully landed and Viola’s there immediately, using the opening to hold herself up, and she looks sick, sicker than ever, sicker than I even
feared,
weak and thin and barely standing and not even using the arm that has the band on it and I shouldn’t have left her, I shouldn’t have left her up there alone, it’s been too long, and I’m running past the Mayor, who’s reaching out to stop me but I dodge him–

And I’m reaching Viola–

And her eyes are meeting mine–

And she’s saying–

Saying as I get to her–

“They’re coming, Todd. They’re coming down the hill.”

The Voiceless

(THE RETURN)

This is not what it seems
,
shows the Sky, as we watch the strangely feeble projectile rise slowly in the air, heading towards the north edge of the valley, where the Land is already easily getting out of the way of where it might fall.