Six Days (16 page)

“C
ass Westerby, I cradled your mother as she fell.” Its voice echoes round my helmet. I stop breathing.

“She accepted her death. That is rare.”

“Cass, what’s going on?” shouts Wilbur.

I try to turn round to him but I’m stuck.
OK, be strong, be cool, just speak to it.

“What d’you know about her dying?” I go.

“I know the faces of all those who have lived and died on the Earth. Through the flinders, I have seen their dreams. I have listened to them as they called up to the sky.”

“What else about her?” I whisper.

“Cass, don’t listen to it!”

“I know this. That she found comfort in the shapes and smells of trees. That she was a storyteller and treasured her skill. That she thought of her children as she gave herself up to the dark.”

Right then it goes rifling through my memories of Mum. And I know it’s telling the truth.

“Cass!”

“Take it easy, Wilbur. It’s all right. It ain’t gonna hurt us.” Then to the ship I go, “How do I reset the shuttle?”

“Think of the place you wish it to go. Reach out with your mind.”

I close my eyes. The innards wraps themselves tighter around my fingers. I think of London, the Thames. I picture the bridges and the black surface of the water at night, by the Jubilee tunnel – where Erin took us before.

“It is done,” goes the ship.

The ghost shadow whips away in an instant and is gone. The innards loosen and I can feel the gloves growing back. I pull free from the hole, and tentacles of slime whiplash into my helmet.

I turn to Wilbur. He’s breathing hard and he’s gone all white and trembly, so I bring him close till our faceplates touch.

Then the ship goes, “Forty-nine flinders for forty-nine sleepers. They must all return here.”

Suddenly I feel so simple and so
tiny
next to this voice, cos it’s older than the world. But I figure I’ve got to keep it talking while we get back to the shuttle.

“So what’s so special about forty-nine? Can’t you make do with forty-eight?”

“Together they are strong. Together they are
one
. Wilbur knows.” Its voice is so calm, so cold.

I do a finger-down-the-throat sign to get him to puke
up the flinder or lose it somehow. He shakes his head for a no-go. I pull him back toward the main shaft.

“You must complete the forty-nine, Cass Westerby.”

“That’s what we’re gonna do,” I go. “Just as soon as we get back to London and find the others.” I can hear just how bonkers that sounds – cos how am I going to fool this ancient ship? I think about Halina battling with it, and I know it ain’t just gonna let us go. Not after it’s waited five thousand years to recover the missing flinder.

I swing Wilbur out through the busted airlock into the main shaft. I can see he’s itching to speak, but I cut him off with a look. I hold my arm out steady and aim the cable gun toward the far airlock …

“The flinder must stay.”

… and fire. The cable loops out to the far end and … bull’s-eye!

“All right, but how do we get it back out of Wilbur?”

“It is with him now. For all the remainder of his life.”

I clench my teeth. “But he can’t stay here. He’s got a life in London.”

“The flinders cannot be allowed to fall to Earth. Disaster will reign. They must stay here, in the trail of the heavens. For every flinder, a sleeper.”

Inch by inch I reel us both in. I know there’s no point in reasoning with it, cos it’s got to be as mad as a box of frogs. But why is it even talking to me? That’s the chilling thing. Halina said she
fought
with it. Why isn’t it
stopping me from heading back to the sleeper side?

We make it through the far airlock and into the sleeper chamber. I ditch my suit and help Wilbur with his. We’re nearly home and dry.

“Thing is, you ain’t gonna set the sleepers free even if you repair things up here, are you? Not ever. That’s what Halina said. Except you never told her why.”

Wilbur butts in, “Cass, what about the –”

I show him a furious cut-throat sign, so he buttons it.

“The sleepers will have their lives on the world. But not until the time is true.”

Suits back in their slots, nice and tidy, like we ain’t really in the biggest rush ever to bail out of this floating madhouse.

“Wow, that’s a bit on the woolly side, innit? So when we talking? A million years? Two million? Or just when you’re good and ready?”

The ship don’t answer.

I feel Wilbur’s hand suddenly clench mine. And maybe he’s trying to get me to go a bit more “softly softly,” but I can’t help it – I’ve got to keep the
Aeolus
talking. And it ain’t that far now to the shuttle entrance …

“So after Halina went AWOL, you sure took your time waking anyone up to find her flinder, eh? I mean, if it’s so important to repair the ship and get all the flinders up here, why leave it so long?”

It don’t answer straightaway. And somehow I know I’ve
asked the killer question. Cos my scalp goes cold like the devil just touched it.

“Four thousand eight hundred and seventy-two years is not so long to find the right sleeper. The One will complete the forty-nine. The flinders will be strong again. Together we will end war, end disease, end suffering …”

I remember Halina’s warning,
Never trust it
.

Just right then, Wilbur pulls away from my grasp, and he’s trying to reach a conker that’s strayed out of his pocket. It tumbles away from his outstretched fingers. And even as I’m looking at him, the ship walls are moving.

“Wilbur!”

I snatch at the hem of his coat as these petals of skin sprout out of the wall. He fumbles hold of the chestnut, and I can see the relief on his face, but now he’s spinning away from me, and his smile dies.

“Wilbur! God almighty! Don’t touch the walls!”

But how can he stop himself touching them?

“Cass!”

The petals rear up. They’re huge and pulsing with veins, and as they fold toward him, the edges split into spiked tentacles.

“He must stay …,” goes the ship, calm and deadly. “He is The One.”

I’m in a frantic scramble to get to him, but I’m drifting away, so slowly, and none of my flailing about gets me any closer. The tentacles latch on to his coat, his trouser legs,
his boots. And slowly, the ship gathers him in. Behind him, in the middle of the petals, a hole opens up.

“You must return alone, Cass. You must bring the last two sleepers, bring Erin and Peyto. All the flinders must be together. Or this vessel will burn. Wars will turn the Earth to dust. Wilbur must stay …”

“He ain’t a sleeper! He belongs with me back home! Let him go!”

“Halina is dead. For every flinder, a sleeper.”

At last I brush into the far wall, and know it’s my only chance to get to him. I jam my heels into the wall, coil up and spring away, and now I’m charging across the chamber toward the closing petals.

“Cass! Don’t leave me!”

I slam into the tentacles. They’re strong – whipping about like eels – and they mesh together like a cage between me and Wilbur. I reach in and grab his lapels. And he’s looking right back at me, crying his eyes out.

“WILBUR!”

The hole closes around him.

“LET HIM GO!”

I tug at his coat with everything, but there’s a ripping sound, and the lapels just come away in my hands and I’m catapulted away. Only his face is free now, yelling at me. Then the hole seals shut and the petals wither away and there ain’t nothing left of him.

“WILBUR! CAN YOU HEAR ME?”

Nothing.

I clatter into the edge of the shuttle entrance. And I grab on to the lip of the hatch so I can throw myself back to where he’s buried. But as I launch away, something grabs hold of my ankle.

And that’s when I remember that the shuttle ain’t empty.

The Okhotnik warrior is right there, all eyes wide open. Its steel fingers snip together as I try to batter my way free. Then it just flings me into the shuttle. I spin to face the chamber wall and …

Rushing, squealing air.

Black.

Why can’t I see anything?

Pain.

Wilbur? Where’s Wilbur?

Am I outside?

WILBUR?!

Breathe.

It’s OK. Breathe.

Actually, it ain’t OK.

It’s a very long way away from being OK.

Black lumps dancing in front of my eyes. Like in the bridge.

Except you ain’t in the bridge anymore, you spod …

Sirens ripping through my head.

How come I’m in the shuttle? I don’t remember being strapped into a chair harness. In a panic I wriggle free and right through a floating sheet of my own blood. My mouth is thick with it, spinning it out like ribbons. I try to call Wilbur’s name, but I just choke up a load more blood and spit. And past the tightening hole of the hatch door, I spot the Okhotnik as it floats deeper away into the ship. The hole closes up, and even though I thump at it with everything, it won’t budge. Then the engines start shuddering and rumbling, and there ain’t no point in hammering at the hatch. Cos the shuttle ain’t docked no more. On the screens, I watch the ship grow smaller, and I can’t scream or shout cos that ain’t gonna change matters now.
And I can’t believe I’ve lost him, my little brother! He’s gone!

And then I remember what reentry is like.

And then I remember I ain’t strapped in.

And then I remember the hull is busted.
Critically
busted.

I kick off the ceiling and dive toward the chair harnesses. But even as I fumble for the flailing belts, a storm punches in around me. A shrieking hurricane tearing at my skin. Somewhere near the chairs there’s a pinprick of
light, hot and white and shivering and swelling. The sky trying to come in. And the shuttle fighting it back.

I’m clawing myself away from the hole, but it’s getting bigger. And the shuttle is actually
shrinking
. Like it’s being eaten away and it’s trying to surround me. Fire and foam.

Then a cold liquid swills into my eyes, my throat, my lungs. And I think it’s the sea.

N
ot the sea. Too quiet, too still. Cold glue presses into my mouth, and I can’t breathe, though that don’t faze me, cos somehow I don’t
need to
breathe. Far away, at the corner of my eye, I see a rage of light, but it can’t touch me cos I’m all curled up and safe. All my worries and struggles are gone. Somebody speaks, but I ain’t listening – the words drift about my head, never settling. And I figure this
somebody
is trying really hard to unravel me, spark me into action. But I don’t want to move, cos being tucked away here in the dark where you can’t even remember your own name is
bliss
. The voice ain’t giving up that easy, though – it keeps picking away at me, trying different words. I know I’ve heard it before, riling me, chivying me along.
Who is it?
And it’s a jolt when I cotton on that I’m alone, and there ain’t no one else it can be. The voice deep down inside that drives me on, no matter what, is
mine
. And all my worst terrors charge back at once …

Wilbur. I’ve
always
been the one to look out for him, to keep him safe on every scav shift, while London crashes round our ears, wall by wall, like a city of cards.
I’ve got to get him back!
The stab of losing him pumps my heart, and drags me to my senses … Then out of the darkness – wobbling amber, the crackle of flames, and a voice shouting.

Arms reach in to take me, and someone wipes the muck off my face.

It’s Peyto.

I must be dreaming, cos
how is he here?
His eyes search over me, looking for signs of life. Then the struggle to breathe kicks in, and I strain for air, choking for life.

“Cass, you’re OK, you’re OK. I can’t believe you made it back! Say something. Where’s Wilbur?”

I clutch on to him and cough up some of the cold glue.

“He’s still there. I’ve got to go back …”

“And we will. We’ll find a way. Can you move?”

“My head feels top-heavy …”

I try to take in where I am. A glowing mess lies all around me, and from it runs a furrow of molten earth that stretches away like a burning road. I see all this through some kind of liquid glass that slides over my face, and as I reach up to wipe it off, I find that my fingers, untouched by the fire, are slathered with the same heavy stuff – and it
creeps
more than it oozes, covering my skin in sluglike waves.

Peyto is shining in the firelight, dripping in the same
gloop as me, though there are wisps of smoke rising from his shoulders, and his jacket is scorched black.

“Come on, Cass, it’s not safe. We’ve got to move.”

He pulls me up banks of smoking earth, and as the gloop falls away from us, I feel the heat for the first time – warping and roasting the air.

We tumble over the lip of the hollow and down into a pit of slurry so
shattering cold
I can’t even find the breath to yell. We help each other up onto a little island and lie there gasping. It takes me a while to recognize where we must be – the maze of slag heaps and mud channels that leads to the river. The south side.

I peer back at the crater glow as it shivers up into the sky, and I stroke my face, feeling for wounds.

“I didn’t even feel any heat,” I go.

He pulls at the gloop hanging from his arms. “Thermal-protection gel – the shuttle makes it in an emergency reentry. I had to cover myself in it before I could get anywhere near you. Without it, you’d have gone up in smoke.”

“But where’s the rest of the shuttle?”

Peyto gapes at me like I’ve lost the plot. “There is no shuttle left, Cass. It reassembled when the damage went critical, making the stuff it needed out of what was left. But you were burning up all the way down. You were lucky it lasted as long as it did.”

I look at the glowing mess that was the shuttle, and
it hits me. Cos there ain’t no way back to Wilbur now, is there? But then I remember Halina – the shuttle she came down in … And the way my hope hangs on a thread nearly makes me sick again.

Peyto winces as he pulls off his jacket.

“You’re burned! Let me see!”

“It’s OK.”

“Let me see!”

He hauls me to my feet. “We don’t have time, we have to get away from here. The whole of London would have seen you come down …”

He takes my hand and drags me along a trench. “The tunnel is close by – we were heading that way to take the dinghy.”

“You knew I was coming?”

He frowns at me. “No, how could we? We just saw this fireball in the sky hurtling toward us. I mean, I saw it change shape and that’s when I knew it was the shuttle. It was trying to make a controlled descent.”

“You call that controlled?”

I sneak a sidelong glance at him and there’s a look on his face. Disbelief that I’m even alive.

“Where’s Erin?” I go.

“She’s around here somewhere – we were all split up in the rush to get to you. Maleeva’s with us, your father, too. I can’t call out – there are troops this side of the river now,
lots of them. All we can do is head for the tunnel. I think it’s this way …”

I stumble after him, trying to get my head in gear.
How long was I up there, on the ship? An hour? Two hours?
Something’s not right – I feel like I’ve slipped through time … My watch face is cracked and filled with mud. I check the countdown cuff – three bands left. Already the third band is shorter than the others. Less than three days to go …

“Peyto, wait! How did you get back? We must be at least twenty miles from that Vlad HQ.”

“Maleeva – she carried me on her back practically the whole way. I’d never have kept up with her otherwise. It was chaos – loads of soldiers heading back to the Vlad base. By the time we got to the scav zone, it was deserted, all the bridges unguarded. When we got to Elephant and Castle, we thought we’d be too late, but the Okhotnik guards were just unconscious – hanging limp in their frames. All the scavs were getting ready to leave in case the Vlads came back. We found Erin and your dad, and came here to try and cross the river again.”

“The other shuttle … You know where it is?”

“Not for certain. Arbor Low – that’s where my mother was buried. We found maps in the museum. It’s about two hundred miles north of here. Her shuttle has to be close by.”

He grabs me down into the shallows as a helicopter sweeps overhead. Its searchlights pan across the mud holes, then it pulls away. Somewhere, over the clatter of blades, I can make out men shouting, dogs barking.

“It’ll be light soon,” mutters Peyto. “Too dangerous to cross the river. Come on!”

He snatches my hand and drags me on. Ahead, I recognize the shape of one of the slag heaps, the way it’s nearly tipping over, the loops of barbed wire snagged in the overhang. The tunnel mouth is so close now – I can see where runoff water from the bog is gathering toward it.

Then the mud gives way and, as we slither down toward the tunnel mouth, I see Maleeva and Erin and Dad all lowering the dinghy into the water.

Somehow they drag us out. Dad hovers over me, heaving with the effort, all the mud and water streaming off his coat. For a moment I only see his dark face and I figure he’s livid. Cos I ain’t got Wilbur with me.

But then he grabs me into his arms and hugs me so hard I reckon he’s gonna squeeze the life out of me.

His voice is hoarse. “I thought I’d lost you. I thought I’d lost you
both
.”

“Wilbur – he’s alive, Dad. I know he is. And we’re gonna get him back, I swear.”

“You came back,” he goes. “You came back to me.”

There’s some quip on my tongue, something about who else am I gonna come back to? Except I can’t say it. And
when we pull back, it’s only cos we’re as soaked as sewer rats that you can’t see the tears. Still we stare at each other. And it is pretty full-on amazing how we’ve ended up here, in each other’s arms. My dad and me.

And it’s Erin that breaks the spell between us. “Those troops will be here any minute,” she says.

Maleeva points back to a cluster of flashlight beams near the top of the slope. “They’re here now.”