'That will show movement from side to side, or back and forth.'
'But not up, which is what I most need to know.' She wiped her brow. Sweat was running down her neck and her shirt was saturated. The air was getting stuffy, too.
'But if we had something springy…'
He was away half an hour of their precious time, before returning with thin strips of green material. 'I found a diaphragm in one of the drawers. It's a kind of rubber.'
Tying one strip from the ceiling, above the binnacle, Merryl knotted a small coin into the other end, one-handed. 'I've carried this copper nyd for twenty years,' he said with a hint of a smile, 'for luck – not that it's brought me any.' Merryl scored a line across the screen at the lowest edge of the coin and stood back. 'Try again.'
She moved the controller lever slightly. The water in the dish moved back a fraction. 'It works!' She gave him a triumphant grin, then a tentative hug. 'Let's try the other' Taking hold of the flying knob, she pulled it up. The rubbery strip lengthened perceptibly before oscillating around its original position.
'How fast do you think we're rising?' she said.
'Haven't a clue.'
She pulled the knob up further until the machine began to shudder, then backed it off a little. 'If we're only rising at a few spans an hour… I suppose it'll be an easy death, if we run out of air.'
He did not answer.
Tiaan settled back in her seat. 'How did the enemy come to capture you, Merryl?'
'We lost an unimportant little battle near Gosport, way over on the east coast; he said. 'We were fighting for a village you'd never have heard of. I don't remember its name. On the march we went through so many places that after a while no one could tell the difference.'
She wiped her dripping brow. Were you in the army a long time?'
'Only a few months. There was an emergency, and after a week of training we went to the front. I say 'the front", though there wasn't one. The lyrinx prefer to fight in small bands, or even alone. Most of my friends died in ambushes and isolated skirmishes. Afterwards, no one knew where; no one survived to write their Histories. The cursed war!'
There was a bang on the roof of the construct, followed by a scraping down the back.
'What was that?' said Tiaan.
'Something in the seep. Perhaps a piece of wood, or a large bone.' Merryl was staring straight ahead, as if to pierce the black tar.
'What did you do before you went into the army, Merryl?'
'I was a translator, like my parents,' he said softly. 'But that's so long ago it doesn't seem like me at all. I can hardly imagine it now.'
They sat in silence, listening to the whine of the construct, the occasional thunk of some object or other striking the top of the machine, the creak and rattle of the metal skin. If we were going really slowly, she thought, the impacts wouldn't make any noise.
It grew hotter. Tiaan's clothes were sodden; Merryl's too. She could hear his hoarse breathing. Hers was the same. Surely they did not have much air left. Time seemed to be going very slowly.
'What about you, Tiaan? Tell me about yourself.'
She was equally reticent. 'There's not much to tell. I was chosen to become an artisan. I have a talent of thinking in pictures. I -'
Down below, someone groaned and began to thrash their legs. Merryl swung himself down the ladder. 'They're not looking good,' he called.
She poked her head down until she could see. Three of the seven slaves were asleep, or unconscious. The others sprawled limply on the floor, eyes closed, lungs heaving. Tirior and Minis were in better shape, though they looked worse than she felt. Nish lay curled up on a pull-out bunk, halfway up the wall. He had worked his blindfold off but his eyes were shut.
'The air's really bad down there,' Merryl said as he returned to her side. 'They won't last much longer.'
She pulled the knob up until the machine began to shudder. The rubber strip elongated. Everything began to vibrate, including her teeth. The construct squealed as if its metal carapace were being wrenched one way and then the other.
'I don't like the sound of that,' she said.
'Doesn't matter much, either way.'
'No.'
A while later she said, 'How fast now?' forgetting that she'd asked that before.
'I couldn't say, Tiaan.'
It was too much of an effort to talk. She leaned back against the seat, panting. Her head drooped.
The hatch above their heads squealed and a ribbon of tar jetted in from one side, festooning her arm and shoulder with coiling black bands. She tried to brush it off but the hot stuff stuck to her fingers and burned. Tiaan yelped and with her free hand pulled the flight knob down until the shuddering stopped.
Merryl tightened the hatch and sat on the floor, resting his head back against the wall. Tiaan set the controls and scraped the tar off. She felt so very tired; her head nodded. She hauled herself up, hanging onto the binnacle. If she sat down, she would go to sleep, which would swiftly be followed by unconsciousness, and death for everyone.
Something struck the construct hard, sending a shiver through the bowl of water. The hatch scraped as if the machine were sliding along the underside of something large and hard.
Tiaan could not think clearly. She pushed the controller forwards, the squeal became a shriek of tormented metal then, to her horror, the hatch was prised up a finger's width and thick tar began to ribbon in.
The noise stopped. They were free of the obstruction. Tiaan tilted the front of the construct up. The bowl of water slid off the binnacle, pouring its contents down the ladder. Pulling the flight knob up as far as it would go, she prayed.
The machine shuddered, the tar boiled beneath it and with a roar the construct hurled itself vertically. A surge of hot tar coated the wall at her back. The sound was indescribable. Tiaan felt sure the machine was going to tear itself apart.
Then the shuddering ceased, so abruptly that she did not understand what had happened. Had they stopped? No, for the mechanism down below was still screaming. She'd done it. The construct was free, in the open air, and going up like a skyrocket.
Tiaan threw open the hatch and, gasping lungfuls of sweet, pure air, let the machine fly where it would. There were groans and cries as the passengers were flung from one side to the other, but they were alive, at least. She did not look down. Tiaan had strength only to cling to the side, her eyes watering in the gale that swirled in through the jagged hatchway.
It became bitterly cold and hard to breathe; she'd gone too high. Tiaan eased the flight knob down, wondering where to go, but the whine broke for a second. As she levelled out it broke again and smoke belched up on all sides. She put the front down, heading towards the ground. Had something vital been damaged in all that shaking and shuddering? If the mechanism failed at this height they would be smashed to jelly.
There were no more problems until, nearing the ground, she levelled out and the whine faded to nothing. An acrid smell drifted from behind the binnacle and a long black trail smoked in the air behind them. Perhaps she'd drawn too much power and the workings were burning out.
To her right stood the main encampment of the human armies, their command post perched on a flat-topped hill. A little closer to her left, Tiaan glimpsed the seven-sided command area of the Aachim, next to thousands of motionless constructs. She wasn't going that way.
White fumes came up the steps from the lower level. Merryl cried out something she could not hear. There were yells and screams from below.
'Tiaan,' Merryl yelled. 'We're on fire! Put it down, anywhere!
Better that humanity have the secret of flight than that the Aachim get it. She cut the power and turned right, skimming across the brown grass. The whine failed. The construct hit the ground, bounced like a stone on water, bounced again and skidded around in a circle, before thumping into a rock and toppling on its side.