“Tonight?” He frowned, struggling to keep up with her rapid, half-sobbed explanations. “But do you mean just us alone? I thought your father was going to help us…”
“He’s not my father any more,” said Katherine bitterly, and realized that it was true. She clung to Bevis as tightly as she could, as if he were a raft that could carry her safe across this mire of misery and guilt. “Father’s Crome’s man. That’s why I’ve got to get rid of MEDUSA, do you see? I have to make amends for the things he’s done. . .”
Nancarrow came pottering back with two tin mugs of tea. “Urn! Oh! Ah!” he mumbled, embarrassed at finding his two young friends in one another’s arms. “I mean … yes. Paperwork. Must dash. Back in an hour or two. Carry on, Pod. . .”
As he left, he almost fell over the fat Third-Class Apprentice, who had been mopping the passage just outside the store-room door. “For Quirke’s sake, Melliphant!” they heard him snap. “Can’t you keep out of the way?”
But Herbert Melliphant could not keep out of the way. Ever since his demotion he had been looking for a handhold that would help him claw his way back up to First Class. This Pod person had caught his eye a few days ago; this stranger who seemed so friendly with the old Guildsmen; who went about with the Head Historian’s daughter; who dressed as an Apprentice but who didn’t sleep with the others in the dormitory or join them for lessons. He had heard on the Goggle-screens that the Guild of Engineers were still hunting the people who had infiltrated their secret meeting, and he was starting to suspect that Dr Vambrace might be very interested in Nancarrow’s little helper. As soon as the old man was out of sight he put down his mop and pail and stepped back to the door.
“. . .the Anti-Traction League can’t defend themselves,” Katherine was saying. “That’s what Father has been doing; spying out their cities and blowing up their Air-Fleet. That’s why it’s up to us.”
“What about the Historians?” asked Bevis.
Katherine shrugged. “They’re too scared to help us. But I can do it alone, I know I can. Father’s invited me to the Lord Mayor’s reception. I’m going to go. I’m going find Father and tell him I’ve forgiven him, and we’ll go to Crome’s party like a happy little family; but while the others are all telling Crome how clever he’s been and eating sausages on sticks I’ll slip away and find MEDUSA and smash it. Do you think a hammer would the trick? I know where Dr Arkengarth keeps the keys to the caretaker’s stores. There’s bound to be a hammer in there. Or a crowbar. Would a crowbar be better?”
She laughed, and saw Bevis flinch at the mad, brittle sound. For a moment she feared that he was about to say something like “Calm down,” or “It can’t possibly work:. . .” She touched his face, his blushing ears, and felt the quick pulse beating in his throat and the muscles flexing as he swallowed.
“A bomb,” he said.
“MEDUSA must be huge—it probably fills half of St Pauls. If you really want to smash it you need explosives.” He looked excited and scared. “The cleaning stuff Museum caretakers use has nitrogen in it and if I mix it with some of Dr Nancarrow’s picture-restoring fluids, and make a timer. . .”
“How do you know all this?” asked Katherine, shocked, because even she had not thought as far as bombs.”
“Basic chemistry,” said Bevis with a shrug. “I did a course, in the Learning Labs. . .” “
“Is that all they think about, your lot?” she whispered. “Making bombs and blowing things up?”
“No, no!” he replied. “But science is like that. You can use it to do whatever you want. Kate, if you really want to do this I’ll make you a bomb you can put in a satchel. If you can get to MEDUSA, leave it near the computer brain and set the timer and run away. Half an hour later…”
Outside, Melliphant’s ear flattened itself against the wood of the door like a pale slug.
Faster and faster and faster. It is as if the Lord Mayor’s eagerness has infected the very fabric of his city; the pistons in the engine-rooms beat as eagerly as his heart, the wheels and tracks race like his thoughts, rushing towards the Wall and the next chapter in London’s great story.
All afternoon Valentine has hunted for Katherine through the park, startling his friends from their suppers by suddenly looming up at the French windows, a dripping wraith in blood-stained clothes, demanding, “Is my daughter here? Have you seen her?” Now he strides to and fro across the drawing room at Clio House, his boots dribbling water on to the muddy carpet as he tries to walk the wet cold of the park: out of his bones, the fear out of his mind.
At last he hears footsteps on trie gravel drive, footsteps in the entrance hall, and Pewsey bursts in, looking as wet and miserable as his master. “I tracked her down, Chief! She’s at the Museum. Been spending a lot of time there lately, according to old Creaber on the front desk…”
“Take me there!” shouts Valentine.
“You sure, Chief?” Pewsey studies his own feet rather than look at his master’s feverish, tear-streaked face. “I think it might be better if you let her alone for a bit. She’s safe at the Museum, ain’t srie, and I reckon she needs a chance to think things over. She’ll come back in her own time.”
Valentine slumps down in a chair, and the old aviator moves quietly around the room, lighting the lamps. Outside, the daylight is fading. “I’ve polished your sword, and laid out your best robes in the dressing room,” says Pewsey gently. “It’s the Lord Mayor’s reception, sir, remember? Wouldn’t do to miss it.”
Valentine nods, staring at his hands, his long fingers. “Why did I go along with his schemes, all these years, Pewsey? Why did I give him MEDUSA?”
“I couldn’t rightly say, sir…”
He stands up with a sigh and heads for the dressing room. He wishes he had Kate’s sharpness; to know so easily what’s right, what’s wrong. He wishes he had the courage to stand up to Crome the way she wants him to, but it is too late for that, too late, too late.
And Crome himself looks up from his dinner (a puree of vegetables and meat-substitute, with just the right amounts of proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins, et cetera), looks up at the shivering Apprentice Historian whom Vambrace has just thrust into his office and says, “So, Apprentice Melliphant, I gather you have something to tell us?”
32. CHUDLEIGH POMEROY PULLS IT OFF
She found that she could cope. Earlier she had wanted to curl up in a corner and die of grief, but now she was all right. It made her remember the way she had felt when her mother died; flattened by the great numb blow of it and faintly surprised at the way life kept going on. And at least this time she had Dog to help her, and Bevis.
“Kate, I need another bolt, like this one but longer…”
She had come to think of Bevis Pod as a sweet, clumsy, rather useless person, someone who needed her to look after him, and she suspected that that was how the Historians all thought of him as well. But that afternoon she had begun to understand that he was really much cleverer than her. She watched him work, hunched under a portable argon globe in a corner of the Transport gallery, carefully measuring out the right amounts of scrubbing powder and picture-cleaning fluid. Now he was building a timing mechanism out of lengths of copper picture wire and parts from the dashboard of a centuries-old bug, fitting it all into the satchel she had found for him.
“A bolt, Kate?”
“Oh, yes…” She ratched quickly through the pile of spare parts on the floor beside him and found what he wanted. Handed it to him. Checked her watch. It was eight o’clock. Soon she would have to go back to Clio House and fit a smile on to her face and say to Father, “I’m sorry I was so silly earlier—welcome home—please can I come with you to the Lord Mayor’s party?”