Tom didn’t doubt that Pennyroyal was a great explorer. It was just that when he sat down at a typewriting machine his imagination seemed to run away with him.
“Well, Tom?” asked Pennyroyal. “Don’t be shy. A good writer never objects to constrictive crusticism. I mean, consumptive cretinism…”
“Oh, Professor Pennyroyal!” cried the voice of Windolene Pye, blaring from a brass speaking tube on the wall. “Come quickly! The lookouts are reporting something on the ice ahead!”
Tom felt himself grow cold, imagining a predator city lurking out there on the ice, but Pennyroyal just shrugged. “What does the silly old moo expect me to do about it?” he asked.
“Well, you are chief navigator now, Professor,” Tom reminded him. “Perhaps you’re supposed to be on the bridge at a time like this.”
“ Honorararary Chief Nagivator, Tim,” said Pennyroyal, and Tom realized that he was drunk.
Patiently he helped the tipsy explorer to his feet and led him to a small private elevator, which whisked them up to the top floor of the Wheelhouse. They stepped out into a glass-walled room where Miss Pye stood nervously beside the engine district telegraph while her small staff spread charts out on the navigation table. A burly helmsman waited at the city’s huge steering wheel for instructions.
Pennyroyal collapsed on the first chair they passed, but Tom hurried to the glass wall and waited for the wiper-blade to sweep across so that he could catch a glimpse of the view ahead. Thick flurries of snow were driving across the city, hiding all but the nearest buildings. “I can’t see — ” he began to say. And then a momentary break in the storm showed him a glitter of lights away to the north.
In the emptiness ahead of Anchorage, a hunter-killer suburb had appeared.
14
Freya was trying to sort out a guest list for dinner. It was a difficult business, for by long tradition only citizens of the highest rank could dine with the margravine, and these days that meant just Mr Scabious, who was nobody’s idea of good company. The arrival of Professor Pennyroyal had cheered things up no end, of course — it was quite acceptable for the city’s chief navigator to sit at table with her — but even the professor’s fascinating stories were beginning to wear a little thin, and he had a tendency to drink too much.
What she really wanted (although she tried not to admit it to herself as she sat there at her desk in the study) was to invite Tom. Just Tom, alone, so that he could gaze at her in the candlelight and tell her how beautiful she was; she was sure he wanted to. The trouble was, he was only a common aviator. And even if she broke with all tradition and asked him, he would bring his nasty girlfriend, and that wasn’t the sort of evening she wanted at all.
She slumped back in her chair with a sigh. Portraits of earlier margravines gazed down kindly at her from the study walls, and she wondered what they would have done in a situation like this. But of course, there had never been a situation like this before. For them the ancient traditions of the city had always worked, providing a simple, infallible guide to what could and could not be done — their lives had ticked along like clockwork. Just my luck to be left in charge when the spring breaks, thought Freya gloomily. Just my luck to be left with a load of rules and traditions that don’t quite fit any more.
But she knew that if she took off the armour of tradition she would have to face all sorts of new problems. The people who had stayed aboard her city after the plague had done so only because they revered the margravine. If Freya stopped behaving like a margravine, would they still be prepared to go along with her plans?
She went back to her guest list, and had just finished doodling a small dog in the bottom left corner when Smew burst in, then burst out again and gave the traditional triple knock.
“You may enter, Chamberlain.”
He came in again, breathless, his hat back to front. “Sorry, Your Radiance. Bad news from the Wheelhouse, Radiance. Predator, dead ahead.”
By the time she reached the bridge the weather had closed in completely and nothing could be seen outside but the swarming snow.
“Well?” she asked, stepping out of the elevator before Smew could announce her.
Windolene Pye bobbed a frightened little curtsey. “Oh, Light of the Ice Fields! I am almost sure it’s Wolverinehampton! I saw those three metal tower blocks behind its jaws quite clearly, just as the storm struck. It must have been lying in wait up here, hoping to snap up whaling-towns on the Greenland run…”
“What is Wolverinehampton?” asked Freya, wishing she had paid more attention to all her expensive tutors.
“Here, Your Radiance…”
She had not noticed Tom until he spoke. Now, seeing him, she felt a little warm glow inside her. He held out a dog-eared book and said, “I looked it up in Cade’s Almanack of Traction Cities. ”
She took the book from him, smiling, but her smile faded as she opened it at the page he had marked and saw Ms Cade’s diagram and the legend underneath:
WOLVERINEHAMPTON: An Anglish-speaking suburb which migrated north in 768 TE, to become one of the most feared small predators on the High Ice. Its enormous jaws, and its tradition of staffing its engine districts with shamefully ill-treated slaves, make it a town best avoided.
The deck beneath Freya’s feet juddered and shook. She snapped the book shut, imagining Wolverinehampton’s great jaws already closing on her city — but it was only the Scabious Spheres shutting down. Anchorage slowed, and in the eerie quiet she could hear sleet pecking at the glass walls.
“What’s happening?” asked Tom. “Is something wrong with the engines?”
“We’re stopping,” said Windolene Pye. “Because of the storm.”
“But there’s a predator out there!”
“I know, Tom. It’s terrible timing. But we always stop and anchor when a really big storm blows in. It’s too dangerous not to. The wind on the High Ice can gust up to five hundred miles per hour. It’s been known to overturn small cities. Poor old Skraelingshavn was flipped on to its back like a beetle in the winter of ’69.”
“We could lower the cats,” suggested Freya.
“Cats?” cried Pennyroyal. “What cats? I have allergies…”
“Her Radiance is referring to our caterpillar tracks, Professor,” Miss Pye explained. “They would provide extra traction, but it might not be enough, not in this storm.”
The wind howled agreement, and the glass walls bowed inwards, creaking.
“What about this Wolverinetonham place?” asked Pennyroyal, still flopped in his seat. “They’ll be stopping too, will they?”
Everyone looked at Windolene Pye. She shook her head. “I’m sorry to say they won’t, Professor Pennyroyal. They are lower and heavier than we. They should be able to run right through this storm.”
“Yikes!” whimpered Pennyroyal. “Then we’ll be eaten for sure! They must have got a bearing on our position before the weather closed in! They’ll just follow their noses and gollop! ”
Tipsy as he was, the explorer seemed to Tom to be the only person on the bridge talking sense. “We can’t just sit here and wait to get eaten!” he agreed.
Miss Pye glanced at the whirling needles of her windspeed indicators. “Anchorage has never moved in a wind this strong…”
“Then maybe it’s time to start!” Tom shouted. He turned to Freya. “Talk to Scabious! Tell him to turn out the lights, alter course and run on as fast as he can through the storm. It would be better to capsize than get eaten, wouldn’t it?”