Maybe he’d got complacent and left the door unlocked. Maybe Bess had found a spare key somewhere, in an old drawer or on a peg in some dusty recess. Maybe it was just some sick twist of fate, some awful alignment of coincidence that brought her to his sanctum on that exact night, at that exact time. He’d never know. It didn’t matter.
He became aware of a scullery maid standing at the end of the corridor, agape. She was watching him with terror in her eyes.
He put the key in the lock and turned it. She gasped and fled.
Well might you run, he thought. The orderlies had seen her reaction and caught on to her fear, but they were big men and not given to retreat. He pushed the door open before they — or he — could change their minds.
Beyond the doorway, steps led downward into darkness. He reached inside and found the switch with his fingers. An electric lamp sputtered into life, illuminating stone arches and brick pillars, an island of light in the darkness. By that flickering, fitful light he saw a mess of cables and rusty devices, overturned poles and broken bulbs and a large brown stain on the floor which he dared not look at. In the centre was a large metal chamber like a bathysphere. It had been dented outward as if struck by some great force from within, and its door hung open.
He heard a wet clicking noise, so clear that it seemed momentarily real. That sound had troubled his nights for years. The sound of his niece trying to draw breath into punctured lungs.
He wanted to be sick. He wanted to turn and run and never have to return to this place. But he couldn’t, because he owed Condred more than he could ever pay. Everything he suffered, he deserved.
‘Follow me,’ he told the orderlies, and he stepped into the dark.
‘What in all damnation is going on here?’ Frey cried, as he jumped out of the Delirium Trigger’s shuttle and went hurrying across the muddy clearing.
The Ketty Jay and her outflyers were the centre of a mass of activity. Engineers in overalls were fiddling about inside the cockpit hoods of the fighter craft. Teams of men swarmed over the Ketty Jay, pasting enormous decals onto her flanks. A team of Sentinels stood by with rifles.
Frey stormed over. Harkins was being restrained by Pinn, crying in strangled agony as his beloved Firecrow got a massive blue Cipher pasted on to its underwing. Malvery went stamping past the other way, his face like thunder. He ignored Frey’s attempts to hail him.
‘Well, that’s just great, that is!’ he fumed. ‘If that ain’t just the bloody limit!’
Frey looked about for someone to strangle. Prognosticator Garin presented himself.
‘Will you tell me what in the wide world of buggering shitarsery you are doing to my aircraft?’ he yelled.
‘Calm down, Captain Frey,’ said Garin. ‘You’re making a fool of yourself.’
‘Nobody messes with the Ketty Jay without my say-so!’
Several Sentinels with guns walked over to stand next to the Prognosticator, alerted by the tone of Frey’s voice.
‘You weren’t here,’ said Garin. ‘There are a lot of aircraft waiting to be assimilated into the fleet. We don’t have time to wait around for permission. I take it you do still want to join the Awakeners?’ The question had a sinister and ever-so-slightly threatening edge to it.
Frey saw the trap and thought fast. ‘I haven’t even spoken to the quartermaster about pay yet!’
‘If you wanted to quibble about your price, you should have done it before you got here,’ said Garin. ‘This is a secret base, Captain. Nothing bigger than a shuttle gets airborne without permission. If you try to fly out, we’ll shoot you down.’
Frey looked over his shoulder to see the Delirium Trigger’s own shuttle taking off. Of course: a shuttle wouldn’t be able to fly far enough to escape the delta. He couldn’t be sure, but could swear he could see Balomon Crund grinning at his discomfort.
‘What are you doing to the engines?’ Frey demanded.
‘Trust in the Code, Captain,’ said Garin benevolently.
‘That’s no bloody answer!’
‘A harmless modification. You won’t notice it.’
‘What does it do, Garin? My men will be flying those aircraft, I can’t have them-’
Garin held up a hand. ‘I have my orders, as do we all. The answer will be revealed to you in time. Until then, it’s not the business of a soldier to know the plans of his superiors. The Lord High Cryptographer will guide us.’
Frey narrowed his eyes. ‘You don’t know what it does, do you?’
Garin just stared at him. Frey swore loudly and stalked off towards the Ketty Jay.
Silo met him on the cargo ramp and walked inside with him. Ashua came rushing up anxiously. Engineers were descending the stairs into the hold, carrying bags of tools.
‘They been up in the engine room, Cap’n,’ Silo advised him.
‘You gotta get rid of them,’ Ashua murmured urgently. ‘Don’t know how much longer I can keep Bess quiet.’
‘You done?’ Frey shouted at the engineers that were coming down the stairs. ‘Good! Now piss off!’ He stormed over, seized one by the shirt and practically threw him across the cargo hold towards the exit. The others hurried after him. When they were gone, Frey hit the lever and shut the ramp behind them.
‘You let them on the Ketty Jay?’ he cried, rounding on Silo.
‘They got armed Sentinels with ’em, Cap’n. Reckoned we wanted to look co-operative.’
‘They’re messing with our engines!’ Frey cried.
‘Ain’t nothing they can do I can’t undo,’ Silo said.
The Murthian’s unflappable manner took the edge off Frey’s rage. He saw the sense in that, but it was the principle of the thing. He felt defiled.
‘We oughta go see what they been up to,’ said Silo.
Ashua made to follow, but Frey stopped her. ‘Keep Bess busy till the Awakeners have gone, will you?’
‘Sure, sure. Not like I’ve got anything better to do,’ she grumbled as she headed back to the sanctum.
The engine room was an oven, warmed by the south coast sun. They made their way among the pipes and gauges until Silo spotted what they were looking for. It was a rectangular metal case, thoroughly sealed and bolted to the frame of the engine. There were no markings on it beyond a meaningless identification code.
Silo poked around at it. ‘Don’t look like it’s even connected to the engine, Cap’n. They just stuck it here. Don’t see how it gonna affect anythin’.’
‘Could it be a bomb?’
‘S’pose,’ he said. ‘Don’t see the good of it, though. Need a bitch of a transmitter to set it off at a distance. And if it’s on a timer, well. .’ He shrugged. ‘If they wanted to kill us, reckon they’d have done it.’ He tapped the case with the end of a screwdriver that had appeared from his pocket. ‘Let me get into, Cap’n. I’ll let you know.’
‘Later,’ said Frey. ‘I need you downstairs.’
By the time they opened the Ketty Jay up again, the Prognosticator and his men were packing up and heading off. Frey glared at them till they were gone. Harkins was flapping about the Firecrow, gibbering in horror at the sight of all those Ciphers. Pinn was complaining about people messing with his engine.
‘Alright, alright! Get in here, you lot!’ Frey called.
The crew assembled in the cargo hold. Pelaru materialised from the gloom. Jez jumped down from the walkway many metres above to land expertly on top of a pile of crates, where she crouched, watching them with shining eyes. Once the ramp was shut, Ashua came out of the sanctum with Bess tramping after her.
‘Swear I need double pay for being her bloody mother on top of everything else,’ she grouched.
‘Ciphers on the Ketty Jay,’ Malvery muttered. ‘Insult to injury, that’s what it is. Never thought I’d see the day.’