He snatched up the relic case. ‘No, look, maybe we can still.. .’ He tried to fit it into its spot in the pillar. It wouldn’t stay, so he knelt down. ‘Maybe if we hold it there…’ He struggled to jam it in somehow, but the whole arrangement was too delicate. With that arm gone, there was nothing they could do. ‘If we had some glue. ..’
The silence from the others stopped him. He looked over his shoulder.
Frey had taken off his glove and was staring at his hand with dead eyes.
The black spot was still there.
Forty-Four
‘We gotta get out of here!’ Pinn cried. Silo would have been the first to agree, if only he could see some way to do it.
Halfway across the bridge, Bess was struggling beneath two of the spider hybrids, who were drilling and hacking ineffectually in search of a weak spot. She wasn’t in much danger from their attacks but, while she was occupied, others slipped by. The Century Knights had taken position behind her, at the edge of the platform where the Ketty Jay ’s crew hid behind banks of mysterious mechanisms. Bree and Grudge mopped up the ones that got through, working in partnership, choosing their targets carefully and covering each other while they reloaded.
They were holding the enemy off for now. But it would only last as long as their bullets did.
Silo felt the pressure to act. Malvery, Pinn and Ashua were looking to him for a decision. He’d told the Cap’n he’d get them out safely. But how? They were trapped here, and breaking out would get them nowhere but dead. They’d be mobbed in the open.
He scanned his surroundings. There was little to offer hope. The semicircular platform was only about five metres deep, barely enough to cram them all in if Bess joined them. Panels ran around its curved edge, where those who weren’t fighting the hybrids had taken shelter. At the back was a wall of controls, set into the base of the enormous engine of flesh and metal that thrashed the air above them, pumping and bellowing. Lights blinked and gauges trembled. He recognised bits of technology – a lever, a dial, simple things like that – but for the most part he had no idea what they did or how to operate them.
Come on, Silo. The Cap’n trusted you. Think. You ain’t losin’ another bunch o’ people. Not these people.
‘Over the side!’ he heard Samandra call to her partner. He saw what she meant immediately. Some of the hybrids had given up attempting to get past Bess. They were climbing down the walls into the trench.
Suddenly Silo realised what the holes he’d observed earlier were used for. They were made to fit the hybrid’s spider legs, to allow them access to the entire height and breadth of the wall and the machinery there.
If they could climb into the trench, they could climb out of it again on the far side. They could climb up onto the platform, behind Bess and the Century Knights.
Any thought of defending their position disappeared. If there was ever a time to act, it was now. And yet all ways le?ed to death and failure.
Grudge, responding to Samandra’s warning, swung his autocannon over the side of the bridge and let fly. He obliterated two of the creatures as they crawled towards the floor of the trench. His third shot missed as its target jinked aside. It smashed into a panel of machinery instead.
The reaction among the hybrids was uncanny. Just for an instant, they all froze at once. Then they resumed their attack as if nothing had happened.
But not all of them.
The hybrid that Grudge had missed stopped its climb down the walls. Its forelegs split into an array of tools, and it began attending to the damaged panel. A moment later it was joined by two more, their nimble limbs busy as they cooperated.
And then Silo saw a chink of light in the darkness. The tiniest glimmer of hope.
‘Grudge!’ he called. ‘Give me the dynamite!’ He ran out on to the bridge. Grudge pulled the satchel from beneath his depleted ammo belts and tossed it to him without looking.
‘We gonna push forward!’ he yelled at the Knights over the rattle and boom of their guns. ‘When I give the word, not before! Everything you got! Get us back across this bridge!’
Samandra glanced over her shoulder at him, a look that was part puzzlement, part suspicion. Deciding whether to trust him or not. Deciding whether to accept his command.
‘Meanwhile,’ he said to Grudge. ‘Don’t shoot the spiders. Shoot the machinery!’
He didn’t wait to see if the big man took up his suggestion. He was already running back to the platform. He crouched down by the back wall, at the base of the great engine. The others came over as he was digging the dynamite out of the satchel.
‘Er, mate,’ said Malvery. ‘You do know that setting off that dynamite is liable to kill us all, don’t you? There ain’t much space on this platform.’
‘We ain’t gonna be here,’ said Silo. He jerked a thumb towards the bridge. ‘We goin’ out that way. Gonna blow this damned thing on our way out.’
‘Not with those fuses,’ Ashua said, pointing at the stick in his hand.
Silo looked, and saw. He felt a fool for not having spotted it before she did. The dynamite was short-fused for throwing. Grudge didn’t carry it around for demolition; he used them to blast enemies out of hiding.
He cursed inwardly. They’d get five seconds out of a fuse like that. Five seconds wasn’t nearly enough time tonough ti get away from the concussion created by eight sticks of dynamite. Not with all those creatures in the way.
He wracked his brains, but nothing came to mind. There was no time for a new plan, not with the hybrids crawling into the trench, coming closer by the second. Just for a moment, he thought he’d seen a way out. But it had been a false hope after all.
All that was left was a charge. If they could get across the bridge, maybe they could use the dynamite to take out some of the enemy by throwing it among them. But he knew in his heart there were too many.
He was drawing breath to give the order when Pinn blurted: ‘Flame-Slime!’
Malvery and Ashua exchanged a look. ‘I could’ve sworn he just said “Flame-Slime”,’ said the doctor.
‘Professor Pinn’s Incredible Flame-Slime!’ Pinn said, his chubby face alight with enthusiasm. He brandished a small tin from his pocket. ‘You put some on the fuse, and…’ He looked amazed that he’d even come up with the idea. ‘It’ll work!’ he insisted. ‘It’ll actually work!’
Malvery was equally amazed. ‘It actually will,’ he said.
Silo took the tin and unscrewed the top. Inside was a transparent jelly. Yes, he saw how it could be done. If they stood it upright and only coated the tip, the fuse wouldn’t light until the insulating jelly had burned through.
‘How long?’ he demanded of Pinn.
‘Thirty to forty seconds,’ said Pinn. ‘I timed it,’ he added proudly. ‘Scientifically.’
‘Silo!’ yelled Samandra from the bridge. ‘They’re gettin’ through! Whatever you’re gonna do, do it fast!’
Thirty to forty seconds, and five for the fuse. It’d be enough.
‘Get ready,’ he said. ‘We’re fightin’ our way out.’
They nodded, and he saw the determination on their faces. They had a chance, and they were going to take it. In that moment, he felt what the Cap’n must feel at times like this. Pride. They were a ragtag lot, no question, but no one could say they didn’t have heart.
‘Bess!’ he shouted over the din of gunfire and the sound of the great engine. ‘Clear us a path!’
The golem heard him, and this time she listened. It took Crake to restrain her, but anyone could spur her to violence. She roared and began bulling her way forward, scooping up the hybrids like a snowplough. The Century Knights moved uights mop behind her, shooting any that spilled past her outstretched arms.
‘Go!’ he barked at the others. ‘Help ’em out. Do what you can.’
They did as he told them. He took a slap of flame-slime and coated the end of a fuse in it. Then he put the stick of dynamite upright among the others, and rested the satchel against the wall. It wasn’t the ideal setting for an explosive charge, but he had nowhere better and nothing to tamp it with. He just had to hope the mechanisms that operated the power station were as delicate as they were complex.