‘Frey, I can’t -’
He slipped again. Frey lunged and caught him by the wrist. The jerk almost took his shoulder out of its socket. Pain blazed across his back; the rope cut into his wrist. Bess pulled again, and they were yanked upwards, almost at the roof of the chamber now. Crake swung in the air, reaching with his other hand, grabbing on to Frey’s wrist as Frey had his. His eyes were wild with terror, but Frey was calm. There was nothing else in this moment but holding on. All he had to do was hold on.
Below him, there was a clanking sound as the gate to the chamber was winched up. Bree and Grudge came running into the room. They looked around, and then up, and Samandra raised her guns; but suddenly they were gone, blocked out by the green dome of the Mentenforth Institute as Frey and Crake were pulled through the hole and out into the night sky.
‘ Don’t let go of me! ’ Crake screamed, and for an instant he thought he heard Rabby’s voice instead, the voice of his dead engineer. ‘Don’t you leave me here!’
‘I’m not letting go,’ said Frey, steadily. He didn’t take his eyes off Crake’s. He didn’t want to see the city spreading out beneath him, the carpet of lights, the immensity of death waiting to meet him on the ground. Bess pulled them in, hand over hand, her inexorable power drawing them closer to the great black shape of the Ketty Jay above them.
One more second. And when that had passed, one more. And then another. The pain was meaningless. His strength was infinite. They’d have to pry his fingers open with a crowbar before he’d let go of Crake’s wrist.
After an eternity that seemed to pass in no time at all, there were hands on him, reaching over the lip of the cargo ramp, pulling him aboard. S hiuo;
He didn’t release Crake until he was sprawled on the cargo ramp next to him. Harkins scurried over to a nearby lever and threw it. Hydraulics kicked in, and the metal floor that they lay on began to rise as the ramp came up. Silo and Pinn dragged them both away fro m the steadily closing gap, and they were finally deposited on the floor of the cargo hold, panting and breathless.
‘Jez,’ said Frey. ‘We’re in. Cane it.’
The Ketty Jay ’s thrusters boomed in response, and she thundered away across the city. The cargo ramp slid shut, sealing them in, the protective metal cocoon of home.
Crake was lying on his back, panting, halfway to sobbing with relief. Bess lumbered over and crouched next to him. She made a concerned bubbling noise and poked him in the arm. He shook his head in disbelief, staring at the ceiling. ‘Spit and blood. We are in so much trouble,’ he gasped.
Frey got slowly and painfully to his feet, brushed sweaty hair away from his forehead, and straightened. ‘Anyone else think we’ve outstayed our welcome in Thesk?’
Pinn, Malvery, Silo and Harkins all put their hands up. Crake did the same, from where he lay on the floor. Bess looked around in confusion, turning this way and that, and then tentatively raised her hand, because everyone else was doing it and she wanted to join in the game.
‘Yeah, me too,’ said Frey, tiredly. ‘Let’s go back to Samarla.’
Twenty-Two
Five nights left.
Everyone was in a hurry at the moment, thought Harkins.
They’d hurried out of Thesk as fast as the Ketty Jay would take them. They’d hurried across Vardia, flying non-stop all day, with tireless Jez taking the controls when the Cap’n had to sleep. They hurried over Silver Bay, red and gold in the last light of dusk, into the Free Trade Zone, back to Shasiith by midnight. There they dropped the Cap’n off, with Malvery for a bodyguard, and then hurried back out of the city again, because they didn’t want to stay in dock for too long. They were afraid of being caught by the Sammie soldiers, still out for their blood after that whole messy business with the hijacked train.
They’d returned to the city a few hours later, to a different landing pad, for the rendezvous. No one had turned up, so they took off again, hanging in the dark of the night sky, floating weightless on aerium ballast until it was time to head to the second rendezvous at a different landing pad. By now it was past dawn, but this time the Cap’n was waiting, with Malvery and Ashua. He’d had some trouble tracking her down, despite the fact she’d left word for him, and he was fretting about the wasted hours. He called a crew meeting immediately, and everyone hurried to get it over with so they could get back in the sky.
Hurry, hurry, and it didn’t really feel like they were getting anywhere. The more they hurried, the faster time seemed to slip away.
If the Cap’n died, the Ketty Jay died. They all knew it. None of them were capable of taking command. Their little world would fall apart. They assembled in the mess with a grim sense of purpose.
Ashua stood at the head of the room with Frey. Harkins couldn’t say he was exactly glad to see that ginger-haired young woman back on board. Her stupid tattooed face annoyed him. He hadn’t forgotten her unkind words while he was fumbling with a lit stick of dynamite in the Rattletrap.
The rest of the crew were arranged around the table in varying positions of recline. Crake was yawning in his pyjamas and robe, looking hollow-eyed and exhausted. He’d been working in his sanctum all day and night, and had somehow roped Silo in to help him with the strange mechanical bits and bobs he’d picked up in Thesk. He’d just gone to bed when they woke him up again for the meeting.
Next to Crake, Malvery was sucking down coffee and looking dour. Silo smoked one of his vile roll-ups, which made Harkins’ eyes sting and his throat tickle. Pinn sat eagerly to attention, instead of his usual slouch.
He was up to something. Harkins could tell.
Pinn had been in a sulk last night, because they had to leave his Skylance in dock at Thesk. During the day, he’d disappeared into the quarters he shared with Harkins and banned anyone from entering. When he emerged, he was fairly bouncing with excitement. It was all very suspicious.
Harkins hated that hamster-cheeked dunce more than ever since his little stunt at the race. Bad enough that Harkins had no aircraft any more, nowhere to escape to. He felt like half a man without it, and he’d gone a bit hysterical until the Cap’n assured him he’d get a new one. But to have his moment of glory stolen from him… that was the worst thing yet! It was enough to make a man mad with rage, enough to make him… well… stamp his feet, or something.
Jez had seen it, though. Jez, leaning against the wall in her jumpsuit with her arms folded, hair tied back with a rubber strip. Jez, who stubbornly refused to swoon at his feet. His display of extraordinary bravery – doubly impressive since it came from an abject coward – had produced no discernible effect on her at all. What was a man supposed to do to stir her heart, for rot’s sake? How much heroism would it take? Harkins was seriously beginning to think that he wouldn’t survive much more of it.
He glanced at the cupboards above the stove. Slag, not to be left out of a crew meeting, had installed himself up there, and was listening with one ear while noisily devouring a rat. A thin trail of blood had been smeared across the counter and up the cupboard door, which surely couldn’t be hygienic. But at least the cat didn’t bother him these days. He took some satisfaction in that.
‘Alright, listen up!’ said Frey. ‘Let’s make this quick, before the Sammies get wind we’re here. Try not to interrupt for a minute, if you can manage that, and we’ll get on our way. Miss Vode has a couple of things to tell us.’
All eyes moved to Ashua. She leaned forward over the table, hands on the back of a chair.
‘Here’s the situation,’ she said. ‘The man you want is being kept by the Sammies a long way south of here, outside the Free Trade Zone. Usually they’d have executed him without a second thought, but Ugrik is the fourth son of the High Chief of Yortland, and I suppose they’re not keen on starting an international incident. That said, they’re not keen on letting him go, either. I reckon they don’t want him telling anyone where he got that relic from, in case more go looking.’