“Oh yes?” said the woman, giving her a sceptical smile. “And why is that?”
Jan already regretted her words but she had no choice but to go on. “My mission is to … destroy the Lord Pangloth.” As soon as she spoke she knew how absurd she sounded. She wasn’t surprised when the woman laughed, as did a few of the others who were within earshot.
“You’re going to destroy the Sky Lord? And how will you achieve that small feat, daughter of Melissa?”
“I … I have the means hidden … on my person. A weapon. Made by Helen. …” She felt foolish. She knew she was saying all this just to stay alive a while longer. She didn’t really think there was any chance of doing even minor damage to the Sky Lord with Helen’s tiny fire-bomb. She never had. Besides, the plan had been for several Minervans carrying such bombs to get on board the Lord Pangloth.
The woman laughed again. “A weapon? What kind of weapon? And where is it? Perhaps it’s a pin hidden in your hair. You plan to use it to let all the gas out of Pangloth? Fool! You are as mad as your mother, girl!”
Before Jan could think of a suitable reply one of the men cried, “We’ve stopped rising!”
Jan saw it was true. The Sky Lord was no longer ascending but was now starting to move forward at increasing speed. Very soon the cage was being buffeted about in a strong wind, making speech impossible. And ahead of the Sky Lord Jan saw something that made her feel certain that the flimsy cage wouldn’t stay tethered to the sky giant for much longer. It was a huge, black thundercloud and the Sky Lord appeared to be heading straight for it.
Chapter Six
The flight through the thunderstorm was the most frightening thing Jan had ever experienced. It was already getting dark as the Sky Lord approached the seething mountain of storm clouds but once inside them everything became pitch black. The buffeting the cage and its occupants suffered was staggering in its intensity. Sometimes the cage was lifted in a violent updraft only to drop with a sudden, sickening lurch. On each occasion Jan was certain the frayed rope had snapped and she screamed.
Then came the appalling thunderclaps followed by the flashes of lightning. To Jan it seemed they were in the very centre of the storm and she expected to be struck by lightning at any second. She had never in her life felt so insignificant and helpless, her arms and legs locked together through the wicker-work of the cage, her eyes screwed shut, prayed and prayed to the Mother God for salvation as she was blown by the winds, drenched by the rain, deafened by the thunder and dazzled by the lightning.
When she had convinced herself that the rope had snapped long ago and that the cage was on its own within the storm clouds to be endlessly tossed about by the winds without ever falling to earth the buffeting suddenly ceased. She opened her eyes to see that the cage was now suspended in clear, still air and she could again hear the powerful whine of the Sky Lord’s engines. She looked up and saw that the vast underbelly of the airship was ablaze with rows of lights. She unlocked her hands and legs from the wicker-work and let herself drop to the floor of the cage. It was freezing and her limbs ached but she was too exhausted to care. She slept.
She awoke in bright sunshine. Through the cage floor she could see that the ground was very close. They were passing over blight land, with its deceptive riot of bright, clashing colour. The tops of the trees and the bigger fungi seemed only feet below her.
She sat up and found that every muscle in her body was stiff and exceedingly painful but the sun on her skin felt wonderful. And she realized she was very hungry. How long since she had eaten? Twenty-four hours at least.
She was hemmed in by sleeping forms, or so it seemed at first, but when she touched a nearby man on the shoulder to wake him up she discovered, with a shock, that he was cold and stiff. Dead.
For a moment she was under the impression that she was the only one left alive but, to her relief, when she shook the shoulder of a woman she found it warm. The woman stirred and groaned, then opened her eyes. “Oh, it’s you,” she said. “The mad daughter of Melissa. Leave me alone and let me sleep, fool.” Jan hadn’t recognized the woman as her accuser. The woman’s face seemed to have shrunk during the night. It was gaunt and her eyes were ringed with black. Jan wondered if she looked any better.
“This man,” said Jan hoarsely. “He’s dead.”
The woman raised herself with difficulty into a sitting position and gave the dead man a brief look. “He’s lucky,” she said. “I envy him. He’s with the Mother God now. If he’s led a blameless life she will give him rebirth as a woman and he will be a step nearer to paradise.”
Jan knew this to be true but it made her feel no better about being wedged next to a corpse. She reached over the dead man and tentatively touched the leg of the woman lying alongside him. She recoiled immediately. The woman was dead too.
The cage gave a lurch. Jan gasped and grabbed for a handhold. It lurched again. She looked up. “We’re moving!” she cried. “We’re going up!”
As the cage was hauled up towards the great belly of the Sky Lord several others stirred and sat up in the cage. Jan saw that seven didn’t. She guessed it was the cold that had killed them, or possibly shock. And once again she found herself among the living. Perhaps it was meant to be. Perhaps she did have a mission after all. Was the Mother God keeping her alive in order to carry out Melissa’s instructions? Jan didn’t find the idea reassuring.
The survivors eyed one another fearfully as the bulk of the airship filled the sky above them. Jan could see that they were being drawn up into a square opening in the hull. Her heart thumped painfully as her apprehension increased. What awaited them within the Sky Lord? What new horrors did the servants of the Lord Pangloth have in store for them?
The cage was pulled up through the opening in the hull and Jan saw that they were in a large, darkly-lit room with a high ceiling from which were suspended several pieces of machinery, including the winch that had hauled up the cage. As Jan’s eyes adapted to the dimness she saw that there were a large number of people in the room.
With a sighing sound the opening in the hull slowly closed and then the cage was lowered, with a jarring thump, to the floor. The figures in the shadows converged on the cage and Jan saw that they were all men. Several were dressed in black and carried weapons; they were obviously Sky Warriors without their armour. The others wore baggy one-piece suits of varying colours but all drab. Overcome with fear, Jan couldn’t help trembling. Intellectually she had known that the Sky Warriors were men, but hidden behind their armour and face-masks she was able to keep that awareness repressed; now, however, she had no choice but face up to the knowledge that she was surrounded by men. Men who were not like the men of Minerva but men who were the unchanged descendants of the Old Men—the monsters who had subjugated and brutalized women for thousands of years, who had raped the world with their greed, aggression and evil technology and then finally all but destroyed it with the Gene Wars. All her life she had been taught to fear and revile these creatures and now she was at their mercy.
The Sky Warriors and the other men were regarding the occupants of the cage with a mixture of contempt and amusement. “Yo, Amazons!” called one of them. “Lost your taste for fighting now, have you?”
“Let us out of here and we’ll show you!” called back the woman who was Jan’s accuser. Jan wished that she had possessed the courage to say those words.