She dressed hurriedly and emerged from the cubicle. The latrine was still empty. She went to one of the filthy sinks and turned on its tap. Only a trickle of brown water appeared. Milo had told her that water was scarce on the airship and strictly rationed. This water was for washing with only. She yearned to take another shower—as Tanith had warned her the white liquid had made her skin itch and feel uncomfortable—but had to be satisfied with just washing her hands and face.
As she headed back towards the latrine’s entrance she heard the sound of raised voices. In the passageway outside she found Milo facing three men. They looked angry but she noticed they kept their distance from him.
“… You heard Benny’s order, Milo!” one of them was saying. “The amazon was to go to Buncher. What are you doing with her?”
“I told you,” said Milo in his usual calm voice. “Buncher said I could have her. He changed his mind. I guess he’s scared of picking up an infection.”
“Balls!” cried another man. “You forced him to hand her over, admit it!”
“Why don’t you go ask Buncher if you don’t believe me?”
“We already have. He said the same as you.”
“Well, there’s no problem then.”
“Something’s wrong with him, Milo. He doesn’t look good. We reckon you hurt him.”
“Me? Hurt Buncher?” Milo laughed. “Nonsense.”
“We know how you operate, Milo. You’re going to have to give her back to him.”
Milo folded his arms. “No. She’s staying with me. And if anyone tries to take her from me I’m going to be very displeased. And we wouldn’t want that, would we, lads?”
Each of the three men was bigger than Milo but none of them made a move towards him. There was a long, tense silence then one of them said angrily, “Sooner or later we’re going to get you, Milo. Your luck can’t hold and you know it. And then she goes back to Buncher.” He pointed at Jan. “And when he’s finished with her the rest of us will have some fun with her. We’re not having an amazon around here who hasn’t been taught her place.”
“You can leave the lady’s education in my capable hands,” said Milo. “And now if this stimulating social exchange is over we’ll be on our way. Come on, Jan.”
For a few moments the three men didn’t move then, as one, they abruptly turned and left the short corridor. “They’re scared of you,” Jan told Milo quietly as they followed the three men back into the main room.
“They’re superstitious,” he said. “Just ignorant fools. Most of the slaves here were originally marauders. Having had enough of the struggle for life in the blight lands they signalled the Lord Pangloth that they wanted to come aboard, even though they knew it meant slavery.”
They returned to his cubicle. Jan could now hear sounds from the adjoining cubicles through the thin partitions. The speakers seemed to be deliberately keeping their voices low.
Again Milo motioned for her to sit on the bed while he took the chair. “You look better,” he told her approvingly.
“I feel better, thanks to you,” she replied, her tone guarded. Suddenly the bed tilted slightly and she had to grab hold of its edge to keep her balance. “What’s happening?” she asked, alarmed.
“It’s all right, just a change of course,” he assured her.
The floor levelled out again. Jan relaxed. “It’s incredible. Until then I’d hardly felt anything. I have to keep reminding myself that we’re in the air. …”
“Most of the time the Sky Lord is a smooth ride, even in fairly turbulent conditions. Of course, when someone makes the stupid decision to fly it straight through the centre of a thunderstorm, as happened last night, it can get pretty rough.”
“That was terrible,” she said, shuddering at the memory.
“And it was all for your benefit,” he told her. “You and your fellow Minervans, that is. The aristos were putting on a show to knock whatever stuffing you still had left in you well and truly out. However, they have more faith in the Sky Lord’s anti-lightning system than I have. And I’ve heard the buffeting caused damage all over the ship. They won’t do that again in a hurry. But you Minervans gave them a hell of a fright with your rockets yesterday so I guess their over-reaction is understandable.”
“Our rockets,” said Jan bitterly. “A lot of good they were.”
“It was an admirable effort and it almost worked. Though I would have had mixed feelings about the outcome if it had,” he added dryly.
“But it didn’t work. Those beams of light destroyed every single rocket. We didn’t have a chance.”
“You weren’t to know of the existence of the Sky Lord’s automatic laser defence system. In fact it came as a big relief to a lot of people on board that it still worked. It’s been years since it was last activated.”
She frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“The beams of light are called lasers. They’re a special form of light that doesn’t exist naturally. They make good weapons. The Sky Lord’s are under the control of a computer—a mechanical brain, let’s say—which uses them to shoot down anything approaching the Sky Lord that the computer decides presents a danger.”
Jan struggled to understand what Milo was saying. The idea of a ‘mechanical brain’ seemed especially far-fetched, as did the notion that light could be used as a weapon. But she had seen for herself the rockets being destroyed by the turquoise beams. “But if the Sky Lord has such terrible power,” she said slowly, “why didn’t he use it to destroy Minerva? Why drop those bombs on us instead?”
“Like I said, the system is automatic. It’s not under the control of the aristos, as much as they’d like it to be. The computer that operates it is sealed off and hidden somewhere. It’s separate from all the other computer systems—those that are still working, that is—and if the technos in the original group who took over this airship never succeed in getting into it then this lot of technological regressives don’t stand a chance.”
Jan stared at him blankly.
He took a deep breath. “Okay, let me put it this way—the beams of light are purely defensive weapons that operate independently of the Aristos. Also the beams only work against inanimate objects—non-living things like missiles or other projectiles. They wouldn’t destroy a bird, much less a human being.”
“Why would the Sky Lord behave so mercifully in this respect and so cruelly in all others?” she asked, totally baffled.
“Because, my innocent little amazon, in their original form the Sky Lords performed a very different service for mankind … and womankind too,” he added hastily. “In fact they used to be called Sky Angels, partly because of the nature of their work and also because of their origin in the heavens.”
“The heavens?”
Milo pointed towards the low, grey ceiling. “The heavens. Outer space, to be exact. They were built in a giant orbiting space factory nearly a thousand miles above the earth’s surface.”
Jan gave him a suspicious look. Was he making fun of her or did he really believe in these fairy stories he was telling her? “How would anyone have managed to build a factory so high in the sky, and what would have prevented it from falling to the ground?”
Milo rolled his eyes in an exaggerated mime of exasperation. “I don’t have the time to educate you in the basic laws of nature right now. You’re going to have to take my word that in the old days we had the means of getting into outer space. In bigger versions of those rockets you fired at us yesterday. And you’ll also have to take my word on the fact that if you go up high enough you no longer feel the pull of gravity. It was the lack of gravity that led to the Sky Angels being constructed in outer space. The special alloys and materials that go to make up the airship’s skeleton and outer skin could only be manufactured in weightless conditions. They are incredibly strong but ultra-light.”