Ironheart (31 page)

‘Holy mother of all riggers,’ said Tashar. ‘There’s enough gold there to buy three new rigs.’

‘This one will fix up just fine,’ said Bulldog. ‘And afterwards we’ll split what’s left between all of us – including you too, ladies,’ he said to India
and Verity.

‘Wait a minute,’ said Verity. ‘That gold must weigh forty pounds. Was that in your pockets all the time we were carrying you around down there?’

Bulldog looked sheepish. ‘Yeah, well, I never quite found the right moment to tell you.’ He broke into another grin. ‘Come on, we’ve got a bit of clearing up to
do.’

Sometime later, India sat wrapped in a blanket on the top deck of
The Beautiful Game,
watching Bulldog build a fire in an upturned oil drum. Tashar and Rat were
inside, fixing the heating with some well-meaning advice from India’s father, and Verity was investigating the galley.

‘What will happen now?’ she asked him. ‘Do you think the crew will stay?’

Bulldog looked serious as he stared into the flames. ‘Difficult to say,’ he said eventually, ‘but Tashar’s not nearly as hard-nosed as she makes out and Rat’s
pretty much family. So my guess is we’ll all be back next season after the money’s gone, looking for something to turn up.’ Then he grinned. ‘And you know me, something
always turns up.’

After he had gone to check on the repairs, Verity returned from the galley and gave India a mug of hot milk with some of Bulldog’s chocolate grated on top. India sipped it gratefully.

‘How did you manage to live with these people?’ said Verity, holding out her hands to the fire. ‘Bulldog’s barking orders like a madman, Tashar keeps looking at me as
though I’d crawled out from under a rock, and Rat is showing your dad his collection of pressure gauges.’

India grinned. ‘Oh dear, do I need to go and rescue him?’

‘No, you’re all right,’ said Verity. ‘Actually. I think he’s quite interested.’

India giggled and clapped her hand over her mouth. Then they both convulsed with laughter until the tears rolled down their cheeks.

‘It’s a total mess down there,’ said Verity when she had recovered. ‘Bulldog’s pretty confident he’ll have it in some sort of working order by morning,
although, to tell you the truth, I think Rat’s the one doing all the hard work.’

They gazed at the fire for a while.

‘What do you think you’ll do when you get home?’ said Verity.

India shrugged. ‘I’m looking forward to spending some time with my dad and Bella.’ She grinned. ‘I think we’ll both have some great stories to tell her. But, after
that I don’t really know. Maybe I’ll buy that scavboat and see if I can dredge up any interesting old-tech.’ She looked down at the lake crater. ‘Although anything I find is
going to seem a bit tame after all this.’

Verity nodded knowingly and they fell quiet again. ‘You really did it, India,’ she said after a while. ‘You saved all of us.’

India smiled. ‘Not just me,’ she said. ‘You, me, Bulldog . . . even Sid. It was down to all of us in the end.’ She stroked the dull steel bracelet on her wrist.
‘And Calc of course.’

They looked up as a solitary shooting star streaked its way across the sky and fell to Earth.

It was the first day of May when the ancient motorcycle and sidecar pulled up to the top of the hill overlooking Highgate Village. The three passengers stretched their limbs
and looked down on the smoky stone cottages where the junk piles gleamed in the late afternoon sun and long shadows crept across the grass. A small crowd gathered at the bottom of the hill and
began to point up at them.

‘I never thought of this place as beautiful,’ said John Bentley. ‘Functional maybe, but never beautiful. But there were times, under that wretched mountain, when I longed to
see Highgate again.’

India smiled and put an arm around his shoulder, and Bentley was struck by how much taller she had become. Several weeks of Mrs Chang’s home cooking had put some muscle back on her bones,
her limp was mostly gone, and she looked strong, lean and brown-skinned. And there was something different about her eyes.

‘Mrs Brown,’ he said, ‘thank you for everything you’ve done.’

‘The thanks go to India,’ said Verity. ‘There wouldn’t be much of anything left if it hadn’t been for her.’

‘If you don’t mind, India,’ he said, ‘I think I’d better go on to the house first. Roshanne and I are going to have a serious discussion.’ He grinned.
‘Mostly about where she’s going to live from now on.’

They all laughed.

‘Any ideas what you’re going to do now, John?’ said Verity. ‘Will you go back to the oil fields?’

He shook his head. ‘No, I’m finally done with that,’ he said, patting his shoulder sack. ‘After India rescued these seeds, I knew I had the chance to do some good here.
I’m going to become a farmer. I’ll use the spare land around here for fields, and we’ll grow the crops with the highest yields. In no time we’ll be able to feed everyone on
these shores, northsider and southsider alike.’

‘I’m not sure what Mehmet will have to say about that,’ said India.

‘Don’t worry about him,’ said Bentley. ‘He’s thrown his weight around for too long and the position of constable is overdue for re-election. I might even decide to
stand myself.’

Verity and John Bentley shook hands, then he walked down the hill, raising his hand in salute as he went. As he reached the village a small, golden-haired figure broke away from the crowd and
ran towards him with a squeal that could be heard all the way to the top of the hill.

John Bentley lifted Bella on to his shoulders and the crowd gathered around them. India smiled – she couldn’t wait to see Bella again – but for now that time belonged to her
father. Then India’s eyes were drawn to a wild-haired creature sitting alone on the earthworks. As usual, no one was paying much attention to Cromerty, but the old woman was staring at India
with an intensity she had felt once before, in a tent in a far-off land. India raised her hand in a half-wave and the old woman nodded in reply.

‘I hear Bulldog offered you a job,’ said Verity, breaking into her thoughts.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Assistant engineer on
The Beautiful Game II,
as Pieter’s replacement. I think the Captain wants to make sure he doesn’t hire another spy
by accident.’

Verity looked impressed. ‘That’s a good position. Are you going to take it?’

‘I don’t think so,’ said India. ‘I’ve had enough of Siberia for a while. I’d like to be somewhere a bit warmer. And besides, I can’t see myself getting
on with Tashar in that tiny rig, can you?’

They both laughed and then an awkward silence fell between them. Verity began checking the motorbike, kicking the tyres and tightening the straps on her few items of luggage.

‘What about you?’ said India. ‘What will you do?’

Verity shrugged. ‘Well, we may have saved the world but the pay was pretty lousy. Bulldog’s gold barely covered my expenses and now Trans-Siberian has collapsed I’m out of a
job too. I’m going to lookup some people who owe me money and then I’m going to do what I do best: go tech-hunting.’ She looked up from the bike and her eyes twinkled.
‘I’ve heard about a tech-mine just outside New Peking where they’ve discovered technology no one’s ever seen before, hundreds of years ahead of what we have now But,
apparently, it’s all controlled by a local tech-lord who . . .’ She stopped and then laughed. ‘But I guess that’s a different story, huh?’ She paused as though she
still had something to say. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ she said. ‘I might look for a new assistant. You don’t know anyone who would fit the bill, do you?’

India grinned. ‘I just might,’ she said. ‘I’ll give it some thought and let you know.’

‘You do that, kid,’ said Verity. ‘I’ll be back this way in a couple of months and we can talk about it then.’ She stepped forward suddenly and gave India a fierce
hug. ‘Take care of yourself, soul voyager,’ she said. Then she turned away quickly and fired up her motorbike.

‘Do you think,’ said India, raising her voice over the roar, ‘that I could really be a tech-hunter?’

The bike backfired and pulled away sharply.

‘Sure you can, kid,’ shouted Verity over her shoulder. You can be any damn thing you want to be.’

The process of writing a novel is a bit geeky to say the least. It involves long hours closeted in a room like a mad monk while you try to make words behave themselves on the
page. It means you don’t go out much, your friends have conversations about you that begin, ‘Whatever happened to . . .’ and you miss loads of good TV. That’s OK, I was
expecting that.

What I didn’t expect was that the process of turning a novel into a published book was anything but a solitary activity.
Ironheart
only got here because a lot of people were
prepared to give me their help, advice and support when I needed it and they had faith in the outcome even if I doubted it myself at times.

I would particularly like to thank my agent, Julia Churchill, for investing so much time and effort in my work without any certainly of a return (just kidding). Also, thank you to the truly
lovely people at Macmillan, particularly Emma Young and Rachel Kellehar for their incisive editing, and for Rachel’s boundless creativity and truly splendid ideas.

At home, any lack of inspiration is always quickly dispelled by my kids, Ryan and Katie, who are funnier than me and more disobedient than a roomful of rig pirates. But, most importantly, my
biggest thanks go to my wife, Carol, who has unflinchingly managed the inconvenience of living with a hermit whilst only ever making one demand of me – that I follow my dreams.

And look, I did!

I have drawn on many books and articles on Siberia and its people to try and get my facts straight and I am indebted to the many authors of web pages and articles whose work
has informed and inspired Ironheart. I would particularly like to acknowledge and extend my thanks to the following:

Reindeer People: Living with animals and spirits in Siberia,
by Piers Vitebsky, published by Harper Perennial, 2005

Fingerprints of the Gods: The quest continues,
by Graham Hancock, first published by William Heinemann Ltd, 1995

Soul Hunters: Hunting, animism and personhood among the Siberian Tukaghirs,
by Rane Willerslev, published by University of California Press, 2007

Shamanism in Siberia: Aboriginal Siberia, a study in social anthropology,
by M. A. Czaplicka, first published in 1914, reissued 2007 by Forgotten Books.

Yakutia: Valley of Death: Hidden Mysteries of Siberia
(Parts 1, 2 & 3), by Valery Mikhailovich Uvarov. Web articles:
http://www.­astrologycom.com/­yakutiai.­html
,     
http://www.­valeryuvarov.­net/

Fluid Dynamics: Wikipedia article:
http://en.­wikipedia.­org/­wiki/­Fluid_dynamics

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,
by L. Frank Baum, first published by the George M. Hill Company, 1900