A Web of Air (27 page)

Fever didn’t like to stand exposed on the platform for too long in case someone took a shot at her. So she ducked back inside and shouted, “Fat Jago is dead! That’s what will happen to you too if you try coming up here again! You’ll never get the
Goshawk!
Go away!”

She thought the men below might reply, but they didn’t. When she peeked out again they were leaving, limping back towards their boat.

“They’re going,” she said. She felt absurdly pleased. She almost laughed.

“They’re just taking a break,” said Arlo in a flat voice. “We surprised them that time, but there could be dozens more men aboard that galley. Fat Jago may be dead, but they know there’s something valuable up here, and they’ll keep trying till they get it.”

He was shivering. She went to him, trying not to panic when she saw how much blood had soaked through the bandages, trying not to remember Kit Solent; trying not to believe that Arlo might die. His face was pale, which made his freckles stand out even more clearly. She held him and pressed her face into the scratchy cloud of his hair and put her mouth against his ear and promised him, “It will be all right. I’ll keep you safe. You can trust me.”

“I don’t think I’ll come to this island again,” he said. “Bad things always happen here.”

“What about the
Goshawk?”
she whispered. “What about me? I’m not a bad thing, am I?”

“No, you’re not. You’re the best thing.”

They sat like that a while, not speaking. Outside, the wind was rising, breathing gently in the gorse and the small trees. Through the eastern windows they began to see a faint pinkening in the sky. And from below, startling them both, came a voice.

“Fever! Master Thursday!”

Fever threw herself through the doorway, pointing her stolen gun down the ladder. How could she have been so stupid as to leave it unwatched? They were already halfway up the ladder, just two of them this time; two threatening charcoal-smudges of shadow in the gathering light; two pale faces gawping up at her from the rusty landing. She was wondering which one to shoot first when a light flicked on and she recognized the bloodless glow of an electric lantern.

“Fever, it’s me!” said Dr Teal. “Hazell’s here too. We’ve come to rescue you!”

“Dr Teal?” She lowered the pistol, trying to understand. “How did you get past Belkin’s men?”

“Oh, it was not so hard. Hazell said we were sure to be smashed on the reefs or seen by the lookouts on the
Desolation Row,
but the Guild of Engineers always finds a way! We went round that long island east of here so they couldn’t see us. Heard gunfire on the way, and feared the worst. But we weren’t going to give up after coming so far, so we landed Hazell’s boat on the southern shore and hiked over the island. No sign of anybody. They must all be on that galley. Is Thursday here? The machine…?”

“Who’s there?” Arlo was asking worriedly.

Fever looked back into the room and said, “It’s all right. They’re friends; they’re here to help.” Wondering as she said it whether they really could, whether whatever boat had brought them here could possibly outrun Fat Jago’s galley.

They were climbing the rungs now, not in silence like the barefoot Oktopous men but with a reassuring
pong pong pong
of boots on rusty ironwork. Dr Teal clambered on to the platform. He had a pistol in his hand, and he kept it ready as he came inside the tower, Fever backing in ahead of him. He stared hard at Fat Jago and the other dead man. Fever wished she’d thought to cover them up. The place looked like the
Lyceum
stage in the last act of a tragedy, except that the blood was not scarlet but dark and sticky-looking like spilled treacle, and nobody was about to jump up and take a curtain call.

“You’ve already had visitors, I see,” said Dr Teal.

Behind him, Jonathan Hazell pulled himself clumsily up on to the platform. “Merciful gods!” he exclaimed. “What has happened? A massacre!”

“Arlo is injured,” said Fever.

“Hazell, perhaps you should wait below,” snapped Dr Teal.

“Not likely! Down there in the dark, with those villains likely to swarm ashore at any instant? Miss Crumb, you are not hurt? Heavens, is that Fat Jago?”

Fever was looking at Dr Teal’s pistol. She had seen it somewhere before, though she wasn’t sure where. In a dream? In one of Godshawk’s memory-fragments? Northern workmanship: blue steel and blond wood, the long barrel decorated with a snarling wolf’s head.

“This is Thursday, I presume?” he said, looking at Arlo.

“Yes…” she started to say, but he was already pushing past her, raising the gun as he walked towards Arlo. His face was changing. He was becoming someone else, the way the actors at the
Lyceum
did when they stepped out on stage. Becoming someone cold and graceful and absolutely without pity.

“Teal?” said Jonathan Hazell.

Fever was still holding the gun she’d picked up earlier. She turned it in her hand as she stepped after Dr Teal, gripping it by its barrel. Dr Teal glanced back, distracted by her movement, and she swung it as hard as she could. The butt of her gun hit him on the temple with a heavy, hollow-sounding thud.

In the plays she’d seen, a blow like that would always knock a man out cold, but the plays had been wrong about that, as they had about so many other things. Teal just said, “Gah!” and doubled over, raising both hands to his head. But for a moment his pistol was pointing at the ceiling instead of Arlo, and Fever took her chance and snatched it from him.

“Fever!” Arlo shouted.

“He’s Vishniak!” she said.

“Really, Miss Crumb!” exclaimed Jonathan Hazell. “This is Dr Teal: Dr
Avery
Teal, of the Guild of Engineers…”

“No…” Fever took a step backwards as the Engineer staggered and straightened up, glaring at her. She dropped her stolen gun, which she could not even be sure was loaded, and pointed his own pistol at him. It was heavy, and she had to hold it with both hands to keep it pointing at his chest and stop it drooping towards the floor. “No,” she said again. “This is the man who killed Midas Flynn. This is Vishniak! I recognize the gun!”

“He
killed Flynn?” said Arlo, trying to understand.

“You were there?” asked Teal at the same moment. “Great gods – the bathroom – I
knew
I heard someone in there!”

“Teal, is this true?” demanded Jonathan Hazell.

“His name’s Vishniak!” insisted Fever.

“Lothar Vishniak is a role I sometimes play,” said Dr Teal. “A mask I put on as part of my work.” He took his hand away from his injured head and studied it quizzically, as if expecting blood. Then his dark eyes looked at Fever again, and she could tell that he was gauging the distance between them, making ready to jump at her and try to reclaim his gun.

“And are you really an Engineer?” asked Hazell, sounding indignant. “Or is that just another role you sometimes play?”

“Of course he isn’t!” said Fever.

“Oh, but I am,” said Dr Teal, or Vishniak, or whatever he was called. He sighed and raised his hands, accepting that he would have to explain himself. “The duties of the Guild have evolved somewhat since you left London, Fever. I work for a new branch: the Suppression Office. It is a secret branch, answerable only to Quercus and the Chief Engineer.”

“What is a Suppression Office?” asked Jonathan Hazell. “What is it that you suppress?”

“Ideas, Hazell. Dangerous ideas.” He stepped sideways, and Fever moved with him, keeping herself between him and Arlo, keeping the heavy gun pointed at him.

“There are certain technologies,” he said, “which must not be allowed to develop. When London is mobile it will become the most powerful city in the world. Nothing will be able to stand before it. But if we allow our rivals to develop air power, for instance, that would change. Even the new London would be vulnerable to attack from the sky. We must make certain that the secret of flight remains lost. So the Suppression Office publishes research proving that flight is impossible, and suggesting that anyone who believes it might be is a crank. And whenever we hear of some inventor experimenting with it, an agent is despatched to see to it that the inventor dies, and that his discoveries die with him.”

“That’s …
really, really
irrational!” said Fever.

“I didn’t bring you here to murder this boy!” said Jonathan Hazell.

“Yes you did, Hazell,” replied Dr Teal. “You just didn’t
know
that was why you were bringing me here.” He looked at Fever. “You know how ideas spread, Fever. They’re like germs. The dangerous ones must be stamped out at their source before they can infect too many minds. I was sent to Thelona to eliminate Edgar Saraband, and eliminate him I did. I befriended him and sabotaged that engine of his. He bragged that his flying machine was all his own work, but I found some letters from young Thursday in his workshop, and I learned that he had sent a crate to Mayda shortly before his unfortunate accident. So I came here to find Arlo. It was just by chance that I found you too.”

“And you used me to spy on Arlo,” realized Fever. “People kept asking me who I was working for, and I said nobody. But I was working for you all along.”

“I am not a monster,” said Dr Teal. “Everyone told me that Thursday was just a harmless eccentric. I did not want to kill him unless I was certain that he was building a workable machine. I planned to break into that funicular of his, but when I learned that you were in Mayda I realized I could use you as my agent. I followed you out on to the cliffs that first night, and let you see the prototype glider I’d brought with me from Saraband’s workshop. That whetted your interest, didn’t it? The next day when I mentioned Thursday to you, I was sure you’d take the bait and go to see him, and that he’d let you in, since you’re such a pretty girl. But you’re also an Engineer, which made me feel confident that you would let me know if you found out anything worth knowing…”

Fever recalled how proud she’d felt to have discovered Arlo and his work; how eagerly she’d gone to tell Dr Teal about it. She said, “It was me who told you about Midas Flynn, and that same night you went and killed him…”

“I’d have got Thursday too, but when I called at his house earlier that evening he had already fled. It wasn’t the first time Flynn had come nosing round one of my targets. He had to be removed from the game. I had no idea at that time that the Oktopous Cartel were involved too. Imagine the danger we’d all be in if
they
got access to flying troop carriers and bomb platforms…”

“But I didn’t build the
Goshawk
to attack things!” said Arlo, who had been listening silently. “Fever, I just wanted to fly.”

Fever turned to look at him, hoping he understood that she had planned none of this, knew nothing about any of it.

“Fever,” said Dr Teal, “I have nothing personally against this young man. But even if he only used this machine to take pleasure flights over Mayda, other people would see it, and be inspired to build machines of their own, and evolution would set in, as it always does with a new technology, and before long we would be facing aerial gunships and all sorts of trouble. Don’t you see? For London’s sake, he must be…”

“Removed from the game?” said Fever.

Dr Teal smiled a thin smile. “Quite. Now, give me back my gun and let me do my job. Are you an Engineer, or aren’t you?”

Fever thought about that for a second. Then she used her toe to shove the pistol which she had discarded earlier to Arlo, who picked it up and pointed it at Teal. She passed the Engineer’s pistol to Jonathan Hazell and went to fetch a length of spare cord from one of Arlo’s toolboxes. She dragged Dr Teal’s hands behind him and tied them securely using good, rational, Engineer’s knots.

“Now what?” asked Jonathan Hazell.

Fever hadn’t really thought about it. She quickly considered their situation. It was not good. Dawn was coming. Offshore, Fat Jago’s men would be preparing another attack. “We have to get away from here,” she said. “We’ll take your boat.”

“They’ll catch us!” the merchant objected. “There’s no way we can outrun that galley!”

“They won’t be after us,” said Fever. “It’s Arlo they want, and Arlo will be flying back to Mayda.” She turned to Arlo. “You must do what you always planned to. Fly the
Goshawk
across and land it in Mayda, let everybody see what you’ve created. Then your idea will be free in the world and there’ll be no point in anyone trying to stop it any more.”

“Fever, I can’t,” said Arlo. He was sitting at the foot of the stairs, propping Dr Teal’s gun against the handrail. “I can’t move my arm. There’s no strength in my hand. I can’t fly the
Goshawk
like this. I’m sorry. You’ll have to do it.”

She started to protest, but she knew that he was being rational. His wounded arm in its sleeve of bloody bandage looked stiff and lifeless, like something that did not belong to him.

“Don’t you dare, Fever!” warned Dr Teal. “Burn the machine. The plans too. That way the Oktopous won’t get hold of it, and I’ll make an exception and let Thursday go.”

“Really?” asked Fever.

“He’s lying,” said Arlo. “You can see that he’s lying!”

How?
wondered Fever. But she knew Arlo’s instincts for such things were better than hers so she tore another strip from his ruined shirt and gagged Dr Teal to stop him saying any more. Outside, the eastern sky had turned that shade of pink you see sometimes on the insides of seashells. A brisk west wind blew scraps of cloud along.

“I’ve never flown before,” she said.

“Nor had I, before yesterday,” said Arlo. “You’ll soon get the hang of it.”

o there she hung in the harness of the
Goshawk,
wishing that there had been time to make even a short test flight with the new engine. The sky to westward was twilight grey, the sea still, a bright planet hanging just above the horizon. The wind blew in her face. Angels hung on the updraughts above the tower. Their grief over Weasel seemed forgotten now. They were just curious to see whether the machine would fly any better this time.