Philip Reeve - Predator's gold

By the time she reached the bridge the weather had closed in completely and nothing could be seen outside but the swarming snow.

“Well?” she asked, stepping out of the elevator before Smew could announce her.

Windolene Pye bobbed a frightened little curtsey. “Oh, Light of the Ice Fields! I am almost sure it’s Wolverinehampton! I saw those three metal tower blocks behind its jaws quite clearly, just as the storm struck. It must have been lying in wait up here, hoping to snap up whaling-towns on the Greenland run…”

“What is Wolverinehampton?” asked Freya, wishing she had paid more attention to all her expensive tutors.

“Here, Your Radiance…”

She had not noticed Tom until he spoke. Now, seeing him, she felt a little warm glow inside her. He held out a dog-eared book and said, “I looked it up in Cade’s Almanack of Traction Cities. ”

She took the book from him, smiling, but her smile faded as she opened it at the page he had marked and saw Ms Cade’s diagram and the legend underneath:

WOLVERINEHAMPTON: An Anglish-speaking suburb which migrated north in 768 TE, to become one of the most feared small predators on the High Ice. Its enormous jaws, and its tradition of staffing its engine districts with shamefully ill-treated slaves, make it a town best avoided.

The deck beneath Freya’s feet juddered and shook. She snapped the book shut, imagining Wolverinehampton’s great jaws already closing on her city — but it was only the Scabious Spheres shutting down. Anchorage slowed, and in the eerie quiet she could hear sleet pecking at the glass walls.

“What’s happening?” asked Tom. “Is something wrong with the engines?”

“We’re stopping,” said Windolene Pye. “Because of the storm.”

“But there’s a predator out there!”

“I know, Tom. It’s terrible timing. But we always stop and anchor when a really big storm blows in. It’s too dangerous not to. The wind on the High Ice can gust up to five hundred miles per hour. It’s been known to overturn small cities. Poor old Skraelingshavn was flipped on to its back like a beetle in the winter of ’69.”

“We could lower the cats,” suggested Freya.

“Cats?” cried Pennyroyal. “What cats? I have allergies…”

“Her Radiance is referring to our caterpillar tracks, Professor,” Miss Pye explained. “They would provide extra traction, but it might not be enough, not in this storm.”

The wind howled agreement, and the glass walls bowed inwards, creaking.

“What about this Wolverinetonham place?” asked Pennyroyal, still flopped in his seat. “They’ll be stopping too, will they?”

Everyone looked at Windolene Pye. She shook her head. “I’m sorry to say they won’t, Professor Pennyroyal. They are lower and heavier than we. They should be able to run right through this storm.”

“Yikes!” whimpered Pennyroyal. “Then we’ll be eaten for sure! They must have got a bearing on our position before the weather closed in! They’ll just follow their noses and gollop! ”

Tipsy as he was, the explorer seemed to Tom to be the only person on the bridge talking sense. “We can’t just sit here and wait to get eaten!” he agreed.

Miss Pye glanced at the whirling needles of her windspeed indicators. “Anchorage has never moved in a wind this strong…”

“Then maybe it’s time to start!” Tom shouted. He turned to Freya. “Talk to Scabious! Tell him to turn out the lights, alter course and run on as fast as he can through the storm. It would be better to capsize than get eaten, wouldn’t it?”

“How dare you talk to Her Radiance like that!” cried Smew, but Freya felt touched and pleased that Tom should care so much about her city. Still, there was tradition to consider. She said, “I’m not sure if I can, Tom. No margravine has ever ordered such a thing before.”

“But no margravine has ever set out for America, either,” Tom pointed out.

Behind him, Pennyroyal heaved himself upright. Before Smew or any of the others could stop him he shoved Tom aside and lunged at Freya, grabbing her by her plump shoulders and shaking her until all her jewellery rattled. “Just do as Tim says!” he shouted. “Do as he says, you silly little ninny, before we all end up as slaves in the belly of Wolverteeningham!”

“Oh, Professor Pennyroyal!” shrieked Miss Pye.

“Get your filthy paws off Her Radiance!” shouted Smew, drawing his sword and levelling it at the explorer’s knees.

Freya shook herself free, startled, indignant, furious, wiping Pennyroyal’s spittle from her face. No one had ever talked to her in that way before, and for a moment she thought, This is what happens when I break with custom and appoint a commoner to high office! Then she remembered Wolverinehampton, racing towards her city through the storm, its massive jaws probably open by now, the furnaces of its gut alight. She turned to her navigators and said, “We will do as Tom says! Don’t stand there staring! Alert Mr Scabious! Change course! Full speed ahead!”

The city’s anchors tugged free of the snow-swept ice, and the strange turbines in the hearts of the Scabious Spheres began to whirl again. The fat banks of caterpillar tracks which jutted from Anchorage’s skirts on hydraulic arms jerked into motion amid a spray of vapour and anti-freeze. They were lowered until the studded tracks gripped the ice. Wobbling slightly as the wind hammered at its superstructure, Anchorage swung on to a new course. If the Ice Gods were kind Wolverinehampton would not detect the manoeuvre — but what Wolverinehampton’s own course was, what it was doing out there in the swirling murk, only the Ice Gods knew, for the storm had settled in now, a wild arctic tempest that ripped shutters and roof panels from the abandoned buildings of the upper tier and sent them whirling high into the sky, while Anchorage put out its lights and ran on blindly into the blind dark.

Caul was filling his burglar’s bag with machine parts from an empty workshop in the engine district when the city changed course. The sudden movement almost made him overbalance. He clutched his bag tight against him so the booty inside would not rattle and crept outside and quickly along the maze of now-familiar streets towards the heart of the district and the pit where the Scabious Spheres were housed. Crouching between two empty fuel-hoppers, he heard the workers shouting to each other as they hurried to their stations, and slowly understood what was happening. He hunched himself deeper into the shadows, wondering what to do.

He knew what he should do; Uncle’s rules were very clear. When a host city was in danger of being eaten, any limpet attached to it must decouple and escape at once. It was part of the big rule: Don’t Get Caught. If even one limpet were to be found, and the cities of the north learned how they had been preyed on and robbed these many years, they would start posting guards and taking security measures. The life the Lost Boys led would become impossible.

And yet Caul did not start back towards the Screw Worm. He didn’t want to leave Anchorage; not yet, and not like this. He tried telling himself it was because this city was his patch: there were still good pickings to be had, and no stupid predator-suburb was going to snatch that from him. No way was he going to take his first command home early and defeated, with her holds barely half full!

But that wasn’t the real reason, and he knew it in the depths of his mind even as the surface seethed with anger at the impertinence of Wolverinehampton.

Caul had a secret. It was a secret so deep and dark that he could never begin to tell Skewer or Gargle about it. The terrible truth was, he liked the people he was burgling. He knew it was wrong, but he couldn’t help himself. He cared about Windolene Pye, and sympathized with her secret fear that she was not good enough to steer the city to America. He worried about Mr Scabious, and was moved by the courage of Smew and the Aakiuqs and the men and women who staffed the engine district and the livestock and algae farms. He felt drawn to Tom, because of his kindness and the life he had led in the sky. (It seemed to Caul that if Uncle hadn’t taken him to be a Lost Boy he might have been a lot like Tom himself.)