Phillip Reeve: Mortal Engines

“I didn’t say it was,” replied Valentine. “But one day we may have to go to Shan Guo and breach the League’s defences. You know how short prey has become. Cities are starting to starve, and turn on one another.”

Katherine shivered. “But there must be some other solution,” she protested. “Can’t we talk to the Lord Mayors of other cities and work something out?”

He laughed gently. “I’m afraid Municipal Darwinism doesn’t work like that, Kate. It’s a town eat town world. But you mustn’t worry. Crome is a great man, and he will find a way.”

She nodded unhappily. Her father’s eyes had that haunted, hunted look again. He had still not confided in her about the girl assassin, and now she could tell that he was keeping something else from her, something about this expedition and the Lord Mayor’s plans for London. Was it all connected somehow? She could not ask him directly about the things she had overheard in the atrium without admitting that she had spied on him, but just to see what he would say she asked, “Does this have something to do with that awful girl? Was she from Shan Guo?”

“No,” said Valentine quickly, and she saw the colour drain from his face. “She is dead, Kate, and there is no reason to worry about her any more. Come on.” He stood up quickly. “We have a few days more together before I set off; so let’s make the most of them. We’ll sit by the fire and eat buttered toast and talk about old times, and not think about… about that poor disfigured girl.”

As they walked back hand in hand across the park a shadow slid over them; a Goshawk 90 departing from the Engineerium. “You see?” said Katherine. “The Guild of Engineers has airships of its own. I think it’s horrid of Magnus Crome, sending you away from me.”

But her father just shaded his eyes to watch as the white airship circled Top Tier and flew quickly towards the west.

Tom was dreaming of Katherine. She was walking arm in arm with him through the familiar rooms of the Museum, only there were no curators or Guildsmen about, nobody to say, “ Polish the floor, Natsworthy,” or “ Dust the 43rd Century glassware.” He was showing her around the place as if he owned it, and she was smiling at him as he explained the details of the replica airships and the great cut-away model of London. Through it all a strange, moaning music sounded, and it wasn’t until they reached the Natural History gallery that they realized it was the blue whale, singing to them.

The dream faded, but the weird notes of the whale’s song lingered. He was lying on a quivering wooden deck. Wooden walls rose on either side, with morning sunlight glinting through the gaps between the planks, and overhead a mad confusion of pipes and ducts and tubes crawled over the ceiling. It was Speedwell’s plumbing, and its burblings and grumbles were what he had mistaken for the song of the whale.

He rolled over and looked around the tiny room. Hester was sitting against the far wall. She nodded when she saw that he was awake.

“Where am I?” he groaned.

“I didn’t know anybody really said that,” she said. “I thought that was just in books. ‘Where am I?’ How interesting.”

“No, really,” Tom protested, looking around at the rough walls and the narrow metal door. “Is this still Speedwell? What happened?”

“The food, of course,” she replied.

“You mean Wreyland drugged us? But why?” He got up and made his way to the door across the pitching deck. “Don’t bother,” Hester warned him, “it’s locked.” He tried it anyway. She was right. Next he stumbled over to peer through a crack in the wall. Beyond it he could see a narrow wooden walkway that flickered like a Goggle-screen picture as the shadow of one of Speedwell’s wheels flashed across it. The Out-Country was rushing past, looking much rockier and steeper than when last he saw it.

“We’ve been heading south by south east since first light,” explained Hester wearily, before he could ask. “Probably longer, but I was asleep too.”

“Where are they taking us?”

“How should I know?”

Tom sat down in a heap with his back to the shuddering wall. “That’s it then!” he said. “London must be hundreds of miles away! I’ll never get home now!”

Hester said nothing. Her face was white, making the scars stand out even more than usual, and blood had soaked into the planking around her injured leg.

An hour crawled by, and then another. Sometimes people went hurrying along the walkway outside, their shadows blocking out the skinny shafts of sunlight. The plumbing burbled to itself. At last Tom heard the sound of a padlock being undone. A hatch low down on the door popped open and a face peered in. “Everybody all right?” it asked.

“All right?” shouted Tom. “Of course we’re not all right!” He scrambled towards the door. Wreyland was on hands and knees outside, crouching down so he could see through the hatch (which Tom suspected was really a cat-flap). Behind him were the booted feet of some of his men, standing guard. “What have you done this for?” Tom asked. “We haven’t done you any harm!”

The old mayor looked embarrassed. “That’s true, dear boy, but times are hard, you see, cruel hard these days. No fun, running a traction town. We have to take what we can get. So we took you. We’re going to sell you as slaves, you see. That’s how it is. There’ll be some slaving towns at the cluster, and we’re going to sell you. It has to be done. We need spare parts for our engines, if we’re to keep a step ahead of the bigger towns…”

“Sell us?” Tom had heard of cities that used slaves to work their engine rooms, but it had always seemed like something distant and exotic that would never affect him. “I’ve got to catch London! You can’t sell me!”

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll fetch a good price,” Wreyland said, as if it were something Tom should be pleased about. “A handsome, healthy lad like you. We’ll make sure you go to a good owner. I don’t know about your friend, of course: she looks half dead, and she was no oil-painting to start with. But maybe we can sell you off together, ‘buy one, get one free’ sort of thing.” He pushed two bowls through the flap, round metal bowls such as a dog would eat from. One contained water, the other more of the blue-ish algae. “Eat up!” he said cheerfully. “We want you looking nice and well-fed for the auction. We’ll be at the cluster by sundown, and sell you in the morning.”

“But…” Tom protested.

“Yes, I know, and I’m terribly sorry about it, but what can I do?” said Wreyland sadly. “Times are hard, you know.”

The hatch slammed shut. “What about my seedy?” shouted Tom. There was no answer. He heard Wreyland’s voice in the passage outside, talking to the guard, then nothing. He cupped his hands and drank some water, then took the bowl across to Hester. “We’ve got to get away!” he told her.

“How?”

Tom looked around their cell. The door was no use, locked and guarded as it was. He peered up at the plumbing until he had a crick in his neck, but although some of the pipes looked big enough for a person to crawl through he could see no way to get into them, or even to reach them. Anyway, he wouldn’t have fancied crawling through whatever that thick fluid was which he could hear gurgling inside them. He turned his attention to the wall, feeling his way along the planks. At last he found one that felt slightly loose, and gradually, as he worked at it, it started to get looser still.

It was slow, hard, painful work. Tom’s fingers filled with splinters and the sweat ran down his face and he had to stop each time someone passed along the walkway outside. Hester watched silently, until he started to feel cross with her for not helping. But by evening, as the sky outside turned red and the racing townlet started to slow, he had made a gap just wide enough to get his head through.