Phillip Reeve - Mortal Engines

The sight of him gave Katherine a twisting feeling deep inside, as if her heart really was about to burst with grief and anger. She remembered how much she had been looking forward to being the first to greet him when he stepped back aboard the city. Now she was not sure that she could even bring herself to speak to him.

Through the wet glass she saw him talk to Crome, nodding, laughing. A surge of white coats hid him from her for a moment, and when she saw him again he had pulled himself away from the Lord Mayor and was hurrying across the soggy lawns towards Clio House, probably wondering why she hadn’t been waiting for him at the quay.

She panicked for a moment and wanted to hide, but Dog was with her, and he gave her the strength she needed. She closed the tortoise-shell shutters and waited until she heard Father’s feet on the stairs, Father’s knock at the door.

“Kate?” came his muffled voice. “Kate, are you in there? I want to tell you all my adventures! I am fresh from the snows of Shan Guo, with all sorts of tales to bore you with! Kate? Are you all right?”

She opened the door just a crack. He stood on the landing outside, dripping with rain, his smile fading as he saw her tearful, sleep-starved face.

“Kate, it’s all right! I’m back!”

“I know,” she said. “And it’s not all right. I wish you’d died in the mountains.”

“What?”

“I know all about you,” she told him. “I’ve worked out what you did to Hester Shaw.”

She let him into the room and shut the door, calling sharply to Dog when he ran to greet him. It was dark with the shutters closed, but she saw Father look at the heap of books spilling from the corner table, then at her. There was a freshly-dressed wound on his neck, blood on his shirt. She twined a finger in her tangled hair and tried hard not to start crying again.

Valentine sat down on the unmade bed. All the way from Batmunkh Gompa, Anna Fang’s last promise had been echoing in the corners of his mind: Hester Shaw will find you. To have the same name thrown at him here, by Katherine, was like a knife in the heart.

“Oh, you needn’t worry,” said Katherine bitterly. “No one else knows. I learned the girl’s name, you see. And Dr Arkengarth told me how Pandora Shaw was murdered, and I’d already found out that she died seven years ago, around the time you got back from that expedition and the Lord Mayor was so pleased with you, so I just put it all together and. …”

She shrugged. The trail had been easy to follow once she had all the clues. She picked up a book she had been reading and showed it to him. It was Adventures on a Dead Continent, his own account of his journey to America. She pointed to a face in a group photograph of the expedition; an aviatrix who stood beside him, smiling. “I didn’t realize at first,” she said, “because her name had changed. Did you kill her yourself? Or did you get Pewsey and Gench to do it?”

Valentine hung his head, angry, despairing, ashamed. A part of Katherine had been hoping against hope that she was wrong, that he would deny it and give her proof that he was not the Shaws’ killer, but when she saw his head go down she knew that he could not and it was true.

He said, “You must understand, Kate, I did it for you…”

“For me?”

He looked up at last, but not at her. He stared at the wall near her elbow and said, “I wanted you to have everything. I wanted you to grow up as a lady, not as an Out-Country scavenger like I had been. I had to find something that Crome needed.

“Pandora was an old comrade, from the American trip, just as you say. And yes, she was with me when I found the plans and access codes to MEDUSA. We never imagined it would be possible to reconstruct the thing. Later Pandora and I went our separate ways; she was an Anti-Tractionist and she married some clod-hopping farmer and settled down on a place called Oak Island. I didn’t know she was still thinking about MEDUSA. She must have made another trip to America, alone this time, and found her way into another part of the same old underground complex, a part we’d missed on the first dig. That’s where she found—”

“A computer-brain,” said Katherine impatiently. “The key to MEDUSA.”

“Yes,” murmured Valentine, astonished at how much she knew. “She sent me a letter, telling me she had it. She knew it was worthless without the plans and codes, you see, and those were in London. She thought we could sell it and share the proceeds. And I knew that if I could give Crome a prize like that it would make my fortune, and your future would be secure!”

“And so you killed her for it,” said Katherine.

“She wouldn’t agree to sell it to Crome,” said her father. “She was an Anti-Tractionist, as I said. She wanted the League to have it. I had to kill her, Kate.”

“But what about Hester?” said Katherine numbly. “Why did you have to hurt her?”

“I didn’t mean to,” he said miserably. “She must have woken up and heard something. She was a pretty child. She was about your age, and she looked so like you that she might have been your sister. Perhaps she was your sister. Pandora and I were very close at one time.”

“My sister?” gasped Katherine. “Your own daughter!”

“When I looked up from her mother’s body and saw her staring at me! I had to silence her. I struck wildly at her, and I made a mess of it. I thought she was dead, but I couldn’t bring myself to make sure. She escaped, vanished in a boat. I thought she must have drowned, until she tried to stab me that night in the Gut.”

“And Tom…” Katherine said. “He learned her name, and so you had to kill him too, because if he’d mentioned her to the Historians the truth might have come out.”

Valentine looked helplessly at her. “You don’t understand, Kate. If people discovered who she is and what I have done, not even Crome would be able to protect me. I would be finished, and you would be dragged down with me.”

“But Crome knows, doesn’t he?” asked Katherine. “That’s why you’re so loyal. Loyal as a dog, so long as you get paid and get to pretend that foreign daughter of yours is a High London lady.”

Rain, rain on the windows and the whole room quivering as London dragged itself across the sodden earth. Dog lay with his head on his paws, his eyes darting from his mistress to Valentine and back. He had never seen them fight before, and he hated it.

“I used to think you were wonderful,” said Katherine. “I used to think that you were the best, bravest, wisest person in the world. But you’re not. You’re not even very clever, are you? Didn’t you realize what Crome would use the thing for?”

Valentine looked sharply at her. “Of course I did! This is a town eat town world, Kate. It’s a shame Panzerstadt-Bayreuth had to be destroyed, of course, but the Shield-Wall has to be breached if London is to survive. We need a new hunting ground.”

“But people live there!” wailed Katherine.

“Only Anti-Tractionists, Kate, and most of them will probably get away.”

“They’ll stop us. They’ve got airships…”

“No.” In spite of everything, Valentine smiled, proud of himself. “Why do you think Crome sent me east? The League’s Northern Air-Fleet is in ashes. Tonight MEDUSA will blast us a passage through their famous Wall.” He stood up and reached for her, smiling, as if this victory that he was delivering would put right everything he had done. “Crome tells me that firing is scheduled for nine o’clock. There’s to be a reception at the Guildhall beforehand; wine, nibbles and the dawn of a new era. Will you come with me, Kate? I’d like you to…”

Her last hope had been that he had not known Crome’s mad plan. Now even that was gone. “You fool!” she screamed. “Don’t you understand what he’s doing is wrong? You’ve got to stop him! You’ve got to get rid of his horrible machine!”