Phillip Reeve - Mortal Engines

At last he hears footsteps on trie gravel drive, footsteps in the entrance hall, and Pewsey bursts in, looking as wet and miserable as his master. “I tracked her down, Chief! She’s at the Museum. Been spending a lot of time there lately, according to old Creaber on the front desk…”

“Take me there!” shouts Valentine.

“You sure, Chief?” Pewsey studies his own feet rather than look at his master’s feverish, tear-streaked face. “I think it might be better if you let her alone for a bit. She’s safe at the Museum, ain’t srie, and I reckon she needs a chance to think things over. She’ll come back in her own time.”

Valentine slumps down in a chair, and the old aviator moves quietly around the room, lighting the lamps. Outside, the daylight is fading. “I’ve polished your sword, and laid out your best robes in the dressing room,” says Pewsey gently. “It’s the Lord Mayor’s reception, sir, remember? Wouldn’t do to miss it.”

Valentine nods, staring at his hands, his long fingers. “Why did I go along with his schemes, all these years, Pewsey? Why did I give him MEDUSA?”

“I couldn’t rightly say, sir…”

He stands up with a sigh and heads for the dressing room. He wishes he had Kate’s sharpness; to know so easily what’s right, what’s wrong. He wishes he had the courage to stand up to Crome the way she wants him to, but it is too late for that, too late, too late.

And Crome himself looks up from his dinner (a puree of vegetables and meat-substitute, with just the right amounts of proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins, et cetera), looks up at the shivering Apprentice Historian whom Vambrace has just thrust into his office and says, “So, Apprentice Melliphant, I gather you have something to tell us?”

She found that she could cope. Earlier she had wanted to curl up in a corner and die of grief, but now she was all right. It made her remember the way she had felt when her mother died; flattened by the great numb blow of it and faintly surprised at the way life kept going on. And at least this time she had Dog to help her, and Bevis.

“Kate, I need another bolt, like this one but longer…”

She had come to think of Bevis Pod as a sweet, clumsy, rather useless person, someone who needed her to look after him, and she suspected that that was how the Historians all thought of him as well. But that afternoon she had begun to understand that he was really much cleverer than her. She watched him work, hunched under a portable argon globe in a corner of the Transport gallery, carefully measuring out the right amounts of scrubbing powder and picture-cleaning fluid. Now he was building a timing mechanism out of lengths of copper picture wire and parts from the dashboard of a centuries-old bug, fitting it all into the satchel she had found for him.

“A bolt, Kate?”

“Oh, yes…” She ratched quickly through the pile of spare parts on the floor beside him and found what he wanted. Handed it to him. Checked her watch. It was eight o’clock. Soon she would have to go back to Clio House and fit a smile on to her face and say to Father, “I’m sorry I was so silly earlier—welcome home—please can I come with you to the Lord Mayor’s party?”

“There,” said Bevis, holding up the satchel. “It’s done.”

“It doesn’t look like a bomb.”

“That’s the idea, silly! Look.” He opened it up and showed her the package nestling inside, the red button that she had to push to arm it and the timing mechanism. “It won’t make a very big bang,” he admitted, “but if you can get it close enough to the computer-brain. …”

“I’ll find a way,” she promised, taking it from him. “I’m Valentine’s daughter. If anybody can get to MEDUSA, it’s me.” He looked rueful, she thought, and she wondered if he was thinking of all that wonderful old-world computing power, an Engineer’s dream, about to be sacrificed. “I’ve got to do it,” she said.

“I know. I wish I could come with you, though.”

She hugged him, pressing her face against his face, her mouth against his mouth, feeling him shiver as his hands came up nervously to stroke and stroke her hair. Dog gave a soft growl, jealous perhaps, afraid that he was losing Katherine’s love and would soon be abandoned, like the poor old soft toys on the shelves in her bedroom. “Oh Bevis,” she whispered, pulling back, trembling. “What’s to become of us?”

The sound of distant shouting reached them, echoing up the stairwell from the lower floors. It was too faint to make out any words, but they both knew at once that something must be wrong; nobody ever shouted in the Museum.

Dog’s growl grew louder. He went running to the door and they both followed him, pushing their way quietly out on to the darkened landing. A cool breeze touched their faces as they peered over the handrail and down, the long spiral of stairs dwindling into darkness below with the bronze handrails gleaming. More shouts, then the bang and clatter of something dropped. Torch-beams stabbed a lower landing and they heard the shouting voice quite clear: Chudleigh Pomeroy’s, saying, “This is an outrage! An outrage! You are trespassing on the property of the Guild of Historians!”

The Engineer security team came up the stairs in a slapping rush of rubber-soled boots, torchlight sliding over their coats and their shiny, complicated guns. They slowed as they reached the top and saw Dog’s eyes flashing, his ears flattening backwards as he growled and growled and crouched to spring. Guns flicked towards him, and Katherine grabbed him by the collar and shouted, “He won’t hurt you, he’s just frightened. Don’t shoot…”

But they shot him anyway, the guns giving sharp little cracks and the impact of the bullets wrenching Dog away from her and slamming him back against the wall with a yelp; then silence, and the whispering sound of the big body falling. In the dancing torchlight the blood looked black. Katherine gasped for breath. Her arms and legs were shaking with a quick, helpless shudder that she couldn’t stop. She could not have moved if she had wanted to, but just in case a sharp voice barked, “Stay where you are, Miss Valentine.”

“Dog…” she managed to whine.

“Stay where you are. The brute is dead.”

Dr Vambrace came up the stairs through the thin, shifting smoke. “You too, Pod,” he added, seeing the boy make a twitching move towards the body. He stood on the top step and smiled at them. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you, Apprentice. I hope you’re ashamed of yourself. Give me that satchel.”

Bevis held it out and the tall Engineer snatched it from him and opened it. “Just as Melliphant warned us; a bomb.”

Two of his men stepped forward and hauled the prisoners after him as he turned and started down the stairs. “No!” wailed Katherine, struggling to keep hold of Bevis’s hand as they were dragged apart. “No!” Her voice bounced shrilly back at her from the ceiling and went echoing away down the stairwell, and she thought it sounded frail and helpless, like a child having a tantrum, a child caught playing some stupid, naughty trick and protesting at its punishment. She kicked at the shins of the man who held her, but he was a big man, and booted, and didn’t even wince. “Where are you taking us?”

“You are coming with me to Top Tier, Miss Valentine,” said Vambrace. “You will be quite the talking-point of the Lord Mayor’s little party. As for your sweetheart here, he’ll be taken to the Deep Gut.” He grinned at the little noise Bevis made, a helpless gulped-back squeak of fear. “Oh yes, Apprentice Pod, some very interesting experiences await you in the Deep Gut.”