Саймон Морден - The White City

‘So why not just turn it off again?’

‘Too late. The energy released in breaking the portal destroyed their London. There was nothing left to connect to.’

‘Fuck. But doesn’t that mean…?’

‘Yes. Yes, it does.’

‘I’m so sorry.’ Her hand went to her mouth. What else was she going to say? His entire family had been wiped out. So had Mama’s. Everyone she’d ever known was gone too, but that was less of a personal loss for her, because she didn’t have anyone. Regret, yes. Grief, no.

‘But what are they doing now? What do they think they’re doing now? Do they even know what happened to their own London, or was it a case of “we’ve lost contact” and an assumption that the people back home will be busy trying to reopen the portal?’

‘I told them,’ she said through her fingers. ‘I told them what happened to us. They wanted to know everything.’

‘I’m sure they did. We were, what? Lucky to be where we were?’

‘We’re only guessing, right? We don’t know any of this for certain.’

‘I don’t really feel like asking them. They’re only going to lie to us.’

‘Makes you wonder what Crows told them.’ She hugged herself. ‘What the fuck are we going to do, Dalip? Can we do anything at all?’

He sat forward in the chair, and hunched over the rifle. ‘If it is an anti-magic shield generator thing, we have to turn it off, because if every time a portal snaps off our world, and a London dies, we have to stop that. Afterwards? If Down can settle on a pattern after that, with at least two Londons gone, and maybe more, then, I don’t know: it’s more likely that we can hold on to what’s left than bring back what’s already lost.’

‘Down is a time machine, right? Doesn’t that mean we can fix this?’

‘Do I look like Doctor Who?’

She tiptoed through the debris she’d spilled across the floor. ‘You could be, if they’d cast some Sikh bloke instead of what’s-his-face.’

She stood at the arm of the chair, at his sagging, curved back, and laid her hand gently between his shoulder blades. She felt the tremors and the quakes and the shudders of his grief. She’d never felt so strongly about anyone to elicit this strength of emotion. People she’d known had died, often through their own stupid fault. She’d watched their relatives in the crematorium chapel, or by the graveside, and she’d wondered what that could feel like.

She might know one day, but today was not that day. She was patient, though, and waited for him to become calm. She needed him focused, because otherwise they couldn’t come up with a plan.

After a while, he sniffed and snuffled, and for the want of anything else, he blew his nose on a piece of cloth and wiped his face with a different part of it, before wadding it up and throwing it into a corner.

‘There’s a lot of them,’ he said, ‘and two of us.’

‘One of us can be the diversion, and one of us does the sneaking.’

‘That division of labour neatly matches our well-defined roles.’

‘I can be the diversion. I mean, I’m wearing this dress. That should be diverting enough, right?’

‘I’m going to break the habit of, well, the past few weeks, and change out of being orange. The night’s going to be pitch-black, isn’t it? We’ve just had an eclipse, so the moon won’t rise at all.’ He put the rifle aside, and started sorting through the drifts of spare tops and bottoms. ‘Have you thought about what you’re going to do?’

‘Fuck, no. You’re going to have to teach me how to fire that thing, though. You can’t sneak with it, and it’s too useful to leave behind.’

She saw him hesitate, then carry on.

‘We can’t practise actually firing. We only have five bullets left.’

‘Then you’ll have to teach me properly.’ She started her own search, looking for another sword or dagger she could handle. ‘I know I try to come over all gangsta and shit at times, but I think I’ve held a gun once, and even then I reckon it was fake.’

‘If you hit something, it’s a bonus. All I need is for you to keep them looking the other way.’

The light from the open door suddenly occluded. Dalip snatched up the rifle and Mary raised the machete. There was a moment when it could have all gone horribly wrong, where no one recognised each other, and might have acted without thinking.

‘Dawson,’ said Dalip.

The man lowered his sword. Behind him, two other pirates were watching the path.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘What y’doing here?’

‘Where the fuck did he come from?’ Her heartbeat was still hard and urgent against her ribs, and she turned on Dalip. ‘I thought you said they were all dead.’

‘Who’s all dead?’

‘Pretty much everybody,’ said Dalip. ‘I’d forgotten Simeon had sent people over the top to try and find another way out. I take it you found one?’

‘Aye. Why’s everyone dead?’

‘Because the bastards in the robes decided we were screwing with their experiment.’ Mary let her sword arm dangle. ‘Can you go up the same way you came down?’

‘Everyone?’

‘The steersman might be okay. He was when I left him.’ Dalip pointed the rifle at the floor. ‘Simeon…’

‘It wasn’t looking good,’ said Mary. ‘I don’t know. He was fighting them off so I could run.’

Dawson turned his back on them and stared outside.

‘Bloody mess,’ he said. ‘Who had the gun?’

‘Crows.’

‘Did you kill him?’

Dalip kicked the chair and looked sour, leaving Mary to answer.

‘He got away. We got the ferryman, though. He was one of… them. Some sort of robot.’

Dawson didn’t know the word, didn’t know what it meant, and she couldn’t explain it other than with a shrug.

‘Back to the ship, then,’ he said, ‘if we’ve enough crew.’

‘We’re staying,’ said Mary. ‘We’ve got to make it right, somehow.’

Dawson’s scrunched-up face raised a single sceptical eyebrow.

‘Tell him, Dalip.’

‘We have a chance to maybe change everything. We’ll only know once we’re inside that round building, back in the valley.’

‘What’s in it?’

‘We don’t know. Whatever it is, it might be breaking the portals between London and here. It might mean we get to go home again, if there’s a home left for us to go back to. It might mean nothing of the sort.’

She took over. ‘They don’t want this to happen, so we get to fuck them over whatever the result.’

Dawson scratched the back of his neck. ‘You asking for help?’

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘Ship’s mine for the taking. Pick up more crew. Job’s done.’

‘You’re going to run out of crew,’ said Dalip. ‘And after a while, there aren’t going to be any more people coming through, because there’ll be nowhere for them to come through from. Those already here will grow old, die, and that’ll be that. Down, wherever it is, will just carry on without us. And probably be better for it.’

‘I’ll show you the way around the cliffs if you want. You youngsters don’t know what you have to lose.’ Dawson sucked at his uneven teeth. ‘It’s different for us.’

She’d never heard it put like that before. ‘If I get to be as old as you then, well: it’ll be a fucking miracle. Just remember us to Mama, right?’

Dawson nodded, and went out to report to the others in his group.

‘Is that the best we’re going to get?’ she asked.

‘We can’t insist people throw themselves at danger, just so we can have an easier ride.’

‘Why the fuck not? We’re doing it for them.’

‘No we’re not. We’re doing it for people we don’t know, in the hope that they carry on living entirely oblivious of the disaster that’s waiting for them in twenty-twelve. This isn’t the pictures, Mary. What’s done is done: right now we’re just trying to stop Down from wiping out every single London ever.’