This time, when they came up the other side after the blink of blackness, the Celestial Omnibus was virtually crawling. Now they were being maneuvered. The force that had sent them into that swift orbit had them again. This time it pulled. The Celestial Omnibus turned nose forward toward the vast building and jogged docilely inward.
Vast, Zillah thought, was too mild a word. The thing on a tower she had thought was like a golden flower must have been nearly a quarter of a mile across. It now — slightly — resembled a radio telescope dish. The multiple ladders on a more distant tower proved to be a structure several times the size of the Eiffel Tower. The walls of the outjutting horn-shaped tower they were approaching were built of square blocks of bluish stone that were each nearly the size of a house. Some of the windows were enormous. A slight shiver blurred her view as she wondered if the burring voice had belonged to a giant. Now they were approaching a medium-enormous bubblelike window.
“They have to be friendly after this,” Roz said. “Don’t they?”
“As long as they don’t find out where we come from,” Flan answered. “Let’s hope they believe our story.”
5
Nice work, Brothers! Tod thought, as the battered metal thing glided to a joggling halt between calipers that were the wrong shape and size to hold it. Whoever had made the object, on the other hand, had not done nice work at all. He could see welded plates starting apart all over it. More ominously, atmosphere was steaming in white clouds both from the rear and from the hatch, or door, in one side. The thing looked as if it had never been meant to withstand the forces between the worlds.
Tod sensed barriers go up behind him. The Brothers were protecting themselves and the rest of the rescue team from whatever was steaming out of the capsule. After that, veiling fell over capsule and calipers together, isolating Tod in with it.
“Can you manage to open that door, serviceman?” a telepathic voice inquired coldly.
No, Duty Mage, I am but a poor fool from the Pentarchy and only a seventh child at that. “I’ll have a try, sir,” Tod replied. Up with the old birthright then.
It took only the slightest shift of the Wheel to spring that leaking hatch cover right out and send it spiraling down the citadel wall below. As it clanged loose, Tod found himself gagging in the air that gusted forth. Someone had thrown up in there. Someone else was definitely dead. The rest had sweated like pigs. The veiling over his face cut none of that out at all. Why can’t they design it like a Frinjen wet suit? he wondered as he climbed inside. “Here comes the help! Anyone home?”
He met a chorus of thanks and relief. Two women thrust a third at him, who was blubbering and weeping. “Can you help Judy out? She’s gone to pieces.” Tod helped her to the platform with a will. Hysterical and red-eyed as she was, the girl was a good-looking blonde. Tod had not had his hands on a blonde for two months now. He discovered he missed the feeling after all. And missed brunettes too, he thought, as Roz and Flan jumped to the platform after Judy. The tall one in boots looked a bit masterful and strident, but the little ’un struck him as a sweetie. What fun! And what an embarrassment for the Brothers!
Tod was grinning, despite the stench, as he jumped up inside again and helped another woman down — this one a thin, staid creature who said gruffly, when he asked her, that the name was Helen.
“And I’m Roderick. Call me Tod,” he said. He turned to help the next, who was shaking all over, and found her, to his perplexity, to be an Azandi. “Hey! What are you doing here, my lady?” he asked.
“Wish the hell I knew, man,” she answered, in an accent that was most definitely not Azandi. “If I’d known this was going to happen, I’d have stayed safe in London. I’m Sandra. And the rest are dead. The crossing killed them. Believe me.”
She was right there. Just beyond the hatchway, the corpse of a good-looking boy lay half-across that of a comely young woman. Tod stepped over them and took a look along the capsule to make sure. And found Sandra had made a mistake. The best-looking one of all — an absolute wow-wow! — was coming slowly down the metal gangway carrying an infant.
“Not dead after all then?” Tod said to her. The infant responded with a broad, companionable smile.
“Ike boo how,” it remarked.
Zillah saw with interest that this cheerful young man, whose face gave her a feeling it was encased in an invisible nylon stocking, only hesitated an instant before correctly translating Marcus. “Like the blue house, do you, laddie? Well, that makes one of us. Your son, is he?” he asked Zillah.
She nodded. “Marcus. I’m Zillah. We were up the other end.”
There was more to it than that, Tod suspected. Why, he hadn’t even seen her until she was most of the way down the gangway. Nor, it seemed, had the other women. When Zillah climbed out through the doorway, she was greeted with astonishment.
“Good Lord! It’s Zillah — and Marcus!”
“Zillah, what the hell are you doing here? Why are the others dead?”
“Who is she?”
“Zillah Green, Helen — she’s Amanda’s sister.”
Zillah mumbled some reply, sounding so embarrassed that Tod turned away to the nearest corpse and began hauling it along the floor. But a man does not have six elder sisters for nothing. He did not make nearly as much noise dragging the dead young man as the castaways thought. He clearly caught the rapid whispering between the two brunettes and Zillah.
“Look, Zillah, how much do you know?”
“Well, the outline — What killed them? I don’t know—”
“Not the cover story and all that?”
“Obviously she doesn’t. Suppose they question us?”
“They’re bound to. Zillah, keep quiet and play dumb, there’s a love!”
“We’ll talk a lot. You just follow our lead.”
Ay, ay! Tod thought, backing from the door with the dead young man’s ankles in his hands. What are you up to, sisters? If you’re up to no good in Arth, then that’s fine by me. I won’t say a word to stop you!
It amused him the way they all sprang to help him, to allay his suspicions just in case he had heard anything. Flan and Roz jumped to the corpse’s arms, while Helen and Sandra raced inside to collect the girl. Zillah put Marcus down beside Judy. “Marcus, look after Judy. Mum’s got to go and help. Judy, have a go at holding Marcus — he’s awfully comforting to hold.” As she climbed into the capsule, she asked Tod, “Are you all on your own? Isn’t there anyone else in this castle to help you?”
Tod shot a look at the dark, filmy screen between them and the Brothers. They were all watching in there, and it looked as if they were now doing some kind of decontamination work. They were not going to risk plague. The platform was alight with small flashes, each representing the death of a microbe. “Oh, I’m in disgrace,” he said cheerfully, struggling rather to drag the dead young man to one side, out of Judy’s line of sight. He did not look plague-ridden to Tod’s eye, but why crossing to Arth should have killed such a healthy specimen was beyond Tod to say.