Sarah's head jerked around to the three Styx.
She nodded.
Rebecca snapped her fingers and from the shadows a horse-drawn carriage rolled into view, its iron wheels rattling over the cobbles. Black and angular, and pulled by four horses of the purest white, these carriages were not an uncommon sight in the Colony.
It drew up next to Rebecca, the horses stamping their hooves and thrusting their noses in the air, eager to keep moving.
The austere hansom rocked as the three Styx climbed into it, and Sarah slowly made her way across. A Colonist sat in the driver's seat at the front of the cab, an old man wearing a battered trilby, who fixed his hard little eyes on Sarah. As she passed before the horses, she became self-conscious under the severity of his gaze. She knew what he'd be thinking: He probably didn't know who she was, but it was enough that she was dressed in Topsoiler clothes and had a Styx escort — she was the enemy, the hated.
As Sarah stepped onto the pavement, he cleared his throat in a coarse, exaggerated way and leaned over to spit, only just missing her. She stopped, and very purposefully stepped on the mess he'd coughed up, grinding the ball of her foot into it as if she were squashing an insect. Then she looked up at him, defiantly returning his stare. Their eyes locked together, long seconds passing. His flared with anger, but then he blinked and averted his gaze.
"OK, so let it begin," she said out loud, and climbed into the carriage.
14
"Want a drink?" Will proposed. "I'm parched."
"Good idea." Chester grinned, his mood lightening. "Let's catch up with Boy Scout over there."
They were closing in on Cal, who was still striding quickly along in the direction of one of the distant lights, when he turned to them. "Uncle Tam said that the Coprolites live in the ground… like rats in burrows. He said they have towns and food stores that are dug into—"
"Watch out!" Will cried.
Cal stopped himself short just in time, at the edge of a stretch of darkness where the ground should have been. He teetered and then fell back on the loose floor, his feet scattering dirt over the ledge in front of him. They heard splashes of water as it landed.
While Cal picked himself up, Will and Chester cautiously approached the ledge and peered over. By the light of their lanterns they could see there was a drop of ten feet or so, and then inky, rippling water that reflected their lantern beams, sending circles of light back at them. The water flowed gently along, with nothing like the speed of the rushing stream they'd encountered earlier.
"This is man-made," Will observed, pointing at the regularly cut slabs forming the ledge. He leaned out as far as he dared to examine what lay below. The side of the canal was also lined with slabs, right down to the water's surface. And as far as they could see, the opposite bank was of identical construction.
"Coprolite-made," Cal announced quietly, as if to himself.
"What did you say?" Will asked him.
"The Coprolites built this," Cal said in a louder voice. "Tam told me once that they have giant canal systems to shift the stuff they mine."
"Useful piece of information to have known… beforehand," Chester complained under his breath. "Got any more surprises for us, Cal? Any words of wisdom?"
To forestall a throw-down between the two, Will quickly intervened, suggesting they stop for a rest. They made themselves comfortable by the canal side, leaning on their rucksacks and sipping from their canteens. As they surveyed the canal that stretched on either side of them, all three were thinking the same thing: There was nowhere to cross. They'd just have to follow alongside and see where it took them.
They'd been sitting in silence for some time when a gentle creaking stirred them into activity again. They rose nervously to their feet, peering into the pitch-black and fixing their lanterns on the point from which the noise had emanated.
Like a ghost, the prow of a boat drifted into the far limits of their combined illumination. It was so eerily quiet, except for the odd gurgle of water, that they blinked, wondering if their eyes were deceiving them. As it glided into view, they could make out more of the vessel — it was a barge, rusted brown and unfeasibly wide, and sitting deep in the water. Heavily laden, its midsection was piled high with some organic matter.
Will couldn't believe how long the barge was — it just kept on coming and coming. The distance from the bank where the boys were standing to the side of the vessel — just a few feet — was such that they could have easily jumped aboard if the whim had taken them. But they were frozen to the spot by a mixture of fascination and fear.
The stern came into view, and they saw a stubby funnel from which wisps of smoke were issuing. Next they detected the deep and muted thump-thump of an engine. The noise was gentle, like an accelerated but regular heartbeat, sounding from somewhere below the waterline. Then they saw something else.
"Coprolites," Cal whispered.
Three lumbering forms stood stock still in the stern, one with the shaft of the tiller in its hand. The boys watched, mesmerized, as the unmoving forms drew nearer. Then, as they drifted past, the boys could see every detail of the bloated, grublike caricatures of men, with their round bodies and globular arms and legs. Their suits were ivory in color and absorbed the light into their dull surfaces. Their heads were the size of small beach balls, but the most remarkable thing about them was that where their eyes should have been, lights shone like twin spotlights. The direction of these eye-beams revealed precisely where the strange beings were looking.
The boys couldn't help but gawk, while the three Coprolites seemed not to take the blindest bit of notice of them. With their lanterns blazing, the boys' presence on the bank was unmistakable, so there was absolutely no way the Coprolites could have missed them.
But there was no sign whatsoever that they were paying the boys any attention. Instead, the Coprolites moved very slowly, their eye-beams creeping around the barge like lazy lighthouses, never once alighting on them. Two of the strange beings turned ponderously, their lights creeping down the port and starboard sides of the barge, then both coming to rest on the prow, where they stayed.
But suddenly the third Coprolite twisted around to face them. He moved with greater speed than either of his companions; with some urgency his eye-beams flicked backward and forward over the boys. Cal caught his breath, then murmured something as the Coprolite ran a plump hand over his eyes, the other hand raised as if in a salute or perhaps a wave. The strange being's head bobbed from side to side as though he was trying to get a better view of the boys, all the while sweeping his eye-beams over them.
This silent connection between the boys and the Coprolite was brief, the barge continuing its steady, undeviating passage into the penumbra. The Coprolite was still facing them, but the increasing distance and wisps of smoke from the funnel made the twin spots of his eyes hazier and hazier, until they were finally lost in the darkness.
"Shouldn't we get away from here?" Chester asked. "Won't they sound the alarm or something?"
Cal was dismissive. "No, no way… They don't take any notice of outsiders. They're stupid… All they do is mine and then trade it with the Colony, for things like the fruit and light orbs that were on the train with us."
"But what happens if they tell the Styx about us?" Chester pressed him.
"I told you… they're stupid, they don't talk or anything," Cal replied wearily.
"But what are they?" Will asked.
"They're men… sort of… They wear those dust suits because of the heat and bad air around here," Cal answered.