Medicine found himself instinctively reaching for the place where his ring finger should be, where he had once worn his own copy of the Engineer’s ring, before Stade chopped ring and finger free.
“It doesn’t matter, none of it does,” Grappel said. “We have them in Hardacre, and they will not move.”
“Will you be bringing them here?”
Grappel seemed surprised. “A ship, the Collard Green, has been sent for that purpose,” Grappel said. “Now, the question is, what do we do with you?”
“If you’d wanted me dead, I’m sure you’d have killed me by now. What service can I be?”
“Politically, you’re a problem,” Grappel said. “Your links to Stade, no matter how transitory, have tarnished you. But there are other things that you can do.”
“I’m a doctor,” Medicine said. “And I am already doing that. I see to the sick.”
“Mr Paul, there are more than human sicknesses to attend to. There’s a darkness in the heart of the Project, and I would have you find it.”
Medicine looked at the man who had ordered the execution of Agatha and her troops, and was almost certain that he was staring at that very darkness. “Where do I begin?” Medicine said.
“I’ve heard rumours of something called the Contest. I want you to find it out.”
Medicine nodded. “I’ve one question,” he said.
“Yes, what is it?”
“Who did you see when the fever struck you?”
Grappel lifted the rum, considered it in the candlelight, gold, the ice cubes gleaming. “All of them,” he said. “Every single one. Oh, and don’t believe it stops. Every night they find me, and every night there is more of them.”
He finished his drink. “The blood on these hands, Mr Paul. The blood on these hands, you would think me a monster.”
Medicine nodded his head, but he didn't say a thing.
CHAPTER 16
“Run,” Mollison said.
Travis shook his head. “I run from no one.”
Mollison smiled. “Not from, to!” He pointed at the Aerokin leaving the Valley of the Dolls. “We don't get aboard that Aerokin, we're dead men.”
Travis was already running. “That, of course, is a different thing altogether.”
THE CITY OF HARDACRE 964 MILES NORTH OF THE ROIL EDGE
The window jammed. Margaret sighed, and kicked at the frame, it opened with a crack, wood splitting. The door behind them rattled. David looked at Margaret.
He said, “I may have left the note in a too obvious place.”
“Too obvious?”
“David? Margaret?” Buchan shouted; the door shook again. “You did lock it, didn’t you, David?”
He looked back at her. “Of course.”
The door boomed. “Don’t make me do this!” Buchan said.
“Out,” Margaret said. “Hurry.”
He slid through the window, not the first time he’d had to. And just as he had that time, he slipped, felt himself go — Oh well, it wasn’t going to kill him, just break a few bones, or would it, would he lose the part that was him, and just become the hunger, and maybe that would be easier.
Margaret’s hands gripped him by the belt. She yanked him back against the wall, and he found his balance: his bag hanging from one shoulder.
“All moot now, anyway,” David said.
Margaret peered down at him. “What?”
“Quite a first step,” he said.
Margaret grunted. “Just climb.”
Everything was slippery, but there were handholds, and Margaret knew how to find them. David followed her lead, and where he went the water froze. I’ve become a tipping point, he thought. From water to ice, life to death.
It was still raining. David wondered about Mirrlees, if it was still raining down there, if people still looked up at that low dark sky.
The door in the room beneath gave way just as they clambered onto the roof. David looked down, and into Buchan’s face. There was no way the big man was following them, he couldn’t have fit through the window.
“David,” he said, and there was a pleading tone to his voice that stung. Poor Buchan, always calling on Cadell, and now him. “We can talk this out. You don't need to-”
“We can't talk,” Margaret said. “We do this now, or we're prisoners.” David shook his head once. “We really are sorry,” he said.
David felt like Travis the Grave. After all, he was always running over rooftops, though Travis was never pursued by his allies. Travis wasn’t the sort of man to betray his friends, stalwart and true — nothing had ever muddied his outlook. Fictional characters could choose to be like that, life was never as complicated in books. Goals always clear, or revealed to be in the end. This, all of this, was far murkier, and it had been from the start.
“I’m coming out,” Whig called.
Now there was a man who could fit through windows.
Margaret had her rifle free.
“No need for that,” David said. “Surely no need for that.”
“Where is it?” Margaret said.
“You’re heading into the jaws of Death, boy. This is absolute folly, Margaret. Patience, both of you, patience,” Whig said, his head peering over the gutter.
“Down, tall man, or you lose your eyes.”
“You wouldn’t-”
Margaret fired. Whig ducked away.
This was getting too serious, and fast.
“What on earth are you doing?” Buchan’s cries stabbed David more fiercely than he expected. He thought, Don’t you see, I’m sparing you so much.
“I can’t see it,” Margaret said. “This could all end in embarrassment.”
“ Pinch is here,” David said.
“Where?”
The Aerokin’s tendrils dropped from the sky, curling around her and David. They were surprisingly warm to the touch, and while firm, their grip was gentle. Margaret had to trust that they wouldn’t just let her go, once they were high enough. Not the sort of thing that came easy to her. She took a deep breath, and pushed such thoughts as far from her mind as possible (not very far at all). In a moment they were lifted up, Margaret’s weapons clattering in their bag. The gondola opened wide, like a gummy mouth — and they were slid into it, embraced by the wet-dog-mixed-with-malt odour of Aerokin.
Pinch wobbled in the air, hit by a gust of wind.
Her nacelles shifted and up they went, at speed.
“There really isn’t a lot of room in here,” David said, as the Aerokin’s tendrils slid and shuddered back out the opening with the surety of snakes. “Larger than the Melody Amiss.” Margaret’s voice was low. “And I spent days in her.”
Whig had reached the roof and shook his fists after them. Even from this height, David could see the fear that battled with the anger.
“I feel sorry for them,” David said.
“You should,” Margaret said. “We owe them a lot.”
“And this is coming from the woman who was going to shoot out his eyes.” “David!” Margaret said. “You know me better than that.”
“Do you really think it’s a trap?” David said.
Margaret snorted. “I think this whole damn world is a trap. Drift or Tearwin Meet, we’re rushing towards its jaws, away from those of the Roil. It’s what we’ve always been doing. Things are closing in, they always have been, since before either of us were born.”
David whistled. “You really are miserable, aren’t you?”
“Death's waiting for us, David. Here or at Drift or in Tearwin Meet. It no longer follows us, but has run ahead.”
She pushed past David to the rear of the gondola where it widened, to stow away her bag. The great belly of the Aerokin rumbled and churned above them, generating the various gases for flotation and propulsion. Two bodies and her weaponry made the job considerably harder. But Pinch could compensate.
Changing her shape, making herself more aerodynamic. Through gas, form and thrust, the Aerokin was capable of quite a lot of lift.
The gondola could accommodate three people at a stretch, just as Kara said. David could see two mattresses at the back. A larder that housed rows of canned goods — beef mainly, a few vegetables, some stewed fruit — beyond it was a small room that contained a toilet, really just a hole that opened onto the sky. And nothing that even resembled a control panel.